Victory that Overcomes the World | 1 John 5:1-5 | Walking in the Light
Everyone who is born of God overcomes the world. This week's message in the "Walking in the Light" series looks at 1 John 5:1-5, where John draws a tight line from faith to love to obedience to victory. Genuine faith in Jesus produces love for the family of God. That love proves itself not in warm feelings but in obedience, and obedience isn't a burden for those who have been made new. The passage closes with the confident declaration that the outcome for those born of God was never in question, the victory has already been won through faith in Jesus, the Son of God.
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Thank you for joining us for this week's sermon from First Reformed Church in Edgerton, Minnesota. Each week we dig into God's Word, trusting that the Holy Spirit will continue the good work of sanctification in us.
There's a reality about small-town football that most of us have experienced firsthand. There are 8 games on the schedule, but you can look at that schedule and you can easily identify which games are going to actually be games. Because there are multiple situations that factor into how we look at that schedule. Some towns that you play, they've just never been good at football since, you know, forever. They came off the ark, they were bad at football, right? Others maybe used to be pretty good, but now their enrollment has dropped. And there are very few players on the sidelines, and as you watch them warm up, you are able to clearly establish that most of those kids are not juniors and seniors in high school. They're 8th and 9th graders, and you know how that plays out. Well, you can look at that schedule, and there's times where you can put an automatic "W" in your mind as you read down the football schedule for the fall. The games still have to be played. And these games, let's be brutally honest, they are painful to watch. And for the team that is getting badly beaten, it is even more painful.
It's more than the emotional pain that you have watching it. They experience physical pain as well, most likely. Now these games aren't so bad to watch at the beginning. Beginning of the season because the weather is warm. But as fall creeps in and creates Friday nights that chill you to the core— and these Friday nights also increase hot chocolate sales at the concession stand— as the season goes on, those games become even harder to watch. You know the story. By the middle of the second quarter, there can be a number above 40 on one side of the scoreboard and a zero on the other. And the conversation becomes, wait, have they even had a first down yet? Then players who normally never touch the ball get their number called, and the amount of rushing yards and the touchdown they score becomes legends they will tell their grandchildren. After halftime, the third string—freshmen and 8th graders—get in, and the score is still increasing. And at some point, the most asked question on the sidelines is, "Now, when does the running clock rule kick in again?" Now, sure, the outcome of the game is not officially decided until the horn sounds at the end of the fourth quarter, but we knew what the result was going to be when on the first play, the linemen opened a hole you could literally drive a truck through, and the running back ran 75 yards without being touched.
Now, that's not just true on a football field on a cool Friday night in October. In our passage this morning, John says that everyone who is born of God has overcome. While we are not immediately transported to heaven when we come to true faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, our destination, the outcome, is secure. We don't know how life is going to play out. But the outcome of our faith is certain. Well, we're going to make our way through these 5 verses this morning, and as we progress through them, we're going to see that faith births love. Then we will observe that love proves itself in obedience. And then finally, we're going to get to what I was just talking about, that John assures us that faith in Christ overcomes the world. The outcome of our faith is secure. So as we land in the opening few verses of chapter 5, we see language that sounds familiar to what we've been seeing in our time in 1 John this summer. Now, this is a basic statement that is very straightforward, easy to understand, and John keeps coming back to this idea, doesn't he? To be born of God, you have to have a particular understanding of who Jesus is.
You have to believe that Jesus is the Christ. He is the Anointed One of God who has been promised since the fall. The One who will come and rescue the people of God. Christ Literally means anointed one. It's not a word that you will find in a thesaurus as a synonym for teacher, guru, or sage. Christ has a particular meaning, and it can only be understood in the context of the promises and covenants of the Old Testament. When John says that everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, he isn't saying that those who agree that the teaching of Jesus is pretty good are born of God. To believe that Jesus is the Christ isn't to think that He was just this really good guy with some wonderful ideas who the religious leaders and Roman officials cut down in His prime because He was garnering a lot of followers. To believe that Jesus is the Christ is to believe that He is the fulfillment of what the Old Testament prophecies and types and shadows pointed to. And we've already seen that John also says that this requires that you understand that Jesus did all of this in real human flesh.
John and the other apostles didn't claim that a spiritual apparition just appeared to fulfill these things. Go back to the beginning of 1 John. He says they saw, they heard, they touched. So when we hear and believe these truths and trust in them by faith, John tells us that we have been born of God. That's an essential idea to what John is pressing into here, that when this happens, it's something new. And to go back to John's Gospel, it's an essential part of being born again. The old man, dead in trespasses and sins, is put to death, and we are then born of God. It's not something that we do. It's a work of God. The Holy Spirit quickens faith in our hearts to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, and we are born of God. It's a powerful image to help us understand that it isn't a work that we do. Just as we had no say whatsoever in whether or not we were born, God does the work to bring us to faith and we are born of Him. And this is more than just about changing our future destination from hell to heaven.
