Unity and the Kingdom-minded Church | Dr. Tony Evans

good afternoon let me begin by expressing our deep appreciation and gratitude in being invited to Grand Rapids the coldest city in the world Alaska has nothing on you but I am indeed very grateful for the relationship that God has given us here especially with Pastor Moody but with a number of others who have seen and other opportunities that we've been here I am here with our executive director of our national ministry in the urban alternatives Jonathan Pitts and we are we are honored to be here there are a lot of invitations because of radio television books internet come all the time and so you have to make choices about you know where where to go and one of the criterias that's that's very high on the list of those that we can consider with the a lot of time that we have is when churches are seeking to come together to reflect the kingdom of God in a particular locale that that moves that invitation to - to the top or near the top of the list of considerations because that is my my burden my vision at 64 years old knowing that the majority of the years are behind me and much fewer in front of me do you want to hit home runs and maximize you know the innings at the plate you have left and my desire to do that is is tied to the purpose for our gathering today and the vision that you have for your community in your city and so I am extremely great grateful for this opportunity to be with you today tomorrow and again on tomorrow morning to just share what I believe is the mind and heart of God and and so be supportive of the vision of one church one city here in the Grand Rapids community and so I'm deeply grateful pastor moody called and asked if I believed in free speech I said yes he said come give one so I'm very grateful for this opportunity you all familiar with the Nursery Rhyme Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall and Humpty Dumpty had a great fall and all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again a nursery rhyme is the saga of a man named mr. Dumpty and mr. Dumpty had reached the precipice of a wall and as he observed the world around him something cataclysmic Lee went wrong something something hit him with a knockout blow and it sent him tumbling off of his precipice and he came crashing to the ground broken into a myriad of different pieces and he he needed to be fixed he needed to be glued back together he needed some help because it was evident that mr. Dumpty was unable were unwilling or both to resolve his fractured reality what's interesting about the nursery rhyme is when mr. Dumpty went to get his problem resolved he didn't go to his family he didn't go to his neighbor's he didn't go to the church mr. Dumpty went to the White House now we know that mr. Dumpty went to the White House because the King got involved not only did the King get involved but I'm sure the king was emotionally moved to resolve mr. Dumpty's problem to such an extent that he called a meeting of Congress we know Congress got involved because all the king's men got involved so there's this congressional gathering at the behest of the King to pass a fix mr. Dumpty law and to provide the necessary funding and programmatic support systems for mr. Dumpty to be healed for his fractured reality to be reversed but the tragedy of the nursery rhyme is that all the king's horses and all the king's men could not put Humpty Dumpty back together again that all the intellect economic resources programmatic thrust failed in their efforts to fix this fracture when in 1965 Lyndon Baines Johnson initiated his war on poverty well-motivated desire to to repair the fracture of communities of mr. Dumpty's all over this nation all the king's horses and all the king's men gathered well intentioned to put mr. Dumpty back together again dollars by the trillions were are and are still invested to fix the plight of the underclass in our nation programs galore only to discover that seventy percent of every dollar went to administer the other 30% as bureaucracy ballooned and poverty increased and infrastructures failed and that's well-intentioned there's all the king's horses and all the king's men were to put Humpty Dumpty back together again today right now when we look out mr. Dumpty is still living out a fraction reality whether it's economic poverty poverty of family where you have a mass of people who are growing up without the god-ordained definition of a family and we're living in the day of the redefinition of the family but at my core at my the warp and woof of where I live I am fundamentally an ecclesiology ecclesiology of course is the biblical excuse me biblical doctrine of the church and as my brother so well articulated a moment ago in Ephesians 3:10 it insists that God's work when it comes to him overruling powers is tied to the church 2nd chronicles chapter 15 verses 3 through 6 says this in those days there was no true God no teaching priest and no law and so it says there was no peace to him who came in or to him who went out high crime it says city rose up a gang City urban conflict then it says nation rose up against nation international conflict and then it says for God troubled them with every kind of distress now if God is your problem it doesn't matter who you elect and God is your problem it doesn't matter what programs you initiate or how well-funded they are if God is your problem then only God is your solution if he's your problem so merely unless there is access to him and to how he wants this thing fixed if he does not return if Jesus Christ comes back tomorrow then we don't have to worry about any of this if he doesn't come back for another two hundred years you better worry about all of this because it's your children and your grandchildren and your great grandchildren that are going to grow up in some kind of world it says there was no true God he didn't say people weren't going to temple they weren't being religious it just wasn't real it says that was because there was failure in the pulpit no teaching priest because the preachers had failed in the pulpit the knowledge of the true God was lost in the culture and then it says there was no law so God's rules no longer ruled and people made up their own rules