Overcome the World!
How deep the Fathers love for us!
(Stuart Townend)
How deep the Father’s love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
How great the pain of searing loss,
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the chosen One,
Bring many sons to glory
Behold the Man upon a cross,
My sin upon His shoulders
Ashamed I hear my mocking voice,
Call out among the scoffers
It was my sin that left Him there
Until it was accomplished
His dying breath has brought me life
I know that it is finished
I will not boast in anything
No gifts, no power, no wisdom
But I will boast in Jesus Christ
His death and resurrection
Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom
I have gained from the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ! This is my testimony, he is my wisdom, he is my confidence – but why should it be?
Well let’s try and address this question that Andrew contemplates quite often. I have done nothing but respond to what Jesus did in defeating sin and death. But wait there’s more!
Read 1 John 4:19 – 5:5
The Apostle John, this esteemed follower of and teacher about Jesus, this great man of God in his letters has a tendency to repeat himself, have you noticed that as we have gone through this series on his letters he keeps coming back to this point about the love of God. He writes about how God loved us and that we are to respond by loving our brother, one another and those around us who are in need. John points out that we are to love pretty much everyone, Old Uncle Tom Cobbly and all. My apology to the youth here about that reference to Uncle Tom Cobbly it’s an English Folk song that that the older folks here will be familiar with, it is a reference to others. We are to love others. So why was it that John repeated himself?
a) The people of the early church had short term memory problems
b) The people of the early church were plain outright thick
c) The people of the early church came from backgrounds where God’s love was not known
d) The people of the early church were lacking this vital teaching and were getting tied up in all sorts of other thinking that was of no real value
e) The people of the early church had confidence issues about their standing before God
Or
f) A combination of the above
What we have to remember is that all scripture is given by the inspiration of God and that only scriptures constitute the divine rule of Christian faith and practise. The church at the time was struggling with odd beliefs, with some pretty wacky kind of teaching, stuff that had sort of slid under the door, odd theology that wasn’t in line with Jesus teaching and person. John was bringing the church through his letters back to the truth, back to two great commandments. “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’” (Luke 10:27).
1)Why because while people were saying they loved God, they didn’t show in the way they treated others. That sort of “Oh Jesus how I love you, your my best friend but I’m going to argue, fight, get my own way no matter what blah, blah, blah, blah it’s all about me and if I trample over a few others so what!”, sort of stuff. The two great commands were not being carried out, John paraphrased the great command by saying that God has given us the command in verse 21; “Whoever loves God must also love his brother.” (v.s 21b). We ourselves have this commandment paraphrased as our Corps Vision statement “Living for God, serving all people.” Is this a gutsy commitment or is it doing what God requires of us?
2)John goes onto say “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. And everyone who loves the Father loves his child as well.” Well here’s a curly question, one of the joys of being the bloke whose preaching is that you get to ask some curly questions. But then again sometimes they come with even curlier answers.
The question: who is the child of God that John is saying we are to love? In this case it’s the person next to you, that dear old grey headed person, or perhaps not to older grey headed person, that lanky teenager, that wriggly little kid, it’s the dairy owner, it’s the neighbour who wakes you with their lawn mower or by screaming at their kids, it’s the housewife living up the hill who drinks to take away the pain of abuse, it’s the person you pass daily and never talk to, it’s that person new to the situation who looks a bit scarey but who is hiding behind their own fear. Getting down to the nitty gritty, these people are our neighbours. On a world level it’s the country that is a political adversary as much as the one who is our friend, the people with different ethics and religions that we don’t have to agree with to love. Have you thought that it is this love that brings them to God – to an awareness of their place as his children?
We are commanded to love these people. John points this out in chapter five verse two when he says; “This is how we know we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands.” This: Living for God serving all people is not difficult as many of us think. John goes onto say, “This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome, for everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”
3)Now this overcoming ‘the world’ lurk comes up quite often in scripture and we Christians have over the past couple of thousand years come up with some terms for this that mean we have, justification, righteousness, sanctification and so on point to being made right with God with leaving behind our old sinful past and overcoming the world. Now the way I’ve just said it you would think this is about as easy as it gets. But is it? Well we know that in this passage John is pointing out that ‘the person who lives for God and serves all people overcomes the world’ (SBI). Now you might ask me the question “Alright Andrew what about all of those persecuted Christians, who lived for God and ended up tortured or killed for their faith?” Yip thanks for asking that question; why couldn’t you ask me a simple one like “why do bad things happen to good Christian people?” Now before I try to answer both of these questions lets first have a bit of a look at God and overcoming the world.
