Test The Spirit's-Know Love-Fear Not! Series

1 John 4 – Test the Spirit’s! - Know Love! - Fear Not!

Thesis: John gives us three actions that are to be apart of the children of God’s daily lives. Test the Spirit’s, Know Love, and Fear Not.

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Scripture Text: 1 John 4:1-21:

1Dear 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. 2This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God: Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3but 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.

4You, 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. 5They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. 6We 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 recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.

7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

13We know that we live in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. 14And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in him and he in God. 16And 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 him. 17In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. 18There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

19We love because he first loved us. 20If anyone says, “I love God,” yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.

Introduction:

The Apostle John: Biography From Holman Bible Dictionary..

John the Apostle, the son of Zebedee, the brother of James. Harmonizing Matthew 27:56 with Mark 15:40 suggests that John’s mother was Salome. If she was also the sister of Jesus’ mother (John 19:25), then John was Jesus’ first cousin. This string of associations is so conjectural, though, that we cannot be sure of it. Because James is usually mentioned first when the two brothers are identified, some have also conjectured that John was the younger of the two.

The sons of Zebedee were among the first disciples called (Matt. 4:21-22; Mark 1:19-20). They were fishermen on the Sea of Galilee and probably lived in Capernaum. Their father was sufficiently prosperous to have “hired servants” (Mark 1:20), and Luke 5:10 states that James and John were “partners with Simon” Peter.

John is always mentioned in the first four in the lists of the twelve (Matt. 10:2; Mark 3:17; Luke 6:14; Acts 1:13). John is also among the “inner three” who were with Jesus on special occasions in the Synoptic Gospels: the raising of Jairus’ daughter (Mark 5:37), the transfiguration (Mark 9:2), and the Garden of Gethsemane (Mark 14:32-33). Andrew joined these three when they asked Jesus about the signs of the coming destruction of Jerusalem (Mark 13:3).

The sons of Zebedee were given the surname Boanerges, “sons of thunder” (Mark 3:17). When a Samaritan village refused to receive Jesus, they asked, “Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them?” (Luke 9:54). The only words in the Synoptic Gospels attributed specifically to John are: “Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name ... And we forbad him, because he followeth not us” (Mark 9:38; Luke 9:49). On another occasion the two brothers asked to sit in places of honor, on Jesus’ left and right in His glory (Mark 10:35-41; compare Matt. 20:20-24). On each of these occasions Jesus challenged or rebuked John. Luke 22:8, however, identifies Peter and John as the two disciples who were sent to prepare the Passover meal for Jesus and the disciples.