Radio Broadcast Wednesday 07/20/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ P57 (07-20-22)

Jesus is Our Everything to All in Those in Christ Jesus

When a person is in Christ Jesus, Jesus is our everything. He is our Righteousness. He is our Holiness. He is our Sanctification. He is our Forgiveness. He is our Reconciliation. He is our Redeemer. He is our Life Giver. He is our Justifier. He is our everything, for we cannot do anything apart from Him. For He lives in us and directs us and instructs us in the world today.

Yet we see so many “churches” are out there being busy and barren all caught up in religion. They fail to realize that the church is the body of believers and have been instructed to go out into the world and share Jesus with the world, for we are Christ’s ambassadors.

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

Just as a person’s physical growth is based on proper diet and exercise, so is the Christians’s spiritual growth dependent on regular feeding upon the word of God and application of its principles. With more false teaching, shifting opinions and general confusion in the world than ever before, Christians need a solid foundation upon which to base their beliefs and build their lives. The word of God declares that Jesus Christ is that foundation of truth. With that in mind, let’s now take A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ.

Bob George
I think in order to begin into our study on you are justified, this is chapter nine of our book, a closer look at the believers identity, beginning on page 58, if I’m correct there. But before we do that, I think we just need to set the stage. By just going through some scripture, there’s nothing like scripture to shed some light on what it means. And I would like to just go ahead and to do that we’re talking about justification. And justification has been brought about as a result, as a result of an act of righteousness that was given to us by Christ Jesus. And we’ll hit that in a moment, but 5:18, Romans 5:18, consequently, just as the result of one trespass, and that was Adams was condemnation for all men, so also, the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. So there was an act of righteousness that was not done by us, but was done by Christ Jesus, that brought about the justification that brought life to all men, which is what justification is all about, is justified by the life of Christ Jesus.

Now, we’re going to back up into the third chapter of Romans in order to set the stage for everything in regard to justification. And we’ll begin in verse 19, chapter three. We know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law. So you say, Well, how come? Well, if it tells us why so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world held accountable to God. So in other words, in order to shut up the smart alex down, here, the law says it says to those who are under the law, if you’re under the law, it’s going to shut your mouth because you’re in there be anything for you to brag about, when you understand the spirit of the law. And of course, a terrific misinterpretation that takes place in regard to the Gospels is the fact that Jesus when He was here, prior to the ushering in of the New Covenant, He taught under the Old Covenant. And He buried us under the Old Covenant, He buried us under the law. He went in to the presence of people who had stumbled over himself, the stumbling stone, they had stumbled over it. And as it says, In in the Scripture, that instead of accepting the righteousness that comes from God, they sought to establish their own, and they stumbled over the stumbling stone. So you’re talking about the same thing today, you’re talking about going into a religious world that has been highly organized, a religious world that is full of tensile that looks good on the outside, in the same way that Judaism looked good on the outside. And it’s it’s surrounded and engulfed and all of the tensile and the decoration that you could possibly put upon religion, the pomp of it, in some cases, the stained glass, the beamed ceilings, the organs and everything else is established. And as neat as those things seem to be, they have nothing to do with spirituality. It’s a building and that’s all it is. We then have taken over what used to be done by the YMCA, activity. And years ago before churches had all the money to build huge gyms and bowling alleys and everything else why normally the YMCA used to provide a function for that in the major cities, but people didn’t like that anymore. So we started forming our own YMCAs. And and people are absolutely enmeshed today in the thought that what the church is is an Activity Center for Youth or an activity center for adults. It’s a place to go to have fun.

And the issue is that Christianity is not a place to go period. It doesn’t have anything to do with a place to go. It has to do with a relationship between you and God. And then he tells you to go, he doesn’t tell you to go to church, he tells the church to go to people. And we have totally reversed that process. And we become so perverted and what our understanding of the quote churches that it is when you match that up against the vitality of New Testament Christianity, of the apostles and the early followers, who basically claim this is a change of life, Christ is living in me. And you see the difference in their vitality. And what we see today in activity, not vitality, but activity, it is an abomination to the sight of the Lord. We have substituted devotion to the Lord, for activities, and programs, and potlucks and fellowship. And fellowship was never meant to be social gatherings, as we see them today. Fellowship is fellowshipping around the truth of God and His Word, it’s believers who are able to get together and communicate the marvels of Christ Jesus, that’s true fellowship. Yes. And I’ve been in both of those things, I’ve organized both of them. And the world of difference between, as we’ve talked about so many times of going to conferences were at the at the beginning, or at the middle, or the end of the week, you’ve got 100 or 200, people sitting around in unity with one another, a singleness of purpose, not talking about the ballgames, not talking about our potlucks, talking about Jesus. And that is true fellowship, it is the only fellowship that God ever gave to us. And so what we’re dealing with here today is is the fact that justification is not just a theological term, it is a living reality, that took place as a result of an act of righteousness done by Jesus, not by us, whereby he brought life back to the dead, and came to take up residence in us. And we’re told that that residence in us is our only hope of glory, our only hope of being conformed into the image of Christ Jesus is Christ Jesus Himself, alive, living in us, our only hope of glory, it is our only hope of anything. So you say what is glory mean? Anything. He’s our only hope, period. And so when we come to grips with that, and we began to see that, then our dependency is going to slowly and surely but succinctly is going to begin to shift upon him, instead of the fulfillment of the desires of this flesh of ours, that has nothing in store for us at all, except taking us into the pit of hell, and destroying the only thing of value that we have in this world. And that’s our relationship with Christ.

