Sunday Morning Service (I John 4)

I John 4  

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“Test The Spirits!” •  5.17.20  •  Calvary Christian Fellowship, Sunday Morning Service

Intro.

- The final words in chapter 3 give us an indication of where John is going in his mind. He says, "And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit He has given us." (I John 3:24)

- This epistle is one of certainty. "By this we know" is used repeatedly. Statements such as "anyone who does this" or "anyone that does not believe that" are dotted across the pages.

- There are distinctions in character and doctrine that naturally divide the Sons of God and the Sons of the Devil. Is it any wonder then, that one would be asked to consider the effects of ministry?

- What does a ministry that comes from God look like? What will be present within the walls and among the people that dwell there? I believe chapter 4 provides us with those answers!

- Ministry that comes from God begins with an accurate proclamation of "The Person Of Christ." Let's have a look at verse 1.

Text

• I John 4:1 : "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world." : John's love for these people leaks out from virtually every point of his letter! It is from that love that John issues this command: "Do not believe every spirit!"

- In many other places in the New Testament, the word "believe" is translated "faith." "Don't place your faith in every spirit."

- Another synonym that we can exchange here is "to trust." "Beloved, do not trust every spirit."

- All of these give a little different flavor from the same word group. John commands them not to simply or readily accept that which is communicated by every spirit.

- What does John mean when he speaks of a "spirit?" "Pneuma" simply means "breath." It has referred to the life of a man's human spirit, the realm of demonic spirits and the Holy Spirit.

- The context determines the source biblically, while the content determines the source practically. If I don't want to do what God wants me to do, that's my human spirit.

- If I want to act against what God wants me to do, that's a demonic spirit. If I want to do what God wants me to do because it will bring glory to Christ, that's the Holy Spirit!

- To not believe every "spirit" intones that a variety of sources seek our trust. Sadly, because John is forced to command them, we understand that it's very easy to let our guards down.

- Sometimes, we believe false spirits because it suits our flesh. Sometimes, we give in because we are tired of the fight. We aren't called to simply give in!

- The Ephesians were not to automatically believe everything that they heard, but were to be actively and continually discerning in discovering the authenticity of the origin of their message.

- That is what the word "test" means. It was used in the marketplace to determine the authenticity of precious jewels by comparing gems with other gems!

- People in the church are to commit to examining truth claims, setting them against the standards of scripture. Believers in Christ are to be like merchants who trade in precious jewels.

- They can't simply trust that what is being brought to them is valuable, so they must always be in the habit of assaying. They are to seek to determine whether something is, or is not, of God!

- In this world, Christians must assume that there will be a fair amount of people who will be attempting to deceive! John makes that abundantly clear: Many false prophets have gone out!

- This was a rampant problem during the first century! It shouldn't be any wonder that we have the same problem today! This makes John's command to the Ephesian church especially relevant!

- Are you guilty of being a gullible Christian, willing to believe anything that is said to you by one claiming to know or speak on behalf of Christ?

- Have you developed tests or learned to scrutinize in order to determine authenticity?

- It is right about this time that every Pastor worth their salt, encourages their flock to recall the history lesson provided by the Berean church in Acts 17.

- When Paul the Apostle, the author of most of the New Testament, the Apostle selected by Jesus Himself, came to minister to them, they listened, but then they searched.

• Acts 17:11 : "These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so." : I have said before and I will say it again: You should never trust a word that I say! Go and check your Bibles for yourselves after every sermon!

- This is part of why I record sermons, why I provide a copy of my notes and why I give away manuscripts to entire books that we have studied. I want you to have a clear record of what is said!

- Your eternal life, your Christian ministry and your testimony to the world are all dependent upon trusting in clear, authentic sources of truth.

- If I am inviting your scrutiny, how much more should you be ready to scrutinize other voices? May the Lord give you wisdom to do just that. John begins to advise us with where to start. Verse 2.

• I John 4:2,3 : "By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world." : Here is how we have come to experience the ministry of the Spirit of God.

- The enduring test of His authentic witness will include the following, basic information about Jesus. Every spirit that concedes that Jesus Christ was God incarnate has come from God!

- Jesus added human skin to His eternal deity! He allowed the limitations of time, appetite and physical restraint to rest upon Him for 33 years and died and rose in that same human body.

- To say this same thing, to agree with God means that the content from this spirit is from God!

- God will never change His mind, add to or subtract from His Word. If He has said something, that thing is and will always be true for all of time!

- The Gnostic teachers proclaimed that Jesus did not take on a body until He was on the cross. They did not agree with the Apostolic teaching regarding the nature of the incarnation.

- The Gnostic presumed to know more about God the Son than God the Father did! They sought to re-write history! John makes it perfectly clear: This message from that spirit is not of God!

- Understand that in every cult, the central issue will always be the nature of Jesus Christ.

- If you begin by asking what your resident cultist believes about Jesus, you will have cut to the chase and saved yourselves hours of time in debate! The Gnostics failed the test of authenticity here.

- This was only half of their faulty theology! I John 2:22 and 23 says that a person is a liar who denies the Father and the Son. This is the problem of denying Christ's deity!

