Radio Broadcast Monday 08/14/2023

Classic Christianity – The Book of John P82 (08-14-23)

If You Are a Child of God, You are a Saint, NOT a Sinner!

~ Understanding our identity in Christ Jesus is paramount in our understanding of who we are in Christ Jesus and of how God sees us, as a saint, NOT a sinner. Satan loves to get a believer’s identity off of how God see us and instead focuses on the lies he has cooked up. A big lie today is that one is a sinner, even after coming to have the Holy Spirit live in you. Religion and Satan stroke that lie and that weakens the believer’s ability to live a Spirit controlled life. For if the believer constantly thinks of themselves as a sinner, then they are nothing more than a sinner saved by grace. There is no power in believing that lie. Satan will constantly point out your sinfulness and stroking the flesh. And the Holy Spirit is constantly telling us that God is no longer counting our sins against us. And for those who are in Christ Jesus there is no condemnation, plus we are told that the Holy Spirit lives in us and that we are the temple of God.

So start walking as a saint today. You are not a saint because of what you do or don’t do, but because God made you a Saint if you are a child of God. And if you are not a child of God today, simply place faith in Jesus, and what he did for you at the cross, and receive his resurrected Life and the Holy Spirit will make you a saint also.

Most don’t walk in faith. They would much rather believe the lies of Satan and man, for they will constantly listen to men and if one listens to the prayers of these pastors at the end of their prayers they say things like, “oh please forgive us” as though Jesus had not completed the work at the cross and more forgiveness is required. That isn’t faith, that is unbelief! People today will even justify their evil behavior (of continually walking in unbelief), because it makes them feel good to continually ask for forgiveness by God. They are not walking in truth. They are instead walking in the lies of the world and Satan.

~ “That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” ^{2 Corinthians 5:19}

~ Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.” And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary. ^{Hebrews 10:19,18}

~ “We go on and chapter 14 with his teaching on the ministry of the Holy Spirit, which folks is absolutely dynamic, and absolute necessity for us to get a hold of, if we’re going to ever live the Christian life. What has happened to people is we’ve come for salvation from the cross alone. And it’s not that the cross was not important. But as we will learn in a moment, the cross was preparatory, the cross is not in and of itself, salvation, it’s necessary for salvation, because it’s preparatory to salvation. But the cross in and of itself is not salvation. And when we have stopped at the cross, instead of going on to the resurrected life, we have nothing to live within us. If all I did was get my sins forgiven, then I have no option except to go out and try to grunt and groan out the Christian life in the energy, my own flesh. Is that right or wrong? Because who do I have live in me to do it if all I came to was to get my sins forgiven? Then that’s old Bob George with his sins forgiven. I’m just an old forgiven sinner. And that’s how a lot of people say I’m just an ole sinner saved by grace and you look like one. But God did not leave you a sinner saved by grace. He said, I’m gonna come and live in you. And because I’m living in you, you can call yourself a saint. And you don’t have to get nominated for that. God made you a saint. He called you a saint. He addressed to the all of the old sinners saved by grace in Colossae, I Paul, is and how he addressed the letters? No, he called him saints. Why? Because that’s what you are if you’re in Christ Jesus. Now, that did not come from getting forgiveness, that came from being in dwelt by the saintly one, who is Jesus. And when we exclude the resurrection and salvation, we have a half salvation that doesn’t work, guys, it does not work. What it produces is somebody, Praise Jesus, I’m saved. Show me some things that I can do to make people think that I’m saved. Show me what I can do to make myself think that I’m saved. Tell me some things that I can do to encourage me that I’m saved. But they don’t know for sure whether you’re saved. Why? Because you’ve never been indwelt by the life that saves you. You just have come for forgiveness, instead of the resurrected life of Christ, Jesus our Lord. And so we have nothing to guide us. We have no power. We have no nothing. We’re just kind of saved blogs” ~ Bob George

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Announcer 0:12
Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George Bob’s clear, timeless teachings on the complete forgiveness and unconditional love of Jesus Christ will transform your life as you learn about God’s amazing grace. Let’s join Bob as he teaches us from God’s Word.

