PRAISE FOR THE KINGDOM AGENDA

Clarity. Conscience. Convicting. These three words summarize my experience with Tony Evans. He never fails to speak with clarity to my conscience—convicting of both God’s love and my response.

Max Lucado

PREACHER/TEACHER, OAK HILLS CHURCH OF CHRIST

Tony Evans has hit a spiritual bull’s-eye by showing in such a powerful way how to model the kingdom of God on earth, as it already is in heaven, in all areas of life. He makes it clear that nonbelievers will not be attracted to the Good News of the kingdom of God by what we say, but by what they see in our lives.

Barbara Williams Skinner

PRESIDENT, SKINNER FARM LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE

Lots of people in our messed-up nation are dispensing good advice, but good advice has never changed the human heart. Only the Good News of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the eternal truths of God’s Word will fix America’s families and communities. That’s what the reader will find in the pages of this book written by one of America’s best preachers and communicators, Dr. Tony Evans.

Luis Palau

INTERNATIONAL EVANGELIST

The Kingdom Agenda is the most significant book my friend Tony Evans has ever written. It is “must reading” for every believer who wants to live an authentic Christian life.

John Perkins

THE JOHN PERKINS FOUNDATION

Dr. Tony Evans has successfully laid out a strategic discipline of living according to God’s agenda. I would encourage anyone who wishes to make an impact for the kingdom of God to read this book, and take a serious look at God’s Word, which will enable you to live your life as God intended you to live it in all areas of your life.

Charles Stanley

SENIOR PASTOR, FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF ATLANTA

Tony Evans writes like he speaks—with clarity, practicality, and power. The Kingdom Agenda is a road map to help you live life God’s way.

Ravi Zacharias

PRESIDENT, RAVI ZACHARIAS INTERNATIONAL MINISTRIES

Tony Evans says we should fix our eyes firmly on the kingdom and let that perspective govern our view of this world. And when you read his clear, lively, and readable presentation of this profound biblical concept, you will agree. Tony has a tremendous gift for making hard truths easily understandable—and this may be his most important work yet.

John MacArthur

PASTOR/TEACHER AND PRESIDENT, MASTER’S COLLEGE AND SEMINARY

The book is captivating. Dr. Evan’s ability to provoke vision and awaken consciousness through his clarity of thought is extraordinary. History is destined to record him as one of the true visionaries of our time.

Eddie Bernice Johnson

MEMBER OF CONGRESS, 30TH DISTRICT, TEXAS, CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES

© 1999, 2006, 2013 by

TONY EVANS

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Previously published as What a Way to Live! Word Publishing. © 1997 by Tony Evans.

All Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org)

Edited by Philip E. Rawley

Interior design: Design Corps

Cover design: Action Hero Design and Erik M. Peterson

Cover image: Brad Davis / Action Hero Design

Author photo: Trey Hill

Library of Congress Cataloging-in Publication Data

Kingdom agenda : life under God / by Tony Evans.

p. cm.

Originally published : Nashville : Word Pub., c 1997.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN: 978-0-8024-1061-0

1. Christian life. I. Title.

BV4501.3.E927 2006

248.4—dc22

2005037116

We hope you enjoy this book from Moody Publishers. Our goal is to provide high-quality, thought-provoking books and products that connect truth to your real needs and challenges. For more information on other books and products written and produced from a biblical perspective, go to www.moodypublishers.com or write to:

Moody Publishers

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Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Prologue

Introduction

PART ONE: THE THEOLOGY OF THE KINGDOM AGENDA

1. The Concept of the Kingdom Agenda

2. The Necessity for the Kingdom Agenda

3. The Lord of the Kingdom Agenda

4. The Covenants of the Kingdom Agenda

5. The Government of the Kingdom Agenda

6. The Authority of the Kingdom Agenda

PART TWO: ONE LIFE UNDER GOD

7. Your Kingdom Priorities

8. Your Kingdom Growth

9. Your Kingdom Calling

10. Your Kingdom Mind

11. Managing Your Kingdom Resources

12. Your Kingdom Inheritance

PART THREE: ONE FAMILY UNDER GOD

13. The Kingdom Family

14. The Kingdom Husband

15. The Kingdom Wife

16. The Kingdom Single

17. The Kingdom Parent

18. The Kingdom Children

PART FOUR: ONE CHURCH UNDER GOD

19. The Church’s Purpose

20. The Church’s Unity

21. The Church’s Mission

22. The Church’s Membership

23. The Church’s Leadership

24. The Church’s Outreach

PART FIVE: ONE NATION UNDER GOD

25. A Nation and Freedom

26. A Nation and Justice

27. A Nation and Economics

28. A Nation and Racism

29. A Nation and Education

30. A Nation and Politics

Epilogue

Appendix A: The Kingdom Agenda Covenant

Appendix B: The Urban Alternative

Acknowledgments

Subject Index

Scripture Index

This book is dedicated to the late Tom Skinner, whose life, ministry, and legacy continue to inspire me greatly and who clearly demonstrated that there can be no distinction between the sacred and the secular; and that the kingdom of God must be brought to bear and integrated into all of life.

PROLOGUE

The Kingdom Agenda was my fourteenth book to write when it was published in the late 1990s. Now, over sixty books and almost two decades later, I still consider it to be my magnum opus.

This book uniquely expresses my comprehensive worldview and philosophy of life and ministry. It is a worldview that I believe is solidly based on the authority of Scripture, and yet one I hope is communicated in a way that relates to the everyday realities of life.

This is fundamentally a book about the kingdom of God and His agenda for our lives. Consider it a handbook of sorts, a resource that can be referenced as you face a particular need or question, as well as an all-encompassing discipleship tool to walk with you through the various areas of your life. We’ve chosen to divide this book into thirty chapters, convenient enough to read one each day so that you can complete it in a month. Or, it can be read at your own pace for leisure and study.

The kingdom agenda is God’s blueprint for how all of life is to be lived. It is something that needs to remain at the forefront of our thinking in order to fully penetrate our choices and decisions, thus bringing about the full realization of its covenantal blessings and authority.

Unfortunately, it seems that the message of the kingdom is sorely lacking today. This is not because people don’t speak of the kingdom, but because far too much of their speech is in esoteric, theological “code words” that seem unrelated to the realities of life in the here and now.

The absence of a comprehensive agenda for life has led to a deterioration of cosmic proportions in our world. People live segmented, compartmentalized lives because they lack a kingdom worldview. Families disintegrate because they exist for their own fulfillment rather than for the kingdom.

Churches are having a limited impact on society because they fail to understand that the goal of the church is not the church itself but the kingdom. This myopic perspective keeps the church divided, ingrown, and unable to transform the cultural landscape in any long-term, significant way.

And because this is so, society at large has nowhere to turn to find solid solutions to the perplexing challenges that confront us today—troubling problems such as crime, racism, injustice, family disintegration, poverty, and a myriad of other ills.

It is time for Christians to live by God’s kingdom agenda. We need to align our lives under an agenda that is a comprehensive demonstration of the way our Creator intended every area of life to be lived. An agenda big enough to include both individuals and societal structures, clear enough to be understood and appropriated by the average person on the street, yet flexible enough to allow for the considerable differences among peoples and societies.

This book is my humble attempt as a covenantal and progressive dispensationalist to contribute to this exercise. I believe that Christianity offers not only a clear message for eternity but also a message that is workable and life-transforming in time. I believe it provides food for the soul but also a solid foundation for civilization.

I believe that a kingdom agenda provides another option, another way to see and live life in this world. It transcends the politics of men and offers the solutions of heaven. Such an agenda can hold its own against any of the humanistic worldviews of our day.

While I am certain that some could challenge some of my assumptions, I welcome those challenges because they will make me a sharper thinker and a more strategic biblicist. The Christian message, when communicated from a comprehensive, kingdom perspective, provides an agenda that can stand next to and above all other attempts to define the meaning of life, whether it be the individual, the family, the church, or the nation.

A kingdom agenda based on God’s Word, rather than a secular agenda based on man’s word, is the best way to make all of life work as our Creator intended.

Everyone has an idea and a viewpoint, but I believe God has spoken and He has not stuttered. There are two answers to every question: God’s answer and everyone else’s. And everyone else is wrong. Thus it behooves us to bring our lives under God’s rule and passionately pursue His kingdom agenda.

INTRODUCTION

Cradled within the depths that define our humanity lies an unyielding fascination with “kingdom.” No matter what color, creed, or culture we examine, we find with even the most cursory glance into the annals and accounts something intertwined with kingdom.

Whether it be the great kings and rulers of Scripture such as David or Solomon, or whether it be Caesar, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Tutankhamen, and the like, these lives somehow captivate us, intriguing our imaginations.

Even rulers who did not hold the official title of “king” have left their legacies, for good or for bad, to enthrall us. There is Napoleon, the dominator of continental Europe, who possessed a formidable intellect and superior military mind. There is Genghis Khan, the evil and brutal ruler who conquered most of the world during his time. There are the Pharaohs, most of whom possessed strength and skill to such a degree that for many centuries they led Egypt beyond the others in academics, engineering, medicine, and writing. Then there are the monarchs spanning over 1,600 years of history in one form or fashion, beginning humbly as the Angles, moving to Angle Land, and eventually becoming what we know it as today, England.

Stories of conquerors, conquests, rebellions, and conspiracy mesmerize us. We tell them to our children in fairy tales riddled with kings, queens, princes, princesses, and kingdoms. We read about them in history books, mythology, legends, and fiction. We flock to movies to watch the rise or fall of power connected to a kingdom in epic adventures. Inevitably, we portray the king, or the prince, as reputedly handsome—when he is good. We portray him as sinister and ugly when he is bad.

Queens and princesses also play a role in our fascination. From Cinderella to Nefertiti to Elizabeth I, we hold in highest regard that special strength of a woman who uses and maintains her nobility in the face of constant and devastating betrayal and opposition in order to produce a greater good for her kingdom, and her subjects.

The life of a king or queen is often envied. Yet that envy is naïve. Any true historian knows the utter fragility that comes with absolute power. As Shakespeare wrote, “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.” Kings, queens, and other rulers frequently function in a culture of conflict and even violence. Those around them might swear an oath of total allegiance while simultaneously plotting their destruction, or even their death.

As a result, history reminds us again and again, through what may seem like the same story just set on a different stage, that kings and rulers often resort to brute force and extreme taxation to protect their personal interests and power. While freedom fighters such as the Scottish William Wallace (best known for being portrayed in the film Braveheart) could wind up drawn and quartered, it wasn’t only the rebels who needed to fear the near-paranoid wrath that sometimes appeared in a king. No one was safe when it came to the possibility of usurping his role, as we see with the myriads of poisoning of family members and siblings, and the gruesome beheading of the wives of Henry VIII.

Nowhere in any story of a king or kingdom do we read about the ruler himself sacrificing his own greatest treasure simply for the benefit of others. Sure, sacrifices were made. Lives were lost. But it was always toward the aim of preserving power, rather than yielding it. That is, except for the one, true King of the Bible who gave up His own Son, Jesus Christ, in order that those who believe on Him—His death, burial and resurrection—would be restored to the place of both fellowship and dominion with their King, something they had lost in the battle of the Garden of Eden.

THE UNUSUAL KINGDOM

It is not unusual that this unusual action was taken by this very unusual King, because His is an unusual kingdom. Jesus spoke of it plainly when He told Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm” (John 18:36).

When His followers asked Him to tell them who is the greatest in this very unusual kingdom, Jesus pulled a child close to Him and replied, “Whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” And then rather than demanding the pomp and circumstance typically befit for a king, Jesus instructed His subjects on just how He would like to be approached as their Ruler and Lord: “Whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me” (Matthew 18:5).

This is a kingdom without borders and without time. To try and apply the rules, precepts, and writs of this world to this very unearthly kingdom would be similar to bringing a linebacker on a football field a horse and a polo stick, and instructing him to get on with the game. Neither the rules of this earth, nor its tools, govern God’s kingdom. As King, He determines how it is to operate.

In God’s kingdom, race or gender do not mean inequality. In His kingdom, power goes to the ones who recognize their weakness and humbly looks to Him. Forgiveness reigns preeminently, and the amount of money matters less than the heart that offers it, as we see in the case of the widow and her mite. Significance, in this unusual kingdom, is connected to service. Hope comes through helping others who may need it as well.

That is not to say there are no battles to fight or wars to win in this kingdom, or that it is a kingdom of rainbows, waterfalls, and unending bliss. There is a vile enemy still lurking and still seeking to dethrone the King of this kingdom because it is the greatest kingdom of all, and will also last the longest—just as it began before any other kingdom.

In fact, before there ever was an earth at all, this kingdom existed in the heavenlies and was a place of glory, majesty, and beauty. Yet treason was committed in an attempt to steal the seat of power, and those caught in an attempt to lay siege to the throne were kicked down into darkness, which would later be sculpted and called earth. Satan, the leader of this primeval rebellion, now uses charm, deception, distraction, temptation, lust, pride, apathy, evil, and all else to try to establish a rival kingdom whose subjects aim to defeat the subjects of the one, true King.

THE CHRONICLING OF THIS KINGDOM

In the chancery known as the Holy Spirit, the story of this unique kingdom has been preserved for us, its subjects—followers of the Lord Jesus Christ—in the Bible. Throughout Scripture chroniclers, inspired by the Spirit, recorded, encouraged, lamented, and presented the history, rules, redemption, and purpose of our King and His kingdom. Unfortunately, today many of us are living as followers of a King whom we also seek to dethrone, though perhaps not outright, but through more subtle ways of complacency, autonomy, independence, or through a lack of a connection to Him and His Word. As a result, we experience what anyone in any kingdom living apart from the rules of the king would in our personal lives, homes, churches, communities, and our nation—the chaos that comes from rebellion.

In a kingdom, life is to be lived under the rule and authority of the king. The blessings of the covenantal charter of our King in His Word are imbued with the authority He gives us through the dominion covenant along with His promises and His chesed love. These all come when we live all of our life under God. It comes when we live our lives on target with His goals and purposes.

A LIFE OFF TARGET

King Edward III of England came to power in 1327 at the tender age of fourteen. He would prove himself to be, over his fifty-year reign, a focused and disciplined military leader. Under his charge, England rose from the laughingstock that it had become under Edward’s father to one of the fiercest, most formidable militaries in the world.

Edward also required focus and discipline from those underneath him. In fact, he is known for having banned football and any sport of any kind so that people could direct their energies to practicing the art of the longbow. The longbow, new to the battle seasons of the English wars in Edward III’s time, was the sturdiest piece of offensive weaponry in existence. Its draw weight alone was close to two hundred pounds. The arrows were three feet long and had tips that could tear through both chain and plate mail.

But victory would come with the longbow only when the arrows hit their targets. Ripping up doors, fences, or the like would do little to gain the upper hand in war. So warriors spent considerable time practicing their craft.

In this setting imagine, if you would, that there was a warrior who was aiming his bow toward the side of a barn. He was target shooting, practicing as his king had commanded. When a passerby looked at the side of the barn one day, he noticed that every single arrow was right in the middle of the target. He asked the warrior, “How long did it take you to become so good at this?”

To which the warrior replied, “Not long at all. In fact, it’s simple.”

Surprised at the frankness of his response, the passerby asked him to show him how he did it. The warrior shot twenty arrows, one after another, at the side of the barn. The arrows landed anywhere and everywhere, but most certainly not within any target at all. Then, without a second thought, the warrior walked over to the side of the barn, picked up some homemade paints and dye, and started painting the targets around the arrows.

Now, you may be saying, “Tony, kings and kingdoms are interesting, but I’m an American and we don’t have kings anymore. None of this applies to me.” But let me explain. Even if you do not live in a visual, societal kingdom, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ you belong to a kingdom and a King. Understanding what a kingdom is and how it runs is essential to living successfully as a part of the kingdom you are in now. And this story of the warrior with his painted targets, while fictitious, illustrates the situation that our society is facing today.

Just as Edward III could have never won battles or restored order to his kingdom if he relied on warriors who simply painted targets around their arrows, God’s kingdom and His agenda will fail to advance and have the impact it was designed to have on earth in history without the focus, discipline, and diligence of His subjects. Unfortunately, many of us do everything we can to give the impression that our lives are on target, when in reality all we have done is learn to paint well.

Not only are our nation, communities, churches, and families suffering as a result, but we are also suffering individually. Too many have sought to camouflage their emptiness and failure with materialism, the scramble for success and significance, and other pursuits. Some people even try to fill their emptiness through religious activities such as church membership. They have learned how to look, talk, and act like Christians, but all of these things in and of themselves are simply “paint jobs” that try to obscure the fact that we are a culture and a people tragically off target.

We only have to look at the indicators to see that far too many individuals, families, and churches are missing the mark. And the results are seen in a society overrun by the enemy’s agenda of chaos and upheaval.

Personal Chaos

Judging by the meteoric rise in popular psychology books, clinics, and self-help programs, it would seem that personal lack of meaning and fulfillment is at an all-time high. Anxiety, depression, violence, promiscuity, materialism, overeating, drug use, and a myriad of other personal casualties affect us as individuals in a variety of ways.

Family Chaos

This breakdown at the personal level has had devastating effects on the family as well. The once stable American family is rapidly deteriorating as couples live as if they were wed by the secretary of war rather than by the justice of the peace. Personal happiness has taken priority over family unity.

In the inner city, the disintegration of the family is the greatest. More than seven out of ten black children are born to unwed mothers. The devaluation of women through the curse of pornography and the glorification of violence on television, in music, and in the movies has fueled family breakdown.

Church Chaos

Today the church and what it represents are all too often ridiculed, criticized, and rejected outright, or simply ignored, in the public square. In short, the church has become marginalized. The non-Christian society at large has failed to take the Person and Word of God seriously. And the church has been ineffective in its efforts to impact our culture for Christ at the deepest levels.

Thus the church has contributed to the spiritual decline of American culture by failing to produce kingdom people who are accomplishing Christ’s kingdom agenda, and by failing to manifest and illustrate clearly the solutions of the kingdom for the critical issues of our day. We have done an admirable job of cursing the darkness. But we have done a poor job of spreading the light.

National Chaos

The criminal justice system cannot begin to handle the increase in crime that keeps the urban population living behind barred windows and doors while gangs, criminals, and drug dealers control the streets. Prisons can’t be built fast enough to house the number of criminals the system seeks to incarcerate. Neither has increased education stemmed the tide of moral decay now engulfing us. That’s why metal detectors are common at many high schools.

A multitude of books, government programs, seminars, workshops, and symposia have not enabled us to bridge the racial, class, and cultural divides that separate us. Our technological advances have far outpaced our sense of community. We can send a robotic probe to examine the surface of Mars, but we cannot manage our relationships. As a result, our society has declined economically, materially, educationally, and physically.

SPIRITUAL SICKNESS

So the question is, what really is wrong with us as individuals, as families, as the church, and as a society? I believe that when you put all our problems on the examining table and shine the light of God’s Word on them, it becomes painfully clear that we suffering from a case of spiritual AIDS.

As we know, AIDS is a breakdown in the body’s immune system. As the HIV virus attacks and incapacitates the immune system, the body is rendered vulnerable to a host of other diseases. A cold can become pneumonia. An otherwise minor infection can become life-threatening. In fact, an AIDS sufferer usually does not die of the disease itself but of AIDS-related complications.

What is true of the AIDS virus is true on every level of our society. Our spiritual immune system has been badly damaged, with the result that cultural colds have become societal pneumonia, and minor cultural infections have now become life-threatening. And none of the medications being applied is correcting the problem. At best, they may simply suppress some of the symptoms temporarily.

THE PROBLEM IN THE CHRONICLES

I believe that the heart of our problem is captured and summarized in these verses found in 2 Chronicles 15, a portion of God’s Word talking about ancient Israel:

For many days Israel was without the true God and without a teaching priest and without law…. In those times there was no peace to him who went out or to him who came in, for many disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of the lands. Nation was crushed by nation, and city by city, for God troubled them with every kind of distress. (vv. 3, 5–6)

Here is a picture of great spiritual and social chaos, the breakdown of a society. What was wrong? Three crucial things were missing in Israel’s national life, and I believe they are missing today in our nation as well.

The True God and King

The first thing missing was “the true God.” The chronicler was not saying that the Israelites had become atheists or no longer believed in God. He wasn’t saying that attendance at the temple was down. The sacrificial fires at the temple were still going. But Israel had lost a correct view of God, and the nation was no longer accomplishing His agenda.

The Israelites wanted a convenient God, one they could control. Essentially, they wanted a kingdom without a king. They wanted a mere figurehead, a puppet with but the trappings of kingship only. Yet if you have a God you can control, then you’re god instead of Him. Any god or king you can boss around isn’t the true God or King. The true God does not adjust to you. You adjust to Him.

The Israelites didn’t want the true God interfering with their national life, reminding them that He had an agenda greater than their personal interests and desires. Our culture doesn’t want a God like that either. Our culture wants to pay homage only—to offer a nice little prayer before public meetings, but we don’t want to hear about the true God.

But any time we simply pay homage without aligning our thoughts and actions under God, we are reinforcing our culture’s false view of God as a harmless deity who doesn’t have anything significant to say about the educational, scientific, entertainment, civic, political, familial, legal, or racial issues of the day. Doing so, we seek to leave God the title of King in name only, but give His powers and authority to others, or even ourselves.

No Teaching Priests

The second problem in Israel was a lack of teaching priests. Again, the text doesn’t say there were no priests. But the priests had stopped teaching the truth. They had traded enlightenment for entertainment. Worship had degenerated into a social club. The church was no longer the epicenter of all life and conscience of the culture, calling people to take God seriously.

Israel was suffering from an absence of spiritual leaders who took seriously the authority of Scripture for all of life. Too often today, pastors preach to please. They fear that someone might say, “Well, I didn’t like that sermon.” But if they say that and the pastor preached God’s Word, that’s the wrong response. The issue is whether it was true, not whether it was popular. Politicians need to be popular. Preachers need to tell the truth.

The issue of truth is all-important. The lack of truth leads to a “conscienceless” society. People become anesthetized in their conscience, losing their sense of right and wrong. In such a society every person becomes a law unto himself or herself, so chaos rules.

Yet in a world where everybody’s truth is true and everyone’s answers are right, nobody’s truth is true and no one’s answers end up being right. When a society loses truth, it loses meaning, because people are never really sure about anything. There’s only one standard of truth, the changeless Word of the one true God.

God’s Law Gone Missing

The third missing ingredient in Israel was God’s law. When a culture has a false view of God built on bad information, God begins to remove the restraint of His law, and evil begins to grow unbridled. What you and I are witnessing today in the rapid deterioration of our culture is the reality that God is removing more and more of His restraint.

Even sinners who respect God won’t do certain things. But once God is removed from or marginalized in a culture, then the standard for a society is gone, and God becomes one’s worst enemy and worst nightmare. That’s what had happened in Israel. When the rule of God’s law is missing, chaos replaces community. You cannot have order and structure in society without God. Men become enslaved by the very freedom they seek.

We have ungodly people in our culture who don’t want any divine standard to which they must be held accountable. But when God leaves a society, hope goes with Him. As long as you have God, you always have hope. He’s the one thing you can bank on. If God is still in the picture, and as long as His agenda is on the table, it’s not over until it’s over.

Even if circumstances collapse, God will keep you. As long as God is front and center in a culture, there’s hope. But when He is removed, just like people and their taxes leave the city and go to the suburbs, God goes to the spiritual suburbs, and the city’s cultures deteriorate.

WHEN THE KING HIMSELF IS YOUR PROBLEM

The stunning thing about the situation in 2 Chronicles 15 is that God was the cause of Israel’s distress, not the sinners in that culture, and not even Satan.

Now when God is your problem, then only God is your solution. If God is upset, it doesn’t matter whom you elect or what programs you initiate. Until His anger is assuaged, you won’t be able to fix what’s wrong or spend enough money to buy your way out of your dilemma.

This is the heart of our problems today. Too many individuals, families, churches, and communities want to keep God on the fringes of our lives. There He can be accessible if we have a need, but we can keep Him far enough away from the center of our lives that He doesn’t start messing with our agendas. But as long as we keep God at a distance, He will not take over the control center of our world and unrighteousness will rule. He will be close enough for invocations and benedictions, but not part of the debate in between.

The net result of all this is that we are seeing the “devolution” of mankind. The more we marginalize God, the worse things get. This is what Paul said in Romans 1:18: “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.” Then in verses 19–31, Paul traced the downward spiral of a culture that excludes God.

TIME TO BRING ALL OF LIFE UNDER GOD

What then must we do to reverse this downward spiral of our lives at all four of these levels? It is time to return to the King, His rules, and His agenda. What He says transcends human politics, secular social movements, and religious traditions.

It is time to recognize that the kingdom of God is not some ethereal fairy tale located in some far-off land. It is both here and now. And just as some of the kings and queens of ages past ruled the dominion given to them poorly, while others ruled well, it is up to each of us individually to write our own personal, and even family, legacy. And it is up to all of us collectively to write that of our churches, community, and nation.

May it not be said of us, as it has been said of many kings and queens in the past, that this one or that one was simply unkingly. May it be said that we accepted the responsibilities given to us as royalty and rulers under God to influence and impact the realms He has given us in His kingdom for good.

In the pages that follow, I have sought to dig deeply into the truths found chronicled in God’s Word, which offer us a biblically based kingdom agenda. I will demonstrate that Scripture has provided us with a clear authority and a comprehensive, dynamic approach to all of life. I want to show you this through the four areas that God has given us to order all of life: personal, family, church, and society. I believe that when these areas are lived out in proper relationship to our King and His kingdom, as well as to each other, He will enable us to live victoriously in every area of life under God.

http://go.tonyevans.org/kingdomagenda/

As God’s people, we are not limited by the choices this world offers us. God has an alternative plan for us—His kingdom with an all-encompassing agenda.

God’s kingdom agenda may be defined as the visible demonstration of His comprehensive rule over every area of life.

http://go.tonyevans.org/theology/

CHAPTER ONE

THE CONCEPT OF THE KINGDOM AGENDA

Everybody, it seems, has an agenda today. People have plans, programs, things they want to accomplish, and specific ways they want to accomplish them.

God has an agenda, too; something He wants to accomplish in His way. The Bible calls this agenda God’s kingdom. I like to think of it as the alternative, because that word says there is another way, another idea on the table. As God’s people, we are not limited by the choices this world offers us. God has an alternative plan for us—His kingdom.

If you grew up in America, you were reminded to whose kingdom you belonged each time you said the Pledge of Allegiance or participated in the singing of our national anthem in school or before sporting or civic events. It was clear that our country did not want us to forget that we are Americans. We recited the pledge day in and day out, allowing it to sink in, enabling us to fully understand that no matter what our background, gender, culture, or color, we belonged to this kingdom called the United States of America.

In the same way that our country wants us to be regularly reminded about our citizenship in this kingdom, there is another kingdom—a greater and more perfect kingdom—of which we are a part. It is the kingdom of God.

If you are an American, it is most likely because you were born here. If you are a part of the kingdom of God, it is only because you have been born again into His kingdom. The reason you need to come to a full comprehension of the kingdom is not only because it affects you, but it also is the key to understanding the Bible. The unifying central theme, the common thread, throughout the Bible—from Genesis to Revelation—is the glory of God through the advancement of His kingdom.

Without that theme, the Bible becomes a series of disconnected stories that are great for inspiration, but seem to be unrelated in purpose and direction. The Bible exists to share God’s movement in history toward the establishment and expansion of His kingdom, highlighting the connectivity throughout which is this concept. Understanding that increases the relevancy of this several-thousand-year-old manuscript to your day-to-day living, because the kingdom is not only then, it is now.

Throughout the Bible, the kingdom of God is His rule, His plan, and His program. God’s kingdom covers everything in the universe. In fact, we can define the kingdom as God’s comprehensive rule over all creation. It is the rule of God (theocracy) and not the rule of man (homocracy) that is paramount.

Now if God’s kingdom is comprehensive, so is His kingdom agenda. The kingdom agenda, then, may be defined as the visible demonstration of the comprehensive rule of God over every area of life.

This definition has some serious implications for us. The reason so many of us as believers are struggling is that we want God to bless our agenda rather than our fulfilling His agenda. We want God to okay our plans rather than our fulfilling His plans. We want God to bring us glory rather than our bringing Him glory. But it doesn’t work that way. God has only one plan—His kingdom agenda. We need to find out what that is so we can make sure we’re working on God’s plan, not ours.

The Greek word the Bible uses for kingdom is basileia, which basically means a “rule” or “authority.” Included in this definition is the concept of power. So when we talk about a kingdom, we’re talking first about a king or a ruler, the one in charge.

Now if there is a ruler, there also have to be “rulees,” or kingdom subjects. In addition, a kingdom includes a realm; that is, a domain over which the king rules. Finally, a kingdom also needs regulations, guidelines that govern the relationship between the ruler and the subjects. These are necessary so that the subjects will know whether they are doing what the ruler wants done.

God’s kingdom includes all of these elements. He is the absolute Ruler of His domain, which encompasses all of creation. Likewise, His authority is total. Everything God rules, He runs—even when it doesn’t look like He’s running it. Even when life looks like it’s out of control, God is running its “out-of-controlness.”

God’s kingdom also has its subjects. Colossians 1:13 says that everybody who has trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior has been transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, your allegiance has been changed. You no longer align yourself with Satan, but with Christ.

And just in case there’s any doubt, let me say right now that there are no in-between kingdoms, no gray areas here. There are only two realms in creation: the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan. We are subjects of one or the other.

GOD’S KINGDOM AGENDA IS UNIVERSAL

The problem we have in the church today is that people inadequately define God’s kingdom. Some people secularize and politicize the kingdom, which means they think the solutions to our problems are going to fly into town on Air Force One.

These individuals believe that political involvement or social action will by itself usher in the kingdom. While there is nothing wrong with entering the political arena as an evangelical—it ought to be encouraged—we need to bear in mind that God’s kingdom is not comprised of, or limited to, a political institution of mankind. God is neither Democrat nor Republican. He does not ride the backs of donkeys or elephants.

At the other extreme are those Christians who over-spiritualize the kingdom. In contrast to their politically active brothers and sisters, these are the individuals who are so heavenly minded that they wind up being no earthly good. They live with their heads and hearts in the upper levels of the ionosphere because the concept of the kingdom of God never moves beyond the esoteric stage within them. They lack the concrete ability to put feet to the spiritual reality of the kingdom.

God’s kingdom agenda is not limited to the political and social realm. Neither is it limited to the walls of the church. When you were saved, the kingdom of God was set up within you so that it might be best positioned to reach outwardly while directing the circumference of your life.

Trusting Jesus Christ for your salvation will get you to heaven. But trusting Jesus Christ for your salvation doesn’t automatically get heaven to come down to you. Getting into God’s kingdom is through conversion, but experiencing God’s kingdom in your daily life is through commitment. Commitment results only when the Jesus you placed your faith in is also the Jesus who rules within you in the kingdom of which you are a part. God’s goal is to manifest in history the operations of heaven. Therefore, when history is not reflecting heaven (“Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” [Matthew 6:10]), God’s kingdom is not visible.

FOUR FUNDAMENTAL TRUTHS ABOUT GOD’S KINGDOM AGENDA

As we start our journey through the depths, clefts, and mountaintops that make up God’s kingdom agenda, let’s begin by examining four basic fundamental truths about this all-encompassing concept and teaching of Scripture.

God’s Kingdom Agenda Originates from His Realm

Since the realm in which God operates is spiritual, His kingdom also originated in the spiritual realm. This is not to deny what was said above, that the whole created universe constitutes the domain of God’s kingdom. What I am saying here is that the kingdom is from above, not from the earth.

We see this in John 18:28–40, when Jesus appears before the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. The Jews want Jesus put to death, but they don’t have the authority to carry out capital punishment. Since only Rome can do that, the Jews have to bring Jesus to Pilate to get his approval.

The Jews know exactly what accusation it will take to get Jesus executed by Rome. If He claims to be a king, He will be committing treason against Caesar (see John 19:12). So they decide to make the charge against Jesus that He made Himself out to be a king.

Now if you call yourself a king, that implies you have a kingdom somewhere. So the first question Pilate asked Jesus was, “Are You the King of the Jews?” (John 18:33). Notice Jesus’ answer in verse 36: “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.”

Don’t misread that. Jesus was not saying His kingdom is not in this world. He was saying it is not of this world. His kingdom does not originate from earth, but rather from heaven. It is not derived from history, but from the heavenlies. Jesus’ servants weren’t up in military arms about His arrest because He was not trying to overthrow the Romans militarily.

Jesus explained to Pilate, in my Evans translation, “If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would be out there with their swords cutting off much more than just someone’s ears. They would be going to war. If My kingdom were man-made, I would not be going to the cross without a battle.”

But because Jesus represented another King from another kingdom that was not of this world, He did not resort to the methodologies of this world in order to defend or advance His kingdom. The same holds true for you and me. To live life according to the kingdom agenda will have an effect on our choices. Our decisions will not align with the world’s wisdom or methods. A divine frame of reference will punctuate all that we do.

Too many believers today are trying to find fulfillment and significance through human means. They are trying to discover their destinies through man’s methods. However, man’s methods have never accomplished God’s goals. Jesus revealed that when He answered Pilate straightforwardly. In essence, He said, “My methods reflect My source.” As believers, we are called to be in the world, but not of the world. Similarly, a boat is made to be in the water but not of the water. If the boat begins to be of the water and starts taking on water inside, it will soon go down.

To be in the world and yet not of the world means that the world, or worldliness—the system that seeks to leave God out—does not define the decisions, relationships, or priorities of your life. Your kingdom controls your methodology.

A Body of Truth

In John 18:37 Jesus said something else that was very significant. “Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” By this statement, Jesus assumed the existence of a body of truth with which a kingdom agenda aligns itself. Simply defined, truth is an absolute standard by which reality is measured. It is God’s viewpoint on the matter. This definition puts us as believers in conflict with our culture, because we live in a world where a commitment to truth no longer exists. People want relative truth, not an absolute standard that says what is always right and wrong, good and bad. But if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you must believe in, accept, and align yourself with the truth of God’s Word—His absolute, governing standard that transcends time, culture, ethnicity, gender, preference, and all else.

One of the major problems leading to the breakdown of society is that we have far too many opinions dictating life choices and not enough truth mandating them. Even among Christians, absolute truth isn’t always the governing standard. We say things like, “Well, this is how I feel,” or “This is what I think,” or even “This is what my parents taught me.” Although there is nothing necessarily wrong with thoughts or feelings, they ought not be the deciding factors with regard to what is true. Truth transcends feelings. For example, you may feel like you have a headache, so you take an aspirin. But the lab report might tell the truth that you have a brain tumor and an aspirin won’t do you any good. The feeling of your headache was real; it just didn’t reveal the truth that you have a tumor. When you miss the truth, you miss everything. Likewise, when you miss the truth of God’s Word, you miss the kingdom.

Our problem today is that we have substituted relativism, pragmatism, existentialism, pantheism, and many other -isms in the place of absolute truth. But all of these -isms will become “was-isms” one day when they are ultimately confronted with God’s absolute truth.

Jesus was saying to Pilate in John 18:37, “If you understood My kingdom, you would know the truth.” The only lasting solutions to life are biblical solutions, because only biblical solutions are derived from a heavenly source and can address the cause-and-effect relationship between choices and consequences.

Cause and Effect

Here’s what I mean by cause and effect when it comes to the kingdom. Everything visible and physical is always controlled or derived from that which is invisible and spiritual. So if you want to fix the visible and physical problems, you have to address the spiritual and invisible issues first.

Why? Because if you don’t address the spiritual and invisible, you will not have addressed the divine precursor from which to solve the visible and physical issue at hand. What you can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell must first be addressed from God’s perspective before you can make any lasting and real difference on the human level.

Satan wants to get us to skip the divine perspective because he knows that we will never be able to solve our visible and physical problems until we address them from the invisible, spiritual realm. But heaven rules earth, so what happens up there determines what goes on down here. If you are not in contact with heaven then you ought not be surprised if you are in a quandary down here on earth.

One of the greatest kings in history, Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, learned this truth the hard way. Nebuchadnezzar had a dream that disturbed him deeply, so he asked the prophet Daniel to interpret it for him. Daniel told the king he would lose his kingdom and be driven into insanity until he learned that “it is Heaven that rules” (Daniel 4:26). What Daniel prophesied then came to pass (see v. 28).

The Right Perspective

God’s kingdom is lived from the perspective of heaven, not earth. That’s why Jesus said, “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33). The pagans may run after the physical, visible things in life (see v. 32), but we are called to prioritize God’s kingdom.

But far too many Christians want to mix a little bit of God with a lot of the world. As a result, they wind up not experiencing any of God because His kingdom is not of this world. When you bring the world into the Word, you are asking the King to bless something that His kingdom is not a part of, and He won’t do it.

If you lose sight of the kingdom, God’s perspective gets lost and you start focusing on the physical and temporal things in life. When that happens, your judgment begins to be skewed and your decisions become shortsighted. Rather than fulfilling your God-ordained destiny and purpose, you end up with wasted time, effort, energy, and emotions.

Yet when God’s kingdom is prioritized, you get to see heaven both rule and overrule in your life. You get to witness God overrule circumstances and people that you thought had the last word. You get to experience God at a whole other level when you experience Him as King. Many people say that God is King but fail to experience God as King simply because they do not position themselves under His rule.

Jesus said earlier in Matthew 6 that if you are not clear on the kingdom—the things of God—then you can’t see because you are spiritually blind (see vv. 22–23). And if you are spiritually blind, then your feet won’t know which way to go. Spiritual blindness affects not only your eyes, but all of your life choices.

I will never forget the morning I got soap in my eye in the shower. My eye started burning, so I began to rub it with my hand. The problem was, I had soap on my hands. So not only did I not get the soap out of my eye, I managed to get more soap in both eyes. Now, instead of one eye that couldn’t see, I had two.

With both eyes closed, I instinctively reached for the towel. Yet because I couldn’t see it, I hit my head on the soap dish sticking out of the wall as I leaned over to try and find it. When I did that, I knocked the soap off of the dish onto the shower floor. You can probably guess what happened next. As I groped around for the towel in my blindness, I stepped on the bar of soap and went flying, hurting my back. There I was, flailing around in the shower with a headache and a backache and stinging eyes, all because something had blinded me.

Let me tell you, when you are spiritually blind you will wind up with more than just a headache and a backache, you will wind up with a “life ache,” because you cannot live successfully in the physical realm if you cannot see the spiritual realm which affects everything else in life. God’s kingdom operates from the realm of heaven. The only way you will be able to see life with clear vision is when you view all of life from a kingdom perspective.

GOD’S KINGDOM AGENDA REFLECTS HIS SOVEREIGNTY

Here’s a second truth about God’s kingdom you need to consider: When you adopt God’s kingdom agenda, you come under His sovereign rule. Sovereignty refers to God’s supremacy over all of His creation—visible and invisible. His rules are universal, absolute, and comprehensive. God, therefore, is accountable to no one.

Sovereignty is a word many people don’t like or understand, but it is intrinsic within God’s character and makeup. In Psalm 103:19, David wrote, “The LORD has established His throne in the heavens, and His sovereignty rules over all.” In other words, God is not operating by anyone’s permission. He sovereignly rules over each and every one of us.

Look at Psalm 115:3: “Our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.” Many people don’t want to hear that truth, but embracing it is a vital part of living a successful life. As David wrote, “Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and Your dominion endures throughout all generations” (Psalm 145:13).

The claim of absolute sovereignty is the claim of deity, and God alone has the right to such a claim.

Living under God

I love having visitors come to my house to spend some time talking, eating, or watching football. Our home has always had a revolving door for those close friends who want to pass the time with us. However, there are certain rules you will have to follow if you come to my house. If you smoke, for instance, you will have to put it out before you come in, because the rule is that there is no smoking in my house. If you swear, you will have to make a mental note not to do so before you come over to my house, because in my house profanity is not allowed.

Or, if you were to come over to my house and say, “Evans, I hate this furniture. The colors on the walls are all wrong. I think they’re horrible,” I would say, “And your point is?” This is because your opinion, while listened to, is irrelevant to the overall décor of our home because the last time I checked you didn’t pay for the furniture or the paint on the walls. It is okay for you to have an opinion about my house, but that opinion doesn’t carry much weight with me for one simple reason: It’s my house, not yours.

So when you come to my house, you have two choices. You can stay and adjust to my rules and my furniture and my color scheme, or you can leave. And I’m sure I would have the same two choices if I came over to your house.

This world is God’s house and it operates according to His rules. That means unless you and I want to go out and create our own universe, we need to adjust to the rules of God’s house or suffer the consequences of our rebellion. To acknowledge God’s sovereignty is to acknowledge the validity of His jurisdiction and His legislation in and over every area of life. It is to align all of life under God.

But like stubborn teenagers, we often say to God, “I want to come to Your house, God, but I’m going to bring in my own rules. I’m going to complain about the furniture in Your house, but I’m still going to come to church and tell You to feed me, clothe me, and bless me. I want Your goodness in Your house, but without Your rules.”

A Discount God

It took a recent trip to a discount department store to help me see all of this in a new light. My wife, Lois, had asked me to pick up a few things for her from this store.

Before I go any further, you need to know that shopping and standing in checkout lines are not among my favorite things to do. And as things worked out, this particular day was not a good day for me to go shopping. The weather was nice, so everyone in Dallas apparently decided to go to this store as well. There were people everywhere. The checkout lines were all the way down the aisles.

So I got my stuff and went to the express checkout line, but it ended up taking even longer than the other lines. I was stuck, yet as I stood there something dawned on me. The store I was in is marketed and known for its discount prices. People go there and stand in long lines because they can purchase items for less than what they would pay elsewhere.

It occurred to me that this is what a lot of people do on Sunday. They come to church looking for a “discount God.” They want God on sale. They come saying, “God, I want You and Your kingdom, but I want it at a discount price. I want a little of this and a little of that, but not the whole package. So give me thirty percent off the ticketed price.”

People don’t want a God who is sovereign, a God who says, “This is the package. When you get Me, you get My kingdom and My rules.” There are no discounts in God’s kingdom. He is sovereign. He rules over all. Psalm 24 teaches that so clearly:

The earth is the LORD’S, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it. For He has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers. Who may ascend into the hill of the LORD? And who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul to falsehood, and has not sworn deceitfully. He shall receive a blessing from the LORD. (vv.1–5a)

Verses 1–2 make it clear that everything on planet earth belongs to God. Then how much belongs to us? Nothing. We may use the things of earth, but we don’t own them. That’s good, because God’s sovereignty means He is responsible if something breaks down. If you try to own your life, when something goes wrong you get to fix it. But if God owns your life, when something goes wrong He fixes it. I’d rather be under God’s ownership than mine any day because that means He takes responsibility for working things out.

Living in God’s kingdom brings blessings, but you don’t get the blessings of the King if you’re not willing to live for His kingdom and under His authority. You don’t get to enjoy the blessings of the King if the King cannot enjoy the blessing of you. You don’t get the King who owns everything if you keep demanding to own everything yourself.

Until you become a person who makes your decisions based on God’s kingdom agenda, you will miss out on the abundant life that God has in store for you. To show up at church on Sunday when God doesn’t own you Monday through Saturday is, to put it bluntly, a waste of your time. It is a false dualism to say, “Lord, You can have Sunday, but don’t bother me on Monday, because I have to go back to the real world.” Oh, no. On Sunday you are in the presence of the God who made everything, as you are on Monday, Tuesday, and every other day of the week. If you attempt to leave God in the pew by failing to acknowledge His ownership and sovereignty the rest of the week, you are willingly relinquishing His presence and blessing in your life.

Sovereignty and Our Choices

God’s sovereignty also means that He either causes all things to happen, or allows all things to happen. Yet whether He causes it or allows it, when everything is finished it will come out the way He wants it to come out.

This helps to answer the question, why is there seemingly so much chaos in our world? God’s sovereignty doesn’t mean that there won’t be any problems. It doesn’t mean that Satan won’t rebel, or that people won’t say no to God’s will. Sovereignty means that this is God’s domain, and when all is said and done, He is ultimately in control and will guide, direct, and eventually use all things according to His plan.

For us, the question is not whether God is sovereign. That has already been determined. The question is, rather, how we as finite beings relate to and align ourselves under the infinite Sovereign who is God. He can carry out His kingdom agenda with or without us. God does not need any one of us to fulfill His purposes. Thus it is my desire, and I hope it is yours as well, to willingly go with God as He unfolds His plan rather than stand in His way so that He has to go through us or over us.

Yet either way, God is going to get to where He’s going. God’s kingdom agenda cannot be altered, negated, or thwarted. God’s ultimate plan will be done. That’s good news for those of us who are committed to Him and His kingdom because there is a promise included within it for us. That promise is found in a very familiar verse, Romans 8:28: “We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”

Paul is talking about committed Christians, those who are living for God’s kingdom. If you are living according to God’s kingdom agenda, your life may seem like a wreck, but according to this powerful truth you can know that your life is working out according to God’s plan. The Greek word for “know” is oida, which can be translated into “intuitive knowledge.” It means that we can “know” even when we don’t know. We can “know” even when we don’t feel like we know. We can “know” when everything says the opposite of what we know.

From this verse, what is it that we know? We know that God causes all things to work together for good. You say, “But Tony, things are falling apart. People are putting me down. I got laid off from my job. The doctors say they don’t know if I’m going to make it.” You can say all of that and more, and yet the truth remains that God can cause all of those things to work together for good because He is sovereign. Despite how circumstances may appear, God is in control. He is working things together that look out of control. In fact, when things seem out of control to you, all that means is that they are out of your control. God is in charge orchestrating everything in order that His divine purpose might be revealed.

Sometimes I walk into the kitchen to see what my wife is cooking. She may be putting together a meal that does not look to me like it’s going anywhere. It’s a little of this and a little of that and a little of the other. I’ll say, “What are you making?”

She will answer, “Wait and see.”

If I have the patience to wait while she puts the master’s touch to that meal, when it comes to the table all I can say is, “Delicious!”

That’s how God works. He takes a little of this and a little of that and a little of the other that might not look too tasty on their own. Yet in His sovereignty, He can mix it, stir in a little omnipresence, add some omnipotence, toss in a dash of grace, throw in a little goodness, mix in a little mercy, and stir it all together. Then, when it comes out of the oven, all you can say is, “Excellent!”

But the only ones who can say that are those who love God and are committed to His purpose. You’ve got to be on His agenda, not on yours. You’ve got to be following His path, not your own. It’s not, “Lord, this is what I want,” but “Lord, what do You want?” That is the question that defines a life lived according to both the King and His kingdom.

GOD’S KINGDOM AGENDA OPERATES FOR HIS GLORY

A third truth that I want you to understand about the kingdom agenda is that it operates for the purpose of God’s glory. Romans 11:36 says, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” As you may already know, amen means “so be it.” There it is. That’s it. God’s glory is the bottom line in His kingdom.

For His Pleasure

Paul said that everything is from God. He is the first cause, the source. Then Paul said that through Him everything is. God is also the effective cause of everything in creation. And finally, Paul said that everything is to Him. He is the final cause. It all returns to Him to bring Him glory forever. It is crucial to understand that God created the universe for His pleasure and His glory (see Revelation 4:11), including each one of us (see Isaiah 43:7). God did not make the world first and foremost for us, but for Himself.

“Glory” is a sweet word. It comes from a Greek word that means “to be heavy” or “to have weight.” When we say, “That guy is heavy,” we’re giving him significance. We’re adding weight to his persona. That’s what glory is.

To fully understand the concept of God’s glory, you must understand the difference between intrinsic glory and ascribed glory. Most of us are only familiar with ascribed glory. This is the glory we assign to people because of who they are, what they do, or how much income they make.

For example, when we put a black robe on a man or woman, we call that person “Your Honor” because we ascribe glory to the role of judge. When someone pulls up in a limousine, we stop to see who it is, because we assume anyone riding in a limousine has to be significant. That’s ascribed or assigned glory, meaning that if you take away the black robe or the limo, the people involved lose their glory. Human beings can only have ascribed glory. Not so with God. People can ascribe glory to God, but even if we refuse to glorify Him He hasn’t lost anything, because God has intrinsic glory.

The sun does not have to try to be hot. Even on a cloudy day, the sun is hot. The sun does not have to try to be bright. Even when it’s dark outside, the other half of the world is basking in the brightness of the sun.

What heat and brightness are to the sun, glory is to God. It is part of who He is. You can go into your house and close all of your blinds, but you haven’t diminished the sun one iota. No matter what you and I do, we can’t diminish or reduce the glory of God. Everything in His kingdom is designed to bring Him glory, as it should since there is nothing and no one greater than God for Him to give glory to.

Holding It All Together

Now let me show you a tremendous implication of this for those of us who will adopt a kingdom agenda. In Colossians 1:15–17, Paul wrote: “And [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”

This is deep. Don’t miss it by skimming over a verse that may already be familiar to you. There are riches to be found in this passage. Let me tell you, if you abide by and live according to God’s kingdom agenda, Christ will bring together the things in your life that are falling apart. He will either fix the situation or fix you in the situation. As it is written, “in Him all things hold together.” So if your world is falling apart, fix your eyes on Jesus through whom and by whom all things come together.

But in order to receive the benefit of His hand in this regard, you must live your life for His glory. You must say, “Lord, my goal today is to reflect Your significance. I want to ascribe to You the glory that already belongs to You. I want to radiate, demonstrate, magnify, and illustrate Your glory.” That’s a life lived according to the kingdom agenda.

Most of our insurance policies call a natural disaster an “act of God.” If a storm blows your roof off, for example, that’s an act of God. We are quick to blame God in the midst of life’s trials. Yet we don’t give Him glory when He keeps the roof on. It’s an act of God if it rains and floods the crops, but we ought to give Him glory that we eat every day. Numbers of individuals run to church when something goes wrong. But people who live according to the kingdom agenda come into God’s presence to give Him glory no matter what because they understand the fullness of His power in holding all things together.

GOD’S KINGDOM AGENDA OPERATES ACCORDING TO HIS WILL

The fourth and final truth to consider concerning God’s kingdom agenda is that it operates in accordance with His will.

You may have grown up reciting the Lord’s Prayer, which begins: “Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:9–10). The first principle we garner from this prayer is that God’s name is unique—we are to hallow His name. The way that God’s name is hallowed is by His kingdom coming through His will being done. So the reverse of that is true as well. If you are not seeking to do God’s will, then His kingdom in your life is not coming and His name is not being hallowed. You cannot have the full presence of the kingdom if you are not willing to submit to the King. If you are outside of His will then you are disconnected from His kingdom. And to miss the kingdom is to miss His name, to miss Him, because they are intrinsically tied together.

God-in-the-Box

One of the first toys I remember playing with as a young boy growing up in Baltimore was that little jack-in-the-box clown that pops up to the tune “Pop Goes the Weasel.” I loved that toy. And while that concept is great for a toy, it is not so great for God. Yet, that’s how many people try to treat God—a toy in a box who pops up whenever we want Him to appear and do our bidding. “Bless me now, Lord. I’m turning the handle. Come on, pop up.” Then we stuff Him back down in the box and close the top when we don’t want to see Him anymore. “God-in-the-box, stay there and don’t pop up yet because I haven’t played Your tune.”

But a kingdom person says, “Not my will, but Your will be done.” Jesus said in Matthew 13:11 that the kingdom is a mystery to those who aren’t willing to hear, see, and understand what God is doing. Jesus would not reveal His Father’s will to people who were not willing to obey it.

God’s Kingdom Will

Let me show you why God has you and me in His kingdom. In Daniel 7:13–14, the prophet wrote:

I kept looking in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven one like a Son of Man was coming, and He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him. And to Him was given dominion, glory and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations and men of every language might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away; and His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed. (emphasis added)

You were brought into God’s kingdom to serve Him, to do His will, and to confiscate from Satan that which belongs to God. The prophet Isaiah also learned that the kingdom of God operates according to His will. In probably the most well-known passage in the book of Isaiah, the prophet said, “In the year of King Uzziah’s death I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted” (6:1).

Isaiah had just experienced a tragedy. The king who had brought Israel a long way back toward God had just died. So what’s the point? After all, Isaiah knew the Lord before King Uzziah died. The point is that Isaiah didn’t really see the Lord until Uzziah died. He needed to learn that although a king was dead, the King was alive and well.

Sometimes it takes a tragedy in our lives, or other negative circumstances, for us to truly see God. We may know Him in terms of being our Savior. But a lot of us won’t really say, “God, I want to see You, I want to experience You” until our “King Uzziah” dies. That is, until the physical and tangible thing, person, career, bank account—or whatever we are trusting in—passes from a position of prominence to obscurity. That is one reason God will allow tragic situations to come into our lives. He knows that our focus is on the created rather than on the Creator. And until we adjust our vision from the temporal to the eternal, we may miss out on seeing the eternal altogether.

God is not simply interested in getting you to heaven. He wants you to see and experience Him here while you are on earth. The book of Revelation tells us that one day there will be a new heaven and a new earth; but before you ever get to heaven you will have a job to do in this new earth, in history. You don’t get to heaven until you finish a thousand years of doing work for God in history in Christ’s millennial kingdom. So if all you think about is heaven, you will miss out on history. God wants you to experience and see Him now in order to best prepare you for then.

Sometimes God is most clearly seen in the midst of painful situations. When you are in a crisis, it is not enough to say, “Lord, why am I in this mess?” You need to be praying, “Lord, help me to see You the way the three Hebrew boys saw You in the midst of the fiery furnace (see Daniel 3). Help me to see you the way that Isaiah saw You.”

What did Isaiah see? He saw a God who is holy to the third power. “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory” (Isaiah 6:3). The prophet saw a God who rules over all the situations of life.

What did Isaiah do when he saw God? He cried out, “Woe is me, for I am ruined!” (v. 5). The word “ruined” means “coming unstitched.” Isaiah felt like he was falling apart, unraveling before a holy God. “I am a man of unclean lips,” Isaiah continued. Despite being a significant and prominent prophet dedicated to the service of God his entire life, in the presence of a holy God Isaiah fully felt his own inadequacy. He fully felt his own sin. And in that reality, Isaiah confessed his uncleanness.

Because of this, Isaiah experienced grace. One of the seraphim flew over to him with a hot coal he had taken from the altar with tongs, and he touched Isaiah’s lips with it. “Your sin is forgiven,” the seraphim said (vv. 6–7). The lips are the most sensitive part of the human face. The angel touched Isaiah’s lips with a burning hot coal, which meant there had to have been pain.

This is because in order for Isaiah to experience his life being cleansed, he had to experience the pain of the past that had gotten him there. But when he did, he discovered more than the purifying searing of the coal. He discovered his purpose. “Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, ‘Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?’ Then I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’ ” (v. 8).

There it is. Isaiah came to know the revealed will of God, and he received the power to do that will when he saw God. The prophet got plugged into God’s kingdom agenda when, in a broken and painful situation, he saw God for himself.

BECOMING A KINGDOM PERSON

Do you want to be a kingdom person? Do you want to discover God’s best for your life, His agenda? He’s both willing and waiting to reveal it to you. But you must make that decision. If you want to know which way to go, just ask. If you don’t know the way, come to the One who knows the way. Seek God by restructuring your thoughts, words, and actions to conform to the standards of His kingdom.

I can’t tell you what following God’s kingdom agenda will mean for you. I just know that whatever it is, you must be willing to do His will. You must be able to pray, “Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen” (Matthew 6:13). It is God’s program that you are to pursue.

If that means being single, you are ready to do that for His sake. If that means staying in a marriage even though right now you are not happy in it, you are ready to do that. If that means staying on a job you don’t like, you are ready. If that means you don’t reach all of your goals, that’s okay as long as you can say, as Paul did, “I have finished the course” (2 Timothy 4:7).

We used to have two dogs. They belonged to my son, but when he wasn’t home, I had to take care of them. Those dogs had a good life, as far as dog lives go. They would come in and find food already sitting in their bowls. They would get fresh water every day. They had a warm spot to sleep in whenever they wanted it. My son even asked that I buy their food at a special store in order to feed them the healthiest option for a dog.

One day I was trying to get one of the dogs to move while I fed it, and the dog growled at me. I looked at it and thought, You’re a fool. I’m here feeding and watering you at no cost to you. I don’t want to do it, don’t need to do it, don’t feel like doing it. And you’re growling at me?

That dog didn’t understand that he ate by grace. He drank by grace. He had a place to sleep by grace. The only thing that dog should have said to me when I came over to where it sat was, “Thank you, bowwow,” because everything that dog had was by grace. Needless to say, that dog didn’t stay much longer in my domain.

The first word of wisdom for living according to God’s kingdom agenda is to understand that He is the King, and you are not. He is God, and you are not. He makes the rules, and you do not. When you decide to live by a kingdom agenda, you no longer say, “This is my food, and You’d better give it to me, God. You’d better supply my drink. This is my house, and You’d better keep it covered and paid for. And You’d better keep clothes on my back.”

No, you don’t say that to God. The only thing you say when you get up in the morning is, “Thank You, God” and, “What can I do to show my gratitude?”

Our desire should be to give God the glory that is rightfully His and to live for His will, because we’re included in His agenda. In the chapters that follow, I want to challenge you to live your life according to the kingdom agenda, to live your life for the King and His kingdom. He is the source. He is in charge. He is sovereign. He is Lord. When you do His will, you become His representative in a world that longs to see a better way to live. When you live for God, then and only then will you truly begin to fulfill the destiny He has planned for you. Are you ready to discover Him and His kingdom?

Every two years nations around the globe send their strongest, most elite athletes to compete against others in the Olympic Games. Individual athletes who are at the top of their game go head-to-head with the world’s best. On display for the world to see are their individual prowess, individual determination, individual commitment, and individual abilities.

Yet, when the gold medalist stands on the platform, he or she is not asked, “What is your favorite song?” The winning athlete does not get to choose which song will be played as the flag is raised. Instead, the national anthem of that individual’s country plays loudly. This is done because it is understood that while the individual was the one who sacrificed, practiced, and competed, he or she represents something much larger. The athlete is just one of many who make up a nation that operates underneath the covering of that same anthem.

As a Christian, you stand as a representative of a bigger kingdom. Your life is not just about you. I know you want your blessing, your crown, and your reward. It is fine to desire to stand on the podium of this life, just as long as you know that when you stand there it is for God’s anthem to sound out the lyrics of His song, “Hallowed by Your Name.”

Seek first the kingdom of God. It is the wisest thing you could ever do, because in doing that, all other things will be added to you.

CHAPTER TWO

THE NECESSITY FOR THE KINGDOM AGENDA

The Bible clearly teaches that at the beginning of known time, a rebellion took place in heaven. The “star of the morning” (Isaiah 14:12), the beautiful and powerful angel once known as Lucifer, raised his head and his hand in an attempt to take God’s throne from Him (see vv. 13–14).

God had no trouble defending His throne, and Lucifer was defeated and kicked out of heaven’s kingdom. Now he is Satan, “the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2)—no doubt disgruntled, vengeful, and on a mission to reclaim the power and prestige he once had. For a short time, God has permitted Satan to act as the ruler of a rival kingdom, the world of unsaved humanity and the demons of hell.

So Satan has his own kingdom, and we can see and feel its effect everywhere. There are four observations about Satan’s kingdom that will enable us to recognize the need of making God’s kingdom agenda our priority.

Satan’s Kingdom Marked by Rebellion

Whenever you see rebellion rise up against legitimate authority, you are seeing Satan at work. The thing that characterizes him and his kingdom is rebellion against divine authority.

Angels were God’s first created beings. They are spirit beings designed to reflect back to God His glory, and serve as messengers carrying out God’s will throughout His creation. Satan’s exalted place among the angels in heaven and his rebellion against God are clearly spelled out in Scripture. The greatest description of him is found in the book of Ezekiel where we read:

You had the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering: the ruby, the topaz and the diamond; the beryl, the onyx and the jasper; the lapis lazuli, the turquoise and the emerald; and the gold, the workmanship of your settings and sockets, was in you. On the day that you were created they were prepared. You were the anointed cherub who covers, and I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God; you walked in the midst of the stones of fire. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you. (Ezekiel 28:12–15)

Satan’s original name, “Lucifer,” means, “shining one, star.” Lucifer was God’s “angel in charge.” But one day he looked into the mirror and became smitten with himself. He answered his own riddle, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, I’m the fairest of them all.” Satan got what we would call a “God complex” making him quickly dissatisfied with his position. Eyeing God’s throne, he wondered, Maybe there’s room for two.

Ezekiel explains God’s response: “By the abundance of your trade you were internally filled with violence, and you sinned; therefore I have cast you as profane from the mountain of God. And I have destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire” (Ezekiel 28:16).

We get a glimpse into Satan’s haughtiness and boasting when we read of his five “I will” statements in Isaiah 14:13–14. These statements clearly outline Satan’s root sin, which is pride. Scripture tells us clearly that pride is first on God’s “hate list” (Proverbs 6:16–17). One reason God hates pride is because it is the fundamental attitude of the kingdom that rivals His own. Nowhere is pride made more visible than in these five “I wills” of Satan. Let’s look at them briefly:

“I WILL ASCEND TO HEAVEN”

In Isaiah 14:13, Satan said, “I will ascend to heaven.” He already had access to God’s throne. We know that because in Isaiah 6 we see the angels worshiping God in the heavenly temple in His presence. In fact, Satan had access to God even after his fall (see Job 1:6; 2:1).

Satan could go into heaven anytime he wanted. Getting there was not what he had on his mind. He was talking about an invasion, a direct attack on God’s throne. Now you can see why every time you try to run your own life, be your own boss, and act like you are your own god, you are saying, “Satan, I agree with you. I want to ascend to heaven and call my own shots.”

“I WILL RAISE MY THRONE”

Satan’s second boast in Isaiah 14:13 was also grandiose in nature. “I will raise my throne above the stars of God.” He wanted to establish a rival throne to God’s.

This one is interesting because Satan had his eye on rising above “the stars of God.” I’ve already mentioned that Satan’s own name was “star of the morning” (v. 12). The stars of God are His angels (see Job 38:7). Satan wanted to usurp God’s authority over the angelic creation.

Satan did not have small plans for his rebellion. This is not some evil-looking little guy with horns, a pitchfork, and a red jumpsuit trying to find something to do. He wanted all of God’s angels to follow him. Revelation 12:4 indicates that Satan was partially successful in his bid to deflect the angels’ worship onto himself. One-third of the angels joined his coup d’état, saying to Satan, “We like your agenda so we will follow you.” These angels are now called demons.

“I WILL SIT ON THE MOUNT OF ASSEMBLY”

The word “mountain” is used in the Bible as a symbol of authority or rule (see Isaiah 2:2 and Daniel 2:35). So by this boast Satan indicated his desire to control the dictates of the universe. He did not want to be handed a program. He wanted to direct his own.

Essentially, Satan changed the Lord’s Prayer to be, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by my name. My kingdom come. My will be done.” Satan wanted in on the glory of God. He wanted a cut of the creation. The angels were given a choice: some stayed loyal to God, and others went with Satan. We have also been given the freedom to choose whose agenda we will follow.

“I WILL ASCEND”

Satan’s fourth boast is found in the first half of Isaiah 14:14: “I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.” In the Bible, clouds are used to reflect the glory of God. Often when God revealed Himself, it was in a cloud (see Exodus 13:21; 40:34).

What Satan wanted here was to receive greater glory than God. Glory means to put someone on display. Satan desired for himself to be put on display, to be shown off. Unfortunately, many times we do that for him. Whenever we rebel against God, we bring glory to Satan and support his desire to rival God.

“I WILL MAKE MYSELF LIKE THE MOST HIGH”

Satan saved his highest aim for last, however irrational the thought might be. It is impossible for Satan to be like God because he has none of God’s attributes. God is eternal; Satan is a created being. God is omnipresent; Satan can only be in one place at a time. God is omniscient; Satan does not know the future unless it is revealed to him.

Since Satan could never be like God, what could he have had in mind in his fifth “I will”? The one thing Satan hated about God was that God never has to answer to anyone. God never has to say, “May I? Can I? Should I?” God never has to adjust His plans to accommodate someone else’s request, because God is totally autonomous. He has self-contained authority. Satan had to get permission to act, and he no longer wanted to have to get it. He wanted to be his own authority. That is precisely why, when people do not obey legitimate authority over them, they are acting like Satan in rebellion against God.

Satan’s Kingdom Wages Spiritual Warfare

An important principle to remember in life is that just as God’s kingdom is spiritual, Satan’s kingdom is also spiritual in nature. Because of this, it shouldn’t surprise us that these two kingdoms clash in the spiritual realm. You don’t have to be a Christian for very long to discover that the Christian life is a battleground, not a playground. This is because we are waging war in a conflict with a spiritual foe. One of Satan’s strategies, though, is to get us to forget that we are fighting a spiritual battle and to focus on the physical, tangible challenges we face instead. Unfortunately, he will often use people to do just that.

Do you ever think, “My life would be so wonderful if it weren’t for people”? Most of the problems we face, in one way or another, can be traced back to people. It could be your mate, your family, your co-workers, or even people with whom you simply do business. If you look a bit closer, though, behind the scenes of these conflicts and challenges in your life, you will see someone else who is lurking there with a conniving scheme to disarm and defeat you. It is Satan, busy pulling the strings and pushing the buttons in this invisible war raging all around us.

One of Satan’s primary strategies is to use people to engineer our spiritual downfall by driving wedges between us that shatter our unity and draw our focus away from God. Satan would prefer that other people get the credit for this part of his work. Because if Satan can get you focusing on the wrong opponent, he can defeat you. And that is his goal.

Although we cannot see it, we are surrounded by this spiritual war, this epic battle of good versus evil. So cataclysmic are the casualties of this conflict that our homes, churches, communities, and nation stand on the precipice of an epidemic of family breakdowns, dysfunction, drop-out rates, unemployment, promiscuity, and economic uncertainty, as well as a host of other debilitating symptoms such as anger, addiction, debt, and discouragement.

Not one of us is immune to the consequences of this spiritual battle. Although the warfare takes place in the invisible, spiritual realm, its effects—pain, heartache, loss, defeat, hopelessness—impact each of us in the visible, physical realm. Yet until you realize that your struggle is not with people but with the “spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12) you will never live out the victory Christ Jesus has secured for you.

One of the main truths you need to embrace with regard to Satan is to understand that people are not your problem. Satan is your problem. And Satan is their problem, too. We are all in the same war, and we all have the same enemy. Demons are spirit beings without a physical form. So in order for them to do anything in time and space, they inhabit a form they can use. For example, Satan slithered in Eden as a snake. Jesus sent the legion of demons to drown in the bodies of swine. Your problem isn’t the person you think it is. Your problem is that a demon is influencing them toward disruption. So when you tell someone, “You ain’t nothing but the devil,” you just might be correct.

Another major difference between this war and others, above and beyond its sheer magnitude and scope, is that this war is fought in a place none of us have ever seen. It is a cosmic conflict waged in the invisible, spiritual realm, which is simultaneously fleshed out in the visible, physical realm.

Behind every physical disturbance, setback, ailment, or issue that you face is a spiritual root. Without first identifying and dealing with the root spiritual cause, attempts at fixing the physical problem will be temporary at best. There is nothing your five senses partake of within your physical being that is not first generated by that which your five senses cannot partake of.

In light of this truth, you and I need to engage a sixth sense—a spiritual sense—when doing battle in this war. We must employ that which goes beyond the obvious use of physiology and address the spiritual root before we can ever truly fix the physical fruit.

One important thing to remember is that you already have all the strength you need to successfully do battle with the devil and win. Your strength is not accumulated or earned. It is supplied by the grace of God, who equips you to live the life to which you have been called. Paul wrote: “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might” (Ephesians 6:10, emphasis added). In your humanity, you do not have the power to overcome angels—even fallen ones like the devil and his legions. God Himself is the only one capable of putting the devil in his place. He is the One who empowers you to achieve victory in your encounters with darkness because your victory rests in Him.

Doing battle with Satan requires more than a dose of willpower. All warfare requires weaponry. Spiritual warfare requires spiritual weaponry. God gives these weapons to you, and when you wear and apply them, you are assured the victory that God has in store for you. Paul describes the battle we are facing, as well as the armor we are to use in fighting it:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm, therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. (Ephesians 6:12–17)

HEAVENLY PLACES

The phrase “heavenly places” is used several times in the book of Ephesians (see 1:3, 20; 2:6; 3:10), but it does not refer to heaven. Instead, it describes a sphere of authority where God and Satan do battle for our allegiance and obedience and where spiritual decisions are made.

There is a lot happening in this realm. So if you don’t know how to function in heavenly places, you are going to face challenges in your earthly places that you can’t deal with. Many believers are trying to “live heavenly” without living in the heavenly places.

In the heavenly places, God and Satan are at war to see who will establish the rules that govern earth. The nature of Satan’s kingdom makes it imperative that we learn to think spiritually. Why? Because if you are not thinking spiritually, you won’t be in tune with what is happening in the heavenly realms. You won’t recognize Satan’s agenda when you see it, so you won’t be able to wage victorious spiritual warfare.

Living and battling in the heavenly places means identifying with a spiritual worldview and participating in a divine frame of reference. We need to learn to put the spiritual ahead of the physical, because our real battle is against a kingdom that seeks to influence and dominate us spiritually. Satan knows that if he can get you hooked into his way of thinking spiritually, the physical will follow.

The Character of Satan’s Kingdom Is Deception

Biblical doctrine is a system of teaching based on the Word of God. When we learn it, we are engaging in the study of God’s system of truth. Yet, did you know that Satan has a system of doctrine too? Paul said in 1 Timothy 4:1: “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons” (emphasis added).

Knowing what we know of Satan, it isn’t surprising that his system of doctrine is designed to mislead us. After all, his kingdom is built on deception. We are seeing a lot of his “doctrine” in our world today. Many people don’t recognize it because demonic doctrines don’t always come across as demonic. Satan works hard to come up with doctrines that deceive. And he has some pretty good helpers here on earth, people known as false teachers who seek to deceive others by teaching Satan’s lies as God’s truth. Paul said that they are “seared in their own conscience as with a branding iron” (1 Timothy 4:2). Satan’s kingdom is built on deception because he is the “father” of all liars (see John 8:44).

The Effect of Satan’s Kingdom Is Death

The subjects of Satan’s kingdom are walking dead people. Paul said that people who are outside of God are spiritually dead. That is, they are unable to respond to spiritual stimuli. Corpses don’t listen to conversations in funeral homes. They have no appetite for food, and they feel no pain. In fact, they cannot function at all. He describes these people:

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. (Ephesians 2:1–3)

People without God cannot function spiritually. The only difference between “good” sinners and “bad” sinners is the state of their decay and decomposition. The non-Christian living in the slum and the non-Christian living uptown are equally dead. One may be dressed better, but both are dead without the life of God.

Satan’s kingdom not only produces spiritually dead people, it also produces disobedient people (see Ephesians 2:2). When men and women begin operating on Satan’s kingdom agenda, they set out on a course that brings them in direct conflict with the kingdom of God. That’s what Satan delights in, of course, because he is not only the grandfather of all liars, he is the original “son of disobedience.”

The tragedy of people who are serving Satan’s agenda is that they are under the judgment of God. They are living on borrowed time, and hell is their destiny. This is all the reason we need to reach out and snatch people from Satan’s grasp. They are destined for eternal death without Christ. We as believers can praise God that even though we were once destined for death as members of Satan’s kingdom, God saved us by His mercy (see Ephesians 2:4–5). Everything Satan touches turns rotten. Death is the inevitable product of his kingdom. However, life is the product of God’s kingdom agenda, including the abundant life.

MANKIND AS MANAGER OF GOD’S KINGDOM

I want to follow up our study of Satan’s rebellion by considering where we, as God’s people, step onto the kingdom stage. God has appointed us as managers or stewards of His kingdom in this age. Someday we will rule with Him in the ultimate expression of His kingdom, the millennial reign of Jesus Christ on earth. This is how the drama unfolded.

Created for God’s Glory

Like all created beings, Satan was created to bring God glory. But he rebelled and abdicated his role. As a result, his coup was uncovered and crushed. Lucifer was then brought to trial in front of three judges: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Lucifer and his angels were found guilty of heavenly treason, and a sentence was passed. This sentence is recorded in Matthew 25:41 when Jesus speaks of the punishment for those who rebel against God: “Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels” (emphasis added).

Hell is the place of eternal suffering and isolation from the presence of God. Not only that, but Jesus makes a statement in the book of Luke that bears on the entire angelic story: “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning” (Luke 10:18). Notice that Lucifer got a name change. He is no longer the “shining one.” He is now Satan, which means “adversary.” This is important, because in the Bible a name was more than simply nomenclature. It was, rather, a revelation of the individual or thing itself.

A name is so important in biblical settings that there are frequent mentions throughout Scripture of God Himself changing someone’s name to reflect a new reality: Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel, Sarai to Sarah, and many more. Biblically speaking, a name frequently connotes purpose, authority, makeup, and ownership. It was often seen as an actual equivalent of a person or thing. After Lucifer’s rebellion, he got a new name to fit his character. No longer was he angel-in-charge. He was now God’s enemy.

Notice also in Luke 10:18 that Satan’s sentencing to hell was not immediately carried out. Hell was prepared for Satan and his angels, but he wasn’t thrown there immediately. Rather, he was thrown to earth (see Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28). There is a gap between the sentencing and the carrying out of the sentence: history, the period of time in which we now live.

History is where Scripture opens up its story. “In the beginning, God created …. The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep.” The Hebrew phrase translated “formless and void” is tohu vav bohu, which simply means “garbage dump.” It is a lifeless wasteland (the water had not yet been separated from dry land). Essentially, God kicked Satan out of heaven to his new residence: a dump.

Yet before God went further to carry out the sentence of hell on Satan, He decided to create a lesser creature, someone constitutionally lower than the angels, and let this creature—humanity—demonstrate what God could do with less when that less is committed to Him, versus what happens to more when that more is in rebellion against Him.

Created to Rule

When Satan rebelled, God set forth to create the human race in order to rule over His created order. We see this in Psalm 8:

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained; what is man that You take thought of him, and the son of man that You care for him? Yet You have made him a little lower than God, and You crown him with glory and majesty! You make him to rule over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet. (vv. 3–6)

This is why when God created Adam and Eve, He said, “Let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth” (Genesis 1:26). Then God told them to “subdue” the earth (v. 28). This is known in theological terms as the Dominion Covenant.

In other words, it was impossible that God would not have a kingdom that would rule over and defeat the kingdom of Satan. When Jesus Christ sets up His millennial kingdom, it will be the final, triumphant declaration of God’s glory. Satan will then be chained up during that time to demonstrate his utter defeat and judgment (see Revelation 20:1–3). Yet for now, God has created you and me to harness and rule a part of His creation. Every person was created with that divine intent.

Why is it important for you to grasp the unfolding of God’s kingdom? Because when God said “Let them rule,” He stated that He would not rule independently of man—that mankind’s decisions would now carry weight regarding what He did or did not do. And He did this for one reason: to demonstrate to the devil that He could do more through a lesser creature in manifesting His glory than through the once-shining star.

This is important because large numbers of people think there is a battle going on between God and the Devil for supremacy. There is not, but if there were, it wouldn’t last long. That’s like saying, “Tony Evans and Mike Tyson are fighting.” Sure, we might both climb into the ring together to duke it out, but I would be no match for Mike, even at his age.

Satan, a created being, is no match for the omnipotent Creator. And God demonstrated His supremacy by creating man, a creature inferior to Satan in terms of power, but who has the power to defeat Satan when he operates according to God’s authority and kingdom agenda. You and I were cast in a cosmic conflict to manifest God’s rule in history for the advancement of His kingdom and the reflection of His glory. And one way this is done is through the Dominion Covenant, the ability of mankind to rule through decisions that are made.

Keep in mind that although God has turned over the managerial responsibility for ruling, He has not turned over absolute ownership of the earth to mankind. Yet by turning over the management of the earth to man, God has established a process, within certain boundaries, whereby He respects man’s decisions—even if those decisions go against Him or are not in the best interest of that which is being managed. God retains absolute, sovereign authority and ownership, but He has delegated relative authority to humanity within the sphere of influence that each person has been placed.

For example, the bank may own the house that you live in, but it is your responsibility to pay a monthly mortgage on the house that you say that you “own,” as well as to maintain it, for good or for bad. You may know how great it feels to walk into a brand new house you have just purchased and think to yourself, “I own this house.” But the truth is, in most cases, the bank owns that house.

The bank does not get involved with the everyday duties of running your house; that is your responsibility. Nor does the bank force you to have a clean house, or prevent you from having a junky one. That is up to you. Yet the bank does not give up ultimate ownership of the house just because you are the one living in it and managing it. If you do not make your payments, you will be the one who faces the consequence of no longer having that house.

The same holds true in the realm where you have been assigned to rule. God is the ultimate owner. He has delegated the responsibility to manage it without having delegated His sovereignty over and within it. Your decisions directly affect the quality of life within the sphere in which you function (this is the cause and effect aspect that we looked at in the last chapter), and will have a large bearing on whether or not your realm of influence increases or decreases with time.

The tragedy for many people is that they have followed after Satan, stopped trying to be a manager over what God has delegated, and started trying to be an owner, thus parroting Satan’s sin.

Abdicating Our Management Responsibility

The question is often asked, “When Satan sinned, why didn’t God just destroy him?” If God had destroyed Satan, He would never have demonstrated to Satan His power, His wisdom, His glory, and all of His other divine attributes working together to accomplish His intended plan (see Ephesians 3:10). So God created man and woman and gave us the right of rulership, as we saw above (see Genesis 1:26–28). But Satan interfered with that plan:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’” The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die!” (Genesis 3:1–4)

It is interesting that the first conversation between the devil and a human being is about God. Not only that, but it’s about God’s Word. Satan asked Eve, “Indeed, has God said … ?” Satan did this because he knew that in order to get rid of God’s rule and His kingdom, he had to get rid of the authority of His Word.

But I want you to notice a very important point in Satan’s strategy; he did not seek to get rid of religion. In fact, he even goes so far as to tell Eve that she can be “like God” (Genesis 3:5). Satan doesn’t mind religion. You can go to church all day long if you want to. What he does mind is when you acknowledge God as ruler over your life. This is evident through a very clever maneuver Satan did linguistically with Eve.

Prior to the conversation between the woman and the snake, God is referenced in Scripture as THE LORD GOD. “LORD” is the name of God, which means “ruler, absolute authority.” It indicates that He is in charge.

Yet when Satan talks with Eve, he removes the word LORD. While acknowledging God, Satan removes the fundamental principle of God as the rightful King over His kingdom, thus challenging the authority of His Word. The issue in the garden wasn’t whose church do you like best: Eve’s, Satan’s or God’s? The issue in the garden was whose word would be final. Would God be “LORD God”? Or will you just say that He is “God” while making your own decisions?

This is the same battle going on today. God is fighting for His Word to be operating through us, while the devil is fighting for his word to be operating through us. Many people try to operate with a little bit of both, conversely removing “LORD” from God’s rightful place in their lives. Who you obey, not where you go or how often you go to church, reveals whose kingdom you have aligned yourself underneath.

Challenging the Owner

God had left clear instructions to His managers about how He wanted them to manage His creation. But Satan called into question the Owner’s right to set the rules and regulations of His own creation. Satan has been doing it ever since, and managers of God’s kingdom have been falling by the wayside ever since as well.

Whenever we allow the evil one to cause us to question the ultimate authority of God in our lives, we jeopardize the significance of our management position. That is precisely why many Christians never fully live out their destiny.

You were not designed to live a purposeless life. God has given you a responsible position to fill as a manager in His kingdom. But if you don’t realize that role, you will never know the reason that God destined you for creation.

We saw Satan’s strategy to thwart that purpose in Genesis 3:5. He tried to persuade Eve to think that God was being jealous of His deity. But Satan knew no one could be like God. How did he know? Because he had tried it already himself and got thrown out of heaven. Satan attempted to sell Eve the same, exact lie he had once sold himself.

God created you for His glory. So whenever you try to take glory for yourself and live independently of Him, you are living beyond your management privileges. You do not own all that you think that you own. Everything that you use is God’s. Everything that you manage is God’s. This is God’s domain, and you have been put here to manage the time, talents, and treasures He has placed at your disposal. Satan wants to make you think that you can do all of this independently of God and without regard to His authority.

THE GREAT SIN

The great sin of the Bible is to live independently of God, to try to live as if God does not exist. Satan wants you to become like him, in rebellion against God. Let me put it another way: Satan wants you to stop thinking like a manager and start thinking like an owner.

If you have ever rented somewhere and then owned a home, you know the difference between being a manager and an owner. When you rent a home or an apartment, your landlord takes responsibility for most of the building’s upkeep because you don’t own it. But if you own the house, when the roof goes bad, you get to fix it. When the water heater goes out, you buy a new one. There are responsibilities that come with ownership.

That’s also true in life. If you want to be the owner of your life and live as though God has no say over you, He is going to respond, “You want to own your life? Okay, when it breaks down, you get to fix it.”

I don’t know about you, but I would prefer to be a “renter” under God’s ownership. That way if something breaks down, I can go to the Owner and say, “Lord, this is Your property, Your body, Your money. I have given everything over to You. I’m just the renter here, so I ask You to take care of things.”

When we abdicate our management role in God’s kingdom and start acting like the owner, we bring a lot of challenges on ourselves. The kingdom agenda does not include our ownership. Psalm 8 shows us God’s intention for our role in His kingdom. But we have also seen that mankind abdicated his responsibility by yielding to Satan’s temptation and by mimicking Satan’s rebellion. As a result of Adam’s and Eve’s sin, they lost out on God’s intent for their work in His kingdom (see Genesis 3:8–24). They got kicked out of Eden, much like Satan got kicked out of heaven.

But even in the midst of His judgment, God let Adam and Eve know it would not always be like this. He gave them the promise of a Redeemer who would reverse the curse of sin (see Genesis 3:15). Jesus will also reverse the effects of Satan’s and mankind’s rebellion against God’s kingdom when He comes to rule in His kingdom. And, as we will see in the next chapter, honoring Jesus as Lord of the kingdom agenda opens up the floodgate of both His power and authority to be made manifest in your life on earth.

Lucifer, the once shining star, tried to set up a rival kingdom and a rival throne to the one, true God. As a result, he lost not only his position but also his authority in God’s kingdom. Now God has given each of us the opportunity, by aligning ourselves under His rule, to demonstrate all that can be done through a lesser being who is fully committed to the manifestation of His glory and the advancement of His kingdom.

CHAPTER THREE

THE LORD OF THE KINGDOM AGENDA

Our purpose throughout this book is to gain a better understanding of the kingdom: the visible demonstration of the comprehensive rule of God over every area of life. God’s agenda is to see His kingdom made manifest on earth.

God created mankind to rule. However, man gave up his rule when Satan tricked him. So God has extended this period of time called “history” for the proper reclaiming of the rule that man has been given in God’s kingdom on earth. An essential key to reclaiming rule is understanding and living according to the proper alignment each of us must have to Jesus Christ as both our Lord and Savior.

One of the ways that Lois and I made it through seminary on such a tight budget was by house-sitting. This was a coveted job of poor seminary students like us because it gave us an opportunity to manage something far better than we had the ability to own at the time. When wealthy families in the North Dallas area would go on vacation, they would often call Dallas Seminary to ask for a couple to come and live at their home in their absence. This way they had trustworthy people watching over their property while they were gone.

So for a brief period of time, financially struggling seminary students got to live like kings and queens. These were palaces compared to what we had become accustomed to. Also, the owner would typically stock the refrigerator and the freezer full of choice food and then say, “Make yourself at home.” In fact, the run of the property was generally made available to us with just a few restrictions.

I remember one occasion when the owner had a Porsche sitting in the garage. When he left, he told me I could feel free to park my old, broken down, battered Grand Prix and drive his Porsche instead. You better believe he didn’t have to tell me twice. I drove that Porsche to school and back, taking the extra-long scenic route. But my wife would always remind me when I got home, “That Porsche isn’t yours, Tony.” In fact, she would quickly remind me that the entire house wasn’t mine. We were just managing what someone else had worked for and built over time.

God owned a house called Eden in which he had placed Adam and Eve in order to oversee and manage it. They didn’t own it, but they were given the freedom to enjoy it, use it, and maximize it. In fact, they were given great freedom with only one restriction—not to eat of the tree in the middle of the garden.

THE EFFECTS OF ADAM’S SIN

But because Satan wanted to make himself the owner, he got Adam to intentionally rebel against God. Genesis 3 tells us that Eve was deceived, but Adam went into his sin with his eyes wide open. Because of his rebellion against God, the crown that God had placed on him was removed. Adam turned over the rulership of earth to the devil. To put it in football language, Adam was carrying the ball called the kingdom of God on Earth. The serpent tackled him and he fumbled the ball, and the devil recovered the fumble.

The earthly kingdom that was supposed to be operating under the heavenly kingdom was transferred to the devil’s kingdom. Yet there was one problem: God had committed Himself to only work through mankind to bring about His kingdom rule in history (see Psalm 8:3-6), and He would not go against His plan. So in order to work through man, rather than independently of man, God had to institute another plan in history. He needed a second Adam. In 1 Corinthians we read: “For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:21–22).

Then in verse 45 of this chapter we read: “So also it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living soul.’ The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” If you want to understand all of history, you need to understand one word: Adam. There is Adam number one, and Adam number two, and through both of them is found the simplified summation of history.

History is this process by which God is returning us to the garden. In fact, history itself will end in the same place that it began. The garden will be called the “new Jerusalem,” the place that is being prepared for those of us who believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior when we die. We often call it heaven, but what many Christians do not grasp is that most of your time in the afterlife will be spent on earth, not in heaven. This is because God’s purpose for humanity was earth. We will be living in a “new earth” with access to a “new heaven.”

And all of this is made possible because the second Adam, Jesus Christ, came to redeem the dominion that the first Adam lost through sin. Paul explained it this way:

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned…. Nevertheless death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offense of Adam, who is a type of Him who was to come…. For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous…. [S]o that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 5:12, 14, 17–19, 21)

The Prophecy of Christ’s Redemption

When the first Adam rebelled against God, the Bible tells us that death fell upon all of us. His destiny was imputed to us as the destiny of the human race because each of us is “in” Adam. Yet God gave a prophecy in Genesis 3 that would turn this thing around: “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel” (v. 15). Bear in mind that “head” refers to headship—rulership and authority. The seed of the woman would crush the headship of the serpent, or the devil. In other words, God was saying that someone who would be born of a woman would overcome the devil and reclaim authority and headship over the earth.

What is interesting to note in this verse, though, is how God chose to phrase it. Normally, when talking about a “seed” you would talk about the seed of a man. It is the male gender that carries the seed while the female gender carries the egg. God had determined to do a unique thing in producing a human being without the seed of a human man, but rather with the seed of a woman connected to His own divinity. Through this, He would create the perfect God-Man, Jesus Christ, who would then provide another plan, or opportunity, for regaining the rulership that had been lost by the first Adam.

When I was the chaplain for the Dallas Cowboys during the Coach Tom Landry years, I could go and work out with the team. Sometimes I would be out there catching a pass from Roger Staubach, or running patterns with Tony Dorsett and Drew Pearson. Basically, I was fulfilling my boyhood dreams. Yet at the same time, I was also learning some of their plays.

One very simple play was called a “fly pattern,” in which the receiver would run down the field while the quarterback threw the ball long in order to try and score a touchdown in one play. However, when the Cowboys called a fly pattern, they also often would call a “waggle.” This involved the halfback peeling off to the side in case the quarterback got in trouble and did not have enough time to set and throw the fly pattern down the field. This gave the quarterback a Plan B in case the defense decided to blitz him and cut short his time to position himself for the long pass. The quarterback could peel off to the side and toss the ball to the halfback.

When God created Adam, He called the fly pattern. He set Adam in motion to run down the field of the kingdom of God for a touchdown. Yet Satan decided to blitz the play and snuck into the backfield to try and interrupt it. What Satan didn’t bank on, though, was that God had a Plan B. He tossed the ball to the second Adam, Jesus Christ, for Him to carry out the purposes of God in advancing His kingdom on earth.

Satan first hears about this “waggle” in Genesis 3:15, in that it will come through the seed of a woman. So he sets out on a long quest to kill that seed. First he gets Cain to kill Abel. But God then enables Eve to give birth to another seed, Seth. After that, Satan seeks to inhabit the seed of mankind when demon-possessed men have relationships with women, thus creating a demonized race (see Genesis 6:1–7). God then destroys all of humanity except for the family of Noah.

Essentially, the entire Old Testament is the story of this back-and-forth scenario. The seed is born; then Satan makes the counter-seed move. Once we reach the close of the Old Testament, we come into a 400-year period of silence. This is eventually ended in the New Testament when God begins this portion of His Word by giving us the genealogy of the seed of Jesus Christ.

Up until this time, God would find a man and use a man to advance His kingdom on earth. But now, God became man in the Person of Jesus Christ. Through a virgin birth He provided the opportunity for earth to become realigned properly again with Him and His kingdom. In Jesus Christ, heaven and earth were unified. So the reason Pharaoh issued a decree to kill all of the newborn males in his land at the time of the birth of Moses is the same reason Herod issued a decree to kill every boy under the age of two at the time of the birth of Jesus Christ. It is Satan, once again, working behind the scenes to get rid of the prophetic seed of Genesis 3:15.

Because Satan’s attempts failed, though, Jesus was able to live a sinless life, rise from the dead, ascend into heaven, and reclaim the kingdom that the first Adam had ceded to Satan. Through the power of the cross and resurrection, Jesus Christ has ultimate authority in our world today. Satan no longer holds the final authority in believer’s lives or on this earth.

Power versus Authority

God knows that and Satan knows that, but Satan doesn’t want kingdom followers of Jesus Christ to know that. So Satan tries to intimidate, pressure, lie to, and do anything else he can to try and get kingdom followers to believe that he still has power over them. And the reason so many people are not living lives reflective of the kingdom of God is that they have lost sight of the reality that at the cross, Jesus Christ deactivated, dismantled, and disarmed Satan’s headship by stripping him of the ball called “authority” which Satan had recovered from the first Adam.

God has given the ultimate authority over what happens in history to His Son and has placed all things in subjection to Him. As we read in Ephesians 1: “And He put all things in subjection under His feet, and gave Him as head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all” (vv. 22–23).

One reason we often don’t live in light of this truth is because we confuse the terms “power” and “authority.” Satan still has power. He still dominates the world in which we live and influences people’s lives in countless ways. He is as powerful now as he has ever been. His tactics and destruction are both real and damaging. But what he doesn’t have is final authority. Authority is the right to use the power that you possess.

For example, football players are far bigger and stronger than the referees, who are older, smaller, and more out of shape than the players. The players can knock you down in the game—that’s power. But the referees can put you out of the game: that’s authority. Satan has power, but the only way he is free to use that power over the lives of individuals, families, churches, or the broader society is our failure to operate under the rightful headship of the Lord Jesus Christ. Satan does not have the authority to use his power when men function under the covenantal covering of Jesus Christ.

This is why Satan will try so hard and long to lure people and divine institutions out from under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Satan knows that if he can get them out from under Christ’s covering, he has free reign to deceive, trick, and harm them however he chooses.

Colossians 1:13 tells that God has “rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.” By rescuing us, God transferred us to live our lives under the rule of a new King, Christ. The word “Christ,” or Messiah, means “anointed one.” Jesus Christ has been designated by the Father as King over the whole earth. The goal of history is to bring all things to recognize His rule (see Ephesians 1:22–23).

Believers used to belong to Satan’s kingdom and rulership before meeting Christ, but now Christians are part of a new kingdom of which Jesus Christ is the King. Satan, in order to rule the lives and institutions of kingdom followers, has got to get them to leave the kingdom rule of Jesus Christ and come back over to his.

Much of this happens through the division of the secular and the sacred. This is done when people attend and participate in church under one kingdom, then go out into the world Monday–Saturday and function under the influence of another kingdom. There are studies done of the Bible in one kingdom. Then there is socializing done with friends in another kingdom. We witness this flip-flop of kingdoms and then wonder why there is not more victory and rule in lives, homes, churches, and communities.

The answer is simple: Satan is ruling people’s lives because they are yielding the power to him—not by way of any rightful authority that he has, but simply because of a failure to align their thoughts and decisions under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. By abandoning the union we were created to have with Christ, under His headship, authority is lost. By not giving Jesus Christ the proper place in our homes, churches, and world—the first place that He deserves—we lose His covering. All of life for a kingdom follower ought to be summed up in the recognition of the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Why? Because:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything. (Colossians 1:15-18)

Jesus’ Headship over All

With the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus Christ, He has been made head over all rulers and authority. When a person accepts Jesus Christ as their sin-bearer, they have transferred kingdoms. Jesus Christ is then to be preeminent in their life, to have first place in all things. Only as the Lordship of Christ is acknowledged and submitted to can the power and authority of God’s kingdom be made visible in history. God explicitly states that it is His determined purpose to bring all of history under the rule of Jesus Christ (see Ephesians 1:9-10).

Transferring kingdoms can best be illustrated by what happens when a single woman gets married and is transferred from the kingdom of her father to the kingdom of her husband. She is no longer underneath her father’s headship, but under her husband’s headship. The surest way to have problems in a family is for a married woman to go to her father to overrule her husband in her life choices. When that happens, there is inevitably a conflict of kingdoms.

As children of God, we have been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of Jesus Christ. Problems arise when we start listening to the old head, Satan, who owns and runs the kingdom of darkness. This brings us in direct conflict with the kingdom of God. Colossians 2:8–12 gives us an insightful look into the explosive and powerful nature of our union with Christ when we are aligned properly under His kingdom rule:

See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.

Likewise, we read in Ephesians: “Even when we were dead in our transgressions, [God] made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (2:5–6).

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, when He died, you died with Him. When Christ arose, you arose with Him. When Christ was seated at the right hand of the Father, you were seated with Him. In other words, you were made to function in concert and cadence with Jesus Christ.

In order for you to legitimately access His sovereign authority over all things, you and your world must be aligned underneath Christ’s headship. This includes your thoughts, choices, words, and perspective. It is in properly aligning yourself under Him and His Word that His authority becomes manifest in your own life as you seek to advance God’s kingdom on earth.

We can go to all of the church services that we want, read all of the spiritual books we want, even “name and claim” whatever we want. But until we place ourselves under the comprehensive rule of God in every area by aligning ourselves under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, we will not fully realize or maximize the rule and authority He has destined for us.

God has appointed a regent, Jesus Christ, who has been elevated above all to rule over history. Believing in God or calling on Him is not enough to access the authority that comes through Christ. It is your relationship with Jesus Christ that determines what happens in history, because He has been placed above all rule and authority, and by virtue of who He is, demands first place. Because Jesus is seated at the right hand of God (the power side), His followers are seated there with Him (see Ephesians 2:6).

I know what you are saying. “But, Tony, how can someone be in two places at one time?” Easy, we do it all of the time through technology. I can physically be in Dallas, but I can also be on Skype with someone in Chicago. I can be seated in my home in Dallas and participate in a board meeting in Atlanta. Through human technology, we can be in two places at one time.

Now, if man can produce technology that can put us in two places at one time, don’t you think the Creator of the universe can do the same thing? You are physically on earth, but you are supposed to be functioning from the position of heaven. You are seated with Christ in the heavenlies.

The enemy tries to keep you thinking you are bound by the rules of his kingdom rather than accessing the authority of Christ in the heavenlies. When Satan does this, he can keep us perpetually defeated and our world broken. But the only final authority is that of Jesus Christ. This means we must operate from a divine point of view rather than a human point of view.

Have you ever been watching cable television only to have the channel go out and the words “searching for signal” come on your screen? That’s what has happened to many believers who do not live their lives under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. They are cut off from accessing His rightful authority. It’s not that they don’t have the ability to access His authority, it’s just that they have gotten an interruption in the signal. The enemy has been allowed to somehow interfere with the communication and alignment they have with Jesus Christ.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CONFESSING CHRIST

The word “confess” means to openly and publicly affirm and declare where a person stands on an issue. Part of alignment under the authority of Jesus Christ involves a willingness to publicly declare and demonstrate commitment to and an association with Him. To put it another way, if you are a secret-agent Christian, or a spiritual CIA representative, you have not made Jesus Lord in your life. We read in the kingdom book of Matthew: “Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 10:32–33).

Based on this verse, the question stands: If you were accused of being a Christian on your job, would there be enough evidence to convict you, or would you be found innocent of all charges? Jesus did not say, “If you confess My Father before men, I will confess you before Him.” It’s easy to say you believe in God. People pour so many variant definitions into the word “God” that when it comes down to it, just saying “God” doesn’t mean a whole lot anymore. However, when you publicly confess Jesus Christ, everyone knows who you are talking about. The name Jesus is ultra-specific.

Our Public Identity in Christ

Confessing Jesus publicly can be compared to a married person wearing a wedding ring. That ring is there on the ring finger to make a public declaration that there is a legal and binding relationship with someone else. Now, you can be married and choose not to wear your ring so no one will know that you are married, but I doubt your spouse will smile on that choice.

There are a lot of Christians today who have married into the family of God as the bride of Jesus Christ, but don’t want to wear His ring. They don’t want other people to know that they are bound to Jesus in a covenantal relationship. Like Peter, when it is not convenient for them to be associated with Jesus, they simply say, “I don’t know the man.” However, because of this choice, Jesus makes it clear that when they are calling on Him and He is acting as Mediator between them and His Father, He will also deny that He knows them. As long as a Christian is a secret agent saint, then he or she won’t be accessing or maximizing the kingdom power and authority that is rightfully his or hers through the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Jesus declares that a person’s willingness to confess Him becomes the marker of their seriousness about Him. It is much more than simply believing in God. In fact, Satan believes in God. Alignment under the Lordship of Christ—putting Him in first place—involves publicly declaring and demonstrating an association with Him in both words and actions.

When my son Jonathan, who now serves as chaplain to the Dallas Cowboys, played football, he was a fullback. The job of a fullback is to run interference for a halfback. The halfback gets the ball while the fullback goes out in front of him, because there is an enemy trying to get in there and tackle the halfback. The fullback’s mission is to get rid of the enemy so the halfback can get through the line.

Jesus’ full-time job as Lord and Savior is to run interference for His kingdom followers. Satan, our enemy, is seeking to defeat and overwhelm us. But we need to keep in mind that we have a blocker out in front. However, Jesus has stated clearly that He’s not going to block for any of us if we won’t even acknowledge or confess Him. I’m sure you don’t like the feeling that comes when someone has used you or taken advantage of you, whether in your home, in a relationship, at church, or at work. They have reaped the benefits from you, but have given you none of the rewards or credit.

Once that happens, the next time you are called upon to help this person out, your motivation to do it well may be a lot less than it was before. We are relational beings, and we appreciate being acknowledged in our relationships. Jesus is no different. Why should He transform our lives and our world only to be forgotten? He states clearly, “Confess Me before others, and I’ve got your back. Marginalize, sideline, or dismiss Me, and you’ve got your own back.” Who do you want to have your back? You or Jesus?

Confess and Believe

Romans 10:9–10 have confused a lot of people over the years. They read: “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation” (emphasis added).

These verses give us two things we must do to be saved: confess with our mouth and believe in our heart. The problem comes about because every other place in the New Testament that tells us how to get saved says we only have to do one thing: believe (see John 3:16, Acts 16:31, John 5:24, Romans 4:4–5). Yet Romans 10:9 says we have to confess to be saved. So either the Bible is contradicting itself, or this passage in Romans must mean something else.

The answer to that dilemma comes in the context of the passage. Paul is not instructing sinners on how to become saints in Romans 10. He is instructing saints on how to get delivered (saved). You must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ to go to heaven, but you must confess the Lord Jesus Christ to get heaven to come to you.

Let me explain. When a person accepts Jesus Christ as their personal Savior (believe), His righteousness is immediately imputed to them as their righteousness. They are saved, in the eternal sense of the word. Yet when they make a public confession of Jesus Christ as Lord, they receive His deliverance in the here and now, in history.

The word “saved” means to be rescued, or delivered. The reason a lot of people who are going to heaven are not seeing heaven join them in history is because they have believed, but they have not confessed. In other words, they have declared within themselves that they are trusting Jesus Christ for their salvation. They have placed their faith in Him for the forgiveness of their sins. But they have not made an ongoing public confession, or declaration, of Him as their Lord, whether through word or deed.

In biblical days in Rome, Christians would be brought before the magistrates because they were declaring Jesus as “Lord,” as supreme ruler or authority, in both speech and actions. The Roman authorities would attempt to get the Christians to publicly declare Caesar as Lord, and deny Jesus as supreme ruler and authority. Believing in Jesus didn’t get Christians hanged or tossed to the lions for sport. Believing in Jesus as the rightful ruler and Lord did. There’s a difference.

Frequently in the New Testament the disciples and apostles referred to themselves as slaves. Paul opened the book of Romans with these words: “Paul, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ” (1:1). “Bond-servant” is translated from doulos, which literally means “slave.” A slave is someone who has a master or a Lord. Declaring Jesus as your Savior takes you to heaven, but declaring Jesus as your Master, or Lord, brings heaven to you. When you acknowledge your rightful place under Jesus as His doulos, or slave, you get His delivering power on earth.

The reason we may not be seeing more of God’s rescue and deliverance in individual lives, homes, churches, and communities is because we have Jesus positioned as our Savior but not as our Lord. We, the collective body of Christ, are not His slaves. Keep in mind that the job of a slave is do whatever the master says to do. It’s as straightforward as that.

Unfortunately today, there are too many other masters in most of our lives with whom Jesus has to compete. But the important thing to remember is that Jesus is not willing to be one among many masters, or be relegated to the role of a personal assistant. Declaring Jesus as Lord means that He is the supreme Ruler and Master. He calls the shots in everything. The problem is that too many people want a Savior, but don’t want a Lord. Because of this, numbers of individuals today are experiencing the result of denying Christ publicly. And they are likewise being denied by Christ before God the Father.

How does this denial occur? Several other passages in both the Old and New Testament give us insight:

“Whoever will call on the name of the Lord will be saved.” (Romans 10:13)

“Paul, called as an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Sosthenes our brother, to the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours.” (1 Corinthians 1:1–2)

“And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the LORD will be delivered.” (Joel 2:32)

It’s clear that those being addressed are already saved from an eternal standpoint. They are “saints by calling.” The word “deliverance” in Joel 2:32 doesn’t mean salvation in eternity. In the context of these passages, and the passage we read earlier in Romans 10, deliverance is God’s help in history. Calling on the name of the Lord invokes heaven to join you down here.

Let me explain how this works. Suppose I am facing a circumstance that is entirely too much for me to bear or overcome on my own, and I need to be delivered. So I call on the name of the Lord. God the Father turns to His Son and says, “Son, Tony Evans just called on Me because he wants to be rescued from a particular situation. What do you say?”

Jesus responds, “Father, Tony Evans never wants to bring up My name in public. He’s embarrassed about his association with Me. He does not want Me to influence his decision-making. Whenever religion comes up, he changes the subject. He’ll use your name, God, but He won’t ever mention mine, Jesus Christ. He’s never willing to share his faith with anyone. So if You answer his request for deliverance, all You are doing is giving him a new opportunity to deny Me. Based on that, I would recommend that You deny his request since he denies Me.”

Now, I trust this will never be true of me, since I’ve made it my life’s mission to declare Jesus Christ publicly. But you get the point. You can call on the name of the Lord all you want for deliverance, but according to Romans 10:9–10, if you have not also confessed the name of the Lord you are calling on, your request could be denied. To experience heaven’s authority and power on earth, a person must be willing to confess Jesus Christ as Lord publicly in what they say and do.

You believe on Jesus for eternal salvation. You confess Him publicly for deliverance in history. His investment and involvement in your life hinges upon your public declaration through both words and actions that He is Lord. Paul told Timothy boldly: “Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord” (2 Timothy 1:8).

If for no other practical reason than accessing the power of deliverance on earth, you must open your mouth publicly and let others know through what you say and do that Jesus is your Lord and Master, and that you are not ashamed to be associated with Him and under Him. He is seated at the right hand of God in the heavenlies, as are you through His redemption on the cross. You access His power and authority through a public declaration of His Lordship in your life.

The Blood of the New Covenant

Jesus’ blood has established the new covenant under which you are to align your life and world in order to receive its full covenantal covering and protection. You’ve probably heard someone say, “I plead the blood.” They are talking about the blood of the covenant. However, the way you plead the blood is not simply by saying some magical words. You plead the blood of the covenant by being under the terms of the covenant, by making Jesus Christ Lord of your life and Ruler of your world.

On the night of the Passover in Egypt, the Israelites couldn’t just say, “I plead the blood.” No, they had to put the blood of a lamb on the doorposts of their homes (see Exodus 12:7) in order to experience deliverance from the death angel. They had to remain within the protective confines of the walls that were connected to the bloodstained doors. Likewise today, there must be covenantal alignment under the Lordship of Jesus Christ in order to experience His kingdom power, authority, provision, and covering. The book of Hebrews says:

But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises. (8:6, emphasis added)

He is the mediator of a new covenant, so that, since a death has taken place for the redemption of the transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance. (9:15, emphasis added)

And to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood, which speaks better than the blood of Abel. (12:24, emphasis added)

Jesus Christ is the Lord of the new covenant, the unique one-of-a-kind Mediator between heaven and earth (see 1 Timothy 2:5).

