Kingdom Leaders Summit 2021 - Session 1 (ft Dr. Tony Evans)

we have wandered away from a value system that was established by god for how human beings were to live and act and relate to one another it is now time on a personal level and a systemic level that we reverse the course of history that has brought us to this point do you ever feel helpless by the political and social conflicts of the day are you tired of the band-aid solutions given on the news social media or by politicians people have often looked to worldly solutions for cultural crisis but we know as believers that a spiritual war can only be one with spiritual weapons god has given us the strategy for these spiritual weapons and dr tony evans three-point plan for community transformation this approach calls on pastors and spiritual leaders to come together across racial denominational and class lines in order to promote a culture of equity unity justice and personal responsibility this is not a time for silence this is a time for clarity in love this powerful and unique spiritual solution includes three clear steps assemble address and act when we assemble across diverse groups we strengthen relationships and better understand each other's needs as we worship and plan together we seek god's guidance in reconciliation next we address societal issues with the unified and compassionate voice through authentic conversation relationship and mutual prayer we broaden perspectives and increase insights on how to work together for cultural transformation finally we must do more than talk by faith we must walk by faith we must act in order to make a societal impact [Music] through well-planned and strategic action we can bring about a collective change in culture for good this is a deciding moment do we want to be one nation under god or a divided nation apart from him it is absolutely needed right now that there needs to be a reset and this is the time to do it when it has everyone's attention at the very same time it starts with an individual it starts with you find out more about how your church can take part in this strategy by downloading a kingdom strategy for community transformation at tonyevins.org the world says to man up but they're often talking about things you can see money status what does god say to be a man and rise up in society you can't leave god on the sidelines to do so is the difference between good and great see greatness isn't achieved it's demonstrated every day a man leaves his legacy to a million middle moments done well it requires showing up being present standing up speaking truth in his powerful and long-awaited sequel to the instant bestseller kingdom man tony evans kingdom men rising challenges men to rise up for what they believe in he inspires men to leave a legacy of both impact and influence get the much anticipated sequel kingdom men rising and get going seize what's yours claim what's ours for the collective body of christ time is ticking kingdom men we must rise find out more at tonyevins.org when we understand the seasons of our lives we are able to face the challenges and appreciate the blessings each day brings one thing is certain the lord has promised that he has a divine purpose and that he will be with us through each and every season hi there my name is crystal hurst and i'm priscilla shire we are so excited that you are joining us for the seasons of a woman's life bible study and we got to tell you we're excited because this is the legacy of our very own dear mother she gave us so many time and tested true principles from god's word to help us have the abundant life that god has called us to particularly god's daughters that's you that's us so we're excited to be able to take you through this in a brand new format and we know that she would be excited that you're joining us too thanks for joining us we'll see you in session one [Music] [Music] [Music] well hello everybody this is dr tony evans with the urban alternative and i am so very very very did you hear me say very excited to welcome you to our first virtual kingdom leaders summit 2021 we've combined our historical pastors gathering with our leadership training so that we can get all of our leaders together to equip inspire challenge and see god transform us to make us useful during a desperate time that we have been called to minister so i'm excited to be joined by our special friend daryl bach of dallas seminary and james meek of salem church in chicago they're going to be here for our general sessions and then we're going to have some powerful workshops to equip you in your area of interest and needs and then we're going to have great times of celebration and worship my kids are here to support me and to be used of god during our time together there has never been a time when the cry for spiritually based leadership has been needed more than it's needed right now and that means you so sit back relax prepare your heart your mind your spirit and your soul for god to use our time together to impact you and then through you to impact those you serve well let's get ready to enjoy the presence of god through worship my namesake anthony evans jr is going to lead us into god's presence in praise all right we want you to worship with us we are so glad to be here at this conference at the kingdom leaders summit 2021 now worship with us come on i count on one thing the same god that never fails he won't fail me now he won't fail me now in the waiting the same god who's never late is working all things out he's working off things out yes i will lift you high in the lowest valley yes i will bless your name yes i will sing for joy [Music] [Music] [Music] the same god who's never late is working all things out he's working all things out oh yes i will lift you high in my lowest valley yes i will bless your name yes i will sing for joy when my heart is heavy on my day yes i will yes i will i'll leave you high in my lowest valley yes i will bless your name oh i will bless your name i will sing for joy when my heart is happy on my day yes i will all my days yes i will i [Music] to just glorify the name of the names that nothing can stand against i choose to praise to glorify glorify the name of all names that nothing can stand against i choose to pray to glorify glorify the name of our [Applause] that next can stand against i choose to praise to glorify glorify the name of all names nothing can stand against come on say yes i will lift you high in my lowest valley yes i will bless your name oh i will bless your name though sing for joy when my heart is heavy all my days yes i will all my days yes i will [Music] yes i will [Music] we make a decision every day corporately i do and we have to especially as leaders to make a decision every day in spite of our circumstance to worship and that's what we are doing right in this very moment you know i love that on the days when it's hard to make those decisions i can cling to the fact that god's promises ring true and one one of his promises that i always need to hear is that there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in christ jesus so as we sing that promise over you and corporately as we worship together i want you to keep in mind that the weight of of life the weight of circumstance and all the things that we face internally when when dealing with external circumstances and our flesh that he does not condemn you and his desire is for us in this moment to be close to him so let's remember this promise together there is no condemnation for those in christ jesus by his blood i have been made free there is no condemnation for those in christ jesus by his blood i have been redeemed y'all sing that with me come on sir there is no condemnation for those in christ jesus by his blood i have been made free there is no condemnation in christ jesus by his blood i have been redeemed because it is forgiveness i don't have to live with shame anymore because it is redemption no more condemnation there's no more because of this forgiveness i don't have to live with shame anymore because it is redemption no more condemnation there's no more one more time because of this forgiveness i don't have to live with shame anymore because of his redemption no more condemnation there's no more there's no more there's no more guilt there's no more shame oh there's no [Music] [Music] there's no depth