Good morning, church. It is good seeing all of you here today and to worship on the Lord's Day in this church.

And we are doing a series. Through the book of second Peter, and in this series of second Peter, all of chapter two is mostly focused on false teachers and false teaching and those kinds of things. And so, we're doing a little mini-series in the book of second Peter about false teachers and false teaching.

And an essential skill for today's world as Christians is discernment, and that is knowing the difference between right and wrong, or good and evil, truth and error, sheep, and wolves. It's discerning what is going on in the world and to see things the way God sees them. And we, discernment is a fine-tuned kind of skill.

It is something that we want to fine tune to really be able to see accurately. And there's a great quote from Charles Spurgeon, and he's, he said discernment is like this. He said, discernment is not the ability to tell the difference between right and wrong, rather it is the difference between right and almost right.

I think it's a very insightful statement because that is what we're talking about. We're not merely talking about clear good and clear evil. We're talking about these shades of distinction between right and almost right. Between the things that are right and then things that are wrong, but they seem right.

That's what we're dealing with in discernment. Because the most effective discernment. False teachers they pull people away from sound doctrine from what is right, and they pull them towards what's almost right, so people rarely go from believing what is right and then a hard shift to what is totally wrong a lot of times It's this gradual slide.

It's a slow movement over time into from what's right into what is Less right. And then eventually they'll end up in something that is more obviously wrong. So that's what we've been aiming at through these weeks is to discern false teachers and false doctrine and how things that are almost right can appear right.

And to be able to tell the difference, somebody who lacks discernment, they will be more. They're going to be more easily deceived. And that's what we want to avoid. We want to avoid being naively deceived by false teaching. And so, we want to grow in the skill of discernment. There's a lot of deception and eternity is at stake.

So, it's really important that we do this well. So, I'm going to wrap up this little mini-series today and focus on practical discernment. So today. I want us to look at. Reasons why we don't discern well, why we might avoid discernment, and then some ways that we can fine tune our skill of discernment.

So, let's dig in. I'm going to go back to the beginning of chapter two, the beginning of second Peter chapter two. And we'll look at these three verses and we're going to bounce around to a number of different scriptures today. But we'll start here, but false prophets also arose among the people just as there will be.

So, the prediction, there will be false teachers among you who secretly bring in destructive heresies. That's the false teachings, which end up even denying the master who bought them. And bringing upon themselves swift destruction. That's what's at stake. Eternity is at stake. Many will follow their sensuality and because of them, the way of truth, that's what's right, will be blasphemed and in their greed, they will exploit you with false words.

Their condemnation from long ago is not idle and their destruction is not asleep. Why do we need discernment? This is why it is because the stakes are high. The stakes are high. There's error and the error is not just something that's wrong, but it is wrong about the thing that we need to be most urgently right about.

Okay. In a first Peter, the previous book to this, the prequel, as it were the one before first Peter five, verse eight he says this, be sober minded, be watchful for your adversary. The devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. He's saying, be watchful for these destructive teachings that can harm people.

Parallel book to 2 Peter is the book of Jude. Here's what Jude says in verse 4. For certain people have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were designated for this condemnation. Ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality. And deny our only master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Same idea here, but he says they creep in unnoticed, meaning that false teachers are not obvious.

We've hit this a number of times, but it's just, it bears repeating here. False teachers are not obvious unless you're really skilled at discernment. You might be able to pick up on it more quickly, but they tend to creep in unnoticed. Here's one more. This is the Apostle Paul speaking to the Ephesian elders in the book of Acts chapter 20 verse 29.

Paul says, I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things and draw away the disciples after them. Therefore, be alert.

This is the New Testament's repeated warning. There's false teachers, there's false teaching. We need to discern them. And so, we're told, be alert, be watchful, be on guard, keep awake. That means have your antenna up looking for potential destructive teaching. And so, we're on the alert for false teaching.

And that's where the discernment comes in. That's where we have to be listening to what people say and being attentive to the specific teachings involved. And so, we need to discern false teachers and false teaching. So, in any church, you're going to have people that say incorrect things, right?

Incorrect things. That's to be expected because we're all learning and we're not when we're all growing. So, you've got different kinds of people in a church. You have sheep, which are God's people. You'll have wolves, which are false teachers, but then you'll have where a lot of us are, which is the Bible would call us fools.

