For a long time I've wanted Dr. Tony Evans to be with us here at New Hope and so today he's with us a prolific author and one of the leading voices in Christian evangelical leaders and circles and he's a pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Texas but today he's chosen to be with New Hope Christian Fellowship. Would you give a warm welcome to Dr. Tony Evans as he comes. Good morning.
I've told every service, any excuse to come to Hawaii is a good one. And so I am delighted to be with you here today. I am honored to be with such a great church, having such great ministry, great pastor.
It's a privilege to be with you. I'm thankful my son, of course, Anthony, has ministered to you. I hear... My daughter, Priscilla Shire, will be with you soon. So we might as well buy a house on the island and let the family come over here because we are indeed blessed for the privilege of being able to minister to this great church and this great flock of the Lord here.
So thank you for allowing me to be with you. They said I brought four books, Kingdom Man and Kingdom Woman, How to Be a Man and a Woman Under the Rule of God, and then Victory in Spiritual Warfare. how to determine what the enemy is trying to do and how to get over on him before he gets over on you.
And then destiny, how to see and know where God is trying to take you. So those books will be available afterwards. But we're delighted to be with you today and to be able to proclaim God's truth.
I've served as chaplain of the Dallas Cowboys. I see we have some spiritual people here. And when the Cowboys take the field, three teams take the field. There's the home team, then there's the visiting team.
And the home team and the visiting team are in conflict. They're never going to agree because they're headed to two different goal lines. One is going this way, another is going that way.
And so they clash as they try to stop each other's progress. It's perpetual conflict because there is no point of agreement. But in the middle of these two teams, there is a third team placed on the field, the team of officials.
Now this third team, the team of officials are on the field, but they're not of the field. See, they don't belong to either of the two teams. They belong to the league. The league office is 300 Park Avenue in New York City. Behind the executive chair sits Roger Goodell.
He's the commissioner of the National Football League. The commissioner in New York has representatives on the field of play called officials. Their job is to bring the governance and guidelines of the kingdom in New York onto the field of play.
Each official has been handed a rule book. That rule book gives the guidelines by which all decisions are to be made on the field of play. An official's personal opinion becomes irrelevant.
His emotional attachment to a team becomes irrelevant. Because his job is to make the calls on the field that come from the office above. Sometimes the official will be cheered because everybody will like the call he made.
Other times the officials will be booed because people don't like the call they made. But the officials are not on the field for a popularity contest. They're on the field to bring the rules from above into the chaos below.
To bring the governance that belongs in the kingdom up there. and bring it to the chaos on the field down here. You and I are part of another kingdom. You and I have a commissioner, another king, and each one of us, as followers of Jesus Christ, has been duly authorized to be his officiating crew in a world in chaos.
You and I are living in a world that is collapsing upon itself. We're living in a nation that is collapsing under the weight of its own demise. You and I have been placed here as followers of Jesus Christ to act on his behalf, his officiating crew, since he is seated in the kingdom up north, he has placed us on the field down south in order to represent that kingdom in this location.
Jesus called a meeting. That meeting is recorded for us in Matthew chapter 28. We know it as the Great Commission. It is the only meeting Jesus ever called between his death and his resurrection, and excuse me, his resurrection and his ascension to heaven. He only called one meeting. He had a number of meetings, but only one that was scheduled.
Three groups attend this meeting that he called. Verse 16 says, the 11 disciples proceeded to Galilee. to the mountain which Jesus had designated.
So the 11 disciples are at the meeting. That is minus Judas. 1 Corinthians 15 says that more than 500 brethren attended the meeting.
The 11 are part of the 500, so around 489 that attended this meeting on the mountain. There's a third group that attends the meeting. Because verse 20 says, And lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the age.
Well, the age has not yet ended, so you and I are at the meeting. So since we've been invited to the meeting, why don't we mosey on up the mountain and find out what all this meeting is about and how it applies to you and me, God's officiating crew in history. We're told in verse 17 that when they saw the resurrected Christ, when they saw him, They worshipped him, but some were doubtful. Some had question marks. Questions about him.
Questions about the resurrection. Questions about this new responsibility. Questions about the establishment of the church. They had questions. But their questions didn't keep them home.
Their questions brought them out. Because it says that they came and worshipped with questions. They had doubts.
Perhaps you're here today with questions. Questions about our world, questions about your faith, but your questions didn't keep you home. They brought you out. So did theirs. After the worship service was over, after the songs were sung, the prayers were prayed, Jesus steps to the podium and this is what he says in verse 18, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.
