Overcoming with Confidence
(I John 5:1-11)
1. Two guys are walking through a game park & they come across a lion that has not eaten for days. The lion starts chasing the two men. They run as fast as they can and the one guy starts getting tired and decides to say a prayer, "Please turn this lion into a Christian, Lord." He looks to see if the lion is still chasing and he sees the lion on its knees. Happy to see his prayer answered, he turns around and heads towards the lion. As he comes closer to the lion, he hears the lion praying: "Thank you Lord for the food I am about to receive."
2. The world has little understanding as to what a Christian is. They think it simply refers to someone who is nice, not someone who prioritizes following the Lord Jesus Christ. But not all of us live out this priority. And it shows in our decisions.
When some Christians are given a choice to stand firm with God’s revealed Word or to make a choice based upon worldly or false thinking, they are like a squirrel making a decision, whether to cross the street or not. You don’t know which direction they will head.
3. God calls us to rise above, to be overcomers. Webster defines as overcomer as, “a person who overcomes something : one who succeeds in dealing with or gaining control of some problem or difficulty.”
4. Logically, you would think the best way to avoid surrender to the world is to isolate yourself from it. In John 17:15-18, Jesus' prayer for His followers: "I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world."
5. How do you balance this with Paul’s teaching, “ Do not be deceived: “Bad company ruins good morals.” (I Corinthians 15:15)? We are called to live within the culture, but we should avoid aspects or environments that drag us down. You don’t put yourself in the way of temptation. Sometimes, no choice. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
6. How do we do this balancing act? We must be overcomers.
Main Idea: God want us to take seriously the call to overcome the world because what we believe has been certified by the best witnesses possible.
I. We Are Designed to Be OVERCOMERS (1-5).
The subject of love is fading out in this text. The word for having faith or believing is used 6 times in I John 5, but only three times total in I John 1-4.
A. We have firmly CONFESSED our trust in Jesus Christ (1a, 4-5).
John 16:33, “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
B. We have come to spiritual LIFE (the New Birth) (1b).
1. Difference between being compliant and regenerated; there is a difference between knowing about our beliefs & developing convictions, making those beliefs part of us.
2. Sometimes what we teach is like a foreign film without subtitles, and people just don’t get it, not because of I.Q. issues, but regeneration issues.
C. We are drawn to LOVE fellow believers (2a).
D. We seek to OBEY Jesus’ commandments (2b3).
1. We view keeping His commandments as a means to LOVE God.
John 14:15, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
2. His commandments are not BURDENSOME.
• Argument: loving others, turning the other cheek is burdensome
• God works in us so we want to do His will. Things work for me pleasure for you.
• Some of your friends think you are crazy, giving up time to be in church and volunteering to help the Kingdom of God.
• God’s commands are not tedious, as, for example, rabbinic Judaism.
Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 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. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”
Acts 15:28-29, “For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.”
The world offers us praise, power, pleasure, comfort or reward for making the thinks of the world the treasure for which we seek. God offers us peace, divine joy, purpose, and eternal meaning if we make Him and His kingdom the treasure we purse: Seek ye first…
No man can serve two masters; we must prioritize one above the other!
The time to prepare for overcoming compromise is before you need to.
"The reason why many fail in battle is because they wait until the hour of battle. The reason why others succeed is because they have gained their victory on their knees long before the battle came…Anticipate your battles, fight them on your knees before temptation comes, and you will always have victory." (R.A. Torrey) – Paul Fritz
II. Our Faith is Based upon the Most Trustworthy of WITNESSES (6-12).
• The word for “witness” appears 10 times in 5 verses.
• In Jewish Law, claims had to be validated by 2 or 3 witnesses (Deuteronomy 19:15).
A. External Testimony: THREE that bear witness (6-8)
Ben Witherington believes that the water speaks of birth. Jesus was born the Savior, the Messiah. The blood speaks of His propitiation. The Spirt, who is bearing testimony (present tense) refers to Pentecost and the ongoing ministry of the Spirit within believers.
1. WATER refers to the Father’s confirmation at Jesus’ baptism.
2. BLOOD refers to Jesus propitiation: “It is finished!”
3. SPIRIT began testifying at Jesus baptism and continues to testify.
Matthew 3:16-17, “ And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
B. This Tri-fold testimony is called the testimony of GOD; the heretics denied some of this testimony to their own detriment(9).
C. The testimony within us is the work of the Holy SPIRIT (10).
1. We emphasize the objective aspects of our faith because our emotions can easily deceive us, there is a subjective side, but the subjective is tethered to the objective.
2. Galatians 4:6, “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’”
• Some people are so strict or so self-judgmental that they only focus on their failings, and they cannot hear the Spirit’s voice because their attention is elsewhere.
• The Holy Spirit has led us to faith, He brought us to spiritual life and He has helped us come as far as we have.
• “The Holy Spirit is like the heat that comes from the sun. You cannot always see heat, but you can see the effects of it.” [Daniel Sweet]
D. The simplicity of salvation: the haves and the have NOTS (11-12)
