There's an old song called, This World Is Not My Home. It goes, and I won't sing it. This world is not my home. I'm just a passing through. My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue. The angels beckon me from heaven's open door, and I can't feel at home in this world anymore. And the fact is, for the Christian, this world is not our home, and this world does not keep the welcome mat out for us. we will be under pressure and that's if you're looking for a title to the sermon under pressure it is we'll be under pressure to some degree while we journey here proverbs 29 27 says this an unjust man is an abomination to the righteous but one whose way is straight is an abomination to the wicked. In other words, this world will applaud those who practice evil and hate those who are in Christ. In some form or fashion, and I want us to, we hear the word hate, we think of the most extreme version of that, and that's why I titled this Under Pressure. In some form or fashion, they will work to keep the church under pressure. Now we know that we're called to love the church, We're called to be a loving community that reaches for the lost in our world, but as his church, as his people, we will be hated by the world we strive to reach. And Jesus in his upper room discourse, and that's just the label they put on it, say upper room discourse and walk to the garden, wants to make sure the disciples understand this reality, because that reality demands a decision. Following Jesus costs something and it may cost you your life. And it's crucial that they and we grasp that reality in a tangible way. In other words, it's not just theoretical. It's not just out there. It's not just a topic of discussion or conversation. It is a real thing. And so Jesus begins this instruction, this shift that he makes on being under pressure or hated by articulating for them the cause of hate. And that's the bulk of the verses deal with what the cause of hate is. It's verses 18 through 25. It says, If you were of the world, the world would love his own. But because you are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. 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. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake. because they know not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin, but now they have no cloak for their sin. He that hateth me, hateth my father also. 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. But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law." Speaking of scripture here, they hated me. without a cause. The world's hate, and by the word world, John is referencing the godless world, the world system organized in opposition to God and therefore to his people. So as we read that the world hates us, we have to think in our mind it is those that are against God. It's godless people, unredeemed people, and that world's hate must not be seen as strange. That world will love their own and those who affirm them, but they resent the one to whom we belong. Hate is certain, and the cause of hate from the world links directly to our identity. They hate us for who we are. We are not spiritual citizens of this world. We do not belong to its system, and so we are hated. But it's a hatred that Christ makes clear originated against Him. against God. The world will hate us because we're not one of them. The world will hate us because we are His, chosen out of the world. D. A. Carson notes this, the world is a society of rebels and therefore finds it hard to tolerate those who are in joyful allegiance to the King to whom all loyalty is due. Those who preach Jesus's gospel and live in progressive conformity to his own life and teaching will attract the same antagonism that he did. Because the world will hate us just as it hated him. And so Jesus reminds him, the servant is not greater than his Lord. And so we will have, and I add this to it, should have the same effect on the world as our Savior. The natural response of an unredeemed person, the ultimate response, the without a doubt response in the end, is that if they're unredeemed, they will hate you. Not because you look a certain way and not because you dress a certain way and not because you have certain habits. They will hate you because you belong to the Lord. And he gives us a warning here and also a promise. He warns us, he says, if they persecuted me, they're going to persecute you. But then there's the promise, if they've kept his word, they will keep yours also. And here, tucked within hate and persecution and the certainty of it, and I'll be honest with you, I never enjoy these passages. I'm not looking to be the Christian that gets beaten for his faith. I'm not hunting for persecution. And sometimes it's hard when we read these. We think, oh, I don't want to be this. I don't want to walk through this. I don't want to have this reality. But it is a reality. But tucked within the reality of this world's hatred, that they will hate us because we belong to him. And they hated him because he brought the truth. We have this promise. We will be persecuted as him. But we also know that the gospel will bear fruit. that you read Acts and you will see the fruit of the gospel. I say there's fruit both in listeners, there's fruit in believers, and there's fruit in persecutors. They just keep growing. As you read Acts, you see people coming to the Lord, you see changed lives, and you see wicked people attacking the church and doing everything they can to eradicate it, to get rid of it. The world will certainly hate or oppose us in some form or fashion, and even the nicest of worldly people