Will you turn into your copy of God's Word to 1 John chapter 5. 1 John chapter 5. First John, chapter five, we'll consider as our text today, specifically verse four. Verse four, but we'll read, this morning we'll read First John five, verses one through five. And so here is the word of the Lord, holy and inspired and applicable for us today. Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God and everyone who loves him who also loves Him who is begotten of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God when we love God and keep 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. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? And I'll read verse four again, our text this morning. For whatever is born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith. Would you ask the Lord to bless the reading of his word and the message that I'll be giving this morning? Father in heaven, thank you for your word. Thank you for your word which gives life. And we see that again here today, that for those who are in Christ Jesus, we have victory over the world. Thank you, Lord, for calling us out of darkness and for giving us that victory. May your name be glorified ultimately today in the message that I give. And I pray that your spirit would be moving and would apply your word to the hearts and minds of your people. today. And I pray this in Jesus' name, Amen. The great philosopher of the 19th century, Friedrich Nietzsche, is famous for his quote, God is dead. What Nietzsche meant is that after the Enlightenment had passed, the prominent worldview of the age was that physical laws governed the world, and not a supernatural being like God. Nietzsche was saying that man has killed God through this rising worldview. The predominant or rising worldview of his day was a worldview without or void of God. The world today is still suffering the ramifications of this and no longer holds to the truth that God sovereignly controls and moves all things for his glory. This is the context in which we live today. Children, are you familiar with superheroes? Maybe think of your favorite superhero. The popularity surrounding these superheroes is directly linked to Nietzsche's quote, God is dead. The world may not believe in God, but the world still yearns for salvation. This is seen in the popularity of superhero figures in movies and comic books. For instance, the box office of the Marvel superhero movie, The Avengers Endgame, cast in 2.78 billion dollars in profit. The world may have forsaken belief in the supernatural, but it still yearns for a better, a more glorious day where there is peace, no more war and fighting. A world where death and injustice are overcome. Yet the world seeks this in all the wrong places, right? They seek victory through political revolution and technology. It is through these two means that the world believes a better day will come. While the world blasphemes the name of God and denying His existence, born-again Christians, on the other hand, profess God's saving grace in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and therefore have victory, victory over the world. We will come to understand the victory of faith today as we consider three things from our text. First, who the victory is for. Second, what victory is or what is its character. And thirdly, what the victory accomplishes. So the heading this morning is the victory of faith. And the three things we'll consider are first, who the victory is for. Second, what the victory is. And third, what the victory accomplishes. First, let us consider who the victory of faith is for. The law and commandments of God are written on the hearts of God's children. Those who are God's children are born again. They are born again by the Spirit who blows, moving, and regenerating, making new creatures out of whoever he desires. The victory of faith, then, is for the born-again believer. Therefore the words of our Lord Jesus in Matthew 11 verse 30 are the experience of God's children. My yoke is easy and my burden is light. His commands are not ultimately a burden for the believer in their life. For we have a new life principle in us that makes us more readily and willing each day to obey God. We no longer view the law as something we hate or despise, but we see it as a beautiful fence around our life through which God blesses us. Those that have been born by the power of the Holy Spirit delight in keeping the law because of thankfulness to God for bringing them to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, their Savior. This is the language, right, that is used in the Heidelberg Catechism, Lord's Day 32, when it says this. Because Christ, having redeemed and delivered us by his blood, also renews us by his Holy Spirit after his own image, that so we may testify by the whole of our conduct our gratitude to God for his blessings. You see, God's commandments are not ultimately burdensome because God has renewed us and drew us to faith in Jesus Christ. Logically then, coming from this work is a life of overwhelming thankfulness and praise to God. A life in which the trajectory is upward in sanctification. Victory is for the born-again believer. To a worldly man or woman in today's culture, of which some of us once were a part of, this is not so. God's commands are a burden. Even the laws of the United States are a burden. So much so that they become fluid and ever-changing according to the culture of the day. The unbelieving world without faith is enslaved and bound to that which is evil. They are continually led away by the lust of the world and the pride of the world and ultimately led to their own destruction. Why is this? Well, this is because of personal autonomy. Autonomy means self-governance. Someone who lives