Overcome the World

I have, I have been through a lot of Super Bowl Sundays. And, you know, some of them mean more than others. I guess the ones that are more meaningful might have something to do with the red and gold that I chose to wear and many of you chose to wear red and chief stuff.

But I started thinking what is the Super Bowl is like the culmination of the NFL season. It’s the biggest day of the year. What is our Super Bowl Sunday? What is our Super Bowl Sunday, the Sunday we can look at and say hey, that Sunday without it, the whole season leads up to it and that Sunday is the biggest, most powerful, most exciting Sunday of the year.

Yes, the resurrection of Jesus Christ that we celebrate every year on Easter. And that is our Super Bowl. That is our victory, the day that we claim that we can have victory in Jesus is an amazing thing that we can overcome, that we can do all things through Christ to strengthen us, that we can overcome even death because of how God is so great in us.

So even if I don’t say happy Super Bowl Sunday in a couple of months when we hit Easter, that is our Super Bowl. John, in encouraging the church in this next section, as we move on to chapter 5, he wants to get in their heads to remember because remember false prophets had gone out, false prophets had told them things different than what the apostles had told them, taken away from the power of God’s love, taken away from the importance to love one another. And taken away from the assurance we have of salvation in Jesus Christ.

And there’s a lot of things in life even today that take away from our assurance and we need to be reminded of the same thing that first century church was reminded of to know what God has given us. When we say, hello God, how can I really know it’s you? One of the ways we can know it in other people and in our lives is by what John is saying here. Today’s verses come from 1 John 5. We’re going to look at 1 through 5. Will you stand as you are able for the reading of our scripture? Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God and whoever loves the father loves the child born of God.

By this we know that we love the children of God. When we love God and observe his commandments. For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome.

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is the one who overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the son of God? The word of God inspired by God for the people of God. Thanks be to God, amen.

You may be seated. Now on that day, that warm day back in September in the decade of the 70s my parents brought home a baby and that baby was two weeks old when they brought him home and that is because they were going through a process called adoption. Now adoption is something we have today, something they had in the first century and adoption gives legal rights.

There are legal rights that come out of that. What are some of the legal rights? You can go ahead and throw some things out that come from adoption. The right to what? Nothing.

The what? I mean we got multiple attorneys in the house. I want some legal answers. Ah, that is true.

The inheritance, the legal right of inheritance, you know we have specific laws that say unless something is given to an immediate descendant then there are tax implications and other things that come up that they are sheltered there. The inheritance means that whatever the parents have becomes the child. That is a legal right.

Now one thing in adoption that is not necessarily a legal right is love. Now the parents are not required by law to love. Could that be enforced? Is there a way to enforce that? Boy, this is great.

We have police attorneys. I need to do more on this. You cannot enforce the love.

The love comes because of something the parents just have that is within them for a child even though the child is not of their, they didn’t bear the child. They didn’t, as the Bible would say, begat the child. They have that child and they could love them.

And my brother and I being adopted, we never felt a difference. Of course, we don’t know any difference because I was two weeks old. We still felt loved and that was huge.

Now Holly’s case is a little different because she was adopted but then she had two sisters who were born to her mother and father, her adopted mother and father. So that becomes trickier. How do you weigh how much you love someone who is not of your flesh to someone who is of your flesh? Legal rights are still the same but somehow parents can manage that.

And her parents showed her the same love they showed the other daughters. God does that with us. John wants them to know that right away.

Here in chapter 5 he said, whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. Now believing that Jesus is the Christ, that he is the Messiah, that he is the anointed one, that he is the savior of the world, that he is our life. Believing in him means that we are born of God.

Now some of this ties to another book by a guy named John in John 3 when Nicodemus who was a Pharisee came to Jesus in the middle of the night and they started talking and he wanted to know more from Jesus. And he said, how can we know? And Jesus gave him this answer in John 3 3 that just baffled him. He said, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.

Unless he is born from above is another interpretation you can pull from the Greek words. Unless he is born of the spirit. Now when John says Christ, whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God.

That means we are born from above, that we are adopted into the family of God. Now it’s different than someone who has the DNA of God. What person has the DNA of God? Does anybody know? Jesus.

