Radio Broadcast Tuesday 02/04/2025

Classic Christianity – Book of Romans P47 (02-04-25)

For The True Child of God, Our Bodies Are Living Sacrifices to God

~ “Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.” Romans 12:1,2

This is so important for us to understand for today, to the child of God, those born of God, who have the Holy Spirit living in them, we are Holy because He made us Holy. And because He lives in us, and everyone in Christ Jesus is the temple of God, we are to offer our bodies to Him, which is our true worship today. We don’t make ourselves holy, we don’t make ourselves set apart. He did it ALL. He made us a new creation in Christ Jesus when the Holy Spirit comes to live in the born again believer. “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come!” 2 Corinthians 5:17

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
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~ Therefore I urge you, brothers, on account of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but think of yourself with sober judgment, according to the measure of faith God has given you. Just as each of us has one body with many members, and not all members have the same function, so in Christ we who are many are one body, and each member belongs to one another.

We have different gifts according to the grace given us. If one’s gift is prophecy, let him use it in proportion to his faith; if it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is giving, let him give generously; if it is leading, let him lead with diligence; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.

Love must be sincere. Detest what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Outdo yourselves in honoring one another.

Do not let your zeal subside; keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, persistent in prayer.

Share with the saints who are in need. Practice hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you. Bless and do not curse. Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be proud, but associate with the lowly. Do not be conceited.

Do not repay anyone evil for evil. Carefully consider what is right in the eyes of everybody. If it is possible on your part, live at peace with everyone.

Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but leave room for God’s wrath. For it is written: “Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, says the Lord.”

On the contrary,

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him;

if he is thirsty, give him a drink.

For in so doing,

you will heap burning coals on his head.”

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

Romans 12:1-21

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.”

~ “Like, I say, very seldom, you may die for a good man, but you’re going to die for us. When Jesus said there isn’t anybody good, when he said that I have bound all men over to disobedience so that I can show mercy on you. And that was the thing that kept popping through my mind as I was again viewing this movie, was Why would he do that for me? And there’s only one answer to that, folks, and that is a love that we cannot even enter into, a love of God looking down on his creation, that Satan had messed up, created death. And he said, I’m going to bring them alive. I’m going we’re going to do something to bring them alive. And he developed a plan that in order to give them eternal life, I have to take away eternally the cause of spiritual death. Sin, and that means to take away sin. That means a sacrifice that is so far greater than any sacrifice that’s ever been made that even the angels in heaven are going to look down in awe as to, why are you doing this? And there he who knew no sin became sin for you and me, so that we could become the righteousness of God in Him. That’s what he did for us. When a man comes to understand his condition of spiritual death. Now, you know the meaning of the resurrection. Outside of that, you ask a man, what’s the meaning of the resurrection? I’ll guarantee you they don’t know. Maybe it proves that he was God, something I don’t know. Know the meaning of the cross took away my sins, meaning of the resurrection. Don’t have a clue. Until we understand that death had to be cured, that man had a problem called death, spiritual death, the punishment, the wages of sin, is not a paddling, it’s not a woodshed, it’s not being out of fellowship, it’s death, and Jesus took that death for you and me so that we could go free, alive in Christ, Jesus, that’s the sacrifice that he made for us. Why? Because he loved us. Why? You got me. Why would he love us that much? I don’t know. But God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. He did it.” ~ Bob George

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Join Bob George in this chapter by chapter exposition of the letter to the Romans. Available for download the complete series on the Book of Romans. Romans has been described as the most dynamic, life changing document ever penned. It is a study in systematic theology, a defense of the Gospel, and a practical guide to Christian living all in one.

Announcer 0:12
Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George Bob’s clear, timeless teachings on the complete forgiveness and unconditional love of Jesus Christ will transform your life as you learn about God’s amazing grace. Let’s join Bob as he teaches us from God’s Word.