and so society was in chaos the issue that you face in Grand Rapids or our faith in Dallas or you picked the urban center you want to its spiritual and Theological in nature it reflects itself sociologically economically psychologically it has all kinds of offshoots in terms of its fruit but it only has one root and that is the spiritual breakdown within the culture that has been sustained by the church so as hard as and as harsh as this sounds the primary reason for the breakdown the regression and the chaos in America today and every city that makes it up has been a failed church because the church of jesus christ has abysmally failed to be what its had created and designed it to be and become mr. Dumpty is depending on government and government is unable to fix what God brings about so at the core of what we do what I do seek the model in Dallas but communicate across the nation is to define the church ecclesia logically and to apply it to the different realms that it must speak and one of the realms in which it must speak is the realm of race I know numbers of you have read the book oneness embraced and that was a very draining book to write to speak as with clarity or attempt to speak with clarity to the reality of race to speak honestly and forthrightly to make sure it would be theologically astute and accurate valid dateable and verifiable and yet to speak relevantly to solutions rather than just regurgitate problems one chapter in that book is a chapter called the Kingdom minded Church what I would like to do is review some of the mountain peaks of that chapter theologically on Friday tomorrow morning speak more programmatically that way you always start with theology because you always want to start with God but you never stop with orthodoxy short of orthopraxy so that you do not just speak in the clouds no matter how true it is without your feet ever touching the ground Jesus is in the clouds because he's seated on the right hand side of the Father his body touches the ground and Ephesians 1:22 and 23 says and the church is his body I'm a avid football fan and been the chaplain of the Dallas Cowboys my son played in the NFL for a while and at Super Bowl 43 Santonio Holmes caught a touchdown pass for the Pittsburgh Steelers to win there was only a a minute and twenty seconds left on the clock Ben Roethlisberger went back and threw it to Santonio Holmes at the corner of the endzone with the clock running down said Antonio Hollins reached high and caught the pass but he touched two feet in bounds if he would have only done one of those two it would have been an incomplete pass if he hadn't reached high and caught it but if his feet weren't touching the ground and balanced it would have been incomplete but if his feet were touching ground and bounds but he dropped the pass it would have been incomplete because he had to do two things at one time he had to reach high and touch low he had to go skyward to catch the ball without leaving the planet churches often operate the two extremes one extreme is to be so heavenly minded there no earthly good to speak in great theological Serendipity's that have absolutely no relationship to the nasty here and now but it sounds good to talk about the sweet buying back the other extreme is to speak earthly socially politically economically and touch the ground without reaching up to the sky to be secular in your approach as though there were no God or were no true God and heaven and earth though don't meet each other in Jesus Christ heaven and earth meet he's called the god man he's fully God and fully man in one person unmixed forever it's called the hypostatic union where heaven and earth meet so he can be thirsty and walk on water he can be hungry and feed 5,000 he can die and get up from the grave because he reaches high and touches low and he does both simultaneously in the two key verses on the church found in Ephesians chapter 6 excuse me Matthew chapter 16 verses 18 and 19 I will build my church the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it I will give you the keys to the kingdom whatsoever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatsoever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven the reason I call that the two key verses is because of a hermeneutical law called the law of first mention the law of first mentioned simply says when you understand want to understand a biblical concept or truth look at the time its first mentioned the reason we believe marriages between Adam and Eve and not Adam and Steve as the law of first mentioned he made them male and female and since God never changed the definition we don't get to make up one the law first mentioned this is it the word church has never been used before Jesus tells asked his disciples his ministerial Association if you will the disciples who were on their way to becoming apostles who do you say that I am of course the u.s. plural so he didn't ask Peter the question in the Greek text the u.s. plural so he's asking the group the question so Peter when he speaks is not merely speaking personally he's speaking representatively cuz he wasn't asked the question of course he says that the Christ son of the Living God Jesus says you're Peter a stone but if you read that chapter you know that I go into detail on the word rock the word stone petros the word rock as Pete Rock now most people I know look at the rock as Jesus referring to himself but I don't think so Jesus is already declared that Peter was right and declaring in the Son of God I'd like to just I just suggest that the Jesus had forgot that he didn't ask Peter the question he has no group the question the US plural Jesus were text and he would say who do ya'll say the son of man is the word Pietra in classical greek was used of a collection of stones that had been minted together to form something bigger than any one stone could ever be on its own it meant stones clustered together if Peter were here speaking to you today I believe if he were quoting he would quote himself from 1st Peter chapter 2 where he says ye are all living stones come together to form one spiritual house the great tragedy in this city or any city are stones that never wind up becoming a rock as the stone here a stone there they're