The Victory That Overcomes the World

1 John 5:1–5 | Pastor Christopher Powers

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Christopher: 00:00

Christ on the cross is stripped of everything that the world says we need to be happy. Just think about that. At the center of our faith, at the center of our hymns, at the center of our worship, at the center of our joy and hope is a figure who is stripped of everything the world says you need to be happy.

Caleb: 00:24

The following message was recorded at King's Tree Church. May the spirit use it to help you see, savor, and sing the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.

Christopher: 00:39

So as we come to the final chapter of this first epistle of John, he's bringing together everything he said. He's summing up all his points, and he's emphasizing particular aspects of it, and since this final chapter is something of a summary in and of itself, and since there's much for us to cover today, I just wanna jump right into the text rather than going over a review from last week, so look with me in one John chapter five. We're gonna be going through the first five verses together this morning. Here's what it says. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.

Christopher: 01:29

By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments, for this is the love of God that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome for everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the son of God? Okay. There's a lot going on there.

Christopher: 02:07

There's a lot of interconnecting lines of thought in those five verses, but one thing you may have noticed is that this is all language we've become familiar with over the course of this epistle. Jesus as the Christ, loving God, the commandments, loving one another, overcoming the world, the Son of God, everything here is what we've heard already, but John is weaving it together now in a cumulative way, bringing it all together, and what I wanna focus on this morning specifically here is the idea of the world and overcoming the world. What does that mean? What does it look like, and what are the results that it has in our lives? So let me pray for us, and then we will look at this text together.

Christopher: 02:58

So father we thank you that you have spoken to us, that you are a God who declares, who is open, who reveals himself, who declares himself in words that we can read, and supremely father who declares yourself in the son whom we know, Jesus Christ our Lord. And I pray this morning, father, for grace now to be clear, to be faithful to your word, to be submitted to your spirit, and that your truth, Lord, would be made known now, that the excellence of Jesus Christ would be unfolded now, and I pray that what this text declares would be enacted in the midst of your people, that the world would be overcome here this morning, that you would do that work, father, to overcome, to cause us to overcome the world. Grant us the faith that overcomes the world, and having overcome, father, may we obey the commandments you give, the loving commandments you give us without burden, without weight upon our souls of hardship, but in freedom, may we obey the commands you've given us to our joy and to your glory. Lord, all that we are now, our strength and our weakness, our ability and our inability, we consecrate to you.

Christopher: 04:29

Be exalted as we look to your word now in Jesus name. Amen. So if you think about a symphony, there's many different instruments, and they're all playing their own parts, and throughout the course of the symphony different instruments might rise up and play their part especially, but then at the end you get all of them coming together, and they're all playing their own individual part, and it can be overwhelming when you listen to it, but if you pick out each part and just let the whole kind of wash over you see this is beautiful. This all works. This all fits.

Christopher: 05:06

In a sense, that's what John is doing here. He's bringing the symphony of his letter to a conclusion, and there's many different parts that are playing, and I wanna take a moment for you to hear some different instruments, as it were, that we're playing, because if you just read verses one through five, it can sound like a bunch of instruments all playing at once, and I didn't really get the connections there. I didn't really get what was going on. So what I wanna do for us here to start is just to take a moment to try to understand this passage, break out three elements for us to get clear in our minds, and then we'll talk about this idea of the world and overcoming the world. But before we do, I just want to lay out for you three things for us to see that will help start, I hope, to clarify what John is talking about in this passage.

Christopher: 06:00

So the first thing, the first of those three things I want to help you see is a parallelism, a parallelism that John is working out here. Parallelism meaning he's setting two things in relation to each other so that we can understand both of those in different ways. So let me read to you this passage and see if you can hear the parallelism that's going on. First in verse five:one, Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Okay?

Christopher: 06:37

Verse four, everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. Okay? And then verse five, who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? All right, so each one of those It's like a chain. Each one of those statements is connected to the next one by John's thought process here.

