1 John 4:1-6
Notes
Transcript
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Today, We continue our study in first John, but we piggyback off of last week’s message.
In the last part of 1 John 3, we were reminded that
God desires for us to have Confident Hearts
God has given us A Clear Command: Believe in his son, the Lord, Jesus Christ, and love one another!
And God has given us a Constant Helper to accomplish these things for his glory… The Holy Spirit!
As I think about our graduates about to embark on this next chapter of their life, I believe that message to be a great encouragement to them. You don't have to back up on your faith you don't have to waver in your hearts! God did not make this hard, we do with our disobedience and laziness at times. We have a clear command to follow!And God has not set you up to fail… He has given you the precious Holy Spirit to help you!
Adults in the room we should remember this as well! This is not just for graduates! This is for Monday morning when the week takes a turn just as it's getting started. This is for Thursday afternoon when you don't know if you've got enough strength to make it through the week, can I get a witness?
To all of my young students in the room as well…
God loves you so much, He's made His will so clear that every child can understand!
He wants to encourage you!
He wants you to follow him!
He wants you to love others!
And he's given you his Holy Spirit in order to help you, do his will!
WOW - WHAT A SAVIOR!
When I finally realized that I didn't have to do this on my own… That I couldn't do it on my own… That God set it up so that I wouldn't do it on my own…
I was set free to follow the Lord with great joy!
Look at that last verse from last week as we’re about to dive into today’s passage:
24 Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.
HE HAS GIVEN HIS HOLY SPIRIT TO US!
2 WEEKS AGO, We were shown how we can KNOW LOVE!
Last week, We were shown how we know the TRUTH!
This week, We will see how we can know the SPIRIT of Truth from the spirit of error!
>>>LET’S PRAY<<<
Consider what it means to have the Spirit of Jesus Christ in you.
Have you thought about how having the breath and life of Jesus in you affects the way you live and breathe? …affects the way you deal with what is TRUE and what is FALSE?
As I think of our students today, I’m reminded that I can identify with you pretty quickly. As part of a commitment to lifelong learning, I’m currently humbled (often) to be formally enrolled as a student at Carolina College of Biblical Studies as I work toward this next Masters.
I remember the days of True & False questions on a test…those were mostly in High School and below. Everything is an essay now.
Our text today, points us to a key TRUE / FALSE test that could have significant eternal consequences.
For our time this morning, I want to lay this out the way it comes to us in the text, but I will come back to that at the end.
Let’s look at verses 1-3 together:
1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.
BELOVED - HE’S TALKING TO THOSE IN THE FAITH
DO NOT BELIEVE EVERY SPIRIT!
Sometimes our fear of missing out can affect us in weird ways in our Christian walk
There can be other things that seem much more exciting than:
“read your Bible - pray everyday - and you’ll grow grow grow”
get in the Word and get the Word into you
those that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength
suffering well for Jesus
We need to slow down in our quickness to jump on every band wagon out there.
We shouldn’t be looking for the NEXT BIG THING - this is what keeps us from commitment
BUT TEST THE SPIRITS TO SEE WHETHER NOT THEY ARE FROM GOD.
WHY? FOR MANY FALSE PROPHETS HAVE GONE OUT INTO THE WORLD!
VERSE 2:
So how do we know what is of God’s Spirit and what is FALSE?
WHAT’S TRUE? WHAT’S FALSE?
WHAT WILL HELP ME GROW IN MY WALK WITH GOD?
OR…from last week’s message: WHAT WILL HELP ME TRULY BELIEVE IN JESUS CHRIST AND TRULY LOVE ONE ANOTHER
WHAT WILL LEAD ME TO KNOW, LOVE, AND OBEY JESUS MORE - IN COVENANT WITH HIS FAMILY - AND MAKE DISCIPLE-MAKING DISCIPLES FOR HIS GLORY
WHAT WILL CAUSE ME TO STUNT MY GROWTH AND BECOME INEFFECTIVE BY GOD’S STANDARD?
How do we test the “spirits” here?
WRITE THIS DOWN, IF WE’RE GOING TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE, WE NEED TO
1. TEST BY THE SON OF GOD
1. TEST BY THE SON OF GOD
IT’S ALL ABOUT JESUS!
YOU CAN HAVE ALL THIS WORLD - BUT JUST GIVE ME JESUS!
