Win The World: Nike, More Than Conquerors

Hello, and welcome to the Kalamazoo church of Christ podcast.

Thank you so much for listening.

We're startup church.

We just planted in September, 2020 and at the Kalamazoo church, we believe that Christianity is done best when it is done together.

And so if you live in the Kalamazoo area, we would love to connect, be it coming to a Sunday service, one of our small groups, or even just grabbing coffee with a member to learn more.

You can visit kalamazoo.church in order to do that.

We pray that you are inspired by what you hear today.

Welcome, welcome.

Um, if you guys are grabbing food, go ahead and finish up the old, uh, food grabbing thing.

If we could have somebody pray, um, very powerfully, uh, just like if you're just talking to God, somebody, just one person pray, uh, who wants to do that?

It could be in any language.

It doesn't have to just be in English.

All right.

Maybe a student.

Let's say a student.

Let's say a student.

Dan graduated a few years ago.

Yeah, do it.

Do it.

Great.

Whatever language, but you just got to preach it, man.

Preach.

Preach.

Cool.

Okay.

Best thing that happened this week.

What was the best thing that happened?

You can just shout it out.

Sleep.

Sleep happened this week.

Amen to that.

Yeah, absolutely.

For some of us.

Not all of us, but some.

Yeah.

Sleep.

We went to Tallinn.

Yeah, we were in Tallinn for a few days.

Absolutely.

Um, we thought we lost Nick about four times, but we didn't.

He's here and I don't know how.

By God's grace.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

He came.

He found his way back.

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What other great stuff happened?

Sharing faith.

Okay.

We shared our faith.

We're here again.

We're here right now.

Amen.

Awesome.

Uh, well, I, I have the, uh, the challenge, the task to preach the word this evening.

Um, we're kicking off this thing and it's, it's called win the world.

Uh, maybe you've been following along, uh, if you were here in Riga or even in Tallinn, we did morning, some morning devotionals and we, uh, we were talking about what it means to win the world.

We looked at a lot of stories in the, uh, in the old Testament.

I'm going to few in the new as well about winning the world.

Um, you know, this is, it's going to be a fun topic, but before that, I want to share just a little bit about myself.

Uh, my name is Jaron.

I've been in ministry for nine years.

Um, I graduated with a business degree and, um, we're going to talk about, uh, in college I played basketball.

Um, actually I, I, we met, I met Dan in college.

He had already been reached out to.

I think his, his, his mom, uh, grew up in there, was in the church.

And so he was kind of like the worst of the worst kingdom kid.

And I was like the second to the worst kingdom kid.

Um, and so we became fast friends.

Uh, we really all through college, we really tried to call each other higher.

Um, you want to hit the next slide.

So this is a picture of my wife and my two girls.

Um, you guys know Bianca, those two ones there.

I'm excited to see them on Monday, uh, like Monday evening, give or take.

Um, so that's, uh, that's them.

Jordan is three, Madison's one and a half.

And, um, they were, they were playing, they were having a good time.

Uh, so that's, that's who they are.

That's the most of, uh, the fun parts about my life.

Um, they've helped me to become more emotional and understand, uh, my emotions.

Because if I don't, then I'm, then they're going to make me understand their emotions.

Uh, you know what I'm saying?

Uh, it's, uh, it's just so much fun to be here.

Uh, part of the church that I'm a part of, we give to the Baltic Nordic Missions Alliance.

And so that's a group that helps, uh, support, uh, financially, spiritually, relationally, uh, the churches in the Baltics, which, which is, which is you guys as well as the Nordics as well.

And, uh, and it's just so much fun.

It's so great that we can have connections and relationships that it's, it's not just, you know, money.

And then that's it, that, that it's so cool that the leaders in your churches decided, okay, we, we not only do we, uh, we're grateful for the finance.

We actually want relationships as well.

We want to be close and we want to grow.

And you guys have called us higher.

Your leaders have called us higher, um, as well.

I also, uh, I also want to quickly thank, um, Adrian and Adriana, if we could get a round of applause for them.

It was just a really short amount of notice.

