The Brand for Every Believer

No matter what's happening in any culture, in any generation, whether it's ancient Rome, or communist China, or North Korea, or Vietnam, or North Sudan, or America, deliver the Gospel to someone who is then born again. And compared to that temporal empire, compared to what really seem to be important, compared to all that coming and going, here today, gone tomorrow stuff, there's nothing compared to an eternal soul who has just come to life, and that is truly the victory. How do you define victory in your faith and your walk with Christ? How should the church define victory? In other words, how do you know if you're doing what God called you to do and succeeding in the mission He's called you to complete? Knowing that you're victorious requires that you think biblically about what victory really means.

Stephen explores this today on Wisdom for the Heart. Stay with us as he returns to 1 John 5 in a lesson called The Brand for Every Believer. When the Apostle John was writing his first letter, which we're in the process of studying if you're new around here, Jesus Christ had ascended back to the Father 60 years earlier. The Apostle John has witnessed the destruction of Jerusalem and its temple. He's also witnessed the horrific persecution by Roman emperors. Among them would have been, in his day, Nero, who would cover Christians with tar, pitch, and light them for his garden parties. In spite of incredibly difficult circumstances, the church flourished. The gospel spread.

Churches were springing up everywhere. The testimony of the believers had even found its home in Caesar's palace, Philippians chapter 4 verse 22. And even though the apostles would be all murdered, John the very last to be alive, the gospel of Christ has challenged the citadels of human reason, political correctness, immorality, false religion, the values of human life, false religions, of course, and all those even to this day are challenged by the gospel. Not by some strategic united movement, but our culture is impacted by the truth one Christian at a time. One testimony at a time. One local church at a time that will deliver the truth of the gospel and preach the truth of the word and disciple the believer and equip the saints so that we all go out of here as we break huddle and we take that testimony into the arena of life where God has placed us. Wherever it is, medicine, technology, politics, education, construction, sales, you name it, as you represent the unchanging virtues of right over wrong, truth over error, light over darkness. Simply live and testify to the gospel in every arena of life by every little subtle decision you make. Let me give you one fresh illustration from our assembly, just one public testimony, you know, no banners or signs, just a decision. I recently got a Chevy pickup truck.

You can hold your applause. That's not the testimony, by the way. But I was in a Ford pickup truck for a long time, got back into the Chevy and people ask me about it and I just tell them, look, I got saved again, so just forget it.

All right, now let's just go on. Well, the owner of this dealership, the Chevy dealership, is a member of Colonial and one of our ushers. If you go over to his Chevy dealership on 401 and walk into his newly remodeled showroom and stand there and just listen, you'll hear throughout that complex's stereo system going 90 to nothing Christian music. And I talked to him about it. He said he's received compliments. People have noticed.

He's received criticisms, but he said, I own the place. I choose the dial and this is my decision to make sure the gospel is heard. Isn't that great? By the way, what's playing on your computer at work? What are your iTunes dialed to?

What do you have on the radio, in the CD, whatever? How long does somebody have to hang around you before they hear the whisper of the gospel of Christ, which is your testimony? That's how we're light in a culture of darkness. And I want to say something else as we get through this lengthy introduction.

I think we need to be reminded that underneath our declaration and our testimony should be this undercurrent of joy and victory. Not, oh, is this ever the worst time in the world to be a Christian? Look at what's happening next. It's easy to do that.

I find myself slipping into that every so often. It's easy to curse the darkness, right? Underneath, if you go back in time to John's day when they're dying, they're being murdered, murdered, completely marginalized.

They have no right, no rights other than to die. Yet you find underneath their testimony and the way they declare the truth of God with this current of victory. In 1 John 5, John will use that word victory four times in two verses. And I'm going to show you it there as we go back to that text.

But before we dive in, let me say one more thing. You need to know that the Apostle John's culture used the word victory. And they said it emanated from and it came from and it was represented by a Roman goddess. This was her name. The word for victory, Nike.

We pronounce it Nike. Victory. The Greek city Nicopolis was so named the city of victory.

