the FBI has agency members who are dedicated to find and spots and get rid of counterfeit currency within our country. Now, what I found interesting is that when these agents train to be able to identify counterfeit money, they actually don't spend hours examining the counterfeit money. But instead they actually spend countless hours observing and learning the texture and the little nuances and details of actual currency and money. And so they get so familiar with the dollar bill. So familiar with the real thing that at a moment's notice they can identify a counterfeit by merely a glance or just a touch of a different bill. And I found that interesting that they don't spend their time studying hours and hours of what could be out there. But rather they focus in and they zone in on what is real and by knowing what is real, they're able to identify what is fake and that by honing in on the authenticity of money and in there and what is the real thing that can identify what is not true. So this morning I want to talk about and discuss with you the idea of how can we identify and understand and believe truth. We live in an age where everyone is opinionated and now with social media, everyone has a microphone and that everyone makes claims and you gotta believe this, believe this, believe this. I'm right, you're wrong, we're right, You're wrong. And and we tend to idolize or demonize people depending on which party or system we're in. And we hear words like fake news and things get published and shared and argued over and, and it's hard to decide what is truth. What can we believe? And so some might even say, well, john if everyone makes these claims, how do we even know what truth is? And does truth even matter? Can't we all just get along? Right? Well, when someone asked me the question, does truth matter? I usually ask them a different question in return and say, how are your relationships? And I said, well, that's kind of a weird question. I asked you what this truth matter. I said, I know I know. Just follow me. How are your relationships? What kind of relationship do you have? Like are you married, boyfriend, girlfriend, kids coworkers? So typically the person will start sharing about, you know, their spouse and and their kids and their co workers and or their neighbors or the one neighbor they can't stand. But the other ones that they love whatever the case may be, they go in and they speak of with affection of the people they love. And so after they share with me what they're talking about and and who they love? I try to lean in and say, okay, so you asked me, does truth matter? I want you to think about your relationships and answer this question for me in your relationships. Does honesty matter? Do you want your spouse to be honest with you? Do you want your coworker to be honest with you? Do you consider yourself to be an honest person? You see when you put and frame truth into the context of relationships? It has a lot more power behind it because truth is the foundation to honesty. It's an expression of sincerity and expression of reality. But you need both. You need sincerity and reality because it's not just believe whatever you want with a sincere heart, it doesn't work that way. Can you imagine a nurse giving the wrong, the wrong medicine to a patient, but doing it with a sincere heart, is that patient gonna get better? No, the medicine matters. Truth matters now. That doesn't give us the right to be jerks. Okay, They're not exclusive. It's not. You can be sincere or you can be truthful, but you can't be both. Actually. We learned in John Chapter one Verse 14 that when Jesus came down, he took on the form of a man, he was actually full of two things. He was full of grace and truth. And the reality is is that when we understand that truth matters, that connects with our culture. Craig Bruce said this. He said, never question the reverence of uh, the prevalence of truth, but always question the truth of relevance. In other words. We're in a culture where everything is, is building up in new ideas and innovation and creativity and in some way a lot of times the church can seem to be like two decades, two decades behind. Doesn't it seem that way like that? So that way with music, that's the way with technology a lot of times and there are some churches across America who are perfectly set up for the forties and fifties and say, okay, if we go back to that time slot, we're ready to go. But our culture changes and moves constantly. And as a church, we have to understand that. And, and so someone's asked me before, well john isn't the church not relevant anymore, right? It doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't apply to us anymore. We have so many things going and I've realized that if the Church pursues relevance, you lose influence. But if the church proclaims truth, the Church will always be relevant. Does that make sense? Because when you lean into truth, truth is always relevant, just as honesty always helps a relationship. And that if you're going to have a healthy growing relationship, you need a foundation of truth, a foundation of honesty that comes with a connection to reality. And so with so many views out there with so many ideas out there, then how do we know what's truth? If you want to take it? If you're taking notes, write this down that the best way to spot a lie is to know the truth, the best way to spot a lie is to know the truth Now in your notes, I capitalize truth because what I want to lean into today is not some political perspective, but the person of jesus. Because when you connect yourself with the authentic, the real historical person, Son of God, jesus christ himself, you will be able to spot the counterfeit gospels that are out there. There are a lot of different beliefs that claim connection to jesus. But what we're gonna do today is we're gonna dive into the words of the Apostle john, who at this point is the last living disciple on earth, the expert in the person of jesus described as the disciple whom Jesus loved, he lived to be almost 100 years old. These are some of his last words picture having a conversation with Billy Graham right before he