Radio Broadcast Tuesday 03/07/2023

Classic Christianity – The Book of John P14 (03-07-23)

Present Your Bodies to Jesus to Worship in Spirit and Truth

~ “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}

~ “And folks, what we ought to be doing is listening to what the Spirit of God living in us is saying to us. Because the only kind of worship that God’s interested in is when you worship in Spirit and in truth, where they’re the kind of worshipers that God seeks. Now God is Spirit we’re told, and his worshipers must worship in Spirit and in truth. As I talked to you last week, that we’ve made this word worship to me what the New Testament doesn’t mean it to be. It tells about a scripture that what our reasonable act of worship is making our bodies available to the living Christ, who lives in us to live his life through us. That is your reasonable act of worship. You do not have to be and I’m not discrediting these things, I’m just saying the truth of it, you do not have to be saved. To get goosebumps when you sing Christian songs. I got goosebumps for years before I was ever saved. You don’t have to be saved to lift your hands up to God or to piously fold them in your lap, and I’d be saved for that just have to have arms. That’s all you have to have. You don’t have to be saved, to come to church, how many people who are in church that don’t know the Lord from an apple tree? I was one of those for 36 years. You don’t have to be saved for those things. What you do have to be saved for is to make your body available to the living Christ who lives in you to live through you. Now you got to be saved for that. And that’s why it is your only reasonable act of worship, is because only a true believer can do that there is no phoniness to that there is no outward manifestation. It’s Jesus lives in me. And my act of worship is to make my body available for him to live his life and through me. And if he is living his life in and through me, we will be exemplifying the fruit of his Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, long suffering against these things, there is no law. So that’s the problem. That’s the byproduct of it. So God is Spirit, you must worship Him in spirit and truth.”

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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
We were in chapter four of the Gospel of John, you might want to turn there and dealing with a story of a Samaritan woman who Jesus met at the well. Jacobs Well. We talked about the fact of how the Samaritans were hated people, by the Judeans, and the Jews were hated by the Samaritans, there was a conflict there that was tenacious in scope. And so for a Judean to go through Samaria was a very unusual thing. And this is a very unusual account, that Jesus would have gone through Samaria, because they just didn’t do that they did anything they could to bypass even going into their territory, let alone talking to a Samaritan. But in this particular case, Jesus stopped and asked this woman for a drink. And she, of course, said how come you as you are asking us a Samaritan for a drink of water, you don’t even talk to us. And Jesus went ahead to explain some things to her. As she, as he mentioned to her that she had already had a number of husbands and a man she was living with right now was not her husband, which kind of took her back and shocked her somewhat. But she came back with a statement, I can see that you’re a prophet. In other words, I understand now that you are a prophet. Otherwise, you couldn’t know these things if you just told me. And then she changed the subject, which I don’t blame her. But she changed the subject to the fact that our fathers worshipped on this, this mountain, and that was Mount Gerizim, Gerizim, which is a place which is a mount very similar to what Jerusalem is and are not that far from each other only about 30 miles. But the Samaritans that’s where they worshipped. And so she’s saying our fathers worshipped on this mountain. But you Judeans claimed that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem. If you were to put that in modern day vernacular, you could say, you know, you people are claiming that you’re the only church but you know, we got a church to. And Jesus declared, believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know, we worship, what we do know, for salvation is from the Judeans. So in other words, he’s saying, Don’t make up a religion that didn’t come from the Judeans. Because that is not going to be true religion. Jesus came into this world. And he came into the Hebrew world and was born of a Hebrew mother, and a Hebrew stepfather. The line of David was through the Hebrews, and the Messiah was going to have to be born through the line of David, through the Hebrew people. So he said, What is going to occur, her having not a clue what he’s talking about, but this New Covenant that I am going to usher in came, is going to come through me, and it’s going to come through the Hebrew people. Now, that doesn’t mean it’s exclusive to them. It just means they’re the source of what you are going to experience in your spiritual life. So he said, salvation is from the Judeans. And yet a time is coming and has now come where true worshipers will worship the Father, not in Hebrewism, or not in any kind of other religion, but you will worship Him in spirit and in truth. For those are the kinds of worshipers that the Father seeks. The kind of a person that the Father seeks is someone who’s going to worship Him in truth and to worship Him in spirit. You have people who say, Well, I pray in the Spirit. Well, what’s the opposite of that praying in the flesh. It doesn’t mean there’s a certain way to pray. It just means you’re praying in accordance with God’s will instead of in accordance with yours. It’s not a complicated thing, but we’ve made it complicated. And so we have to understand if we’re walking In the Spirit, what is that? it’s the opposite of walking in the flesh, walking into flesh is walking to satisfy and gratify this stupid flesh of ours. walking in the Spirit is walking, to satisfy the love of God, and to walk in Christ Jesus ways to walk according to His will, not an according with my will, just as Christ prayed on a cross Father, not my will, but yours be done. And so we’ve complicated these things to mean of walking in the Spirit or talking in the spirit, or whatever you do in a spirit is some kind of mystical thing. No, it’s the opposite of walking in the flesh. It’s walking with an attitude saying, Not my will, but yours be done. It’s walking in love instead of selfishness and pride. And so if you’re going to worship Jesus, you need to worship Him in truth, not in some kind of manmade made up mumble jumble that we’ve called today, Christianity, but to walk in truth, and to walk in accordance with the Spirit that leads you not in accordance with our flesh that leads you.