We're naive. We're ignorant. So, it's like we're sheep in the sense that we know we're part of God's people, but we can be gullible. We can be naive if we're not discerning. And that's what we want to avoid. We want to be sheep. We want to ignore the wolves, fight the wolves, because we're all in process.

We're all learning and growing. You ever You ever play the game Mafia? It's like where you, and they it's like you're sitting in a circle and then you have a detective, and you have a killer, and you have a narrator. And then, the, everybody closes your eyes and you put your head down and then, the killer comes out and the narrator notices, then the detective opens, then the killer closes his eyes, and the detective opens his or her eyes.

And then they try to look around the room and. Then everybody opens their eyes and then they started arguing with each other over who the killer might be. And somebody makes an accusation. That's the game of mafia. And that's what discernment is like in that you're aware there may be false teachers or false teaching around.

Now there's a version of this where you're just highly suspicious of everybody. And that's not what we're not advocating for just to be, never trusting anybody at all. What I am advocating is that being aware. That somebody is creeping around, possibly. That's what Paul said. There may be wolves among you.

Fierce wolves that will not spare the flock. And so that's what discernment is like. And it means that even in the game of Mafia, you are, it's I thought I heard her shoulder move, one time. And I was like, I think maybe that's when she was pointing at somebody because she might be the killer.

That's you're just, you're tuned into things. You're paying attention. Now, in a church, it's not a fun game because the souls of men and women are at stake. And so, what I want to do here is I want to give you four, no, three reasons why we avoid discernment. Three reasons why we might avoid discernment and then five ways that we can get better at it.

So, we're going to do practical stuff here. Three reasons why we would avoid it. Five ways to get better at it. So, let's start here with three ways why we might avoid being discerning. The first one is discernment is just unpleasant. Discernment is unpleasant. Christians, many Christians have this overly plastic, hyper pleasant view of the Christian life.

And I would think of these as K love Christians, where just like you're positive and encouraging all the time. It's like that. And that's the sum total of what you think the Christian life should be. And Christians like this what, everybody wants to hear about hope and love and grace and mercy and forgiveness.

Every Christian wants to hear about that. And of course, we talk about those things a lot. But for these Caleb kind of Christians, they, that's all they want to hear about. That's, they don't have the stomach to hear about many other things because other things are unpleasant and their internal sense of what is good as Christians or good in a church is to only talk about nice and pleasant things.

And a lot of times the attitude, you might have heard this, you might even think this, is they think that what Christians should do is always to believe the best in everyone. You ever heard of this? You probably have. And that seems good, doesn't it? It seems yeah, that's a good thing to do.

We want to believe the best in people. And, And I can understand where that comes from and don't in principle object to the general disposition of just, give people the benefit of the doubt. But there are times when the stakes are high, when we don't want to believe the best, when it is wise to not believe the best.

And the thing is that we're not obligated by scripture to just in a blanket way, believe the best in people, even though a lot of people think that's what love requires. That's not true. We're not obligated by scripture to always believe the best. And this attitude can make Christians gullible and make us vulnerable to false teaching, especially if the false teacher is friendly.

And as we've observed before in the previous weeks, false teachers are almost always friendly. They're almost always the nicer people, the more pleasant to be around people. And that's what makes us so susceptible to it because it feels good, the things that they say. I was actually shocked once there was a pastor that I respected who told me that Christians and pastors should be, as in his words, were blissfully naive about the world.

And he said, that's what we should be. He thought that being naive was actually a Christian duty. And what shocked me about it was that I've long suspected that Christians think this way but wouldn't say it. And this was the guy that actually said it. I think it's more of a coping strategy for dealing with the fact that the world is very fallen and there's a lot of sin and wickedness in the world and it's just easier to not even have to think about it.

And so, in his mind, Christians should be blissfully naive. So, to grow in discernment, we have to accept the fact that the world is an ugly place. It's sinful and wicked. So, you got to take our doctrine of total depravity off the shelf, dust it off, and sit it on the coffee table. And just there it is.

We have to believe what our doctrine teaches, like what the scripture teaches is that human men and women are very sinful. The doctrine of total depravity teaches that. It doesn't mean every single person is as wicked as possible, but it means that every sinful, every person is sinful and corrupt and it's everywhere.

