Reversing Addiction Consequences

You are to love your neighbor in light of what you expect to receive for you. Dr. Tony Evans says when it comes to healing divisions of discrimination and seeing our prayers answered, mercy is the key.

If you want it, you better give it, because a lot of us are calling on God to do stuff He's never going to do. Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans. Author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the Urban Alternative. In a culture that's supposed to celebrate diversity, we seem to spend a lot of time focusing on our differences, building walls instead of bridges. But there's a better blueprint in the Bible, and Dr. Evans will tell us about it today.

Let's join him. James begins his discussion by saying, brethren, fellow Christians, how in the world can you worship God, our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, with an attitude of personal favoritism? He calls it, in verse 4, making distinctions.

He calls it in verse 9, if you show partiality. All those verses are about one thing, illegitimate discrimination, personal favoritism, distinctions, partiality, and the consequences, as you'll hear, that comes from it. He is concerned that the church, in particular, Christians, are not being divided by a spirit of elitism. Elitism is lifting yourself up as you push somebody else down without the rightful basis for doing so.

That is, an elitist spirit. He says that it is driven, verse 4, by making a judgment with evil motives. He says your motivation is evil, not just wrong, it's evil.

Now, let me get this straight. All discrimination is not wrong. We're told to discriminate between truth and error. We're told to discriminate between righteousness and unrighteousness. We're told to discriminate against sin and that which is obedience to God. We're called to discriminate based on a divine standard, not a human one. So discrimination is right if it's authorized by God. It is wrong if it's authorized by man in contradiction to God. What we have done in our culture is we've picked up the attitudes of the world and brought them into the kingdom of God.

He says, how dare you embarrass the glorious name of our Lord Jesus Christ with personal favoritism distinctions. Now we come to racial discrimination. Racial discrimination is ungodly treatment of people based on skin color. This is the plague of our day. This is the area that we've not been able to overcome in America, the issue of race, the sin of racism.

So let me talk about that. How dare you, he says, come before the Lord Jesus Christ with personal favoritism. In Numbers 12 verses 1 to 15, Moses marries a black woman. It's an interracial marriage.

And his brother and sister get upset. So they rebel against Moses because of the woman that he married, the Scripture says. It says, when God saw what Miriam and Aaron did against their brother simply because of the woman he married, he gave Miriam leprosy and she became white as snow. You like white?

We're gonna make you white. God rendered judgment on her because she rebelled against biblical authority based on an illegitimate criteria of a mixed marriage. And until Miriam and Aaron repented, until they repented, she carried her leprosy. When she repented, he removed her leprosy and brought her normal skin back.

He wanted to serve notice. Don't you use an illegitimate criteria in my house and among my people? And there's gender discrimination, the ungodly devaluing of women for their usefulness, giftedness, and calling. Women often get a bad rap and often get abused by men and by culture, creating an overreaction of feminism that takes them away from biblical womanhood. The Bible is clear that there are distinctions.

There are many distinctions, but when it comes to the kingdom of God, the Bible is clear that there are varying roles in God's kingdom. The Bible says the husband is head of the wife and the wife comes and she brings all her gifts and skills, but she must submit to the legitimate authority of the husband because there is a role difference. In the Bible, the Bible says that the final authority in the church is to be male. But that does not mean that the giftedness and calling of women should be downgraded, ignored, or underused. Certain offices are gender-based.

No gift is. So gifts cross genders. So any gift a man has, a woman can have. Just not every office a man has, a woman has. And unless you make a distinction between office and gifts, you get them confused and women become devalued. 1 Peter 3 verse 7 says women are equal heirs to men of the grace of life. In fact, the first message preached in Scripture when Jesus arose was by a woman sent to tell the men he's alive. And so the recognition of gifts and the usefulness so that there's not gender discrimination illegitimately.

Next, here's one. The Bible condemns political discrimination. Now our church has an interesting mix of Democrats and Republicans.

The church is made up of both. Ezekiel 43 verses 1 to 12 says, Don't bring your kings and put them next to my throne. Don't bring your politics into my house like it can overrule me. No, you keep them on the other side of that wall, he says, because in my house, this is my throne and our room.

To put it in everyday language, I don't ride the backs of donkeys or elephants. Since no political system fully represents the kingdom of God. There are flaws on both sides, and so people are going to be divided. When you come out of that voting booth, you're only going to live for the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. So you do not allow it to divide the church of Jesus Christ. You give God's answers to the issues that are on the platform, then you make your decision. But your decision starts with Bible, not with how you were raised, not what your parents said, not what your back. It starts with Scripture and what God says about whatever the issue happens to be.

But he says, don't bring that mess up in my house and allow it to divide my kingdom. Then there's cultural discrimination. This is the rejection of people based on their background, language, or customs. In Acts chapter 6, verses 1 to 6, there was a cultural conflict between the Greek-speaking Jews and the Hebrew-speaking Jews. Now they were both Jews. They were part of the same race, but they had different cultures. See, if you were a Greek-speaking Jew, you grew up in a Greek culture.

