Five Minute Sermon - 1 John 5

all right we are wrapping up our study our very very brief study of first gel in just a few minutes in each chapter but I hope this has encouraged you to just stick with it just to read it I was just reading this chapter and thought man there's so many things in here that are hard to understand they're a little bit confusing we take away longer than five minutes to explain and when you find that that happens to you in Scripture you can pray and ask God for his insight that this is his word and God is so much higher than us his ways are not our ways of course we're gonna be confused we're not we're not in the same level as God we're not nearly on the same level so often we're gonna find ourselves not sure what something really means but I can give you the insight that you need so I just want to share with you from one verse here and I love that what we have here is an assurance of our faith I think at the end of the day we struggle with confidence in general we struggle with the confidence to know am i doing what I should do with my life and I am i living in a way that's honoring to God am i loving people well enough we can ask these questions of our soul all the time and when we're not confident where we come to a place of insecurity and insecurity leads to to all kinds of like weird ways that we interact in the world it's not actually helpful to be insecure it's really really helpful to be confident in who God is and who we are so we have a verse here that gives us an assurance of our faith it's like a little tickle it miss test it's a question you can ask yourself if you're thinking am I really living like a believer and I am I assured that I am one of God's children how do I know for sure that that's true so look at look at first John 5 verse 1 and 2 let me read it to you everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God and everyone who loves the Father loves the people who are born of him so this is how we know that we love the children of God when we love God and obey His commandments so we've got three things going on in these first two verses that tell us that you know that you are living as a child of God the first is that we love God I'm loving God to me is not something that we drum up we don't we don't try to force ourselves to it now of course we all know that has its ups and downs if you're in a family as we all are you know that there's times that you really like the people you're with and sometimes you don't like them as much or you don't think about them or you're caught up in your own stuff and you're not intentionally living out of love to love God means that we wake up in the morning we thank him for our day or we we notice a sunrise or a moment in nature and we thank God that he's real we we turn our thoughts to God because we love it and we believe that he's real in these present now some days may feel harder than others to do that and sometimes it is an act of will to actually do that but there's a general setting in your heart that wants to love God that's the first thing that you need to know the second is this that you obey His commandments not only do you love God but you desire to know what God loves you you desire to want what God wants in your life now you may not do it perfectly none of us will you will not do it perfectly you will not do it perfectly the next hour nor will I but we have a setting in our heart that wants what he wants and we have a setting in our heart that has the humility to say there might be a way that I'm living my life there might be a pattern of thinking or a pattern of talking or acting that's out of accord with God and I want God to reveal that to me because I want to obey Him I want what God wants and we can actually train our will in that way to to say god I love you and I want what you want we can pray that in the morning generally we are people who have this wayward spirit that's part of who we are because we're we're just like Paul we're double minded while we're still on earth we're always gonna experience our sin nature work we're constantly trying to overcome that sin nature with Christ who dwells in us but that's in nature's are real things so there's always a part of our heart that is tempted to become hardened to toward God that wants to say no God I don't want you to speak into this part of my life I want to live the way I want to live I want to think the way I want to think I want to act the way I want to act so knowing that we're in God is is warning more of ourselves to want what God wants to wake up every day and say I love you and I want what you want today it's to soften our hearts to believe that God has our good in mind and that His commandments are actually for our good that things that may feel restrictive to us or maybe don't lead to an instant gratification for us and our hearts are not bad things that God who is higher than us actually has good for us and sometimes that good looks like boundaries that he's placed in Scripture that help us live the best life we can on this earth so we know that we're in God if we love God we want to want what God wants generally and the third is that we love his children that there's a spirit in our heart that wants to love the the people that God loves his children those who are made in His image which is everyone on earth now everyone's not following God but generally we have this heart that believes in the dignity and worth of every human being no matter how far astray they are living from God's commands that when someone we encounter on the street in the grocery store in traffic in our workplace we actually have a heart for them and we ask God to grow in us a heart and compassion for people Jesus had an incredible compassion for the dignity and worth of human beings and every day we are challenged to say to ourselves am i living the way that Jesus lived do I live with that kind of love and if I don't have that kind of love for someone am i returning to God and saying God will you strengthen my heart and bring me the the compassion and the love that I need to live in a way that honors you that glorifies you and that speaks of you dwelling in my heart we can have confidence in those three things when we love God when we love what he loves and when we love his children every day you can start off and say I'm gonna put that on my to-do list for the day this is what I'm about and when we're about those things we can have the confidence and faith to approach God to ask him for what we need to ask for his will to be in relationship and communion with him in prayer and our faith begins to be strengthened hope that gets you started in first John and I'm looking forward to our next letter that we will take on in 2018 you [Music]

Channel: Nicole Unice

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Keywords: Nicole Unice, Five minute devotional, morning devotional, devotional video, video about first john, 1 john, 1 John 5, Cofidence in Christ, Assurance of Faith

Id: eOuAyTuytf8

Length: 6min 23sec (383 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 11 2017