Bob George 0:27
Well, guys, let’s turn to Romans. 12, guys, we have just completed the first 11 chapters of the book of Romans, and if you just will look in your Bible for just a moment in chapter 11 and verse 32. You’re again going to see why God had to come and to do what he had to do for us. It says, For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all. All of us have sinned. All of us have fallen short of the glory of God. All of our hearts were wicked and deceitful above all things. And who could know them? There is not a one of us who would ever have been able to stand in the presence of God in our own righteousness. Do we understand that? And you can go work yourself to death, and you can go study yourself to death, but no man will ever stand in the presence of a holy God in his own righteousness. He reduced all men to the position of disobedience so that he could have mercy on us all. Now to the Hebrew, as we’ve discussed, and I’m talking basically about the Hebrew leaders, and then the people whom they taught, they were taught that you could obtain righteousness through your good works and through obedience to the law. And they took the law that God had given us and instead of using it for its purpose, and Paul tells us that the purpose of the law is to show us our disobedience, so that we would turn to Christ for salvation. Instead of using it for that purpose, they decided to use it as a means of righteousness, so that if they are obedient to the law, then they will be declared righteous in the sight of God. Through their own works. They stopped. They didn’t stop with the 10 that God gave us. They ultimately ended up with over 600 laws pertaining to the original 10. And so they kept adding, which is, again, what you do, folks, when you’ve got a religion that’s kind of like a high jumper. Once you get over the bar, what do you do? You raise the bar. And then what do you do when you get over that one? Where you raise it a little higher, until you come to a point where you can’t get over any of it, and you perceive yourself as a total failure, or you hope nobody saw that you missed. And that’s what happens in religion. You keep raising the bar, and you’ve had well now you if you guys come on Sunday morning, you’re okay, but if you come Sunday night, you’re really holy. And then if you come on Wednesday, you’re just about ready to make your ascension into heaven. And if you come for Monday visitation, you’re already there, you just don’t know it yet. And that’s exactly what happens in religion, is you keep putting adding more to do, more to do and more to do, until ultimately, your tongue is hanging out down to your knees, and you get burned out, and you say, I want nothing more to do with religion. And I say, Praise God, I don’t either want anything to do with religion, because God did not come to form a religion. God came to give a relationship between you and himself that was brought about by the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, Jesus, a relationship that you and I can enter into personally, as if we were the only person on the face of this earth and to be blessed by God. And it does not have anything to do with where you park your body on Sunday or Saturday. It has to do with what you do with your body all week long. And that’s what Romans 12 is about.

Therefore, I urge you, brothers in view of the mercy of God. Now we just got through reading that God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he can have mercy on us, all Hebrew and Gentile, alike, slave and free, male and female, all people, His mercy extended to us in Christ, Jesus, therefore and again, when you see it, therefore, you ask, what’s it therefore? And it’s therefore, in order to explain, if this is true, this is what your attitudes should be in regard to the one who extended this mercy to you. Therefore, I urge you brothers, in view of this mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, this is your spiritual act of worship.

Now, guys again, what you see is that everything that God says, Satan comes along, using man to water down the meaning. This is one of those terms, worship. We call it worship services. So in other words, the only time you worship is when you come to the service. We call singing praise songs, worship. The issue is that God says what worship is is making your body available to the living God who lives in you, to live his life in and through you. That is your reasonable act of worship. Anybody can come and get goose bumps singing songs, those are called praising the Lord. It’s not a worship service. It’s praising the Lord. Now, it isn’t that you couldn’t make your body available to the living Christ as you’re praising the Lord, but in and of itself, you can sit there lost. Can you not and sing worship songs or praise songs, can’t you? And you can sing those songs and get teary, can’t you? I’ve done it. I did it for years before I was ever saved, but the music moved me and the words to it moved me, but I wasn’t saved. But could I ever before I was saved, make my body available to the living God who lives in me to live his life through me? Never why he wasn’t living there. And the only people on the face of this earth who can make their bodies available to the living God to live his life in and through them are people who have the living God living in them. Born again people. Now. How do you get born again? Going to church, tithing? No like I say, you do not become a Christian, sitting in church anymore, and you become a chicken, sitting in a hen house, or a car sitting in a garage. You become born again when you understand your condition of being lost, of being a sinner and of being dead. And folks, it is so vitally important that we understand what spiritual death is all about.

When Christ, Jesus, and many of you saw the Passion, I saw it yesterday for the second time. I’m glad I went the second time. I got so much more out of it than I did the first time. But you see depicted what Jesus went through. You see the scourging that took place, which was no more or no less than Satan trying to get him killed before he ever went to the cross to accomplish for us what he came to do. No man was ever beaten like this. He said he was beaten as no man. He suffered as no man. There is no man on the face of the earth that could have gone through the torture that he did prior to getting to the cross. No one. And yet he did so, and why he did so was because the punishment that was due to you and me had to go on a sacrificial lamb. In the Old Testament, they killed a lamb or a bull and a goat, and those sins were transferred onto them. And the same thing had to be done for us. The only difference is that the quality of the blood of God Himself was of such value that it was able to take away the sins of the whole world back to Adam and forward to all eternity. And so we recognize that God came in that song amazing love. Why would my king die for me? I’m not worth it. But to him, I was, I’m not even worth it to me. But to him, I was.

