Don't Be So Gullible

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Would you all join me in prayer?

Lord, I thank you that you were and you are and you will be forever.

That's true.

Lord, we're coming to the point where we're gonna get into your word.

And we get into your word because it's it's it's the only book in the history of the world that is so full of wisdom and truth.

And it's from you.

It tells us about you, who you are, Lord.

And so I pray as we get into it this morning, Lord, would you use the words in this book?

Would you, would you, would your Holy Spirit come and would it burn away the things in our heart that aren't of you?

And would it would it stir up our affections for you, Lord?

We want to know you more.

Whether we're somebody that's far from you and has no idea who you are, or we're somebody that's walking closely alongside you, I pray this morning you draw us another step closer, Lord.

Come and work in our hearts and in our lives.

Your name I pray.

Amen.

You may be seated.

So we're gonna be in 1 John chapter 4, verses 1 through 6.

1 John 4:1–6

1 John chapter 4, 1 through 6.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

I'm gonna go ahead and uh and read.

4, 1 to 6.

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they're from God.

For many false prophets have gone out into the world.

But 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're 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.

Have you guys ever had times in your life where um, you know, you you you thought something was true, but after some time to think about it, or maybe a couple years, you realize that was not true.

Like you you were misled.

Um, my wife and I we were on a flight and we we flew into this a nation in Asia.

And, you know, I was a little bit jet lagged, that would be my excuse.

But we get off the flight, and as we're we're walking out into the main kind of airport area, this guy comes running up to us and he says, Do you need to exchange money?

And I'm like, Yeah, I do.

And he said, Well, come, I can help you.

And I'm like, Well, this guy is my friend.

He wants to help me exchange money.

What a wonderful guy.

Because I'm a pretty trusting person.

So I go over with him to his little booth and he exchanged money for me, and I'm like, What a that guy was great.

He was so incredibly helpful.

And we go and we get in our taxi and we're we're starting to go down the road, and I look at the money and I look at the sheet that he's given me, and things aren't matching up.

And what had happened was he had stolen money from me.

And I didn't realize it.

I just trusted him and thought he was a great guy, but actually he was he was ripping me off.

I felt dumb.

I don't like getting ripped off like that.

I remember another time, my freshman year of college, I brought a bunch of my friends home to my home for the weekend.

And, you know, I thought these friends, I thought, man, these are these are some of my best friends ever.

These are probably gonna be friends for the rest of my life.

They're such amazing people.

And uh, and so I'm hanging out with them, we're having a good time.

And at one point, my parents, during this weekend, they pulled me aside and they said, Brent, they said, you realize like a lot of these friends, like, they're probably not gonna be your friends 10, 20 years from now.

And I'm like, you guys are so dumb.

I wish, I wish you could know them like I know them and know how wonderful they are.

Because they're like, listen, like, we're gonna be here for you, and your brother and your sister, they're gonna be here for you forever.

But some of your friends, you know, friends can come and go, but I'm like, man, you don't know.

These are friends that are gonna be closer than a brother.

10, 20 years later, I'm no longer friends with any of those friends that came home for that weekend.

They were all fair weather friends.

I have friends from college that I'm still friends with, just none of them from that weekend that I was so sure were gonna be my lifelong friends.

It's easy to get misled.

It's easy sometimes to be a little bit too gullible.

And this morning, John, he's gonna teach us how we can avoid some of these things happening in our lives, how we can discern truth from error.

Um, a little bit of background here.

Uh, it's the Apostle John that wrote this.

John, at this point, he's he's an old man, uh, so he speaks pretty directly.

Um another thing that happened with John is during his during his lifetime, he he, well, back up here.

John writes this book, and one of the main themes in the book is love.

Forty-six times the word love is in this book, and it's not a Hollywood kind of love.

It's not the kind of love you can fall into and fall out of.

It's not that kind of love.

There's multiple words in Greek for love.

One of them is like uh eros, and that's like a sexual desire kind of love.

Another one is this kind of friendship, loyalty kind of love.

This this kind of love in 1 John, that's not the kind of love he's talking about.

The kind of love he's talking about is the word agape.

And that kind of love, it talks about a deep, unselfish, purposeful love.

It's the kind of love that's the bedrock of good marriages, it's the kind of love that's the bedrock of good friendships.

It's the kind of love that you have for your children.

Like you you'll you'll just serve them, and it doesn't matter whether they ever uh say thank you or anything.