I have a master key to our church in Dallas. I can go anywhere in the church that I want to go. A lot of us are not getting everywhere we need to go because we don’t have the Master key. We come to church, hear a sermon, and receive a truth, so we have a key for a certain room in our Christian lives.

We must understand, however, that the ability to live victoriously and advance God’s kingdom agenda on earth comes only when we have this unique Master key called the Lordship of Christ. Only as His Lordship is reflected through His people individually and corporately will the world experience the rule of God as the Creator intended it to be.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE COVENANTS OF THE KINGDOM AGENDA

Thus far we have seen that the kingdom is God’s comprehensive rule over all of His creation. He is Ruler of His kingdom, the universe is His kingdom’s realm, and it operates by His rules in accordance with the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Now let’s consider covenants, the mechanisms by which God administers His kingdom.

Whether we realize it or not, all of us are under God’s sovereign rule. Even non-Christians are under God’s rule and accountable to His sovereignty. They may not be in the kingdom in terms of their relationship to God, but they are under Him in terms of His position.

All citizens of the United States of America are underneath a covenantal document called the Constitution. Our Constitution is unique among historical documents in that it declares much by way of a proclamation of freedom.

You may hear people say if they feel that they have been treated unjustly, “I know my rights,” and then they will appeal to their constitutional rights within the kingdom called America—in particular the amendments attached to the Constitution. These amendments declare the rights, privileges, and authority you have as an American citizen.

If you are a Christian, you are also part of the kingdom of God. And as such, you also have covenantal rights, privileges, and authority. Yet if you do not know those rights, or how to properly exercise them, you can be illegitimately oppressed simply because you are not operating by the instructions or functioning under the umbrella of God’s kingdom covenant.

In the Bible, a covenant is a divinely created bond, a spiritually binding relationship between God and His people inclusive of certain agreements, conditions, benefits, responsibilities, and effects. God’s power, provisions, and authority to His people operate under His covenants.

Whenever God wanted to formalize His relationship with His people, He established a covenant. There are a number of these agreements in Scripture, such as the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, the Davidic covenant, and the new covenant. These are formal arrangements that are spiritually binding in a legal capacity between God and His people.

A COVENANT INVOLVES RELATIONSHIP

A biblical covenant involves far more than a contract. In a biblical covenant, you not only sign on the dotted line, but you enter into an intimate relationship with the other person or persons in the covenant.

In other words, covenants are predicated on a relationship. That’s not necessarily true in a contract. You can sign a contract to buy a home and have no personal relationship at all with the seller. You may not even know or like the seller. Likewise, you can sign a business deal because the deal makes sense, but have no real relationship with the other party beyond the deal itself.

It is not so in a covenant. Marriage, for example, is a covenant and not solely a contract. It includes not only a binding agreement, but also an intimate relational union. A covenant is also a relationship of blessing. Whenever God makes a covenant, His intent is for the good of those who covenant with Him. When you enter into a covenant with God, it is so that “you may prosper in all that you do” (Deuteronomy 29:9).

God takes His covenants very seriously, because they are the mechanism by which His kingdom functions. Because of this, covenants were inaugurated in Scripture through a specific process, including an element of blood. In fact, covenants were often signed, or ratified, in blood. God’s covenants are so serious, significant, and meaningful that they are inaugurated by nothing less than that which sustains life itself.

Take marriage as an example again. When a husband and wife come together for the first time, if the wife is a virgin she may bleed. Now that is not just a physiological reality, but also a theological reality. The woman’s blood signifies the inauguration of the covenant. God’s covenants are inaugurated by blood because they are meant to make a statement about a significant relationship that has been formed under His rule. You and I are part of God’s kingdom by a covenant sealed with nothing less than the blood of Jesus Christ Himself.

Prospering under the Covenant

The question may arise, “Why do I need to understand the covenant in order to understand kingdom authority?” The answer to that is simple: because God’s provisions, promises, and His preferred will flow through His covenant. If you do not know and operate under the covenant, you cannot exercise the authority that you legally possess.

One reason the devil is winning so much in spiritual warfare is that God’s followers are not functioning in concert with the covenant, and therefore are not benefitting from the authority of the kingdom. If you will grab the principles in this chapter and apply them to your life, operating under God’s kingdom authority, you will see things change for good. Instead of being under the circumstances, you will begin to walk on them.

In Exodus 19:5–6, God speaks about His covenant with Israel: “Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” By keeping God’s covenant, Israel would be a people uniquely separated for His purposes. The word “holy” means “set apart, unique.”

As a believer functioning under the covering of God’s covenant, you are being set apart for God’s kingdom purposes as well. God’s covenant is specifically tied to His relationship with you in how He works both in and through you to advance His kingdom on earth.

Another passage that affords us insight into the function of a cove-nant is Deuteronomy 29, which opens with a specific reference to a covenant that God is making: “These are the words of the covenant which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which He had made with them at Horeb” (v. 1). The passage then goes into the details of this covenant. Of particular interest in our study of covenants is verse 9. Read these words closely: “So keep the words of this covenant to do them, that you may prosper in all that you do” (emphasis added).

I said above that keeping the terms of God’s covenant will allow you to “prosper in all that you do.” Covenants produce progress in your life, because as you operate in and under the covenant you receive the flow of God’s power, position, provision, and authority. Covenantal positioning is key to partaking of kingdom privileges.

A synonym for covenant is covering. If and when you operate under God’s covenant, you are under His covering. Look at it like this. When it is raining, you will most likely reach for your umbrella, open it up, and put it over your head before going outside. The umbrella does not stop it from raining, but it does stop the rain from reaching you. Although it does not change what is happening around you, it does change what happens to you. Similarly, when you are under God’s covenant covering, the circumstances, trials, and challenges of life may not change, but God will cover you in such a way that they do not pour down on you as they would without His covering.

The covering of God’s covenant is a lot like the armor of God that Paul speaks about in Ephesians 6. The armor is there to protect you, but if you do not put it on, the armor does you little good. Likewise, if you have an umbrella and it is raining, yet you leave the opened umbrella in another location rather than hold it over you—or refuse to open it—the umbrella will not fulfill its function for you. You will get rained on. In order to fully benefit from God’s covering—His power, provisions, and authority—you must be in and under His covenantal rule.

Rahab, the “Under Cover” Harlot

One of the most powerful biblical illustrations of how the covenant equals covering occurred in the life of a harlot named Rahab, who lived in Jericho. Now, I’m not the one who determined that nearly every time Rahab is mentioned in the Bible, her former profession, prostitution, is also mentioned. Even James keeps her title when he talks about her as an example of what true faith means thousands of years later in the New Testament (see James 2:25). The sister just can’t seem to catch a break. Yet, despite her profession, Rahab is heralded as one of the great people of faith, even appearing in the Hebrews 11 Hall of Faith (see Hebrews 11:31), once again coupled with her less-than-stellar former occupation.

We meet Rahab in the book of Joshua. Apparently she had a lucrative business in a prime location in Jericho, because “her house was on the city wall, so that she was living on the wall” (Joshua 2:15). Twice we are told in that verse that Rahab’s house was on the wall. That is critical information as the story unfolds.

When Joshua sent the spies into Jericho as Israel prepared to enter the Promised Land, they wound up in Rahab’s home, most likely as a location that would not draw unnecessary attention with regard to foreigners coming and going. However, the king got word of the spies and sent emissaries to track them down. The skinny on the story is that Rahab faced the decision of her life: risk sudden death for not admitting to harboring spies and being found out, or risk the potential disaster looming over Jericho from the Israelites’ one, true God.

Rahab chose to fear God rather than man, hiding the spies and providing them a way of escape (see Joshua 2:6–7). As a result, Rahab asked for a covenant with the Israelites: “Now therefore, please swear to me by the LORD, since I have dealt kindly with you, that you also will deal kindly with my father’s household, and give me a pledge of truth, and spare my father and my mother and my brothers and my sisters, with all who belong to them, and deliver our lives from death” (Joshua 2:12–13).

The Hebrew word Rahab used when addressing the spies is chesed, which means “loyalty” or “faithfulness.” Appearing over two hundred times in the Old Testament, chesed refers to the attitude with which one approached a covenant. In fact, chesed is used more than any other word to define a covenantal connection, in particular God’s covenantal covering of Israel.

An indicator of the chesed covering that the Israelites granted to Rahab and her family was that she was to hang a solitary red cord from her window. This cord (perhaps symbolizing the red blood over the doorposts of the Israelites while in slavery in Egypt) would serve as the protector of anyone and everyone inside of her home. The Israelites knew that they were not to harm anyone in the home with the red cord in the window.

An interesting point of Rahab’s story was that there were two ways to be harmed the day the wall fell in Jericho. One way was to be killed by soldiers during the battle. But because of the red cord, Israel’s soldiers knew not to harm those in Rahab’s home. But the other way to be hurt was in the collapse of the wall itself—and as we just saw, Rahab’s house was “on the wall.” This is the same wall that came down (see Joshua 6:20); except for one spot, apparently, because Rahab’s house was still intact due to God’s covenantal chesed covering.

Some say that Rahab’s faith was in hiding the spies. Yet her greater faith may have been in staying inside as the walls around her crumbled. Surely she or some of her family must have been tempted to run outside as the wall began shaking and ultimately collapsed. But the terms of the covenant in which they could find their safety included staying inside their home. So by remaining inside, Rahab and her family members were covered even in the midst of the chaos all around them. This is similar to the concept of the umbrella mentioned earlier. The umbrella doesn’t stop the rain; it just stops the rain from raining on you.

You can be a Christian, but if you are not aligned according to the conditions and rules of the covenant, you will lack the full covering and provision of the kingdom. Just as in America you may lose some of your rights if you break the laws that govern the nation, covenantal covering comes tied to the aspects of God’s covenant. If you desire to live your life full of kingdom authority, power, protection, and provision, then covenantal positioning is key.

THE FACETS OF A COVENANT

There are five facets, or distinctives, of a spiritual covenant that must be recognized in order for you to be in covenantal alignment. These include transcendence, hierarchy, ethics, sanctions, and inheritance.

The Transcendence of the Covenant

The first facet of a covenant is a theological word called transcendence. Transcendence simply means that God is in charge. We call this attribute of God His sovereignty. Transcendence also references God as distinct. He is not a part of His creation, but rather separate from it, above it. Therefore, covenants are both initiated and ruled by God.

Now, that might seem like an obvious statement and one that we don’t need to spend too much time on, but transcendence is a key principle in a covenant. In order for a covenant to successfully function, carrying with it both the benefits and security that it supplies, it has to be set up according to God’s expectations and regulations.

Covenants can never operate without God’s ongoing involvement. Biblical, spiritual, and theological covenants assume God’s integration into every aspect of the covenantal relationship in order for that covenant to work. When the practical realities of God are dismissed from any covenantal relationship, it becomes an invitation to the Devil to create havoc in the realm. This happens because there has been a departure from transcendence.

If you are going to come under God’s rules, serve in His government, and be blessed as part of His kingdom, you cannot neglect the reality that God is in charge. Sometimes at work, the boss has to remind people who is in charge. The same is true with God. Often, He has to remind His followers who is in charge, and He does this through a myriad of ways.

Consider King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon as one example. Nebuchadnezzar looked out over his balcony one day and said, “Look at this great Babylon I have built. I’m in charge here.” You may know the story in Daniel 4:28–37. As a result of Nebuchadnezzar’s pride, God allowed his mental health to descend into madness. His nails began to grow and his hair became wild, and for seven years he lived like a beast in the field. But then he came back to his senses and stood on his balcony one more time. Only this time Nebuchadnezzar said, “Let everybody in Babylon know God is in charge.”

So the question you must raise about being under God’s covenant is this: Is He in charge? Or are you trying to live independently of His “in-chargeness”? If you are, then you are in rebellion against His covenant. You are either a friend or an enemy of the King based on whether you pray “Your will be done” or “My will be done.” Transcendence means that God is in charge.

The Hierarchy of the Covenant

A second facet of God’s covenants is that they are hierarchical; that is, they are administered and mediated by His representatives who function according to a chain of command. God mediates His covenants through people. A hierarchy, simply defined, is an order that runs within a particular alignment.

Like automobiles that need to be properly aligned, covenants only work when they function in God’s ordained order. The same wear and tear that shows up on tires when cars are out of alignment shows up in personal lives, marriages, families, churches, and societies when they ignore this vital component of a covenant. If you want to experience the provision and power of the covenant, you need to operate under its legitimate authority.

We read earlier that God said Adam and Eve were to rule over His creation. But that doesn’t mean God abdicated His throne and turned everything over to mankind. Our authority to rule is under God, not apart from Him. God didn’t say to Adam and Eve, “I made this for you. Rule it any way you want.”

Adam and Eve were to rule but not independently of the King. They were not to become autonomous. We live in a world today where men and women want autonomy, the right to rule apart from the One who is in charge.

In 1 Corinthians 11:3, Paul lays out this principle of God’s hierarchical relationships in a much broader context: “I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.” No person who names the name of Jesus Christ can claim autonomy. No man may say, “Because I am a man, I can do whatever I want.” No, Christ is your head, your covering. You are answerable to Him. (We will look at this in more detail in the family section of this book.)

My point here is that all of us are under authority. There is even a hierarchy in function within the equality of the Trinity, because Paul said, “God is the head of Christ.” That’s why, when Jesus was on earth, He was obedient to the Father and said He would only do the Father’s will. God works through a chain of command even within Himself in order to accomplish His plan and program in history.

Why is this so crucial? Because if you rebelliously break God’s chain, you automatically lose the blessing and covering that God designed to flow down through His chain to you. You have rebelled against God’s order. Here is an example of God’s hierarchical blessing. Paul wrote: “The unbelieving husband is sanctified through his wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified through her believing husband; for otherwise your children are unclean, but now they are holy” (1 Corinthians 7:14).

God’s chain of command is so powerful that even non-Christians who come under it experience its benefits, if the Christians who are under it are in right relationship with Him. The unbelieving members of a family are blessed as the believing member comes under God’s rule and exercises his or her biblical authority.

Now you can see why Satan wants to mess up the roles God has assigned us. Satan went to Eve in the garden not because she was morally or intellectually weaker but to bypass and distort Adam’s headship. Eve acted independently of Adam, and Adam failed to exercise his leadership. Their roles were reversed, and Satan won. This principle of representation is very strong because the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 15:22 that “in Adam all die” (see also Romans 5:12). Adam was our representative head, and when he fell, we all fell.

You may get upset and say, “I don’t want Adam to represent me.” Well, you may not have voted for the president in the last election, but he can still send your sons and daughters to war because he is your representative. You may not agree with everything your senators do, but they still represent you in Congress.

But praise God, you have another representative whose name is Adam too. He is the “last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45), Jesus Christ, who reversed the effects of the first Adam’s sin (see Romans 5:21). When you decide to come under Jesus’ representation, you share in His blessing. That’s the principle of representation, which is at the heart of the hierarchical aspect of each of God’s covenants.

The Ethics of the Covenant

The third facet of God’s covenants is that they are ethically established. By ethical I mean that God’s covenants have specific guidelines, or rules, that govern them. Let’s go back to Genesis and the Garden of Eden:

Then the LORD GOD took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The LORD GOD commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” (2:15–17)

God told Adam, “If you are going to reign in My kingdom under Me, these are the rules you must obey. If you disobey My rules, you will suffer the consequences.”

God has built a cause-effect relationship into His covenant rules. If you follow His rules, you get His benefits. If you follow your way, you lose His benefits and come under His penalties. When you operate under God’s covenant rules, then whatever the covenant is supposed to supply you with, it will supply.

Again, this is why Satan wanted to deceive Adam and Eve. He knew if he could lead them to violate the covenant rules, they would lose the benefits and suffer God’s penalty.

God told Joshua, “Be careful to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, so that you may have success wherever you go” (Joshua 1:7). Joshua and his leaders did what God told them, and Israel gained the Promised Land. But in the very next book of the Bible, the book of Judges, the people failed to do what God said and suffered round after round of judgments.

What’s true for a nation regarding a covenant is also true for an individual. When you rebel against the covenant’s regulations, you lose, because there is a cause-effect relationship. It has nothing to do with whether you like God’s rules. It’s not your kingdom. If you want to operate by your own rules, you need to go out and create your own world. But as long as you are in God’s world, where God has set the rules, you must abide by His rules or you become a rebel against His kingdom government. And God always deals with rebels.

Suppose you go to the top of the Empire State Building and announce, “I don’t like the rule of gravity. I’m not into gravity—never have been, never will be. Can’t stand the thought of ‘what goes up must come down.’ So today, I am going to rebel against the law of gravity. I am serving notice that this rule isn’t going to tell me what to do.”

So you stand on the top of the Empire State Building and do your Superman thing. You jump from the precipice and wave your fist in gravity’s face. As they sweep you off the pavement, it will become undeniably clear that whether you bought into gravity or not is irrelevant. The rule is the rule, and you will pay the price for trying to break it.

The Sanctions of the Covenant

A fourth facet of God’s covenants is sanctions. Covenants are attached to an oath, or pledge, that a person makes with regard to the agreement.

Whenever God establishes a covenant, the people who are entering it with Him must promise to obey and keep the covenant’s stipulations. This pledge involves promises for obedience and penalties for disobedience. That’s why the Bible says again and again that those who keep God’s Word are the ones who are blessed (see James 1:25).

The oaths that accompany God’s covenants are often called sanctions: those provisions that make a law binding. The clearest example of this process of oath taking is in Deuteronomy 27–30, when Moses had the people of Israel stand between two mountains. One was the mountain of blessing, and the other was the mountain of cursing.

Moses read the blessings for keeping God’s law and the curses for breaking it to the people, and the people said amen to signify that they accepted and understood these terms. Then Moses said: “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19).

We take many kinds of oaths today. Every morning in schools across the country, kids stand and say, “I pledge allegiance to the flag …” When a believer comes to the water to be baptized, he or she is making a pledge, a statement of commitment to follow Jesus Christ. Baptism is an outward symbol of an inner reality. God’s oaths often have symbols tied to them that are designed to reflect the intention of the oath.

The bottom line of a covenant oath is the same throughout Scripture. You are saying to God, “May good come upon me as I follow You, and may evil come upon me if I reject You.”

The Inheritance of the Covenant

Fifth, God’s covenants have continuity: long-term generational impact. What you do affects not only you, but also those in contact with you and those who follow you. It has to do with inheritance.

Just ask Adam and Eve. Their sin spilled over into the next generation when Cain killed Abel, ultimately leading to worldwide judgment (see Genesis 6). Many people are suffering for things they didn’t have anything to do with personally. Their parents had everything to do with the problem, and their kids are suffering the repercussions of it. For example, a baby who is born addicted to alcohol or suffering from drug withdrawal needs medical treatment from the moment he leaves his mother’s womb because someone else broke God’s law.

Like all of God’s principles, this one operates on the personal, familial, church, and civil levels. I’m convinced that the reason the blood of violence is flowing in our streets is that we are shedding innocent blood in America’s abortion clinics (see Proverbs 6:17). You cannot escape the built-in consequences of repercussions of breaking God’s law.

One reason you and I must fight to stay in God’s will—and when we leave it, fight to get back in as quickly as possible—is that life is not just about you and me. It includes many other people who will come after us.

In the Ten Commandments, God said He would pass the iniquity on to “the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me” (Exodus 20:5). Even if you don’t care for yourself, care for others, because there are long-term consequences attached to the covenant.

THE NEW COVENANT

In Scripture, the word “testament” means “covenant.” So when you read through the New Testament, you are actually reading about the new covenant. When Jesus Christ was preparing to die on the cross, He held a communion service with His disciples. At that meal He said, “This is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:28). In that statement, Jesus wasn’t just referring to the Passover, when God delivered Israel from Egypt. He told them to slay a lamb and place the blood of the lamb on the doorpost in order for the death angel to see the blood and pass over it.

When Jesus referenced His blood of the covenant, He meant so much more. We read about the new covenant in the book of Hebrews:

So much the more also Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant. The former priests, on the one hand, existed in greater numbers because they were prevented by death from continuing, but Jesus, on the other hand, because He continues forever, holds His priesthood permanently. Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them. (Hebrews 7:22–25, emphasis added)

When Jesus was on earth, His job description was to fulfill the law and pay for the sins of mankind on the cross. After He did that and rose from the dead, He is now seated at the right hand of the Father. Part of His job description now in the new covenant is to “make intercession” for the saints, which includes you.

This passage is being directed at Christians, so when the term “save” is used, it is talking about “rescuing” rather than saving for eternity in heaven. Christ’s full-time job under the new covenant is to intercede for, rescue, and deliver the saints. You are not on your own. You are not alone. If you come under the facets of the new covenant then Jesus Christ is right there positioned to intercede for you, rescue you, and deliver you from whatever challenge it is that you are facing.

But the only way to experience His saving power on a daily basis is to align yourself according to the facets of the covenant. If you choose to operate outside of the covenant, you are on your own and you won’t experience the power, provision, protection, and authority that comes from the King. Understanding and living according to God’s covenantal relationship is key to experiencing the abundant life He has promised to give to you.

Since God governs His kingdom through His covenants, and since I am assuming that you want to experience His blessing in your life, you need to know how God’s kingdom agenda operates. That’s the subject we will look at next together.

CHAPTER FIVE

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE KINGDOM AGENDA

Over the centuries, mankind has tried a lot of options in an effort to find a means of government, a mechanism of management, that would make life livable and deal with issues such as crime, social justice, education, the environment, and so on.

Some have tried anarchy, which is really the absence of government, the rule by none. When anarchy reigns, as in times of revolution and national upheaval, chaos rules because no one is in charge. Then everyone does what is right in his or her own eyes (see Judges 21:25).

Another governmental option is oligarchy, which is rule by an elite few who sit down and decide what is good for the masses. Too often, the decisions of this handful of people are made for corrupt and selfish purposes.

Then there is monarchy, or rule by a king or queen who sits as the supreme authority in the land. When the monarchy is the absolute form of government, rather than a figurehead as it is in some countries, the monarch has the power of life and death and decides what is good or bad for the nation.

Still another form of government is what we might call “ecclesiocracy,” or rule by an institutional or state church. The medieval papacy in Europe is a good example of this kind of government, although the pope wasn’t the official head of state of any country. But the church played a dominant role in politics, and the pope often had a strong hand in raising up and deposing rulers. A contemporary example of this today is the Islamic-controlled nations.

Two more forms of government are those we are most familiar with. The first is democracy, the rule by majority. That’s fine if the majority is always right. But if you rule by majority and the majority is wrong, the country is in trouble because the worse the majority gets, the more wrong choices they will make For instance, when enough people find out they have the power to vote personal benefits for themselves, they will vote for those benefits. Then the culture is in trouble when the majority of the people become selfish in their choices.

The final and, I believe, best form of human government is a constitutional republic. Here the people rule through their chosen representatives, and those representatives must rule by law. In a republic, there is a governing document, a constitution or covenant, that can be appealed to that all the parties are sworn to uphold. This document can overrule the majority because they cannot vote out the constitution as the governing standard for the nation. Today, America is in somewhat of a tension between democratic desires and constitutional ruling principles.

A constitutional republic is God’s ideal, but only if it operates in the way God intended government to function, and that is under His universal governmental rule. That form of government is, of course, the kingdom of God that operates under four basic covenants: the individual, family, church, and civil covenants. We might also call these four forms of government self-government, family government, church government, and civil government. That’s how I want to refer to them throughout this chapter.

Before we go any farther, though, I need to point out that I am using the word “government” in the biblical sense. When most people hear the word government, they think of city hall downtown or Washington, DC. But that is not the basic definition of government in the Bible. Rather, it is a jurisdiction: a specific realm of authority that has been delegated to us to accomplish a given task. This involves sovereignty (legitimacy to rule), representation (accountability to the rule of another), law (a moral code by which to rule), jurisdiction (authority to enforce the law in the name of the ruler), and continuity (stability and longevity). Each of these is determined by the all-encompassing rule of God.

How do God’s government entities work? How does God rule His kingdom so that life accomplishes His agenda in history? I want to suggest several things that are important here.

GOD’S GOVERNMENT IS DECENTRALIZED

Since man was created in the image of God and God established government, it stands to reason that the governments of men are to mirror or pattern themselves after God’s government. God is Trinitarian in nature. He is One essence (unity of being and purpose) composed of three distinct Persons (diversity of function in history). Therefore, human governments are to be united by the one purpose of living under and reflecting the rule of God, while simultaneously manifesting and modeling His rule through the diversity of the four governmental institutions. God’s trinitarian approach to a governmental structure based on Isaiah 33:22 is divided into legislative, executive, and judicial responsibility.

The first thing to understand is that God’s kingdom agenda is accomplished through decentralized institutions on earth. Not in a partisan, political way, as is now being debated between Republicans and Democrats, but rather through multiple governing authorities with distinct spheres of responsibility, jurisdictions, and sanctions, all of them ruling under His divine authority.

This means that God doesn’t want all power concentrated in any one governing authority or person. It is His intention that He be the only centralized Governor in the universe. God is the only One who can claim absolute power in the universe. All other authorities must have checks and balances. Satan’s kingdom, on the other hand, is always organized top-down and centralized. He is the consummate cosmic empire builder, which is why his kingdom only enslaves.

The Sole Monarch

Therefore, any human ruler or institution that claims absolute power has rebelled against God. How does God feel about this issue of absolute authority? He said in Isaiah:

“The One forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity; I am the Lord who does all these…. It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with My hands, and I ordained all their host…. For thus says the Lord, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited), I am the Lord, and there is none else.” (45:7, 12, 18)

“I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, ‘My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure.’” (46:9–10)

One gets the impression from reading these verses that there is not a lot of room for anybody else on the throne of the universe besides God. We could find multiple passages like these, but you get the idea.

Dealing with Autonomy

Since God has centralized all power within Himself, whenever people try to centralize power in themselves God intervenes to break up their attempts at autonomy, their “declarations of independence.” Just ask those who gathered at the Tower of Babel (see Genesis 11:1–9).

Their building project was doomed because their objective was wrong from the beginning: “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth” (v. 4). Man has sought to use humanly devised ingenuity (humanism) to deify himself by defying God’s command to decentralize (see Genesis 9:1). So instead of being given a name by God or wearing His name, humans sought to build a centralized city (civilization), a tower (religious system), and a name (independence) apart from God, thus establishing unity, security, and social immortality on their own.

God looked down and saw what the people were doing, and He didn’t like what He saw, so He judged their attempts to centralize authority. No matter how high man gets, God still must come down to him. God’s concern was that the people were trying to concentrate power in their hands without Him. If they succeeded, God said, “Nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them” (Genesis 11:6). That is, they could function as their own god because the tower represented their religious unity, thereby erasing the Creator/creature distinction. That was impossible for God to put up with, so He confused their language—the heart of their unity because it reflected their thinking, ideology, faith, and common confession—so that nobody could understand anyone else.

Mankind said, “Let’s make ourselves a name. Let’s concentrate power and build a one-world government that will rule the universe.” God said, “Not in My universe, you won’t!” (see Psalms 2:1–4; 9:17–20; 33:9–12). So He segregated and decentralized the people. The Tower of Babel is a prototype of any nation that defies God and raises itself up in pride through the centralization of power. Any attempt to be autonomous from God will produce divine intervention and decentralization so that men will once again seek God (see Acts 17:24–28). God resists His creation’s centralization and judges the nations that forget Him (see Romans 1:18–32). For an example of this, just look at what happened to the former Soviet Union.

GOD’S GOVERNMENT IS PLURALIZED

This second point is a natural outgrowth of the first. God’s kingdom agenda not only decentralizes power, it governs through plural institutions.

Romans 13:1 says, “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities.” Notice the plural here; there is to be more than one authority. The concept of multiple delegated authorities is patterned after the Trinity in unity (one God) and diversity (three Persons). Each has specific tasks to accomplish in unified purpose. Divine government, then, establishes the pattern for human government. Thus the word “government” must be qualified, not universalized.

We listed God’s four governmental spheres above: self-government, family government, church government, and civil government. The proper and successful functioning of these governments depends on the government of God, who created and rules over all things. And while these authorities support, enhance, protect, and interface with one another, they are nevertheless distinct in their responsibilities and their spheres of jurisdiction. Let’s talk about them in turn.

Self-Government

Self-government means control of one’s attitudes and actions apart from external coercion. Self-government is the foundation for leadership and every other form of government, since those who cannot govern themselves cannot properly govern others. God’s ultimate goal for mankind is self-government under Him.

Why? Because “each one of us [every believer] will give an account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12). Jesus said that at His return, “[I] will then repay every man according to his deeds” (Matthew 16:27). Peter also said that each of us will give an account to God and be judged accordingly (see 1 Peter 4:5). In fact every man, including the unrighteous, will give an account to God (see Revelation 20:11–15).

When you stand before God, your family can’t come along to support you. You can’t call the elders or deacons at church to help you out. When you stand before God, you will not be able to call on the governor, the mayor, the city council, or anyone else to plead your case. You will stand alone before Christ to account for the way you governed your life under Him.

This is why I say that God’s goal in life is always self-government. If you are going to live life the way it was meant to be lived in God’s kingdom, you must learn to govern your life according to His rules. Personal responsibility demands self-government.

When you look at it from this standpoint, you can see that the other three forms of government are also the three primary institutions God established in His Word to help produce proper self-government: the family, the church, and the civil government are all designed to play a special and unique role in producing proper self-government under God.

The family is not supposed to govern you all your life, but to raise and train you to govern yourself under God. The church is designed to disciple you to govern yourself under God. And the civil government was certainly never designed to run your life, but to act as God’s minister in providing conditions under which you can carry out good self-government in a safe and productive manner. Now you can see why, when people lose the ability to govern themselves, they mess up the institutions God has created to help them be self-governing.

If a husband and father won’t govern himself, he is going to mess up his family. If members in a church don’t govern themselves, there will be chaos in the congregation. And if the citizens in a society don’t govern themselves, you can’t hire enough police officers to fix the crime problem that results. What we have done in this country is take the things that God meant to be decentralized and make them the primary responsibility of civil government—thus creating chaos and confusion. For example, we centralized charity in the federal government and created a well-intentioned yet wasteful and dependent system called welfare. We have centralized one thing after another, so now we’ve got this huge bureaucracy that you and I have to pay for through excessive taxation. If you ask the government to do it, then you have to pay the government to do it.

This concept of self-government is the cornerstone to the meaning of freedom. Freedom is essentially the release from illegitimate bondage so that a person can experience what God created him or her to be.

Family Government

By family government I mean that God has a jurisdiction of authority whereby parents are responsible for their children. The church can help equip you and support you in raising your children, but the church isn’t responsible for your children. The same is true for the civil government. There used to be a time when it was clear that the father was the head of the home. There used to be a time when it was understood that, like Joshua, a father’s most important role was saying, “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15). According to God’s Word, it has always been the duty of parents, not the church or the state, to see to the education of their children and make sure they are raised in the “discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4; compare with Deuteronomy 6:1–9). The only way parents can fulfill that command is to apply God’s truth to every area of a child’s life and education.

But when we turn the education of our children over to the state, and the state removes biblical ethics from its curriculum, what you get is what we have now: education devoid of godly ethics. So instead of teaching the theory of evolution, the public school teaches the fact of evolution. But once you tell the state, “I’m going to pay you to educate my children,” then the state can educate them according to its rules, not according to your rules. This becomes a misapplication of biblical authority and government.

Here is another example. In the Bible, economics and charity resided in the family. You could not go to the church for money until the church first asked, “Have you gone to your parents, siblings, or other relatives for help first?” (see 1 Timothy 5:4, 8). You couldn’t skip over your family and jump to the church. And you certainly couldn’t skip over the family and the church and jump to the federal government and say, “It’s payday. Hand me a check.” That’s not the way it was meant to be.

The family—with the father as president, the mother as vice president, and both raising the children—is to be the backbone of biblical society. That is why, when family government fails, woe is everything else because everything else is predicated on the family. The saga of a nation is the saga of its families written large.

That’s not just theoretical. Read chapters 3–6 of Genesis and you’ll see that sin, which started when Adam and Eve failed and Cain killed Abel, eventually poisoned the whole human race. God had to destroy the race because the failure of the family is the bottom-line cause of disintegration in the church and the government.

A man may neglect or ruin his family because he wants to be somebody in the world. He wants to be the president of the company; he wants a kingdom to rule. But God has already given him a kingdom to rule at home. Let a man rule well at home before letting him rule anywhere else. That’s one of the traits the church is to look for in appointing leaders (see 1 Timothy 3:4, 12). God has already given a man a sphere of authority in which he can be president, and a vice president to help make up for his deficiencies as president. That is his wife, who is to come alongside him and apply her strengths where he is weak.

Church Government

The Bible says in 1 Thessalonians 5:12–13 that church leaders have charge over the flock of God. In 1 Timothy 5:17, Paul said that elders are responsible to rule. The author of Hebrews wrote that members of the church are to obey and submit to their spiritual leaders (Hebrews 13:17). Mature, set-apart spiritual leaders are God’s method of ruling in His government of the church. The church is distinct from the family and from the civil government as a unique governmental rule under God.

The church’s purpose is to equip you to live before God with proper self-government. The job of the church is not to solve all of your problems, but to show you how to solve your problems under God. The church can assist you in doing that, but it cannot do it for you.

The church is the most important formal institution on earth. The church, and only the church, has been commissioned by the sovereign Lord to be His representative agency in history. It has been given sole authority to unlock the treasures of the spiritual realm so that they can be brought to bear on the realities of earth.

Thus, as the church goes, so goes everything else. God designed the church to be the epicenter of culture, and the church’s strength or weakness is a major determining factor in the success or failure of human civilization. When the church is strong, the culture is impacted positively—even if the “powers that be” in a particular place don’t realize that impact and seek to marginalize and persecute the church. But when the church is weak, its influence deteriorates and so does the culture.

One example of the church’s impact, both positively and negatively, is the institution of slavery in America. Many segments of American culture condoned and sanctioned slavery, even though it served as the catalyst for a civil war that cost thousands of lives and helped produce ongoing cultural upheaval. And Christendom at large helped provide justification for slavery, even leading some to find a basis for slavery in Scripture. But in the end, it was the strength of the true church bringing its influence to bear that helped lead to the collapse of slavery.

Civil Government

The fourth area of God’s government is civil government. Jesus said in Matthew 22:21, “Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s; and to God the things that are God’s.”

You have a responsibility to the government under which you live. The apostle Peter spelled it out: “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to a king as the one in authority, or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. For such is the will of God that by doing right you may silence the ignorance of foolish men” (1 Peter 2:13–15).

Did you know that civil government in the Bible was designed to be small, not large? Its reach was meant to be limited, not all-encompassing. The reason is that in the Bible, civil government is not the whole show. It is only one of three God-ordained institutions for governing human society, along with the family and the church. The biblical role of civil government is to maintain a safe, just, and righteous environment for freedom to flourish. So the government is supposed to spend its time and energy removing tyranny from the marketplace and producing harmony in society—in other words, promoting and administering justice, protecting law-abiding citizens, punishing the lawless, and ensuring that fairness operates in such areas as business and racial relationships. Government should see to it that men are not allowed to do evil and bring injustice into society.

If the church and the family were doing their jobs—producing responsible self-government in individual lives—the government could focus on what it needs to focus on, because people would not be looking to the government to do everything else for them. If you are expecting the civil government to do for you what God says you are to do for yourself, that is a misuse and misappropriation of government. Plus, if you expect Uncle Sam to do it for you, you are destined for disappointment anyway.

Since President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “Great Society” began in 1965, the government has spent trillions of dollars trying to fix our communities, raise up the poor, and take care of the infrastructure of our inner cities. Now many are questioning, decades after the monies have been spent and the well-intentioned programs have been run, whether centralized welfare is the best approach after all. Biblical charity is private, family oriented, local, and temporary, and comes with accountability. The government’s job is to facilitate and support this approach, not replace it.

If every church accepted its biblical responsibility for charity, the church could eventually bring an end to welfare where the government hasn’t been able to do a thing with it. It would only require a church taking on families that are willing to be responsible, assisting them to govern themselves under God, and surrounding those families with a support system until they were self-governing. This is not hard. But it’s got to be government under God’s kingdom, done His way. If it is not done His way, you will wind up with a lopsided relationship in which people do not govern themselves.

In Scripture, the civil government has virtually no authority in education, business, welfare, or ecclesiastical affairs, except to make sure that there are no injustices and the market is free from tyranny and discrimination. One example of a proper, biblical government action was to intervene in the injustices of racism and segregation in the South. That was a biblical role of government because injustice and tyranny were involved.

A Biblical Example

I have tried to make it clear that each of God’s governmental institutions has its own sphere of operation. Now let me illustrate this from 1 Corinthians 6, where Paul said it is wrong for the church to take its matters to the civil government. I want to use the example of divorce, because this is a big issue and one on which many Christians simply ignore the church and head downtown to see the judge. They want God to join them, but they want the judge to part them.

Notice the strong language Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 6 when he comes to this issue of the church and civil government:

Does any one of you, when he has a case against his neighbor, dare to go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? If the world is judged by you, are you not competent to constitute the smallest law courts? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more matters of this life? So if you have law courts dealing with matters of this life, do you appoint them as judges who are of no account in the church? (vv. 1–4)

That sounds like a different court than the one downtown, doesn’t it? Paul said the judge downtown is not supposed to have authority in church matters because in the church we have our own rules. But whenever we appeal to the civil government first to deal with a church matter like divorce, we rebel against God’s decentralized approach to government and ignore the separate spheres of His governments. This of necessity means that the civil government should respect the church government and courts, pushing issues like divorce back to the church court for church matters.

America’s forefathers were correct here. When they added the Bill of Rights to the Constitution, they said, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” They recognized that church and civil governments were to be two distinct realms. It also means that civil government is not allowed to defile the church by seeking to rule over it or in it. Such an attempt is called idolatry, which makes both the government and the church that allows such intrusion subject to divine judgment (see Ezekiel 43:1–12). Church and state are separate, but God and religion are not (see Deuteronomy 17:18–20).

GOD’S GOVERNMENT WORKS FROM THE BOTTOM UP

The government of God’s kingdom is not only decentralized and pluralized. It operates from the bottom up, beginning, as we saw above, with self-government. Each one of God’s governing authorities cooperates and interconnects with the others without compromising each other’s boundaries in order to produce accountability, responsibility, and productivity at the individual level. The individual should then impact and strengthen the government of the family. The family should do likewise with the church, and the church should overflow to the enhancement of every institution in society.

Personal Responsibility under God

God’s government always starts with personal responsibility under Him. That’s the message of the Communion service. In 1 Corinthians 11:28, Paul said, “A man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.” This is spiritual self-examination, which is part of the process of self-government. Paul continued in verse 31, “If we judged ourselves rightly, we would not be judged.”

Here’s another example of God’s kingdom working from the bottom up. In 2 Thessalonians 3, Paul was dealing with a serious problem in the church—men who refused to work:

Now we command you, brethren, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you keep away from every brother who leads an unruly life and not according to the tradition which you received from us. For you yourselves know how you ought to follow our example, because we did not act in an undisciplined manner among you, nor did we eat anyone’s bread without paying for it, but with labor and hardship we kept working night and day so that we would not be a burden to any of you…. For even when we were with you, we used to give you this order: if anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either. (vv. 6–8, 10)

Our concern for others should never cause us to act irresponsibly by diminishing their ability to take responsibility for their own well-being.

If a man is not willing to take responsibility for himself and his family, then you are doing him a disservice and damage if you help him become more irresponsible. Some people who were being irresponsible once got mad at our church in Dallas and left because the church wouldn’t give them money. They tried to put a guilt trip on us, but God says let a person be hungry long enough so that he or she is willing to go to work.

Until people are willing to move toward self-government and take personal responsibility, the family, the church, and the government cannot do anything constructive for them. All they can do is perpetuate the chaos in our communities.

Family Responsibility under God

Only when the situation is beyond the individual’s abilities to cope do we move on to the family to seek help. Paul dealt with this in 1 Timothy 5, where he wrote: “If any widow has children or grandchildren, they must first learn to practice piety in regard to their own family and to make some return to their parents; for this is acceptable in the sight of God” (v. 4). Later, he wrote, “If any woman who is a believer has dependent widows, she must assist them and the church must not be burdened, so that it may assist those who are widows indeed” (v. 16). “Widows indeed” were women without any family to support them; they were to come under the care of the church.

But notice it is family before church. Good parents spend all those years pouring out their hearts and souls for their children, breaking their backs, giving all of their energy and effort to raising their children well. The Bible says the first place these parents should go if they have needs is to their children and even grandchildren. And if a grown child has parents or grandparents who gave their lives to raise him or her, and God has given that person the means to help them, it is a violation of God’s Word for that grown child to skip over that responsibility and send those parents or grandparents to the church for help.

The church didn’t feed and clothe that child. The church didn’t have to put a roof over that child’s head. The Bible says the adult child owes something to that parent. According to 1 Timothy 5:8, anyone who does not care for “his own” is “worse than an unbeliever.”

Church Responsibility under God

The role of the church is to disciple individuals and families in such a way that they learn how to progressively bring every area of life under the lordship of Jesus Christ. The church itself is to be viewed as an expanded household or collection of families under God’s kingdom authority and truth (see 1 Timothy 3:15).

In order to achieve this goal, the church is to be the primary context for its members to share in the four biblical experiences, as outlined in Acts 2:42–47. These are worship (celebrating God for who He is, what He has done, and what He promises to do), fellowship (sharing the life and love of Christ among the members), education (teaching and training toward a biblical worldview), and outreach (witnessing to the unsaved in word and deed). The church is the place where the kingdom of God is corporately made manifest. The proper functioning of the church is crucial since it is the church family, not the nuclear family, that marches into eternity.

In addition, the church is to be the primary collective expression of the kingdom of God in history. It is where the principles, precepts, and values of the kingdom are put on public display for the world to observe, so that if any individual or institution would like to see what God would do to address a problem or need in society, all they need to do is watch the church in action. While the church is not to impose civil religion on the culture, it is responsible for being the religious conscience of civil government so that it understands and implements the principles of the kingdom in the broader culture. In this way, the church functions as the salt of the earth and the light of the world (see Matthew 5:13–16).

National Responsibility under God

We have seen that civil government is to support and protect the biblical rights, freedoms, and purposes of the other divine institutions so that the atmosphere in which they function is orderly and unencumbered, conducive to their growth, freedom, and productivity. Government is not designed to replace, circumvent, or impede the proper functioning of the other divine institutions through bureaucratic controls. Rather, it should assist them in whatever ways it can to enhance their ability to be effective in accomplishing their divinely ordained purposes.

There is a great picture of this principle in action in the book of Nehemiah. Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem to rebuild the city’s walls and restore community life. He started the work from the bottom up. He started with individuals who recruited their families. Then he strategically stationed the families at a place on the wall near their own homes so they would have a vested interest in the work (see 3:10). The priest (church) rallied, taught, and inspired the people (see 8:1–18). The government assisted the community revitalization program by giving a grant to pay for the wood needed (see 2:8) and by providing protection for the builders (see 2:7, 9). But the civil government only helped with what the individuals, families, and spiritual community were already committed to do (see 2:18). Community development took place from the bottom up, not from the top down.

GOD’S GOVERNMENT BALANCES LOVE AND DISCIPLINE

God’s kingdom government works in such a way that it balances love and discipline. Hebrews 12:6 says that God disciplines everyone He loves. Parents are to love their children enough to discipline them (see Ephesians 6:4). If you think little Johnny is too cute to be spanked, then little Johnny is unloved. Church leaders are called to love their flock, but they are also called to correct the flock—even to the point of excommunication of unruly members (see 2 Thessalonians 3:11–15). The civil government is to honor and praise people who do what is right (see Romans 13:3). But it also has the responsibility to discipline and judge citizens who break the law (see Romans 13:4).

All of God’s institutions marry love with discipline. The method of discipline for the family is loving correction. The method of discipline for the church is the Communion table, accountability, and excommunication. The method of discipline for the government is imprisonment, corporal, and capital punishment. God has given each governmental institution a disciplining mechanism that people might be led to self-government under Him or else suffer the appropriate consequences.

GOD’S GOVERNMENT WORKS TO BRING BLESSING

Here’s our final principle: God’s kingdom agenda operates to bring His blessing to the institutions that follow it.

In Deuteronomy 29:9, Moses told Israel, “Keep the words of this covenant to do them, that you may prosper in all that you do.” The Scripture is simply saying that if you do it God’s way, you’ll see the benefits. America attempted to do this in its early days. The effort was flawed because of unbiblical slavery, but apart from slavery this country attempted to operate by a decentralized government. And we prospered like no other country in the history of mankind, even though not everybody at the top was a Christian.

In 3 John 2, the apostle prays that Gaius would prosper “in all respects” just as he prospered in his spiritual life. If you do things God’s way, benefit comes to you and flows over into the family, the church, and the government.

This progression of blessing is laid out beautifully in Psalm 128. Verses 1–2 speak to the blessing that comes from personal responsibility or self-government: “How blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in His ways. When you shall eat of the fruit of your hands, you will be happy and it will be well with you.”

Then the blessing moves to the family: “Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house, your children like olive plants around your table” (v. 3). When you become responsible for yourself, your mate and your children flourish.

Next in line is the church. “The LORD bless you from Zion.” Zion was the place of worship where the temple was located. The church—the people of God, the spiritual community—is blessed when God’s government operates the way it should, since it is the New Testament expression of Zion (see Hebrews 12:22–24).

Then what happens when the individual, the family, and the church get it right? The government of the nation experiences blessing: “May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life. Indeed, may you see your children’s children. Peace be upon Israel!” (vv. 5b–6).

When people govern themselves under God, you have peace and blessing. But when people look to everything and everyone else to govern them except God, you have anarchy. People say, “I sure wish the church or the government would do something.” God says, “I sure wish you would do something.”

So let me ask you a couple of questions: Are you governing your life according to God’s Word and His principles of government? If you are, you can expect God’s blessing. But if you aren’t, then don’t blame anybody else. Are you governing your family under God’s kingdom rule? If you are, there’s blessing waiting. But if you aren’t, don’t complain about the church or the government.

This is how God’s kingdom operates: through decentralized, plural institutions, under His centralized leadership, in order to produce self-government under Him.

CHAPTER SIX

THE AUTHORITY OF THE KINGDOM AGENDA

I love football—and I love to ask people how many teams are on the field during a football game. Most people will say two teams, which is a common misunderstanding, and that gives me an opportunity to illustrate an important truth about God’s kingdom and His agenda. There may be two teams in uniforms and pads going at each other during a football game, but there are three teams on the field during the game. The third team is the officials, and what’s important about them for our purposes is that this team answers to a higher authority—the National Football League office, in the case of pro football. The officials represent another kingdom and operate within the established purview of their own rulebook.

You don’t see officials on a football field asking the home team what it thinks about a certain play or penalty, or asking the visiting coach if he thought his running back fumbled the ball. They make the decisions not according to what the players or fans want, but according to the league’s rulebook. To ensure that an official operates in accordance with this standard, he is given this book long before he ever steps onto a field. He is required to study it, learn it, memorize it, and use it for every decision he will make on the field. This specialized and authoritative book contains the guidelines, rules, and regulations by which a football official is to manage the events around him. Although both teams are constantly pulling at the officials to make calls favorable to them, the team of officials must, in spite of any personal preferences or emotions, rule according to the ultimate authority of their kingdom’s book.

Every decision must be able to be validated by the book. If the viewpoint of men ever influences the official more than the rules of the book, superseding the kingdom to which the official is ultimately obligated, that official will no longer be positioned to rule at all. When a football official operates by his own rules, he relinquishes the authority he had when he operated according to league standards. The NFL Commissioner will only stand by an official if that official stands by the book.

We have a Commissioner; in fact, we have a King, the Lord Jesus Christ. God the Father has commissioned Jesus to implement and oversee all that happens on the field called history. Scripture tells us that there is one mediator between God and man, “the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5). One of Christ’s jobs as the Commissioner is to supervise the officials representing His kingdom on the field of life.

The officials on the field are believers, those of us who have trusted Jesus Christ for our salvation. Each of us as officials has been given a Book, the Holy Bible, which is the Word of God, to control all of the decisions that we make as Christ’s representatives on earth. The moment you or I make a decision that goes against the governing regulations in the Book, we lose the authority tied to the Book. One of the primary reasons we are not witnessing more authority in the kingdom is due to the fact that so many of us are trying to live our lives according to our own rulebook. But our authority is tied to knowing, learning, and using all that God has laid out for us in His Book.

THE AUTHORITY OF THE WORD OF GOD

The Bible holds authority over us by virtue of its Author, who is the King of creation and Ruler over all the earth. The Bible’s authority extends to every word and even every portion of a word, as we will see. The Bible is supremely authoritative because it is God’s revelation in history. There is no higher authority you and I can appeal to than to the Word of God.

The Bible’s authority is timeless. For example, when we read in Exodus 20:3 “You shall have no other gods before Me,” this command has the very same force behind it today that it had when God first thundered these words to Moses more than three thousand years ago. This is important because one problem I see as a pastor is that people disregard God’s Word because to them, it’s just ink on a page.

Our problem is that we weren’t there when God first spoke His Word—because if we had been there, we wouldn’t be so casual about it. To get an idea of the terror that gripped Moses and all of Israel when God gave His commandments, read Hebrews 12:18-21. Even Moses said, in effect, “I’m so scared that I can barely even stand.”

The Bible’s Unchanging Authority

The Bible is not simply words about God; it is the Word of God. Many people learn about God from the Bible, which is good. But we are not to stop there. The Word of God is the voice of God in print. It is active and alive and sharper than a two-edged sword, able to reach and instruct the deepest recesses and core of who you are (see Hebrews 4:12).

Jesus’ opponents challenged Him one day when He tried to tell them that He was God. They accused Him of blasphemy, and got ready to stone Him (see John 10:31–33). Jesus turned to the Scripture to make His case, and the way He used the Word has a lot to teach us about the Bible’s authority.

Jesus answered them, “Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’? If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken), do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?” (vv. 34–36).

Jesus was using a powerful argument. He said that if the Bible—in this case, the psalmist (see Psalm 82:6)—used the term “gods” for men who were merely God’s representatives, then those who were accusing Jesus should not object if He called Himself God. Why? Because they had just seen Him heal a blind man (John 9) and do other miracles, for one thing.

What I want you to see here is the binding authority of Scripture. Not even one word can be changed. Scripture is irrefragable, which means it cannot be voided or invalidated. How important is this trait? It was important enough to Jesus that He built a critical argument around it. His opponents might have wished they could nullify or get around the word “gods” in Psalm 82:6, because it is the Hebrew word elohim, which is one of the names of God. But Jesus had them, because God’s Word called His representatives “gods,” and nothing could change the Scripture. Paul used a similar tactic in Galatians 3 to prove that Jesus is Abraham’s promised seed. The validity of Paul’s entire point hung on the difference between the singular “seed” and the plural “seeds” (v. 16) Not only each letter of the Bible, but even the smallest part of each letter (see Matthew 5:18) is vital and carries God’s authority.

In John 10:35–36, Jesus appealed to the authority and the inviolability of the Bible to argue that He was correct in saying, “I and the Father are one.” (v. 30). His detractors understood very clearly that Jesus was claiming to be God, which is why they wanted to stone Him for blasphemy. Jesus answered their charge by showing them that they could not reject Him without rejecting the Word of God they professed to believe.

The fact that the Bible is completely authoritative and cannot be broken is a wonderful doctrine for the Christian faith. But the truth and power of God’s Word can be nullified in your experience if you refuse to let the Word speak to you as it is, or you start mixing it up with your human viewpoints. Now I did not say the Bible can lose its power or authority. That will never happen because God said His Word is forever “settled in heaven” (Psalm 119:89). But the Bible’s power is blunted in our lives when we do not respond to God in humility and obedience.

The Proper Response to the Word

This is probably the number one travesty that people who claim to believe and follow God’s Word commit against it. A lot of people who try to mix their own thoughts with the Bible’s teaching have many degrees after their name. Education is fine, and the church has benefited from well-trained commentators and scholars who seek to understand what the Word means. But there is a big difference between an honest attempt to understand the Bible and diluting its teachings with human thinking.

This thing of truth and authority is at the core of why the Holy Spirit is not doing more in our lives. The Spirit is the Spirit of Truth who is obligated only to God’s Word. So when we start diluting the Word with our human viewpoints, the Holy Spirit steps back, because He is not going to bless our speculations. The introduction of human opinion nullifies the effectiveness of benefits that the Scriptures are designed to give us.

Just before the closing benediction in Revelation, John issued a warning to anyone who either “adds to” or “takes away from” its words (22:18–19). God pronounces a curse when people start messing with His message. Biblical authority means that God has the supreme right to determine our decision-making and set the agenda for our lives. God doesn’t want our rationalizations, but our response.

People can have Bibles in every room of the house, in their cars, and even at their offices, and yet still want to have their ears tickled by the latest religious fad or clever deceiver. But God wants to occupy the place of supreme authority in your life, and He wants to set your life’s agenda as you submit yourself to His Word. Since Jesus possesses all authority, and His Word has all of His authority behind it, why are we as Christians not seeing God’s Word at work any more than we are? I am convinced the reason is that we are not living as though God’s Word were our authority. We are not seeing more power in our lives and in the church at large because we aren’t taking the Bible seriously.

The Divine Standard

In every area of our lives, we must recognize that the authority under which we operate goes far beyond any human authority. God operates His Kingdom by His Word. The Bible is the divine blueprint by which all of life is to be lived. It is the benchmark by which all decisions should be made. If we are going to advance God’s kingdom, we must recognize and submit to the divine authority of His Word. What was the first thing Satan got Adam and Eve to do in the garden? He got them to question the authority of God’s Word. Satan asked, “Has God said?” Satan knew that if he could get Adam and Eve to question, doubt, and ultimately change God’s revealed word to them, he could get them to disobey.

The Bible is not the Word of God emeritus, but the Book from which our kingdom agenda is drawn. To the degree that you honor, respect, and obey the Word, you will live the abundant life Christ came to give. To the degree that you don’t, you won’t. You may have what appears to be a successful life to the outside world, but the abundant life is about so much more than outer appearances. It is the presence of peace coupled with the power of divine purpose.

The reason we need the Scripture as an authoritative document is found in Isaiah 55:8. God says, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways.” God functions in a totally different sphere, which we call His transcendence. He is totally distinct from and above His creation. So if God did not reveal His standard to us, we could never figure it out on our own. Often in the Bible God makes the statement “I am not a man” (see Numbers 23:19). The idea is, “Then don’t measure Me by your standards, because you and I are not alike.”

Since God is the only true authority in His Kingdom, we must live under His revealed authority. If you had a messed-up life and said, “Tony, help me with my messed-up life,” I would open the Bible and show you God’s standard for fixing a messed-up life.

If you came to me with a messed-up family and said, “Tony, help me with my messed-up family,” I would open up the same Book and show you how the Author of the family determined the family should be run.

The same thing is true for a messed-up church. The Bible is the charter of the church, and only the Bible can fix a messed-up church.

And if the governor or the president came to me and said, “Evans, we have a messed-up state” or “a messed-up country,” I wouldn’t switch books. I would open up the Bible and offer the governor or the president God’s solution for a broken-down society.

Why would I use the same Book in all four situations? Because all four areas of kingdom life—personal, family, church, and civil government—are created by God and governed by His Word. Even in a democracy there must be a transcendental ethical norm that serves as the standard for making laws so that a legitimate democracy can work. Without such a standard, democracy has no anchor to hold the majority in check, lest the will of a majority lead to unrestrained national government or the uncontrolled evil desires of that majority. The Bible provides the standard. Yet some Christians want to switch books. They want to use the Bible when it’s convenient, sort of like making God a servant in His own kingdom. But it won’t work.

Since the Bible is God’s rulebook for life in His kingdom, let’s consider how its authority impacts each of these four areas. And as we go, remember that God alone is sovereign, so He has the right to draw up the rules of kingdom life. The Word of God reveals the absolute standard to which all other standards must bow, since it is right about everything on which it speaks. This means we must take the whole Bible seriously, including the revelatory aspects of the Old Testament. Paul told Timothy, who did not yet have a New Testament to read, that the Scripture (Old Testament) was sufficient for all of life (see 2 Timothy 3:16–17).

The statements of particular Old Testament regulations may differ in their contemporary application. But the clear principles of Old Testament truth, as they reflect the character of God and the operation of His kingdom, are applicable to us since “they were written for our instruction” (1 Corinthians 10:11), and since the typological nature of the old covenant is true of the new covenant, providing us wisdom for all of life today. Furthermore, Old Testament Israel was the only government legislated by God, so it is the only place we can look to for guidance on how government should work and reflect the character of God today. This is the effect that Israel’s government was to have on other nations—to serve as a paradigm for them to emulate (see Deuteronomy 4:5–8).

PERSONAL COMMITMENT TO BIBLICAL AUTHORITY

Let’s start with the personal dimension of kingdom life, what we are calling self-government under God’s authority. As I said earlier, this is where God ultimately wants us to arrive. The kingdom agenda starts with you and your personal commitment to biblical authority.

Jesus said it best when He said in Matthew 4:4, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” Life itself is tied to biblical authority. If you rebel against it, you’re rebelling against life and inviting death. Moses told Israel, “All the commandments that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live” (Deuteronomy 8:1).

You may be saying, “Tony, the Bible is a big Book. It’s got sixty-six smaller books inside. It takes a lifetime to understand the Bible. How can I possibly do it?”

Let me suggest that the Bible is not quite as hard as you may think. Yes, it’s so inexhaustible that theologians spend a lifetime to try to understand it. Yet God’s Word is so clear that children can grasp it. The Bible has relatively few core teachings. It may talk about them in a thousand ways, but the Bible only has a handful of foundational truths. Let me show you what I mean.

The “Ten Words”

Exodus 20 contains what Moses called literally the “ten words.” We know them as the Ten Commandments. They are the summary of life, the foundation and essence of God’s law. Now God added about 613 stipulations to break out the commandments in more detail. But these “ten words” summarize what God expects. So if you understand the Ten Commandments, you will have the core of what God expects from His kingdom subjects.

But even better than that, Jesus summarized the essence of these commandments for us in Matthew 22:36–40. A lawyer came to Jesus and asked Him a lawyer-type question:

“Which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’  … The second [commandment] is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ” (vv. 37, 39).

There you have the very core of God’s kingdom agenda. You don’t have to go to seminary to know that the two most important things God would have you do is to love Him with all of your being and to love others as you love yourself. In the words of Solomon, “Fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).

Since God’s Word is the authority in our personal lives and since He has specific instructions for us to keep, where do we get the motivation to keep His Word? To the unrighteous, it may be fear of judgment. But the motivation for believers is the appreciation for God’s grace. You and I keep God’s Word out of gratitude because we recognize that it’s by His grace we are even here. All the motivation Israel needed to keep the Ten Commandments was provided in Exodus 20:2, before the commands were given: “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”

If you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your Savior, He has set you free. Duty ought to rise out of devotion. He shouldn’t be begging you to keep His commandments. Not only that, the motivation comes in knowing that God only backs His own Book. If you want God’s authority and power to override your circumstances rather than continually being under your circumstances, then start aligning your life according to His Word.

FAMILY COMMITMENT TO BIBLICAL AUTHORITY

The second way biblical authority is to be made manifest in God’s kingdom is through the family. In Deuteronomy 4:9–10, Moses said:

Give heed to yourself and keep your soul diligently, so that you do not forget the things which your eyes have seen and they do not depart from your heart all the days of your life; but make them known to your sons and your grandsons. Remember the day you stood before the Lord your God at Horeb, when the Lord said to me, “Assemble the people to Me, that I may let them hear My words so they may learn to fear Me all the days they live on the earth, and that they may teach their children.”

Notice the emphasis on teaching the ways and Word of God to your children. Then in the famous passage in Deuteronomy 6 we are told, “These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your sons” (vv. 6–7).

Do you get the message? If you have a family, you are responsible to make sure that the truth you are learning is being transmitted to your children. If you don’t teach God’s Word to your family, Satan has his own message, his own kingdom, and his own teachers. They would be glad to teach your children for you. Some of these teachers are on the streets, some are in the school system, and some may even be in the church. Your child could be sitting next to another child whose lack of regard for God is going to rub off on your child.

So we have to teach our children “diligently,” not occasionally. That may mean turning off the television and using the time for teaching. Whatever it may involve, you have to carve out time with your family to teach the Word. Neither the government nor the church has been charged to do what parents are supposed to do. So we parents can’t blame the church or the state if our kids turn out messed up.

But if you do the job, I have good news for you: “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it” (Proverbs 22:6). Give your children God’s Word early in life, and even if they do take a left turn, the Holy Spirit has something to hook on to and bring them back.

The family is also to be the place where children are corrected based on biblical authority (see Proverbs 13:24, 19:18, 22:15, 23:13). Why? Because when children are not trained according to the Word of God, they may develop a lifestyle of rebellion against Him, and it could cost them their lives. The failure of parents to teach and discipline their children is at the heart of society’s problems today. God’s kingdom works through the family.

THE CHURCH’S COMMITMENT TO BIBLICAL AUTHORITY

The third entity in God’s kingdom is the church, which follows naturally from the individual and the family. God’s kingdom is expanded through the influence of the church. Deuteronomy 4 gives us a picture of what I’m talking about:

I have taught you statutes and judgments just as the Lord my God commanded me, that you should do thus in the land where you are entering to possess it. So keep and do them, for that is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples who will hear all these statutes and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people.” (vv. 5–6)

Moses told the people to apply God’s truth to their lives in such a way that other nations would see it and want to imitate them. The job of the church, as God’s New Testament covenant people, is to model the principles of His kingdom in such a way that even the ungodly will say, “That makes sense. That’s the best way to live.” When the church is not the church, then society has nowhere to look for answers since the church is uniquely the preserver and depository of divine truth (see 1 Timothy 3:14–15).

Our church in Dallas received a real honor not too long ago when the governor of Texas contacted us to say that, with our permission, he wanted to talk about the ministry of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in his “State of the State” address. The governor wanted to talk about how the church should influence society; how, when the church is right, the government doesn’t have to do all these things and tax people to do them, because the churches are centers of hope in every community. His office was looking for an example of that, and they chose our church.

That’s what being a kingdom alternative is all about. It is about the church being the secondary tier of caring for the needs of people. Caring for these needs starts in the family, but then it goes to the church because it has to be localized where the people live. Jesus said His people are to be the “salt of the earth” and “light of the world” (Matthew 5:13–14). The job of the church is to illuminate the truth, not just to pontificate about it. Our job is not just to talk about what the world should do, but also to illustrate before the world what the world should do.

Second Timothy 3:16–17 says the Bible was given so that God’s people would be “equipped for every good work.” If the Bible is not good enough for God’s people to live by, how can it be good enough for the world? If the Bible can’t straighten us out, how can it straighten out the mayor or the president? It’s got to work in the family of God if it’s going to work in society.

THE GOVERNMENT’S RESPECT FOR BIBLICAL AUTHORITY

A final way that God’s kingdom agenda is established is by the culture’s respect for biblical authority. God’s Word forms the standard not only for personal righteousness, but also for national obedience.

Proverbs 14:34 says, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people.” Even non-Christian cultures can be a nice place to live if they’re operating by righteous principles. That doesn’t mean every government leader has to be a Christian. That will never happen. That’s why I used the word “respect” for this section instead of commitment. A non-Christian government will not be committed to God’s Word. But there are certain principles God has established that will benefit a society if they are followed, even if the leaders don’t know God.

Paul told us in 1 Timothy 2:2 to pray for our leaders and those in authority “so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.” We need to pray that leaders will become sensitive to God’s way of doing things, because a culture can be a reasonable place to live if it is informed by biblical principles.

The Bible says that God sets up and deposes kings (see Daniel 2:21). David said, “I will also speak of Your testimonies before kings” (Psalm 119:46). David knew that society must run by God’s rules. In fact, Deuteronomy 17:19 says that the king of Israel was required to read God’s Word each and every day. A nation is going to stand or fall based on whether God’s rules have permeated the culture.

That’s why our public education system is in trouble. It is trying to do the impossible—impart information without ethics. You cannot have a separation between information and ethics, because if people do not have moral guidelines by which to measure the data, they will create their own guidelines and inject them into the curriculum.

The issue is never teaching morality versus teaching no morality, but whose morality will be taught. The schools as a whole used to teach God’s morality. That’s why there used to be a time when the Ten Commandments were posted on the school wall. It was in recognition of the fact that there were basic rules of life to be honored, rules that acknowledged God’s view of life.

But governments are not merely supposed to acknowledge God’s principles for life. Even though many don’t know it, our governmental leaders are also religious leaders. A politician may toss God’s name into the discussion every now and then to get a vote, but that’s not what I mean by saying governmental leaders are religious leaders. And I don’t mean that they are supposed to try to take over the church or anything like that. I’m talking about Paul’s statement in Romans 13:4 that governmental authority is “a minister of God to you for good.” The Greek word for “minister” is a religious term. It means “one who acts on God’s behalf.” So although leaders serve in the civil realm, they are still God’s ministers.

That is, our leaders are to uphold and carry out God’s standard in the civil arena. For instance, the Bible forbids murder. When a murder is committed, a minister, in this case called a judge, must impose appropriate punishment on the murderer. Whether or not the judge acknowledges it, the rule being imposed—“You shall not murder”—is God’s rule. The reason He gave it is that we are made in His image. So when a person commits murder, he has in reality attacked God. When that happens, God has His ministers act on His behalf in punishing the offender. Judges may not even realize they are acting as God’s ministers when they impose a sentence for a crime such as murder, but the Bible says that’s what they are doing.

Another way rulers respect biblical authority and rule according to God’s guidelines is by deterring evil. Men must fear judgment if their evil inclinations are to be kept in check. Romans 13:3 implies that officials must be able to distinguish between good and evil so they can punish the evil and reward the good. But there’s only one way we can know the difference between good and evil. There must be a universal standard. Otherwise we’re lost, because what is good and right to one person may not be good to another person. We need a standard that will govern everybody. And since government belongs to God, it can only operate properly when it functions according to God’s forever standard, His Word.

This is where our culture is so schizophrenic. While so many are busy trying to drive God and biblical principles out of the public arena, our culture’s laws are still, for the most part, based on a biblical frame of reference. However, many times our public officials wind up rewarding evil and punishing or ignoring what is good. America at the beginning of the twenty-first century is a classic example of what happens in a society that rejects God’s rules and tries to live by man’s rules.

The result is moral and spiritual chaos. We have to live by God’s Book, because if we don’t, we’ll live by somebody else’s book. And you and I won’t like the results. When governments operate under the theocratic rule of God by reflecting biblical principles, they will begin to reflect His already existing rule to their citizens. Citizens will either be ruled by the Word of God, or by the word of men seeking to imitate God.

THE NEED FOR ONE STANDARD UNDER GOD

Why is it so imperative that we learn to function by biblical authority? A simple exercise will demonstrate our need.

Take a blank sheet of paper and try to draw a straight line down the middle. What will happen? It will be crooked. I don’t care how steady your hand is, if you try to draw a straight line on your own there’s going to be a curve in that line somewhere. But now lay a ruler next to your line and draw another line with it. The difference will be obvious.

You get the idea. When you try to live life on your own, it’s going to be crooked. I don’t care how much you try or how straight you are, your life is going to have bends in it because the best of us can’t live a straight life on our own. Yet, too many of us in the kingdom of God are trying to live life on our own, and we keep messing up. But if we will let the Word of God be our ruler and draw our lives according to its standard, we’ll straighten out the curves.

God’s Word is the only authority that will enable us to draw a straight line in our personal life, in our family life, in the church, and in society. It’s our standard: “For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king; He will save us” (Isaiah 33:22).

One of the most intriguing films I have ever seen is called Inception. This is one of those films where you scratch your head trying to figure out all of the different nuances and twists while they are playing out in front of you.

The star character can enter into the world of dreams, and even into a dream’s dream, which would be fine for viewers if it stopped there. But to make the film more intriguing, the star of the film can enter into a dream’s dream’s dream’s dream … and on and on. You lose track after a while.

Since the dreams appeared to be real to all of the characters’ five senses, each character had to create an item they would use to let them know if they were in a dream or in reality. Without this item, the person in the dream might begin to believe that the dream was reality—that what they could see, taste, touch, feel, and smell was real—and they might stay there, operating by the laws of reality within the realm of a dream.

The main character’s chosen item was a spinning top. If his top kept spinning endlessly, that meant he was in a dream. The knowledge that he was in a dream then affected the way he functioned. Essentially, he could take more risks and live differently in the dream because he knew that at any time, he could simply wake back up in reality.

Thankfully, God has given us an item that we are to look at in order to remind us of our true spiritual location, and that is His Word. As Paul wrote, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16). When we read God’s Word, we are reminded that the world in which we live is not the final authority or reality. The people around us do not have the final say. Our circumstances do not dictate our reality. Rather, God’s Word is the overarching truth that is to govern, encourage, and instruct us so that we can experience the fullness of His goodness and the power of His authority in our lives.

To live life to its fullest and to accomplish and experience all that God has created you to do, God and His Kingdom must be first in your life, not one among many.

The key to kingdom success is found in this simple word: “first.” The power of kingdom living is found when the rule of God takes priority in every area of your life.

http://go.tonyevans.org/personal/

CHAPTER SEVEN

YOUR KINGDOM PRIORITIES

A man once visited the doctor because it seemed that his entire body hurt. Every single place he touched brought great pain. The doctor looked him over and then said, “Well, this is very unusual. I don’t see anything wrong.” He then asked the man to touch different places on his body—and each time the man did so, he cried out in pain.

After a few minutes of going through this process, the doctor pinpointed the issue. “Sir,” he said with a bit of a sigh, “you have a dislocated finger.” Once he got the real problem fixed, he got his pain problem fixed.

A number of us are going through life like the man with a dislocated finger. We have a lot of issues in a lot of areas that are painful, disappointing, or frustrating. It seems like the entire thing is a mess. However, the solution for getting all else functioning properly in your life boils down to one primary principle found in God’s Word. If you can get this one thing right, you will get everything else right simply because this one thing affects everything else.

The Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5–7) is the longest recorded sermon Jesus preached while on earth. It is addressed to believers—originally to His disciples—and is primarily a sermon about the kingdom. The centerpiece of this sermon is Matthew 6:33, which also happens to be the centerpiece of kingdom living: “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33, emphasis added). I want to focus on the word “first” because too many of us are having a diminished experience of God because we are diminishing the value of this word and what it requires of us.

SEEK GOD AND HIS KINGDOM FIRST

To live your life to its fullest, and to experience all that God has created you to do, God and His kingdom must be first in your life. God is not to be one among many. The problem in most of our lives today is that God is merely in the vicinity, not in the center. People often tell me they just don’t have enough time for God. What they are really telling me is that God is not first in their lives. This is because a person will always make time for what matters most.

Over and over in Scripture we read that God asks for the “first fruits” of all that He has given to us. One example is Proverbs 3:9, which says “Honor the LORD from your wealth and from the first of all your produce.” When the risen Jesus reproved the church at Ephesus, He chided the people for having left their “first love” (Revelation 2:4). Jesus wasn’t saying that they didn’t love Him at all. In fact, He applauded them with these words: “You have perseverance and have endured for My name’s sake, and have not grown weary” (v. 3). But the problem in Ephesus was that the believers there no longer regarded Jesus as first in their hearts.

In Colossians, Christ’s preeminence over all things is further emphasized: “He is also head of the body, the church; and He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that He Himself will come to have first place in everything.” (1:18, emphasis added). God makes it clear repeatedly in Scripture that nothing less than first place is where He belongs in our lives.

Many of us who own homes have what are called “living rooms.” However, these rooms are misnamed. They should be called “visiting rooms” because most of us live in the den, the kitchen, or the family room. I remember when I was growing up that if I set foot in the living room, I was quickly told, in no uncertain terms, to get out of there immediately. In fact, even when I go back to visit my parents now, no one lives in that living room at all. It’s barely used and still has plastic covering the furniture. For many people, the “living room” is reserved for special times or special guests. It is misnamed.

Many of us have misnamed God. We call Him “Lord God” but He is only good for the visiting room in our lives. We visit Him on Sunday and in our devotional times, but we do not live with Him. We do not spend the majority of our time in His presence. What is missing for so many Christians is the principle of putting God first. Jesus said that we are to “seek first” God and His kingdom above all else.

But when the God you acknowledge is not treated as God, you do not experience the benefits of Him and His kingdom. The second half of Matthew 6:33 promises that when you put God and His kingdom first, then “all these things” will be given to you. These things are the necessities of life that Jesus spoke about in Matthew 6:25–32. When you prioritize the kingdom, God takes care of your needs. But the corollary of this rings true as well. When you do not put God first, you are missing out on all of the benefits and blessings of the King and His kingdom. Seeking God first doesn’t mean that you won’t have problems or issues in life. What it does mean is that you will be well equipped to overcome or get through those problems and issues because your life is aligned under God’s authority and His rule.

WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE TO PUT GOD FIRST

One of the determining factors to know if you are putting God first in your life is to ask yourself where you turn when you have a decision to make, a problem to resolve, or guidance to seek. Do you turn first to other people, or to your desires? Or do you look to God, His Word, and His principles first? Getting God’s perspective on a matter and then applying it to the particular situation you are dealing with is one way to know that God is first in your life.

Parents often say to their children when there is a problem, “Why didn’t you talk to me first? I just wish you had come to me first.” Oftentimes parents will let their children know that they could have avoided mistakes or problems if they would have simply sought and followed their parents’ advice first. What holds true in parenting holds truer in our relationship with God. So many people wonder why they are not hearing from God or experiencing His abiding presence and victory in their lives. God’s answer to their question is simply, “Because you go to the world—a system that leaves Me out—first for your solutions; you come to Me last, only after nothing else works out.”

The key to kingdom success and the power for kingdom living is found in the simple word “first,” prioritizing God in every area of life.

THE BENEFITS OF PRIORITIZING GOD’S KINGDOM

We referred above to the context in which Matthew 6:33 is set, because the context is critical to understanding what Jesus is saying. Look at the surrounding verses and you will see a recurring theme:

“For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life” (v. 25). “And who of you by being worried” (v. 27). “And why are you worried” (v. 28). “Do not worry then” (v. 31). “So do not worry” (v. 34, emphasis added in all verses).

It’s hard to miss the theme of worry. But right in the middle of multiple verses addressing our human tendency to worry, God places the very solution to our worry in verse 33. He says that if you will seek His kingdom and His righteous standards first, He will readily grant you all of the things that often make themselves the focus of your worry.

Therefore, you ought to put God’s kingdom first if for no other reason than to reduce your anxiety level. Over 40 million US adults suffer from a diagnosed form of anxiety. Countless millions more no doubt suffer from worry or anxiety on less severe levels. Worry is a common issue plaguing people today. Whether it’s worrying about jobs, safety, health, relationships, flying, income, terrorism, the future, or anything else, worry eats away at many people’s ability to enjoy the gift of life God has given them.

God tells us in this foundational principle for kingdom living that we actually don’t have to worry at all, because God Himself is the antidote to worry. In Matthew 6:33 we discover the one principle that affects everything—even the level of our worry. When you know God and hang out with Him, you don’t need to worry about all the other stuff.

One day a man was rushing through the airport to catch his plane because he was late. He started weaving in and out of the crowds walking to their gates with moves that would make an NFL running back proud. Bumping into a man dressed in a flight uniform, the passenger paused briefly to say he was sorry. The airline employee asked him why he was rushing so quickly, so he told him that he was trying to catch his flight.

“Where are you going?” the man in the flight uniform asked.

“I’m going to Austin,” he replied.

“Well then, relax and stop worrying,” the man said with a smile. “I’m the pilot on that flight, and that plane won’t go anywhere without me.” Immediately the worried traveler was able to slow down and rest, because he knew where the pilot was. Knowing where God is located, and what He promises when you look to Him first, will change your anxiety, frustration, and irritation on all levels.

Think of all the problems you face, and all of the issues that keep you in perpetual defeat. Have you put God first in these areas? Have you looked to honor Him first in your heart, attitude, choices, and thoughts? Have you sought His wisdom and will for how to respond to each situation? If you haven’t, then you need to go ahead and worry. But if you have made God and His kingdom your priority, then rest. God’s got it covered.

YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW

Matthew 6 closes with a verse that many of us have found easier to memorize than to practice: “So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own” (v. 34). Most people are being crucified between two thieves: yesterday and tomorrow. They kill the joy of today because of what happened yesterday, and because they are too scared about what may happen tomorrow. But do you realize that today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday? As long as you are on earth, the past will always be there, and you will never run out of tomorrows. So until you learn to embrace today and make it what God wants it to be, you will be perpetually chained either by yesterday or tomorrow, or perhaps even chained between both.

But I challenge you to change one thing, and then watch that one thing change everything else. When you put God first, all else will fall in place. Make Him first in your thoughts, hopes, and decisions. Put Him first in how you spend your time, and how you view the world around you. Please Him first, honor Him first, give to Him first … and all else will get in line.

But notice in Matthew 6:33 that putting God first is not a request, but a command from a King who deserves our all. In addition, when we put God first, He has our back. A lot of people never get to see what it looks like when God has their back because they are out there trying to fix it, solve it, tweak it, and obtain it all by themselves. When we tangle with the world on its turf, we never truly experience God overruling our issues. We are members of His kingdom and He is the rightful King, so putting Him any place other than first is foolishness.

What does it mean to seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness? Kingdom means His authoritative rule along with the visible demonstration of it in every area of life. Righteousness is the standard God requires for people to be rightly related to Him and to live in a way that is pleasing to Him. Without seeking God’s kingdom and His righteousness first, we are wandering aimlessly around without the support and the backing of our King.

In baseball, if you miss first base, it doesn’t matter that you touched second, third, and home. It doesn’t matter that everyone in the stands is cheering you or congratulating you when you cross home plate. If you miss first base, nothing after that even counts. If you fail to seek God’s kingdom and His righteousness first, all else is for naught. God has established His rightful place as first, and without it you are on your own.

THE ISSUE OF PRIORITY

When you look around at the Christian community today, you frequently see chaos. Marriages are falling apart, singles are struggling to be content, debt rules many homes, and addictions run amuck. People are worn out, lonely, miserable, and frustrated, to say the least. Yet so many of these people faithfully attend church, leaving them to conclude, “My Christianity is just not working.”

However, there is a reason many even well-intentioned believers are falling short of God’s best in their lives. This is because without the password called “first,” they cannot access all that God has in store for them. And the way that you express priority is through surrender.

If you have a smartphone, it is likely that you have a password restriction on it so that if you lose it, someone else can’t pick it up and take advantage of your personal information. Passwords are often critical to access what is needed; the password for victorious kingdom living is this word “first.”

We’ve talked a lot about this concept of “first” in this chapter, but perhaps you are wondering, “Tony, what does that look like? How do I do this?” In one of my favorite chapters in Scripture, Paul gives us a visual of what it means to put God first:

Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1–2)

The problem with many Christians is that, while they have made the decision to trust in Jesus Christ for their salvation, they have not yet made the decision to surrender their lives in such a way that they become His committed followers. The difference between a decision-maker and a follower is surrender.

Paul is telling us in this passage that God wants us to present ourselves to Him, to put our lives on the altar as a sacrifice to Him. When an Israelite priest in Old Testament times placed a sacrifice on the altar, he did not just put the head, the leg, or some other portion of the sacrificial animal on the altar. The entire animal was sacrificed. But too many believers today have a portion of their time, talents, and treasures on God’s altar and assume it is enough. But God wants all of you to be given to Him.

In fact, throughout Scripture whenever God wanted to do something big for His people, He required a sacrifice first. There had to be something present that demonstrated the people’s surrender and commitment to Him. Paul calls this sacrifice our act of worship. Worship is not simply singing songs on Sunday. True worship, according to Romans 12, is giving yourself to God in your entirety. True worship includes surrender.

I like the story of the chicken and the pig who were walking down the street one day when they came to a grocery store with a sign in the window that read, “Bacon and Eggs Desperately Needed.” The chicken looked at the pig and said, “I’ll give them the eggs if you’ll give them the bacon.”

The pig stared at the chicken and replied, “No way!”

The chicken asked, “Why not?”

“Because for you it’s just a contribution, but for me it’s total commitment.”

Unfortunately, we have too many Christians today who are only willing to give God an egg here or there, so to speak, and think they’ve given enough. Then they wonder why God isn’t showing up miraculously in their lives. It’s because God has asked us as His kingdom people to climb up on His altar and give Him our all. An Old Testament sacrifice did not climb back off the altar; it was put to death. Sacrifice meant death in that time. Our King has asked each of us today to be a “living sacrifice”—literally, a “living dead thing.” We are to be alive to God and His desires and will, while simultaneously being dead to our sinful nature and our own will.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RELATIONSHIP AND RELIGION

As we talk about offering our lives to God in total surrender and seeking His kingdom and His righteousness first, we need to make sure that our commitment is rooted in relationship rather than in rules. Too frequently people will confuse structure for surrender. They cross items off a list, or keep a list of religious rules, and think they have put God first. But if God is first in your life, you don’t need a list of dos and don’ts because you will naturally seek Him, His heart, and His way in your personal surrender out of love.

Whenever religious activity, however sincere, trumps relationship, the victory of Christ is no longer experienced in the believer’s life. One of the greatest dangers in our churches today is when religion replaces an intimate relationship with the Savior. By religion, I mean external adherence to rules and practices in the name of God, yet apart from the power or presence of God. For example, if you go to church because it is the religious thing to do rather than because you are motivated to spend time worshiping God, learning about Him, and experiencing Him, that is mere religion. Religion is anything you do for God that does not stem from a heart connected to God.

When I was in seminary, I wrote a research paper I was proud to turn in because of all the work I had put into it. I had done my due diligence, and I felt great about my paper. However, when I got my paper back from my professor, there was a big, fat, red zero at the top, along with a smaller note at the bottom. My professor had written, “Tony, great work. Great preparation. Wrong assignment.”

I had researched the wrong topic, and as result I didn’t get credit for what I had done. Kingdom living is no different. It’s not that there aren’t a lot of people doing a lot of excellent things. They attend church, help the hurting, and repeat all of the correct spiritual platitudes. But they have missed the priority of the kingdom, the relational connection that comes through voluntary surrender. They have not put God first in their hearts. And then they wonder why they aren’t experiencing any victory, power, hope, or authority in their lives. External observances, the rules of religion, can actually get in the way of our relationship with God. When you are motivated by relationship, surrender comes naturally.

The story is told of a woman who was married to an ungrateful, controlling, and dominating man. It didn’t take her long to realize that unless she did everything that was on her husband’s list, her life would be miserable. This forlorn woman kept a list in the top drawer of her bureau of everything that she knew her husband wanted from her. Every day, she would seek to fulfill each item on the list. After twenty or so years of marriage, and what seemed like a lifetime of trying to please someone who could not be pleased, her husband died suddenly of a heart attack.

A few years later, this woman met and fell in love with a kingdom man who treated her with respect, honor, and dignity. She loved his personality, his heart, and everything about him. She had always considered herself to be a somewhat lazy person because she lacked the motivation to try and fulfill each item on her previous husband’s list.

But life with her new husband shed light on who this woman really was. She had energy, focus, and diligence. In fact, on any given day she would do far more than what was on her first husband’s demanding list. And what’s more, she would do everything willingly and gladly.

One day, while cleaning out her bureau, the woman found the old list. Noticing that everything on it which used to be a chore had now turned into a pleasure, she wondered what had changed. Then she realized the simple truth that relationship was a far greater motivation than rules could ever be. The first man had dominated her through rules without relationship. The second man offered her a relationship that motivated her response. The activity was the same, but the motivation changed both the results and rewards of the activity.

God wants His relationship with you to be the motivating factor for your surrender to Him as your King. Otherwise you are simply begrudgingly crossing items off a list called religion and therefore failing to access the strength, peace, and power that come by way of His love.

We serve a mighty God who is all-powerful, but never forget that He is closer than you think. He cares for you. His love is to be your driving passion in putting Him first. God doesn’t want you serving Him only because you are supposed to, but because you love Him. He wants your obedience, your prayer life, and all else to flow out of your relationship with Him rather than out of religious duty. Instead of being defined by what you do, God wants you to be defined by who you know—Jesus Christ.

TWO CRUCIFIXIONS FOR THE CHRISTIAN

When you place yourself on the altar as a “living sacrifice” in obedience to God, you are mirroring Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Essentially, there are two crucifixions that must occur in order to experience victorious kingdom living—Jesus’ and your own. Paul writes of these, “May it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” (Galatians 6:14, emphasis added).

To identify with Jesus Christ is to identify with His surrender on the cross. Being “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20) creates a resultant disconnect from this world’s order as well as a subsequent attachment and alignment with Him.

The word “world” in the Greek of Galatians 6:14 is kosmos. It refers to an organized system or arrangement designed to promote a specific emphasis or philosophy. For example, we talk about the “world of sports,” the “world of finance,” or the “world of politics.” These phrases are not referencing a location, but an organized system inclusive of certain definitions, regulations and philosophical worldviews.

When Paul states that he has been crucified with Christ, he is saying that he is no longer alive to this world’s system that wants to leave God out. Paul was crucified to the strategies and rules that are set up to try and make humanity acceptable to God independently of God.

Have you ever noticed that the world does not mind religion? The world not only tolerates religion, but it frequently will even embrace it. Religions dominate much of humanity’s systems all across the globe. What the world will not tolerate, however, is the person of Jesus Christ. As soon as you introduce Jesus into the equation, you have become too specific. Staying with God is okay because that is generic and vague. But once you bring Jesus to bear on a life or a worldview, that is too narrow for many people.

But the more religious you become, the further from Christ you go. Putting God first equates to a relationship whereby you willingly surrender yourself as a living sacrifice to the One you love. Paul wrote, “I affirm, brethren, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily” (1 Corinthians 15:31, emphasis added). Surrender represents a moment-by-moment connection to and identification with Jesus Christ and the purpose of His life, death, burial, and resurrection. It is acknowledging your complete and total dependency on Christ and His sufficiency in your life. Like Paul, surrender means you die daily.

Jesus made a similar statement in Luke 14:27: “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.” He was talking about the crucifixion we as believers need to undergo toward the world and its systems. Unfortunately today, we have some messed-up ideas about what it means to carry our cross or to put God first. A physical problem, bad in-laws, or noisy neighbors are not the cross you are called to bear. So what does it mean to carry your cross?

Jesus’ crucifixion at the hands of the Romans answers that question. The Romans invented crucifixion. They paraded the condemned down the street carrying the crossbeam of his cross to humiliate him. Carrying his cross to the place of execution was a public display that the condemned person was guilty of the crime for which he was being crucified. That’s what happened to Jesus, so to carry your cross means to bear His reproach, to be so identified with Jesus that when someone accuses you of being His disciple, you say, “You got me. I’m guilty.” To carry your own cross is to admit publicly that you are guilty of the crime of being committed to Christ and placing Him first.

Carrying your cross is when a girl tells her boyfriend, “I can’t sleep with you because I am a Christian.” It’s when a businessman says, “I can’t do that unethical thing, because I am Christ’s disciple. I am living by a different agenda.” Carrying your cross is dying to yourself and what you want, and putting Jesus first.

It’s not comfortable to carry a cross. It’s easier just to be religious. But religious titles and duties count for nothing in themselves when placed against the backdrop of the cross of Jesus Christ. What matters is your identification with God’s kingdom, and His righteousness, and the newness of the life He now lives within you.

Paul tells us more in Galatians: “For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation” (6:15). He writes similarly in his letter to the Corinthians: “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Victory in your daily decisions, emotions, finances, and everything else hinges completely on your attachment to Jesus Christ and your surrender to Him. It rests on His work, not on your own. It is tied to the new creation within you, not to the flesh.

THE BENEFIT OF PUTTING GOD’S KINGDOM FIRST

Paul concluded his letter to the believers in Galatia with this thought reflecting on the fruit of living a kingdom life of surrender: “And those who will walk by this rule, peace and mercy be upon them, and upon the Israel of God” (6:16).

Why does God often feel so far away? Because we are not operating by the rule of surrender. But when we align our thinking, moving, and operating with Him and His Kingdom in first place, then we will experience the benefits of God, which include both peace and mercy. However, when you are satisfied merely with religion or religious activity, when you have placed your trust in your religious activity to earn favor with God, you have been “severed from Christ” and have “fallen from grace” (Galatians 5:4).

This is a drastic occurrence, because grace is the provision of all that you need in order to live a life of abundance and peace. To best understand what it means to be “severed from Christ” or to be “fallen from grace,” let’s compare it to electricity. Electricity is the flow of power that is crucial because virtually everything in your house operates by it.

If you are severed from the flow of electricity, even though you still own the appliances, lights, heater, air conditioning, computers, television, and other items in your home, you cannot use or enjoy them because the flow of power is no longer there.

To be severed from Christ or to fall from grace means that the flow of what God wants to do in you and through you is cut off. You have essentially been unplugged, or disconnected, from the power of Jesus even though you still have all of the paraphernalia of religion. Therefore, your hope is gone, your peace is gone, your courage is gone, your faith is gone, and your authority is gone.

But those who function by the rule of surrender in kingdom living experience all the power of God and a peace that passes understanding. The Spirit of God will permeate all that you do so much so that you begin to think differently, act differently, live differently, love differently, and even see yourself in a different light. This is because the flow of the Spirit that comes to you by way of the cross will empower you. God will be at work in you, with you, through you, to you, and for you. A relationship with Christ and His sacrifice are essential to empowering and enabling you to live an abundant, victorious life defined by peace and mercy.

Never let religion get in the way of your relationship with Jesus Christ. Instead, out of your relationship with the One who loves you most, put first things first and watch that solitary decision change everything else for the good in your life, the betterment of others, and the advancement of God’s kingdom agenda on earth.

CHAPTER EIGHT

YOUR KINGDOM GROWTH

If I asked you to tell me who you are without giving me your name, your occupation, your title at work, or anything else like that, how would you answer?

How you answer that question says a lot about you. It lets me know if you really know who you are. In the Bible, when people came to Jesus Christ and were serious about following Him, when they became people of the kingdom, there was no question about who they were. Those early disciples became known even among unbelievers as people of “the Way” (Acts 19:9), because they had chosen to walk a different path in life. They had identified themselves totally with Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God. They lived for the kingdom, and their identity was tied to the kingdom.

The great tragedy today is that we don’t have enough Christians who know who they are. They may be genuine believers, but their faith is just another addition to their portfolio. They define themselves in terms of their name, their job, their possessions, or the people they know. But if somebody asked you who you are and nowhere in the conversation did the name and kingdom of God come up, you are a confused Christian. As a member of the kingdom, your identity is wrapped up with Christ. There should be no way to talk about you and not talk about Him. In other words, for us the term “Christian” is not just a title. It is our identification, just like our name. Being followers of Christ is the essence of who we are.

That’s why we need to understand and cultivate a kingdom mentality. We need to become mature, fully functioning men and women of the King. This comes about through our spiritual growth, and this growth takes places through the process of discipleship. Each of us must learn how to function within this kingdom realm we are now a part of as followers of Jesus Christ. The goal of spiritual growth is to be transformed into the image of Christ so that we are consistently increasing in reflecting His character, conduct, attitudes, and actions in our lives. When the Scripture is applied and the power of the Holy Spirit invoked, spiritual development and transformation are inevitable (see 2 Corinthians 3:17–18).

THE CRITICAL PROCESS OF DISCIPLESHIP

If you want to find out what mattered most to someone, read his last words. Usually, whatever a person considers to be most important is on his mind when he comes to his last days. That’s why we pay so much attention to last words, especially those of important people.

As those who seek to be obedient followers of Jesus Christ, we need to know what matters most to Him so it can matter most to us. Thankfully, we don’t have to wonder about it. After His resurrection from the dead, and just before His ascension back into heaven, Jesus told His disciples—and us—what was uppermost on His mind. His last words on earth are recorded in Matthew 28:18–20.

Notice especially verse 19: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations.” There it is, stated in clear and concise terms: we are to disciple the people of God (in the church age, through the local church) so that they affect the world for Christ. If Christ’s mandate for the church is to make disciples, then His will for us as individual believers is that we become disciples through the process of personal spiritual growth. To grow spiritually as a disciple of Christ means that we become like Him. So becoming a disciple is where we ought to be heading in our Christian lives.

Now let me clarify something before we go much further. Being a disciple, getting down to the essentials of the Christian life, is a lot different than just going to church once or twice a week. To get excited because the preacher moved you and the choir inspired you is nice, but that’s not necessarily spiritual growth. The goal of our activity, that which brings God the most glory, is for us to become disciples. God’s goal is not salvation; that is just the introduction to God’s goal. His desire is that those who are saved become disciples.

It is not enough simply to say, “I’m on my way to heaven.” The question is, are you becoming like the One who is taking you to heaven? That’s discipleship, and that’s what Christ wants from us.

So let me define discipleship: It is that developmental process that progressively brings Christians from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity so that they are then able to reproduce the process with someone else. The singular, overarching goal of a disciple is to bring all of life under the lordship of Jesus Christ, and then help someone else to do the same. Notice that this brings discipleship around full circle. Disciples are to turn around and make other disciples. Ultimately, that’s how we fulfill the mandate of Matthew 28:18–20.

A Disciple Is a Learner

The word “disciple” means “learner.” It refers to a student who follows the teachings and pattern of a teacher so closely that the student becomes a clone of the teacher, to use a modern-day term. We could also call a disciple an apprentice, someone who stands at the side of a skilled master in a trade to learn that trade thoroughly.

Discipleship was not a new idea in the New Testament times. It was a well-established concept in the Greek world in the centuries before Christ. The Greeks had disciples in the realm of philosophy. Plato, often called the “father of philosophy,” developed a system of thought that dealt with issues of epistemology, or how we gain knowledge, and issues related to the meaning of life. Plato discipled his student Aristotle, who took what he had learned and built “gymnasiums,” or academies.

In the ancient world, gymnasiums were not arenas for sporting events. They were training centers to teach students Plato’s thought and the system developed by Aristotle, known as Aristotelian logic. The students thus trained were referred to as “gymnatized,” which is the verb form of the Greek word for gymnasium. It meant they were fully trained. So successful was this discipling process that it allowed the Greeks to influence the whole Greco-Roman world. Even people who were not Greek began to adopt Greek thinking, language, and culture—that is, they became disciples or followers of the Greek approach to life.

A Disciple Is to Look Like Christ

The New Testament picked up this concept and put it in a spiritual context so we would know what it means to be disciples of Jesus Christ. Discipleship involves an apprenticeship in which the apprentice, or student, is brought toward a particular goal. In Matthew 10:24–25, Jesus described what a disciple should look like: “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master. It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher, and the slave like his master.”

The definition of discipleship we gave above shows that it cannot be accomplished all at once, any more than a baby can become an adult overnight. Becoming a disciple is a lifelong process, but that doesn’t mean we can kick back and glide for a while. You may not be where you want to be in your spiritual growth, but you ought to be more spiritually mature this year than you were last year. You ought to be farther down the road this year than you were last year. A disciple should always be growing toward the goal of conformity to the Savior, being transformed into the image or likeness of Christ (see Romans 8:29).

A pastor friend of mine was visiting a college campus a number of years ago. He didn’t know that my son Anthony Jr. was a student there. He said he was walking across campus and saw a young man off in the distance.

My friend said he stopped dead in his tracks. “That has to be Tony Evans’s son,” he told himself. “He looks like Tony, he’s built like Tony, he even walks like Tony.”

He was right, of course. The young man he had spotted was Anthony. Even though the man was a long ways away, Anthony’s characteristics were so obviously like mine that my friend told me, “I didn’t even know Anthony was in college yet. All I knew was that nobody could look that much like you and not be yours.”

People ought to be able to see you from a long way off and say, “That person has to be a follower of Jesus Christ.” They ought to be able to tell by the way you walk and talk, and by the total orientation of your life, that you belong to Christ, because nobody could function the way you function and not know Him. The family resemblance ought to be obvious. It ought to be clear where you stand. That is discipleship. It means to so pattern your life after Christ, to follow Him so closely, that you speak, act, and think like Him.

Failing to follow Christ as His disciple means that we will meander through a mediocre Christian life rather than living a kingdom life. We will become like the farmer who was teaching his son how to plow. He told his boy, “Now, son, I want to plow a straight furrow from one end of this field to the other.”

The son asked, “But how will I know when I am plowing it straight?”

“Do you see that cow lying down over in the next field?” the father replied. “Just keep your eye on that cow and plow straight toward her. You’ll be fine.”

The farmer came back about an hour later and saw furrows going every which way. He couldn’t believe it. “Son, what in the world happened? I told you to keep your eye on the cow so you could plow a straight furrow.”

“Dad, I did keep my eye on the cow. But the cow kept moving!”

Actually, I don’t know any farmer who would advise his son to plow using a moving object as his guide. But the point is worth making. If you focus on the wrong object, your life is going to wander all over the place. You won’t have consistent spiritual victory. You’ll be up one day and down the next day. But if you’re following Jesus, you’ll plow a straight line. He’s not going anywhere. He is “the same yesterday and today and forever” (Hebrews 13:8).

The Right Information and the Right Skills

Since a disciple is a student, in order to become a disciple of Jesus Christ you must acquire and master a body of knowledge about Him. So teaching is always part of discipleship.

Jesus was the master Teacher, of course. He taught His twelve disciples the essence of what it means to follow Him. In God’s Word we have the body of knowledge God wants us to know—the right information about Him and His kingdom.

But knowledge alone does not make you a disciple. You also have to know how to take that information and do something with it. Discipleship involves developing your skills. That’s why Jesus would teach His disciples and then take them out into situations where they could apply what they were learning.

All of us know brilliant people who have lots of “book sense,” but very little common sense. We wonder how these people can be so smart and yet not be able to function well in the situations of daily life. That’s not what a disciple is supposed to be like. A disciple marries the right information with the skills needed to put it into practice.

How important is it that we get this picture? Well, suppose you need open-heart surgery. The doctor comes into your room the night before the operation and introduces himself. You shake his hand and say, “Doctor, this is a serious thing. How many of these operations have you done before?”

“You’ll be my first one,” he answers.

“Excuse me?”

“I said you’ll be my first open-heart surgery.”

“Doctor, we need to talk. How do you know you can do this?”

“Well,” he replies, “I went to four years of college and to medical school, and I made all A’s. In fact, I graduated at the top of my class. I know the parts of the body, and I know the surgical instruments I need to use. You have nothing to worry about.”

You are going to say, “Passing tests does not make you a surgeon. I want someone in there who has done this before.” And so does every other patient. That’s why a medical student does an internship and residency. He has to come alongside someone who has been in surgery before, who knows what to do when complications arise and things happen that aren’t covered in the textbook. That new doctor’s knowledge is very important, but it’s not enough. He needs to be shown how to perform the operation.

That’s discipleship. It occurs when a person brings another person or persons along in such a way that the teacher imparts the right information while modeling the right skill. This is why you cannot be a disciple simply by showing up at church on Sunday morning. Worship is an essential component of following Christ. But like knowledge, it’s not the whole picture. Discipleship demands someone walking beside you.

We have an example of disciple-making in many urban communities: the drug pusher. These guys are slick. They will take a young boy and mold him, giving him the body of information necessary to make a quick dollar, letting him walk beside them as they deal, and then sending him on his own into the streets to sell drugs the way they taught him to do.

The issue is not whether you are going to be a disciple. The issue is by whom you will be discipled. All of us have people and influences in our lives that shape who we are and what we do. Discipleship involves skills derived from a body of information that is modeled before you.

I want to make three observations about spiritual growth in becoming a disciple, based on the definition I gave above. These are the process, the movement, and the domain of discipleship.

THE PROCESS OF DEVELOPMENT

The first thing you need to know about becoming a disciple is that discipleship is a process of spiritual development. I have already quoted Matthew 10:24–25. This is a crucial passage on discipleship, and we’ll come back to it again. When Jesus said disciples are to become like their teacher, He was making clear that this business of being a disciple is a process. You do not wake up the day after you are converted and discover that you are a full grown, fully mature disciple of Jesus Christ. Spiritual growth toward maturity takes time.

This reminds me of the story of the farmer who brought his family to the big city for the first time. They were particularly awed by the mall. As the wife toured the stores, the farmer took his son into a bank located in the mall. He saw a very elderly lady enter the room where the safety deposit boxes were kept; then a few seconds later he saw a beautiful young woman come out of the room. The farmer looked at his son and said, “Boy, run and get your mother.” Unfortunately, we cannot be transformed into disciples that quickly. Discipleship takes time.

The New Testament does not give us a step-by-step timetable for becoming disciples, nor does it have a list of formal steps to be followed. There’s a very good reason for this. Although the process of discipleship involves certain basic necessities that are common to all believers, our spiritual experiences are unique to us. Thus Paul admonishes us to work out our own salvation “with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12), not someone else’s.

In Matthew 11:28–30, Jesus pointed out in a picturesque way how you are to go about achieving your personal spiritual growth: “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light” (emphasis added). “Learn” is the verb form for the word “disciple.” Jesus is saying, “Come and be discipled by Me.” This is a wonderful invitation to the process of personal discipleship.

Jesus also paints a vivid picture of what the process looks like when He speaks of His “yoke.” You have probably seen a horse, a mule, or an ox harnessed around the neck and shoulders with a yoke in order to pull a wagon or a plow. The yoke is put on for three basic reasons.

One reason for a yoke is to bring the animal under submission to and the control of the person sitting on the wagon or plow and holding the reins. A yoke makes control possible. In discipleship, Christ is seeking our surrender, as we looked at with regard to Romans 12:1–2. He wants to bring us under His control.

Second, the yoke speaks of work to be done. It implies responsibility. God saved you to bring upon you the right kind of responsibility. In other words, when a person yokes something he does it purposefully. There is something he wants to accomplish. God saved you because He has something He wants your life to accomplish. But you can only fulfill the responsibility when you are yoked together with Christ.

A third purpose of the yoke was to train a younger animal how to pull with the yoke. It was a common thing in the ancient world, and still is today in some communities, to train a young ox or mule by yoking it with an older, more experienced animal. That way, the young one comes alongside the experienced one to learn how to pull. When the farmer does this, he usually adjusts the yoke so that most of the weight falls on the experienced animal until the younger one gets the hang of it.

When I was a young teenager, my father used to take me with him when he went to preach. He would preach on street corners and give me a fistful of tracts to hand out. Or he would go to a prison to preach and take me with him to witness what he did. As far as I was concerned, when it was over, that was it. I didn’t realize then that God would later place a call on my life that would necessitate the experiences I had going along with my dad.

When I was in college, I preached on street corners. I preached in prisons. But the groundwork for those experiences was laid for me by my father, who did the work but took me along to show me how it’s done.

Jesus says, “If you come to Me to be My disciple, I will bear the yoke with you, and I will pull the weight” (my own paraphrase). I said earlier that not every Christian is necessarily a disciple. You can see the difference in verses 28–29. In verse 28, Jesus says, “I will give you rest.” But in verse 29, He says, “If you take My yoke, you will find rest” (again, my own paraphrase). What’s the difference? Verse 28 is a position. Verse 29 is an experience.

Whenever the Bible talks about rest, it means the enjoyment of God’s provision. As a believer in Christ, you have God’s rest in terms of your salvation. But you may not be experiencing that rest in your daily life because you have not accepted the yoke of discipleship. You have peace with God because you are saved, but you may not be enjoying the peace of God that comes with being His disciple.

The same can be said of joy, power, and a lot of other blessings in the Christian life. It’s not that these things aren’t available to us. The problem is that we are not yoked to the One who can give them to us. The yoke implies a different level of commitment. Matthew 11:28 is an invitation to salvation. Verse 29 is an invitation to the fellowship of discipleship.

THE MOVEMENT TOWARD MATURITY

If discipleship is a process of spiritual development, what’s the goal toward which we are to develop? It is spiritual maturity—becoming a full-grown, well-developed disciple of Jesus Christ.

Measuring Your Growth toward Maturity

Paul wrote to the Christians at Corinth, “I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual men, but as to men of flesh, as to infants in Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:1). The biblical term for a mature Christian is “spiritual.” Paul expected the Corinthians to be maturing in the faith, but instead they were still acting like spiritual babies. Paul had gone to Corinth and led these people to Christ about A.D 50. It was now about five years later, so he said, “You’ve had time to become mature by now, but you have not used your time well for spiritual development.”

This passage brings up a very simple formula or guideline for spiritual growth: rate multiplied by time equals distance. That is, the rate at which you grow in your spiritual life in the time you have been a believer determines the distance you will travel down the road of discipleship toward spiritual maturity.

A newborn Christian who dives into the Word and the things of God rather than spending his or her time on other things may burst from the starting blocks and arrive at spiritual maturity faster than a person who has been saved for ten years but is still struggling with the basics of the faith. It’s the rate of growth that makes the difference—and by the way, if you really want to pick up your spiritual pace, run with someone who is faster than you, who can set a brisk pace. That’s really what discipleship is all about. You cannot run the Christian life alone and run it with any speed or with much real endurance.

The good news is that even though you may have started off slowly, or started fast and then stumbled, you can get back in the race toward spiritual maturity. And I have even better news than that: No matter how you may have messed up, you can still cross the finish line a winner. The issue in the Christian race is not how you start, but how you finish (see Hebrews 3:14).

First Corinthians 3:1 is important because it helps you determine how far along you are in your progress toward maturity. It’s part of a longer context concerning spiritual growth (2:14–3:3). Here Paul identifies four categories of people with respect to the spiritual life.