passed. Except Billy Graham actually walking person step in step with Jesus, leaning in and saying these last words I have for you, the last thing I want to say to you is this, this is the letter of first john that were the Apostle whom Jesus loved, who walked with him for years, whose life was changed. He was called the son of Thunder and he became the Apostle of love. He persisted even through persecution and suffering and at the end he has this message and he leans in to say the best way to spot a lie is to know the person of jesus and to know what is true. To give you an idea of some of the opposition there early church was facing pulled directly from the book that we're studying, we see these five things, the early church was facing people called Gnostics. And and they're actually, there was one guy named Sarin thas who was a guy trying to proclaim and take away the power of Jesus, he said, okay, he existed, but he really, he really wasn't god. He actually had some crazy theories, like so jesus was a teacher, but then you had the spirit that was called christ that came on top of him when the dove came down and he was baptized. But then it left and so he really didn't die for your sins. Yes, he existed, he had a name, but it didn't really matter. And so you don't need to follow church and you can go this way. And so they claimed these things, these people, they claim to know God, but because of their behavior, it was clear they did not, they also claim to be sinless. They claim to be without sin. They deny that Jesus was the son of God, who would actually come in human flesh. Their lives were described and marked by a lack of love for other believers. And then despite their claims to sinless Nous, they actually lived in sin and they repeatedly did not do what was right. And so they were pulling people out, you're gonna see here in this passage, john refers to them as um Antichrist. Now there's a picture that now that when you hear Antichrist, you immediately think of Armageddon or or something like major, and so there is the Antichrist, the big one that's satan, that's the devil, okay, he was coming, but then you also have this on a lower level, you have this idea of anti christian or anti christ people who directly opposed what christians believed and were preaching other things, but no matter what you believe, everything is a faith statement. So when people say, well you have faith, I have science or you have faith, I have morals. If you have faith, I have this, every belief at some point has faith and you have these big questions like where did we come from? Why am I here? What happens when I die? How do you describe the moral compass in your heart, where does that come from? Because if there is no origin, why do we care when bad things happen? And no matter your belief, you have to have answers for these questions and by saying, I don't have answers, you're still claiming to something else. And if you're saying, you don't believe in God, what you're really saying is that I believe in myself and then ultimately I am God, and so we are, I fully admit we are looking at one perspective, but I believe that his description, the guy whose life was changed, who went from the son of Thunder to the disciple whom jesus loved, who lived to be about 100 years old and actually through persecution, through the death of his brother, through the death of all of his friends and his last dying words said love one another and and have joy. And and he paints these pictures, he says, walk in light, not in darkness, you are called to love not to hate. You were called to believe in truth, not the lies. And so I'm going to lean into the person that walked and stepped with jesus and so you have to ask yourself what is the authority that you're gonna follow. And for right now this morning we're gonna dive into his words and what he says, How can we identify truth? So go ahead and open up to this letter first, john chapter two, we're gonna be starting in verse 18, he says, Children, It is the last hour I guess when you're almost 100 years old, everyone seems to be a child. Right? When I first read this, I used to be a fan of like I'm not a child, which is probably evidence that I was in that moment, my mindset. But really it's think of this just like just incredible like grandfather type figure speaking in with endearment saying Children, it is the last hour meaning that is the last phase of history. So there's creation and then there's the old testament where people tried to live up to the mosaic law and they tried to live up by their own standards, but they repeatedly failed. They repeatedly failed. And so then jesus comes on to the scene and when man can't reach up to God, God came down and reached down to man and he lived a sinless life and then he died on the cross for you and for me and rose again on the third day. And now we have this crazy movement called the Church described as the way people telling this message that when you believe in jesus, you can receive forgiveness of sins and have eternal life. And now we're in this last hour, this last phase of world history waiting christ's return. And so this hour is not a chronological our but a Kairos moment of this, this phase, this season of moments where we're in the last days before christ returns and he says, as you have heard that the antichrist is coming. So now many anti christs have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour they went out from us, but they were not of us. For they had been had they been with us, they would have continued with us, but they went out that it might be complained that they were not a part of us. We're gonna pause there because here's an interesting question is that it sounds like the people who are proclaiming things against Christianity were actually inside the Church initially. And so they were inside they were apart and then they left and started proclaiming something completely different. So this brings up a question that's kind of a heavy question. Maybe you've asked this question, or maybe you've heard somebody asked this question is that can a christian lose salvation? Can a christian lose salvation? And recently I heard