Classic Christianity – Unity in the Faith P2 (1-15-19)
Welcome to Classic Christianity radio with Bob George, where Bob’s clear and 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 on the second part of a three message series on the unity in the faith.
Bob shares about love and trust in relationships, and how only in Christ Jesus, can we have complete love and trust. Bob shares about God’s kind of love, Agape love. God fulfills that need of unconditional love and acceptance in the person of Jesus Christ. No other person can meet that need you have. That need can only be met in Jesus Christ. So knowing this love, how then does that change the way you live? Are you convinced of God’s love? Is God’s love a part of your life? Is that love being manifested through you in your relationships at home or at work? How does it change your attitude in the midst of difficulty, trials and hardships? Have you replaced fear with God’s perfect love, a joy that surpasses understanding? So cast aside that fear and look to Christ! Are you persuaded that nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord?
Bob then explains how all this ties into predestination, that in God’s foreknowledge he planned to send Christ to die to take away sins of the world in order that he may give His life, eternal life, as a gift for man to receive by faith. So both the Jew and the Gentiles were predetermined to made holy and complete in Christ through his finished work by means of his death, burial, and resurrection. The Jew and the Gentile are both saved in the same way, by faith alone in the work Jesus came to do. So God so loved you and me that, while we were yet sinners, He sent His Son so that we may be born again spiritually, with a new life in Christ Jesus. So as a recipient of God’s love, live in who you are, a new creation in Christ Jesus.
Bob resumes from yesterday’s message at about the 15:15 minute. After sharing about the need of God’s power to know this love that surpasses understanding, Bob shares about how God is at work in you conforming you to the image of His Son.
Ephesians 3:20
20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,
Romans 8:29
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son
God is at work in and through you, to do something you could never do. So evangelism is about facing the truth that I cannot do what I want to do, but the things I do not want to do, those things I keep on doing. We have this inability to love. Can you love? Have you looked in the mirror and said, “Why can’t I love?” If you can’t, then maybe you need to come into contact with the one who can love and who is love, and that is Jesus.
Ephesians 4:1-6
As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. 2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. 3 Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Are you patient with each other, with your spouse, your children, or children with parents? Not unless the Lord is doing something in our lives are we really patient with one another. There is nothing in the flesh that is patient.
Have you seen people completely humble? You cannot work at being humble, as so often people try to do. Being humble is to look at yourself in who you are in light of Him in who He is. Being humble is facing the reality of who He is in the light of who you are. It is not demanding your rights over others. Humility is the opposite of the flesh with its ego that wants it’s own way all the time.
Do we wake up and say “Not my will but yours be done?” Have we prayed that in regards to our interaction with our spouse? Start by first understanding Him, then you have a funnel, a place holder, to filter things through.
Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Live at peace with people. You cannot live at peace when out of fellowship with someone. To be truthful is the way of peace. When John wrote to the people in 1 John 1:9, those among them who did not know the truth, but were Gnostic.
1 John 1:1-10
1 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
If you do not have truth, you are in error and because of your error, you cannot have fellowship. If you do not know that Jesus is God, how can you have fellowship? How can you have fellowship with someone who says that Jesus death on the cross is not totally sufficient? You cannot.
2 Corinthians 6:14
14 Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?
Unity comes with truth. Unity is in the Spirit and is about coming to truth.
There is one body, one spirit. Not a body of Jews and another body of Gentiles. There is one body. Not a body of this or that denomination. God only has one body. God only looks at born again people. God’s church is made of born again people. How did you get into the body of Christ?
John 1:12-13
12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
Are you in the body of Christ? The Spirit baptized you into the body of Christ. Christ in you and you in him.
1 Corinthians 12:11-13
12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
The Body has many parts that form one body. Who is the head of that body?
Colossians 1:18
And he [Jesus] is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.
Christ is the head of the body. There are not many heads, but just one head. The physical body has one head but has many parts and the many parts form one body.
There is one hope when you were called, one Lord, one faith, and one baptism.
Jesus is Lord. There is only one faith. There are not multiple ways to God. There are not equally valid faiths. There is only one faith. Who is the faith in? It better be Jesus to be the one true faith.