When Caesar Augustus defeated Antony and Cleopatra to honor his victory, he named this city after that signature event. The Roman world worshiped victory. The Roman world was bathed with this. It basked in its power, in its unparalleled successes. It gloried in its strength.

The slogan for first century Rome, that world would have been something like Rome rules or Rome wins. Yet this is exactly the perspective of John the Apostle toward Christianity. Even though Christians are being marginalized and persecuted, and John himself is going to be exiled, you know, the end of his life before he is martyred, John the Apostle almost audaciously selects that word. He arrests it. He pulls it out of that world and he uses it to define you and me. The first thing he delivers is this overarching, what we'll call the principle of victory. Let's pick up our study at verse 4 where he says, and whatever is born of God overcomes the world. That word overcomes, Nike.

It's the verb nikao. These derivatives are going to show up. In fact, you might want to underline the four appearances. For whatever is born of God overcomes, there's the first one, the world, and this is the victory, a derivative of the same word, that has overcome, there it is again, the world, our faith, and who is the one who overcomes, there it is again, the world. It's tempting to draw a little Nike swoosh in the margin of your Bible, isn't it? Think about it. This really is the label for the believer. This is our verb. How's that for a brand?

Think about it. I don't want you to ever forget it. It might strike you as silly, but I hope it comes back to your mind every time you see the Nike label, every time you see the little swoosh, the Nike brand. It's the most dominant brand in the athletic world today speaking of victory.

Every time you see it, and you're going to see it today if you watch a little football, you just smile to yourself. Let it be a reminder that that verb, that brand, that word is your brand. It's speaking about your ultimate victory.

On John's day, the word belonged to Rome, but the Spirit of God through John's writing has this audacity to claim it uniquely for the Christian. And I want you to notice, first of all, in this principle of victory, the original source. It isn't a Roman goddess.

Look carefully. Whatever is born of God, whatsoever, you could translate that neuter, whatsoever is born of God overcomes the world. One translator puts it, whatever takes its origin from God needs triumph over the world. Kind of an archaic old rendering.

Another Greek scholar references this neuter with a perfect passive participle. Whatever is born of God, this new life becomes the dynamic of victory over the world. So here's his overarching statement, his overarching principle.

No matter what it looks like, in fact, John uses what must have been even more audacious to his first century readers. He uses the present tense. God is currently, right now, winning.

You could just add the words right now. Whatsoever is born of God overcomes right now the world. And you think we are?

It doesn't look like it. Well, the question is how far out can you see? How far is your vision reaching? No matter what's happening in any culture, in any generation, whether it's ancient Rome or communist China or North Korea or Vietnam or North Sudan or America, deliver the gospel.

Here's what he's saying. You deliver the gospel to someone who is then born again by faith in Jesus Christ and compared to that temporal empire, compared to what really seemed to be important, compared to all that coming and going, here today, gone tomorrow stuff, there's nothing compared to an eternal soul who has just come to life and that is truly the victory. That's winning. So who's really winning in Rome in the first century? Nero or John? Who's winning today in communist China or North Korea? The communist leaders or the persecuted underground church? Who's the winner? Who's winning in America today? The revisionists who publish their new definitions of right and wrong or the Christian who holds to the Bible?

John would say to us all, just as he did to the first century believers, it's time to refocus the lens of your spiritual vision. God has and still is today winning and that really sounds odd, doesn't it? God's winning. We don't use the present tense.

We use the future tense. Yeah, yeah, yeah, God will win. John says God right now currently is victorious. I don't know about you, but this text arrived at just the time when I needed a reminder that God and everything belonging to him is actually winning.

See, it's all a matter of how you define winning or victory, genuine, true, satisfying, eternal, lasting, valuable, what matters really most kind of winning. So that the apostle Paul will write, talk about a testimony, talk about difficulty. I don't know what awaits me other than I know that it's bonds and affliction. How do you know you're in the will of God, Paul? Bonds and affliction.

But listen to how he writes it. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed. We're perplexed, but not despairing. We're persecuted, but not forsaken. We're struck down, but we're not destroyed. See, John begins with that undercurrent of victory in this principle. Everything belonging to God wins. Now notice the believer's position of victory. John writes further in verse four, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. John changes the tense of the verb here to refer to victory based on rooted in some past victory. And this is the victory currently that is rooted in something in the past which overcame. Now John doesn't specify what that past event was, but it isn't difficult for us as believers to figure that one out, is it?