Bob George 0:28
What we’re going to do this morning, before we get into the actual teaching, in John 18, is to go back and review and to catch the chronology of what took place in those last days of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. In order to do that, we’re going to need to go back to chapter 13. So if you have your Bibles, let’s go ahead and we’ll just walk through this together. In chapters 13, the Lord Jesus Christ was getting ready to meet with his disciples for really the last major instruction to them. And we have all of that instruction contained in chapter 13, where he taught the disciples of servitude, washing of the feet was was an act of servitude on their behalf. He then predicted his betrayal, or, probably better to say, announced his betrayal that this was not something that was going to come by accident, but it was something that was known in the heart of God. And he told them about that. He also at that time, predicted to Peter, who basically was, I believe, as sincere as a heart attack and about everything he did, but he was like a lot of us, he was rambunctious. And he always had the deal that Lord, if everybody else might betray you, but I’ll never betray you, I’ll never deny you. And the Lord knew our humanity. And guys, that many times is such a good thing for us to understand that how easy it is for us to sit back. And to say, of other people, oh, I would never do that. Well, you don’t know what you would do if you are in the same circumstances that they were in. And to say that basically smacks a wee bit of self righteousness of saying, Oh, I would never do that in a million years. And yet, you haven’t been there until you’ve walked in the shoes of another person. Until you know the background of other people, you know, some of the weaknesses of people as well as the strengths of people, we really are not much qualified, are we to judge other people. But Peter was certainly in that category of thinking. And I think in his own heart, he meant that with all of his heart, that, Lord, there’s no way in the world that I would ever deny you, I love you too much to do that. And yet, when he saw the torture, the end of just the beginning stages of the torture of Christ Jesus, he backed down and denied the Lord three times, and we see the picture of that. But in the midst of that type of thing, after predicting the denial, Peter’s denial, he comforted his disciples, and He said, Don’t be afraid, don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me, and he assured us that in his Father’s home, or many mansions, and I’m going to prepare a place for you, so that where I am, you may also be.

He clarified to His disciples in that chapter that he was the only way to God, the only truth about God, and the only life from God. And he clarified that to them, I am the Way and the Truth and the Life and no one comes to the Father, except through me. This is not a dogmatic statement that my religion is better than your religion. It’s a practical aspect, that there is no one who could take away the sins of the world except God Himself. And Jesus was God. There was no one whose blood was of such a precious value, that it was capable of taking away the sins of the entire world back to Adam and forward to eternity. Only that could come from God Himself. There was no way that a man could be resurrected from the dead permanently, except God Himself. And all of those elements had to take place in order for you and be to be saved. There was only one reason that Jesus came to this earth and that was to save you and me. Well if you see if we’re so arrogant that we think I don’t Don’t need saved why then you don’t need a savior? If I’m so arrogant to think that I’m a basically a good person, and you hear that all the time, don’t you basically, I’m really a good person. Where Jesus said her and anybody good, except God Himself and guys, I’m gonna camp on that side rather than the other side. I mean, you can camp on that. But that’s not real positive thinking. But I don’t think God called us to think positive or think he called us just think realistically. And realistically, is, I’m not a good person. I’d like to be able to say, I’m a good person, but God says, No, you’re not. So I’m gonna go with him. And I think you’d be wise to go with him as well. Not because of me, but because of you. The issue is what he said was true, that only God is good. And that’s why he said, Why do you call Me good unless you want to call me God? Because only God is good. And guys, our problem is, is we compare ourselves, don’t we to one another. And so we can look pretty good up next to one another. But that’s not the object of comparison, the object of comparison is how you’re doing compared to God. So when you match yourself up to God, how many of you gonna say, I’m basically a good person, Jesus. Now, that’s our standard, not each other. So get your eyes off of one another. Because God says that a man who compares himself by himself is a fool, and I could be foolish enough with other things without doing that, can’t you? And so he’s going to tell us that He is the only way to God, he’s the only truth about God. You got a lot of people teaching what they say is truth about God. But Jesus said, No, I am the truth about God. And if you want to know about God, you’re gonna have to know about me, because I am the truth about God, I’m the way to God the truth about God. And I’m the only life from God. And so he taught us that.

