Radio Broadcast Tuesday 04/26/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ P20 (04-26-22)

The Law of The Spirit of Life Sets Us Free From the Law of Sin and Death

In today’s lesson, from the Bible study booklet, A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ, available for purchase from our online Bob George Ministries ecommerce store Bob continues teaching on a very important lesson for today. It is a key understanding in the New Covenant that we live under and having a proper understanding of the keywords, For all those in Christ Jesus, we have been made holy, we have been set apart. Jesus did it all.

“You’re not self-holy and you’re not self-righteous. If you are, you’re living in what? Deluded futility of your thinking. And so we’re created now to walk now in a newness of life. Whereby, I’m walking clothed in His righteousness because of His one offering I’ve been made holy. I’ve already been set apart because of Him. I have been sanctified because of Him. I have been glorified because of Him. I have been justified in the sight of God. Everything is now mine because of Him.”

Romans 8:2
² because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

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.

So when we don’t get blessed as an example, with an illness, death, hardship, trials, tribulation, well, what would be the only thing that you could come up with? Well, I must not be obedient. Just must not be obedient, because otherwise He would be being blessed, but he’s got trials in his life. Therefore, he must not be obedient. And in your own heart, you say, I must not be obedient. You see folks, if obedience is what brings about blessings from God, then how much obedience do you need to get blessed? Well, I’ll tell you what, Jesus said, who is the greatest teacher of the law that this world has ever known, because He not only told what it said, but He went behind what it meant. And He said that, if you have violated the least of these, my commandments, you have violated all of them. You say, you mean today Lord? No, I mean, in your whole life. He said, unless our righteousness exceeds that of the Pharisees we’ll never enter the kingdom of God. He says, it’s harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. And folks, He wasn’t talking about a gate over there in Israel. We’re taught he’s talking about that of an eye of a needle, and because I’ll tell you, the reason for that is what you’re saying is, if that Camel, that sometimes people say there’s a gate over there called the eye of the needle. And a camel can’t get through it unless they take the baggage off. But if they kneel down, they can. So in other words, they get down. They get to it by self effort. And so He’s talking about a needle. Now, you try to get a camel into the eye of a needle and if you want to start with the tail and start with a hair on the tail, if you’d like to do that, you’re not going to do that. It’s an impossibility.

And so He’s talking about the very fact that no man will ever be declared righteous in the sight of God, through obedience to the law. And now, what it says through the law. What’s it talking about through obedience to the law? No, man will ever be declared righteous. How come? Because there is none righteous. What does that mean? There is none obedient. There’s not one. All of our deeds, all of our obedience is as filthy rags to God. That’s what deeds are. Being obedient to God. And so under the old covenant we were working to get blessed. That’s a curse. And that’s why He says under the law you are under a curse because under the law, it has to not only be that if you’re disobedient, you’re going to get the wages of that, which is death punishment. But if you’re obedient, you’re going to get blessed. Well, in both cases. It says a man under the law is under a curse. He’s under a curse with both of those. I’m not going to get blessed because I can’t be obedient. There’s none righteous. No, not one. So where’s blessings going to come from?

Now under the New Covenant, when you have Christ Jesus living in you, how blessed are you? Where you’re just as blessed as you’re going to get. It says, as a matter of fact, that in Christ Jesus, we have received everything that we need for life and godliness. That’s pretty good blessings that we have been made a child of the living God. It’s a pretty good blessing. That we are a joint heir with Jesus Christ. That means that all the inheritance goes to us. That’s a pretty good blessing. Now. I want to ask you a question, folks. How many have you earned that or got that due to your obedience, except one act of obedience obeying, the gospel? And what is obeying the gospel? Try and earn it? No, obeying the gospel is Bob you can’t. It’s a gift to receive it. And, when I enter into that gift, that has been given freely to me, and receive that, accept it, believe it, trust in it; I have obeyed the gospel. And I am blessed out of my socks from that point on.

Now the blessing therefore did not come from obedience to anything, except Jesus. He was the One that obeyed. Sin came through the disobedience of one man, Adam, and salvation came through The obedience of One Man, Jesus Christ; just One Man was obedient. That was Jesus, who is the representative of all humanity, just as Adam was a representative of all humanity. And so all in Adam are dead. And all in Christ are alive. So we have to understand folks that we have been freed from the blessing of obedience, the same as we’ve been freed from the curse of disobedience. We are blessed in the Beloved. You and I are accepted in the Beloved. We are blessed in the Beloved. We have already received the blessed One, Christ Jesus. We’ve already been made righteous in the sight of God. You can’t get any more blessed than that. You’ve already been made holy in the sight of God. You can’t get any more blessed than that. You’ve already been set apart in the sight of God. You can’t get any better than that. Nor can you set yourself apart more, make yourself more holy, make yourself more righteous, make yourself more justified, make yourself more glorified or make yourself more reconciled. All of those things God did for you and all we can do is accept them by faith. Now that’s blessing upon blessing upon blessing. So God says, I’ve already blessed you, now go do.

