Telling Truth From Lies

Happy Father's Day to all you dads. We love you, we just appreciate you, and we respect you so much. Dads, grandpas, adoptive fathers, expectant fathers. You know, in the spirit of Father's Day, I visited a couple of blogs this week that invited people to send in their favorite dad quotes. And there were a ton of them. Some were actually helpful. Most were pretty funny. Let me just show you a couple of these. One person said, "My dad adamantly stated, 'essential oils are used to fry onion rings, wings, or french fries. All other oils are not essential.'" That makes sense to me. I love this one, you gotta think about it for a while. Somebody said, "Once my dad went to the grocery store, and the cashier asked if you want the milk in the bag. He said, 'Just leave it in the carton.'" You gotta think about that one a little bit. I love this one, this is good advice at the airport. My dad said, "Put one shoe in each suitcase." So if it gets stolen, they can't wear your shoes. Bad advice. But some of them were a little bit more serious. This was actually my favorite. Somebody said, "My favorite dad advice, don't get fooled. Research answers for yourself instead of taking it at someone's word." I love that because in the passage of Scripture that we look at today, that essentially is where the Apostle John goes. Let's talk about it as we discuss telling truth from lies.

If you have your Bibles or a Bible app, I wanna encourage you to open to First John 4:1–6. And please go to TLC.org/notes to download the message notes. You can see them in web-based form, or you can print them out like this. They have discussion questions related to the message, all kinds of other announcements. It'd be great to see you all download these so you can follow along with the message. In the passage of the Bible that we look at today, the Apostle John, who's sort of a father figure to the early Christians, says essentially the exact same thing as that last dad, don't get fooled. And we need to hear this because would you agree with me on this, Christians can be extremely gullible. USA Today article headline was this, scams use name of God to con Christians. Article says a growing number of con artists are defrauding Christians. In the past three years, scams in 27 states used the name of God to rip off $1.9 billion. Regulators say the biggest scams include one church in Tampa that collected half a billion dollars from about 20,000 people. According to authorities, they built people by promising to double their money, but the church founder actually planned to use the money to buy an island and fortify it with machine guns and land mines. And John is saying in this passage, you've got to keep a lookout against that sort of thing.

You know, let me go verse by verse through this very important passage. In 1 John 4:1, John says, "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." He's saying not everybody who claims to come in the name of God is operating according to God's rules, God's spirit. You know, so many times in the Bible, it warns us against false prophets and false teachers. For example, Peter said it, he said, "There will be false teachers among you; in their greed, these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up." Jesus said it. In the Sermon on the Mount, he said, "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly, they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit, you will recognize them." Did you notice adjectives like ferocious and exploit? What the Bible is saying is false teachers are not just eccentric, you know? They're not just kind of lovable oddities. They are dangerous.

Here in Santa Cruz, we drive by, if you commute over to San Jose, you drive by every day a sad reminder and a tragic reminder of what happened here in Santa Cruz along these lines. Have you ever seen the signs for Holy City and wondered what they were all about? Just a few road signs left now on Highway 17, but in the 20th century, it was a white supremacist cult here in Santa Cruz County, led by a man named Father Riker. He had a radio station, a restaurant, a brewery, called his church the New Jerusalem. He also took all his followers' possessions and had a goon squad that hunted down and beat up people who escaped. Only ruins of it left today, but it ruined a lot of lives before it fell apart. And this sort of thing keeps resurfacing over and over. Jim Jones, David Koresh, the list of names goes on and on, and that's why John says, "Guys, you gotta test the spirits."

