Classic Christianity – A Loving Faith – 8-10-26
~ “Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh; but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. The mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind of the flesh is hostile to God: It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the flesh cannot please God.
You, however, are controlled not by the flesh, but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you.” Romans 5:9
~ Using those passages in the book of Romans, we are to be controlled by the Spirit of God Himself. And when the flesh wants to lash out in anger through the words from our mouths, that is not being controlled by the Spirit—that is allowing our flesh to dictate what our tongues say. We have to remember that the things coming out of our mouths really show what is going on in the heart.
It is so easy to let the flesh rule in our lives: getting even, saying bad words to people, being quick to become angry, and quick to lash out at them. Then we have times when we want to speak ill of others, having no clue what is going on in their lives. We forget the love department. We forget to consider that maybe they themselves are having a rough day, dealing with things that have been attacking them or feeling the weight of life, and we forget to show that consideration toward others.
So what do we do? We tend to respond in kind. If they get angry, we get angry, too. In that way, the tongue reveals our fleshly nature. But folks, there is only one way to take care of that: allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us internally, on a moment-by-moment basis, to quiet our tongues and to learn to respond with kindness even when being attacked.
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Pray to God:
Do you really want to know the WHOLE Truth of what is going on today?
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.”
~ Bob George emphasizes that the Christian life is defined by faith, hope, and love, and that true Christian maturity is measured by love, not religious activities. He asserts that dependency on anything other than God leads to control by that thing, citing examples like alcohol and popularity. Bob stresses that God desires to control us through love, as stated in Ephesians 3:16-19. He discusses the importance of taming the tongue, which he describes as untamable by man but manageable by God, and highlights the destructive nature of gossip, flattery, criticism, and character assassination. He concludes that true love, as described in 1 Corinthians 13, can only be achieved through God’s transformation of the heart.
So when God is talking about living in dependency or to be filled or live to be controlled by the Spirit, it means to be living in dependency upon Him instead of dependency on other things. So we are born and created by God to live in dependency. So the desire to live in dependency is not anything unusual. We’re created to be dependent people. The problem is, we’re created to be dependent on Him. And when we refuse to be, or don’t know that we’re supposed to be dependent on Him, we are forced to seek dependency on something. And that’s why these dependencies are as strong as they are, and all of our problems basically stem from a misplaced dependency. God created you to be dependent on Him. We don’t know that, so we begin to be dependent on other people, and as a result, are controlled by those things that we’re dependent upon.
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The Christian life is lived by faith. It’s encouraged by hope, and it certainly is exemplified by love. And it’s these qualities that is the Christian criteria, or the way God really judges the world in evaluating and how we can evaluate how we’re doing in our Christian maturity. We sometimes think that how we’re doing is how often we attend church or how often we pray and all this type of thing, instead of how we do it in the love department. And because that is what God is looking for, and that’s what the unbelieving world is looking for. And so the only evidence that God said is going to be to the unbelieving world of a living Lord and a living faith is how you doing loving each other. So the measure of vitality of every Christian life is not much Christian activity that they have been involved in or they’re engaged in, but how we progressing and are learning to love one another. And Jesus summed up the entire Christian life, if you remember, with the words, “Love your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself.” So the key to living a Christian life is learning, therefore, how to walk in this newness of life, walking in the Spirit, learning to be controlled by the Spirit of God.
You know the scripture. It says, “Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be continually being filled with the Spirit. And what that means is to be controlled by the Spirit. The Greek word “to be filled by” means to be controlled by. It doesn’t mean to roll around on the floor. It means to be controlled by something. And what He wants to control us by is love. Now we’ve talked about this before, but whenever you’re dependent upon and whatever you’re dependent upon for meaning and purpose to life, that thing is going to control you. It is not that it wants to control you; it’s a byproduct of dependency. If you’re depending, as an example, on alcohol for your meaning and purpose to life. What’s going to control you? Alcohol. That’s why they call it alcohol dependency. We have a tendency to want to think that’s a chemical, but the issue is it’s your dependency that causes the alcoholism. The same thing with drugs. The same thing with popularity. Kids can come down and be controlled by their peer group. If you’re depending upon popularity among the peer group for your meaning and purpose to life, That peer group is going to control you whether you want them to or not. That’s not the issue. Your dependency upon them brings about the control of them. We know that, don’t we? And you’ll see that, especially with teenagers, where they whoever called this in crowd the in crowd, and if they want to be in the in crowd for their meaning and purpose to life, that in crowd is going to control them. It’s a byproduct of your dependency. I’ve said before that before I was saved, I was dependent upon the success of my business for my meaning and purpose to life. So guess what controlled me? My business and the dumb thing didn’t even know me, but it controlled my life because of my dependency upon it.