will ultimately resist us. We have to understand the certainty of hate. Leon Morris writes this, he says, for we sometimes act as though it is surprising that upright, I put that in quotes, upright worldly people oppose the things of God. On the contrary, it is inevitable. And as believers, and think about the context, here's Christ. He is walking out of the upper room. They are moving to the garden. They're walking through the city at night. Things are stirring. Things are happening. Judas is betraying. The chief priests are conniving. They're gonna arrest him tonight. That's what's gonna happen. He's gonna get to the garden and we're gonna see in 18 how that all changes. That's all happening in this evening. And as he's walking over, he wants to make sure the disciples understand something, that this opposition, this hate that's coming out is not different, but it's the norm. that this is what they will face, that people that maybe they think, well, why would they do this? Well, they will because they're unredeemed. But know this, hate toward us is ultimately hate toward the one to whom we belong. We are hated because we are his children. We are hated because of our identity in Christ. But as I was writing this, it made me wonder about that word identity. because I thought to myself, is our whole identity in Christ? I think oftentimes our confusion about the world's hate stems from the fact that we too often do not find our complete identity in Christ. I think part of our confusion when we encounter the sinful world is we are one step in the world, that we do feel like it's home, that I have an apartment here. My home's in heaven, but I definitely got an apartment here on earth. I've got a stake. and this life in that way. We oftentimes don't have a complete identity in Christ. Instead, we view him as the religious part of us, but not the whole. I can guarantee you this from scripture, the world will hate you for being completely his, but is your whole identity in him? Are you willing and prepared to be hated because you are his completely? Because this world hates who they do not really know. They hate the one who they are willfully ignorant of, and they hate him because of what he does. They hate us because we are his, based on our identity, and they hate him, they grate under his exposure. They hate him for what he shows about themselves. As Harrison writes, by his coming and penetrating preaching against sin, Jesus had stirred up a hornet's nest. No longer could men pass as holy or even respectable. Bear in mind that the Lord was not speaking here of sin in general, but rather of the specific sin of willfully rejecting him in the face of full revelation." And that's what he talks about. He says, I came and I proved, I showed their sin. Now, it didn't mean that they were sinless before he showed up. What he did is expose the full extent of their sin. They were no longer could pretend any ignorance. There was no missing revelation. This is God in the flesh standing with them. The seriousness of rejecting Christ is brought out. They have rejected God in the flesh, rejected the works, that's the miracles in life of Jesus, and their works beyond imagination. When Jesus came to earth, when he spoke and performed miracles, he incited, as Carson notes, the most central and controlling of sins, rejection of God's gracious revelation, rebellion against God, decisive preference for darkness rather than light. What did he expose in humanity when he came to earth? That they hated God. That they wanted to be God. that they would not worship, they would not submit, they would not bow down, they would not acknowledge who they were, they would not acknowledge their culpability before a perfect holy God. It showed they preferred darkness rather than light. It constitutes the rejection of the clearest light, the fullest revelation, and carries with it then the most central, deep-stained guilt. And as MacArthur notes, total rejection in the face of total revelation is unforgivable, since there is nothing left for God to show such people. It is a dark stain. It is a blinding to the truth. You can read in Hebrews, think chapter six. It'll talk about people that just purposefully are blind. And we stand today, though, with his full revelation. We have his full message. There's nothing missing there. What God will share with us is sitting in front of us. And so the question we have to ask is what's being done with it. It prompts, in my mind, a contemporary connection and question. Is the dark stain, the blinding to truth, the description of your life? Have you rejected his clear light? Have you rejected his obvious work? Have you ignored his great salvation? Because what Christ is making clear is there's no real excuse for this rejection. The world then hated Jesus because he exposed their sin and confronted them with the reality of who he is. Think back all through the story. Think back through every Pharisee and the Sadducees and the high priest and everything that unfolds. What do they hate about him? They hate the fact that he proves, that he shows, that he shines a light on the fact that they're culpable before God. That they are not blameless, but they are instead guilty. And they hate him for being the Messiah. You're not the Messiah. They reject everything that He's coming to do. If they're not twisting Him to become an earthly king, then they're rejecting Him as a false prophet. They'll do anything to resist Him. They reject Him, and the world does the same today. But I want you to know something. This was predictable and a predicted response to him. Psalm 69, which