God didn't just save you for heaven, He saved you for a duty on earth. But Dr. Tony Evans warns that God's calling has a catch. If you forget your homeland is heaven, you will become too attached to earth.
Earth now owns you. This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. We know that God has a wonderful message for mankind, but we sometimes forget that we're the ones who are supposed to deliver it. Let's listen as Dr. Evans talks about what it means to represent God's kingdom.
This other land. And this embedded group became known as Fifth Columnist. God has an embedded group of Fifth Columnist, of kingdom representatives, of men and women who have been saved not only for the purpose of going to heaven when they die, but of representing heaven while they live. This representative group of kingdom followers, of kingdom disciples, is a group of people who have been redeemed, taken out of darkness and into the marvelous light, for the purpose of representing heaven in history, eternity in time. Their job is not to be co-opted by the culture, but to become God's representatives in the culture based on the values of the kingdom of God. Their central understanding of their role is, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. These representatives are specifically designated to serve heaven's interest in a secular, declining, evil culture.
The problem is many of God's representatives have been bought by the culture, owned by the culture, and have adapted themselves to the culture so that they're no longer representatives of the kingdom of God. They are now reps for the kingdom of man while carrying a kingdom of God designation. When Peter writes these Christians, he calls them beloved, that is fellow saints. He wants to talk to them about their responsibility and their role as kingdom representatives. Jesus said in Luke 22 verse 29, He said, My Father has given me the kingdom and I give it to you. So kingdom responsibility was handed to Jesus, which is why when He was on earth, He said the kingdom of God is at hand. Then He took His disciples and He prepped them to become kingdom representatives. And so they set the stage for the building of the church of God's people so that there would be this legacy, this transfer of kingdom representatives in the culture. And so He, first of all, wants you to know who you are.
I mean, notice the language He uses in verse 9. He says you are a chosen race. In other words, you have been especially selected for this duty. God didn't just save you for heaven.
He saved you for duty on earth. And you have been chosen, selected, elected as kingdom disciples to function as kingdom servants. He says not only that, but you are a royal priesthood.
He brings together two concepts. Royalty has to do with kingship. Just in case you didn't know it, once you came to Christ, royal blood is now flowing through your veins because you're a child of the king. But He says you're also a priest. That's an intermediary between God and man.
He says you've been duly selected. You are a royal priesthood. You are owned by God. You are a people of God's possession.
You are owned by God. He has said in verse 7 that the stone that the builders rejected has become the very cornerstone. Palm Sunday, Jesus was applauded.
One week later, Jesus is crucified. He was the stone that the builders rejected. But He says that stone, Resurrection Sunday, became the chief cornerstone. Now a chief cornerstone was an alignment stone and a stability stone for the building of a house or a building. You've seen perhaps houses on stilts where they're on the four corners of the house. The cornerstone was that concept.
It held the building up, stabilized the building, and aligned the building so that it could function as it was crafted to function. So when the Bible says Jesus is the chief cornerstone, He is the stability for the building of your life and the building of this ministry. In other words, if you veer from Him, you're on shaky ground. If you veer from Him, things are going to become destabilized because He is the stable rock. He is the alignment. When we're out of alignment with Him, everything else is going to get out of alignment. Because He is the stone that the builders rejected, He has become the chief cornerstone. In other words, all of history is tied up to how things are related to Jesus Christ. And He says you have been chosen, selected, elected to be royal people, God's own possession, and intermediaries between God and man.
In other words, you are somebody. The Queen of England one day, her daughter was slouching in a chair. She was saying, sit up, sit up, sit right. She was slouched back in the chair. You got to sit up, sit up. She was slouched back in the chair.
Frustrated, the Queen of England looked at her daughter and said, I told you, sit up. Don't you know who you are? See, when you don't know who you are, you're going to slouch. When you don't know who you are, you're going to be confused.
And that's exactly what has happened today. As the cornerstone is being abandoned, confusion is set in. Folk just don't know who they are. Confusion is set in because when the stone gets shaky, your identity becomes confusing on a whole lot of levels. So Jesus is that stable place.
He's that point of reference. When Peter got confused about the race issue, he became too Jewish. He became a racist Jew. Paul showed up and said in Galatians 2 verse 11 to 19, he says, Peter, you have embarrassed the gospel because you forgot who you are. And then he quotes to Peter, Galatians 2 20, I'm crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live, yet not I. It's Christ who lives in me.
The life which I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. In other words, Peter, you have to understand you're supposed to be a Christian first. Everything else has to be subjected to that. And the moment something else trumps that, your background, your history, your mama, your daddy, your race, your color, your politics, whatever it is that gets in the way of Jesus Christ being first means you're on shaky ground because you're out of alignment and stability will not be. And so what you're having today is not only a culture out of alignment, but a lot of Christians out of alignment because they don't know who they are. And so we start with the references of the culture rather than the references of Christ and adopt that to the culture. He says your identity must become clear because if you don't know who you are, the enemy will tell you who you are and you'll become confused.
