Basic Training -- The Truth, The Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth

Good morning, everybody. For those of you who don't know me, I am Danny Yancey and I am on staff here as the Worship Director. And typically, I am couched right back there behind that keyboard. But this morning, I get to come away from behind it. I do have legs, I do. And I get to come away from behind the keyboard and open God's Word and share in that with you guys today and I'm so excited to do that.

To get us started, I have a quick story to kind of set things up a little bit. About two years ago, I had a quick conversation with a third grader. If you ever haven't talked to a third grader, talk to third graders. They will tell you fantastic things whether you want to hear them or not. And I said to this third grader, it was the start of the school year, what'd you do over the summer? And he said to me, oh, I started learning the guitar. And I was like, really? That's fantastic. He was like, yeah, last summer, I mastered the piano. And so this summer, I moved on to the guitar. And I'm thinking to myself, apparently, I'm doing something really wrong cause I've been playing the piano for about thirty years and I still haven't mastered it and this kid takes a summer and masters the piano. Obviously, I am being very inefficient.

But couched in that kid's thinking is the way that some of us approach truths found in the gospel. We sometimes feel that there are certain truths, certain elements of the gospel that we've mastered and that we need to move beyond certain things. But I'm so thankful for this summer's preaching series called Basic Training because it informs us that there are certain truths that we never outgrow, that there are certain truths just like scales for pianists. There are certain things that you've gotta rehearse over and over again to drive deeper into your heart, into your spirit and that's what this preaching series is all about.

And so last week, Dax came to preach to us about love. Next week, our director of youth ministries, Paul Deschamps, he's going to be coming back and his text is all about love as well. And here I am this week couched in the middle to talk to you about the antichrist. I don't know who I made enemies with on staff. They would give me this particular passage to preach, but nonetheless, here I am.

And so to go ahead and just put all of my spoilers out there, here's what my sermon's all about. It's all about standing firm in the faith. No matter what, how the winds may blow or what may come, standing firm in the faith. And so the text that I've been tasked with is here in first John chapter four verses one through six. And as is our custom, CTK, let's read God's word together.

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 he who is in you is greater than he who 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. — 1 John 4:1-6

Will you pray with me? Father, I pray that you would let the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight. Oh Lord, you are our rock. You are our strength. You are our firm foundation and you are our redeemer. Amen.

It was a Saturday. 11/18/1968. The world looked on in shock, horror and disbelief. News outlets all over the world were focused on a small agricultural village just outside of Venezuela by the name of Guyana. We know it better as Jonestown. 918 men, women, and children dead. 918 men, women, and children murdered either by the forced hand of someone else or suicide by their own diluted, beguiled hands. And every time I see the specials that come on or the images, I think to myself, how in the world could so many seemingly good people be led away like this, be led to such an end?

Well, I submit to us this morning, CTK, that good ideas divorced from truth always lead to deception. Good ideas divorced from truth always lead to deception. Let me unpack that a bit. You see, the people of Jonestown, they followed this person into the jungles of South America seeking good ideas. Jonestown was founded on the principles of equality and justice for all people regardless of your color, race, creed, socioeconomic status, equality and justice. And equality and justice are good ideas. They're biblical ideas.

But the truth is, since the fall in the garden, sin has corrupted every single part of us, even our good ideas. So the problem with Jonestown wasn't their pursuit of equality and justice. The problem with Jonestown was that they put their faith, their hope, and their trust in a man. A man that many of them considered to be a man of God and a faith healer. But the truth is he was a self-professed atheist and a madman.

You see, they put their faith and their hope in a man who was only a man when they should have put their faith, their hope, their trust in the one—the only one who is fully God and fully man.

In our text, John is facing a similar problem. There were members of his congregation that were leaving the faith following this good idea. Their idea was this: God is holy, God is righteous, and God is pure. Good ideas. But here's where they went left. God, as they said, is too holy, too righteous, too pure to dwell in human flesh. Ergo, Jesus, who was fully God, could not have been fully man because Jesus was too holy to be human, too limitless to be limited. He was too much God to be a guy.

You see, like us, John knew how distortions of the truth and insidious lies can distort people's reality, and it can cause good people to fall away from true faith. He saw how good ideas divorced from truth was leading to deception. And the only way to defeat lies, half-truths, and deception is with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

And so with the love and tender care that a father has for his children, the apostle John arms his congregation and us to fight against the spirit of antichrist with the spirit of truth. And he lays out for us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

And so CTK, if you're tracking with me this morning and you're taking notes, those are my three points. Point number one: the truth, as we look at verse one. Point number two: the whole truth, as we look at verses two and three. And then point three: nothing but the truth, as we look at verses four through six.

