This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome to Daily Drive Time Devotions and our study together through the letter
of First John. We began the study just yesterday, this is day two, we're going
to look at verses one and two. As we began the study yesterday we looked at an
outline of the content of this book and I want to give you a different outline
as we begin today.

In fact the outline I want to give you right now is an outline I'd like to come
back to at the end of our study of First John just to see what God did, just to
see how God worked. Remember we talked yesterday about the fact that First John
is a letter about action and assurance, the action of love and the assurance of
knowing Him. We love and we know, the word love is used 36 times, the word know
is used 36 times in this book and it all focuses on how God wants to work in our
lives.

So when it comes to assurance there are in this book of First John ten
foundations for assurance, the way that God wants to work in our lives. And my
prayer is that you'll grow in assurance in each of these areas as we study
through this book together and that through that growth you'll see greater
confidence in living out your faith, that the assurance that God gives you will
be seen in the way that you live your life. Ten foundations, number one the
assurance that comes when you accept eyewitness testimony.

He talks about that in chapter one verses one and two. John says look I really
saw this. You can know this is real because I saw it, I was there.

Now the question might be where do we find eyewitness testimony today of Jesus?
Well right where we're looking, right in the New Testament. The New Testament is
filled with eyewitness accounts of Jesus Christ.

The New Testament Gospels were written by people who were there. Matthew was
there. He was one of the twelve who walked with Jesus.

Mark, he heard the story of Peter who was there and he wrote it down. Luke heard
the story of a lot of people who were there but he also mainly heard the story
of Mary, Jesus' own mother who was there and wrote those stories down. And then
you have John, the very one who wrote this letter who wrote down in the Gospels
what had happened.

These are eyewitness accounts of what happened. That's how I can have assurance
of my relationship with Jesus Christ. I can also have assurance through some
things I do in my daily life.

I have assurance number two as I walk in the light. Whenever you walk in the
darkness you're going to have less and less assurance and you're going to think
what's wrong? Why do I doubt?

Maybe there's something wrong. Get your life back into the light and you'll have
more and more assurance. Number three, end of chapter one, beginning of chapter
two, you have assurance as you confess your sin, as you just agree with God
about your sin.

As long as I try to hide from my sin, the assurance dies in my life. As soon as
I agree with God about my sin, assurance grows in my life. Number four, I have
assurance when I obey his commands.

That's in chapter two verses three to 11. When I do out of my love for him, when
I do what he has asked me to do, assurance grows in my life. Number five, I have
assurance when I choose to not love the world.

That's in chapter two verses 15 to 17. Now I'm not talking about the created
things in this world like people or even the beauty of nature. I'm talking about
this selfish world system.

We'll talk about that more when we get to chapter two. Here's a sixth source of
assurance in your daily life. You have assurance when you trust God's spirit as
your teacher.

You trust him to speak to your spirit based on God's word. That's in chapter two
verses 18 to 27. Number seven, where do I find assurance?

I find assurance when I do what is right and I continue in him. When I'm abiding
in Christ, I'm drawing my life from Christ. That's in chapter two, the end of
the chapter, into chapter three.

You want to know how to have assurance in daily life, assurance of your faith.
It's not all about just opening a book and studying and thinking and thinking
and thinking your way into assurance. Assurance also comes from our actions.

So number eight, I have assurance, this book tells me, as I choose to love other
people, love one another, love one another. John, the disciple of Jesus Christ
was there in the upper room when Jesus said to the disciples, love one another.
By this will all men know that you're my disciples if you have love for one
another.

And 50 or 60 years later, John is still repeating that same message in this
book. He had found a message to grip his life. He had found a message worth
living and sharing for a lifetime.

He didn't try to improve on perfection. He just shared this message faithfully
for a lifetime. Never got bored of it, never got tired of it, because it is a
message to live out for a lifetime.

You want assurance of your faith, love one another. A ninth source of assurance
is you recognize the gift of God's spirit. That's at the end of chapter three
into the beginning of chapter four.

God has put his own person, his own spirit into our lives in order to give us
assurance of his presence in our lives. So you say, God, your spirit's there,
help me to sense your assurance, the assurance of your presence. And then a
tenth source of assurance is you trust in Jesus alone.

Trusting in Jesus plus anything, Jesus plus my works, Jesus plus my baptism,
Jesus plus how often I go to church, Jesus plus how often I read the Bible,
Jesus plus this list of rules that somebody has given me, Jesus plus anything in
order to have a relationship with God is going to destroy assurance in your
relationship with God. Trust Jesus alone, and so you trust in him alone. These
ten foundations of assurance, I went through them fairly quickly, we'll come
back to them again at the end of the book.

They're all powerfully tied together. They build a net. They're tied together.

You take out the strand of anyone and the whole thing starts to unravel. They
fit together. And John begins with the assurance of eyewitness testimony, the
assurance that what he's talking about is real.

