Christ Has Overcome the World for Us! - John 16-18

John 16:33 (ESV)

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

We have in the above text what might summarize Jesus’ mission for His disciples and, wonderfully, for us, as His followers.   Jesus came to the earth to give us peace (Romans 5:1) and to give us power to overcome the world.  We are, His people.   He has come to defeat Satan, defeat sin and pay the price of sin and to provide victorious living for His children.   Jesus did all this by giving His life.   Jesus did all this by hanging on the cross.   We see in Jesus teaching, living and sacrificing a avenue to provide God’s peace to us.   Man has a war going on with God (Romans 8).   Man’s heart is rebellious to God.  Man continues to ignore and openly disobey God.   But, Jesus came to make it all peaceful.  Jesus united us to God in Him on the cross and through the resurrection.  In the fall we were separated from God by Adam’s sin.  From that point on the world has been our enemy.  Note how James will say it later in his epistle:

James 4:4 (ESV)

You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

We are not to be friends with the world.  Why?  Because the world is the enemy of God and hates us and God.  Note what Jesus has just told the disciples in this section of teaching:

John 15:18-19 (ESV)

“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

But, we can rejoice that God has “overcome” the world.  The word for “overcome” used here doesn’t simply mean to survive the world, it means to subdue it.  Jesus has not just given us a way to navigate the world (although He has done that, as well), but He is subdued the world for us and it cannot overcome us because He has overcame it.