Radio Broadcast Wednesday 08/24/2022

Classic Christianity – A Closer Look at Your Identity in Christ P72 (08-24-22)

Respond by Faith to God With a Thank You to Him

~ “Jesus took away ALL your sins at the cross. Now, if that is true, and if that is true, from his vantage point, not yours, or tradition standpoint, what is the most intelligent thing that you can do when you sin? From God’s vantage point? In as much as he’s already told you what he’s done with it, put it behind my back, never see it again. And I died for it. Bob, it was judged as across the verdict was guilty. The punishment was death, I took it, and I took all of it. That’s why there’s none left for you. What’s the only intelligent thing you can do with that? Thank you.”

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

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

Bob George 0:44
There are people that have attitudes that say, Well, if you’re not really good, you’re going to lose your salvation. That’s an attitude. Is it an attitude of God? I don’t believe so. Because I don’t see God teaching that in, in the Word of God. I see in the Word of God, that we talked last week about eternal life that if you have the Son, you have eternal life. Now, I just happen to believe that. So it’s a policy. Now you see that’s not it. So his mind and mine are in harmony with that fact. Jesus said it, I believe that that’s a true we’re in harmony with one another. Is that going to affect my emotions? Well, of course it is. Is it going to affect my will in regard to choices around eternal life? Yes, it will. Is that going to affect my bodily the way I move bodily? Yes, it’s gonna affect every aspect of me, the total humanity is going to be affected by the deity who lives in me.

On the other hand, I have a choice to LISTEN to the Spirit of God, that lives in me, whereby I have his mind living in me. And I also have a choice that I can listen to the desires of my flesh to the world, meaning the world, the flesh, and the devil. So those are other three sources that can penetrate my mind, the world, and all of its influence. Can television Influence my mind? Certainly. Can radio? Absolutely. Can billboards? Yes. Can literature? Yes. Can sitting around, watching soap operas and dreaming about having affairs affect you? Yes, it can. It’s a It’s fantasy. It’s a form of lust. So to you ladies are gods are wanting to criticize men for lusting. What do you think fantasy is? It’s the same thing. So we’re cannot affect you why? Of course it can. Can it pull you away from being programmed by God? Absolutely. Can it give you a different attitude than that of Christ Jesus? Without question. And so that’s the that is the complication that takes place is in this ticker of mine, this mind of mine, that I have the ability to either choose to watch and to listen to, and to read stuff that’s going to affect my mind contrary to the truth of the Word of God, or to yield my mind to His truth and let it set me free. Now, if I don’t know what his truth is, then how in the world is it going to set me free? And if I don’t know what his what His truth is, how am I going to match up? What’s error? Because I don’t know what truth is, I for sure, I’m not going to be able to identify error. Because if I don’t know what his truth is, then I’m going to have to determine what truth is based upon what the world tells me. And I want to tell you, that’s one great big deception in that regard. And all you have to do is just to watch a few of some of these idiotic talk shows on television and see the minds and the opinions of people that are out there. And it’ll just shock you to death. And they think they’re telling the truth, and to them they are because that’s all they know, truth is, is what’s been told to them by the world, because it’s not bounced off of the plumb line of God and His Word. So folks, until we have are able, and only through spiritual birth, are we able to determine truth, because as we said earlier, no eyes seen or ears heard, her mind is conceived of those things that God has prepared. For those who love Him, it has to be revealed by the Spirit. So until you and I are spiritually regenerated, we have no ability of being able to comprehend the meaning of truth. But once we are folks, that’s a beauty of new birth, we have the ability to know what truth is, and be taught by God Himself, personally, your private tutor, teaching you not only what truth says, but more importantly, what it means.

