1 John 5 - Characteristics of Overcomers
Tom Shrader explores 1 John 5:1-5, teaching that believers are overcomers or victors in life through their relationship with Christ. He identifies three key characteristics: faith based on historical facts (particularly Christ's resurrection), love for God that includes both commitment and genuine feelings, and obedience that flows naturally from love rather than being burdensome.
“When you come to Christ in repentance and faith, you've done the only intelligent thing you can do.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: 1 John
Recorded: April 12, 1989
Duration: 44 min
Themes: victory, overcoming, faith, love, obedience, fellowship, commitment, resurrection, struggling with defeat, new believer, feeling powerless, doubting faith, seeking purpose, mature christian, spiritual mentor, young adult
Scripture: 1 John 5:1-5, 1 John 1:1-3, Genesis 22, Romans 8
Theological Themes: sanctification, spiritual victory, christology, biblical faith, agape love, discipleship, union with christ, eternal life
Full Transcript
We're in First John chapter five, almost to the end of the New Testament. Let me start by thanking Chris for taking this last week. God called us to Augusta, and He called loud and clear, and we went. We're obedient servants, so we went.
Let me ask you to keep your finger right there and turn to the very beginning of this book, chapter one, verse one. Sometimes I think we forget that this book, although it's certainly a legitimate enterprise to study it week by week, this book was written as a letter. As you see, it's five relatively short chapters that you could easily read in one sitting. It's designed to provide you maybe ten minutes worth of reading. John presents a thought and then follows it all the way through.
John's Eyewitness Authority
He began the letter this way in verse one of chapter one: "what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, and what we've been held with our hands, and handled concerning the word of life, and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us. What we have seen and what we have heard we proclaim to you."
He started by saying, we're here as eyewitnesses of the word of life. He said, we're here as eyewitnesses to the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm not passing along something that somebody told me, John said. I'm talking to you firsthand about something that I know a great deal about.
That's been his whole point throughout the letter - to proclaim to you and me where life truly can be found. There are people all over this world searching for the answer to life, trying to find what life is all about. John said, here it is: life is found not in a thing, not in a place, but in a person - in the person of Jesus Christ.
The Invitation to Fellowship
In verse three of chapter one, he continues: "We proclaim this, that you may have fellowship with us, and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ." Let me make the point to you, maybe for a second or third time, that John invites us to fellowship with Jesus Christ.
The word fellowship is one we don't use much anymore. We use it almost exclusively in Christian circles, and it means all sorts of different things to different people. But he says, essentially, I want you to come into a union with Jesus Christ. I want you to put together, in terms that we can relate to, a joint venture partnership. It's a union. It's irrevocable.
When I turn to Christ in repentance and faith, we form a union that will never be separated. That's what Paul says in Romans chapter eight: who's going to separate me from the love of Christ? Famine, economic collapse, nothing. You and I have union when we come to Christ.
Union vs. Communion
Now the issue is this: what kind of communion do you have in that relationship? Susan and I have been married now for almost eleven years, and we have had a constant, unwavering union. But the communion has had its highs and had its lows. There have been times when we've been intimately communicating with one another, and other times when we're not. The same can be true of our relationship with Christ.
That's exactly what he's saying. He said, I want to draw you in to a fellowship where He abides in you and you abide in Him. That word means dwell. When He's in you and you in Him, when you're a team, he said, that's what we're looking for. We want Christ to become of one mind. He said, have the mind in you which was also in Christ Jesus. Start to see your life from God's perspective.
That's John's whole point in writing this book - to get you to the point where you form a team, where you're moving together, where you have fellowship.
Consequences of Fellowship
In chapter five, when we pick up, if you have a Ryrie study Bible, all of this is going to come together, hopefully. He says in his outline, as he begins chapter five, consequences of fellowship. Here's the result of that fellowship. Here's some of the things that you can count on as byproducts of that fellowship. These are the very basics of that fellowship.
Let's read the first five verses, and we'll concentrate on those today:
"Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and whoever loves the Father loves the child born of him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments. 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. And who is the one who overcomes the world but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?"
