Radio Broadcast Monday 05/02/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ P22 (05-02-22)

Repentance Unto Life – Change Your Mind About Jesus

We continue on with a bit from our last lesson. Listen in as Bob shares the truth of the word of God.

In today’s lesson, from the Bible study booklet, A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ, available for purchase from our online Bob George Ministries ecommerce store

Just as a person’s physical growth is based on proper diet and exercise, so is the Christians’s spiritual growth dependent on regular feeding upon the word of God and application of its principles. With more false teaching, shifting opinions and general confusion in the world than ever before, Christians need a solid foundation upon which to base their beliefs and build their lives. The word of God declares that Jesus Christ is that foundation of truth. With that in mind, let’s now take A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ.

So he’s talking to lost people and then goes ahead to say again, but if we agree with God concerning our sins, in what am I agreeing with concerning my sins? I got them and they need forgiven. I mean, it’s not just agreeing that I have sins. But if I am agreeing I have sins, I’ve got to do something with those sins. They need forgiveness or else ignored. Well, you can’t ignore them, they need forgiveness. You also are agreeing with God who provided that forgiveness. Jesus. How much of it? All of it. What do you do with them? He took them away. So, all of that’s a part of the agreement. So if we agree, if we agree with Him, concerning our sins, then what? He is faithful and just to do. Is He faithful and just to forgive and cleanse because I agree. No, He’s already been faithful and just to forgive and cleanse while we were yet enemies. Folks, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son. Now, what is reconciled? Taken away our sins, forgiven them, cleansed of all unrighteousness. When did that occur? When we were yet enemies, and lost is when that occurred.

So does my confession bring about His forgiveness and cleansing of unrighteousness? Why absolutely not. He is faithful and just to literally have forgiven your sins and have cleansed you of all unrighteousness. So not only has He purified me of all unrighteousness, but His continual action, blood, continues to purify me from every sin. In other words, that forgiveness issue is done, it’s ongoing. It’s done, and in my life it is ongoing. Well, He didn’t forgive me at the cross 2000 years ago, I’d have been standing there, because I was asking. Nobody asked Him to forgive us. He just, Father forgive them, they don’t know what they’re doing. Well, if I didn’t know what I was doing, while I would ask him to forgive me, you know, please forgive me. I don’t know what I’m doing. What do you know what you’re doing? What are you asking for forgiveness for?

So no one was forgiven because of asking. It was forgiven because of His initiative. Now that same type of forgiveness is being experienced every day in our lives as a child of God. Not because I asked, but it’s just done, that I can know that as a child of God that when I sin, some most are too dumb to even know when I sin, but when I sin that the blood of Christ that died for me, 2,000 years ago, is still purifiing me of every sin.

So, I had to be cleansed of all of my unrighteousness that happened at the cross. I’ve never been in my righteousness. Oh, I never lost my righteousness. I never had any, and not only that, but I couldn’t have any of them and any of my righteousness before saved or after saved, that was self-righteousness, is perceived as a filthy rag. So I had to be cleansed once and for all at the cross of my own righteousness so that I could be indwelled by him and His righteousness. Now, today I don’t stand in mine. So I don’t need cleansed of unrighteousness. I will never be unrighteous again. I am not righteous because of what I did or didn’t do, and I can’t become unrighteous by what I do, or don’t do.

Do you get where we are talking and where is righteousness? Is a gift of God. I am not saved because of what I did by my works. I can’t be lost because of what I did. I am saved because of what He did. All I did was accepted that by faith. So when you are dealing with this whole issue of light and darkness, you’re talking lost and saved, claiming to be one thing and yet walk in the darkness. You’re deceived, claiming to be without sin, which is a lie. Deceived. Therefore if I’m without sin what do I need forgiveness for? If I agree with God, concerning my sins, evident that I do have a sin nature, then what can He be relied upon? He’s faithful. He’s just to have come forgiven my sin, to cleanse me of all unrighteousness. Not because of my asking, but because of what He’s already done. All I’m doing is at salvation, agreeing with God concerning my sins. Lord, I’m a sinner. Well, if you’re a sinner, what do you need to be? What do you need? You need to become a butterfly. You need to become a saint. Lord, I’m in darkness. I’m a sinner. I’m in darkness. What do you need? You need to go into the light. How do you go in the light? by faith, by coming to the One who is light. And in Him is no darkness at all. But what happens when I walk into that light? The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses you of every sin imaginable. It’s so simple. And we have complicated the saying so much, that it’s unbelievable.