The risen Christ says, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Translation, I'm in charge now. I'm not only in charge up there, heaven, I'm in charge down here, earth. I'm not only in charge in heaven, I'm also in charge in history. I'm not only in charge in eternity, I'm also in charge in time.
He says that I am the link between time and eternity and I'm in charge now. All authority. So there is nothing that sits out of sight of my kingdom rule. Nothing. No one.
Because I'm in charge now. The word authority is an interesting one. There are a number of Greek words that can be translated authority.
The main one in the New Testament is the word dunamis, where we get our English word dynamite from. Explosive power. But that's not the word used here.
It's not dunamis. It's another word. It's a word pronounced ecusia. Ecusia means authorized use of power.
Dunamis is just power. Ecusia means having the authorization to use it. On a football field, the players are younger, stronger, and faster than the officials.
The officials are older. slower and fatter. The players can knock you down, but the referees can put you out.
Because while the players have dunamis, the referees have ecusia. See, they've got a whistle and a yellow flag. They have authority to overrule dunamis with ecusia. Jesus says all ecusia authority. That is, the authorization to use the power belongs to me.
Your enemy, this world, has dunamis. Jesus says, I have a goose here. I am the only authorized one. Up there, heaven.
down here, earth. I'm in charge now. And with that, he issues the commission.
There are five commissions in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Acts, but this one is called the great one because this is the only one that uses this command, make disciples. That's the command. It's an imperative. It's not a request.
It's a command. Don't just make converts, don't just make Christians, make disciples. So that raises the question, what is a disciple? A disciple is a man or a woman who is consistently operating under the rule of Jesus Christ in his or her life.
A disciple is not merely a person who has accepted Christ to go to heaven. A disciple is also one where heaven gets to dictate to them on earth. A disciple is one who is a man or woman who is consistently living under Christ's rule in their decision making.
In the same way that an official does not exist for the popularity of his cause. Sometimes he's going to be cheered, other times he's going to be booed. but he's not there for popularity contests. He's there to reflect in the decisions he makes on the field the ruling that comes from above in the NFL offices.
And he is measured by his decisions, not by his emotions. Discipleship is to come under the rule of God in your decision-making and to consistently apply that across every area of your life. As you increasingly...
make decisions consistent with the rule of Christ, you are increasingly being a disciple. As you decrease in making decisions consistent with the rule of Christ, you are decreasing in being a disciple, even though you may be a Christian. Because discipleship is consistently operating under the rule of God. Plato was a philosopher.
who came up with a philosophical scheme that divided the physical world from the spiritual world. You and I today call it sacred and secular. There's that sacred thing, the spiritual realm, and then that secular thing, and we divide the two.
That came from Plato. Plato had a student who studied his philosophy named Aristotle, and Aristotle systematized the thought of Plato. We call that Aristotelian logic. where he organized Plato's thinking and he developed schools called academies to train the next generation in the thinking of Plato that had been organized by him, Aristotle, to train these young people to infiltrate the society with this worldview. Even though Rome was the world power in Jesus's day, if you remember your history you know about the Hellenization of Rome.
That is, Rome was the military power, but Greek thought was prevailing it. That's because of the influence of Plato through Aristotle in these academies to train a generation of young people to think Platonically. The idea of discipleship is to have transferred to your mindset and to your functioning the thought process of Jesus applied on the field of play as it has been received from the kingdom above.
And to the degree that we do that, we reflect Jesus'thoughts, decisions, and actions in our everyday life and experience. The problem today is not quite that we don't have enough Christians. The problem is that Christ doesn't have enough disciples.
He has people who will go to church, but not people who will make consistently their decisions underneath his rule. In the book, Kingdom Man... We talk about Exodus 34, where God, in verse 23 and 24, called all the men of Israel out, and he said, leave your wives and children at home, and I want all the men, just the males, he says, to come and meet with the Lord King, your God. He uses three names for God, Elohim, Adonai, Yahweh.
And he says, when you come meet with the Lord, your God, to find out what I want to tell you to do as a man, When you listen to me, then I'm going to send you back to your family and back to your country. And when I send you back to your family and back to your country, if you go back with the rule of me over you as a man, I will provide for your families, no nation will covet your land, and you will be protected when I can get all the males to come under the rule of God. What we're missing today are disciples, men and women, who consistently operate under divine rule.
Even though they know sometimes they're going to be booed because the crowd won't understand or agree with the decision. All authority has been given unto me and I want you to make disciples. In our national ministry, we're on radio across the nation and television and the like, and people will order our CDs from our national ministry called the Urban Alternative. And they'll order our CDs.
