No Sanity Required

10 Things We Learn From the Letters of John

• Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters

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In this episode, Brody shares updates from around Snowbird, including recent transitions, answered prayers, and the growing anticipation for Winter SWO retreats. He also gives a preview of the teaching focus for Winter SWO, walking through 1 John and its clear picture of authentic Christianity.

Using 1 John, Brody outlines ten defining marks of a Christian:

  • Who Jesus is
  • What Jesus has done
  • Christians still sin, but don’t love sin
  • Christians obey God
  • Christians love other believers
  • Christians remain faithful
  • Christians do not love the world
  • Christians test what they hear by truth
  • Christians are born of God
  • Christians can know they are saved

This episode calls believers to be rooted in the Gospel and shaped by truth. Pointing toward a faith that endures, marked by obedience, love for the church, discernment, and real assurance in Christ.

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SPEAKER_01:

Hey, in this week's episode, we're going to give you kind of an overview of the study that we're doing at Winter Swow. I know a lot of our listeners will be coming to Winter Swow over the next month or so, over the next few weeks. Winter Swow is an event that takes place in January and February at Snowbird. And the first one actually uh we're in the middle of it right now. Uh it just started uh a couple days ago, and uh we'll we'll run multiple winter conferences um throughout the months of January and February. We actually start it in December uh just because that break between Christmas and New Year, um, that's when students are out of school. So we run a couple of events there. We're in the middle of that right now, and uh oh man, I I love winter swow. It's for us, it's awesome because uh we we have been off. The last event that we did at Snowbird was the marriage conference, and that was at the end of October. So we did three fall retreats in October. We had three student mystery events the first three weekends of October, then a marriage conference, and then November, December pretty much take off. And so I'm looking forward to catching up a little bit, just giving you an update on kind of how things have gone at the end of the year here at Snowbird, uh, an update on that, and then kind of where we're going for winter swow. And then we're gonna walk through an overview of First John today, give you the main, I'm gonna give you 10 bullet points that are sort of an overview of First John that we're gonna be covering at our winter swow. If you come to Winter Swow, then you're gonna get uh you're gonna get this content and in teaching format over the next uh we'll we'll do it in five or six sessions. I can't remember now. Five or six sessions. It's five sessions typically. Some students, uh some some groups stay an extra evening and get a sixth session. But um, yeah, I'll give you an overview of that and uh and give you an update on what's going on here end of the year at Snowbird. How do we wrap uh the calendar year up and kind of what we're excited about going into 2026? Welcome to No Sanity Required, y'all.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to No Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters, a podcast about the Bible, culture, and stories from around the globe.

SPEAKER_01:

Before I get into this, I gotta I gotta apologize. Um the episode I uh I I just recorded um an episode that is has not dropped yet, but I'm apologizing ahead of time. Um it's gonna be kind of a first of the year episode, and I I I recorded it in my study, and I've got a table that uh it's it's a homemade stand-up table. It's the one where you stand in front of it, you can't sit down. It doesn't, it's not electronic, it doesn't rise and raise and lower. It's just a table that you've got to stand at because it's too tall. It's a it's like a bar. And it's squeaky. I didn't realize it was squeaky. I kept leaning on it, and then I went back and I was listening to the episode, and you can hear this squeaky noise the whole time. I feel terrible uh because this is not where I typically record. But anyway, um apologies ahead of time for that. Uh but but I want to I want to tell y'all kind of how our year ended. Man, we had an awesome year uh at Snowbird in 2025. It was amazing. And we always say that, we throw around those two words, awesome and amazing, a lot. I know. I I use those words a lot in my vocabulary. We use them a lot at Snowbird. But but it the fact is, 2025, we saw the Lord do so many awesome things, and we went, not gonna lie, we went through some some transition as a ministry. We lost some people, we had some folks leave um uh and go on to other things. Uh excited for for for some of those people and what God's doing. Dawson Dickey is uh who served at Snowbird so faithfully over the last few years and has become a really kind of a fixture at Snowbird. Dawson has moved on. He's uh an associate pastor in Tennessee. I'm excited for him. That was, you know, Dawson's calling and dream was to be a pastor, and he still wants to do that. I think ultimately he'd love to plan a church or do a revitalization. So this was a good next step for him. But I bring Austin's name up to say at the end of the year, as everybody was praying for Greg, my son-in-law, and my daughter Kilby, and and uh in their situation, we were also praying for Dawson's family. They were in a terrible car crash. This was back uh, this would have been like right at the end of