Radio Broadcast Wednesday 03/08/2023

Classic Christianity – The Book of John P15 (03-08-23)

Are You Coming to Jesus For Him or for Food?

~ “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” ^{Matthew 6:33}

~ “Now Jesus is saying the same thing here, guys, he’s saying that if we live to do the will of God, there’s a Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And then I’ll add things to you, how many of you are seeking first the righteousness of God and letting them add to you, instead of going out and try to get all the additives, and then I’ve got a little time left over, I’ll seek first the kingdom of God, which is it. If I get a little time left over, I’ll seek the righteousness of God. But in the meantime, I’m gonna seek my business and I’m gonna seek seek seek. He said, Seek first the kingdom of God. And I will add to you, you want to be successful in business, Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and he will add it to you. That’s his promise. And many of us are in a situation of saying, No, I’m going to seek something else. If you’re living for God, if you are living to finish the work, to do the will of God who sent you, you will go out into the marketplace with an attitude of servitude, not to make money, but to serve people. You know who the most successful people are in business, people who serve people, the money will follow. You got and seek money, that’s all you’re gonna get money, and ultimately destroy you. You go out and seek to serve people, and you’ll be blessed all your life. And that’s what God is wanting us to do. He said, My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me. Remember, Jesus said, I don’t do anything unless the Father tells me to do it. What was he doing, seeking the will of the one who said him. He was saying, I live in total dependency upon the Father. And I’m going to finish the work. At the Cross Father, why have you forsaken me? pointing us back to the 22nd Psalm, which starts out My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me. To let people know, this is not an accident. It’s all a part of the plan. But the issue is, I’m gonna finish the race, I’m going to complete the work that God gave me to do. And that means hanging on a cross and suffering and dying for the sins of the entire world. That’s what that means. And I’m willing to do that I’m gonna finish the race.”

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Announcer 0:12
Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George Bob’s clear, timeless teachings on the complete forgiveness and unconditional love of Jesus Christ will transform your life as you learn about God’s amazing grace. Let’s join Bob as he teaches us from God’s Word.

Bob George 0:28
The disciples returned and they were surprised to see Jesus talking with a woman and a Samaritan woman besides, but no one asked, What do you want? And why are you talking with her? Then leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people come see a man who has told me everything I did. Could this be the Christ? They came out of the town and made their way toward him. Meanwhile, his disciples while she was gone, talking to the people back in her village, the disciples were urging Jesus to eat something, he said, Rabbi eat something. And Jesus said, I have food to eat that you know nothing about. Now, immediately, when the disciples were thinking about physical things, were they not? Jesus is always talking and spiritual things. And we’re always interpreting them as physical things. He said, I got food that you don’t know anything about. And their first thing is, could someone have brought him food who could have brought some food to him? And then, Jesus went ahead to explain what he was talking about my food, he said, is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to finish his work.

Now, guys, you know, many times in our lives, we might be sent by God to do something. But we get discouraged along the way. Has that ever happened to you? I want to ask you a question. Because most of you know me relatively well. Do you think that I have ever had a thought that maybe ought to just quit doing this? How many of you think that I just might have had a thought such as that? Well, but I’d say that shows you don’t have any confidence in me at all. No, is what it shows you know me. Because yeah, those thoughts come they don’t come for long. They’re fleeting. But they do come. Satan’s gonna make sure because why? He didn’t want me to finish the race. He had rather you get out of it. Before you cross the finish line. Have You Ever Have you ever had those thoughts yourself? Have any you guys ever thought you on staff Bob BC? Have you ever thought through saying never just once? That was right after it hit you in the head, if I remember correctly. Yeah, we all have doubts, not when we all have times when they said, I’m gonna give out. Nobody cares what you’re saying, anyway.

