Radio Broadcast Monday 08/29/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ P73 (08-29-22)

The Peace of God That Passes All Understanding ~ Understanding His Love For Us

~ “When it comes to the fruit of the Spirit of love, of joy, of true peace, patience, kindness, goodness, that has to come from the Spirit, I cannot get the peace of God that passes all understanding in the world. That has to come from God, just like Joy has to come from God and Love that we’re talking about in First Corinthians 13, that is neither eros nor phileo, but it’s a word called agape. And agape means unconditional, love, no strings attached to it absolutely independent of the behavior of the one being loved, totally dependent upon the nature of the one doing the loving. And so all of those things have to be produced within, like I said, peace. What is it? What does Paul say about that? It’s the peace of God that passes all understanding. “

Listen in to today’s lesson with more in-depth teaching, 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.

Bob George 0:45
One of the reasons that this is such an important teaching but it’s such an important lesson the all of these lessons on love is because surprisingly, enough, love is probably one of the most misunderstood terms that is known to man. It doesn’t make any difference of nationality, color, creed, background, Israelite, Gentile, slave free, it doesn’t matter have an ounce of difference over the times from Adam on this thing of love is thrown around in every avenue that you can imagine. We all look for it, we all seek it, we all need it, but we don’t know where to find it, nor do we know how to give it. One of the things in the English language that is confusing, but on the other hand, I don’t want us to start thinking that the confusion comes from just the limitation of the English language because the Greek language that was the most descriptive language that probably the world has ever known. The Greeks were as confused with this as we are. So it isn’t the case of just a language misinterpretation. But I will say that in the Greek language, you get a little better idea of what the word love at least means or what its meaning is then many times we can do here with our with a limitation of our English language. But in the Greek language, and that is the language that the New Testament was written in. You have three major words for love. One word is Eros. Now, that word is not used in the New Testament, you and I can get a glimpse of that you’ll see down on in some areas of cities that where the sex trade takes place, you’ll see eros bookstores, who you’ll hear, you’ll see this word eros out there. And so it means exactly what it’s advertised to mean, it’s it’s all sexual. And it’s a word for sexual activity and sexual expression, which is called love, which in essence is no love at all. So that word is eros. And again, it was used in the Greek language, but it was not used in the New Testament.

The other word for love is phileo. Now that would be a Greek word that where I would assume that we would get as in our English language, the word Philadelphia philanthropic, those type of terms would come from that root word, phileo. Now phileo Love is a friendship, love. It, quite frankly, is the best that we can do on a human level. It’s friendship. It’s that I we can say I love you, brother, you know. And what it means is, well, I really like you and you’re really my friend. But if you do if you do what I don’t want you to do, why I’ll just stab you in the back. I mean, and we find ourselves capable of doing those type of things. So it may be genuine at the time. But it is also shaky conditional and it is absolutely conditional. So it’s it’s like the word happy or I like you. Well, why do I like you? Well, I like you because you’re doing what I like for you to do. Because if you don’t do what I like for you to do, why I don’t like you. And when you do what I like for you to do, I do like you so I can experience liking someone I can experience being liked by someone. But it is conditional. It’s again, Bob somewhat like the word happy. And that word happy comes from an Anglo Saxon word hap H A P and it’s based upon I am happy. Why? Well because of what is happening. Same reason I like you. I like you because I like what you’re doing. I’m happy because there happens to be circumstances that are making me happy. And when things are happening the way that I want them to happen, why then I’m happy. And when things are not happening the way I want them to happen, I’m unhappy. So that’s as good as we can get on that. Now, it’s interesting, isn’t it that there is a word unhappy. But there is no word un-joy. And so in the Scripture, what you have is not a concentration at all on happiness, but on joy, because joy has to come internally from God. Joy is not predicated upon circumstances on what you’re doing. It’s predicated upon who you are and what he is doing in you. It’s called the fruit of the Spirit. So joy is produced by the Spirit. Happiness is produced by circumstances, unhappiness is produced by circumstances, liking someone is as a result of circumstances, good or bad. And all of that is circumstantial in nature.