Under the old covenant is go do, and you’ll be blessed. The only problem with that, nobody could do. And we dumb Gentiles sit around thinking, oh, well, even though the Israelites had the law for all those years and everything else, why they couldn’t do it, but we can, and you’re saying no, you don’t understand, Gentile or Israelite neither one of you can do it. So don’t start looking down on the Israelites thinking that they blew it. The Gentiles can’t do it either. We just think we do it because we make up our own little denominational laws and our own little denominational things that we think are righteous, and then we gauge ourselves by those things rather than on what God says. So we are as much under the law in our thinking, as the Israelites ever thought of being. Now, in both cases, God came at a point in time in history, and that was at His death, when He ushered in a brand new covenant. And that was a covenant, that said, not because of you not any longer, because it is not going to the day of atonement, not any longer Gentile, of going to your confession booth or down to your altar calls. I have forgiven you once and for all and where those sins have been forgiven there’s no longer any sacrifice for sins. Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. I’m not going to come and die again, there is no more shedding of blood. And so, if you’re not going to accept what I did for you, then don’t accept anything because there isn’t any more sacrifice for sins. If you’re not going to believe Me, you’ve had it.

I want us to see something under the old covenant. It would be like saying to your son, you go out and learn to drive. And when you really know how to drive really good I’ll get you a car. Under the New Covenant God says, Bob here’s a car for you, you receive it and then I’ll teach you how to drive, because when you learn how to drive after you receive the car, you’re going to be very familiar with what I’ve given you. You go out and learn to drive, you might learn to drive in some other car. And then when I give you the one I got, you’re not going to know how to function in it. So I want you to receive my gift and after you receive my gift I’m going to teach you how to drive. That’s Grace. You’re not blessed, in other words, by getting a car as a result of learning to drive. That’s law. It says, I’ll bless you by giving you the car and then I will teach you to drive, that’s Grace. Now. So, in other words, folks, you need to get out of your mind, that mindset that I am having problems in my life because there must be some unconfessed sin in my life or there must be some disobedience in my life, or God is jerking me around down here for some reason because of what I’m doing. That is not true. That’s a lie out of the pit. That would have been true under the old covenant, because God dealt with them on that basis just to show man you cannot do it. There’s none righteous. You think you are. You’re trying to be. But there is none righteous, except My Son. And so, the old covenant, and the law brings us to the end of ourselves. And as a scripture says quietens every mouth, shuts the mouth of every human being in regard to self praise. And brings us to the point of saying, Lord Jesus I can’t, but You can. So we are not blessed because of what we do. We are blessed because of what He did and so it is with a moment you’ve received what He did and is continually doing in your heart today, you, your actions are as a result of a knowledge that you’ve already been blessed. Therefore go do likewise.

As an example, in forgiveness, under the law and Jesus taught under the law until He died. Lord, what we call, the Lord’s Prayer. If you do not, forgive your brother here on earth, your Father in heaven will not forgive you. Was that true before the cross? Absolutely. It’s part of the law. If you do this, God will bless you with forgiveness. If you do this, God will do this. At the cross, could that be true, that your Father in heaven will not forgive you? Well, if it is just cut down the cross, folks, because he lied, when he said, father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing. The the whole new testament is nothing, but a huge lie that deals with the finality of the Cross where he said, I’ve taken away their sins forever. So you can’t take away their sins and still hold them accountable to their sins. That’s double-talk and a lie out of the pit of Hell. So before the cross under the law, if you forgive your brother, reward, your father will forgive you. After the cross, I have already forgiven you, blessed. Now, go forgive one another. There’s your difference in the to forgive one another. How? As Christ Jesus forgave you. I’ve already blessed you Bob, now go bless somebody else by forgiving them. You see that? See the difference in the two. Now, that’s all dealing with once being in darkness, lost, now in light, saved, and as a child of God living in the light as He is in the light, live as children of light.

Now in verse 17, chapter 4 of Ephesians we’re just going to set the stage to amplify these passages. It says, so I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. What was wrong with the way the Gentiles live? Futile thinking, and we can have all kinds of futile thinking. Most of the time, everything we do is an exercise in futility. So we have futile thinking now, why did he say futile thinking? Why didn’t he say futile acting? Well, because their actions are a result of what they’re thinking. And that’s why we are in a process of having our minds continually being renewed by truth that will set us free from what this stupid futile thinking that we have when we’re thinking fleshly, instead of the things that God has given to us. It says, not only do they have futile thinking, they are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God. That’s lost folks. Because of the ignorance that is in them. How come? Due to the hardening of their hearts. There again, God says why do people do what they do. Why do people want to go out and slander somebody? Why do people want to go out and try and accuse people? Why do people want to go out and attack people? Why do people want to do that? It says very simply, they’ve got a hard heart. It’s due to the hardening of their hearts. Their thinking has become futile.

