"Building Kingdom Disciples" Pastor Tony Evans 8/22/21

a little bit about him tony is the pastor of oak cliff bible fellowship in dallas texas he's the founder of the urban alternative he's written over a hundred books that's a lot of books it says one of them kingdom disciples heaven heaven's representatives on earth and he's going to be speaking on this topic today he has been named one of the 12 most effective preachers in the english-speaking world by baylor university that's quite a distinction tony uh wrote the first full bible commentary and study bible by an african-american so that too is a distinction is radio is radio uh broadcast how many of you have heard tony on radio great radio show man if that doesn't wake you up nothing well uh it's called the alternative and he's on 1400 stations in 130 countries so listen this is uh this is a busy guy and a guy who's been blessed and used by god so powerfully for so many years and i'm just so thankful he took the time to come and be with us today at harvest so let's give a very warm harvest welcome to tony evans [Applause] thank you thank you well good morning to you i'm happy to be here with my son anthony junior and to be here at harvest it's good to be with greg he called me and asked if i believed in free speech i said yes he said come give one so so i'm delighted to be able to be here i have followed the ministry of your pastor for many years his love for people his love for the lord and his love for the uh unreached through uh his harvest events and uh he's had a number a number of them in dallas where i a minister and we have appreciated uh his work here locally and his work nationally so thank you for allowing me to be part of this uh wonderful wonderful congregation as you continue to serve the lord christ in these uh challenging days for many years i served as chaplain of the dallas cowboys when they were winning and uh my son played my uh younger son jonathan played for uh baylor university and then had a short stint in the nfl and uh has taken over my role as uh chaplain of the cowboys and um as you know when a team when a game is being played three teams will hit the field there will be the home team there will be a visiting team which means there will be a three-hour conflict there will be a three-hour conflict between these two teams because they are going to clash because they're going in two different directions one has a goal this way another has a goal that way three hours they're going to clash and no amount of argument will make them get along because by the nature of the gridiron conflict is inevitable in the middle of this conflict in the middle of this gridiron battle a third team is introduced this is the team of officials there are seven officials at an nfl game whose job it is to manage the mess to be in the middle of the conflict without becoming a part of the conflict these seven representatives do not belong to the home team nor do they belong to the visiting team they belong to a whole another kingdom you see the nfl offices are located at 345 park avenue in new york and what they do is they dispense to all 32 teams to all of the games their kingdom representatives and these representatives are situated on the field but they get their instructions from 345 park avenue so they get instructions from up there for the decisions they make down here in the middle of the battle that is being played out on the gridiron each official has been handed a book this book is the governing guidelines by which all decisions are to be made on the field of play their personal opinions must be subject to that book their perspectives must adjust to that book regardless of how they feel about this team or that team they have got to make all of their decisions predicated on what is written in the book from the kingdom up there in the chaos down here now they understand that their presence on the field is not part of a popularity contest they understand sometimes they're going to be booed because one of the teams and if it's against the hometown team the crowd is going to boo them they understand if it's for the home team with the home crowd they're going to be cheered but that is a non-relevant issue for them because they're not there for a popularity contest they're there to represent the kingdom in new york in the chaos on the field of play as distinct representatives of the nfl they are always distinguishable you never have to guess about the referee because they have black and white jerseys on they don't dawn the jerseys of this team they don't dawn the jerseys of that team because they are independent of both teams because they represent neither team they represent another order they represent another kingdom we have a problem today in our culture and that is we have god's representative joining cultural teams some have joined the democratic team others have joined the republican team some have joined the black team others have joined the white team some have joined the rich team others have joined the poor team and they have joined teams and have less lost the distinction that they were created and rebirth to provide in the chaos of the culture [Applause] what we're missing today is what i call in the book and what i want to challenge you today we're missing kingdom disciples we're missing men and women who do not fully understand what it means to be a full-time follower of christ and not a part-time christian men and women who have refused or failed to distinguish themselves in the chaos of the conflicts on the field of play that dominate the gridiron of a culture in which we find ourselves jesus called a meeting it was the only meeting he called between the time of his resurrection and the time of his ascension he had a number of meetings but only one was called prior to his ascending after he rose you know it as the great commission and i know that is a passion of your pastor and of this ministry there are five commissions in