I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who is from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the evil one.I have written to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I have written to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God remains in you, and you have overcome the evil one.I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.I have written unto you, fathers, because ye know him who is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the evil one.
4 sermons cite this verse
I was hiking with a friend this week and we were talking about all the different mountains that he's hiked and climbed and successfully been to the top of. And in the area that we were hiking, it pretty much was all of them. I was like, have you climbed that one? He's like, yep. Have you climbed that one? He's like 50 times. You know, you climb that one? No, 20 times. Like, just all of, like, so pretty much just all of the mountains. You've been on all of them. You are the mountain climbing person, right? And he's like, yeah, but I never really thought about it like that. I never really had this, like, list. And I'm, like, checking them off, right? He says those who climb a lot of mountains call that peak bagging, where you just have this bag, and you're just trying to put all the peaks into the bag, right? You're just like, ooh, here's my bag, and I'm going to go grab the peak, and I'm going to bag it. …
He has no access to you internally. And that's why it says in 1 John 4, 4, that you have a good way. Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. And that is a contrast. He who is in you is different than he who is in the world. He who is in the world is Satan. He who is in you is the Holy Spirit. Back in chapter 2 of 1 John, three times John says, you have an anointing from God. You have an anointing from God, verse 20, verse 27. You have an anointing from God, and that anointing is none other than the Holy Spirit. First Corinthians 6, 19 and 20, you're the temple of the Spirit of God. Christ lives in you, Romans 8 and 9, if any man have not Christ, he's none of His. So you have living in you God Himself. The Father has made His abode with you. The Spirit dwells in you, and the Son also. …
9. Christian perfection, therefore, does not imply (as some men seem to have imagined) an exemption either from ignorance or mistake, or infirmities or temptations. Indeed, it is only another term for holiness. They are two names for the same thing. Thus every one that is perfect is holy, and every one that is holy is, in the Scripture sense, perfect. Yet we may, lastly, observe, that neither in this respect is there any absolute perfection on earth. There is no perfection of degrees, as it is termed; none which does not admit of a continual increase. So that how much soever any man hath attained, or in how high a degree soever he is perfect, he hath still need to “grow in grace,” [2 Pet. 3:18] and daily to advance in the knowledge and love of God his Saviour. [see Phil. 1:9] II. 1. In what sense, then, are Christians perfect? This is what I shall endeavor, in the Second place, to show. But it should be premised, that there are several stages in Christian life, as in natural; some of the children of God being but new-born babes; others having attained to more maturity. And accordingly St. John, in his first Epistle, (1 John 2:12.) applies himself severally to those he terms little children, those he styles young men, and those whom he entitles fathers. “I write unto you, little children,” saith the Apostle, “because your sins are forgiven you:” Because thus far you have attained, — being “justified freely,” you “have peace with God, through Jesus Christ.” [Rom. 5:1] “I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one;” or (as he afterwards addeth,) “because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you.” [1 John 2:13, 14] Ye have quenched the fiery darts of the wicked one, [Eph. 6:16] the doubts and fears wherewith he disturbed your first peace; and the witness of God, that your sins are forgiven, now abideth in your heart. “I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning.” [1 John 2:13] Ye have known both the Father and the Son and the Spirit of Christ, in your inmost soul. Ye are “perfect men, being grown up to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” [Eph. 4:13] …
14. Exhort him to press on, by all possible means, till he passes “from faith to faith;” from the faith of a servant to the faith of a son; from the spirit of bondage unto fear, to the spirit of childlike love: He will then have “Christ revealed in his heart,” enabling him to testify, “The life that I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me,” — the proper voice of a child of God. He will then be “born of God,” inwardly changed by the mighty power of God, from “an earthly, sensual, devilish” mind, to “the mind which was in Christ Jesus.” He will experience what St. Paul means by those remarkable words to the Galatians, “Ye are the sons of God by faith; and because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.” “He that believeth,” as a son, (as St. John observes) “hath the witness in himself.” “The Spirit itself witnesses with his spirit that he is a child of God.” “The love of God is shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost which is given unto him.” 15. But many doubts and fears may still remain, even in a child of God, while he is weak in faith; while he is in the number of those whom St. Paul terms “babes in Christ.” But when his faith is strengthened, when he receives faith’s abiding impression, realizing things to come; when he has received the abiding witness of the Spirit, doubts and fears vanish away. He then enjoys the plerophory, or “full assurance, of faith;” excluding all doubt, and all “fear that hath torment.” To those whom he styles young men, St. John says, “I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.” These, the Apostle observes in the other verse, had “the word of God abiding in them.” It may not improbably mean “the pardoning word,” the word which spake all their sins forgiven. In consequence of which, they have the consciousness of the divine favour, without any intermission. …