Christopher: 07:04

Here's the parallel. Listen. If you believe Jesus is the Christ, you're born of God. Okay? Then down in verse four, If you're born of God, you've overcome the world.

Christopher: 07:16

Okay? Then in verse five, The one who overcomes the world, and he doesn't say is born of God or believes Jesus is the Christ. He says, The one who overcomes the world believes Jesus is the Son of God. You think, Wait, I thought you were gonna say one of these two here. When you put all those together, here's the connection.

Christopher: 07:37

Believe Jesus is the Christ, born of God. Born of God, overcome the world. Overcome the world, believe Jesus is the Son of God. So you've got like a chiasm here, a V shape, and these two believe Jesus is the Christ, believe Jesus is the Son of God. These two are connected to each other because of this down here, because of their connections down here.

Christopher: 08:01

And so what John is laying out for us here is that our faith, our belief, the faith of the Christian, the faith that he says in the second half of verse four overcomes the world, Our faith is this, Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. To believe Jesus is the Christ and believe he's the Son of God, these aren't two different things. Well, I believe he's the Christ, not the Son of God, da da da da. These are two elements of the same confession, and we see that by the parallelism that John lays out here, the chain of reasoning that John constructs here. So faith, when John's talking about faith here, the faith he has in mind is this belief that Jesus is the Christ, which means the divine King, the Son of God, the one who shows us the Father.

Christopher: 08:51

That's our faith. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Now there's something more to see here, because this isn't just a random statement John makes. He's not just grabbing Christian sounding words and saying, Christ, Son of God. That sounds good.

Christopher: 09:06

This is important for him. These two titles are important for him, and we know that because this is how he ends his entire gospel. Remember, it's the same John who wrote the gospel of John that we're reading here, his letter. So back in the gospel of John, in the very end in chapter 20 verse 31, as John is telling us why he wrote this book, here's what he says. The very Verse 20, chapter 31, he says this, Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples which are not written in this book, but these are written.

Christopher: 09:44

So he's saying, I wrote this gospel. These are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. So the same two beliefs, the same two confessions we find in one John at the end of one John. John tells us, That's what I wrote my whole gospel to do. I wrote my entire gospel to try to kindle in the hearts of readers faith, belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

Christopher: 10:17

So this is important for John. And then we might ask ourselves, okay, where specifically do we have that faith? Where specifically am I to look upon Jesus and say, This one is the Christ, the Son of God. Of course, his whole life, his whole person, but all of that narrows together for John and comes to a specific crisis point at the cross, at the cross. The cross is where this faith, Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God.

Christopher: 10:53

The cross is where that faith is born in our hearts. Why do I say that? Well, I'm gonna turn back again a little further into John's Gospel. When Jesus is hanging on the cross in John 19, here's what we read. When they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs, but one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water.

Christopher: 11:23

He who saw it has borne witness. His testimony is true, and he knows he is telling the truth so that you also may believe. So that you also may believe. Now for John, so that you may believe is a phrase. It's an important phrase.

Christopher: 11:44

It's not just him saying, I want you to believe that when they stabbed Jesus, blood and water came out. He's not concerned that we affirm that historical fact. I mean, we need to affirm that fact, but that's not the point. He's not saying, I saw this so that you might believe this specific thing happened. When he says, So that you may believe, he's saying, I saw this.

Christopher: 12:06

I saw the crucified one. I saw him pierced unto death, and I'm bearing witness to you so that you may believe that for which my whole gospel is written, so that you may believe this one is the Christ, the Son of God. That same phrase, so that you may believe, is what he says again at the end of his gospel in the text I already read, I wrote this gospel so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Now the point of all this is to say this. The belief, the faith in one John that overcomes the world, it's the belief that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and by running back through into John's gospel, we see that this faith is the faith that is particularly born as we stand at the foot of the cross by faith.

