Christian Discernment and Christian Love

Alright, we are excited to be back in our First John series. It's good to see every one of you. We are making quite a bit of progress as we are making our way. We got through chapter 3 in just about one sermon, and it looks like we will get through First John chapter 4 in one sermon as well. In the last chapter of the Second John series title, Fundamentals of the Faith in First John. Tonight, Christian discernment and Christian love. Life in the spirit. Christian discernment and Christian love. Life in the spirit. We are going to read the entire chapter tonight, but we are going to break it up. So we will be in verses 1 through 6 first.

In fact, we will just read that right now, and I will read the other chapters verses when we get there. So let's read verses 1 through 6, and we will dive right on in. "Beloved, 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. 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 have heard was coming now and is in the world already.

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. 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." Some of you know that we have been doing a youth camp, we call Glory Day's student summer camp since 2003. We have been out of camp, unable to do this camp for two years because of COVID.

But several years back, one of our camp pastors, Luke Johnson, preached a message entitled "The Two Voices," speaking about the two voices of human history. There are only two voices in the world throughout history. Brother Luke taught us. He said, "There is the voice of truth, which is thus saith the Lord, and the voice of our great enemy who says, 'Did God really say?'" And that week and the sense, that verse and that passage have not really left me. You know, Satan's strategy doesn't really change when he is trying to attack the children of God. He usually comes behind the word of God to sow division.

He creeps in and targets with even the most simple of questions. Did God really say? So Satan first questions God's truth. Did God really say? Then he questions God's credibility. Because the question God, did God really say, is to really insert another question of God's credibility. And finally, it begs the question of God's character. Satan today is still questioning God's truth, his credibility, and his character. And in John, he's attempting to protect his beloved little children in the faith from the antichrists, who are apostates, who have come out from them. They were once church members.

Now they're actively trying to deceive God's people. And as we will look at this text, 1 John 4, 1 through 6, is rendered in the present tense, which means it is an ongoing command. Watch out for the antichrists yesterday, today, and tomorrow. John's beloved children are in constant danger. And scholars suggest that he discerned a vulnerability among them. They were at risk. He says the entire book, he has a series of what I would call an upward spiral. He says the same things. And then a few verses later, he repeats it and he applies those truths.

And as you read further and further into the book, you get closer and closer and the spiral actually gets tighter and more narrow and more pointed. Tonight, I want us to see, as we break this chapter into three parts, verses 1 through 6, 7 through 12, and 13 through 21. As I said last week, it is a monumental task to fly over the book of 1 John in a summer, 8 or 9 weeks. And it's really challenging to tackle large chunks of scripture. But I'm going to encourage you to take these notes that you have. Perhaps you'd want to go back and listen to some of these messages and study this on your own.

If you'd like some resources for additional study and reading, we can provide those for you. So let's look at loving discernment. Loving discernment verses 1 through 6, and I'll begin with just the first verse. "Beloved, do not believe every spirit." You know, this is a commandment. When we see God's command to discern, this is a loving commandment. So specifically, John's readers are commanded to heed a fatherly warning. Notice he says, "Beloved." And as I've pointed out to you, John consistently uses this language. "Beloved, children, my little children." And he says it again, "Beloved, my children, my little children." This is pastoral.

This is fatherly or grandfatherly. And it is a loving warning. And the same command goes out to us. This is John's command that is loving and protective. But this is also God's command. Notice that in Acts 2, the apostles devoted themselves, excuse me, the first generation Christians devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. And at this time, when John is writing First John, he is the only remaining apostle, many scholars think. And so if someone was going to read the book of First John, the first letter that they received from him hot off the presses, they were still to devote themselves to the apostles' teaching.

You know, you and I can devote ourselves to the apostles' teaching tonight. We devote ourselves to the apostles' teaching by reading these words, by believing them, and trusting the spirit to apply them. So his command is loving, not just to his first readers, but to us. It is John's command. It is the father's command. But specifically, they are commanded to hear the father's heart. Look at the second part of First John, chapter 4, verse 1. "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God." You know, we are tasked with spotting false doctrine in our day.

