FBC Adult Bible Study

Overcoming the World by Faith

We will do that, okay? All right, very good. Would you turn to 1 John, chapter five? So we're gonna pray for Daniel's Aunt Rita and for his mom. We'll do that later as we close today.

Okay.

1 John, chapter five, verses four and five. We're gonna pick up kind of where we left off last Lord's Day in our Sunday school lesson. So 1 John five, four and five says, "'Whatever is born of God overcomes the world, "'and this is the victory that has overcome the world, "'our faith.

"'Who is he who overcomes the world, "'but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?''. So one of the hallmarks of a true believer in Christ is this overcoming of the world. I do not wanna suggest for a moment that this is a once for all thing as if you have a second blessing and then from then on the world is completely destroyed by, you know, you've completely overcome it.

There is a sense in which, as verse five points out, that the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God, the one who is genuinely converted, has overcome the world on a large scale, in the big picture, in that the world will not destroy him.

He has overcome the world. He has eternal life. And so he does not need to fear what man can do. He doesn't fear what the world can do. He has overcome the world. Nevertheless, the first part of verse four says whatever is born of God is overcoming the world.

There is an ongoing conflict that the believer in Christ is engaged in. It's a conflict with the world. And this conflict is something that has been going on in the world and between those who are of the faith and a conflict with those who are not, with that which is not.

It began in the Garden of Eden and it began as soon as the wicked one came to Eve and said, has God said, has God said? That introduced this conflict and it's been going on ever since. We see it in all levels of our society, even today.

And we went through a list of things last week, but one graphic reminder of that conflict between good and evil, between righteousness and unrighteousness, between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan is this video ad that was produced and published last week by Mars Candy Company for Twix candy bars.

Anybody see that? Anybody see that, really? Okay, just a few people. It's like a two-minute thing. I don't know where they would have broadcast it, but it depicts a woman who's a witch and she interacts with a little boy and it's supposed to be a Halloween-related thing, of course.

He wants to know, are you a good witch or a bad witch and so forth. And the bottom line of it is, here's the whole thing of it, besides the witchy part of it. The boy is dressed up for Halloween. No, he's just dressed up as a girl with a dress and stuff.

And he's made fun of by other boys, other kids. And they're teasing him. You think it's Halloween or something? Why are you dressed up like a girl? Just really giving him a hard time. And the witch blows away the kids that are giving the little boy dressed up as a girl, blows them away.

And of course, the message is very clear. The message is very clear that every child should have the freedom to choose his own gender and all that kind of stuff. And for a candy bar. Like what, really?

Do you really need to do this? Why are you doing this? To advertise a candy bar? Well, it's part of this conflict. It's part of this conflict. And it's a conflict that's going on inside of you and me, even as believers in Christ.

We have this conflict with the world. And it's a conflict that takes place in our hearts and our minds. Now, Jesus made it clear that we are not, in our effort to overcome the world, in the overcoming of the world, we are not to retreat from the world.

We're not to try to escape from the world. But we are to overcome it. Jesus said in John 16, he said, 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 John 17, he prayed to the Father in his high priestly prayer. I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one.

So we're engaged in this ongoing conflict. And our task is to overcome the world by faith. And Jesus is praying for us that we will not be overcome by the wicked one, by the evil one. So just by way of review, let's look at what we're talking about by overcoming the world.

What do we mean by that? 1 John 2, 15, 17 tells us we are not to love the world. So that is a very pertinent exhortation here. Our love needs to be primarily and essentially for God and the things of God.

We're not to love the world. And what are we talking about when we're talking about the world? We're not talking about the physical world, the creation, the created order, the planet Earth. We're not talking about the mass of people who live on the earth.

Both of those realms are referred to as the world, but that's not what we're talking about. What we are talking about is Satan's kingdom of darkness and how he expresses that or manifest that kingdom of darkness.

We're talking about that which is opposed to Christ and his church. We're talking about that which stands in rebellion against the Lord and against his Christ as Psalm 2, verses two and three bring out.

The whole world lies in wickedness, the scriptures tell us. And the goal of that world, the mass of humanity that is estranged from God and is under the control of this satanic rebellion is living and breathing and moving about very comfortably in the kingdom of darkness.