a life of personal autonomy is a little sovereign. A little sovereign. They are on the throne in their life rather than God. They are going to go wherever they want to, doing whatever they want, because they are ultimately in charge or the ultimate ruler of their life. Truth, the world says, is found deep within your own heart or being. And search deep within yourself and you will find your own truth. And once you find it, follow it and seek it out. This is what the world preaches today. Therefore, the laws of the United States, which have been shaped by the law of God, consider sexuality, for instance, are found to be a hindrance to the self. Men and women today shout with a loud proclamation, I can do whatever I want with my body. You have no right to tell me what to do. The law of God, you see, is a constant drip of rain on the heads of those who refuse to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord. And in the end, this way of life, leading a life of personal autonomy, ends in destruction. The child of God, on the other hand, as we have said, is given victory over personal autonomy. The child of God knows that personal autonomy leads to death and destruction. They see also that it blasphemes God's name. And therefore the child of God hates self-autonomy. The child of God then refuses to live a life of personal autonomy because they are born of God. And this is only due to the gracious work of God in the child of God. He gives them a new heart. He gives them a soft heart, a heart that has been circumcised. The old desires have primarily gone away and the new desires, the new affections that seek God's glory have replaced them or have been brought in. This working of regeneration, creating a new and a soft heart in the believer, then gives way to the fruit that is knowing and receiving Jesus Christ as the Son of God and thus gaining victory over the world in our daily walk. As mentioned earlier, we see the opposite of this in the world today. All around us are those who are lost, yet there is still a sense of the divine in them. They yearn for salvation as is seen in the superhero phenomena, or as is understood in the phenomena of world religions. You see, the only difference between a child of God and a child of the world is this, God's grace. It is totally undeserved. And we may ask, why me? Why not somebody else? Well, the reality is that we are no better. There is nothing in us that then makes God to say, I'm going to choose them. Not our looks, not our status in society, not our gifts, not the color of our skin, and the list goes on and on. It's only God's grace and because of His good pleasure that He has chosen us. And so we must not have a posture towards those who are not victors, the unbeliever, those who are of this world, that we are better than them. Our warfare, you see, is not with flesh and blood. It is with the powers and the principalities of darkness and of evil. We must not think then that we are better, shrug our shoulders at the lost, or walk with our noses high, if you will. We must not do that, for then we are no better than the Pharisees. Rather, as one theologian puts it, we must live as one beggar showing another beggar where to find bread. View yourself as the least of them and view yourself as the chief of sinners so that you might be a light and a witness to those who are in need. We know that there is a deep yearning coming from the unbelievers' confession. And so, tell them. Tell them where salvation truly lies in Jesus alone. Maybe you are here today and are wondering if you truly, though, have victory over the world. Maybe you're wondering, do I have victory over the world? Well, let me ask you a few questions to put you to the test. Do you believe in Jesus Christ for salvation? Do you find forgiveness in Him? Do you look to Him in the trials that you face in this life? Do you plead with Him based on His righteousness for your salvation? Or maybe do you apply all the benefits of Christ, justification, adoption, sanctification, and glorification to yourself? Are you resting in His finished work? If you say yes to even one of these questions, you are a born-again believer, and you have the victory of faith. Matthew 10 verses 32 through 33 states, And so that's God's word. That's not my word or man's word. That's God's word for you today. Believe it. Believe it. If this is your confession, you have overcome the world. You live and walk in freedom. Freedom in Jesus Christ that makes your burden light. It's a freedom that makes following Jesus Christ a joyful and a delightful work. A freedom that although you still sin each and every day, and maybe even in grievous ways, that results in resting and relying wholly and completely in Jesus Christ. A freedom that results in continual growth in holiness and obedience to God. No matter how slow, no matter how painful, no matter how many times you are disciplined by God's hand, it is still a real freedom. A real freedom, no matter how small or incremental it may seem. So we now know that the victory is for those who are born of God and confess Jesus as the Son of God. What then is the victory of the Christian life? Where in does that victory lie? This is what we'll consider now as our second point. Our faith, which gives us victory, has to do with the object of our faith. The faith that gives us victory has to do with the object of our faith. You see, faith in and of itself is no victory. One can have faith in themselves, other people. One can have faith in their doctrinal beliefs. One can have faith in their good works before God. As one theologian puts it, as a ground, faith also falls away. It is Christ alone. These faiths in grounding your victory in faith are no victory in and of themselves. Let me give