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Adult Sunday School Class
1 John chapter 5, a couple of verses here in just a moment, 1 John 5, I'm sure you're aware of it, but ever since the Garden of Eden we have been in a war. It's a war that began when the serpent came to Eve and said, hath God said?
Has he really said this? And her response was to look upon the fruit as something that was good to eat, pleasant to see, and something to make her wise. And ever since that incident, from that time on, we have been engaged in a war.
So Genesis 3 .15 describes it very, very generally as a war between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. The seed which is Christ and the seed of the serpent which is, of course, Satan himself.
It's a war between a love for God, a love of who God is and what God has to say, and a love for, as John writes in 1 John 2 .16, a love for all that is in the world. It's a war between the kingdom of God and his righteousness and the kingdom of Satan and his darkness.
I was reminded of that contrast between the light and dark, the darkness of these two kingdoms at war and their impact and effect in the world with a meme somebody posted. I just saw it. Who was it? Oh, some guy.
Anyway, and it's two pictures, one on top of the other, and the one on the top is a picture of Stephen Hawking. You remember Stephen Hawking is that atheist, wheelchair-bound atheist, and he said, quote, religion is a fairy tale for those afraid of the dark.
Religion is a fairy tale for those afraid of the dark. In contrast, John Lennox, who is from Great Britain, he's an Oxford mathematician, but he's also an Orthodox believer. He said, atheism is a fairy tale for those afraid of the light.
The Christian faith or religion, as Hawking would say, is a fairy tale for those afraid of the dark, and Lennox rightly says, no, atheism is a fairy tale for those afraid of the light. There is this war, this ongoing war between light and dark, between the kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of our God, and it's an inescapable conflict.
It's a conflict that affects every area of life. Joel Beeky, in the book we're using on holiness, he describes some of these different battlefields. There's the battlefields that we see, and we see these things.
We see this conflict played out vividly before us, maybe in very clear ways today that we haven't seen before, at least not so clearly. So we see it in the seats of government and the centers of culture, in legislatures and courtrooms, in offices and workshops of business, in marketplaces and entertainment districts of cities, in classrooms and school boards in our towns and villages, in boardrooms and sanctuaries of churches, in homes and families.
And if we're attentive, and I'm sure we are as believers in Christ, we see this war going on even in our own hearts and minds. And it is, of course, a war with the world. And Jesus made it very clear that we are not to retreat from the world, nor are we to try to escape from it.
Instead, we are to overcome it. So in John 16, for example, Jesus said to his disciples, these things have I spoken unto you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.
And then in the next chapter, John 17, when he's praying for his disciples, his followers, Jesus says to the Father, I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one.
So the world is not something we are to escape or we are to hide from or retreat from, but it is something that we are to overcome. So 1 John 5, this passage we're looking at this morning, verses 4 and 5 says this, whatever is born of God overcomes the world.
And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Who is he that overcomes the world? But he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God. So clearly, what these couple of verses tell us is that overcoming the world is one of the hallmarks of a Christian.
All right, so if that's true, then we need to understand what that means, what is involved in overcoming the world. So let's look at that subject in a couple of different ways. First of all, let's start off with the basics.
What does overcoming the world by faith mean? What does it mean? Let's go back a chapter, a couple chapters to chapter 2, and verses 15 through 17 provides us with a relevant exhortation regarding this.
John writes, do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. So don't love the world. Well, what is in the world? All that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world.
And the world is passing away in the lust of it. But he who does the will of God abides forever. All right, so this relevant exhortation here makes it clear that there is one love that must rule the Christian life.
And that love is a love for God, a passion for God, a passion for the things of God, a loving of the things of God. Jesus said in Matthew 6, remember, that no man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other.
We cannot keep in balance a love for God and a love for the world. You cannot do it. You will love one or the other, but not both. All right, so we need to understand what this overcoming the world by faith means.
And so let's arrive to that understanding by asking a series of questions. The first is, what do we mean by the world? What is the world? Obviously, and I don't even need to say it, but just have to for clarity, it does not refer to the physical world, the planet Earth.
I realize we could apply that in this way because of our culture's fascination with and worship of the planet. Mother nature and all the rest of that kind of stuff. But that's not what he's talking about.
He's talking about the ideas that would so elevate the planet as something to be worshiped. But that's not what he's talking about. He's not talking about also the physical mass of people that inhabit the Earth, which we often talk about as the world.
