TONY EVANS HOUSE
Tony Evans - Returning to God through Communion
An official message from Medicare. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. You may be able to save too. With Medicare's Extra Help Program, my premium is zero and my out-of-pocket costs are low. Who should apply? Single people making less than $23,000 a year or a married couple who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp paid for by the US Department of Health and Human Services. What's next? At Moss Adams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting, consulting, and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance, uncover opportunity, and move upward. At MossAtoms.com. This thing is so serious and the death of Christ is so potent that when taken seriously, it can stop the circumstances, the devil, and the sin from owning you. Dr. Tony Evans says participating in the Lord's Supper provides a special connection with Christ. It is the point of intimacy that takes what he did 2,000 years ago and allows you through communion to experience it today. This is the alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, author, speaker, senior pastor of Oakland Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of the urban alternative. A little piece of bread and a tiny cup of grape juice. To some people, that's all there is to communion. But Dr. Evans says finding the richness in the ritual can help get us reconnected to God. Let's join him as he explains. A man one day was going on a date with his girlfriend. And it was like the anniversary of when they first met. He took her to a very lovely dinner and said he wanted to give her a gift. And so he pulled out a box that he had brought to the dinner. Told her to open it. She was quite excited to open up this box. Only to discover in the box was only a regular pillow. You can imagine how disappointed she was. Thinking this was a special dinner and special time and she gets this. It's okay but it's just a regular pillow. She tried to fake it to make it. To give the impression, "Oh, how nice, how cute." But inside you could tell she wasn't impressed. That's when her boyfriend said, "Can't hold the pillow." She said, "Sure." And she gave him the pillow. That's when he dropped it on the floor and dropped to one knee. My kind of guy. He pulled out a little box with the wedding ring audit and said, "Will you marry me?" See, all she saw was a pillow but it was a lot more to it than she originally imagined. When it comes to our relationship with God, there are some things that on the surface may not look like much but when you dove a little deeper, you'll find that there's a lot more to it. In 1 Corinthians chapter 11, Paul, the apostle, says in verse 23, "For I received from the Lord that which I delivered to you that the Lord Jesus and the night in which he was betrayed took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." In the same way he took the cup also after supper saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me." For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Paul calls this act of communion the new covenant. So the assumption is that that concept is understood since that is the concept you are engaging in and that is the covenant. In the old covenant, if you do not move to the new covenant, you'll be stuck in things that no longer operate. This is where a lot of biblical confusion exists because people don't move from the old to the new but get stuck in the old. Or they come to the new and forget what was transferred from the old. This is why the Bible says you must rightly divide the word of truth because if you don't rightly divide it, you can be using the Bible in a wrong way. So people quote the Bible for anything. They use the Bible, misuse the Bible, weaponize the Bible. They can take the Bible and do all manner of evil while quoting verses because they have not rightly divided the word of truth. He says this is the new covenant, the new arrangement, which means we all have somewhere we're trying to get to. As the largest energy producer in Colorado, Chevron is working to responsibly meet rising energy demand so everyone can get to where they want to be. You've arrived. That's energy and progress. Visit chevron.com/tankless. An official message from Medicare. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. You may be able to save too. With Medicare's extra help program, my premium is zero and my out-of-pocket costs are low. Who should apply? Single people making less than $23,000 a year or married couples who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp paid for by the US Department of Health and Human Services. What's next? At Moss Adams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting, consulting and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance, uncover opportunity, and move upward at MossAtoms.com. That the arrangement I'm having now with and through my people is distinct from some of the things that happened then when I was not here. God worked one way up until Jesus, but he changed some things with Jesus, which is why we don't offer animal sacrifices today, because that changed. And Jesus says, I am the interpreter of what continues from the Old Testament and what's canceled. Many people get disappointed with the Bible because they hang on the Old Testament things that are not true for New Testament believers. And they think God didn't