See, I make these answers easy sometimes. Jesus has God’s DNA and he is this unique son of God that we see in John 3 as well. But in his uniqueness, it says.

Every spirit or whoever loves the father, loves the child of him born of him. Now that’s English. But another way it can be it.

It is directly interpreted is whoever loves the father, loves the begotten of him, the begotten of him. That means the one born of him. That means in a different way that we see adoption, our adoption with the father comes through the begotten son.

That’s one of the reasons we did the Nicene Creed today, because you got to say begotten a few times during the Nicene Creed and see, get it in us that the one who is begotten is direct descendant of the father. And through him, we can be adopted into the family of God. And therefore, the legal rights kick in that we have an inheritance that is not just for those with that DNA like Jesus has, but for those who are adopted.

OK, let’s get this one. What’s one thing we inherit from the kingdom of God? Eternal life. Oh, you guys were right on that.

Eternal life is what we have as part of the kingdom of God. And as John said last week, that we can be confident in that. We can be confident when we stand before the throne of God on who he is, whoever loves the father, loves the begotten of him.

And then it goes on to say, by this, we know that we love the children of God. That when we love God and observe his commandments. Now, this is building again.

By this, we know we love God. What we know. What we know is that when we love God and we obey God, we love the children of God.

Does that make sense? It’s kind of a culmination of what we talked about in John 4. When we love God, we obey God. Now, in the world today, we tend to think that obedience not only is a bad word, but it is separate from love. It reminds us of the law.

So we think, love God. But what would we, why would we obey God? Now, we obey God sometimes out of fear. We obey, why do we obey our parents? Sometimes out of fear.

Sometimes because we don’t want to disappoint them. And eventually, we just obey our parents because we love them. We trust in them.

They know what we have for them. So with our Heavenly Father, we obey God because we love God. So when we love God and we obey God, what is one of the commandments of God? To love one another.

So we love the children of God. When we love God and we obey God, we love the children of God. We.

Our obedience is a part of carrying out to when we serve our family, when we serve our spouse, when we serve someone else in our life, it’s not necessarily because we’re their slave. It’s because we love them and we want to do what’s right. When we serve in the church, it’s not just we don’t do it just because of obligation.

It’s because we want to carry out the purpose of the church. We love God so much that we want to love one another and love our neighbors. And we work through this progression that John has is mentions different things and builds and builds and builds.

So what does obedience have to do with loving our neighbors? Here’s what else we know that with God, it’s often a both. And in in the church today, there’s often a separation of being holy and pious. And, you know, I’m I’m doing the Bible study and I’m praying and I’m doing the spiritual disciplines and then separate with how we serve and we we love others and we do amazing things in our Wesleyan tradition.

It’s not one or the other. It’s a both and and this is it connects what we have known as holiness of heart and life that we are holy in our hearts. That’s our piety.

That’s our closeness to God. But that carries over into every part of our lives that we serve God and we love God by loving one another and loving our neighbors in all of this. And then John says, for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not burdensome.

It’s through the love of God that we can keep his commandments. Now, if we think of his commandments, it’s often said the commandments are to love your neighbor. But with that love, God part, Jesus didn’t just say, hey, to be my follower, all you got to do is good things.

He said some tough things. Be holy as my father is holy. Be perfect as my father is perfect.

How many of you are following that command really well? Knocking it out, working through it. OK, the goal is to get there. That is part of our growth and our discipleship and the holiness of heart and life that we have is that we become holy.

Holy means to be set apart. Sanctification is our growth. Our sanctification is not just to know God better, but by knowing God better and loving God more.

We can’t help but to serve our neighbors. That is when first John just really opened my eyes to what Christianity is about. That it’s that fullness of the commands of loving God and loving our neighbors, that it’s holiness of heart and life and that it all works together.

It’s loving God. It’s obeying God. It’s loving the children of God.

When we love God, it’s not a burden. Now, Saturday around our house is chore day, and if you could see the looks on the faces of those in our home when I say, OK, it’s time to clean the bathrooms, it’s time to pick up your your messes. And it is like I just said, hey, you need to go out and run a marathon.

