THE JOURNEY - PART 3

REVIEW

The Journey

Know God

Find Freedom

Discover Purpose

Make a Difference

John 8:32 NLT

32 And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

1182 γινώσκω (ginōskō): vb.; ≡ Str 1097; 1. know, recognize, be aware fem.; 2. learn, acquire information, implying personal means;

John 1:12 NLT

12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.

6 KEYS TO FINDING FREEDOM

1 - Understand the purpose of the law.

Galatians 5:1 NLT

1 So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.

Galatians 3:24 KJV 1900

24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

4080 παιδαγωγός (paidagōgos): Str 3807; guardian, custodian, supervisor

Galatians 3:24 NLT

24 Let me put it another way. The law was our guardian until Christ came; it protected us until we could be made right with God through faith.

Galatians 3:24–27 TPT

24 The law becomes a gateway to lead us to the Messiah so that we would be saved by faith. 25 But when faith comes the law is no longer in force, since we have already entered into life. 26 You have all become true children of God by the faith of Jesus the Anointed One! 27 It was faith that immersed you into Jesus, the Anointed One, and now you are covered and clothed with his anointing.

The purpose for law; not to produce righteousness, but to produce sinners, who could then come to Christ to find saving faith.

2 - WALK IN THE LIGHT

Sin is progressive; it first blinds, then binds, then damns, then destroys. The sooner you stop sin in the process, the easier it is to get free.

Confession vs. Repentance

1 John 1:5–10 TPT

5 This is the life-giving message we heard him share and it’s still ringing in our ears. We now repeat his words to you: God is pure light. You will never find even a trace of darkness in him. 6 If we claim that we share life with him, but keep walking in the realm of darkness, we’re fooling ourselves and not living the truth. 7 But if we keep living in the pure light that surrounds him, we share unbroken fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, continually cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we boast that we have no sin, we’re only fooling ourselves and are strangers to the truth. 9 But if we freely admit our sins when his light uncovers them, he will be faithful to forgive us every time. God is just to forgive us our sins because of Christ, and he will continue to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim that we’re not guilty of sin when God uncovers it with his light, we make him a liar and his word is not in us.

We repent once when we turn from a sin habit in our lives; but before we repent, we must confess.

Once we find freedom through repentance, we continue to confess to stay free.

Hebrews 10:26 TPT

26 For if we continue to persist in deliberate sin after we have known and received the truth, there is not another sacrifice for sin to be made for us.

There is only one way to heaven; to be “found in Christ.”

Philippians 3:9 KJV 1900

9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

Philippians 3:1–14 NLT

1 Whatever happens, my dear brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord. I never get tired of telling you these things, and I do it to safeguard your faith. 2 Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved. 3 For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort, 4 though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could. Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more! 5 I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. 6 I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church. And as for righteousness, I obeyed the law without fault. 7 I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. 8 Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ 9 and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith. 10 I want to know Christ and experience the mighty power that raised him from the dead. I want to suffer with him, sharing in his death, 11 so that one way or another I will experience the resurrection from the dead! 12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. 13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.

3 - BE AWARE OF DARKNESS

Ephesians 6:12 TPT

12 Your hand-to-hand combat is not with human beings, but with the highest principalities and authorities operating in rebellion under the heavenly realms. For they are a powerful class of demon-gods and evil spirits that hold this dark world in bondage.

1 Peter 5:8 TPT

8 Be well balanced and always alert, because your enemy, the devil, roams around incessantly, like a roaring lion looking for its prey to devour.

Andrew Delbanco, a secular scholar at Columbia University, whose book The Death of Satan argues that “a gulf has opened up in our culture between the visibility of evil and the intellectual resources available for coping with it.” He argues that many secular people understandably attribute all human cruelty to psychological deprivation or social conditioning and, in so doing, trivialize the terrible wrongs people are capable of. Delbanco recounts the story of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who along with many of the American elites during the Holocaust gave “no priority to the rescue” of the victims. Late in the war, after the evidence for the atrocities became too great to disbelieve, the president was given Kierkegaard to read and said that, for the first time, the Christian philosopher gave him “an understanding of what it is in man that makes it possible . . . to be so evil.” Delbanco avers that secular liberals (a group of which he considers himself a member) had lost any concept of “radical evil.”

Keller, Timothy. Preaching (pp. 108-109). Penguin Publishing Group

Deuteronomy 30:19 NLT

19 “Today I have given you the choice between life and death, between blessings and curses. Now I call on heaven and earth to witness the choice you make. Oh, that you would choose life, so that you and your descendants might live!

Exodus 34:5–9 NLT

5 Then the Lord came down in a cloud and stood there with him; and he called out his own name, Yahweh. 6 The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out, “Yahweh! The Lord! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness. 7 I lavish unfailing love to a thousand generations. I forgive iniquity, rebellion, and sin. But I do not excuse the guilty. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children and grandchildren; the entire family is affected— even children in the third and fourth generations.” 8 Moses immediately threw himself to the ground and worshiped. 9 And he said, “O Lord, if it is true that I have found favor with you, then please travel with us. Yes, this is a stubborn and rebellious people, but please forgive our iniquity and our sins. Claim us as your own special possession.”

The generational effect is that of consequence, not share sin.

Ezekiel 18:20 NLT

20 The person who sins is the one who will die. The child will not be punished for the parent’s sins, and the parent will not be punished for the child’s sins. Righteous people will be rewarded for their own righteous behavior, and wicked people will be punished for their own wickedness.

Romans 5:12 NLT

12 When Adam sinned, sin entered the world. Adam’s sin brought death, so death spread to everyone, for everyone sinned.

Psalm 51:5 AMP

5 Behold, I was brought forth in [a state of] iniquity; my mother was sinful who conceived me [and I too am sinful].

Jesus breaks the generational momentum of sin and darkness in a family line.

Romans 5:17–18 TPT

17 Death once held us in its grip, and by the blunder of one man, death reigned as king over humanity. But now, how much more are we held in the grip of grace and continue reigning as kings in life, enjoying our regal freedom through the gift of perfect righteousness in the one and only Jesus, the Messiah! 18 In other words, just as condemnation came upon all people through one transgression, so through one righteous act of Jesus’ sacrifice, the perfect righteousness that makes us right with God and leads us to a victorious life is now available to all.

2 Corinthians 5:17 NLT

17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

When I accept Christ, I embrace a new inheritance; a new destiny, free from generational curses and sin.

Romans 8:17 TPT

17 And since we are his true children, we qualify to share all his treasures, for indeed, we are heirs of God himself. And since we are joined to Christ, we also inherit all that he is and all that he has. We will experience being co-glorified with him provided that we accept his sufferings as our own.