a commentator say this that it's actually a better question is can God lose a christian? Isn't that a better question? Because if if a christian can lose salvation, the weight of that is on us when you rephrase and say, can God lose a christian? No, we we celebrate kate here, who's just got a brand new little baby is the cutest little boy right now. And so the question is, can this little baby boy lose his mom? Or or the question is will this mom drop this baby? And the answer is absolutely not. It doesn't matter if the baby's fussing right, the baby is securely held in the arms of a parent in the same way you did absolutely nothing to earn salvation. It's called grace, It's called faith. And so if you did nothing to earn your way into salvation and into Heaven, then it is impossible for you to send your way out of heaven. And so it's not a question of can you lose your salvation? The question is, can God lose a christian? And I believe the answer is no, that instead what we find out is that there's potential that people never truly believed in the first place, that people never act. They claimed things they spoke one way, but they actually lived another way. And so the question is not, can they lose the salvation? But did they ever have it in the first place? Because there's repeated stories like take the prodigal son, for example, someone who lived a lifestyle completely opposed to his father, but came back and so how do we distinguish between someone who this ran from God, but will ultimately come back and someone who never really knew God in the first place? The answer you don't and it's actually freeing when you recognize that it is not your job to tell which person is saved and which person is not. You don't get to be the judge, you do not get to be the person that says, okay, this person is saved, they are not, this person is saved. They're clearly not. And then you treat people accordingly, right? Because what happens if somebody interacted with you on a bad day? Well, now are you out of God's grace? Are you out of this? And so the question is not okay, was this person in or out? I don't know. The the question is, where are you, where is your relationship with God? Because salvation is objective? Salvation is objective, meaning that salvation is based on what jesus did for you. But the assurance of salvation is subjective meaning, your experience might be different than the person next to you, just as someone can be legally married. But there's a vast difference in people's marriages and that our goal is in Christianity is not to have just a legal marriage, but to have a great marriage with jesus christ and so, and and not just survive but to thrive and have a growing relationship. And so there is peace of mind to know that even on our worst days we are a child being held in the arms of our father and he will not let you go. And so if you're praying for a child or a sibling or someone who's far from God, rest in that and continually pray and don't just pray for them, but pray through the situation and to continue to love them beyond anything and trust God with that future and that, then you continually live this out. And so we talk about truth, you have, what we're talking about this morning is how do you identify what is true and what is not when someone makes a claim, how do you know? Okay, this aligns with jesus or this does not. And so it's really freeing when you no longer have to play the role of the holy spirit, right? So you might be friends with someone who lives in a different lifestyle than you like, oh, I don't know if I can talk to them, why jesus would the people jesus had dinner with and ate with and loved and served were completely different than him because someone is completely different than you doesn't mean that you have to give up your convictions. But when you live in truth, that frees you up now to actually freely love and serve others and to share that truth with them, does that make sense? And so you can speak truth, but you do it and love. And so we have this group that is against them and is fighting. And so here we're gonna see this great like phrase and and john's gonna turn it about our assurance. How do we know that we're saved? If these people were a part of us and they ran out, how can we know that we believe in the true. Jesus and so we pick it up here in verse, 20. But you have been anointed by the Holy one and you have all knowledge and I write to you not because you do not know the truth, because you do know it and there's no lie is of the truth. Who is the liar, But he who denies that, jesus is the christ. This is the antichrist. He who denies the father and the son. No one who denies the son has the father. Whoever confesses the son has the father also let what you heard from the beginning abide in you if what you heard from the beginning Abidjan. You then you too will abide in the sun and in the father and this is the promise that he made to us eternal life. I write these things to you about those who are trying to deceive you. But the anointing that you've received from him abides in you and you have no need that anyone should teach you. But at his anointing teaches you about everything and it's true and there's no lie. Just that has been taught to you abide in him and now little Children abide in him so that he when he appears, we may have confidence and not shrink from him in shame at his coming. But if you know that he is righteous, you may be sure that everyone who practices righteousness has been born of him. Now the first time I read this, it just seems very churchy and it's like there's a lot of like abide in him. No this and you're like, whoa, wait a second, what's going on here? Okay, so let's let's spend some time and break this down. But let me just put it this way. Okay. Our main idea this morning is that the best way to spot a lie is to know the truth. Let me put it in the context of relationships. Okay, the best way to protect your marriage is to love your spouse. There are billions of people in the world with lots of different agendas. And if you're worried about your marriage with every single person that comes into contact with that's a lot