You out in the marketplace. I can remember like it was yesterday, when I first came to Christ. I mean, I came running, I hit the ground running, and got into evangelism training immediately. So I was sharing Christ with everybody that walked in. And anyone who didn’t walk it didn’t make a difference. It was just all over the place is a businessman, I got the point where I could have cared less about getting orders. Just share Christ with people. And I can remember one day of, you know, real bid real spiritual, and saying, God, I’m tired of talking about you. Probably turn everybody off losing business and everything else. I’m just tired of talking about you. I am not going to talk to you about you to anybody today. Real spiritual day. And so they’re still there, take that. And I was I was convinced that’s what I was going to do. I went the whole morning, didn’t talk to anybody. And I had a lunch and engagement that day with a credit manager of a company that we were purchasing, purchasing materials from very nice, man. We were going to talk about some things. And I had already ended up driving there. I was saying, Oh, God, I’m not going to talk to him about you. Gotta keep my mind on the business. And I sat down and we exchanged a few nice words with each other. And I said, Wow, how you doing? And he said, not very well. I said, really, what’s the problem? And he told me his problem. I had Oh, well. Okay, Jesus maybe just once today and ended up leading him to the Lord over our lunch. Now, that is where we can in our flesh, say I’m not gonna do something. But God gives you an opportunity. And it overrides our flesh. Have you ever had that happen to you? Where it just overrides your flesh and you say, Okay, Lord, this is your business, not mine.

Now Jesus is saying the same thing here, guys, he’s saying that if we live to do the will of God, there’s a Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And then I’ll add things to you, how many of you are seeking first the righteousness of God and letting them add to you, instead of going out and try to get all the additives, and then I’ve got a little time left over, I’ll seek first the kingdom of God, which is it. If I get a little time left over, I’ll seek the righteousness of God. But in the meantime, I’m gonna seek my business and I’m gonna seek seek seek. He said, Seek first the kingdom of God. And I will add to you, you want to be successful in business, Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and he will add it to you. That’s his promise. And many of us are in a situation of saying, No, I’m going to seek something else. If you’re living for God, if you are living to finish the work, to do the will of God who sent you, you will go out into the marketplace with an attitude of servitude, not to make money, but to serve people. You know who the most successful people are in business, people who serve people, the money will follow. You got and seek money, that’s all you’re gonna get money, and ultimately destroy you. You go out and seek to serve people, and you’ll be blessed all your life. And that’s what God is wanting us to do. He said, My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me. Remember, Jesus said, I don’t do anything unless the Father tells me to do it. What was he doing, seeking the will of the one who said him. He was saying, I live in total dependency upon the Father. And I’m going to finish the work. At the Cross Father, why have you forsaken me? pointing us back to the 22nd Psalm, which starts out My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me. To let people know, this is not an accident. It’s all a part of the plan. But the issue is, I’m gonna finish the race, I’m going to complete the work that God gave me to do. And that means hanging on a cross and suffering and dying for the sins of the entire world. That’s what that means. And I’m willing to do that I’m gonna finish the race.

And so guys, we, again, he’s saying you’re thinking about physical food. But I’m going to tell you about something far greater than physical food that if you will listen to what I’m saying, if you have ears, listen to me, as to what I’m saying, the physical will take care of itself. These men were never hungry. They were provided for why? they were following him. When he fed the 5000, what were they there for to get food, no, to get a message from God. And they were there so long that they were hungry. And Jesus fed them that he went over to the other side. And a bunch of people followed him over. And he said, to be real honest with you. The reason you’re over here is to get food. You saw me feed those people over there. And that’s all you’re interested in, you’re not coming to seek Me, you’re coming to get food, you’re not coming to get me you’re coming to get healed. You’re not coming to get me you’re here to get a special gift of some kind. You’re not after me, you’re after manifestations. You’re after feelings. You’re not after me. And that’s why it says in the last days, I’m gonna say to some of you, I don’t know who you are. I don’t know who you are. Oh, you say you’ve done miracles. And you’ve done this, I don’t know who you are, why you’ve never come to me. You just came to get some kind of manifestation or some kind of a gift or to get money or to get something came to you to get wealthy. You saying, Guys, if you will seek Me first the kingdom of God and my righteousness, I will add to you everything that you need for life and godliness. And so he said, My food is not what you think it is My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me. And then to finish his work. He didn’t say finish my work, finish his work. What’s he talking about? finishing the work that God has sent you to do. Not my work. It’s interesting, isn’t it? The God said I will build my church. And the gates of hell will not prevail against it and man sets out and say the heck you will I’m gonna build you watch me build it. And we’re out building the church. And we’re out drawn all the principles of the world on how to gather people in order to build a church full of people who don’t know the Lord from an apple tree. And you have to be building bigger buildings, even put coffee shops in all kinds of things. To build buildings for people that don’t even know who Jesus is, activity centers for people that don’t know Jesus. I’ll tell you something, guys.