They put all of this together and, uh, and I know they, the students in, um, in the, the Regan church helped a lot as well.

Thank you to you guys.

You guys know where we're talking about winning the world.

You can go to the next slide there.

Um, and, and the topic today is what, what is winning the world?

Like, what does that even mean?

A good question.

And I think, uh, this is, this is what I've come to.

You can go to the next one right away.

Uh, winning the world is joining in and fighting for the side that is already victorious.

You know, it's the idea actually in the American Bible, almost every translation, maybe there's some that there's not, but you can't find the phrase when the world, uh, there's it's nowhere.

Maybe it is, maybe it translates that way in your language, but today we're going to reframe our whole mindset about what it means to win the world.

Uh, so, so consider for a moment here, uh, you know, there there's do we have any Harry Potter fans or not really a little bit.

Okay.

I was like, man, am I going to miss you guys or not?

Okay.

So there's, there's, I think it's in the first, uh, book, um, sorcerer stone.

There's this, this mirror basically.

And this mirror, uh, it tells you when you look at this mirror, it shows you everything that you want.

Like it shows you what's your best day basically.

Uh, so consider for a moment for you guys, if you guys could think about what is your, your best day when, when, when you, when first, when you hear the word win the world, what does it mean to you?

What does it look like?

And we're not going to share it, but take a moment to consider what is winning the world to you.

Maybe it's a relationship.

Maybe it's a family.

Maybe it's wealth.

Maybe it's status.

Maybe it's respect.

And of course, yeah, yeah.

I love God too, but, but perhaps that's not the first thing that comes to mind.

Uh, you'd be in a good company if it wasn't the first thing that comes to mind.

But I hope that when we leave, we're just one step closer to Jesus and to the idea of what does he talk about when he says winning the world?

Amen.

Awesome.

Let's, let's, uh, let's go over to John 16.

Um, and, and also if you guys want to follow along, there's going to be some scriptures up there.

The first point is Jesus has already won.

Um, and so John, John 16, this is Jesus.

Now he's in the, at the end of his, his life on earth and he's in the garden, uh, or he's right before to go, he goes to the garden.

This is the last supper now.

And he's talking to his disciples and he's giving them encouragement and he's sharing with them some things that are going to happen.

It says this, do you now believe Jesus replied in verse 31, a time is coming and in fact has come when you all will be scattered each to your own home.

You will leave me all alone.

Yet I am not alone for my father is with me.

I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace in this world.

You will have trouble, but take heart.

I have over come the world.

This word overcome is the one that we're going to talk all about today.

There's, I did a little study of, of the word and, and it's, it's really powerful and we'll talk about all of the other stuff that, that it means.

But Jesus is talking to his disciples.

And imagine if you were in the room with Jesus, how you might be feeling.

This is the guy that you walked with for three years.

He told you everything about yourself.

He's helped you become so close to God.

He said, he's got it.

And you actually believe him, or he's the son of God and you actually believe him.

And then he's saying these things that you're going to leave me or you're going to, and I'd imagine you might feel confused.

You could feel sad and it would just be a weird time.

And then on top of that, he says, I have overcome the world.

When you think about Jesus overcoming the world, I think maybe the first place you go, just like the first place I go is that, Oh, he rose from the dead.

He overcame the world.

How did Jesus overcome the world?

How did he conquer the world?

He rose from the dead.

That's how he did it.

And this is before he rose from the dead.

He's saying, you know, no, no, no, no.

I've already overcome the world already based on how I live my life.

I've already won.

It's going to look like I've lost, but I haven't.

I've won the world already.

You think, think about Jesus for a moment.

He says, take heart.

But what is, what does he think about?

Why could he possibly say, take heart?

Well, what, well, he, Jesus never did anything wrong.

You know that, but think about that for a moment.

Think about, he never said anything wrong.

He never thought like he wanted to hurt anybody.

He never wronged anybody.

He only said everything the exact right way.

He was always patient.

He was always loving.

He was never distracted in conversation.

I don't know about you guys.

Sometimes in a conversation, I can be talking to somebody and something more interesting is happening.