Now I want to ask you another question. Can you have flesh doing what appears to be religious things? Well, of course we can. And you can have flesh doing what appears to be religious things, just like you’d have religious people doing fleshly things. But again, he’s saying that’s not what I’m looking for. I’m not looking for dressing up with hats and robes. And that didn’t have anything to do with being a Christian does it. Of getting all dressed up looking like I’m gonna holy man. Why some people say I thought about McGee used to say it, these people walking around with their collars on backwards shows are walking in the wrong direction. And you say, I don’t need a collar to be holy. God’s made you that way. You’re not made that way by outward dress. I’m not a pastor because I wear a robe. Or a funny hat. You’re a pastor, if God’s called you to be one. And if you’re not, you’re a fraud. Pastor. There are a lot of people who said I’ve been called to preach, no, you have no one is called to preach, you can be called into Jesus. Now he may send you to preach, but you’re not called to preach, you’re called to come unto him, you’re not called to go do something, you’re called to come become something. And I’ll send you where I want you to go. But there are a lot of people in cemetery seminary, excuse me, today who are in areas because they say I’m called to preach, no, you’re not called the preacher, you haven’t even been called to Jesus yet. And there’s a lot of people in seminaries that never been called to Jesus has been called to a function. You’re not called to do anything, except come unto me. That’s what Jesus said, is that right? Come unto me. And then I will develop you and send you where I want you to go. So I’m not called to preach. I’m called unto Jesus. And then he sent me to go where He wants me to go. Now that’s what it means to walk in the Spirit and to walk in truth. It isn’t some thing that I want to do, or something that I’d like to do, or something in order to bring glory to yourself, it is a sending of God into an assignment that He has for you. Does God send you into the marketplace? As a business man and woman? How is Jesus gonna get there if you’re not there? I had a girl one time as a professional tennis player said, You think God wants me on a tennis court? He said, Well, do you think God wants to be on the tennis court? If he does, how’s he going to get there? Unless you’re there unless people who know Jesus are there. So wherever God sends you, does God send a woman as an example, to be a housewife and a mother and to raise children? Does he do that? Absolutely. You better believe it. And so we have to understand the truth of these things that you’re called into Jesus. And that calling is as a result of coming to Him in Spirit and in truth. And then he will send you where he wants you for the assignment that He has for you. The assignment that He has for you may not be the assignment that he has for me. But it’s his assignment. And we should learn to appreciate those truths. And we should learn to understand those truths. And to rejoice in those truths. But you can’t do it when you’re paying attention to what other people are telling you you ought to be doing. I cannot tell you the number of guys that are in seminaries today that as a little boy, we’re nice little kids. There’s nothing wrong with that. That’s nice to be a nice kid and say, Oh, you ought to be a pastor. Oh, yeah, I’m nice kid or be a pastor, then you grew up and find that you’re not quite as nice as you thought you were. But the issue is, there’s a lot of people just as the pressure of people saying, Ah, that’s what you ought to be doing.