And so when they do, it works something like this. I get up on Sunday morning in our church and I preach a sermon and it's recorded on a master CD. That master CD is then transferred from the church over to our national ministry, the Urban Alternative, and put on a master duplicator.
The master tape is put on a master duplicator. Plugged into the master duplicator are slave units. These slave units make copies of the master.
So 16 are run off at a time in the span of two minutes of a 45 minute message. And then they are mailed to people who have ordered the CDs or who get our monthly CDs. And they are spread around the country or around the world.
What people get in the mail. is a copy of the Master. They don't get the Master, but they get a copy of the Master.
But the copy of the Master is so much like the Master that it might as well be the Master, even though it's not the Master, because it reflects the Master. What God is looking for in history are copies of the Master. We're not the Master.
All authority has been given to Jesus Christ, but he wants to run off on us. and make us copies of him so that our decision-making will reflect his decision-making. The decisions on the field will reflect the decisions from the kingdom because we are reflections, manifestations of his rule.
He says, make disciples. Why is it important that you and I not merely be Christians, accepting Jesus Christ as Savior to go to heaven? but also following Jesus Christ as Lord because only disciples get to share his authority. Remember the connection?
All authority has been given to me. Now make disciples. He wants us to make disciples so we can piggyback on his authority.
I'm chaplain of the Dallas Mavericks and have been since their inception and they give me four tickets to the games. So I'll invite some of the guys from the church who want to go to the Maverick game. They'll say yes. I'll say, now don't drive because if you drive, then you're going to have to pay $15 a car to park.
I say ride with me because I have a free complimentary parking space right in front of the basketball arena. So if you ride with me, you park for free, but not because of who you are. It's because of who I am.
They don't know you, but they do know me. But because they know me and you're riding with me, you get what belongs to me attributed to you. We go through a private entrance, not the general public entrance.
They will let you in the private entrance if you're with me. They're going to let you in the private entrance, but not because of who you are. It's because of who you're with. Because you're with me, you get my access even though you're not.
me because of your affinity and association with me. When we go downstairs there's gonna be a four-course meal. You will get to eat for free but not because of who you are it's because of who I am.
Your proximity to me will let you piggyback on the rights and privileges that belong to me and when the game is over we're not going to be rushing to get out of there because We're not going the way everybody else is going. We're going up a private ramp, to a private elevator, out a private door, to a private parking lot, and we will be halfway home before most people have gotten to their cars. And all of that will happen because you're with me.
Guess what Jesus says? Be my disciple and you're with me. That the rights and privileges that I possess, you can piggyback on.
My son Anthony. Who you have gotten to know somewhat in his music ministry. When he first started out, when he first started out, he was just a poor musician trying to make it.
He called me and said, Dad, will you pick me up from the airport? I said, certainly. Drove out, pick him up from the airport. He's the third person off the plane.
We greet each other. So we're on our way to baggage claim to get his bags. Halfway to baggage claim, I stopped, looked at him. and said, oh no, you didn't.
And he laughed, because he knew exactly what I was talking about. You see, to be the third person off the plane, that means you in first class. If you're the third person off the plane, that means you were sitting in first class.
But he didn't have first class money. He didn't have a first class ticket. What he had was my name. Because he's junior.
So I knew what he did. He went up to the agent and said, my name is Anthony Evans. I'm an executive platinum flyer with American.
Do you have any upgrade seats? And she said, oh, Dr. Evans, it's a delight to have you flying with us again. See, because of our relationship and because of a shared name, he piggybacked on my rights and privileges as his father.
Jesus says, make disciples because disciples get to share in authority and all authority belongs to me. You must be associated with me. Then it gives three participles, go, baptize, and teach. In this construction, when you have an imperative with three participles, the participles give you the method for achieving the imperative. The first imperative is go.
You can study go in Hebrew, Greek, Ugaritic, Aramaic, Syriac, and go means go, means don't stay. Matthew chapter 10, Jesus said, go, same word, to the lost sheep of the house of Israel and tell them Messiah has come. To go means to declare your allegiance. Jesus says, if you will not confess me before men, I will not confess you before my Father.
I just believe in God. You must confess me before men. He says, if you deny me before men, I will deny you before my father.
So when you go to my father and ask something, and he checks with me to see whether I okay it, I'm going to want to know, do you confess? Are you public declarer of your association with me, or are you a secret agent Christian? A spiritual CIA representative.
A covert operative. Everybody else is coming out the closet. You might as well come out too.
He says, I want you to go and I want you to acknowledge your association with me. This is a huddle. This is like a huddle in a football game in here. Everybody in here basically agrees with everybody else. We're Christians here.
