Today, we come to the 4th sermon in our Walking with Jesus series. As we read through the book of 1 John, we see that God is not only preparing us for what we need for the present but also for the future.
1 John 4:1-21
1 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. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3 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. 4 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. 5 They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. 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 and the spirit of error.
7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
13 By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 17 By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because he first loved us. 20 If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
In this chapter, we can see that John was talking about two things:
? Discerning the Source of Spirituality
? Discerning the Source of Love
Discerning the Source of Spirituality
In verse 1, John wrote,
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.
John is saying there are and will be a lot of deep fakes in the world. Not everything that claims to be spiritual is genuinely spiritual. Not every definition of love is accurate, not accurate according to the One and only true God who is love. The big question is how will we be able to distinguish between what’s real and what’s fake? How do we know if something is from God or not?
Just this last week, scammers created two fake Instagram accounts copying my Instagram page and pictures. I began to get messages from my friends asking me if I created a new account. A few friends realized right away that it was fake because they said, “this doesn’t sound like you.” So what did I do? I went on Facebook to warn my friends about these scammers and within seconds I received a lot of messages from concerned scammers who really wanted to help me deal with these other scammers by ensuring my information was safe. I went on to warn people privately and some admitted to falling for it.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of deep fakes in the world of Christianity. John was not just writing to the leaders of the church but the whole Christian community to warn them about false prophets who were in a sense the “deepfakes” of that time. Like deepfakes today, these false prophets included truth in what they were teaching, but created out-of-context, partial truths in order to deceive people for their own advantage. These people sounded credible and looked the part with such subtle differences that people didn’t discern truth from almost-truths.
What John is teaching us is that we can’t afford to be spiritually naive because if we are, we will be susceptible to deception. We have the responsibility to discern what is true spirituality and what is not. We need to put what people say or teach about the Word of God to the “test.” This carries the idea of putting something to rigorous examination to discover its genuineness.” It means that each of us have the responsibility to become students of the Word of God. When we hear a preacher or teacher, we need to weigh what we are being taught against what the Bible says. This is not saying to be cynical towards a pastor or Bible teacher. John isn’t saying don’t believe anything, just don’t believe everything.
So how can we discern spirits? John said,
By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God,
The first way we can discern genuine spirituality is by what someone is teaching about Jesus. For example, is the character of Jesus being taught according to the Scriptures? These spirits or false prophets John was talking about, denied the incarnation of God, manipulated, and twisted the Scriptures, and denied the authority of the apostles’ teaching. They denied Jesus’ divinity and His perfect humanity. We talked about this gnostic teaching a few weeks ago. In review, Why is it important to believe in Christ’s perfect divinity and humanity?
If we deny Jesus divinity we wouldn’t understand the depth of God’s personal love for His creation. He would not be Emmanuel - God with us. If we deny His perfect humanity, then he is just another human being, even if He is remarkable, He is still limited, He has his own issues and can’t take my sin away, can’t represent me or take my place on the cross. There is no guarantee that my sin is forgiven, no hope of the resurrection and our faith is worthless (1 Cor 15:17).
V. 4 says,
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.
God is not only greater than our vacillating heart, He who is in us (who abides in us) is greater than the deceptive, false prophets, greater than the devil who rules this world system. God is greater than our sin, our failures, our past, and regrets. The world and its system constantly bids us to follow, wants to fulfill our desires for love, security, peace without God. Is the world system strong? Yes, but our God is infinitely stronger. Are false prophets wise? Yes, but our God is infinitely wiser. Is Satan powerful? Yes, but our God is all powerful. And this One who is infinitely stronger, wiser, and greater now and forever “is in you.” John is not denying that some will slip back or fall into temptation for a season, but his confidence is not grounded in the reader having the ability to overcome the world. They will only prevail, “because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” True spirituality doesn’t mean you won’t fail or fall but it means you are abiding in God, it means stepping into the winner’s circle with God.
The winner’s circle is something that the competitors enter into at the end of a race to receive their reward, i.e., the Daytona 500, Kentucky Derby, etc. Abiding in the Greek means to “step into the winner’s circle” with the One who has already won the victory. And when we do God helps us to overcome.
I had a conversation with a young man this week. I’ve known him for many years and he went to another country to study and work. This past year has been a very tough one for him. His girlfriend recently broke up with him and started dating his best friend and they are all in the same church. He has to serve with this guy on a team and see him with his ex-girlfriend every Sunday. On top of this, he just lost his job because the company he worked for had layoffs. He was telling me about all these things that devastated his life this year but he also told me that he decided to stay where God has him and work through his hurts, his sadness, his anger, and depression with God. He is staying in the winner’s circle and God is the one helping him to overcome. God is teaching him what it means to forgive, to love, and to persevere in difficult times. At the age of 22 he is making mature decisions and is bearing fruit. He realized that he has gained much more with God than anything he’s lost.
