Radio Broadcast Monday 06/23/2025

Classic Christianity – Lifted by Encouragement – Part 1 – 6-23-25

Lifted by Encouragement

~ As a prisoner in the Lord, then, I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling you have received: with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, and with diligence to preserve the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. Ephesians 4:1-3

Folks, we each have a calling by God if you are in Christ Jesus. And His calling is good, in order to make known the gospel of Jesus to those around us. Each of us has a calling by God. He wants to use each of us in a Spirit of unity. And when a person is in Christ, they are one with God, and are of ONE body, and have the same Spirit as other TRUE children of God.

Now today, most claim they are in Christ, but by their fruits you can tell otherwise. And it is easy to make people think they are in Christ simply by saying some words to make others think they are of Christ. They might even say they are saved, yet not have a clue what salvation is. But because they were told by some Man that they are saved, they simply believe that, and after that it is no big deal. They go about the rest of their lives without even having any interest in the things of God, no interest in reading the scriptures, and no interest in talking about Jesus at all.

People ask, “why are there so many different denominations of Christianity today?” And the reason is there are so many flavors of religious Christianity is that people get to pick the flavor of choice. Mind you, none of them teach the TRUTH of the completed forgiveness on the cross, but they love their religion and they say they even love Jesus. But it’s a different Jesus than in the word of God. It’s a Jesus of 1st Imaginations. They love going to meet their friends on Sundays or Saturdays or whatever day they want to gather and meet. They could care less about the TRUTH of the gospel, and many times they have no interest in even talking about Jesus either. They would much rather talk about current events that are nothing more than satan’s lies of the world, than they would like to talk about the Truth of the Word of God. Truth makes people uncomfortable, and heaven forbid that they would feel uncomfortable.

So here is the case for unity folks. Only those that are truly in Christ Jesus, who are born again of the Spirit, have unity with the same Spirit. And most people today are NOT saved. They do not have the Spirit of God living in them for LIFE.

So we have been given a calling by God today, to share Jesus with others. There are so many details about Jesus that are important to know. And details matter in EVERYTHING.

Ephesians 4:4-10

There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

Now to each one of us grace has been given according to the measure of the gift of Christ. This is why it says:

“When He ascended on high,
He led captives away,
and gave gifts to men.”

What does “He ascended” mean, except that He also descended to the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the very One who ascended above all the heavens, in order to fill all things. Ephesians 4:4-10

…..

And a certain ruler asked Him, saying, “Good Teacher, having done what, will I inherit eternal life?”
And Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good, except God alone.

~ “Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” 1 John 5:12

~ Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; the one believing in Me, even if he should die, he will live. And everyone living and believing in Me shall never die, to the age. Do you believe this?” John 11:25,26
—

Pray to God:

Do you really want to know the WHOLE Truth of what is going on today?

“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.” Matthew 7:7

Lord Jesus, teach me the truth of the world today and give me the wisdom to know the truth and identify the lies of the devil. Thank you God.”

~ “Well, let’s turn to the book of Ephesians. I want us to pick up at the beginning of chapter four. That won’t be up on the screen for a little bit here, but we’re going to redo some review in chapter four. In the preceding chapters, Paul was talking about this mystery of the HEBREW and the Gentile alike coming together into a oneness, two opposite types of people because of their religious belief. People kind of think religion has no bearing on life. We try to take it out of government. We try to take it out of the schools, as if religion wasn’t paramount in everyone’s life, even if your religion was that of being an atheist, it’s going to affect the way you think. Isn’t it? What you feel and how you perceive God is going to determine how you think about everything. And so we need to understand how that God has taken this two extremes. Because what you have is you have the heathenistic Gentile, and we’re going to get into some discussion on that in a moment. And then the religious HEBREW, which became unbelievably self righteous, which is what religion does to people. It makes you self righteous. So you got self righteousness and you got heathenism trying to mix together and to get together in unity. And yet he said, there is a way of doing that, because Jesus will cure your self righteousness if you let it, and it will also cure your heathenism if you let it, and in both cases, there’s the big if you let it. We are very sensitive, and we’re very anxious to point out where some of your heathenistic tendencies that you haven’t lived up to my standards, where we absolutely pay no attention to the self righteousness that’s bringing about those opinions. But the issue is that both of those have to be corrected by Jesus. He is in the center of both of those, the triangle. He’s there, self righteousness here, heathenism here, and Christ is the one who’s going to neutralize both of those.” ~ Bob George

