This transcript was generated by whisper.ai. I want to welcome you to Daily Drive Time Devotions, Day 5, where we'll look together through 1 John chapter 5, which we've done from Kigali Rwanda. In fact, in the background you can hear someone preaching at a church that's right next door as we're talking through 1 John chapter 5. Today we're going to take a look back through this entire book. This is a book, as we said the first day, that's all about the assurance of faith that God wants to give to you. God knows that sometimes you struggle with faith. Sometimes you and I struggle with doubt. Sometimes you and I struggle with, "Can I really live out this life that God's called me to live in Jesus Christ? " And He wants to assure us that we can. He wants to give us the assurance that we can live out the life of God. How do I have assurance out of my life? Well, He talks in these verses in the entire book of 1 John about 10 foundations for assurance. Let's just walk back through them again quickly, remind ourselves of what we've looked at the last few weeks. Assurance number one is the assurance that we can accept, we can trust, eyewitness testimony. Back in chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, John says, "This is what I've seen. This is what I've heard. " Where do you find eyewitness testimony? Where do you find it in somebody who has been there, and John was there, and he says, "I saw it. I saw Jesus Christ. I saw Him die on the cross. I saw the empty tomb. " You can trust my eyewitness testimony. You can set your doubts aside because of this assurance. Assurance number two is the assurance of walking in the light. In chapter 1, verses 2 to verse 7, we're assured that when we walk in the light, we have fellowship with God and we have fellowship with one another. How do you do this? How do you walk in the light? You do it by living by the truth. You see God's truth and you decide not just to understand it or hope someday you can do it. You act upon it in some way in your life, in some seemingly small way, seemingly great way. You act on it. That's walking in the light. Then there's a third assurance, the assurance that comes from confessing your sin, agreeing with God. That's what the word confess means. That's 1, 8 to 2, 2. He says, "If you'll confess your sin, God is righteous. He will forgive your sin. He will forgive you of all your unrighteousness, all the wrong things that you've done. I can be assured that when I confess my sins, God listens to me and He forgives. " That's assurance. Don't let Satan put any doubts in your life about that one. God has promised us again and again and again, "He forgives. " There's a fourth assurance in John and that assurance comes when I obey His commands. He comes to this one again and again and again. In fact, we've talked through this book about how the words love and obey are twin words in this book. When I know Him, then I will love Him and I will obey Him. Obedience has to do with my love for other believers. That's the main sign of obedience is the way that I love other believers. If I say I'm obeying God and I can't do job one in obeying God, which is loving a brother or sister in Christ, the person who's closest to me, the person that it's easiest to love, then obviously all my words about other obedience in my life are just words. John says you can see that you're obeying God's command by the way that you love other believers. You obey His commands. That's the fourth assurance. A fifth way that assurance comes into my life is when I choose to not love the world. He talks about that also in chapter two. He talks about the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. Possessions, passions, position, those things that we want selfishly to make ourselves feel better about ourselves, to make ourselves look better before other people. Don't love the world. The world, that's the selfish way of thinking. And if I love the world, He says the love of the Father is not in me. If I want assurance in my life and I don't have it, one of the first places I need to look is am I loving the world? Am I trying to get from the selfish processes of this world what I can only get from the unselfish gift of God? In this world, you're going to have to handle some financial things. In this world, you're going to have to use some resources. There's no doubt about the fact that the things of this world are a part of our life. That's not what he's talking about here. He's not talking about using the things of this world for God's good. He's talking about loving the things of this world for your own good. Don't love the world and you'll have more assurance in your life. There is a sixth assurance talked about in 1 John. He says you need to let the Holy Spirit be your teacher. Does this mean I can't trust any other teachers? Well of course not. God has given the gift of teaching. But it does mean you can't give away your responsibility to understand God's truth to anyone. God will help you to understand His truth by His Spirit. You don't need anyone in your life to make sure that that happens. Other teachers can help you to understand, but the Holy Spirit in your heart, in the depth of your being, will help you to know and to understand. And that's an assurance that God gives us. We also have the assurance that comes when we continue in Him. We do what is right and we continue in Him. That's at the end of chapter 2 and the beginning of chapter 3. This idea of continuing in Him is what Jesus talked about in John 15 when He says I want you to abide in Me, I want you to live in Me. Just like a branch is attached to the vine, I want you to be attached to Me. And I'll tell you, in my own personal life, one of the first places I look when I have a lack of assurance in my faith is, am I attached to Jesus right now? It's easy to get unattached by the way. It's easy to get attached to your own schedule and your own things and forget about