Harvest Carnival Message

And each one of these children, Lord, and even the parents as

well. And I just thank you, Lord, in

Jesus name we pray, Amen. All right, so tonight, so I

could come up here and I could talk about, I could just dive

into the, the darkness of, of Halloween, right?

The, the symbolism, the costumes, the historical

background behind it. I could dive into all of that,

right? So I know this is a topic that's

kind of been a little bit controversial in some people's

eyes, you know, should Christians celebrate Halloween,

You know, should Christians go trick or treating?

Should Christians dress up? Should, you know?

And so the biggest thing for me, and the biggest reason why I

choose not to celebrate Halloween is because God talks

about in his word how we're supposed to be set apart from

the world, right? We're not.

We're supposed to be lights in darkness.

And the reason why is because we are in the world, but we're not

of it, right? So we're we're called to be

lights. We're called to be lights and

we're called to be different from from the world we're

supposed to love different from the way the world lives.

We're supposed to talk different the way the world talks and

we're supposed to live different, right?

And because of that, we're going to receive a lot of hatred and

persecution from the world. And in the past is that we're

going to look at today Jesus kind of shares with his

disciples this very lesson about hatred from the world and why we

get hatred from the world, right?

And the reason behind it. And I think it's important for

everyone in this room, but especially the kids, because I

think you guys can agree with me that in today's world, the kids

get attacked with so much work. So where I'm going to go with is

I'm going to go to John chapter 15 and I'm going to look at

John 15 · chapter mention

verses 18 through 25. So this is the, the title of

this section in my Bible is called the world's hatred.

OK, so I'll, I'm just going to go verse by verse with this.

So we'll start with verse 18 where Jesus says, and this is

Jesus talking to his disciples here and he's talking about, he

says, if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before

it hated you. If you were of the world, the

world will love its own yet, because you are not of the

world. But I chose you out of the

world, therefore the world hates you.

Remember the word that I said to you.

A servant is not greater than his master.

If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.

If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.

But all these things they will do to you for My namesake,

because they do not know Him who sent Me.

If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin.

But now they have no excuse for their sin.

He who hates Me hates My Father also.

If I had not done among them the works which no one else did,

they would have no sin. But now they have seen and also

hated both me and my father. But this happened that the world

that the word might be fulfilled, which is written in

their law. They hated me without a cause.

Alright, so just kind of going through this.

So starting with verse 18, if the world hates you, you know

that hated me before I hated you.

So why does the world hate us? I hated Christ first, simple as

that, you know, and we're talking about Jesus Christ, the

perfect Son of God came into the world, never made a mistake,

never sinned, right? Did all these signs, all these

wonders and they still hated him, right?

Not even just the the unbelievers, but even his own

people hated him. Could didn't accept him, right?

So if he suffered and he was persecuted, right, what makes us

think that we're not going to be right?

And I mean, I could go into a bunch of examples of, of people

who who ended up losing their lives over the gospel, so many

different martyrs and, and, and people throughout history as his

own disciples, right? Christ himself murdered because

of his because of the truth. And the world just couldn't

accept it. And you know, Jesus told us in

Matthew 5 in the beatitudes, he said, blessed are you when they

revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you

falsely for my sake. Notice he says when, not if,

when. So what that tells us is if

we're believers and we're truly walking in in Christ, we are

going to receive persecution from the world.

It's just it's guaranteed, right?

So we and we know that it's the world hates us because I hated

Christ first, right? So we know why that hate's

coming. Verse 19 he says, if if you are

of the world, the world will love its own yet because you are

not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore

the world hates you. So why does the world hate us?

Because He chose us out of the world, we are different from

what the world thinks is normal, right?

We don't do the same things the world does.

For example, tonight everyone else your guys's age is out here

dressing up in costumes or going around trick or treating.

They're watching horror movies. They're doing all this stuff

right. And you guys are here in the

church, fellowshipping with other believers and hearing the

Word, right? If we acted just like the world

did, the world would love us, right?