still in there the stone there the stone man and they stay stones Jesus I'm not going to Peter I'm not going to deny you being Petros I'm not gonna take away your stone nests but when it comes to what I'm trying to pull off I need more than a stone I need a rock I need individual stones clustering becoming something bigger than any one stone could ever be on its own Pietra and upon that I will build my church well knowing that then it should not surprise us that the Devils chief goal is disunity because if unity stones becoming Iraq is the thing he would use to build what he's seeking to build then you would want to keep those stones from ever becoming rocks because that would be the one thing that hell can't overrule he can overrule stones but he can't overrule his rock Jesus says upon this rock I will build my church and the church and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it that's the rock that he forms called the church then I went into what I call the legislative nature of the church for most to dissect that chapter I know it's a different kind of concept but you have to understand the word church ekklesia called out once it's not a term that would have been new to the hearers they would have known that word it wasn't a uniquely Christian word it was a regularly used Greek term and it was used of an assembly of legislators like your City Council or like a Congress or a parliament the word the word church means called out ones ekklesia means called out once the question is called out from what to what for one all we know is that the word means call not once but it's usage was the legislative in nature even in the Bible because in Acts chapter 19 verse 39 it says the ekklesia came together to go to the courts in order to legislate against the proliferation of Christianity and it uses the word church ekklesia talking about legislating against Christianity because it was legal in nature my illustration is embassy's America has embassies all around the world and American Embassy is basically a little bit of America a long way from home it's where the laws of this country are resident on foreign soil all embassies are foreign territory they do not blow into the country they're in they blown to the country they're from so if you get in trouble in your overseas you want to get cross that embassy gate because once you cross that embassy gate you're in America now even though it's on foreign soil what the church is supposed to be is a little bit of heaven a long way from home it's supposed to be where the values of eternity are resident in the locations of history so that when the church is not reflecting the laws of the homeland but reflecting the laws of the culture in which it is located then the embassy has become an enemy of the homeland and so we've been living in a day when churches have become the enemies of heaven because they have adopted the laws of the country in which they are in rather than the country which they are from and so you can have racism exists in the church for hundreds of years and go and look like either God is powerless or that he doesn't care when the problem is the embassy has gone rogue and it is not reflecting the legislative responsibility that it is created to do to to manifest how do you know when Jesus is building his church the church he had in mind because he says the gates of hell shall not prevail against it so wherever hell is winning that means that Jesus's Church is not operating so how could we have all these churches on all these corners with all these preachers and all these members and all these buildings and all these programs and all this activity and still have all this mess all at the same time there's a dead monkey on the line somewhere so maybe it's because we're not building Jesus's Church we're building our church using Jesus's name doing good things I mean I'm you know discipleship preaching singing worshiping teaching and all of the good things but no legislating he says to the church and he only says this to the church I will give you the keys to the kingdom and keys gain you access to your house your car your office key the access I their 2222 it's the way you get into something I will give you the church keys and nobody else is given keys but the church I will give you the keys but the keys aren't Church keys the keys are kingdom keys because the church does not exist for the church like the embassy doesn't exist for the embassy it exists for the homeland the homeland is the kingdom the church is merely its representative entity in a specific location I will give you the keys to the kingdom probably our hallmark book it's called the kingdom agenda which goes over this whole concept of the kingdom simply define the kingdom as far as earth is concerned the kingdom is the visible demonstration of a comprehensive rule of God over every area of life there's no area of life exempt from the kingdom nothing and I will give you keys to that Jesus says I don't know if I mentioned this is a chapter now but I was in an habit again with me the other day as I think about it I was in I was in New York at the Marriott Hotel in New York and I had to fly to Chicago I left New York went to Chicago and when I got to Chicago I check into a Hilton went up to the 35th floor put my key and click click click click click click click a red light red light red light so you know how frustrating it is to go up 35 floors with luggage what it being cold and the key doesn't work that's like being evangelical II ticked off you know yeah so I'm frustrated I go way down stairs I said mister I'm so sorry this key does not work you look at me and said mister I'm so sorry that key doesn't go to this hotel I forgotten to throw away my memory I can't I was trying to use a Marriott key and a Hilton locked and that King key doesn't fit that Kingdom the key that key had no authority there so what the church has done is youth earthly keys to try to achieve kingdom success and those keys don't fit that lock I will give you the keys to the kingdom now you bring any other key and try to put it in my lock it won't fit so what we have become our secular churches what through Jesus sprinkled on top and the doors don't open and how do you know when the door was open