Classic Christianity – Peace, Purpose, & Promise Part 2 – 8-18-26
~ In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a propitiation for our sins. 1 John 4:10
Many of us have grown up knowing about Jesus, and many of us would say we knew about Jesus from the words of God. But we really didn’t know Him personally, nor did we understand that we could know Him in a very, very personal way. One of the chief ways that satan has hidden this from us is we grew up being taught that God is an angry God, and that we needed to do something to make amends for our bad actions.
We were placed constantly on a guilt trip and a performance spinning wheel by the religion that we grew up in. And this was not by accident, folks; this was designed by satan itself to deceive us into thinking we were not loved by God. And so we had to go out and try to earn God’s love for us. We were taught either going to the confession booth or doing the constant 1 John 1:9-ing to “get our sins forgiven by God.” This is the biggest of all the lies within religion, and it crosses all religions, denominations, and sects. With all of them, forgiveness was never completed at the cross, and more forgiveness was always required by God—or so we were taught.
But then, at some point in our lives, we hear truth, and we find out that God was in Christ Jesus, having reconciled the world to Himself and is not counting anyone’s sins against us, and that includes ME! You jump for joy the very moment you understand TRUTH. And once that happens, the Holy Spirit comes to live in you and gives you Life that is Eternal at that very moment in time. So if you have been born of the Spirit of God, share that TRUTH with others today. Be bold in the message of the gospel. And remember, it’s not that we love Him, but that He first loved us and sent Jesus Himself to be the propitiation for ALL our sins. He removed them completely and is not counting them against anyone today! Shout it from the rooftops.
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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 discusses the emptiness of worldly success and the need for unconditional love and acceptance found in Christ. He criticizes modern churches for focusing on activities rather than teaching, fellowship, and prayer. Bob emphasizes that true believers are born again and form the ecclesia, a new creation. He contrasts religion, which seeks human effort for acceptance, with Christianity, which is based on God’s grace. George highlights the unity in Christ, transcending racial and religious boundaries, and stresses that true discipleship is demonstrated through love for one another. He concludes by encouraging listeners to live a life worthy of their calling in Christ.
“So at the cross, Jesus neutralized the entire world and said, “I’m going to form a new creation, and that creation is going to be called the ecclesia. Now, the ecclesia is a Greek word we’ve translated church. Quite frankly, it’s an atrocity what the church is today compared to what Jesus meant the church to be, because basically the church has become an activity center. It’s become a place for potlucks, and a place for activity, and a place for interaction, but not a place to learn. The early church was held in homes, and it said they used to meet daily for the apostles’ teaching and for fellowship and for prayer, that’s the only function of a true church: teaching, fellowship, prayer. And so, what we see today as the ecclesia, I think many times, is a far cry from what God ever intended it to be. Because what the ecclesia is is made up of only born again people, people who have truly come to a personal relationship with the living Christ. And again, if you would have said something like that to me back when I was 30, a little in my early days of 36, I would have known what you were talking about, because I sat in church for 36 years and never heard the gospel of Christ Jesus. I didn’t know that what born again was. I never heard the term. I didn’t know I was a sinner. I knew I was a sinner, but didn’t know God called me one. I mean, I would have been the first to admit that I was a sinner. Amy would have also admitted to that. But but the fact is that I I didn’t know I was called that I didn’t know what that was, I thought a sinner was someone like myself who was out boozing up or or doing cussing and doing all the stuff that we guys do, but in the Bible the word sinner is an unbeliever. Now you see I would have thought that I was a believer in Jesus because I certainly historically believed that Jesus was alive. If someone would ask me, “Do you believe in Jesus? I’d have said, “Well, of course I do. Are you a Christian? Well, absolutely. I’m not a Muslim. You know, I’m not a Buddhist, so I’m a Christian because I live in America, don’t I? And so, I mean, I I would certainly have been a Christian from that standpoint. Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God? Sure, I believe that. What’s that mean? I don’t know. Maybe God had a baby. I don’t have any idea what that means. Never, never cared what it meant. It was just all surface stuff. Do you relate to what I’m talking about? We celebrate Christmas that way, and I think back on Christmas Christmas experience and hearing those words, they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.” ~ 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 0:29
It is empty, and it’ll never fill the need of the human heart. Never. That’s why you take the richest people alive. ______ ________ asked someone, asked him one time, how much it will take to make you happy. He said, just a little bit more, and that’s the way we are. Do you think ______ _______ happy? You see, I could walk up to a ______ _______ if he doesn’t know the Lord and look him straight in the eyes as one of the wealthiest men in the world and say, “I want to tell you something, my _______. You’re as empty as a pork barrel inside. That’s just because we were made that way, folks. That’s the way we were created. And as we’ve said before, just as a car cannot run without gasoline in it, people go out and buy. A $60,000 automobile, and the dumb thing won’t run without $1’s worth of gas in it. Why? It was made that way. A car without gas will not function. A lamp without oil will not function. A man without God cannot function. We’re made that way. And so we walk into this world not with gasoline in the car, oil in the lamp, or electricity in the bob, but we walk into this world empty, and we’re born into this world empty. HEBREWS born that way, Gentiles born that way, the whole world born that way.
