Radio Broadcast Tuesday 06/07/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ P38 (06-07-22)

We Live in the Righteousness of Jesus Christ Our Lord – Not Our Own

People are out there trying to improve upon what God has already done. They are not living by faith, but are in fact insulting God by trying to do what He said only He could and did do for those who are in Christ Jesus.

‘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

We don’t live in our own righteousness because we never had any righteousness to begin with. Rest in His Righteousness today.

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

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 we’re living in an age and a religious age where we have to realize that this law that we keep insisting that we are under and keep wanting to be under, is because we keep thinking I’m going to improve my game. Just give me a little more time, I’m going to improve my game. But in the meantime that law serves as a source of irritation and ultimate rebellion. In many instances that is exactly and precisely why you see people who as a teenager rebelled against religion. They, what were they rebelling against? They are rebelling against the demands of law that they couldn’t live up to. They tried. They can’t do it. And yet their parents and the church kept pressuring. You got to do this, you need to do this, you got to do this, then you got to do this. Then the person says, I’m not going to, I can’t do it. And you rebel against the law that says you have to. And so when it says, the power of sin is in the law. The reason the power of sin is in the law, is because your failure creates rebellion inside of you. And the more rebellious we are, the more we hate that which is telling you what you have to do. Now when you’re trying to obtain righteousness through the law, which is what the old Covenant did, and quite frankly what the majority of Christian living is today. Still trying to obtain your righteousness before God by what you’re doing. You ultimately are going to come to no other conclusion, except I’m rebellious against the very law of God, that I say, I know is right and that I love.

Now God knowing that and see every bit of this took place, we’re talking about a righteousness from God apart from the law has been made known. Prior to that, that righteousness was not known in its fullness, because people didn’t know Christ, therefore, they were never able put their faith in Him as the one who came, they I had to have faith in the One who was coming. But that righteousness was something that had to be given to us. And again, that was all a part of the New Covenant that took place on the day of Pentecost, excuse me at the day that Christ died, and a new covenant went into effect where their sins and lawless acts I will remember anymore and He it said He nailed the law to the Cross. He nailed it there. And the reason that the law’s nailed there is because we’re no longer under the law. And therefore cannot be accused by the law. We cannot be deemed guilty by the law because the law is nailed to the cross. So therefore with the law nailed to the cross, gave God then an opportunity to be raised from the dead and through that resurrected undestructable life. And that’s what it says. We have a better promise because of an undestructible life, that’s Christ. Then the old Covenant because of that undestructable life and a Priest that lives forever we are now under a New Covenant whereby, our righteous standing before God is never again dependent upon what we do, or the law or what we don’t do. It’s dependent upon what He did. And so now, a righteousness from God, apart from a law has been known to, which the prophets, and the law and the prophets testify, and this righteousness from God, comes through faith, in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

2nd Corinthians 5:21 tells us that, God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us. So that what? In Him, that’s His resurrected life folks, we might become the righteousness of God. Now. I asked you a question. I hope you’re listening. Right now, in the sight of God how righteous are you in the sight of God? Do you, how many of you know, right now that in the sight of God, that your as righteous in the sight of God and saved as the Apostle Paul? Okay, well, gee, the Apostle Paul, and we start comparing him. Hmm. I sure haven’t done as much as him. That’s how we compare ourselves. How many of you in the sight of God, know that in the sight of God, you are as righteous as Jesus Christ? We say, oh that sounds blasphemous. No, no, no. Might sound blasphemous, but it isn’t. It’s exactly and precisely what the Bible says. I’m going to ask you a question. Do you believe the word of God or don’t you?

Now, if you believe the word of God and your righteous standing before God is given to you by God, and it’s a righteousness that comes through faith in Jesus Christ, not in you and what you’re doing, but in Christ Jesus to all who believe, the only thing you have to ask yourself. Do you believe, have you believed? Are you born again? If indeed you are, and that came from believing, then you have been given the righteousness of God. God made him who knew no sin to be sin. He didn’t make you that way, again, so that in Him you might become what? The righteousness of God. You are the righteousness of God right now. Now, is that good news? Why I think it’s terrific news! Did you have anything to do with that? Not anything except receiving his dear Son, the righteous One who made me righteous through my identification with Him. What I’m trying to get you as our listeners to see and to understand right now, and to come to a conclusion, a policy of your life.