So when God is talking about living in dependency or to be filled or live to be controlled by the Spirit, it means to be living in dependency upon Him instead of dependency on other things. So we are born and created by God to live in dependency. So the desire to live in dependency is not anything unusual. We’re created to be dependent people. The problem is, we’re created to be dependent on Him. And when we refuse to be, or don’t know that we’re supposed to be dependent on Him, we are forced to seek dependency on something. And that’s why these dependencies are as strong as they are, and all of our problems basically stem from a misplaced dependency. God created you to be dependent on Him. We don’t know that, so we begin to be dependent on other people, and as a result, are controlled by those things that we’re dependent upon.
Now, what did God want to control our lives? He wanted love to control our lives, and he said, “I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through your Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints”. Now, here’s what we need power for: “to grasp how long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge,” so it is experiential knowledge of the love of God. What’s the result of this? “That you might be filled to the measure with all of the fullness of God.” Now, folks, again, would it be possible to be filled of the Spirit? And not be filled to the measure with all the fullness of God? That’s that’s an impossibility. They’re one of the same.
So, what does it mean, therefore, to be controlled by the love of God? It means to be living in dependency upon the love of God for you, and the byproduct of your dependency upon Him for His love creates the control of His love in your life. The love of God is what controlled Paul. The Christ love, it says, compels us or controls us because we’re convinced that one died for all and therefore all died. The love of God controlled Jesus. As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. So He said, “Remain in My love.” So what are you and I supposed to be controlled by the love of God, “the world will know that you’re my disciples” by what? Your love one toward another,” not your ecthusis or your bumper stickers, but by your love one toward another. Because we cannot do that in our own strength, we have substituted everything else for love, and we say, “Well, okay, okay. I agree with you. Love is love is it. Now let’s see what would a loving Christian do. Loving Christian would pray. Therefore, I’ll pray. Therefore, I’m a loving Christian. Is that true? Or let’s see. A loving Christian would witness. So therefore, I’m going to witness, and therefore I’ll be a loving Christian. Loving Christian goes to church. I’ll go to church. Therefore, I’ll be a loving Christian. All of that’s reverse, a total reverse of logic. He says all of those things mean nothing if we don’t have love.
What is the most difficult part of our bodies for the spirit to control? What’s the most difficult part of our body? There you go, the tongue. We stumble in many ways, but we’re told if anyone is never at fault in what he says he’s a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check. When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships, for example. James says, although they are so large, they are driven by strong winds. They’re steered by a very small rudder, wherever the pilot wants it to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. Now, the control, the tongue that is not controlled by love, we’re told, is first of all destructive and discouraging. We’re told in a scripture that a thief comes only to steal and to kill and destroy. A fire from hell, we’re told in regard to the tongue, that the tongue is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person; it sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. That’s a pretty tough description, isn’t it? But that’s what he is saying, folks, about what this tongue of ours can do to people. It says it can set a fire; that it’s a it’s a world of evil among the parts of the body, that your whole body can seem to be in check, but if the tongue is out of control, everything is out of control. We’re told in the Scripture that the tongue is unable to be tamed by man. Now, isn’t that something?
