Faith, Not Gifts, Defines True Christianity

SPEAKER 03 : 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.

SPEAKER 01 : 0:30

Let’s turn to 1 Corinthians and we’ll start, we’ll just pick up for a moment in chapter 12 down at the end of the chapter there in verse 27 just as a matter of review from last week. We’ve been talking about this subject of the body of Christ who we were tracing all of the activities from Christ Jesus from his death, burial and resurrection to ultimately the day of Pentecost. which, as we’ve talked about so many times, as far as we are concerned as Christians, has to be one of the most important days in the history. It ought to be celebrated mightily, because it’s the day that we celebrate that the Holy Spirit of God came to this earth to permanently indwell believers. Now, in the Old Testament, you will have stories where the Holy Spirit came upon certain people—Saul, Paul, different people in the scriptures and came upon them for divine service. And then you’ll even read in one of David’s prayers, Father, please don’t take the Holy Spirit from us. Well, you know, I remember back in my days of the first John one nine bit. that how we used to sometimes quote this passage of Scripture that he wrote because it does talk about how wonderful it is to be forgiven, but we leave off that tail end of Father, don’t take the Holy Spirit from us. That’s crazy, and then how we do those things because it is deceptive to do it. Now, you and I wouldn’t pray that today, would we? If we know Scripture, would you ever pray, God, please don’t take the Holy Spirit from me? Would you ever pray that? No, why? Because the Holy Spirit said, I’ll never what? I’ll never leave you nor forsake you. And Jesus gave us eternal inheritance, not a temporary inheritance. So we wouldn’t even think of praying that today because it wouldn’t be faith. But back then they did. And so we traced all of the history, tried to trace all of the history of God’s dealing with man over these many, many years. And the Old Testament is merely a book of man’s failure. and of God’s faithfulness in the midst of our failure. That’s all the Old Testament is. It’s a book of failure. And then you have the Gospels where Jesus showed up and you’d think, well, now that Jesus is here, we’re going to be in really good shape. So now you’ve got 33 years of man’s failure again because nothing changed in those four years of Jesus’ ministry outside of the fact that it was demonstrated what true love was. It was demonstrated what true holiness was. It was demonstrated what true righteousness was, not in us, but in him. And we saw firsthand what true righteousness was in a person. Never had seen that before. And you had thought that that would cause men there to change totally. But there was change, but not totally change. Toward the end of Jesus’ life, people were still questioning him. Peter denied him. All of those type of things happened after being with Jesus for all of those years. And in the very last days, after his death and burial, they were in hiding, all of the apostles in hiding, fearful for their lives. And you say, why? You’ve got all this information. You’ve been taught by the best of them. You’ve sat at the feet of the best teacher that’s ever been on the face of the earth. So why are you doing this? They said, well, I don’t know, but I don’t have any power. I’ve got information but I don’t have any power you see that today in many instances people got their heads full of information but there’s no power in their lives and again it’s not power to go out and do something big for Jesus the scripture says That we need the power of God living in us for us to understand and comprehend the height, depth, breadth, and width of the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And to know this love that surpasses knowledge so that we can be controlled or filled to the measure with the fullness of God. And so our whole concept of what power is is totally different today than what it should be. But the fact of the matter is that here were the men in good company. We’re in the company of the apostles. They too had all the information they needed, but they couldn’t pull it off. There was no power to do so, no power to pull it off. You say, well, why? It seems to me that all you need is some information. Just teach you enough and you’re prepared to go out and do something. No, no, you’re not. Not spiritually. Physically you can do that. You can go get trained in a corporation, how to represent the corporation, how to represent the products and all that type of thing. And once you’ve kind of gotten your education, you’ve gotten a field, you can do quite well. But not scripturally. There’s something missing. And what is missing in man is what has been missing in man since the day that Adam fell. It’s the spirit of God living in us. Now, without the Spirit of God living in us, we’re told that we cannot comprehend spiritual things. Natural man cannot understand spiritual things. The early apostles were certainly appraised of truth. They heard truth. There was a certain degree of comprehension, but not total, with listening to Jesus’ teaching. But the issue is that there was something missing. Like I say, prior to jesus resurrection prior to the day of pentecost they were in hiding the day of pentecost and the day after pentecost those same apostles that were in a back room hiding from people were out pointing their fingers at people saying you killed jesus the person that came here to save you you killed boldly boldly what was the difference in the two the day of pentecost the day that the holy spirit of god came to indwell permanently believers Now that had to happen at a point in time in history. And in order for it to even be recorded, it had to happen at a point in time in history. And it did in Jerusalem. And it happened to a large mass of people where the believers were immediately indwelt by the Spirit of God and were able to go out into the world and communicate the good news of the gospel to people. From that day point on, we’re