Christopher: 13:03

As we look upon Jesus pierced unto death, knowing that he's risen, confessing that he's risen, but with the eyes of faith set upon that great work by which he supremely declares his name in love, When we see the crucified Christ, that's where we say he is the divine King, the Christ. He is the Son of God and the revealer of God. That's our faith. That's our faith. That's what John means when he talks about faith in one John, and that is the faith that overcomes the world.

Christopher: 13:42

Standing at the foot of the cross and saying, That one is my king and my God. That overcomes the world. We'll get back to that in a minute, but that's the first point I want you to see. Faith is faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, as that faith is born at the cross, the resurrection illumined cross. The second thing I want us to think about here is the interplay between love and commandments in this text in one John one through five, because it can be a little confusing to trace through.

Christopher: 14:14

Just listen to it. See if you can track with John. Starting in verse two, By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey his commandments, for this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome, for everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. Okay, what's going on here? Love, commandments, overcoming the world?

Christopher: 14:40

Let me try to give a little bit of clarity on this part of the text now. First, let's ask ourselves what are the commandments when he says, By this we know that we love the children of God. When we love God and we obey his commandments, what's he talking about? The 10 commandments? All the imperatives in scripture?

Christopher: 14:59

What's John mean when he talks about the commandments? He doesn't tell us here, but he does tell us a little bit earlier in one John three. It might be on the same page for you. You might have to turn back a page, but in one John chapter three verse 23 here's what John says. This is the commandment.

Christopher: 15:22

Now he's using a singular here, commandment, and he uses a plural later, commandments, but the consensus seems to be that when he talks about the single commandment, what he means is these things are so closely connected it's as if there's one. You can talk about them as two different commandments or one single one, but this is what John has in mind when he talks about commandments. Again, verse 23 of chapter three. This is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another just as he has commanded us. So there it is.

Christopher: 16:03

There's the commandment. These two things can't be divided, and there's the commandments. You can think of them as two different ones, but they're bound together. What are they? First, believe in the name of God's Son, Jesus Christ.

Christopher: 16:18

That's the first commandment, and the second one, love as he's commanded us, which is to say love one another as he has loved us. These are the two. Receive Jesus as all because believing him is not just this intellectual, Yeah, I agree. It is a reception of him as food, as drink, as life. Here's the two commandments.

Christopher: 16:42

Receive Jesus as all. Love one another with all. That's when John talks about commandments here in one John five, that's what's in mind. Receive Jesus as all. Love one another with all.

Christopher: 17:01

That's everything for the Christian. We've talked about that a lot before, And then John says, This is the love of God. Verse three, This is the love of God that we keep his commandments. So for us to love God doesn't mean I have a warm feeling in my heart when I think of God. I hope that's true, but that's not love of God.

Christopher: 17:24

Love of God doesn't mean I get excited when I sing certain worship songs, or I like the idea of theology. Love of God looks like lived out. It looks like receiving Jesus as everything, as our food, as our drink, as our Lord, as our God, as our life, believing the crucified and risen one as my life. Love for God looks like that, and love for God looks like loving one another as he has loved us. These two things, this commandment, believe and love, this is what it looks like to love God.

Christopher: 18:07

Receive Jesus as all. Love one another with all. That's the commandments. That's the commandments, and John says, This is what it looks like to love God, and then he says in verse four I'm sorry, in verse three, These commandments are not burdensome. He says it's not burdensome.

Christopher: 18:35

To receive Christ as all, to love one another with all, this isn't burdensome. Why? Why, verse four, for everyone who's been born of God overcomes the world. So because we've overcome the world, these commandments are not burdensome. That then moves us to the third thing I want us to see.

Christopher: 18:54

So right now remember, we're just laying out some points about this text to try to get it clear. The first one is our faith is faith that is born at the cross that believes this crucified one is king and revealer of God, Christ the Son of God. That's the first thing. Put that over here. The second thing now is that the commandments is to receive Jesus as all, love one another with all, and that this is not a burden because we've overcome the world.

Christopher: 19:26

Okay, set that over here. The third thing to consider now is what's the world? What's the world? What's the world that he's talking about? In verse three, in verse four, he talks about overcoming the world.

