Radio Broadcast Monday 02/14/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at The Reality of The Resurrection P33 (02-14-22)

Led by the Spirit of God

We’re getting ready to begin in lesson number seven, led by the Spirit of God. You know, there’s nothing that is any more of it confusing to the Christian world, many times. And what it is to walk in the spirit. And other words, the absence of any times of the teaching on the holy spirit of God is quite evident in people’s lives. And then when many times there is a teaching on the spirit of God, we make the spirit, something the spirit of God, something, quite different than what I believe, biblically, it talks about the Spirit of God being And that is the spirit of God came to lead us and to teach us to be our counselor. He didn’t come to be our entertainment center. He came to be our counselor and the one who was going to lead us into all truth, which we will talk about very short, but to some the Christian life becomes a matter of imitating Jesus. In other words, the absence of an understanding of the Spirit controlled life leads the believer to that impossible task of trying to live the Christian Life in the energy of his own flesh. It is because we do not or have not been taught that there that God came to live within us, Christ in you, your hope of glory, the Holy Spirit of God, bringing Christ to our hearts so that he alone who can live the Christian Life and can have access to our bodies, to our minds to our emotions, to be able to speak with our lips. Love with our heart. See with their eyes hear with their ears that Christ is alive, living in us to live his It’s not for us to become actors, but to become vessels through whom Christ Jesus could live his life. Now to some again this Christian Life is a matter of imitating Jesus and you will see people’s teaching that as well. That we need to go out and live. Like Jesus will – lots of luck. You can’t even live like a good man, let alone like Jesus.

Or, some will say, we’re following in his footsteps. You’ll get that. We need to follow in his footsteps. Well again, folks, if you’re following in his footsteps, where is he? Well, he’s out in front of you. And all of those images go right back to the physical visible Jesus, to Jesus of Nazareth while he was here on this Earth. And so we don’t see the resurrected Christ because we can’t see him. And so the best that we can do is to see him visualize him in his physical form and then say, “imitating.” And that’s why we have these things of walking in his footsteps. Well, how well did the apostles do walking in his footsteps when he was there with them? Man, they had their foot in their mouth, not in the sand, most of the time! So, I mean, there was never a hint in the New Testament of imitating acting like Jesus. How the in the world are you going to do that?

And yet that is taught today. That’s what we ought to do. And in these circumstances, why questions will come up and they’ll say, well what would Jesus do if he were here? What, I got news for you.

You were here if he were here. Well, I got news for you, folks. He is if he’s living in. You, he’s already there. He’s not up there someplace. He’s living in you. So, you don’t have to say, I wonder what he would do. If he was here. He’s already here. If you’re a born again Christian. He’s already living in you. So, as good as that sounds of trying to be like Jesus, all that mindset can produce is a Christian actor. I’ve said before, I know a lot of you are amazed at Charlton Heston is not Moses, but he really isn’t. And being sure do a good job acting like one to the point. Were you ever think wonder what Moses looked like? We probably looked like Charlton Heston did you know and and we become actors? Well, it just as an actor, folks can memorize script. And play a role so effectively that it can bring you to tears or a person. Play the role of Judas to the point of bringing to you, to anger plays a role beautifully, why doesn’t ever enter our minds that you don’t have to get paid and to be in Hollywood to be an actor that man there’s actors all over the place. Christian actors acting like. Something that were really not inside. So don’t be surprised of people trying to act, not only like Christ, but trying to act like a Christian and we get this Christian Phantom. Here’s what a Christian looks like. Here’s what a Christian acts, like here’s what a Christian does. Here’s what a Christian doesn’t do. And before long, why we are, dressing alike, looking alike, talking alike and praising the Lord the same way. Going through all of our motions alike, and we become a bunch of robots. No, individuality. Just acting like Christian folks is just another way of trying to live up to a standard of a law. It just happens to be your in my law. And it’s an impossibility for even the best depend on. God didn’t call us to be actors or to follow a set of rules and regulations. He wrote his laws on our hearts and he placed his Spirit within us so that we could be led from within not from without. So in this chapter, we’re going to be taking a look at what. It means to be led by the Spirit of God.