It says all kinds of animals and birds and reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. We can go out and tame all kinds of animals. You can even probably tame a cat to be nice. You can tame dolphins. You can tame whales. You can tame all kinds of animals, can’t we? Man can do this, has the ability to do this, but he said there’s one thing you can’t tame. That’s the tongue. Now that tells us something, doesn’t it? That we’ve got something in these mouths of ours that is untamable by ourselves. And so it goes ahead to say that man can train the animal kingdom, but only God can tame the tongue of man. It isn’t that the tongue cannot be tamed. It’s just it says that man cannot tame it. Now that’s something to think about, isn’t it? That our tongue cannot be tamed by ourselves. The tongue has to be tamed by God and God alone. Now the tongue, it says, exudes poison. Here’s a nice statement: it is restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue, we praise our Lord and Father, and with the same tongue, we curse men who have been made in God’s likeness. Isn’t that something? You know that’s where it says, if you say you love God and yet hate your brother, you lie. Truth’s not in you. If you don’t love your brother, don’t say you love God. And so he’s saying this tongue. We can praise God out of one side of her mouth and curse your brother who’s made in the image of God right out of the same mouth with the same tongue. He’s been made in the likeness of God, and yet we can curse him. Now, out of the same mouth comes praise and cursing, and James says, “My brothers, this should not be. Isn’t that something? That’s what he says. It shouldn’t be. Now, he didn’t say if you do, God’s going to zap you. It says it shouldn’t be. If you are children of God, if you’re indwelt by the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God is love, then He says love should not be cursing one another, and biting each other, and forming a fire toward one another.
Four ways that the tongue can be used to destroy people. We’re going to go through these four. First of all, is gossip. It says in Proverbs, a scoundrel plots evil, and his speech is like a scorching fire. Have you ever heard that? Ever run into that type of thing? Have you ever been exposed to gossip? How many of us have ever gossiped? Yeah. How many have ever been gossiped against? Now, do you know why it says all of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God? But it says a scoundrel plots evil, and normally through gossip there is a plot connected with it. There’s a purpose behind it. I don’t think you spontaneously gossip. I think you plan to gossip. It says like a madman shooting firebrands or deadly arrows is a man who deceives his neighbor and says, “Hey, I was only joking. Just ripped you apart, but I was only joking. Without wood, a fire goes out, and without gossip, a quarrel dies down. If you want to keep a quarrel going, keep gossip going. As charcoal to embers and as wood to fire, so is the quarrelsome man for kindling strife. In other words, a quarrelsome man is going to be kindling strife at all times. The words of a gossip are like choice mortal morsels; they go down to a man’s innermost parts. I am more deadly than the screaming shell from a howitzer. I win without killing. I tear down homes. I break hearts. I wreck lives. I travel on the wings of the wind. No innocence is strong enough to intimidate me. No purity pure enough to daunt me, I have no regard for truth or respect for justice, no mercy for the defenseless. My victims are as numerous as the sands of the sea and often as innocent. I never forget and seldom forgive. My name is Gossip.
It was written by a man by the name of Morgan _____ of the Atlanta Journal. Question: Do Christians gossip? No, we just share prayer requests. And folks, that is as true as anything in the world. We get into our little gossip chains, and we think we’re going to pray for old Mary over there. She’s flirting a little bit with this and this and this, and we’re just back and forth. Only calling a prayer request, and it’s sad, isn’t it? But it’s true.
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John ______, who was a poet, said this: “There is a lust in a man no charm can tame, but loudly publishing his neighbor’s shame. Hence, on eagles’ wings and mortals scandals fly, whereby virtuous actions are born and then die. Another area is flattery. We sometimes don’t realize that flattery is saying to one’s face what you never say behind their back. Gossip is saying behind one’s back what you would never say to their face. A lying tongue hates those it hurts, and a flattering mouth works ruin. Flattering tongue is a tool of manipulation. You can use manipulation and use flattery to manipulate people, and so the tongue can be used in numerous ways. But it is a manipulator when it comes through flattery.
The other area where the tongue can be used is criticism. Remember what it says in the scripture: “What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle from within you? You want something and you don’t get it.” You kill and you covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and you fight. You do not have because you don’t ask God, and when you ask, you don’t receive because when you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. That was James four one through three. How many of you been in churches and seen churches destroyed by gossiping, conniving tongues? It’s a shame, but it happens.