Christopher: 19:43

What is the world? Well, it's not the trees, the stars, the mountains, other people, just material. He's not saying overcome the material with the spiritual. He's not talking about that. When he talks about the world, he has in mind what we might call the world system, and we know that because he lays this out for us back in chapter two.

Christopher: 20:07

I'll just read this for you. You don't have to turn here. Back in chapter two, starting verse 15, he says this, Do not love the world or the things in the world, and then he says in verse 16, All that is in the world, so here's what he has in mind when he talks about the world. All that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, the pride of life is not from the Father, but from the world. So when John talks about world, don't hear him saying material existence.

Christopher: 20:36

Don't hear him saying creation. Hear him saying the system of human life into which we're born and in which we function by nature. The whole matrix of incentives and goals and priorities and values and threats and accolades that root our life to this life, and focus us upon this sphere, this time of existence, this season that we're alive. So what is the world? The world is the unspoken demand to make more money, to get ahead, to press every advantage, to tweak every parameter, and get the very most output possible.

Christopher: 21:30

This pressure to insulate our lives from suffering. Where did we learn that? Where did we learn that? Where did I learn to just push and go and drive and more and more? World, the world.

Christopher: 21:42

The world is the undefined calculus that measures our success in relation to others. How are they doing? How am I doing? How's it going over here? What's it going over The undefined calculus that measures our success in relation to others that turns people around us into statistics, or rivals, or instruments to pursue our ends.

Christopher: 22:06

The world is the mindset that says you are what others say you are, or you are what your bank account says you are, or what your achievements say you are, or your beauty, or strength, or influence says you are. That's part of the world system that enmeshes us. The world is the system that rewards self promotion. It rewards that which scripture condemns. It rewards self promotion.

Christopher: 22:41

It encourages us to turn our most intimate moments into fodder for the algorithm. It incentivizes destructive habits and discourages self control. It values strengths and despises weakness. It tells us that winning always looks like being better, scoring more, gaining more, being stronger. That whole system of interweaving wants and fears, promises and threats, that's the world.

Christopher: 23:16

That's the world, and we're in it. We're born in it by nature. You can think of the world as a kind of spell, a spell that has been cast over the whole human race, and that's actually not too fanciful to say, because in Ephesians Paul tells us that in fact the whole world is under the influence of Satan, of a spirit. He says in Ephesians two verse one, You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked following the course of the world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh carrying out the desires of our body. And so the world, the pattern, the direction, the way we just go when you push it into neutral and glide, It's not benign.

Christopher: 24:20

It's diabolical. I'm not saying material is diabolic. I'm not saying creation. I'm saying the system that the world has made, the matrix that it binds us into, this thing, this spell is diabolical, and this, this world is what John says we overcome through faith in the crucified and risen Jesus, believing that the crucified one who is risen is king of reality and revealer of God. Believing that, he says, breaks the spell of the world, overcomes the world.

Christopher: 25:03

So let's move then to that. We've looked at these three things. Our faith is faith in Jesus as Christ and Son of God. It happens at the cross. The commandment is that we believe in Jesus as our all and love one another with our all, and that is not burdensome because we've overcome the world, and then we looked at the world, which is this system of interweaving promises, and threats, and goals, and fears that bind us to this life.

Christopher: 25:32

So those three things are laid out. Now let's ask the question, what does it mean to overcome this? What does it mean to overcome the world? And to make it simple, I'll just use the analogy we've already set up, the idea of breaking the spell. Breaking the spell.

Christopher: 25:49

Overcoming the world means breaking, breaking its power over you, such that the whole system of promises, and threats, and incentives, and goals, and rankings, and accolades loses its grip on your soul. It loses its grip. The spell is broken. So I'll give you an image, an analogy for this. Imagine there's a town, and this whole town is under the spell of a sorcerer, and every morning this sorcerer leads the people out to the beach to collect little shells, collect the little shiny shells, the big ones, the round ones, the bright ones, collect the shells, and then every night he leads them back to their village where they compare shells to one another and fight over who has the better ones and try to get the most and say which ones are best, and they put the very best ones up on a little pedestal, and whoever has the best shelves, they get the best food for that night.