You're you're you're there for your kids, right?

That's the kind of love that John's talking about.

And so just to kind of put this in context, the section right before this, he's talking all about love.

The section right after 4-1 to 6, it's again all about love.

So whatever he's talking about in 4-1 to 6, we need to make sure that we do it in love.

And in that kind of that fierce kind of, I'm here for you no matter what, I'm I'm serving you, that kind of love.

Okay?

So let's let's get into the text.

4-1.

And this is the Apostle John.

He says, Beloved, don't believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they're from God.

For many false prophets have gone out into the world.

And so John at the beginning here uses a very John word.

He says, beloved.

And to us, it's kind of like that's a weird old kind of Christian word.

But for these people, I think it would have really registered.

And the reason it would have registered is John, he had been so faithful to serve Jesus.

Do you really he was the only apostle that wasn't martyred for his faith?

And they tried to martyr him, they boiled him in hot oil and he survived it.

And I think he's writing this most likely after that had happened.

And so John, who's been through all that and been proven faithful, is saying, beloved, he really loves these people.

He's got a deep affection for them.

And in the out of that deep affection flows this, he says, you don't want to believe every spirit.

Don't believe everything that people are saying.

There are false prophets out there.

There's false prophets out there.

You know, when you get older, you you you can kind of lose your filter and you can become more okay with saying truth because you don't have time to beat around the bush.

You don't know how many days you're gonna have left, and you tend to speak more directly.

That's what John does in this passage.

He's very direct.

He's like, you need to be discerning and you need to realize there are false prophets out there.

And you need to be able to identify who's a false prophet and who's a true teacher.

Um when I was young, probably about my my college years, I remember my filter for how I discern truth was if a if a pastor has a large following, that means he's speaking truth.

That was my filter.

Um I remember getting in an argument with my parents about, I don't remember what theological issue it was, and and and my argument back was like, I was like, guys, he the guy's a pastor of a big church.

I'm sure we can trust him.

That's not a good filter, guys.

That's not how you discern truth.

There are pastors here in Houston that are not faithful preachers that have large churches.

That does not prove that you are a good pastor.

But John, he he gives us kind of two kind of things here.

What I realized I didn't know was one, the Holy Spirit lived in me.

And that Holy Spirit was gonna guide me to truth.

I didn't realize that when I was having those arguments over theology with my parents.

Another thing that I think really helps to guide us to truth is God's Word.

Like we need to know our Bibles, and that's gonna lead us to truth.

So John tells him there's false prophets out there.

You need to be discerning.

Let's look at verses two and three.

He says, 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 is now in the world already.

So this is a second test, and this test is very specific to their situation.

He's saying, You need to, if they're from God, they are gonna confess that Jesus has come in the flesh.

They're not gonna have a problem saying that.

But if they're not from God, they will not be able to do that.

And he again uses very direct language.

He's like, they're actually antichrist if they do that.

And I'm not talking about the Antichrist at end times.

That's not what it's talking about.

It's talking about the spirit that has been around since the time of John until now, and it's the spirit of the world, and it's the spirit that is anti-Christ.

It's trying to lead us away from Christ.

It's the spirit of Satan.

That's what he's saying.

So he's saying, and he's giving us something specific that we need to watch for.

He's saying it's not their actions that you need to watch.

Their actions matter, but it's not their actions that you need to watch.

He says, specifically, it's their words that you need to watch.

The way that you're going to identify a false prophet is by the words that they speak or by the words that they fail to speak.

That will identify a false prophet for you, right?

And so what was being taught at this time in history was they were teaching that Jesus had just come as a divine spirit being being, and he didn't come in the flesh.

Just the divine spirit, he did not come in the flesh.

He was never fully human.

He was just the spirit being the whole time he was here.

And what we believe as Christians is that he did come fully God, fully man, right?

That is the truth that we believe from Scripture.

Um the reason that we believe that, and I don't have time to walk through all the text with you.

Let me just kind of jog your memory of a few things.

Jesus was born, just like you're born.

That's a very human thing to be born.

Jesus was born just as you were born.

Jesus also, there are passages in Scripture that say he grew in wisdom, he grew in stature.

That happened to him.

He was grew just as you grow up, he grew up.

That happened to him, a very human thing.

Um he got tired.

Like there's many passages where he got weary, he's got to rest along the way, he stops and prays.

When he's fasting, he gets hungry.

That's a very human thing.

