At this time in the service, we'll worship God by affirming what we believe. And we'll affirm what we believe from Westminster Shorter Catechism, questions 28 through 29, 36 and 38. Westminster Shorter Catechism, questions 28 through 29. through 29 and 36 and 38. And these are found on page 970 in the hymnal that you have with you. And so starting at question 28, let's confess what we believe. Wherein consisteth Christ's exaltation? Christ's exaltation consisteth in his rising again from the dead on the third day, in ascending up into heaven, in sitting at the right hand of God the Father, and in coming to judge the world at the last day. Question 29. How are we made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ? We are made partakers of the redemption purchased by Christ by the effectual application of it to us by His Holy Spirit. And then let's jump to question 36. What are the benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification? The benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification are assurance of God's love, peace of conscience, joy in the Holy Ghost, increase of grace, and perseverance therein to the end. What wonderful truths there. And then question 38. What benefits do believers receive from Christ at the resurrection. At the resurrection, believers being raised up in glory shall be openly acknowledged and acquitted in the day of judgment and made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God to all eternity. Again, what wonderful truths are summarized in the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Basically write a summary of the doctrine contained within scripture that binds us together in our unity, in unity. And let's stand if we are able, and let's worship in song. Having heard these truths, let's worship and praise God for these wonderful things He has done for us. And we'll sing number 27A, The Lord's My Life. The great philosopher from the 19th century, Friedrich Nietzsche, is famous for his quote, God is dead. What Nietzsche meant, of course, 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 the day is a worldview without or void of God. The world no longer as a whole holds to the truth in an understanding that God sovereignly controls all things and moves all things for His glory. Are you familiar, you must be, familiar with superheroes? Think for a moment who your favorite superhero is. Is it Batman or Superman? The popularity surrounding these superheroes is directly linked to Nietzsche's profound quote that God is dead. The world may not believe in God, but the world still yearns for salvation. This is seen in the popularity of superheroes figures in movies and comic books. For instance, The box office for the Marvel superhero movie, The Avengers Endgame, cast in 2.78 billion dollars in profit. The world may have forsaken any belief in the supernatural, but it still yearns for a better, more glorious day where there is peace and no war and fighting. A world where death and injustice are overcome. And while there may be some in the world that curse God and blaspheme His name in their denial of His existence, born-again Christians, on the other hand, profess God's saving grace in Jesus Christ and therefore have victory. Born-again Christians have victory in Jesus Christ. He is the superhero. He is the Savior, and from out of the work of the Savior, In Jesus Christ, Christians are heroes as well. We are heroes in that Jesus has given us victory over the world. We are heroes through faith in Jesus Christ. We have victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil. We have victory because Jesus Christ suffered and died on the cross. And he shares his victory with us. And therefore we overcome the vice, the lure, the darkness, power, and sin of the world. We are more than conquerors, the Bible says, through Jesus Christ. This earth is not our home, our eternal home, which is yet to come, we yearn for. There we will see Jesus fully and our faith will be sight. We will see Him face to face and bask in His glory and praise His name forever and ever. We will enjoy sinless perfection and full, complete victory over the world, the flesh, and the devil. While this is to be fully realized and yet to come, we taste the victory even now. And as the text says, for everyone has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world, our faith, Let us then consider, under the theme, the victory of faith. That's our theme, the victory of faith. We'll consider then three points. First, who the victory is for. Who the victory is for. Secondly, what the victory is. And thirdly, what the victory accomplishes. So the theme is the victory of faith. And the first point is who the victory is for. The second, what the victory is, and thirdly, what the victory accomplishes. First, who is the victory for? The law and commands 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, regenerating whoever He desires. The victory of faith is for the born-again believer. Therefore, the words of our Lord Jesus in Matthew 11 verse 30 are a joyful reminder to God's children, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Those that have been born of God by the power of the Holy Spirit delight to keep the law because of thankfulness to God for bringing them into the knowledge of Jesus Christ, their Savior. This is the language that the Heidelberg Catechism uses in Lord's Day 32 when it says, 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 for God for his blessings. Therefore, God's commandments, His laws, are not burdensome because God has renewed us. He has caused us to believe in Jesus Christ, and the logical conclusion or end of that is a life of overwhelming thankfulness and praise to God. A life in which the overall trajectory that consists of hills and valleys is upward in sanctification. To a worldly man or woman in today's culture, this is not so. God's commands to them are burdensome. Even the laws of the United States, as we have seen in the last 10 to 20 years, are a burden. That is because the unbeliever or the person is enslaved to sin and wholly bound to do that which is evil. They are continually led away by the lusts and the pride of the world. Why is this? Well, it's because of self-autonomy. Because truth, the world says, is found deep within your own heart or being. The laws of the United States and, more importantly, the laws of God concerning sexuality, for instance, are a hindrance to the self. Men and women today shout with a loud proclamation, and maybe you have in your past as well. I can do whatever I want with my body. You have no right to tell me what to do. And as an onlooker, if you try to tell them what to do or you try imposing God's law, you might find yourself in a heap of trouble today. The law of God is a constant drip of rain, you see, on the heads of those who refuse to acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord. But the child of God, on the other hand, has been given victory over this self-autonomy. The child of God knows that self-autonomy leads to death and destruction. And so, they hate self-autonomy. They know what it does to them. and how it's against God. The believer knows that in giving him or herself completely over to their own rule leads to slavery to sin and ultimately eternal death. And so the child of God refuses to live a life of utter self-autonomy because they are born of God. The Spirit blows where He blows, and by God's gracious work in them, The child of God is given a new heart, a soft heart. What a gracious gift from God. For it cannot be done by man himself. This working of regeneration, creating a new and soft heart in the believer is the root and fruit of apprehending and receiving Jesus Christ by faith. And thus, the believer gains victory over the world. As mentioned earlier, we see the opposite of this in the world today. All around us are those who are seemingly lost. They are given over to themselves the world and the work of the devil. Yet there is still a sense of divine within them. They yearn for salvation as is seen in the superhero phenomena. This is the only difference between the child of God and the child of the world. God's grace. God is gracious to His people in that He draws them to Himself by the work of the Holy Spirit. He has softened you and I's heart to see our need for a Savior. God has given believers eyes to see and ears to hear. And in so doing this, He has given us the victory of faith in Jesus Christ that overcomes the world. And anyone who believes in Jesus Christ is included in this victory. 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 on the basis of His righteousness? Do you apply all the benefits of Jesus Christ, namely justification, adoption, sanctification and glorification to yourself? Are you resting in His finished work? Then you are born again. You have the victory of faith. You have overcome the world and you live and walk in freedom. A freedom in Jesus Christ that makes your burden light. A freedom that makes following Jesus Christ a joyful and delightful work. A freedom, although you still sin every day and even in grievous ways, that results in resting and relying wholly and completely in Jesus Christ. With the psalmist, in Psalm 119, verse 97, we say, oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all my days. We love it because of the truth that it gives us, the truth of salvation, and for the actual laws that keep us on the straight and narrow. And we desire to keep it and to do it for the glory of God. We know it serves our good in His glory. This does not mean that we will keep it perfectly. No, we will fall short. We sin every day, but we know that our righteousness lies in Jesus Christ and not in and of ourselves. We know that Jesus Christ has already overcome sin, the devil in the world, on the cross, and in His resurrection and ascension to heaven. And so then we will look to Jesus Christ always. We will ask for forgiveness each day and be granted that sweet forgiveness from Him. We will ask Him for strength as well as we live in the midst of the present evil age. We will keep our eyes focused on Him because He is the one who has given us faith that rests in Him. A faith that knows He has