Epistles of John Pt. 9 (1 John 4: 1-6)
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1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
Do you guys know a detective? I don’t know a detective personally, but when I think about a detective I think of Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes was a genius detective and he has this crazy ability to figure out problems by looking at clues.
What are some tools that a detective uses?
Magnifying glass, Cameras, Binoculars, Cell Phone, GPS.
Theres a long list of things they use to figure out problems. Detectives have a have a cool job, but what is their job?
Their job is to figure out who has committed crimes and to solve problems based on the clues they have at their disposal. You know, the Bible teaches us a lot of things. We learn that God sent His son Jesus to die on the cross for our sins.
We learn How God created everything we see, and we learn some important lessons from Jesus:
Love your neighbor, love God, learn to pray etc.. etc...
But the Bible also recognizes that there are a lot of different teachings out there. There are people that will teach you different things about the Bible. Some will try and teach you that what it says is wrong, some will teach you that God is going to give you a lot of money, some will even teach you that Jesus was an angel instead of being God.
There are a lot of people out there that will teach you things. You have teachers, parents and other adults that will teach you all sorts of things. The question is:
Are the things I’m learning true?
John tells us early in verses 1 and 2:
1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
Don’t just believe what people say, put them to the test. Why does God tell us to put other people’s teachings to the test? Because not everyone who teaches us things have our best interest at heart. So many people are trying to teach you things because they have ulterior motives.
I will give you guys examples in a few moments but before I give you an example I want to point something out for us first:
Verse 1 tells us that we should test the spirits, or in other words, put to the test the things we learn. We need the evidence that what we learn is true. John is giving us a new job:
Test the teacher.
That sounds crazy doesn’t it? How many times have you tested your teacher? You would probably say you’ve never tested your teacher. How many times has your teacher given you a test or a quiz? Like a million times right?
Did you know, that the test your teachers give you is the way you test them? Teachers have different test than you do. You get tested on how well you KNOW the material, but your test results will test your teacher how well they TEACH the material.
Every time you take a test or a quiz you are testing the teacher. John tells us to test the teachers that are teaching us. And John gives us the answers to the test. He gives us the answer sheet so you can always know the answers. Verse 2:
2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
You know if your teacher is teaching you the right stuff IF:
They acknowledge Jesus.
They acknowledge Jesus is a man.
They acknowledge that Jesus is God.
If they don’t acknowledge AT LEAST recognize those three things then you’ve got yourself a bad teacher. Now I want to make clear, I’m not talking about your school teacher, I’m talking about the people that teach you about the Bible.
If I come in here one day and teach you some bolony about Jesus NOT being God then every single person in here has the authority to fire me.
So, now that you all know you have the ability to fire me, lets go back to what we said a few seconds ago. John is giving us the authority to test people in regards to what they teach us about the Bible and about God.
There are so many false teachers out there that teach a load of garbage. I said I was going to give you some examples right?
There is a gigantic church in Texas called Lakewood Church that teaches people that if you give a lot of money to their church specifically, God will bless you. They don’t preach the Gospel, they preach that God wants you to live a good life, without problems.
33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
Let me ask you a question, how many of you in here have given to a church before? Maybe not many of you, but I have a follow up questions for those of you that have given to a church before, did your problems ever go away? I bet they haven’t because you can’t buy your way out of your problems and you definitely can’t buy your way into heaven.
God is not a bank in which you put money in and you get your money back later in interest.
There is a church here in North Carolina called Elevation Church, I bet many of you have seen their stickers every where. The pastor of that church Steven Furtick teaches people that you and I are not created in the image of God, but instead you and I are exact copies of God. claims we have the same nature of God which is not true. The Bible teaches us that you and I are sinners and we need Jesus to fix our brokenness.
He teaches us people that God broke the law of the Bible, which would mean that God is not perfect. He also teaches that God is not a person, he teaches that God is energy. And one of the things that grind my gears, he teaches people that Jesus’ power is limited by our faith.
Why is that an insane view, because we are hopeless without God:
12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world.
God’s power is not dependent on us, we are dependent on God. That’s an insane belief, God depends on us. The creator of the universe, depends on us. That’s funny. That’s like saying I pay all my bills. I can’t do that, my wife has all the money.
Now, I know that it seems really awful for me to stand up here and talk badly about another pastor and the stuff that he teaches, but John tells us that we needs to test these teachers, and
A good teacher will teach their students what bad teaching looks like.
If you went to that church tomorrow, and began to learn that nonsense because I didn’t show what bad teachings look like, then that would be my fault. Jesus does the same thing:
4 They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
Jesus here is talking about the church leaders of His time and saying that they make people do all of the things for the church but those church leaders wouldn’t do it themselves.
Jesus called out bad teachers, we can do that too. So I guess the question is:
How can this pastor in Charlotte get away with all of this?
Because they look like us, and because half of what he says is true, and because they use some of the same songs we use every single Sunday. Because they pray every single week, and they put up Bible verses up in their screen every Sunday.
False teachers look authentic, which makes their job to trick people very easy. So, how do we test our teachers? By making them show their work. If you claim to be a bible believing preacher, I want to see what you said and I want to find it in the Bible.