Going back to what we were talking about, that when Jesus was here on earth, that He was an extension of the law, he entered into a world of people full of self righteousness, just as His Spirit is in this world today into self righteousness. So the same thing that was happening when Jesus is here on Earth is still happening today, religion becomes religion, it, it cleans itself up, it puts its tensile on it, it makes it look good, it makes it look acceptable. But I’ve said so many times, folks, and I can’t say it enough, Satan does not care what we have our eyes on, as long as they’re off of Jesus. And so the more glitter, the more acceptability that you can make religion, the better it is, because your eyes are on religion. And when they are, they’re off of Jesus.

And so it says that we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, and the reason is so that every mouth may be silenced, and the whole world held accountable to God. Now folks have tells us one thing, we’ve talked about it all have sinned, all have fallen short of the glory of God, the whole world is accountable to God. Therefore, no one will be declared righteous in His sight by observing the law. So my friends, if you’re under the law, here’s what it says to you. You’re unrighteous. That’s well, the law says to you, the law isn’t an encouragement to you. The law doesn’t say try harder, and maybe you’ll make it. There’s only one verbiage that The law says to you, you are an unrighteous lost person. If you’re under the law, you’re unrighteous, because no man will ever be declared righteous in the sight of God through observing the law. So if you’re not going to observe it, why would you want to be under it? So, under the law, you’re under a death penalty. From God’s standard standpoint, saying to you, you are unrighteous. And folks, I’m not saying this to be mean or critical. But this Christian world has developed into something that it was never intended to develop into.

Now, folks, let me say this to you with all sincerity, and at the same time, caution. There is nothing wrong with being a nice, gentle, kind, moral person. Nothing wrong with that. The problem is, how do you pull that off? There’s nothing wrong with obeying the law, to a person who never stole to a person who never committed adultery to a person who’d love God with all his heart and mind and soul. A person who never coveted a person, nice sounding stuff, you’d say, Boy, there’s a moral person you say, Yeah, that’s great. The problem is who’s ever done that? Where is he? Yeah, where is he? And you say, I’ll tell you where he was. He was on a cross. And I’ll tell you where he isn’t. And that’s in a grave, and that his name was Jesus, not Bob, George, and not your name either. And so my friends, all of these things sound good, but your goal is off. Jesus did not say that there’s only one commandment I leave with you go out and be moral. Why? Because we can’t. He said, This is one command I leave you, love one another. You want to know something folks? You can’t do that either. But the command is to love one another. Now, guess what? If you could fulfill that command? Do you think that you would be stealing from your neighbor? Do you think you would be honest? Do you think that you would be out committing adultery? Do you think you’d be doing any of those things that we’re talking? Not if you’re loving, not with God’s love, you won’t but because love is the fulfillment of the law. But you see, when your goal gets off of love and on to morality, it’s your it’s your goal is on the something that God’s already told you you cannot accomplish. It’s like saying, my goal is not love. My goal is in obeying the law. Well, I’m sorry, my friends, but no one’s going to be declared righteous in the sight of God to obeying to the the law. So what are you trying to bat for? It isn’t going to impress God. And if you’re honest with yourself, it isn’t going to impress you and for sure it isn’t impressing your wife or your husband because they know better. So folks, we’ve got our goals off. You see, we’ve got our we’ve got our purpose off. Christ said, Love one another. There’s only three things that remain faith, hope and love the greatest of these as what? Love. Now, I can’t do that either. I can’t obey the law. I cannot be 100% moral. See, you say well, yeah, do you want to be moral? Yeah, well, how moral Oh, just 80% Well, no, you’d want to be 100 But you can’t, your goal’s off. So he said, I want you to love one another. And folks, you will never love others until you understand God’s love for you.

