Radio Broadcast Monday 09/12/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ P79 (09-12-22)

The Only Thing That Counts is Faith Expressing Itself Through Love

~ “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Mark my words! I, Paul, tell you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ will be of no value to you at all. Again I declare to every man who lets himself be circumcised that he is obligated to obey the whole law. You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” Galatians 5:1-6

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 0:44
We’re going to be picking up in our lesson at the top of page 82. When we’re dealing with Paul’s statement in Romans 8:35 to 39, of Who shall separate us from the love of Christ. Now, folks, the whole training and teaching that we have been doing over these last number of weeks as it relates to the subject of love, is a subject that cannot be over emphasized. And yet it is one of those things that is it possibly in many, in many respects is not over emphasized and verbiage, but it is absolutely unknown as to what it means. And I think that’s the that’s the thing, the Scripture tells us so clearly, that the only thing that counts is faith, expressing itself through love. And we’re going to look at that Paul came to a point where he said that I’m convinced that nothing can separate us from the love of God. He, of course, that us includes me that nothing can separate me from the love of God. It also means, Bob, that nothing could separate you from the love of God. What it is saying is to the body of Christ, nothing can separate you from the love of God, you’re going to have trouble. You’re going to have hardship, you’re going to have persecution. If you’re going to teach and be involved in believing, not just teaching, living, believing, and the abiding life of Christ Jesus as the Christian life, you’re going to undergo persecution from the legalist and to the self righteous, who are out trying to accomplish a physical goal rather than abiding in the love of God. So you’re going to experience that. The body of Christ, the true Body of Christ, could very easily experienced famine, it could experience nakedness, danger and sword. But he’s convinced that neither life nor death, nor angels, nor demons nor the present, nor the future, nor any powers, neither height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ, Jesus our Lord. Now Paul became convinced of that. It wasn’t one of those things when he says, I just kind of believe this, I have become convinced that nothing can separate us. That’s the body of Christ me, that’s an individual member, the body of Christ, from the love of God, that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Now, as we go to the next question in 2nd Corinthians 5:14, why we see there where Paul says, For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all and therefore all died. Now, what is he saying there? It is Christ’s love that controls us or compels us. We’ve talked about before Bob, the prayer that the apostle Paul prayed, and we talked about that in the some of our earlier teaching in Ephesians, 3:17 and 18, when he prayed, that you being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to do something, not go out and do something. But to grasp something. Now you see, when we think that I want power, it’s the power to do something. Some people, it’s the power to obey the 10 commandments will say lot’s of luck. Yeah. It’s not the power to do anything. It’s the power to grasp something. And Paul is praying that you being rooted and established in the love of God may be able to grasp something even deeper than, than what you’re rooted in. And that is how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. And in other words, the love of Christ is even greater than your persecution, your hardship, your trials. It’s even greater than death or life or angels or demons. It’s greater than the present or the future. It’s greater than any powers of this world or any kingdoms of this world, it’s greater than the heights. With no measure the depth with no measure, it’s greater than anything else in all creation. And nothing can separate you from that. So he says, I want you to see how wide and long and high and deep is this love of Christ. And then to know this love, not just know about it, but to know this love that surpasses knowledge. In other words, it’s got to be revealed to you by the Spirit.

