Sermon 22
Sermon
by Jeff Wattley at Wonersh on
November 2005
Series :- 1 John
Faith is the Victory
Nicolo Paganini the famous and
celebrated violinist gave a memorable concert in
Then to
everyone's surprise, a second string broke. And shortly
thereafter, a third. Almost like a slapstick comedy, Paganini
stood there with three strings dangling from his Stradivarius. But instead of
leaving the stage, Paganini stood his ground and
calmly completed the difficult number on the one remaining string.
He was
remembered not only as a brilliant musician but also as a man who could
overcome great obstacles that would have caused most people to give up.
You and I
may not be asked to become world class violinists but we do face an enormous
challenge in living out our Christian faith; according to John in the 5th
chapter of 1 John the challenge is even greater than the one that faced Paginini. We are
called to overcome the world. V 4 for
everyone who is 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. Three times in 2 verses John uses this
phrase: overcoming the world.
So I want
to probe 3 questions this morning.
First: What are these challenges that the world throws at
Christians that we are to overcome through faith?
Second: How can we overcome them?
Third: What resources has God provided to
ensure that our faith can overcome these challenges?
1) What are
these challenges in the world that Christians face which we need to overcome
through faith?
Well they are familiar to
each one of us. The challenges focus on
what we believe: how we behave and how we relate to other people. In all these areas we are called to overcome
the pressures and temptations to conform to the way of the world. We are called to dance to a different
tune. And in every case our motive is
Love.
First of all the challenge
is to love God not just in our
worship on Sundays but in our lives every day of the week. In doing this we have to overcome the rebellion
of a world that ignores or despises Him.
And it is not enough to have a private admiration for God that we keep
to ourselves. Verse 3 makes it very
clear that Love for God results in action:
it means we obey His commandments.
That is going to be noticed in a world that has largely rejected his
teaching and commandments.
Second is the challenge to love Jesus and
to believe the bible truth that he is the Son of God. In this we have to overcome the cynicism of a
world that sees the bible as irrelevant at best and scandalous and spurious at
worst.
Remember that at the time
John was writing, as now, there was a great deal of false teaching gaining
popularity that denied that Jesus was the Son of God. The Gnostics of the day had effectively disconnected
the Jesus of History from the Messiah: the Christ who came from God. The had persuade many that Jesus was an
ordinary human being, born of Mary and Joseph but ‘occupied’ for a time between
his baptism and his crucifixion by the spiritual Christ. That is not biblical doctrine: that is not what God has revealed to us
through his inspired word in the scriptures.
That is not what happened. It is
heresy but it was becoming the new orthodoxy of the day. The Christians John was writing to had to stand
firm with the truth just as we today have to stand firm for Biblical truth
against all the fads and fashions of the day.
Satan will always attack the truth of the bible for he is the father of
lies and e knows that it is truth that sets us free.
Third is the challenge to
love: to love all of God’s children as brothers and sisters in Christ and even
to love our enemies and forgive those who have hurt us.
Again this is totally
against the grain of our own culture which homes in on conflict, controversy,
gossip and revenge. We have to overcome
the fear and isolation of a world that has increasingly drawn back from
committed and self giving relationships and championed instead mainly those
fuelled magnetism of
romance and sexual attraction.
This brings us back to Agape
love which we spoke of two weeks ago: the love that powers up hills and which
is more an act of the will than an abandonment to
emotions. We love because God loves and
we love with His love. V 1 everyone who
loves the father loves his child as well.
So these are the three challenges To obey
God’s commands; to believe bible truth and love our enemies as well as the body
of the Christian community.
How do you think you are
doing? Are you encouraged or is it a
struggle?
Well I know from my own
experience that it can be a real struggle and a sermon like this reminding me
what is required can be quite disheartening.
I don’t always want to do what God commands: I do struggle to stand up for biblical truth
against the noisy objections of others in the media and sometimes in the Church
who would prefer to go with the flow rather than stand up for what the Bible
teaches: and as for loving those who
have hurt me! Well it is a real
struggle.
