For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world— our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except that one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 1 John 5:4-5
If we are born of God, we are told we have overcome the world. Not that we will overcome it, but that through faith in Christ, we have overcome it. This is not a future promise. This is a present fact of our reality as followers of Jesus!
Of course, the origin of our ability to overcome is Christ himself. “I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Through Christ’s atonement, we have been given the gift of faith. With this gift of faith come promises. One of them is that the world has been overcome.
Trip Lee, a Christian rap artist and conference speaker said, “We are fighting to actually be who we are.” He was referring to our status as born again believers. We often live as though we are still slaves to sin, even after we have accepted the gift of salvation. We live in fear, feel rejected, and continue to strive in order to prove something to God through our works. In a word, we feel condemned.
But God promises us freedom from condemnation. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). No condemnation. None. Forever. This has often been hard for me to accept, because I know myself. I know who I am, my thoughts, my limitations, and my peculiar sins. It has taken me a long time to rest in the truth of this freedom. Still, I sometimes forget.
Satan would have us believe that we are failures, and that we will always fall short of God’s expectations. However, when we are in Christ, this could not be further from the truth. We are chosen (Colossians 3:2), adopted (Ephesians 1:5), and we have his mind (1 Corinthians 2:16). Instead of walking as slaves, in fear of punishment, our faith in Christ allows us to walk as victors in “confidence for the day of judgment” (1 John 4:17).
Reflect
In the first century, the term “Christian” was actually meant as a derogatory statement to describe this strange group of people otherwise known as The Way. Pagans ridiculed followers of Jesus, disdainfully calling them “Little Christs.” Of course, now Christian is an identification of someone who believes (truly or nominally) in Jesus. The Bible, however, puts many more glorious labels on those of us who believe in the saving grace of Jesus.
1. Read the following scriptures and write the name or identity God has given true followers of Christ.
Examine this list. It is far from exhaustive, and doesn’t even include what we can do or what we have in Christ. What might our life and ministry look like if we truly embrace the astounding truth of who we are in Jesus?
2. Write a response to God, letting him know you acknowledge who you are in him. Be sure to give him all the glory he deserves!
“This is he who came by water and blood— Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree” 1 John 5:6-8
God relies on the witness of others to spread his truth throughout the world.
“‘You are my witnesses,’ declares the LORD, ‘and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there by any after me.’” Isaiah 43:10
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1:8
John says that the Spirit, the water, and the blood testify. That is, they are witnesses. What does this mean?
Before I did some research, I tried to think about what John meant by the “water and blood.” My first thought was the piercing of Christ’s side, and the gushing forth of the blood and the water. However, this was simply an observation of a physical phenomenon used to confirm that Jesus was dead.
Some, particularly those in the Roman Catholic faith believe the water and the blood have to do with our baptism (washing away of our sins) and Holy Communion (salvation through the blood of Christ). These are reasonable conclusions, but don’t exactly hit the mark. The water and the blood are not about us. They are about Christ.
R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, Matthew Henry, and others believe that the water indicates Christ’s baptism, not ours, and the blood refers to his death on the cross.
3. Read Matthew 3:13-17.
What happened in this story that would lead scholars to believe that this event connotes the water that testifies in 1 John 5?
Why do you think the blood that testifies refers to Jesus’s crucifixion, and not the wine or juice in Communion?
“And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.” 1 John 5:14-15
4. Read the following scriptures. What is God saying in these passages?
I used to tell my children that God is not a wishing genie. These passages are not meant to lead us to believe that God will acquiesce to our every wish and whim. If we truly grasp who Christ is and what our position is in him, we will understand what it means to pray in God’s will. In fact, we will be repulsed by trivial prayers and compelled to pray for that which aligns with God’s will in our lives.
Jesus is our best example, as he prayed God’s will in Gethsemane:
“And going a little farther, he fell on his face and prayed, saying, ‘My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass before me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.’’ Matthew 26:39
Jesus did not want to go to the cross. But he wanted what his Father wanted more. This is the example we are to follow if we are to enjoy the promise of answered prayer.
John MacArthur said,
All the prayers about family, health, children, jobs, crises, all the prayers about needs, all the prayers about life and death matters, all the prayers that go up…from political events to athletic events, all the prayers that go up day after day in various venues and various times and places…by all the unregenerate of the world…God is under no obligation to answer any of them. But when a believer prays in the name of Christ, and according to his will, God has obligated himself to answer. This is a Christian certainty.
Often the question is raised, “So if God gives us anything we want, why didn’t…?” Complete the sentence with any number of perceived unanswered prayers— from not getting a job to losing a loved one. As we mature in Christ, however, we gain an increasing understanding of what answered prayer is. And what it is not.
John MacArther also said, “Hearing is answering, for God.” In other words, God answers our prayers much like we answer the phone. It is in the hearing that God answers. John 9:31 says, “We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.” God promises to answer, not (necessarily) to give us what we want.
Matthew Henry said, “Our prayers must always be offered in submission to the will of God. In some things, they are speedily (granted), in others they are granted in the best manner, though not as requested.”
This is the point of 1 John 5:14-15.
5. So what is the will of God? Read the following scriptures. What is God saying in these passages? How can your prayers be adjusted to align with his will?
6. The very last verse of 1 John 5 says, “Little children, keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). This little sentence seems like such an abrupt and out of place ending to the chapter. Why do you think John ended the chapter with this admonition?
Pray
Father, thank you that you have given us the promise of your pardon. Thank you that we are not condemned, but are accepted through your gift of salvation through Christ. Mature us in him, so that we may know your good and perfect will, and pray and act according to it. Amen.