So at the cross, Jesus neutralized the entire world and said, “I’m going to form a new creation, and that creation is going to be called the ecclesia. Now, the ecclesia is a Greek word we’ve translated church. Quite frankly, it’s an atrocity what the church is today compared to what Jesus meant the church to be, because basically the church has become an activity center. It’s become a place for potlucks, and a place for activity, and a place for interaction, but not a place to learn. The early church was held in homes, and it said they used to meet daily for the apostles’ teaching and for fellowship and for prayer, that’s the only function of a true church: teaching, fellowship, prayer. And so, what we see today as the ecclesia, I think many times, is a far cry from what God ever intended it to be. Because what the ecclesia is is made up of only born again people, people who have truly come to a personal relationship with the living Christ. And again, if you would have said something like that to me back when I was 30, a little in my early days of 36, I would have known what you were talking about, because I sat in church for 36 years and never heard the gospel of Christ Jesus. I didn’t know that what born again was. I never heard the term. I didn’t know I was a sinner. I knew I was a sinner, but didn’t know God called me one. I mean, I would have been the first to admit that I was a sinner. Amy would have also admitted to that. But but the fact is that I I didn’t know I was called that I didn’t know what that was, I thought a sinner was someone like myself who was out boozing up or or doing cussing and doing all the stuff that we guys do, but in the Bible the word sinner is an unbeliever. Now you see I would have thought that I was a believer in Jesus because I certainly historically believed that Jesus was alive. If someone would ask me, “Do you believe in Jesus? I’d have said, “Well, of course I do. Are you a Christian? Well, absolutely. I’m not a Muslim. You know, I’m not a Buddhist, so I’m a Christian because I live in America, don’t I? And so, I mean, I I would certainly have been a Christian from that standpoint. Do you believe Jesus is the Son of God? Sure, I believe that. What’s that mean? I don’t know. Maybe God had a baby. I don’t have any idea what that means. Never, never cared what it meant. It was just all surface stuff. Do you relate to what I’m talking about? We celebrate Christmas that way, and I think back on Christmas Christmas experience and hearing those words, they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.
And I can remember singing those songs, not having a clue what that meant, never taking time to think, what’s that mean? What’s that mean? And so, yeah, historically, I believed Jesus was the Son of God, the same way I believed ___ ______ was president of the United States, and ______ _________ was president, and and and all those kind of things. It was a historical acknowledgement that I believed he existed, and that’s who he was, without a clue what it meant. I did not have a clue that I could know him personally. I did not. I didn’t know I was supposed to. I just thought I was supposed to know about him, but I didn’t know I could know him. I didn’t know that that there was something missing in my life, but I knew there was something missing in my life. And so you go through life always gaining something, and then after you’ve gained it, you look back and say, what was that all about? You know, basketball you win a tournament after you win it, big deal. Can always remember my dad. Dad was a very wise man. He was a very religious man, but he wasn’t born again. He did not know Christ as his Lord and Savior until a couple of days before he died. I had the privilege of introducing him to Christ before he died. But my dad was a very wise man, and I can always remember him saying to me, my senior year of high school when I played basketball, and he said, “Bob, let me tell you something. He said, “Right now, you walk in the gym and everybody’s applaud.” And why they’re just goo gooing over you and all that kind of stuff? He said, “Next year when you go to college, you walk in that gym there they won’t know who you are. And I thought, “My poor dad, he’s he’s deranged all of a sudden. Why? That’s not true. That ain’t got to happen at all. And I can remember the year, my freshman year. I was getting ready to go back to one of the high school games, and I could hardly wait. I probably was anticipating a standing ovation when you. And I walked into that place, and nobody had a clue who I was. They had new heroes now, new heroes. And you sit back and you say, “What’s it all about? Short-lived stuff, isn’t it? Short-lived stuff. I think so many times that football players and that type of thing. What price glory do we pay of going out and getting her knees ruined for the rest of her life for a little bit of applause from the stands?
