Dive deep into the teachings of Bob George as he navigates the core principles of Christianity, emphasizing the importance of humility and servant leadership inspired by Jesus Christ. This episode challenges listeners to reevaluate their attitudes and actions, highlighting the necessity of working out our internal salvation with humility while relying on God’s wisdom rather than our own understanding.
Thank you so much for tuning in to Classic Christianity with Bob George. Through our Classic Christianity radio program and the books, Bible studies, CDs, and DVDs we have available for purchase online at bobgeorge.net, it is our desire and prayer at Bob George Ministries that you continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever. Amen. Let’s join Bob now as he gets started with today’s lesson.
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So we have funny attitudes that have to be renewed, do they not? And that’s what he’s talking about here. Do nothing out of these vain conceited. Humility, consider others better than yourself. In other words, don’t think that it’s lowly to be serving someone in love. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in the very nature of God, He did not consider equality with God something to be grasped and something to be held on to. He said he made himself nothing. Taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. You notice he refers to that as making himself nothing. Isn’t that strange how we think we’re something? Now being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and he became obedient to death, even death on the cross. And because of this, it says, God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but how much more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. What does that mean? It means in humility. When Paul used those identical words of fear and trembling when he said, when I came to you, I did not come to you with brilliant words and lofty ideas, but I came to you with fear and trembling. In other words, with total humility because I wanted your faith to stand not in some man’s brilliant ideas, but in the Lord Jesus Christ. So when it’s talking about work out your salvation, what’s he talking about there? Work out what’s been worked in and do that in humility. For it’s God who works in you to act according to His good purpose. So God is working in you. And when you’re serving one another, that’s God working in you. God served you, served one another, and that’s God working in you. That’s working out what has been worked into you. If we don’t have love for others, it’s because God has never been able to work in His love towards you. Why? You haven’t led Him. If I’m still trying to earn God’s love, how in the world is He going to get His love into me? Because I can never earn it. And unless you’re totally deceived, how in the world could you ever think that you really have earned God’s acceptance? But folks, I want to tell you, that’s what the self-righteous world is. The self-righteous world, you talk about being deceived. Think about that for a moment. Think about it just for a moment. Look up at the sky. Yesterday I was looking up at the mass universe, the sky, the clouds, the immensity of this. Your mind goes back to pictures taken back from space of this little ball dangling out in space. You think at least God had a string hanging on or something to secure it. There ain’t anything to secure. It’s just dangling out here, isn’t it? And the God who made that, the God who made that, think of the immensity of that God. And yet he’s a God that we say, well, he doesn’t know for sure what he’s doing. I know more than he does. We have to realize, folks, that God is at work in you and me to act according to His good pleasure. He has wisdom. He’s given us wisdom and He gives it to us so that we can share it with others. Now, here’s one that’s easy for us. Do everything without complaining and arguing. That shouldn’t be a problem, should it?
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How are you doing with all this?
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I’m ready to say amen and go home personally. Now how come we should do everything without complaining and arguing? So that you may become blameless and pure children of God without fault. In what kind of a world? A crooked and depraved generation in which you shine like stars in the universe. As you hold out the word of life in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run and labor for nothing. Well, what’s he saying to us? Complaining and arguing in the workplace? Complaining and arguing at home? Complaining and arguing all the time? What is that? Well, he says, you’re not going to be looked at as without fault in this crooked and depraved generation in which you and I live if we’re acting just exactly like the depraved generation in which we live. So if there’s any group of people that should not be griping and complaining all the time, guess who it should be? Why, yeah, you and me, Christians. Boy, that’s a hard one, isn’t it? My husband doesn’t understand me. That’s slob. Boy, there’s a lot of complaining going on in marriage, isn’t there? We just complain all the time. Think about that for a moment. That you got an idea that a man is going to be like a woman. Or to think like one. Or a woman’s going to think like a man. Now you want to talk about being deceived. You just try to bring those two together. Impossible. A woman, I tell Amy sometimes, Are we looking at the same moon? I mean, it’s like one’s looking at it from the front and the other’s looking