And the way you find false doctrine and discern it from true doctrine is to know the father's heart. If we know the father's heart because we walk with him and we walk with him in his word, and the spirit is illuminating that word, then we will know that father's heart. Look at what he says, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God." And John gives more pointed and more clarification and more clarifying how-to information about how to do this. They're commanded to heed the fatherly warning and to hear the father's heart. But let's get into some specifics about how we are supposed to do this.

How are we supposed to heed this command and hear his heart? Let's look at, as we are called to examine the source of the heretics, let's look at the source of the heretics. This is still under the heading of loving discernment. Let's read 1 John 1, verses 1 through 6, one more time. "Beloved, 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. 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." Let's examine the source of the heretics. Do you know that every sermon has a source? Every sermon has a source. What John is saying is that a sermon has the source, which is a spirit. And behind the spirit you have one or two options. He is calling the readers to a level of discernment that is far more intuitive than simply face value. This is being Berean and even more so it is looking at the spirit beyond simply words. Let's look at the source of the heretics.

Every prophet's source is a spirit and every spirit has a source, either the fountainhead of truth, which is God, or a fountainhead of error, which is the father of lives. As I said in introduction, there are only two voices throughout human history. I remember a pastor one time preaching and he opened up by saying, "The only job you have today is to discern whether or not I'm a false prophet." If I'm a true man of God and I'm preaching the word, well then you have to obey it. But if this is error, well then you have to discard it. And that helps us, I think. But notice the sermons of the heretics. We see their source.

They are driven by a spirit and that spirit is either controlled by God or it is controlled by Satan. We looked at the source of the heretics. Let's look at the sermons of the heretics. In verse 3, we see that their sermons have a worldly source. Let's look at verse 3 one more time. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God, this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard was coming and now is in the world already. We looked at what the antichrist is and what he's saying is you can see the source. This is something of a doctrinal test.

We see that the heretics have a worldly source and they have a worldly message. Let's read verse 5. "They are from the world, therefore they speak from the world and the world listens to them." We are from God. Let's hold off there and let's go down and let's look at the sermons of the heretics. They're a worldly source. They also have a worldly message. They also have a worldly church. Heretics have a worldly church. Look at chapter 4 verse 5, the second part. "Therefore they speak from the world and the world listens to them." What that means is they gather adherents.

They gather people to come and listen to them in their churches and they may seem very, very successful. The heretics have a worldly source and they have worldly sermons and they have a worldly church. We must examine the source and their sermons. We must also examine the spirit of the heretics. We mentioned this but let's go a little bit deeper. The spirits from God will always pass a doctrinal test, meaning the doctrine that John has been laying out, that we have been going through this summer. We have got to have solid Christology.

If you were to go to a new church, let's say you were to pick up and you were to go to a new town that you were going to live in, you were searching for churches. If you were basically making cold calls, walking into a church on a Sunday morning to sit down, the number one thing you would want to listen for is their Christology. John was dealing with the heretics that were attacking Christology, Christ being fully God and fully man. We must acknowledge that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah.

William Barclay says, "To deny the incarnation is to deny that he is the center of history and to deny that he is the fulfillment of every promise of God and it's to deny his kingship." But we can't just get the divinity of Jesus, we have to get the humanity of Jesus, which is what these heretics tackled. You remember that we looked at John's writings, "The Word Became Flesh and Dwelled Among Us" in the Gospel of John 1.14. But look specifically at Jesus coming in the flesh. To deny the humanity of Jesus is to deny him as our pattern. It is to deny that he was tempted in every way that we were tempted yet he was without sin.

It is also to deny the incarnation that he was God in the flesh. And it is to deny that he is the true high priest. To again paraphrase William Barclay, "To deny the eternal word became flesh and dwelled among us is to commit the ultimate heresy." The major heresies and the major cults that we see around us all attack proper Christology and that is the primary meal, if you will, of the diet of 1 John. So we must be vigilant in our day to examine a source of heretics, the spirit of heretics, but let's also see the strength of heretics. Do these false teachers have strength? Well John would seem to say that yes they have a numerical strength.