And I'm like, I want to listen to this conversation, but I need to be giving in this conversation here.

Jesus never felt that.

If you were talking to Jesus, you could be telling them about the color of your shoes and he would be locked in staring at you, engaged with what you were saying.

And we'd say, well, he's God.

So of course he did that.

He's God.

Of course.

But wait a minute.

He never called on his power.

Really the only time that Jesus called on his power was when it was for the benefit of you and me and people like us, right?

He rose the dead, called on his power.

He taught his disciples a great lesson, walked on water, right?

He fed 5,000.

He called on his power, but the areas where he didn't call on his power, I think we should take note.

If he's God and he is, he, he had the ability to never feel tired.

Who here is just a little bit more tired than usual.

Just a little bit.

Amen.

Oh, that's great.

That's great.

That's great.

I'm glad you guys are fired up.

He, he had the ability.

If he's God, he could never feel tired.

I'm never going to sleep.

I'm not going to feel tired.

He's got, he never had to feel hungry, man.

I just, he never had to feel low energy as he was walking.

And actually he never had to be in only one geographic location at a time.

It said the Bible's clear.

He walked to this place and then he resolutely set up for Jerusalem.

He never had to do that.

He didn't call on his divinity in these moments.

So Jesus is saying, look at my life and understand, just take heart, take courage.

I've already overcome it.

You know, when, when the person that you're, when you realize that victory is assured, it changes the way you act, right?

Go to the next slide and maybe the next right after that.

Okay.

All right.

So we'll get there.

What does this mean?

Okay.

So this is how Dan met me, actually.

This is, this is like, this is the Dan that, that, that he probably remembers.

So I, I, I played basketball in college and this is, we were in a conference that we, this is my junior year in school.

So I was 20, 20 years old here.

And we were supposed to finish, that we were picked to finish eight out of 11th.

Okay.

So we were supposed to have a bad season, but some good things happened.

We got a little bit lucky.

And so we ended up actually finishing fifth.

And so right, it's the middle, it's the middle, but we had a very good season.

We made the playoffs and we were in the playoffs now playing this team that we'd already played in the regular season.

And it was, it was, we went into their own house basically.

And we were, we played so well.

Like it was the best that I've ever seen.

And I, at the time I was, I was shocked at how well we were playing first.

This guy hits a shot.

And I'm like, wow, that's amazing.

The next thing down, I hit a shot.

Wow.

That's amazing.

The next time down, they missed two shots in a row.

And we just get up.

And so now we're up 17 points.

Usually when you're up 17 points, it's, you know, the game is, is pretty well in hand.

Basically.

It seems like you're going to win.

This team was awesome.

And we were up 17 points against them.

And I was surprised they were the better team.

They were more physical.

They had guys that were even taller than me.

They had at least two guys in their starting five group that was, that were taller than me.

One thing struck me in the middle of the game though, is that these guys, it was weird because we were up by a lot and they weren't really that scared.

They weren't, they weren't concerned.

I was like, they should feel like some stress that they're down by a lot of points.

And we were the young team.

They were the more mature team.

What happened is we went for after the first half, we went to the locker room and our coach said, I just keep doing what you guys are doing fine.

And we thought, yeah, let's just keep doing what we're doing.

Fine.

I don't know what happened in that other locker room, but it came back and they were a totally different team.

They still, they didn't, they didn't play more aggressively.

They just did everything exactly right.

And it was, it was incredible because slowly but surely this lead was from 17 to 12 to eight to two.

And then they ended up actually winning by about 15 points.

I think about this and I think about it a lot is when you know, victory is assured.

It just changes your outlook and mindset.

These guys were, they knew they were better than us.

They were more physical than us.

They were smarter than us.

And so just being up by a little bit, they said, it's not that big of a deal.

We're going to win this game.

Just keep doing what you're doing.

Jesus is saying the same thing.

You're going to have some tough times for you and me.

There's times when things are just really difficult, right?

When you're sharing your faith and nobody says yes.

When you're trying to say no to sin and your friends don't want you to say no to sin.