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God says love one another, forgive one another, encourage one another, build one another up. If you see a man caught in a sin, go to him and try to help him. Flesh says, go try to crucify him. Go try to do this. Go do this. Go do this. Get even that’s flesh. What is it? Futile thinking that comes from what? The hardening of their hearts. It’s called ignorance due to the hardening of the heart. We become ignorant imbeciles due to what? Our hearts when that heart gets hardened. We have no ability to think with God’s thoughts. We just are thinking fleshly, that old hard heart that says, I don’t care what God says, I’m gonna do it my way. You harden your heart, to what God says. I’m going to do it my way and your mind becomes futile. It’s ignorant. It says they have lost all sensitivity. So there’s no sensitivity. In other words. There’s no thinking what these actions are going to do to that human being. You see people that will go out and do things. They don’t care about a person’s family, what they’re going to do. They don’t care about employees. They don’t care about a ministry. They don’t care about God’s work. They don’t care about anything. I want to get even. I want to get my way. I did not get what I want. I’m going to get my way and I don’t care who I hurt doing it. What is that? It’s losing sensitivity. It’s losing sensitivity.

People will do the same type of thing in regard to the hardening of your heart and it’s going to talk about this type of thing, in reguard to sexual perversion or sex out of marriage. What is a person doing? Are they thinking about their wife or thinking about their husband thinking about their kids thinking about repercussions? No, you’re thinking about gratifying the flesh. Now, that’s the thought of Gentiles, thought about Gentiles you’re talking about Gentiles in the condition that they were back then where they knew nothing about God. And so and I’m not sure it’s not so true today, both Israelite and Gentile. So but it’s talking about our losing sensitivity and they have because we’ve lost sensitivity. They have given themselves over to sensuality. So as to indulge every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more. In other words, it’s just not an immediate gratification. I want more. Someone said one time, remember the old ad Chesterfield cigarettes? They satisfy. If they satisfy, you only need one. So so but the world said no, this will satisfy, this will satisfy. So make you feel good. No it won’t, it will give you cancer. But you see we don’t see that. So our minds continue to be blocked off of what we know is good for us and continue in the acts of things that we know are bad for us. It’s a hardening of our heart and we therefore indulge in every kind of impurity whether it’s one kind or another is not the issue. It’s every kind and with a continual ask for more now it says you however did not come to know Christ that way. In other words, that’s the way you used to be. But you didn’t know, you didn’t come to know Christ, being that way. Surely you heard of Him and we’re taught in Him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which it doesn’t say your will was, is being corrupted by its deceitful desires.

Now folks, this ties into what we have talked about in regard to indwelling sin living us. You have, if you’re a child of God, you are born again, spiritually. First Corinthians, 1:18, you are being born again, you are being saved. You were saved spiritually. Your soul, your mind is being saved and your body it says will be saved. No,. I have a promise in as much as I am spiritually saved. And that is the real me. From God’s vantage point, that is absolutely secure. The Holy Spirit of God has sealed this whole transaction. My soul is being saved. It’s being renewed, isn’t it? That’s why it says, my mind is a part of my soul. Mind emotion and will. What’s it say about that? It is continually being renewed in the attitudes of your mind and that’s what it says there which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires to be made new. How? In the attitude of your minds and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

So, my spirit is saved. My soul is being saved. My body will be saved one day. I will have a glorious body that is free from sickness, free from death, free from illness, free from pain. Do I have that body now? No, I do not. Do I have a promise of getting one of those? Yes, I do. In the meantime, I’m living with a body that is not saved. My body is headed to the grave. It is decaying. It’s sagging. It’s bagging. It’s headed toward a grave. It is subject to sin. It is subject to death. It is subject to sickness. It is subject to hurt and pain. One of these days I’ll have one where that is not the case. I don’t have that one yet. Do I have a promise of getting one? Absolutely. That’s one of the Blessed hopes that you and I have to look forward to. But we don’t have it now.

So people think when you get saved that my body is saved. No, I have a promise that my body will be saved but right now, it isn’t. And so there’s where this confusion comes in that because I am saved, I should never get sick. Well, I want to ask a question folks, which is worse in sickness or death? Which would you rather have a cold or die? Now, if when you’re saved, it didn’t excuse your body from dying. Why would you think that you’re excused from sickness? Because incidentally, sickness is what causes death. In most instances unless it’s through an accident, and even in an accident, it’s something on the outside that hits that body strong enough that causes it to die.

