Beware of False Teachers

 “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy complete.” – 1 John 1:3-4

Less than 50 years after Jesus hung on the cross, the Apostle John began to see false teachers infiltrating the Christian church. He knew he MUST act. So, inspired by the Holy Spirit, John wrote his first letter to the early church, known in the New Testament as 1 John.

 In the final few decades of the First Century, false teachers were peddling an early form of Gnosticism (“having knowledge”). The Gnostics were pulling believers away from Christ and the Church, robbing them of their joy in Christ. They were enticing Christians to live immoral lives that would bring them under God’s judgment. The Gnostics were predatory, false teachers. They tried to convince Christians that there IS no bodily resurrection and that believing in Jesus Christ will NOT lead to eternal life.

 

Two thousand years later, we, too, are bombarded with false teaching. In fact, there are more false teachers alive today than there were in John’s day. And many of these false teachers peddle some of the same old lies (for example, Jesus isn’t God. The cross isn’t the only path to salvation. Salvation is about what you do for God, not about what Christ did for you. And sin isn’t a big deal).

 

It is critical that we pay attention to John’s teachings and warnings in 1 John, because there are plenty of influential people who are trying to lead us down a path of destruction, and we MUST … NOT … LET … THEM. But you don’t have to face this battle alone. When you accept the apostles’ testimony and place your trust in Jesus Christ, John says in vs. 3-4: “You also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ.” You see, as Christians, we are partners and participants together. We participate in the same salvation together, and together we participate in a loving relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

 

True fellowship with God produces true fellowship with other Christians. And according to verse 4, if you are missing out on true fellowship with other Christians, you are missing out on a whole lot of joy.

 

Here are three Life Lessons we can draw from this passage:

 

Life Lesson #1: This side of heaven, there will always be false teachers who pollute the truth of God’s Word with idle speculation. Ignore them and warn other Christians about them.

 

Life Lesson #2: Fully embrace this truth in your heart: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16). You don’t have to worry about whether or not this Book and everything in it is the Word of God. It has proven itself to be true and absolutely reliable time and time again.

 

Life Lesson #3: Whether you realize it or not, your soul is hungry for good Christian fellowship. It doesn’t matter if you’re young or old, a new Christian or an old Christian, an introvert or an extrovert. You need good Christian fellowship. Your joy depends on it.

Dane Davis is the pastor of Impact Christian Church in Victorville. Join us at Impact for Sunday services: in person at 9 a.m., or online at 10 a.m. on YouTube or Facebook. For more information, visit www.GreaterImpact.cc.

Our Spiritual Secret Weapon

 “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” – 1 Peter 4:8

Jesus Christ, through His Holy Spirit, has given every Christian at least one spiritual gift, which enables him or her to perform an important spiritual function in the Body of Christ with joy and effectiveness. So, how can we use our spiritual gifts to make the biggest positive impact in the lives of others? The apostle Peter answers by revealing our secret weapon.

1 Peter 4, Peter tells us, “The end of all things is near” (v. 7). Or, as the New Living Translation puts it, “The end of the world is coming soon.” Christians in the early church believed that Jesus would return in their lifetime. And over the past 2,000 years, Christians in every generation have thought the same thing. Jesus is okay with that – because He wants us to live expectantly. In every generation, Jesus wants Christians to realize that His return is closer than ever before. He truly IS coming soon, so there’s no time to lose. We need to serve the Lord.

Peter goes on to say, “Therefore, be clear-minded and self-controlled so that you can pray” (v. 7). Because the window of opportunity to reach this world for Jesus Christ is shrinking, you and I need to be at the top of our game. We can’t indulge in drugs, alcohol or trashy entertainment, because those things cloud our thinking and sabotage our self-control. And if you and I are not clear-minded and self-controlled, we won’t be able to pray as Christ needs us to pray. And if we don’t pray as Christ needs us to pray, His life-changing work won’t get done.

Then, in verse 8, Peter mentions the priority of love: “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” This isn’t an unrelated topic. If you look at all four chapters in the New Testament that deal with spiritual gifts (Rom. 12, 1 Cor. 12, Eph. 4, and 1 Peter 4), you’ll see that love is right there—every time. In Ephesians 3, right before the chapter teaching us about spiritual gifts, Paul prays that we will grasp how long and wide and high and deep is the love of Christ (v. 18). In Romans 12, Paul teaches about love right after highlighting seven of the spiritual gifts. And in 1 Corinthians 13, Paul spends a whole chapter on love in the middle of his teaching about spiritual gifts.

In the New Testament, we see agape love emphasized before, after and during the teachings on spiritual gifts. You see, it’s not enough to just HAVE a spiritual gift—you must USE your spiritual gift. And it’s not enough to just use your spiritual gift. You must use it … in love. So, why should you use your spiritual gifts to serve others? Because you love God deeply, and you love others deeply. Sometimes Christians are hard to love. But love us deeply anyway.

 Dane Davis is the pastor of Impact Christian Church, meeting Sundays at 8:30 and 10 a.m. at 16209 Kamana Road in Apple Valley.

