The Pursuit of God

It is sin that keeps us at a distance. Dr. Tony Evans says confessing our sin is the first step to drawing closer to God. And when you deal with sin as sin, then God will be free to draw near to you as you return to Him. 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.

The Declaration of Independence talks about the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But pursuing something is no guarantee we'll find it. Today, Dr. Evans comments on how to make our pursuit of God more successful. Let's turn to James chapter 4 as we join him. Submit, therefore, to God.

Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. The first thing you must do, not to be a worldly Christian, is to submit to God. It was a military term, and it meant to get yourself in your proper ranking. It meant to surrender yourself to your legitimate authority, to get in the proper pecking order. This word submit is used throughout the Bible. Christians, for example, are told to submit to government. That is, to submit or place themselves under their government to the degree that the government is legitimate, and it is requiring legitimate things. A wife is told to submit to the authority of her husband to the degree that he has submitted himself to the authority of Christ. Children are told to submit to parents as long as the parental authority is not requiring rebellion against God. So submitting had to do with alignment, realigning your life under God.

When he calls on a Christian to submit, he is saying to realign yourself under the authority of God. The first thing you need, which many of us need with our cars, is an alignment. Now all of us here have had alignments in our cars. When our car is out of alignment, you don't always see it.

You don't always feel it. But one of the sure ways to know that your car needs an alignment is to have your front tires checked, because when they check your front tires, they can look at the wear and tear, the uneven distribution of the wearing of the tread to determine that you do not have a tire problem per se. You have an alignment problem that is the cause of the uneven wear of the tread, particularly on your front tires. Many of us today are looking at our lives, and we're seeing our tread wear fast. We're seeing the lines of our lives unbalanced, out of kilter, and uneven.

We are seeing more defeat than we are victory. Many of our marriages are being worn down, and you think you've got a tread problem when there is an alignment problem. Many of our personal lives are being worn down, and you want to change tires. You want to change churches.

You want to change environments, but you may have an alignment problem. He says, realign, or to put it in the exact interpretation of the meaning of the word, reorient your ranking under God. You have displaced yourself from the authority of God.

What does that mean practically? It means to say on a day by day basis, not my will, but thy will be done. It is to say, I am willing to subject my desire to your desire, my dreams to your dreams, my purposes to your purposes, my plans to your plans, my hopes to your hopes. It is to utterly abandon oneself to God. Until that happens, we will not be aligned properly to be able to do the second phase of this, which is to resist the devil. Now, if you've been in the world, it will be tough to realign yourself, okay? There is no easy way to realign yourself if you've gotten aligned with the world. That is, you've lived this independent life, and you are sure you're a believer. You know you've given yourself to Jesus Christ, but you have been out of alignment. It's tough.

Everyone in here has experienced, I think, what I certainly experienced on a cold winter day. I have a spot in my bed. Anybody have a spot? That's the spot.

That's the spot. You're getting that spot, and that spot gets warm and nice and comfortable. Then the alarm goes off. The alarm says, morning, wake up.

But that spot, that spot you have gotten so adjusted to, that spot that you're comfortable in, you're all covered up, and you don't want any interruption with that spot. You may not want to get up, but the objective reason to get up is better than the reason for staying in there. To stay in there is to feel good for the moment, but the price tag for living there is the loss of the things that make life possible. If we refuse to get up and remove ourselves from the warm, fuzzy spots of the world, we will lose the greater because of the temporary satisfaction of the lesser. What he calls us to is to a decision to leave the world and come under the ranking of God.

Now God will help you. God will empower you to make the decision, but what God will not do is to make the decision for you, okay? So to submit to God is a conscious decision to stand against the world.

Let me say that again. To submit to God is a conscious decision to stand against the world. That this world order that leaves God out no longer will have dominating influence over my life anymore. You must decide that as a believer in Jesus Christ. God will help you do it, but he will not make the decision to do it for you. One of the things we need to know about the devil is he is not invincible, okay?

The death of Jesus Christ solved that. He has been rendered, Hebrews 2 says, powerless. So now he must whip you by deception because he no longer can whip you by power. Once you come to Jesus Christ, the devil can no longer make you do anything. He can trick you into doing it. He can tempt you to want to do it, but as a believer in Jesus Christ, he can no longer make you do anything.

So that's why you cannot blame the devil for what you do, okay? Secondly, draw near to God. Drawing near has to do with increasing intimacy.

It has to do with snuggling up close to. It means if you're going to beat the world and become a vibrant, strong Christian, you cannot have a long-distance relationship with God. You cannot be a part-time Christian. You cannot be a small, Sunday morning only, saint.

That this must be a lifestyle occupation. It must be an orientation whereby you draw near. The Apostle John's word for drawing near was to abide, come close to. The closer you get to God, the more God rubs off on you, like being in a hot sun. The longer you're in the sun, the more the sun will rub off on you, and you're gonna sweat. And you don't have to make the sun make you sweat, you just have to be close to it.