It’s like when you come to Christ you don’t come to Christ, well God, maybe if you’re there why then I’ll invite you in, or this. That’s not the way you come to the Lord. You come to the Lord by faith in Him. You see folks, let me tell you something. There’s a lot of speculation. We as human beings are unbelievably opinionated. It’s normally not based on much of anything. But we got opinions on everything. We could ask somebody, who do you think’s going to win the ball game this weekend? And if the Cowboys were playing, why all the Dallas fans would say, the Cowboys are going to win beyond a shadow of a doubt. Of course, the Green Bay people say, oh no, Green Bay is going to win beyond a shadow of a doubt. And people can literally have so much confidence in believing that, that they’ll just gamble all kinds of money on it, believe it. But the fact of the matter is, nobody knows. You don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. You don’t know for sure.

But if I said to you, how many of you believe, the sun’s going to come up tomorrow, just in time tomorrow. And if you’re right, why, you put up all your money and I’ll put up all mine. If you’re right, why you’ll win everything you put up. Well, I want to tell you, I’d tear the bank down in order for that bet when you’re sure. Do you have any doubt at all, folks, that the sun’s going to come up tomorrow, any doubt at all? Not a bit. Why? That’s God’s business and He’s right on time, every time. Now, folks, just as God declared that He was the One that all things are created by Him and for Him, and that God is the One that we trust for that sun to come up right on time. He is the same God who said, I made you righteous through your faith in My Son. If you want to be righteous in My sight, have right standing in My sight, you come to My Son by faith, accepting His substitutionary death on the cross for you, and His resurrected life in you, and you do that by faith, and it will be credited to you as righteous from that day on.

Now, why would you believe God when the sun’s gonna come up, and not believe Him when He said, I made you righteous? The same God who said, I’m going to bring the sun up, it’s going to go down. And I’m going to do it is the same God that said, I made you righteous. It’s also the same God who said, I forgave all of your sins. Why do we doubt this, folks? Why do we walk around acting as if I am not forgiving, or that my forgiveness is predicated on what I do? It is as stupid as thinking, the sun’s going to come up because I sit down and pray to it in the morning. The sun isn’t going to come up cause I pray. It isn’t going come up because you pray. It’s going to come up because God said it’s going to come up. And your forgiveness is not predicated because of your prayers. It’s predicated because of His oath. He’s the One who said by an oath your sins and lawless acts I will remember no more and where these have been forgiven, there’s no more sacrifice. So burn your altars, burn your confession booths, get rid of all of these altar calls to come down to get forgiven over and over and over and over again. Quit trying to Examine the Greek on 1st John 1:9.

The whole Bible says God says, you are forgiven. Now if you’re forgiven, why don’t you rest in that the same way that we rest at the sun’s coming up? The same God who did them both. So folks, we have to come to grips with our unbelief and I’m not saying this to put us on some kind of a faith guilt trip. I’m just saying we all function in unbelief and it’s stupid to not believe the God of this universe is plain dumb. But He didn’t call any of us very smart to begin with. He said we were sheep and they’re about as dumb as you can get. So I’m not saying we should be surprised at that, but I am saying we need to get our minds renewed with that. We need to come to grips with that. And folks, you can’t come to grips with it; well, I think I’ll believe God today, but then tomorrow, you know, I don’t know what I’m going to do. No no. You have to make a policy. This is the type of thing. It’s the same thing in regard to forgiveness, and I had to say 8, 10, 12 years ago, whenever I finally came to understand that when Jesus said it’s finished, that’s what He meant. I’d been 1st John 1:9, it all on my Christian experience to try to keep my slate clean. When He said it’s already clean. He said, you’re already righteous in My sight. Well, I’m trying to get righteous again. You couldn’t get any more righteous than what I made you. In other words, Bob, you little self-righteous dude, you. Do you believe that you could improve on what I did? I made you righteous. Now you’re saying, I’m going to improve on that. I got news for you. You can’t improve even on something, your fellow man did let alone. what I, God did, so quit trying to improve on what I did. I took away your sin. Why are you still trying to improve on that by keeping yourself forgiven? I’ve already done it.

