643 Jesus Overcame the World - John 16:33

What does it mean that Jesus overcame the world? And what difference will that make to us today? 

Hi, I'm Mike Henry Sr. with Follower of One. Thanks for joining me again today on the Follower of One Podcast. We've been talking about bold statements made by Jesus. And today I want to talk about Matthew 16:33.

I'm reading from the English Standard Version, and Jesus is speaking. "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."  

What does it mean when Jesus claims that he has overcome the world?  All the things that we see going on today are within his control. They're happening under his authority. Many people face difficult situations. And there are many people who have challenges with our faith because they believe, "Well, if God was God, why would he let X happen?" or "Why would he let Y happen?" 

And I don't have the answers for those kinds of questions in a five-minute podcast. It's a difficult thing to point out. Our world is broken. We broke it. But Jesus is saying, take heart. I have overcome the world. In the New American Standard. It says, take courage. We can take courage because we know that Jesus is in charge.

That's the point here. And the other point that I want to make, because we've been talking about these bold statements of Jesus, this is a very bold statement. Jesus can't just be a good teacher and believe that he overcame the world. He just can't. He has to be either the Lord of the universe who truly overcame the world, or he's got to be crazy or he's got to be lying.

And that's the point I want to make about these bold statements of Jesus. We pulled a bold statement from each of the four gospels and these bold statements are Jesus talking. His lips are moving. And these bold statements clearly claim that Jesus is God and that He's in control. 

That should make a difference in our workplace today. Let's let the fact that Jesus made these bold claims. Let's let that fact invade our work. Let's let it invade our attitude. We work for the One who overcame the world. He's assigned us to our boss or to the problem customer that we have today. He's put us in an unemployment situation or he's put us in whatever circumstances that we're in, where we don't have enough money or enough time or enough resources.

Jesus is the God of our circumstances. Therefore he must have a job for us to do today. It may be to relax. It may be to trust Him, to wait a little longer, to pray a little more. It may be to make ourselves available, to serve someone else. I'm convicting myself as I suggest these ideas because I'm very busy too. And I, there are a lot of things going on in my life as well. 

But I want to ask God every day, "Lord, here I am. What do you want me to do today?" And then I need to make a plan to do it. I need to actually execute the plan Jesus has for me today. Let's begin by praying for the people around us and looking for opportunities to serve others, simply because we follow Jesus. 

Our actions matter. And this way we get to serve Jesus. We get to be full-time ministers, no matter what our occupation. We get to walk with the God of the Universe, no matter what our situation. And we can glorify Him by the way we live no matter what's going on. I believe that's what Jesus calls each of us to do is to glorify Him, to make Him visible because of the way we live.

Thank you for being a minister in the marketplace. Thank you for helping other people move one notch closer to Jesus. To me, that's ministry. And your actions matter. I'm grateful that you listen to this podcast. 

Please let me know what you think, what you would have us change, or other topics you would have us talk about. We've done over 600 of these episodes. Thank you so much for supporting our ministry and for taking part in this podcast. You can learn more about us at https://followerofone.org. You can also join our online community and take the next Marketplace Mission Trip. Thanks again.