The goal of that mass of humanity is to move forward, to make quote unquote progress, to seek human progress and not human redemption. The mission of the kingdom of God is human redemption. Christ came in this world to save sinners, to save sinners and translate them from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light.

But the kingdom of darkness, of course, and those in it are not interested in that. They're interested in what they might call human progress, making things better for ourselves, seeking happiness and things of that nature rather than holiness.

Our passion, our ambition is not to be happy, but to be holy and then finding true happiness in holiness. So when we talk about, that's what we mean when we talk about the world. What then are we talking about when we speak of worldliness?

And two ideas here at this point that we want to especially emphasize, we did last week. By worldliness, we mean being controlled by worldly pursuits, being controlled by worldly pursuits. That is the quest for pleasure or profit or position.

These are the things of the world. These are the things that the world pursues after. Instead, we're pursuing after the kingdom of God and his righteousness. And in the pursuit of the kingdom of God and his righteousness, we will find that all these things will be added to us.

In the pursuit of the kingdom of God and his righteousness, we will find true joy. We will learn what real profit is. It's not of a monetary basis. We will also come to understand what real position involves, not position of fame or prestige in the world, but the well-done good and faithful servant objective that we have as believers in Christ.

Worldliness, though, isn't controlled by those things. It's controlled by the profit, the pleasure, and the position that the kingdom of darkness offers to those who pursue it. Worldliness also involves imbibing in the spirit of fallen humanity, in the spirit of fallen mankind.

That is things such as self-seeking and self-indulgence and self-exaltation. That's the spirit of the age in which we live. Of course, what we pointed out also is that all of us are born worldly. That's our condition when we're born into this world.

But being reborn, born from above, overcoming the world means that we leave that stuff behind. We don't want to continue pursuing after those things that the kingdom of darkness holds up as the objectives for human life.

What do we mean, then, by overcoming the world? We pointed out three things it does not mean. It does not mean conquering people as if Christians are in some kind of a holy war on a physical level, where we're destroying people that get in our way or that oppose the faith.

In this, conquering people, overcoming the world does not even mean winning political battles. So even though, for example, we pray for the right candidates to win elections that will help to further biblical principles and biblical morality and so on and so forth, we also realize that overcoming worldliness is not rooted in or find its greatest expression in the winning of political battles.

We have been down that road. We have won those political battles, and we have seen where that has taken us. So it doesn't mean conquering people. It also doesn't mean withdrawing from the world as in monastic orders or even in the Amish community and so forth, and furthermore, it does not mean, overcoming the world does not mean sanctifying everything in the world for Christ.

Sinful activities, sinful pursuits can never be sanctified. What we do mean by overcoming the world, we pointed out, is that we are, by faith, fighting against the flow, fighting against the flow. The whole world is going in this direction, and the believer in Christ in overcoming the world is endeavoring to swim upstream, to go in the opposite direction.

So I mentioned four ideas that are involved in overcoming the world by faith. One is we rise above, by faith, we rise above the world's thinking and customs. The world has its notions of what is true, and its most recent iteration of that notion of what is true is that there is nothing that is true.

There is no single thing that is true, no single truth that there are, there are a multitude of truths. You have your truth, I have my truth. If they contradict, that's okay, it's all true. All these truths are true.

That's the world's notion. It's certainly not a biblical notion. The world has its notion of what is important, of what is helpful, of what is valuable, and many times, those things are flying directly in contradiction to biblical thinking.

Also, the world has its notions of what is good, what is excellent, what is acceptable, what is worthwhile. Philippians 4 .8, though, gives us direction regarding the world's thinking and customs and how we ought to be thinking.

Whatsoever things are true, lovely, good report, and so forth. Secondly, we said overcoming the world by faith involves persevering in the freedom in Christ that is apart from worldly enslavement. The world and its pleasures, its enticements, and all of these things will easily enslave, and overcoming the world by faith realizes we are freed from the bondage of sin, and we are free in Christ, and we persevere in that freedom from corruption.

There's also, and we mentioned this, there's also an expression of worldliness that is very religious, and that entails the kind of religion that seeks to gain heaven, if you will, or to gain eternal life, or gain acceptance with the gods, or God, through our works, through our efforts.

And by the way, today is Reformation Sunday, and one of the tenets of the Reformation that was rediscovered and broadcast brightly after the Reformation was the fact that no, justification is by grace alone, through faith alone, faith alone.