And so we we we we have to realize in life that everything that we seem to try to achieve is very much meaningless, isn’t it? In the final analysis, and so you come down to the point and say, “Well, is there anything that has meaning to it? And guys, one of the reasons that I’ve devoted my life as a Christian to trying to teach people the grace of God. It’s not because that’s a theology that I like better than another theology, or it’s that I don’t like legalism but I like this grace. It’s because of what it does to you. Because you see, you and I both know that there is no unconditional love and acceptance available here on this earth. We know that, don’t we? I would like to be able to love Amy unconditionally, but I can’t. And I’d like to be able to accept her unconditionally, but I can’t. And she can’t love and accept me unconditionally. That’s an impossibility. Now, guys, if you if you can’t find unconditional love and acceptance here on this earth, and yet you’ve got a need as strong as anything you’ve ever had for unconditional love and acceptance. And then you go to church to try to find maybe God will love me unconditionally, and here you find you got to do this, you got to tithe in order to be blessed. You got to do this. You got to follow the rules. You got to look like this. You got to act like this. You got to, you know, you got to go to the prayer meeting, and you got to go.
And you know, if you go on Sunday and don’t go Sunday evening, something’s wrong with you for sure. And you’ve got this little pecking order that we have, and you sit there and say, “I think I’ve just had it, because if God doesn’t love me unconditionally, where am I going to go? There’s no place to go. I live here in the world, people, places, and things, and none of them can meet this need of this heart. Where am I going to go? And you know what you do? You live in hopelessness, and so you just start saying, “Well, I’ll just practice religion, and maybe someday. And here’s what ultimately legalism does: is I know that God is disturbed with me now, but I’ll work hard enough, and I’ll do enough things, and I’ll go to church enough, and I’ll tithe enough, and I’ll do all of these things, so that just maybe, on the day that I die, I will have done a few more good things than bad, and maybe God will take me in. Maybe. So how do we die? Wondering, wondering, and that’s why many people are scared to death of death because they’re wondering, did I do enough? Was I good enough? Did I go to church enough? Did I confess my sins enough? And I just hope so. Now, is that a wonderful way to live? And folks, do you realize that the vast majority of the so-called Christian world lives their life like that, not knowing, dying, not knowing? I thought, what a sad thing, because that’s exactly what Jesus came to do was to form this new man out of the two. So what did he say, HEBREW? You can’t get there through your works. Gentile, you can’t get there through your heathenism. So later on, the Gentile starts doing good works, pulling some of Israel’s laws over and then pretending to obey them, so so maybe maybe we’ll get there by our good works. I know the HEBREW can’t, but maybe we can’t. And so that’s what religion is, folks: is man attempting to find acceptance in the sight of God through his own effort. What is Christianity? God reaching down to man. By his effort, so religion is man trying to find acceptance in the sight of God through what he does. Christianity was accepting what Jesus did to make me acceptable.
And so he said, “I’m going to form a new man out of this too. Now, in chapter one, beginning at verse 14, well, let’s go up to verse 11. So there he’s dealing with the Gentiles. Therefore, remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth and called the uncircumcised by those who call themselves the circumcision, that done in the body by the hands of men. Remember, at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in this world. But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ, for He Himself is our peace. Verse 14, who has made the two one. Now, who’s the two? The HEBREW and the Gentile I’ve now created a new man, the two one. I have destroyed. It says the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. There was a wall of hostility between the Jew and the Gentile. I have now destroyed that barrier by abolishing in His flesh-that’s Jesus-the law with its commandments and regulations. So through Christ Jesus, there was a barrier, and through Christ Jesus, that barrier was broken down, and the law was taken away, because the HEBREW couldn’t find acceptance in the sight of God through the law. For sure, the Gentile could not, and so I took away the law in order to make a new man that becomes a child of God by faith and faith alone, and therefore being able to be led now internally by the Spirit of God rather than externally by the laws of the land.
