Radio Broadcast Tuesday 07/26/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ P59 (07-26-22)

We Are Justified by Faith in Jesus, Not By The Works of The Law

Place faith in Jesus, not your ability to keep the law. For no one can keep the law. Yet we see that man wants to continue in the work of religion. The evil works of religion is all around us. Religion sows to the flesh. It makes you think you are doing something to earn your way to heaven. But there is only one way, and that is through faith in Jesus. Jesus did it all.

Listen in to today’s lesson with more in-depth teaching, 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.

Bob George
I saw a cartoon the other day of people standing around representing the Pharisees, and with Jesus standing there in the middle of them, and their comment was is, is we’re going to earn our salvation, the old fashioned way we’re going to earn it. You know, unfortunately, justification by faith should not even be something that is up for grabs in conversation. But there’s a terrific amount of conversation right now, especially in the Christian world that has taken place as a result of a signing of a document whereby of the members of certain members of the evangelical community I’ve tried to combine forces, with, with another group, whereby in the very centrality of a doctrine is not that you are justified by faith, but you’re justified by your works, by the denomination that you belong to, by the sacraments that you take. And so at the very heart of what you and I have come to know, as a result of one thing, and one thing only being born again, because until you’re born again, you really don’t know anything, because the Bible so very clearly explains the fact that natural man cannot understand spiritual things, it’s foolish to him. And, folks, I want to take just a moment before we get into our study to define what a natural man is. A natural man is one who is dead spiritually, we are born into this world, that way, we all come into this world, in Adam, dead in our sins, and the uncircumcision, of our sinful nature. And so we have to understand that that natural man is dead. Now, can a natural man be religious? Absolutely. It is a matter of fact, most religious people are natural man.

Bob in the church that I grew up in, and the church that I was in when I became a Christian someplace else, because I would have never become one there. No one knew what it was. I can literally say as a result of going back into that church and begin teaching, that I did not no one born again, Christian in that assembly. And as I had an opportunity of interacting probably with every person in that at one time, most of whom ultimately became Christians. But at the time, there was not one in there, including the pastor. And so can you go to seminary and not be born again? Well, of course, the seminaries are full of people who are merely religious, but don’t have a clue what it is to be born again. Can you be in a high position in a denomination that might be the largest in the world and not be born again? Absolutely, without question. So, you do not have to be born again to be religious, as a matter of fact, true born again people are going to fade away from religion, not not adhere to it, because religion, the terminology of religion is a return to bondage. And so religion is man’s attempt to try to reach up to God that’s what religion is, let me get some sacraments. Let me get some doctrines, let me get some activities that will help me to reach up to God to to make myself acceptable in the sight of God. So this one batch of religious people say, Here’s how you get close to God. And another group says, no, no, this is how you get close to God and, and another group says, This is how you get close to God and all of that is religion. God did not conform come to form a religion, he came to give a relationship religion is man trying to reach up to God. Christianity, true Christianity. I’m not talking about the Christian religion that says that is there is nothing to that any more than the Jewish religion or the Muslim religion. So I’m not talking about a religion. But a true born again person is one who has accepted not what I am doing for him. But what he came to do for me so Christ did not come to this earth to form religion, he came to give us a relationship. Now once again, religion is man’s effort to reach up to God in order to earn acceptance and love. True Christianity is God reaching down to man with acceptance and love. And there’s the difference in the two. So you do not become a Christian sitting in church any more than you become a chicken sitting in a hen house, or a horse sitting in a barn. That you that that it has nothing to do with where you plop your body on Sunday or Wednesday or Tuesday or any other day of the week or Saturday, it doesn’t make an ounce of difference where you got your body plopped someplace that has nothing to do with being born again, you’ve got a problem much greater than where you sit either on Sunday or Saturday, it doesn’t make an ounce of difference where you’re sitting or standing in either one of those two days, you got a larger problem than that it’s called death.