John gives us another way of discerning spirits.
Vv. 5 & 6
They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. 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.
What do you think John is trying to teach us as the church in these verses? Why is it sometimes hard to discern spirits?
He is referring to the false prophets who are from the world - the Kosmos, whose source of moral/ethical standards comes from the world, from the prince and power of the air who is directly opposed to God. The world welcomes this message because it’s just what they want to hear but their teaching is in direct contrast with the teaching of the Apostles whose source of life and truth is God.
How can we discern the Spirit of Truth?
The Spirit of Truth always brings us back to the Savior, He always aligns us with the Word. “Error” means to wander, to wander away from truth - so a spirit of error will take us far from truth or the reality of who God is. False prophets and those who listen to their teachings come to a place where they don’t want to hear the truth anymore and will want to take others with them. It’s a spirit of deception. Again and again, their error comes back to what they think and believe about Jesus. This departure from the truth usually happens in subtle increments.
There is a continental divide in Colorado called, “The Loveland Pass.” On this divide, the rain falls just a few inches from each other but on one side it flows into the Atlantic and the other into the Pacific Ocean. John is saying if we miss God’s truth even by a little, we can end up thousands of miles away from where we expected to be. This is why discerning the source of people’s spirituality, including our own is vital. What else is vital?
2. Discerning the Source of Love
In the 21 verses of this chapter of 1 John 4 the word “love” or form of it is mentioned 27 times. Why do you think John mentions the word love so many times in this short chapter? Do you think this is relevant today and if so, why? Vs. 7 says,
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
Love is fundamental to who God is. Since the source of true love comes from God, anyone who is really born of God will love - this will be their propensity. They will love like God loves and they will love the things of God. They will love His Word and His family. We can only love because God first loved us. From vv. 7-21 John wants the readers to reflect on the source and effect of authentic love because you can’t separate who God is from His love.
Why do you think John keeps talking about the importance of discerning the source of love? Because it is easy to misunderstand God’s love. Some think that anything that I deem as love God is okay with and approves of. This is essentially what our culture believes, that “love is god.” John is teaching us that God who created all that we see knows far more about love than we do and His love is not nebulous but according to the truth. John teaches us that we can discern authentic love because it is a:
1. Costly love. God sent his Son, not a memo or note but His Son in person. Love involves sacrifice - Jesus was willing to sacrifice His life for us. I think of many parents who make sacrifices in order for their children to succeed. They may not feel it is a sacrifice because of how much they love their kids.
2. Initiating love (v. 10). God loved us first even when He had no reason to. Jesus revealed His love toward us when He removed our sin and its offense against God. He revealed love when He took God’s wrath for us. Not because we are lovely but because He is love. V. 19 – we love because He first loved us. We don’t actually say to God, “I love you” but “I love you too.”
3. Assuring love. Because God’s love for us is perfect, we can come to Him without fear, fear of death, judgment, or rejection but with the assurance that I will be with Him forever. Jesus has so thoroughly dealt with my sins - they are all paid for. His perfect love casts out fear.
4. Personal love. V. 11 says, If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
John is saying that because God showed us so much love, we are to put His love into practice by loving each other. The recipients of our love extends beyond other believers and includes the world for which Jesus died. God’s love gives hope to all who respond to the gospel message.
“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”
God wants us to understand just how much He loves us. No one has ever sinned himself or herself beyond the love of God. There is nothing you can do to make God love you any more than He loves you right now. There is nothing you can do to make God love you any less than He loves you right now.
So practically speaking What do you think it means to love each other as God loved us?
God’s love is expressed in the positive and negative sense in I Corinthians 13. It is kind, patient, not envious, jealous, boastful, rude, or selfish and not easily angered. Forgiving, pure, full of truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things. The fruit reveals the root.
Why do we need to love according to God’s definition of love and not just according to our own or someone else’s definition of love?
Because:
No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
God is Spirit, He is Love and Light. The invisible God is manifested when God’s people reflect His love to one another. John said that if we love then God dwells or abides among us - in the midst of his people. The fullness of God’s love is experienced in fellowship. When we love each other and this world as God loved us then His love is perfected in us. The word perfected means it has reached His desired end which actualizes God’s love, making Him more visible and tangible. Just as light radiates from the sun, love radiates from God’s very nature.
The only way we can love with God’s love is if we are abiding in Him. The secret of abiding is obeying. And the secret of obeying is loving. Love doesn’t measure sacrifice. Love that calculates is not true love. This is how we discern the source of people’s spirit and love and our own spirit and love. The discernment comes when we are abiding in God’s truth and love. I have seen this more and more in our church and as we continue to love one another - others will see God.
