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Come on, are we ready to open up God's Word together here this weekend? I hope you're excited. I hope you're ready. And we're going to be continuing our collection of messages around the Epistles of John. And I'm so excited to jump into First John Chapter four today. But before we jump in and do a little recap of what has happened, I just returned from general counsel for the Assemblies of God and got to watch some of our amazing teenagers from our youth ministry perform and do an incredible job using their gifts and talents. And we had many, many, many go to Florida to, I don't think you're supposed to say compete, but present and did an incredible job. And someone from our campus, young Joseph Panachar, got first in the nation for short sermon. Isn't that awesome? And young Martha got second in the nation for middle school short sermon. So we got some preachers in our church. Isn't that awesome? Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. The future's bright. The future's bright. And selfishly, I'm just gonna give a plug to something that you saw during announcements, which is this. The men's camping trip is coming up September 5th through the 7th, and you might be saying to yourself, I'm not really a camper. Not yet. But come September 5th through 7th, you are going to be a camper. It's going to be an awesome time up at the woods at Lake Placid in Pillager, Minnesota. It's going to be an awesome time. And so men would love for you to join me, some of our team, as we get away, let things get a little quiet, spend time in nature, in God's presence together. And there's also good golfing and fishing up there. So that's not a bad thing either. Before I jump into one John Chapter four, let's just take a look over the last few weeks what the Lord has been speaking to us through some of these messages. In week one, we learned that true fellowship doesn't come through pretending like you're perfect, but through confessing your sins and allowing God to do what only he can do and purify us, purify us from our sin. In week two, we learned that life as a believer is not just about what we believe, but how we abide, how we spend our time where our focus, attention and our energy is placed. And we're going to get more into that this week and last week. In week three, we learned that God's children are not to practice sin, but abide in Christ. Pastor Kirk preached a great message called after the Prodigal's Party. And throughout this whole series, we've been seeing a perspective of John that is one of like a grandfather. He's writing this in his older years, and he's writing things that. It's like saying the same thing over and over again, but in different ways. Did anybody have a parent or a grandparent that was that way? It's just like, you gotta. The 99th time might not do it, but the hundredth time I say it, maybe something's gonna click. As a parent, sometimes you might feel that way, that it's like, am I a broken record? Am I saying the same things over and over and over again? And it's good parenting, staying consistent. But we're gonna read actually all of First John, chapter four, 21 verses together. And it says this. Beloved, and I just want to stop right there. I love the caring, endearing, beautiful language of beloved. Could have said, hey, you, hey, person, dear friend, but beloved, as a father speaking to a child, this is how we are receiving this message. 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 for he who is in you is greater than he that 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. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God. And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. Man, there's some heavy hitters in this chapter. It's like, man, I remember memorizing all of these, and they're all in this one chapter. It's awesome. God is love in this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent His only son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love. Not that we have loved God, but that he loves loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us. God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us. Because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Last little portion of scripture here. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love. And whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. I feel like it's a broken record. We're saying the same thing over over again. It must be very important. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment. And whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him. Whoever loves God must also love his brother. The title of the message this weekend from these verses in First John, chapter four is this. Check yourself before you wreck yourself. Any 90s rap fans, Ice Cubes said chickadee, Check yourself before you wreck yourself. Check yourself before you wreck yourself. Let's pray together one more time. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you that it is alive and active, sharper than any two edged sword. And we need you, God and your word to do what only they can do in our life. My words will always fall short. So we need your word to penetrate our hearts. This weekend, we thank you that you will be faithful to your promise to speak to us, to change us, to transform our lives. God, I pray right now for every person under the sound of my voice that has taken a lackadaisical approach to their spiritual life, that things would change today, that they would hear your word and your word would penetrate their heart to say, I need to do something about this. I need to do something about this. As a beloved child of God, would they receive your word today? In Jesus name, Amen. Amen. I love these passages of scripture and I've loved this series that we've been in together, digging in a little bit deeper to kind of who John is and how he is writing these passages of scripture to the people of God. And there's something heartwarming when you see it from a proper perspective, that it's not just random sayings. It's not just a collection of fortune cookie things. It is the writings of an elderly man who loved Jesus, spent time with Jesus, and wants you to love Jesus and live an abundant life. And so that's how we receive these words. And I had an upbringing where it's like, man, my dad had his phrases. And every day I heard those phrases at least 10 times. You know, I'd leave the house, son. Hey, son. Right here. Be the leader God's called you to be. Okay, dad. Yep. Okay. Be the leader God's called you to be. You know, I would do something wrong and we would have the long talk about, why did you do that? I don't know. You know? Well, did you think about what you were doing before you did it? I don't know. You know, and then he would have this phrase. He'd say, son, your talent will take you places that your character can't keep you. And he would speak these things over to me that I need to make sure I'm who God created me to be. I'm exactly the child of God that my parents were raising me to be. And I wasn't letting my talent outpace my character, but being the man that God designed me to be. Another line that my dad was would always say is, you gotta keep your lure in the water if you wanna catch fish. That has less to do with your spiritual life, but it is a great thing to do when you're fishing. And I'm thankful for these words from John that are being drilled into our life. And the way that I read these over and over and over again, it's almost confusing to read it out loud and you're like, did I already read that? Did I. Did I skip something? Did I go back and you read it over and over again. But it's consistent teaching and great teaching for us to live by. And the context that John is writing in is that their community of faith has been shaken by all kinds of spiritual confusion. That there were people that were a part of the family of God, that they were a part of, members of their church family, if you will, that have left, left them. And they did not do so quietly. They left and started to cause a ruckus and teach things that were contrary to what God's word says. And here's the problem, is that what they were saying sounded really good. It sounded really spiritual. It even sounded like it was for or from a believer. But these opponents who were with them but then came and opposed them, they would twist the truth. They would make Jesus out to be just maybe an imaginary figure that we thought up, or maybe he was just a good teacher and had good ideas, but he could not have been, could not have been divine. And when you think about that, it's like we could be describing everything that we see on social media or on TV about different people that have a platform and they might sound really good. It might sound like it's close, it might sound like it's Bible, it might sound like it's God honoring, but it's twisting the truth just enough for us, for our ears. As Paul says to Timothy, that they're gonna allow, they're gonna take in for themselves whatever their itching ears want to hear. And I don't want to take in whatever my itching ears want to hear. I want to take in whatever God wants me to hear. That's what I need to receive in my life. But we see this happening today. We see self help salesmen who promise transformation without repentance. We see progressive mystics who elevate intuition over incarnation. We see moralistic therapeutic deists who see God as a cosmic life coach, very distant, affirming, but non confrontational. We see social gospel activists who preach justice without Jesus, replacing the cross for a cause. We see all of these things that sound really good and on the surface they seem like they're okay, but. But we need to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves. Because if we don't do that, we will start following these things that are actual lies to our spiritual life. And so the first thing is this. You need to check your feed. You need to check your feed first. John 4:1. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For any false prophets have gone out. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. Test every spirit. It means to examine the. It's the same language that's used to test the purity of gold. Not every spiritual sounding message is a Jesus focused message. We need to check our feed. There was a study that was done that said fake news and false things, false claims spread around social media six times faster than truth because we want to hear what our itching ears want to hear. And we allow an Instagram Guru or a YouTube theologian to become our source of truth rather than God's word right in front of us. So he says that we need to test every spirit. And the true test of whether a spirit is from God is Whether or not it points to the fullness of Jesus Christ. Revelation 19:10, which is also written by John, says this. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. That means that any word that comes out of our mouth that we believe to be prophetic, if it's not making much of Jesus, it's not prophetic. We need to declare the truth of who Jesus is. Every word that we say, every action that we take, must lead people closer to Jesus, and it must make much of Jesus. This is very defining and confining. And that might feel restrictive to you, but it's freeing for me. Because now I don't have to wonder. I don't have to wonder. Is what I'm saying okay? Is. Is the way I'm living okay? Is it making much of Jesus? Is it leading myself, my family, my friends, and the people around me closer to Jesus? Then I'm gonna keep walking in that way. It's defining and confining, but it's also freeing. Cause it shows us how to live our life. Paul takes it another step further. In Galatians 1, he says, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and who want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed, as we have said before. So now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. It's strong language, but it needs to be strong when we cannot allow ourselves to drift away by not keeping Jesus the centerpiece and the focal point of our lives. Verse two, he says, by this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God the incarnation. Who and what we believe about Jesus is the test of whether or not something is right and true. This is what the early church, for the first 500 years of Christianity, debated. They didn't debate little theological nuances. They debated, who is Jesus and what do we do about Jesus. Was he just a good teacher? Was he a figment of our imagination? Was he like a hologram that was floating around? Or was he the Son of God? Fully God, Fully. Man born of a virgin came and lived a sin. Did he go to the cross, paying the price for our sin, and was raised back from the dead? Three days later, giving us eternal and abundant life. Which Jesus do you believe in? The Incarnation is the litmus test. He must be the centerpiece and the focal point of our lives. It's not enough to say that, yeah, Jesus existed, but is he God? Is he the way, the truth and the life? And no one comes to the Father except through Him. To confess Jesus rightly is not just to affirm a doctrine, but to declare allegiance. It's a statement of worship and trust. See, this is so much more than just the words we say, but it's the belief in our heart partnered with the words that we say. We're gonna get to more of that in just a moment. Lies are designed to grab our attention, to give us whatever our itching ears want to hear. That's why this false truth and lies spread six times faster. And sometimes that can cause us to be afraid. But we don't need to be afraid. We need to know the truth, what it says in First John 4. 4, he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. We don't need more podcasts. We don't need just more study, though I think those things are good. We need to know that he who is in us is greater than he who is in the world, that the Holy Spirit is alive and well inside of us. If you're a believer, the Holy Spirit is alive and well inside of you. We need to check our feed. What are we watching? What are we seeing? What are we learning from? What are we feeding on? We need to check our feed. We don't need to wonder what is true or false, but we need but be in awe and wonder of the spirit of truth that is Jesus Christ. We need to check our feed. The second thing is this. We needed to check our heart. We need to check our heart. Verse 7 says, this beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God. And whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. Love is not just a virtue to live by, but it is a spiritual vital sign. Our love for others, our love for the Lord, our love is a spiritual vital sign. It's the EKG to our spiritual life. It's proof to whether or not spiritually we are dead or alive is the way that we love others. Lack of love isn't just a flaw, it's a failure of relationship. It's proof that whether or not. Of whether or not we are close to God. If God is love and love flows from God, Then when we are with God and abide with him, we should be more loving. It's quite a simple equation. I'm not a math genius, but this is how it should work in our life. I love that. In this portion of this chapter, it goes from John telling us to test others to then John saying, you need to test yourself. We can real quickly start to say, that's not true. That's not real, that's not it. That's not legit. Meanwhile, we are drifting away in our own love because we're so focused on pointing out what's wrong, that we're missing what's wrong in our own life. These are the things that we need to confess to the Lord and allow him to cleanse and purify our life. First, John 4, 9, 12. It goes on to say, God is love. In this, the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent His only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love. Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. That's the gospel. That's the good news of Jesus, that what is the embodiment and the definition of love? That God loved us so much that he sent Jesus to be the payment for our sin, the propitiation for our sin. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. John uses love 27 times in this chapter alone, and it appears in nearly every verse from verses 7 through 21. This is the densest use of love in the shortest amount of verses in the entire Bible. So does it matter how we love? Does it matter how we treat others? Does it matter how we talk about others? We. We need to check our heart. And when we see people, do we see people with eyes of love? There is something in our life, as we grow in anything, that there's gonna need to be imitation before there's true participation. Let me give you an example. I love coaching my son's baseball team, but they're young and they're learning what baseball even is. And so it's like I'm drilling the same thing over and over and over and over and over, over and over. And it's like, yep, elbow up. Yep. Swing your hips. Yep. Okay. Yep. Just a nice, even, level swing. Yep. Very good. Okay. Yep. Squish the bug. And the first time. The first time, they're like. And you're like, what was that? You know? But over time, you know, they get up there for their Reps. And we say the same thing. We say the same thing. We say the same thing. And at first it's just imitation, but then towards the end of the season, they get up to bat and say. I say, send it to the moon, kiddo. You know, it's like they get it. They're not just imitating what I'm telling them to do, but they're participating. And the same is true for our love for other people. That for some of us, it feels. And it feels phony, but because we're learning, then over time, when you get cut off in traffic, you wave with all of your fingers, not just one of them. There's real participation. Things are changing in you. It's amazing. We don't have the ability as believers to not love others. It is absolutely, absolutely foundational to our life following Jesus. 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. How can we be confident? In this world, we are like Jesus. How can we know that we are going to be okay? In this world, we are like Jesus. Follow Jesus. Look at the way he lived. Look at the way he loved. And what did Paul say? He said, imitate me as I imitate Christ. There's a time where you just imitate. There's a time where we all kind of, you know, we see it on staff sometimes where. Or you might see it in your company, where it's like younger people, they're kind of repeating the same phrases that the older folks, the more seasoned folks are doing. And that's fine. I heard one preacher say, he said to young preachers, he said, you're going to sound like an echo before you sound like a megaphone, because you're finding your voice. You're learning. And we need to learn love. We need to check our hearts. The last one is this real quick, is you need to check your confession. Check your confession. Verses 15 through 16 says, whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God. God abides in him and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love. And whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. What you confess determines where you abide. The confession of your heart and the confession of your mouth and the belief in your heart is a determining factor for how you will and where you will abide. Will it be in the presence of God, as a child of God, or will you drift and allow your belief in Your heart to not match your confession. We need to check our confession. You can't fake a confession. That's the whole point of testing every spirit. You can't just fake a confession. That's why John says this in verses 20 through 21. If anyone says, I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him. Whoever loves God must also love his brother. Your character must be congruent with your confession. And you might think that you can get away with saying all the right things in church. Pastor, good to see you. We're blessed. Yes, praise God. Saying what seems like the right things, but your heart is drifting. Check your confession. In the first week of this series, Pastor Rob shared what one kind of confession in confessing your sins, and he's faithful and just to forgive you of your sins and purify you or cleanse you from all unrighteousness. To confess in that way means to agree with God. But we don't even put ourselves too often enough in a position to agree with God because our confession is so incongruent with where our heart is at that we are abiding on our own and the word of God is no longer penetrating our heart. The presence of God is no longer overwhelming us. Your confession must be congruent with your character and your character congruent with your confession. When our character doesn't align with our confession, correction is imperative. There needs to be correction. And whether it's right now the Holy Spirit is speaking to you and bringing correction to your heart, saying, you need to change your confession and stop pretending like everything's fine and allow your confession to match what's in here. Your confession matters. It matters so much that it's part of our salvation. Romans 10:9 says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. With every head bowed, every eye closed, I want to read this final scripture from First John 4. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, for fear has to do with punishment. That's not what we're talking about today. Whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. He started it. He completed it. He chose us before we could ever choose him. Romans 5:8 says, God demonstrates his love for us in this. That while we were still in our sin, Jesus came and died for us. Lord we thank you for your word and God, I pray that there would be a true taking of spiritual inventory in our lives. That we would check the things in our life before these things in our life wreck us. So God, we re surrender our lives to you right now and ask that you would have your way in Jesus name.