The Road to Life

It's one thing to say I love God.

It's a whole other thing to love somebody in His name. Dr. Tony Evans says God's love is meant to be shared, not stockpiled. And if you want God to reset your life so that you begin to live, you cannot come through the door and only say, bless me. 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. Most higher-level college courses require prerequisites.

In other words, you can't advance in your college path without first having laid the proper foundation. Today, Dr. Evans explores the essential elements we must practice in our spiritual path in order to move forward in our journey with God. Let's join him as he talks today about traveling the road to life. We've been talking about a divine reset. These pandemics that have been one on top of another has reset the natural order of things. And we described some time ago that when God resets the natural order of things, He creates a disturbance or allows a disturbance in order to reformat things in our culture, in our church, and in our lives.

And so He's done it globally, so it's a global reset, but He's also wanting us to do it personally so that we are being effective and not just being worn out by our faith. In Luke chapter 10, we have a very familiar event in the life of the Lord. It says in verse 25, "...and a lawyer stood up and put him to the test, saying, Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" Eternal life is more than entering eternal life. Inheriting is more than entering. You enter eternal life through faith alone in Christ alone, His finished work on the cross, and your personal trust in Him for your forgiveness of sins and the gift of eternal life. You don't earn eternal life. So that's not His question. His question is, what must I do to inherit it? Because inheriting eternal life has to do with enjoying and experiencing the benefits of eternal life.

He's not asking an entrance question. That's not His focus. His focus is getting the benefits. The Bible talks about the benefits of eternal life. I've come to give you life, and then He says to give it to you more abundantly in John 10 10.

He's talking about a life on top of entering. Now we're told in verse 25 it was a test, and the reason that He wants to test Him is that He wants to justify Himself. He answered and said in verse 26, "...what is written in the law, how does it read?" Mark 12 wants to know what's the greatest commandment. Jesus says the greatest commandment revolves around a word, and the word is love. There are Ten Commandments, the Decalogue. The Ten Commandments are supported by 613 statutes and ordinances. The commandments didn't give you the particulars, the statutes and ordinances gave you the particulars, but there were 613 because they were designed to run the whole nation of Israel.

Jesus says if you don't remember the Ten and you don't know the 613, if you get two right, you're good. Because the Ten Commandments were divided between these two. Your relationship with God and your relationship with people, your vertical and your horizontal, He says, all of the Old Testament can be summed up in the Great Commandment.

And the Great Commandment is summed up in one word, love. If you want to know how to get God working for you, you need to learn how to love. His problem was not his ability to know Scripture. It was not his ability to quote Scripture, because he quotes it. He wanted to test Jesus over the Bible.

Now how you test the living word about the written word that he wrote, I don't know. But he wanted to justify himself. He wanted to show that this lawyer knew what he was talking about. Jesus, knowing that was where he's going, said, why don't you quote it?

And this was an opportunity to show his strutted stuff. He says, I can quote it, because I've been to Bible study, so I know how to quote it. I can quote me some Bible now.

He quotes it. He takes, in fact, not only did he quote it, because this is not found in the same verse. He took two different passages of Scripture and wedded them together. Deuteronomy 6-5, love God.

Deuteronomy 19, verse 18, love your neighbor. He grabbed Deuteronomy, he grabbed Leviticus, put them together, and he said, whoop, there it is. Jesus says to him, you have answered correctly.

In other words, you got it right. You have, you passed Bible class. But then he says at verse 28, do this and you will live. Now he asked, how can I live? How can I inherit eternal life? So inherit eternal life has to do with a quality of life. Now we know in heaven there's the perfect quality of life, but how do I have a quality of life? Because you don't get eternal life when you go to heaven, you get eternal life when you come to Christ.

So eternal life is something you possess on your way to heaven, not when you arrive there. So what do I have to do to get life working for me? Isn't that a question?

So many people, how do I make life work? Jesus told the lawyer, here's how you make it work. You take the Ten Commandments, you take the 613 statutes and ordinances, and you narrow them down to the big two, wrapped around one word, love. God is love, which means God exists for his greatest glory because God loves himself. So there's only one way to love God, and that is to love God means you are passionately pursuing his pleasure. If you're not passionately pursuing his pleasure, since all things exist for the glory of God, and the glory of God refers to his self exaltation and expression, to love God means you are passionately pursuing his glory.

Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. If God's pleasure and his glory is not your passion, you do not love God. The loving of God has to do with the pursuit of his pleasure. So if the question is not asked, how am I pleasing you, how am I making you happy today, then you do not love God. Now you can shout, you can say amen, praise the Lord, hallelujah.