is a known messianic psalm, verse four says what he quotes. And actually, it's throughout the psalm. You can find multiple places in scripture where they hated me without cause. But verse four, and specifically from this chapter, which we know points to Messiah, says that more in number than the hairs of my head, are those who hate me without cause. The scriptures that they read and they knew predicted their rejection. He's quoting, you're going to hate me without cause. They know that chapter and they know that verse. As one writer notes, the Jews saw themselves as the upholders of the law, but in their zeal for the law, they incurred the condemnation of the law by rejecting the Christ to whom the law bore its witness. They've been entrusted with Scripture. Paul writes that in Romans. We as Jews have been entrusted with the Holy Scriptures, but what have they done with the Holy Scriptures? It literally tells them that they're going to reject the Messiah without cause, and then they do it. How do we respond, though, to hate? We know it's there. It's an ugly reality of life. The world in its rebellion against God is not going to be happy with those who serve the king of kings. They're not going to be pleased with to whom we belong. They are going to resist us that they've resisted him. What is our response? Well, it's definitely not to cower and run because of hate. We don't hide from the pressure. Instead, our Lord and Savior articulates a clear response to hate. Now, throughout this Upper Room Discourse, we've been introduced to the Holy Spirit and the work that he's gonna do. And in the context of this conversation, because you can see how he talks about hate, and then he talks about our response, and then he's gonna warn about hate again, but our response to hate is seen in verses 26 to 27. 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. And we see, again, the promise of him indwelling believers. We see the promise of what his goal is to be. What is the Holy Spirit's role? What is his purpose to testify of him? And then he goes on, and ye also shall bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning. The disciples, in the context of this hate, so in other words, he warns them, there's definitely gonna be hate, they're definitely coming after you, just like they hated me, they're gonna hate you. And then he says, how do you respond to it? And he says, you're gonna be equipped to respond to hate, equipped by the Holy Spirit, equipped because they knew Christ. And their and our response will be seen in our witness. What does the world's hate prompt in us? And it's a gospel reach. Their hate, makes us preach. A witness that is empowered by the Holy Spirit. Here in John, in this verse, he says the Spirit is sent by Jesus and proceeds from the Father. Just as a side note, John makes clear throughout his gospel that the sending of the Spirit is an activity that concerns both the Father and the Son. In other words, it is impossible to pull it apart. People chase that down, but that's the whole point of seeing the whole of Scripture. As you read through John, he makes that clear by the constant different ways he references how the Spirit is coming. But the fact is, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is sent to us. He's coming with a mission. to bear witness and he's going to empower us to do the same because though the Spirit may bear witness apart from us, we can never truly bear witness apart from Him. But it is a witness that carries individual responsibility. As Leon Morris writes, he says, there's a responsibility resting on all Christians to bear witness to the facts of saving grace. He says, I'm sending the Holy Spirit who will testify of me. And then the next phrase, and you will testify of me also. What is the purpose of the Spirit? What is the response to hatred? Why put these verses right here in the middle of two passages on hate? Because that's why we're wandering into chapter 16, why we're covering one to four, because it's all the same, I say, paragraph or portion of this conversation. It's not that he's talking about hate and then wanders over about the Spirit and then comes back to hate, but instead, purposefully, he tells you the purpose and the response of hate. Here is the working of the Holy Spirit, and it empowers us, but it also brings a responsibility. As another writer notes, in an age of postmodern relativism and ambiguity, nothing is more needed than the clear presentation to the unbelieving world of God's absolute truth, centering on the gospel of Jesus Christ. What does our world need? Him. And I know we walked through an election recently, and elections are important. We know the significance of that. We know the significance of country and opportunity. But as believers, what does this world need? As we look at this world, this world needs Jesus Christ. That's true regardless of whether the unbeliever agrees or not. The truth of the gospel is not validated by mankind. It's true because it's from God and it's message of redemption. You see, our response to hate is testifying. Our response to rejection is testifying. We are to share the truth about salvation, share the truth of a real God, not a pretend God. He's not a crutch. He's not someone we need. You take all the philosophers and psychologists through the ages. If you want to get confused, read their books. They all write a lot. They have a lot of words to say. They never agree with each other. They all come up with crazy answers. And they all come up and say, God is a crutch. That's a similar thing. We needed God. Humanity needed God. And now we've