Now, what does he mean when he says test the spirits? That sounds kind of like a seance or something, right? It's just a way of saying that you gotta analyze where these people are coming from, right? Test their spirit. The word spirit there can refer to somebody's heart. It can refer to a personal spiritual experience. It can refer to a teaching or a teacher who claims to have been inspired by the Spirit of God. John's just saying, in other words, when people say, "I have a word from the Lord," that is not an unassailable truth claim. You gotta check it out. Test them. Don't be gullible. You see, and this is in your notes, two often forgotten principles about Christianity. Our first, faith is not believing something to be true. Faith is believing something that is true. Have you ever thought about that? Faith is not just believing that something's true that seems impossible. That might just be superstition. Faith is believing something that actually is true that just is hard to see sometimes. That's faith.

And then kind of a corollary to this is that every Christian is called to be a believer. We know that. We talk about that a lot. But if what John is saying is true, then this phrase is also true. Every Christian is also called to be an unbeliever. Have you ever thought about that? Christians aren't just called to believe in everything, like believe, period, full stop. No, we're actually called to be unbelievers in certain things because certain things are false and destructive. This is so, so, so important for us all to understand. Please don't listen to any allegedly Bible teacher, including me, in fact, especially me, for those of you who attend TLC and think, well, I guess they do their homework. I guess they do their Bible studies. So I'll just passively listen to whatever they say and believe it. John's saying, no, you do your homework.

Let me put it this way. When our kids were little, we used to teach them whenever they were reading books or watching TV, always watch with your filter on. Always watch with your filter on. Every commercial you see, every show you watch, put it through the truth filter. Ask, is this true? Ask, how do they know it's true? Ask, why are they saying that is true? What are they trying to get me to do or get me to believe, right? Well, in this passage, John gives us three truth filters to use in life and especially in your spiritual life. And number one is this, I must be discerning about what I believe. Discerning about what I believe. Excuse me, John gives us a very simple litmus test in verse two. This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God. Here it is. Here's how to not be drawn into a cult, how John. Well, he says, "Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. But every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God." This is so awesome. Don't miss what John is doing. This is power packed and I wanna kinda sit on this verse for much of the message today.

What John is getting at is there's so many weird doctrines that false teachers may teach and the Gnostic and protonostic false teachers that he was coming up against had all kinds of complicated doctrine. And it's so tempting when you're trying to contravene that to focus on this jungle of strange stuff. But what John is so geniusly saying in this verse is, here's how to recognize false teaching, major on the majors. What do they say about Jesus? This is so brilliant and so elegant. You know, people ask me all the time and I'm glad they do as a pastor, what do you think about this church? What do you think about that church? And my answer is always the same. Like somebody might ask, what do you think about this church? You know, they have glitter fall from the ceiling as people worship dance. And I say, probably not my cup of tea, but what do they say about Jesus? Well, René, what do you think about that church? Were they, the pastors all wear robes and they chant in Latin. What do you think? And I say, what do they say about Jesus? They say, what do you think about this church? It serves beer. What do you think? And I say, what is the address? No, I say, what do they say about Jesus? Major on the majors, are they preaching the gospel?

John says, do they acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ? You know, Jesus Christ, that means he is the divine Messiah and that he has come in the flesh. That implies that he preexisted as the word and he came to earth in the flesh as a real human being, not just a spirit being and not just to inspire us because he could have stayed in heaven to inspire us and just spoken through the prophets, right? But he came in the flesh because he needed to, to save us by his atoning sacrifice on the cross. There's a lot packed into that. Now, notice John does not say, watch out for every spirit that out and out, flat out denies Jesus. He says, does not acknowledge Jesus. The Greek phrase there can actually also be translated every spirit that annuls Jesus or does not acknowledge Jesus. Maybe they don't exactly deny Jesus, but they don't really make Jesus the center of their message either. He says, are they about the real Jesus of the gospels? Is that the center of their teaching?

