Test The Spirits - 1 John 4:1-6

INTRO

Early marriage I learned the hard way that I shouldn’t always listen to my own inclinations.

Let me tell you about one of our early big fights.

Hannah and I had looked at our budget and made two decisions.

We realize we needed to cut back on eating out.

Specifically no more fast food.

Small purchases were eating into our budget and it’d be better to have a date night and enjoy a nicer meal.

Also Hannah wanted me to stop eating like I was 18.

No more taco bell runs…let’s cool it on the cheez its.

Let’s be healthy.

Now look all of that sounded like a really good idea.

But it was at this time my friends were making jokes about the re-release of the KFC double down.

If you don’t remember the double down it was KFC’s attempt to kill the American population quickly.

It was a sand which but instead of a bun it was two massive deep fried Chicken breasts.

To add insult to injury it had bacon, cheese, and a milk based sauce.

So there was nothing about this that was healthy.

So when I my friend Jared wanted to go there on our lunch break I of course said yes leaving behind the healthy lunch that Hannah had left for me.

I thought no big deal. It’s just one meal.

Little did I expect Hannah to be plugging numbers for our budget that afternoon.

I get a frustrated text.

WHAT IS THE PURCHASE at KFC?!

Ummm…Jared and I got lunch.

DID YOU GET A DOUBLE DOWN?!

Yes…

Believe me you we had a fight.

Hannah wanted to know why I wouldn’t hear her voice.

I start with this funny story to highlight a very important lesson: Whom we listen to matters.

I should have listened to my wife’s voice instead of my friend’s.

By ignoring the right voice, I ended up with a frustrated and disappointed wife who felt unheard.

The apostle John takes this idea even further, with eternal consequences in mind.

He’s urging the church to tune their ears to the right voices—the Teachers that point us to the feet of Jesus (that’s us, the church)

and not the ones who he calls anti-christ that is those who take us away from making much of Jesus in our lives.

So let me ask this morning, who are you listening to?

Here is our

Big Idea: God’s children discern truth in Christ

Let’s go to our text and see first

1. We Confess Christ (v.1-3)

1 John 4:1–3 (ESV)

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. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 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.

John deeply cares for these brothers and sisters in Christ and knows that danger is lurking

possibly even within their own community.

John wants them to understand that not every spiritual teacher can be trusted.

There are spiritual deceivers and liars out there, working hard to gain our trust and allegiance.

So John warns, “Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see if they are from God.”

Both “believe” and “test” are commands calling for ongoing vigilance.

We are all called to be doctrine detectives, theological investigators!

Our task is to figure out if these voices are from God or from another source, driven by a different spirit.

John’s point is clear: Behind every prophet and proclamation is an energizing spirit.

Their message will reveal its true origin.

Not all are from God.

Watch! Listen! Test!

We all need a healthy dose of “spiritual skepticism” is necessary.

During the pandemic - looking for cameras

Go-Pro - 4k Streaming.

Got dupped by a fake sight

We have to know what is true.

John hits us with a foundational truth: Christianity is anchored in one central question:

What do you believe about Jesus?

If He’s just another enlightened teacher, then He’s one option among many in a sea of spiritual guides.

But if He is the incarnation of God, then the gospel stands alone as the ultimate truth, and He is the only path to salvation.

Y’all I understand how offensive the exclusive claims of the gospel are.

But Jesus is the one who makes them.

John 14:6 (ESV)

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Either he is who said he was or he was a lunatic and following him is crazy!

If we confess that he is the way. He is the only way to the Father then we confess that “Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.”

This isn’t just lip service; it’s a deep, heartfelt, and soul-engaged belief.

This is the bedrock of authentic Christianity—that Jesus is fully God and fully man.

Again Gonsticism had seeped into the church.

They were Heretics they believed that Jesus did not physically die on the cross.

They believed that that the spirit of God kind of dwelt on this man named Jesus at his baptism and left him at the cross

And Jesus did not physically raise from the from the grave but kind of the spirit of God came up out of the grave

And so they had this dichotomy between the historical figure Jesus and the Christ.