So all of that comes from spiritual birth. Now, when that spiritual birth occurs, as I said, I have the option of yielding my flesh, to the will of God, to the Word of God, to be influenced by it. It’s called yielding your instruments of your body, or yielding your body as an instrument of righteousness, or yielding my body as an instrument of unrighteousness. That’s a choice that I have. And so, along with that, then what we’re talking about is when Jesus says, The only thing that counts is love. And in First Corinthians 13, when he was talking about the body of Christ and Bob, one of the things that were terrifically confused about, I believe in Christendom is the fact that many evangelicalism know that we belong to Christ who don’t realize we belong to one another. And you’ll hear people say, and there’s songs that are out that that Lord, I just don’t want to hurt you again, when I sin. I just I just when I think about what you suffered on the cross, I just don’t want to hurt you anymore. And it’s such a fine sounding song. But it’s like Jesus saying and quit hurting one another. Because when you’ve done to the least of these, my brother, you’ve done it unto me. And we keep thinking I’m hurting God. He said, No, no, no, no, I’ve already Have you been hurt. What I want you to wait, who you’re hurting is one another, you’re hurting members of my body. So when you’re hurting my body, you’re hurting me. It would be like it’d be like my hand over here beating the daylights out of my other hand and saying to my head, oh, I don’t want to hurt your head. He said, I got news for you just did, yes, you just chrushed, another member of my body that belongs to you. You see what I’m getting at? So he’s saying the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. And in First Corinthians when he’s he’s explaining all of this in First Corinthians 12 and 13, you’re a part of this body, you belong to me, and you belong to Christ. It says in verse 27, verse, a chapter 12, you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. So it said, let me show you a more excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but I don’t have love. I’m only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. In other words, don’t get all hung up on gifts. Because if you don’t have love, it doesn’t mean anything. It can say if you’re the best teacher on the face of this earth, but you don’t have love all yar it just a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If you have the gift of encouragement, and you just encouraging people all over the place in order to draw attention to yourself, you’re nothing but a phony baloney.

We’re back to First Corinthians 13. And we’re gonna pick up there which is page 80, in your in your book, on love. He said, I’m going to show you a more excellent way if I speak in the tongues of men and angels but have not love I’m only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, that’s pretty good gift. And if in other words, and all of these things, Bob, it’s called from a literary standpoint, a hyperbole. In other words, it’s an exaggeration of something in order to make a point. So when he’s talking about if I could speak in the tongues or the languages, which is what tongues is, is a known language of men and angels. In other words, there if there’s there’s no angelic language sitting around and people are engaged in, it’s talking about if I could speak in the tongues of men, angels, the whole universe, but I don’t have love. I don’t have anything. I’m a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecies and can fathom all mental mysteries and all knowledge Well, how could a human being ever fathom all mysteries and all knowledge? You can’t. It’s an exaggeration in order to make a point. But it’s saying if I could do that, it’d be like me saying, If I could wave a magic wand across across this country tomorrow. And there’s prayer in every school in the country and Bible study and every school in the country. But but it didn’t result in having love. What good would it do? You see, it’s an Well, there’s no way to wave that magic wand. But if I could, but it didn’t result in loving one another. What good was it?

If I have faith that can move mountains. Well, I mean, there have been too many people that I’ve seen moving those. But it’s an exaggeration of a fact, in order to make a point, if you had that kind of faith that you could make a mountain move. But you do not have love. It says I am nothing. I’m just a glorified mountain mover. Now, if I give all that I possess to the poor, very few people willing to do that one, and surrender my body to the flames. In other words, if you’re a martyr, but you don’t have love, I gained nothing. So it’s saying, Folks, I don’t know what else we should need as Christians to realize that love is the byproduct. It has to be the byproduct of every single thing that Christ Jesus taught us. God so loved us that he demonstrated his love while we yet sinners, it came to die for us. God so loved the world that He gave, love preceded every act of Christ Jesus on the face of this earth. And love is supposed to be the motivating factor for each and every one of us. And if we don’t have it, what that does is say backup. Backup Bob in case, you think you’re doing pretty good. Backup and take a fresh look. Apart from me, you can do nothing. Well, you see, Bob, I can teach apart from him. I can drive a car apart from him. There’s lots of things I can do apart from him. But is there any way to produce love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, long suffering, all of those things called the fruit of the Spirit apart from Him, nothing, anything, it’s important to him, I can’t do anything that is important to him, apart from him.