So, we need to believe that. We need to believe this about people. We don't do anybody any favors if we turn a blind eye to hard realities. Some Christians choose to be naive because they don't want to deal with negative emotions. That's the bottom line. And discerning things, discerning false teachers means, this teacher that I like so much, this person that seems so wonderful and friendly and joyful and all these positive things I think about them.

They may be a false teacher, which means that they might be a wolf and that's a negative feeling. That's a negative emotion that causes cognitive dissonance and we don't like doing that. And that is the false teacher's greatest advantage. The greatest advantage of a false teacher will be his or her likability coupled with the misplaced trust of naive Christians.

Here's the, here's what I'm saying. It's okay to be a little skeptical. You don't have to trust everyone. It's okay to be a little skeptical and be very intentional about who you trust. When, especially when it comes to teaching and doctrine, if your default is to believe the best, sooner or later, you will find yourself believing the best about a wolf, and that means you're going to be susceptible to deception.

Number two, why we avoid discernment. Discernment doesn't seem humble. It doesn't seem humble. If we want to say it the opposite way, being naive or gullible seems more humble. We've been conditioned to think as Christians that making moral judgments is self-righteous and arrogant. At any time, we'd make a moral judgment or make a moral judgment about a person, we avoid that.

And we avoid it because it feels more humble to not do it. And there are two scriptures that are often, or one scripture rather, that is often cited in this regard. And you know the first one, Matthew 7:1-2, Judge not that you be not judged. That's America's memory verse.

Everybody in America knows that verse because they use it against Christians anytime, we're trying to make a moral judgment. And tell me, say, you know what? This guy seems off. I think they're wrong. It's who are you to judge? That's the first thing that often people will say, Christians will say it, but also the world says it because it's a convenient verse and it's very short and memorable.

But Jesus doesn't say never make moral judgments. You notice that he doesn't say never make moral judgments. What he says is, for with the judgment you use. Or with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged. And with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. What he's saying is that we don't want to have double standards.

We don't want to we don't want to ignore our own faults and our own sins and use and judge other people guilty and judge ourselves innocent. He said we have to use a fair standard in the moral judgments that we make. And the first person that we need to subject to our moral judgments is ourselves.

And he goes on to say, take the log out of your own eye to take the speck out of somebody else's eye. He doesn't say never take a speck out of anybody else's eye. He says, first, take the log out of your own eye. And then you can see clearly to take the speck out of somebody else's eye. So, Jesus goes on in this very text to tell us that it is our obligation to make moral judgments, but to make them rightly.

To make them fairly. And the way to do that is to first confess your own sin. So, the humility part is not the absence of making moral judgments. The humility part is first subjecting yourself to the same standard that you're using to judge anyone else. So, no double standards, judge yourself first. And for what it's worth here, this word judge.

The Greek word there is krino, and that's, that word is translated discern in other in other places in the New Testament. So discerning is making moral judgments. Here's the second one. Jesus, and this is John chapter seven, verse 24, Jesus said, do not judge by appearances, but judge imperative.

Command, judge with right judgment, and that is judged by the standard of God's word. And judge according to what is true and accurate. That means Jesus is commanding us in this text, don't just look on the outward appearance, which we've been saying, it's don't judge just because somebody comes across as nice and friendly.

Judge with right judgment. Look at the content of what they say and evaluate that accurately. So, humility is not the enemy. Of discernment, humility is actually the prerequisite to discernment, and we're obligated to discern, and humility is it's an accurate assessment of yourself and others before God.

So just hear this, like being discerning and making moral judgments that does not make you a proud person. What makes you a proud person is if you fail to judge yourself and you only are judging other people, but if you fail to judge yourself, that's what makes you proud because you're not seeing yourself accurately.

Number three, the third reason why we might avoid discernment is we could be wrong. You could be wrong. And that's a thing we have to own up to. You might hesitate to discern a false teacher because you, there's, there may be some information you don't know. There may be something that you don't understand, something that isn't quite accurate in your thinking.

And then you make some sort of moral discernment and you're inaccurate in your discernment. Hebrews chapter five, verse 14 tells us this. Solid food is for the mature, And the mature are those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. So, if you're training to get better at something through constant practice, that means there's going to be less good and more good in your discernment.

Less good is going to be somebody who's not quite able to discern things accurately. That's going to be less good, right? But we practice it, so it's not you can never do it until you do it perfectly, or never do it until you're really good at it. It means that it's a process where, over time, as we're trying to discern, as we're devoting some effort towards seeing things and discerning things accurately, we'll get better at it.

