Empowered by the Spirit

They say anybody who can turn sardines and crackers into a Moby Dick sandwich ought to be king, but what they wanted was a Burger King. Dr. Tony Evans says the feeding of the 5,000 reveals what many of Jesus' followers were really following, and the same is true today. What Christians want spiritually today are his benefits without his lordship.

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. God wants us to live by his power, but we can't get it unless we live by his principles. Today, Dr. Evans talks about the importance of submission and obedience as he takes a look at what it means to live a Spirit-driven life.

Let's join him. Activity without the Holy Spirit is much to do about nothing. It's to function mechanically and not be able to flow, because there is no power. One of the great statements that Jesus Christ makes about the Holy Spirit is in the book of Acts, chapter 1, verse 8. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and in Samaria and even into the remotest parts of the earth.

And you shall receive power. And this power will come from the third member of the Trinity. The Trinity speaks of the three in oneness of God. God is both one and many. He prophesies a provision of power.

Now, this is not the first time that they have heard this. In John, chapter 14, Jesus is teaching His disciples, because He's about to die and about to leave them, and He says, I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever. Who is this Helper, verse 17? It is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him and know Him, but you know Him, because He abides with you and will be in you.

I will not leave you as orphans. Now, to appreciate this, you have to understand that Jesus has been with the disciples for three intensive years. They have walked with Him, talked with Him, they have seen Him, they have engaged with Him, they have bonded with Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ now says, guys, I got to go. This throws them into turbulence, because the question on the floor is, well, we barely made it with you here. How in the world are we going to make it with you gone?

I mean, look at all the struggles we had when you were here. Jesus takes them to the upper room and He says, don't worry about it, because I'm going to send you another Helper, and He will be the Spirit of truth. Verse 25 of John 16 says, these things I have spoken to you while abiding with you, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said. When the Helper comes, even though I'm not with you, He's going to remind you of what I told you. He says, you will receive power. It's a guarantee.

And it's a guarantee certainly in the life of the believer because now the Holy Spirit belongs to every true Christian. Let's get the first part straight. The help you need to do what you need to do, you already have. Let me say it again now. The help you need to do what God wants done, you already have. But where is it located? He shall be in you. You already have it. You know, one of the worst things to do is be searching for something you already have. I was looking the other day for some notes because I'd written them and they were critical for a presentation. And I'm looking and I'm searching. I'm going through all my notes and I go through it. You know how you go through things three and four times trying to find, I'm looking and I'm looking between pages.

I am looking all over the place. It's getting close to where I need to make this presentation and I need to get this note and I'm looking and I'm looking and I'm asking people, have you seen this? And I'm searching and I'm looking and time is going on and I'm starting to get sweaty because it's, you know, because it's, you know, I got to find this thing and I can't find my notes. I go back down to the car.

Maybe it's been slipped out between the seats and I'm looking in the car and I'm looking, I can't find it. And then, first of all, you start random looking. You just start looking everywhere. Then you become an organized looker. Let me start in this room and go to this room and go to this room.

Then you become a strategic looker between things and, you know, you just looking. I got to find these notes. I can't find these notes anywhere.

I said, okay, I just quit. I can't find it. I get up to make my presentation, open up my Bible, sitting right in the passage that I wanted to talk about were the notes I was looking for. I was killing myself to locate something I already had. He is going to be in you. What you're looking for, you already have. It's been granted to you because this is the age of the Holy Spirit. The problem is that we're so disconnected from him. So that should raise the question. If I already have the power I need to pull off what I'm supposed to pull off, how do I get linked with it?

Okay, now watch this. Acts chapter 1, 3. To these, he also presented himself alive after his sufferings by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of 40 days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God. Verse 6, so when they had come together, they were asking him, saying, Lord, is it at this time you are restoring the kingdom to Israel? He said, it's not for you to know the times or the epochs which the Father has fixed by his own authority.

You will receive power. Jesus in verse 3 has been teaching them about the kingdom, his rule. They want to know when the physical kingdom is going to come. Jesus says, it's not right now time for me to tell you when the physical kingdom is going to come, when I come back and I set up my earthly rule.

The time for that I can't tell you. But while you will not right now have the kingdom's visible physical presence that's going to be at an unknown date in the future, while you're going to have to wait for that, what you will not have to wait for is the kingdom's power. You can know the kingdom's power now. Now, why am I saying that, and what has that got to do with the connection?

Here it is. The reason why we are disconnected from the Holy Spirit's power is that we're disconnected from the kingdom of God. The power was tied to the kingdom. So that raises the question, what is the kingdom? The kingdom is the rule of God in your life.