the new testament matthew mark luke john and acts all of them have a commissioning by the risen christ but matthew 28 calls it we call it the great commission because it uses a term that none of the other commissions use the greek word is martha case or disciple and that's why it's called the great commission three groups are invited to this meeting we find out in verse 16 that the 11 disciples proceeded to galilee to the mountain which jesus had designated so it was a planned meeting designated so we have 11 disciples that is minus judas who attend the meeting the second group that attends the meeting we're told in first corinthians 15 was 500 brethren so that is either 511 or 489 depending upon whether the 11 are part of the 500. so there is a large group that attends the meeting there is a third group invited to the meeting because verse 20 says and lo i will be with you until the end of the age well the age has not yet ended so you and i are invited to the meeting so why don't we mosey on up the hill and see what this meeting is all about since we've been invited to the meeting to find out what the risen lord expects of us in his physical absence in the midst of our physical presence and his work through us they start off with a worship service because it says when they saw him they worshipped him and so they started out like you have started out today in worship worship is the recognition of god for who he is what he has done and what we are trusting him to do so they were worshiping but we're also told that some were doubtful so while everybody's in church so to speak some were in church with question marks they they weren't fully convinced and perhaps you are one of those here today who you're in worship but you're not yet fully convinced you've got questions about how real is this jesus thing how powerful is this biblical proclamation how strong is this community of believers especially in light of all that we're seeing with the chaos in the culture so they were there but they were there with questions that had not yet been answered after the singing and the praying of the worship service it's time for the pulpiteering and on this occasion jesus mans the podium after they worship he comes and he says in verse 18 of matthew 28 all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth the risen christ steps before his three audiences and then says i'm in charge now all authority belongs to me in heaven up there and on earth down here i'm in charge in eternity and i'm in charge in time i'm in charge in heaven and i'm in charge in history i'm in charge in the sweep by and by and i'm in charge in the nasty here and now he says i'm in charge now the word he uses for authority is an interesting one the dominant word in the new testament for authority is dunamis where we get our english word dynamite from but that's not the word he uses here he uses the greek word ek usia egyusia is a little different than dunamis dunamis that expression of explosive power but eclusia has a different nuance to it in a football game you have players who are young strong and fast they have dunamis they have power but you have referees who are slow and fat and old they do not have dunamis they can be defeated by the dunamis of the players because the refs do not have that innate ability to compete with them but what the refs do have is that goosey the players can knock you down the refs can put you out because what they carry is kingdom authority ecclesia has to do with the rightful use of power not the dunamis the execution of power the players have the uniforms but the refs have the yellow flag in the whistle they have egusia and if you put your hands on them you will be judged by the kingdom up there because you mess with legitimate authority jesus says i'm in charge now anything that contradicts me is illegitimate because i carry legitimate authority satan has dunamis i have ecocia i have legitimate authorized authority and then he issues his instruction he says i want you to make disciples i want you to make disciples i don't want you to make church members i want you to make disciples in the greek text it is an imperative not an indicative it is a command not a request the whole point of the church is the making of disciples not merely the introduction of converts discipleship starts with conversion faith alone in christ alone for the free gift of eternal life but once a person places faith in christ they have entered into the school of discipleship that's why your announcement earlier about small groups to grow you and your faith is so critical because god's goal is not church attendance god's command is disciple making what is a mafi taste a disciple a disciple is a man or woman a christian who is progressively learning to live all of life under the rule of jesus christ they are progressively developing into a visual verbal follower of christ they are people who have transformed lives that transfer the values of the kingdom of god in every area of life it is to the degree that god owns more of you next year that he owned of you this year that you are becoming a disciple the idea of discipleship is the replication of the conduct and character attitudes and actions of christ or as jesus says in john 10 it is enough for a disciple to become like his master it is the reflection of christ being lived out in your life my life and collectively our lives in the chaos of the culture when i preach a sermon much as your pastor does on on sunday it is recorded on a master cd this master cd is then sent over to our national ministry the urban alternative and people who still want or use a cd will request a copy we have duplicators these duplicators run off 16 messages a minute for people who want the message in cd form the cd that was sent out or is sent out is a replica of the master the cd is not the master it's a copy but the copy is so much like the master you could confuse it for the master because it's a replication