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Welcome to the Hope Community Church! Hope is a multi-site church community with locations around the Triangle in Raleigh, Apex, Northwest Cary, Garner, and Fuquay-Varina. We are here to love you where you are and encourage you to grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ! We strive to speak the truth of the Bible in a way that is easy to understand, helpful in your current life circumstances, and encouraging. No matter who you are or where you come from, you are welcome here!
This morning, we'll be in 1 John
4, reading from verse one until verse
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 have heard was coming and now is in the word, the world
already. Little children, you are from God and have
overcome them, for he who was in you is greater than he who was
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." This is the word
of the Lord. You may be seated.
Thanks a lot, Nestor. Appreciate you. How's everybody doing this morning?
(Applause) Woo!
Good, good. Hope you had a good Thanksgiving.
I heard Corey come out here, and, uh, he was like, "Yeah, some of you guys are
wearing ugly Christmas sweaters already." And you're like, "This is just a sweater.
I didn't need you to insult me before we got rolling here."
(Laughs)
But, um, man, the... Regardless of how you chose to dress this morning, we're glad
that you're here. Um, hey, look, we are gonna go ahead and start off a little bit
differently than you'd probably expect.
I promise you we're gonna get to 1 John 4 in just a second, but, uh, first, I want
us to take a little poll of the room. Okay?
Uh, I'll, I'll give you a statement, and then I want you to tell me whether you
agree or disagree with the statement. Okay?
I'm gonna say it out there first, I'm gonna give you a second to think about it,
and then I'm gonna ask by a show of hands to raise your hand.
Now, here's the one rule. Full participation. Okay?
Need everybody to participate. All right.
Here's the question, or the statement.
Christians have a responsibility to judge
others. Okay? Agree or disagree? I'll give you a second
to think about it. All right. If you agree, raise your
hand. Okay. And if you disagree,
raise your hand. All right. Cool. The,
the beautiful irony of this is that all the judgers are
judging the non-judgers.
(Laughs)
(laughs) And the non-judgers are realizing how judgmental they are, right?
That's what happening right now. Okay. Here's what I want you to do. All right?
So take that statement, hold onto it.
Christians have the responsibility to judge others.
Now, here's what I want you to think.
Regardless of if you raised your hand for yes or no, I want you to answer this
question: Where did you learn that?
Where did you learn that belief? Maybe you were raised and taught that by
your parents, maybe it was a rule of life that you've just kind of adapted and
chosen to believe, uh, because of, uh, the experience that you've had in life.
Maybe, uh, you even recall hearing a sermon about it, right?
And so you've learned, and now you believe either, yes, Christians have a
responsibility to judge others, or no, they don't.
Um, follow-up question to that: Why do you believe
it? So not where did you learn it, but why do you believe it?
So first, who taught me that? And now, why do I believe that?
Because what you believe comes out through your actions, right?
So the idea that you have, what you think about this will ultimately, uh-
eke its way out into the way you live your life for various reasons, right?
Maybe, uh, you believe it because you trust the person that told you.
A parent taught you that, or a pastor taught you that, or yourself taught you that,
or your experiences taught you that.
Maybe, uh, you even believe it because you could've sworn that you read it in the
Bible. Right? Whatever it is, that belief comes from somewhere.
So, let's do a little exercise, okay?
This is like the sermon before the sermon, so just bear with me for a second,
'cause I promise you, it's gonna be important in just a few minutes.
If you have your Bible, turn to 1 Corinthians 5.
And I want you to- to flip through your Bible, because I want you to get used to
this practice, uh, in and of yourself. So 1 Corinthians 5.
And basically, what's happening in this passage, um, it's a weird one.
We don't have time to get into all the details today.
But there is a man in the church in Corinth, uh, who is having
inappropriate relationships with his mother-in-law, okay?
It's a really weird place to drop into the Bible, but just- just bear with me for a
second, okay?
He's having weird relationships with his mother-in-law, and Paul is writing to the
Church of Corinthians because all of the other people in the Church of
Corinthians are basically turning a blind eye to it.