Many of us want a relationship without the rulership. Another New Testament phrase for this would be the lordship of Jesus Christ. See, many of us today spiritually are like they were in the New Testament days. They wanted Jesus's miracles. They wanted him to make the blind see, the lame walk, the dumb to talk.

They wanted his miracles. They wanted him to feed, remember when he fed 5,000 men, not counting women and children, 20 to 25,000 people. He fed all of them and they said they wanted him to be king. They said, anybody who can turn sardines and crackers into a Moby Dick sandwich ought to be king.

But what they wanted was a Burger King. They wanted somebody who was going to meet their needs without them having to submit to his rule. And it says when he saw what was in them, that they wanted his benefits without his lordship.

It says, watch this, now this is very important, it says he removed himself from them. What Christians want spiritually today are his benefits without his lordship. If you want his benefits, we call it bless me, I want to bless. If you want his benefits without his kingship, you get what they got in the New Testament.

What did they get? It says he departed from them. He wouldn't fellowship with them.

Why? Because they didn't want him for who he was, they wanted him for what he could do. He says he was explaining to them the kingdom of God, the rule of God. The fundamental reason why the power that is in us doesn't seem to be helping us is that we are disconnected from the king and his kingdom.

Or to put it another way, the way to get connected to the Spirit's power, even though you have the Spirit's presence, is a recognition and submission to the king and his kingdom, his rule in your life. So it raises a question, does he rule? Or does he only get to make suggestions to us?

And then we evaluate whether we're going to do them. When Dr. Evans continues our message in just a moment, he'll have more for us on what it means to live obediently in God's kingdom. But first, if you'd like to dig deeper into what we've been learning, you can get Tony's current series on both CD and digital download to review and study at your own pace. This eight-part collection is called Life in the Spirit, and it'll teach you how God's Spirit takes up residence inside us to focus our thoughts, empower us to face life's challenges, transform the way we live, and help us grow into mature, fully dedicated followers of the Lord. And through next Monday, we have a special offer, all eight lessons in the Life in the Spirit series, along with a copy of Tony's powerful book, The Fire That Ignites.

This book is the perfect complement for a study on the Holy Spirit, and we're making the complete package available as our gift in appreciation for your contribution to the ministry of the alternative. Just visit us at tonyevans.org, make your donation before time runs out next Monday, and let us send you both of these great resources. Again, that's tonyevans.org. Or call us day or night at 1-800-800-3222, and let one of our helpful team members assist you.

That's 1-800-800-3222. Dr. Evans will come back with more of today's lesson right after this. The world says to man up. What does God say? To be a man and rise up in society, you can't leave God on the sidelines.

It requires showing up, being present, standing up, speaking truth. In his powerful and long-awaited sequel to the instant bestseller, Kingdom Man, Tony Evans' Kingdom Men Rising challenges men to rise up for what they believe in. For Kingdom Men, we must rise.

Find out more at tonyevans.org, available April 6th. Okay, we have a bunch of parents here, and I'm sure, like in my home and your home, for your children you have rules. So we'll call your house, my house, a kingdom.

And the head of the family, we'll call the men, you are the king of your kingdom. So you establish the guidelines that govern the operation of your house. So you gather the children around and you say, now, these are the guidelines that govern this home. To which your child says, okay dad, I heard about them, give me some time.

I want to really think about whether this is something I really want to do. Just give me, give me a couple weeks, couple months, maybe a couple years. But now dad, now here's what I want you to do now. Now you keep feeding me, you keep clothing me, you put gas in my car, you keep giving me allowance, but let me think about whether I want to be governed by your guidelines.

Some of them I'm going to go with, but there I'm sure going to be others that really don't fit me. The things that are not me, you know, you're just going to have to understand. Now at that point in the conversation, there ought to be a pause button, push pause. And the king, the head of the house, in his kingdom would need to clarify something. In this house, we're not discussing whether we going to do it, because the king has spoken.

Now obviously in the human standpoint, we're imperfect, but God is not. Joshua didn't take a vote in Joshua 24 verse 15. He didn't take a vote and said, now who y'all going to serve?

Let's vote, let majority rule. He said men, by the way, he said men, and then he said, ask for me, and I'm speaking for everybody at my house, we will. In other words, if you in my house, this is what we do. Now let's suppose you say, I don't like your rules.

No, there's a simple solution to that. If you don't like my rules, then you just don't come to my house. In other words, if you're under my rule, you got to respect my guidelines. What Jesus is saying is I came to bring a kingdom where I rule in the hearts and lives of my people. And what I'm not going to do is share my communication and my power, this dynamic enablement by the Holy Spirit, I will not provide people over whom I cannot rule, because it's a king and a kingdom. Most of us are not experiencing this supernatural enablement because Jesus Christ can't rule unless we first decide whether we agree. And Jesus is not debating with us.