The Truth

Let's dive into point one, the truth. John tells us here in verse one:

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. — 1 John 4:1

How many of us here are familiar with fishing? Now, before your hands start going up, let me explain exactly what I'm talking about. I'm being slightly misleading. The phishing that I'm talking about is spelled this way: p-h-i-s-h-i-n-g. Familiar with that kind of phishing, yes? No doubt if you own a computer or if you have an email address, you've heard of something called a phishing scam. I know you know how they work, but for the sake of today, let me explain it to you.

They work like this. It's a type of online scam that targets consumers by sending them an email that appears to be from a well-known source—from a bank, from an Internet service provider, or from a person with a good heart that just needs your help to do the right thing. It asks the consumer for personal identifying information, and then a scammer uses that information to open new accounts, to invade the consumer's existing accounts, or essentially to wreak as much havoc as they possibly can in your life.

Now, the problem with phishing scams is that they appear to be legit. They appear to be from a source that you can trust. The key to avoiding potential phishing attacks requires one to be observant, to be discerning, and to test the content against what you know to be true. I'll say that again. The key to avoiding potential phishing attacks requires one to be observant, discerning, and to test the message against what you know to be true.

This is true for the responsible email user, but it's also true for the responsible Christian as well. You see, here in John's letter, he warns the church that there are phishing scams all over the place—those whose message appears to be rooted in the truth but is actually rooted in deception. And here in our text, John calls these fishers of men false prophets and informs us that many have gone out into the world.

And so with the prevalence of these false prophets, John essentially warns us, people of God: don't be spiritually gullible.

In case you think John is overreacting, the apostle Paul tells the exact same thing in his letter to the Ephesians chapter four, verse 14. Paul puts it this way, and to set it up, essentially he's saying that God gives us pastors, preachers, teachers, prophets for this reason:

So that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness, in deceitful schemes. — Ephesians 4:14

In other words, Paul, just like John, is saying to us, beloved, be skeptical. Don't be spiritually gullible and hold fast to the truth.

In a BBC article entitled—I love this title—"Why are people so incredibly gullible?" researcher Erin Newman writes this.

She says, we normally just judge whether something feels right or wrong before accepting or rejecting its message. Even when we know we should be drawing on facts and evidence, we just draw on feelings. Our gut, she says. She further states that our gut reactions swivel around just five simple questions. Does a fact come from a credible source? Do others believe it? Is there plenty of evidence to support it? Is it compatible with what I believe? Does it tell a good story? Crucially, she continues and she points out that our responses to each of these points can be swayed by frivolous, extraneous details that have nothing to do with the truth.

Now, to summarize all that, essentially what she's saying is that when as humans, human nature, when we're deciding whether to accept or reject something, we tend to not draw on facts. We tend instead more so to rely on our gut, our feelings, the way we think or feel about something. Now, the problem with that, especially for us as reformed Christians, we are well aware that all of us are flawed individuals. And so trusting our gut, our feelings, our self contrived good ideas should never be a substitute for trusting God as revealed through the crucible of His Word, especially in matters of our faith.

How we feel and what we think should always take a backseat to what God says. Proverbs three and five puts it this way:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. — Proverbs 3:5

You got it. And so that's why as Christians, when the world says, follow your heart, we say no. Follow Christ. When the world says, be who you are, we say no. Be who God made you to be. Be who God says you are. When the world says, you are enough, we say, that's really sweet, but no. Apart from Christ, I am nothing. But through Christ, I can do all things.

As the holy skeptics that John is calling us to be, no matter how good a message sounds, no matter how uplifting it might be, we must test every message and every messenger through the lens of God's Word. And if the message or the messenger doesn't line up with the truth of God's Word, it is to be rejected. People of God, God's Word is truth. It is the whole truth and it is nothing but the truth.

The Whole Truth

In verses two and three of our text, John writes this:

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. — 1 John 4:2-3

In verse one, John tells us to become holy skeptics, to test every message, to see whether it's from God. And here in verses two and three, John provides for us the test question. Essentially, the question is this: What does the spirit in question confess about Jesus? If the spirit in question confesses the truth that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, then it is from God. If it does not confess Jesus, then it is not from God. In other words, John is saying to us to question every message and ask it this question: Who does this message say that Jesus is?

Does that question sound familiar? Jesus Himself asked a similar question of His disciples. In the sixteenth chapter of Matthew, right after warning His disciples to beware the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees, He asks His disciples this question: Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?

Walter Martin, in his book entitled The Kingdom of the Cults, outlines some of the major religions of the world and what they believe about Jesus. And this book shows how they take their good ideas divorced from the whole truth and distort the faith. Take a listen to what these Christian faiths profess about Jesus.