We Are Overcomers
John has called us, in his gospel, in the first verse, children of God. Paul says you and I are children of light. Paul says in First Thessalonians, we are sons of the day. Peter said you and I are obedient children. But John interjects a term here for you and me in verses four and five. He said you and I are overcomers.
It means literally, in the noun, we are victors. The word in the verb form means to conquer, to have victory, to have superiority, or to defeat. You and I are victors in life. You and I are winners.
Life is constantly looking and trying to define a winner. The University of Michigan won the NCAA championship, and they did it well, and there's no questions asked. They're overcomers, fair and square. But are they really winners? We have to look at God's economy and say, maybe they are, and maybe they aren't. When I have fellowship with God, all of a sudden I start to see people differently.
And accomplishments differently, and I start to define my life differently. And I have discovered people that I thought were absolute losers to be some of the most mighty victors and winners I've ever met. Guys of absolutely no economic resources, guys who have a just-above-minimum-wage salary, who are struggling like mad, who by the world's standards are absolutely under the bottom of the bottom, and they love the Lord with all their heart. And they're real winners. They absolutely are real winners.
When all the success and the wealth passes away, these guys are going to be left standing before God, clothed only in His righteousness and only in the deeds that they've done for Him on this earth. See, now that's a real winner. That's an overcomer. And he said, I want you to understand that you're an overcomer.
The First Characteristic: Faith
Guys, here's three characteristics of an overcomer, and that's what we want to look at today. Here's the first one. "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God." He says, now down to verse 4, "For whatever is born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world. It's our faith." Here's the first characteristic of an overcomer or a victor: his faith.
I want to talk about that word because it's so misunderstood. They say, "Well, you know what you have to do? You just have to have faith." A lot of times what people are doing is saying to us, you need to believe something that's not really true, and maybe it'll become true, or you need to believe in something that you're not really sure about, and maybe it'll become true. But that's not what biblical faith is.
I saw Tommy Lasorda interviewed the other day, and they had the wide lens on, and Tommy was there, and they were talking back and forth. They said, "Tommy, what happened to the Dodgers last year?" And he said, "Well, we went to training camp believing in ourselves." That's a crock. Every team goes to camp believing in themselves, and they're going to the camp believing in themselves this year. He said, "We had faith in ourselves." And in this particular case, it worked. But there are a whole series of teams that had faith in themselves.
True Faith is Based on Reality
See, faith isn't believing something that's not true. Faith is coming to grips with absolute, sure reality and putting the total weight of all of your being into it. And when somebody talks to you about your faith in Jesus Christ, they're not trying to get you to con yourself. See, faith is only as good as the object in which it's placed.
We've used the illustration before of the people that got on the airplane coming back from Detroit, the one that Nick Vanos was on. We can almost recreate the scene in the plane. There was somebody over here playing cards, and a grandma and a grandpa who were coming back from seeing the grandkids. And there was somebody there who was a little bit afraid to fly, but they had at least enough faith to get onto the plane. Then up in the cockpit, there's the pilots. They know all of the aerodynamics. They know all about what it takes to fly this bird. And there's the flight attendants doing their thing.
Everybody had a measure of faith placed in that plane to get them from Detroit to Phoenix. The problem is this: The object upon which they placed their faith and trust could not perform the task they trusted it to do. Now when you come to eternal life in Jesus Christ, you're putting your faith and trust in the only object that can perform what it says it's going to do. Can I get you to understand that, that your faith is based on fact? That if you come to Christ in repentance and faith, you've done the only intelligent thing you can do?
Faith Must Be Based on Facts
I picked up a book in the bookstore the other day called "The Biography of Christ," and it's subtitled "The Late Years of Christ." So I just opened it up, and I'm looking at the back, and it was Jesus in China and India and all this. I thought, well, that's interesting. But I thought, how does this guy deal with the crucifixion? I mean, he must just ignore it, because you kind of have to say, how was he doing this? Because he's got Him dying of old age in China or something like that.
