How to Overcome The World
In View of a Call for Associate Pastor Position • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Transcript
I want to begin by asking the parents in the room…
How often this last week, this last month even, did you have to repeat yourself to your child?
Now, if you’re a parent in the room you know that the answer to this question is countless.
Countless times I had to repeat myself this last month…
DON’T DRINK THE BATH WATER!
You can’t eat rocks.
Don’t kick your teacher at school!
COUNTLESS TIMES I had to repeat myself telling our toddler,
eat your food.
Stop your wining!
Countless times I had to tell a certain 8 year old,
clean out your lunch box when you get home!
Pick up your shoes from the living room!
Or the good things we repeat to them,
I love you,
I believe in you,
JESUS loves you,
God created you the way you are for a reason…
Countless times!
and Countless things that we repeat to our children on a daily basis.
I’m sure you all can instantly come up with some from your own lives, things you have had to repeat and repeat. over and over again. It sometimes feels as though we become a broken record. And even get annoyed at the sound of our own voice saying these things.
When you read the book of 1 John. It can almost sound like you’re reading a broken record. Repeating it’s self over and over again about the love of God, repeating the reality that Christians through Christ have overcome the world,or in speaking about Jesus being the Son of God, or the Christ.
Repetition in the book of First John
“Love”: 46 total
“Overcome”: 6
Belief in Jesus as the Son or Christ:22
David Platt when beginning his sermon describes the book of first John as this circular staircase with the center of it being love.
As you walk further up the staircase, you are able to get to see different angles of God and His love that He has provided for us, and the expectations He has for us being equipped with this love.
Read the Scripture as a whole
1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him. 2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. 4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
The Children of God love the Father & Love Those Born of Him (1 John 5:1)
The Children of God love the Father & Love Those Born of Him (1 John 5:1)
To begin our passage, John again goes right to the reality of Jesus being the Christ.
So often John has repeated that either Jesus is the Christ or that Jesus is the Son of God.
Both realities being important within our understanding of Jesus to truly follow Him as Lord and King of our lives.
1 John 5:1 (ESV)
1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father…
John says…“Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ” = FAITH
This would be an important aspect of Christology for John to continue to speak about in his book.
Especially when one considers one of the reasons for writing 1st John in the first place in combatting false And heretical teaching that was spreading Throughout the Christian community.
Evidently, these people left the Johannine churches, only to still try to convince some of a wrong understanding of Jesus. And even went so far as to send missionaries to these churches to continue to try and convert these church members to their way of thought.
Not just any faith… but the right kind of Faith.
Not a faith in this good guy Jesus, the son of a carpenter,
Not this faith in Jesus as this wonderful prophet,
Not just a man, who had been overcome by an outside spirit, and for a time made him the Christ,
Not this faith in the law and and hoping that I can be good enough.
This is right Faith: Belief in Jesus as the Christ, and Son of God.
Which he’ll swing back to here in a moment.
IT IS THROUGH THIS FAITH, THAT WE BECOME CHILDREN OF GOD.
So that means that this person is….
“Born of God” = New Birth
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
THIS IS A SIGN OF SONSHIP.
This wonderful adoption that we get to experience through Jesus!
We were once in rebellion against God, and through Christ, we become Sons and daughters of God.
(the false teachers minimized the seriousness of sin (1:6–10). They claimed that it was possible to have fellowship with God regardless of one’s behavior (1:6).)
This is the paradox of faith that we see from our Sovereign God.
As scripture says, we are saved by grace through faith. And this is not of our own doing,
MEANING WE CANNOT EARN THIS.
There is this element of us having faith, but there is also this element of God the Father through His Holy Spirit in His Sovereignty drawing us toward Him as His children.
Like… God’s Spirit has opened up our hearts at some point to receive this good news!
GOD CHOSE YOU!
IN HIS SOVEREIGNTY, GOD CHOSE YOU AS CHILDREN. (THIS IS LOVE)
I LOVE HOW ONE COMMENTARY PUT THIS…
IT IS SOMETHING INITIATED BY GOD AND EFFECTED THROUGH HIS SPIRIT, AND IT TAKES PLACE IN CONJUNCTION WITH FAITH IN CHRIST.
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
You are a chosen child of God.
———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
So… if you believe that Jesus is the Christ, if you have been born of God through having the right faith then…
These children“Love the Father”
THE FATHER,
BEING THE ONE AND ONLY SOURCE OF TRUE, HOLY, PERFECT LOVE.