November, going into December. I think the wreck happened around November 29th, maybe 30th, something like that. But it was a bad wreck. And uh Dawson's dad, who's a a good and close friend of this ministry, uh, man, he he was he was severely injured, uh, in a coma, uh head injury, so a lot of prayers for the the Dickey family. Um But it was it was kind of crazy having Dawson having left Snowbird just a couple months prior, and then this happened. It it I don't know if you ever had this experience where you want to support somebody and encourage them, but how do you do that when you're doing it from a distance? And so um we've just been praying for the Dickey family and for David, Dawson's dad, just for his healing and and restored health, and um would ask you to also pray for them. But uh, Miss Dawson, excited for where he's headed, what God's doing in his life. And so this is this is all all that to say, this is a transitional period at Snowbird. And I love transition because a lot of people I think are scared of transition and uh and then other people are obsessed with it. So what you end up with is some people are so fixated on not letting anything change that they get stuck, it's easy to get stuck in a rut. Other people can't stay put more than you know a short period of time, and it seems like they're constantly bouncing around and on to the next thing. You see this, we've just come through the college football season. We're kind of in uh at the tail end of it here with the playoffs and all that, but uh what the coach in carousel, you see a coach that can't stay put. There's uh there's a guy named Lane Kiffin who a lot of you know uh and are sports fans, especially college football fans, but some of you are not. But Lane Kiffin's a guy, he's a real controversial figure in the college football coaching world. And part of what makes him controversial is he he doesn't stay put. He he moves on to the next thing, and some people say, well, it's the money or it's the prestige, or he's just a controversial person. He loves stirring the pot. I don't know, I have no idea. But I do know that a lot of people, they don't they have a hard time sticking to something for a long period of time, and and and while other people uh don't want any change to come. And so when I say I I get excited about a period of transition, what I mean is there are times where whether it's in your personal life, your business, your ministry, where growth reaches a point where there has to be some change that happens. You've grown to a point where things won't work the way they've always worked. Or, you know, you've you've gotta you've gotta grow with the times or expand your vision, your dream, uh, you know, something like that. We were sitting in the snowbird media office uh not long ago. This was uh a couple weeks ago, and kind of reflecting on the end of the year and the direction we're taking some things. And we had just had our snowbird Christmas party. We have a staff, like an alum Christmas party every year in the middle of December. And so we had that Christmas party back on, I think it was December 13th, maybe. And uh it was so good to see a ton of our former staff and so many people. We had a we had a group of people come in that were that it was the 10-year anniversary of the first year that we did the Snowbird Institute, the leadership institute. And we had uh several folks come in that were part of that institute. Um two couples that I know of for sure came in that were part of that institute, and they had met and married in that institute. Um and then another uh gal who was here with her husband, he wasn't part of the institute, but she had been. It was just cool seeing people hadn't seen in a while, and and reflecting and remembering back. And uh we were we were having a conversation like the Monday or Tuesday, I think it was the Monday after the Christmas party. We're up there in the media office, and somebody, I think Austin Scott was saying that there were a lot of people saying that snowbird, you know, oh man, I miss I missed when snowbird was like this or when it was like that, and they were thinking back to the quote unquote good old days, and they were saying, Man, it used to be we used to do things this way and we used to do things that way. And a lot of that was being talked about because of some skits that were done at the Christmas party that were like throwbacks to, I mean, early snowbird days. There was one skit that was a throwback to the early 2000s, and one that was a throwback to, you know, 2015, and one that was a th, you know, and then like some references to some different periods in snowbird history. And somebody was saying, man, it's changed. It's not the same. And I was explaining to our media team, of course it's changed. When you grow, you change. And and and people tend to nostalgia is a tricky, a very deceptive thing. Nostalgia can rob you of the joy of what God's doing, it can rob you of purpose for the future, it can take away drive and energy and vision, and it can kind of trick you and lull you into this idea that, man, there was a time where things were so good. Listen, I want to explain something that I think is an important principle. The good old days were not as good as you think they were. You, you're, you tend to, I do this. We tend to remember something not exactly the way that it was. And when you're growing as a person or you're growing as a ministry or you're growing your business or your church, it's easy to think back to what things used to be and long for that. But I'm gonna tell you something. As much as I loved Snowbird in 2008, Snowbird in 