June 14, 2026 - Victory in Jesus | John 16:33; Romans 6:1-11; Colossians 2:13-15 Baptist Bible Church, Sparta, MI

You just knew with a sermon titled like that we had to sing Victory in Jesus this morning, didn't you?

First day of summer, one week from today, so I'm told.

And you know what that means.

College football is just around the corner.

Every college team has a fight song.

You probably think your fight song is the best, but you're wrong.

Mine is the best for my beloved Michigan Wolverines, because we have the only fight song in college athletics that already assumes the Wolverines are victorious.

The song hails the already victors.

In case you didn't know it, here it is.

Hail to the victors valiant.

Hail to the conquering heroes.

Hail, hail to Michigan, the leaders and the best.

In the realm of spiritual warfare, as we turn our attention now away from the enemy, to how we as Christians engage in the fight against sin, the very first principle we must understand, get this this morning.

The victory is already won.

The victory is already won.

And if we don't start there, then we're doomed to fail the rest of the way.

The very first principle, the very first thing that you need to settle in your hearts is that the battle has been won and it's been won by someone else for you.

And the victory that was won came through Jesus at the cross.

So this morning, we're going to take some time, we're going to look to Scripture, we're going to see how Jesus defeats every single one of these enemies that we've just taken some time to study out.

The world, the flesh, and the devil.

We're going to see how Scripture specifically reveals that at the cross, Jesus defeated each one of these enemies.

Which means that in your fight against the enemy, you are fighting against a foe that has already been defeated in a victory that has already been won for you.

Does that make anybody feel good this morning?

Amen to that.

Hail to you, the victor.

Or really, hail to Jesus, the one who won the victory for you.

So let's look at, let's get into it this morning.

Let's open our Bibles to John chapter 16.

John 16 · chapter mention

John chapter 16.

John 16 · chapter mention

This is just, hey, this is essential.

We need to know this.

You need to know that your enemy that you're fighting is already defeated.

The victory has been won for you.

John chapter 16, look with me in verse 33 as we get things started this morning.

John 16 · chapter mention

John 16, 33.

In the world you will have tribulation.

But take heart.

I have overcome the world.

We need to remember this morning our definition for the world.

We see there that the world is a system of beliefs and values arrayed in opposition to God, his character, and his truth, which both influences and flows out of unbelieving humanity.

This is our basic definition for when we talk about the world in the context of spiritual warfare.

This is what we mean.

We also recognize and remember the primary tactic of the enemy of the world is to seek to conform you into its mold by persuading you to love what it loves, which in 1 John is identified as sin, and to believe what it believes, to embrace its understanding of reality, which is a distortion of the truth.

It's a lie.

Lies specifically that are arrayed in opposition to God's truth.

And we also recognized, if we go back to our Sermon on the World, we recognize that if the world cannot persuade you or tempt you to be conformed into its mold, it will seek to persecute you into submission.

The world will seek to persecute you.

And this is really what Jesus is addressing here in verse 33.

That in the world you will face tribulation, you will face persecution.

You will face the suffering that the world seeks to throw at you.

But what we need to notice this morning is that in the face of that persecution, in the face of the world seeking to push you into its mold, what does Jesus here declare?

I have overcome the world.

Jesus says, I've overcome the world.

I am the victor.

The world has been defeated.

He says, Take hearts there, or be of good courage.

Be of good courage.

Stand.

Take heart.

He says, I'm saying these things that you may have peace.

Meaning, don't be filled with anxiety or worry.

Don't be troubled.

Have peace.

You say, sometimes I don't feel like I have peace in this world.

Sometimes I am afraid or worried.

I don't have courage.

Jesus says, you can have these things based off of this reality, this statement of facts.

I have overcome the world.

When learning to play a new game, what's the most important question that needs to be answered?

If you're learning a new game, what is the most important question, do you think?

What are the rules?

What are the rules?

How do you win?

How do you win?

If you like to be a winner like me, that's the question you ask.

