In today’s episode of Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George, we dive deep into the teachings of Jesus as seen through the eyes of Peter, focusing on unconditional love and the personal call to ‘feed my sheep’. Through captivating dialogue, Bob shares his own journey of transformation and emphasizes the importance of sharing the gospel one-on-one, rather than getting lost in mass evangelistic efforts. It’s a lesson in discipleship that encourages each of us to answer the individual call from Christ.
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.
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Guys, again, this kind of a message, you can sit there and get on a guilt trip. Believe me, I’m not trying to do that. But what I am trying to say is we’re missing a bet. When I came to Christ at age 36 and I was a businessman in California, I tell you, I drove people crazy. There was nothing that was more important to me than communicating the gospel. to somebody. I’d have a salesman come in with a $20,000 order and said, that’s real nice, Tim. Now let me tell you about Jesus. Because it became the most important thing in the world to me. I had searched for something, had no idea what I was searching for all of my life. And I found it in him. And so he says, go feed my sheep. The third time he said, Simon, son of Jonah, Simon bar Jonah, do you agape me? No, he didn’t say that. This time he said, Peter, Simon, son of Jonah, do you even, in essence, phileo me? Are you even my friend? And Peter was hurt on this. You see, Peter knew what he was saying. The Lord was saying, Peter, do you love me unconditionally? And Peter was saying, Lord, you know I’m your friend. He was tiptoeing around it. He said, feed my sheep. He said, okay. Peter, do you really agape me? Lord, you know that I’m your friend. He said, and take care of my sheep. And then he finally said, Peter, are you even my friend? Are you even my friend? And Peter got angered with that. And he said, Lord, you know all things. You know that I’m your friend. He said, well, then feed my sheep. Now, do you think the Lord got his message across with those three questions? He actually did. He got his message across. Peter, I know that it is impossible for you To love me unconditionally until you understand that I love you unconditionally. Remember what it says? It’s not that we loved him, but what? He loved us first. So again, we’re not initiators. It’s not I’m going to love you, Lord. It’s Lord, you love me and I’m going to respond loving you. And Peter knew that. And Peter also knew that when this took place, there was still something else up ahead. called Pentecost, where he was going to get the power and the life to live in him, to do what God is telling him to do right here, go feed my sheep. And the Lord said, I tell you the truth, when you were younger and you dressed yourself and went where you wanted, and when you’re old, you will stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and lead you to where you do not want to go. Peter was also crucified. Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. And then he said to him, follow me, follow me. Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. That’s the apostle John. This is the one who leaned back against Jesus at the supper and said, Lord, who is going to betray you? So he’s talking about the apostle John. And when Peter saw him, he said, Lord, what about him? How long is he going to live? And Jesus said, if I want him to remain alive until I return, what is this to you? You follow me. Now, guys, here again. This is not a mass deal that he’s talking about. He’s not saying let’s us all get together and have a big evangelistic campaign. And I can remember when I came to Dallas with Campus Crusade for Christ and headed up the I Found It campaign. Some of you are old enough to remember that. Not too many of you. But it was a huge evangelistic campaign and we were the template for it for the rest of the United States and into the rest of the world. And we pioneered that. And I was in charge of that whole project. It was a project of getting y’all come and y’all do and y’all go. And so we got y’all and y’all went, y’all did, y’all did all kinds of things. At the end of it, I was exhausted. And I came to an understanding at that point that God isn’t calling us to say, come on, y’all. He’s saying, come on, Jim. Come on, Stacy. Come on, Ellen. I’m not calling a group to go do something. I’m calling you to do something. You, not the group. See, we can hide behind the group. Look what we’re doing. And I’m not doing anything. I remember counseling with a guy who was a missionary. Missionary of the Southern Baptist Convention down in Brazil. And he came on furlough. And we was counseling. He was very upset over things. And I asked him, I said, Jim, how many Bible studies do you teach there in Brazil? Oh, he said, I don’t teach any. How long have you been there? 