Intimacy With God - Tony Evans

you're listening to dallas theological seminaries chapel podcast so good to see all of you today and have you enjoyed this spiritual life conference together with us our speaker for this week and week of spiritual life conference is dr. Tony Evans he has served as the senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship for over 35 years witnessing amazing growth over the years since 1976 that now includes a variety of 100-plus ministries dr. Evans also serves as president of the urban alternative a national ministry that seeks to bring about spiritual renewal in America through the church his daily radio broadcast the alternative with Tony Evans can be heard on more than 500 radio stations throughout the United States and in more than 40 countries dr. Evans has written numerous books and booklets including his legacy work oneness embraced as well as his vision work the kingdom agenda some of his most recent books include marriage matters between a rock and a hard place and victory in spiritual warfare dr. Evans is married to Lois his wife and ministry partner of 41 years they are the parents of four adult children all of whom serve in Christian ministry as well as grandparents to ten grandchildren and I would like you to join with me in welcoming dr. Tony Evans as our speaker it is an honor to be back with you once again and to have this great opportunity to minister at my alma mater and the place that I deeply deeply deeply love and to see what God has done in my life and in the lives of those who have come through here and to have being the place where I have been ministered to spiritually day after day as a student and now being able to be here to minister to you is indeed quite the honor and quite the privilege my oldest granddaughter is named Charis Charis Grace and she's a third-year student now at Baylor University when she was a little girl there was this cry from the yard outside of my house she was screaming and I rushed out to find out what in the world is going on and a dog was chasing her the dog was barking and nipping and making all kinds of noises and she was terrified the dog wasn't that big but as far as she was concerned it was too big and she was running in terror she kept saying she calls me poppy poppy Bob the dog the dog they're all hard the dog the dog and she jumped up into moms wailing and heaving with fear and frustration and being terrorized by the circumstance she found herself in she hung on to me as the dog came up near my foot continuing to make these threatening noises wrong you know just just terrorizing and she hung on to me and as she began to get her composure she looked down at the dog and then looked up at me she looked down at the dog and then look up with me she looked down at the dog again then she looked up at me then the next time she looked at the dog she said nananana everything had changed but not her circumstance see the dog was still in the dog was still spouting his authority he was still making his noise something had changed in her and what had changed in her was my presence the fact that I was now part of the equation gave her a confidence she did not have a sense of victory she did not possess and even a willingness to face her enemy with authority I have said to you that I wanted to spend our days on spiritual life coming at it from the perspective of spiritual authority because what I am discovering in life and in ministry far too many Christians love Jesus but have no authority the circumstances dictate everything rather than than them dictating to the circumstances in Ephesians chapter 3 Paul the Apostle is writing to the church at Ephesus this is my favorite book because it is Paul's a Clea logical document and while it can be applied to Christians individually is fundamentally speaking to the church corporately and these believers have become discouraged he tells them in verse 13 don't lose heart to lose heart to faint is to quit give up throw in the towel it is to say I can't handle this anymore it is too much too difficult to try it their own problems and the fact that Paul was their champion he was going through tribulation they were losing HOD Paul unleashes or what for me is his most potent prayer he has a number of prayers in his works but this one grabs my attention in a most unique way he says for this reason in verse 14 I bow my knees before the father for whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with power through his spirit in the inner man so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and that you being rooted and grounded in love may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and the depth and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God now and again was able to do exceedingly and abundantly beyond all we ask or think according to the power that works in us to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever amen at the heart of Paul's prayer is a simple thesis spiritual intimacy expands spiritual capacity and spiritual capacity expands spiritual authority let's say it the other way if you want more authority you must possess more capacity but in order to have more capacity you must have greater intimacy little intimacy little capacity little capacity the authority greater intimacy greater capacity greater capacity greater authority he first speaks to their intimacy and he says I want to make sure as I bow my knee to the Father and that you understand this applies to every family every every name every every person who derives his name from heaven that you will be strengthened by his spirit in the inner man the fundamental job of the Holy Spirit is to make experiential