The Power of the Kingdom

Dr. Tony Evans: You can study and read and study and read and study and memorize and nothing change, because there is no power.
Guest (Male): Dr. Tony Evans talks about what life is like when we really connect with God and his strength.
Dr. Tony Evans: You're not full of the spirit until it's normal for you to have God's point of view on everything you do.
Guest (Male): This is the alternative broadcast featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. No matter how much we want to live as kingdom Christians, we can't do it on our own strength. We need God's power at work in us. Let's join Dr. Evans as he explains how we can experience that power in our daily lives.
Dr. Tony Evans: In Acts chapter 1, Jesus is having final words with his followers. They have been walking with him by and large for 3 years. They have seen his life, they've seen his power. My goodness, they've seen people rise from the dead. They've had it all. I mean, 3 intense years with Jesus Christ. But when it came time for him to die, they all ran. They fled. Peter denied him 3 times. It says they hid for fear of the Jews. When Jesus arose from the dead for 40 days, verse 3 says he presented himself to them with many convincing proofs. I mean, they could see the nail prints in his hand. They could see him. He is Bible says he ate with them. The Bible says one day the door was closed and he walked right through the door. So now they're convinced that Jesus is exactly who he said he was and could do exactly what he said he could do. And verse 3 says during those 40 days, he had a Bible study with them. It says he taught them things concerning the kingdom of God. That's what we're talking about, the rule of God. He taught them how to operate under his rule. He gave his apostles the orders, the instructions, the governance, the guideline of how they were to operate underneath his rule. But then he throws a curve ball. After the Bible study, after the miracles, after all of the things that they saw for those 40 days by the risen Christ, he tells them not to do anything until they receive power. And power comes from one source, the Holy Spirit. Verse 8 you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. Who is the Holy Spirit? Let's start with making sure we know who he is. The Holy Spirit is the third member of the Trinity. There's God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Bible says there's only one God, but it says that the one God is composed of three co-equal persons. God sent Jesus into the world to give a physical manifestation of who God is and what God is like. But Jesus, when he left, sent the Holy Spirit into the world to carry on his work during his absence. He taught them it says in verse 3 things concerning the kingdom of God. How the rule of God was supposed to work on Earth through his people. But he says the power to pull off the rule will come through somebody else that I'm going to send. In John 14 and John 16, he says I'm sending you another enabler, one of the same kind. He will be just like me, have the same abilities I have, have the same powers that I have, but he will represent me just as I represented the Father physically during my 33 years of life, he will represent me. In other words, the way you experience Jesus today is through the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. You do not experience Jesus apart from the spirit of Christ who is the Holy Spirit. To be filled with the spirit means that you're full of a spiritual perspective on things. That is God's way of thinking dominates you. So you're full of it. You're full of God's way of thinking, acting, and reacting. You're full of bringing God's perspective to bear, the spiritual perspective on everything. Most Christians visit the spirit. They're not full of the spirit. They sip the spirit. Okay? They're social drinkers. They'll get a glass of Holy Ghost every now and then, but what they're not going to do is get intoxicated with the spirit. They're not going to drink so much of him that they get drunk. He says be full of the spirit. And that is where the victory is. Another analogy he says walk in the spirit. That is roll that way. And the problem is we are so non-spiritual that when spiritual people show up, we get upset. We get upset when somebody makes all of their decisions based on the on a biblical way of thinking and we they weird. They think they something. They think they better than me. Always bringing up the Bible, always bringing up Jesus, always bringing up the Holy Ghost. I don't need all that. I go to church just like you do. We are so carnal, spiritual people take us off. When those are the folk that's got the power and we are the ones who don't have the power cuz we are part-time fillers. He says that the spirit filled the place. He owned it. He controlled it. You're not full of the spirit until it's normal for you to have God point of view on everything you do. That has to be normal. If it's not normal, you're not full of the spirit. If you're not full of the spirit, there's no power. You won't see changes. You won't see the supernatural breakthrough in your life. You won't see God overcome things for you. You'll be adding programs to overcome it yourself because you're not full of what