Welcome And Letter Background

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And welcome to the people listening to the podcast. I'm Stephen Fief, lead pastor. And okay, we've been working through a series in First John. We've been going kind of word by word, verse by verse at times. And one of the things I love, there's a lot of things I love about First John, but one of the things I love is how John continues to push Christianity beyond something that you just say, this is what I believe. It's more than just the checkbox of, yeah, that's that's the religion I adhere to. He's writing to real people in a real church dealing with real conflict. Who remember the reason what prompts him to write the letter is that people have left the church community. There's real conflict. And then some of the people who left have kind of become teachers. They might have been teaching in some capacity before, but now they're teaching other people these competing claims about God. And some of them apparently sound convincing enough where John has to write the letter to kind of address some things going on. And he essentially says throughout this whole letter, when we're going verse by verse, it sounds really repetitive, but it's kind of like don't forget what you already know. Now, we live in a world where everyone has access to a microphone and some sort of a platform, even if it's a really small one on social media. Pastors, there's podcasts, politicians, people we call influencers because whatever they say people do or a good amount of people do, our friends, the algorithms, new feet, newsfeeds, these things are constantly telling us what is true, what is good, what is bad, how we should interpret the reality all around us. And oftentimes, at least in my circles, and probably to some degree your circles, they're telling us what God thinks about these issues. Whatever it might be, they have an opinion on what God thinks. And eventually, following Jesus for all of us will require a certain level of discernment within ourselves because not every voice on social media is trustworthy. No matter how spiritual they might sound, it may not be trustworthy. And this is the tension that runs beneath the passage that we're going to today. We're going to 1

Discernment In A Noisy World

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John chapter 2. If you guys want to follow along in those house Bibles, John isn't just set off to help a church discover or discern what bad theology is. He's teaching them how to stay rooted in Christ when competing voices claim to speak for God. His explanation is pretty simple today. God has not left you defenseless. You have received the truth about Jesus and the spirit that leads you into truth. So faithfulness doesn't require you chasing every competing voice or discovering some sort of hidden knowledge that somehow you missed. Faithfulness looks like staying rooted in what you have already received. The last time we talked about 1 John was a few weeks ago. And during that message, we focused on the opening verses of today, 18 and 19. So I'm not going to reteach that whole thing. I just want to remember

Antichrists And The Real Conflict

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where we're launching from. John writes, Dear children, the last hour is here. You have heard that the Antichrist is coming, and already many such Antichrist have appeared. From this we know that the last hour has come. These people left our churches, but they never really belonged with us, otherwise, they would have stayed with us. When they left, it proved that they did not belong with us. That message is available on our podcast. Liz goes way more in depth than I'm going to right here, but essentially what we have going on is that John tells them their antichrists are not some futuristic threat that you might have read about or seen in a series called The Left Behind. Okay, it's not that. John is talking in the present tense. He's saying there are antichrists all around us, and not just one, but many. And they're people who have been part of your community and the people who had left the community. And now there are some people who are teaching. And when they do these things, it usually shakes a church. We can we can imagine, especially when the people who have left this faith community look confident, sound confident, are well articulated. It can really begin to seem like, oh my gosh, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I'm on the wrong side of this thing. Maybe there's something deeper, there's something more spiritual going on that we've all somehow missed, except for that person. And that's the temptation in this passage. And I think it's a temptation that we face in our everyday lives. As we, as we follow Jesus, as we engage in church life, I think we constantly want to know. We're wondering, what if someone else, somewhere else, knows something that I don't that I ought to? But let's take note of where John goes next. He's confronting these things that I'm talking about that I think that we kind of struggle with. He does not tell the church, these friends of his, to obsess over what people claim to possess.

The Anointing Every Believer Has

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He's not saying chase down every argument, become an expert in every competing idea. Instead, and again, it sounds repetitive because we keep coming back to this. As I was preparing for the message today, I'm like, here we go again. We're back at this whole idea of remaining, of abiding, of standing firm, being rooted. Before you fear what someone else claims to know, remember what you have already seed from the Spirit. John then goes to say in verses 20 and 21, and I'm reading from the NASB, I'll explain in a second. But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know. I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it, and because no lie is of the truth. And I use the NASB here because the NASB tends to be a little bit more, a lot more of a literal translation than those NLT Bibles you have. And specifically in this passage, the word anointing is very important in the sentence. Now, if I didn't grow up in or around the church, but I went to a Pentecostal university. And when we used the word or when I heard the word anointing, it usually meant you were a gifted something or another in the church. That person has the anointing of God over them when they sing. They have such a beautiful voice. That speaker has the anointing of God over him. He's very charismatic. And that is the wrong use of the word, okay? Because here John says you all have the anointing. You all have it. All of you here today, you have the anointing. And you don't have to be a great singer. You don't have to be a charismatic speaker. You have the anointing. You have received the spirit, the one spirit who works in you and enables God's people to recognize the truth. That's what the anointing allows you to do.