How many times have we told you, I am not debating with you? The Holy Spirit is postured in the Bible as a dove. In Trafalgar Square in England, and people just come out and feed the pigeons.

They come out with breadcrumbs and stuff, and you'd be thousands of pigeons at Trafalgar Square. You will never find a dove there. You'd never find a dove. A dove is one of the most sensitive birds ever created. They're very sensitive. And if the dove sniffs anything that could irritate it, dove's going to leave because it's very sensitive. It won't hang out where it's irritated.

Anybody follow me? The Holy Spirit, the Bible postures as a dove. Very sensitive. So when the Holy Spirit sniffs anything that is contrary to the king and his kingdom, which is why his first name is holy and his last name is spirit, when he senses anything that is in conflict or competition with the king and his kingdom, he is going to exit not the presence of your life because you're sealed, the Bible says, with the Holy Spirit. What he does is exit the relationship with you in your life so his communication and power are no longer expressed. Here's how you know when you're a kingdom person. When you have to adjust your decisions to God's decisions even if that's not the decision you want. When the dove sees that you are cooperating with the will of God and the king and his kingdom, you shall receive power.

How do you know when this power is working? He actually tells you in the verse. He says, and you shall be my witnesses. You shall be my witnesses. He said in John chapter 16, he says, when the Helper comes, he will glorify me. Luke puts it another way here. He says, you will be my witnesses.

Don't misread that. He didn't say you will do witnessing. He said you will be witnesses. I want to link in on that word be. Be.

A witness is somebody who visibly and verbally represents the thoughts or cause of another. But he didn't say you're going to have a program. He says you're going to become a different person. To be. You're going to be something you were not.

You get to be. Remember that commercial? Plop, plop, fizz, fizz.

Oh, what a relief it is. You drop the two Alka Seltzer's in that glass, and you watch this volcanic eruption into something very ordinary. What God did is he dropped something in your new nature. Two tablets, holy and spirit. And they are designed to bring about a change for upset lives, upset minds, upset circumstances. He dropped two tablets in, plop, plop, so that there might be fizz, fizz, so that you might discover, oh, what a relief he is to the issues. When you take on the positioning of the king in his kingdom, he will turn on the ignition of the battery that allows the Spirit of God to help you to become something.

You are not right now. He just needs to know that you know he's king. are our gift to you when you help support our work here on the air and around the world with a contribution. And for a few more days, we'll include a copy of Tony's popular book, The Fire That Ignites. Get all the details and make your request online at TonyEvans.org before the special offer runs out next Monday. Or call us at 1-800-800-3222. Our friendly resource team members are available around the clock to take your call, so reach out any time of the day or night.

Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. As you've heard, the Urban Alternative is celebrating 40 years of ministry this year, so your support is an investment in an organization with some deep roots. But those roots sink even deeper back into Dr. Evans' early life and ministry. Here's what he told me recently about an important person and event from his undergrad days at Carver Bible College that shaped who he would become. John McNeil was a great influencer in my life in college, and I would spend a lot of time talking with him.

His house was on campus, so I would go over and I would do work for him in his house, just little odds and ends kind of things, but that gave me a lot of time to spend. His wife would always feed me ice cream for doing work, and there was a lot of affirmation that came from him as we were trying to deal with, because I'm now in Atlanta, and the civil rights thing is hot and heavy coming out of Atlanta, and so there was a lot of tension in the air. So we were always wrestling theologically and practically with the whole issue of race and the Bible. It was while I was in Atlanta that I was denied to go to a white church there simply because they did not want to have a black person in the church, and the church split over it.

So there were dual tracks I was always operating on. Even when I went to college, there was a dual track because there was conservative theology, even though it was in a context of social change. So that was another crisis in my life that also helped prepare me for an emphasis on racial reconciliation even to today. Spreading the message of biblical reconciliation is just one of the outreaches you make possible when you support the Urban Alternative. So again, contact us today at 1-800-800-3222, and let us say thanks for your help by sending you this special two-resource package, Life in the Spirit and the Fire that Ignites.

Again, that's 1-800-800-3222, or make the arrangements online at TonyEvans.org. And when you do, take a moment to click on the link that says Jesus. There you'll get a clear picture of who God is, how much He loves you, and how the light of His love can drive all the darkness out of your life. Tony will talk about how the Lord's death on the cross paid the price for everything you and I have ever done wrong and made it possible for us to have a real personal relationship with God, starting now and continuing through eternity. The Bible says there's no other way to make this happen, so visit TonyEvans.org today to find out more. Again, that's TonyEvans.org. Facing up to our faults is never easy, but tomorrow Dr. Evans will explain how that important first step can lead to dramatic, exciting changes driven by God's power instead of willpower. Don't miss it. 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.