And we’ve talked about that how in Corinthians, it tells us that no eye has seen, nor ear has heard, and our mind is conceived of those things that God has prepared for those who love Him. But it must be revealed by the Spirit. So when you’re dealing about the height and depth and width and length of the love of God, that is something that’s going to have to be revealed to you and me ultimately, by the Spirit of God. And when that occurs when the Spirit reveals that to you. And folks, we don’t like the way that many times it has to be revealed to us. But it’s when we’re in hardships, and we’re in trouble. And we’re in the midst of persecutions and famine and nakedness and sword. That’s when the love of God gets revealed to you by the Spirit, because you certainly aren’t seeing when someone’s beaten half to death, the love of God and action. But you can experience the love of God in action. That’s how the people going into the coliseums in the early days of Christians to be fed to the lions, when in sing praises to God and the world looks on that and says, I don’t understand that today, we’d be picketing the Colosseum. But in those days, they were in praising God in the midst of facing lions going into death. But so the world looks upon that and says, I don’t understand that. If I was getting ready to be thrown to a lion, I’d be petrified those people they’re singing, I don’t understand it. But whatever there is, my curiosity is stirred to the point that I’d like to find out. You don’t have to sit around and wonder someone that picketing the Coliseum. You’re not sitting there saying, Gee, I wonder what that is, it makes them so wonderful. You’re saying get out of the way so I can get in. But you see, you see people in that Coliseum getting ready to be fed to the lions singing praises to God, the lost world is going to say, I don’t know what they’ve got. But whatever it is, I don’t have it. So it’s so we keep thinking that power comes from getting a group of people together and, and creating political pressure on something. But God says no power comes from your standing firm and the love of God, in the midst of the trials and tribulations that you are going through. And that’s why you’ll see verses that are very confusing to the human heart in regard to thinking statements like Slaves, obey your masters, you say What do you mean slaves obey your master? Don’t you know slavery is wrong? You think maybe Paul didn’t realize that slavery was wrong? And you think maybe Jesus didn’t realize the injustice of slavery? Well, yes, I think they did. But it’s not going to be solved by trying to cure slavery. It was cured as slaves were led to a saving knowledge of Christ, and then started willfully serving their masters. And a master says, What’s in that person? What’s causing that to take place? He says, Jesus, and the master says, can I find out about this Jesus. And then the master comes to Christ, such as the one who wrote amazing grace, and the master comes to Christ. And then, as a slave owner, he says, I cannot function this way any longer, and he stops being a slave owner, not because someone picketed his chips. But because someone invaded his heart.

As we continued talking about this area of love. It talked about as that we grasp, and begin to know this love that surpasses knowledge that can only be revealed to us by the Spirit of God, the depth of that. It says, there’s a result of that. And that is that you are filled to the measure with all of the fullness of God. In other words, you become filled with the understanding of the love of God, you become controlled by the love of God. Now, that’s what Paul is talking about in this passage that we just read a moment ago in 2nd Corinthians 5:14, for Christ’s love compels us. In other words, because we’re convinced that one died for all and therefore all died. Well, what is the love of God that compels us? It’s the knowledge of what he did for a corpse. It’s a knowledge of how God looked down on man saw us in our total spiritual death, destitute, alienated from God, lost in our sins, dead in our sins. And in that condition of being in spiritual darkness provided a way whereby we could step out of the darkness into the light and become sons of the living God, not because we deserve it, not because we have earned it, but because of his love for us. That is love that was so demonstrated to us in that while we were yet sinners, lost, alienated, in Adam dead in our trespasses and sin, uncircumcised in our sinful nature, all of those things, that he demonstrated his love toward us in that while we were in that condition, he came to die for us. And I don’t know what a greater demonstration it would take than that. So and to realize that when Christ died for me, that He died for all of those who were dead. Now, why did he do that, so that he could bring an offer life to the dead, in order to offer a life to the dead, that was a life called eternal life. He had to deal with what caused spiritual death to begin with, in Adam, which was transferred, therefore, to each and every one of us who are born into this world in Adam. As Adam became, we all became we were all born, we didn’t become that way. We were born that way. And so that is dead spiritually. So when Christ came to enter this earth, He came alive, spiritually, not dead, like we were born, but alive, and laid down that life for us. He shared in our spiritual death, so that we could share in His resurrection.

But that was love that caused all of that, Bob, there’s no other explanation for that, except God looking down on his creation, seeing us in our state of spiritual death, and then providing life and like I say, in order to give us eternal life, he had to deal with that thing that caused spiritual death to begin with, and that was sin. And so at the cross is where he who knew no sin, became sin for us. We convinced that one died for all, we all died, He became sin for us, and entered into our spiritual death. So he who knew no sin became sin so that we could become the righteousness of God. How folks, if you are in Christ, you have become the righteousness of God. That’s good news. That means I did not work for that righteousness, I could not earn that righteousness that you see everything in the pride of man says, I want to earn that. And you just watch me for a while you watch me keep my promises. You watch me obey the law. You watch me live by these principles. You watch me be an ethical moral man, you watch all of that God because I want you to see that I am a righteous person. And God looks down once again and says My poor deceived human being. Don’t you know there is none righteous, no, not one. All have sinned, all have fallen short of the glory of God. If righteousness could be gained through obedience through the law, Christ died for nothing. If righteousness could be gained through your being moral, Christ died for nothing. If righteousness what could be gained by your being ethical, then Christ died for nothing. If righteousness could be gained through your keeping your promises Christ died for nothing. Don’t you see that all of those things are centered on you and what you’re doing instead of him and what he is doing?