The first category is the “natural man [who] does not accept the things of the Spirit of God” (2:14). This is the non-Christian, a person living by this world’s system who has no capacity to receive spiritual truth. If you realize you are in this category as you read this book, the spiritual necessity for you is to come to Christ and be saved.

But chances are that you are already a believer, so one of Paul’s next three categories applies to you. The second category is the spiritual man or woman (2:15), the person who “appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one.” This is the other end of the spiritual spectrum.

The spiritual person is a mature, well-developed disciple. The reason that non-Christians can’t “appraise” or understand such a person is that they don’t have the “mind of Christ” (v. 16). But the mind of Christ—the ability to live life from God’s perspective, the capacity to think God’s thought after Him—is available to every true believer. A mature disciple is able to make divinely informed choices. Paul is saying, “The spiritual person is able to look at, understand, and figure out life from a divine standpoint because he has the mind of Christ.”

The third category the apostle identifies in this text is “infants in Christ” (3:1). The baby Christian is someone who is brand-new in the faith. Newborn Christians cannot be mature. That’s an impossibility. They can be on fire and growing like crazy spiritually, but they cannot be full grown.

Paul’s fourth and final category is the “fleshly” or carnal Christian (3:2–3). The difference between a carnal Christian and a baby Christian is that the carnal believer has had time to mature, like the Corinthians. He should know how to live with a heavenly perspective, but instead he thinks and acts like a non-Christian. He makes little progress toward spiritual maturity. This person has not responded to the invitation and challenge to become a disciple.

The Necessity of Moving toward Maturity

Lest we think progressing toward mature discipleship is a take-it-or-leave-it deal, consider Hebrews 5:11–12, where we read, “Concerning [Melchizedek] we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food.”

The writer of Hebrews had some spiritually nourishing wisdom to teach these believers about the Melchizedek priesthood of Christ, but they had “become dull.” Evidently, instead of growing they were regressing in their faith. This is important to see because if you aren’t going forward spiritually, you are going backward. There is no such thing as neutrality in the Christian life. You can’t go into a holding pattern and stay where you are until you decide to move.

Adults who can’t eat solid food are sick. And Christians who still need kindergarten language in order to understand the things of God are not growing. This was the Hebrews’ problem, because they had had enough time to be mature. In fact, the writer says that by the time of his letter they should have been mature enough to teach and disciple others. Every Christian has been saved to be an influencer—a teacher, a discipler—of another Christian.

But the Hebrews were regressing, so the writer continues in 5:13–14, “For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil.”

We are supposed to know which way is up spiritually because we’ve been trained—which is the word “gymnatized” we talked about earlier. We’re supposed to be mature because we’ve been practicing hard.

One critical truth about the process of spiritual growth is that it takes place from the inside out, as we see in 1 Thessalonians 5:23. Paul wrote, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The order is important here. As the Holy Spirit empowers the human spirit, the spirit transforms the soul (personality). The transformed soul then transforms the activity of the body, thus conforming the person’s conduct to the image of Christ, which is the essence of discipleship. This is why there is so much emphasis in the New Testament on abiding in Christ (see John 15:4–8). As intimacy with Christ is maintained, the transforming process is ignited and enhanced.

The Resources for Our Growth

God has provided four key resources to help us in this process of spiritual growth toward becoming mature disciples of Jesus Christ:

1.  Scripture provides the authoritative, objective truth to govern our choices and decision-making.

2.  The Holy Spirit empowers Christians to obey the demands of Scripture as they live “under the influence of,” or full of the Spirit (see Ephesians 5:18), which is accomplished as we make worship a lifestyle and not just an event (vv. 19–21).

3.  God uses trials to reveal to us our strengths and weaknesses so that we can see the areas that still need work. Trials, while painful, are like a good surgeon’s knife, always designed to make us better (see James 1:2–5).

4.  God gives us relationships so that the spiritual passion of others keeps us spiritually hot and the discipleship process is kept on track.

The result of these divine provisions is conformity to the image of Christ, demonstrated by the disciple producing of the fruit of the Spirit (see Galatians 5:16–25) and by a new ability to perceive and understand God’s will for our lives so we can fulfill His kingdom agenda for us.

The apostle Paul believed that spiritual maturity was achievable for every believer. His goal was “to present every man complete in Christ” (Colossians 1:28). He believed that in the corporate setting of the local church at Colossae, each individual member could grow to maturity in Christlikeness. Nothing is said about programs, meetings, strategies, and activities that needed to be devised in order to bring about the spiritual development of these disciples. Instead, Scripture gives us a picture of believers coming together to learn about Christ together.

This is true, I believe, not because there is no place in church for these other things, but rather because the essence of discipleship is our experience with Jesus Christ. Discipleship, then, is more than the sum total of our religious activities. It is coming to know Christ and having the completeness of His life worked out in us (see Colossians 2:9–10). To be sure, such maturity, while guaranteed, is not automatic. The individual believer bears a responsibility.

THE DOMAIN OF DISCIPLESHIP

In Colossians 1:13–14, the apostle Paul wrote, “For He [God] rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” If you are a Christian, God has placed you in an entirely new environment, the kingdom of His beloved Son. You can’t be a disciple of the King until you first enter His realm.

John 3 tells the familiar story of Nicodemus, whom we might call a model person. He was a Jewish Pharisee, but he had a Greek name. In that culture, giving a Jewish boy a Greek name meant that his parents were high society, living in “tall cotton,” well cultured. So Nicodemus had culture and wealth. As a Pharisee, he was also at the top of the pile religiously. Nicodemus seemed to have it all, but Jesus said, “You must be born again” (John 3:7).

Citizens of a New Kingdom

Getting into God’s Kingdom has nothing to do with what side of town you live on or how often you go to church. It requires a new spiritual birth. That’s the only way you get a passport to the kingdom. This spiritual rebirth comes by placing your faith in Jesus Christ alone as your personal Sin-Bearer because of His substitutionary death on the cross and His victorious resurrection from the dead (see Romans 10:9–10).

When I travel, I have a passport that gives me access to other nations. If you have been born “from above” (a better translation than “again”) by personal faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ, your sins are forgiven and God has given you a passport into His kingdom. Your passport is the blood of Jesus, and it gets you into His domain. What’s it like there? Romans 14:17 says the kingdom of God is not food and drink but “righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” It’s a spiritual realm.

Paul says we are now citizens of another kingdom, which is owned by another King (see Philippians 3:20; 1 Timothy 1:17). Our obligation and allegiance is not to this world system that leaves God out, but to His kingdom.

When we go to ball games, we stand and sing the national anthem, giving honor to our country. We do so because we are Americans. What would people say about an American who announces, “I am not going to sing that song or honor that flag”? Most people would say that person needs to move on to another country because his allegiance is not to the kingdom called the United States of America.

Every day when you and I wake up we should say, “I pledge allegiance to Christ and to the cross on which He died to forgive my sins.” We owe our allegiance to the kingdom of God. That’s why we are trying to learn His kingdom agenda. Is it possible for believers to miss the kingdom in their personal spiritual growth? It is—not in terms of salvation, but in terms of discipleship. It happens when we become busy trying to be entertained by the world instead of setting our eyes on Christ.

At the huge state fair of Texas, they have a lot of sideshows featuring all manner of oddities. We used to visit them when the kids were small. But I don’t go to the sideshows anymore, for a very simple reason. They aren’t worth the price of admission. They use mirrors to make that alligator look huge, and the so-called half man, half animal is just a man dressed up in a crazy outfit.

That’s what the world’s system is like. It will promise you a great sideshow, but after you have taken a peek, you realize it isn’t what was advertised. The Bible says: “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world” (1 John 2:15–16). The world will give you a sideshow, but it won’t give you life or purpose or direction because you belong to a different realm, a spiritual kingdom.

Committing to the Kingdom

You may say, “Tony, I’m a Christian, but I don’t have a sense that I am living in this spiritual domain.” Perhaps that’s because you have not fully committed yourself to your new domain. Let me illustrate.

A man once became lost in the desert. His throat was parched, and he knew he wouldn’t live much longer if he didn’t get some water. Just then, off in the distance, he saw a little old shack. He made his way to it and found a pump inside with a jug of water sitting next to it. He reached for the jug to take a drink only to find this note on the jug: “The pump will give you all the water you need. But in order to prime the pump, you must pour in all the water in the jug.”

This man had a dilemma. Should he drink the water in the jug and then be out of water and perhaps be unable to get more, or should he believe the note and use the water he had to prime the pump?

He began to think through his choices. “Suppose I pour all my water in the pump and nothing happens? I not only lose the water; I may lose my life. On the other hand, if there is a well underneath this pump and I use the water to prime it, then I can get all the water I need.”

This thirsty man’s dilemma is the question we have to ask ourselves as disciples. Do we get all we can get now because there might not be much later, or do we give up what we can get now because of all that’s available if we are willing to take the risk of committing ourselves to Christ?

The man thought for a moment and then decided to take the risk. He poured the contents of the jug into the pump and began to work the handle. Sweat broke out on his forehead as nothing happened at first. But as he pumped, a few drops of water appeared, and then came a huge gush. He drank all he wanted, took a bath, and then filled up every other container he could find in the shack. Because he was willing to give up momentary satisfaction, the man got all the water he needed.

Now the note also said, “After you have finished, please refill the jug for the next traveler.” The man refilled the jug and added to the note, “Please prime the pump. Believe me, it works.”

We need to prime the pump. Some of us are half-stepping on Christ. We’re trying to live in two worlds at the same time. We want to be sacred and secular, worldly and spiritual. We want to love God and love this world order. But my charge to you to remember is this: you can have the world if you want it—you just can’t have the world and God. And anything the world can give you is not worth the price of admission.

You have to pour out all the water—give God everything you have—if you want God to pour His covenantal blessings back on you. Only in the domain of the kingdom will you discover God’s abundance and power to experience personal victory.

CHAPTER NINE

YOUR KINGDOM CALLING

Maybe you have heard about the man who once said that he was dying to finish high school so he could go to college. But then when he got to college, he said he was dying to finish so he could start his career. Then when he got to his career, he said he was dying to finish it so he could start his retirement. And now that he’s in his retirement, he has discovered that he has gotten so old he is just plain dying, having never gotten around to truly living.

Many Christians today are living life in falsetto—just out of range. Maybe you are one of them, and a sense of calling has somehow eluded you. Rather than reflecting the brilliance of the noonday sun, your life has become more like the flicker of a candle.

Some people will spend their entire lives trying to climb the ladder of success, only to discover once they reach the top that their ladder was leaning against the wrong wall. And the top of the ladder isn’t all that it was cracked up to be, anyway. A sense of emptiness, purposelessness, and restlessness nags at so many people today. That’s one reason so many men like to wear sports jerseys with other men’s names and numbers on them. They simply have not discovered how to find and fulfill the calling of their own name and number as a kingdom man. They lack their own sense of substance, significance, dignity, greatness, and reason for being.

Yet, God is a God of purpose. All throughout Scripture, God does what He does because He has a reason for doing it. He is a King over an intentional kingdom. As a follower of His and a subject in His kingdom, you are also a person of purpose. You have not been placed on earth simply to meander through the days and nights of your lifetime.

Too many of us merely exist rather than live as if we are called by God to a higher purpose. We work for a living, but never get around to working for a life. We suffer from the “same old, same old” disease.

Does this ever sound like you? Every morning you get up out of that same old bed. You go to that same old bathroom and look in that same old mirror at that same old face. You go to that same old closet to choose from those same old clothes.

Then you go to that same old table in the kitchen to eat that same old breakfast. You get up and walk to that same old garage, get in that same old car, and head down that same old road to arrive at that same old job. There you do that same old work for that same old pay.

At the end of the day you head back down that same old road, pull into that same old garage, and walk into that same old house. You sit down in that same old chair to watch those same old programs on that same old television. Or you surf that same old Internet.

At dinnertime, you pull up to that same old table and eat that same old dinner from those same old dishes. Then you fall into that same old bed so you can wake up the next day and start that same old routine again.

Where is the sense of calling and purpose in a life like that? Where is the sense that when you go to bed tonight you are going to wake up tomorrow on the next leg of an epic adventure far greater than anything you could have ever scripted yourself? That epic adventure God is calling you and me to pursue is the kingdom of God and His kingdom agenda. If you settle for anything less than that, you miss God’s reason for redeeming you and leaving you here on earth.

Do you ever feel like you could use a little bit of caffeine in your Christian cup? Then what you are lacking may be clarity on your Christian calling. Because when you live out your calling, when you are fulfilling your destiny, you will experience God’s energizing and eternal power in your life, while leveraging and maximizing your life’s fullest potential. The key to it all is finding and fulfilling your calling, which I define as the customized life purpose God has ordained and equipped you to accomplish in order to bring Him the greatest glory and achieve the maximum expansion of His kingdom.

You may want to review that definition a time or two before reading on. It is foundational to everything we are going to talk about in this chapter. A divine calling always has to do with God’s glory, with fulfilling His kingdom agenda. It involves the display of who you are in such a way that your life puts God’s kingdom in full view for others to see. It’s like the display windows of Saks Fifth Avenue in New York City. Those windows line the street in front of the store so that passers-by can catch a glimpse of what is inside this “kingdom” called Saks. The owners make a major investment in the mannequins and display items in these windows in order to showcase to the outside world what their kingdom has to offer.

God has invested His image in you as His child and placed you on display. You are to reflect Him and His kingdom through your calling in such a remarkable fashion that people want to know more about the kingdom you represent. That is your destiny, which means that if you and I are not advancing God’s kingdom and bringing Him glory, we have not yet found our calling. Let’s look at several aspects of a calling that will help to flesh out this definition.

A CUSTOMIZED LIFE CALLING

First, God’s calling is customized for you. It is uniquely designed to help you reflect God’s purpose for your life. This is why everyone must “work out” his or her own salvation (see Philippians 2:12). Keep in mind that you are the only you who will ever exist. You aren’t off the rack; you are custom made, rare and very special.

Nobody else has your specific calling. Once you realize that, you will realize that you do not need to try and be someone else. Why would you want to be someone else anyhow? God already has one of them. If you become one of them, then God doesn’t have one of you. What’s more, you will never feel more alive than when you are carrying out the calling He has specifically designed for you.

But if you do not pursue and live out your calling, you will spend your entire life wishing that you were someone else, trying to be someone that you are not. If you are not happy with who you are, it is because you have not yet discovered who you are in Christ. Just as your fingerprints and DNA are uniquely yours, your calling is uniquely yours as well. That truth ought to have an impact on how you view and respond to that which is going on around you.

One reason people can’t find their calling is because they are trying to make the call themselves, to determine their own calling. But a calling always assumes a caller. If your phone is ringing, someone is calling you. You are not calling yourself.

Listening for God’s Call

One of the foundational steps to living out your calling is to understand that God is the caller and you are the “callee.” God is the manufacturer, and you are the design. God is the Creator, you are the created. That being so, you can never discover your destiny apart from God. It is impossible.

The biblical character who best exemplifies this is Moses. When he was forty years old, Moses fled from Egypt after killing an Egyptian (see Exodus 2:11–15). God would later call Moses to lead Israel out of slavery in Egypt, but for another forty years Moses had settled for being a shepherd. He had made some mistakes, he had failed, and he had settled for hanging out with sheep on the backside of a desert.

Moses wasn’t yet ready for his calling, because there was something else he needed first. So when he came to Horeb, “the mountain of God” (Exodus 3:1), he encountered God. The story continues:

The angel of the LORD appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet the bush was not consumed. So Moses said, “I must turn aside now and see this marvelous sight, why the bush is not burned up.” When the LORD saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush, and said, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” (Exodus 3:2–4)

If you want to know your calling, don’t go “calling-looking.” Go God-looking. God knows where He wants you, what He is calling you to do, when He wants you to do it, and how He wants it done. Therefore, if you want to find your calling, look for God. When you find God, His calling will find you.

In other words, God’s calling for your life will come out of your relationship with Him. If there is no relationship, you will not come to know what your calling is all about. Moses met God at a burning bush because he came to the mountain where God was hanging out. Now Moses didn’t know he was going to meet God that day, but he was in God’s presence.

Knowing the One Who Is Calling

If you want to know your calling, you have to go where God is. If you never have time to go before the face of God, to spend in His Word, or to be around His people, you will never find your calling. We spend so much time doing things that may be okay within themselves, but rob us of time in God’s presence. When you encounter God, He will lead you to your calling. Your calling finds you when you find God.

I can attest to that. As a teenager, I thought that football was my sole purpose for living. Yet God continued to call out to me and draw me close to Himself through my parents’ godly examples, through the church, and even through the programs of Bible teachers that my father would have playing on the radio all the time at home. It was in the midst of serving God alongside my father that I began to take steps to know God more intimately for myself.

On one particular evening, God led me to an evangelistic crusade in a nearby town where the great preacher B. Sam Hart was holding services. The next thing I knew I was there under the tent, asking God, “What do You want me to do for You with the rest of my life?”

I was already a Christian and serving God here or there, but my main focus was still on me and my desire to play football. But when God found me that day and called me into His service, He set into motion a series of events that would detour me radically from the direction I wanted to go. My calling found me because I was in God’s presence.

When I was under that tent, it was as if nobody else was under there but God and me. It was as if God called my name and singled me out. I knew that day that God was calling me into His service for the remainder of my time on earth, and I have never looked back. It was just an ordinary tent and an ordinary day, but it was an extraordinary moment in my life. I heard God’s call because I was listening to His Word.

At the burning bush, Moses saw God in a unique way. It was an ordinary bush, but it wasn’t an ordinary day. When God shows up, any old bush will do, because when God shows up, He turns the ordinary into the extraordinary. That’s the essence of a calling—when God shows up in your life in an extraordinary way.

God was about to give Moses his calling. But Moses did not get God’s program until he responded to God’s Person. The person precedes the program. Relationship precedes the calling. It’s not enough to get on your knees and say, “Lord, show me my calling; show me Your program,” when your relationship with Him is in disrepair. If you don’t relate to His Person, God won’t trust you with His program.

A husband and wife who try to go out on a date when they are not getting along are in for a miserable evening trying to accomplish a program when the relationship is ruptured. When the relationship is repaired, the program is a lot easier and a lot sweeter. God doesn’t want you showing up only when you want something from Him. He wants an ongoing relationship with you.

Luke 10:38–42 is a textbook example of what I’m talking about. It’s the story of Martha and Mary and a dinner for Jesus. Martha had a program to accomplish. She was cooking dinner for Jesus and the apostles—twelve preachers and her Lord. So here’s Martha, cooking fried chicken—the gospel bird—for these preachers. Sweat is running down her face, and Mary is nowhere to be found. Martha goes and looks in the den, and there Mary is, sitting at Jesus’ feet. Martha gets irritated because Mary is more interested in the Person of Christ than she is in Martha’s dinner program. So Martha complains, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me [because I’m not talking to her right now]” (my paraphrase of v. 40).

Jesus said, “Martha, Martha.”

Watch out whenever Jesus calls your name twice! He said, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41–42).

Jesus was saying, “Martha, a simple casserole will do. Just cook one dish, then come sit at My feet. Mary has chosen to make Me more important than your cooking program. She is better off out here with Me than you are there in the kitchen.”

Jesus knew that if He sent Mary into the kitchen with Martha, He would have two frustrated women on His hands. But if Mary stayed with Him, He would have somebody whose life was focused on Him. I’ll say it again. God wants a relationship with you before He is willing to give you His program.

A Personalized Commitment

But once you put the Person of Christ ahead of the program, you get a personalized calling. Notice back in Exodus 3 that Jesus called Moses by name. Moses’ call came out of a personal commitment. That’s the message of Romans 12:1–2, which we have looked at previously. Paul said if you are going to know God’s will for your life, your calling in His kingdom, then God must own all of you. God is not impressed with a two-hour visit on Sunday. He wants to own your life.

As you recall, Paul spoke in Romans 12:1 of the need for us to be a living sacrifice. That’s an oxymoron; sacrifices were put to death. How can you be a living dead thing? Paul explained it in one of my favorite verses: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me” (Galatians 2:20).

Paul considered himself to be a living dead person, because he was dead to his own life and his plans and alive to God’s. So if you asked, “Paul, what are your dreams?” he would say, “I don’t know. Dead people don’t dream.”

“Paul, what are your goals?”

“I don’t know. Dead people don’t set goals.”

“Paul, what about your future?”

“Dead people don’t have a future.”

But if you changed the question and asked, “Paul, what about God’s goal for you?” he would say, “We can talk about that!” Paul had defined the totality of his life through his commitment to Jesus Christ. That’s why you couldn’t intimidate Paul.

People came to Paul one day and said, “Paul, we are going to kill you.”

He answered, “That’s cool. For me, to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21b).

“All right, then, we’re going to let you live.”

“That’s cool, too. For me, to live is Christ” (Philippians 1:21a).

“Well, since you’re so cool about everything, we are going to beat you and make you suffer.”

“That’s also cool, because I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed in me” (a paraphrase of Romans 8:18). It didn’t matter to Paul what happened. It was all Christ to him.

THE CERTAINTY OF YOUR CALLING

Why does God want the totality of your life before He shows you your calling?

We have an answer in John 7:16–17, where Jesus said, “My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me. If anyone is willing to do His will, he will know of the teaching, whether it is of God or whether I speak from Myself.”

You must be willing to do God’s will before you know His will. Many of us say to God, “Show me what You want me to do, and I will let You know whether I am into that or not. Let me know the plan, and I will tell You whether I plan to do it.”

No, no, God’s plan is not up for negotiation. God is only going to reveal your calling to you when you are committed to doing it ahead of time. God will not negotiate His will.

As Romans 12:1–2 says, you must give all of yourself to God and none of yourself to the world system that wants independence from God. God says if we conform to this world, He will not reveal His calling for our lives. We must say, as Moses said to God at the burning bush, “Here I am” (Exodus 3:4). In other words, “What do You want of me, Lord? I am ready to obey.”

In Mark 8:34–36, Jesus made one of the most profound statements in all of Scripture: “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul?”

We have already talked about what it means to deny yourself and carry your cross. Here, Jesus adds the teaching about saving and losing your life. How do you save your life, yet lose it? By going after the world. When you do that you forfeit your life, because life consists of more than the stuff you accumulate.

Many people have a house but no longer have a home. Many people have money but don’t have peace. Many people have plans but don’t have any purpose. This principle of saving and losing your life is fixed. It’s another way of saying you can’t find God’s calling for your life when you’re busy trying to save it by gaining the world.

Giving yourself totally to God is giving Him full power over your life. When you do that, you experience the abundant life He has promised to give you. When I committed my life to God’s calling for me at the age of eighteen, I had no idea what God had in mind. All I knew was, “Whatever You want me to do, Lord, however You want me to do it, wherever You want it done, I am Yours.” Then the Holy Spirit took over, and God began unfolding a series of events that have brought me to this point.

When you lose your life for Christ’s sake, God will reveal His calling to you, and the puzzle of life will begin to come together.

Putting the Pieces Together

My oldest daughter, Chrystal, was a puzzle fanatic when she was younger. She was always putting puzzles together. One day I brought home a one-thousand-piece puzzle. Chrystal was excited. She took the puzzle and went to her room, but came back a couple of hours later looking very upset. “Daddy, why did you buy me this puzzle? It has too many pieces!”

Life is like that. It has too many pieces. If you try to put them together by yourself, you will only become frustrated. It you want to put the pieces of your life together, God must own you. He is the One who holds the finished image of your calling. Putting together a puzzle without seeing the finished picture on the box is nearly impossible. Look to Him, because He knows where He is taking you.

Many Christians live with a feeling of insignificance because they cannot see how they relate to the larger, comprehensive puzzle called God’s purpose. You may be a fancy piece, a pretty piece, a handsome piece, or a well-crafted piece, but until you connect to the greater meaning for which you were created, you are just a piece of the puzzle without the picture.

The picture that God has created us all to form is the maximizing of His glory and the expansion of His kingdom through the impact of our good works (see Ephesians 2:10). Good works can be defined as biblically authorized activities that benefit people for time and eternity for which God gets the glory. If you are a Christian, whatever you are called to do will achieve both of those things. To fulfill your calling means that the presence of God is being manifested in history to a greater degree because of what you do.

Every Christian has a piece to add to God’s puzzle called the kingdom. As a child of God, you have been rescued “from the domain of darkness, and transferred … to the kingdom of His beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13). That means that everything you do has now become kingdom activity, even if what you are doing is considered by the world to be secular activity. There is no distinction any longer between what is secular and what is sacred when you are a kingdom-minded person, because everything is sacred when it comes under the overarching rule of the King in His kingdom.

So if you are a mother and you are washing dishes for your family, you wash them sacredly. If you are a computer programmer, you do your programming sacredly. “Whether, then, you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31).

Finding and Fulfilling Your Calling

But you may say, “It’s too late for me to find God’s calling, Tony. I’ve already made too many mistakes.”

Well, Moses was a murderer. I doubt if you’ve ever killed anyone, yet God still met Moses at the burning bush. God transformed Moses and called him into His service to accomplish His will. So how do you get started finding and fulfilling your calling?

Work Out Your Salvation

First, you are to work out your own salvation, as we read earlier in Philippians 2. Verses 12–13 are another of those seminal passages for understanding the call of God on your life. Paul wrote, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

Notice first that you have something to do when it comes to discerning God’s call. You can’t live off what your mother did for the Lord. You can’t make it on your father’s faith. You need to find the calling of God for your life.

Others can certainly help you in the process. Get all the information you can. But then you need to go on your face before God, asking Him to show you what He wants you to do. You cannot piggyback on another believer’s experience to find your calling.

Remember That God Is at Work in You

But notice what else Paul said here. Your work will not be in vain because God is also at work in you. Paul was not talking about working to become a Christian. You are saved by grace, but once you are saved God works in you in order to work through you.

So you are at work, and God is at work. Your responsibility is to commit yourself to God and seek His will. You don’t just wake up one morning and find your calling. You have to go through the process. But God meets you in the process.

You Need to Respond

Let’s go back to Moses again. He has seen an extraordinary sight: a bush is burning, yet it is not consumed. We read in Exodus 3 that when Moses stopped to look at the burning bush, God called to him. But God didn’t call him until Moses responded. If you don’t respond to what God shows you, He won’t show you any more. If you don’t respond to the light He gives you, don’t ask for more light.

One day I gave my younger son, Jonathan, three dollars for lunch money. He lost it, so he came to me and said, “Daddy, I need five dollars for lunch.”

There was something wrong here. I had given him three dollars, and he had lost it. But instead of asking me for three dollars again, he wanted five dollars. He wanted back the money that he lost—and more. That did not compute.

You cannot waste what God gives you and then ask Him for more. Many of us go before the face of God wanting big stuff, when we have not yet said yes to the little things He has commanded us to do. God won’t be used that way. If God cannot trust us to respond correctly with what He gives us, we don’t need to be asking Him for more.

We pray, “Lord, lead me in my career; show me the calling that You have for me. Give me direction in my life.”

God’s response is, “Are you willing to look at the bush?”

The biblical principle is this: “Whoever has, to him shall more be given; and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has shall be taken away from him” (Luke 8:18). That’s what Jesus said. So do not shun God when He speaks to your heart, because He is preparing to take you to the next level.

Moses responded, and then he heard the call. God’s voice came from the midst of the bush: “Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground” (Exodus 3:5).

Why did Moses have to take off his sandals? Because when you are standing in the presence of God, even a quarter-inch of leather is too high. When you come into His presence, you go as low as you can possibly get. God demands humility if He is going to show you your calling in His kingdom. As long as you can do it all by yourself, you don’t need God. And if you don’t need God to do whatever it is you are doing, then it can’t be His calling because God’s calling on your life will always be greater than anything you could ever accomplish on your own.

God wants you to acknowledge this and come before Him humbly. When you approach Him with your spiritual shoes off, admitting that you have no reason to be elevated in His sight, God will speak to you. He will lead you into the calling He has divinely ordained for your life.

Let me show you how Moses’ forty years of learning humility in the desert changed things for him when it came to God’s calling. As Moses stood before the bush, God told him, in essence, “I am going to deliver My people Israel from Egypt, and I am sending you to Pharaoh to be their deliverer” (see Exodus 3:7–10). Moses’ response was, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?” (v. 11).

Forty years earlier, Moses would have said, “You got it, Lord. Pharaoh doesn’t know who he is dealing with. I am the man. I’m going to go and take God along with me, and we’re going to wipe out Pharaoh.” But Moses had been humbled. Now he wasn’t so sure of himself.

Let me tell you a secret. God will do whatever it takes to humble you and me, even if it hurts. This is because God hates nothing more than pride. So Moses, the formerly proud man, said, “Who, me?”

Now we have a small problem. Moses has humbled himself, he has responded to God, and God has revealed Moses’ calling to him. But Moses is overwhelmed by what God is asking him to do, and he begins to back off. He feels inadequate. In Exodus 3:13, Moses asks, “I am going to the sons of Israel, and I will say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you.’ Now they may say to me, ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them?”

A Powerful Provision

What a great answer God gave Moses: “‘I AM WHO I AM’; and He said, ‘Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, “I AM has sent me to you”’” (v. 14). That’s a very powerful phrase. “I AM WHO I AM” is the personal name of God, the one we transliterate as Yahweh. Notice that the name is in the present tense. This is the God who is ever in the present tense.

Now, whenever you or I say, “I am,” that only covers today. If we were talking about yesterday, we would have to say, “I was.” And if we were talking about tomorrow, we would have to say, “I will be.”

But not God. He is never “I was” or “I will be.” He is the eternal “I AM.” God has no past, no beginning. And He has no future, no ending. Everything is in the eternal present with Him. This name means that God is self-existent and self-sufficient. When God wants help, He looks to Himself. When God wants praise, He looks to Himself. He invites us to praise Him, but He doesn’t need it. When God wants to do something, He looks to Himself. He is the great I AM.

God is saying to Moses, “You can fulfill your calling because I AM your sufficiency. I AM whatever you need. If you need a miracle, I AM your miracle. If you need help, I AM your help. If you need power, I AM your power. If you need strength, I AM your strength. I AM whatever you need.”

Moses was in good company here. The Bible is full of stories of men and women who were called by God to do difficult and even impossible things and found the great I AM to be sufficient.

The patriarch Joseph was called, but his calling didn’t mean an easy life. He was sold into slavery in Egypt by his brothers. He was falsely accused by the wife of his Egyptian master. He was thrown into jail and languished there for years. But if Joseph were here today, he would repeat the testimony he gave his brothers in Genesis 50:20: “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.” God empowered Joseph to fulfill his calling, which ultimately was to save his family from death.

If John Mark were here, he would tell you about God’s sufficiency to fulfill his calling. John Mark went out with Paul and Barnabas as an associate in the ministry. But he did a Benedict Arnold on Paul’s first missionary journey and went back home to Mama when the going got tough (see Acts 13:13).

So when it came time to go on their second missionary journey, Paul said to Barnabas, “I can’t use John Mark anymore. He might go left on me.” But Barnabas stepped in and gave John Mark another chance to do God’s work (see Acts 15:36–40). And even though John Mark had messed up, he found grace from the Lord and became a valuable worker, even to Paul (see 2 Timothy 4:11). John Mark—we know him just as Mark—got a second chance on his calling, and he made good on it. So good that there’s a book in the Bible that bears his name.

The apostle Peter was called, but he denied the Lord three times. He had to get “recalled” three times into God’s service (see John 21:15–17), and this time he didn’t fail.

The biblical story of Esther is about a beautiful woman whose beauty and background God used to accomplish His destiny for her life. Because of her beauty, Esther was chosen by King Ahasuerus as his new bride. Yet once she moved into the big house and got used to the money, cars, clothes, and lifestyle, a plot was made to bring about genocide on her people, the Jews. Apparently Esther had gotten so used to her new way of life, though, that she didn’t feel like risking it in order to help her people.

This is when Esther’s uncle, Mordecai, had to remind her of her purpose. He said, “Do not imagine that you in the king’s palace can escape any more than all the Jews. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:13–14).

In other words, “Esther, moving uptown had a purpose. It wasn’t just about getting you out of the ‘hood.’ Being pretty had a purpose. It wasn’t just about you falling in love. God has put you in a strategic position at a strategic time to fulfill a strategic purpose that reaches beyond just shopping and customizing your wardrobe.” Esther needed to look at her life in terms of her calling, not merely in terms of her money, status, image, house, and relationships. She was to view it in terms of her reason for being in connection with God’s kingdom and His agenda.

A person who is serious about fulfilling the reason they have been placed on earth will learn to view all of life through the grid of God’s intentions. That worldview will then impact their decisions.

GOD HAS YOUR CALLING READY

If you know Jesus Christ as Savior, God has a calling for you today.

You say, “But I don’t know what my calling is.” That’s all right. Just go to the Caller and tell Him you’re ready to be called, and He will reveal your calling when it is time for you to know it. It’s His call, after all.

The story is told that legendary baseball umpire Bill Klem was working behind home plate one day when a runner came sliding into home amid a huge cloud of dust. The catcher slapped the tag on the runner, and Klem jumped up to make the call.

But Klem hesitated for a second, and everyone started yelling. The runner and his team started shouting that he was safe. The catcher and his team screamed that the runner was out. The players all crowded around Klem yelling, “Safe!” “Out!” “Safe!” “Out!”

Finally, someone asked Klem, “What is he, safe or out?” Klem, who was known for running a game with an iron hand, growled back, “He ain’t nothing until I say what he is!”

Bill Klem was right. The call belongs to the one who is in charge. Your responsibility is to be available to God when He wants to call you. As you trust in Him instead of your own understanding (Proverbs 3:5), He will show you step-by-step, moment-by-moment, what you are supposed to do and where you are supposed to do it.

I don’t know what God has called you to do. But I know He wants you to come to Him and say, “Whatever You call me to do, I will do. You make the call.” Do that, and then hang on for an epic adventure of power, purpose, and peace.

One of the most noted catchers of all time was Yogi Berra of the New York Yankees. Yogi was always talking to batters, trying to distract them from the task of hitting. One day, an equally legendary player, Hank Aaron, came to bat. Yogi started to try and distract him. He told Hank that he would do better as a hitter if he would just hold the bat the right way. “Hank, you’re supposed to hold the bat so you can read the trademark. You’re holding it wrong,” Yogi said.

Hank growled, “I didn’t come up here to read,” and hit the very next pitch into the bleachers for a home run.

When you know your customized life calling, then other people can no longer throw you off track. Circumstances can no longer distract or deter you. Rather than striking out at the home plate of life, you will fulfill the reason God has positioned you in His kingdom. You will circle all of the bases before you reach your final Home.

CHAPTER TEN

YOUR KINGDOM MIND

One disease that becomes more unsettling to me every time I hear about it is Alzheimer’s. Somehow, this disease causes the mind to deteriorate in such a way that the victim loses the power to think clearly and control what he or she does. Alzheimer’s sufferers become incapacitated. They lose their ability to remember and recognize familiar people and things. As the disease advances, the victim’s mind loses the ability to tell the body what to do and how to function.

The result often is that the patient who develops Alzheimer’s is at the mercy of another person. Someone else must feed and clothe and lead the patient. One reason Alzheimer’s is so terrible is that it tends to have a dehumanizing effect on its victims because when the mind goes, virtually everything else goes with it.

A lot of believers are suffering from spiritual Alzheimer’s. This malady manifests itself in a deterioration of the proper application of the mind of Christ—what I would call a kingdom mind—that should be operating in every believer’s life. The result is a life that is no longer under Christ’s control.

A Christian who suffers from spiritual Alzheimer’s loses the ability to apply a spiritual mind to his or her daily life. He or she forgets how to think in terms of a kingdom agenda and develops a worldly mind. And when someone has a worldly mind they will do worldly things and develop worldly habits.

We need to talk about the mind in relation to God’s kingdom agenda, because if we can get our minds working properly, our souls and bodies will follow suit. Your greatest problem, and mine, is not what we do. Our greatest problem is the way we think. In order to transform what we do, we must first transform how we think. In the words of Scripture, “As [a person] thinks within himself, so he is” (Proverbs 23:7).

The mind is the key to our entire being, which is why the great challenge for us today is to develop a way of thinking that is in concert with the kingdom of which we have become a part.

THE NECESSITY OF A KINGDOM MIND

The first thing we need to understand is the necessity of having a kingdom mind. We looked at Isaiah 55:8 in a previous chapter, but it is very relevant to our topic here, so here it is again: “ ‘My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,’ declares the Lord.” How far apart are the two? As far as heaven is from earth (see v. 9)!

God’s Way of Thinking

Because God is transcendent and distinct from His creation, His way of approaching and analyzing an issue is not going to be your way. That’s why you need to develop the mind of the King. You need a kingdom way of thinking so that you can get God’s mind on the issues of your life. Whether we are talking about marriage, sex, money, children, or any other issue, God’s thinking on the subject will be different than the way this world thinks about it.

Your ability and your decision to develop a kingdom mind will also determine whether you taste victory or defeat in your daily spiritual life. Paul wrote in Romans 8:

Those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so. (vv. 5–7)

What you sow in your mind will come out through your mouth, your hands, and your feet. The body will express what is in the mind. That’s why we need to deal with the way we think. If we can transform our thoughts and bring our minds under the authority of Christ, we have laid the foundation for transforming our actions.

The Key to God’s Will

When you develop a kingdom mind, you will begin experiencing God’s will for your life. This is because God reveals His will to our minds. If you want to know God’s will, you need to give God your mind. He must be able to control your thoughts. The mind is to the soul what the brain is to the body—the control center. So if I am acting like a fool, it’s because I’m thinking like a fool. The same is true if I am acting ignorantly. But if I am acting “kingdomly,” carrying out a kingdom agenda, it’s because I am thinking with a kingdom mind.

When Lois and I first met, she didn’t like me that much. But I saw her and liked her. Besides, she was cooking fried chicken that day. So I thought we had a very, very good start!

Because she didn’t like me, I was trying to talk to her, but she wouldn’t even halfway talk. She was acting hard to get and all that kind of stuff. But she didn’t know who she was messing with! I knew I had to get into her mind. So I pulled out all that ancient rap I knew from the streets of Baltimore, and I poured it on Lois. I was rapping and trying to charm her and just making up all kinds of stuff.

I remember one time we went for a walk near Lois’s house and stood at a seawall with the ocean slapping up against it. It was evening, and the stars were out. I was naming stars, making up constellations, just rappin’ to try and impress Lois. I pointed to one star and said, “That star is probably sitting over my hometown of Baltimore, Maryland, right now.”

I should be embarrassed to tell you this! I had no idea what I was talking about. Despite that, my relationship with Lois went from “I don’t like him” to “He’s all right.” So I messed with her mind a little bit more. Then we moved from “He’s all right” to “He’s not that bad.” The next stage was “I kind of like him.” Then it was “I am in love with him,” and from there it was “I’ve got to have him.” When I got Lois’s mind, I got her, and she’s been by my side ever since.

My point is, when you change the mind, you can change the emotions and the actions. So if you really want to think like God thinks, to live in victory, and to know God’s will, fix your mind first. A kingdom mind is indispensable to a kingdom life.

THE NATURE OF A KINGDOM MIND

Next, let’s see the nature of a mind that operates by a kingdom mentality. In 1 Corinthians 2:9–11, we read:

“Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.” For to us God revealed them through the Spirit…. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.

Not Limited to Our Senses

The first thing Paul said about a kingdom mind is that it can grasp things that are outside the normal limitations of the human senses because it is illuminated by God’s Spirit. God can deal with kingdom-thinking people in realms beyond what the eyes can see and the ears can hear. In fact, when God takes possession of your mind the way He wants to and gives you a kingdom mentality, He can reveal stuff to you that would never enter a human mind left to itself.

All the good things God has prepared for us in this life are beyond our senses. His kingdom agenda reaches beyond what we can see or imagine or think. God sits outside of our human senses, so the mind set on Christ is not limited to what can be measured by the senses. That doesn’t mean God ignores or bypasses your human senses. But it means what you see, hear, and feel is not all that there is. What you think is not all there is.

There’s a very good reason that the person with a kingdom mind is not bound by human limitations. It’s called revelation. First Corinthians 2:10 says that we know the things of God because He has revealed them to us. Revelation gives us the “glasses” we need to see what is otherwise too far away for us.

Without this divine “visual assistance” called revelation, the kingdom would be very blurry for us. Without the mind of Christ, we would live our lives only by what we see up close. We need assistance to help us see life as it really is, so we can think kingdom thoughts and live kingdom lives.

A Divine Viewpoint

A kingdom mind is not only outside of human limitations, it also functions the very opposite of the way a natural, or unsaved, mind functions. Paul continued in 1 Corinthians 2: “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one” (vv. 14–15).

When I talk about a kingdom mind, I am talking about a mind that looks at all of reality from a spiritual or divine viewpoint. A person with a kingdom mind views life through the “glasses” of the Holy Spirit.

You have probably seen people who wear sunglasses only as a fashion accent. They even have a way of putting on their shades that tells you they are merely styling when they wear them. I’m afraid that some believers come to church for style. They’re looking the part, but their divine glasses are just a fashion accent. They’re not operating with a kingdom mind, so they’re not pursuing a kingdom agenda. Carrying your Bible under your arm doesn’t guarantee you a kingdom mind. Neither does going through religious rituals. You only have a kingdom mind when you sift all of your decisions through a divine mind-set.

When you have a kingdom mind and you face a decision, you raise certain questions. What does Christ think about this? How would He react to this? What does Christ want me to do here? Operating with a spiritual mentality links you up to God’s “Internet” so you can tap into His thinking on your decision.

This is diametrically opposed to the way the unsaved think. Paul tells us the natural person thinks spiritual things are foolishness. The unsaved person ridicules the things of the Spirit because he cannot understand them. He doesn’t have the antenna to receive them.

But since the natural mind is not our focus here, let’s talk about believers. Even we who have the antenna to receive the things of the Spirit can have technical problems. And if we don’t fix the problem, we can waste a lot of time and cause ourselves a lot of frustration fiddling with the wrong thing.

We were having problems with our television reception some years ago when antennas were still being used. I fooled with the buttons on the set, trying to get a good picture. I looked at the directions that came with the television. But no matter what I did, I couldn’t get clear reception. The reason is that I was starting in the wrong place. My problem was not with the TV, but on my roof. The repairman I had to call told me that my antenna had been knocked around by a recent storm. It needed to be turned back toward the signal.

That helped a lot, but it didn’t fix the trouble because, as the man told me, I had a second problem. Our house is in a gully amid lots of tall trees that were interfering with the signal. So the repairman had to put an extension on our antenna to lift it above the interference so it could receive the signal clearly. Once he turned and raised the antenna, the picture was fine.

It’s easy to fiddle with the buttons in our lives, trying to get a clear picture of life. But that’s starting in the wrong place. Until the antenna of your mind is turned toward the divine signal, messing with the other stuff won’t help. That signal is coming from a King who has a kingdom agenda for you, and when you get that signal straight, life’s picture will clear up.

You say, “Tony, I’m really trying to develop a kingdom mind. I really believe I have my antenna turned in the right direction, but the signal doesn’t seem to be coming through.”

Then maybe you’ve got too many trees around you blocking the reception. Daily stuff like a job, finances, family problems, houses that need paint, and cars that need tires can crowd out God’s signal. The answer is not to cut down the trees, but to raise your antenna above them. If you will get your mind lifted up above the “trees” of circumstances and other people and tuned to the divine signal, you will get the divine picture.

Now you can see why the unsaved person can’t do either one of these things. He doesn’t even have an antenna. But the problem is not just ignorance. According to Romans 1:18–23, unsaved people have corrupted their minds on purpose. They know the truth, but they suppress it so they can sin. Genesis 6:5 says that just before the flood, every thought of men’s minds was totally wicked. So God gave the unsaved over to a “depraved mind” (Romans 1:28).

We Have the Mind of Christ

What a contrast we see back in 1 Corinthians 2:16: “But we have the mind of Christ.” At conversion, you got a new mind. A new program on it was inserted into your soul through the life-giving work of the Holy Spirit. But some of us have been so used to running the old program that we have problems getting the new program installed and running. The solution is to make sure your spirit is plugged into God’s Spirit.

We’re not talking about salvation here, but about living like the kingdom people we are. Here’s what I mean. We read above in 1 Corinthians 2:11, “Who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.” Then Paul said in verse 12, “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God.”

The idea is this: Since no one knows God’s thoughts except God’s Spirit, and no one knows your thoughts except your spirit, the key is to link your spirit with God’s Spirit. To put it another way, if you want your thoughts to be saturated with God’s thoughts, then your spirit has to be in tune with His Spirit so that His thoughts are transferred to your thoughts.

THE BATTLE FOR YOUR MIND

The Communist government of China has special camps for political and religious prisoners whose thinking and ideas are considered a threat to the Marxist cause. A number of Chinese pastors and other Christian leaders have been sentenced to these camps, sometimes for years at a time.

The Chinese have an interesting term for this process. They say the prisoner is being sent to the camp for “re-education through labor,” a pitiful euphemism for an attempt to break prisoners down physically and reprogram their minds through propaganda. The idea is to do whatever it takes to try to remake the prisoner in the Communists’ image.

The Chinese government’s “re-education” camps operate on a principle that is taught in God’s Word, except that the Communists are using it for their twisted, evil purposes. The principle is this: If you want people to think in new ways and in different categories, you have to erase the old ways of thinking from their minds. Their minds must be reprogrammed.

The Chinese Communists are deadly serious about their program because they know that the survival of Marxism depends on capturing people’s minds. Even one pastor with a renewed mind, or a political leader who is committed to democracy, is a potential threat to their system.

We also have an enemy who seeks to influence, and even control, our minds. The more influence Satan has over your mind, the easier it is for him to take you down the wrong path and get you side-tracked from fulfilling God’s agenda for your life.

Since our minds are so crucial to our functioning as Christians, we must understand the relationship of our souls to our minds. This is necessary because your soul is what makes you who you are. Your soul is you. It comprises not only your mind, but also your emotions and will. These three gather together to make up what the Bible calls the soul.

You are not your body. Your body is simply a container for your soul. Your soul is your essence. When a person dies, the soul is what will either go to heaven or to hell. The key to experiencing a kingdom life takes place within our soul because our soul is what has been created for eternity.

Sin’s Effects on Our Souls

The problem with our souls is that they have been contaminated since birth because we are born in sin, making our souls distorted. Have you ever been to an amusement park and stood in front of the mirrors that make you look fat, super-skinny, tall, short, or crooked? This is what sin has done to our souls. To varying degrees, the effects of sin have engrafted themselves into our souls. The soul needs to be fixed, but the difficulty is that the soul can’t fix itself.

Most of the time, however, we are trying to do exactly this, but it works just about as well as getting distortion to fix distortion. I call this approach soul management, or the process of spending time, energy, and money trying to make our souls better. We make resolutions and promises that are tied to the soul and its influence on our bodies. We listen to sermons, follow our lists, and come up with plans on what we can do to manage our soul.

But distortion will always be distortion, no matter how well it is managed. What God offers is soul transformation. Sure, we might be able to manage certain parts of our soul for certain lengths of time to certain degrees, but our soul can never deliver itself, make itself better, or set itself free. Only Jesus can do that. Jesus died on the cross not just to take your soul to heaven, but also to deliver your soul in history.

But before deliverance can occur, a death must occur. Jesus said that if we want to be His disciples, we must “take up” our “cross daily” and follow Him (Luke 9:23). The cross symbolizes an instrument of death. In order for your soul to become fully alive, it must first die. And it will need to die daily. Every morning when you wake up, don’t think about how you can manage your soul. Instead, think about what part of your soul is not in alignment with God and ask Him to let that part die.

As long as you try to keep your soul alive, it will continue to be distorted. You will never experience the freedom in life that you were meant to experience by your Creator until your soul dies. The soul within you that needs to die is your self-life, your viewpoint on a matter, the thoughts that make up your mind.

The New Life Inside

Yet not only does your soul need to die, but a new life needs to grow within it. This new life first comes to you as a “seed.” When you trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior for the forgiveness of your sins, you received what the Bible calls a “seed” that is “imperishable” (1 Peter 1:23). This is your new nature.

But there are many Christians who have this seed and are still wondering why the Christian life doesn’t seem to be working. They try their hand at soul management, but end up being frustrated because the results are only temporary. The reason the seed is not working to bring about transformation is because the seed has not been allowed to expand.

The expansion of the seed affects the control of the soul. The self-life will continue to rule even though you have the Spirit’s new life within you, because the spirit life is still in seed form. Any time you have a seed that is not planted it will not express the life it has within it. A two-week-old embryo in a mother’s womb has all the DNA needed for a full-grown life. But that two-week-old embryo doesn’t express that life like a full-grown baby just after delivery, because the baby is the result of the seed expanded.

Be Quick to Hear, Slow to Speak

So how can we ensure that the new seed within us grows to maturity? The apostle James answers that question for us as he writes to his “beloved brethren” (James 1:19). That means what follows applies only to those who have trusted Christ for their salvation.

James follows his introduction with a command. He says everyone—so that includes all of us—must be “quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger” (v.19b). We need to ask, what should we be quick to hear and slow to speak about? We will find out a few verses later in the passage that we need to be quick to hear God’s point of view on a matter, and slow to speak our point of view on a matter. And when God’s point of view on a matter differs from what we think about the issue, we are told to be slow to get angry about it.

However, we often flip it and do the opposite. We are quick to espouse our viewpoint on a matter, and slow to hear God’s point of view. This is why we often go to everyone else first to find out what they think before we go to God to find out what He thinks.

Receive the Word Implanted

James continues, “Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls” (James 1:21). But wait a minute. These people are already saved. James just called them “beloved brethren.” Yet he is still saying that their souls need to be saved. What’s going on here?

When we trusted Christ for the forgiveness of our sins, our souls were saved eternally. But our souls were not saved, or transformed, automatically in history. When you got saved, you brought your past, your bondage, your addictions, your propensities, and your problems to the cross. Jesus saved you for heaven in a flicker of time. But He saves you on earth progressively. Paul refers to this in 1 Corinthians 1:18 when he talks about the gospel being the power of God “to us who are being saved.” This is the present tense of salvation, the process by which we are being transformed into the image of Christ.

This is the sense in which James uses the word “saved.” The Word of God not only saves us from sin for eternity, it also transforms us in history. Our assignment is to “receive the word implanted.”

How do we do this? First, by removing anything that will interfere with the growth of the word that was implanted in us at salvation. Remember, the new nature which is consistent with the Word of God has been implanted in your soul in seed form. Receiving it, welcoming it is the key to the saving of your soul, your self-life, the real you on earth. One reason we are not being delivered or experiencing victory—even though we want to do better and promise to do better—as children of the King is that the seed implanted is not being received.

Compare it to a fertilized egg in the womb of a woman. The fertilized egg has been planted there, and is ready to receive the nourishment coming to it from a source outside of it. As the woman eats, the nourishment from her food moves through the umbilical cord to the seed in her womb, enabling the fertilized egg within her to grow until it becomes a fully developed baby.

In the same way, the seed of God’s Word that has been implanted in us also requires nourishment. It must reach into the depth of our souls where the implanted Word abides with the imperishable seed in order for that seed to expand and the life of Christ to be expressed. The only tool designed to expand the seed in the soul is the Word of God.

But you say, “Tony, I’ve been coming to church for years. I’ve been reading my Bible for years. My soul has not changed. Or it changes for a while and then goes back to how it was before. Why isn’t it working for me?” To begin with, the fact that James commands us to receive the Word means that it is possible to have the Word implanted but not receive it. The answer to your question is found in the word “receive,” which means to “welcome.”

When you welcome someone who is standing at your front door, you invite that person to come inside and relax, to feel at home. You don’t stand at the door and say “Welcome, come on in” and then leave the person at the door. You usher that person into your home where the welcome you just spoke can be experienced and lived out.

When we “welcome” the Word, it goes to work in our souls. It nourishes us and does its job of discerning and transforming us, because “the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). Paul made a similar statement in Colossians 3:16: “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you.”

Food for the Soul

The Greek word used in Hebrews 4:12 for the Word of God is logos. This is the word used in John 1:1 when he writes, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It is the energizing, life-giving Word of God. The Bible calls this Word food for the soul. That’s why Jesus could say in His temptation, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4).

The book of Hebrews tells us that when this food reaches where it needs to in our soul, it divides the soul and spirit. It reaches into the deepest recesses of our being to transform us. But in order for God’s Word to do that, it needs to be received, to be welcomed. That means it has to reach farther than just your ears. Hearing a sermon on Sunday is good, but if it doesn’t go past your ears it won’t do the work of transforming your soul.

Jesus would often conclude His teaching by saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear” (Matthew 11:15, for just one of many examples). He was not talking about the physical ability to hear, of course, but about the need to hear the Word in such a manner that you receive or welcome it so it can penetrate to the division of soul and spirit.

I said earlier that your soul is your essence, the real you. It is your mind, emotions, and will. What is the spirit? That is God, the seed He has implanted in you—your new nature. When the Word gets down to the level that it needs to, it is going to make a distinction between what is you and what is God. It will divide what is your life and what is God’s life. What are your thoughts and what are God’s thoughts. What are your feelings and what are God’s feelings. What is your choice and what is God’s choice.

Hebrews 4:12 goes on to say that the Word is “able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” The heart is the center of the soul that pumps direction to every part of your life. The Word is only truly received when it has reached into the depths of your heart—your life-center.

As you are reading this book, you may say, “Tony, I understand what you’re talking about. It has gone into my mind.” Or it may work its way to your emotions and you say, “Yes, I feel what you are saying.” Or it may even reach to your will and you say, “I know a decision that I need to make.” But if it doesn’t get to your heart, it hasn’t arrived at its destination. And if it hasn’t arrived at its destination, then it hasn’t been received. But as the seed of God’s Word expands in your soul, it will begin to dominate your thoughts, feelings, and will so that actions which reflect God’s viewpoint will become natural to you, instead of simply an intellectual, emotional, or volitional reaction to a sermon you heard or something you read.

The writer of Hebrews illustrates the Word of God as a “two-edged sword.” It has two sides. Anyone who has ever remodeled or added on to a house can understand this. In order to build something up when you remodel a house, you must first tear something down. The Word of God also seeks to tear down our old way of thinking and living in order to make room for the expansion of the seed.

THE NATURE OF THE BATTLE

In 2 Corinthians 10, Paul made a critically important statement about this issue of receiving the Word and what can block it: “The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses” (v. 4). This word “fortresses” is key to understanding and winning the battle for your mind. You will never be successful in allowing the seed of God’s Word to expand and the Holy Spirit to reprogram your mind until the enemy’s fortresses in your mind are torn down.

Tearing Down Satan’s Strongholds

What are these fortresses? The King James Version calls them “strong holds.” You’ve probably seen a fortress, or a stronghold, in a movie about medieval times. Picture a huge structure made of stone with high walls and towers surrounded by a moat. Fortresses were built to be impregnable. Just looking up at those massive walls would be intimidating to an enemy soldier standing outside thinking about trying to scale those walls with ladders and bring down that fortress. Now transfer that image to the realm of the mind, and you’ll have the idea.

God says these strongholds have to be destroyed, so that means He didn’t build them. A stronghold is a negative, destructive pattern of thinking we have developed, either through repetition or traumatic experiences or other circumstances. As the old adage says, “Sow a thought, reap an act. Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character. Sow a character, reap a destiny.”

Once a stronghold is built, it gives the enemy a place from which to launch further attacks against your mind and a fortification from which to repel your attempts to dislodge him. One reason strongholds are so powerful is that they are so entrenched. Satan builds a stronghold when he convinces a person that his situation is hopeless—for example, that he is a drug addict or an alcoholic by nature and will never be anything else. Or that the fear which controls another person cannot be conquered. Once a person starts believing lies like these, it’s pretty much all over because we will always act in accord with who we believe we are.

You can tell when people are being oppressed by a stronghold. They say things like, “I can’t help myself,” “It’s not my fault,” “I was born this way,” or “I’m just a victim.” When we view something as unchangeable that God says is changeable, the enemy has built a stronghold in our minds. It doesn’t have to be anything as dramatic as drug addiction or alcoholism. Many of us have strongholds of hopelessness, jealousy, lust, or anger.

What needs to be done with these strongholds? The only solution is to tear those lofty strongholds down, as Paul went on to say in the first half of 2 Corinthians 10:5. Then he added the “how” in the second half: “Taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” This is how to reprogram your mind.

Why must we take every thought captive to Christ? Because our souls are distorted and we need to align our thoughts with God’s thoughts. We have to capture and test our thoughts with God’s viewpoint on the matter, because if we don’t receive His Word by welcoming it into our hearts, we will continue to live defeated lives based on the lies of Satan and our ineffective outward efforts at transformation.

The answer is to be renewed by the Word of God which is what Paul was saying in Romans 12:2. It is in the “renewing of your mind” that you discover God’s “good and acceptable and perfect” will. Because our soul is distorted by sin, we need to put to death our viewpoint on whatever it is in our lives that is holding us captive. Then, we need to receive God’s life-giving viewpoint on the matter and renew our minds according to His truth.

However, if we do not allow a complete renewing of our minds, we wind up with a form of spiritual schizophrenia that keeps us from maximizing benefiting from the kingdom of God. In order to avoid this malady, you must set your mind on Christ, as Paul explains: “If you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on the earth” (Colossians 3:1–2).

Setting Your Mind on the Right Things

Where you set your mind is so important because what you set your mind on will come to penetrate and dominate your thinking. I remember the day when the way I viewed my circumstances completely changed due to a renewed mind. I was in the sixth grade at Alexander Hamilton Elementary School in Baltimore. We had a bully at our school, a huge guy who was basically eighteen in the sixth grade. You know the type.

Well, this bully decided he didn’t like me, and one day he threatened to get me after school. I was terrified. So when the final bell rang I took off for home, but he spotted me and took off after me. Now I knew a truth he didn’t know, which was that I lived just three blocks from the school. That truth definitely ignited me to have the faith that I could outrun the bully and make it home before he pounded me into the pavement.

I’ve never been all that fast, but on that day I would have qualified for the Olympics. The bully was closing in on me, but I turned into my front yard and shot into the house before he could catch me. I ran all the way upstairs to my room and collapsed. I was still feeling fearful. My heart was pounding from fear and my three-block Olympic sprint. But soon my heart slowed down because of a new fact. I was in my house. The bully couldn’t get me there. My faith kicked in, so to speak, and I started feeling safe.

Then another truth dawned on me. Not only was I safe at home in my room, but my dad was home too. That was great, because even if the bully came to my door, he would have to deal with my dad. So now my faith was really getting ignited. Before long I was so full of faith I started walking all over the house as if I was really in charge. I could walk around with inner security and confidence because the truth of my situation had changed my thinking. And that changed my feelings and my feet, my actions.

If you belong to Christ, you may feel like the enemy is always out there trying to chase you down. But when you set your mind on the things of Christ, you can receive God’s Word and allow it to act as a two-edged sword in your life. Ask the Holy Spirit to reprogram your mind with the truth of His Word, and then start acting in light of that. Not only will your fears and doubts leave when you come to trust in and stand on God’s promises in His Word, but God will build strongholds of truth in your mind and man the guard towers Himself.

That’s exactly what He promised in His Word. “The peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7). That word “guard” means to do sentry duty. In Colossians 3:15, Paul said God’s peace will “rule” in our hearts. Could you use a little peace in your life right now? Then don’t buy Satan’s lie that your situation is hopeless or unchangeable. The truth is, “[You] can do all things through Him who strengthens [you]” (Philippians 4:13).

But this begins by focusing on your identity in Christ and your relationship with Him. You need to live the way Paul described in Colossians 3:3: “You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Paul added in verse 4 that Christ is “our life.”

If your mind is not set on Christ, you are not treating Him as though He is your life. God called David a man after His own heart (see Acts 13:22) because David couldn’t get God off his mind. In the Psalms, David said that God was the first thing on his mind when he woke up. He couldn’t get God off his mind all day. And during the night watches, when everybody else was asleep, David would wake up with thoughts of God on his mind (see Psalm 63:6).

Such passion makes a difference in the way you live. When Jesus Christ dominates your mind, your hands don’t have to do what they used to do. Your feet don’t have to go where they used to go. Your mouth doesn’t have to say what it used to say.

Your mind doesn’t have room for Christ and the world. You are either going to think about Christ or about the world. A kingdom mind is a mind firmly fixed on Jesus Christ and the unchanging Word of God.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

YOUR KINGDOM RESOURCES

Earlier in this book, I told you that Lois and I used to housesit for wealthy families in Dallas when we were in seminary. It was a great way to live like kings in a kingdom for a few days. The families usually gave us the run of the place. But while there was great opportunity for enjoyment, there were also definite limitations on that enjoyment. Each family had rules they wanted us to follow while they were away. And we agreed to follow them, because it was not our home. We were just staying there for a few days.

Put in the context of this book, the home we watched over was the kingdom of the family who owned it. Lois and I were just the stewards of the home, the temporary managers. It belonged to someone else, and therefore we had to function according to their agenda, not ours. Our job was simply to manage the property of another person that had been entrusted to our care—which is the biblical definition of stewardship.

A key element in carrying out God’s kingdom agenda is our stewardship of all that He has given. So we need to learn how to be good stewards, or managers, of what we have. Another way to define stewardship is the responsibility to protect and expand the possessions of another.

The bank where you deposit your money is a steward of the funds you entrust to it. You want your bank to do two things with your resources in its care. First, you want your bank to protect your funds. But also, you want your bank to expand your funds, to invest them wisely so you will reap a benefit from the interest rate paid on your account.

The same principles hold true for what God has entrusted to you as a steward of all that He has given to you. God desires for you to both protect and expand what He has placed at your disposal so that His kingdom will reap a benefit.

Jesus illustrated this truth in Luke 19:11–27 when He told a powerful parable of kingdom stewardship that we need to read and heed. It lays out the standards by which we, as God’s stewards, are to function on His behalf in His kingdom and by which our stewardship will be evaluated. Let’s unfold this important passage.

THE MEANING OF STEWARDSHIP

The first thing I want us to consider is the meaning of stewardship. Jesus illustrated it this way: “A nobleman went to a distant country to receive a kingdom for himself, and then return. And he called ten of his slaves, and gave them ten minas and said to them, ‘Do business with this until I come back’ ” (Luke 19:12–13).

Now it’s obvious in the parable that Christ is the nobleman going away to lay claim to the kingdom He won by virtue of His victory on Calvary. The “distant country” is heaven, from which He will return one day to establish His visible kingdom in the millennium. But in the meantime, the King has given us something to manage, and He has commanded us to manage it well until He returns.

God Owns It All

Right away we see the first thing that stewardship teaches us, which is that God owns it all. A steward is not an owner. A steward merely manages that which belongs to the owner. The nobleman gave the servants a portion of money from his coffers. The slaves didn’t contribute anything. God created it all, so it’s all His (see Revelation 4:11).

This principle may be easy to state, but living it out is something else. The fact is, God’s total ownership is inescapable. He said in the Psalms: “Every beast of the forest is Mine…. And everything that moves in the field is Mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world is Mine, and all it contains” (Psalm 50:10–12). God is the owner of everything in His kingdom by virtue of creation. Therefore, anything we claim to own is only ours relatively speaking. It is not ours absolutely speaking.

The money that you have in your pocket right now was printed on paper that was ground from the pulp of trees that grew on God’s property. The car that you drive was shaped out of metal whose elements were dug from God’s earth. The clothes on your back are only there because God made them possible.

I remember teaching my oldest son, Anthony, about giving. I told him, “Whatever you get, the first ten percent of everything goes to God. And that’s just the minimum.” Then I gave him five dollars for an allowance. I knew the question that was going to come next.

“Dad, that rule doesn’t apply to my allowance, does it?”

I told him that it did.

“So you want me to take fifty cents out of my five dollars and give it to God?”

I knew he wasn’t getting the idea, so I proceeded to explain. “It works like this, Anthony. Where did you get the five dollars?”

“You gave it to me.”

“Right. And where did I get the five dollars?”

“Well, you got it from your salary as pastor of the church.”

“Right again. Those five dollars came from my salary at the church, which was provided by the offerings of the congregation. Now, where did the people get the money to give so I could be paid and you could have your five dollars? They got it from their salaries at the places where they work.” I was just getting warmed up.

“Now, Anthony, if the people got the money to give from the places where they work, so they could pay me and you could have your five dollars, then what are the things they need in order to work?”

Well, we went through the whole list: a car, clothes, a place to live, food for strength, even the air they breathe. And we traced it all back to God. We concluded that since there is nothing we have that didn’t come from God, giving Him ten percent is no big deal.

Then I asked him, “Anthony, do you have a problem with giving God fifty cents?”

He said, “No, Dad. I’ll give a dollar, I guess.” I think he got the message. The clearer you see God’s hand in everything, the less problem you will have accepting His ownership.

Job 1:21 says that you and I came into this world naked. The only reason we aren’t going out naked is because somebody else will dress us. Death is the ultimate reminder that we own nothing. I read one time in a popular magazine about a woman who got buried in her Jaguar. Guess what? That Jag is still there in the grave. It’s not going anywhere because we don’t own anything.

The Bible says we don’t even own our bodies. “You have been bought with a price” (1 Corinthians 6:20). That’s why James 4:13–15 warns businesspeople not to brag with such statements as, “Today, I’m going here to cut a deal; then tomorrow I’m going there to cut a deal.” We don’t know whether we’ll even be here tomorrow. Our lives are in God’s hands.

God Doesn’t Share Ownership

Here’s the corollary of the truth that God owns it all: God does not share His ownership with anyone. There was a being a long time ago who tried to share ownership with God. His name was Lucifer, the chief angel. Lucifer wanted to turn heaven into a joint venture, to split God’s throne with Him fifty-fifty. But Lucifer got booted out of heaven because God does not share His ownership with anyone. Therefore, any attempt you and I make to share ownership with God puts us on the side of Satan, because we are operating out of the same attitude of pride.

Let me show you an important warning from the book of Deuteronomy. As Israel was about to enter the Promised Land, Moses cautioned the people:

Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God by not keeping His commandments and His ordinances and His statutes which I am commanding you today; otherwise, when you have eaten and are satisfied, and have built good houses and lived in them, and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and gold multiply, and all that you have multiplies, then your heart will become proud, and you forget the LORD your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery…. Otherwise, you may say in your heart, “My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.” But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth. (Deuteronomy 8:11–14, 17–18)

What a powerful reminder of the very essence of what it means to manage the wealth that God has given to us. The things we think we own are really on loan from the Lord. So we had better be careful how we treat them.

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF STEWARDSHIP

A steward may not own what he has been given, but he or she is still responsible for his management of it. This is the second principle we need to understand about stewardship.

In the parable in Luke 19, the owner gave his ten slaves a mina apiece with which to operate. A mina was an amount of money worth about three months’ salary for a common laborer in those days. So this was a pretty substantial allotment. The owner’s command to his slaves, “Do business with this until I come back” (v. 13), gets to the heart of a steward’s responsibility.

Doing Business with God’s Resources

The issue is not whether you will accept your stewardship, but what you will do with the stewardship God has already given you. The question is, what kind of business will you do with the Lord’s property?

The Greek word for “business” here is the word from which we get the English word “pragmatic.” There’s nothing more pragmatic or practical in life than being a kingdom steward. Doing business for the King and His kingdom translates into practically using the life potential He has given us.

Now let me show you something that will encourage you in your stewardship. Jesus told this same basic story a different way in Matthew 25:14–30, the parable of the talents. There, the three servants were given differing talents—a talent was also an amount of money—“each according to his own ability” (Matthew 25:15).

So in one sense, we don’t all have the same amount of time. That is, some people will only live to be forty years old while others will live to be eighty. We don’t all have the same amount of money to work with either. And we don’t all have talents and abilities in the same areas. The key is that when the King comes back, He will only measure His servants against what He gave them. The five-talent servant had the ability to produce more talents, and he did so.

So no matter how much or how little you have in terms of resources and abilities, no matter how long you live, the point is that Jesus Christ will not compare you to anyone else. You will only be evaluated against what He gave you.

Minding Our Own Stewardship

That’s why it is wrong to want what somebody else has. God is going to measure you against you, not against the Joneses down the street. So if you spend all of your time trying to be like the Joneses and never get around to carrying out proper stewardship principles with what God has given you, you are going to come up empty-handed when the Owner returns.

What kind of business does Christ want us to conduct with the time, talents, and treasure He has entrusted to us? In a word, we need to invest, not just spend. Too many of us have large amounts of debt because we spend, spend, spend. So we owe, owe, owe.

If you have children, you know that they would rather spend than invest any day. We don’t have to teach our kids to spend. We have to teach them to save. Do you know why kids spend all the time? Because they have a wrong view of the future. Kids spend because the only day they can see is today.

My son Jonathan loved to play basketball when he was growing up. So when the new Michael Jordan basketball shoes came out back then, it was “Dad, the new Jordans just came out. I need to go buy a pair.” The trouble is, when the new shoes came out endorsed by Allen Iverson, another NBA star, Jonathan wanted those too. Given the chance to get what they want, most teenagers will get it without worrying about whether they will be broke next week. Kids don’t take investing seriously because they don’t take the future seriously.

Let me tell you, this is why the lives of some believers are messed up. They don’t seriously believe the Owner is going to come back and ask them what they did with the time, talents, and treasure He entrusted to them as His stewards.

Now most of us prepare for the future in other areas. We have insurance policies to cover everything we have and anything that might happen to it. In other words, we will do for ourselves what we won’t do for God. We plan for what might happen by buying insurance. But we fail to plan for what will happen—the return of Jesus Christ and the evaluation of our stewardship—by wisely investing the life potential He has given us.

One day, Jesus Christ is going to look at you and me and say, “Let’s see whether the agenda of My kingdom is better off because of what you did with what I gave you.” A steward is responsible to manage the affairs of the King. And when the King returns, the steward will have to give an account of that responsibility.

THE EVALUATION OF STEWARDSHIP

Everybody goes through some version of the annual review at work. Why do companies hold this review? Because the boss wants to know how well the employees have produced during the eight hours a day, forty hours a week, they were on his time. Employees are stewards of the business owner. They are on his or her agenda, accepting a paycheck from his pocket to produce work. So the review will give the boss a chance to find out how productive the workers have been for the company.

Giving God an Account

A time of evaluation is coming for Jesus Christ’s stewards too. Let’s go back to His parable of the minas in Luke 19:15. “When [the nobleman] returned, after receiving the kingdom, he ordered that these slaves, to whom he had given the money, be called to him so that he might know what business they had done.”

The nobleman’s return is a reference to the coming of Christ, when He will call His people to account for their stewardship. Then the issue will be, “How did My company benefit by what I provided to you?” A lot of us will be able to show how God’s gifts benefited us. But that’s not the question. The issue with a steward is, how did the King’s business fare under your management? Is the King better off? Was His agenda furthered?

The Bible calls this day of evaluation for kingdom stewards “the judgment seat of Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:10). It is described in two important passages, the first of which is 1 Corinthians 3:10–15. I want to quote it in its entirety because it is so crucial:

According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man must be careful how he builds on it. For no man can lay a foundation other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.

We must be careful what kind of building we construct on the foundation God gives us. This is another way of saying we must be attentive to how we carry out our stewardship. The reason is that our stewardship will be tested on the day of Christ’s judgment, and it will have to withstand His fire. This is the day when Christ will judge His people—not for salvation, but for rewards based on our work as stewards.

This day is described in 2 Corinthians 5:10: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” Then Paul added in verse 11, “Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men.” There is a fiery judgment coming for us believers. Hebrews 10:30 says that God will judge His people. On the day of evaluation, the fire of Jesus Christ “will test the quality of each man’s work” (1 Corinthians 3:13, emphasis added).

Do you appreciate sloppy work? Neither do I. I don’t know too many mothers who are satisfied when their children do the dishes or clean their rooms in a sloppy, halfhearted way. Your boss certainly doesn’t want sloppy work. It’s not acceptable for an administrative assistant to say, “So what if your letter is full of errors and misspelled words? At least I typed it.” That’s not professional, nor is it acceptable.

God wants quality work from His stewards too. At His judgment seat, Jesus Christ is going to evaluate how well our time, talents, and treasures were used for Him—whether they were used to produce quality work or thrown-together junk.

Many people will give their boss top-quality work when they go into the office. They won’t be late, and they won’t do sloppy work. Why? Because their paycheck is in the boss’s pocket. They fear not getting a raise. They fear not being promoted. If people will do that for an earthly boss, what should we do for Jesus Christ?

Giving God Our Best

So the question is, are you giving God’s Kingdom a quality return on the time, talents, and treasures He has blessed you with? Or is God getting your leftovers?

Many Christians “tip” God. By the way they live, they say “God, whatever is left over of my time, I’ll give to You. After I have spent my money on what I want, then I’ll give You something. After I have used my talents to build my business, You’ll get some of my time during my retirement years.”

Anyone who has that attitude had better read 2 Corinthians 5:11 again. Paul called the judgment seat of Christ a thing that should cause us to fear, or be in awe. This will be a serious judgment. The reason is that when you are dealing with something expensive, you want it done right. If it’s something just thrown together, you don’t care.

But if you are building an expensive house and the bricks aren’t laid right, you are going to get that corrected. Let somebody even look like he’s going to ding the door of your expensive car, and you become upset. You won’t even park it beside other cars where it could possibly get dinged. The more something costs, the more serious you are going to be about taking care of it.

God paid a high price for you and me. We cost Him the life of His Son. Not only that, but He has entrusted us with the stewardship of His marvelous, all-encompassing kingdom. He has given us the privilege of ruling with Him in His domain.

So are we going to turn around and give God our leftover time, talents, and treasures? Are we going to give the school district our best teaching efforts, then throw something together on Saturday night to teach at Sunday school? Are we going to spend thousands of dollars on our houses and cars and clothes and then toss a little tip toward God? Are we going to spend time on ourselves and then tell God He ought to be happy we show up for two hours on Sunday?

No, God says all of this cost Him too much to let us get away with shoddy stewardship. We are going to be evaluated. The Bible says whatever you get in time, talents, and treasures, make sure you give God His portion first. Because if you don’t, you won’t have any leftover later. You won’t have any energy left at the end of the day. You won’t have any money left at the end of the month. And you won’t have any talents left over at the end of life. Be sure to take care of Jesus Christ first, so that He might have “first place in everything” (Colossians 1:18).

THE REWARDS OF STEWARDSHIP

Once we understand what stewardship is, what our responsibilities are, and the fact that our stewardship will be tested, we are ready to talk about the rewards of stewardship. The nobleman in Jesus’ parable in Luke 19 returned from his journey and called his servants in to account for how they used their minas.

The Reward of the Productive Steward

The first servant came and said, “Master, your mina has made ten minas more” (v. 16). That’s a one thousand percent increase! This man had obviously invested his master’s money well. He could say, “Master, I invested what you gave me, and look at what I have for you.”

What does the master, who is God, say to this man who used what he had been given so effectively for the kingdom? He receives a threefold reward. The first reward is recognition, the master’s public announcement of “Well done” (v.17; I say public because verse 24 refers to the “bystanders” who were evidently at the scene). When you show up at His judgment seat, there will be nothing like hearing Jesus say before everyone gathered there, “Well done!” You may be hidden away in your work, but if you do what God has called you to do faithfully and consistently, you will be honored before all of heaven on that day.

I was talking to a family member one day, asking her why she has committed her life to certain things. Her answer was, “Because of that day. I do everything in light of the day when I will stand before Christ. I want to hear His ‘Well done!’”

The second reward this faithful steward received was a kingdom inheritance. The master said, “Because you have been faithful in a very little thing, you are to be in authority over ten cities” (v.17). Most people have a wrong view of the kingdom. We will not be floating around on clouds. The kingdom will be a government operating in perfect righteousness. There will be people in positions of authority who were faithful servants of Jesus Christ on earth. Just like a good worker gets a promotion, so Christ’s faithful stewards will get promotions in the kingdom.

This faithful steward also got a third reward. It was a surprise, a bonus—the mina that the master had originally given to the third slave (see v. 24). When Jesus Christ comes, He is going to snatch away from His unfaithful stewards even what little bit they did. You may think that’s not fair. But we need to remember that Christ is going to make sure His kingdom resources aren’t wasted. If we fail to grasp an opportunity for kingdom service, Christ will give it to someone else and we will lose out.

The Reward of the Less Productive Steward

The second slave also had a good report, although he wasn’t as productive as the first. “The second came, saying, ‘Your mina, master, has made five minas.’ And he said to him also, ‘And you are to be over five cities’ ” (Luke 19:18–19).

Did you notice that this servant didn’t get any public recognition? He got his five cities, but no “Well done.” I believe the reason is that he was only half-faithful.

Let me explain. I think this servant represents someone who gets saved at twenty years of age, but doesn’t get going for the Lord until he’s forty. He lives to be sixty, so he’s got twenty “lost” years, in terms of kingdom reward, and twenty productive years. Should this person say at age forty, “I’ve already lost twenty years. I might as well give up”? No, he should get going at forty and serve Christ effectively until he’s sixty. Make sure you get your five cities.

The Judgment on the Worthless Steward

Then there’s the third slave. He brought his mina and said, “Master, here is your mina, which I kept put away in a handkerchief; for I was afraid of you, because you are an exacting man” (vv. 20–21). This man said, “Master, I just want you to know I didn’t lose your money. I kept it safe and sound under my mattress. I took the time, talents, and treasures you gave me and stored them away, because you are a hard master.”

This guy played both ends against the middle. Here was his reasoning: “I am not going to break my neck serving my master. He is going away on some long trip. He may not even come back. He may forget all about me. In the meantime, I’ve got my own business to tend to. I’ve got my own house to build and money to make and talents to use. But just in case he does come back, I’ll make sure I don’t lose what he gave me. I’ll play it safe and hide his mina.”

In the famous film Lilies of the Field, star Sidney Poitier was building a church for the nuns in a town and asked a local businessman to help. The man said, “I’m not really into religion. I’m not the man.” But when they started building the church, he came with a hammer and nails and got up on the building and helped build the church. Sidney Poitier asked him why he was doing this, since he wasn’t a religious man. The man answered, “Just in case what these nuns believe is right, I want to have something to show.”

That’s what this third servant was saying. “I’m not going to get fanatical about this service stuff. But just in case my master does return, I want to have something to show him. I want to have some insurance.”

But the master said, “By your own words I will judge you, you worthless slave…. Why did you not put my money in the bank, and having come, I would have collected it with interest?” (vv. 22–23). He couldn’t even give this servant an E for effort.

I’m afraid there are many Christians who can talk about the grace and goodness of God, who can praise Him for taking them from nowhere to somewhere, but who are not giving Him a decent return on His investment in them. These people are not only failing to return one thousand or even ten percent to God. Like the faithless steward, they aren’t even producing the one or two percent they could get down at the local bank. The master says that stewards like that are no good to him.

So in contrast to the first servant, this steward gets a ringing condemnation. He gets no cities, and as we saw above, even the mina he has is taken away from him. He gets the same amount of credit as profit he produced for the master: none.

Notice the involvement of the “bystanders” (v. 24) in this man’s judgment. I don’t know how God is going to do it, but somehow the results of Christ’s judgment seat will be visible to everyone. Maybe God will use a cosmic video screen. Whatever the method, others will know the results. That means if we are simply wearing the name of Christ like a decoration instead of living it, everyone will know. If we have nothing to bring to Christ that can withstand the fire, other believers at His judgment seat will know.

That’s why I think there are going to be some big surprises on that day, with people saying, “But I thought so-and-so was a good Christian. He always came to church with his Bible under his arm. He was always saying ‘Praise the Lord.’” But if there is no depth to the commitment, it will become obvious on that day.

This is enough to scare me. This is enough to shake me up. I don’t want my life to be put on public display and find out I came in third like the worthless servant. I don’t want to see my work snatched from me. I want to be a faithful servant who makes the most of what his Master has entrusted to him. I don’t want to be just a professional Christian, but an authentic one.

THE RESPONSE OF A STEWARD

Look how Jesus summarized this parable: “I tell you that to everyone who has, more shall be given, but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away” (Luke 19:26). We saw this principle applied in the abundant reward of the first servant and the judgment of the third servant. Since this is the case, where do you start in making your stewardship productive and pleasing to God?

Thanksgiving to God

A good place to start is by turning the words of Hebrews 12:28 into your prayer: “Therefore, since we receive a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us show gratitude, by which we may offer to God an acceptable service with reverence and awe.”

Go to God and pray, “Lord, thank You for the certainty of Your kingdom. Help me to show my gratitude to You by serving You faithfully each day. Give me the grace I need to make the most of the time, talents, and treasures You have loaned to me. Help me use them to prioritize Your agenda over mine.”

While you are praying that prayer, here’s a good verse to memorize and make your daily commitment: “Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58).

Pick Up The Pace

You may be saying, “Tony, I want to make the most of my stewardship. I want to be an effective kingdom servant. But I’ve lost some time. I’ve been dragging along. What do I do?”

You do the same thing a runner does when he or she falls behind in a race. You have to pick up the pace. You can’t worry about the territory you’ve already covered. Yesterday is gone, but you can pick up the pace today so you can cover more territory tomorrow.

The kingdom of God has only one Ruler. But it has room for an unlimited number of servants. What Jesus Christ is looking for is faithful stewards who will say to Him, “Lord, You are first in my time, my talents, and my treasures. Help me to make Your kingdom agenda my agenda. And help me make an eternal difference for You.” When you’re ready to pray that and live it, you’re in line to hear Jesus say, “Well done” in front of everyone on that day.

I used to play the game of Monopoly all the time. I love to play it, because when I play Monopoly, I get to own land. I get to play Donald Trump when I play Monopoly—buying and selling property. And if you’re playing with me, you’d better not let me get Boardwalk and Park Place, because if I get those two, I show no mercy. When I get enough money, I am going to buy some little green houses for Boardwalk and Park Place. Then when I buy enough green houses, I am going to turn those bad boys in for two big red hotels. The property value now escalates, and you’d better hope you can skip over my property and collect another two hundred dollars for passing Go. Because I am going to be sitting there waiting on you.

But let me tell you the hard thing about playing Monopoly. It’s when the game is over. Then I have to give up all my make-believe property and money, close the box, and go back to the real world.

Someday, they are going to close the box on you and me. We are going to leave this world and go to the real world, the kingdom of God. There we will show what we really have, and the only thing that will matter on that day is not what we left behind but what we have sent on ahead. The only property that will count at Christ’s judgment seat is the time, talents, and treasures we invested in things of eternal value. What will matter then is what we did to make a difference for the kingdom.

Remember, life is like a coin. You can spend it any way you want, but you only get to spend it once.

CHAPTER TWELVE

YOUR KINGDOM INHERITANCE

With this chapter we will close section two of the book, in which we have been applying God’s kingdom agenda to your personal life. We’ve covered a lot of territory studying what it means to live as a kingdom person. Now I want to look at our future as kingdom people.

The kingdom of God is made visible today through the church. But when Christ comes back and commences His millennial reign, it will become visible to the whole world. Our calling and service now are preparing us for that day. We are being fitted to inherit the kingdom. I want to consider that inheritance, both because it will be so glorious we can’t even imagine it and because it will not be the same for every believer.

FAITHFULNESS DETERMINES INHERITANCE

Our salvation is free. Our entrance into the kingdom is assured forever when we place our faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. But our inheritance in the kingdom will be determined by the degree of faithfulness with which we serve the King here and now.

Let me begin by giving you a definition of a kingdom inheritance: It is the blessings and privileges afforded to faithful Christians of enjoying all the rights and benefits of the King. Believers are heirs of the kingdom promises to Abraham (see Romans 4:13–16), having already been blessed by the King with all spiritual blessings (see Ephesians 1:3).

Right now, we only receive a portion of the rights and benefits of our inheritance, just as a child only receives a partial inheritance as long as the child’s parents are still living. But when the parents pass on—or, in our case, when Jesus comes—then the child comes into his or her full inheritance. At Jesus’ return, when He sets up His judgment seat to evaluate believers, He is going to read the “will,” as it were, and determine what inheritance rights we have.

Hebrews 4 will be our main text, but I need to set the stage for you because so much of the argument of the book of Hebrews is predicated on an understanding of the Old Testament. The argument we are going to consider in Hebrews 4 is based on the experience of Israel in Egypt, where the Israelites were enslaved under Pharaoh. For the author of Hebrews, this is analogous to believers being enslaved to sin today. Egypt represents the world, the place of the unsaved.

But Israel was redeemed and set free from slavery when the blood of the Passover lamb was shed. Similarly, you and I were set free from slavery to sin by the blood of Jesus Christ, and we were free to leave our old lives behind, just as the Jews were free to leave Egypt.

Israel was not redeemed to stay in Egypt, just as we are not saved to stay in the world in terms of our lifestyle. God had prepared Canaan, the Promised Land, for Israel. The author of Hebrews regarded Canaan as equivalent to the experience of the spiritually mature Christian, what we might call the Spirit-filled life. That’s the goal we’re supposed to be moving toward.

But on their way from Egypt to Canaan, the people of Israel had to cross a parcel of land known as the wilderness. And instead of going straight across to Canaan and receiving what the Bible calls their full inheritance, the Israelites murmured and complained and wound up wandering around in the wilderness for forty years.

In this situation, Egypt can be synonymous with deliverance for believers today. The wilderness is synonymous with development—that period of time that God strengthens you while also pruning from you those things which are a hindrance. Canaan represents a believer’s ultimate destiny. When a believer refuses to undergo development in the wilderness by not cooperating with the growth that is to take place there, they can enter into a time of wandering like the Israelites did for forty years, which can also be synonymous to carnal Christianity.

The problem in Hebrews is that the Jewish Christians to whom the letter was addressed were beginning to wander around as Israel had done, seeming to be in a spiritual wilderness rather than pressing on to “Canaan” and their inheritance. The author wanted to let them know in no uncertain terms that we cannot stand still in the Christian life. We can’t just hang out in the wilderness without slipping backward spiritually.

The Hebrews were in danger of missing their inheritance, just as the Israelites did in the wilderness, so the writer wanted to address their situation. In the process, Hebrews 4 teaches us four important truths about our kingdom inheritance.

THE INHERITANCE MEANS OWNERSHIP

The first thing we learn in Hebrews 4:1 is that an inheritance means more than making it to heaven: “Therefore, let us fear if, while a promise remains of entering His rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it.”

Getting Ready for Our Full Inheritance

The key word here is “rest.” For the Jews, God’s rest would be achieved when they entered Canaan and took ownership of their inheritance (see Deuteronomy 12:8–11). So God’s rest was the full realization of His inheritance.

We need to understand that when the writer talked about coming short of God’s rest, he was not talking about salvation. He was writing to saved people. The Israelites in the wilderness were already redeemed. They put the blood of the Passover lamb on the doorposts of their homes. However, Hebrews 3:18–19 makes it clear that these same Israelites became hardened by their sin and disobedience in the wilderness. They angered God, and He swore they would not enter His rest. But the issue was not their redemption.

This means there can be Christians who have been set free from spiritual bondage, but who will never enjoy the full rights and privileges they could have inherited in this life or in the coming kingdom, what the writer of Hebrews called God’s “rest.” That’s because these benefits accrue to believers based on their faithful appropriation of God’s grace as they journey on their way to heaven. All Christians do not enjoy the same benefits of being saved—even though the same benefits are available to all Christians.

For example, if you don’t pray, there are certain things you will never get that God had in store for you. But a Christian who prays will enjoy the privileges of answered prayer as God opens His storehouse and blesses that person in response to his obedience. God is going to say to many believers in heaven, “Let Me show you what I had stored up for you as an inheritance that you never had credited to your account by being faithful.”

Valuing Your Inheritance

Now someone may say, “I don’t care about an inheritance in the kingdom, just as long as I get in.” But you will care then, and here’s why. You will be a perfect person in a perfect environment, and you will feel what you missed out on more than you would here, since you are at present an imperfect person in an imperfect environment.

So inheritance involves ownership—your title deed, so to speak, to what Christ has decreed for you in history as well as prepared for you in eternity. The last phrase of Hebrews 4:1 suggests that it is possible for Christians to miss out on the full enjoyment of what God has for them. We have alluded to this, but we need to explore it more thoroughly so we can find out what could cause us to forfeit our inheritance, and what it takes to gain a full inheritance.

THE INHERITANCE IS FOR FINISHERS

Hebrews 4:2 says: “For indeed we have had good news preached to us, just as they also; but the word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard.”

What good news was preached to the Old Testament Israelites? Not the good news of going to heaven, but the good news of inheriting Canaan. When Israel left Egypt and came to the border of Canaan, Moses sent twelve men into Canaan to check out the land. The spies came back and said, “It certainly does flow with milk and honey” (Numbers 13:27). Then they showed the people the incredible fruit they had gathered.

But then ten of the spies said, in effect, “We can’t take the land. Too many giants, too many fortified cities” (see vv. 28–29). Only Caleb and Joshua were ready to act in faith in the good news and take the land. However, the people sided with the majority report and refused to believe God could give them the Promised Land. So God judged them (Numbers 14), and the nation turned back into the wilderness and wandered around until everyone over twenty years old had died, except for Joshua and Caleb. That generation never got to taste the milk and honey of Canaan, even though God said it was theirs.

That’s what Hebrews 4:2 means when it says the people did not profit from the good news of the inheritance. They failed to respond in faith and forfeited what they could have enjoyed.

Entering God’s Rest

Notice how the writer of Hebrews applies the situation of the Old Testament Israelites to us as Christians today:

For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said, “As I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My rest,” although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; and again in this passage, “They shall not enter My rest.” (Hebrews 4:3–5)

These verses take us all the way back to creation and the beginning of the Sabbath, when God rested on the seventh day (see Genesis 2:2–3). Why did God rest? Not because He was tired, but because He was finished. He did all that He was supposed to do. Therefore, on the Sabbath He sat back and enjoyed His creation. His work was completed.

In fact, God decided that a day of rest after completing one’s work was such a good idea that He blessed and set aside the seventh day for mankind to rest too. The Sabbath rest became part of Israel’s law (see Exodus 20:8), and the Jews were obliged to keep it throughout their history. The idea of the Sabbath was that the people needed a day in the week to reflect on the fact that God finished His work and then rested. So the people needed to finish their work so they could also rest on the seventh day.

Why does Hebrews 4 bring up the Sabbath in a context of talking about the believers’ inheritance? Because the Sabbath and all that it represented became the standard by which God would judge His people. In other words, the fundamental question that Christ will ask every believer at His judgment seat is this: “Did you finish the task of living for Me that I gave you when I saved you? Were you faithful to Me?”

Finishing the Race

When you got saved, you entered into what the Bible calls “the race” (Hebrews 12:1). Your race has a finish line. That is, God has a plan for your life He wants you to complete. Many Christians will end their lives, stand before God, and say, “Look what I did!”

God is going to say, “But this is what I wanted you to do.”

Those are two different things. This issue of finishing and not losing the inheritance was so important to Paul that he said in 1 Corinthians 9:27, “I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified.”

The issue is not just how well you are doing in your Christian race. The issue is finishing. Some of us get excited because we ran well last year. That’s great—but are you a finisher? This doesn’t mean you don’t ever sin. It doesn’t mean you don’t ever fall. But it means that when you do sin and fall, you get up and get back in the race so you can finish and enjoy all the rights and privileges of your inheritance.

Parents know what it is to have to make a child go back and finish a job. They do half the job they were supposed to do and then brag on the half they did. So your teenager says, “I cleaned up my room,” but he only did half the job.

Your response is, “You are not finished yet.”

The issue of the Christian life is not how well you started, but whether you are doing what God did when He rested on the Sabbath. He finished the job.

So the generation that came out of Egypt with Moses did not enter the Promised Land. Instead, the people wandered around in the wilderness. In your Christian life have you ever wandered around in the wilderness? Ever gone around in circles, not getting anywhere?

What’s the answer to wandering? Getting your eyes on the prize. Become fixated on your inheritance, on honoring Jesus Christ and living for Him, and you will stop going around in circles. Paul told the Philippians, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (2:12). That doesn’t mean work your way to heaven. Paul is saying, “Now that God has saved you, get to work so that your salvation produces something. Don’t take your salvation lightly. Grow in respect to your faith.”

Paul himself had his eyes on the prize (see Philippians 3:14). When he was near death, he could say, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith” (2 Timothy 4:7). What God wants you to be able to say when you get ready to die is, “This is my crowning day. This is the day I will hear, ‘Well done, My good and faithful servant’”—not because you were perfect, but because you finished.

THE INHERITANCE IS A REWARD

In Hebrews 4:6–8, the writer goes back to that first generation of Israelites and reminds us that they failed to enter God’s rest—their inheritance in the Promised Land—because of unbelief. Then he mentions Joshua, Moses’ successor, and his leadership of the nation.

Joshua led the people into Canaan, but remember that this was the second generation. Their parents had died in the wilderness. Let me show you how this new generation united good news with faith (Hebrews 4:2) and claimed the inheritance. We all know that Joshua fought the battle of Jericho and the walls fell down as Israel marched into Canaan and proceeded to lay claim to their inheritance (see Joshua 6).

The Reward for Obedience

But the key to the victory at Jericho is revealed back in Joshua 5:13–15, when the “captain of the host of the LORD” appeared to Joshua. This was the pre-incarnate Jesus, and Joshua fell on his face in worship, removed his sandals, and said, in essence, “What do You want me to do, Lord?” The answer was, “You shall march around Jericho for six days, and then march around it seven times on the seventh day. Blow the trumpets, and the walls will fall down” (Joshua 6:3–5). Joshua gave the order, the people obeyed, and they took Jericho without firing an arrow. They united the word with faith and obedience, and they gained their inheritance.

What God wants from us today is some “Joshua” Christians who will obey Him and see the walls come tumbling down. If you have some walls in your life that just won’t come down, it could be because you are trying to knock them down your way rather than letting God knock them down His way. That’s why you must unite the Word with faith, which means you must do what God says to do the way God says to do it. When you do things God’s way, He says, “You’re ready to receive your inheritance.”

Notice in Hebrews 4:8 that Joshua couldn’t give the people their permanent inheritance. That’s because there is an inheritance greater than Canaan awaiting God’s people, our inheritance in heaven. That’s why the writer of Hebrews continued in verses 9–11: “So there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God. For the one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His. Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest, so that no one will fall, through following the same example of disobedience.” This example, of course, is Israel. The writer was urging us to finish our course and complete our work, so we can share God’s rest with Him. The idea of these verses is, “Live your Christian life faithfully to the end. Don’t cut it short.”

The One Who Holds Our Inheritance

The passage that validates this understanding of inheritance is Colossians 3:23–24, where Paul wrote, “Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.”

We need to work for the Lord because He’s the one who holds our inheritance. That means we had better stop living to please people and start living to please God. We are His heirs, and the amount of our inheritance depends on our pleasing Him.

So inheritance is received as our response by faith to God’s grace. If you and I are going to get all that God has for us in this life and become owners in the kingdom in the next life, it will be because God gave us our inheritance, which we can only get if we finish. And God supplies us sufficient grace for our faithful obedience to Him and His Word. This orientation means you are living according to a kingdom agenda.

THE INHERITANCE WILL BE EVALUATED

If the inheritance is a reward for faithful service to Christ, then there must come a day of evaluation when what we have done will be tested. That day will be at the judgment seat of Christ, which we have already discussed.

The Standard for Our Evaluation

The standard that Jesus Christ will use to evaluate our service, and therefore our inheritance, is the infallible standard of His Word. I referred to Hebrews 4:12 earlier, but now we come to it again in its context as a divine commentary on the experience of the Israelites. So we need to read it again, adding the important statement of verse 13:

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.

Only the Word of God can penetrate and judge motives. At the judgment seat of Christ, He will pass you and me through the detector of His Word the way we go through those metal detectors at the airport. If anything is wrong, there will be a beep. Any wrong motive, selfish action, double standard, or whatever, will be detected and exposed. That’s why the Bible says that on the day of judgment, “the last shall be first, and the first last” (Matthew 20:16). Many people we admire will be sent to the back of the line. People nobody ever heard of will be brought to the front of the line because the Word of God will judge us perfectly.

Letting the Word Judge Us

You say, “Tony, that’s going to be tough. What can I do to keep from being sent to the back of the line?” Praise God, we don’t have to wait until Christ’s judgment seat to let the Word penetrate our heart and change us. In fact, it’s better to let the Word judge you now rather than to judge you then (see 1 Corinthians 11:31). Better to listen to it now than to have to listen to it then. Better to obey than to lose out then. That’s why we need to allow the “two-edged sword” of God’s Word to penetrate to the deepest levels of our being, even if what it reveals is painful.

But you may come back and say, “Tony, the Word has already penetrated me, and I see my shortcomings. I need help.”

You’ve got it. Look at Hebrews 4:14–16, those wonderful verses about our Great High Priest, the Lord Jesus Christ, who understands us perfectly and stands ready to help us in our time of need. I know some people have a problem with this. They wonder how Jesus can understand our weaknesses when He never did anything wrong. How can He understand the temptations we face?

Well, a doctor doesn’t have to have had cancer to be a cancer surgeon. The reason Jesus can understand is because He took the full brunt of temptation from Satan in the wilderness without yielding to it. If He were as weak as we are, He wouldn’t understand because He would have yielded before He withstood the full brunt of temptation. But because He understands, we can come to His “throne of grace” (v. 16).

“Throne” and “grace” are two great words. Throne means Jesus is the King. Grace means He’s a benevolent dictator. Throne means He’s sovereign. Grace means He cares. Throne means He can do anything. Grace means He wants to do something for us.

If you want to finish your race and receive your full inheritance, Jesus can provide you with all the grace you need. Jesus paid it all, so you have full access to God’s throne room. Through His grace, you can finish and win the prize. In fact, let me show you the kind of people who finish the race and gain their inheritance in the kingdom.

The Bible calls these people “partakers of Christ” (Hebrews 3:14). The word “partaker” means a “sharer.” In Colossians 1:12, Paul used the same Greek word when he said God has “qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.” Let’s see who will be partakers or sharers in the inheritance of the kingdom.

PARTAKERS ARE THE SELECT

As people who are committed to living out God’s kingdom agenda, we have a great future awaiting us. The invisible kingdom will become universally visible the day when Jesus Christ returns to earth and establishes His kingdom for one thousand years (see Revelation 20:1–6). Jesus will run this planet the way God intended it to be run when He created the first Adam.

We Will Rule with Christ

The first Adam was created to rule. That’s why we humans always want to run something. But instead of Adam ruling creation, creation ruled him when sin entered the world.

When Jesus returns as the last Adam, He will do what the first Adam did not do. He will rule the earth, and ruling with Him will be a group of people called His partakers, or sharers. They are the select of the Kingdom, if you will, those who will rule with Christ.

Right now, God is selecting His prime ministers, governors, mayors, city council members, and so forth, faithful people who will rule with Him in His earthly kingdom. We have the opportunity now to be among these partakers.

Who will the partakers rule over? The Bible teaches that while dead believers will be resurrected and living believers changed to go into the kingdom, there will also be a whole world of people who will be on earth and move into the kingdom (see Isaiah 65:21–25). Things will be a lot different then, because in the kingdom there will be no crime. Any overt sin or rebellion will be dealt with swiftly and with perfect justice. There will be an effective administration at various levels of government to carry out the rule of God through Jesus Christ.

A Glorious Privilege

The Bible makes it clear that ruling with Jesus Christ will be a glorious privilege for any believer. We’re talking about our inheritance. Remember the servants in Jesus’ parable we studied in the previous chapter? The one who was most faithful was given ten cities to rule. That’s inheritance.

Anticipating Christ’s future kingdom should change the way we live now. If your doctor told you that you had just one year to live, I suspect you would change some things. Places you hadn’t visited you’d now want to see. Relationships that were on hold you’d probably want to fix. Your new knowledge of the future would greatly affect how you acted in the present.

As a pastor, I enjoy watching a bride and groom as they get excited about their wedding. There may be a lot to do in a short time to get ready, and the bride-to-be can get frustrated with all the details of preparation. But when the wedding comes, all of that subsides, and the joy of anticipation takes over.

You and I have a wedding to anticipate. It’s called the “marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9), the kingdom wedding banquet of Christ and His bride, the church. Talk about a party! This party will last one thousand years (see Revelation 20:1–6). But in order to be a full partaker in this marriage supper, we must be among those Christ will select to rule with Him.

PARTAKERS ARE SERVANTS

Considering our glorious future when we will rule with Christ in His millennial kingdom, it might be easy for us to start acting like rulers today. The Bible fixes that urge for us. We see this in Matthew 20:20–21, where the mother of James and John got it in her head that she would set her boys up as rulers with Christ. She came and bowed down before Jesus with this request: “Command that in Your kingdom these two sons of mine may sit one on Your right and one on Your left.”

Like any good mother, she wanted her boys to reach the top. She wanted them to occupy the places of honor on either side of Jesus when He took His throne in the millennial kingdom. But Jesus said to her and the brothers, “To sit on My right and on My left, this is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by My Father” (v. 23).

Preparing Us to Serve in the Kingdom

What Jesus was saying is that you and I are being prepared now for the glory planned for us later. God has determined how He wants to position all of us in His kingdom, so He is allowing us to experience things in this life that will prepare us for the kingdom.

Now the story in Matthew 20 really gets interesting, because the other ten disciples got mad at James and John (see v. 24). They weren’t upset because of what was requested, but because they didn’t think of it first. Wanting to be the greatest was a problem for all of them. (You can see that when you compare this same story with its parallel in Mark 10.) But Jesus called the whole band together and taught them a vital lesson on servanthood:

You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. (Matthew 20:25–28)

The disciples were saying, “It sure would be nice to be like Caesar. Then I would be boss. I could tell everyone else what to do.” But Jesus turned this kind of thinking on its head. He said if you want to be recognized as great in His future kingdom, you must be a servant in the present. If you are not a servant now (see John 13:15), you will not experience glory later. If your only agenda is, “What have You done for me lately, Lord?” then you won’t merit the role of a partaker in the kingdom.

Jesus demonstrated this kind of servanthood in the upper room (see John 13). The disciples all arrived with the attitude, “Where is the servant to wash our feet? We aren’t about to do it. We need a slave here.”

Jesus said, “We don’t have a slave here today, so I’ll be the slave,” and He washed the disciples’ feet. He who was the greatest of all became the servant of all.

The Reward of Service

It’s not always easy to be a servant, is it? Sometimes when you serve, people mistreat you and take advantage of you. Or they misunderstand your motives and don’t appreciate what you’ve done.

But I’ve got good news for you. Jesus never misses it when you serve. He says, “Serve Me now, even if it’s in secret, and someday I will reward you openly.” If you are going to be a full partaker in your kingdom inheritance, you must be a servant.

There will be people at the judgment seat of Christ to whom He will say, “I just don’t see anything here for Me. You served you quite well. You accomplished your agenda quite nicely. But the page marked ‘For the glory of God’ is blank.” If you and I are too busy to serve now, Jesus will be too busy to recognize us then.

PARTAKERS ARE SUFFERERS

The church at Thessalonica was a source of joy to the apostle Paul because of the way those Christians responded to the gospel and because of their steadfastness. He told them:

We ourselves speak proudly of you among the churches of God for your perseverance and faith in the midst of all your persecutions and afflictions which you endure. This is a plain indication of God’s righteous judgment so that you will be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which indeed you are suffering. (2 Thessalonians 1:4–5)

Sufferers Are the Worthy

Paul said that when you are willing to suffer for the kingdom, you are counted worthy of the kingdom and will be rewarded in the kingdom. In other words, to be a partaker of Christ’s glory in His future kingdom, you must be a partner of His sufferings here on earth. Peter said, “To the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation” (1 Peter 4:13). And Paul talked about the “fellowship of His sufferings” (Philippians 3:10).

This is not the message most of us want to hear. We want to hear about reigning with Christ. We want to hear about the glory of the kingdom and the marriage supper party. Well, those are wonderful things to talk about. But the fullest inheritance goes to those who are willing to suffer for Christ now.

I don’t know what suffering Christ is calling you to endure. But whether it’s physical, emotional, spiritual, marital, or something else, He can give you the grace not only to bear up under it, but also to find His joy in it.

The Grace for Suffering

The tragedy of many who are suffering is that they refuse to be recipients of God’s grace. Remember what Hebrews 4:16 says? There is a throne where we can come and obtain mercy and grace to help us. When we take our suffering to the throne, we get the grace to handle it.

That’s the difference between the person who complains about a hangnail and the Christian with terminal cancer who is rejoicing in the Lord. Paul told the Thessalonians that the sufferers for Christ are the ones considered worthy of the Kingdom. When you are afflicted because of your stand for God, that does not go unnoticed by heaven.

Paul knew all about suffering. His “thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7) was either a physical ailment or perhaps a person who was giving him grief. Whatever it was, it hurt. Paul went to God and asked Him to remove it. No answer. So Paul prayed a second time, “Lord, please get rid of this thorn.” He didn’t hear anything again. So he repeated his request a third time. Finally, God answered him, “Paul, I am not going to remove your thorn.”

And then God made one of the great statements of the New Testament: “My grace is sufficient for you” (v. 9). God said to Paul, “I am not going to change your circumstances. I am going to change you in your circumstances.” That was more than good enough for Paul. He was “well content” with whatever God gave him (v. 10).

When you go for a job interview, you’re often asked, “How many years’ experience do you have?” They want to know what you are bringing from your old job that will enable you to do your new job better than someone who is not experienced. Employers know that experience is often better than degrees. People with degrees know it in their heads, but experienced people know it in their hands. There will be a lot of people in heaven who can’t show you a degree. They didn’t have a lot of theology, but they had plenty of “knee”ology. Their faithfulness in suffering is going to produce “an eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17) that will outweigh a lot of accolades and degrees.