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Bob George 13:55
Are the laws of God. Now let’s look at that again. He Himself is our peace? Now again, do you know how Paul addresses all of his letters, right up there in chapter one, verse two? Every one of his letters. What’s he do? Grace and what? Peace be unto you. Was that the normal salutation of the HEBREW? What was the salutation of the HEBREW? Shalom, peace. Paul never said peace. He said grace and peace, grace and peace, grace and peace. Why? He knew something. There’s no peace apart from grace. So he’s talking about now that he’s saying that he himself is our peace. Now we’re out looking for peace by a river, or by a fishing hole, or whatever else be said. No, no, Jesus is your peace. If we’re going to experience peace, we’re going to have to experience the peace of God that passes all understanding through experiencing God. Through the experience of Him, Jesus is my peace. I don’t have any peace from the world. My peace comes from Him, and it can’t come anyplace else. So He Himself is our peace, who has made the two now one, has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in His flesh, that’s Christ’s flesh, He abolished the law with its commandments and regulations.
Now again, what did Paul say about the law? He said, “There’s nothing wrong with the law; it’s good and holy. But when it flows through me, he said, “it what? It kills me. So it became an instrument of death rather than an instrument of life. Paul said that I thought the law was intended to give life, but he said when I read the commandment “Thou shall not covet, sin seizing its opportunity stirred up every kind of covetet’s desire inside of me, and I died. I recognized something. This law I thought was going to bring life showed me my death, and so he abolished the law with its regulations, its rules and regulations. Why did he do that? His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two. So how is the world divided according to God, HEBREW, Gentile, Ecclesia? Who’s in the ecclesia? Born again HEBREWS, born again Gentiles. If any man be where? In Christ, he is now what? A new creation. I’m no longer a HEBREW. I’m no longer a Gentile. I’m a child of the Living God. And my friends, that’s what God wants us to see. Now we don’t see that either. You got HEBREWS gathered together over here, Gentiles gathered together over here. Was that God’s plan? Absolutely not, he said. “You need to see yourself as not being a HEBREW or not being a Gentile, but see yourself as the new creation that you are, and that is a child of the living God in Christ. We’re told what? There is no HEBREW, no Gentile, no slave, nor free, we are all what one in Christ Jesus. He destroyed the barrier that divided HEBREW and Gentile, so they said, “You guys can be together as one. You don’t need to think of yourselves anymore as HEBREW and Gentile, slave or free, but as a child of the living God, that’s been recreated in the image of God for good works, you’re one now. There’s no such thing as a HEBREW Christian and a Gentile Christian. You’re just a child of God. There’s no black Christian and white Christian and brown Christian, and there’s just Christian child of God, there’s no race delineation. There’s just people who are in Jesus, one in Him. Isn’t that wonderful? That regardless of your background, we’re one in Christ Jesus and love one another as one in Christ Jesus. Did the world ever see HEBREW and Gentile loving each other? No. Do people see races loving each other in the world? No. You know what the definition of prejudice is? Anyone who ain’t like me. We’re prejudiced if we’re men against women. No, that’s the way those women think, you know. And the women think, well, those are dodo guys over there. We’re prejudiced against anyone who doesn’t think like us. And so prejudice is not color blind, and it’s not educational blind. We all have it. And he says, “Uh-uh, you all been made one now. There’s just one in Christ Jesus. We’re just one now, together.
Now all of a sudden, you saw Gentiles and HEBREWS loving each other. And what did Jesus say about that? The world will know that you are my disciples by your love one toward another. How come? World never seen that before. World doesn’t see that kind of stuff. The world sees separation, isolation, prejudice, and they see people loving each other of different backgrounds and different creeds and different educational backgrounds and different colors and different everything, and men and women really loving each other. You say, “Wow, what’s going on here? And he said, “That’s how the world is going to know that you’re my disciples, is by your loved one toward another.” He didn’t say the world’s going to know you’re my disciples by your ecthousis around your neck. He didn’t say the world’s going to know you’re my disciples by your bumper stickers. Don’t you wonder what they did before we had cars and bumper stickers? Probably put a little placard on the back of the donkey saying “Snort if you love Jesus, or something along that line. We try to separate ourselves and say, “Oh, they’ll know my disciples by those kind of things. Said, “No, you can have bumper stickers all over your car, you can have ethuses around your neck, but the only way that the world’s going to know that you’re my disciples is when they see love one for another.
