Victory
Year B - 2020-2021 • Sermon • Submitted
0 ratings
· 12 viewsNotes
Transcript
Sermon Tone Analysis
A
D
F
J
S
Emotion
A
C
T
Language
O
C
E
A
E
Social
Today is Mother’s Day and I want to wish all the mom’s a very happy day. For many of us our moms are no longer with us. This is the 13th Mother’s Day without my mom. There are days that I still want to be able to pick up the phone and talk to her.
One of the things about my mom that has always been a source of encouragement to me was her faith in God. She faced a number of challenges in her life but she always kept her faith in God and that God was with her during those hard times. I’m not sure how she navigated those stormy times of life other than by her faith in God.
The first event in her life that really challenged her faith was when my one sister was diagnosed with cancer as a 9 year old. They struggled through the very rudimentary treatments in the late 1950’s for that disease but it spread and in January of the year that I was born she died. Through that time she kept her faith.
When I was about 2 as best as I can place it my mom developed some female issues and nearly bled to death. The doctors weren’t sure that she was going to survive and recover. It was during this time that my dad received Christ as his Savior. Things were serious enough that extended family members were working to figure out how to farm out us kids if she did die because with seven kids my dad couldn’t handle that on his own.
My mom was in the hospital in New York for surgery when our Matthew was born. We nearly lost her on the operating table because of an allergy to one of the medications they gave her. It was really touch and go for several weeks after until she recovered. She talked about that time later and told me that she had such a peace that God was with her during that awful time.
When she was diagnosed with cancer in 2003 she faced it as she had every other past crisis with a determination and faith that God would be with her. Amazingly she had good health up until the day she got up one day and was standing in her living room drinking a cup of coffee and talking to my sister and then God called her name and she was gone.
Throughout her life her faith in God sustained her. Her faith was in spite of the circumstances and situations that she faced. It is easy to claim to have faith in God when things are going good in our life. It is an entirely different thing to have faith when life is challenging us. The type of faith during those challenging times is a truly victorious faith.
John in our Scripture text this morning writes
And this is the victory that has defeated the world: our faith.
I don’t know about you, but I want that kind of faith that John wrote about, a victorious faith that overcomes the world. It is easy to talk about that kind of faith, but the hard part is how do we obtain that kind of faith?
God in His Word helps us by giving us a definition of what faith is. The writer of the Hebrews wrote
1 Faith is the reality of what we hope for, the proof of what we don’t see.
That chapter of Hebrews is known as the faith chapter because the writer goes on and mentions a large number of Old Testament figures and how they had faith in God.
In the Passion translation it puts it this way:
1 Now faith brings our hopes into reality and becomes the foundation needed to acquire the things we long for. It is all the evidence required to prove what is still unseen.
I like that, there is a great point for us that faith is “the foundation needed to acquire the things we long for.” Faith is the foundation.
For many years in my Christian journey I struggled with consecrating my entire life to God. My head told me I needed to do that. Intellectually I knew that if I wanted the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit to happen in my life that I needed to take that step. In my heart I wanted to take that step but something always held me back. Things finally came to a head when I was filling out my application to renew my District License and there is a question on the application that asks if you are entirely sanctified. In the past I just checked the yes box and went on.
I couldn’t check the yes box that year. I felt so troubled within by the Holy Spirit that I checked to no box and sent my application to the Board of Ministry. I went to meet the Board of Ministry knowing that they would not renew my license. The ministers I met with questioned me if I had marked the correct box and I told that I had indeed checked the correct one. They questioned me some and told me that they couldn’t recommend me to have my license renewed.
One of the ministers took me aside after the meeting and he confronted me and told me that my problem was that I didn’t have enough faith that God could and would do in me what He desired through the work of the Holy Spirit. I was more than a little offended when I left that lecture from him but I knew deep down that what he said was true.
