1 John 4:1-6 The Spirit of the Age

Welcome to Recast Church in Madawan, Michigan, where we are growing in faith, community, and service. This is a message from the series called In the Light, out of the book of 1 John, by Pastor Don Filsack.

If you'd like more information about our church, please visit us on the web at www .recastchurch .com. Here's Pastor Don.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Recast Church. We're gonna go ahead and get started here. I'd love to hear the conversations, but now I'm trying to kill them and get you to your seats, so I'm Don Filsack.

I'm the lead pastor here and welcome. I'm glad that you're here. I hope that part of your intention of being here this morning is to grow in faith and we talk often here about growing in faith, growing in community, growing in service.

That component of growing in faith is one of the primary reasons we get together on Sunday morning, that we actually get an opportunity to take in God's Word, believe it is true, and then go out in our lives and actually live it.

So we're here together at the start of the week for the purpose of worshiping God, certainly, connecting with each other, certainly, but that component of growing in faith is primary to what we're trying to accomplish this morning, and I hope that you've come with that intention.

Be sure to fill out connection cards. Turn those in in the black box back there. Go ahead and wave, Jay, right behind you is the black box right there. You can turn any connection cards that you would fill in.

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Testing the Spirits in a Dangerous Spiritual Climate

We're going to be in 1 John chapter 4 this morning, and I just kind of want to, what I like to do is introduce the message so that we are kind of getting the juices flowing in our brains, thinking about what the text is about, and then read it and then go to worship and then really dive in after that.

But the fact of the matter is I really think that we live in a time and an era that's flipped on its head regarding skepticism. We tend to be skeptical about those things, most established and less skeptical of things rooted in emotions.

So if somebody comes to us and kind of tells us how they're feeling, well, we're not going to be skeptical about that. But we often turn things on their head. We live in an era where the ancient time-tested word of God is held under scrutiny.

Would you agree with me on that? So the word of God is held under scrutiny, but really any hack who has a blog that writes halfway decent in a semi-intellectual way, we hold up as an authority, right?

I mean, how many of you ever... I mean, we're teaching our kids how to cite sources from the internet, right? And do we sometimes joke? How many of you have ever kind of told a joke or been joking about, well, I heard it on the internet, so it must be true?

And yet, raise your hand. I want you to legitimately raise your hand if you have ever looked up the definition of a word online. Okay, so we'll joke. Are you seeing how we can be inconsistent about this?

We joke, oh, I heard it on the internet, so it must be true. But then we go look things up on the internet to find out what's true. So do we have a little bit skewed? Would you guys agree with me that sometimes we buy into this notion kind of going back and forth of what is and what isn't true?

And where do we hold our skepticism? Our day and age has an intense, I would say, intense revulsion towards established religious institutions.

Would you agree with that?

Do you think that that's true? We live in a day and an age that is opposed to religious institutions and kind of has, well, they must have it out for us or they must be tricking us or deceiving us or something.

And yet we're also equally a culture that turns to Wikipedia to gain knowledge. And we tend to think that groupthink is the best way to accomplish things. But in our text this morning, John is going to suggest that a level of skepticism is actually helpful in the Christian life, that there's a healthy dose of testing the teaching that's around us, of actually observing it and kind of running it through the ringer of some tests to see whether or not it's accurate.

Where is it coming from? What is the source of any teaching? Do you find yourself thinking on that level? Sitting in a class, listening to your teacher, do you think, what's the source of their, where are they getting this from?

When you're listening to a preacher, like you are right now, where does he get this from? What is the angle that this is coming at me from? And John is saying that some sense of that is good, of thinking those things through at that level.

We ought to test the spirits, is what John is going to call it. And Christians tend to be both gullible and skeptical both, and sometimes about the wrong thing. Sometimes we're gullible about things we should be skeptical of, and sometimes we're skeptical of things that we should be rock solid about.

But John is going to suggest some criteria for testing spiritual teaching. And as the pastor of a church that had passed through the fires of a theological brouhaha, his church had been broken up by a group of people who ultimately said, Jesus isn't the Christ.

