The Village Church
Spiritual Swagger - Audio
Throughout our life here on Earth, God makes us over and over, and as He's making us over, He's turning us more into the image of His Son. That's what those words mean. "Lord, make me over. Make me more like Jesus." Last week we saw that John, and first John, He told us the fact that God does not want us to love the world, or the things in the world. We saw that God wants us to enjoy His creation and gifts, but not worship those things. Don't let your desires, don't let your dreams and life master you, because if they do, that turns into a lust. John wanted us to stand against and fight against those things in the world that set themselves up in opposition to our God and His Kingdom. This morning John does a 180, or 180. He turns our attention closer to home, away from the world, in order to get us to see and understand, that as we stake our stand against the world, if we have our guard up in the world, you must also have your guard up, even within the church. Have your guard up, even within the church. So if you have your bowels, open them with me to first John chapter 2, beginning in verse 18. We're going to look at chapter 4 as well this morning. So first John chapter 2, beginning in verse 18, "Children in this the last hour, and as you have heard, the Antichrist is coming, so many Antichrists have come, therefore we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they were not of us. If they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out, that it might be complained that they were not of us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and you have knowledge. I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. 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. Let what you hear from the beginning of the body and you. If what you hear from the beginning of the body is in you, then you too would abide in the Son and in the Father, and this is his promise that he has made to us. He turned a life. I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you, but the anointing that you receive from him abysing you, you have no need that anyone to teach you, but as his anointing teaches you everything, and it's true, and there's no lie, just as it has taught you abide in him. Now turn over to chapter four, beginning in verse one. Love it, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirit to see where 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 came 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 is now in the world already, but the children you are from God, you have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world, and 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 Aaron. Pray with me. Again, Father, I pray for you to receive glory during this time, and that the spirit, Lord will move me out of the way, move my pride out of the way, move my sinful heart out of the way so that you can bring glory to Jesus through what is said here today. And so Father, along with your spirit and along with your word, minister to your people, the people that you die for, and also minister to me as well, and Christ in my pray, amen. I want you to think about this, this question here. How do you know for sure that the things I preach here every Sunday is true? How do you know? Do you assume they are true because I went to seminary and I have a seminary degree and I am a pastor, does those things, does that make what I say true? What about the preachers, teachers you listen to, boots that you read, the preachers you listen to on TV, how do you know the things they are teaching you are true? You see, the reason John wants us to have our guard up in the church is because everyone in the visible church is not a believer. Everyone in the visible church is not a believer. Do you agree with that? If you listen to sermons, if you read books and you never check to see if those things are in line with Scripture, then you are gullible, you are spiritually gullible. What do you mean by that, Alex? I mean you are easily deceived by whatever is taught from this by any preacher who has passion, who is exciting, who is engaging. You can be all those things and not preach truth, do you know that? And being spiritually gullible is not a spiritual gift, it's not a spiritual gift. You see, don't follow pastors blindly, don't follow me blindly to the point where you never challenge me or pull me to the side to get a better understanding of the things that I say. You better do that. I don't want gullible members, I want teachable ones, but not gullible ones, who never feel it that can come up to me and say, "At pastor I did not understand that, can you please explain it?" If you value your own spiritual life, you do that, you do that, don't be gullible. This is one of the things that John is reminding us of in his letter, his readers and us, do not be spiritually gullible. If you read through 1 John, he is very repetitive, he repeats a lot of things, the theme of love, the theme of sin, the theme of the world, the theme of the enemy, it is all repetitive throughout this book, but his overall theme is assurance. He wants the believers in the church and emphasis to have assurance of the salvation. He wants you to have assurance of your salvation, but he does not want you to become complacent in it, but he wants you to continue to live out your faith. Don't be happy where you are, continue to grow in it. In chapter 2 verse 21, he says, "I write to you not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth. Because the believers in this church knew the truth, they knew Jesus, they knew sound down from him, he writes to him, "All Christians should know the truth, not just the preacher, you should know the truth, your truth should be in you, not just the leaders, not just the ministers, the reason they know the truth is because they know Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life. And nor the truth implies that it's part of you, you believe it, it's part of your life, you understand it, you value it, you will continue to get a better understanding of it, and because of this, all believers should be able to distinguish between the truth and the lie. If you're growing in your understanding of this, you should be able to do that. We'll talk later about how that happens. Be on your guard in the church, why John says in verse 26, "I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you." These folks were not outside the church, they were within this church in Ephesus, trying to deceive the believers in the church. John is then saying, "I want you to have assurance of your faith, but do not be gullible, do not be complacent because there will be some who will try to deceive you if you let your guard down." You've got to know the truth, continue to grow in your knowledge and understanding of the truth, and of God's word, He is calling us to have what I call spiritual swagger. Have some spiritual swagger, man, a godly confidence that you will speak up, challenge, you get a better understanding of the things that is taught to you, don't take everything for word of mouth. If you don't understand something, raise your hand, just like being in class, if you don't understand it, ask, ask. With college football fast approaching, I can smell it, it's coming, and I can't wait. You're going to hear this word swagger a lot in college football. If you follow college football, you know what that word means, they would always use this word about teens who start out slow, who had a good season last year, but are struggling this season. I mean, if Alabama starts out one in three, people are going to say, "Man, Alabama, they lost a swagger." There's a hangover from last season championship. They're not as focused, they're not as prepared, they're not as driven as they were last year. They're taking their opponents for granted, they're lost a swagger, but we all know Nick Saban, he's a good coach, he's not going to let that happen. He's going to get them focused, he's going to have them prepared, they're going to practice, they're going to watch game film, he will consistently drill in their heads, do not take your opponent for granted to be prepared. And this is what John is doing here, he's a good coach. He's saying, "Believers, yes, you are believers, yes, we have our national championship, we have eternal life, we have that, but do not be unprepared. Do not just settle there, have swagger, man, have a godly confidence, do not have a spiritual hangover, be focused, be prepared, continue to be driven." And heed the words of wisdom for Mr. Ice Cube, in his song he says, "Check yourself before you wreck yourself." And people who have spiritual swagger, they check themselves, they check themselves daily. They say, "No, how easy it is for them to wreck their own life." How do you check yourself? Chapter 4, beginning in verse 1, "Believe it, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God." See by making this part of your spiritual life, you will continue to walk in swagger. You will not be complacent, you will not be gullible, you haven't swagger means you will take everything you hear, everything you read, and you will bring it to God's Word, you will test it, to see if it's from God. You on the regular basis, to check everything I say, everything that comes out of my mouth here on Sundays, should be in loud scripture, and you will leave here today and go open up God's Word and see if everything at a sale is true, is it in the Bible? I don't care what church you go to, what denomination you are part of, what preach you listen to, what evangelists are, or whatever bishop, whatever title a person has in their name. I don't care how big a person church is, or how famous they are. I don't care if it's Tim Keller, I don't care if it's R. C. Spoil, I don't care if it's TJ James, I don't care who it is, everything they say needs to be in line with scripture. And everything they teach you, you need to go back and look at God's Word and see is it in the Bible? Is it true? John says in verse 6, chapter 4, "We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us, whoever is not from God does not. By this we know the spirit of truth, from the spirit of error. Believers you listen to sound teaching, you should believe sound teaching, and you should also be able to smell out false teaching. You should be like, that ain't true, that's not true either. You should be growing in that. You should know the difference between the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Global Christians can't do that, but those who have swagger can, means you have to take responsibility of your own walk with Christ, and who you listen to and who you don't listen to. And we have to stop making preachers, TV evangelists more importantly than we really are, we're shepherds, we're not the Christ, we're not holier than now, we're sinful too. Every preacher, every evangelist, whoever they are, bishop, whatever, we're broken vessels. That's what we are. We're broken vessels called by God to be used by God to bring glory to God through the ministry of God's church. Notice what's there. It's God, God, God, God. God, the preacher, preacher, preacher, preacher, call by God to be used by God for God's glory. That's what we are. In spiritually gullible members have a tendency to place that preacher so high up that they think he's the first person in the Godhead, the father, the son, the spirit, and my pastor. And spiritually gullible members never pray for the pastor either. He's the pastor, he's the man of God, he's okay. Listen, David was the man of the God's own heart and he fell, if he fell, everybody else can fall, including your pastor. Every Sunday I have to do