There is also one baptism. Yet the religious world thinks only in the natural and not the spiritual. There are water baptisms by dunking, by sprinkling, by immersion, by only this pastor and only in this denomination. Then what is God referring to in regards to only one baptism? To answer this question, think about the outward contrasted with the inward change. Does God change the inner man or is he only concerned about an outward change in behavior, that is really no change at all? God is referring to a spiritual baptism of the Holy Spirit.
John 1:26-27
26 “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. 27 He is the one who comes after me, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.”
John 1:32-34
32 Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33 And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34 I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.”
So John the Baptist even testified concerning an outward baptism of water, so God might be revealed to Israel, but also a spiritual baptism, which he could not perform. The spiritual baptism is done only by Jesus Christ, whom God revealed to John.
We tend to camp on outward things rather than inward things. Turn to Romans 2 for further understanding the attitude of the outward in contrast to the inward. Circumcision and baptism are both points of identification. Circumcision was to the Jew as baptism is to the born again Gentile today. But even with the Jews, there were ceremonial washings, a precursor to the water baptism in the time of John the Baptist. In the Old Testament times, Jesus has not yet come and finished the work, so circumcision was commonly practiced, to identify the Jews as the people of God who are looking to the person of God to cut away their sin. But now that Jesus has taken away sin, baptism is a more visual and complete outward expression of what Jesus did inwardly, an expression of the change by belief in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and one’s personal faith and acceptance of that work.
Romans 2
17 Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and boast in God; 18 if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; 19 if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, 20 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of little children, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— 21 you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who boast in the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? 24 As it is written: “God’s name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.”
25 Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. 26 So then, if those who are not circumcised keep the law’s requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? 27 The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.
28 A person is not a Jew who is one only outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. 29 No, a person is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a person’s praise is not from other people, but from God.
In Romans 2, starting at verse 17, an unsaved Jew is relying on the law for salvation and acceptance for meaning and purpose to life and is bragging on it. The Jew is proud that he is an instructor of the law and is boasting: “Don’t argue with me I know what the law is.” That is what religion does; to control everybody and tell people what to do and not do.
You who teach others, do you teach yourself? How many of the religious cannot see the error in their own life, the ways they fail to obey the law, yet expect what they fail to do that others must do. You who teach about stealing, do you steal? You who teach about adultery, do you commit adultery? God is blasphemed among hem because of their hypocrisy.
Circumcision has some value, but if you break the law you have become as though you were not circumcised. Will not those without the law, the Gentile, who obeys the law, will he not regard you, a Jew, as though not circumcised even though you have the law but are a lawbreaker.
Gentiles were never given the law. In the Gentile churches today, we have more laws than Jews ever thought of having. As to the law, a man is not a Jew outwardly but inwardly of the heart by the Spirit not by the written code, and will receive praise from God and not other people.
Circumcision is outward. God circumcises spiritually, and cuts away those things in the heart that needs cutting out.
Same thing is true in regard to baptism, the inward baptism of the Holy Spirit, is the one true baptism. You have one baptism.
In religion, the focus is on do and don’t do, a focus on the flesh and the self. In Christ, the focus is not on the flesh, in its weakness and failures, but on what Christ can do through you with the retraining and renewal of the mind. In Christ, you are made into a new creation, with the Holy Spirit living in you, who instructs you. So, we are instructed to walk by the Spirit so as to not carry out the desires of the flesh.
Romans 12:2
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Galatians 5:16-17
16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.
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Taking The Confusion Out of Predestination [add_to_cart item=”BG-PRE-MP3″ quantity=”user:1″ ]
PREDESTINATION is one of the most misunderstood truths of the Bible. In a clear, concise way, Bob George cuts through all the confusion surrounding this important topic. See how the mystery, that was hidden in the heart of God since the beginning of time, was revealed by the Apostle Paul to bring about unity of faith among Jew and Gentile believers alike. In this series, Bob tackles other related topics, such as: the foreknowledge of God, adoption, and man’s free will. If you’ve ever had difficulty understanding predestination, or trying to explain it to others, this series is for you.
This amazing study presented by Bob George also includes a 25 page PDF follow-along document with study notes and Bible verses.
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