November 16 | Love Discerns Truth | Text: 1 John 4:1-6

Alright, picture this with me for a moment: A friend comes to you, all excited, and says, "Dude, listen to this. I basically just won the lottery! I've been texting back and forth with a prince from Nigeria, and he's chosen me to help him move his family's fortune. All I have to do is send him $5,000 in Home Depot gift cards and then he’s gonna cut me in on the cash!"

What is the loving thing to do in that moment for your friend, who has apparently been living under a rock for 20 years? Do you say, "Wow, that's amazing! I'm just so happy that you're happy. You do you!"

Of course not! That's not love. That's enabling. Worse, it’s cowardice, where you fear offending your friend or raining on their parade, so you aren't willing to risk some offense for their good.

Real love, biblical love, would shake that friend by the shoulders, look them in the eye, and say, "Bro, wake up! You are being scammed. Do not buy those gift cards!"

Now we can laugh because this scenario is obvious. We can roll our eyes and say, "Of course I wouldn’t let my friend do something so naive, so silly! That’s clearly a scam!"

But Church, we do this all the time with things that matter far more than money. We often stay silent and affirm our friends when it’s not just a little money on the line, but their eternity and their very souls.

Our culture has sold us a weak, sentimental, "nice" version of love. It's a "love" that says the highest virtue is to affirm everyone's feelings and the greatest sin is to "judge" or to claim you have "the truth." We have become a culture of spiritual enablers, smiling and affirming each other all the way to destruction, all while calling it 'love' and 'tolerance.' And it’s costing people their lives.

It is precisely into this sugary-soft, squishy, sentimental confusion that the Apostle John speaks this morning. He sees this weak "niceness" and, because he loves us, he offers something better. He offers a love that is restorative, a love built on the bedrock of truth.

So John—the "Apostle of Love" who wrote arguably more specifically about love than any other Biblical author—speaks a hard, foundational, and truly loving word. He’s encouraging us to float the truth in the parachute of love and grace. He's calling us to live with a convictional kindness—rooted deep in truth, yet gentle and loving in the way we share it.

He starts our passage today with his favorite word: "Beloved" or "Dear friends." He's writing as a loving pastor to a church he adores. And in the very same breath, he gives them a strong, urgent command. He doesn't tell them to "just affirm everyone." He commands them to test everyone.

Why? Because John knows what our world has forgotten: Real love isn't naive; real love discerns and protects truth.

This morning, John gives us three clear, flowing ideas. He gives us:

A Command for Love (v. 1)

A Test for How to Love (vv. 2-3)

A Confidence to Love Boldly (vv. 4-6)

All of this will lead us perfectly to the Table at the end of our time together where we will remember the historical fact of Christ's incarnation, his crucifixion, and his resurrection by partaking of communion together as a family of God.

So with all that before us, let's read God's Word and then unpack it together:

1 John 4:1–6 NIV

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, 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. 4 You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. 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.

1. A Command for Love (v. 1)

Now look with me again at John's command found in that first verse:

1 John 4:1 NIV

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.

His command here is clear: "Stop believing every spirit." This implies the church was already in danger of doing that. They were spiritually gullible. They were nice. They were affirming and permitting anyone to speak so long as they claimed to be doing it by the Holy Spirit! And John, out of love, says, "Stop it."

We read "test the spirits," and that sounds foreign to us. It might sound like UFOs and ancient aliens, but this isn't science fiction, Church, this is the reality we live in. It's not about UFOs; it's about ideologies. It's not about aliens; it's about the worldview that's trying to disciple you every day on your phone and on Netflix.

And you say, "But Levi, John says spirits, not podcasters."

Yes, but look again at the text! John links the invisible "spirit" to visible people in the very same sentence. He says, "...test the spirits... because many false podcasters sorry :) prophets have gone out into the world."

John is saying, How do you test an invisible spirit? Well, you test the visible message coming from the prophet or the person speaking authoritatively—ie, the expert, the podcaster, the author, the TikTok guru.

The Bible tells us we are living in a love story set in a world at war. As the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 6, our real battle isn't "against flesh and blood, but against... spiritual forces of darkness in the heavenly realms." These are the "spirits" John is talking about. And their primary weapon? It’s ideas.

These spirits propagate lies and ideas so clever they sound like truth (Eph. 4:14). Paul warns in 2 Corinthians that "Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light" (2 Cor. 11:14). This means his lies often times don't sound hateful; they often sound beautiful. They sound like freedom, like "your truth." They are shrewdly designed to play on our deepest desires and make us want them to be true... but these dangerous lies never deliver on their claims. They are designed to only do one thing: steal, kill, and destroy from humanity.

So when John says to "test the spirits," he's calling us to be a thinking people who discern the source behind the ideas we consume every day. We have an obligation to test and examine and think deeply.

The word translated as "test" here is a rich word. It’s the same word used for testing metal—like gold or silver—to see if it was genuine. It’s a call to know the real Jesus so well that we can easily spot a fake. It's a call to lovingly discern what's being said, judge it against the bedrock of God's Word, all for the sake of protecting the family of God from deception.