of people to watch out for, but the best way to protect your marriage is to know and love and serve and connect with your spouse on a level that you have something so special that there is nothing that this world can touch, think about your Children, man, I can't believe what they're growing up into, I don't know how to protect them from everything they're going to face, The best thing you can do for your child is to love and know your child and help them love and know jesus, because if you know the real thing, if you know who God is, you are prepared for everything this world faces. I had coffee this week with A pastor and author who's been speaking all over the world for 40 years and I said, how how is it that you've kept this passion for discipleship and disciple making for over 40 years in every continent across the world? How have you kept this passion? He's and he said john jesus is a deep well, as long as I'm attached in teaching jesus, I always find joy and that when you attach yourself to jesus, you find truth and truth does two things it repairs and it prepares Truth and Ephesians six is described as the belt of truth and so this idea is you repair things that are broken and you prepare for the battles that you're gonna face when jesus called john and some of the disciples, they were fixing their nets. Why would it, why would somebody a fisherman? Why would someone fix their nets? Will the repairing something that was broken? And then they're preparing to go out and do it again to go fish. And when you have the word of God, the person of jesus, what he will do, what truth will do in a relationship is that it will repair where you are an error. You will repair your identity and your belief and your trust in him. But then it prepares you for whatever battle you're gonna face that day. And so when you lean in and you know the truth, you can spot the lie. But if you don't know truth, then it's whoever speaks last wins and you find yourself on this roller coaster or waves of culture, this is true, everyone believes this and then everyone don't, like if truth is treated like hairstyles were in trouble, right? If you look at a picture of hairstyles, you can guess what decade you're in. And so you see that where people change clothes, they change opinions, they change hairstyles. But the truth is always relevant because the truth is always real and that truth is the person and you can know the person of jesus, what do we do, What does this look like? Well, when someone makes a claim, you want to examine the evidence and let me put it to you this way uh does anyone have a Roomba in their house or a Roomba like device? It's the self vacuuming device. That also is a ride for cats? You laugh because that's where you've watched the videos. You've all watched the videos. I know. Okay. So what's amazing about these devices, these self running vacuum cleaners is that when they created it, the inventors of it, we're thinking, well, how do we make a device that can work in every house? And they realized that they didn't have to account for every single house. They just had to give a few set of rules that when applied in any setting, it will ultimately cover. And so they did that they gave just a few set of rules to the Roomba and that now it can go into any house and given enough time and enough patterns, it will actually sweep the floors. So what I want to do this morning as we close and as we're wrapping up is that I want to give you just three simple ideas that no matter what you face. Whatever claim is out there, you can examine it against these three things. So when someone makes a claim, the first thing you want to do is you want to compare it to eternal evidence. And that is the word of God, Jesus is actually called the word of God in John Chapter one and it says that he came full of grace and truth talking to the woman at the well, he said well where which church should we worship at which hill should I worship at which temple should I worship at. Its the samaritan temple or the jewish temple. And jesus has a time is coming where true worshipers will worship in spirit and in truth And then in John Chapter eight speaking against Pharisees and other religious leaders, he says you shall know the truth and the truth will set you free. And then just a couple verses later he says, and if the son sets you free, you are free. Indeed. So what he did in that moment was that you can know truth because truth is a person, the person of jesus, john 14 6 says I am the way the truth and the life no one comes to the father except through me, we're seeing Jesus continually transform and change lives and I don't know the person, I don't I don't have the connection but I I love watching this story right now with Kanye West all over the news. And my fear is that here is someone who was known to have everything the world has to offer. But apparently has made a declaration to follow jesus and now is proclaiming this truth and what's interesting to me is that he's being attacked more often by christians than non christians saying, yeah, we'll see. But yeah that's not our job to judge, to see if that happened, that's not our job to decide if this person is saved or not. But what we can do is we can pray for people and we can celebrate people and we can see, wow, God changes celebrities, God changes, works in homeless, God changes world leaders, God changes my neighbor, God heals relationships and marriages and friendships and radically changes lives. And so when you examine someone's claim, you want to put it against, Does this match up with jesus? Would jesus say this? Because then when he's praying in John 17, he says may you know the word, the word of truth, so when someone makes a claim, does it match up with jesus? Doesn't match up with the word of God. Second evidence is that you want to compare it to external evidence and that is the wisdom of others. The wisdom of others. Imagine how much heartache your Children would be safe from if they would just ask this one question, what is the wise thing to do? Okay, let's just be real. How smart would we be if we ask the question, what is the wise thing to do in finances in diet and