Like, I say, very seldom, you may die for a good man, but you’re going to die for us. When Jesus said there isn’t anybody good, when he said that I have bound all men over to disobedience so that I can show mercy on you. And that was the thing that kept popping through my mind as I was again viewing this movie, was Why would he do that for me? And there’s only one answer to that, folks, and that is a love that we cannot even enter into, a love of God looking down on his creation, that Satan had messed up, created death. And he said, I’m going to bring them alive. I’m going we’re going to do something to bring them alive. And he developed a plan that in order to give them eternal life, I have to take away eternally the cause of spiritual death. Sin, and that means to take away sin. That means a sacrifice that is so far greater than any sacrifice that’s ever been made that even the angels in heaven are going to look down in awe as to, why are you doing this? And there he who knew no sin became sin for you and me, so that we could become the righteousness of God in Him. That’s what he did for us. When a man comes to understand his condition of spiritual death. Now, you know the meaning of the resurrection. Outside of that, you ask a man, what’s the meaning of the resurrection? I’ll guarantee you they don’t know. Maybe it proves that he was God, something I don’t know. Know the meaning of the cross took away my sins, meaning of the resurrection. Don’t have a clue. Until we understand that death had to be cured, that man had a problem called death, spiritual death, the punishment, the wages of sin, is not a paddling, it’s not a woodshed, it’s not being out of fellowship, it’s death, and Jesus took that death for you and me so that we could go free, alive in Christ, Jesus, that’s the sacrifice that he made for us. Why? Because he loved us. Why? You got me. Why would he love us that much? I don’t know. But God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life. He did it.

Now when you and I walk in that newness of life, and we take that truth and internalize that we’re born again, when I recognize I’m a sinner and those sins had to be paid for and Christ, Jesus did it, and there’s no more sacrifice for sins. He ushered in a New Covenant that said their sins and lawless acts, I will remember no more, and where these have been, not will be, have been forgiven there’s no longer any sacrifice for sins. Hebrews put away your sacrificial system. Catholics put aside your confession booth, and evangelicals put aside your first John one nine. There isn’t any more forgiveness to be executed. He’s done it once. He’s done it for all he’s done it for all time, and he cried out from the cross what? It is finished. Now, why do we call Him a liar when Jesus said it’s finished? Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing. Does that make sense? They don’t know what they’re doing. Half the time I don’t know what I’m doing. My staff will agree with that, but the issue is we didn’t know what we were doing. They thought they were just killing a rebel, but they were killing the Son of God, and in essence, they weren’t killing him because he laid down his own life for us. No man, he said, can take my life from me. I lay it down volitionally on my own.

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Bob George 13:21
And so when a man comes to understand these truths, and they come to understand that there was a consequence to my sin, it’s called death, and death, the only cure for death is life, and the only life available to us folks is the life of Christ, Jesus. That’s why Jesus wasn’t just coming up with a fancy phrase of saying, I am the way and the truth and the life. He is the Way. He’s the only way. He is the truth. There isn’t any truth apart from Christ. Jesus, when He said that to Pilate, Pilate said, What’s truth? Jesus said, I am the truth, and no man will come to the Father except through me. It’s not being narrow minded, not being dogmatic, being unbelievable realistic. You’re dead and you need life, and I’m the only life available to you. Folks you could do that without a religion that’s practical. If I’m dead, I need life, and somebody comes along and says, I’m the only life available to you. You have to be pretty stupid to say, I don’t need you. Unless you want to remain dead. Want to remain dead? Want to die and die forever, or do you want to, as the scripture says, Leave these bodies and go immediately into the presence of God? That you never taste death, you just go to sleep and wake up in the arms of Jesus. Of Jesus.

