We continue this morning with our study in 1 John, chapter 3, verse 24, through chapter 4, verse 6. If you were here last week, you would know that John pointed to the characteristic of love as a demonstration of our belonging to God. Yet, John understands that if something walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it may simply be a child getting ready for trick or treat.
In other words, similarity on the outside does not guarantee authenticity on the inside. So, John pauses between his encouragement for the child of God to love, and takes seven verses to talk about how we can discern an authentic child of God or Christian on the inside.
Last week, someone came up to ask me after the worship service, "How can you tell if someone is really a child of God?" She pointed out that on the surface Judas Iscariot appeared to be a Christian until he betrayed Jesus Christ. I explained that just because Judas Iscariot physically accompanied Jesus doesn’t make him a Christian anymore than a person who sleeps next to his car in the garage make him a car.
So what does define a child of God or a Christian?
A group of college students decided to go to Las Vegas for Spring Break. One boy brought a Bible with him. His friends asked, "What’s with the Bible, Rob?"
Rob replied, "Well, I hear the sights are great and the adult entertainment is abundant. If that’s true, then I might want to stay through the weekend and go to church there."
What defines a Christian? A person who carries a Bible? A person who goes to church? A person who gives thanks before a meal? Is a Christian a person who meditates or one who prays eloquent prayer? Does he do compassionate acts now and then? Do these outward appearances define a person who has true peace with God?
Let’s look together from what John writes.
John tells us this morning that the Spirit of God defines our relationship with God. We read this in 1 John 3:24 - 4:3. John is saying four things in these four verses.
First, John is saying that the person who has the Spirit of God is in a right relationship with God, verse 24 of chapter 3.
Second, John is saying that the Spirit of God in a person will cause a person to believe that Jesus is the Christ, that is God’s Chosen One to pay for the sins of mankind in order to restore us to God Himself. We see this in verse 2.
Third, John is saying that the Spirit of God in a person will also cause the person to believe that Jesus is God come in the flesh, or God taking on human form. You see, if Jesus were merely a man or an angel, the death of one man or one angel would not be sufficient to pay for the wrongs of all mankind? We see this in verse 2.
Fourth, John is saying that if a person does not believe that Jesus is God come in the flesh to pay for the sins of the world, then that person does not have a right relationship with God. We see this in verse 3.
Whether you believe or not that Jesus’ death on the cross can pay for your sins to have a right relationship with God, this is my question to you: Isn’t the idea quite wild and unbelievable - that God would come as a man to die for our sins?
If it is such a crazy idea, why would over a billion people in the world today trust Jesus to clean up the mess we’ve made of our own lives and to restore us to our Creator? But if this is not true, then this is one of the biggest lies perpetrated on mankind.
You see, all other religions in the world require obedience to the commands from their gods, but followers of Jesus recognize we are like little children with dirty hands trying to clean ourselves, and our efforts simply make matters worse. Nothing we do is sufficient to make things right with God, so God took human form to pay the price for human sin.
As a campus minister, a youth worker and now a pastor, I’ve seen many people come to trust Jesus to be God, who came in human form, and to die on the cross to be payment for their sins, so that they can have a right relationship with God. I remember teaching from the Bible at a snow trip in Tahoe, where two Buddhist engineer students, who were best friends, sat and listened. One eventually trusted in Jesus Christ; the other didn’t. What’s the difference?
John would say, "The difference is the Spirit of God."
I remember talking to another student and trying very hard to convince him of the truth of Jesus Christ, but he would not believe. Six months later, he came and told me he believed. I questioned him, "What made you believe?"
He couldn’t give me an answer. I tried to help him pinpoint an occurrence, a discovery or something, but he couldn’t identify the cause.
John would say, "The cause is the Spirit of God."
I remember taking a few youth to the Billy Graham Crusade. Two teenage girls spent the entire time talking about school and boys. One was already a Christian and the other was not yet. At the end of the message, Billy Graham asked people to come forward if they placed their trust in Jesus Christ, and the girl who was not yet a Christian wanted to go forward.
You need to know, I didn’t permit the girl to go forward, because I thought she only wanted to join the crowd. She insisted, and I refused to let her. I told her she wasn’t even listening to what Billy Graham was saying and that she was only doing this because hundreds of other people were doing it. She assured me that was not the case, and she again insisted to go forward as a sign that she now trusts in Jesus to make right her relationship with God.
Within two years, she brought her parents to church also, and they believed Jesus.
John would say, "It’s the Spirit of God, not Billy Graham."
You need to know, I’m a bit embarrassed to tell you why I first trusted in Jesus Christ to be the only way for me to have a right relationship with God. You see, the people at church told me that if I died without a right relationship with God, I would end up in hell because my sins separate me from God. And I knew my life was not right with God even before I ever cracked open the Bible.
