SERMON OUTLINE:
(1). We Have a New Nature (vs 1-8).
(2). We Have a Unique Saviour (vs 9-11).
(3). We Have the Holy Spirit (vs 12-17).
SERMON BODY:
Ill:
• The old preacher had spent 40 years pastoring in the same church;
• And he was highly respected in the community.
• The end of his life was drawing near and as he lay on his death bed;
• He ask for the local banker and the local lawyer to come and spend his last hours with him.
• Both were impressed that with all the people the pastor knew;
• It would be they who would be there with him at the end of his life.
• As they entered his room he motioned for one to sit on his left and one on his right.
• The pastor did not say anything, he just smiled.
• Thirty minutes passed and not a word was spoken.
• Finally the banker leaned forward and ask;
“Pastor, we were wondering what great pearl of wisdom you may want to share with us since you called us here”.
The old preacher looked at him and replied:
"As you know Jesus has been my example all my life…
and since he died between two thieves I decided that’s the way I also wanted to go".
• TRANSITION: Apologies to any bankers or lawyers!
• But that story is amusing because bankers and lawyers these days have a bad reputation.
• Bankers have a reputation for not paying for their own mistakes,
• And they seem to be rewarded very well financially for failure.
• Lawyers are seen as people who charge exorbitant fees for very little work.
• But the despising of lawyers s nothing new.
• i.e. William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2: "The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
• TRANSITION: The apostle John wants Christians to have a specific reputation;
• He wants people to describe followers of Jesus as people of, ‘light, love and truth’.
• These three themes: ‘light, love and truth’.
• Have been interwoven all the way through this small letter.
• i.e. This letter is like a spiral staircase;
• And these same themes arise again and again as you progress through the letter.
Note:
• Not only do the themes reappear but so do the same motives reappear;
• The apostle John gave some clear reasons in chapter 3;
• As to why Christians should be people of obedience;
• He now uses those same reasons/motives here in chapter 4;
• Only this time the theme is ‘love’.
• The reputation he wants the followers of Jesus to have is;
• They have love for one another.
• And the reason we can live like this is threefold.
(1). WE HAVE A NEW NATURE (vs 1-8).
“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 recognise 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 recognise the Spirit[a] of truth and the spirit of falsehood.
7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love”
Ill:
• The 18th century preacher Thomas K. Beecher,
• Used to be very annoyed with the clock in his Church;
• It was habitually too fast or too slow.
• So Beecher hung a notice on the wall above it,
• In large letters the sign read:
• "Don't blame my hands—the trouble lies deeper."
• TRANSITION: The apostle John will remind these Christians;
• To look at a person’s inner workings – their nature;
• In Christ a person’s nature has been changed, is changing and shall be changed!
Ill:
• Has been changed – at conversion we all receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
• He now indwells all believers.
• Is Changing – the old nature & the new nature fight for supremacy in the believer.
• None of us is perfect but as time passes, we should becoming more like Jesus.
• Shall be changed – when Christ shall come or raises the dead;
• We shall be like him and have a new body and a perfect nature.
THE APOSTLE JOHN GIVES A COMMAND (VS 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”.
• That expression ‘spirit’ is not referring to supernatural beings;
• Appearing and disappearing at their meetings.
• The spirit John is talking about here is the nature of a person or group.
• A translation in our vernacular would be “don’t believe everything you hear.”
• John the apostle tells us to; Examine, inspect, scrutinise, check-them-out.
Quote: The Message:
“My dear friends, don't believe everything you hear. Carefully weigh and examine what people tell you. Not everyone who talks about God comes from God. There are a lot of lying preachers loose in the world.”
• Now remember when this letter was written;
• It was written at a time when the Christians did not have a completed New Testament.
• At best they had a few letters to instruct and help them;
• They were limited in their knowledge.
Now into their Churches came visiting people:
• They looked genuine, but they were not;
• They came in with some dodgy theology.
• Theses false teachers were called Gnostics.
• i.e. An ‘Agnostic’ is someone who does not know, they are unsure;
• i.e. A ‘Gnostic’ is someone who claims to know!
• These Gnostics claimed to have a special ‘knowledge’ from God;
• Which gave them a unique insight and therefore you should listen to them!
• They gave the impression and taught that you were a lesser believer than they;
• You were a second-hand Christian because your experience was less than theirs,
• They had something of God that you did not have!
Question:
• Without a New Testament, how did the early church get teaching?
• How did the early Church check out true from false teaching?
Answer:
• In the early days of the Church,
• And this practice still happens today,
• e.g. we invite guest preachers to take some of our services.
• So too in the early days of the Church,
• Itinerant Bible teachers, prophets, & evangelists would move around from place to place;
• Teaching the people of God and building up the Church.
• Unfortunately some false teachers had also got in on the invitations;
• These folks first looked the genuine article but later were revealed as fakes.