There would be no persecution, there'd be no hate.

There'd be none of that, right? But because we don't join in

what the world does, it's weird to them that we don't

participate in something like Halloween, right?

It's weird to them. So they're going to respond with

hatred and mockery. Mockery, right?

So refusing to wear a costume or trick or treat, refusal to go to

a costume party, like I got invited to a bunch of them this

week and I said no to all of them.

I got met with a lot of different stuff, right?

Choosing to honor God will shine an uncomfortable light on since

what that means is like, if you guys are different, right?

And the world tries to get you to, to participate in sin and

you go against it because of your faith in Christ, right?

The world sees that and they feel that, right?

Because it's almost like you're shining a light on, like the

wrong that they're doing, and they can't accept it.

So in return, that's where the hatred comes in, right?

And Jesus's words here are encouragement, right?

Because like, if we're being persecuted for our faith, that

means that we identify with him, right?

First, Peter 29 But you are a chosen generation, a royal

priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may

proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into

his marvelous life, right? Second, Peter 18 and 9 it says,

therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor

of me his prisoner. This is Paul talking here, but

share with me in the sufferings for the gospel according to the

power of God, who has saved us and called us with the holy

calling, not according to our works, but according to His own

purpose and grace which was given to us in Christ Jesus

before the world began, right? So we're called to be different

out of the world. He called us to be set apart,

right? Romans 12/2.

And you sure you all have heard this.

Therefore not conform into this world, but be transformed by the

renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good,

acceptable and perfect will of God, right?

Do not conform to this world, right?

Don't. Don't let the pressures of the

world, the pressures of your peers, the pressures of what you

see on TV, what you see in books, whatever, Don't let that

pressure you to change and to fit into the world's norms, but

be transformed. Why?

So that we can prove the acceptable, good and perfect

will of God. So we can be that light and show

Christ in this in this world, right?

So we can be set apart. Go into verse 20 where he says,

remember the word that I said to you, a servant is not greater

than his master. If they persecuted me, they will

also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will

keep yours also, right? So same thing if they persecuted

Jesus, they're going to persecute us.

And a servant is not greater than his master.

So Jesus said that after he washed his disciples feet to

kind of give that, to kind of give that example of like, you

know, you call who said you call me Lord, Yeah, I just washed

your feet. And that's the example that that

he set for us. But also shows that like, you

know, if he was met with persecution, that means we're

going to be as well as his, you know, as his servants, right?

And in contrast, he says, if they keep my word, if they kept

my word, they will keep yours also.

So those who hear the gospel and respond, right, and accept it

and listen to it, those are the ones who keep his word.

And you know our word because our word is his word.

We're out here preaching his gospel.

Everything in his word is what we're out here sharing with

people. If they accept it, they accept

Him, right? But those who reject it reject

him also, right? So like when we're talking about

sharing the gospel, and we actually talked about this in

our conversations class last Saturday that we had where if

you share the gospel with someone and they don't accept

it, they're not rejecting you, right?

It's not you they're rejecting, it's God that they're rejecting,

right? And that's what he's kind of

saying here is if they keep my word, they'll keep yours.

So if they listen to what I say and if you're speaking my words

to them, then they're going to respond if they truly accept it,

right? 21 it says, but all these things

they will do to you for my name's sake, because they do not

know him who sent me. So why does the world persecute

followers of Christ? They don't know who Christ is.

They don't truly know who Christ is.

You're going to hear a bunch of different ideologies about who

Jesus is to the world. They have all these different,

their own forms of Jesus, the affirming Jesus, the one who

accepts everyone's lifestyle, no matter who they are or what

they're doing. You know, the, the one that says

love is love no matter who it's between, right?

Even though the Bible talks about how marriage between a man

and a woman, you're going to hear different ideologies with

that as you guys get older, right?

And because we don't go along with it to the world, we're

strangers, we're outcasts, foreigners.