in your life the rule of Christ the goal of the Holy Spirit is not some ethereal a floating meaningless concept in outer space you know that the Holy Spirit is at work because the rule of Christ is no longer theoretical it is experiential his job is to make it real and if it's not real it's because he's not been allowed to do his job because he's good at it he says my goal is that the Spirit of God will so function and work in the inner man to remodel your soul because what happens spiritually internally will determine your capacity as you will see I like popcorn to put a bag of popcorn in the microwave and prepare it to be eaten especially watching a sporting event is quite enjoyable but a lot of people don't know why popcorn pops you see every kernel of popcorn has moisture in it when you put it in the microwave and heat the moisture the moisture become steam the steam rises when the steam begins to rise it against the shell when the shell can't handle the pressure of the heated moisture that has now become rising steam it gives way and what you hear in the giving way is Papa Papa Papa Papa Papa Papa you hear an explosion of deliverance as that which is inside expands to the point that the outside can no longer hold it hostage now I don't know if you've ever tried to eat unpopped popcorn but that can be a pretty miserable experience who would have ever thought seeing popcorn pop that all that was being held hostage inside in fact you can't even find the outside once the inside has expressed itself one of the reasons why there is so little Authority is that people are controlled by their outside not their inside Paul makes it clear in first Thessalonians 5:23 that there is this three part reality in our lives there is the the spirit our ability to communicate with God our souls the ability to communicate with ourselves our bodies which is the ability to communicate with our environment the way it's supposed to work is that the body obeys the soul and the soul obeys the spirit so as the spirit informs the soul the body now knows how to properly function so the outside does not function properly because the soul is not informing it properly and the reason why the soul is not informing it properly it is because the spirit doesn't have freedom to enfold it and therefore our external function is tied to our internal restriction he says I pray that your spiritual intimacy this indwelling work of Christ in fact he says that Christ may dwell the Greek word dwell means to make himself at home that he's free to visit the library of your mind he is free to visit the living room of your fellowship he's free to visit the addict of your hidden thoughts he is free to maneuver you know we we say to people we have a welcome sign outside of our home welcome and we will say to people make yourself at home usually lying we mean make yourself at room because we're going to restrict you to the room we lead you to but what he says is I want Christ to have the freedom to maneuver in every aspect of your being to make himself at home so that the Spirit of God is free to cultivate intimacy most of the time when we talk about spiritual life we talk about intimacy but we leave it there but the goal of intimacy is not intimacy the goal of intimacy is Authority and so I had a a problem with my my sprinkler system my sprinkler system was not working properly and I needed it to be fixed and I said I'm not getting any power I'm not getting any power the sprinkler system is not working there is no power the water is not coming on he checked the box and he said you don't have a power problem something else is wrong all the power you need is already operative and then it began digging up my yard much to my frustration he began digging up my yard and it was beginning to look a little ugly and then he comes back and he says I've discovered your problem he says you have a disconnect he says one of your wires has come loose so the power you have is being interfered with by the intimacy you lack because there's been a breakdown of intimacy there is no expression of power even though the power you need to do what needs to be done you already have but the disconnect see the reason why you want the spiritual connect is because you want the authority that goes with it and so reading your Bible and praying and all the things we encourage believers to do and they wonder you know how do I know this thing is hitting because it's going to show up in your authority that's why there are people who are not as theologically accurate astute or trained as some would be a Dallas Theological Seminary yet they seem to have so much power even with some errant doctrine then people who understand Greek and Hebrew and all the theological idiosyncrasies of solid biblical training who have no authority because it's not your knowledge that gives you authority it's your intimacy Pluto is very cold mercury is very hot and it all hinges on their distance it's cold all the time because it's far all the time mercury is hot all the time because it's close all the time it is your connection to the Sun that determines the fire that you feel and the authority that you exercise he starts off by calling for spiritual intimacy but that leads him to tell you what the result of spiritual intimacy is and that is expanded spiritual capacity in other words the more intimate you are the more God you have now I know theologically you have all the gods you're going to get because of our relationship with God you may have all the God you're going to yet but that doesn't mean you have all the experience from that God that you were meant to have he goes on and he says I want you to comprehend verse 18 with all