So I open the book, and chapter two is "Jesus and the Crucifixion." I thought, you've got to be kidding me. What does he do? So I open it to chapter two, and all these people are standing around looking, and you feel a little conspicuous. So I take it back to the science fiction section where everybody's back there reading anyway. So I'm in the science fiction, and this guy says, "Here's what happened: Jesus went to the cross, no question about it, and He was nailed and all the other things, but there was a conspiracy between Joseph of Arimathea and one of the soldiers who were going to sign off on a death certificate, and they took Jesus down and they buried Him, but He wasn't really dead."
See, now, man, that takes a lot of faith to believe. This is an article we've used before from the American Medical Association. It's on the scourging and crucifixion of Christ. Here's what the doctor says at the end of this article, and let me just read it to you. He said, "Thus it remains unsettled whether Jesus died of cardiac rupture or cardiorespiratory failure. However, the important feature is not how He died, but rather whether He died. Clearly the weight of historical and medical evidence indicates that Jesus was dead before the wound in His side was inflicted and supports the traditional view that the spear thrust between the right ribs probably perforated not only the right lung, but also the heart, thereby ensuring death."
Here's his conclusion: "Accordingly, interpretations based on the assumption that Jesus did not die on the cross are at odds with modern medical knowledge." See, Jesus died on the cross. That's why they buried Him. He was dead, and God did a great work for you and me. He saw to it that Jesus was buried with all sorts of safeguards.
That would give us an overwhelming amount of evidence that He rose from the dead. First of all, they took Him and put Him in a rock-solid tomb, no trap doors, only one way in and out, and that was through the front, an entrance of about four and a half feet, and they put a stone in front of that of about two tons. Some scientists from Georgia Tech measured and say that had to be about the size of the stone.
But a lot of things could happen if the body disappeared. So the Jews went to the Romans, and they said, "Look, this guy says He's going to rise from the dead. If He does, we've got problems." So Pilate said, "I won't only give you a guard, I'll give you the guard of my personal guard, 16 of them."
The Elite Guard at the Tomb
It's important for us to understand this. These guards, as they marched out, were not 16 Barney Fifes just trying to find their way. It's 16 Rambos. It's the inner sanctum guard. These guys are specially trained, 16 Oliver Norths. Nothing's going to deter them from the job that they've been assigned to perform.
They went out to that tomb, and they didn't just guard a tomb that was sealed. First of all, they looked inside, and they sealed the tomb with a Roman seal. That means they took a cord, put it across, and sealed it with wax and put the stamp of Caesar on it, which meant all the Roman empire was going to stand against anybody who broke that seal.
Whoever sealed it would do two things. The first thing he'd do is make sure the body was in there. That's how you and I know the body was there. Secondly, he knew that he was personally responsible if that seal was broken. He would answer to Pilate and ultimately to Rome. These 16 soldiers did this: four of them stood guard, and then 12 of them would lay or sleep or recreate in a semicircle, day and night, 24 hours a day.
The Resurrection - An Undeniable Fact
All of a sudden, He rises. He's gone. The seal's broken. What happened? Well, somebody stole the body. Let's ask the follow-up question, then. Who? Who's going to steal the body? The Jews? No, they're the ones who want Him in there. The Romans? They had the power to do it. They had the ability to do it. But they don't want the problem. If you remember, Pilate sees this as a political football. He doesn't want it. The Christians? They're all huddled up. They're the most surprised when they hear that He's gone.
Here's what happened. Jesus Christ rose from the dead. The preponderance of evidence is overwhelming that that happened. If you don't believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, men, you're stupid. You're ignorant. You're denying the fact. You're saying, "I want to come with an open mind and I want to look at it." Well, there's the facts. They're indisputable.
Every person that attacks them comes and never deals with the facts. They'll come with theories. They'll come with ideas. Men, I want you to know that your faith is based on fact. You don't have to be ashamed for it.
The Astrophysicist's Search for Truth
Tuesday morning in our group, we had a guy, an astrophysicist. When he was eight years old, he decided he wanted to be an astrophysicist. When I introduced him, I pointed out that all us astrophysicists hang out together. Two peas in a pod, he and I.