Folks, this should make sense to our modern ears. We live in an age of discernment! For crying out loud, when was the last time you made a purchase without first reading reviews beforehand? We read 100 Yelp reviews before we buy a $40 toaster. But when it comes to our souls, we can be the most spiritually gullible generation in history!

John, as a loving pastor, looks at his "beloved" church and says, "Stop drinking poison just because the bottle is pretty." Real love is not naive. It's protective. It discerns truth. It's commanded to test everything.

2. A Test for How to Love (vv. 2-3)

So, if we're commanded to test, how do we do that? John doesn't leave us guessing. He doesn't say, "Just go with your gut" or "follow your heart." He gives us a hard, objective, doctrinal litmus test.

Look at verses 2 and 3:

1 John 4:2–3 NIV

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.

This is the test. It's not about how nice the speaker is or how popular or eloquent they are. The one, non-negotiable question is: What do they do with the person of Jesus Christ?

Specifically, "Do they confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh?"

This might sounds obscure to us, but this was the exact error that had split John's church. The false prophets were early Gnostics. They taught that all "flesh" (physical matter) was evil and only "spirit" was good. Therefore, they argued, the divine Son of God could never have truly taken on a corrupt, human, fleshly body. He only seemed to be human. He was a phantom, a "Christ-vibe," a "spirit-Jesus."

That was their error, and friends, the world still loves this "spiritual" Jesus.

The world loves Jesus as only a good moral teacher.

The world loves Jesus as only a radical social reformer.

The world loves Jesus as only an inner "spirit guide."

But the world hates the Jesus who came "in the flesh."

Why? Why is the "flesh" the test? Because without the flesh, there is no cross.

A ghost can't be your substitute. A phantom can't bleed for your sins. A "Christ-vibe" can't be nailed to a Roman cross. For Jesus to save us, He had to be truly God (to have the power to save) and truly man (to have a body to sacrifice).

It is as Jesus proclaimed. I Am… the way the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through me!

I want you to see, this test of exclusive truth, isn't an unloving cage designed to keep people out. It's a life-saving guardrail.

If you're driving on a mountain road with a 1,000-foot drop, the guardrail isn't there to ruin your freedom. It's there to protect your life so you can actually enjoy the journey.

John is saying the most dangerous cliff in the universe is a false gospel. One where Jesus isn't really God, and as I’ve already stated, a Jesus who is just a good teacher—can't save you. A Jesus who isn't really flesh can't die for you or mediate for you!

This doctrine is the guardrail. John calls the alternative the "spirit of the antichrist." The stakes are that high.

To go back to the mountain road metaphor, real love doesn't just affirm the driver no matter what, saying, "Yep, all roads lead to Heaven." No. Real love builds the guardrails to keep the driver safe on the only long and narrow road that leads there with steep cliffs on both side!

Now, we here at Crossroads are all about relationship over religion, so please, hear my heart on this. This is not about just having a list of "facts" we agree with and nod our heads at. That's not the goal.

The goal is a living, breathing relationship with the one, true, living Christ.

But we need those guardrails of doctrine, because we must know and relate with the real and true Jesus as He is. Not the "spirit-Jesus" of our own making, not a false Jesus we've fashioned in our own image to make us comfortable... but the God and Jesus of the Bible. The one who truly "came in the flesh" to save us.

Now, John knows that's a hard line. He knows that as soon as he says the alternative to believing sound doctrine about Jesus is to follow the "spirit of the antichrist," he has raised the stakes to an eternal level.

Essentially, he's telling this small, struggling church to stand against popular, sophisticated teachers who have all the cultural momentum.

And you can almost hear the objections: "But John, how can we possibly do this? We're small. The world is so loud and powerful!

3. A Confidence to Love Boldly (vv. 4-6)

John anticipates that fear. And that's why he pivots immediately from this scary warning to a powerful, tender comfort. He writes to give this church confidence.

Look at verse 5: "They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them." Doesn't that feel just like our world today? The "spirit of the world" has all the microphones, all the "likes," all the influence. How can we possibly stand?

John pivots immediately to a powerful, tender comfort. Look at verse 4. He says, "But you, dear children, you are from God and have overcome them..."

John gives us two unshakable reasons to be confident.

First, our confidence comes from an Internal Power. Look at verse 4 again:

"...for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world."

This is the matchup. In this corner: the "spirit of the world"—it's loud, it's popular, it's "in the world." And in this corner: the Holy Spirit—"he who is in you." The verdict is already in: He in you is GREATER.

Second, our confidence comes from an External Authority. Look at verse 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..."

My question is, Who is the "us" John is referring to?

He’s making an "apostolic" claim. He's saying, "We, the apostles, are the benchmark. Our teaching is the test." For us today, that means our confidence is in the Bible. The world listens to its own voice (v. 5), but we listen to the authoritative Word of God found and preserved in the Bible!

So, we have a greater Power in us and a greater Authority for us and from outside of us!

Which means, we don't test for victory; we test from a position of victory.

Now, what does this confidence supposed to look like? Does it look like arrogance? Does it mean we go around being jerks for Jesus? No.