I like to use the word aliens, right?

I, I used to use that word all the time when I was talking

about just being different, when I, I talked about I like to be

an alien, right? So when we don't participate in

the things in the world and we get persecution, it's because

the world doesn't know, they don't know the truth.

And that's why we're called to be the examples, right?

We're supposed to sit, we're supposed to be light in a Dark

World. So when they see that light,

they gravitate towards it. And then and in return they

gravitate to the Father, right? So first Peter 4/4 says in

regards to these. So he's talking about those

people who are out of the world. He says they think it's strange

that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation,

speaking evil, you said, because we don't go along with what the

world does. They're going to speak evil on

us. They're going to hate us.

We're going to get hit with persecution, mockery, You know,

kids, you know, for your guys, you know, kids will make fun of

you. Kids will isolate you.

You won't be invited to hang out with them as much.

You'll have a lot of lonely nights.

Trust me, I've been there. I'm still there.

I'm still there. I have a lot of friends that

aren't saved and whenever I don't go along with them to do

the things that they want to do, a lot of Friday, Saturday

nights, I'm at home by myself or I'm at home with my mom and dad

watching college football or watching college basketball, you

know what I mean? But it's because I'm not.

I don't want to go along with that darkness and neither should

you. So stay in the light.

Do not let the world pressure you into following their norms,

right? Stay in the word, stay in Christ

verse 22 he says if I'm not come and spoken to them, they would

have no sin. But now they have no excuse for

their sin. So remember, so Jesus came to

earth. All these people witnessed his

signs. They witnessed him healing

people, raising the dead, you know, making the lame walk,

making the mute speak. They saw all this stuff and they

still did not accept them. They had no, like there was no

more proof that he could have given to them that he was who he

said he was. And they still rejected them

today. You know, people hear the

gospel. They see all the stuff that's

going on in the world, right? They see like they literally see

it in the Bible coming to life right now and they still won't

accept it, right? And that's what you used to talk

about. You know, if I'm not coming

spoken, they ought to know sin. But now they have no excuse for

their sin. The world knows good and evil.

They know they're choosing to walk in the evil right?

But you guys are choosing to walk in the light and if you

keep being that example and keep staying strong and and showing

people light, eventually no gravitates to that light, right?

So just keep being that example and don't feel like just because

there were, you know, just because they don't accept it

right away that you're not doing something, you're not making an

impact. That could be that couldn't be

further from the truth. They're seeing it, they're

feeling it. You may be planting a seed and

you don't even know it. So keep being alive, keep being

alive. Verse 23, it says he who hates

me hates my father. Also another thing you're going

to hear a lot of people when you talk about, ask about their

faith. Oh, I believe in God.

Well, what about Jesus? You know, who do you believe

Jesus is? Jesus was the prophet.

Jesus was, you know, he was a man who came to earth.

Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God?

No. So if the world rejects God the

Son, how can they accept God the Father?

All right, That's what you're saying here.

He who hates me hates my Father. Also, you can't claim to love

God and not love his Son. It's just it's not possible,

right? And again, you're going to have

a lot of people trying to tell you who Jesus is, who they think

Jesus is, right? This right here tells you who

Jesus is. There are numerous scriptures I

could go to that talk about how Jesus is the Son of God.

Jesus came to earth, died on the cross for our sins, rose again

in three days. Not even just in here.

There's historical evidence of it, scientific evidence of it.

So don't let the world try to tell you who they think Jesus

is. Let this tell you who Jesus is.

This tells you everything you need to know.

All right, first, John four, one through 6 talks about, you know,

test the spirits to see whether they're of God because many

false prophets have gone out into the world and that's

happening today. You got a lot of, I'd say a lot

of pastors that are not following this, they're going

into their own different ideologies.

A lot of Christian influencers you see on TikTok, because I

know a lot of you guys are on TikTok, a lot of Christian

influencers on TikTok going against this, right?