The other one is through character assassination. In Second Timothy 4:14, remember Paul said Alexander the metal worker did me a great deal of harm. The Lord will repay him for what he has done. We can use the tongue to assassinate the character of another person, can’t we? This tongue of ours is a vicious thing if it’s out of control of the Lord. Gossiping tongue, a flattering tongue, a contentious tongue, and then involved in character assassination. How many sinless pastors do you know? About the same number as you know of sinless pew sitters. There aren’t any. All have sinned. All have fallen short of the glory of God. Say, well, yeah, but I hold them in higher standards. You may, but God has said I’ve given them a ministry. Whenever we start setting ourselves up as judges of people, we’re as confused in our judgment as the politicians are in theirs. And so we have to understand that when man sets himself up as the judge, and we are the moral standards, and we are going to determine what’s right and wrong, we’re standing right back at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and saying, “God, I don’t need you to determine these things. I’ll determine them myself. And so, folks, we have to realize that these, all of these things, tie into character assassination that we all can get involved in, in ripping the very life out of a human being. Hear me, O God, as a voice, my complaint protect my life from the threat of the enemy, hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked, from that noisy crowd of evil doers. They sharpen their tongues like swords and aim their words like deadly arrows. They shoot from ambush. Have you ever noticed how that always goes in a character assassination? They always shoot from an ambush. They love to send anonymous letters, folks. I have good policy for that. Whenever you get an anonymous letter, pitch it in the waste basket, because if a guy doesn’t have the courage enough to say who’s signing it, then what they have to say shouldn’t be worth reading. They shoot at him suddenly and without fear. They encourage each other in their evil plans. They talk about hiding their snares. They say, “Who will see them? They plot injustice and say, “We have devised a perfect plan. Surely the mind and the heart of man are cunning. But if you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out, or you’ll be destroyed by each other. If you live by the sword, you’re going to die by the sword. That’s why the Scripture says it’s not for us to be out destroying people. When are we going to learn that the Bible says that the wheat and tares are going to grow together? And don’t you try to pull up the tares because when you do, you’re going to pull up the wheat. He said, “I will be the judge. I will take care of that in the last days. I’m the harvester.
He says that our hearts need to be changed, and what kind of heart attitudes are necessary for God to control your tongue? Well, first of all, he says that we need to be in a situation of looking inward at our own heart, because the scriptures say that. Don’t you know that whatever enters the mouth and goes into the stomach then comes back out of the body? In other words, it’s not what defiles a man what you put in your mouth. It’s what proceeds out of his heart that defiles a man. People don’t have alcohol problems. We have heart problems. We don’t have drug problems. We have heart problems. We don’t have this problem. We got heart problems. It’s the heart is the source of all of these things, and we have to understand we’re always looking at the fruit instead of the root. But the root of all problems is our hearts, and our hearts need to be conformed to the image of Christ Jesus, and to be taught the attitudes of Christ Jesus, so that we can say that our attitude should be like that of Christ Jesus, who, though we were God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but he humbled himself. He lived in a spirit of humility.
So we have to see that we have to look inward, not outward, at what we’re doing, but inward. Man looks on the outside. Where does God look? He looks on the heart. It says, “But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these are what make a man unclean. For out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander. Just a good old day in Dallas. You’ll notice slander is in there. Slanderous heart is an evil heart, and we have to. Look out! That it’s not what I did; it’s what’s wrong with my heart to cause me to do that. And these are the things that make a man unclean.
We’re told that the tongue cannot be controlled until the heart is changed. So, if only God can control the tongue, then it has to be controlled as a result. It has to come as a result of God controlling the heart.
The second thing we have to look at is to accept God’s discipline as He sheds the light of His Word on the areas of your life that need correction. Remember, in the Scripture it says to endure hardship as discipline. God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? And if you’re not disciplined, and everyone go undergoes discipline, then your illegitimate children are not true sons. A father and a mother who don’t discipline their children don’t love their children because you’re not preparing your children for what’s going on ahead of them, where they’re going to have to develop discipline. Because if you don’t have it out in the workplace, you’re not going to have a job. If you don’t have discipline when you leave home and go to college to study on your own. You’re going to flunk out of college, and so there is discipline that is needed for our children. And what son is not disciplined by his father? Now, at the time, the child might perceive that discipline as punishment, but punishment is retaliation for an act done. Discipline is preparation for the game ahead. Punishment is always retaliation, and discipline is preparation. And it says in the scripture that it seems at the time like it’s punishment, but it isn’t. When I was in high school and playing basketball, our coach used to run us up and down those bleachers, up and down. I thought was going to die. Well, what was he doing? Punishing us? Seemed like it, but he was preparing us for the game, so that we’d be strong and be able to get up and complete a game. And so this is what discipline does for us. It prepares us for the game ahead, and moreover, we’ve all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for us.
