Who is the anti-christ? | 1 John - Week 3

07/24/23 • 39 min

I grew up terrified of the antichrist. The dispensational church I grew up in taught us that there's an evil antichrist who's going to control the world and kill all the Christians he can. He'll cut your head off if you say you're a Christian, and if you deny Christ so that you don't get your head cut off, you go to Hell. We were terrified of the antichrist, and because we were so scared of him, we found him everywhere. Every president that we didn't agree with, was the antichrist. Every famous musician and every military leader we didn't like, was the antichrist...until we realized they weren't.

Previous Episode

It's All About Love | 1 John - Week 2

Love is a theme that runs throughout the book. John talks about what we shouldn’t love, how we are loved, how we know what love is, and how we should act accordingly.

And as John jumps into this theme in the early part of the book...he makes it clear that this is NOT something new.

⁷ Dear friends, I am not writing a new commandment for you; rather it is an old one you have had from the very beginning. This old commandment—to love one another—is the same message you heard before.

1 John 2:7-8

As we jump down a few verses, John wants us to know that the blessings of carrying out this commandment can be hindered. There are things that can distract it from happening. There are things that can keep it from being part of our lives. And it has to do with love too.

Jumping to verse 15 John says

¹⁵Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. ¹⁶For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. ¹⁷And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave.

1 John 2:15-17

Where should this love, this real love come from? Where does it originate? How do we grow this in our lives?

As we jump into 1 John 3, John helps us to see that.

See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him.

1 John 3:1

Love originates with the Father. Mike talked about this last week. It starts as we receive His love. As we recognize our worth and purpose come from the Father’s love.

If you are part of the family...this is what we do. We love one another. As we look more and more like the Father, we love. It’s a trait of the family.

What does it look like? Real love? Jump down to verse 16....

¹⁶ We know what real love is because Jesus gave up his life for us. So we also ought to give up our lives for our brothers and sisters.

1 John 3:16

Next Episode

What is wrong with teens? | 1 John - Week 4

How would the average adult describe a teenager? In most cases the description is usually negative and if you ask teens what they think adults would describe them as it is usually negative. In fact, for the last 20 years, Nick Rasse has been asking his high school class this question and these are the top responses.

Stupid
Lazy
disrespectful
don't care about anything

We all know words hurt and if we constantly hear negative things, it produces negative results. For example, If we say 5 nice things about someone and only 1 negative thing about that person, what will they remember? Let's say they are told they are nice, funny, kind, and helpful, but they are a lousy dresser they will most likely walk away from that conversation dwelling on the one negative comment.

What is the person going to remember? Not the nice compliments, but the one negative one.

People especially kids, will live up to the expectations put in front of them. If we call them stupid and lazy, why would they live up to higher expectations?

Are teens more disrespectful today?

Children today are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food and tyrannize their teachers.

Socrates 420BC

Here is my point, kids have always been seen like this, every generation complains about kids. So, when adults ask me – Are teens more disrespectful today – I ask them in return with this question –

Are adults more disrespectful today?

Yes- we are living in trying times – which is why it is all the more important to be very intentional with how we speak with one another today.