PARTAKERS ARE SINCERE

Here’s another trademark of kingdom partakers. They are sincere in their desire to serve and please the Lord. As Paul wrote, “We also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him” (2 Corinthians 5:9).

Now, we know it’s almost impossible to be completely in touch with our deepest motives all the time and to keep them completely pure all the time. But the person I’m talking about sincerely desires to please the Lord and live out His kingdom agenda. Sincerity in our service is crucial because, as we have already seen several times, the day is coming when believers will stand before Christ. Paul speaks of this in the very next verse: “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (2 Corinthians 5:10).

The term Paul used to describe Christ’s judgment seat was bema, the judges’ seat at the Isthmian Games held in Corinth, an ancient version of the Olympics. Athletes would compete and appear before the bema to receive their prize. Paul’s motive was to please the Lord so that he would not be disqualified from the action and miss out on the rewards of serving Christ.

When we stand before Christ, and the light of His blazing glory shines on our lives, we will be glad we were sincere and not deceptive in our motives. That’s because Christ will evaluate our deeds and words, and the motives behind all of them. On that day, what we did and why we did it will be crystal clear. There will be no doubt or misunderstanding. That’s why Paul said in 1 Corinthians 3:13 that the fire of God’s judgment will test our work to examine its quality.

In other words, did we do what we did for the honor of God? We can do a lot of good things for our own honor. That’s a hard one to read sometimes because our motives get all twisted up, and even we aren’t always able to see into our own hearts. But there will be weeping at the judgment seat of Christ when some believers see their own works burned up and other believers receiving their full kingdom inheritance.

PARTAKERS ARE SERIOUS

We close this chapter, and this section, by returning once more to Hebrews 3, where the writer gave this exhortation:

Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. But encourage one another day after day, as long as it is still called “Today,” so that none of you will be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ, if we hold fast the beginning of our assurance firm until the end. (vv. 12–14)

These verses reveal how we become kingdom partakers—by a serious commitment to persevere and hang in there for Christ.

Serious about Our Commitment

Partakers are serious individuals. They’re serious about church, for example, because they know they can’t make it on their own. They need the encouragement of other believers.

You need the rest of the body of Christ if you are going to be a partaker. Why? Because without the encouragement of the body, you will be more susceptible to the deceitfulness of sin and may fall by the wayside.

Sin is tricky. It feels good at first, but then it makes your heart hardened. And when your heart gets hardened, you need more sin to satisfy you. Sin will make you feel like it’s your best friend. Only later will you realize it was responsible for your demise. Partakers are serious about not letting sin trick them and harden them. They are serious about persevering, holding their faith “firm until the end.” Partakers are those who stay with it.

All of us have bumps in the road. God is not talking about whether you get stalled. He’s talking about whether you go in reverse. That’s what Israel did. They got to the edge of the Promised Land, but then threw themselves into reverse and headed back into the wilderness toward Egypt.

What It Means to Be Serious

What does it take to be serious about being a kingdom person living on a kingdom agenda and looking forward to a kingdom inheritance? First, it takes dedication. You have to set this as your goal and let nothing stop you or turn you back.

Second, it takes discipline to be a partaker. “Pursue righteousness,” Paul told Timothy (1 Timothy 6:11; 2 Timothy 2:22). God will help you, but He won’t exercise discipline for you. You must say, “I am not going to let my eyes look at that which tempts me to sin. I am not going to be around that which pulls me into sin.”

A third trait of partakers is dependence, a realization that you can’t do it on your own. It’s too hard for you alone. It’s too big for you alone. And so every day you live, you drop to your knees before God and ask for His help.

Fourth and finally, partakers are those who develop, who keep on growing. You will never arrive in this life, in the sense that you will not need to grow or learn anything anymore. You may not be where you want to be right now, but you can be farther down the road next year than you are now if you will allow God to keep growing you in Christ. You don’t have to be perfect to be a partaker, just faithful.

If we don’t solidify the foundation of our families, we will forever be performing patchwork on the cracks that appear. We don’t just need a painter to cover the cracks. We need someone to work on the foundation.

The mission of the family is to reflect God through the advancement of His kingdom and rule on earth. Happiness becomes the natural benefit when this goal is being actualized.

http://go.tonyevans.org/family/

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

THE KINGDOM FAMILY

Some time ago, I noticed some fissures had appeared on one of the inside walls of our home. So I called a painter to patch them up with plaster and repaint the wall. After he had finished, everything looked as good as new.

Unfortunately, though, about a month later the same cracks reappeared on the wall. Except this time they had come back as a family of cracks with nieces, nephews, uncles, and cousins—smaller spider-web cracks surrounding the original. So I assumed what I needed was a different painter, someone who really knew what he was doing this time. When I called the new painter to come and fix my wall, he just stared at it for awhile and then bluntly said, “I can’t help you.”

“Excuse me?” I replied, “Why can’t you help me?”

“Because you don’t have a problem with cracks on your wall.”

I looked at the cracks on my wall. And then I looked at the crackpot standing in front of me telling me that I don’t have a problem with cracks on my wall. Pointing to them, I said, “Then explain those.”

“Well, sir,” he began, “those are definitely cracks on your wall. But they are not your problem. Your problem is that the foundation underneath your home is shifting. It is faulty. The cracks on your wall are merely reflective of a deeper problem.”

“I’m listening,” I said, “Go on.”

“If you don’t solidify the foundation, your cracks will never end and you will forever be performing patchwork on your walls. You don’t just need a painter. You first need someone to work on your foundation.” He let me know that until the foundation of my home was repaired, repairing the plaster and repainting it would not do any good. The cracks would simply reappear, this time bringing even more of their family members along.

Scripture tells us another story about the need for a strong foundation. This story is located in the kingdom book of Matthew as part of Jesus’ greatest teaching on the kingdom—the Sermon on the Mount (see Matthew 7:24–27). In this story we read about two very different men who were each building a house, yet on two very different foundations.

One man built his house on the shaky and uncertain foundation of sand. The other man built his house on the solid foundation of rock. The test of these foundations showed up quickly when the storms hit. The foundation that had been built upon the sand swiftly crumbled, while the house that stood on the solid foundation remained intact.

A house, in this biblical parable, can refer to many things. It can refer to a person’s life, church, or even our society. But it can also, quite literally, refer to a family and their home. If and when we seek to build our families on anything other than the stable foundational principles of the Word of God, it will not last when life’s trials and challenges come upon us.

LAYING A SOLID FOUNDATION FOR THE FAMILY

In our society today, many of our families have a foundation problem. Because of this, the majority of them are spending their time dealing with the cracks on their walls. They are trying to plaster over and patch up an argument here, or a fight there, or deal with rebellious children, or any number of things. But they spend all of their time and money focusing on the fissures rather than solidifying the foundation. Because of this there is family chaos in our world.

The Devastation of Divorce

Roughly fifty percent of all marriages in America—whether Christian or non-Christian—end in divorce. And too many of the other fifty percent of couples who don’t divorce stay together for the children, financial reasons, or convenience—not necessarily because they have a thriving, loving home. This helps explain why about forty percent of children in America today are being raised in a fatherless home. In the African-American community, that number increases to approximately seventy-two percent. As we are witnessing throughout our land, you can’t sustain a community or a nation where the husbands and fathers are nowhere to be found.

Even the definition of what it means to be a family has been altered in our chaotic society. Culture and the media have given us their often distorted definitions of family. And now the government is seeking to redefine family to be anyone who decides to become sexual partners and live under the same roof, whether of the same or different sexes. Marriage defined as the union between a man and a woman is under assault as state after state decides whether or not to legalize so-called same-sex unions. The definition of family in America is up for grabs.

The Disintegration of the Family

The disintegration of the family is the single most devastating internal issue facing our nation in general and our communities in particular. Families touch every area of society; their strengths and weaknesses, to a large degree, determine the strengths and weaknesses of churches and communities. If there is weak male leadership in the home, the same will be true in the church. If children are rebellious in the home, the same will apply in schools and on the streets.

When a father abandons his family, a son learns that this is an option for him in the future, and a daughter learns to fear a similar desertion by the man she marries. These, and far too many other situations like them, are especially devastating in urban settings where, coupled with many other problems, there is a massive destruction of the family.

If America is going to rebuild its communities morally, socially, and spiritually, it will have to begin by rebuilding the foundations of families. If someone is building a skyscraper in the midst of a city, you can always know how high they want to go up by looking at how deep they drill down. The higher the skyscraper, the deeper the foundation. You can’t build a skyscraper, much less a home, on the foundation of a chicken coop. Like sand castles on the shore of a rising tide, our families are being washed away one after another.

THE ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY

One of the rules of studying the Bible is called the Law of First Mention, which says that if you want to know what God says about a matter, look at the first time He brings it up, because the first time God addresses a subject will typically tell you what He thinks about it. Every subsequent mention of that subject may add to it or clarify it, but it doesn’t cancel out God’s first mention unless He says that it does at a later point.

Family Is God’s Idea

This rule is important to apply to the concept of family, which is first mentioned in the opening chapters of Genesis. Even before there was sin, there was family. The divine institution of the family was placed in a sinless environment that God created as He laid out the heavens and the earth and formed the creatures that would live on it. Then on the sixth day, God came to the pinnacle of His creation, mankind. The Bible says:

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” (Genesis 1:26–28)

The word “Us” in verse 26 refers to the Triune God: Father, Son, and Spirit—three individual and unique Persons who make up the One unified reality of the Godhead. We also see that the commission of mankind is to bear this Trinitarian image of God. An image is a mirror, a reflection. God created humanity—body, soul, and spirit—to mirror Him, and then He established them in the divine institution called family to reproduce His image.

The Family’s Divine Mission

Therefore the goal of people in general, and the family in particular, is to mirror in the visible realm the reality of the Triune God in the invisible realm. Simply put, the family’s mission is to replicate the image of God in history and to carry out His divinely mandated dominion (“let them rule”) on earth. Dominion means ruling on God’s behalf in history so that history comes under God’s authority.

Personal and familial happiness may be the benefit of a strong family, but it’s not the mission. The mission is to reflect God through the advancement of His kingdom rule on earth. Happiness is the natural benefit when this goal is being achieved.

The problem today is that we have transposed the benefit with the goal so when the benefit, happiness, is not working out, we quit the marriage and the family and move on. But we need to keep in mind that happiness was never God’s first concern, but rather the outgrowth of fulfilling His mandate. When we make His first concern our first concern, we will experience the benefits that come with it. But if we focus on the benefit without getting back to the purpose, we may wind up losing both the purpose and the benefit. Family was established to provide the opportunity and framework for individuals to collectively carry out the plan of God in history.

THE DOMINION OF THE FAMILY

After God created mankind, male and female, He gave them the command to rule, as we read above. This is the Dominion Covenant we mentioned in an earlier chapter. Let’s look at its application to the foundation of the family here.

The Family’s Delegation to Rule

What we see in Genesis 1:26–28 is God delegating to mankind the full responsibility for managing His earthly creation. God decides to indirectly control the affairs of earth by letting mankind exercise direct dominion. He has placed us as His agents on earth to serve as His representatives to carry out His desires in history.

Along with the delegated authority to rule under Him, God also grants to us the freedom, responsibility, and right to rule on His behalf as owner. But God does not force man to rule. He says, “Let them rule.” He does not say He is going to make them rule. What that means is that you can have a happy family or a miserable family, depending on whether you are exercising your rule in reflection of God’s image. God isn’t going to make you have a productive, fulfilling home. He sets up the fundamentals of the family, and gives you the option of using them.

Oftentimes, the well-being of a family is determined by whether the man and woman in the home are reflecting God’s image in their distinct roles. Once that mirror of God gets broken in a home, the reflection that is supposed to happen in the relationship gets broken with it. Virtually every time there is a family breakdown, it is because one or both parties in the marriage are functioning outside of the covenantal bonds of marriage. They are looking at a broken mirror, and as a result, they are failing to activate the dominion God has given to them.

What Satan tries to get us to do is relinquish our rule by handing it over to him and by deceiving us into believing that he has authority. Or else he tries to get us to rule poorly based on our own judgments and distorted worldviews. It isn’t until we rule with wisdom under the comprehensive rule of God that we will become the rulers he intended. It is then that we enter into the complete realization of the divine mission for a family under God.

The Authority of the Ruler

In Genesis 2, the dominion foundation for families continues. We go from the creation of humanity in general to creation of humanity in its specifics—Adam and Eve. But we also see a very important, yet often overlooked, principle about God Himself in this chapter:

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom he had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food. (2:7–9, emphasis added)

The word “LORD” is printed with an initial capital “L” followed by the small capital letters “ORD” for a very important reason. This is the translators’ way of letting us know that this represents the covenant name of God, Yahweh. As we learned earlier, the word “Yahweh” is actually just the transliteration of the four Hebrew consonants of this name, YHWH, with vowels added for pronunciation. According to Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, the word itself translates into “master, absolute ruler” (entry 3068)—in other words, authority. This name for God continues to appear throughout the remainder of the creation narrative:

The LORD God took the man…. (v. 15)

The LORD God commanded the man…. (v. 16)

The LORD God said…. (v. 18)

Now the LORD God formed…. (v. 19)

So the LORD God caused…. (v. 21)

Then the LORD God fashioned…. (v. 22, all emphases added)

The primary element that everything else rests upon in a kingdom is the authority of the ruler. Without the proper establishment of and adherence to a ruler, anarchy ensues. This is why it is critical to recognize that every reference to God in Genesis 1–2 with regard to God’s relationship to mankind, prior to Satan’s conversation with Eve, is as the “LORD God.” When God introduces Himself to Adam relationally in the garden, and when He introduces Himself to us through Scripture with regard to His relationship to mankind, He uses this name for Himself. In all other references in these chapters of Genesis that are not linked with man, God refers to Himself as Elohim, meaning “Creator.”

This is important, because in doing this God is clearly establishing the absolute and authoritative nature of His relationship with us through the revelation of His character and His name. In fact, we know this is His objective because it is the first thing that Satan sought to undo when he tempted Eve. Satan did not refer to God as Yahweh, the LORD God. Satan omitted the name LORD—master, absolute ruler—and said, “Indeed, has God said … ?” (Genesis 3:1, emphasis added). Satan sought to strip God of His place as the absolute Ruler and Authority in His kingdom by stripping Him of His name that connoted His position. Satan kept the idea of religion (God) while eliminating the order of authority (under God).

Religion without God as absolute Authority is no threat to Satan. Life with God is much different than life under God. Satan often uses organized religion to keep people from coming under the authority of the one, true God. Ritual that is not predicated on an authoritative relationship between God and mankind is simply legalism and is the fastest track away from God’s purposes of dominion for mankind under Him.

So before the family was established, God’s authority was established. In fact, it is in the very midst of establishing the family that God reinforced His own rightful authority as the foundation for the family.

THE FOUNDATION BLOCK OF SINGLENESS

One area that we often fail to focus on in building strong families is building strong singles. But strong singles will contribute to strong families, not when and if, but even as single members of their extended families. And since no one is born married, before we can get family right, we have to get singleness right (see chapter 16 for a full treatment of this topic).

The fact is that Adam and Eve were created as single before God ever introduced the concept of family. The name Adam refers to that “which comes from the ground.” God made Adam from the dust of the very ground he was appointed to rule over as God’s manager.

Adam’s Human Framework

To put it simply, mankind is not much more than an intricate and dignified creation from dirt. It’s important for us to understand where Adam and all of us came from, because the first realization Adam needed to live as a successful single was that he was a creature of dust who returned to the dust when he died, just as we will.

This perspective gave Adam the understanding of God’s rulership and his own creaturehood, providing the humility Adam needed to live life underneath the leadership of the LORD God. As long as he kept that mindset and functioned according to that truth, he would have the tools to make productive decisions.

Adam’s Kingdom Responsibility

The next principle Adam needed to learn before God merged him into a family was that he was to be an overseer or ruler under God. God gave Adam a job, in other words. The Bible says: “The LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15).

Here is a warning for single women. When you consider a man for marriage, remember that before God gave Adam a wife, God gave him the responsibility to work. It’s clear from the order in which these events took place that God wants a husband to work and to be responsible. That shows us that an irresponsible man, no matter how attractive or how smooth he can talk, is not a good choice. Marriage alone won’t make him a responsible provider and leader. God wants the best for each of His daughters. Consider your choice of a mate carefully, and follow God’s standard by marrying only a man who demonstrates while he is single that he can and will take care of you in marriage.

In addition to Adam’s responsibility, God also gave him freedom to enjoy all the fruit of the garden, with one exception: “The LORD God commanded the man, saying, ‘From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die’ ” (Genesis 2:16–17).

Adam’s Flawed Understanding

There is a second lesson in these verses, which indicates why so many marriages dissolve today. Despite God’s clear instructions to Adam concerning the forbidden tree, Adam either forgot or willfully ignored what God had said to him when the tempter came. Notice that Eve had not yet been created when God gave these instructions to Adam about the tree. She was not part of this conversation.

So Adam failed to heed God’s instructions. This is the weak point in most homes: husbands and fathers who don’t know what God has said, or who alter or ignore what God has said when applying it to their lives and relationships. Eve often takes the blame for adding to God’s Word by telling Satan that God told Adam not to “touch” the trees, which God did not say, and by omitting “surely” before “you shall die,” which God did say (Genesis 3:3). However, it is also likely that Eve didn’t do the adding and subtracting at all, but rather that God’s Word was lost in translation because Adam may have failed to correctly communicate it to Eve. So today, many men either do not know God’s Word themselves, or do not transfer it to their family accurately as the spiritual leader of the home.

Single believer, if your foundation (humility before God, responsibility over that which He has assigned you, and an accurate understanding of His Word) is not solid before creating a new family through marriage and children, your family’s foundation will not be solid as well. Operating in your kingdom calling as a single with a kingdom perspective under the divine rule of the LORD God is the fundamental key to laying the foundation for family.

Blessed to Rule

God never blesses just to bless. There is always a reason, a purpose for His provision.

A blessing is the capacity to experience, enjoy, and extend the goodness of God in your life. It is never just about you. While it includes you, it is also intended to extend through you to others. Too many Christians today want God to bless them without being willing for God to bless others through them.

In Genesis 1:28, God “blessed” Adam and Eve as He instructed them to fill and rule over the earth. Then He enabled them to extend the blessing He had given them throughout the earth and to those who came after them. In addition, God also blessed them by providing all the resources they needed to carry out the rule He had given to them.

It is also important to note that after the blessing came the instructions. God blessed, but followed that up with the commission of Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply and to rule over that which He had placed under them. They were to serve as managers over the garden that had been given to them. One of the worst things in the world is to live your life and miss your garden. Whatever it takes, don’t miss managing, or even mismanage, the sphere of responsibility God has prepared for you as a single person. Then if and when you marry, you will bring incredible strength into your marriage.

THE FOUNDATION BLOCK OF MARRIAGE

Not only are personal humility, responsibility, and spiritual growth foundational to a kingdom family, but once two people get married their ability to establish a healthy and functioning marriage is another critical foundation block of a family.

Put another way, failed marriages cannot produce the unified, enduring families needed to support our troubled society. When children grow up in loveless homes, they don’t learn the crucial lessons necessary to develop good self-images now and to build strong marriages for themselves later. When children see their fathers coercing submission from their mothers through fear and intimidation, they learn a warped definition of manhood and womanhood, which often results in poor behavior and communication.

In order to restore our homes, churches, and communities we must restore our families. To do that, marriages must function as God intended. This is particularly important for Christian marriages, because the church is the most potent force for community change. If the church is to be properly equipped to bring about change in our world, it needs to be focused on building strong marriages, so that the family unit and thereby the church can do its job effectively.

One day a boy lost an expensive contact lens. He looked and looked but couldn’t find it, so he asked his mother to help him. She found it in a matter of minutes. Her son asked, “How could you find my contact lens in just a few minutes when I have been looking for fifteen minutes?”

His mom said, “That’s easy. You were looking for a contact lens. I was looking for $250!”

A lot of marriages are suffering from the problem that boy had. That is, the husband and/or wife are not looking at their marriage with a sense of its true value in view. Marriage is not merely a social contract; it is a sacred covenant.

Most people view marriage as a means of achieving love, happiness, and fulfillment. Make no mistake about it; those things are important. In fact, they are critical. They are just not the most important, or the most critical elements in marriage. Yet because we have made second things first, as important as second things seem, we are having trouble finding anything at all. It is imperative that each of us learns to view marriage and family from God’s perspective—as a covenantal union He designed in order to strengthen the capability of each partner to carry out His plan in their lives.

God’s Description of Marriage

In the book of Malachi, God is complaining against His people because they have wandered away from Him. They have taken a detour from God’s intended destination for them. One of God’s complaints is found in Malachi 2:13–14. We read:

This is another thing you do: you cover the altar of the LORD with tears, with weeping and with groaning, because He no longer regards the offering or accepts it with favor from your hand. Yet you say, “For what reason?” Because the LORD has been a witness between you and the wife of your youth, against whom you have dealt treacherously, though she is your companion and your wife by covenant” (emphasis added).

This passage specifically identifies the marriage union as a covenant, a term that used to be regularly attached to the concept of marriage. But the word has gotten lost in our contemporary language today, even though it is the description of marriage used throughout Scripture.

The problems in our homes come when we don’t recognize the covenantal nature of marriage, or we don’t know what a covenant entails. If we do not know what a covenant is and what it requires, then we do not know what we are supposed to have, develop, or protect over time. It’s like trying to hit a bull’s-eye without a target.

Just by way of a refresher from our earlier discussion on the definition of a covenant and its components, a covenant is more than a formal contractual arrangement. Biblically, a covenant is a spiritual and relational bond between God and a person, or people, inclusive of certain agreements, conditions, benefits, and effects.

Whenever God wanted to formalize His relationship with His people, He established a covenant. There are a number of these agreements in Scripture, including the Abrahamic Covenant, the Mosaic Covenant, the Davidic Covenant, and the New Covenant. These formal arrangements are spiritually and legally binding between God and a person, or between people.

Marriage is another covenant that God has established. As such, the marriage covenant can never operate to its fullest potential without the ongoing involvement of God. Biblical, spiritual, and theological covenants assume God’s integration into every aspect of the relationship in order for that covenant to maximize its purpose. But when God is dismissed from the marital covenant, it becomes an invitation to the devil to create havoc in the home. This happens because there has been a departure from God’s overarching transcendence.

Transcendence in the Marriage Covenant

One facet of a covenant is the theological word we looked at earlier: “transcendence.” It simply means that God is in charge. Covenants are both initiated and ruled by God.

That might seem like an obvious statement that we don’t need to spend too much time on. But transcendence is a key principle in the marriage covenant and in laying a solid foundation for a family. In order for a covenant to successfully function, carrying with it both the benefits and security it supplies, it has to be set up according to God’s expectations and regulations.

Until we recognize God’s transcendence in our marriage covenants—meaning He is in charge and therefore, His viewpoint must be our viewpoint—we will never experience the productive, purposeful, and peaceful relationship we were designed to have in marriage. Without God’s viewpoint, we will continue to look at marriage, and all of life, through the limitations of our physical eyes. We will miss out on the connections made in the spiritual realm. Since God is in charge in the covenant of marriage, we need His perspective on marriage in order to make it all that He designed marriage to be.

But most people learn about marriage from sources such as the entertainment world, their friends, or the home they grew up in. If you grew up in a functioning home, that would be fine. But many did not, so the home—along with the media and a person’s friends—often merge to form a distorted perspective on marriage. The devil is sometimes the vehicle for creating this distorted perspective, resulting in the chaos we experience in our marriages, and in our lives.

We sometimes fuss and cuss and fight as couples, and we think that our mate is the problem. But that’s exactly what the devil wants you to think, because he knows that you will never fix the real problem when the real problem is not the person you are fighting with. The problem is a spiritual one brought on by our sinful natures, aided by a rebellious and clever enemy of God.

A lot of the stuff we fight about as married couples has nothing to do with the stuff we are fighting about. It has to do with the consequences of our own choices as well as the demonic realm working against us. One little thing can easily turn into a conflict that puts a couple on the path to the divorce court. And you end up wondering how one little thing could do that.

That one little thing can put a couple in divorce court because it’s the byproduct of the real issue—the breaking of the marriage covenant either through a lack of submission to and alignment under God’s transcendence, or a breaking of the covenantal rules of love and respect.

It’s like asking how one small piece of fruit Eve and Adam tasted in the Garden of Eden could have caused so much pain. It wasn’t about a piece of fruit. It was about the effect—the curse that came from the cause of disobedience to God’s rule.

If we as married couples cannot grasp the seriousness of making a spiritual connection in everything that goes on in our marriages, we will continue to rant and rave about the fruit, or whatever the current issue is. We will continue to focus on the thing that is happening without realizing that we must align ourselves under the fundamentals of God’s covenant in order to be in a position to receive the blessings He has promised.

Counseling that gives advice on relational techniques is good, and I recommend it when marriages have reached an impasse. But in order to reverse the effects of negative consequences in your home, and in order to evoke a blessing in your sphere of dominion, you will need more than techniques. You will need to address the spiritual foundation of your family.

If you want your family to fully experience God’s purpose and blessings, you must function in accordance with His covenant. You must build your home on the foundation of God’s Word. The family is a divine institution and therefore will flourish only when it is aligned under the kingdom rule of God.

SATAN’S STRATEGY TO DISMANTLE FAMILIES

Seeking to dismantle the foundations of families is nothing new to Satan. He’s been at it since his attack on the first family of Adam and Eve. By dismantling families, Satan seeks to thwart the expansion of God’s kingdom on earth and the replication of His image in history.

Satan’s strategy began by coaxing our first parents to willingly remove themselves from alignment under God’s rule. Satan succeeded in getting Adam and Eve to operate according to their own rules, under their own authority. The basis for havoc in the home was being laid.

But Satan did not stop there. He also led Adam and Eve to operate out from under God’s prescribed alignment with each other. Eve became the leader while Adam became the passive responder who then proceeded to blame Eve for the lack of leadership on his part.

The result was that shame and conflict entered into the marriage. And nature itself began to feel the effects of sin and disintegrated as a result of the curse of the ground. Ultimately, sibling rivalry in the first family led to murder (see Genesis 4:1–8), which then perpetuated itself in dysfunctional relationships among even more families. The end of it all was God’s judgment on and destruction of the entire human race except for Noah and his family (see Genesis 6).

GOD’S DIVINE USE OF THE FAMILY

When the entire world had become corrupted and it was destroyed in the great flood, God chose to replenish mankind through the family. In this case, it was through Noah, his three sons, and their four mates, who became the basis for the restoration of civilization.

When God wanted to raise up a people who were holy and set apart for Him, He started this through the same divine institution of the family. He chose Abraham, along with Abraham’s wife Sarah, as the vessels through whom to create an entire nation. In fact, God’s intentions for blessing the entire world came through Abraham and the seed of his family (see Genesis 12:3). We read in Genesis 18: “Abraham will surely become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth will be blessed[.] For I have chosen him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may bring upon Abraham what He has spoken about him” (vs. 18–19, emphasis added).

God validated the importance of family to Abraham when He said that His promises to the patriarch related to nation-building were directly tied to Abraham’s influence on his own children. Abraham’s greatness as the father of a nation didn’t simply come by virtue of who he was. God instructed Abraham to train his children, along with his entire household, to live their lives under God. In essence, God wanted Abraham to say like Joshua, “As for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:15).

God so values the family that He would regularly remind His nation Israel that it was built on family. When God spoke about His plan for the Israelites, He regularly communicated it to them in terms of family. He would refer to Himself in familial descriptions such as, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”

Likewise, when God expanded His kingdom in the New Testament through the church, He regularly spoke of the church using family terminology such as “the household of faith,” “brothers,” “sisters,” etc. The family motif for the advancement of God’s kingdom is all throughout Scripture. Only as we maintain the foundation of the family can we see the expansion of God’s kingdom in the world as it was designed to be.

And when God chose to redeem the entire world through the sacrifice of His own Son on the cross, He placed Jesus in an earthly family to learn and grow “in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Luke 2:52) before laying down His life as our Savior.

Now just as God redeemed the first marriage through the sacrifice of an animal (see Genesis 3:21), so families can be restored today, through redemption in Jesus Christ, when the members of the family choose to align themselves under God and His kingdom rule. The remaining chapters in the Kingdom Family section of this book will go into greater detail about what it looks like to align yourself as a family member under God’s rule and within the particular context and kingdom role God has assigned to you.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

THE KINGDOM HUSBAND

For too many people, marriage is like a three-ring circus. First there is the engagement ring, next comes the wedding ring, and then the suffering. One woman said she got married because she was looking for the ideal, but it quickly turned into an ordeal, and now she wants a new deal. One man said he and his wife were happy for twenty years—but then they got married.

Many people are disappointed and disillusioned with marriage. They wake up one morning only to discover that the reality they live in is far from what they had once dreamt or imagined. Because of this, some are getting out of marriage almost as quickly as they got into it.

GOD’S PURPOSE FOR MARRIAGE

One issue that usually comes up when I counsel couples at our church who want to end their marriage is that one or both of them is not happy in the relationship. But we have already learned that personal happiness is not the primary reason why God created family or marriage. It’s a benefit of marriage, but God established marriage to expand His kingdom in history.

Not too long ago, I took my car into the dealership for its routine oil change as well as other normal maintenance that needed to be done. Shortly after I dropped it off, I received a phone call from the dealership telling me that there were some issues with my vehicle, including the fact that my tires were not wearing evenly. The mechanic on the other end of the line said, “The reason your tires are wearing unevenly is that your car is not properly aligned.”

I asked him if we should replace the tires. But he said, “Even if we do that, you will mess up the new tires if we don’t address the alignment problem.” What was visible—my tires wearing thin—was not the real problem. The tires didn’t cause their own wear. The problem was that things were not aligned properly, which was causing unnecessary wear and tear on my tires.

ALIGN YOUR MARRIAGE WITH GOD’S RULES

When we look at marriages and families today, we see a lot of unnecessary wear and tear. There is wear and tear on wives and mothers who are being abused, neglected, and negatively affected; wear and tear on children who are being overly indulged and/or forgotten; and more wear and tear on husbands and fathers who are being usurped and disrespected.

The Pain of Family Breakdown

Most of the negative issues facing our society at large can be directly traced to the breakdown of the family. Because of the redefining and dismantling of the home, death has replaced life, conflict has replaced harmony, and pain has replaced peace.

How do we resolve the social crisis that we are facing in so many people’s lives and in our communities throughout our nation and the world? Only one way: by coming under the alignment principles for marriage that God has given us in His Word. God has a representative order, or flow, according to which things are supposed to operate. When you leave God’s order, you lose God’s presence, blessings, power, and participation in the trials and challenges of life.

What men often do when they are out from under God’s headship in their lives, and they begin to experience chaos in their marriages and homes, is seek to get out of the relationship altogether. They do this even though the woman is simply responding to her husband’s faulty leadership, and the misery he is living with is the same misery that God is living with in regard to him. If the husband is out of order, the wife is out of order. That’s often how it works.

Satan disrupted the first marriage by switching the order in the relationship. He didn’t go to Adam to make a decision. He went to Eve, on purpose, to get the marriage out of alignment. But like cars that need to be properly aligned, the marriage covenant only works when it functions in God’s ordained order. The same wear and tear that showed up on my tires when my car was out of alignment shows up in our marriages, families, and societies when couples ignore this vital component of the covenant.

Coming under Kingdom Authority

Every kingdom husband must recognize that he is under the authority of Jesus Christ. “Christ is the head of every man,” Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 11:3. Therefore, any man who refuses to submit to biblical authority regarding his submission to the lordship of Christ has forfeited his right to demand that his wife submit to him. It is by falling in line under his Leader, the Lord, that a husband models for his wife how she is to fall in line under him.

Unfortunately, men often think that headship is a blank check to command a woman to do, or not do, whatever they want. If she does not, she is called “rebellious,” or “un-submissive.” But the validity of headship rests in the submission of the man underneath Jesus Christ. Paul went on in 1 Corinthians 11:3 to say, “The man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.” God’s order for headship and submission is clear: God, Christ, man, woman.

To ask a woman to submit to a man who is out of alignment under God and Christ is to ask that she submit to something other than God, which she should never do. Men bear a responsibility to align themselves under God before they ask their wives to align themselves under them. When men do that, God covers them and their homes with His covenantal protection.

Enjoying God’s Covenantal Protection

We discover more about this in Exodus 34:23–24, when God says something very interesting about the men of Israel: “Three times a year all your males are to appear before the LORD God, the God of Israel. For I will drive out nations before you and enlarge your borders, and no man shall covet your land when you go up three times a year to appear before the LORD your God.”

This refers to God’s requirement that the men of Israel make a trip to Jerusalem for the three annual “pilgrim” feasts of Passover, Pentecost, and Booths. By doing so, they were obeying God and acknowledging His sovereign rule in their lives. But before we move past this too quickly, think of what could happen to the wives and children and property left behind. In the ancient world, this was unthinkable from a military and defense perspective. It was also unthinkable from an agricultural perspective in an agrarian society, since the men were the harvesters. This doesn’t sound like a very good national strategy.

But this is where verse 24 above comes in. God told the men of Israel that while they were away worshiping and obeying Him and honoring His authority, they did not have to worry about their families or possessions. God said He would see to it that no one would bother their land, houses, or anyone left behind.

In other words, God is saying, “If you will align yourself under My authority, I’ll take care of the rest. I have you covered.” But in order for God to cover you, kingdom man, you will have to humble yourself under Him by aligning your thoughts, actions, decisions, and leadership under the overarching authority of God.

A False Claim of Headship

But Satan wants men to claim headship without being under any headship at all. You can always know when Satan has been successful in carrying out this scheme. One way you can tell when a man is not under divine Headship is if he rarely, or ever, brings God’s point of view into the discussion. His decisions do not reflect God’s decisions. Yet, we know from the experience of Adam and Eve that regardless of who makes the decisions in a home, it is the man who is held responsible.

Eve was the one who gave in to the devil in the garden, but it was Adam who bore the blame for sin entering the world. Paul said, “Through one man sin entered into the world” (Romans 5:12), and that “in Adam all die” (1 Corinthians 15:22a). Why Adam? Because he was responsible. To be the head over someone means that you are responsible.

The best thing a man can do in leading his home and cultivating his marriage is to ask, “What is the mind of Christ on this matter?” and then follow it. Once you have done that, you will have your wife’s full attention and submission because now she is no longer arguing with you and your opinions. Now you have brought Christ and His Word into the equation. Eventually your wife will rest when she sees that you are under an Authority that can be trusted.

One of a woman’s greatest needs in marriage is for security. A woman needs to feel safe, and that is why she will sometimes ask her husband to hold her. Most men misinterpret that as a request for physical intimacy, but if the emotional need for security is on her mind, she is not thinking about physical desires. A husband must align himself under the Word of God to offer an environment that causes his wife to feel secure. When he does that, he will be demonstrating what it means to be a truly spiritual leader over her.

Marriage is a covenantal union put in place to demonstrate God’s sovereignty within the proper adherence to God’s ordained alignment. Christ is under God, the Father. All men are under Christ. And a woman (wife) is under a man (husband).

LOVE YOUR WIFE

The first way a husband can reflect a kingdom agenda that aligns himself under Jesus Christ in his marriage is to love his wife. I can hear some husbands saying, “That goes without saying. Move on to number two.” Sorry, but we need to spend some extra time here on number one, because a lot of what goes under the name of love has little to do with true, biblical love.

The word “love” has become devalued today. People say, “I love my job. I love my home. I love chocolate cake.” What they are talking about is what those things do for them. The home makes them comfortable. The work satisfies their career needs. The cake satisfies their sweet tooth.

That’s fine, but that’s not love. Biblical love involves the sacrifice you make for the loved one. You measure true love by sacrifice, not by enjoyment. If a husband talks about loving his wife but means by this that she does a lot of good things for him, that’s not him loving her. That’s her loving him.

The Husband as Savior

What does it mean for a husband to love his wife in accordance with a kingdom agenda? The first thing it means is for the husband to be a savior for his wife. Now I know what you’re thinking. But my theology is firmly in place. Obviously, I’m not using the term savior in any theological sense. But I am using the word very deliberately. Let me show you what I mean.

Ephesians 5 has a foundational rule for a victorious marriage: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her” (v. 25). How did Jesus give Himself up for the church? He died. As far as God is concerned, to talk about marital love is to talk about a cross. To talk about love is to talk about Calvary. To talk about love is to talk about a Savior. We have a Savior in Christ. And our wives ought to have a savior in us. We have a Deliverer in Christ. And our wives ought to have a deliverer in us. Loving your wife means carrying a cross. So if you feel like your wife is crucifying you, you have the perfect opportunity to look like Jesus.

You may know that nowhere in Scripture is a wife commanded to love her husband. She is commanded to respect him (see Ephesians 5:33). It’s not that a woman shouldn’t love her husband. But her love is a response to his salvation. If you and I are going to be biblical lovers as husbands, we must become biblical saviors. That means loving as Christ loves. So a husband is called to love his wife no matter what. We can’t wait until she gets everything right, just as a wife is to respect her husband even when he doesn’t have it all together.

This gets very practical. A husband’s love cannot say, “She’s meeting my needs. Therefore, I will love her.” No, you love her even when she’s not meeting your needs. You love her until she learns how to meet your needs.

Most men date in order to marry, when the biblical principle is marry in order to date. Most men shower a woman with love to get her to say “I do.” But the biblical ideal is to have her say “I do” so we can spend the rest of our lives showering her with love. Every man likes to think of himself as a lover. But the measuring rod for a biblical lover is the size of the cross he is carrying. Christ loved the church to death.

When Adam was created, God opened his side and took out a rib to create Eve. Adam had to bleed to get Eve. Christ had to bleed in order to birth the church. If a wife is going to grow from where she is to where she ought to be, her husband has to take a trip to Calvary. Now remember, I’m not talking about eternal salvation here at all. The idea is that a husband is called to give himself up for his wife. That’s first on God’s agenda for us husbands.

Husband, you need to decide, “I am willing to pay whatever price it takes to bring my wife to fulfillment. I am willing to go the distance to bring her from where she is to where she ought to be spiritually and in every other way.” The Bible says Jacob loved Rachel so much he worked fourteen years to gain her hand (see Genesis 29:20–30). That’s a high price to pay, but it’s the price tag of love.

Too many men want to run away from their wives when there’s a problem. But if there were no problems, if your wife were perfect, she wouldn’t need a savior. Christ looked at us in our mess and said, “You have a Savior. Here I am.”

The husband is the savior of the wife. At the heart of that is sacrifice. If there is no sacrifice, there is no love. So my question is, Do you really love your wife? If I asked her what price you are paying to love her, could she tell me? Could you tell me what price you are paying for her?

The theological equivalent of a husband’s promise to love his wife no matter what, as long as he lives, is the doctrine called eternal security. This truth says that no matter what comes—good, bad, or ugly—because we are God’s children, He is not going anywhere. We are His forever. In the same way, a husband who truly loves his wife says, “If this marriage ends, you’re going to have to leave me because I’m not going anywhere. No matter how you treat me or what happens, I want you to know you have a savior.” Only a man who has abandoned himself to a kingdom agenda rather than a personal one can make this level of commitment.

The Husband as Sanctifier

Not only is a husband to be his wife’s savior, but if he is going to live according to a kingdom agenda, he must also be her sanctifier. In Ephesians 5:26–27 Paul spoke of Christ and the church: “So that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.” The purpose of sanctification is to take someone from where they are and turn them into what they ought to be. When we got saved, our problems, mistakes, and sins did not disappear. But we did enter into a process of transformation called sanctification.

Now let me tell you what happens in a marriage. When a man marries a woman, he also marries her history (this works both ways, of course). He has to accept the good parts of her past and her family as well as the bad parts. The good parts he enjoys. The bad parts he often doesn’t get to see until after the honeymoon. The husband doesn’t get to see it all before the wedding.

You may only get to see your future wife with her makeup on and with those eyelashes you thought were real. You only see her on her “social behavior,” so it may be only after you’re married that you hear yourself saying, “I didn’t know you fussed like that. You didn’t fuss when we were dating.”

But if you love your wife, you will still be her sanctifier. What is the purpose of a sanctifier? According to Ephesians 5:26, Jesus’ purpose is to cleanse the church. A husband is the wife’s “cleanser.” His love is to be a sanctifying agent to help cleanse and heal the things she brings into the marriage that may not be right. Maybe she was abused by her father or was raised by a domineering mother. The consequences of that won’t disappear just because the husband comes on the scene. Our wives need our sanctifying love.

This means that when your wife needs strength, you are her strength. When she needs encouragement, you are her encouragement. When she needs joy, you are her joy. When she needs peace, you are her peace. The result is that no matter how old she gets, your wife is kept eternally young because she’s got a sanctifier in the house.

The husband says, “Well, if she hadn’t screamed at me, I wouldn’t have screamed at her.” This is not tit-for-tat. What I’m talking about is showing strength. Husband, you say you’re the leader. You say you’re the strong one. Then be that. Be your wife’s sanctifier that she might be cleansed. The true purpose of leadership is not domination, but glorification. If it is our goal to glorify and beautify our wives, then we will not abuse them, but embrace them.

The Husband as Satisfier

The third aspect of a husband’s kingdom-oriented love is that of being his wife’s satisfier. Verses 28–29 of Ephesians 5 say, “So husbands ought also to love their own wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself; for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church.”

What we need today is a group of men who know how to satisfy their wives. Now most men think of sex when they hear that. And some men will brag about how many women they can satisfy. But any man who talks that way doesn’t know what he’s talking about. A real man is one who can commit himself to his “own wife” and love her with a steady commitment so that after fifteen, twenty, thirty, or fifty years, his wife can still say, “I’m satisfied.”

Paul explains this as loving your wife the way you love your own body. So just as a man works out to make his body look good and does things to satisfy his needs, he is to help his wife look good so that she is fulfilled and satisfied. There are too many dissatisfied wives out there because there are too many unsatisfying husbands.

As I’ve said before, too many husbands and wives look like they were married by the secretary of war rather than the justice of the peace. Husbands and wives in constant conflict are like the late Winston Churchill and Lady Astor in England. Lady Astor despised Winston Churchill and said to him, “Winston, if you were my husband, I’d put arsenic in your tea.”

Churchill responded, “Lady Astor, if I were your husband, I’d drink it.”

That’s the way a lot of couples live. Changing it starts with the husband. It has nothing to do with what the wife does in return, because we’re talking about biblical love here. A man who is determined to satisfy his wife won’t stop even if his efforts are not met with equal love. The first thing on a husband’s kingdom agenda is to love his wife.

LIVE WITH YOUR WIFE

A second way you can live out your kingdom agenda as a husband is to live with your wife. You say, “That’s easy. We’re in the same house. We’re still together.” But there’s more to it than that. The apostle Peter said: “You husbands in the same way, live with your wives in an understanding way” (1 Peter 3:7).

The Greek word for “live” means to dwell in close harmony, to be closely aligned with someone, to live together with intimacy. When somebody comes to visit and you say, “Make yourself at home,” you mean more than just sit down. You mean make yourself comfortable, be joyful, be at peace.

Many men have the idea, “I’m the husband; I go out and work. You’re the wife; you stay home. I do my job; you do your job.” But that’s where the problem is. The home is the husband’s job too. His wife is to help him do his job well at home, but she is not designed to replace him in the home. A husband needs to create an environment of intimacy in his home. It is part of a husband’s kingdom agenda to make sure, as much as humanly possible, that his home is a place of peace. That means he has to be present to be the leader.

Remember, your wife didn’t marry a paycheck, a car, or a job title. She married you. Whenever you measure the quality of your marriage by the number and size of the trinkets you own, you’ve missed it.

I know we men have the responsibility to provide for our families. I’m not overlooking that. What I’m telling you is that whenever the things you do for your wife replace your presence with her, then you are not living with her in the way 1 Peter 3:7 describes.

For a husband, making the commitment to live with his wife may mean making some hard decisions about work, hobbies, or other involvements. But imagine what it would mean to a wife to have her husband tell her, “I’m committed to you. If I have to give some things up or back off at work, I’ll do it.”

Obeying God’s Word in this area means that when a husband goes home, he goes home to his second job. Therefore, the boss downtown can’t have one hundred percent of a Christian husband’s time or commitment, because he has a second job.

It’s commonly accepted that when a wife comes home from work, she’s coming home to her second job. She’s supposed to get something on the table, clean the house, and make sure everyone, including her husband, is taken care of. Then she’s supposed to have enough energy to meet her husband’s physical needs at night as well.

What I’m saying is that a wife needs a husband whose attitude also is, “This is our home. We’re in this together, and I want you to know that when I come home, I come home to work.” What kind of work? Whatever kind the wife needs at that time to help her out. Husbands are to out-serve their wives consistently because the essence of leadership is servanthood.

KNOW YOUR WIFE

First Peter 3:7 gives us a third way a husband can fulfill his kingdom agenda in his marriage. To live with his wife “in an understanding way” demands that he know her intimately.

A husband needs to study two things: the Bible and his wife. Why? Because both are difficult to interpret. There are “some things hard to understand” (2 Peter 3:16) in both your Bible and your wife. Any man will testify that a woman is complex and sometimes confusing. You think she wants this, but she really wants that.

That’s why we have to study our wives. Now you can’t study something without giving time to it. When your wife wants to talk, she’s giving you the opportunity to know her, because many times we as men are meeting needs that our wives don’t have.

You say, “So how do I know what my wife’s needs are?”

Ask her and then listen to the answer. She’ll tell you if she knows you really want to know. To really know your wife, you may have to give up some television programs, or get your news from somewhere besides the evening newscast. When you make an effort to know your wife, good things will start happening in your marriage because women love to be understood. They want someone with whom to share their fears, their cares, their hopes, and their disappointments. When they feel loved and understood, they are better able to respond in love.

HONOR YOUR WIFE

Here’s a fourth way a husband can bring God’s kingdom agenda to bear on his marriage. Peter told husbands to honor their wives. Further on in 1 Peter 3:7 he said: “Husbands … live with your wives in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life” (emphasis added).

The word “show” means to “assign” your wife a place of honor in your life. To put it another way, if you want to be a true kingdom king, treat her like your queen. The concept of honor has to do with placing your wife in a position of significance, treating her as someone very special. Does your wife feel special? Do you do things for her that let her know she is different than any other woman?

Many of us men do little courtesies for other women we don’t do anymore for our wives. We used to do them. We used to open the car door every single time. We wouldn’t think of letting her get in the car by herself. Now, she’s lucky to get in before we drive off!

But when chivalry dies, a marriage starts to die. We need to make a commitment that other women may have to open the door for themselves, but not our wives. Your wife is your queen, so roll out the red carpet, pull out the chair, open the door, and escort her. She must feel special.

You can also make your wife feel special by your words. It takes very little time and effort to pick up the phone, call your wife in the middle of the day, and tell her she’s on your mind and you can’t wait to see her when you get home. Don’t just text it; let her hear you say it.

There are so many other ways we can make our wives feel special. A gift for no particular reason is a great way to tell your wife she’s special to you. Your time is also a gift to your wife. You don’t have to give her a new car to make her feel special. Just the fact that you want to take her somewhere in the old car will do.

Just as God’s “lovingkindnesses … are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22–23), so we as kingdom men should show that same consistency to our wives. When you were dating your wife, you didn’t do special things for her only once or twice a year. You bombarded her with calls, notes, and gifts. You surprised her with stuff all the time. You were creative and spontaneous. You gave her every minute you had to spare.

She may not even have liked you when you two first met. But you kept it going, and eventually the two of you fell in love and got married. But what happens once a man gets married? Often, he stops honoring his wife. He stops making her feel special. She has to fend for herself. Her ideas and opinions no longer matter much. Her skills are taken for granted.

I often ask husbands, “When was your last date with your wife?” I’m not talking about coming home and saying, “What do you want to do tonight?” That’s not a date. A date is, “Honey, I’ve got this evening all planned out. All you need to do is come along. Here’s what I have planned. If you want to make some adjustments, that’s fine, because I want to please you. But I want to let you know I thought about this evening before it arrived.”

That attention communicates honor and value to your wife. It tells her you didn’t just come with nothing planned and say, “What do you want to do tonight?” It tells her she’s not just an afterthought to you. She is seen as significant.

Peter said we are to honor our wives because they are our “fellow heir[s] of the grace of life.” You may say, “But I married the wrong woman.” Then start treating her like the right woman, and she’ll become the right woman. Honor your wife.

PRAY WITH YOUR WIFE

The fifth and final way a man becomes a real kingdom husband is found in the last phrase of 1 Peter 3:7: “So that your prayers will not be hindered.” Prayer may be the last item on our list, but it’s the most important. If there is no dynamic spiritual relationship between you and your wife, there won’t be much that is dynamic in your relationship at all. If the two of you don’t have a heavenly foundation, you’ll wind up with a hellish relationship.

She Is Your Fellow Heir

The key to this is found in the concept we just discussed, the fact that you and your wife are fellow heirs of God’s grace. Peter is saying that God is not going to do anything for you if your wife can’t be included. That means your prayers are a waste of time if she isn’t included. You don’t have a singular relationship with God anymore, because you became one flesh with your wife. So if you’re not treating your wife the way Peter described, God doesn’t have any answers to prayer for you because He doesn’t see two people anymore. He sees one person, one flesh.

Since this is true, it has to be said that one of the great sins today is that men are not praying with their wives. Wife, if your husband is trying to pray with you, don’t turn him down. He’s calling on the greatest force available to save your home. Help him and encourage him. He’s calling on God, because God is not going to help him apart from you.

Husbands need to pray with their wives, so the two of them can enjoy the spiritual riches of God’s kingdom plan and His kingdom inheritance together. The question is not, will your marriage work? The question is, will you work at your marriage? If your marriage needs to be turned around, let it start with you.

She Is Your Responder

It’s true that I tend to put a greater emphasis on the role of a man when I talk about marriage. I do this for two reasons: One, because men are the head of the home and therefore held responsible; and two, because men often have the ability to control the climate in their homes. Husband, you’re the spiritual thermostat in your marriage and home. You control the temperature. Your wife is the thermometer. She’ll tell you how it reads.

So if you have the thermostat set on eighty degrees and your wife is cold, your thermostat is broken. Generally, you can tell a lot about a man by looking in the face of his wife. She is his mirror. When God made woman, He made her to be a receiver and responder. He made her a little softer, a little warmer, a little more emotional in order to respond to man. A woman responds in such a way so that the very thing the husband wants, he will receive by giving, not by demanding.

God does not want a wife to love her husband and respond to him because he demands it; God wants her to do it as a natural response. God wants a wife to respond because a husband meets her emotional needs with loving care, because he wears her out with love and attention.

I tell many men who come to me for marital counseling, “Stop pushing so hard and start loving a little more. Stop complaining so much and start loving a little harder.” If a husband lets his wife know that she is loved and makes her feel secure, he won’t have to worry about her fulfilling her responsibility in the home. He won’t have to wonder if he will have an active, frequent physical relationship. She will be right there responding to his needs.

But a husband must lead in the sense God intended. You must say, “Guys, I can’t hang out with you tonight. I’ve got a wife at home I want to spend time with. I think I’ll take her out tonight.” I will guarantee you that when you are that kind of husband, you will get the kind of response you want without demanding it.

But you may be saying, “Tony, I’m trying. How come my wife isn’t responding?” Let me answer that with an illustration. A man can become angry with his wife at ten o’clock and be over it by ten-thirty. “Come on, honey, we need to spend some time together.” He previously was a powder keg with a short fuse, but in thirty minutes his whole demeanor has changed.

On the other hand, if a wife becomes angry with her husband at ten in the morning, she may still be angry at ten o’clock that night—and sometimes the night after that. The reason a wife stays mad is because her emotions have been rubbed the wrong way. But a husband can smooth them by stroking them the right way. A husband can bring her back if he takes the time to learn how. It takes what is called unconditional love—that is, a decision to love no matter how difficult the way, with or without a response.

For many husbands, loving unconditionally is going to require an apology and a new start. “I’ve failed. I haven’t loved you the way I was supposed to love you, and I know that it has affected our relationship. I’m going to change. I’m going to love you deeply the way you need to be loved.”

It’s going to take that kind of commitment to succeed in marriage. For some men that will be a new decision, while for others it will be a continuation of a commitment already made. New or old, it will be worth it.

She Needs Your Climate Control

Psalm 128:3 contains an interesting note on the response nature of women and how that affects the home. It says that a man who fears the Lord (a man who walks with God) will find his wife becoming “like a fruitful vine” in his house. In a favorable climate, grapevines need no coaxing. They will grow and produce grapes from which wine, a drink symbolizing celebration and happiness in biblical times, is made.

It is the same in the home. The husband is responsible for creating a climate in which his wife can flourish. When that happens, he can naturally expect a joyful response. The husband can anticipate joy from his labor.

Climate control involves a number of requirements. First, the husband must be at home enough to create and maintain an ideal temperature. The husband who is rarely at home cannot do that because his absences frustrate his wife and damage her self-confidence. Second, the husband must know what his wife needs in order for her to grow. That means he must spend quality time with his mate if he is going to receive a quality response.

The west wall of a house in which I once lived was covered with a vine. Each summer that vine grew very quickly. The rain and the warmth of the sun encouraged it to cover the wall with gorgeous foliage. In no time at all it had to be trimmed and then trimmed again as it began to grow under the window trim, through the brick exterior, and under the roof of the house. This vine brought me great enjoyment because of its growth.

So it is with a wife who finds her husband providing the right climate. She will bring great enjoyment to him with her love, providing him with the atmosphere he needs and desires. The better and more constant the climate, the better, faster, and more consistent the wife’s growth will be. As she grows and is fulfilled, her husband will benefit from her growth.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE KINGDOM WIFE

The story is told of two escaped prisoners who were on the run through the woods when they heard the tracking dogs barking behind them and realized the guards were closing in. The first prisoner scrambled up a tree in the hopes of throwing the dogs off. The second prisoner decided he would do the same thing and ran to a nearby tree, which he also climbed.

As the prisoners hid among the branches and listened, the dogs grew closer. Before long they were barking at the base of the tree where the first prisoner was hiding. He was a quick thinker, so he started saying, “Coo, coo, coo.”

The prison guards jerked the dogs back from the tree and said, “Come on, let’s go. There’s nothing up there but a bird.”

Then the guards came to the tree where the second prisoner was hiding. As the dogs started barking and jumping at the tree, this guy panicked. He wasn’t as quick as the first prisoner, but he had heard the guy throw the dogs off by making a bird noise and realized he also needed to make some kind of animal sound. So he thought for a second and then said, “Moo, moo, moo.”

When you’re confused about what you are supposed to be doing, you wind up making the wrong noise at the wrong time in the wrong place. We see Christian couples today who are making a lot of noise complaining about their spouses and their marriages. The truth is they have neglected their own biblical roles and gotten out of God’s prescribed alignment, and as a result have become confused about what they are supposed to be doing. We could say they’re mooing when they ought to be cooing.

A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF SURRENDER

Jesus’ example on the cross helps us see what it means to surrender to God’s divine plan—His alignment and roles for our lives. Christ willingly accepted His position, lay down on the cross, and stretched out His arms to be nailed because it was the will of His Head, His Father.

There are, no doubt, many wives who would say they feel almost as though they’re being crucified by their marriages. From their perspective, it seems as if they are being asked to stretch out their arms and surrender themselves to their husbands, who may or may not appreciate their sacrifice and treat them accordingly.

Since no husband or marriage is perfect, the issue of alignment is a difficult one for many wives. That’s because God calls a wife to respect and submit to her husband even when he may not be worthy of her respect, or when there is a difference of opinion and the wife has a valid point. She must honor her husband’s position as her biblical head, even if she disagrees with his perspective, in order to achieve a common goal.

Yet when a wife honors her husband’s position, God sees this and responds to her as well. In fact, when you as a wife make your decisions in light of God’s prescribed alignment for marriage, you will discover that He knows just how to meet your every need. God honors those who honor Him (see 1 Samuel 2:30). Even more than that, when you commit your way, or your decisions, to God, He promises to give you the desires of your heart (see Psalm 37:4–5). You won’t have to go behind, around, or over your husband to try and do the things you desire. The fastest way of ushering in God’s favor and power in your life is to honor Him by honoring His established alignment in life.

The problem with my car’s alignment, which I mentioned in the previous chapter, would have gotten so bad had I not corrected it that eventually, my car would have become too shaky to drive at all. Not only would I have worn out my tires, but I would have endangered myself, my passengers, and even other vehicles. A shaky car is a danger to everyone on the road.

Many marriages are shaky today because they are out of order. Just as Adam said nothing while allowing the serpent to smooth-talk Eve into making a monumental decision, husbands and wives are reversing the order in which things are to be done in the home. Nature abhors a vacuum—so when a man shrinks from his role of headship, it is to be expected that a woman will step in to fill it.

BIBLICAL ALIGNMENT FOR A WIFE

So what are God’s principles of biblical alignment for a wife? Paul addresses this issue in a verse we need to revisit. Writing to Christians at the church in Corinth, Paul said: “I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ” (1 Corinthians 11:3, emphasis added).

We need to understand that God operates according to an established order, which is spelled out so clearly in this verse. Notice that “the man,” just one, is the head of “a woman,” just one also. The Bible does not say that all men are head over all women, or that this arrangement applies in a work environment or other relationships. This is clearly talking about alignment in marriage because it talks about one man’s headship over one woman.

So God the Father is over Christ. Christ is over all men. And a husband is over his wife. When that alignment gets out of order, Satan has an opportunity to manifest chaos. Notice that even Jesus must honor this alignment. That means you and I must honor it as well.

Jesus Christ is God in the flesh, the Son of the living God who bears the very essence of Deity. Christ’s ontological being is the same essence as that of God the Father (see Hebrews 1:3a). Yet when it comes to how Christ operates within the realm of space and time, He is beneath prescribed authority. Jesus said of His ministry on earth: “My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work” (John 4:34). Jesus was not only under His Father’s prescribed authority, but the Lord relished His calling by carrying out the Father’s plan.

That’s very important to you and me because the work of redemption was only accomplished because Jesus came under the headship of the Father. Jesus was perfectly obedient to the Father, saying in the garden: “Not My will, but Yours be done” (Luke 22:42). Jesus demonstrated His submission even to the extent of death on a cross. He operated under authority in order to carry out the kingdom agenda on earth.

Christ as the Head

We also read in 1 Corinthians 11:3 that every man is under the headship of Christ. Here is where we often find things out of alignment in God’s prescribed order. Even though the biblical definition of a man is a male who has learned to operate under the lordship of Jesus Christ, that is too often not the case in marriage.

In fact, many men who complain about their wives not submitting to them are guilty of not submitting themselves to Christ. When a husband is not submitting to his rightful Authority, then what he sees in his wife is simply a reflection of his own disorder.

I know that submission is an unpopular teaching. But when we understand submission from a biblical perspective, we see that it is a positive force to accomplish good, not a negative force to subject someone to an inferior status. The Greek word for submission, hupotasso, means to place oneself under the authority of another. This does not involve coercion, but rather a willingness to take who and what God made you to be and submit it to a rightful authority: in a man’s case, to God; in a woman’s case, to God and to her husband.

Generally speaking, a man’s failure to submit to Christ leads to a lack of submission on the part of his wife. Men often want to be a head without being underneath their Head. Problems often come in a marriage when husbands are out of alignment and yet try to get their wives to line up properly under them. Then the kids get out of alignment as well, and pretty soon the entire family is in chaos. It starts with Christ, and then moves to the man.

A Wife under Her Husband

A husband is his wife’s biblical head, or covering. Now, keep in mind that alignment does not determine value. Men and women are of equal value under God. Alignment simply defines function. A woman is functionally subordinate under her husband, but not of lesser value.

The Bible gives us a reason for this positioning: “But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression” (1 Timothy 2:12–14).

Please notice that Paul presents this principle based on the order of the church. This has nothing to do with the local culture, or the time period, as is often argued by those who want to deny the timelessness of this teaching. Even more importantly, this passage proves false the argument that male headship and female submission only came in after the fall—that is, they are consequences of sin and not part of God’s original design.

But Paul says this was God’s created order before there was sin in the world. God created Adam first, then Eve. What’s more, Paul notes that it was not Adam who was deceived, but Eve. Here is the clear order of creation and how it got reversed. When Eve ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and then persuaded Adam to do the same, they were desiring to live life independently of God. That is the way most relationships function today. One or both partners choose to separate themselves from God’s rule and authority.

But conflicts arise when both partners in a marriage live by their own desires and opinions rather than on divine revelation. Whatever issue is causing friction in your marriage, or whatever decision needs to be made—whether it be financial, personal, or professional—you must discover God’s viewpoint on the matter and align yourself under Him.

Now, let me add that a wife’s alignment under her husband does have limitations. If a man asks his wife to rob a bank, should she rob the bank? No, because that would be breaking God’s law not to steal. If a man asks his wife to do anything that is contrary to God’s laws, then he yields his authority over her to God. A husband does not have absolute authority over his wife. His authority remains valid only as long as he is not violating a principle from God’s Word.

Yet, apart from this restriction, Scripture says that a wife who honors God by living according to His precepts even creates an opportunity to win her husband over without lecturing, manipulating, or demeaning him (see 1 Peter 3:1–2). This is hard for some wives to believe because they don’t see any way their husbands will ever come around without their intervention. But this is what God says in His Word, which can be trusted (see Romans 3:4).

There should be plenty of wives ready to give God’s way a try because they’ve been trying it their way for years and it hasn’t worked. Lasting spiritual change is the work of the Holy Spirit, not the product of our efforts. Peter went back into biblical history to name some women who understood the principle of alignment through surrender, and had put it to work in their lives, as we read a few verses later in 1 Peter 3: “For in this way in former times the holy women also, who hoped in God, used to adorn themselves, being submissive to their own husbands” (v. 5). He then cited Sarah as an example (v. 6).

GODLY EXAMPLES OF SURRENDER

One problem we are dealing with in our no-absolutes, no-rules generation is a lack of godly examples of husbands and wives who are living out their marriages according to Scriptural principles and seeing God honor their relationship doing marriage as God designed it.

In one sense this shouldn’t surprise us because Proverbs 31:10 says that an excellent woman is rare, with a value “far above jewels.” And I might add that excellent men are just as rare, if not more so, these days. But in the context of 1 Peter 3, an excellent or holy woman is someone who trusts in God and is submissive to her husband, truly honoring and respecting him.

Let’s make sure we understand what’s being said here. A woman who disrespects her husband and dishonors his position cannot be considered a holy woman in God’s sight. By disrespecting him, she is disrespecting God. “Holy” means set apart for God, which is an internal, invisible, spiritual commitment that is made in the heart.

But the Bible also says that we can tell what is in people’s hearts by their words and actions. These women of old who trusted God and were set apart for Him demonstrated their faith by the way they honored their husbands through both their words and their actions.

The point is inescapable. Wife, you cannot say you are close to God while you are in rebellion against your husband’s leadership, putting him down, and battling him for control. The women who were set apart to be “rare” and “holy” didn’t do that. They respected their husbands even if they didn’t always agree with them. They did this because they trusted God.

Marriage is a covenantal union designed to strengthen the capability of each partner to carry out the plan of God in their lives. Marriage is a means to greater dominion over the life God has given you. In order for both a husband and wife to have their greatest influence, it is important for them to work together. Adam was to offer leadership as the provider, protector, and priest. Eve was fashioned for her own dominion by being a helper in the process. God said of Adam’s need for a mate, “I will make him a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18).

What It Means to Help

When some men hear the word “helper,” they think of someone who is going to cook, clean, do the laundry, and keep the kids quiet while they watch the ballgame. Television sitcoms are full of these marriage portrayals, and they usually get a lot of laughs. But there’s nothing funny about a husband who interprets “helper” simply as a maid, cook, and baby-sitter. A woman doesn’t have to be a wife to fulfill any of these roles. You can hire people to do these tasks.

Don’t misunderstand. This doesn’t mean a wife can neglect her responsibilities at home. There is no substitute for her touch in the home, either by carrying out the responsibilities herself or overseeing others who carry them out. But if that’s all her role consists of, something is wrong because this is not the primary way that a wife serves as a helper in God’s kingdom.

An unfortunate yet common belief in Christian circles is that since God designated Eve as a “helper” for Adam, women are less valuable than men. First Peter 3:7 refutes that idea. Sometimes it arises when a woman is compared to the Holy Spirit in His role as “Helper”—the third member of the Trinity who does a substantial amount of work but gets very little recognition, and appears to have the least amount of authority. Yet a deeper examination of the word used for “helper” in the original language of Genesis 2:18 is eye-opening.

The Hebrew words translated “helper suitable for him” are uniquely powerful. The word ezer, translated “helper,” occurs twenty-one times in the Old Testament (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, entry 5828), with only two of those occurrences relating to a woman. The remaining times the word is used it refers to God the Father, the first member of the Trinity, in a superior form. Let’s take a look at a few:

“There is none like the God of Jeshurun, Who rides the heavens to your help [ezer].” (Deuteronomy 33:26)

“Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help [ezer] and our shield.” (Psalm 33:20)

“I am afflicted and needy; Hasten to me, O God! You are my help [ezer].” (Psalm 70:5)

“Our help [ezer] is in the name of the Lord.” (Psalm 124:8)

The term kenegdo, translated “suitable for him,” was added to ezer to distinguish it from those times when ezer referred to strong help from God. The addition of kenegdo draws from its literal definition which is, “before your face, within your view or purpose” (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, entry 5048, root ngd). It can also be translated as “a completion of” or “counterpart to.” Thus it is easy to see that Eve’s role was not one of subservience, maid service, or slavery, but one of strong help comparable to that of God the Father Himself.

Those who attempt to misuse Scripture by painting it as a reflection of a outdated, misogynist worldview that seeks to oppress and negate the value of women clearly have not taken an accurate look at the original language, or at the context in which the Scripture was penned. The precise terminology that God chose to describe His purpose for women is identical to that which He used to refer to Himself as the first Person in the Godhead. A woman’s help can only be defined as a strong help and completion.

Yet, if being a helper is a position of strength and honors God while building up the marriage, why aren’t more women doing it? One reason is they aren’t hanging out with holy women. Instead, they’re getting their input from their unholy girlfriends, watching unholy television, listening to unholy radio, and reading unholy books. Peter said that a woman who wants to get this marriage thing right needs to be spending time in the right company.

Where is a Christian wife, particularly a young woman who is new in her marriage, going to find holy women like this? The Bible says she ought to be finding them in the church:

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. (Titus 2:3–5)

These older women are not only those farther along in age, but women who are spiritually mature and able to offer a godly example. You don’t go to a person who has been married for five months, or married five times, for advice on how to respect and submit to your husband. A lot of Christian wives need godly women who won’t be telling them, “Girl, I’d leave him if I were you,” or, “I wouldn’t take that,” when times get tough.

Of course, we’re not talking about a wife enduring emotional or physical abuse from a husband who has an unhealthy view of power and control because she thinks that’s what God wants her to do. It is true and unfortunate that some men in the Christian faith misuse the role of headship by oppressing their wives and claiming it is their biblical right as head. There is no excuse for abusive behavior, and it should not be tolerated.

Titus 2:5 gives us the ultimate motivation for wives to help build godly marriages. God isn’t concerned about a woman pleasing her society friends or co-workers. His concern is the honor of His Word and the glory of His name. When marriages are out of alignment with God’s will, disaster is waiting to happen, and God’s name is at risk of being dishonored.

SATAN’S GREAT REVERSAL

Satan threw the system of God’s alignment into reverse when he persuaded Eve to disregard and ignore Adam and assume the role of headship Adam was supposed to play (see Genesis 3:1–6). Adam was at fault for his lack of leadership, and the Bible lays the ultimate responsibility for the entrance of sin at his feet. Every man will be held accountable for how he handles what happens in his home. God will not ask a husband about his wife, but about what he did with the leadership he was given. As the head, a husband’s job is to manage the home by addressing what takes place in it with a view to how that aligns with the Word of God.

But Eve’s actions in Eden still played a critical role in helping create this disaster. The reason I say that Eve ignored Adam in yielding to Satan’s temptation is that according to Genesis 3:6, Adam was with her when this happened. We tend to think of Adam as being absent, but the Bible says she gave the fruit “to her husband with her.”

At this moment, Adam was being a passive non-leader, apparently failing to fulfill his role as the serpent tempted Eve. But instead of handing the leadership off to Adam and forcing him to take the lead, Eve took the lead and reversed the roles. When that happened, Satan had them. The result was a curse on every aspect of creation, including the marriage relationship. God told Eve, “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you” (Genesis 3:16).

Some people take this to refer to a woman’s sexual desire, but that’s not what this means. The woman’s desire would be to rule the man, and he would also desire to rule because he was made to rule. The result is what we call the battle of the sexes, with the woman rebelling against the man’s attempts to exercise authority over her.

That battle is still going on today as a result of the curse. But when we come to Christ, we are redeemed from the curse. Satan doesn’t want wives to know that they don’t have to fight anymore for that position of headship. He doesn’t want wives to discover that if they will honor God by respecting and submitting to their husbands, they can stop struggling to fill a position they were never designed to fill and begin enjoying peace in their hearts—even if their husbands don’t respond properly to their submission.

A Wife’s Trust in God

But we need to say again that this doesn’t just happen. The key to pulling this off is the motivation that led the holy women of old to reverence their husbands: “hoped in God” (1 Peter 3:5). God wants to know if a woman trusts Him and really believes His Word.

Focusing your trust on the Lord means that you recognize there is something bigger going on here than your respect for your husband. The Bible tells wives to submit to their husbands “as to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:22).

You see, God overrules your husband in terms of authority. Here is the answer to those who think the biblical framework makes a man the absolute ruler in his kingdom, with his wife and children as his indentured servants. This is why a wife must go against her husband when he tries to make her do something that is contrary to God’s clearly revealed will.

I know at this point you might be saying, “Tony, I’m afraid to do that because I’m afraid my husband will take advantage of my submissive spirit.” I hear what you are saying, and I’m going to address that fear in a minute because God also hears what you are saying.

A wife’s trust is to be in the Lord. It’s one thing to trust when things are fine and a husband is fulfilling his roles as leader and lover. But it’s another story altogether to trust God when the husband isn’t doing his part. That’s why a woman’s eyes need to be on the Lord, not on her husband. Her perspective can make all the difference. With her faith in God, a wife can see things that others can’t see. The definition of a spiritual man or a woman is not someone who does spiritual things like reads the Bible, prays, or goes to church. The definition of a spiritual individual is someone who sees things spiritually.

You may look at your husband, or look around you at other people, and say, “Surrender doesn’t make sense.” But when you see things through the eyes of faith, life becomes clearer. You may not see in your husband what you want to see, but you’ll never be disappointed if your eyes are fixed on Jesus.

A Wife’s Surrender to God

There’s no question that a woman surrenders some things when she gets married. She surrenders her family name, the financial and personal independence she had when she was single, and even her destiny to a large degree because her future is now inextricably tied to her husband’s. That’s a problem to some women when their marriage doesn’t turn out to be all that they thought it would be. They spend all of their time trying to get back everything they surrendered. And that means a battle.

As I deal with marriages like this, I often discover at least part of the problem is that the wife has never really given her husband honor—and I mean as a daily pattern, not as a once-in-a-while tip of the cap to his position. But before you go to war to get back what you surrendered, consider what can happen when you make it a priority to honor your husband’s position and willingly recognize that position even though you may disagree with his perspective. When you are lined up properly under God, you get yourself out of the way so God can deal with your husband.

But if you don’t believe that God can reach your husband, you’re going to keep putting yourself between him and God and block God’s movement in his life. When you surrender, God takes over and fights the battle for you.

We find a classic illustration of this principle in the story of Nabal, Abigail, and David in 1 Samuel 25. Nabal was a rich farmer whose men and livestock were guarded by David’s men while David was on the run from Saul. But when David sent men to Nabal to seek supplies in appreciation of his men’s defense of Nabal’s property, Nabal treated them badly and insulted David, sending them away empty-handed and hungry.

David was very upset and planned to kill Nabal and every male in his house for this insult, and his refusal to give them what they needed. But Nabal, whose name means “fool,” had a very wise wife named Abigail. As soon as she heard about the terrible thing her foolish husband had done, she took David a large supply of good things from the farm and pleaded with him not to carry out his plan and put a stain on his future kingship.

David blessed God when he realized that Abigail had kept him from taking revenge on Nabal. Abigail saved Nabal’s life, but the news of how close he came to dying caused Nabal to go into cardiac arrest. He died ten days later, and the Bible says that God struck him (v. 38).

The point is that Abigail did the right thing by pleading for Nabal’s life even when he didn’t deserve her intercession. Instead of adding to the problem, Abigail cleared the way for God to deal with her husband. And the end of the story is that Abigail went from being the wife of a fool to the wife of a king when David married her.

Peter had an example of godly surrender in mind when he wrote: “Just as Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord” (1 Peter 3:6a). People usually get hung up on the term “lord,” which makes it sound like Abraham was some big-headed individual who expected everyone around him to bow and scrape. Rather, this was a term of respect that Sarah used to honor Abraham. In other words, her respect was verbal as well as visual. She honored her husband in both word and action. When you turn on the television, you don’t want a picture without sound, or vice versa. A wife’s honor for her husband needs to come with sight and sound.

Now if you know the story of Abraham and Sarah, you’ll recall that Abraham didn’t always deserve Sarah’s respect. On two occasions, in Genesis 12 and 20, Abraham did not act like a kingdom man at all, lying to foreign kings about his relationship with Sarah when he thought his neck was on the line. Abraham’s actions jeopardized Sarah’s purity in each case. God shut down two kingdoms to protect Sarah, yet she still spoke to and treated Abraham with respect.

When God has a woman who is willing to surrender to Him, He will move mountains and disrupt kingdoms when necessary to act on her behalf. But the biggest example of this in Sarah’s life is not the two times I mentioned above, but the miraculous birth of Isaac. His birth was a miracle because Sarah was ninety years old and Abraham was one hundred. When God first told Abraham that he and Sarah were going to have a child, he laughed (see Genesis 17:15–17).

Then God came back later and told Abraham again that Sarah was going to have a son. This time, Sarah overheard the promise and laughed (see Genesis 18:10–12). She laughed because Abraham was even older than she was and was in no condition to father a child. Sarah laughed because from a human standpoint having a child with Abraham was impossible. But God responded to Sarah’s respect and submission to Abraham by saying to Abraham, “Is anything too difficult for the LORD?” (Genesis 18:14).

That settled the issue for Abraham and Sarah. How do I know that? Because the author of Hebrews wrote, “By faith even Sarah herself received ability to conceive, even beyond the proper time of life, since she considered Him faithful who had promised” (11:11). This tells us that after a moment of understandable doubt, Sarah surrendered to the Lord and to Abraham that day in her tent when she heard God’s promise of the impossible.

If you’re a wife who is dealing with a seemingly impossible husband and an impossible marriage, maybe it’s time for you to say to God, “Lord, even if this thing doesn’t change, I’m going to stop doubting and start trusting You.”

THE FREEDOM OF SURRENDER

Now we’re ready for what may be the best part of this whole issue of a wife’s surrender to and reverence for her husband. There is freedom from fear awaiting the woman who is willing to cast herself and her marriage upon the Lord.

For most of us, surrender and freedom don’t go together. After all, what happens when a fugitive or a soldier surrenders? He loses his freedom and goes either to jail or to a prisoner-of-war camp. But the reverse is true for a woman whose desire is to be a godly wife. When she makes the determination to surrender to God’s plan by honoring and respecting her husband, she discovers true freedom. The second half of 1 Peter 3:6 says this: “You have become her [Sarah’s] children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear.”

What fear is this? I alluded to it above. It’s the fear of a wife who says, “I’m afraid to submit to my husband because I’m afraid he will take advantage of me and use my submission to lord it over me. I’m going to hold on to part of the control so he won’t run over me.”

This kind of reaction is very natural. It’s scary for any of us to think about giving up control and surrendering our rights and our preferences to another person. But we’re not talking about having a natural marriage here. We’re talking about a supernatural marriage. Anyone can have a natural marriage, meaning one in which the husband and wife are in conflict and there is a constant battle for control involving “my rights and what I want.”

But God has a word of assurance for a wife who is willing to do things His way. “You have nothing to be afraid of because I see your heart and I know where you are. You are in My sight and in My care. I can deal with your husband if you will align yourself with My will.”

Sarah was tucked away in a tent in the middle of a desolate land to which she had come with Abraham. She was married to a man who had his moments of weakness even though he became a great man of faith. What’s more, Sarah was far too old to have any hope of having a child, and Abraham was even older and less capable of fathering a child. But Sarah believed God could bring a baby out of two aged bodies. God saw Sarah’s heart, and she got her miracle.

You may say, “You’ve got that right. It would take a miracle for my husband to become the spiritual leader and understanding lover the Bible talks about. I want to see that happen, but I’m afraid to surrender.”

God’s answer is, “Do not be afraid. I see your heart, and I know where you are. Trust Me.”

If your desire is to obey God by honoring your husband, you don’t need to fear anyone or any situation. Don’t let any fear keep you from experiencing God’s best in your marriage. Be faithful and patient, knowing that while you are trusting Him for a change in your marriage, He will change you to live well within it until the time comes for your miracle.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

THE KINGDOM SINGLE

There is so much emphasis on marriage and family in the church that many single men and women wonder whether it is possible to be single and satisfied. But it is not only possible to be single and live a fulfilled life, it is sinful to be otherwise. That is, if you are single and unhappy in the role God has given you, you do not yet have a complete handle on God’s kingdom view of singleness.

The church’s stress on family has fueled this sense of incompleteness on the part of many singles. There is nothing wrong with emphasizing family. There is something wrong with making singles feel like second-class citizens in the kingdom. We pastors often unconsciously add to the discontent of single believers by helping them cope with their singleness. God doesn’t simply want single people to cope. He wants them to succeed.

A VALID KINGDOM LIFESTYLE

Someone has said that marriage is like flies on a screen door. Those on the outside are trying to get in, and those on the inside are trying to get out. I often talk to singles who are frustrated because they’re not married. Then I meet with married folk who are frustrated because they’re no longer single. The point is that both single and married people need to stop trying to cope with their marital status and start living for the kingdom.

I’ve been married more than forty years, so single readers might wonder how I could understand the pain and struggle they are feeling. I agree that I am not an expert on the single life, so I want to reference two people who were—the apostle Paul and Jesus Christ. These two team up in 1 Corinthians 7 to give us kingdom principles that will help singles find satisfaction, whether they have never been married, or are divorced, or widowed.

Paul understood the single lifestyle far better than the social commentators of our day. His inspired words in 1 Corinthians 7 present us with a challenge that cuts across the grain of our society: Being single is more desirable for a Christian than being married in terms of advancing the gospel and God’s kingdom. There’s a good deal of controversy surrounding this concept, even though it is every bit as biblical as John 3:16. But make no mistake about Paul’s point: If you are single, you are in the best possible position to carry out God’s kingdom agenda in your life. We’ll learn in this chapter why Paul says that.

It’s important to see that Paul was not a fanatic, lifelong single person who was putting down marriage. He must have been married because before his conversion he was a member of the Sanhedrin, the supreme council of Jewish elders, which required its members to be married. Perhaps Paul’s wife had died, or she may even have left him when he came to Christ. So Paul knew what it was like both to have a mate and to live as a single person.

It’s also important to affirm that what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 7 is the inspired Word of God, not just one man’s opinion. In this chapter we find at least three vital principles singles need to know to live out the kingdom agenda. We can summarize these as waiting on the Lord, working for the Lord, and being wed in the Lord. Before we look into the Word, I want to acknowledge that most people are probably not called to be single, but are single by default due to the sinful world in which we live (not enough kingdom-minded potential mates available). But Paul makes it clear that if you are single, God can make your situation a blessing rather than bitterness if you look to Him to do it. Let me show you what I mean by giving you a kingdom view of singleness in terms of these three principles.

WAITING ON THE LORD

The first principle for singleness is very simple: Singles need to wait on the Lord. Now, I know that doesn’t sound too appealing. A lot of singles would read this and say, “Oh, yeah, I know all about waiting. I’ve been waiting on the Lord to give me a mate for a long time. Go on to principle two.”

The Right Way to Wait

But wait a minute more. It’s been my experience that while many single people are waiting, not all of them are waiting on the Lord. There’s a big difference between simply marking time and purposely waiting on God to accomplish His will in your life. If you’re waiting on a person, that person may not come, or his or her arrival may prove to be a disappointment. But if you’re waiting on the Lord to work His will in His time, He will never arrive late or disappoint you.

Most singles would say they’re waiting for an opportunity to marry, because they don’t plan on being single the rest of their lives. God’s concern for you as a waiting single is how and what you are doing while you’re waiting.

I am sure many single people who are reading this chapter might well be frustrated. Some are frustrated because they have been alone for a very long time without any prospect of marriage. Others may be frustrated because they have been in and out of one unhealthy relationship after another—too often because they are willing to lower their standards in order to avoid the feeling of being alone.

Whatever their status, Paul tells singles to take a good look at their circumstances while they are waiting: “Now concerning virgins I have no command of the Lord, but I give an opinion as one who by the mercy of the Lord is trustworthy. I think then that this is good in view of the present distress, that it is good for a man to remain as he is” (1 Corinthians 7:25–26).

Let me clarify Paul’s language here. He was not saying, “Here is my opinion, so take it for what it’s worth because it’s just my idea.” That’s not what he meant. Instead, he was saying, “When Jesus was on earth, He didn’t discuss this, so let me tell you what He told me to tell you.” In other words, this instruction was from Paul’s pen, but it was from the Lord Himself through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Note that Paul immediately tied singleness to moral purity. This is important because in order to wait the Lord’s way, you need His help. But you won’t get help from the Lord if you’re compromising Him in your moral life. Purity is high on God’s kingdom agenda for singles.

The Positive Aspects of Singleness

In 1 Corinthians 7:25–26 and verses that follow, Paul argues for the benefits of singleness. He makes it equal in value to, and in some ways better than, marriage—in terms of our ability to carry out the agenda God has for His people, as I said above.

As best as we can determine, the “present distress” Paul alluded to involved the persecution Christians were suffering under the cruel Roman emperor Nero. He was the archenemy of the church. This is the man who wrapped Christians in animal skins, sprinkled blood on them, and then let wild animals loose at them in the arena. Nero also dipped Christians in wax, hung them on posts, and set them afire to light his gardens.

Obviously, if you were living in that situation, it would be better to be single—not to have a family to worry about or to worry about you. Paul told the single Christians in Corinth to analyze their circumstances before they agreed to marry. He wanted them to determine, “Am I really going to be better off if I marry?”

You aren’t about to be dipped in wax and set on fire, but if you are single you still need to take a serious look at your circumstances: your work situation, your finances, your level of self-control, the spiritual condition of a possible partner, and so forth. I say that because many single people want to get married just because they’re tired of being lonely.

Let me tell you, I know a lot of lonely married people. I have known married couples who don’t even talk to each other, who either sleep in separate rooms or cling to the far sides of the bed. A marriage that is not orchestrated by God won’t solve your loneliness.

The desire for sexual fulfillment also propels a lot of singles into marriage. But again, there are many married couples who barely touch each other, going weeks, months, and even years without any meaningful intimacy.

So while you’re waiting on the Lord, make sure your thinking is straight. Paul was trying to emphasize that there were bigger things at stake in the Christian life than a person’s marital status. This wouldn’t be such a big deal for singles today except that we are guilty as a society and as a church of making single people feel like second-class citizens.

But God doesn’t make any distinction between married and single people in terms of their value in His eyes. That’s clear from what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7:27: “Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek to be released. Are you released from a wife? Do not seek a wife.” If singleness were not as perfectly acceptable to God as marriage, He would have commanded all Christians to get married, and Paul would probably have gotten married, or perhaps remarried, himself. But singles are not worse off than married people.

Paul said whether you are married or single, be content with that. Don’t misunderstand. When he said, “Do not seek a wife,” he wasn’t saying it’s wrong to desire to be married. Instead, his focus was on methodology. The idea is, “Stop man-hunting or woman-hunting. Don’t spend all your time searching for the right one.”

The Challenges of Marriage

Paul gave another reason for singles to wait on the Lord: “But if you marry, you have not sinned; and if a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Yet such will have trouble in this life, and I am trying to spare you” (1 Corinthians 7:28).

Marriage, Paul said, brings with it a whole new set of challenges. If you don’t believe Paul or me, ask the next married person you meet. You think you are miserable by yourself. But you can be miserable in company. I am certainly not putting down marriage, and neither is Paul. I’m just telling you the truth. Most married people will say, “There are a lot of things about marriage I didn’t know about until I got there.” I’m talking about things like the inevitable personality conflicts and adjustments demanded in marriage, the emotional conflicts, and the clash of wills that comes when two sinful people start living under the same roof.

That’s why if you are single, don’t ever think you can marry to escape your problems. All you do is drag your problems into your marriage. It’s easy for singles to look at married couples and get fooled, because they look so happy on the outside; they smile for the wedding pictures. But people can be miserable whether they’re married or single, some because they choose to be.

If you are determined to be miserable, it’s a lot easier and less painful to be miserable by yourself. When Paul says he is trying to spare singles the troubles they will find in marriage, he is acknowledging the reality that what many people think they are getting on the front end isn’t what they wind up with every day. Without a doubt, there are troubles in relationships.

One of the challenges in marriage is that you can no longer come and go as you please. When you are single, you can choose what you do with the freedom you have with your time. But when you are married, you have to call and check in, and let people know when you are getting home. And even when you get home, there is often a “honey-do” list waiting for you. Many married people often wind up feeling hemmed in because they are bound not only by location and time, but by what they do when they spend their time at that location as well.

And as I mentioned above, some married people aren’t having nearly as much sexual intimacy as they once thought they would have, so the challenges of marriage come with little perceived benefit. Singles are free from these concerns.

Yet even so, it seems like everywhere singles turn they find someone trying to fix them up, whether it’s over the Internet, at church, or in the family. And if it’s not someone else encouraging singles to meet someone, singles themselves play “The Dating Game” in real life. They try to Google someone, or meet someone at the club. Paul is saying, though, that God doesn’t want Christian singles going around saying, “Let me find a mate. I need to find a mate. I’ve got to find a mate!” God knows that if you go out and “find a mate,” you are also going to find some trouble. You want to be very careful how you go about linking up with somebody.

I have cited the statistics that say roughly half of all marriages end in divorce today in America. And too many of the other half only stay intact for convenience, finances, or the children. So I have a question for you, Christian single. If half of all airplanes crashed, wouldn’t you be extra careful about flying? Wouldn’t you do a real careful investigation before getting on a plane because you wouldn’t want to wind up as one of those casualties?

Then you need to apply the same caution and care for how you approach the potential of marriage. Be very careful before you link up with someone, so you don’t end up as another statistic. You need to connect first with the One who knows where the right one is.

Let God Be Your Matchmaker

So how will you meet the right one? The same way Adam and Eve found each other. God was their matchmaker. God knew where Adam was, and He brought Eve to Adam. If you want to find a mate, you need to find somebody who knows where the right mate is. It’s obvious that you don’t know where that person is or you would be married by now. So if you want to find a mate, you need a divine matchmaker.

In other words, focus on the Lord and let Him do your looking for you. A lot of singles are frustrated because they can’t find Mr. or Miss Right. So they look and say, “Yeah, that’s him,” or “She’s the one,” but then it doesn’t work out and they are frustrated.

But if you will stop looking and start living out your kingdom agenda, when the divine “mate-finder” is ready He will lead you to a mate, and you won’t be frustrated. If you are single, the Bible urges you to keep your “antenna” tuned toward the Lord and wait for His signal. When you are tuned in to God, you won’t need to call a dating service or make the rounds of the clubs or church groups to meet people.

This is beautifully illustrated in the book of Ruth. Ruth was not an Israelite, but she went back to Bethlehem with Naomi, even though Naomi practically guaranteed Ruth that she would never find a husband in Israel. But Ruth went to Bethlehem seeking God, not a husband. She dedicated herself to God’s agenda even if it meant she would never marry (see Ruth 1:16). And in the course of the story, God brought Boaz into her life. Ruth didn’t have to go after Boaz, because God put the interest in Boaz’s heart first. Then Boaz sought out Ruth. So here was a Moabite widow who found a mate and wound up in the messianic lineage of Jesus Christ (see Matthew 1:5). Ruth was looking for the Lord, and He knew where Boaz was.

Watch for the Lord

Paul also urged singles to watch for the Lord while they wait. “But this I say, brethren, the time has been shortened, so that from now on those who have wives should be as though they had none” (1 Corinthians 7:29). Paul was not telling Christian husbands to get rid of their wives, of course. He is saying that all of us, singles included, need to take a kingdom, or eternal, perspective on our lives. Since Jesus is going to return any day and usher in the kingdom, we need to be watching for Him—which means we need to be living as if He could return today.

I want to emphasize again that Paul was not just addressing single people in this text. The Bible repeatedly tells believers to do everything we do and weigh every decision in light of eternity. So I am not trying to lay an extra burden on singles here.

But one reason singles need to view their marital status in light of the kingdom is that marriage will die when we die. That is, marriage has no place in eternity. “In the resurrection [people] neither marry nor are given in marriage,” Jesus said (Matthew 22:30). Marriage is only for history. It is only valuable in time. God calls us to have an eye on eternity and not on time, to sees things in terms of His kingdom. In this warning Paul also included earthly things, such as our emotions and our finances (see 1 Corinthians 7:30). Then he said, “The form of this world is passing away” (v. 31).

Paul advised us to live life by eternal values because our time here on earth is short. “Passing away” means “condensed.” Since marriage is one of those things that is passing away, Paul didn’t want us to fix our whole lives on it.

God has a purpose for singleness. If you are single and spending all of your time wanting to be married, then you are missing God’s purpose for you. And that means you are not getting all that God has for you in the time He’s given you.

It is better to wait longer for the right person than to be stuck with the wrong person. Marriage is a big enough challenge even when you find the right person. You don’t need the headache and heartache of a bad relationship or even an unhealthy marriage.

There’s nothing wrong with marriage, emotions, or finances, but they are short-term in comparison to the kingdom. A person who is waiting for the Lord can’t afford to keep his or her eyes on these things too much. This person must keep his or her kingdom perspective sharp.

Many singles are not fulfilled because they limit their agendas to marriage. If God’s agenda for you right now is bigger than marriage, then marriage alone can’t fulfill you. And if God hasn’t given you a partner, but you decide to find one on your own, you will pay a high price for that marriage.

WORKING FOR THE LORD

The second concept I want to look at concerning singleness is the unique gift of capacity that singles have of working for the Lord. To help you see this, back up a bit in 1 Corinthians 7 to verses 20 and 24. Verse 20: “Each man must remain in that condition in which he was called” (emphasis added). Verse 24: “Each one is to remain with God in that condition in which he was called” (emphasis added).

Remain in Your Calling

These are two very important verses when it comes to the way your marital status relates to your calling as a Christian. The key in each verse is the word “condition.” In verse 20 this is actually the same Greek term as the word translated “called.” God is saying, “Remain in the calling to which you were called.” This is significant because it equates our status as singles or marrieds with our calling. Verse 24 has the same idea because the word “condition” is in italics in the New American Standard text, which is why I italicized it here. That means it is not in the Greek text but was supplied by the translators. We could just as easily supply the word “calling” in verse 24 and get the proper sense of the passage.

What I’m saying is that your singleness is not just the status you happen to be in right now. It is part of your divine calling. It’s where God has you, and there’s a world of difference between those two outlooks. The problem today is that many singles have differentiated their status from their calling. This creates trouble because it can lead them to focus their energies on trying to change their marital status while missing their calling as singles.

Having a calling doesn’t mean you have to be in full-time Christian ministry. Your calling may involve serving as a physician or an accountant or whatever else for the glory and the kingdom of God. Once you see being single as a calling from God, you can give yourself to following and serving Him without anxiety about your future.

Have you ever thought about your singleness as a calling, as a divinely ordained state and not just a physical, relational one? God does not want you to reduce where He has you just because you want to be married. He wants you to hang out with Him in the state that you are in, until or if He takes you to another calling.

Another reason many singles are dissatisfied is that they are not finding their significance in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. God gives us significance regardless of our marital status. If you will view your marital status from the standpoint of God’s purpose for you rather than solely from the standpoint of your desires, it will help you discover a deep contentment and significance that many people go through this life never knowing at all.

The Freedom of Singleness

Another benefit of singleness that Paul stated was freedom from concern. “I want you to be free from concern. One who is unmarried is concerned about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord; but one who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and his interests are divided” (1 Corinthians 7:32–34). Then Paul brought home the point in verse 35: “This I say for your own benefit; not to put a restraint upon you, but to promote what is appropriate and to secure undistracted devotion to the Lord.”

In the context of 1 Corinthians 7, singles are the free ones while married people are bound. Single believers are free from the distractions of marriage in order to maximize their devotion to Christ. Paul said married people have a legitimate distraction in each other. But did you know that it is possible for a single person to live with the distraction of marriage? That’s what happens when a single Christian fixates on finding a marriage partner rather than on serving the Lord.

And when that happens, the single person squanders his or her opportunity for undistracted devotion to the Lord. God desires your complete devotion. He says, “I don’t want to compete with anybody. I want you to see that your singleness is a unique opportunity for you to fully enjoy and experience Me as I fully enjoy and experience you.”

If you are single, consider this: Why does God have you single? What is He uniquely doing in you, with you, and through you that can only be done, now because when you get married you won’t have the time to do it? If you can’t answer that question, and you’re living a life of frustration, you’re not on track for God’s best in your life.

God knows that once He gives you a mate, a distraction will come into your life and you’ll never be able to return to the freedoms that come from singleness again. God is calling on singles to use their singleness for deeper commitment to Him and greater service for Him, and through this He promises His presence at a deeper level and the abiding power of His peace.

The person who has the kingdom perspective sees singleness as an advantage, not a disadvantage—not because marriage is bad, but because it is distracting and sometimes even disappointing. It brings with it concerns that a single person does not have. A woman once said to me at church, “Pastor, I wish someone would have told me before I got married that marriage ain’t all that.”

What the world, the media, entertainment, and often even your friends and relatives try to do is make a bigger deal out of marriage than even God makes out of it. God’s value system states clearly that if you are the right kind of single with an eternal perspective, then you are just fine. You are not a second-class citizen, and in fact you might not be missing out on anything at all. You might be saving yourself from a lifetime of boredom and trouble.

Being unmarried offers people an unusual degree of freedom to not only pursue God’s calling for their lives, but to pursue the passions that make a person feel alive. A single person has the opportunity to explore hidden talents, take risks to achieve things they dream about, and experience things they could never experience were they married. But that means Christian singles have a decision to make—whether to focus on who God made them to be, or spend their time worrying about when or if Mr. or Miss Right is going to show up.

Fulfilling God’s Destiny for You

I know what some singles say when they hear this: “But it’s too slow. God is taking too long, and I’m too frustrated.” Let me suggest why they feel this may be true.

I’m sure you’ve had the kind of day at work where you had so much to do you thought it was ten in the morning, only to look at the clock and it’s already three in the afternoon. You wonder where the time went. I’m confident you’ve also had the kind of workday where you had hardly anything to do, or you dreaded the work you had. That day you work for what seems like hours, but when you look at the clock, it’s only 9:15.

What happened on those two days? Did the clock change its speed? No, you changed yours. In the first case, you had something interesting, challenging, or important to do, and the time flew by. In the second situation, you were either bored or frustrated, and the time dragged by.

Now apply that situation to yourself if you are single. If you get busy fulfilling God’s destiny for your life, the time will pass a lot quicker and be a lot more spiritually profitable than if you sit around bored or frustrated because you aren’t married.

Satan has so many Christian singles disturbed and frustrated about their status that he’s running amok through their lives, stealing their joy and robbing them of their effectiveness for Christ. When your focus shifts from Christ to yourself, that means a thief is at work on you.

Paul’s point in the passage we’ve been looking at is that a married person, by virtue of being married, is divided and thus unable to focus fully on his or her calling with regard to God’s work. Married people have divided loyalties. They need to please their spouse, fulfill their purpose, and please God. They are constantly going back and forth between different focuses because the very nature of the marriage relationship forces the division.

But a Christian single is undivided in devotion to Christ, or at least should be. But as I said, many singles today still live under the strain of divided loyalties. If God hasn’t given you a mate to worry about yet, my advice to you is to leave that person alone in your priorities, time, and thoughts. Because that person doesn’t exist yet.

The moment that you are divided emotionally, spiritually, and even practically, you have let your singleness get in the way of God’s kingdom purpose for you. If you are spending an inordinate amount of your time thinking about marriage, looking at wedding dresses, watching television programs about married people, and as a result feeling frustrated and distracted, then you have been pulled off course from a spiritual focus.

When God made Adam, Adam didn’t have a wife. He was single and satisfied. It wasn’t Adam who said, “I’m lonely, let God make a mate suitable for me.” It was God who noticed that Adam would fulfill his specific purpose better through the addition of Eve. Yet Adam was totally occupied with God’s purposes, living as a fulfilled single. He wasn’t distracted from his job of naming things and carrying out his role in God’s establishment of earth.

Here is the question that every single should ask: “God, how do You want me to use my singleness for You until You change it for Your maximum purpose?” When God answers that question, even though the desire to be married may still remain, you will have a passion and a purpose that will supersede any dominating thoughts you once held for marriage.

WED IN THE LORD

Here’s the third concept I want to look at as we examine the unique life of a single Christian in carrying out God’s kingdom agenda. If and when the time comes for singles to marry, they should marry “only in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 7:39).

Notice that Paul began this verse by saying: “A wife is bound as long as her husband lives.” He went on to address the case of the widow, but what I want you to see here is the absolute permanence of marriage. Marriage is like a violin. After the music stops, the strings are still attached. Why is it important for singles to grasp this reality? Because they need to have the mind-set that marriage is for life. Therefore they need to take their time before committing themselves to another person for life.

The Permanence of Marriage

There is a prevalent attitude today that says, “If we don’t like our marriage, we’ll just get divorced.” But that attitude is from Satan, not God. Marriage is meant to be permanent.

“But I didn’t know she was like that when I married her,” someone says. Or, “I didn’t know he snored,” or “I found out she has times when she is difficult to get along with.” Too bad, because you’re bound to that marriage.

When the disciples heard Jesus teach about the permanence of marriage, they said “It is better not to marry” (Matthew 19:10), and Jesus did not contradict them. He answered, in effect, “Better think about that.” Marriage is “till death do us part.”

It’s interesting to watch couples in their first year of marriage, because that’s when the real deal starts to come to the surface. A lot of men lie to women when they are dating, both in what they say and in what they do. When a couple is dating, he opens the car door for her every time. He jumps around to the other side of the table to pull out her chair. Let me tell you, the brother is putting on a show.

How do I know? Because after he wins his girl, she opens her own car door and pulls out her own chair. And when they’re dating, the guy tells his girl, “You’re the prettiest thing I ever saw.” He’s lying, because he’s already told that to every woman he’s dated up to this one! That’s the way it often happens, and marriage brings out all these little surprises.

Marriage in the Lord

When Paul said believers are to marry “in the Lord,” he ruled out marrying non-Christians, no matter how handsome or beautiful they are.

A woman was waiting to fly to Canada one day when she ran into this smooth-talking man who was on his way to Florida. He said, “Why don’t you fly with me?”

“Sorry, we’re going in two different directions.”

If you belong to Jesus Christ, you’re going to heaven, not to hell. And unless the other person is willing to fly with you toward your destination, then you can’t be on the same plane together. Marriage for the Christian must be “in the Lord.”

A SUCCESSFUL SINGLE

Is there an illustration in the Bible of a successful single? Yes, there is, and we are going to jump right into the middle of his story in Genesis 39. His name is Joseph. My purpose here is not to retell the entire story of this incredible single man. I’m going to assume some knowledge on your part, or you can read Genesis 37–38.

In Genesis 39, Joseph is a slave in Egypt, having been sold by his brothers. But in spite of Joseph’s situation, “The Lord was with Joseph, so he became a successful man” (v. 2). Single believer, while you’re waiting on a mate, you can be a successful person. “Now [Joseph’s] master saw that the Lord was with him and how the Lord caused all that he did to prosper in his hand” (v. 3). Not only was God making Joseph successful, but also sinners saw that the Lord was with him. Joseph’s commitment to God and His kingdom was public knowledge.

Do the unbelievers at your job know the Lord is with you? Do the unbelievers around you know that it’s possible to be single and sanctified? Are people blessed because of your influence? According to Genesis 39:5, God blessed everything his Egyptian master owned because of Joseph.

Maintain Moral Purity

But trouble was brewing in the house of the master, Potiphar. Potiphar’s wife looked at Joseph, who was handsome (see v.  6), and threw herself at him. But Joseph said, “How then could I do this great evil, and sin against God?” (v. 9).

What was Joseph doing? Maintaining his moral purity. He was a handsome, well-built man. But that did not give him a right to prey on women. If you’re a single man, you may be God’s gift to one woman. But until you find her, you should not mess with other women. Even though he had the opportunity, Joseph was committed to godly standards for his life. So if you’re a single man, don’t give God this line, “Well, God, you made me a man. You know how I operate.” Yes, God made you a man. And when He saved you, He made you a Christian man. That means you’re not like other men.

Joseph got thrown into prison for maintaining his standards. But even in prison, “the LORD was with Joseph” (v. 21). Even if you’re having a hard time as a single person, if the Lord is with you, He can turn a jailhouse into a party. Joseph stayed faithful to God through two years in prison (see Genesis 41:1), and the result was that God brought him out and gave him a wife at the age of thirty and made him the second-highest ruler in Egypt (see Genesis 41:45–46). Joseph wound up running the show in Egypt because he stayed true to God in his singleness.

I’ve talked with and counseled enough individuals to know that it can be tough being single. It may mean avoiding movies or television shows that inflame your passions or feed your frustration at not being married. But a Christian single can find fulfillment in the Lord.

Many singles feel like their lives are in a holding pattern. I’ve flown enough to know what it’s like for the pilot to come on the intercom and announce that the plane has been denied permission to land for whatever reason. Holding patterns are very frustrating because you are helpless. One time when this happened to me, it seemed like we had been circling for hours. I kept looking at my watch and then looking out the window to see if there was any indication that we were moving closer to the earth. After enough time of going back and forth between my wrist and the window, I decided that I would do some work I had brought with me. Before long, I got so involved with what I was doing that I forgot we were still in a holding pattern.

Single Christian, God had so much for you to do while you are waiting for a mate. And He can satisfy you so fully with what you are doing that you literally forget what you feel like you are missing out on.

I couldn’t control how long the pilot kept us in the sky. But I could control what I did with the time I was up there. Likewise, I do not know how long it will be before God addresses your singleness. What I do know is that He does not expect you to waste your time while waiting. He wants you to wait on Him, sure, but to do so in the context of maximizing living single.

Keep Your Focus on God

If you feel like you’re in a holding pattern right now, there are three options before you. First, you can gripe. “God, I’m tired of waiting for You to send me a mate.”

Second, you can grab the next person who walks by and try to land this thing yourself by marrying outside of God’s will and timing. But that’s inviting a crash landing.

Third, you can grow. You can do what I do when my plane is put in a holding pattern. Sit back, take a breath, and get some more work done. Let the controllers take control and make the decision as to when you land.

Single Christian, what will your choice be? Make sure you make it based on your true value and worth, because only then will you be making the right choice.

A man was shopping at an antique store where the owner had a beautiful table for sale. The price on the table was $600, yet the man thought he would try and get a deal so he offered her $400. But the owner informed him that she wouldn’t take less than the asking price for the table. The man continued to haggle, so the owner began telling him all of the unique qualities of this particular table.

Their conversation continued for some time, and finally the man offered $500 for the table. But the shop owner said, “No, sir. In fact, we’ve talked so much about this table that I have been reminded of its true value. The price is now $1,000.”

Unfortunately, far too many single Christians have forgotten their true value, and so they are willing to reduce themselves in their decisions, thoughts, and actions. I hope you will think long, hard, and biblically about your value. When you understand God’s view of singleness and how much He cherishes you, you will hold your head up high while living single in Him.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THE KINGDOM PARENT

The job of kingdom parents is to raise kingdom kids into kingdom adults, plain and simple. Your children are your successors and as such, you need to equip them in order to continue advancing God’s kingdom. In former days, kings or queens with foresight would prepare their successors to rule their domains, ensuring that these new rulers would have whatever they needed to govern well, including the necessary power and authority.

Essentially, kingdom parents do the same by equipping their children with what they need to function well in relationships at home, at work, and in society. The way you equip your children spiritually, educationally, emotionally, and so forth will determine to a large degree whether they are able to rule in the dominion God wants them to have within His kingdom.

I’ve dedicated an entire section of this book to God’s kingdom agenda for the family for one basic reason: Every other institution in society is built on the family. If the family disintegrates, those institutions that depend on strong families will disintegrate as well. Once that happens, there is no law you can pass that will make up for the devastation. There is no program you can institute that will fix what happens to people when a home is shattered. There is no politician you can elect who can bring harmony and social order when the family is decimated.

FIXING THE REAL PROBLEM

There’s not much use in talking about the problems in our nation’s capital until we fix the problems in our homes simply because what ultimately matters is not what’s happening at the White House, but what’s happening at your house.