2002, snowbird in 2014, I'm just telling you, Snowbird in 2025 is the best version of Snowbird that there's ever been. Why? Because it's a ministry that just like a person is being sanctified and matured and growth is is constant and steady. And so as we grow as people and as this grows as a ministry, it's easy to look back and miss the quote unquote good old days. But the reality is, Paul said, um, he said, looking ahead, I don't look back. I look ahead. He says, he says, I'm can I'm considering the prize that's in front of me, and I'm striving toward that prize. We're at Snowbird, we're striving toward the prize that's been set before us. And I don't want to look back in the sense that I look back and long for the good old days. I want to look back and celebrate what God's done. I want to look back and have reflection on those wonderful memories. I won't shoot, I want to sit around with people and look back, and we all do this and laugh and remember things that were funny or remember things that were hard or remember, you know, seasons where we saw God move. But the reality is if you're a child of God who is being sanctified, conformed to the image of Christ, or if you're in a church that is growing in obedience to the Lord, then the best days are always where you're at and what's coming ahead. It might be hard times. You might be in the middle of a trial, you might be in the middle of something very difficult. But I'm just telling you, the nature of sanctification is that we're always growing more into the image of Jesus. This goes for ministries, it goes for people. And at Snowbird, I man, I can like I can look at pictures from 2003 and just go down memory lane, and I love it. It's wonderful. I just, man, I I and there is a part of me that longs for those days. I'd love to go back and redo it, you know. But that doesn't mean it was better then than it is now. It just means God did things in my life during that period that I now look back on with fondness and with good memories. And so we're sitting around in the in the media office and I was explaining to these guys, hey, 10 years from now, y'all are going to have the tendency to want to look back, oh man, 2025. Remember that? It was the best days at Snowbird. Well, it's not. Lord will, in 2035, we'll be experiencing more growth, more excitement, more energy, more lives being impacted, more, you know, more vision. And we'll look back at 2025 with fondness, and we'll look back at 2010 with fondness and 2000 with fondness, but God's always moving and doing things and growing our ministry and growing you and me. And so don't get duped into the good old days. Now, I know there are some people that um have gone through great loss. You've lost a loved one, you've lost a child, you've lost a spouse, and that's a different situation for you. And I want to be sensitive to that. You look back to a time where that loved one was still here and you were sharing life together, man. That's hard. That's hard. But that's where we have to then look forward to the fact that one day we'll be reunited because of what Christ has done. Now, again, maybe you're looking back at the loss of a loved one who didn't know the Lord. And and that's hard because you wonder, will I ever have peace about where this person is? So all of this to say, as a Christian, don't get caught up in looking back and and and and sort of allowing that to stunt your growth moving forward, both as a person and a and as a ministry or a church or whatever. We always got to be looking forward. Um there there are man, there are ministry partners at Snowbird that I miss. They're now out of it, or they've moved on to something else, or staff members that served here that I wish they could come back and serve. The point being, um for the believer, God is always working and moving and growing and sanctifying. And so enjoy that. Let the Lord um let the Lord shape you into the man or the woman he wants you to be, and let him shape your ministry into the mission and ministry that he wants it to be. That's what we're striving for at Snowbird. And so we we came to the end of the year recognizing that, man, we're in a transitional phase and period. We got some some new visions, some new dreams, some new ideas, some new energy. And I'm excited about that. As we go into 2026, I'm so excited about for instance, let me let me just share with you one team I'm super excited about. I'm very excited about Austin Scott's team. He's he is leading a team in that media and production room that is a lot of new faces, a lot of people that have stepped into positions that six months ago they were not in, didn't envision being in. But it's a team with this new personality and energy that I'm excited about. I'm so thankful for the different the different phases of development in that department and that program here. But I'm excited for the days ahead. And if you came to, if you came to the Fall Retreat at Snowbird, uh the feedback we got on Fall Retreat was so amazing. And Austin worded it this way. He said, people were saying it felt like a new a new era at Snowbird that had the feel of like retro snowbird. If you go back, if you came to Snowbird in, you know, in the 2000s and the things we would do with the redneck games and the rodeo and the craziness of two of the 2000s here, it had that feel, but but even better because there's more resources, more creativity, more uh more to work with. And Fall Retreat was so fun, and the feedback we got was so great. So I'm excited about the things that are ahead in 2026 because Austin's leading a team that's very dynamic. Um it's gonna sound different, look