THE GOSPEL OF VICTORY

Introduction

-Today I finish a brief series on us sharing the best news that there is, which is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

~I mentioned a few weeks ago that the word gospel comes from good news of victory that would be proclaimed in a town square so that the people could join in and rejoice in the victory that their king accomplished for them.

~The gospel of Jesus Christ is just such news. It is a news of victory given to us by King Jesus.

-We all love to hear stories of victory. We want to hear that the good guys won over the bad guys.

~We relish such news in real life, such when the news broke that the Allies beat the Axis in WWII

~But we also like to join in the celebration of fictional victories in the movies and books that we so love. We rejoiced when the Avengers had victory over Thanos, or when the Rebels had victory over the Empire, or when the Fellowship had victory over Sauron.

-But, the most important victory is the victory given through Jesus Christ. By His death and resurrection Jesus beat the devil and death and sin. But that victory is not only for our eternal souls, it is a victory that the Bible says we can enjoy now. According to the text that I am reading today, we can be overcomers now.

~This does not mean that we won’t have hardships or sicknesses or financial difficulties or relationship problems or struggle with sin. It means that the trials and tribulations of life will not ultimately beat us down.

-But not everyone is able to truly rejoice in that victory—only those who have repented and placed their faith in Jesus is able to participate in this victory.

-In the short passage that I’m looking at, John writes that if you have experienced the victory of the gospel, then your life and lifestyle is going to be marked by certain signs.

~You see, if the Best News in the world that can make you an overcomer has brought you into the life of Christ, there will be certain signs of authenticity.

-So, today, I want to consider three signs of authentic gospel work in a believer’s life that demonstrate that they have the power of the gospel at work in them to bring them victory over the world.

-I’m hoping that this will be a time of self-assessment to see if the gospel has truly done a work in your life, or if you are merely religious. And if it has, are you living in the victory that was won for you by Jesus Christ.

1 John 5:1–5 ESV

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?

1) A right belief in the person and doctrine of Christ

-John here speaks about people who have been born of God. That is, people who have repented and believed in Jesus.

-In his gospel, John records that Jesus calls this being born again or being born from above. It is a spiritual birth. He also says in his gospel that this is not being born of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but it is being born of God.

-And John declares in v. 4 that everyone who is born of God overcomes the world. That is, the world is not able to fully destroy a believer, because even if the believer dies, he or she lives forever in the presence of God. There is nothing that the world can do that will ultimately take a believer down or out.

-But John recognizes that only certain people can have this victory, and he writes this epistle so that these true believers know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are one of the overcomers.

-And in these verses, he mentions that a true, overcoming believer is going to have right beliefs about Jesus—about who He is and what He did.

~Being an overcoming believer means that you don’t just have some vague commitment to religion or spirituality, but that you have complete faith and trust in the historical person of Jesus Christ, rightly believing in how He revealed Himself.

-He first mentions in v. 1 that those who have been born of God believe that Jesus is the Christ—that He is the Messiah that was prophesied about throughout the Old Testament.

~This means you fully believe that Jesus is the seed of the woman who would crush the serpent’s head. That He is the seed of Abraham through whom all the world would be blessed. That He is the greater prophet spoken of by Moses who would rightly teach the ways of God. And that He is the Suffering Servant of Isaiah who took upon Himself the sins of all us wandering sheep.

-But He also mentions in v. 5 that you believe that Jesus is the Son of God. That is, you believe that Jesus is fully God as much as He is fully man. You believe that Jesus is the second member of the Trinity.

-As much as so many in the religious community try to tell you that doctrine is not important, according to John it is very important. If you do not believe the right things, you have not been born of God.

~People try to say that we should avoid talking about doctrine because it is divisive. Yes, it’s divisive—it divides between believers and unbelievers.

~Without these right beliefs, you are trusting in the wrong Jesus (you’re trusting in a Jesus that never existed). Only by faith in a biblical Jesus do you have spiritual life.

-I want you to listen, though, at something that reveals where we are at as American Christians:

Ligonier Ministries did their biennial State of Theology survey earlier this year. What they found in this survey is that 52% of American adults believe that Jesus was a great teacher, but he is not God. But it doesn’t stop there. 30% of those that self-identified as evangelical Christians stated that Jesus was a good teacher but not God. (And evangelical Christian is supposedly a Bible-believing Christian.)…

~You cannot be an evangelical Christian without believing that Jesus is God. Those 30% are deceiving themselves. They have a religion or they have a spirituality but it is not saving faith in the gospel.

-And what happens is that when your doctrine is wrong, it will show in your morality as well. You won’t think that abortion is murder (like some crazy pastor proclaimed that you can believe abortion is good and still be a Christian)—it can’t happen. Or you won’t think sex outside of marriage is sin, when it clearly is.

~So, yes, doctrine is important

-When I talk about right doctrine, I’m not saying that as a believer you will have every point of the faith down pat. And there are so many smaller points of doctrine that believers disagree about (like end times and Calvinism etc.). But if you get belief in Jesus wrong, you get it all wrong. You have to believe Jesus rightly.

