Radio Broadcast Wednesday 07/05/2023

 

Join Bob George in this chapter by chapter exposition of the gospel of John. Available for download the complete series on the Book of John. Realize why Christ, Himself, is REAL LIFE and how He personally offers hope in daily living that you may:

• Discover an abundant and meaningful life as a Christian.
• Overcome fear with His assurance that you have His eternal life.
• Experience joy during adversity.
• Apply God’s wisdom in decision making, no matter how big or small.
• Experience freedom as you walk by faith in His love and acceptance. 

 

Purchase Online at Shop.BobGeorge.net

 

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
Well, let’s turn to the 13th chapter of John, as we continue in our study, work coming down to the point where Jesus is in a number of chapters here is going to be arrested. And ultimately, as we know, to go to the cross, and then to the victory of the resurrection. And so this is really a time of teaching that Jesus in his last days is probably, in my opinion, going to be teaching the most important elements of His entire ministry. I think that if you and I knew that we had a week or two or three, to live on the face of this earth, that we would probably give the most important instruction that we could to the family and the people that we love. And the same thing was true with Christ Jesus. And so we pick up where it says that it was just before Passover Feast, the Passover feast. And Jesus knew that the time had come for him to leave the world and to go to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love. The evening meal, it says, was being served. And the devil had already prompted Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon to betray Jesus. And so that was the atmosphere at this evening supper was Jesus being there, knowing full well that one of His followers, Judas was going to betray him. And yet, the love of God was as strong there as it was for the apostles who are not going to betray him. It’s the love of God, the unconditional love of God that has been given to us in Christ Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God. And now it was about to return to God. It says, So he got up from the meal, I’m assuming here that this would be in the middle of the meal, then the meal wasn’t completed yet. And Jesus got up from that setting, took off his outer clothing and wrapped a towel around his waist. And after that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him. Now, folks, the servant, the pecking order, so to speak of servitude, that the lowest form of servants were those who washed the feet of the guest. And here Jesus had humbled himself, as God of this universe, the one who called the universe into existence, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, the Word was God, all things are created by Him and for Him, and yet, knelt at the feet of his disciples, and washed their feet. Performing the most humble of servants activities. And so he came to Simon Peter, who said to him, Lord, are you going to wash my feet? And Jesus replied, You don’t realize now what I’m doing, but later, you will understand? No, said, Peter, you’ll never wash my feet. Isn’t that just like Peter, and I just argued all the time, but Jesus, you’re not going to wash my feet.

Now, folks, before we go any further, there’s a lot of explanations that people have talked about this footwashing deal, as it relates to forgiveness. That’s nonsense. It has nothing to do with forgiveness. It has to do with servitude, with being into a heart beat that says that I am not too great to serve my brother in Christ. That there is no position that I can hold. That is of such great significance that I would not stoop to wash the feet of my brother. It’s an attitude of servitude. It’s an attitude of total humility. And that’s what Jesus was trying to get across. The people that will talk about this being forgiveness have failed to realize that not only did anyone asked Jesus to wash their feet, but they said you’re not going to do it. He initiated did he not the foot washing, he didn’t wait for me to ask to get my feet washed. So if as many people want to teach this as a forgiveness passage, then we must keep in mind that if it was a forgiveness passage, he once again is the initiator and we’re the responder, which takes us out of the position of us asking God to be forgiven, rather than receiving the forgiveness that God has already offered to us. Because he initiated this, no one came up to Jesus and said, wash feet. Would you? If Jesus walked in this room, would you say, Hey, let me take my shoes off Jesus and wash my feet be the last thing in the world you’d want to do. But Jesus would, knowing his character say, Sit down Bob I’m gonna wash your feet. That’s Jesus, the initiator. We’ve talked about this so many times, guys that the Christian world has spiritual dyslexia. We think that we are the initiators, and God is the responder, nothing could be farther from the truth. If I am the one who initiates to God, and I can cause him to be the effect, and I’m the cause I had become greater than God. We live by law of causality, the effect of something is never greater than the initiation of something. We live by that law, the warmth of the sun is not greater than the sun, my salvation is not greater than my savior. The car is not greater than the manufacture, the house is not greater than the builder. We live by that law called the law of causality. And the same thing is true in regard to the spiritual truths, that he is the initiator of all things. He did not consult us when He created the world. We weren’t here. He didn’t consult us in creation. He didn’t consult us in salvation. He just did it. He looked down and saw the condition of man and put into effect a plan to save us who were not only sinners, but we’re dead spiritually. And when you’re dead, you need life. And he could not have given us life apart from taking away eternally the cause of death, which was sin. And that’s why to me, the denial of the cross, to me is the worst sin that a human being can commit on this earth. When Jesus said, it’s finished, and we say, No, it isn’t finished. I got my part in this. And so the Hebrews went back through their day of atonement. The Catholics are at their confession booth and we Christians, Protestants are 1st John one nining ourselves today.