Today it is much the same.

Now.

Most people would not say, “Oh I hate Jesus.”

Right?

I like Jesus. I just dislike the church.

Here is the problem…if we don’t accept Jesus for who he says he is, we are rejecting Jesus.

Worse still again we are deluding ourselves into thinking it’s tolerable to accept someone who claimed to be God as a moral teacher who told us all to sing kumbaye.

Y’all that ain’t Jesus.

Reread the gospels.

Excellent book is C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity.

Such a helpful read especially if you are new to the faith or if you are wresting with doubt.

He says this:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.” ― C.S. Lewis

Who do you say Jesus is?

There are voices in our life that take us away from the feet of Jesus.

Voices that push you to dwelling and thinking on just about anything else.

Slowly but surely the further we drift from his feet the more we descend into despair.

Here is the reality the more as a society we have shifted into a narrative of individualism the more unhappy we are.

The further we distance ourselves from the voice of Jesus the more we spiral.

That’s what sin and individualism do, they pull us away from who Jesus is.

John Mark Comer:

We sin because we believe a lie about what will make us happy. Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order, is credited with defining sin as “unwillingness to trust that what God wants for me is only my deepest happiness.” This is why the devil’s primary target is our trust in God and his truth as it comes to us in Scripture. If he can get us to doubt God and instead trust in our own inner intuition as an accurate compass to the good life, he has us. In the ultimate irony, sin sabotages our capacity for happiness by appealing to our God-given desire for happiness via deceptive ideas. _John Mark Comer

The Spirit of God always points to Jesus.

Jesus Himself said in John 16:14

John 16:14 (ESV)

He (The Spirit) will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

If there’s no exaltation of Jesus as God incarnate, then the Spirit of God is absent.

Even demons recognized Jesus’ deity when He walked the earth, though they didn’t worship Him (Mark 1:24; 3:4; 5:7–8).

It’s a sobering thought that demons sometimes have better theology than some so-called Christians.

Verse 3 flips the script.

Those who deny Jesus’ incarnation are not from God—they are from the antichrist.

The early church faced this, just as we do today.

I love how one pastor put it, “If a person claims to believe in Jesus, it’s proper to ask, ‘Is your Jesus the real Jesus?’”

What we believe about Jesus shapes everything else.

Tell me what you believe about Jesus, and I’ll tell you 95 percent of your theology.

He is the center, the hub from which everything else radiates.

So, are you confessing the true Christ?

Where are you looking?

Look to Jesus alone!

Can you say with the apostles, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God” (Matt 16:16)?

I get how overwhelming it can feel at times.

I’ve had conversations with many of you.

It can be discouraging with the barrage of voices to have steady peace.

How do we raise our kids in a broken world?

How do I live as disciple?

How can we hold fast?

Let’s see what John says as we see second

2. We Trust the Spirit (v.4)

1 John 4:4 (ESV)

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.

So often we can be discouraged or overwhelmed.

How do we answer all the arguments.

There is an abounding brokenness.

Churches are shuttering across the country.

We’re staring down the barrel of more contention and division as the political season spirals towards us.

What do we do where do we go?!

Think about the the crushing pressure in the depths of the ocean.

A human diver wouldn’t stand a chance.

But inside a pressurized diving bell, you’re protected, because it pushes back with even greater force.

As Christians, when we dive into the world, we’re going to feel immense pressure, especially the deeper we go.

It’s unavoidable. But here’s the good news: the pressure inside of you, the Holy Spirit, is greater than the pressure around you.

So don’t be afraid.

The Spirit within you is stronger than any external force you’ll face.

Every day, we face the opposition of Satan—the world's systems that bombard us,

false teachers that try to lure us away,

worldviews that aim to confuse us, and our own sinful desires that seek to enslave us.

Yet all of this opposition is destined to fail.

Why?

Because of the powerful truth in verse 4: “The One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.”