And the closer you are to the sun, it's gonna rub off on you. He says, draw near. You say, well, what does it mean? What do I have to do to draw near? Look at the second half of verse 8. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. You cannot draw near without dealing seriously with sin. It is sin that keeps us at a distance.

Dr. Evans says people who think Christians shouldn't be judging each other may have missed the point. More on that when he continues our message in a moment. Stay with us. As we prepare to step into a new year of ministry, the mission of The Urban Alternative has not changed. And no matter what 2022 brings, Dr. Evans and The Urban Alternative want to be here for you and others to continue to spread God's life-transforming Word. Today, with a year-end gift, you can help meet our year-end challenge amount and be part of helping continue this very important mission throughout the new year. Visit TonyEvans.org to give today.

That's TonyEvans.org. The message you've been hearing today is part of our year-end audio compilation called The Best of Tony Evans 2021. It contains 20 of Tony's most requested lessons from this year, covering the importance of prophecy, our need for spiritual armor, how to find freedom from anxiety, and much more. And here at the end of 2021, we're bundling these powerful audio messages along with a special selection of bonus books and devotionals you can choose from. You can get the complete Best of audio collection along with your custom selected bonus resource as our gift to you when you help support Tony's ministry with a year-end contribution. Get all the details and make the arrangements today when you visit TonyEvans.org or call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222.

Team members are standing by day and night to help you. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. Well, right now, Dr. Evans is back with more of today's message. Let's join him. There's a third thing you must do. Humble yourself before God. Verse 10, humble yourself in the presence of the Lord and He will exalt you.

Here's another great promise. If you submit, you'll be able to resist. If you draw near, He'll draw near to you. If you humble yourself under Him, which brings back the concept of submission, guess what? He will lift you up. You see, some of our problem is we've been too busy lifting ourselves up. And if you're gonna lift yourself up, why must God do any lifting?

You're good enough to take care of you. What does it mean to humble yourself? It means to remove all fragments of pride.

It is to remove all fragments of pride. In the Bible, the great men of God who were taken up were always taken down first. Joseph was taken down to Egypt, put in jail, and then he became king of Egypt. Moses was put out in the wilderness, and then he became leader of Israel.

On and on and on and on and on. David had to hang out with the sheep before he could be king. They had to have experience down before God could trust them to lift them up. The greatest Bible teacher in the Bible, Paul the Apostle, had to spend three years in the desert, humbled before God, before God would lift him up. If you want God to raise you up in usefulness, raise you up in power, raise you up in victory, raise you up in strength, you have to go low.

Why? Because there's not room for two gods in this universe, that's why. See, if you can raise yourself up, then go be God all by yourself. But if you can't raise yourself up and you're in desperate need of God, then what you do is you go low.

You go low. See, when you need mercy, you say please. When you need mercy, you say please. You humble yourself. There is no place for arrogance when sinful men approach a holy God and say come near. It's come near, please mister, won't you? There must be humility if God is going to raise you up, and that means the eradication of pride, God's elevator to the top always starts going down. You say, that's vague.

Give me something I can put my teeth into. He knew you were going to ask that question. That's why I wrote verses 10 and 11. Let me read them. Do not speak against one another, brethren. He's talking to Christians. He who speaks against a brother or judges his brother speaks against the law and judges the law, but if you judge the law, you're not a doer of the law, but you're a judge of the law.

There is only one lawgiver and judge, the one who is able to save and destroy, but who are you to judge your neighbor? He says, okay, let me give you an illustration of what humility means. You will always discover humility in how you talk, especially how you talk about somebody else. He says, because one of the ways we play God is with our tongue, one of the ways we act like we think we're God is with our tongue, because he says we use our tongues to destroy one another. He raises the sin of slander as an illustration of his point of humility.

These verses are not unrelated to what's gone before. He is saying humble yourself, and that's gonna show up in how you speak, because instead of you having a malicious tongue that drags people down, because you yourself have already gone down and recognized if it wasn't for the grace of God, you'd be stomped out. You don't use your tongue to drag other people down, because you're already down there with them. How can you use your tongue and say John Doe is worth nothing, he's no good, I'm gonna tear him down when God says you can't even draw near to me because of the sin in your own life? If you would spend more time with the sin in your life, you'd have less time to be talking about sin in somebody else's life. It is to tear down another person's reputation in a destructive or non-constructive way.

Now let me clarify something very quickly here. The Bible says you ought to deal with sin. The Bible says in Titus 3 10 that we are to deal with sin. 1st Corinthians 5, we ought to confront brothers who are sinning. That's not slander. Slander is talking to everybody else but that brother. Slander is saying John Doe is messed up, and John Doe never gets to hear from you that you love him enough and care for him enough to try to help him out of the mess. I want 300 other people to know that John Doe is going to the dogs so that John Doe will look bad in front of those other people.

