CONVERSATIONS WITH GOD

Sermon Notes, September 22, 2013

Pastor Jan Sinozich

 

Pastor Jan’s message was titled “Conversations with God,” and was based on 1 John 2:12-14.  In the Bible, God speaks to us, and in prayer, we speak to him: and the two are interdependent in their effectiveness.

Conversations are an important part of life.  There has to be talking and listening.  Our relationship with God started with a conversation, and it survives and thrives in conversation.  In prayer, we talk to Him.  In His Word, He talks to us.  They are interrelated, and we need them both. (Romans 8:29, Colossians 3:10)  Prayer and the Word help us to conform to the image of Christ.

In verse 13, John tells the young men they have overcome the evil one because they are strong and the Word of God abides in them.  The devil is conquered by the strength that comes from having the Word of God abide in us. 

There are two activities of Satan that the Word of God enables us to overcome: his accusation and his temptation.  He accuses us with the sin we’ve already done, and he tempts us with the sin we haven’t yet done.  Satan’s name means “the accuser” or “adversary.”  But his accusations fall to the earth—like he did—by the blood of Jesus. (Revelation 2:10-11)  When believers trust in the blood of the Lamb, Jesus, to cover all their sins, Satan’s accusations are nullified, or conquered.  1 John 1:7 tells us John wrote this letter to tell us not to sin.  But if we do sin, we have an advocate (an attorney) to plead our case before God.  Jesus has already paid the price for our sins—and not only ours, but the sins of the whole world.  The Word of God works through Jesus’ sacrifice to overcome the accusations of the evil one.  We overcome the evil one because through conversation with God, the Word of God abides in us and we are strong. John calls this faith. (1 John 5:4-5)

  The Word of God in us can defeat Satan’s temptations.  If he can’t undermine our faith by accusation, he will try to destroy it with temptation, or testing. (The Greek word peirasmos is the same for both testing and tempting.) Don’t think of just immoral behaviors, but such things as cancer, or unbearable pain, the loss of loved ones, financial hardship—all these can be temptations to forsake our faith.  Satan tempts and tests in only one way: he lies. And all his lies boil down to two lies: God is bad, and sin is better.  But the Word of God gives us the strength to overcome the evil one because by God’s grace, through the Holy Spirit, it liberates the truth from these lies.  John 8:32—“…the truth will set you free.”  The Word of God makes us strong to overcome the evil one because is saturates our mind with truth.

We pray to God, and His Word abides in us.  We become strong in faith.   And faith is the victory.