different. It you're gonna see new faces on the stage, but you're also gonna see familiar faces on the stage. I'm super excited and encouraged by the leadership of that young staff in there, that that 19 to 25 group that is sort of shaping the the culture and personality of Snowbird right now. And it's it's very exciting because you still got the old, you got the old guys here, the old guys and gals. We're gonna keep, you know, we're gonna keep this thing rooted until the next generation of old guys comes along and and continues to keep it rooted. And so right now I'm excited about 2026 because you've got this dynamic of new energy, new vision, new direction, but there's also the anchor that's not gonna let us move too far off of who God's called us to be and what God's called us to do. It's exciting times. Uh so what I want to do uh with that update is uh I want to I want to tell you that uh as as winter swow is clicking along, we're studying through 1 John, and I want to give you the the the big ideas of 1 John that we're gonna be studying. Whether you're coming here for an event or you're gonna when once we release all the teaching content when winter swow is over, you'll be able to listen through the teach the teaching sessions. Let me give you what what we're gonna talk about in 1 John. There's big ideas of 1 John. The first big idea in 1 John is uh 1 John looks at who Jesus is, who Jesus is. In the first two verses of 1 John, we've got these sort of statements of deity, that Jesus is truly God and he's truly human. And John is the the writer and the apostle that focused on that. When you read through John's gospel, the same guy wrote John's gospel as wrote 1 John. When you read through John's Gospel, you've got the deity of Christ and the humanity of Christ on on full display. And uh and John does a really good job of explaining that. Um and so his his first letter starts off by declaring and sort of reflecting on who Jesus is. He's truly and fully God, and he's truly and fully human. And you see that in the first two verses of the book. Listen to how these these two verses word this. Uh, that which was from the beginning, so that's Jesus. John also writes in the gospel, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. That which was from the beginning. So John's gospel and John's letters start kind of in the same same takeoff point. That which was from the beginning, which we've heard, which we've seen with our eyes. So he's saying the the eternal one has become physically human, and we've seen him. We've talked to him, we've touched him with our hands. Um and and so you've got in the first verse this idea that Jesus is both God eternal, but he's also he has become human. The life was made manifest. Manifest, so the human life of Jesus was made manifest. It was revealed to us, and we've seen it, and we testify it and proclaim to you the eternal life which was with the Father and was made manifest to us. So in those verses, you've got the fact that Jesus is fully and truly God, eternal, everlasting, but he's come and become human and revealed himself to us in human form. The next thing John's going to talk about is what Jesus did. What Jesus did. Now, before I go on, the reason I want to give you this is not only to sort of prime your theological pump and align you with what we're getting ready to talk through in winter swow, but I want you to think about this. I want you to be encouraged this week. As a Christian, these are 10 things that you need to believe and be bold in that belief, to use the phrase that was given to me in teaching this at Trinity Christian Academy recently. Adam Vinson had given me this idea that, hey, bold in belief, that's how we describe these overview things and ideas from 1 John. So I want you to be bold in believing these things. Are you bold in believing that Jesus was truly and fully God? Are you bold in believing that he became human and that he lived in a real human form and worked and did the ministry that he did and died and rose again? And yeah, I want to be bold in that. I'm unashamed of that. Paul says, I'm unashamed of the gospel. What else should we be bold in? The second thing is we should be bold in our belief and confidence in what Jesus did. What did Jesus do? And why should we be bold in believing it? Well, in 1 John 2, verse 2, it says that he's our propitiation. He's the propitiation for our sins. That means he took God's wrath for our sins. Jesus died on the cross under the weight of my sin, bearing the wrath of God toward my sin. Jesus did that. So who is Jesus? I need to be bold in my belief that Jesus is truly and fully God and truly and fully human. And what did Jesus do? He died in my place. He provided salvation, but he didn't just provide it. He did it specifically by bearing the wrath of God. He accepted the wrath of God for my sin. He died for my sin, though he himself had never known sin. Number three, Christians still sin, but they don't love sin. This is an important belief for the believer. This is something that uh that John teaches that I'm thankful for that as a Christian, I I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna make mistakes. I'm gonna still sin. He I think he says it this way in chapter one, verse eight. He says, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar. And somebody will say, Well, that's saying but that before you became a Christian, you were a sinner, and to not recognize that would you'd not get to a point where you were ready to receive salvation. He says, if we have no sin, and then later he says, now listen to this. So let me think how to how to