They're like, "My name's been in it and I ain't in it," right?
"Whatever he chooses to do at his house, that is his business." Okay?
So Paul writes to them. So this is 1 Corinthians 5, starting in
verse 1 down to verse 5. He says, "It is actually reported
that there is, uh, sexual immorality happening among you, and of a kind
that is not even tolerated among the pagans." He's saying, "Even unbelievers don't
do this." "For a man has his father's wife.
And you are arrogant. Ought you not rather to mourn?
Let him who has done this be removed from among you."
It's pretty drastic, right? "For though absent in body," Paul is saying, "I
am present in spirit. And as if I were present, as if I were physically there, I
have already pronounced judgment on the one who did such a
thing." Okay? So Paul is already saying, "Even from a distance, I'm
telling you this is wrong, and you should actually remove this guy from the
assembly." "Let him who has done, um, this be removed from among
you..." I'm sorry. Uh, jump down, uh, verse 4.
"When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus and my spirit is present with
the power of the Lord Jesus, you are to deliver this man to Satan for the
destruction of the flesh so that his spirit may be saved,
um, in the day of the Lord." That's harsh language.
Right? Like Paul is saying, "Cast this guy over to Satan.
Get him out of the church. I've already rendered judgment on him." Like that feels
really, uh, really harsh. And if we're honest, it doesn't sound very Christ-like,
Paul. Okay? Get your life together. Skip down to verse 9.
Verses 9-13. "I wrote you my letter not to associate with sexually
immoral people. Not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this
world, or the greedy or swindlers or idolaters, since then you would
need to go out of this world." He's like, "Hey, if I told you don't associate with
anybody who sins, you'd have to leave the world." Okay? So he- he admits that.
He says, "Since then, you would need to go out of the world." But, verse 11, "Now I
am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name
of brother," so anyone who claims to be a
Christian, "um, if he is guilty of sexual
immorality or greed or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler,
not even to eat with such one. For what have I..." Check this out.
This is important. "For what have I to do with judging
outsiders? Is it not those inside the church who are
you- you are to judge? God judges those
outside. Purge the evil person from among you." So
Paul is saying here, "Hey, listen.
If they don't claim to be a Christian, whatever they choose to do, that's really
between them and God, and I'm- I'm praying that God's working on them.
But if they are a Christian, you have a responsibility to call out their sin
and to correct them." Or, a word that we don't like to use, to judge them.
Now, this is a different type of judgment than we know, right?
This isn't like a prejudice. This isn't like, "Oh, I see you.
Here's what I think about you. I'm gonna make a judgment call about you before I
know you." He's saying, "No, you know these people, and you're not correcting
them." And so you hear that and you go, "Well, wait a minute.
Maybe I should've raised my hand for the other one."
But no. "Aaron, Matthew 7." Right?
Matthew 7:1. Jesus says, "Do not judge." Okay.
Go ahead and turn your Bibles there. Go to Matthew Chapter 7.
This is the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.
I promise you this has something to do with 1 John. I promise you.
We're gonna get there in just a minute, okay?
We gotta do some legwork first though.
Matthew
7:1.
This is Jesus. Maybe your Bible even has this in red letter.
"Judge not, that you be not judged.
For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged with the same measure you
use, it will be measured to you." Ha-ha! Got 'im. Right?
(laughs)
Jesus clearly says, "Don't judge people." That's why I raised my hand.
Give me a gold star. Right?
S- but now we have a problem.
Was Paul wrong? And was Paul teaching people to do
something that Jesus explicitly commanded him not to do?
Does Paul contradict Jesus? Does the Bible contradict the Bible?
Can the Bible be trusted?
Let's keep reading. Verse 3.
Jesus says, "Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye
but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" Right?
A lot of us have probably heard this before.
"Or how can you say to your brother, 'Hey, let me take that speck out of your eye,'
when there is a log in your own eye?"...you
hypocrite. Right? And this is the reason why most of us say, oh, no, don't judge
people, 'cause I don't wanna be hypocritical, right?
