Test the Spirits: Check Your Jesus, Heart, and Confession

John writes First John to help Christians set a foundation and a standard, and when John gets to chapter four, John starts waving a warning flag. John keeps coming back to walking in light, confessing sin, staying faithful to truth, loving one another, and abiding in Christ because those things keep a believer from drifting. John knows that “a drifting Christian rarely notices when they’re drifting until they’re too far from shore,” so John calls the church to check itself before deception wrecks faith, bitterness wrecks the heart, and compromise wrecks the testimony.

The warning in 1 John 4 begins with the command to test the spirits. The command means believers have to check the feed, because what gets taken in will shape what comes out. False teachers can sound spiritual, attractive, reasonable, and even inspiring, but not everything that sounds biblical is biblical. The counterfeit money picture shows that the best defense against fake is knowing the real thing, and the best defense against deception is knowing the Bible. John’s test asks whether a voice exalts Jesus, agrees with Scripture, leads toward holiness, and glorifies Christ instead of the self.

John then checks the church’s Jesus. John brings everything back to the center, because everything rises and falls on the identity of Christ. The true Jesus is not just a prophet, not just a good moral teacher, and not a version shaped by culture. Jesus is fully God and fully man, born of a virgin, sinless, crucified for sins, raised from the dead, and coming back. Any voice that removes Jesus from the center is not the gospel.

John encourages believers to check their confidence, because “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” The picture of a child sleeping through a thunderstorm shows that peace comes from knowing the Father is near. The Spirit gives discernment, strength, and help against temptation, and victory is found in God’s presence, not personal wisdom.

John then turns the test inward. Love is the spiritual vital sign, and if love is missing, something deeper is wrong. The great commandment shows that love for God is demonstrated in love for neighbor, not just the neighbor next door but every person in the path. The fruit of the Spirit shows what love grows into: patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.

John points to Jesus as the example. God’s love was made manifest when the Son was sent so sinners could live through him. Childlike imitation shows how believers learn by watching and staying close, because nobody learns to imitate Jesus without abiding in him. John presses confession, character, and fear together: words have to match the walk, hatred makes a person a liar, and perfect love casts out fear. Second Corinthians says it plainly: examine yourself, test yourself, and let God purify the heart.

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Key Takeaways

• 1. Check the voices feeding the heart John does not tell believers to be suspicious just for the sake of being suspicious. John tells believers to test the spirits because attractive words can still pull a heart away from Christ. A Christian who never checks the source of what is shaping the mind may call something helpful that is actually hollow. [34:04]
• 2. Truth stands on the real Jesus John makes the identity of Christ the center line, not a side issue. A voice can sound uplifting and still be false if it lowers Jesus into a prophet, a moral example, or a cultural symbol. The gospel is not safe when Jesus is adjusted to fit the times. [43:30]
• 3. Confidence grows in God’s presence John’s confidence is not positive thinking, and it is not confidence in personal strength. The believer stands because the One inside is greater than the one in the world. Proximity matters, because fear gets louder when abiding gets thin. [49:03]
• 4. Love proves the confession John does not let correct doctrine excuse a cold heart. A person can quote Scripture and still be spiritually dead if love is absent. Love is not decoration on the Christian life, but evidence that Christ is actually living within. [58:38]
• 5. Perfect love breaks fear’s authority John says fear loses its rule where God’s love has filled the heart. That love is not earned by performance, and it is not kept by pretending to be strong. God’s love meets sinners first, then transforms them until fear no longer gets the final word.
  
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Youtube Chapters

• [00:00] - Welcome
• [27:04] - Opening Prayer
• [31:00] - Why John Keeps Repeating Himself
• [33:45] - Test Every Spirit
• [34:04] - Check Your Feed
• [38:45] - Learning to Spot Counterfeit Truth
• [41:07] - Check Your Jesus
• [46:53] - Check Your Confidence
• [51:25] - Check Your Heart
• [59:40] - Love Learns by Looking at Jesus
• [65:21] - Check Your Confession
• [68:08] - Check Your Fear
• [70:34] - Test Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself
• [71:37] - Altar Call and Closing Prayer

Bible Reading

1 John 4:1-21
“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 heard was coming and now 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. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In 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. 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. 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. 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 testify 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, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is 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.” [33:45]

2 Corinthians 13:5
“Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” [01:11:24]

1 John 4:4
“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.” [46:59]

Matthew 22:36-40
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law? And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.’” [54:58]

Galatians 5:22-23
“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” [56:51]

Observation questions

1. In 1 John 4, what specific things does John tell believers to test, confess, and examine when it comes to truth, love, and fear? [01:10:34]
2. According to the passage, what does John say about a person who claims to love God but hates a brother?
3. What examples were given of voices that can sound spiritual or helpful but still pull a person away from Christ? [35:39]
4. In Galatians 5:22-23, what qualities are listed as the fruit of the Spirit, and how do those qualities connect back to love in 1 John 4? [57:29]

Interpretation questions

1. John says to test the spirits because many false prophets have gone out into the world. Why is that warning so necessary for ordinary believers and not just church leaders or teachers? [34:49]
2. John makes the confession that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh a central test. Why does getting Jesus right matter so much for the rest of the Christian life? [43:24]
3. John says, “he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.” How does that truth shape the way a believer faces confusion, temptation, or pressure from culture? [49:03]
4. John ties love, confession, and character together. What does that show about the difference between merely saying the right things and actually abiding in Christ? [01:06:16]

Application questions

1. What voices are feeding the heart most right now—social media, podcasts, friends, news, emotions, or Scripture? Which of those voices may need to be questioned more carefully? [01:10:53]
2. Jesus must stay at the center. Has there been any place where the view of Jesus has been shaped more by culture, comfort, or preference than by Scripture? [45:10]
3. Confidence grows in God’s presence. When fear gets loud in life, what usually happens to time in prayer, worship, and the Word? What would it look like to move closer instead of drifting? [49:32]
4. Love is a spiritual vital sign. Is there any relationship right now where patience, forgiveness, kindness, or compassion has been replaced by irritation, distance, or coldness? [58:07]
5. The command to love a neighbor reaches beyond the house next door. Who is hard to love in everyday life right now, and what might love look like in a real, practical way this week? [56:21]
6. Confession and character should agree. If a close family member or friend answered honestly, where would they say the walk does not fully match the words? [01:07:47]
7. Perfect love casts out fear. What fear has been holding too much authority lately—failure, rejection, punishment, the future, or something else? What would trusting God’s love in that place actually look like? [01:08:43]