1 John, Part 12: Overcoming the World

We are in week 12 of our sermon series on 1 John. If you are just joining us now, don’t worry, there is plenty here to bring you up to speed. Let’s dive right in, for even though we are only looking at four verses, there is a lot to cover.

1 John 5:1-4 (BSB) says:

1 Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father also loves those born of Him.

2 By this we know that we love the children of God: when we love God and keep His commandments. 

3 For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome, 

4 because everyone born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world: our faith.

In his standard fashion, John repeats many of the same thoughts he’s mentioned before, but as I hope you’ve come to realize, this is not without reason. The danger is that if we skim over any of them, we risk missing the important details he’s emphasizing through his repetition.

But right away, in verse 1, he repeats one of his most often stated points from this letter. He says, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father also loves those born of Him.”

John makes it clear that in order to be born of God, we must believe Jesus is the Christ. What does it mean to believe Jesus is the Christ? That means we believe He was not just a prophet, as a lot of religions and other people believe. We believe He is Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, Savior of the world. We believe He died on the Cross and rose again from the dead.

Believing that Jesus is the Christ is essential to being saved or born of God. More commonly, we say we are “born again.” Our faith that Jesus is the Christ is how adoption into God’s family happens. Then, the way we know that has happened and we are now a child of God is when we do what John says in the second half of that verse, which says, “everyone who loves the Father also loves those born of Him.”

This is an echo of 1 John 4:7, which says, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” So, if we love the Father, we will also love fellow Christians. But now, in verse 2, John adds, “By this we know that we love the children of God: when we love God and keep His commandments.”

This is almost circular reasoning, but it’s more like a series of steps. First, we know that Jesus is the Son of God. That is how we can love the Father. Then, if we love the Father, we will love those born of Him. And we’ll know we are loving those born of Him if we love Him and keep His commandments. And of course, one of those commandments is that we love one another. Maybe John keeps repeating himself because it all goes together.

And to be clear, John isn’t talking about emotional feelings. Our love is demonstrated by our actions. When we love God and keep His commandments, then by default we end up loving our brothers and sisters in Christ. But we can’t love them if we are not loving God and keeping His commandments.

This is an important point, because otherwise we might think we are loving others when, really, we are not. True love does no wrong to others. That’s why we have to be sure we are loving the way that God loves. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 tells us what real love looks like. It says: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no account of wrongs. Love takes no pleasure in evil, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

God’s definition of love goes way beyond simply being nice to others, doesn’t it? But maybe you have been wondering why obeying God equates to loving other Christians. Why do those two things go together? They go together because when we disobey God, it hurts the Body of Christ.

The other day I came across a video of Corrie ten Boom. She was born in 1892 in the Netherlands and was a Christian whose family hid Jewish people from the Nazis in their home. Eventually, she and her family were captured and sent to concentration camps. Despite everything, she survived and wrote a book called The Hiding Place about her experience.

In the video, which she recorded when she was quite old, she says that our individual sins are harming our nations. She says, “The world is very sick. There is terrific, much darkness and sin in the world, and every child of God is standing on the front lines of the battle, and the battle is very severe. There’s no time anymore for compromise. It is all either: you do belong to the Lord, lock, stock and barrel, or you do not belong to Him. And then you belong to the enemy. Just imagine when you are on the front lines of a battle, and you compromise a little bit with the enemy on the other side. You yourself are in danger and your nation is in danger because of you.”

That might seem extreme to some people. How could one person’s sin possibly put their nation in danger? After all, my sin only hurts me, right? We might think that, but we are wrong to do so.

Our sin hurts the people around us. There is no such thing as a private sin. It’s as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 5:6. In explaining how the church in Corinth needed to remove those who were willfully sinning from their midst, he said, “Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?” In other words, those who were sinning were like a yeast that would eventually grow to infect the whole group.

Our actions affect other people. Another example of this is seen in Joshua 7:11-12. God is speaking to Joshua, and He says, “Israel has sinned; they have transgressed My covenant that I commanded them, and they have taken some of what was devoted to destruction. Indeed, they have stolen and lied, and they have put these things with their own possessions. This is why the Israelites cannot stand against their enemies. They will turn their backs and run from their enemies, because they themselves have been set apart for destruction. I will no longer be with you unless you remove from among you whatever is devoted to destruction.”