But look at what Jesus says, First
take the log out of your own eye, and
then you will see clearly to take the
speck out of your brother's eye.
So Jesus isn't saying, hey, if your brother has a speck there, it's like, hey, only
God can judge me, you leave that speck there. He says, no.
You go to God first, allow Him to deal with you so that you can see rightly,
and now you can actually help your brother out.
This is the reason why he says, judge not lest you be judged. Why?
Because he's saying, listen, if you judge somebody else, you're claiming to know
the difference between right and wrong.
And if you know right and wrong, you're now accountable to that, right?
So Ju- Jesus is like, listen, you open your door, uh, wide open for this
to be spoken into if you speak into somebody else's life.
So Jesus' word is not do not judge, it's don't judge
incorrectly, or don't judge based on the wrong things.
Now, why do we say all of that? What does that have to do with 1
John 4? Because the majority of people in this room, uh,
raised their hand and said, I don't believe that a Christian is supposed to judge.
Now, if I were to ask that question now, you may have a different response, right?
But what we learned from scripture is, oh wait, there are some that we're supposed
to judge and some we're not supposed to judge.
There is a way to judge and a way not to judge.
And in both of these situations, notice, the person who judgment is being
rendered upon, whether it's the brother with a speck in their eye or if it's this
guy who's having, uh, inappropriate relationships with his mother-in-law, the
purpose in both is healing of that individual.
It's not just, oh, let me just tell you all the ways that you're wrong so that I
can make myself feel better and put you down. No.
It's so that they will get the speck out of their eye or so that this guy who has
been cast over to Satan will have his spirit healed.
Okay? The reason why we go through all that, and the reason why I just
went through this little exercise is because what we just did was test the
spirit. What does that mean? It means there's
something we have been taught, something we believed, and so we put
that thing up to the light of God and to scripture to say, hey, I've
always believed this, but is it right?
And this is what 1 John 4 challenges us to do.
It's saying, hey, when you hear things, when you learn things, when you're taught
things, don't just take them at face value, but instead,
test the spirits.
Ask God, hey, this sounds good. This sounds even almost right.
But God, is it from you? And in this day and age when there
are so many, uh, different sources and voices out there who are speaking...
Like, right now, any single one of you can pull out your phone and open a podcast
and listen to a sermon from a different church on the other side of the world.
You can watch a livestream from a different church on the other side of the world.
You can scroll through TikTok and hear somebody, uh, try to correct something that
maybe you've misread in scripture.
You can read a book from anyone anywhere who got the
money to self-publish, right? Like there's, there's so many different things out
there. And what Paul... Or I'm sorry, what John is saying here is, hey, listen,
don't be afraid of all of it,
but judge it correctly.
When you hear things taught about Jesus, what is your barometer
for figuring out, man, is this something that is trustworthy or not?
And his goal is not to instill skepticism but
discernment. His goal is not to instill cynicism
but certainty. This week, we are midway through this
series, uh, in 1 John. Uh, and the title of the series is Uncertainty, and we've
seen how John wants to give us certainty about, uh, multiple things,
but in particular, he wants us to have certainty around us having eternal
life, and he wants us to have certainty around who the person of Jesus
is. And so, uh, in chapter 3, Ben Foote was here and
he talked to us, he introduced this term to us, the Antichrist, right?
And he did a great job explaining what the Antichrist is.
He said the Antichrist is anyone who gives a message about Jesus
that Jesus Himself doesn't co-sign on.
An Antichrist is anyone who says, uh, hey, this is what Jesus was
like, but it's not accurate to who He is.
And so John now, two chapters later, is saying, hey, listen, these people who are
telling you things that sound good, um, I
want you to test those spirits.
And I love what, what John is doing here.
He, he even says, uh, in the passage, he says that these people have gone out into
the world. That's an interesting statement because what he's saying is, is they
didn't start out there.
They actually started in here, and now they're going out.
And so in other words, what John is saying in regards to these Antichrist or,
uh, uh, to these, these, um, uh, these false prophets is this.
