Radio Broadcast Tuesday 08/30/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ P74 (08-30-22)

When You Are Born Again of the Spirit of God, His Spirit Lives in You

~ Born Free ~
Learn what it means to be Born Free in Jesus Christ. The Born Free booklet is also an excellent tool for sharing the truth about salvation with family and friends. It explains in detail the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and what is necessary to accept Jesus as Savior. It’s perfect for leading someone step-by-step into a saving relationship with Christ. Visit our BeBornFree.com website for a slideshow of what it means to be born again of the Spirit of God.

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 0:44
And so for a man to truly be born again, he comes to the end of himself so that he could come to the beginning of Christ Jesus, there cannot be pride there. And God brings us to the end of ourselves with true salvation, He brings us to the end of our self adequacy. In order to see apart from Christ, we can do nothing. Now when we do we have love living in us. Now, what does that spiritual love living in us want to do? Penetrate our minds. We have now the mind of Christ living in us. That’s the spiritual aspect. What does that Spirit want to do? invade our soul now, he wants my mind to know his love. He doesn’t need his mind to know what he already knows it. Christ is living in me. So he wants my mind to know about his love. And we studied that last week in Paul’s prayer, where in Ephesians, three, he prayed that you and I, being rooted and established in love. He didn’t say rooted and established in works, he didn’t say, rooted and established in, in, in some identity, man made identity he said, established in love, whose love? God’s love. Net, you’re established in that now. We’ll have power together with all the saints to grasp now grab a hold of this, wally in it. Bask in it, submerge yourself in it, how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ. In other words, to know that love, it says that surpasses knowledge. In other words, it’s beyond knowledge. Somebody says, explain it to me, I can’t explain it too big for me. And, and again, is that hard to understand on a human level? In a man in your courtship days, you say, you just get the love you just your eyes rolling in your head and everything else is you’re just so madly in love, and somebody says will explain that to me. He was I can’t explain that to me, I all I can do to you, I can experience it. But I can’t explain how I love Amy. I can’t explain that. It surpasses knowledge. Now if it does it on the human level, then what in the world do you think he’s talking about on the spiritual level. So he’s saying, that is my prayer that you grasp in your mind, this love of God, and the result of that you’re going to be filled to the measure with all of the fullness of God. In other words, now you’re in a position to be controlled by God.

So now that Christ’s love has come to live within us, he wants to invade our souls, and teach us more and more and more and more and more about the love of God to the point where, as Paul says, on page 82, of your book, who can separate us from the love of Christ. What had happened to Paul? He had come to the point in his life, whereby the invasion of Christ in his life had come to the point where he was able to say for me to live as Christ. For him to say, For me to live as Christ for me to die, that’s gain. Am I fearing death? Are you kidding? I’m gonna go into the presence of Christ. I’m crucified with Christ. It’s no longer I who live it’s Christ who lives in me. And I’m convinced that nothing can separate me from the love of God. I’m convinced that what had happened to Paul? well, he had come to the point where he was filled to the measure with the fullness of God’s love. And he said, and then he wasn’t sitting around in Romans 835 and 39 trying to think of some adjectives. So how can I put some buzzwords in here? He was saying shall trouble separate you? Why did he say that folks? Paul been through a lot of trouble. Yes. How many lashes? Was it that he had taken before he was dead? Yeah, before he died from the beginning to the end, not at one time, but over a period of time. 100 or more. I think in my particular life, you’d see the end of me after the first one. I mean, when I look at it, but but that’s the way you feel out like physical pain. But and most people don’t 100 lashes did that separating from the love of God? No. Persecution? How do you come you knew that man, he had been persecuted folks, rejected among his own people, which is the hardest thing in the world to do. Rejected by your own friends rejected by your own family. I’m sorry, but it’s probably a part of the life. And he said no, that didn’t separate me from the love of God separated me from the affection of people, but not from the love of God. He went through famine, no food that separate him? No, he went through nakedness. Did that that separate him? No. Danger or sword, did that separate him? No. And then he said, besides that I faced death for you all day long. And no, he said, No, no, and all these things we are more than conquerors through through him, the one who left us why are we conquers? Because of being recipients of the love of God. When you’re loved by God, you’re a conqueror. You’re not a conqueror, because you go out with your chest puffed out and say, We’re gonna save the world. You’re not gonna save anybody came, save yourself. We’re gonna conquer the world. No, you’re not. God is the only one that’s going to do anything. That’s pride, folks, those are prideful mindsets. That this idea, all I gotta do is ask God and he just do it for me. Well, that’s pride. I mean, you got God in a position of being a heavenly vending machine. You’re down here with your quarter of faith, sticking it in getting anything you want that Jesus didn’t do that. He said, I don’t do anything unless the Father tells me to. And so, you’re talking about being a conqueror, the reason that I’m a conqueror in this world. And there anything to be proud of just to be joyful over is the fact that I’m a recipient of the unconditional love of God. And I live in that being a recipient of that, therefore, how can you be anything less than a conqueror? You live bask in, clothed in the love of God. How come he could say that? go on, for I’m convinced. It’s not just a doctrine, I’m convinced were in my soul, that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor demons, nor the present, or the future, nor any powers, neither height, nor depth, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Why is that important? Why is that important? I mean, it seems like it’s a lot more important for you to be moral, for you to be out trying to gain your righteousness for you to be doing all the right things. And what God is saying is my friends, unless you’re loving, there aren’t any right things. You could be yielding your body to the flames as a martyr. And if you don’t have love, it doesn’t mean anything. You could be speaking and teaching the most beautiful stuff in the world. If you don’t have love, you’re just a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. You could be have so much faith that you’re moving mountains around. And if you did, you’d be on television today. You know, telling everybody how wonderful you are for moving mountains. He said, If you don’t have love, you don’t have anything. And then he had described what love is. And we talked about that last week with First Corinthians 13. And that definition of love, in First Corinthians 13 is an impossibility for you and me. But it is absolutely the way God loves you.