word this. Somebody that would say, John's reference to the Christian as a sinner in 1 John 1, 8 and 9, if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, is followed with, if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us, so he'll forgive us of our sins. And in verse 10, if we say we've not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. People will argue and say those are those are verses referring to uh before you were a Christian. You have to recognize that you were a sinner. But he said, if God's word is in you, you'll recognize that sin is in you as well. The relationship between the word of God in a believer's life and sin in a believer's life is that the word of God will shine a light of exposure onto your sin. And then in chapter two, verse one, my little children, I'm writing you these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. Now, this is the verse that really supports, hey, as a Christian, you're going to make a mistake, you're going to sin, you're going to falter, you're going to fail, because he says, My little children, this is a word that John uses, a phrase that John uses to refer to Christians. So he's saying, Hey, Christian, when you sin, Jesus will advocate for you. He'll speak for you before the Father. So that's an important thing to believe that John is teaching. Christians still sin, but they don't love sin. Next, Christians obey God. Their life is marked by obedience, not sin. Doesn't mean you won't make mistakes, but 1 John chapter 2, right after he talks about sinning and making mistakes and faltering and failing, he says this: By this we know that we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. So following in obedience to the Lord, we're going to be marked by obedience to his word and to his commandments. True faith will lead to a life that is changed. And the evidence of that changed life is going to be the way that I obey the Lord. I obey his word, even when I don't do it perfectly. Number five, Christians love other believers. John does a great job of talking about this in 1 John, the relationship that Christians have with each other. Chapter 3, verse 14, he says, We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers. If you have a love for other Christians, that's evidence that you are spiritually alive. Now, to the contrary, he says, everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. Remember when Jesus said if you hate someone, it's like, it's like committing murder. And then what John's doing is he's saying, Yeah, and if you are a murderer, you don't have eternal life in you because you wouldn't be capable of murder if you did. This is this word murder is a strong word. It's not the idea of a police officer shooting someone who's, you know, to protect human life or a soldier in battle. This is this is talking about murder as we know it according to our law, the malicious taking of another person's life. It's premeditated, it's it's uh it's it's meaningless or purposeless, um, and it's evil. It's not the same thing as self-defense or a war fighting uh, you know, for a just cause or something like that. That's controversial, I know, saying that, but that's just facts. Facts is facts. God's love for us teaches us how to love others. First John 4 um shows us that God's love towards us is the love that we receive and then in turn love others. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God. And whoever has been born of God knows God, is going to love others. So we love each other because of the love that God has for us. So let me recap the first five things that we need to be bold and believing as we study 1 John. We need to be bold in our belief of who Jesus is. We need to be bold in our belief of what Jesus has done. We need to be bold in our belief that Christians are gonna sin and falter and fail, but they're not gonna love their sin or be a slave to it. Um, number four, Christians are gonna live lives of obedience to God. Doesn't mean you're gonna always be perfect, and it doesn't imply that obedience is what saves us, but true faith is gonna lead to obedience to God's word. Um, Christians are gonna love other Christians, love other believers, love the brothers and sisters of the body of Christ. Number six, Christians are gonna remain faithful. They're gonna remain faithful. We talk a lot, again, about drifting around here, and um for a Christian, you're gonna falter and fail, but you're gonna the trajectory of your life is gonna be that you remain faithful. Um there's a verse in chapter two, verse 19, it says, They went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that it might become plain that they all are not of us. This is an important principle. A Christian stays faithful. And this verse, and this belief, the reason I said we need to be bold in this belief, number six, that Christians remain faithful. One of the great theological errors that people believe is that a Christian can lose their salvation. I had a conversation with a brother recently who believes this, and and I said, and this is what I always want to challenge people with. What you're saying is that God can lose something. That's the reality. If God's the one that saves us, if we're saved by grace through faith, if we were dead in our sin and he quickens us and brings us to spiritual life and saves us, then for me to lose my salvation, it would have to be him losing that or him giving that up. And that is not in the character of God and is certainly not what's taught in Scripture. And so a person who goes, what John's saying in in 1 John 2.19, they went out from us, but they were not of us. For