Back to this body of ours, that is, unless the Lord comes back that we’re going to die. You are listening to me, are going to die. I’m going to die. The only exception to that is going to be that if the Lord comes, calls us, and we’re raptured before that event. Otherwise we’re going to die. We have a body that is subject to sin and to death. Our spirit has been freed from that law of sin and death through the law of life. And so I am saved spiritually. I am being saved soullessly and I will be saved bodily. The spirit is already done. The soul is being done. The body will be done. And so we live in a body subject to death and also with indwelling sin living in it. Now that indwelling sin does what? Well, it creates what we’re talking about here. It is being corrupted by its deceitful desires. So we have desires of the flesh living in us. Now, anybody who’s born again, I shouldn’t have any problem with this, unless you’re dead and just think you’re alive. But you have desires of the flesh that are at war with the desires of the Spirit and they are in conflict with one another. You have desires of the flesh, that says feed me, make me feel good. I’m not getting all the attention that I want to get. Go find the attention. If you get it, man, try to get more. If you don’t get it, try to annihilate those who don’t give it to you, all of those things are desires of the flesh. I want what I want right now and man of, I’m a little thirsty, I just knocked down a bus to get to the water fountain cuz I got to get that thing taken care of immediately. We, I you deserve more food. You deserve that ice cream cone. I mean, you deserve all of these things and so we come down to this deal where I deserve. That’s all flesh. If any of us got what we deserved from God, we’d go to hell. So I’m very glad I don’t get what I deserve, but the flesh is always saying to you, what you deserve, how abused you are, how you didn’t deserve to be treated, the way you were, how you didn’t deserve to grow up in the family that you grew up in. How you didn’t deserve to have been poor instead of rich. I didn’t deserve that. Well, of course, if we think we’re the center of the universe, why would we deserve any of that after all the center of the universe ought to get the best of everything?

But folks we’re not the center of the universe we’re a created being, He is the center of the universe. And so, I need my mind renewed in regard to the futility of that kind of thinking. I need my mind renewed, so that I can be sensitive to the feelings of others, instead of having lost all sensitivity, giving ourselves over to sensuality and indulging every kind of impurity. Now, what it’s saying here, then that in our flesh that with indwelling and living in there is an inborn conflict at the same time. Folks, that is, as Paul said, it is no longer I who am doing this but it is sin living in me. So he’s not changing his identity. We don’t have an old man and a new man anymore. The old man was Bob George without the Spirit of God living in me. That guy’s dead. The new man is Bob George with the Spirit of God living in me. That guy’s alive forever. So though it’s my identity, I once was a child of Satan. Today, I am a child of God. That’s my new identity. I am a new creation. I used to be a worm. Now I’m a butterfly. I am a new creation. Only have one identity. I’m not half worm and half butterfly. But as this new creation, I’m still housed in this body that contains indwelling sin that has nothing to do with my identity. It has to do with the shell with the house that I live in. And so what we are dealing with is if I walk in, if I change houses, I haven’t changed identities. Oh, so Bob George was living in California. And I moved to Dallas, moved into a new house. My identity didn’t change at all. It just changed houses. And so, who I’m living in, doesn’t have anything to do with my identity. So, I am housed in this body of flesh, and that’s in conflict with the Spirit. So therefore, the new me, the new spiritual me, born again of the Spirit is now gaining entrance into my mind and to Bob George’s mind, into my soul, my emotions, my will, and in the process of renewing that.

Now, that’s why it says that you were taught with regard to your former way of life, the way you used to live to put off that old self. In other words, that guy’s dead, put it off which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires and to be made new in the attitudes of your minds. It doesn’t say to be made new by your behavior, but made new in the attitude of your minds and to put on the new self created to be like God as it relates to true, righteousness, and holiness. In other words, you were created as a new creation in His righteousness. That’s called true righteousness. Isn’t that funny in regard to false righteousness, which is self-righteousness. You were not born again to dwell in self-righteousness. You don’t have any. You were born again to dwell in His righteousness, which is called true righteousness. You were not born again to go out and try to make yourself holy, you were born again to be like God in true Holiness. So you were created to be like God, in true righteousness. That’s His and in true Holiness, that’s His not yours. You’re not self-holy and you’re not self-righteous. If you are, you’re living in what? Deluded futility of your thinking. And so we’re created now to walk now in a newness of life. Whereby, I’m walking clothed in His righteousness because of His one offering I’ve been made holy. I’ve already been set apart. Because of Him, I have been sanctified. Because of Him, I have been glorified. Because of Him, I have been justified in the sight of God. Everything is now mine because of Him.

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.