In this deeply insightful episode, we challenge traditional religious structures by understanding the true essence of worship. Bob George explains that worship extends beyond the confines of a physical building. Discover the transformative power of making our lives a living worship, accessible through the grace of Jesus. Through detailed analysis, learn how the law is voided and how we are invited into a personal relationship with the living God.
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 02 :
Do you think, and you look back, on the presidents of the United States that’s a pretty powerful office getting weaker by the day but it’s powerful do you think that Obama’s kids are going to have to go through a security guard to get in to the president’s office think you’re going to have to say now before you come in you little squirts do you have any unconfessed sin in your life have you done everything necessary to come in here You say, well, I thought it was your child. I thought that would be what I did necessary. I was born your child. No, no. No, it’s your behavior. You think so? No, no. No, I’ll guarantee you they, just like John Kennedy’s young John John and kids, just walk boldly into the throne of grace, into the Oval Office, the most powerful office in the world. and say, Daddy, Daddy. Why? Because they’re his kid. And you say, well, you dumb kid, don’t you know this? The President of the United States of America? Yeah, I know, but he’s my dad. Because he’s my daddy, I have access to the throne room. Now, folks, that is precisely what God did for you and me. He took the curtain and ripped it open and said, now, as a child, walk in. My pride is not in the fact that I was born a Gentile. And I hope your pride isn’t the fact that you were born a Jew. That’s putting the importance down here. God said, I got something better for you than a natural inheritance. It’s called a spiritual inheritance. I’m going to call you a child of God. You see, don’t we take that away when this is the house of God? You see. No, no, it’s children. Children. You’re a child of the living God. That God has called you my child. And we can call him my daddy. It sounds almost ludicrous, isn’t it, to think that the God of this universe, that made this universe and the vastness of it, which our heads can’t even comprehend, is big enough to make the universe and then small enough to live in our hearts and say, call me daddy. That’s really unbelievable, isn’t it? But that’s what he said. And so he says that we were without hope, but now in Jesus Christ, you who are once far away have been bought near through the blood of Christ. For, listen to this, guys, look at this. For he himself is our peace. Now, we can have the Peace Corps and we can have peace signings and we can… Go on and on and on. You can go negotiate or you can not negotiate. But I want to tell you something. There is never going to be peace in this world until the Prince of Peace comes back and every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. He is our peace. Peace is not something that happens. Peace is a person. Peace is Christ. There is no peace in the world until you have peace in your heart. And believe me, there is no such thing as peace in your heart until you have the Prince of Peace in your heart. So he’s our peace. Now look what he did. He has made the two, who are the two guys? the Jew and Gentile into one, into one new man. We should be glorying in that. Not that I was born a Jew or I was born a Gentile. Who cares? You got people on there arguing whether the Jews are this or whether they’re that. Who cares? You’re lost. You got lost Jews. You got lost Gentiles. And you got saved Jews and you got saved Gentiles. Who cares about the history of the Jew or the history of the Gentile? People want to get involved in all that. Just get all prideful. Who cares? The issue is you’re here. And the issue is you’re lost. And the issue is if you’re lost, do you want to remain lost or do you want to be saved? There’s the issue. I don’t care what your background is. We make big deals out of that. Sit there and study our backgrounds. Well, I don’t know. I don’t want to go very far back into my background. And aren’t you glad that people don’t know enough about you to really tell what you’re like? I’ll not go any further into that. He is our peace. He made the two, Gentile and Jew, one. One person that we call what? To as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become what, guys? A child of God. Not a Jewish Christian. Not a Gentile Christian, a Christian, a child of God. Not a Jewish child, not a Gentile child, a child of God. A born again from above child of God. Made the two one. And he has destroyed, guys, the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. Now, guys, what is