Let's look at the text. But test the spirits to see whether they are from God for many false prophets have gone out into the world. That word "many" in my copy of God's word means a whole bunch. There will never be a shortage of false teaching. There will never be a shortage of false prophets, anti-Christ, anti-Christian teachers. This is a numerical strength because the world listens to them in verse 5. Jesus warned his disciples of false prophets in Matthew 7.15. Paul did in Acts 20. Peter did in 2 Peter 1 verse 1. One of my favorite passages, Matthew 7.21, on that day many will say, "Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name?

Did we not cast out demons in your name and perform many miracles in your name? Who preaches and prophesies in God's name and casts out demons and performs miracles?" These are religious leaders that have some measure of success. But scripture in Matthew 7.21 calls them workers of iniquity. That means they are workers of lawlessness. We talked about last week, sin is lawlessness. If they are turned away at the gates of heaven and Jesus says on that day many will say, "Lord, Lord." That means Jesus will turn away on that day many false prophets. And there can be strength in numbers. But this is a deceptive strength.

It may be a numerical strength, a seemingly acceptable strength, but it is a deceptive strength. Because our text tonight says many false prophets have gone out into the world. We must remember if someone is popular and has books on shelves and millions of followers and YouTube channels and live streaming of their popular sermons, we must remember that if their doctrine does not line up with God's truth, then they are fleeting and they are deceptive and they are doomed. We have a commandment to persevere in God's truth. First John 4.6. 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 the truth and the spirit of error. This sounds kind of arrogant in First John chapter 4 verse 6. You know it is arrogant if he is wrong. But if he is right, then it is not arrogance. What he says is quite simple. We are from God and those who listen to us are listening to God. The children of God persevere because they are listening to God's men. God's children persevere by the spirit because this is a spiritual thing. We know in verse 6 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.

See, Christians have the spirit of truth within them and if you are listening to that pastor, you are checking out at that new church and you go home and you are Berean in the Word. The Holy Spirit within you ought to resonate. The Word should jump off of the page through the pastor's mouth and those words should line up with his life. And over time you should see that the doctrine he preaches is also lived out. John 10, 27 says, "My sheep know my voice." We believe in the perseverance of the saints because we believe in the indwelling Holy Spirit. Because Jesus was fully God, he was holy. Because of the incarnation, he was fully man.

Because of the resurrection and the ascension, he is at the right hand of the Father. And because of Pentecost, the spirit now dwells within the heart of believers. We know his voice, we hear his voice and we are protected. We see loving discernment. Let's move into verses 7 through 12, but we also see a loving demonstration. Loving demonstration. John commanded his little children to practice discernment in verses 4, 1 through 6, but now he commands his little children to love. We will be reading 7 through 11 and I will also grab verse 16. So let's read this next block of scripture. "Beloved, let us love one another for love is from God.

Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. 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. And 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." If you ever come across a big doctrinal word like propitiation, don't be scared of it. Take your pen, circle it. We'd be delighted to help you with those words because if you don't understand propitiation, you don't understand this passage. So let's just pick it up and continue.

"And he sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. Again, we see a father's command in 1 John 4, 7. Beloved, let us love one another. You know, this is God's command because God is love. But also this is John's command. He's saying that to love is a telltale mark of adoption. We're running in this theme that if someone professes to be a Christian, a Christ follower, and they don't have the very love of God, then we need to run from them.

So this is a father's command to love one another. Let's look at the father's nature in verse 8 and verse 16. "So we know, we have come to know and believe the love that God has for us." God is love. "And whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him." This is a mark of adoptions. So John is revisiting love for the third time. Why do we love? Because it's our father's nature. Our heavenly Father is love in his very essence. You know, God is spirit, John tells us in 4.24. You know, God is light. We studied this a few weeks ago, 1 John 1.5. Scripture says that God is a consuming fire, Hebrews 12.29.

