I John 4:6

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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.

THE STUDY:

          John contended that true believers would tune out messages from “the world” (v 5). They would refuse to give heed to the “false prophets” (v 1) who had left the Christian churches (“gone out into the world,” v 1). John calls his readers to reject the Gnostics. They should instead listen to him and those allied with him. He insists that when people do “not listen to us” and chooses to listen to a contrary gospel, they show themselves to be “not from God”.

         A positive statement of this principle appears in John 8:47: “He who belongs to God hears what God says.” For John, teaching alien to his views clearly placed person in the arena of falsehood or deceit. Listening to him was to listen to “truth.” A person will inevitably be mindful of one spirit or another.^[1]

Why do God’s people listen to preachers? Because preachers proclaim God’s Word, and that Word has divine authority. God’s people hear his voice when the preacher speaks.^[2]

WHAT WE CAN WALK AWAY WITH ….

• We walk away this morning with the understanding that being of God (A believer of the faith) we will tune out the world and hear God! Not just hear Him but heed to his word. The opposite is true as well: Not of God we will have an open ear to the world.

CONCLUSION:

          Our friends and the social contexts we embrace incline us toward certain habits. Our associates affect how we entertain ourselves and how we spend our time and money. Admittedly, we cannot always choose our environment. But we are always to choose for the holy, rather than contrary to it. Susanna Wesley advised her son John,

Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes off your relish of spiritual things; in short, whatever increases the strength and authority of your body over your mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may be in itself. (Wallace 1997, 109)^[3]

          My friends, pursue God in everything we do so that we may “BE OF GOD” and not of this world. My challenge to us today, whatever is pulling us away from God REMOVE IT!

Blessings my friends

Pastor Rod

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^[1] Williamson, R. (2010). 1, 2, & 3 John: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition. New Beacon Bible Commentary (140). Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press.

^[2] Kistemaker, S. J., & Hendriksen, W. (1953-2001). Vol. 14: New Testament commentary : Exposition of James and the Epistles of John. New Testament Commentary (329). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.

^[3] Williamson, R. (2010). 1, 2, & 3 John: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition. New Beacon Bible Commentary (141). Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press.

I John 2:22-23 (Part 1)

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Who is the liar but he who denies that Jesus is the Christ? This is the antichrist, he who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also.

THE STUDY:

 I find it interesting the fact that John asked a question and then answered it in the same sentence. This is done in today culture. We use this technique if we are really trying to stress a point. We see this on TV in those police shows. They say to the crook, “Who stole the jewels?” And before the crook can answer, the cop says, “You did!” They know he did it; they just wanted him to confess. John may be doing the same thing in this verse.

From the general context, we cannot say that John is speaking to Jewish opponents who refused to accept Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah. John is opposing Gnostic teachers who taught that Jesus was a man who lived and died. During Jesus’ public ministry, the Gnostics said, the Christ descended upon him and gave him divine power from the time of his baptism to the time of his suffering. At the conclusion of Jesus’ suffering, Christ departed. To the Gnostics, then, Jesus was not the Christ. And John says that the person who proclaims this teaching is a liar. More than that, says John, he is the antichrist.^[1]

         

WHAT WE CAN WALK AWAY WITH ….

• This morning we walk away with the understanding that issues of this nature need to be addressed. Sometimes they can be handled behind closed doors in a very mild manner. But then there are times when we will have to address these types of issues publically. No one likes confrontation, but if the Gospel of Jesus Christ is being lied about, like John, someone needs to take the pastoral stance.

CONCLUSION:

          I see, more and more every day, the attempted to water down the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I hear so many excuses, which may be good excuses, in the world’s eyes, but in the realm of the Gospel it could lead to a false doctrine. I have seen good people turn from their upbringing, their beliefs, even their faith in order to appease others. Church, let us not compromise the Gospel to appease man. Look for the lies in the world today and rebuke them and continue on in the truth.

           

Blessings my friends

Pastor Rod

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^[1] Kistemaker, S. J., & Hendriksen, W. (1953-2001). Vol. 14: New Testament commentary : Exposition of James and the Epistles of John. New Testament Commentary (281). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.

The Study of "First John!" - Introduction

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Good morning,
   
     Over the next few months we are going to be walking through the First Epistle of John. Today I would like to share with you some interesting things concerning the reason why the epistle was written and some discussion on the debate of calling it an "epistle" or a "letter?"

     First John is authored by the Apostle John or as he refers to himself as "Jesus' beloved." He likes to remind us of this. There is not a great debate on who authored this epistle. The debate comes in the assessment of whether it is an epistle or a letter. You might be asking yourself what is the difference? A letter is considered a writing that is directed to a specific person and is not something that is required to be circulated among other churches. An epistle is a writing that is viewed as to be circulated and is addressing overall issues opposed to individual ones. Summing this up it looks like this:

          - Epistle: is to a group of people and to be circulated among the body of believers.
          - Letter: is to an individual and very personal.

     The main reason for this epistle is to address the issue of Gnosticism. You might be asking, "What is that?" It was not an open enemy of Christianity. It was a sly, come in the back door after the leaders leave, seduction that was affecting the church at large. Gnostics had “a more excellent way.” They understood the gospel better than the apostles themselves. It was a mistake to suppose that the historical facts and moral precepts of the Scriptures were to be taken literally. It was a still greater mistake to suppose that the Scriptures contained all that was necessary for man’s spiritual well-being. There was a higher knowledge, a more profound gnosis; and this the Gnostic could attain to and impart. Illumined by this, men would see that everything else was comparatively of unimportance (1).

     How did this skew ones view of Christianity? It did three things, (1) Righteousness was made of no account in comparison with intellectual illumination. (2) Scripture was made of no account in comparison with a knowledge which partly transmuted and partly superseded it. (3) The work of Christ was made of no account; for there could be no need of an atonement if there was no real evil in sin (2). As you can tell this was a cancer that was infiltrating the Gospel of Jesus Christ. John was referring to those who were teaching this as “Liars,” “seducers,” “false prophets,” “deceivers,” and “antichrists!”

     Gnostics may boast of their knowledge; but believers in the Incarnation have their knowledge too. They know that they have passed over out of death into life (1 John 3:14). They know that they are children of God, and as such are freed from sin by his Son (1 John 5:18, 19). They know that the Son of God has come in the flesh, and has given them a mind wherewith to know, not the remote abstraction which the Gnostic calls God, but the loving Father in whom they can abide through his Son Jesus Christ (1 John 5:20).

     We will be reading I John 1:1-4 tomorrow and discussing it over the next few days. Please join me in this wonderful time. Blessings

Pastor Rod

(1) The Pulpit Commentary: 1 John. 2004 (H. D. M. Spence-Jones, Ed.) (iv). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
(2) The Pulpit Commentary: 1 John. 2004 (H. D. M. Spence-Jones, Ed.) (v). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.