A friend of mine came to town earlier this week. Not only is he a true friend, but he is also a colleague. It means our conversations were refreshingly frank and honest as we spent a few days discussing life, work, and future aspirations. We talked a lot about the state of the Church, the challenges facing her, and the opportunities on the horizon. But every time I have discussions like that, there are moments when I find myself reflecting on what I would call the insignificance of it all. I was a pastor of a congregation in southeast Georgia before here, served there for 8 years and have been here for almost 13 years. When I step back and think of what we have accomplished and what we are doing, I wonder if it really means much at all. I guess what I am saying is, sometimes it all feels so insignificant. You grind hard and put in the work, and the church gathers, worships, and prays, but what is the lasting legacy? What are we doing it all for? Time rolls on, and it all seems forgotten in the past.

It is not just the corporate reality of the Church that falls under some suspicion. This is played out countless times in our own lives. We are the people of God. We are those who still pay homage to the ancient faith. We take time out of our busy schedules to worship. We try hard to live lives worthy of God’s love and mercy. Does that mean our lives are free from suffering, free from heartache, free from confusion, and loss? No. I have been there at the bedside of dying saints of God. I have been there when their dignity is stripped away, when all they want is for a visit from a family member or an old friend, when loneliness is not just a moment of time but a crippling reality. I still remember the first real visit I made to a member who could no longer make it to church. She lived just across the state line, deep in the woods of North Florida. You took a state road to a county road to a dirt road to get to her dilapidated double-wide home. And there you found her, this short, overweight, and extremely sick woman who would greet you with the biggest smile you could imagine. Her life had been difficult, but her faith remained strong. It was inspiring to be sure, but there were times when I left her place that I would dare to wonder if faith made any real impact in her life. The list of her ailments was massive. As soon as she seemed to overcome one, another would knock her down. She was also a widow whose children no longer visited, and you could see the tears well up almost every time I had to say goodbye as she was left alone again in a home which was literally falling down around her.

We are Christians. We have heard the voice of the Good Shepherd, and we have gathered around His gifts. We worship, pray, and sing His praises. We have created this sanctuary in the landscape for ourselves, a place to which we retreat, and our faith is nourished. But as soon as we find ourselves out in the world, as we are given the ability to see things from the perspective of world events, and cultural struggles, and economic challenges, then this endeavor of ours seem small and lowly by comparison. All signs point to the world overcoming whatever we are trying to do here. We can pray, praise, and give thanks, but what difference does it make?

Yet, we know that the heart of our fellowship, the core of what we are about, is greater than anything our world might set before our eyes. We know we worship the One who came into the world, came into the sin, the destruction, and the rebellion, not to simply condemn it, not to only reject the wayward thinking of our age, but to bear those sins, to make them His own, to stand in our stead so we might have something more, something greater, something that will truly overcome in the end. He dies for you, for your hope, for your salvation. So, John writes, “This is He who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ; not by the water only but by the water and the blood.” This One, who is the heart of our fellowship, is the One who came by water and blood, the One who came baptized by John as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, the One who bleeds out His pure sacrificial blood for the sins of the world. This is true God and true man, begotten of the Father from all eternity, and born of the virgin Mary. This is the One who has overcome the world.

The power of His overcoming work is found in His love, His mercy, and His compassion for all of us. He overcomes this by sacrificing Himself. John says, “Everyone who believes Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him.” In other words, to believe in Christ is to be born of God. To believe in the gifts of our Lord, to believe that He has come to love you is to begin a new life in Him, a life born not of flesh or the will of man but born of God. This new life, the life you are called into, is a life defined by love. Therefore, Jesus says to all His disciples, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you.”

Love is the fulfillment of the Law. Love is the keeping of the command. Love is the definition of friendship among the people of God. Love leads to sacrifice. Though this may look small and insignificant, though love may not be the great power move our world is longing to see, it is the very thing that wins the day, for this love is not our own creation. This love flows from the love we have received from our God, the love of the Son who has laid down His life for His friends. Love is on display for all to see as He dies on the cross and they pierce His side with a spear and outflows blood and water. By faith, we believe in this work. By faith, we dare to love as we have been loved. So, John says, “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?”

As a result, you, in your small and simple faith, in your prayers and praise, in your worship and acts of love, you overcome the world. This age will pass away, its worries and fears will eventually disappear, but you will endure. You who are in Christ, you who are bound through water and blood, bound by the working of the Holy Spirit to the life and resurrection of Jesus, you will overcome the world. It begins in the love of Christ for you, and then is carried through your love for one another. As Saint Paul famously said, “Faith, hope, and love, these three remain, but the greatest of these is love.”

That lady I used to see in the old double-wide mobile home in the woods, during one of her lengthy hospital stays, a few members from the church went to her home to get her a few things and also to get a good look at the living conditions out there. They found mold and rot, among other things. She agreed to allow us to do some construction to improve the situation, but, eventually, it was deduced that it was too extensive, and the home was not safe for her to return. So, not only had she lost her health and mobility, but now her home. It was difficult, but with her initial reluctant blessing, those simple saints of the church in Southeast Georgia that no one had heard of began to pull resources to organize her property, eventually sell it, and move her into a small place right down the street from the church.

So, looking back, perhaps we did not accomplish much at the church, and perhaps we are not doing much here either. But for one little, sickly lady, for what turned out to be only the last year of her life, she knew love, love which overcomes the world. That is why I am thrilled to see how this place, at this time, continues to worship, to pray, praise, and give thanks, to love as we have been loved, and so overcome the world.