Welcome to From the Pulpit in Classic Sermons.
Each week we bring you a different message
from some of history's greatest speakers in the
Christian faith and powerful sermons for modern preachers
too.
This week we have Tony Evans with his
message that he spoke at the Sunday service
for the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville,
Tennessee.
It was 1986 when I got my first
introduction to the National Religious Broadcasters through the
influence and mentoring of Dr. B.
Sam Hart.
Al Sanders came along and helped to put
together a broadcast that we offered to many
of the stations in NRB.
Dr. James Dobson wrote a letter to many
of the stations requesting an opportunity for a
young man to enter into the broadcast ministry
realm and doors that had been closed, many
of them opened.
And through the work of my wife and
the development of the Urban Alternative, I come
here humbled today and honored for the invitation
to be amongst my peers many of you
who have walked with me by my side,
encouraged me, corrected me, strengthened me.
So I do not take this invitation or
opportunity lightly.
Much has gone into me being here today
and of course all praise ultimately goes to
my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
But I am also grateful for the servants
he has used.
It's been many years since I've been asked
to address the body broadly and so letting
those years go by I was getting a
little frustrated so I called Frank.
I said, Frank it's been a while since
you've let me preach.
I said, he said, well you know this
is NRB and we only invite the best
of the very best.
And he said, Tony Evans, the fact of
the matter is you're not ready yet.
I was deeply hurt by that statement and
I told Frank I've been practicing, I'll send
him a CD.
He said, send it and we'll re-evaluate
it.
So I sent him a CD, he evaluated,
I called him back.
He said, you're definitely moving in the right
direction, Tony, but this is NRB.
And you're not ready yet.
I said, please, you know I have so
much to be grateful for.
Please, one more chance, let me send you
one more CD.
He said, okay, last time.
So I sent him the CD.
He listened to it.
I called him.
He told me I was continuing to move
in the right direction but this was NRB
and only the creme de la creme, speaking
NRB.
I said, Frank, I'll come for free.
He said, now you're ready.
So I am honored for this opportunity.
Every Sunday on football fields all across America,
during NFL season, three teams take the field.
There is the home team, the team that
everybody's rooting for.
And there is the visiting team.
And then there is a conflict.
A war breaks out.
A crisis ensues.
Because these two teams can't get along.
One team is headed to a goal this
way.
Another team is headed to a goal that
way.
And they will never agree.
They're bumping and hitting and tackling and blocking,
trying to stop each other's progress in a
game called football.
But in the midst of these two teams
that will never agree, there's a third team
that takes the field, the team of officials.
These are men who have been assigned to
be on the field without being of the
field.
They're in the middle of the mess, but
their design is to not be part of
it.
Because their obligation goes further than the field
or the teams or the crowd.
Because at 345 Park Avenue in New York
is a kingdom called the NFL.
This kingdom is overseen by a commissioner named
Roger Goodell.
And the officials on the field are to
represent the kingdom of their on the field
where they are officiating.
Sometimes those officials are going to be booed
because either the home team or the home
crowd doesn't like the call.
Sometimes those officials are going to be cheered
because everybody agrees with the call.
But that is irrelevant to the official, whether
they are booed or cheered, because they're not
there for the teams or for the crowd.
They're there for another kingdom.
At 345 Park Avenue in New York, the
kingdom of the NFL.
Each official has been handed a book.
The book outlines the governing guidelines by which
all decisions on the field are to be
made.
Their personal preferences become irrelevant.
Their feel at a given moment is inconsequential
because they represent another kingdom in New York
on a field where the game is being
played and all decisions are to be made
by the book that they have received.
The moment that they leave the book, they
lose the support of the commissioner because the
commissioner has assigned them to rule in the
middle of chaos based on a book they
have received regardless of the applause they may
or may not get.
There is another kingdom with another commissioner up
north.
It is the kingdom of God and the
commissioner is Jesus Christ and he has called
forth an officiating crew.
This officiating crew is to be on the
field but not of it.
They are to be in the middle of
the madness without acquiescing to it.
They have been handed a book.
All decisions on the field of play are
to be made by what has been recorded
in the book from the league office authorized
by the commissioner.
In the beginning of this last year's NFL
season, we saw what happens when replacement officials
are put on the field.
Instead of calming chaos, they add to the
chaos because either they are not fully acquainted
with what's in the book or they're not
implementing what's in the book on the field
of play.
And those who are to bring order to
madness added to it.
Jesus Christ has set forth clearly what this
officiating crew ought to be about in history.