Um I think probably the most compelling uh reason why I believe that Jesus came as a man is uh when he is preaching in his hometown, the the people from his hometown do not think that he is a divine spirit being.

They think he's fully human.

They don't believe he's God at all.

Let's look.

In Matthew 13, 53 to 58.

Matthew 13, 53 to 58.

Here's what it says.

It said, Jesus had finished these parables, he went away from there, and coming to his hometown, so this is with all the people that know him best, he taught them in their synagogue so that they were astonished and said, Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works?

And and then look, look at all this human stuff that they're having trouble getting past this and believing he's God.

He says, Is not this the carpenter's son?

Is not his mother called Mary?

Are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?

And are not all his sisters with us?

Where then did this man get all these things?

And they took offense at him.

But Jesus said to them, A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and in his own household, and he did many mighty works there.

He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

So even in his hometown, they were so convinced of Jesus' humanness that they did not believe that he was actually God.

So so for sure Jesus came as human.

One more piece of proof.

In John 7, 5, it says even his brothers didn't believe him.

Even his brothers didn't believe that he was God.

They were so convinced he's human that they didn't believe he was God.

And so what we see is this teaching that Jesus didn't come in the flesh.

It's just not true.

It's hogwash.

Right?

And the reason they believed this is they wanted if there's basically this thinking in the culture that the flesh is evil and the spirit is good.

Okay?

And that led to one of two things, libertinism and asceticism.

Those are really big words.

Libertinism means uh it's kind of like I'm gonna do, because the body is evil, I can do whatever I want with it.

I can sleep with whoever I want, I'll eat whatever I want, I'll drink whatever I want.

That's libertinism.

The other side's asceticism.

And because the body's evil, well, then I need to punish my body and I need to get all this sin out of me.

And then so they're like beating themselves and fasting for a long time and trying to get the sin out of them.

But neither of them are the gospel answer.

What the gospel says is that we need grace.

Let's look at Hebrews 4, uh, 15 and 16.

Hebrews 4, 15 and 16.

It says, we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are yet without sin.

Let us then, because of that, because Jesus came and he came as a human being and he experienced everything that we experience, it says, let us then have come with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Let me bring this down into your world.

This week, if you found out that a loved one is sick, this week, if you found out that maybe one of your loved ones passed away, Jesus has been there.

He has been through that.

He can relate to you.

Maybe you think, you know, Jesus, he just can't understand the financial strain that my family's under right now.

I believe he can.

I think Jesus had times and seasons in his life where he was under that kind of financial strain and he had to choose to trust God even in the midst of financial difficulty.

Maybe you think Jesus, he can't relate to the sexual temptation I face day in and day out, and just the the strain that I'm under because of that.

But it says in this verse that he was tempted as we are, yet without sin.

He understands.

He knows what you're going through, and his grace is sufficient to get you through it.

Maybe you've had a friend in the last couple months or years that's walked away from their faith, and it's been it's been deeply painful for you.

Jesus had that happen to him.

He had friends walk away from the faith.

He understands what you're going through.

His His grace will be sufficient to see you through it.

You serve, you serve the God who conquered sin and death.

And now you have freedom from those things.

You know, I've often wondered, up in heaven, how did that conversation go between God and Jesus?

When they're like, you know, God's telling Jesus, you know, you're gonna have to go to earth and you're gonna have to redeem all mankind and go to a cross and all that's gonna happen.

If it would have been me, I would have begun to argue with God.

I would have said, I mean, heaven, it's like a five better than a five-star hotel.

It's like the most wonderful hotel you've ever been to, right?

And he's saying you need to go down to earth and live among these people who murder and lie and steal and cheat, and it's dirty.

I mean, yeah, there's beautiful parts, but it's it's dirty compared to heaven.

And and I I would have been arguing that.

And I I think God in that moment would have said, Brent, that that's why you need to go.

You need to go for the reason because they murder and lie and steal and cheat, you need to go and show them the right way to live and then die, that they can be set free from all of that.

You need to pay the ultimate price on their behalf.

And I think what God calls us to then is that we're called to do the same thing in our friends' lives, right?

Like you're called to get in your friends' lives and into their messiness and get into their messiness to the point where it costs you something.

And that's what, because that's what agape you, that's what true love looks like.

That's how you love people.

Um I don't know how this would look like for you.

Let me let me give you some examples.