overcome the powers of darkness. And we will rest assured that He will continue to sanctify us by His Spirit so that we will turn from and put to death more and more the sin that remains in our lives. Secondly, let's consider what the victory is. What the victory is. The text before us today states that our victory is our faith. Well, what then is this faith? Our faith which 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 or other people. One can have faith even in their doctrinal beliefs. One can have faith in their works as well before God. As one theologian says, as a ground, faith also falls away. It is Christ alone. These faiths, in quotations, and grounding your victory in faith are no victory in and of themselves. Let me give you an illustration, a personal illustration. I once talked to a pastor when I was studying abroad in Scotland for a year, and he asked me, just out of curiosity, when I first met him, he asked me, how do you know that you are saved? And I responded to him by saying, I have faith. I have faith. You see, I did not realize at that time that it is not about looking to my faith. If I look to the faith I have, it is nothing before God. It is weak, and it is not what in and of itself saves me. Rather, it is the object of my faith that saves me, namely Jesus Christ. That's what I should have said. The faith that gives the Christian victory is the faith whose object is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ who has overcome the world, for he humbled himself, was humiliated by men, ultimately died the sinner's death, rose again from the grave, and ascended into heaven at the right hand of the Father. This is where our victory lies. It lies in Jesus Christ. 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 on his shoulders that I should have borne. He who rose again and ascended to heaven is the object of my faith, thus sealing for me the same result. Therefore, we should say, I will trust Him and look to Him daily. It is the faith that rests in Jesus' work, death, resurrection, and ascension that overcomes the world, the flesh, and the devil. Because Jesus Christ, in all of His work, is applied to the believer by the power of the Spirit. This is the faith that gives us victory. And God works that faith within each believer. And it is a bond. It is a personal and intimate relationship between the believer and Jesus Christ. It is a bond of love in which we are united to Jesus as children of God. And it is a bond of victory because He has overcome our sin, death and the devil. and we share in this victory. To understand what truth-saving faith is, it is helpful to return to the Heidelberg Catechism. 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 the forgiveness of sins, everlasting righteousness and salvation out of sheer grace, solely for the sake of Christ and His saving work. God works in the believer the conviction that the knowledge of His Word is true, for them. He works in the believer wholehearted trust in Jesus Christ. He gives the believer unshakable knowledge of Jesus Christ and he draws them back to it each and every day. Notice that the work of faith is all God's work. Yes, man does receive and accept Jesus Christ, but even that receiving and acceptance is by and through the power of the Holy Spirit who draws us to Jesus. Man cannot do this apart from God starting the work and finishing it. If man could do this, then the world might flock to Jesus Christ as their true superhero. but they cannot because they're blinded and their ears are shut. True saving faith is from God to the believer. Notice also, true saving faith is not something that man works. There was a popular or famous theologian recently, N.T. Wright, who has, there's much about what he writes that I appreciate, but in his biography of Paul, He describes faith from a servant vocation perspective. He describes faith in terms of loyalty. In fact, he uses faith and loyalty interchangeably. But you see, faith is not loyalty. It isn't man's loyalty or works before God. No, it is what God does in the believer by grafting them to Jesus Christ and giving them wholehearted trust in Him for salvation. Faith in Jesus Christ is trust that knows, even though we are foreign pilgrims in this present age, His work on the cross, in rising from the dead and in ascending to heaven, has already overcome the world for us. And therefore, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Jesus is the vine. And we are the branches, the branches that are engrafted to Him. And because we are grafted into Him by the power of the Spirit, we are able to be wholly satisfied as we look to Jesus Christ who has overcome the powers of the world. Notice also that the Heidelberg Catechism's definition of true saving faith is personal. It is about you and I having knowledge. It is about you and I trusting in Christ. It is about you and I finding forgiveness in Him. It is about you and I finding righteousness outside of ourselves in Christ. It is personal to you and to me. It is a relationship with the person of Jesus Christ. It is deeply personal in that there is trust, and trust does not come without need. 