You can only have One

Introduction

Turn with me in your Bibles to 1 John 4. We are going to read verses 1-6. Our attention will be on verses 4-6. As you are turning there, would you consider yourself a good listener? How about when several people are talking at the same time? What if they are speaking differently about a similar subject? Do you find it easy to listen? How do you know which side is correct?

You can tell by speech and body language whether someone is telling you the truth or not can’t you? This is especially true if you question them.

I said last week that there are many voices that demand our attention today and while that is true, the text for this morning is going to narrow those voices down into two camps, the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

My desire this morning is to see these two voices individually and then see them in contrast of one another. First, we will look at God who conquers (v.4a), second, the spirit of the earth (vv.4b-5), and third, One or the other (v.6). Let us read verses 1-6.

I have titled this sermon “You can only have One” and after looking at this text together, I hope that you see this reality come from the text.

1. God who conquers (v.4a)

We begin our time together in verse 4. Look there with me as we see the God who conquers. John readdresses his flock as his beloved children, precious to him. He does this because what follows is going to be specifically aimed to them. We reap the same truth as the truth of Christ never changes. But we must see that this truth was preached relative to his flock. The same is true today. If a sermon does not hit the flock in an applicable way, you could ask “How is the Bible relevant today?” John brings the theology and applicability of scripture together in quite the harmonious way. Therefore, we must take this the same way that John did when he wrote this.

John addressed his people in the same way that a father would to his children. He tells them that they are of God. In the same way, a father would tell his son or daughter that he/she is his child. This is done in the most comforting of ways. I think that being from God are most reassuring words a believer can hear. Being from God, confirms the saving work of Jesus on your account and mine. For John’s recipients, they were living in such a way that promoted the work of Christ in their lives. And we saw this in verse 2 with the confession of Jesus Christ as come in the flesh. This is how you and I are called to live today. As confessors of God in such a way that it would be evident other believers that you and I are of God. As we go through this text we are going to see more instances that show these 6 verses working together as we have with confession and being of God.

Would this be said of you and me today? Is it said of you and me that we are “from the Lord?” We need to be reminded of this, that our walk would shine the light of Christ as we confess his name. May it be said of you and me, clearly, that you and I are from God.

Now, this short phrase (being from God) connotates the idea of ‘being sent.’ The Greek emphasizes this in saying that those who are from God are those who are out of or among the brothers who are under the direction of God himself. Therefore, because we are from God, we are sent by him as messengers of his and this is where we see the confession of verse 2 once again.

We come to the point of verse 4 where we see the conquering work of God. Notice two things about the conquering work of God. 1. This is from God and 2. The Spirit is at work carrying it out. We have seen the crucial nature of being from God. Going further, John tells us that “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” Who is the “he” that is in you and me? The Holy Spirit! We know this because of what the Bible clearly says regarding the Holy Spirit. We also know this because John has been building us to get to this point. We have seen in the first 2 chapters of 1 John the work of Christ and what response we are to have as believers. Here, we see it via the Holy Spirit whom Jesus promised in John 14 and 16. And the first 3 verses of 1 John 4, speak of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is the Spirit of God who is greater than he who is in the world. We will come back to this momentarily.

What does it mean to overcome as verse 4 tells us? It means that we “conquer, vanquish, or subdue” (Mounce) our opponent which in this case is the spirit of antichrist. For this has been revealed to us in the first 3 verses we looked at last week. What are ways that we overcome the spirit of antichrist? Paul says in Romans 8:37 that believers who are slaughtered as sheep “are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” You were not expecting that, were you? How is the evil one conquered in Revelation 12:11? “And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” In both these instances, the conquering is done through death! The idea of death brings forth frailty or weakness, a decay of the human body, not power or strength. So, in the frailty and weakness of death for the sake of Christ, the evil one is defeated as is the spirit of the antichrist.

How great is the Spirit of God? Remember what was read for us in Romans 8:1-11? Permit me to repeat verses 10 and 11. “But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.” In short order, the Spirit raised Christ from the dead and raises us from sinful and wretched bodies to glorified bodies in Christ. This cannot be said of the spirit of the antichrist who dwells in the world.

John 14:17-23 tells us that the Father and the Son will come to the believer by the Holy Spirit. Think for a moment how powerful that statement is. God will come to dwell with man by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is the God who conquers!

