What does it mean to overcome the world—and where does that victory actually come from?
On this episode of Call to Freedom, Barbara Carmack turns to 1 John 5 and reminds listeners that the Christian life is not built on human strength, positive thinking or self-confidence. The victory is already within the believer through Jesus Christ and the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Barbara opens with Romans 15:13, praying that the God of hope would fill His people with joy and peace in believing so that they may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Welcome to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. This is Jimmy Lakey, and I’m delighted that you are joining us for this half hour. You can reach Call to Freedom at Box 370-367, Denver, Colorado, 80237, or by going to the website at www.freedomstreet.org. If you want to leave a message or order a Word Power Daily Reading Bible Guide or a Freedom Street Express newsletter, you can call us toll free at 1-877-917-7256 and leave your name and address, including your zip code. Now, let’s join Barbara in the studio.
SPEAKER 03 :
welcome to call to freedom wow a new month a new month you can god has cleaned your slate he always does and he gives you a whole new day a whole new month and you don’t you know if you get through that month you say oh i haven’t done the word it’s okay god is so loving and merciful he really If you only knew how much he loved you from resurrection life to eternity in God’s presence, our lasting joy comes from the hope that Jesus brings. And we know from Romans 15, verse 13. Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of Holy Spirit. Oh, Jesus. Every day, every day I say hello to Holy Spirit. I don’t want him to leave me ever, ever, ever. He just helps me with even the minutest things and even the greatest challenges in my life. Oh, and he helps me through all of that, through all the loss and everything. He’s been such a comfort and such a guide and such a helper. I hope you are experiencing the relationship that you have with Holy Spirit because he’s a gentleman. And if you don’t talk about him or talk to him every day, he’s in the background. and you don’t experience the power that he has for you. Oh, you are blessed to dispense, for in him you live and move and have your being. And you can hear Call to Freedom from 670 KLTT at 9 o’clock at night, 2.30 in the morning, 5.30 in the morning. and 1220 KLDC at 11 o’clock in the morning. And you can go to freedomstreet.org, click on resources and listen to radio shows there. You can also get power packs on the website. You can get a Bible guide on the website. That’s great. You can get month by month. and it’ll help you get through the word of God. Also, you can get a newsletter, read through the newsletter. I love the way Chris and his team has kind of unfolded the newsletter from page one to page two and three and four. And so it’s just really a fun time to go through the website. So I hope you can do that. Go to freedomstreet.org. Well, people are still talking about Dolly’s passing. And she’s one of those artists that you don’t have to say a last name. Everybody knows Dolly. It’s like Cher or other people that you have known. Elvis. I was talking about Elvis yesterday. There are certain people you don’t have to talk about their last name because they are universally known. And Dolly was one of those people. She brought so much love to so many people, politicians, although she never talked politics. Did you realize that? And every day, the everyday person on the street. She was a friend to everyone. She was love personified to everyone, young and old. And the one-liner, and she had me laughing, is at times, you’ve got to make a lot of money to look cheap. I’m still laughing. She said that quite a while ago. You got to make a lot of money to look cheap. And she’s so beautiful. She’s just always smiles and always laughter. And she did say the thing that really blessed her, probably the highlight of her life, was when she heard Whitney Houston singing her song, I Will Always Love You. and got a Grammy for that. And then Kevin Costner and Whitney being on The Bodyguard, where she sang that song. She sang with people, artists who had Dove Awards and Grammy Awards. I mean, she was all over the place, and she was just so tiny. How could she do that? I was watching some of the things that she had been going through for years and years and years. This is 60 years of a career, starting with Porter Wagner. I didn’t realize that she sang with so many gospel artists. And she traveled from… from different places and different genres. And her imaginary imagination library gave out 300 million, 300 million books to children one through five at a cost of 95 billion. That was on her. And that’s generosity, folks, and a giving heart. I’m so blessed that one day I will meet her and hug her for all her philanthropic work on this earth. And you will, too. You will have an opportunity to say hello to Dolly because I believe she is at the throne of God. And she’s a precious lady, a very precious lady. And we will miss her. We really will miss her. People just crying from Bill Gaither to Huckabee yesterday that I was or the day before that I was watching still talking about this precious lady. Our memory verse for this week is Second Chronicles 2020. Yesterday I was telling you the story of the battle that went on and the Lord. destroyed three armies that came against judah remember that friend you’ve got the