hostility? Hostility. When you’re hostile towards somebody, it’s an enemy, isn’t it? And you have hostility toward one another. There’s a fear of one another. There’s hostile feelings toward one another. You’re not together. When you have a hostile relationship with your mate, you ain’t getting along too well. And so it says here that he destroyed this barrier. So there was a barrier between Jew and Gentile. And it was a dividing wall of hostility. In other words, it divided what God wanted to do, and that was to bring the Jew and Gentile under one head. And instead of that, enmity was there between the Jew and the Gentile. Well, what caused the enmity between the Jewish world and the Gentile world that God had to destroy? It was the law. And it goes ahead to say by abolishing. Now, guys, when you abolish something, the dictionary says it’s to destroy it and to do away with it and to make it void. Are we clear on that issue? He abolished, he destroyed, he did away with, he voided out the law. Is that what it says? Do you believe it? Why are we still teaching the law? Why are we still commingling law and grace in our so-called Christian teaching? The Bible told us as ministers that we’re to be ministers of the new covenant. Not of the old that kills. What? The old covenant kills. The law kills. The only thing the law can do for you is kill you. Law can’t give you life. Law can’t make you righteous. Law can’t make you holy. All the law can do is kill you. That’s what it’s there to show you. It’s there to show you you’re a sinner and that you’re dead. That’s what it’s for. Has the law… In all of your lives, done its work already? If you’re saved, it has. What did it do? Showed you you’re a sinner. Showed you there’s a consequence to sin called death. And you’re dead. And God says, yeah, but there’s a solution to that. And that’s my resurrected life. And we have come to him for what he came to give us. The solution to the wages of sin, which is death, which is life. You’re received by faith that life and are born again. Free from now what we were in bondage. So he abolished, did away with in his flesh, the law with its commandments and regulations. Now, guys, is there anything wrong with the commandments and regulations? Are they holy? Paul said they were. Said nothing wrong with the law. It’s good and holy. But what’s the problem? When it flows through me, what does it do? It kills me. Nothing wrong with the law. I’m the problem. I’m the problem. God forbid, we’re the problem. And so he said that abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. Nothing wrong with them, but as long as they’re there, it kills you. So what was his purpose in all this? Well, it says his purpose was to create in himself one new man. Out of what? The two. One new man, new man out of a Jew and a Gentile. That’s to take the Jew and make him a child of God and to take the Gentile and make him a child of God. Now, does it sound like that we’re supposed to go around now bragging on our natural heritage? I don’t see it. I don’t see it. He said, I came to make one new man. A new man. Till your glory will be in the new man. That whether I was born a Jew or whether I was born a Gentile. That I am a child of the living God. And we are brothers and sisters. Whether you’re a Jew or Gentile, irrelevant. We’re brothers and sisters. Why? We got a new heritage. Any man is in Christ, he’s what? A new creation. Old things have passed away. And behold, all things have become new. Got a new relationship with my Gentile brothers. I got a new relationship with my Jewish brothers. We’re brothers in Christ. Before, we were separated, alienated, hostile toward one another. Because of this law. To the Jewish people back in those days and to a degree in some segments, although it’s been watered down. There wasn’t the different kinds of Jews back in those days, there was only the. The Jew that performed everything, the people that wore clothes a certain way, people that had all these Jewish regulations, Orthodox Jew. Orthodoxy was the Jewish faith. That separated them terrifically from the Gentile world, just as it does today. You go over in Israel today and to the conservative Jew, they don’t like the Orthodox. They think they’re really out to lunch. And you know what? They are. They still walk around and they’ll still shuttle and walk like this so they won’t lust. If they’re married, there’s a sheet between them. I won’t go into the detail of that. Not allowed to touch. There’s a Shabbat elevator that you can’t push the button to get up to your floor. You can’t have milk and meat at the same time. All of these regulations, what does it say? With its commandments and regulations, that was against us. So all of those are still in effect and it separates them from the whole world and the whole world from them.