18 years. Have you ever taught a Bible study? No. No. Have you ever led anybody to Christ? No? And you’re a missionary in Brazil? Yeah. What do you do? I head up the bookstore. And I thought to myself, big hairy deal. Anybody could head up the bookstore. You don’t have to be a missionary to head up the bookstore. And you say, no wonder that you’re upset. No wonder that there’s no meaning and purpose to your life. You’re not doing what God said to do. He said, go out and feed my sheep. He didn’t say, let the Southern Baptist Convention go feed my sheep. He said, you go feed them. You may only have one person in your life. How would you like to have been the guy that led Billy Graham to Christ? He probably said, oh. My life’s a waste of time. All I did was lead that one young guy to Christ years ago. What was his name? Billy Graham. I’d like to be the guy that led Dawson Trotman, the founder of the Navigators. We never know, do we, who we’re leading to Christ. We never know. We never know what’s going to happen. I’m sure that the last thing in the world that Bill Bright thought the day that he led me to Jesus was, is that I’d be doing what I’m doing today. And if he’d have known me as well as I knew me, I guarantee he wouldn’t have thought that. But any old bush will do as far as God’s concerned. He doesn’t care what you look like. He doesn’t care what you’ve done. He just said any old bush will do as long as God’s in the bush. And if God’s for you, who can be against you? So in talking to a group, he’s not talking to mass hysteria here, in my opinion. He’s saying, if what I do with John, that’s my business. What is that to you? I’m telling you, Peter, to follow me. That’s all, just you. You must follow me. Now, because of this statement that Jesus said, he said the rumor, this is natural, isn’t it, or the prayer chain, the rumor spread among the brothers that his disciple would not die but jesus did not say that he would not die he only said if i want him to remain alive until i return what is that to you you know guys there’s a passage in scripture it’s one of my favorite passages of scripture it says lead a quiet life and tend to your own business don’t you love that lead a quiet life tend to your own business That’s in essence what he’s saying here. Tend to your own business. What I do with him, that’s not your business. And that’s why we don’t need to sit around and compare ourselves to other Christians. Because if I am comparing myself, the Bible says that man compares himself by himself as a fool. If I am comparing myself to you, There’s only two things that can happen. One, I’m doing better than you are. That’s pride. And the other, I’m doing worse. That’s self-condemnation. And both of them are the pit of hell. Only two things can happen when you compare yourself to another person. I’m better than they are. Pride. I’m worse than they are. Self-condemnation. Am I right or wrong? Neither one of those are of God. So he doesn’t want us sitting around comparing ourselves to one another. He just wants us to say, I want you to do what I’m asking you to do. That’s all I’m asking you to do. I’m asking you to do what I’m asking you to do. I want you to feed my sheep. I want you to reach out. Guys, we’ve got a message that if the world doesn’t need to hear, I’ll get out of this ministry in a New York minute. If I felt for a minute that what we’re teaching is just normal stuff, I’d get out of this. It gets too discouraging sometimes. But I want to tell you something. Teaching people that when God went to a cross and said, it is finished, that he meant it is finished. If that isn’t worth giving your life for, I don’t know what is. And all of this stuff that we hear and we go to it and just accept it. So, well, yeah, I heard it just so well. Come on. God took away your sins from the eyes of God never to see them again. But if you confess your sins, he’ll forgive you. Now, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that doesn’t flush. That doesn’t work. That’s double talk, is it not? And yet the whole Christian world, the evangelical, everything, 1 John 1, 9, 1 John 1, 9, 1 John 1, 9, 1 John 1, 9. You can go out and do anything you want to, but if 1 John 1, 9, that you’re okay. And we wonder, you know what that is, guys? You know what the repercussion of that is? That all I have to do is just be sure I confess before I go to bed and hope that I don’t have a bad dream. You talk about your Catholics, quit raging against the Catholics with their priests. We’re doing the same thing without the priest. And in both cases, the Catholics said, oh, I go to my priest to get forgiveness. And the evangelical says, we don’t have to go to priests. We go direct to God. And God’s up there saying, it’s finished, morons, nitwits. It’s finished. It’s over. Praise God. thank him. It’s over. If that message isn’t worth giving, I don’t know what is. If that message is not worth supporting, I don’t know what is. Because the other is wrong. I don’t care what anybody says. It’s wrong. And it’ll devastate. It’ll keep you preoccupied all your life with sin instead of life. It’ll keep you from praising Jesus for what he’s already done and putting the praise back on, well, I keep short accounts with God. Whoop-de-doo. Whoop-de-doo. Guys, this is a message that had God not given to us, I wouldn’t be up here. Teaching people that tithing Is not of God. Not in the new covenant. That’s a message worth. Giving your life for. Why because tithing isn’t of the new covenant. Paul devoted three chapters on how to give. And the tithing invention once. What is he an idiot. Did Paul forget something. Did he forget his roots. He could have saved himself all that writing. Just. Y’all tithe.