You can wave your hand in the air like you just don't care. But if his pleasure is not your passion, you do not love God. He says the first commandment is the love of God.

You must decide to love God. Now in Mark 12, he only asked him what's the greatest commandment, singular. The answer came back, the second is like it. He didn't ask him about two. He asked him about one. But the two are so intricately tied, you can't have one without the other. Said the second is like it.

It's attached. He says then you must love your neighbor. He says do this and you will live. So love is something you do, not merely something you feel.

Do this. Love involves an action of motion that expresses itself visibly, not just verbally. It's an action concept. How have I pleased God in my action today?

How have I served my neighbor in my action today? He says if you do this, live. Now wait a minute, he already knew the Bible because he quoted the right verses, but knowing the Bible wasn't enough. Do this and live. Don't just know this and live. So one of the reasons that we're not inheritors of eternal life, one of the reasons that we're not experiencing more of the life that we possess if we are already converted because we've entered into eternal life, is we've not yet learned how to do love.

We've learned how to talk love. You must do it toward me, love God, then you must do it toward your neighbor. One of our problems today in our culture, in our lives, in our family, is folk who know Bible who don't do Bible. They know Bible if they've been exposed and to a to a biblical orientation, Sunday school. They know Bible like the lawyer did, but they may not do Bible and so they may not be living.

They may not be experiencing eternal life, which is the life of God embedded into the redeemed believer. So wishing to justify himself, wishing to say, wait a minute, come on now, I'm a good guy, he raises a profound question about the horizontal nature of love. He asks, verse 29, who is my neighbor? Dr. Evans will tell us how Jesus replied and what it means for you and me today when he returns with more of our message in just a moment.

Stay with us. God has been faithful. When the world was topsy-turvy due to all kind of pandemics, God still touched the heart of donors to come alongside of us and keep us strong at a time when the world needed spiritual strength. And we were able to maintain and even expand ministry during the pandemic because that's how faithful God has been.

So I am not a doubter about the greatness of God nor His faithfulness, and I'm very grateful that for 40 years we've seen this kind hand of favor on this ministry. One of the goals of this ministry has always been to provide the tools and resources to help listeners like you dig deep into the subject matter Dr. Evans presents in these daily broadcasts. You can do that right now with the help of Tony's brand new teaching series, Divine Reset, a look at how to respond to God's reminders to focus on the truly important, to leave the past behind, and to live a life consistent with your identity in Christ.

You'll discover ways to develop a better focus on God, enabling you to enjoy His presence while living your life free from cultural and worldly confusion. And if you contact us today, we'll send you all 10 messages in the Divine Reset series and Tony's popular booklet, Winning Your Spiritual Battles. This practical guide offers down-to-earth help on using the tools and tactics God has provided, giving you victory over the spiritual challenges in your life. You can get both of these resources as our thank-you gift when you make a contribution to help support Tony's ministry. Today is the last day for this special offer, so visit us right away at tonyevans.org or call our 24-hour resource request line at 1-800-800-3222 for details before time runs out.

I'll have our contact information again after part two of today's lesson and this. It's beyond a Sunday sermon, a chance to really dig into the Bible and the kingdom in a new way, anytime and anywhere, because it's all online. The Tony Evans Training Center, in-depth courses on all kinds of topics, cultural transformation, intro to expository preaching, Jude, John, Hebrews, Old Testament, New Testament, and so much more. These aren't sermons.

They're teaching courses to help you engage, understand Scripture, and not just to hear about, but to explore the kingdom of God on your own. Find out more at tonyevanstraining.org. Jesus does what He does, and that is give Him a story. You know it as the story of the Good Samaritan, the famous story that deals with who is your neighbor.

Now, remember why this is critical. This is critical because it has to do with whether you're going to inherit life. It has to do with whether you're going to experience God's life, and it must go beyond your knowledge of Scripture.

It should be based on your knowledge of Scripture, but functionally, empirically, it must go beyond your knowledge of Scripture. And so this man says, who is my neighbor? This leads to the famous story.

Walk with me through this story once more. A certain man, a man was going down, verse 30, from Jerusalem to Jericho, fell among robbers, stripped him, beat him. He went away, leaving him half dead.

His future is up in the air and up for grabs. Now along the Jericho road comes a priest. Behind him comes a Levite.

It says in both cases they saw the problem. They saw him pass by on the other side. The Levite saw him pass by on the other side. So he got the pastor and the assistant pastor coming by. And they saw him and pass by the other side.

Now I wonder why they did that coming from church. First of all, they're on the Jericho road. So they're on a questionable side of town to begin with. Well, those same robbers could still be in the vicinity. So rather than jeopardize me and wind up like him, I'm not only going to pass by, but I'm going on the other side, because I see the side they jumped in.