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Sounds noble, people love it, sounds so humble, but it’s idiotic. It’s not faith. It is totally unbelief. It’s a repudiation of the faith of God when we continue to think that there’s more forgiveness to be executed when God said, no there isn’t. There’s only one time that you and I were cleansed of all unrighteousness. It deals in with this very passage that confuses people so much. 1st John 1:9 and interestingly enough, 1st John 1:9 can be explained by 1st John 1:8. That’s a real shock to people that they would have a correlation with each other.

If you claim to be without sin, that’s a sin nature, you deceive yourself the truth is not in you, you’re not saved. No one claiming to be without a sin nature… How can I be saved? I don’t need Christ if I don’t have a sin nature. I deceive myself and the truth is not in me. On the other hand if I agree with God concerning my sins, which is evident that I do have a sin nature, everybody knows it except you, He’s faithful and just, and the literal translation is to have forgiven your sins and to have cleansed you of all unrighteousness. It’s a past act with continual action. It’s His job. Not because you confess, but because of the fact that He did it, He’s faithful and just to continue doing that. That’s His job. Not yours. Not because of what you do, but because of what He did. Now, if I’m going to keep hanging on to that, then I also have to let go of the fact that Jesus said, it is finished because I can’t hang on to both. I cannot hang on to the fact that all my sins are forgiven past, present and future, but if I confess, he’ll forgive me. That is double-talk, folks. It is not faith. It is idiotic double-talk. You’re going to have to let go of one of them. I don’t care which one you let go of, I do care, but I’m saying from your standpoint you’re going to have to let go of one because you can’t hang on to both and remain anything, except what the Bible calls, a double minded man is unstable in all ways. So, you’re going to let go of one. You’re going to have to let go of yourself, and Christ set down once and He now sits down. He forgave you one time. And now has set down, making it His enemies, His footstool. No more forgiveness to be executed.

Now, I had to be cleansed of all of my unrighteousness in order to be indwelt by Him and His righteousness. When’s the only time that could have occurred? At the cross. Was I ever righteous? No, the only thing I was was unrighteous. So if the only thing that I ever was was unrighteous, then I had to be cleansed of all unrighteousness. That’s all I had. I didn’t have any righteousness, just unrighteousness. And that’s what He did at the cross. He cleansed me of all unrighteousness. Forgave all my sins, cleanse me of unrighteousness in order to do what? Become the righteousness of God, giving me His righteousness, it’s a gift.

Romans 4:5. However, to the man who does not work, but trusts God, who justifies the wicked, His faith is credited as righteousness. What kind of a God do we have? One who justifies the wicked. Say oh boy, what kind of a God is that? I mean, he ought to justify us good people. Said there aren’t any there. He wouldn’t have anything to do if he was out there to justify good people. There aren’t any good people. When they came to Jesus and said, good teacher. He stopped them and said, wait a minute don’t call me good unless you want to call me God because only God is good. In other words, I (Jesus) am good, but the reason I’m good is because I’m God. And so please don’t call me good unless you want to call me God. Only God is good. And so if He came to justify good people He wouldn’t have anybody to justify, be out of work. He came to justify, who? The wicked. Not just some people are a little off wicked. Wicked. Our hearts are wicked and deceitful above all things and who can know them? Those are the people you and me that He came to justify when we believe that and we come to Christ for His justification for His truth, that faith in Him is credited to me as righteousness.

So where does my righteousness come from? From Christ Jesus. Now, that’s what it means to be born again. Romans 5:17, For if the trespass of the one man. Listen to this one folks, death reigned through that one man. Now, that’s Adam. How much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and the gift of righteousness, reign in life through the One man Christ Jesus. I ask people sometimes, Are you reigning in life or his life raining on you? Because folks, it really does say that those people who have received God’s abundant provision of Grace, in other words that isn’t up for grabs anymore. Settle that issue. As I was talking about forgiveness, a number of years ago. I say God, that’s the last time I’ll ever insult you and ask you to forgive me again. I’ll thank you for the rest of my life that you’ve done it. And I cannot walk by faith by asking you to do what you’ve already done. It’s the same thing with righteousness. I wouldn’t think of asking, oh God, please give me more righteousness. He would say what? More than My Son? Your righteousness came from My Son. You know, how do you want more Son? I’m sorry, but there isn’t any more Son. You’ve been given everything that you need for life and forgotten this Bob. Now, rest in, walk in, trust and believe it. And He said when you do and you’ve received that abundant provision of grace, notice, he didn’t say the law of grace and the gift of righteousness realizing that, that righteousness that you have is a gift, you’re going to reign in life. Righteousness, reigning in life through the one man Christ Jesus. As a result of what? Receiving now folks, all that means is accepting, making it yours. When you get married you receive one another into a bond of marriage. I accept this whole transaction. I believe it. I accept it. And folks, that’s how you come to the Lord.