When it comes to the fruit of the Spirit of love, of joy, of true peace, patience, kindness, goodness, that has to come from the Spirit, I cannot get the peace of God that passes all understanding in the world. That has to come from God, just like Joy has to come from God and Love that we’re talking about in First Corinthians 13, that is neither eros nor phileo, but it’s a word called agape. And agape means unconditional, love, no strings attached to it absolutely independent of the behavior of the one being loved, totally dependent upon the nature of the one doing the loving. And so all of those things have to be produced within, like I said, peace. What is it? What does Paul say about that? It’s the peace of God that passes all understanding. Now there’s worldly peace, just like there’s worldly happiness, and there’s worldly substitutions for what we call love. But none of those will ever satisfy the heart of man, that is a spiritual being cannot, those things cannot be satisfied, those are spiritual needs that cannot be satisfied by the world. So we go out and we say, I need some peace. So we go out by the river and do a little fishing, there’s only one problem with that. You might not get fish, you might have to hold the boat, and you might need to haul the boat home and all of those other things. And if you do experience some temporary peace, that’s precisely what it is, temporary. And when you get back home, even though you’ve you’ve gone out and say got it felt good, I got my mind off of all my problems for a half a day. That’s neat. But when you get back home, they’re right back again. That’s why people say I’m going to move There’s only one problem with moving to get rid of your problems, you’ve got to go. And so if you’re miserable here, you’re going to be miserable there. And so all of those things are predicated upon exterior circumstances, whereas the fruit of the Spirit, love and joy and peace and patience has to be produced within by God, that’s a spiritual need folks, that can only be satisfied spiritually. Therefore, it doesn’t make a difference whether you grew up in the neatest loving personal home in the world, that need for unconditional love from God still cannot be met by a human being and and until you rest in His love, you will be searching for the rest of your life for that completeness that you’re looking for, even though you had on a human level, nothing that should disturb you.

Until man comes to the place in his life, of resting in the spiritual love that is available to us only by God who is Spirit. And the Bible tells us God is Spirit you must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. God alone, living back in man is indispensable to the humanity of the man. take God out of the man you got a man on your hands, but he’s not a complete man. We’re incomplete. That’s why it says in Christ we’ve been made complete. So until a man comes to rest in the unconditional love of God, he will be searching for the rest of his life, for the real things that are missing. And that is this unconditional love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, long suffering, we have to realize, Bob, the fruit of the Spirit are the deepest needs in the heart of a man. Yes, those are the deep ones. You see, but I don’t understand that, then all I can do is to try to substitute the things that are available on the level of the soul, which is the world, look for happiness instead of joy. Look for self, you know, self control, just get it out instead of patience that comes from God, look for happiness. And as I said, instead of joy, look for a worldly calm instead of the peace of God that passes all understanding. And we have no alternative except to try to substitute for what only God can give us. And we have to realize that what man is looking for and why people are sitting in counseling offices are to try to find an answer to this vacuum that is there in regard to Why aren’t these deepest needs met. And so we go to the inner child, and that’s your problem, we go to the fact you are potty trained too early, we go to the fact of how we were brought up and all of those things can affect the humanity of man. There’s no question about that. But our problem isn’t the humanity of man, the problem is the spiritual vacuum of man. And until that spiritual vacuum is filled, we’re never going to find a solution to our humanity. That’s why Paul was able to say, For me to live as Christ, I’m crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And it’s no longer I who live it’s Christ. I have a new identity. So what Paul was saying, is this, that, who I am as a child of God, so if I want to get to know Paul, I’m not going to try to get to know Paul, I’m going to get to know Christ, because Christ now is my life. So if Christ is my life, then who I need to get to know as him. So it’s a spiritual vacuum. It is not a humanity. It’s not the soulish vacuum that we’re experiencing, it’s this spiritual vacuum.

Now, when people are born again, what do we respond to? I don’t know anyone. It wasn’t born again, by a knowledge of the fact that God so loved you that He gave His Son. So what did we respond to? Love. And so all of a sudden, that empty human spirit was filled with the life of God. Now again, who came to fill you? God, who is love, so the love of God came to live within us. Now, that’s spiritual folks. That’s the spiritual aspect of your, of your being of what’s called a human nature, a human being, is a man now who has been made complete by spiritual birth, whereby you’re not only alive bodily and soulishly sleep, but now for the first time, your life, you’re alive spiritually. How did you receive that? Well, if you’re truly born again, there was only one way you received it. And that was by faith in Him and not you. And there’s no one who was born again, who was born again, by pride. Because God gives grace to the humble and he resists the proud, so any at the time you came to Christ, you couldn’t come to Christ with I’m going to come to Christ because I’m a, and you’re going to name some denominational affiliation, or I’m going to come to Christ because I am going to get baptized. I’m sorry, my friends, that is a pride and God does not give grace to a proud heart. He gives grace to a person who says, Lord, here are my hands. They’re empty. I don’t have anything in him and he says, Good Bob, because I don’t want once in your hands. I want your hands I came for you. I didn’t come for what you’ve got. I came for you.