Jehovah's Witnesses. They believe that Jesus was God's first creation, not at all equal with God. He is not a part of any trinity and though he did die on the cross, his resurrection was a spiritual one and not physical.

Mormons. They believe that the trinity consists of three gods born in different times and places, that the father begot the son and the holy ghost as spirit children through a goddess wife in heaven.

Unitarianism. They teach that if Jesus existed, he was not God incarnate or the second person of the trinity. He was a moral teacher and nothing else. The trinity, they say, does not exist and that truth is relative to every age and tradition.

You see, in response to Jesus' question, who do men say that I am? These groups answer that Jesus is not who Scripture says He is. They respond that He is an insufficient sacrifice. He's an unqualified Christ. They respond that He is a savior with no real power to save.

And so as Jesus asks as He did to His disciples, He asks each one of us the same question.

Who do you say that I am? And John asserts in our text today that our answer to this question determines whether we are walking in true faith or whether we're following the spirit of antichrist. Our hope and our faith must be built on the whole truth about a whole Jesus who is holy God and holy man. Our faith becomes fractured when we compartmentalize our Christ.

But sadly, we can see that this compartmentalization, this elevation of one aspect of Christ over another continues beyond the pages of scripture into our world today. You see, there are some, certainly not all, but some in the honorable fight for social justice that compartmentalize and they speak so loudly of the love of Jesus and his command to love our neighbor that they are willing to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to those who would use the banners of love and justice to subvert God's design for marriage, to ignore the right to life, and to paint true Christianity as a religion that is antithetical to love.

Conversely, there are some, certainly not all, in the just focus on the gospel camp who compartmentalize and speak so loudly of Christ the savior that they forget he's also Christ the king and that the king's command to love God is inextricably coupled with his command to love our neighbor as ourselves. Christ is simultaneously and equally loving and just. He is simultaneously and equally savior and Lord.

When our message elevates his love over his lordship, we cheapen his grace, we mock his commands, and we present a Jesus handcuffed to the will of human desire. The other side of that, when our message elevates his lordship over his love, we nullify his grace. We weaponize his commands and we present a Jesus who stands as a police officer wielding a pair of handcuffs. Both of these represent a cherry-picked Christ molded in the image of whatever suits the agenda of the day.

You know, too often we approach the truth about Jesus in the same way I approach a salad. I love a good salad. It's healthy without being too heavy and best of all, with a salad, I get to pick out the things that I don't like. And so in my salad, tomatoes, cucumbers and carrots, they got to come out of there. But here's the thing. I know that tomatoes, cucumbers and carrots are nutritious. I know they provide all sorts of vitamins, minerals and nutrients that my body needs, but I don't like the taste. And so in my salad, I take those items, those nutritious items, out of my salad, stick them in a napkin and discard them while I continue munching on my nutritionally compromised salad drenched in some kind of sugar-infused vinaigrette, thinking to myself, hey, I'm eating a salad.

But the message, the gospel, the message of Christ is like a good salad. You need the whole thing. The moment you begin picking out the pieces that you don't like, the pieces that don't taste good to you, you compromise the nutrition that your soul desperately needs. And you run the danger of picking out foundational pieces that compromise the strength of your confession of who Jesus is. In order to stand ready to recognize false doctrine and the spirit of antichrist, people of God, your soul needs to be nourished in the truth. The spiritually nutritious whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Nothing But the Truth

Which brings me to my third and final point: and nothing but the truth. So let me back up a bit. As I said in the beginning, when I first got the message that I was going to be preaching this particular passage, I was like, "Oh, not fair." You know, Dax gets to do the whole love sermon and then Paul is going to preach about love and I'm sure it's going to be fantastic and here I am with Antichrist.

But then I read through the passage and thought through the passage and I got to verse four and in case you can't tell, I love verse four of our text today. It's one that fills me with superhuman-like joy and confidence. John writes this:

Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. — 1 John 4:4

My former pastor would have said, you just missed an opportunity to shout right there. Did you hear what John just said?

I'm going to read it again, and I want you this time to pay attention to the verb tenses that John uses. He says:

Little children, referencing all of us as believers, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. — 1 John 4:4

And so John isn't outlining a future victory to come. Instead, he is leading us to celebrate the victory that we have in Jesus right here and right now. People of God, right here today, you are an overcomer. When we hold fast to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth of Christ, we overcome the power and influence of the spirit of antichrist.

When we hold on to the truth that our Christ is fully God and fully man, then we overcome the lies of the enemy that say our all powerful God is either uncaring or unloving because we serve a Christ that fully identifies with our pain, with our sadness, and with our humanity. When we hold on to the truth that we are saved completely and fully through the finished work of Christ, we overcome the lies of the enemy that sin still has power over us, and we become free. Free to live for him, not out of some striving to earn our redemption, but out of a grateful heart that we have already been redeemed. And when we hold on to this truth, this truth holds on to us. We have already overcome.