How do you win the game?

How do you win it?

What is the metric of victory at the end of the game?

What metric will be used to judge who is the winner and who is the loser?

This is what you need to figure out when you're playing a new game.

And I think that there are a lot of Christians who live as though at the end of the age they will stand before the world to receive their verdicts.

They live a life as though when everything is said and done, it will be the world's system, it will be the world's values, it will be the world's metric by which you will ultimately be judged.

And they live their lives that way.

And I'm telling you right now that if that's your mentality, if that's your understanding, then you will be conformed to the world.

Because what do you fear?

The judgment of the world.

You fear the judgment of the world.

There's a lot of Christians that fear the judgment of the world today.

And so they compromise on their faith.

They buckle, they fold, they don't stand, they don't be of good courage.

It's as though at the end of the age, the world is going to be the one that says that you either get eternal life or you're condemned to eternal damnation.

It's the world that gets the final say.

But what does Jesus say here?

I have overcome the world.

I have overcome it.

Which means everything that the world values, its system of beliefs, its moral virtue, its judgments of what is right and what is wrong.

That's all been defeated by Jesus.

And at the end of the age, it's not the world you'll stand in front of.

Hear that.

Listen.

When at the end of the age, you won't stand before the world to receive the verdicts.

Doesn't that change how you live your life now?

It should.

It should radically change you to say, I don't play by the world's rules.

The world has a set of rules.

I don't live by them.

Because I recognize, I understand that at the end of the day, I'm going to stand before King Jesus.

And it's his verdict is the only one that will matter for eternity.

So standing in the victory of Jesus in the face of the world means I'm not going to be conformed to the world's standards, to the world's values, to the world's judgments, to the world's systems.

I'm not going to bend or bow to that.

Because when it's all said and done, I'm not going to be judged by that.

You serve the one who has overcome the world.

Okay, number two.

Number two, Jesus has victory over the flesh.

Victory over the flesh.

And if you turn your Bibles to Romans chapter 6, we'll see this victory explained.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 6, as you're turning there, be reminded again of our definition of the flesh, fallen humanity's internal inclination to sin.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

Remember, we used the illustration of the magnet to try to get this idea across that inside of you there is a magnetic, a magnetic pull toward sin.

The flesh corrupts your desires, causing sin to become appealing, tempting to you.

It makes sin desirable to you.

You're corrupted by the flesh in this way.

And recall the goal of the flesh.

What does the flesh ultimately want to do?

It wants to enslave you to sin, it wants to make you a servant of sin.

So look with me in Romans chapter 6, look with me in verse 1.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

What shall we say then?

Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?

By no means.

How can we who died to sin still live in it?

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?

We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

So we notice here how the flesh plays on God's grace.

We try to mention this in our Sermon on the Flesh, that there's a danger for Christians that the flesh will seek to twist God's grace in order to make sin more justifiable in your mind.

If I'm already forgiven, then sin isn't that serious.

I can really just live how I want because I've got my free ticket to heaven.

This is the flesh's, this is how the flesh reasons in us, in our own minds.

And so in the text here, Paul reminds us that if we have been saved, that this mentality is not how we should go forward.

He says, should we continue in sin so that grace may abound?

The more we sin, the more grace is expended?

And he says, no, definitely not, certainly not.

God forbid.

Why?

Because you've died to sin.

You're dead to sin now.

And what's the basis by which he makes this claim?

Well, he points to this reality, the spiritual reality, that you have been baptized into Jesus.

And here our understanding of the word baptism is important.

The word in the Greek is baptizo, which literally means to immerse or to place into something.

And so in ancient times, the word would have been used for those who dye clothes or cloth.

And they take the cloth and they'd go to the vat of dye and they would baptizo it.

They place it into the dye.

Or for a more modern-day illustration, this would be what you do with an Oreo cookie.

Tell me, nobody sprinkles milk on their cookie, do they?

Okay, so the Presbyterians and the Catholics, they've got it all wrong.

