If you start with the Bible, you don't have all this mess, all this confusion, all this division. The world wants to define who we are, but Dr. Tony Evans says that's the last place we should look for our identity. So you need to learn to say bye to all that want to redefine you and not tell you you belong to Jesus Christ alone. 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. It takes a panel of experts to nail down the definitions in a dictionary, but defining who we are and what we're worth is a job God never delegates to anyone, including us. So why are we so inclined to listen to other voices, and how can we stop?
We'll find out as we join Dr. Evans. One of the major crimes in our contemporary culture is identity theft. Technology has made it very easy for people to take who you are and steal it for their own personal benefit. Whether it's a credit card or a social security number, they will try to rip it off, pretend to be you, and take what belongs to you and give it to something or someone illegitimately. Billions of dollars are taken by identity theft.
Lives, reputations, credibility can be destroyed by identity theft. And of all the rogues that exist in the world, there is none who can compete with the devil. Jesus said in John 10, 10 that he is a thief. He comes to steal and to rob. And one of the main things he wants to rob you of is who you're really supposed to be. He wants to rob you of your identity by creating identity idols.
What he wants to do is give you and me a fake ID. He wants to give us an identification marker that is not true to who we are so that we never get around to being what we were created and redeemed to become. Let me walk through some of the identity idols so that you know what I'm talking about when I talk about identity idols. One identity idol is the idol of politics, where people are more Democrats than Christians, where people are more Republican than Christians, where their political allegiance and alliances can trump the will of God, the Word of God, the person of Jesus Christ, because they've always been a Republican. They've always been a Democrat. That's how they're going to vote, regardless of what God says. They will even change what they view on the issue to please the party rather than to please the Lord, because they've created this political idol to which they have committed themselves, and that will be the dominant influencer of that decision-making process. And if your Democratic allegiance or your Republican allegiance causes you to trump what God says on issues to satisfy a political scheme, party, or campaign, you have become a political idolater, and the Bible condemns, as you'll see in a moment, political idolatry. Not only is there political idolatry, there's racial idolatry, where you're so pro-black or you're so pro-white that even Jesus can't adjust your color, where you are so into your human makeup that blackness will override Christ, whiteness will override Christ, where you will make racially based decisions that are against the will and the Word of God to satisfy your racial posse rather than to honor the Lord through whatever racial uniqueness He's given you.
We've made a god out of whiteness, we've made a god out of blackness, and God is not interested in any color that He can't rule. So when you make your humanity of race the decision-maker for your life that contradicts the will and the Word and the authority of Jesus Christ in your life, you have created a racial idol, and that racial idol is the false identity of color or of culture or whatever the racial stereotypic elements are that you use to define yourself in those categories. Class idolatry is when the poor are envious of the rich or the rich oppress the poor because they feel they have economic privilege to do so. The Bible says that whether you are rich or poor you are to honor the Lord Jesus Christ, and so when the poor illegitimately envies the rich because they have what I don't have, or when the rich oppress the poor because they have the power and the wealth to do so, what that says is my economic condition overrides my commitment to Christ because of my illegitimate non-Christian response to my economic status. Therefore you've made economics, the lack of it or the having of it, you have made them gods in your life and therefore you have trumped the authority of Jesus Christ through class divisions. That's what James says in James chapter 2 when he says you discriminate based on economics. You make the poor people sit in the back. You let the rich people sit up front.
He says, is that not evil? So there can be economic idolatry. Then there can be social identity idolatry. That's where I have a group and you can't be part of it because you don't meet up to the status that my group protects of. My group has a BA. My group has an MA. My group has an MBA.
My group has a PhD. So if you're just a high school graduate, you can't hang out with us because we're too sophisticated for you. We're too upper class for you. My status in society has no room for you. So I'm going to look down on you simply because you don't fit my social continuum. So I'm going to make an idol of a status that I possess that other people or a group that I am a part of that I can't let you be a part of.
Why? Simply because I've so idolized my group, not because of legitimate qualifications, but I have idolized my group and my part in the group so that I have now trumped you and made you insignificant. And I can't accept you and make you a part of it. So there can be social idolatry. And then the worst kind of idolatry of all is probably personal idolatry. Personal idolatry is where you think more of yourself than you ought to think. Personal idolatry is you think of you all that and a bag of chips when all God's got to do is shut off some oxygen and you are no more. Personal idolatry is where you make yourself the standard of all things, where you make yourself God, where you move from the worship of God to homocracy, which is the worship of man, where you've got such a big head on yourself that you think that you can tell God what to do.
And God can say one thing and you would dare say, but I think. That means that you are so idolizing yourself that you think that you can trump the living and true God. Not only is personal idolatry built in pride, but personal idolatry is also built in idolizing your sin. Did you know you can make your sin an idol? You hear idolaters make their sin an idol all the time.
They'll say something like, I am a drunkard or I am a drug addict. You just told me who you are. If you're a Christian, that may be what you do, but that's not who you are. That's not who you are. That may be what you do, but that's not who you are.