Now, folks, incidentally, that is the most difficult thing for us to do, isn’t it? As a matter of fact, it’s impossible to do. So everything that Christ commanded you and me to do is a total impossibility. Until we until we realize something that maybe Jesus came to do something more than just die for my sins. That He came to give me life, and He even came to do more than that. He came more than to give me life, he came to be my life. Folks, do you realize the difference in that? Christ is your life. If you’re in Him, He is your life. If any man be in Christ, you’re a new creation. And when Christ, who is your life, appears, you will appear with Him. Christ is your life. That’s why people come in and say, “Oh well, you can lose your salvation. Baloney! Salvation is Christ. If you’re going to lose salvation, you’re going to lose Him. And how are you going to lose the One who said, “I’ll never leave you nor forsake you?” He’s yours. He has eternal life. You have eternal life. When did you get eternal life? The minute you have the Son. He who has the Son has life. Who’s life? Christ’s life. What kind of life does He have? Eternal. What kind do you have? Eternal. Why? Because you’re in the Eternal One. Now that’s why you and I don’t have to go to our death beds wondering, huh? Wonder what’s going to happen. But we go to our death beds with joy in our heart, like Paul, able to say, “For me to live is Christ; me to die, man, that’s gain. That’s gain. The day that I leave this body of mine, I’m going to be absent from the body and immediately present with the Lord, I know that. I don’t know that because I’m a good person, because I’m not. None of us are. I know that because Christ enabled that to occur. He gave me Himself, and He will usher me into the presence of God Himself the very day this heart stops beating, and your heart stops beating.
Now, is there anything to lose in that deal? Then, no. That’s what Paul said. Nothing to lose for me to live, Christ. For me to die, gain. In other words, for me to live is Christ. For me to die is Christ. So, how you going? What do you have to lose? So, when we have loved ones that we know who are in Christ when they depart, do you have to, as the Scripture says, grieve like the heathen do? Why? Because I know where they are. When my mother stopped breathing, she was absent from the body, present with the Lord. When my dad stopped breathing, absent from the body, present with the Lord. They’re in a lot better place than I am. I told Amy I want her to put on my tombstone. Go home. I’m not here.
No sense coming to visit me out there. I’m not there. I’m gone, and we have to realize that that is truth. And boy, we sit around and mourn and mourn and all that stuff. Not if you’re in Christ, there’s anything to mourn about. We’ve now gone to enter into the presence of Christ Jesus, and you’re going to be there too someday. So the worst with a loved one, departed loved one who’s in Christ, the worst thing is we’re just got a brief separation from each other. And you know, I learn a little bit about that too. I learn from the older you are, the more you learn some of these lessons, but when you haven’t seen someone in 20, 30 years, have anyone ever had that? Haven’t seen someone a long, long time. What’s it like after you’re together about five minutes? Seems like you’ve never been apart, and you know I think that’s the way it’s going to be in heaven. You know, parents. Dead, 30, 40 years, whatever might be. Minute we see each other, it’s like we’ve never left each other. And so, it’s a beautiful thing to know, isn’t it? Think of the hope that that gives to us. And every bit of that, folks, was brought about by the unconditional love of God that was given to us in Christ Jesus.
So he made the two into the one; that was his purpose. Let’s go back to verse 15. By abolishing in His place the law with its commandments and regulation, his purpose was to create himself one new man out of the two, and thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the same cross, Jesus Christ, by which He put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who are far away. That’s the Gentile, and He came and preached peace to you who were near, that’s the HEBREW. For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit, and consequently you’re no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, with Christ Jesus Himself as the Chief Cornerstone, and in Him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord, and in Him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by His Spirit. Now let’s go over to Chapter Four. As a prisoner for the Lord, then I urge you to live a life that is worthy of the calling that you’ve received. Now, folks, what is it saying there? That your motivation is, if you understand who you are in Christ, then live a life consistent with that.
Announcer
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.