• Now the local Church leaders as yet had no New Testament to check them out,
• Often by the time they were discovered ‘found out’ as false;
• The damage had already been done.
• So the apostle John wrote his letter;
• To help Christians hold onto the truth and reject and false teaching.
• It’s worth noting that every one of the writers of the New Testament;
• Warn the church about false teachings.
• And they warn against their doctrine and help us to know how to identify them.
Ill:
• 100 years ago as a beauty therapy;
• Women would rub a lead based potion into their faces;
• They believed it was causing them to be healthy;
• But all the time it was slowly poising them.
• TRANSITION: The same was true for the early Church;
• If they did not recognize what was false teaching.
• They would accept it thinking it was making them spiritually healthy;
• But in reality all it was doing was slowly poisoning them.
The apostle John was determined to keep these Christians strong and healthy;
• So in the next two verses, he will give them some guidance;
• So that they can recognize false teaching and counteract it.
• He gives one positive command and one negative command.
(A). A POSITIVE INSTRUCTION (VERSE 2B):
“This is how you can recognise the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
• In this first letter of John - the false teachers (Gnostics) in the church:
• Where denying the doctrine of the incarnation.
• That is God the Son became a real human being and lived among us.
Ill:
• This truth is brilliantly captured in a single line from Charles Wesley’s carol;
• “Hark the Herald Angels Sing”:
“Veiled in flesh the Godhead see
Hail the incarnate Deity
Pleased as man with man to dwell
Jesus, our Emmanuel”
• This is the great Christian claim that the baby born in Bethlehem;
• Is not only one hundred percent human, but also one hundred percent God!
• Yet, the false teachers taught that Jesus did not come in a flesh and blood body,
• It just appeared that he had a body.
• But really he was just a spirit.
• Now this is such an important teaching because it affects all others.
• ill: stacking bricks into a tower and removing the bottom one. Crash!!!!!!!
Ill:
• This doctrine is so important because:
• If Jesus did not come in real flesh & blood,
• Then on the cross he could not have any blood to shed.
• Therefore the most important Christian doctrine;
• That Jesus Christ shed his blood on the cross for our sins;
• Is by default made null and void!
• If you take away His humanity,
• Then you take away the blood sacrifice that he made to purchase our salvation.
• That undermines and contradicts what the apostle John has already taught.
• i.e. chapter 1 verse 7: “the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”
• i.e. chapter 4 verse 10b:
• “God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins
Note:
• John was not saying that the only way to tell whether a teaching is true of not;
• Is by their understanding of the incarnation of Jesus Christ:
• But he is saying that often, when they get this bit wrong;
• Then the rest of their teaching is often wrong as well!
Ill:
• Think of how true that is today.
• For example Jehovah Witnesses get the incarnation wrong;
• In his writings Charles Taze Russell, the founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses,
• Boldly attacked the doctrine of the incarnation of Christ.
• To them Jesus Christ was a created angel called Michael (a mini god);
• Who became a human being (but was not the Son of God and not divine),
• You can read this often in their Watchtower literature or if you talk with them.
• Now because they are wrong on the incarnation;
• ill: stacking bricks into a tower and removing the bottom one. Crash!!!!!!!
• We should not be surprised they are also wrong on the doctrine of the atonement,
• They teach salvation is the death of Christ plus a person’s good works.
• And that teaching is clearly false.
• Because the New Testament makes it very clear (Ephesians chapter 2 verses 8-9):
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.”
• We are not saved by good works;
• But we are saved to do good works.
• Quote: old hymn:
“I would not work my soul to save;
For that my Lord has done;
But I would work like any slave;
For love of God's Dear Son.”
(B). A NEGATIVE INSTRUCTION (VS 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.”
Ill;
• If you take a pig from his mud-wallow in the farm yard,
• Wash him, sprinkle on a little perfume, tie a pink bow about his neck.
• Now as soon as you let him loose,
• That pig will quickly go back to wallowing in the mud.
• Because although you've changed his looks,
• You've not altered his nature. He is still a pig!
• TRANSITION: The nature of these Gnostics was wrong, it was false;
• Therefore it is anti or against Christ.
• The apostle John tells us clearly here;
• That false teaching is not of God, it originates from another source.
• John then goes on to qualify this statement;
• And in doing so reveals the source of this false teaching.
• These teachings are in the same spirit as the Antichrist,
• Who John says is already at work.
(2). WE HAVE A UNIQUE SAVIOUR (vs 9-11).
“This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.”
The cross is a plus sign:
• It provides reconciliation between sinful people and a holy God;
• But it also provides reconciliation between Christian and Christian.
• If two Christians are not loving one another;
• They have taken their eye off the cross!
Note:
• There is a difference between reconciliation and forgiveness.
• In the cross, Jesus provided for the forgiveness of everyone.
• But not everyone will be reconciled with Him!
• They are not reconciled because they will not seek to be reconciled with Him.