indwelt by the Holy Spirit The very day that we’re born again. On the day that you came to Christ by faith. And that’s what you come to Christ by. Amy and I were talking about this this morning. Something that’s been rocking in my head recently is how we talk about grace, grace, grace. But it isn’t grace, grace, grace. It’s Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. It’s for grace that you’ve been saved. Does grace save you? No, Jesus saves you. But it was Jesus’ grace that caused him to come to this earth and do for you what is necessary to do to be saved. But grace doesn’t save you. Jesus saves you. And we sometimes forget that and we get all hung up on grace and we get hung up on everything else except Jesus. Everything points to Jesus. Jesus saves you, not grace. And so the day of Pentecost occurred and we were indwelt by the Spirit. From that day forth, the very moment that you are indwelt by the Spirit of God and come to Him by faith in the fact that what Jesus claimed is true and He came to take away your sins, not to cover some of them. That Jesus doesn’t live, folks. That Jesus never has been alive who came to die for some of your sins. He came to take them away. And had He not taken them away permanently and eternally from the eyes of God… I’m not talking about every now and then, just for a day or two. I’m talking about eternally. Taken away your sins from the eyes of God, He could have never given you and me eternal life. And so the reason that I know that I have eternal life is because of the eternal consequence of the cross. And had it not been for the eternal consequence of the cross, you and I would not have an eternal inheritance… Because sin causes death. And you’re already dead until you receive life. Now, once I have come alive in Christ, then the only thing that could cause that life to depart from me would be sin. And why that is an impossibility is because of the cross, where he eternally took away the cause of spiritual death. That’s grace, but Jesus didn’t. So let’s not confuse grace with the author. Jesus did it, and he pulled that off for you and me. Now we talked about the fact that not only are we indwelt by Christ Jesus, but at the very moment of that indwelling, and if the Spirit of God does not live in you, you don’t belong to him, that the Spirit of God then baptizes or places you into the body of Christ. And though the body is one, it’s made up of many, many parts. And who are the parts of the body of Christ? You and I are. And our parts are many, but it forms one new spiritual body. And that also was a mystery. That was a mystery that was unknown. And again, it’s talked about in the scripture of who’s going to be that body. And how Paul explained that’s what predestination is. That’s what election is. It’s not yous and mes, it’s Jews and Gentiles. Because the Gentile was never thought of out of the heart of the Jew, which is who the gospel went to initially, never was in their minds that these heathenistic Gentiles could come to know the same God that we worship. That was an impossibility to the Jew. They wouldn’t even walk through Samaria on the way to Jerusalem. They went around it, took all kinds of additional time, but they wouldn’t even walk through it. It was against their law to ever stop and even talk to a Samaritan. They hated the Samaritans, which were many times half-breeds or Gentiles. And so it was never thought that the Gentiles were going to have salvation just like the Jews did. But in the plan of God and his foreknowledge and his predestination, he predestined that we Gentiles would come to Christ the same way the Jew did, by faith in one man, and that’s Christ Jesus. And so that’s why in these scriptures it talks about there’s not two Jesuses, there’s not two baptisms, there’s not two of anything, there’s only one. And we all are participants in this one salvation through Christ Jesus our Lord. We were all baptized by one spirit into one body. Now, this body, whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and they were all given the one spirit to drink. So all of us have been given the same spirit. Are we together? Not two. And if the spirit of God does not live in you, you don’t belong to him. How could you be born again? Unless the spirit of God lives in you. Are we together? Anyone got any questions on that? So I want you to answer this question then. How could I be born again of the Spirit today and then be told by somebody that you received the Spirit tomorrow? Can you do that? How are you going to receive the Spirit tomorrow where you’re not born again unless you got the Spirit today? So that’s nonsensical teaching. But it’s all over television and all over the world is that kind of teaching going on. That there’s a second blessing. Is that all? i thought god bless you every day so there’s no second blessing guys there’s no such thing as being born again today and receiving the spirit tomorrow you got when you come to christ jesus we’re told that you have been given what everything that you need for what life and godliness now if i’ve been given everything i need for life and godliness what do i need And so when you’re out asking for something that you don’t need, it’s a little stupid, isn’t it? And it’s not faith, it’s presumption. And so we are dealing here with the fact of how he has made us into this brand new body. And he said, I’m the head and you’re the body. What has happened many times to us is because we’re the body and we can see the body, but we can’t see the head, we become all preoccupied with the body. And that’s all you ever talk about. And the only thing you ever have people talk about is church, church, church, church, church, church, church, church, church, about church, church, church, church, church, church. Everything with all the activities that the church does. Say, what is Jesus doing this? Who cares? Look what we’re doing. You’ve seen our buildings? You’ve seen our membership? Have you seen all of these things that we have bought? You say, yeah, I sure have. Sure have. Looks like a big waste to me.

