The Servant is Not Greater Than His Lord is a sermon teaching us to pray for persecuted Christians around the world. It happens today just like in the past in Laos, Uganda, Nigeria, Pakistan, North Korea, and it happens here in the U.S.

Jesus says the Father loves the Son. As the Father loves Him, Jesus says He loves you even when you are persecuted. He has not abandoned you. We are to live in the love of Jesus every day. We keep Jesus’s commandment because God loves us, and we love Him. We do not mind doing God’s work because we love Him.

Preparing His Followers

The apostles enjoyed good times with Jesus. The apostles did not know times would get worse when they were having the last Passover supper in the upper room. After supper, they went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray. Jesus was saying these things to prepare the apostles before He was arrested like a criminal, to be tried, and treated cruelly, humiliated, and then crucified — all a part of persecution, Jesus was innocent and taken. But Jesus said all this to His apostles just hours before it happened.

Jesus tells His disciples how much He loves them and that they should have joy, as should each one of us. Joy is abiding and comes by faith and trusting in the Lord even when things are terrible in your life. There will be times in your life when you need the Lord. Our joy is full knowing Jesus walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death. For the believer, we go through the shadow to where there is no shadow and no death. Just like the Father loves the Son and the Son loves us, so should we love one another. We are brothers and sisters in Christ and when one hurts, we all hurt.

Care for Christians

Jesus gave us a new commandment to love another as He loved us. We need to pray for those persecuted just like we pray for each other as a congregation. The identifying mark of a disciple is if you love the brethren. We are to love others as Jesus loves us.

Jesus doesn’t think of us as servants but as friends. What is the fruit of the Christian? The fruit of the Christian is Christians. We are to bear fruit. Jesus commands us to love one another. The world hates us even if we have not offended anyone. The worldly system hates God. If you go along with the world system, you will be accepted. But we are Christians, called out of the world. The world hates us.

We are not greater or better than Jesus. If Jesus is persecuted so will we. Jesus was and so will we. Because we are a follower of Jesus, anyone who listens to Jesus will hear you. Those that persecute do not know God. The Word of God reveals the sin in people’s lives. If you hate Jesus, you hate God. Jesus did things in this world that no other man has done — raise the dead, heal, etc. They hated Jesus without a cause. But the Comforter is sent by Jesus from the Father – the Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will testify of Jesus and will comfort you. You have a target on your back because of Jesus. Go on doing what’s right. Ask God to help you be the Christian you ought to be and care for other Christians.

The Servant is Not Greater Than His Lord sermon starts with verses from John 15: 9-27:

⁹ As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.

¹⁰ If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love.

¹¹ These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.

¹² This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

¹³ Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

¹⁴ Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.

¹⁵ Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.

¹⁶ Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.

¹⁷ These things I command you, that ye love one another.

¹⁸ If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.

¹⁹ If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

²⁰ Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also.

²¹ But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me.

²² If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin: but now they have no cloke for their sin.

²³ He that hateth me hateth my Father also.

²⁴ If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin: but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father.

²⁵ But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause.

²⁶ But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me:

²⁷ And ye also shall bear witness, because ye have been with me from the beginning.

Also verses from John 13:34-35:

³⁴ A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.

³⁵ By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

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