Do you know that when God sends a sinner to hell, he is still love? He loves justice. He loves holiness. And when God sends a sinner to heaven, it is because his justice was poured out on Christ. And that wrath is perfectly satisfied. God is always loving, but he's always light. And he is always a consuming fire. You know, we have to be careful of popular contemporary Christian media. We have to be careful of Christian media that over-emphasizes one attribute of the other, over the other.

Another thing that you would need to have in discerning perhaps a new church, and I'm not trying to send you to another church, but file this away for healthy information. If you had to attend a new church, is there a balance between God being light, God being consuming fire, and God being love? Because we like to over-emphasize certain passages that we think are going to benefit us. And that's a problem. But John can tell us that God is love because he is also issuing a command that if we don't love, then we have no right to call ourselves Christians. This is the Father's command. It's the Father's nature.

And it's the Father's gift, 1 John 4, 10 through 11. In 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. I love what John Stott says, "No greater gift is conceivable because no greater gift is possible." There could have been no better gift than the incarnation and the atonement. Last Christmas, Brother Chris brought us through a study of the incarnation. A study of the incarnation, as he taught us, the hypostatic union, is when Jesus, who was eternally Christ, took on flesh.

He was fully God and he was fully man, and when he was in his human residence, he was no less fully God. He was just as omnipotent and just as omniscient. But what researchers note is that this is specifically not talking about the incarnation, chapter 4, verses 10 through 11, as it is talking about the atonement. See this precious lamb of God, Jesus was perfect and holy and he had to die. He had to hang on a rugged, cruel cross so that the wrath of God would be fully satisfied.

And before we can share someone the good news of the gospel, we have got to share with them the bad news of the gospel, that God in his holiness and in his light demands justice and he poured out his wrath upon his own precious son. That is the atonement. And the result of the atonement is propitiation. That because of the atonement, we are justified. Jesus is our atonement. He is the lamb of God. And this leads us to the Father's grace. The Father's command and his nature and his gift lead us to his grace. The origin of love is in the very essence God is perfectly manifested in the atonement of the sacrificial lamb. Look at verse 11.

Since God loved us, we ought to love one another. For everyone who loves has been born of God. Whoever does not love does not know God. Have you ever been to a church where people didn't love each other? Perhaps very sadly, we might ask, have you ever been to a church where people loved each other? If you've been to a church where it was filled with a lot of unloving people, it was filled with a lot of Christians who were professing but not possessing. If a church is filled with possessing Christians, Christians who possess Christ, who are not just professors, but they are possessors, there will be a marked difference.

Because this is the birthmark of a born-again child of God. And if you go to any church in our county and if you ask, specifically Protestant churches, do you believe Jesus is the son of God? Yes, I believe. Do you believe in the atonement that he hung on the cross for you? Yes, I believe that. Well, then tell me how does that motivate you to really love people? The born-again believers will not only espouse a doctrine, but they will have a doctrine in practice. Because Jesus loved me, I have got to love my fellow church member. Because Jesus loved me, I have to serve in my local church. Faith without works is dead.

And what this means is, genuinely saved people are motivated by the cross and the spirit within them propels them to love. This means at work we have to love our enemies. We definitely have to love authority, even if we didn't vote for that authority. We have to love those who wronged us. And we have the spirit within us to do those things when we can't. We must notice the loving discernment and loving demonstration. Let's look at a loving deposit guarantee. Let's read this last block of scripture, verses 13-21. Let me grab some water. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us. Because he has given us of his spirit.

And we have seen and testified that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love. Whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in him. By this is love perfected within us so that we have confidence for the day of judgment. Because he has so also are we in this world. There 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. We love because he first loved us.

If 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. And this commandment we have from him. Whoever loves God must also love his brother. I would like a show of hands if you have heard of the study of pneumatology. Tommy you win the trivia. What is pneumatology? Okay. Pneumatology is the branch of Christianity concerned with the Holy Spirit. If you were to take a systematic theology and go throughout the whole Bible to study the Holy Spirit you would be studying pneumatology. I will go and give you the spelling P-N-E-U M-A-T-O-L-O-G-Y.

Unfortunately most of the folks who are studying and preaching pneumatology would fall under the charismatic category. But pneumatology just like Christology or doxology is the biblical study of worship or many other biblical disciplines, subsets of theology are vitally important because John has a phenomenal pneumatology that is laid out just in his text. If you take verses 13 through 21 essentially what you are talking about is life in the spirit. What is the spirit doing, the Holy Spirit doing in the life of the believer? So let me ask you this question. Who is the Holy Spirit? Who is the Holy Spirit?

We know from 1 John that he abides in us. Let's begin it this way. He is the spirit deposit guaranteeing our salvation. The Holy Spirit is a deposit guaranteeing our salvation. If you wanted to pay for a house, if you wanted to buy, purchase a house, you probably would need earnest money. You would need usually it's 20% a down payment. But essentially what that is, it's money in earnest saying I'm giving you a deposit and therefore I am going to make good on my pledge to continue. And so scripture tells us in 2 Corinthians 1, 22 that God placed his seal on us and put his spirit in our hearts as a pledge of what is to come.

And this is a mark of conversion, the Holy Spirit lives within you. And that is God's seal, it is his pledge proving to you that he is going to save you. We talk about the witness of the spirit as evidence of conversion when a person comes to Christ. This is not simply I believe in A, B, C, 1, 2, 3 jumping through hoops. And this is actually the spirit of God coming to dwell within you. We believe this happens at regeneration which precedes faith. Regeneration, our heart is changed, we believe and we repent and the spirit lives within us and we are different. So he is a pledge.

Ephesians 1, 14 says that the spirit is the pledge of our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession to the praise of his glory. Romans 8, 14 we read last week said this is the spirit of adoption by which we cry, "Abba Father." And again, 2 Corinthians 1, 22, he is placed within our hearts as a pledge. So the spirit is a deposit guaranteeing our salvation but it is the spirit glorifying Christ. Let's go back to our text in 1 John 4 verse 15, "Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, abides in him and he in God." Many things are done in the name of the Holy Spirit.

You can find lots of activity and often times in Charismatic and Pentecostal churches there are activities that are under the heading that's the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will also, will always be pointing us to truth. The Holy Spirit's desire is not to bring glory to himself but to bring glory to Christ. Look at verse 15, "Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him." And you know from verse 13 in this section, "By this we know we abide in him because he has given us his spirit." That means in this section John is saying you have this spirit of God and your desire is to glorify Christ.

Be leery of pastors and preachers who only talk of the spirit as if the spirit's desiring to get glory for itself. Or as if some spiritual gymnastics would enable you to be a higher level of spirituality. No, the Holy Spirit will always give you heavenly priorities. Truth, love, discernment. So the spirit is a deposit guaranteeing our salvation and it's a spirit that's glorifying Christ. It's rooted in solid doctrine. Fully God, fully man, the spirit would propel us to seek out good doctrine. But this is also the spirit of love. Let's look at verse 16. So we have come to know and to believe the love of God that God has for us.

And God is love. Whoever abides in love abides in God, God in him. So when a person is born again, the Holy Spirit produces a new love within them. Because we see that they are loving in a supernatural way, we can say there's something different about that person. The story of how Corrie Ten Boom, who was in a concentration camp, the story of how she came back to that country years later, the story of how she went up to one of her captives who humiliated her in a degrading manner. I remember hearing stories of Corrie Ten Boom say this, I've read numerous of her books.

And she saw this man immediately she knew this was the one who primarily ridiculed her and mocked her. And she did not, in the span of a few seconds, she did not want to extend a hand, a fellowship to him. She said a quick prayer, she extended the hand of fellowship and tears welled up in her eyes. And she felt a burden of anger release. And that's a supernatural love that only the Spirit can produce. The Spirit loves to glorify Christ in verse 16. The Spirit loves to obey his word in verse 16. By this is love perfected within us so we have confidence for the day of judgment because he, as he is so also, are we in this world.

