January 28, 2018
1 / 2 / 3 john
1 John 4:1-29
1 John 4:1-3
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 recognize 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.
How do we know if someone is legitimately a follower of Jesus or if they just say they follow Jesus and they're really a false prophet?
John tells us to test it, and he tells us what his church was to do at that time to specifically test against the issues they were dealing with. But, at that time they didn't have the New Testament and the things that they were combatting in this church were relatively straight forward.
John tells them -
Step 1: Do they claim Jesus is God or not?
Some other good questions for us to ask might be -
Step 2: Do they believe salvation only comes from Jesus?
Step 3: Do they believe that salvation is for everyone or just some people?
Step 4: Do they believe the Bible is without error?
Step 5: Do their beliefs line up with the Bible?
1 John 4:4-6
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 recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood.
God is TRUTH, so we stand for TRUTH. So knowing that we stand for that TRUTH, what is the practical outworking of that? LOVE
1 John 4:7-21
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. 9 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.
Ultimately, love comes from God.
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.
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 Savior 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.
The love that John is talking about here is not an “I love Mexican food” kind of love… He’s likening it to the fact that God LOVES us so much, that His spirit actually lives in us after we accept Jesus. That means that this LOVE that we are mimicking should look like the Gospel.
God IS LOVE so we are loving WITH the LOVE OF GOD.
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.
18 There 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.
19 We love because he first loved us.
20 Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21 And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
There are 4 things here that show that we are loving WITH the LOVE of GOD:
- "In this world we are like Jesus
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- "There is no fear in love
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- "We love because he first loved us
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- "Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister
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Communication Card
- I will test the things I hear to see what is from God and what isn’t.
- I will work on loving people with a love that comes from God.
- I have a relationship with a brother/sister that I will work on rectifying this week. (Go deeper on this one)