there's no height that can separate me christ to die race alive made a way for me yes he did there's no death there's no height that can separate me from christ who died [Music] that can separate me [Music] there's no height that can separate me one more time if you believe it come on slay crying to die raise the lime made away for he made [Music] nothing can separate us from his love [Music] nothing can separate us from his love no death no height can separate us from his love we give you praise jesus we give you one lord we thank you god nothing can separate us nothing can separate us from his love there is no condemnation for those in christ jesus by his blood i have been made free come on one last time there's no there is no condemnation for those in christ jesus by his blood i have been redeemed oh we have been redeemed [Music] anthony thank you so much for that amazing worship experience it is a reminder to us romans 8 tells us therefore there is no condemnation to those who are in christ jesus my name is charles wilford and i serve as the senior pastor of cross point bible fellowship church i've had the great pleasure of being a part of dr tony evans ministry k.a.p the kingdom agenda pastors for well over 10 years where we help build pastors we're excited that you will have an opportunity to be a part of four sessions four sessions that will also have a segment entitled kingdom builders where you will be blessed by kingdom building pastors this first session will be led by jonathan evans where he will have an opportunity to interview the senior pastor of one community church conway edwards join us for this time together [Music] what's going on everybody and i want to welcome you to session one thank you pastor wilford i want to welcome you to session one of kingdom builders okay we're talking to a special friend today a special friend of our ministry a son of my dad's ministry who started as the singles pastor at oakley bible fellowship and i'm telling you he had the singles ministry rocking and rolling so much so that my dad was like hey man it's time for you to start a church it's been great ever since then and so i want to welcome today conway edwards how you doing conway doing fantastic man thank you so much for having me what an honor what a privilege and it's just fun to watch your dad and you do minister together it just excites me all over again well it's it's good to be able to do it and good to be able to just hang out with you for a little bit i just wanted to take a few minutes and have you share your story you know everybody just kind of wants to hear i talked about how you started ocbf i mean i'm sure you had some things going on before that but just talking about how you started with you and uh jada and kind of where you are now tell us about your ministry yeah uh so we started about 13 years ago tony uh dr evans graciously i was heading back to jamaica and he graciously convinced me that i should stay here and um really long story short in order to honor what pastor was doing there i didn't think he could go anywhere near here because that would be you know what i call stealing sleep so i said we gotta go far far away so that somebody have to drive and then i promise them this is important i promised them that um we're not taking anybody but eight people showed him the eight people and said these okay we're not doing anything unless you uh sign off on it because i want to honor you because you've been such a dad to me and so it's been a beautiful transition we did that 13 years ago and uh honestly jay we thought if we had a hundred people that would be an incredible opportunity to just love 100 people and um i would never guess jada would have never guessed none of our leadership team would have ever guessed what god would have done since then and so basically man uh today 13 years later after starting after um heading out to north side of town uh god's just graciously blessed us now and we have a number of campuses and we can't keep up and i am honored and humbled and terrified all at the same time yeah you talk about honored humbled and terrified of me that's what it is when god calls you up and and things start happening and you're like man god hold on a second and it makes you totally depend on him and so he keeps you in that dependent uh place which is terrifying all the time okay but i get that and as you talk about that talk to the people about that are watching this about your greatest challenge in all of this i mean as god continues to move and as god continues to do his work through you and jada's ministry what what are the challenges that you face and have you dealt with those yeah yeah let me give you perhaps three of the big challenges that we'll face number one is um what i call the people problem knowing the right people having the right people in the right position and being secure enough to allow them to fully soar even though they might do a hundred things better than you can and so just knowing your capacity knowing that if you don't if you don't create room for others then they're gonna hit a lid and then knowing how to discern who are the right leaders with the right capacity that has the right trajectory to take the ministry further than where you could take it by yourself so identifying critical key leaders and then giving them room to simply do the best they can for the glory of god has been the greatest challenge but jay when you fix that and you have the right leader soaring for the glory of god there is nothing else like it and actually the higher up you go the easier your job is if you have the right people that you're cascading minister too so one of the challenges i've always shared with younger leaders is making sure you have the right leaders around you and that's hard a lot of times especially for african americans because if you don't if you can't trust people and if you get real insecure real quickly and if you're afraid of them their gifts shining more than yours then you're going to hold that to ministry because you're going to think that they will some in some sort of way short circuit what god might be doing they might micromanaging that's exactly right come on man you know that is you know that yeah yeah yeah and just i'm just a new model of minister where you're giving the minister away where you have number of people teaching not just you alone and where you're giving them their areas of ministry like you know we have four campuses and when you give a campus away you're not there so you have no idea what they're doing but you trust them and you've got a weekly meeting that you meet with them but but that trust has to be there and they have to have the gifts and abilities to produce what they said they're gonna go they were going to go and produce so that's exhilarating and scary right at the same time yeah i can imagine especially with that leadership now how do you run your your campuses i mean do you do you type in or do you allow those pastors to to be the teachers at those campuses how do you run those yeah yeah so so for us right now the model we're choosing right now is it's all video driven so we've got four teaching pastors and of the four anybody anybody can teach at any sunday and it's all driven in but all those campus pastors have to be able to teach if something goes wrong with the video we have some redundancies there but they all have to be able to teach and they all have to be able to have a sermon because if anything go wrong if they're up and they've got to finish the sermon or they have to teach one that they believe is best so we use them in our morning devotionals what morning devotional since we've gone fiddle and each of them teach on a sunday on a morning from 6 45 to 7 15 and then for men's bible study most of the guys teach as well and then on the female side we have female teachers teaching as well well that's great man you're doing you're doing a great job and that that's an encouragement to me um you know because my dad comes from a dif a different way of doing things you know my dad's teaching every sunday you know what i mean you know he just he just has that way of going about it i'm like man you preaching 42 out of 52 sundays and wednesdays man you're doing two different series you're doing one series on sunday another totally different series on wednesday then you're writing a study bible