Maybe you have never thought about the question, but is it more important for you to be a Christian or a Lutheran? That may sound like a loaded question, but for me, if someone simply told me they were a Christian that would really not tell me much of anything. If they told me they were a Baptist, a Calvinist, a Methodist, or any other denomination then they would be telling me more of what is their confession of faith. So, my response is that I am a Lutheran Christian. Our text for today speaks about our confession of faith.
Our text begins by urging us to test the spirits to see whether they are from God. We begin at verse one, “1Beloved, 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. 2By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, 3and 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” (v. 1-3). John’s concern is that we are not tossed to and fro by the many false teachings of this world which is why he encourages us to look at another’s confession to see if they are confessing and teaching the truth according to God’s Word. John does not tell us and nowhere in Scripture does God tell us or ask us to look into another’s heart to see if their teachings are true or false. To look into another’s heart, that only God can do.
Instead of attempting to look into another’s heart, we are to look at another’s confession and we do this by listening to, reading, really hearing what that person confesses. Those who are from God confess the Jesus is true God and true man. Those are the anti-Christ, who are not of God, are those who do not confess that Jesus is true God and true man. When I tell you to look at another’s confession, I do not leave myself out of that exhortation. Listen to what I preach, teach, and proclaim. If I preach anything other than Jesus Christ as true God and true man then I do not proclaim the true Word of God. If I preach anything other than salvation by grace through faith then I am preaching something other than what God’s Word proclaims.
The best “test” I can give you, and you have heard me say this before, is listen to who is running the verbs, who is doing what. One way to find who is running the verbs is to listen to the pronouns. You remember pronouns from English, those are those little words which take the place of nouns, words like I, you, she, he, it, and so on. Listen to who is doing what. Am I preaching about what you and I must do to be saved, how we have to work for our salvation. Or am I preaching about what God has done for us in Christ Jesus to save us? Whenever you hear the I, the we, and the you gotta words, red lights should flash and alarms go off in your head, because these are law words. The words of Holy Scripture are those words which tell us what God has done, what Jesus has accomplished, what our Lord has given us, those are gospel words.
At this point someone will usually make the statement something like this, “but we are not supposed to judge people.” Let me assure you, there is a difference between judging someone and recognizing that what they are teaching is false. Likewise there is a difference between judging someone and recognizing that they are sinning. To recognizing sin is to see that someone is not living in accord with Holy Scripture. To judge someone is to condemn them to hell, which only God can do.
When we test the spirits we find that there are those who believe according to the text of the Word of God and there are those who believe according to the text of the world. The text of the world is that of work righteousness, what I must do and accomplish for my salvation. The text of the Word of God is what God has done and continues to do for me, how He gives forgiveness, how He gives life and salvation.
With a reminder that the one who is in us is greater than the one who is in the world, John moves on to tell us more about the one who is in us, namely God. God is love. The word John uses is one we have heard before, it is the word, agape. Agape is defined as a God-like love, a love which is a selfless concern for another person, so much so that you would give your life for that person. Agape or God love is also love with a purpose and an object. God does not just love - nothing. God loves us because He is love. In our text John says it this way, “7Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (v. 7-8).
To fully understand this agape love we must recognize that God loves us first. Going back to our text we read, “9In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (v. 9-10). If God had not loved us, if He had not sent His only Son to die for us, we would not know what real love is and we would not be able to love others.
We love in response to, in imitation of God’s love for us. That is John’s exhortation in verse eleven (v. 11), “11Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” Notice that he does not say that we ought to love others so God will love us, but since, because God loved us, only because God loved us first can we love one another.
What does this mean? In order to love because God loved us we must understand our situation. Our situation is this, that we live in the world, but we are not of the world. Hymn 748 describes our situation best, “I’m but a stranger here, heaven is my home.” We are constantly tempted to be of the world. To be of the world is to have the “live and let live” philosophy. To be of the world is to think that “what I do is no one’s business but my own,” “I can do whatever I want as long as I do not hurt anyone else,” “you only live once so you have to go for the gusto,” “I deserve all the pleasures of life,” “I deserve a break today,” “I am entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of my own happiness, whatever that means to me,” these are some of the phrases that the world would have us buy into, that the world would have us take on as our creed and confession.
The biggest temptation of the world is the temptation to deny Christ. Of course the world is very subtle in this temptation. No one would ever come up to you and ask you to deny Christ. Rather the world does it by testing your priorities, by asking you to make decisions that put your faith to the test. Which is more important, breakfast with your family, or Bible study with your spiritual family? Which is more important, taking time for family devotions or making sure everyone gets to their social activities? Which is more important, Wednesday worship services, or the sporting events that have been planned? Which is more important, sleeping in or getting up for Bible class? Which is more important, being in Divine Service every Sunday or every other Sunday, because there is something more important on those odd Sundays? You have all heard the cliche, “actions speak louder than words.” What are your actions saying? What are your actions saying is most important in your life? As I have said before, we do not need to tell others what our priorities are, we live them.
John tells us to test the spirits to see whether they are from God. We translated that into listening to a person’s confession to see if what they teach is from God. For ourselves that means that we too are to live our confession of Christ. We live our confession by recognizing God’s love for us first. If we do not recognize that without Christ we are lost and condemned sinners, then we have denied Christ. We live our confession by talking about and pointing to our Savior, Jesus Christ. We use phrases such as, Jesus chose me as His child. Jesus made me His child at my baptism. Jesus dedicated His life to me. Jesus was obedient, even unto death on a cross for me. Because of Jesus I am saved.
We reflect the love God has for us, though imperfectly, to others. We reflect God’s love not just through our actions, although it is our actions which others see, but we reflect God’s love with our words and with our thoughts as well. It is our unseen thoughts that are at the heart of our words and actions so we pray that the Lord would guide our very thoughts so that they may guide our words and determine our actions, so that ultimately all we think, say, and do will be for the extending of God’s kingdom, the strengthening of His people and the praise and glory of His Holy Name.
John reminds us that perfect love casts out fear. John says, “18There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love” (v. 18). In other words, our sin, which deserves punishment, brings us fear. Yet, God’s perfect love, and His perfect love is seen in the sending of Jesus to be our substitute, God’s perfect love, God’s love for us, first, and our response of faith casts out fear, fear of physical death, even fear of eternal death so that we have confidence of eternal life.
And finally, again as John told us last week, so he reminds us again this week, we love because He first loved us, picking up at verse nineteen, “19We love because he first loved us. 20If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. 21And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother” (v. 19-21). God initiates, we reflect. And I will get back to this thought in a moment.
The reciprocal of this is that if there is no reflection that means no love for God, in other words, when we fail to love others, when we fail to offer words of encouragement, when we fail to build each other up as brothers and sisters in Christ, when we fail to help and support each other through our giving of ourselves, that is a reflection of no love. And so we see the importance of the fact that God first loves us.
God initiates and we reflect. It always starts with God, then it flows from us back to Him and to each other, and from there it only gets magnified.
In just a moment we will have the opportunity to confess our faith and we will do this with the words of the creed. My prayer for you is that the Lord will bless your confession and profession of faith and continue to work in you by the power of the Holy Spirit working through the means of grace, to strengthen and keep you in this faith that you confess. To Him be the glory, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
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