It might be with your neighbors, maybe just your neighbors you need to take them some cookies or get to know them or chat with them and begin to get involved in their lives in a deeper way and get into some of the, get to know them in a way where they start to share some of the messiness of their life with you.

Um here at the church next week, Houston Welcomes Refugees is going to be coming at 10:30 over in the Fellowship Hall.

And they're gonna give an orientation on what they do as an organization.

If you want to get involved with people and you want to get involved in their lives and love them as Jesus has loved them, great opportunity to come and get to know different ways that you could serve.

Here at our church as well at 6 p.m.

on Tuesday nights and 9 p.m.

uh here Sunday morning, or 9 not p.m.

9 a.m.

here Sunday morning, we have an ESL program where we we train people in how to how to study English, but we're also just trying to be friends to them and walk alongside them and get to know them in their lives.

What's it look like for you?

You know, I think often as Americans, we just want to write a check and move on, but I don't think that's what God has called us to.

Because Jesus came and he lived an incarnational life.

What I'm saying is, he came and he walked alongside us.

He left heaven that was perfect above, and he came down and he walked on the earth with us.

He was trying to show us how to do ministry.

I read a story this week.

It's a story from a book called Killing Christians.

It's by Tom Doyle.

And uh, every chapter is a different story of a Muslim family and how they were faithful to Jesus in their context.

One of the stories is the story of Rafia and her daughter Noreen, and then her college student, her name was Mina.

Um Rafia was uh a professor in Saudi Arabia of women's studies.

She specifically taught Sharia law at this Muslim university in Saudi Arabia.

And Mina was her student.

Mina was a girl who liked to leave Saudi Arabia, go over to Dubai, party it up, and then come back and put her strict religious clothing on and act like a good girl again.

And she's in Rafia's class and she did not like Rafia as a professor.

They did not get along.

The professor was always calling her out and being like, You haven't studied, you need to work harder.

And so Mina assumed that Rafia hated her for quite some time.

But then one day, Rafia the professor comes up to Mina, the student, and says, Hey, I'd like to meet with you after class.

I I want to help you to learn, because if you keep going this way, you're gonna fail out of this class.

She says, Okay.

So they begin to meet.

And Rafia eventually shares with her, you know, I see who you are and and what's going on with you.

I see a lot of me in you.

And that's why I'm helping you.

So she begins to help her to study, and uh she she helps her to the point that Mina says, you know, could this is her freshman year.

She says, could you do this for the whole four years?

Like this is this has meant a lot to me.

Could you help me study for the next four years?

She says, I'd love to, but actually in six months, I've just been granted uh the opportunity to go to Sydney and study.

So I'm gonna go there and I'm gonna study this Muslim stuff, and then I'll be back in six months.

Me and my daughter are gonna go.

That night Rafia goes home.

And in the middle of her sleep, she wakes up and she finds herself yelling out, Jesus.

She's like, What?

What's going on?

Like, how did it happen?

She wakes her husband up, he's like, What's wrong with you?

What's what's going on?

And in that moment, she remembers like she she's waking up from a dream.

And in the dream, Jesus came to her and said, I am Jesus.

I love you.

And so she's kind of like, that's weird.

She gets on the plane the next day to Sydney with her daughter, Noreen, and they're flying.

And the person next to her is a lady named Emma from America.

So she starts talking to this person.

And the person says, You know, I think I think Americans really misunderstand Muslims.

You know, we watch Fox News and CNN, and I don't think it really describes you guys that well.

And then she puts her hand on Rafia's hand and she says, I want you to know I have been praying for the Islamic world for a very long time.

And Rafa's like, Well, why are you praying for us?

Well, she says, I've been praying for you because I have I believe that Jesus is after you guys.

I believe he's pursuing you.

And I have many Muslim friends that have had these crazy vivid dreams with Jesus in them.

And Rafa's heart just kind of starts beating out of her chest, but she doesn't say anything.

She waits till her daughter falls asleep, and then she says, Actually, I've had dreams of Jesus for the last six months.

Can you help me understand them?

I don't get them.

So this lady Emma begins to describe and begins to kind of break down these dreams for her.

I mean, she takes a minute and prays, and then she just begins to explain that Jesus isn't just a prophet, but he's a king and he is lord of your life.

And so over those next six months in Australia, both Rafia and her daughter Noreen both follow Jesus.

They say, I want to give my life to him.

And on their way back to Saudi Arabia, they realize they're going back to a hard country where it's not easy to be a follower of Jesus, where they could get killed for following Jesus.