If you were a Hebrew-speaking Jew, you grew up in a Hebrew culture. So you had different likes and dislikes culturally. Your backgrounds were different, even though you were of the same race. And so there was this cultural conflict in the church.

The apostles had to call a special meeting, say, how are you going to fix this battle between culture? See, many of us here, we're in the same race, but we're not part of the same culture. See, if you grew up in one neighborhood, but your family was able to escape that neighborhood, maybe you grew up in the hood, or your parents grew up in the hood, but now you're living in middle class, and so your value systems may not be the same, even though you are the same race. So you have a conflict of values due to the background. Apart from right and wrong, good and bad, righteousness and unrighteousness, because that's a standard you discriminate over. They said, we will not allow cultural conflicts to divide the church, because one group felt they were being neglected by another group, and he says, we're going to bring this thing together, and we're going to bring God's help to this situation, because we will judge people, even within our own race, who act different than we do, who don't have the same values that we have, and we will discriminate them, even if it's not dealing with right and wrong, it's just dealing with they're different than you. The final one is preferential discrimination. This is discrimination over preferences.

In other words, you like this, I like that. The whole chapter of Romans 14 deals with preferential discrimination, where you judge people simply because they don't like what you like and they don't do what you do. That's not sinful. He says, why do you judge your brother over opinions?

Watch it whenever your first thing out of your mouth is, well, I think. People have the right to be different than you. The apostles were different than each other. Peter was not like Paul. Paul was not like John. Their temperaments were different.

John loved to lean on Jesus' chest. Paul is an academician and he's a scholar. I mean, they were different.

And so are you. Let folk be different and stop trying to make everybody you, or everybody me, apart from the divine standard. There must be the freedom to be different so that there is not conflict in the church over that which is not illegitimate. Dr. Evans will come back with more on what it'll take to end discrimination when he continues our message in just a moment. First, though, I want to let you know about Tony's brand-new book that explores what it takes to turn your life in a whole new direction, even if you've spent years struggling in areas like financial responsibility, substance abuse, sexual promiscuity, or family sins that go back generations.

You'll finally discover how to reverse flaws and failures that you thought were irreversible. The book is called U-Turns Reversing the Consequences in Your Life, and it was designed to perfectly complement the teaching series you've been listening to today, U-Turn Reversing Spiritual Consequences. For a limited time, we're bundling the book and all 12 audio messages in this series on both CD and digital download, and sending them to you is our thank-you gift when you make a contribution to help continue Tony's ministry. Just visit tonyevans.org to get the details and make the arrangements.

And if you want to explore the subject of spiritual turnarounds even further, or perhaps prepare yourself to lead others in these life-changing truths, be sure to look into the companion Bible study and DVD kit Dr. Evans has prepared to accompany the U-Turns book and audio messages. Again, that's tonyevans.org. Or let one of our resource team members help you day or night at 1-800-800-3222.

That's 1-800-800-3222. Stay with us. That was a book from the heart where I deal directly with the race issue. Dr. Tony Evans talks about Oneness Embraced, a look at why bridging the racial gap isn't about overlooking our differences, but making the most of them. God is calling His people together in order to advance His kingdom, and that must happen intentionally. The churches are going to have to take the lead to model the kingdom of God. Oneness Embraced, the biblical prescription for racial reconciliation.

Available now at tonyevans.org. Where there is illegitimate division, there is divine judgment, including a civil war. See, we can talk about Indian slavery and all that, and Abraham Lincoln and all that. No, the Civil War was divine judgment due to the evil that was taking place in the culture. This chaos that we see all around us. See, don't take God out of this equation. Illegitimate division brings divine judgment.

He says it is judgment. And so we got chaos today, outside of the church and inside of the church. At Oak Cliff, no one, absolutely no one, will be allowed to discriminate illegitimately against another person using human standards to trump divine revelation.

No one. Anybody who walks through that door, who names the name of Jesus Christ, and is willing to submit to the legitimate spiritual authority of the church is welcome because they belong to the kingdom of God. And the first issue is not what your mama and daddy taught you. No, it's what God says, which may mean mama and daddy were wrong.

So what do we do? How do we solve this in our personal lives, in the church, and try to overflow it into society? He says in verse 8, If, however, you are fulfilling the royal law according to the Scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you are doing well.

This is the chief rule that brings together all the other rules. Love is to compassionately and responsibly and righteously seek the well-being of another. That's biblical love. You are to love your neighbor in light of what you expect to receive for you.

In other words, it's a boomerang principle. When you relate to somebody else properly without illegitimate distinctions, you have set yourself up for God to come back to you with the very thing you handed out. That's why Luke 638 says, Give and it, the thing you gave, will boomerang back to you. So the question is, if you want it, you better give it, because a lot of us are calling on God to do stuff He's never going to do, because He sees what we do to others illegitimately against the wrong standard. It is the royal law, the foundation of all.

He releases life in Deuteronomy 24, verse 19. God says, here's what I want you to do. I want you to leave the edges of your field for the poor. When you do your harvesting, don't touch the edges of your field. Let the poor come and give it.