This passage makes it sound like a lot of the Israelites must have stolen things and deceived Joshua. If God said that “Israel has sinned,” He must mean that more than just one of the Israelites sinned, right? Actually, no. In verses 20-21, it tells us what happened. It says: “’It is true,’ Achan replied, ‘I have sinned against the LORD, the God of Israel. This is what I did: When I saw among the spoils a beautiful cloak from Shinar, two hundred shekels of silver, and a bar of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath.’”

Achan was the only one who stole anything, yet God states that Israel sinned. God viewed and judged Israel as a whole nation. If just one of the people, like Achan, disobeyed God, they all suffered as a whole. The nation was in danger of being destroyed because of the wrongdoing of one individual.

Today, all of us believers are said to be the Body of Christ. Yes, we are individuals, but we all make up the Body of Christ. If one of us is in sin, it affects the rest of the Body. And in the same way that one person’s sinful actions hurt the Body of Christ, one person’s lack of actions also hurts the Body of Christ. The body is made up of many parts. One part cannot do everything that needs to be done. We need each other. We rely on the other members of the Body to do their tasks and to use their talents in order to further the kingdom of God. Ever wonder why everything on Earth is so broken? Maybe because there are a whole lot of us who are not doing our jobs. So many of us are like Achan. We have sins that we are hiding, and we are hoping that nobody notices.

Do you remember how John began this letter? In 1 John 1:9, we see this promise: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, so that He will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” We all, as individuals, must decide if we will confess our sins and be forgiven. If we do that, then the Body of Christ will be strong and effective at leading others to Christ, and our nations can be healed.

This is what Joshua told the people, by the way. They needed to decide what they were going to do. Joshua 24:15 says, “But if it is unpleasing in your sight to serve the LORD, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living. As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD!”

Knowing that Joshua spoke those words after what happened with Achan gives that an even stronger meaning, doesn’t it? He was telling the people: you must choose who you are going to serve. Make a decision. As Corrie ten Boom implored Christians in her video message, there is no time for compromise. We must stop working with the enemy and stop fooling around with sin. Too much is at stake. As she said, “It is all either: you do belong to the Lord, lock, stock and barrel, or you do not belong to Him. And then you belong to the enemy.”

Well, that’s basically what John has been telling us all throughout this letter, isn’t it? As he said in 1 John 3:10, “By this the children of God are distinguished from the children of the devil: Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is anyone who does not love his brother.” We either belong to God and are His children, or we are children of the devil. And the way to know the difference is by our actions. 

Yes, all we must do to be born again is believe in Jesus Christ, but we must define what believing means. Simply hearing and knowing the Gospel message does not produce eternal life. One must truly believe it in order to become a child of God. And if we truly believe, we will prove our belief by our actions of love. As verse 3 tells us, “For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.”

Do you believe that sentence? Or do you find God’s commandments burdensome?

There is a popular pastor who said recently that following what the Bible says is too difficult for people, and so he does not tell or expect people to follow God’s law. He said, “For many, [following God’s law] is not sustainable.”

How can that be if God says His commandments are not burdensome? Jesus also said in Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

That pastor, and others like him, are disagreeing with Jesus and John when they tell people that following God is not sustainable for people’s lives. Is that not the greatest lie the enemy tells us? Look at Corrie ten Boom’s testimony. She, of all people, should have said that following God’s way is not sustainable. But she did not. She clung all the more to God’s Word. She placed her very life in God’s hands and found Him strong enough to carry her.

God’s commandments are given to us for our good, as Deuteronomy 10:13 tells us. John’s saying that not only will we love others when we keep God’s commandments, but it’s because of God’s love for us that He wants us to keep them. He wants us to follow Him, because His ways are always the best.

In Barnes’ Notes on the Bible about verse 3, he says, God’s “commandments are not burdensome. The meaning is that His laws are not unreasonable; the duties which He requires are not beyond our ability; His government is not oppressive. It is easy to obey God when the heart is right; and those who endeavor in sincerity to keep His commandments do not complain that they are hard. All complaints of this kind come from those who are not disposed to keep His commandments. Indeed, they object that His laws are unreasonable; that they impose improper restraints; that they are not easily complied with; and that the divine government is one of severity and injustice. But no such complaints come from true Christians. They find His service easier than the service of sin, and the laws of God more mild and easy to be complied with than were those of fashion and honor, which they once endeavored to obey. The service of God is freedom; the service of the world is bondage. No man ever yet heard a true Christian say that the laws of God, requiring him to lead a holy life, were stern and ‘grievous.’ But who has not felt this in regard to the inexorable laws of sin?”

