Thanksgiving P2 – Bob George (11-26-24)
Thank God for His Gifts to Us All of The Body of Christ
~ For just as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of the body being many are one body, so also is Christ. For also in one Spirit we all were baptized into one body, whether Hebrews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink one Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:12,13
Each of us who are in Christ Jesus has been given a job to do today. That job begins with “believing in Jesus,” for that is the work of the ministry.
John 6:28,29
Therefore they said to Him, “What must we do, that we may be doing the works of God?”
Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you should believe in Him whom He has sent.”
We have been given our marching orders, and they are not orders in the traditional sense, but they are instructions for us to follow on a moment by moment basis. He instructs us on what to do and say when the time is right. He teaches us what to say when the time is right to say it. He tells us to do the things he wants us to do when the time he wants us to do it. We live by faith from first to last. And when we are abiding in him, he gives us certain gifts to be used by Him at such proper times that he knows and works everything out for good no matter what. And that is to direct people to believe in the TRUE Jesus, not the Jesus of their own imaginations, or what their religious denomination taught them, or even what false evangelists taught, or what Satan’s transformed ministers of righteous taught. “And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works.” 2 Corinthians 11:14,15
This is the work of the ministry is to believe in Jesus. To trust in Him. To understand that he and he alone is the author of ALL TRUTH. To teach others that the Holy Spirit of God lives in them if they are in Christ too. And as such, you have the body of Christ everywhere on earth today. He is showing us what it means to abide in Him. We who are in Christ are to build the body of Christ up in Love and TRUTH. And that Love is ALWAYS based on TRUTH indeed. And Truth sometimes hurts when we hear it, because we didn’t realize we were going astray from Him to begin with. We got caught up in the lies of Satan and the world, and we didn’t even know it. But God in His wisdom, sent gifts to the body of Christ in the way of Holy Spirit gifts, as well as people based gifts. And each one of us is to be thankful for those gifts that have been given to us, the body of Christ Jesus. And one of the big gifts given to each of us is to be a Truth teller. And we know that Jesus is TRUTH. So share Jesus and the TRUTH today with people. For that is the work of the ministry, to believe on Jesus.
~ Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Romans 12:1
~ For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed—a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” Romans 1:17
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~ “Now, when we were talking a couple of weeks ago about spiritual gifts, I want us to delineate, just for a moment, the difference in those gifts. When you have spiritual gifts that were given, gifts of giving. We talked about that last week, didn’t we? Gifts of admonishment, gifts of encouragement, all of those type of gifts that are listed. Also in the book of Ephesians. It talks about four additional gifts that are not spiritual gifts that you have, but that the person themselves is a gift. It said he gave to the body of Christ, some to be evangelists, some to be prophets, some to be pastor teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for their work of ministry. Now we’ve talked about before that what the work of ministry is, is to believe in Jesus. And when they came to Jesus and asked, Lord, what is the work of the ministry? His answer was, this, is the work of the ministry to believe in Me. In other words, the work of the ministry is to trust Jesus. If you went to a branch and said, the branch said, Hey, what’s the work of the branch? What would you say? To abide in the vine. Why? Because if you don’t abide in the vine, you may as well cut you off and throw you into the fire, because you’re not gonna be able to produce anything that anybody’s looking for. So the work of the ministry is to abide in Jesus. So what is the work of the evangelist? To teach people to trust Jesus. What was the job of the Prophet? To teach people to trust Jesus. What is the job of the pastor teacher? To teach people to trust Jesus, to walk by faith in Jesus. And so those are not spiritual gifts. The people themselves are the gift.” ~ Bob George
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Bob George 0:29
So those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good. Now he’s going to as we close the book of First Peter, he’s talking to the elders among you and I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ’s sufferings, and one who will also share in the glory to be revealed. Be shepherds of GOD’s flock. Now, people who are in that position of being pastor teacher, he says you should Shepherd your flock, that is under your care, serving as overseers. Because, not because you must, but because you are willing as God wants you to be. So what he’s saying is, if you’re going to function in an attitude of servitude, as a pastor, as a teacher, whoever that might be, in a position that God put you in as leadership, do so willingly. Do so joyfully. Look at yourself as an overseer, not because you have to be, but because you really want to be, because God has put that on your heart.