As we live for God, as you Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; your perspective changes from the physical to the spiritual. When I talk of ‘the spiritual’ I’m not talking about the far out new agey, it’s really weird, trippy, or even the dark chill down your back bump in the night, screams at the movies spiritual, or the misty we’ve got fairies at the bottom of the garden spiritually inferior stuff. But the Spirit of God himself the creator of the universe coming from heaven abiding with us and helping us to live.
When I said before that God is my confidence and wisdom before this is what I meant; He is through His Holy Spirit. There are many things I cannot do on my own but by His Spirit I am enabled, 1 John 3:24 says it this way, “Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.” Another thing about the Holy Spirit; “For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.” (2 Timothy 1:7). What about this from Romans 8:11, “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you(he lives in you?), he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.” In you he lives, in you?
The tortured in Christ, those who died in Christ, the Christian whose life was a struggle and who is now in glory has overcome the world. These people lived for God and served those around them, with the Spirit of God with them they knew they had overcome the world!
4) So I’ve answered those questions, but you may now ask me and I’m not saying you will, this is a for instance ; “But what about the situation I find myself in, I keep worrying about falling back into my old way of life”. “I regularly fall back into my old way of living”. “I’ve got this serious health issue”. “I’ve got financial pressures”, “work pressures”, “study pressures” (by the way how are the school exams going). “I don’t like that person on the other side of the hall”. “I’m tired, worn out, just plain over it”. “I’ve got things going on in my mind that if you knew about them you wouldn’t even want to talk to me.” This from the scriptures“[Be] strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you (whose qualified you are) to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light.”(Colossians 1:11-12). The Father has qualified you, YOU!
As we live for God and serve all people, we nail life. Catherine Booth in her book “Aggressive Christianity” put it this way; “By simple trust we are saved. This is the way every saint on earth was saved. This is the way every saint in glory was saved. This is the way we are kept saved too, by LIVING DAILY, OBEDIENT FAITH. Those last four words were in capital letters she was shouting them, “LIVING DAILY, OBEDIENT FAITH”
If we continue to do it on our own strength often we fail, we remain dead in the water. But in God by faith we have the victory “For everyone born of God overcomes the world”(vs 4a). These bods obey the commands of God, which are summed up in those two great commands, about loving God and your neighbour the people who live in this way have and will overcome the world.
This is Christianity and Christian living in a nut shell Jesus said it when he said “All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” That is why John, Saint John the Divine, this great Apostle, John the former smelly small town fisherman and ordinary bloke kept repeating this stuff, John who knew the numbness of his hands on a cold fish on a frosty morning, John who knew what a spike from a John Dory felt like as in barbed his hand, John who enjoyed a roast, John who knew the pain of seeing loved ones killed for their faith. Because he knew what it was to overcome the world! He said it “Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”
Fisherman to Saint; as he; lived for God and served those around him, John overcame the world. The thing is that he was talking out of experience. He had left his nets and travelled with Jesus learning, seen the dead raised, the sick healed, he was the only disciple present at the crucifixion, he had seen Jesus raised and ascend into heaven, he had received the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. John had travelled taking the gospel to others, been punished for and imprisoned for Jesus, lost his brother James who was the first of the disciples martyred. He continued in his Living for God, serving all people and had overcome the world. Had he done it all in one day? Had he achieved all he did in a year, the gospel he wrote, the letters to the church, the Revelation from Patmos. None of this happened over night. But it did happen.
The act of overcoming the World takes a life time, incrementally overcoming the world, bit by bit, step by step, one battle against the powers and principalities of darkness at a time, victory after victory as that victory belongs to our Captain already. Jesus goes before us, one testing day at work after another, one challenging discussion with that non believing family member at a time, one prayer for the struggling part of Christ’s earthly body at a time, as you live for God and engage in prayer, as you search out His word for answers, as you see the hand of God victoriously working in lives and through others, as you reach out to those in need, to those lost in their own world of sin, to those John Wesley referred to as ‘stupid sinners’ and I’ve counted myself in their number at one time. You - know them, those who know better and do what harms them physically, emotionally and spiritually any way. Their live swill change as you reach out to those who need Jesus you overcome the world as you love them into the Kingdom of God.
This overcoming continues as you take from what’s yours and put it in the hand of the needy, as you engage with the lost, the last and the least. As you allow Jesus to lift you from the mess and set your feet on the rock and as he does this for others through your actions. As you grow in understanding of the scriptures, leaving behind the dross of sin and the stench of a dead life, you overcome the world. For those who live for God and serve all people overcome the world, they have and will continue to overcome the world.
How deep the Father’s love for us,
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure
Your ransom is paid, live as one who is gaining from His reward! An over-comer.