This guy got up and started to tell his story. I thought, this guy has the potential to be the ultimate yawner. I mean, this guy's going nowhere. It's monotone, very basic. "When I was seven, I read all the books in the library, and I wanted to be an astrophysicist." Thinking, my word, we got 45 minutes. All of a sudden, he just started to talk as an astrophysicist.
When he was 17, he said, "I was presented with the challenge of God. I was trying to see if, in fact, God existed. As an astronomer, I came to the conclusion there had to be a God." By the way, men, most astronomers are theists, because they look at the universe and they say there has to be a creator to this.
Testing Every Religious Book
So he said, "It dawned on me that all the religions that I see had a book upon which they based all this stuff. I decided that I would commit however many years it took to go through each of these books until I could prove that they were wrong, because all of the religions were based on this book. All I had to do is find one error, and then I just canceled the book. I didn't have to believe anymore. If it was factually inaccurate, then I could throw the book out."
So he said, "I started with the Hindu Veda. I figured that would be the easiest. It was. That's a cup of coffee before I found all sorts of contradictions and I could throw it away." Then he said, "I started to work myself down through all these writings. Finally, I came to the Koran. The Koran was the most difficult, because it's all so esoteric and so removed and so vague and so convoluted, and it's whatever you want it to be. But after literally a couple of weeks and months of study, I found a couple of errors that I was able to pin down."
Then he turned to the Book of Mormon, and he said, "I discovered something about each of these books is that they have prophecy in them. I found about 200 prophecies in the Book of Mormon, 60% of them did not come true. Many of the ones that did were people writing in 1850 about the impending civil war and things that a real good political scientist could have determined." So he said, "I threw that out."
Testing the Bible
He said, "Now I came to the Bible. All I had was a New Testament. But I didn't want to start in the New Testament, I wanted to start at the beginning. So I bought a Bible. I started at Genesis chapter 1, verse 1. I read the first chapter of Genesis."
He said that in the story of creation there are 11 elements and 11 sequences that need to take place in creation. No one would have been able to determine these 4,000 or 5,000 years ago, but we know it now through modern science. He said all of these 11 elements are not only present, but they're there in the proper sequential order.
He said, "I began to take this book and say, 'Well, I better look at the prophecy.'" He looked at the prophecies and discovered an amazing thing. He didn't discover vague prophecies, but he saw the prophet Isaiah write about a king that would be born whose name would be Cyrus, and a whole series of things that would happen to him. At the time that Isaiah wrote those prophecies, Cyrus wasn't even born for another 100 years.
He discovered all these prophecies—2,500 of them—and 2,000 of them have come true to the letter. He said, "I put some mathematical probability to it" (you can see the astrophysicist in this guy). He determined that the probability of just these 13 major prophecies coming true is approximately 1 to 10 to the 2,000th power. That's 10 with 2,000 zeros after it.
Now, he said, just to give you some sense of this, mathematically we determine something to be impossible when it's approximately a probability of not happening or happening 1 to 10 to the 50th power. The second law of thermodynamics says something like heat will displace cool, and cool will never revert back to the heat. He said the probability of that is roughly 10 to the 80th power. He said, "There is no conclusion you can come to, intellectually, but to realize that this is the word of God."
The Witness to Scientists
He then went to Caltech to school and began to teach, and he started to share with these scientists. He said, "As I did, I would discover that in about an hour, I could take any scientist that was open and honest and not coming with a bunch of preconceived notions, and he'd say, 'Absolutely, I see it.'" Now, he said it was another story before they'd give their will. That's a different thing.
"My focus is not on the will. My focus right now, men, is on the intellect. I want you to know that when the doors kick open and you leave, you are armed—not believing in something that's not true, but armed with the only thing in the world that is absolutely true and infallible: the word of God. Go for it. Let it all hang out."
Acting on Faith
That's the first characteristic of an overcomer: they have faith, and they're willing to act on it. They're willing to live by it. When you come to a point in your life, men, and you're looking hard at that life, get some input from your friends, but go to God's word. If God gives you clear direction, follow it. Openly and honestly search. Men, people want to hear this.
