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Season 1, Episode 97
For Tuesday, May 26, 2015
“Victory! 1 John 5:4”
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Episode Transcript:
Welcome to The New You, where we focus on maintaining and accentuating the new that Christ has created in you. I’m Robert Hatfield, and here is today’s scripture:
For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith (1 John 5:3-4).
This week is all about studying verses of victory! Today, we turn our attention to 1 John 5:3-4, a passage which reveals some of the secrets of victory. John says that we can be victorious if we’ll have a victorious perspective and a victorious power.
The Victorious Perspective (1 John 5:3)
You prove your love for God by keeping His commandments. The tense of the verb reflects that you will continually keep God’s commandments. However, keeping God’s commandments isn’t always easy, is it? Paul and Barnabas exhorted the disciples to continue in the faith, because “We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). There’s no question about it: the Christian life can be difficult. But we look at life from a victorious perspective. We love God, and we know that God loves us! Therefore, “His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3). Love lightens the load.
The Victorious Power (1 John 5:4)
The commandments of God are not burdensome because they will eventually result in victory! We can endure the difficulties, hardships, and sufferings because of our focus on the finish line and the subsequent victory that the finish line involves. We can conquer the world!
From where does this power come? “Our faith” (1 John 5:4). Faith is the victory! Faith conquers! It is faith that enables us to resist temptation, to avoid the lusts of this world, and to reject false teachers and their doctrines. It is faith that helps us to focus on the inward man, and the eternal destiny of that soul.
It was faith that provided the drive for all of those great men and women who are named in Hebrews 11 – the hall of the faithful. They did what they did by faith and, in so doing, secured for themselves a victory.
We’re not talking about a mastery of Christianity. Our faith which overcomes the world is our confidence in Jesus Christ – in His authority, in His power, in His promises, in His hope. He makes victory possible.
Let’s wrap it up: You, too, can be victorious. That’s the whole point of 1 John 5:3-4. You can overcome! But you can’t do it without the Lord. Notice that John says, “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world” (1 John 5:4). Did you notice that word “overcomes” is in the present tense. We continually overcome because we continually struggle. We’re fighting battles today in our lives so that we can partake in the victory which Christ has already secured for us (1 Cor. 15:57).
Grow in your faith, so that you can look at life from a victorious perspective, and so you can tap into that victorious power.
Memory Verse: Speaking of secrets of victory, Romans 12:21 is one of them! I have found that the simplest truths are often the most profound. I believe that is the case with this week’s verse, Romans 12:21. It’s so easy to memorize, you’ll have it down after today!
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21).
Thanks for listening to The New You. For more information about this show and the other work that we do on The Light Network, visit thelightnetwork.tv. You can follow me on Twitter by going to twitter.com/roberthatfield. For more information about the North Charleston church of Christ, just go to northcharlestonchurchofchrist.com.
This season of The New You will come to a close at the end of this week. We always break during the summer, and return in August, the Lord willing. After this week, you can look for a brand new season to begin on Monday, August 3.
Have you taken our listener survey yet? Your feedback is very important to us. Access the survey in our show notes, or by going to thelightnetwork.tv/survey.
Next time, we’ll see victory in Revelation’s account of the dragon. More on that tomorrow on The New You.