You say, well, people still do it and I don't see the big deal. Well, now you've broken the law because the law is that you're to love your God with all your heart, mind, might, and soul and love your neighbor as yourself. That's what the law summed up in two. In fact, the whole Ten Commandments are really commandments of love. No other God. Well, that means love can't be fickle.

It must be single-minded. Commandment number two, no idols. That means love must be loyal in its practice. Commandment number three, do not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. That means love must be respectful and not use things in an empty way. Commandment number four, remember the Sabbath keep it holy. That means love must be devoted with its affections. Commandment number five, honor your father and mother. That means love must be submissive to a little legitimate authority. Commandment number six, you shall not murder.

That means love should value other people and not try to see their demise. Commandment number seven, do not commit adultery. Love is to be pure and not defiled. Commandment number eight, do not steal. That means love is not to be selfish and take from others what belongs to them. Commandment number nine, do not bear false witness.

Love must be truthful and not tell lies. Commandment number ten, thou shalt not let covet. Commandment must be content and thankful for what you have. Love is built into the Ten Commandments. It is the commandments of love stated in a negative way. Turn your Bibles very quickly to Matthew chapter 7. This gives you the proper balance about judging people, because you've heard people say, well, the Bible says don't judge.

Well, not quite. Do not judge lest you be judged, for in the way you judge you will be judged, and by your standard of measure it will be measured to you. And why do you look at the speck that is in your brother's eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, let me take the speck out of your eye and behold the log is in your own eye, you hypocrite.

First take the log out of your own eye and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye. The issue in the Bible is not don't judge, it is watch how you judge. You see, because how you judge will be the basis of how you will be judged. And while they may need to be corrected for wrong, which we should do, while they should be condemned for wrong, the judging should always be to build up and they should be with the log removed from your eye.

Because if you have a tree trunk sitting outside your optics, there is no way you can see a speck in somebody else's eye. So fix you first before you judge, because when you judge, it will be measured to you. Now what's the problem with wrong judgment? He tells you, verse 12, there is only one lawgiver, the judge, and one who is able to kill and to keep alive, and who are you to judge your late neighbor? In other words, there's only one God and you not he.

You're not he. He is dealing with righteous judgment, biblical judgment, clear judgment, judgment that is humble. That's why the Bible says, take heed he who thinks he stands, lest he falls. See, when you say, look at what John Doe did, God says, watch it, watch it, because don't you know that that's a possibility in you too?

And when you understand that could be you, you humble yourself. And you say it's still wrong, still sin, still need to be corrected, but Lord, in the Bible, the story is told by way of application of two Jews who went to the temple. The Pharisees said, I thank you I'm not like other men. Luke 18, I'm thanking you I'm not immoral, I thank you that I'm not a thief, I thank you that I'm not like them dogs out there, I just want to thank you that I'm not like everybody else. Then the publican, the thief, came in and beat his chest, the Bible says, and said, oh God have mercy on me. I am a sinful man. Have mercy on me. I have done all of those things and I need mercy, and Jesus says, I tell you what, that evil publican went away justified, but that Pharisee went away condemned even though he hadn't done any of those things, because the man who thinks he's high will be brought low, but the man who goes low will be lifted high. And I hear what you say. You say, but wait a minute, Pastor, I haven't drawn me, I haven't submitted, and I've been a little bit too proud.

Is it too late? Well, you know, in football they have halftime. You know what you do at halftime?

You go in and get the thing straight. You find out what's been causing you to lose, and you readjust your strategy, and guess what? No matter how many points the other team has scored in halftime, you can always come out of halftime with hope.

You know why? Because it means at least that many points can be scored in one half. If the team scored 72 points in the first half, you can still come out with hope because that means 72 points can be scored in one half.

It's just now your turn to score. Your home team may have booed you, because the other team got up on you, but let me tell you something about halftime. At halftime you don't listen to the crowd, you listen to the coach, and no matter what anybody else is saying about you, the coach is saying, let's go back out on the field and win this game. Jesus Christ is calling you to the second half.

Let's live the second half for God and not for this world. Dr. Tony Evans, encouraging us to choose the team we're committed to as we pursue God. The lesson you've been hearing today is part of Tony's latest audio compilation, The Best of Tony Evans 2021. As I mentioned earlier, this giant collection is available for only a short time longer as our gift when you help support Tony's ministry with a generous year-end contribution.

In addition to the 20 audio messages, when you contact us right away we'll also include a special bonus. Choose from the powerful Kingdom Men Rising devotional, the Made by God book for children, or Tony's newest release, Kingdom Race Theology. Just visit TonyEvans.org today to get the details and make the arrangements, or call our Resource Center at 1-800-800-3222, where team members are ready to help you day and night. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. These days, when we order something online, we typically get to choose how fast we want it delivered, but Dr. Evans says that isn't the case when we pray. Be sure to join us as he explores the wisdom behind that truth tomorrow. 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.