So, it's something that is part of becoming a more mature Christian. So that's solid food. Solid food is for the mature and that is defined as those who have their powers of discernment trained. So, a mature Christian is someone who is able to make really good discernment, really good judgments.

They're able to see the field, like a quarterback, they'll talk about, elite quarterbacks and the announcers will say things like, man, he really sees the field. It's like he knows where the defense is. He knows where everybody's aligning up. He knows the different formations and he's always able to get the ball exactly where it needs to go.

That's a good quarterback and a good quarterback sees the field. Same with discernment. Good discernment is being able to see the field. Now that doesn't mean you're going to get it right because you're going to get things wrong and that's a real difficult thing to do. For me, one of my biggest obstacles and becoming more discerning, discerning is my own self-doubt.

And this has been something that I have tried, or I've, when I first started to recognize this as a, as an obstacle for me, as I started to try to improve in that area in particular. And so, to give you an example, last week I talked about Preston Sprinkle, and I was just, and that was so uncomfortable to do.

It's uncomfortable to call out somebody by name and say, this is false teaching. And it's uncomfortable because I don't want to be wrong and I don't want to be on record being wrong and to say something that might be, I might accuse somebody of being a false teacher and what if I'm the one that's wrong?

And now I'm wrong in a way that, it's public and everybody sees that I'm wrong. And so, I don't want to be wrong. And so, what might I do? I might just like it seems a little off to me, but who knows, maybe he is. Maybe he's not. And then just move on. But that sort of thinking, the fear of being wrong could actually short circuit the task of growing and practicing the skill of discernment.

So, after I preached that sermon, I talked to, a few people about it and it was just like, I just want to double check. And I went back, and I started, doing some research, and looking into some things Preston Sprinkle had said. And as it turns out, it's worse than I thought.

I actually feel more confident now than I did a week ago, that at the very least, he is teaching false teaching. And so, if, if I were just like I could be wrong about the guy and I just I never want to bother look it up. Never want to engage.

He's you never know. I don't know the guy's heart. You ever heard that? It's I don't know their heart. It's I say that sometimes. Cause I don't know somebody's heart. However, I can, we can see what's visible to us. And based on the things that are visible, that can be a good indicator.

Jesus himself said, you'll know the tree by its fruit. So, if you see rotten fruit, then that's something that you want to pay attention to. Look into that, what might be, the reason for this rotten fruit. And as you investigate it further you will be able to grow in your discernment.

You'll be able to see things more clearly. And so, as I mentioned a moment ago, in many places, the Bible tells us, be ready, be watchful, be on guard, be alert, stay awake. This is what he's talking about. This is what the scripture is talking about in these various places. Somebody we have a security team, here at the church.

I don't know if I'm supposed to say that, but we do. Strike it from the record if I'm not supposed to say that. Zach, correct me afterwards if I'm not supposed to say that. But here we are. But just think, anybody who's worked in security, or law enforcement, or something like that, they know, here's, they've learned through constant practice, how to recognize a threat.

What are behaviors? I was I'm just thinking of this now. I was like, I was sitting out on the porch, this is many years ago sitting on the porch and it was a pretty afternoon, and I was hanging out with some of the guys on staff at the time. And this guy came up and he was, chatting with us just from the neighborhood and just had a friendly conversation two or three minutes and he went on his way.

And then after he left the guy on the porch who said, you notice he was packing. It's he was, he's carrying a gun. I was like, what are you paying attention? But the guy that was with me noticed. Because he's just tuned into that sort of thing. He is, he's tuned in to recognize threats, like physical threats.

That's, I'm saying apply the same skill set. And the same sort of caution and suspicion you might have a little tells you pick up on, what's that bulge under the shirt, whatever it's pay attention to those sorts of things, apply that in the spiritual realm, and you'll be a more discerning Christian.

So, the thing is that discernment is imprecise. Maybe they have a glucose monitor or something under their shirt. You don't know, you might get it wrong, but the fact that you could get it wrong doesn't mean that you should never try to recognize a threat. So, it's more art than science, but under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, you can We can grow and get better.

We can get, be practiced. There's three ways, three reasons why we might not practice discernment. And I'm going to give you five ways that we can improve it. Five ways to improve our discernment. The first one is to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. This is compound movement training and exercise.