Christopher: 26:48

This is the little life that this sorcerer has the people bound in. And then imagine that you are one of these people, and suddenly one day walking down to the beach, you wake up. You're in the line and you just realize, What am I doing? What am I doing here? And you look around, and all of a sudden the sorcerer no longer terrifies you, and the shells no longer compel you.

Christopher: 27:14

What? That is what I was scrambling for? And the food is no longer appetizing to you. And in fact, you see that the whole little village you've been living in is a ramshackle slum crammed into one corner of an island, and that out here expanding out to the horizon are green mountains with rivers running down them calling your name, and then you do what seems impossible. You leave the line.

Christopher: 27:44

A moment earlier it's like, No, I could never. I could never. I could never. And all of a sudden you say, I'm leaving. I'm done.

Christopher: 27:50

I'm stepping out of this line. The sorcerer no longer terrifies me. The shells no longer compel me. I'm walking out of this place, and the sorcerer waves his wand and threatens horrific curses, and you say, Keep talking. I know where I'm going.

Christopher: 28:08

I'm leaving. I'm going to the mountains, and you leave. That is overcoming the world. That moment when everything that used to bind, and compel, and terrify you, and drive you, and hold you, and make you think I could never do otherwise. Oh, I could never give that away.

Christopher: 28:30

I could never stop doing this. I could never do that. I could never pass up this opportunity. All of a sudden that power is broken. It's broken, and it's replaced by a new vision of what is good and true and beautiful.

Christopher: 28:48

It's not about the village anymore. We see the mountains. When that severing of the spell's power happens, that's overcoming the world. That's overcoming the world, and the victory that does this, the victory that breaks this spell, John says, is our faith. Again, look down in verse four.

Christopher: 29:08

This is the victory that has overcome the world. This is the victory that has broken the spell. This is the victory that has torn you out of the matrix of desires, and wants, and hopes, and fears that bind you down. This is the victory that has ripped you out of that and brought you into reality. What?

Christopher: 29:29

Our faith, he says. The victory that overcomes the world is our faith, our faith. Faith that the crucified and risen one is king of reality and revealer of God. That's the victory that overcomes the world. So now moving toward a close, let's ask ourselves, how does this happen?

Christopher: 29:50

How is it that believing in the slain and risen Lord as king and God breaks the power of the world over us and sets us free from it? Let's ask ourselves that question. I think there's at least two ways. I'm sure there's more, but this is at least two ways that we can see and derive from John's text. The first is that believing in the crucified and risen Jesus as King and God shatters the promises of the world.

Christopher: 30:23

It shatters all the promises of the world. What do I mean by that? Well, the world promises satisfaction how? Through comfort, through security, through strength, through control, through wealth and health. That's how the world says, Here's what I have to offer you.

Christopher: 30:46

Here's where your life is found, in strength, in wealth, in comfort, in autonomy, in being able to do things. That's where the good life lies, in more power, more stuff, more autonomy. And in fact, the heaven that the world offers to us can only ever be this life cranked up to a thousand, and lamentably, sometimes that's how we think about heaven. This life just cranked up, like a lot of wealth, a lot of stuff I can get here, rather than a qualitative change, a qualitative change, which is our true hope. So the world's paradise is bound to this life.

Christopher: 31:34

Let's put it that way. But what is the crucified Jesus? What is Christ? What is this Christ who breaks this power? When we trust in Jesus, what do we see?

Christopher: 31:46

We see in him the repudiation of the entire good life that the world offers to us. Christ on the cross is stripped of everything that the world says we need to be happy. Just think about that. At the center of our faith, at the center of our hymns, at the center of our worship, at the center of our joy and hope is a figure who is stripped of everything the world says you need to be happy. Christ is stripped of strength and comfort, of security, of control.