exercise and relationships? Okay, you want to send that angry email reply, Okay, what is the wise thing to do? And so you start asking councilors and and friends? This is why it's so important as a church to be in community, that you have accountability and people that can help guide you and say no, I wouldn't do that so much of kids in school, is that one kid telling somebody else to do that, hey, you should do this, this would be funny, do it. And then there's always one kid that does right and they go out and they do that and everyone laughs and that one kid gets in trouble and his friends back and be like, I don't know why I did that. And so where school we grow up, we're like, oh, go do this, go do this. The reality is that as you grow, do you have someone in a positive sense of positive influence and say no, go do this? This is the way of jesus, imitate me, Follow and let me walk through this with you, let me pray for you. I'm so sorry that happened. That's right. When you get saved, you need community because you need people in your life for wisdom and encouragement to lift it up. So you want to compare that, Do you have wise people in your life that you can run ideas and claims by, if not again, you're open to being deceived. Well, how do I know if someone is wise, do their actions demonstrate it? That's what that's what paul writes, We don't have time to dive into it, but in John Chapter three, the 1st 10 verses, he basically says that anyone who keeps on sinning is not of God. Now, he's not saying when you sin, you're not saved. he's saying that when you routinely go down these patterns, you're breaking the heart of God. And so if you don't know that, like God actually frees you to choose otherwise now and so how do you know someone is a christian ultimately by how they love and serve other people? That's the calling card, that's why this whole series is called proof it, people will start taking christians seriously if we start serving each other honestly, what Jordan said last week, stuck with me when he said that our world doesn't need you to be perfect, our world needs us to be willing to say sorry and then we recognize that we're not the Holy Spirit for people, it frees us to love and serve them in truth. And so you have eternal evidence, the word of God, you have external evidence, what do teachers and coaches and mentors and friends say? And the last thing is that you have internal evidence and that is actually the spirit of God. And I put references down because here in John 1417, chapter 15, and then 16, 13, the Holy Spirit and it's actually described as the spirit of truth. Now when you don't believe, if you don't believe in jesus, this might not apply to you, but if you believe and trust in God, you now have the ability to choose what is right. And so you get this feeling in your heart, this feeling in your gut when you know what is right, have you ever heard someone say something or speak and you get this feeling and you're like, I don't know, check that, lean into that. I want everyone in this room to test everything that I say, I want you to because I want you to question everything, because when you apply it and you connect it ultimately with the word of God, that's eternal truth, the wisdom of others, That's external truth, and in the spirit of God, working in you, that's internal truth. When you have all three, you can trust that feeling and that knowledge, but when one of those three is out, I would be hesitant to believe that. And so what I love is that when all these work together, you have the ability to defeat and overcome temptation. Put it this way, imagine yourself sitting at home, okay? And you and you're just chilling in your living room and you have to two friends both named Adam. In this case, it represents the first adam, that's the guy that brought sin into the world and then you have jesus, he's referred to in scripture as the second adam, that redeemed the world. Okay, temptation knocks at your door, which one are you sending to answer because if you send the sinful nature, that person, if you send a sinful nature to the door to answer. When temptation comes knocking, you're probably going to go down that wrong path. But when you have the Holy Spirit, when you have jesus with it and you send jesus and that mindset and truth to answer the door, you can actually have victory. And blessing says in Galatians 5 16 that when you walk in step with the spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. That doesn't mean that you will never sin again. But it means that you have the ability to overcome and to experience victory and blessing. When you choose truth. That's the challenge. This morning, choose truth as the band comes up on stage, will you just bow your heads and pray with me? Dear Heavenly father. I just pray right now. If there's anyone in the room who's never received you as Lord and savior, that they will do that now, just simply praying God, we need you jesus. I need you in my life. I believe in you and I put my life in your hands and God help us to spot the counterfeits that this world has to offer counterfeits like money and popularity and fame and how we need this or that to be happy. When the truth is is that if we have you, we will find love and we will find joy and we will find meaning. And so that the best way to recognize the counterfeits in this world is to know you, son of God God. When we are faced with the challenge faced with the temptation, may we look at the eternal word. May we look look at the external wisdom of friends and family and when we look and examine the spirit, the internal movement in our hearts, God, that when those three aligned we can trust what is true and at the end of this God, you have saved us and given us truth. Not so that we can weaponize it and just beat everybody up around us and be judgmental and harsh. But God, you have given us this truth to set us free, free from sin, free to blessing, free to love and serve as you have loved and served us. We thank you God for being the truth and by being the truth, you are always relevant. May we know you this morning, We love you God. It's in your son's name. We pray Amen.