Barnes says it so well. It is easy to obey God when the heart is right, isn’t it? The struggle arises when we desire to do what we want instead of what God wants, or when we are loving the world instead of God and each other.

That’s why I want to point out that John didn’t say, “everyone born of God has overcome the world.” He said, “overcomes.” I think that’s because it’s an ongoing process. We have to continually overcome the world. Each day we must choose to overcome the temptations and pull of the world. The only way that God’s commandments are not burdensome is if we overcome the world. Because it is sin that causes the burden. Sin is what is heavy and hard to carry. Guilt and shame and brokenness are awful loads to bear.

Back in 1 John 2:15, John warned: “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” That’s because if we love the world, we won’t be able to overcome its lure. If we are trying to fit in, be popular, or gain the world’s approval, it’s going to feel burdensome to obey God’s commands, because the world runs directly opposite to the Kingdom of God.

I think that’s why John clarifies in verse 4, that it’s only those who have been born again who overcome. He says, “because everyone born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world: our faith.”

We must have faith in order to overcome the world. The world cannot overcome the world. That’s why unbelievers are in the dark. They are trapped under their burden of sin. It’s only because of our faith in Jesus that we can be overcomers.

This is also an echo of something John said before. In 1 John 4:4, when talking about false prophets to the believers in Christ whom he is writing to, John also says, “You, little children, are from God and have overcome them, because greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.”

We don’t have to succumb to the world’s lies if we have faith in Jesus who is greater than the devil and his false prophets. We can overcome because Jesus overcame the world once and for all. In John 16:33, Jesus said, “I have told you these things so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take courage; I have overcome the world!”

He triumphed over the world. When He died on the Cross, He triumphed over death and the devil. Because He did that, we, too, can overcome the world. This is good news! This changes everything, doesn’t it? That should give us hope and encouragement to face whatever the world throws at us, because greater is Christ who is in us than the evil that is in the world. This is true!

But if this is true, then why haven’t all the Christians in the world overcome the world? The problem is that too many Christians are not living lives that overcome the world. They are falling prey to false prophets. They believe the rampant lies of the enemy. They are being held captive in sin. They have not overcome even though they believe in Jesus. This is because their belief in Jesus is faint. They have very little actionable faith. They want to believe, but they have so many doubts. In A.W. Tozer’s book, Toward a More Perfect Faith, he says, “they have accepted a state of chronic discouragement as a normal condition for a Christian” (p. 44).

I think these believers are walking around burdened by the sin they are choosing to carry. Instead of loving their fellow Christians and obeying God’s commands, they are choosing to steal from the enemy’s camp. They are finding God’s commandments unsustainable because it is incompatible with the life they want to live. But they are choosing to carry a heavy burden when instead they could repent and find freedom. If we want to overcome the world as Scripture says we may, we must love our brothers and sisters in Christ enough to obey God’s commands and lay off sin. For our sins hurt fellow believers, because it helps the devil further his plans.

The devil and false prophets lie and tell us that we cannot overcome sin, but we can overcome sin. We can do this through the power of the Holy Spirit who lives inside us. If we repent and confess our sins, God will take that burden of sin off us. He will cleanse us and set us free.

Next week, we will look at the section of verses in this chapter, but for now, let us lay off sin and be freed from the burden of sin. Let us follow God’s commands, which are not burdensome, but are for our good. Let us find rest and peace given to us by our Savior. Let us overcome the world so we can truly love the people God has placed around us and not harm them with our sins. Let us cling with real faith to what Jesus promised us: “In the world you will have tribulation. But take courage; I have overcome the world!”

If we do these things, then we can live lives full of victory. No matter what the world tries to do to us, we can overcome it.

Pray: Heavenly Father, we confess our sins to You. Please forgive us and heal us from our burdens of sin. Please help us by Your Holy Spirit to lay down the sins we were carrying and not pick them up again. Please help us prove our faith in You through our actions. Please help us overcome the world by Your power. We stand today in the joy of the victory You bought for us, Jesus, when You died on the cross and rose again. Help us to overcome so we may rest in Your peace. Amen.