It's probably why he didn't use any ink to fill in the blank. The promise of God was that the Messiah would come all the way back to Genesis chapter three verse 15, the seed of the woman, who would crush the head of the serpent in victory. Genesis 3.15. Paul would write to the Corinthians, now I made known to you the gospel which I preached to you which also you received in which you currently stand by which you also are saved so that you haven't believed in vain. And then he goes on to declare the crucifixion, the death, the burial, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ which is the sum and substance of our faith. Our faith is in him then.

So you're not trusting in some dead man. You're trusting in the one crucified who even before he was crucified would say this with utter confidence using by the way that word for victory, Nike. He would say to his disciples in the world, you are going to have tribulation but take courage for I have already overcome the world. He said that before the garden. He said that before the cross.

Why? Because in the mind of God he sees us already, in fact to this day, seated with Christ in the heavenlies. We are as a church on a triumphal march from earth to heaven inviting all who will to join us. Now at the time Jesus said that, it didn't look like Jesus was overcoming anything. Then he didn't own a house.

He had to borrow everything he owned. He was hounded. He's going to be tracked all the way to the cross and then the grave and they're going to deny he ever came to life.

It doesn't sound like overcoming. John says you fast forward that tape and he did come out of death into life. One author put it this way, it soon became clear and they had to bribe the soldiers to perpetuate the lie and many priests came to faith as a result were told in the book of Acts.

Why? Because it was clear that when it looked like Christ was stung by death, death actually stung itself to death. As the Getty's hymn puts it so well, death was crushed to what? Death.

The apostle Paul would sing it this way again using that word. Oh death where is your Nike? Where's your victory?

Oh death where is your stinger? Oh look who had won all along. That isn't all. John is about to deliver probably the most surprising news of all of these beleaguered first century times. You have this principle of victory for the believer. You have this position of victory for the believer rooted in Christ, his past victory. Finally there is this pronouncement of victory by the believer. Look at verse 5. And who, little w, and who is the one, hello, and who is the one who overcomes the world?

But he who believes that Jesus is the son of God. Now John shifts back to the present tense. Who is the one at this very moment who is winning? Who is right now overcoming the world? And no doubt the readers in the first century would say John we were with you about the principle in Christ and his victory but you're going to talk about us?

This is our term? His early readers would have been amazed that they also would bear the name overcomer along with Christ the overcomer. So he says you are an overcomer because of your belief in Jesus as the son of God. By the way John takes one more divinely inspired swipe at the false teachers. His Gnostic teaching has been repackaged all the way up to this day in many isms. He began this chapter, you remember, by saying whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ, that is the anoint of Messiah is born of God. See the docetic Gnostics didn't believe that Christ could be human. He says no Jesus is Christ. He is the anointed. The Serenthian Gnostics in John's day didn't believe that Jesus could be deity.

John dismisses them as well by this clear statement here in verse five. The sum and substance of our faith and the one who is truly overcoming is the one who believes that Jesus is God the son. So who is overcoming? The one who believes these truths concerning Jesus Christ. Is that you?

If it is, you are presently overcoming the world. There are plenty of people by the way and this is the phrase that he brings out here who in our day want God but don't want Jesus. We believe in God, we're all about that and we're spiritual. What about Jesus?

Well let's not talk about him. We'll take God, the Father I guess they mean, but not Jesus. John doesn't allow that kind of separation. In fact he's going to introduce the Holy Spirit in a verse or two, we'll get there. You have this great declaration of all three persons involved in the gospel. The son cannot be separated. The father cannot be accepted without the son. I thought of a way to illustrate this.

A couple of things came to mind. If you called her home in a couple of days and you got a hold of Marsha and you said to her, look, we're having a few people over after Sunday services for dinner and we'd like you to come too. My wife would invariably say, that's very kind of you, let me check with Stephen and look at his schedule to see if we can make it over and if you said, oh look, no, no, no, we just wanted you, we don't want Stephen to come. After that bad sermon he preached on Sunday, we don't like him anymore so we just want you to come to dinner. What do you think my wife would say? My wife would say he's never preached a bad sermon in his life. That's what she'd say. So I hope she would. She'd say, no, if he's not welcome, I'm not coming.