So what we’re dealing here with is something called justification. That’s what caused Martin Luther to finally plant his thesis on the door, and to and to go through the persecution that he went through, he read his Bible. And in it he read justified by faith, that a man is not no man will ever be declared righteous in the sight of God through observing the law, it’s rather through the law that we become conscious of sin. But now a righteousness apart from the law has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify, a righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ, to all who believe. And he learned that my justification, my right standing in the sight of God is not as a result of what I’m doing. It’s as a result of what he did. And I enter into what he did the only way that I can, and that’s my faith, I can’t go duplicate it, I can’t even see it, it happened 2000 years ago, I hear it. And faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, I hear it. And my spirit by human spirit that is, is empty. It’s a vacuum looking for something to fill it. And there’s something there that says this is truth. And by faith, I accept that. And the Lord Jesus Christ comes to take up residency in my life. And I become born again, not religious. Born Again, I didn’t join any club, I didn’t join a denomination. I didn’t join anything except myself to him as he joined himself to me. So when we’re talking about being members, the only member that I am is a member of the Body of Christ, he is the head, we are the members. Now we will fellowship over here with a group because you can’t fellowship all over the world the same time, so you’ll have different fellowships of believers. But that is not a membership, they only membership we truly have is being a member of the Body of Christ, as a as a result of coming to Him by FAITH him coming to live in me and then placing me into his body.

As a person is born again, means that you’ve been raised from the dead. And by the life that is gonna raise me from the dead is called a resurrected life. In other words, Jesus had to be raised from the dead. And in order to be raised from the dead, you have to die. If you’re going to have resurrected life, you got to come from someplace. So yeah, so death is necessary. And so Christ Jesus went to a cross 2000 years ago, and there he who knew no sin, became sin for us, so that in him in his resurrected life, in other words, we might become the righteousness of God. Now people will say sometimes, how in the world did God ever make him sin? And I say I got a better question, a more mystery a more of a mystery to me. And that is, how in the world did he ever make me righteous? And I understand why he had to make him sin if he was going to forgive the sins of the world. The issue to me is, why in the world, would he ever want to make me righteous? And that, to me, Bob, is the mystery of the gospel is here is God, totally sufficient in and of himself, and yet, with a heart’s desire of mercy and kindness, to look down on these feeble little thing called his creation that you can’t even see 20,000 feet up in the air, or 5000 feet up in the air. And yet it says, The Psalms, who are we that you should be mindful of us? What a question Who are we Lord, that you should be mindful of us? And yet he was and is, and he came to this world to take away the sins of the world to deal with sin once and for all. So that and in so doing, totally annihilate the thing that caused spiritual death to begin with, in the Garden of Eden, sin, and do away with it once and for all, deal with it, judge it, pay for it, and take it away, no longer dealing with it. It’s so hard for we as a Christian for the Christian world to get hold of that he’s dealt with it. It’s a how does God deal with sin? He has dealt with your sin, he’s already dealt with it. And he didn’t deal with it by playing with it, he dealt with it by dying for it once and for all the wages of sin is death, not a paddling. Not a whopping, death. And Christ took that away. And he nailed it to the cross along with the law that brought about that punishment that caused that law in order to be a law. If there’s a violation, there must be a punishment, and the wages of sin is dead.

Now he did that. So that having died been buried proof of his death, that on the third day was raised from the dead so that we might have resurrected life. That’s what I need resurrected life. So there again, I cannot say Well, all I believe in His resurrection of Christ, but I don’t believe in His death, because how could you have resurrected life if you didn’t have death? So there’s that twofold element of salvation that is absolutely necessary, seeing Christ as the one who died and took away my sins on the cross was buried, raised again for my justification, in other words, raised again from the dead, so that having taken care of my sins, taking them away, died, raised from the dead, that he could give me that life that raised Him from the dead, and give it to me, we keep looking for the life of Jesus walking around when he was here in his humanity. That’s not, that’s not the life that he gives to us. He gives us His resurrected life, a life that died, just like ours. And we entered into that death with him and he entered into our death with us, and died so that he could be raised so that he could raise us from the dead, so the death and he died, then he did so so that raised from the dead, we could enter into his life that he gives now.

Now, in Romans, at the end of the fifth chapter, it tells us that, that God will credit righteousness for us who believe in Him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, he was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. So what is justification? Well, it’s the receiving of life. Now that’s what makes me acceptable in the sight of God is that my human spirit that was dead as a hammer born that way has been brought to life by the resurrection of Christ Jesus, living now in me and brought me to life whereby I am now a new creation.

