you'll go ahead and turn your song books over to 469 I know what you're thinking what?
isn't he going to preach?
will be singing another song?
we're going to preach about a song this evening a little different 469 faith is the victory
should be similar words, familiar to us, because we sing them often.
The hymn says, faith is the victory.
So important, the song says it twice.
Faith is the victory, faith is the victory.
glorious victory that overcomes the world.
It's a powerful statement.
But the real question that I hope we think about and contemplate tonight is, are we simply singing the words?
Or do we truly live by the fact that faith is the victory?
If you turn your Bibles over to 1 John chapter 5 and look at verses 4 through 5, we get to the main verse, the key verse of tonight's lesson.
The Apostle John makes it clear that faith is not a vague feeling or an abstract idea.
He declares that faith is the very means by which the people of God overcome the world.
He says in 1 John chapter 5, verses 4 through 5, for whatsoever is born of God, overcome at the world.
And this is the victory that overcome at the world, even our faith.
Now, if this morning you're reading from the King James Version of the Bible, I want you to look very closely at the word even.
it should be in italics.
That italicized word, when it's in italicized, means that it was not part of the original Greek text.
Wasn't there?
It was added later by translators to make things a little easier for us to understand.
In this case, I don't think it belongs.
because it's not even.
This is the victory that overcome at the world, comma, our faith.
Much stronger message than putting the word even in there.
Who is he that overcome at the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?
It's presented in this text as victory itself.
It is the victory, and I firmly believe when the Bible says something is like something, it's probably like that thing.
And when the Bible says that it is something, that it is exactly what it describes it as.
Scripture shows us how faith overcomes in Hebrews chapter 11, where men and women trusted God in difficult circumstances.
They endured suffering and acted upon God's promises without knowing how everything would turn out.
Faith overcomes when one fully submits to God and steps forward in obedience.
That's why Scripture can confidently say that faith is the victory.
But what is it the victory over?
This evening we're going to take a look at five different things that faith is the victory over.
It's not a complete compiled list.
I wouldn't have time.
And typically people like short sermons in the evening.
Faith is the victory starting out over unbelief and doubt.
Unbelief is one of the most hopeless conditions mankind can ever face themselves in.
It's the worst, waking up in the morning and thinking that there's no hope.
Without faith, in and of itself, life has no meaning.
Suffering has no purpose, and death has no answer.
It's difficult to imagine how someone could live in this broken world without believing that God is ultimately in control of its entire design.
He's the one that upholds it with His power, as the Bible says.
And that one day He's going to bring everything into account.
Judgment's going to come.
It's even harder to imagine facing death without faith.
Death in and of itself is typically a scary thought.
It shouldn't be scary for a Christian.
But can you imagine standing beside the grave of a loved one, firmly believing that there's no hope of reunion?
No comfort is found in those thoughts and no assurance beyond this life.
Turn your Bible over to Psalm chapter 14 and verse 1.
There's three verses that show us why faith is
the victory over unbelief and doubt.
While you're turning there, I'll read 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 19.
says, if in this life only do we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
Christ is of ill effect if he's only effective in the world and not the world hereafter.
But moving back to Psalm 14 and verse 1, the fool have said in his heart, there is no God.
They, being the fool in this verse, are corrupt.
They have done abominable works.
There is none that doeth good.
No one who says that there is no God has done any good by Scripture's account.
Ephesians 2 and verse 12 takes this a little further.
It says, that at this time ye were without Christ.
being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.
Faith is something that can change an unbelieving heart.
Belief and faith are two separate things.
Belief is believing in something while faith is the application.
It's almost similar to wisdom and knowledge.
It can be paralleled with it.
Knowledge is knowing a thing, having the facts, two plus two equals four.
Wisdom is the application of that knowledge to know that you're not overcharging the person who bought four apples instead of two and two.
Faith gives direction where there was confusion, hope where there was despair, and confidence where there was fear.
This is the victory.
Faith restores hope by anchoring the soul in the promises of God.
You have nothing to fear as a Christian if you rest all of your faith on His promises, if you act, if you have the wisdom to apply your belief system.
