Overcoming The World

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. We have been, in a sense, if you read through the letter of 1 John, kind of like the gospel, John tends to have kind of a circular thought pattern. He kind of spins around the same ideas again and again, taking different angles on it. He has very simple words that become very profound and just, you want to ponder it and ponder it and kind of sit there and let it simmer in. So we've looked at words like love, truth. Today we're getting to the word life. Now, when in the past, I think I've shared about love. C.S. Lewis wrote this famous book called The Four Loves. In it, he goes through the four different Greek words for love. Eros, storge, phileo, and agape. We find out that they mean different things that are used different ways. And our word for love, you know, in English, can mean I love you and I love pizza. And I love, you know what I mean? We don't know what we mean by the word, but in Greek, it's more specific. Today, when we look at life, we'll find out that there are three different words for life in the Greek. Okay, four words for love, three words for life. But let's read this text, 1 John chapter 5, starting at verse 1. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. 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 the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is He who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ. Not by 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. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater. For this is the testimony of God that He has born concerning His Son. Whoever believes in the Son of God has that testimony in himself. Whoever does not believe, God has made him a liar. Because he has not believed in the testimony that God has born concerning His Son. And this is the testimony that God gave us eternal life. And this life is in His Son. Whoever has the Son has life. Whoever does not have the Son does not have life. That last verse specifically, whoever has the Son has life. So, three different words for life. The first is bios, where we get the word biology from. You probably used that word before, biology or whatever. It's basically survival. Anything that is alive and moving, and in biology you study what determines life. And there's always the question, are viruses alive or not? Because, you know, they kind of need to... But, right, Otto? We're not quite sure. Bacteria, yes, they can reproduce, you know, etc. Survival is important, right? Some people have reduced human life to just biology now. Okay? Then the second word is psuche, where we get the word psychology from. And the word psuche is similar to the Hebrew word nefesh, which nefesh is about breathing and throat. Everything that breathes has a soul, or is a living, breathing soul, as the book of Genesis talks about. And psuche, often in the New Testament, can mean soul, can mean life. It's always talking about your emotional life, your mind, your will, kind of the inner life of an individual. Psychology is where we get the word. It comes from the Greek as well. The third word, somebody here is named after it. Right? It's Zoe. It's the uncreated eternal life. Is this why your parents called you Zoe? You don't know. Well, you can ask them, because this is cool, that you're named after this Greek word, which means the eternal life that God gives, the uniquely divine life that he possesses that he also shares, the generative life that he shares with the sun, and the spirit and perfect communal harmony. Isn't that amazing? Guess which of the three words is used in this text? Zoe. Zoe. That's the real life that we're talking about. It's not just a good, satisfying psychological life. It's not just survival, but it's the fullness of life, living in community with God and with others. And so it thrived. We've often said where relationships are everything, because that's really what life is all about. It sounds kind of trendy, but it's really biblical. We're trying to be biblical. We're not just trying to be trendy. It's really biblical, because that's what Zoe life is all about. So today we're going to be looking at these three aspects from this text. First of all, what kind of life most humans want, what they're looking for, what's called the good life, whatever that is. Secondly, what kind of li...