So it is no wonder that Satan is attacking our families. He knows that if he gets the family, he gets the future. If Satan can get a father out of the home, then he can raise a little girl who never knows what real love is like by a man who honors her. So she looks for love through men who don’t honor her. If a father leaves or is passive in the home, the enemy knows he can raise a boy to be an undisciplined and irresponsible man.

I know there are many people who don’t have complete families and had no choice in the matter, whether through death, divorce, or desertion. God cares very much for these families, but His ideal is still a father and mother raising their children in their home, preparing them to take their place as God’s kingdom representatives in their own homes someday.

Unraveling Families

America is unraveling because our families are unraveling. The Bible says that God judges the nation that does not put Him first, and one way this is revealed is through chaos in the family. Look at Isaiah 3:4–5: “I will make mere lads their princes, and capricious children will rule over them, and the people will be oppressed, each one by another, and each one by his neighbor; the youth will storm against the elder, and the inferior against the honorable.” These verses show why there is no more important effort parents can make to restore our nation than to keep their families together and strong.

But this is getting harder to do because things have changed since the time, not too long ago, when the culture helped parents out. Back then, if a child didn’t get moral instruction at home, then a teacher at school would say, “This is right, and this is wrong.” We used to be able to turn on the television and see models of wholesome families. We used to live in neighborhoods made up largely of intact families. But all of these things are rare now. Today, when your children leave home every day, there are forces at work to unravel everything you tried to teach them at home. The competition is great now.

Your children’s peers are going to give them a different story than you gave them. Many of their teachers will give them a different story as well. The television and the theater are certainly going to give them a different story. So if good families were very important yesterday, they’re desperately important today because they’re our last bastion of hope.

I don’t have to tell you that raising children is a challenge. It reminds me of the lecturer whose favorite lecture was “The Ten Commandments for Parenting.” Then he had his second child and changed his lecture to “The Ten Suggestions for Parents.” Then he had his third child—and stopped lecturing altogether. It’s a different story when you have to do it yourself.

I would like to suggest to you that if we’re going to make it as parents, we need Scripture—because while the schools, the government, and society have changed, neither children nor God and His Word have changed. The unchanging truths of God’s Word were given to us by the One who created families. So let’s ask Him what it takes to be godly parents. My primary text for this chapter is Ephesians 6:4: “Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

The Word to Fathers

There is both a theological and a cultural reason that Paul addresses fathers primarily here, and why the Bible, as a rule, addresses its child-rearing admonitions to fathers.

First, the theological reason: God views the father as the representative head of the home. In Scripture, the father was the one through whom and to whom God would speak, and his job was to transfer God’s teaching to his wife and children. That’s why Satan seeks to get rid of dads. When the primary representative at home is gone, it places an extra burden on the mother.

As I often tell the fathers in my congregation, if you are tempted to walk out on your family, think twice. The Bible says God will visit the sins of the father on the children to the third and fourth generation (see Exodus 20:5). So when you walk out, you don’t just walk out on your children. You walk out on your grandchildren and great-grandchildren—maybe even your great-great-grandchildren. And if you think this generation of young people is struggling with a mountain of issues, you haven’t seen anything yet. Wait until this generation has children.

What has been lacking for so long in our culture are men solidly living out their biblical places of leadership. And while God has given women great gifts and abilities, and while we could not function in our homes without them, the great challenge for the church is to win men and call them back to their rightful place of spiritual responsibility as kingdom men.

Second, the cultural reason for addressing fathers goes back to ancient Rome, where men held absolute power. When a baby was born, the baby would be brought to the father and placed in front of him in a basket or on a cloth or whatever. If the father gave a thumbs-up, it meant, “Keep this baby.” A thumbs-down meant, “Put the baby out to die,” and the infant would be laid out in a public place to either be taken in and perhaps raised in a brothel, or die. A father could, under Roman law, reject a daughter, for example, if he wanted his firstborn to be a son.

But God’s Word threw out all that mess. God’s Word says to fathers, in essence, “You can’t turn from or deny your responsibility. You are God’s representative in your home.”

I know it can be hard being a parent. But God says to parents, and particularly to fathers as His kingdom representatives, “You have the power of life and death in your hands. Generations are depending on you.” So let’s see what it takes to be parents who fulfill God’s kingdom agenda with their children and raise up a generation who will in turn be God’s representatives. There are four things we need to know about parenting from Ephesians 6:4.

WE MUST ENCOURAGE OUR CHILDREN

The first thing we as parents must do is encourage our children. Paul stated it in the negative: “Do not provoke your children to anger.” In Colossians 3:21, he wrote: “Do not exasperate your children.” I believe Paul used the negative because it is so easy for parents to discourage their children. But one thing children need to know is that no matter what anybody else may think about them, at home they are somebody.

Many young people are going after significance outside the home because they’re not finding significance at home. They are rejected, provoked, and exasperated. So let’s find out how you can encourage your kids.

Value Your Children Equally

One way you can encourage your children is by valuing each of them equally and not playing favorites. Parents are often tempted to show favoritism because one child has a more agreeable personality, shares the parents’ likes and dislikes, is easier to discipline. A parent may also favor the child who is closest to him or her in personality.

But favoritism can be very destructive to a family. A classic biblical case of parental favoritism was Jacob, who greatly favored Joseph and made no attempt to hide it (see Genesis 37:3). He made Joseph a coat of many colors and provoked the other ten brothers’ jealousy, which quickly turned to anger. Jacob learned favoritism well, because he was the favorite of his mother Rebekah, while his father Isaac favored Jacob’s twin Esau (see Genesis 25:28).

There may be one child with whom you have a greater natural affinity. But as a parent, you can’t afford to play favorites. God doesn’t play favorites among His children (see Romans 3:22; 10:12). Favoritism will discourage your non-favorite children.

Prioritize Your Children

Another way to encourage your children is to make them a high priority in your life. You do that when you let them know you want to invest in their dreams, not try to make them live out your unfulfilled dreams or do what you think they ought to do.

You also prioritize your children when you put them ahead of your career. If that means you don’t accept a career move upward if it will negatively impact your family, then that’s the decision. That’s tough to do, because some in the business world will tell you to sacrifice your family if you have to. Now, most company executives won’t actually say that, but that’s the bottom-line effect of the way they run their companies. Their eyes are on productivity, not on their employees’ families. But God says your family comes ahead of your career.

I often feel this tension myself. The demands of a growing ministry and a packed schedule, and the need to serve as a counselor and to deal with problems at our church in Dallas often leave me in a Catch-22.

I remember one year I promised Anthony Jr. that I would be at one of his football games. But that week, a whole number of problems came up. In fact, there was an emergency in Houston I had to deal with, so I had to jump on a plane the morning of Anthony’s game. As things turned out, I wouldn’t be able to deal with the problem until that evening, at the exact time Anthony’s game was starting. Looking at my watch, I remembered how I had already disappointed him once that year by missing a game I had told him I would attend.

So I had to make a choice—and on that particular day, I made the right choice. I don’t always make the right choice concerning my family, but on that day, I did. I grabbed a flight back to Dallas, went to Anthony’s game, then went right back to the airport and flew back to Houston. I had to keep my word to my son.

Sometimes we are going to be inconvenienced by making our children a priority. Encouraging rather than provoking or discouraging them is often costly to us as parents.

Be an Example to Your Children

Another way to encourage your children is by being a positive example to them. A teacher called a father one day and said, “We’re having a problem with your son.”

The father asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Well, he keeps stealing pencil erasers from the classroom and taking them home.”

The father said, “I don’t know why he would do that. I brought a whole box of erasers home from work. He should have plenty.” This kind of thing happens far too often. The idea is to give your children a positive, encouraging example they can follow.

Bless Your Children

You can also encourage your children by blessing them. This is a powerful biblical concept that is being rediscovered in our day. The blessing was a key part of family life in the Old Testament. The battle between Jacob and Esau in Genesis 27 was over who would get their father Isaac’s blessing. This involved a father transferring the family inheritance to his son and telling him of the future God had for him (see Genesis 49). To be blessed meant that the father recognized a child’s significance. The blessing told the child that he was the future, that his father was counting on him.

The best thing we can do for our children is to put our hands on them and bless them in the name of Jesus Christ. There’s no way to measure the impact of your blessing on your children. This is so important because we parents are so often quick to curse our kids. I don’t mean using profanity on them. I’m talking about the kinds of comments that slip out of our mouths so easily. “You didn’t do that right.” “Why don’t you change this?” “How come you’re not better at that?” Our kids have heard where they fall short. Have they also heard us blessing them?

The difference between encouragement and praise is important. We praise our children a lot, but we don’t always encourage them. Praise focuses on what the child has accomplished. Your son hits a home run in his baseball game, and you say, “That was great, Son. Way to go!” Your daughter gets an A on her test, and you say, “That was wonderful.” That’s praise—acknowledging your child’s accomplishment. There’s nothing wrong with praise. The only problem is, when your kids aren’t doing something, they don’t get any praise.

But encouragement is not related to what people achieve. It is tied to who they are. Encouragement says, “I want to affirm you as my child. You don’t have to do anything spectacular. I love you because of who you are.”

Have you ever seen what happens to a drooping plant when you water it? That’s what encouragement does for children. It will take a drooping kid and make him look up. He can say, “Yeah, I am somebody. I’m special. Mom and Dad told me so.”

WE MUST NURTURE OUR CHILDREN

A second way we can fulfill our kingdom agenda as parents is to nurture our children. Ephesians 6:4 tells us to “bring them up.” This verb is the same Greek word used in Ephesians 5:29, which says, “No one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes … it, just as Christ also does the church” (emphasis added). In the same way that a husband should nourish and nurture his wife, parents need to nurture their children. The idea is to feed and care for them.

This goes well beyond putting food on table. Luke 2:52 says that as a child and young person, Jesus grew intellectually, physically, spiritually, and socially. These are the four areas in which children need nurturing.

Most of us believe passionately in our children’s physical, social, and intellectual development. We make sure they have clothes and shelter. We try to see that they eat right and get enough sleep. We help them learn how to mix with other people so they don’t feel odd and left out, and we monitor their choice of friends so they aren’t playing with the wrong crowd. And we keep a close eye on their grades so we know what they’re learning.

God says we should take the same kind of care with our children’s spiritual development. We need to know how well they’re being fed in church and Sunday school. We need to make sure we are giving them a regular diet of spiritual nourishment at home.

The Value of Spiritual Training

Proverbs 22:6 gives us a comprehensive term for spiritual development: “Train up a child in the way he should go, even when he is old he will not depart from it.” A proverb is not a promise, but a truism. It says, “If you will do something, this is the result you can normally expect.” Let me show you how this works with Proverbs 22:6.

The Hebrew word for “train” means to place something on the palate. The picture is of a Hebrew mother who would chew her baby’s food to soften it and then put the food in the baby’s mouth. The presence of the food would excite the child’s palate, and the child would begin eating and then would swallow the food. Child training, therefore, involves making our teaching palatable so that our children can digest it and benefit from it. This doesn’t mean soft-pedaling the truth, or only saying what our kids want to hear. It does mean that we don’t bulldoze them or beat them over the head with the truth.

That also rules out bribing children to get them to do what we want. Bribing says, “I will give you this to try to buy your cooperation and obedience.” The opposite of bribing children is rewarding them. Rewarding says, “Because you did what I asked you to do, I want to honor you for it.” Even God rewards us for our obedience.

This idea of being palatable really comes through in the phrase, “in the way he should go.” A better translation is, “according to his way”—according to each child’s unique personality or bent. The Bible is saying to parents, don’t try to come up with a standard procedure that you apply to each child, since each one is different and has a unique temperament. So the way you deal with your children should differ from child to child. Good parents already know that.

When we train a child well, the Bible says, “Even when he is old he will not depart from it.” The Hebrew word for “old” relates to the appearance of a beard. For a boy, that could be as early as fourteen or fifteen years of age, when he begins the process of entering adulthood.

Many of us are where we are today because of parents or grandparents who imparted something to us that we couldn’t get away from. It kept drawing us back. Your mom and dad made sure you were in church and paying attention, and now you are in church on your own. They taught you God’s Word, and now that Word is deeply ingrained in your system.

Parents as Primary Nurturers

Before we move on, let me say something that is implicit in this verse and explicit throughout the Bible, but is no longer a given in our society. This is that parents are to raise their children themselves. You and I cannot delegate the nurturing of our children to others.

Neither the government, the school, nor the church is assigned by God to raise your children. We have parents today getting frustrated at the school or the church because their child went the wrong way. But if God had wanted the school or the church to raise children, He would have given that child to the school or the church instead of to a set of parents to raise.

Obviously, that doesn’t mean you don’t hold other people accountable for how they impact your children. Of course, the church needs to support and reinforce the teaching children are getting at home. But nothing can replace the home.

A parent may say, “But I have too much on me.” Well, a lot of parents would pick up a few hours a week just by turning off the television. No one ever said parenting didn’t take an investment of your time and energy. It’s sad to say that some people train their dogs better than they train their kids. Then they tie the dogs up at night and let the kids run loose. But kingdom parents are called to train and nurture kingdom kids to live out God’s kingdom agenda.

WE MUST DISCIPLINE OUR CHILDREN

Paul gave us a third element of raising kingdom kids in Ephesians 6:4: “Bring [your children] up in the discipline … of the Lord” (emphasis added).

This is so important because discipline is proof of two very important things. The first is love. According to Hebrews 12:6, “Whom the Lord loveth, He skinneth alive” (my paraphrase). The Lord “spank-eth” those whom He loves. If you love your child too much to discipline him, God says you hate him. “He who withholds his rod hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him diligently” (Proverbs 13:24). We’ll get into the book of Proverbs in more depth below, because it is a manual on child discipline.

A second thing that discipline proves is sonship itself—the fact that a child belongs to the family. Hebrews 12:7–8 says that if God doesn’t correct you, it’s because you’re the neighbor’s kid. You don’t belong in God’s family at all if you aren’t under His discipline.

Now I know some of us think our children are little angels. But just wait, because as their legs get longer, their wings get shorter. Children are born in sin, and all they need is time to manifest that sin. That’s why you don’t have to teach your kids to be selfish. You don’t have to buy them a book on how to cheat, fight, get an attitude, or throw a temper tantrum. Sin is built-in. You have to discipline them away from sin.

Children are not born with a spark of divinity in them. Instead, they are born with hell inbred in them because of Adam’s sin, which has passed to all mankind (see Romans 5:12). So instead of trying to keep our children’s wings straight, we need to challenge Satan’s claim on them. Children need discipline, but not discipline apart from love. When you discipline a child apart from love, you will do physical or emotional damage.

That’s why correcting your children when you are angry is not the right time. When you explode, that is not a loving correction. It may make you feel better to let off steam, but it doesn’t do anything for your kids. God disciplines us in love. We owe the same to our children.

A Manual on Discipline

I want to do a little Scripture search here, using the book of Proverbs. Let’s look at some verses that spell out the responsibility and the joy involved in disciplining our children.

We just looked at Proverbs 13:24. I might note here that the “rod” was not a club. It was a spanking utensil designed to sting but do no permanent damage. It would hurt but not abuse.

Proverbs 19:18 cautions us, “Discipline your son while there is hope, and do not desire his death.” The ultimate result of an undisciplined life is death (see 1 Corinthians 11:29–32).

Proverbs 22 has some other great verses on parenting. Look at verse 15: “Foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child; the rod of discipline will remove it far from him.” The Hebrew word translated “foolishness” means “wickedness,” not just silliness. You say, “My child is bad. He’s acting up, giving us a lot of grief.” Well, you have a rod of discipline that is designed to drive that mess out of him.

We have a whole generation of kids running the streets who were never disciplined at home. Since they never got straightened out at home, nobody can control them now—not the police, the government, or anyone. They don’t understand that their actions come with consequences.

Here are two more verses from the Proverbs: “The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child who gets his own way brings shame to his mother” (Proverbs 29:15). “Correct your son, and he will give you comfort; he will also delight your soul” (v. 17). It takes courage and commitment to discipline. It’s easier to be passive and push the discipline of the children off onto the other spouse or someone else.

There was a little boy whose father was away on a business trip. He said to his mother at dinner, “I want to be in charge tonight, Mom.”

She said, “Okay, you can sit at the head of the table in your father’s chair.”

The boy’s sister thought her brother was too young to be in charge, so, as sisters will do, she decided to challenge him. “Okay, if you’re in charge, how much is two and two?”

The little boy looked at her and said, “Ask your mother.” He had passive parenting all figured out.

The Danger of Passive Fathering

That story may make us laugh, but there’s nothing funny about the real-life example of passive fathering we find in 1 Samuel. This father’s name was Eli, the priest of the Lord, who had two sons named Hophni and Phinehas (see 1 Samuel 1:3).

These boys were bad. “The sons of Eli were worthless men; they did not know the LORD” (1 Samuel 2:12). They were stealing from the Lord’s house, taking meat from the sacrifices for themselves, and threatening anyone who questioned them (see vv. 13–17).

And it gets worse. Hophni and Phinehas were also sleeping with the women “who served at the doorway of the tent of meeting” (v. 22). Eli did nothing to stop them except to scold them: “No, my sons; for the report is not good which I hear the LORD’s people circulating” (v. 24).

In other words, all Eli did was say, “You boys stop that. Naughty, naughty. God don’t like ugly.” But he never tried to take a hand with them or restrain them. You can say “Naughty, naughty” to a two-year-old, but not to an eighteen-year-old.

God got tired of these two boys real quickly. In 1 Samuel 3:13, He pronounced judgment on Eli’s house: “I have told him that I am about to judge his house forever for the iniquity which he knew, because his sons brought a curse on themselves and he did not rebuke them.” Hophni and Phinehas were bringing death to themselves and destruction on Eli’s house, yet he did nothing.

What does it mean to rebuke your children? Just tell them they are doing wrong? No, Eli did that. To rebuke means to follow through on what you said, even if it means taking drastic steps. That’s what Hophni and Phinehas needed but didn’t get. The result of their sin is found in 1 Samuel 4. First, Hophni and Phinehas were killed (see v. 11). Then, when Eli heard the news, he fell over backward, broke his neck, and died (see vv. 17–18).

But it didn’t stop there. Because Eli was a judge and priest in Israel, the nation suffered. The ark of the covenant was taken by the Philistines (see 1 Samuel 4:11). The ark—the glory, the presence, and the power of God—was gone. So Eli and his sons were dead, but even then God wasn’t finished. In verses 19–21, we learn that Phinehas’s wife also died giving birth to a son, whom she named “Ichabod,” meaning “the glory has departed from Israel” (1 Samuel 4:21).

This is what is happening in America today. The glory of the Lord is on its way out because we have decided that parents need to obey their children rather than children obeying them.

WE MUST INSTRUCT OUR CHILDREN

That brings us to our fourth and final piece of godly wisdom for parents from Ephesians 6:4. The Bible tells us to raise our children “in the instruction of the Lord”(emphasis added). Make sure they are being taught the way of the Lord.

This is so clear in the great chapter on godly instruction, Deuteronomy 6. Moses told Israel, in effect, “I must teach you the commandments of God, so that you, your son, and your grandson will learn to fear the Lord and keep His commandments. Then you will live long in the land God is giving you” (see vv. 1–3). That’s the background of the teaching in Deuteronomy 6:6–9.

We get upset because they have taken the Ten Commandments off the walls at school. But what I want to know is, are the commandments hanging on the walls of our homes? Are we teaching God’s truth to our children? God never commanded the school to teach your children His Word. If the school does, that’s a bonus. But are we doing the job at home?

Dad, if you are not sitting down with your family, opening the Word, and praying with your children, then don’t blame the government or the school or the streets if your kids get messed up. Their instruction is our responsibility as parents.

What are we to teach? The basics are in verses 4–5 of our text. We are to teach them that there is only one true God and that we are to love Him with all of our being. How are we to teach these truths? The text suggests several ways.

Teach Them Convincingly

First, God’s Word says to teach our children His truth in a convincing way.

Notice that before you can teach your children, God’s Word must be on your own heart. You must be passionately committed to it, or you’ll never convince your children that it is true.

This means that when your kids say things like, “Yeah, but Eric’s dad says this,” you respond, “Well, when you start living in Eric’s house, you can follow what Eric’s dad says. But in this house, we follow the Bible.”

In other words, don’t acquiesce to pressure from your children, because they will test you. This doesn’t mean you don’t listen to your kids; it means you hear what they have to say and then guide them in the way of the Lord.

Teach Them Consistently

We must also teach our children consistently. This is where the instruction really begins to take root and produce fruit.

Deuteronomy 6:7 shows how to teach consistently. It can happen anywhere, anytime. We know that there are times when children are especially teachable, and it’s usually in the ordinary course of daily events. A consistent parent takes advantage of every opportunity to teach. Be creative.

Teach Them Conspicuously

Finally, make your teaching conspicuous. Israel’s parents were to put the Word on their hands and foreheads and on their doorposts and gates (vv. 8–9). They memorized the Word. They made it obvious. There was nothing hidden here. No child had to guess whether his parents cared about God’s truth.

A CLOSING THOUGHT

Let me leave you with a closing thought that I hope will encourage you. You may say, “Tony, my children are grown. It’s too late to do all of this. I missed it. I was working too much. I was building my business. My kids are already gone. What do I do?”

Your children may be grown, but it’s never too late to pray. Psalm 127:4 says that children are like arrows in their father’s hand. If you shot your “arrows” crooked, you can still get on your knees and pray for a good wind. You can ask God to catch that errant arrow and steer it back toward the target.

Even if you missed it as an earthly parent, there is still a heavenly Father who can catch that wayward arrow and bring it in on target. I can’t say what God will do in your case, but I know He has the power to turn your children back to Himself. So no matter whether your children are flying right or going off course right now, keep praying.

Just as God tracked you down and brought you into His kingdom after you rebelled against Him, He can certainly do the same with your kingdom kids.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE KINGDOM CHILDREN

It may seem unusual to you to say that children have a kingdom agenda God wants them to follow. We tend to think of our kids as the ones being acted upon during their growing years rather than the ones doing the acting. But the Bible is very clear on the part God calls children to play in the day-to-day operation of the family. If we are going to return the church to its rightful place as an influence and shaper of culture, we have to build strong families.

CHILDREN HAVE A KINGDOM ROLE

Everybody has a role to play in God’s kingdom. Children are key because they embody the essence of the kingdom. Jesus said, “Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the Kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Matthew 19:14).

A Broader Definition of Children

One thing that will help us think more clearly about the children’s agenda in the kingdom is to remember that each one of us is somebody’s child. So when we talk about a child’s agenda, we don’t just mean those preschoolers or school-aged children who are still at home. We’re all children, so the principles in this chapter apply in some way to all of us. They are applied differently depending on our age and situation, of course. But God’s plan to build and display His kingdom in this world definitely includes children.

A lot of what is said here will be particularly relevant to teenagers, because they are usually the ones battling through the issue of their responsibility to their parents and their place in the home. But you don’t have to have teenagers to know that we are living in a day of changing values and role reversals. The culture has turned up the heat on our families.

As this thing boils, what has come to the top is a very rebellious spirit that tells children to ignore, disregard, and disobey their parents—and all authority, for that matter. Some children take this to the next level and actually abuse and mistreat their parents in some violent way that requires the intervention of the authorities to protect the parents.

To give you some idea of how much things have changed, if you are close to my age recall the days when we attended school. We wouldn’t have dared to call our teachers anything but Mrs. Teacher or Mr. Teacher because there was a general environment of respect.

The Reversal of Roles

But we are in a culture of rebellion. Instead of “Children, obey your parents,” the command today seems to be, “Parents, obey your children.” I don’t think many people will disagree with the statement that the roles of parent and child have been turned upside down. We could say that what we are seeing today is the “adultification” of children. Even the legal structures of our society have been busy decreasing parental authority and increasing children’s rights.

Now all we hear about is the rights of children in areas such as self-determination, sexual expression, and personal freedom. Children must be free to experiment sexually, the argument goes, so we adults must honor that need by passing out condoms and urging our kids to practice so-called safe sex.

So a child or teenager today is faced with a culture that says, “Rebel!” Even some adults are still living out the rebellious lifestyle they started when they were living at home. Some rebellious children of the sixties are getting a payback today in the rebellion of their own kids.

When children fail to live out God’s kingdom agenda for them, the whole family structure is compromised. We must get this thing back on track as the people of God. To help us do that, I want to return to Ephesians 6, considering Paul’s word to children in verses 1–3. There we find two things every child needs to give his or her parents: obedience and honor.

CHILDREN ARE TO OBEY THEIR PARENTS

Paul lays out the agenda for children beginning with Ephesians 6:1, where he writes: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right.” This verse always raises questions such as, “How far does a child’s obedience go?” “What if my child is not living at home?” “What happens if my child decides not to obey my instructions?”

Parents and Children are Distinct

I’ll try to answer these and other questions as we go along. But first let’s consider why it is so important that children obey their parents. One primary reason is that in God’s kingdom, there is a fundamental distinction between children and parents. Let me show you what I’m talking about by putting this in a larger context.

One attribute of God is His transcendence, which means He is distinct from His creation. God sits outside of and above creation, although He is involved with creation. God is in a class all by Himself.

In a similar way, parents and their roles are distinct from children and their roles. Our problem is that we have not maintained these crucial distinctions. So we have teenagers and even children today who are trying to look and act like adults and assume adult privileges. Parents cower and bow before their children lest they upset them, or lest the kids react negatively to the parents’ attempts at discipline. We have seriously blurred the family picture. It’s sometimes hard to tell who are the children and who are the parents. You can go into some homes and wonder who’s in charge.

But Paul used a Greek word for children, teknon, that means “all offspring.” The reason God gives parents to children is so that the children might have a filtered life. That is, if you are a Christian parent, your job is to filter the culture in such a way that its evil influences don’t dominate your kids’ lives. And you are to filter out the sinful tendencies within them, so you bend and shape their will without breaking their spirit.

Why is this necessary? Because no matter how cute your children are, they are sinfully cute. Foolishness and rebellion are built into the heart of a child (see Proverbs 22:15). That’s why children must learn obedience.

A Child’s Obedience Is to God

Ephesians 6:1 gives us two excellent reasons children are to obey their parents. The first is because their obedience is to be “in the Lord.” Because this verse is so familiar, we might be tempted to rush over that phrase and miss its significance. That would be a tragedy, because Paul is saying that for children, obedience to parents is comparable to obedience to God when what their parents are asking them to do agrees with God’s instructions.

Let me say it another way. When a child rebels against his parents, God looks at that as rebellion against Himself. It is an attempted coup against the kingdom. So when a child raises his voice against his mother and father because he doesn’t like their instruction and doesn’t want to obey it, or when a child cuts off his or her relationship to a parent or parents, God looks at that as raising their voice to Him, or cutting off their relationship to Him.

Ephesians 6:1 tells us that this obedience thing is bigger than just parents and children. It has to do with the Lord. He has a deep interest in seeing that children obey. Now of course, it’s up to us parents to make sure we are raising our children “in the Lord.” It’s our responsibility to guide them in ways that are in harmony with, not in contradiction to, the Scriptures. We must give them the right target at which to aim their obedience.

I want to give you some examples from the book of Proverbs that underscore the importance of obedience. Proverbs 1:8 says: “Hear, my son, your father’s instruction, and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.” Proverbs 3:1 is very similar: “My son, do not forget my teaching, but let your heart keep my commandments.” Proverbs 4:1–4 shows the progression of godly instruction and obedience from one generation to the next:

Hear, O sons, the instruction of a father, and give attention that you may gain understanding, for I give you sound teaching; do not abandon my instruction. When I was a son to my father, tender and the only son in the sight of my mother, then he taught me and said to me, “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments and live.”

Proverbs 7:1–3 is another important passage, showing how seriously God wants children to take their obedience to parents: “My son, keep my words, and treasure my commandments within you. Keep my commandments and live, and my teaching as the apple of your eye. Bind them on your fingers; Write them on the tablet of your heart.”

The Proverbs also say that a disobedient child brings grief, unhappiness, and even destruction to his parents (10:1; 17:21; 19:13), and brings shame and disgrace to the whole family (19:26).

You get the idea. To God, a child’s obedience is no small thing. So children who are living at home under the authority of their parents must have this attitude: “Dad, Mom, unless you tell me to disobey God, I am going to obey you. I may not always like it, and I may not agree with it. But I am a child, and you are my parents. I want to please God by obeying you.”

A woman was in a department store with her little girl one day. The child kept tugging at her mother, crying and whining, and the mother kept saying, “Quiet, Bridget. Just calm yourself, Bridget. Take it easy, Bridget.”

The salesclerk was amazed at how firmly this woman was correcting her child. He looked at the little girl and said, “So your name’s Bridget, huh?”

The mother replied, “No, her name is Kelly. I’m Bridget.”

Unfortunately, that’s how it often happens. Instead of parents being in control, the kids are in firm control. But obedience is the kingdom agenda for children, and it’s a spiritual issue.

The Right Thing To Do

Here’s a second reason from Ephesians 6:1 that children need to obey their parents: “this is right.” That is, obedience is the righteous thing to do. Righteousness is based on and measured by the character of God, and His Word reflects that standard. So when the Bible says it is right for kids to obey, God is saying that their obedience conforms to His character.

There are other reasons that make obedience right for children. The fact that parents bring children into the world and provide for them gives them a priority call on their children’s obedience. God has the same right to make this demand on us because He gave us life and sustains us every day.

Another thing that makes obedience right is the fact that parents have been around longer than their children and know more about life. So it is to children’s advantage to listen to their parents and follow their guidance.

I think you’ll agree that obedience—and the submission it calls for—is not a popular topic. But the issue is not, is your home peaceful? The issue is, is your home operating on biblical principles? And if the only way we as parents can have peace is by yielding to our children, then we are going to have messed-up homes.

The Issue of Adult Children

Obedience to parents raises a very sticky question for adult children. Let’s define adult as anyone over eighteen who has his or her own family, job, schedule, or whatever. The question is, how long do we have to obey our parents?

Someone might say, “I haven’t lived at home for years, but my parents are still trying to tell me what to do.” Another person might ask, “I still live at home for economic reasons, but I’m an adult. Are you saying I still have to obey my parents?” Let’s examine this issue.

The first thing to note is that the context of Ephesians 6 is clearly the nuclear family: father, mother, and their children. This implies that children are the parents’ responsibility and are under the parents’ care. So we can make this statement to start with: As long as you are under your parents’ roof and they are providing for you and protecting you, the Bible commands you to obey their rules. It’s as simple as that. Even if a man is thirty years old, if he’s still living in mom’s house, eating mom’s food, and has a key to mom’s front door, then he is obligated to obey her rules because she is providing for him.

Someone may say, “That’s ridiculous. A grown man shouldn’t have to obey his parents like he was some little child.” Well, if he can’t or won’t obey his parents, then he needs to move and start being responsible for his own provision and protection.

What about the grown child who doesn’t live at home but calls dad for a loan? Then he needs to be ready to obey his dad’s guidelines pertaining to the loan. If he doesn’t want to do that, then he shouldn’t borrow the money.

The point is if the parents are making provision and giving protection, they have the right to say, “In my home, I want things done this way.” Now let me clarify something. I am not talking about clear-cut biblical issues here, but a parent’s own preferences and rules. Any adult who is not under his parents’ care is not obligated to go to bed when they say, for instance.

What about the clear biblical precepts where God demands obedience? It’s obvious that parents must make sure their children at home obey God’s commands. Those are nonnegotiable. For us as adult children, the issue is not what our parents say. We deal with God Himself on these things.

But let’s take the case of the thirty-year-old man still living off his parents. Suppose dad says, “Son, you’re coming in so late at night that you’re keeping us up and ruining our sleep. I want you to get home earlier so we can go to bed.” In that case, the son has two choices: comply with his father’s demand, or move out and get his own place.

My children used to love it when the family went back to my parents’ home in Baltimore. The reason is that when I go home, all that Pastor Evans or Dr. Evans stuff doesn’t mean a thing to my mom. As soon as I came into the house, my mom was talking about “Tony, this” and “Tony, that.” What the kids like to see, even today, is that if I don’t do something my mother insists on, she pulls out a belt. The kids would say, “Get him, Grandma! Get him!” And you know what? If she decided to get me, I would have to take it. It’s her home.

If you’re an adult living at home, you are obligated to obey your parents’ rules and preferences as well as the clear-cut commands of Scripture. But once you leave your parents’ home, you are not obligated to comply with their preferences.

CHILDREN ARE TO HONOR THEIR PARENTS

A second thing that children owe their parents is honor. The Scripture says: “Honor your father and mother (which is the first commandment with a promise), that it may be well with you, and that you may live long on the earth” (Ephesians 6:2–3).

The Greek word translated “honor” means “to value highly, to hold in highest regard.” This, by the way, holds true at any age. There may be some areas of controversy and disagreement when it comes to obeying parents, but children never reach an age when they don’t owe their parents honor.

The reason we have so much disrespect in the streets and in the schools is that children have never learned respect in the home. If kids don’t learn to respect dad and mom, they may never learn to respect police officers, judges, or anyone else’s person or property. Here’s another reason Satan wants to destroy the home. If he can do that, he can destroy honor in the culture.

How important is it to God that children honor their parents? We can answer that from Exodus 21:15. You may have heard of this teaching: “He who strikes his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.” And in verse 17, “He who curses his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.”

Lifting your hand against your parents or cursing them, both terrible forms of dishonor, meant death in ancient Israel. That’s how serious God is about children honoring their parents. As I said, dishonoring parents is rebellion within God’s kingdom.

Do you think the children in Israel’s homes took the message seriously? Well, there is no record in all the Bible of any child or young person in Israel being put to death for dishonoring his or her parents. Why is that? Because these children understood the importance of honor. They knew this thing was real. You can believe that if they started to slide over into serious dishonor, they got things fixed real fast. You could not abuse your parents physically or verbally in Israel and live to brag about it.

There used to be a time when, if adults were walking down the street and met a group of kids coming the other way, the kids moved over. Now we see kids coming and we get out of the way. They are not afraid of us; we are afraid of them. Why? Because you don’t know what these kids might do if you make them mad. When parents don’t take care of business in the home and allow their children to get away with dishonoring them, we all pay the price.

Teaching children to honor is a long-term process. It has to be enforced and reinforced every day. Teenagers who are allowed to show disrespect to their parents are on a dead-end road. And the culture will eventually feel the effects of that rebellion.

Dealing with Dishonor

I want to show you a biblical case study of how God feels about dishonor and how He deals with it. It’s an unusual story, found in 2 Kings 2:23–24. This was not a parent-child situation, but it’s an adult, the prophet Elisha, being dishonored and cursed by a group of young men:

Then [Elisha] went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!” When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number.

The word for “lads” used here indicates that these were not little kids being irresponsible. These were older boys who were, in effect, cursing God’s prophet. And their disrespect brought death. The reason so many children are dying in the streets is because they never learned honor, and it’s costing them their lives.

Here is another passage that spells out in detail how seriously God takes the issue of honoring parents. What did parents in Israel do when they had a rebellious child, or a young person who refused to obey or honor them? The Mosaic law was very specific:

If any man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey his father or his mother, and when they chastise him, he will not even listen to them, then his father and mother shall seize him, and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gateway of his hometown. They shall say to the elders of his city, “This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey us, he is a glutton and a drunkard.” Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death; so you shall remove the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear of it and fear. (Deuteronomy 21:18–21)

This is not talking about misbehavior. All children are going to misbehave. This is talking about serious, deliberate, long-term rebellion. People in the church I pastor who are dealing with a rebellious adolescent have asked me, “What should we do? Do we call the police? We don’t want to see our son locked up. What do we do?”

One thing you can do if you have a rebellious child is bring him to the church. The elders of the city would be comparable to the elders of the church today. If a child living in your house won’t obey and honor you, the parents, you should bring the child to the church so that the church can admonish him or her on the parents’ behalf.

We have a means in our church in Dallas for addressing this issue when a parent brings us a rebellious child. The deacons get involved and make the child or teen accountable to obey his parents.

I’m not necessarily advocating this as a formal ministry for other churches. But when the need arises, parents ought to be able to bring their child to the church. Then, if the child will not listen to God’s covenant community, he or she is handed over to civil authorities if the case requires, so the authorities can do with the child whatever may be necessary.

But before parents have to call in the authorities, they should be able to bring the child to the church, that he or she might learn how to honor their parents. The men of the church, acting on God’s behalf, represent one final chance and hope for repentance and change.

We are talking about serious cases here. But that’s just the point. How do cases in which a child dishonors his or her parents become so bad that the authorities have to step in? One answer may be that no one called this kid to account when it first happened way back when.

Children, especially teenagers, need to know that they cannot live any way they want and dishonor their parents and expect to cruise right along with no consequences. God won’t allow that to happen forever. Honoring their parents is high on the kingdom agenda of children.

How to Show Honor

How do children honor their parents? Let me suggest several ways.

First, children need to honor their parents emotionally. This includes spending time with them and showing them some concern and love. Some mothers and fathers are wasting away in retirement homes and care centers for lack of attention and honor from their grown children.

Someone may say, “But you don’t know my mother. She was terrible.” Or, “My father was bad news.” But this person is still your parent. He or she must have done something right, fed you something good, because you’re still here. I’m not saying you have to honor what your parents did wrong. But you can still recognize and honor your parents for their position.

You can also honor your parents verbally. Even today, when I go to visit my parents, I don’t say to my father, “Hey, Art. How’s it going?” It’s “Yes, sir” and “No, sir.”

Paul told Timothy, “Do not sharply rebuke an older man, but rather appeal to him as a father” (1 Timothy 5:1). Even if he’s wrong, you still speak to him with respect. A mother and father are not, “Hey, you” to their children. Parents are to be spoken to and about with honor.

God also calls children to honor their parents financially. In 1 Timothy 5:8 Paul wrote: “If anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” Then in verse 16: “If any woman who is a believer has dependent widows, she must assist them and the church must not be burdened.”

We have a financial responsibility for our parents when they can no longer take care of themselves. This means more than buying them a Mother’s or Father’s Day card. It means seeing to their well-being when they need our help. Maybe they cannot live with us because of the kind of medical care they need, but honor still demands that we look after their welfare.

Notice once more in 1 Timothy 5 that Paul described what we do for our parents, in this case our mothers, as making a “return” for what they have done for us (v. 4). Your mother carried you for nine months. She went through painful labor to bring you into the world. She fed you. For many people in my generation, your mother may have boarded a bus every day to go to the other side of town and scrub other people’s floors so you could eat, have clothes, and go to school. Your dad may have worked like my dad did, until he was so tired he could hardly walk home. That kind of sacrifice deserves to be honored.

The father of one of the elders in our church left his family when this elder was a child. But when this father fell ill not long ago, our elder went to the hospital regularly to be with his father, even though none of the other kids would have anything to do with him. This elder was showing his father honor, not because he was a great dad, but because his position as father deserved respect. And who knows? This man’s honor may win his father to Christ.

The Blessing of Honor

The last thing I want you to see is that honoring parents brings blessing. You were wondering when I was going to get to Ephesians 6:3, weren’t you? What about the Bible’s promise of blessing to those who honor their parents?

This verse says that those children who honor their parents will be blessed with a greater quantity of life. That is, they will avoid the curse of rebellion and disobedience that, as we have seen, can bring premature death.

These children will also experience God’s blessing. Do you want God to hear and answer your prayers? Do you want His blessing on your education, career, choice of a mate, or other issue of life? Then honor your mother and father. If you don’t, it won’t go well with you.

Many people are messed up because they have never fixed things up with mom and dad. Some readers need to put this book down and go make a phone call, pay a visit, or write a letter to a parent. This principle of honoring parents was given in the Old Testament, and it carries right through to the New Testament and today. It still applies and is still a central feature for anyone who is serious about functioning in accordance with God’s kingdom agenda.

Let me close by answering the obvious question. Is Ephesians 6:3 promising that every child who honors his or her parents will live to be ninety and experience only good things? No, the idea of long life is that you will get all the life God ordained you to have. He won’t have to cut you off before your time because you refuse to stop dishonoring your parents. You won’t die at forty if you’re supposed to live to be seventy. You’ll make all your ordained days.

This is an issue with the power of blessing and of life and death in it. We need to make sure honoring our parents is high on our kingdom agenda.

The church is supposed to be a little bit of heaven a long way from home. It is to be that place where the values of eternity operate in history: where weary people can go to find truth, acceptance, equality, freedom, safety, forgiveness, justice, and hope.

But in many cases the church has stopped being the biblical church that it was designed to be, so we have limited our impact on contemporary society, both inside our walls and without.

http://go.tonyevans.org/church/

CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE CHURCH’S PURPOSE

In every recognized country in the world there is an American embassy, which is a little piece of America a long way from home. Embassies are sovereign territories, meaning that they do not belong to the countries they are in. They belong to the countries from which they came. If you get into trouble in a foreign land, make your way to the American embassy because once you enter its gates, you are in America again. You are where the laws of our nation rule.

The church is supposed to be a little bit of heaven a long way from home—the place where the values of eternity operate in history. The church is a place where weary people can go to find truth, acceptance, equality, freedom, safety, forgiveness, justice, and hope. If this is true, why do we find that the church’s impact is waning? How can we have so much preaching, praising, and programs, and yet so little demonstrated power? Why does the church merely react to society’s agenda rather than offering a kingdom agenda to better society itself?

The answers lie in the fact that the church today bears too little resemblance to the kingdom it is supposed to represent. This is because we have failed to function from a kingdom perspective. In many cases, the church has stopped being the biblical church it was designed to be, and as a result, we have limited our impact on contemporary society, both inside and outside our walls.

THE KINGDOM-MINDED CHURCH

Before heading deeper into this issue, this is a good time to review some foundational truths about God’s kingdom. I want to do a quick refresher that will serve as the backdrop for our discussion on the church. These things are so essential that they are worth a second glance prior to proceeding.

A Refresher on the Kingdom

The Greek word for kingdom is basileia, which essentially means “rule” or “authority.” We have seen that a kingdom always includes three crucial components: first, a ruler empowered with sufficient authority to govern; second, a realm of subjects who fall under this authority; and third, the rules of governance.

God’s kingdom is the authoritative execution of His comprehensive governance in all creation. The universe we live in is a theocracy—from theos, meaning “God,” and ocracy, which refers to “rule.” A kingdom perspective means that the rule of God (theocracy) trumps the rule of man (homocracy). Psalm 103:19 expresses it this way: “The LORD has established His throne in the heavens, and His sovereignty [kingdom] rules over all.” So the kingdom agenda is the visible manifestation of the comprehensive rule of God over every area of life.

God’s kingdom is larger than the temporal, political, and social realms in which we live. Nor is it confined to the walls of the church in which we worship Him. The kingdom is both now (Mark 1:15) and not yet (Matthew 16:28). It is near us (Luke 17:21), but also in heaven (Matthew 7:21), since it originates from above, from another realm. Jesus revealed that truth shortly before His crucifixion, when He said to Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm” (John 18:36).

Since God’s kingdom originates from another realm, God established covenants within the world in which we live through which to implement it. These covenants are governmental systems or institutions designated as family, church, and civil government (state). God rules them all, and each one is to be accountable to Him and His standards as their sovereign. Failure to operate under His authority within those guidelines results in negative consequences. These three systems, while distinct in their responsibilities and jurisdiction, are to cooperate with each other with the common goal of producing personal responsibility and individuals who govern themselves under God. None of these governing spheres is to be viewed or is to operate as an all-powerful, centralized, and controlling authority over the others.

The Standard of the Kingdom

The foundation on which all three systems are designed to operate is that of an absolute standard of truth, meaning it is non-negotiable, and non-adjustable, and transcends cultural, racial, and situational lines. Truth is God-based knowledge, since God is both the originator and the author of truth.

Not only does the kingdom agenda operate on this foundation of truth, but it also operates under the only all-inclusive principle presented to us for understanding the work of God and His kingdom. This principle is His glory. Romans 11:36 says, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.”

Glory simply means “to be heavy” or “to have weight.” It denotes significance. Since all things come from God, are through God, and go to God, God’s glory exists intrinsically in Himself. Whether we ascribe glory to God or not is irrelevant to the amount of glory God has; His glory is already fully present in Him. However, we experience and access that glory when we place ourselves under His comprehensive rule, because it is then that God radiates and magnifies His glory to, in, and through us.

Surrendering to God’s Sovereignty

A primary way we can bring glory to God is by surrendering to His sovereignty. To do this is to acknowledge His jurisdiction, and the validity of His supremacy, over every area of life. God is accountable to no one. He either causes all things to happen, or He permits them to happen. Sovereignty means that God never says: “I missed that one.” When we live by the principles of the kingdom agenda, we experience God’s hand in every area of life and thereby witness His promise to work all things together for good (see Romans 8:28).

However, what we often do is limit our opportunity to experience God working all things together for good by defining God according to our purpose rather than His. Humanism and socialism, whether in the form of modern-day “church-ism,” materialism, “me-ism,” statism, or Marxism, offer an insufficient understanding of the purpose, work, and revelation of God. It attempts to box God into a “kingdom” confined to our human perspective.

Yet, when the human condition is used as the starting point for seeing the whole of God’s revelation, rather than surrendering to His sovereignty over the whole of the human condition, faulty theology and sociology emerge. We wind up with a God fashioned in the image of man.

A kingdom perspective does not view man’s condition first and then assign to God what we feel would best reflect Him. Rather, a kingdom perspective ascertains how God has determined to glorify Himself and then aligns itself with that, despite our inability to always understand God’s ways. God is good, all the time. However, God’s definition of good isn’t always the same as ours. In fact, God often uses the very thing that we call “not good” as a tool to bring about an ultimate purpose, with the resultant manifestation of His greater glory.

For example, according to the covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15:13–14, slavery in Egypt was an intricate part of God’s program for the nation of Israel. We read: “God said to Abram, ‘Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, where they will be enslaved and oppressed four hundred years. But I will also judge the nation whom they will serve, and afterward they will come out with many possessions.’”

The point here is that in accomplishing His kingdom agenda, God allowed a negative reality that could have been avoided if He had chosen for it to be. Yet, the Israelites’ slavery in Egypt accomplished a higher purpose of establishing God’s theocratic relationship with them based on an exodus that would serve as a constant reminder of who had brought them out (see Exodus 12:41). This truth served as a foundational relational principle in the future movements of God with the Israelite community.

God’s sovereignty in the midst of what we do not understand is echoed throughout the Bible. Another example is found in the life of Joseph, who had been sold into slavery by his brothers. Joseph later said to them, “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive” (Genesis 50:20).

The freedom that is actualized through a kingdom perspective, that of embracing God’s sovereignty, generates a faith more powerful than any human weapon or system of philosophy could ever produce. It accesses God’s grace in such a way so as to grant a freedom that is not dependent upon externals. This is the only true, authentic freedom, as it manifests God’s ability to bring about good in any and every situation surrendered to Him.

While God is a God of justice—and while we as His children should be just—a kingdom perspective recognizes that in His sovereignty, His timing is not always our own. However, a kingdom theology also recognizes that while there remains injustice in the world’s systems, they should never be tolerated within the church among members of the body of Christ.

In fact, whenever Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God during His earthly ministry, He did so while simultaneously healing, helping, feeding, and freeing the hurting and the lost. Therefore, any ministry that minimizes legitimate social needs has failed to model itself after the One whom we follow, thereby reducing the glory it gives to God (see Matthew 5:16).

While we may not always understand God’s processes or His timing, a kingdom theology recognizes that God’s purpose to glorify Himself does not change. The ultimate goal of the kingdom is always Godward. Therefore, living the kingdom agenda means that the comprehensive rule of God is the final, authoritative, and governing principle in our personal lives, family lives, churches, and communities, so that God may manifest His glory while advancing His kingdom.

The Socio-Political Distinction of the Kingdom

The problem in the church today is that we have misunderstood the kingdom, thereby marginalizing its authority and influence not only in our own lives but also in our land. Many in the church have so spiritualized the kingdom that its socio-political rules have become little more than an ethereal ideology to be displayed at a later date. This has led to a reduction of the vast socio-ethical implications in the church, creating an organism that offers little power toward the transformation of society. However, the socio-political nature of the kingdom of God is very real, biblically substantiated, and relevant to the manifestation of the church’s greatest and true potential.

We first witness the socio-political distinction of the kingdom in Satan’s challenge to God’s rule. This challenge, while spiritual, was also political in nature in that it involved an attempt to secure a throne only God held the right to possess (see Isaiah 14:13–17, Ezekiel 28:11–19). Satan said, “I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of assembly” (Isaiah 14:13). Satan’s desire to “sit on the mount of assembly” was his attempt to hold the seat of divine government in the spiritual realm while getting Adam to surrender it in the physical realm. From the beginning, politics was an issue in the rule of God.

Other demonstrations of the socio-political nature of God’s kingdom include the command God gave to Adam to “subdue” the earth under him (Genesis 1:26), revealing the combination of the spiritual and physical aspects of a theocratic kingdom.

Next, the specific institution and creation of national government directly relates God’s kingdom program to the social and political aspects of man as well, especially since capital punishment is instituted after the flood (see Genesis 9:1–7). That capital punishment was predicated on the fact that man is made in the image of God (see v. 6) underscores the truth that God’s kingdom rule in the area of human justice has a spiritual basis.

Further, Abraham was a participant in a covenant that included both land and descendants. This covenant became the basis for Israel’s spiritual as well as socio-political existence (Genesis 12:1–3). Likewise, whether in the conflict of Moses with Pharaoh, or in Israel’s period of the judges, a theocratic role in governing the nation involved social, political, and economic forces as the means of expressing God’s rule on earth.

Looking toward the millennial kingdom and Messiah’s righteous rule, we also see a reflection of the social structure of the kingdom demonstrating the inseparability of the socio-political aspects from the spiritual. In Christ’s future rule, military warfare will cease (see Psalm 46; Micah 4:3, Isaiah 9:6–7), slums will be removed (see Psalm 72:16), political wrongs will be righted (see Isaiah 2:4; Psalm 72:4), and physical disease will disappear (see Isaiah 35:5–6; Malachi 1:8; Isaiah 33:24).

AN ALTERNATIVE MODEL FOR THE WORLD

The contemporary purpose of the church, in light of the nature of the kingdom, is not only to reflect the spiritual but also the socio-political and socio-ethical aspects of the kingdom. It is to be a model for the world, operating in the world, while providing an alternative to the world. When the church functions as a community—not as a reaction to the world’s social system, but rather as a divine structure operating in a manner according to the way God has ordained it to be—the church sets itself apart as a haven, much like an embassy in a foreign land. This shows those who are in the kingdom of darkness a preview of what the kingdom of God is all about.

In the movies, previews are used to advertise and whet our appetite for coming attractions. Designed to entice, the preview focuses on the best clips of the movie such as the chase scenes, love scenes, and fight scenes. Someday a big show is coming to town called the kingdom of God. Jesus Christ is the star, and it will be a worldwide production. But until then, God has left the church here as His previews to the world of the major production that is to come.

Unfortunately, most of our clips have been so weak in demonstrating the power and wonder of the feature film that few people show interest in picking up a ticket. Instead of previewing an epic, we often merely reflect the sitcoms and soap operas around us. Until we, as God’s people, intentionally embrace, apply, and reflect the kingdom, the church has little to offer the world.

Although there is war in the world, there ought to be peace in the church (see Ephesians 4:3; Colossians 3:14–15), and prayer for peace by the church (see 1 Timothy 2:1–2). Although there is oppression in society, there ought to be liberation and justice in the church (see James 2:1–9). Although there is poverty in the world, there ought to be voluntary sharing with the goal of meeting existing needs in the church (see Acts 2:44–45; 2 Corinthians 12:12–24). And although there is racism, classism, and sexism in the world, there ought to be authentic oneness in the church (see Colossians 3:11). When this happens, the world is presented with the option of Christ as the church functions the way He designed it to function. The church becomes an alternative model for the world, a community functioning under the rule of God in His kingdom on earth.

Members of the biblical church model this alternative on the basis that we are citizens of the kingdom (see Colossians 1:13), having been designated as sons of the kingdom (see Matthew 13:38), promised victory by the King (see Matthew 16:18), future participants in the kingdom (see Daniel 9:5, 7; Nehemiah 1:6–7), and its inheritors (see Ephesians 4:32).

Further, the fruit of the church reveals itself to others as the “good seed” sown during this period when the kingdom is present in mystery form (see Matthew 13:38). The church is therefore uniquely positioned and authorized to carry out the mandates of the kingdom under the authority of Christ (see Ephesians 1:22–23) when we seek the kingdom above all else (see Matthew 6:33).

Since the church is to serve as a model partaking of this universal and eternal kingdom, and since this eternal kingdom is socio-political as well as spiritual in nature, the church, as a spiritual body, also partakes of the socio-political realm. The question is, then, what should the biblical church and its role in our society look like today?

The Biblical Church

Let me begin by saying what the biblical church is not. First, the church in the New Testament—which serves as our picture for the church age—is not a social club. It is not a place to come and be entertained. Neither is it an outpost for an official political party. While functionally it has socio-political structures and intents, it is never commanded to impose itself governmentally on the world. The church, rather, functions as a model revealing the principles of the kingdom. The church is a community of individuals spiritually linked together with the purpose of reflecting and legislating the values of the kingdom of God.

The church is to function as an internally legislative and familial community with an emphasis on community. By the biblical church, I am referring to the church that Jesus Christ established and that is reflected or modeled through the local gathering of believers, a local assembly, as He defined it shortly before the end of His earthly ministry (see Matthew 16).

Several verses in this chapter are very important for our understanding of who we are as a church and what we are to do. Jesus had just asked His disciples an important question: “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” (Matthew 16:13). Everyone offered flattering answers in reply. Some said that He was Elijah, while others said Jeremiah or a prophet. But they were all wrong. Then Jesus turned to His disciples and asked, “But who do you say that I am?” (v. 15).

It isn’t evident in the English translation, but the Greek word “you” is plural. In Texas we would say, “Who do y’all say that I am?” The plural “you” means that Jesus was not just asking this question to Peter, who subsequently answered, but to the group as a whole.

Peter answered as the representative leader of the disciples. One way we know that Peter was a leader is that whenever we see a list of the names of the disciples in the gospels, Peter is always listed first. He was a natural spokesperson. While he may have suffered foot-in-mouth disease at times, he was also one who stepped up when needed. Answering for the disciples, Peter said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16).

Jesus responded by affirming Peter and changing his name, which had been Simon Barjona, to Peter—which means “a stone.” Jesus continued by saying, “and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it” (v. 18).

The Interlinking Pieces of the Church

Several important principles are given to us in this passage. First, the biblical church is comprised of many interlinking pieces.

Once the disciples individually recognized and agreed upon who Jesus was, they were ready to come together and be the church. This is critical because Christ is the church’s foundation and its cornerstone. Once He saw that the disciples understood who He was, Jesus esteemed their commitment to Him by empowering them to carry out His work. He did this because their reply showed Him that they were a group of individuals who could jointly make an impact on society, which is exactly what they did. Their impact has left a legacy that is still alive today.

What we sometimes do with this passage, though, is make the mistake of interpreting Christ’s statement as meaning that He is building His church on one man: Peter. However, the word Jesus used for Peter in Matthew 16:18 was the Greek word petros. It indicated a single stone that can be easily thrown. But then Jesus used the Greek word petra for “rock,” indicative of a mass, or cliff, of rocks composed of something much larger than any individual rock.

This mass of rocks interlinks individual rocks together to create a stronger whole. Although there are a multitude of individual stones in a petra, they do not function as individual rocks, but are intimately joined together. The best exegete of the passage would have to be Peter himself, and we have his interpretation in 1 Peter 2:5: “You also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house.”

It is significant that Christ described the church in this way. A healthy, functioning church community—a unity—is an essential element through which God manifests His power and reveals His glory. Therefore, if we, as the church, are going to be the church that Jesus is building, we have no other choice but to embrace our call to unity.

Jesus did not place option B or C on the table. He did not say that He would build a black church over here, a white church over there, and a Hispanic church in another place. He did not establish a denominational church over here and a non-denominational church over there. When we limit ourselves to those options, we have perverted His definition of His church. Rather, we are all individual stones coming together to form a larger, more complete whole upon which Christ, the foundation and cornerstone, will build His church (see Ephesians 2:20–22).

The Legislative Nature of the Church

Second, the biblical church also has a legislative capacity. We learn this from the definition of the term for “church” that Paul used in Ephesians 2. The Greek word is ecclesia, which means “assembly.” The word was used in New Testament days for a group of people who had been called out from the general population to serve in the parliament, congress, or counsel of the community, in order to establish the governance, guidelines, rules, and regulations for the broader citizenry. In other words, if you were a part of the ecclesia in Greek society, you were part of the government which legislated on behalf of the population. Ecclesia wasn’t a place where you came to sing a song or hear a sermon. It was the place where you came to govern.

Most of the time when we use the term “church” today, we simply mean a place where people can go to find encouragement, teaching, and fellowship. However, while those things are important, when we limit ourselves to them we have reduced the word from its intended meaning. To be a part of the church of Jesus Christ, as Jesus defined it, is to be a part of a spiritual legislative body tasked to enact heaven’s viewpoint in hell’s society. In the midst of a place of war and conflict, God has deposited an ecclesia, a group of people who have been called out to bring the governance of God into the application and practice of mankind.

The legislative nature of the church is clearly evident in Matthew 16, since it is to resist the “gates of Hades.” The term “gates” is used in Scripture to refer to a place where legislative activities occur. This is reinforced by the fact that “keys” are given to the church to gain access to heaven’s authority and execute it on earth (see Matthew 16:19). Jesus sits at the right hand of the Father to legislate from heaven, and we sit with Him (see Ephesians 2:5–6).

When the church settles for spiritual inspiration and information only, as important and foundational as those things are, we wind up with temporal encouragement but little lasting transformation. In fact, the church even influences God’s involvement in the culture. Much of what God will or will not do is predicated on what He sees the church doing (see Ephesians 3:10). The church is supposed to be where the values of eternity operate in history so that history sees what God looks like when heaven is operating on earth. The job of the church is not to adopt the culture, or to merely assess and analyze it, but to set heaven within the context of culture so that culture can see God at work in the midst of the activities and conflicts of men.

The Advancement of the Church

Third, the biblical church exists to advance the kingdom, not simply to defend it. Notice the progressive nature of the language Jesus used in Matthew 16. He said He was going to “build” His church (v. 18). He did not say that He was going to stop hell. Rather, hell has come to stop Him. As Christ builds His church, hell sees Him doing it, does not like what He is doing, and tries to stop it. Jesus and His church are on the offensive. Hell is on the defensive.

However, for far too long the church has been on the defensive in this battle, reacting to the movements of hell rather than setting the pace of heaven. Jesus clearly says that the way you will know that the church is His church is that hell will be trying to stop it, but failing. The reverse of that is true as well. The way you will know that the church is not operating as Jesus’ church is that it will be reacting to hell’s advances, but failing to stop them.

Jesus said, rather, that His church, as interlinking pieces of individuals joined together in unity, will be joined around a common vision and purpose. This will make the church not only capable of withstanding the strongest oppositional forces on the planet—the gates of hell—but also able to make a progressive impact. However, if the church is not joined together as a rock, the reverse of that will occur, because that is the way Christ has designed the church to function. Without unity of purpose, Satan and his minions will overpower and engulf us.

This reminds me of when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans. Katrina was bad, but she wasn’t the ultimate problem. Katrina came into town, did her thing, and moved on. But the trouble came when the levee broke and New Orleans flooded. The job of the levee had been to hold the waters back. Had it held, Katrina would have been remembered as just another strong storm in a long line of others rather than as the disaster she became.

God has placed a levee in history, the church, to hold back Satan’s forces being unleashed against mankind. The church isn’t solely about choir fests, small group Bible studies, and luncheons. The church isn’t just about feeling something, praying, clapping, singing, or saying “amen.” The church was intentionally designed to be the church, because when it is the church, even the gates of hell will not overpower it. In fact, when the church is being the true biblical church, the church will storm in and overpower the gates of hell.

But if hell is on the doorstep, in the lobby, or in the pew of the American church—which many would argue that it is—it can only be because the body of Christ has failed to join as a unified whole in pursuit of a kingdom agenda. We know this is true because Jesus made it clear that He would build His church in such a way that the gates of hell would not overpower it.

That doesn’t mean we have to ignore our preferences in worship, music, preaching, fellowship, or even how long we want to meet together in church. The kingdom of heaven where we will one day go as the bride of Christ will be comprised of diversity (see Revelation 21:24); therefore we ought not try to strip ourselves of our unique differences now.

Rather, we need to welcome God’s creative distinctions in such a way as to make a stronger, more unified body in our land by joining churches—rock and rock together—embracing an intentional strategy of edification through mutual service. By this we will impact our families, our churches, our communities, and our nation, with the transforming power of Christ.

If we could ever see the kingdom as God sees it, and if we could ever see each other as God sees us, designed to come together in a unified goal under His overarching kingdom agenda, then the world would have to deal with the strength of the church of Jesus Christ. Now the world merely needs to deal with this segment over here and that segment over there as we divide ourselves into individual buildings without a comprehensive unifying scope.

The Power of the Church

Fourth, the biblical church operates with full access to supreme authority and power. Jesus said in Matthew 16:19: “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”

What do you do with keys? You gain access (see Isaiah 22:22). Have you ever been in a hurry and you couldn’t find your keys? That means that you’re not going anywhere anytime soon. Or perhaps you are like me and you have a number of keys on your keychain, but you have forgotten what some of them unlock. Those keys are no longer of any benefit to you.

Jesus says the church He is building will have the keys to the kingdom of God, giving it the authority to bind and loose on earth and in heaven. If we could only grasp the potential of this truth, there is no end to the impact we, as the church, could have in our land and in the world.

Yet why are we not experiencing this power and authority in the church today? Because we are not operating in the way Jesus designed His church to function. We are operating according to “churchdom” instead of the kingdom. Therefore, we are trying to use our own church keys to unlock kingdom doors, and finding that they don’t open much of anything at all.

This reminds me of a time I flew from New York to Chicago. In New York, I had stayed at the Marriott Hotel. When I got to Chicago, I checked into the hotel and was given the keys to my room. I made my way up to the twentieth floor and stuck my key card into the lock. A red light came on, so I tried my key again. The red light blinked again. At this point, tired from a long trip and not wanting to drag my bags all the way back down to the lobby again, I’ll admit that I got evangelically ticked off.

But down I went to the front desk. When I handed the woman my key, she apologized and let me know that she would exchange it for me. Then she paused. Looking at my key card, she handed it back to me and said, “I’m sorry, sir, but this key is your problem. It doesn’t go to this hotel.” I had put my New York key card in my pocket, and once I arrived in Chicago, I mistakenly took that key out to try to open my hotel door. Understandably, it didn’t work.

The keys Jesus is giving the church are the only keys that will work. These are not program keys, ministry keys, sermon keys, or song keys. These are the keys that belong to the kingdom. So if our churches are not kingdom-minded—if we have failed to comprehend, let alone adopt, a kingdom theology, ideology, and methodology—we will not be able to open heaven’s doors. We will have prayer meetings, preaching, choir songs, and seminars, but not have Christ’s authority because authority is directly tied to the kingdom. The keys don’t belong to Church A or Church B, or even Church AB & The Redeemed C; the keys belong to the kingdom.

Jesus is saying that the church, and only the church, has legal access to the kingdom of God and its authority. In other words, only the church (and those who are attached to it) has access to the rule of God in history. Only the church has the authority to call down heaven to address issues on earth. Only the church can open the door of eternity to access and operate the authority of heaven’s agenda in a hellish world. And since the spiritual precedes the physical, the church, operating properly, is the primary means of bringing spiritual solutions in history to the physical manifestations that plague humanity.

In 1 Corinthians 4:20, Paul wrote: “The kingdom of God does not consist in words but in power.” So the question is, do we just talk about kingdom power, or do we see the power of the kingdom operating in and through the church? If there’s anything that seems to be missing in the church today, it is the kind of power Jesus described in Matthew 16. The church has been cowering in a “holy huddle.” We gather every week and call nice plays, but we don’t take the plays out on the field where the real game is going on.

As the chaplain for the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, I often get extra tickets to share with friends or staff members at church who want to attend a basketball game. Whenever I leave tickets at the “will call” window, I tell my guests to look for special tags in their envelope along with their tickets. They need to keep those tags handy because they give them special access to things besides just the game. With those tags, my guests can come back to a room next to the team’s locker room and eat a meal with me. The tickets will allow them to mingle with the crowd, but the tags open up a whole different level of access.

A lot of churches offer people a ticket to heaven. But like basketball fans who have tickets to the game but don’t have the special tags, they fail to offer believers access to the real power available when we use the keys of the kingdom to unlock heaven.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t just want to make it to the game. I want more than a free ticket to heaven. I want access to the power Jesus promised, the power of the kingdom. I want to see heaven brought down to earth, demonstrating the power of God in history.

So if we are Sunday-morning-only churches, we shouldn’t be surprised if we don’t see kingdom power in our lives, families, and communities Monday through Saturday. In the kingdom of God there is power, and the church has access to it to manifest the power of heaven’s kingdom here on earth.

The Holy Spirit Provides the Power

The Holy Spirit is the power of the church, in the same way that the engine in a car supplies the power to make it go. Without the power source of the Spirit, the church may look good, like a new car sitting in the parking lot, but we won’t get anywhere. That’s because living the Christian life without the active participation of the Holy Spirit is impossible. It is possible to know the Bible and not know the Lord, to memorize Bible verses and yet not be transformed, because only the Holy Spirit can make what is true in the Bible become real for you and me.

It is impossible for the church to be the church as God intended apart from the dynamic ministry of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5), and Jesus is the One who sent the Spirit to indwell and empower the church.

On the night before His crucifixion, Jesus told the disciples, “I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you” (John 16:7). Jesus then referred to the Spirit as “the Spirit of truth … [who] will guide you into all the truth” (v. 13). The Spirit’s work is like taking the still pictures of the Bible and turning them into a motion picture in our lives. Of course, the Bible is living and true and powerful whether we believe it or not. But the Word will lie dormant until the Spirit comes and makes dead people alive and then plants the truth in their hearts.

Just before His ascension, Jesus was teaching His disciples about the kingdom (see Acts 1:3, 6). In this context of discussing God’s rule, Jesus made a great promise to them: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). This promise was fulfilled just a matter of days later at the birth of the church in Acts 2. Just as electricity provides power for the kingdom of your home, the Holy Spirit provides power for God’s kingdom to function in history as long as the church is operating in accordance with kingdom principles.

Think about what Jesus’ promise really meant. The apostles had spent more than three years listening to Jesus teach and watching Him work. They had spent three-plus years absorbing truth from the eternal Son of God, who was preparing them to be foundation stones in His church (see Ephesians 2:19–20). Peter and the other apostles were not lacking for information to do what God wanted them to do.

But Jesus knew they were lacking in power. And even though He had been their Bible teacher, He told them that they wouldn’t have power until the Holy Spirit came. According to Acts 1:4–5, Jesus prefaced His promise by telling the disciples not to leave Jerusalem until the promised Spirit had been given. Otherwise, all that they had learned wouldn’t work. So their main job at that point was to wait for the Holy Spirit to show up. The disciples obeyed, and then we read in Acts 2:1–4:

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.

Pentecost was the church’s birth, and it was the power and activity of the Holy Spirit that brought the church into being. The Spirit’s presence was manifested as wind and fire, a powerful invasion from heaven that the disciples had never known before. When the Holy Spirit came with power, the disciples were able to declare the message of God in a number of languages they hadn’t learned (see Acts 2:5–11). They were able to do things they had never done before because they were filled with the Holy Spirit.

What we are missing in the church today is not programs and information. We are missing the Spirit’s power that comes from His filling. The more Spirit-filled Christians you have, the fewer programs you need. The church’s job is not to replace the Spirit’s ministry with other things, even good things. Having everything in place and being organized is fine, but we have to make sure that we don’t organize ourselves out of our need for the Spirit. Sound Bible teaching is critically important for imparting truth, and helping us discern the true from the false when it comes to the claims people make in the spiritual realm. But Bible teaching by itself cannot substitute for the Holy Spirit’s presence. Teaching is simply a prelude to the supernatural.

When Jesus’ promise of the Spirit’s coming was fulfilled, something supernatural from heaven occurred. The rest of the book of Acts is a proof of Jesus’ statement to the disciples that they would receive power when, and only when, the Holy Spirit came and filled them. Acts is about what the local church looks like when the Holy Spirit takes over. The greatest thing that can be said about any church is that it is filled with people who are full of the Holy Spirit.

THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH

Our society is not changing today because the church has settled for buildings and programs instead of accessing the authority of the kingdom and the power of the Holy Spirit. We’ve had church, but we haven’t had transformation. Unless the church becomes Spirit-filled and kingdom-minded, we are not being the church Christ came to build. Jesus only used the word “church” three times in His earthly ministry, all recorded in the kingdom-focused book of Matthew. The word “kingdom,” however, is found fifty-four times in Matthew alone.

Yet, surprisingly, we often hear more about the church than the kingdom. We “plant churches” rather than promoting the kingdom. Our seminaries teach our future leaders how to do church rather than how to be about the kingdom. We ought to focus on both the kingdom and the church because both are interconnected. We can’t have church without the kingdom, and the kingdom carries out its agenda through the church.

A Far Greater Agenda

It is high time we become kingdom people as a church representing something greater than our own individualized groups and preferences. It is high time we made God’s kingdom our rule and His glory our goal. God didn’t establish the church to make us feel good. Rather, we are a people with a purpose made up of many members brought together in one body (see 1 Corinthians 12:20), who suffer together (see 1 Corinthians 12:26) and are fitly joined together (see Ephesians 4:16). This is in order to allow the full expression of the diverse spiritual gifts that have been given to each of us, for the building up of the church to society, opposition of Satan’s forces, and manifestation of the glory of God (see 1 Corinthians 12:3–5, 25–30).

It is the failure to recognize this broader agenda that has kept churches ingrown, divided, and fragmented. Until the church begins functioning for the kingdom rather than merely for itself, it cannot have the voice and the comprehensive impact it was created to have in areas such as social justice, race relations, economics, education, and government. But when the church has the proper kingdom perspective, there is no division between sacred and secular. All of life is viewed as an extension of God’s kingdom.

The apostle Peter wrote: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). The church is to proclaim the King and His kingdom, not only for the eternal salvation of people but also for the transformation of individuals and institutions in history.

Notice that the word “race” here is singular. If you belong to Christ, you are part of a brand-new race. You may have a different heritage than some other members of Christ’s body, but we are all one race now in Him.

We Are One

One reason I love the Olympics is that no matter whether a winning athlete from the United States is black, Hispanic, Asian, or white, only one national anthem is played when that American winner is saluted on the medal stand.

It’s the same way in the body of Christ. No matter what your racial or ethnic background, there is only one Savior and one body. We come together as the collective body of Christ because we are part of a bigger agenda, the proclamation of Christ.

If the church is ever going to make an impact on society, we must realize that we are a part of an established kingdom where God makes the rules. He has given us authority in the earth, but we are only able to exercise that authority according to His rules. Escaping those rules is as impossible as escaping the effects of gravity.

Just as there are laws that govern nature, there are spiritual laws that govern the spiritual world. If you jump out of a window, you’re going crash to the ground. There’s no way around it. Likewise, if we try to do church individually rather than be the church collectively, we’re going to remain powerless and ineffective. This is because a preeminent rule for being the church is that we are unified: In the church “there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

Only when the church embraces diversity across racial (Jew nor Greek), class (slave nor free man), and gender (male nor female) lines will we be the haven God designed us to be in a world of lost people in search of a kingdom embassy.

Ephesians 3:10 says the wisdom of God is made known through the church to the powers that be. The church is a microcosm of the kingdom, which is the larger expression of God’s rule. The church’s chief responsibility is to introduce Jesus Christ and His kingdom to society at large. Our job as members of the church is to live in a way that shows the world a clear picture of the kingdom, in which all things fall underneath the Lord Jesus Christ (see Ephesians 1:22–23). The church should present to the broader culture a working illustration of God’s solutions to the problems the culture faces, so the culture can replicate these solutions in society. People who want to see heaven at work on earth should be able to discover it in the church.

The Bible says in Ephesians 2:21 that the church is a building “being fitted together [and] growing into a holy temple in the Lord.” A temple houses God. That’s what the temple did in the Old Testament, and that’s where the presence and the glory of God resided. In the same way, the glory of God in this age resides in the church.

Therefore, we should be seeing society impacted because of the church. It is a faulty eschatology and ecclesiology that has a church in history having little impact on the culture. Where the glory of God is, transformation is close by.

When the powerful reality of God’s kingdom is brought to bear in society, that society should be in the process of being transformed, because God’s kingdom institution, the church, is present in its midst, mediating the blessing of comprehensive rule to the broader society. The church is to be the visible manifestation of the kingdom in history.

CHAPTER TWENTY

THE CHURCH’S UNITY

If you are a believer in Jesus Christ, He has a purpose for you here on earth that is much bigger than your individual salvation. You were born into a community of believers when God saved you, and He wants you to function in a spirit of unity within that community.

In our individualistic society it is easy to lose sight of the fact that Christians are bonded together in a relationship of unity as members of one another (see Romans 12:5). God takes this relationship so seriously that the Bible warns us to watch out for people who cause division in the church, because they are harming Christ’s body. And those who withdraw from the community of believers will find their relationship with God limited by their failure to participate in the fellowship of the saints.

A Christian who isn’t interested in helping keep “the unity of the Spirit” (Ephesians 4:3) is like a child in a family who wants food, clothing, shelter, and all the privileges of family while refusing to help out around the house. Most families don’t work that way, and neither does God’s family, the church. The individual benefits come with corporate responsibility. I want to look at two key principles concerning the church’s unity.

THE CHURCH’S UNITY IS SPIRITUAL AND ORGANIC

The Bible teaches that the unity of the church is the Holy Spirit’s assignment and ministry. The Spirit extends this unity each time a person is saved, as Paul explained in 1 Corinthians 12:

For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. (vv. 12–13)

Our spiritual unity as Christians is as organic as the unity of the human body. The word “unity” means oneness, but that is different from sameness. Over the centuries the church has suffered from the misguided efforts of those who try to make everyone conform to their standards and keep their lists of dos and don’ts. But the unity of the Spirit does not deny our individual uniqueness as people made in God’s image. It would be incredibly boring if God made us all alike, nor would we get much of anything done.

God doesn’t do that, which makes life in the body of Christ a lot more productive and challenging. Unity in Christ is possible because we are united around Him—bowing to His Lordship as King and obeying His commands. True unity is finding oneness of purpose and commitment and moving toward a common goal, despite our differences. Unity doesn’t require that we all be the same, but that we all head in the same direction.

Paul spent the rest of 1 Corinthians 12 showing how the church’s unity functions in the midst of our differences (see vv. 14–31). His illustration of the human body reminds us that the body’s various parts are designed to work together as a harmonious whole to accomplish the body’s tasks. If you have ever broken your arm or leg and then tried to dress yourself, shower, and get around, you know how the body is weakened and hindered when one part isn’t functioning properly.

Paul said, “The body is not one member, but many” (v. 14). That is a recognition of our individuality. But then he stopped in the middle of his discourse on the importance of each body part to give the other side of the coin: “Now there are many members, but one body” (v. 20). Both statements are true. We could liken the church to an intricate puzzle with hundreds or even thousands of pieces, no two of which are alike. But when the puzzle master has finished interlocking all the parts, the result is a complete picture.

Unity Despite Differences

Sometimes it is easy for people to be unified in a church. Perhaps they share similar personalities, come from a similar part of town, and share similar interests. However, other times it is difficult for people to be unified in a church because they may come from different backgrounds—similar to Peter and Barnabas (Jews) fraternizing with Gentile believers (see Galatians 2). There are times when unity just doesn’t seem that natural.

You’ve heard the old saying that oil and water don’t mix. That’s true, unless something else is brought into the mix. One example is mayonnaise, which I like to put on my sandwiches. I’m glad someone found a way to make oil and water mix, because two of mayonnaise’s ingredients are soybean oil and water. For the oil and water to mix they need an emulsifier, an ingredient that can reach out to the water and the oil and bind them together so they don’t go their own ways. The emulsifying ingredient in mayonnaise is eggs, which grab the water and the oil and say, “You aren’t going your own ways, because we are going to make mayonnaise together.”

When the Holy Spirit takes over, people of different backgrounds, classes, personalities, and interests can treat each other as family. The Spirit is the divine emulsifier, binding together different people in the family of God. The Spirit’s indispensable role in church unity is obvious from the opening verses of 1 Corinthians 12. Notice how many times Paul emphasized the unifying work of the Spirit amid the wide variety of gifts among believers: “the same Spirit” (vv. 4, 8, 9), “the one Spirit” (v. 9), and “one and the same Spirit” (v. 11).

And just so we know that the other two members of the Trinity are also committed to the church’s unity, these verses talk about “the same Lord” (v. 5), who is Jesus Christ and “the same God” (v. 6), a reference to God the Father. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are a perfect example of unity among distinct Persons with distinct functions, and the church is to reflect this same unity even though ours is far from perfect.

Jesus’ Prayer for Unity

The fact that the church’s unity is a divine operation, coming down from above and working from within rather than being imposed from the outside, is clear from Jesus’ great high priestly prayer in the upper room the night before His crucifixion. The first discussion of the church’s unity was not between Jews and Gentiles, or any other group of people. It was between the Father and the Son. Jesus prayed on behalf of the people who believed in Him:

Holy Father, keep them in Your name, the name which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We are…. I do not ask on behalf of these [the apostles] alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. (John 17:11, 20–23)

This prayer shows how much is at stake in the church’s unity. God’s name, His glory, and His love are tied to the unity in which His people are to live. Our bond as believers in Christ is much more than something to keep us from fussing and fighting among ourselves. It is a testimony to the world that the Lord and the faith we preach are real. God will respond to us on the basis of our unity, or lack thereof.

Let me state this principle another way. If we are functioning in conflict and disunity rather than unity, God will limit His work in our lives. If we have time to be blessed but not be a blessing; if we are selfish saints who want things from God but don’t want to mess with being a functioning member of a local church; or if we are causing disruption in the church by our attitudes or tongues, then we are wasting our time to get on our knees and ask God to do something for us.

In fact, Scripture goes so far to tell us that if we are that kind of person, then others in the church need to watch out for us. “Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them” (Romans 16:17). Elsewhere Paul said concerning the church, “If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him” (1 Corinthians 3:17). And among those things God hates is this: “One who spreads strife among brothers” (Proverbs 6:19). This is not a small issue, because God responds to His people’s unity, or disunity.

The Power of Our Unity

While disunity brings harm to a church, unity brings power and productivity. It’s not surprising that we find some amazing examples of the unified church in action in the book of Acts, which is the story of the church. Jesus had told the disciples not to go anywhere or do anything until the Holy Spirit came. So the apostles and the rest of the disciples went to an upper room in Jerusalem, where “these all with one mind were continually devoting themselves to prayer” (Acts 1:14). These disciples, who numbered 120, went into God’s presence and called on Him as one person. They were all on the same page, and the Spirit came in power at Pentecost where three thousand people were saved in one day (see Acts 2:41).

Verses 42–47 of Acts 2 are a portrait of a church united. These believers worshiped and fellowshiped together, and even shared their possessions with anyone in need. They were still of “one mind” (v. 46), and the results were powerful. There was “a sense of awe” and the apostles were performing “many wonders” (v. 43). And people were getting saved daily (see v. 47). God not only showed up in the church’s midst, but He showed out to the people outside the assembly. Sometimes we forget that even though we must express our individual faith in Christ in order to get to heaven, it takes more than us by ourselves to get some heaven here on earth.

There is a huge difference between a laser and a spotlight. They are both beams of light, but the laser has far greater power because its photons are concentrated. The spotlight’s photons are scattered, so that a laser can cut through steel while a spotlight can only illuminate the steel. This is why the church’s corporate unity and ministry are so important. When a body of people who are indwelt by the Holy Spirit gather in Christ’s name to worship, pray, and serve with one mind and heart, the Spirit’s power is concentrated like a laser—and things happen that we wouldn’t see if the body was split apart and dis-unified.

The early church understood the power of the corporate body. That’s why when the apostles were threatened by the authorities, the Bible says that the church came together and “lifted their voices to God with one accord” (Acts 4:24). And when they were through, the building shook (see v. 31).

There’s an even more dramatic account in Acts 12:3–19 of Peter’s imprisonment and deliverance. There is no record that Peter prayed for his own release, although he probably did. But we do know that “many were gathered together and were praying” for Peter (v. 12). And God sent an angel to bail the apostle out. This is the collective power of the church at work, and the key was their unity.

Some time ago a young woman in one of our church’s families turned up missing. No one could find her, and a lot of people were praying. But one Wednesday night we brought the entire congregation together and prayed for this girl by name. The laser beam of God’s power was concentrated on a need, and the next day she contacted her family, saying she felt compelled to call home.

Unity in the church is an essential component to accessing God’s power. However, we must remember that the body of Christ is not located in one church. It is the entirety of the network of churches who recognize Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. What often happens in our corporate body is that we lack unity across racial, cultural, and class lines. The saying still holds true that eleven o’clock Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in our nation. If we are going to experience the hand of God advancing His kingdom on earth, we need to understand and embrace racial unity both within our local church and as a corporate body of Christ.

The Importance of Racial Unity

Within the seed of the first man God created resided all of the components, DNA, and characteristic trademarks of all people today. In the beginning, we were one. Paul told the Athenians: “He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth” (Acts 17:26, emphasis added). Thus, because we share a common origin in Adam, any form of division predicated on race is illegitimate because we all emanate from the same source.

Racial separation in our society as well as in the church came about as the result of our diverging from this key biblical truth. It was not only supported by errant theology, but was also reinforced by pseudo-science, which was called upon to justify slavery by purporting that people in the black race were inferior to the white race. This false ideology created a chasm between races that has yet to be bridged.

In this case theology joined hands with science, giving the church both religious and scientific support to the dehumanization and dividing process of slavery. Only with a return to biblical truth as our overarching standard by which all else is measured will an accurate view of oneness be seen and actualized.

A major obstacle to overcome in understanding and engaging in biblical unity, though, is the question of who’s in charge: the Bible, science, or one’s culture? This leads to a multiplicity of issues, one of which is the hindrance that is caused when authority is given to cultural diversity over biblical truth.

The racial problem in America is the asterisk on an otherwise respectable reputation. Whether this problem manifests itself overtly in conflicts between racial groups, or lurks below the surface as a suspicion camouflaging the true depth of the problem, it continues to be the one dominant area of our failure as a nation. In spite of our successes in science, education, medicine, and technology, becoming truly “one nation under God” continues to elude us.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the history and contemporary reality of black-white relations in the culture at large and in the church in particular. Although this tension can also be seen in many other ways, whether through swastikas painted on synagogues or Hispanics marching against the concern of racial profiling and the passage of immigration legislation, it is the black-white relationship that has set the bar of racial division the highest.

Given the length and volatile history of this divide, if we can ever get this right in the church we will have developed a template for addressing wherever else this evil shows up in the culture. The church will have established a model on how to biblically address issues such as those found in the current tension arising out of the influx of both legal and illegal immigrants to America, among other things. The church will have put forth biblical and theological answers that go far above and beyond mere social and political dialogue about the situation.

It is my contention that the fundamental cause of racial problems in America lies squarely with the church’s failure to come to grips with this issue from a biblical perspective. The truth we often miss is that God does much of what He does predicated on what His church is or is not doing (see Ephesians 3:10; Deuteronomy 4:5–8). In the same way that God’s purpose, presence, and power in the Old Testament was to flow from His people and through the temple into the world (see Ezekiel 47:1–12), so today it should flow from the church into the broader society.

When the church fails to act in concert with God’s prescribed agenda, God often chooses to postpone His active involvement until His people are prepared to respond. Our failure to respond to this issue of biblical unity has allowed what never should have been a problem in the first place to continue for hundreds of years.

This problem is in no way unique to the contemporary black-white racial landscape, however, or to any contemporary cultural division. It was also evident in the world of the New Testament. Galatians 2:11–21 records one such incident, which I mentioned earlier in this chapter and will consider in depth in chapter 28 on racism. This illustration is graphic because it involved Paul and Peter, apostolic leaders who were the highest authorities in the first-century church. Peter allowed his Jewish friends to influence him away from fellowshiping with his Gentile brothers and sisters in Galatia, causing all manner of havoc. Paul called Peter out on the issue and set things straight.

TWO PRINCIPLES OF SPIRITUAL UNITY

Another poignant teaching from the Scripture regarding culture, truth, and biblical unity is the story of Jesus’ encounter with the woman of Samaria in John 4. This story gives us two overriding principles that are needed to establish true spiritual unity.

To understand the power of this encounter, we need a little history on Samaria. In 722 BC, the Jews living in the northern kingdom called Israel were taken captive by the Assyrians. An interracial exchange followed. Some Jews were deported to Assyria, and some Assyrians were imported into the northern kingdom. The Jews who remained did not entirely relinquish their true worship of God, despite the introduction of Assyrian cults. Intermarriage, however, destroyed the purity of the race, giving birth to a new ethnic group of people called Samaritans.

During the Persian period, the Jews were allowed to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and the walls. This attempt was resisted by the Samaritans, the mixed race of Assyrians and Israelites who did not want to see Jerusalem successfully rebuilt because of their racial hatred of the Jews (see Nehemiah 2:19; 4:1; 6:1–6). The Jews, meanwhile, desired to maintain the purity of the Jewish race and thus would not allow the Samaritans to participate in the rebuilding process (see 2:10; 6:14). A feud developed that continued into Christ’s day and served as the historical backdrop to the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman.

When Jesus traveled with His disciples through Samaria, He was not merely taking a shorter route. He was on a mission to meet needs that He knew existed there. It is important to note that Jesus was intentional about going through Samaria, which good Orthodox Jews usually avoided by crossing to the other side of the Jordan River when they went north from Judea to Galilee. The fact that Jesus entered Samaria made it clear that He was willing to go beyond His own culture to meet others’ needs.

However, overcoming the cultural prejudice of the Samaritans was another issue. Jesus was willing to make the first move, but how could He get the Samaritans to give Him the chance to connect with them? The solution was to recognize common ground, which is the first principle for biblical unity.

Recognize Common Ground

In Samaria, Jesus rested at Jacob’s well (see John 4:6). A well offered water and shade, and it was a natural place for a hot, tired man to stop. But Jesus chose this particular well because both the Jews and Samaritans loved Jacob, who was the father of both groups. Jesus was looking for common ground, so He stopped at Jacob’s well and built a bridge of communication by starting with what He and the Samaritan woman could agree on.

Jesus had rejected the attitudes of His contemporaries in His willingness to go through Samaria. This is why in John 4:9 the Samaritan woman asked him, “How is it that You, being a Jew, ask me for a drink since I am a Samaritan woman?” John adds: “(For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.)”

This woman was shocked at Jesus’ request to let Him use her cup. To put his Jewish lips on her Samaritan cup was an intimate act of fellowship and warm acceptance. It was something that wasn’t done in this woman’s neighborhood. This was an action that signified a willingness for fellowship, and one that also gave this woman value. Jesus was letting her know that He had a need, and that she was in a position to meet that need. He esteemed her with value by acknowledging that she possessed the ability to help Him.

But how did the woman know that Jesus was a Jew? John does not say that Jesus told her He was a Jew. So there must have been something about Him that made her know. It could be that He looked like a Jew, or perhaps He had a Jewish accent or some other trait that gave a public indication of His racial and cultural heritage.

Whatever it was, Jesus did not give up His own culture or race. He did not stop being a Jew to reach a Samaritan, but neither did He allow His culture and race to prevent Him from connecting with her or meeting a spiritual need in her. Jesus did not let who He was stop Him from being what He was called to be. In other words, Jesus didn’t let His history, race, and background get in the way of ministering to a woman who had a spiritual need and who would meet him on common ground. Likewise, Jesus allowed the woman to retain her history, culture, and experiences as a Samaritan.

One of our problems in the body of Christ today in attempts at unity across the racial divide is that we have not allowed freedom for healthy integration in a context of diversity. We hold so tightly to our preferences, either out of protection or pride, that we often end up alienating anyone from another cultural background who seeks to join us. Or, conversely, when we seek to enter another cultural group, we shed our own distinctions in an effort to try to become something we were never made to be. This stalls the purposes of God’s kingdom, restraining the kingdom from advancing as it is designed to advance.

Jesus didn’t do that. Even though none of the other Jews would go through Samaria, He did. Even though none of the other Jews would drink from the Samaritan woman’s cup, He drank from it. This woman clearly recognized Jesus as a Jew, but He also entered her world because He was representing something much bigger than Himself.

A Link to Spiritual Ministry

The Samaritan woman saw that while Jesus looked Jewish, talked Jewish, and dressed Jewish, He didn’t act entirely Jewish because He was willing to put her cup to His lips. Please note that this was a tangible, public, and social action on His part. Jesus did not just stand afar off and say, “Samaritan woman, you must be born again.” Rather, Jesus was willing to engage her socially.

One of the greatest hindrances to authentic unity in our churches today is our unwillingness to engage each other socially. Granted, we have made efforts in the church and society to develop multi-racial staff in our ministries, and to link up for special events, but the question is still often posed, or often thought if not stated, “Why do all the black staff members spend their break time together?” or “Why do all the whites sit in groups?”

Rarely do we witness a merging of the races unless it has been forced; however, when it is forced, it cannot be authentic simply due to the nature of unity. We have misunderstood the essence of unity to mean a denial of racial distinctions. This has left us trying to force unity rather than actualizing the unity we already share as members of the one body of Christ. Trying to force unity creates polarization and fragmentation, since forced unity can only come as a result of one group imposing its definition of unity on the other rather than embracing individuality toward the pursuit of a common goal.

Jesus understood the value of time, attention, and embracing the other. By engaging the Samaritan woman socially, He brought the opportunity for an even deeper discussion: “Jesus answered and said to her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, “Give me a drink,” you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water’” (John 4:10).

One of the things I love most about Jesus is that He could turn anything into an illustration. Here, he took a simple conversation about a drink of water and turned it into an evangelistic opportunity. He was able to do this because He was not only willing to spend time with this woman, but also to drink from her cup. In doing this He gained an opportunity to witness to her soul. Don’t miss that. If Jesus had not been willing to engage her socially, He would not have had the opportunity to talk to her spiritually.

A lot of times we want to get people to heaven without being willing to relate to them on earth. We want to get people to glory whom we are not willing to even talk to in history. But Jesus used this cross-cultural opportunity of common ground—Jacob’s well and His need for a drink—to present a message of life to this lady. Through this, Jesus initiated true oneness.

Refuse to Allow Culture to Interfere with Truth

The second principle for biblical unity is that Jesus refused to allow culture to interfere with His higher priority of representing God’s truth. “The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, I perceive that You are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you people say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship’” (John 4:19–20).

What she is saying, in my translation, is, “Jesus, y’all go to church over there. And we go to church over here. You worship that way. We worship this way. We are different. In fact, not only are we different—we were raised differently. My daddy taught me that this is how you do it because his daddy taught him that this is how you do it. In fact, my great-granddaddy taught my granddaddy who taught my daddy who taught me that this is how you do it. This is our history and our background and what we are used to doing.”

Jesus responds to her excuses with rather direct language: “You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews” (John 4:22). In other words, “Your daddy was wrong. Your granddaddy was wrong. Your great-granddaddy was wrong. And your great-great-granddaddy was wrong. You and your people are wrong.”

Now, the previous time the Samaritan woman brought up cultural differences, Jesus did not say a single word about it. But this time He says flatly, “You are wrong.” Why does He address the issue now and not before? Because now God has been brought into the equation. Now there is a spiritual truth on the table. Our differences are not wrong except when they produce wrong information about God.

One thing you and I have got to understand as brothers and sisters in Christ is that the racial divide in our nation is because people have chosen to pay more attention to their granddaddy than to their heavenly Father. They have held a stronger commitment to the history of their culture than to the person of Jesus Christ. There has been a more faithful allegiance to background than to the Bible.

The problem with race in America is not fundamentally a problem of skin. It is a problem of sin. People have not been willing to address the sin that has led to a division among people of different colored skin as we hold tenaciously to our cultures. Our backgrounds and preferences are legitimate, but when they overrule God, that’s when Jesus says, “Stop, you are wrong.” Whenever there is a conflict between culture and God’s truth, culture must always submit to the truth of God as revealed in His Word. When the woman’s culture crossed into the sacred, Christ invaded her world to condemn it.

This means that to refer to oneself as a black Christian or a white Christian or a Hispanic Christian or an Asian Christian is technically incorrect. In these descriptions, the word Christian becomes a noun that is modified by an adjective—black, white, and so on. However, our Christianity should modify our culture. We must see ourselves as Christian blacks, Christian whites, Christian Hispanics, or Christian Asians.

Our cultures must always be controlled by our commitment to Christ. Whenever we make the adjectives black, white, brown, and yellow descriptive of Christians, it may mean we have changed Christianity to make it fit a cultural description. The Bible teaches the opposite—we are Christians who are also black, white, brown, or yellow. If anything changes, it has to be our cultural orientation, not our Christianity—because cultural history and experience, while important, are not innately inspired. Therefore, Christianity must always inform, explain, and, if necessary, change our cultures, never the reverse.

Understand That It Goes both Ways

Jesus not only critiqued the Samaritan culture by the truth of God’s Word, but He critiqued His own culture by that same standard. When His disciples complained that He was talking with a Samaritan woman, He rejected their prejudice by telling them that it was more important for Him to do the will of God than to succumb to their biases (see John 4:27, 32).

The disciples hadn’t been shocked that Jesus was talking with a woman. They had seen Him talk to women before. He talked to Mary. He talked to Martha. He had healed the woman with the issue of blood. Talking to a woman was not the problem. The problem was that Jesus had been talking to a Samaritan woman. That’s what bothered the disciples. This also explains why Jesus had let them walk a number of miles into town, as is recorded earlier in the passage, and the same number of miles back, just to bring Him some lunch. He knew that He could have never gotten kingdom work done with His prejudiced disciples hanging around.

The principle is that while we can’t control what others in our circles or in our church do, like Jesus we can control whether or not we let them stop us from doing what the King of kings has called us to do. Obeying the will of God takes priority over satisfying cultural expectations.

While Jesus was explaining this concept to His disciples, the woman was running back into town to tell the men of the city that they should come and see this Man who has told her all of the things that she has ever done. She had become an immediate evangelist simply because Jesus chose to cross cultural lines to win her to Himself. The disciples, in the meantime, were growing more frustrated with Jesus as they learned that they had just walked nearly all day only to bring food to Him that He refused.

“Jesus said to them, ‘My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work. Do you not say, “There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest”? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest’” (John 4:34–35). The harvest is ready; all we have to do is look and we will see the harvest. Stop talking about how you are going to get around to it next year. Stop giving excuses for delaying the harvest when the fields are already ripe. If you will look up, you will see that the opportunity to cross over racial and cultural lines is right in front of you. This is what the disciples saw when they looked at the field and saw the Samaritan men crossing over it to meet them.

We don’t need to wait for the next generation to do it. We have opportunities right across the street, around the corner, in a school next door, and in the community near us where we can make a difference for the kingdom of God. The time has come to be rid of our excuses and to start doing kingdom work here and now.

When we do, we will see things happen we never thought possible, because we will see God show up and let His power flow both to us and through us. This is exactly what happened in Samaria: “So when the Samaritans came to Jesus, they were asking Him to stay with them; and He stayed there two days. Many more believed because of His word” (John 4:40–41).

One of the Bible’s greatest evangelistic outreaches occurred simply because Jesus took the time to engage a person from another background than His own. After Jesus had led everyone to Himself, He spent the entire weekend with the Samaritans. Now, keep in mind that He had just met them. Their two cultures don’t even talk to each other, but Jesus ended up hanging out in their neighborhood the same day He met them. Spiritual unity led to social unity.

How do we go from “We don’t talk” to “Let’s hang out together” so quickly? Easy: When Jesus Christ enters the situation and demonstrates the kingdom principle of unity through kingdom people, He can turn things that are upside down to right side up overnight.

Decades ago, Hall of Fame football coach George Allen of the Los Angeles Rams led his team during the height of racial division in our nation with the motto, “Stick together and love one another.”

Clearly biblical in its truth of unity, this motto played out in the lives, both on and off the field, of the Rams’ famous front defensive line known as the Fearsome Foursome. Deacon Jones, Lamar Lundy, and Roosevelt Grier were black men who could not have been more different than their white contemporary Merlin Olsen. Olsen was raised in a small town with little or no access to black people or black culture. The other three men were raised in towns at a time where they even got arrested for trying to order food in a white establishment, faced the screaming sting of a fireman’s hose, and were told on a number of occasions that they could not play football due to their color.

Yet these four men forged a bond so deep that it lasted throughout their lives. Walking the tunnel to the start of a football game just three days after the Watts riots in 1965, with gunshots being heard outside of the stadium, the four men walked together. They did all things together. In fact, it was Merlin Olsen who was called in the middle of the night by the son of Lamar Lundy when he passed away.

The phrase, “Stick together and love one another” may seem elementary. But its message produced the greatest defensive line in pro football history, and the most rare and closest of personal relationships that spanned over four decades past retirement. The Fearsome Foursome understood the power of unity, the purpose of setting aside past hurt, hate, and misunderstandings. Because they lived the message of unity, they achieved a oneness that will forever be remembered because they were the greatest at what they did.

What Jesus accomplished in Samaria, and what He can do for you and me, is turn distance and doubt—the great divides—into a harmonious purpose filled with power. When He does, we will see Him do things that we never even dreamed. Jesus can lift our blinders and enable us to look across the fields of this life and visualize the art of His creation, His heart, and His unique design in others who may not look, or sound, just like us. We will see where and how He is working to bring glory to Himself and hope to mankind. Better yet, we will get to experience Him as He pours down His blessings and literally blows our minds.

Unity does not require that all churches be integrated into one non-cultural, robotic format. Don’t misunderstand my point. Jesus didn’t dispose of His Jewish passport, trim His beard, and adopt Samaritan slang. But He did give us a model of the intentional nature as well as the depth of engagement we are to follow in cross-cultural relationships. Jesus showed value and esteem to an entire group of people through an authentic respect and intention to relate.

I am never more disheartened at the state of our Christian family than when I see that this cross-racial access is often much more open, and much more invitational, in our secular society than in the church. In many aspects, society has advanced more in this arena than we have in the body of Christ, thus limiting the influence and impact that we, as members of God’s kingdom, are able to have on those around us, causing many to even question our relevance.

The great tragedy today is not so much that our society is still divided along racial, cultural, and class lines, but that God’s people, the church, are often even more deeply divided than society at large. This disunity provides Satan with his most powerful tool for crippling the influence of Christianity. That is why Jesus prayed, as we saw earlier, that believers might be one in order to overcome the world (see John 17:21). When we are one, we will overcome. When we are divided, we will be overrun by the world around us.

In a nation structured by the confines of racial autonomy, unity necessitates that our knowledge of and love for each other must be intentional, just as Jesus’ was with the woman at the well. We are to “stick together and love one another.” When we come together, unbelievers will see that Christianity is not a secret, and that God alone can jettison centuries of misguided beliefs and traditions. Only then will our unity cleanse the fabric of our nation’s landscape not only on a personal level, but also in our families, churches, and in our communities at large.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE CHURCH’S MISSION

Most people in my generation grew up reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in school. We memorized it in elementary school even though we didn’t understand its meaning. We repeated it throughout junior high and high school, and have spoken it many times since, with our hands over our hearts to affirm commitment to our nation and its heritage.

When people place their faith in Jesus Christ alone for salvation, they become part of something much bigger than a personal passport out of hell into heaven. The underlying purpose of this book is to help you understand that when God saved us, He placed us into a larger community, a new society called the church with certain responsibilities as well as privileges.

In fact, the Holy Spirit took care of the “pledge of allegiance” for all believers when He baptized us into the body of Christ. Paul wrote of this new relationship: “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:13). This is not water baptism, but a sovereign ministry of the Holy Spirit whereby He places each Christian into the body of Christ at the moment of salvation. Our calling as believers is to find out how this body functions and how we are to function as its members.

Entire books have been written on the church’s mission, but perhaps the most comprehensive summary of our calling is the text called the Great Commission (Matthew 28:16–20). These are the last words of Jesus Christ before His ascension to heaven, which makes them crucial for that reason alone. But they are very important because they contain Christ’s final instructions to His church, which is to “make disciples of all the nations” (v. 19).

DISCIPLE-MAKING DEFINES THE MISSION OF THE CHURCH

I want to give you two basic definitions of discipleship because it has both a personal and a corporate dimension in terms of our place in Christ’s body. Personally, discipleship is the growth process by which we as Christians learn to bring all of life under the lordship of Jesus Christ. This doesn’t happen overnight, even though your salvation is complete the moment you trust Christ for salvation. Becoming a disciple means that Jesus Christ wants more of you today than He had yesterday, and He wants more of you tomorrow than He has today.

But there’s more to discipleship than the personal dimension of our growth in grace. That’s why I define corporate discipleship as a developmental process of the local church by which Christians are brought from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity, so they can reproduce the process with others. This is what the Bible calls being “conformed to the image of [God’s] Son” (Romans 8:29). This verse is crucial because it goes on to explain the goal of our becoming like Jesus Christ: “So that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.”

In other words, the process of discipleship that leads to believers becoming Christ-like is designed to be repeated again and again until Jesus has many brothers and sisters who look like Him. You and I can’t do this if we are living as isolated Christians. Someone has said that Christianity was never meant to be “Jesus and me, under a tree.” God placed us in a body of people called the church so that together we can accomplish the mission. The church is God’s place to produce disciples who think and talk and act so much like Jesus that the world can look at us and say, “This must be what Jesus is like.” Jesus Himself said, “It is enough for the disciple that he become like his teacher” (Matthew 10:25).

Jesus’ Final Meeting

Jesus articulated the church’s mission when He met with His followers in Galilee after the resurrection. Matthew 28:16 says: “The eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated.” This was the only organized meeting Jesus called during the forty days He was on earth between His resurrection and ascension. There were actually three groups at this meeting, including the eleven apostles (Judas was dead) and a second group that Paul called the “more than five hundred brethren” who saw the risen Christ at the same time (1 Corinthians 15:6).

The third group at this all-important meeting was there in spirit—all believers from that day until Jesus comes again, including you and me. How do I know we are part of the Great Commission meeting? Because Jesus’ command to make disciples is in effect “even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20), which hasn’t come yet. So the Lord’s instructions are for us too.

Jesus’ Declaration of Authority and Commission

Jesus’ first words to His disciples in Matthew 28:18 are indispensable to the church’s ability to execute its mission. I love this declaration: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” Evans translation: “I am in charge now.” The word Jesus used for “authority” means “authority in legitimate hands.” In other words, Jesus is not only in charge in the universe, but He is rightfully in charge.

With His disciples worshiping Him and His authority established, Jesus gave us a commission to carry out until the end of the age: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations” (v. 19). Making disciples is not part of the gospel in the sense that it is not an integral part of what a person needs to know to get saved. But we need to understand that our salvation is not the end of the process, but the beginning. Our calling isn’t complete until the church is making disciples who can go and make more disciples.

Verse 19 is the core of the commission. The phrase “make disciples” is a command in the Greek, and in fact it is the only command in the text. The other three activities—going, baptizing, and teaching—are actually participles that explain and expand the command to make disciples. We have Jesus’ authority and command to make disciples. This is exciting because it means He is with us in the process to ensure that it works when we do it right.

The sermons I preach at our church in Dallas are recorded on master tapes. These masters are then put on a duplicating machine to produce audiocassette tapes for our church members and to go out all over the world through our national ministry, The Urban Alternative. There is only one master tape for each message, but of course this master can produce any number of duplicate tapes.

It’s interesting that the duplicating machine into which the blank tapes are placed to receive the master tape’s message is called the “slave unit.” The task of the slave unit is not to create its own message, or to distort the message it is receiving, but to faithfully record and play back what is said on the master tape.

That’s a picture of the discipleship process. Jesus is the Master, and we are His “slaves” (Ephesians 6:6). The illustration also applies because the duplicate tape is never of the exact same quality as the master tape. But the goal is to reproduce the master as completely and faithfully as possible so that the correct message gets through to each listener each time one of the duplicate tapes is played.

Now don’t get confused, because we are not the master. Jesus Christ is the only Master and Lord of the church. We are the slave units, the bearers of the message. Our job is to put others in touch with the Master by faithfully delivering His message.

JESUS TELLS US HOW TO MAKE DISCIPLES

In the next portion of the Great Commission, Jesus spelled out how to make disciples: “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19–20, emphasis added).

We Must Go to People

The first of the three things we need to do to make disciples involves going. Even though this is not a command, that doesn’t mean our going is insignificant. On the contrary, the idea here is “as you go, make disciples.” Jesus expects us to be going out. We could even say that our going is assumed.

What we are talking about is the ministry of evangelism. You can’t make disciples out of sinners. The nations are not told to come to Christians for the gospel. We need to go to them. The church is not doing the work of the church if we are not winning souls to Christ.

We must keep evangelism front and center in the life of the church. If the church is going to grow by making disciples, we have to have people who are willing to go into the whole world as Christ’s witnesses. That’s one reason Jesus sent us the Holy Spirit. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses … even to the remotest part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

Evangelism is defined as sharing the Good News of Christ’s substitutionary death and resurrection and His free offer of forgiveness for sin and eternal life to all who come to Him to receive it. Evangelism is done with the clear intent of bringing the hearer to faith in Jesus Christ for salvation. People must be born from above into the kingdom before they can be developed into disciples of the kingdom. The church, then, must challenge, encourage and equip its members to effectively share their faith with unbelievers.