Being born of God does more than save us from eternal damnation because Jesus has turned aside the wrath of God for us. When we believe that Jesus is the Christ, we love the Father for making us His children. But we see that it also causes us to love others who have been born of God. And this has been a big emphasis in the book of John. He wants us to be sure that we understand that we can't love God and not love others who have been born of God. If God saved me from His wrath by grace through faith, how can I not also love others that he is brought to saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Over and over, John is making this point. So it must be pretty important. Faith births love. And more than just love for the God who saved us despite the fact that we were His enemies, when we are born of God, it also grows a love in us for all of those who have been born of God. And before we move on to verse 2 and our second point for this morning, I want to challenge us on this point of loving one another once again.
It's been an application many times as we've been walking through 1 John, and that emphasis should cause us to persistently ask ourselves a question: Is the knowledge of God's grace shown to me in Christ, causing me to love God and to love my fellow believers. As I said, we've hit this pretty hard in previous weeks, so I'm not gonna camp out on this point. But John's persistence on this idea should be helping us remember how essential this is. And it should be reminding us that loving one another isn't just something that super spiritual Christians do to earn extra credit. It's an assignment from God that He gives to us and He expects us to do. It is what happens in the life of someone who has been born of God. And as we consider that, we might be asking a question: How do we know if we love God's people? Because love is a word that we use rather loosely in our culture. I've mentioned this before. We love our spouse, our family, and we love God, but we also use that same word to tell people our deep affection for tacos and ice cream.
So what kind of love is John driving at here? Is he just telling us we need to have warm feelings for other believers? What does loving one another look like in practice? Well, John doesn't leave us guessing. He presents us with a test. And it's actually probably not what you would expect. He tells us that we love the children of God not when we're nice to each other, but when we love God and obey His commandments. You'd think that John would say that you know that you love the children of God when you have good feelings for that person in the church that really aggravates you, or when you bring a meal to that person you don't like very much after they have surgery. You do something like that. You'd think that would be the kind of test that this would be. Well, what he says here almost sounds backwards to us. How is it— how is this a test for how I love the people of God when it's about my love for God and doing what he commands? Well, what's going on here? Well, What do the commandments of God show us? Think on the Ten Commandments.
The first table tells us how to love God, and the second table tells us how to love our neighbor, right? And as we look at this and think about this, I want us to be certain that we understand that this isn't just a second table of the law thing. I am loving my sisters and brothers by having no other gods before me. When I keep the first commandment, I am not presenting them with some other options of a false god that they can be led astray. I love by keeping the second commandment because I'm not putting an image as a stumbling block before my sisters and brothers in Christ. When I keep the third commandment, I make sure to speak correctly about God and not speak false doctrine that can lead people astray. When I remember the Sabbath and I keep it holy, I encourage— and others in the fellowship of faith to do the same. If I love God by keeping the first table, I'm loving my neighbor. And the second table is super straightforward, but I'm still going to run through it. If I keep the fifth commandment and show respect for those in positions of authority, I'm obviously loving them.
If I refrain from the anger and hatred forbidden by the sixth commandment, I'm obviously showing love. For those in the fellowship of faith. If we're faithful in marriage and refraining from lust, we're exhibiting love. If we don't steal or bear false witness, we're once again exhibiting love for the people of God. And if we are content with God's sovereign gifts to us and refrain from coveting what our fellow believers have, we are not only content within ourselves, but we are not going to resent the children of God who have more than us. And that's just a quick overview, but it shows us how this plays out. So much more could be said, but the ramifications of this thinking are pretty deep, and we might end up dwelling too much on all the ways that we might mess this up or miss some important detail. But John makes it clear to us that this isn't about keeping close track, having a checklist, and doing everything just so. On how we relate to each other. Because he says something here. He says this isn't a burden. That's because it's a natural outflow of who we are as those who have been born of God.
God does not leave us to our own devices when he brings us to faith. He gives us the gift of the Holy Spirit to work in us through the word. When we are born of God, he works in us to give us a desire to love and please him. Notice that John doesn't say that this is going to be easy. He says it isn't a burden, and there is a difference. As those who are born of God, we should desire to conform our lives to God's law, and as we do that, we will also find that we are loving other children of God. And before we move on to the final verses of our passage today, it's important that we consider the application of where John has been directing us in these verses. As we've journeyed through 1 John and we've seen the continual commands to love one another, it's easy to be convicted of the grudges or negative feelings we might have towards other believers. It is a good and holy thing to change our disposition toward people we struggle to love. But it's hard. It is not easy. Changing how you feel towards someone is slow work.