Now, again, I believe what he is saying to us, Bob is this, that unless you allow me to teach you about my love, then you are never going to be able to express that love to another human being. Because in essence, you are going to teach others you’re going to act to others the way you think God acts with you. If you think God’s up there hammering you in the head, when you do wrong, you’re gonna hammer people in the head when they do wrong, right. So our actions literally become a reflection. In many instances when it when we’re walking in the Spirit, then our actions are a total reflection of what we are being taught and know about God. On the other hand, when that is not occurring, we’re just believing the enemy, the very opposite of that. Now, that’s why it says in that Ephesians, that I pray that out of his glorious riches, that he will strengthen you with power in your inner being so that Christ will be at home in your hearts through faith. And I pray Ephesians, 3:17 and 19 that you being rooted and established in love, may have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, the byproduct that you might be filled to the measure with the fullness of God. So is it important for God to teach you about his love? He said, that’s what I’m praying that the Holy Spirit of God living in you will teach you about the height and depth and breadth and width of the love of God and teach you in such a way. It’s knowledge that surpasses knowledge. It’s a understanding that surpasses knowledge, so the spirit has to teach you.

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Bob George 13:26
We talked about about how God loves you. And in First Corinthians 13, as it has told us that if I don’t have love, I have nothing. And so he’s going to define love from God’s vantage point, not love from ours, but love from his. And so last week, we talked about it as much as God is love, then just substitute the word love for God, they’re one of the same. And to be able to say God is patient with me. And God is kind to me, and God is never envious to me. God never boasts. God is not proud in his dealing with me. God is never rude with me. God is not self seeking with me. God is not easily angered with me. Look at this, God keeps no records of my wrongs. Now if that you see if that shouldn’t convince you of the finality of the cross. I don’t know what should Sure. But it keeps no records of your wrongs. God, God does not delight in evil always rejoices in truth. God always protects you. God always trusts you, always hopes the best for you, and always perseveres with you. Now, folks, that’s what God that’s what Paul came to understand so that he could later on say, that I’m convinced that nothing can separate me from the love of God. And we’ll get to that in just a moment. But I want to ask some questions on that beforehand. Will knowing that God’s love keeps no records of wrongs? How do you think that’s going to affect how you respond to God when you sin? In other words, if that’s what he said, as love is that Bob, I keep no records of your wrongs. Then when I sin, how am I going to approach him with with that? Well Lord, You know that thing I just did? And it’s … I don’t keep any records of what are you talking about? I already forgave that at the cross. You say, Well, yeah, but. There’s no, it’s no buts to it, Bob, I took care of it. At the cross, I took it away. Now, if that is true, and if that is true, from his vantage point, not yours, or tradition standpoint, what is the most intelligent thing that you can do when you sin? From God’s vantage point? In as much as he’s already told you what he’s done with it, put it behind my back, never see it again. And I died for it. Bob, it was judged as across the verdict was guilty. The punishment was death, I took it, and I took all of it. That’s why there’s none left for you. What’s the only intelligent thing you can do with that? Thank you. Isn’t that strange? That’s That’s what the Bible talks about all the time is thank Be thankful and all things constantly giving thanks, and all things why? Thanks, is the automatic response to grace for. So he’s saying to you, that you all you can do is say, Lord, thank You that, that the forgiveness of that sin was taken care of at the cross, thank you that, that you’re not keeping records of that of that wrong, it’s not on a record, anyplace, it’s gone, it’s been taken away, which is what Christ came to do take away your sins, not cover it, if He covered it, there’d be a record of it, but it’s covered. So no, he erased it, he took it away. And then to be able to be able to say but, Lord, if that’s the case, that you keep no records of my wrongs. Thank you for what you’ve for that truth. And in doing that, and the reason that I know that that applies to me is because I am in you, and you are in me, I’ve accepted you into my life as my Lord and Savior. Now Lord, what I just did is and what I’m thinking is obviously inconsistent with your mind. There’s no question about that, that my attitude in regard to these issues is totally contrary to yours, I see that I’m gonna have to be a mental genius to figure that out. Now, Lord, I cannot change my attitudes, you’re gonna have to do that I have to trust you, to show me and to teach me because my flesh is strong. My flesh still wants to do what I used to do. And, and I can’t get a handle on it. And the Lord says, I know you can’t. But believe me, I will complete the work of beginning you. And I will do exactly what you’re talking about. Thanks for understanding that what I did for you at the cross is final, and it’s forever. And thanks for understanding that I will never leave you nor forsake you. And thanks for understanding that I’m going to complete the work I begin in you. Now get out of the way, and let me get an action.