Now, when we were talking a couple of weeks ago about spiritual gifts, I want us to delineate, just for a moment, the difference in those gifts. When you have spiritual gifts that were given, gifts of giving. We talked about that last week, didn’t we? Gifts of admonishment, gifts of encouragement, all of those type of gifts that are listed. Also in the book of Ephesians. It talks about four additional gifts that are not spiritual gifts that you have, but that the person themselves is a gift. It said he gave to the body of Christ, some to be evangelists, some to be prophets, some to be pastor teachers, for the equipping of the saints, for their work of ministry. Now we’ve talked about before that what the work of ministry is, is to believe in Jesus. And when they came to Jesus and asked, Lord, what is the work of the ministry? His answer was, this, is the work of the ministry to believe in Me. In other words, the work of the ministry is to trust Jesus. If you went to a branch and said, the branch said, Hey, what’s the work of the branch? What would you say? To abide in the vine. Why? Because if you don’t abide in the vine, you may as well cut you off and throw you into the fire, because you’re not gonna be able to produce anything that anybody’s looking for. So the work of the ministry is to abide in Jesus. So what is the work of the evangelist? To teach people to trust Jesus. What was the job of the Prophet? To teach people to trust Jesus. What is the job of the pastor teacher? To teach people to trust Jesus, to walk by faith in Jesus. And so those are not spiritual gifts. The people themselves are the gift. God gives an evangelist as an example, does not have a gift of evangelism. Evangelism is his gift. He is the gift as an evangelist to the body of Christ.
So God says, I’m going to make you an evangelist to the body of Christ for the purpose of teaching people how to trust Jesus. That’s what you do in evangelistic campaign. To the Prophet. He is the gift to the pastor teacher, if he is truly sent by God, then He is a gift from God to the body of Christ. It’s not that you’re a person who has the gift of teaching a pastor teacher, is a literal human gift to the body of Christ. Do we understand the difference on that? Now again, a person can who was never sent by God go and get a degree from a seminary. Can they not and qualifies them to go be a pastor when God’s never sent them to do anything. Probably hadn’t even called a unto himself yet. But the issue is that you today, what we’ve done is substitute the call of God on a man’s life into getting a degree from a seminary, and so now you’ve got to be qualified from a cemetery to a seminary in order to get a degree, so that that qualifies you now to go be God’s representative. Well, I got news for you, God doesn’t give degrees, and so we have to understand that truth, that that is how the world has now functioned, because we couldn’t trust God to raise up his people to feed the body of Christ. So if you have someone in your pulpit, or someone who is your teacher, that God has sent, then that person is a gift from God to the body of Christ. But we have to also understand that a person could be into that position by the energy of his own flesh, and of no other desire or will than his own to act in a certain profession. And so those, those gifts, those are people gifts, in comparison to spiritual gifts that we as people have, Okay, any questions on that we know. We know what we’re talking alright?
So it says, as a shepherd to shepherd the flock, serving as overseers, not because you want to but because you’re willing as God wants you to be. Now it says, not greedy for money. If God doesn’t want me to be greedy for money, then he wants to teach you not to be greedy for money. But if I’m greedy for money, what am I going to teach you? To be greedy for money? God forbid. Are there people doing that? Just turn on your Christian television station, and there you will see that. And as a matter of fact, is that not taught that God wants us all to be prosperous, and so all you have to do, and especially is just you send money to me and God will make you prosperous. Well, God will make me prosperous. I don’t know what he’s going to do for you, but he is going to make me prosperous if you buy that lie it. What does the Scripture have to say about that? In Timothy, it says that anyone who teaches that godliness is a means to financial gain, it literally says is a pervert. It is a perverted gospel. And so if it tells the pastor not to be greedy for money. How could you be talking about the fact God wants us to have all the money in the world. He wants us to be prosperous, and he wants us this. And if you’ll just give and you’ll just be obedient to God, well, he will just bless the socks right off of you. Well, I got news for you again, folks, that is not what prosperity is. The only true prosperity that there is in this world is the prosperity that we have as being in Christ, Jesus. Now how we live and what our financial resources are. God blesses people, or maybe sometimes you’re not blessed by getting money.
