Week 5 “No Body? No Brotherhood”

From 1 John 4:1-6

John’s Purpose with 1st John 4: Crush the spirits of Deception, Gnosticism, & the Antichrist!

1. Don’t the .

📖 1 John 4:1-3 (NLT) Dear friends, do not believe everyone who claims to speak by the Spirit. You must test them to see if the spirit they have comes from God. For there are many false prophets in the world. 2 This is how we know if they have the Spirit of God: If a person claiming to be a prophet acknowledges that Jesus Christ came in a real body, that person has the Spirit of God. 3 But if someone claims to be a prophet and does not acknowledge the truth about Jesus, that person is not from God. Such a person has the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard is coming into the world and indeed is already here.

Spirit of Cain: by God

📖 Genesis 4:9 (NLT) “Am I my brother’s guardian [keeper]?”

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil.
Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

2. You have .

📖 1 John 4:4-5 (NLT) But you belong to God, my dear children. You have already won a victory over those people, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world. 5 Those people belong to this world, so they speak from the world’s viewpoint, and the world listens to them.”

3. The are already on your .

📖 1 John 4:6 (NLT) But we belong to God, and those who know God listen to us. If they do not belong to God, they do not listen to us. That is how we know if someone has the Spirit of truth or the spirit of deception.

📖 Ephesians 6:14-15 (NLT) Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth and the body armor of God’s righteousness. For shoes, put on the peace that comes from the Good News so that you will be fully prepared to preach the Good News of Peace with God.

📖 2 Corinthians 5:19-20 (NLT) And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”

“You haven’t wept enough over your sins”

📖 Genesis 45:15 (NLT) Then Joseph kissed each of his brothers and wept over them, and after that they began talking freely with him.