Don't become so focused on looking out there that
you fall victim for what lies within the
walls. Don't be so cautious
looking out into the news and the government and trying to find all these people,
who is this, when is the Antichrist gonna come and all the things.
John says, no, actually the spirit of the Antichrist is already here,
and he's present in the assembly of the other people who are
teaching you false things about God.
And so this leads us to, uh, 1 John
4:1 where he says, "Beloved, do
not believe every spirit, but test the
spirits to see whether they are from God." And this is what we just
did. Let's take this thing we believe, let's look at it according to scripture, and
then let's see what, what God has to say about it. So how do we do that?
Because it's really easy to fall victim and fall prey to, uh,
things that just sound good. And so if John wants us to test the spirits, how
do we do that? And so I'm gonna give you here, uh, these are six ways,
six tests that you can give and just, uh, incorporate into your daily
life to help you test and discern the spirits and test and discern whether or not
something is actually from God or not. Okay, you ready? We got a lot.
I know that was like just the introduction, that's like half our time, but we're
gonna get rolling. Here we go. Number one, it's the first test, it's the Jesus
test. And the Jesus test asks this
question, who does Jesus... I'm sorry, who do they say
that Jesus is? Uh, this is the one that's central to John and
his intended audience in 1 John 4:2-3.
He says, "By this you know the Spirit of God:"Every spirit that
confesses 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 have heard is
coming and now is in the world already." If you wanna know whether or not
somebody's theology or doctrine can be trusted, the best
first step in the flowchart of discernment is this question,
"Who do you say that Jesus is?"
Amen.
Because this is the central claim of Christianity, that Jesus
is the Son of God, he is the second person of the Trinity, that he is
co-eternal with God, that he has come down and took on the form of a man.
He is 100% God and 100% human. He was
born to a virgin named Mary by a miraculous birth, he lived a
perfect, sinless life, he fulfilled centuries-old
prophecies that was punctuated by his crucifixion on the cross.
And not only did he die a sinner's death, but three days later, he
rose again, declaring victory over death, hell, and the
grave. After which he ascended to heaven, where he now sits at the right
hand of the Father, and he is coming back to make all things new and to renew
the world to sinless perfection, where all of those who have
put their faith in him will live in perfect unity with him
forevermore. That is who Jesus is according to
scripture. And if anyone leaves out any part of
that,
then they don't understand the real Jesus.
So I wanna give you a scenario here.
Um, I want you to imagine that, uh, it's a nice cold day.
You're bundled up and you're walking through downtown Carey.
And, uh, you're walking your way over there and you see this little, like,
bookshelf that's set up, and there's an older lady and older gentleman that's
standing there in the middle of the park.
And, uh, on their little bookshelf, they have these little pamphlets.
In those pamphlets, it says, "Free Bible lessons." And so you go over to them,
you're like, "Hey, I read the Bible," and you start striking up a conversation, and
very soon, you come to realize that these people are Jehovah's Witness.
You start talking to these Jehovah's Witnesses, and at first, things seem a
little bit okay, right? Because at first you realize, oh wait, they also believe
Jesus existed. They also believe that Jesus is important for salvation,
but they believe that Jesus was created
by God. It's a small detail, but it's a big
detail, because if Jesus was created by God, then Jesus
is not God. And if Jesus is not God, then
he's not worth putting our faith in.
He's just some man that walked the Earth a few thousand years ago, right?
Think about this one. Imagine you're sitting at home, you're folding laundry, you
got a YouTube video on, and you hear a knock at the door.
(knocks on wood) And this time, you're a little bit different.
Normally, it's turn the lights off, code red, hide under the sofa, right?
Like, don't let anybody know that we're here. But instead, you go, "You know what?
I'm gonna open the door." And you open the door and there's two people in button-up
shirts and a black tie. You see the bike behind them, and they are Mormon
missionaries who have just walked over to your house. And you say, "You know what?
Come on in. Come talk to me." So they hand you a copy of the Book of Mormon, they
start talking. And at first, everything sounds okay.