You're sympathetic here. You're here and there's no conflict here because we're on the same page. The conflict will happen when you leave here.
When you go back into your world of work and play and all of that. That's where the conflict will happen because you're no longer in a sympathetic environment. My son, before he went to the NFL, came over to Hawaii and played in the Hula Bowl.
We came over and watched him play. And of course in every football game they have huddles. But all those people don't pay all that money to watch 11 grown men bend over.
They don't pay all that money to look at a huddle. You know what they pay for? They want to see what difference the huddle makes. They want to know, having huddled, can you now score?
They want to know what you're going to do about 11 other men on the other side of the ball daring you to go public with your private conversation. See, right now we're a huddle. In a few minutes, you're going to break huddle.
But there's an enemy outside that's going to try to keep you from scoring touchdowns for the kingdom of God. And Jesus says, you must be identified with me in enemy territory, not just in the safe place of the huddle where the Christians gather. He says, go to a world that does not buy me, does not accept me, and you represent me.
You be my disciple. 9-11 was a tragic day in infamy in the United States. Our lives will never be the same because of 9-11.
You'll never travel like you used to travel before 9-11 because of terrorism. Security has changed. Why? Because some evil people from halfway around the world invaded our country.
Boarded our airlines, went into two buildings killing thousands of people, went into the Pentagon, and they did it in the name of their God. As the planes were about to crash, they shouted, God is good. In the name of their God, they rocked havoc to a whole nation.
Now if evil men, in the name of a false God, can change a nation because of their evil act, but because of their radical commitment? How much more should not those of us who name the true God and follow Jesus Christ should not affect our world because of our radical commitment? Because we are disciples of Jesus Christ. Jesus is looking for disciples, men and women, who are visible, verbal followers of Jesus Christ, who have been, he says, second participle, baptized.
Now he doesn't mean you just got wet. He says, baptize them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That's the Trinity.
He uses the singular word name and then gives three pronouns. These three pronouns with the singular word name, you would use the word names when you have three pronouns, but these three are one. He says, trinitize them, baptize them in their identification with me. The Greek word baptizo was used of a dye maker in biblical days. If a mother wanted to make her daughter a pink dress, she'd go buy the cloth, bring it to the dye maker.
The dye maker would take the cloth and dip it in pink dye. Take off the extraneous dye, dry it, then hand the mother a pink piece of cloth so she could make a pink dress or blue dress or red dress or purple dress depending on whatever color the mother wanted. In other words, the dye maker put the cloth in one color and brought it up another because he dipped it or immersed it and therefore it came up looking different.
Same cloth. different look. Paul says in Ephesians 6 that you were baptized in his death and raised that you might walk in the newness of life. You look one way going under, you look another way coming up. Why?
Because you've been now dipped in the blood. Your primary color now is red, which means your class, your culture, your background, your history, and your race must be secondary to your faith. that your faith and followership of Jesus Christ must trump any other self-definition that conflicts with it because you are now to be defined by your faith and not by anything else that defines you because you are now my disciple and you are to be baptized. It should be unmistakable that you've been dipped in the blood, that you belong to Jesus Christ, that if you're a doctor, you're not just a doctor. You're God's representative in the medical field, so the medical field sees what God looks like when God helps hurting people.
If you're a lawyer, you're not just a lawyer. You're God's representative in the bar association, so the bar association gets to see what God looks like when God tries a case. If you're a teacher, you're not just a teacher.
You're God's representative in the classroom. So the classroom sees what God looks like when God teaches a lesson. If you're a business person, you're not just a business person. You're God's representative in business. So the business world gets to see what God looks like when God cuts a deal.
That is, you are to represent him having been dipped. Because now your color is red. You have been identified with Jesus Christ.
Then he says, teach them. That's the third part. It's simple. What do you teach them? Pneumatology, ecclesiology, eschatology, angelology, anthropology, soteriology.
No. He says, teach them to observe whatever I've commanded you. He didn't say, teach them what I've commanded you. He says, teach them to observe whatever I've commanded you. Now that means you need to know what the rule book says.
You need to know what he has commanded you. But observing it means teach them to act on what I've commanded you. Because information without application keeps you from having transformation. It is in the observing of the commandments and not merely the knowledge of the commandments that brings the impact into the world and the transformation into our lives.
It is not enough to come and hear the truth. It is not enough to agree with the truth. Until you act on it, nothing changes. Teach them to observe whatever I have command you. And that's what makes you a kingdom man or kingdom woman.
It is your decision making. That is your observation. Let's say you are having a heart transplant, life or death surgery tomorrow. The doctor comes in who's going to perform this life or death heart plant surgery.
