1 John 4:1-6, "Knowing Who You're From"

There are some claims going around that you might find interesting. Some people believe Stonehenge was built by aliens, the moon landing was faked, or there is no moon, it’s a hologram. Some people believe both Avril Lavigne died young and was replaced with a body double. And before you baby boomers laugh at them, people said the same thing about Paul McCartney back in the ‘60’s. How about Prince Charles is a vampire? Ultimately, these deceptions won’t make any difference in your eternal future. Whether you believe them or not might be a matter of where you’re from.

Conspiracy theories and deceptions work because they can build on some element of truth or plausible claim. So we should be discerning. There are other more serious deceptions out there that sound true or plausible, but are insidious lies that have crept into the common understanding and are destroying us. Like these:

Staying busy keeps you out of trouble.

“The Secret” You can have everything you want if you think positively and work hard enough.

“You do you.” What you do in your private life is your own business, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else.

For a woman to achieve true equality and liberation, she must have the right to choose abortion for any reason.

You can be fully satisfied in this world and fully satisfied in God in the next.

You can have real relationships in the virtual world.

Each of these deceptions in some way divides your private from your public life, and your physical world from your spiritual world. But God created us to be integrated beings having body, soul, and spirit. The choices you make in one aspect of life will affect your well-being in every aspect. Believing and living in these deceptions is leading many people into lives of disconnectedness, disorder, and despair. Stress and broken relationships go up, peace and joy go down. Not every promise of a better life should be believed.

Why do people buy into these deceptions if they lead to worse outcomes? Why do we think we can cram our schedules full with no margin and still have lives of joy and peace? Why do we believe the next achievement or acquisition will make us happy? Why do we equate freedom with the ability to do whatever we want? Why do we keep fooling ourselves to think that sins done in secret don’t hurt anyone?

Your context is everything. It depends on your point of view. Where you come from, your family of origin, will determine the claims you believe. If your parents valued achievement, for example, you may equate achievement with worth. Behind every message is a person. People have agendas. John uses the word “spirit”, but he means the same thing. Messages we are fed in our culture have a spirit behind them. What message am I believing? Who is that message coming from?

We’ve been studying a letter from the Apostle John. He is writing to Christians who are being promised a better life, more free, more enlightened, if they leave the whole Jesus thing behind. John wants us to know that your best life, complete joy, communion with God and with others, comes from believing in Jesus, even when it’s hard. God’s love is so crazy, He makes children out of sinners. If we believe in Jesus Christ, we belong to God, and God is a good Father. He keeps things simple. At the end of chapter 3, John says, 1 John 3:23

1 John 3:23 ESV

And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.

More than this, God is a Father who knows how to give good gifts. He gives us the gift of Himself.

1 John 3:24 ESV

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.

His greatest gift is His Spirit. And His spirit will guide us into truth and eternal life, and communion with God, and growing understanding of love. One of the best ways the Spirit of God helps us is to discern the truth out of all the messages we are hearing in the world.

John is telling us,

Don’t Be Duped, Be Discerning

Last week, John told us, through Ross, that we are all in a growing process as God’s children. Abiding in Christ causes the seed of God’s life to grow in me. A major part of abiding in Christ, of believing in Christ, is listening for His voice. There are many deceiving messages from many false prophets and teachers. But we should not believe everything we hear. God’s Spirit will help us be discerning.

1 John 4:1 (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.

1 John 4:2 (ESV)

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

1 John 4:3 (ESV)

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 says there’s a false message out there, being preached by false messengers. The false messengers belong to a spirit of error that is opposed to Christ. John never labels the message so we have to piece together the deception he warns against.

The popular philosophy which was growing at the time John wrote this letter became known later as Gnosticism (“Knowledgeism”). The teaching went something like this: the physical world is a corruption of true reality and a distraction. Redemption is possible for your spirit as you seek knowledge from a higher being than the god who made this world. Then you will rise above the corruption of the physical world. Redemption in Gnosticism was a separation of your spiritual life from your physical life. Physical = bad, must be separated from spiritual = good.

This might seem appealing to people trying to please God spiritually who struggle with sins in our bodies. But the gospel John taught was in fact completely different. John says the test of a message from the Spirit of God is that “every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God (verse 2).” Why is this the key to discerning the truth?

If you believe the false prophets, you can live a disconnected life. It doesn’t really matter what you do with your physical body, or this physical world. It’s just a distraction anyway. Liberation comes from knowledge. Otherwise, do whatever you want. This message comes from the spirit of this world.