I’m going to spend some time now on a thought that may be new to some of you, our listeners. We studied last week. First Corinthians 13. And if you have your Bibles, you certainly want to open up to that passage. And in there, it defines God Himself. God is love. It defines his attitude toward us. It defines what agape love is it’s not a feeling. It is an attitude of God that is expressed in action to you and me. The very opposite attitude of agape love is not hate. Its pride. I want to say that again. When you’re talking about agape, God’s unconditional love not predicated upon the actions of the recipient, but predicated upon the character of the one doing loving. The very opposite of agape love, is pride.

Now, folks, I want to, if you can to turn with me for just a moment. If you have time, and if you don’t, I’ll just read it to you to the 13th chapter of the Book of Proverbs. I don’t want you to see something here. In verse 10. It says, pride only breeds quarrels. But wisdom is found in those who take advice and then When you turn over to the 16th chapter, verse over the 16th, Chapter, Verse 17, and 18, you’re going to or 18 rather, you’re going to see Pride goes before destruction or goes before the fall, and a haughty spirit before the fall. So pride precedes destruction, and a haughty spirit before the fall. What caused the fall of man? Well it was pride, it was man, Adam, being conned by satan in saying you can become like God. And man’s pride saying, I would like to become like God. I don’t like this thing of being a created being, I’d like to be like my Creator. And so the pride was what caused man to say, God, I don’t think that you were 100% correct when you said Do not eat of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil. After all, what’s wrong with me having the knowledge, knowledge of good and evil? It sounds like a good thing for me to know. And if I could know that ye, then I could be like you, and I really wouldn’t need you and save you an awful lot of time. You wouldn’t have to spend all this time dealing with me. I could just be God myself. Pride comes before the fall.

But what I want us to concentrate on for a moment is this 13th chapter where it says pride only breeds quarrels. In the scriptures, you remember what it says? What is it that causes quarrels? among you? Isn’t it our own desires isn’t on our own. We want something but we don’t get what we want. And so we just feud and fight and fuss over it. Notably, in the fourth chapter of James, what causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your your desires that battle within you? You want something and you don’t get it. Well, what’s that? That’s pride. You kill and covet. What’s killing and coveting something? I want something. I deserve something. But you can’t have what you want. Well, God forbid that I wouldn’t get what I wanted. Wonderful me. So you quarrel and you fight. You do not have because you don’t ask God. Why don’t you ask God? Pride, I don’t need to ask God. Go get it myself. And when you do ask you don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. What’s that? Well, that’s pride. And he says, You’re adulterous people, what do you mean? You’re connected to me, but you’re flirting with the world. You’re having intercourse with the world? And don’t you know that that kind of friendship with a world basically his hatred toward God, anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God, you’re and folks that is, if you’re in a military, and your commanding officer said, attack, and you said, I don’t want to attack. What are you doing? Well, I’m a friend of the enemy. That’s always good. Now, I’m not sitting here thinking I think I’m a friend of the enemy. It’s just the byproduct of your disobedience to your commanding officer makes you a friend of the enemy. In other words, your choices are going to be destructive to the very army that you are in.