Faith is belief in action.
to go back to the parallel of knowledge and wisdom.
That's what faith is, and it's a victory, not only over doubt, but also over self, which brings us to two.
One of the greatest battles we face, most days, is not with the world around us.
Most of what we can do can barely be a drop in the pond as far as the world's concerned, but with the self within us.
We fight things like selfishness, fight things like pride.
Self-will are at the root of many spiritual failures.
If self remains on the throne instead of God, faith cannot rule our heart because our belief in action shows otherwise.
It's having a belief in ourselves more than we believe in the Creator.
We can't have that.
Jesus made the cost of discipleship very clear in Matthew 16.
In Matthew chapter 16 verses 24, then Jesus said unto his disciples, if any man
being mankind, will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." So what does it mean to deny oneself?
Does that simply mean that we have to be like the, the, quote unquote, spiritual monks?
We have to shave our heads, we have to go up on a mountain, sit cross-legged for hours at a time, we have to give up creature comforts.
No TV, no electronics, no cars, you know.
Alpaca wool, real itchy kind, not the soft kind.
No, it doesn't mean giving up creature comforts.
It means surrendering control.
It means taking up one's cross, accepting personal responsibility and sacrifice in service to Christ.
Following Christ means obedience, so much more so than what the world typically looks at.
I think they like to look at it through not obedience, but admiration.
Matthew chapter seven, verses 21 says, not everyone that sethanymi Lord, Lord shall enter the kingdom of heaven.
You can love God.
or say you love God, you can have admiration to your heart's content.
You can even claim that He is your personal Savior and, very heavy italicized, let Him into your heart.
Make Him your personal Savior.
We hear this all the time, but it is ill effect if you don't read the rest of the verse.
If you don't finish Matthew 7-21 where he says, but,
He that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." You can yell, Lord, Lord, all you want, but unless your belief is turned into faith, which is obedience or belief in action,
in practice,
You're not going to make it.
1 Peter 2, 21 puts it this way, "'For even hereunto ye were called, "'because Christ also suffered for us, "'leaving us an example that we should follow His steps.'" Victory over
self is not won by discipline alone, contrary to what any physical therapist or gym membership will tell you.
You can have control over your body,
You can have discipline for days, but that's not how we achieve it.
Do we achieve the six pack abs we want in discipline alone?
No.
We have to have faith in the diet.
We have to apply it.
We have to do the workout plan we were given by our trainer.
It's believing that it will work, but it's also putting it into action.
It's having faith.
Victory over itself, in comparison, is achieved by faith, faith that trusts God's will over our own and believes that His way is always the best way.
We may think we know better.
Many people in the Bible have thought they knew better than God and didn't understand.
And yet, they were wrong.
When they told them to march around the city of Jericho all those multiple times,
Who thought that that would be a good idea?
That's the way to win.
All human reasoning teaches us no, that's not how you win.
You win by having bigger guns than the other guy, or having a larger army with people to sacrifice, outsmarting them, digging tunnels, a sneak attack, Trojan horse.
But God proved in that instance, he was far more intelligent than mankind ever could be.
faith in God's way is how we have victory in ourselves.
Faith is also the victory over material things.
Jesus never taught that material things were evil.
Let me get that out of the way right now.
Material things are fine, we need them to survive, but He consistently taught that we must never have them become central to life.
We don't need to depend wholeheartedly on our physical possessions.
Yes, possessions are necessary, but they are not ultimate.
We have to lower them where they belong.
Turn your Bibles over to Matthew chapter 16, and we'll look at verse 26.
If you could have the entire world in your pocket, what would it gain us as a Christian?
Ultimately nothing.
We get of all the fancy houses, all the dollars and ones and zeros in the bank account, or nines and zeros, I guess that's a bigger number, right?
But ultimately it doesn't matter what.
Matthew chapter 16 verse 26, he says, for what is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?
Or what shall man give in exchange for his soul?
Every soul on this earth is precious.
As of the last consensus I know, I think there's over 6 billion people in the world.
I'm pretty sure that's wrong.