But this understanding of light and darkness to me helps immensely in clearing this up. Now, to Ephasians 4:17 and 18, you’ll see another passage on lightness and darkness. I tell you this and insist on it. It says in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do. How do they live? In darkness, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. So where were you and I living before we were saved? In darkness separated from the life of God. How come? Because our hearts were hard. And we have to come to grips with that one as well.

1st Thessalonians 5,4 and 9 you brothers, it says, are not in darkness so that this day should not surprise you like a thief. Talking about end times, you are all sons of the light and sons of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. Now, why don’t I belong to the night or to the darkness? Oh, because I no longer live in darkness. I have been transferred, translated from darkness into light. And the moment that I stepped out of Adam, out of darkness into salvation in the light, I became a child of the light and I do not belong to the night, nor do I belong to darkness, nor do I belong to lostness. Nor do I belong to Adam. Neither is my father, Satan. I don’t belong to any of that. I have a new identity, and I have a new citizenship.

As we carry along with our passage there in scripture, as it is talking about, for once we were darkness, now, you are light in the Lord live as children of light for the fruit of the light. In other words, the byproduct of living in the light, the by-product of living in Christ and Christ living in you, consists of all goodness of righteousness and truth. And where is that goodness? In Christ. Where is that righteousness? In Christ. Where is truth? In Christ. So living in the light means living in Christ, and find out what pleases the lord. Well, what does please the Lord? Anything that is not of faith, is what is said. So only by faith. Anyone without faith, it is impossible to what? Please God. So, what is pleasing to God? Walking by faith. Walking by faith in who the one who is truth, righteousness, and goodness. Who’s that? Jesus? Complicated isn’t it? (sarcasm). Now, it says, have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.

Folks, you get some self-righteous people walking around. You don’t understand anything about anything only thing he understands their own self-righteousness and they read that and think that we’re supposed to walk around exposing people who are doing bad deeds, as if we never have done bad deeds then so they’re walking around in their self-righteousness exposing people. Well, it shows you how feeble people like, that’s understanding of the word of God. God is because it doesn’t talk about exposing people. It talks about exposing deeds of darkness. But what what are you doing when you’re exposing deeds of darkness? Well, you’re exposing what the Bible says is right and wrong.

The world comes along and says I and I’m just giving you some examples. I’m not camping on anyone’s sin, but the world comes along and says, all homosexuality is just an alternate lifestyle. You’re born that way and you come along and say, oh no, you’re not. That is not true. The Bible says, homosexuality is sin. What am I doing? I’m exposing deeds of darkness for what they are. Deeds of Darkness. Those are deeds that are done by people who are in darkness, who don’t think anything about doing it. You watch any kind of a television program or you listen to interviews sometimes if you’re unfortunate enough to do that, and you will hear people just talking about movie actresses, movie guys talking about, well, we didn’t get along real well, and we were living together, and this and that and living together. Why it’s just as commonplace as anything in the world?.

Amy and I were riding to Austin one time sitting next to a little, like a little co-ed. Just cute little girl. Just fresh looking sweet looking like, little girl next door, and maybe that type. I don’t know. But in the conversation, are you going down to school?, Amy ask her. No, I’m not going down to school down to Austin University of Texas. My boyfriend is going to University of Texas, and I’m going down and we’re going to live together down there and it was just like saying, could I have a Coke, please? Difference, I’d like a Coca-Cola. We’re going to go down live together. There’s no, there’s no difference. Why? Well, because the dark, the darkness is not aware that is a deed of darkness. People who are in darkness don’t even know that’s a sin. They don’t have a clue that that’s a lifestyle that’s going to eat their lunch someday. You can go on and on and on a person says, oh, I’m not, I’m not a drunk. I just am an alcoholic. I’m just sick. I got a sickness. Well, if I’m going to expose a deed of darkness, am I going to call drunkenness sickness? No, I’m going to call it what it is, a sin, not a bigger sin than what I do, but it’s a sin and I don’t want to sit around and call what I do, something else if it’s a sin.

So when you’re talking about exposing deeds of darkness, you’re not going around trying to trap somebody in a sin, like some kind of a snoopy Pharisee, that’s what they were doing. They were dragging. They drugged the girl caught in adultery here they were the nosey betters. Don’t know how they caught her in the act. Probably peaked it there. They drug her down to the town square in order to stone her to death and Jesus hit them right in between the eyes. Now is adultery a sin? Of course it’s a sin and you got exposed it for what it is. And Jesus didn’t sit there and say, oh that’s not a sin. And she just got a little sickness, just kind of born a little oversexed. He didn’t do that at all. Nothing, no question about it, what she was doing was a sin, but what they were doing was also a sin. So I said later on, hypocrite. He said, that’s what you are just nothing but a hypocrite, an actor. Before you take the speck out of your neighbors, I’d take the log out of your own. Said, yeah, you’re trying to take the speck out of that woman’s eye. You got a log in your own. And He asked a question. Have any of you sin, are you without sin? If you’re without sin, stone her, that’s what the law says. It says, if you’ve sinned, stone her. Now, let’s see you stone her. And Jesus with the capability of looking right inside a man’s heart and they knew He could see inside their heart what did they do? They dropped their little stones, and they went home and there was no one left there. Except Him. The only One without sin. The only One capable of stoning her. The only One who had the right to stone her was Jesus, the only Righteous One there.