battle with my pride here. They want for people to praise me, they have the desire to have a great name. I have to fight against those things every day, every pastor does, the desire to be more important than we really are, the desire to try to steal God's glory. Every pastor battles that. I'll battle that. How do you think a pastor has a big church? What do you think he's dealing with? Who has thousands of members? He's battling with pride. He's battling with his glory and reputation, having a great name. And if his people don't understand that, you've got to understand that, you've got to pray for him, you've got to pray for him. I don't have it all together, just ask my wife, she'll tell you. Preachers, including myself, we're beggars that deflow the cross with you. We're beggars, just like you. A friend of mine told me that there are three things that cause a pastor to fall. He calls him the three Gs, green, glory and girls. Green, glory and girls have caused many ministers to lose their ministry. Green, glory and girls, the three Gs, and every pastor can be tempted in all three. And see, here's the reality of the church, if you feed my pride, make me more importantly than I really am. You don't love me, you hate me and you want me to fall. You see that? If you love your pastor, you will not feed his pride. You will pray against it, pray to God, keep him humble. Cause when you feed your pastor's pride, you make it easy for the enemy to get him. Do you understand that? Do you see your role in that? That's what you have to do. And another thing, church members who place that pastor so high up, never test the things that pastor say. They assume what they're hearing is true, because he is the man of God. Maybe, maybe not. One day as Jesus was sitting on Mount Olives, and his disciples came to him in private, they wanted Jesus to tell them what would be the sign of his coming, the sign of the close of the age. And he told them things to look for and the things that would happen of his second coming. All this is found in Matthew 24. One of the things he tells them is this, "See that no one leaves you astray, for many will come in my name, saying I am the Christ, and they will leave many astray." Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. He says, "For no reason, where is the Christ?" To his disciples. So you got to watch out. Don't let someone lead you astray. Have swagger. See there, so there's no threats in the church that we need to be on guard against. It's false teachers, false prophets. That's what Jesus said. John says, in chapter 2, verse 18, "True to him, it is the last hour, and as you have heard, the Antichrist is coming." So now many Antichrists have come, and in chapter 4, he says, "Many false prophets have gone out into the world." This is the spirit of the Antichrist. The boogeyman for all Christians, right? But John, he doesn't give us much detail about a single individual, or their parents of the individual. His focus is on what he calls the many and what they teach. They are false teachers, false prophets. Teaching a false doctrine in the church and deceiving and leaning many people straight. The church that John wrote this letter to, "Have false teachers rise up?" He says, "They went out from us, but they were not of us. If there have been of us, they will have continued with us, but they went out for us that it might be complained that they are not of us." What is he saying? He's saying the Antichrist, and these false members were members of the church at one time. It could even have been leaders of the church. One Christian says, "When they left, they unmasked themselves when they left the church. They showed all the outward signs of being a believer, but they were not. They were not of us." If they were true believers, they would have continued with us, and continued with us means what? What does that mean? It means they would have continued to persevere in their faith, believing the Bible, believing the true doctrines of Christianity by all Christians. We know all churches don't agree on everything, but when it comes down to the core believes of what it means to be Christians that has to be with consistency amongst all the churches. Christ died on the cross, we've got to believe that, if that's not true, then we're all going to hell. Right? Right? Right? Okay. True believe was repressed of being and standing firm into the end. They were standing firm and believing and teaching sound offering. As John says in verse 4, "Whoever knows God listens to us, and whoever does not know God will not." And the believers in this church stood their ground. They stood firm because the false prophets left, because they didn't not convince the members and leadership of the church to come on our side. They did not go over to the dark side, they did not. And John says more importantly, they love that it might become plain that there were not other of us. This shows that God had a hand in it, and think about this, the light will always expose the darkness, the light of God will always expose the darkness, the darkness will either be changed by the light or flee from it, the false prophets flee from it. So what were they guilty of? What were the teachings that they were teaching in this church that were so bad? There were two. The first one is found in chapter 2, verse 22, "Who is the liar? 