SPEAKER 03 : 14:03

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SPEAKER 01 : 14:46

But you see, we’ve called that the church. And what we are is like a chicken with their head cut off. We’re out flapping around making a lot of noise, but we don’t have a head. And Jesus said that you’ve lost contact with who? The head. With the head. So the body is no longer listening to the head. We don’t need to. Look how organized we are. Look how wealthy we are. You can read about those churches in Revelation. There’s seven of them. Just the same thing that’s going on today. Nothing new under the sun. But as far as Jesus was concerned, this is his body. His body is made up of born-again believers. As far as Christ’s church is concerned, he’s not confined to a building. His church is born-again believers all over the world at the same time. There are some of his body that is sleeping today, you know, in other parts of the world. Some of us are up. And some of us that are up and sleeping. And so you’ve just got all kinds of things going on. Now… He says that now you are the body of Christ and each one of you is a part of it. And in the church, God has appointed, first of all, apostles, prophets, teachers, workers of miracles, those having the gifts of healings, those able to help others, the gift of helps, those with the gift of administration, those speaking in different kinds of languages. Are all apostles? No. Are all prophets? No. Are all teachers? No. Do all work miracles? No. Do all have the gift of healing? No. Do all speak in other languages? No. Do all interpret? No. But eagerly desire the greater gifts. Why is he going into all this? Because there are people saying as normal my gift is better than your gift. We are not satisfied with just being God’s kid. I want to be his special kid. I want to be the one he really likes. I know he likes Bud, but he likes me better. I know Bud’s got a little gift over there, but it’s just a gift of teaching. But mine, ooh, I got the gift of prophecy. And so we get egotistical over our gifts that has been given to us. And in some cases, we’re so proud of our gift that I’m going to go teach you how to do it. So I’ll jiggle your lip a little bit and get you going. Why doesn’t anyone jiggle your lip and get you to become a teacher? Or a better gift, giving. Don’t you wish more people had the gift of giving? No, I’d rather talk. So, in other words, that attitude of egotism, pride in what God gives you, is ridiculous. If God gave you something, guys, is there anything to be proud over? You ought to be humbled by it. And all of us have been given gifts of the Spirit. All of you have one, whether you know it or not. Somebody said, well, how do you discover it? I say, well, it’s kind of like a mother at the breakfast table and sitting around the breakfast table and one of the kids spills the milk. Well, one of the gift of helps is up cleaning up the milk. And then the teacher’s up there telling them why they spilled the dumb thing. Had you been more careful with this, that wouldn’t have happened to you. And then you got the gift of encouragement. That’s okay, sweetie. It couldn’t have happened to anybody. And you got all these different responses to the kid knocking over milk, and you pretty well determined what your gift is by how would you respond. And so some of us would go into a course on how to drink milk without spilling it, kind of teachers, but you’d have all kinds of things. Encouragement, all the gifts that he mentions here would really be exemplified by how did you respond to that. So it’s kind of a good way. Now what he’s saying to us, therefore, is not everyone I have given, not everyone I have given the same gift to. And all of these gifts work together to build the house, so to speak. One person has the gift of hammering, another has the gift of using screwdrivers, one has the gift of this, but the purpose is to build the house. And so don’t be sitting around complaining about your gift compared to somebody else or thinking that your gift is better than somebody else. It’s my gift that I’ve given to you for the edification of the body of Christ. But let me show you a more excellent way. And now, guys, God is going to get to the root of what he is looking for. He’s not looking for activity centers. He’s not looking for big buildings and big memberships. He’s looking for people who have learned to love one another. Did not it say in Scripture and Paul say that the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love? He didn’t say one of the main things that counts, guys. I mean, a priority list, put this up the top, the priority is faith expressed itself through love. He said, the only thing, the only thing I, God, am looking for from you is your faith that manifests itself through loving one another. And the evidence of your faith is evidenced in your love. And you say, well, that’s real nice, Lord. But how am I going to pull that off? It’s basically when I read the definition of love. But he’s saying, I want to show you a more excellent way, a better way. Not just better, excellent, a more excellent way. You’re all hung up on these gifts. I want to show