So many times, and I’ve said this so many times and so many times on the air. Folks, and let’s analyze it. So let’s think and test our own faith. So many times we come to Christ at a point in time when all we understand is His forgiveness. Many times the gospel is presented as a glorified fire insurance policy. And people come to Christ as a kind of a fire insurance policy. I don’t want to go to hell.

I’ve seen evangelism to kids where there are set fires, and see how hot it is and say that’s what hell’s gonna be like. Well what little kid, you know, wants to be in a fire? And so that’s all I understand. All they are thinking about is that I don’t want to go to hell. Well, folks Christ did so much more than to get man out of hell and into heaven. Christ came to get himself out of heaven back into man, to restore in us what we had lost in Adam, that being the Spirit of God living in us.

And it’s all around Jesus and how can a sinful man walk into the presence of a holy God? But I even have a better question, how can a dead man walk in the presence of a living God? And so you had, you had unrighteousness, you had sin unrighteousness that had to be corrected, and you had death that had to be cured and that’s what Christ came to do through His death, His burial, and His resurrection. And so when you accepted not just his death for you folks. Thank God for that. But that’s just what cleared the deck for the divine action. That is just the first part of the gospel. But the living part of the gospel is that Christ was raised. He’s an indestructible High Priest, who is constantly interceding for us. And that living Christ is alive living in you. And when He came to live in you through His Holy Spirit, that you received the gift of righteousness. Now, when I realized that my righteousness is a gift from God and I can’t work for it anymore. If that doesn’t make you rest, I don’t know what does. But you see, again the religious world, you’re not supposed to rest. The Bible says rest, go enter into a Sabbath rest, resting from your works just as He rested from His. He wants you and me to take a vacation, rest In Christ. Let Him reign in your life so that you can reign in life through that One man, Christ Jesus.

Now, in Philippians 3:8 & 9, Paul says, what’s more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish dung that I might gain Christ and be found in Him. Listen to this folks, It’s Paul. I considered that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, Christ in him. He in Christ. Listen, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from a law, but that which is through faith in Jesus Christ. The righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I consider all of this legalistic stuff that I’ve been doing, all of my feeble attempts to try to be righteous in the sight of God, through my own efforts, through what I do, through my position in the church, through my position in a synagogue wherever it might be. I consider it dung. I consider it a loss compared to the greatness of knowing Christ and being found acceptable in Him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but that which is through faith in Christ Jesus. Folks, that is good news.

In Ephesians 1 verse 6 it says, to the praise of the glory of His grace by which He made us accepted in the beloved. Who made you accepted in the beloved? Christ Jesus. Well, if we’re righteous and accepted by God, how should we relate to Him? How do we talk to Him? As one who has been made righteous and acceptable in the sight of a living God.

Now folks, that’s why Paul is able to say in Romans 1:16 and 17, I am not ashamed of the gospel. It is the power of God for salvation, for everyone who believes first for the Israelite, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel, a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, and as we live by faith. Now folks, there’s only two ways that we can live, under the law, dead, or under the grace of God by faith.

Now Paul in Romans 9 says this, what shall we say that the Gentiles that did not pursue righteousness, have obtained it a righteousness that is by faith. But Israel who pursued a law of righteousness has not attained it. Why not? Well because they pursued it not by faith, but as it were by works and they stumbled over the Stumbling Stone.

You see it, going on in verse 10. Chapter 10 verse 3 since they did not know the righteousness that comes from God and sought to establish their own righteousness. They did not submit to God’s righteousness. In other words, they didn’t receive it. They didn’t submit to it. They didn’t yield to it. Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes.

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.