We need to start studying the Scriptures guys. And we need to start studying the Scriptures to find out what they mean. Because I want to tell you something. God is not double minded. God does not say out on one side of his breath, it’s finished. And out of the other side, it isn’t finished. He doesn’t say on one side, his mouth, I’ve taken away your sin. And now the other side of your mouth saying I haven’t taken away your sin. I’ve taken away your sin for eternity. But if you confess I’ll forgive you. That’s nonsense, guys. That is absolute double talk. And yet we proclaim it as if it’s truth that is written on our forehead. There’s only one thing that you and I can do in regard to the forgiveness of Christ Jesus, and that is say thank you. If he didn’t take it away, and all of it, then he forgot one. And if you’ve forgot one and you commit it, you’re a goner. We have made a mockery, as it says in Hebrews treated it as an unholy thing, the blood of the covenant, and treat it as an unholy thing the cross of Christ Jesus, we preach the cross, but we may as well have a bull and goat on our top of our church for the way that we treat forgiveness. Jesus said, it’s finished. And you know what he meant by that? It’s finished. There’s no more to do. And when he comes back, he says, I’m not coming back to bear sin. And the reason he isn’t coming back to bear sin is there isn’t any more sin to bear. I’m coming back to bring salvation for those of you who are waiting for me. And so until we finalize the cross, we will never realize the resurrection. So we walk around as dead as hammers. Not having a clue of the life that lives in us. Jesus is alive, guys. He lives in you. He’s there to direct your mind to control your motions to direct your will. He’s there to give life to the dead. That’s what he came to do. I was born into this world and so we used that as a hammer. And with the ability to choose life. He said I came that you might have what? Life. I’m the way, and the TRUTH and the LIFE and who has the Son has life and who does not have the Son of God does not have life, the whole issue of salvation is life. We’ve stopped at the cross. And told people that you’re saved, but come in and get your sins forgiven. That’s a lie. The Bible tells us while we were yet enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, we were forgiven of our sins when we were born.

While we were yet enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, is that true or not? What does it mean when you said enemies? Means when you’re lost. But then we pass we gotta go on, then how much more having been reconciled, that being an accomplished fact shall we be saved by his what? His life, you’re not saved to the death of Christ, you’re saved for the life of Christ. The cross is what enables us to cross over from life to death. It is not the destination, it’s the means to the destination. If I’m going to cross over from death to life, I’m going to cross over on the cross where Jesus bled and died to take away my sin so that when I reach the other side, and come into the resurrected life of Christ Jesus, I come in cleansed of all my unrighteousness, and I come in forgiven of all my sins, and received the life and the righteousness of Christ Jesus. Now, Jesus is saying to us here, that as a child of God, one who has been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. And folks, I’ll tell you, what is amazing to me is how dead people can be. I, I’m amazed, sometimes, I’ll guarantee you there are people that have sat and listened to this message for 10, 15 years, who are as dead today, as they were when they first started listening. Their minds don’t get around things, they don’t grasp things. They just surface just give me some surface stuff. I don’t want to hear anything deeper than a quarter of an inch. 40 miles wide, quarter inch deep. Just talk to me some surface things. You know, God gives grace only to one person. It’s called the humble. And he resists the proud. And the proud is the one who says many times I know that. I hear that all the time. Well, I know that, well, if you knew it, tell me about it. Well, I, I can’t tell you about it, then you don’t know it. Because if you know something, you can tell me about it. Pride is the one thing that keeps us from ever coming to know Christ Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we live in our stupidity. And we live in our death in our state of spiritual death, and do not have sense enough to realize I’m dead, and I need life, and to come to Christ Jesus for what he came to give us his life.

Now folks, when you come to Christ Jesus, there’s supposed to be a change that takes place. If any man is in Christ, he’s a new creation, not an old one. It means that the old lifestyle that we used to live should be over with or in the process of getting over with. That dog many times doesn’t happen overnight. And conversion experiences you’ll see all over the place, you’ll see some people immediately change their behavior and others, it takes a while. But the issue is that if you’re in Christ, you’re never going to be happy with your old lifestyle. And if you are, something’s wrong with you. When God says something is evil, it’s evil. And when God says something is sin, it’s sin. It’s not an alternate lifestyle. It’s not gay, it’s perversion.