Galatians 5:18
¹⁸ But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Let’s begin with Galatians 5:18, but if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Well, dare, we take a reversal of that which would say, if you’re under the law, you’re not led by the Spirit. But that’s true. If you’re led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. But if you’re under the law, you can’t be led by the Spirit. How come? Well, have you ever tried to be led by two different things. Guess what would happen to you? Well, you’d be pulled apart again. What the Bible refers to as a double minded man. That is unstable in all ways. How come? We are trying to be led by the law and trying to be led by the Spirit. You’re being split apart. You’re not led by anything. So you can’t be under the law and be led by the Spirit of the same time. That’s an impossibility.

That’s why you’re going to have to make a determination as to whether or not you’re going to get under the law. If you are getting under all of it. And just get buried under it or if you’re going to get under the grace of God, get under all of it, but don’t try to split it. As we talked about last week in Galatians, you foolish, Galatians beginning in the Spirit, why are you now trying to perfect yourself a human effort under the law? Now in Romans 8:14, it says because those who are led by the Spirit are sons of God. And as a child of God, how are we to live? Then, we’re to be led by the Spirit of God.

Romans 8:14
¹⁴ For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.

That’s an internal motivation that all took place at the New Covenant. Hebrews 8:10. This is a covenant I will make with the house of Israel, after that time, declares the Lord, I’ll put my laws in their minds, I will write them on their hearts, I will be their God and they will be my people. That, God wrote literally himself on our hearts. Its internal, not external. The Christian life is Is lived internal manifested externally in the brand New Covenant that took place on the day that Christ died. Ushering, in a New Covenant, He fulfilled, the old Covenant, through his life. Died, for the forgiveness and the taking away of sins, for those of us, that could not fulfill the law and therefore, he fulfilled it for us. Died, paying the penalty for us that we did, that those, could not, none of us could there is none righteous. No, not one pay the entire price for that was buried raised again. So that life has raised him from the dead can raise you and me from the dead to live in the newness of life. Not the old way of the life under the law, a new way of life LED internally by the Spirit of God.

How folks there was also a difference because the Holy Spirit of God wasn’t sitting in heaven, devoid of human activity, prior to the Cross or the resurrection, but the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament came upon people for divine service, but never lived in people and at the cross and at the day, of Pentecost, was the first time there for that people were spiritually, regenerated Born Again, bought back in dwelt now, not the Holy Spirit coming upon you. But in dwell permanently in you with a promise of never ever leaving you nor forsake you. So therefore we are led. We are not following as we talked about earlier that thing of following Christ. Well, if you’re following Christ, where is he? And that verbiage sounds good and it sounds noble. But again, look what it does to you. It’s not just a doctrinal issue. What does it do to To you. If I am following Christ, where is he outside of you? What are you doing? Following along? Just like a kid just dangling along out. There. Is that truth that Christ is outside of you and you’re following. Is that true? Would that have been true when he was here on the earth? Yes, it would have. He would have leading. We would have been following. Is that true today? No, I’m going away. He said to send the Holy Spirit to live in you no longer to follow, but to be led internally by me. Now, we follow Christ until we get to where he went and that was the cross and the empty tomb and to be being born again. Now, after you are born again, you no longer follow. You are led. Now it sounds almost nitpicky but folks the verbiage that you and I use is going to be a direct reflection of what we believe is true. And if Christ is living in you and is your only hope of glory never to leave you nor forsake you then we are not following something that lives in. You you are being led internally by an ever-present Spirit of God alive living in you, that is your only hope of glory. Meaning, your only hope of ever being restored to the intelligent purpose for which he created you and your only hope of ever seeing the fruit of the spirit ever manifested in your and my life.

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Now to those who understood that. Do the intelligent purpose for which he created you and your only hope of ever seeing the fruit of the spirit ever manifested in your in my life. Now to those who understood that and second Corinthians 3:3, Paul said you show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry. A letter, not written with ink. But with the spirit of the Living God. Not written on tablets of stones, but on tablets of human hearts. So he’s talking about the fact that the you’ve been given a new heart and the spirit of God has written his life. On your heart.

Now, what about the Ten Commandments? Well, 2 Corinthians 3:7. Now the ministry that brought death which was engraved in letters on Stone.

2 Corinthians 3:7
⁷ Now if the ministry that brought death, which was engraved in letters on stone, came with glory, so that the Israelites could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory, transitory though it was,

So folks don’t say that was ceremonial law. We’re talking about the ten commandments. Was a Ministry that brought death? The Ten Commandments brought death. If you have violated the least of these, my Commandments, you violated all of them. What’s the wages of sin is death? Didn’t bring life. The law. It said was a mirror. You look into it and see your face is dirty, but a mere can’t wash your face. It just revealed your filth. The stone, the law written on stone shows you your sinfulness. And that’s what the Bible says that the law was given to show us to be perfectly sinful. Those, so that we would turn to Christ for our redemption.