victory you always have the victory when you’re on god’s side trust him he will always bring a better plan for you this this verse of scripture is give thanks to the lord for his loving kindness is everlasting that’s it you need to memorize that second chronicles 2021 in the message translation give thanks to the lord for his love never quits His love never quits. And when they were going out before those horrible armies and they were believing the prophet that had spoken to them and also King Jehu, they went out with confidence. I believe they went out with confidence singing praises to God. Well, last week, Kimberly and I covered the first four chapters of 1 John. It was so exciting. I love John. And I love John, my first husband. I love John because he wrote those beautiful books. Not only the book of John, the Gospels, but 1, 2, and 3 John. And I don’t want to leave out 1 John 5. We didn’t cover that last week. And the title of that chapter is Overcoming the World. And you can know without a shadow of a doubt that the victory is yours. Because what? The victory is inside of you. The victory is Holy Spirit inside of you. I hope you wake up to that. I really do. I believe that God wants you to be powerful in what you’re doing, your daily devotions, your daily activities. You can be powerful when you recognize and trust in Holy Spirit who is in you. 5, excuse me, 1 John, the fifth chapter. Everyone who believes with a deep abiding trust in the fact that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one, is born of God, that is reborn from above, spiritually transformed, renewed, and set apart for his purpose. Now, these are Amplified, and I’m reading from the Amplified. And she used so many beautiful descriptive words in her translation. That’s why I really enjoy the Amplified Bible. And everyone who loves the Father also loves the child born of him. That’s Jesus. He came as a child in a manger and he wants us to love him. For everyone born of God is victorious and overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has conquered and overcome the world. Our continuing persistent faith in Jesus, the son of God. Not standing alone faith. We can never do that alone on our own. Faith comes from Jesus Christ. And faith, by grace, you are believing in Jesus Christ by faith. And that’s Ephesians 2, verse 8. So we know that we overcome the world. And I love that scripture in Philippians 4, verse 13. the strength of christ’s explosive power infuses that means it goes over and through me through me infuses me to conquer many and any difficulty so we know that the victorious and overcoming power of this world in holy spirit helps us to conquer and overcome the world And that’s our faith. Verse 5 of 1 John 5 says, Who is the one who is victorious and overcomes the world? It is the one who believes and recognizes the fact that Jesus is the Son of God. It’s that simple. Yesterday, you might not have believed. You were full of unbelief. You can change in one day. Yes, in a minute. Yes, you can. The Holy Spirit wants to give you a word of power and faith and wants you to recognize and be transformed. It is the Holy Spirit who testifies because the Spirit is the truth. He is the essence and origin of truth itself. For there are three witnesses, the Spirit and the water and the blood. The Spirit, God first, the water is Jesus Christ and the blood. The water is Holy Spirit. He’s the living water that Jesus talks about, the living water that comes up from inside of you, bubbles up inside of you, and the blood, which is Jesus. So three witnesses. And these three are in agreement with their testimony, and they’re perfectly consistent. Perfectly. God, Spirit, and Spirit. and Jesus Christ. If we accept the testimonies of men, that is, if we’re willing to take the sworn statements of fallible humans as evidence, and courtrooms are full of them today, you know, are you going to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I don’t even know if they say, so help you, God. But people say, I do. So if you’re willing to take the sworn statements of fallible humans, The testimony of God is greater and far more authoritative. God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son, knowing that we are complete in him. Colossians 2.10 tells us that we are complete in God. Oh, friend, take this. Oh, take this and grasp hold of it. You no longer have shame or inferiority or fear or guilt or condemnation. No, you are the righteousness of God in Christ, according to 2 Corinthians 5.21. God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son, knowing that we are complete in him. Verse 12 of 1 John 5 says, He who has the Son, by accepting him as Savior and Lord, has the life that is eternal. He who does not have the son of God by personal faith does not have the life. You cannot live on your father and mother’s faith. You can’t live on your husband and wife’s faith. No, you can’t. Your children cannot live on your faith. They’ve got to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. That’s so important to know because when they die, when you die, you cannot stand before God and say, well, I leaned on my husband. I trusted my wife. You can’t say that. And so we have to have a personal faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Verse 13 of 1 John 5 says, These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God. which represents all that Jesus Christ is and does. All that Jesus Christ is and does is an absolute representation of the Son of God who