and another bible you got 100 books over here and and people are looking at me like hey you're next i'm like no i'm not i'm not doing that i don't know who does that you know what i mean right so just seeing how you've handled it and um how you've uh just empowered leaders uh in a different way not not better or worse but in a different way in the way that god has called you has been great what would you say your greatest triumph is if you as you look back and you look at um the things that god has done to take you from one level to the next level for his glory where would you say you've seen him the most in your mind uh it really is in the development of all the leaders so one of the things what i love the most is to develop leaders both in the marketplace and in the church and when i hear some of my senior executive senior vps ceos take the stuff that we teach and leadership and take it to the to their to their corporate environments and when they can use it in that city and their peers are asking we learn this stuff from you learn this from harvard you learn this from mit and it's a no we learn it in the church house that and then they say whichever church that is i gotta go see what the heck's going on there yeah that's the greatest um for real no joke at all that's my greatest testimony and then number two when you see younger guys come up in our church and you see them develop their gifts and abilities and they get to thrive in ministry and they get to to develop their wings and soar dude i'm just telling you there is nothing like it and i have been blessed with your dad my my spiritual dad and for other guys that that just built into me and then allowed me to soar and to see that happen at multiple levels and then to see it happen with the network of pastors of about 50 network of pastors that we that we either father or develop to see them sore as well dude i'm just telling you there is there is no greater joy for me than to see leaders lead at their highest capacity and do it in a healthy way man that's great that's great because ultimately that's what we're called to do and especially doing at the leadership level go make disciples and make disciples making good leaders who can go out and do the same thing over and over again that's where the impact is and so and everybody who's listening to this now needs to remember that by way of passion by way of purpose by way of god's provision by way of his word uh that we're going to make disciples and and building strong leaders not trying to hold it to yourself that's it what i mean but but letting it go you know god had an open hand and that's why we're able to even receive salvation to go do what we're called to do and so letting it go i think that i think that's a that's a great word okay let's let's end with this let's end with this yes okay all of the things that god has done what is the future in conway's mind like cast a little vision what does conway want to do where's the desire to go forward all right so they're they're that's a multi-layered question so if you're talking about your church that's one if you're talking about uh uh the big c church so let me talk about both of them real quick to talk about the big c church my desire really is to see church leaders get better at leading the people and especially in the african-american community i it is just my dream my prayer the thing that i go to my closet over is to see african-american leaders lead their churches in healthier ways and to see african-american leaders lead larger churches but jay if they're going to lead a lot of churches then they're going to have to have good relationships with other pastors because you can't do it by yourself that's right so it is helping pastors realize how much they need other people here we go now and helping them see that what grows a church is not preaching what grows a church is leadership and if you're going to grow your church you've got to be good at character you know all the five c's chemistry cadence you've got to be good at making sure you have good chemistry with everybody else and so on and so forth right and then on the orchard side what the or desire is um when we first started we just thought god called us to the north side of texas and just to just dominate and saturate in the north side with the gospel of jesus christ now um because of covid a whole or entire strategy has changed and so now we're trying to figure out what does it look like to be a global church not just a national church but a global church and how do you strategically reach some of the larger populations for example how do you reach india that's english the largest english-speaking country in the world how do you reach indians with the gospel of jesus christ then how do you reach africa with the gospel of jesus christ and all we're trying to figure out now is how do we do that in such a way that we create this thing called occ global and what does that look like not just to reach um jerusalem and samara but literally the uttermost part of the world and that my friend is a daunting task and a scary task but that's why you love leadership right you love the challenges ahead of you and asking god to give you the right people to come alongside you to pull this off for his glory so on one side it's occ global on the other side is how do we coach enough predominantly african-american leaders to transition their church into diverse churches and coach them into building larger ministries and you can only do that if you've got great people around you man that is awesome that is awesome and i know with the vision that you have it may be uh terrifying but we know who god is and you know we believe that he can do it uh through you and he's already shown himself you know we get fearful of stuff that he's already done so we just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and uh so i hope that was an encouragement to everybody watching here uh conway's ministry we love you brother we thank you for just sharing with us and uh we're gonna keep going next we have christopher and so we're gonna keep going and so we bless you and bless your family we're praying for you and your church and we're going to go from here thank you guys for joining us thank you [Music] so excited to be with you here at the kingdom leaders summit and it's exciting to be a part of this event it was exciting to be a part of the last session conway edwards is a great friend of our families he's been a great friend of our ministry over the long haul we're friends with his wife jada too and so it was really great to hear him share this is an opportunity for all of us to grow as kingdom leaders because at the end of the day it's all about the kingdom of god and it's all about leading other people towards jesus towards the word towards how god wants to develop us and disciple us in our lives that's why we're so grateful for the tony evans training center where apart from events like this people can in the in the comfort of their own homes go to class take notes learn and grow and another opportunity for us to do that uh is to allow you to grow because it's about the legacy of building god's kingdom it's about the legacy that we have as disciples of jesus as we disciple other people to spread the word of the gospel far and wide and one of the resources that we want to share with you is this resource you may have heard of it it is this big old thick book called theology you can count on and my dad is known for and has been known for some time of taking very difficult spiritual concepts and making them easy to understand and if you as you seek to build your legacy in in the lord as a leader if you need a resource this is a great one to grab it's 50 percent off right now and you can take a snapshot of the qr code that's on the screen or go to the link below so that you can put this resource in your library as you build legacy for the lord jesus christ in your ministry we are excited about the opportunity to grow with our minds that's what studying the word of god to show yourself approved is all about but it's not just about a mental understanding a mental belief a mental journey it is a heart journey it's a relational journey and one of the biggest ways that we can engage in relationship with god is through prayer and this would not be an event about leadership this would not be an event