And I would like to suggest to you
as I begin today that much of the
chaos in the culture today, be it class
or racial or political, has nothing to do
with the competing teams on the field.
That's the way it is.
But it has everything to do with a
poor officiating crew.
That the officiating crew, called the church, who
is supposed to be on the field but
not of the field, in the middle of
the chaos, but not part of the chaos,
has actually contributed to it.
It is my contention, it is the failure
of the church that has greatly contributed to
the chaos in the culture.
Officials who don't officiate well.
Jesus was in Caesarea Philippi in Matthew chapter
16.
He asked two questions.
His first question was to his disciples, who
do men say that I am?
All the answers were good, John the Baptist,
Elijah, Jeremiah, one of the prophets, but all
the answers were wrong.
They were complimentary, but they were incorrect.
But then Jesus turns to his disciples and
he says, but who do you say that
I am?
And you can't see it in the English,
but in the Greek text, the word you
is plural.
So he wasn't talking to Peter, he was
talking to the group.
If Jesus were Texan, he would have said,
who do y'all say the son of
man is?
Because it was a question asked to the
group.
Keep that in mind, that will come up
again in a moment.
Peter, who must have wore peppermint socks the
way he loved to keep his foot in
his mouth, was correct on this occasion.
Peter said, thou art the Christ, the son
of the living God.
Jesus declares to him, you've said correctly.
That leads him to two verses that will
blow your mind, that will change the nature
of this conference, of your ministry, and of
the culture.
Because you see, in verse 18, he introduces
us to the church for the first time.
It is the very first time the word
ekklesia is used in the New Testament.
He looks at Peter and he says, now
you are petros, a stone.
But I'm going to build my program, my
church, not on a stone, but on a
rock.
You're an articulate stone, you've got leadership skills.
Whenever the list of the disciples are given
in the New Testament, Peter's name is always
first.
But I'm not going to build my program
on a great spokesperson, a great personality, or
one who has all the template for great
leadership, as crucial as it is.
On your best day, Peter, you are but
a stone.
But the church, the thing I am building,
whatever it means, is going to be on
a rock.
Now I know that it is traditional to
interpret the word rock of Jesus referring to
himself.
But I would like to challenge that interpretation
today as not being contextually correct.
Jesus has already concurred with Peter that he
is the Christ, the Son of the living
God.
That has been established.
Jesus has asked the disciples who to y
'all, plural, say that I am.
So either Jesus has skipped his question or
he's not skipped his question to the group.
The Greek word petra, translated rock, was used
in classical Greek of a collection of stones
that had been knitted together to form a
bigger slab, a bigger cliff, or a rocky
ledge.
It was stones connected to one another.
I would like to suggest that whatever the
church is, it will be built by the
coming together of individual stones that would make
something bigger than any one stone could ever
be on its own.
In fact, Peter would be the best exegete
of this particular statement.
And Peter himself says in 1 Peter chapter
2, ye are all living stones come together
to form one spiritual house, referring to the
church.
So I would like to suggest that it
is the coming together of stones to be
something bigger than any one stone could ever
be on its own.
That would be the basis of the church,
which explains why there is so much disunity
in the kingdom of God.
Because if the enemy can keep the stones
from ever becoming the rock, he can keep
the church from ever fulfilling its agenda.
He can keep the refs disagreeing with what
call ought to be made on the field.
He says upon this rock, I will build
my church.
There's a law in hermeneutics called the law
of first mention.
The law of first mention simply says if
you want to understand the meaning of a
biblical term or concept, see the first time
it's been used.
And once you derive its meaning the first
time it's been used, sustain that meaning unless
the text itself gives you permission to change
it.
The reason why we believe in marriage between
Adam and Eve and not Adam and Steve
is the law of first mention.
The law of first mention has clearly expressed
itself when God first orchestrated the human race.
And since God has never changed the definition,
we change it neither.
The word ekklesia means called out ones.
But the question on the floor is called
out from what to what for what reason?
Typically we use the word ekklesia to refer
to people called out from sin to salvation,
from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom
of light, and most certainly that is true.
But the word ekklesia was a well-known
word in the Greek world.
It was used of a different called out
group in the Greek city states.
It was used of men and women who
were called out from the general populace to
legislate on behalf of the rest of the
citizens of that state.
It was a legislative agency.
You see, I think one of the great
mistakes that we have made is to limit
the church and its definition to a weekly
gathering for an hour, what else if you're
white, two and a half hours if you're
black, to limit the definition of the church
to a gathering for spiritual information, for spiritual
inspiration, for spiritual education, and for acclaiming the
greatness of God.
And that is much of what the church
should be doing.