There is no substitute for someone going to deliver the message. A young man found that out the hard way when he decided to go into the army. He told his girlfriend he would write her every day he was away—and he did, for two years. But when he came home, he discovered she had married the mailman.

Sometimes it’s hard to get Christians to go into the world with the gospel. But others are going out with their message, and they’re not apologizing. The question is, have you gone yet?

We Must Help People Identify with Christ

Jesus said that another part of making disciples is baptizing those to whom we have gone and who have accepted Christ. He was not telling us simply to get people wet. The problem in too many cases is that people go into baptism as dry sinners and come out as wet ones. There is much more to baptism than just undergoing a ritual involving water.

In fact, the primary meaning of the Greek word for baptism is “identification.” This was a very picturesque word in New Testament days. It was used of dipping a cloth into a dye so that the cloth became completely identified with the dye by absorbing its color. The cloth underwent a complete identity change. This is the picture behind Romans 6:3–4: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death? Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.”

When we put our trust in Christ, we became so completely identified with Him that His death and resurrection to new life became our death and resurrection. When we immerse believers in the waters of baptism, we are picturing their death to the old life and resurrection to a new way of life. That happened the moment they trusted Christ, but the ordinance of water baptism was given to the church as an outward testimony to this inward change. We are going to look at baptism in more detail at the end of this chapter.

Many Christians struggle in their daily lives because they don’t understand their new identity. They don’t know who they are in Christ. We have to realize that being “in Christ” is such a radically new way of life that whatever happens to Christ happens to us. That’s why the Bible says that when Christ died we died, and when Christ arose from the dead we arose.

It’s like putting a letter in an envelope and sealing it shut. When I do that, I don’t have to ask where the letter is because the letter is safely sealed inside the envelope. So wherever the envelope goes, the letter will go too—and it’s against the law for anyone but the recipient of that sealed envelope to break that seal.

Christ is the envelope, and we are the letter. We are in Christ. The Bible says that when you believed on Jesus Christ “you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise” (Ephesians 1:13). How do I know I am going to heaven? Not because I’m a preacher, but because I am in Christ and He is already seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven. I am linked with Christ forever by virtue of His grace in saving, sealing, and keeping me.

Your identity used to be in Adam, but not anymore. Now that you are in Christ, God has accepted you. You don’t have to try to make God like you. So if you’re on a performance treadmill in your Christian life trying to do all the right things and keep God happy with you, get off that thing and start living like someone who is identified with and accepted by Christ.

We Must Teach People

Once people have believed the gospel and have been identified with Christ, we must teach them “to observe all that I commanded you” (Matthew 28:20). I’m a seminary graduate and a Bible teacher, so I can really get into this one. But teaching the nations involves more than teaching them theology, Christology, soteriology, and all the other “ologies” of the faith. Jesus said the goal is that people “observe” or obey all that He commanded us.

Of course, our teaching must have solid content, because Christians are people of the truth and of the Book. Jesus’ commands that we are to obey are contained in the Word. But the goal is not content alone. The church today has too many “spiritual bulimics” who take in the Word at church on Sunday, but then throw it up as soon as they get home so it doesn’t do them any good.

The goal of biblical teaching is to combine information and knowledge with skill in applying the truth to daily life. That’s why, for example, after Jesus fed four thousand people (Mark 8:1–9), He “immediately” had His disciples get into a boat and head out (see v. 10).

Why? According to Mark 8:14–21, one reason was that He wanted them to apply the lesson they had just learned about His power to meet their needs. There wasn’t enough food on board for the group, and the disciples were trying to figure out what they were going to eat. So Jesus asked them some pointed questions that ended with, “Do you not yet understand?” (v. 21). Obviously they didn’t, but you can be sure they thought about it for a long time and eventually the message got through.

Making disciples is a process of spiritual development. It’s similar to film processing, in which the developer turns your negative images into positive ones, with the result that your pictures look the way they are supposed to look. God wants to take the negatives in our lives into His darkroom and turn them into positives so that we come out looking like His Son. The church and its ministry provide that darkroom where believers are brought to spiritual maturity.

Jesus Promised Us His Presence

Jesus closed the Great Commission with a tremendous promise of His presence: “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20). The promise is made stronger by that little word translated “lo,” one of those King James–sounding words that we just glide over. But a more accurate translation of the phrase “lo, I” would be “I, even I,” or “I Myself,” because “lo” is actually another form of the first-person pronoun. As the Lord of the church, Jesus promises us His abiding presence and power to carry out His commission.

This is more than a promise of Christ’s presence with us as individual believers to deal with situations in our daily lives—although of course He is always with us. This is Christ’s authority given to the church to make disciples of all the nations. But to activate this promise, we have to be more than just pew-sitters when it comes to the church and its ministry.

Jesus’ promise in the context of the Great Commission means that when local churches are doing what He commanded, they are going to have His presence and power in answer to prayer that they wouldn’t have otherwise. They are going to have authority in ministry that isn’t available to those who are not actively engaged in carrying out God’s program. They are going to see God show up in ways that go beyond the normal and expected.

This promise is so incredible that if we’re not seeing this kind of authority and power being exercised in the church, we need to ask ourselves why. When the church is committed to the mission of making disciples, we have Jesus’ permission to use His name, His authority, His rights, and His privileges. That’s all we will ever need to accomplish the church’s mission.

THE FOUR VITAL EXPERIENCES OF CHURCH DISCIPLESHIP

I enjoy microwave popcorn, particularly while watching a good movie or football game. It is intriguing to watch the complete transformation of hard, coarse kernels into soft, delectable pieces of popcorn. This change occurs because the microwave heats up the moisture resident in every kernel until it turns to steam. Once it becomes steam, the pressure becomes so great that the shell can no longer contain the moisture and an explosion occurs. What was once inedible and indigestible is now quite edible and digestible. The point is that environment is everything. When the microwave performs as it was intended to, the seeds of corn are transformed.

What a microwave is to popcorn, the local church is to the Christian. It is the environment God has created to transform Christians into what we were created and redeemed to be: followers of Christ. Since all true believers possess the Holy Spirit, we already have the internal “moisture” necessary for the transformation process to occur.

Therefore, if the transformation does not happen, we can conclude that either the kernels are not in the proper environment, positioning themselves for transformation, or the microwave of the church is not functioning properly, producing spiritual heat so the pressure of the Holy Spirit gets hot enough to “pop” the believer into something different. How else can we explain the existence of so many defeated, joyless, powerless, angry, bitter, and empty Christians today?

I believe the church’s failure to produce disciples is largely to blame for the failure of so many churches. This failure has led to the rise of contemporary, secularized pop psychology with a Christian veneer, which charges exorbitant prices to do what the church should be providing as a natural outgrowth of its ministry. This thesis certainly does not exonerate individual believers from their personal responsibility to follow Christ down the road to discipleship. It does, however, recognize that in addition to personal responsibility, God has created a context for this process to occur. Just as microwaves that don’t work are of little use to the kernels of corn, so churches that don’t get sufficiently “hot” and don’t perform properly won’t see much success in producing disciples and authentic followers of Christ.

Few people would disagree that the greatest church in history was the first church, the church at Jerusalem in the early chapters of Acts. This church was on fire, possessed by the Holy Spirit, exploding on the scene on the Day of Pentecost. One reason this church was so dynamic is that it got off to a great start. Jesus had told the disciples in Acts 1:8, “Don’t have church until the Holy Spirit shows up” (my paraphrase). They obeyed Him, and the Spirit showed up in great power at Pentecost.

Acts 2 shows that this church made an impact not only on those within it, but also had a far-reaching impact that transformed those around them. It did this through four vital, Spirit-inspired experiences that are necessities for those who would follow Christ in discipleship. These four experiences are meant to operate simultaneously in our lives as we grow and develop. They include outreach (witnessing), growing in the Word, fellowship, and worship, and are laid out for us clearly in one key verse: “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer” (Acts 2:42).

Outreach to the Lost

When the Spirit came on Pentecost, the church became a catalyst for change. Believers offered themselves as witnesses for Jesus Christ. Evangelism is one of the absolute necessities for being a disciple. The most obvious event of the church’s witness in Acts 2 was Peter’s great Pentecost sermon. This is the same Peter who, just a few weeks earlier, was too scared to admit that he even knew Jesus. What changed Peter? Acts 2 tells us that the Holy Spirit had taken control of him. He was about to take off and soar in his spiritual life. He would experience things he had never experienced before because now he would be a faithful witness for Christ.

After Pentecost, Peter continued to preach until the Jewish authorities ordered the apostles to stop preaching and teaching about Jesus, and backed the order with threats (see Acts 4:18–21). So the apostles went to the church and reported exactly what the authorities had said. The church immediately went to prayer, reminding God of His power and the fact that all this was happening in His predetermined plan (see vv. 23–28). Then notice the church’s prayer request in verse 29: “And now, Lord, take note of their threats, and grant that Your bond-servants may speak Your word with all confidence.”

One of the things a strong church must do is disciple their members to be a strong witness for Jesus Christ. We must all seek God for the ability to “speak Your word with all confidence” when called upon to do so. Perhaps that is with co-workers, family members, friends, or even in more organized outreach initiatives through the church, but we all must be ready to “give an account for the hope that is in [us]” (1 Peter 3:15).

One reason a lot of us don’t share Christ is that we’ve lost our excitement about Him. When He is exciting to you, you can’t keep Him to yourself. When something dynamic occurs internally, you want to express it externally. The believers who received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost became witnesses. The result of their witness and Peter’s sermon on that unique day was the addition of three thousand new believers to the body of Christ. Please notice that these people did not come because of an evangelistic program. They came because the Spirit of God had so filled the believers that they couldn’t keep the faith to themselves. The result was an evangelistic masterpiece. This ought to be happening in our churches today as we scatter out each week to witness for Christ wherever we go.

Grow in the Word

Along with their dynamic witness, these early believers were growing in their knowledge of God’s Word: “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching” (Acts 2:42). They were doing this “day by day” (v. 46), just as people were being saved day by day.

This is what might be called the education of the church. This is the process by which the Word of God gets off the page and into our lives. A disciple of Jesus Christ is a person for whom the Word of God is as necessary and desirable as food is for the body. It is Scripture that equips us to live the Christian life. Your mind is the key to becoming a disciple, because you are what you think (see Proverbs 23:7). If you’ve got a messed-up mind, you’re going to have a messed-up life. The body reflects the thought processes of the mind, and all of us have come into the Christian life with distorted minds, contaminated by a sinful world.

As we have seen earlier, our minds need to be renewed (see Romans 12:2). Only then will our lives be transformed. I’ve discovered that when you try to change people’s actions without changing their thinking, you only do a temporary, patchwork job. If you want to fix what you do, you must first fix how you think about what you do. A transformed mind comes through the study and application of the Word of God. If you are going to become a disciple, you must have a dynamic experience with Scripture. For our spiritual education we have a divine Teacher, the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus said would remind us of all that He taught (see John 14:26).

Fellowship among the Body

The third necessary experience in following Christ is also found in Acts 2:42. Along with devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching, the believers were devoted to fellowship. Biblical fellowship is not just coffee and donuts in Sunday school, or a meal in the fellowship hall. Fellowship is the sharing of our lives with other believers. You’ll never grow to full maturity in Jesus Christ or become His disciple if you try to live independently of your fellow Christians.

That’s why the church is so important. It is the “fireplace” where one log touches another and the fire is maintained. The church at Jerusalem not only shared their lives, they shared their possessions as needs arose (see Acts 2:44–45). That’s part of fellowship too. If you are getting dull in your spiritual life, you need to be in proximity to others who are on fire so their fire can ignite you. If you are losing your spiritual fire and you’re alone, you’re going to become ashes.

Are you connected with other believers who desire to be on fire? Fellowship is designed to keep the fire burning. There was no such thing as a non-churched Christian in the New Testament. They were in dynamic fellowship with each other. We need each other because even the best of us can get spiritually dull and want to throw in the towel, or fall flat.

Worship the Lord

The fourth necessity in following Christ is worship. Again in Acts 2:42, the believers devoted themselves to “the breaking of bread and to prayer.” They were going to the temple every day and praising God continually.

Worship is the furnace of the spiritual life. Worship is the celebration of God for who He is and what He has done. The issue in worship is not necessarily what you get out of it, but what God gets out of it. Praising God and worshiping Him are the ways to get God’s attention. God responds to our worship. In fact, God invites us to worship Him. He has taken the initiative.

You will be surprised at the way the Spirit will ignite your Christian life when worship becomes not an event, but an experience; not a program, but a way of life. That includes both public and private worship because both are critical for a growing disciple of Christ.

Many of us want to quit when something goes wrong. But our spiritual ancestors didn’t throw in the towel when their whole world went wrong. Why? Because many of them had what we don’t have—a worshiping lifestyle. No matter what is wrong in your life, there is always a reason to worship and praise God.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Praising God does not mean denying your problems. But what does Paul say? “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God” (Philippians 4:6). If you want God’s power in your life, then worship must be part of your daily function—celebrating God, exalting Him for what He has done.

What happens when a church becomes full of witnessing, learning-the-Word, fellowshiping, worshiping kinds of disciples, and creates an environment for all four of these essentials to flourish? I guarantee, based on God’s unchanging Word, that the church, its members, families, and communities will be progressing in spiritual discipleship. The early believers in the Acts 2 church we have been looking at had the four necessities going strong, and Scripture indicates that at least two things happened: They had spiritual power and they saw spiritual results.

Acts 2:43 says: “Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe.” They were amazed at the work of God that was going on in their midst. Everyone had a sense that God was at work in a mighty way. As a result, selfishness began to fall by the wayside (see Acts 2:44–45). They became concerned for one another. Many people were getting saved every day (see v. 47), and much more. All of this resulted from the overflow of the spiritual growth that occurred as they experienced God through these four vital components both within and among them.

THE ORDINANCES IN CHURCH DISCIPLESHIP

The Bible recognizes two ordinances to be observed by the church: baptism and communion. These are not merely pictures to remind Christians of spiritual realities. They are also channels the Holy Spirit uses to confer the benefits of the new covenant to the followers and disciples of Jesus Christ.

The word “ordinances” refers to those rites that Jesus, the Lord of the kingdom, commanded the church to observe to remind His people of their special relationship to Him, as well as the benefits that accrue because of this relationship.

The Key to the Symbols

On the night before His crucifixion, Jesus instituted the ordinance of communion in the upper room with His disciples. As He blessed and passed the cup, the Lord said, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood” (Luke 22:20).

The mention of a new covenant presupposes an old covenant. As we have seen, “covenant” is the word God uses to describe His relationship with His people. A covenant is a spiritually binding relationship that God has with His people, bringing them the benefits of His kingdom. The old covenant was the law of Moses that God gave to Israel. The new covenant is the covenant of grace that God has given to the church. This new covenant is based on God’s new relationship to the church through the death and resurrection of Christ.

Under the old covenant, God related to His people by the principle of law. In the new covenant, God relates to His people by grace through the Holy Spirit. To help us understand and demonstrate His new covenant, God has given us the two biblical symbols of communion and baptism. These are a picture of Christ’s death and resurrection, and our actual participation with Him. In other words, these pictures have an experiential reality tied to them.

The bread of communion pictures Christ’s body that was broken for us. Paul quoted Jesus’ words as he explained the significance of communion in 1 Corinthians 11: “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” (v. 24). The cup represents Christ’s blood, shed on the cross for our salvation. And in baptism, we see a picture of our burial and resurrection with Christ (see Romans 6:3–4). It’s important to understand that we are not saved by getting baptized or by taking communion. They are symbols for the saved to understand and experience our spiritual connection to, and the benefits of, this new covenant God has with us. These ordinances are both meaningful in what they represent and powerful in what they convey.

The Ordinance of Baptism

We looked at baptism briefly in our study of the Great Commission, but let’s look at it more closely here. Baptism is connected in Scripture to the old covenant of circumcision. Under the Mosaic law, all males had to be circumcised to become members of the covenant and share in its benefits; circumcision was the sign or symbol of the covenant.

But in the new covenant, the symbol is no longer physical in the sense of a cutting of the flesh, and it applies to all believers, not just males. This symbol is baptism, as we read in Colossians 2:

In [Christ] all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; having been buried with Him in baptism. (vv. 9–12)

God is saying that in the new covenant, you don’t have to do something physical to enter into relationship with Him. It is a spiritual transaction that is demonstrated or symbolized through baptism. Thus baptism is the new circumcision whereby the believer publicly identifies with Christ. It not only says that we have accepted Jesus as Savior, but are committed to coming under His kingdom authority as Lord. Such public identification is critical for us to experience the blessings and benefits of the new covenant that are conferred by the Holy Spirit.

Because baptism is a spiritual covenant, Jesus told His disciples in the upper room, “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you” (John 14:16–17).

The ceremony of baptism is the point at which you go public with your testimony that you belong to Christ, and are committed to become a visible, verbal disciple of His.

The Ordinance of Communion

The second biblical ordinance of the church is communion. This is the ongoing renewal of the new covenant that was inaugurated at baptism, just as Passover was the renewal of the old covenant. The Bible makes this connection in 1 Corinthians 5:7, where Paul wrote: “Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.” Passover was the meal the Jews ate in Egypt the night the death angel came and killed the firstborn sons in all the homes of Egypt (see Exodus 12).

Communion, then, is the renewal of what was instituted at baptism, similar to how physical intimacy in marriage is the renewal of the commitment made on the wedding day.

A Symbol of God’s Salvation

God’s people avoided the plague of the death angel by killing a lamb and putting its blood on the doorposts of their homes, because God had said, “When I see the blood I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you” (Exodus 12:13). The blood of the lamb was a symbol of the blood that Christ would shed on the cross to save us from the eternal spiritual death of eternal separation from God. So Paul could refer to Christ as our Passover lamb.

Jesus consciously connected Passover with communion when He told the disciples at the beginning of the Last Supper, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22:15). Jesus knew that the time had come for Him to become the final sacrifice for sins, which had been pictured and symbolized for so long through Israel’s annual Passover observances in which a lamb was killed to represent God’s covering of the people’s sins. Jesus came not to cover sins, but to take them away.

Communion is also referred to as the Lord’s Supper. It may also be called the Lord’s Table, a reference to 1 Corinthians 10:21: “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.”

That’s an amazing statement. Paul had just said in verse 20: “The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God.”

Did you realize there are two tables in the world? You can sit at one table or the other, but not at both. To sit at the table of the Lord is to sit in God’s presence and remind yourself of His covenant and become a partaker of the benefits of being part of it as you submit to His kingdom authority in your life. You cannot do that and still fellowship at the table of the world. When you take communion, just as when you were baptized, you also identify yourself publicly with Christ and actually participate in a spiritual reality.

A Regular Reminder

The Bible says that the church met on the first day of the week “to break bread” (Acts 20:7). That is, the church observed communion weekly to remind themselves of God’s new covenant relationship with His people through Christ. The early church understood the spiritual significance of the Lord’s presence at the table—not in His literal body as some teach, but the unique spiritual presence of Christ in the midst of His people.

If you read Paul’s full teaching on communion in 1 Corinthians 10–11, you will see that this ordinance involves both blessing and judgment—another example of how the church’s ordinances convey an experiential reality to the participants. The blessing of communion is the impartation of the gracious benefits of the new covenant to the body of Christ, making it the most powerful and important part of any worship service. But the communion table also involves discipline, and thus it demands that we examine and judge ourselves.

The celebration of communion is also a declaration of Christ’s victory over sin, death, and the grave. In John 6:51, Jesus said: “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.” Jesus’ death and resurrection mean that we who know Him have been made victors over sin and death. Paul gave us this connection when he wrote: “Even when we were dead in our transgressions, [God] made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:5–6).

Too many times we Christians forgot where we’re really sitting. God says that while we are physically on earth, spiritually we are already seated with Him in heaven. At the communion table, you’re supposed to recall your spiritual identity and position in Christ—and rejoice in your daily participation in His victory. Then you are to walk in that victory throughout the week.

Besides being about reaching up into heaven to draw down the blessings attached to Christ’s covenantal death and resurrection, communion is also an opportunity to reach down into hell to let the enemy know he no longer holds authority over you. In 1 Corinthians 11:26, we read: “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes” (emphasis added). The question that comes out of that verse is: Proclaim the Lord’s death to whom? And for what reason?

To proclaim something is similar to preaching it. So when you take communion, you are preaching a sermon to an important audience:

When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him. (Colossians 2:13–15)

This passage tells us that on the cross, the devil was defeated and disarmed. He still has more power than you and I do, but the key to understanding spiritual victory in any realm—whether it is in your relationships, career, emotions, or anywhere—is to recognize that power matters most when you understand authority. Jesus Christ has the final authority.

Communion is your time to preach to the evil principalities and remind them that they have been defeated, and that you know it. It is your turn to serve notice on hell, based on the cup and the bread, that hell has already lost. This is why, as a believer, communion is one of the most strategic things that you can do. It is by virtue of the bread and the juice– symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ—that you have the ability to access the authority of Christ over Satan.

Why do you need to serve notice on hell about your life, relationships, and all else? Because much of the chaos that we go through in life is coming from that realm. That realm invades our realm and tries to keep us from experiencing the blessings of the sanctions of the new covenant. So you need to send a message—to preach your sermon—completely and frequently.

One of the worst things you can do is to make the ordinances mere rituals when they are supposed to be sacred. Don’t ever allow the ordinances of baptism and communion, something so completely profound, to turn into something so completely ordinary. Preach, and preach truth. Serve notice that the God of the covenant is the one in charge of your well-being and your victory, and that nothing can get to you without first passing through His hands.

Eating brought us defeat when Adam and Eve wrongly ate the forbidden fruit and lost victory and authority. But through communion with Christ’s blood and body and eating in remembrance of Him and what He accomplished on the cross, we can proclaim the regaining of the victory and the authority that was originally lost.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

THE CHURCH’S MEMBERSHIP

The church is God’s alternative in history. Although it was always in God’s plan, the church is a mystery that was not revealed to the earlier generations of His people. It was uniquely created to be God’s institution for developing Christians and impacting the world.

The story is told of a man in a small town whose loved one died without having any funeral arrangements made. When the man discovered that the deceased did not have a burial plot, he went to the head of the local parish seeking permission to bury his loved one in the parish’s fenced-in graveyard. But he was told, “I’m sorry, but this graveyard is reserved for members of our church. Besides, there isn’t room for an extra grave inside the fence.”

The man went away disappointed, but the next day he got word that a grave had been dug inside the fence for his family member. He went to the head of the parish and said, “I don’t understand. We’re not members here, and you said there wasn’t any room anyway. How did we get a place inside the fence?”

The parish official said, “I thought about it last night, and I simply moved the fence.”

What that parish official did for a person in need is what God has done for the human race. He has “moved the fence” by reaching out to us in grace so that people who were outside the fence can come inside through faith in Jesus Christ. And anyone who is inside the fence becomes a child of God and is also related to the rest of God’s children because the Bible says, “We are members of one another” (Ephesians 4:25). Believers are knit together in a bond that is critical to the church’s function. The church is to be that place where no one stands alone. A Christian without a church home is like an organ without a body, a sheep without a flock, or a child without a family. This is why God calls the local church a family (see Ephesians 2:19).

THE IMPORTANCE OF CHURCH MEMBERSHIP

“I don’t have to go to church or belong to a church to be a Christian. I can worship God in my home.” Have you ever heard these statements given as an excuse from people who do not want to go to church? It’s sometimes difficult to refute because it happens to be true, to a point. Nothing you do or join makes you a Christian. The Bible makes is abundantly clear that Jesus is the only way of salvation. No one comes to the Father except through Him.

So what then is the value of the church? Do Christians have a mandate for membership? To find the answers to these questions, I want us to look at the book of Hebrews—an epistle written to a group of Jewish believers on the verge of defecting from the faith in the face of severe persecution. The writer of Hebrews states:

Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:22–25)

The book of Hebrews is probably second only to Revelation on the list of Most Difficult Biblical Books to Understand. Making complete sense of it requires a thorough comprehension of Old Testament customs and theology, most notably the concept of covenant. For the purpose of our discussion, let’s review specifically how a covenant relationship with God is established.

In Old Testament times, the blood of sacrificed animals, offered in accordance with laws and customs laid out by God, covered the sins of mankind. When Jesus gave his life on the cross, He became the “mediator of a new covenant” (Hebrews 9:15) in which our sins were cleansed not by the blood of bulls, goats, and sheep, but by His sacrifice as Savior. The church, then, is the “community of the covenant”— those who share in the sacrifice of God’s Son.

It is important to understand that within the context of this covenant community, many of the benefits of our relationship with Christ are realized. In the same way that children are promised a greater length and quality of life if they keep covenant with their parents through obedience (see Ephesians 6:1–3), and in the same way a husband is provided access to God in prayer based on his relationship with his wife (see 1 Peter 3:7), so some of the advantages individual Christians enjoy can only be experienced as they relate properly to the family of God in the context of the local church.

For example, Paul tells us that Christians can only experience the spiritual growth they need as they are linked with other believers (see Ephesians 4:12–16). God shows His supernatural power in meeting the needs of His people as the church brings Him glory (see Ephesians 3:20–21). On the other side of the coin, God promises to judge those who bring harm to the church (see 1 Corinthians 3:16–18). There is a level of personal care and support that can only be realized in the dynamic relationship of the local church (see 1 Corinthians 12:18–20, 25), and God’s power over Satan can only be fully experienced in the context of the covenant of the church (see Ephesians 3:10). Unfortunately, too many Christians are spiritual orphans with no family, or like foster children bouncing around from place to place, never landing anywhere.

Here’s the point: our relationship to the corporate body of Christians is crucial to our personal relationship with God. Church membership may be properly defined as the commitment to be identified and dynamically involved with a local body of believers who are growing together as disciples of Jesus Christ.

Just as believers share a formal and relational connection with Christ in conversion, and just as the members of our physical bodies have a formal and functional attachment, even so Christians are to have a formal and functional relationship to a local body of believers. Our commitment is not only to Christ, but to other Christians as well (see 2 Corinthians 8:5). In fact, our fellowship with other Christians can actually validate or invalidate our fellowship with Christ (see 1 John 2:19). Against this backdrop, let’s examine the three-fold admonition Paul laid out in Hebrews 10:22–25.

We Need to Draw Near

Through Christ, each of us has direct access to the throne room of God. Rituals, regulations, and human go-betweens can no longer separate us from Him. How tragic to have that privilege in our grasp and not approach Him with the confidence described in Hebrews 10:22. He beckons us to come to the temple and worship Him, “having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” The invitation is predicated on a commitment to holiness. It is founded on a dedication to setting our vertical relationship with God in proper order.

We Need to Hold Fast to Our Hope

Paul moves on to our horizontal relationships with those around us. “Don’t back down in the marketplace,” he exhorts. Some of us are very public about our faith on Sunday morning because it requires no risk. We applaud, say “amen,” or get visibly excited because we’re in the “safe zone.” On Monday morning, however, things change.

Can you imagine how God feels about this kind of weekly about-face? Picture yourself dating a person who holds your hand affectionately in private, then drops it like a hot potato whenever onlookers might see. Jesus wants His relationship with you to be so strong that you won’t mind if people see you publically hold on to Him. You’re a child of the King. Don’t look down on your royal heritage.

We Need to Continue Meeting Together

Here is where we get to the meat of this message. Remember, Paul is addressing a group of believers facing some serious opposition. Traditional Jews harassed them for their messianic beliefs. The community at large ridiculed their morality and laughed at their lifestyle. And all the while, they could see the “day drawing near.” Personally, I believe the day in question took place in AD 70, when the Roman general Titus invaded Jerusalem, destroyed the temple, and slaughtered thousands of Jews.

What was Paul’s prescription for spiritual survival in the midst of such oppression? Approach the throne with confidence, live the Christian life with boldness, and don’t give up meeting together. This brings us to the central point of this chapter. Why do you need the church? To keep you from regressing spiritually or abandoning the faith altogether.

Remember the half-truth I quoted earlier? “I don’t have to go to church or belong to a church to be a Christian. I can worship God in my home.” As I said, all of that is true, to a point. But from the moment you profess faith, Satan goes to work trying to lure you into turning your back on Jesus Christ. He won’t be satisfied until he renders you ineffective.

Often, the first sign of spiritual slippage is detachment from the local church. That’s why you need the church to keep you on track … to hold you accountable … to remind you of your responsibility … to care for you during the disasters of your life … and to encourage you as you keep walking down the right path. You don’t need the church to be saved, but you need it to make sure you’re living like you’re saved.

Why? Because none of us is immune from falling. Paul was keenly aware of this fact and he was about as spiritual as any man in history. “I discipline my body and make it my slave, so that, after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified” (1 Corinthians 9:27).

We need the family of God because we need our neighbors. Have you ever tried to build a fire with a single log? Once the kindling burns out, the fire slowly dies, leaving behind a few smoldering embers and some smoke. However, just add a few extra logs and some fresh air, then watch the flames erupt.

The church works on the same principle. Week after week, people stumble into church depressed and defeated. Then the choir sings, the Word is preached, and the Lord is praised. Slowly, the outlook brightens. Why? More logs on the fire combined with the fresh air of the Spirit! The church needs your spark in order to help keep the fire burning.

There are many benefits associated with being part of a properly functioning, biblically centered church family—and rightfully so. At the same time, however, preventing that well of support from running dry requires the invested time and resources of each and every member of the family. No home, or church, can function otherwise.

As members of the body of Christ, we are like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. Each piece has protrusions and indentations. The protrusions represent our strengths (gifts, talents, abilities), and the indentations represent our weaknesses (faults, limitations, shortcomings, undeveloped areas). The beautiful thing is that, when assembled, the pieces complement one another, blend inconspicuously, and produce a beautiful picture.

Paul admonishes us to develop a plan to stimulate love and good deeds. If we are to truly look out for one another, it will require a plan. Each of us has a limited supply of time, energy, and resources. It takes everybody doing a little, not a few doing a lot. Heaping the burden of care on a few faithful souls is a sure-fire path to burnout. Church is not for spectators.

The Power of Encouragement

The writer of Hebrews also pens this truth: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2). The word “strangers” is not talking about people off the street; vagrants who could rob you or kill you. The context suggests he is referring to a stranger within the body of Christ. Are some of these strangers angels? The Greek word translated “angel” means “messenger.” Some have entertained messengers without knowing it. God’s solution to your problem or provision for your need may have been in your midst all along. Did you miss it?

Living like a spiritual hermit cuts you off from a potential source of enormous blessings. And what about the times when God might want to use you as His messenger? Don’t give up meeting together. Instead, encourage one another. Build up one another.

Not too long ago, on a day when I was feeling a little down, I got a note from one of my deacons. Suddenly, my day turned around. The note wasn’t especially eloquent. There was no check inside. It simply said that the sermon I had preached hit the target, and helped him overcome a problem he had wrestled with for years. God had used me, he said, and he gave the glory to the Lord. All of a sudden, I felt better. The message of encouragement in my sermon triggered his message of encouragement to me. Both of us are better for the experience.

The world specializes in tearing us down, not building us up. Climbing the ladder of secular success requires climbing over people, learning how to step on their fingers when their grip is weakest. But that’s not how it is supposed to be in the church. We’re called to be professional encouragers. It doesn’t take a lot to make someone else feel better. And that’s what the family of God is supposed to do: make people feel a lot better, and help them go on a little farther.

A friend and I were lifting weights one day. I selected a barbell just a little heavier than usual. When my arms were only half extended, I knew I was in trouble—I couldn’t push it any higher. All my grunting and sweating didn’t seem to help; I was stuck.

My friend saw my problem and came alongside me. “Come on, come on,” he said. “You can do it.” I appreciated the sentiment, but I knew he was wrong. “Just a little bit more,” he said, cheering me on. He put his hands under the bar, as though he was going to help me lift. Actually, he was probably getting ready to catch the weight when I dropped it! “I’ve got it,” he reassured me, “but you can make it.” Finally, my arms extended and the weight went up. I was ready to give up at the first sign of muscle strain, but my friend convinced me I could succeed.

There are couples in our churches who don’t believe their marriage can make it. They need a strong couple to come alongside and show them an alternative to divorce. There are some singles who think that maintaining their moral purity is impossible. They need some successful singles to take them by the hand and show them the way. There are young people whose families have disintegrated. They’ll turn to drugs, gangs, crime, or prostitution unless someone stands beside them and offers to lead the way. This is the definition of a church: a community of believers who will convince you that you can make it, then stand beside you while you try.

Cruise Ship Membership

Unfortunately, one of the problems we have with members in the church that threatens our productivity in advancing God’s kingdom agenda is what I call the “cruise ship membership.”

Now I have to tell you, I enjoy cruises. Do you know why it’s so wonderful to go on a cruise? Because somebody else does everything for you. You don’t even have to handle your luggage. The crew provides recreation and serves you about eight meals a day with great food. And if you don’t want to get out of bed, that’s fine. They’ll bring the food to your room. They’ll even wash and iron your clothes. Every detail on a cruise ship is designed to pamper you, and all you have to do is decide how much you want to enjoy.

The problem is that this cruise ship mentality has invaded the church, so people expect to be fed and entertained. They say, “I think I’ll cruise on over to church this morning and see what they have for me. I’ll check out the music menu and see if there’s anything I like. I’ll find out what they’re serving on the Bible study menu and sample the sermon buffet.”

This is a problem because the church is a battleship, not a cruise ship. When a battleship engages the enemy, what is the call that goes out? “All hands to their duty stations.” Every person on a battleship earns his keep by doing a job that’s vital to the ship’s victory in battle.

Now the interesting thing is that the same people who treat the church like a cruise ship will also come to the church’s leaders and say, “I need help.” Our church has a deacons’ fund that we use to help members in need. When people ask for money from this fund, we ask them what ministry they are serving in at church. If they stutter and hesitate, we know we have a problem. We don’t just take people’s word for it when they say they are doing this or that service. We check with the leaders in charge of that particular ministry. If there is no attempt on their part to contribute to the life and unity of the body, we are going to deal with that before giving them financial assistance. We are committed to the idea that people cannot say to the church, “Do this and this for me,” while not being willing to do anything for the body themselves.

Paul said something profoundly important about Christ’s body, the church, in 1 Corinthians 12: “If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it” (v. 26). I can’t emphasize often enough that we as Christians are joined together in a vital, living, organic unity that is indispensable to the church’s proper functioning and its impact in the world.

SERVING AS A MEMBER

Church membership involves accountability, fellowship, and responsibility. It is the commitment of a believer to identify with and be dynamically involved with a local body of people who are under the authority of Jesus Christ. The goal is for a church member to develop into a disciple of the Lord.

The Necessity of Membership

Membership in a local church is necessary for a believer to partake consistently of the four vital experiences of worship, fellowship, education, and outreach that are necessary for the discipleship process to occur. No church membership means limited or no discipleship and is outright rebellion against the expressed will of God.

For one thing, Ephesians 4:12–16 tells us that our connection with other believers is vital to our spiritual growth. Relationships within the local church result in support and care for members of the body. This is God’s plan, that believers interact within the church (see 1 Corinthians 12:18–20, 25). Ephesians 3:20–21 assures us that the Lord’s supernatural power is at work in the church, which in turn brings Him glory. Likewise, it is within the context of the church that God’s power over Satan is manifest (see Ephesians 3:10). Further, 1 Corinthians 3:16–18 expresses that any who harm the church will be judged.

Indeed, much of the outgrowth and privilege we enjoy by our relationship in Christ is brought to fruition in the church. Relating in a healthy and biblical way to God’s family in the local church brings advantages to believers much in the same way that husbands who rightly treat their wives enjoy (see 1 Peter 3:7), and as children who obey their parents have (see Ephesians 6:1–3). Husbands have access to God through prayer, and children who honor their parents are promised greater quality of life.

As the “mediator of a new covenant” (Hebrews 9:15), Jesus cleansed us of our sins by His sacrifice on the cross. The assembly, therefore, of those who share in this sacrifice of God’s Son is the “community of the covenant.” Our relating in a corporate way to the body of Christ is critical to our personal relationship with His Father (see 1 John 4:12). Though personal, salvation is not a private matter. We each have a part to play in the church, but if we do not, the ministry of the church will be hampered. And as much as we hinder the work of the church, we will invite God’s judgment and lose His blessing (see 1 Corinthians 3:16–17).

Believers are to use their God-given gifts within the context of the local church to build up the body of Christ and serve the kingdom of God. Ephesians 4 is a classic passage that makes this absolutely clear: “And [Christ] gave some as … pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ” (vv. 11–12).

There is no such thing as a Christian who does not serve the kingdom by ministering to the church. You can’t build a home without all the members doing their part, and you can’t build a church without all the members doing their part. Paul went on to say: “We are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:15–16).

It only takes one part of the body to slow things down. Perhaps you have been in a church where there was an internal argument going on, and everyone in the church was occupied by it. It was only one issue, but it controlled everyone, and the ministry was stymied.

Every member has a part to play in making the body function. The job of leaders is not to do the ministry while the people watch. That’s why it is unhealthy for a person to benefit from the ministry of the church and yet not contribute anything. The body of Christ already has too many people who come to church and say, “Preach to me. Sing to me. Serve me. If I’m sick, visit me. If I’m hurting, comfort me. If I need encouragement, encourage me. But don’t expect me to give any of my time, talents, or resources to this work.”

Such a person is a church leech and not a church member, sucking the lifeblood of the church’s ministry without making any meaningful contribution. That’s an insult to the Father who has invited us into His family. We are not in His family because we deserve to be here. We are here by grace (see Ephesians 2:8–9). God adopted us into His family when we had no family from a spiritual standpoint. He brought us into His glorious home called the kingdom (see Colossians 1:13). Can you imagine a person in a family like that who refuses to clean his room, who doesn’t want to carry his share of the workload?

God did not call twenty percent of the church to serve the other eighty percent. He called one hundred percent of us to serve each other. That’s why people must agree to serve in our church in Dallas before they are accepted into the membership.

Using Your Spiritual Gifts

God also equips His people for service by giving them spiritual gifts. Peter wrote:

As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Whoever speaks, is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God; whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 4:10–11)

Let me give you a definition of spiritual gifts from this passage. Spiritual gifts are divine ennoblements empowered by the Holy Spirit that allow God’s people to glorify Him and build up His body.

Spiritual gifts are more than human talents. Talents include things like the ability to sing, speak, write, etc. One person may possess all these talents and more. But a spiritual gift is an ability sovereignly given by God that He wants the believer to focus on in a unique way, because He wants to use that gift, through the believer, in a unique way to build His kingdom and mature His body.

God may make one of your natural talents a spiritual gift or give you something totally new. The key is that this gift will be used specifically to build up His body. The Bible is clear that every Christian has been gifted by the Holy Spirit (see 1 Corinthians 12:7). Now you may say, “Well, I don’t know what my spiritual gift is, and I don’t know how to find it.”

If that’s the case, let me help you. Even though you may not know what your gift is, God knows, and He wants to reveal it to you. But He only hits a moving target. That is, you can’t just sit around doing nothing until God drops a revelation on you. Get busy serving Him with your talents in your local church, and He will make your spiritual gift very obvious to you.

It’s like a student saying, “I don’t know what I want to be.” Well, that student needs exposure to the options for various careers. He or she needs to explore different things until they find that area of study or work that arouses their interest. You may enjoy doing a lot of things, but God will show you the area He wants you to concentrate on in a special way to bless the church and advance His kingdom agenda.

But let me remind you that serving Christ and using your spiritual gift does not mean everything will go smoothly. Whenever people are involved, conflict will happen and pain can result. If we are going to serve Christ and fulfill His agenda for our lives, we must be ready to share the joys and the tears that come with being a part of the family.

SUPPORTING AS A MEMBER

Another item on the kingdom agenda of believers is one that you knew I would get to eventually: the privilege and responsibility of supporting God’s work financially.

As we look at the opening verses of 1 Corinthians 16, let’s consider the context. First Corinthians 15 is a great doctrinal chapter. It deals with our resurrection, which is guaranteed because Christ was raised from the dead as the “first fruits” of the resurrection (v. 20).

In other words, Christ’s resurrection was the “down payment” that guarantees our resurrection to a glorious future in which “this perishable [body] must put on the imperishable, and this mortal [body] must put on immortality” (v. 53). That’s an eternity with Christ in which death has no more “sting” (v. 55). In light of what awaits us, Paul closed chapter 15 with this exhortation: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord” (v. 58).

When you know you’re on the winning team, you can afford to give it everything you’ve got. Paul said we should always “abound” in the Lord’s work. That word means to go beyond the call of duty, to do more than just what is expected. And then Paul opened chapter 16 by saying, “Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so do you also. On the first day of every week each one of you is to put aside and save, as he may prosper, so that no collections be made when I come” (vv. 1–2).

At first, there doesn’t seem to be a relationship between the doctrine of the resurrection and the offering plate. But there is a powerful connection. Paul was saying, “If we are going to do the work of the Lord, there is a cost involved. And when it comes to meeting that cost, we should abound here too, because we are on the winning side. We can afford to go beyond just what is expected.”

The fact that effective ministry comes with a price tag should not surprise you. But when it comes to money, a lot of believers turn on a different mode of thinking. That’s why when God wants to test a believer’s commitment, He often uses money as a measuring stick. Money is such an accurate reflection of our commitment because a lot of people will give up everything else before they will let go of their money. How and where we spend our money is revealing because it unveils where our hearts are, according to Christ (see Matthew 6:19–21).

Biblical Principles of Giving

Verses 1–2 of 1 Corinthians 16 are packed with key principles we need to understand to fulfill our kingdom responsibility in giving. Let’s look at these principles one at a time.

The first principle is this: Our giving is designed to minister to and equip the saints, and then through them to impact a world that needs Christ (v. 1).

There is only one legitimate reason for the church to collect money—for ministry. The purpose of giving, Paul said, is to get the ministry of the church out to the people who need it. You can’t minister to people whose lives are broken and who need Christ unless someone pays the bill for that ministry.

Biblical giving is a spiritual investment designed to make sure that God’s ministry to people and through people never goes lacking. God’s work never suffers from insufficient funds. It may suffer from insufficient giving, but God is not short on funds. He always pays for what He purposes.

First Corinthians 16:2 reveals a second principle: Biblical giving is an act of worship to God. Paul told us to set aside our gifts on “the first day of every week.” That’s Sunday. And what’s special about Sunday? It is the church’s day of worship. Paul said that when you go to church to worship God, make sure giving is part of your worship.

Giving is not something you just throw into a worship service. It’s an act of worship to God. This means that God evaluates our giving the same way He evaluates our singing, praying, preaching, or any other element of worship.

Some people insult God when it is time to sing about our great God, because they hang their heads and mumble out a few words since they don’t feel like singing. God’s question is, “Who are you singing to?” Other people offend God when they pray, because their prayer reveals that they really aren’t all that interested in meeting with God.

It’s the same with our giving. The way we give is either a blessing or an insult to God. You can insult God by not giving when you should, by not giving what you should, or by giving only after you’ve taken care of yourself. The Bible says, “Honor the LORD from your wealth and from the first of all your produce” (Proverbs 3:9). God’s portion comes first. We can’t give to God out of our leftovers; even if we give a lot it’s unacceptable, because it came from what we had left after we spent the best part on ourselves (see Malachi 1:7–8).

Giving to God first is crucial because it shows how much you value Him, and it expresses your faith in His ability and willingness to provide for you. In the Old Testament, when God’s people gave Him the tithe, the first ten percent of their money and crops, they were not saying, “God, here is the ten percent that belongs to You. The other ninety percent belongs to me.”

No, they were saying, “God, I recognize that ten percent is simply a down payment, because it all belongs to You.”

That’s a critical shift in emphasis from the first scenario. God wants us to give with an attitude that says, “I recognize that everything I have belongs to You, first, as an act of loving, obedient worship, and also as a testimony of my trust in Your ability to provide for me.”

In other words, giving is a test of our faith. The Jewish culture was agrarian. The people were dependent on the harvest to live. So when they gave God the first portion of their crops, they were telling Him, “I trust You to bring in the rest of my crop so I can feed my family and be charitable to others.”

To be honest, not many Christians have that kind of faith today. They take care of themselves, and if there is anything left over, God gets a part of it. How else can we explain the fact that the average evangelical, Bible-believing Christian only gives about 2.9 percent of his or her income to the Lord? That’s an insult to God and destructive to the expansion of His kingdom.

Many of us have been trying to fix our finances for years. MasterCard owns us, Visa owns us, or some other lender owns us. But we have never given God the ownership of our pocketbooks. When we put Him first in our finances, He makes sure the rest of the “crop” comes in.

Let me briefly highlight three more principles that don’t need a lot of elaboration. One is that giving is for everyone (see 1 Corinthians 16:2). No believer is too young or too poor to learn how to give.

Another principle in verse 2 is captured in the phrase “put aside and save.” Biblical giving is planned, systematic giving. It is not simply an emotional response to a sermon or a choice musical number that moved you, or a reaction to an emotional appeal.

Finally, biblical giving is proportional: “as [we] may prosper” (v. 2). Your giving is to reflect God’s abundance in your life. That means you are not limited to the tithe. As your income increases, so should your giving. Here’s an axiom to keep in mind: Give according to your income, lest God make your income according to your giving.

BECOMING A MEMBER

As long as fallible people like you and me populate churches, there will be no such thing as a perfect church. But there are many good churches where you can learn, grow, serve, and give. If you don’t currently belong to one, here are some tips on how to recognize them:

•  A healthy church clearly proclaims the whole counsel of God as revealed in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. A good church is a teaching church.

•  A healthy church has a system of accountability within which people are held lovingly responsible for their lifestyle and humbly disciplined when they unrepentantly rebel against God’s standards.

•  A healthy church has a comprehensive view of ministry. It applies the Scripture to every area of life. It has (or is seeking to develop) ministries that impact every member of the family.

•  A healthy church provides opportunities to use your gifts and skills to serve others.

•  A healthy church has a passion to win people to Christ and see them develop in the faith.

•  A healthy church supports the weak, helps the needy, and encourages the downhearted.

There is no place on earth like a good, Bible-centered church. Nowhere will you find better friends, quicker aid, or a more secure place of support and refuge during times of grief, tragedy, joy, or celebration. Keep these criteria in mind as you seek out a church to join, and pray that God will lead you to a healthy, functioning church if you are not a member somewhere already.

Only the church possesses the keys to the kingdom, to access heaven’s authority in history. Your involvement in the local church is critical to exercising your own personal spiritual authority as well as the corporate spiritual authority of the church.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THE CHURCH’S LEADERSHIP

A few years ago, I began to look around the church, which I had started in my home with just ten families nearly three decades earlier. Over that time the church had grown in size, in the number of programs we offered, and in the scope of its reach into the community. Yet there was something significant that I began to wrestle with in regard to the church, and that was the atmosphere.

There is no budget, schedule, or agenda for atmosphere. It is rarely discussed in elder or deacon meetings. You won’t find it on a church’s activity calendar, and yet it is one of the most essential foundations for a church in existence. Another word for atmosphere might be “spirit.”

At the time that I was searching to somehow define and focus on this element at our church, I decided to call it the “spirit of the ministry,” and I spent a year discipling our leadership team on exactly what that entailed.

The Church’s Spirit

Our church’s philosophy had already been recorded and put in place, which is the visible demonstration of the comprehensive rule of God over every area of life. Our vision had been established, which included impacting individuals, families, other churches, and our communities with this kingdom worldview. And our mission of developing a group of disciples who are impacting the world for the advancement of God’s kingdom was clearly being carried out. However, the environment in which those things took place needed to be defined more pragmatically not only for our church members, but also for the leadership.

All of us know what it is like to be in a place with a negative environment, or atmosphere. If you go into a restaurant expecting a wonderful meal and yet the air smells terrible, it doesn’t matter how good the food is, you won’t want to eat there simply because the atmosphere is not conducive to dining. In fact, it contradicts and contaminates the savory aroma of the meal.

The foundational verse for this concept of the spirit of the ministry came to me from the book of Romans: “For the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (14:17). The kingdom is not about physical programs or eating and drinking, although there is nothing wrong with any of those things. But what this verse tells us is that the kingdom is much bigger than that. It has to do with an atmosphere, an environment, a spirit, in which the programming occurs. It has to do with what the Holy Spirit is invoking in the life of God’s people, which includes righteousness, peace, and joy.

It is possible to have great programming, excellent preaching, and wonderful singing in a not-so-wonderful environment. All of these things may be great in and of themselves, yet the opportunity for ministry is largely reduced because of the atmosphere surrounding them. A spiritual church is one that offers an environment electric with the presence of God’s Spirit working in God’s people to produce God’s results, thus reflecting a kingdom culture permeated by God’s perspective and values.

God has established the church as the location in which His kingdom is to be manifested on earth, in such a way that it is to reflect Him fully. In this regard, He seeks to create within the church an atmosphere for maximum kingdom exposure and impact. And all of that begins with the leadership. In fact, the composite health and atmosphere of any church fundamentally rests on the emotional and spiritual health of its leaders. As goes the leaders, so goes the church.

Or, rather, as goes the shepherd, so go the sheep. If a shepherd leads his sheep into a perilous situation, then it is highly likely that the sheep will be devoured. Being a successful shepherd requires a number of things. Two of those are found in the Psalms with regard to David’s leadership over Israel, spoken of in shepherding terms. We read: “So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart, and guided them with his skillful hands” (Psalm 78:72).

Skill of hand refers to excellence in productivity. David was good at what he did. He didn’t do a half-job. He didn’t skimp, clock out early, or try and dabble in things that he knew nothing about. David was skillful in the elements of leading well.

He also had integrity of heart. In fact, God says of him, “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who will do all My will” (Acts 13:22, emphasis added). David’s heart was intent on seeking God and His plan, and honoring others in the process. David was not a perfect man, but God declared that he had a heart of integrity—one that, despite his failures and foibles, strove to put God’s will first in everything.

It Takes Skill and Heart

If a leader has skill of hand without integrity of heart, he can do good work while running over people in the process. To that person, people don’t matter, only the task at hand. A person like this lacks the ability to lead well. As Theodore Roosevelt wisely stated, “The most important single ingredient in the formula of success is knowing how to get along with people.”

An excellent leader has to earn the respect of those who are following him or her. How you treat people is essential, because people matter. But integrity of heart involves much more than that. It has to do with your character, who you are as a person in your inner recesses.

“In order to be a leader, a man must have followers,” wrote Dwight D. Eisenhower (Bits & Pieces, September 15, 1994, 4.). “And to have followers, a man must have their confidence. Hence the supreme quality of a leader is unquestionably integrity.”

At the height of the Dallas Cowboys’ heyday when “America’s team” was dominating the National Football League, the mere shadow of Coach Tom Landry wearing his fedora would raise both awe and admiration in all those around. I had the privilege of serving as the team chaplain in those days. I got to know many of the players, sometimes working out with them, catching passes, and just hanging around.

The Tom Landry years in Dallas Cowboy football history were some of the most successful years any NFL team enjoyed. And a lot of that was due to the stately, disciplined integrity and confidence of Landry himself. Landry is frequently remembered as saying, “Leadership is a matter of having people look at you and gain confidence.” In essence, his confidence and assuredness in his own integrity, his own discipline, and his own devotion transferred to those beneath him, raising the collective integrity and confidence of everyone.

David shepherded Israel with integrity of heart, and he also had skill of hand. An excellent leader must have both. If you have heart without skill, you may love people and be a wonderful person yourself, but nothing will get done. Or if it gets done, it gets done poorly.

As leaders, we are not called to choose between the integrity of heart and skill of hand. We must balance the two in order to create an atmosphere for a church ministry that does what it does well, yet all for the glory of God and the betterment of His children in His kingdom. If you are a leader in your church, you need both heart and hand if you are to lead well.

The famed US Army General H. Norman Schwarzkopf led the assault on Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War. General Schwarzkopf expressed his thoughts on excellent leadership in a speech he gave to the cadets at West Point in 1991. The general’s comments reflect what was spoken of King David in the Psalms:

I’ve met a lot of leaders in the Army who were very competent, but they didn’t have character. And for every job they did well, they sought reward in the form of promotions, in the form of awards and decorations, in the form of getting ahead at the expense of someone else, in the form of another piece of paper that awarded them another degree, a sure road to the top. You see, these were competent people, but they lacked character.

I’ve also met a lot of leaders who had superb character but who lacked competence. They weren’t willing to pay the price of leadership, to go the extra mile because that’s what it took to be a great leader. And that’s sort of what it’s all about. To lead in the 21st century—to take soldiers, sailors, airmen into battle—you will be required to have both character and competence.

Football fans witnessed an example of excellent leadership during the 2012–13 NFL season. The Seattle Seahawks had a largely unheralded rookie quarterback named Russell Wilson. In fact, he had not been drafted by the Seahawks as their starting quarterback that year. Yet due to his dedication and unparalleled leadership skills, Wilson quickly earned the starting job and led the Seahawks from a losing record the year before to the third best season record in franchise history, as well as a playoff berth.

Wilson is under six feet tall, which is short for a quarterback by NFL standards. But he had this to say about his success as a leader just before his first playoff game: “My height doesn’t define my skill set. It’s all about the heart that you have, the leadership that you have, and your ability to play great in the clutch.” It’s about the heart that you have…and your ability to play great. That is what makes a successful leader.

Wilson went on to win his first playoff game against the heavily favored Washington Redskins. Then he nearly beat the heavily favored Atlanta Falcons the following week. Yet even in the Seahawks’ loss, Wilson threw for 385 yards, shattering a 75-year-old record for the most passing yards by a rookie in a playoff game and securing his name in NFL history.

Leaders in sports, the military, and business who rise beyond good into great uniquely embody this combination of integrity of heart and skill of hand. Spiritual leaders in the church, God’s visible manifestation of His kingdom on earth, ought to be no different.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP

Just as in all of life, leadership in the church is a given. You may have good leaders or bad leaders, but having no leaders is not an option. For the church to function at all, someone has to lead and someone else has to follow that leadership. So we need to find out what God wants the church’s leaders to do, because leadership is God’s means of building His kingdom in history.

Spiritual leadership demands the responsibility of advancing God’s kingdom agenda by helping to facilitate the biblical goals of Christian maturity and ministry effectiveness in the lives of those who are under one’s charge (see Ephesians 4:11-12). Simply put, a leader is someone who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way (see Ezra 7:10).

Spiritual leadership in the church is important for a number of reasons. First, it is important theologically because God is a God of order who works in history representatively (see Exodus 18:13–27; 1 Corinthians 11:3).

Second, spiritual leadership is important ecclesiologically because the church is an institution that must be managed in an orderly fashion by qualified leaders (see 1 Timothy 3:1–13; Titus 1:5–9).

Third, spiritual leadership is important anthropologically because people need and naturally look to other people for direction (see Judges 17:6; Numbers 13–14).

Fourth, spiritual leadership in the church is important spiritually because people need help in seeing and understanding how to live their lives from a divine framework rather than from a human perspective (see James 3).

Fifth, spiritual leadership in the church is important culturally because the progress or regression of society is directly tied to its representational form of government and divine sanctions operating in history (see 2 Chronicles 15:3–6).

THE GOAL OF SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP

The goal of spiritual leadership is discipleship, which we have seen is the developmental process of the local church which progressively brings Christians from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity, so that they are then able to repeat the process with someone else (see Matthew 28:19–20). Discipleship does not occur at one point in time, but rather over time. Church leaders are able to maximize the discipleship within the local church by increasing the opportunities for spiritual growth to occur (see 1 Corinthians 2:15, 3:1–2; Hebrews 5:12).

The goal of discipleship in the corporate body of local believers is not complete until the disciple becomes a disciple-maker, thus assuring the multiplication of God’s people and the expansion of His kingdom program. We see this as Paul wrote to Timothy: “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2, emphasis added).

The Greek word translated “men” in this passage is actually anthropos, which refers to “a human being, whether male or female” (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Greek entry 444). God expects discipleship to be done by both men and women for both men and women. The word “entrust” in verse 2 means “to put something on deposit,” as in a bank. This is the idea in 2 Timothy 1:14: “Guard, through the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, the treasure which has been entrusted to you.”

A church will only be as strong as its leaders, because God will not skip over them and move to the congregation. Yes, God may bless and develop the individual believers in a church even if the leaders are not all they are supposed to be. But a situation like that is comparable to a person who is in a miserable marriage. God can give that person grace, but it’s still going to be a miserable environment because His appointed leader isn’t leading well.

That’s why the church is not just a place to become inspired by a sermon. It’s a place where God’s leaders oversee the process of discipleship so that His Word and His blessings may flow out to the congregation at large and disseminate from them out into the community and ultimately into the world.

THE ROLE OF SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP

The role of spiritual leadership is to oversee the effective ministry organization (see 1 Timothy 3:15; Titus 1:5) and biblical proclamation (see 1 Timothy 4:13; 2 Timothy 4:2; Titus 2:1) of the local church for the advancement of God’s kingdom agenda.

Spiritual leaders are critical because they are God’s representatives, and throughout history God has always worked through the principle of representation. This principle means that the person who has been placed over you can act for you. Within that “proxy” there can be great joy or great disaster, depending on the character and skill of your representative.

We saw this principle at work with the first Adam bringing sin into the world and the second Adam, Jesus Christ, bringing redemption through the cross. We can also see this principle at work in Genesis 18:16–33, where Abraham interceded for Sodom and Gomorrah. God told Abraham that if he could find ten people who were God’s representatives in that wicked culture, He would change His mind about destroying those wicked cities.

Let me show you how this principle of representation works today in the church. Paul wrote these words to Timothy, his spiritual son and disciple who was pastoring in Ephesus:

Until I come, give attention to the public reading of Scripture, to exhortation and teaching. Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you…. Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them, so that your progress will be evident to all. Pay close attention to yourself and to your teaching; persevere in these things, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you. (1 Timothy 4:13–16)

Paul told Timothy that his ministry would determine not only his own spiritual fate, but the fate of those in his congregation. In other words, Paul was speaking representatively. Timothy was God’s representative leader to the saints at Ephesus.

Paul used the word “salvation” in verse 16 but not in the narrow sense of being born again. That was already true for Timothy and the believers at Ephesus. Paul was using this word in its broader sense of deliverance. Essentially, Paul told Timothy, “If you want to deliver yourself and your people and ensure God’s blessing on the church, you must make sure you are functioning properly as God’s representatives through whom His blessings will flow.”

The representative nature of God’s work in history is a profound principle. It has enormous implications at every level of life, from our personal lives to our families and on to the church and the culture at large. As God’s representatives, what we do as church leaders doesn’t just impact us or the people to whom we minister; it has an impact on future generations and on the future of this nation and the world.

THE SHEPHERDING OF SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP

In 1 Peter 5, the apostle Peter wrote: “I exhort the elders among you, as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ, and a partaker also of the glory that is to be revealed, shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight” (vv. 1–2a).

The Word of God calls a church congregation a flock, and the leaders are to be its shepherds. Now, you probably know that calling someone a sheep is not a compliment. Sheep are easily led astray. In fact, if one sheep starts walking around in circles, another sheep will come follow it and start walking around in circles too. Another trait of sheep is their vulnerability. They are an easy target for a predator. Once you become a member of God’s flock, you become a target for the enemy’s attack.

Before you came to Christ you belonged in Satan’s realm, so he didn’t have to target you. He owned you. But when you came to Christ, you became Satan’s target. Now he wants to keep you distracted from pursuing the advancement of God’s kingdom on earth. That’s why Paul told the elders at Miletus: “Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock…. I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock” (Acts 20:28–29).

Peter told church leaders to shepherd God’s flock because they might not know when the wolves were out there. The elders didn’t know that the particular circumstance or situation had been designed for their destruction. So Peter reminded them that as shepherds they needed to watch for wolves, who, as Jesus said, come “in sheep’s clothing” (Matthew 7:15).

Peter went on to tell leaders to shepherd the flock of God “not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock” (vv. 2b–3). True leaders serve with an eagerness and commitment that comes from knowing they are doing God’s will, and from a heart that truly cares for the well-being of those who are being served. True leaders are humble and others-centered.

Leaders exist to protect and preserve the sheep, not lead them astray. God calls leaders to shepherd His flock because sheep are prone to wander and are vulnerable to attack. Leaders also serve as role models, illustrating in their lives what they teach so that the flock can follow not only their words but also their actions.

AN EXAMPLE OF SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP

One of the realities of life is that whenever you bring two or more people together, conflict is inevitable. Marriage is a great example of the inevitability of conflict. When you were living by yourself, you had your own set of issues. But when you got married your issues doubled, because you brought that other person into your life along with a whole set of challenges you didn’t even know existed. And when the children started coming, the conflicts multiplied. Even in a family founded on love, conflict is inevitable.

An Overworked Leader

Imagine what it was like for Moses when he led more than two million Israelites out of Egypt into the wilderness on their way to Canaan. We get a feel for the situation in Exodus 18, where Moses was visited by his father-in-law, Jethro. Watching Moses trying to deal with the people all by himself, Jethro made some wise suggestions that are principles we can apply to leaders in the church today:

It came about the next day that Moses sat to judge the people, and the people stood about Moses from the morning until the evening. Now when Moses’ father-in-law saw all that he was doing for the people, he said, “What is this thing that you are doing for the people? Why do you alone sit as judge and all the people stand about you from morning until evening?” Moses said to his father-in-law, “Because the people come to me to inquire of God. When they have a dispute, it comes to me, and I judge between a man and his neighbor and make known the statutes of God and His laws.” (vv. 13–16)

An Impossible Assignment

Moses was getting up every morning at dawn and working till dark, trying to render decisions for a long line of people who came to him with their problems, disputes, and personal struggles. Sounds a lot like the job of a pastor in many ways.

The people crowded around Moses all day long because they wanted him to decide their conflicts. In the process of doing this, Moses developed a bit of a “theo-ego”; that is, a God complex. He felt as if he had to solve all the people’s problems himself because, after all, they were coming to him. So Moses shouldered the burden of responsibility alone.

As I read this, I began to wonder how Moses got into this mess. I wondered why he didn’t just tell the people, “I can’t solve all your problems.” So I looked back through Exodus, and I think I know why Moses felt like he had to make this impossible effort to settle disputes for the whole nation. I saw a pattern emerging.

For example, in Exodus 14 we read the thrilling story of Israel’s deliverance at the Red Sea. The people were trapped with their backs to the sea, and Pharaoh and his Egyptian army were coming after them. So the Israelites got scared and cried out to Moses, “Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you dealt with us in this way, bringing us out of Egypt?” (Exodus 14:11). The people were saying to Moses, “If it weren’t for you and your leadership, we wouldn’t be in this mess. You’re going to be the death of us out here.”

That’s quite an accusation against Moses. But God answered it by having Moses stretch out his staff over the Red Sea and part it so the people could pass over safely. And as you probably know, the Egyptians were drowned trying to follow them.

What a great deliverance. So what happened? When Israel saw how God worked this miracle through Moses, they “believed in the LORD and in His servant Moses” (Exodus 14:31). Now the people were saying, “Moses, you are the man. You’re the one. You are bad, Moses. You are God’s man. You lead us because you have God’s ear, and we are going to follow you.” Moses, in turn, did what any kingdom man would do—he accepted his responsibility.

So things started turning around for Moses, but not for long. Just three days later (see Exodus 15:22), the people were thirsty. When they came to Marah and found they could not drink the water, they began grumbling at Moses again. Like a small child complaining despite having been taken care of in the past, the people asked Moses, “What shall we drink?” (v. 24).

So Moses prayed, and God gave him the solution to the problem (see v. 25). But the problems weren’t over for Moses, because after they got the water, the people got hungry and started complaining again (see Exodus 16:2). This time they brought the “assistant pastor” into it, tossing their complaints against Aaron as well. You know it’s bad when people complain against the assistant pastor. They said: “Would that we had died by the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger” (v. 3).

Here they were, accusing Moses of attempted murder again. These folks were sitting around talking about, “Boy, that was some good home cooking we had back there in Egypt. Sure do miss that fried chicken and mama’s homemade bread.” So Moses was on the hot seat again, with the people accusing him of not caring about them. So God provided another miraculous provision with quail and manna, cornflakes from heaven (see Exodus 16:13–21). The people had all they could want to eat.

Look at one more incident. In Exodus 17, the people were pointing fingers at Moses again, because they were thirsty again. Only this time, they accused him of something terrible: “Why, now, have you brought us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” (v. 3).

An Impossible Situation

So here’s the picture. The people of Israel had been charging Moses with not caring about them since they left Egypt. Yet each time, Moses held up three fingers and took care of the situation. Yet a pattern had set in through each experience, which is that Moses began to forget that the only reason he was able to do what he did was because of God. He started to look at himself as the man in charge, and as a result, bore the burden of responsibility on his shoulders rather than recognizing that God has a million ways to hit a bull’s eye, even with a crooked stick. In God’s kingdom, leadership is essential, but leaders are not irreplaceable. God often uses numbers of people to accomplish His goals.

Having forgotten that truth, Moses began wearing himself out trying to act as judge and jury for everyone, because he was trying to show the people that he cared and that their choice to follow him was the right one. That brings us back to Exodus 18 and Moses’ explanation to Jethro for the scene Jethro was witnessing as the people flocked to Moses with their problems.

Leaders are God’s representatives to His people to deal with the conflicts that will inevitably arise in the body of Christ. But the way Moses was trying to deal with Israel’s problems is not the standard God has laid out for the church. Moses was trying to do it all himself, and his primary ministry of representation was suffering as a result. What was Moses’ primary ministry, and how did he solve his leadership problem? The answers are the subject of my final two points. As we deal with them, we will answer the question of how God wants His leaders to handle issues that arise in the body of Christ.

LEADERS COMMUNICATE DIVINE TRUTH

Moses’ father-in-law had some sound advice for him: “The thing that you are doing is not good. You will surely wear out, both yourself and these people who are with you, for the task is too heavy for you; you cannot do it alone” (vv. 17–18). The Hebrew words for “wear out” mean “to fade away.” Moses was going to put himself in the grave trying to deal with all these problems, and the people were going to suffer too. Jethro was saying, “Moses, people who are in conflict and crisis can’t wait a month or two for your schedule to open up.”

Wearing Out Our Leaders

Unfortunately, this is the case with too many pastors today. Some poor pastor wears himself out trying to do everything and see everybody, and then the people stand at his funeral and say, “Oh, wasn’t he a good pastor? He was down there at the church every day from dawn to dusk serving us. His reward will surely be great.”

That’s not the way it is supposed to be. Moses was worn out dealing with all the problems, but even more importantly, he didn’t have time to accomplish his primary ministry, which was to go before God, get His Word, and then teach it to the people. So Jethro told Moses:

Now listen to me: I will give you counsel, and God be with you. You be the people’s representative before God, and you bring the disputes to God, then teach them the statutes and the laws, and make known to them the way in which they are to walk and the work they are to do. (Exodus 18:19–20)

Jethro’s advice to Moses was godly counsel. He told Moses to bring the people’s disputes before God, get God’s answers for those problems, and then communicate God’s Word to the people in such a way that they would know how to apply His truth to their lives. If this process sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Today we call it expository preaching, which is expounding the Word of God in such a way that His people understand and know how to apply it.

Preach the Word

The difference today is that because we have the completed revelation of God, we already have His mind on things like anger, divorce, marital discord, substance abuse, materialism, jealousy, gossip, and other problems that are tearing people’s lives apart. So God’s leaders, particularly the pastor-teacher, are charged with preaching the Word faithfully. That’s what Paul told Timothy: “I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus … preach the word” (2 Timothy 4:1–2, emphasis added).

We saw at the beginning of this chapter that by carrying out his ministry, Timothy would “save” or deliver both himself and the people in the church at Ephesus. This was so important that Paul urged Timothy, “Take pains with these things; be absorbed in them” (1 Timothy 4:15).

The tragedy today is that we have too many Christians who are being defeated by, not delivered through, life’s problems. The reason is that they do not know the Word or how to apply it, or they simply refuse to apply what they know. The pastor cannot make people obey the truth. But he can ensure, to the fullest extent of his ability as an expositor, that they understand the Word and how it should work in their lives.

Jethro was telling Moses, “If you really want to help your people, don’t just give them your opinion or your ideas. Give them the truth of God. If you keep doing what you are doing, you won’t have enough energy left to preach the Word of God.” This has to be number one on a pastor’s kingdom agenda. The people in Dallas don’t come to our church to hear my opinions or viewpoints. I have abrogated my role if I leave off the exposition of the unequivocal, authoritative, inerrant Word of God.

It is the Word that will help God’s people deal with their issues. It is the Word that will give them the power to solve conflicts and overcome tough situations. It is the Word that will give them the hope to hang in there when they want to give up.

Therefore, the goal of the teaching pastor should be to preach the Bible, because the Bible alone is total truth (see John 17:17). It is the standard. Our world is in such a tragic mess today because we have lost sight of the standard. Everyone has his or her opinion of what to do, but what people need is the standard of God’s Word.

This isn’t new. There is an entire book of the Bible that describes an era like this. The book of Judges describes a time of chaos and evil. Why did this happen? Because “in those days … everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25). There was no standard from God operating in society. The church’s leaders must communicate divine truth with clarity.

LEADERS OVERSEE THE APPLICATION OF TRUTH

My final point about the kingdom agenda of church leaders comes from the final portion of Jethro’s advice to Moses:

Furthermore, you shall select out of all the people able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain; and you shall place these over them as leaders of thousands, of hundreds, of fifties and of tens. Let them judge the people at all times; and let it be that every major dispute they will bring to you, but every minor dispute they themselves will judge. So it will be easier for you, and they will bear the burden with you. If you do this thing and God so commands you, then you will be able to endure, and all these people also will go to their place in peace. (Exodus 18:21–23)

This is the Old Testament equivalent of Paul’s instruction to Timothy to appoint elders and deacons in the church (see 1 Timothy 3:1–16; Titus 1:5).

The Necessity of Qualified Leaders

The qualifications were much the same in each case. Leaders had to be faithful people who feared God and held to His truth, who were “able,” or skilled, and who operated honestly and ethically in the marketplace.

The task of these leaders was to oversee and carry out the application of God’s truth in the people’s lives. Moses was to get involved if a major conflict or issue came up that needed his attention. But he was to give his primary energy to knowing and teaching the Word, and the leaders with him were to carry it out in the day-to-day lives of the congregation.

These leaders were to be skilled and committed people. Moses needed them during his time of leadership—and the crying need of the church today is still for skillful, knowledgeable, and committed leaders. Let me show you a wonderful New Testament example of what we have been talking about in this chapter.

In Acts 6, the young church in Jerusalem was having a conflict: “While the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews, because their widows were being overlooked in the daily serving of food” (v. 1). The early church had a “Meals on Wheels” feeding program to care for widows in the church. But the Hellenistic, or Greek-speaking, Jewish believers felt that they were the victims of class prejudice on the part of the Jewish believers who still spoke Aramaic, a dialect of Hebrew.

So the twelve apostles called a congregational meeting and told the church: “It is not desirable for us to neglect the word of God in order to serve tables. Therefore, brethren, select from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we may put in charge of this task. But we will devote ourselves to prayer, and to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:2–4).

This is the same basic situation Moses faced, and the apostles’ advice was the same advice Jethro gave to Moses. “Moses, you spend your time before God in prayer and in the Word; appoint leaders who can handle the everyday matters.” That’s what the Jerusalem church did. They appointed seven leaders, and the apostles laid their hands on them and commissioned them for their task (Acts 6:6). The apostles stuck to preaching the Word, the dispute got settled, and the church continued to explode with growth.

The Results of Godly Leadership

Do you see what happens when the church has the right leadership? Conflicts are quickly resolved, unity is maintained, and its impact increases tremendously because its people are carrying out God’s kingdom agenda for the church. But it all begins with the leaders and flows through them to the people. If the congregation is to be unified and operate as a team, the leaders must model that unity and oneness of purpose among themselves.

This is why churches that are serious about executing God’s kingdom agenda must establish church courts, which are duly constituted to hand down binding arbitration to resolve conflicts among the members. Paul chastises the church that does not operate church courts (see 1 Corinthians 6:1–8).

At our church in Dallas, we operate church courts every week to address conflicts, everything from business to marital issues. For example, a couple in our church is advised to not get a divorce in civil court unless it is sanctioned in church court based on biblical grounds.

Until the church and its leadership begin to take seriously its role of applying God’s Word to conflicts among the members, the church will continue to experience the internal conflict and anemic cultural impact the church is now suffering. The church must have godly leaders—capable, godly men and women who will accept responsibility and represent Jesus Christ in His church and in the larger culture with both integrity of heart and skill of hand.

THE CATEGORIES OF CHURCH LEADERSHIP

Scripture identifies three distinct leadership roles for the church: pastor, elder, and deacon.

The Office of Pastor

The pastor, or pastor-teacher as described by Paul in Ephesians 4:11, is the church’s spiritual leader. In a multiple staff church, the senior pastor is charged with the primary responsibility for the church’s spiritual health and direction. I would summarize the pastor’s role as proclaiming the Word and overseeing the work, which includes developing leaders who are qualified to serve as elders and deacons.

Make no mistake about it, no matter how big a church’s staff may be, there is always a primary leader who has been invested by God with authority and responsibility, and who is accountable to the body of elders (see 1 Timothy 5:17). The church’s leadership does not rest in committees. There has to be a place where final decisions are made, and there has to be a leader who leads the way in formulating and implementing the church’s vision. God always transfers leadership to a person, whether it be from Moses to Joshua, Elijah to Elisha, or Paul to Timothy. God places His vision in the hands of a person.

The Office of Elder

The second New Testament classification of leaders is the elders—which are always talked about in the plural, by the way. These are the spiritually qualified men who form the governing body of the church and in whose hands the final policy decisions rest. (The pastor is an elder also, for Paul talked about elders “who work hard at preaching and teaching” [1 Timothy 5:17].)

The Bible clearly teaches congregational involvement, but not congregational government in which the church body at large has the final authority. Why is this? Because you don’t want to have carnal people voting on the will of God. There is this assumption in the church that if we put a matter before the people, they will have the spiritual insight and biblical knowledge to make a right decision. This may be the case with some of the people, but God’s will has never been subject to majority vote.

Do you know why the children of Israel did not enter the Promised Land when they should have? Because they took a vote and the majority prevailed. Ten spies said they couldn’t conquer the land, and two spies said they could. The congregation sided with the ten, and the nation turned back into the desert. This is also an excellent example of how bad leadership can negatively affect the outcome and decisions of those they lead.

The Bible also teaches that elders must be men. “If any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do” (1 Timothy 3:1). The word for “man” is the gender specific word for males. The principle of male leadership in the church is established earlier in 1 Timothy: “I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man” (2:12). Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 14:34–35 that women are to be silent in church doesn’t mean they can’t speak. The issue there is authority.

Let me add that I am not talking about spiritual gifts here, but the office of elder. Women in the church are very gifted, even more so than men in many cases. And God allows women to use their gifts in the church. In fact, I believe women can do anything in church except be an elder or a pastor. But final leadership in the church is restricted to men.

The clear pattern in Scripture is a plurality of elders in each church. For example, Acts 14:23 says that Paul and his missionary team appointed “elders [plural] for them in every church [singular].” James tells us that if anyone is sick, he should “call for the elders of the church” (James 5:14), the same pattern as in Acts. Paul left Titus in Crete to “appoint elders in every city” (Titus 1:5). Timothy’s spiritual gift was bestowed by “the presbytery,” or the governing board of the church at Ephesus (1 Timothy 4:14).

The Office of Deacon

The Greek word for deacon means “servant.” This office is interesting, because nowhere in Scripture do we find a deacon board. There is the presbytery, or elder board, but no corresponding formal organization of deacons. This is because the deacons only have one basic job, which is to execute the church policies and ministries that have been established by the elders and the pastor.

But deacons are to do more than serve communion and count the offerings, so they must be spiritually mature and responsible men and women. Yes, Scripture states that women can be deacons because of 1 Timothy 3:11, which says, “Women must likewise be dignified, not malicious gossips, but temperate, faithful in all things.” In the context Paul is talking about women who serve as deacons, since he mentions deacons’ wives in verse 12.

Paul used the word “women” here because there is no Greek word for “deaconess.” These women are clearly distinguished from deacons’ wives. He was not saying that only men can be deacons, but that those men who are selected be faithful to their wives. If verse 11 is only talking about deacons’ wives, we have a problem because that means Paul skipped over the qualifications for elders’ wives. This would have made deacons’ wives more important and under closer scrutiny than the wives of elders. So it is clear to me that Paul was talking about deaconesses, or women who function on an equal level with male deacons. Paul called Phoebe “a servant,” the same word for deacon, in Romans 16:1.

The job of deacons is to fan out among the flock to make sure that the ministry gets done. They are the church’s foot soldiers. Deacons are accountable to the elders, but the biblical pattern indicates that deacons do not come together as a separate governing board.

WOMEN IN LEADERSHIP

A lot of discussion occurs around the subject of women in leadership in the church. Much of this discussion comes from this controversial passage:

A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. (1 Timothy 2:11–14)

The first thing I want to point out is that Christianity liberated women. In the Roman world, women were often viewed as little more than objects for men to use. They had very little social status, recognition, or significance. Then Christianity came and taught that in Jesus Christ, men and women were of equal value, that there was no male or female in Him (see Galatians 3:28). In His own ministry, Jesus treated women with dignity and honor. He reached out to them and afforded them equal spiritual standing with men. They were no longer second-class citizens.

In the words of 1 Peter 3:7, a wife was now a “fellow heir of the grace of life” with her husband. She was his partner, his spiritual equal before God.

Created to Be a Partner

We know from Scripture that in the beginning it was the same way. God made Eve to be a partner to Adam, and His commission to have dominion over the earth was given to the two of them. The problem comes when people see the partnership but miss the principle of hierarchy that was also a part of creation.

Adam and Eve were a team, but the team had a leader. Each one had a specific role to play in order for the team to be most productive in advancing God’s kingdom purpose for their creation and relationship. Adam was not to act as if Eve did not exist, and neither was he to dominate her. He was to be her servant-leader.

The heart of what Paul said in 1 Timothy 2:11–14 is this: When the church comes together for corporate worship, the ministry of teaching is to be in the hands of the men. This illustrates and demonstrates God’s hierarchy (see 1 Corinthians 11:3), just as Adam was to receive the truth of God and teach it to Eve, which he did when he taught her what God had instructed him concerning the forbidden fruit.

So even though women have equal spiritual value to men in the kingdom, there is a hierarchy, or chain of command, that God has established. In the corporate worship of the church, women are to take a position of submission. The male leadership is to receive the truth of God and proclaim it to the flock.

Paul was not being chauvinistic or anti-woman here. He was not denouncing women or denying their gifts. He was rather addressing the issue of positional hierarchy that, unlike gifts, involves gender distinctions. He was saying that in the context of the church’s corporate worship, a woman is not permitted to exercise final authority over a man. That is why Paul only references men when speaking about the office of elder (see 1 Timothy 3:1–7) but includes women when he broadens his discussion to the office of deacon (see vv. 8–13), since teaching is not a part of a deacon’s qualifications, nor is deacon the final authoritative office of the church.

This means, then, that a woman should not be the pastor, bishop, or elder of a church. It allows her to hold other leadership roles as approved by the male leadership of the church. It also allows her to teach classes and lead committees under the authority of male pastors and elders, since these entities are not part of the total gathered church body and in these roles she does not have final authority. We know this prohibition is limited to the church’s corporate worship, because this is the only context where limitations and prohibitions are prescribed.

It’s not that a woman may not have the gift of proclamation or teaching. Spiritual gifts are not gender specific, but certain ecclesiastical offices are. It’s that a woman cannot occupy the office of elder, bishop, or pastor in the church. Just as she is not authorized to be the head of the home if she is married, since that office is reserved for her husband, her gifts, talents and skills should be highly valued and utilized.

The simplest way I can put it is to say that a woman can do anything in the church but be in a position of final authority. She is to “remain quiet” in the sense of not exercising undelegated authority over men. This also means that women can be formally endorsed and recognized for ministry when such recognition does not include the right to function in the position of final authority in the church.

An Important Exception

First Timothy is the normative prescription for a woman’s conduct in the local church. But there is one exception to this, which Paul explained in 1 Corinthians 11:3–10.

We have already discussed verse 3 pretty thoroughly. It describes the hierarchy in God’s kingdom, which extends all the way to the Godhead itself. But if Jesus is equal to God the Father in His divine essence, how can He be under the Father’s authority? Because the purpose of a hierarchy is to carry out a program, not define an essence.

Therefore, in the carrying out of God’s kingdom agenda in history, a woman is under the leadership of a man. That’s why, in 1 Corinthians 11:4–5, Paul said: “Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head. But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head, for she is one and the same as the woman whose head is shaved.”

The key to this passage is the term “head,” which is used here to mean a person’s legitimate authority. Paul is saying it is an accepted custom that if a man were to wear a head covering in church, he would dishonor his head, who is Christ (see v. 3). It’s an issue of honor. Why do we take off our hats in the presence of a dignitary or when the national anthem is sung? It’s a sign of respect. A man’s uncovered head is a symbol of Christ’s headship over him.

Paul said a woman who prayed or prophesied in church without a head covering was as disgraceful as a woman who had all her hair cut off, which would be a sign of rebellion against God’s prescribed order. A woman’s head covering is a symbol that she recognizes she is under authority when she prays or prophesies. This covering could be a veil (see 1 Corinthians 11:5–6), or her hair length which distinguished her from a man (see v. 15), as long as it was accompanied by submission to the authority that she was under. This concept is taken from the Old Testament. When a woman was captured by God’s people during war, her head would be shaved and then regrown under her new male authority (see Deuteronomy 21:10–14).

I said this was an exception to 1 Timothy 2, where women are instructed to be silent in church in terms of ministry of the Word before the whole body. Men are normally to do the public praying and prophesying, or expounding the Word. But there is one set of circumstances under which a woman can address the gathered church. It can happen when she has permission from her head (her husband) and from the male leaders of the church (final authority). A woman may use her gifts in addressing the entire assembly, yet visibly remaining under the church’s male authority.

Paul had to address this issue because the Corinthian church had a first-century feminist movement on its hands. It had a group of women who wanted to throw out this hierarchy, and they were causing disruption in church—so much so that Paul told all the women in the church to keep silent and if they had questions to ask their husbands at home (see 1 Corinthians 14:34–35). Some women were bringing the rules from the street into the church, but those rules don’t work in God’s kingdom.

The Angels and Authority

Paul further developed the reason for a woman’s head covering in 1 Corinthians 11:7–9, which restates the woman’s position of submission to the man. Let me say again that this is not an issue of essence or spiritual worth but of function. When it comes to accomplishing God’s kingdom agenda in the gathered church, a woman is under the primary functional authority of the male leadership (the pastor, bishop, and elders).

Paul then took the argument to another level in verse 10: “Therefore the woman ought to have a symbol of authority on her head, because of the angels.” We may wonder what in the world angels have to do with a woman and her head covering or lack of it.

Angels have everything to do with it, because the angels also function under authority. Remember what happened when Lucifer, the chief angel, no longer wanted to function under God’s authority? He got kicked out of heaven. In the prophet Isaiah’s great vision in Isaiah 6, what were the seraphim doing? They were using two of their wings to cover their faces and two to cover their feet in God’s presence. In other words, angels go into God’s presence covered, as a symbol of their humility and submission before Him.

So why did Paul bring this up in 1 Corinthians 11? Because in this case, the response of heaven is determined by the activity on earth. If a woman is not under proper authority on earth, she cannot expect heaven’s assistance. So when a woman calls on God for help, before God sends an angel to assist her, He is going to determine whether she is operating under the authority He established. If not, God is not going to grant the angels permission to assist her in her time of need. The same holds true for a man, by the way. God works by a chain of authority, and when a man is not under authority before God, he cannot expect God to answer his prayers (see 1 Peter 3:7).

A woman may say, “That’s all right. I don’t need angels; I just need Jesus.” Well, I need to explain something. When Jesus called Nathanael to be His disciple, He said to him: “You will see the heavens opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” (John 1:51). Jesus mediates solutions to earth’s problems through the angels. So if a woman wants to be touched by an angel, she has to be under authority. But if she is in rebellion against God’s established chain of authority, she may as well get up off her knees. God is not listening.

If it seems that Paul was taking too much away from women, 1 Corinthians 11:11–12 puts this issue into perspective. “However, in the Lord, neither is woman independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as the woman originates from the man, so also the man has his birth through the woman; and all things originate from God.”

This is a reminder of the spiritual equality we talked about earlier. Neither men nor women are free to go off and act independently of their authority. There is a chain of authority, but men and women are still of equal value before God, and they need each other.

What about the argument that all of this hierarchy and head covering and authority stuff is just cultural, unique to Paul’s day and his situation? Some say these principles are no longer valid because Paul’s instructions were written in the days of the New Testament. Although the method of covering, whether the custom of a veil or the length of her hair, was not to be made a point of conflict (see v. 16), the principle of submission to legitimate authority was non-negotiable.

We know this because Paul took this issue back a lot farther than his day—all the way back to creation (see 1 Timothy 2:13–14), staking his argument on the order of creation (see 1 Corinthians 11:8–9) and the fact that Eve was the one deceived by Satan. When there is a spiritual principle attached to a biblical command, that command transcends culture and time.

Why was Satan able to deceive Eve? Because she abandoned her role. Paul was not saying that women are less intelligent or more emotional than men. He was saying that Eve acted independently of her head. And when she did that, she influenced Adam’s decision, which plunged the world into sin because hell’s angels took over. When you abandon biblical authority, hell always seeks to take over.

So the question for a woman is, whose angels do you want working in your life and in the church? Either God is going to send His angels to minister to you when you are under the kingdom authority He ordained, or Satan and his “angels” (demons) will be unleashed when you rebel against your authorized position.

A kingdom woman is to find her position in God’s hierarchy within the church. She is to receive instruction, unless the occasion arises in which she is designated to address the church, or lead the congregation in prayer or the proclamation of the Word, with the permission of its male leaders and under their authority in a visible way.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

THE CHURCH’S OUTREACH

Because our churches have often been more focused on building buildings and creating programs than about advancing the kingdom by leveraging the talents and gifts of those within it, many have come to view the church as a task to be done rather than a community to be in. Yet, as we have seen, the church was established as the mechanism for spreading the gospel and impacting the world for good. It is to be a community of believers whose impact on the culture is greater as a whole than it ever would be individually.

In this chapter I want to deal with the broader issue of the goal the church should aim for in preparing Christians to live as God’s representatives in our world. Whenever the body of Christ functions as God’s representatives, they do so cross-culturally because they are part of another kingdom living under another King. Our identification with Christ as our King automatically brings us into conflict with the accepted values of our culture. The reality of this conflict has become increasingly clear as we have watched the values of our society corrode in front of us.

Our society is deteriorating spiritually, ethically, and morally. We are living in a nation that has thrown the so-called Protestant work ethic out the window—along with the theology that sustained it. People no longer feel obligated to buy into a Christian framework of thinking. As Christians, therefore, we must ask ourselves whether we are contributing to the destruction of America or bringing the righteousness of Christ to bear on society.

This is a deteriorating culture, whether we’re talking nationally or locally. The local papers show us in miniature what is happening nationally. People are doing and saying things, and espousing ungodly causes, that shock us when we stop to think about them.

The problem is compounded when we realize that more is being done in the name of Christ today than ever before. There are more outreach programs and Christian broadcasts, resources, and other forms of ministry than ever, yet America is not getting turned around spiritually. There are reasons for that. Namely, our churches have taken on the personality and values of our culture rather than remaining loyal to the King and the kingdom which we represent.

THE SINKING SHIP SYNDROME

Let me illustrate where I’m going by likening our secular culture to a ship. The inhabitants of this ship are the people of America, including Christians in churches like you and me. We know from the Bible that this ship is going down someday. In 2 Timothy 3:1–5, Paul says this world will get worse, not better. This cosmos is going to come under God’s judgment and be done away with. But in the meantime, God has put us here, and has called us to live for Him to display His love and character. So how should we relate to the other people on this ship called culture? Most churches and believers are divided into two primary groups.

The Isolationists

The first group of churches are those I call the isolationists. They believe the ship of state is going down. People in these churches have read their Bibles. They have their theology straight. So they have decided not to waste time doing anything about this doomed vessel. Instead, they want to lower the lifeboat, get into it, and sail off singing the songs of Zion and talking to each other about the impending doom the ship faces.

The isolationists won’t have anything to do with the ship. They won’t interact with its people, they won’t sleep in its cabins, they won’t swim in its pool, and they won’t play shuffle-board on its deck. They simply leave the ship because they know it’s going down.

This group of churches represents one major segment of evangelicalism today. These believers ignore the realities of living in a secular world due to a misguided and misapplied understanding of dispensational theology. Apart from a few select issues they have chosen to identify with, they ignore the glaring, flagrant unrighteousness in areas such as social oppression, racial disparity, and economic injustice or political engagement.

The isolationists meet regularly and smugly in their churches, insisting upon correct doctrine but having little or no contact with the ungodliness of this age. Their message is to repent and believe. But because isolationists have so little involvement with the secular culture, very few sinners hear their message. Even the movies, music, or crusades that they make in order to impact the secular culture are so riddled with isolationist verbiage, symbolism, and themes that when they do finally get around to presenting God’s agenda and the gospel, their audience is already so largely made up of believers that it’s been said that the ones who raise their hands to get saved are doing so for the umpteenth time.

The Conformists

But there’s a second group of churches who like the ship. I call them the conformists. They enjoy the swimming pool, the plush cabins, and the excellent cuisine. They get along with all of the crew members and enjoy the benefits of the ship to such an extent that they cannot be distinguished from anyone else on board that sinking vessel. They may not even realize the ship is going down, and if they do realize it, they keep the bad news to themselves or try to live in a state of denial.

This group, in the words of Paul, has become “conformed to this world” (Romans 12:2). They have become comfortable in Satan’s territory. They have been lulled to sleep by America’s pseudo-Christian atmosphere of “baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie.” Personal peace and affluence have become their national pastime. So while the isolationists are heralding truth but removed from the world, the conformists are heralding nothing in the midst of it. The results, however, are about the same for each: God’s people making little or no difference outside the walls, or with the isolationists inside the walls of the church.

The problem is that both groups of Christians and churches have missed the biblical mandate. What we need today in America is a group of churches who are neither isolationists nor conformists, but disciple their members to be God’s ambassadors to the world living out a kingdom agenda.

What do ambassadors look like? They are on the ship called culture, but they are not of the ship. They understand that the ship is eventually going to sink. But they also understand that their job is to offer the people an alternative to the options of religious legalism or carnal conformity: a way of escape from, or even delaying of, the judgment coming on the ship, as well as a new way of living while they are there. God’s kingdom ambassadors show this sinking world system what God looks like in its midst.

The church is made up of people who are called to live out heaven’s values in the midst of a very unheavenly world. We receive instructions from above, with our feet firmly planted here below. We are to think heavenly and let it show in our earthly walk. We are looking for the return of Jesus, but we have a lot to do while we’re waiting for Him to come.

The measure of any church is twofold: how we grow our members internally and the difference we make in the society externally. It’s one thing to feel good when we leave the Lord’s house on Sunday. But it’s another thing to live from Monday to Saturday in such a way that we influence the community where the Lord’s house is located.

THE SALT OF THE EARTH

One of the most concise yet comprehensive statements on this subject of how a church is to impact society came from Jesus in Matthew 5:13–16. In His Sermon on the Mount, Christ used two metaphors to communicate the impact He wants us to make for Him. The first one is salt.

Salt’s Preserving Influence

Jesus told His kingdom ambassadors, “You are the salt of the earth.” This was a clear statement about the decaying condition of this world and the role of Christians in delaying the decay. Salt has been used as a preservative for thousands of years. Rubbing it into a piece of meat helps to preserve the meat from decay, because salt is an anti-bacterial agent.

Roman soldiers in biblical days were also said to receive some of their pay in salt. The value of salt in a world with no refrigeration was pretty obvious. Salt’s value became part of the language, which we can see today in the word “salary,” which is actually a derivative of the word “salt.” You’re familiar with the expression that “so-and-so is not worth his salt.” A person who didn’t do his job right didn’t receive his full allocation of salt.

Jesus put His church on earth to act as a preserving influence on a rotting world, to slow down the decay of sin. If Jesus had nothing on earth for His people to do, He would have taken us out of here the moment we trusted Him as Savior.

But, as someone has pointed out, salt can’t do its job when it is sitting in the shaker. The church gathered in the house of God is salt in the shaker. When the doors open and we go out into the world, that’s when the shaker should get turned up to spread the salt of God’s kingdom where it is needed. If our communities are going to be better, and if our country is going to be stronger, then the salt must be at work.

When Salt Becomes Tasteless

Jesus finished His illustration on salt by saying, “But if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men” (Matthew 5:13b). In the culture of Jesus’ day when salt was so crucial in preserving food, there was nothing worse than salt that had lost its usefulness.

A lot of people wonder about this statement because sodium chloride is a stable compound that cannot lose its saltiness or taste. What Jesus is referring to here is the fact that a lot of the salt in biblical days was distilled from marshes and other places where it was mixed with all manner of impurities. When the salt was used up, the impurities would remain and render the mixture useless. There was nothing to do but toss it out on the ground.

Tasteless salt was also “trampled under foot” because in biblical days people mixed gypsum with water to make a paste for patching holes in their roofs. The paste was solidified with salt, which was then good for nothing else because it was mixed with gypsum, which is bitter. The bitterness of the gypsum canceled out the saltiness of the salt.

This salt was trampled underfoot because in Jesus’ days the homes in Israel had flat roofs that were the center of a lot of activity. People could fight from the rooftops, and they were the scenes of many social occasions such as wedding receptions. Israelis used their roofs the way we use a veranda or porch.

All of that walking on the roofs would create holes, because the roofs were usually just earth. The gypsum and salt mixture was used to patch the holes, so the salt would literally be trampled underfoot by people. This is a graphic picture of God’s people becoming so diluted by the world that we lose our impact and the world walks right over us without feeling any effect.

Salt’s Thirst-Inducing Nature

Besides its preserving qualities, salt also creates thirst. As believers gather together in the name of Jesus Christ, the church’s impact should not only have a preserving influence against the decay of evil. The quality of our lives should also make people so thirsty for what we have that they are drawn to Christ like a parched man to water.

I was at an airport one day with some time to spare before my flight boarded, so I went to a little lounge area and ordered a soft drink. The waitress brought me my drink, but she also brought something else I didn’t order: a bowl of salty peanuts that were “on the house.”

Now you know she didn’t do that because the establishment simply wanted to thank me for my business, or because they wanted to enhance my airport experience so I would come back. The only purpose for that salty snack was to dry out my mouth and make me so thirsty that I would open my wallet and say, “May I have another drink, please.”

The job of the church is to create a thirst in the culture that can only be satisfied by the living water of Jesus Christ. We don’t have to worry about trying to make Christianity attractive, palatable, or relevant to the world. All we have to do is make people thirsty for Jesus. And don’t forget that when lost people feel their thirst, they will be looking for a thirst-quencher. When Jesus offered the woman at the well water that would quench her thirst forever, her response was, “Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty” (John 4:15).

Let me ask you, is there anyone at work, at school, or in the neighborhood who has become thirsty because your life and your church is so salty for Christ? Or have you and your church become tasteless salt that is so mixed with impurities the world is walking right over you? A kingdom ambassador brings the pure salt of the kingdom to a world in desperate need of Christ.

THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD

Jesus used a second familiar metaphor in Matthew 5 when He said of His people, “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house” (vv. 14–15).

Driving Back the Darkness

The last time I checked, the role of light was to shine, and in so doing to drive back the darkness. The world needs light because it sits in spiritual darkness. We were saved out of that darkness, and now our job is to shine the light of Christ back on the world’s darkness. Paul told the Ephesians, “You were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light” (Ephesians 5:8).

When we are walking through this world as children of light, the world has a better chance to see things as they really are. “All things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light” (Ephesians 5:13). You know how hard it is to sleep when someone comes in and turns the light on in your face. That’s the effect we should have on unbelievers who are sleeping the sleep of eternal death.

If you’re in a dark room where people are groping for light and you know where the light switch is, it’s a waste of time to organize a panel discussion on the effects of darkness or shake your head over how terrible the darkness is. Your assignment is to turn on the light, and the darkness will automatically be overcome.

Jesus went on to say, “Let your light shine before men” (Matthew 5:16a). In other words, carry your light out where it’s dark so that unsaved people can see it. It would be ridiculous to turn on a lamp and then put something over it to hide its glow. If you say you want your house to be a welcoming place on a dark night, it would be foolish to turn the lights on and then close all the curtains so no one can tell you’re home.

Yet, all too often, that’s what we do in the church. Our lights burn brightly inside the church, but we are the only ones benefiting from them. Meanwhile, the world outside stumbles on in its darkness. But lights are designed to be displayed, not hidden. It’s impossible to hide a light that’s “set on a hill,” and the farther the beam reaches, the more people who are affected by it. A local church that wants to measure its effectiveness only has to look into its community to see how far its light is penetrating the darkness. A community that has a church in its midst should be better off because of its presence.

Reflecting God’s Glory

Don’t misunderstand. We are not the light itself, but simply the reflector of Christ’s light. It’s interesting that before Satan fell into pride and rebelled against God, he was Lucifer, “the shining one” or “light-bearer.” He is called “star of the morning” and “son of the dawn” in Isaiah 14:12. As the highest-ranking angel, Lucifer’s job was to reflect God’s glory by leading heaven’s worship.

But Lucifer decided he wanted to become the light instead of just reflecting it, and God cast him out of heaven into darkness (see Isaiah 14:15, Genesis 1:2). Satan has been the prince of darkness ever since, and he’s still trying to put out the light of God’s glory. But God has set the church in the world as a “city on a hill” to reflect His glory.

This is what Jesus said in Matthew 5:16. The full verse says, “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” We need to talk about the concept of good works. Jesus not only mentioned them here, but Paul said of us, “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10). God also wants us to be “equipped for every good work” (2 Timothy 3:17, emphasis added).

So what are the good works kingdom ambassadors are called to do? We are to be the visible demonstration of Christ’s love and power within us individually and collectively. Good works are the deeds of kindness and blessing that we do to benefit others, in the name of God and for His glory. They are important for the same reason that no one wants a television with sound only. People want a picture to go with the sound. People don’t just want to hear us talk about God. They want to see actions that back up our faith.

It’s true that unbelievers can do good things. They can build hospitals and orphanages and feed hungry people. But, by definition, the good things that non-Christians do are not done in connection with an authentic relationship with God and His name and therefore, they are unable to bring Him glory, even if there is a religious motivation behind the act.

The good works that we’re talking about are based on God’s Word and are done to give Him the credit, to shine the light on Him as the ultimate Ruler and King. They are also to be done with surpassing excellence, which doesn’t mean just bigger and better. Paul said, “[This] one thing I do” (Philippians 3:13), not “these ten things I dabble in.” Everything we do, from our preaching and worship to our service to the community, should bear the stamp of God’s character and be worthy of His name, and should seek to appropriately bring people into a personal saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

GREATER WORKS THAN CHRIST

Jesus made a very important declaration to His disciples the night before He was crucified. As they reclined at the Last Supper, Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father” (John 14:12, emphasis added).

We are certainly not greater than our Lord, but we can do greater things than He did in terms of our outreach because the church has taken the gospel around the world and has brought countless numbers of people to faith in Christ. We are also able to do greater works because the Holy Spirit has come to indwell and empower each believer. This could not happen until Jesus returned to His Father (see John 16:7).

When Jesus was on earth, He limited the activity of His deity to the location of His humanity as part of His self-limitation. On at least one occasion He healed someone from a distance (see Matthew 8:5–13), but in general Jesus only ministered to people where He traveled, and He never traveled more than a couple of hundred miles from home. So in this sense, the church is doing greater works than He did.

Notice that the church is not called to do different works than Jesus did, only greater works. The church’s purpose is to continue and complete what Jesus began during His incarnation. The local church is a community that has been given every spiritual gift and blessing we will ever need to carry out the work of Christ (see Ephesians 1:3). That’s important because Christ has not sent the church out to complete His work without equipping us completely, and even lavishly, for the job.

We Are His Body

The key is to distinguish between Christ’s divine essence and His functioning as the Lord of history and Head of the church. We complete His person in the way that a body completes a head by carrying out the head’s orders and giving it hands and feet with which to express itself (see Ephesians 1:22). Disembodied heads only work in horror films. Christ could have carried out His work from heaven without our help, because He is God. But He commissioned the church to finish His work after He rose from the dead and ascended back to heaven.

The head is where the command center is located. If any part of your body ever disobeys the signals from your brain and starts acting independently, get yourself to a doctor right away because something is wrong. As Christ’s body, the church is to move to His orders and make His presence visible, as it was when Jesus was on earth Himself.

When we say that the church is to complete Christ’s person, it goes without saying that no local church fulfills this assignment perfectly. But each local church does have a vital role to play. The church in Paul’s mind was not some amorphous concept or an ideal with no real substance. Every local church is a visible expression of the universal church, and every believer is a visible expression of Christ in his or her world.

This is why Christ’s strategy for the church is so brilliant. Every time a church pronounces the benediction on Sunday and sends its people out into the world, Jesus goes out in the world with them. Jesus shows up in offices and work sites and schools all across a city because His body is there obeying His direction and making His reality visible. And when that body is multiplied around the world, Jesus shows up in His power and glory in all kinds of places all over the world. Of course, we don’t do this perfectly, but that’s the plan.

As we complete Christ as His body, He completes us (see Ephesians 1:23). As the church is faithful to be the visible, physical expression of the Lord of eternity, He will involve Himself in that process to make sure we are completing the task that He has assigned us.

Ambassadors of the Kingdom

But if we are going to be the visible representation of Christ to the world, that means we cannot pull out of the culture and become a private club. If Christians abandon education, the arts, or other key areas, then there is no body of Christ operating in that realm and the godless culture rushes in to fill the vacuum. Believers are to see themselves as ambassadors of God’s kingdom, invading the society around them to bring people under the obedience and rule of Jesus Christ. The problem we have is too many people are running around aimlessly in the church because they have never understood the church’s true purpose.

As Christ’s body, which completes His person on earth, the church also becomes the completion of His presence on earth. These two are related because it’s obvious that wherever a person’s body is, that’s where his presence is. In the old days, students used to answer “present” when the teacher called their name on the roll. It was their way of saying, “Yes, I’m here. I am making my presence known.”

That’s the idea here. Jesus makes His presence known in a special way through the church. Now don’t misunderstand. As the eternal God, Jesus Christ is omnipresent, or present everywhere. He fills every atom of creation, so let’s be clear on that. But He is uniquely present in the church (see Ephesians 2).

The church is called to fulfill the function of taking Christ’s presence into the world today. I’m not talking about the church as the building on the corner or down the street. I’m talking about the church as the people of God, who are called to manifest His presence wherever we go. Yes, Christians usually gather in a building for worship, praise, and instruction in the Word, and when the church is gathered God’s presence is in evidence. But we take His presence with us because the church is God’s human temple. God no longer limits His presence on earth to a building made of wood and stone.

The illustration I like to use is one I’ve mentioned already—that of America’s embassies around the world. An American embassy is a little bit of America a long way from home. It is built on foreign soil, but it is a thoroughly American presence governed by American laws and values. The church is designed to be a little bit of heaven a long way from home. We, the church, are Christ’s presence on earth—the place where the values of eternity are located in history so people can see how heaven operates.

KINGDOM IMPACT IN THE CULTURE

In order to understand the potential impact of the church in a community, we need to look more deeply at what the Bible says about the cause of social upheaval in the life of a community or nation.

In 2 Chronicles 15:3-6, we read that the nation of Judah found itself in the midst of widespread social chaos. Nation rose up against nation in international conflict. City rose up against city in urban conflict. “There was no peace to him who went out or to him who came in” (2 Chronicles 15:5). High crime and safety concerns disturbed everyone. Upon initial reflection, one might think that Satan was behind this turmoil. However, God was shown to be responsible for the chaos in society (see 2 Chronicles 15:6).

The thesis is simple. If God causes the problems in society, only God is the solution. It matters not who is elected into office or what legislation is passed. It does not even matter what new economic initiatives or educational opportunities are put in place. If God is orchestrating the chaos, until one has dealt with Him, one has not dealt with the root cause of societal ills.

Chaos in Our Culture

Much like the culture written about at the time of 2 Chronicles, we are experiencing chaos in our society today. We have international conflict (nation against nation), urban conflict (city against city), and individual conflict (no peace). 2 Chronicles 15:3 gives the insight to understand why God was orchestrating such chaos in society: “Israel was without the true God.”

This does not mean there was no worship, Bible reading, or programs at the temple. But the culture did not recognize the one true God because there were no “teaching priest[s]” (v. 3) to point them in that direction. Although Judah had many priests, they were not communicating truth about God. The temple had lost its impact. The result was that there was no law, so the people had no true representation of God’s rule over mankind. There was no accountability system to enforce or encourage correct and healthy behavior, and so turmoil ensued.

If the visible, physical realm of social chaos and upheaval is to be corrected, the invisible, spiritual realm has to be addressed through the proclamation and application of God’s Word. Otherwise, the spiritual causes of the chaos will be allowed to take place indefinitely.