if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. You got people in your life and you're like, man, that guy used to be a believer. She used to be a true Christ follower, but she's she she's not anymore. And people might argue, see, that's evidence that a person can lose their salvation. They can walk away. Because most people will say the way you lose your salvation is you walk away or you turn away and you walk away from the Lord. What John is saying, oh no, no, they never were of us. This reminds me of when Jesus said, there's going to be people that say, Lord, Lord, we did mighty works in your name. We cast out demons and we did this and we did that. And Jesus is going to say, Depart from me, I never knew you. I never knew you. Not depart from me, I knew you. You were a Christian, but you turned away. So now we're not friends, or now I'm not your savior. He says, I never knew you. This is important. It's so important. I remember a guy one time starting a debate with us. Man, he was trying to argue because Snowbird was leading in a ministry event, and this guy was one of the people that worked within this ministry. It was a non-denominational ministry, but they had some pretty strong uh Arminian or charismatic uh leanings. And with that, uh they believed you could lose your salvation. And and I saw that they leveraged that with students. It was a student ministry event. They leveraged it. And what I mean by that is they used that, they kind of held that over kids' heads, like, hey, you need to get saved again. And um, or or hey, you need to behave or you'll lose your salvation. It was it was a really distorted view of that. But the guy, his argument was that he knew a guy who had been a pastor, preacher, ministry leader who had done awesome works. He's like, man, I heard that guy preach and I saw him do awesome things. I know he was saved. I know he was truly born of God. And then he, and then he walked away. And now he's a you know, whatever the guy was now doing, you know, drug deal. It was something crazy, like he dealing drugs out of the back of a bar that he opened. I mean, it was like this real contrast to what the Christian life would be. And I just I took him to this idea. I was like, man, I he was never truly of us. This says that he went out proving that he never was of us. Um, and that's an important principle. So 1 John is a letter that teaches strongly the principle, I think, of eternal security or the perseverance of the saints, or once saved, always saved. Real believers will continue with Jesus because God is the one who keeps them. They're going to stay faithful. Number seven, Christians don't love the world. Now, you'll see this in verses fifteen to seventeen of chapter two, first John two, fifteen to seventeen. Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the desires of the flesh, the desires of the eyes, and the pride of life is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. Now, when we use the phrase the world, we're talking about the system that we live in, excuse me, that surrounds us that loves sin and hates God. The system that loves sin and hates God. That's that's what we mean by the world, quote unquote. There's my air quotes, the world. So a Christian has to live in the world, but we don't follow the world's values. I don't let the world determine my value system. John's teaching us this. Don't let the world determine what's right and what's wrong and what's high value for you. God has determined that for the believer. We love the world for what we offer the world. We don't love the world for what the world offers us. What do I offer the world? I offer the world Jesus. I offer him the gospel. What can I give to the world? I can give the world the gospel. And the Bible teaches us that the wor the world is passing away, but God's word lasts forever. The gospel is eternity. So when I talk about loving the world, I do need to love the world as I see the world in need of something that I have, namely the gospel and the hope that it brings. But I don't love the world for what the world might provide for me. Number eight, Christians test what they hear. We'll link all this. We'll link these notes. I'll I'll have JB will link them in the in the episode notes. Um, so you you can have this ten point, ten bullet points or whatever. Number eight, Christians test what they hear. This is important. Not everyone who talks about God tells the truth. Chapter 4, verse 1. Beloved or beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. So John's going to warn us there's a lot of bad false teaching, and you need to be aware of it. Test what you hear. Um, the biggest test when it comes to understanding whether or not a person is truly from the Lord is what do they believe about Jesus? What do they what do they teach about Jesus? So for instance, you remember a while back we had Josh Haskell on here. I referenced this often. We had Josh Haskell on here for a couple episodes. Josh grew up Mormon, and there was a point where I'm like, okay, what what is the big thing that the Mormons teach and believe that is so wrong? And Josh, his answer was, well, what they believe about Jesus. What they believe about Jesus, they believe that Jesus is not fully and truly God. Uh, he's not eternal. You know, he had a beginning point, he was created by God. So your belief about Jesus determines if you are a true Christ follower. And then for us, when we're testing what we hear, I need to listen to what somebody teaches about Jesus. And then maybe I'm listening to somebody and they're giving their their their maybe it's a message and I feel like this