Christopher: 32:26

He hangs naked and powerless in the absence of what the world says we need. In fact, the crucified Jesus is everything the world is terrified to become. He is everything the world is fighting not to become, and yet faith says it's precisely here, here in this place outside the camp of the world, in this place the world doesn't want to look at, in this place that turns on its head everything the world promises me. It's here that I actually find the meaning of life. It's here that I actually find God, God in his glory, in his beauty, in the love that satisfies me, the thing I was always looking for in the bright lights of the world city, I actually found here in the dark places outside of the world's camp.

Christopher: 33:26

I found it here. I see it here. I've received it here. That's what faith says. Here is the beauty beneath every beauty, the wisdom that fashions the cosmos, the love for which our souls and all of reality were made here in the very place the world says, Don't go there.

Christopher: 33:49

And when that happens, it reveals the world's promises as lies. It shows me that everything they're peddling in this shiny bright city is not really the answer, because I found the answer in the exact diametrically opposed place, at the cross, at the cross. So again, another example for you. Imagine you're in a big house, and we're all in this house, and the caretaker of the house says, Now stay away from the basement. Don't go in the basement.

Christopher: 34:21

Okay? There's nothing for you there. Stay here in the living room, and in the living room we find lots of nice little paper mache toys that break after about two minutes of playing with them, and we found lots of candies and lollipops all made of glass. Don't actually try to eat them. They'll kill you.

Christopher: 34:40

This is where the world says, Live here. It's bright. It's happy. There's lots of baubles all around and glitter, but just don't go to the basement. Then one day we wander into the basement, and we find that it actually opens out into a forest of trees and rivers and mountains and a banquet table spread, and a king awaiting us, welcoming us into his kingdom, and we say, He was lying.

Christopher: 35:11

The owner of this house or the caretaker of this house was lying. What does finding the king in the basement do to the words of the caretaker? It shows that his promises were all a lie, and it shows that his little paradise that he said, Live here, live for this, it was all a sham. It shows us that true life, true fullness, true wonder, true joy is found outside of the system. That's the phrase.

Christopher: 35:43

The cross shows us that life is actually found outside of the system, and in doing so, it obliterates the promises of the system. It breaks the power of the system. It overcomes the system. When we enter the basement of the cross by faith, we find there the life and beauty and fullness we were always seeking, and that shatters the promises of the world, and says that wasn't true. Here's the answer.

Christopher: 36:17

So that's the first way that faith in the slain and risen Christ breaks the power of the world. Secondly, and quickly, faith in the slain and risen Jesus as King and God shatters the promises of the world, and it breaks the horizon of the world. This is the other way it overcomes the world. What do I mean by that? The horizon of the world, the limit, the furthest it can see is death.

Christopher: 36:44

The world can't see beyond death. The world can't promise anything beyond death. The world can't threaten anything beyond death. The world ends at death. The world has no That's the speed limit.

Christopher: 36:59

That's the county limit. The world can't go beyond death, and that's why the world exerts itself to try to minimize death. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Think about youth.

Christopher: 37:13

Think about power. Think about life. Don't think about death. The world has no answer for death, and all of its glitter and noise and promises are a smokescreen thrown up against the fear of death. But what does faith in Christ do?

Christopher: 37:32

Faith in the crucified and risen Jesus. Faith in the risen Christ tears the horizon of the world in two. It tears the horizon of death down the center. If Christ is risen, then death itself is the doorway into life. If Christ is risen, death itself is overthrown as death and has become a servant, a servant who bows down before the saints and carries them through the river into the presence of Christ.

Christopher: 38:13

Death itself is now overcome because Christ is risen, and Christian, you are united to him. You are united to him, and so we are to be set free from the fear of death, the fear that the world operates under. We are set free from the fear of death because we are united to the one who has passed through death, and now stands in joy everlasting. Do you know at the heart of our faith is freedom from the fear of death? Freedom from the fear of death.

