Overcomers, Be Discerning (1 John 4:1-6)
Last week we saw the incredible confidence and assurance that John bestowed upon those who believed in Jesus, the real Jesus that was delivered to us by the testimony of the Apostles who were eyewitnesses, who were obedient to God’s commands, and loved their brothers and sisters in Christ. This week we will see John give a command for these people who are overcomers to be discerning.
I think it has oftentimes been the case that Christians don’t feel like those who have overcome the world. The Christian faith was mocked in ancient Rome. A picture of a donkey dying on a cross was found as a piece of graffiti mocking Christian worship and Jesus Himself. And we know of the different things that were said about Christians in that day. If you fast-forward about 2,000 years, then you’ll run into something interesting. Christianity has spread all around the globe and brought with it incredible prosperity, but it’s still mocked. Well, true Christianity is mocked and ridiculed. Adherents to the “faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3). And not only is it mocked but false teachers show up and say that what was once believed is old and backward. Those that still hold to the teaching of the Apostles are backward as well and should believe something new. And all of this comes together to make us feel the opposite of overcomers.
But again, we are forced to look at what Scripture says and not what the world says. We are forced to view things from God’s perspective and not the world’s. And when we do, we read that we are overcomers who need to be discerning. We have God’s Word. We have the testimony of the Apostles. And we are to be discerning so that does not get distorted.
Overcomer, be discerning. Christian, you are an overcomer, be discerning.
Be Discerning (1 John 4:1-3)
John has a message for those who remain. His message is for them to be discerning. Not every person, preacher, teacher, social media personality, news personality, or others who claim to have a message from God or claim special knowledge about God actually have it. There are many false prophets who have entered the world. And so he tells us to be discerning.
John doesn’t leave us questioning how we figure this out. He gives us a test (1 John 4:2-3). God the Son took on human flesh (1 John 4:2). Jesus was from God. And in our background, we have John’s first words written in this message.
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life..” (1 John 1:1)
And also, the first words of John’s gospel account which would have also been read by these same people.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it….And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” (John 1:1-5, 14 ESV)
When we examine these things, given this test, everything seems to become more clear. Many of the people who claim to be liberal Christians, this is not people who vote Democrat, but those who go to churches whose beliefs come from people like Adolf von Harnack and German Higher Criticism. Many people who are adherents to liberal Christianity will claim to be Christian and not believe in the Virgin birth of Jesus and His resurrection as well as many other tenets of the faith clearly taught in the Scriptures. Simply put, they do not believe what the Apostles taught about Jesus. You will often hear these people tell the world unashamedly that it does not matter what we believe about Jesus but how we live our lives.
Another group that we would consider today are Jehovah’s Witnesses. They do not believe that Jesus was God the Son, the Second person of the Trinity. And they also believe some other awkward things.
Another group we are familiar with would be Mormons. They believe in an eternal progression of gods. Jesus was just a normal person, not the God/Man. The Mormon believes that He achieved and became God. And they say the same thing about God the Father.
These are not the only people who are wrong on these points today, but they are the people and groups that we hear from most often today. Therefore, I believe we should know where these people have gone wrong so that we can understand better what is going on in our conversations with them. And hopefully have the confidence to answer them.
Those who fail this test are not just ignorant of the truth, though that may be the case. They are part of the “spirit of antichrist” and are missionaries of Satan. I do believe that many people are duped and truly believe what they are teaching. In fact, I believe that to be the case most often. There are times when people do these things deceptively, but most often I do think that people wholeheartedly believe the lies that they are spouting. But that doesn’t mean that they are not missionaries of Satan. They can be used for his purposes without their knowledge of it. Today we call people who do this “useful idiots”. It was a term that was used during the Cold War when non-communists fell prey to Communists propaganda and even spouted off the rhetoric without realizing it. And the same thing can happen with people concerning their beliefs in who Jesus is.
There are a multiplicity of messages about who Jesus is because there are many Satanic missionaries roaming the Earth today. This is how it has always been and John noted how it was the case in his day as well. Many of the crazy things that people who claim Christianity teach are just plain wrong, worldly, and Satanic. The only message that is from God and is salvific is what was delivered to us from the Apostles who were actual eyewitnesses to the glory of Christ.
Time and time again we have to go to the Word to understand what is going on in our world today. Many people, wearing a black robe and a clerical collar, are getting famous on social media right now for saying that Jesus was something He was not or saying that He embraced something that the Bible explicitly calls sin. Know this. Though they do not know it, they are messengers of Satan, his missionaries on Earth seeking to destroy. And we must be discerning. We cannot allow this to shake our faith and need to be able to give an answer to these false claims. And oh, by the way, it’s almost Easter so I’m sure some of these claims will get a hearing on the History Channel and in other very public places this year.