And folks, what we ought to be doing is listening to what the Spirit of God living in us is saying to us. Because the only kind of worship that God’s interested in is when you worship in Spirit and in truth, where they’re the kind of worshipers that God seeks. Now God is Spirit we’re told, and his worshipers must worship in Spirit and in truth. As I talked to you last week, that we’ve made this word worship to me what the New Testament doesn’t mean it to be. It tells about a scripture that what our reasonable act of worship is making our bodies available to the living Christ, who lives in us to live his life through us. That is your reasonable act of worship. You do not have to be and I’m not discrediting these things, I’m just saying the truth of it, you do not have to be saved. To get goosebumps when you sing Christian songs. I got goosebumps for years before I was ever saved. You don’t have to be saved to lift your hands up to God or to piously fold them in your lap, and I’d be saved for that just have to have arms. That’s all you have to have. You don’t have to be saved, to come to church, how many people who are in church that don’t know the Lord from an apple tree? I was one of those for 36 years. You don’t have to be saved for those things. What you do have to be saved for is to make your body available to the living Christ who lives in you to live through you. Now you got to be saved for that. And that’s why it is your only reasonable act of worship, is because only a true believer can do that there is no phoniness to that there is no outward manifestation. It’s Jesus lives in me. And my act of worship is to make my body available for him to live his life and through me. And if he is living his life in and through me, we will be exemplifying the fruit of his Spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, long suffering against these things, there is no law. So that’s the problem. That’s the byproduct of it. So God is Spirit, you must worship Him in spirit and truth.

Well the woman said, I know that Messiah called Christ is coming. So she had knowledge of the Bible. And when He comes, she said, he will explain everything to us. And Jesus, at that moment, identified himself as the Promised Messiah, that was written in the Old Testament for 1000s of years, and whom everyone in essence was saved by believing that this Messiah is going to come. And so he identified himself in essence as the source of salvation, because part of the source of salvation in the Old Testament was a believing in the coming Messiah. That was faith. It was recorded, he’s coming, and I believe he’s coming. And so he identified himself as the Messiah.

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Bob George 13:39
Now in verse 27, about that time the disciples returned, and they were surprised to see Jesus talking with a woman and a Samaritan woman besides, but no one asks, What do you want? And why are you talking with her? Then leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, come see a man who has told me everything I did. Could this be the Christ? They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Meanwhile, his disciples while she was gone, talking to the people back in her village, the disciples were urging Jesus to eat something, he said, Rabbi eat something. And Jesus said, I have food to eat that you know nothing about. Now, immediately, the disciples were thinking about physical things, were they not? Jesus is always talking and spiritual things and we’re always interpreting them as physical things. He said, I got food did you know anything about and the first thing is, could someone have brought him food who could have brought some food to him? And then, Jesus went ahead to explain what he was talking about my food, he said, is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish his work. Now, guys, you know many times in our lives, we might be sent by God to do something. But we get discouraged along the way. Has that ever happened to you? I want to ask you a question. Because most of you know me relatively well. Do you think that I have ever had a thought that maybe ought to just quit doing this? How many of you think that I just might have had a thought such as that? Well, but I see that shows you don’t have any confidence in me at all. I know what shows you you know me. Because yeah, those thoughts come they don’t come for long. They’re fleeting. But they do come. Satan’s gonna make sure. Because why? He didn’t want me to finish the race. He had rather you get out of it. Before you cross the finish line. Have You Ever Have you ever had those thoughts yourself? Have you guys ever thought you on staff, Bob BC? Have you ever have thought those things? Never just once? That was right after I hit you in the head, if I remember correctly. Yeah, we all have doubts, not when we all have times when they said, I’m gonna give out. Nobody cares what you’re saying, anyway, you out in the marketplace.

