The Access to Authority

God has given you a powerful way to access the authority that you possess. Dr. Tony Evans explains why the process is easier than you think. It's not by programs.

It's not by formulas. It's not by doing some magical act. Prayer gains you access to the authority of Heaven. 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.

They say getting things done isn't always a matter of what you know but who you know. You'll see how that principle comes into play as Dr. Evans takes us to the book of Ephesians. Let's join him in chapter 6 for today's lesson. The battle of spiritual warfare is against angels because we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers and world forces that manage this darkness out of a sphere called heavenly places. And until we wage war in that realm, we don't wage war at all, we march in a parade. In fact, that's what a lot of people do every Sunday.

They come to the Sunday parade. They march in the church, then they march out of church, then they march back in the church because Satan will know that they'll never... And so he knows he never has to worry about them because they will get mad at the parking lot attendant, the usher, they'll get mad at the deacon and the elder, they'll get mad at the preacher and the mate, but they won't touch the evil one. The question is how do we fight this war? You fight this war by the authority that has been garrisoned in Christ. And that means that if you don't know your identity in Christ, you have lost before you started. Because that means you have nothing to call upon when you need power in order to give you victory. Jesus Christ has granted Christians authority in heaven. Not our own authority, the delegation of his authority, which means it's dependent upon his power. God has given us a wardrobe of authority, six pieces of armor, three that you're never to take off, three that you are to pick up as needed. The first three that you are to never take off has to do with the belt of truth. There must be an objective standard by which you make pragmatic decisions. Righteousness, that your new identity in Christ whereby you have been clothed with the righteousness of Christ is to inform how you live. There is a carrying of our feet with the shoes of the gospel, the peace of God that should govern our decision making when we're operating according to God's truth, but then take up, that is have clothes enough to get you when you need it, your shield of faith, your helmet of salvation, and your sword in the spirit.

The only problem with those is that they can be a little bit amorphous. You might say, how do I get dressed? I'm being beaten. Satan is whipping me. He is destroying my family. He is capturing my children. He is destroying my mind.

He is addicting me to this kind of influence that is controlling me, whether it's alcohol or drugs or relationship or what have you. And I understood what you said last week, that I have to have the right attire on if I'm going to be spiritually victorious, but my question is, how do I get dressed? Because God has given you a powerful way to access the authority that you possess, but he's only given you one way to do it. It's not by programs. It's not by techniques. It's not by formulas.

It's not by doing some magical act. Some people would have you think if you say the right words the right way, if you go to this seminar, some of us are seminars out. We'd have been the 12-step. That became 24-step. That became 36-step.

Now we had a 150-step program, and we still messed up. Not because there's anything wrong with the program, but because we must start at that which God has given us that works in heavenly places, and he's only given one thing. That's why after the discussion of the armor, Paul says in Ephesians 6, verse 18, with all prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit and with this in view, be on alert with all perseverance and petition for all saints. To put it another way, prayer gains you access to the authority of heaven. To put it another way, prayer is what dresses you up. If prayer is not a dynamic, vibrant, consistent, encompassing area in your Christian life, you are a nude spiritual saint.

He has not only supplied the attire, he has supplied the dressing code. To put it another way, prayer is the means that we access spiritual authority. And so the issue is, how does this work? In the Bible, demons are the flea, not Christians. And without a dynamic, and I say this to my conviction and condemnation and to us as a church, you are walking on a spiritual treadmill, moving fast, covering no ground. We have made all kind of plans, spent all kind of money, made all kind of effort to improve our spiritual life, only to find out we've been sweating on a treadmill, gaining no yardage.

How about trying in God's way? Everything you need to know is in verse 18. First of all, the significance of prayer.

It's in the word with, first word, with. In other words, prayer is connected to his discussion of spiritual warfare. In other words, you can't get into verse 18 if you don't remember verse 10. You can't benefit from the power of prayer in verse 18 if you've missed out on the understanding of the battle in verses 10 through 17. In verses 10 through 17, he says to stand. What does stand mean? It means don't give up any of this new territory God just won for you.