And so there was a theological issue at play in his church that ended up dividing people and causing all kinds of problems. And so he's the pastor of this church writing to them to be discerning about what is and isn't theologically sound teaching.

Can you understand why he as a person, as a pastor, might be motivated that the remnant of his congregation has some way to understand what is good sound teaching and what isn't? His church has been divided by false teaching and by error.

And so that's what's going to motivate him. So I want you to open your Bibles to 1 John 4. The first six verses is what we're going to be looking at, page 878 in the Bible in the seat back in front of you.

So if you turn to 878, and I'm just going to go over to 879. And again, if you don't own a copy of the Word of God, we ask that you please take that one with you. We want everybody to have a copy of the Bible that they can read at home.

Put it on your nightstand, read it, have it there. We've got a box full of Bibles to replace whatever's taken. Follow along as I read 1 John 4, verses one through six. 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. By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. 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. 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.

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.

Let's pray as the band comes to lead us in worship. Father, I'm grateful for the power of your Holy Spirit alive in us to guide us into the truth. Father, I pray that for us this morning, that as we even have an opportunity to hear teaching from your word, we have an opportunity to dive in ourselves.

Father, that you would open our eyes and open our hearts and that you would bring application from this word into our lives. I know that I'm very limited in my ability to really cause any life change in anyone, even my own family.

And yet I recognize the immense power and authority of your Holy Spirit to be able to bring to us the notion of the truth and not just merely the understanding mentally of the truth, but actually the power to change our lives with the truth.

And so Father, I pray for that for each one of us. I don't know where everybody is. I haven't been with everybody this week, but you have and you know exactly what they need. So I ask by the power of your Spirit, you would speak to each person sitting here, where they're at in their life, in their week, to bring about life change and transformation this morning.

And then Father, as we have an opportunity to worship you, I ask that we would worship you in spirit and in truth, that it would be both an engagement of our minds, but also equally an engagement of our hearts, that we would not be shy to express the joy that we have in Jesus Christ.

And equally that our hearts would be impacted by the words of these songs and the things that we say to bring honor and glory to you. Receive our worship even now, I ask in Jesus' name. Thanks a lot to Rob for filling in.

Josh is taking a week off and just very grateful for the band and the time and energy that they put in. Encourage you to have your Bibles open to 1 John 4, page 878 in the Bible and sit back in front of you.

I know that maybe in the shuffle or some of you came in later and you didn't necessarily know where we're at, but 1 John 4. My goal this morning is to interact with the very words of God. That's one of the reasons I want you to have the Bible open in front of you.

What I'm attempting to do every Sunday is to make that word of God become more clear into our cultural context. But it's really the words of God that I hope that you're paying attention to and that you're really gleaning from that.

Certainly I'm trying to illustrate it and make it come alive for us, but it's powerful in and of itself. And so it's the words on the page that matter the most, not the words that I speak. But John has been tender towards his hurting people.

I've mentioned a few times, a couple times already this morning, that he was pastoring a church that had been broken in half by false doctrine and error. And so he's tender towards his hurting people.

He calls them, right off the bat, you see in verse 1, beloved. We've seen him call them little children, not as a condescending term, but as a term of responsibility for them and desire to care for them.

And then we see him intersperse the phrase beloved in there as well to say that ultimately he's saying, I love you guys. I'm glad for you. And he's tender towards them. But I want to point out that as tender as he can be at times throughout this, he's a very, very direct individual.

I mentioned before that he was called, he was given a nickname by Jesus, Son of Thunder. Okay, so the creator of the universe called this man Son of Thunder. Do you think that might have some significance about his personality?

Most likely, yes. I imagine him to be a very passionate man, a fiery disposition, loud, boisterous, intense, you know, the kind of guy moved to extremes in emotion. Okay, probably if he had an opinion, you probably knew what it was.

You probably talked with his hands.