What I discovered was that faith really wasn’t about me. It really was about God working in me and me getting out of the way so that He could do what He wanted to do. Read down through Hebrews chapter 11 and you see individual after individual who simply said yes to God and then got out of the way to allow God to work through them.
In the middle of that great chapter the writer says:
13 These heroes all died still clinging to their faith, not even receiving all that had been promised them. But they saw beyond the horizon the fulfillment of their promises and gladly embraced it from afar. They all lived their lives on earth as those who belonged to another realm. 14 For clearly, those who live this way are longing for the appearing of a heavenly city. 15 And if their hearts were still remembering what they left behind, they would have found an opportunity to go back. 16 But they couldn’t turn back for their hearts were fixed on what was far greater, that is, the heavenly realm! So because of this God is not ashamed in any way to be called their God, for he has prepared a heavenly city for them.
The faith that they had was in something that went beyond their lifetimes. He wrote that “all died still clinging to their faith.”
It seems in our culture we want instant satisfaction. If we ask God for something we want an instant answer. The writer to the Hebrews reminds us that those he wrote about did not receive instant satisfaction, even up until their death they were looking to the future for the fulfillment of God’s promise.
God’s promise has been fulfilled through Jesus Christ. We live on this side of the cross and celebrate the fact that God through Jesus came to us. It is because of Jesus that we can have this faith and live in that faith on a daily basis.
John in our scripture text writes:
1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born from God. Whoever loves someone who is a parent loves the child born to the parent.
That is for us the beginning of our walk with God. Our relationship with God begins with the belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God.
John reminds us of Jesus words when He was questioned about what the greatest commandment was. The religious leaders were trying to trap him. Jesus told them that the greatest commandment was to Love God with our entire being. The second greatest commandment is to love our neighbor as ourselves.
2 This is how we know that we love the children of God: when we love God and keep God’s commandments.
John is telling us in that verse that our love for God is intertwined with our love for our fellow Christians. It’s easy to love God or to say that we love God but the proof of that love is in how we love “the children of God.”
It is out of that love for God that we carry out His commands. John is talking about our obedience to God. It’s more than just a legal or moral obligation, it’s a love obligation that we want to be obedient to God.
We can be like a child who is told to do something like clean their room. After a lot of back and forth with them putting up all sorts of excuses the parent finally gives them an ultimatum and the child stomps off saying “I’ll do it but I’m not happy.” We can act just like that with God. We serve Him grudgingly out of sense of moral or legal obligation but we are not happy about doing it.
Going back to the Hebrews we read at the end of that great chapter of faith these words:
39 All these people didn’t receive what was promised, though they were given approval for their faith.
These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.
They didn’t have that childish grudge obedience to God. They put their faith in God even though they had to work through some issues with that faith. They put their faith in God and even though they didn’t get to receive what God has promised they served Him in obedience.
We can be like that child who reluctantly obeys or we can out of love serve God in obedience. That doesn’t mean that we won’t have questions about what He’s asking us. Yet we serve Him out of love for what He has done for us.
John goes on and writes in verses 3 and 4:
3 This is the love of God: we keep God’s commandments. God’s commandments are not difficult, 4 because everyone who is born from God defeats the world. And this is the victory that has defeated the world: our faith.
Many people think that to be a Christian simply means that all they have to do is believe in Jesus. As I said that is the starting point, that is where we begin. John says that is when we are born of God. It doesn’t stop there, we don’t just get born and stop there.
What would happen to a baby if after birth we declared them to be an adult and fully responsible for themselves and their own care. They wouldn’t survive. They have to be fed and cared for until they can begin to do things for themselves. The same is true in the Christian life. A new Christian needs to be cared for, to be taught, to be fed, to be discipled so that they can grow in their faith and relationship with God. That growth occurs as they become obedient to God and carry out His commands.
You might be thinking, what commands. Start with the 10 Commandments. They weren’t 10 suggestions of God. They put the framework around our relationship with God and others. You might say that they are the frame around the loving God and loving others.