- You will hear all sub-Christian religions do this. Jesus is the half brother of Lucifer according to Mormons, a great prophet and teacher but nothing else to the Muslims and Michael to JW's.

- We could go on ad nauseum, but the fact is that religion is happy to acknowledge a "Jesus" that is significantly less than the One that the Bible presents!

- The Gnostics join right along having denied both His deity and His humanity!

- To affirm both sides is necessary because that is what the Bible teaches to be true! Jesus is fully divine and fully human. To lessen Him to any degree is key to the antichrist spirit!

- That is exactly what an "antichrist" spirit will do: He will propose that you adopt a version of Christ that is or that requires less! He will hoist that idea up in the place of the real Christ! Why?

- The person who settles for less than Christ will be exempt from eternal life! That is the spirit of that antichrist that has already been a part of this world from the first century! Verse 4.

• I John 4:4-6 : "You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error." : These little children were born of God!

- They were conquerors who had prevailed over those that were false prophets. How?

- We have already noted I John 5:5 where John tells us of our faith in Christ, that has led to a new life, a new birth, in Him! False teaching can't touch a genuine, born again Christian!

- The threat of deception is real! The spirit of antichrist is real. But the presence of God's Spirit residing in the hearts of believers is also real and HE will prevail in His children!

- The Spirit of God residing in you is greater or stronger than the devil inspired spirits who are roaming loose in this world! Remember, the eternal God, the Holy Spirit, resides in you!

- Who can be stronger or wiser than He? Think about who He is up against? These other voices, spirits, are "of" or "out from" the world.

- Their frame of reference is from this planet and their own experience upon it in a lifetime!

- They may believe that they are free, but they are trapped in time, trapped by their environment and the influences that move them to and fro intellectually.

- Whenever they speak, because they speak the world's language, the world grants them an audience and gives them a warm reception! Don't think that this was lost on the Ephesians.

- "If God's word is true, why does it not prevail, as our spirits prevail in our hearts? Why does the world seem deaf to the truth that we know to be victorious?" John answers that here.

- The antichrist spirit resonates powerfully with the world because that is it's home!

- The world revels in anything that lessens Christ's character, demands, laws and strictures. It shouldn't be surprising then that the world doesn't give Christ's message the same reception!

- There will be those that God is working upon who are in the world. They will give God's message and people an audience, but a person who is resisting God will not be willing to hear.

- How can one know the spirit of truth versus the spirit of error? Look and see who is willing to listen! If a godless person receives the message with gladness, it's error!

- If a godly person receives the message with thoughtfulness and a sorrowful heart to repent, a need to conform themselves to that which they have just heard, it's the spirit of truth!

- When God is "in" a ministry, there will be an accurate proclamation regarding "The Person Of Christ." John moves to his second point.

- When God is "in" a ministry there will be a "Priority On Christian Love!" Verse 7.

• I John 4:7,8 : "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love." : Who can read these verses and not think of the children's song that was so prevalent in the early 80's! "Beloved, let us love one another."

- An accurate reading of verse 7 would sound like this: "let us continually be loving toward each other!" That should be our desire and expectation.

- We should expect to be conduits through which Christ's love flows and we should anticipate finding love from God's people towards us! This love originates in God and it is present in us!

- When we love others in the same way that He loves us, it's a sure giveaway that we are His!

- We have been born again and can be assured that we have come to know God experientially. The opposite is true for the one who does not or will not love.

- They cannot make the same claim for God is love! This doesn't mean that this is all that He is. Many make the mistake of looking at this verse and relegating God to being "only love."

- John's point in this context is that the first characteristic that shows through toward people is love. Consequently, that characteristic should be the lead characteristic in our lives toward people!

- We can't claim to know Him if it is not! A loveless Christian is an oxymoron, a contradiction in terms! Where Jesus is King, love is the rule! What kind of love should be seen? Verse 9.

• I John 4:9-11 : "In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." : This is how God make His love clear toward His people. Does this sound familiar to you? God has sent His only begotten Son into the world! God loved us and God sent His Son!

- Jesus is His only "begotten," a word we examined when we looked at John 1. The word is "monogenes." It refers to sharing the same genes!

- The Son and the Father are D.N.A matches for one another! Jesus, a completely unique, yet wholly divine being, the Son of God, was sent on His Father's rescue mission.

- Jesus has saved us from our death sentence and has brought us into life that is lived through Him! All of our love, our life and our purpose is found in Him! He is our Morning and North Star.

- He is the center of our being! We find our purpose and the meaning of love in Him!

- In fact, as Christians, we didn't know what love was until we discovered what He revealed! It was a love that didn't wait for us to love Him!

- He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins WELL BEFORE we ever knew Him! Before we uttered His Name, He had already secured the basis for our salvation.

- I won't belabor the point here, as we have already taken a good look at the word "propitiation." To be succinct, Jesus Christ satisfied God's justice, appeased God's wrath against us!

- Jesus is the merciful covering that stands forever in the sight of God! God's love in this respect, far exceeds the measure of our sins!

- He made a decision to show His love for us before we ever thought to reciprocate!