Should we, as children, when we were young or today, respect our parents for the discipline? Maybe not at the time, but we look back on it and say, “I thank God for that discipline. I thank God for my mom and dad having some discipline in my life, so that it prepared me for the game ahead. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live? Our fathers discipline us for a little while as they thought best, but God, He disciplines us for our good, so that we may share in His holiness. So, what’s the purpose of discipline? To be able to share in His holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. So again, discipline is training. Don’t resist it. Now we look at discipline from God as almost a fearful thing. Oh God, have you heard that? God’s going to discipline you for well, praise God. That’s the only thing that’s going to prepare us for the game ahead. Do you know what this Bible is? It’s a book of discipline. Discipline is discipleship. Discipline, disciple. It means a teacher. I need my mind taught 24 hours a day. The book of Corinthians is an entire book of discipleship and discipline because the thinking of the Corinthians was as bad as ours, and it needs renewed. And so that’s what discipline is: is renewing our minds, teaching us truth, and setting us free with it. So we should welcome the discipline of God upon our lives and from each other. So remember, though, that discipline without direction is drudgery, and that’s why I think that with our children growing up, we need to plant a goal in their mind. We need to plant a vision for them. We need our children to say, “This is what you’re headed towards, so that when they’re studying, they’re not just studying because I’m supposed to study, but I’m studying for a goal.
What do you want God to do in your life? You know, we look at that and say, “What kind of a person would I like to be? What kind of a person would I like God to make me into. Well, you see, if we listen to God, what is it? A loving person. I like for God to make me into a loving person. I’d like to be able to have loving responses. Now, for me to get to there, there’s a lot of discipline God’s going to have to do, and for you to get there, there’s a lot of discipline. But if that’s really a desire of mine, is to see God make me into a person that was really a loving person. Then the discipline to get me there is not a drudgery; it’s a way of accomplishing what God has put into my mind that He wants to make me into.
So we need to understand those things and recognize your need of total dependency on. God to solve the problem of the tongue, the psalmist says, “Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord, and keep watch over the door of my lips. He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity. So, folks, when we see that it’s only God that can tame the tongue of man, and the only way that our tongue is going to be tamed is through love. Then why not set in your mind that spiritual goal? That what I want God to do is to make me into a loving person. I’d like to be known that I was a person who loved people, was kind to them, was patient with them, didn’t keep records of their wrongs. He’s not always easily angered with them. All the things that First Corinthians 13 says, you say, you know, that’s kind of person I’d like to be. But if I’m going to be that, God’s going to have to do it because I cannot do that myself. And so, as the psalmist said, guard my tongue, put a control over it, so that I can speak words that are encouraging and not discouraging. To speak words of praise instead of always criticism. To have a mind that is seeing the good in people instead of always the bad in people.
Do you find it sometimes where it’s just so much easier to see what’s wrong with somebody than what’s right with them? How many of you find it easier to do that? Isn’t that strange how we are? Because we still have that desire, don’t we, to to criticize and always see the worst in somebody? And God wants to correct that in us. And what we have to do is to trust the Lord to change our hearts with that. I think especially I’ve had people say in regard to flattering. To flattering, does that mean you should never compliment anybody? No, there’s a world of difference between a sincere appreciation for what someone is, what they do, and the flattering tongue. You you can see the difference, and so our tongue is is untamable by anyone except God, and so it says, let him do it. Faithful is he who called you, who will also do it. Who called you? Jesus. Who will tame your tongue? Jesus. What should we do? Let him do it.
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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, and praise the Lord. Amen.