But that’s been fifteen years ago. Since that time, I’ve come to know a reasonable amount of supporting data for believing in Jesus as the Christ and God in human form. No one with any intelligence would doubt the historical existence of Jesus, but most would argue about his resurrection from the dead. I know the arguments against His resurrection, and they are poor arguments.
Over the years, I’ve also familiarized myself with prophetic, historical, scientific, documentary, psychological, medical and circumstantial evidences for the person and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And knowing all this, I sometimes wonder why anyone would trust in Jesus without having gathered as much information as I have.
And John would say, "It’s not information, Dana; it’s the Spirit of God."
Folks who don’t have the Spirit of God will not confess the truth about Jesus. Ask anyone on the street about Jesus, and unless the Spirit of God is working in him, he will tell you that Jesus was a good moral teacher or a religious leader.
Ask a Mormon, and she will tell you that Jesus was a man who evolved into a god, and he came to show us how we too can become gods someday. Ask a Christian Scientist, which is the name of a cult, not a scientist who is a Christian, and he would tell you that Jesus was born as a man and died as a man. But at his baptism, God’s Spirit made him temporarily more than a man. Ask the Jehovah’s Witnesses who comes to your door, and they will tell you that Jesus was not God but the first created creature. Ask a Muslim, and he will tell you that Jesus was only a human prophet.
John would say, "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. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God (1 John 4:1-2)."
John not only tells us this morning that the Spirit of God defines our relationship with God, but that the Spirit of God defines the truths we will receive as from God. We read this in 1 John 4:4-6.
A story is told of Benjamin Franklin losing debate after debate with a particular man. Franklin decided on a plan to win his next debate. He put his argument on the printing press that was formatted like a page from the Bible. He printed his idea and brought it with him to meet his rival.
As he and the man got into a heated discussion, and Franklin was losing again, he pulled out the page he printed and pointed to it saying, "You see, what I’ve been saying is in the Bible." The man, for the first time, admitted defeat.
Would you know the difference between God’s truth and man’s ideas if you heard them? I know many people who have the Spirit of God but have no clue as to what the Bible says, and the Bible is the Word of God.
John tells us that if we have the Spirit of God in us, we can tell whether a certain viewpoint is from God or from the world. While John does not point out in this morning’s text how the Spirit of God is involved, John has recorded the explanation from Jesus in John 14:25-26, "All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you."
When I was in college, one of my roommates wanted to serve on leadership in our fellowship. I asked him if he read the Bible much. He said he didn’t, but he said he prayed a lot. I asked him, "Where did you get the idea that God even listens to your prayer? Or how would you know that what you were hearing is not your own self-talk or what you saw on television recently?" If we don’t know the written Word of God, it’s unlikely we would recognize the spoken word from the Spirit of God.
When I took English literature at Lowell High School, the teacher made us memorize Romeo and Juliet. On the exam, we would be given certain lines and asked to match the line with the character who spoke the line. We could only do this if we became very familiar with the play and the characters.
The more we are familiar with the written Word of God, the more we will recognize the guidance from the Spirit of God. And John would say, "This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood (1 John 4:6)."
Let me close with the alternative to listening to the Spirit of God, what John calls "the viewpoint of the world." This poem from Steve Turner, an English journalist, captures the modern mind concisely. I came across this poem in Ravi Zacharias’ book, Can Man Live without God: (This is a good representation of the world’s viewpoint)
We believe in Marxfruedanddarwin.
We believe everything is OK as long as you don’t hurt anyone,
To the best of your definition of hurt, and to the best of your knowledge.
We believe in sex before, during and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy’s OK.
We believe that taboos are taboo.
We believe that everything’s getting better despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated and you can prove anything with evidence.
We believe there’s something in horoscopes, UFO’s and bent spoons;
Jesus was a good man just like Buddha, Mohammed, and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher although we think His good morals were bad.
We believe that all religions are basically the same -
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of creation, sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.
We believe that after death comes the Nothing
Because when you ask the dead what happens they say nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied, then it’s compulsory heaven for all
Excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin, and Genghis Khan.
We believe in Masters and Johnson.
What’s selected is average.
What’s average is normal.
What’s normal is good.
We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors
and the Russians would be sure to follow.
We believe that man is essentially good.
It’s only his behavior that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions.
Conditions are the fault of society.
We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust.
History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth that there is not absolute truth.
We believe in the rejection of creeds, and the flowering of individual thoughts.
This is the viewpoint of the world, seen on television, at the movies and heard as you talk with your neighbors, co-workers and friends. It’s not wonder that John had to pause in between his encouragement for us to love one another, and remind us that without the Spirit of God, love can degenerate to any flowering thoughts of individuals.