I TALKED ABOUT THIS LACK OF CONTENTMENT IN AMERICAN / WESTERN CHRISTIANITY:
where Christ is not the main attraction, you need to pause!
When REVIVAL is spoken of more than Jesus - slow down
When temporary extravagance is spoken of more than eternal reward - slow down
When a quick fix is blessed and a sanctifying wait is cursed - slow down
The Bible is showing us here:
The touchstone by which these spirits (false prophets) are to be tested is their attitude toward the Jesus Christ - the Son of God in the flesh!
John is writing to here to those around him who are absolutely being bombarded by false messages about Jesus.
Jesus didn’t really say…(the things he actually did)
Jesus didn’t really affirm the Old Testament
Jesus wasn’t really virgin-born
Jesus hasn’t always existed
Jesus didn’t really rise from the dead
Jesus had some good things to say about LOVE and the POOR and against the RICH, but that’s all that matters in this life
Jesus is just the creation of religion
Sounds like John could have written this for us today!
Let me deal with some cults that look VERY CHRISTIAN but they do NOT present Jesus as the living Lord - part of the triune God of the Bible.
Jehovah’s Witnesses:
the Jesus of the Jehovah Witnesses, according to their publication Watchtower, is a god, not the God.
Official doctrine of the Jehovah Witnesses teaches that Jesus was the first creation of God.
Their founder, Charles Russell, described this Jesus as having been Michael the Archangel prior to his divesting himself of his angelic nature and appearing in the world as a man.
So, Jesus is thus an angel who became a man.
He is a godlike figure, but he is not God the Son, the second member of the Trinity, as the Bible teaches.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are explicit in their denial of the deity of Jesus, both in their writings and at your doorstep!
Mormonism:
there is a pantheon of gods, and God was once a man.
their writings say that “… each of these gods, including Jesus and his Father, being in possession of not merely a spirit but a body of flesh and bones.”
Jesus, before his incarnation, was a created being and the brother of Lucifer.
Jesus was born of Mary his mother, but he was not conceived by either Joseph or the Holy Spirit.
A heavenly father, a god of flesh and bones, had physical relations with Mary, and Jesus was conceived.
Jesus was the husband of both Mary and Martha (and perhaps Mary Magdalene as well) and had children by all of his wives.
He was rewarded for his faithfulness by becoming the ruler of this earth.
This is official Mormon doctrine.
Islam:
On the side of the Dome of the Rock, the mosque on the temple mount in Jerusalem, are written in Arabic these words: “God has no son.”
Ironically, this mosque faces the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem.
It couldn’t be clearer…the God of Islam is NOT the God of the Bible - and it’s visually illustrated in the heart of the holy city, Jerusalem.
These are easy to spot when they’re brought out into the light aren’t they?
They’re NOT easy to spot when our loving friends and neighbors SEEM to exhibit a better (more visible) form of godliness than many Christians though!
5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
How can we know? We test them by God says about the SON OF GOD - the Lord Jesus Christ!
These graduates will be inundated with views, systems of thought that make little or nothing of Jesus - some even hostile to Jesus. That’s your plumbline - your standard - the LORD JESUS CHRIST!
LET’S LOOK AT OUR NEXT VERSE IN OUR PASSAGE THIS MORNING:
4 Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
WRITE THIS DOWN, IF WE’RE GOING TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE, WE NEED TO
2. TEST BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD
2. TEST BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD
When the HOLY SPIRIT is at work in the lives of God’s children, our lives show it!
God, himself, strengthens us in the truth BY HIS SPIRIT!
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
When you feel confused or even threatened by any deception of the evil one
—any temptation, or discouragement, or anxiety, or cowardice—
remind yourself that “he who is in you is greater than he that is in the world.”
The Almighty God abides within you.
Trust him.
In John’s Gospel, Jesus’s words are recorded concerning the Holy Spirit!
John 14:15-17 Records the promise of the Spirit.
IN ORDER TO BRING JESUS GLORY AND HONOR…we need a HELPER
He will be a gift from the Father
He will be a HELPER
He will bring TRUTH
He is only for those who are “in me”, right with God, being made new!
He will work in ways that world won’t see or acknowledge
YOU WILL KNOW HIM…FOR HE IS WITH YOU!
YOU WILL KNOW HIM / HE WILL KNOW YOU BECAUSE HE IS IN YOU!