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Bob George 14:15
And so for a man to truly be born again, he comes to the end of himself so that he could come to the beginning of Christ Jesus, there cannot be pride there. And God brings us to the end of ourselves with true salvation. He brings us to the end of our self adequacy. In order to see apart from Christ, we can do nothing. Now when we do we have love living in us. Now what does that spiritual love living in us want to do? Penetrate our minds, we have now the mind of Christ living in us that’s the spiritual aspect. What does that Spirit want to do? Invade our soul now. He wants my mind to know his love. He doesn’t need his mind to know what he already knows it. Christ is living in me. So he wants my mind to know about his love. And we studied that last week in Paul’s prayer where in Ephesians three, he prayed that you and I being rooted and established in love. He didn’t say rooted in established in works, he didn’t say rooted and established in. In some identity man made identity he said, established in love, whose love? God’s love. Now established in that now we’ll have power together with all the saints to grasp now grab a hold of this, wally in it bask in it. Submerge yourself in it, how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. In other words, to know that love, it says that surpasses knowledge. In other words, it’s beyond knowledge. If somebody says explain it to me, I can’t explain it too big for me and, and again, is that hard to understand on a human level. In a man in your courtship days, you say, you just get the love you just your eyes rolling in your head and everything else is you’re just so madly in love and somebody says will explain that to me was I can’t explain that to me, I all I can do to you, I can experience it. But I can’t explain how I love Amy. I can’t explain that. It surpasses knowledge. Now if it does it on the human level, then what in the world do you think he’s talking about on the spiritual level. So he’s saying, that is my prayer that you grasp in your mind, this love of God, and the result of that you’re going to be filled to the measure with all of the fullness of God. In other words, now you’re in a position to be controlled by God.

So now that Christ’s love has come to live within us, he wants to invade our souls, and teach us more and more and more and more and more about the love of God to the point where, as Paul says, on page 82, of your book, who can separate us from the love of Christ. What had happened to Paul? He had come to the point in his life, whereby the invasion of Christ in his life had come to the point where he was able to say for me to live as Christ. For him to say, For me to live as Christ for me to die, that’s gain. I am I fearing death. Are you kidding? I’m going to go into the presence of Christ. I’m crucified with Christ. It’s no longer I who live it’s Christ who lives in me. And I’m convinced that nothing can separate me from the love of God. I’m convinced that what had happened to Paul? Well, he had come to the point where he was filled to the measure with the fullness of God’s love. And he said, and he wasn’t sitting around in Romans 835, and 39, trying to think of some adjectives so how can I put some buzzwords in here. He was saying shall trouble separate you? Why did he say that? Folks? Paul been through a lot of trouble. Yes. How many lashes? Was it that he had taken before he’s dead? Yeah, before he died from the beginning to the end, not at one time, but over a period of time. 100 or more? I think in my particular life, you’d seen the enemy after the first one. I mean, when I look at it, but but that’s the way you feel out like physical pain. But and most people don’t 100 lashes did that separating from the love of God? no. Persecution? How do you How come he knew that man had been persecuted folks, rejected among his own people, which is the hardest thing in the world to do. Rejected by your own friends rejected by your own family. It it I’m sorry, but it’s probably a part of the life. And he said no, that didn’t separate me from the love of God separated me from the affection of people, but not from the love of God. He went through famine, no food, did that separate him? No. He went through nakedness did that separating no danger or sword? Did that separate him? No. And then he said, besides that I faced death for you all day long. And no, he said, No, no, and all these things we are more than conquerors through through him, the one who left us why are we conquerors? Because of being recipients of the love of God? When you’re loved by God, you’re a conqueror.