Let me turn it around. Imagine your neighbor saying, hey, look, we've got tickets to the game, we want you and your family to come but not your oldest son. What would you say?

Well, that's a relief. No, you wouldn't say that at all. You would say, look, if you're not welcoming him, then we're not welcome either. Listen, if you can't, without silly old stories, if you can't even eat lunch or go to a game with somebody who rejects one member of your family, how in the world do you think you're going to get into heaven by accepting God the Father and rejecting God the Son? God the Father would say, if he isn't welcome, neither am I. John is saying that our victory comes when we understand that the Father and the Son are equally God. We believe it because it's declared, not because we've experienced or even understand that.

Different in personhood, equal in essence. We believe in the incarnation of God and the bodily form of Jesus. We believe in the deity of Jesus as God the Son. Those, John writes here, who believe in that one are those who overcome the world.

I want to stop and make something else clear. This has bothered me for some time and I am so delighted to be able to study a text like this and clarify it in my own mind and for you. When John writes here about the one who overcomes, in verse 5, he is not writing now to a special elite group of Christians who have it all together. You know, we never miss our devotions, we're always smiling, always testifying, passionate, disciplined lives.

Everything is just right. Those are the ones who could be claimants of this title overcomer. That isn't what he's saying. This isn't a special tag for the really consistent Christians who have it all together.

They're the Christians that when they get to heaven they're going to get to wear the Nike hats and the rest of us have to wear Converse or Adidas or something else. It's not what he's saying. In fact, it isn't the amount of your faith or the consistency of your faith that John has in mind here. It is the object of your faith. You can have great, strong, consistent, declarative faith in thin ice and drown. You can have weak, inconsistent, trembling faith in thick ice and make it a cross. The key is the object of your faith.

It isn't you, it's in this case Christ. Our belief is not in ourselves. Our faith isn't in our faith. I've got great faith. I've got faith in my faith. No, it's Jesus Christ, the object of our faith.

Let me just stop and say this for a moment. There are many verses in the New Testament that challenge us to live consistent, pure, godly, passionate, disciplined lives. And when we get to one of those texts, we'll hammer away at it. This is not one of those texts that is divided in most Christians' minds, well, those people are overcomers.

I'll never have that tag. You go to Revelation 2 and 3, the overcomers are promised eternal life. In fact, misunderstanding this text has led believers, and I've got to say commentators, too, to think that everybody isn't going to be an overcomer after all because they haven't really lived that perfect Christian life. Every Christian has a position of victory rooted in the past victory of Christ.

And because we have faith in his deity, we are overcomers right now. This is John's third point in this progression. This is the privileged pronouncement. This is the declaration. This is the undercurrent of our lives. If anybody's confused, if anybody doesn't get it clearly that none of us are left out of this triumphal procession of the bride from earth to heaven, he makes it very clear.

Look back again. And who is the one who overcomes the world? But he, maybe you could circle that and write your name in the margin of your Bible if this is true. But Sam, Susan, John, Billy, Steven, he's an overcomer, she's an overcomer.

Why? Because they believe that Jesus is the very Son of God. Based on your culture and your particular generation, it might not look like the bride of Christ, the church, is making a triumphal march to heaven, does it?

But she is. It might not look like God is winning, but he is. It might not look like Satan, death, and sin have already been crushed and their stinger taken away. But they have been.

They already are. I trust that this time in God's Word has encouraged and strengthened your faith today. This is Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Stephen is the president of Wisdom International. You can learn more about our ministry at wisdomonline.org. While you're at that website, please take advantage of a free resource we have for you. It's a resource to celebrate and encourage mothers. Stephen has a booklet called Motherhood in a variety of settings.

This is a free digital download that you can download from our website. Go to wisdomonline.org forward slash mom for information. And then join us next time for more Wisdom for the Heart. Amen. We'll see you next time.