In John 16, Jesus unpacks much of the WORK of the Holy Spirit:
Some of the most important works are these…
(v8) He will CONVICT the world
(v9) SIN - because they don’t believe
(v10) RIGHTEOUSNESS - because I (Jesus) am leaving this earth
(v11) JUDGMENT - because the ruler of this world is judged.
(v13) He will GUIDE you in TRUTH
(v14) He will GLORIFY me (Jesus)
We need to TEST THINGS BY THE SON OF GOD AND BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD.
By the way, they never contradict one another! The Holy Spirit constantly points us to Jesus!
I need to constantly be pointed to JESUS - don’t you?
“Therefore, in seeking to be filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit we must pursue him indirectly - we must look to the wonder of Christ. If we look away from Jesus and seek the Spirit and his power directly, we will end up in the mire of our own subjective emotions. The Spirit does not reveal himself. The Spirit reveals Christ.”
There is NO contest between Satan (the one who is in the world) and the Spirit (the Triune God)!
Our God is GREATER! Our God is STRONGER!
But, we must submit to Him and His way, we need to daily seek to be completely under His control!
ILLUSTRATION: COUNTERFEITS
The expert federal agents who look for counterfeit money don’t learn their skill by studying counterfeits; they actually learn it by studying genuine bills until they have learned every characteristic of the real thing.
The same is true of Christians wanting to discern false teaching—we learn best by studying the real thing, not the counterfeits. AND WE HAVE THE HOLY SPIRIT AS THE MASTER TEACHER TO HELP US.
Mark this down, no matter how sincere, how nice, kind, or “godly” people seem…how “Christian” people seem - if they are following another JESUS - they are NOT IN STEP WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT! THEY DO NOT HAVE HIM!
Not only are we called to test by the Divine LORD Jesus Christ - the Son of God.
Not only are we called to test by the Divine LIFE in the Holy Spirit - the Spirit of God.
We need to test by the DIVINE TRUTH - the Word of God!
Let’s look at the end of our passage this afternoon:
5 They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. 6 We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error.
WRITE THIS DOWN, IF WE’RE GOING TO KNOW THE DIFFERENCE, WE NEED TO
3. TEST BY THE WORD OF GOD
3. TEST BY THE WORD OF GOD
Paul was encouraging Timothy in the midst of False Teachers…
14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
Jude pointed his readers back to the centrality of the RIGHTLY PROCLAIMED WORD OF GOD
3 Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
This note was extremely helpful.
In 2013, Christian rapper Shai Linne stirred quite a controversy with his song “Fal$e Teacher$.”
It is a critique of the prosperity gospel, and in it he does the unacceptable in our hypertolerant/noncritical day: he names names. In the song, Shai particularly calls on Christians outside of America not to be deceived by these “wolves in sheep’s clothing” (Matt 7:15) who export their heresies around the world. He says,
Don’t be deceived by this funny biz,
if you come to Jesus for money, then he’s not your God,
money is!
Jesus is not a means to an end, the Gospel is.
He came to redeem us from sin, and that is the message
forever I yell!
If you’re living your best life now you’re heading for hell!
Turn off TBN, that channel is overrated.
The pastors speak bogus statements, financially motivated.
It’s kind of like a pyramid scheme.
Visualize heretics Christianizing the American dream.
It’s foul and deceitful, they’re lying to people,
teaching that camels squeeze through the eye of a needle!
People who are not true believers resist sound doctrine.
When God’s Word is proclaimed rightly - It does not make sense to them.
God’s Word is toxic to this world’s man-centered, materialistic system of thought.
God’s Word is toxic to the schemes of Satan - the father of lies.
False teachers are not from God but from the world and from Satan.
- We should always scrutinize the message of all who claim to speak for God. It will ONLY BECOME CLEAR WITH OUR BIBLES OPEN
CONCLUSION
True or False?
2 + 2 = 5 / Easy. That’s false.
Things that sound “Christiany” and look good, but something is a bit off. Might require a bit more investigation.
But we can hold everything up to the standard of GOD’S WORD, illuminated by GOD’S SPIRIT, and both clearly point us to GOD’S SON - the LORD JESUS CHRIST!
5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time. 7 For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
To our students, young and old…to our adults…to every age and stage:
Let’s be a people who KNOW THE WORD OF GOD!
Let’s be a people who are under the influence of the SPIRIT OF GOD!
Let’s be a people who know, love, and obey JESUS - THE SON OF GOD! more and more each day!
Let’s pray!