You’re not a conqueror because you go out with your chest puffed out and say, We’re gonna save the world. You’re not gonna save anybody came save yourself. We’re gonna conquer the world. No, you’re not. God is the only one that’s going to do anything. That’s pride, folks. Those are prideful mindsets. That this idea all I gotta do is ask God to just do it for me. Well, that’s pride. I mean, you got God in a position of being a heavenly vending machine. You’re down here with your quarter of faith sticking it in getting anything you want that Jesus didn’t do that. He said, I don’t do anything unless the Father tells me to. And so, you’re talking about being a conqueror. The reason that I’m a conqueror in this world. And there anything to be proud of just to be joyful over is the fact that I’m a recipient of the unconditional love of God. And I live in that being a recipient of that. Therefore, how can you be anything less than a conqueror? You live basked in the clothed in the love of God. How come he could say that go on for I’m convinced. It’s not just a doctrine, I’m convinced were in my soul, that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor demons, nor the present, or the future, nor any powers, neither height, nor depth, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Why is that important? It why is that important? I mean, it seems like it’s a lot more important for you to be moral, for you to be trying to gain your righteousness for you to be doing all the right things. And what God is saying is my friends, unless you’re loving, there aren’t any right things. You could be yielding your body to the flames as a martyr. And if you don’t have love, it doesn’t mean anything. You could be speaking and teaching the most beautiful stuff in the world. If you don’t have love, you’re just a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. You could be have so much faith that you’re moving mountains around. And if you did, you’d be on television today. You know, telling everybody has a wonderful yard for moving mountains, said, If you don’t have love, you don’t have anything. And then he had described what love is. And we talked about that last week with First Corinthians 13. And that definition of love, in First Corinthians 13 is an impossibility for you and me. But it’s absolutely the way God loves you.

I’m going to spend some time now on a thought that may be new to some of you, our listeners. We studied last week. First Corinthians 13. And if you have your Bibles, you certainly want to open up to that passage. And in there, it defines God himself. The God is love. It defines his attitude toward us. It defines what agape love is, it’s not a feeling it is an attitude of God that is expressed in action to you and me. The very opposite attitude of agape love is not hate, its pride. I want to say that again. When you’re talking about agape, God’s unconditional love not predicated upon the actions of the recipient, but predicated upon the character of the one doing loving. The very opposite of agape love, is pride. Now, folks, I want to, if you can to turn with me for just a moment. If you have time, and if you don’t, I’ll just read it to you to the 13th chapter of the Book of Proverbs. I want you to see something here. In verse 10. It says, pride only breeds quarrels. But wisdom is found in those who take advice. And then when you turn over to the 16th, chapter, verse over the 16th Chapter of verse 17, and 18, you’re going to or 18 rather, you’re going to see pride goes before destruction or goes before the fall, and a haughty spirit before the fall. So pride precedes destruction, and a haughty spirit before the fall. What caused the fall of man? Well it was pride, it was man Adam, being conned by satan in saying you can become like God. And man’s pride saying, I would like to become like God. I don’t like this thing of being a creative being, I’d like to be like my Creator. And so the pride was what caused man to say, God, I don’t think that you were 100% correct when you said Do not eat of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil. After all, what’s wrong with me having the knowledge knowledge of good and evil, it sounds like a good thing for me to know. And if I could know that, why then I could be like you and I really wouldn’t need you and save you an awful lot of time. You wouldn’t have to spend all this time dealing with me. I could just be God myself. Pride comes before the fall. But what I want us to concentrate on for a minute It is this 13th chapter where it says pride only breeds quarrels. In the scriptures, do you remember what it says? What is it that causes quarrels? among you? Isn’t it our own desires isn’t on our own. We want something but we don’t get what we want. And so we just feud and fight and fuss over it. Don’t we? In the fourth chapter of James, what causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your your desires that battle within you? You want something and you don’t get it. Well, what’s that? That’s pride. You kill and covet. What’s killing and coveting something? I want something. I deserve something. But you can’t have what you want. Well, God forbid that I wouldn’t get what I wanted. Wonderful me. So you quarl and you find you do not have because you don’t ask God. Why don’t you ask God pride? I don’t need to ask God. Go get it myself. And when you do ask you don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. What’s that? Well, that’s pride. And he says your adulterous people. What do you mean, you’re connected to me, but you’re flirting with the world. You’re having intercourse with the world? And don’t you know that that kind of friendship with the world basically is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. And folks, that is, if you’re in a military, and your commanding officer said, attack, and you said, I don’t want an attack. What are you doing? Well, I’m a friend of the enemy. That’s always good. Now, I’m not sitting here thinking, I think I’m a friend of the enemy. It’s just the byproduct of your disobedience to your commanding officer makes you a friend of the enemy. In other words, your choices are going to be destructive to the very army that you’re in.

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.