of the master there's only one master but the copy is designed to reflect the master jesus wants to run off on you and run off on me so that we become visible verbal copies of the master so that his life is run off on us in a way where when people see us they see a little bit of what jesus would look like if he was here in physical form that is the goal of discipleship i'm here with my son anthony evans jr he's a professional gospel artist he leads worship all over the nation and and around the world and and uh god has given him a great great ministry of music when he first started out he uh he asked me he said dad would you pick me up from the airport he was just starting his music ministry he said dad will you pick me up from the airport i said sure and this was before 9 11 and so you could go up to the gate and i waited for him to get off his plane he's about like the third person to get off the plane and we're walking to baggage claim halfway the baggage claim i stop i look at him i stare at him and i say no you didn't he began to laugh because he knew exactly what i meant you see in order to be the third person off the plane you were in first class if you're the third person off the plane you're in first class he did not have a first class ticket he did not have first class money what he had was my name so i knew what he had done he had gone up to the counter said my name is tony evans that was true and i would like to know if you have any platinum upgrades because i'm a platinum flyer with america she said oh dr evans we're glad to have you flying with us again so you know what he did he piggybacked off of my authority he piggyback off of my name jesus says make disciples so that they can piggyback off of me so that they can use my authority as they execute their lives in time and space in the chaos of the culture so how do we do that how do we make disciples that's what the church is designed to do my contention is today that we have plenty of christians we do not have near enough disciples we have christians who have joined the teams and dawned the uniforms of the culture and have lost their distinctiveness of the faith that's why you can have racial division on sunday morning that's why you can have political division in the family of god because they've lost their kingdom perspective and the word of god no longer has final say-so in the decision-making of life that's why you can have as many divorces in the church as you do in the culture because men have not decided to be kingdom men women have not decided to be kingdom women parents have not decided to be kingdom parents so because they have not yet been kingdomized as disciples of jesus christ they have been culturized by the environment in which they live and the false teams for which they play he gives three participles in greek when you have an imperative connected with participles the participles define the implementation of the imperative so the imperative is to make disciples the participles are go baptize and teach those are the three points to jesus's sermon he says i want you to go now you can study go in hebrew greek ugaritic aramaic and syriac and go means go it means don't stay that is jesus evangelistic term it's used in matthew 10 where he tells his disciples to go to the lost sheep of the house of israel and to tell the messiah is here it was the message that is carried so well from harvest of evangelism of calling people to the free gift of salvation to go it means don't stay it means that you're not just here for your growth you're here for your influence you're here to be equipped to be representatives of the king and his kingdom in the culture to declare messiah has arrived he has died and he has risen that evangelism winning people to christ is part of our mission of making disciples because you must make a convert first so the question is not only what you get when you come here but the difference you make when you leave here when the benediction is over our gathering today is like a huddle in a football game a hundred thousand people don't gather at los angeles stadium to watch the rams play to see 11 grown men bend over in a huddle they don't come for a huddle now they don't mind a huddle as long as you only spend a few minutes in it a few seconds in it but you know what they came to see what difference the huddle makes having huddled can you now score what are you going to do about 11 other men on the other side of the ball daring you to go public with your private conversation they want to see your impact help me how can we have all these churches on all these corners with all these members and all these preachers and all these buildings and all these programs and still have all this mess there's a dead monkey on the line somewhere folk who go to church but who do not go their testimony for christ is unclear their witness as a believer in christ is mute it's on silent so the first thing has to do with evangelism it has to do with the public declaration of your faith if you were accused at work of being a follower of christ would there be enough evidence to convict you or would you be found innocent of all charges because you have become a secret agent christian a spiritual cia representative a covert operative not a public representative of the faith everybody else is coming out the closet you might as well come out too second part is simple is baptize them the greek word is baptizo baptizo in new testament days was used of a die maker a die maker with a mother who wanted to sew a pink dress for her daughter would get the cloth and take it to the die maker the dye maker would take the cloth and dip it into pink dye hang it up wash work off all the extraneous dye let it dry now the gray cloth was pink it had been recolored so the mother could now go home and make her daughter a pink dress for that to happen an emotion occurred the cloth was immersed dipped into this cloth into this dye so that it had been recolored