Triumph Part II
Notes
Transcript
1 John 5:1-5
1 John 5:1-5
ME
UConn versus SDSU
SDSU fans showed out! Confidence (actually arrogance)
The game hadn’t even started. They were the underdogs. Yet they were living victoriously.
How can it be that a team and fanbase were so confident and victorious, even though they’d ultimately lose?
Walking in victory, yet ultimately defeated
WE
How can it be that Christians, who are ultimately victorious in Jesus, walk in such a defeated, dejected way?
Depression. Anxiety. Addictions to social media, pornography. Uncertainty and fear about the future. Anger and rage that comes from insecurity and doubt.
Civil Rights Movement
“We Will Overcome”
Emancipation Proclamation of 1863
Slavery in Texas would not be abolished until Juneteenth in 1865 (two and a half years later)
Difference in legal status and experience
Marriage
Unhappily married
Being unmarried and unhappy with it doesn’t make you un-married. It just makes you unhappily married.
Being a Christian and being defeated doesn’t make you un-Christian. It just makes you a defeated Christian.
God has already made you victorious in His Son if you have believed in Him
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The question now is- are you walking in the freedom He has won for you? Have you laid hold of the freedom?
Umbrella
GOD
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father also loves the one born of him. This is how we know that we love God’s children: when we love God and obey his commands. For this is what love for God is: to keep his commands. And his commands are not a burden, because everyone who has been born of God conquers the world. This is the victory that has conquered the world: our faith.
Who is the one who conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
Now, for us to truly grasp what this belief in Christ and love for God is, we are going to need to see Jesus for who He is. Who He is right now, the One who is to come. And when you see Him for who He is, you are fueled to love Him and keep His commands
He’s not a mamby-pamby Jesus. Soft skin, soft words. “Eh, it’s okay- whatever you want.”
Then I turned to see whose voice it was that spoke to me. When I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was one like the Son of Man, dressed in a robe and with a golden sash wrapped around his chest. The hair of his head was white as wool—white as snow—and his eyes like a fiery flame. His feet were like fine bronze as it is fired in a furnace, and his voice like the sound of cascading waters. He had seven stars in his right hand; a sharp double-edged sword came from his mouth, and his face was shining like the sun at full strength.
When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid. I am the First and the Last, and the Living One. I was dead, but look—I am alive forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and Hades.
He disarmed the rulers and authorities and disgraced them publicly; he triumphed over them in him.
Gun to your head. Gun in the school. However, if I ever discover there aren’t any bullets in the gun”
The enemy has been disarmed!
Yet he can deceive us- fool us into believing there are bullets in the gun
And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but is coming to an end. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man. Then indeed he may plunder his house.
The enemy’s plunder is souls
Jesus is stronger than the strong man.
Weight lifting - Bigger than what is weighing you down
Jesus lifted the weight of all sins for all time at Calvary
“It may be bad, but not that bad”
YOU
Connect with the Risen Christ.
WE
Shift how you relate to Jesus. He will shift the way He relates to you.
Be a conquerer. Do you have the faith in Him that overcomes the world?
They conquered him
by the blood of the Lamb
and by the word of their testimony;
for they did not love their lives
to the point of death.
INSTRUMENT “WITH WHAT”: Identification with Christ (blood of the Lamb)
When they properly identified with Him, they prevailed.
Overcoming is in your reach, not in your hand
Exercise faith to get it in your hand
The cross 2000 years ago is relevant today. (Galatians 2:20)
I am controlled by the cross TODAY. MY CURRENT POINT OF REFERENCE.
“I’m in charge now. I didn’t come to take shots, I came to take over”
INSTRUMENT “WITH WHAT”: Word of their testimony
If you are a secret Christian, you will not overcome what you need to overcome
Don’t be embarrassed to associate with Him
“A person truly believes the things that he/she lives out.” Nothing more.
Obey Him. Keep His commandments boldly!
Baptism is public declaration
The Father is glorified when the Son is the superstar
Isaiah 53
Love one another. Make peace with one another.
STATUS/MEANS: Did not love their lives to the point of death
No fear, Shakespeare.
I die to myself to know You more
I want to fall in love with you more than life itself
No part-time Christians wanting a full-time deliverer
To live is Christ. To die is gain. (no-lose deal. All is Christ.)
If I have to not be liked because of Christ, then that’s the way it is.
If I lose and/or forfeit valuable things to follow and obey, then that’s how it is gonna be.
You know why? He is worth it. He is worthy. He is worth following. He will make all things right and reign forever.
I gotta be patient- but I know that He is the One in charge and one day, He will have it COMPLETELY HIS WAY.
Sovereign, on-fire LORD who rules.