Back to Basics!

1. Back to Basics! • John 14:6 • Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me. • John 14:7 • If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know Him and have seen Him.

2. The Truth • John 8:32 • Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. • John 8:34 • Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin”. • John 8:36 • So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

3. Lied to and imprisoned • John 8:44-45 • You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me!

4. The way of Jesus is Freedom • Galatians 5:1 • It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. • Galatians 5:13 • You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. • 1 Peter 2:16 • Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God.

5. Romans 7:22-25 • For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. • Romans 8:1-2 • Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

6. Colossians 3:1-10 • Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator.

7. A road of transformation • Romans 12:1-2 • Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is His good, pleasing and perfect will.

8. Why do I need to be transformed? • Because I am dead! • Genesis 2:16-17 • And the Lord God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."

9. Driven from the presence of our Father • Genesis 3:21-24 • The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. And the Lord God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live for ever." So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

10. The LifeHow do we enter into this new life! • Leviticus 17:11 • For the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life. • But we do not have the blood of an animal for our atonement

11. 1 Peter 1:13-19 • Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy." Since you call on a Father who judges each man's work impartially, live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.

12. Hebrews 9:11-14 • When Christ came as high priest of the good things that are already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not man-made, that is to say, not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by His own blood, having obtained eternal redemption. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!

13. A life of victory • John 16:33 "These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world." • Rom 12:21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good • 1 John 5:4 For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world our faith. • Rev 17:14 "These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him are the called and chosen and faithful." • Rev 12:11 "And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.

14. To sum up • Ephesians 2:1-3 • As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.

15. Ephesians 2:4-6 • But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alivewith Christ even when we were dead in transgressions; it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, • Ephesians 2:10 • For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

16. Benediction • Jude 1:24-25 • Now to Him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy; to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and for evermore!Amen.