Sermon for The Seventh Sunday of Easter, May 17, 2026.
The Lord says what He says for a particular reason, “to keep you from falling away.”
John 16:1. “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away.”
This is our sermon text.
We learn in the Gospel text that Christ’s disciples will bear witness about Jesus, that He’s the promised Messiah foretold by the Prophets of God, that He’s the Son of God in the flesh, that He’s the One true living God.
He says they will receive the Holy Spirit, who will help them bear witness about Him, calling them back to all that He said, “to keep them from falling away.”
But why would bearing witness, with the Holy Spirit, that Jesus is the Christ, cause them to fall away from faith in Jesus?
Because it’ll mean being thrown out of their synagogues. These men will no longer be allowed to worship with their families in their churches. They’ll be barred from gathering to hear the teaching of God’s Word.
Modern Americans may not get what a big deal this is, but to a truly religious people, being kept from the center of their life, from God’s Word, could there be anything worse?
When they tell people who Jesus is, it won’t go over well. They’ll be persecuted.
Jesus says, “Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.” (John 16:2)
Notice that being killed is certain. Jesus doesn’t say, when “whoever tries to kill you…” No. He says, “[T]he hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.”
Bearing witness about Christ equals being killed for Christ, and when that hour comes, Jesus doesn’t want His men to fall away.
And so, everything He says to them, He says in order “to keep them from falling away.”
St. Peter, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, writing after Jesus ascended back to the Father, and after the Holy Spirit had been sent to him and the other disciples, as Jesus promised, writing to those he refers to as “elect exiles of the Dispersion…” (1 Peter 1:1) that is to say, writing to Christians who are in the middle of experiencing the exact persecution Jesus said they would experience, writing to encourage our persecuted forefathers, Peter says, “The end of all things is at hand.” (1 Peter 4:7)
The end times began with the ascension of Jesus. And with the end, as Jesus promised, came and still comes (since we’re still in the last days), tribulation.
And so, Peter told the persecuted Christians who were thrown out of synagogues and who were being killed in the name of God, that “Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, [they were to] arm [them]selves with the same way of thinking…” This is the beginning of 1 Peter 4, where we find today’s epistle reading.
The Lord’s apostle goes on to say, “For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you…”
Our ancestors were persecuted by the church-going crowd, on the one hand, those who hated them because they followed Jesus, and they were also maligned, on the other hand, by the worldly people because they didn’t live like them but rather lived as followers of Christ.
They couldn’t win to lose.
What we learn from this is that Christian faithfulness, following Jesus, equals persecution, even martyrdom.
And in the middle of that, as is easy to understand, it’s hard to be self-controlled and sober-minded. It’s hard to keep on loving one another—meaning, loving other Christians—you’re hated on all sides.
Who’s going to get your short temper?
Who are you going to lash out at?
Who are you going to stop loving?
Your family. Not your biological family, but your eternal, and true family, that is, your brothers and sisters in Christ.
It’s how we operate, isn’t it?
The people closest to us get the worst of us. Peter says that “love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8), and so he instructs us to “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling” (1 Peter 4:9).
Support your Christian neighbor. He needs your support, as you need his. You’ve both been cut off from the world and the hypocritical church. You’re all each other has.
He goes on to say, “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you” (1 Peter 4:12-14).
In our neck of the woods, this might look like being insulted for the name of Christ by a Mormon, socially ostracized because you follow the Biblical Jesus and not the one that an adulterous Mason invented to make money and gain power.
The LDS have control of this area, religiously speaking.
The faithful Christians I served in California were often insulted because they attended St. Mark, where that hateful, bigoted Pastor Bramwell taught that the Bible calls homosexuality and genital mutilation sinful, or because they believed the truth of God’s Word and could recognize that there was only one faithful church in the entire county that was holding fast to Holy Scripture.
The world maligned your fellow Christians for not being like the world, in all of its debauchery, and all the churchly people around us abandoned us to the wolves, distancing themselves from us because we followed Christ.
In fact, before you called me here, more than once, other congregations considered calling me to serve them, and more than once, they changed their minds because they were afraid that if I were their pastor, they might suffer the same persecution St. Mark did.
They didn’t want to be persecuted for Jesus.
That, dear saints, is what falling away from Christ looks like. That’s what rejecting the Holy Spirit looks like. That’s why Jesus said to the disciples, which has been preserved for us in the Gospels, so that we wouldn’t shrink back when fighting the good fight of faith, but would, as Peter says, “rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you…. If anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.” (1 Peter 4:14, 16)
In our sin, we want to avoid persecution. We’re weak and afraid. But Jesus promises that following Him means being hated by the world. As servants, we’re not greater than our Master.
Jesus was crucified. We know how good it is that He died. It’s the only way we’re forgiven. It’s the only way we can access the Father.
“Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking…”
Do we think like Jesus?
Repent of putting yourself first, of thinking of your own temporal well-being. Repent and receive the words that our Lord has taught us, which He spoke to strengthen our faith in Him.
Remember that Jesus loves you. Nothing else matters. He has secured your everlasting good. There is truly nothing to fear in this world. Truly!
For this reason, He spoke to us. For this reason, He sent the Holy Spirit to bring us His words. As He said in John 16:1, “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away.”
The Holy Spirit has brought, and continues to bring, Christ’s words to your ears that you may never fall away.
Amen.
Rev. Tyrel Bramwell 
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