because he says whatsoever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven and whatsoever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven notice time and eternity heaven and earth whatever you bind will be bound whatever you loose will be loosed binding and loosing means forbidding or permitting restricting or allowing heaven will back your play heaven is not backing our play so we must not be using the right keys in fact we may not even be the church the referees in football are small in number there are only nine of them that 20 there 54 players on both sides of the ball NFL teams are made up of 54 players so that's 108 that's 108 grown men and there's nine refs the players are younger stronger and faster the refs will older fatter and slower the players can knock you down the rest can put you out because while the players have power the rest have authority they got a yellow flag and a whistle and they can shut it down even though the only nine of them in fact even when the whole crowd is booing them because they made a call against the home team they can shut it down because they have authority the Church of Jesus Christ has Authority the problem is we've joined the teams on the field he's speaking legislatively he says the gates of hell the gates is where the elders meant to legislate the laws of Israel think the elders met at the gates there was a legislative role he says the keys to the kingdom kingdom is a legislative rule he's he's speaking Spurs legislating from heaven to earth spiritual legislation letting levers legislating from eternity back down to time that's our job that's our responsibility that's what we ought to be doing and that is the message we're taking across America to communities who invite us to do so you're on the cusp of something staggeringly significant I love what you said one church one city one church one city for the individual stones in this room decide to become a rock I'll talk about maybe some programmatic sides of that tomorrow but to say we will come together as one voice without compromising the fundamentals of the faith we will come together so that this whole community sees the rock in its midst because you can have fellowship with people you can't have membership with and to make the thing dream fellowship and membership church polity will different difficult to Ferengi eight membership certain doctrinal debatable doctrinal different emphases will segregate membership that's different than fellowship you come together for two reasons you come together they have a unified voice for the kingdom's perspective on any issue that you agree needs to be addressed an example would be the definition of marriage and that's that's an example of an issue that everybody should agree on and if you don't agree on it I'm not quite sure why you're in this room cuz God has spoken on that and he had and stuttered so you come together but you also without talking more about tomorrow you don't come together merely for the good word you come together for the good work and that is something that you say we're going to do together so that the city the one city we'll see the one church at work in its midst and those are the two things then you gather together once a year and you bring your congregations together and you celebrate the evangelical biblically based presence of the one Church in the city you come together and you celebrate it like a Bible conference or something that you bring them together to celebrate the one work that you've decided to do now the one group the one church that's in the city and you let the city know the Church of Jesus Christ is in your midst unapologetically it is in your midst I mean everybody else is coming out the closet so you might as well come out a man was driving his wife to their honeymoon and it was a foggy day hard to see in front of you he needed to pass his big slow truck that was in front of him so he went out to go around and he didn't see the oncoming van and with a head-on collision his car was rolled over into a ditch he was briefly knocked out and when he came to he looked on the passenger side and there was his bride gushing with blood he knew that if he didn't get help soon she would bleed out but just then he noticed a sign on the hill and it said office of dr. bill Jones how fortunate was this doctor's office right in front of him he picked up his bleeding bride and walked her stumbled up the hill knocked on the door an old man came to the door and he said what can I do for you he says she's dying save her the old man said I'm so sorry son I stopped practicing a long time ago the young man looked at him look down his bleeding bride and looked at this old doctor they said mister you have two choices save her or take down your sign but don't have a sign stuck out in front of this building saying that you deliver folk and when I bring my bleeding bride up here you don't practice anymore just tell the truth take down your sign or do your job but don't have a sign and not do your job we've all got signs in front of our building called Church so either keep up the sign and be the church I'll take down the sign and let's call it what it is a weekly religious gathering to provide inspiration to people spiritually because if that's all we do that should be all we advertise but if we are the kingdom of God legislating from heaven to history on every issue that comes and reflects the values of the kingdom of God then keep your sign as we do our job so I am excited about what you're doing we have some things we want to give you outside as you leave some teaching information the fellowship of churches that was mentioned some information on our adoptive school initiative I'll talk about that more tomorrow and then the books if you don't have them Kingdom and Kingdom woman the kingdom agenda and oneness embrace they're out there as well I'll stay around for a few minutes and sign them but thank you for the privilege of allowing me to be with you one more than that I thank you for your decision and desire to be one Church in this one city god bless

Channel: One Church One City

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Length: 38min 14sec (2294 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 11 2014