It’s an amazing thing that they’ve taken surveys. Have they not on people who have won the lottery and seen what’s happened to them, and most of their lives are destroyed. You take the rich and the famous that we all look at with admiration, and you drive through Beverly Hills out in California that we used to be close by, and you look at those big houses, and you say, wonder what’s going I bet they’re just happy as hogs in mud in there. They just read the divorce columns, and you just absolutely realize that you can have a house, but a house and a home are two different things. And so we realize that blessing is not necessary. Money is not necessarily a blessing. It depends on whether God thinks that you able to handle that type of thing. If he does, then I believe that he does give certain people the ability for financial success, because they not only are going to take that money and use it, but they’re going to use it for the perpetuation of the gospel. And so don’t ever get conned into the fact of thinking that godliness is a means to financial gain, because it absolutely is not. Anything wrong with it? Nothing wrong with it. It’s money’s not the root of all evil. It’s the love of money that becomes the root of all evil. And so we have to realize that a pastor, if God, doesn’t want a pastor, teacher, to be greedy for money and he wants us to teach. Why then he certainly doesn’t want you greedy for money as well, but eager to serve.
Now, it also talks about a pastor and a teacher not lording it over those entrusted to you. In other words, the job of an overseer is not to be lording it over people. Now, what does that mean? Trying to control you, trying to tell you how to live your life, trying to control your life. How do you do that? If you don’t understand that you’re not supposed to lord it over people? What by putting people on guilt trips or teaching them false doctrine that will play into your control game.
Now, as far as God is concerned, is there any difference between as an example, if you have a spiritual gift of teaching and you have a spiritual gift of serving, is there any difference in those two gifts? Did God bless one over the other. And said, Is there any difference? Is there any difference in the people? No. Any difference in the gift? Yeah, there’s a difference in the gift, but is there any difference in the quality of the gift? No, it’s just a gift. Well, then, is there any difference between a man being a gift to the body of Christ and the body of Christ? No difference. In other words, are we both saved by faith? Yes, both saved by grace in Christ, by in Christ, Jesus? Yeah, well, then there’s no difference. It’s just an assignment that God has given to you. And so if you’re just an assignment that you have, then why would you want to lord it over somebody as if you were greater than they were, or had some kind of a closer contact with God than they do. And so what he’s saying to it is, we all are where we are today by the grace of God and by the love of God. There’s no heroes in the Christian faith, none. And so he says, Don’t lord it over, it over over those who, who of those entrusted to you, but be examples to the flock. What do you think being example to the flock is going to be? As an example, people look do they not to their pastors or to their teachers to be an example? Don’t they? And then we get in our mind what a good example would be. And. And so we say, well, because that’s kind of a nebulous term of being a good example. Why let’s just make, let’s just make up what a good example would be. Well, you’d certainly want to wear a tie on Sunday. Certainly wouldn’t be interested in things like sports and guys, can you see, I’m just starting. Can you see, if you don’t know what that’s talking about, how you can keep going on and on and on and on and on and on? Certainly it’d be a person who would never get irritated, never get angry, probably never, ever think of even telling them, maybe just a little white lie. And we can go on and on, couldn’t we? Folks, do you know, the only example, if I would be called of God to be an example to you. Do you know, the only example that I would be interested in being to you is the example of trusting Jesus with my life. And that’s it. The only example that I could live up to is the example of trusting Jesus with my life, because if you have any other criteria for your leader besides that, he’s going to disappoint you sooner or later. And so folks, when we get down to this area of being examples, and you get people say we need to be role models. And so you, Amy and I get to see role models about every Wednesday in little deli we go to and they there’s accountability groups in there, and you just see these guys. And I’m going to sound critical. You know why? I am. But God isn’t through with me yet. So if you look to me for an example of never being critical, forget it. But you see these guys, they come into their little heads and their Bibles, and they sit, and this guy, the other day, started praying at the table before the eight and by time he was through praying, their eggs were freezing.
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Bob George 13:45
I mean, I bet he went on for 10 minutes in that restaurant. And here he is supposed to be with this guy that he’s discipling. Well, this poor guy, he isn’t used to doing that. Nobody’s used to doing that. He and here he was. He’s done like this. He’s looking around, you know, and you feel like going up and saying, Well, my brother’s finishing his prayer. I’m going to eat his breakfast. But you look on and people have these kind of stuff, example after example, and then you got all of these things that we put up as criteria for examples. But folks, you could be doing every one of those and not be trusting the Lord at all with your life. And so the only example that really we can, that we can pass on to one another, the only true example you can pass on to your children, is not the way you act necessarily. Although your behavior will be a reflection of your belief in Christ, it isn’t that behavior is not important, but it should be a byproduct of your faith, not bringing about your faith. But the example that your kids could see is my mom trusted the Lord with her life. She went through trials and tribulations, but she trusted Jesus, and my dad trusted Jesus, and he trusted Jesus, that, to me, is the greatest example that you can pass on to the world and to the people around you, that I have a God that I love, and I have a God that I can trust. And if you can communicate that, if that’s a reality in your life, and you can communicate that to each other, you have been a phenomenal example to the flock of Jesus Christ.