What he is referring to, of course, is Satan's kingdom of darkness. Satan's kingdom of darkness. He's talking about the ruler of that kingdom and the inhabitants of that kingdom who are lost in sin. He's not talking about hating the inhabitants of the world or somehow destroying them.
But when he's talking about the world, he's referring to the ruler of that kingdom of darkness and the inhabitants of that kingdom who are lost in sin and who are wholly completely at odds with anything that is pleasing to God.
And that, of course, shows itself in a whole lot of ways. This realm, the world, is a realm that opposes Christ and his church. It's a realm that the psalmist refers to in the second psalm in verses 2 and 3 where he speaks of the rulers of this world standing in rebellion against God and his anointed one and the church.
He says, the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed saying, let us break their bonds in pieces and cast away their cords from us.
And we see this played out, like we said, in so many different ways in our culture today. You see, even in recent days, to pick on one specific arena, a few weeks ago now, the state of Texas passed the most strict abortion law of any state in the union, the heartbeat bill.
As soon as a heartbeat can be detected, abortion is prohibited. And that's obviously not enough, but it's a step in the right direction. There's nothing, there's no other law in any of the states that is so restrictive.
Right away, you got opposition to that. Clearly, that law of banning abortion at a heartbeat is a step in the right direction. Understood, right? It's an attempt to recognize and honor life. But right away, you get opposition to that.
And even our own national department of justice is trying to oppose that law. Fortunately, it has been upheld in different courts, but it's now being appealed to the Supreme Court. So that is just one little incident in the vast realm of areas of life where we see this rebellion against the Lord and his dictates.
We want to cast off those restraints that say you can't kill a pre-born baby. This realm is, as Beakey says, quote, the mass of mankind that is estranged from God through sin and lives after the lust of the flesh.
The men, women, and children who focus on this world and neglect the world to come. The goal in this realm is for us as humanity to move forward, but not upward. We want to make human progress, but not interested in human redemption.
And isn't it interesting that it seems that every step forward in human progress opens the door to other kinds of problems and difficulties and moral and ethical dilemmas and challenges than before that progress was made.
You can go back to, for example, the industrial revolution. We thought this was a great thing. We have learned how to mass-produce things. We can build factories, and we can do all kinds of stuff much faster and produce goods much more quickly than ever before.
And that seems like such a great thing. And on one level, it was. It was human progress. It was human development. There was technological advancement, and there were some good things that came of that.
But along with those good things were a whole plethora of destructive things and harmful things that we could not have imagined, we could not have foreseen. And we don't need to go into that. But it just points out the fact that the world is focused on moving forward and making human progress.
But because the world is in opposition to God and His rule and His righteousness, every step forward creates other problems. Now the thing is that those who are in this realm that we're calling the world, they may not deny God.
They may actually claim to be, those in this realm may actually claim to be Christian. But they, in essence, ignore Him. That God and Christ really doesn't have anything to do with how they live their lives.
He is essentially forgotten. If God is appealed to at all, He is used for selfish ends. Again, go back 20 years to September 10, 2001. And our country is living as it is living. The culture is doing what the culture is doing.
And people are living for themselves and pursuing their agendas and all that kind of stuff. They are worldly. 9 -11 hits, this terrible disaster and tragedy, which was a bold expression of the kingdom of darkness and those who are allied with the wicked one in violence and murder and all that.
And then what do you have the next day? Even that very day? We need to pray to God. We need to pray to God. And all of a sudden you had, when baseball games resumed, you had the seventh inning stretch included the song, God Bless America, God Bless America.
Why all of the emphasis on God all of a sudden? Because we want to use God. The world, if God is appealed to, He's appealed to to use Him to get what we want. And that is the nature of this realm. So that's the world.
What is then worldliness? What's worldliness? And in general, we could say worldliness is the state of humanity without God. It's just the way human beings live when God is out of the picture. But to be more precise, worldliness involves being controlled by worldly pursuits, such as a quest for pleasure, a quest for profit, a quest for position, and such related things.
Now, those are three biggies, aren't they? That most people are focused on, they are in pursuit of. Pleasure, profit, position. I want to get ahead. I want to get more. I want to get all I can get out of this life.
You know, one of the interesting effects of the technological progress and the moving forward of humanity that has been seen in the internet and social media and so forth is this little thing that we're calling FOMO.
How many of you know what FOMO is? Okay, one, two. What is it? What is it, June? Fear of missing out. Exactly. The fear of missing out. And the culture, and particularly younger people. And by younger, I mean anybody younger than I am.