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Bob George 14:15
And we as Christians have got to call things as they are. We have to call that if I’m a worrier. It’s not that I have a healthy concern. I’m worried and worry is not of God. We have to understand the truth of these things. What do the lost do? What is the normal lifestyle of a normal lost person? Where do they meet with their friends in the coffee shops or the bars? You know the answer to that and so do I. If you’re in Christ Jesus We don’t belong in the bars anymore. You don’t belong there anymore. That’s I spent enough time in them. I drank all I needed before I came to Christ. And I tell people that alcohol destroys brain cells, and I have no more to lose. We have to understand the truth of that. There is behavior that is associated with lost people, God says, I want you to get over here, I want you to start living as a new creation. I want the words that come out of your mouth to be encouraging words, to be able to think as God has taught us to think. And that’s what Jesus is trying to do here. I want us to get rid of that pride that says, Don’t tell me to wash somebody’s feet. That servants job over there. He says, that’s an attitude you need to dismiss. That God has called us to be servants. Well, Peter didn’t understand that. He said, You’re never going to wash my feet, Lord, that’s the job of a servant. And Jesus answered in this way, Peter, unless I watch you, you’ll have no part with Me. He said something unless you allow me to cleanse you of all of your unrighteousness. And unless you allow me to take away your sins, you will have no part of me at all. You can’t come to me until you allow me to do what I came to do. Take away your sins at the cross and give life to you who are dead. You will have no part from me. You’re gonna have no part if saying, Well, I want Jesus resurrection, but I don’t want his cross. He said, I’m sorry, that doesn’t work that way you had to be you have to come to me by faith and what I accomplished for you. I love Peters reply. Well he said, If that’s the case, Lord, not just my feet, but my hands and my head as well. In other words, to scrub me from top to bottom. Great reply isn’t? Peter always had his foot in his mouth. So I guess when Jesus had to wash his feet, he probably got his lips wet as well, because he always had his foot in his mouth. But he had a heart. And Jesus answered, a person who’s only had a bath only needs to wash his feet. His whole body is clean, and you are clean. You are clean, though not every one of you, Who’s he talking about? Judas. For he knew who was going to betray him. And that was why he said, not everyone was clean.

When they had finished washing their feet, all of them, he put on his clothes and returned to the place at the meal. And then he asked that question, do you understand what I’ve done for you? And guys, this gets down to what we’ve talked about so many times, that we have to go to the meaning of the word of God. We can go to what the Bible says, and never know what it means. And that’s where, you know, God said it, I believe it that settles and I said nonsense. If God said it, that settles it, whether you believe it or not. But that’s not the issue that God said. And I believe it. The issue is God said it and I now know what it means. And the reason I know what it means is because I’ve allowed the Spirit of God who lives in me to reveal what it means because apart from the Spirit of God, revealing the meaning of the word of God, you will know what it says, but you’re not going to know what it means. A computer knows what it says. But no eye has seen or ear has heard or mind is conceived of those things that God has prepared for those who love Him. But it must be what? Revealed by who? The Spirit of God living in you. And that’s exactly why we can sit and memorize Scripture and not have a clue what it means.

I remember I was speaking in Atlanta, Georgia at an Exchange Life conference a number of years ago. And at that one, at the end of one of those lectures. This young lady came up and said, Bob, can I talk to you? And we sat down and started crying and pulled out her Bible and showed me a date in our Bible. And he said, Bob, that was, I heard you speak, on imputed righteousness. There’s the date that it happened. And my whole life changed. I heard your message on imputed righteousness, and my life changed. And I looked at her and I said, Well, I’m glad it did something for you. Because it hadn’t done anything for me yet. I knew what it said and I could teach what it said. But I had not yet come to understand what it meant. That did not happen until later, when it hit what it meant to be, and have the righteousness of Christ Jesus imputed to me.