I can remember, like, it was yesterday, when I first came to Christ. I mean, I came running, I hit the ground running, and got into evangelism training immediately. So I was sharing Christ with everybody that walked in. And anyone who didn’t walk in make a difference. It was just all over the place. As a businessman, I got the point where I could have cared less about getting orders. Just share Christ with people. And I can remember one day of, you know, real bid real spiritual, and saying, God, I’m tired of talking about you. Probably turn everybody off losing business and everything else. I’m just tired talking about you. I am not going to talk to you about you to anybody today. Real spiritual day. And so they’re still there, take that. And I was I was convinced that’s what I was gonna do. I went the whole morning, didn’t talk to anybody. And I had a lunchin engagement that day with a credit manager of a company that we were purchasing, purchasing materials from very nice, man. We were going to talk about some things. And I had already ended up driving there, I was saying, Oh, God, I’m not going to talk to him about you. Going to keep my mind on the business. And I sat down and we exchanged a few nice words with each other. And I said, how you doing? And he said, not very well. I had really, what’s the problem? Man, he told me his problem. I had Oh, well. Okay, Jesus maybe just wants today, and ended up leading him to the Lord over our luncheon. Now, that is where we can, in our flesh, say, I’m not going to do something. But God gives you an opportunity. And it overrides our flesh. Have you ever had that happen to you? Or just override your flesh and you say, Okay, Lord, this is your business, not mine.

Now Jesus is saying the same thing here, guys. He’s saying that if we live to do the will of God, there’s a Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And then I’ll add things to you. How many of you are seeking first the righteousness of God and letting them add to you, instead of going out and try to get all the additives and then I’ve got a little time left over, I’ll seek first the kingdom of God, which is it. If again, little time left over, I’ll seek the righteousness of God. But in the meantime, I’m going to seek my business and I’m gonna seek seek seek. He said, Seek first the kingdom of God. And I will add to you, you want to be successful in business, Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and he will add it to you. That’s his promise. And many of us are in a situation of saying, No, I’m going to see something else. If you’re living for God, if you are living to finish the work to do the will of God who sent you. You’ll go out into the marketplace with an attitude of servitude, not to make money, but to serve people. You know who the most successful people are in business, people who serve people, the money will follow. You got and seek money. That’s how you’re going to get money and ultimately destroy you. You go out and seek to serve people, and you’ll be blessed all your life. And that’s what God is wanting us to do. He said My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me. Remember, Jesus said I don’t do anything less a father tells me to do it. What was he doing? seeking the well of the one who said him? He was saying, I live in total dependency upon the Father. And I’m going to finish the work. At the cross, Father, why have you forsaken me? pointing us back to the 22nd Psalm, which starts out My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me. To let people know, this is not an accident, it’s all a part of the plan. But the issue is, I’m gonna finish the race, I’m going to complete the work that God gave me to do. And that means hanging on a cross and suffering and dying for the sins of the entire world. That’s what that means. And I’m willing to do that I’m gonna finish the race. And so guys, we, again, he’s saying, you’re thinking about physical food. But I’m gonna tell you about something far greater than physical food that if you will listen to what I’m saying, if you have ears, listen to me, as to what I’m saying, the physical will take care of itself. These men were never hungry. They were provided for. Why? They were following him. When he fed the 5000, what were they there for? to get food, no, to get a message from God. And they were there so long that they were hungry. And Jesus fed them that he went over to the other side. And a bunch of people followed him over. And he said, to be real honest with you. The reason you’re over here is to get food, you saw me feed those people over there. And that’s all you’re interested in, you’re not coming to seek Me, you’re coming to get food, you’re not coming to get me you’re coming to get healed. You’re not coming to get me you’re here to get a special gift of some kind. You’re not after me, you’re after manifestations. You’re after feelings. You’re not after me. And that’s why it says in the last days, I’m gonna say to some of you, I don’t know who you are. I don’t know who you are, oh, you say you’ve done miracles. And you’ve done this, I don’t know who you are, why you’ve never come to me. You just came to get some kind of manifestation or some kind of a gift or to get money or to get something came to you to get wealthy. He’s saying, Guys, if you will seek Me first the kingdom of God. And my righteousness, I will add to you everything that you need for life and godliness. And so he said, My food is not what you think it is. My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me. And then to finish his work. He didn’t say finish my work, finish his work. What’s he talking about? finishing the work that God has sent you to do. Not my work.