Help them out. He says, because when you do, your God will bless you. So treat the royal law royally, because it is the linchpin for everything else. Verse 5, listen, my beloved brethren, did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, which He promised to those that love Him?

Whoa. He said, here's another reason why you can't be illegitimately discriminatory, because God has chosen the people who don't have much to possess more faith. You know why they have to possess more faith? Because they got to depend on it more. See, if you got a MasterCard, a Visa, a Bank of America, you got all this stuff, your dependency level doesn't have to be that high because you can charge it.

But the poor are eking out a living. They're going from day to day. So they've had to trust God day by day. If you got extra and abundance, sometimes you don't trust God year by year because you can see where you got it. You got to freeze a refrigerator.

You can store it up for months. So when you run into a situation in your life that money can't fix, you better have your wagon hitched to somebody who can get to God on your behalf. But not only that, he goes on to say who are heirs of the kingdom, ooh, it means when you stand before God, roles are going to be switched. The poor folk are going to be the millionaires up there. And the rich folks are going to be the paupers up there because everybody in heaven is not equal. And he says, okay, you are rich down here, but you are discriminatory, you are selfish, and you are all that.

Well, up here, you're going to have to go to them for help. He closes in verse 13 with this thought. He says, judgment will be merciless to those who don't show mercy.

You're so stuck up on yourself, on what you have and how much you make and what you drive and what you wear and what your bank account is. And so it's all about you. He says, okay, judgment will be merciless if that's how you roll. In other words, when you need mercy, when you need somebody to come to bat for you in court, they're bringing folk to vouch for you. They're bringing these line of people to tell you good things you've done in the community, how nice you were to them, how you helped them out of trouble. You know why they bring in folk to vouch for you?

To reduce your sentence and for you to get more mercy from the judge. The question is, when you need mercy from God now, and most certainly at the judgment seat of Christ, will there be a crowd of folk who can give testimony? Well, yeah, God does. Yeah, He got some issues, but let me tell you what He did for me. Let me tell you how He met me. Let me tell you how He accepted me. Let me tell you how He served me, because you've got this cloud of witnesses who can testify to the fact that you may have had some flaws in your life, but there's a bunch of good stuff because here's what you need to know in closing about the judgment seat of Christ. When you and I stand before Him, He's gonna roll your tape. From the time of your salvation to your death, you get to sit with Him in your booth, and you get to look at your tape.

Good, bad, and ugly. And you're gonna hit parts on your tape and go, oof. You're gonna hit parts on your tape and go, oh, Lord. Because He says He will evaluate words and deeds and thoughts and declarations. He says, we're gonna look at your whole life to determine your level of reward or lack thereof. This has not gotten to do with entrance into heaven.

It has to do with reward or loss of reward for those who are already going to heaven. He says, we're gonna review your tape. He says, all of your Christian life is gonna be set there for review. He makes an astounding statement at the end of verse 13. Mercy overrides judgment. Wow.

Wow, don't miss that. In other words, God will be looking for opportunities to show mercy. He'll be searching, is there anything redeemable in your Christian experience that I can use to show mercy?

Because I don't want to judge. I want to show mercy both in time and especially then. I want to show mercy, but give me something to work with because I will override justice with mercy. Dr. Evans will come back in a moment with a final illustration about the balance between mercy and judgment.

So stay with us. First though, I wanted to remind you that you can request your own copy of Tony's current teaching series, U-turn Reversing Spiritual Consequences. As I mentioned earlier, all 12 life-changing lessons in this powerful two-volume collection are available along with his brand-new book, U-turns, for a limited time as our gift when you make a donation to help us keep Tony's teaching on this station. The alternative is a completely listener-supported ministry, so we rely on your generosity to keep these messages coming your way each day. Visit tonyevans.org to make your donation and request your copy of the U-turn series. And be sure to take a look at the U-turns Bible Study and DVD Kit. This package makes a great addition to your personal study and includes tips and teaching guides for leading others in the study of how God can redeem the bad choices they've made in the past. Again, drop by tonyevans.org today or call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222.

Team members are standing by to help you with your request day and night. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. Many Christians live their lives like spiritual POWs, unable to break free from the sins that hold them hostage. But tomorrow, Dr. Evans will tell us about an escape route that's already in place and it comes straight from Scripture.

Right now, though, he's back with a final thought for today. When you're sitting in a courtroom for crimes committed, the fact that you didn't do other crimes have nothing to do with why you're in court. You're in court for whatever that crime is. You want mercy. You want to know the most merciful thing you could hear in court when you're guilty and when you're subject to X number of years. Here's the most merciful thing you could hear. I want you to do a thousand hours of community service.

Mmm. I'm supposed to go to jail, but there was enough mercy for community service. That mercy overrode judgment and the thing that made the difference was they felt I could be useful to help others.

So build your mercy account now so that when judgment comes later, there'll be enough mercy to override judgment when your take is being played. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative and is celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you.