you a personal illustration. I once talked to a pastor in Scotland while I was studying there for a year and I was getting to know him and he asked me, how do you know that you are saved? A great question. Great question. And I responded quickly, as I often do, to him by saying, I have faith. I have faith. You see, I did not realize at the time that it is not about looking to my faith, the fact that I have faith. If I look to the faith I have, it is nothing before God. It is weak and it is not what saves me in and of itself. Rather, it is the object of faith, namely Jesus Christ. That is what gives us victory. The faith that gives the Christian victory is the faith whose object is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ who has overcome the world. Jesus Christ who humbled himself, was humiliated by men, ultimately dying the sinner's death, rising again from the grave and ascending into heaven. This is where our victory lies, in Jesus Christ. And it is a personal saving faith that says, Jesus died for me. He died the death that I should have died. He suffered the hellish agony in my place. He bore the wrath of God, the full wrath of God on his shoulders that I should have borne. He rose again and ascended to heaven, thus sealing for me the same future result. It is the faith that rests in Jesus Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension that overcomes this world. This is the faith that gives us victory. It gives us victory because through faith we are united to that object, Jesus Christ himself. Faith in Jesus Christ then is a bond that the believer has with Jesus. It is a bond of love in which we are united to Christ as children of God basking in his love for us personally. It is a bond or a union because the victory Jesus accomplished over sin and death in the world is ours and we share in it. But to understand what true saving faith is, it's helpful again to return to the Heidelberg Catechism. And children, our confessions, as you know, are a summary of what we believe, what scripture teaches. And so let us look at how the Heidelberg Catechism defines faith. In Lord's Day 7, question 21, faith is defined as a certain knowledge by which I accept as true all that God has revealed to us in his word, but also a wholehearted trust, which the Holy Spirit creates in me through the gospel, that not only to others, but to me also. God has given forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness and salvation, out of sheer grace solely for the sake of Christ's saving work. God works in the person the conviction that the knowledge of his word is true. He works in the believer wholehearted trust in Jesus Christ. He gives the believer the unshakable knowledge of Jesus Christ and draws the believer to rest in him each and every day. Notice that the work of faith is at root God's work. Yes, man does accept and receive Christ, but man only accepts Jesus Christ because the Holy Spirit works behind the scenes, behind the curtain on the theater stage, if you will, drawing us powerfully to Jesus Christ. And this is something that man cannot do on his own. Man cannot do this apart from God starting the work and finishing it for us. True saving faith is a gift from God to the believer. There's a famous theologian of the day, N.T. Wright, and he describes faith in his biography on Paul from a servant vocation perspective. In other words, he describes faith in terms of loyalty. In fact, he uses the words faith and loyalty interchangeably. But faith is not loyalty. It isn't man's loyalty or works before God. If it was our works or loyalty, we would not have victory at all. No, it is what God does in the believer by grafting them to Jesus Christ, giving them wholehearted trust and dependence in him for salvation. Faith is a wholehearted trust in God's promises. And that those promises are true for you, for me. Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. We are the branches that are engrafted into Him. And because we are engrafted into Him by the work of the Holy Spirit, we are wholly satisfied as we look to Jesus Christ who overcomes the world. Notice also that the Heidelberg Catechism's definition of true saving faith is personal. It is about you having knowledge. It is about you trusting in Christ. It is about you finding forgiveness. It is about you finding your righteousness in Christ alone. It's personal to me and to you. It is a relationship with the person of Jesus Christ. It is deeply personable, personal, in that there is trust. And trust, you see, does not come without personal need. And so faith is not something mechanical, it is not something stone cold, but it is deeply personal. The one born of God is needy to the bone because of their personal sin. Their struggle with the lust of the world and the mighty torrents of the devil. And so faith is personal in that way. Finally, true saving faith is personal because at its heart it has to do with our sin. Even the word sin evokes feelings of guilt and shame in the believer. And like David, the believer cries out to God in hopes that he will forget his sin. And I don't know about you, but I think this is the cry of David and of every Christian because we cannot forget our sins. Maybe our sins of our youth or a particular besetting sin. This is why faith is personal. It deals with us in our complete nakedness before God. It brings tears to our eyes when we remember our sin before a loving God. But our faith, though it strikes our emotions and our sin, which brings shame, yet clings to Jesus Christ as its Savior. It clings to Jesus Christ, believing objectively in God's word which says our sins are forgiven. In fact, God says in Psalm 103 verse 12, as we have read, as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. God's