advanced so much as humanity that we no longer need this God figure that we've created. And notice the premise is they worship themselves. No matter what it is, they have an idolatry of humanity, no matter what form it takes. But we preach a real God and we preach a separation from Him due to our sin. And then we preach the redemption provided by His Son, Jesus Christ. Why does our world reject God? Because if they reject God, then they're accountable to no one. They don't have to answer for sin because there's no such thing as sin. Sin is defined by breaking God's law, by breaking what God has said. And so we preach the truth. Because the reality is the work of the Holy Spirit in the church is done in the context of persecution. It's a persecution, a pressure that prompts an even bolder and brighter witness. So as Jesus warns them, hey, they're going to hate me just like they hated you. He actually closes this conversation on hate with the idea that, hey, I've shielded you from this hate, but now you're going to face the brunt of it. And he's saying, you got this hate coming in. And you can imagine if you're sharing something, quote unquote, new with people that they're going to face, you're not necessarily giving them work to do, but he does. He says, look, because of this hate, you will preach clearer and brighter. But that begs the question, what is our response? I'm concerned we instead shrink back or attempt to build a buffer zone to not feel the sting of persecution. And I'm not a person who's talking about foolish and obstinate and obnoxious acts that heap on pain for no reason. There's a host of people, sadly, that think they're serving the Lord by being dumb, and there's no need to be dumb. They're seeking pain when there's no need to seek pain. But those are not the ones I'm worried about. I'm worried about all the ones that capitulate to our society because it's convenient for them. I'm worried about people who seem to be true to the word, who will leave the word to get the politics they want, the society they want, the permissions they want. In the last five years, I've watched more people that I read fall than rise up. And they fall in a way that doesn't send out a lot of dust. It's not so obvious, but they have shrunk back from being hated because they are identifying with Christ. They've shrunk back because they're not willing to stand and say, well, that's not what God's asked us to do. They've written books that taint the gospel to fit our society's desire to twist God's word. Why? Because they're cowards. because they're afraid of what is reality. Reality is this world will not be happy with you as a believer. And just as a side note, if you find the world is super happy with you, then you should be worried about your spiritual life. Are we going to hide and shrink back? As MacArthur writes, the blessed truth is that whoever will call the name of the Lord will be saved, but that can happen only when believers proclaim to them the saving truth of the gospel. You reach no one by agreeing with their sin. you reach them with the truth that we have been commanded to preach. So I ask this, are you proclaiming boldly Jesus Christ and his redemptive work? Is that a priority in your daily life? Because I want to make sure we tuck in Monday through Saturday, tuck in work, hobbies, and everything else. Is proclaiming Christ and his redemptive work a priority in your daily life? Now, we know that hate is no easy task. It's hard to reconcile. It's hard to understand. It is designed to undermine our confidence in Jesus Christ. That's why pressure comes. That's why Christ is warning the disciples. It will cause us to question our identity in Him. This world's hate is a real concern for us and them. And I want to make sure that's clear. Because as I talk through this, I do not want to be trite and trivial about what the pressure brings. I go all the way back to the beginning. It involves a decision because identifying in Christ and feeling the hate of the world can involve losing your life. It's a real danger. this world's hate is a real thing, it is a real concern. And so we find that after Jesus says, look, there's hate coming, and he gives him the cause of hate. And the reality is, if you want to underline one thing, the cause of hate is him. They don't hate you, don't take it personally, they hate who you are if you identify in Christ. They hate who lives in you. They hate Jesus. And then he tells them, but you're going to respond by being a witness. And then he goes right back and he, knowing the reality of hate. And I think we get an idea of the importance in Christ's mind as he's talking to them, because he almost just recaps. And now he gets into details and he starts sharing with them right after what they're supposed to do with hate. He says, these are the facts of hate. Verses one through four, it kind of gets to, and I say facts of hate, it starts getting into the nitty gritty. What's going to happen to you? He says, these things have I spoken unto you that you should not be offended. In other words, don't be thrown off. Don't lose confidence. Don't waver. And I don't say waver in your faith because it's not that you waver in your belief in Christ, but you waver in the purpose, you waver in your resolve. You start wondering if it's all worth it. He says, don't be offended. Don't be thrown off by it. They shall put you out of the synagogues. And that, and I'll explain that, that's not going to resonate with us, that statement, but it will once it's kind of explained. Yea, the time cometh that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God's