Him in your life. But it's also easy to get attached, to remind yourself that my life is in Him and from Him. Am I continuing in Him? Am I recognizing I am attached to Him and my life is from Him? That's a source of assurance in your life. And then he says, number 8, here's another source of assurance, the assurance that comes as you love one another. He talks about that in chapter 3. He talks about that in chapter 4. You love one another. We talked about this earlier in John, the fact that John the apostle was there in the upper room when Jesus said to his disciples, "Love one another and all men will know you are My disciples. " And here he is, 50 or 60 years later, repeating the same message. He had found a message to grip his life. He had found a message worth sharing for a lifetime. He found a message worth putting his life confidence in. He didn't try to improve on perfection. He just shared this message faithfully for a lifetime. Because it's a message that is so deep, it is so broad, it is so wonderful, there's enough in it to share for a lifetime. We love one another because of God's love for us. And when you make the choice to love someone else who is a believer in Jesus Christ, that gives assurance in your life. And out of that assurance, you have the ability, the power to love even your enemies in your life. Love one another. That's where assurance comes from. Where else does assurance come from? The end of chapter 3, the beginning of chapter 4, he talks about the gift of God's Spirit. God lives in you. God lives in you. So I don't have to be afraid of any evil that's in this world because greater is He who is in me than the one who is in the world. I rest in that as an assurance, the gift of God's Spirit in my life. And then we've been talking about this week a tenth source of assurance, the truth that I trust in Jesus alone. You see, if there was anything I needed to do to make sure that my salvation was secured, to make sure that I had a relationship with God, that I could never be assured. Because how could I know if I'd done enough? How could I know if there wasn't just a little bit more that I needed to do? But because it's trust in Jesus alone, and the work of God's salvation was finished at the cross and at the tomb, then I can know with assurance that I have a relationship with God. Any relationship with God that's based on what I do, you can never be assured of that because you could never do enough. But this relationship with God that's based on what God has done, it's finished. It's done. I can be assured of that. John wants to make sure we live with confidence in our life. And so just to make sure we get it, John closes chapter five with these six assurances we've looked at the last couple of days. The assurance of eternal life, the assurance of answered prayer, the assurance that we know we have a new lifestyle, no lifestyle of sin any longer. The assurance number four that we are children of God. The assurance number five that the world is under the control of the evil one. And the assurance that we know that Jesus has come and given us a new relationship with God. These ten powerful assurances that we see throughout 1 John are powerfully tied together. And when you see them all together, they show us how we can live out the kind of life that God has for us. I have sitting with me Pastor Joel Sangoga, who is pastor of Divine Destiny Church, where you're hearing the service in the background right now. And I just want to ask you, Joel, before we end this look together at 1 John, which talks about brothers and sisters in Christ choosing to love one another. I know that in Rwanda, brothers and sisters in Christ out of the genocide have had to make new choices to love one another, that some of the tragedies that happened in the church have been turned by the spirit of Jesus Christ to become a place where the good news of Jesus Christ is being shared. And I'd like to ask you to share for just a moment about how you see the love of Jesus Christ being shared here in Rwanda amidst the brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ today. Thomas, I must admit it's not the easiest thing to do, but it's choice. It's choice just like you choose to follow Jesus and abandon the world. It's choice to say, "I choose to forgive, I choose to love. " And it's about, again, it's not about our strength. It's about what the Lord does in our lives. When He transforms us, when we allow Him to live in us, He gives us the strength to live the life. We're daily confirming our lives to Christ, and He gives the grace, it's amazing. It is, Joel, it is a choice. It is a choice. And because we know Jesus Christ, we have the power now to make that new choice. Thank you for being honest with us about that. And so as we end this study together of 1 John, let's pray together that God, because of His strength in us, will give us the power to make that choice. God, You tell us in Your Word, Father, You tell us to love brothers and sisters in Christ, that it shows the world what You're like. Help me to make that choice today. Help every one of us that are listening to that to make that choice today. And thank you for Joel's honest words about the fact that that choice is not always easy, but also his honest words about the fact that we've been given new power to make that choice. Lord, I need You to make that choice. So I ask for Your strength to make that choice, to love the people in my life today. And I ask it, Jesus, in Your name, Amen. I want to thank you for joining us for this study of 1 John and daily drive time devotions. And I want to invite you to either stick with us for the next study that we're going to or to go to the drive time devotions webpage and choose one of the studies that we've done in the past. Either way, let God's Word be a daily part of your life, because that's one of the things that helps us to make the daily choice to love the people in our lives.