Making an impact in our culture is not something that will come easily, though. As Martin Luther King, Jr., once said, “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable…. Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle; the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals.”

Connecting the Spiritual to the Social

Since the church is the primary manifestation of the kingdom and is the primary means by which God is extending His kingdom rule in this world, local churches must be intentional about, and be willing to sacrifice for, having a comprehensive program that connects both the spiritual and social. Churches must extend their influence beyond the lives of church members to impact the broader community that they serve.

One way this is done is through what we have established in Dallas of a local model of church-school partnerships. Churches partnering with schools seek to rebuild communities by comprehensively influencing the lives of urban youth and their families in addressing the education, health, economic, and social needs of hurting people based on spiritual principles.

One significant advantage that churches have in being agents of impact for a community is that they are located everywhere. There is an average of three to five churches for every public school in America. Churches are also closer to the needs of the people since they are located in the heart of the community. They also offer the largest volunteer force in the nation. Further, churches already have buildings to use for community-based programs. By providing a moral frame of reference for making wise choices, churches can equip the community members for social transformation.

One avenue of broadening the churches’ impact on their communities is to recognize that churches and schools represent the social, educational, familial, and potentially spiritual, nucleus of the community. People and businesses come and go, but churches and schools remain to accommodate newcomers to their neighborhoods. If these two institutions share common ground as well as longevity, a strategic alliance between the two can precipitate, to a greater degree, positive outcomes for children, youth, and families living in the community.

I remember how this strategy got started when I was a young pastor in a predominantly urban community. A nearby high school was experiencing increased difficulties at the time, including delinquencies and low academic achievement. The principal of the school decided to reach out to me for help. Gang activity had broken out, affecting all areas of performance within the school. After I got the call, I decided to go over to the school with around twenty-five men from our church. The principal stopped all the classes and brought all of the male students into the gymnasium, and we shared what it was like to be a real man.

What’s more, we did it in the name of God. I even used the name of Jesus Christ, and the school was fine with it because when things have broken down so much that you can’t even conduct classes for your students, you don’t get so picky about what you will allow or not allow in an effort to help. After our time together, and after some of the men from the church began hanging out in the hallways, offering help and hope to those in need, plus accountability for those who wanted to cause trouble, the gang activity shut down. Student grades went up, delinquency was lowered, and the school acknowledged that the church connection was good for producing a more productive learning environment.

The principal later became the superintendent of the district of eighteen schools, and requested our church’s involvement in all his schools. We then organized ourselves and adopted all of the schools, expanding our support services to each through mentoring, tutoring, counseling, and skills training. When the word got out to neighboring school districts, the eighteen schools soon became thirty-six, and has increased to over sixty schools at this time.

In addition to that, I initiated a meeting with the principals once a month for Bible study, discussion, and prayer—something that continues to this day and will typically see an average of thirty to forty in attendance each month.

One interesting discovery we made in this process was that in helping the students in the schools, we also gained access to the parents. Many of the problems students had in school were an extension of brokenness in the homes. When we adopted the school, we also connected with the families, which in turn allowed us to connect at a deeper level with the entire community.

AN AVENUE TO COMMUNITY TRANSFORMATION

As our church positioned itself to be the major social service delivery system to the schools, we provided an avenue to community transformation. We have one of the largest functioning African-American pregnancy centers in the land, providing not only prenatal care but also classes for both fathers and mothers. We help people get an education and acquire job skills through our Technology Institute, then help them find jobs and homes. We have a thrift store to help sustain and expand the economic growth in the community, as well as a credit union. We develop businesses and provide medical assistance on a regular basis free of charge.

We do this because the church is to be known for good works that benefit others so they will be drawn to Christ. We are to put God on display—to advertise and show Him off. That’s what it means to bring Him glory. When we do good works as the corporate body of Christ in His name and for His glory, we call attention to our awesome God and His all-encompassing kingdom.

Churches are to set the agenda for effecting positive values and beliefs by partnering with public schools and reaching into their community to attract a high quality of life in their area. This quality manifests itself when residents protest against new projects in their community that can attract crime and unsavory characters. It is evident when neighborhoods are filled with wholesome activities for children and families, when high school football stadiums are packed with community supporters, and when parents fill the schools for open house or parent nights.

Communities are commended when businesses want to move into the area, when neighborhoods are clean and well kept, and when the majority of community schools are recognized for outstanding academic performance. When churches can set the agenda for the community, positive returns are compounded.

The mission of revitalizing and transforming communities begins with the individual and the foundational truth that what a man thinks, he becomes. One’s behavior is controlled by one’s thoughts. If one’s thought life is changed, the person is changed. Changed individuals transform families, and transformed families restore communities.

The church and school partnership initiative strengthens communities, and our nation by seeking to correct improper responses to God’s Word, which is at the root cause for the dilemmas in society. This successful model has become a national initiative through our National Church Adopt-a-School Initiative, where we seek to train church and lay leaders on how to implement the model in their community. The church and school partnership model exists as a blueprint on how to apply the principles of the kingdom of God while meeting the needs of hurting people through caring interventions underlined with the message of hope.

Although the opportunity to experience the benefits of legal freedom exists in our nation today, many people still live in bondage to a number of injustices in America, as well as around the world.

Biblical freedom is the release from illegitimate bondage so a nation’s citizens can have the opportunity to choose to exercise responsibility in maximizing all that they were created to be.

http://go.tonyevans.org/society/

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

A NATION AND FREEDOM

I love New York City. If I could pick anywhere in America to go for a week, I would choose New York. The streets are alive with activity and vitality at any time of night or day. One of the things I have always loved most about New York City is its diversity. Walking down the crowded streets, riding in a cab, or stopping in a store or restaurant takes one across the path of people from a variety of cultural backgrounds.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the Big Apple is full of so many different groups of people. After all, there is a lady standing in her harbor whose crown has seven spikes representing the seven seas and seven continents whose inhabitants have been invited to come. Inscribed near a broken chain at the base of the Statue of Liberty are these words:

Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Lady Liberty proclaims freedom every day to anyone with a heart to hear her. Yet although the opportunity to experience the benefits of legal freedom exists in our nation today, many people still live in bondage to a number of injustices in America, as well as around the world. These can include economic, relational, societal, educational, health, legal, vocational, or familial injustices. Despite this reality, Lady Liberty still stands for the hope of freedom, even though all have not yet found her.

We will take a deeper look at justice and injustice in the following chapter, but first it is important to uncover all of the nuances and possibilities of this term “freedom” and how it pertains to us as a nation and as individuals, since the bedrock of a society is its individuals.

LET FREEDOM RING

Freedom is something that has been known to many throughout the years, both in America and abroad, as an elusively tantalizing gift, a carrot, or a quest.

At the core of American society—at its inception—is located this philosophy, or concept, of freedom. In fact, even though it was forbidden to multitudes through servitude and slavery, freedom was to be the hallmark by which our country and culture were defined.

Today, we boldly declare, and frequently as well, that we live in both the land of the free and the home of the brave, and in many ways we do. We beckon men and women—families from around the world—to enter into our land, offering them the symbolically broken chains at the base of our Lady. We sing about freedom, write books about freedom, and we make movies about freedom.

Somehow, still to this day, freedom captures our imagination and awakens the deepest core of our spirit within. We can’t seem to get enough of this ideological ambition. From the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire to the mighty mountains of New York, we urge our nation to let freedom ring as proclaimed by Martin Luther King Jr. in his speech at the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963.

And yet with all of this, there remains a question on the floor that begs for an answer and demands a definition. What exactly is freedom, anyhow?

Looking at the sources we use to define terms seems to offer us only a vague peek into the meaning of freedom. When I looked up the word “freedom” in the encyclopedia and in the dictionary, much of what I read sounded incomplete and ambiguous. The true depth of the meaning of this powerful concept, for which men and women have died and countless others have hoped, appeared difficult to decipher through our written definitions alone.

In fact, even if you were to ask people on the street, in our churches, or in the coffee houses and cafes about this concept called freedom, you may get a little part of the definition here and another part over there. But rarely do we comprehend the totality of what true freedom means.

Freedom is the foundation on which our nation stands, yet we have sometimes failed to encapsulate into exact words the completeness of its meaning. A biblical understanding of the meaning of freedom is release from illegitimate bondage so that you can have the opportunity to choose to exercise responsibility in maximizing all that you were created to be.

GOD’S ESTABLISHMENT OF FREEDOM

We have talked about a kingdom agenda for our personal lives, for the family, and for the church. With each section, we have widened the focus. Now we are ready to widen it once more as we tackle the issue of God’s kingdom agenda for our communities and for society.

That means we have some more tough topics to consider, including justice, politics, and racism. This chapter is also one of those tough topics, because few issues are more difficult to fully comprehend than the deeply personal issue that comes intertwined in the context of corporate freedom. But we need to tackle it, and I want to begin by talking about God’s establishment of freedom.

The first person to use the word freedom is God, and He used it in connection with the creation narrative in Genesis 2. Freedom is God’s gift to mankind. It is also God’s gift to every nation based on the prototype nation, Israel, in which He established the proclamation of freedom throughout the land (Leviticus 23:10). His understanding of this term should be our understanding of this term because His understanding embodies divine truth. Through discovering God’s view of freedom, we can also discover what freedom should mean for us, for our culture, and for society at large. God told Adam about freedom:

Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it. The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely;” (Genesis 2:15–17, emphasis added)

Here is the very first reference to freedom in the Scriptures. This is important to note due to the biblical hermeneutic called the Law of First Mention. By way of reminder, the Law of First Mention states that when you want to find the meaning of a term used in Scripture, find the first place it is used and define its meaning there. Then, be consistent with that meaning throughout the Bible, only changing it if the text itself tells you or allows you to change it at a later point.

The first thing I want to point out is that when God created man in the garden, God Himself was the government. God was the sum total of the societal structures, including establishing the dignity of work, the primacy of the family, and the stewardship of His creation. He set the governing rules for how mankind was to function. He instructed man in this first declaration of freedom that from any tree of the garden he could freely eat, except for one.

From the start, freedom is a broad concept because the ability to eat from any and every tree, except for one, is a lot of freedom. If Adam wanted to eat apples, he could eat apples. If he wanted to eat oranges, he could eat oranges. If he wanted pears, he could eat pears. The variety and opportunity of food available to Adam was endless, with one exception.

Free to Enjoy God’s Provisions

By this we can determine the first thing about God’s establishment of freedom, which is that it is the maximum opportunity to enjoy and partake in whatever God legitimately provides. At the very heart of freedom is the ability to freely experience that which God has given. Therefore, according to God’s introduction of the term, freedom is very broad.

The Boundaries of Freedom

But there is the matter of that one restriction on Adam’s freedom to eat from any tree in Eden. This teaches us that freedom does not mean the absence of any restrictions. God gave a very specific restriction in the midst of telling Adam that he is free.

In other words, freedom always comes with boundaries, since boundaries are an essential component of realizing our freedom. A tennis player isn’t free to play tennis if there is no base line. A baseball player isn’t free to play baseball if there is no foul line. A fish is not free to roam the jungle, nor is a lion free to live in the ocean. The reason God sets boundaries is to create the opportunity to take full advantage of freedom. Without boundaries, chaos ensues.

As I write this chapter, the football season is in full swing. Every week, spectators from around the city head to their favorite venue to either huddle together in the snowfall or enjoy the brisk sun of a game in one of our warmer parts of the land. Football draws millions of fans because it is a game in which passion, force, and power fuse with precision and skill as two teams face off in an epic display of both might and will.

Yet none of that gladiator-style battle could take place without legitimate boundaries. No one, not even the players, can enjoy a football game unless there are sidelines and goal lines. Suppose a running back decided that he didn’t feel up to being tackled that day, so he left the field, running through the stands past all the concessions, then back onto the field, crossing the opposing team’s goal line.

That runner might break into his end zone celebration, but his touchdown would not count. He had violated the boundaries of the freedom he had to run anywhere on the field, but not outside of the lines. Such an antic would send players, fans, and officials into a frenzy, not to mention the league office, which might fine or even suspend that runner who showed such blatant disregard for the boundaries of football.

It is difficult to imagine that one man could negatively impact such a large number of people—but he can, and Adam did, when he broke the one restriction of his freedom by eating from the forbidden tree and plunging the human race into sin. So the Bible says, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men” (Romans 5:12a, emphasis added). Violating legitimate boundaries destroys freedom.

Erasing Legitimate Boundaries

When you seek to take advantage of freedom by erasing the legitimate boundaries that the divine designer has put in place, you wind up with a life coupled with the experience of death. Death in your dreams, relationships, health, stability, the social order, and more. We need to remember that although we are allowed the opportunity within freedom to choose what we do, we are not free to choose the consequences of our choice. These consequences are imposed, or allowed, from God since He is the Ruler of His creation. When society refuses to submit to God it winds up submitting to chaos (see 2 Chronicles 15:3–6).

God told Adam concerning the forbidden tree: “In the day that you eat from it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17, emphasis added). The penalty attached to God’s establishment of freedom was both maximum and immediate. The day that Adam and Eve ate from the restricted tree, they experienced a spiritual death and a removal from the garden that has remained with humanity since that time. God’s kingdom is run by His rules, and when those rules are broken by individuals or governments, God enacts a consequence to the choice that was made.

I want to point out something important about those restrictions. While there was maximum freedom to enjoy, there was also only minimal restriction attached. There was only one tree from which Adam and Eve couldn’t partake. Essentially, their freedom to do what they wanted to do was much larger than their limitations within that freedom. Keep in mind that biblical freedom is the ability to enjoy and experience to the maximum the legitimate provisions of God. God didn’t place unnecessary restrictions on Adam and Eve in the garden. He didn’t handcuff them with a legalistic list of things to do and not to do.

In fact, the New Testament reemphasizes this point of maximum enjoyment with minimal restrictions in Paul’s letter to Timothy: “Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy” (1 Timothy 6:17, emphasis added). Paul did not condemn the wealthy. Rather, he sought to give them wisdom on how best to enjoy that which God Himself had supplied by imparting a spiritual perspective to God’s tangible blessings.

Therefore, in summary, God’s establishment of freedom included broad opportunities coupled with minimal restrictions followed up with swift and severe consequences for breaking the restrictions. This then should be the paradigm for every society’s understanding and implementation of freedom.

The Reasons for God’s Boundaries

We are living in a culture today that seeks to disregard God’s boundaries, insist on full freedom, and complain if any consequences arise as a result. Yet what we must understand in God’s kingdom agenda is that if we replace God’s established criteria of freedom with our own man-made desires for freedom, then all those who abide by our man-made desires will suffer as a result. The cultural chaos we are experiencing today is intimately tied to the failure of society to abide by God’s prescribed boundaries within the freedom that He offers.

God’s boundaries exist for a number of reasons: for protection, for structure, and also to remind us that He is in charge. God placed the tree that Adam and Eve could not eat from directly in the middle of the garden. He didn’t hide it somewhere so that they would rarely come across it. He positioned it directly in front of their eyes. This was so that the tree would serve as a perpetual reminder that they did not call the shots in the garden. It was an ongoing symbol to cause them to remember that the government of the garden was God Himself.

And since the government was God, Adam and Eve were not the ones to determine what was good or evil. That was outside of their jurisdiction as the creatures. God’s commitment to freedom in society was clearly demonstrated in His response to Israel’s slavery in Egypt. He acted on their behalf to deliver them and set them free from their illegitimate bondage. But that freedom was to be connected to Him, not lived out apart from Him (see Exodus 8:1).

To put it another way, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a statement to both Adam and Eve that they were to receive instruction from God on what was right and what was wrong, rather than reason their way to their own conclusions. Knowledge was never to come independently of God’s perspective, because God knew that if it did, all hell would break loose. And as we have witnessed in the centuries since then, it has done just that.

THE RESPONSIBILITY OF FREEDOM

After sin came into the world, God turned the government over to mankind. This allowed for the entrance of illegitimate bondage, thus expanding the original concept of freedom to include a release from such bondage. However, the underlying principle for living life fully remained the same: maximum freedom coupled with limited regulation, as well as swift and significant consequences for breaking the restrictions.

It is essential to note that personal responsibility is included in biblical freedom. Again, before sin entered the garden, the Bible says that God put Adam in Eden “to cultivate it and keep it” (Genesis 2). Freedom didn’t simply offer responsibility, it required it. God gave Adam all of the raw materials necessary to fully enjoy what He had created, but that enjoyment was coupled with effort on the part of Adam to develop the garden. To cultivate something is to make it productive. Cultivating involves developing its potential.

Adam was also charged to “keep” the garden. The Hebrew word is shamar, meaning to “guard,” or “have charge of” (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Hebrew entry 8104). At the time, the solitary threat Adam had to guard against was Satan. Spiritual warfare sought to unravel mankind as early as our inception. Not much has changed today. Satan is still as alive and well as ever, with the similar goal of getting humanity off track from successfully living out God’s kingdom agenda.

Free to Exercise Responsibility

Freedom never meant that a person was to do nothing at all. Rather, it provided the opportunity to make a choice to exercise personal responsibility over that which God had given, in order to maximize and realize its potential. To have the opportunity to transform God’s raw materials into something usable and beneficial to yourself and to others is the very essence of freedom. This is why it is crucial that civil government unleash rather than restrict freedom in society. In fact, the primary responsibility of civil government is to maintain a safe, just, and righteous environment for freedom to flourish.

Unfortunately today in our society, we have many who cry for freedom without being willing to exercise the responsibility that comes tied to freedom. Anytime there are more people going onto government doles than there are getting jobs, something is awry and amiss in the culture. Freedom has been mistaken for something that it is not.

Scripture states clearly, “If anyone is not willing to work, then he is not to eat, either” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). Society is not to erect systems whereby someone is given food stamps, donations, or other assistance if that person is unwilling to work. Of course, it is a different story if a person is unable to work. However, many today in our society are profiting from the work of others because our nation has chosen to subsidize laziness in the name of charity.

Supporting Irresponsibility

By subsidizing irresponsibility, we have actually lessened freedom in those who have a right to it as citizens of this great land by diminishing their motivation and opportunity to maximize their potential. It is the obligation of freedom to fully utilize and fulfill one’s assigned task through the use of God-given resources and abilities.

Jesus succinctly described the steward who chose the easy path of hiding his talent in the ground instead of putting it to work: “You wicked, lazy slave” (Matthew 25:26). Then Jesus showed what is to happen to those who refuse to work: “Therefore take away the talent from him, and give it to the one who has the ten talents” (v. 28, emphasis added). The lazy steward lost not only his potential to live out his purpose, he also lost the potential for his descendants to live out theirs because what little he did have was taken away due to his laziness and fear.

Many in our society want the benefits of freedom without its responsibilities and boundaries. They want “God bless America,” but not one nation under God. God is good for the invocation and the benediction in life and culture, but He and His precepts are removed from everything in between. However, when you remove yourself or your society from God, you’ve closed the door on freedom. Freedom is in jeopardy of being lost altogether when God is no longer part of the equation. Scripture warns that “the nations who forget God” (Psalm 9:17) will perish.

THE TRUTH AND FREEDOM

During Christ’s time on earth, He gave us the single most profound teaching on freedom, which applies not only to personal freedom but establishes the framework for how a society is to experience and offer freedom as well:

So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is that You say, ‘You will become free’?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son does remain forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:31–36)

The term “free” shows up in this discourse four times. Obviously, it is the focus of the conversation. In response to Jesus’ statement to the Jewish believers concerning their slavery, though, they deny having ever been enslaved. That in and of itself tells us how bad slavery is. People can get so used to it that they don’t even know they are enslaved. In fact, while Jesus was talking to them about being slaves of sin, they were also slaves of Rome. Israel at that time was under the heel of its Roman conquerors. The Jews had also been slaves in Egypt and in Babylon at the time of Daniel.

Knowing the Truth Sets People Free

Jesus chooses not to get into a historical discussion, but rather replies (Evans translation): “Look, you want to know the road to freedom? You want to be free? You get free with the truth. That’s the ticket. Truth. Know the truth.”

Jesus made it clear that truth alone was not enough. People like to quote the second half of John 8:32, which says “the truth will make you free.” But the whole verse is about much more than just truth. It involves your knowledge of the truth—which means if you don’t know the truth, you can’t be free. If the truth is supposed to set you free, then everyone would be free because truth exists whether we recognize or validate it or not.

But it is in knowing the truth that the freedom God offers is made manifest in your life and in our society. Remember, in the garden the tree that Adam and Eve were instructed not to eat from was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It wasn’t just the tree of good and evil. Satan specifically told Eve: “In the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5, emphasis added). Adam and Eve would no longer go by the standard of knowledge of good and evil which God gave them, but they would turn to their own inept reasoning skills to discern what should be good or evil.

However, because humanity is not God—who embodies true knowledge—human reasoning can only distort good and evil. Only God has untainted reasoning because only God is truth.

The God of Truth

While everything about our enemy Satan is a lie (see John 8:44), everything about God is truth (see Hebrews 6:18; Titus 1:2; Numbers 23:19; 1 Samuel 15:29). God is the only One who cannot lie. He is the very essence of truth. Therefore, since the experience of freedom is inextricably tied to the knowledge of the truth, it is crucial that God’s view on all matters be the starting point, not only in personal decisions but also in the laws that govern society.

When Pilot asked the age-old question, “What is truth?” (John 18:38) two thousand years ago, he echoed the sentiments of souls for centuries both before him and after him. Today this question is couched in relativism, which permeates societies, thereby attempting to paint a portrait with neither a frame nor a brush. In relativism, my truth doesn’t have to be my neighbor’s truth. And your truth doesn’t have to be mine. Relativism ushers in a state of constant flux due to the lack of overarching boundaries to which all subscribe. A tangible example of the chaos this creates is if we applied relativism to stoplights and their colors. Without a viable standard by which we are all to abide, we would be unable to drive.

Truth, at its core, is God-based knowledge. It entails God’s viewpoint on a matter. Knowing truth equates to knowing God. Truth cannot be created by the creature, just like the pieces in a game cannot determine their own function.

Truth is a powerful entity, able to set free even those who are in deep bondage. Truth’s reasoning and recognition usher in clarity. It is God’s absolute, objective standard by which reality is measured. It is a pre-determined, established entity that cannot change simply because we wish it to do so. Just as the clock in Greenwich, England that keeps the official time does not adjust itself to the passersby who come to view it, truth does not adjust itself to our whims or wants. As the world looks to Greenwich to know the correct time, all of life, including civil government, is to look to God and His Word to know the truth by which freedom complies.

Feelings, Facts, and Truth

Unfortunately, many of us today rely on our feelings to help us determine our own truth. One of the leading causes of spiritual defeat and bondage in our lives and, as a result, in our society, comes from trusting what we feel over what God says. If we feel worthless or depressed or hopeless, that’s the way we function.

It works the other way too. There are times we feel good about things we shouldn’t feel good about. Eve began to feel so good about the restricted tree that she added to and then ignored what God said. When we as a culture and as a society start living by our feelings rather than according to God’s truth, all Satan has to do to keep us off balance is to keep our feelings stirred up. He does this through racial, class, and gender divisions, economic battles, the redefinition of morality and family, welfare, arguments for abortion, and in many other ways.

Truth is much more than feelings, and even more than facts. If someone had a headache and felt so bad that he went to the drugstore and bought some over-the-counter pain killers, he may have addressed his feelings. In an hour or so, he may feel better. But if this same person was suffering from a brain tumor, the pain medicine would not have solved the real problem. This is even though the fact that his head hurt was true. But facts do not always reveal the whole truth. Truth is more than feelings, facts, or probabilities. Truth is absolute, and it is defined by God’s viewpoint and knowledge on the matter.

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE FREE INDEED

The truth in and of itself does not set free. Just as the partaking in the “knowledge of good and evil” ushered sin and bondage into the world, it is in “knowing the truth” that we are set free, individually and as a society. I love the last word in Christ’s great statement on freedom because it described the type of freedom that knowing Him offers. We looked at the verse earlier, but as a refresher, Jesus said, “So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” (John 8:36, emphasis added).

All this time, Jesus has been talking about and emphasizing freedom. But at the end He throws in another word to describe the level of freedom that He gives—the indeed kind of free. This is super freedom. Where I come from, the Greek word for “indeed” would translate directly into “sho-nuf.” He whom the Son sets free will be sho-nuf free!

Interestingly, this is the same word used when Jesus rose from the dead and the disciples said, “The Lord is risen indeed” (Luke 24:34, American Standard Version). It’s a word that states emphatically what is being communicated. Jesus had risen indeed. And he whom the Son sets free will be free indeed. You can count on it.

The Freest of All People

If you are a believer in God’s kingdom, then you should be one of the freest people alive. Why? Because you are operating under a divine rule that comes complete with divine covering, release, and provision. Unfortunately, so many believers today are still bound, many to the concept we call legalism—the misuse of or addition to the law. Legalism seeks to enforce additional requirements to God’s gift of freedom that God never intended. Civil government does this as well through regulations that stifle freedom. It is a tool of the enemy to keep people, and society, from experiencing the abundant life God promises as well as the fullest manifestation of His freedom in them.

Freedom is, and should always be, a wonderful opportunity to maximize who you have been created to be. It is a blessing that comes through God’s grace. Yet so many people miss out on this gift of freedom because they are still bound in legalism.

The Tragedy of Free Slaves

The history of Texas is marked by the tragedy of slaves who were still in bondage two years after Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation setting them free, because the notice of their freedom took that long to reach them. Equally tragic is the case of those slaves who later refused their liberation, wanting to remain on the plantation because slavery was all they had ever known. Freedom came with risk and responsibility. At least on the plantation they knew what to expect, where to sleep, and what to eat.

It doesn’t always take chains and overseers to keep people in slavery if they willingly submit to their bondage. The reason so many Christians are still in bondage to sin, doubt, bitterness, and circumstances is that the message of how to live in freedom through boldly accepting and acting according to God’s grace has either not reached them, or they feel it is too risky of a life to embrace.

FREE TO SET OTHERS FREE

Paul challenged the church members at Galatia with the supreme purpose of freedom, which is to serve others in our homes, churches, and also in our communities and society at large: “For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another” (Galatians 5:13).

You can always tell a free person because that person is also a freedom fighter for others. God did not set us free so we can sit, soak, and sour. We are to use our own personal and spiritual freedoms to help someone else achieve the purpose that God has for him or her as well. When enough people do that in a society, the society becomes free.

When I was in South Africa not too long ago, I vividly remember seeing a quote inscribed above the entry into a portion of the apartheid museum we were touring that day. Its truth stopped me in my tracks as I sought to comprehend all that Nelson Mandela had gone through, and yet why he was still able to promote peace—not just for himself but also for his society. Mandela said, “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.”

Giving the Gift of Freedom

Freedom exists so that freedom can exist. Freedom bequeaths freedom as those who have it seek to give to those who are enslaved. One of the greatest tragedies of the Revolutionary War centered on freedom. It is true that the war itself was about freedom from the tyranny of the king’s rule in England, taxation without representation, a state-controlled religion, and more.

Thirteen colonies desired to be free. Yet the very people who wanted freedom so desperately and fought to set themselves free held other people, who desired and needed freedom just as much, in slavery. The revolutionaries sought freedom while not releasing it for others. There was a flaw in their concept of freedom, because personal freedom that does not seek freedom for others by all means possible, both locally and nationally, is not freedom at all.

God has demonstrated what freedom means through His original government in the garden. He has defined it with maximum benefit yet minimal restrictions involving swift and severe consequences. He has given us the purpose of freedom, which is to serve others and help them discover the secret to freedom themselves, thus creating a freer and more responsible society.

Government exists to give the boundaries for freedom, and then offer the opportunity for individuals to maximize their potential within those legitimate boundaries, free from illegitimate bondage. If and when the government is properly protecting the freedoms of its people, they are inspired to amplify their productivity and contribute to the freedoms of others.

What we often discover, though, throughout history is that the farther a government moves away from God and His truth, the more it seeks to control the lives and decisions of those it governs and limit their freedom. Similar to what a cult will do, a government seeks to influence thought and actions of those beneath it by restricting personal freedoms.

Freedom Cannot Be Coerced

Freedom is an exquisite thing. But it is not a forced thing. Jesus proclaimed the good news of the gospel and the freedom that comes from Him and the truth of God’s Word—just like Lady Liberty proclaims her offer for freedom to anyone who has ears to hear—but freedom is not forced on anyone who does not want it. Lady Liberty does not give freedom to a foreigner unless a person makes his or her way to America and goes through the process of applying for and accepting what she has to offer in order to bring her proclamation of freedom out of theory and into reality. Potential citizens must study the laws and history of the land in order to know what they are committing to. Likewise, believers in Christ need to know the truth—study it, apply it, and practice it in order to truly experience the freedom that has been offered.

A KINGDOM COURSE OF ACTION

There is a direct correlation between the preeminence given to Christ as King in one’s life and the freedom one experiences. The degree that Jesus is exalted in personal lives, families, churches, and communities is the degree to which the rivers of freedom will flow in our land.

It is incumbent upon the church to keep God’s principles of freedom based on His truth before the civil government so that society never loses sight of God’s great gift of freedom. Here are some ways we can help ensure that the freedom Jesus Christ offers becomes a reality for ourselves and others.

One Life under God

As an individual, you are to vote for the candidates, policies, parties, and platforms that best reflect a biblical understanding of freedom. In addition, you ought to take responsibility for yourself, not depending on other people or institutions, to do for you what you should be doing for yourself. As you experience and enjoy the freedom that God has given to you, you must also seek to use your freedom to liberate others who are in illegitimate bondage.

One Family under God

Parents are to train children in the biblical principles of freedom. Parents are also to lovingly discipline children for disobedience and rebellion so they can learn that there are consequences when freedom is abused.

One Church under God

Church leaders should teach members the biblical principles of freedom. In addition, churches must reject all forms of legalism, which hinders its members from experiencing the freedom they have in Christ. Churches must address social and political issues that place people in illegitimate bondage, and above all else churches should preach the freedom that comes through salvation by faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

One Nation under God

For governments to cultivate a culture of freedom they must not use the power of taxation, legislation, or force to expand beyond their divinely authorized scope. As well, they should support the other divine institutions of church and family, while seeking not to infringe upon them. They must not legislate against God and His standard in the name of freedom such as with the legalization of abortion and same-sex marriage. And government should not create dependency, but rather promote personal responsibility.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

A NATION AND JUSTICE

The kingdom agenda involves promoting the freedom in Christ we have talked about through a vehicle that is often called, in our contemporary society, “social justice.”

However, social justice has become a convoluted term meaning different things to different people. It is often used as a catchphrase for illegitimate forms of government that promote the redistribution of wealth and the collectivistic expansion of civil government, which wrongly infringe on the jurisdictions of God’s other covenantal institutions of family and the church. This application of social justice is a contradiction and denial of biblical justice, which seeks to protect individual liberty while promoting personal responsibility. For example, the biblical injunction of “Thou shalt not steal” includes areas such as government-sanctioned theft through state-enforced redistribution of wealth and illegitimate taxation.

For our purposes in this book, the term I have chosen to use is “biblical justice” rather than social justice, because biblical justice provides society with a divine frame of reference from which to operate. The word “justice” in Scripture means “to prescribe the right way.” Since God is just (see Deuteronomy 32:4) and is the ultimate lawgiver (see James 4:12), His laws and judgments are just and righteous (see Psalms 19:7–9; 111:7–8). They are to be applied without partiality (see Deuteronomy 1:17; Leviticus 19:15; Numbers 15:16) as the moral standard by which God measures human conduct (see Isaiah 26:7). It is the government’s role, then, to be His instrument of divine justice by impartially establishing, reflecting, and applying His divine standards of justice in society (see Psalm 72:1–2, 4; 2 Samuel 8:15; Deuteronomy 4:7–8).

Biblical justice, therefore, is the equitable and impartial application of the rule of God’s moral law in society. Whether exercising itself through economic, political, social, or criminal justice, the one constant within all four realms is the understanding and application of God’s moral law within the social realm.

INTEGRATING THE SPIRITUAL AND SOCIAL

It is the division of the sacred and the secular that has led to the cultural disintegration we are now experiencing. It was never the Creator’s desire to have such a separation exist in His world. From Genesis to Revelation, it is inextricably clear that the spiritual and the social are always to be integrated if life is to be lived the way God intended.

In fact, the Bible expressly states that the reason there is social disintegration in the form of all kinds of immorality and domestic and international chaos is that man wrongfully segregates the spiritual from the social, as demonstrated so clearly in 2 Chronicles 15:3–6. When God created man, he was given the responsibility to rule the earth under divine authority while simultaneously spreading God’s image throughout the world (see Genesis 1:26–28).

However, it was man’s refusal to submit to divine authority that led to the first social disintegration. When man disobeyed God, the result was family breakdown, economic struggle, emotional instability, and physical death (see Genesis 3:1–19). The closer God’s rule is reflected in society, the more ordered society will be. But the more God’s rule is suppressed in society, the more chaotic society will be.

When God established Israel, He wrote its constitution in the Ten Commandments. These were divided between man’s vertical responsibility to God and his horizontal responsibility to his neighbor. Consequently, God deemed the spiritual and social relationship necessary for the proper functioning of society (see Exodus 20:1–17). God also wanted His people to reflect His character through charitable works and acts of kindness to people outside of Israel as a reflection of their gratitude for His goodness to them (see Deuteronomy 10:17–19).

Biblical justice is not a man-made, socially imposed, top-down system ultimately leading to the negation of freedom. Biblical justice promotes freedom by emphasizing accountability, equality, and responsibility in providing a spiritual underpinning in the social realms.

Each of the four jurisdictions in God’s kingdom—individual, family, church, and state—is called upon to promote justice and responsibility under God in its own distinct way. Through these jurisdictions, God has given man the task of impartially protecting the “unalienable rights” He has granted to each of us. One way this is done is through the just removal of illegitimate boundaries that prohibit people from pursuing and fully experiencing all that God has created them to be.

Only God can declare what is a legitimate or illegitimate boundary because only God determines what is right or wrong. His Word is the standard by which the aspects of His law, reflected in truth and righteousness, govern what we do. God’s justice is therefore predictable because His standard does not change. He does not show partiality in His judgments, as Paul said in Romans 2:11; nor is He a respecter of persons (see Acts 10:34; Ephesians 6:9). He is the righteous Judge who renders judgment in equity without regard to status (see Romans 12:19; Numbers 15:16). His instruction given to Moses indicates that humanity is to do the same: “You shall not show partiality in judgment; you shall hear the small and the great alike. You shall not fear man, for the judgment is God’s” (Deuteronomy 1:17).

God the Deliverer

Repeatedly throughout the Scripture, God revealed Himself as a Defender and Deliverer. The exodus from Egypt dramatically portrays God’s execution of biblical justice on behalf of a group of people who were oppressed. Later, when God gave His laws to Israel, He reminded them of His deliverance by saying: “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:21).

God regularly tied the presence, or absence, of biblical justice to the presence, or absence, of His blessing. For example, Israel’s worship was rejected because of an absence of justice in society (see Amos 5:21–24). The Israelites were taken into captivity and held in bondage because of their rebellion against God. God had repeatedly told them to turn from their sin and practice “justice and righteousness,” pay back what was stolen, and secure every pledge (see Ezekiel 33:10–33).

The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, as another example, is often attributed solely to the blatant practice of homosexuality. However, God also clearly links His wrath toward them to their lack of concern for the poor (see Ezekiel 16:49).

The prophets of the Old Testament regularly condemned the people for their social injustices as well. These social condemnations were not merely viewed as secular affronts to communities, but also a spiritual affront to God (see Zechariah 7:9–12). God’s people were specifically instructed to seek the welfare of the secular city in which they were living and to pray for its well-being so that it would become a better place to live, work, and raise their families (see Jeremiah 29:4–7).

Therefore, the role of the church, and believers who make up the church, is to execute divine justice on behalf of the defenseless, poor, and oppressed. Scripture relates biblical justice distinctly to these groups as a primary concern because it is these groups that most represent the helpless in society and bear the brunt of injustices.

So believers are not to mistreat the poor (see James 2:15–16) or have class and racial prejudice (see Galatians 2:11–14). Rather, the church is commissioned to meet the physical needs of the “have nots” within it. This is not to be confused with subsidizing irresponsibility, which the Bible strictly prohibits (see 2 Thessalonians 3:10; Proverbs 6:9–11; 10:4; 13:18; 24:30–34). Even in the biblical practice of gleaning—leaving behind portions of a harvest for the poor to collect—the poor needed to exercise responsibility in gleaning what had been left behind. The amount of work that was put forth resulted in the amount of food that was obtained.

The Bible is clear on spiritual ministry and social responsibility working hand-in-hand. When the two are properly connected and integrated, people become productive citizens of society while also becoming prepared for life in eternity.

Loving God, Loving Others

A strong biblical connection exists between our knowledge and relationship with God and our concern for the poor and the oppressed (see Jeremiah 22:16; Matthew 25:40). Micah 6:8 reveals this: “He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” We “do justice” in a humble relation to a just God as a natural reflection of His presence in our lives. Religion becomes authentic when it manifests itself in ministry to others in need.

The second most talked about subject in Scripture, after money, is the poor. More than three hundred verses directly relate to the treatment of the poor, strategies to aid the poor, God’s intentions for the poor, and what our perspective should be toward the poor. Space doesn’t allow us to go through all of them; it is clear that God cares about the poor particularly because they are the most vulnerable to injustice.

Ultimately, doing justice fulfills the two greatest commandments given to us by Jesus—loving God and loving others (see Matthew 22:37–40). Christ says: “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets” (v. 40). The content and meaning of the law and the prophets centered not only on one’s relationship to God, but also on whether one was rightly related to his neighbor. The implication is that a love for God that does not also express itself in love for one’s neighbor does not satisfy the biblical definition of love.

Thus, Jesus linked our attitude toward God (spiritual) with our attitude toward others (social). When asked “who is my neighbor that I am to love?” Jesus responded by telling the story of the Good Samaritan, pointing out that your neighbor is the person whose need you see and whose need you are able to meet (see Luke 10:26–37). Jesus concludes the story by exhorting us to love in like manner.

It is important to note the meaning of love because we often confuse love with an emotion. Although love can contain emotions, the Greek word used in the commands of Matthew 22 is the familiar word agape. This does not mean “liking” someone, or preferring a certain personality or race. Love is passionately and righteously pursuing the well-being of another. Jesus used the condition of injustice as an intrinsic aspect of a proper definition of loving one’s neighbor. Therefore, since loving one’s neighbor includes seeking his best interest by relieving him from injustice or oppression when it is necessary and we are able, love for God is validated through a liberating love for others.

Jesus’ earthly ministry consistently modeled the integration of the spiritual and the social that He taught about in that He dwelt among the oppressed (see Luke 5:1–11), ate with them (see Luke 5:27–32), comforted them (see Luke 12:22–34), fed them (see Luke 9:10–17), restored them (see Luke 5:12–16), and ministered to them (see Luke 7:18–23) in fulfillment of His Father’s will. All of Jesus’ good works were clearly connected to the spiritual purposes of God (see Matthew 4:23–24).

When Jesus gave His great Sermon on the Mount, He instructed His disciples to be the salt of the earth and light of the world (Matthew 5:13–16). Salt is a preservative to stop decay, and light dispels darkness. Christ’s followers were to influence society for God, accomplished by the good works they did for others in the name of God. Therefore, good works done for the benefit of helping people must include, not exclude, God. Good works originate from God, are done through God, and align under the truth of God in order to bring glory to God. In other words, God gets the credit for everything.

Good works are not good words, nor are they simply good things. You don’t have to be a Christian to do good things. The unsaved can build orphanages and houses, give money, visit the sick, and do a lot of other good things. But what the unsaved cannot do is glorify God through good works. Good works must always be tied to God’s glory.

The apostle John also stressed the connection between love for God and love for others: “If someone says, ‘I love God’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20). John also reminded us that this love is not expressed only in words, but in “deed and truth” (1 John 3:18).

James also emphasized that this love should be given to the poor and oppressed as special objects of God’s concern when he wrote: “Did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?” (James 2:5). He also defined true religion by how one treats the widow and the orphan (see James 1:27).

This same emphasis continued in the first-century church, whose influence was so powerful in society that it brought great joy to the entire city (see Acts 8:8) and was said to have turned the world upside down (see Acts 17:6). The church became known for its good works (see Acts 4:35; 5:11–16). Members of the church were taught to do good not only to other church members, but also to all people (see Galatians 6:10).

Biblical justice is a foundational part of fulfilling the purpose of the church and church members as intimated by the heart of God. It is a result of God’s people becoming one through being what God has called us to be and participating in what He has called us to do—justice.

JUSTICE AND THE GOSPEL

There is some confusion in the church today about the degree to which the gospel includes this mandate of justice. Some Christians believe that to include social liberation and justice in the gospel is to preach a “different gospel.” Others believe that to exclude social liberation and justice from the gospel is to deny it. Black Liberation Theology was formed on this latter thesis.

To resolve this dilemma we need to make a distinction between the gospel’s content and its scope. This distinction is important, because through it we determine the extent that we are to “do justice” as the church, as part of our comprehensive responsibility of proclaiming the gospel.

The Scope of the Gospel

It is unfortunate that the term “gospel” has been reduced to referring only to the plan of salvation. This limited understanding and use of the term has allowed people to be concerned about people’s souls for eternity and ignore their well-being in history. The content of the gospel message is limited and contained, but the scope is broad. Paul made this unmistakably clear in 1 Corinthians 15:1–4 when he wrote:

Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.

Clearly, the content of the gospel message is the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Scripture is plain that personal faith in the finished work of Christ is what brings people the forgiveness of sin, a personal relationship with God, and eternal life. It is through believing the gospel that Christians access God’s grace, or unmerited favor, for every area of their lives.

The gospel’s scope, however, reaches farther into sanctification, within which are located the concepts of justice and social action. We see this in Paul’s use of the word “gospel” when he informs the Christians in Rome that by the gospel they are established (see Romans 16:25). Likewise, the gospel is called “the power of God for salvation” (1:16), and is said to include “the righteousness of God … revealed from faith to faith” (v. 17). This righteousness includes sanctification, since “the righteous man shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17; see Habakkuk 2:4).

In addition, the gospel is said to be the criterion of Christian conduct (see Philippians 1:27), and believers are said to be obedient to the gospel when they are active in the ministry of love to poorer believers (see 2 Corinthians 9:13). Paul further exemplified that the gospel involves more than the reception of salvation, but also a life of liberty, freedom, and multi-racial relationships, when he rebuked Peter for drawing distinctions between Gentiles and Jews on the basis of circumcision. Paul said that in doing so Peter had not been “straightforward about the truth of the gospel” (Galatians 2:14). So here again, the word “gospel” is not used just in concert with eternal destiny, but also racial reconciliation in the body of Christ.

The gospel also encompasses the whole man as directly stated by Paul: “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). A view of mankind that divides the invisible world (soul) from the visible world (body) narrows the understanding of the scope of the gospel. This is reflected in a desire to save people’s souls, thus compartmentalizing a section of man; that is, to save an aspect of man as opposed to the man himself.

This division between the immaterial and material parts of man leads to a lack of application of biblical justice by emphasizing the spiritual aspects over the social. However, the relationship of the soul to the body is to be seen as a unified whole. Biblical terms referring to the spiritual aspects of man support this reference to man’s whole person, including the body. The Hebrew word for soul, nephesh, refers to the whole person, which includes the body (see Genesis 2:7; 46:18; Lamentations 3:24). Another word for soul, ruach, is also used to refer to the whole man (see Isaiah 26:9). In the New Testament, the Greek word for soul, psuche, is used to refer to David’s body, seeing as souls do not die and go to the grave (see Acts 2:27, 29).

Therefore, church members are commissioned to deliver the content of the gospel (evangelism) so that people come into a personal relationship with God. Yet the church is also commissioned to live out the scope of the gospel (sanctification) so that people can realize the gospel’s full manifestation and glorify God. The content of the gospel produces oneness in the church as we evangelize the world together. The scope also produces oneness through good works that are based on the principles of biblical justice.

Not too long ago I had the opportunity to sit down with one of the great evangelists of our time, Billy Graham, at his home in North Carolina. While we spent the afternoon together, he expressed the concern weighing heavily on his heart. He told me how people would work together across racial lines to both plan and implement his crusades; however, after the event was over, these same people had no relationship with each other at all. Mr. Graham asked me why I thought this was so.

I told him I believed this happened because the event was only tied to evangelism and not to community transformation as well. When invited, black pastors joined with white pastors to put together an evangelistic outreach. But the heart of African-American Christianity hinges on a broader perspective of the scope of the gospel rather than solely on its content. When asked to participate in community-impact initiatives by their fellow African-American pastors, the Anglo church has, as a general rule, often not shown the same enthusiasm for partnership that they receive in their evangelistic requests. But without a comprehensive understanding of the gospel, we lack the common goal necessary to bring us together to evoke real and lasting change in our nation.

Jesus and the Gospel

The greatest illustration of both the content and scope of the gospel is found in Luke 4:14–30. This story took place at a time when the Jews were living in social and economic oppression under Rome. The Jews hated the domination of the Romans, looked for a Messiah to deliver them, and desperately wanted their freedom.

Roaming the hillsides at that time was a man named Barabbas, a leader of a group of counter-revolutionaries known as the zealots. These zealots wreaked havoc along the Judean hills in order to protest and resist Roman imperialism and oppression. Caught in the middle of one of these pillaging raids, Barabbas was eventually arrested and sentenced to death on a cross.

A contemporary of Barabbas was Jesus. Jesus was at that time a man of no reputation who had been born in a tiny country town called Bethlehem. Although news had begun to spread about Him, He was known in His adopted hometown of Nazareth as simply the son of a carpenter.

One day, Jesus had returned to Nazareth and went to the synagogue. As was the custom when there was a visitor, He was given the opportunity to read the Scripture and offer the commentary. Jesus was handed the book of Isaiah, and we know He turned purposefully to His text because it says: “He opened the book and found the place where it was written…” (Luke 4:17). Jesus looked for a particular passage that would deliver a particular truth at a particular time to a particular audience with a particular need. He did so because he had a particular point that He wanted to make. When He found the passage He was looking for, Jesus read:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord.” And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4:18–21)

Don’t overlook that Jesus said, “Today.” The timing of Jesus’ reading is crucial. He chose this passage at a time when the Jews were in the middle of an economic, political, and social crisis. He came on the scene in the midst of a society experiencing the devastating effects of injustice and said that the Spirit of the Lord was upon Him to proclaim good news: the gospel.

What is essential to note is that Jesus Himself said He had good news, the gospel, for those in the economic crisis—the poor. He had good news, the gospel, for those in political crisis—the captives. And He had good news, the gospel, for those in social crisis—the oppressed. This good news that He had was the gospel of “the favorable year of the Lord.”

The Year of Jubilee

The “favorable year” Jesus referred to was also known as the Jubilee. To understand it more fully, we need to look at the context in which it first appeared: “You shall then sound a ram’s horn abroad on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the day of atonement you shall sound a horn all through your land. You shall thus consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim a release through the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you” (Leviticus 25:9–10).

The year of Jubilee, in which all in servitude were set free and property reverted to its original owners, was inaugurated with the Day of Atonement. This was the day set aside to atone for the sins of the nation of Israel both individually and corporately. The Day of Atonement was when Israel got right with God through the shedding of blood—the slaying of a sacrifice. In other words, they didn’t get the Jubilee (i.e., God’s involvement economically, socially, and politically—an aspect of the scope of the gospel) without first getting their sins addressed by God (a type reflecting the future content of the gospel). They didn’t get the social until they had the spiritual right. If they skipped the Day of Atonement in order to get the social benefits of the Jubilee, they lost out on the Jubilee altogether because there was a prescribed method for how God instituted His agenda.

A common problem we find today is that a lot of people want God to do things for them without the Day of Atonement. A lot of people cry for justice, or for God to pay this, fix that, redeem this, or vindicate the other, while skipping the very thing that inaugurates God’s Jubilee—addressing personal and corporate sin. God’s wrath against sin must always be addressed first, which in the dispensation of the church comes through our relationship with Jesus Christ, before God is free to give the social freedom we are looking for. If the spiritual is not foundational, there isn’t going to be a Jubilee.

The reason that the Jews didn’t receive the freedom that Jesus proclaimed to them was that they rejected Him and His atonement. They wanted the social action without the spiritual interaction. However, Jubilee came as the result of the atonement.

Jesus proclaimed the gospel, which included release for the captives and sight for the blind. He didn’t force it by eradicating capitalism and developing a spiritualized socialism. He simply offered it under the condition that it must be accepted through a prescribed atonement before it can be experienced.

Jesus couldn’t give Jubilee to the Jews because they refused to deal with their sin and receive Him as their Messiah. Jesus would have provided them with the deliverance from Rome they so greatly desired, if they had recognized Him as their future atonement and their Lord. However, the Jews wanted the benefits of the Messiah without a relationship with the Messiah. But that’s not how God’s justice works. No guarantee of deliverance exists without first addressing the spiritual issue through the atonement.

Christ as King

The Jews witnessed Jesus feeding thousands and healing the sick, but they demanded that He be crucified in exchange for the release of the rebel leader Barabbas. They chose the man who was attempting to free them from Roman bondage via a revolution, not the One who would do it via the cross. This is because they only wanted a welfare program rather than to be made well through spiritual transformation. They wanted deliverance, but not the King who delivers. And ever since then, mankind has been trying, and failing, to solve the problems of our societies in like manner, not via the favorable year of the Lord through the Day of Atonement, which is the supremacy of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Jesus’ ministry gave the proper order for how to approach all issues of justice and social action. He could have snapped His fingers and delivered all of the poor, the widows, and the oppressed. Instead, He was very particular about His involvement. It came in connection with the proclamation of His kingdom message. His purpose was to provide not only physical freedom and relief, but spiritual as well, because He knew that the spiritual and the physical are connected with each other.

Jesus’ gospel, as recorded in Luke 4, is the good news that includes both the spiritual and the physical. To make His proclamation merely social is not good news. If a person has the best food to eat, the nicest clothes to wear, and the greatest job at which to work, and yet still dies without a relationship with Christ through His atonement, he doesn’t have anything at all.

But to make Jesus’ proclamation merely spiritual is not the full experience of “good news” either. To tell a person that Jesus can give him a home in heaven, but can’t do anything about where he lives on earth—to tell him that he’s got shoes, I’ve got shoes, and all of God’s children have shoes in heaven, but we all have to go barefoot on earth, isn’t all that good of news either.

Jesus’ gospel includes both the spiritual and the social. It is designed to build God’s kingdom rather than try and save the world’s systems. It is designed to provide a model of a different system, one created by God, which provides a divine alternative so the world can see what God can do in broken humanity. All of the social activity in the world cannot solve the world’s problems. In the long term, social action is limited; lasting solutions can only come from the kingdom of God because that’s where the atonement guarantees lasting freedom.

Unless social action is based on spiritual discipleship, it will lack the power for long-term transformation, because there is a spiritual reality behind every physical problem. By addressing the underlying theological or spiritual issues, along with the physical, we can achieve long-term solutions because we have addressed the entire problem, not just its physical manifestation. Secular society does not understand the spiritual reality that causes physical, social, political, and economic problems. Therefore, society is limited in its ability to transform society.

Implementing Biblical Justice

God has a vision—His kingdom agenda—for impacting and transforming the world in which we live. God’s vision promises hope both for time and eternity to all who will receive it by connecting the social with the spiritual in a biblically based frame of reference. The social without the spiritual may help people in time but leave them impoverished for eternity. The spiritual without the social may have people looking forward to a great eternity, but missing what God wants to do to, through, and for people in history. As we have seen, both are essential for the transformation of individuals, families, churches, and also our nation.

There are three key principles for implementing biblical justice that I want us to look at next: restitution, reconciliation, and responsibility. Much can be accomplished when like-minded individuals embrace one another’s strengths to work together toward a shared vision of promoting biblical justice in our society.

BIBLICAL JUSTICE AND RESTITUTION

If the principles of biblical justice were implemented in our society today, we wouldn’t have prisons full to overflowing. This is because the aim of biblical justice is always a cessation of the crime coupled, when possible, with restitution to the victim. In biblical times, this was carried out in three ways: capital, corporal, or economic punishment. Capital punishment addressed heinous offenders by applying a severe penalty to severe crimes. Corporal punishment was a controlled form of physical punishment, along with the potential for restitution (see Exodus 21:22–25, 28–30). Economic punishment put economic justice into effect by the repayment with interest of what had been lost in the crime (see Exodus 22:1–3).

Regardless of the application, biblical restitution was always specific to the offended victim. It included a designated amount that had a predetermined end for when full restitution would be realized and forgiveness granted (see Leviticus 6:1–7). If these guidelines had been used for our modern day institution of affirmative action, we would not have gotten burdened down in endless debates regarding its effectiveness and conclusion.

Governments have a part to play in delivering justice, but we as the body of Christ need to remember that God did not create governments to take care of the things He has called the church to do. Christians should be representing God’s kingdom by caring for people across racial, gender, political, and class lines so well that government experts come to us to find out how we do it. Jesus could feed, heal, lead, and minister to people in a way that was a witness to the world. Because He was able to minister to their needs, Jesus turned the people’s eyes toward Him and not toward the Roman government.

Our church in Dallas has a justice process that renders decisions on everything from restitution to marital disputes, divorces, business lawsuits, juvenile delinquency, and so on. Of course, capital crimes fall solely under the jurisdiction of the state (see Romans 13:1–4). However, this ministry—run by fully qualified legal representatives—serves the church and community in a myriad of ways.

An example of how this functions is illustrated in the life of a man whom I’ll call Chris. Chris had stolen $1,500 from his employer and had been caught by the police. The judge was going to lock him up for three years at a cost to the taxpayers of about $18,000 per year. Besides the cost, Chris would be going to prison where he would only learn how to become a better criminal. Along with that, his employer would never be repaid for the loss.

I sent a group of men from our church to the judge and one said, “Your Honor, if you will give Chris back to us, we will assign a man to be responsible for him, get him a job, and garnish his wages to pay back his former employer.”

The judge was happy to do that. So we placed some men in Chris’s life to influence him in the right way, got him a job, garnished his wages, paid back the money he stole, saved the taxpayers money, and held him responsible. Six months later we took him back to the judge, who was astonished. Later, we got a call from him: “Will you take twenty more like Chris?”

The church is to be a place where biblical justice is not only proclaimed, but also produced and modeled for society at large.

BIBLICAL JUSTICE AND RECONCILIATION

Biblical justice also comes tempered with the potential for mercy toward the offender. The cross of Jesus Christ is the greatest example of this appeal for mercy. While on the cross, Jesus asked His Father to forgive those who were killing Him (see Luke 23:34). Through the parable of the two slaves who owed money, Jesus teaches that this principle of mercy should govern how we treat others as well (see Matthew 18:21–34).

Although mercy is not always granted in the execution of justice, the opportunity for it makes biblical justice distinct. This should cause each of us to be grateful, because without God’s mercy none of us would be here today. It should also cause each of us to be willing to extend mercy, when able, as an outgrowth of having received it ourselves.

By combining restitution with mercy, biblical justice has the unique ability to lead toward reconciliation. A secular example of this combination happened in South Africa. Following apartheid, South Africa initiated what has come to be the model of Truth Commissions throughout the world. Newly elected President Nelson Mandela established the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a court-like restorative justice body. Its task was to discover, reveal, and, inasmuch as possible, right past wrongdoing by government in the hope of fostering reconciliation by resolving conflict, and its resultant consequences, left over from the past.

The key term in the Commission is “reconciliation.” As Nelson Mandela explained, being free is not only being unchained but living respectfully and elevating the freedom of others. Justice was sought, in this case, toward the end goal of reconciliation, leading South Africa to stand head and shoulders above other nations in its bid for cooperation and oneness within its governing institutions.

Our government has never enacted a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for the injustices committed by the founding members of our nation, as well as those who came after them, toward African-Americans. These injustices lie largely in the past, but they do not lie dormant. Their tremors and repercussions remain as alive and active as ever, as evidenced in the societal schisms still present in our country today.

Yet we do not need to wait on a government run by men and women who may, or may not, know the God of the universe, to enact a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. After all, we know the One who is the Truth, and He came to us on a mission of reconciliation. As He is about His “Father’s business,” so we are to be about the same.

Biblical justice does not simply mean halting an evil that has been done to a group of people without being willing to also offer restitution and reconciliation to the victim in order to salve the resulting psychologically, sociologically, and spiritually inflicted wounds. Biblical justice contains much more than an awareness of a past wrong.

Biblical Justice and Responsibility

Seldom in the discussion of the poor or biblical justice do we hear the word “empowerment,” a risky term because couched within it is another word: “power.” Human nature rarely lends itself to relinquishing power to another person whether it is done relationally, socially, spiritually, or politically.

In fact, the words often associated with the poor and social action in our contemporary language involve concepts such as relief, charity, and aid. The focus is on how to make life more palatable for the poor through temporal and often inadequate provisions of a meal, clothing, or housing. While well-intentioned and helpful in many ways, this often nurtures a paternalistic style of justice, causing us to forget that we are not our brother’s keeper, but that we are our brother’s brother. Rather, we need to seek to give the poor the power they need to ultimately rise above their situation into a position of personal responsibility.

Empowering the Poor

Injustice is not simply mistreating the poor or oppressing others. Injustice involves a refusal to appropriately equip and empower the defenseless, poor, and oppressed in such a way as to maximize their productive potential. Therefore, one of the primary purposes of biblical justice and social action should always be the creation of productivity that ultimately empowers people, calling them to take personal responsibility.

In Scripture, charity was essentially an opportunity to work. This is illustrated by the process of gleaning, which we touched on earlier, whereby the needy could collect the grain that God’s people were told to leave behind from their harvest for the benefit of the poor (see Leviticus 19:9–10; Deuteronomy 24:17–22). By taking responsibility for being productive, people could turn poverty into productivity in response to the charitable opportunities provided by others.

If a person can work, then biblically he is expected to work (see 2 Thessalonians 3:10). Gleaning provided the opportunity for the poor to help themselves out of poverty, while simultaneously upholding their dignity since they were participants in the system and not merely passive recipients of charity. The harder a person worked, even as a poor person, the more productive that individual became.

This is why a just and righteous free market economy, biblical economics, is the best system. It provides the incentive for the producers of wealth to maximize their abilities, while concurrently encouraging responsibility through empowering forms of charity for those who have the ability to work.

Other economic systems that stifle, limit, and illegitimately control the ways and means of production not only hinder economic growth, but also limit the authentic expression of biblical charity. These systems produce government-run welfare states that keep people trapped in the very poverty and oppression that they say they are seeking to eliminate. The economic responsibility of civil government is to remove fraud and coercion from the marketplace thus keeping it free from tyranny. It is not to control the marketplace (statism). Centralized governmental control of trade is the economic system of the Antichrist (see Revelation 13:17).

Imparting Knowledge

Another purpose of biblical justice and social action is the impartation of knowledge. Knowledge is one of the greatest tools that can be given to people to either lift themselves out of, or defend themselves within, a situation of injustice. The clearest biblical example of the benefits of knowledge in an unjust situation is demonstrated in the book of Esther. We often read the story of Esther, focusing on the beauty of Esther as a heroine who rescued her people from certain death. However, Esther didn’t rescue her people from certain death at all. She merely enabled her people to defend themselves from the threat of certain death through the knowledge of the upcoming battle, along with the right to bear arms (see Esther 8:11).

The law of Persia forbade the king from reversing the order he had made to exterminate all of the nation’s Jews. What the Jews gained through Esther’s stand was the knowledge of the ensuing battle, which allowed them the time to amass and use arms to legally defend themselves from their oppressor. Esther didn’t win the battle for her people; she simply gave her people the ability to fight for themselves.

Knowledge empowers. However, if the statistics from our schools are any indicator, a large number of our young people are failing to be empowered today. In three of our nation’s major cities—Detroit, Baltimore, and New York City—fewer than forty percent of all high school students will graduate. And yet our churches sit idly by housing the largest, most qualified volunteer force in the nation who can both infiltrate and impact our society for good.

Churches exist in every community, so the structure to address social problems is already in place. The church is ideally suited to serve as a unified force for change. Except that we have misunderstood our calling. As we often do when reading the story of Esther, we have become enchanted by the beauty within the safety of our own four walls to such a degree that we have forgotten there is a battle upon us.

Our society has been called post-Christian. So how is our society going to know what God’s law is and how it is supposed to function? Let me answer that from Scripture. In Deuteronomy 4:5–6, Moses cautioned the Israelites that when they entered Canaan, they were to obey God’s “statutes and judgments” as given to Moses. By so doing, Israel would be a testimony to the unbelieving nations around them, who would look at Israel and say, “Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people” (v. 6c).

Then Moses went on to explain why the nations would say this: “For what great nation is there that has a god so near to it as is the LORD our God whenever we call on Him? Or what great nation is there that has statutes and judgments as righteous as this whole law which I am setting before you today?” (Deuteronomy 4:7–8).

A KINGDOM COURSE OF ACTION

Our society will know what true justice looks like when the people of God demonstrate the equitable application of God’s law within the spheres of influence God has given. Here are some kingdom agenda ideas in each of our four categories.

One Life under God

As we saw earlier in Micah 6:8, the prophet asked, “What does the LORD require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” That’s a great statement of your personal responsibility and mine when it comes to justice in society. We are to uphold the divine standard, to act without partiality in our personal decisions, choices, and relationships.

Fulfilling our kingdom agenda as Christians has to do with more than just being in church. It has to do with how we as Christians perform on the job and the standard we uphold in the marketplace. It has to do with our influence at the local PTA, the stand we take at the city council meeting, the letters we write to our representatives, our participation on boards and committees, and many other ways of leveraging our influence. Being a kingdom Christian means bringing the presence, precepts, and power of God to bear on society, pulling society back into an upright position.

One Family under God

When it comes to the family, I would refer you back to a verse we have already looked at several times: Genesis 18:19. This was God’s command to Abraham to raise his family in such a way that his descendants practiced justice. Children must learn early that sin bears consequences.

This is why you are to discipline your children when they need it. You discipline them now in your home so the police won’t have to discipline them later down at the jail. God tells parents to raise their children so that they know there is a divine standard to which they are answerable. They need to understand that even if God lets them off now, He won’t let them off in eternity.

One Church under God

James 2:1–9 is the classic statement of biblical justice in the church. The apostle laid down the principle in verse 1: “My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism.” James then described a scenario where a rich man came into the assembly dressed in gold and expensive clothes, and the ushers fell all over themselves giving him the best seat in the house. Then a poor man in rags came in the back door, and the ushers made him stand against the back wall or sit on the floor.

James said this is the worst form of classism and has no place in the church. It doesn’t matter which side of town you live on when you come into the family of God. James said favoritism is evil (see v. 4). It’s a form of injustice. And there ought to be no injustice in the church. This means that members of the church who practice any form of discrimination must be lovingly confronted and, if they remain unrepentant, publicly condemned.

One Nation under God

Finally, how does a kingdom agenda of biblical justice work itself out in society? Psalm 72 says: “Give the king Your judgments, O God, and Your righteousness to the king’s son. May he judge Your people with righteousness and Your afflicted with justice…. May he vindicate the afflicted of the people, save the children of the needy and crush the oppressor” (vv.1–2, 4).

The job of government is to function as an instrument of God’s justice. But once government no longer sees itself as God’s agent under His authority, it becomes its own humanistic institution. Then whatever the majority thinks guides the decisions, or else those who have the most power make decisions. In either case, the result cannot be a just society.

That is why we need Christians running for government office. I’m not just talking about people who are saved and on their way to heaven, but people who have developed a God-centered worldview that they bring to every area of public life.

We also need committed young Christians in fields such as law. We need honest people who hold to God’s standard of truth and justice and will do things God’s way, not necessarily the cultural way. We need people in places of influence who can bring divine justice to bear on this society. When unrighteous people rule, there is no moral law. When there is no moral law, there is no presence of God. And when there is no presence of God, there is chaos in society.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

A NATION AND ECONOMICS

You may have heard the story of the man who stole some money but was captured by the authorities. He didn’t have the money with him, so they asked him where he hid it. But it turned out the thief spoke another language, so they had to send for an interpreter. When the interpreter came, the authorities said, “Ask him where he hid the money.”

So the interpreter asked the thief the question in his own language, and the thief replied.

“What did he say?” the authorities wanted to know.

“He said he’s not telling.”

The authorities became impatient and then insisted that he tell. One said, “Tell him we want to know where the money is, and we want to know now.”

The interpreter repeated the question to the thief and got the same answer. “He says he isn’t going to tell you.”

The head authority thought he would try to scare the thief into telling, so he said to the interpreter, “Tell him that if he doesn’t tell us where the money is, we are going to shoot him.”

The interpreter repeated the threat to the thief, who got scared and told the interpreter step-by-step exactly where he could find the money. The authorities listened to the conversation and then asked the interpreter, “Well, what did he say?”

“He said he isn’t going to tell you anything,” the interpreter answered.

When it comes to the issue of money, I’m afraid our interpretations—and our motives—sometimes get mixed up. But money is part of God’s kingdom agenda for us, and you knew we would not be able to talk about the business of the kingdom without dealing with the economics of the kingdom. In fact, I hope you are getting the message by now that nothing sits outside the scope of God’s kingdom. Economic issues are just as much a part of our work as anything else we could name. Let’s see what it means to operate economically on a kingdom agenda.

THE FOUNDATION OF KINGDOM ECONOMICS

The foundation of an economic view grows out of God’s Kingdom agenda for His people and His world. This foundation reveals how God empowers His people for the righteous use of the earth’s resources for profitably (and morally) conducting business as His stewards.

Let me start laying that foundation with a critical text on the subject of economics and wealth. In Deuteronomy 8, Moses was addressing the Israelites on the eve of their entrance into Canaan. He recounted God’s goodness to them all the way from their departure from Egypt to the present moment, which was almost forty years later, and he warned them not to forget who provided for them.

Beginning in Deuteronomy 8:11, we discover the reason for Moses’ concern. He feared that once the people got settled in Canaan and started living the “good life” in the suburbs, they would get proud. Then they would forget that they used to be slaves and that the only reason they weren’t slaves now was that God had given to them everything they had (vv. 11–14).

So Moses laid down an absolutely foundational principle of divine economics. The Israelites needed to keep their economics in focus because: “Otherwise, you may say in your heart, ‘My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.’ But you shall remember the LORD your God, for it is He who is giving you power to make wealth, that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day” (vv. 17–18).

The principle is simply this: Any discussion of economics that does not include God is not a complete discussion because He is the Author of all wealth. God owns it all. We looked at these principles earlier in the chapter relating to your personal stewardship, but we are going to review them here with regard to society and economics. The psalmist said, “The earth is the LORD’s, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it” (Psalm 24:1). Communism teaches that the government owns everything. Capitalism teaches that the individual owns everything. Christianity teaches that God owns everything.

God states it clearly in Psalm 50 as well: “Every beast of the forest is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills…. If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world is Mine, and all it contains” (vv. 10, 12). And Haggai 2:8 reminds us, “ ‘The silver is Mine and the gold is Mine,’ declares the LORD of hosts.” Economics is a spiritual issue. God sets the rules for poverty and wealth (see 1 Samuel 2:7–8). It cannot be called secular when the owner of everything is God. Like the Israelites, everything we have is rooted in the goodness of God. We cannot discuss economics on any level, from personal to national, without putting God’s perspective first.

Since God is the starting and ending point of all economic discussions, we need to find out what is on His kingdom agenda for the resources He has entrusted to us.

THE PURPOSE OF WEALTH

Let’s start with a pretty basic question: What is God’s purpose for wealth? The answer is found at the very end of Deuteronomy 8:18, quoted above. Moses said it was God who was giving the Israelites the power to gain wealth, “that He may confirm His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.”

God gives wealth so that it might be used to fulfill His divine purposes, in this case His covenant with Israel. God made a covenant with Abraham, that through Abraham “all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). He has also made a new covenant with us through Jesus Christ. God gives you the ability, capacity, giftedness, and raw materials to produce wealth in order to confirm the covenant. Which means if you don’t understand the covenant, then you don’t understand the purpose of wealth.

Confirming God’s Purpose

Therefore, one primary confirmation of the covenantal, legitimate use of wealth is when it is used to bless somebody else. Jesus Himself said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). Covenantalism is critical to economic progress. God uses wealth as a channel through which His benefits flow to you and through you to others. Therefore, if all you can see is your car and your house and your wardrobe—if you cannot point to the ways God’s blessings in your life are flowing out in blessings to others, then God has no reason to give you wealth.

And if God has no reason to give you wealth, then the only way you can get it is apart from Him. But if you get it apart from Him, you will pay a heavy price for going after it. God gives His economic blessings to accomplish His purposes.

Since God owns all the wealth of the world and has a clear purpose for it, He gets to set the rules of who will get it and how it will be used. First Samuel 2:7–8 makes it very clear that it is God who makes people rich or poor, saying, in essence, “I set the rules. If you follow My rules, you get My results. If you follow your rules, you get your results.”

God told His people in Deuteronomy 28:12 that if they would obey His rules, He would make them a lender nation instead of a debtor nation. When you use wealth God’s way, it eliminates rather than accumulates debt. Our nation would not need to face any fiscal cliff, or continue to accumulate debt, if we would operate according to God’s rules on managing corporate wealth and promoting individual wealth.

It is important to understand that God is not against wealth. If God chooses to materially bless an individual, family, church, or nation that is operating on a kingdom agenda, there should not be any feelings of false guilt for what God Himself has given. God is more concerned with how you got what you have, and how you use what you have, than He is with how much you have. If the wealth you have is gained illegitimately, then you have reason to feel guilty. But if not, then God does not heap guilt on you.

Subverting God’s Purpose

Despite God’s provision of wealth and His rules for its use, we as sinful people have a way of subverting those rules and setting up our own. Unfortunately, because of this, we end up losing more than we could ever gain.

Our first parents found that out the hard way. Adam and Eve challenged God’s ownership of His provision in the Garden of Eden and made up their own rules. They decided they were going to operate independently of God’s economy. But they wound up with less—far less—rather than more.

Ever since then, individuals have been cursed financially because they refuse to handle God’s money God’s way. Many families are in financial disarray because they are not operating on God’s economic agenda. Many churches have to resort to unbiblical means to accumulate money because they are not doing it God’s way. And our nation has to be in continual economic uncertainty today due to our trillions of dollars in debt, risking the future stability of those who worked to contribute to our nation’s resources.

The economic problems that nations contend with are not due to a lack of resources on the earth. God has packed this earth with raw materials and resources beyond our wildest imagination. Mankind was designed to cultivate and develop this wealth under God’s direction and blessing, because Adam was given dominion over the earth. The failure to do this is because of sin, not because the earth has run out of its resources.

Biblical economics is a spiritual issue regarding sin and righteousness. But because people think our problems are merely economic, they don’t see the solutions to our problems, which come from God and His Word. But the foundation of economics is theological. If we would return to God on a personal, family, church, and national level, we would witness the kind of proper economic development our communities need so badly. But people have established their own rules, and we are all paying a high price for this disobedience.

THE HINDRANCES TO KINGDOM ECONOMICS

If God is the foundation of a kingdom economic agenda, what are the hindrances keeping this agenda from being realized? Why can’t we see kingdom-based economic development in our communities? There are a number of reasons.

The Hindrance of Greed

Greed is a lust for material things for their own sake. Greed places the material over the spiritual, resulting in the loss of the true meaning of life (see Luke 12:13–21). Greed can lead to all sorts of issues economically. In fact, the primary reason our nation experienced the financial downfall of 2008 was the greed in the housing situation. Greedy lenders gave subprime loans to greedy buyers who were purchasing outside of what they could reasonably afford long-term. Greed involves a lust for money, and what money can buy, at the expense of someone else.

Before we move on, though, I want to clarify that greed is not to be confused with self-interest. Self-interest is not a sin. Paul writes: “Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others” (Philippians 2:4). The assumption is that you will look out for your own interests. Paul just says not to forget others and their interests while you are doing so.

So is it greedy to want a better job or a nicer car? Not necessarily. It depends on the motive that is driving the desire for these things. There is nothing wrong with wanting to better yourself if it is done legitimately, and if others are not forgotten in the process.

One question that always comes up here is whether Christians should play the lottery. Well, let’s say the lottery jackpot one week is ten million dollars. You are wondering whether you should try for it. I would ask you, “Is there an agenda that God has set before you that requires you to win ten million dollars?” I suspect the answer would be no. You want the ten million because it’s a lot of money, and you would be set for life. What I’m saying is that playing the lottery is not tied to any legitimate goal. Winning the money is an end in itself, and that is evil. It is equally evil for a government to prey on the greed of its citizens by attempting to derive through gaming money what it could not legitimately collect in fees and taxes.

The Bible makes it clear that we are not to be involved in any scheme in which we try to get rich quickly and bypass the process of productive work. Instead of praying that we win the lottery, here’s what we should be asking God for: “Keep deception and lies far from me, give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is my portion, that I not be full and deny You and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or that I not be in want and steal, and profane the name of my God” (Proverbs 30:8–9). Having too much and having too little can both lead to greed.

The Hindrance of Envy

Envy is another sinful attitude that hinders kingdom economic development. Envy goes a step further than jealousy. Jealousy says, “I am upset because you have something that I don’t have.” Envy says, “Not only am I upset about what you have, but since I don’t have it, I will either make sure you don’t have it or at least that you will not enjoy it.”

Envy sets in motion a string of events that try to deny people the legitimate ownership of what they have, and it creates all manner of accompanying sin. Envy is clearly an illegitimate passion in the Bible. Paul said the wicked are marked by envy (see Romans 1:29), among other things, and added that envy must not characterize the people of God (see Romans 13:13).

Envy is a spiritual problem because it stems from a false view of God. When we are envious, we are saying that God is either not sovereign, or not good, because in our view He failed to give us what we think we ought to have. Therefore, we are envious if someone else has it. The root of envy is a faulty, weak view of God.

The Hindrance of Laziness

The Bible recognizes that some people are poor because they are lazy (see Proverbs 10:4, 5; 12:24; 13:4, 11). We have noted from 2 Thessalonians 3:10 that people who refuse to work should not eat. Lazy people are present rather than future oriented, and must begin taking responsibility for themselves and their families. When the lazy poor receive handouts that require little or no productivity on their part, then we aid and abet their economic deterioration, as well as our own.

The Hindrance of Extortion and Corruption

There are unrighteous attitudes that hinder kingdom economics, and there are also unrighteous practices. Nehemiah 5 records a case of extortion among the Jews who came back under this great leader. The people cried out to Nehemiah for relief because they were being mistreated economically.

Some of the people were just poor, while others were losing ownership of their property because they had to mortgage it to buy food (see vv. 2–3). Still others were having to borrow money to pay their taxes (see v. 4). Worst of all, some of God’s people were being sold into slavery to pay their bills (see v. 5), which meant they could leave no legacy to their children. When Nehemiah heard all of this, he got very angry because he discovered that “the nobles and the rulers” (v. 7) were extorting money from their fellow Jews. They were charging the people heavy interest rates to borrow the money they needed to live.

In other words, systems were in place to make sure all of the money went to those at the top. None of it was filtering down. People could borrow money, but they had to sell their children into slavery to do it. This was systemic economic injustice, which is evil at its core because God curses ungodly structures (see Proverbs 13:23), and because it robs people of the fruit of their labor. Such injustice must be challenged precisely as Nehemiah challenged it.

Notice what he did. He called for a march (v. 7, “great assembly”), addressed the spiritual issues involved (see vv. 8–9), and set up a system of restitution (see vv. 10–13). The result was the restoration of justice and a renewed opportunity for people to benefit from their labor. In addition, a mountain of debt was removed in one day.

God hates unjust systems and practices. He made His view clear in James 5:1–6, which speaks to the unjust employer who withheld his workers’ wages because he was interested only in his own profits.

Economic injustice can also be built into a governmental system, which then prevents people from reaping the maximum fruit of their labor. Communism is one of these systems that establishes a hierarchy in which the leaders inform the citizens that they will work for the state and only get from their work what the government decides they will get.

This is one reason that communist regimes ultimately cannot stand. Once people realize that they are being systematically cheated, they demand more. Of course, the bigger reason these regimes fall is that they deny God’s existence and try to rule Him out of life. However, even capitalism, when it permits monopolies to be built with unjust wages and labor laws, reflects another form of economic injustice.

The Hindrance of Unjust Taxation

Another hindrance to God’s economic agenda occurs when a government overtaxes its people. We are talking about democratic and republic governments here as well as socialist and communist governments. Whenever the government taxes you more than ten percent of your income, it commits a systemic evil. When Israel first demanded a king, Samuel warned the people that if they got a king he would take the best of their produce for his court and impose heavy taxes on them (see 1 Samuel 8:10–18). High taxation is an indication of divine judgment resulting from government’s expanding attempts to supplant the rule of God.

Samuel was saying that the king would demand more of the people than they were obligated to give to God Himself. God required ten percent, the tithe, as the basic financial obligation for His people. But the king would not be happy with a tithe. Samuel was saying that no government should demand more from its people than the person who owns it all, who is God.

There should only be one national income tax of not more than ten percent. This would provide the federal government, along with revenues from the states or corporations, ample revenue for what it has biblical authority to oversee. It would also render the wasteful aspects of the bureaucracy of the IRS unnecessary.

So whenever a government taxes its people more than ten percent of their income, it is committing an injustice. We in America are under that evil, but it is also partly our fault. We have asked the government to do things that government was never meant to do, and the government is charging us for those services at a much higher rate than would be necessary if we were properly decentralized.

Because Christians have robbed God of His tithe, we are paying much more than that amount in unjust taxation as God’s judgment on our spiritual theft. Once we ask the government to take over things like charity, health care, and education, government is going to tax us excessively to pay for those systems and services. And when government begins performing illegitimate functions, it becomes spiritually bankrupt—because, remember, economics is a spiritual issue.

The existence of government-sponsored lotteries is an example of how spiritually bankrupt government can become. Many of our state governments have come to the conclusion that they cannot be productive enough through legitimate efforts to raise the money they need to operate. So they lay an unofficial tax on their people by setting up a lottery in which luck is substituted for productive work. So the people, primarily poor people who can’t afford it, are enticed to try to luck their way into riches while the state gathers in illegitimate income.

Of course, the reality is a person has a better chance of finding oil in his backyard than of winning the lottery. People would be better off digging for oil. Unjust taxation stems from an unbiblical view of life. It is another form of theft.

THE PROCESS OF KINGDOM ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

We’re ready now to talk about the process that brings about the realization of a kingdom economic agenda. Proverbs 13:22 says: “The wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous.” We need to understand that although wicked people may have much while the righteous have little, God has a way of transferring the resources of the wicked to their legitimate owners, the righteous, to be used and developed for kingdom purposes. What the righteous need to do is start acting righteously.

Now this is a heavy concept, so I want to develop it. Let’s first understand the theology behind this concept. Let me begin by giving you several illustrations of this Proverbs 13:22 principle.

The Egyptians held the children of Israel in slavery. The Israelites had nothing, but they finally made contact with God. He afflicted Egyptian society with so many plagues that Pharaoh agreed to let the people go. God had told the Israelites that when the time came to leave, they were to ask their Egyptian neighbors for silver and gold (see Exodus 11:1–2).

The Israelites did as they were told, and the Egyptians were only too glad to give God’s people anything they asked. “Thus they plundered the Egyptians” (Exodus 12:36). So the Israelites left Egypt with millions of dollars worth of Egyptian gold and silver.

God then told the Israelites to take some of that wealth and build Him a tabernacle where they could worship Him. And God was not finished yet. He had a land for the Israelites to possess, a good land “flowing with milk and honey” (Exodus 3:17).

The only problem was that the unrighteous lived in Canaan. But guess what God did? He told the unrighteous, “Build some nice houses over here, develop the neighborhoods, and cultivate the fields for My people, because they are coming.” And when Israel arrived, God took care of the unrighteous. He told Israel to take the land of Canaan and do His kingdom business with it (see Psalm 105:43–45). That was a theological transaction.

It was the same with Nehemiah when he heard in Persia that the walls of Jerusalem were broken down and the city of God was in disgrace. The first place Nehemiah went was to God in prayer (see Nehemiah 1:11). Then he approached Artaxerxes, the ungodly king he served. Nehemiah told the king that God was leading him to go back to rebuild the city of his fathers (see 2:1–10). Artaxerxes not only gave Nehemiah permission to go, but the king gave Nehemiah everything he asked for and then some.

God moved a pagan government to support His kingdom man doing His kingdom business. Artaxerxes had so much confidence in Nehemiah’s ability that the king saw even this far-off building project as an asset to his kingdom. So God transferred the wealth of the unrighteous to the righteous. Again, this was a theological transaction because God’s man understood how God operates—namely, that everything belongs to Him so that He will even take from pagans to give to us if we are conducting kingdom business.

Leveraging the Influence

Once we understand the theology of the kingdom economic process, we need to leverage our kingdom influence. Allow me to give you an example from the experience of our church. When we were ready to build our Family Life Center, we went to the bank we dealt with for the financing, but the bank denied our application.

I said to the banker, “I don’t understand. How can you deny us when we have been depositing in your bank all these years?”

The answer was, “We don’t want to take the risk.”

What the banker was telling me was that he didn’t want to loan us a portion of the bank’s resources so we could do kingdom business. I was sitting there dumbfounded when I think the Holy Spirit must have given me a thought. So I took a risk myself.

“I see,” I said to the banker. “Then what I need to do is go back to the church and ask how many of our people are doing business with your bank. Then I will have to tell everyone who has deposits in your bank that you don’t think our church is worth the risk so we can do God’s kingdom business on our property. Then I will ask all of those families and individuals to withdraw their money from your bank and move it to your competitor.”

I didn’t even know if that would work, but the bankers went back, held another meeting, and came out with another decision. It was a matter of influence, because when you understand the theology of kingdom economics, you can leverage the influence of kingdom economics.

Building for Today

Here is another important item on the agenda of kingdom economic development. We need to prepare for life, because we might be here for a while. There’s a great example of this in Jeremiah 29:4–7. The Jews were now exiles in Babylon. A false prophet had come and told the people that they would be out of there and back home within two years (see Jeremiah 28:11). So they didn’t need to worry about any economic issues.

But God had a different message. He told Jeremiah to tell the people, “Build houses and live in them; and plant gardens and eat their produce” (29:5). In other words, start economic development, because you are going to be here a long time. Don’t sit back and depend on government charity to take care of you when you retire. Building houses and planting vineyards suggests ownership, a key element of a kingdom economic strategy. And ownership always requires some sort of investment. God told the exiles that while they were waiting for a better tomorrow, they were to work in the today they were in.

Investing for Tomorrow

Do you know why so many kingdom citizens are in debt up to their ears? Because they have listened to the culture teaching them to spend while ignoring God teaching them to invest. In Luke 19:11–27, Jesus told a classic parable of the need to invest for the future. The master in the parable gave each of his slaves a different amount of money and told them to invest it so that he would have a profit when he returned. Now most of us would have spent the money we got if that happened to us. It would have been gone, because we do not understand that God does not give us money just to spend but to invest.

Before commercial seed became widely available, a farmer who ate all of his crops would not have any crops the next year. He always left some seeds to put back into the ground so he would have new crops the next year. You and I must invest if we are going to be a kingdom-oriented people.

There is no such thing, by the way, as equality of opportunity. We are all born with different talents in different situations that offer different levels of opportunity. But there is such a thing as maximizing what God has given us. Nehemiah 11:1–2 is a good example of what I’m talking about. After the walls of Jerusalem were rebuilt, Nehemiah got the people to invest in the future of their community:

The leaders of the people lived in Jerusalem, but the rest of the people cast lots to bring one out of ten to live in Jerusalem, the holy city, while nine-tenths remained in the other cities. And the people blessed all the men who volunteered to live in Jerusalem.

Nehemiah brought people from the suburbs back into Jerusalem so they could invest in the city. Before, there were no walls, no businesses, no community—just chaos. By getting the people to invest in their own future, Nehemiah raised the standards of the community.

And when you raise the standards, everything in a community goes up with it. Property values go up because the businesses are going up. There is stability in the community. We have the power to do that in our communities as well if we would get serious about fulfilling the economic agenda of God’s kingdom.

A KINGDOM COURSE OF ACTION

The final aspect I want us to consider is the responsibility that a kingdom economic agenda entails. Let’s take it through each of the four areas that make up the divisions of this book, since all four ultimately contribute to the economic stability of our society.

One Life under God

The place to start is with yourself. You must prepare yourself individually to live on a kingdom economic plan. This involves maximizing your productivity.

Many years ago, Lois and I sat under the biblical teaching of a respected Christian financial counselor. We were earning just a little bit of money in those days, but we learned how to apply God’s principles where we were, and it revolutionized our financial life. We have been virtually free of debt ever since.

You need a plan. You cannot luck your way into a kingdom economic way of life. The Bible advises us to consider the ant who stores up for the future while things are good (see Proverbs 6:6–11). If you are not operating financially by a clear plan, you are gambling with the resources God gives you.

You may say, “I don’t have any money, so I don’t need a plan.” No, you don’t have any money because you don’t have a plan. Know where you are financially (see Proverbs 27:23), and then decide where you want to go. Now here are three words that can change your life.

The first word is give. Always honor God with the “first fruits” of your income. If you want God’s blessing, then you need to honor Him first, because He is the Owner of it all. If you are robbing God of His tithes to the church and offerings to address the emergency needs of the poor, forget the rest of it (see Malachi 3:8–9). Even when we try to withhold from God, He has a way of making sure something is always breaking down so that we pay up anyway. Give God His portion first.

The second word is save. After you pay the Lord, pay yourself next. We just talked about this, so I’ll leave it at that.

The third word is spend. There’s nothing wrong with spending. But it needs to come third in your financial priorities, not first. If MasterCard is the only one enjoying the fruit of your work, if American Express is the only one who loves to see you get paid, something is wrong. You are being owned by this world order. The borrower is always slave to the lender.

The order here of these three little words is all-important. But we mess it up because too many of us spend faithfully, save occasionally, and give sporadically. Enjoy what you have to spend, but don’t rob God and cheat yourself to do it. In order to do that, you must begin getting out of debt now. It may be hard at first, but it will be worth it when you’re free.

One Family under God

The first half of Proverbs 13:22 says: “A good man leaves an inheritance to his children’s children.” If you have nothing to leave to your family when you die because you failed to save and plan ahead, that is wrong. You need to help your children get a start in life, but not so they can simply take their inheritance and use it for a life of laziness and lack of productivity.

How do we leave our children an inheritance and yet try to make sure they know how to handle it in a righteous way? By doing more than just leaving them money. We need to teach them godly wisdom when it comes to finances. “Wisdom along with an inheritance is good,” said Solomon (Ecclesiastes 7:11). In other words, don’t just give your children money. Give them a kingdom agenda mindset about money. And if you don’t have material things to leave behind, by teaching your children wisdom you can still leave them a valuable inheritance. We need to teach our children biblical principles of finance.

Families should also start family businesses using the gifts, talents, and training of its various members to work together for the benefit of the whole. Such an enterprise unifies the household while simultaneously bringing financial benefit.

Unfortunately today, much of the opposite is occurring. Poverty is increasing in America because families are falling apart. When you have roughly seventy-two percent of all African-American children being born to single parents with no productive male in the home, you can expect generational poverty. This then leads to the expansion of government dependency and increased taxes to foot the bill. And when you have legislation that works against the family rather than undergirding it, you are going to experience increased chaos and loss in the culture.

One Church under God

The church has lost much of its influence in society because it has turned its social service calling over to the state. In an earlier chapter we discussed the church’s role in helping people such as needy widows. The church’s job is not only to help the responsible poor, but also to empower the poor, equipping them to create wealth.

How do you empower poor people? Not just by giving them money, because if their thinking toward money is wrong, they will be back tomorrow and the day after that for more money. The church needs to offer biblically responsible and temporary charity to its members while also holding men accountable to provide for their families.

People need more than money to be empowered. They need a kingdom mindset toward money. Thus part of the church’s agenda for economics is to disciple believers with biblical knowledge in areas such as saving, budgeting, and investing, as well as to create opportunities for self-fulfillment and employment. This means that the gifts and skills of the church membership must be enlisted to serve the kingdom in the area of economic development.

At our church in Dallas, one way we try to empower people is to hold regular seminars in biblical economics. We also provide personal financial counseling. We help those who have not graduated from high school to get their GED. And we are working with a local Christian university to set up classes so that people can pursue an affordable college degree.

We also help train people with job skills and then network in the community to provide them with job opportunities. For those wanting to go into business, churches can offer an entrepreneurial program that helps them develop their business plan. In addition, churches can develop profitable businesses that can provide employment opportunities as well as economic development in the community. This is why I say the church is the answer to welfare. If every church in America would empower one responsible welfare family a year, we could eliminate the need for welfare in five years or fewer. Urban and suburban churches should partner to implement programs that empower the poor in an accountable way.

One of the greatest demonstrations of the church empowering people was the African-American church during slavery. They had limited federal government help and no Great Society program. Yet they took care of their poor and met comprehensive needs. How? Because they had a kingdom view of life, and understood the power of the church. This combination equipped them not only to survive the evil institution of slavery, but to transcend it.

The church should also begin either using the same bank, or using the skills it has acquired to establish its own financial institutions. Such a concentration of wealth would almost overnight give the church a financial monopoly within the culture. This is why our church established its own Christian Credit Union. We also opened up one of the largest thrift stores in our region in order to recycle items—thus benefiting others and the kingdom.

Such influence and involvement in the community, when used righteously, would help make the church once again the dominant influence in the culture and lead to the benefit of the community. The community should be better off for the church’s presence in its midst.

One Nation under God

The government’s primary economic responsibility is to create a just and free market (which is the system the Bible endorses), not an impersonal welfare state, by removing evil and injustice from the marketplace (see Romans 13:1–4). At best, the government should be a last-resort economic safety net, not an all-encompassing promoter of federal economic dependency. It should provide a financial safety net for those who fall through the cracks while simultaneously supporting the institutions of self-government, family, and the church.

That means the government is supposed to create an environment where people can be productive. It should be supportive and protective of the church and the family as they care for the poor in a personal way. Now, since people are sinful by nature, the government is charged with seeing that there is justice in society to go along with the opportunities. This means ensuring that people are not denied equal access to opportunity because of their class, their color, or their background.

The government is charged with removing tyranny from the marketplace and setting the borders of justice. But within those borders there is freedom of competition. The reason this works is that whoever serves the public best should make the most profit. So if there is free, honest, unencumbered competition, businesses will seek to out-serve the competition in the marketplace. That way people and businesses are free to be charitable and maximize their capacity to serve and benefit others.

Government should not discriminate against faith-based organizations that are providing effective social services to the poor, oppressed, and needy. On the contrary, the government should cooperate with churches and faith-based organizations to financially and legislatively support and empower their efforts, since they are closest to the needs of the people and provide a moral frame of reference to affect the thinking and decisions of those in need. The separation of church and state should never be equated to the separation of God and good works.

In addition, government should not overtax or over-regulate the marketplace, which stifles productivity in the private sector. Rather, it should incentivize the free market through low taxes and limited regulation. And if the government does enter the marketplace, it should do so for a profit and never use its power to print money to gain an unfair advantage.

AN ECONOMIC CHALLENGE

I gave a kingdom challenge to our church in relation to economics. I’d like to share it with you. You may have grown up in an impoverished area and now you are in the suburbs. Maybe you have a nice house, two cars, and good clothes, which you don’t need to apologize for if you earned those possessions legitimately.

The two questions we have to ask ourselves are: First, has the blessing of God on us become a blessing to others? If not, we are not living by a kingdom economic agenda, and God’s blessing can become a curse. It has already become a curse for some of us because we are in an economic prison called deep debt. Some of us are only one paycheck away from going back to the impoverished area.

The second question is: Do we have inner peace? If the resources we have come from God, He always gives joy with it (see Proverbs 10:22).

We need to get on God’s economic agenda in our personal and family lives. Our churches and communities need to get on God’s agenda based on the absolute authority of His Word. We need to believe that the earth is the Lord’s and live in light of that truth.

God has a kingdom perspective on economics, and if we would return to it we would see God’s hand in the culture and society transforming our communities and restoring our strength as a nation. When God’s economic principles are properly implemented, people are enabled to exercise their creativity, initiative, and responsibilities for productively using the earth’s resources to benefit themselves as well as others. A just and free economic system appropriately encourages and empowers all people, including the poor and oppressed, to maximize their productive potential.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

A NATION AND RACISM

B illy Graham was once asked on a network news program, “If you could eradicate any problem in America, what would it be?”

Dr. Graham answered quickly and directly, “The racial division and strife in our nation.”

All of us—black, white, Native American, Hispanic, Asian, or any race—have been touched directly or indirectly by racism. Although great strides have been made in some sectors of society to rectify the problem, in other ways things seems to never change.

As is the case with most African-Americans, racism has certainly been apparent to me during my lifetime. I remember one day, when I was a boy, riding with my father when we passed a White Tower restaurant in Baltimore. The White Tower was famous for its hamburgers, so I said to my dad, “Why don’t we stop in there and get a hamburger?”

He said, “Because we can’t go there. They do not allow Negroes there.” That incident began a whole series of questions to my father as I tried to make sense of this new reality.

Racial issues became even more overtly hostile in the 1960s. I remember the week of April 4, 1968, in particular. As a seventeen-year-old boy, I sat staring out our house window upon row after row of National Guardsmen lining our street. The assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. led to explosive riots in our area. We were immediately placed under curfew, evoking a sense of fear in most of us, along with a sense of doubt regarding the authenticity and integrity of those in the white race.

Inequality among the races had always been a fact of life for me. I remember often being called the “n-word” by white kids and adults whom I came across in life. At times it made me fearful, yet at other times it made me determined to work harder in order to outdo my white contemporaries. In spite of the strength of biblical discipleship and evangelism that the church I was brought up in, the Brethren Assemblies, was known for, we were segregated based on race like other denominations. These and other disparities among the races raised questions in my mind about what was true and what was purely human concoction.

But the reality of racism did not end in my childhood. It appeared again in 1969, during my college days, when a well-known church in Dallas would not allow my wife or me to enter in order to worship. We were left standing at the door, unwelcome and, in fact, turned away.

Another time, a popular church in Georgia, Colonial Hills Baptist Church, underwent some very serious controversy when I had gone forward after the service, having attended as a guest of my white professor and mentor, Dr. Howard Dial. He was a committed Christian who had a heart for racial reconciliation. He was the academic dean at Carver Bible College, where I attended, but he was also close to me in age. Over time we became very good friends. We were contemporaries in athletics, shared theological discussions, and Lois and I even babysat his children when needed.

The Sunday I attended church as his guest just so happened to be the Sunday that the leading candidate for the vacant pastorate was preaching. He preached a powerful message, giving a call to come forward in a commitment to discipleship at the end. I responded to the call, not realizing that the focus would turn to me when I did.

First, the man who received me at the altar to pray with me made it clear, not only to me but to everyone in the church, that there was a monumental difference between making a spiritual commitment to discipleship and making a commitment to come to church. Those were two very separate deals.

Next, the leadership made it explicitly clear that they did not want blacks coming to the church on a regular basis. In fact, the church ended up splitting over this one event, and the prospective pastor declined the invitation to become senior pastor, saying that he could not pastor a church steeped in racial segregation.

Racism continued to rear its ugly head repeatedly in my life. But one of the more potentially damaging ways came in 1987, when it appeared to even hinder what I had been called to do—preach the Word of God to as many people as I could. I was told by a number of radio stations across the county, “We appreciate your preaching, Tony, but we are afraid that carrying your program on the air would offend too many of our listeners. So we can’t carry you.” It took the intentional intervention of Dr. James Dobson, lobbying on my behalf, to eventually build a bridge so that I could be carried on mainstream Christian media outlets.

Even as late as 1993, racism made an appearance in my life, as well as that of African-Americans around the country, when a well-known Bible teacher in Dallas stated that the reason black people are to be slaves is because of the curse of Ham (which we will look at shortly).

But this is more than a personal issue. The problem of racism pervades our society beyond black-and-white issues. No matter where we look, we see the stain of racism on our culture, like a stubborn ink stain on a white shirt that refuses to be laundered out. To understand and deal with the problem of racism, we need to get a kingdom perspective on the larger issue of race.

A kingdom perspective urges us to open our eyes, hearts, and minds in order to take what we learn about ourselves, and from each other, with regard to the strengths inherent within each ethnicity, and merge these together to form a more productive union. Far too often, we have tried to achieve unity by marginalizing racial distinctions rather than by embracing our spiritual oneness. This is because we have mistakenly made reconciliation its own goal.

However, reconciliation is more than merely being able to say that we are one. Reconciliation is not an end in itself, but a means toward the greater end of bringing glory to God by seeking to advance His kingdom in a lost world. Therefore, authentic unity manifests itself through mutual relationship and service, not in seminars. The degree to which we embrace our oneness in the body of Christ is the degree to which God empowers us to fully carry out His kingdom agenda.

THE ORIGIN OF THE RACES

This is the place to start, because it is both the foundation of the problem and the location of the solution. A number of views have been set forth to explain the origin of the races we have on earth. I want to deal with two popular theories of racial origins, one secular and one religious, and then try to provide a biblical answer to the question.

The Environmental Theory

This view says that racial differences can be pretty much explained by environment or geography. The argument is that racial distinctions did not exist until the scattering of the people at the Tower of Babel. As the people scattered, racial differences began to appear.

According to this view Anglos have light skin because they settled in Europe, where they did not experience extreme and prolonged exposure to the sun. The people who settled in Africa were closer to the equator, where they experienced prolonged periods of exposure to intense sunlight, leading to a darkening of the skin. And brown people remained in the Middle East and Asia, where the environment was sort of a halfway point between Europe and Africa. Thus these people maintained a brownish hue to their skin. This view also says that blacks have wider noses because of the need for more oxygen intake in tropical regions where the air is thinner.

That’s the environmental theory in a nutshell. It’s a naturalistic explanation based more on an evolutionary view of humans than a biblical view. This theory says that we are the color we are by the forces of nature. But this theory is untenable for a number of reasons.

First, it assumes that people’s complexion before the scattering at Babel was fair and that dark skin came about unintentionally, assumptions not supported in Scripture. It teaches that only fair-skinned people are direct creations of God, while all other races came about environmentally. It is also built on a number of faulty assumptions, such as black people as a whole having widened noses. There are numerous African tribal groups made up of black-skinned individuals who have very thin noses, tiny bone structure, and thin lips.

This theory also contradicts Scripture, which teaches that God is the Creator of all people (see Malachi 2:10) and that He is no respecter of persons (see Acts 10:34). Furthermore, the Scripture clearly states: “He [God] made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation” (Acts 17:26, emphasis added). Racial distinctions, then, must be rooted in the creative activity of God beginning with Adam, not in accidents of nature.

The Curse of Ham

While secular society may be content with a naturalistic explanation for racial origins, many people in the religious world have sought a theological explanation for the reality of racial differences. God’s view on race has too often been left out of the debate, either by omission when all the data has not been gathered, or by commission when the data that is gathered is presented to provide justification for maintaining existing, non-biblical cultural standards (e.g., the curse of Ham).

Sacralization is the divergence from a comprehensive theology and a biblical worldview into the development of religious beliefs intended to serve the interest of a particular ethnic or racial group. Supported by tradition or generalized prejudices, it is often formulated to carry out a specific end result or to justify a specific behavior.

Sacralization often leads to the creation or furtherance of devastating myths. One myth that is perpetuated throughout American history, and that serves as our starting point in understanding the historicity of racism in our culture, is the inferiority and the forced subjugation of blacks by way of the curse of Ham.

This so-called doctrine dominated the church in the era of slavery and is still taught in some sectors today. It was used to give biblical authenticity to, and permission for, the slave trade in West Africa and the practice of slavery in the Western world, giving theological legitimacy to the evil of American racism. So let’s look at the story of Ham in Genesis 9, following the flood:

Then Noah began farming and planted a vineyard. He drank of the wine and became drunk, and uncovered himself inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it upon both their shoulders and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father; and their faces were turned away, so that they did not see their father’s nakedness. When Noah awoke from his wine, he knew what his youngest son had done to him. So he said, “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants he shall be to his brothers.” (vv. 20–25)

Let me state the thesis of the curse of Ham argument, and then we will consider the case step-by-step. The reasoning goes that because of what happened here, Ham and his descendants were cursed to live in perpetual slavery. And since, the argument goes, Ham is the father of black people, black people are and always have been under a divine curse of servitude. As I said, this view is still held by many today.

The implication of this position is that black people should therefore accept their inferior position without resistance or rebellion, since God purportedly ordained it. And white people should not feel guilty for enslaving blacks because slavery is their divinely appointed lot in life.

This position has so many flaws that it is hard to know where to start. Let’s begin with the story itself. What exactly did Ham do here? The text says that Noah got drunk and uncovered himself in his tent. So he was lying naked in the tent, evidently passed out from drinking too much wine. Ham saw his father’s nakedness, left the tent, and told his brothers.

This is the problem. What Ham did was basically to ridicule and dishonor Noah. He should have covered Noah’s shame himself instead of spreading the news about it. Shem and Japheth did the right thing, refusing even to look at Noah as they covered him, and thus restoring Noah’s honor. As you may know, in Old Testament days it could cost you your life to dishonor your parents (see Exodus 21:15, 17).

Ham dishonored his father, but here’s the point. The curse wasn’t put on Ham, but on his son Canaan. So to talk of a curse of Ham is to blatantly misread the biblical text. This intentional distortion of a clear statement of Scripture was used as an excuse for oppressing an entire race of people.

But let’s go a step farther. Ham had four sons (see Genesis 10:6), but the curse was only on Canaan. So even though Ham is the father of African people, the claim that the curse extends to all people of African descent is impossible. If the curse were on Ham then all of his sons would have been cursed, not just Canaan. Yet only Canaan and his descendants were cursed. Ham was punished for dishonoring his father by having a son who would bring dishonor to him.

Now here’s the real bottom line. The descendants of Canaan were the Canaanites—the evil, pagan people who were in the Promised Land when Israel arrived to take possession of it. God told Israel to subjugate and eradicate the Canaanites because they were so deep in sin that they were under His judgment (see Joshua 9:23–25; 1 Kings 9:20–21). The Israelites didn’t do the job all at once, but eventually the Canaanites, as a nation, disappeared from the earth. And the curse that Noah put on them died with them.

So any attempt to hang the curse of Genesis 9 onto all people everywhere of African descent is not an accurate interpretation of the Bible. Why then was slavery ever practiced? Because the slave marketers were interested in their profits. And the white people who owned slaves, including white Christians, were interested in maintaining their dominant position in the prevailing social order, not in pursuing a kingdom perspective on the issue. The so-called curse of Ham does not stand up to the test of biblical accuracy.

I need to answer one lingering question, and then we can move on. Why didn’t Noah curse Ham himself instead of cursing Canaan? Because God made a covenant to bless Noah and his sons (Genesis 9:11, 15). God cannot renege on His covenants, so He caused the curse Noah pronounced to be carried out on the generation after Ham.

This happened in the case of David and Solomon. Solomon sinned against God, and God told him He would tear the kingdom from Solomon. But then God added, “Nevertheless I will not do it in your days for the sake of your father David, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son” (1 Kings 11:12). Thus, for the sake of His covenant with David, God did not execute judgment on Solomon. Instead, God brought judgment on Rehoboam, Solomon’s rebellious son (see 2 Chronicles 12:13–16).

God’s law stated in Exodus 20:5 that He would visit the sin of the fathers on their children up to the third and fourth generations. I believe what happened here is that God singled out Canaan because He knew Canaan’s heart would not be oriented toward Him. And the children of Canaan did in fact become a debauched people.

As we close this section, it is important to note that curses based on disobedience can be reversed when there is repentance and obedience (see Exodus 20:6). So even if the curse of Ham heresy were true, it was no justification for the Anglo Christian churches in America to endorse the enslavement of their African Christian brothers. In reality, what we had in the curse of Ham doctrine was twisted theology employed to sustain a perverted sociology. But sociology does not make good biblical theology.

Even when I was a teenager and had not gone through all of the biblical study that I have done now, I knew something did not sound right about the curse of Ham theory. I can still recall a white minister giving me the biblical reason that my people and I had to endure the humiliation of American racism. Because I couldn’t prove otherwise at the time, and because my favorite Bible, the famous Old Scofield Reference Bible, which had become the official version of American fundamentalism, endorsed the curse of Ham theory, I had little recourse other than to accept it.

After all, those promoting it were “trained” in the Bible and theology at the finest fundamentalist institutions in our country—institutions, by the way, that at that time would not allow African-Americans to enroll as students. And one of the most influential Bibles in American history, a work revered by the evangelical fundamentalist community, gave full endorsement to nourish the notion of a biblically sanctioned black inferiority. This, coupled with the legal status of American segregation, did nothing to ameliorate the already culturally inflicted and discolored perception of black people in the minds of white Bible students, firmly establishing and embedding the myth of black inferiority in the American Christian psyche.

A Biblical Answer

But if the environmental theory doesn’t accurately explain the origin of the races, what does? We read Acts 17:26 above, where Paul said that God made all people “from one man,” that is, from Adam. So we should start by figuring out how Adam was made.

“The LORD God formed man of dust from the ground” (Genesis 2:7). Adam’s very name means “earth, ground.” According to verse 13, Eden was located near the land of Cush, which is modern-day Ethiopia. So Adam was created with color, for he was created from the soil. And he was created with the genes for color determination built into his system. Our skin color is determined by the genes that produce melanin. Adam’s melanin was programmed into him.

