1. In John 16:33, our Lord told His disciples, "In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."
2. Here in I John 5:4, we read similar words: "And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith."
3. The hymnwriter wrote:

On every hand the foe we find
Drawn up in dread array.
Let tents of ease be left behind,
And onward to the fray.
Salvation’s helmet on each head,
With truth all girt about,
The earth shall tremble ’neath our tread,
And echo with our shout.

Faith is the victory! Faith is the victory!
O glorious victory, that overcomes the world.

4. This world is a dangerous place. This world is no friend of grace.
5. But the good news is, "For whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world" (5:4). Three times we see this phrase -- "overcometh the world" (I John 5:4, 5).

I. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE BORN OF GOD (5:4)?

1. To be born of God means to be born again (I John 5:1). Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3:7, "Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again."
2. Then our Lord added, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit" (John 3:8).
3. There will be a definite change when a person is truly born of the Spirit. He has a new nature, a new outlook, new interests, new habits, new friends, new goals and desires, etc.
4. Second Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."
5. The new birth makes everything new (cf. I John 3:9). "Commit" means "practice sin" (margin). This is also taught taught in I John 5:18.
6. "His seed" (3:9) is God's seed. This seed is the power of the new birth, the power of victory over sin, the power that gives us the victory to overcome the world.
7. Romans 6:14 says, "For sin shall not have dominion (power) over you." Sin's power is broken when a person is born of God. We have been delivered from the power of sin as well as the penalty of sin.
8. Guy King said, "A rubber ball cannot sink -- unless it is held down. We must not let our old, sinful nature get us down!"
9. If there are any here today who question whether or not they have been truly born again, let me encourage you to go to the Word of God.
10. The Bible gives us our assurance of salvation, not our feelings (cf. I John 5:1-5; I Peter 1:23).
11. John 1:12 says, "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name."
12. Have you received Christ? Do you believe on His name?
13. "Faith is the victory" (cf. I John 5:4, 5).
14. After our Lord told Nicodemus he needed to be born again, Nicodemus said, "How can these things be?" (John 3:9), and our Lord said, "Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these things?" (John 3:10).
15. When I first got saved, that statement used to puzzle me. Until I read Ezekiel 36:24-28.

II. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO OVERCOME THE WORLD?

1. The New Testament often refers to the dangers of the world (cf. I John 2:15-17; 5:19).
2. James 4:4 says, "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God."
3. Galatians 1:4 says the Lord Jesus Christ "gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world."
4. Think about that. Jesus died on the cross to deliver us from this present evil world."
5. Three times in the Gospel of John, our Lord referred to Satan as "the prince of this world" (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11).
6. Second Corinthians 4:4 says Satan is "the god of this world," who has "blinded the minds of them which believe not."
7. But the Bible teaches that those who have been born of God have God's power to defeat the devil, the god of this world (I John 5:4, 5).
8. The unsaved person feels at home in this world, but the Christian sings, "This world is not my home, I'm just a-passing through."
9. Unsaved people feel at home in this world. They were born into it, and it is all they know. But the Christian has been delivered from this present evil world.
10. The Christian is to set his affections on things above, not on the things of this world. The hymnwriter said:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.-- Helen H. Lemmel

11. The world appeals to sinners. The world appeals to their fallen natures, and the world offers them the things the flesh likes -- worldly pleasures, worldly music, worldly entertainment, and worldly sins.
12. John Phillips said, "The world can mask its satanic nature behind a smiling face, offering pleasure, prosperity, and power...It is a total system, offering culture, religion, philosophy, art, science, organization, variety. And it can threaten, punish, persecute, oppress, and kill. It can be noble, inspiring, and attractive; or it can be base, disgusting, and cruel. But it is the world, and it is all the unsaved person has" (Exploring the Epistles of John).
13. The world is a system energized by Satan and gratifying to the flesh. The devil uses the world and the flesh. He has it all arranged so that lost sinners can be happy and comfortable without God.
14. Those that are born of God do not belong to this world. First Peter 2:11 says we are strangers and pilgrims in this world.
15. Because we are born of God, we have the power to reject the world and all its worldly allurements. The new birth gives us the potential for victory, but the actual overcoming depends on faith (I John 5:4).
16. It is a battle, but God has given us "the victory" (I John 5:4). The word "overcometh" (5:4, 5) is in the present tense. This means we must always depend upon the Lord, day by day, and minute by minute.
17. I heard about a little boy who was saved in Sunday School, and he ran home to tell his father the good news. But his father, being a very worldly man, tried to discourage his son and he told him it was impossible to live the Christian life.
18. The little boy said, "You don't understand Dad, I have Jesus and He will help me to live for Him."
19. The father said, "No, it is not possible. Not even for a week."
20. "But what about a day?" his son asked.
21. "No, not even for a day," the father said.
22. "Well, then how about a minute? Can't a person live the Christian life even for a minute?"
23. The father thought about that and said, "Well, I suppose it's possible for a minute."
24. "Good," said the little fellow. "I'll live for Jesus minute by minute!"
25. That is the key to overcoming the world -- minute by minute dependence upon the Lord. We do not depend on ourselves.
26. "Faith is the victory! O glorious victory, that overcomes the world."

III. WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO ENJOY THIS VICTORY?

1. It means it is the Lord's victory appropriated by us.
2. First Corinthians 15:57 says, "But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
3. Not "will give," but "giveth." God has already given us the victory. We need to appropriate it by "faith" (I John 5:4).
4. Joshua said to the children of Israel, "How long are ye slack to go to possess the land, which the LORD God of your fathers hath given you?" (Josh. 18:3).
5. The LORD had already given it to them, they just needed to go and possess it.
6. God has already given us the victory. We need to appropriate it by faith (I John 5:4).
7. Guy King, in his commentary on I John, says faith is like an electric switch. The power cannot be turned on unless the switch is flipped.
8. Guy King wrote, "Such unfaltering reliance on the Lord will have a wonderful issue in the Christian's life -- victory over sinful habits, victory over all temptations, victory over trying circumstances, victory over depressed feelings, victory over personal insufficiencies, victory over dominant self" (The Fellowship, An Expositional Study of I John).

CONCLUSION:

1. Lately I have been meditating much about the new birth, and the potential for each and every child of God to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ (II Peter 3:18).
2. Billy Sunday was a rowdy professional baseball player, who liked to go drinking with his team mates.
3. He was a an outfielder for the Chicago White Sox, and one night while out carousing he heard a group of Christians singing Gospel songs on a street corner in Chicago. He followed them to the Pacific Garden Mission and he was born again.
4. Billy Sunday gave up a good salary playing baseball to preach the Gospel. He traveled all over as an evangelist preaching the Gospel.
5. An usher in one of the cities in which he held meetings told him that during the Civil War he was the commander of a firing squad that was given orders to shoot a band of Quantrell's Raiders. These were guerillas who were pro-Confederate "bushwhackers."
6. This particular band of Quantrell's Raiders had burned down a town in Iowa and they had been caught. A long ditch was dug and the men were lined up in front of the ditch and then blindfolded with their hands tied. Just as the firing squad was ready to start shooting a young man dashed through the bushes and cried, "Stop!"
7. He told the commander of the firing squad that he was just as guilty as any of the others, but he had escaped and had come of his own free will. He pointed to one of the men in the line and asked to take his place. "I'm single," he said, "but this man has a wife and babies."
8. The commander of that firing squad told Billy Sunday how they let the condemned man go free, and then they blindfolded and bound the young man.
9. Then the guns were fired and the young man fell dead.
10. Some time passed on, and one day a man happened upon another man in a graveyard in Missouri weeping over a grave. The first man asked the other man who was buried there and the man said, "The best friend I ever had."
11. That weeping man was the man the commander sent away free. The grave held the body of the man who died in his place.
12. Then the man told how he had gone and got the body of his friend after he had been shot and he buried it. And he had brought a withered bouquet all the way from his home to put on the grave. He was poor then and could not afford anything costly, but he had placed a slab of wood over the grave with these words on it: "He died for me."
13. Billy Sunday said his friend Major Whittle stood by that grave some time later and saw the same monument, but he said that later on a big change was made. The freed man became rich and had a big marble monument fifteen feet high, and he put on it this inscription:

SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF WILLIE LEE 
HE TOOK MY PLACE IN THE LINE 
HE DIED FOR ME

14. The Lord Jesus Christ took our place and died for us. Unsaved friend, if you put your trust in Him, believe that He is the Christ, the Son of God, you will be born again and have everlasting life (I John 5:1-5).
15. Christian friend, God has given you the victory to overcome the world.