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Bob George 14:09
Don’t you see that you today as a Christian are no different than an Jew? Who had said instead of receiving the righteousness that comes from God, you sought to establish your own and you stumbled over the stumbling stone, and to the people who did not work for it received it and to you who are working for it are not going to receive it? Don’t you see that your mindset is going to lead people into a pathway of an additional pathway of legalism whereby we are out striving to do for God in order to get God to do something for us. Instead of receiving what he has already done for us. Don’t you see that your desire to clean up America instead of realizing the depravity of your own flesh? And so we are out again it trying to make America cleaned when our flesh is dirty. And when we don’t understand that Bob, and we’ve got people by the 1000s, at trying to clean up America when we ourselves individually, if it was not for Christ, Jesus would have never been cleansed of all of our unrighteousness, never been forgiven of all of our sins apart from the cross of Jesus Christ, my promises, my commitments, my ethics, my morality, mean nothing to that. And we can sit out and as good as these things may sound, they are absolutely, as it says in Scripture, meaningless as it comes to suppressing sensual indulgences. And it says, Why are you returning to those basic principles of the world? Don’t do this, don’t do that. Don’t eat this, don’t drink this, why are you returning to those principles, when those principles will never make you right in the sight of God. And it makes you wonder, with the response that can take place to here’s a new set of ethics for all of us to keep and how we will flock to those things, and absolutely reject that the only thing that counts is faith, expressing itself through love. And that is not faith in me and what I’m doing or what I commit to do, or what I don’t commit to do, it’s faith in him and what he alone did on our behalf. God’s love compels us what causes the love to compel us by my preoccupied with me and what I’m doing? Of course not. It’s only preoccupied with him, and what he is doing, that’s what brings love not that we loved him. But what? he loved us first in 1st John 4:19. Why do we love because he loved us first. Well, how am I ever going to learn about his love for me when I’m preoccupied and what I’m doing for him. And I understand that to a degree because there was a time in my life as a brand new immature baby Christian that I got involved in those things. But folks, God did not intend for me to remain a baby, immature Christian, he wants us to grow up and quit acting like babies. And babies are self centered. And babies are totally preoccupied with what I’m doing. And what I’m not doing. Babies are constantly looking for a reward from mom in exchange for what I do. I took out the garbage, please give me some candy. I went to bed on time, please give me this. In other words, constantly looking for rewards. What is that? It’s it’s immaturity. It’s baby stuff. When you grow up, you’re not looking to do in order to get, you should be looking to do because it’s the thing to do. I want to walk in the newness of life because it makes sense to walk in the newness of life. I want to receive the love of God because it’s been offered to me. I don’t do to get, I get because he did. And it’s what we love, because He loved us first. And how again, as I say, How in the world am I going to be preoccupied with his love for me when I’m preoccupied and what I’m trying to do for him?

And folks, it’s a form of legalism, that that is taking place today. It is just a devastating, subtle form of legalism, that as good as intentions might be it is going to be devastating to the human experience. Because when the more that man stands up and commits what he’s going to do for God, the more he’s going to be falling on his face. And before long, he’s going to give up on everything because he will say, I can’t do it. I hope to God that when that occurs, there’s someone there who will say, Thank God, you finally got it. I never said you could and I never thought you would. In fact, I told you all along that apart from me, you can do nothing. Abiding. What is abiding trying to keep God’s laws? folks come on. What how much instruction do we need that we can not obey the laws? You couldn’t obey it before you were saved, and you can obey him after you’re saved. And if you did, what would the benefit be? When Jesus said if you violate the least of these in your entire lifetime, you violate all of them. And a man who’s under the laws under a curse. We don’t live by the law today, folks. You don’t live by Christian principles. Suppose you don’t live by Christian ethics, because quite frankly, you probably wouldn’t know what if it hit you in the face? Because we develop our own ethics. We develop our own criteria for what is right and what is wrong. A Christian doesn’t live a life of what is right and what is wrong. You live your life in, am I abiding in the life of Christ Jesus or arn’t I? If I am, he will be creating the things that are right and wrong. Otherwise, I’m trying to do right and wrong in the energy of my own flesh. And guess what the outcome of that is going to be? The issue of the Christian life is, am I trusting Christ? Or aren’t I trusting Christ? The only thing that counts is faith, expressing itself through love. Not Is that true, folks? Or isn’t it true? The only thing he didn’t say one of the things that kind of counts is faith expressing itself through love. It says the only thing that counts the only thing is faith, expressing itself through love.

