GRACE TRANSFORMS – BELIEVE (pt.1)

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GRACE TRANSFORMS — BELIEVE (pt. 1)

How is a person saved from the consequences of sin?

You were created in God’s image!

GENESIS 1:26-27 (NCV)
Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image and likeness. And let them rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the tame animals, over all the earth, and over all the small crawling animals on the earth.”  27 So God created human beings in his image.

You’ve been stained by sin! 

GENESIS 3:1-6 (NIV)
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

ROMANS 5:12 (NLT)
When Adam sinned, sin entered the world.

ROMANS 3:23 (NLT)
For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard.

ISAIAH 53:6 (NLT)
All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We’ve left God’s paths to follow our own…

PROVERBS 20:9 (NIV)
Who can say, “I have kept my heart pure; I am clean and without sin?”

JEREMIAH 17:9 (NLT)
The human heart is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?

JEREMIAH 13:23 (NLT)
Can an Ethiopian change the color of his skin? Can a leopard take away its spots? Neither can you start doing good, for you have always done evil.

JOB 9:2 (NLT)
But how can a person be declared innocent in God’s sight?

LUKE 2:11 (NIV84)
Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; He is Christ the Lord.

MATTHEW 1:21 (NIV84)
She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.

JOHN 1:10-13 (NLT)
He came into the very world he created, but the world didn’t recognize him. 11 He came to his own people, and even they rejected him. 12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. 13 They are reborn—not with a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan, but a birth that comes from God. 

JOHN 3:16-17 (NLT)
For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. 17 God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.

JOHN 14:1-6 (NIV84)
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.”  5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”  6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

ROMANS 10:9-13 (NLT)
If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. 11 As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.” 12 Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord, who gives generously to all who call on him. 13 For “Everyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved.” 

1 JOHN 5:11-12 (NLT)
And this is what God has testified: He has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have God’s Son does not have life.

How is a person saved from the consequences of sin?

Answer:  A person is saved when they believe!

1. Jesus wants you to be a person that knows, understands and lives out the holy Scriptures!

1 TIMOTHY 3:14-15 (NLT)
I am writing these things to you now, even though I hope to be with you soon, 15 so that if I am delayed, you will know how people must conduct themselves in the household of God. This is the church of the living God, which is the pillar and foundation of the truth. 

2 TIMOTHY 3:15-17 (NLT)
You have been taught the holy Scriptures from childhood, and they have given you the wisdom to receive the salvation that comes by trusting in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. 17 God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work. 

JAMES 1:22 (NLT)
But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.

2. Jesus wants you to be a person that prays! 

JAMES 5:16 (NIV)
The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

3. Jesus wants you to be a person that influences others!

MATTHEW 5:13-16 (NLT)
“You are the salt of the earth….14 “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden. 15 No one lights a lamp and then puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.”

“Jesus, looking out over the multitudes of His day, saw the corruption, the disintegration of life at every point, its breakup, its spoliation; and, because of His love of the multitudes, He knew the thing that they needed most was salt in order that the corruption should be arrested. He saw them also wrapped in gloom, sitting in darkness, groping amid mists and fogs. He knew that they needed, above everything else…light.”

Campbell Morgan

JUDGES 21:25
In those days Israel had no king so everyone did what was right in their own eyes.

Love your actual neighbor!

Influence your actual neighbor!

Believe that the grace of God can and will transform your actual neighbor’s life just as He did your own life!