Testing Claims That Sound Spiritual

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And yet, you and I, I know you've sat across from a table from someone and they're talking, and then all of a sudden, some of the scariest words that can come out of somebody's mouth was, you know, I was praying the other day and God told me to tell you. So, what do we do when that happens? What how do we do that? Well, in John 16, Jesus himself describes the spirit this way: He says that the spirit of truth will guide you into all truth, and then adds, He will bring me glory by communicating what he receives from Jesus. So when we hear those words from someone that God told me, or I needed to tell you, I feel like God has put this on my on my spirit to tell you, the spirit's ministry of truth is centered on Jesus. That's what we read in scripture. For John the Spirit will never give us some new truth that competes with Christ. The Spirit continually leads us back to what God has already veeled in and through Christ. The Spirit helps us understand its significance more deeply. So no teaching genuinely originating with the Spirit will ever contradict Christ. Spiritual experiences, promptings, discernment, all of these things matter. They are part of our Christian life today, but they are never the authority above Christ. The Spirit doesn't lead us beyond Jesus, the Spirit leads us deeper into Christ. We'll continue to the next verse. And who is a liar? Anyone who says that Jesus is not the Christ, anyone who denies the Father and the Son is an Antichrist. Anyone who denies the Son doesn't have the Father either. But anyone who acknowledges the Son has

Truth Stays Centered On Jesus

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the Father also. John draws a pretty strict line here. Christian confession has boundaries, and Jesus is at the center of those boundaries. You cannot separate the Father from the Son, nor claim some superior knowledge of God while rejecting the way that God has revealed Himself in Christ. John will make this incarnational dimension even more explicit in chapter four. So in a few weeks, when we get there, we'll unpack this more. But it's this idea that Jesus Christ has come to flesh and he's been building up us and toward us. And John's whole point, and continuing to bring up the incarnation, that is God becoming flesh, his whole point is to remember his argument is right from the get-go, well, we heard him speak, we saw him with our eyes, we touched him. That is John's answer to the secret knowledge that other people claim to have. I kind of like this part right here. Someone comes along claiming, you guys, we discovered something new, something deeper about God. And John says, deeper than what? We actually knew him. We met him, we shared a table with him. What do you mean you know something that we don't know? You didn't even meet him. I lived with him for three or four years here. Like, what that's his argument. And it's it's great. Christianity is not the story of unusually enlightened people finally solving God's mystery. Well, I was out in the woods, or I was doing this, or I was doing that, and then all of a sudden the clouds opened up, and I heard from God, just me, as so many other world religions begin. This one is about God making himself known to us in Jesus. Christian conviction should never sound like we are smart enough to find the right religion. Should never sound like that. We should say instead, we believe God has made himself known in Jesus Christ. That is how we know what we believe, because of Jesus. Christian truth is not something that we've abstract that we know to pass some theological test someday. It's the person of Christ. And then John tells them what to do with what they know. He says, so you must remain faithful to what you have been taught from the beginning. There's those ideas again. Remain rooted, remain faithful. And if you do, you will remain in fellowship with the Son and with the Father. And in this fellowship we enjoy the internal life he promised us. I'm writing these things to warn you about those who want to lead you astray. But you have received the Holy Spirit, and he lives within you. So you do not need anyone to teach you what is true, for the Spirit teaches you everything you need to know, and what he teaches is true. It is not a lie. So just as he has taught you, remain in fellowship with Christ. What you have been taught from the beginning. They received a gospel message that they did not create. And a Jesus they do not get to redesign according to whatever feels spiritually compelling at the moment. This is the first safeguard of the faith, apostolic witness about Jesus. Something outside of me can test my beliefs and my experiences, my impulses, and even what I might think God might be saying to me. We can test it. And another safeguard is the anointing that you have received from him abides in you. God hasn't given them information and then just walked away. He said, Hope you figure it out. Hope you can cling to this. Instead, he imparts with us a gift, and that is the Holy Spirit, who is present among us and within us and his people. And the Spirit teaches us and convicts us, it illuminates things for us. And it constantly, he constantly forms us. The Christian life, again, is not about correct correct collecting the correct information about Jesus. But neither is it following whatever inner impression happens to feel spiritual. We have the truth. The spirit we have received, and both are drawing us to the same center that is Jesus. Now, if we step back from these individual verses that we're looking at today, John's theological principle, I think, is fairly simple. Christian discernment begins and ends in Jesus. The Spirit will never lead us away from the Christ God has revealed. Theologian,

Remain In What You Received

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scholar, and T. Wright puts it simply, Jesus is Lord. This is the center of everything. And C.S. Lewis once described Christianity as something he believed, not only because he could see it, but because by it, by Christianity, I see everything else. That is what it means for Jesus to be at the center. He's not simply one more belief we add to a collection of beliefs. So then discipleship becomes this lifelong work of asking if Jesus really is Lord, what does it mean here? And more practically, if Jesus is Lord, what does that mean for how I handle money? How I engage in relationships, my political beliefs, sexuality, ambition, power, disagreement, et cetera, et cetera. The list goes on. If Jesus is Lord, it impacts every facet of our lives. Having a fixed center, though, I want to throw this out there because I think we can get tripped up on this. Having a fixed center does not mean that every Christian pursuing Jesus will arrive to the same conclusions on every issue. Some applications require wisdom, others discernment, and in all of it, humility. But we keep bringing them back to the same center every day. We're not trying to make Jesus fit into our lives. We're learning to reshape our lives around Jesus. I can tell you how this has looked in my own life. I grew up in a household where we didn't go to church every weekend. We didn't grow up in and around the church, but I can tell you my family is very political. Politics matter a lot. And I'm grateful for some of those things about my upbringing. I mean, it certainly shaped me. When I was growing up, I listened to political radio. I read political books, and by the time I could vote, I already settled in how I would vote. My very first election, I knew how I would vote the rest of my life. It was ingrained in me. And then I went to that Christian university I was telling you about. And what began disrupting my political