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Announcer 0:13
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 0:27
Well, let’s turn to the book of Ephesians. I want us to pick up at the beginning of chapter four. That won’t be up on the screen for a little bit here, but we’re going to redo some review in chapter four. In the preceding chapters, Paul was talking about this mystery of the HEBREW and the Gentile alike coming together into a oneness, two opposite types of people because of their religious belief. People kind of think religion has no bearing on life. We try to take it out of government. We try to take it out of the schools, as if religion wasn’t paramount in everyone’s life, even if your religion was that of being an atheist, it’s going to affect the way you think. Isn’t it? What you feel and how you perceive God is going to determine how you think about everything. And so we need to understand how that God has taken this two extremes. Because what you have is you have the heathenistic Gentile, and we’re going to get into some discussion on that in a moment. And then the religious HEBREW, which became unbelievably self righteous, which is what religion does to people. It makes you self righteous. So you got self righteousness and you got heathenism trying to mix together and to get together in unity. And yet he said, there is a way of doing that, because Jesus will cure your self righteousness if you let it, and it will also cure your heathenism if you let it, and in both cases, there’s the big if you let it. We are very sensitive, and we’re very anxious to point out where some of your heathenistic tendencies that you haven’t lived up to my standards, where we absolutely pay no attention to the self righteousness that’s bringing about those opinions. But the issue is that both of those have to be corrected by Jesus. He is in the center of both of those, the triangle. He’s there, self righteousness here, heathenism here, and Christ is the one who’s going to neutralize both of those.