the saints so somebody shouldn't have a leg up on you what is the breadth and the length and the height and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness of God I want you to have as much of God as you can handle because God will only give you as much of him as you can handle God is not going to waste God on you a little boy one day tripped and fell into a barrel of molasses and when he stuck out his tongue and saw where he had fallen he said God please make my capacity equal to this opportunity God will only let you experience as much God as he know you can handle God will not waste God if you take a thimble to the Pacific Ocean and dip it you will get a symbol worth of Pacific but you won't get more than a thimble worth not because the Pacific can't give you more it's because you can handle more because all you got is a thimble well if you bring a glass to the Pacific Ocean and dip it you'll get a glass worth of Pacific but you won't get more than a glass you'll get more than a thimble but you won't get more than a glass not because the Pacific can't give you more you just can't hold more if you bring a bucket to the Pacific and dip it you will get a bucket full of Pacific but you won't get more than a bucket you'll get more than a thimble and more than a glass but once that bucket is full your capacity is finished and the Pacific is of no use to you if you bring a barrel to the Pacific and you dip it it will be full to the top of the barrel but you will get more than a barrel because your capacity will only receive what it's designed to hold you'll get more than a thimble more than a glass more than a bucket but you won't get more than a barrel if you bring a tanker to the Pacific the Pacific can handle it it'll fill up your tanker and you'll get more than a symbol and more than a glass and more than a bucket and more than a barrel but you won't get more than a tanker because once it's full it's full you see the Pacific is big enough to handle whatever you bring to it but it's the size of what you bring that will determine how much Pacific you get the reason why there is such little Authority is because there's such limited intimacy in my fourth year of seminary as a student in the master's program I was ice-cold spiritually yet I was getting ready to graduate with academic honors I've made more aids than bees I love my classes I love my professors I love the study the problem was that they became and ending themselves they were not utilized after a while to promote him intimacy I began to focus on grades because I wanted to to graduate with honors and as my grades went up my spiritual life went down the passion to know him and to be with him and you experience him was not the goal the goal was graduating with honors and I became Pluto not intending to become Pluto it's just that that wasn't my goal and as a result my capacity trunk God will give you as much of God that you can handle but what he will not do is give you more than you can handle because God will not waste God that is why despite education and training you can have various levels of spiritual authority because the capacity is not the same God wants to expand your capacity to house him when you and I get to glory he's going to give us a new body a glorified body the main reason for the glorified body is to give you the ability to handle what you're getting ready to run into because you're getting ready to run into a beast and this body can't handle it and so you need a frame that can take what you get ready to run into in the eternal God unleashed in fact well it will reflect your rewards in the kingdom God will only give you a reward in the kingdom based on your capacity in history the capacity that you develop here due to the intimacy that you possess here will determine the authority you have there what kind of meta joy were you and then having talked about that he then comes and says the verse that we love to quote verse 20 it is a favorite verse it is the verse that is designed to invoke excitement about divine capacity but read the verse closely verse 20 says now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us this is not a carte blanche statement of superlatives that apply to all believers everywhere all the time this is a verse that applies to certain believers somewhere sometimes because it's according to what's working in you that determines what's working for you if there is limit power operating inside there will be limited Authority exercised outside the reason you want to draw near is yes I want the fellowship I want to feel the the nice goosey goosey spiritual feelings that you get when you close to Jesus and you know and and you know the excitement that that I'm walking with the Lord and all of that is now that's wonderful and that's nice but when you're losing heart when hell is breaking through in your life when the things you didn't anticipate are controlling your world you see feelings are not enough Beauty Authority and now unto Him who is able God has no capacity problem and his ability is performance ability to do it's not just talk abundantly and be on the content of your request what you asked and the content of your thinking what you didn't even think to ask you know you're operating at a whole nother spiritual level when your intimacy has expanded your capacity that God is doing stuff you didn't even ask and doing stuff you never thought to ask because now he's free cuz what you brought to the specific was a whopper because intimacy expanded capacity and now there is this superlative operating in your world my daughter Priscilla one day I took the family to uh to the Grand Canyon for a vacation we decided to drive to the