Now it says, when the chief Shepherd appears, you’ll receive the crown of glory that will never fade away. Well, if you’re sitting there and you’re a pastor, teacher, whatever you might be, or a shepherd of the flock, or whatever it might be, and you say, Ooh, good. I’m going to get one of those crowns. Should I be sitting around thinking about what kind of crowns you’re getting? Now that’s like people talk about rewards. What kind of rewards? If you’re thinking about rewards, you’ve lost it. If this is going to occur, praise God. Do I have any idea what that’s going to be? I don’t have a clue, and could care less, that’s God’s business. I do not want to be doing what I’m doing because there may be a crown available someday. And I don’t want to be doing what I’m doing because there may be a reward someday. How did he say to do it? Willingly, to do it willingly. Why? It’s an attitude of servitude. But he does say, for these things, there will be rewards. Praise God. That’s nice to hear. But from that point on, forget it.
I have people who are in ministries today who work for the rewards, and they’re working themselves to death for Jesus so that they’ll get some rewards. And like I say, that is what is called that when it talks about that on the day, and the scriptures, at least, some people say that the time of the rapture of the saints, that we will be rewarded for those things that we have done in the body. And so they say, we’re going to get rewards. And so, wow, we’re going to get rewards. And then it says, What are we going to ever be rewarded for? Nothing, except the things that we’ve allowed Jesus to do in and through us, the things that we’ve done in self effort is called wood, hay and stubble. And so we’re going to be a bunch of people. We’re going to be standing in line up there waiting on our rewards, and you’re going to see put a match that thing. There’s going to be a huge ash pile. And knowing us, we will be standing there saying, My ash pile is bigger than Lue’s. But all it is is an ash pile and wood, hay and stubble. So we don’t work for rewards. There are going to be such a thing as rewards. Again, we have no idea what they are, but there are going to be but do not work for them. Recognize it’s going to occur, and then forget it and move on with trust in the Lord.
It says young men, in the same way, be submissive to those who are older. I teach this to my staff a lot. Now again, what’s the reason for that? Well, it seems to me that God has some recognition of this thing called experience that we live through things. It talks about older women, minister to the younger women, why? You’ve been through these things you’ve seen, the good, you’ve seen the bad. Is there anyone in here that has had some bad experiences in their lives? Anybody in here? Have you learned from them? Are you able to pass it on to your kids so they don’t have to go through those things? And you see that is the benefit of experience, that age gives you an opportunity not to look forward on life as youth does. I mean, youth is sitting there. They’re on a 200 year plan, man, they got the whole life ahead of them. But when you’re older, you’re looking more back on your life, and you see mistakes that you’ve made. You’ve seen some things that you’ve done that worked and some things that you did that don’t work, and we are so ridiculous as people not to pay attention to that experience, because if we don’t learn from our experience, then we’re going to make the same mistakes from not learning. And so what we do is spend all of our life making the same mistakes over and over and over again, instead of learning from those mistakes. And so it says young men, be submissive. And it’s for that reason. Clothe yourself in humility with one another, because God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. Now here you’re going to see again, the identical type of thing over in the book of James. And when you go over to the book of James, we won’t take time to do that today, but when you go over to the book of James, you see almost the identical rendering, God gives grace to the or opposes the proud gives grace to the humble. Submit yourself, then to God, resist the devil to flee from you. And here in Peter, it’s God opposes the proud, gives grace to the humble, and so humble yourself therefore under God’s mighty hand that he may lift you up in due time.