And so Emma tells them of an underground church that they can attend.

So first Sunday back, they go to this underground church, and she gets into the church and she sees Mina at the church, and she's like, What are you doing here?

And she begins to talk to Mina, and apparently in those six months, Mina also had decided to follow Jesus.

So now Mina is also walking with Jesus, and she and Mina sit beside each other, and then you know they get to the part where somebody's supposed to get up and speak, and Mina actually goes up to share her testimony.

And so she shares her testimony, and the professor's amazed at how eloquently she shares.

And what Mina says, though, toward the end of her testimony, she says, you know, my father is um he he's he's starting to see that I'm different.

I can't help it.

The Holy Spirit's in me.

I'm not the person that I used to be, and my dad knows it, and he is getting suspicious of me.

And then and so can you guys please be praying for me?

Because I'm trying to be faithful, but it hasn't been easy.

Um, afterwards, then she gets to talk to Rafi and she says, Actually, my dad has been coming to class to make sure I'm still attending.

Because remember, she's teaching a class on Sharia law, and so he wants to make sure she's still going to that.

A few days later, Mina doesn't.

Show up to class.

Rapha tries to call her and doesn't get an answer.

She goes to church that Sunday, and at church they say, Yeah, something we need to announce.

We're really worried about Mina.

We don't know where she is.

We're afraid something might have happened to her.

The next Sunday she goes back to, well, before that, Rafa is so encouraged by Mina's example, how faithful she was, even in spite of persecution, that she says, I need to share with my family about my faith.

She'd never told her husband.

So that night at dinner, she says to her husband, I'm no longer a Muslim.

I'm a follower of Jesus now.

And her husband and her cousin, I believe, was there as well.

They just look down and they have nothing to say, just silence.

So the next Sunday, she goes to church and uh sure enough, she finds out that Mina died.

Her two uncles came and beat her to death.

And that was the price that she paid for following Jesus.

And it makes Raphael scared, but she says, you know, I need to continue to be faithful.

And so she continues to follow Jesus with her daughter Noreen, and one night she goes home and her husband isn't home yet, so she just falls asleep and she's sleeping.

And she, in her dream, she thinks she hears somebody like speaking out the Quran.

And so she wakes up, she realizes it's not a dream.

There are two men in her bedroom with knives, and they're they're reciting the Quran, and they've come to kill her.

I think it's it's two of her uncles.

And so she says, God, into your hands, I commit my spirit.

She closes her eyes and expects the knife to come to her throat.

Um and it doesn't happen.

So she opens her eyes.

She's like, What is going on?

And these two guys are looking at her, just terrified, like, and she's like, Why are they so scared?

What's going on?

And for 10 minutes they just stand there, like frozen.

And then they just they sheath their knives and they they leave.

And she sees that her daughter's behind them.

And so she goes running over to her daughter.

I'm so sorry you had to see that.

And her daughter says, No, no, no.

I'm so happy I saw it.

Jesus was in front of you, and he kept them from pulling their knives out and killing you.

Rafia and Noreen, to my knowledge, are still in Saudi Arabia.

And they're still there because they know God has called them to be faithful witnesses of him in Saudi Arabia.

They know that he's not just the prophet, they know that he is the king and lord of all, and they're still serving him.

I don't think God is gonna probably call you to go to those same extremes to follow him.

But would you be willing to get involved in your friends and your family and your neighbors' lives to the point where it costs you a little bit, where it's difficult, and you walk alongside them in it.

That's the kind of incarnational ministry that Christ is calling us to.

The next verse here, it's one of the more encouraging verses in the whole book.

Verse 4.

He says, Little children, you're from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.

What John is saying here, he's trying to encourage them.

He's saying, the value of what you carry, the Holy Spirit in you, it should affect the way you walk.

Because you should understand that because the Holy Spirit's in you, that is that is a sign that you've actually already come, this bat over overcome, this battle was already won.

So think about this.

If if somebody came up to you tomorrow and in the morning they they write a check for$500,000 and they say, This is for you, I just want to bless you.

And you take it and you're like, Thank you so much, and you put it in your wallet, how much would the fact that that$500 check was in your wallet affect you until you're able to go to the bank that evening?

You'd be thinking about that thing all day long, right?

Like if you have a meeting at the office, you would not leave your wallet on the desk like you usually do.

You'd stick that thing in your pocket and make sure it goes with you.

You would not want to lose that check.