Grand Canyon and we would have devotions every day or most days of the family and and we would always take an August vacation and we drove across country to the Grand Canyon we got there about midnight at night and I had forgotten to make a hotel reservation needless to say my family was not happy with me every hotel the few hotels that are there were jam-packed I stood in a long line of people trying to get rooms and there were no rooms but next closest hotel was an hour and a half away at least back then so I was going to have to after driving all that time drove hour and a half away from our destination just to try to find a hotel room nobody's talking to me in my family because we have been cramped up in our little car for all those hours and everybody is frustrated we decided to go to get something to eat before we got in the car to go try to find a hotel Priscilla looked at me eat and she said but dad you didn't talk to God about our dilemma to which I'm thinking shut up I I don't need you telling me about not talking to God about our dilemma so I say you pray and she did she said now Lord you know we are tired and we've driven all this time and my dad forgot to make a hotel reservation but Lord you are bigger than this problem and so God I ask you to intervene this is a very simple prayer in Jesus name Amen I'm thinking after that prayer okay that's nice now let's get back to the real world I'm tired we're tired we got to hurry up and get on the road as we were finishing our meal preparing to leave the hotel manager came over to me and he said weren't you one of the families standing in line trying to get a room I said well yeah he said I tried to find some of the families that were ahead of you couldn't find any we just had one room vacated by an emergency situation and if you still want the room it's available I looked was a shut up shut up shut up see when the Bible says that Jesus Christ has been elevated over all ruler all authority all Dominion all power that's not some theological theoretical CERN depe distich statement designed to make you feel good religiously that is designed to let you know he is seated on a throne prepared to overrule stuff he is seated on a throne prepared to show you he is indeed in charge and all authority does blown him in heaven and on earth but only if there's capacity to receive it because there's intimacy based on it I didn't crusade in Columbia South Carolina at Bryce football stadium the football stadium of the University of Southern California 25,000 people are gathering for the first night of the crusade the problem is thunderstorms are predicted and it's an open of course Stadium and so we gathered the ministers and a few laypeople gathered to pray before the meeting started the prayer was led by the pastors who were the organising committee for the event and they prayed Lord we pray that you'll bless our event we pray that you'll win people to Christ and if it's your will we pray that you will keep the weather good nice nice evangelical prayers and of course you know we cert in your will to cover our backs just in case it doesn't work out it was a little lady 5 foot 2 named Linda never forget it Linda said may I pray and Linda stood up in praying father you have said in your word for us to win people to Christ we've gathered together in unity to obey your word we have used the resources you are provided your people to pay for this menu to get out the message to release your word it would be god inconceivable that you would call us to obey you and we obey you and you control the weather to allow what you control to interfere with our obedience to your command and therefore based on your word I command you to change the weather okay now the preachers are looking at each other right now that's what she said I command you to change the weather we all walk up on the platform the sky is getting dark it's seven o'clock it's time for the meeting to begin and you hear the thunder them we're told the rain showers will be here any minute they're coming from this direction forward what I'm getting ready to tell you is not something that somebody told me not something that story I heard about I was there my wife was there it's starting to sprinkle just a little the crowd is getting starting to move a little bit as we're just starting the service some umbrellas are starting to go up now the emcee says brothers and sisters let's stay as long as we can we know it's it's supposed to rain and the Thunder solvers are right here but let's just go as far as we can little sprinkles a gentleman opens up his umbrella puts it over his head he's sitting next to Linda and he puts it all so over Linda's head Linda pushes it back and says I don't need it I don't need it and then to the shock of 25,000 people the rain comes to the podium and splits half of the showers go around this side of the stadium half of the showers go around that side of the stadium the rain comes back together again on the other end of the stadium and the storm continues if you don't think those folks were ready to hear the gospel after that the pastors had position the pastor's had titles the passes had had influence Linda had authority she effected the meteorological positioning of nature because she had in her five foot to frame capacity based on emphasis and therefore could declare Authority contemporary evangelicalism has everything but what we need a thority you have 1% of the population the gay population who is controlling the agenda of the definition of family that is less than 1% of the population who is controlling the agenda of the definition of family in the nation how can we have all these churches on all these corners