Christians Have Faith in Christ to Overcome

If you have not already, please turn in your Bible to 1 John 5, the epistle of John, not his gospel. And we're wrapping up this book. I only have, I think, one other message, and then I've already started my work in 2 John. And I've learned a lot already about John the man.

If you haven't been here for the duration of the series, I've emphasized over and over again that the main meaning of the book of 1 John, the theme of the book, the main idea, the thing that—if you're done reading the book of 1 John, what you're supposed to get out of it—is that this is what a real Christian is, or this is what real Christianity is. Now when I say that, I mean counter to what we might think it is, counter to what the world might say it is, counter to what false teachers might say it is.

There is a genuine Christianity. And the way you can know you are a part of it, either as a Christian or the thing itself, the big picture Christianity, is you read 1 John and it becomes the test. John becomes like a diagnostic tool in this letter to tell you this is what a real Christian is. It's somebody that believes Jesus came in the flesh. It's somebody that doesn't say one thing and do another. It's somebody that walks in truth.

Now, I'm starting that way because I want to make sure we're clear before I move forward that wind—wind, the stuff that blows—proves it's there by moving trees, right? That's how wind tells you it's there. It moves stuff. The evidence that it exists is the effect of it doing its thing. That is true also of Christians and keeping commandments.

The wind is not made by trees. Did you know that? So once you see the wind blowing in the trees, that tree did—well, I mean, the trees make atmosphere. Don't get technical on me, you science teachers. I just mean the blowing wind. The blowing wind is not made by the trees. So when you see the evidence of the wind, you don't say, "Oh, that tree's making wind right now." You say, "No, the wind is affecting the tree," right? We all get that.

Well, somehow over all these years, we can still get that backwards in Christianity and think commandment keeping makes a Christian. Obedience makes a Christian. No, it doesn't. Jesus makes a Christian. Salvation makes a Christian. Grace makes a Christian. Okay? I have to emphasize it over and over again because this book is full of commandment keeping. And you might make the mistake that commandment keeping leads to Christianity when it's the other way around.

Being saved and being a Christian leads to commandment keeping. Fruit and root, right? You bear fruit out of the root. The root is the faith. And the fruit is obedience.

Now, I'm saying all of that because we're about to shift gears in a pretty major way at this stage in 1 John, but we just left that last section. If you look at verse 2 and 3, "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome."

Do you see it? It says it so clearly. It doesn't say this is commandment keeping to really be loving. No, this is love to keep commandments. So it's really simple. Please, after all these centuries, you would think we would have it figured out as Christians, that in order to be a Christian, I need to trust Jesus Christ as my Savior, and then He will wash me white as snow with His blood, and I'll be saved forever and ever.

And I'm no longer an old thing, I'm a new thing. I'm no longer in dark, I'm in light. I'm no—all those texts that say how you're a Christian is by faith and faith alone. Our text is going to say that today. And then now that I'm a Christian, what do I do? Well, I do what God wants me to do because I'm His now.

You don't say, "How do I get to be in a relationship with God? Well, I guess I'll start being a good person. If I start being a really good person, then I'll be in a relationship with God." That's backwards. You can't be a—that's like taking a sponge bath before you get in the shower. You have it backwards. You get faith, you get your relationship with God by faith first and then you live it.

Now, when we shift gears, we're going to turn to the subject of victory. Victory this morning. And I have a lot to say about victory improperly understood. So I'm going to tell you in advance, I already feel it. These messages happen sometimes where, especially if you don't know me, if you haven't been hanging around me for a while, most of you know that I like to joke and I can be—I like to have fun.

And you have to be careful with that because being grave is actually a qualification of a pastor to be serious. And these are the kind of messages where because the verses that we're going to look at are very commonly used, and if I can say it just plainly, improperly used, that when I start getting corrective, I can hear my tone of voice. I can hear my tone of voice and it's like I have told my kids to do something 10 times and they haven't done it. So the tone becomes, "Grrr," that right there, like whatever the words are for, "Grrr."

That has nothing to do with you. I love you. I'm not telling you you're the problem. But I am telling you, from this text, I hope there's a clarification on what victory is, even more than I ever hoped it before in the day and age that we live. And when I get there, you'll understand why I'm giving you a preface in advance, because faith is the victory that overcomes the world.

But we're going to see that we need very clear understanding what that is when we get there. Victory is not up to us to decide. We're not deciding what the game is in order to know we have victory in it. God decides the game and what victory in the game looks like. So we're gonna get that very clear from our text today.

And for sure, after we're done with our text today, even you ESV folks here, you New American Standard folks, I'm gonna have a textual comment later, and we are not gonna fight over it. We're not. I'm gonna say what I believe, and I'm okay with what you believe. But if you leave here and don't feel like having victory over the world by faith, then it doesn't matter what text you hold to. You will have missed either one of them. So let's not miss the text for argument's sake.