It’s interesting is that God said I will build my church. And the gates of hell will not prevail against it and man sets out and say the heck you will I’m gonna build you watch me build it. And we’re out building the church. And we’re out drawn all the principles of the world on how to gather people in order to build a church full of people who don’t know the Lord from an apple tree. And you have to be building bigger buildings, even put coffee shops in all kinds of things that build buildings for people that don’t even know who Jesus is. Activity centers. For people that don’t know Jesus. I’ll tell you something, guys. When I was a kid, I grew up in a very small town about an 18,000 population. And the Presbyterian church that I went to from the Christian church and my mom and dad belong to went over the Presbyterian Church because that’s where all my buddies were. And they had a basketball court in the basement. And they put a jukebox, God forbid, in the basement and people danced. And they put ping pong tables and they put all kinds of stuff. Now I tell you, they drew kids. In that little town, we had 300 People come down the aisle on Palm Sunday with palms and parents sitting here with tears streamed down their eyes and everybody’s seeing all of us angelic looking kids walking down the aisles who did not know the Lord at all. Bunch of kids. Reverend Spurgeon was a guy who loved kids. He bought a Church Bus. Never heard of such a thing. It was a first time and Newcastle a Church Bus whoever heard today, you want to heard the criticism that people had, there was a big ol green Church Bus. What was it for take us kids after Memorial Park where we played football together, we play basketball and we’d play all kinds of games attracted kids. He knew how to track kids. Only one problem he didn’t know how to get out the gospel. How come? He didn’t know it. All he had been a seminary and was a pastor. But he didn’t know the Lord. But he drew kids and we were had good activities. Lots of good activities. We were busy. Which would you rather your kids be guys busy or saved? Now if you can get have saved busy kids. That’s okay. But if you’re just getting them packed with activities for the sake of activities, you’re going to end up with a lost kid going to college. And getting into every kind of trouble that you can imagine. I cannot tell you the number of young faces that I saw from the kids that went to school with my kids here in Dallas, who died of AIDS. I cannot tell you the number of them that I know. Activities. Yeah, but not the reality of Jesus.

Always remember that as I grew older and went into full time Christian work, because I knew that this pastor that I’m talking about that was so wonderful with kids, but had no message for us. I knew that he had ultimately gone off, got back into alcohol and drinking, running around doing everything there was to do. And he finally left the ministry. It didn’t know what had happened to him. And one day, one of my best friends in high school, his parents came through and stopped by to see me here in Dallas. And I asked Mr. And Mrs. Daly, I said, Have you ever heard from Spurgeon? And they said, Yeah, we know where he is, where is he? And he explained to him that he was in the road building business, in a small town in Indiana, totally out of the ministry. And I wrote to him, and the letter went something like spurge, you know, I imagine that you’ve come to a point in your life where you wonder if anything you ever did was worthwhile. What if your whole ministry life was destroyed, or all of these kinds of things, but I want you to know that I thank you for at least having us kids in a place where I can hear about the songs of Jesus. And I explained how we became born again, of how we very simply put our faith in the fact not in us and what we’re doing but in Jesus. But I thanked him for the fact that he got us in church, so at least I can hear what later was gonna take root because it said some seeds were sown there.

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.