about legacy if we didn't actually make time to connect with god in prayer so excited about this next part of our session it's the prayer experience let's pray together morning everyone my sister crystal was right when she talked about the importance of prayer and how important it is and we need it right now i don't know if you know it or not and i'm sure you do that we need prayer we need prayer in our ministries we need prayer for our family we need prayer and the things that are going on with the chaos and the multiple pandemics that we're experiencing i know in our family we needed a lot of prayer and still do with all of the trials and tribulations that have been coming our way and so that's what we want to do right now we want to take the opportunity to just be still and pray take the opportunity to just talk to the lord and give him time to talk back to us and we don't want to just say that we believe prayer works without working in prayer we want to give god everything we have during this time before we move on to say lord we want to hear from you because we actually need you and i just want to go over three categories of prayer starting first with our ministries we know right now we're in a difficult season right now we're in a season where things are changing uh finances have changed our membership has been scattered locally with the pandemic that we've been experiencing there's all of these different things that ministries are experiencing and and trials that they're going through but the church needs to hold strong jesus said in matthew 16 he said i will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it that means the opponent of hell is the church and we want the church to be strong we want your church to be strong and so we want to pray about that right now so i want to give you a moment and i'll close i want to give you a moment to just say a prayer for your ministry and the ministry the global church of jesus christ right now that god will continue to gird it up strong and god's people will understand the importance of assembling together and going ye therefore and making disciples with the calling that we have let's take a moment right now just with you by yourself or with your family or with uh your church leaders or your staff let's take a moment right now to seek the lord in prayer for our church ministries heavenly father we love you and we thank you we give you the glory lord we know lord that you're going to walk through the church so we pray now with all of the hardships lord that we would heavenly father lord i just lift up right now our church all the church ministries out there all of the pastors all of the the deacons all of the the congregants lord all of the people who are part of the local bodies all over not even just this country but all over the world we know that you said you will work through the church house before you ever fix the white house we know that things are going to change because you have decided to use the church as your conduit to make that change so we pray lord that you would intervene help us to be flexible help us to see help us to grow help us to learn so that we can achieve everything that you have for the body of christ it is not about our local ministry it is about our local ministry advancing your kingdom help us to never lose sight of that help us to not be uh concerned about being the salt in the shaker but the salt that leaves the shaker so we can actually preserve the meat of the culture lord and maybe you've allowed all of these things to happen in our churches so that the salt would leave the shaker so that we would be pushed out of our comfort zone so that we can move forward lord on your team and not in opposition even if it's opposition subconsciously we want to be the church that you've called us to be and right now you've called us to be decentralized to take your centralized truth your word but do it in a decentralized way go ye therefore make disciples lord was something you have called us to do and in order to do it we have to go and be aggressive about it bless our ministries not so that we can be blessed only but so that we can use that blessing to go be a blessing for you we love you and we honor you today in jesus name amen listen our churches god is looking at our churches and we're looking at him and he's looking at us and he's saying i'm going to work through the church to do what i'm going to do in the culture and so a lot of times we think we're waiting on god and god is saying uh i'm waiting on you i need you to see that i'm doing a new thing he says in the book of isaiah can you tell when i'm doing a new thing and we have to be flexible for what god is doing but i also want to take some time in our our prayer moment today just to seek the lord for our marriages to seek the lord for our families listen god established marriage and family way back when in genesis chapter 2 when he said the man and the woman shall become one flesh and what the lord has brought together let no man separate we have an attack on our families we have a 50 divorce rate not just in the culture but also in the church where our families are being split children are being wounded and not being able to make a comeback from that setback and my dad always told me the saga of a nation is only the saga of its families written large and so we have to really take time to seek the lord for our families if you're struggling in your family or you have wayward children or you're struggling in your marriage that's what this time is for so we want you to pray i'm going to pray for you but i want you to take the time to pray for yourself your family your children and maybe some others in the sphere of your influence who you know may be struggling a little bit let us let's seek the lord for our families because that is a covenant that god multiplies himself through and he multiplies his image through our family so let's pray i want to give you a moment let's pray for our families and the strength of those families right now heavenly father lord continuing in prayer lord we pray for the marriages and the families help us to not lose sight through the trials and struggles that we have in our family i know we've had a lot of trials and struggles in our family but we've decided to hold strong and continue to press forward to take hold of the upward call of god in christ jesus help these families to think bigger than the issues no matter how big they are help the wayward children that have gone left to turn right and go from the world back to the word help all of us in our marriages to recognize what the word tells us to do not simply what our history and our experiences tell us to do and especially what the culture tells us to do help us to not feel comfortable in things that your word is not comfortable with help us lord to submit ourselves to you help husbands to love their wives like christ loved the church help wives to respect their husbands in everything not because we feel it but because we faith it and help us to also recognize what the enemy is trying to do against our families help us to see it because our fight is not against flesh and blood we love you lord we pray that you take care of our families that you that you heal broken hearts that you provide the discipline for us to recognize your word as it relates to forgiveness lord so that we can move forward and be that conduit that you want to work through we love you and we honor you today bless us again so that we can bless you in jesus name amen i want to close our prayer time just have an opportunity to pray for our leaders to have an opportunity to pray for you guys to pray for all of the leaders out there who are leading the way in this tumultuous season where it's been been difficult and hard for god's people during this time to lead to be innovators in this new time to push forward in the new things that god is calling us to do and we know leadership is hard we know leadership is a strain we know leadership takes a lot of time we know leadership is hard to balance and so we want to take that time to pray for you but we also want you to think about praying for another leader praying for another leader we are not in competition we're all on the same team and so i want you to take time to pray for your leadership and the leadership of your team but also want you to take a