If you go out to lunch with some of your coworkers, you know, you pull the wallet out and you go, okay, it's still there, I'm good, you know.

Like you, you would be incredibly protective of that 500,000 until you finally got it to the bank and it was safe.

Yeah, that's valuable, but you carry something so much more valuable than that.

The Holy Spirit is in you, and because of that, you can know that you have overcome the world.

That should be encouraging to you.

The creator of the entire universe, if you've repented of your sin and you've put your trust in Jesus, the creator of the entire universe, the guy that sustains the universe with his hands, lives within you.

You should be encouraged this morning.

Four, five, and six.

He says, They are from the world, therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them.

He says, We are from God.

Whoever knows God listens to us, and whoever is not from God does not listen to us.

By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.

So what John's saying here, he's saying, There's people from the world, and the world loves to hear from them, but the way that you know, again, he's given them, so before he gave them a very specific way to discern truth.

And now I think he's broadening it.

Here's a broader way for you to discern truth from error.

Are they teaching what we teach?

Now they wouldn't have had the New Testament yet, but they had the Old Testament.

When John and the other apostles got up to preach, they would preach from the Old Testament.

And the church got to know it and got to know their teaching and got to know what Jesus had taught them.

And he said, What we're teaching and what the church accepts, that that teaching is a way that you discern truth from error.

If I could kind of bring it into a modern-day context, I believe what he's saying is this is how you discern truth from error.

You've got to get into your Bible and study it because this is the only way that you're going to know truth.

This is how you discern truth from error.

So my question then is how are we doing at this as an American church?

So they did a study here of Americans and how they do with their Bible reading.

If you look at the first one there, 11% of you, you read your Bible seven days a week.

That is that's great.

Uh 5% of you read it four to six times a week.

9% of you read it two to three times a week, and then another 8% of you read it once a week.

The rest of you, you're not in the Bible much.

Okay?

So that's about a third of you are doing great.

The rest of you have kind of said, you know, Neil is such a good preacher that I think if I just come and listen to Neil preach once or twice a month, I'm gonna be good and I'm gonna know truth from error.

Here's what I want to tell you this morning.

My fear for the American Church is that we are becoming a very gullible people because we don't have, we don't want to study God's word that much.

And we don't know God's word that well, and so we're very susceptible to anybody that comes and teaches, we just think it's true.

But it might not be.

And I can't make you want to study God's word.

I can't.

The Holy Spirit has got to come and just get this fire in your bones where you're like, I have got to know God more, I've got to get into the word.

I remember I was in a missionary training school, and uh it was the it was the Bible teacher week.

This Bible teacher was coming to teach us for a week.

I wasn't that excited about it because I wasn't excited about God's word.

I was still the guy that my filter was like, if you got a lot of followers, then it's true.

And so this Bible teacher comes for the week.

I'm like, it's gonna be a boring week, and the guy, that's not what happened at all.

I'd never seen someone so passionate about God's word.

He he could not have loved God's word more, he was in God's word all the time, and by the end of the week, I felt completely convicted.

I was like, how can I say that I'm a Christian when I have never read the whole way through the Bible?

How do I know that I actually even believe the same things that they believe?

I've never studied it.

I have to get into God's word and I need to begin to study.

This fire just started to burn within me that I knew I had to read God's word and I had to get into it.

Over the next three months, I read the entire Bible.

And that's not because I'm some amazing reader, that's because God came and he worked in my heart and he gave me a hunger for his word that was just unquenchable.

I couldn't wait to get into his word.

It was coming alive to me.

My prayer for you this morning is that the same thing would happen.

That some of you who are maybe in that two-thirds, and you're in good company, there's a lot of great people in here that are in that two-thirds, that God's spirit would come upon you, even here and now, and a fire would start to burn your bones, and you say, I have got to know God's word more.

This me not knowing it and me not studying it, it's not gonna work anymore.

I've got to know Jesus more.

So let me then, just to close, could I just give you a couple, I want to give you some principles for how you discern truth from error.

Okay?

So, my first one, my first thing, if you want to discern truth from error and not be a gallble person, the first thing you need to do is you need to pray.

You need to pray and you need to ask God.

You need to say, God, I don't want to hear the enemy's voice.

I don't want to hear my voice.

I want to hear your voice, God.

Would you come or would you speak to me?

This is the first thing you need to do.

Second thing you need to do, if it's really God speaking to you and you're trying to discern, is this God speaking or is it somebody else?