Ill:
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian,
• During WW2 he was an anti-Nazi dissident.
• He was arrested in April 1943 by the Gestapo and imprisoned at Tegel prison;
• He was executed by hanging on 9th April 1945.
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer forgave his Nazi guards, but he was never reconciled with them.
• Because those guards did not want or seek any reconciliation.
• TRANSITION: The apostle John reminds that reconciliation requires action!
• Verse 9 tells us that God took the initiative, he acted towards us;
• He acted to save a lost world.
• When we could not be bothered with him (vs 10);
• He was bothered with us – now that is true love!
• Verse 11 reminds us that ‘love’ is God’s nature;
• Therefore that love should be, it must be evident in his children – you & me!
Ill:
• On a wall near the main entrance to the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas,
• Is a portrait with the following inscription:
“James Butler Bonham—no picture of him exists. This portrait is of his nephew, Major James Bonham, deceased, who greatly resembled his uncle. It is placed here by the family that people may know the appearance of the man who died for freedom.”
• TRANSITION: No literal portrait of Jesus Christ exists either.
• But the likeness of the Son who makes us free;
• Must be seen in the lives of His true followers.
• ‘God is love’ and that love must be seen in his people;
• It is God’s nature and it is our new nature in Christ!
(3). WE HAVE THE HOLY SPIRIT (vs 12-17).
“No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
13 This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world. 15 If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God. 16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them. 17 This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: in this world we are like Jesus.”
The apostle John reminds his readers that people cannot see God;
• He is invisible, he is Spirit, he does not have a physical body.
• But people can see God in his people, his children.
Ill:
“The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John
Are read by more than a few,
But the one that is most read and commented on
Is the gospel according to you.
You are writing a gospel, a chapter each day
By the things that you do and the words that you say,
Men read what you write, whether faithless or true
Say, what is the gospel according to you?
Do men read His truth and His love in your life,
Or has yours been too full of malice and strife?
Does your life speak of evil, or does it ring true?
Say, what is the gospel according to you?”
• God is invisible, so verse 12 tells us;
• But people can see God in his people, his children.
This love is not to be an outward show, an act or something we work up:
• It is the result of knowing Christ,
• It is the result of obeying Christ and living in Christ!
Ill:
• A preacher was impressing upon his congregation;
• The difference between being ordered to love God’s word and actually doing it.
• He said suppose the government introduce a new law;
• Stating a woman must love and take care of her child.
• A mum at home suddenly hears a loud knocking on the door;
• She opens it and it is a government inspector.
• The inspector says “Are you loving and taking care of your baby?
• The Law says you have to.”
• The mother, would probably look him in the eye and firmly reply,
• “I don’t need a law to make me love and take care of my baby.”
• Why? Because it is natural for her to love her baby!
• She feeds him, holds him, changes him, cuddles him, all because she loves him.
• TRANSITION: In the same way:
• It should be a natural thing for the Christian to love other people;
Love is our responsibility:
• If we claim to know God we can’t do anything but love, because God is love.
• So important is this truth that John repeats this command in verses 7&11:
• Only in this verse 11 he gives it yet another spin;
• This time he presents it as a privilege as well as a responsibility:
• "Since God so loved us, we ought to love one another".
• Once we realise what God did for us through Christ on the cross,
• Our normal response ought to be a deeper love towards Him;
• And a deeper desire to love one another.
• The more we understand the meaning of the Cross,
• The greater will be our love for Christ and the- greater our concern for one another.
Quote: In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote:
• "Do not waste your time bothering whether you 'love' your neighbour act as if you did.
• As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets.
• When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.
• If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more.
• If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less."
Notice: the repetition of one particular word in these few verses:
• The little word ‘lives’ or ‘abide’ or ‘dwell’.
• It is used six times in these four verses (vs 12-16).
• This is the key to finding the desire and the power to love one another;
• We need to do it in the strength and with the enabling of God’s Holy Spirit!
Ill:
• Cars run on the storage principle:
• Fuel is stored in the vehicle and then it runs out as the vehicle is driven.
• Electric trains run on the contact principle:
• They maintain contact with the source of power.
• TRANSITION: Having the Holy Spirit is the contact principle.
• That is why je uses that little word ‘lives’ or ‘abide’ or ‘dwell’.
• Six times in these four verses (vs 12-16).
• This is the key to finding the desire and knowing the power to love one another;
• We need to do it in the strength and with the enabling of God’s Holy Spirit!
Prayer (Ephesians chapter 3 verses 16-19):
"I Pray that out of His glorious riches
He may strengthen you with power
through His Spirit in your inner being,
so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
And I pray that you,
being rooted and established in love,
may have power, together with all the saints,
to grasp how wide and long and high and deep
is the love of Christ,
and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-
that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."
Amen!
SERMON AUDIO:
https://surf.pxwave.com/wl/?id=GNLfsa9psLgMMfqfhCTTrSBPsuxH3eTp