with all these members and all these preachers and all these programs and all these facilities and all this stuff and still have 1% of the population controlling the agenda because we've got programs we've got facilities what we don't have is Authority which means we don't have capacity which means we don't have intimacy when you have a lot of things that you need plugged into your house but you only have those two plugs you get a power strip because the power strip starts with intimacy it plugs into the plug in the wall but what it did was expand capacity because then you can plug in more things and when it expands capacity you now have power to do so much more oh yeah you want to enhance your spiritual life I want to enhance my spiritual life but not as an end in itself yes that that's part of it to feel closer to the Lord but why is it that all these folks are going to church and yet our divorce rate is as high as the non-christian divorce rate why is it that all this event what is going on here there is not Authority and that is because there's not capacity that is there's not merely intimacy that people think they have because they have religiosity I mentioned yesterday I'm a Platinum flyer with American and that means that I get certain benefits because I fly a minimum of 50,000 between 50,000 and 100,000 miles a year so so I'm a Platinum flyer and and and I get the benefits of upgrades if available I walked up one day and said are there any upgrades available she says I'm so sorry we only had one seat left that we could upgrade and the person before you or just came and and is ahead of you and we only have one seat I start to walk away but I stopped I said the person before me um what's that status she looked out and she said oh I'm so sorry they're gold your platinum gold is under fifty thousand miles Platinum is over fifty thousand miles which means I have a more intimate Meishan ship so i bumped the gold person ahead of me and nutella truth didn't feel guilty about the person ahead of me i'm feeling pretty good because you see my intimacy had expanded my capacity which allowed me to bump up with my authority but after i pulled off another guy came up and said do you have any upgrade seats oh yeah but we have one person ahead of you he says I'm I'm I'm executive platinum now to be an executive platinum you have to travel a hundred thousand miles or more a year so he had greater intimacy which gave him greater capacity which gave him greater authority and I got bumped ah but not to be outdone I walked over to the telephone and picked up the phone and called a young lady in our church who oversees American Airlines special services American airline special services takes care of VIPs and takes care of special situations for special people I said um I got a problem there's only one seat left I've gotten bumped didn't mention I bump somebody else but I got involved she said don't worry about it what airport what gate she called the gate and said we have a VIP person on dr. Tony Evans and do you everything's what we just have one but we have an exaction says well he fits in the special services category and she calls me back over she said I don't know who you know but here's your first-class seat see I had intimacy which gave me capacity which gave me the authority to overrule intimacy determines capacity capacity determines Authority yes you want to get close to Jesus so you can exercise the authority that you were meant to have for the purposes that God has for you and closing on one other vacation trip I took my family to Niagara Falls as you know there is an American side of the falls and a Canadian side of the falls our hotel which I did remember to make this time was on the Canadian side of the falls so we went to the Canadian side and got in our hotel room with the idea of looking at the Falls the next day when we got into our hotel room that night I opened the curtains and my breath was taken away as I could see the Falls from my hotel room and it was magnificent I beheld it and I said wow that lights on it and it was way out there but it was impressive I just went wow the next day we got up ate breakfast and walked over to the Falls there is a park on the Canadian side of the falls we walk to the park the night before I had seen it from a father and was impressed by what I saw oh but now to be across the street from it in daylight I was affected by the Falls the night before I was impressed this day I was affected because I could hear the roar of the water as it thundered across the precipice and hit the basin and it threw up droplets that were pushed by the wind a little here a little there a little here a little there the night before I was impressed unaffected though now I was affected because now I was closer but that's another way you can see the Falls it's called the Maid of the Mist these are little boats that actually take you to the basin of the fall they give you an umbrella they give you a raincoat because you getting ready get drenched the night before I was impressed the early of that day I was impacted but in the Maid of the Mist I was overwhelmed because I've gotten so close spiritual intimacy will determine your spiritual capacity and your spiritual capacity will determine your spiritual authority they lured me the words of my mouth the meditations of my heart be acceptable to you in Jesus name Amen

Channel: Dallas Theological Seminary

Views: 318,446

Rating: 4.8012066 out of 5

Keywords: spiritual life, Dr. Tony Evans, Dallas Theological Seminary, authority, spiritual intimacy, Dallas, God, Life

Id: APH3HVckbsw

Length: 45min 16sec (2716 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 25 2012