Jesus Is Lord Over Everything

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views wasn't a professor, wasn't a bunch of them. It wasn't the university, but rather it was what we're talking about today. It was Jesus. As we studied Jesus, I would sit down in class doing the same thing that we are trying to do here today. We slow down, we study the context, we pay attention to what Jesus actually said, what he really did. And I would start to encounter these teachings of Jesus. Jesus would talk about enemies, and that seemed very different than my political ideologies, what he said about loving them, and then about money and violence and power, the poor, the kingdom of God, and etc. And I began to think, man, I gotta really rethink everything about what I believe. And that process has not stopped. They didn't cross like some finish line a long time ago. It's like, oh, this is where I am now. Over the years, my own personal political conclusions have shifted in every single different direction they they possibly can at different times. But here's the thing the point isn't that Jesus moved me from one political tribe to the other and then to the next. That's not it. My point in telling you the story is that Jesus challenged the conclusions I reached. And by coming to him and saying, I really want you to be the center, that meant all of these other things that I held pretty dearly needed to change. The center of my life stayed the same. Jesus is Lord. But what changed and what continues to change is me. I do. And I wonder how many of the things that we call convictions are actually just conclusions that we have inherited. May we, as we think about these things today, submit them to Jesus? Because that's discipleship. It's not making Jesus or figuring out a way to make Jesus or the scripture support what I think or what I feel strongly about, but it's remaining to and to be

When Jesus Disrupts Our Politics

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willing to let Jesus question those things and to let the Spirit correct and reshape us. And again, I want to go back to this idea. This is where we need a mature understanding of Christian freedom. And I think it's actually the Apostle Paul who gives us a helpful framework for this kind of discernment in our regular lives. In 1 Corinthians 6 12, he writes, You say I'm allowed to do anything, but not everything is good for you. And then he adds, I must not become a slave to anything. And then later in the same letter, he says, I am allowed to do anything, but not everything is beneficial. Paul isn't giving them a longer list of rules, a more expounded upon religion to comply to. He simply teaches them how to discern. Here are some tools to help figure it out. Christian freedom is not merely about whether something is technically allowed. Is this right? Is this wrong? Where's the line at? Paul pushes us further toward what is beneficial in my life as we examine the things we do. What is beneficial? What builds others up? What do I need to refuse to let master me? And what forms us into the people who look like Christ as should be our goal? Let me state this plainly. Christians centered on Jesus will not always reach identical conclusions about every practical decision. And that includes money, parenting, politics, education, or how we participate in our communities. That does not mean that the truth is relative. It means that we can have a firm center while holding some of the applications with humility. The goal is not to make Jesus fit the conclusion we have already reached, as I have said, but to continue to submit our conclusions to Jesus. Which means we should regularly ask, who is actually forming me? Or what is forming me? I mean, we can say that Jesus is at the center, as many people do, but then the outside of our lives don't reflect anything that looks like Jesus. And in reality, we talk more like our

Freedom Without Being Mastered

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newsfeeds or the political movement we believe in. The podcast host, the pastor, social media, or our ambitions, our anxieties, wounds. These things quietly begin to teach us what to fear, who to resent, what success looks like, and what matters the most. Are we willing to let Jesus change our minds? Or do we use Jesus to defend what I already think, what I've already made my mind up for? And we do not have to answer each question immediately, and we don't need to chase down every controversy or react to every voice. Remember, John's instruction is to simply stay rooted. Wrapping this up, there will always be competing voices in your life. I have not gotten rid of that today. We cannot do it. We've been, we just celebrated 12 years at Madison Church. We've done this for 12 years. We haven't figured that out yet, okay? But the thing is, as we read scripture, we notice that there's competing voices in John's church and the churches that Paul writes to. And throughout church history, we see competing voices, and that's why we have many different denominations to this day. People who have followed Jesus and landed at different conclusions. But we keep returning back to Christ. So as we get ready to do the prayer of examine today and go into a little bit of time of communion, I want to ask you to ask yourself, what voices have been forming you lately? Has something other than Jesus quietly moved toward the center of your life? Is there a

Communion Brings Us Back

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habit, allegiance, conviction, or conclusion that you need to bring back to Christ? Where might the Spirit simply be inviting you to remain still and to stay put? Communion is itself a return to the center. We come back to the Jesus we received from the beginning, the Christ who came in flesh, whose body was given, and whose blood was poured out for us.