We have a Champion, a Victor, a source of power that no enemy from hell can overcome.

John speaks tenderly to us, calling us “little children.”

He emphasizes, “You are from God.”

This isn’t just a comforting thought;

it’s a declaration of our identity and victory.

We have conquered the world,

we have conquered the false prophets, and the spirit of the antichrist

Why?

Because the Greater Spirit, the Holy Spirit, lives in us.

Is the world strong?

Yes, but our God is infinitely stronger!

Are false prophets cunning?

Yes, but our God is infinitely wiser!

Is Satan powerful?

Yes, but our God is infinitely greater!

And this God, who is stronger, wiser, and greater, now and forever, is in you!

When we truly confess Jesus as the Messiah, we declare that we belong to God.

In response, God gives Himself to us through His Spirit, taking up residence in our hearts.

This truth empowers us to live lives of loving, sacrificial service, just as our suffering-servant Savior did.

We can live confidently, assured that we belong to Him and that the battle we fight is one where victory is already ours.

When faced with the enemy’s deceptions—temptations, discouragement, anxiety, or fear—remind yourself, “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”

One night, a mother and her four-year-old daughter were getting ready for bed.

Dad was out of town for a work trip and The little girl was scared of the dark

Her mother, who was alone with her that night, felt a bit uneasy too.

As they turned off the lights, the child noticed the moon shining through the window.

“Mommy,” she asked, “is the moon God’s light?” “Yes,” replied the mother.

Then the little girl asked, “Does God turn off His light and go to sleep?” The mother smiled and said, “No, sweetie, God never goes to sleep.”

With the simple faith of a child, the daughter then said something that reassured her worried mom, “Well, if God is awake, there’s no point in both of us staying up.”

Almighty God lives within you.

Trust Him.

This is the victory that overcomes the world: your faith in the sovereign, indwelling power of the Holy Spirit.

So we have seen we confess Jesus, we trust the Spirit.

Finally let’s look within and see We Discern Truth

3. We Discern Truth (v.5-6)

1 John 4:5–6 (ESV)

They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. 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.

John gives us a simple test in verses 5 and 6: ask, “Who does the teacher listen to?”

If they listen to the apostles, they are from God.

If not, they are from the world.

A true teacher’s source is the word of God.

It is the New Testament, where we find the apostolic message.

We rely on Scripture.

Isaiah said, “If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light” Isaiah 8:20

In Deuteronomy 13, even if a prophet’s prediction came true, they were not to be trusted if they taught error.

The test is their doctrine, not their experience.

Doctrine is the first test.

The second is if their message aligns with the world’s thinking.

If a teacher’s message sounds like what the world says, they’re getting their ideas from worldly sources.

The world likes its own ideas.

So, when teachers share their experiences, remember that experiences alone don’t matter.

The real question is: What do they teach?

Does it match Scripture?

This is how we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error (v. 6).

We get this in our day of misinformation and false news report.

I had a friend who was a producer for ABC news and I loved to pick his brain about news. He said, “read broadly from differing perspectives and remember they arent trying to inform you they are telling a story.”

So friend who do you listen to?

Are you testing the spirits?

We have to be very very very careful here.

We can drift away from the truth of the gospel.

Sometimes we wholesale accept things that seem christian or spiritual and listen they are not leading you to the gospel.

One writer lists 7 false lies we find in the church.

1. Follow your heart

2. Godly living brings prosperity

3. Right choices will get you the perfect life

4. God will never give you more than you can handle

5. If you try harder, you can be right with God

6. I deserve better

7. I need ME time

1. Follow your heart -

Feelings are unreliable at best and we are way more wicked than we’d like to admit. Follow The Lord

2. Godly living brings prosperity -

That would disqualify Jesus, Paul, Peter, pretty much the entire early church, our reward is in heaven and is Christ himself.

3. Right choices will get you the perfect life -

No. Remember ecclesiastes. We can do the right things and still suffer, in fact God allows suffering to refine us.