So he wants us to know that we have an identity. It makes me remember Philippians chapter 2 and Philippians chapter 2. Paul says to them in chapter 3 verse 20, he says, For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Did you know you're a citizen of heaven? He says your citizenship, your homeland is not earth. You are visiting here. He calls it in Peter, you are an alien and a stranger.
You passing through this neighborhood. He says your homeland is heaven. But if you forget your homeland is heaven, you will become too attached to earth. And once you become too attached to earth, earth now owns you.
Yes, from the human standpoint, I know we're citizens of this country. But your ultimate allegiance is as a citizen of heaven that you belong to another order. Dr. Evans will talk more about the importance of maintaining loyalty to our true homeland when he continues in just a moment. In the meantime, if today's topic has struck a personal note with you, then we invite you to check out Tony's thought-provoking paperback, One Kingdom Under God. Through the pages of this book, you'll learn to see the world as God sees it, helping you discover your unique role and purpose within His kingdom.
You'll also want to explore the 12 full-length messages from our current Unleashing the Kingdom series. We're excited to offer both the book and the entire two-volume audio collection in a special resource bundle that we'll send to you along with our thanks when you make a donation to help support the mission of the alternative. For more information on this exclusive offer, visit tonyevans.org or contact our resource team at 1-800-800-3222. They're ready to assist you with your request any time, day or night. This offer ends tomorrow, though, so contact us right away. That's tonyevans.org or by phone at 1-800-800-3222. I'll repeat that contact information for you following the second part of today's message.
Here's Dr. Evans once again. Philippi was almost a thousand miles from Rome, but it was a Roman colony. So even though it was a thousand miles from Rome, they operated by Roman laws. They operated by Roman ordinances. They operated by Roman governance.
In other words, Rome influenced how they operate because even though they were a long way away, they were a colony of Rome. You and I are supposed to be a colony of heaven so that the values of heaven influence us, guide us, govern us, not the guidelines of the culture when they disagree with heaven. He says you are citizens of heaven, and that's why he says in the previous verse, these folk who don't understand that set their minds on earthly things.
Now make no mistake about it. Your feet are to be firmly planted on the ground, but your mind is to get its information from heaven. So you and I are not to be so heavenly minded that we're no earthly good, but we're not supposed to be so earthly minded that we're not heavenly good.
The idea is to take heaven's information and execute it in earth's environment. He says that you are a special people. You are an elected people. You are a royal people. You are a priestly people.
You're under new management now. You are to be an influencer to serve notice on the culture that Jesus Christ is here, that his kingdom is alive and well, and I am his official rep. I have been duly authorized to represent the king in the culture, for the gospel of the kingdom is to be declared everywhere. In fact, you have a specific title.
Let me tell you your title. From 2 Corinthians 5, Paul writing to this church that was in this secular idolatrous culture, he says to them in verse 20, Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God was making an appeal through us. We beg you on behalf of Christ be reconciled to God. Did you know you an ambassador? An American ambassador is a citizen of the United States that's been duly deputized to go to another country and represent the United States in the foreign land.
He just called you an ambassador. You are somebody because your job is to take the values of the kingdom of heaven and promote them in the culture that you live in, on the job you work in, in the neighborhood where you reside, to your family members to whom you are connected. You are an ambassador of the kingdom of God. You're not an ambassador of the culture unless it agrees with God. The moment the culture disagrees with God, you must disagree with the culture. The question on the floor is, is your Christianity visible? If on your job tomorrow, if they accuse you of being a follower of Jesus, would you be found guilty or innocent of all charges? Because there's just nothing public about you when it comes to advertising your faith in God and your fellowship of Jesus Christ. It's just not clear.
It's an uncertain sound, uncertain sound. I think you know our culture is in trouble. Every day, every week, every year, as things become more secular, things are getting more out of control. This is the time when Christians can't be silent.
You're either going to be a representative of God or the representative of a culture that is in desperate need of God. You know, Sodom and Gomorrah were two cities pretty close to each other, Dallas and Fort Worth, okay? And so God said, I'm going to destroy those two cities. And He destroyed them for three reasons, not one. We know, one, the moral decay. Two, the violence. Three, according to Ezekiel, the oppression of the poor, injustice. So there were three reasons Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed, not one.
Moral decay, violence, and oppression, injustice, okay? So God says, I'm going to destroy them. Abraham said, if I can find 50 righteous, will you save the two cities for the sake of the 50?