It's like you're trying to do two things at the same time, and that's what Jesus tells us to do in Matthew 10:16. Jesus says, Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. So, there's the danger, it's a dangerous world, there's threats there, and because you are vulnerable sheep and you're being sent out in the midst of wolves, therefore, B, here's a command that's imperative, B, number one, wise as serpents.

And number two, be innocent as doves. So, Jesus commands us to be two different things. Wise as serpents. That means be shrewd, be smart, be watchful, squint your eyes a bit. Just a little bit like, no, I want to pay attention to that. I want to find out more.

It's just being shrewd. Just expecting, that, spiritually speaking, when it comes to doctrine, there may be things that, want to hold off on believing what this person is saying right now. That's being wise, shrewd, smart, prudent. Don't be a pushover.

Don't be naive. Don't just accept because somebody says it and you like them, that it's true. You get at the same time, here's the other muscle. Be innocent as doves. That's, so it's like you're discerning evil, but you're also maintaining your own integrity at the same time. You're being pure and blameless and upright, and you're not falling into sin and evil.

And so that means we're making good judgments and we're applying this about people and doctrine with shrewdness and integrity. Wisdom would be something like knowing the right path to take, and innocence would be actually taking the right path. Wisdom is what how you discern.

Innocence is how you behave. How do you actually live? And we need to do both. And Christians often we do the opposite, right? We are we're stupid as doves and innocent as snakes. And we're not told to do that. And that's a very common thing, but that is a very discerning or is it very godly?

So, you don't want to be that way. So, Christians can, we get this idea sometimes that being naive, stupid pushovers is Christ and we just have to break ourselves of that thinking. It is okay for us to be discerning and to say, I'm not going to trust that. I'm going to hold off until I understand that better before I just assume that it's true.

And a lot of times if somebody presents themselves as a Bible teacher and you like them, man, I make, if there's one thing, I'd want everybody to just get out of this series. It is simply this, like just because somebody is nice and likable, it doesn't mean that they're right. Simply just, if there's one thing and you forget everything else, I said, it's like judge what you hear from other people, judge it according to the standard of the word of God.

That's the thing I want us to get out of it. But we still have some time left, so I want to finish my sermon. Romans 16:19 Paul says very similar things. What he says here. For your obedience is known to all. So that's innocence. So that'll rejoice over you, but I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil.

So, discerning good from evil, that's wisdom, that's discernment. I want you to be wise there. But as far as acting our behavior, I want us to be innocent regarding what is evil. So, I want us to see the good path to take and actually walk that good path to take that good path. Second way that we can grow is ask the Holy Spirit to give you wisdom and discernment, ask the Holy Spirit to give it to you.

And this is one of my personally, one of my most frequent prayers, because so often I'm in situations where I want to see the right path and take it. And usually, I'm willing to take the right path, but I don't always see it right away. And so, I asked the Holy Spirit, show me what is the right thing to do or show me what I need to see that I'm not seeing.

And we are told, one of my favorite prayers in scripture is James chapter 1 verse 5. He says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. That's a great scripture. A great scripture because it tells you if you have that particular need, ask God to give it to you and God's going to give it to you.

And anytime, like if you're asking for wisdom. Then ask God. And if you're truly, sincerely seeking wisdom from above, God will give you that wisdom. That doesn't mean that you can just pray that prayer on whatever you decide is the right one. You have to discern your own heart first, right? Then we can be self-deceived, but if we're genuinely seeking wisdom and we are following, the ways that scripture tells us to seek it, God, he gives us assurance here that he will answer that prayer.

So, every Christian, every true Christian, you're indwelt by the spirit. That means God himself is within your heart and within your mind. And he is leading you. Don't ignore the leading of the spirit. So, pay attention to circumstances that you're in and pray. I ask God in the moment. What should I do about this?

What should I think about this? Should I see something that I'm not seeing? God, show me what I'm not seeing. I pray these kinds of things all the time. What should I do? Show me what action to take. When it comes to discerning false teachers, let's say that you're listening to a podcast and, somebody, one of the guests or the host says something that just seems a little off to you.

Why does it seem off to you? Pay attention to that. The Holy Spirit could be highlighting something that the Holy Spirit is calling you to pay attention to. So, pay attention to it. Or let's say you're reading a book or a blog or something. It's something that doesn't quite sit right with you.