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Bob George 13:59
And so friendship with the world is hatred toward God. And anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. And it says, Do you think the scriptures are without reason that the Spirit is caused to live in us and envies intensely. Do you think the scripture says without reason that the Spirit he caused to live within us that’s the Holy Spirit of God living in you and me that he caused that to happen? Envies intensely, in other words, I came to live within you to teach you truth. Not that the world teaches but to teach you truth from God. And but he gives us more grace. Now look what it says folks, and that is why the Scripture said God opposes the proud. But he gives grace to the humble. Now, my friends, when you’re dealing with this thing, pride that is the opposite of love. It says pride only breeds quarrels. Now it doesn’t say that pride sometimes breeds quarrels. It doesn’t say that pride might be a contributing factor to quarrels. It doesn’t say that, that pride will be in some circumstances, but in other circumstances, maybe not breeds quarrels. In the 13th chapter of Proverbs, verse 10, mark it, pride only breeds quarrels. You ever quarrel with your wife? You ever quarrel with your husband? You ever quarrel with people in business? You ever quarrel period? You know what it says? Does it pride only pride only. If it were not for our pride, we would have no quarrels. What do you think? Well, you see, man sits back and says, I’m not sure I like that. Because we so many times the last thing in the world that we want to recognize about ourself is that we have pride. And I think one of the reasons folks for that is our interpretation of pride.

And we look at pride many times as the guy standing there, belligerent with his chest pushed out and, and the arrogance that goes along with that, and cocky and arrogant and pushy and all that we saw, there’s a pride, there’s a proudful person. And then you kind of see those shy, withdrawn, reclusive type of a person and say, oh, there’s there’s a humble person. No, no, I’m sorry, folks. But both of those are equal in pride. And as a matter of fact, the latter may be even more plagued with pride. Because it’s harder to detect. Now, I’ll tell you why. Pride, instead of it being that thing that causes you to stand there, cocky as can be. That is not pride. That is one manifestation of pride. But all pride in its final analysis is self centeredness. That’s all pride is self centeredness. Did did James just not described that that we just got through reading in that what it says what causes quarrels among you, and then it goes head to say that God gives grace to the humble, but he resists the proud. And he goes ahead to explain very, very carefully in that, that they come from desires that battle within you you want, you don’t get you kill and covet, you can’t have what you want. You quarrel and you fight because you don’t ask God when you do. You’re asking us for prideful reasons. God opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble. And so we have to understand that, folks that that when you look at pride to self centeredness, preoccupation with self instead of upon him that it can manifest itself in all kinds of ways. You see some people that have carried self centeredness and shyness and their reclusiveness to the point where, you know, some guy goes to a football game and sees the people football players out there in a huddle and thinks there, they’re talking about it. I mean, that’s kind of carrying things to an extreme. You go into a room and you’re and you’re wondering, what are people thinking about me? And I’m afraid to say something because people will not like what I say.

I’ve seen people in speaking, you know, how to do how to do you know how to do did a do okay? And, and that’s all they’re thinking about is how people are going to be responding to how they did. And they do it very humbly. But it’s pride. To be withdrawn, I’m thinking about me. A pastor friend was telling one time about a situation where he was well real shy and withdrawn and, and one of his elders came up to him and said, Sir, I want to tell you something. If you would get your mind off of yourself, and start thinking about what you’re saying, instead of how people are going to be responding to what you’re saying, you probably be a good preacher. And said it changed his life because he realized that all he was doing was being preoccupied with himself. What is a shy person? that’s a person who’s thinking about themselves? What is a boastful person? that someone’s thinking about himself. He’s thinking about how wonderful he is. You have people, and I’m gonna throw this out, you have people, you know, I’ll have people come in and said, You know, I got this terrible self image, you know, and I just hate myself because I’m ugly. I said, No, no, if you if you hated yourself, you’d be glad you were ugly. If you really hated yourself, you know, if you had some neighbor over there that was just ugly as sin and you hated them, you wouldn’t you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t feel bad about it or feel good about you’d feel you’d be happy for it wouldn’t you wouldn’t feel bad about that. So it’s our own self love that can’t stand the way we look, we say I should look better, as wonderful as I am now. Who knows?