Have one of those tonight too. Both of them happen on the same day, that afternoon. The first one this morning has to do with text, which Bible text is preferable, and tonight it will be covenant theology and whether we should hold to that or not. So both of those are on the same day. So two birds with one stone, as it were.

Well, I hope you want victory, but before you—I hope you want it, I hope you know what it is. So how about we pray and figure out what it is and then want it? Let's pray. Father, we're thankful for texts like this, or we should be, that are so clear. This text is so clear, but it has to be studied to be clear.

And I'm trusting, Father, that as we study it together as a congregation, that we would definitely leave here with the victory that You call victory and we overcome the world for the faith of Jesus Christ. Would you help us do that so that we might spread the gospel, we might live the gospel, and not be torn down by this world? When that happens and we lose our testimony, when we lose our drive, when we are no longer motivated, we might turn into ourselves and not promote the faith, and we want to promote the faith. So would you help us do that in Jesus' name, amen.

Well, you're in verse 4 of chapter 5. Like I said, getting toward the end of the book. Verse 4, "For 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, yes, faith is the victory. We sing that song. But it's very important for us to get some clarity here. The first thing I want you to see, that it says, "Whatever is born of God." Don't get caught up in the English translation here. This is not a textual thing. It's a translation thing.

And if you're new to the faith, when I talk about textual, what I mean is—if you didn't know this, especially if you're new—is the original manuscripts of the Bible that we believe were written in Hebrew and Greek. There's some Aramaic in sections of the Old Testament, but primarily the Old Testament, those books were written in Hebrew, 37 books. And then the 29 books of the New Testament were written in Greek, koine Greek, conversational Greek.

Now, I say that to you because those are the originals, and those originals are the inspired versions, but there are 5,800 or so New Testament manuscripts out there that have been proliferated over the centuries. And some people hold that one group of them is superior to the other. And I hold a specific position on that. So as we unpack these things, I want you to know those words will come into play here. And the words are important.

In this case, the first verse that we're looking at, verse 4, there's not any question about that. I'll get to it when we get there in a moment. But for now, the word here, whatever—if your translation says whoever, just fine. That doesn't have to do with the Greek underneath it. That has to do with just the translation and whether they chose to do it.

My Latinos will appreciate this because the word is pan. And that doesn't mean sweet bread, okay? It doesn't mean—that's not what it means. It means like when you say pantheistic, people who are pantheistic, they think everything is God. That's the idea. So pan has the idea of everything or all things or everyone, right?

So in this case, it is literally the word pan, so it could be whoever, most likely whatever is the better translation. But it does say, "Whatever is born of God." And John has already said that multiple times, to be born of God. In fact, this book has a bunch of those, "If you are born of God, these things are true." And in this case, if you're born of God, and we believe that is by regeneration, where the Holy Spirit opens your eyes and heart, makes you able to see the gospel, you turn by faith to the gospel, you are converted.

So you're now a child of God. You've been adopted into the family. You're born of God. You're His child. And it says, "Whoever, whatever is born of God overcomes the world."

The word for "overcome" here, some of you have it on your feet. It's the word "nicaō." And you say, "I don't have nicaō on my feet." Well, you do if you have a Nike check on your feet, because Nike comes from the Greek nicaō or nikaios. It comes from the idea of victory. So the word Nike that you know of in the shoe company comes from victory.

So that word "overcome" is the same word for victory. Okay, victory and overcome are often translated from nikao in the original. So the reason that comes into play is because John is saying that whoever is born of God, who is regenerate by the Holy Spirit, now saved, a Christian, any child of God, if you're an actual child of God, it says they do, will, with absolute certainty, overcome the world.

So overcoming, victory is built into being a child of God. It is not a child of God might overcome the world. It is a child of God does overcome the world. And specifically, they overcome the world.

This is what overcomes the world. What is it? And this is the victory. That's the same word, nikao. This is the nikao that has nikaoed the world. This is the victory, our faith. And this is the part where already I can feel it. I feel it in here. I can feel that tone coming. It doesn't mean faith in general. It doesn't mean self-belief. It doesn't mean have faith in general. It is a specific faith that is qualified by verse 5.

You don't have to guess what the faith is. This doesn't mean just be a person of faith in general. That is not what it means. How can you overcome the world? And I haven't even talked about that part yet, the overcoming the world part. I'm just talking about overcoming. How does somebody have victory? Well, they have a specific kind of faith, the kind that is in Jesus, the Son of God.

Do you see it? So who is he who overcomes the world but he who believes? Do you know the word believes there is the same Greek word as the word faith before it? So just like victory and overcome are the same word, belief and faith are the same word in the original. So how do we overcome? By belief. Belief in what? Jesus Christ. The Son of God distinguished as the Son of God by the Father.