keep his promise. No, God changes his administration because he's operating in a new covenant now, another arrangement. He says that when you come and you commune with me, you establish something new. When a couple gets married, they come into a covenant and they establish something new, covenants had witnesses. When I sign a marriage certificate, it has at the bottom witnesses. These are people who give testimony to the fact that you entered into the covenant. They can testify that the covenant was brought in reality through the fact that they observed it. When the covenant is established, God established an initiation event. This initiation event that God established was baptism. Baptism was the public statement before witnesses who would give testimony that you declared you are willing to be identified as a follower of Jesus Christ. It is that initiation that says, I've entered in the covenant. I may have entered in the covenant privately, but I'm now declaring it publicly. Baptism, according to Romans 6, has to do with identification. It has to do with the fact that I am now identified as a follower of Christ, not merely as a believer in God. If the only thing people know about you is God, then you have not lived out your baptism because the baptism means I got married to Christ. To be baptized is like a bride putting on a wedding ring. She is giving visible demonstration, I belong to this man. What far too many Christians do is take off their ring. They'll put it on when they come to church, but they'll take off their ring when they go public, denouncing their baptism. In other words, I went to the ceremony, I got married, but I don't want y'all to know it. Baptism inaugurates that, it establishes that, that I am belonging to Christ. I'm not just a believer in God, and I've entered into covenant with him. According to Deuteronomy 29, he says, "I give you this covenant that you might prosper." In other words, a covenant is always designed to be beneficial, to be beneficial. And as we've said many times, one of the benefits of the covenant is to cover, is to place a divine shield around you. So he says, this new covenant is established, and since covenants are established by blood, Jesus says, "I'ma give mine." When Jesus is talking about communion, you're not talking about something cash. He's talking about something very important, very significant, and then he says, "I want you to remember me." Now, God, the Father, know me. Communion is about me. When you take the bread and take the cup, he says, "I want you to remember me." That I am the centerpiece of this event. He says that communion is ongoing because he says, "As often as you eat it, you are to be reconnected with the covenant." It's like saying to a married couple as often as you are intimate. Now, you can be married when you're not intimate, but he's saying as often as you are intimate, what he's saying is, "I'm giving you a special time with me." This is not regular life. This is an intimate time. This is different than all the other times we're together. You are doing something else. That's not part of your normal Christian life. That's not part of your normal Christian experience. Dr. Evan? We all have somewhere we're trying to get to. As the largest energy producer in Colorado, Chevron is working to responsibly meet rising energy demand. So everyone can get to where they want to be. You've arrived. That's Energy in Progress. Visit chevron.com/tankless. What's next? At Moss Adams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting, consulting, and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance, uncover opportunity, and move upward at MossAtoms.com. We'll have more for us on the power and significance of communion. When he continues our message, in just a moment. First, though, I wanted to encourage you to take advantage of our special offer before it ends later this week. The offer includes your personal copy of Tony's brand new teaching series, The Return, where he takes a look at the mechanisms God's given us to become salt and light to the world, to preserve goodness and to point the way to God's life changing truth. The return can help you find ways to be an effective believer, actively living out a life of purpose and fulfillment for the Lord. All 13 full-length messages from this two-volume series can be yours as our gift when you make a contribution to help support Tony's ministry here on the radio and around the world. Along with the audio collection, we'll also include his popular booklet, The Grace of God, which can help you understand the Lord's greatest gift and why we literally can't live without it. Visit us today at TonyEvans.org or give us a call day or night at 1-800-832-22 and let one of our resource team members help you. That's 1-800-800-3222. I'll repeat that information for you after part two of today's lesson and this. Every day, more Christians look to the Tony Evans Training Center to explore the good news about the gospel. Well, we've got more good news. We're lowering our monthly fee. We've already seen how this is helping our users. Renee says, "Thank you for this wonderful news. I pray for this ministry daily. You are transforming lives. You have mine." Engage in over 50 courses with thoughtful content from Dr. Tony Evans. Visit TonyEvansTraining.org to subscribe today. Communion involves a proclamation that there is a communication occurring. There is a