Listen to 1 John chapter 1 verses 1 and 2, "That which was from the beginning,
which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at,
and our hands have touched, this we proclaim concerning the word of life. The
life appeared, and we have seen it and testified to it, and we proclaim to you
the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. " John
writes, and he says, "I want you to know, because I was there, I saw it.

I want you to know that it's real. Jesus Christ is real. Faith in Jesus Christ
is real.

Christianity is real. New life is real. The resurrection is real.

The cross is real. It's all real. " And let me just walk through how real he
says real is in just these first two verses.

He says it was real from the beginning, and then he also says it is real, it is
real that we have touched. That which we have seen with our eyes, we've looked
at, our hands have touched. John saw it.

He saw Jesus Christ take a little child into his arms and talk about real faith.
You want to have real faith? You've got to have faith like this child.

He saw Jesus Christ touch a leper that no one else would get near and saw the
healing happen. He saw Jesus Christ weep when a friend died or when Jerusalem
refused to follow him. He saw Jesus Christ pray.

He knew Jesus because he was there. He touched it. He felt it.

He saw it. And this man who saw it writes to us to say, "It is real. I don't
want you to miss it.

It is real. God came into this world. He touched this earth and He wants to
touch your life.

It was real from the beginning of time. It is real that we have touched. And so
then John says, number three, it is real that we proclaim.

I can't help but proclaim it. Tell everybody about it. That this real that came
into this world can be real in your life.

You see, he didn't hold on to it selfishly. He didn't act like, "Well, it's just
real for me. Isn't it great that Jesus came to me?

" When you get a hold of the real reality of Jesus Christ, you cannot hold on to
it as just for you. You realize immediately it is for everybody because, well,
there's a fourth thing that John says about real here. He said, "It is real that
was intentionally revealed, real from the beginning, real that we've touched,
real that we proclaim, and real that was intentionally revealed.

" You see, God decided to come into this world in Jesus Christ and show us who
He really is. When theologians talk about how God has revealed Himself to us,
shown us His character, who He really is in this world, they talk about three
kinds of revelation. General revelation, specific revelation, and personal
revelation.

The general revelation is just what you can see in what God has made. You just
look at the stars. You look at the mountains and you see there is something
above and beyond me.

There is an intelligence at work. There is a power at work in this universe.
That's the general revelation of God.

But then there's also the specific revelation of God. The specific revelation of
God is what you see in the Bible. God's words spoken to men, prophets in the Old
Testament, apostles in the New Testament, God's words spoken and written down so
that we can read them and learn who God really is and what He wants to do in our
lives, God's plan from the very beginning to bring us into relationship with
Himself.

But then the third kind of revelation is what I call personal revelation. And
that is God personally revealing Himself in Jesus Christ. In Jesus, God came
into this earth.

God in human flesh. And so in light of the ways that God reveals Himself, I want
you to note Jesus' name shared with us by John here. The Word of Life.

We proclaim concerning the Word of Life. It reminds you of John's Gospel. In
John's Gospel, in chapter one, he says in the beginning was the Word.

That's His name for Jesus. And in John's Gospel, in chapter 14, he says, Jesus
says, "He is the way, the truth, and the life. " And here, Jesus is the Word of
Life, God in human flesh, God in man, equally, showing us who God really is.

Who Jesus is is so important to your life that Satan will attack the truth of
who Jesus is. He will attack it to keep from you the life that God has from you.
If you miss, if I miss who Jesus really is, I miss out on the life that God has
for me.

Jesus is God's Word. Jesus is God's life. We're going to look at some of the
ways that Satan specifically attacks this truth as we go through this letter.

But now, as we begin at the start, here's the question. It's personal. Is He the
Word of Life for you?

Is He the Word of Life for you? Is He real in your everyday life? Is He the
Word?

I'm telling you the truth of life, God bringing it into your life in a daily
kind of way. If you're like me, the answer is probably, well, some of the time,
maybe most of the time, or maybe not very much of the time, but very few of us
could say all of the time. So the question is, how can I see growth in that
area?

How can I see Him become more the Word of Life for me in this moment when I'm
facing a problem? The Word of Life and truth for me in this moment when I have a
decision to make, or in this moment when I'm just spending time with my family,
or I'm leading a meeting at work, or I'm listening to somebody else lead a
meeting at work, or I'm getting involved in a new project at work. How is He the
Word of Life in those moments in your life today?

The only way I know how is to lean on my relationship with Him. So as we think
about Jesus being the Word of Life, let's not just talk about Him. Let's talk to
Him.

Let's pray together. Jesus, we recognize in Your presence that You are the Word
of Life. You're the Word that we need for today, the truth.

You're the life that we need for today, the direction. You're the Word of Life.
So I pray, I pray that You would help me, help us to live out this life that You
have for us today, in the little details of life and the big decisions of life.

Help us to see You, see Your direction. Help us to seek You, seek Your
direction, and then to follow You. Jesus, we ask this.

We ask this because we know that You love us and You want to work in our lives.
So we ask this with confidence. In Your name, amen.

Join us tomorrow. We're going to talk about the source of real joy as we look at
1 John chapter 1 verses 3 and 4.