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And He said, ma’am, where are all your accusers at? And she said, they all left. He said, neither, do I accuse you. Get up and sin, no more did get up and sin no more. Did He call adultery sin? Absolutely. Did He expose it as sin? Absolutely. Did He condemned her? Absolutely not. Now, the self-righteous, I want to call them idiots because that’s what it is. It’s idiotic, the function in self-righteousness. The self-righteous idiotic will come down and say, oh, she needs to be drug down to the square and expose her so everyone can see her, says right there in the bible were supposed to expose them. Not supposed to expose anybody unless you want yourself exposed which those people were, they were exposed in their own hypocrisy standing there with their little rocks, getting ready to stone this woman when they themselves needed stoned.

And so our role is, however, is never to call what God calls sin, something else. It’s not a sickness. I tell people with regard to alcohol. You don’t have an alcohol problem. You got a heart problem. According To Jesus, not what a man puts in his mouth that defiles him but what precedes out of his heart. When you have double mindedness, I don’t want to call double mindedness, schizophrenic. That’s a medical term and if you’re schizophrenic and you need medicine, but if you’re double minded, you need Christ and you need to get freed from the law. First of all, you need to come to Christ when you do get freed from the law, so that you could walk down into a newness of life. Anybody who’s under law and grace is double mind and they’re unstable in all ways and it’s those people that are in that state of mind are under the law. They may be too many times, too blind to see it and try to be under grace the same time that double mindedness is what causes people say, I’m going to go out and crucify somebody. It’s the thing that caused people to yell to Christ, crucify Him, crucify Him.

Now folks, so when you’re talking about living in the light, you’re going to expose deeds, not people, deeds of darkness for what they are. Those are deeds of darkness and I’m not going to call them, okay. I’m also, when I see that, and like I said, when you find a brother that is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual, go to them. That doesn’t mean that you’ve had your quiet time this morning. It means if you’re in Christ, that’s a spiritual man. It says go to the man caught or trapped in the sin. That doesn’t say to deny his sin. You’re going to expose the sin by being able to say, this is the trap that you’re in. But you’re also going to do it as it says with a heart that says when you go, man don’t go self-righteously. Don’t go with the mindset that I could never do that because you can. So it says go with fear and trembling, in other words with humility, unless you fall into the same trap. And so when we go to people we don’t go to deny the sin. But we go with understanding as Christ did with that sin. And it’s that bringing that person back to the love of God, and the forgiveness of God, and the grace of God, and the mercy of God is what brings a person to that Godly repentance, that Godly sorrow, rather that brings repentance. Godly sorrow. I cannot produce Godly sorrow in a person. And that’s another thing with the self-righteous and the Pharisees and the idiototic like behavior of people like that is, I’m going to bring about repentance on you. You’ve done wrong Bob and I’m going to keep after you until you come clean, man. Well, you’re going to come clean all right, you’re going to get so clean you’re going to punch me in the nose. And rightfully, so. But when God begins to work in your heart, and God begins to the sin itself is revealed, but never with a spirit of condemnation. Because there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So if Christ didn’t come to judge the world and condemn it, why should I? But the sin is acknowledged, but still with a love for the sinner. That brings about in your life, Godly sorrow that produces repentance. So legalism is always trying to produce repentance in people, putting them on guilt trips. Tell them you ought to get on your knees and get right with God and somebody say you ought to get off of your knees and get right with God. Because a legalist always thinks he’s right with God because he’s doing right. Or at least knows what’s right and hopes no one finds out again doing, right? But to the person who understands fullness the grace of God, you’ll never approach a person from condemnation only with a spirit of restoration.

And so it says in here that, but everything continuing exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible. Now who is Jesus? The light of the world. Who’s going to make it visible? Jesus, not you. This is why I said wake up o sleeper and rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. So he’s saying look if you’re living in the darkness over here, I’m not going to call your sin anything except what it is, but I’m also going to tell you that I came to die for it. Now wake up o sleeper and rise from the dead and let Christ shine on you.