moment to choose another leader that you can pray for maybe unity working together so we want to take time to pray for our leadership and we want to do that right now let's pray together heavenly father lord we come to you again just thanking you for the opportunity that we have to come to you that we have reconciliation that has been given to us through the work the death and sacrifice of christ jesus your word says in mark 11 lord that if we pray believing that we will receive and we recognize what matthew 21 31 says lord that this is the house of prayer and we are praying fervently for our leaders for all of the leaders that you've put in place to to to to shepherd your flock and to carry out your plan and to give vision we pray that they would run and not grow weary we know this is a time of hurt harm and sacrifice that has been coming to leadership it's been coming to the church the enemy has been attacking but lord we pray that we do not grow weary of doing good and the reason why you have that verse in galatians is because it's easy to grow weary in these times from doing good but we pray lord that you will gird us up that we will mount up with wings like eagles that we will run and not grow weary and we'll be able to recognize and see the new vision and the new things and the new ways that you want to accomplish through your people and especially your leaders thank you for giving us this time help us to look for you to see you as we continue to search for you with all of our hearts we give you the glory in jesus name amen thank you for taking the opportunity to spend some time in prayer with the lord and i want you to be have confidence because we prayed according to his will so keep your eyes open because he's going to show you a new thing and now i'm excited because my dad is going to keep us going from here is he's going to open us up with a great message so get attentive get your ears perked up because it's time to go into god's work well i want to thank my youngest child jonathan evans for leading us through that prayer experience well i've got some nah bad news the church of jesus christ is now the visiting team when a football team goes and plays against another team on their home field they go at a deficit because the crowd is not on their side when they're playing at home that means the crowd is with them when they're praying away that means the crowd and the other team is against them there was a time in our culture when the church of jesus christ had home field advantage where the culture supported a judeo-christian ethic and world view there was a time when the schools and the politicians and even though it wasn't perfect the christian worldview was at least respected churches were valued and not marginalized this is not the case today we're in a post-modern era where god jesus christ and the bible sit on the sidelines and so does his church because we're being booed by the culture no longer is it accepted that the bible should be consulted as a standard by which decisions are to be made on the definition of life and family and even how a nation is to function we are the visiting team now a visiting team is still expected to win they don't they don't succumb to the reality of being in enemy territory but when the team decides it's going to acquiesce to the environment that it is in it can expect to lose we're living in a time when the church of jesus christ is losing and we're losing on all fronts i was sent a few days ago something where a congressperson from from florida congressman from new york quoted me on the issue of morality and on the issue of the definition of humanity is male and female and they quoted me and said that in their presentation in that congressional meeting when he finished the head of the meeting in congress stood up and said there is no place for god's will in this chamber that that hit me as another illustration of the marginalization of god and god's way and god's will in our secular society now the problem with all of this is that the church of jesus christ has been a co-conspirator in the demise of the culture we have made it easy for the society to reject our worldview to reject the bible the god and the church institution because we have failed to be what god has called us to be which has opened up the opportunity for the systems of this world order to become the home field advantage for them and make us the visiting team that drew my attention to ezekiel 37. now if you're familiar with your bibles at all you know about ezekiel 37 the valley of dry bones israel was the visiting team in babylon because of their failure to give god the worship that he deserved because of their compromise with idolatry god allowed the babylonians to become the home team and they found themselves incarcerated in a culture that rejected them and that rejected their god we find in ezekiel 37 that the spirit of the lord leads the prophet to a valley now valley is a low place it's between two hills or two mountains and it's very low and it was full of bones it was jam-packed we're told that these bones in verse two were very dry what do we mean by drive verse 11 tells us it says our bones are dried up and our hope has perished and we are completely cut off you know what dry bones means a hopeless situation and the more i go around the more i listen to ministers and ministries i hear hopelessness what are we going to do with the world going left like it is infiltrating all of our institutions what are we going to do because we are disconnected ourselves and how can a disconnected church make a difference in a disconnected culture he says we are in a desperate situation and if you haven't looked closely these days it ought to be inextricably clear these are desperate times requiring desperate measures we're in a time when people have stopped going to church people have stopped respecting the church people have marginalized the church and they want god for invocations and benedictions as long as he stays out of the meat in the middle they don't want his decisions they just want to pay respectful homage to him and even that has gotten on shaky grounds the valley of dry bones was referring to god's people in a secular society the new testament equal to that is the church just as israel was god's kingdom people in the old covenant the old testament the church of jesus christ represents god's presence in the new testament just as israel was expected to be a light to the nations god expects believers the church to be a light to a broken world so if the light is not on then the world is going to live in darkness so we can't complain about how dark the world is when there's no light in the sanctuary when the church of jesus christ is full of dry bones he speaks to this issue through the prophet through the prophet who raises a statement that ought to blow your mind god says to him in verse three son of man can these bones live is it too late are we too disconnected too broken for too long is it possible that this desperate situation in the church which has facilitated a pagan culture can these bones live again and the prophet gives an answer he says oh lord god you know translation i don't have a slightest idea this stuff looks so bad for so long that i don't think it's reversible unless you do something supernatural unless you come down in this hot mess we're in and turn this thing around i don't see it only you can answer that question because when i look out the prophet says only you know cause i don't know i don't see an answer to this mess apart from a miracle and so that's the situation he was in that's the situation we are in you've heard me say it before let me say it again god will not skip the church house to fix the white house ephesians 3 10 says that god checks with the church before he deals with the principalities and powers ephesians chapter 1 verses 22 and 23 all things have been handed over to christ but christ has only been handed over to the church and the church is to infiltrate all things on behalf of christ so the failure in our schools the failure in our government the failure in our families affair in our communities can be tied to the faith of the church the failing race relations the failure in class relations the failure and cultural relations the failure in political relations can be tied to the church we've been more racial than biblical