How Faith Overcomes the World: 1 John 5:1-4

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Am I really saved?

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Well, this is one of the most common questions our teacher, Dr. J. Vernon McKee, was asked throughout his ministry. Welcome to Through the Bible. I’m your host, Steve Schwetz. And if you’ve ever asked that question, or maybe you know someone struggling with it now, I think this study in 1 John chapter 5… will provide great reassurance. Now, in just a few moments, Dr. McGee will teach us five birthmarks that identify a person who has been born of the Spirit. But first, Dr. McGee begins a special introduction series about three of God’s great character traits that we’re going to learn about in 1 John. The three traits are that God is light, God is love, and God is life. Here’s Dr. McGee with the first, God is light.

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before we leave the first epistle of John, there’s something that we must reemphasize. This epistle is a small epistle, but it’s a mighty might. It is like an atom bomb. It puts together three of the great attributes of God and holds each in a right and equal relationship. God is life. God is love. God is life. We actually know so little about each one of them. Now, in our day, we’ve discovered that God is love, and we’ve overemphasized it at the expense of the other two. They must be held together in a proper relationship that two do not suffer at the expense of the other. God is love. But we must not forget that God is light. Now, light speaks of the glory and the beauty and the dazzling splendor of God. Light drives out darkness and evil. The Old Testament reveals that God hates sin and must remove it from his universe. In other words, God is going to judge sinners who continue in sin and do not listen to him. It is the opposite, you see, of darkness. And that, by the way, is the natural and primitive condition of mankind. We were all a bunch of savages. The caveman does not go back millions of years, according to evolution. Why, the caveman, my friend, is with us today. and living in condominiums and apartments and all around. The Word of God lets us know about this, and I would like very much to call attention to several scriptures. We’ve already had one here in 1 John, the second chapter, verse 8. He says, Again a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. Man originally was in the dark. And then that doesn’t end at all in 1 Thessalonians, the fifth chapter at verse four, Paul says here, but ye brethren are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief. In other words, we were originally in darkness, and when we’re converted, we have brought into the light, for the Lord Jesus is that light. And that is exactly what we have over in John, the 8th chapter, at verse 12. Let me read that. “…then spoke Jesus again unto them, saying, I’m the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness.” but shall have the light of life. So you can see how important all of this is. Now, light reveals everything. Turn the light on in a room and everything is revealed. God has revealed himself to man. He wants to drive out the darkness. that we might know God and might know the Lord Jesus Christ. The poet put it like this, Our thoughts lie open to thy sight and naked to thy glance. Our secret sins are in the light of thy pure countenance. Well, light guides us through the darkness. You take headlights on a car. They penetrate the darkness at night so we can drive in very dark places, and it tells us where to go. Now, God has given us the Holy Spirit today, those who trust the Lord Jesus as Savior, and the Holy Spirit is to guide us. That is, the Holy Spirit uses the Word of God. Now, He is headlights in this dark world today. Now, this is the answer to those who are saying God does not guide us individually. It’s actually not how we walk, but it’s where we walk. Are we walking in the light? Someone has said our secret sins are open scandal in heaven. Now, there’s something else that light does. We read here, light speaks of purity and holiness of God. In this day when Christians are adopting the ways of the world and are doing questionable things, well, they claim the grace of God permits it. They’re forgetting that God is pure and even hates the appearance of evil. If we have fellowship with God, we must walk in light. Christians are actually afraid today to be called holy. We want to be popular, proud, and pretty. We do not want to be hated for Christ’s sake. We really do not. We do not want to know the will of God, really. That will is in the Word of God. We’re afraid to even carry a Bible today. The Word of God is light. We need this flashlight in the night of this world.

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Let’s pray for each other as we open God’s Word. Father, you are light. Please shine your truth into our hearts and affirm that we are your children. Point your light into areas where we need to trust you more and show us the sin that we need to confess to you and where our thoughts need to be refined by your truth. Help us to understand what really matters. In Jesus’ name, amen.

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Now here’s our study in 1 John 5 with Dr. J. Verna McGee.