Give you an example, my cat woke me up in the middle of the night, early one Sunday morning a while back and instead of grabbing my iPhone, I got up and switched on the TV and I gotta admit to you, I had no idea how many TV evangelists are still on early morning cable TV, especially on Sundays. And so I spent a couple of hours just kinda browsing these TV preachers and I gotta say I liked some of what I saw. I really did, some were okay, right? But I decided to practice this filter, this truth filter. Do they acknowledge that Jesus, the Messiah has come in the flesh? You know what, not many of those preachers denied Jesus, but a lot sure did not spend much time acknowledging him either. In fact, one of these guys I watched never mentioned Jesus one time in a half hour broadcast. He did talk about his miracle spring water. It was water in a little ketchup like condiment packet. He said, send in a donation, get it sent to you, anoint whatever you wanna pray for, guaranteed results. I can tell you straight up, that is a scam. My hair is still gray, it does not work.

They were not out and out denying Jesus, but they sure were not acknowledging him, centered on him either. I'm not picking on TV preachers here because I think we all do this all the time. Sort of marginalize Jesus, kind of domesticate and defang Jesus to the point where we almost annul Jesus. You say, what are you talking about? This is just an illustration. I don't know if you've seen these figurines, they're in a ton of stores, the Jesus is my coach figurines. I've shown these before and I'm sure these are meaningful to a lot of people and they're kind of sweet. But I'm kind of amused by them. Let me show you some of them. Like Jesus is my basketball coach. Jesus, very good to have on your team. He's six one, he can dunk, he's God. Or Jesus is my football coach. Nightmare for defenses 'cause he can walk through walls. Hockey, notice he has skate blades on his sandals. I guess he played for the Jerusalem olive leaves. Or karate, he's like, hey, I've already got a white robe, I am set for the dojo or baseball. After all, he invented baseball first verse of the Bible in the big inning. That's a dad joke in honor of Father's Day.

Now, listen, these are all sweet as far as they go and I'm not making fun of them and I'm not saying they rise to the level of false teaching and if you are offended, just email me at adrian@tlc.org. But my point is this, a lot of adults still see Jesus. Still see Jesus as something like this. Kind of my coach, kind of my personal assistant who has advice I can take or leave, sociologists actually have a term for this. They call it moralistic, therapeutic deism. And many scholars of religion say that this is essentially the religion of modern America. What it amounts to is this, Jesus is kind of my buddy. Moralistic, he's there to teach me right from wrong. Therapeutic, he kind of gives me therapy when I'm down and deism, he's sort of vaguely up there and around me somewhere. Moralistic, therapeutic deism. But what John is saying really here in these verses is Jesus is not my assistant. Jesus is my Lord. He is the Christ who has come in the flesh to save us. That means he doesn't just fit into the nooks and crannies of my life. I build my life around him. John says, stay centered on Jesus.

And he's pretty blunt about those who minimize Jesus. He says, "This is the spirit of the antichrist which you heard is coming and even now is already in the world." Three weeks ago, Adrian did a great job mentioning how when John uses the term antichrist, he does not mean the classic, you know, American Hollywood movie antichrist. John means substitute Christ. False Christ, kind of diversionary Christ. Really, John is asking this question, are you staying on message? The message being Jesus Christ came to earth, was crucified, died and rose again in order to save us and free us from the power of sin and death. And his one-time sacrifice is all sufficient for us. It is very easy to get off this message. Politics can get you off message. Current events can get you off message so that while you're not exactly denying Jesus, you don't spend much time acknowledging him either. Man, this is so, so important because when you don't stay centered on Jesus Christ, you become vulnerable to cults who can't preach the sufficient sacrifice of Jesus Christ. They need to preach that somehow that's not sufficient so that they can gain control over you.

And what I love about this verse is how John corrects without risking distraction by focusing on what these cult-like teachers are teaching. Notice he never gives us any details about what these false teachers are teaching, yet he corrects. It's really genius. And it reminds me, when I was learning to stand up paddleboard, Andy Whitman here at TLC was my teacher. He took me out and I was constantly over-correcting and off balance. And he gave me some great advice. He said, "René, just pick one spot on the horizon and focus on that and not on every little wave at your feet and you will relax and you will keep your balance." Guess what? It works after trying about 25 times, but I finally got it. And John is giving us that focus point for our spiritual lives. What do they do with Jesus?