word says that he is merciful toward us and our iniquities and that he remembers them no more. The true believer believes that against all opposition from the world. All opposition from the world, even your own thoughts about yourself, the devil, and even those within these walls who might bring up your personal sin over and over again. The believer with faith, true faith, rests wholly and completely in Jesus Christ. The believer with true saving faith is no longer personally autonomous, living life as a self-made God. The believer does not look to the strength of their faith as that which overcomes the world. The believer does not look to earthly powers such as American politics to overcome the world. The believer does not look to technology as a means to overcome the world. The believer does not look to the faith of their parents as a means to overcome the world. The believer with true faith also does not look to their works as that which overcomes the world. The believer with true faith rests in Jesus Christ, He who overcomes the world. But you might wonder or ask the question, how can you be certain about your salvation? How can we know that we are eternally secure and victorious? Well, some may find an answer based in the historical verifications of the reliability of Jesus or that Jesus actually existed in history. And so confirming for them that he was a real person in his life, death, and resurrection. But what ends up happening if we go this route is perpetual questions and doubts. The great blessing of having faith in Jesus Christ is that you do not need to be a scholar. You do not need to have answers to all these questions that pop up. We do not need to do all sorts of investigation to know and experience faith's assurance. To have certainty of faith, to find faith's assurance, what we need is nothing more than the Word of God and the Holy Spirit's testimony within our hearts and our minds. Assurance of faith in Jesus Christ can be obtained Because scripture is God's word. Children, when your parents tell you that they love you, you believe them. Why is that? Why is that? Well, it's because they said it. And they show you throughout your whole life that they love you. They tell you and give you every reason to trust them in their words. And so how much more certain should we be of God's love for us? On the other hand, we may be assured because the Holy Spirit testifies in our hearts and our minds that we are God's loved children. We must listen and trust the Spirit's testimony within us and what comfort this is for us. God's Word in Psalm 116 verse 5 says that He is gracious and full of compassion and that the Spirit testifies to each of God's children that this is true about them. This is how we can be assured of our salvation. It is solid ground. God set it and the Spirit testifies to it in our hearts and in our minds. Now though that we understand what faith is, let us look at what victorious faith accomplishes. This is what we'll consider as our third point. The victory of faith is what the verse states, overcoming the world. The knowledge, confidence, trust, and hope in Jesus Christ that faith is, overcomes the world. The world here in our text literally means jewel or adornment. The Christian, then, has gained victory over the whole world and all of its glitterings. That is, whatever is contained within the world that is given over to unrighteousness against God. By laying hold of Christ, we overcome the draw of wicked, visible, and invisible influences. in the world. We are no longer slaves to the world and its passions, but we are slaves to Jesus Christ, seeking to be more like him each and every day. Because of the power of Jesus Christ within us, no longer do we primarily seek the things here below, and no longer does the influence of the world rule and reign within us. The Christian does not make it his or her ultimate life goal to gain mass amounts of money, material, and pleasure. The Christian does not get overly caught up in the worldly political talk, entertainment, social media, pleasure, the news, and so on and so forth. The Christian is not overly caught up with these things in the sense that they are driven to doubt, fear, anxiety, or despair because of them. Rather, the Christian has confidence in their victory over the world, over all of these things, all that which is in rebellion or in opposition to God. We gain victory over the hostility that exists between us and others in whatever setting that may be in society. And we also gain victory over the enmity that existed between us and God because of our sin. But the Christian also overcomes the lust of the world that entices our flesh. The desires that we often hold dear to and the lusts that often enslave us. The genuine believer is progressively and continually growing. No matter how slow or steady, they are growing in their desire and love for Christ and what ultimately glorifies Him. Simultaneously the chains that hold us to the world in the flesh are broken and continually broken. Mark 4 verse 20 states, This, but these are the ones sown on good ground. Those who hear the word accept it and bear fruit. Some 30 fold, some 60, and some 100. In other words, as Christians, we are all in different places when it comes to our sanctification. The Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit has readied our hearts, softened them, and we received the word. The new life principle has been implanted in our hearts. Yet not all of us are bearing the same amount of fruit. Some more and some less. Take comfort, though, if you are not bearing the fruit that you would like to see in your life. Take comfort. It is not about the amount of fruit that you're bearing, but it is about the fact that that