service. And these things will they do unto you because they have not known the Father nor me. But these things have I told you that when the time shall come, you may remember that I told you of them. In other words, instead of being offended, instead of being weakened, instead of being shattered, it will strengthen your faith. And then he explains why it's coming up now. And these things I said unto you at the beginning, these things I said not unto you at the beginning because I was with you. I didn't talk about this while we walked this earth for three and a half years because basically I've taken the brunt of it. How real is persecution? Persecution of the church happened immediately. Peter and John heal a crippled man from birth. Peter preaches a powerful evangelistic message and they get in prison for it. King Herod murders James, the brother of John. According to tradition, all the apostles except John were martyred at some point for their faith. Paul, the former prosecutor of the church, faced a gauntlet of trials, stoned and left for dead, run out of more cities for his preaching than anyone else in scripture, mocked by the thinkers in Athens. So if you want to tie that to something, the academics of this world decided they want to try to mock him when they did it. He's beaten off and he's attacked by Jew and Gentile alike, and ultimately executed by Emperor Nero during his time of persecution. If you read history, there's times when government law was helpful, something seen in Thessalonica, when you read that whole story, the whole reason it all goes in a good direction is because in that time, Roman law tolerated the Jewish faith, and they tucked Christianity right underneath that by the Romans. However, that didn't remain that way. That was something that Paul encountered. As I mentioned before, Emperor Nero persecuted Christians, burning them in Rome. So he's in the city and part of Rome burns down. And based on historians, they actually don't think he did it, but he was blamed for it. And so he wanted to find someone else to blame. So he blamed Christians. How do you prove that they're guilty? Kill them. How do you kill them? Burn them. That's what he did in Rome. Emperor Domitian, three decades later, extended that persecution to modern day Turkey. His persecution would be the cause of John's banishment. In the second century, Emperor Trajan instructed a guy named Pliny to not seek out Christians. Sounds like, hey, don't look for them. Then he says, but if you find them, prosecute them. And if they won't recant, punish them. His policies set up the martyrdom of the church father Ignatius. Later in A.D. 303, Emperor Diocletian set about to eradicate Christianity and Christians. He had churches were to be destroyed, Bibles to be burned, and an attempt made to force all Christians to sacrifice to the Roman gods. By the way, they considered Christians atheists because they worshiped one god, and they had a pantheon of gods. They blamed Christians for what was going wrong. One church father, and I forget the exact wording, he says, if the Nile rises, if this goes down, if a storm comes, if it doesn't come, they blame Christians for everything. And they say, Christians to the lion, he says, and he says, that's not enough lions. You need more lions to kill us all. But the idea was Christians were blamed for everything that went wrong. And you can tie to our society today, right? How often, well, your faith, and that's the new bent of people. They're boldly writing books about the dangers of Christianity. the dangers of believing. During the Middle Ages, the spear tip of persecution moved from the Roman government to the Roman Catholic Church. As one writer notes, the horrors of the Inquisition, the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, and the martyrdom of many believers epitomize the Roman Church's effort to suppress the true gospel. In the latest decades, the governmental system of communism, and I would say the godless systems that share its features, We as Americans have flirted very much with that godless system. We want to kick God out of everything. That has done more. The godless society seen today worldwide and the religion of Islam have been the point of attack and destruction. It is estimated that 70 million Christians have been killed for their profession of faith, with two-thirds of those taking place since the start of the 20th century. And in reading that, the next phrase that the author wrote was, it's likely way beyond that. We don't even get close to the number of people that were killed for their faith. This is the fact of hate. And so Jesus gets specific with the disciples. This is what they're going to walk through. The first part of what I just read and walked through is all happening to the church. It all unfolds on these guys. And it doesn't stop. The facts of hate are real, and so Jesus gets specific with the disciples and us. He delves into the daily life to prepare them, right? Because we read about people dying for their faith, but then we go home and eat lunch and pray for our meal and feel no real pressure. But the fact is it will get involved in their life. He wants them to see what will come. And in our regular lives interactions, we will see our forced alienation. It says here, he put out of the synagogue. Now we think of that as being banned from a place of worship. Being put out of the synagogue meant way more than that. It was excommunication from your society and your network. It indicates a complete loss of all fellowship. You're kicked out of the synagogue. That meant you had no religious, social, or