at it from the back. And you’re supposed to be looking at the same moon, but you’re not looking at the same moon. We see things totally different from each other. But you know what time does? Sometimes you learn to kind of get a kick out of that and appreciate it. and learn to love it. That’s woman. I look at that and say, that’s the way women think. Isn’t that cute? And she says, that’s the way men think. Isn’t that dumb? I mean, she had the audacity the other day to tell me she thought she was going to write a book entitled, Men Say the Dumbest Things. She’s going to use me as an example. Well, he’s saying to us, quit complaining about those things. You’re not going to change it. Complaining doesn’t change anything, so quit complaining about it and be a person who learns to accept things the way they are. The things you can’t change You accept the way they are. And learn to realize that God can teach you something in those circumstances. But we don’t want to learn. See, I want to lean on my own understanding and say, Lord, I don’t want to learn in there. I don’t want to work out my salvation here with fear and trembling and humility. I want to get my own way. You don’t understand how important it is for me to have my own way. And so many times we lose relationships, we lose security in jobs, we lose all kinds of things because of our own patience that we’re not going to wait for God to do something. I’m going to lean on my own understanding and take things into my own hands and then we end up blowing it, don’t we? Well, let’s turn back to Ephesians. Ephesians 4. Verse 17, I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do in the futility of their thinking. So he’s saying to us that there are many of us who have futile thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge every kind of impurity and with a continual lust for more. Have you noticed how your flesh is insatiable? Someone once said it’s like a goat. It’ll eat anything you give it. Your flesh is insatiable, guys. People will come in and say… Oh, well, a little marijuana isn’t going to hurt you. Well, if it was just a little marijuana, maybe it wouldn’t hurt you. The only problem is that a little marijuana wants more marijuana. And as you keep wanting more and more and more, after a while, the effects become cumulative. And after a while, in order to get the same kick, you’ve got to use more. And after a while, marijuana, how much you use it, doesn’t matter. I’ve got to go to another one. And before long, I’m into crack and I’m into all kinds of drugs that destroy your mind and your life. And the subtlety of that is Satan said at the beginning, one little puff won’t hurt you. Maybe you can smoke it like the president and just not inhale. Now folks, we have to understand that that little thing, one isn’t going to hurt you, is where it all begins. Isn’t it? One little drink isn’t going to hurt you. Tell that to an alcoholic. How did he start? With one drink. You young people in here will be tempted all over the place in your life. Just try one little thing. And folks, I want to tell you, you try it once, you’re subject to trying it twice. If you can try it twice, you can Try it three times and four times and five times and pretty soon that little thing has got you hooked. And you’re in the process of destroying your lives. So don’t listen to it. See, that’s one of the beauties of being a Christian. I don’t have to fit into the crowd. It doesn’t make any difference what the crowd wants to do. I know I’m not going to lean on my own understanding. I got God’s wisdom available to me. And God’s wisdom says, why would you want to get your mind all messed up on that when you can have your mind renewed on me? They say that alcohol eats up brain cells. I have none to spare. I’m having enough trouble with the ones I got. Now, folks, I’m not saying this to get down, you know, don’t you drink. I’m not talking about that type of thing. I’m talking about how the subtlety is that it won’t hurt you. The answer to that is that’s not necessarily true. It might. I don’t know what it’s going to do. It might destroy my life. That’s why I’m not going to take the chance. And the greatest thing that you can deal with with your youth is don’t take the chance. something that can destroy your life why take the chance now let’s go on I insist on the Lord you must no longer lives the Gentiles we talked about that verse 20 you however did not know come to know Christ that way surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is where in Christ Jesus You were taught in regard to your former way of life. Now all of us had a former way of life, didn’t we? Could you as a Christian have a former way of life as a Christian? Yeah, you could, couldn’t you? In other words, could you be a child of God and yet live like you didn’t have a brain in your head? Can we? Any of you ever done that? So there’s a former, and what it’s saying is there’s a new life available to you. It’s not just new life in Christ, but as a child of God, there’s a new life available to you. In other words, you can be a child of God still leaning on your own understanding, can you not? So he says, no, you can be a child of God. You are saved, but you’re leaning on your own understanding. And there’s a newness of life available to you.
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Be sure to go to bobgeorge.net to find our in-depth and practical Bible study guides. Each Bible study will teach you more about Jesus and will help strengthen your relationship with God. Now back to our classic Christianity radio program.