2. Spirit of the earth (vv.4b-5)

We turn our attention to the spirit of the earth. This is found at the end of verse 4 and the entirety of verse 5. We have seen that verse 4 speaks of the antichrist. It is singular in usage. But this is in reference to the single entity who possesses the spirit of the antichrist. We see this to be true as we make our way to verse 5. Notice that John changes to the plural by saying, “They are from the world.” Now, why would he change tenor? Well, it is because the spirit of the antichrist resides in sinful human beings who refuse to come to Christ. The desires of the flesh, lust of the eyes, and the pride of life in 2:16 are all symptoms of the antichrists ruling the world and the spirit of antichrist being found in men who refuse to confess Jesus as Lord (4:3). Therefore, the world system propagates the antichrists as their own, like the son of a father.

The world system at its root is anti-Christ. In the same way, that when Adam sinned, he was against God, so the world was in John’s day and still is at this moment. The dishonest manager of Luke 16 is of the world system. He cheated his boss out of money by lowering the amount owed to several people who were debtors to his employer (vv.5-7). How many people cheat today?

The spirit of the earth does not just reside on the earth, but comes out in the same way in which the people of God are. God sends his people out and the world sends its people out. The spirit of the antichrist is sent out throughout the world speaking, and they have a big mouth. It is seen in the way that the Jesus saw through the Pharisees religiosity. Jesus condemns them in John 8:43 and 47 saying, “Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. Whoever is of God hears the words of God. The reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.” This implies that those who are of the world cannot hear the word of God. They are blind to it.

A worldly person is one whom Paul would call “natural.” In 1 Corinthians 2:14, he makes the point. “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” Paul shows the progression from natural to spiritual in 1 Corinthians 15:46 saying, “But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.” Putting these two verses together, it is clear that there is a naturalness to every human being, or should I say a sinfulness. Further, there is a desperate need to be changed from the natural to the spiritual (John 3:3-6). Jeremiah 13:23 is clear with this question and answer. “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then also you can do good who are accustomed to evil.” This is a most interesting verse in thinking about those who are of the world. The Bible is clear that just like the skin tone of the Ethiopian and the spots that are natural to the leopard, so the flesh and sin is natural to the human being. The same is true for the ability to do good. Jeremiah tells us that his audience was prone to evil, and he asks rhetorically if they can do any good. Paul follows this up with not one person being good (Romans 3:10).

Now, the difference between the Ethiopian, leopard, and a human being is that the natural part of any human being can be changed by Jesus Christ who died on a cross and rose from the grave to redeem sinful human beings.

Coming back to our text, those who speak from the world, speak from the flesh which is the natural man who is born in sin.

What does it look like for people to speak from the world? It looks like the many religions of our day. Self-help, meditation, altering your reality, being whoever you want to be, the worship of self through personal achievements and possessions to name a few.

Under the title “Self-Improvement Can Be Made Easier Through Self-Cultivation” by Psychology Today, George Everly Jr. PhD offers three key points to removing barriers in your life. Here they are. “Old habits and attitudes can be barriers to creating a “new you.” To be successful in self-improvement, you must first minimize the impact of competing attitudes and habits. “Self-cultivation” is a three step process that can improve your journey of self-improvement.”

This sounds worldly as there is no mention of sin, repentance, or salvation. But it is worldly if the world gobbles it up. In verse 5, the spirit of the antichrist is from the world and speaks from the world, and the world listens to them. Let’s see if the world takes this self-help stuff in.

Here are a few statistics from Self Help Industry as provided by Gitnux. “There are over 200,000 podcasts in the self-help and personal development category on Apple Podcasts. About 11% of smartphone users in the U.S. have downloaded a self-improvement app. The self-help industry generates over 475,250 searches on Google each month. And in 2020, over 45,300 new self-help books were published in 2020.”

I think it is safe to say that the world enjoys and takes in copious amounts of self-help material.

In the same way as the one who speaks from the world speaks from the flesh, so does the one who listens to him/her. The one who listens, listens from the flesh. Self-help is of the flesh. The mind of the listener is already fixed to hear what he/she wants to hear in his/her sinfulness. God never intended for man to go it alone but as 2 Timothy 4:3 says, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions” (emphasis added).

The world loves its own, we must not be like the world!

3. One or the other (v.6)

Now that we have seen these two spirits and what they are about, we come to verse 6. Brothers, you can only have One or the other. You cannot have both. That is what I aim for us to see in verse 6. Just as Jesus said you cannot serve God and wealth (Matthew 6:24), you cannot have the Spirit of God and the spirit of the antichrist residing in you at the same time. In contrast to the world, you cannot have it both ways!

John makes the clearest declaration of who his audience is. He says in the beginning of verse 6 that “we are from God.” Remember that pastoral heart that John has been writing with? We see it on full display here. He declares that those whom he is writing to have been living as he has been writing throughout this epistle until this point. They are crucifying the flesh, following the commands of Christ, living with the Spirit within and discerning by the Spirit.