Now what does that mean? What it means is that it’s not that I just sit back and say, Now God’s just gonna guide me along. No, he’s gonna renew my mind. And until my mind is renewed, what good would it do to for him to change my bodily habits? My mind has to get renewed. And Bob, I hate to bring this up. Because it sounds like you know, it’s, it’s the only sin in the world. But how many times do we have people call in regard to smoking? Well, you see, the smoking is a physical act that I’m doing, I need my mind renewed, I need for God to teach me that. That’s bad for me, I need God to teach me that when man teaches me I want to rebel against it. You see, if that was, if that was a weakness in my own life, I’d be rebelling against it. And that’s one of the problems in Christianity today is man doesn’t trust that the Holy Spirit can do a thing your life says that I’m gonna get an action on God’s behalf, and I’m going to convict you of sin. And Bob, when man does that, it doesn’t work. When I if I get on your back, it doesn’t work. But when God gets on your back, he’s going to, he’s going to train you permanently. He’s going to change your mind permanently. And we get an each other as we get in God’s way we we become interceptors, and you find that a lot and man and wife where brother, a woman can’t trust that God’s gonna do anything with her husband’s brother, she’s gonna get in there and do it for him. And the man can’t trust that God’s gonna do anything with her. She’s gonna get in there. And he doesn’t seem to be a very good job convincing her of her sins, so I’m going to help him. So and so we become nitpickers with each other and it’s very destructive. But God says, No, let me teach you and I will teach you now what is that? That’s faith, expressing itself through love. That’s, that’s all in the world. That is so. So folks, when you go through that definition of First Corinthians 13, and you see that God isn’t keeping any records of wrongs you need to read respond with that knowledge, otherwise you’re not responding according to faith, you’re responding according to human understanding. When he’s patient with you how you gotta respond to that? Well, the fact that he’s gonna give up on me, that’s good news.

know, we’ve been through, not too many weeks ago, there was a period of time in history where we studied about the death, burial and resurrection of Christ Jesus. Easter season, we call it, call it resurrection, Sunday, call it whatever you want to, but it’s a celebration of the time when Christ Jesus died for me. And from my standpoint, I hated the fact that he had to do so. But I rejoice in the fact that he did. Right. And, and as I taught through that, that period of time, and it does tie in to to love, you can’t help from there of studying a little bit of the betrayal that took place on the part of Judas, and the actions that took place. And you say what in the world could have motivated a man to do what Judas did? Here was a man who walked with Jesus, he saw the miracles that He did. He saw brace people from the dead, he saw him heal the blind, to make the deaf to hear. He saw the lame, restored, to walk again. He saw all those things on on top of that lived around a person with perfect life. A person who was full of mercy, kindness, compassion, understanding, the most loving person who ever obviously walked on the face of the earth.