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And so he said you were taught in regard to your former way of life to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires. So folks, we know something about the flesh. It is always being corrupted by what? What’s it say? Deceitful desires. Now why does it call it deceitful desires? Because the desires of the flesh are deceitful. Are they not? The desires of the flesh never say this desire is wonderful and there’ll be no repercussions to that. Why? The desires of the flesh are always telling you you can get away with it. Aren’t they? The desires of the flesh are always saying it ain’t going to hurt this time. The desires of the flesh are always there in conflict with the desires of the Spirit. The flesh and the Spirit are at enmity with one another, folks. Have you all noticed that? Not about me, about you. I’m talking about you. that all of us with the Spirit of God is housed in a body that contains indwelling sin. It’s called flesh. And that flesh is living, the desires of that flesh is totally contrary to the desires of the Spirit. Now that’s why Paul wasn’t too bad of a Christian. The things I want to do, what? I don’t do. And the things I don’t want to do, what? I do anyway. Folks, that is a life of a slave. You realize that? As a slave, the things I want to do, I don’t get to do. Things I don’t want to do, I got to do. Why? Because I’ve got a slave master there bringing that about. The slave master is saying, yeah, I know you want to do that, but I’m not going to let you. And the slave master is saying, I know you don’t want to do that, but I’m going to make you. I know you don’t want to go out and work 12 hours, 15 hours a day, but I’m going to make you. Now, is that not what Paul said as to when you’re talking about why not give in to the flesh is because whatever you give in to the flesh, it’s going to be your master? It isn’t the case that when you give into your flesh that God’s going to zap you because He isn’t. If you’re in Christ Jesus, the issue is when you give into your flesh, the flesh is going to master you. And there’s only two masters that we have, Him and our flesh. And the issue is do I want to be mastered by Him or do I want to be mastered by the desires, the deceitful desires of my flesh that are always telling you something is good for you when it isn’t. He tells me strawberry shortcake’s good for you. Now he said, I want you to be made new in the attitude of your minds and put on this new self that is created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. So the Holy Spirit of God that lives in us is the only righteous and holy thing that we have available to us. And the very moment that we came to Christ, we were indwelt by His righteousness, were we not, and by His holiness. And we are set apart, folks. Our spirit is set apart from our flesh. Do we understand that? It lives in us, but it’s set apart from it. There is no sin in your spirit. Do you understand that? When you were born again of Him, in Him there is no sin. The sin is in my flesh. And there’s the conflict. Am I going to listen? to the truth of God, or am I going to listen to the desires of my flesh? I got an option. Which one’s it going to be? So he’s telling us here that there are deceitful desires, and it corrupts us. And we need to be made new in the attitude of our minds, putting on this new self that has been created now to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. So do we have someone living in us, available to us, that enables us and teaches us how to live in righteousness and holiness? Do we? Yeah, we do. What is our privilege? to participate in that divine nature. But I can also participate in my fleshly nature. Therefore, now here’s how people will ask, well, what do you do with this sin issue? We have people, if you listen to the radio constantly, they just can’t get off that 1 John 1, 9 bit. They just constantly say, well, what do you do with sin? What do you do with sin? Isn’t that what it’s always asked? What do you do with sin? Well, you see, the beauty of that question is it’s general. I’m going to ask a general question, and hopefully no one gets too specific, and hopefully I can get a general answer. It’s not specific. And I tell people, if you went up to Jesus and said, what do I do with sin? He’d say, which one? Well, I don’t want to talk about that. What do I do with sin? The big issue. No, I want to talk about which one are you talking about. So you see, as long as we can keep talking in generalities, why, then we’re okay. I don’t have to get specific. So to prove what I’m saying is true here, all you got to do is just read what we’re going to read. It says, first of all, are you a child of God? Do you want to be made new in an attitude of your mind? Because folks, action always follows attitude. And that’s why religion will always deal with your action where Christ came to deal with your attitude. Does the law change your attitude? I used to like policemen. No, I don’t change my attitude. No, it doesn’t change your attitude. God changes your attitude. Why? Because He knows that once the attitude is changed, your behavior will change. All the law can do is to punish your behavior. But the Spirit of God came to change your attitude, and that attitude will affect your behavior. So our attitudes are very important. So He says, “…therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to his neighbor.” Well, you can look at that as a command, but then he tells you why. Well, because we’re all members of one body. So he’s dealing here with a body of Christ. Are you in Christ? Are we a part of the body of Christ? Well, then it says that if you’re a part of the body of Christ, we should be truth-tellers to each other, doesn’t it? And it says, why should we be truth-tellers? Because we belong to the same body. I mean, would it make any sense that if parts of our body could… Be a truth teller or be a liar. Would it have much sense for my part of my body to be lying to the other part of my body? You know, my nose is running. It says to my hand, it ain’t running. You’re