I think I'm on the low end.
I think we're upwards of somewhere of 8 billion souls on the planet right now.
And yet every single one of those is worth more than all the riches in the entire world.
If you could take the planet and sell it for raw materials, we could not afford a single soul.
And yet we have a planet full of over six billion of us.
Luke chapter and 15, and he said unto them, Take heed and beware of covetousness, for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth." I'm gonna
keep getting tongue-tied.
I'm gonna skip it.
In our culture, especially times around Christmas, things become the central point.
It's easy to be consumed by these material things.
Again, the danger is not in having them.
It's not a bad thing to give gifts and receive them.
It's a great thing.
But loving them becomes a problem.
Scripture repeatedly warns that misplaced affection leads to spiritual ruin.
If you're still turned over to Matthew, move forward just a few pages to Matthew 19 and verse 24.
He says, and again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.
Now let's put something into context.
He's not talking about a camel and a sewing needle.
I used to think this my whole life growing up.
So a needle is a very, very tight mountainous pass.
It's kind of like when you go caving or there's a place in Tennessee, I can't remember the state park now, but they got two giant boulders and to get to the other section of the
park, you have to go through these two boulders.
They called it the Fat Man's Pass.
That would be called a needle.
Camels can't get through those very easily.
It's still possible you can go to heaven and have great riches.
Look at Job.
Job had many riches.
He lost all of them during what happened to him, which was very sad.
But he grew in his faith and obedience to Christ.
He learned and God blessed him for it.
Gave him more riches than he ever had before.
You can make it to heaven and have riches.
But it's saying it's difficult because love typically coincides with all the riches and material possessions you have.
1 Timothy chapter 6.
Starting in verse 6, he says, but godliness with contentment is great pain, for we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
And having food and raiment, let us therewith be content.
Be happy.
You got food, you've got clothes, you're not starving, you're not naked.
God, that's good.
God is good in all things.
But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.
For the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and perceived themselves through many sorrows.
But thou, O man of God, flee these things."
Run from the law of money, he's saying, and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness.
Fight the good fight of faith.
Lay hold on eternal life.
Faith enables us to value eternal riches over temporary ones and to use material things without being controlled by them.
Faith can be our victory over material items.
But faith can also be our victory over fear.
Fear and anxiety characterize much of modern life.
People fear economic uncertainty.
We're always watching what the stocks do on the Bitcoin market, aren't we?
Seeing if it's going up or down, how volatile it is.
Illness, loss, unknown future.
Fear can paralyze the heart and steal peace.
What about the fear of death?
It's a very valid fear.
Turn over to 1 John 4 and verse 18.
We talk about faith overcoming fear, but it's because faith brings in something else in addition to it in the equation.
Because fear can evolve past fear into something much better.
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear because fear hath torment.
He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
Faith does not
deny reality.
But it does refuse to let bad things dominate your heart.
It refuses to let fear dominate you.
Control your actions and your choices.
Faith trusts that God is present, powerful, and faithful even in the most uncertain of times.
Think back at the crossing of the Red Sea.
They had to have faith with Egypt on their backs and nothing but water in front of them.
They thought they'd come to the edge of a cliff.
They would have been fearful, but the faith drove them forward to keep walking towards the water.
And we know the water was split.
And they walked and proceeded through on dry land.
Faith is also the victory over immorality.
In Scripture, most of the time, not all, but most of the time, the word world, when used in Scripture, often refers to the system of sin and rebellion against God.
Those of the world.
Not saying terra firma.
It's not saying earth.
It's saying the sinful condition that we find out in the world.
The world appears to be human desire, pride, and constantly seeks to draw the hearts away from God.
The world is full of temptation.
That sinful way of living is full of it.
John clearly defines worldliness in 1 John chapter 2.
Starting in verse 15 it reads, love not the world.
I can't love terra firma.
I thought God created the world.
Such beautiful mountains, trees, skies, the lightning in the distance, beautiful things.
Can I not love God's creation?
That's not what he's saying.
He's saying don't love the world of sin.
Neither the things that are in the world.