reclassified re-identified jesus chooses this word to explain the new identity classification that belongs to his disciples people need to be reclassified paul goes into this in romans 6 those of you been identified with christ he says you were baptized with him you were raised brought up out of the die with the newness of life when a football team plays underneath the helmet in the uniform they're black players they're white players and spanish players they're they're players from the hood they're players from the suburbs they're rural players they're players from single-parent families players from uh nuclear solid families there are all kinds of histories under that uniform but they are under that uniform regardless of what their history and background happens to be they've been dipped into a cowboy environment which means they all are looking even though they are distinct in their humanity they are reflecting the unity of that one uniform because they belong to this one team god does not negate our humanity but he does overrule it when it comes in conflict with him what he is saying is that believers are to be so identified as christians that everything else is underneath that uniform that they have been classified they have been recolored that makes it technically incorrect to say i'm a black christian or you're a right christian or somebody else is a asian christian because then i make black and white and adjective i make christian a noun and the job of the adjective is to modify the noun so if i have christian in the noun position my color in the adjectival position i got to keep adjusting the noun of my christianity to the adjective of my color i must take my christianity and always keep it in the agitable position so that my color and culture is always in the noun position so that if anything changes it's the noun of my humanity and not the adjective of my faith it means my humanity must adjust to my new uniform that i am crucified with christ nevertheless i live i don't lose my uniqueness but he says i am crucified with christ the life which i now live i lived by faith in the son of god who loved me and gave himself for me that is my point of identification i am first and foremost a christ follower i am first and foremost a kingdom disciple and everything else must surround that everything else must adjust to that everything else must be influenced by that that becomes my identity and so he says that it ought to be clear that you are a christ follower and it ought to be clear publicly not privately alone not in church alone the third participle is teach so what do you teach them pneumatology ecclesiology eschatology angelology anthropology what do you tom archaeology he says you teach them to observe you teach them how to apply spiritual truth to life's decision making that's what you teach you don't just teach biblical knowledge for knowledge sake it says you teach them to observe whatever i have commanded which means you need to know what he's commanded but he says what the goal here is the observation not merely the education you teach them to serve you teach them to live it out you teach them to reflect it you teach them to manifest it you teach them to apply it if you were needing a life-saving surgery this surgery would determine whether you lived or died the doctor comes in and he sits by your bed and he says to you this is what we're going to do tomorrow he goes through all the idiosyncratic elements of the surgical nuances he will perform he will cut here he will do this there he goes through it is obvious that this doctor has been to school that he has learned his craft excellently he then says to you do you have any questions i don't know about you but if i was in that situation i'd have two questions question number one how many times have you done this before now if he tells me well you're my first but i made a in class his grade knowledge and information would not impress me now i have a second question my first question is how many times have you done this before my second question is how do people do it because if none of them made it i don't care about your grades in other words i don't want to know your information i want to know your skill going to bible study is critical being part of your small group is critical but it only is meaningful if it's applied because if it is not a skill set then it's information that is of no use teaching them to observe whatever i have commanded you that is the whole corpus of biblical revelation and it is whatever i have commanded you not whatever i have suggested to you there are two answers to every question answer and everybody else's and everybody else is wrong god has spoken and he has not stuttered he has spoken clearly and he wants us to adjust he concludes with this statement and lo i will be with you always verse 20 even to the end of the age and lo i will be with you always even to the end of the age now in greek we call this the ego i me construction the eggo i mean construction means that the word i is written twice so if we were to read it in greek literally it would read and i even i will be with you always and i even i will be with you always why would he write his name twice now in your versions they don't put the word i twice they intensify the one eye so low i so that's really i under emphasis because he writes i twice i even i will be with you always even until the end of the age in the previous verse he said baptize them in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit so he brings in the trinity the triune god the trinity means there's one god composed of three co-equal persons who are one in essence while distinct in personality the father is not the son the son is not the spirit but the three together make up the one head it's like a pretzel with three holes the first hole is not the second hole the second hole is another third hole but they're all tied together by the same dough it's called divine nature