They believe that Jesus is the Son of God.
They believe that he died, they believe that he rose again.
They believe that Jesus brings salvation.
However, in order to receive that salvation, not only do you have to have
faith in Jesus, well, you gotta do some work too.
So salvation is only received by faith plus your works, but here's the
problem with that. Well, wait a minute, if it requires faith plus
works to believe in Jesus and to be- be saved by
him, what you're saying is- is that what Jesus did on the cross wasn't
enough. I gotta add something else to it,
and that goes against scripture. Let me give you one more.
You're scrolling through social media and some guru comes on there and tells you,
"Hey, everything that you need comes from within.
There's an inner light inside of you, and if you embrace that, you can unlock this
higher self. As a matter of fact, that's what Jesus did.
He just- he modeled spirituality for us." But they deny
that he alone is the Lord of all creation and they minimize him to a form
of higher consciousness or just some sort of, like, spiritual archetype.
And Jesus is so much more about this.
So, uh, John's concern... I just- I just wanted to use that as an example to show
you. John's concern is not to ask, "Hey, do they know..." Or, um, I'm sorry, "Do
they talk about Jesus?" He's concerned with do they know Jesus and do they
represent him accurately?
Because just someone- just because someone says Jesus, and God, and light,
that doesn't mean that they're talking about the same
Jesus. This is a story that personally
hits home for me. Uh, in 2018, uh, so I grew up in a
church back in New Orleans, um, where I really began to own my faith
in that church. And in 2018, they did a series called, uh, Who's Your Neighbor?
And I love the idea of the series. As a matter of fact, we're gonna do one s- kind
of similar to this next year. Uh, but the idea was- is, "Hey, let's talk about
people who we typically disagree with, um, and let's just figure out,
man, how do we love them well?" And ultimately, I have no issue with
that. Uh, but there was one week where they talked about people of different faith
traditions, and so the pastor of the church, he invited his neighbor, and his
neighbor is an imam. If you don't know what imam is, uh, it's basically like a
pastor of a Muslim church. Um, and so, uh, they
come in and they have this interview on stage, and it's a beautiful interview.
It's a beautiful conversation. It really is, because what the- the Christian pastor
is trying to do is he is trying to help the audience see, "Hey,
listen, these biases that you have, uh, the racism that you
have, the assumptions you have about Muslims, um, listen, a
lot of them are unfounded. If you'll just sit and have a conversation with people,
you'll realize they're a lot more human than you think they are and they're not
just a headline on the news." Totally okay with all of that, right?
I- I love that they had that conversation.
Where the problem came in was at the end of the conversation, where the Christian
pastor goes, "Okay, listen, we got all that out the way.
We- we learned about you and all that sort of stuff, but with all that said, what
do you w- wish Christians knew about Muslims?" And the
imam, he said, "Uh, I wish people knew that we love Jesus." He
goes, "As a matter of fact, we walked, I walked through the airport one time and I
was going up an escalator and somebody else was coming down the escalator and they
saw me and they go, 'Hey, Jesus loves you,'" almost like in an angry, like,
arrogant sort of way. And he turned to them and goes......
and I love Jesus." (laughs) He's like, "Muslims love
Jesus. The only thing is, we don't believe that he was the son of
God." And the Christian pastor goes, "Is that
it? Is that the only difference between us and y'all?"
Hope. That is the thing.
Yeah, amen.
That is the single most important thing.
It's the reason why governments and religious systems murdered Jesus, because of
the very claim of who he claimed to be.
It's not just some small, minor detail that separates us from the others, it is
the central, uh, reality of our faith.
And John tells us to put everything we hear to the
Jesus test. Does the Jesus you present to me line up with
the Jesus of the Bible? Because if we get Jesus wrong, nothing else
that we get right will ever save us.
The second test, and we're not gonna spend a lot of time on this, mostly 'cause we
don't have it, (laughs) is test number two.
The scripture test. The reason why we're not gonna spend a lot of time on that is
because it's what we've done already. It's what we've practiced in here.
