Surpassing Story Part Five

Introduction: 

Veteran’s Day Tribute — we need men and women to step up and serve and sacrifice in our military. Why? We live in a hostile world. We are at war. 

The same is true for us as God’s people. We are at war. 

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. (Eph. 6:12)

In a physical war, battles are normally fought over territory or positions. But in a spiritual war, the battle is over the story! 

What is the story, the narrative that forms our hearts? (Gen. 3—“Did God actually say …?" … Temptation of Jesus Matt. 4:1-11) 

John has been challenging us to “abide” in the surpassing narrative—the gospel. 

Main Idea: We are given two tasks in order to “abide” in the gospel and stand firm in the battle for our hearts. 

Do Not Believe Every Narrative

Illustration: I am a Nigerian man, and I need to transfer 1 million dollars to your account.

P. T. Barnum made a fortune on the theory that “a sucker is born every minute,

Big News: Not all narratives are true

Is this exclusive? — “you can believe what you believe and I can believe what I believe”

Ill. Blind men and the elephant 

Every narrative has a “spirit”—a spiritual reality that drives it.

Behind every teaching, philosophy, narrative is a spiritual reality. 

Narratives are driven by core beliefs and have a built in value system

Ill. Lord of the Rings—Characters and the story in the movie quite different )

Matthew 16—“to resist the cross is to be in league with the enemy” — Keller

We need to see the danger in the subtle ways that we resist the gospel.

Test Every Narrative

This means that we must first of all recognize the narratives that influence us

John is tells us we need to test the spirits, but he is not talking about the obvious, satanic, devil worshiping kind that may come to mind. “Spirits” “false prophets” “anti-Christ"

He is saying there are counter-gospels (counter messages) that look very much like the real thing. They sound really good. They promise really good things. 

This means that we must “test” every narrative/truth claim 

John gives us two tests: 

Doctrinal test— READ 1 John 4:2-3

1 John 4:2–3 ESV

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.

Illustration: Counterfeit money—knowing the authentic helps know the false

The test is the attitude to Jesus Christ.

If the Spirit of God is in the claimant to inspiration he will affirm that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.

More exactly he ‘acknowledges Jesus as Christ come in the flesh’; the human Jesus is nothing less than the divine Christ. In the flesh underlines the reality of the incarnation; it is not simply that Jesus took human nature, but flesh (cf. Jn. 1:14; 2 Jn. 7).

Love test — 1 John 4:7-8 Right doctrine is not enough. We need to have experienced the love of Jesus to the point where we are loving others.

1 John 4:7–8 ESV

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Conclusion