So stay in the word. So that way if you hear

something, you'll get some point where you'll hear something and

you almost get like a funny feeling in your stomach.

That's the Holy Spirit. That's that spirit of the sermon

inside of you telling you this is truth, this is a lie, right?

So make sure you guys stay in the word and if someone if

people reject Jesus, they are rejecting God as well.

All right, two more verses. So verse 24 says if I not done

among them the worst, which no one else has did, they would've

had no sin. But now they have seen and also

hated both me and my father. So again, like I said, you know,

the world saw Jesus do the things that he did and they

still rejected him, right. And, and I was talking about

that, about this earlier, like whenever, and he has examples

and he went out and preached the gospel last year at a witch

festival. Was it a witch festival?

And he was met with many different responses to, you

know, to, to sharing the gospel. I see a lot of St. evangelist,

when they go to different events of the world and they go and

share the gospel, people are throwing stuff at them.

They're trying to RIP the microphone out of their hands.

They're trying to do all this stuff.

Why? Because they know it's the

truth. They know it's true.

If it wasn't true, it wouldn't affect them like that.

They wouldn't, they wouldn't feel that type of way.

You know what that is? That's, that's it.

That's that's Satan inside of them trying to trying to stop

them from hearing the truth, right?

And you're going to see that you're going to have times where

you're trying to share the gospel with people and they just

don't want to hear it or they hear it and they get mad.

They may get like enraged might cause you to lose some

friendships. But you know what that is?

That's that light that's inside of you messing with the darkness

that's inside of them and they won't be able to take it right?

And that just shows you how powerful the word of God is, how

powerful the gospel is, where it can cause people to, to, to feel

just this, this, this, this feeling of hatred, this feeling

of like rejection of it, right? Because it's true.

If it wasn't true, they wouldn't care.

But because it is true, you're going to get hit with all these

different responses. That's how you know, that's how

you know that the truth is that that God is bringing the truth

through you. All right.

So again, when that happens, stay strong, stay strong because

you're making more of an impact than you think you are, I

promise you. And then we'll go to the last

verse here. But this happened that the word

might be fulfilled, which is written in their law.

They hated me without a cause. So this is a quote from Psalms

69 for to show the spiritual precedent and prophetic

fulfillment. So remember, Jesus went through

his whole ministry fulfilling the Scripture, fulfilling the

prophecies of the Old Testament. He went through the whole his

whole ministry and this, this Scripture right here shows that

they had no 'cause they hate Jesus, they hated him because

they hated him. It wasn't anything that he did

wrong because he didn't do anything wrong in his life.

They hated him because they didn't accept who he was.

And that's the same reason why we're going to get met with

hatred too whenever we try to be lights is because they don't,

they don't accept Jesus. They're not.

Again, I'm going to say it again.

They're not rejecting you. They are rejecting God, right

when they're when you're sharing the gospel and they don't accept

it, they are rejecting God, not us.

OK, so and again, and we are hated and rejected for the sake

of the gospel. And I'm going to repeat that for

the sake of the gospel, OK, not just hated because of stuff that

we did wrong, OK, Because Peter in first Peter talks about

there's, you know, if you're suffering because of what of, of

your wrongdoing, that's an entirely different thing, right?

But what we're talking about is suffering for the for the sake

of the gospel, for the sake of Jesus Christ.

That's where we're that's where we can rejoice, right?

Because we know that we're truly set apart and like Jesus and the

beatitudes, great is your reward, right?

Rejoice and be glad. I'm gonna read one more

scripture from first Peter and then I'm gonna I'm gonna wrap

this up. I want you guys, I want you guys

to hear this. OK, so this is first Peter 412

through 14. It says, beloved, do not think

it's strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you

as though some strange thing, strange thing happening.

So what he's saying is like, don't, don't be confused or

don't be caught off guard when you're going through these

periods of persecution, these periods of, of, of people

mocking you and the world hating you.