Let me give you an illustration. Imagine a doctor discovers the only cure for a disease that is 100% fatal. She has tested it. She knows it works. She knows with absolute certainty that this medicine saves lives, and without it, every patient will die.

A patient comes to her, sick with this disease, and says, "Doctor, I've been trying this new essential oil blend. It makes me feel good, smells delightful, super organic, also my horoscope said it was a good week for healing."

What is the loving thing for that doctor to do? Is it to be "nice" and say, "That's great! I'm so happy you've found something that works for you"? I just saw a tiktok reel on essential oils the other day and actually my niece would love for you to join her pyramid scheme to sell you some!

No! That's not love; that's malpractice.

A loving doctor, knowing the stakes, would kindly, because bedside manner matters, this doctor would kindly, but boldly say, "I am so glad you're looking for healing. But I have to tell you the truth because your life is on the line. That oil will not save you. This disease will kill you. But this medicine will cure you. You must take it."

Is that doctor being arrogant? No! She's being loving. Her confidence doesn't come from arrogance; it comes from her knowledge of the cure and her compassion for the patient.

That is why we can be confident. We're not bold because we're smarter. We're bold because we know the disease is fatal—it's called sin. And we know the only cure—His name is Jesus.

Conclusion: The Love at This Table

And so, we’ve seen this morning that real love isn't naive; real love discerns and protects truth.

Our culture is obsessed with the feeling of "being in love," but as C.S. Lewis said, that's not the same as the commitment of "love." A feeling is weak. The "love" of the world is a sentimental, emotional high that can only affirm you and your feelings, but it’s fleeting and it has no power to save.

The gospel, on the other hand, is the story of a love that is infinitely better. God's love was not naive. God's love discerned our real problem. He saw our sin, our rebellion, and the death we deserved.

And His love protected us.

How? By doing the very thing the spirit of the antichrist denies. God's love acted. God's love "came in the flesh."

He came in the flesh so that He would have a real, physical body to be broken. He came in the flesh so that He would have real, physical blood to be shed. He came in the flesh to give us the very meal we are about to share.

In a moment, we are going to take Communion. This Table is the ultimate expression of today’s big idea. This is the place where God's discerning love and protective truth come together.

This bread represents His body. A real body. The very "flesh" that John says we must confess. This cup represents His blood. Real blood, shed from that real body.

The spirit of the antichrist denies the flesh because it denies the cross. But the Spirit of God celebrates the flesh because it is the only way to the cross.

This Table is our confession. This is our guardrail. This is our declaration against every "spirit of the world" that tries to offer a Jesus without a cross, a salvation without a sacrifice, and a "love" without truth.

Today, as you come to this Table, you are doing what John commanded. You are "confessing that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh." And you are receiving the benefits of that flesh—His body broken for you, His blood shed for you, for the forgiveness of all your sins and the redemption of your nature. So that now you may be known as sons and daughters of the one true High King of Heaven.

That, my friends, is a love that is not naive. It's a love that saves. It’s a love that discerns and protects the truth, so that we might have life in the name of Jesus.

With that, let’s pray as we prepare our hearts.

(Congregation Prays Silently)

Leading Communion

(Distribution & Invitation)

As we continue in this attitude of prayer, our ushers are going to come forward to serve us. They will be passing out both the bread and the cup at the same time. When you receive the elements, please just hold on to them, and we will all eat and drink together in a moment.

As the elements are being distributed, let's prepare our hearts. This Table is a meal for all who would confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. It's for those who have turned from their sin and are trusting in His finished work alone. It's a meal for those who confess, as John commanded, that "Jesus Christ has come in the flesh as God."

If you are here today and you're not sure what you believe, or you haven't yet placed your faith in Christ, we are so glad you are here. We would simply ask that you let the elements pass by. Please, don't check out. Use this time to consider the claims of this Jesus, who gave His body and blood for the world. You can find a "Prayer for Those Searching" in your bulletin to help guide your thoughts.

For those of us who believe, the Bible tells us to "examine ourselves." This is our moment of discernment... to silently confess our sins to God and to remember that we are saved not by our goodness, but by His.

(Pause for reflection as distribution finishes)

(Partaking of the Elements)

The Bible tells us that on the night He was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it, and said, "This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me."

This bread represents the bedrock truth of our sermon: His real body, His flesh, given for us. Let us eat together.(Eat the bread)

In the same way, He took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."

This cup represents His protective love: His real blood, shed for us. Let us drink together.(Drink the cup)

(Closing Prayer & Song Transition)

Let's pray.

Father, we have tasted and seen that you are good. We have declared with our hearts and our hands that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. We have received His broken body and His shed blood.

Now, send us out from this place with a confidence to love boldly. Fill us with your Convictional Kindness. Make us a people who are not naive, but who lovingly discern and protect the truth... all because we have been saved by the one who is the Truth, Jesus Christ.

And all God's people said, Amen.

And now, I’d invite you to stand and sing a new song with us called: Glory, Honor, Power. It's a song of declaration, that all the glory, honor and power belong to Christ who came as God in the flesh for those who would choose to follow Him in faith!