Is what you're hearing, is it in line with Scripture?

And this is where you're gonna have to study the word.

Like, is it in line with Scripture?

And so if you're hearing, you know, I think God wants me to go and rob a bank.

No, that would not be God, because if you'd read the Bible, what you would find is it says you should not steal.

And so that that would not be God speaking to you.

That's your own voice or Satan, one of the two.

Okay?

So that's the second one.

It's gotta be in line with scripture.

The third thing, do I have a peace in my spirit?

The Holy Spirit lives inside you.

If you're a believer that's repented of your sin and you put all your trust and hope in Jesus, the Holy Spirit lives in you now, and and the Holy Spirit's job is to lead you to truth.

He's to be your teacher and lead you to truth.

So if you're trying to discern, is this God's voice?

Is this the world's voice?

Is it Satan's voice?

The Holy Spirit, you should have a feeling of peace in your heart that, yeah, this is God speaking to me.

And you should more and more, as you get closer to Jesus, you should be able to recognize his voice more and more.

The third test, then, that I think you can use is do wiser people than me, do they also have this peace in their spirit?

It doesn't necessarily need to be older people, it needs to be people that are that are wiser than you, that know Jesus better than you.

There's three things I'd look for in this kind of person.

You want somebody that loves God, you want somebody that studied his word and knows it well, and you want somebody that hasn't just studied his word, but they've done it.

Like they're living it out.

Those are the kind of people that have wisdom, and they're the ones that you can go and ask, you know, I think God wants me to do this.

What do you think?

Can you pray about it too?

And can you try to get some wisdom from me?

Okay, so those four things, I think if you do these, these would be a really good test, and they'd help you to discern truth from error, right?

So this morning, John, I hope he spoke to you.

And what he's trying to teach us here is how we can not be a gullible people, but we can be a people who are like that wise old sage that we just, you just know the truth because you're so immersed in God's word and you know Jesus well, and so you you very easily can discern truth from error.

That's who we all want to be.

Nobody wants to be known as gullible.

We all want to be known as people that can discern truth.

But to do that, it's gonna take some work from us, right?

So let me pray.

Lord Jesus.

We trust that your spirit came this morning.

I trust that you're speaking to your people.

And would you come and would you show us what we need to do?

If you want to encourage us this morning, Lord, we we receive that.

We want to be encouraged.

Lord, if you're convicting us right now, I pray you'd show us what is it you want us to do over the next few weeks.

Would you come and would you speak to us?

And would you show us what it is we can do to be faithful to you, Jesus?

Your name I pray.

Amen.

I have some questions up here on the board, and I just want you to take a moment and could you try to just just think through them and just say, you know, Holy Spirit, what do you what do you want to say to me this morning?

I want to give you a second to do that, and then I'll I'll be right back.

God, you're so good.

And I'm trusting that you're speaking to us now, Lord.

And I'm trusting that these people that they want to follow after you and they're they're simply gonna obey what you're what you're asking them to do right now, Lord.

Would you draw each of us another step closer to you this morning, Lord?

We want to know you more.

No matter where we're at this morning, we want to know you more.

Thank you, Jesus.

Amen.

So there's a short video here for you to watch.

It says a couple of things happening here in our church.

So if you'd watch that for a second.

Here's a look at what's happening at Grand Parkway Baptist Church.

If you're new, text welcome to 281-626-5707.

This way we can know that you're here and get you connected with our church.

The next varsity gathering is May 19th.

We'll sing some hymns, have lunch together, and Matt Barnhill will be speaking on the topic, parenting your adult children.

If you're 60 and over, we'd love to have you join us.

Register at grandparkway.org.

Our next blood drive is June 12th in the warehouse.

Register at grandparquay.org.

If you have any questions about what you heard today or would like someone to pray for you, find one of our pastors at the front of the stage at the conclusion of our service.

All right.

There are, if if you want to worship through giving, there are offering boxes there in the back.

As well, if you're new to the church, if you could text that number, we would love to get to know you guys better.

Uh, get lunch with you, get coffee with you, whatever.

Um, so that would be great.

If you guys would stand with me, I'd like to speak a blessing over you.

All right, let's do it.

The Holy Spirit has blessed each of you with the ability to seek truth.

Okay.

This week, lean into him, trust him, and trust that he will lead you in all truth as you seek God.

Thank you, Jesus.

Amen.

Have a great week, guys.