The message of the Spirit of God is very different. The Bible tells us that as a human being, God has made you an integrated person with body, soul, and spirit. All three aspects are created by God and are good. All three are working together all the time. All three have been affected by our fall into sin. Our sin leads to all kinds of brokenness in all aspects of our lives. Our relationship with our planet is broken because of our sin (which is why we have environmental scientists). Our relationships with other people and our own self-understanding are broken because of our sin (which is why we have psychologists). And our relationship with God is broken (which is why we have Jesus Christ). Where does wholeness come from?

The gospel is that Jesus has come to redeem us and restore us in all of our brokenness. Why is Jesus Christ coming in the flesh the test of truth versus error? The brokenness and disconnection in our world will not be healed by more disconnection from deceptions that may sound good but break more than they heal. Jesus Christ is God who is Spirit, but who took on the physical life of a human to reintegrate, reconcile, and restore the brokenness we caused by our sin. The One who is fully God has become fully human to restore the glory of humanity. Jesus Christ brings heaven and earth together, the spiritual and the physical. But more than this, human beings are reconciled to God in and through Jesus Christ.

Jesus took all the brokenness of sin upon His physical body on the cross, and offered Himself as a spiritual sacrifice to God to put sin to death once and for all. His resurrection from the dead is a resurrection of the body to a new spiritual life that He shares with all who believe in Him. Whether you believe this message or not demonstrates whether or not you belong to God, or belong to the spirit of antichrist, which is operating in our world. Who are you from?

If you are from God, you will listen to God who offers you wholeness and redemption for body, soul, and spirit, and cares deeply about all aspects of your life. If you are not from God, you will listen to the spirit of the age, which is offering a alternative paths to joy and life, but cannot heal your brokenness. If you believe the false prophets of our own age, you will stay disconnected.

The last three verses of our passage offer us one more really important message. After John mentions that the spirit of antichrist is now in the world, he reassures the believers who continue in the faith that they don’t have to fear or worry.

Don’t Fear, Be Yourself

He says, 1 John 4:4

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.

And we don’t have to manipulate or argue with anyone. John says, if there are others preaching another message than the gospel of Jesus, they are just products of their family of origin.

1 John 4:5 ESV

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

But we who continue to abide by faith in Jesus Christ can be sure of this promise: 1 John 4:6

1 John 4:6 ESV

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.

You can have clarity. When you hear a message offering you an easier life, more power, greater success, more happiness, whatever, filter that message through the person and the work of Jesus Christ. Let’s try that with our beginning list of deceptions.

Staying busy keeps you out of trouble. God commanded us to rest one day in seven and we find our rest in the finished work of Jesus. (see our Hebrews series)

“The Secret” You can have everything you want if you think positively and work hard enough. God’s divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness through knowing Jesus (2 Peter 1:3-4).

“You do you.” What you do in your private life is your own business, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone else. Jesus said “your Father who sees in secret will reward you."

For a woman to achieve true equality and liberation, she must have the right to choose abortion for any reason. True equality and liberation for women comes from their identity in Christ (Galatians 3:28), and He came that we may have life (John 10:10).

You can be fully satisfied in this world and fully satisfied in God in the next. Matthew 16:25 “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”

You can have real relationships in the virtual world.

That one is just plain ridiculous.

Jesus reconciles us to God and restores our glory as human beings through loving sacrifice. If the message is offering you greater happiness or freedom in ways that will disconnect you from Jesus, don’t buy that. The spirit of error is behind it. If the message helps you abide in Jesus and learn to walk as He walked, the Spirit of truth is guiding you.

I appreciate the Evangelical Free Church of America for a number of reasons. One of them is that it truly seeks to unite around the essentials of the gospel, and give grace in non-essentials. What must you believe to be a Christian? That is our confession of faith, nothing more. Ten points of doctrine. And at the center of our confession is Jesus Christ. In closing, I’d like us to read this confession aloud together.

EFCA Statement of Faith

“We believe that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, fully God and fully man, one Person in two natures. Jesus—Israel’s promised Messiah—was conceived through the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary.

“He lived a sinless life, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, arose bodily from the dead, ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father as our High Priest and Advocate.

“We believe that Jesus Christ, as our representative and substitute, shed His blood on the cross as the perfect, all-sufficient sacrifice for our sins. His atoning death and victorious resurrection constitute the only ground for salvation.”

Questions for Discussion

Is there anything from last week’s passage that you were able to put into practice this week?

Who is someone who taught you how to discern truth from error? Can you think of a time the Holy Spirit gave you discernment?

Why is it so important that Jesus Christ came in the flesh?

What are the implications of believing a false message that rejects the gospel of Jesus?

What are some of the false messages we hear today, and how do they lead us away from life in Christ?

What are the implications of verse 4 for us as believers and disciple-makers?

What are some implications of verses 5 and 6 for us in our evangelism and in our relationships with those outside the faith?