So before I move forward right now and tell you the thing, the most corrective probably part of the morning and the part I really want you to take with you today, I want to make sure we're clear that whatever overcoming is, whatever victory is, it is done by faith and it is not done by faith in general. It is not faithfulness. It is not having a lot of faith. It is not some sort of strength that you have by faith. No, it is by trusting, believing, putting your entire confidence in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

So faith in Jesus gives you victory over the world. Now let's talk about that part, the over the world part. What does it mean to overcome the world?

Well, here's what I need to tell you. This is overcoming the world not overcoming in the world. And this is the thing, these are things that make me crazy is when people use verses like this in a football game, when people use verses like this in business and in going for the promotion at work or getting the job or whatever it is or success in the world. "I need to have faith. This is how you have victory."

Just heard something this week where somebody in a very high place misused Scripture to make a point that isn't the point of Scripture. Now I'm saying that to you because we're gonna say it in a bit, and we're gonna unpack this, and we're gonna be going with this theme that to overcome the world, you need faith, and faith in Jesus Christ.

Why? Because the world hates Jesus Christ. When this says faith overcomes the world, it is not you overcoming in your endeavors in the world. This is saying the world is the enemy of Christ, and if you are associated with Christ, the world is the enemy of you. And the world is trying to destroy you. This is not about being successful in the world that hates you. This is not about overcoming in general and being strong and being victorious and being a winner. That is not what this text is about.

Jesus says, "Do not marvel. They're going to hate you. The world hates me. It's going to hate you too." I find it very odd that a text that is telling us that faith gives us victory over an enemy trying to destroy us, a verse used instead of for victory against an enemy trying to destroy us, the verse gets used as us being successful in the enemy, to be friends with the world, to win in the world, to be successful in the world, the world that hates your King.

This text is not about you being happy. It's not about you having victory. It's not about you winning at your job or life. It's not about your bank account. It's not about your success. It's not about your Instagram followers. This text is about a world hating you and a world that would destroy you and a world that would do to you what it did to Christ if it could, and tearing you down and destroying you.

And while you're out there in this world, not of the world but in it, trying to survive and trying to function and thinking, "I don't know if I can keep this fight up." Now, you might not be feeling that pressure. It could be that you're not feeling the pressure because you're not as out loud about your faith. As we probably ought to be. But if you're out loud with your faith, if you're talking about Jesus Christ, if you're living Jesus Christ, if you're telling people about it, you will feel the resistance of this world. People do not like it.

Now you go to other places, like I've heard pastors' story about being in the Philippines and in other places where they're welcoming because maybe they went for generations not having any faith or any hope, and then the gospel of Christ comes and it's a rejoicing. Or in Peru where we went, where the people are kind of terminally polite. They want to talk to you. They want to hear from you, and they seem very open. Doesn't mean everybody's getting saved, but they're just not hostile.

Well, you go try knocking doors right now in your neighborhood. I dare you. I double dare you. Go knock on doors in your neighborhood and try to share Jesus Christ. You will find out very quickly this world hates you. You're going to find it out. And you say, "Wait a second. No, no, no. My neighbors like me." Try it. Try it. Go tell your neighbor, "I think you're in sin and God hates your sin, and in order for you to be right with Him, you need to believe in Jesus and be forgiven." Go try that and you tell me if you have a lot of friends left over.

The world hates Jesus. And the world hates those who are associated with Jesus. And if you're ever going to have any sort of victory in this world that is trying to tear you down and destroy you, you need Jesus. And that's what this text is about. It is not about us overcoming in the world. It is about us overcoming the world.

So please put that in your pocket. John is talking to people who are persecuted in the first century. He's talking to people for whom it costs everything to follow Jesus Christ. He is not talking about a happy life or your best life now. He is not talking about the abundance and prosperity and anything like that. He's saying, you're going to go out into this world. It's going to hate you like it hates your Savior. And faith in him, confidence in him is what overcomes it.

Now, the next parts of this is John expounding on the Jesus that helps you overcome the world. That's what comes next in the following verses. You can look at now in verse 6. "This is he," Jesus, "the Son of God. If you have your confidence in him, if you believe in him, if your faith is in him, then you can have victory."

Why can you—why is it possible to have victory in Jesus like we sing the old song? Why? "Because he who came by water and blood," Jesus, "not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness. Because the Spirit is truth."

Now, this verse and the following verse are confusing. Let me just say it out of the gate. They're confusing. And you might think, well, hopefully, Sloan, you went to school and you've been studying this and you prepared all this message, so you're going to make it less confusing. Ah, I'm not a miracle worker. There are different views of these verses. So even if I could make it less confusing, there's like five views that I could present to you.