He doesn't mean passively stand by and do nothing. He says Jesus Christ has won a victory for you in heavenly places. He has raised us up with him.

Those who were under angels have now been raised above angels with Jesus Christ. Don't let the devil take your territory away. And for many of us, he's taken away the territory of our joy. For many of us, he's taken away the territory of our peace. For many of us, he's taken away the territory of a happy home. For many of us, he's taken away the territory of confidence in life.

He's taken us away from the authoritative position that God has given us. And so he says, with, that is in connection with the armor that I have described, make sure prayer is connected to it. But if you pray without a realization of your standing in Jesus Christ, then you won't pray right.

What you do in prayer is make withdrawals, not make new deposits. God is not asking you to add to Christ. He's not asking you to drop in and withdraw from the achievements of Christ. But if you don't know what Christ has done, then you're going to seek to add that which makes Christ look insufficient. He says, in light of this provision of God's armor, in light of the blessedness he's already given us, claim your authority with prayer. That's how you do it. You do it with prayer. To put it another way, without prayer, you don't get to use any of the things that God has granted you.

With prayer tied to the armor, Satan can't touch you. It's like the father and the son who were trying to outrace the prairie fire and the prairie fire was catching up with him. And so they were going to be caught because the fire was moving so rapidly and so the father and son got off the wagon and as the fire raced to them, he dug a little ditch and set fire in a circle around him, his son, and the wagon and burned a big space. He set on fire a large space where he and his son stood.

As the fire came upon them, the fire raged in front of them. The son said, Dad, we've got to get out of here. He said, no, son, stand. He said, but, Dad, the fire, he said, son, trust me, stand. Yeah, but we got to run. He said, no, we don't, son.

All you got to do is trust your father and stand. How come I'm going to stand when I'm surrounded by fire? Because, son, this place where we have already, where we are standing, has already been burnt once. I just set it afire.

There is nothing left. All the fire can do is come up around us. It can't touch us. Because once it's burned once, it can't be burned again. Jesus was burned once. And if you stand on Christ and his accomplishment on the cross, you can't be burnt again. But we want to try to outrun the fire. We want to try to beat the evil one. And he says, stand on what Christ has done.

How? With prayer. Dr. Evans will return in a moment to continue this discussion of how you can stand on the sacrifice of Christ.

So stay with us. You know, if your stand for Jesus has included too many falls, you can take some important steps toward change with the help of Tony's powerful book, Victory in Spiritual Warfare. It'll teach you to use the tools and tactics God has provided to give you triumph over the spiritual challenges in your life, even if you're facing serious oppression in the form of substance abuse, sexual or emotional problems, relational issues, and more. Right now, if you make a contribution to help support Tony's ministry, we'd like to say thanks by sending you a copy of Victory in Spiritual Warfare, or Prayers for Victory in Spiritual Warfare, your choice, along with full-length copies of all 12 messages in Tony's current two-volume audio series on the subject. Together, they're a great way to dig deeper into what we've been learning, pass along these principles to people you care about, and hear all the additional content we don't have time to bring you on the air. This is a limited-time special offer, so visit TonyEvans.org today, or call our resource request line at 1-800-800-3222 to make the arrangements.

That's 1-800-800-3222. We'll get back to more of our message right after this. I'm standing here in Alaska, one of the most glorious places in God's great creation, and I want to invite you to join me and our Urban Alternative family for the Alaskan Cruise. We're going to have a magnificent time in God's Word and in God's creation. We're going to enjoy great fellowship, great fun, great food, and I'm looking forward to meeting and greeting you on our TUA Alaskan Cruise. Register to be there.

Can't wait to be with you. To find out more about this unforgettable Alaskan Cruise, visit TonyEvans.org today. That's TonyEvans.org. Napoleon was trying to conquer the world doing his regime, and one day, as the story goes, he was looking at a map, and he was stifled because on the map, on his wall, was one red dot. Napoleon is recorded to have said, if it wasn't for that one red dot, I could own the world. The one red dot was the British Empire. It was the one place he couldn't conquer.