I had a guy come up yesterday after our lesson in Tucson, and he said, "I don't know why I'm talking to you," which is always refreshing. He said, "I've got something that only my wife knows about. I don't know why I'm coming to you—not because I don't respect you. I do respect you. That's why I'm here. But I know how you feel about this. I've heard you teach about this. I want some help. I'm a homosexual."
I said, "Well, that's interesting. We'll get to that in a second. But why did you come here?" He said, "Because I've now listened to this for almost three years, and I know it's true. The first time I heard you talk about it, it just repulsed me, and I was never going to come back. But I can't stay away because I know it's true."
God's Truth Stands
God says what's right and what's wrong. God's the one that determines it. We don't have to go ashamed, apologizing for God. He didn't make any mistakes. He's not confused. We don't have to go back and say, "Well, God, it's 1989." God knows. Men, our faith is based on this. Now we live on it. We live based on this.
If you've got the whole Bible, turn to Genesis chapter 22. You have your Old Testament. There's a story of a guy that some of you might be familiar with. His name is Abraham. If we were to do word association, oftentimes if I say Abraham, people would say faith. Abraham's a man of faith.
God Tests Abraham
Genesis chapter 22: "Now it came about after these things that God tested Abraham and said to him, 'Abraham,' and he said, 'I am here.'" You might want to mark those two little words, or three words: "God tested Abraham."
Men, God will test you. This is not something where we come in here and pick up a bunch of academic knowledge and then walk out and never have to apply it. God, men, will test you. He will test you sometimes in ways that you think you can't possibly endure. But He also gave us a promise that He'll never test us beyond that which we can endure. But God will test you.
Your faith is good. But when you're tested, your faith grows. It develops. It expands. It's evidence to you, it's evidence to the world, and it's confirmation to God that your faith is real. God tested Abraham.
Verse 2: "Now take your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go into the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains which I will tell you."
Abraham's Impossible Promise
That's a big test. Abraham was 70 years old and without children, without this male child that he so desperately wanted. Sarah was 60, and God appeared to him and said, "You will have a son, and not only a son, you'll be the father of many nations." God made that clear to Abraham.
Abraham said, "God, that sounds terrific to me, but you might want to get after it. I'm 70, Sarah's 60." God made that promise, and He never reneged. But there was a time element in there, and there was a time at which Abraham said, "We're really in trouble."
In fact, Sarah said to him, "You're really in trouble, Abraham, because I'm barren at this point, and you better take things into your own hands, and you better get ahold of one of your maidservants."
Here. That must have been what God meant. He mustn't have meant me. He mustn't have meant you're going to have a child through one of these other gals. So Abraham tried that, and that didn't work.
Finally, at age 100 years, and Sarah's 90, she's barren by her own admission, Abraham is way past those procreating days. In fact, there were rumors that at one point Abraham was arrested and charged with assault with a dead weapon. He was way past these childbearing years. And all of a sudden, God comes again and says, "You're going to have this child." And lo and behold, comes Isaac. Isaac was everything to Abraham.
The Test of Faith Begins
So it's time for the test. Abraham rose early, verse 3, the next morning, saddled his donkey, took two of his young men with him, and Isaac, his son, split wood for the burnt offering, arose and went to the place which God had told him. And on the third day, it was a three-day journey. Imagine if you can somehow, Abraham, all the emotion that was wrestling around in him for these three days.
On the third day, Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place in the distance. And Abraham said to his young men, "Stay here with the donkey. I and the lad will go yonder, and we will worship, and we will return to you." Interesting. Abraham is going to sacrifice Isaac. There's no question. And we're going to see in a minute, he intends to do it. And yet he says to these guys, Isaac and I will be back.
How did he know that? Well, he learned one thing, that God was a God who could make something from nothing and bring life from death. And Abraham had so much faith at this point in the promise of God that he'd be the father of many generations. He was convinced that, in fact, it was Isaac, his only son, that was going to be his only offspring, that he knew that he'd be back. And away they go.