And as long as you keep reinforcing the sin, you keep making an unacceptable definition, acceptable because everybody in the group is doing it. So as you can see, you can idolize any of these categories by simply making it your identity. Now that the introduction is over, what is your identity? As succinctly as we can say it through the Apostle Paul, Galatians 2.20, I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me, the life which I now live in my humanity, in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
Here it is. Your new identity. Once you accept Jesus Christ as your personal sombrero and substitute, and he gives you the gift of eternal life, and Christ comes in his spirit, through his spirit to take up residence in you, your new identity is you are a Christian. That is who you are. Everything else is a subset of that one thing and only to the degree that the spokes of everything else into the hub of that one identity will your life take shape like God means it to take shape. You are a Christian and I don't mean a church goer.
I have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal substitute and now he has defined all of my life's reality in every single category. Dr. Evans will help us see beyond society's labels when he continues our message in just a moment. First though, I want to tell you about Tony's powerful and timely book called America, Turning a Nation to God. Our country has always been a work in progress, but lately it seems like we're making too much progress in the wrong direction.
And if what you see on the news and on the streets these days has you discouraged, you're not alone. But Dr. Evans says things can turn around and it's up to the people of the church, people like you and me, to get the process started. In this book, he'll show you how we can use the power God's given us to reclaim justice, morality, freedom, and strength for America and to spark a revival like our country has never seen. And when you make a donation and request a copy of the book, we'll also give you all eight full-length messages on CD and digital download from Dr. Evans' current teaching series, American Idols. This special limited-time double offer is our thank-you gift when you support the work of the alternative with a generous contribution. Visit us today at tonyevans.org to make the arrangements or call us at 1-800-800-3222, where team members are standing by 24-7 to help with your request. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222.
Well, Dr. Evans, we'll be back right after this. Black lives matter. Racial reconciliation. White privilege. Racism. Race relations are at a boiling point in America today. We know racism is a sin, but how does our society fix it? In his book, Oneness Embraced, Reconciliation, the Kingdom, and How We're Stronger Together, Dr. Tony Evans turns to both his real-life experiences and what he's learned from scripture to show you how to strive for unity across racial and socioeconomic divides. The time is now. Learn more about Oneness Embraced at tonyevans.org.
tonyevans.org. Your identity as a man, as a woman, as a black, as a white, as a Democrat, as a Republican, as a PhD, or as a high school grad, your identity is Christian. That is your identity. That is your only identity. That is how you define yourself.
I am a Christian, not in the religious term, but I am a visible, verbal follower of Jesus Christ. A caterpillar that becomes a butterfly is more than a converted caterpillar. It's a brand new thing. It operates totally differently.
It's no longer grounded because it has been transferred into something totally different. The reason why we have all these problems, not only in the world, but in the church, is we want to go to heaven, but we don't want heaven to mess with us on earth. We still want to be where we want to be, do what we want to do, act like we want to act, think how we want to think, and we want to do that and Jesus Christ not have final say-so, which means that's an idol. It's an identity idol.
Let's talk about race. In this passage, familiar passage, Peter is a super Jew, okay? One day God comes down him in his vision and tells him, you know, you can eat pork now. He says, I want you to go over to Corneas' house, the Gentile house. He goes over there, leads them to Christ, and he discovers them Gentiles know how to cook. So in Galatians 2, verse 11, he's dining with the Gentiles.
Some of his boys from the hood show up. His posse say to Peter, what are you doing with them? We got to be with them in heaven. That don't mean we got to hang with them on earth.
What are you doing with them? It says Peter was intimidated by the circumcision. That is, his brothers in the same race intimidated him. So Peter got up and left the Gentiles so he wouldn't offend his own race. So it says the other Jews who were following Peter when they saw Pastor Peter get up, they got up too. Now, they would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for the fact that Paul wanted some soul food too. Paul wanted some pig feet too. Paul says, when I came in and saw them leaving, I didn't hold a workshop, I didn't ask them, can we all get along?
I didn't have a symposium on race. He said, I condemned Peter before them all because he went public with his racial attitude and I wasn't going to let him get away with that kind of racism in the kingdom of God. It's not going to take me 250 years to fix it. I'm going to fix it in less than two and a half minutes because there is a Christian standard. And Peter, you're not living up to that standard yet you claim to be a Christian, but you kick Christianity to the curb to satisfy your peeps.
You kick Christianity to the curb to satisfy your race. So Peter, you obviously don't know who you are so let me help a brother out. Let me tell you who I am, Galatians 2.20.
That's at the end of this story. I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I. It's Christ who lives in me.
So the life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Peter, you should be quoting that same verse. But you sow into pleasing your own race and ignoring another race illegitimately that you have embarrassed the gospel, he says.
And we have a lot of Christians on both sides of the color line who are embarrassing the gospel. In Numbers chapter 12, verses one to 10, Moses marries a black woman. It says twice he married a Cushite.
A Cushite is an Ethiopian. He marries this Ethiopian black woman and Miriam and Aaron got ticked off that Moses married this African woman. God got so ticked off and said to Miriam, since you sow into being white, we gonna make you white.