And so you see, this is a very practical issue. It isn’t come and be wonderful, because we’re not. How many of you were just totally wonderful last week? I mean, never had an evil thought, and they’re going to see your hands. No hands, isn’t that? Oh. They’re told, Well, I knew that, yeah.Let’s give George an applause. He was perfect last year. He also comes to church and lies on Sunday. So we have to understand, folks, There is none righteous. No, not one. We couldn’t last an hour apart from the mercy of God. And this is what, this is what he’s trying to teach us. Here is our attitudes toward ourselves and toward one another. So he says your spiritual act of worship is not what you do out there. It’s making yourself available to the living God who lives in you, to live his life in and through you. He gave his life for you, to give his life to you, to live his life through you. And that’s the goal of the Christian life, to let Jesus who lives in you, let him loose, let him do it. Do what? Live his life. Can you live the Christian life? Could you give the Christian life? Can you live the Christian life? How many of you found it tough to live the Christian life last year? It’s not tough, that’s ridiculous. It’s impossible. It’s not tough to live the Christian life. It’s totally impossible. You cannot live it any more than a branch can produce fruit. Can a branch produce fruit? No. And how dumb would it be for a branch to be trying to produce fruit? He can’t. He can grunt and groan, ooh. All day long isn’t going to get it out. The only way that a branch is going to have fruit coming out of it is by abiding in the life of the vine. And the power of the vine produces the fruit in the branch, and the branch bears the fruit. You can’t do it. Jesus said, apart from me, you can do how much? Nothing. That’s a zero with all the edges knocked off of it. It means nothing. And yet we in our egotistical part, we stick our chest out, and so, yes, I can you just watch my smoke. Lord. Why we’ll go out and build churches, and we’ll go out and we’ll do this, and we’ll just build these great big edifices, and we’ll just, I’ll tell you. We’ll even have Starbucks in em. We’ll do all kinds of stuff. We’ll do all you just watch us. Lord. Lord said, I’m not interested in all in those churches. I’m interested in my church. My Church are born again believers, not people who are looking for an entertainment center. My Church are people who have come to Jesus, who have an interest in walking in a newness of life, not being entertained. My Church are my people. Now we have churches that you say, these are my people. You’re not my people. You’re his people. Now am I right or wrong? You’re not mine, you’re his, and because you’re his, we belong to one another. We belong to him, and we’re relatives. We’re brothers and sisters in Christ. That’s Jesus Church. He’s the head, we’re the body.

And so we’ve confused that Satan comes along. He says, Oh, that’s not worship. Worship is what you do in a service, comes along and says, Oh, my church, don’t pay attention my church, don’t pay attention to who you are. In Christ, I made you a child of God. That’s who you are. But don’t pay attention to that. Put a label on yourself with a name like Smuckers. It’s got to be good, so just put Smuckers on there, and it doesn’t make any difference what’s on the inside. Let people just see the label. So we put Baptist, Presbyterian, Methodist, Catholic, Charismatic, all this stuff. What are those? Labels that man has stuck on the outside of the jar. Doesn’t make an ounce of difference what’s on the inside. I don’t care if you’re saved. I don’t care if you’re empty as a pork barrel. Just take a label on yourself and tithe and come to church, and that’s all that matters, and that’s the condition that religion has gotten into. God says I could give a flip. Let’s what’s on the outside of that jar of yours. It’s what’s on the inside accounts. And what’s on the inside is I made you a child of God, and that’s the only identity, folks, you and I will ever really want, because that’s the identity God gave me. God didn’t call me a Baptist or a Presbyterian. He called me a child of the living God, and that’s who I will be throughout eternity, and that’s the good news of the gospel. Because this is not an organization. You’re an organism. This is not an organization. It’s an organism. He’s the head. You are the body. We belong to Christ. We belong to one another.

Now he says, Therefore, don’t conform any longer to the patterns of the world. What do we do? We bring the world into the church and say. Praise God, we’re being politically correct. Bring all this hare brained music in, sometimes not the kind we use, but there’s some real harebrained stuff out there. It sounds just like the world. Play it on the radio. You can’t tell whether you’re listening to a secular station or whether you’re listening to Christian music. Can’t tell if you don’t listen carefully to the words which are normally mumbled, and we’ve brought the world into the church. Well, you can attract people that way, folks, it’s a nice place to go. Dress up nice people to meet. If you’re in business, you’d get a lot of contacts. There’s a lot of false motives that we can conjure up in her own heart for going to church, isn’t it? But God said, The only reason that I want you to be here is, don’t forsake the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is, but to fellowship with each other. You come to learn. What do you do with what you learn? Go back home and put it into practice. So he says, Don’t conform to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by what? The renewing of your mind. He didn’t say to be alter your mind. He said to be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Now, how do you get your mind renewed? What’s he want? It renewed on? On truth. Where are you going to find truth? In Jesus. And where did Jesus say truth is? In the Word. My word is what? Truth. So how are you going to get your mind renewed? In the Word of God. And if you never study it, you’re not going to have a renewed mind, period. I have people that I’ve talked to that say, Gee, I’m just all confused. No, I’m a Christian. Would you ever read your Bible? No, I never read it. Well, then how in the world are you ever grow? That’s like saying, you know, you’re a plant. You put in the ground. Do you ever water it? No, ever put any fertilize on it? No. Well it ain’t going to grow then. We have a Bible. It’s a phenomenal book of love that God gave to us, and he said, read it. You can sit down and read through the Gospel of John in 20 minutes, and lot of people have never read two paragraphs in it. So he said, read it and grow well, I don’t understand it. Well. If you don’t understand it, it’s because the Spirit of God doesn’t live in you, if you really don’t understand it, or you’re trying to understand it in the energy of your own flesh. So if that’s a problem, merely say, Lord Jesus. You said, my eye can’t see, my ear can’t hear, my mind cannot conceive of those things that you have prepared for those who love me. But it must be revealed by the Spirit. So I’m going to count on you to reveal the meaning of the word of God to me, and let him do it.