God Will Provide
Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife, and the two of them walked together. Isaac spoke to Abraham, his father, and said, "My father?" And he said, "Yes, here I am, son." And he said, "Behold, the fire, the wood, but where is the lamb for the offering?" Isaac said, I sense a problem, Abraham. We've got fire and we've got wood, but we don't have a lamb.
And Abraham said to him, especially in a time like this, maybe in a marketplace like this, maybe a time that I just got to be, because so many of you are related to a real estate industry and other industries that are really, really tough, and you're wondering what's going to happen. Listen to the words of Abraham. Abraham said, "God will provide." Jehovah-Jireh, in the original texts, it says, "God will provide."
And men, I want you to understand, just as true as it was for Abraham and Isaac, it's true for you and me today. God will provide. God's in control. We have a talk that we do called, All Stressed Up and No Place to Go, and one of the first points that we need to understand in eliminating stress in our life is that God's in control, and God will provide. And that's what he tells Isaac. He said, "God will provide for himself the lamb and the burnt offering, my son." The two of them walked together.
Isaac's Faith
They came to the place of which God had told them, and Abraham built an altar there, arranged the wood, bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. Kind of interesting, because indeed, Abraham is a man of faith. And I want you to see a guy that doesn't get a lot of credit here, who's got a lot of faith, and that's Isaac.
I mean, Isaac's got a little bit of faith here. Abraham's 130 years old at this point. Isaac is 30. I'm going to guess that Isaac could outrun him, that if it came to the best two out of three falls, Isaac's going to lick him every time. But see, grab this now, Isaac saw what a man of God his father was. Isaac saw the reality of a relationship with a holy God in his dad, and he knew his dad loved God, and he knew his father would not hurt him if, in fact, God wasn't in it. There's a little challenge there, men. Do your children see that kind of life in you, in your relationship with your heavenly father?
The Ultimate Test
Abraham bounds Isaac and lays him on the altar. Abraham in verse 10 stretched out his knife, he took it to slay his son. I don't know how to communicate the emotion of that. I mean, imagine you're a kid, and maybe you've got four or five kids. Pick the one you like the best. Don't be afraid to admit to yourself there's probably one that kind of tweaks you a little more than the others. Pick out, and if it's even better, maybe you only have one son. Imagine him in this situation. Imagine God asking you to offer up that only son.
Susan called the other night and said, "Tom, you've got to come, and Haley's tooth has to come out." This was a Tuesday night, and Susan and I made a deal a long time ago. She'd change diapers, I'd pull teeth. So it's time for the tooth, and I had Haley there, and Haley is so cute, and she just wouldn't hurt a fly. She's got such a great spirit.
So I set her up on the counter so I can get at her, and there's that tooth, and the front of it is just that ragged edge just hitting her gum. And the back is pointed also on the sides, and it's just killing her in there, but it's stuck in the middle, and you just touch it, and see, it starts to just kind of wince and pull away. I'm a wimp, and so I don't want to touch her, and I don't want to pull it.
So I said, "Okay, Haley, we've got to go to the corner." "Oh no, Dad, not the corner." And I said, "Yep, the corner." And what that is, is we close the door, and in the corner of the bathroom, there they are, and they can't move their head. So she's there, and her head's in the thing, and she begins to just shake. "Don't, Dad, don't." I said, "Haley, open your mouth, this has got to come out." And I took a Kleenex so I could get a good grip on it, and I've got it, and she's starting to pull away, and I'm starting to pull away, and I said, "I can't, I
I can't do it. She's crying, and she's weeping, and I look down, and the tooth was in my hand. That's how loose that was in there. And I thought of this verse, because I was teaching it the very next day.
Imagine if He just said, now take a knife. It's interesting, God could relate to this, because there's a time a few thousand years later when Jesus is there, and He's stretched out, and one of the soldiers has a nail and raises the hammer, except this time God doesn't say, stop. Jesus Christ, God's only Son, is sacrificed for your sin and for mine. See, Abraham's faith was tested, and he passed the test. That's the first characteristic of an overcomer.
The Second Characteristic: Love for Jesus Christ
Let me give you the last two very quickly, back to chapter 5. The second part of verse 1, whoever loves the Father loves the child born of Him. Here's the second thing, we're going to have a love for Jesus Christ.