SPEAKER 03 :
Classic Christianity Radio thanks you for your support of our online and radio ministry. Make sure to visit bobgeorge.net to order a copy of the Closer Look Bible Study Series. A Closer Look Bible Studies features eight in-depth study guides that detail hundreds of Bible verses to help you deepen your understanding of the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. A Closer Look Bible Study Guides are an excellent tool for both individuals and larger Bible study groups. Please visit bobgeorge.net to order your copy of A Closer Look Bible Studies, as well as many other wonderful books, CDs, and study guides. With your support, we can continue to share the good news of Jesus Christ. Let’s continue now with our Classic Christianity radio program.
SPEAKER 02 :
What did Jesus say that he came to do here, guys? He said, I came to do away with that. I came to destroy that and I came to do away with it and I came to void it out. So that there is no separation. That the Jew and the Gentile alike are one new person. A child of the living God. You say, well, why don’t people go along with that? Well, I don’t know why, but we still like to be Messianic Jews. And I say to that big deal, I’m a Messianic Gentile. Why do you want to identify yourself down here? Why don’t you just call yourself a child of the living God? What does it matter whether you’re messianic or not? Messianic believes you believe in the Messiah. We wouldn’t even be talking here if we all didn’t believe in the Messiah. So why are we making these delineations? Why do we say, well, now all of us Jews are going to worship over here and we Gentiles are going to worship over here. Is that what God came to do? Is that what making people one is? Guys, is it or isn’t it? No, it isn’t. He said, I want you to be together. I want you to see yourselves as one new creation, a born again believer, not a Jew or a Gentile, but a child of God. You see how easy it is, guys, for us to get off. It’s just like this building of the house of God. That’s off. You’re off. And you’re off whenever you put your delineation that, yeah, I’m a born-again Christian, but I’m still a Jew, a born-again Christian, but I’m still a Gentile, and I don’t like those Jews, and those Jews don’t like the Gentiles. It’s ridiculous. He said, I called the two of you to become one. One new man out of the two. And by making peace and in this one body. Now, this is not the natural body. This is the spiritual body. In this one spiritual body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross. Through the cross. That what is going to bring the two of you together is the cross. I will be your peace. That’s when you’re going to have peace, when both of you are worshiping the same Jesus. In the same way. Not separating yourself. Oneness. Oneness. Guys, do you see the importance of oneness? Do you see the dynamic of sitting in a room like this? with people of all colors and creeds and backgrounds, and yet seeing each other as one? Is that a neat deal or is it? It is to me. I just marvel. I just think it’s phenomenal. People of all different denominations, people of all different backgrounds, people of all different color and creed, and yet in Christ we’re one. What brought us together? Christ. Christ. Christ. Not church. Not a building. We’re all here together because we like the building. No, we’re all here together because we’re all part of one body. Christ is a head and we’re the body. We’re the church. People. We should get that in our heads. I wish our pastors would cut this stuff out. And I hear it on radio. Just cut out this welcome to the house of God. Welcome to Grandma’s house. Hope you have a good time for an hour so you can leave. Pardon me for getting so upset. It says he’s going to reconcile both of them to the cross by which he put to death their hostility. Now, how did he put to death their hostility? By destroying and abolishing in his place the law with his commandments and regulations. The Gentiles had no law and rules and regulations. So the law separated them. God said, it’s over. We’re all now going to be saved in the same way. And it’s not going to be by the orthodoxy that you’ve been seeing in the Jewish world or the non-orthodoxy or the non-religion in the Gentile world. We’ve got something brand new coming. And so he put to death their hostility. He came and preached peace to you who are far away. Who was that? The Gentiles. And peace to those of you who are near. Who was that? Now, how do we know that? Because the gospel went first to the Jew and then to the Gentile. It was approximately 18 years before Cornelius, as far as I can figure, was saved. The first Gentile that we know about in the Bible that was saved. So it was first to the Jew and then to the Gentile. Through him, now we both, Jew and Gentile alike, have access to the Father by one spirit. Not by your ancestry, but by one spirit. Consequently, now he’s talking to the Gentile world, to you and me, basically, in his room. You are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household. built on a foundation of the apostles and the prophets, which Christ himself as the chief cornerstone. So who is the center of all this? God, Christ Jesus. And who are we? Well, it says that we’re members of the household. We’re members of the body of Christ. Now it goes ahead to say in verse 21, in him, in Christ Jesus said, The whole building is joined together. So who is the building? Is it this walls here or you and me? Who is it, guys? You and me. So we’re the building. This whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. So where is the temple? Where is the temple? Is it this place, the building, or is it you and me? You see, if it’s the building, then I’m going to start ultimately worshiping the building. Guys, I am not anti-church. We are a church. This is the church. You are the church. But what we have done in Christianity is organize God right out of the church, right out of the body of Christ. And very subtly, Satan… has deceived us by getting our emphasis off of us being the body and putting it on leadership. Just like we do in government. You’re not important. We are. Is that true? Are we unimportant? Or is it just the congressmen and the senators and the presidents that are important? Who are they up there for? For you and me. So let’s not discount or allow someone to con us into thinking that we are not the important ones. And they are. It’s the very opposite. And that’s God’s way of doing things in the body of Christ. He said that you’re the body. This whole building has now become a holy temple. And in him, you two are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his spirit. Where does God live, guys? In this building or in you in this building? Which is it? How many of you heard, oh, I walked into that building and the spirit was thick. You could have cut it with a knife. Have you heard that? How many of you heard that kind of stuff? Guys, if the spirit was thick, it was because you were controlled and filled with it. It wasn’t because of anything in this building. Quite frankly, I’ve never had to cut through anything in this building, so there may be something wrong with us, but I don’t think that the spirit is so thick you’ve got to cut it with a knife. That’s the kind of talk that we get used to, though, guys. You see how easy that is? It sounds good. And it sounds holy and it sounds really spiritual. And so we use it. It doesn’t have any meaning to it. In fact, it’s nonsense. And as a matter of fact, it is false teaching. And yet we say, praise Jesus. No, my friends, you and I are the spirit of God, are indwelt by the spirit of God. And where two or more are together, there I am in the midst of you. Now, can you imagine church without Jesus? So if two of you are gathered, where’s the church? If you’re the church, where’s the church? It isn’t here on Sunday. It’s everywhere. Wouldn’t you hate to think, guys, that’s where I’m going to go worship. That’s really sad to think that the only time you worship is an hour on Sunday or Saturday or whatever day you want to glory in. If you’re in Christ Jesus, the Bible then explains that having Jesus living in you is your act of worship. What is worship in the New Testament? Making your body available to the living Christ to live his life in and through you. That’s your reasonable act of what? Worship. What have we reduced that to? Come here on Sunday and worship. You only worship an hour, half hour a week. No, no, no. If you look at worship as God looks at worship, and if worship is making your body available to the living Christ to live his life in and through you, how many hours a day are you supposed to be doing that? Every hour, every moment of the day is supposed to be available. God, here’s my body. I’m available to you to do in and through me what you want to do. Do you want eyes to see through? Here they are. Do you want a mouth to speak through? Here it is. Do you want ears to listen? Here it is. I’m available to you. That’s worship. Wouldn’t you hate to think the only time you did that was an hour on Sunday? But that’s what happens when you put your emphasis on a building and an organization instead of you being the organization or the organism. which is better than an organization. Now, for this reason, now in chapter 3, for this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for the sake of you Gentiles, surely you have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you. Paul is saying that he was called by God to be the administrator of of the grace of God. This mystery, we’re told later, was revealed to the apostle Paul and to the other apostles and prophets. But he said, Paul is to be the administrator of it. What’s that mean? He’s going to tell you how to put this thing into action. That’s how you organize it. The administrator, they’re the decision maker. And so Paul is in that situation that if you’ve got a question in regard to this grace of God and in regard to this body of Christ, this is who you go to. He is my called administrator. And so he says, for this reason, I, Paul, the prisoner of Christ, for the sake of you Gentiles, have heard about the administration of God’s grace that was given to me for you. By this, he’s going to explain it now, this mystery made known to me by revelation.
SPEAKER 03 :
Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another, and praise the Lord. Amen.