Not even simply, and get the distinction here, justification by grace through faith. There is a difference there, right? Roman Catholicism will say, yeah, you're justified by grace through faith, but it's a grace that enables you to do the works that will be meritorious, and lead to your justification.

And yes, you have to have faith, you have to have faith that Jesus is God, and all the rest of that. So the distinction, the biblical distinction is that salvation, or justification, is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, for God's glory alone.

And that contradicts the notion that we can somehow earn our way to heaven. There is a form of worldliness that will bind you into works. And Paul speaks of that in Galatians, that we are to stand fast in the liberty which is in Christ Jesus.

All right, the third notion we mentioned was overcoming the world by faith involves the idea of being raised above the circumstances of this world. The world in which we live, and the believers who are living in it, you, me, every other one, rides on the ebbs and flows of life.

There are good days, there are bad days. There are good seasons of life, there are bad seasons of life. And I'm talking here about levels of difficulty, challenges, hardships, griefs. We all experience those things.

We also experience joys, we experience pleasures, we experience delights and so forth. So we have this up and down, this ebb and flow of life. And overcoming the world by faith involves rising above the circumstances of life so that they don't dominate our, those circumstances of life don't dominate how we think and don't dominate our feelings.

Our feelings don't then dominate how we respond to life. Regardless of the circumstances of life, we still need to think biblically. We still need to have hearts that are directed Godwardly and that trust him in the good and the bad and the painful and the pleasure.

Also mentioned that rising above the circumstances of this world might involve dealing with the pain of persecution. All who will live godly in Christ Jesus, Paul told Timothy, will suffer persecution.

And we need to rise above that persecution and not yield to a worldly attitude toward it. And then lastly, we mentioned that overcoming the world by faith involves the idea of living a life of self-denial.

We looked at Abraham as an example of that, who on several different stages, situations in his life, he had to deny himself to walk by faith. God came to him in Ur of the Chaldees, said, leave it all behind and follow me to a place that I will take you.

Where?

Just follow me. Okay. Well, that's self-denial, to leave all that behind. He came to that place in the decision with separating from Lot and choosing which direction you're gonna go. And he gave Lot, he denied himself, gave Lot the option and so forth.

And other cases there of self-denial. All right, so that's what we covered last week. Now let's look at, to balance this out, let's look at how this overcoming the world by faith is lived, how it's lived.

You're in 1 John, look at chapter two again and verse 16. Verse 15 tells us not to love the world or the things in it. Verse 16 kind of delineates the broad categories of the things that are in the world.

He says, 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. So those three broad categories of that which is in the world is what we are not to love and it is therefore what we are to overcome by faith.

So this fight against worldliness means we fight against these three categories of challenges in the world. Fight against the lust of the flesh, the lust of the flesh. So Romans 13 verse 14 tells us, here's a broad principle, to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and don't make provision for the flesh to fulfill its lusts.

Don't make provision for it to fulfill its lusts. But three ideas here under fighting against the lust of the flesh. We need to fight against the excessive indulgences that can captivate us. Turn with me to First Timothy chapter six.

First Timothy chapter six. Now on the one hand, it's an interesting juxtaposition of two ideas, two thoughts. The end of verse 17 tells us that God in his abundant grace and goodness to his people, to his children, gives us things to enjoy.

Notice this. He says, trust in the living God who gives us richly all things to enjoy. So for the believer in Christ, there is, I hesitate to use the term because I think it's weighted in a negative way.

John Piper speaks of a Christian hedonism, a Christian hedonism. There's a pagan hedonism, which is always, it's just living for pleasure, living for whatever, da, da, da, da, da. But what Piper's getting at in that idea of Christian hedonism is this idea itself, I think, that God gives us all things richly to enjoy.

And there are some Christians who kind of have the notion that if I'm enjoying something, it must be sinful, it must be wrong. Okay, so now let's acknowledge that, that God does give us things for enjoyment, but here's the emphasis of the verse as a whole.

Those things cannot be our master. We cannot be in the slavish pursuit of those things. So this is the problem that Paul addresses here in verse 17. As you look at the verse as a whole, he says, command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches, but to trust in the living God who gives us richly all things to enjoy.