You don't sprinkle milk on a cookie.

What do you do with the Oreo?

Dunk it! Or, in other words, what?

Baptizo it! You place it, you immerse it into the milk.

And Rebecca, was it you that said you dunk it in water?

Was that you?

That's disgusting.

That's just disgusting.

It's milk, not water.

The concept that Paul is teaching here is union.

Union.

Meaning that when you place your faith in Jesus, the spiritual reality that takes place is that you are placed into Jesus.

You become united with Jesus.

And Paul's point here is that there is a retroactive transaction that takes place.

When you place your faith in Jesus, you now have died with Jesus.

When Jesus died on the cross, you, because you are now joined with him, you are now united in him, you now have also died with Jesus.

And the practical ramification of this union, the practical ramification of this union, Paul goes on to describe in verse 6.

He says that we know that our old self was crucified with him.

Now, our terminology here is important.

In fact, when we talked about the flesh, we talked about how the old self is not the flesh.

These are not synonymous terms.

Paul doesn't use the word sarx here, the Greek word for flesh.

He uses a different term.

The term is old self or literally old man.

And by using this term, this isn't the only place he uses this word in the New Testament, by the way.

Each time this word is used, the context shows us what Paul means.

He's referring to your old way of life dominated by the flesh.

Before you knew Jesus, in other words, before you knew Jesus, before your old way of life died with Jesus, you had no resistance to the flesh.

You had no power or ability within yourself to resist the flesh and the power the flesh exerted over you.

Because where does your victory come from?

You can't win it.

You can't battle sin based off of personal willpower.

You are doomed to fail.

You're doomed to fail.

So what he's saying here is that this is how everybody lives.

Before they know Jesus, you live a life that is dominated by the power of the flesh.

The old self, the old man, the old way of life.

Notice here, he says, though, that when you are joined to Jesus, this old life has been crucified, meaning that the way of life that you are born into, a life that is dominated by the unchecked power of the flesh to draw you to sin, that way of life is no longer your present reality.

That's your past.

That's your past, where the flesh had unchecked power to rule you.

That's your past.

He says, that's crucified.

It's crucified.

Do you see that in verse 6?

He says it, it's crucified, it's killed.

With the result being, then in verse 6, in order that, so so why was your old self crucified with Jesus in verse 6?

In order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.

So here we have the next term: body of sin.

Now body of sin is synonymous with flesh.

Body of sin is synonymous with the flesh.

So understand the flow of the argument.

Because you have been crucified with Christ, your flesh has lost its power to enslave you.

It's been brought to nothing.

It's been brought to nothing.

Paul isn't saying the flesh has been destroyed, exterminated, or removed.

But he does say the power has been broken.

Its power to enslave you has been broken.

Because you've been joined to Christ.

Because Jesus has won the victory.

Jesus' victory at the cross, his death, burial, and resurrection, and your joining to Jesus enables you to live a new life free from sin.

But if you skip to verse 11, you'll notice what he says.

So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

Notice where he's placing the victory.

How do you have victory over sin?

It's because you have been joined to Jesus, you've now died to sin, you're now made alive to God in Christ Jesus.

In Jesus.

But he says, you must reckon it, meaning mentally embrace this new reality.

You must remember.

So when the flesh is seeking to tempt you and draw you into sin and shape your affections to love sin, you must call to mind this reality.

I've died to sin.

I'm in Jesus now.

I'm a new creation.

And so I need to say no to the flesh.

I need to say no to the temptations of sin.

And I need to walk in the new life, victory that I have in Jesus.

Reckon yourself dead to sin.

Remember, I'm dead to that.

And I'm alive in Jesus.

Victory.

Victory in Jesus over the flesh.

The last one this morning, victory over the devil.

Turn with me to Colossians chapter 2.

Colossians 2 · chapter mention

Colossians chapter 2.

Colossians 2 · chapter mention

Verse 15.

There's a lot of good context here.