Backing up just for a moment as we kind of conclude this study of 1st Thessalonians 5:4 through 9 states, but you brothers are not in darkness, brothers are not in darkness, so that this day should not nor should surprise you like a thief, you are all sons of the light. And sons of the day, we do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then let us not be like others who are asleep, but let us be alert and self-control. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be self-controlled putting on faith and love as a breastplate and the hope of salvation as a helmet. For God did not appoint us to suffer wrath but to receive salvation to our Lord Jesus Christ. And all, he’s saying to us there is, you are a child of light, so let’s be a child of light. Be self-controlled. Now, what does that mean? It means keeping yourself under the control of the Lord Jesus Christ. It doesn’t mean to control yourself with your old self and self-control. It means to keep yourself controlled by the Holy Spirit of God, and that control of the Holy Spirit comes from your dependency upon the Holy Spirit.

Anything that we depend upon for our meeting and our purpose to life, that thing is going to control you. If I depended upon my business success for meaning and purpose, my business will control my life. If I’m depending upon booze for a meaning and purpose to life, booze will control me. If I’m dependent upon drugs for my meaning and purpose to life, drugs will control me. That’s why it’s called drug dependency, or alcohol dependency, misplaced dependencies. Any dependency that is not upon Christ Jesus is a misplaced dependency. And so, as a child of the living God, that says put on that self-control, putting on faith and love as a breastplate. In other words, it’s a thing that’s going to keep your chest protected. It’s a thing that’s going to keep you from being annihilated by the enemy and that is faith and love and hope. And then, you know, faith, hope and love, the greatest of these is love and then the hope of salvation as your helmet. In other words, my helmet is my salvation, and I’ve got it on. And my blessed hope is the hope, not, I hope I hope I hope, but that blessed hope, and that one day and I’ll be absent from this body and present with the Lord, and to be able to experience the fullness of that salvation as I see Him as He is and become like it. Colossians 1:12 and 13. The Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light for he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves. In Him, we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Have you been translated out of darkness into the kingdom of the Son? Have you been translated out of darkness into light? Say yes, I have. Well, if you have, you have redemption, you have forgiveness of sins. You don’t ask to be redeemed, once you’ve been redeemed. You don’t need to ask to be forgiven once you’ve been forgiven. You do spend the rest of your life thanking God for His redemption. Realizing that He bought me off of the slave market to do what? Set me free. It is for freedom He said, that you have been set free. So He bought me to set me free. He forgave me to make me free. To do what? Walk in the newness of life in the light as Christ Jesus is in the light.

1st Peter 2:9 he tells me that we are a chosen people, a royal priesthood. A holy nation, a people belonging to God. However, since you may declare the praises of Him who called out of darkness into His wonderful light, if you’re in the light, you’ve been called out of darkness, you’ve been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, forgiven of all your sins taken away at the cross, brought into the kingdom of the Son, rescued from that dominion of darkness.

In John 3 it says, Light is come into the world but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil and everyone who does evil hates the light and will not come to the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. I don’t want to come to Christ. Then I’m going to have to admit everything I’ve ever done. Whoever lives, by the truth, comes into the light so that it may be seen plainly that what He has done has been done through God.

Now, we’re told over again in John 12, that Jesus told them that you’re going to have the light, just a little longer. Walk while you have the light. That’s what Christ was here on the earth before. darkness overtakes you. Man who walks in the dark doesn’t know where he’s going, put your trust in the light while you have it so that you may become what? Sons of light.

In 1st John 2: 8 through 11. We’re told that yet I am writing you a new command. It’s truth is seen in Him and you. So I’m writing a new command to you and the truth of this command He said is going to be seen in Him and in you. That’s us folks, because the darkness is passing and the true light is already shining because of Christ in other words. Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. It’s the same kind of a person claiming to be without sin. He is still in the darkness. It’s the same person who is claiming to be in fellowship with God. But is walking in darkness. In both, in all cases, you’re a liar. The truth isn’t in you. It is a person who claims to be in the light, I’m a child of God. I’m a Christian but hate my brother. He said, no, you’re not in the light yet. You’re still in darkness and whoever loves his brother lives in the light and there is nothing in him to make him stumped. But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in darkness, and he does not know where he’s going, because the darkness has blinded him.

Thank you so much for tuning in to Classic Christianity, with Bob George. We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s program. We truly hope that today’s message has inspired you to walk a life of faith in the Lord, find more information online at shop.BobGeorge.net. There you’ll also find available CDs, DVDs, and bible studies available for purchase. It’s through your help that we are able to spread the good word of Jesus Christ. Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another and praise the Lord. Amen.