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. The second one is found, and I'm reading these, so if you don't have to go, flip back and forth. The second one is found in verse 4, chapter 4, verse 2 and 3, "But this was no spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ has come and it flashes from God, and every spirit does not confess that Jesus is from God is the Antichrist." So what do those two things mean? The false teachers were teaching that Christ was not God, he was not divine, he was not the Son of God, and they were teaching that he did not come in the flesh, that incarnation really didn't happen. Basically that Jesus was not the God-man, this is what they were teaching against. Why is that important, why is it important that we know that Jesus was the God-man? Tim Keller says, "He had to be human, he had to be like me and you to serve as a substitute for us, and he had to be God because only God could pay for an infinite number of sins." I'll read that again, "Why did Jesus have to be God, the God-man? He had to be human to serve as our substitute, and he had to be God because only God could pay for the infinite number of sins." That's why. If he is not the God-man, there is no salvation, there is no acceptance, there is no forgiveness, there is no welcome before God, there is no peace before God, if he is not who he claims to be in the Bible. We will still be left without sin and fertility, still on our way to hell if that is not true. And the reality is that, like I said, there are certain things you have to believe to be a Christian because you understand the Jesus affects your life, it affects the way you live life. It does. That's why this stuff is important. That's why doctrine is important because what you know about God and think about God influences the way you respond to God and live for God. If God was an evil dictator, if that's what you believed about God, how would you live? I have got to follow these rules, man, if I don't line it up, then Jesus is not going to bless me. The Father doesn't love me, if I keep failing like this, is that God? Is he a Santa Claus God? Well, God just doesn't give me everything at home. All I got to do is name and reclaim it. Is he a Santa Claus God? Is he a Terminator God, the evil God? No. He's not. Another thing that we have a tendency to do is we focus on one aspect of God. Either he's all love and no holiness or is he all holiness and no love. Being one side it gets you in trouble too. He's holy and he's just. He's holy and he's merciful. He's both and. So focusing on one aspect of God can get you in trouble too because you present an unbalanced view of the gospel, an unbalanced view of God, which can lead people down the wrong path. The false teachers, their true colors, what was their true colors? Paul says in 1 Timothy, chapter 4, "Now the Spirit says that in later times song would depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the incense erity of liars whose consciences are wounded and dead." Notice what he said about these false teachers? The consciences are wounded and it's dead. The false teachers have also been deceived. They don't even believe the truth anymore and you can be passionate about what you believe and it still not be true. I mean you can get up here, sweat, kick around, preach like this and it still not be true. And here's another thing, have you ever heard anyone confess to be a false teacher? Hey, I'm a false teacher and I'm going to teach you things that are not true from the Bible and if you want to be the Steve, then you want to be taken advantage of, then you come to my church on Sunday and I'll put you on your happy way. No, no false teacher does that. They don't even know their false teachers. They think what they're teaching is true because their conscience is dead. They no longer respond to sound doctrine. Verse 4, verse 5, chapter 4, verse 1, he says, "The false teachers are from the world. Therefore they speak from the world and the world listens to them." First John, chapter 4, verse 5, "They are from the world. Therefore they speak from the world and the world listens to them." In chapter 5 of this book, John says, "The whole world lies in the power, the evil one." Now you put two and two together, "If the false teachers are from the world, they speak from the world and the world listens to them and if the whole world lies in the power of the evil one, now who's side are the false teachers on? Who are the agents of evil and they don't even know it? Those of the enemy masquerading as agents of life and leading many people straight along the way. They are from the world. Paul the world. They speak of the world. What world are we talking about? The world is an opposition to God because they're from the world. They speak from the world's point of view. They are governed by the world's values, the world's system of thought. Remember the things we talked about a few weeks ago? Remember the things that are in the world, lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride and possessions, all from the world and not from the Father. And if a church is a worldly church driven by the lust of the flesh, driven by the lust of the eyes, having pride in their possessions, then you are an easy target to be led astray by a false teacher if you were worldly. You are an easy target to be led astray. What did John say? The world listens to them, for they are from the world. Let me prove it further. Second Timothy verse 4, verse 3-4 says, "For a time is common Timothy," this is Paul talking to Timothy, "when people will not endure a sound teaching, they will have itching ears, and they will accumulate for themselves, teachers to suit their own passions. And they will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths. What are the passions, lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, pride in my possessions?" And so it's not just the false teachers that are at fault, it's the members who won't listen to what they're saying too, because it's feeding my passions, what they're saying. Feeding my own passions, and so I want to preach that it's going to do that. If it doesn't do that, we can put them out and get someone else in that will. Tell me what I want to hear. Tell me, the false teachers won't leave people astray if there wasn't people itching to hear what they had to