God uses. He only uses the spirit to express his power based on his kingdom umbrella of authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And so what we wind up doing is depending on the flesh. The flesh, our human ability. Okay? Since we're not full of the spirit, but we need to solve this problem, deal with this issue, fix this scenario, we do the best we can. We call our friends and help ask them to help us do the best they can to help me do the best I can. So we doing the best we can can all together fix this thing. We pay out a lot of money to get flesh helping flesh. It's like the man with the chainsaw, the man with the chainsaw. And he he used to use an axe to chop down tree. He said boy, he heard these chainsaw could chop down trees a lot faster, you know, and more of them. So he went and bought him a chainsaw. He came back 10 hours later. He said told the guy who sold it to him take this piece of junk. This thing is junk. He said what do you mean? He said I was out there 10 hours with this thing and I couldn't even get one tree chop down. 10 hours. The guy sold it to him, took the cord and pulled it. The guy who bought it said what's that noise? He had been out there using the chainsaw like an axe, just just just doing that. He was using his own human ability, not realizing the power he had at his disposal. And a lot of us are doing the best we can. We just chopping and sweating and chopping and sweating and chopping and sweating and wonder why this Christianity is not working. That's cuz you're not using the power God has provided. You've using your own human ability. That's called flesh. The Bible says you overcome the flesh with the spirit, not by adding more flesh. And that's why you can study and read and study and read and study and memorize and nothing change, because there is no power. Here's how this works. He told them go to Jerusalem and wait for the spirit to kick in. Okay?
Guest (Male): Yes, sir.
Dr. Tony Evans: We don't want to do that. We don't want to wait for the spirit to kick in. We want to go out there on our own. Look, you go to the gas station and you say fill her up. Well, you used to say fill her up. Now you get out and fill it up. Not too many full service stations around anymore. So but the principles are same. You you go and you get the nozzle, you put it in, fill it up. So you stand there and wait and wait and wait and wait. Now how long you wait is determined by how empty you are. Okay? See cuz if you you if you on fumes, you wait longer. Okay? I'll confess, I drive on fumes. I wait till the last possible second to go to the gas station. Okay? So I have to wait longer cuz I've let it get that low. Then click full. As soon as I drive off, I'm burning the filling. Once I start moving, having been filled, the burning of the filling now is occurring. I'm burning up gas. Some of you are going to leave church today and say I go oh, I got so full at church. The music, the sermon, I am full. Soon as you walk out that door and get to that car and those noisy kids and an attitude from the maids, how somebody cuts you off wrong, you're burning the filling. So what a lot of going to do are they going to wait till next week and say pastor, put the nozzle in my tank cuz I'm running on empty. A lot of folk today are going to go home or go out and you're going to eat to your full. But what you're not going to do is wait till next Sunday to eat again. You're not going to say I got so full this Sunday, I'm going to wait till next Sunday to get full back up again because as soon as you get filled today and begin moving, you're going to burn up the filling and you're going to need to eat tomorrow. That's why Paul says in Luke 9 I die daily. Every day I go to the filling station to get filled up with the fullness of God so that I'm not burning up the filling I got the day before. In other words, your relationship with the Holy Spirit has to be ongoing, regular, and daily, not a weekly visit to the filling station.
Guest (Male): Dr. Evans will tell us more about how to get the right kind of filling at the filling station when he continues our message in just a moment. First though, today is your final opportunity to take advantage of our special package offer on Tony's current teaching series The Kingdom Life. These six messages will help you gain a fresh vision for your life, understand the impact you can make, and discover the blessings that come from putting God's kingdom first. We are offering all six full-length lessons on CD, USB flash drive, or instantly downloadable MP3s as our thank you gift when you make a contribution to support Tony's ministry here on the radio and around the world. And as a special bonus, we are also including Dr. Evans One Life Under God paperback, a companion to the series that can help you deepen your relationship with God, develop a kingdom mindset, and discover his purpose for your life. This offer ends today, so don't put off your request. Visit tonyevans.org or call our resource center at 1-800-800-3222 where team members are available right now to help you. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222 or online at tonyevans.org. I'll repeat that information for you after part two of today's lesson. Dr. Evans will return with that right after this.