So I am going to give you a basic one and the one I think it is. Just so you know, in all of the confusion, can I tell you this? Nothing is lost. The doctrine isn't lost. You don't have to worry that what I tell you, if it's not exactly right, you're going to miss some major thing over in the text and its meaning. So here's what I'll do first. I'm going to summarize to you what we should take away from today's message. That way when we get there at the end, these confusing things don't mess it up. Okay?

Follow me here. Before I get into the confusion, let me just say what we're supposed to take from this text. When we leave here today, as we as Christians have everything we need in Jesus to overcome the world. We have life. And the death and the destruction and the pain of this world as it tries to destroy us, as it continues down the path of death, hey, you and I have the Son, so we have life. That means we have victory over the death of this world, all right?

So in the beginning of the message, it's faith overcomes the world. Victory is the victory that overcomes the world. That victory comes through Jesus Christ. At the end of the message, Jesus Christ gives us life so the death of the world can't get us. So if you take that home today, I win. That would be my success today.

If you take home the idea that if I trust Jesus, I can overcome all of the onslaughts of the world. It can't destroy me. It can't hurt me. What can it do to me? I'm in Christ, right? That's what we're supposed to take from this section.

But now to get detailed and make sure we're accurate and we get our doctrine correct, we have to understand what he's saying here. So the first thing he's saying in verse 6, I think he's saying something like he said when he opened the letter. When John opened this letter, he says, "That which we saw with our own eyes, we declare to you." What did John and the rest of the guys see with their own eyes? They saw Jesus come on the scene as the Messiah, as the Son of God, as the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

And how did that get started? What was the beginning of Jesus' earthly ministry? Is baptism. What does it take to baptize somebody? Water. Got it? And what else did John see? He also saw His death. John was at the crucifixion. That which we saw, we declare to you. And what is the crucifixion? What happens by the shedding of what?

So you're all with me, right? So what I think it's saying is John is saying, I'm declaring to you, I'm saying to you, you who have faith in Jesus Christ, we saw Him. We saw him declared by his Father as the one we should listen to. We saw him come on the scene. We saw him practice what he said he was as the Messiah. We saw him go to the cross. We saw the whole thing. And now we know, we can declare to you that those things are telling you he is who he said he is. So your faith is in that one, the real one, the one that we saw, the one that we witnessed.

And then he says, "And the Spirit bears witness because the Spirit is truth." Did you know this is the only time it says it in those terms? Do you know that the Bible says, "Let God be true and every man a liar"? Do you know the Bible calls God the unlying God? Did you know that? When Paul tells Titus, "And God who cannot lie," when he says that phrase, when he says that, it's literally an adjective in the original language. It's literally, "The unlying God says."

Now why am I saying all that to you? Because God the Father is truth. Jesus is the way and the truth. And now the Spirit is—ah, isn't that interesting? All members of the Godhead are truth. They'll testify of the truth. And in this case, it says the Spirit bears witness.

Now, this is going to come into play in a major way in the next verses. When you hear the word witness, it is almost always in the Greek marturos, where we get the English word martyr. And I've already said this a million times before, I'm sorry, but martyr does not mean somebody that dies for the faith. That's not what it first means. That's what we take it to mean. But its main meaning is somebody who gives a testimony, like at court. You know when you put your hand on the Bible and then you give testimony? That word—you are martyring when you do that. You're giving testimony, okay?

So here it is the Spirit who gives testimony. Now this comes into play. Please don't let me lose you here. In Jewish thought, testimony is very important. Very important. You need multiple witnesses to get a conviction according to God's law. That's why it's the two or three witness idea. So everything we're saying from here about witnessing, about God saying something, about God testifying something, about God giving a testimony about His Son is essentially God saying, "I am telling you, I will tell the truth. I am testifying to the truth. The Spirit bears witness that what I am telling—"

God is telling the people, "—is true." Now, you would say, "Well, why would God have to say that?" You'll see in a minute. He's going to say it about God's testimony above man's. But for now, take it for what it is, that this Jesus who came by, I think, baptism and by the death, that Jesus is borne witness of by the Spirit. The Spirit tells you Jesus is who he says he is. And the Spirit tells the truth. That's what he just said.

Now we move on to the next text where there's the textual note. If you don't know, there is a difference in translations here in 1 John 5:7-8, ESV versus King James or New King James. The reason that translation is different is because the manuscripts that they're based on are different. I'm not going to go into all of this. I'm not. I love it. It's my favorite subject. It was my major in school. I talked a lot about it. The difference between the critical text, the Alexandrian text, the Westcott and Hort text, the UBS text, the Nestle-Aland text.

If you don't care about any of that, that's fine. Those are just one group of manuscripts. And then the other group is—most people think the Textus Receptus, but it's not. The Textus Receptus is one chunk of a bigger group of texts called the Majority Text. Okay? The Majority Text is what is the most manuscripts. Okay? There are about 200 to 300 manuscripts of the one text behind the ESV, the New American Standard, the NIV, about 200 to 300 manuscripts there. There's about 5,500 manuscripts under the Majority Text, with a small chunk of those, or smaller chunk of those, being what's behind the King James.