He's not talking about physical items.
If any man loved the world, the sinful ways of the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
Changes the meaning a whole lot whenever you're looking at it from the spiritual aspect point of view and not the physical point of view, if we know the meaning.
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world.
And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof.
But he that doeth the will of the Father, God abideth forever.
If faith can give us as Christians and believers the strength to resist temptation, because we can focus on something eternal, it's tough, the temptation's real.
Sometimes you sweat trying to walk away from it because you want it so badly.
But we have to have faith in what's eternal.
not what's physical.
Rather than a moment of pleasure, we should be seeking eternal pleasures, which God promises.
Christians are called to live in the world.
We have to.
But we're also called to live apart from the world.
You can live in it and not be complacent in what it does without becoming a part of it.
Finally, faith is the victory over death and the grave.
Turn your Bibles over to Hebrews 9 and verse 27.
Every person is subject to death.
every one of us.
And many live in fear of it throughout their entire lives.
It's a scary thing.
I'm almost midway through my life and I still can't, I have no idea what's going to be going through my mind when I'm on that hospital bed, if I'm lucky enough to make it to the
hospital bed.
But Hebrews 9.27 says, and as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this, the judgment.
There's that faith, there's something coming.
It's not just blackness, it's not emptiness.
There's a hope of something in judgment.
We get a speeding ticket, which I recently did.
uh Went to judgment, went to court.
Thankfully, I was let off with a warning.
I didn't have to pay anything, walked scot-free, it was fine.
An error of some computer hiccup.
But there was hope.
You don't go into court.
uh knowing that the worst is coming, typically you go with an alibi.
You go with a purpose to try to get out of said speeding ticket, if that be the case.
There's hope there.
That's what faith can give you.
1 Corinthians 15, starting in verse 42 says, so also is unto the resurrection of the dead.
It is sown in corruption.
It is raised in incorruption.
It is sown in dishonor.
It is raised in glory.
It is sown in weakness.
It is raised in power.
It is sown in natural body.
It is raised a spiritual body.
Hebrews 2 and 15.
and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetimes subjected to bondage.
Through the power of Jesus Christ's death lost its power.
So why should we fear it as Christians?
1 Corinthians 15 and 55 puts it a beautiful way, death, where is thy sting?
grave, where is thy victory?
John 11 25 puts it another way.
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life.
He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.
Faith transforms death from an end.
into a passage.
into simply the next step.
And it can replace fear with hope.
Remember how we said earlier that love conquered fear?
Eventually, if you have enough faith in Christ, your faith grows.
Yes, we are to fear God and keep His commandments.
He's a powerful being.
There's nothing not to fear.
But your love as a Christian will eventually outgrow your fear.
You don't do, you stop doing things out of fear and start doing them out of love.
A good comparison to this is the small child.
Specifically, I'm thinking of myself.
Growing up, I did things my father told me because I feared I would get the belt.
But as I grew older, I started to do things out of love because I loved him, not out of fear of the belt.
That was always still a possibility.
but love conquers fear.
And in reference to God, faith is what leads us to that type of love.
So let's return back to the words in the songbook that we opened up to, the words we're gonna sing here soon.
Then onward from the hills of light, our hearts with love aflame, we'll vanquish all the hosts of night,
in Jesus' conquering name.
You probably remember when I lead singing from time to time, I'll say, sing it with vigor.
means put your heart into it.
Think about what you're saying.
It's easy from time to time to not think about what we're singing.
But when you really take a moment to step back and mean what you sing, you sing it with a little more oomph, don't you?
You know God is listening.
He hears you.
Don't forget, he's in this room with us right now.
Faith is our victory over every trial, every temptation, every force that opposes the will of God.
It overcomes unbelief.
It overcomes self.
It overcomes fear, immorality, and even death itself.
The question this evening is simple and plain.
Do we have the faith to respond?
Do we have the faith to put on Christ in obedience through the act of baptism?
Or do we have the faith to return and ask our Christian brothers and sisters for help if we've fallen away?
If you have that kind of faith today and need it, please let us know as we stand.