Jesus says, no, take heart.

I've already overcome.

Amen.

Yeah, that's great.

That's great.

Jesus says he's overcome, you know, but it doesn't always feel that way, but we have to trust that it is that way.

Uh, what Jesus is saying though is change your perspective, change your understanding of what the word overcome means.

Uh, we'll, we'll go over to Romans eight now.

And so winning, overcoming, conquering, these all three words, uh, it's, it's one word in Greek and we're going to talk about that word triumph is another word in Greek, at least it's translated in English, but it's the same word in the original language that, that the Bible was written in.

The first point is that Jesus has already won.

And we talked about it feeling like sometimes it just doesn't feel that way.

And so for you and I, we have to assess what standard are we using to judge and winning is not judging by earthly standards.

And in Romans eight verse 35, this is Paul making the argument.

He says, what shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword, as it is written for your sake, we face death all day long.

We are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

He says, in all of these, you are more than conquerors.

This is, this Paul is using this word and he's turning it entirely upside down because think about being persecuted.

Think about having no food, being naked, no clothes, being in danger of getting killed.

That doesn't really feel like you want, right?

You know, but for you and me, you don't consider this though.

There are times I was just thinking about it because I can't relate.

You know, I can't relate to the trouble and persecution that the disciples felt in the, in the first century.

I can't relate to being at risk of dying.

I can't relate to not having food and knowing I don't have enough food to survive.

I don't have enough food to give my family.

I can't relate to not having a close or shelter.

I can't relate to that.

But I tried to think what are some ways that I can relate or what are some things that I can do to relate?

You think about being trouble and persecution and he says, Hey, what kind of persecution is going to separate us?

These are basically these are challenges from the outside that can force us to cave in our faith, force us to, to put our faith to the side.

Maybe this is what your friends think successes, what your friends think victory is and saying, you know what?

They're looking down on me.

This is the trouble and persecution.

I've just got to cave.

I've lost this one.

When you think about famine or nakedness, these are, if you guys, I, again, I don't know exactly, but there's like in the hierarchy of things that we need food and shelter is like everybody needs those in order to feel comfortable or in order to accomplish anything.

There are TV shows, I assume here, but I know in America, there are TV shows where they're trying to see how long people can live without food or shelter.

And they just put them on a random Island or in a really like tough situation.

They say, go, go, they, they have a backpack and they tell them, okay, now you have to just, just go find a way to live.

And whoever lasts the most days gets this prize or something like that.

But think about that.

This would, what is being said is that neither of these things are necessary in order to be a victor in order to be a conqueror.

Neither of these things is actually necessary.

And then danger or sort of your overall security.

There's, maybe there'll come a time when we have to, to face a chance where either we choose to live for God or we, we choose to be put in prison or we choose to to, to be physically harmed in these situations.

Our, our decision, we have to choose the, the ability to say, I'm a conqueror, not based on what's going on on the outside, but based on who Jesus has made me who, who, okay.

So I have a question now.

This is a, does anybody know Greek by chance?

You guys know a lot of different languages.

Does anyone speak any Greek or not?

Really?

Awesome.

Great.

So this is, this is where now I'm in my territory.

Cause I don't speak Greek either.

So we're on the same playing field.

Okay.

So we might say this word totally wrong.

But nobody's going to know.

Okay.

This, this word conqueror is, is actually well, this is more than conquerors is who bear Nick, Nick kale.

And what it sounds like, basically you think about this word, you can switch to the next one real quick.

Actually it comes from this, this word Nike or Nike is where, what, what the root word is.

Who is anybody wearing anything?

Nike right now.

Who's wearing Nike.

We raise your hand if you're wearing Nike.

Okay.

Who owns something Nike that's Nike relate.

Okay, great.

Me too.

Yeah, absolutely.

And so I want you to go ahead and find whoever's wearing something Nike and just tell him, Hey, you're a winner.

You're a winner.

You'll find whoever, whoever it is.

Tell him you're a winner.

Late.

Got some Nike thing on.

Lake's a winner.

You're a winner.

Oh, I don't know.