When I was a kid, I grew up in a very small town about an 18,000 population. And the Presbyterian church that I went to from the Christian church and my mom and dad belong to went over the Presbyterian Church because that’s where all my buddies were. And they had a basketball court in a basement. And they put a jukebox, God forbid, in the basement and people danced. And they put ping pong tables and they put all kinds of stuff. Now I tell you, they drew kids. In that little town, we had 300 people come down the aisle on Palm Sunday with palms and parents sitting there with tears streamed down their eyes, and everybody’s seeing all of us angelic looking kids walking down the aisles who did not know the Lord at all. Bunch of kids. Reverend Spurgeon was a guy who loved kids. He bought a Church Bus. Never heard of such a thing. It was a first time and Newcastle a Church Bus whoever heard today, you want to heard the criticism that people had, there was a beautiful green Church Bus. What was it for? take us kids after Memorial Park where we played football together, we play basketball and we play all kinds of games that attracted kids, he knew how to track kids. Only one problem, he didn’t know how to get out the gospel. How come? He didn’t know it? All he had been to seminary and was a pastor. But he didn’t know the Lord. But he drew kids. And we were had good activities, a lot of good activities, we were busy. Which would you rather your kids be guys busy or saved? Now if you can get saved, busy kids, that’s okay. But if you’re just getting them pacted with activities for the sake of activities, you’re going to end up with a lost kid going to college. And getting into every kind of trouble that you can imagine. I cannot tell you the number of young faces that I saw from the kids that went to school with my kids here in Dallas, who died of AIDS. I cannot tell you the number of them that I know. Activities. Yeah. But not the reality of Jesus.

I always remember that as I grew older and went into full time Christian work. Because I knew that this pastor that I’m talking about that was so wonderful with kids, but had no message for us. I knew that he had ultimately gone off, got back into alcohol and drinking, running around doing everything there was to do. And he finally left the ministry. It didn’t know what had happened to him. And one day, one of my best friends in high school, his parents came through and stopped by to see me here in Dallas. And I asked Mr. And Mrs. Daly, I said, Have you ever heard from Spurgeon? And they said, Yeah, we know where he is. Where is he? And he explained to him that he was in the road building business, in a small town in Indiana, totally out of the ministry. And I wrote to him, and the letter went something like spurge, you know, I imagine that you’ve come to a point in your life where you wonder if anything you ever did was worthwhile. What if your whole ministry life was destroyed, or all of these kinds of things, but I want you to know that I thank you for at least having us kids in a place where I can hear about the songs of Jesus. And I explained how we became born again, of how we very simply put our faith in the fact not in us and what we’re doing but in Jesus. But I thanked him for the fact that he got us in church. So at least I can hear what later was going to take root because it set some seeds were sown there.

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Bob George 14:20
I didn’t hear back from him. And about three months later, I got a letter back from his wife, who was a dear dear sweet lady. And she wrote to me and said, Bob, I’m sorry that we have not responded to your letter. But she said, when you sent the letter at the time you sent the letter that Spurge was very, very ill. And he was extremely ill and he got your letter. And he said every night I’d go into his room and he was sitting in there reading that letter with tears streaming down his face. And he said that letter touched his heart like nothing that I’ve ever known has touched his heart. And she said, I think Jesus, that Spurgeon came to Jesus before he died, just wondering why he didn’t say thank you. There was a man that was a pastor, to be in the seminary, and all the things that we say it takes, who did not know, the dynamic of the living Christ. But I looked at that and said, Jesus, thank you for your faithfulness. Because in the final analysis, I believe God knew Spurgeon’s his heart. And I think that he knew that he didn’t know. And I think he knew that he had weaknesses of the flesh and all of the things that that we struggle with. But his forgiveness extended to Spurgeon at the cross just like he did to ours. And I think that he knew that deep down under the skin was a man searching. And I think that he used that letter to lead him to Christ. And we thank God for that.