was there from the beginning. Remember, John 1.1, the same John, says, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, hallelujah, and the Word was God. So you will know with settled and absolute knowledge that you already have eternal life. So we can live this life with joy and peace and righteousness. See, Romans 14, 17 says the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking all the time. And boy, we fill our days with that, don’t we? Thinking about what to eat in the morning and at noon and at night. And it is overwhelming. It truly is. And especially when I was raising my children and getting dinner for John and Darren and taking things to the music center. I mean, it was a continual activity all day long. I’m so grateful. I’m so grateful those times are over. Not with all the wonderful joys that we had and everything, but boy, it leaves a lot of responsibility on the ground. And so I basically think of myself, what I’m going to eat, what I’m going to drink. And I know that many of you also. But that, you know, our life is not made up of eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace and joy. Romans 14, 17. Righteousness, peace and joy. Verse 14 of 1 John 5. Oh, this is remarkable. A beautiful portion of scripture. This is the remarkable degree of confidence which we have before him. And when I say this verse, it’s this is the confidence I have before him. But Francis Seward decided to do a remarkable degree of confidence which we have before him. That if we ask anything according to his will, that is consistent with his plan and purpose, you’ve got to have consistency and you’ve got to know God’s will for your life. That’s important. And it’s important to know that when we ask God, he’s going to tell us. He really is. The day that I closed the doors of John Wells Music Center, I knew it was God’s plan. I knew that I could not go on with that retail store when my husband, who was the owner and the master salesman, was gone. So I knew I had to open a new door to my life. So here it is. This is the confidence I have before him that if I ask anything according to his will, it’s got to be his will, folks. It’s got to be his will. He is at work in us both to will and to work for his good pleasure, not ours, because we know he has the very best for us. So we know that when we are consistent with his plan and purpose, he hears us. He hears you in your requests. And verse 15 says, And if we know that we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know with a settled and absolute knowledge that we have the requests which we have asked of him. That’s so important. Jesus said in John 14, Whatever you ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. God is always glorified in his Son, Jesus, and his pleasure is also in you. As we mature and he is growing fruit on us or in us, we know that he is pleased with us. That is such a wonderful assurance that I know God loves me. Oh, behold, behold what manner of love the father has lavished upon you, my friend, that you are called a child of God. And if you ask me, this is Jesus speaking in John 14. And if you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. It’s really important to know that Jesus never did anything without Holy Spirit, because the very next verse, I’m just going to go from 1 John 5 here for a moment. When we go to the 16th verse of John 14, Jesus is just saying, when you ask in my name, I will do it. Then he says, I will ask the father and he will give you a helper. Don’t you want truth in your life? Oh, I do. I was just talking yesterday about this artificial influence that we have from this A.I., and talking about when I listened to Elvis after I Googled him, and I realized this was not the Elvis that I’m used to hearing and hear singing. And so I Googled for the movie that he was in. I know it’s a silly juvenile movie, but he was in it because I wanted to hear that song, You Don’t Know Me. So I Googled Elvis singing You Don’t Know Me from Clambake, I mean, the difference, folks, it was absolutely amazing. That first Elvis was AI. He was artificial intelligence. I don’t want AI in my life. I want the real. I want the genuine. So Jesus is saying here, God will send you the spirit of truth and he will lead you into all truth. He’s the one that gives you that wonderful gift of discernment when you say something’s not right. Have you ever done that? Oh, you’ve gone into a place or you’ve gone to, we even went to meetings, Christian movie meetings, excuse me, Christian meetings. And Darren would look at me and say, no, no. He had a wonderful gift of discernment. We’d get up in the middle of those meetings and walk out. Oh, I remember one meeting, especially I’m not going to go into it today, but oh my goodness. They were dancing with skin tight leotards and no, no, this is, we’re out of here. Oh, praise God for that discernment. He said, the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not behold him or know him, but you know him because he abides with you and will be in you. And when you ask Jesus to be your Savior and Lord, he abides in you. So we can say with confidence, verse 14 of 1 John 5, this is the remarkable degree of confidence which we have before him. that if we ask anything according to his will, his plan, and his purpose, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us, we know in whatever we ask, we know with complete and absolute knowledge that we have those requests which we have asked of him.
SPEAKER 02 :
Wow, what a nugget.