The reason this is important to me is because that text stood the test of time for 1,900 years. The people used the King James Bible and the manuscripts it was based on for 1,900 years. And it wasn't until a scholar figured out that there were better manuscripts out there in the 19th century, or late 19th century, to fix it. I don't think he fixed it. I think the Majority Text is the right text. I think the King James is accurate.

But I'm going to tell you, you ESV folks, you NIV folks, you New American Standard folks, you're going to be happy to hear this morning that this is a place where I don't get dogmatic. Because even in the majority world, they don't agree on this. So all the manuscript people, the textual critics, don't agree on the translation difference. So I'm going to read both translations to you. I'm going to explain to you what both could mean. And then I'm going to move quickly so that we don't lose the purpose of the text. Okay?

Here's first what the ESV would read, something like this: "For there are three that testify." In the ESV, that's all—that's verse 7. That's all of verse 7 right there. And then verse 8 says, "The Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree." So in the ESV, the NIV, and the New American Standard, those words that we're going to see in the King James are missing in the original text. And the King James Only people, the people who hold to that view—I'm not one of those—the people who hold to that view say that you can't trust the other manuscripts because they're missing those words. I don't hold to that. So I'm not all the way King James Only, if you care about that.

So ESV and translations based on those manuscripts say, "For there are three that testify." Okay, who are the three, John? "The three are the Spirit and the water and the blood." That's the one text. Okay? Now the King James and the New King James based on the Textus Receptus say this. They say, "For there are three that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit, and these three are one."

And then verse 8, "And there are three that bear witness on earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood, and these three agree as one." So you can see, sometimes people say there's no major point of doctrine that is affected by your textual position. Man, that's a pretty serious point. I mean, the Trinity is there if the King James is right. You know, that's serious. Now, I'm going to tell you, I don't have a dog in the fight. If the Trinity is there, I think it's powerful. But if the Trinity is not there, in my opinion, the Trinity is everywhere else in the text. So nothing needs the Trinity here. Okay? But also, on the other side, I have to almost argue with my ESV peeps. Is peeps still a thing, young people? Do people say peeps anymore? I know I'm old. I still kind of have to agree with them because of the context. Context often will tell you what maybe the best reading is when you're discussing manuscripts. And in this case, he just said what he said in the previous verse. Did you see it? In the previous verse, he said, uh, and it is the— not only by water, but by water and blood, and it is the Spirit who bears witness. Then it would make sense, uh, those readings in the next verses that way.

So this is all to say, here's one view. One view is it's the Spirit, the water, and the blood that say, believe in Jesus, he is who he says he is. And on the other side, it's the Father, the Word, and the Spirit that say, "Believe in Jesus. He is who He says He is, and the Spirit, the water, and the blood testify of it." Do you see how nothing's lost? Both of them are telling you, "Believe in Jesus." That's what they're both telling you. So nothing is lost in the doctrine. And when it says, "Believe in Jesus," it already told us in the first verse, verse 4, the opening passages here, why. Why are we to believe in Jesus? To overcome.

So imagine right now, imagine you get all caught up in these details. And I love the details. Like I told you, this is my major in school. I loved it. It was one of my favorite classes when I got to meet with my professor weekly on these subjects and look at the critical text and look at the majority text and translate directly from both of them. It was one of the most— it was then one of the highlights of my 7-year education process. I love it so much. I love talking about it. I love teaching it. But this morning, what good would it do? If you and I got all of our textual stuff down, and then we went home and we beat our wives or cheated on our wives and didn't have victory in the world? What good would it do, men, if you have the exact right manuscript and you know the participles perfectly and you got the iota subscript perfectly in the dative case and you have the exact right morphology for each participle and you have all of these worked out, but then you don't have victory? What good would it do if you know the text that well and don't live the text at all?

So can we all agree as a church, whatever the text says, God wants us to have victory and overcome the world. That's what we're to take with us. Let's take that with us.

So now with that, I am going to tell you that I think it's likely, it could be possible that the Trinity bears witness, but I want to emphasize the three that are mentioned, that the point here— you see it in your notes— it's three witnesses. Either way you look at it, there are at least 3 witnesses, and that comes into play in your Jewish thought. That comes into play when you see how God works forensically with his law, that there are witnesses in heaven that say Jesus is the Son of God. That's the idea, is that just like when his Father said from heaven, "This is my beloved Son in whom I'm well pleased," just like at his baptism when John says, "This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world," and the Spirit descends on him, just like all of that happens, just like when the earth shakes at his crucifixion, all these things are things that are outside of the control of man. Man cannot rip the veil of the temple from the top to bottom. Only God could have done that, right?

