In this episode of Classic Christianity Radio, Bob George teaches from John 14 and unpacks one of the most foundational truths of the Christian life: Jesus didn’t simply tell us how to live—He showed us how to live by walking in total dependency on the Father. Bob explains what Jesus meant when He said the Father is greater than He, why obedience flows from love rather than fear, and why the Holy Spirit’s role is to teach, remind, and guide believers into all truth. Bob challenges the common idea that prayer begins with us, arguing instead that real prayer
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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On that day, you’re going to realize that I am in the Father and you are in me. I am in the Father. I am in my Father. I, branch, am in the vine and you are in me, the branch. I am in you. Whoever has my commands obeys them and he is the one who loves me. and he who loves me will be loved by my father, and I too will love him, and I’ll show myself to him. And then Judas, not Judas Iscariot, said, But Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world? And Jesus replied, If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. And later on down here, he teaches what the obedience to his teaching is, is to love your God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and to love your neighbor as yourself. and that is my teaching, because love is the fulfillment of the law. Now he says, if anyone loves me, he’ll obey my teaching, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. So in essence, guys, when you’re born again, he comes to live in you. I mean, where is home? Isn’t that something? That this old body of ours, and some of it, as feeble as it is, is the home of Of God. That’s where he lives. He who does not love me. Will not obey my teaching. The reason that we don’t obey the teaching of the Lord. We don’t love him. Why we don’t know him. Don’t want to know him. These words you hear are not my own. Again. Reiterating. These are not my own. They belong to the Father who sent me. Again, guys, a reiteration that what I’m saying to you is not me initiating. It is the Father initiating it to me, and I’m merely passing it on to you. I could initiate everything that I say to you because I’m God as well, but I wouldn’t show you how to live. And I have come here in order to show you how to live. I haven’t showed you to follow my example of living. I’ve showed you how to follow my example of believing and entrusting in God to live his life in and through you and me. How hard do you think this was for the apostles to grab a hold of this? How tough is it for us to grab a hold of this? All of this, he said, I have spoken while I’m still with you. But the counselor, the Holy Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, the counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, in my authority, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Who is he talking to, guys? The apostles. Who wrote the scriptures? The apostles, how did they remember everything? Because Jesus said, I’m going to send my spirit and he’ll remind you of everything I said to you. The apostles weren’t sitting there jogging their memory. Now, what did Jesus say here? When they wrote down the scripture, it was like God himself revealing everything that Jesus had ever communicated to them. He’ll teach you all things and remind you of everything I’ve said. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I don’t give you as the world gives. Again, a reiteration of what he said at the beginning of chapter 14. Don’t let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. You have all kinds of things ahead of you. What was ahead of the apostles? Persecution? Death? Torture? Being looked upon as second-rate citizens? That was upon you, but fear not. Don’t let your heart be troubled by that. It’s all there. I’ve already told you what’s going to happen. So don’t be shocked when it does. And don’t be afraid. Why not be afraid? Because perfect love… Cast away how much fear? All of it. Yeah. So if you’re believing what I’m saying to you, and that is anyone who loves me will be able to obey my teaching, and anyone who loves me doesn’t need to be afraid, and doesn’t need to live in fear, and doesn’t need to let their hearts be troubled, because that love will push out fear. Why? Because if God’s for me, who can be against me? The world may be against me, but the world may be able to take my body But the world cannot take my soul. And quite frankly, this body isn’t going to live very long anyway. It’s going to fall in a grave, isn’t it? Become worm food. But when we do, he says you’re going to be absent from the body. Now the real you is not your body. Your body is the house. Now Jesus said I’m going to go and Find a new house for you. What’s it going to look like? We don’t know. Thank goodness we’re up there visualizing something in Highland Park. So, no, that’s not it. You heard me say I’m going away and I’m coming back to you. If you loved me, you would be glad that I’m going to the Father for the Father is greater than I. Now there’s some people say, you see there, Jesus didn’t God. He couldn’t say that God the Father was greater than God the Son. Because if it’s God, well, they’re all the same. Why do you think he would say the Father is greater than I? Why do you think he’d say that? Well, I think it’s very simple. I think that God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, all of them, totally God. And again, quit putting flesh and blood on them. God is what? Spirit. You must worship him in spirit and truth. So quit putting flesh and blood on God. How spirit exists, we don’t have a clue. That’s out of our realm of influence, isn’t it? It’s out of our realm of experience. We don’t have a clue. But he says that he exists in the form of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So he’s saying that each one of us have a role. And my role as the Father is to give the instruction. And your role, Jesus, is to carry it out. It would be like, to a degree, guys, having a mirror up here. And I’m looking into the mirror, and Richard is out there, and I’m looking at his reflection. And I’m talking to him because I don’t see him out there. I’m talking to this mirror and saying, Richard, how are you doing? He said, doing good. Thank you. Tell me about the Father. Well, if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father. I’m a direct reflection of God the Father. And I can sit there and talk to that