The Spirit loves sanctifying us. We have confidence for the day of judgment because he is so also are we in the world. We learned last week that we have this hope and this hope purifies us. So the blessed Holy Spirit living within us reminds us of the second coming of our Lord. The Holy Spirit reminds us that there may be things in our life right now that we don't want to be in our life when the Spirit, when Jesus returns. And the Spirit is sanctifying us, and purifying us, and drawing our hearts towards heaven. The Spirit loves sanctifying us and the Spirit loves driving out fear. There 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. Now I was a licensed professional counselor when I got saved and contemporary Christian or Christian counselors love using this verse out of context. And I was one of them. Persons dealing with anxiety or fear will sometimes whip this verse out. This is not necessarily talking about psychological anxiety and fear that people may experience.

I think it could apply to that, but primarily this is talking about a fear of judgment, the fear of death, the fear of dying and facing God and knowing that you are not worthy of His presence. The Holy Spirit within you takes this away. Now does this mean that a person who is born again won't fear death or won't be a little anxious about death? No, the Spirit takes away the fear of judgment. I believe the born again believer longs for death. It longs to be with Jesus. Now it doesn't necessarily mean that we don't want to finish out the time span. But like Paul said, to depart is to be with the Lord. To live is Christ. To die is gain.

And we have that same spirit within us. This is a spirit that drives out fear. This is also a spirit of discipleship. The Spirit's love, the Spirit loves producing Christ's love in us. Let's look at verse 19. We love because He first loved us. And this is a repeat from earlier in the sermon, but the Spirit loves producing love within us. I believe over time it's easier to pray for enemies. Over time I think it's easier to pray and to forgive people. The deeper the wound from the closer the loved one requires special measures of grace. But I believe that this is a grace gift.

The Spirit is indwelling within us and enables us to forgive and to love. And to actually produce disciples. We love because He first loved us. Do you know the Spirit wants to glorify Christ with Christ's love through us? As we love our fellow neighbors, as we invite them to church, as they come in and they see this as a loving place, that glorifies Jesus. And that's the desire of the Spirit. Now in conclusion, we've talked about who the Spirit is very quickly. Who is the Spirit not? The Spirit is not unloving. In verse 20, "If 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, who he has not seen." The Spirit is not unloving and the Spirit is not hateful. This verse has been used to address racism and to do so, I think it is very rightly used in that context. How could we say that we love God, who we have never seen, and hate someone who we see every day? Simply because of skin color. Many churches in our area had closed-door policies. Because I have children who are African American, I remember going to a church and going to the pastor and letting him know who I was and who my kids were.

Thankfully, people over the years have walked in and immediately known, partly because of my family, but on several occasions, people visited. People visited us in Nola because they knew they would be welcome. We always want to have a loving environment because a church that is not loving and is hateful is actually not a church. And I would add that the Spirit is not unhinged, emotional experience running wild. I saw a Twitter video recently of a very collected, frenzied worship service, and I am using my air quotes. There are really atrocities.

I believe the Holy Spirit is deeply grieved and angered that that goes on, and he really gets the blame for a lot of that. I do believe that we do not refer to the Holy Spirit as an "it." He is not an impersonal force. He is a member of the Godhead. We worship the Spirit. We worship the Son. We worship the Father. But the Father has provided the Son as our atonement, our propitiation, and the Spirit dwells within us. The Spirit should be active in your prayer life. I have not mentioned that at all, but I believe that something that will be cultivated in your life as a believer is the Spirit will begin to pray.

In fact, the Spirit, that is one of the Spirit's jobs. You should know, because you are saved, that you pray differently. You pray for things that you wouldn't. You pray, you start being refined onto a topic, and you start praying God's will over time. Well, in conclusion, let's strive that we would be a Spirit-filled church. A Spirit-filled church. This is not marked with unhinged, emotional experience running wild. This is marked by a love for truth, a love for doctrine, a love for people.

I believe people filled with the Spirit are people who are filled with Scripture, and they are filled with discernment, and they are filled with prayer, and meeting needs of one another, and great body life. And I think it will be evident when we have believers who keep in step with the Spirit, that don't grieve the Spirit, and can't wait for worship. It's our desire that we would worship in Spirit and in truth, every single Sunday. I do want to pray, and then we'll have a quick time of prayer, and get prayer needs, and and we'll conclude.