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Bob George
And that’s when I get back okay, then I love one another. So you get back to 1st Corinthians 13 You say, Well, what is God’s love? What is the kind of love that we’re supposed to exercise on behalf of other people? Well, it says I’ll tell you, love is patient. Well, you just wipe 90% of us out. Didn’t it? Love is patient. How patient? Always patient. Are we always patient? No. Love is kind. Are we always kind? No. Love never keeps records of other people’s wrongs. Do you ever keep records of other people’s wrongs? I bet you got a list in your head right now. That could could absolutely go around your house if you if you spread it out. But we do don’t we? So the issue is I cannot do that. But I do see that that was God’s purpose for me here on this earth is to allow his love to it’s just to be able to first of all, occupy me so and then let that same love go out to others. So I can’t do it in the energy my own flesh. I can’t obey the law in the energy, my own flesh, I can’t be a man of integrity in the energy of my own flesh. Those things sound wonderful, but you cannot do it. And all you’re doing when you’re teaching people that you should, if I should, then somebody down there evidently thinks I could. And whoever thinks that they can is a deceived person, because they’re not doing it either.

And so the problem with those things as good as they sound is that you cannot do it. There’s only one person that can provide that kind of love in a person, and that is Christ Jesus. And when you and I are walking in love, we are fulfilling every requirement of the law, every principle, every promise, every everything is being fulfilled, when we walk in love toward another person doing unto others as we would have others do unto us, and there’s only one person could pull that off. And that’s God. Now, folks, if we don’t believe that, then tear these pages out of your Bible where it says no one will be declared righteous in His side by observing the law, but rather, it’s through the law that we become conscious of sin, pitch it out, all principles that you have is going to do the same thing. Try to live by principles, what’s going to happen, those principles are going to make you conscious of your own inability to even live up to the simple things you’ve you’ve come up with, you try to live by your promises that I just promised to be such a neat person, all those promises are going to do is to ultimately make you conscious of your own sin and your total inability to live up to them. As as minor as they might be, that’s all they’re going to do is to show you your inability. God is going to keep at you, my friends, and keep at me, for as long as it takes in order to show you what he what he told us. And that is Bob apart from me, you can do nothing. You can’t keep your promises. You cannot live by principles. You cannot live by the law. You cannot be a good Christian, you cannot be a good father, you cannot be a good husband. You can do nothing apart from me. Now, folks, that is a pretty helpless position that appears to me, unless there’s someone who can provide the help. And that one is Christ Jesus. He said you can’t Bob, but I can! That’s why I’m not hanging on a cross if I was just hanging on a cross, and all I came to do is forgive your sins. You’re left on your own. You’re saying, Okay Bob, your sins are forgiven. Now go sic em for Jesus, you’re left on your own. Bob, you can’t be left on your own. You were born into this world incomplete. You were born into this world, two thirds whole, until I come to take up residence in you, you’re not complete. You’re not perfect. You’re not made as I made man to be. And then you say, well okay, Lord, then come to live in me. He says fine. Now what do you want me to do there, go to sleep, take a vacation? If I’m coming to live in you, then I’m coming to live in you for a reason. And that reason is to live through you because you still can’t do anything. Even with me living in you. You can’t do it on your own. If I’m living in you, why would you want to do it on your own? Why would you want to go out to try to accomplish what only I can when I’m there to accomplish it? It just doesn’t make any sense.

And so we say, Lord, you’re right. And we come to the end of ourselves. That’s what’s called dying to self is dying to your own self sufficiency, dying to the law that demands your flesh to behave, dying to my promises, dying to my commitments, dying to my obedience to the law, because you can’t be obedient to the law. Now, folks, again, if you’re living in a society, I’d rather live next door to somebody who’s faithful to his wife and to their husband, who’s a good father, who spends time with his kids who’s devoted. I wouldn’t you? I’d rather live around somebody that then I would somebody’s over there beating the daylights out of his wife and knocking these kids around the house and all that. But folks, you don’t have to be a Christian, to live that way. There are people involved in some of the most unbelievable cults in the world that live that way. There’s more morality in Muslim nations than there are in this so called Christian nation, outward morality. But Jesus went to the root of that said You hypocrite, you got yourself looking all good on the outside, but you’re dirty on the inside, you’re a cup that’s clean on the outside. But on the inside, you’re dirty. You’re saying I don’t commit adultery, but in your heart, you’re lusting like crazy. You say, I do not murder anyone, but in your heart, you’re angry at people all the time. And I look at your heart. And so folks, even though it is certainly nicer to live around, a so called nice person than it is a grumpy mean one, it doesn’t have anything to do with Christ. You can be a nice person and not know Christ, from a spook. Now, and so in saying that, don’t let that be an interceptor to what is necessary. And that is that vital living relationship with a living Christ.