And, you know, I mean, do you picture these people that wrote scripture and the people from biblical times as real people? Do you realize that they had emotions, they had personality? And you get to know a lot of John because he wrote the gospel for us.

He wrote the book of Revelation for us. And he also wrote 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John for us. And so we have a lot of content and we can kind of see. And then the other gospels talk about him to some degree as well.

So I feel like you can get to know him. But he starts out into new territory in chapter 4 by addressing his people as beloved. He wants his people to know that they are loved, even as he's been interspersing encouragement to them with stern warnings.

Have you gotten that from the book of 1st John so far, those of you that have been here? He's been like stern warning. Have you heard some of the stern warnings in here? You hear stern warnings and then you also see him sprinkling in encouragement for his body saying, be careful, be cautious.

You've just gone through a detrimental time, a hard time as a church. There's been a split. And so he's saying, you know, be warned, be warned. And there's all kinds of warning signs going off. And at the same time, he's encouraging them to walk in what is true and what is right and what is best.

But just like we've come to expect from John, he's going to run off on a new tangent. So we saw him at the conclusion of chapter 3. You can look there with me for just a second. He said this, whoever keeps his commandments, whoever keeps God's commandments, abides in God and God in him.

And by this, we know that he abides in us. And then he threw in this phrase, by the spirit whom he has given to us. He wants his people to know that they are loved, but he is ultimately tying this in and he's going off on a tangent.

He's launching out into a discussion now about the Holy Spirit where he has this kind of this train of consciousness way of writing about him. I mentioned that a couple of weeks ago, or maybe it was just last week, that as he writes, it's like he picks up a thought and then runs with it.

And so now he's going to run with the concept of the Holy Spirit. And how do we know the Holy Spirit? Well, he just mentioned the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit has been given to us. The Holy Spirit somehow addresses our confidence in Christ and our assurance in Christ.

By this, we know that he abides in us. By how? By the spirit that's alive in us. And so now he's going to say, how can we identify? Whether or not it is the work of the Holy Spirit that we are following, whether it is the teaching of the Holy Spirit we are following, or if it is the teaching of other spirits.

And so that is a context into which John is going to caution us that not everything we hear from religious people comes from the Holy Spirit. Did you already know that? Not everything that you hear from religious people comes from the Holy Spirit.

The implication of this message is that we do indeed live in a dangerous spiritual climate. Believe it or not, we live in a dangerous spiritual climate. John's readers went through a church upheaval centered on false doctrine.

And so he doesn't need to get into the nitty-gritty and details to convince them that they live in a hostile spiritual environment. Because they were living it, right? You understand, in their context, he's writing a letter to them.

They've been broken in half as a church, and they are shattered and going through personal loss and struggle as a church. But for us, I mean, how many of you think, I mean, you're here this Sunday morning, and you're kind of like, I kind of like my church.

You know, it's okay. And I mean, I feel like I've got good relationships around me, and things are going okay from that perspective. At least I kind of hope you do. You can talk if you don't. Set up a time, we'll talk.

But there is a reality in which we live in a dangerous spiritual climate. And so the people in John's time didn't need that direct reminder. But we might need that reminder before we dive in. That we live in a dangerous spiritual climate.

We can become lulled into complacency in our spiritual life. We can run to the Christian bookstore and buy a book on just about any topic that we want from a Christian perspective. We can listen to all kinds of preaching.

We can podcast. We can listen to sermons from some of the best speakers in the nation. And even globally, we have access to... What do you think? We've got some access to information. Do we have access to information?

Is it possible?

Would it be possible for you to completely isolate yourself in a nice Christian bubble? Only read Christian authors? Only listen to Christian radio? Only listen to... And you could... Could you really literally do that?

You really could in our culture and society that we live in. So we could be lulled into the notion that there's very little hostility toward our faith. And with tons of information and from a Christian perspective available, we could begin to grow in the thoughts that everything is beneficial to us.

