Unleashing Kingdom Authority

There are a lot fewer seats in first class than there is in college. Dr. Tony Evans says God has both a design and a desire to upgrade any believer who wants to operate at another level of spiritual experience. That does not affect your destination if you're a Christian, but it does affect how you get there. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. We don't get to choose whether or not we'll have problems in life.

They're inevitable, but Dr. Evans points out the Bible does promise believers a unique and powerful way to deal with them. Let's listen in as he explains. When you get on an airplane, if it's a major airline, there are two options open to you. Coach and first class. Whether you're in coach or first class has no bearing on your destiny. If you're on that plane, both coach and first class are going to the same location. But whether you're in coach or first class does affect how you get there. There are benefits to first class that are not available in coach. You have more space where there are only two seats on each side of the aisle.

You're not cramped with three people. They will find out before the flight takes off whether you desire a beverage. If it's a long enough flight, they'll provide you a meal.

Neither takes place in coach. Your bags are designed to come out first with a tag on them indicating that you are a premium customer, either because you have paid a first class fare or you have gotten upgraded. And so that is one of the benefits and the privileges. You board early, you leave first. None of that has a bearing on your destination. Your destination is the same as everyone else, but it does affect how you get there.

Jesus said, I've come to give you life, but I've also come to upgrade you, to give it to you more abundantly. Everyone who's accepted Jesus Christ as their personal sin bearer, as their savior is on the same plane, but not every Christian is sitting in the same section. Many Christians are satisfied just to be on the plane and coach doesn't matter. Long as I'm heading toward heaven being my home, I'm satisfied.

You will always notice that there are a lot fewer seats in first class than there is in coach. And there are a lot fewer Christians who experience all God has for them than the masses who may be saved. But God has both a design and a desire to upgrade any believer who wants to operate at another level of spiritual experience that does not affect your destination if you're a Christian, but it does affect how you get there. What Jesus offers believers is the ability to experience and exercise what I call kingdom authority. Kingdom authority is that divinely authorized right and responsibility that God bequeaths to believers for them to exercise and experience his rule and power while on earth. Many of us are not experiencing an upgrade in our experience with God and the power of his presence that he wants to demonstrate, but it is God's desire and his design for all believers to move from coach to first class.

In Mark chapter 11, there is a story that brings us face to face with this principle of kingdom authority. The people have been celebrating Jesus's arrival. They've been singing Hosanna, Hosanna, sounds of praise, where everywhere is Jesus approached Jerusalem. And we find out in verse 12 that on the next day, when they had left Bethany, he became hungry. Jesus in his humanity became hungry, singing at a distance a fig tree and leaf. It was not the season for figs, we're told, but there were the leaves and figs and leaves happen at the same time. So when Jesus saw the leaves, the assumption is there are the figs because the figs come with the leaves and the leaves come with the figs. He's hungry. He goes over to the fig tree and lo and behold, there are the leaves, but there aren't the figs, which were supposed to be there with the leaves.

When he sees that there are no figs, he curses the tree and says, no one will eat from you ever again. And the disciples were listening. What were they hearing? They were hearing the principle of false religion, having an external look, but there's nothing real inside of it. Paul says having a form of godliness, looking the part, carrying the Bible, speaking Christianese, having all the pomp and circumstance and paraphernalia of life. Yet when you get close enough to it, it's all dress. It's like wearing a Superman uniform, but you can't fly.

You look the part, but you can't do what the look says you ought to be able to do. Jesus uses the fig tree to teach his disciples this is false religion when you can't find the life that the paraphernalia says ought to be there. This leads to a curse. No one shall eat of this tree ever again, because there's no life there, just the leaves, the impressions. The next day, 24 hours later, verse 20 of Mark 11, as they were passing by in the morning, they saw the tree withered from the root up. Being reminded of what happened the day before, Peter said to him, verse 21, Rabbi, look, the tree which you cursed has withered. Jesus, yesterday you cursed the tree. Today, the whole tree is withered.

The question is, how could this thing change like this, this quick? So Jesus answered, have faith in God. Faith is only as meaningful as the object you place it in. Now, if you don't have God, if you have the wrong God, or if you have the wrong understanding of the true God, you do not have faith in God. So some people have faith in faith, and one of the ways they have faith in faith is they keep trying to get more faith. He says faith is not in faith. Faith is in God. So unless God is correctly in the picture, your faith is empty.

So the object must be worthy of the trust. Verse 23, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. A mountain is an unovercomable situation. It's a place where you can't climb. The problem has gotten too big. The hurt has gotten too bad. The finances have gotten too low.

The health has gotten too weak. It is beyond your natural ability to fix yourself. When he talks about a mountain that needs to be cast away, gotten rid of, overcome, removed, an obstacle too big for you to move yourself, you must have faith in God. Why do you need faith in God? Because you can't do it yourself.