Now, I realize that when I teach a message about discerning what I believe, some people, just because some of us have this personality, will take this a little bit too far. Somebody pointed out, if you Google the name of any well-known Bible teacher, Andy Stanley, Rick Warren, Tim Keller, Beth Moore, anyone, and then type in the letter F in the search bar after their name, one of the first things that auto-fills in your search bar is false teacher. And there's links to all kinds of videos purporting to point out that these people are completely false teachers because some people just love putting up websites and filling them with videos, calling everybody but them a false teacher. And they often will take one clip where a pastor says something clumsily or maybe inaccurately, and then they label the entire ministry as false. That's not what we're talking about here.

What we're talking about here is the same principle that you already practice when you eat food. Follow me, some food is toxic. Like, this is called a death cap mushroom. It is an extremely lethal mushroom. Do not even try it. In fact, pro tip, do not ever eat any food with the word death in its name, okay? But most food, what do you do? For those of you who are meat eaters, you take out the gristle or the fat. Doesn't meet the whole steak is bad, right? And John's just saying, listen, listen to other teachers in the same way that you eat food. The fat, the gristle, you take that out, don't eat that. The toxic stuff, you stay entirely away. Just be discerning about what you believe. And the number two, we're gonna get through these next two points pretty quickly. Be confident about what you face. I need to stay confident about what I face.

See, John just used the A word, antichrist. And he knows some people are gonna freak out and get paranoid, the antichrist is all around us. So John has to calm them down. He says, "Okay, remember you, dear children are from God and you have overcome them because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world." Too many Christians live in fear. There's a book I wanna recommend by a man named Greg Camp. It's called "Selling Fear, Conspiracy Theories and End Times Paranoia." And he talks about false prophecies about Jesus coming back and how increasingly they're tied into modern conspiracy theories. And he goes on to show that what these teachings do is they instill fear in Christians, which makes them vulnerable to, as he puts it, crackpots and extremists. We need to remember what John said. The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. If you live in fear, even of false teachers, you are making yourself vulnerable and unstable. And when you believe this, it really makes a difference in your life.

Let me tell you a true story. In 1960, first grader Ruby Bridges was among the first black children in New Orleans selected to attend an integrated school. And every day, as she walked to school, guarded by federal marshals, people lined the path and yelled obscenities at this six-year-old girl. Once someone even showed her a doll of a black girl in a coffin. Well, one day her teacher, Mrs. Henry, watched from the window and noticed Ruby was talking as she walked. And when Ruby got to class, Mrs. Henry said, "Ruby, I saw your lips moving, but I couldn't make out what you were saying to those people." And Ruby said, "Well, I wasn't talking to them. I was praying for them." In an interview years later, as an adult, Ruby explained, "Usually I prayed in the car on the way to school, but that day I'd forgotten until I was in the crowd. And so I prayed, 'Please be with me, and be with these people too. Forgive them because they don't know what they're doing.'" She was six. I have a grandson who's turning five this summer. I've had three kids who've all been six. And my question is, how does a six-year-old have that kind of wisdom? Well, here's where it comes from. Her parents were devout Christians, and every single night her mother would read to her from the Bible and pray with her to remind her, "God is always with you." And day after day, that produced two character qualities in Ruby, she was discerning. She knew that what these people around her were yelling at her was false, and consequently, she was confident. Our first two points today. When you really believe the things that John is talking about, when you really live life with these truth filters, it really makes a difference.

Now, there's one thing that can make this very tough to do. And in fact, Ruby experienced it, and it's this. The lie often has what you could call the madness of the crowd behind it, right? It often has the force of the majority, the force of numbers. And that brings us quickly to John's final point. I need to stay wise about what I hear from the majority. Verse five is all about this. John says, "They are from the world, and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world." And so the world listens to them. You see, and this is very important, false teaching isn't always obviously false. False teachers don't have mustaches that they twirl like villains as they cackle wickedly. It's often attractive, and it's often popular. But let me ask you, has the majority ever been wrong? Large numbers of people can be misled, right? Exhibit eight, dodge your fans. Just kidding. John is simply saying, don't replace the authority of the Bible with the opinion of the crowd. Resist groupthink.