Hey, I've always learned this thing, I've always known this thing, it sounds
really, uh, nice, but does it line up with scripture?
Does it line up with what God said in his word?
Because to contradict the Bible is to contradict God himself, and to
contradict God himself is to tell a lie.
So if it doesn't line up with who God is and what he laid out in his
word, well then we have to ask some questions.
Listen, this is important to remember about the Bible.
The purpose of the Bible is not just to make you feel good or give you warm and
fuzzies.
According to 2 Timothy 3, the purpose of the Bible is to correct, to
rebuke, to train us in righteousness, not to reaffirm
our own ideas.
And can we be honest? That's really uncomfortable.
Like, I read things in the Bible that ultimately, they, at times, they make me
uncomfortable, they rub me the wrong way.
But lemme just tell you, like if you read the Bible and everything just feels okay,
you're like, "Yeah, that, that just makes sense. That's not hard to live out.
I can just do that," you're probably reading the Bible
wrong. And I say that lovingly, I say that n-
intentionally. I was talking to a friend about this, uh, earlier this week, and he
shared this quote with me from Tim Keller.
He says, "If your God (laughs) never disagrees with you, you might be
worshiping an idealized version of yourself."
Oof. That's the best thing I'm gonna say up here, and I stole it from somebody
else, just so you know. (laughs)
(laughs)
But we have to be cautious of this. We have to allow the Bible to do
its work. The Bible should make us uncomfortable the same way that going to the gym
does. It should stretch us, we should feel the
tension, but we should trust that it's ultimately making us better as we are
obedient to it. If you feel something and you disagree with it while you're reading
through scripture, it's okay to feel that disagreement.
But let that disagreement lead you to God and ultimately lead you to
truth, 'cause the truth will never contradict his word.
Uh, test number three is the community test.
What do other God-fearing, Bible-believing Christians have to
say about this? Listen, do not read scripture in a
vacuum. Uh, I heard a pastor say one time that every cult that's ever
started, uh, began with a guy reading the Bible by himself and going, "Maybe I'm
Jesus." And I'm like, "Yeah, I th- actually think that's how it goes." Like,
(laughs) Netflix documentaries come out about that all the time, right?
(laughs)
Listen. Do not read the Bible in a vacuum by yourself, because you
will approach things that you don't understand.
You will approach things that you have questions about.
You will approach things that you need a- accountability for, and this is why
community is so important. Reading the Bible in community, it
encourages humility.
It, uh, it m- makes us openly admit that there are things we don't
understand. It welcomes new perspectives.
Not new perspectives in like, oh, let me, uh, make up some stuff about the Bible,
but new perspectives in helping us see things that maybe we didn't notice before.
It builds fellowship. You glo- grow closer to other people,
uh, when you are in the trenches of your study together.
And it's God's design. God designed
us for discipleship, to pass truth down from generation to generations, to
make, uh, disciples out of one another.
It's, it's how God designed the whole thing to work.
It's what John is doing here in 1 John, it's what we're doing together right
now, and it's how God designed the church to operate.
Now, what's important is that you find the right voices.
And I know that we have some younger people in here today from middle school
ministry, high school ministry. I wanna, uh, this is for everybody, but I
definitely wanna speak to you guys. Listen.
With YouTube and TikTok and Instagram and social media, and
anybody who wants a platform, readily available to grab one,
I, I just wanna tell you, it is so important...
Like, I, I remember, I had a old student from when I did youth ministry in
Louisiana. And he was like, um, I asked him, I said, "Hey, man, are you in a
church?" He's like, "No, but there's this TikToker that I follow and I learn a lot
from him." And I go, "Well, what do you do when you have questions for him?"
He's like, "I DM him." Like, "Yeah, do you get a response?" He goes, "Well, no."
(laughs) Listen. Find someone that you can sit across the table
from, find someone that you can look in the eye, who you can have crises of
faith with, and say, "Hey, I don't know what's going on here.
Can you, can you walk with me through this?"
Amen.