1 John 4:9–21 (ESV)
9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another….
V.16 God is love, …
Glory be to God for this!
I love How one pastor puts it…
He says,
“Everything starts with God being love. Supernatural love exists eternally in God! In God’s trinitarian nature, God was loving in Himself before anything was created. God is loving because HE IS LOVE.
He continues…
His love does not grow. It can’t. It’s perfect in the first place. You have no ability to add more love for you from God. He will never love you any more than He does right now.
GOD IS LOVE…
HE IS ETERNALLY THE PROVIDER OF THIS LOVE THAT WE ARE TO CARRY OUT TO HIS CHILDREN.
HERE’S A REALITY OF LIFE: If you truly love me, you will love my children..….
My children…they may be rowdy!
They may be little heathens at times… (you know we thought we had this parenting thing whooped… until our two year old come around. She has come into the world and thrown a wild card into our world as parents!
If you truly love the Father then the love of the children will almost always follow that affection for the father.
Genuine love, this love that IS GOD and that is bestowed upon us from that love being manifested in Christ…
IS WHAT WE USE TO LOVE THE CHILDREN OF GOD.
is not something that is compartmentalized. (We’re horrible at this)
Genuine love is something that spreads like a wildfire.
Mesquite Heat Fire began on May 17th 2022 and burned nearly 11,000 acres in the Big Country.
Much like the wild fire we were apart of forced us out of the normalcy of our lives, so does the genuine supernatural love that flows from God into our lives through Jesus.
It pushes us to love people that which we normally wouldn't.
To seek out the best interest for others when maybe it's not our best interest.
It pushes us to love people, not merely because of any secular account, as they are rich, learned, or kind to us, or of any denomination among religious parties, but because they are God’s Children.
The Love of God is truly an amazing thing when you realize it's power.
We love the Children of God by Loving God & His Word (1 John 5:2-3)
We love the Children of God by Loving God & His Word (1 John 5:2-3)
But, by what way do we know if we are truly loving our brothers and sisters in Christ.
What is another measuring stick by which we can look to see if we are doing this correctly?
John again addresses this issue but from a different angle from which he already did…
Again… looking at love from different angles up the staircase.
2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. 3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.
John here appears to be reversing his approach that he uses elsewhere in the letter.
His usual approach is to say that people’s claims to love God are to be tested by the presence or absence of love for fellow believers.
But here he does the reverse. He states that whether or not people love the children of God can be determined by the presence or absence of love for God and obedience to God’s commands.
John’s thought appears to go in circles.
BUT, As far as he is concerned, the two cannot exist apart from the other.
One cannot love God and keep his commands without loving the children of God,
and one cannot love the children of God without loving God and keeping His commands. ( 1 John 2:7-8; 3:22-24; 4:21).
John declares that love directed toward God and carrying out his commands serves as the basis of the knowledge that one loves the children of God.
Here, one commentator says that
John may be stressing the need for obedient living against those of his congregation who slighted moral conformity to God’s word.
Listen, this goes on in our churches still.
It comes in the form of not being intentional about our lives outside of church life.
It comes from compartmentalizing faith life with Jesus (church fellowship on Sunday’s and Wednesday’s mainly, apart from every other part of their life.
Now allowing the reign of King Jesus to take over, completely and wholly.
Or going back to the old thought of, well, i’m going to sin anyways.
I believe in Jesus.
I believe in Him as Lord and Savior,
But I can’t just not sin while we’re here on this side of glory.
I might as well have some fun!
Paul had something to say about this…
1 What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? 2 By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? 3 Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
Paul continues in Rom. 6:16
16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
Church… Christ died for us to be able to walk in the newness of life!
God has given us His Word so that we may know HIs Son Jesus through History and so that we may know how we can make our Father proud while here on this side of Glory.
I desire to make my Father proud.
To love Him and others through keeping his commands.
1 John 5:3 (CSB)
3b …And his commands are not a burden,
John stating this was a big deal!
A lot of people, the pharisees, tried to love people by obeying the commandments of God. (But they took it too far, and a lot of times it was just a show, or think they could obey the commands of God completely without fault.)
They would invoke this same mindset on the people whom they had been put over to lead spiritually.
This was so burdensome that all this did was weigh down the people with this law that they could not fully obey because of their sinfulness.
The people had no experience at all of joy because of being weighed down by this law.
Jesus chastises them by saying,
4 They tie up heavy loads that are hard to carry and put them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves aren’t willing to lift a finger to move them.
John says, The commandments of God are not a burden.
When we joyfully obey, then we are able to love people.
Piper says
“Joy giving rather than burden loading.”
The writer of Psalm 119 understood this reality.
1 Blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord! 2 Blessed are those who keep his testimonies, who seek him with their whole heart,
We follow God’s commands.
Fall in love with HIs word, because we know that by those commands, the Father is protecting us from the World. And giving us what we need to live in a world that is hostile torward him.
It’s ok to be the Jesus freak in the room. It’s ok to be the bible thumper in the room. It’s ok to be the one that says, I stand on God’s commands.
D.L. Moody often said, “Every Bible should be bound in shoe leather.”
We show our love to God, not by empty words but by willing works.
We are not slaves obeying a master; we are children obeying a Father as we follow this love letter He has provided for us.
By this love, The Children of God Overcome the World (1 John 5:4-5)
By this love, The Children of God Overcome the World (1 John 5:4-5)
4 For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. 5 Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?
The word overcoming comes with it the assumption that there is something to overcome.
Right, you don’t have to overcome something unless something has pinned you down, held you captive, restrained you.
STORY OF BEING HELD DOWN BY MY SISTERS AND COUSIN.
It is a helpless feeling. A feeling that no one in their right mind enjoys. My story is just a silly one to bring about the point.
There have been movements across the world that have gone by the saying,, we will overcome. Because at some point, there have been people, people groups, countries, who have been held under the weight of a dictator, another country, and people group, and made to feel like they could not get up.
Something needed to be overruled that was illegitimate.
This is not just a social construct.
This is not something that happens just within different cultures or politics in different countries.
We see here John end this thought in our passage today with the theme of overcoming.
OVERCOMING WHAT?
In 1 John 2:15-17 John explains it exactly.
15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.
Desires of the Flesh. (The cravings of our sinfulness)
The Desires of the eyes. (The lust of our eyes)
Pride of the flesh. (Cravings activated by what we see. Covetousness, pride in possessions, thinking i’m all that because of what I have.)
This is what the world is.
(There may be some here feeling as though they are held captive right now.
BUT, for God’s People.
“This world order, does not have to have the final say so in your life.”
When our loving of the Father,
is combined with the loving of His children,
that is also combined with the loving of His commandments, His word…
this propels you to overcome the World and all that it tries to hold us captive to.
We claim this same victory that Jesus claimed after His resurrection by faith.
We see why it’s not a burden to love God, Love people by obeying His commands.
We then understand the world exposed as unsatisfying.
THIS IS OVERCOMING THE WORLD.
Nothing in your life that is holding you hostage will have the last say so because Jesus will make you an overcomer.
The question is, will you have the faith?
Notice that John begins and ends with faith.
It is our faith, in conjunction with the Sovereignty of God, that begins this journey.
1. Will you be obedient to the Holy Spirits working in your soul and take that step?
2. Will you claim this victory over the world that is available and will you act on it?
Christians maybe feeling held down right now.
Christians maybe feeling held down right now.
When we place our faith in Jesus, nothing can separate us from the love of God. (Rom. 8:37-39; 1 Cor. 15:57)
Seen this way, this verse is not a matter of discouragement or fear that because we struggle with sin in our lives, we may not be Christians. Rather, it should be a matter of encouragement because in spite of our struggle with sin in our daily lives, the victory is already won.
Our salvation is secure in Jesus.
Non-Christians.
Non-Christians.
To those of you who don’t know Jesus….
Now is the time!
If you have wondered what this perfect, eternal love of the Father is that we’re talking about. Like I said early, it came down to this earth in the form of Jesus God’s Son!
If you have found yourself in the midst of this broken world wondering how to get yourself free. Jesus has provided a way for you to be restored to the Father and given you the Salvation provided by His death and resurrection on the cross.
All you must do, is trust in Him.
The Bible says in Mark 1:15
15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”
9 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
God is right now, calling on your to make that decision for your life.
Repent and believe the good news. Become a part of something greater than yourself in the Kingdom of God and claim victory over this World through God’s Son Jesus Christ.
PRAY