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Now, friends, we’ve come to the new section in 1 John. In fact, we’ve come to the last major division of this very wonderful little book. We’ve come to chapter 5. And if you have your Bible there, I’m sure you’ve turned to this place. We have seen in the first part, God is light. Then we have been in that very extensive center section that ended with chapter 4, God is love. Now, the subject is God is life. And this is divided into two separate sections. That is, chapter 5, we have in the first five verses, Victory over the world. And then from verses 6 through 21, assurance of salvation. Now, he begins this chapter like this. And remember, it’s victory over the world that he’s talking about for the believer. And the world here again is the cosmos world, that is, the world with all of its organizations, all of its governments, all of its selfishness, its greed, its sorrow, its sickness, its awful sin. And the child of God is to have a victory right down here over the world. and that is possible for him. He says, “…whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone that loveth him that begot loveth him also that is begotten of him.” Now, this is a very important section that we’ve come to. God is life, and that life comes through being born of God. Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. Now, that means this is the method, that whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ. And John actually opens his gospel like that. You remember in the first chapter down about verse 11, he makes it very clear there that it is faith and actually just simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. He came unto his own and his own received him not, but to as many as received him. To them gave he the power, the exousion power, the right or the authority to become the sons of God, even to them that don’t do any more nor less than just simply believe on his name. And that means that when you trust Christ, You trust who he is as well as what he did, because what he did has no value if he’s not who he said that he was. And again, I say that the virgin birth is very essential. Who is this that died for the sins of the world? It wasn’t an ordinary man that did that, because an ordinary man would be sinful himself and could not even die for his own sins. That is, die in the sense he’d have salvation. He’d die in a judgment death and eternally separated from God. Now, here he makes it very clear that whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God. In other words, it’s faith that produces the new birth. And now that he’s born again, how does he know that he’s been born again? Does he have some great overwhelming experience? Does he enter some ecstatic state? No, not necessarily. Some people do, I’m told, and I suppose it’s all right, but that’s not the usual procedure. “‘Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and every one that loveth him that begot loveth him also that’s begotten of him.'” Now, when you trust the Lord Jesus Christ, you are born again, and God becomes your heavenly Father. And He is God the Father, and He becomes your heavenly Father. Now, if He is your heavenly Father, and you’re begotten of Him, you love Him. But it doesn’t stop there. It means also that you’re going to love the one that’s begotten of him. In other words, you’re going to love other of God’s little children. Now, he said this before. And John never said that this was something new with him. He said, this is what we’ve heard from the beginning, that we were to love one another. And the Lord Jesus said, by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if you have love one for another. And this expression here, born of God, is very, very important. It hasn’t anything to do with the fact that you have joined the church, and I hope you have if you were born of God. And it hasn’t anything to do with the ceremony, but if you’re born of God, I hope that you’ve gone through a ceremony. And it doesn’t mean that you follow a ritual, because that doesn’t mean that you’re a child of God. But the important thing is, are you born of God? And if you’ve been born again, and you’re born again when you trust the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, and the proof of it is, you’re going to love God. You’ll love your Father. He begot you. And you’re going to love the other children of God because they are your brothers and sisters. Now, he has been giving to us all through this epistle. And it is the epistle of how you can have the assurance of your salvation. And here are some of the marks. some of the evidences that you’re a child of God. He says back in the second chapter, verse 29, and I think I probably ought to just turn to that. He says, that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of him. And so to practice righteousness in your life, that doesn’t mean that it’s the unusual thing or the abnormal thing that one day you practiced it, but it means that it is the practice of your life. That doesn’t mean that you don’t slip and fall sometimes, but the practice of your life. And then the second is, he does not practice sin. And that’s in the third chapter, verse 9. Whosoever is born of God doth not practice sin. That means to live in it. to revel in it, to make it your life. The lifestyle of the sinner is sin. He lives in it all the time. You don’t expect him to do differently. And many of us did that until we came to Christ. Now, he’s to love other Christians, and we’re told that in verse 7 of chapter 4. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God, and everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. That’s another test that’ll give assurance to you, and that is that you’ll love other Christians. Now, the fourth is you’ll overcome the world. And we’re going to come to that. We haven’t come to that yet. That’ll be down here in verse 7. And I’m going to reserve that till we get to it. And the fifth one, he keeps himself from Satan. And we’re going to get that in this chapter also, verse 18. So you see, two of the evidences, two of, as someone has put it, the birthmark of a child of God. Two of the five are right here in this chapter. Now, that’s going to make this chapter rather important. And again, John is going to emphasize certain tests of true sonship here, which is love and obedience and truth. No one can quarrel with these words, love, obedience, and truth being the mark of the child of God. Now, he says here in verse 2, by this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep his commandments. Now, what do we mean here by his commandments? Well, the commandments, as I understand it here, are not referring to the Old Testament law at all. They are the commandments the Lord Jesus gave when he was here. And we found not 10 commandments, but about 22 in the fifth chapter of 1 Thessalonians. Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. These are commandments. Be filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, these are the commandments for believers today. And every child of God wants to keep these commandments. In other words, it is a practice of his life. This is something that he desires to do. It’s something that he wants to do. It’s something that he longs to do. Now he says in verse 3, For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not, and the New Schofield Bible has changed it to burdensome. Well, I’m not going to quarrel with that because it’s a good translation, but the literal is really heavy. His commandments are not heavy. It doesn’t really mean that they are difficult to keep. but rather that they do not impose a burden when they’re kept. In other words, what he’s saying here is something that the child of God wants to do, you see. And it’s something that he wants to practice. And it’s not difficult for him to do these things. At all. Let me illustrate that. It’s like the little girl that was carrying a big heavy baby. And when she passed a group of folk, one of the ladies said, a little girl, isn’t that baby too heavy for you? And she says, no, he’s my brother. Makes all the difference in the world, you see, when he’s your brother. His commandments are not grievous. The whole point is this. This is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not heavy. They impose no burden on us because of the fact that we’re keeping them now through love. The story is told about a man and his family years ago in a covered wagon, drove into a little town in Oklahoma. And they said to the man that was running the store, he was sitting out on an apple box out on the front of the store. And this man said to him, what kind of town is this here? And the store man said, well, what kind of town did you come from? Oh, he said, we came from a wonderful town. Everybody there seemed to know each other, and they seemed to care about each other and had a concern for each other. They were very wonderful people. We really hated to leave, but we wanted to move west. and we just wondered about where to settle down. What kind of a town is this? And the storekeeper says, well, this is just the kind of town that you left. It’s that kind of a town. The man says, I think maybe then we’ll attempt to settle here. And they drove down a little ways and stopped their team and got out. And then in a little while or another, covered wagon drove up in front of this little store. And when they drive up that close, it was a traffic jam in those days in a little town. And so the man asks that was driving this covered wagon, he says, what kind of town is this? And so the storekeeper again says, what kind of town did you leave? Well, he says, we were glad to get away from it. Says some of the meanest people I think that I’ve ever met. And They were never very neighborly or very helpful. We never had any friends there. So that’s the reason we left. And so the storekeeper says, I think you’re going to find this the same kind of town. Says, we’re the same kind of people. And the man says, well, I better drive on. So he drove on. And a citizen of the town who was sitting there with the storekeeper says, wait a minute here. He says, what do you mean? You gave these two men two different viewpoints of the town. And the man says, I’ve learned that whatever town you come from will be the kind of town that you’re going to go to. May I say to you that child of God. ought to recognize that today he is not to be looking for somebody to do something for him, but he’s to express that love in real action. And he has to express his love in a real concern for others. In other words, he’s talking about here the fact that if you love the Lord Jesus, and you’ll love your heavenly Father. You’re going to love other believers, and you’re going to find that his commandments about loving believers, by this shall all men know that you’re my disciples. You have love one to another. You’ll know that you are keeping his commandments, and there won’t be any burden to you at all. The Lord Jesus, you remember, said, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. It’ll be heavy unless you really have that real love for the Lord and really want to serve him. Church work never becomes difficult until then. I’d like to close with this little story of Dr. Ironside. Now, you’ve heard me tell several of his. I heard him teach. First John, when I was in seminary, he taught that to us. And he was talking to a man one time. He says, you know, I think that the church is wasting its money on missions. And there was an old gentleman sitting there and he interrupted. He says, pardon me, did I understand you to say that you felt like they were wasting money on missions at church? He said, yes. He says, well, what do you know about it? Well, a man said, I spent five months in India and I didn’t see a missionary the whole time I was there. And so this old gentleman there says, by the way, what took you out to India? Well, he says, I went out there to hunt tigers. Well, he said, did you see any tigers? He says, I saw scores of them. Well, the man says, you know, that’s interesting. He says, you went out to India to hunt tigers and you hunted tigers and you found a lot of them. Well, he says, I’d like for you to know that I spent 30 years in India and I never saw a tiger, but I’ve seen hundreds of missionaries. May I say to you, it’s on what you’re looking for, you see. Are you today concerned, friend, about God’s work and God’s word of getting it out? Great many people say, well, I don’t see that much progress is being made. Well, friend, you just don’t happen to be where the action is. The Word of God is going out today, and it’s having its effect in hearts and lives, and that’s very important. Now, he says here in verse 4, and I’m just going to be able to get my foot in the door, verse 4, “…for whatever is born of God overcometh the world, and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.” Now, what is it that overcomes the world? Faith. That’s the only way in which you and I will be able to overcome this world around us. The world, as someone has said, is too much with us. And we’re in the world. We’re not to be of it. But this world that you and I are in today is a pretty big, mean, bad world. And you can be caught up in it very easily. You can be trapped by it. And we’re going to see next time what is the victory that overcometh the world. We’ve said faith, but how does it operate? Now, there is faith that saves us in the Lord Jesus Christ. And there is a faith that will give us a victory over the world. We’ll see that next time. Until then, may God richly bless you, my beloved.

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We at Through the Bible know the power of God’s word to change hearts. It’s not the messenger or the medium that does it. And that’s why we love to read letters from listeners like you. It’s to illustrate the work that God does in our lives. So if you’d like to be a part of the amazing things that he’s doing, I invite you to become a partner in taking the whole word to the whole world. Learn more by getting on the mailing list or for our newsletter. You can also sign up online over at ttb.org. You can always call us to 1-800-65-BIBLE. We’ll get back to the question of how to walk by faith next time. I’m Steve Schwetz. For all of us at Through the Bible, looking forward to seeing you back here on the Bible Bus.

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Sin had left the prince unsaved. He washed it white as snow.

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