Last Words | Good Trouble - John 15:18-16:4 - Clint Leavitt

In this 4th week of our exploration of Jesus' Final Words, Clint draws us into John 15:18-23 and 16:1-4, confronting us with an uncomfortable truth: authentic Christian discipleship will inevitably produce resistance in our lives. Jesus doesn't sugarcoat the reality—if we truly follow Him, the world will hate us just as it hated Him first. But this isn't persecution for being obnoxious or self-righteous; it's the natural consequence of belonging wholly to Christ rather than to the systems and powers of this world. The message challenges us to examine what we truly belong to: our careers, political tribes, family expectations, or Jesus Himself. Through the example of C. Everett Koop, who angered both conservatives and progressives by consistently following Christ's call to serve all people, we see what it looks like to live with allegiance to Jesus above all else. The question becomes deeply personal: does our Christianity actually make us different from our culture, or are we simply thermometers reflecting the values around us rather than thermostats transforming them? When we belong to Jesus, we become subversive to every other power structure, and that will cost us something. Yet this cost is nothing compared to what Christ gave up for us, His reputation, His privilege, His very life, so that we might have eternal identity and purpose in Him.