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Spiritual Discernment
1 John 4:1–6 – “That You May Know”: 1 John Series – Daniel J. Baker – Aug 18, 2025
“If you’re able...” Reading 1 John 4:1–6 “...Thanks be to God.”
We called this series, “That you may know” from 1 John 5:13:
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life. (1 John 5:13)
John the apostle is writing to people who BELIEVE. He wants these believers to “KNOW” what they possess.
One thing to POSSESS; it’s another thing to KNOW that you possess it.
I want to say emphatically and with full faith, of all of us this morning who “believe in the name of the Son of God,” there is no one this morning who KNOWS that he has eternal life more than Phil Sasser.
Although his days of believing and trusting are over. Now he is in the days of KNOWING and SEEING.
Last night at just after midnight Phil’s soul left his body and went to be with the Lord. He experienced what Jesus promised to that thief on the cross:
42 And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:42-43)
Phil is now “with Christ in paradise.”
Not because he was sinless. He is “with Christ in paradise” because he had the same faith in Christ that this thief dying on the cross next to Jesus had.
Phil now KNOWS this “paradise”—as is true of all those who die in Christ.
And Phil KNOWS the truth of Paul’s words to the Philippians:
21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 22 If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. 23 I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. 24 But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. (Phil 1:21-24)
It is not just “better” but “far better” to “depart and be with Christ.” And the reason is just what Paul says, when your soul departs you are with Christ. There are other glories and other treasures for the soul who will be in the new heaven and new earth. But none of these glories and treasures match the supreme joy of being “with Christ.”
And this reward is Phil’s—not because he was a superior type of Christian. But simply because he was a Christian. He had the righteousness which is ours by faith in Christ.
Phil was a great Christian man, but his access to the joy that is “far better” is not because of his good life. It was his true faith.
In my strange preparation for today’s sermon, I was in Phil’s living room in one of the many hours of trying to figure out what to do next. I pulled a book off his bookshelf I’d seen many times but never read.
It was Martyn Lloyd-Jones sermons on 1 John. I read the one for today’s text, 1 John 4:1–6. It was a sermon this Welsh pastor preached in the early 1950s.
He preached on the balance we find in the New Testament between experiencing God on one hand and walking in God’s truth on the other.
He said something that made me think of Phil and what kind of Christian life Phil taught and lived. Lloyd-Jones said,
For myself, as long as I am charged by certain people with being nothing but a Pentecostalist and on the other hand charged by others with being an intellectual, a man who is always preaching doctrine, as long as the two criticisms come, I am very happy. But if one or the other of the two criticisms should ever cease, then, I say, is the time to be careful and to be begin to examine the very foundations.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Life in Christ[1]
Yes!
Lloyd-Jones said that because he sees in 1 John and the New Testament just that kind of Christian life—charismatic experience on one side and a firm commitment to sound doctrine on the other. “But if one or the other of the two criticisms...”
Last week Philip preached to the end of chapter 3 where John says,
Whoever keeps his commandments abides in God, and God in him. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us. (1 John 3:24)
We know God is in us “by the Spirit whom he has given us.” But how do we know the Spirit in us is God’s Spirit? That’s what our passage is about.
It’s about spiritual discernment, discerning the things of the Spirit.
For John, experiences with the Holy Spirit and sound doctrine go together. They aren’t opposites; they’re complements. Experiences with the Spirit and doctrine aren’t enemies; they’re friends.
The paragraph begins with a command to “TEST THE SPIRITS.”
John is assuming a level of spiritual experience. With these spiritual experiences, we are to “TEST THE SPIRITS.”
Why? Because the Spirit of God is not the only spirit. “TEST THE SPIRITS” is a plural. There are many “spirits.”
John wants us to be charismatics, but not gullible charismatics who “believe every spirit.”
There are many “prophets” in the church, but John tells us that many of them are “false prophets,” prophets inspired by a spirit that is not the Holy Spirit.
Well, how do you know the Spirit of God?
John tells us: “By THIS you know the Spirit of God.”
A doctrinal test. Unexpected. We expect a “wait and see” test. Look at the long-term spiritual fruit. Look at the lifestyle of the prophets.
But no, it’s a doctrinal test. A gospel test.
The Spirit that confesses the TRUE GOSPEL is the Holy Spirit.
1 John 4🔢 “Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.”
A translation that makes the meaning a little clearer:
By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses Jesus as the Christ who has come in the flesh is from God.
New English Translation
The Holy Spirit testifies what is true of Christ:
A true prophet is the prophet that confesses what is true about Christ. The eternal Son of God, promised as the Messiah in the Old Testament, he came in the flesh in the man Jesus of Nazareth.