Take care of that right now. It seems like the hardest thing in the world. But John says, when we love God.

The commandments aren’t burdensome. And sometimes it’s tough to love our neighbors. Sometimes it’s tough to love one another.

Sometimes it’s even tough to love people in our own homes. But that’s part of who we are as followers of Jesus Christ. Oh, I forgot one.

Sometimes it’s tough to love people in our workplace. But when we love God, his commandments aren’t burdensome. We don’t do it because somebody else deserves that love as much as because we want to love God.

And when we do something out of love, it doesn’t matter when I serve Holly. It’s not that it’s burdensome. It’s that it’s just exciting to do something out of love for someone you love, especially with God.

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Now in there, John says, overcome the world twice.

Sometimes a lot of times today people think, OK, how do we grow the church more? To be more like the world, let the sermon be more like a TED talk and let the music be more like the radio and let what we influence fit more into the culture and the world and everything else. And some of that we just have to be careful on because then we are our goal in the church is not to become like the world, but to overcome the world, to see that the world is different from the church and that the church stands out and that the church is supposed to have influence in the world and the church is supposed to make a difference for the kingdom of heaven, not to just go along with the crowd. And John said, this is how we overcome the world.

This big thing. This is how we have the strength of Christ. It is not because we can be stronger in a sense of fight with cruel words or with our fists or with our physical strength, but we fight with the love of God.

We offer the world the love of God. Victory comes with, what was our Super Bowl Sunday again? Easter. Victory comes with the cross.

It comes with the empty tomb. It comes with what Jesus has already done. Mark says it like this.

In Mark 9, he says, and he summoned the crowd with his disciples, Jesus did, and said to them, and anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, that’s blasphemy in the world today to deny yourself. That goes against the world and take up his cross and follow me. In all of that is counter-cultural.

Take up your cross and follow me. And then Jesus goes on to say, for whoever who wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospels will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? Our goal in life to overcome the world is not just to go up the ladder, but it’s to let the kingdom of God come in the world.

Let righteousness and truth reign in our hearts and lives. Let the love of God be poured out from us so the world can see God in us. That’s how we overcome the world.

Colossians 3, 12 through 14 says it like this, so those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, those who are holy and loved by God, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another, forgiving each other. Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.

How do we overcome the world? Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, bearing with one another. Another word for bearing is being patient with one another. Even when you’ve got to wait on them every time you want to go out the door, be patient with one another, forgive one another, and wrap it all in love.

How do you overcome the world? The Bible tells us right here. And then John, if we go earlier in the book of 1 John, he says, do not let love the world or the things of the world. Anyone who loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father but is from the world. We don’t overcome the world by giving into the world. We don’t overcome the world by becoming like everyone else.

We overcome the world with holiness of heart and life, by humility, by gentleness, by love, by compassion, by patience and forgiveness. That is why every week we ask these questions, how is your soul? In our Hope Builders class, we ask that tough question. It’s not the same thing as saying, how are you doing? It’s how’s your soul? How is your connection with God? Or as the class meeting book put it, how is your life in God? Because when Jesus says, be holy as my Father is holy, be perfect as my Father is perfect, love like I have loved you.

We have to have people in our lives that help us get to that point. Now in 1st John 1 it says, whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ, and then in 1st John 5 it says, he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. When we believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that is when we can overcome the world.

There’s a lot to overcome, everybody’s life is a little different. What are the things in your life that you have had to overcome to allow the Kingdom of God to work in your life? We all have temptations, we all have hurts, we all have doubts, we all have things that try to keep us from God, and that is the world sucking us in. But Jesus says, we overcome the world by loving God and loving one another.

We can overcome anything with Christ in us, let’s pray. Almighty God, thank you so much for the love that you give us in Jesus Christ. Thank you that you not only say, I love you, but you say, you can overcome.

You can overcome your sin, you can overcome your past, you can overcome your hurt, you can overcome your pain, you can overcome your doubts and your mistakes, and you can stand back up when you fall, because the love of Jesus that we have in us can help us overcome anything this world has to throw at us. Our prophet and our inheritance is the Kingdom of God, not this world, but the world that is to come through Jesus Christ, amen.