There is one more obstacle
that needs to be overcome: that is the
greatest spiritual obstacle of all: the one that excludes people from
heaven. Sin. Unforgiven sin
separates us from God for eternity. It
is a major obstacle.
So we need to ask our second
question.
How are we to overcome the world’s cynicism, secularism, hedonism and
hostility to the faith that says Jesus is the Way, The
Truth and The Life. How can we overcome
a hopeless death.
Here is the good news. We are not expected to overcome in our own
strength.
We are not saved by our good
conduct in keeping God’s commands.
We are not saved by our
orthodox belief by taking the Bible at its word.
We are not saved by our
performance in loving our fellow believers or our enemies.
Verse 4 and 5 make it very
clear: This is the victory that has
overcome the world; even our faith. He
who believes that Jesus is the Son of God overcomes the world.
It is one thing to give
intellectual assent to the possibility that Jesus is the Son of God. It is quite another to build our lives on that
truth and to live as if it is true: that
is faith. If we truly believe what Jesus
said and did we will keep God’s commands, we will put our trust in God’s word
over against the wisdom of the world and we will offer self giving agape love
because we are connected to Christ: we
obey as He obeyed his Father; we believe what he told us about his Father and
we love as he loved us. And all in his strength.
Finally: What
resources has God provided to ensure that our faith can overcome these
challenges
in this passage, John gives us three guarantees: what
he calls in verse 7 the three testimonies that agree that Jesus is the power
that has overcome the world and that in him we already have the life that has
overcome death: that is eternal life.
John makes it clear that
anyone who has true faith in Jesus Christ the Son of God has already overcome
the world. Verse 11 says This is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life
is in his son. He who has the son has
life.
I believe that this means
that he who has the Son has the power to overcome in all three areas of belief,
obedience and love. For Christ has
transformed his children already: we are
new creations, no more in condemnation, and no more bound to the mindset of the
world.
The three testimonies John
points to for our reassurance are The Spirit the Water and the Blood. It is all about what Christ has already done
for us and not about what we might have done ourselves.
First the
Testimony of the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit of Truth who points us to
Jesus. He convicts us of sin and leads
us to repentance. He guides us into all
truth in the scriptures and he comes to dwell within us as a guarantee and
deposit of the love of Christ. The Holy
Spirit within us gives us power to obey God’s Commands, Power to believe God’s
truth and power to love God’s Children even when that is an uphill struggle.
Second is the Testimony of
Water. The reference may be to the
waters of baptism when the Father’s voice was heard saying: This is my Son whom I love: identifying the real human Jesus as the
Christ: the Son of the living God. In
the same way for the Christian, baptism is a sign of new birth into our new
life in Christ: the life that has overcome the world.
Third is the Testimony of
Blood which surely refers to Jesus death.
Remember that the Gnostic false teachers denied that Jesus was the
Christ and they argued that the Christ left Jesus body before the agony of the
Cross. So sure were they of this that
the Gnostics abolished the practice of Holy Communion. But John is here reminding the believers that
Jesus Christ the Son of God really died that agonising death on the Cross in
order that he could carry our sins away.
There may be an allusion here to the moment of proof that Jesus was
really dead when the Roman soldier plunged a spear into Jesus ribs and
witnessed both blood and water spilling from his side. John added.
The man who saw it has given testimony and his testimony is true. Again the heart of the testimony was that
Jesus was the Son of God who truly lived and truly died and because of that
those who put their faith in him can overcome the world and have eternal life.
This is experienced in the
life of the believer through participation in the sacrament of holy communion
in which bread and wine become the emblems of Christ’s body and blood as be
remember the sacrifice he made once for all to set us free from sin and death.
These threefold signs are
given to us by God as the foundation for our Christian faith: By them we know that Jesus is the Son of God
who died for us ane who rose again. By faith in these truths, we have already
overcome the world: we are
forgiven: we are children of God, we
have eternal life and we can overcome the world.
So let us live by faith and
love God and obey God’s commands: love Jesus believe
his word and love his Children, especially those we find it hardest to love.
That is the Victory of Faith.