John tells us that God’s commands aren’t burdensome. That word talks about the weight of God’s commands. It can be translated as fierce or crushing. God’s commands are not crushing. One writer had this to say about John’s words, he wrote:
The will of God for our lives is not a crushing weight. God does not build His greatness upon our smallness; He is in no sense threatened by our joys and our fulfillment. God’s will is challenging because it goes crossgrain to the expectations of our age and generation. But God’s will is not burdensome, because our lives thrive in the way of His Righteousness, whereas they are stunted and confused in the way of unrighteousness. Adultery, fraud, selfishness, murder, gossip, fear—these are not the attributes that build up a human personality and encourage human relationships or social justice.[1]
In our culture it is all about me, myself and I. When we make it all about us, life is burdensome because we’re always trying to please ourselves. When we give up and yield our lives to God it becomes all about loving Him and being obedient to Him and we do that out of love. As John says they “are not burdensome.”
Before I fully placed my faith in God I was weighed down with trying to please God based on what I did or didn’t do. It was an impossible task because I learned that I never could please God with all of my trying. It wasn’t until I finally yielded to God that I realized that as I obeyed Him out of love that life became so much easier. All the things that I feared would happen if I yielded my life to God were unfounded. His commands were not burdensome.
John says “for everyone born of God overcomes the world.” That is an exciting thing. When we are born of God we overcome the world. Not because of us, but he is pointing us back to Jesus. It is because of Jesus and what He has done for us.
I think that John had the words of Jesus in his mind when he wrote that. John recorded the words of Jesus in his Gospel. He wrote:
33 And everything I’ve taught you is so that the peace which is in me will be in you and will give you great confidence as you rest in me. For in this unbelieving world you will experience trouble and sorrows, but you must be courageous, for I have conquered the world!”
I believe what Jesus is inferring in those words is that because He has overcome the world that we can as well. That word overcome is the same word that Jesus used when he was questioning the disciples about who people were saying that Jesus was. Jesus asked Peter who he thought Jesus was and Peter gave that great statement of faith when he said that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. Jesus said in response:
18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.
When John tells us that “everyone born of God overcomes the world” he is talking about us, the Church. The same Church that Jesus spoke about. We overcome the world because of Jesus. Jesus guaranteed it for us.
John in the previous chapter wrote:
4 You are from God, little children, and you have defeated these people because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.
You can’t do it on your own. You won’t live a victorious Christian life by just trying harder. It’s only going to happen when you yield your life to God.
Faith’s initial act of trust ushers us into a new world in which we love God and demonstrate that love by obedience. The presence of eternal life now means that we will be able to overcome problems that trouble us. We will be strengthened by the eternal life that has taken root within our personalities. The things that are impossible for us today will become possible tomorrow.[2]
Did you catch that? The things that are impossible for us today will become possible tomorrow. That is only true because of the Holy Spirit at work within you and I.
John wrote:
4 You see, every child of God overcomes the world, for our faith is the victorious power that triumphs over the world. 5 So who are the world conquerors, defeating its power? Those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
Not only do we overcome the world but there is victory. The Apostle Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians:
54 And when the rotting body has been clothed in what can’t decay, and the dying body has been clothed in what can’t die, then this statement in scripture will happen: Death has been swallowed up by a victory. 55 Where is your victory, Death? Where is your sting, Death? 56 Death’s sting is sin, and the power of sin is the Law.) 57 Thanks be to God, who gives us this victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!
Our victory is through Jesus.
Do you have that faith, that victorious faith today? You can have it, yield your life to God. Step out of the way and let the Holy Spirit sanctify you completely and fill you completely with His presence. You can have a victorious faith, today!
[1] Palmer, Earl F., and Lloyd J. Ogilvie. 1, 2 & 3 John / Revelation. Vol. 35. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Inc, 1982. Print. The Preacher’s Commentary Series.
[2]Richards, Larry, and Lawrence O. Richards. The Teacher’s Commentary. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1987. Print.