going to be a mess. Your body is not going to lie to itself. And it says you’re a part of the body of Christ. So be a truth teller. See, he isn’t just saying don’t lie. He’s saying why we should be truth tellers. We belong to each other, and if my body could lie to other parts of the body, before long, my body would get destroyed by my body. Some of you say, you’re not hungry. No, you’re not hungry. You don’t eat food. You sit there believing that, and you sit there and starve to death. So we have to understand that as a piece of this body of Christ that we’re in, we should be truth-tellers to each other. Is that kind of a new thought, to tell the truth to one another? Now he goes ahead to say, in your anger do not sin. Did it say that anger is a sin or did it say in your anger don’t sin and what is the sin of the anger is to let the sun go down while you’re still angry and then it tells you why because you’re going to give the devil a foothold. How many of you have ever been in an argument with your mate or whoever it might be and just say the heck with this, I’m going to stay mad. She made me mad. I’ll show her. I just won’t speak to her. I’ll go to bed and not say a word to her. Well, you really punish her, don’t you? She’s probably glad to get rid of you. But how do you sleep? You don’t. And you wake up the same way you went to bed, in worse shape, just as mad, only you’ve had some more hours to think about it. And the devil gets a foothold in your relationship, doesn’t he? So what does he say to us as Christians? If you’ve got a hassle with each other, settle that thing before you go to bed. Because if you don’t, you’re going to wake up in worse shape than you went to bed. Does that make sense? Sure. It’s an attitude. Now, folks, you can listen to that and say, well, that’s good. Or you can establish a policy in your life and say, okay, if that is God’s wisdom, because I don’t want to lean on my own understanding, if that is the wisdom of God for me to settle something before I go to bed, then I’m going to make a policy in my life. And that policy is that I’m going to settle things before I go to bed if we have a hassle. Now, will you be tempted not to settle it, even though you’ve made that policy? Uh-huh. But if you’ve made your policy, you say, no, the flesh is saying, don’t deal with that. But I’ve already made a policy based upon what God said. And so, therefore, I’m going to deal with it. Does that make sense? Well, let’s go ahead. He who has been stealing must steal no longer. Well, you see, again, is God dealing with you under the law? If he was dealing with you under the law and he said you’ve been stealing, what would happen? The wages of sin would be what? Death. Don’t lean on your own understanding and say, well, I didn’t steal much. He said, I stole. And the wages of stealing is death. You want to be under that? If a person says, no, I don’t want to be under the punishment, but I am going to drag the law over because it’s good. Have you heard that? God’s law is good, so we’ve got to keep it over here. You can’t keep God’s law over here unless you keep death over here. That’s man leaning on his own understanding, separating what God said is inseparable. And that is the law and its consequences. Inseparable. You can’t separate the two, even though you want to lean on your own understanding. So he’s saying, so again, now let me ask you another question. Do you read anything in there that you’ve been stealing, you’re out of fellowship with God, and you need to confess your sin in order to get back in fellowship with God? Do you see anything in this passage that even hints at that? I mean, we’ve read quite a few things that we’ve done wrong. Have any of you read that in here? Is it in here? Why isn’t it in here? It’s such a famous teaching. I mean, aren’t we supposed to keep short accounts with God? I mean, if I’ve been stealing, what you need to do is get that off of the record. It’s up there on a blackboard someplace and you need to get that thing erased. You’re out of fellowship with God if you’ve been stealing. And you need to get back in fellowship. He’s mad at you. He’s on that twirly chair. He ain’t even looking at you. Can’t look and see it. We heard this. Do you see that in here? That’s why people hang on to 1 John 1 9. I don’t care anything about going to work. I don’t want to read that. I just want to get right with God. Nothing, folks, nothing to even hint of that in the New Testament. What does he say? Why? Because he’s trying to renew our minds. He’s trying to get our attitudes changed. So what does he say? And stealing is one of the big ten. If you’ve been stealing, steal no longer. Go to work. Oh, God forbid. I don’t want to hear that. Just let me get back in fellowship. Go to work, do something useful with his own hands that he may have something to share with those in need. What’s he saying to us there? You see, folks, all the law can say is thou shalt not. It doesn’t say a word as to what thou shalt. God is saying to you, and this is the reasoning that God wants to get our attitudes changed in regard to how do you deal with sin in faith, under grace. So there’s a reasoning. Come let us reason together. You can almost hear God saying, Bob, do I own all the cattle on a thousand hills? Yeah, you do. Have I promised to supply all of your needs according to my riches and glory? Yeah, you have. Do you think I’m out of resources? No, I don’t. Well, then do you think, do you believe, have you exercised faith in the fact that I will supply your needs? Well, I guess, Lord, I haven’t, or I wouldn’t be stealing, would I? No, you wouldn’t. So what’s your problem? That you’re stealing or that you have not faith that I will supply your needs? Are you ready to trust me? I am. That’s what repentance is, folks. Repentance isn’t quit stealing. Repentance is to start believing. repentance is, I was believing that I needed to take care of myself, and now I believe that you’ll take care of me.
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Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another, and praise the Lord. Amen.