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So what do we do? You hear it every Sunday. Come and give your tithes and your offerings. Tithes and your offerings. I wish you’d give your tithes and offerings. We’d have a lot of money in the bank. But it isn’t true. That doesn’t mean don’t give anything, which some of you are very good at. But I’ll tell you what it does. It teaches people it’s not an obligation. It’s a privilege. It’s a privilege. We teach that. Listen. Listen. If you think that makes me popular, you just don’t understand popularity. Because I am hated in some denominations for teaching that tithing is not New Testament. Hated. Hated. Who’s that guy think he is? How are we ever going to get our building fund done if I don’t put people on a guilt trip and tell them they’ve got to give 10% or more? How are we going to get our building done? Yet, we have people say, oh, well, ho-hum. I sit there, listen to that, no big deal. Just a little air doesn’t hurt anybody. A little air doesn’t hurt anybody. Guys, we have concentrated on the cross. And the cross does not save you. The cross is what prepares you for salvation. What saves you is the resurrection. There’s power in the cross. No, there’s death in the cross. The cross came to kill and to punish someone for me. That’s what prepared me for salvation. How many times do we hear that, folks, in the Christian world? We hear the cross, the cross. Do we hear the resurrection, the resurrection? Yeah, you’ll hear it, but no emphasis. Am I right or wrong, guys? You see, what I’m saying is if this is right, get behind it. Support it. Go out and talk to people about it. Bring them in so they can hear truth. Because that is truth. You’re not saved by the death of Christ, we’re told. You’re saved by the life of Christ. While we were yet enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son. That’s reconciliation. That’s the cross. How much more? Having been reconciled, shall we be saved by His what? His life. By His resurrection. You’ve got a consequence to sin called death that has to be cured through forgiveness? No, through life. There’s only one life available to us, and he’s called Jesus. That’s why Paul said, without the resurrection, we would be pitied of all people and are still in our sins. And we emphasize the cross instead of the resurrection. And Jesus said, come unto me. He said, come unto me. Who? The resurrected one. I’ll give you rest for your soul. How many times, and I’ve had the experience of teaching in churches, and I’m not criticizing churches, I’m criticizing what they’re teaching. How many times have I seen young people come down the aisle? Every Sunday, one guy could have worn the carpet out where I went. Every Sunday, there was a poor soul down there getting his sins forgiven, getting recommitted, recommitted. They teach that. Come recommit your life to Christ. What do you mean recommit your life to Christ? Christ is in you. Well, I got away from Jesus. No, you didn’t. He followed you. How are you going to get away from who lives in you? You hear all that kind of stuff. Oh, the spirit was so thick in that assembly, you could have cut it with a knife. Really? Really? Really? Guys, when Jesus says to feed my sheep, he says to feed them on truth. Not a bunch of gobbledygook. Not a bunch of tradition. God is not interested in tradition. He said to the Pharisees and to the Jews, you put tradition ahead of truth. There are denominations today that put tradition ahead of truth. And guys, he says that this is the disciple who testifies to these things. He wrote them down. And we know that his testimony is what? True. We’re told that Jesus did many other things as well. And if every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written. Well, he got a glimpse of what Jesus did. Just a glimpse. Just a glimpse. But guys, he left us with a commission. Turn back with me to Matthew. Last chapter in Matthew. Then we’ll close. Chapter 28, verse 16. Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. And when they saw him, they worshipped him, but some doubted. This is right before he goes to heaven. Still some were doubting. And Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. All authority. All authority. Therefore, go and make disciples. Guys, the emphasis, the verb there is not on go. The emphasis is on make disciples. As you are going, make disciples. As you’re going through life, make disciples. I’ve told the story before. It was a funny story to me. Where I got to the point where I said to God, real spiritual. And I remember the day like it was yesterday in my business, a real spiritual day. God, I’m not going to talk about you anymore. I mean, not today. I’m tired of talking about you, just talking about you all the time. And today I’m not going to talk about you. I don’t care what comes up. That was a real spiritual thing. Filled with the Spirit, just full of God. I had an appointment that day with a credit manager and sat down at lunch with him. And I looked across the table at him and said, how are you doing, Al? Well, to be real honest with you, Bob, I’m not doing too well. How come? Well, I’ve got a kid that’s messing around with drugs and got this and that. I sat there and said, oh, well, maybe just one more day. Al, let me tell you about the solution to that and led the guy to Christ. Your life’s absorbed with Jesus. He’s truth. He sets you free. He loves you. He only asks you to do one thing. Feed my sheep. Guys, in your sphere of influence, you’ve got people living around you. Talk to them. You know, I think we get embarrassed sometimes. I’ve come to the point I’m not embarrassed at all of asking people to come to this fellowship. I’m not embarrassed at all of saying that. Why? Because I think we’ve got something that we’re teaching that other people aren’t hearing. I know we’d rather go, and I know that. I turn on the radio on Sunday morning, listen to the big choir and the orchestra at First Baptist, and sit there and think, man, I tell you, that was sure good music. We’ve got good music here. Richard ain’t bad. Yeah. We’ve got a great fellowship of people who love the Lord. We really do. I’d rather have this group right here of people that love the Lord than have a congregation of 10,000 with about five in there that know Lord, don’t even know Him. I’m not embarrassed to ask people to come. And I don’t want you to be either. Now, they may not hear when people come for the first time. They may say, gee, I’ve never heard that before. That’s because I’ve never been. That ought to tell you something. That either what you’ve been hearing is right or we’re right. Both of us might be wrong. But I’ll guarantee you both of us cannot be right. And there’s one way that you’re going to find out who’s right and who’s wrong. Get into that word on your own. Don’t worry about what I’ve said. Get in it on your own and let the Spirit of God teach you. And then you’ll know. And that’s what I think Jesus was getting at in this whole message. So he said, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And God, that does not mean water baptism. Teaching them to obey everything I’ve commanded you. And lo, I’m with you always, even to the end of the age. Remember what Jesus said? John the Baptist came to baptize with water, but I am going to baptize with the Holy Spirit. And all of this is heading toward this day of Pentecost. 50 days, Pentecost, 50 days after the resurrection of Christ. On the day when the Holy Spirit of God came to live in believers. And to give us the power to know the love of God. To know it. It says in Ephesians that I pray that out of his glorious riches that he’ll strengthen you with power in your inner being. So that Christ may be at home in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you being rooted and established in love may have the power together with all the saints to grasp how high and long and deep is the love of God and to know this love that passes, surpasses knowledge so that you’ll be filled to the measure with the fullness of God. To have the power to know that God loves you. And when you know God loves you, It’s hard to shut up about it. So guys, go feed His people.
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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.
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Put Jesus first in your life and turn your life around.