In other words, will you accept the 50 of the down payment on saving the 500,000 or however many lived in Sodom and Gomorrah? God said, if you find me 50, I'll spare the city. Abraham came back and said, what about 40? He couldn't find 50. He came back and said, what about 30? Because he couldn't find 40. He came back and said, what about 20? Because he couldn't find 30.
He came back and said, what about 10? Because he couldn't find 20. So let me tell you why Sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed. It was destroyed because of the decay. It was destroyed because of the violence.
It was destroyed because of the oppression. But it was also destroyed because the righteous couldn't be located. God's people were nowhere to be found. Maybe they were in church. Maybe they were worshipping. Maybe they were saying amen. Maybe they were waving their hands in the air like they just don't care. Maybe they were just having a great time listening to the sermon or listening to the choir, but they were nowhere to be found in the culture.
Sunday morning is only designed to get you ready for a week of ambassadorship on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, so that all week long God has representatives in the culture with good words and good works. The Cowboys have a different kind of fans. They have casual fans.
That means they can take it or leave it. They can watch the game or not watch the game. Then they have committed fans. They're not going to miss the game. They're going to be there because they're committed on Sunday to be in front of the game. Then they're fanatical fans.
They don't want to miss the game, and they will tell you the stats of which player did this and which player did that, and they can tell you all the details because they are fanatical about their team. The Cowboys have different kind of fans. The kingdom has different kind of fans. God has got some casual Christians. They'll come on Easter and Christmas a few times in between.
Then he has committed kingdom representatives. They're going to be at church. They're going to be at church. They're going to give some money. They'll maybe serve a little bit.
They're committed. You can count on them to be engaged at the gathering, but then they're those radical kingdom representatives because they're just getting started when the benediction is given. When the benediction is given, it's going to be Jesus in the morning, Jesus at noontime, Jesus when the sun goes down. Everybody at work is going to know they're a follower of Jesus Christ. Their family members are going to know that they love the Lord and that they serve the Lord. The people in the neighborhood are going to know we operate differently in our crib because as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
At the benediction, they're just getting started because they're fanatical followers of Jesus Christ. And closely look, if you travel anywhere, you have a passport. No matter what country you go in, once you show that passport, that tells them who you are. I'm a citizen of the United States of America.
Here are my credentials. They're in my passport. Passport clearly identifies you and gives you the right to be in a foreign land as a citizen of the United States. But when you get in trouble with the law, they revoke your passport. They take your passport. They don't want you traveling outside because you're not operating as you should, so they take your passport.
Do me a favor. Don't let the devil take your passport. Don't let Satan carry your passport and rob you of your identity so that when you leave this building today and go home, carry your passport with you. When you go to work tomorrow, carry your passport with you.
When you go to the gym, carry your passport with you. When you go to the grocery store, carry your passport with you so that no matter where you go, everybody knows that you are a visible, verbal follower of Jesus Christ and you are a representative of the kingdom of God. Dr. Tony Evans, with a compelling message on the important task God's given those who believe. And as he just mentioned, it begins with the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Here's Dr. Evans again to spell it out in simple terms. The greatest verse in the Bible is, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Everlasting life is yours right now the moment you start trusting Jesus Christ as your personal sin-bearer.
When you trust Him for your salvation, He gives you the gift of eternal life. To learn more and to get some free follow-up resources, visit tonyevans.org and follow the link that says Jesus. And tonyevans.org is where you can also find the details on that special offer I mentioned earlier. The current 12-lesson audio collection, Unleashing the Kingdom, along with Tony's impactful paperback, One Kingdom Under God. Find out how to receive this powerful resource bundle as our gift when you visit tonyevans.org or call 1-800-800-3222 where one of our helpful team members is ready to assist with your request.
But do it right away. Tomorrow is the last day we'll be offering this special deal. Again, that's tonyevans.org or by phone 24-7 at 1-800-800-3222. Now before I tell you what's in store for tomorrow, I wanted to quickly mention that with the Christmas season soon approaching, you and your kids will once again be able to enjoy last season's popular stories from the Storyteller animated Christmas episode. In The Incredible Christmas Dream, Cam comes up with a secret plan to rediscover the true meaning of Christmas while dealing with family stress and mishaps. With help from his parents and the mysterious couple who run a local Christmas tree lot, Cam's plan comes together in ways he couldn't have imagined. Be sure to check out The Incredible Christmas Dream. Find out more at tonyevanstv.com. That's tonyevanstv.com. Well, coming up tomorrow, we're in the world for a reason, and Dr. Evans points out that when believers start paying more attention to their role as ambassadors for Christ, they'll begin to see the Lord move more definitively in their lives. It's the powerful conclusion to the lesson he began today. So be sure to join us for that.