How many of you like showing your work in math? I hated it as a kid, and if I have to show my work on how I solved a math problem today I would fail a class. But God expects me to show my work. That’s why every single Sunday I put Bible verses up on the screen so that you can see my work.
How did Pastor Luis know that he should call out bad teachers? Because Jesus did so in the book of Matthew and John tells us in the book of 1 John. So I am just showing you what Jesus has shown me.
But there are teachers out there that don’t show their work. They say what they need to say to make people feel better. And instead of being motivated by God’s love they’re motivated by money and social media.
2 This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
3 but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world.
We can test our teachers and see if what they say is true if we fact check them with God’s Word. How can you check to see if what the pastor is saying is true? By bringing your bible to church every single Sunday, and by opening it up to where I’m at to make sure I’m not trying to trick you.
I’ve thought about not putting up Bible verses on the screen so that you can’t start searching in your Bibles but as I said before, I want to show you my work. But remember I said earlier, how can you test your teachers? By opening up what’s written in this book and verifying if it’s true or if I’m just lying to you.
Bring your Bible to church, and check my work.
I don’t want to make anyone upset but, if our house parents aren’t bringing their bibles to church, then don’t expect our children too. But regardless of what your house parents do this is Mills Home Baptist Church Expectation:
Bring your Bible to church.
Yes, even Shay. They may not be able to bring their Bible to church, but they can bring a hard cover book and we can teach them that this is there Church book and when they become old enough to bring a Bible to church without ripping the pages out, then they too can bring their own Bibles to Church.
I will say though, it is quite scary to think about all these bad teachers out there. There are so many false prophets, what if I go to another church one day? How will I know if what they’re teaching me is wrong?
5 They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.
6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.
These false teachers look like us, but they don’t sound like us. If you ask God to show you the spirit of truth, He will provide for you the things you need to be able to tell the difference between a good teacher and a bad one.
But here is a good rule of thumb to know if a teacher is a good one or a bad one:
A good teacher will:
Teach people to rely on God.
A bad teacher will say things:
Trust yourself, follow your heart, You are super strong, you don’t need God, you can believe in me. A bad teacher will point you AWAY from the Bible.
A good teacher will say things like:
Jesus is the way and the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Him. (John 14: 6)
The kingdom of God is near! Repent and believe the good news! (Mark 1:15)
Love the Lord your God with all your heart soul and mind, and your neighbor as much as you love yourself. (Mark 12: 30-31)
A good teacher will say these things, and I don’t want you to think I said any of this, all of these words were said by Jesus. A good teacher, will teach what Jesus taught. Jesus was called Rabbi in the New testament. Do you know what word means?
It means teacher but it was only given to someone who truly taught people. It wasn’t like a school teacher, it was given to a person who was a teacher of teachers. Jesus is the true teacher and the truth itself comes from Jesus.
I want to finish off by reading this last verse one more time:
6 We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.
We are from God, and whoever does not listen to us IS NOT FROM GOD.
Those are some tough words to hear. I believe in the Bible, I believe what it says and if you believe what it says I know and believe you will share the Gospel with people.
You know what’s really hard about sharing the Gospel with people? Sometimes people won’t listen to what you have to say. If you’ve shared the Gospel with people and they don’t respond with kindness to you, that’s okay. It’s not personal. They aren’t rejecting you, they’re rejecting Jesus. What’s my advice, pray.
Pray for 2 things:
That God will continue to give you the courage to share the Gospel.
That God will open their hearts to what He has to say.
The message of the Gospel is not your message, so don’t be offended when people don’t listen.
Teaching others what God says is not easy, I’ve shared the Gospel a lot, with a lot of people, and not every person I’ve shared the Gospel with has come to saving faith.
BUT every person I have shared the Gospel with has heard the Gospel. Sometimes even if they didn’t want to. Hearing the Gospel is the first step.
17 Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ.
Finally, I want to say one more thing. I know that not every person who comes to be with us for some time believes what the Bible says. Many will believe it’s an old book, that it’s not true, that it doesn’t make sense.
I can understand why you feel that way, but remember what we said at the beginning:
Test the teacher.
Why don’t you put the Bible to the test, why don’t you go out and search for evidence that what's in the Bible is wrong? See if what the Bible says is true. You can dismiss the Bible if you want, but what if you spend your entire life dismissing it without evidence, and at the end of your life it turns out that all of it is true?
Who looses? God doesn’t, and neither do the people who believes what God says. the Bible teaches us that we win. And at the end of the day, we can be wrong, and when I die I can find out that what I learned from the Bible was all wrong but I can rest in peace knowing that I spent my entire life serving others and loving the people around me.
I don’t gamble or bet very often, but for the person who follows Jesus, it’s going to be a win-win situation, and for those who don’t follow Jesus your chances of winning that bet is AT BEST a 50-50 chance.
Put God’s word to the test. Let’s have conversations together about whether or not the Bible is true. I’d love to have that conversation with you.
Additionally, if you want to know what it means to follow Jesus, talk to me or a house parent. We would love to have that conversation with you.