And he says, now I want you to understand every single thing I am doing tomorrow. I want you to understand it all. So I'm going to go through all the details of this life-saving surgery. And he gives you the full nine yards.
He tells you every idiosyncratic thing he is going to do in that surgery. And then he says, do you have any questions? And you say, I do have a question. He says, what is it?
Your question is, how many times have you done this before? His answer, you're my first. Now, I don't know about you, but he ain't operating on me. But he argues. But no, you don't understand.
I made an A in heart plants, transplants. Class. That I graduated the head of my class.
I don't want to know your grades. Here's what I want to know. I want to know how many times you've done this before.
And then I want to know how them people doing. Because if you did it five times before and none of them made it, you still not operating on me. Because I want somebody who's practiced what he knows. not just can memorize it and quote it. What our world is needed is not just Christians who know the Bible, but disciples who follow it, who make their decisions by the rule book, because that's what officials do on the field of play in order to bring order to a chaotic situation.
If Jesus comes back tomorrow, we don't have to worry about any of this. But if Jesus doesn't come back for another 200 years, you better worry about all of this. Because your children, your grandchildren, and your great-grandchildren have got to grow up into some kind of world.
And it will either be a world that have been affected by Christians, that is by disciples, or it will be a world where the teams are in chaos. Because the officiating crew, like last year's NFL football season, has replacement officials on the field. And you see what happens when replacement officials rule who don't know the book. They add to the confusion. Jesus closes in verse 20 by saying, And lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the age.
And lo, I am with you always, even until the end of the age. Now you can't say it in the English, but in the Greek text the word I is written twice. It's called the ego-I-me construction.
I, even I. That's what it says. So the writers who translated the scripture didn't write I twice, they just intensified the one I and said and lo I. Lo I is an intensification of I even I.
But the word I is written twice. Why does Jesus put his name twice? I, referring to himself, even I.
Because in the previous verse, he said, baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus says, okay, the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. But when it comes to discipleship, I.
Because all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. All authority, all the okays belong to Jesus Christ. And so it is your attachment and representation of Christ, not merely your belief in God, that affects your share of authority as you become a disciple.
He says, and I, even I, because all Christians don't have equal authority. At the end of John chapter 2, Jesus says, John says, and many believed on Jesus, but then he says, but he would not commit himself to them because he knew what was in them. Many got saved, but they didn't get his full commitment.
Why? Because he knew they weren't ready to be identified with him yet. They wanted to follow from afar. They didn't want the connection to be made yet. They weren't ready to go public.
Our world is in need of disciples. We are watching our nation implode upon itself in a whole myriad of ways. God wants to know, does he have some visible, verbal, unashamed representatives who will make their decisions at home, at work, at play, in their neighborhood, who will consistently, although imperfectly, but who will consistently make the calls on the field in the midst of the chaos representing the kingdom that they represent.
That is what he is looking for. My favorite program growing up as a boy in Baltimore was Superman. Oh, I loved watching Superman. Of course, as Clark Kent, he was a bumbling idiot.
Lois Lane didn't like him. Jimmy Olsen made fun of him. And sometimes Perry White wouldn't use him. Oh, but don't let him find a telephone booth or a closet.
I'd be sitting on the floor next to my brother. And the criminals of Metropolis would come out and wreak havoc in the city. And somebody would say, where's Superman?
Clark Kent would take off his glasses and unhook his tie. I look over to my brother and say, there you go. He'd go lickety-split into a telephone booth, went to a closet, come out with a red and blue jumpsuit on and a cape.
Now he's faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. He's not able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. He comes streaking across the sky and they say, it's a bird. No.
It's a plane. Uh-uh. It's Superman. This dude would be catching bullets and breaking knives and discarding criminals.
And you know what he did? He brought order to Metropolis that had become chaotic. How could this man bring order to the chaos of his community? The reason he could bring order to the chaos's community is that he wasn't from here. He was from a place a long way away named Krypton.
But he brought the power from up there and executed it down here. He brought the power from up there and lived it out down here so that down here was transformed because he was really from up there. He was from up there, functioning down here, so that down here got changed.
Because they really belong up there. God is looking for some Christians who are willing to go into the telephone booth or to the closet and change clothes. Who are willing to come out with an S on your chest.
Now that S doesn't mean you're Superman, but it ought to mean you're saved. That S doesn't mean you're Superman, but it ought to mean you're a saint of the Most High God. So that when you break out from New Hope and they see you invade this community. They say, it's a bird.
No, it's a plane. No, it's them super saints from that New Hope Church. God bless you as you impact for the kingdom of God.