And so he talks to us in chapter four as a prisoner for the Lord. And Paul is saying that I’m a prisoner. He calls himself in other places, a slave. A slave doesn’t have any rights. A slave merely does what the master tells him to do. And he says, I’m a prisoner there. I’m a slave, and I urge you, therefore to live a life worthy of the calling that you have received. Now, what is he saying here, folks? He’s saying that if you have come to Christ by faith, and you have been made by me a child of the living God, then that is your new identity. That’s who you are. And guys, it’s so hard to hang on to that when the world is telling you how bad you are and how miserable you are and how you failed in a million ways through your life and all of those things that the world is beating you down for every single day of your life. If you don’t have the tenacity to hang on to this truth, it’s going to bear you. And that’s exactly what Satan wants to do. That’s how he defeats us. He defeats us with other people banging on you, beating on you, telling you what a rotten bum you are, and all the other stuff that comes along in this world. That’s what destroys a human being. And if you don’t hang on to these truths as to what God says about you, you’re going to get destroyed in this world today by people in James, it tells us, doesn’t it? The tongue, the tongue is a destroyer. It’ll kill you. It’s like a flame, and we use our tongues to destroy other people. So he’s saying to us, I want you to get a hold of your. Self. I want you to quit having to blab every time you think something, because we have a tendency to do that, don’t we? We just can’t control ourselves. We say. He says, Yeah, I know you can’t. That’s why you’re the mess you are, is you can’t control yourself. He’s saying, I want you to be humble and gentle. Humility does not think how wonderful I have been and how lousy you have been. That’s not humility. He says to be gentle. That means to be gentle with people, recognizing that other people have feelings too. You’re not the only one with feelings, and other people have feelings, and they can be hurt and they can be damaged. Are we right or wrong? And he says, I want you to be gentle with people. Gentle with them. Quit wanting to rip them apart, to be gentle, to be humble, to be patient, patience. Isn’t that a wonderful attribute that all of us are blessed with patience? You remember, one of the characteristics of love is what love is what first patient, patient. Well, so he’s like saying, I want you to be you to be loving I want you to be patient with people. Is God through with you yet? Guys? Oh, he isn’t through with me, either he isn’t through with me, either he’s not through with any of us. And so that’s what he says. I want you to be patient with each other. I want you to be kind to each other. I want you to be gentle with each other. I want you to be humble. Quit thinking of yourself. Of yourself more highly than you ought, bearing with one another in love, hanging in there, bearing with one another in love, hang in there with each other, because God isn’t through with you. Yet, make every effort it’s talking about to keep unity in the faith. Why is he saying these things, folks? Because we have a tendency not to be humble. We have a tendency not to be gentle. Why would he need to be saying these things? Unless we have the tendency to do the opposite. There would be no reason for these instructions if all of us were just naturally humble and naturally gentle and naturally patient with each other. You would need no instruction here. These instructions are here because all of us in the flesh are the opposite of this, and we have to learn as religious as we think we are, how much we function in the flesh. You make every effort to keep unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace and live at peace with people. There’s one body, there’s one spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called. There’s one Lord, there’s one faith, there’s one baptism, there’s one God, and Father of all, and over all, and through all and in all. For you all, that’s the Texas version one. He said, not two, but one. When you get married, the two of us are supposed to be one, one flesh, one mind. That means two people ought to be thinking this way, not just one or neither one. Both should be thinking this way. Both should have a spirit of humility toward one another. Should have a spirit of gentleness toward one another. We’re one. Supposedly, we should be patient with each other. We should bearing, be bearing one another with in love, hanging in there with each other, and making every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit that God has called us to. Now let’s go over to go down to verse 14. When all of these things pull together, we’ll no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming, instead speaking the truth in love, we will grow all things grow up into him who is the head that is Christ, and from him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love. Just as each part does its work, he’s talking us how to function with each other, speaking the truth to one another in love. Now let’s pick up, and we’ll be showing these on the screen in verse 17. So I tell you. This and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the humility and the futility of their thinking. Now again, guys, why would he be saying this, that I’m insisting that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. What does that mean, as the Gentiles do? Does that mean every Gentile?

You know, every group it seems like, has kind of a distinction, the Germans, when you think of the Germans, what do you think of industrious, hard working, beer drinking people? They like their beer, and they work like dogs, hard working thing. Does that mean that every German is like that? No, it would mean every German, but the majority are like that, aren’t they? When you think of a German, that’s what you think. We were over in Russia and in Russia, in some of these places, guys, you cannot dream of what you will see sometimes, when you go over there, stores 90% empty, the most dilapidated buildings you ever want to see in your life. And we went down in one of the streets in Kiev and looked at these buildings that were there, and they were beautifully built. I said, Gee, the Russians built something beautiful. Said, no, no, those are the German slaves that built those. Those were built by Germans who were captured by the Russians, and they were beautiful, built buildings. You have the French. They like wine. They’re not so industrious as a people. I had a friend of mine who was in the military in World War Two that blew up a bridge in France. They went back 20 years later just to visit their old backgrounds, and that bridge was still blown up. Nothing had ever been built, not really known as real industrious people. They like their wine. They like their leisure. Does that mean all people who are French are like that? No, but it means the majority. The Russians, they like their vodka and they like to Prost or they like to what do you call that? Whatever Prost or troast or so. What do they call it? It’s been too long for me, and they like, they like their vodka and not extremely detailed in their in the way they work. If they put up something, if it’s put together and nail that’s okay. It doesn’t make particular what it looks like. Are all Russians like that? No, not all of them, but that’s just what you think of. Americans, they’ll eat and drink anything. It doesn’t mean there’s what it is different type of people, but that didn’t mean all of us are the same. And so when it’s talking here about the Gentiles, it isn’t putting everybody in an egg crate, but it is saying that the majority of the Gentile world at that time were certainly without God. We’re told they certainly were without hope, and they were certainly without any religion at all. They were living heathenistic lives as a rule. That didn’t mean all Gentiles were but it meant the majority of the Gentile world, the same as when you talk about the Jews. The Jews are hard hearted, the Jews are there. That doesn’t mean all Jews, but it means the vast majority are in that category.