SPEAKER 03 :
What a nugget of a verse. And that’s the highlight for me in 1 John 5. And if anyone sees his brother committing a sin that does not lead to death, he will pray and ask on the believer’s behalf. And God will, for him, give life to those whose sin is not leading to death. What does that mean? That means that you can pray for your unsaved loved one. You can pray for your son or daughter that are doing obnoxious things. And God will listen to that prayer. And if his sin is not leading to death… That word death is unbelief. He rejects Jesus completely. You can pray and intercede for him. Those prayers of intercession are so important. And he will. You will pray and ask. And God will for him give life. God will for him give life. And there is a sin that leads to death. And that’s unbelief. Absolute unbelief. Rejecting Jesus. I do not say that one should pray for this. That sin is unbelief. So verse 18 says, We know with confidence that anyone born of God does not habitually sin. We know that. Once you have accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord, and you say, Holy Spirit, you’re taking over now my life. And I want you to tell me when I’m not eating right, I’m not speaking right, and you will know it. When you ask Holy Spirit to take over, you’re speaking and you’re eating and you’re drinking. There comes a day, there comes a day. I remember I was talking to you about Frances Garner just a few weeks ago, how she used to be a heavy smoker. And she said, one day I took that cigarette and it was puke. She said, I spit it out of my mouth. Now, this may take a while, friend, but when Holy Spirit gets hold of you, it’s not going to be too long when you’re going to say, oh, I can’t take that drink anymore. I can’t go for happy hour anymore. I can’t speak those words anymore. I can’t cuss anymore. I can’t say the name of Jesus in absolute curse words. No, or God, no, I’m not going to do that anymore because I love God. I love Jesus Christ more than these horrible and habitual habits that I’ve been doing for years. So in Jesus’ name, I’m finished. I’m finished. It’s over with. So it’s wonderful to know that we know with confidence that anyone born of God does not habitually sin. But he, Jesus, who was born of God, carefully keeps and protects him. Because Jesus said in John 14 that he and the Father and Holy Spirit would dwell in us. Now we know that Father God is up in his throne. I have to differentiate between the three sometimes because I used to get confused now. Father God is where? He’s up in the throne. He is giving directions to Jesus, who is interceding for us on behalf of the Father at the right hand of the throne, who lives in us because of Holy Spirit. So we know that we’re born of God and that Jesus and Holy Spirit protects us and the evil one does not touch us. We know that. We know that when things happen, sometimes it was the devil. The devil made me do it. Who was that actor, the comedian that said the devil made me do it? Well, we can’t say that anymore because now we have given control to Holy Spirit and to Jesus Christ. So when something is not wrong, when we do something wrong, habitually wrong, when we sin, we know immediately. And as we said in 1 John 1, 9, if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Oh, what a beautiful verse of scripture. And it’s a forgiveness scripture. Absolutely forgiveness. We know for a fact that we are of God and the whole world around us lies in the power of the evil one opposing God and his precepts. But it says in first John four, four, this little book of John, these first, second, third books of John are so powerful, full of stuff. I can’t even say stuff full of wonderful revelation. Greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world. Take that scripture and memorize it with thank you, Lord. You are great. Your loving kindness endures forever. Those kind of scriptures you can memorize and have them down in no time at all. and know them from the inner recesses of your heart. Greater is he who is in us than he who is in the world. Verse 20 of 1 John 5, And we have seen and know by personal experience that the Son of God has actually come to this world. There’s no more question. Well, did Jesus come? Did he die on the cross? Was he resurrected? There comes a knowing, a time in your life when you say, yes, he came. There’s no more question in my mind and in my heart. Jesus. It came and he rescued me. He was on a rescue mission from heaven. He rescued me and I was dying. I was dying and he came and gave me life. Oh, praise the Lord. He actually has come to this world and has given us understanding and insight that we may progressively and personally know him who is true. And we are in him who is true in his son, Jesus Christ. And it says in John 14, verse six, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Don’t just rattle off those verses. Jesus says, I am the way. He is the path you take every day. I am the way, the truth. He is that truth that so much of the world is longing for. And life. We were talking about God is not only light. He is also life. And he is love. Oh, so much is wrapped up in our Father God. This is the true God and eternal life, that Jesus is the Son of God. And little children, verse 21, he ends this beautiful fifth chapter of 1 John by saying, little children, believers, dear ones, John was so good about saying that, guard yourself from idols. false teachings, moral compromises, and anything that would take God’s place in your heart. So you know by some of the things that we’ve been talking about, Kimberly and I have been talking for the last week now about 1 John, and we know that God has… has given you this opportunity to serve him. Serve him with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and to love your neighbor. I know that’s a hard thing. For some of us, it’s a hard thing. We used to have neighbors that cut down our trees. And, you know, I had to forgive them. I had to forgive them. But I know that as we forgive, as we forgive those who offend us, who trespass against us, God will forgive us. Look at how we were forgiven by Jesus Christ who died on the cross. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. That was not only to the thief on the cross. That was for you and me, because we don’t realize sometimes what Jesus did for us. So remember that, friend, as you read through 1 John and 2 John and 3 John, how wonderful God has prepared these books for us and the world for us and the kingdom for us. God bless you and keep you and take joy.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. You may get in touch with Barbara at Call to Freedom, Box 370-367, Denver, Colorado, 80237. Or you may leave your message at 1-877-917-7256. Call to Freedom is a listener-supported radio ministry. Barbara and her power partners invite you to come on board with us and become a network of hands holding up Call to Freedom ministry. Power partners support Call to Freedom with prayer and monthly financial support. You will be blessed supernaturally. We invite you to visit Call to Freedom’s website, www.freedomstreet.org, where you can hear Barbara’s daily radio broadcast 24 hours a day or order materials. You may share your praise reports and heart cries by mailing them to Call to Freedom, Box 370-367, Denver, Colorado, 802-37, or you may email us at barbaracarmack at freedomstreet.org. Until next time, remember, Jesus loves you, Barbara loves you, and take joy.