But the word ekklesia in the world in
which that word was used was used also
of legislation.
In fact it's used that way in scripture
in Acts chapter 19 verse 39.
It says the ekklesia came together to pass
the law.
It was a legal entity.
It is unfortunate that we have missed, in
my opinion, the legal nature of the church.
And you will see that unfold as we
continue.
That this ekklesia has been established to legislate
from heaven to history, from eternity into time.
In the same way that a football official
legislates from the home office in New York
on the field of play in the middle
of the crisis, it is the job of
the church to grab heaven and bring it
into history so that history sees what heaven
views as it is played out through the
officiating crew.
America has embassies all around the world.
An American embassy is a little bit of
America a long way from home.
It is where the values and laws of
America are in a foreign land.
All American embassies are sovereign territory.
They do not belong to the country they're
in, they belong to the country they're from.
If you get in trouble and you're overseas,
you want to get across that embassy gate
because when you do you're in America now
even though you're on foreign soil.
The job of the church, this legal entity,
is to be a little bit a long
way from home.
It's supposed to be where the values of
eternity are operating in the location of history
so that history gets to see what heaven
looks like when heaven addresses that particular issue.
So explain to me if we've got all
these officiating crews, if we've got all these
churches on all these corners with all these
members and all these preachers and all these
deacons and all these facilities and all these
programs and all these resources, how we can
at the same time have all this chaos?
There must be a dead monkey on the
line somewhere.
Perhaps we have satisfied ourselves with the inspirational
education definition of the church and missed its
legal authorized responsibility.
He says I will build my ecclesia.
Notice the offensive nature of Jesus's statement.
He says I'm doing the building, the gates
of hell are attempting to do the stopping.
We often get it backwards.
We're trying to stop hell but that's not
what Jesus says the church is.
He says I'm doing the building, hell is
doing the stopping.
So maybe we're singing the wrong song.
Maybe we're singing backwards Christian soldiers because we're
operating in reverse.
Jesus says I'm building something that hell can't
stop.
Therefore, if hell is stopping the church, then
the church must not be being what Jesus
is building because Jesus said the church that
I'm building, hell is not stopping.
So if hell is stopping the church, we
must be building our church using his name
and it becomes a false definition of the
church.
That's why evils are allowed to proliferate outside
of the church so strongly because they've never
been addressed inside of the church or if
it takes 200 years for it to be
addressed inside of the church, then the church
that Jesus is building is not the church
that Jesus is building and so the gates
of hell wind up prevailing.
He says gates.
The word gates was used in the old
testament of a legislative location.
It was where the elders met, the bible
says.
The elders met at the gates to legislate
for Israel.
So he's speaking legally.
He's speaking of the responsibility of the church
to stop hell's legal operation because hell cannot
do what it does unless it gets legal
authority to do it.
And so no matter how many songs we
sing or sermons we hear, if there is
not the legislative action of the church to
rule on behalf of this bigger thing called
the kingdom of God, then we have great
services and limited impact.
He says, I will build my church and
the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it.
Well, what's going to stop hell from winning
over the church?
Now, of course, if Jesus comes back tomorrow,
we don't have to worry about any of
this.
We'll be in glory.
But what if Jesus doesn't come back for
another 200 years and your children and grandchildren
and great grandchildren have got to grow up
in this world?
What kind of world will the church have
handed over to them?
Hell is moving.
God has officials on the field.
If there is chaos on the field, we
must ask what is the officiating crew doing
or not doing that has allowed this game
to get out of hand.
Jesus says the church I am building is
unstoppable.
That we are not so heavenly minded that
we're no earthly good, but we're not so
earthly minded that we're no heavenly good.
I'm reminded of Super Bowl 43 when Centennial
homes caught the winning pass for the Pittsburgh
Steelers to win Super Bowl 43 with less
than two minutes left in the game.
He goes to the edge of the end
zone and he reaches high and catches the
ball, but his feet are firmly planted in
bounds on the ground.
If he dropped the ball, it would be
an incomplete pass.
But if he catches the ball, but his
feet are not planted in bounds, it's still
an incomplete pass.
He must be able to reach high while
being located low.
The job of the church is to reach
and grab heaven with our feet firmly planted
on earth so that heaven gets to see
touchdown scored for the kingdom of God through
the people of God who are operating from
heaven to history.
He says the way you're going to win
in history is I'm going to give you
the keys to the kingdom in verse 19.
I'm going to give you, I'm going to
give you because I'm talking to y'all
and y'all are the foundation of the
church.
I'm going to give the church the keys
to the kingdom.
Let's get this straight.
