When Jesus was here on earth, relatively few people loved Him.
In fact, many hated Him.
So many people hated Jesus that He made this statement on the night He was betrayed by Judas:
“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.”
John 15:18
The world hated Jesus. That’s quite an indictment!
It begs the question, “Why?”
The most loving person to ever live on earth was hated so much that He was nailed to a cross as a criminal.
But why?
Jesus answered that question when he said that the world “hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.” (John 7:7)
Jesus loved people so much that He told them the truth about their depraved condition. He was honest with people about their sins; He didn’t gloss over or ignore them. He didn’t sweep our transgressions under the carpet. He called sin a sin. He even called people “evil” when complimenting them.
“If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children . . .”
(Matthew 7:11).
And when people are confronted with their sin, they don’t like it.
We prefer to think we’re doing OK, even though God tells us just the opposite in the Bible, dozens of times.
Why else would Paul write this to the Roman believers:
“For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment.”
Romans 12:3
We are wired to say, “I’m OK, and you’re OK.” That sounds a lot better than “I’m bad to the bone, and so are you.”
Solomon got it right: “Most men will proclaim every one his own goodness: but a faithful man who can find?” (Proverbs 20:6 KJV)
Jesus sets the example here. He told Nicodemus that “the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19) – and this man was a highly respected religious leader; even Jesus called him “the teacher of Israel” (John 3:10).
If we are going to tell people the truth of the gospel, we must “be like Jesus” and tell them the bad news of the gospel first — namely, that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).
And when we do that, we, like Jesus, can expect to be hated. The world hated Jesus because He told them about their sin. We should expect the world to hate us for the same reason.
We can also expect some people to understand the truth of their corruption. But they will likely be few and far between, for most self-righteous sinners prefer to cling to their self-righteousness — all the way to Judgment Day.
But because Jesus is building His church, when the good news of the gospel is preached with an appropriate explanation of the bad news of sin and its devastating consequences, the Spirit of Christ can then convict the world “concerning sin and righteousness and judgment” (per John 16:8). Only then can sinners repent of their sin, trust Christ for the salvation only He can provide, and receive forgiveness of their iniquities.
Then, when one sinner repents, we get to rejoice with the angels in heaven, per Luke 15:7.
May God empower us to be faithful in sharing the gospel with every person. For free resources on how to do that, check out THIS BLOG POST.
And may we “Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted” (Hebrews 12:3).
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