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Bob George
Now, let’s start with our study. And what I’m going to do, folks is because we’ve varied from the lesson plan over these last couple of weeks, which is not unusual for me, but I’m gonna go back and see if we can just kind of pull this whole chapter nine together. So beginning in page 58 in our studies, let’s go ahead after that introduction and just take a look at what the Scriptures are saying in Romans 5:18. Consequently, just as the result of one trespass, now that was Adam folks, was condemnation for all men, what is condemnation? Death. What is the wage is a sin? Death. Was condemnation for all men. So how many people were born into this world dead? All of us. So the result of one act of righteousness, now who was that? that was Jesus Christ, was justification that brings life for all men. All men are born dead. The act of righteousness will bring justification for all men, all men who what? come to Him by faith believing I’m not going to accept life if I think I’m already alive. Don’t need it. No. It’s like, you know, that book is somebody wrote, why do bad things happen to good people? Well, because I’ve never been a good person. To Jesus. Did he say that? Don’t call me God, unless you’re going to call me good. If you’re not going to call me good. No, call me God. Only God is good. Now Jesus said that. So and we’re walking around saying, I’m such a good person, when why bad things happen to me? I said, I’m surprised worse things aren’t happening. Because there aren’t any good people. Oh, you can find some people who are more moral into behavior than others. But what is that to God? Filthy rags. Folks, that’s an insult to us. Because we think that’s wonderful. We work for those kinds of things. But God says it’s filthy rags. All of your acts are is filthy rags. All your righteousness is filthy rags. We don’t have any. Self righteousness that is sickening and detestable into the sight of God. Because what it is, is a slap in the face of the only one who is righteous, and that’s Christ Jesus. So that one act of righteousness on the part of Christ Jesus is what brought justification and will bring justification any man boy and girl on the face of this earth who will come to Him by faith.

Now, Titus 3:7 tells us so that having been justified by His grace, now that that has occurred, we might become heirs, having the hope, of eternal life. Now, when it says the hope of eternal life, it didn’t sit in there, as your fingers crossed, saying, I hope, I hope, I hope it’s that it’s, it’s that a hope. It’s the anticipation, that great anticipation of my eternal life that I have today, being spelled out in all of its glory, at the very moment that I’m absent from the body and present with the Lord. That’s why we have a hope in death that takes the sting of death away, is because I will be complete, on the day that I die in this body, on the day that this body goes into the grave, I will be promoted into the very arms of the Lord Jesus Christ, absent from the body, immediately present with the Lord, not in some holding pattern like somebody’s teacher, immediately present with the Lord, spiritual being. And Bob, I will, at that moment, see my eternal life in all of its fullness. Right now we see it it says everything is kind of like in a dimly lit room or looking through a faded glass. But there I will see Him face to face. And the work will be completed that he said that, Bob, I’m going to complete the work I began in you. And it’s my job to complete that work that I began in you. And at that moment, it will be completed. Yes. Now that’s a great hope to look forward to. So death for us is not something to sit down and mourn over. It’s not something to say ooh, gee, gotta hate for that to occur. Man when we understand what’s at the other side of that, that we just go to sleep and Jesus and wake up in his arms, it takes the sting out of death and realize that this down here is totally temporary. We got to figure that out by now this is temporary stuff down here. And we’re going to step into something called eternal life. Is there any doubt of that? No, when you’re in Christ, you’re in Christ forever. What does that mean? You have been given life. Now, folks, think about it for just a moment. When you were given the life of Christ, if you’re born again, that’s what born again, is not coming to Jesus, just to get your sins forgiven. That’s not salvation, you’re only halfway there. Good, good start. But that is not salvation. You’re recognizing that Jesus died for your sins, but He did something else. He was raised again, what did it say? for our justification that we were raised to life, for our justification, He was raised to life for our justification. So we, we minimize the gospel. So what I’m talking about, folks, if you’ve been born again, that means life has come to enter in you, whose life? His life living in you your only hope of glory. So that means you’ve seen the full deal. I’ve accepted by faith, his death for me, and I’ve received his life in me. In other words, I believed it, I’ve accepted it, I want it, I realized my death. And I realized his offer of life and I say, Brother, I want your life. And and it’s an act of our will. It’s it’s, it’s a time when we come to Spirit enables us to understand something. And we come to that understanding, and we want it it’s like a gift, Bob, you could be handing me things for with you till your arms are falling off something and just sit here and never accepted. I don’t want it. But when I accept it, what have I done? Well, I’ve received it right. Is there any work connected to that? No, I didn’t they work, just receive it, just receiving it. Now, folks, when when that occurs in our life, and we are truly born again, of the Spirit, the only thing that could ever cause that Spirit to depart from you, which is the only way you could ever be dead again, would be sin. Sins would cause death. And where are your sins? Well there on the cross? Have they been taken away? Yes. For how long forever? ever gonna see him again? No. Is God ever got to deal with them again? He says, I’ve dealt with him once. That’s it. So there’s nothing that can cause that life to depart from you. So what kind of life do you have? Eternal life. How come I know I have eternal life? Because the cross was finished. Now you see, Bob, when we keep messing around with this forgiveness of the cross, how could you ever rest in assurance of that if I’m still getting myself forgiven? Because I might forget something. It’s only when I come to realize it’s finished, that I will enjoy my justification by faith.