Only the church has the keys to the
kingdom.
So let's get this straight.
The government does not have the keys to
the kingdom.
And if you are looking for the solutions
to America to land on air force one,
you are going to be grossly disappointed.
God does not ride the backs of donkeys
or elephants.
He is the consummate independent.
In Joshua chapter five, Joshua is is doing
surveillance around Jericho.
This huge guy shows up just in battle
array leading an army.
Joshua's mom ain't raised no dummy.
He said, who's side are you on?
Because if you're on Jericho side, we're in
trouble.
If you're on our side, we have some
help.
So before I go out here and make
a fool of myself, whose side are you
on?
The captain looked at him and said, I
think you're a little confused.
And I know you're the leader of Israel.
I know you're my people, but you're still
confused because I'm neither on your side, nor
am I on their side.
I am captain of the Lord's army.
I did not come to take sides.
I come to take over.
What we have done, unfortunately, is reduce the
kingdom of God to the politics of men.
And then we wind up whining when, when,
when the, when the party or the candidate
that we wanted to, doesn't get in like
the kingdom of God is dependent upon the
players on the field.
This kingdom is dependent upon the building of
the church.
And so there's a white church that's Republican.
There's a black church that's democratic.
So there's a split in the church.
So there are not stones becoming a rock.
There's a split in the rock.
And when there is a split in the
rock, there is a breakdown in the kingdom
and there is chaos on the field because
we've allowed the politics of men to rule
the kingdom of the living God.
He says, I'm going to give you keys
to the kingdom.
What do keys do?
Isaiah 22, 22, they gain you access.
Access.
You ever been in a hurry and not
been able to find your keys?
That means you're not going anywhere because you
don't have access to your car.
Or maybe you're like me.
You have keys on your key ring and
you don't even remember where some of them
go.
So they're useless keys.
I am going to give you the keys
to the kingdom.
And he's talking to the foundation of the
church.
The keys to the kingdom.
Please note that the word key is plural,
not singular.
I'm going to give you the keys of
the kingdom.
Why?
Because in verse 18, he talked about gates
of hell.
So for every hellish gate that seeks to
stop Christ from building the kingdom, there is
a corresponding kingdom key that unlocks a heavenly
door that brings to bear against a hellish
gate.
That which overrules its attempt to stop the
building of the ecclesia of God.
Kingdom.
It is my conviction today that the church
has been using the wrong keys.
Not every church, not every denomination, not all
the time, but I'm talking more collectively.
We've been using the wrong keys.
I was in New York City at the
Marriott in Times Square.
I had to check out and fly to
Chicago to the Hilton in Chicago.
I went, I checked in, I took my
bags up to the 30th floor or whatever
it was.
And I got there and I put my
key in, click, click, red light, click, click,
red light, click, click, red light, being evangelically
ticked off.
Because when you travel 30 floors with bags
and you got to go all the way
down to tell them this key does not
work.
So I went and I told the proprietor,
this key does not work.
He looked at me and he said, that
key doesn't go to this hotel.
I was using my Marriott key in a
Hilton lock and that key won't work.
Unfortunately, far too much of the church is
using earthly keys in a lock that won't
work.
And one of the primary keys today is
that of politics.
It has its place.
We must be politically engaged, but it is
not the kingdom.
He says, I will give you the keys
to the kingdom of God.
I will give you authorization to overrule.
Watch this now as he closes.
He says, I will give you the keys
to the kingdom.
And how will you know if the keys
are working?
He says, because whatever you bind on earth
would have been bound in heaven.
And whatever you loose on earth will be
loosed in heaven.
Binding and loosing means permitting or forbidding.
I'm going to give you authorization of authority.
I am going to give you the authorization
to decide or not decide what heaven will
or will not do.
In fact, Ephesians 3.10 says that God
works through the church before he deals with
the powers that be.
That if he cannot work through the church,
you will not see his hand as powerfully
and as directly as you would have seen
it if the church was available for him
to express himself through.
You know the answer to America or any
other culture?
It's the church.
But it's not the church as individual stones.
It's the church as a rock.
The word kingdom is from the Greek word
basilia and it refers to the manifestation, the
visible demonstration of the comprehensive rule of God
over every area of life.
There is no issue outside of the kingdom.
And our job as the church of Jesus
Christ is as the voice of God in
history based on the work of the Holy
Spirit and attachment to the word authorized by
the commission of Jesus Christ is to serve
notice on the culture that there is a
heavenly say-so about this matter and that
the individual stones have come together across racial
and cultural and political lines to declare what
God has said about marriage, about life, what
God has said about race, about class, about
economics, what God has said about justice and
injustice, what God has said comprehensively.