A true prophet has the true Spirit—and the true Spirit of God loves to speak what is true of Christ. The Spirit loves to exalt and glorify Christ.
Remember what Jesus taught in the Upper Room about the Holy Spirit:
13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. (John 16:13-14)
We know the Spirit of God that way.
But we also know the Spirit that is NOT of God through a doctrinal test.
A “false prophet” (1 John 4:1) will speak a “false gospel,” just like a true prophet will speak a true gospel.
A “false prophet” “does not confess Jesus.”
But John wants to make the point stronger. A “false prophet” (1 John 4:1) is “not from God,” but it gets worse.
He adds that the spirit motivating a “false prophet” isn’t just a misguided human spirit. It’s actually “the spirit of the antichrist” (1 John 4:3).
The antichrist is the devil. In the book of Revelation the antichrist is called “the great dragon,” “that ancient serpent,” “Satan,” “the deceiver of the whole world” (Rev 12:9).
In 1 Peter the apostle writes,
Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. (1 Pet 5:8)
“The spirit of the antichrist” isn’t necessarily the devil himself, but it’s a spirit that is just as evil, just as opposed to God, just as destructive in his intentions.
It’s a spirit with the same makeup as “the antichrist” himself.
This is a “false prophet,” someone pretending to be empowered with the Spirit of God and power of God and yet is spreading lies about God. Instead of doing God’s work, he’s doing the devil’s work.
The point here is to show how serious it is for someone to play around with being a “false prophet” or following a “false prophet.” A false prophet is a tool of the devil, a pawn in his game, playing with power you can’t really control.
But remember, the test of these “false prophets” is really a simple one: do they confess Jesus, the true Jesus who is the Christ who has come in the flesh.
This is a serious issue! But don’t get the wrong idea. Being a tool of the devil himself might sound like you’re going to be the baddest guy on the block. Not true.
Listen to verse 4:
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)
You are “little children,” yes. That doesn’t sound too intimidating, does it?
But when you are God’s children, you have the living God inside you and you “have overcome them.”
Why? “He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Spirit are “in you.”
The “false prophets” look powerful and might be accomplishing mighty signs and wonders. But “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.”
APPLICATION
The devil’s strategies today: (1) Become irrelevant so the world reacts to you with a big yawn; (2) Become an obsession, a scary fetish, so the world reacts to you by hiding under the covers. Either works for him.
John speaks to both. If you’re tempted to be indifferent about the devil, John reminds us that he’s at work in all those who reject Christ and speak against Christ.
If you’re tempted to think of the devil as having some kind of terror or power, John reminds us that the Triune God inside us is greater than the antichrist in the world.
A few years ago when Ben Sasse was US Senator from Nebrasks, he wrote a great book called Them. It was an attempt to unpack the way we divide into “us” and “them” and invest massive money and energy and time in keeping that divide alive.
He was talking about really unhelpful ways we divide people into “US” and “THEM.”
But John is talking about something different. There is an “US” and “THEM” which is crucial to make.
The true “US” and “THEM” is not a line between races or political parties or the two biological sexes. The true and real “US” and “THEM” is between those “OF GOD” or those “OF THE WORLD.”
That line between those “OF GOD” and those “OF THE WORLD” affects how we think about race and politics and sex and gender.
John will go to speak of “the Spirit of truth” and “the spirit of error” (1 John 4:6).
Those “OF GOD” speak and listen to “the Spirit of truth.” Those “OF THE WORLD” speak and listen to “the spirit of error.”
The Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of truth.”
“The spirit of error” is known in a couple ways—speaking and listening.
When those with “the spirit of error” speak it is “from the world.” And so “the world” listens to them.
But those “from God”? They listen to God’s people and God’s Word. John says, “We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us” (1 John 4:6).
A connection between God’s Word and God’s People:
There is a certain affinity between God’s Word and God’s people. Jesus had taught that his sheep hear his voice (John 10:4–5, 8, 16, 26–27), that everyone who is on the side of truth listens to his witness to the truth (John 18:37), and that ‘he who belongs to God hears what God says’ (John 8:47)....Still today we can recognize God’s Word because God’s people listen to it, just as we can recognize God’s people because they listen to God’s Word”
John Stott, The Letters of John[2]
For many of us it was through Phil that we heard the question, "What does the Bible say about that?" We heard him ask that in sermons and counseling many, many times.
The text forces the question, are you “OF GOD” or “OF THE WORLD”?
To help us think about the question, we'll look at Luke 23:39–43. One of these thieves makes me think of Phil. I'll expalin.
Prayer
Closing song: “A Mighty Fortress is Our God”
[1] Marty Lloyd-Jones, Life in Christ: Studies in 1 John (Crossway, 2002), 403.
[2] John Stott, The Letters of John, TNTC, 161.
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