Guest (Female): Picture yourself surrounded by crystal clear waters, warm Caribbean breezes, and the kind of quiet that allows you to hear from God in a fresh way. This February 28th through March 7th, you're invited to join Dr. Tony Evans and friends for a 7-day Caribbean cruise, a journey of rest and renewal. You'll visit beautiful ports of call like Nassau in the Bahamas, the pristine shores of Grand Turk and Amber Cove in the Dominican Republic, even stopping in a private island designed for pure relaxation. And in between, you'll enjoy peaceful days at sea, perfect for reflection, fellowship, and rest. Along the way, you'll experience powerful Bible teaching from Dr. Evans, uplifting worship, meaningful connection with a community that feels like family, and enjoy the company of special guest Priscilla Shirer and Anthony Evans. If your soul needs refreshing and your spirit needs renewing, this is your invitation. Find out more and make your reservation today at tonyevans.org.
Dr. Tony Evans: When you pull up to the filling station, you can only give it what your car will accept. Okay? You can just give it anything you want. Okay? Most of the cars driven in this room today don't take regular anymore. They take unleaded. Some demand super unleaded. And nobody in here is going to pull up the diesel talking about well, it's gas because your engine won't receive that. You see, we give God what God can't receive and then want power and then don't understand why we bumping along. We're bumping along because we have given the Holy Spirit something the Holy Spirit can't use. That's why when you go before God, you have to go before God and allow him to tell you what he will accept, not you tell him what you want. If he if if he can't accept it. Okay, let me make this real easy. There's a great verse. This is a great verse. It's Luke chapter 11 verse 13 and here's what it says. It says if you being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, if you as sinners still can be kind and nice and give good gifts to your children, how much more will not your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them who ask for it? If evil people can give good things to their kids, how much more you have a father, will he not give he says the Holy Spirit to those who ask for it? Now now here's the good news about this. In other words, this is not hard. You don't have to go beating your head against the wall. You don't have to go cutting yourself. You don't have to go jumping and flipping and twerking joint. No, he says if you ask I will give you the Holy Spirit. He's talking to his disciples. So this is not complicated. In Acts chapter 2, in Acts chapter 2, all they were is standing in God presence and they got filled. Now but you can only give the car what the car will accept. I was at the airport and I 'm going through the magnetometer. I'm waiting for my bag and one of the gentlemen came and said sir, we need to look in your bag. I said okay. So he took the bag and opened my bag, dug around in my bag. That's irritating thing. You just digging all just digging all around your bag and digging all around my bag. He pulled out a small scissor that I had. I mean, it was a real tiny thing I forgot to take out. Somebody gave it to me. Real little tiny scissor. He said you can't travel with this. We cannot allow you to go further with this. You going to have to throw this away if you expect to catch your flight. Wait wait a minute, but I'm dealing with the fact it ain't but this big. It's like a tiny little tiny scissors. It had nothing to do with the size, it had to do with what it was made of. It was metal. And they say you can't carry this through. You see what the X-ray machine did would look down through all my internals. It looked down through all the stuff that didn't matter and went down and zeroed in on the one little thing that was unacceptable. But the one little thing that was unacceptable was going to mess up my whole trip if I didn't deal with the one thing that the X-ray machine revealed that could not go on the trip. See many of us want to go somewhere with God. We want God to fly us through the friendly skies of life. We want God to give us victory. We want God to take us this way. But in order for God to take you somewhere, you've got to give him freedom to expose anything in your life that should not be there, that needs to be addressed and taken out or you're going to be pulled off to the side and not be able to take flight. So when you go and ask the Holy Spirit, he's not just saying ask for the spirit, he's saying ask for the Holy Spirit. So you got to ask for God to expose you to you, to show you anything about you that needs to be addressed by the spirit so that there's nothing blocking him giving you the power that you're needing for the victory you're asking for. But all you have to do is ask, he said. And he says if you ask leaning on my power under my kingdom and