new life principle has been implanted in your heart. The born-again Christian is still imperfect, but the will is changed. The chains of sin are now broken, and the fight against sin has just begun. Paul describes this experience of the Christian's battle against sin in Romans 7, verse 19. Here he says, "...for the good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do." This is Paul's explanation of the Christian life after his conversion. And it's clear that this is the case because Paul talks about the thorn in his flesh that God gave him to humble him and to show him his ongoing imperfections. But you might say in response, John's statement, that the believer no longer sins. See 1 John 3 verse 9. And so how do we understand the believer's ongoing struggle with sin in light of John saying that the Christian no longer sins? What John means there is that the believer does not live in unrepentant sin forever. The believer does not live in unrepentant sin forever. Yes, the believer falls into sin, but the overall trajectory of their life is a life of putting off the old and putting on the new. This is part of our victory over the world. The point is that the victory is never going to be fully experienced in this life. It's never going to be fully experienced in this life. We live in the already, not yet. Jesus Christ has accomplished victory. Yes, it is finished. Those are his words. And it's going to be fulfilled in the return of Jesus Christ. And so we ought not to make any mistake about this. The battle against the devil in the world is finished. This is the reason why God has given us faith in heaven. Faith will be done away with and sight will replace it. But for now, He gives us faith so that when we experience the hardships in our personal sanctification or struggle with sin, worldly opposition in the devil, that in those moments we will turn and look to Jesus Christ, trusting in Him and the work He did on the cross for us. He finished the battle there. And so when we go through a painful experience in this life that reminds us to the core of our being that the victory over the world is not ultimately fulfilled, we must look to Christ who said, it is finished. in Christ who is on his way back even now to usher in the new heavens and the new earth. It is similar to the Jews who were liberated in World War II from the Nazis. The battle was over. Victory was theirs. Yet the full experience was not fulfilled until maybe they made it home or until sometime after. Do you remember Hebrews chapter 11? All of the characters there are examples of faith. All of them are examples of faith even though they were a prostitute, a liar, a cheater, a polygamist, disobedient, adulterous, weak, and the list could go on and on. and yet they're examples of faith. You see, they overcome the world because they believed in the promises of God. It obviously was not because of the work that they did, but because they believed. Because they believed, it was counted to them as righteousness before God. See Genesis 15 verse 6. By faith, they look for a city to come. Trust and by faith they trusted God to follow through on his promises. By faith they saw from far away God's promises and they embraced them and they confessed them. No matter how weakly they did this, they embraced the promises of God. There is one more thing that must be noted about the victory of faith and that it is that love, loving our neighbor is contained in this victory. Because of Christ's great love for us, we will seek to love, we ought to, any and everyone who comes down our path. We rise above the hate that is so ingrained in the world because of our faith in Jesus Christ. The Christian is one who seeks out the marginalized, the poor, the sick, the widow, the orphan, the homeless, the hurting, and the sinner. We do not stay in our own corner, isolated and secluded from the rest of the world, but the world is our mission field and we seek to love all people like Jesus has so loved us. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The love that is contained in faith is also a love for Jesus' people. We are called to love especially those who are of the household of faith. That means all of God's people here at Bethany URC. That means all of God's people you meet in Michigan. That means all of God's people you meet scattered around the world. We are called to love them and fight against the worldly spirit of division that may try to sneak into the church. we ought to strive for unity in the gospel of Jesus Christ, letting that take precedent over those things which often divide us and cause disunity in our Christian fellowship. By loving the lost within the world and fellow saints, wherever they may be found, the Christian puts on display his world-conquering faith, a world-conquering faith that flips the world on its head. The church is a witness to the world that is divided on everything, that there is a place where true love and unity may be found. As was noted in the introduction, the world desires salvation. The world yearns for this because of the anxiety, the fear, doubt, and distrust of the present evil age. The world yearns for it because of the injustice, unrest, wars, and political upheaval that they see. Believer, do you experience these sort of things in your life? Crippling anxiety, severe depression, fear of death. You suffer paranoia about the things that could possibly happen to you. Do you yearn for salvation as you look at all the turmoil in life and in society? I know I do. I know I do myself. And the question then is, where shall we look? To ourselves? to a superhero, quote-unquote. Some in the world look to the technology of the transhumanism movement, which promises the final end of evolutionism. You can look that