-But it is not enough to just have right beliefs about Jesus, because those right beliefs lead to a changed life. This includes having:

2) A committed love toward God and the church

-v. 1 continues that everyone born of God loves God, but not only that, everyone who loves God also loves all those who have been born again as well.

~It’s kind of a wordy way of saying it, but John is saying that a mark that the gospel has had its effect on someone is that they love God and love the church==other believers.

-This is the main theme that John has been talking about in this particular part of his epistle—in the previous chapter he reminds us that God is love, and because God loved us, we ought to love others.

~He also reminds us that if we say we love God but hate people (especially hating other believers) we can’t really say we love God. How can you love a God you can’t see when you can’t even love a fellow Christian that you do see?

-John actually uses throughout his epistle this mark of love as evidence of the victorious gospel in your life. In 2:10 he says when you love other Christians it is evidence that you abide in the light. In 3:10 he says that it is evidence you are a child of God. In 3:14 he says that it is evidence of having passed from death to life.

-This is obviously very important for it to be mentioned so many times. Loving God and loving Christians shows that your life has been affected by the gospel of victory.

-But the love that the Bible talks about is not emotion. This is our cultural understanding of love—if someone makes my heart pitter patter and I get sweaty palms and I lose mental focus, it must be love.

~But that’s not biblical love. Biblical love is a commitment to the well-being of another, regardless of how I feel or what emotion I am displaying at the time.

-I know that this is hard to imagine, but my wife doesn’t always have the warm fuzzies toward me. I can make her angry sometimes. But you know how I know she loves me? Because even without the warm fuzzies she’s committed to my well-being. She will always do what’s best for me. You see, that’s love.

-I love God by being committed to Him receiving glory in every area of life.

~I love my fellow Christians by seeing to it that they are well taken care of—that their needs are being met and that they are walking with God and that they are spiritually flourishing.

-Again, you will never love God or love others perfectly in this life. These marks are not here to stress you out because you can’t meet them with perfection. The question is if they are there at all.

~But, if pleasing God and giving glory to God and (as I’ll talk about in a minute) obeying God isn’t even on your radar, then it’s time to do some soul-searching.

~And, if you couldn’t really care less about what happens to others in the church as long as it doesn’t effect you; or if the plight of another Christian doesn’t pull at your heart-string such that it springs you to action on their behalf, then it’s time to do some soul-searching.

-You say: but there are just some people who are hard to love. That’s true, but you know what: you and I are one of those.

~Jesus washed the feet of His betrayer out of love. Jesus asked the Father to forgive the ones nailing His hands and feet to the cross out of love. Jesus died for rebels who would constantly disappoint Him all of their lives out of love.

-The gospel is able to overcome and gain victory over any feelings and emotions you might have that prevent you from loving God or loving others. You put love to work toward others without care of feelings, and eventually the feelings will catch up.

~C.S. Lewis talked about this little secret:

"Do not waste your time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbor—act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less."

-The gospel of victory puts love of God and others in our heart, overcoming our circumstances or feelings that would say otherwise.

3) An obedience that leads to a morally righteous life

-Now, I will say right off the bat that in no way does the Bible say, and I am not advocating, some sort of sinless perfection. At the beginning of this epistle John says that if we deny that we sin then we are deceiving ourselves. And he reminds us that if we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

-Nevertheless, John in his epistle emphasizes something that Jesus emphasized in John’s gospel in that if we say that we love God and we love Jesus, then we will obey His commandments. The gospel of victory gives us the power to obey Jesus, even when we are facing the world.

-Both in this epistle and in the gospel, there is a connection between love and obedience. The gospel allows us to love and the gospel allows us to obey.

~We see in v. 3: For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome.

~Jesus freed us from the burden of the law in order to try to please God by our own efforts. But He also freed us from the power of sin that prevented us from pleasing God at all.

-Obeying Jesus isn’t a burden, it’s a pleasure. Obeying Jesus is an outward expression of the victory the gospel has wrought—it is not some heavy weight on our shoulders. We don’t go around wondering if we’ve done enough, we just live and do and obey and be joyful that Jesus loves us tremendously.

~Jesus calls out to us:

Matthew 11:28–30 (ESV)

28 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

-Jesus’ yoke is a righteous, holy life lived in gratitude for the salvation that He obtained for us. It is us loving God back.

Conclusion

-This is someone living in the victory of the gospel. They will have right beliefs, a committed love, and a righteous obedience. Not perfectly, but at least they are present.

-They say that the Baptist National Anthem is Victory in Jesus. A lot of the song points to future glory, but victory in Jesus is ours on earth as well. The earth does not have to overcome us, but we can overcome it and its powers and its pull on our lives. We don’t have to become conformed to the world, but by the victory of the gospel we can be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

-Christian, do some self-assessment, and if you see these marks in your life, then go out there and overcome the world.

-But if you lack these marks, consider your soul. And if there is anyone that needs to come to faith…