John 14:15 If you love me, you obey what I command. Well, you see, we’d look at that and say, Oh, see there? If we love we’re gonna be the 10 commandments. No. He says, If you love me, you will obey what I command. Well, what is his command? Well, if you keep reading, he’ll tell you my command is this love each other. How? as I have loved you, what did we just say, the only thing that matters is faith, what? expressing itself through what? love. First of all, love for God. And it’s not that we loved him, but he loved us first and then love for his body, which hopefully, is you and me.

We’re talking about the Christian life, folks, we’re talking about something much deeper than going to a function or an activity, or going to church or not going to church, or you were talking about what Jesus said is, what the life is down here. The world will know that you’re my disciples, by your loved one toward another. The world isn’t gonna know you’re my disciples, by your commitments, by your obedience to the law. As a matter of fact, take a look at the people who committed to those type of things, they were called Pharisees and look what ultimately the love that came out of them when they nail Jesus to a cross. Because it’s that kind of thing that creates pride. All of a sudden, we get a group of people together, and we’ve committed ourselves to be this and to be that, you tell me how in a very short period of time, folks, how that group cannot get proud of what they’re doing and what they’re not doing. And begin to look down on those who aren’t doing and not doing what they are doing. And I’ve set these set of principles that really are the criteria for spirituality. And I’m doing that I’m so wonderful, and I’m so righteous. But this, the rest of the world out there just doesn’t have it. Folks, there is no option to that type of thing, there is no option, you will begin pride sets in and pride comes before the fall.

I don’t know how we can read the Scripture and walk around with an idea of what I’m going to do for God. I don’t know how that we can read the Scripture and think that I am going to bring honor to God in some way by what I do, and what I don’t do. God doesn’t need me to bring honor to himself, my goodness, you can just look around and see nature and bring all the honor that he needs. And that still doesn’t cause people to believe. We keep thinking that our influence is going to do something. And again, folks think about this for a moment. I want you to think about this for a moment. All of a sudden, we get a group of people together, who say that the problem with the world is that we need to be more have more integrity. And so we get a group together and we’re going to be the integrity folks. And and the reason that the world is in such a lousy condition is because we don’t have integrity. Now what is that saying? Well, what that is saying is that with the world in which we see totally going downhill in every aspect of life that the reason that it is is because this group of men didn’t have integrity. So in other words, your father’s your grandfather’s, your forefathers, all these people didn’t have any integrity. But you do. Yeah, we’re going to we’ve really got this integrity. We’re really men of this integrity. Now my father wasn’t and all these other slobs out there didn’t have any but but we’re gonna get it. In other words, we’ve just developed something new called integrity. And you look at that folks they want in the world we think about, why do we think all of a sudden we’re going to do what the Jews who were steeped in God’s laws, I mean, they knew the scriptures, upside down backwards and forwards, they had a little box on their forehead, they had it written on their doors, they knew the law better than we’ll ever know it. And they crucified the Son of God. And were mean and vindictive and prideful to the point that when righteousness was offered to them, it was totally rejected because we are going to create our own righteousness. We’re where do we come up with the idea that all of a sudden we discover this new thing, and we’re going to do it, even though obviously, the world before us didn’t do it, or the world wouldn’t be in a bad shape that it’s in. Folks, the problem with the world is called sin in case somebody hadn’t figured that out. It’s called sin. When sin entered into the world in Adam, the world fell. And the only solution to sin is not anything you and I can do. The only solution to sin is what God Himself did, when he sent his only begotten Son into this world, to die on a cross and to impute life to the dead, so that whosoever will believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life. That’s the only solution to sin. That is the only solution to a country that is nothing but a bunch of people. And we are more preoccupied with trying to save America than we are saving the people in America. And people are not going to be saved through your and my good examples. Were going to be saved through his example.

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.