It says he took her skin, he shedded her skin and she became white as snow until she repented of her racism and then her skin came back. So if you start with the Bible, you don't have all this mess, all this confusion, all this division, all this separation because Jesus Christ is Lord. So you start with your Christian commitment. This is a day when we must make it clear that we take our stand with Christ in your personal life. You and I are not all that.
We've been bought with the price, the price of Jesus Christ. There's no room for pride. The greatest idolatry of all is pride because that was the idolatry of Satan.
The Bible says he got the big head and thought he was more than he ought to have thought about himself. So don't think, okay, you got a degree, praise God for the opportunity, but you're not better than the dropout. You're different than the dropout.
There's more opportunity than the dropout, but you're not better. There's got to be this mentality of humility in the blessings that we have received. And when that's missing, the heart of Christ is missing. So it's time now for you and me to testify against the devil.
You know, they call you to the stand and you testify. Devil, you no longer will allow me to be defined by anything other than my commitment to Christ. I am now a visible, verbal follower of Christ. I'm not just a general Christian. Okay, let's get this. I'm not talking about your belief in God.
That's not enough. Because when you say God, I don't know which God you mean. When you say Jesus Christ, now we talk about the same thing.
Jesus Christ, God has placed everything in Jesus Christ. So you must be willing to be identified with Christ. So devil, I'm going to serve notice on you. Beginning today, I'm going to be defined by my commitment to Jesus Christ and nothing else.
Everything will filter through that commitment. Well, you say, but how am I going to make it? Well, God will just have to put you in the witness protection program. But you should make sure you're willing to give testimony to Jesus Christ.
Dr. Tony Evans, with important information on finding your positive ID. He'll come back in a moment with an encouraging story to close out our time together. First though, I want to remind you that today's lesson is part of his brand new teaching series, American Idols.
This eight-lesson collection includes material we won't have time to include on the air, and it can help you identify and avoid the hidden idols in your life. Available on both digital download and CD, these messages are great discussion starters to use with your Bible study or small group, or just to review on your own. And for a limited time, we're bundling the entire series along with a copy of Tony's powerful book, America, Turning a Nation to God. We'll send both of these valuable resources to you as our gift when you help support our work on this station and around the world with a generous contribution. You can make the arrangements online at TonyEvans.org, or call our resource request line at 1-800-800-3222, where team members are always on hand to help you.
Again, that's TonyEvans.org, or by phone at 1-800-800-3222. The United States Declaration of Independence states, Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are three rights given to all humans by their Creator. But tomorrow, Dr. Evans warns us it's easy to obsess over happiness, and that can come at a great price. Right now, though, he's back with his final story. In closing, there was an eaglet that fell out the tree, and it fell to the ground on a turkey farm. When the eaglet, because it's just a baby eagle, looks up, it's surrounded by all these turkeys. So the eaglet thinks it's a baby turkey, because that's its environment. Everything is a turkey. So he grows up around the turkey, and he tries to be turkey-ish. You know, tries to start walking, you know. You know, starts wobbling like a turkey, you know.
Because that's what everybody's doing where he's being raised. Everybody, all the turkeys are doing that, so he's going to do it. Now, he knows he looks a little different and all that, but maybe I'm just a different little turkey, looking turkey, but these are my people, so they're doing it, so I'm going to do it too. So he becomes a turkey like everybody else, acts like a turkey like everybody else. One day, the eaglet looks up, and there's an eagle flying over. Wings expand.
Something is triggered inside the eaglet's heart. I should be up there. I wish I could be up there. Something in me relates to that bird up there, but this is where I've been raised. This is how I've been raised. I'm with the turkeys. But then the eagle sees the eaglet looking up at it. The eagle swoops down and says to the eaglet, what you doing down here?
What's wrong with you? What are you doing down here? The eaglet said, I'm with my people. This is where I was born. This is where I was raised.
This is how we do it down here. He says, somebody's been lying to you. They've been lying to you. This may be where you are, but that's not who you are.
This may be where your environment is. That's not who you are. He says, spread your wings. And so the eaglet obeyed and spread his wings. He said, I flopped him a couple of times, and the eaglet flopped his wings and bounced up off the ground. He said, now, you're a little harder. You're a little harder and went a little higher. He said, oh. He said, you've been being held on ground level because nobody told you who you really were. What you're supposed to be doing is following me and flying high.
So why don't you now join me and become what you were created to be? So the eagle took off. The eaglet took off after it.
The eaglet is now flying beside the eagle. The turkeys look up. The turkeys say, where you going, bro?
Where you going? The eaglet says, I'm going to be what I was created to be. The turkey said, but you came from down here. You belong down here. Oh, I was down there, but I was living a deceived life because I thought I was one of y'all.
I'm not one of y'all. I was born to be something else. I wasn't born for turkey dinners.
I was born to fly. So I'm sorry. I got to say goodbye to y'all. Bye, turkeys. So you need to learn to say bye to all the turkeys in your life that want to redefine you and not tell you you belong to Jesus Christ. Christ alone. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative and is made possible by the generous contributions of listeners like you. .
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