you what I’m looking for. I’m not looking for your gifts. I gave them to you. I’m looking for to see how you’re doing in the love department. So he addresses initially the big hang-up in the Corinth church of the abuse of speaking in languages that they hadn’t learned. That’s a neat deal. I mean, there’s no question about that. If I could just all of a sudden start speaking a whole bunch of languages that I’d never learned, I’d think I was pretty intelligent. But God knows better. So you don’t have to camp on that for very long. But if I spoke in the tongues of men and angels, folks, that doesn’t mean there’s an angel language. That’s better than ours. that’s what’s called a hyperbole it’s an exaggeration in order to make a point if I could speak all of the languages of the world first nobody could do that so it’s an exaggeration in order to make a point if I could speak in the tongues of all the world including angels but I don’t have love he says I’m only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal Have you ever heard of a spirit-filled, resounding gong and clamming cymbal? Now, some people think that that’s the sign of being again. Look what they’ve done. This is the sign that you’re saved, is you can speak in tongues. That’s a sign you’re saved. Or, okay, I’ll grant you, maybe you can be saved without that. But that’s the only way you can be spirit-filled again. So you’re a spiller-filled, clanging gong and noisy cymbal. Doesn’t that make a lot of sense? You see, guys, what Jesus said to us is the evidence that you’re saved is your faith in Jesus resulting in love toward your fellow man. That’s what he says. We say, uh-uh, no, it’s speaking in tongues. Oh, no, it’s getting baptized. You’ve got to be baptized in order to be saved. You’ve got a group there. And then you’ve got to tithe. And then you’ve got to have church membership. And then you’ve got this. The bar just keeps going up and up and up. Where Jesus said, forget the bar. What I’m saying to you is the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. And that’s exactly what I mean. That all I’m looking for are people who have placed their faith in me who came to save you nitwits because you couldn’t save yourselves. And I came to save you and you put your faith in that. I saved you by taking away the cause of spiritual death eternally. And I saved you from being raised from the dead so that that life that raised me from the dead can raise you from the dead. That’s what I did for you. No other man could do that. And so what pleases me is you’re putting your faith in that. The only thing that pleases God is what? Faith. And without faith, it’s impossible to what? Please God. Faith in who? It’s not faith in faith. Faith has to have an object. And the object of our faith is who? jesus back to jesus again and his totality of his work so it isn’t faith that saves you it’s the object of your faith that saves you faith is like swallowing you can say you got to swallow to live but you can say well think about that for a minute so well not necessarily i could also swallow and die i could smile swallow food and live and swallow poison and die using the same mechanism that has swallowed food to live So swallowing does not enable me to live. Swallowing food enables me to live. Swallowed poison will cause me to die. So it’s the object of our faith. So faith doesn’t save you. Faith in Jesus saves you. It’s all pointing back to Jesus. Now he says that so it doesn’t make any difference how many languages you speak in. If you don’t have love, it doesn’t mean anything. Now, he said, if I have the gift of prophecy, and I have the ability to fathom all mysteries and knowledge, and I have faith that can move mountains, that’s pretty good faith. That’d make television today. If you could do that, wouldn’t it? Now, it’s also an interesting thing, though, in regard to the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love, where we come down and say, well, my faith is bigger than your faith. And so we’ve got the faith movement that’s out there trying to tell everybody you’ve got to get more faith, right? Your problem is you have more faith. You need more faith. Did not Jesus say that if any of us had faith the size of a what? A mustard seed, we could do what? Move mountains. Have any of you moved an anthill recently? Now that shows us all somewhat the size of our faith, does it not? Somewhat smaller than that of a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed available. I don’t have big faith. I have a huge God. And I don’t need big faith in a big God. I just need to have sense enough to realize how wonderful He is and put my faith in what He accomplished for me. And so this idea of, oh, you need more faith, is nonsense. Because you don’t need more faith. He’s already given. It says in the Scripture, we just read it, He’s given us all the measure of faith that we all need for the task ahead. Whatever the task is, I’ve given you enough faith for it.

SPEAKER 03 : 27:05

Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another, and praise the Lord. Amen.

SPEAKER 02 : 27:34

Put Jesus first in your life and turn your life around.