Why does God oppose the proud? Because the proud will not receive the proud does not live in dependency, neither will the proud go to the older people for experience. Where you get looked on is, what do they know? So that proud heart keeps you from a lot of wisdom. A proud heart says, I don’t need that advice. I’ll work it out on my own. A proud heart says I don’t need God’s grace. I’ll do it my way. And so God resists the proud, because the proud will not receive. Now there again, are we as human beings? Are we initiators to God, or are we responders to God? Did the Creator ever mean for himself to be a responder to his creation? But the creation was created to be the responder to the Creator, and so that puts us in a position, if we are the responders, it puts us in a position of either being humble and receiving, or proud and rejecting. Now, if I see myself as the initiator to God, why then I can proudly say we know that’s how you get into the name it and claim it game, or the blab it and grab it, where I’m just strutting around. I’m this little God running around, and God’s got to do what I want him to do. And we have people come out and say, If you pray and if you fast, especially now everybody’s fasting, if you fast, and if you pray, and if you do this, and if you do this, why God’s going to answer your prayer. Oh, really, what are you doing with that? What are you being the initiator? Are you being the responder? You’re the initiator. That if I do this, and I do this, and I do this and I do this, God has got to respond, that’s a lie out of the pit of hell. That God is the one who initiates to you. If God puts something in your heart, and if you’re a born again Christian, totally capable of doing that, if God puts something on your heart, and you are verbalizing that back to God or to someone else, it’s because he has initiated it. He is already in the process of answering it, and you are the responding merely to what he has initiated into your own heart. But there is no case where we are initiating to God, and then God’s got to respond.
And you get the Christian world today where we got this idea, someone comes up with a Million Man March. And so everybody says, Hey, that’s a good idea. Let’s all us Christians get together and march. Because if we can get 100,000 or a million Christians in Washington, now, million Christians in down in Bucha, Texas, isn’t coming to much. Or a million tech, million Christians in wax, a hatche, that would but in Washington, wow, God’s got to listen to that. And so we got that mentality, if I can gather all these Christians, think of the power that would be going up to God. Well, folks, have you seen much difference in society since we’ve had all those marches? You see what we have to understand, and all of those things sound good, and they have an appearance many times of wisdom, but in the final analysis, what we are doing is putting ourselves in a position, not humbly, that’s not humble, that is arrogant. We’re going to get together. We are going to change America for God, as if poor God couldn’t change America if he wanted to. Did God ever come to save America? To ever come to save anything except people? No, no. God doesn’t save countries. He doesn’t save some people. Going to be shocked with this. He doesn’t save cowboy teams. They you can build a hole in that stadium if you want to, but you’re still going to lose your game, sir.
He just came to save people. And those of us who are in Christ are the most blessed people on the face of the earth. I we were sharing the other day. We did pre recorded a radio program for Thanksgiving, and I hope you get a chance to listen to we had a number of our staff in there. At the very end of that, I got a chance, after kind of listening to the rest of the staff of God forming some things in my own mind as as to what I had to be thankful for this Thanksgiving season. And I said, as I think of Thanksgiving, I think of relationships. Now what I have to be thankful for are relationships, not things, but relationships. And the first thing that I certainly have to be thankful for is my relationship with the Lord and the fact that I am in Christ, Jesus, and he is in me. And I’m thankful to the point to the fact that, through these years, in some way and in some strange way, and in many instances, circumstances that I would just as soon not have gone through, but in going through them, was able to draw closer and closer to that realization that nothing can separate me from the love of God, and if God is for you, who can be against you? And to be able to walk in that. Maxed dependency upon Christ, not to have to perform for God, not to have to go out and do things for God with the full realization that Jesus is mine and I am his, and to be able to have entered into that thing called the Sabbath rest. And I believe that I can honestly say that I’ve entered into that. I know what that is. I’m not out in the desert working for it anymore. I’ve come to a point in my life where I know him and I can rest in Him and love Him and be loved by Him. So for that, I’m deeply grateful. Second to that is my relationship with Amy, and I thank God for that relationship. That how God uniquely took this little girl over in starvation in Russia. And when Amy and I were back in her home community last year, this year, I said to myself, Lord Jesus, thank God for German concentration camps, because had it not been for them, she had still been living over there in that listless life where her friends said, we don’t live, we just exist. And it was through that turmoil of having to serve in a concentration camp that were the circumstances that God used where she was in Germany, and I was a GI sent to Germany and where we met, and God had the perfect wife set up for me, not to be in the floor covering business, but to be where I am today. And she’s a perfect wife for where I am today. And what the work that God sent me to do couldn’t have, couldn’t have picked a better wife for that, couldn’t have picked a better mother for that. That ties into the other relationships, and those are relationships with our two children, and the more that they grow, and the more that that we’re we interact with them and on the phone with Debbie every day of our lives. Their best friend is Amy’s best friend is Debbie, and Debbie’s best friend is her mom. To be able to interact with my son and to know that I have a son who loves me and loves Amy and we love him, it’s the greatest thing in the world to know that.
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