So he said, I want you to be renewed in your mind. When you’re renewed in your mind and you know what the word of God, which is truth, says, you’re able to bounce error off of the truth, are you not? And folks, when you do not know what truth is, you have nothing to bounce error off of, error, bounces off of error. And so he said, then you’ll be able to test and approve what God’s will is, his good and pleasing and His perfect will for you and me. You want to know what the will of God is. Have your mind renewed on what? Truth, and he’ll reveal that to you.

Now he says this, and I want all of us to listen to this, young and old alike. I want you to listen. For by the grace given to me, I say to every one of you, do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you. Do you know folks, we can think that we are really a somebody, somebody. And this, again, was what the Gentiles were doing. They were thinking, well, we got this gospel a lot more than these Hebrews do, but he’s talking to us today. Don’t think more highly of yourself than you ought. You know, there aren’t any big deals. They’re seeing people who live to get around big deal people. Well, Martha Stewart was a big deal, and I feel sorry for her, I really do, but I guarantee you, there’s not a lot of biggies are going to want to be around her if she has to go to jail, and so that can fault like this. But there’s a lot of people that love to rub elbows with biggies, and we forget that those biggies put their pants on the same way you and I do, and they got to brace their teeth, just like you and me do. If they don’t, they’re just as offensive, and they need deodorant just like you and I do, and all of those things. They’re just people. They’re just plain people who have been put into a certain position. There’s no biggies, and so we shouldn’t be thinking of ourselves more highly than they are.

We have people, and you can have that in families, even where people are arguing with each other and bickering with each other. Why?They think they’re better than somebody else. And, and folks, God’s saying, quit thinking that way. You’re not any better than anybody else. How many of you remember when you were a teenager, how smart you thought you were? I mean, was there anyone smarter than you as a teenager? And then you get to be older, and you look back and said, I was a blithering idiot. But while you’re going through it, you think you’re the smartest thing going. I was only in the Lord a year, studying the Bible like crazy. I thought there wasn’t anything the Bible I don’t know. I don’t know why these people think the Bible’s hard to understand. I understand all of it. I’ve been the Lord now for a lot of years, and I wonder if I know anything, because it seems like the more you know, the more you realize you don’t know. So there’s no reason for us to be thinking more highly than ourselves than we ought to.

You know, you got people that say, Well, you got a poor self image. You hate yourself. And you know, person come up and say, Oh, I hate myself. Why? Well, because I’m ugly. Well, no, if you hated yourself, you’d be glad you’re ugly. If you had the neighbor across the street you couldn’t stand was ugly, you wouldn’t you know, you’d be glad. So the issue is, we love ourselves. The Bible didn’t say that we hate ourselves. Say we love ourselves too much, doesn’t it? Any of you get the the little deal that we put out with all your pictures in it? What was the first picture you look for? So you see, you see guys when he’s saying, Don’t think more highly of ourselves than we ought. We’re just people who have been saved by the grace of God. We’re people who, if it wasn’t for Jesus, we’d be goners. If it wasn’t for His mercy and His kindness and forgiveness, we would be goners. Is that right or wrong guys? Then what do we have to be criticizing each other all the time for and nit picking each other? And I’ll tell you the reason. We think we’re better than people, and we think we know more than anyone else. And there are people who live thinking, I am a somebody, somebody I don’t know where they ever got that, but I’m smarter than anybody.

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.