Now when God made Eve, He “fashioned” her not from the ground, but from Adam (Genesis 2:22). The word “fashioned” means to go into intricate detail to put something together. Eve came from Adam, so she had color too. But she was not his clone. She was different in many details. I believe one of the details God created differently in Eve was that He put a different color code in her melanin. The result was that between them, Adam and Eve possessed in their genetic pools the potential of giving birth to different-colored children.

How does this relate to the origin of the races? We can see it with the sons of Noah: Ham, Shem, and Japheth. After the flood, Genesis 9:19 tells us that “the whole earth was populated” from these three men. Their names reveal that Noah’s sons were of different colors. Ham means “hot, dark, burnt,” referring to black people. Shem means “brownish, dusky,” and Japheth means “fair, light.”

How in the world could Mr. and Mrs. Noah have a dark baby, a brown baby, and a light baby? There is only one way: genetically. They had to be of different colors themselves. And we know how that was possible because of the creation account in Genesis 2.

Noah and his wife were able to have three children of different colors because the melanin needed to determine color was already built into the human race. This was done by the creative genius of God through the genetic coding given to Adam and Eve at creation.

So the question of racial origins has a one-word answer: God. Racial origin wasn’t the result of exposure to sunlight, and it certainly wasn’t the result of a curse on one man’s sin. Japheth’s descendants settled in Europe, Ham’s went to Africa, and Shem’s offspring settled in the Middle East and Asia. But they didn’t go there to get color; they took their color with them. They also took with them the physical features they inherited from the progenitors of their particular tribe.

Do you know what this means? It means your color and mine are not products of chance or of nature. God created all people from one. There are no racial mistakes.

THE SUPPRESSION OF THE RACES

We are all from the same root racially. God’s agenda for us is that we live in unity with one another, both in the kingdom and in the culture at large. But when God’s truth is given to sinful men, they distort it. That is true in the area of race relations, which has led to the suppression of some races by other races who believe themselves superior.

Racism may be simply defined as the discrimination against people based on skin color or ethnic origin. It involves the unrighteous use of power against people toward whom we harbor prejudice, which is the emotional foundation of discrimination. Racism is equally unrighteous whether practiced by whites toward blacks, blacks toward Hispanics, Hispanics toward Asians, or any other combination thereof. It is an affront to the character of God, and His answer to racism is never racism in reverse. The most prevalent historical expression of this suppression is the institution of slavery in all of its forms over the centuries.

THE RECONCILIATION OF THE RACES

Like a cancer, the problem of racism has metastasized and invaded the very structures of American life, making the source almost impossible to trace and deal with. Every attempt to address this evil leads to the frustration of seeing it pop up somewhere else. Countless workshops, seminars, and symposia have not led to a cure for this cultural cancer.

A Sin Problem

Why has this evil been so difficult to eradicate? Because racism is not first and foremost a skin problem. It is a sin problem. When you believe that racism is merely a skin problem, you can take three hundred years of slavery, court decisions, marches, and the federal government’s involvement, and still not get it fixed right. But once you admit that racism is a sin problem, you are obligated as a believer to deal with it right away. As long as the issue of race is social and not spiritual, it will never be dealt with in any ultimate sense.

Scripture shows us how the problem of racism can be fixed immediately when it is dealt with as a sin problem rather than a skin problem, as a spiritual and theological issue rather than merely a social and political issue. The solution to the sin of racism is in Galatians 2, the well-known incident in which Peter decided that it was okay to hang out with Gentile believers—that is, until the boys from his Jewish “hood” showed up.

We need to go to Acts 10:9–15 to see the background of this occasion. Peter was in Joppa staying with Simon the tanner. Peter was having devotions on Simon’s rooftop when he saw a vision of a sheet coming down from heaven. On it were all of these unclean animals. God told Peter to kill and eat the animals, but Peter refused. “How can I eat this Gentile stuff?” was his basic response. God said, “What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy” (Acts 10:15). This happened three times, and then came the application. God sent Peter to the home of Cornelius, a Gentile, to lead Cornelius and his household to the Lord.

Peter had now crossed the railroad tracks. He began relating to people of a different race and a different culture. In fact, he got into this so much that he started eating with Gentile believers in Antioch. I guess he liked those pork chops and chitterlings and hog mauls, food he previously could not eat. So in Galatians 2, we find Peter hanging out at the “soul shack” in Antioch, sucking on those neck bones and having a good old Gentile, pork-eating time.

But then the problem developed. Some of Peter’s boys from the Jewish hood in Jerusalem came down to Antioch. When Peter’s “homies” showed up, “he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof” from his Gentile brothers and sisters (v. 12).

Why did Peter do this? Because the Jews said, “Peter, what are you doing here eating with Gentiles? Don’t you know we Jews don’t do that? It’s against the guidelines of our race. We’ll all get together in heaven, but on earth we don’t have that kind of social relationship with Gentiles.” So Peter stopped having fellowship with the Gentiles because he feared what his Jewish brethren would say.

Then it got bad. “The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy” (v. 13). Now we find out that when Peter went to the soul shack to enjoy some food he couldn’t eat before, he took the town’s other Jewish Christians with him. So there they were, having a great time with their fellow believers who happened to be Gentiles. But when the Jews arrived, Peter got up, politely pushed back his chair, and said to the Gentiles, “Excuse me. I have to go now.” And the other Jews did the same thing.

That’s what happened, and even Barnabas got caught up in it. Barnabas was raised in Cyprus, a Gentile colony. He was raised with Gentiles, went to school, and played with Gentiles. But that’s how bad racism is. It can take a good man and make him act badly. So Barnabas followed Peter out the door of the Gentile soul shack on the other side of the tracks in Antioch.

Calling People to Account

There was only one problem: Paul saw it. Paul was equally committed to his Jewish history, culture, and people, yet he publicly excoriated Peter’s non-Christian action, saying that Peter was “not straightforward about the truth of the gospel” (Galatians 2:14). The key point is truth. An objective standard transcended Peter’s cultural commitment.

The fact that even an apostle could not get away with such an action is very instructional and should not be marginalized in its importance and contemporary application. No one is excused for placing culture above Christ, or race above righteousness. God’s standard reigns supreme, and cultural preferences are to be denounced publicly when a Christian fails to submit to God’s standard. Scripture, and only the Scripture, is the final authority by which racial relationships are determined.

Paul did what he needed to do. He didn’t hold a meeting. He didn’t conduct a sensitivity seminar. He didn’t say, “Hey, can’t we all just get along?” Nor did he offer Peter a ten-week Bible study. Paul said, “Peter, you are messing with the gospel. Stop it!”

Having caved in to the racial pressure and prejudice of his fellow Jews, Peter had failed the test of truth. He had left the Gentiles in order to not offend the Jews. In deference to the cultural pressure of his own race, he discredited the message of the gospel that God had so graphically conveyed to him in the home of Cornelius.

The Road to Reconciliation

Why did Paul confront Peter? Because he saw that Peter and his Jewish pals “were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel” (Galatians 2:14).

That’s the kingdom solution to racism and the key to racial reconciliation: Be committed to the truth. Paul said that Peter and the other Jewish believers got into trouble because they left the truth they knew, which was that in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Greek” (Galatians 3:28).

They left the truth, and that’s our problem today. We don’t have enough people today willing to speak and stand for the truth. Peter was the leader of the disciples. If the leader is not willing to live out the truth, how can we expect the followers to follow the truth?

This hits us who teach the truth of God from the pulpit. A mist in the pulpit becomes a fog in the pew. The reason racism has continued in this country is that the pulpits have been too quiet too long. In fact, this missing truth has often kept segments of the white community in bondage to a relational style based on stereotypical presumptions, as well as a paternalistic expectation birthed in a spirit of entitlement. This prohibits many white Christians from adopting and benefiting from a learning posture underneath black Christians. The effect is a satanic stronghold on both groups, keeping pockets of society chained within a prescribed framework, creating pathologies that continue and are reinforced generationally.

One reason slavery persisted in America was that the churches were too busy teaching curse of Ham theology to deal with the truth. Because the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa refused to take a stand for what was true against what was false, its program of racial expediency maintained a system of apartheid that cost countless thousands of people their lives. The myths that were portrayed about the Jewish race through media propaganda and systematic teaching by the Nazis in Germany led to dulled consciences by the thousands of people required to unjustly violate and kill millions of Jews during the Holocaust.

God has called the church to stand on the truth of His Word, not make the culture feel good. If we abandon the truth, we will never see solutions to the problems in a culture. It is wrong, it is sinful, for people to judge other people by the color of their skin or their ethnicity, rather than the content of their character (to paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr.).

Over the past few years, the number of Anglo and Hispanic members in our church has increased, and I am delighted. They are welcome as a part of our family. But we once had a black church member who wasn’t too delighted with this. He came to me and said, “Pastor, we’re getting too many white people in here. You know how they are. They’ll keep coming and try to take over.”

I said, jokingly, “Well then, brother, you’d better do some black evangelism so we can keep outnumbering them.”

But he said, “Well, I don’t know if I can stay here.”

I said, “Bye.”

Why did I say that? Because I’m not going to hold the Bible hostage to anyone’s prejudices. A black believer may say, “But you don’t know what has been done to me.”

Fine. Let’s not deny what happened. If a person has been abused or misused, that is sin and it must be dealt with. But that does not give the offended believer the right to become what he or she is condemning other people for being. Being sinned against does not give us the right to duplicate the sin in reverse racism. It is time that God’s people make some radical decisions about race, racism, and racial reconciliation. Here are two that are especially important.

The first decision all of us need to make is to be what God made us to be. No matter whether God made you red, brown, yellow, black, or white, you are, as the children’s chorus says, “precious in His sight.” If you feel any other way, you are saying God failed when He made you. It is an indictment on God to want to paint your skin any other color than what He made it.

Here’s a second radical decision. We must decide to make our judgments according to truth, not according to ethnicity. We can make decisions based on truth because there is an objective standard of truth—God’s Word—by which we can say, “This is right,” and “This is wrong.” Your job and mine is not to be popular, but to live by the truth.

Let me illustrate what I mean. In Numbers 12, Moses married a Cushite woman. Now we know that Cush is modern-day Ethiopia, so this woman was an African. Miriam and Aaron, Moses’ siblings, got upset at the wedding. “What in the world do you think you’re doing, Moses? This woman isn’t our color. And besides, she’s not even an Israelite.” So they got upset with Moses and started murmuring over Moses’ interracial marriage.

Numbers 12:4–9 says that when Miriam and Aaron complained at Moses, God took notice of them, particularly Miriam. God rebuked them and then said to Miriam, in effect, “You like the lighter color, do you? Fine, we’ll make you light colored as white as snow.” And God struck Miriam with leprosy (see v. 10).

God turned Miriam’s color into a curse because she was making judgments predicated not upon truth, but upon personal preferences and pride. Paul told Peter in Antioch that because his identity was in Jesus Christ and not in ethnicity or culture, his life was to be measured and lived according to Christ’s values, not society’s or even established religion’s values. Paul put it this way in on of my favorite verses, Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.”

Culture is valid, but it can never become more important than Christ. His Word is our reference point. The question is, what would Christ say about this person? What would Christ think about that group? Other than the church at Jerusalem, the greatest church in New Testament times was the church at Antioch, where the incident with Peter occurred. Apparently they ultimately got their racial issues together, because the leaders in that church included Simeon and Lucius, who were black Africans (see Acts 13:1–3).

A KINGDOM COURSE OF ACTION

How can we live by the truth we know? Let’s take our four areas of focus and briefly consider the application of a kingdom agenda as it relates to racial reconciliation.

One Life under God

On the personal level, you can make a commitment to deal with people on the basis of their character, not the color of their skin. Individually, we must apply God’s standard to our relationships, not the stereotypes our culture or the media may give us.

Keep in mind that superficial racial relationships patterned on paternalism will dissolve before any lasting connection can be made. Only through repentance and forgiveness, done first and foremost on a personal level, will we be free to forge relationships that allow us to embrace dignity and diversity.

In addition, we must deactivate racism both by resisting it when it rears its ugly head, as well as by refusing to allow it to create in us a victim mentality that cripples us from maximizing our potential under God. As an African-American, I can say to other African-Americans that we need to remember and learn from the past, but we cannot be so chained to the past that it keeps us from responsibly moving forward. We cannot become so blinded by blackness that we lose our vision altogether.

One Family under God

When it comes to the family, we need to train our children to think and act biblically first, not culturally first. This will require that we ourselves react biblically. Parents must also intentionally expose their children to families of other races who hold their values.

This means we must put race in its proper perspective. We must be biblical Christians first. This should lead us to functioning as righteous Americans who can truly appreciate the diversity of culture. When this order and relationship is followed, unity can be maintained and racial differences respected.

One Church under God

The church needs to welcome anyone of any race, culture, or class who names the name of Jesus Christ and is willing to live by the truth of Scripture. We must celebrate the variety of cultures that make up the church and hold everyone in the congregation to the same biblical standard. And our pulpits must condemn racism in all its forms. All denominations must take the same stand against racism that they have taken against other sins.

Racism is a moral issue that must be condemned from the pulpit on the personal, corporate, and systematic levels as well. Churches must also learn how to intentionally partner across race, class, and cultural lines to minister together in order to meet society’s need and share the gospel, thus demonstrating unity through good works, especially to the needs of the poor and disenfranchised.

One Nation under God

Our government should do what Israel did, which was to have one law, or standard of justice, for all the people (Leviticus 24:22), not two standards of justice depending on a person’s color, culture, class, or background. It must intervene as it did in the South during the fifties and sixties to assure the proper application of justice.

I know a former president apologized to a group of black men who were mistreated during a medical experiment in the forties. But the government of the United States has never officially confessed that slavery was an evil perpetuated by law. It is time for that confession and request for forgiveness, since it was a covenantal sin by one of God’s covenantal institutions. But since there has been no covenantal confession and no covenantal forgiveness by duly appointed representatives, racism continues to proliferate nationally.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

A NATION AND EDUCATION

We are all familiar with the adage, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” The gift of man’s ability to think, reason, and gather information in order to retain it is unique in all of God’s creation. Yet with this ability comes the capacity to conceive things that are both right and wrong. We’ve all had to wrestle with the concepts of good and evil, starting with the mind, because the body only does what the brain tells it to do. Because of this, the information that a person receives and digests is absolutely critical to how he or she will live and function. Scripture tells us plainly, “For as he thinks within himself, so he is” (Proverbs 23:7).

America’s early educational system was founded with a high commitment to Christ-centered education. From 1636, when Harvard University was founded, to 1769, when Dartmouth University was established, higher education in this country was undertaken with the understanding that there was no such thing as knowledge apart from God. Every discipline in the universities grew out of a biblical, God-centered worldview.

We are a long way from those early days. Education has taken some major left turns in the last three decades. And there are major debates going on at school boards in cities and states across this nation, as elected representatives try to figure out what in the world an education should do for our children and young people.

In addition, while America used to top the charts in test scores worldwide, we have fallen beneath many other countries who have discovered how to conduct this essential component in life far more effectively than we have. A recent study ranked American students twenty-fifth in math, seventeenth in science, and fourteenth in reading (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/23/us-students-still-lag-beh_n_1695516.html Huffington Post, U.S. Students Still Lag Behind Foreign Peers, Schools Make Little Progress In Improving Achievement, July 23, 2012). These rankings come in spite of the fact that America spends more per student than any other nation (when calculated as a percentage of GDP, http://www.collegerecruiter.com/blog/2012/11/09/united-states-spending-big-on-education-compared-to-other-nations/, November 9, 2012, William Frierson).

Education is the second biggest industry in America next to the military. Billions of dollars are poured into education every year. Yet it is obvious that more money is not the answer for a more quality education. Rather, we need to focus on what is being taught and how it is being taught, and the system available for learning as well as the motivational aspects behind learning and the environment in which learning takes place, for starters.

CRISIS IN EDUCATION

We must be concerned with the state of our educational system in America for a number of reasons. One reason is that education is unique in its spiritual implications. God is very concerned with knowledge. The Bible is a Book of knowledge. There is no dichotomy in the Bible between being a Christian and being educated, since all true knowledge is rooted in God. The Bible commands us to learn and condemns us when we refuse to do so (see Proverbs 1:7; 10:14).

The crisis in education today is not merely the lack of quality in productivity and in output. It is also a crisis of worldviews. A worldview is a grid, a set of presuppositions or assumptions a person holds that determine how this person operates as well as influencing the decisions he or she makes. We could say your worldview is the way you look at life. It affects every aspect and dimension of life.

There are two fundamental worldviews out there. One is a theistic, God-centered worldview. It makes an assumption that God exists, that He has revealed Himself, and that the revelation He has given is the standard through which all information is to be filtered. The other prominent worldview is a humanistic, or man-centered, worldview. This worldview filters everything through the lens of human speculation and perspective. Keep in mind that humanism can still be religious. A humanist may say, “I believe in God,” but may still filter their decisions through the grid of humanity. This is similar to referencing God on Sunday, yet granting Him no bearing on the remainder of the week. God is good for religion, but not good for guiding and determining day-to-day as well as lifelong decisions.

To a large degree, a person’s worldview is shaped by the education he or she receives and how that education is communicated to them. There used to be a time in our culture when theism was normal. No matter where you went or what subject you studied, there was recognition of a divine perspective on it. The media respected it, schools operated on it, and individual conversations were often shaped by it.

However, in post-modern America, the humanistic worldview is now dominant in secular education, where the creature seeks to supplant the Creator. God has been relegated to the invocation and benediction of life—if that—and is no longer the assumption of things in between. Now, lest you think this is all just philosophical musing, understand that the worldview that prevails is the one that will set the standard for what is accepted as true.

THE EXAMPLE OF DANIEL

This crisis of worldview and truth is not new, by the way. The prophet Daniel faced it when he and his three Hebrew friends were carted off to Babylon as teenaged captives (see Daniel 1).

Israel had departed from God and was turned over to a secular society named Babylon. The Babylonians took these young people and re-educated them in the thinking, literature, and culture of Babylon. Their aim was to take the best, brightest, and finest young men from Israel and reorient them in the worldview of Babylon. Essentially, they removed them from any influence of their theistic values and placed them squarely in the midst of Babylonian values.

As a result, Daniel suddenly found himself in a secular culture that was a far cry from the God-centered culture he knew in Israel. He was immediately dropped into a state-run educational system that did not hold to a God-centered view of the world. The crisis came when Ashpenaz, the chief of the king’s officials, was ordered to give Daniel and some other choice young Hebrew men a royal diet as part of their Babylonian education. Daniel refused to submit to this part of his re-education because it meant violating his God-centered worldview.

But the Babylonian’s purpose was to prepare Daniel and his friends to serve in the court of King Nebuchadnezzar. Their names were even changed to Babylonian names that reflected the names of pagan gods (see Daniel 1:6–7). Daniel’s name was changed to Belteshazzar. This is important because a name is more than simply nomenclature. A name identifies who you are. Frequently in Scripture, God tied the name of someone to the character, or even to the legacy, of that person. This concept is true even today when we witness a woman change her last name, thus signifying a new identity, when she marries.

Daniel’s Hebrew name can be broken up into two parts: Dan and El. El comes from the Hebrew root for God; when pluralized it becomes the name you may be familiar with: Elohim. When the leaders of Babylon sought to alter Daniel’s worldview, they knew that they needed to begin with his identity. They quickly removed any reference to the God of Israel, and replaced it instead with the root word Bel, which is the name of a pagan god.

Every aspect of Daniel’s education and identity was designed to remind him that he was now serving in Babylon and needed to operate from a Babylonian worldview. There were some things Daniel learned, such as the language and literature of the culture (see Daniel 1:4). But the rest of the book makes it clear that Daniel never compromised his spiritual principles.

Three Areas of Attack

One plus one equals two whether you are a theist or a humanist. But when you start accumulating data and sifting it through your worldview, it affects what you do with the answer. In other words, your worldview determines how you use the information you have collected. There are many areas of education today in which the battle of worldview is being fought. I want to mention three of the primary ones.

The first is the subject of creation, or First Cause. If you believe that mankind is the product of evolution, it will affect the value you put on human life, the way you think about the world, and your ethics. Instead of honoring mankind as a little lower than the angels, you will denigrate him as a little higher than the apes. But if you believe that God is the Creator, you embrace the concept of another Authority that supersedes human authority. Therefore you will not believe that man’s authority is the measure of all things, and you will be governed by a standard of truth that is above and outside of man-made authority.

The issue of creation isn’t just a matter of how we came to exist. It is a worldview issue, a matter of who reigns in ultimate authority on this earth, man or God. Your decision on this question will impact every part of your life.

A second area of education undergoing an intense worldview battle is sex education. If your worldview is informed by the Scriptures, you will view sex as a God-given gift to be exercised only within marriage. But if your worldview is basically humanistic, you will see sex as nothing more than a matter of personal choice. There can be no fixed standard for sexual behavior if sex is simply part of our evolutionary makeup and not a God-given part of our creation.

It’s obvious from the statistics on AIDS, other sexually transmitted diseases, and the teenage pregnancy rate that this is not just an academic argument. Young people are ruining their lives and even dying because they are applying a humanistic worldview to sex. And the message many of them are getting in school is, “Go ahead, but be safe.”

The third area of the battle is values clarification. That simply means who decides what’s right and what’s wrong. The goal of much so-called values training in school is to help students decide what their values are on a particular subject, with no absolute standard against which to measure their conclusions. In this environment, values are what is right for you at a given moment, which may differ from what is right for me in the same situation.

Information and Ethics

What students are getting in each of these areas is information without any ethical framework to undergird it. So they have no basis on which to make decisions except their own ideas. Some people mistakenly believe that whenever you try to inject ethics into the debate about what schools should teach, it’s an attempt to force religion into the schools and a violation of the separation of church and state.

While the church and the state are, in fact, separate institutions with separate callings, the idea that faith and ethics have no place in the debate is not sound. Our founders never intended for there to be a separation between ethics and knowledge, or even between information and religion. In fact, giving schoolchildren knowledge without a fixed standard of truth is dangerous. Whenever you get information without a standard, then you yourself determine how you use that information.

The reason we are spending more money than ever on education and getting less positive results than ever before in terms of children’s lives is because the schools are caught in a worldview crisis. A school can teach a young boy that one plus one equals two. But when he grows up and goes out on the street, a drug dealer wants to teach him how to make one plus one equal a thousand by selling some of his stuff. If that young man doesn’t have the right worldview, he will take the knowledge from the school and apply it in the wrong way. The problem is not information; it is a problem of worldview.

Daniel was faced with a crisis. But he resisted the Babylonian worldview when it came to obeying God because his mind and heart had been soaked in the worldview of Scripture. His example reminds us that we must never divorce information from ethics. There is no such thing as a nonreligious education, because all knowledge involves values. Education, then, must not only give the mind information, but must renew the mind with the right set of values (see Romans 12:1–2) so that knowledge is properly used.

THE CONTEXT OF EDUCATION

I want to establish a principle here that I’m sure is not new to you. But I want to develop it in a way that you may not have thought about before. The principle is this: from a biblical standpoint, the total education of children belongs in the hands of their parents. Moses told Israel in Deuteronomy 6:1–2:

Now this is the commandment, the statutes and the judgments which the LORD your God has commanded me to teach you, that you might do them in the land where you are going over to possess it, so that you and your son and your grandson might fear the LORD your God, to keep all His statutes and His commandments which I command you, all the days of your life, and that your days may be prolonged.

You say, “Oh, yes, I have Bible study and devotions with my children.” Well, that’s fine. But that’s not all that Moses was saying here.

Comprehensive Education

It is the parents’ responsibility to teach their children the commands and statutes of God in a comprehensive way. By that I mean not just as God’s standards relate to matters of faith but also as they relate to math, science, the fine arts, the humanities, agriculture, law, or any other disciplines of study that exist.

What I’m saying is that as a parent, you are responsible for your children’s science education, math education, history education, and every other element of their training. The Bible locates the comprehensive education of children in the home and lays the charge at the feet of the parents so that their children learn to think God’s thoughts after Him in every area of life.

Now I know what you’re thinking. Mom or Dad can’t recall their trigonometry, if they ever took it. And neither one remembers much about geography. How can parents be responsible for their children’s education if they don’t know the curriculum, especially as the children get older?

Being responsible doesn’t mean you have to carry out your children’s education yourself. But it does mean that the responsibility stops with you when it comes to making sure that God’s kingdom agenda for education is being accomplished in your family.

Since most of us parents are not equipped to teach our children in a comprehensive way, we have turned that day-to-day task over to the schools. Ideally, your child’s education at school should be an extension of the instruction he or she is receiving at home, because biblically it is the parents who should occupy the seat of influence when it comes to education.

The problem is that the ideal seldom exists. Instead, what we often have in public education is the state wanting to act as a surrogate parent for our children and to ensure that they all received a uniform education.

The two primary ways the state does this are through the force of law, which says every child must go to school, and through school taxes, which we pay whether or not we send our children to public schools.

The state says, “Pay your taxes, and we will make sure that your children get an education.” The problem is that most people cannot afford to pay school taxes and then pay again to send their children to a private school.

So the vast majority of Christian parents have no choice but to put their children in public schools. For many people, public education is the only option. My point is that the American educational system is not really set up to support and encourage parents in carrying out their biblical agenda to educate their children.

But the fact that public education is so pervasive does not relieve parents of their calling. You say, “But I don’t have time.” Then you need to find it, because the biblical pattern for teaching children is to make it a part of your daily lifestyle.

Scripture tells us clearly, “You shall teach [God’s Word] diligently to your sons and shall talk of [it] when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up” (Deuteronomy 6:7).

Your teaching doesn’t always have to be a formal occasion. The idea is that your home should be so saturated with a biblical worldview and a biblical way of thinking that it comes out in everything you do.

If we don’t create Christian environments in our homes, then we can’t blame anybody else if our children go off track. Your children’s teachers are not responsible to give them the Christian worldview and training they are missing at home.

If a Christian teacher can impact his or her students for Christ, that’s great. But the public school will never be able to supply what is lacking in a home.

The more time your children spend in a non-God-centered atmosphere at school, the more time you need to spend with them to counteract that influence and reinforce a biblical worldview.

A parent may say, “I know what you mean. That’s why I make sure that my kids are in Sunday school every week, and that’s why we pray at mealtimes and at bedtime.”

Again, that’s wonderful. But if your children are getting a secular worldview every day in school—and especially if they come home and watch a couple of hours of television every night—Sunday school classes, mealtime blessings, and bedtime prayers alone won’t be enough to sufficiently influence their thinking with God’s perspective as laid out in His Word.

The tragedy today is that we have a generation of children who have become children of the state because the parents have refused to make them children of the home. So the state is having its way with them.

It’s no wonder when the kids are in school seven or eight hours a day and then the average parent spends about ninety seconds a day in serious, face-to-face communication with his or her children. The Bible says in Psalm 127:4 that children are “like arrows in the hand of a warrior.”

In ancient times, warriors made their own arrows. They shaped the arrows just right so they would fly straight and hit the target when released from the bow. That’s what we are to do with our children—shape them and aim them in the right direction so that they hit the right target in life.

But it’s pretty hard to shape and sharpen those arrows when children are absorbing thousands of hours of television or video games and thousands more hours listening to music.

Too many of our children think watching television is a right, not a privilege. They spend so much time glued to the television that when we try to inject time for Bible reading and prayer into the evening, it seems like an intrusion to them.

If we are going to equip our children to live in a world that is hostile to faith, there can’t be much room in our agenda for time wasters and mind numbers. We need to work at least as hard with our children to shape them as the schools are working to educate them.

THE CENTER OF EDUCATION

The crisis in education is one of competing worldviews, of who gets to set the standards and to call the shots in the training of our children. The context of education is the home, where a biblical foundation for life is to be laid and the humanistic, man-centered philosophy that pervades public education is to be countered.

If we are going to pull off this agenda, we need to know what the center, the heart of education, really is. The center of education is God Himself.

Knowledge Without God

We said earlier that God never intended for us to have knowledge that was separated from Him. What did Satan do the first time he came on the human scene? He tried to separate man’s knowledge from God.

When Eve told Satan what God had commanded concerning the tree of knowledge, Satan replied, “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:4–5).

Satan was trying to separate information from ethics. He was inviting Eve to have all the knowledge she wanted without worrying about what God thought.

Let me tell you, whenever God is left out of any field of knowledge, whether it is science or medicine or engineering, you are on your way down. God has so constructed the universe that when He is excluded, whatever you’re studying is in trouble because He is no longer the reference point.

Make no mistake, any truth discovered in God’s world is God’s truth. Much of this truth is what we call natural revelation (Psalm 19:1–6). This knowledge is not exclusively written in the pages of the Bible, but it has also been discovered through the study of God’s world.

The other source of truth is the Bible itself, which is called special revelation. But whether learned from nature or from Scripture, all truth is God’s revelation. That’s why Christian education should be distinct. A Christian education is anchored in God’s revelation. It is based on His standards.

Suppose you were cooking a recipe that called for one cup of milk. You can’t add one cup of milk unless you know how much a one-cup measure holds. There has to be a standard that is agreed upon for the recipe to work.

Too often the public schools are trying to give children a cup of education when no one agrees on what a cup should be. Nobody wants God to be the standard, yet everyone still wants to produce the right information and get the right results.

But as long as God is left out of the education “recipe,” the government won’t be able to spend enough to save our schools. When information is divorced from its center, from God, nothing works right. That’s why Satan wants to get God out of the classroom, not just by excluding prayer or the Bible, but by excluding a divine viewpoint to knowledge.

Without God, there is no certainty. Would you take medicine from a pharmacist who said, “I think this is the right stuff”? Would you submit to a surgeon who said, “I’m pretty sure I need to cut here”? How about flying with a pilot who said, “I’m not really positive, but I believe I can land this plane”?

When it comes to things that matter, you want certainty. You want pharmacists, surgeons, and pilots who know what they are doing. God knows what He is doing. He is the author of natural revelation, and He is the author of special revelation. He set the standards, and to ignore them leads to chaos not only in our educational system, but also in our lives and society at large.

Romans 1:18–31 describes this downward spiral. Notice how many times words such as truth, knowledge, and understanding are used to explain how people can come to the point where God gives up on them.

Paul wrote, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness” (Romans 1:18). You are in trouble when people start deliberately trying to ignore and hide the truth.

According to Romans 1:20, there is no excuse for this, because the truth about God can be “understood through what has been made.” Verse 21 says, “Even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God.”

The knowledge of God is out there and accessible to everyone. Yet when people exclude God, they become empty-headed, “futile in their speculations” (v. 21). “Professing to be wise, they become fools” (v. 22). This is exactly the case in much of our education.

Schools trade “the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man” (v. 23). They substitute humanism for theism. That happens when people “exchange the truth of God for a lie” (v. 25).

What happens when a society reaches this point? “God [gives] them over to degrading passions” (v. 26). When God is removed from the environment, who is to say that one person’s standard is right or wrong?

Finally, Paul said in Romans 1:28, “Just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind.” This is where we are today in contemporary America.

True Knowledge

The Bible declares that man’s knowledge is extremely limited (Proverbs 30:2–3). God alone can address all the categories of life because “His way is blameless; the word of the Lord is tried” (Psalm 18:30).

God can give your children what no classroom teacher can give them apart from Him, for with God comes not only information but wisdom and the ability to use the information skillfully.

People can give you knowledge, but they can’t teach you how to use that knowledge in a God-honoring way. Our children need to learn how to pass life, not just pass tests. They need the ability to filter what they learn through a divine grid so they can apply it properly.

We see that knowledge apart from God is antithetical to reality. So the education process will never get the job done until there are programs and structures in place to bring education back to its root in God.

A KINGDOM COURSE OF ACTION

That brings us to our final point. What is the cure for the malaise in education?

I can give it to you in one word: decentralization. We learned earlier in this book that God’s system of government is always decentralized; it is composed of multiple governing authorities with distinct spheres of responsibility, jurisdictions, and sanctions.

When everything is centralized, a few people can control what happens and make sure that everyone says and does the same thing. Freedom is lost. This is true in education. That’s why socialist countries always want centralized education so they can teach every child the same thing and indoctrinate the upcoming generations in their dogma.

America is not formally socialist, but as I said above, we do have a system of taxation that tends to force families into public schools. Now let me say again that there is nothing necessarily wrong with the public schools, and most families can’t afford private school.

In a given school with a particular teacher, the public school can be a great experience for your child. Someone has said that if a child has a great teacher, he or she is in a great school.

But decentralization means we must have access to other options, such as private schools or homeschooling. It also means that control of the schools needs to be in the hands of parents and local administrators rather than having policies and curricula being dictated from above.

What I want to do is give you through this chapter a framework for evaluating, and perhaps changing, the way your children are being taught. And I want to give you a grid through which you can filter all areas of life. So let’s look at our four areas in relation to education as we wrap things up.

One Life under God

What can you do personally to see that you are not being unduly influenced by the world’s system?

Very simply, make sure you pass everything you see and read through the God-centered worldview we were looking at earlier. “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men,” Paul warned (Colossians 2:8).

God’s Word gives you a standard against which you can test any idea. But that means you must know the Word. Use education to maximize your skills under the rule of God.

One Family under God

Parents should vote for the decentralization of education through some justly administered voucher system that allows parents to determine the education of their children. Competition in the realm of education will enhance all forms of education.

Now if you have checked things out at school and are disturbed by what you found, you should seek to improve the school or you may need to remove your children from that school.

You may say, “I can’t afford private education.” That could be true, but it may also be a matter of priorities.

People will moonlight or work extra hours for a new car. We need some people who are willing to drive a used car so their children can have a quality education. The car depreciates the minute you drive it off the lot, but your children’s education appreciates in value when you raise them in the nurture and instruction of the Lord.

Parents who simply cannot afford private school have the option of homeschooling, particularly when the children are younger. This involves sacrifice too, since one parent—usually the mom—will have to stay home and guide the process. But it can be a great “joint venture” when the parents are committed to it.

We talked above about the importance of making sure our homes are teaching and reinforcing spiritual truth. It won’t do much good to take your children to Sunday school every week or send them to a Christian school if the home is undoing what the church and the school are trying to teach.

I have to say that I am amazed at what some Christian parents allow in their homes. They will watch anything on television, and they allow their kids to listen to any kind of music or see any movie that comes through town.

Be involved in your local PTA, parent-teacher meetings, and be aware of what your children are reading and learning.

One Church under God

There is a fourth option in education besides public schools, independent private schools, and home schools. The fourth option is church-based schools.

I know that a lot of churches can’t support a school. But again, I think it’s a matter of commitment. From the day Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship began with ten members, I told our membership that my vision was to have a Christian school one day that would operate with excellence, efficiency, and quality. This vision has now become a reality.

The church also needs to encourage and equip godly people to go into the public schools to teach or administrate. As believers in Jesus Christ, we are called to bring every area of life under His Lordship. Churches should have members who are in key positions on local school boards, faculty, and staff.

Not long ago I met with the principal at a local high school. We were talking about the separation of church and state. He said, “Tony, when you see the mess we have in the lives of these children, talking about the separation of church and state doesn’t help much at all. The more important question is: What can we do together to improve both the present and future of these children?”

Educators want help, and the church is in the best position to help them by preparing people who can represent God’s agenda in the schools by “adopting” schools in their communities and providing tutoring, mentoring, and other family support services.

When Paul was in Athens, he was able to talk with the philosophers on their level yet still talk to them about the “unknown God” (Acts 17:23) and introduce them to Christ.

Paul knew his subject, but he also knew the Lord. That’s what we need in public education, and the church can help provide that. People who feel God’s call into education are there to be His priests (1 Peter 2:5) in that world.

One Nation under God

This is a tough one, because the goal in public education is supposed to be freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. The government’s overall calling is to maintain order and provide an environment in which its citizens are free to pursue their calling. We are not trying to say that the government should legislate public schools into Christian schools. That will never happen, and it wouldn’t work anyway.

But the problem is that the government is not giving Christians a fair hearing in the public schools. We are being excluded from the discussion, on the charge that we are trying to push religion on people.

But we aren’t trying to push anything on anyone. You can’t coerce people to accept Christ. All we want is a level playing field, the freedom we are supposed to have to express our beliefs in the schools. It is our conviction that a Christian world-and life-view will clearly demonstrate a better life for all. The government should seek to win the educational battle based on truth, not on the power of taxation. But these days, “free and open” public education isn’t really free or open. The government’s goodies come with a hidden agenda attached. So we must constantly challenge the public schools to give equal time to the Christian perspective while simultaneously seeking a more equitable and competitive approach to all forms of education (e.g., vouchers).

Let me illustrate what I mean with a story. There was a man who provided wild pigs for slaughter. He was bringing them in by the thousands. Another guy said to him, “How are you able to capture all of these wild pigs?”

The man replied, “I came up with an ingenious method. All I do is put out a big trough and fill it with food. I make the food real nice and sweet and attractive, and I get the little piglets to come. When the piglets come, their parents follow, because they like this free food. So while they are getting used to coming every day and enjoying the free food, one day I put up a fence on the west side of the trough.

“They come back the next day for the free food, and I put up a fence on the east side. Then I do the same thing the next day on the south side. Finally, as they are eating away and not paying attention to what’s going on around them, I build the fence on the north side. Then all I have to do is shut the gate.”

Parents, we may use the government’s “free” education, but we need to keep an eye on the fences that are going up. While we’re partaking at public education’s “trough” with our children, we need to make sure that the fences of humanism are not being erected around us, because then all the humanists have to do is shut the gate. When that happens, it will be too late.

I believe the fences are already being erected. The world’s agenda is being carried out, but we can counter that influence with a kingdom agenda if we as believers and as parents will shoulder our biblical responsibility for our children’s education. And government should offer tax incentives to better enable freedom of choice in education.

CHAPTER THIRTY

A NATION AND POLITICS

All of us are familiar with the story of Humpty Dumpty, the figure from the children’s nursery rhyme whose world was shattered after he had a great fall. He called on the best his world had to offer to address his problem—“all the king’s horses and all the king’s men.” We would say today that Humpty had the White House, the Congress, the military, and every other human power or authority you can think of coming to his aid in his brokenness.

But the tragedy is that none of these human powers could put Humpty Dumpty’s life and world back together again. Apparently Mr. Dumpty had no biblically functioning church to help him, because if he had he would not have had to call on the king in the first place.

Now it’s one thing when a nursery rhyme character cannot find the help he needs to repair his shattered world, even when his problem is being attended to by the highest authorities the culture has to offer. But it’s another thing altogether when real people in the real world discover that all the king’s horses and all the king’s men—human institutions of power and influence—can’t fix society’s deepest problems and address people’s deepest needs.

Although we should never look to government to solve all of our problems, governments were established to, at a minimum, address the needs of those governed. Surely all of the king’s horses and all of the king’s men ought to have had a strategy for putting Mr. Dumpty back together again. When governments function according to biblical principles, they are more able to meet the needs of those they serve.

ADDRESSING THE POLITICAL REALM

You cannot read the Bible and ignore the political realm. The Bible is thick with politics. The books of 1 and 2 Kings strictly deal with the rule and reign of government leaders. John the Baptist condemned the immoral conduct of Herod Antipas, which led to the prophet’s execution (see Mark 6:14–29). In Thessalonica, Paul and his companions were charged with committing treason against Rome for insisting “that there is another king, Jesus” (Acts 17:7). And in the greatest act of political and moral rebellion ever against God, the Antichrist will set up his worldwide government of pure evil and will rule the earth (see Revelation 13:1–10).

The Sovereign of the Universe

Because God is the Sovereign of His universe, it follows that He is intimately concerned with the political affairs of the nations. Psalm 22:28 declares, “The kingdom is the LORD’S and He rules over the nations.” Nothing happens in the governments of men that does not flow out of the sovereign rule of God. “The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes” (Proverbs 21:1).

All through the Bible, we see God placing people strategically in the political realm. He moved Joseph into authority in Egypt (see Genesis 41:38–49) and elevated Daniel to a position of great influence in Babylon and later in Persia (see Daniel 1:8–21; 2:46–49; 6:1–3). God also placed Nehemiah in the Persian government so he could rebuild his community with government support (see Nehemiah 1:1–2:8). He also placed Esther as queen in Persia (see the book of Esther) and Deborah as judge in Israel to accomplish His agenda (see Judges 4–5).

In fact, the greatest example of God’s involvement in the political affairs of a nation is Israel itself. God established its constitution, legal structure, and laws as the model for other nations to emulate (see Deuteronomy 4:5–7). In addition to 1 and 2 Kings, in books such as 1 and 2 Samuel and 1 and 2 Chronicles, God is active on every page, setting up this king, judging that king, and deposing yet another king. There is no escaping God’s political activity. This means we cannot divide life down the middle, putting God on one side and politics on the other.

Now someone may argue that while God was intimately involved in governing Israel, that was because God Himself established Israel as a theocracy. But when it comes to the other nations of earth, this argument says God is not that deeply involved.

A Powerful Biblical Lesson

Scripture would not agree with that because in Daniel 4, we see God getting very personally and intimately involved in the life of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, the greatest secular ruler in the greatest pagan kingdom of the day.

Nebuchadnezzar had an over-enlarged ego from spending too long gazing into his mirror. He declared himself top ruler in the universe, so God sent him a dream. And in the process of interpreting Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, Daniel told him God had decreed that Nebuchadnezzar would be rendered insane until he “recognize[d] that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes” (Daniel 4:25).

But then Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar he would get his kingdom back when he thoroughly understood that “it is Heaven that rules” (v. 26). Whenever a government sets itself up as God, it is in for a short run, because there is only one King who reigns in power over the universe. God sits in judgment on kings and nations.

The rest of Daniel 4 records the fulfillment of Daniel’s interpretation: Nebuchadnezzar was driven from his throne for seven years. I call this a heavenly political protest. God protested the unrighteousness of Nebuchadnezzar’s government because he sought to usurp the authority that belongs to God, which is the sin of every centralized government. Nebuchadnezzar wound up making the very confession God decreed he would make (see Daniel 4:34–37). The farther a government drifts from God and seeks to become its own god, the more it sets itself up for heavenly political action.

The King of Kings

The greatest political statement in the Bible is the declaration of Revelation 19:16 that when Jesus Christ returns to earth to rule, He will come as “King of kings, and Lord of lords.” Back in Revelation 1:5, John had seen a vision of the glorified Jesus, who was declared to be “the ruler of the kings of the earth.” The Bible also says that “by [Jesus] all things were created … whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities” (Colossians 1:16). And Jesus not only created heavenly and earthly kingdoms, but they exist “through Him and for Him” (v. 16) and are dependent on Him to “hold together” (v. 17).

When Jesus was on earth, He was perceived as a political threat. At one of Jesus’ trials, the Jewish council brought Him to Pilate with this accusation: “We found this man misleading our nation and forbidding to pay taxes to Caesar, and saying that He Himself is Christ, a King” (Luke 23:2). The charge that Jesus forbade people to pay taxes was simply untrue, as we will see below. But earlier in His ministry, Jesus did protest the evil of Herod’s reign (see Luke 13:31–32).

So to talk about the activity of God the Father and God the Son both in history and in the future is to merge the sacred with the secular in the arena of politics. We have already argued that the sacred and the secular do mix. The question is, how do they mix?

To Pay or Not to Pay

The issue of paying taxes has been controversial in every generation. Many oppressive and even illegitimate governments have exacted revenue from their subjects. Israel in Jesus’ day was a perfect example. The people were the subjects of their Roman conquerors. It galled the Jews to no end to have to pay taxes to Caesar.

So Pharisees and the Herodians saw this hot-button issue as a good way to trap Jesus in His words. So they came to Jesus and asked, “Teacher, we know that You are truthful and defer to no one; for You are not partial to any, but teach the way of God in truth. Is it lawful to pay a poll-tax to Caesar, or not? Shall we pay or shall we not pay?” (Mark 12:14–15a).

Now you have to understand that the Pharisees and the Herodians had absolutely nothing in common. They were from two different worlds; in fact, they were normally religious and political enemies. The Pharisees were the religious conservatives of the day who emphasized the moral codes of the Mosaic law. The Herodians, on the other hand, were all about politics. They were concerned to keep Israel on good terms with the Roman government. The Pharisees and the Herodians couldn’t stand each other, but neither could they stand Jesus.

The Pharisees didn’t like Jesus because He was too socially involved. They wanted Him on their side—attending Bible studies all day long, going to church, and singing praise songs while discussing the law ad nauseam. But Jesus was out healing the blind, the sick, and the lame, and at times even addressing the inequities and mistreatment of women. From the Pharisees’ standpoint, He was too involved in social issues and trying to right the wrongs of society. They wanted Him to just stand and preach the existing law instead.

Yet from the Herodians’ vantage point, Jesus was too religious because He was telling people to repent for the kingdom of God was at hand. He was teaching about a heavenly kingdom with earthly dominion. If He just fed the poor, raised the dead, and helped the lame to walk, then maybe they could have stomached this Jesus. But since He was bringing religion into politics, they wanted it stopped.

So these two groups got together to ask Jesus a clever trick question concerning the separation of church and state. They figured Jesus had to take either God’s side or Caesar’s side, and either way He would get in trouble with somebody. The trap was that if Jesus said, “Don’t pay the tax because it is unlawful,” which is what the Pharisees believed, then He would have been condemned for treason against the Roman state. But if Jesus said, “Pay the tax,” He would be siding with a foreign government that was oppressing His people. It was a no-win situation for Jesus as far as His questioners were concerned. They thought they had Him.

Government Is Legitimate

But Jesus answered the question perfectly and frustrated their plot. “Knowing their hypocrisy, [Jesus] said to them, ‘Why are you testing Me? Bring Me a denarius to look at’” (Mark 12:15b). Jesus asked for a common coin of the day. The Pharisees and Herodians must have wondered where this was going, but they brought Him the coin (v. 16a). Then Jesus asked them a question. “‘Whose likeness and inscription is this?’ And they said to Him, ‘Caesar’s.’ [The image on the coin was that of Caesar, and the inscription read “Tiberius Caesar Augustus.”] And Jesus said to them, ‘Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ And they were amazed at Him” (vv. 16–17).

Jesus sidestepped this well-laid trap by saying, in effect, “I don’t know why you asked Me this question. You have already submitted yourselves to the authority of the Roman government by virtue of the fact that you had a denarius to give Me in the first place.”

In other words, when the Pharisees and Herodians accepted Roman coins, they were recognizing Rome’s governmental authority. They were using the government’s money and benefiting from the government’s provision. Jesus clearly stated that they were to render (to pay back for services rendered to them) to the government what it was due for these services.

So if a government is providing you with protection through its military, transportation through its roads, and education through its schools, then you are to render back to it for its services. It is not wrong to pay taxes.

In fact, it is theft not to pay your taxes because you can’t have police, education, emergency services, roads, and military without paying for them. You can’t benefit from government without contributing to it the portion you are responsible to pay. You are to pay that which a government is within its legitimate authority to collect—which in Jesus’ case was the poll-tax.

Government Is Limited

A limited civil government is one that promotes the functioning of justice in society. In so doing, it frees up the other governing authorities we have talked about to fulfill their responsibilities without being illegitimately infringed upon. The responsibility of civil government is to maintain a safe, just, and righteous environment for freedom to flourish.

Yet Jesus didn’t stop with His statement to give to Caesar what was his. He went on to make the same requirement when it came to the things of God. So the question is, what things belong to God? Scripture is clear that everything belongs to God (see Psalm 24:1). So while Jesus’ answer legitimized human civil government, it also limited human civil government. That is, you only give to civil government that which God has authorized it to be responsible for.

The problem comes when civil government tries to be more than it was designed to be, or fails to protect or promote personal responsibility, the family, the church, and other private, local expressions of charity. Civil government was never created to be your parent. When it expands and reaches into the other three spheres of government God has instituted (personal, family, and church), tyranny results, reflected in high, illegitimate taxation that subsequently causes civil government to grow far beyond its divinely authorized scope. When this happens, a government has the power to both confiscate and redistribute that which is not lawfully theirs, as was the case in 1 Samuel 8:10–18.

The economic responsibility of civil government is to remove fraud and coercion from the marketplace, keeping it free from tyranny, not to control the marketplace. At best, government should seek to compete in the marketplace, demonstrating its ability to function efficiently, effectively, and for a profit, rather than control the marketplace because of its size, power, or ability to print money. Centralized governmental control of trade is the economic system of the Antichrist (see Revelation 13:17). But a centralized government’s ownership of or control over the ways and means of production is against God (i.e., socialism and communism).

Giving to God

Within the legitimate boundaries of government, we are to give Caesar what is his. But Jesus also said when it comes to giving God what is His, everything is on that list. We owe God our total obedience in every area of life. So when obeying the government will clearly prevent you from obeying God, obedience to God takes precedence. The government has no business interfering with the preeminence of God in our lives.

Today, many seek to illegitimately use the state to control, limit, or even silence the church’s voice in the public arena. While there must be the institutional separation of church and state, there can never be a separation of God and government. Jesus told Pilate at His trial, “You would have no authority over Me, unless it had been given you from above” (John 19:11). So even though Jesus’ enemies turned Him over to Pilate, and even though Pilate had the power to sentence Jesus to death, the authorities were only doing what God allowed them to do. The state must always be submitted to God.

Any government that rebels against God’s authority and tries to throw off His yoke is going to be in trouble. When a nation’s laws no longer reflect the standard of God, that nation is in rebellion against Him and will inevitably bear the consequences of their rebellion. When that happens, the people of God must take action to restore God’s authority and see that His kingdom agenda is carried out. This leads us naturally to our next point of consideration.

THE NATURE OF KINGDOM POLITICAL INVOLVEMENT

Biblically-based kingdom political involvement is involvement that recognizes that since God rules over all, the political realm must be held accountable for straying from His authority and be brought back into submission to Him. This is not done by unrighteous political revolution, which is a change imposed from the top down, but by social transformation based on spiritual principles from the bottom up.

God is against unrighteous revolution in the sense of imposing violent governmental change from the top down. That’s what Satan sought to do when he tried to pull a coup d’état against God’s government and leadership. When a government acts unrighteously, what God wants from His people is not revolution, but transformation. This involves the doctrine of interposition, which is a biblical form of protest.

The Doctrine of Interposition

Interposition can be defined as that action wherein righteous agents of God interpose themselves between an unrighteous government and its innocent victims in order to reflect and defend His standard publicly. The Bible contains many examples of interposition.

When God announced to Abraham that He was going to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham interposed himself between God and Sodom and pled with the Lord to spare the city if He could find just ten righteous people in it (see Genesis 18:16–33). Moses’ wife, Zipporah, took action when God sought to kill Moses because he did not circumcise his son. Zipporah performed the circumcision, and Moses’ life was spared (see Exodus 4:24–26). After Israel built the golden calf in the wilderness, God was angry with the people and wanted to destroy the nation. But Moses interposed himself between God and the people, and God relented (see Exodus 32:1–14). We could also cite the story of Esther in Persia, who literally laid her life on the line to spare the Jews from Haman’s decree that they be wiped out (see Esther 4).

But the greatest example of interposition is Jesus Christ, who interposed Himself between a holy God and sinful humanity. Because of Jesus’ work, the judgment that was due us fell on Him, and we were saved from destruction by God’s wrath. As Christians, we are called to act whenever unrighteousness raises its head and threatens to bring the judgment of God upon society. If Christians shun politics, there will be no one to act as a watchman (see Ezekiel 33:1–9), to warn the people of danger and to hold back the judgment of God.

We need to be like Abraham, interposing ourselves between God and an unrighteous society, pleading with God to spare the innocent and deliver our communities from His judgment. One major and intentional manner we are to act in interposition is to vote according to God’s kingdom values. Every voting choice you make ought to be for the candidate, platform, party, or policy that will best represent these values. Simultaneously, we are to seek to change the non-biblical values that exist.

Interposition is so critical in the political arena because if righteous people do nothing, there is no reason that God should not bring judgment on a society. If His people sit on the sidelines, there are no other agents to stay the hand of God. But God calls us to interpose ourselves in this culture, to stand up for the innocent, and to uphold God’s righteous standard in the community.

We are to show the world another option, or what I call God’s alternative. That may include protesting the evil that is being allowed to hold sway in a society. There are a couple of ways to do that. One type of interposition is personal protest, based on biblical conviction, against unrighteous government action. Daniel did this as a young captive in Babylon, refusing to eat the king’s meat because he did not want to break God’s law and defile himself (see Daniel 1).

But Daniel did more than just refuse the food. He offered the chief eunuch another option, suggesting that he allow Daniel and the other young men to eat vegetables. What we need in politics are godly people who will offer society a divine alternative, who will stand up and say, “Your way is wrong, but let’s try God’s way, and see if it makes a difference.”

We don’t know what would have happened if Nebuchadnezzar’s eunuch had refused Daniel’s recommendation. But we do know that when Daniel’s three Hebrew brothers refused to bow to the king’s image (see Daniel 3), they were sentenced to die. The actions of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego illustrate another type of interposition, one that is common to our era; protest through civil disobedience. This involves deliberate personal resistance to a government law or decree that violates God’s standards.

There’s an interesting example of this kind of interposition in Exodus 1. This concerned Pharaoh’s order to the Hebrew midwives: “When you are helping the Hebrew women to give birth and see them upon the birthstool, if it is a son, then you shall put him to death; but if it is a daughter, then she shall live” (Exodus 1:16). But the midwives disobeyed this order because they “feared God” (v. 17). They recognized that God’s law was higher than Pharaoh’s law, so they stepped in between the innocent Hebrew children and the king.

The civil disobedience of these midwives could have cost them their lives, because Pharaoh called them to account for letting the Hebrew male babies live. The midwives lied about the reason (see v. 19), but God blessed them for putting His covenant above the commands of men (see v. 20).

Peter and John practiced civil disobedience when the government’s action was in direct violation of God’s command:

And when they [the Jewish council] had summoned them, they commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said to them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to give heed to you rather than to God, you be the judge; for we cannot stop speaking what we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:18–20)

The apostles were saying, “You guys figure out the legality of this thing. We have a kingdom agenda to carry out.”

The problem in our society is that most people fear the government more than they fear the Lord. That’s true even for many Christians, because they fear the government’s power to punish people and coerce them into compliance. But we fear the wrong entity when we fear government above God. God not only deserves and demands our first loyalty, but we need to remember that government is under God and therefore is not to be made equal to Him.

The underlying problem is that too many people are looking for “salvation by government.” They are putting their hope in the political realm, but God warns us what happens when we put our confidence in kings (see 1 Samuel 8:9–18). There is no such thing as salvation by government (see Judges 8:22–23).

This is why Jesus refused attempts to make Him a political Savior (see John 6:15). The Democrats are looking for a Democratic savior, the Republicans are looking for a Republican savior, and the Independents are looking for an Independent savior. But God is sitting as the potentate of the universe, saying, “I am the only Savior in town.” The ultimate solutions to our culture’s problems won’t land on Air Force One.

Peter wrote, “Fear God, honor the king” (1 Peter 2:17). That is always God’s order of things. Whenever a government tries to usurp the rule of God, you have a legitimate basis for protest. Man’s laws can be resisted and disobeyed when they come into direct conflict with the fundamental principles of the Word. But that resistance should always be communicated in a way that honors the position of duly elected leaders.

Applications of Interposition

Let’s look at a few modern-day situations in which people practiced the principle of interposition because they held God’s law in higher esteem than man’s law.

One instance was during the Holocaust. Christians were right to hide Jews from the Nazis, even though it was against the law, because God’s law forbids us from participating in murder. For Christians to do nothing as they watched their Jewish neighbors be taken away (which is what most Christians did) was to be an accomplice to murder. So it was right in those circumstances to obey God rather than to obey men.

The civil rights marches of the sixties were also legitimate because they sought to change unrighteous laws that usurped the rule of God about the dignity of men. Whenever you strip a human being of the dignity that is his or hers by virtue of being made in the image of God, you are violating God’s standard. The civil rights struggle was about more than just human or civil rights. It was about biblical rights.

The same arguments can be made for the right-to-life movement today. The law says it is legal to take an unborn child’s life. But that violates God’s higher law that says, “You shall not murder.” In such a case, I have the right to interpose myself to protest that.

What about using force to protest wrong? Some people believe force is justifiable to right a wrong, but the Bible only sanctions force when protecting yourself or others from violence. The use of force is to be defensive, not offensive. We are not to use or incite violence as a way of bringing about change. We should be known as peacemakers (see Matthew 5:9).

We said earlier that unrighteous revolution is rebellion that seeks to forcibly change things from the top down. People always want to start with the president when it comes to protesting evil or getting unrighteous laws changed. But the kind of change we are talking about rarely ever filters down from the White House. God works from the bottom up through transformation, which is why evangelism and discipleship, which seek to change the heart, must be at the center of the church’s agenda. We must be careful not to drape the cross in the American flag, thus confusing the American dream and civil religion with the kingdom of God.

A KINGDOM COURSE OF ACTION

So if political action is valid based on the doctrine of interposition, what can you do to right a wrong?

One Life under God

The first thing you can do is to take responsibility for the courses of action that are available to you. We often hear, “What difference can one person make?” Let me ask you, what difference can one spark make in a dry forest? You can make a lot of difference.

One way is by your vote. Christians who do not vote are shunning their responsibility to be a voice for righteousness in the public square. Your vote can be a protest against an ungodly worldview and an endorsement of the biblical worldview. But you must be informed to cast your vote for righteousness and justice. You need to know what the values of the kingdom of God are in order to cast a vote for the party, person, or platform that best reflects those values.

I am often asked this question: “Why do I need to vote if God has already decided who is going to win or lose?” I usually answer that by asking another question: “Why bother to pray if you know that God is going to do what He wants to do anyway?”

Of course there are things that God has decided He will and will not do. But in between those two lines are a whole group of things God might do, but He has decided that He will only do in response to His people’s prayers. So if you don’t pray, you don’t get them (see James 4:3). There are also certain things that God is willing to do in a society, but He won’t do them until we as Christians take up our responsibilities in that society. Our actions can determine which way God will move.

Someone may say, “Well, how do I know which things God will do, won’t do, or might do?” The answer is, unless the Bible specifically says, you don’t know, so pray about everything (see 1 Thessalonians 5:17). Be in contact with Him about all things. Act on your responsibility at the ballot box, and pray fervently that God’s righteous standards will prevail.

Another thing we need is Christians who will pursue God’s calling into the political arena. There are believers out there who should be running for office. Politics is only as messy as the people involved. The way to clean up politics is to put righteous people into office who possess a biblical view of civil government.

This society needs people who feel God’s call on their lives to serve Him in politics. Then we will have leaders like the ones Jethro told Moses to choose: “able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain” (Exodus 18:21). These are righteous politicians, people who serve God and others with integrity. We need people at all levels of government who will take office with a kingdom perspective in view and a kingdom agenda to pursue.

One Family under God

Second, teach your children that welfare begins at home. Short-circuit any idea of first looking to the government for your family’s well-being. Teach them that hard work and obedience to God are the keys to success.

Families must resist any political attempt to undermine the divinely ordained role of the family, whether it is so-called same-sex marriage, legalized abortions, or indiscriminate welfare. Families must remove themselves from ongoing government dependency.

One Church under God

Third, the church should be leading the way in educating the culture concerning how to vote, because it is the entity that can interject a kingdom agenda into all the issues of culture. The job of the church is to educate God’s people to look at life from a kingdom perspective, and confront the government when it strays from or contradicts God’s kingdom principles.

The church alone possesses the keys of the kingdom (see Matthew 16:18–19), giving it divine authority to represent His perspective in history. When the church fails to fulfill this prophetic work of confronting God’s people and the culture with His unchanging standards based on His revealed Word, then we become co-conspirators to the devolution of the culture. Remember, God determines much of what He is going to do or not do in society based on how effectively He can work through His people (see 2 Chronicles 15:3-6; Ephesians 3:10).

The church has to do more than make people feel good about their personal walk with God. The church must give God’s people a divine orientation on every subject, including politics and government. Why? Because everything the Bible speaks about, it speaks about authoritatively. And the Bible speaks to every issue of life, so the church should seek to reflect the kingdom of God in the realm of politics. God lamented in Isaiah 5:13, “My people go into exile for their lack of knowledge.”

Another thing the church should do is to create opportunities for people to become informed and involved politically. This could include offering the opportunity for voter registration.

Most importantly, the church must be faithful in its role of doing good works for the benefit of society (see Matthew 5:16; Galatians 6:10). We cannot complain about the size of big civil government when the church is having limited influence in society. The welfare state would not have grown as large as it has if the church had been fulfilling its role in the areas of racial justice and charity. Christians are partly to blame for the size of the government we complain about. Limited church social impact will inevitably result in more unlimited civil government.

The church should also pray for its political leaders (see 1 Timothy 2:1–2). One of the things we should be doing in prayer is making suggestions to God. Moses did this in Exodus 32:11–14 when he asked God not to destroy the Israelites.

You say, “Why do I need to suggest things to God?” Because it means that you have thought through what you are praying about, and you have some ideas about what needs to be done rather than just sitting around doing nothing, waiting for answers to drop from heaven.

God may not act on your suggestions, but it is a way of offering yourself to Him to take action if He chooses to empower you for that action. It was this activity of prayer that brought an end to the evil of racial segregation as the church marched in the civil rights movement.

Finally, the church must model righteous actions through good deeds so that civil government can see the kingdom of God at work.

One Nation under God

The most important thing the government needs to do is to return to a biblical understanding of the definition of civil government, as well as the scope of responsibility which that entails.

Yes, church and state are functionally separate and distinct institutions with specific spheres of responsibility and jurisdiction (see 2 Chronicles 26:16–19). But the idea that the church has nothing to say about how society is governed is wrong simply because all law has a religious foundation. There can be no separation of religion and state, since civil government is answerable to God.

The church’s job is to make sure that the state doesn’t lose sight of the truth that God rules and that there is a moral standard in which the political realm must operate. The government needs to recognize and protect the church’s freedom to exercise its prophetic role of being a voice for God and His righteous standards, since government is a divinely authorized institution and only God is autonomous, not civil government.

Our government is in desperate need of people who can inject righteousness and justice into our political bloodstream, for a society can never rise above the quality of its leadership.

Then and only then will God’s kingdom agenda for all of life be made manifest.

EPILOGUE

In Psalm 128, the Word of God lays out life as it was meant to be lived by kingdom people under God, in every sphere of life: individual, family, church, and the nation.

ONE LIFE UNDER GOD

“How blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, who walks in His ways. When you shall eat of the fruit of your hands, you will be happy and it will be well with you” (Psalm 128:1–2).

The first thing the psalmist wanted you to know is that if your personal life is in line under God, blessing will flow out of you into your home, your church, and your community. But it all starts with you and me personally. “How blessed,” how happy, is the person who fears the Lord. To fear God simply means to take Him seriously, holding Him in awe and reverence. It means God is not to be marginalized, discounted, or put on the outskirts of life. Rather, He must be at the center of your existence.

When you fear God, He will take care of your fortune: “You shall eat of the fruit of your hands” (v. 2a). He will take care of your feelings: “You will be happy” (v. 2b). And He will take care of your future: “It will be well with you” (v. 2c). When you take God seriously and walk in His ways in your personal life, the next place it shows up is in your family life.

ONE FAMILY UNDER GOD

“Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house, your children like olive plants around your table. Behold, for thus shall the man be blessed who fears the LORD” (vv. 3–4).

God was saying to families, “You must be rooted in Me.” The writer pictured the wife as a “fruitful vine.” There are three things you need to know about vines. First, a vine clings. It will take hold of whatever it is attached to. The atmosphere in a home should be such that a wife can wrap her “branches” around her husband for stability, security, and love.

Vines also climb. A healthy vine will spread out and take over a whole wall of a house. In other words, when a husband is providing the right kind of atmosphere, his wife can develop her strengths and abilities. She can grow, becoming a better woman than she ever was. If a man has a stunted wife, the problem could be that she doesn’t have what she needs to cling to. She may not be getting the spiritual nurturing and nourishment she needs. The wife of a kingdom man should be able to say, “When I cling to my husband, good things start growing out of my life that I didn’t know were there.”

The third thing about vines is that their grapes cluster. Now, grapes are used to make wine. A person who drinks enough wine will start becoming intoxicated. He will act different because the wine makes him feel good. Husband, if your wife is a clinging, climbing, and clustering fruitful vine, your family life will be a delight instead of just a duty.

The wife also has a responsibility here. She is described as the wife “within [the] house,” meaning that a woman must prioritize the nurturing of her home and family above all else to be fully blessed of God and reap the full benefits of the fear of God in her home. All of her outside activity must be measured by whether it complements or conflicts with the priority of family.

But before any of that can happen, a vine has to have the right atmosphere to grow in. Don’t expect a summer wife if the husband brings home stormy winter weather. Don’t expect a vineyard to grow if it’s snowing and hailing when he comes home.

When it comes to children, the psalmist changed the imagery from a vine to olive plants. Notice they are not trees yet but plants. Olive plants take up to fifteen years to mature, and they have to be nurtured. When they are nurtured properly they provide a multitude of benefits since olive oil was used for cooking, medicine, massage, and many other profitable opportunities.

The psalmist was saying that we must provide a nurturing environment for our children if they’re going to grow up to be olive trees. The beauty of an olive tree in biblical times was that when it matured it would produce olives for another forty years. That’s the picture of productive children raised in a nurturing environment.

One of the great places to do family nurturing is “around your table” (Psalm 128:3b). Mealtimes provide many great teachable moments—but dad has to be there around the table with the kids if those moments are going to be seized for God. The man who provides this kind of climate in the home will be blessed of the Lord (v. 4).

In verse 5, we come to the third category of life that needs to be addressed in living out a kingdom agenda.

ONE CHURCH UNDER GOD

“The LORD bless you from Zion” (Psalm 128:5). Zion was the city of God, where the temple was located. It was the place where families came to worship God. The author of Hebrews picked this up when he said, “You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God” (Hebrews 12:22). The very next verse in Hebrews tells us that, for us, Mount Zion is the church.

Mount Zion, the church, is the place where you meet God. The person who has God at the center of his or her life, and the family that gathers regularly with God’s people to be affirmed and reaffirmed in the things of God, will be blessed.

If we are serious about fulfilling the kingdom agenda God has given us, if we are serious about passing on the faith to succeeding generations, then we had better be serious about the corporate body of Christ. The reason we have so many failing individuals and faltering families is that they’re not involved in a spiritual maintenance program in the family of God with the people of God.

Fourth and finally, the writer of Psalm 128 said that when we have our personal, family, and church lives lined up under God, we will be powerful in our impact on society.

ONE NATION UNDER GOD

“May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life. Indeed, may you see your children’s children. Peace be upon Israel!” (vv. 5b–6).

Peace is “shalom,” well-being in the community, because individuals, families, and the church are right under God and right with each other. When you get all of that lined up properly, guess what happens: You see the prosperity of the community. You see peace take over. You see a nation recover its spiritual health.

Some of us in America won’t get to see our children’s children because there’s no peace. There’s violence, corruption, and corrosion. The psalmist said, in essence, “If you want to fix the culture, then start with your own spheres of influence.”

How are we as Christians going to help influence the leaders of our society if we’re not willing to commit our personal lives to Christ, to love and nurture our families, and to serve and strengthen the church of the living God?

We live in a world that has lost its morals and its standards. Our public schools are falling apart. Criminals are dominating our neighborhoods, and we’re just having church rather than being the church. That’s not good enough.

We need to break the huddle and go out and let the world know that Jesus is Lord. We have too many “secret-agent” Christians. Too many spiritual CIA representatives. Too many covert operatives for the kingdom. Everybody else is coming out. We might as well come out too.

It’s time for the people on your job to know where you stand. If you stand with Christ, stand up and be counted. People in your neighborhood ought to know where you stand. They ought to know that there is a standard, and God is that standard.

Our world needs the truth of God from people who know it. When you fear God, it rolls over to your home. It rolls over from there into your church. And then we will see the betterment of the community. We will see the impact of Christ around the world. We will see the difference the cross of Jesus Christ can make. That’s kingdom impact, and it starts with you and me aligning ourselves, and every area of our lives, under God in order to advance His kingdom agenda.

At the heart of the kingdom agenda is personal responsibility. Because the fact is if you’re a messed-up person and you have a family, you are going to contribute to a messed-up family, and if your family goes to church, then your messed-up family will contribute to a messed-up church.

And if you’re a messed-up person contributing to a messed-up family contributing to a messed-up church, and your church is in a neighborhood, then your messed-up church will lead to a messed-up neighborhood.

And if you’re a messed-up person contributing to a messed-up family contributing to a messed-up church leading to a messed-up neighborhood, and your neighborhood resides in a city, then your messed-up neighborhood will result in a messed-up city.

Now if you’re a messed-up person contributing to a messed-up family contributing to a messed-up church leading to a messed-up neighborhood resulting in a messed-up city, and your city resides in a county, then your messed-up city will cause a messed-up county.

And if you’re a messed-up person contributing to a messed-up family contributing to a messed-up church leading to a messed-up neighborhood resulting in a messed-up city residing in a messed-up county, and your county is part of a state, then your county will help create a messed-up state.

But that’s not all. If you’re a messed-up person contributing to a messed-up family contributing to a messed-up church leading to a messed-up neighborhood resulting in a messed-up city residing in a messed-up county helping to create a messed-up state, and your state is part of a country, then your messed-up state helps produce a messed-up nation.

Now if you’re a messed-up person contributing to a messed-up family contributing to a messed-up church leading to a messed-up neighborhood resulting in a messed-up city helping to create a messed-up state that helps produce a messed-up nation, and your nation is part of the world, your messed-up country will leave us with a messed-up world!

So if we want a better world composed of better countries, inhabited by better states, made up of better counties, composed of better cities, inhabited by better neighborhoods, illuminated by better churches, made up of better families, we need to become better people. It all starts with personal responsibility—living all of life under God.

APPENDIX A

THE KINGDOM AGENDA COVENANT

I (NAME) commit to living every area of my life under the comprehensive rule of God.

I will seek to honor God in my personal life through aligning my thoughts, decisions, and actions according to His Word.

I will strive to fulfill my biblical role within my family and assist the other members to do the same.

I affirm that I will be an active member of a local church using my time, talents, and treasures to advance its influence on the lives of others.

I pledge to publicly represent Jesus Christ in the broader community through my testimony, as well as my intentional involvement in trying to meet the needs of the “least of these.”

COVENANTAL PRAYER

Thank You, Father, Spirit, and our Lord Jesus Christ, for allowing me to be a part of Your kingdom purpose and for enabling me to consistently live out Your value system on a daily basis. May Your name receive the praise, adoration, and glory that is due You as I covenant with You for You to demonstrate through my life the manifestation of your kingdom agenda.

Signature

Date

www.tonyevans.org/covenant

APPENDIX B

THE URBAN ALTERNATIVE

Dr. Tony Evans and The Urban Alternative (TUA) equips, empowers, and unites Christians to impact individuals, families, churches, and communities to restore hope and transform lives.

We believe the core cause of the problems we face in our personal lives, homes, churches, and societies is a spiritual one; therefore, the only way to address them is spiritually. We’ve tried a political, a social, an economic, and even a religious agenda. It’s time for a kingdom agenda—God’s visible and comprehensive rule over every area of life, because when we function as we were designed, there is a divine power that changes everything. It renews and restores as the life of Christ is made manifest within our own. As we align ourselves under Him, there is an alignment that happens from deep within, where He brings about full restoration. It is an atmosphere that revives and makes whole.

As it impacts us, it impacts others, transforming every sphere of life in which we live. When each biblical sphere of life functions in accordance with God’s Word, the outcomes are evangelism, discipleship, and community impact. As we learn how to govern ourselves under God, we then transform the institutions of family, church, and society from a biblically based kingdom perspective, whereby through Him, we are touching heaven and changing earth.

To achieve our goal we use a variety of strategies, methods, and resources for reaching and equipping as many people as possible.

Broadcast Media

Hundreds of thousands of individuals experience The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans through the daily radio broadcast playing on more than 850 radio outlets and in more than 80 countries. The broadcast can also be seen on several television networks, and is viewable online at TonyEvans.org.

Leadership Training

The Kingdom Agenda Pastors (KAP) provides a viable network for like-minded pastors who embrace the kingdom agenda philosophy. Pastors have the opportunity to go deeper with Dr. Tony Evans as they are given greater biblical knowledge, practical applications, and resources to impact individuals, families, churches, and communities. KAP welcomes senior and associate pastors of all churches.

The Kingdom Agenda Pastors’ Summit progressively develops church leaders to meet the demands of the 21st century while maintaining the Gospel message and the strategic position of the church. The Summit introduces intensive seminars, workshops, and resources, addressing issues affecting the community, family, leadership, organizational health and more.

Pastors’ Wives Ministry, founded by Dr. Lois Evans, provides counsel, encouragement, and spiritual resources for pastors’ wives as they serve with their husbands in the ministry. A primary focus of the ministry is the KAP Summit that offers senior pastors’ wives a safe place to reflect, renew, and relax along with training in personal development, spiritual growth, and care for their emotional and physical well-being.

Community Impact

National Church Adopt-A-School Initiative (NCAASI) prepares churches across the country to impact communities by using public schools as the primary vehicle for effecting positive social change in urban youth and families. Leaders of churches, school districts, faith-based organizations, and other nonprofit organizations are equipped with the knowledge and tools to forge partnerships and build strong social service delivery systems. This training is based on the comprehensive church-based community impact strategy conducted by Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship. It addresses such areas as economic development, education, housing, health revitalization, family renewal, and racial reconciliation. We also assist churches in tailoring the model to meet the specific needs of their communities while simultaneously addressing the spiritual and moral frame of reference.

Resource Development

We are fostering lifelong learning partnerships with the people we serve by providing a variety of published materials. We offer booklets, Bible studies, books, CDs, and DVDs to strengthen people in their walk with God and ministry to others.

For more information, a catalog of Dr. Tony Evans’ ministry resources, and a complimentary copy of Dr. Evans’ devotional newsletter, call (800) 800-3222 or write TUA at P.O. Box 4000, Dallas, TX 75208, or log on to www.TonyEvans.org.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A book of this magnitude is never solely the work of one person. As this book is near and dear to my heart and ministry, I want to extend a very special word of gratitude to those who have labored alongside of me in this, my magnum opus.

Firstly, to Greg Thornton—a friend of many decades and a champion for God’s work both in and through my life—thank you, Greg for your vision for this project on such a large scale. I also want to thank Roslyn Jordan for her involvement in this book, and her desire to see its message reach as many people as possible. Many thanks to the Moody team: Pam Pugh, Carolyn McDaniel, Erik Peterson, Roslyn Jordan, and Donielle Alicea for their attentiveness to detail and enthusiasm toward this title. May the work of our hands through this book bless our heavenly Father by advancing His kingdom and bringing Him glory on earth.

SUBJECT INDEX

Abel, 66, 87, 97

Abigail, 258, 259

abortion, 429, 433, 520

Abraham, 259, 260, 261, 309

absolute truth, 32, 429

Adam

boundaries and, 424

ownership of earth and, 63

race origins and, 480–81

responsibility of, 425

sin of, 61, 395, 256–57

ambassadors, 404, 410–11

anarchy, 90, 105

angels, 49, 398–400

ascribed glory, 40

atonement, 444, 445, 446

authority

absolute, 221–22

the angels and, 398

of the Bible, 107–12, 119

of husbands, 252

of Jesus, 66, 67, 344–45, 349

mankind and, 84

power versus, 66–68

women and, 395, 396, 398–400

baptism, 87, 346–47, 355–56

Barabbas, 443

Barnabas, 483–84

basileia (rule, authority), 28, 307

bema, 211

Bible/Scripture

authority of, 107–12, 119

central theme of, 28

commitment to, 114–16

government’s respect for, 116–18

biblical church. See church

biblical justice. See justice

blessings, 104–5, 225, 283–84, 303

blood, 75, 76, 88

boundaries, 421–24

Cain, 86, 87, 97

calling

commitment and, 158, 159

customized, 153–57

defined, 152

of Esther, 164

finding/fulfilling, 160–61

finding one’s, 161, 162, 166

of Joseph, 163

of Moses, 154–56, 160–63

politics and, 519

responding to, 161–65

singles and, 264, 269–70

Canaan (son of Ham), 478, 479

charity, 95

children

adult, 297–98

honoring parents, 298–303

inheritances and, 469

nurturing, 521–22

obedience and, 294–98

role reversal and, 293

sexuality and, 293

church

advancement of, 316–18

courts, 391

covenants and, 361–62

the culture and, 324, 325

government, 97–98

interlocking pieces of, 314–15

the kingdom and, 322–25

legislative nature of, 315–16

marginalization of, 18

power of, 318–22

purpose of, 307–11

school-partnerships, 413

slavery and, 98, 485

See also outreach (of church)

church leaders

atmosphere/environment from, 376–78

categories of, 392–94

integrity and, 378–80

necessity of, 390–91

See also spiritual leadership

church members

benefits for, 368–69

encouragement by, 365–66

finding good church, 374–75

giving and, 372–74

role of, 369

using spiritual gifts, 370–71

values of, 361–66

church-school partnerships, 413–15

church unity

Jesus’s prayer for, 328–29

the power of, 330–31

racial, 331–33

spiritual, 326–28, 333–34, 340, 341

civil disobedience, 516, 517, 521

civil government, 98–100

commitment, 149–50, 158, 212–13

communion, 354–59

communism, 462

confessing Jesus Christ, 71–75

conformism, 403–4

Constitution. See U. S. Constitution

constitutional republics, 91

corporal punishment, 447

covenants

Abrahamic, 311

the church and, 361–62

covering/armor of, 80–82

Dominion Covenant, 57, 220

facets of, 82–88

inheritance of, 87–88

marriage as, 226–29

the new, 76, 88–89, 354, 355

prospering under, 79–80

relationships and, 78, 79

creation, 49, 59, 82, 84

cross-carrying, 131–33

cross-cultural relationships, 335, 338, 339, 341

culture, the

church example to, 324, 325

deterioration of, 401–2, 412, 435

Jesus’s treatment of, 333–40

See also racism

curse of Ham theory, 477–80

David, 258, 259, 480

deaconesses, 304

deacons, 393–94

death, 54, 55, 299, 423

deception, 54

democracy, 91

demons, 49, 51, 52, 54

discipleship

defined, 137, 343

developing skill of, 139–43, 349–54

education in, 352

fellowship and, 352–53

the Great Commission and, 345–49

kingdom of God and, 147–50

the ordinances in, 354–59

outreach (witnessing), 351

process of, 136–41

teaching and, 139–41

worship and, 353

discipline, 16, 96, 104, 286, 287

dishonor, 300

disobedience, 54, 55

divorce, 99, 100, 217, 218, 267

Dominion Covenant, 57, 220

ecclesiocracy, 90

economics

communism, 462

government and, 450–51, 471

greed, 460–61

investing, 466–67

personal responsibility, 450

saving, 468

taxation, 463–64, 501, 510–12

tithing, 463

education

church-based schools, 502

decentralization of, 500, 501

in discipleship, 352

ethics and, 494

homeschooling and, 502

humanism and, 500, 504

private schools, 506

public schools, 96, 496

sexuality and, 493

spiritual, 347–48, 352

theism and, 500

truth and, 498, 499

vouchers, 504

worldviews and, 490–94, 497, 501

Edward III (king of England), 16, 17

elders, 392–93

encouragement, 365–66

environmental theory, 476–77

envy, 461

Esther, 164, 451

ethics/rules, 85–88

evangelism, 345–46

Eve

boundaries and, 424

leadership and, 395

race origins and, 481

Redeemer promised to, 61

role reversal of, 256–57, 399

evolution, 96, 476, 493

extortion/corruption, 461–62

faith-based organizations, 472, 527

families

disintegration of, 18, 218, 279

dominion of, 219–22

foundation for, 217–18

government of, 96–97

kingdom expansion by, 130–31

mission of, 219–20

origin of, 218, 219

responsibilities of, 102

See also children; husbands; wives

fathers, 280-281, 288-289

See also children; families

favoritism, 281, 282, 453

fear of God, 520, 523

fellowship, 352–53

freedom

boundaries of, 421–24

as gift, 431–32

God’s establishment of, 420–21

justice and, 436

meaning of, 419–14

responsibility and, 424–26

the truth and, 426–29

giving, 372–74, 468

gleaning, 450

glory, 39–41, 308

God

calling and, 165, 166

as deliverer, 436–37

glory of, 39–41, 308–10

kingdom will of, 41–44

owner of the earth, 57–60, 456–57

See also authority; sovereignty of God

God-in-the-Box, 42

God’s Word. See Bible/Scripture; Word, the

good works, 408–9, 440

gospel, 440–43, 445–46

government

boundaries for freedom and, 431–32

economic responsibility of, 471

forms of, 90–91

serving in, 454, 519

See also kingdom agenda government; politics

grace, 44, 45, 133, 134, 210

Graham, Billy, 442, 473

Great Commission, 342–45, 348, 349

greed, 460–61

Ham, 477–80

hell, 55–56, 316, 317, 358–59

helpers, 254–55

hierarchies, 83–85, 395, 396

Holy Spirit, 320–22, 326, 328, 350

homocracy, 28

homosexuality, 437

humanism, 93, 308, 491, 500, 504

husbands

God’s authority and, 252

headship and, 233–36, 251, 252

honoring wife, 242–44

living with wife, 240–41, 246

loving wife, 244–45

praying with wife, 244–45

as sanctifier, 238–39

as satisfier, 239–40

as savior, 236–38

I AM, 163

inheritance

children and, 469

of the covenant, 87–88

evaluation/judgment in, 204–6

finishing the race for, 200–203

reward for obedience, 203–4

taking ownership of, 199–200

injustice, 438, 453

integrity, 378–80

interposition, 512–16

intrinsic glory, 40

investing, 466–67

Isaiah, 43, 44

isolationism, 402–3

Israel, 198–200, 203, 204

Jacob, 238, 282, 283, 334

Jesus Christ

authority of, 66, 67, 344–45, 349

confessing, 71–75

cultural viewpoints of, 333–40

denying, 74, 75

governmental authority and, 30, 31

headship/lordship of, 68–70, 251

as the last Adam, 85, 206

mind set on, 180, 182

surrender model of, 249, 250

Jethro, 385, 387–88, 390

John Mark, 164

Joseph, 163, 275–76

Joshua, 81, 200, 203

Jubilee, 444–45

judgment seat of Christ, 190, 191, 205

justice

freedom and, 436

the gospel and, 440–48

implementing, 446–52

knowledge and, 451

reconciliation and, 448–49

responsibility and, 449–50

restitution and, 447–48

See also social justice

King, Martin Luther, Jr., 412, 419, 473, 485

kingdom agenda government

blessings from, 104

bottom up operation, 100–104

church government and, 97–98, 100

civil government and, 98–100

decentralization in, 92–94

family government, 96–97

love and discipline in, 104

self-government and, 94–96

kingdom mind

the battle for, 173–82

nature of, 170–73

necessity of, 168–70

kingdom of God

the church and, 322–25

defined, 28, 307

discipleship and, 147–50

God’s glory and, 39–41

God’s sovereignty in, 34–30

God’s will and, 41–44

man as manager of, 55–61

prioritizing, 125–29

sociopolitical model of, 310–11

spiritual nature of, 30–31

uniqueness of, 14–15

universal agenda of, 29

knowledge, 451

law, 21–22

laziness, 461

legalism, 430

light, 406–8

Lord’s Supper. See communion

lotteries, 460, 464

love, 437–39

Lucifer, 47, 48, 55, 56, 61, 186

See also Satan

Mandela, Nelson, 449

marriage

challenges of, 266–67, 384

as covenant, 226–29

permanence of, 274

transcendence in, 227–28

Martha, 156

Mary (sister of Martha), 156

millennial kingdom, 207, 208, 311

mind of Christ, 172–73

Miriam, 486, 487

monarchies, 13–14, 90, 92–93

money, 468, 469

See also economics

Moses

calling of, 154–56, 160–63

interracial marriage of, 486

spiritual leadership of, 385–90

Nabal, 258, 259

Nebuchadnezzar, 33, 507

Nehemiah, 103, 462, 465

new covenant, 76, 88–89, 354, 355

New York City, 418

oaths, 87

obedience, 203–4, 294–98

oligarchy, 90

olive trees, 521

opinions, 32, 109

outreach (of church)

ambassadors for, 403–5, 410, 411

educational, 413–15

good works and, 408–9

overcoming darkness and, 407

as preserving influence, 404–6

parents

blessing, 283–84

disciplining, 286–89

nurturing, 284–86

prioritizing, 282–83

teaching, 289–91

See also children; families; fathers

Passover, 356–57

pastors, 21, 173, 207, 369, 388–89

peace, 522–23

Pentecost, 321–22

personal responsibility, 101, 424–26, 434, 523

Peter, 483–84, 314, 487

Pharisees, 508, 509

Pilate. See Pontius Pilate

politics

God’s kingdom and, 29–30

God’s sovereignty and, 506–7

interposition in, 512–16

prayer and, 519

serving in, 454, 517

taxation, 463–64, 501, 509–10

voting, 432, 516–18

Pontius Pilate, 30, 31

poor/oppressed, the, 437–39, 443, 450, 470

power vs. authority, 66–68

prayer, 291, 517, 519

preaching, 21, 388–89

pride, 48

Proverbs, 286–87, 295–96

provision/covering, 80–82

racial origins

curse of Ham theory, 477–80

environmental theory, 476–77

racial unity, 331–33

racism, 473–75, 482–87

Rahab, 80–82

rebellion, 293, 300–301, 516

reconciliation, 448–49, 475, 482–87

redemption, 64, 75, 231, 250, 382

relationship

God’s calling and, 154–55

surrender and, 130

relativism, 428

religion, 129, 131, 132

responsibility

church, 102–3

justice and, 449–50, 452

national, 103

personal, 101, 424–26, 434, 523

restitution, 447–48

resurrection, 371, 372

revelation, 170

reverse racism, 485–86

right-to life movement, 516

righteousness, 127, 296

rulers, 13–15, 90, 92–93

Sabbath, 201

sacralization, 477

sacrifices, 129

salt, 404–6

Samaritan woman, 334–38

same-sex marriage, 218

sanctions, 87

Sarah, 259, 260, 261

Satan

authority and, 59–60, 66, 67

families and, 229–30, 279

“I wills” of, 49–53

rival kingdom of, 15, 47–48

strongholds of, 179, 180

See also Lucifer

“saved,” 73, 176

saving, 468

schools. See education

self-government, 94–96

service, 208–9

sin, 61, 256–57, 395, 482

singles

calling of, 264, 269–70

focus of, 272–73, 277

freedom of, 270–72

marriage and, 266, 267, 273–75

sexuality and, 265, 267

waiting on the Lord, 253–64, 266, 267

singles and, 265, 267

slavery

the church and, 98, 485

curse of Ham and, 477–79

of the Israelites, 309, 427, 462

slaves, 73, 74, 430

social action, 29, 30

social justice, 434

See also justice

Sodom and Gomorrah, 382, 437, 512

Solomon, 479

soul, 174–75, 177–79

sovereignty of God

committment and, 377–39

meaning of, 35, 38

political affairs and, 506–7, 511–12

surrendering to, 36, 39, 308–10

as transcendence, 82–83

spending, 468

spiritual growth. See discipleship

spiritual leadership

discipleship goal of, 381–82

importance of, 380–90

Moses and, 385–90

preaching the Word and, 388–89

representative role of, 382–83

shepherding of, 383–84

spiritual maturity, 143–46

spiritual sickness, 19, 167

spiritual unity, 326–28, 333–41

spiritual warfare, 50–53

stewardship

evaluation of, 187–92

improving in, 195–96

responsibility of, 187–89

rewards of, 192–95

strongholds, 179, 180

suffering, 209–11

suppression/discrimination, 482

See also racism

surrender, 128, 129, 132, 133, 253–60

taxation, 463–64, 501, 508–10

teaching, 139–141

See also education

Ten Commandments, 113, 280, 290, 435

thanksgiving, 195

theism, 491, 500

theocracy, 28

tithing, 463

Tower of Babel, 93, 94

transcendence, 82–83, 88–89, 227–28

truth

freedom and, 426–29

as kingdom foundation, 308

living by the, 486

loss of the, 20–21

U. S. Constitution, 77

unity. See church unity; spiritual unity

Uzziah (king), 43

vines, 520–21

voting, 432, 516–18

wealth, 457, 458

welfare, 95, 99, 445, 450, 470, 518

wives

biblical examples, 259, 260

God’s authority and, 252, 253

headship and, 250, 251

as helpers, 254–55

trust in God, 257–58

women, 394–400

Word, the

as evaluation standard, 205–6, 389

implanted, 176–77, 181

Satan’s challenging of, 59–60

See also Bible/Scripture

world, 149

worry, 125–26

worship, 353

Year of Jubilee, 444–45

yokes, 142, 143

Zion, 304, 522

Zipporah, 512

SCRIPTURE INDEX

GENESIS

1–2

222

1:26

57, 311

1:26–28

58, 219, 220

1:28

57, 225

2

420

2:2–3

201

2:7

480

2:7–9

221

2:15

221, 223

2:15–17

85, 420

2:16

221

2:16–17

224

2:17

423

2:18

222, 254

2:19

222

2:21

222

3

63

3–6

97

3:1

222

3:1–4

59

3:1–6

256

3:1–19

435

3:4–5

498

3:5

59, 60, 427

3:8–24

61

3:15

61, 65, 66

3:16

257

3:21

231

4:1–8

230

6

87, 230

6:1–7

66

9:1

93

9:1–7

311

9:6

311

10:6

478

11:1–9

93

11:4

93

11:6

93

11:11

260

12:1–3

311

12:3

230, 457

15:13–14

309

17:15–17

260

18

230

18:10–12

260

18:14

260

18:16–33

382, 512

18:18–19

230

18:19

452

20

259

25:28

282

29:20–30

238

37–38

275

37:3

282

39

275

39:2

275

39:5

275

39:6

275

39:9

275

39:21

276

41:1

276

41:45–46

276

49

283

50:20

163, 309

EXODUS

2:11–15

154

3:1

154

3:2–4

154

3:4

158

3:5

162

3:7–10

162

3:11

162

8:1

424

12

356

12:7

76

12:13

357

12:26

464

13:21

50

14:11

386

14:31

386

16:2

386

17:3

387

18

387

18:13–16

385

18:13–27

380

18:21

517

18:21–23

390

19:5–6

79

20

113

20:1–17

435

20:2

113

20:5

88, 280, 479

20:8

201

21:15

299

22:1–3

447

32:1–14

512

34:23–24

234

34:24

235

40:34

50

LEVITICUS

6:1–7

447

19:9–10

450

24:22

488

25:9–10

444

NUMBERS

12:4–9

486

13:27

200

14

201

15:16

434

23:19

111, 427

DEUTERONOMY

4:5–6

115

4:5–7

506

4:5–8

112, 332

4:7–8

452

4:9–10

114

6:1–2

494

6:1–9

96

6:4–5

290

6:6–9

290

6:7

291, 496

6:8–9

291

8:1

112

8:11

456

8:11–14, 17–18

186

10:17–19

436

12:8–11

199

17:18–20

100

17:19

117

21:10–14

397

21:18–21

300

28:12

458

29:1

79

29:9

78, 104

30:19

87

33:26

254

JOSHUA

1:7

86

2:9–11

81

2:12–13

81

5:13–15

203

6

203

6:20

82

JUDGES

8:22–23

515

21:25

90, 389

RUTH

1:16

268

1 SAMUEL

1:3

288

2:7–8

457

2:12

288

2:13–17

288

2:24

289

2:30

249

3:13

289

4:11

289

4:19–21

289

8:9–18

515

8:10–18

463, 511

25

258

25:38

259

2 SAMUEL

8:15

435

2 KINGS

2:23–24

300

2 CHRONICLES

15

19, 22

15:3

412

15:3, 5–6

20

15:3–6

381, 422

15:5

412

26:16–19

519

EZRA

7:10

380

NEHEMIAH

1:6–7

312

1:11

465

2:7

103

2:8

103

2:10

334

2:18

104

2:19

334

3:10

103

4:1

334

6:1–6

334

6:14

334

8:1–18

103

11:1–2

467

ESTHER

4:13–14

164

8:11

451

JOB

1:6

48

1:21

186

2:1

48

38:7

49

PSALMS

2:1–4

94

8

61

8:3–6

56, 63

9:17

426

9:17–20

94

18:30

500

24:1

457, 512

24:1–2

37

24:1–5a

37

33:9–12

94

33:20

255

37:4–5

249

46

311

50:10–12

184

63:6

182

70:5

255

72:4

311

72:16

311

78:72

377

82:6

108

103:19

24, 35

105:43–45

465

119:46

116

119:89

109

124:8

255

127:4

291, 497

128:1–2

105, 120, 520

128:3

105, 214, 246

128:5

105, 304, 522

128:5b–6

416

PROVERBS

1:7

490

1:8

295

3:1

295

3:5

165

3:9

123, 373

4:1–4

295

6:16–17

48

6:17

88

6:19

329

10:1

296

10:4

461

10:14

490

13:22

464, 468

13:23

462

13:24

115, 287

17:21

296

19:13

296

19:18

115, 288

19:26

296

22:6

114, 285

22:15

115, 288, 294

23:7

168, 352, 489

27:23

468

29:15

288

29:17

288

31:10

253

ECCLESIASTES

7:11

469

12:13

113

ISAIAH

2:2

49

2:4

311

3:4–5

279

6

398

6:1

42, 43

6:5

43

6:6–7

44

6:8

44

9:6–7

311

14

56

14:12

47, 49, 408

14:13

48, 49, 311

14:13–14

47, 48

14:13–17

311

22:22

318

33:22

92, 119

33:24

311

35:5–6

311

43:7

40

45:7

92

45:12

93

45:18

93

46:9–10

93

55:8

110, 168

55:9

168

65:21–25

207

JEREMIAH

29:4–7

437, 466

LAMENTATIONS

3:22–23

243

EZEKIEL

16:49

437

28

56

28:11–19

311

28:12–15

48

33:1–9

513

43:1–12

100

47:1–2

333

DANIEL

1

491

1:6–7

492

1:8–21

506

2:21

116

2:35

49

3

43, 514

4:25

507

4:28

33

4:28–37

83

7:13–14

42

9:5

312

9:7

312

JOEL

2:32

74

AMOS

5:21–24

436

MICAH

4:3

311

6:8

438

HABAKKUK

2:4

441

ZECHARIAH

7:9–12

437

MALACHI

1:7–8

373

1:8

311

2:10

476

2:13–14

226

3:8–9

468

MATTHEW

1:5

268

4:4

112, 177

5–7

122

5:9

516

5:13–14

116

5:13–16

103, 404

5:14–15

406–407

5:16

310, 518

5:16a

407

5:18

109

6:10

30

6:13

44

6:19–21

372

6:22–23

34

6:25

125

6:25–32

124

6:28

125

6:31

125

6:32

33

6:33

33, 122, 124, 125, 126, 313

6:34

125, 126

7:21

307

7:24–27

217

8:5–13

409

10:24–25

138, 141

10:25

343

10:32–33

71

11:28

143

11:28–30

141

11:29

143

13:11

42

13:38

312, 313

16

313, 316, 319

16:15

313

16:16

314

16:18

312, 314, 316

16:18–19

375

16:19

316, 318

16:27

95

16:28

307

18:21–34

448

19:10

274

19:14

292

20:16

205

20:20–21

208

20:23

208

20:24

208

20:25–28

208

22:30

269

22:36–40

113

22:37

113

22:39

113

25:14–30

187

25:15

187

25:26

426

25:41

55

28:16

343

28:16–20

342

28:18

344

28:18–20

136, 137

28:19

136, 343, 344

28:19–20

345

28:20

344, 347, 348

MARK

1:15

307

6:14–29

506

8:1–9

348

8:10

348

8:34–36

158

10

208

12:14–15a

508

12:15b

509

LUKE

2:52

231, 284

4:14–30

442

4:18–21

443

5:27–32

439

7:18–23

439

9:23

174

10:18

55, 56

10:38–42

156

10:41–42

156

13:31–32

510

14:27

132

17:21

307

19:11–27

184, 466

19:12–13

184

19:15

189

19:16

192

19:17

192

19:18–19

193

19:20–21

193

19:22–23

194

19:24

192, 193, 194

22:15

357

22:20

354

24:34

429

JOHN

1:1

177

3:7

148

3:16

263

3;16

73

4

333

4:6

334

4:10

336

4:15

406

4:19–20

337

4:22

337

4:40–41

339

5:24

73

6:51

358

7:16–17

158

8:31–36

426

8:36

429

8:44

54

9

108

10:30

109

10:31–33

108

10:34–36

108

10:35–36

109

13

209

14:12

409

14:16–17

356

14:26

352

15:4–8

146

15:5

320

16:13

320

17:11

329

17:17

389

17:21

341

18:38

428

18:28–40

30

18:36

14, 31, 307

18:37

31, 32

19:11

513

19:12

30

21:15–17

164

ACTS

1:3

321

1:4–5

321

1:6

321

1:8

321, 346, 350

1:14

330

2

321, 350, 351

2:1–4

321

2:27

442

2:29

442

2:41

330

2:42

350, 352, 353

2:42–27

330

2:42–47

102

2:43

354

2:44–45

312, 354, 352

2:46

330, 352

4:18–20

514

4:18–21

351

4:23–28

351

4:24

330

4:29

351

4:31

330

6:2–4

391

10:34

436

12:3–19

330

12:12

331

13:1–3

487

13:13

164

13:22

182, 378

15:36–40

164

17:23

503

17:24–28

94

17:26

331, 476, 480

19:9

135

20:7

357

20:28–29

384

20:35

458

ROMANS

1:1

73

1:18

22

1:18–23

172

1:19–31

22

1:20

499

1:28

172

3:4

252

3:22

282

4:13–16

197

5:12

64, 85, 235, 287

5:12a

422

5:14

64

5:17–19

64

5:21

64, 85

6:3–4

346, 355

8:18

158

8:28

38, 308

8:29

138, 343

10:9

73

10:9–10

72, 75, 148

10:12

282

10:13

74

11:36

308

12:1–2

128, 142, 157, 158, 494

12:2

180, 352, 403

12:5

326

12:28–29

143

13:1

94

13:1–4

447, 471

13:3

104, 118

13:4

104, 117

14:12

94

16:1

394

16:17

329

16:25

441

1 CORINTHIANS

1:1–2

74

1:14–31

327

1:18

176

2:9–11

170

2:10

170

2:11

173

2:14

144

2:14–3:3

144

2:14–15

171

2:15

144, 381

2:16

144, 172

3:1

144, 145

3;1

143

3:2–3

145

3:10–15

189

3:16–18

362, 368

3:17

329

4:20

319

5:7

356

6:1–4

100

6:1–8

391

6:20

186

7

263, 271

7:14

84

7:20

269, 270

7:24

269, 270

7:25–26

264

7:27

265

7:29

268

7:30

269

7:32–34

271

7:35

271

9:27

202, 364

10–11

358

10:11

112

10:20

357

10:31

160

11:3

84, 234

11:4–5

397

11:7–9

398

11:8–9

399

11:13

251

11:24

355

11:26

358

11:28

101

11:29–32

288

11:31

101, 205

12:3–5

323

12:4

328

12:7

370

12:8

328

12:9

328

12:11

328

12:12–13

326–327

12:20

323

12:25–30

323

12:26

323, 367

14:34–35

393

15:1–4

440

15:6

344

15:21–22

63

15:22

85

15:22a

235

15:45

64, 85

15:58

195

16:2

372, 374

2 CORINTHIANS

3:17–18

136

4:17

211

5:9

211

5:10

189, 190

5:11

190, 191

5:17

133

10:4

179

12:7

210

12:9

210

12:10

210

12:12–14

312

GALATIANS

2

328

2:11–21

33

2:20

131, 157, 486

3:16

109

3:28

324, 395

5:4

133

5:13

430

5:16–25

147

6:10

440

6:14

131

6:15

133

6:16

133

EPHESIANS

1:3

53, 197

1:9–10

68

1:13

347

1:20

53

1:22

410

1:22–23

67, 313, 324

2

315, 411

2:1–3

54

2:2

47, 54

2:4–5

55

2:5–6

69, 316, 358

2:6

53, 70

2:10

159, 408

2:19

361

2:20–22

315

2:21

324

3:10

53, 58, 316, 332, 324, 362, 368, 518

3:20–21

362

4:3

312, 326

4:11

392

4:11–12

380

4:12–16

362, 368

4:15–16

369

4:16

323

4:32

312

5:8

407

5:18

146

5:19–21

146

5:22

257

5:26

239–240

5:26–27

238

5:28–29

239

5:29

284

6

80

6:1

294, 295, 296

6:1–3

293, 362

6:2–3

298

6:3

303

6:4

96, 104, 280, 281, 284, 286, 289

6:6

345

6:10

52

6:12–17

53

6:12

51

PHILIPPIANS

1:21a

157

1:21b

157

2:4

460

2:12

141, 153, 202

2:12–13

160

3:14

203

3:20

148

4:6

353

4:7

181

4:13

182

COLOSSIANS

1:12

206

1:13

29, 67, 160, 312, 369

1:13–14

147

1:15–17

40

1:15–18

68

1:18

192

1:28

147

2:8

501

2:8–12

69

2:9–10

147

2:9–12

355–356

2:13–15

359

3:1–2

180

3:3

182

3:4

182

3:14–15

312

3:15

181

3:16

177

3:21

281

3:23–24

204

1 THESSALONIANS

5:12–13

97

5:23

146, 441

2 THESSALONIANS

1:4–5

209

3:6–8

101

3:10

101, 425

3:11–15

104

1 TIMOTHY

1:17

148

2:1–2

312, 521

2:5

76, 107

2:11–14

394

2:12–14

251

3:1

393

3:1–7

396

3:1–13

381

3:4

97

3:14–15

115

3:15

102, 382

3:17

408

4:2

54

4:13–16

383

4:15

389

5:4

96, 102, 302

5:8

96, 102, 302

5:16

102, 302

5:17

97, 392

6:11

213

6:17

423

2 TIMOTHY

1:8

75

2:2

381

2:22

213

3:16

119

3:16–17

112, 116

4;2

382

4:7

45, 203

4:11

164

TITUS

1:5

390

1:5–9

381

2:1

382

2:5

256

HEBREWS

3:12–14

212

3:14

144, 206

3:18–19

199

4

198, 199, 201

4:1

199, 200

4:2

200, 201, 203

4:3–5

201

4:8

204

4:9–11

204

4:12

108, 177, 178, 205

4:13

205

4:14–16

205

4:16

206, 210

5:13–14

146

6:18

427

7:22–25

89

8:6

76

9:15

76, 362, 368

10:22

363

10:22–25

361

10:30

190

11:31

81

12:1

202

12:5b–6

105

12:6

104, 287

12:7–8

287

12:18–20

108

12:22

522

12:22–24

105

12:28

195

13:2

365

13:8

139

13:17

97

JAMES

1:2–5

146

1:19

175

1:21

176

1:25

87

2:1–9

312

2:5

439

2:25

80

3

381

4:3

519

4:13–15

186

5:14

393

1 PETER

1:23

175

2:5

315

2:9

323

2:13–15

98

2:17

515

3

253

3:1–2

252

3:5

253, 257

3:6

253, 260

3:6a

259

3:7

240, 241, 242, 244, 254, 362, 398

3:15

351

4:10–11

370

4:13

210

5:1–2a

383

1 JOHN

2:15–16

149

2:19

363

4:12

368

4:20

439

3 JOHN

2

105

4:3

517

4:13–15

186

5:14

393

REVELATION

2:3

123

2:4

123

4:11

40, 184

13:1–10

506

13:17

451, 511

19:9

207

19:16

507

20:1–3

57

20:1–6

206, 207

21:24

317

22:18–19

109

In the Kingdom Agenda Series booklets, Dr. Evans explores God’s perspective on the everyday matters of life. For more information visit: www.moodypublishers.com.

Table of Contents

Prologue

Introduction

PART ONE: THE THEOLOGY OF THE KINGDOM AGENDA

1. The Concept of the Kingdom Agenda

2. The Necessity for the Kingdom Agenda

3. The Lord of the Kingdom Agenda

4. The Covenants of the Kingdom Agenda

5. The Government of the Kingdom Agenda

6. The Authority of the Kingdom Agenda

PART TWO: ONE LIFE UNDER GOD

7. Your Kingdom Priorities

8. Your Kingdom Growth

9. Your Kingdom Calling

10. Your Kingdom Mind

11. Managing Your Kingdom Resources

12. Your Kingdom Inheritance

PART THREE: ONE FAMILY UNDER GOD

13. The Kingdom Family

14. The Kingdom Husband

15. The Kingdom Wife

16. The Kingdom Single

17. The Kingdom Parent

18. The Kingdom Children

PART FOUR: ONE CHURCH UNDER GOD

19. The Church’s Purpose

20. The Church’s Unity

21. The Church’s Mission

22. The Church’s Membership

23. The Church’s Leadership

24. The Church’s Outreach

PART FIVE: ONE NATION UNDER GOD

25. A Nation and Freedom

26. A Nation and Justice

27. A Nation and Economics

28. A Nation and Racism

29. A Nation and Education

30. A Nation and Politics

Epilogue

Appendix A: The Kingdom Agenda Covenant

Appendix B: The Urban Alternative

Acknowledgments

Subject Index

Scripture Index