My friends, the law had a purpose. The law still has a purpose, but it says, it’s not to this age. It’s to the lost. And the purpose of the law to the lost is to show us to be perfectly sinful. So that we see our condition. And turn to him for his provision. Now if that ministry that brought death and he’s talking to the wages of sin is death. Here’s the law, violate it and you’re a goner. If that ministry that brought death, which was engraved on letters of stone came with glory, and it did, so much glory that the Israelites couldn’t even look steadily at the face of Moses because of its glory fading though it was. And it goes ahead to say, how much more do you think the New Covenant, the glory of the New Covenant. So you see, we’re not talking about a ministry written on stone. You’re talking about a Ministry of the Holy Spirit of God living in you and me, whereby, it’s written on our hearts. Not on a piece of stone. The law kills, but the spirit gives life.

Well, let’s take a look then, as to how we’re to worship God according to the Bible. First of all, it says in John 4:24 that God is Spirit and his worshipers must worship Him in what Spirit and in truth?

Now, folks, there’s a lot of complication isn’t there in regard to worship and we have worship services. And most churches have worship Services. They call them that, “worship services.” But the scripture scripture says that true worship is worshiping in Spirit and in truth. So we’re have a worship service and teach you the 10 commandments. So that you can all try to obey them. Is that a worship service? No, that’s a death service. That’s a funeral because the law kills, the Spirit gives life. We look at worship as a service, something that we do at a service. But you see true worship of God is something that is done in the heart. It’s not done in a building. It’s done in the heart. And if you’re going to the worship of God, which is the respect in the all. The acknowledgement that God, You are who You are, Is done in Spirit, and in truth to understand that this is the Spirit of God, this is God himself at and his truth and truth alone. Remember, we talked about Jesus, we beheld, his glory, the glory of the only begotten, son of the father, full of what grace and truth that comes through the Spirit of God to us.

So, folks worship could be all over the place, you go, some places of worship is lifting up your hands and singing songs and Jumping and hollering and all kinds of things. And you go to another place and it’s sitting there very quietly with your little hands folded in your lap and wouldn’t make a sound if E. F. Hutton spoke. It just just one of those things that you just what? Are not going to do and both be called worship services. Do you realize folks that everything that we as man have created that we call worship, do you realize every one of those things could be totally duplicated by lost people? You don’t have to be saved to do that. You don’t have to be safe to sing songs. You don’t have to save be saved, even get goosebumps when you sing them. You don’t have to be saved to lift your arms up to God. You don’t have to be saved to keep them quietly in your laugh. You don’t have to be saved to to say, amen. And Hallelujah. Or to be quiet as a mouse, you don’t have to be saved for any of those things. You don’t have to be saved to speak in an unknown tongue. You can do that, lost. You don’t have to be saved as a saved person and say, praise the Lord. Hallelujah! You can be totally lost to do any one of those things. So, the things that we call worship, aren’t worship at all. When it comes to what God calls worship.

God is Spirit. And if you’re going to worship him, you’re going to have to worship in Spirit and in truth. And that’s not getting all spirit-filled and going to a worship service. It’s what he talks about. And in Romans 12, I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God, as a result of the grace and the mercy of God to now present your body and indwelt by the Spirit of God, present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable in the sight of God, which is your reasonable worship.

How are you going to present yourself your bodies to the living God living in you, if he isn’t living in you? I mean, how can I make my body available to God? Living in me? If God isn’t living in me? So only a born again, Christian can make his body available to the living God, living in him because only in a born-again Christian is God living in you.

And only a Christian has the ability to worship God in Spirit because unless you’re born again of the Spirit, you’re not born again. And only a born again Christian can worship Him in truth because until the Spirit of God lives in you, you wouldn’t know truth if it smacked you in the face. Because truth has to be revealed by the Spirit of God living in. Your eye hasn’t seen your ear hasn’t heard. Your mind has not conceived of those things that God has prepared for those who love him. It must be revealed by the Spirit. You can’t even know the truth until, you know Christ who alone is truth. So when you’re talking about worship, you’re not talking about singing songs or dancing around or any of the other things. You’re talking about a day to day, moment by moment experience, not something you do on Sunday, but something that you live in, it’s making your body 24 hours a day available to the Living, God who lives in you lived and through you. That’s truth. And that is Spirit. It’s walking in the Spirit. I’m worshipping God by allowing his Spirit to live through me, rather than thinking. I’m worshipping God by being under the law. Which means if I don’t go to the service, I’m going to get zapped. That’s law.