Christopher: 38:50

Not just my heart stopping, but all the horrors that death bleeds out of itself into our life. Suffering, pain, loss, loved ones who are threatened, who may pass, all the ravages of death, the resurrection of Christ says it's overcome. It's overcome. You, me, we, the church no longer have to live bowed down under the yoke of fear of death because Christ is risen. Can you imagine what it would be like to be utterly free from every fear that comes from death?

Christopher: 39:35

I would submit probably none of us are there yet, but we can be. We ought to be. The fullness of that freedom is there in the risen Christ. Christ is risen, trampling down death by death, and on all those who were under the fear of death, bestowing freedom, life, hope. So this is a parentheses, but let us press into that.

Christopher: 40:02

Press into that, the resurrection of Christ. Very last point now, and very briefly. The results of this freedom. The world is overcome because its promises are broken. Its horizon is shattered, and now what are the results of being free from the world, of having overcome the world?

Christopher: 40:21

Well, John tells us this at least is the result in verse three and four. His commandments are not burdensome, for everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. So at the very least, the result of this is that the commands are not a burden to us. It's not a burden to us. Now the implication there is if the world is not overcome, they are a burden.

Christopher: 40:47

So think about this. The command to receive Jesus as all and love others with all, if we're in the world, if I am enmeshed in a world system that says, Live for yourself, believe the promises of the world, live for this life, live for now, if I'm enmeshed in that world, it's going to be very burdensome to receive Jesus as all and love others with all. It's going to be very burdensome, but if the world is overcome and its promises are shattered and the fear of death is broken, and if we've tasted our supreme good and joy and hope wholly in the one who dies to this world and lives to God, if that has happened, if the sorcerer's power is broken, then it's not a burden to do these things. It's an outworking of our faith to believe in him and love one another as he's loved us. The result of the world being overcome allows us to become like Mary Magdalene.

Christopher: 41:52

You remember Mary? She pours over Jesus' feet the equivalent of $40,000 worth of perfume, of ointment. She pours $40,000 worth of ointment over the feet of Christ in worship to him, while the disciples here standing in for the world look on in horror at the waist. What is she doing? But Jesus says, It's beautiful.

Christopher: 42:23

It's beautiful, and we're freed to do that. Where are the feet of Jesus today, Christian, over which we are to pour the oil of our lives? You and me, the church. We are the feet, the hands, the head of Christ. So having overcome the world, we are free like Mary to pour the oil of our entire life over the feet of our Lord in worship.

Christopher: 42:52

And by that, I mean over one another, because we are his body. You want to anoint the body of Christ in love, then love the people around you. Love one another. This kind of life is a burden if we're enmeshed in the world, but if we're free from the world and we live in Christ, it's not a burden. It's our joy, and it's the outworking of our faith.

Christopher: 43:15

May we experience that to be true more and more. Let me pray for us. Father, praise be to your name that the world is overcome. You, Jesus, have overcome the world. In this world, we will have tribulation, but in you, we have peace, and you have overcome all that this world can bring against us, all that it threatens against us, all that it promises to us, you have overcome.

Christopher: 43:50

Father, I pray that we as the members of the bride of Christ, members of the body of Christ, would live out of the freedom that this overcoming gives. We would not be enmeshed again in the system of this world that drives our affections and our priorities against Christ, but they would be set free from this system to live in the freedom of Jesus as are all. As the verse said, to live to Christ, to die to Christ. May we be such a people, Father, and may it be shown in that we love one another, not from a burdened weariness, but we love one another from a freedom, from a fullness, from an overflow, because we've been born of you. And praise your name, Father, that death is overcome, that Christ is risen, that death itself and all that it threatens is trampled down under the pierced feet of the risen Lord.

Christopher: 44:55

As members of his body, may we have this freedom in Christ. We pray in his name. Amen.

Caleb: 45:03

Thank you for listening to this message from King's Tree Church in Sabina, Ohio. To see more of the beauty of God in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ, come worship with us on Sundays at 10AM or visit our website at kingstreechurch.org.