CTK, if you take nothing else with you from this summer preaching series, take this: greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world and through Christ, you have already overcome. Amen? Amen. That's good news. That is good news.

My wife, Deidra, she is a huge fan of The Andy Griffith Show. And so by association, I've come to appreciate the Andy Griffith Show. But there's one episode in particular, an episode entitled "Barney and the Choir," in which Barney, who's notorious for singing off key, wants to sing a solo with the choir, but no one has the heart to tell him that he sounds terrible. But Andy, who's always so resourceful, comes up with this great idea and he says, "You know, Barney, you should use this special microphone just for soloists. And when you use it, it's super sensitive so you gotta sing real soft. Real, real soft." But in actuality, it was a microphone that wasn't connected to anything and Andy wanted him to sing quietly so that no one would hear him.

But then comes the concert. Barney approaches the microphone and starts to sing in his special mic for soloist. And out of the speakers comes this beautiful, amazing baritone voice. Even Barney himself is surprised at how great this voice sounds and as the performance continues, he's getting more and more animated, more and more into the performance, shocked at how good his voice sounds. But in actuality, it wasn't his voice. It was the voice of a fantastic singer, a greater singer in the choir by the name of Glenn Creipe.

People of God, we are just like Barney. Our best attempts at life produce a performance that's off key, off putting and offensive. But thanks be to God. The voice that the Father hears, the life by which ours is measured is not our own. Jesus, the one greater than the world, became our Glenn Kripe. He's our melodious voice in the microphone that pleases the Father. And like Barney, at the end of the concert, we get the credit of a performance that wasn't ours. And that's nothing but the truth.

Discernment in a World of False Teaching

I can stay on verse four all day. But John continues in verses five and six and he says this:

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. — 1 John 4:5-6

Let me park in verse five for just a moment. In the year 2019, the movie industry made a profit of $35,800,000,000. It seems that the whole world is willing to spend significant time, energy and money creating and enjoying a good story. This is oftentimes why false teaching is so attractive because it tells a good story.

Imagine a god that functioned like a genie. You rub the lamp the right way and out pops your genie god that grants all of your wishes. Sounds good, right? And essentially, that's the message of the prosperity gospel. That if you sow a seed, then god will bless you a hundredfold. That if you do this, then god is obligated to do that. And out will pop your genie god who will grant your wishes and you can live your truth. You can live your best life now. However, this is not the God of Scripture, but it does tell a good story. And the whole world loves a good story.

But see, here in our text, John admonishes us, his beloved little children, to not go chasing after good stories, after the newest good story, but to stand firm and hold fast to the gospel, which is more than a good story. It's the greatest story. It's the greatest truth ever told. And here in our text, John reminds us to hold on tightly to this truth as found in the teaching of the apostles.

This is why, people of God, it is so important that we stay actively connected with a community of faith. It's essential for your spiritual growth and your health. Standing firm in the faith all by yourself is impossible. However, when you stand firm on the firm foundation of God as a part of an interconnected family of believers, it helps to keep your footing sure.

Do you know what makes a tumbleweed susceptible to the wind? Tumbleweeds grow in dry, arid places and they only put down one root and that root is very shallow.

And so soon, when the wind blows, it's easily uprooted and then it's blowing in every which direction with no sense of direction or stability. Now, contrast a tumbleweed with a tree, especially one that grows near water. That tree will put down lots of roots and those roots dig firmly into the soil. And those roots then spread wide and become interconnected with the roots of the trees around it.

And so in the midst of strong winds, these trees stand firm because, first off, they drink from the river. Also, because their root structure is strong because they're interconnected with the other trees around it and these other trees are also drinking from that same river.

And so as I close, people of God, in the face of the ever changing winds of popular culture and through the flood of divergent messages about what Christians should and should not be about, reflect on the words of Psalm 1:3 and be that tree planted by the rivers of living water and drink deeply. Plant your roots firmly in the fertile soil of God's uncompromising and unchanging word and then let those roots spread wide and become interconnected within the community of faith.

And then finally, rest. Rest in complete assurance that through the finished work of Christ, the living water from which we drink, you have already overcome the world and that is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Will you pray with me? God, we are grateful for your word. It is the firm foundation upon which we stand. We pray that your word finds fertile soil within our hearts and that it would produce for each of us a harvest for the upbuilding of your kingdom to the glory of the name of he who is both fully God and fully man. In the name of Jesus, our rock and sure salvation. Amen.