Right? It's kind of water... You know, water down our notion to, you know, bring the radar down, so to speak. Take the thinking cap off. Oh, this is Christian radio. Take the thinking cap off. Oh, I'm at church now and I trust the pastor.

Oh, take the thinking cap off. This is the preacher from that church. So everything is going to be okay. Do you see what I'm saying? We can let our guard down because we just... We feel safe.

But are we safe?

We might even take it to the furthest extreme. And I think some in our culture have. And if we're honest, a lot of the church has adopted this notion that we're tempted to go so far as to vilify anyone who would oppose another person's preaching.

Criticizing the teaching of another could be seen as one of the worst sins a preacher could commit from the pulpit. As if disagreeing with someone else would be in and of itself almost the unpardonable sin, like to actually say.

And you know what I'm getting at by that? That to actually disagree with somebody is in and of itself like a big problem for a preacher. And yet John starts with this. John wasn't shy of this. He starts with, do not believe every spirit.

John said that to his church. And I want to say that to this church. Do not believe every spirit. Now, does that suddenly like kind of strike you like as a pretty direct statement? Do not believe every spirit.

He's commanding them. It's direct. It's pointed. It's a wake-up call that is being issued here. It's not a common message in our culture. Everybody in our culture has their own brand of truth, right?

Isn't that what the world is telling you out there?

Sure.

You know, you believe what's true for you and everybody's got their own, you know, flavor of truth and all of that. He says, do not believe every spirit. Now, I want to point out that in my modern scientifically oriented Western mind, I want to restate, I want to reinterpret, retranslate what John says here to make me more comfortable.

So he says, do not believe every what? What does he say?

Spirit.

Oh, why not say do not believe every teaching? I mean, that'd be more comfortable for me in my scientific mind and my Western thought. Do not believe every teaching. Do not believe every teacher. Can you leave the spiritual out of this, John?

Do you get what I'm saying by that? I mean, how many of you would be, if you're just honest, you're kind of like, well, I get it if somebody says don't believe every teaching. But now when you say don't believe every spirit, I don't talk to spirits very often, right?

How many of you regularly, routinely talk to spirits? Set up a time I'd like to sit down and talk with you. But do you talk with spirits on a regular basis? Don't believe every, don't believe every spirit.

And there's something significant here to what John, John uses the word spirit intentionally. He here is identifying that there is a spiritual agenda at work in this world. There's a spiritual agenda at work in this world all around you.

And what I want to point out and what I think John is addressing here and moving towards is that we are not as far removed from the spiritual battle as some of us have been lulled to think. We are to be engaged in a spiritual battle.

I want to suggest to you that Satan would love to fly under the radar in your life and get behind your defensive walls. Do you believe that? He would love to get behind that and get in there and take you out from the inside.

There's a spiritual battle going on. And I preached on Ephesians. It was the first series that I did here at Recast Church. We actually, at one point, we were meeting in Greg and Jen Nitzel's basement before we even had this facility available here.

Did some of you know that we actually met in a basement? We were actually a house church for a period of time. Some of you maybe knew that. Some of you didn't. We've gone through different phases as a church in a house here.

Just to be straight up, there's the potential that we could eventually be meeting in a school for a period of time, but we don't know what God has for us. But we're just kind of working through that. So be in prayer about that.

But at this point, and so I preach through Ephesians. And at the end of Ephesians, there's this section about the, does anybody know where I'm going with this? The armor of God, okay? The helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the sword of the spirit, all of those, the belt of truth, all those things.

Are you familiar with those? Spiritual warfare? Our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities and authorities and heavenly places. It is not primarily talking here that we're in a battle against false teachers, like, you know, get them.

There's a spiritual force that's behind these things. And although we might know that in our head, do we live in such a way that we identify and genuinely believe that there is a spirit behind this age?

John is making it clear that every teaching has a spirit that underwrites it. This doesn't mean that every professor or teacher or preacher who states something wrong is possessed by evil or something like that.