We just don't have time this morning to dig all the way into it, but the context here is a reference to the cross.

Jesus' crucifixion on the cross is the context here.

And at the cross, in verse 15, we read, He or Jesus disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame by triumphing over them in him.

So a few terms to be defined here.

First, we have a reference to these rulers and authorities.

These are terms that Paul commonly uses to refer to the spiritual realm, meaning these would be demonic forces.

This would be the demonic host and their ruler, Satan, would be who is referred to here as these rulers and authorities, meaning that they're the ones that are behind the scenes working things out in the world today.

Satan and his demonic minions.

The word disarm in verse 15, the word disarm is the word used to take off a garment, to take off an old cloak or something.

In this context, Paul is using it to explain that Jesus has removed the weaponry of the enemy.

Jesus has taken away the weapons of the enemy.

That's why our English translations, I think, accurately translate the word there as disarm.

The weapons of the enemy have been taken away.

And how, what is the means by which this has taken place?

By the cross.

It's through Jesus' death at the cross, and even more specifically, not just his death, but his resurrection, that the weapons of the enemy have been taken away.

So what this means is that through Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection, Jesus has made Satan's ability and power to manipulate you, to rule you, and to control you and influence you null and void.

He's removed the power and ability of Satan to influence you through the cross.

Through the cross.

Now notice, again, this doesn't mean that Satan has been obliterated.

It doesn't mean that Satan has been has ceased to exist.

Satan still exists as an enemy.

But his power, the weapons he uses to enslave you and to influence you into sin, he's been disarmed of those.

He's been disarmed.

He's a powerful adversary, but is a defeated adversary who can now be resisted.

It's interesting there, that final phrase in verse 15.

We read that he put them to shame, open shame by triumphing over them.

Paul uses that word triumph on purpose here.

A triumph was in fact a common Roman custom.

Only after a great victory, Roman generals were awarded what was called a triumph.

One famous example happened in the year 167 BC when the Roman general Emilius Paulus celebrated his triumph over Perseus, the defeated king of Macedonia.

This was a great victory for the Romans.

And so Plutarch, the ancient historian, records that Rome filled the streets to watch the parade.

There was a victory parade that took place.

At this parade, the spoils of war were carried through the city, which included Perseus himself, who was forced to walk in the procession as a public display of Rome's victory.

To the Roman citizens, they were able to see their conquering general march through the streets with all the spoils of war, and there along at the end came the king of the enemy himself in chains, walking in the streets.

Could only imagine the kind of ridicule, the kind of shouting the Roman citizens would have done, the mockery that would have taken place.

Here's this mighty enemy king bound in chains, being forced to walk through our streets.

Hail to the victors! As they watch their enemy being marched along.

This is the image Paul is drawing from.

This is what he wants you to have in your mind as you read this.

The victory Jesus won at the cross brought public shame, open public humiliation to the enemy.

Meaning this was not just a private victory that was secret that no one else could see or know about.

What about the victory of Jesus over the enemy was so public, by the way?

What do you think was so public?

The defeat of the enemy was made so public.

What about it?

How about the resurrection?

Jesus didn't just die for sin and then immediately just ascend to heaven so nobody could see.

What happened?

The stone rolled away three days later.

And Jesus walked out, living, breathing, victorious over the enemy.

And he appeared to all kinds of people.

Public, open.

I mean, the enemy was completely humiliated.

How humiliating for Satan.

That here Jesus has victory over the grave itself.

Satan's greatest weapon, fear of death.

Gone.

That's a triumph.

That's a triumph.

So this morning we have victory over the world.

We have victory over the flesh.

We have victory over the devil.

And all of these victories are not because of our own power, our own strength, our own ability, our own godliness, our own law-keeping.

None of it is us.

It's a victory that's been won through Jesus at the cross.

I'll close with this.

There are many scholars, if you don't have to look, but in Ephesians, at the end of the book of Ephesians, chapter 6, we have this description of the armor of God.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

And we're charged to put on the armor.

