Fellow-Redeemed,
So, what does that prove? You may get asked that question when you tell someone the fact you believe and confess weekly in the creed, “on the third day he rose again.” It proves Jesus is God who paid for our sins, and our bodies will rise from death. It proves Jesus’victory has overcome the world. You,too, have overcome the world by making Jesus’ victory your own through faith. Such is our new birth.
It is no burden for newborns to love the mother and father who hold them in their arms. It is no burden to love the brothers and sisters who kiss and hug and snuggle them.
Born by the Spirit, we daily translate Christ’s resurrection into love. Our victorious life meansit is no burden to love God and carry out his commandments. “Everyone who loves the father loves his child as well.” It is no burden to love one another. Those simply are the ways we express the justifying faith in our hearts.
John writes about The Victory that has Overcome the World. It comes by the power of our faith. It takes great delight in doing God’s will – love.
Our justifying faith is built on two great pillars. Those pillars are the water of Christ’s baptism and the blood of Christ’s crucifixion. At his baptism Jesus placed himself under the baptism meant for sinners as he entered the work of his public ministry. At his death on the cross Jesus completed the work of full satisfaction to his heavenly Father for our sins and their guilt. John wrote, “This is the one who came by water and blood-Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only but by water and blood.”
These are the Spirit revealed truths about Jesus Christ. The gospel continues to reveal those truths; truths that overcome the lies the world speaks against Jesus. These truths created and sustain faith in our hearts. They are the power of our faith that overcomes the world’s slander against Christ and against us. “It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.” The apostle whom Jesus loved asks and answers his own question, “Who is it that overcomes the world? Only he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”
We all must face the temptations to sin that come through the lies and schemes of Satan, others around us, and especially our own sinful flesh. Living the life of justifying faith in love toward God and one another is not a burden but it sure is a fight. But it is a fight carried out not with uncertainty about the outcome. The outcome already has been established by Jesus’ empty tomb. Jesus won the victory. God has given us Jesus’ victory.
We fight the good fight of faith in the ceaseless conquest to overcome sin and evil in our lives. We fight not in our own power which would mean certain defeat. We fight in the power of our faith which is the power of Christ’s resurrection triumph. We realize that living our faith is not bumper sticker theology, “Honk if you love Jesus.” Living the faith is not pious talk about having to do our duty to love God and love one another in spite of ourselves.
The victory that has overcome the world comes by the power of our faith. It takes great delight in doing God’s will – love.
The Spirit teaches us this truth through John’s pen, “This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. This is love for God: to obey his commands.”
Love feels no load. Faith in God brings strength from God. Our victory in Christ has overcome the world with its power and its pleasures and its purposes. With all the strength of our victorious faith manifesting itself in our daily striving for godliness to God’s glory, obeying God’s commands is not only easy and light but a pleasure.
What a horrific lie of Satan that being a child of God means that having to obey the Ten Commandments is like carrying a ton of rocks up a mountain side in a backpack.
The psalm writer describes our relationship with obedience to God’s will this way in Psalm 119:13-16, “Praise be to you, O Lord; teach me your decrees. With my lips I recount all the laws that come from your mouth. I rejoice in following your statutes as one rejoices in great riches. I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways. I delight in your decrees. I will not neglect your word.”
Our victorious faith has overcome the world. In faith we say no to sin and yes to righteousness. We deplore the evil we commit and embrace God’s forgiving love that moves us to strive for a living love. We do not fall into the trap of falsely believing that the justifying faith I have in Christ becomes my excuse for continued sinning. I cannot appreciate God’s love for me in Christ and then proceed to love a life clearly in contradiction with God’s will and Word. God’s love is not license to sin but the power not to sin and the assurance of forgiveness when I do sin.
Jesus defined obedience to the law this way: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. And, love your neighbor as yourself.”
Paul uses the strongest language to express the principle by which believers live. When the new birth has taken place in the heart, the wonderful power of love exists to overcome the world. Ours is victory over the entire kingdom of sin and evil. The resurrection of Jesus Christ bodily from the tomb is proof of that.
To put it a different way, love is the child of faith. Luther wrote in his commentary to the Galatians, “After I have apprehended Christ by faith, have died to the law, have been justified from sin and have been freed through Christ from death, the devil, and hell, I do good works. I love God. I thank him, I practice love toward my neighbor.”
In the three ecumenical creeds we confess our trust that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. We confess our trust in our Father in heaven and our membership in God’s family by the work of the Holy Spirit. To do so from the heart indicates that we have been born of God. Faith is our power. Obedience is our great delight. Amen. <SDG>