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 his or her own personal sin, their struggle with the lust of the world in the mighty torrents of the devil. So the believer with two saving faith is softened. They go from something hardened to sin to something soft. The believer with true saving faith is no longer self-autonomous, but is now dependent and reliant on God's saving grace each and every moment. The born-again Christian does not say, I can pick myself up by my own bootstraps, but he or she says, God's grace is sufficient for me. When I am weak, I am strong. Finally, true saving faith is personal because at its heart, it has to do with sin. Even the word of sin today evokes the feelings of guilt and shame within our hearts. 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 every Christian because we cannot and often do not forget our own sins. Maybe our sins of the youth or a particular besetting sin that we struggle today. And this is why faith is personal. It deals with us in our complete nakedness before God. It brings us to tears. Tears come before our eyes when we remember our sin before a loving and gracious God. But our faith, though it strikes our emotions and our sin which brings shame, yet we cling to Jesus Christ because God's Word says so. God's Word says our sins are forgiven. In fact, God says in Psalm 103, verse 12, that 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 gracious and merciful towards us and our iniquities and that He remembers them no more. Jesus Christ is our only hope in life and death. He is the object of our faith. Let us then consider, thirdly, what the victory accomplishes. Now that we understand what faith is, let us look at the victorious accomplishment of it. The victory that our faith accomplishes is what the verse states, overcoming the world. The confidence, trust, and hope in Jesus Christ that is contained in faith overcomes the world. By laying hold of Christ, we overcome the draw, the lure of the world, its lusts, its pleasures, in its material. We are no longer slaves to the world, but we are now slaves to Jesus Christ. Because of the power of Jesus Christ within us, we no longer primarily seek the things here below. The Christian does not make it his or her goal, ultimate life goal, does not make it his or her ultimate life goal, to gain mass amounts of money, material, and pleasures. God changes the Christian's goal from the world, the things of the world, to Christ himself, to knowing him more and more deeply each and every day. The Christian also overcomes the lusts of the world that entices our flesh, the desires that we often hold dear to, and the lusts that enslave us. The believer is genuinely and progressively growing, no matter how slow and steady, in looking like Jesus Christ more and more every day, loving Him more and more each and every day. And so the chains that once held us to this world, that were like a ball and chain on our leg, no longer hold us down, but they're broken in Jesus Christ, our Savior. being continually more and more broken away. 1 John 2 verse 15 through 17 states that the faith which overcomes the world does not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes and the pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away with its desires. but whoever does the will of God abides forever." We must make no mistake in our understanding of this. It is not as though the born-again Christian is now perfect and does not sin. No, the Christian will sin because we have the old man still within us. But change, change has been made. The born-again Christian's will has changed and he or she is now a new man. or a new woman. The born-again Christian has Christ in them, so that the life they live in the flesh, they live by faith in Him. Therefore, the Christian is fully capable of desiring and saying no to sin. By the power of the Holy Spirit, the Christian is able to put off the old man and put on a new man each and every day. The born-again Christian is still imperfect, but the will has changed, and the chains of sin are now broken, and the fight against sin, the war that is waged against it, has now begun. Paul describes this experience of the Christian's battle against sin in Romans 7 verse 19. He says, This is Paul's explanation of the Christian life after his conversion. Paul talks in 2 Corinthians 12, 7 through 10 about the thorn in his flesh that God gave him to keep him humble. And so this is proof that it's life after conversion. But you might say, John also states, as we read today, that the believer no longer sins. But what does that mean? How do we understand this in light of what he is saying? What John means is that the believer no longer lives in unrepentant sin forever. The believer does not unrepentantly just continue in sin forever and ever. Yes, the believer falls into sin, but the overall trajectory, as I have said earlier, is that their life is a life of putting away the old and putting on the new. The new man lives within the believer, and thus there is a new principle of life within each