Radio Broadcast Tuesday 12/06/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Law & Grace P34 (12-06-22)

Sin Lives in my Flesh Not in my Spirit When a Person is Born Again of the Spirit

~ “Now Paul under the law, and Romans 7:15 through 24. He said something, I don’t understand what I do. It’s really a good thing that Paul was not living in our generation, because we would immediately have sent him to probably some Christian psychologist. Because if you don’t understand what you do, you must have some real big problem. You’ve probably been potty trained too early, you may have had a mother, you may have come from a dysfunctional family. But Something is definitely wrong with you, Paul, if you don’t understand what you do, because all men should understand what they do. Why all men. They don’t. We don’t function in that confusion of don’t understand why you do something that’s really abnormal. And you say, Oh, really? It really Yeah. So here’s Paul saying, I don’t understand what I do. And I’ll guarantee his solution to that is not to go to his shrink, and it’s not to get on Prozac. He’s gonna say I don’t understand what I do. And that is not an unnatural state for a man to be in. Especially one under the law. And Bob, the majority of people today who are walking around saying that question I just don’t understand what I do is what’s called a double minded man. And they’re unstable in all ways because they got one foot smack in the law and one foot smack and grace. And they’re trying to walk down both sides of the street at the same time and wonder why they don’t understand what they do and why they’re double minded. So Paul said, For what I want to do, I do not do that make does that. Do any of you relate to them? You want to do some but you don’t do it. But what I hate I do. Do any of you relate to that one? See, the first time I read this, Bob, I thought somebody has been peeking, because it describes you and me to the tee. It describes your and my mindset to a tee. What I want to do, I don’t do and what I hate, I do. Now here’s here’s what he’s saying. Now, if I do what I do not want to do. I agree the law is good there anything wrong with the law. But as it is, it’s no longer I myself who do it. But it’s sin living in me. Folks, we don’t have to blame our mothers. We don’t have to blame our dysfunctional families. You’ve got it out. You can blame sin. Now you’re blaming who God blames. You don’t have to pass this on to somebody else and act like you’ve been abused and everything else in your life. You’ve got sin, living in you, and that is your problem. It’s no longer you who are doing it, but it’s sin living in me.”

Listen in to today’s lesson with more in-depth teaching, from the Bible study booklet, A Closer Look at Law & Grace, available for purchase from our online Bob George Ministries ecommerce store.

Jesus asked how does God love and accept us? And how does he expect us to live the Christian life? To answer those questions, this insightful study explores a vital issue at the heart of the Christian experience, the biblical relationship between law and grace, understanding their role in our relationship to God will bring joy, freedom and spontaneity to your Christian life. Now, let’s take A Closer Look at Law & Grace.