They're Jordan.

Not today.

Not today.

I'm a loser.

Somebody else.

We got some winners.

Absolutely.

You know, whenever, again, this word I have to, I want to also challenge you guys.

But whenever you see this word Nike just to consider, okay, that, that means someone, whoever is wearing the word Nike.

Wow.

Okay.

That, that reminds me of being a conqueror.

That reminds me that, man, I'm, I'm a winner somehow.

God made me a winner.

He loves me so much that I'm a winner.

Whenever you see, whenever you're putting on your Nikes in the morning, you're like, no, I'm a winner.

I'm a winner.

Whenever you see somebody walking.

Now you guys bless your hearts.

You've got some bootleg Nike stuff.

It's okay.

Hey, it's okay.

It's all good.

But you can still be a winner.

Even with even with counterfeit Nike stuff.

Amen.

Pay attention though.

It says that, that you say, wow, we're, we're victorious.

We're winners.

This is amazing.

But why is that?

So the Bible says that the only reason that we can call ourselves hyper conquerors or total winners or whatever, whatever you want to say is because of Jesus.

He's saying, Hey, the only, he's saying what we're looking at is none of this stuff can separate us from God's love and God's love is what makes us winners.

And so it's, it's not by you or me.

It's not by trying really hard.

It's not by wanting to so much.

So we persevere.

That's not it.

This, this word in, in that day was used all of the time to talk about a physical victory, like in battle, or it was used to talk about in sport winning.

It was used to talk about in a, in a lawsuit winning.

And, and what's being said here is something totally different.

He says, no, no, no.

It's not any of this competition stuff.

You've already won it.

You are in Christ last scripture.

We're not the, well, the last point I should say is that the only way to win is with Christ or it's through Christ.

Let's go over to John first.

John five says, this is how we know that we love.

This is how we know that we love the children of God by loving and carrying out his commands.

First John five verse four.

In fact, this is love for God to keep his commands and his commands are not burdensome for everyone born of God overcomes the world.

This is the victory that has overcome the world.

Even our faith, who is it that overcomes the world?

Only the one who believes that Jesus is the son of God.

I was with everyone who's born of Jesus overcomes the world.

Everyone who's born of Jesus wins the world.

Whatever, whatever triumphs over the world, whatever word that you want to put in there, that is what this original text means.

But the Bible says that, Hey, who does it?

Who does it?

It says only the one who believes in Jesus.

And so that doesn't mean, you know, it can feel, it can feel tempting for you and me to look at the world and to see that, man, there's a lot of different ways to understand who God is.

There's a lot of different ways to experience God and they're all pretty much right.

Christianity is mostly right.

And so Christianity is good for me.

And maybe a different religion or a different ideal is good for somebody else.

The Bible says that's not true.

The Bible makes this high, incredible claim.

He says, no, no, no, only through Jesus can we be victorious.

There's, there's some realities of what is victorious look like.

And you can say in terms of religion, but think about even in, in terms of, I'm not saying religion as far as Christianity necessarily, or Islam, but think about the religion that comes from just talking to people who are searching for something, maybe they're atheist or agnostic, the religion of wanting to become wealthy.

I want wealth.

You know, you know, something that's incredible.

And this is a statistic in America that's proved true from 2001 and 2012.

And I don't know if I have the latest things, but the suicide rates among the wealthy is, is the highest.

So among the most wealthy demographic of people, the suicide rate is the highest.

Think about status.

I'm wanting to seem impressive driving a great car.

And in, again, I'll speak for America right now.

I bet there's similar things happening in your part of the world.

There's so much debt that's been taken on right now.

And there's a full, if they call it in America, a debt crisis.

If you typed in debt crisis, us, you would see people talking about, this is what we have to do.

This is what happened.

And all of it is for people trying to say, I look, I want to look better than I really am.

You think about somebody that's just, I want to gain so much knowledge.

I want to learn this and I want to learn that.

And I want to be the smartest in the room.

So you know, those people and so many of them are too wrapped up in what they're learning to be able to communicate effectively to anybody, right?

That's not attractive.