And when the church does that, you'll see
sparks flying.
Yes, there will be boos from the crowd
because they won't like some of the calls
of the officiating crew, but we're not there
for them.
We're there for another king in another kingdom.
And that's why I'm so grateful for so
many relationships God has given us in this
room because one of the greatest things that
you and media can do is not only
be an education for Christians and education for
the church, but to be the mobilization of
the churches under your influence and in your
scope.
The greatest thing that NRB can do is
use its strength and the individual's expressions of
it to call together the church in a
given area for a comprehensive impact in that
area.
That's why we're doing so much with stations
now related to the National Church Adopt-a
-School initiative where stations are calling together all
the pastors and we are providing the training
so they can adopt every public school in
their community because church, school, and family equals
community and it never runs out of ministry.
And if every school gets adopted, the whole
church is doing one thing, but it's impacting
the whole of the community so that people
can see in that community the kingdom of
God has arrived here.
It is time for individual stones to become
a rock so that binding and loosing becomes
visible.
That when the church speaks, the culture must
listen.
When the church speaks, it cannot be ignored.
When the officiating crew throws the flag, it
shuts down the movement of the game because
we bear authority.
The players are more powerful than the officials.
They're younger, they're stronger, they're faster.
The officials are older and slower and fatter.
But the officials have the whistle and they
have the flag.
The player can knock you down, but the
ref can put you out because he has
kingdom authority backing him up.
We may not be as big as the
world, we may not have as much as
the world, but what we do have is
a yellow flag in our pocket and if
we get the guts to throw it representing
the kingdom of God because our commissioner is
going to stand by our decisions, we can
shake this mama up.
This is not a day for cute Christianity.
This is not a day for polite Christianity.
I'm not talking about mean spiritedness, but this
is not a day for regular.
It's time for some super unleaded.
This is not a day for ordinary sermons
and ordinary churches singing ordinary songs to ordinary
people when we are watching our nation fall
apart, when we're watching unbiblical worldviews being promoted,
when we're watching sex education being taught in
elementary schools to kindergartens, when we're watching the
redefinition of the family, when we're watching economics
go crazy due to illegitimate indebtedness.
This is not a time for polite speeches
to polite people.
This is the time for the ecclesia to
legislate from heaven to history to serve notice
on this world.
The kingdom of God has arrived.
A man one day in closing was taking
his bride to their honeymoon.
They were on their way to their honeymoon
and they were driving.
It was a foggy day.
In front of him was a truck and
he needed to get by it.
So he pulled out, but the fog blocked
the view of an oncoming van and they
hit each other head on.
His car rolled over into a ditch.
He was knocked unconscious.
When he came to, he looked beside him
and saw his bride gushing with blood.
She had hit the windshield and she was
gushing with blood.
He himself was injured, but not to her
degree, but he knew if he didn't get
her help in a few moments, she was
going to bleed to death.
But he's out on this, on this road
and there was no help in sight except
he noticed on a little hill just above
him, a sign that said office of Dr.
Bill Jones.
He thought how fortunate could this be that
there's a doctor's office nearby.
He picked up his new bride and stumbled
up the hill and knocked on the door
of the office of Dr. Bill Jones.
An old gentleman came to the door and
said, may I help you?
He said, save her.
She's bleeding to death.
Save her.
She's dying.
The old gentleman looked at him and said,
I'm so sorry, son.
I don't practice anymore.
The young man looked at the older gentleman
and said, Mr, you have two choices.
You can either save my wife or you
can take down your sign, but don't have
a sign out there telling me who you
are.
And when I bring this bleeding bride of
mine, you can't practice anymore.
Don't, don't tell me you're one thing, but
when I show up with life hanging by
the balance, you don't practice anymore.
It's time for the church of Jesus Christ
to do one of two things, to practice
being kingdom people, living kingdom lives, perpetuating a
kingdom mentality through the influence of the church
or take down the sign.
Don't don't call yourself Christian and not practice.
Don't say you're a church and don't practice
because then the culture is bleeding and they
don't believe you anymore.
It's time for men and women and NRB
to level your influence and leverage your influence.
So people will either practice or take down
their signs because we're living in a day
when the culture is bleeding to death.
Thank you for all you do.
And God bless you.
You've been listening to the From the Pulpit
and Classic Sermons series.
This week you heard Tony Evans with his
message from this year's Sunday service of the
National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville.
Tune in next week to hear William Blackburn
talk about God's plan for the family on
From the Pulpit and Classic Sermons.