If you could do it yourself, it would have been done. The reason why you have not been able to fix it is because of the limitations of your five senses. As long as you are locked in to your five senses, you do not have faith in God. Let me say that again.

As long as your touch, your smell, your hearing, your seeing, your feeling becomes the source of your confidence, you are not having faith in God. Because if your five senses could handle it, it wouldn't be a mountain. You would have dealt with it when it was a molehill. But it's now grown up. It's now too big.

It's now covering too much space. It's now controlling you and your five senses and the five senses of anybody else you know is not sufficient to deal with this. So now you must have faith in God to deal with this un-overcomeable situation which is what a mountain is, Zechariah 4 verse 7. So you've got this situation.

If you don't have it now, keep living. You will have it, where there is this mountain of a problem, an issue, an obstacle, a challenge that you need to overcome. We'll hear more from Dr. Evans on overcoming obstacles and accessing the authority of Christ in just a moment. First, though, today's lesson is part of Tony's Life-Changing Sermon series, Unleashing the Kingdom. And I want to let you know that all 12 full-length messages in this collection are available to study in-depth.

You can download them instantly or get them on CDs that we'll send straight to your home. Along with the audio collection, for a limited time, we're also including the One Kingdom Under God paperback from Dr. Evans that perfectly complements the teaching found in this series. Through these resources, you'll begin to develop a whole new way of seeing the world and your place in it, leading to greater purpose, peace, and fulfillment. We'll send you this package with our thanks for the donation God lead you to make to help us keep presenting Dr. Evans' teaching here.

Don't wait. Visit tonyevans.org today to receive Unleashing the Kingdom and One Kingdom Under God. That's tonyevans.org. Or give our resource team members a call at 1-800-800-3222. They'll be happy to help with your request.

Again, that's 1-800-800-3222. We'll return to the second part of today's lesson right after this. Are you hungry for more of God, more of His truth, more of His power, and more of His wisdom applied in your life? Then you need to connect with a community of passionate believers who are growing in God's Word through the Tony Evans Training Center. With exclusive video and audio teaching from Dr. Tony Evans, this interactive online study experience allows you to explore theology, biblical history, and real-life application of the Kingdom agenda anytime, anywhere. Visit tonyevanstraining.org to get started today. That's tonyevanstraining.org.

Well, what do I do with this? How do I get this Kingdom authority that Jesus just illustrated with the tree working for me, or you, or us? He says, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up, verse 23, and does not doubt it's going to happen. So you're not talking to God in verse 23. You're talking to the problem in the name of God. You're having a conversation with the obstacle, the mountain.

You're having a conversation with the difficulty, and you are delivering to the difficulty God because we start with have faith in God. So mountain, let me introduce you to God. I want to talk to you about God. I want to talk to you about His character. I want to talk to you about His Word.

I want to talk to you about His strength. I want to bring God to you. So mountain, let's you and me have a conversation about God. Most of the time, and maybe all of the time, we talk to God about the mountain.

I'm going to get to that. But that's not what this verse says. This verse is telling you, whoever says, you are talking to the problem. You are to deliver to the problem the character, the truth, the Word of God. God is expecting you to do that.

God won't do for you what He's told you to do. He's told you to speak to the problem. And then He says, and whoever says. So He uses the word says twice in that verse. So you must speak. Proverbs 18, 21. Life and death is in the power.

Life and death is in the tongue. You must speak to your situation, God. You must grab God, His truth, His character, and His Word.

And you and the mountain must have a conversation. That's why even when Jesus had to deal with the devil in Matthew 4, He had a conversation with the devil, but He brought God into the conversation and said, it is written. I'm talking to the devil, but I'm bringing God into the conversation. So unless you bring God, because there's faith in God, which means you've got to know enough about God to bring Him correctly, okay?

So you take the truth about God, and you don't just learn it for Bible class. You take the truth about God, and you use it with the mountains that you face. And you speak to the mountain. But now look at the next verse. Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted to you.

Ooh, we just read something different. In verse 23, I'm telling the mountain, and I am believing I will receive the answer to my prayer. But in the next verse, I'm talking to God, and I'm believing I have received the answer to my prayer.

The verses say two totally different things, because I'm talking in two totally different directions. One, I'm talking to the mountain and bringing God. The other, I'm talking to God, and I'm bringing the mountain. He says, when you talk to the mountain, believe I'm gonna do something. When you talk to me, believe I have done something.

Those are two conversations with two different perspectives. Why am I believing He will, and I'm believing He has? Why am I believing that? But you have to understand, everything God plans to do has already been pre-programmed. Everything He's going to do in your life, every prayer He's gonna answer, every need He's gonna meet, has been previously programmed.