Pay attention to that. Now there's going to be, and we'll get into this more in a moment, but that doesn't mean that there, there could be a reason why the Holy Spirit is drawing your attention to it. And it may be that you need to be corrected. Or it could be that what you're reading is inaccurate, but that's another decision you have to make.

If that'll be my next point. But the point for here now is just ask the Holy Spirit, Lord, this doesn't sit right with me. Something seems off here. Pay attention to it. If it seems off, pay attention to what seems off, try to pinpoint, identify it, and try to pinpoint something within yourself that you might associate.

Why does this seem off to me? Everybody else seems to like this. Why does it seem off to me and try to discern that could be you're seeing something nobody else is seeing, or it could be the Holy Spirit is convicting or trying to show you something, but that's where the work of discernment comes in.

So, the next point is related to this one. So, the first one is the leading of the spirit. We're praying. The next one is an action that we take after the prayer and that is develop the habit of asking the question. Is this true? Just ask yourself the question and get in the habit of asking the question, is this true?

Another way you could say it is to be a Berean. You want to verify what you hear. When I say be a Berean, I'm talking about this text in Acts chapter 17. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were if you know the story of the book of Acts, what is happening a pattern that repeats over and over again is the apostles will preach the gospel in an area and there's usually one of three responses. The response is that's great. I believe it. I will follow Jesus or no, that's crazy. I hate you.

I want to stone you or something else, or I want to hear more about this. I'm intrigued. You're generally going to see those three responses throughout the book of Acts. Now, what he was saying here in Acts chapter 17 is the Jewish people in Berea were more noble than the ones in a previous town they were at in Thessalonica because they received the word eagerly.

They're like, oh, I want to hear this. I want to hear what you have to say. But then they didn't just accept it and they're commended for doing this. So, they received it. They were eager to hear what they had to say. And then they verified it. With what they already knew that was written in God's word. They examined the Old Testament scriptures to see does what this teaching is, this teaching presented here, does it align with what we already know to be true and is already written in God's word in the Old Testament?

That's what they did. So, they verified it, and they verified it by examining the scriptures and it said they did it daily. So, it wasn't like, yeah, I remember that one verse from Sunday school that kind of sounds like what he's saying here. So, I'm sure it's good. Notice as they examined the scriptures, that's, it's an intent work, it's a dedicated effort of constantly going back to the word of God and Mike, is this true?

Is this accurate? And so, they calibrated their thinking by a standard outside of themselves. And that's the standard of God's word. So, if you're listening to a podcast, reading a book or something like that, and something seems off to you, there's two possibilities. Yes. One possibility is that the teaching is wrong and it seemed off to you because there could be some prompting of the spirit within you This is you know something's off about that and then that drives you to the word and by driving you to the word it could be you would consult With other people that know the word better than you but you're it's like you're wanting to evaluate that.

Is it true? Is that right? And because you're evaluating that it's like you're able to you're discerning something led by the spirit to see Something is wrong here and now I, my, my knowledge of the Bible, my, my discernment of this issue is strengthened because now I have a real-world experience of recognizing a teaching that's an error.

That's one possibility. The other possibility is that you are wrong, and the Holy Spirit is highlighting it in order for you to be corrected. So, let's say you've got some erroneous belief, and you hear, a teaching here in church that challenges the belief that you've held. That's going to happen.

In fact, that's the desired outcome. That's a goal. I like it when people feel challenged through the teaching here. And so, what do you do with that? It's my last point will be about how do you handle that within a church? But just note that for just a moment. But. But it's, it is good to, to, to inquire further I look up a scripture am I, am I wrong about this?

So, let's say for example, what I've said about, nice, likable people are often going to be the false teachers and is that true? So, let's say you're in the habit of asking, is that true? And what does the scripture say, oh, I would love for you to do that study. I would love for you to do that study about false teachers as nice guys.

If you were to be a Berean and you were to do that study, I will be satisfied with whatever you conclude because I know what the scripture says about it. That's why Jesus calls them wolves and sheep's clothing. They look nice. Verify that. So, take it to the word of God. And it might be, you thought I thought this nice teacher was great.