Satan is a lot like Napoleon. He looks at the cross. He says, if it wasn't for that one red dot. I mean, I would have had this thing if it wasn't for that one red dot. If God hadn't become a man and entered into time and space, if it wasn't for that one red dot, I would have had him. The blood of Jesus Christ shed on the cross gave us victory over the evil one.

Stand on it. It is your status in him. But for a lot of us, prayer is like the national anthem before a football game. It gets it started, but it has nothing to do with what's happening on the field. Yeah, we pray. We pray, Lord, bless me today as I go to work. No connection with what's happening on the field.

Lord, bless this food that I'm about. No connection with what's happening on the field. Why? Because it's not tied to spiritual warfare and it's not tied to the armor. So then what is prayer?

What is it? How can we make this thing called prayer simple? Prayer is simply communication with God. That's it. You say, well, now give me something deeper.

That's the problem. We want to get so deep, we don't know what we're doing. We don't need to get deep. That's deep enough. Prayer is communication with God. See, that's so deep, some of you missed it. Prayer is communication with God. See, you want to talk to me. There's only one God.

I'm not he. Prayer is communication with God. It's like the guy was praying and he didn't have good English. He was getting his wuzzers and izzes and ands and gots and haves and, you know, getting them all twisted.

But he was passionate about it. Lady came to him complaining and she said, she said, son, you need to learn how to speak after he sat down. You need to learn how to talk because your English is bad and you have to speak better than that. And she just railed him across the corner.

He looked at the lady. I wasn't talking to you. Prayer is communication with God. But if prayer is communication with God, you need to know something about the God you're communicating with. We give great prayers to a puny God. We give great prayers to a miniature micro-God.

We've got this great need and we take him to this impotent God. And because our God is so small, our prayers are so weak. If we knew who God was, we want to talk to—some of you want to talk to people more than you want to talk to God.

There's nothing wrong with talking to people. But many of us will spend hours with people and a minute with God, as though people are God and God is man. Prayer is communication with God.

Paul assumes, based on his teaching, that we are aware of who God is. But because we are biblically ignorant of God, we are ignorant in prayer. And if you're ignorant of God and therefore ignorant in prayer, you're not praying, you're doing religious chattering. And a lot of us are chattering, not praying.

We want to rub Aladdin's lamp and what we want is this magical genie to show up to service our needs. That's not prayer. Prayer is not getting God to conform to me. Prayer is getting me to conform to God. And most of our prayers are spent on our knees telling God what we want him to do for us. Now, it's not wrong to make your requests known unto God, but you best make sure that if you're going to God to tell God what you want him to do for you, that what you're wanting him to do for you is that which he wants to do for you. Because if you're praying to God to do for you that which what God does not intend to do for you, you're wasting a lot of time and energy when you could be praying about something he will do for you. And so ignorant praying, that is non-bibliocentric praying, which means that you need to know a little bit about the revelation of God, will leave you empty in prayer. Do you know why you have not added a new line to your prayer lately?

Same thing. Every day, every morning, every night, can quote it with you. Can quote it with you. Some of you have been saved for years talking about, now I lay me down to sleep, pray to Lord, my soul will keep. If I die before I wake, pray to Lord, my soul will take you. Do you know why that prayer hasn't changed? Because your knowledge of God hasn't changed. And if your knowledge of God is anemic, if your knowledge of God is weak, then your prayers will never get to the depth of enabling you to stand. If your knowledge of God is getting deep, then when those deeper problems come, you're going to go deeper to God because you got to know how deep God is, and this is a well that doesn't run dry. The significance of prayer. Through prayer, you gain access to God's authority.

Through prayer, you engage, catch this, the spiritual realm. Now, I don't know why God did it. I can't answer this question, but God decided that there were certain things he would not do apart from prayer. Some of you asked the question because you've asked me, well, if God's going to do what he wants to do anyway, why pray?