So he’s saying, do you understand what I’ve done for you? Because you could go tell somebody what I did. But do you understand what I have done and why I have done it? He said, You call me Teacher and Lord, and rightfully so for that’s what I am. But now that I, your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet, you should also wash one another’s feet. I’ve set you an example that you should do as I have done for you. Now, again, I don’t think that it’s the footwashing that he’s talking about, I think he can say I shined your shoes today, and you shine mine, or shine others. But the whole issue isn’t in what he’s doing. The issue is that is to be a servant is to have the attitude of servitude, that there’s no assignment that I would not do to try to serve my brother and to help my brother. So I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master. This is the essence of what he is trying to get out of this passage, no servant is greater than his master. Nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know these things, you’ll be blessed if you do them. I don’t know what that says to you. What that says to me as a teacher, Minister, whatever I am, is that if I’ve been sent by God to be a messenger, I’m certainly no greater than you. And if you had been sent to be a messenger, you’re no greater than me. So why don’t we walk around acting like we’re greater than each other? Isn’t it strange how the apostle Paul and said, Who’s Peter and who’s Paul? Now man, if you couldn’t brag on Peter and Paul, you just don’t have a bragging rights. But he said, Who’s petered who’s Paul, we’re only servants. We sow the seeds, we water them, but God has to make them grow. He never saw himself as a big deal. Never saw himself as the one who was going to govern the Church of Jesus Christ, he, he saw himself as apostles the same way that we should see ourselves and that is out of the eyes of Christ Jesus, that no servant is greater than his master, nor a messenger greater than the one who sent him. And now that you do these things, or know these things, you’ll be blessed if you do them.

Now, guys, again, he’s saying, if you know these things, you’re going to be blessed if you do them. When you do them, you’re putting into practice what he said to do. So that’s where the obedience comes in. And it’s my love of God, that results in my dependency upon God that then results in my obedience to God. And so obedience comes from my attitude of dependency, and my attitude of dependency comes from my understanding of the love of God. It’s not that I loved him, but that he loved me first. And who reached down to me, he’s the God who reached down to you and me, met us where we were, and pulled us out of that miry clay, that we were in that condition that we were in into salvation. He did that for us. So he said, now that you and I know these things, you’re going to be blessed if you do them. And that’s true. When God says, to do something, we’re going to be blessed when we do it. It’s more blessed to do what? Give than to receive. Do we believe that? I mean, I sometimes wonder about that. Do I really believe that? That is more blessed to give than to receive. Well if that’s the case why don’t we do more giving? We know we cannot outgive God, why don’t we do more of that? Why don’t we do more giving with one another? You see someone in need. Give to them. What happens when you do? You’re blessed by it, makes you feel good. So he said, I’ve set this example that I want you to do. You’re going to be blessed if you do it. He’s not saying that if you don’t do it, I’m gonna zap you. Because he isn’t. He’s saying you’re gonna be blessed if you do it. And that doesn’t mean that I give you something he’s going to give you 10 times more. It means that you’re going to be blessed by what you’ve done. Whether you ever get thing that came back or not, that’s between you and God. But you don’t give in order to get. You give because there’s a need. And if there’s a need, you give to meet that need. And he says, when you do, you’ll be blessed for that.

He said, I’m not referring to all of you. I know those I’ve chosen. But this is to fill the scripture that says, He who shares my bread has lifted up his heel against me. I’m telling you now, before it happens, so that when it does happen, you will believe that I am He. I tell you the truth that Whoever accepts anyone I send, accepts me. And Whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me. Do you know guys, you go out? You’re a child of God are you? If you’re in Christ, you’re a child of God. You go out where you work, or play or wherever it might be. And you tell people about this marvelous Jesus, that you have come to know personally. And they reject you. Who are they rejecting? Who does Jesus say they’re rejecting? Him. Him and when you reject him, you reject the God who sent him. You’re rejecting the totality of God, when God has sent a servant here on this earth, and you reject that servant, you are rejecting God who sent them. Whether you think they’re worthy, or whether you don’t think they’re worthy is not the issue. The issue is, if God has sent you, and you’re rejected, they’re rejecting the God who sent you. Now, there’s a lot of people who say that I’m sent by God. And one of the ways that you can tell whether or not they’re sent by God is what are they teaching? Because what sets you apart and how God sets you apart, is not in the way you dress, or the way you act, or how many radio stations you own or how many radio stations you’re on. But he accepts you predicated on. How do you know truth?

Announcer 27:16
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 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 in praise the Lord. Amen.

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Listen to the Salvation message today!

Stand on the firmness of truth. Don’t keep going back and forth. Thank Him that the forgiveness issue is settled.

Let’s pray together:

• Lord Jesus,
• I thank you for taking away my sins on the cross,
• never ever to see them again.
• Having done that, I now thank you for giving me eternal life,
• through your resurrection.
• I now receive that life.
• And I am going stand in the fact that I am a child of the living God.
• In Jesus Holy name I pray.
• Amen

All believers are now brothers and sisters in Christ.

John 3:3
³ Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

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