And Pastor Michael says something that makes me think maybe they're not great. Verify it. I'm not afraid of that at all. I'm like, I want us all to be submitted to the word of God. And so that would be a great, be a Berean, take it to the word of God. And maybe it could be a conversation we could have and talk through it, but that's a good outcome.

So, God's word is the standard to know the difference between right and wrong and between right and almost right. And as we do this, we're constantly practicing, we're training ourselves to get better and better at what we see. So, here's the principal God's spirit and God's word never contradict.

God's spirit and God's word never contradict. So, if you feel a prompting and you think, oh, the spirit is telling me this or that, but then what you conclude is something that's in that contradicts what God's word says, then your sense of what the spirit, it's like you're, something's wrong.

Either your understanding of word is wrong or what prompted you is not from the Holy spirit. And so, you want to learn to, for the, for your leading of the spirit and your understanding of God's word, these need to be congruent because the word of God was written by the spirit of God. And so, the Holy Spirit and God's word will never contradict.

So, you listen to the Holy Spirit, and you listen to God's word, examine what the scriptures say. Number four, develop a holy curiosity about people. Develop a holy curiosity about people. Discerning doctrines oftentimes there's data to deal with. You're looking at a teaching and you can go to the Bible and examine what they say about that teaching.

It's a little bit more challenging to discern people because people are complicated, and we have mixed motives. So, the Bible commands us to love people. We're not commanded to trust people. Trust is a gift that you give to a person who's trustworthy, but we're not commanded to just trust people. So, your duty to love does not obligate you to trust.

The love is obligatory. The trust is optional. Christians who don't understand that distinction are going to be naive and vulnerable to false teachers. So sometimes with a person, you might get a spidey sense about somebody. Something just doesn't seem right. Something seems a little off about them. Again, that might be the Holy Spirit.

Now, there's some people that I think are really good at this and whenever they have a sense about somebody I tend to be like, okay, if you have a sense about that. I want to, I want to I want to follow or at least reserve judgment because I know that you're good at this.

So, a lot of people are like that. And whenever something seems off, there could be any number of reasons for it. So, some, somebody seems off to you, you meet somebody at church, you meet somebody in a city group or something. You're like, I don't know about that guy. I don't know about her. Something seems off.

You don't have to ignore that. You might be wrong. We've already covered that you might be wrong and by paying attention to it, you can improve your discernment. It might be that they just remind you of that bully in the third grade. And so, it's just your own free emotional association in your mind. But what I'm saying is you don't have to ignore it.

And I'm not saying that we are just hyper suspicious of everybody all the time. Cause that's not healthy. We have to exercise some discretion even in what we pay attention to, but generally if something rises to a certain level, it's okay to pay attention to it and then you resolve it by developing a holy curiosity.

You discern yourself first, you have a holy curiosity about why do I trust these kinds of people and why do I not trust those kinds of people? That's a very good thing to be discerning about. And it might be, I trust people that are always really nice and sweet, and I don't trust people who are Plain spoken and direct.

Okay. There could be a hundred reasons why that would be the case. So now discern yourself a little bit more, is it that maybe it's the nice, is it because the nice people are always nicer it's they present themselves at nicer, but they're not always nicer. And maybe the plain-spoken people are just more honest and that's uncomfortable for you because as we've talked about earlier, you'd rather not have to deal with negative emotions and the plain-spoken people say things that are uncomfortable.

So, discern all of those things and take that before the Lord and just ask, Lord, show me what's real. Show me what's true. And listen to and follow the leading of the spirit. So, whenever you suspect a suspect, a person you wanna start, you can turn those suspicions into questions and ask the spirit like, why does this seem off?

And pay attention to what you notice and ask the spirit to show you. That person may be totally trustworthy, and the problem is you and your perception of people. And maybe that person is sketch and the Holy Spirit is showing you pay attention to all of those things. Ask questions. But here's the last point.

And this is where I want us to title together. This is not an isolated project that you do by yourself. This is not something that you do by yourself. This is something that is. As we try to discern teaching, teachers, the world, this is something that we, we collectively do together. And, so the fifth point is, discernment is best done in a mature Christian church that is under the watchful care of local elders.

So, most of us aren't Bible scholars or experts. We talked about this last week. We're a combination of sheep and fools. We're foolish in some areas. We could be wise in some areas, but we're all growing and we're not always going to see things accurately. And since a discernment is not isolated in fellowship with other people that you've known for a while, you know how they think, you know how they operate.