And it probably will not happen through sheer effort. So don't start with sheer effort. Start by desiring to keep God's commands towards that person with an eye to how obedience is itself an act of love. If you're desiring to keep God's commandments, from that will flow the love that we are called to have for one another. And we've seen that John says these commandments aren't a burden. But let's be honest with ourselves about that for a second. Loving people especially the ones who aggravate us, and obeying God even when it costs us something is hard. It's hard. It can feel like a fight some days. John says it's not a burden. But if it's not a burden, why is it so hard sometimes? Well, John has an answer for us as we consider this, and it's the reason The whole passage holds together here. The reason obedience isn't ultimately a burden is because the outcome of the fight isn't in question. John wants us to understand that everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. When we struggle with sin, when we fail to love other children of God, it probably doesn't feel like you've overcome anything, much less the world.
It probably feels like you have succumbed to the world instead of overcoming it. But John doesn't put a condition on it. He doesn't say some of those who have been born of God overcome the world. He says that everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. Well, why can he say this so boldly? Is it because He is going to disqualify you as being born of God because you struggle and fail? Is that why He says everyone who's been born of God overcomes the world? Because when you fail, you're taken off the list, and so all the overcomers are over here and all those who fail are over here? Is that what He's saying? No! It's not about you. It's about Jesus. He is the one who has overcome. You have been united to Jesus by faith. And your confidence isn't in yourself, it's in Him. And we struggle with this for so many reasons. But what a blessing that overcoming the world doesn't depend on our feelings or on your experience of faith. It's the faith in Christ that matters. You know, in our time, you will often hear the phrase, "You just need to have faith." But what we are to have faith in isn't defined.
People say that all the time, but it isn't defined. It's as though faith is just a power that you have, and it's a power unto itself. And you just need to have enough of it and somehow things will turn out good for you. That, that's how you overcome, by your faith and having enough of it. But the faith that overcomes the world is not some mystical power that you have and you just need to muster up enough of it to overcome. Again, it's not about you. It's about the object of your faith. Jesus is the one who overcomes, and when we place our faith and trust in him alone, we overcome with him. So John says, who overcomes the world? The one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. Once again, it's very important that we understand that this is a reference to messianic language. This is the same as John saying that you believe Jesus is the Christ, essentially. Have faith that Jesus took on our flesh, suffered and died for our sins, and rose again, and He is now victoriously King over all the earth, ascended to the right hand of the Father.
He has overcome the world and He reigns. Through Him, you are born of God. Through Him, you have overcome. And this is pretty easy to map out and understand, but it's really difficult to live this way. The world gets us down. Our sin gets us down. Life in general becomes hard. And the last thing you feel like is an overcomer. As we close up and consider a final application to this passage, I want to go back to that image I opened with under the Friday night lights in October. The third string has been in just since just after halftime. The clock has been running nonstop since the start of the fourth quarter. But you still have to line up. And finish the game. Every play needs to be played. You have to line up. The players on the other side haven't given up because they don't want to get shut out, or they don't want to hear from the coach and their parents that they gave up and didn't give their all. And we know how those games go. They score a touchdown or two as the clock rapidly moves to all zeros. When that happens, you don't get worried that our team is going to suddenly lose because the score is now 74 to 12 with 4 minutes left.
You knew the outcome from the very first play. Everything after that was just waiting on the clock running out, on a result that was secure. And that's what we see John pointing us to this morning. In our lives, sin will still trip us up, and loving one another can still be hard, and the world will get you down. We don't ignore those realities any more than the scoreboard ignores a garbage time touchdown with a minute left on the clock. But those realities don't determine the outcome. It doesn't decide anything. The outcome for us was settled the moment you were born of God, the moment you were united to Christ by faith, because he is the one who has already overcome. You're not playing to find out if you're gonna win. You're playing out a win that was secured for you in the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus for you. And so this week, when you fail to love someone, when obedience feels like a burden instead of being light, when the world presses in on you and you feel anything but victorious, remember Christ's victory. His victory has long been won. The outcome isn't in doubt.
Sisters and brothers, live like it. Let us pray. Father, we're so grateful that we have been born of you, that we're your children, not because we've earned it, but because you were pleased to give us this new life. We pray that you would forgive us for the times when we find loving one another to be hard, or that when we feel that obedience is heavy, remind us that the outcome isn't in doubt because Jesus has already won. Give us faith to rest in his victory instead of striving to win it ourselves. Give us a confidence in the finished work of Jesus that it might build us up in faith and cause us to love you more and to also love one another more. It's in the name of Jesus we pray. Amen.
Thank you for joining us for this week's sermon. For more information about First Reformed Church, head to our Facebook page or website, edgertonfrc.org. Www.frc.org.
“Victory That Overcomes the World” is part of our ongoing series through 1 John, Walking in the Light. Explore the full series or browse our complete sermon archive to keep digging into God's Word.