Blessed Are the Self-Controlled

 “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” — Matthew 5:5

My heart has been heavy for our nation these past few weeks. Like you, I couldn’t believe my eyes as I saw rioters flooding into the U.S. Capitol building. And my heart sank as I learned that five people had been killed in the melee. I turned to my wife, Christine, and said, “I wish that Martin Luther King, Jr. could have been on the steps of the Capitol.”

At a time when our nation was divided, Dr. King had a God-given ability to bring people together —peacefully—to bring about change. That’s what he was doing in April 1968 when he traveled to Memphis, Tennessee. Dr. King was there to help organize a peaceful march to protest the mistreatment of sanitation workers. But the following day, as he waited on the balcony of his motel for his driver to pick him up, he was assassinated. What a loss!

In our day, when so many Americans are angry, bitter and striking out at each other, we desperately need followers of Christ who, like MLK, are strong enough to stand for truth but self-controlled enough to do it peacefully. Our nation needs followers of Christ who are meek. 

In his Sermon on the Mount, Christ’s third beatitude is “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (v5). So much of what Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount is upside down, topsy-turvy—180 degrees from conventional wisdom. This third beatitude is no exception.

There are just two problems with it. The first problem is that most people confuse meekness with weakness. So, they don’t want anything to do with it. The second problem is that when people find out what meekness really means … they still want nothing to do with it.

So, what does it mean to be meek? The Greek word used here for meek is “praeis,” which can be translated a few different ways. Synonyms include gentle, self-controlled, tame, submissive, kind-hearted and sweet-spirited. In Jesus’ day, the Greeks used the word meek to describe a horse that had been broken. Even though the horse was bigger, stronger, and in some cases smarter than its rider, it was gentle. It was self-controlled. It was tame. It was submissive. It was kind-hearted and sweet-spirited, allowing its rider to lead it wherever he or she wanted to go. So, here’s the simplest definition of meek than I can give you: Meekness is power under control. 

Now, we like to see meekness in horses. And we certainly want to see it in our pets and our kids. But honestly, most of us don’t want to see meekness in ourselves, because our sinful nature equates meekness with weakness. In our sinful pride we don’t WANT to be gentle to those who are rude to us. We don’t WANT to be self-controlled when everyone around us is losing control. We don’t WANT to be tame, because we’ve come to believe that tame people don’t get anywhere in life. We don’t WANT to be submissive, because conventional wisdom has taught us to be assertive, to take charge, to let everyone know who we are and why they should get the heck out of our way.

And we sure don’t celebrate meekness in our culture. Think about the action movies we watch. When was the last time that you saw a movie where the hero was taken advantage of and mistreated, and the big buildup in the movie was the moment the hero stormed the enemy fortress and was gentle and kind to his foes? NO WAY! We don’t want to see a movie like that. Instead, we celebrate when John Wick, James Bond and John Rambo blow the bad guys to smithereens, making them pay for what they did. We cheer when little Kevin McAllister makes the burglars pay for breaking into his house in "Home Alone." We don't celebrate meekness in our culture. We celebrate payback. We celebrate revenge. We celebrate karma.

How different this is from what Jesus teaches. Jesus teaches gentleness instead of aggressiveness; self-control instead of losing control; submission instead of dominance. Jesus teaches us to be tame instead of reckless. Jesus teaches us to be meek. And most people, including many Christians, say, “Thanks, but no thanks! Count me out!” Because in our culture, being gentle, submissive and tame seems completely backwards. It boggles our minds to think that something good could actually come from gentle submission.

But in Christ’s kingdom, something good DOES come from it. In fact, it’s one of the very best things: The meek will inherit the earth. And because of that meekness, the price of our sin was paid. As Jesus hung on the cross, thousands of angels could have been dispatched at his command to obliterate every enemy he had. But he kept his mouth shut. Why? Because the strongest man who ever walked this earth was meek. His power was under control. Jesus Christ chose to be gentle to those who nailed him to a cross. He chose to be submissive to His Father in heaven. He chose to be self-controlled, tame and kind-hearted to those who spat in his face.

And he calls you and me to do the same. There’s a big difference between a weak person and a meek person. A weak person can’t do anything. A meek person has the strength and skill to wipe the floor with his enemies—but he chooses not to. Jesus calls you and me to CHOOSE NOT TO. Not to assert our dominance over others. Not to be unkind to others. Not to retaliate against others. Not to treat others as badly as they treat us … but to humbly, gently, mercifully treat them the way Jesus would treat them.

“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” With these words Jesus Christ calls us to be gentle and self-controlled. So, let’s get to it, so that we can experience the awesome blessings of God right here on earth.

Dane Davis is the Pastor of Impact Christian Church. Please join us for our in-person worship service Sundays at 9 a.m. at 17746 George Blvd. in Victorville. Or, join us online at 10 a.m. on the Impact Christian Church YouTube channel or Facebook page. For more information, visit www.GreaterImpact.cc.