we've been more cultural than biblical we've been more secular than biblical while calling on the name of jesus and until we understand that we are the valley of dry bones don't expect babylon to get much better only the church the church is the final firewall for the preservation of any semblance of an orderly society and if that firewall breaks down there is no hope left if the dry bones stay dry then all hope is gone now i haven't given you some bad news and i know you see it in the news you see it in your communities you see it because the churches are being attacked even by its own members who don't want to hear from god and sometimes even that is promoted by the leaders he's given instruction in a desperate situation again he said to me prophesy over these bones and say to them oh dry bones hear the word of the lord he says i want you to talk to the bones yep the dry ones the ones in the low place and didn't have any hope and he couldn't see any any turnaround he says i want you to prophesy now for all you preachers and teachers and spiritual leaders when he says prophesy he's saying more than teach the bible to prophesy to give a prophetic word was to take god's truth and apply it to a specific situation prophets didn't come with vague verses they came with specific relevant rhema word to specific relevant people in a specific relevant time who are facing a specific relevant scenarios so this is not just general bible teaching now there is a place for people to learn the bible that's a good thing but a prophetic word comes usually in the bible in a desperate situation it comes in a situation where stuff is on collapse okay so god will send a prophet with a prophetic word that's why the new testament says despise not prophecy don't reject a prophetic word that may come through preaching it may come through teaching but it's not a general it's not a general word it's a definitive word for desperate times he says speak to the bones now these bones in disarray don't have skin muscles not intact uh they disunified they scattered all over the place it was a bad situation he says but i want you to talk to him and i want you to tell the bones he says the word of the lord not human opinion see we've got cultural christians racial christians political christians what we need are some kingdom biblical christians okay some christians who take the word of god not like it's the word of man with a little god sprinkled on it the bible is the voice of god in print it is not one word to be put alongside of all words the bible says let god be true and every man a liar that means whoever disagrees with god is wrong no matter how much you like them okay no matter how much you appreciate them go ahead and like them and appreciate them but they wrong when they disagree with the word of the lord so you prophesy my words to the dry bones don't give them political strategy don't give them social strategy don't give them uh of various theories you tell them what i said but relevantly based on my word to their broken dry dead non-productive situation so he says prophesy to these dry bones he comes and then he says when you do that i will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life he gives a promise he says i know you don't know how to fix this problem but i know how to breathe life into a lifeless situation i know how to resurrect stuff that looks like it's died i know how to bring hope to a hopeless situation we desperately need the dry bones of the church to become alive again vibrant again potent again a non-compromising church full of love and full of compassion but equally full of clarity today we live in a day when too many churches are giving an uncertain sound where they're trying to mimic the culture but sprinkle enough of god on it so it looks and sounds and feels legitimate that's not what we need we need a prophetic word today a definitive word a non-compromising word and so he says if you want life you better speak my word to this difficult situation because god checks with the church first so when he does that he says i looked after i proclaimed god's word i looked and see news were on them and flesh grew and the skin covered them he says i saw something happening when i proclaimed the prophetic word there was a movement taking place muscles coming together bones coming together skin i saw some shifting occurred when the prophetic word was being proclaimed but there was still a problem because according to verse 7 and excuse me according to verse 8 there was no breath in them in other words like franklin frankenstein frankenstein was anatomically correct but until he got a a jolt of lightning it had no life the parts were there but it still had no life so you can have structure and still no impact you can set up your programs you can set up your staff and you can be structurally anatomically impeccable but still dry dead hopeless helpless and non-impactful but your structure is in place because you've heard and and listened to the word of god that's not enough and this is where we get a curveball it's a big curveball but it's a critical curveball look at what he says in verse 9. then he said to me the lord said to him prophesy to the breath prophesy son of man and say to the breath thus says the lord god come from the four winds o breath and breathe on the slain that they come to life he says prophesy to the breath wait a minute he had said earlier prophesied to the bones and why were the bones in the valley because they have been whipped it says to these who are slain they've been beaten into submission by the new home team guess what the church has been slain we've been beaten into submission by the culture the culture has said we don't buy what you say we don't apprec we don't value what you think we don't care what your god says what your bible says or we don't care what you say and we going whip you we gonna run over you and we gonna leave you out there as a dead church full of dry bones it says they were slain we've been whipped now we've been talking a good game we've been talking about the power of god the sufficiency of god we've been talking about you know you saw how you can't get over so low you can't get under so why you can't get ready that's talking a good game but it says they were slain they were whipped we've been whipped in our schools we've been whipped in our neighborhoods we've been whipped in our politics we've been whipped full of dry bones but now they got some skin on because they didn't heard some prophecy heard some words but he says listen to this prophesy to the breath now the breath is the holy spirit from the four winds that's the complete earth the holy spirit hovered over the earth in creation and brought order out of the chaotic environment so that order took place where the water was mixed with the land and and uh uh where where things were not shaped properly it says the spirit of god came over it and brought harmony in the middle of it that's what we got here he says prophesied to the breath so watch this preaching the word is not enough he told him to prophesy the word of the lord and he prophesied the word of the lord now it was foundational it was critical it was substantive it was meaningful but it was insufficient he says until you prophesied to the breath there will be no life let me put it another way until the holy spirit is engaged with the word the word will not produce the life that the word has been set up to produce we need preachers and teachers spiritual leaders if you will who are tenaciously committed to the inherent word of god we need people who are not ashamed to say thus saith the lord with love and compassion and clarity to the dry bones but we also need preachers and teachers and spiritual leaders who prophesy to the spirit that is who bring the holy spirit's presence alongside of the word because it's the spirit the scripture says that gives life the bible is a living book but the holy spirit activates the book to produce the life in the dry bones of the church that's been overrun by the secularism of the culture so he says prophesy to the breath in other words the word of god i told you to speak to the people take that same word and speak it to the spirit connect you know the bible calls the holy spirit the spirit of truth did you know the word it's the word and spirit and they must operate together if you