Now, how do you do that? Well, he's very blunt. He says, "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." Now, he says, whoever is not from God does not listen to us. At first glance, that seems almost kind of arrogant, doesn't it? But when John, the apostle John, says us, he's speaking of the apostles, those original disciples of Jesus who lived with him and heard what Jesus said. He's talking about what they passed on to us in their writings collected in sacred scripture in the Bible. This is really an early call to stay rooted in biblical orthodoxy, to build your faith on the foundation of Jesus and the apostles. And in that way, you will be able to detect the counterfeit.

This is very, very important, because if you don't stay grounded in the foundation of the apostles and in Jesus, what happens is you become vulnerable to people who just pull one Bible verse out of context and can twist it out of context to make it mean whatever they want it to mean. But if you stay grounded in apostolic teaching, then you can detect that what they're doing is twisting scripture. As Adrian said a couple of weeks ago, stay grounded in God's word, run it all through that filter. What I'm saying is please dig into scripture. Get into a Bible study, pick up a study Bible here at our book nook at church or anywhere else that you can, run it all through that filter. Now again, you gotta be careful here. Do not become this, a mirthless, joyless human lie detector who thinks the goal of our faith is simply being right. Being right is not the goal of our faith, it's not the joy of our faith.

In fact, sneak peek into next week, we're gonna be talking about this next section. It starts with this verse, "Dear friends, let us love one another for love comes from God." The section we've been studying today is truth and then the whole next section we'll be studying next weekend is about love. Truth and love are John's two themes and this epistle never stays in truth for long before he gets back to love because do you see how important they both are? Yes, we need to stay grounded in truth but we need to remember that the goal of that is love. Check this out. Somebody said we live in an age of beautiful heresy and ugly orthodoxy. A lot of heresies, a lot of false teachings these days are very attractive in the way that orthodoxy, biblical truth is defended is often ugly and kind of embarrassing. What John is calling us to is beautiful orthodoxy. That's what I hope to be typical of Twin Lakes Church. It's a term I heard this week and I love it. Love and truth operating together.

Now, here's the thing. You are going to have a thousand chances to apply this message this week. You're gonna be on YouTube, you're gonna see some teacher or blogger who is off base but very intriguing and very popular or you're gonna be browsing somewhere, some ad will pop up and scream at you. You need more, you need more money, you need a better house, you need better clothes, you need to look like this, you need to have these shoes and then you'll be happy. And you gotta go filter one, discernment. Is this substituting something for Jesus? Is it distracting me for my pure and simple focus on Jesus Christ? Filter two, confidence. Is it trying to break down my confidence or am I still totally confident about the truth? The greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. And filter three, wisdom. Am I asking of majority opinion? Is this true according to the foundation of the apostles and Jesus? What John is saying is dare to swim upstream when it comes to whatever anybody says, when it comes to what the crowd believes. Like that dad said in the quote at the beginning of the message, don't get fooled, learn to tell truth from lies so that you can live in love.

Would you join me in prayer? Lord, we ask that you would help us to be discerning and confident and wise. May we be known as a church for always rooting everything in the gospel of Jesus. In fact, I pray that many right now would respond to the call from Jesus to follow me. That many in their hearts now would say, maybe I don't understand it all, but I wanna follow you, Jesus. I wanna give you my life. I wanna surrender to you. And we thank you for your incarnation and death and burial and resurrection. And God, on this Father's Day weekend, we give you thanks for the fathers who mean so much to us. And we give you thanks that you are our ever loving, heavenly Father, in Jesus' name we pray, amen.