You think about family and look, I want to just build a family.

And that's a deceptive thing as well.

It seems really noble.

What a good idea.

The, the, the Bible actually Solomon talks about it.

We won't look at it this, this evening.

Solomon talks about it.

He says, you know what you, you do whatever you want to do, but at the end of the day, your family is actually going to forget about you and you're going to raise your money.

You're going to give a bunch to, uh, to your family.

And you don't even know if they're going to take care of your wealth.

There's no promise that your family will love you.

And so whatever, whatever religion you, you, you look to and you can talk on the streets and people have these different feelings.

The only hope of a life fulfilled is by winning through Jesus.

And so I, over these last two weeks, I've been able to meet with a lot of you guys.

I think I've talked in close contact with some, um, talked in generally with, with most of you.

And I want to share something and maybe this doesn't apply to you, but I wouldn't be so quick to say it doesn't apply to me.

Okay.

So maybe it doesn't, but I think it probably might.

I feel concerned for this group and I feel concerned that you guys enjoy the church more than you love Jesus.

I'm, I'm, this is my concern now.

And if I'm so far off that I'm so far off, I realize I'm just a foreigner coming in meeting for two weeks.

I do not have the full scope of everything, but, but I do have the Holy spirit.

But I I'm concerned that that this group, maybe, maybe that you, uh, care about people because someone tells you, tells you to, not because you're trying to be like Jesus.

I'm concerned that maybe you show up to church and you enjoy church because you really love the friendships.

Or maybe you're interested in a guy or a girl and you're like, I gotta show them that I'm a church goer.

My, my concern is that, uh, you guys, uh, it's not enough.

Um, it's, it's not enough for you to just follow what the Bible teaches because not doing the alternative, uh, is more difficult.

There's a point in time.

Maybe you felt that where like, I have to go to church because if I, I felt that at times I'm like, I can't not go to church because then I'm, my dad's not going to let me not go to church.

I can't say, Hey, I'm going to skip this Wednesday service.

I'm going to skip Sunday.

He's like, okay, you're also going to skip dinner too.

Then I guess, right?

Good, good luck.

Good luck paying for your basketball or good luck paying for X, Y, and Z.

Uh, you gotta start paying me rent is what he would say.

You know, I've seen people, uh, in, in the time that I I've been in campus ministry, college ministry.

And then, uh, the time I served in the ministry, I've seen so many people who are in love with the church, in love with their family.

Uh, I've seen people who are trying to follow what the Bible teaches to, to be successful.

I've seen people who are in love with the friendships that God and God's family provides.

But if you're not in love with Jesus, those things are not going to make it.

You're not going to make it to heaven.

You're not going to end your life as an overcomer or as one who triumphs or as a victor, if it's for the church or if it's for your family, or if it's for success based on what the Bible teaches, or if it's for friendships, you're not going to make it.

And so we're closing in for coming in for a landing here.

And you think about that.

What does that mean?

What does it mean to fall in love with Jesus?

How do I do that?

That sounds too, uh, like a fairy tale.

That doesn't, as a guy, that doesn't sound attractive.

How do I fall?

Why would I want to fall in love with Jesus?

But you have to read the Bible.

That's, that's what I would start.

You have to see the importance of digging into God's word and understanding what it says.

And you, you have to connect through prayer.

And then, and then hear me now, you actually have to connect through helping somebody else learn about Christianity as well.

I was living a life that was like half Christian, like almost barely, uh, was I a Christian?

I would show up to devotionals on Friday.

I would show up to church on Sunday.

I would show up to a Wednesday church only because I knew that I would basically, it was a different church than what my family grew up in.

But I knew that my dad had friends in this church and I would get a phone, he would get a phone call from them if I didn't show up to church.

And so I'm like, I just need to show up.

Uh, and I can do whatever else I want the rest of the time.

Uh, what totally changed my life was when I was just sitting down and this, this guy is basketball player that I had, I, we played a whole season together.

We weren't very close friends.

And I felt really embarrassed about Jesus.

I was like, it was the worst evangelism you could ever imagine.