So there are those who are wealthy, and God in his abundant grace has given them the ability to make money or to gain wealth, financial wealth in some way, but they are not to be the slaves of that wealth, to be in the pursuit of it as if that is what's going to give them satisfaction and pleasure and joy.

Earlier, he says that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And this is kind of a follow-up on that idea, that those who are rich in this world's goods can easily fall into the trap of loving that, that money and what money can buy, and therefore pursue that as if I've got to have more, I've got to have more, this just gives me so much pleasure, this gives me so much delight.

So this is an excessive indulgence that must be avoided. So when we're talking about fighting against the lust of the flesh, we're talking about here in one hand, fighting against the excessive indulgences that can captivate you.

Another example is, I think, is Judas Iscariot, right? He loved the money bag. He loved what was in the money bag. He had a pursuit of, he was enslaved by money. And that enslavement caused him, of course, it captivated him and caused him, of course, to end up betraying Jesus in the end.

So we fight against the lust of the flesh by fighting against excessive indulgences that can captivate us. And secondly, we fight against the lust of flesh by fighting against any form of sexual immorality.

So in 1 Thessalonians chapter four, back a few pages in your Bible, 1 Thessalonians four, verses three through five, Paul says, this is the will of God, even your sanctification. This has been the whole subject of this, a theme of this series, right?

That God's will is our holiness, our sanctification. But look at how Paul zeroes in on an aspect of that. He says that you should abstain from sexual immorality, that every one of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God.

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6, 18 that we are to flee fornication. So fighting against the lust of the flesh would demand that we fight against any form of sexual immorality. Now turn to 1 Peter chapter four, and verses three and four.

Another expression of the lust of the flesh is the carousing that Peter writes about here in verses three and four, where he says, for we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles.

We walked in lewdness, lust, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you.

So Peter is making a distinction here between the believers who are overcoming the world by faith and the unbelievers, and this life of the unbeliever, the carousing, the party life of the unbeliever is one that must be overcome.

We don't walk in that path anymore. We don't live like that anymore. Now, Peter is making a pretty stark, stark contrast using a very flagrant, obvious list of things that would be clearly out of line.

But what's underneath all of that? What lies beneath those behaviors? Life's a party, life's a party. You know, life is to be lived for its pleasures and its enjoyment. So grab all of it while you can.

And don't deny yourself any indulgence. That's what's behind it. That's the way you used to live. That's the way you used to think. Overcoming the world by faith means you fight against that kind of lust of the flesh mentality.

Then also, fighting against worldliness means we would have to fight against the lust of the eyes, the lust of the eyes. I think I have this statement here on your handout for you, that anything that by looking encourages you to take or to partake or to participate in that violates God's law.

The lust of the eyes would encompass anything that by looking at it, it encourages you to take it or to partake of it or to participate in it. When doing so, the taking or partaking or participating, would violate God's law.

So for example, just think of some biblical examples here. Eve saw the fruit and she ate in violation of God's law. Achan saw the silver in those Babylonian garments and he stole in violation of God's law, even though God said destroy everything in Jericho.

David saw Bathsheba on the rooftop and he committed adultery. Ahaz, one of the kings in Judah, Ahaz saw this altar in Damascus, altar to false gods, saw this altar in Damascus, made a copy of it, brought it back to Jerusalem, built one like it and led in false worship in violation obviously of God's law.

All those and many more examples and we're gonna see some more examples in the morning service and judges are examples of the lust of the eyes. Seeing something that entices me or encourages me to take, to partake of or to participate in that violates the law of God.

Fighting against the world means I fight against the lust of the eyes. And then fighting against the world also would involve fighting against the pride of life, the pride of life. This of course would involve things like pride in myself, in my accomplishments and even pride in myself if I don't have any accomplishments.

One of the things that's amazing in our culture today is that people are encouraged to be filled with pride when they don't even have any reason on a human level to be proud. They haven't accomplished anything, they haven't done anything, they're not particularly impressive with their brilliance, they're lazy, shiftless but they're encouraged to be proud as if, you know, you know where you see this?

You know, one of the places you see this is in comments sections on social media or even news sites where people who don't have a clue really what they're talking about pontificate as if they are great experts.

What they're doing is they're saying I'm proud and my word, my opinion, my thoughts should have just as much weight as your thoughts and your opinions. Even though you've studied this and even though you're an expert in this, I have just as much right to have my opinion hold sway as you do.