might not be a a true teacher, uh, you know, it might be a false teacher, false prophet. Or maybe I'm I'm reading somebody or listening to something. I'm like, this does, this sounds off. Something doesn't feel right about this person. And I've seen this happen a lot through the years with um with teachers that start seem to start strong and then they they end up veering off. You know, it goes way back to that dude, Rob Bell, um, 20, 20 plus years ago. Seemed to be such an effective teacher and communicator, and then he started to teach things that didn't align with scripture. So so that's the second thing. So how do we test what we hear? 1 John 4, 1. What is somebody teaching about Jesus? And then we test everything they're saying by scripture. Does this align with scripture? And Rob Bell's teaching started to veer off from scripture. That's the problem with John Mark McMillan's recent comments about the atonement that we addressed a while back. When you've got a guy, you're like, man, I really like this guy. He's a good communicator. This lady's a really good teacher, writer, author. They start to say things about Jesus that aren't true or don't align with scripture, or they start to say things that don't align with scripture as a whole. Um, it doesn't matter if I've listened to them and been informed and shaped by their teaching for years. Now I got to go in a different direction. Now they've they've made a choice that is revealed that they are not a true teacher or a true preacher or a true Christ follower. They're a false teacher. And remember, false teachers tend to start off not as false teachers. That's what makes it so tricky. Um, number nine, we're almost done. Christians are born of God. Being born again is something that God does. It's not something that I do. The idea of being born again, this goes back to, you know, John records Jesus' meeting with um Nicodemus in John 3. And so when a Christian is born again, this idea of new birth is a it's it's a phrase that refers to salvation. All Christians have been born again. You cannot be a Christ follower if you're not born again. Being born again means you identify with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. You you confess that he is Lord, you repent of your sin. You accept his free gift of salvation, recognizing that he has paid the penalty for your sin. Uh in 1 John 3 9, John says this no one born of God makes practice of sinning, for God's seed abides in him because he's been born of God. And then chapter 5, verse 1, everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ or the Messiah, the Savior, has been born of God. So that that born-again, new birth terminology, John is really big on that. And so that's something that stands out in John's letters and in John's gospel. And then last, number 10, Christians can know that they're saved. And I think, okay, if I was going to give an overarching theme, I saved this till number 10. If I was going to give an overarching theme of 1 John for me, it comes down to chapter, if I, if I was going to sum it all up into one point, it comes down to 1 John chapter 5, verse 13. I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God. So he says, I'm writing this to Christians, so that you may know that you have eternal life. Number 10, Christians can know that they're saved. You can know that you know. John wants believers to have confidence. I don't know how many times I've heard a guy, especially at a student ministry event, try to convince everybody in a room that they're not truly saved. You know, you've got to doubt. If you're if you're not 100% sure, you're 100% lost. If you're 99% sure, then you're 100% lost or whatever. Man, Christians are gonna have we're human, you know. We wrestle with doubt, we struggle with weaknesses, we we falter and we fail. And there's gonna be times if you're walking with Jesus where you're gonna make mistakes and mess up and you're gonna go, man, am I really, am I really a born again Christian? If so, why? Do I keep doing this? Or you might question, there might be times where you question, is God really who he says he is, or you know, whatever. Anybody says, Oh no, man, if you're uh if you're following Jesus, you're never gonna question him or doubt him. I don't know, man. I don't know that that that might be true for some people, but for most of us, there are gonna be times where we got to press into it. And so John's like, hey, follow these things and you'll know that you know. You can have confidence even when you doubt. I mean, at one point he says, even, hey, when if you doubt, or when anyone doubts, we have an advocate with the Father. We have uh a Messiah, Savior, whose name is Jesus. We have um the gospel that's been revealed to us and made clear to us. You know, it there's uh we have a propitiation for our sin. If if you doubt, press into these things that you know to be true. And John gives believers confidence in a few in a few areas. In chapter 5, verse 1, he talks about faith, everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ, the word faith. Um chapter 2, verse 3, he uses obedience. By this we know we have come to know him if we keep his commandments. I'd say there, do you have a desire to obey God's word? That's evidence of your salvation. Chapter 3, verse 14. Um, we know that we have passed out of death into life because we love brothers. Love is a mark of a true Christ follower. You have a love, this is a different kind of love. It's a love that exists between brothers and sisters in the faith, and you feel that love. And then chapter 4 and verse uh 13, the spirit in us is changing us. Listen to what he says. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us because he's given us his spirit. The spirit of God produces fruit, seals us in our salvation, and gives us confidence. So John wants you to know that you can know. I can know that I know that I know that I'm saved. And so these 10 things uh I pray will be helpful for you. Um John teaches us that those truly born of God believe the real Jesus. They trust his finished work, they obey him, they love others, they stay faithful. And all of this, they do all this because God is at work in them. That's why, and that's how, and John wants us to know these things. So you pray for us here as we kick off 2026. This is a link, a little bit, a little bit longer episode, I know, but I wanted to give you an uh update and uh and a kind of kick the year off, see where we're going. Winter swow is in full swing, and this is what we're teaching about and and and teaching through, and I'm excited about it, and I'm excited about the things that God's doing um at Snowbird going into this year. It's very exciting. We'll do more some more updates here at the beginning of the year. Uh I'll I'll also do an update on our year-end, our 2025 year-end campaign and fundraiser. And uh we're we're trying to we're trying to get in place for um as soon as we can. Um up on the hill, we built, you know, we built six new cabins last year. Um, and those cabins were built on on the year-end campaign last year, part of part of that was um we got the water finally, I guess let me let me go ahead and close with a little bit of of development construction update. Well, I'm already doing it, so let me just finish that way. Um, after three years of working to get the water line uh taken care of to get our infrastructure rolling so we could expand camp, and we had people give to this project three years ago, and we just we've been hung up waiting on the government, you know, is how it goes, waiting on the state, and God finally has has made that happen. So it's done. The project is done. We had to run, we had the town had to bring, the state and the town had to bring a water main from the town of Andrews to our property. We already had that water, but it was like a small two-inch line, and we need to we need a line four times that size to get the volume of water we need for development and growth moving forward. And so um that's done. It's in the ground, and we now have that coming onto our property. So now we can start to grow and develop and expand. And what we're working on right now is a big new bathhouse, showers, bathrooms, laundry, all of that up on the hill where our staff live, but also where we house um over 100 camp or students in the um in the summer. And so about 150 people will stay up there. And as it as it has been, those 150 people have to walk a really long way, a pretty good distance to get to bathrooms and showers. And then when they get there, um there's there's not enough, you gotta stand in line. It's just a real pain. So it's gonna enable us. We we we added uh 50 beds, 50 students a week this past summer. Um now we'll be able to serve those students so that they can have a good experience during their week at camp. So that's the project that's going on right now. Um I'm very excited about that. It's it's it's growth. It's growth and progress. And uh that's man, that's what we want. That's what we need. We need to continue to grow and progress and move forward, and that's happening. Um, excited about that. So we got water, we got what we need to develop and grow. Our team is clearing land now, and construction will start soon. I don't know when we'll get it done. The goal had been to get it done by this this upcoming summer, uh, but that was when we were trying to get started construction in October. We actually ended up two months behind on starting that construction, which you don't have to be good at math to know. Two months, that's that's 70% of your summer. So I don't know. We'll see. We'll see if we're able to get get that done at least for part of the summer. I don't know. I I don't have a lot of confidence that we will, but the progress will be evident and people will be able to see it when they're here. And who knows, maybe we can. Maybe the Lord gives us a uniquely dry winter and we're able to get a lot of progress on construction. It's just so wet and cold and rainy here in the winter, so it's hard. But uh trusting the Lord with that and uh lots going on, lots to be excited about. Um I'm super excited, and I hope you are too. Thanks for listening to No Sanity Required. We we appreciate your feedback on this content. This this podcast just keeps growing like crazy, and it's mind-blowing to me how God's using it and spreading it. And uh the last thing I'll say is this going into 2026, we are finally going to be producing No Sanity Required merchandise that can be purchased through the gear store at Snowbird Outfitters. And uh a lot of people have asked about it and are excited about it, and I'm excited to bring it to you. You guys are awesome. The fact that y'all listen to this and and care about what what we have to say um in in terms of your journey with with within the Christian faith and following Jesus in life and trying to striving to live a godly life, honoring the Lord, and that this would be a resource and a tool that would help you with that. It's it's very meaningful to us, and I'm just thankful. So love and appreciate you, and we'll see you next week on No Sanity Required.

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Brody Holloway

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