It's already been set. That's His perspective in heaven, but that's not our reality on earth. So our reality is this will happen, because we're still dealing with this mountain.

God's reality is it has happened, because everything has been pre-programmed. All faith does is create a bridge between what God has already declared and what you're gonna see being manifested. And there is often a gap of time between the spiritual root that you don't see and the withering that you need to see, want to see, and will see.

So it may be done up there, but it may not be visible down here. But when you talk to the mountain because it will, and you talk to God because it has, you bring together the two for the timing of God to reveal it. Then He says you should expect to get a response, even though there may be a gap of time in getting that response. Then the last thing He says you must do is forgive. He says in chapter 17, verse 25, Most of the mountains we have in our lives, or many of them, are due to our own sin. If we hadn't done this, we wouldn't be dealing with that. He says, for me to deal with your mountain, I must forgive your sin.

But you must be able to do for somebody else what you're asking me to do for you. Forgiveness does not mean reconciliation. Forgiveness means no longer seeking, requiring a debt that is to be paid. That is what forgiveness is. It doesn't mean that there's not reconciliation.

It doesn't mean that there are consequences. It does mean that you are not seeking wrath against the offender, okay? So when that happens, He says, and you are forgiving, you've given me the right to forgive you so that I can now remove the mountain that you may have contributed to making. So He says, if you have faith in Me, you talk to the mountain about God, you talk to God about the mountain, you forgive, you've met the requirements for Me to enter in and turn the situation around.

Many people get disappointed with God when God is, in fact, disappointed with us. He says, I done got these answers all stuck up here. I done got them in a vault. I'm ready to open up. I'm ready to release it, but I can't get you to cooperate. You don't exercise authority over the mountain. Oh, the mountain's too big. Oh, the problem is too long. Oh, I was raised this way.

Oh, I was this, and I was that. All you're doing is speaking death into the situation. It may be true, but you're not speaking God into it. So change where you put B-U-T. God is good, but I'm in a mess. God is powerful, but stuff not working out for me. God is awesome, but things will never change. God can fix it, but this is what my daddy did.

And you put your B-U-T, and you don't have any of the right things in the right order. I messed up, but God is a fixer. Mountain, you big and bad, but God is bigger than you are.

Circumstances, you are in control, but not for long, because God told me to tell you that he got you, he got me, and he gonna turn this thing around, because I'm gonna put him in the driver's seat of this situation. I'm going to bring God to you. Now let me see how big you are, problem.

Now let me see how difficult you are, problem. Now God, you heard everything I said over there. You better come through, because you told me to already handle this. I'm talking a good game over here.

Let me come over here. Come on, God, because you already said you're gonna handle it, you're gonna do it. So don't let what God wants to do stay up there. Yes he does have things he's not gonna fix. He does have people he doesn't heal. He does have circumstances he doesn't turn around, because he has an unconditional will. And some people get disappointed when God doesn't answer, but there are things he sovereignly decides to do as his prerogative.

But don't let that stop you from doing what you need to do, so that in case he wants to do it, you can get it done. A powerful message today on the extraordinary gift God has made available to those who choose to align with his kingdom. And we'll hear a final word from Dr. Evans in just a moment. First though, if you'd like to get the complete full-length version of today's message, it can be yours as a part of our current teaching series, Unleashing the Kingdom. As I mentioned earlier, we're offering all 12 messages in this powerful collection, digitally or on CD, paired with Tony's empowering paperback, One Kingdom Under God.

They're both yours as our thank you gift when you make a contribution to support the ministry of the alternative broadcast. Contact us at TonyEvans.org to get the details and make the arrangements. Again that's TonyEvans.org, or call our 24-hour resource center at 1-800-800-3222, or let one of our team members help you.

That's 1-800-800-3222. Well once again, here's Dr. Evans with a final word for today. One of the great things all of us need in life is hope. Hope is expectation about the future, that things will be better where I'm going than where I am or where I've come from. The greatest hope that's given to us by God is the hope of eternal life, that when this life is over, we immediately enter into God's presence and don't have to worry about the scourge called death. So if you want to bypass death, you can do that, because there's the hope of the gospel, the good news that anyone who comes to Christ for salvation, recognizing their sinfulness and their need for forgiveness, will be given that salvation when they come to Jesus for it. If you're ready to accept that offer of salvation and embrace hope in your life, take the time to visit TonyEvans.org and click on the link at the top of the home page that simply says Jesus. Tony has more information there about becoming a follower of Christ, as well as some free resources to help you in your journey. Jesus and God's kingdom.

The two couldn't be further apart. Tomorrow, Dr. Evans discusses the need for each of us to nurture a divine connection. Without it, our pursuits are hollow, our destiny unfulfilled, and our world chaotic. Tune in to discover the key to unlocking your purpose and the satisfaction you were created to experience.