Power to Overcome the World

Intro

Power to Overcome the World: The Root of Resilient Love (1 John 5:5-12)

Christ has a new life for us which is of a quality which far surpasses the life we have in this world. This new life enables us to live in the resilient love of God because it overcomes in us the part of us which is rooted in sin and death. Christ’s life is transcendent and in Him we rise above all that holds us back from becoming who we were created to be from the beginning.

1 John 5:5–12 NASB 2020

Who is the one who overcomes the world, but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. If we receive the testimony of people, the testimony of God is greater; for the testimony of God is this, that He has testified concerning His Son. The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself; the one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning His Son. And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. The one who has the Son has the life; the one who does not have the Son of God does not have the life.

Big Idea: Christian love is resilient because it is rooted in the character of a God who endures forever; unchanging, unshifting, and eternally stable. If we are to walk in a resilient sort of love, we must keep our eyes on Christ. Is is not the measure of our faith which matters most, but the object of our faith. Even mustard seed sized faith, so long as that faith is in Christ Himself, can move mountains.

So many Christians go on focusing on the quality of their faith or the quantity of their faith, rather than the object of their faith. We are not saved by our lever of faith in our faith. We are saved by faith in Christ and He is always faithful and always enough for us. We must look to Him more than we look to ourselves if we are to persist in the love of God in our lives.

To overcome the world means that we are no longer enslaved to sin and the lifestyle of rebellion we were tethered to under the ways of Adam and Eve. Christ has set us free to live a new kind of life, one marked by love, goodness, truth, and righteousness in Him. In order to get there, our old human nature must be overcome so that Christ can reign in us. That is really the core of what the ministry in Christ is producing in us.

Truth

I. Our faith in Christ is the source of our victory. (5)

1 John 5:5 NASB 2020

Who is the one who overcomes the world, but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

True faith is born of the Spirit and grounded in the Lordship of Christ.

Faith which saves comes supernaturally.

There is a difference between believing that Jesus existed, perhaps even believing He is God in some way, and believing that Christ is not only God but Lord of your heart and life.

1 Corinthians 12:3 NASB 2020

Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus is accursed”; and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

This is to say that no one can proclaim Christ as Lord in earnest unless the Holy Spirit grants them a spiritual gift of faith to do so.

II. God has testified to the truth about Christ. (6-9)

1 John 5:6–9 NASB 2020

This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. If we receive the testimony of people, the testimony of God is greater; for the testimony of God is this, that He has testified concerning His Son.

Through Christ’s life (water)

By His obedience in Baptism

By the miracles

By the authority with which Christ taught

By the cross and resurrection

Through the witness of His death and resurrection.

Through the witness of the Spirit within us

By our inward call to turn from sin and believe the gospel of Christ.

By the Spirit’s presence in us, His daily leading us to follow after Christ.

Through the witness of the church

By the early testimony of the witnesses to His resurrection

By the Scriptures which testify about Christ from first hand witnesses and students of His

By the teachings of the church from the very beginning including the creeds and up until this very day

III. Eternal life comes through the Son alone. (10-12)

Everyone who truly has eternal life in Christ has the internal testimony from the Holy Spirit that the gospel is indeed true.

All who rejects the gospel about Christ which is from the Spirit is guilty of making God out to be a liar.

The ministry of the Spirit in us is to align our heart, mind, will, and acts with the truth of Christ rather than with the lies of the world.

Eternal life is a grace gift from God which is rooted in the perfect life, bloody cross, and empty tomb of Christ.

Apart from Christ there is no true and lasting life at all.

IV. Our confidence in our future is wrapped up in Christ. (12)

Life which will outlast our moral limitations can only be found in Christ.

Whatever we build apart from Christ will fade away, but whatever of us is invested in Christ will outlast this life.

If we have Christ, we can be confident about our future in Him since He is eternal and we are found in Him.

If we do not have Christ, all we have is that which is temporal and perishing.

Gospel Application

Resilient love can only reign in us if we have overcome the world in Christ. The world is naturally in a state of resistance against God, and so it cannot love in a God sort of way. Overcoming the world

If we are to overcome the world, we must...

Remain in fellowship with Christ, nurturing a daily relationship with Him.

Through continuous prayer

Through daily devotional scripture reading

A strong foundation in God’s word helps us to recognize the enemy’s lies which are intended to trip us up.

Learn to listen for the inner witness of the Holy Spirit.

Look towards Christ especially when we are tempted to look away.

Challenge

Our challenge is to join the Holy Spirit in His project to transform us into the image of Jesus. With His help, we work towards living our life now in a way that is consistent with the eternal kind of life which He has in Him self and which He has gifted to us through Christ.

What does it look like for us to reorient our days in order that this might be true of us more consistently?