This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to day three of our look through 1st Thessalonians, chapter one, and
daily drive time devotions. We're looking today at verses four to the first part
of verse five, and we're talking about the assurance of our faith. How do I know
that God has chosen me?

Maybe you think, "Well, I prayed a certain prayer. I sense that I've committed
my life to Jesus, but how can I be sure that he heard it? How can I be sure that
he accepted my commitment?

" And the simple answer, of course, is faith. You have to trust in God, trust
that God's word is true, that when he says he accepts our prayer and our faith,
he will. But there is something in most of us that says, "Well, is there
anything else?

Is there anything to inform my trust in God? Is there anything to help me to be
sure that it really is trust and that I'm not just somehow fooling myself? "
Jesus himself said, "You'll know them by their fruit.

" How do I know if I'm bearing fruit, the kind of fruit that comes out of faith?
Jesus said that he would reject some people in the end because they'd never
known him. They talked about him, but they'd never known him personally.

How can I be sure that this isn't just a game for me, that I really do know him?
Or how can I help a friend who may have some of these questions? You may not
have this question yourself.

How can I help a friend who is struggling with this to be sure? We're talking
about the personal assurance of your salvation. Now, God's promise of security
in your salvation and your personal inner assurance of salvation are different
things.

God's promise is secure whether you feel it or not. But how do I sense this
assurance? How do I handle doubts about my salvation?

Before we get to the verse today, let me just share a couple of things because
I've discovered that whenever a person is not sure that they're saved, there are
several possibilities. One is that they may not be saved. That's why they don't
have an assurance.

They've never truly committed their life to Christ. They may be in church, not
in church, but they've never made a commitment. A second possibility is they may
be disobeying God, and that disobedience causes them to lose the joy of their
salvation, causes them to wonder, "Does God still love me?

" And the issue really is disobedience. They need to get back to obeying God in
that area of their life where they know they're disobeying. Or a third reason
for doubts is they may be experiencing temptation to doubt from Satan.

Satan obviously does not want us to feel secure in our relationship with God.
We're going to deal with all three of those possible reasons you might have
doubts about your salvation in the next few minutes together. But let's start
with those who truly are believers in Christ, but maybe are having doubts about
it because they don't see the kind of evidence that they think maybe they should
see.

The question there is, "Are there any biblical proofs that I am a Christian? "
While God alone can see into the hearts of people and determine who's honestly
committed themselves to him, we were told in his word that there are some
evidences that we judge ourselves by. Not others, but judge ourselves by.

The fact that you're a Christian is based on God's promise alone. There are some
evidences that you begin to see when salvation has come to your life. And you
might think of the evidences in this way.

If a woman is told she's pregnant, she and her husband are going to take the
word of the doctor or the test, and they're going to rejoice. And then they're
going to both expect to see some evidences of this pregnancy over the next
several months. The new mom's tummy is going to get bigger.

She's going to feel the baby start to kick inside of her womb. She might even
get cravings for strange things like chocolate-covered pickles or something like
that. Now, she was just as pregnant before you could see all those evidences,
but if she truly is pregnant, the evidences are going to be evidences you
inevitably see.

And I have to admit that the evidences that we are God's children are not quite
as obvious. Of course, God wants it that way. He wants us to live by faith.

But there are some very clear signs of the fact that you're a Christian. Signs
that you, with eyes of faith, can see. Throughout the Bible, you see such things
as the knowledge that God is your Heavenly Father, a sense of relationship with
Him being an evidence, or a new reliance on prayer, or a new ability to
understand Scripture, or a new sense of the seriousness of sin.

A new love for people is an evidence of God's love in your life. In the verse
that we're looking at today, 1 Thessalonians 1, 4, Paul points to four specific
ways that you can know and even others can see. Now, these are not proofs of
faith.

It's silly to try to prove faith. It's just a silly exercise. These are, instead
of proofs of faith, these are evidences of what is real.

So listen to verse 4 in the first part of verse 5. "For we know, brothers loved
by God, that He has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not simply with
words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit, and with deep conviction. "
Now, just a few simple verses, but they talk about how you can know.

God guarantees your salvation, whether you feel a sense of security or not, if
you truly trusted in Christ. But how do I know what God knows? How do I deal
with doubts when they come into my life?

Well, Paul says to the Thessalonians, "Here's how I can see it in your life, and
we can see the same evidences today. " He says, "I see it because our gospel
came to you with words. " But he says there's a second evidence.

It wasn't simply with words, it was also with power. There's a third evidence
with the Holy Spirit, and then there's a fourth evidence with deep conviction.
Let's look quickly at those four things.

First he says, "I know it's true because it came with words. You heard the right
message. " Paul knew because he preached that message.

He preached the message of a crucified and resurrected Lord Jesus Christ. He
preached the message of their need for forgiveness. He told them the good news
in the gospel.

And if you've heard the right message, that is one of the evidences of the right
kind of faith. If you've heard a false teacher and you followed the false
teacher, what you're following is obviously false. If you've heard the right
message, that is an evidence, if you've accepted that message, of the true faith
that you've had.

It's not the only evidence. That's why he says not simply with words, because
obviously you can hear words and it doesn't make any difference at all in your
life. You have to do something with those words.

So he says, "It came to you with words. You heard the right message, but it
also, number two, came to you with power. " How is that an evidence?

How do you see God's power? Well, if you want to read the story of what happened
when Paul went to the Thessalonians, you can read it in Acts 17, first 12
verses. He went and he preached to them, and when he preached to them, there was
power.