declaration occurring that is part of the communion experience. So, if there is no proclamation, then you haven't entered into the experience of a new level of intimacy. So, the question is, what am I proclaiming? What am I talking about? I'm in my take communion. I'm not talking. I'm not interacting. But he says, when you eat the bread and drink the cup, you are proclaiming something is being declared relative to what I'm doing now. The cup and the bread, the body and the blood, the body being his life, the cup being his death, what exactly am I supposed to be doing so that I can benefit from this experience whenever I have it? Turn your Bibles to 1 Peter chapter 3, verse 18. "For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust so that he might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, body, but made alive in the spirit, in which also he went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison, who once were disobedient when the patience of God kept waiting in the days of Noah during the construction of the ark, in which a few eight persons who brought safety through the water, corresponding to that baptism now saves you. Not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to him. On good Friday, Jesus died. From 12 o'clock to 3 o'clock, the Son of God bore the wrath of God. He says, "For our sins, the world became dark at the death of Christ because of the divine judgment that he bore." On Sunday morning, he rose. He got up from the grave, but first Peter Three says, "On Saturday, he was busy." He said, "We all have somewhere we're trying to get to. As the largest energy producer in Colorado, Chevron is working to responsibly meet rising energy demand, so everyone can get to where they want to be. You've arrived. That's energy in progress. Visit chevron.com/tankless. An official message from Medicare. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. You may be able to save too. With Medicare's extra help program, my premium is zero and my out-of-pocket costs are low. Who should apply? Single people making less than $23,000 a year, or married couples who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp, paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. How dangerous is it to unwrap a burger at 40 miles per hour? More so than you'd think. In a little over two seconds, your car can travel slightly more than 117 feet, which is the same late as 20 bicycles. Anything that distracts you while driving is dangerous. That's why driving while texting can be deadly too. So put it down. It can wait. Don't drive distracted. Shifting is safe. A message from the Colorado Department of Transportation. As between his death and resurrection, when he died, he was alive in the spirit, it says. And in the life of his spirit, it says he visited those who were incarcerated. So after Jesus died before Jesus arose, he went on a ministry trip. And on the ministry trip, according to verse 18, he died, he's put the death and the flesh, and verse 19, in which also he went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison. So between Jesus' death, while still alive in the spirit and his resurrection, he went and talked to spirits that were trapped in order to bring about their deliverance against that which was illegitimately holding them hostage. What communion is designed to do is bring you into a deeper level of intimate partnership with the Lord on the spiritual level so that his Saturday can become your Sunday. So that his speaking to the spiritual realities that inform our physical realities can take us to a place in the spiritual where Satan no longer is running our lives. It is the point of intimacy that God has uniquely given his people unlike your general Christian life if you are associated with him that takes what he did 2,000 years ago and allow you through communion to experience it today. He says in 1st Peter, he arose and he's gone to heaven. He is not physically here, but he is spiritually here. He wants you to remember that the same thing he did 2,000 years ago in delivering us from sin the whole of Satan bringing us to victory is what he does today. And he wants to give you the experience of that around his ordinance called communion. He does it there unlike he does it in any other place. It's a level of intimacy that you don't get through doing anything else because it is his spiritual intimate presence through the act. Communion is designed to deal with demons. It is designed to deal with spiritual prisons. It is to dying to deal with our sin, but also to be the foundation of our deliverance. And so at communion, you are proclaiming victory. You're saying, saying, you mess with me last week. You wore me down at work. You wore me down at home, but I know somebody who's going to give me strength for the battle ahead. And so I commune with him. You don't just come to charge for the preacher or the choir. You come to remember him because he is your source of strength. He is your source of impact. He is your remembrance. We all have somewhere we're trying to get to as the largest energy producer in Colorado. Chevron is working to responsibly meet rising energy demand. So everyone can get to where they want to be. You've arrived. That's energy and progress. Visit chevron.com/tankless. An official message from Medicare. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. You may be able to save too. With Medicare's extra help program, my premium is zero and my out-of-pocket costs are low. Who should apply? Single people making less than $23,000 a year, or married couples who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp paid for by the US Department of Health and Human Services. When you need meal time inspiration, it's worth shopping king supers, where you'll find over 30,000 mouth-watering choices that excite your inner foodie. And no matter what tasty choice you make, you'll enjoy our everyday low prices, plus extra ways to save, like digital coupons worth over $600 each week. You can also save up to $1 off per gallon at the pump with fuel points, more savings, and more inspiring flavors make shopping king supers worth it every time. King supers, fresh for everyone, fuel restrictions apply. Now he gives a guideline. Stay with me. I'm not finished. Verse 27, "Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself and in doing so, he shall eat the bread and drink from the cup. For he who eats and drinks and eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not judge the body rightly. For this reason, many among you are weak, sick, and a number die early. Some sleep." He talks about the unworthy manner, not the unworthy people, the unworthy manner. We all are unworthy people. We all come to the Lord with our failures and our struggles and our sin and our shame. Now he's talking about the unworthy manner. He's talking about treating it as something common, treating it as something insignificant. He's talking about not taking seriously what Christ did and what his death meant. When that happens, when you are treating it as a common thing, it doesn't have any spiritual meaning. I'm just doing it because I do it. Then the thing you brought in, you leave with. The struggle you brought in, you walk out with. In other words, it hasn't helped you. If you just think it's a regular thing with no meaning so that sin or Satan or circumstances or the world keep having its way with you. So you wind up not being helped, you wind up being judged, not because God is coming against you, but because the finger that is haunting you, you still have stuck on you because you didn't recognize that this thing is so serious and the death of Christ is so potent that when taken seriously, it can stop the circumstances, the devil, and the sin from owning you. That means you don't struggle. That means it doesn't come at you, but it no longer owns you because you understood when you took the bread and the cup, you are sucking down the power because you didn't treat it as common. You treated as something unique, special, because you're remembering me, the body, my physical life, the blood, my spiritual sacrifice, the two, my person, and my person is available to you in a unique way around the community. Dr. Tony Evans, wrapping up a lesson called "Returning to God Through Communion." Now, the full-length message, which includes elements we didn't have time to share on the air today, is available as a part of Tony's two-volume, 13-lesson series, "The Return." If you contact us within the next couple of days and make a contribution to help us keep Tony's teaching on this station, we'll send you the return audio collection on CD or digital download, along with his booklet, "The Grace of God." All is our way of saying thanks. We all have somewhere we're trying to get to. As the largest energy producer in Colorado, Chevron is working to responsibly meet rising energy demand, so everyone can get to where they want to be. You've arrived. That's energy and progress. Visit chevron.com/tankless. An official message from Medicare. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. You may be able to save, too. With Medicare's extra help program, my premium is zero and my out-of-pocket costs are low. Who should apply? Single people making less than $23,000 a year, or married couples who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp, paid for by the US Department of Health and Human Services. What's next? At Moss Adams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting, consulting, and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance. Uncover opportunity and move upward at MossAdams.com. The details are online at TonyEvens.org. Or give us a phone call at 1-800-832-22. Our resource center never closes, so there's no need to wait. Just dial 1-800-800-3222. Most of us do what it takes to pay our bills on time. But tomorrow Dr. Evans will remind us of an even more important obligation that many of us don't take as seriously. I hope you'll join us for that. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative, and it's made possible by the generous contributions of listeners like you. An official message from Medicare. A new law is helping me save more money on prescription drug costs. You may be able to save, too. With Medicare's extra help program, my premium is zero, and my out-of-pocket costs are low. Who should apply? Single people making less than $23,000 a year, or married couples who make less than $31,000 a year. Even if you don't think you qualify, it pays to find out. Go to ssa.gov/extrahelp, paid for by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. What's next? At MossAdams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading, accounting, consulting, and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance, uncover opportunity, and move upward at MossAdams.com.