I was, I had set out time.

I'm going to read my Bible during this time.

Then he just knocks on the door and comes in and is like, Hey, what's up, man?

Good to see you.

And we started talking, but I knew I had this time set to read the Bible.

And so I said, Hey David.

Um, oh yeah, David, there you go.

Uh, but I said, I said, Hey David, you don't got to come with me.

I'm very sorry.

I'm going to go read the Bible.

Don't, I'm sorry.

I'm really sorry.

It's not a big deal.

You don't got to come upstairs.

Fine.

There was a study area on the top floor of our dorm.

Um, if you want to, but you don't have to, don't worry about it.

Please don't worry.

And I just went upstairs and I was like, well, there we go.

I didn't even barely reach out to him.

I sit down, I start reading the Bible and I see the elevator ding and I see David walk out.

And all this time I'm still living like a half Christian life.

I'm showing up to church, but I'm also partying and I'm talking to women.

And I'm trying to do anything I can to kind of look like a Christian, but not really act like a Christian.

And I remember asking him, Hey, do you want to come to church?

And he said, yeah.

I said, do you have faith in God?

He said, I have a little bit, but it has been a long time.

I remember studying the Bible with him and I remember him becoming a disciple.

And I remember the time when something clicked was when we looked at the discipleship study and he just looked and we, it was so heavy for him.

And he, we were driving home.

We went to our campus minister's house and then we were driving home on campus and he was quiet and he said, Hey, if this is true, then almost nobody is saved.

I said, yeah, I guess so.

But that let's, let's, I mean, that starts with you.

Right.

And I, it totally transformed my life to be able to realize that I can partner with God in order to win the world.

It was something that like from that point on, I was in 2011.

That was a long time ago.

It was, it was in, it was in April of 2012, March of 2011.

But from that point on, I've just been enamored with the idea of partnering with Jesus in order to help as many as possible.

If you're going to win the world, if we're going to win the world, but if you're going to win, stay on the good side, I should say, or get on the good side, then you've got to, then you've got to grow in your relationship with Jesus.

You know, it's really powerful.

We're going to close in Revelation 17.

This idea of overcomer and a winner and all of that stuff at the end.

It's, it's amazing.

So this word it's used like 28 times in the whole, in the whole new Testament.

It's used 17 times in the book of Revelation over, over half of the time.

I'm not going to do the math.

You guys are good at that stuff.

Somebody can let me know, but it's like maybe 65 or something percent.

It's 65% of the time it's used in this one book in the Bible right at the end.

What does that mean?

Who cares?

Why, why does, what's the point?

I think John, the author through the Holy spirit wants to make sure that we know without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus is victorious, that Jesus has triumphed over any struggle and issue that you felt because he went through it and he, and he overcame.

Amen.

Without a shadow of a doubt, Jesus has conquered this scripture.

Let's, let's gain encouragement from it, from it.

As we close out, it says in Revelation 17, this is in verse 14, they will wage war against the lamb, but the lamb will triumph.

And that's this word, but the lamb will triumph over them because he is Lord of Lords and King of Kings.

And this is the fun part for you and me.

And with him will be his called chosen and faithful followers.

What an amazing promise.

It'd be enough for a break.

Jesus is just handling it.

He's taken it.

And I think we'd say, that's awesome.

Let him just do it, do it all himself.

Right?

But no, he says there's going to be whatever kind of war.

I don't, I don't know.

There's, there's some imagery in revelations that I'm just not smart enough to fully understand.

I haven't studied it enough, but in whatever way, shape or form, when Jesus comes and triumphs, we're going to be alongside of him triumphing as well.

Amen.

Let's, let's remember that as we go into this week and let's make our weekend, I should say, and make every effort to consider what it looks like for you to grow in your relationship with Jesus and to totally transform your view of what winning the world is.

Amen.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening to the Kalamazoo church of Christ podcast.

If you're in the Kalamazoo area, we'd love to get connected.

Please go to kalamazoo.church and fill in your information to come to a Sunday service or any other event that we have going on.

In any case, you'll be hearing from us next week.