Every one of those things is essentially God yelling from heaven, "This is my Son!" It's God screaming from heaven, "Believe in him. Trust in him." and you will overcome the world. The world cannot tear you down. The world cannot beat you. It tried to kill my Son. It put him in the ground and he came out of the ground. It's powerful what John is saying here.

And we walk around sometimes with our nose in the dirt. What's happening in this world? Man, the world is really going to blank in a handbasket. Man, nothing's sure but death and taxes. Do you serve Christ or not? If you do, you win. We're on the winning team. The game is already over. He already came out of the grave. He already ascended to heaven. He's coming back again, and when he does, we win. Some of us need to remember that in this crazy world. Some of us need to look not only in the mirror but in the Word and say, "Wait, I don't look— I'm looking at my face in the mirror and that doesn't look like a guy that's on the winning team."

Now, I will tell you, I get very discouraged. I'm going through a season of pretty intense discouragement. But I am also telling you, I know who wins in the end. That's why I'm discouraged. I'm discouraged because I'm trying to convince everybody else, "Hey, we're supposed to be thinking about heaven, not this earth." And it seems like all of our arguments and petty things we're arguing about are all earth stuff. Can we just— overlook this crazy earth stuff and look to glory. So that's why I get discouraged. Like, come on, let's go! Let's run to glory. Why are we fighting about things on earth? Why do we care what happens this week on earth? We're not going to care about it next week. But we will be in glory one day.

So they are giving testimony. When it says "bear witness," it says it multiple times. In verse 7, if you hold to the Majority or the Textus Receptus, it says it once there. It says it again in verse 8. It already said it in the previous verse 6. So multiple times it says there are witnesses, and it's not multiple times that it says witnesses only. It's also multiple witnesses, which tells you under God's law and God's economy that it's an established fact that God himself is saying, this is my Son. Believe in him and you will have victory over the world.

Look at what comes next, verse 9. If we receive the mi— witness of men, the witness of God is greater. For this is the witness of God which he has testified of his Son. Now, he is not saying men have no meaning in their witness or it's not meaningful or important. When men witness, it's important when they do it right, right? Witnessing is important. I don't just mean gospel, but I mean testifying is important. Being a representative of Christ is important. Telling the truth is important. When we men do truth stuff and God truth stuff, that's important. He's not saying that is unimportant.

But he is saying, however important it is when a man testifies, oh man, it's so much more important if God testifies. That's what he's saying. That yes, Johnny Sloan might say, "Jesus is the Son of God and you should believe in him." But hey, the Father from heaven is saying, "Jesus is the Son of God and you should believe in him." So however powerful my or your testimony might be, and it is powerful, it's not the voice from heaven. It's not God Almighty. So God is essentially saying, "My Son is the best. My Son is the greatest." Put your energy and your thought and your faith in my Son and do my Son's things.

Verse 10, he who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself. That has already been said, that the Spirit is in us, right? The Spirit is in us and the Spirit is truth and he's witnessing. That Spirit is in us. He who does not believe God has made him a liar because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of his son.

Years ago in one of my classes, it was a class that I was actually thinking was a waste of time when I started, and then I realized, I don't know if you know this, but I don't know everything. So I took that class thinking I had a pretty good handle on things, and then that class humbled me. And it was the class on evangelism. And the reason I say that is because I evangelized a lot. I was busy in evangelism. But in that class, one of the things we did was we read a book, and in that book There's a statement in there that hit me hard, like this verse does. And that statement is that we Christians, in our evangelism, need to do a better job of addressing the will of people. Instead of just stating the information of the gospel, we need to do more addressing of their choice. In other words, I can say to you, "This is Jesus, the Son of God." I can say that, and that is witnessing. I'm telling the truth about Jesus. But there's a little bit more to it if I say, "And you should believe in him." And the book, and I agree, is saying we don't do enough of that. We don't do enough of looking someone else in the eye and saying, "You should believe in Jesus."

Now, first of all, it's hard to do that. I know that that's hard to do. It's difficult, scary. It's scary to do that. I'm saying all of that because of what John just said in verse 10.

Look at what it says. "He who believes in the Son of God has the witness in himself. He who does not believe, God has made him a liar." We live in a world and in a country and a time that is pluralistic. I don't know if you've noticed this, but we are postmodern in America. We left the Enlightenment for postmodernism or for modernism, and then we landed here in postmodernism to where now If religion has any value at all, you have to be completely open-minded to all religions. You can't say one religion excludes another in America. You have to give all religions equal footing if you give them any footing at all, which our world doesn't.