Bob George 0:39
Now, folks, I want to make another thing I’ve covered this before. But I think it’s worthy of covering again, because of this passage where it says, I will make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. Because it would be very easy for us today looking at that and reading that as a Gentile. Or I would even say maybe an American Hebrew or some other place, that Hebrew that was not living in Israel or in Judah, although they came out of that bloodline, but it would be easy for us to spaces Gentiles to say, well, that’s a covenant that he made with Israel. But what about what about the Gentiles? Well you see the first covenant was not given to the Gentiles the first cabinet was given to the Israelites It was given to the Hebrew. The law was given to the Hebrews. So while they were in the desert, and so it wasn’t given to Gentiles, the agreement between God and man was not made between God and the totality of man. It was made to God and Israel. The Old Covenant was. So when it says the times coming declares the Lord, when I’ll make a New Covenant with the house of Israel. Now, Bob, the way I see that is this, if the Israelites as devoted as they are, could not obey the law, how in the world do we egotistical Gentiles think we’re going to that’s that’s what is amazing to me with a so called Gentile Christian Church is how in the world can we get so pious and thinking that we’re able to obey the law, but the Hebrews who are devoted, much more devoted than we would ever think have been, have ever been much more devoted in every way. And as a matter of fact, I think a Hebrew, by his nature is more of everything than we are, I think he can be angrier than a Gentile ever thought of being and I can think he can be more merciful than any Gentile ever thought of being, I look at those apostles, and I say, there is more of mankind, in everyone knows, than in any group of people on the face of the earth, there, it’s true, they can be the most doubting. And they can be the most devoted, they are just at extremes, God maybe made them that way. But he said to the Israelites, this is the covenant now it’s up to you to keep. Now they couldn’t do that. And if they couldn’t do it, we should learn long time ago to quit trying, if the Hebrews couldn’t do it, nobody’s going to. And so he said, I’m gonna make a New Covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. And that’s where he said, I’m going to put their laws by laws in our hearts, and they’re going to be my people. And I’m going to be their God, no longer or anybody need to come and say, no God, because everybody’s going to know him from the first to the last. And he went ahead to say, then their sins and lawless acts, I will remember no more. And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sins. In other words, the day that Jesus died, and they ushered in this New Covenant, there is no longer any sacrifice for sins, why? Jesus sacrifice was the final one. He not only sacrifice for their sins, but He sent the Holy Spirit of God to them, in order to give them life, to give them something they had never had before. And that was life through faith in Jesus, rather than a continual death through attempting to obey a law that they could not obey.

Now to the Israelites, he said, take off the old and put on the new, well, how come? Well, there’s because to the Israelites, they were under an Old Covenant. So in order to put on a New Covenant, they had to take off the Old Covenant. Now to the Gentile, he was not standing there, in an Old Covenant, he is standing there naked, he didn’t have anything on. So to the Hebrew, it says, take off the old and put on the new, do the Gentile, it’s just put on the new, you never have been under the Old Covenant, you never were. Here’s a New Covenant whereby your sins and lawless acts as well as to the Jew, I will remember no more. And where these have been forgiven, there’s no longer any sacrifice for sins. Now put that on. So to the Hebrew, they had to take off their old form of religion. And that, quite frankly, was the meaning of John the Baptist’s, identifying them with the coming Messiah through baptism, because a Hebrew was identified by being a descendant of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and also was identified through circumcision. And what he was saying was, put all of that off, and come and be identified with Jesus who will take away your sins. Nobody is nobody sins are forgiven by being baptized, dunked in water. The water was a means of identifying with the one who would take away your sins, and that is Christ Jesus. And so it was just meerly an outward means of identification. And in those days, it had terrific meaning because the Hebrews and the Pharisees and the Legolas would many times stand at these baptismal pools, and watch very cleverly and succinctly as to who was allowing themselves to be baptized and those people would find themselves disappearing from the earth. So to those who are trying to destroy the early Christians, many were murdered as a result of that open stance of saying, I am no longer identified with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, although he’s the same God, but I’m now identified with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. That’s my God. Not Abraham and Isaac and Jacob’s that was their God, but I don’t have their God anymore I now have my God happened to be the same one. But now he’s personal. He’s mine. And so they came to be identified with what they did not know before. And that was that God existed as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. They had never figured that out before, not because they were dumb, it had never been revealed before. And so they they knew that there is a plurality in the Godhead, any old rabbi would have sit there scratching his head and reading Genesis and saying, Let us make man in our image and have to ask himself, who in the world is the US? And who’s the our? At the Tower of Babel, let us go confuse their language, who in the world is the US and who is the our. And so they knew there was plurality in the Godhead, the word Elohim, the I Am, that is a plural, not singular. They knew that. But they did not have it figured out because it hadn’t been revealed yet. So with the coming of the Messiah, suddenly the Godhead was revealed, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And that’s what he’s told people to come and to be identified with, come and identify yourself now with the Triune God, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And so they left the old in order to take on the new. To the Gentile, he says, You don’t have anything old to take off. Just put on the new in both people, Hebrew and Gentile. We are all under a New Covenant. Yes, new to the Gentile. As we as it relates to nothing else, new to the Hebrew as it relates to the old.