We go on and chapter 14 with his teaching on the ministry of the Holy Spirit, which folks is absolutely dynamic, and absolute necessity for us to get a hold of, if we’re going to ever live the Christian life. What has happened to people is we’ve come for salvation from the cross alone. And it’s not that the cross was not important. But as we will learn in a moment, the cross was preparatory, the cross is not in and of itself, salvation, it’s necessary for salvation, because it’s preparatory to salvation. But the cross in and of itself is not salvation. And when we have stopped at the cross, instead of going on to the resurrected life, we have nothing to live within us. If all I did was get my sins forgiven, then I have no option except to go out and try to grunt and groan out the Christian life in the energy, my own flesh. Is that right or wrong? Because who do I have live in me to do it if all I came to was to get my sins forgiven? Then that’s old Bob George with his sins forgiven. I’m just an old forgiven sinner. And that’s how a lot of people say I’m just an ole sinner saved by grace and you look like one. But God did not leave you a sinner saved by grace. He said, I’m gonna come and live in you. And because I’m living in you, you can call yourself a saint. And you don’t have to get nominated for that. God made you a saint. He called you a saint. He addressed to the all of the old sinners saved by grace in Colossae, I Paul, is and how he addressed the letters? No, he called him saints. Why? Because that’s what you are if you’re in Christ Jesus. Now, that did not come from getting forgiveness, that came from being in dwelt by the saintly one, who is Jesus. And when we exclude the resurrection and salvation, we have a half salvation that doesn’t work, guys, it does not work. What it produces is somebody, Praise Jesus, I’m saved. Show me some things that I can do to make people think that I’m saved. Show me what I can do to make myself think that I’m saved. Tell me some things that I can do to encourage me that I’m saved. But they don’t know for sure whether you’re saved. Why? Because you’ve never been indwelt by the life that saves you. You just have come for forgiveness, instead of the resurrected life of Christ, Jesus our Lord. And so we have nothing to guide us. We have no power. We have no nothing. We’re just kind of saved blogs.

And so he wanted us to understand the truth of that that I’m going to send my Spirit, My Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God who is not an it, or an influence. It’s a he. He’s referred to as a he, that he comes to live inside of you and me. And the Holy Spirit of God, when He comes to live inside of me, will guide you into how much truth? All truth. Why? Because the Trinity is one. And who is the truth? Jesus. Who’s the Holy Spirit? Truth. Who’s God? Truth, we’re indwelt by God Himself, who is truth. And when you know truth, then you can be guided by truth. If you don’t know truth, you can’t be guided by truth. But unfortunately, you can know truth and not be guided by truth. And those are the options we have. And so he tells us that the way that this Christian life is going to have to be lived, is by abiding in the one who can produce the life inside of you, to produce his life in you. And he gave the most marvelous illustration in Scripture to me, I’m the vine, you’re the branch. And he that abides in Me, and I in him, he it is that will bear much fruit but apart from me, you can do how much? Zilch nothing. That’s a zero with all the edges knocked off of it. You can’t do anything that God is looking for, apart from God doing it in in and through you. You can go drive a car without Jesus, I drove a car for many years without Jesus, you can get educated for sure without Jesus. And you get degrees without Jesus. And you can do all of that stuff without Jesus. But there is no way for you to experience the fruit of the Spirit of love, and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness, and long suffering apart from Jesus. And that’s why we discount all those things. Don’t talk to me about those things. I can’t do them. Talk to me about tithing records. Talk to me about church attendance, talk to me about activities, talk to me about potlucks, bingo, whatever it is, talk to me about anything except love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and goodness, I don’t want to talk about those things, why? I can’t produce them. And so that is what Jesus wanted us to know, you can’t produce those things. Only I can produce them. And that’s why you need my life living in you. You need my life living in you, because that’s the only source of eternal life that you’re ever going to have. And if you ever have any intention at all of living eternally into my presence, you’re going to have to be indwelt by me today. Not tomorrow, today. But when you are indwelt, by me, you will be indwelt by the very life of God Himself, living in you, that’s your only hope of glory.