Okay, so that's safe. Then those of you who are in your 20s or whatever, you don't feel like I'm picking on you because I'm not. We can be talking about those in their 20s and 30s and even 40s have become so enamored of all of the possibilities of life, all of the adventures of life that are out there, all of the things that we could do, all of the things that are possible that many are even, they're even stymied.
They're paralyzed in making decisions because they're afraid, if I do this, then I might miss out on that. And there's so many different options. This is one of the problems of the pursuit of pleasure, profit, position.
If I pursue this, I might miss out on that. And I don't want to miss out on that if that's going to be better than this. Why? Because I've got to get what's going to be most pleasurable, most profitable, that's going to be in my best interest.
And so it involves being controlled by these worldly pursuits. Worldliness also involves imbibing in the spirit of fallen mankind, that is, the spirit of self-seeking and self-indulgence, self-seeking and self-indulgence.
And of course, that spirit of fallen mankind is what controls those worldly pursuits. Now, here's the thing. Every one of us is born worldly. That's our natural condition. Every one of us is born worldly, but whatever is born of God, in other words, whoever is born again, overcomes the world.
So what then do we mean by overcoming the world? What do we mean by overcoming the world? Well, let's again talk about some things that it does not mean. In the first place, overcoming the world does not mean conquering people, conquering people.
There is no such thing as Christian jihads, Christian holy wars against people. Now, we've talked before about the fact that we are in a holy war, but it's not a holy war against people. And you think back in church history, one of the periods that comes to mind in this regard is the period of the Crusades.
And that period is often looked to by the secularists who hate religion and say, see religion. Look at the Crusades. Religion is just, it's violent. And, you know, Christianity is responsible for all of this violence against other people, innocent people, and so on and so forth.
Of course, that is a rewriting of history. That's a revisionism. But there was an error in the Crusades. And the error in the Crusades was rooted fundamentally in the misunderstanding of the role between the church and the state, that they should be separated.
And because during that time period, church and state were wedded together. The church was simply an arm of the state. And so when the king said, as being in authority over the church, the king said, we are going to go to war against the Islamists who have attacked the holy land.
Then, you know, the church is right in there with it. And the church is leading the charge and is calling for the counter-attack and so forth. And, I mean, there's a lot of complexity in the Crusades.
So I don't want to be reductionistic or simplistic in that. But the idea that it's the church's role or the Christian's role to conquer people with violence and with war is not what we mean by overcoming the world.
That's not a Biblical concept. It also does not mean, when you think about conquering people, it also doesn't mean winning power battles over colleagues. You know, like when you go to work and you work with a secular company, I mean, you can have co-workers that are worldly, have worldly ideas and worldly passions, and you can work for a company where the leadership is taking the company in a direction that you know is contrary to, contrary to, you know, revealed truth, what God would say is a good thing.
I mean, you can see that. You know that. Well, overcoming the world doesn't mean that you conquer your colleagues, your co-workers, and you best them. You know, you do what you have to do to get them out of positions or you do what you have to do to get them fired from the job or whatever.
That's not what we're talking about. Overcoming the world also does not mean withdrawing from the world, as if, as if Christians should form cloisters. It's one of the, one of the potential errors in monasticism, where those who took monastic orders and vows, they, many of them had the idea that I'm going to withdraw from the world so that I will not be influenced or harmed by worldliness.
This is how I'm going to overcome the world. But even Martin Luther, who was a monk originally, realized the folly of that. He said, I can escape from, I can escape from the physical presence of the world around me, but I can't escape from the world within me.
We could put it that way. It's what he was saying when he said, I can't escape from my own self, my own sin. So withdrawing from the world is not, is not an alternative. And it's not what we mean by overcoming it.
And so, for example, in South of here, we have, you know, Amish communities and, you know, there's a lot of things that we can appreciate about the lifestyle of, of Amish communities and so forth. But that's not what the Christian ideal is called for, calls for in the Bible.
It's not what Christ is calling us to do, to so withdraw from the world that we form our own, our own communities that are isolated from the rest of the world. That's not what he's talking about. And overcoming the world also does not mean that we sanctify everything in the world for Christ.
There are some things that can be sanctified, if you will. So for example, the technologies of the, the, that the world develops can be sanctified. They can be set apart. We can dedicate, use some of those technologies for, for Christ's sake, for Christ's purposes.
For example, we have, you know, five pews back that we have a camera sitting there that is right now live streaming this Sunday school lesson over the internet. Well, you know, I, I don't think that Christians developed video, digital video cameras and developed, they certainly didn't develop the internet and all the rest of that kind of stuff, but those technologies can be set apart.