God has called us to something guys, every one of you had been called, or you wouldn’t be a Christian, if you are truly a born again, believer, God has, first of all, called you unto himself has saved you, is now working on you developing you and maturing you. Because he wants to send you someplace, where is it? I don’t know. That used to scare me to death. If I come a Christian, he’s gonna send me to Africa. I don’t want to go to Africa. And there’s a lot of people like that. God may preparing you to be a fantastic godly mother, I’m gonna send you into motherhood, to raise your kids in the admonition of the Lord. Because you don’t have a clue what I got in mind for your kids. He may be the next “”, I may send you to go into the advertising business, or into the real estate business or into the insurance business. My grace is a great I may even make a lawyer out of you. Sure. But I’m gonna send you someplace I’m gonna put you out in society. So that where you are I am also and I’m gonna put you out there to be a representative for me to be a person that is out there with a desire and a willingness to give an account of that hope that is within us to whoever you’re together with.

A number of a few weeks ago, Guy brown, some of you know that he and his wife come to Metro dear brother and Christ he is an ex cowboy. Super bowler. So anything he says I say Yes, sir. But guys, a dear dear brother in Christ and had me to go speak in a couple of places, one down at Smokies, which we went down to on Mockingbird Lane think it is. And then another empathy athletic the old Dallas Athletic Club where a group of men meet every Friday, that and the people let them meet there. And so I went to speak to them. And there was a great response from the people there. But what I noticed was just a bunch of guys, men. At the Friday group, there’s been no women down at Smokies. But a group of people who have obviously had an encounter with Christ Jesus, who just want to sit around and talk about him. It’s not a plan program as the first one to ever come in just to give a message. But they talk about what Christ means to them. And I was so taken by it that I started going to it now and I’ve been going every Friday to it. And it’s got and it’s got great meaning to me, because I’m able to sit there with a group of guys and just interact with some guys. And you hear about their weaknesses and hear about one guy over there that nice looking young man with a nice kids whose wife just took off and ran off with somebody else and left him with alone by the kids center the broken heart and sitting next to another guy just gone through the same experience. And all of a sudden there’s two people that can talk to each other and relate to each other. And I saw the dynamic of that all you got people from different persuasions and different people different people believe in different things, but that’ll get corrected. As people start understanding a proper foundation and a proper premise those things will start getting to be understood more clearly. There’s some people there that might believe that you say but getting baptized him saying that all get cleared up in due time. But in the meantime, there has a love relationship that develops there. And just to get an interact with some people, and to be able to minister to people it has God calls you to. And I determined when going to that meeting, and I wasn’t gonna go there as a teacher, I was gonna go there as a learner and I sat there the first meeting the whole time, never said a word. Until at the end of the meeting, they asked me to say some things, and then I did. I’m there to be available. I’m there to be available to give an account, if God would sat in your way to do it. And I thought to myself, That’s a great way for people to interact with each other. You enjoyed it didn’t your brother? What does God call us to? What does He send us to we don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Wherever you are, realize something that you and Jesus are there together, it doesn’t make a difference where you are. You and Jesus are there together. And what does he say is wherever we are, if you will seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, I will add to you what needs to be added to it that simple. You don’t have to get out and grunt and groan and the strain, or we should have heard some of the testimony of those men, they’re in their business, good big business guys. Say I don’t look at results at all. I go to work to serve those people. I go to work to talk about Jesus anytime I can. God just keeps adding to me and adding to that makes sense. And so he says, I got a place for you, I got a message for you. I’ve got a place that I’m going to send you may not be some glamorous space that need to be everybody things that need to be a “”, thank God, there aren’t a bunch of them. Just wherever you are, you and Jesus are there together and finish the work. Don’t give up finish the work that he sent you to do. Jesus said, don’t say four months more. And then the harvest don’t say, well, the harvest will be out there in four months. Or I’ll go in for months. He says I tell you open up your eyes and look at the fields. They’re ripe unto harvest. I think one of the most discouraging things that I ever did in my life was go to New York City. And a walk down no streets and see that myriad of people just swarms of people all over the place and thinking, how are these people going to ever get saved? There’s millions of them, how are they ever going to get saved? How is anybody going to reach all of them? And God says, Don’t worry about it. I can reach them. So you can relax. But there’s a The harvest is out there guys. He says, look under the fields look out and above our own little bailiwick that we live in, look up and look out and say when there’s people out there that don’t know the Lord. And maybe God might want to use me, well, I don’t know how to do it real well, that make a difference. He said, I’ll give you words. That’s the amazing thing. We don’t have to be glib in given out the gospel just give it out or word of encouragement sometimes that they know is coming from the Lord can do wonders in people’s lives. A letter like I’m talking about the Reverend Spurgeon. If you got somebody sometimes just send a letter does God ever put on your heart to do something like that? Have you ever done it? How many of you have ever had on your heart? I need to write this person or pick up the phone and call somebody? How many of you ever had that? How many of you did it? How many of you didn’t do it? Yeah, a bunch of us now, every time you don’t do it, don’t you feel like a jerk? Because that’s God putting something on your heart to do. So. What I’m saying is be sensitive to what you can do.