John 16:13
¹³ But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

So it isn’t where you go, it’s who you are. It doesn’t have anything to do with something collective necessarily. It has to do with you individually and me individually walking in the newness of life, which means to walk in the Spirit and therefore, find ourselves not fulfilling the desires of the flesh. God is Spirit and his worshipers must worship in Spirit, and in truth. God is Spirit and his worshipers must Worship in Spirit and in truth. Well, then what is Spirit and Truth? John 16:13, you’re going to be seeing in there where Jesus was getting ready to depart and he said to his disciples that it is good for you, that I go away. For when I do. I’m going to send the Holy Spirit. I’m going to send the Comforter the Counselor to you. And when He, the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. And we need to understand their that the Spirit of Truth, you must worship in spirit. And in truth, which means that I must worship in the Spirit of God Christ alive, living in me, who alone is spirit. And that is the Spirit of Truth. And when the Spirit of Truth comes, And He will guide you into all truth.

He will not speak on his own. He will speak only what he hears and it will tell you what is yet to come. Now folks when the Holy Spirit of God who is the Spirit of truth comes, he’s going to guide you into all truth. Are you and dwelt by the Spirit of God. Are you born again? Why then there is a promise that God made to you that the Spirit of God living in, you will guide you into all truth. Now if already knew all truth, what would I need to be guided into all Truth for and that means for the rest of your life? You and I are going to be being guided into the truth of Christ Jesus. The depth of his love the height of his love. The width of his love, the prayer. That Paul prayed that I pray that you by the Spirit of God, the power of God living in, you will be at home Christ, being at home in your inner being and that you will be able through the power of God, to know the height and depth and breadth and width of the love of God to know this love that surpasses knowledge that you’ll be controlled filled to the measure with the fullness of God.

So we will for the rest of our lives. Be being taught by the spirit of God alive, living in US, of the depths of the love of God, and hopefully, to be able to come someday as the Apostle Paul did. When he said, I’m convinced nothing can separate me from the love of God. How do you get convinced to that through the content? Because they continual Teaching Ministry of the holy spirit of God living in him. Now, if the spirit of God, then the spirit of Truth is going to lead you into all truth. Do we kind of get the idea that maybe truth might be important. Now you say, who’s the source of that? John 14:6 – Jesus said, I am the way and what the truth and no one comes to the Father, except through me. So Jesus identified himself as not only the way to God, but he is the truth about God and he is the very life of God.

And therefore that kind of is all you need. You’ve got the way to God. You’ve got the truth about God and you have the life of God and all of that comes through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Now, Jesus said, I am truth and in John 17:17, it says sanctify set them apart by the truth and your word is truth. So the word of God, the spoken word of God is truth, the written word of God that we hold into our hands today is truth.

John 16:14
¹⁴ He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.

And the Holy Spirit of God will be leading you and me to the truth. That is in the word of God and the truth and the word of God leads us to the author who is Jesus, who said, I am truth. So it’s all look back to the same thing leading us to truth in John 16:14. It says the Holy Spirit will bring glory to me. That’s Jesus talking the Holy Spirit came not to glorify himself not to glorify the Holy Spirit. He came to bring glory to Jesus. What does that mean to make Jesus known? The Spirit’s role in this day and age is to make Jesus known. It is not to glorify himself. It is to make Jesus known who alone, there’s no other name, under Heaven, given among men, whereby we must be saved. Christ Jesus is the object of our salvation. He is the provider of our salvation. He is our salvation. And the Holy Spirit of God in this day and age, His role is going through the world and teaching people and telling them about Jesus and drawing them unto the Son. He will bring Glory To Me by taking what is mine and making it known to you. Now, not only does the Spirit of God then lead us into all truth, but it takes the Spirit of God living in us for us to understand truth.

First Corinthians 2:12, we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that that we may want understand what God has freely given us. Last week we talked about the grace of God that to for us to stand in the abundant grace of God., that’s what he freely gave us. That’s a message of Grace.

Thank you so much for tuning in to Classic Christianity with Bob George.