believer. The victory is not a victory, though, as we have talked about, that is ever fully experienced in this present evil age which we live in. For we live in the already, not yet. Jesus has accomplished the victory. It is sure, it is finished. Those were his words on the cross. And you and I can have a full assurance of a firm and full salvation that it will be made sight and will be completed and ultimately fulfilled when he returns. And so make no mistake this evening, the victory against the devil in the world is finished. And this is the reason why God has given us faith. He has given us faith so that when we experience hardships and personal sin, trials, worldly opposition, the devil, we will then turn and look to Christ, trusting in Him, in the work that He did on the cross, in finishing the battle for us. Completely finishing the war against the world, the flesh, and the devil. We have assurance then that the work is completed even though we do not experience it fully and completely in this life because we know Jesus Christ himself personally. Therefore, when you doubt or when you're tempted to be like the world, when you sin against God, violating His will, look to Christ, the author and the finisher of your faith. In these situations, apply the grace of Jesus Christ to yourself, believer. Apprehend Him and personally appropriate Him to yourself more and more each day. Faith, the victory of the world, is for those moments. You have overcome temptations. You do not have to give in to them, and by the power of the Spirit, you will progressively overcome them. We are looking for the life to come. That is our home. And thus God has given us the ability to conquer the world, the flesh, and the devil. He has given us power to face the opposition of the world when we are scorned or mocked. He has given us powerful faith to conquer the flesh when we are tempted. We're able to say no. And he has given us powerful faith to say to the devil, as Jesus himself said, get behind me, Satan. It is a powerful faith because it is the powerful Power of Jesus Christ to face that three-headed monster, which is the world, the flesh, and the devil. It is a sure faith and nothing can overcome it. And now let me say a few words of application as we close our evening. As we noted in the introduction, the world desires a superhero to bring them salvation. The world yearns for this because of the anxiety, fear, doubt, and distrust that is present in our evil age. And so believer, do you experience this in your life? Maybe crippling anxiety or depression, fear of death. Do you suffer maybe paranoia about the things that could happen to you today or tomorrow? I know at times I do. But where shall we look? Shall we look to ourselves? Shall we look to some made-up superhero? No, we should not. We should look with eyes of faith to Jesus Christ. 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 lies. Look 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 one day see face to face in the fullness of the glorious victory that we have grown for in this life. And be sure and confident that the faith you have been given in this life will never go away. The faith you have been given in this life is unable to be lost by those who are God's children. Your faith may wax and it may wane, oh how it will wane, but God, but God, He will keep you. He will strengthen you. The work that He has begun within you will never extinguish. This is the faith that overcomes the world. And so let us not take for granted the faith that we have been given from God. It is a precious gift that is worth far more than all the goods that the world has to offer. Cherish it, for it is the only reason you are able to know Jesus Christ personally for salvation, comfort, and joy. Let us then hear the words of Martin Luther to us. He says, Let us learn, therefore, in great terrors, when our conscience feeleth nothing but sin, and judgeth that God is angry with us, and that Christ has turned his face from us, not to follow the sense of our own heart, but to stick to the word of God, which saith, God is not angry, but looketh to the afflicted, and such as are troubled in spirit, and tremble at his word, and that Christ turneth not himself away from such as labor and are heavy laden, but refresheth and comforteth them." If you are here today as a believer, cherish and relish in the salvation that you have been given in Jesus Christ, looking to him each and every day. And if you are here today as an unbeliever, struggling with fears, doubts, and anxieties, and all the evil and injustice in the world, there is a word for you as well. Cry out to God in repentance of your sin. Cry out to Him and trust in Him instead of the world. For the Lord will grant it unto, He says, to those who to come drink. Amen. Thank you for your time this evening. We'll hear now the benediction from God taken from Revelation 22, verses 20 through 21. This is God's closing word to you as you enter this new week. He who testifies to these things says, surely I am coming soon. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all. Amen.