The real Jesus has been delivered to us in God’s Word through the eyewitness testimony of the Apostles. It is they who tell us what Jesus was like, who He was, what He accomplished, and the Holy Spirit gave them remembrance and understanding as they delivered this message to us (John 14:26). And they have told us that God the Son took on human flesh and was born of the Virgin Mary. He then lived a perfect life accomplishing all righteousness on our behalf. He then went to the cross, which we will remember in a few weeks on Good Friday where He bled and died as the sacrifice for our sin. He took our place under the wrath of God and paid the price for us (2 Corinthians 5:21, 1 Peter 2:14). And three days later He rose from the grave accomplishing our justification (Romans 4:25). That is the real Jesus. And only the real Jesus has accomplished eternal life and made a way for you to be right with Him if you will turn from ruling your own life and trust in Him. If you’ll abandon all hope of making yourself right with God and trust in Him who accomplished it for you. That is the real Jesus. Trust in Him.
Christian, we need to be discerning. There are a plethora of teachers and stories out there. It seems to come at us from everywhere and all at once. But we know that those that confess Jesus as He was not revealed to us in Scripture are not believers and are speaking of a different person altogether than Jesus Christ.
Church history has a lesson to tell us here as well. This has always been a battleground that Satan enjoyed to bring the fight. Through the ages we have fought along the lines that John lays out here in 1 John, therefore we should be cautious at just this point.
We see it here in 1 John with Cerinthus who taught that Jesus only appeared to come in the flesh and only appeared to die. This would eventually become Gnosticism which held to this idea also.
Arius believed that Jesus was not God and modern-day Jehovah’s Witnesses are little more than modern day Arians with a lot of other weirdness added to the mix. Unitarians fall into the same category and there are a few of these churches scattered around today.
There was also Sabellianism which taught that Jesus and God the Father were 2 aspects of the same person. Today there is a similar belief called Modalism that a good number of charismatics believe today.
Nestorianism taught that Mary gave birth to only the human Jesus, so Jesus was not completely God and completely man and was fractured into two different persons.
A few years later there was Apollinarianism which denied the complete humanity of Jesus.
Eutychianism taught that Jesus’s humanity was absorbed into His divinity. And so, there really was no human Jesus left.
And I recite all of this to you today because I want you to understand that John’s warning should be something that concerns us today. This very point is a place Satan loves to attack. So, be ready for the fight. John told us where it will take place and the long history of the Church confirms this very fact.
God Made You Overcomers (1 John 4:4-6)
Now, John doesn’t look at the believers and tell them that they need to just overcome the false teaching that had led so many people astray. He writes to them and says that they are already overcomers. Worldly and Satanic teachers abound, but they are who remained. Cerinthus’s false teachings had led many people astray but they remained. He tells those that remained in the faith that the were overcomers.
Christian, you have overcome the world already. But what is it that you have overcome and why is it that you have overcome? John answers both of those questions rather quickly.
“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 ESV)
Because the Christian has been born of God, as was stated in 1 John 3:9. And he also states that God’s Spirit dwelling in us is a reason for our overcoming, as was stated in 1 John 3:24. By virtue of the “new birth” and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit we have overcome. This answers the why question. But what is it that we have overcome?
We have overcome “them” and “the world” (1 John 4:4). It is obvious when reading John’s flow of thought that Christians have overcome the false teachers that characterize the world. So, the overcoming is not physical, but an overcoming of the false teachings of this world. This is something that we were not able to do on our own. God is greater, not us. We are weak. God is strong. And through His work in us, we have overcome the world.
The one who has overcome the world is the Christian. And rather than listening to the world, they listen to the testimony of the Apostles. The one who is part of the world, listens to the world. The Christian listens to the Apostolic witness while the lost listen to the lost. And knowing this, we can discern the Spirit of truth from error. Who listens to the Apostles? The Christian does while the world listens to its own wisdom.
The unbeliever is part of the corrupt world system. And this is proven by their believing in what the corrupt world system produces rather than believing the testimony of the Apostles. Why is it that every year a new conspiracy theory about Jesus seems to pop up and gain notoriety? Well, the world likes what the world produces.
The Christian is different. They are sojourners and strangers in this world, not because they are less but because they have been made overcomers through the gospel and the work of the Holy Spirit in us. They are fundamentally different than everyone else and are characterized by following God’s Word, the testimony of the Apostles. We understand that it is here and only here that the salvation of God has been manifested to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ. It is only through the perfect life, death, and resurrection of Christ that we can be in a right relationship with God.
Christian, you have already overcome the world. You have been born again and are from God. You have been given the Holy Spirit. You are those who listen to God and we know this because you listen to the testimony of the Apostles. You can discern and by the power of God have discerned the truth of Jesus Christ in the testimony of the Apostles. Sometimes it will be difficult, and some people are deceptive. But this is to give confidence. You can wade through the many errors in this world and make it out with eternal life because you have been made an overcomer.
In a world with numerous messages about who Jesus is let us be stalwart defenders and upholders of the truth. Let us hold fast to the testimony of the Apostles and deliver that testimony to a lost and dying world.
Conclusion
Those people who have trusted in Jesus Christ as He was delivered to us by the eyewitness testimony of the Apostles and whose lives are characterized by following Him and loving their brothers and sisters in Christ have been made overcomers. God made you overcomers. You have overcome this world through what God has done in your life. Now, be careful. Have confidence in the work of God in your life and be careful of what lies ahead.