We’re going to pick up in Galatians 2:16. It says know that a man is not justified by observing the law. Now the law that you’re talking about there is the 10 commandments. It was also included the ceremonial laws that were given to the Hebrews, but were never given to the Gentiles. Now it’s saying, no one’s going to be justified by that. Now, if you’re not going to be justified by obeying God’s laws, why would we think that we’re being justified by obeying man’s laws? Now the problem of it is when we are spiritually illiterate, and we do not know what’s in the Bible, man can come and say, here are the laws of God, when it doesn’t have anything to do with God at all. There’s no laws like that even in the scriptures. But we make up our own and man doesn’t know the difference. It’s kind of like the famous verse, God helps them we will help themselves. Right… And we take that as gospel. Well, it didn’t in the Bible. So and I know that’s gonna shock to people listening to that. I remember we’re saying that the first one time their eyes got as big as saucers, you may as well have said an atom bomb just went off.

Now, no man is justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So in other words, justification is by faith in Jesus Christ, period, folks, period. I repeat again, you are never going to be justified in the sight of God. You can be justified in the sight of man, you see, if I tell you that Bob, the way you’re justified in the sight of God is by being a Georgian, or a Catholic, or a Baptist or Presbyterian doesn’t make any difference. What that what those names are. That’s how you’re justified and you believe that, are you going to be justified in the sight of God? Well, no, because God didn’t say that. I said that and you believed it. And you say Bob, where’d you get your information? All right out of this Bible. Well, which one do you, which Bible do you read? Well, I read the one in Swahili. Well, I can’t read Swahili. I know. That’s why I’m telling you what it says. And if I just keep keep you thinking that I understand Swahili, and you can’t understand Swahili, and therefore, you don’t have a clue what this book means, you’re gonna have to take my word for it. Now, that’s why I’ve said, ever since we’ve been on the air, folks, do not listen to me. And don’t believe what I’m telling you because I’m telling you, I could be lying out my teeth to you. Just because I’m right on radio does not make me honorable. And just because somebody’s on television, believe me, does it make it honorable. I’ll guarantee that. And just because I’m standing in a pulpit, whether I got a robe on and look holy, or whether I’m in a suit can look ridiculous. It doesn’t make any difference, what I have on, or whether I’ve got gold robes and hats, and all kinds of stuff on. All that kind of stuff might make you look holy, but you’re not holy by what you put on. You’re only been made set apart by God through spiritual birth. And you don’t join any manmade organization to be born again. That’s like saying, I’m gonna join the hospital and have a baby. No, you’re not. Ridiculous. It is. And it’s no more ridiculous and sound, gotta join a church and be born again. You’re you’re not going that is not true. You can be born again, in a church, you know, some if they’re preaching the gospel, but join the church doesn’t make anything except a member of a church, a local body of people. Right. So folks, I’m saying this, but again, don’t take my word for it. Buy a Bible, if you don’t have one, and go look it up. And read it yourself and let God convince you of this truth.

Now it says that, no man will be justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ, we too, have put our faith in Jesus Christ, it says this is Galatians 2:16. So that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by observing the law. Because by observing the law, no one will be justified. I don’t know how more clear it could be stated.

Now turn to Galatians 5:4 just a couple chapters back, you who are trying to be justified by law, in other words, by observing the law, have been alienated from Christ, you have fallen away from grace. Now, what does that mean? It means it means this, that the grace of God has been offered to you. And you hear about grace, it’s talked about the word is talked about a lot. And we have acts of grace. And you talk about elements of grace and all of that type of thing. Grace is thrown out all over the place. Now, folks, let me tell you what the grace of God is. The grace of God is the love and mercy of God that looked down upon you, in your total inability to observe the law, to be holy in and of yourself, to ever make yourself righteous, to ever make yourself acceptable in the side of God, to ever make yourself worthy of being loved by God. I could go on and on and on, folks, it’s hard for a corpse to make himself acceptable. Have you ever noticed that? And we are dead and God looked down upon us in His mercy and love and kindness and saw his creation in the pitiful state that we became as a result of that one act of disobedience by Adam, all of us born out of the loins of Adam, as he became we are born dead spiritually. And his love and mercy and grace said I’m gonna go and provide salvation for those people.

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.