And then together, collectively, our discernment can be strengthened because we're having, we're sharing some wisdom with each other. And so, we have to trust some people. So like right now I'm teaching the Bible and it's there's, we all have to trust things that we can't totally verify.

And so, we are choosing who to trust to some degree. And I know like general, if you're here, it's like you trust that this pulpit is going to present the word of God, as accurately as we're able to, by God's grace. So, you have to start somewhere, and scripture actually tells us to start there, to start with your local elders.

So let me just share this last verse with you. This is Hebrews 13:17. Obey your leaders and submit to them for, this is the reason, they are keeping watch over your souls. There's this command to keep watch, but then there are local elders and shepherds, they are commanded by God to keep watch. They've taken on an additional responsibility to not only keep watch for themselves, but also keep watch for others.

And because of that, for, here's the reason, because of that's why we follow their lead. We obey them and submit to them because they are the ones who are accountable to God in a unique way for the discernment and shepherding care of the church. And that's what he goes on to say, they're keeping watch over yourselves as those who will have to give an account.

So let them do it with joy, not groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. So, Hebrews 13 tells us to defer. To the discernment of your local shepherds and they will help you discern. It doesn't mean that we're always right in fact, we will get it wrong sometimes but when we get it wrong God has given us the motivation the incentive because we're giving an account to, God So we have every incentive if we fear God and by God's grace we do By God's, but that, that is our incentive.

It's we know that we're answering to God for the care of the souls here. And so, what the author of Hebrews is saying, pay attention, listen to the elders and their discernment because they have a responsibility as the ones who are keeping watch over everyone. And so, as a general rule.

Like I said, it's not that we're always right, but it is that we are accountable to God. And so, the incentive within us in our own fear of God is to do this well and to grow in it. And so, whenever there's questions, whenever there's, and this happens all the time where somebody has a question about a teacher, a resource.

That's all the time people ask about it. That's great. Talk to your local church about it. Talk to your elders about it. And that's what we want to do. We desire that. And on the other side, we curate resources, and we send them to you. So, we sent out the Herald, which is a Wade puts this together.

It's a weekly email. It comes out on Mondays. And the purpose of the Herald is just an email that says, here are some sources that we think are helpful and trustworthy. And they came from, trustworthy places. So that's just, that's one way to start, get off on the right foot, starting in your growth of discernment of just like paying attention to your local elders and one, the church, look at the resources that we share with you and then we can talk about them together.

Okay. In conclusion, we'll wrap this up. All this, all of these things matter because of what's at stake, right? Heaven and hell is at stake. Eternity is at stake. The souls of men and women and the glory of God, this is what is at stake. And so, the gospel that we proclaim is the hope of our salvation. God loves people.

Jesus died to save us from our sin and to bring us safely home. That's what we're after. That's what we're trying to preserve and promote in our church. And so, through faith in Christ, we can be forgiven of our sin, purified, cleansed, filled with the spirit, and adopted into his family. That's what we want for everybody in this church as pastors of this church, elders.

It's like we want to safely safeguard that doctrine and to promote it within our church body so that we can all be growing in greater grace and godliness together. So, we're called to this life of obedience. And that is the path of that is truly good for us. The path of joy and grace and peace, righteousness, love, goodness, and the task of discernment matters because those good things are what's at stake.

False teaching threatens those things. And so, we want to preserve the good deposit to safeguard the good doctrine of the gospel. And that's our hope. That's my hope for our church is that God will strengthen us with wisdom and knowledge to safeguard the good doctrine of the gospel and protect us from false teachers.

Let's pray together. We thank you, Father, that you have brought these people together and that we are growing in our discernment, especially in a day and age where there's false teachers and false doctrine that abounds. And we ask you, God, by your spirit, that you will give us wisdom to be more discerning, to be more wise, that we can be Bereans and understand your scripture, examine scripture.

We can pay attention to people who are not too quick to trust. And that together, corporately, we can grow in our discernment as a church. And I thank you, Lord, that you have done so. You have protected us in so many ways. So many times, you've protected us from false teachers and false teaching. Thank you.

And we ask you to continue to do Lord. Help us to apply the things that we've read in 2 Peter 2 and that we can all grow and be protected from false teachers. We ask you, God, that you will meet us now as we dine in fellowship at your table. We give you all praise and we worship you. And we pray in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen