“Victory Through Faith”
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The story is told of Asa, the son of Abijah, and king of Judah, who ruled over the land in peace for 10 years. He was one who did what was pleasing to the eyes of the Lord. He removed the pagan altars and urged the people to follow hard after the Lord and to do what He commands. He spent the time of peace fortifying the towns in Judah. He also spent the time building a grand army of 300,000 men with spears and large shields and had an army of 280,000 men with small shields and bows from the tribe of Benjamin. The Bible said that they were all well trained fighting men.
One day there was an Ethiopian named Zerah attacked Judah with 1,000,000 men with 300 chariots. Let me say that again… 1,000,000 men and 300 chariots that could just run over soldiers. Unfair. Overmatched. In our eyes yes. But Asa went to the Lord...
Then Asa cried out to the Lord his God, “O Lord, no one but you can help the powerless against the mighty! Help us, O Lord our God, for we trust in you alone. It is in your name that we have come against this vast horde. O Lord, you are our God; do not let mere men prevail against you!”
So the Lord defeated the Ethiopians...
Today… there is a lot happening to us on a day to day basis. What is it that keeps us failing to do what we are supposed to do. Do we find that sometimes the laws and commands of God are getting in the way of our fun and what it is that we want to do. We find that we become more and more addicted to things that do not glorify the Lord. We find that we enjoy life in the world more than life with the Lord? This is a battle that we fight on a daily and constant basis. Our purpose is to glorify God and enjoy Him… do we and are we? It is the seduction and attraction of the world that causes to do what we should not be doing, thinking what we should not be thinking, watching what we know we should not be watching, but think we are Ok when we are not. Listening to what we know we should not be listening to and think that we are Ok when we are not.
We have a battle with the world and lots of things and in many ways come against us and we feel powerless to get away from it. Some of us find ourselves addicted to things in life and just cant break away from. Addicted to mind altering chemicals, merchandising, our jobs, relationships, video games, social media, and whatever. Now some of these are not back in it of themselves, but if they are keeping us from bringing glory to the Lord and enjoying Him and His Word then we got a situation. Where is trust today?
We did have a very intense and heated election year and lots and lots going on, but what we should remember is that politics, like other behavior sciences, are very descriptive and revealing of what is deep inside of us. These things display what is in our hearts. How many of God’s commands and principles are we gonna break or even have broken due to the results of the election. What have we said, what have we done? Is the world winning? What is being revealed in our hearts… the evil we find in the world is not because of a political party, it is because men loved the darkness instead of the light. We have a battle before us. Asa went to the Lord. In Asa’s situation he could only go to the Lord. Asa trusted in the Lord. And when we are face to face with an unbeatable enemy, like the world, we can also trust the Lord and He will be glorified.
For every child of God defeats this evil world, and we achieve this victory through our faith. And who can win this battle against the world? Only those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever.
The Evil World
Our Faith
The first thing we will explore today is our enemy the world what it is and why it is evil. Second, we will look at the one thing needed to overcome and defeat the world…that is our faith.
Thesis: Though sin and the pattern of this world exerts it power over us to despair, it is the power of the Spirit and the truth of scripture that will cause us in faith to overcome and to always overcome the evil world by those who believe.
I. The Evil World
- Everything and anything that keeps us from glorifying and enjoying the Lord.
A. Who is it that we are in conflict with? John calls it “the world”.
Dr. Martin Lloyd Jones - “You cannot read the NT truly without seeing the whole pf the Christian life as a life of conflict; we are in an atmosphere and in a world where there is a great fight going on.”
B. The world is against the Lord and the Lord is against the world. There is a real conflict with the world.
You adulterers! Don’t you realize that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of God? I say it again: If you want to be a friend of the world, you make yourself an enemy of God.
C. With a scripture so clear and serious it is clear that we should makes sure we got an understanding about what it means when we say the world. Some of you might be thinking wait… how can God be against the world when He loved it and sent His Son to die for it. Yes… so you see the word world is bing used in a different sense. So what does John mean?
Robert Candlish - “It is whatever system or way of life, whatever society or companionship of men, tends to make us feel God’s Commandments, or any of them, to be grievous.
D. We are called to be a people or even creatures who are to worship God and to glorify God. We are to rest in him to enjoy Him and His Words. I love the way the Westminster confession shorter catechism begins with the question… what is the chief end of man. Answer… to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. The world is everything and anything and I mean everything and anything that keeps us from doing that.
E. Sadly, we tend to only thing that the world is all the fun entertaining stuff, political stuff, recreational stuff, media stuff. We think just because we don’t watch rated-R movies, listen to secular music, or smoke weed that we have defeated the world. Hear me when I say this… you could be just as much ruled by the world sitting in the house of God as you are sitting at the bar in a night club. Again, it is anything that keeps us from glorifying God and enjoying Him.