Or, to come in contact with death based on Old Testament law was to become ceremonially unclean. So this man has jeopardized my job for a period of time. Well, I'm a pretty busy fellow. I got, you know, I've got places to go, people to see, and things to do.

I got to keep going. So the folks leaving church skip the situation. But now something else happens, because we're told in verse 33, But a Samaritan who was on a journey came upon him, and when he saw him, he felt compassion. And he bandaged up his wounds, poured oil and wine on them, put him on his own beast, brought him to an inn, and took care of him. On the next day, verse 35, he took out two denarii, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, take care of him.

Whatever more you spent when I return, I will repay you. Okay, we got a priest, we got a Levite. These are two Jews.

Now we enter a third guy. This is a Samaritan. Now, when it comes to experiencing life, ethnicity is not God's first concern.

As long as Satan can keep us illegitimately divided, then what we have done is canceled life. Because whenever there is the rejection of the second part of the commandment related to your neighbor, and Jesus is saying your neighbor had nothing to do with skin color, history, background, or culture. Who's my neighbor? That's what the lawyer wants to know. The question is not who is my neighbor. The question is what kind of neighbor are you?

That's the question. Your neighbor is the person whose need you see, you feel, and that you address. When we take the mindset that the Holy Spirit of God will lead me to what He wants me to see, wants me to feel that I can do something about, what you just invited God to do was give you life.

Because life is tied to love, he says. And if we could get Christians to love like that, for you to ask the Lord today, is there a neighbor you want me to speak to? Somebody whose need you bring across my path that I feel it. I don't just, I see a lot of homeless, but I felt that one.

Can't dress them all, but I saw I felt that one, and I can help that one. Or that elderly person, or that lonely person, or that broken person, or that person that lost their job, that person that lost their hope, that person that's been abandoned by their mate, that child that's been abused by their parent. You see, neighbor needs come in all shapes and sizes. But what God wants us to do is be open to see them, open to feel them, and open to address the ones it brings across our path. And if you want God to reset your life so that you begin to live, you cannot come through the door and only say, bless me. People come Sunday after Sunday looking for their blessing. Not understanding that the biblical blessing in the Bible always had to be a conduit, not a cul-de-sac. God told Abraham, I'm going to bless you so that through you all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

So if he can't flow through you, he's not that interested in flowing to you. So when you leave church, however that's formatted in this season, ask God, who does He want you to see today that you also will feel, who on some level you can address? Dr. Tony Evans, talking today about the road to life. And if you want to learn more about how you can receive eternal life, and also the enjoyment of God's presence along your journey in this life, then we encourage you to visit tonyevans.org and click on the link that simply says Jesus. There Dr. Evans lays out everything you need to know to accept the gift God has offered and begin living your brand-new life. That's the Jesus link on the home page of tonyevans.org. Tony will be back with a closing comment for today's message in just a moment.

But first, what we've been listening to today is the final installment in his powerful series called Divine Reset, and we're offering the full-length version of all 10 lessons in this series on CD and digital download, along with Tony's booklet, Winning Your Spiritual Battles. They're yours as our thank-you gift when you make a donation to help us continue this ministry to a world desperately in need of the knowledge and love of God. Call us right away at 1-800-800-3222. Our Resource Center never closes, so don't wait.

That's 1-800-800-3222. Or visit tonyevans.org to make the arrangements. And while you're there, be sure to sign up for Tony's free weekly email devotional.

That's tonyevans.org. When the road gets tough, it helps to know how others have successfully navigated the trip. Tomorrow, Dr. Evans offers us encouragement as he talks about people who've gone before us on their faith journey.

Right now, he's back to wrap up today's message. You say, but there's so many needs, so much pain, and you're right. A father one day was walking along the beach with his son, and thousands of starfish had been washed on to the beach. There's thousands of them. Because of how the tide rolled in, they were just everywhere. As they walked along, every now and again, the father would reach down, pick one up, and throw it in the water. They'd walk a little further, he'd reach down, pick one up, throw it in the water. Son had a question. He said, Dad, there are thousands of starfish out here. What does it matter that every few steps you pick up one and throw it back into the water when there's so much?

He said, Son, I'll take this much. It matters to the ones I throw back. There are thousands of needs. You cannot meet them all. But if we get enough of God's people who'll pick up one—one here, one there, one over here—but you get enough Christians who are no longer living for me, myself, and I, and who love God enough to love those who God brings across their path, you won't fix them all. But for the ones you do touch, it'll make all the difference in the world. He says that's the way you live. You live on love. The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by The Urban Alternative, celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you.