Don't be, don't be surprised, but rejoice in verse 13, rejoice

to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that

when his glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding

joy. So when we receive this

persecution, right, it may not feel great, but we should

rejoice because we're partaking in the same thing that Christ

went through that all the prophets went through, that guys

like Paul and Peter, Stephen, you know, Stephen, all those

guys in the Bible that that caught persecution for the

gospel, we're going through the same things they went through,

right? Verse 14 if you are reproached,

which basically means persecuted, hated, mocked for

the name of Christ, blessed are you for the spirit of glory and

of God rests upon you. On their part, He is blasphemed,

but on your part, he is glorified.

So when when we share the gospel and we and we are met with

persecution, we are glorifying God by staying strong in that

persecution and not letting that hate conform us or change us or

try to get us to go along with the world's norms.

Excuse me, Thank you. And that's a big thing I

struggle with. I was, I was telling this one

example that I'm done. I struggle with acceptance from

the world for the longest period of my life.

I. Hated being by myself.

I hated feeling isolated. So I'd appeared in my life where

I was trying to just make friends, trying to be popular.

I wanted everyone to know who I was until I finally reached that

point where I said, you know what?

Like I'm not actually set apart. I'm not, I'm not being the

example that I'm called to be. I'm, I'm going along with the

world for what I'm going to think about it.

We're we try to seek validation from a world that crucified the

perfect son of God. If the perfect son of God cannot

get acceptance from the world, why are we trying to why, why

should we care about what the world thinks about us, right?

Remember, Jesus said don't worry about those who can kill the

body or those that have killed the body, but those that affect

the soul, right? So where, when you know, the

world may hate us on the outside, right?

And, and you know, they can do whatever, but should we worry

about more about eternity, about where we go when we leave this

earth? I don't know about you, but I

want to be an eternity with my with my Heavenly Father.

I get careless about what the world thinks.

And that's where I want you guys to get to.

All right. So I want you guys to remember

this. Do not let the world, the, the

persecution, the hatred, do not let that make you sweat.

Stay strong. Stay grounded in the truth of

the word of God, and I promise you it'll be worth it in the

long run. All right, that's all I got.

All right, so I'm going to pray us out real quick and then we'll

let you guys get on with your evening.

I'm glad you guys were here. I'm I'm praying that you guys

were touched by everything that happened today.

And I mean it as stay in Christ. Do not, do not chase after this

world. All right?

OK, Lord, I just thank you again, Lord, just for this

night. Lord, we just thank you, Lord,

that he gave us this opportunity to, to meet with each other

tonight, Lord, and just to, to be a positive light, Lord, and

in our neighborhood, Lord, in our community.

God and Lord, I just pray that everyone here, Lord, parents and

kids included, Lord was touched, Lord, at some point.

Lord God, I just pray that you would just always remind us,

Lord, to just chase after you to, to seek first the Kingdom of

God in his righteousness. God above everything, and I pray

that we wouldn't be concerned with what the world thinks of

us. We wouldn't be concerned with

acceptance from the world, that we wouldn't be concerned with

things of this world, that we would chase after you, God,

chase after your righteousness. Lord, strive to be more like you

every single day. And I pray, God, that you would

just keep us strong in the midst of the persecution that's going

on in this world. Well, I pray for kids across the

nation, Lord, that are being attacked, Lord, spiritually,

Lord, by the things of by the things of the devil, Lord, I

pray that you would just put a special protection around them,

God. And I pray that they would all

cling to you, God. And I pray that you would just

continue just to, to show your power, show your glory, Lord.

And I pray that we would that this generation coming up, Lord,

that they would be the ones, Lord, to have this world turn to

you. I pray that you just be with us

for the rest of the night. I pray that you just keep

everyone safe as they head home and I pray that you would just

continue just to keep us strong Lord, and just keep us

persevering, Lord, in the faith, in Jesus name I pray, Amen,

Amen.