We were talking about that. Will people will say I hate myself. And in there, are there things in our lives, folks that we hate what we do, but I want to. I want to examine that for a moment. You know, Paul said the things I want to do, I don’t do and the things I don’t want to do I do anyway. And is that is that not what happens to us? Otherwise, we wouldn’t say I hate myself, a person goes out and says, Man, I just I don’t want to drink but I keep drinking. I don’t want to smoke, but I keep smoking. I don’t want to be promiscuous. But I just keep being promiscuous. I don’t want to do this, but I just keep doing this. And, Bob in in our counseling situation, isn’t that what we run into? Most of the time? That’s what if you see if a person was happy with what they were doing? Why would they ever come to a counselor? I say people will say sometimes well, as a counselor, do you ever deal with the depression? and say nobody comes to a counselor unless they’re depressed. I mean, if you were happy with what was going on, why would you go to a counselor, so everybody suffers from a degree of depression, or you would never go for counsel. If you’re not depressed about what’s going on. The degree may vary. But the fact of the matter is, is you’re sick of yourself, you’re tired, you’re saying the things I want to do. I don’t do the things I don’t want to do. I just do them anyway. And we act like that is a real unusual experience. Although here’s the Apostle Paul stating the same thing. You see, folks, the world would say, I hate myself, I hate myself. I just hate myself for the way I’m act and hate myself for what I’m doing. Have you ever said that about yourself, folks? Now, why doesn’t Paul say that? I’ll tell you why he doesn’t say that. Because the pride that is in our flesh. cannot honestly say that. Nobody hates himself. So Paul didn’t say I hate myself. He identifies the problem. It’s no longer I who do it. So don’t hate the I. It’s sin living in me doing it. So folks, if Satan can get you thinking, you’re hating yourself, when his fact of the matter is you love yourself, then he’s got you in a conflict. It’s called a double minded man, that is unstable in all ways. What causes double mindedness? A conflict. Because deep down in the depth of my soul, I don’t hate myself. I love myself. And yet, he’s getting you to say, I hate myself. So you say which is do you hate yourself? Do you love yourself? Well, I kind of love yourself when I’m doing what I want to do. But the thing of it is, is when I want to do something, I don’t do it. And when I don’t want to do it, I do it anyway. So then I hate myself. Well, then when do you love yourself? Well, when I start doing what I want to do, how often is that? not too often. Conflict.

So what Paul does is very subtly says, Is it unusual for you to hate what is going on? No. Where should that hate be placed? If I hate hate has to have an object just like faith has to have an object. What is going to be the object of my hate me? Sin, living in me? Does God hate sin? Absolutely. Without question, are you indwelt by God? Yes. I want to ask another question. Does God love you? Yes. Does God hate you? No. Can God hate you? No. Well, then do you think you can truly hate yourself? No. Can you hate sin? Yes. Because God hates sin. Yes. Well, if God hates it and God’s living in you, Is it unusual for you to hate sin? No. So what in essence, were in essence should that hate be placed on you are on sin? Paul says on sin, it is no longer I who do it, it is indwelling sin living in me, that does it. So I find that the things I want to do when I don’t want to do, I’m doing them anyway. And he comes to a dilemma, wretched man that I am now what is he saying, wretched man, oh, I’m just so wretched. So I believe he says no, this condition that I am in. That is a wretched condition. Because I have the Spirit of God living in me. But at the same time, I haven’t dwelling sin living in me, which is creating a terrific conflict. And I also it’s a picture of a man under the law. And, and there’s the conflict whereby the law is continuing to demand the flesh to behave and the flesh can’t behave. And so the conflict again, is there causing this double mindedness that makes us unstable in all things. And he says, ask the question, that’s when you go to a counselor for who will free me from this bondage of what sin and death didn’t say, who will free me from this bondage of a poor self image who will free me from this bondage of hating myself? No, who will free me from this bondage of what’s causing the problem, sin and death and he says, Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ, my lord, and goes ahead and explain because of what took place at your new birth, the law, the spirit of life, you’ve been set you’ve been made alive has set you free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do, and that it was weakened by our own sinful nature, our own indwelling sin that God did by sending His Son in the likeness of man and became a sin offering for us. We’ve been set free. We’re a new creature. See who you are, see the love of God that has been bestowed upon you given to you imputed to you see that, grasp it, understand it, the height and depth and width and breadth of it. And it will cause you to be filled with the measure with the fullness of God.

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.