have the word without the spirit you have truth without life if you have the spirit without the word then you don't have the information necessary for the spirit to work to give life it must be the spirit so look at this he says prophesy to the bones that's the people who are slain but then prophesy to the spirit prophesy in the valley that's earth prophesy up in the up in heaven because that's the spirit of god the spirit of truth when brought alongside the word of god begins to transfer bones in the valley that look like they could never be transformed information you know jesus says in john chapter 5 he says you search the scriptures because in them you think you have eternal life but you don't come to me in other words you're doing bible study and you're doing preaching and you're teaching your sunday school class in your small group but you don't have the relationship that's needed for the bible to come alive and to produce life that's why even in bible teaching churches we aren't seeing people change they're hearing the word they're amending the word they're agreeing with the word so they got some skin on they got some muscles but they still don't have life because things aren't changing and the way you know you're growing is you're changing that is you're being more conformed to jesus christ we'll talk about that in our next session but what he says is that i want you to prophesy to the spirit when you go to a restaurant you go there to eat they give you a written menu that menu gives all that's available to you from that particular establishment sometimes you can salivate over the menu i mean the stuff looks good that looks good this looks good that looks good because you're excited about the menu then comes a waiter or waitress and what do they do they explain the menu to you they will even say do you have any questions so they interact with what you read so you read it and then they proclaim it the way to a waitress they tell you about it they explain it but i bet after you've read it after they've explained it i bet you don't get up and leave because that's not why you came you didn't come to read a menu or just to have somebody preach it to you you came to eat in other words you came to experience what the men you talked about we got a lot of christians who go to church to eat but are satisfied with reading the menu and hearing from the waiter behind the pulpit rather than engaging with the holy spirit in the old testament god the father was a superstar and jesus and the holy spirit are mentioned in the gospel jesus is the superstar and the holy spirit and the father are mentioned in the church age the holy spirit is the superstar because jesus says i'm leaving but i'm going to send you the spirit and when you get the spirit you'll get life and you'll get power and he will glorify me unless there is through worship prayer and spiritual engagement with the holy spirit the prophetic word won't be enough now it is foundational it is critical it is necessary but it won't be sufficient to bring life to a lifeless church throughout the bible god waits on his people before he moves you'll see this over and over again he doesn't just tell you what he's going to do he tells you what i want you to do prior to me doing what i said i'm going to do why because he wants to see faith he wants to see that you take him at his word he wants to see you lead the way to demonstrate you have confidence in god we are a dry church in a hopeless situation surrounded by a decaying culture but if the prophetic word and our relationship with the holy spirit is ever activated when we don't just show up for bible study but we're there for worship we're there to engage god in the process something will happen and so he says as i prophesied as he commanded me verse 10 and the breath came into them and they came to life and stood on their feet an exceedingly great army it's time to stand on your feet it's time for pastors to stand on their feet it's time for deacons and elders and deaconesses to stand on their feet it's time for congregations to stand on their feet it's time to get up because we we we land we we we laying down as a valley of dry bones talking a good game but seeing no impact because we're being controlled by babylon now because that's exactly where we're living in an idolatrous secular culture because of the idolatry of the church but when the spirit of god engaged them it was an awesome army i like that it wasn't just an army it was a show enough army it was a he says it was a great and awesome army now what do wamis do last time i checked they fight last time i checked they protect last time i checked they helped things to be governed properly our fight is gone we've acquiesced to the culture we're like a team that's uh on foreign soil on enemy territory laying down so the enemy team can just run up and down the field at will you've seen games like that where the other team is just giving up we like that army we we're driving we we we've thrown in the towel and i know we've thrown in the towel because we've acquiesced to the culture you see preachers changing their sermons changing the biblical view you see them acquiescing to popular opinion rather than standing lovingly compassionately but clearly on the revealed word of god and as a result we've got pastors in the valley pastoring people in the valley and everybody drive from the pulpit to the pew and from the pool pew back to the pulpit again we need is a great army and a great army is driven by a prophetic word based on the written word but it is a relevant word consistent with the biblical word but engages the holy spirit i had a problem in my home where the igniter in my um in my heater went out so i was cold the heat wasn't coming in the house i thought i needed me a new unit so i called the heating and air conditioning guy over he looked at it he said no no you don't need a new unit your igniter is not working that's a little teeny piece but it sends the message for the pilot to light so the fire could come on so that the heat could blow but because the igniter wasn't connecting all of the parts weren't working although they were there the prophetic word puts the parts together the holy spirit called the igniter lets the pilot come on so the fire is lit that's why one of the names for the holy spirit is fire because he's the igniter he he brings life to a difficult situation so when the word and the spirit comes together something happened so look at what happens verse 11. then he said to me son of man these bones are the whole house of israel behold they say our bones are dried up our hope is perished we are completely cut off therefore prophesy and say to them thus saith the lord god behold i will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves my people and i will bring you into the land of israel then you will know that i am the lord when i have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves my people i will put my spirit within you and you will come to life and i will place you on your own land then you will know that i am the lord who has spoken and done it declares the lord so watch this god has let us dry up god has let stuff get worse i call this the passive wrath of god when he let stuff get worse it's worse one pandemic on top of another pandemic that another pandemic and then a variant of them pandemic and just one thing on top of another and god let it happen to show us how weak we are independent of him he let it happen and he let it get so bad that we were without hope don't have any answers and then he says if you will do it my way based on the prophetic word and engaging the holy spirit through worship prayer fasting he says i'm going to open the grave because you know the bones become just bones in the grave i will open the grave and i will give you life and then he says and then you will know that i the lord have done this so let me tell you how god does this he lets things get so bad that only he can fix it he'll let things get so desperate that only he can change it but he will only do that on his terms so that's what we're committed to we're committed to the unadulterated uncompromising said in a loving and compassionate way but we are committed to the word of god but not as an end in itself because we need the spirit of god to activate it and set it on fire in the hearts of spiritual