The Bible says that he went and in the first three Sabbath days he was there, he
reasoned with them from the Scriptures, and then some of the Jews were persuaded
to join Paul and Silas and a large number of God-fearing Greeks and not a few
prominent women, so people responded. But not only was there a positive
response, there was also a negative response. In Acts 17, it says that the Jews
were jealous and so they rounded up some bad characters from the marketplace and
they formed a mob, they started a riot in the city.

The result was that the crowd and the city officials were thrown into turmoil.
You can see God's power. Power is an evidence.

How do you see it? You see it in the way that people respond. Many accepted this
message.

Many others rejected the message, and then they persecuted those who accepted
the message. These were powerful responses, and they were a testimony to the
power of the message. You couldn't sit on the sidelines in light of this
message.

Some response was needed. That is the power of the message of the good news.
What does this mean for you personally?

You see his power in the fact that your heart responded to the message. When you
heard the good news of Jesus' love, your need for forgiveness, your need for new
life, your heart responded, it warmed to that message, and your response to the
message is an evidence of the power of the message. There are a lot of messages
we hear in this world today.

You ignore a lot of them, but your heart responded to this one. Others'
reactions to the fact that you're now a Christian are also an evidence of the
power of the message. You could tell your friends that you'd become a Buddhist,
and they'd say, "Oh, yeah, that's cool for you.

" But when you say, "I've become a Christian," oftentimes the response is, "Oh,
no, not that. " Why do people respond that way? Because they know the power.

They intuitively know that the power of this message will change your life. So
there's power. There's the word.

Paul also says a third evidence is the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Now, you're
thinking, "How in the world is that an evidence, the Holy Spirit? How do I know
if the Holy Spirit is in my life?

How do I know that God's Spirit, when I asked Jesus Christ to come into my life,
came into my life? " Well, that's pretty obvious in the Bible. The Bible tells
us what the fruit of the Spirit is in Galatians chapter 5.

The fruit of the Spirit is change character. Peace, love, joy, peace, patience,
kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. When you see your
character beginning to change, particularly in those areas, you know that
there's an evidence of something that has happened in your life.

When you love more, have a different kind of joy, there's a peace that wasn't
there. There's a patience that wasn't there. When you're able to be gentle and
you were not able to be before, that's an evidence of the Spirit's work in your
life.

That's the fruit of the Holy Spirit. That's how you see. And then Paul says
there's a fourth thing.

There's the Word, there's power, there's the Spirit, and there's also
conviction. In fact, he says deep conviction. One of the evidences of faith in
Christ is what is important to you changes.

New things begin to take priority in your life. It could be seemingly little
things. I remember when I became a believer in Jesus Christ, it was in my latter
high school days, God prompted me to begin to clean our house.

I felt convicted that my mom was having to do all of the work. Now only God
could do that to a high school boy. I'm sure you would agree.

And that prompting, that little area of life where there was a different
conviction of life is one of the evidences of the work of the Holy Spirit and
the work of God's power in my life. These are evidences, all these things that
we've talked about. And what do you do about these evidences?

Well, if you see no evidence at all, it may be that you're very young as a
believer, you're still a baby Christian, or it may be that you're one of those
millions of people in our world who go to church, but have yet to settle the
issue of your salvation. Let me ask you a question, it's a personal question,
but it has to be asked. Why should God let you into his heaven?

If I were to ask you that, we were sitting face to face, what would you say? Do
you hope to get in based on the good things you've done? Not that you're that
good, but somehow you hope that you're good enough.

We expect that at least we're better than most people, and so we'll make the
grade, we'll make the curve. If that's what you felt up to this point, there's
one of two possibilities. One, you may be a believer, but you've not as yet
understood the significance of what Jesus did for you on the cross.

Settle that right now. Your salvation is not based on anything you have done,
could do, or ever will do. It's based on what Jesus did.

There's a second reason you may be thinking it's based on what you do. It may be
that you're not yet a believer, or you might be religious, you might have
attended church for years, but deep down you have been depending on yourself for
your salvation. The moment that you recognize that truth is one of the most
significant moments in your life.

When you feel that, when you sense that that is true of you, pride tells you, "I
can't admit that. I'll just sit here with myself and I'll pretend that I'm not
having these thoughts. " But you are, and you know what it means.

Your heart is tender right now, it's even vulnerable. Trust Jesus Christ with
that tender heart. If you're not sure that you're a Christian, make sure right
now.

Say to Jesus, "Jesus, forgive me of the wrong things I've done. Come into my
heart. Lead my life.

" I know that I'm not going to have a relationship with you, or the promise of
eternity with you based on anything I do, so Jesus, I trust in what you did for
me in dying on the cross and being resurrected from the dead. Thank you for the
gift of salvation. If you know that you've made that commitment, that you've
been plagued by doubts, I encourage you to pray a prayer of assurance.

Say to Jesus right now, "Jesus, I know I've made this commitment before, but not
being able to remember exactly when has caused me some real doubts. So right
here and right now, I nail down in my heart the fact that I have given my life
to you. I trust in you and you alone to forgive the wrong things that I've done,
and I ask you to be the Lord, the leader and manager of my life.

Amen. " Whether you prayed that prayer for the first time or prayed it as a
prayer of assurance, I encourage you to write this date down in the front of
your Bible or your notebook. From now on, when you're tempted to doubt, you open
that book, you open the Bible, you look at the date, and you remind yourself of
the reality of your commitment to Jesus.

And when Satan tries to hassle you, cause you to wonder whether you really are a
believer, you can point to this day and remember that you did ask Jesus Christ
to be your Savior, to be your Lord. Tomorrow, we're going to be looking at 1
Thessalonians chapter 1, the last part of verse 5 through verse 8.