That kind of pride is under this umbrella of the pride of life. Another way the pride of life is exhibited is seen in challenging the providential governing of God. Challenging the providential governing of God.

You see this in things like, even in the subject of abortion. You know, one of the challenges of the Hope Life Center for example, they open their doors, they encourage women to come in who have an unwanted pregnancy and a lot of those who come in their doors are women who are seriously contemplating an abortion and they haven't even given thought to the idea that God in his providence has seen fit that you conceive when you had no intention of conceiving.

And God is the God of life and he has for whatever reason, for whatever purpose, perhaps as a consequence of sin but then you deal with it from then on out and you deal with the blessing that is a consequence of sin.

The blessing of human life, you see. But no, no, I should have authority even over this providential work of God. Kill this baby, kill this baby. You see it also in the matter of euthanasia, right? I'm suffering from a prolonged illness.

It's gonna take my life someday, maybe six months, maybe a year, don't know how long but I don't wanna have to go through all that so I can just take some pills or have a doctor shoot me up and I'll be gone tomorrow.

Well, that's a position of pride over the providential dealings of God. And I know this is a touchy subject because some of us in this room have been touched by this subject but even the matter of suicide.

Someone gets in such a state of despair that they express pride in the most horrific way. That yeah, God in his providence, and they wouldn't frame it this way but God in his providence has brought me into these circumstances in my life.

They're absolutely horrible. I don't like them, I'm miserable, I'm unhappy, et cetera, et cetera. And I'm just going to check out. And again, as difficult as that may be for some to handle, that is an expression of pride that I should have the authority even over when my life ends.

Fighting against the pride of life. Materialism is another thing. Materialism and successes and all that kind of stuff. Anyway, pride of life. So we have to fight against worldliness but we also need to fight for holiness.

And to fight for holiness. And four ideas here and I'll just mention them very quickly. We fight for holiness, first of all, by believing in Jesus, the son of God. By believing, I mean really believing in him so that we obey what Hebrews tells us in Hebrews 12.

We look unto Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. We consciously turn our attention to him. And that passage goes on to say, you haven't resisted against sin to blood. You haven't done that.

Look to Jesus who did. Look to Jesus. We fight for holiness, secondly, by purifying our heart through Christ-centeredness. Now what's involved in that idea? Joel Beakey writes this, he says, as the chameleon takes on the hue of what it looks at, so faith that looks to Christ partakes of his moral excellence, end quote.

In other words, the more we look upon our savior, our love for him deepens and the allure of the world lessens. Paul puts it this way in 2 Corinthians 3 .18. We behold as in a mirror the image of God and we are changed into that little by little from going from glory to glory as we look upon Christ in his word.

Thirdly, we fight for holiness by living according to what pleases God, by what pleases God. So in our little motto at faith, we say we want to find out what God is like and what God likes.

Why?

I mean, that in itself expresses a desire to please him. I want to find out what God is like and what God likes. Why? So that we might live accordingly. We want to live in a way that is in accordance with what God is like and that pleases him, because we find out what God likes.

Again, Beakey puts it this way, he says, when pleasing God becomes more important than pleasing people and pleasing ourselves, the believer overcomes his love for the world's honor, riches, pleasures, entertainments, and friendships.

Pleasing God becomes primary, pleasing others and pursuing what the world has to offer is, fades in the background. And then we fight for holiness fourthly by living for the unseen world that awaits us.

1 John 2, 17 says, the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life, the world is passing away and the lust thereof, but he that does the will of God abides forever, dwells forever.

There is an unseen world that awaits us and living for that unseen world that awaits us enables us or helps us in this fight for holiness. Again, Beakey summarizes it like this. He says, by faith, we believe that the best is yet to come.

We look for a time when we will be forever saved from Satan, the world, and our old nature. And that's when our savior shall say, in Revelation 3, 21, to him who overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on my throne as I have overcome and sat down with my father on his throne.

So let's fight the good fight. Let's keep up the fight, fighting against overcoming the world by faith. Our father helped us to do that very thing. We are living in a world where that fight is very, very real, the enemy is very evident, and yet at the same time, there are ideas and issues that underlie the obvious that are maybe more subtle, more difficult to deal with.

Father, give us eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts to understand what's really at stake in this world in which we live. May we overcome it by faith. We pray in Jesus' name.