I imagine that sometimes when people hear me speak, like, I’ve been speaking, and I sit back and analyze this, even in my own heart as to why that burden is there. You say, Well, what’s the difference? I mean, why? Why is why just why not just go do these things? Why not just let people be involved in thm? Of course, I have nothing to do with letting people and I’m not trying to discourage or encourage. But you say, what’s wrong with these things? What’s wrong with all this activity? What’s wrong with all this program, brochromatic, what’s wrong with making promises? What’s wrong with trying to keep principles? What’s wrong with trying to keep the law. And again, you’re back to the Bible, folks. You’re not back to, It seems okay to me. And that’s what the Bible says that what seemed right in the eyes of man is an abomination to God. And what’s wrong with that, folks, is it is subtly ways to keep you off of dependency upon Christ, I don’t need to depend on Christ, I’m going to depend on my own self efforts. And folks, that’s what took place in the Garden of Eden. That’s what set off this whole chain of indwelling sin that you and I are living in bondage to today. It’s the thing that ultimately causes the society that we see going on today, is man making up his own mind what appears to be right, in his own mind. It’s man standing once again, at the tree of the garden of Eden the Garden of Eden and saying, I know what’s best. And I don’t need you, God. And the problem with that is the repercussions. It’s what it does to you. It’s what it does to your family. It’s what it does to your children. It’s what it does to the world around you, not only in your generation, but in generations to come. And so when God just says very clearly to us that no one is going to ever be declared righteous in the sight of God through the observation of the law, through the observing of principles, through the observing of your promises. He means that folks, and it’s not because he’s trying to be mean, he’s just being realistic, that no man can do it. If there was a possibility of anyone doing that. I’m convinced God would not have said it. But the only person who could ever pull that off was the man from heaven, who came to this earth, sinless Jesus, and was able to pull that off for us, pull it off for us. And so it’s through the law that we become conscious of sin.

Now, verse 21, but a righteousness from God, apart from the law has been made known to which the law and the prophets testified. So it shouldn’t be a mystery to us. The law testified to that fact and so did the prophets. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ, for all who believe there’s no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And look at that, justified freely. How? By His grace, through the redemption that came by Jesus Christ, that God presented him as a sacrifice is the one who had turned aside His wrath, taking through faith in His blood. He did this to demonstrate His justice and His forbearance He had left sins committed beforehand unpunished. And He did it to demonstrate His judgment at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. So He said, Where’s all the boasting? Where are we going to be boasting then? Because that’s what happens when we try to do when we believe that we can be justified in the sight of God or righteous in the sight of God or, or more holy in the sight of God by what I do. Well, the result of that has got to be either finding out that I can’t and wallowing in self deception, or being so deceived already that I think I’m doing it and wallowing in pride. It causes It forces you to compare yourself with another. And it says a man of compares himself by himself as a fool. But it forces me to do that. If I have committed myself to say, Now, Bob, here’s what a good man does. I do this, I do this, I do this, I do this, and I do this. And here’s what a good man looks like. He’s got short hair. He’s got blue eyes. He’s got this. He’s got this. He’s got this. Now. Now I’ve determined this is what a good man does is what a good man looks like. And let’s say so, I look like all of those qualities, and I do all of those things. Do I rest there? Well, of course not. I start saying to you, how you doing? How are you doing? Bob? Your hair’s a little long, your eyes are brown instead of blue. Something’s wrong with you. What’s going on here with you? And there’s the I am forced to do that. When I sit down, making a commitment, my commitment that I’m going to do something, I am forced to get prideful when I do. And when I do, I am forced to try to lay that onto you. As good as it may sound, you say, Well, what’s wrong with everybody in the world? Doing this and this and this? And this? And this? What’s wrong with that? You say, where do you find that in the Bible? Where do you find that in the Scripture? And so what we have to do is to realize he says, Where’s the posting, we see when you’re justified by faith alone, not in what you do, but what he did, where’s boasting? In other words, what happens to your pride? When you die to the law, you die to the law demanding your flesh to behave. And when you die to the law and realize that you still have received justification. All you can do is to say, Praise God, can you boast in that? Of course you can’t boast in it. You died to that boasting because it didn’t have anything to do with any of this. It’s Grace. It’s God’s provision.

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.