up. the perfection of the human state on earth. Some look to a political party or person for their victory. But all those options and all other options are vain. They cannot follow through on their promises. Each one will end up like the kingdom of rubble that were the kingdoms in Jesus' day. the kingdom of Herod, the kingdom of Caesar, both of whom promise good news and salvation to the people. Their kingdoms are rubble. The same are the vain attempts at salvation in our day through technology or medicine. Understanding this, let us then look with eyes of faith to Jesus Christ. That is where our victory is found. There is certainty. There is certainty in Him for you. He delights in you. He loves you. He wants you to come to Him because He is where certainty is. Look then with the eyes of faith and see the invisible. See what the world cannot see. See what the world mocks and laughs at and strive to see only that. See, trust, and delight in the person and work of Jesus Christ, whom you will see one day face to face in glory. Be sure and confident that the faith you have been given will never go away. The faith you have been given is unable to be lost by those who are God's children, because the work He started in you, He will see to completion. Your faith may wax and wane, and oh how it will wane, but God, but God will keep you near to Him. He will strengthen you. In the work He has begun, He will never extinguish. Do not take for granted then the faith that you have been given from God. It is a precious gift that is worth more than all the goods and pleasures in this life. All of the things in this life are perishing, and we often run around trying to preserve them. But there is one thing that never perishes, and it is Christ. And so cherish your faith. Cherish your faith. For it is the only reason that you are able to truly know Jesus Christ for salvation, forgiveness of sins, and joy in the midst of this sin-cursed world. Listen to what Martin Luther has to say about this, the German theologian. Let us learn, therefore, in great terrors, when our conscience feels nothing but sin and judges that God is angry with us, and that Christ has turned his face from us, not to follow the sense and feeling of our own heart, but to stick to the word of God which says that God is not angry. but looks to the afflicted and such as are troubled in spirit and tremble at his word and that Christ turns not himself away from such as labor and are heavy laden but refreshes and comforts them. Our faith has been given to us so that we might stand strong in times of great trouble and in times of great need. But if you are here today as an unbeliever, you don't believe, and you're struggling with fears, doubts, and anxieties, and all the evil and injustice in the world, there's a word for you as well. Cry out to God in repentance of your sin. Cry out to Him and reveal to Him your sinful trust in yourself and your love for this world. Just confess it to God. Cry out to God asking for the power of the Spirit to work in you faith in Christ for the Lord will grant it unto you. He says, come to those. He says to those who come, drink. I met another person in Scotland. And he was telling me about himself, that he has Jewish ancestry, that he loves making videos with his drone, and how much he loved the things of this world. And it is true, there are many good gifts in this world that God has given us for our enjoyment. But this was different than that. He was thoroughly worldly, participating in all that it has to offer, all the things that are in opposition to God. But anyways, while I was talking with him, I shared my faith and how I trust in Jesus Christ for salvation. And how, yes, there are things in this life that I do enjoy, but how it's meaningless and vain apart from Jesus Christ. You see, I was optimistic that it might hit home for him. It didn't though. He quickly stopped me and the one thing he said to me that I'll never forget is this, Henry, I am a man of the world. He said, Henry, I am a man of this world. Now I know what it's like to be caught up with the things of the world and to struggle against sin and struggle with my faith in general. Yet I will never forget what he said to me because it was probably the saddest, one of the saddest things I've ever heard in my life. It's the saddest thing that I ever heard because there was not a second thought or second guess. He quickly brushed me off and said, I am a man of this world, that's it, that's all. And so if you are here today as an unbeliever and you're tempted to that same confession or inclined to think that way, I plead with you to run as far away from it as you can. See that it is so foolish. How foolish. How fleeting of a life. Why sell your soul to the world and end up in hell facing eternal punishment and separation from God? There is not a reason to do that if you have heard the good news of Jesus Christ. Confess your sin and your love of this world to God, and take the first step. Take that first step. Do not wait, for you do not know what tomorrow may bring. And in so doing, you will gain victory over the world. Amen. Thank you for your time this morning. Will you please pray with me? Father in heaven, by nature we are sinful, and by nature we run from you and we hate you, and the same confession as this friend that I met was ours, that we are of this world. But thank you for drawing us to Jesus Christ and giving us victory over the things of this world, and giving us the pearl of great price, the great treasure, Jesus Christ. I pray that we would cherish him, that we would be comforted by him. And oh, Lord, we long for the day when you will come back and make our faiths sight. Come quickly, Lord. Come quickly. I pray this in your name. Amen.