Now, I'm saying that to you because— because of that, because we Americans are consumers by nature, because we like our choices, we like making ourselves happy, we like our freedoms, go all the way to say enlightenments to the younger generations, right? Entitlements, I mean. Entitlements, the things we think we deserve. We think of Christianity as an option to choose or not choose. The Bible says it. Choose this day whom you'll serve, right? It says that. So we get that so stuck in our minds that the choice is up to us, and I'm free, and I'm in charge, and I'm autonomous, and I get to choose for me what's best, that we actually think that there is an option not to choose Christ. We actually forget that everyone is commanded to repent, not offered repentance, commanded to repent.

And now John is going to go so far as to tell us anybody that doesn't believe in Jesus is calling God a liar. When was the last time you confronted somebody with that? Anybody who says, "Well, I'm not religious. I don't believe in things." Did you say to them, "Well, you're essentially calling God a liar, do you know that?" Because God says His Son exists. God says His Son is who He says He is. God says His Son came to save the lost. That's what God says about His Son. So you're saying His Son isn't real, and religion isn't real, and Jesus isn't real. When was the last time you told an unbeliever, "You're calling God a liar"? When was the last time you told an unbeliever, "You better stop doing that. It's not good for you to do that"?

Now, I've told quite a few people that over the years. I always have it in my head. There's one friend of mine where I just begged him, "Stop, please stop. I don't care if you hate me. Stop blaspheming God, please, because I know your judgment's coming and you don't believe it, but I do. So please stop saying what you're saying," because he was going to go to hell and I knew it wasn't going to be good because he was blaspheming God and he thought it was funny. I even cheated. I even told him, "I'm your friend. Do it for me. Even if you don't do it for God, do it for me." I didn't mean to put myself up equal with God. I wasn't trying to say I am as important as God, but I knew he at least believed in me because he was looking at me. So I'm in front of you, you say you're my friend. If you're my friend, you're not going to keep blaspheming my God like that. Please stop it. Begging him.

I just told someone a couple— well, it hasn't been a whole— a week ago, roughly a week ago. And we were going back and forth over philosophical things. And I hadn't yet just come right out and called him to repentance. And I finally did. I finally sent that part of the note that said, "Look, I'm gonna— can I just say this? I've been beating around the bush. I'm just gonna say it. You need to believe in Jesus. That's what God wants for you. It's what I want for you." I'm saying that to you because look what it says. It makes him a liar. Why? Because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of his Son.

There's God shouting from heaven, "This is my Son. Here's my Son. I'm giving him for you. If you will turn from your sins and believe, I will save you from your sins." I will make you right with me. I will make you a son or daughter of the living God. I will rescue you from your damnation. I will take— instead of pouring out my wrath on you, I will consider my Son as your replacement and pour my wrath out on him. Imagine what the Almighty would say if you say, nah, nah, I'm not sure I can believe. I don't know how we expect to get away with this. I don't know how people expect that God is going to be— I hear people all the time that try the agnostic thing. "Well, I know when I get to heaven, God's gonna know I had trouble believing, so he's just gonna forgive me." No, no, no. God is commanding you to repent.

He's given you everything you need. You wanna know what? The sun rose today. That's all you needed to know that there's a God. The fact that you didn't disintegrate into a billion little pieces proves to you there's a God. Something's holding you together. And it isn't stardust. So don't deny God's testimony. He tells you to believe in His Son. Can I say it to you in the room? If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, believe God today and don't call Him a liar. Trust Christ. Turn to Christ. If you need help with that, by the way, ask us. We don't do an invitation. We used to. We haven't done that in a long time. But man, if you need help, if you want to know what that means, talk to us. Raise your hand afterward or come and find me. We'll help you if you need help with that, but don't keep going thinking you're okay with God and God's okay with you wondering. God commands everyone everywhere to repent.

Now, this is the— we'll leave on a positive note, a strong note. Those of you who trust Christ, those of you who have Christ, those of you who want to overcome, who want victory over the world that hates you, over the world that tried to extinguish the Son of God. Verse 11: And this is the testimony that God has given us, eternal life. And this life is in his Son. God is saying from heaven, I sent my Son, and those of you who believe in him have life. And we all say, thank you, Father. We believe you. We believe the testimony. We take you at your word. You've said this about your Son, and we believe it about your Son. This came from you, and we trust it. We're believing the testimony of God. And like a good Pentecostal who hears a testimony, we say, "Hallelujah!" I know I'm not a good Pentecostal, but you know what I mean. You're supposed to say, "Hallelujah!" You're supposed to say, "Praise the Lord!" If God says to you, "You, my son, my daughter, you have life. I gave you my Son," the only right response to that is, "Thank you and hallelujah! Praise the Lord!" From God's own mouth, he tells you directly, directly. You didn't have to get it from a priest. You didn't have to get it from— you didn't have to lick your finger and stick it up in the wind and try to say, "Oh, I wonder what God thinks of me." No, He told you. And He told you by sending His Son, and His Son was real, and His Son was here, and His Son was baptized, and His Son died, and His Son rose from the dead, and the Spirit of God lives in you. And now you have all these things at work in you in concert to tell you, "Ye have life."