That is so vital to have. Those
platforms, the, the podcasts and the sermons on YouTube and all that stuff, they're
not bad, but they lack a dynamic of relationship that God
hardwired you for. Test number
four, the glory test. Does this
give glory to God, or does it steal it away from
him? Think about it this way. According to the gospel that I'm hearing,
who's the hero of the story? Or rather, who's being
served? Who's being worshiped? Because there are some pastors who
often work to make themselves the hero of the story.
Now, there are times when they're saying, "No, listen.
Follow me as I follow Christ," and they're setting a good example for you, okay?
I'm not, I'm not talking about that.
I'm talking about glory thieves. The one who think that the
platform and the laughs and the compliments and the social media views and all the
attention they can garner for themselves, the ones who value that and actually get
their identity from that. The ones who use you
to stroke their own ego instead of to give God glory.
The ones whose, uh, content is very little Bible, very little
truth, very little Jesus.Listen, the goal when you hear the
gospel preached, or when you preach the gospel to other people is this, people
should walk away and think, "Man, what a savior," not, "Man, what a
preacher."
Amen.
The goal should be that they walk away with a deep dependence on God.
The Bible doesn't teach self-empowerment, it teaches spirit
empowerment. So if anybody is telling you, "Hey, you're good enough.
You can do it by yourself. Shake the haters off, embrace your full potential,"
guess what? They're just trying to stroke your ego.
No, listen, the Bible and the truth of God should actually break me down to
my knees and build within me a dependence on God.
1 John 4:5 says this, he says, "They," talk about these false
teachers, "are from the world, therefore they speak from the world and the
world listens to them." You know what John's saying
here? He's saying that the world...
That these, these, uh, false teachers will use the world's
bait to catch worldly men.
"Let me just promise you the... The, the self-empowerment, and the health, and the
wealth, and the prosperity, and if I can...
If I can play on..." You know what John calls those?
We talked about them a few weeks ago. The sinful desires of the world.
The desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life.
But when they're cloaked and disguised in a Jesus message, people
think, "Oh, well this is clearly, like, what God wants for me," right?
But listen, what Jesus offers us, the life he really offers us is one that's
difficult, it's hard, it requires perseverance, but it's
also beautiful, and there's hope.
And what Jesus offers you, more than anything he can bless you with or give you or
drop in your lap, is he offers you himself.
Yeah.
And if a pastor offers you anything less than Jesus
himself, he's probably preying on that, uh, selfish
desire inside of you.
Amen.
The goal of the Christian is Jesus, not
compromise. Number five.
We got two minutes. (laughs) Number five, it's the
fruit test.
What is being produced by the heart and the word of
this person that's speaking for me?
Uh, when I was growing up, I grew up in a lot of churches that you can kind of
classify as, like, Word of Faith, or Prosperity, you know what I mean?
And, uh, they used to do this thing.
We always used to have a New Year's Eve service, and the service would literally...
It started at, like, 9:00 PM and it'd go to, like, midnight. Like, it would...
Beyond midnight, right? We would ring in the new year together.
And the pastor, every single year, would come up with a slogan, uh, that
played on what every year we were going into.
So I remember hearing things like, "You're gonna come alive in 2005." And people
would get excited, and yeah. And, "Your check won't be late come 2008." And, "Your
blessings coming in come 2010." Right? And we got excited. We loved it.
The people... Like, you ever get those New Year's Eve glasses?
And you're like, "How in the world are they gonna turn 2014 into a pair of
glasses?" That was me with the pastors.
I'm like, "What statement are they gonna come up with this year (laughs) to rile
everybody up and get them excited?" But you know what happened?
2020 came. Then 2022
came, and new diagnoses rain in, and it
became hard to pay bills. And I go, "Wait a minute, what's wrong
with the promise that they gave me?
They claimed they were talking from the Lord, but things aren't always
that easy." And so, it led me down a crisis where I said, "Well, maybe I don't have
enough faith." And then eventually I said, "No, you know what? That's not it.
Maybe... Maybe God's not good. Maybe God's
not real."