economic aspect in Jewish society. That means if you are Peter and you fish and you sell your fish to the market, they don't buy from you because you are kicked out of the synagogue. Paul's making tents. No one buys his tents because he's been kicked out. of the synagogue. That was the pressure. Today, society would accomplish that by attempting to label our words and make them illegal. It would be to exclude us from life and interaction. It would be to limit career opportunities, to attempt to force us to live by their values and systems. That's how that is accomplished today. It will bring about our justified attack, or how they would justify attacking us. Things will become so twisted that the world will seek to kill believers and justify it as a service to God. It doesn't take much to imagine who's doing that today. But think about everyone else that doesn't have, quote-unquote, a religion. And by the way, everyone has a religion. If you're sitting here and you think, well, I don't believe in anything. Well, you just believed in something. You have faith in something. It is impossible not to be a believer in something. You have a religion. And so I say either they're going to do murder as service to God, or they will pick another object of their worship. You have people writing saying, oh, we should lock up Christians because they're dangerous. Who are they serving? They're serving the God of humanity because they've made people into gods. And so they write about that. One writer noted, said, Christians have often discovered that the most dangerous oppression comes not from careless pagans, but from zealous adherence to religious faith and from other ideologies. The reason for this attack is they do not know personally and salvitically the Lord. And when one does not know the Lord, it will spawn hostility towards those who do, because ultimately there is no neutrality. And I go all the way back to the beginning. There is no such thing as a neutral person. The line is drawn on whether you believe or whether you don't believe. Do you believe there is a God? Because there is one or you don't believe. That changes everything about your life. Do you believe that you're culpable before God? Do you believe you need a savior? And the world says, no, we do not. And we hate you for even bringing it up to us. They attempt this justification because they do not know the Father or the Son. It is a willful ignorance manifesting that they are devoid of eternal life. Why does Jesus tell them these facts? When the trials come, they will know that they are no more than Jesus had predicted. And instead of being a difficulty to faith, the trials would actually strengthen faith. Jesus is telling them this now because up to this time, he's borne the weight of these attacks. However, once he ascends to heaven, the attacks against him will be leveled through us. When Jesus confronts Saul on the road to Damascus, he says to Saul, why are you persecuting me? What is Paul doing? He's arresting and murdering people from the church, but it's persecution against Christ. The cause of hate is always Jesus Christ. But we are the object through which the world directs their hate. And so I put as a question, are we prepared? And will these attacks ultimately strengthen our faith? The world is not our home. We do not fit in, and the world, again, meeting the godless system of the world, the one opposed to God and his children, wants to punish us for it. As Morris notes of believers in the first century and really beyond, Christians were the non-conformist par excellence in integrity, and they had to pay for that. This world is not okay with us being believers. because this world has a system they want everyone to fit into. And the one driving feature of that system is to not have God, which is going back to original sin. I share this in my Sunday school class. Where did sin start? You think about Satan being cast out of heaven because he wanted to be worshiped as God. Why did Eve take a bite of the fruit? Well, it said it looked good, but all the fruit looked good. It was a perfect garden. She took a bite because it would make her like God. In other words, I will become God. This world cannot stand the idea of people who used to belong to it, who now belong to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, who have submitted their life, to whom everyone will ultimately submit. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. We face the reality of persecution. We will be under pressure. And I say that because I never want to lie to someone and say, you get a Christian, it's going to solve every problem in life. No one will be bad to you. Everyone will love you. No, they won't. You will be under pressure. We will experience hate, but how will we react? Will we shrink back or step forward in proclamation? And I say those in a contrast on purpose. You're either stepping into this, not that you're seeking hate, you're stepping into this idea because your Lord and Savior commanded you and said, hey, in response to hate, you are going to proclaim me, you're going to testify, or you're going to shrink back and say, well, I'm going to play it safe. Let that be somebody else. It's somebody else. Somebody else is bold. I'm not bold. Actually, boldness is not an opportunity or a characteristic you can say is yours or not yours. You're called to be bold for Christ. Will we shrink back or step forward in proclamation? And then will our confidence be shattered or our faith strengthened? As John states later in this chapter, in the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.