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Bob George 14:09
And so he’s saying here that you don’t live as the Gentiles do. It says that this mindset of the majority of the Gentile world, this mindset is darkened in their understanding, understanding of what? Well, first of all, your understanding of God. And folks, if you don’t have an understanding of God, everything about your understanding is going to be off. There’s no question about that. You can’t take religion out of the government. You can’t take religion out of schools, any more than you can take religion out of your heart. If you are saved and the government comes in and says, if you’re a believer, going to kill you. You just have to say, well, pull the trigger, because that’s who I am. God, you can’t separate me. You can’t sit down and say to me, Bob, you can go on the radio, but you can’t talk about Jesus. You’re crazy. It’s like saying you can’t breathe if you’re in Christ, Jesus and Christ, Jesus lives in you tell somebody you can’t talk about him. You say you’ve got to be kidding me. That’s my life. That’s who I am. I have no choice except to talk about it, because that’s who I am. You can’t separate religion from life, but to the Gentile world, they didn’t have that understanding of God. And so he says, they’re darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God, separated from the life of God. They haven’t plugged in to the life of God, it would be like an atheist or an agnostic today. They’re not plugged in. Their minds have been darkened in understanding they’re separated from the life of God and why? It says, because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Isn’t it interesting that the bill moyers think people are stupid who believe in God, when the God says, no other people are stupid. Are you a fool? An idiot says in his heart, there is no God. You ought to be a blithering idiot to look at this world and the complexities of it, and to see that every animal, everything has a seed designed for them. In the ocean, a fish designed for them. You don’t have these little, tiny birds running around trying to eat a whale. Everything’s got a place. Every bird has its own food, everything made for you and me. Look at the complexity of an eyeball. Just look at that alone and say there is no God. Look at how our bodies function. Or when you get older, they don’t function. It’s a miracle. You look around you, you see this nature, the beauty of this nature. You look at the splendor of the mountains, look at these pictures in Alaska, it boggles your mind how unbelievably beautiful it is, until you put people in it, and we’ve done a marvelous job of screwing up what God made. And so our hearts are darkened, and it tells us that, and it’s because of the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardening of their hearts. What do you mean the hardening of their hearts? You’re hardening your heart toward God. I don’t need God. I don’t need to seek God in my decision making, I do it on my own, looking for a mate. Don’t seek God. Just go with who turns you on. You’ll get turned on, all right, and turned off. We better seek God. You better seek the wisdom of God. Lord, God. Who do you want me to date? Now, why did I say date? Because if you can date somebody, you can marry somebody. And so if you’re not supposed to be unequally yoked in marriage, don’t be unequally yoked in dating, because you can end up getting married to the wrong person. And I want to tell you something, folks, there is nothing in the world that will mess up a person’s life anymore than being married to the wrong person. It’s one of the most important decisions a person will make is, who am I going to commit to spend my life with? Because whoever it is will affect your life, and you better be unbelievably careful. That’s why you’ve got to seek God in these kind of decisions, lost hardening of your heart. I don’t need God, I’m smart. I can figure it out myself. They’ve lost all sensitivity. They’ve been given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more. The only thing that matters is sensual. Only thing that matters is getting feeling good. The only thing that matters I don’t care when I’m looking for a girl just I’m looking for one who’s hot, you’re going to have to turn the heat up after about three months of marriage.