And so, I just wanna let you know that this type of misrepresentation of the
gospel, it's e- extremely harmful, so I encourage you to stay away from
it. But I want you to test the fruit.
Someone told me something was going to happen, they claimed it was a word from the
Lord, if I hold onto that, what's gonna happen?
Here's another way to think about that: If I put what I'm being taught into
practice, what comes of it? More of Jesus or more of
me?
Amen.
Because here's the truth about the gospel, if you put it into practice, you will
only fall more and more in love with Jesus, and not more and more
in love with self, or the pastor, or with a church
branding, or any of that sort of stuff.
Jesus offers himself.
The final test, test number six, and I...
And I saved this one for last intentionally, because it's the
one that's the most important. It's the one...
And I know we said a lot of stuff here today, but I hope it's the one that
sticks with you as you walk out the door.
It's the Holy Spirit test.
Maybe you're hearing these and you're thinking, "Oh, you know what?
I'm gonna write all these things down and every time I listen to a sermon or a
podcast or read a book, I'm gonna try to refer to this list and see, you know, is
all this sort of stuff..." Listen,
I, I hope that this time has been helpful.
But even more important than you listening to me, I hope you learn to listen to the
Holy Spirit.
This is what John says in 1 John 4:4,
6. He says, "Little children." He's like, "Listen, I- I've
warned you about these antichrists.
I've warned you about this false teaching, and I know...
I know you're gonna hear stuff, and this might even make you a little bit cynical,
it might make you a little bit anxious.
You might be like, 'Man, can anybody be trusted?
Can anything be trusted?'" And look at how John calms them down.
He says, "Little children, you are from God and you have overcome
them, for he who is in you is
greater than he who is in the world."
Amen. "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." Jesus himself, in John 16:13 says that,
"When the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into
all truth.
He will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but
whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to
come." Listen, when you put your faith in Jesus, you receive the Holy
Spirit, and as you learn to pray and listen to his still, small voice, he
will illuminate the truth of Scripture to you and he will protect you from anything
that is not of him. So this last test, the
Holy Spirit test, the question that we need to be asking is, is...
In light of everything, d- regardless of who's on the stage, regardless of
what building you're in, regardless of what podcast you're listening to, regardless
of how long that person has made you feel good about yourself, the question that
you need to be asking is, "God, what are you
saying?"What are you saying?
What are you teaching me? What are you showing me? What are you correcting me in?
What are you, what are you trying to steer me away from?
That is our prayer that helps us discern truth from
lies. And thank God that he places his
spirit within us.
Because in a world that's full of noise and full of uncertainty, the still,
small voice of the Holy Spirit will provide you a certainty and a clarity that
makes you hold on fastly to this word, and hold on to the truth of the
Gospel.
And if you're here and you've never responded to that truth before, if you're here
and, um, uh, you've never said yes to Jesus, here's the good news.
The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit is the first inheritance
(laughs) when you put your faith in Jesus.
He fills you from the inside out and starts to, uh, uh, massage your heart and
correct your spirit and to, to transform you into the image of
Christ. He teaches us and guides us into all truth.
Scripture calls him the Helper. And if you wanna invite the Helper
to lead you, uh, through this life, I just wanna take a moment for all of us
to pray together. Father God, thank you so much for your goodness and for your
grace. God, I know we covered a lot of ground
today, but this is so important.
God, there is no greater truth than the truth of who you
are. There is no greater reality
than who Jesus came to show himself to be to us.
And Lord, I just pray that you would protect all of us,
that you would safeguard us. That we know that there are, uh, so many messages and
so many voices out there. God, we pray that
your voice will be louder and clearer than anyone else's, even my
own. As I stand on this stage, God, I humbly submit to
you. I pray that if there's anything that I said that, that is
not true or is in error, God, let that thing fall to the
ground.
Holy Spirit, only, uh, uh, teach us the things that you would have us know.
Make us more into the image of Jesus.
And God, let that ultimately impact the way that we live our lives.
Lord, we love you. We love you. We love
you. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen.
Thank you, guys.