Answer, he decided that he won't do certain things without it. It's like our kids. We say they want some candy. We say ask. Now, we intend to give it to them, but we won't until they ask. Why? Because only in asking are you showing dependency.

See, without asking, you can do it yourself. What prayer does is it shows dependency and gains you access. Let me tell you the story. You don't have to turn there, but in Daniel 9, Daniel had a problem. The people of Israel were in captivity, and it was a big problem. So Daniel said in his heart in verses 2 and 3 of Daniel chapter 9 that he was going to take this mess to God. And he got on his knees, and he bent down, and he says, Now, God, we're in a mess.

But verse 2 says before he prayed, he opened his Bible to the book of Numbers because before he prayed ignorantly, he wanted to find out what God had said on the matter so he could put God on the spot. Do you know that prayer gives you the chance to put God on the spot? When is the last time you put God on the spot? When is the last time you backed God up into a corner? You say, Wait a minute. You can't back God up into a corner.

Oh, yes, you can. Ask Moses. God told Moses, Look, I'm going to destroy Israel. Moses said, You can't do that. If you're going to tell God he can't do something, you better know what you're talking about. He said, You can't do that. I pray tell, why not mow?

Why can't I do that? You can't do that because if you do that, then the nations all around Israel are going to laugh at us. And they're going to say that God was big enough to get them out of Egypt.

He was big enough to open up the Red Sea, but he wasn't big enough to take them through the wilderness. And if you do that, your name is going to look bad. And you will be an embarrassment among the gods. And so in your own best interest, God, I say that that is not a good idea. I think you ought to preserve your people. You ought to forgive your people.

I think we can approach this another way. And the next phrase is, And when God heard Moses, God changed his mind. When is the last time you backed God up against a corner?

And you say, well, how did that really work? It really worked because Moses understood God's nature. And he understood why God has a wrath side. He also has a grace side.

And if you can appeal to his grace, it will overrule his wrath so that you get the benefits of grace and not that what you deserve is wrath. That's the problem with many of us who are walking around saying, I can't, I can't, I can't. That's because you've been believing a lie, a lie, a lie. I can't save this marriage.

You know why? Because you've been buying a lie. I can't get off of drugs. You've been lied to so long. I can't beat alcohol.

No, Paul says, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. That's a lie. And until you start treating it like a lie, until God sees some of us every day are calling God a liar.

God, I can't overcome this habit. You are a liar. And I can't be the husband you want me to be. You're a liar. I can't be the wife you want me to be. You're a bald-faced liar.

And since you feel that way, why don't you go ahead and tell him? You say, I would never tell God he's a liar. Every time he says one thing and you say another thing, somebody lying. Somebody lying.

So let's just get straight. Who's the liar here? Is God the liar or are you the liar?

Then if you're the liar, start thinking in terms of what God said and not in terms of how you feel. Dr. Tony Evans on how to access the authority God has given you. Now, if you'd like to get a full-length copy of this message, check with us for details on the lesson called The Access to Authority. And it's just one part of Tony's 12-lesson series on spiritual warfare, a collection that will equip you to fight back against the devil's efforts to destroy you by using God's power instead of your own. Remember, we're offering this two-volume audio collection as our gift when you make a donation to the ministry.

Along with it, we'll send you your choice of either of Tony's two companion books for this series, Victory in Spiritual Warfare or Prayers for Victory in Spiritual Warfare. Make the arrangements to get this special offer online at TonyEvans.org or call us day or night at 1-800-800-3222. That number again, 1-800-800-3222 or online at TonyEvans.org, which is where you can also get information about the limited-time streaming of the popular film Journey with Jesus featuring Dr. Evans, Crystal, Priscilla and Anthony Evans.

Filmed on location in Israel, Journey with Jesus follows the steps of Jesus through the Holy Land. This special streaming opportunity ends this weekend, so be sure to check out the details right away at TonyEvans.org. Dr. Evans says praying with our children at bedtime and before meals is good, but it's not enough. Be sure to join us tomorrow to learn about the kind of prayer that gives us real access to God's authority. 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.