- God did not love us when we gained a certain knowledge or grew to some level of maturity.

- He did all this for us while we were worthless castoffs, powerless to effect our own destiny! Do you see the example? How instructive is this with regard to the way that we love our brothers?

- Do we need to wait for them to be agreeable to us? Should we withhold our love until they deserve it? If that is our heart, we do not know anything about God's love for us!

- The Gnostics built their ministry on knowledge and acceptance of people who had "buy in" and who had reached certain levels! Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up!

- This is why God has put the priority upon His own love! What does that produce? Verse 12.

• I John 4:12-14 : "No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. " : There isn't a person who has ever looked upon God the Father with their eyes.

- John uses the word that gives us our word "theater." God has not allowed Himself to be on display before men. How does the world then comprehend Him? How do they know He is real?

- When we love each other without regard to anyone "deserving" to be loved, that tangible love of God is settled in us, giving the world it's best view of God's reality!

- When we love one another, God's reality is on display for the world to see! God's love practiced among a diverse people has reached it's intended goal in us!

- This indiscriminate love for God's people gives proof to the truth that we abide with God and that He abides in us! His Spirit give us assurance of that truth. His presence is undeniable!

- Nobody has seen God, but we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world! Believers have looked upon the theater of God's revelation.

- John stands with all of the Apostles to affirm legally that the Father has indeed provided His Son as our Savior, as well as those from any point on the compass!

- Whether they lived in Jerusalem, Rome, or any other far off distant land, Jesus is the same worthy Savior of this world! John had seen Christian love everywhere He was named! Verse 15.

• I John 4:15,16 : "Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him." : The person that agrees with God regarding the deity of Jesus Christ has an intimate and true relationship with God! The Gnostics did NOT teach that Jesus was God.

- In their poor theology, at BEST, Jesus became like God, which isn't even close!

- God's Apostles taught that God came down to Earth and put human flesh over His divine soul. They experienced Him and had come to trust in that love that Jesus embodied and exemplified!

- The ones that settled into that love, have a close, eternal communion.

- A God inspired ministry proclaims an accurate portrait of the "Person Of Christ." It will be grounded by a "Priority Of Love." Finally, it will be absent of the "Presence Of Fear!" Verse 17.

• I John 4:17-19 : "Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness in the day of judgment; because as He is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us." : The love that we share in God is present wherever believers fellowship on earth, but it will reach it's full potential in the day of judgment.

- When something is "perfected," the idea is that it has reached the goal or end. God's love allows us to be unafraid on the day of judgment. How is that possible?

- Because our lives are conformed to the likeness of Jesus! Think about what God sees.

- We love God, hate sin and are committed to loving our brothers and sisters in the faith! That is what Jesus died to make out of us, so there isn't any fear of judgment in a Christian's life.

- Completed love drives out, throws out fear. Fear of the judgment is born out of an anticipation of penal correction. This is the exact emotional point that religions play upon!

- "One day, you will be judged and you will have to show some point of worth to God! Here is what you must do." Christianity alone repudiates this idea!

- Christians won't even stand before God at the White Throne Judgment! Our sins have been judged and our destinies have already been determined.

- The only Judgment seat that Christians will stand before, is the one in which rewards will be bestowed! That day will be a day of joy and gladness. We'll have crowns to cast at our Savior!

- Those that are fearful prove that they have not received the full and complete measure of God's love. We love Him, not out of fear, but because His love was first shown to us! Verse 20.

• I John 4:20,21 : "If someone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also." : Please listen carefully because there are many today who have said this very thing. They say clearly that they love God!

- Yet, when you ask them where they go to church, they'll, in a much quieter way, decry any "human institution." They won't submit to any "human teacher."

- All that is in the church are "hypocrites" so why should they join themselves to a fellowship?

- The reason is that YOU are a hypocrite! That's why you need Jesus and His people!

- To say that you love God, but you are practically hating those that claim the same, either through passive or aggressive means, makes you a liar! You are deceiving yourself!

- That sort of person SHOULD BE AFRAID that their claim to love God is untrue and that they are in fact, unredeemed!

- Love for your brother that you have seen, proves that you love the God that you have not seen! This isn't an option. This is a commandment!

- Hear it again and keep it in the forefront of your mind: He who loves God MUST love his brother also!

Conclusion
- As you walk in this world, know that you will have to be discerning. You will have to continually be on guard against deception and continually weigh whether something is of God.

- Begin your examination here: What does this spirit say about the "Person Of Christ?" Is He completely divine and simultaneously, completely human?

- Second, is there a "Priority On Love?" Are there invitations to fellowship for all? Are all equally welcomed regardless of their knowledge or maturity levels?

- Finally, is there a "Presence Of Fear?" Are people teaching you that you must achieve things for God or be something great for Christ to receive you?

- Are you stressed by some level of performance that you fear you will not live up to? These are marks of a false spirit that should be avoided at all costs!

- Jesus, the God Man, revealed His love to you and I before we even knew His Name. He shed His blood upon the cross to shed His love upon our hearts, that we might not be afraid, but confident!

- That is the voice that is worth listening to! That is the spirit of truth!