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Bob George 13:13
And he spent great sums of time guys, these are a lot of instructions. That all took place on this Wednesday. And I want you to get this straight Wednesday, all day, all day on Wednesday, we’re going to go through the chronology of the cross. All day on Wednesday. He was teaching his disciples about these things. And he talked about the Holy Spirit of God in 16. And 17, he prayed his priestly prayer when he prayed for all of his disciples and not only for them, but for us as well. Now after the day of teaching on Wednesday, they had supper together on Wednesday evening. And after that supper, it says that they moved over to the garden, they went over to the Mount of Olives, which was about a mile and a half from where they held their last supper together. And where Judas went out to betray Jesus. That was on a Wednesday evening. Later that night, in the Mount of Olives, Judas through his betrayal led people with lanterns it talks about which shows you it was in the evening, that evening. And they came and arrested Jesus. That was afterwards that was that evening they arrested Christ. They took him to the home of the high priest who was Annas and Annas questioned him. And I believe there was torture that took place because he was hated by the Jewish leadership. Now guys, Jesus was a Hebrew. He was not a Gentile never has been a Gentile. He was a Hebrew. And all of the leadership would be on the par today with what you would, what you would refer to today is, as the you will see very orthodox Jews, have you seen them, they’d wear in the black, they, they’re very dedicated, they they don’t drive anyplace on Sabbath, they walk, they honor the Sabbath. If you go to Israel, they got those curly Q’s out their heads, and all that kind of stuff. They’re very orthodox. Well, there are other areas of Jewish religion, got your conservative branch, they don’t like orthodox. The guides that we’ve had over in Israel couldn’t stand the Orthodox. So you got other branches to other branches of Judaism. And it’s amazing to me that no one hates the leaders of those things. And they were doing nothing different than what Jesus did. He was going up against the Orthodox and saying you’re a bunch of phonies. You’re all clean on the outside, but you’re dirty on the inside. You’re preaching stuff that you yourself, do not even understand or do. You’re a phony. And so there was Jesus one of their own, just like an orthodox over here today, and then a conservative saying you’re a phony. And they decided to kill him. They didn’t like him. They didn’t like their own. This is not a Jew not liking a gentile or vice versa. They didn’t like their own he was a Hebrew. But they didn’t like what he taught because he got underneath the skin of the phony. And you know, you don’t like people that get underneath your skin when you’re phony. When you’re phony, you become a good phony. And you become a proficient phony. And you become a great actor, have you not, and you pray to God that no one ever finds out what’s going on underneath the skin. And someone coming along and identifying what’s going on underneath the skin. It irritates you don’t like him, he knows me. And they hated Jesus because of that. Hated him, one of their own, not anti semitic, one of their own. He came into his own, and his own received Him not, but to as many as received Him. To them, he gave the right to do what? Become a child of God. And so Jesus was arrested by people who hated him. This was not all Jews, any more than a leader of a country, putting people into war that everybody wants to be in war. But it was the leadership, the Hebrew leadership that were the interpreters of the Word of God. And they were the Orthodox and they hated him. And so the high priest would have been the hater of the haters. And so they took him that evening, he went to Annas and then Caiaphas through the night, they would have been talking to him, badgering him, and ultimately would have placed him in what is called an isolation hole. And if you go over to Israel today, and you go into the home of Annas or Caiaphas, you’ll see that it’s a hole that’s about this wide, goes down into the ground, 12 15 feet, and they would take a man and stuff him down into that hole where he couldn’t move, standing up all night long. All night long. Jesus hadn’t been asleep since Tuesday, taught his disciples all day Wednesday, had a Wednesday meal was arrested, taken into Annas house and into Caiaphas. House, tortured, beaten, stuffed in a hole all night long.