Don't, please don't stone me. Once in a while, we'll say something that's wrong. And I mean, if you catch it, let me know and we'll walk through that together. But I think it's more like sponsorship, if you will, like as if any brand of teaching has a spirit, one of two spirits that sponsors that teaching, that endorses it, that encourages it, that wants to promote it and help it to grow and nourish it.

Every spiritual teaching is endorsed by one of two spirits, either the spirit of Antichrist, who is Satan, or the Holy Spirit himself, the third member of the Trinity. And every teaching is undergirded by one of those spirits.

And he says, test the spirits to figure out which one it is. So we are to test those spirits. John is giving a significant authority to each believer here, okay, in his church. He's not saying that it's primarily the pastor's job to test the spirits for you.

That like, as if it's my job to tell you, read this author, don't read this author, watch this movie, don't watch this movie, do this, don't do that. You see how it'd be, that would be kind of like some churches, some denominations have done that over the course of history, right?

They've basically let all the authority and all the tell you what to do rest in the leader. And they basically said, we don't even want you to know. We don't want you to be discerning. We'll do the discerning for you.

Thank you very much. Does that sound like what John is saying here?

It's the opposite.

John is saying, test the spirits. He's speaking to his congregation saying that. Test the spirits and see what's going on. We should be thinking for ourselves. We should not be taking off your thinking cap when you're watching TV.

Not taking it off when you go to the movies. I want you to know that you're pretty, you're pretty susceptible to falsehood when you're at the movies. Would you, would you admit to that? The glitz and the glamour and the awe of the big screen and the graphics and the sci-fi and all the, all the different things that are going on there has a way of breaking down your barriers.

Did you, did you realize that? I'm not preaching against going to movies. I'm just saying, be aware. Observe that, that TV has, has an agenda that it's promoting. Did you know that TV shows, the writers of those have a worldview that they are trying to sell to you.

Do you think about that? Do you, do you analyze it? Are you trying to figure out what's going on under the surface? I, I think, I don't only bring this up, this is an old movie that I watched, but when I, I just realized that this is, I use it as an illustration.

I maybe have used it before, but how many of you have seen the movie, Oceans 11? Older movie. I realized at one point, I mean, it struck me in that movie that I was cheering for bank robbers. I was cheering that theft, that the law of God, no, literally, the command of God would be broken.

I was like, yeah, get it.

Oh, this is so cool. How they orchestrated this. And the creativity of, what? The creativity of breaking the laws of God? Is that what we're cheering for?

Do you get what I mean?

I was broken down at that point, like, in the sense of like, my, my wall was completely gone. Satan was already inside plundering at that point. Because, I mean, I was like, this is awesome. This movie is great.

And then I was like, what was I just cheering for again?

What was that about?

So I use that as an illustration, but are you getting what I'm saying? How things can get, none of this is in my notes, by the way. Not, not, Oceans 11 isn't even in here. So we're, we're a little off track.

All that to say, we are not to sit back, slack jawed and take in media without thinking and discerning. And certainly we are not to leave spiritual understanding and discernment to the professionals. One of my, one of my responsibilities is to bring the word of God alive to you.

I certainly believe that as a pastor and as a preacher, I should have a good hand on the, in the culture and a good hand in the word and try to bring this to bear in this. Bring the word of God to bear in your real life where you live.

But that can't be the extent. I'm not following you to the movies. I'm not watching the TV show with you. I'm not going to hold your hand and discern for you. All of us, and that's what John is saying here.

Test the spirits and see if they are from God. John says that many false prophets have gone out into the world.

Do we believe that?

Do we believe that there are false spirits.

That are out in the world?

Some of them in John's age and some of them in our age have infiltrated the church. They've landed in churches. False prophets, I want to point out are dangerous because they are like wolves in sheep's clothing.

It's the very nature of them deceptively coming within the walls and infiltrating in that picture of them looking like one of us. They look like the real deal. They sound like the real deal. You know, no false prophet adds to their LinkedIn profile, false prophet, okay?

And they don't put that down for endorsement. I've been endorsed by 16 people. One of my skills, one of my endorsements is false prophecy. I mean, do you see that? Or is it on a business card? Hey, I'd just like to introduce myself here.