We've been talking about love. If you've been around for any length of time, we talk about love, and when we do, we always define that love is not a feeling, love is a commitment. And men, I absolutely believe that. Feelings will change, feelings will fluctuate, love is a commitment.
But I want to take a little different tack today and tell you that in the midst of love, there are feelings. Let me ask you this, do you love God? Do you have feelings for God? Are there ever times when you're just driving down the street, or maybe you're sitting in your office, or maybe you're out in the backyard, and you're thinking about God, and you become so overcome by God and who He is and His grace and His mercy that little tears just begin to well up in your eyes? Do you love God? Do you feel that closeness to God?
A.W. Tozer's Prayer for Deeper Love
In his book, The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer closes out the first chapter with this prayer. Let me read it to you. "Oh God, I have tasted Thy goodness, and it has both satisfied me and made me thirsty for more. I'm painfully conscious of my need for further grace. I'm ashamed of my lack of desire. Oh God, the triune God, I want to want Thee. I long to be filled with longing. I thirst to be made more thirsty still. Show me Thy glory, I pray, that so I may know Thee indeed. Begin in mercy a new work of love within me. Say to my soul, rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. Then give me grace to rise up and follow Thee from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long."
I don't know anybody that talks that way. But do you ever feel that way? Do you ever just say, God, I don't know what it is, but I want more of it?
I just finished a biography of Charles Spurgeon, and Spurgeon is praying one day, and he breaks out, and he says, God, stop, I can't take any more blessings. Well, we all echo that prayer. But do you have that intimate love with God, that feeling for God?
Getting to Know God Through His Creation and His Word
If you want to get a sense of God, to me, the best way to do it is to get a sense of His creation. When I understand a creation, I more often than not get a great insight into the Creator. Just start to look at His creation.
And I would encourage you men to begin to ask God to give you feelings of love for Him. Oh, it's based on commitment. That doesn't waver, and that doesn't change. But men, can I encourage you to do something? This is crazy. Fall in love with God. I mean, really stir up those feelings for God.
There's only one way you're ever going to do it, and that is you've got to get to know Him. You've got to get to understand who He is. You've got to understand that He's not some big Santa Claus. You've got to understand that He's not some cosmic killjoy who's just looking for people to zap, but He's a God, Creator God of the universe, and there's only one way you're going to get to know Him, men, and that's to get into this book.
True Communion Through God's Word
The only way you're going to know the mind of God is in this book. And if you want real communion, let's start at the beginning. If you have a union, if you've come to Him in repentance and faith, and you want real communion, you're only going to find it by spending time in His Word, communion, back and forth. You're praying and Him leading you in His Word.
And He'll give you a yoke, but it's an easy yoke, and He'll give you some commandments, but they're not burdensome. In fact, you'll want to obey Him. That's John's whole point.
In fact, can I tell you something? We're sick of hearing that. If you've been around for a while, you're sick of it. If you've got those tapes, it's on there five or six times. He's saying, look it, if you really love Me, you're going to keep these commandments because they're not a burdensome task. Because they're an outgrowth of a love I have for a holy God.
Closing Challenge
As we close, let me challenge you to ask God as openly and honestly as you possibly can to help you love Him, to help you feel the love He has for you in His mercy, in His grace, and to be a thankful, thanksgiving kid of His.
Well, let's pray. Father, we thank You for the work You're doing in our life. Help us understand that our faith is based on fact, not on myth, and then give us the courage to share that faith in the marketplace. And as we get tested and frustrated, Father, help us always to turn to You. Thank You that You love us.
And Father, now we pray that You'd stir up feelings in us of love, that we'd just come to love You, to want to spend time with You, to want to be with You, to start to love You and love Your creation, to start to love others, and to begin to follow You.
God thank You for the men in the room today. Thank You for what You're doing in this group, what an act of love and mercy that is. Father, thank You for what You're going to do this week in us, as we live literally as overcomers because we've conquered the world system. Father, use us in a mighty way, we pray in Jesus' name, Amen.
See you next week.