And as we get into the more practical side of the series and begin to consider and think through how we can walk in that victory, what are practical ways we can fight sin in the victory that's already been won for us?

We're going to be using this passage to help us along the way, referencing it, going back to it.

But there's one thing I think that's that's helpful for us this morning to just start thinking about.

Maybe you've heard sermons preached or done Bible studies, and there's like illustrations or applications drawn from the specific piece of armor, and it's kind of using the Roman military armor, which is possible, but there are in fact many people who believe that Paul actually didn't have in mind the Roman military armor at all here in Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

And the reason they say that is because if you go to the book of Isaiah, and I have here on the screen some references for you, there's a direct correlation in Isaiah to Ephesians 6, specifically these pieces of armor.

So if you see in Isaiah 59, verse 17, you see a reference to the righteousness as a breastplate, the helmet of salvation, which we see breastplate of righteousness, helmet of salvation in Ephesians 6.

Isaiah 59:17

Isaiah 11, faithfulness or truth, the belt of his loins, belt of truth.

And then in Isaiah 52, we have the feet of him who brings good news, who publishes peace.

And then here we have the shoes for your feet, readiness given by the gospel of peace.

So we have these direct correlations between Ephesians 6 and Isaiah, which is interesting because in the book of Isaiah, one of the prominent themes and prophecies has to do with a coming Messiah who's going to come, and in Isaiah, he's presented as a conquering king, a conquering warrior king, who's going to come and defeat all of the enemies of God and establish a reign of righteousness and peace on the earth.

And it's fascinating to see in Isaiah this warrior king, Messiah, being described as putting on this armor in order to go defeat the enemy.

And what does Paul do?

He takes exactly from Isaiah and now challenges us as believers to put on this same armor.

And what's the point Paul's making?

What's the point that Paul is making?

I think it's this.

The Messiah from the Old Testament, of course, is none other than Jesus.

Jesus is the fulfillment of this Messiah-conquering king in the book of Isaiah.

Which means for us today that the armor that the believer is called to put on is the very armor of Christ.

We've noticed this morning that the victory over each enemy of the Christian was won by Jesus at the cross.

Which means for us this morning that in reality, what we are called to do in order to embrace each of these victories is put on Jesus.

Put on Jesus.

Become like Jesus.

Be transformed into the likeness and image of Jesus through the ordinary means of sanctification that Paul outlines in Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

And as you day by day, or as Paul says in the book of 2 Corinthians, as you behold the glory of Jesus by one degree to the next degree, being transformed into his image and into his likeness, you will have victory over sin.

As you employ the means of sanctification symbolized through the armor of Jesus Himself putting on Jesus, being transformed into Jesus through these means of sanctification, you will have victory.

You will embrace the victory Jesus has won for you.

A victory that Jesus himself has achieved.

Do you want that victory this morning?

Do you want it?

Do you want to fight sin?

Grow in purity and holiness and righteousness, growing closer, drawing nearer to God as you do so.

Do you want that this morning, church?

Amen.

Praise God for the victory we have in Jesus.

Praise God for the cross that enables you this morning to have that same victory.

Father, we thank you for today, thankful for this opportunity that we've had to dig into your word and to take some time reflecting on the victory that Jesus won at the cross.

We are so thankful this morning that this fight against sin, this spiritual warfare we're called to engage in is not something we're left alone to figure out how to do, and that we have to depend on our own power to do it.

We know that if that were the case, that we would fail miserably.

We have no ability to fight sin on our own.

And so we are so thankful that as we've opened up your word this morning, we've recognized that in every case the enemies of God, our enemies, have been defeated by Jesus at the cross.

That victory is ours as we seek to embrace Jesus, look to Jesus, put on Jesus, be transformed more into the image of Jesus.

Father, help us to do this.

Help us to walk with you and give us that victory.

We love you, God.

We're thankful for the love that you have for us.

It's in Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.