You see what happened to him? Well, he had a different agenda. And folks, we you cannot minimize a different agenda. You’ll see they say, what is an agenda? And what is a different agenda? Well, from Judas standpoint, although it was never expressed, because people who have a different agenda very seldom express it, because they’re fearful that they’re going to get out of the fold. And so they’re not going to express that. But Judas had in mind, something for Jesus to be doing other than walking around loving people. He wanted him to be the king, he wanted the Messiah, he had in mind what the Messiah was going to be was a political ruler. And so this Jesus wasn’t fulfilling this. As a matter of fact, he was talking about such dumb things as dying, and how in the world, you’re going to be a political leader, when you’re talking about dying and hanging on a cross and this type of thing. That’s how to sink that’s not what I have in store for him at all. I was following him with the thought in mind that he was going to take over the Roman Empire, and we were going to be restored as a nation. And of course, my being the treasurer would have had my hand in the tail the whole time. But by being the treasurer why, obviously he had great competence in me or he wouldn’t be letting me keep hold of the money because that’s the most precious thing in the world is money, so he wouldn’t be all he did. The other guys have entrusted him with spiritual things. But he entrusted me with this is moneybags. And so he had a different agenda, expressed I don’t think so. But it was there underneath the skin. So when the time came as any one and this can occur in ministries, it can occur in organizations. It can occur in families. Whenever a different agenda arises why you’ll see the the satanic influence that starts taking place in a person’s heart. And so the first thing he did was behind the back of Jesus, and the other apostles in other words, he was putting all of their lives in jeopardy, but he didn’t care. He had an agenda. It didn’t make a difference. All the neat things that Jesus was doing that didn’t matter he’s not doing this one little thing that I want him to do.

And so what do you do where you go behind the back and you try to get him shaped up get it, get some get some pressure put on him? So he’ll get back to this real goal, which is the important one he just didn’t know how important my agenda is. And so what do you do when you go behind your back? You influence people to betray Jesus. You sell him out in essence, you rumorrise him. And all that’s done behind the back well, who How about the people that that he told them to were that were they forthright? No they weren’t forthright either they went to a trial behind his back everything anonymous and that’s that’s always an indicator of that mindset is being anonymous. Why why are you anonymous? Why don’t want people to realize what a terrible what a cruel person I am. I don’t want people to think ill of me. I want them to think ill of him. You see. So in order to protect my own reputation why I’m I’m going to do it anonymously and hope that no one finds out. And that’s what they did. They went behind the back. Pilot said to them, his blood is on your hands, I don’t find him guilty. Why don’t you crucify him. So our law says, We can’t do that. That’s why we’re turning them over to you. Because I want you to do my dirty work for me. And that’s another aspect of betrayal is get somebody else to do your dirty work for you. And that way, you can still sit back anonymously, but now someone else’s grabbed a hold of the of the plot and the plan and now they’re doing the dirty work. And the other people were sitting back grinning at the fact that Jesus is being taken to a cross and and they think it’s the Romans doing it. So it’s all of those things are always there. And what’s the cause of that different agenda? A different agenda.

You can have in marriage as an example, I’ve said so many times, until a man dies to single singleness, he’ll never come alive to his marriage. And there’s many times where people are married, but they don’t have a married agenda. In other words, there should be an agenda for a married couple, the two of them becoming as one. You can’t live a separate independent life. If you’re, if the two of you are one from God’s vantage point, that’s an impossibility. But we have a different agenda. And we say, Man, I like it stuff the single life. I don’t care about her. I’m just gonna go do my thing. What is it? Why I got a different agenda. And whenever there is a different agenda, you’re going to have conflict in the home. That’s why it’s so important that our attitudes be like that of Christ Jesus. Because our attitude is one of unity, diversity. Yeah, unity. Absolutely. Can you have unity in the midst of diversity? Absolutely, absolutely you can. But the two of you get a consistent agenda together. In an organization, the same thing is true. You have an agenda, in People to People we our agenda is is very narrow in scope. We are here for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to proclaim the total sufficiency of Christ Jesus for every single aspect of a human life.

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.