4. God will never give you more than you can handle -

God designed us to depend on him for strength and direction and ability

5. If you try harder, you can be right with God -

Only Jesus’ death can make us right with God.

6. I deserve better -

Actually if we are sober and honest we deserve hell. “it was my sin that held him there” We should be grateful that Jesus paid our penality

7. I need ME time -

You NEED rest in the Lord

Listen I love podcasts and books.

I do.

But those things cannot supplement the word of God lived out in the people of God.

You and I we need to test the Spirits.

Are we listening to the apostles teaching. Are we discerning the truth from lies?

The phrase “spirit of error or deception” is fascinating.

It carries the idea of drifting away from the truth.

False teachers and their followers often start close to the truth but don’t stick with it.

They drift.

Over and over, their errors trace back to what they believe about Jesus.

The Bible says He is God, but they wander off and deny His eternal deity.

The Bible says He is sinless, but they drift away and claim He sinned or made mistakes.

The Bible says He performed miracles, but they stray and say these are just myths.

The Bible declares Jesus as the only Savior, but they veer off and call Him just one of many saviors.

The Bible teaches He died on the cross for our sins, but they reject this, labeling it cosmic child abuse.

The Bible says He rose bodily from the dead, but they deviate, insisting the disciples merely imagined it.

The Bible tells us He ascended into heaven as Lord, but they dismiss it as another myth.

The Bible promises He will come again, but they stray, calling it pop-Christian fiction.

Finally, the Bible says He will judge us all, but they wander away, claiming God’s love means everyone will be saved.

This is dangerous friends.

The enemy wants to deceive you.

We must exercise discernment with both kindness and courage.

It’s a delicate balance, but we’re called to it.

We need to discern without being judgmental, to identify and address the cultists, the spiritual faddists, the misguided, and the misinformed.

Those who twist Scripture, even if they claim to be led by “the Spirit,” must be held accountable and, if necessary, removed from the church.

John’s call to the church back then is still our call today.

Here’s the bottom line from John:

You and I need to test the teachings you hear.

We must ask ourselves, does this come from God?

Does it acknowledge that Jesus Christ came to earth fully God, fully man?

Is this something that those who don’t know Jesus find appealing?

In other words is it vaguely good advice instead of good news about Jesus?

Above all remember, you’ve already prevailed over these false teachers.

Conclusion

Bank tellers can tell counterfeit bills right away, because they handle money all day.

Do you handle the word of God.

The gospel is precious:

Death, Burial, Resurrection - Acrostic of Salvation - so many layers and depth to it.

Friends, let’s discern wisely.

Test the spirits.

Listen to those who point you to Jesus.

Stay rooted in Scripture, and let’s live in the light of His truth and love.

Reflection/Application Questions:

Who are the primary voices I listen to, and do they point me to Jesus or away from Him?

In what ways can I deepen my knowledge and appreciation of the gospel, allowing it to shape every aspect of my life?

Do my actions and attitudes reflect a life transformed by the Holy Spirit, or do they mirror the world’s values?

How can I better discern and choose the voices I listen to, ensuring they are rooted in biblical truth?

PRAYER

Alabaster Church - Ryan and Erin Smith

Sabbatical

Rooting in the city - walking around the city -

Moments like - Jesus at Well, Philip on Desert Road, Paul around Athens

Sell their home in LA

Unity for our nation and those grieving

For Mission Church

That a culture of discipling would form in which making disciples is viewed as an ordinary part of the Christian life.

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

Crawdads

Cookout

BENEDICTION

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man, fill your hearts with unwavering faith.

May the love of God the Father, who calls you His beloved children, anchor you in truth and lead you in paths of righteousness.

And may the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, who dwells within you, empower you to discern truth from falsehood, and give you the courage to stand firm in your confession of Christ.

Go forth with confidence, knowing that He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

Walk in the light of His truth and love, and may your life be a beacon pointing others to the hope and salvation found in Jesus Christ.

Amen.