John takes to the next level the attributed listening of man. As in, those who listen to God and those who do not and where they stand. As we will see through the entire 6th verse, you can only have God or the world, but you cannot have both.

What does it look like to “know God?” Micah 3:8 gives us an idea. “I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin.” Now this is spoken of a man who was a prophet who “knew God” in contrast to those who did not (vv.5-7). The same could be said for believers. We are filled with the Spirit, and we are called to call people to repentance. How does that occur? It occurs by showing people the sin that resides within them and leading them to the glorious gospel that Jesus Christ died on a cross and was raised on the third day to redeem fallen humanity. This was Micah’s aim and thus it shall be ours. This is what it looks like for the Christian to “know God.”

To know God is to know our Bibles. In 2 Peter 3:2, Peter equates that to remembering the prophets’ predictions and those predictions coming true and to remember the commandment of the Lord (Jude 17) so that they (and we) would be prepared for the coming false teachers as described in 2 Peter 3:3. We must know God in order to stand for his truth in the face of false teaching.

This is one side of the coin. The other is those who “don’t know God.” This we see in the middle of verse 6. There is a defining mark that is upon those who do not know God. And that is that they do not listen to the people of God. Specifically, when the people of God are proclaiming his truth. Those who do not know God, will not listen to the truth. This goes beyond running for self-help material and attempting to fix things according to your own power. This would be like someone who is a carpenter telling you how to fix your broken stairs and you saying, “I will not listen.” This is what those who do not know God do.

Turn with me to Matthew 10. We are going to read verses 11-15. The context of this verse is instruction of the 12 disciples being sent out by Jesus to the surrounding Jews. He tells them what to do if people accept them or not. In our text, John instructs us, through the Spirit, that those who are not of God will not listen. Read the verses.

What I wanted us to see out of this passage is that it is said of those who do not listen that “it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town.” You all remember the fire that came down and consumed those two cities! It will be worse for the one who hears the words of truth and does not adhere them. Being cast into hell and being separated from God is the end result for those who do not know God.

Turn back with me to 1 John 4 and let’s look at the last sentence of verse 6. This single sentence sets the stage for the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

This verse states that the Holy Spirit is truth. We see the Spirit as truth in action in 1 Timothy 4:1-5. He professes (or tells the truth) that there will be those who pervert the gospel and conjure up doctrines of demons. We see this reality in our own day as false teachers and prophets are all around.

Is the Spirit God? As Christians we would resoundingly say, yes! So far in John’s epistle, he has made the claim that Jesus Christ is God and believers of his are to live in such a way to honor him as God. The Bible ties the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ beautifully. Because the claim of Jesus being God has been made obvious before our eyes in 1 John, we can take Romans 8:9 which reads, “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.” Did you notice in our reading that Paul writes the word Spirit in this verse with a capital ‘S’? Just to be clear of who he was talking about.

Just like we know the Spirit we have the ability to see the spirit of error as God shines light upon it. What is the spirit of error? Is it a mistake or something incorrect, as the word may signify? The Greek helps us here. The Greek defines it as a “wandering from the path” (BSL). Error also means “deception” (Strong’s). This is what the spirit of the antichrist and the antichrist himself is all about. As we have seen multiple contrasts thus far, this is the most striking. The clarity in which we see the road of the Spirit and the road of error and deception is obvious as John has told us. He summarizes these 6 verses by saying, all these things that I have just mentioned are to help you in discerning who is of the truth and who is of error.

Praise be to God, He who has opened our eyes to see the Holy Spirit of truth and to be mindful of the spirit of error.

Conclusion

All these things said, may I ask a few questions of you? To whom are you listening to this day? Where do you find yourself going for good words to be spoken? Are you looking vertically or horizontally? Do you seek the words of the world to improve your current situation? As we live in a nation, a world rather in turmoil, where do you go seeking comfort?

Brothers, if you answered any of these questions outside of Christ, you are being deceived. Even if you are hearing this by the most well-respected anchor, journalist, economist, or religious person.

You and I know God, personally. Why would we turn from the riches of the word of God? Maybe because people today are clever and delightful to listen to. As nice as this may seem, it is a fruitless effort. What we listen to, what we take in, tells the world to whom we are associated with. The world will know its own, but they know not those who are not in the world.

Brothers might what we hear be glorifying to God as we trust in his perfect and true word as we are guided this day and all the days that he gives to us, by his Holy Spirit. Let’s pray.

Benediction

“Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy” keep you during these evil days in which we live. Amen.