WE LOVE HEROIC stories. That’s one of the reasons the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been so popular, beginning in 2008 with Robert Downey, Jr.’s iconic portrayal of Tony Stark in Iron Man. The character has no real superpowers, just a spiffy suit of flying armor that he designed and built. He’s a brilliant but flawed and egocentric individual who has his own mind about things and doesn’t always play well with others. And while he repeatedly does conspicuously heroic things, like sacrificing himself to save New York City or even the universe, that’s not the emotional core of his story. The smaller-scale victories matter too, like learning humility and forgiveness, recovering from trauma, or building loving relationships with his wife and daughter.

Do we have our own heroic tales to tell? It can be hard to believe that we do, when all we can see is how far we have to go and not how far we’ve come. Am I really living like Jesus? I don’t think so!

But sometimes, it’s good to have a wider perspective. We don’t have to save the world to overcome it in some smaller way. And hopefully, appreciating that fact can encourage greater confidence in the work of God.

LISTEN AGAIN TO how the apostle John begins the fifth chapter of his letter:

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves the father loves his child as well. This is how we know that we love the children of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands. 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. (1 John 5:2-5, NIV)

As I suggested in the previous post, I believe John is once again encouraging his readers to move past the doubts created by the controversy that split the community. Loving the Father means obeying his commands and loving his children. All these things go together, and John seems to be saying that he sees all of them already at work in his readers.

Do they love perfectly, in the sense of being unfailingly loving? Not likely. And indeed, this may be why they need reassurance in the first place: after all the drama that’s happened in the community, they’re very aware of their own failures to love, of all the ways they don’t live up to standard of Jesus. But as we’ve seen, they don’t have to be “perfect” in the sense of already being flawless in love, because God is even now perfecting them, making them more mature, leading them toward Christlike love as the goal.

The commands of God are not meant to be “burdensome.” The word suggests something of great weight; used negatively, it suggests an oppressive burden. This is the sense of the word used by Jesus to criticize the Pharisees for the impossible load of religious requirements they laid on people’s shoulders (Matt 23:4). Such a system often left people feeling like they had never done enough, like they could never be enough to satisfy a demanding God.

But that’s not how it has to be. From the time of Moses on Mount Sinai to today, keeping the commandments has always been meant to be a loving response to God’s love, which came first. Jesus himself, remember, commanded the disciples to love one another, but to do so as a response to his love for them, and for the sake of sharing in his own joy of loving obedience to the Father.

Still, that might not describe our own experience. In some cases, it is indeed a joy to love others, but in other cases — remember Uncle Harry? — it may feel like a burden. That’s why, I think, John tells his readers three times that they have overcome the world.

JESUS’ FINAL WORDS of encouragement to his disciples in the Upper Room, before he looked to heaven and prayed to his Father, were these:

In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. (John 16:33)

Note that Jesus says this before his arrest, crucifixion, and resurrection, before his return to the Father’s side. What does it mean, then, for him to have overcome the world? In the larger context of the entire Farewell Discourse in John 15 and 16, I submit that he has overcome the world by being consistently faithful, consistently obedient to his Father’s will, despite the very real pressure from the world to do otherwise.

Imagine, then, the significance of John telling his readers, not once but three times in two verses, that they have overcome the world. Not only that, but John has already said it three times before in the letter. In verses 13 and 14 of chapter 2, he tells the young men that they have “overcome the evil one.” In 4:4, he says that his readers have overcome those who left the community, who had false and worldly ideas about Jesus.

They have conquered; they have prevailed. How? By being faithful. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, John says, and everyone who is born of God has overcome the world. Similarly, everyone who believes that Jesus is the Son of God has overcome the world. Faith, John suggests, is itself the victory that overcomes the world.

And faithful, obedient behavior is its sign.

Again, let’s be honest. With some people, the command to love feels burdensome. That’s not the way it should be, but that’s often the way it is. And we’re well aware of how feeble, how fleeting our attempts at love can be, even after much soul-searching and prayer.

But think about the world we live in. As John would describe it, the world is a spiritually darkened place that needs the light of Jesus. People typically love themselves more than they love others, and certainly more than they love God. In such a world, any faithful expression of the love of Jesus toward others is like a candle in the night. It is its own small victory, a symbol of the larger victory Jesus has already won.

We’re not spiritual superheroes. We’re ordinary people in whom God is doing an extraordinary work of love and grace. It’s not wrong to want to do better, and we should never be complacent. It’s not wrong to grieve that the work isn’t done yet. But how we grieve matters: does it lead to shame or hope? It’s one thing to focus on our failures to love in a way that breeds a sense of worthlessness. But it’s another to appreciate the little victories, the acts of faithful obedience that demonstrate that we’re growing, that God is still at work in us.

Which one, do you think, fosters the love and joy Jesus wants for us? Do that, and in so doing, overcome the world.