It’s all anybody think about hot. It’s what you hear all the time. Oh, she’s hot. You all know better than that, don’t you? You better look for a woman with some of these qualities to her, who has sensitivity, a woman who’s humble, or a man who’s gentle and patient, and a person capable of bearing with one another in love. Look for that qualities. Forget about who’s hot. They ain’t going to be hot long, believe me, that hot stops at marriage. It’s very hard to think hot when someone’s telling you to empty the garbage quickly. When you get married, you have to cooperate. It’s a commitment of life. It isn’t, it isn’t, it isn’t a hotbed. It’s a commitment of life where two people are going to together in unity, live a life together and serve one another in love together and build each other up, hopefully together instead of tearing each other down. It’s a unity. It’s two people getting together to form a life’s relationship. Well, it talks a little bit about marriage later on, but I got into it a little early, but that’s okay.

So he’s talking about the fact that always looking for sensuality to indulge your flesh and all kinds of impurity with a continual lust for more you. However, it says did not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of him and were taught in him, accordance with the truth that is in Jesus, you were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires. What is it saying about our old flesh, our old unregenerated ignorant, darkened flesh? It’s saying that you were taught regard to that former way of life to put that off. You see, my friends, you had again the HEBREW full of self righteousness. Now, how does self righteousness spell itself out? It spells itself out by being unbelievably critical of everything and everybody and thinking that you are better than anyone else. I would never think of doing that, but they do. Or did you hear this?

I was listening to a sermon this morning about marriage. I hate those I hate those messages, because you always got someone sitting there going and guess who it is, your wife or your husband? Did you hear that? We never get the idea that those messages are for you, it’s not for your wife, it’s not for your husband, it’s for you. And in many instances, there is the presentation like I’ve got it all together now, guys, I’m going to give you a lecture on how to have this wonderful dynamic marriage, and you’re sitting there in the pew thinking to yourself, Brother, how long is this thing going to last? Because I’m not perfect, and I haven’t lived a perfect life, and I haven’t been a perfect husband, and I haven’t been a perfect wife, and I haven’t, and I haven’t, and I haven’t and I haven’t, and in the final analysis, God says I know you have it. That’s why I had to come to save you. But I want to ask you another question, have you been trying to be humble and gentle and loving and trying to keep unity? Well, yeah, I do that occasionally, but I blow it. I know you blow it, but the issue is, have you tried or have you been a person that someone could say has not been mean? Have I been a person that has been kind? Have I been a person that has been easy, kind of to live with? Well, yeah, but didn’t do what I want you to do. Well, you see, no man is going to say to his wife, you do everything that I want you to do, or vice versa. It just isn’t going to happen that way. We’re man and woman. That’s why it’s talking about here, that there’s two opposites, just like with the HEBREW and the Gentile. It’s a picture, really, of man and woman, two opposites, trying to get together in life. A two total opposite. You think a woman to me, they think different. They act different. They reason different, if at all. And I could go on and on, and if I was the opposite, I could say the very same thing. Amy could say the same thing about me. Man. Men, they think different. They act different. Their whole thing is different. They’re just a different breed of cat. And we are. The things that we think are so funny. Women don’t think are quite so funny. We think they’re funny, but they don’t, and I won’t go into the details of that. We’re different. But he said you could have unity in the midst of that difference, if you get rid of this idea that you are the one who is always wrong and I am always the perfect person. Ain’t going to work, going to tear each other down that way. Going to tear each other down? Well, it says here that we’re to put off that old self which is being corrupted by its evil desires. What are the evil desires that are there? We’ve just listed some of them, and some of the evil desires is that desire that you always have to be, right? You know, like a guy said, I married, my wife’s name was, right. I didn’t know her first name was always it says, if you’re in Christ, if you are in Christ, you have been made new. And he wants us to be made new in the attitude of our minds. He wants you that if you’re in Christ, to have a different attitude toward life than you did before you were in Christ.

Announcer 27:11
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 will 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.