Take my business card. I'm a false prophet. There's my number. If you've got any teaching opportunities, let me know. You're not going to see that, are you? And that's part of the nature of the problem is that there's deception involved in it.

Now, some of us, some of you may be sitting here and you literally are doubting the existence of these people. Like, prove it to me, Don. I've never met anybody who literally headed out for the church.

I've never met a false prophet or somebody who was destructive in their hearts towards the church. Others of you have met people like that. And you're going, I know exactly what you're talking about. I've seen it firsthand and I've been there and I've lived it.

And I'm sorry for you. And some of you maybe are even right now are still struggling through the vestiges of spiritual abuse that's happened to you in the past from people like this. And I would love to walk through that with you if you'd give me the chance.

But if you've never met one of these people, then you're going to have to take on faith that what John is saying here is true. And there really are people out there who have an agenda of spiritual destruction for those around them.

They're intentional about it. But I also equally have to say this. I believe that the majority of false prophecy comes through men and women who do not even know they're being used by the evil one. That's the majority of it.

You know what I'm talking about? They don't even know. They don't have an agenda. They couldn't speak out. Oh, my goal is to bring this church to its knees. They wouldn't say that.

Now, some would.

There are people like that out there. But the majority of them are people who are either given so much over to the culture that they just want to please everybody around them. But ultimately, they're watering down the truth or bringing down the truth or bringing down the standard.

But let me just say this. And this is important. If you're taking notes, I'd want you to write something. Get this paraphrased or whatever.

It's not the words that matter.

That's the concept. It is not the intention of the speaker or teacher that vindicates whether they are or validates whether they're false or not false. But as we're going to see in a moment, it is the content of their message.

Everybody should rise and fall based on the content of their message, not the intention of their heart. So in other words, they might have the best intentions, but if they're teaching falsehood, they fall in this category of false prophet.

You get what I'm saying? Not their intention. How many of you have met somebody with good intentions that was inadequate? Have you met somebody like that? Maybe some of us are there ourselves. In verse two, we find the first test then for spiritual teaching.

The first test. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus has come in the flesh is from God, John says. Now, we've got to remember that he's speaking into a cultural context. It's obvious that in verses 18 through 22 of chapter two, chapter two, verses 18 through 22 is where he basically describes those who have broken his church.

He basically walks us through that they have gone out from among you and they have left and departed and are still trying to win some of you over. And that's in that section. And it's obvious that what they used to tear apart the church was denying that Jesus was the Christ.

Probably even denying that he had come in flesh. They were just saying either one of two things. Either they were saying he was a good guy who wasn't God and didn't come down, but he was just a good guy.

Or they were actually saying he wasn't even a physical being. He was just a spirit being. And it's hard to tell which one. I think it's the latter one. I think they were actually saying he was just a spirit being.

They were buying into some of the notions and philosophies of their age that I'm going to spell out here in just a little bit. But they were denying Christ. And so John makes a culturally adapted test for orthodox teaching.

He says, this is how you know what right teaching is. If you can say that Jesus pre-existed with God and then came in flesh, then you are affirming what John sees as the central understanding of the nature of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Sound doctrine. That Jesus the Christ, the Son of God, came in flesh is vital. Okay, so you have the humanity of Jesus, right, in flesh. He was genuinely 100 human. But you also have that phrase, came in the flesh.

Now, how many of you speak of yourselves that way? Yeah, January 24th, 1973, I came in the flesh. Would that be a little bit weird? Is that a little bit weird? We didn't pre-exist. We were not pre-existent.

We came into being our souls created at a point in history. You know, that whole mom and dad thing and stuff. But Jesus came in the flesh, like a willful, volitional choice. Do you see what John is affirming here?

He's saying if you can genuinely say that Jesus pre-existed in eternity, volitionally, of his own will, chose to come in flesh and become one of us, then there's some sound teaching in that, right? Is that good?