mirror just like I’m talking to the Father, couldn’t I? Because he’s a direct reflection in our experience. Well, the same thing is true in our experience. That God has come to live within us and he wants us to be a mirror of who lives in us. He wants us to live a life commensurate with who lives in us and who is living through us. So he says, I’m coming back to you, and if you love me, you’d be glad that I’m going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. And I’ve told you now, before it happens, so that when it does happen, you’ll believe. I will not speak to you much longer. Again, this is probably a few weeks prior to the resurrection. I will not speak to you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming, Satan. He has no hold on me. But the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me. Reiterate it again, guys. He’s saying, get this into your skulls. That I came to this earth to show you how to live. That I am God. I could be the initiator of my own action. The cause of my own effect. And the dynamic of my own life. If I chose to do so. I’m God. I could do any of those things. But I chose not to do though. I chose to find myself in an appearance as a man. And in so doing live in total dependency upon my father. So that I can teach you how to live. Do we get it, guys? The example of Jesus was, abide in the Father and let the Father guide you. Are we together on this? Now that is precisely why, as we have come to Christ as born-again believers, that we come up with these harebrained ideas that we’ve got this agenda that we want to get across. And I’m quite sure that God will bless my agenda. But I’m not 100% sure that He’ll bless my agenda if only I talk to Him. So what we’re going to do is have a prayer meeting. And we’re going to try to get hundreds of people together to pray to God about my agenda. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll get a few hundred more. Because if I can just get a thousand people telling God what a good agenda this is, because he may not understand how good it is. He may be a little dense. So we’re going to enlighten him, and we’ll get about a thousand people out there praying to God to take care of my agenda, and he’s got to listen to me. Where’s the problem? Now, I want to ask you a question. We’ve just read, haven’t we? We’ve just read what Jesus said. I do exactly what my Father has commanded me. Who is the initiator? God the Father. Who’s the responder? Jesus. Who’s the initiator in your life? Who’s the responder? Did Jesus ever initiate in prayer or anything else to God? No. Or did God initiate to Jesus? If Jesus said, I don’t say anything, what in the world do we think prayer is? Talking to God. And if he didn’t say anything to God except what God told him to say, that is dependency. I am not the initiator. I did not create you to be an initiator to me. We have in this world a law called the law of causality, that the result of something is never greater than the cause of something. The warmth of the sun is not greater than the sun. My salvation is not greater than my Savior. It’s a law of causality. And if we live by that law here, why would we deny that in our spiritual realm and think that we are the initiator? I’m going to tell God what I want, and he’s got to respond to me. Isn’t that what prayer is? You just initiate whatever you want, and God’s got to respond to you. And if your faith’s big enough, he’s got to respond. If he doesn’t, we’ll get a prayer meeting. Get a few hundred people praying. Then he’s got to do it. Have we reversed things, guys? Is that what prayer is? I want to tell you something. If God isn’t telling you to pray, don’t waste your time praying.
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I don’t go to a Wednesday meeting to pray for Aunt Nellie’s toenail when I don’t know Aunt Nellie or her toenails. That’s man saying, y’all come, because we’ve got an agenda we want to get across. We’ve got a building that we’ve got to get paid for, so y’all come and we’re going to ask God to provide the money. Is that prayer? Or is that just plain supposition? Is that just nonsense? Jesus says nonsense. Nonsense. Because he said, I don’t do anything. I don’t pray anything. I don’t do anything. I do exactly what my Father has commanded me. Now, guys, if you and I are living a life of dependency on Christ, are we sensitive to when God’s talking to us? You know, you might be a little bit wondering, but you’re pretty well on clue that if God is telling you to pray for a Cadillac, that just may be fleshly. Folks, I have never had an exception to this, that if God puts on my heart, and I’m saying God puts it on my heart, not man. You see, it’s the same thing as conviction, that godly sorrow produces repentance and worldly sorrow produces rebellion. When you’re trying to put a person on a guilt trip, it’s going to create a rebel. When God convicts you that what you’re doing is wrong, it changes your heart. And it’s the same thing in prayer. That when God puts something on your heart, and I mean it really is God putting it on your heart, and you pray. I remember with my brother, Lord Jesus, I want my brother to be saved. I want my brother to be saved. Why? God put that on my heart. My mother, my father. I want them to be saved. Who put that on my heart? God. And guess what? They all were. God’s God, when he puts something on your heart to pray for, he’s got the answer on the way. I remember Amy and I praying for her dad. That was an impossibility, guys. A total impossibility. Back during a day when Russia… Behind the Iron Curtain in America, there was no interaction at all. You could not get out of that country as a political, an ex-political prisoner. No way in the world. No way to get out. No way to get a ticket. No way to get a visa. Impossible. And Amy and I used to pray for Dad that somebody would send somebody to tell him about Jesus. And then, both of us at the same time, we had no more desire to pray. I mean, seriously, I just… You want to pray for dad? No. No, really don’t. Don’t have any desire to pray at all for him. Well, I had it figured out though. I mean, I had God all figured out. So I figured out that the reason that we don’t have a desire to pray is he’s already sent somebody over there to tell him about Jesus. So he’s already answered that. So thank you, Lord. That was real good. Had that figured out. What I didn’t know is God putting on our hearts to pray for him for an absolute something impossible that he had the answer on the way. That we heard one Sunday night coming home from church that her dad, after 40 years, was in Chicago. 