say, itching to be deceived, and not even on it. You have to take responsibility. We have to take responsibility for the things we choose to believe and follow. Jesus told His disciples, "Don't let anyone lead you astray man up, warming up. You got to see through the poker faces of your false teachers, and realize that their message and teaching is our man's center, not God's center, not Christ's center, not Christ's glorifying. It's all focused here on man." You see, the problem with some time is that their message is dressed up in Christian language. Just because my daughter dresses up in my wife's clothes as I make her my wife, and just because someone dresses up their language in Christian language doesn't make it Christian, it just sounds good. If you're growing your faith, you've got to be able to smell that stuff out. You've got to be growing. This week is tax-free weekend in Alabama. All people across our state want to be buying clothes, backpacks, and sneakers, school supplies. And if anyone pays with a big bill, like a 20 or 100, every cash is required to do a little mark on that bill, why? They want to make sure it's not counterfeit. And if you want to make sure your teaching that you receive is not counterfeit, you better use your marker, better use your special marker from everything that you receive to see if it's counterfeit or is it true? It has to measure up. And if you don't have an understanding, you go to a brother or sister who you know is wise in the faith and say, "Hey, I heard this. Tell me, what do you think about this teaching to see if it's true or not?" And here's the thing, you can't use your marker if you don't know it. If you're not reading it, if you're not spending time in it, you got to. I don't want you to read a Bible just to make me happy. I want you to read a Bible to protect your own faith, so you don't be laid astray. You've got to have God's word in your heart, and it's more than just come and listen to the preacher on Sunday. And I'll talk about reading other books. You can read other books. That's fine, but you've got to read this book. This is the book that changes hearts, not theology books, don't change hearts. This does. The spirit uses this. So how? How do we have this swagger? How can we keep it? How can we not be gullible? And the reason that there's a power behind it, we always know what the power is. One of them is God's word. John says, "Let what you hear from again and abide in you. If what you hear from again and abide in you, then you two abide in the Father and in the Son." And this is his promise he made to us, he turned her life. Believers ought to continue to abide in the gospel, in God's word. You have to persevere in growing in your faith, in understanding of scripture. Reading God's word, hiding it in your heart, that's what I mean. Like I said, I preached on this a couple weeks ago, it has, make it a garment that you wear. Neck was around your neck. You need this people, we need this to be on guard in the church. His word is life to you. His food to you. Are you eating your food? Are you eating your food? Are you just relying on crumbs to get you by? You've got to feed yourself. In John 17 Jesus says, "Prayingful of disciples, sanctify them in truth." Your word is truth. Sanctify us in truth. His word is truth. No other word, this word. This word, sanctifies us through the Spirit. Paul says to Timothy, he says, "Indeed all who desire to live a godly life in Jesus will be persecuted." While evil, while evil people, imposters go on from bad to good and words to see the men and men, deceiving many and being deceived, but you continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed. Does this word to you as well? But you continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, nor from which you have learned it, and from who you have learned it. From your childhood you have been acquainted with the scriptures, which are able to make wise for salvation in faith in Jesus Christ. All scriptures breathe out from God, profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training and righteousness, for the man or woman of God may be competent and equipped for every good work. You can't be the person God wants you to be if this ain't in you, if this ain't in you. You can't be it the person God wants you to be. God's word is powerful, sharpening, any double-edged sword is living and active. He judges the thoughts and attitudes of our heart. That's God's word. Let it abide in you, beloved, let it be part of your life, beloved, let it be honey to your lips, beloved. And God's promise to us is not heaven on earth, is not our life free from suffering, is not our life in isolation from the broken world, nor is it a perfect life. This promise to you is that no matter what you go through in life, those things would not erase from his memory the work of Christ for you. And so we're pushing forward to eternity. Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Set tribulations, set distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger of sword, no and all these things we all want, more than conquerors from him who loved us for I am sure that need of life nor death, nor angels, no rulers, no things present, no things to come, nor height, nor death, nor anything in all creation. We'll be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus. That is God's unwavering promise to you. That should feed your swagger man, that should give you a backbone to know that he got you. And when you hear something that is not true, stand up against it, call it out, challenge it, all for the sake of the gospel. Let the word abide in you. The next power behind the swagger is the power of the Spirit. The next power behind the word is the power of God. The next power behind the word is the power of God. The next power behind the word is the power of God.