but now he extracts himself from the other two he says i even i not the father not the spirit i even i why does he move away and bring himself out of the three that he just talked about by emphasizing himself with the ego i mean construct i even i will be with you till the end of the age because he had began his sermon with all authority has been given to me all authority i'm in charge now you have to understand that jesus is in charge now up there and down here he will call the shots what he is wanting to do is transfer authority all authority but here it is i know we quote this verse when people are sick well he said i'm going to be with you i know we caught this verse when people are in trouble god said he's going to be with you i know i know this rose gets used for everything and there are plenty of verses you can use for all those situations but not this one because this is very specific i will be with you if you are a disciple not i will be with you generically because you are a christian his concern in the great commission is on discipleship not merely on conversion he is saying my authority will only be transferred to you when you are making disciples i'm not going to transform my authority to people who don't know how to use it the people who challenge it to people who question it or the people who subjugate it to the culture to the politics to the racial divide to the culture divide to the class divide let me say it another way jesus does not relate to all christians equally now all christians have jesus if you've come to christ but he doesn't relate to all christians equally he doesn't share his authority equally just because you're on your way to heaven he wants to know are you good any good for him on earth and he's not going to transfer his right of rulership with people who are not going to take it and call the right plays or call the right penalties or use the book to make their decisions he's only going to share his authority that's why john chapter 2 verses 23 to 25 says many believed in him the greek furries there is pistol ice pasteur ice in the book of john always means conversion it says many believed in him many got converted but then it says but he would not commit himself to them because he knew what was in them so even though they were converted they did not have his full commitment and they did not have his full commitment because they had not yet made full commitment so jesus christ does not relate to every christian equally he relates to disciples and disciple makers at a whole different level than just generic christianity and generic church membership what we are needing today in the collapse of our culture a radical christians christians full of love but christians full of truth who never use sympathy to cancel out the truth but who never declare the truth without a sympathetic heart we are in desperate need of christians today who are full-time disciples not part-time saints a man one day who had just gotten married was on his way to his honeymoon they left the wedding ceremony and was going on to spend their first evening together as a married couple it was in a rural area where the wedding took place and they had to go down a country road to make their way to the major area to their hotel it was a foggy night out and so you couldn't really see too far in front of you and they were behind an 18-wheeler 18-wheeler was going pretty slow and he wanted to pass the 18-wheeler and so he pulled out to pass the 18-wheeler but because of the fog didn't see the oncoming van there was a head-on collision the collision was so cataclysmic it flipped his car up and over and into a ditch where both he and his new bride were knocked unconscious he came to first and he looked over on the passenger side and saw his new bride gushing blood he knew that if she did not get help soon she would bleed out and die but he's on this country road in this ditch in a crisis and that's when he saw it just above him on the hill was a sign that said office of dr bill jones how fortunate could it be that the accident happened in front of a doctor's office as best as he could he staggered around the passenger side and picked up his beloved and staggered up the hill knocked on the door frantically an old gentleman came to the door he said she's dying she's dying she's dying save her the old man said i'm i'm i'm i'm so i'm so i'm so sorry i stopped practicing years ago a young man said mister you have two choices save her or take down your sign but don't have a sign up giving me the impression that if i came to you you could make a difference but when i come to you you don't practice anymore a lot of christians today are carrying around a sign i'm a christian i'm a follower of christ i'm a disciple i'm a faithful church member i'm this i'm that but when the culture is collapsing when the world is falling apart we only discover they don't practice anymore the challenge today is clear either take down your sign or start practicing your christian faith so that everybody knows you belong to the king and you represent his kingdom as a kingdom disciple [Applause] [Music] wow that was a really good message you know that last illustration man let's pray father we don't want to have a sign hung out that says we're christians and not be practicing lord we want to be kingdom disciples you promised to be with us in a special way as we obey your call to go into all the world and preach the gospel and lord we think about all the opportunities that are before us of course october 3rd in angel stadium but the opportunities that will be before us today lord help us to obey and put into practice what we've heard thank you for this message bless each one we pray in jesus name amen loved it pastor casey amen

Channel: harvest.church

Views: 4,285

Rating: 4.9694657 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: sVs1dPlpKFg

Length: 46min 18sec (2778 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 22 2021