St. Luke’s Evangelical Lutheran Church – Watertown, WI
Pastor Mark Gartner
Sermon for Easter 6 – May 18^th and May 21^st, 2006

Dear children of the Truth,

How do we know what is truthful. Our world has distorted truth so much that people struggle to know the truth. For instance all it takes a stand in a aisle at the grocery store and you can read all the headlines from the tabloid magazines. Some of the headings that I have seen go like this. "Computer virus spreads to humans" Merman caught in the South Pacific" "Soldier frozen in 1942 is alive" 1000lb -- 12 foot hog caught" "Man Struck by Lightening Files Lawsuit against God!" Vatican confirms peace talks under way between Angels and Demons" "10 More Commandments found". WE just chuckle and chalk this up to dumb ideas to sell a magazine. The problem is that the truth is always watered down to the point where people don’t always know the truth. This also applies to God’s Truth found in his Word.

True children of God believe the truth and love God and one another. Now, John encourages us and all his readers to test all spiritual teachers and believe only those who are found to be from God. They are to see that they go on loving one another, which is the characteristic of people who are from God. Today we want to talk about the unity that we have as we look at God’s Truth and God’s Love.

"Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." Believing everybody can be just as dangerous as believing nobody. Because many false-prophets have gone out into the world, proclaiming their various messages and claiming to be God’s inspired spokesmen, Christians dare not accept any and all "spirits." There is an on-going need for critical assessment of all who claim to speak for God.

A gullible person can be too easily impressed by signs and wonders performed by this or that "prophet." Or one might fall for the charisma, the personal magnetism, of a preacher. Some might be attracted by outward show or success or power. Others might be induced by the appearance of great scholarship or intellect. There are indeed many false-prophets in the world, and people who want to listen to God’s message must be on guard, must carefully test, must critically examine all such teachers to see "whether they are from God"—or not.

"This is how you can recognize the Spirit of God. Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world." There is no way we can test the teachers’ hearts to see if they are genuine or not, but we don’t need to. All we need to test is their confession, and this is a decisive test. John tells us that we can know, we can recognize, the Spirit of God at work in a teacher by applying this test. Does he confess openly and boldly that Jesus, the man, is the Christ, the Son of God come into the flesh? Does the so-called prophet acknowledge Jesus as the incarnate Son of the Father? Does he profess Jesus Christ as God and man, human and divine?

We understand, of course, that John is not limiting the test to one or two doctrines about the person of Christ. The truth about Jesus certainly includes and involves the entire gospel. Anyone who does not confess the full truth about Jesus Christ is, or has the spirit of, the antichrist. That prophet or preacher or teacher cannot be from God, since his message clearly is not from God. Those who deny the Son in any way do not have the Father, nor do they possess the Spirit. Their doctrine has another source.

"You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world." John’s readers, his "dear children," are from God. They are God’s true children and have overcome the false teachers by not falling for their falsehoods. This was not due to any special quality of their own but simply because the Spirit of truth was at work in them. Indeed, the one in them (God) is greater than the one who is in the world (the devil). The Spirit of truth has defeated the father of lies again and again. What a world of comfort for weary sinners, worn by their weaknesses and by warring against Satan, lies in these words. The Spirit, who speaks in the Word, by that same Word dwells in us, and thus we, too, are greater than the world.

"They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood." Another way to test teachers is by considering their audience. False teachers have no trouble gathering a following in this world because they speak the world’s language; they tell the world what it likes to hear, they scratch itching ears. In contrast, John says, we (the apostles and those who teach the apostolic word) "are from God", as our message demonstrates. And God’s real people are glad to listen to that message from the real messengers. The sheep listen to the Shepherd’s voice. All on the side of truth listen to Jesus and his spokesmen. Those, however, who are not from God don’t want to listen to messengers who are from God.

This, then, is how we can without a doubt recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood and determine which is at work in any particular preacher or teacher. We examine the message to see if it is the full truth about Jesus Christ, and we consider the audience to see if it is people of the world or people of God.

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love." John moves on to another mark of God’s true children, love. The Greek play on words is lost in the English, especially in the NIV. "Beloved, let us love," the apostle writes. Believers who are bound together in the confession of the truth about Jesus Christ will demonstrate their unity and their "family ties" by loving one another with the love of God. This unconditional, no strings attached love comes from God and can’t be known, experienced, or shown apart from God. Those who have it in their lives thus have evidence that they are God’s children and that they really do know him.

Those, on the other hand, who claim to be God’s children but do not love are wrong in their claim. They aren’t related to God; they don’t know him. Since God’s very nature is love, the child of God will reflect that nature, will resemble the Father in that respect. Where there is no resemblance, there is no relationship. The true children of God manifest the nature of the Father, at least to some degree. They love, though never perfectly, always imperfectly, haltingly, and sometimes weakly. Yet love is there!

"This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." God is love—that’s one basis for God’s children to love one another. Here’s another: because God demonstrated his love for us in the most marvelous way! Though this world was as unlovable as it could possibly be, God loved it, loved us, loved sinners so much that he sent his Son. God gave his one and only, sent him into the world so that we might live through him. God’s love manifested itself in loving action, the ultimate loving action in the ultimate self-sacrifice, for that’s what love is. Love is doing what is good for the other person, regardless of the cost or consequences for self. God gave the best. The Father commissioned his Son to save the world, and no greater demonstration of love was possible.

That Son came in the flesh to be the "atoning sacrifice" for our sins. Jesus the Lamb, Jesus the Substitute for sinners—that’s the heart of the gospel of our salvation. Jesus is the God-given Substitute, the covering for all the sins of all sinners. By his holy blood and by his death, sinners have been redeemed, not because we were lovable but because God is love and because God so loved.

"Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." This is the obvious deduction. No one who has been to the cross of Christ and experienced God’s saving love can return to a life of self-love. The love of Christ frees, motivates, empowers—and we love. Yes, we love God, but the real visible proof is in our love for one another. Children who are born of God do reflect the nature of God. Sinners who have been forgiven through Christ do imitate the agape of their Savior-God. Amen