willing to experience my exposure, then I would be delighted to give you the power to everyone who ask. And what happened? Verse 8 in closing he says and you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses. And you shall be my witnesses. He didn't say and you shall do witnessing. He said you going to be witnesses. That's going to be how you roll. You don't have to tell people to talk about the cowboys. You don't have to push them. If they're a sports fan and they live in Dallas, that's what they're going to talk about. They going to talk about it when you don't want to hear it. You know why? Because they've been baptized in them. They've been baptized, that they've been immersed in it. And so it just comes out cuz that's what they're thinking about. That's what they're talking about. You don't have to come up with a you don't have to schedule a cowboy talking time. You you don't you don't have to make an appointment to talk about them because it's going that's how you roll. If you are sports fan and you live in this area, you that's how it's just going to it's going it's going to come out. He says you will be my witnesses. Now now watch this, watch this. In Acts chapter 2, it says that they began to speak in other languages. And it says everybody spoke a different language that they had not learned. Other people heard it in their own language and came to Christ. So in this case, tongues is a language that somebody can speak. It's not this thing that only you and God knows. If you have a private prayer language that you and God use, God bless you. If God speaks to you that way and you speak to him that way, God bless you. That's just not for public consumption cuz when it was public consumption, it was something folk understood, not just something you understood. All right? So the point is though not about the languages. That's not the point. The point is they could do something they couldn't do before.
Guest (Male): Yes, sir.
Dr. Tony Evans: See that's the point. Peter was scared to death a few days earlier. Now he breaks out of there and says we are not drunk as you been supposed being only 12:00 noon, but this is that which Joel the prophet spoke when he declared that God would send his spirit and you who who killed Jesus, who 3 days later arose from the dead, you must now accept him as Lord and Christ in order for you to be forgiven for your sins and experience eternal life. What happened to that man? He denied Christ three times a few days earlier. Now he boldly stands up against the same people who killed Jesus, who are going to threaten him. Where did he get that from? He had gotten filled with something. He'd gotten filled with God. You know that the filling has occurred because you will now take your stand with God. Things that used to mess you up won't mess you up. You'll have power that you didn't have before to do things you couldn't do before because you now are filled in a way you were never filled before. He could do things he couldn't do before, even a foreign language because he was now filled. He was under the control of another.
Guest (Male): Dr. Evans will come right back with a final word for those who might be a little skeptical about what he had to say today. Stay with us for that Today's message, The Power of the Kingdom, was the final installment in Tony's current series on The Kingdom Life. But you can still receive all six of the full-length lessons in this collection for yourself including material we didn't have time to present on the air. Today is your final opportunity to request the complete series on CD, USB flash drive, or digital download as our thank you gift when you make a contribution to support this ministry. And through the end of today, we'll also include Dr. Evans One Life Under God paperback, a fitting companion to the series that explores how to put God's kingdom first, to discover the purpose he has for your life. Don't miss your chance to take advantage of this double offer. Visit tonyevans.org to get the details and make your request or call our 24-hour resource center at 1-800-800-3222 before time runs out. Our team members are ready to help you. Again, that's 1-800-800-3222 or online at tonyevans.org. Dr. Evans has said spiritual temptation and opposition can't be avoided, but they can be overcome. We'll find out more about that tomorrow. But right now, he's back with this final thought for today.
Dr. Tony Evans: Now you don't have to take my word for this. Try it. Don't take my word for it. I'm not asking you to believe me just cuz it's me, believe Jesus because it's Jesus, but he wants you to try it. And that means a simple step of daily asking God to fill you. Go to the filling station daily. Fill me with your Holy Spirit today. Give me your perspective on every decision I make today. Reveal to me when it's not you, when there's something in me that's blocking you so that I can respond to it so that I don't burn up the juice.