They can be used for Christ, but that's not what I'm talking about in overcoming the world. Doesn't mean that we sanctify everything in the world for Christ. The, the, the craziness of that idea, by the way, I came across an article not long ago that just illustrates how crazy that the application of that idea can be.
There are some who think that overcoming the world means that we, we take whatever is out there in the world and we set it apart. We sanctify it for the cause of Christ. So I did not read the, I didn't read the article.
I just saw the headline and a little blurb about it, that there was a, a female porn star who was converted, claimed to be converted, claimed to become a Christian. And she got out of that industry for a while, a few years, I guess.
But finally, finally, she says she heard from God who told her that she needed to go back into that work, into that industry, as a way of glorifying God. I thought, what? Are you kidding me? Where do you, where, where in the world would you get that notion?
Oh, from the idea that overcoming the world means that we take anything that the world has to offer and we sanctify it for Christ's sake. Obviously, that is ridiculous. So we're not talking about that.
What we are talking about is fighting, fighting by faith against the flow. We're going to describe that more, elaborate on it more, but fighting by faith against the flow. Some of you have seen this series, The Chosen.
And if you've seen it, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. There is in the opening, the opening graphics of that, of each episode, as they're introducing it, there's this graphic of a whole bunch of dark fish swimming down a river.
And you can just see them swimming along the river. And, and there is an occasional light colored fish that is swimming upstream, swimming against the flow. And you've got these few, a few occasional light fish that are swimming contrary to the multitude of dark fish that are going in the opposite direction.
And that's a very helpful graphic to give an idea of what exactly we're talking about. It is going against the flow of the rest of the world around us. And we fight that flow by faith. So then the next question we want to consider is what is involved in overcoming the world by faith?
What's involved in it? And Beakey suggests four ideas. It is, it involves, first of all, rising above the world's thinking and customs, rising above the world's thinking and customs. The world has, again, remember we're talking, we're talking about the world.
We're talking about the realm of Satan and the inhabitants of that realm. The world has its definitions of what is true and what is good. All right. The world will tell you what is important. It is important that we, that we save the planet.
It is important that we uphold a woman's right to choose to kill her unborn baby. And it is, you know, all these things that are important. The world has its notions of what is valuable and what is helpful.
Okay. The world also has its definitions of what is good, of what is acceptable, of what is excellent, of what is worthwhile. But we're exhorted in Philippians chapter four, verse eight, to evaluate on a different basis.
Not on what the world says, but Paul says, well, finally, brethren, whatever things are true, and that would be true as God defines truth, consistent with God's truth, whatever things are noble, again, God's objective revelation being the standard against which we evaluate what is noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there's any virtue, if there's anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things.
So what's involved in overcoming the world is that we rise above the world's thinking and customs, and we apply Philippians 4, 8 to that which is around us. Secondly, what's involved is persevering in freedom in Christ, apart from worldly and even religious enslavement, persevering in freedom in Christ.
So look at Philippians, or 2 Peter chapter two, for example, 2 Peter 2 and verses 19 and 20, 2 Peter 2, 19 and 20. Now, Peter's talking about false teachers here, and their deceptions, and false teachers, false teachers do not have to occupy pulpits, okay?
They can be anybody who, well, for example, the governor of New York, the female governor, what's her name? Just escaped me. Anyway, the governor of New York, a couple weeks ago, declared that ministers are to be proclaiming to their people, you must get the vaccination.
This is God's will for you to get the vaccination. Well, she is not a spokesman for God, and it is not the place of ministers to stand before their congregation and tell their congregation, this is God's will for you.
That kind of thing is an individual responsible choice that you as a person are to make. So that's an example of false teaching, all right? So it doesn't have to be, false teaching doesn't have to be occupied, promoted by those who occupy pulpits.
So anyway, Peter's talking about false teachers, and he says in verse 19, while they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption. For by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage.
For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning.
So we persevere in freedom in Christ, not listening to these who promise liberty, saying, you should do whatever you want to do. You should do what gives you pleasure that will promote your self-interest, that will, quote, prosper you.
You should be able to have the liberty, the freedom to do that. You do have the freedom to do that, the false teacher would say. But then that leads you into a form of corruption. We need to persevere in the freedom that we have in Christ Jesus.
And Galatians chapter 5, verse 1, speaks of a religious kind of enslavement, where Paul tells the Galatians who were being threatened by Judaism, a form of legalism that said you have to go through these Jewish rituals in order to be truly saved.
It's one thing to believe in Jesus, okay, you need to do that, but you also need to go through these rituals in order to be saved. And in response to that, Paul says, stand fast in the liberty by which Christ has made us free and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.
And what I want us to understand here is that there is a religious kind of worldliness that is expressed in this legalism. How so? Because legalism as a form of worldliness says that you need to do these certain things in order to be saved.
You need to follow these certain rules in order to be saved. Well, all that, that's just a worldly mindset that says in order to gain the favors of the gods, if there's not just one, then we have to arrange life a certain way.
We have to live a certain way. And then if we are good enough in the eyes of that God and we live our lives and do the things, these certain things, then the God or the gods will be pleased with us and happy with us.
In other words, it's an old work salvation thing, which is born of the devil, the ruler of the world, the kingdom of darkness. Thirdly, what's involved is rising above the circumstances of this world.
As we go through our everyday lives, day in, day out, week in, week out, year in, year out, sometimes life is comprised of a bunch of ups and downs, ebbs and flows, good days, bad days, good years, bad years, and so forth.
And worldliness, if I'm a worldly Christian, I am controlled by those circumstances of life. But in contrast to that way of thinking or way of living, Paul offers us a different route. In Philippians chapter 4, verses 11 through 13,.
He says,.
4 Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am to be content. And now look at the different states of being that he describes. He says, 5 I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound.
Everywhere and in all things, I have learned both to be full, and to be hungry, and to suffer need. So Paul is saying that I have overcome the world by learning contentment in whatever my circumstances.
And how have I been able to do that? Verse 13. Here's the real application of verse 13. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I can rise above the circumstances of this world through Christ who strengthens me.
There's also an application of this, being raised above the circumstances of this world, regarding persecution. Persecution. Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 3 .12 that all who will live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.
And overcoming the world by faith involves rising above those, that circumstance of persecution. And well, let me share a story with you that Beaky tells in the book Holiness. He says, he says, quote, a missionary in South Africa told me every time he preaches in Sudan, he expects to be arrested and persecuted.
When pressed for details on how this missionary is persecuted, he said he had experienced only, quote, minor persecution, end quote. Such as, all right, sorry about this, but this is what happened to the man.
Such as having his head submerged in a pail of urine, or having a bag tied around his head until he fainted from a lack of oxygen. He considered that to be minor persecution. He said, here's what the missionary went on to say, he says, that's nothing compared to what our Lord experienced.
We Christians must count it all joy when we are persecuted for Christ's sake. Now that's overcoming the world by faith. That's being able to handle the persecution that is painful and is miserable and disgusting, but in a way that rises above it.
Even though this is horrible and that I'm, it's painful that I'm enduring, it's nothing compared to what Christ endured for me. Charles Spurgeon, in this regard, advised this way. He says, he said, overcome the world by patiently enduring all the persecution that falls to your lot.
Do not get angry and do not become downhearted. Jests break no bones. And if you had any bone broken for Christ's sake, it would be the most honored bone in your whole body. That's rising above the circumstances of life.
That's overcoming the world by faith. And then a fourth thing that is involved in overcoming the world by faith is living a life of self-denial. Living a life of self-denial. Just think, for example, of Abraham and how he expressed this, how he overcame the world by his faith, and in doing so, lived a life of self-denial.
While in his homeland of Ur of the Chaldees, he left not knowing where he was going. He did not choose himself, for himself, the better land when he and Lot, you big to be in the same place. He deferred to Lot, let him choose.
That's self-denial. He fought when Lot was taken captive by Keter Laomer and that confederacy of forces. He fought to deliver his nephew, Lot, self-denial. He refused after that victory, and he came back with the spoils of war and freed all those who had been taken captive.
He refused to be enriched, Abraham did, by the pagan king. He said, no, I'm not going to take any reward from you. I'm not going to be enriched by you. And of course, the ultimate experience of or expression of self-denial was when he offered his only son, was going to offer his only son as a sacrifice.
Yeah, that's overcoming the world by faith. That's involved in overcoming the world by faith, living a life of self-denial. All right, well, we'll finish up on this next Lord's Day, Lord willing, but what a challenge to live in this world that is bombarding us constantly, incessantly, and aggressively to go with the flow of the world rather than to swim against it.
May God give us grace and strength to swim upstream. Our Father and our God, we do sense and know and experience the challenge of worldliness all around us every day. I pray by your grace and by your strength and your Spirit's work in our lives, our hearts, our minds, we would overcome.
We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, about 13 minutes till morning worship service, so I'll have a time of fellowship and.