F. But before we get into some particulars… We gotta know this enemy and we cannot underestimate this enemy. Underestimating the enemy, especially this one, can be very costly.
G. Did you know? When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Lincoln’s Secretary of State, William Seward, predicted the war would be over in ninety days. Young men by the thousands came forward to volunteer to whip the South. Four long years later, half a million lives had been lost. The North underestimated the strength of the South. Christians should never overestimate the power of the World, but we should not underestimate its power either.
H. The World is a crafty one. It is a strong one. It is a deceiving one. It is like the 1,000,000 soldiers the Asa faced. I see it constantly. Many are trying to find their hope and significance in many things other than God. This is what the world offers. It offers you temporary bliss with thing like drugs and alcohol and even things like merchandise and sensual and even non sensual experiences. The reality is… that it does give you that moment of satisfaction. And because it does, we tend to put our trust in these things instead of our Lord. This continues to keep people from glorifying Him.
I. The world is trying to get us to put our hope in people, in celebrities, in the wealthy, in politicians, in systems of worldly human ingenuity, in atheistic philosophical ideologies, in the reenactment of failed systems, in the entertainment industry keeping us entertained so that we can escape and don’t have to deal with real life issues, in social media who by the way is being shown by many in the industry that they want to gain control over our lives, many have already told me how incredibly addicting it is and cannot get away from it.
J. Everything and anything that keeps us from glorifying and enjoying Him. This is the battle with the world. And let’s not lie to ourselves, this is a powerful enemy. And it is not just affecting those in the world, it is starting to affect the church today. The world is trying to befriend us so that we trust in it and not in God, but this is giving to the world that which belongs to the Lord.
Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world.
K. The world attacks the church in 2 ways. We have seen this throughout all of church history. The world tries to destroy the church either by annihilation or assimilation. We seen the annihilation piece when nations tried to persecute and kill Christians. They were threatened with death, the suffering and death of wives and children. Tortured in unspeakable ways. Loss of positions and possessions. Prison… it happens today with ridicule. People making fun of Christians for what we are and what we believe. In our professional office parties, universities, in schools and even in the home we are made out to be stupid and unintellectual. The ridicule causes us to go into isolation and our faith slowly drifts away… annihilated.
L. But moreso today the world tries to destroy the church by assimilation. If the world can make the church like the world, then we cease to be the church and assimilated into the world and therefore we become the world…assimilated. When the church starts to look the world. When the church begins to act like the world. We talk like the world talks. We do what the world does. We value what the world values. We trust what the world trusts. We hope in what the world hopes in. We know when we are starting to slip and it is happening today. Why... because here is the biggy… We start to believe what the world believes. Now our behavior will be worldly.
Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
“You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless.
M. Ok Shane you said I as a Christian would overcome the world can you tell me how?
II. Our Faith
- Victory for those who believe.
A. Now one of the ways we see historically and still in many ways today we fought our battle by running away from the world. It is technically called, “monasticism” it was a method of overcoming the world by escaping the world. They remained in caves, did not partake in anything the world had to offer. They abstained from all things, even flogged themselves, but a couple of problems with the abstaining and escaping the world.
B. This is not a method that many of us could do. We got bills to pay. We cant hang out in a room all day and not go to work. The second reason is where we will start to close.
C. It is said about boys from Hawaii… you can take the boy out of the island, but you cant take the island out of the boy. The problem is when we try to escape out the world, we find that there is just too much world still in us. Sin is a reality. Sin is real. And more important to know. Sin has eternal consequences. Not only does the world want to deceive us. Seduce us. But also take us with it when it goes down. The wages of sin is death. It is eternal darkness… eternal torment… eternal fire. We are talking about hell. The world is gonna take us there.
D. How can we defeat this enemy and this consequence… faith. Our trust in our Lord Jesus. Our trust in God the way Asa did. We will overcome hell death and the grave because of the salvation that comes from the Lord.
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,
They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, along with everyone in your household.”
E. The realty of overcoming the world is that we will be saved by the power of the Spirit and the grace of the Son and the sacrifice of the King of kings. We ask the Lord to be saved and trust in Him and trust in His Word.
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.
F. We we believe we will become children of God and it is the children of God who will overcome the World. Those who believe in the Lord Jesus will overcome the world. Fix your eyes upon Jesus the author and finisher...
G. He who began a good work in you will be faithful to bring it to completion…
H. In Christ no weapon form against us will prosper and those who rise against us will fall. Trust in the Lord today… lean not on your own understanding...