As we have talked about the Hebrew and the Gentile. It’s an amusing thing almost that here is the Hebrew that was to let go of the law. Let go the old cabinet take off those old, battered clothes that just beat them half to death, and put them down in the in the in the garbage pail and put on this brand new suit. And then to the Gentiles. He said, just put on the brand new suit. And so the Gentile gets all dressed up in he’s brand new suit. He’s received a New Covenant.

And so what do you do? Well, we went back over it’s like saing to the Hebrew, where do you do with those? Oh, ragged clothes? Well, he said, I put them over there, and that’ll garbage can. So the the Gentile goes over and digs those Oh, beat up clothes, out of the garbage pail and puts them on over his brand new suit, and says new style. Got a new thing going here. And here he is where God said to the Hebrew take off that old and put on the new, you’re no longer under the law, you’re under the grace of God, to the Gentile. He just said, you’re under the grace of God. And we go back and pick up the law and become more legalistic, not because God ever designed that for us on our own, which is, which is Intuit degrees, almost worse on our own, we picked up once again said God, I just don’t believe that we could not be under the law and go right back and pick up the same law and bury yourselves under it. And so here we all are all dressed up in a beautiful brand new suit to those who are truly in Christ Jesus. And over that suit is a bunch of battered clothes called the law. And we’re trying to look good in the sight of God. Not clothed in our own righteousness, even though we are. But instead, let’s clothe yourself with the law, and our attempt to obey. And it is absolutely ludicrous. When you stop to think about it. Sure.

Now Paul under the law, and Romans 7:15 through 24. He said something, I don’t understand what I do. It’s really a good thing that Paul was not living in our generation, because we would immediately have sent him to probably some Christian psychologist. Because if you don’t understand what you do, you must have some real big problem. You’ve probably been potty trained too early, you may have had a mother, you may have come from a dysfunctional family. But Something is definitely wrong with you, Paul, if you don’t understand what you do, because all men should understand what they do. Why all men. They don’t. We don’t function in that confusion of don’t understand why you do something that’s really abnormal. And you say, Oh, really? It really Yeah. So here’s Paul saying, I don’t understand what I do. And I’ll guarantee his solution to that is not to go to his shrink, and it’s not to get on Prozac. He’s gonna say I don’t understand what I do. And that is not an unnatural state for a man to be in. Especially one under the law. And Bob, the majority of people today who are walking around saying that question I just don’t understand what I do is what’s called a double minded man. And they’re unstable in all ways because they got one foot smack in the law and one foot smack and grace. And they’re trying to walk down both sides of the street at the same time and wonder why they don’t understand what they do and why they’re double minded. So Paul said, For what I want to do, I do not do that make does that. Do any of you relate to them? You want to do some but you don’t do it. But what I hate I do. Do any of you relate to that one? See, the first time I read this, Bob, I thought somebody has been peeking, because it describes you and me to the tee. It describes your and my mindset to a tee. What I want to do, I don’t do and what I hate, I do. Now here’s here’s what he’s saying. Now, if I do what I do not want to do. I agree the law is good there anything wrong with the law. But as it is, it’s no longer I myself who do it. But it’s sin living in me. Folks, we don’t have to blame our mothers. We don’t have to blame our dysfunctional families. You’ve got it out. You can blame sin. Now you’re blaming who God blames. You don’t have to pass this on to somebody else and act like you’ve been abused and everything else in your life. You’ve got sin, living in you, and that is your problem. It’s no longer you who are doing it, but it’s sin living in me.

Click to Donate to Bob George Ministries

Classic Christianity Radio thanks you for your support of our online and radio ministry. Bob, George Ministries offers nine in-depth Bible study guides, please visit shop.BobGeorge.net to find the Bible study books, along with many helpful materials to help you grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ. Let’s continue now, with our Classic Christianity Radio program.