And verse 12, "He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son does not have life. We use that verse a lot about salvation and whether you have the Son. But in this case today, I want you to see it in its bigger context. So by itself, it is a naked fact, okay? By itself. The verse by itself stands on its own as a simple fact that if you have Jesus Christ— and by the way, have here is a great word. It means own. It means have possession of. Right? Like you see that favorite toy of your kids and you try to take it out of their hand for the bath or bedtime or whatever. Mwah! You know that thing where they hold on tight? Or their siblings try to get it out of their hands? Okay, you have, okay, he who has the Son has, takes possession of, has ownership of life. And he who does not have the Son does not have life. So by itself, it's a fact. Only people who have Jesus Christ as their Savior are Christian. Not people who want Christian philosophy, not people who think Jesus was a good moral teacher, not people think that the idea of Christianity is a concept that everybody needs to adopt. That's popular right now happening in the conservative world where people think Christianity is just the concepts and philosophies of Christianity, not actual Jesus himself. Okay? If you have the Son, you have life.

Now, bigger picture for the overall context. What John just spelled out to us. He's saying earlier, faith is the victory that overcomes the world, and that faith is in the Son. And he's saying this world is dying. There is no life in this world. Jesus is being contrasted here to the world that you overcome. Now, I'm not saying that directly. There's no grammatical direct connection that verse 12 is directly connected to verse 4, 5, and 6. 6 and those verses. But I am saying in our context, John starts this idea with, "This is how we overcome the world. We overcome the world by faith, for whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world, our faith." And then I'm emphasizing this morning, I hope I've made the point, not just faith in general, but faith in Jesus. And if you have Jesus and you've put your confidence in Jesus, if you've understood you were created in the image of God— if you didn't know that, you didn't evolve, you didn't used to be a monkey, You didn't used to be an amoeba, okay? You didn't come out of the primordial soup.

By the way, you have to have a lot of faith to believe in evolution. I don't know if you know that. You think, well, the scientists are all telling the truth. If they are, they're in trouble right now, because they don't even believe right now. The scientists don't even believe in evolution right now. They're starting to question everything. Do you know what panspermia is? The idea that life on Earth is too complex, it had to be planted here. And you and I say, yeah, hallelujah, amen, it was. It was made here by God. God designed it. No, the evolutionist says aliens planted it here. At least now everybody's agreeing there might be aliens. But before that, everybody's like, well, got to come up with something, and it can't be God. Evolution takes a lot of faith to believe in, right? I believe it does.

But what God is saying is, how about instead of believing all those random things, instead of believing the world is just this constant state of flux and evolution, no, the world is dying. This world is cursed. You were not of the world in the beginning. It wasn't normal that we just died with the world. What was originally the created order was we were created special in the image of God to reflect his image. That's all this afternoon's message, by the way, so I won't preach it here. But the idea is you're a human being. You're not an evolved ape. Humans and animals are not the same. They're different. And you were made in the image of God so that you could reflect his glory.

But what we find out in the Bible is that even though we were created morally upright, even though we had no sin and we had no faults, we He chose to rebel against God, and he said, "If you rebel against me, you die." And that's where death entered into the story. And from then on, from that point on, when men unplugged from God, they started dying, and the whole world started dying with them. And the whole world chose to rebel against its God and its Creator, and the world got turned upside down and has been against God ever since.

And God has spent the entire history since that day, those thousands and thousands of years ago, he spent the entire history bringing people this message that you can be right with me again if you just trust my Son. I will send my Son who is the perfect image bearer of my image, and where you broke the image as an image bearer, he will fix the image as the image bearer. Where you failed, my Son will succeed. Where you brought death, my Son will bring life. We were created in the image of God, we rebelled against God, and God said, "If you rebel against me, you have to die." But I will send my Son to die for you if you'll trust in him. We've sinned against God. God is holy and perfect in every way. And the only way to be right with him is to be perfect. And none of us qualify for that. So we need a perfect replacement, and his name is Jesus.

So if you've never trusted Jesus as your Savior, oh please, don't wait. Deal with the Lord. Don't call God a liar and say, "Eh, I don't know, Lord. I don't know if I can believe you." Believe the testimony. Let God be true and every man a liar. I want you to have victory, and you can only have victory if you have Jesus. So I'll ask you again, you, this group of people here this morning, do you have the Son? Then you have life. And if you have life, you have victory. You've overcome the world. What can it do to us? Who can be against you if God is for you?

Father, thank you for being for us. Thank you for sending your Son for us. Thank you that those who trust you have life. And this morning, Father, we see without any question that those who have life also have victory. I'd ask, Father, that instead of us looking for small victories in the world, that we would love that we have the big victory over it. Help us not only love that but walk in it even this week. In Jesus' name, amen.