I walked in the office the other day and I talked to Ed heck, and Ed Hecht is one of the dearest brothers on the face of the earth. He’s been with me for well over 25 years or more easy. And when I first came to Dallas back in 1972 is one of the first guys I met and we’ve been pals ever since Jewish guy by birth. But we’re born again believers. I don’t think Ed would know what to do with his pocket if he didn’t have a born free book in it. Do all you know Ed. Have you ever seen him without a Born Free book and he he always has a witnessing tool in his shirt pocket. I got a pair of sunglasses. I wrote the book. And he carries it and I don’t. And I looked at that the other day with Ed saw that and I thought to myself, what kind of a jerk am I? I’ve written this book. And I never carry it anymore. I used to but it kind of got oh well. But how many times have I have been a situation where I thought, Gee, I wish I had that little book, I just, I can just give it to somebody. Because it’s very easy. If you give a little Born Free book to somebody to go back to them a day or a week later, call them up and say, Hey, Bob, did you get that book that I left with you? Have you had a chance to read it yet? Did it make sense to you? Yeah, got any questions. Now anybody can do that can’t they. I’ll don’t do it. Not like it used to. But I’ll tell you, my heart is telling me I need to start again. There isn’t a reason maybe walking around with sunglasses in here. When I can have something in my hand that if I don’t have a chance, and I’m not going to attack some waitress in a restaurant who’s trying to get your order, and you’re up there trying to lead her to Jesus. But I can’t give her a book. And so we have to understand some of these things. Guys, there’s ways and means that we can be lifting up our eyes, looking out on these fields realize that there’s people out there that not only need to know Jesus, folks, there’s millions out there that need to know this message that you and I know about the completeness of the life of Christ. I’ll guarantee you, that is a missing teaching today. And so he says Even now the Reaper draws his wages Even now he harvests the crop for eternal life so that the sower and the Reaper may be glad together. Thus the same one sews and other reaps, that’s true. But he said, I sent you to reap what you haven’t worked for. Others have done hard work, and you’ve reaped the benefits of their labor. Now, folks, it says many of these Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony. She said, he told me everything that I ever did. So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them. And he stayed two days and because of his words, many more became believers. Guys, we don’t want someone’s faith to be in Jesus, because someone just told them about Jesus. You want your faith to be in the Jesus that you’ve discovered. And the way that you discover Jesus is through getting to know him through the word that you’re looking at now reading your scriptures, and you come to realize that this man Jesus was real.

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.