40 years. I have never seen an exception to that, that when I know that God is putting something on my heart, that he has the answer on the way. And so what is our deal? Lord, it appears to me that this is what you’re doing. If you want me to be a part of this in any way, shape, or form, I’m available to you. Otherwise, I’m just waiting to see what you do. But this idea of gathering people together in order to uphold my agenda and my plan, then I have now become the initiator. And what we’re saying to people and deceiving them in is if we get together… And we pray God is obligated to obey my demands. In fact in the name it and claim it theology. That is totally everything in that theology. If you blab it and then grab it. If you say it and your faith is big enough. And boy they just stand there and their faith is big enough. God’s got to answer your prayer. Oh really? Really? then you’re greater than God. If I am the initiator and I can cause God to do what I want him to do, I’m greater than God. Now, doesn’t that sound a wee bit like the Garden of Eden? That you can become like what? Like God. That’s the attack of Satan. The subtlety of Satan. You, little puny man, can become like God and boss him around. And tell him what to do. Now, how did Jesus pray when he was getting ready to go to the cross in a few weeks or days? Father, if there is any way. I don’t think he said that. I don’t even think he thought that. But I would have thought that. If there’s any way to save these nitwits out there. Besides me having to go to a cross and take upon myself the sins of the whole world in order to save these goon heads. Do it. However, not my will, but yours be done. However, it’s not my will. I’m not here for my will. I’m here for yours. And let it be done. Even in the most. stringent part of his life still depending upon jesus i do exactly what my father commanded me now guys next week we’re going to talk about the vine and a branch as it relates to us because he’s now shown us how to live in his own example You see, we get the idea that, again, with the what would Jesus do? Well, man, he walked on water, so we can do that. Or, hey, what would he do here? He did what his father told him to do. That’s what we should be thinking. I’m going to do what the father tells me to do. Not what somebody else tells me, but what the father tells me to do. And that’s how he says, I want you to learn to live. Now, guys, if that’s the case, then as far as a church assembly, a body of Christ, which you are, my role is not to come up with an agenda and try to get y’all come. My role is to help you to see that individually you are to listen to God. individually and that individually you’re to be led by the Spirit of God it’s not for me to control Amy or Amy to control me trying to tell me what to do or I’m telling her what to do that puts you in a position of leaving God out of the equation in other words God isn’t big enough to get through to you so I will God’s a little feeble in his ability to get your attention but i will get it for you thank you lord forgive me the power to get to be able to show her or him what they need to do individually not collectively individually to listen to what the father says and to do it wherever you are in the marketplace To listen to what the Father says to do and do it. Now, as that occurs, you have assemblies. If you’re out doing what the Father tells you to do and you’re leading a person to Christ and you want to know where to mature and you bring them here, we’re going to have new people in the church. But I can also develop a program to get new people. It’s like church planting. I said, church planting, what is that? Go build a building and then hope people will come? What’s wrong with starting a Bible study in a home? And then having so many people in it, you can’t house it anymore, so you’ve got to build a building. So guys, we’ve reversed what Jesus said is a Christian life. The person that we say we’re following, we’ve ignored everything he said. And so guys, our role as Christians, our role is to individually understand Just like we came to Christ individually, didn’t we? We didn’t come in a great big group. Individually, to live your life individually. So if you’re the only person on the face of the earth, listening to the Spirit of God who lives in you, to lead you into how much truth? All of it. All of it. And when it is, we can learn to love each other without having to control each other. We can love one another. I’d have to tell each other what we ought to be doing, what we shouldn’t be doing. I think the Lord can probably get through with that. And when God convicts you of something, it’s different than when man does, isn’t it? Well, it’ll be interesting to continue on with this series because what we’ll be studying between now and Easter is what he told them prior to Easter, to his Easter. I’m here. You’ve seen me live my life. I’m telling you now how I live my life. And now I’m going to show you how to live it identically the same way. And now you’re going to be ready for the resurrection. Let’s pray together. Father, we want to thank you for this lesson. We’re so used to going out and doing things in the energy of our own flesh. I mean, just taking control of everything. But you said, no, that’s not the way I demonstrated life here on this earth. And it’s not what I had in mind for you. I want you to learn to live as I lived in total dependency upon the Father. And that’s living by truth, guys. And that’s living by grace. Jesus Christ was full of grace and full of truth. And if we’re going to live abiding in him, we’re going to have to abide in his grace and abide in his truth. And I thank you for that. We have one source to go to for what is true. And that is you. Of all the trees in the garden, you can eat. But the one of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that you try to say, I don’t need you, God, to determine right from wrong and good from evil, and you eat thereof, you will surely die. And that caused the death of humanity, spiritual death, that could only be corrected by the Son giving us resurrected life. Father, we thank you for that, and I pray that through this season that our hearts will be attuned more and more to you. And we thank you for that in his wonderful name. Amen. Amen.
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Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another, and praise the Lord. Amen.