leaders first and then through them to the people that they serve now i hope that this is your commitment i hope that this is your desire and this is what this conference is all about trying to encourage strengthen and ignite you in your service to a different level of passion fire desire goal not to the culture but through the christ not to the stands where they're booing and cheering no but to the kingdom of god based on his word when i was growing up in baltimore maryland we had duck pin bowling now for those of you because that doesn't that's not around much anymore duck pin bowling was a small bowling ball that you used not the big one where you put your fingers in it and you rolled it and knocked down the pins back then the technology was very weak wasn't anything impressive so when the when the entity came down to pick up the pins it often would leave pins behind it wouldn't get them all because it was antiquated system in the middle of that you would regularly see the foot steps of a person behind the lanes going up and down to pick up pins that had been knocked over and set them up straight again because the equipment just didn't didn't get the job done now you never saw this guy's face he only saw his feet but his job he only had one job setting up pins that had been knocked over well the church has been knocked over it's been knocked over by the bowling ball of the culture that's decimated our impact and influence while we carry on with programs but there is an unseen person who knows how to move from lane to lane life to life family to family church to church and set up pens that have been knocked over we don't see his face but we can see his work when the pen starts standing up again showing life the world is waiting on the church and don't even know it god is waiting on the church and he tells us he's ready to set us up straight again from being knocked over in our valley of dry bones if he can ever find a church a group of churches that's why we're initiating through the urban alternative our three-point plan to call churches together in every community to get the dry bones working again so that the life of god can be seen publicly because this is not a day for secret aging christians in every community led by the church because they don't know that their last hope is the church if we're going to save the culture if christ be not come i hope you will recommit yourself to the prophetic word to the engagement of the holy spirit so that we can see the transformation and revitalization and impact in a culture that is under judgment because the dry bones are still located in the valley may we start that renewal and revival now let's pray and let's ask god to lead us in that direction father i thank you so much for your word which reveals to us what's wrong forgive me and forgive us for where we have allowed the culture and its idolatry to define our belief system and where we have lacked the the guts to lovingly and compassionately but with clarity bring truth to a decaying society we love you and we need you and i invite your spirit through your word to activate your truth to your people and then through your people to a world in desperate need we ask this in jesus name amen okay dr evans thank you so much for that amazing message pastors i hope you all are being blessed like i am this is an amazing time for leaders just to be blessed and receive the word of god from dr tony evans i now want to share with you this amazing opportunity to share in this ministry to support the urban alternative dr evans has been blessing us for years pouring into pastors and this is our opportunity to make sure that we support this ministry i want to share just how important this ministry has been to me personally the things that i have been able to glean from being a son of dr tony evans in the ministry of oakland bible fellowship church and the urban alternative as i have shared with you i pastor here locally in dallas and as a launch to my ministry being a part of the k.a.p pastors has really pole vaulted my ministry with the resources that i've been receiving being a part of the sessions i also use these sessions to bless my associate pastors my worship leaders i know how much this ministry means to me and i can only imagine that if you continue to receive these resources how much it will be a blessing to your ministry and to all of your leaders let's take this opportunity just to share and to give and also the benefits that you will receive from being able to be a giver to this ministry i want to let you know that a gift of any amount during this time these are the resources that you receive a gift of any amount first from the kingdom agendas pastors library a gift of any amount will give you our witness to the world and the centrality of the church you will also receive kingdom leaders logo notebook for a gift of 75 or more you will also receive those gifts but in addition to that we will also bless you with the tony evans bible commentary in the tony evans book of illustrations i want to encourage you again please give and give with a generous heart god tells us in the word of god to give hilariously and let's do that to be able to bless this ministry now don't forget that you have an opportunity to join us for breakout sessions later on today we look forward to seeing you in our second session god bless you real good we look forward to seeing you again [Music] god is not going to bless a country or culture that comes up with his own rules and ask him to bless it we need more than a protest we need a plan tony has that plan for community transformation through his unique kingdom strategy while many of us are waiting on god to fix what's wrong he is waiting on us to step up as men and women of faith and do what's right [Music] this three-part plan gives us a path for change that we can all create a symbol a and act when we assemble as a unified sacred gathering we develop a heart that cares for others because we're all created in the image of god god has spoken about all these subjects in crisis but what we do unfortunately is pick and choose what we obey we have failed to follow the whole council of god by coming together we can address our congregations and community with a unified compassionate voice and continue to learn and grow through the power of authentic discussion [Music] [Music] once we have laid this foundation we can act in such ways that bring about a unified social impact it's time to take a stand not only in what we say but also in what we do it's time for action it's a defining moment for us as citizens to decide whether we want to be one nation under god or a divided nation apart from god and if we don't answer that question right and if we don't answer it quickly we won't be much of a nation at all here's what people don't know about a pastor's to-do list it can give you a thumb cramp she just knows i'm her ride to practice and i'm gonna be a while or maybe not [Applause] [Music] time to plan that ephesians series nice [Music] whoops easter sunday better pause the series maybe i'll use some of that sermon i preached at the conference [Music] score i know what you're thinking you're a pastor you only work on sundays [Music] emergencies don't stick to a schedule when i get a call for help i'm prepared with biblical guidance [Music] time to write that sermon let's do this i need the facts i need the big picture i need the details and i need them all in one place because when it's time to preach you gotta be clear [Music] so sure i stay busy but i always focus on what matters this is the tony evans training center an online platform of courses featuring compelling video and audio teaching by dr tony evans each course follows a scripture based curriculum that you'll find to be timely and challenging course topics range from exegetical deep dives and book studies to building a family with a kingdom mindset choose the content that's right for you on your terms and engage in valuable discussions with other students via the community dashboard this course is for your implementation through your life is busy but bible study is still possible [Music] the tony evans training center explore the kingdom anytime anywhere

Channel: Tony Evans

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Length: 88min 41sec (5321 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 29 2021