Bob George 13:51
So we ought to feel good we’ve got an out we can blame somebody else or something else. What Paul is saying that’s right, you can blame something else. You got sin living in you. What’s that sin living in you doing? causing it to do what you don’t want to do and causing the things that you hate you to do them anyway. You’re agreeing with the law it’s good, but it’s no longer you yourself are doing it. It’s in living in me. Now it says I know that nothing good lives in me that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I can’t carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do the evil that I don’t want to do this. I keep on doing. Any of you relating to this one? What would we be relating to the evil you don’t want to do? You keep on doing he called it evil? He said what was it you know, you can just see people said wonder what that was Paul was doing we can peak on him. Folks, he didn’t describe it. He just said the evil that I want to do, I don’t want to do I keep on doing. And you don’t need a description of that. Anything. It’s not a faith is sin. Anything that is contrary to what God has designed for you and me is the evil that is brought into this world by Satan himself. The real evil that is in this world is not trusting Christ Jesus, your Creator. That’s an evil act of rebellion. And so the things that you don’t want to do you keep on doing. And also not only do you keep on doing what you don’t want to do, but it says you have inside of you a desire to do what’s good. Any of you have a desire to do what’s good, but find out you can’t carry it out? I do. And I think you do, too. It’s a dilemma, folks. And that is this is the very thing where somebody say, brother with with this kind of condition, you really need some counseling. He said, Yeah, you do, but not from man. Because any man you talk to, is going to be sitting there thinking to himself, the things I want to do, I don’t do and the things I don’t want to do, I don’t do them either. So you’re not gonna get an answer from another man, you’re gonna have to go to God who designed you. It’s what Jesus said in the second chapter of John, he says, I made man. And I know man, and I do not need man’s testimony about man, I know, man, I made him.

Now listen to what Paul says the solution to this, folks, and you tell me if this is not the root of all problems, of all depression, of all anxiety, of all fears? What does man beating himself up over? the things I want to do I don’t do. And the things that don’t want to do, it seems like I just do them anyway. Now he’s telling you where the problem is, it’s sin living in you. You may be born again. And if you’re born again, you’re born again of the Spirit. And what that means is your vacated human spirit that was vacated at birth, as a result of Adam’s sin, the life of God vacating his human spirit and you and I came into this world, in Adam dead spiritually, that when you’re born again, the living Christ comes to take up residence in your human spirit and brings spiritual life, to your human spirit. You’re a spiritual being, folks, God made man and created him in his image. God is not flesh and blood, he’s spiritual. So man was created as a spiritual being, to be clothed in humanity, so that his creation on Earth can be a direct reflection of the deity that lives in him, he didn’t make him deity he made because he can’t make you God, you’re not God, He’s God. So he made you man, in which God lives, placed God in us to be a reflection. But in this humanity of ours, in other words, then the inner man, our own soul, our own body of flesh, why it was indwelt, with original sin, and today is indwelt by indwelling sin, that everything was given to you by your mom and dad, is indwelt by indwelling sin. That’s why flesh and blood will never inherit the kingdom of God. So you can try to clean up your flesh as much as you want to, but it isn’t going any place it’s staying here. And so flesh and blood that is contained in that, or that contains indwelling, sin is the problem and the conflict that you and I have, it’s a conflict between your humanity and his deity. Now, before his deity came to live within your humanity, that conflict was not there. You may have some conflicts that were brought about by your conscience, which is human. But you did not have the conflict that you have as a child of God, where you have this indwelling Christ living in you desiring to live his life in and through you desiring to produce in you things like faith and hope and love, and the fruit of his Spirit of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness. There’s something raging inside of you where you desire these things. Just like there’s a built in desire in you. There’s to go home and your home is in heaven. There’s a desire for that. Now you didn’t have that conflict before, as a matter of fact, that scared the daylights out of you. But today, there’s a conflict that is there. And that is the conflict between the spiritual part of you, and the human part of you. And that conflict, the flesh is always had conflict with the Spirit. And the Spirit is always a conflict with the flesh. They never agree with each other. And so this is what Paul is talking about, but he wants you to identify the source of your desires for godliness, have to come from him, and the source of your desires for evil, come from indwelling sin that lives within you. So I’m not going to take credit for the good things that I’m thinking because they come from God. And I’m also going in essence, not going to take credit for the evil things because I know where they come from, my role is whom I’m going to yield my humanity to.