The next day, this now is Thursday morning. They left Caiaphas’ house. And I said early in the morning. This is Thursday morning now, early in the morning, they took him to Pilate’s house. And there we’ve heard the recordation of what Pilate interviewed him and he said I found no fault of this man and why are you bringing him to me? You’re the one who has a problem with him. And he say Well, the reason I’m bringing him to you as a Gentile person is because we Jews can’t kill a man and we want you to kill it. We just want to initiate it. But we want you to carry out the dirty work. Well, Pilate didn’t want to do that. And if you’re following along, you’ll see in the Gospel of John doesn’t record, Pilate sending Jesus over to Herod. But here they went from Caiaphas house, beat up, tortured all night long, no sleep, went over from Caiaphas’ house, went over to Pilate’s, Pilate in Luke 23:1 sends him over to Herod that’s across town. Herod then sends him back to Pilate, that’s also across town. And finally, at noon, Pilate sentences Jesus to death and that can be picked up. In chapter 19, verse 14, sentenced Jesus to death finally gave up. Pilate was weak, Pilate in order to not have an insurrection on the part of the Jewish people, on days of holidays, gave in and said, first of all, I can release one prisoner to you. How about Barabbas he was a hated insurrectionist. They said we don’t want Barabbas we want Jesus. We want Jesus. And you can imagine, if you will, for a moment, Barabbas as well as Jesus knew full well what the custom was, they knew full well that you could release one person for crucifixion. And you can almost hear Barabbas, who was sitting back in a prison someplace, not hearing what was going on outside, and all of a sudden, they hear Barabbas Barabbas. And he’s thinking, this is my day, this is it. But they weren’t saying Barabbas. to crucify, they were saying Barabbas to free. Why? They wanted to kill Jesus, why? He didn’t agree with their orthodoxy. He didn’t agree with their religion, he didn’t agree with their interpretation of religion. They’re harsh, mean, vindictive, religion. He believed in love. He believed in underneath the skin, of getting the people down here where we live instead of this outward facade that we live behind. And so he sentenced him to death. And we’re told that that was at noon, but the six hour we read it a Bible, which is 12 o’clock. And that’s when the sentence, sentencing took place.

For the next hours, Jesus hung on a cross, it came down to a point where this was a special holiday. And we’ll get into that in a moment. And they did not want them to be hanging on a cross on the Sabbath. And so they ask that they allow them to break their legs, that would be premature death on a cross. Because death on a cross, you can hang there for two to three days suffocating, and you’re lifting yourself up to get air and breaking the legs, you can’t lift yourself up. So you just hang there and suffocate. So because this was done on a Thursday, and they did not want him to be hanging on a cross over their Sabbath, they asked for permission to break the legs of the of the thieves and of Jesus. And so they broke the legs of the thieves on the sides of Jesus. But when they came to Jesus, to break his legs, he was already dead. They couldn’t understand that, because you don’t die that quickly. So his death was not brought about really by the effects of crucifixion it was, quite frankly, I believe, when you see, the spear was stuck into his side and out came blood and water. Some doctors will tell you that as a sign of a broken heart. And so they did not break the legs of Jesus which followed up with the prophecy, prophecies that not one bone in his body would be broken. The prophecy from the Old Testament. This happened on Thursday. He was buried on Thursday, Thursday night.

Now let me explain to you why this is so. We celebrate Good Friday. Thursday it was called the day of preparation. It was a Jewish holiday. It was called the day of preparation. It was the day when it was the responsibility of the Jews to go into their house and have what you and I would call a spring house cleaning. You clean out everything that has leaven in it. Even if you had cooked bread recently. You had to clean that out. because the smell of leaven would still be there. And so the day of preparation was the day in which they cleaned out their homes, cleaned them out thoroughly of anything that had leaven in it. Because the next day, which was the first, the first day of the Feast of the unleavened bread, and as we’ll read in just a moment is called a special Sabbath. As a matter of fact, turn with me right now, if you will, to verse chapter 19. And we’ll just kind of cover some of these things. As we’re going. First of all, look up into fourth verse 14. In chapter 19, are we all together? You’ll see up there and if you mark your Bible, you might want to circle these things. You’ll see it was the day of preparation of Passover week, and it was the sixth hour, which is noon. That’s what we just talked about. That’s where the sentence was placed upon Jesus, preparation day. Now, if you’ll go down to verse 31, we all together? This was the day of preparation. And the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Now guys in the Hebrew history, there were many Sabbath. A Sabbath was not just from Friday to Saturday, Friday night to Saturday night, there were many Sabbath’s and on this day, it is called a special Sabbath. And the special Sabbath was the day, not the day of preparation, but it was the first day of the celebration of the feast of the Unleavened Bread. That was called a special Sabbath that was not on Saturday as we know it today that would have been on Friday, the special Sabbath.

Announcer 27:16
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 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 in praise the Lord. Amen.