Everyday Church
The Basis for Discernment
(upbeat music) - Hello, friend. Welcome to today's podcast, Everyday Church, with Pastor Jason Keefer. Everyday Church is a daily podcast where believers learn together, grow together, and serve together. - Hey, my friend. Well, welcome to the Everyday Church podcast, and I hope you're having a great day in the Lord today. Hey, I just wanna throw this out there as a reminder. As always, if you're interested in getting connected in different areas of growing in your life, astatulabaptis.com, just a great place to get connected there, plenty of ways to find out how you can grow, join some small groups that meet throughout the week. And some of those, you don't only have to be on campus, you can just be a part of that online. That's a great thing, great tool to be a part of. There's ways to serve that we can serve together and be a part. So I wanna encourage you, you know, think about what it is the Lord's having you do in your walk with the Lord to grow in him. So check out astatulabaptis.com. Great place to get connected there. Also, be sure, if you haven't subscribed to this, be sure to subscribe to it and follow the Everyday Church. You can find us on Facebook as well, as well as Instagram. And we just try to put some stuff out there periodically to help you and encourage you in your walk in the Lord. And so I hope that the Everyday Church platform is a help to you and encouragement to you. I always enjoy hearing from people, whether it's in person, but I would love to hear from you, like my email text, questions you may have. Hey, things you think would be great if we discuss on the Everyday Church podcast. So be sure, be sure to investigate that a little more and let's get better connected. So yesterday we began chapter four in first John and we talked about the reason for discernment. Why do we need discernment? And so in a nutshell, Jesus said it specifically, because there are false prophets out there and they're out in the world and false prophets are there for a reason and it's for the reason of deception. They're there to deceive you. And so that's why you need to have to be discerning. And so today we wanna look at the basis for discernment, right? If we're gonna have discernment and the spirit is gonna be what gives us our discernment, right? We're trying the spirits, the Holy Spirit, compared to any other spirit, is gonna reveal some things to us. And so the basis of discernment is the spirit, right? And so we pick this up in verse two where he says, here by no ye the spirit of God, here by no ye the spirit of God, every spirit that confess it that Jesus Christ is coming to the flesh is of God. So we know the spirit, why? Because the spirit lives in us. We know that. He already told us that several times in this passage, Ephesians is very clear on that, that he has given us the spirit that we're sealed by the spirit of promise until the day of redemption. Jesus promised it to the disciples before he left. He said, I'm gonna send my comforter. The Holy Spirit, he's gonna dwell in you. And that's where Paul was able to say, it's not I that live, but Christ that lives in me. We're filled with the spirit. And so the Holy Spirit dwells in the believer from the moment that we believe the Holy Spirit lives in us. And so when John says, here by no ye the spirit of God, here's how you know it. Well, he lives in you, and this is what's gonna match up, right? I think of it this way. This is probably a really bad illustration, but this is the one you're getting. So you remember when you were in school and you take a test, right? There was the matching test, you know? And you'd have over here, you'd have like 10 blanks, and it would have a word there. It would just say, maybe it was a geography test. And it would say, it would list a continent, and it would say North America. And maybe there was over here, a sentence that would describe North America. Or I would say, Africa, another sentence. And so you know what I'm saying? Maybe it's a history exam. And you had 10 presidents there, and it would list 10 things that they accomplished. ABC, D, E, F, G, H, I, right through. And so over here, you'd have to write that letter. Well, you know, whatever the Abraham Lincoln was gave the, over here would say, gave the Gettysburg Address, that might be G. So over here, you'd put G. You'd match it up, right, with the right answer. And so I think of that in my mind. I'm like, man, I got the Holy Spirit here, and he's gonna help me to match this up. He's gonna say, here's how you're gonna know what is true. If you have the Holy Spirit in you, and he's verified in your heart, because you're already a believer, you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. You believe that he was given in the flesh, and that he died and rose again for the sins of the whole world. Well, if you know that, believe that. So you're gonna use that as a test against anything else that you're told. Anything else that you're tempted to believe. Like John's saying, you're gonna use that as a test. Look, every spirit, every spirit that denies, that denies that Jesus came in the flesh, that's not of God, that's easy. That's easy, that's one plus one equals two. You know what I'm saying? That's simple math right there. A simple way to gauge it, if you will. And so he says, every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ is coming the flesh is of God. And verse three, every spirit that confesses, not that Jesus Christ is coming to the flesh is not of God. And I thought of this earlier. All deception can be weeded out through the belief that Jesus is the Son of God, come in the flesh. I think every false doctrine, every cult, the issue they have is whether or not Jesus came to die for the sins of man. He was God that lived in the flesh. There's many people that think Jesus was a good man. There's many people that think that Jesus was a powerful man. He performed miracles. He did some really great