Now Paul is going to go ahead to explained what we’ve just been talking about. He says, Now, if I do what I do not want to do, it’s no longer I who to do it, but it is sin living in me, that does it. Now I just got through saying that it’s no longer I myself who do it, but it’s sin living in me. And it says it again, it’s no longer I who do it, but sin living in Me that does it. So I find this law at work. When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law. But I see another law at work and the members of my body, waging war against the law in my mind, and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man that I am. He said, Who will rescue me from this body of death?

Folks, I am totally convinced in my own heart, that until a man goes through a Roman seven experience, he’s never going to understand totally the grace of God. I think that the Romans seven experience is a doorway that must be approached and opened and entered into, for us to come to the other side to see it’s all Jesus and none of me. There are many people who tried to, in my opinion, to try to negate this conflict by saying, oh, Paul wasn’t saved. But folks, this is the lifestyle of a man under the law, whether he’s lost or saved. The thing that makes me believe that this is a passage that deals that Paul is relating, as a saved person, is when he says in my inner being, I delight in God’s law. And when he says it’s no longer I who do it, but it’s sin living in me. Now, the reason that I say that is this, that a Paul says that I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live yet not I, but Christ lives in me. And I believe Paul is talking about his new him the new you, the Paul in Christ Jesus, that Paul, the one where Christ Jesus lives, he delights in God’s law. In other words, there is no conflict between the law, he delights in it, he does not think it’s evil, he delights in it. But he finds that he cannot live up to it as a Christian or a non Christian, it makes no difference.

So he sees another Lord work in the members were in the members of his body, and he is now delineating the difference between the spiritual and the physical. You see, Bob, the spiritual wants to do the things that are right, the things of God, but the physical, the natural wants to go against that, and what is natural for us to do that which is natural. What is the most logical thing for us to do as a Christian that which is spiritual, but we’ve got something very natural inside of us. It’s our natural being. I’m much more comfortable with being a human being than I am a spiritual being. Because I can’t see that spiritual being. I can see the effects of it, but I can’t see it. It’s like the wind that Paul that Jesus talked about, you don’t know where it’s going, you don’t read came from but you can see the effects of it. And it’s the same with being born again. But you see, God wants to teach us that no, Bob, you are a spiritual being clothed in humanity. But the most natural thing the thing that you’re the most acquainted with, the thing that you’re the most familiar with is your humanity. But Bob, that humanity. If when you die, that things burned. It’s gonna fit in a little urn on your mantle. And so these things that we look at that are so important, this is not the important the outer man is there. It’s got a purpose. But it’s only to house the inner man that is now there, and that’s Christ Jesus alive living in you, that your only hope of glory. Now, when we come to Christ, we think, well, I shouldn’t have this conflict anymore. But he said, No, Paul said, you’re going to have that conflict until you enter into the exchange of life. Until you come to grips with what Paul had to come to grips with, that I can’t do it.

Now, folks, I want to tell you, I want you to do something. If you have your Bibles with you. I want you to go with me starting in verse 15. And we’re going to put a circle around all of the I’s and me’s and myself. And if you’ll do this with me, you’re going to see dramatically what I’m talking about here. Let’s start, I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do but what I hate, I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good as it is. It is no longer I myself can use to those who do it. But it’s sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me that is in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I can’t carry it out. For what I do is not the good. I want to do no the evil that I do not want to do this. I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

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.