things. Some will call him a prophet. But only one that just comes out and says, look, he was the Son of God, given for the sins of the whole world, that we could be free from our sins, free to live with him for eternity. And that's Christianity, that's salvation. And so John says, the basis for discernment is this. It is that Jesus Christ came in the flesh and the spirit can only reveal that to you, right? That's how we're saved. We're saved not just by the fact that we know historically he came to do this, but the spirit reveals that to us, or reveals that to us, opens the door for salvation. That spirit lives in our heart and it bears witness with anything else that would not be true. And so it really is, it really is simple. And I think that so many people today are just caught, they're caught unawares by things that are untrue. And it's because they're not settled in their heart that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. There is no other way to salvation. Like there is no other way that a man can be saved. Like Jesus said in John chapter three, except it may be born again. He can not enter into the kingdom of heaven, right? And he's got to be one of water and of the spirit. Well, water is the first birth is when you're naturally born and the spirit is that spiritual birth. Ephesians chapter two and ye who were dead and trespasses and sin, hath he quickened, right? And we've been made alive. Who has the Son half alive, half eternal life? But he who has not the Son has not eternal life. And but there's damnation that waits, the one who doesn't have Jesus. And so as you grow, now what happens is, is we grow in Christ. And so understanding that Jesus was the Son of God. He lived in the flesh. He died in the flesh, rose again, sinned into heaven. As we grow into that, it brings so much more and opened so much more up for us to understand what it is in the work of Christ. In that work of Christ, what does that mean? As you grow in Christ, you begin to understand greater truth in his word. When you're first born again, you understand that power of salvation. He freed me. He freed me from my sins. He freed me from an eternity without him. He brought me into the family of God. But as I grow in him, that spirit that works in me, I understand greater. A greater is the spirit that the work of sanctification. He's drawing me into holiness. That's what helps me to discern in my walk with the Lord the things that I need to do and the things that I don't need to do, right? I set down, I actually just had a conversation with my wife probably about two hours ago. We were driving down the road and I love sports. I love sports, I love football. FSU is doing horrible this year, but I still love football. I love professional football. The butts are doing good, so there's that. But I told my wife, I said, "Man, I've got to get a grip." I said, "I watched way too much football this past week. "Way too much." And what is that? Well, that's the spirit of discernment. That the Holy Spirit is helping me to understand, look, oh, wait a minute, dude. Like, okay, I want to watch football. But that spirit of discernment comes up and says, "Wait a minute, maybe if I'm doing that, "I'm taking away from something else." Sometimes the devil would deceive me or try to deceive me into thinking, "Yeah, man, you just need more time to relax. "You need to do less, less, you know, "less for everybody else and more for you." And there's times for that. I'm just saying that Holy Spirit will rise up in me because of the work of Christ in me. It'll help me to see, look, that's not building the work of Christ. What God's trying to do is it takes the work of Christ. What God's trying to do in my life takes the work of Christ in my life. And so maybe it's the Holy Spirit that's helping me to discern what is right in that moment. Maybe it's in a relationship. Sometimes people, when they get in relationships, they'll get in bad relationships 'cause they have no spirit of discernment. The spirit of Christ working in our hearts will confirm together what he's trying to do. And you ever just get around a person and you just sense off the, right off the bat. Man, they love Jesus. Man, they just, they're passionate about Jesus. Not just in Word, not just in Tom, but man, their heart is passionate about Jesus. That's discernment. You ever get around someone and you just like, man, I don't know what it is, but something is off. Something is not right. That's discernment. So the basis for that is the Holy Spirit and the work of Christ. You know that because he lives in your heart. Friend, if he does live in your heart, he can today. You can call on him to be saved. Jesus said, Paul said in Romans chapter 10 verse 13, "Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved." And today, you can call upon the name of the Lord and he'll save you. What a wonderful, wonderful promise he's given in his word. If you haven't done that, I hope you'll do that today. Hey, if you do that, man, I would love to have a conversation with you about what God is doing in your life and how he's wanting to help you. You can reach out. You can do that by email, everydaychurch@gmail.com is a great way. And we're praying for you. We love you and we want to be a help to you. And let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father, thank you for your mercies. Thank you for your goodness. Father, the power of Christ that changes us. What a very powerful and wonderful promise we have from your word. May you be glorified in our life today. Father, as we walk in the Spirit discerning right and wrong because of the Spirit of truth that lives within us. We love you and thank you in your name we pray. Amen. (upbeat music) Thank you for listening to Everyday Church, a daily podcast where believers learn together, grow together, and serve together. If this episode was an encouragement to you, be sure to hit like, share it, and subscribe for future content. (upbeat music)