The Faith Walk

Guest (Male): Today, on The Faith Walk with Jonathan Evans.

Jonathan Evans: A lot of believers are trying to figure out what should I do first? Where should I start? Let me figure out the list where I can move the spiritual needle forward in my life. Let me figure out how I'm supposed to do this. We're a part of the "how-to" generation.

You all spend a lot of your time on YouTube watching how-to videos so that you can figure stuff out so that I can do this right and get the most out of this. And that how-to generation still hasn't figured out how to live the Christian life consistently.

Guest (Male): You ever wonder what you should do first to move the spiritual needle forward? Or do you ever ask yourself, "How can I live the Christian life consistently every day?" Well, let's find out through Jonathan's multi-part series, *Discipleship for Everyday*. But before we begin, if you want to know more about Jonathan and the Alternative, visit tonyevans.org. Now, here's Jonathan.

Jonathan Evans: All right, turn to the book of Matthew, Matthew 22, verses 35 through 40. It says, "One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him: 'Teacher, which is the greatest 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. This is the greatest and foremost commandment. The second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.'"

Today, I want to talk to you from the title "Back to the Basics." Back to the basics. Here you have the Pharisees and Sadducees in context of this chapter, asking Jesus questions in order to trip Him up. This is a group of smart gentlemen who have prided themselves on their understanding and knowledge of the Law and the Ten Commandments and 613 statutes and ordinances.

And one of them, who is a lawyer (which means he's proficient in law), comes and sits down and tests Him and says, "Which is the greatest and foremost commandment?" In other words, there's a lot of these commandments. Tell us which one you would put first. Put them in order so that we can understand what you think is the greatest out of all of them.

And so, he's setting to trip Jesus up for Him to make one law more special than another and do all of those different things. And he's trying to test Him. This is actually what trips up a lot of believers, though. Because a lot of believers are trying to figure out what should I do first? Where should I start?

Let me figure out the list where I can move the spiritual needle forward in my life. Let me figure out how I'm supposed to do this. We're a part of the "how-to" generation. You all spend a lot of your time on YouTube watching how-to videos so that you can figure stuff out on how you're supposed to do stuff.

So, we're the how-to generation, and we're trying to figure out what is the list or metric or rubric or blueprint so that I can do this right and get the most out of this. And that how-to generation still hasn't figured out how to live the Christian life consistently. And so, he's trying to trip Jesus up by asking Him the how-to or, "Put this in order for me. What is the most important in the Law?"

And Jesus said (now remember, this is the Pharisees and Sadducees, right? These are some smart dudes, and they're looking for something deep), and Jesus, I can imagine Him standing up and saying, "Repeat after me: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself."

He took them jokers to AWANA! I'm sure they were expecting some historical context, some ethical teachings, philosophical elaborations, ritualistic observations. Like, give us something. This is a smart group, kind of like an ordination that he was at, where they were testing him, trying to see what he knows and what he was going to bring to the table.

And when the lawyer came and said, "Which one is the greatest?" He said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself." What? Basically, if we don't get back to the basics, your Christian life will always be basic.

Evidently, God is not looking for rule-followers. He's looking for followers that rule, and there's a difference. He said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind. This is the greatest commandment." He's not interested in contractors of the faith. He's looking for people who are going to be full-time.

Contractors, they do what they do, they come in, but they don't have to be committed. But a lot of Christians get tripped up trying to figure out what's most important, what's least important, put it in a pot, stir it together and hope they can come out with something good enough. This isn't spiritual jambalaya; this is following Jesus.

And He's not giving them a list of what's most important and how you do it and where you should start. He just tells them, "Love the Lord your God." He did not want to talk about law; He wanted to talk about love. He didn't want to talk about a list; He wanted to talk about a whole life. He didn't want to talk about your rituals; He wanted to talk about relationships. He didn't want to talk about your performance; He wants to talk about your passion.

You can never, trust me, become a disciple unleashed unless you're no longer on the Law's leash. Now, trust me when I tell you: the Law is good. It's a good thing. Romans 7:12 says the Law is righteous and holy and good. But in Philippians 3:8 and 9, Paul says but knowing Christ is to the greater.

That I counted all my fleshly not just desires, but the things that I've accomplished due to my flesh, I count it all as rubbish in comparison to knowing Christ. So, you understand that, yes, the Law is good, but knowing Christ is greater. And once you understand that knowing Christ is greater, then 2 Corinthians 3:6 says, now you are a competent minister that can go out and teach other people about the New Covenant, which knowing Christ will get them following the Law.

And once you realize that the Law is good and that knowing Christ is greater, and then you become a competent minister to be able to perpetuate that New Covenant, then you can serve and be unleashed, no longer bound by the written code, the Bible says. In other words, him telling them to love the Lord their God is a mouthful.

If I could just get my people to love me. I know you want a blessing from me. I know you need me. I'm talking about love me. People want guidance, but they don't want the guide. They want direction, but they reject the way. He said, "No, I'm talking about you actually loving me."

Okay, now picture this (now that you've seen the Forge, you know I like acting, so picture Jesus at the table with the Pharisees). And they're smart. They pride themselves on their memorization skills and understanding of the Old Testament and the Law. And they sit down with Him, and they say, "What is the greatest law?"

And after asking that question from the astute lawyer, you can imagine all of them leaning in to see what He was going to say. And Jesus said, "Love me." You all don't get it. Okay. There's a group of Pharisees and Sadducees who pride themselves on their knowledge and understanding of Law and the memorization of the Old Testament. And they ask Him, "What's the greatest commandment?"

And they all lean in, waiting for the astute answer. And Jesus says, "Love me." Okay, come on, man. Let me try one more time. There's a group of Pharisees, and they ask which is the greatest command. And they've got the knowledge and memorization skills, and they got the Bible memorized. And they all lean in for the answer.

You know what Jesus said? He said, "I need you to do the thing you don't have. Love me." You got all that knowledge, and you missed the entire thing. It's an indictment answer on who He's talking to. He's telling the Pharisees, "You missed the whole game. And you know all that, you're playing the game without the ball. You don't love me."

The Pharisees, these are people who like themselves. They know a lot, and they know they know a lot. But it's totally disconnected from love of Christ. They're like the butchers of the faith. That's the only reason why they pick up the sword. These are the people, you know when you leave a social media video and they're in the comments?

And they're only in the comments to talk about how bad your video was or something you said that was off. Or they sit in church and they're only listening to dig into what you missed. They're not here to learn and grow; they're here to think about how smart they are.

And Jesus says, "Yeah, but you don't love me. I understand that you know all this, but disconnected from love, you missed the entire game."

Guest (Male): Jonathan will return with more of our message in just a moment. Did you know that God has a purpose for you right now? You may think you're not ready to make a difference in God's kingdom or that you're too young for others to take seriously. But that's not what God thinks.

We want to give you a book by Jonathan called *Your Time is Now*. This book is our gift to you as a thanks for your donation to help support the ministry of The Alternative. It's our way of showing appreciation for the continued support of listeners like you who make this program possible.

Get all the details online at tonyevans.org. Again, that's tonyevans.org. Or you can call our 24-hour resource request line at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our team members help you. That's 1-800-800-3222. Find your way out of distractions and into God's purpose for your life. Now, let's get back to Jonathan with the rest of today's message.

Jonathan Evans: And Jesus says, "Yeah, but you don't love me. I understand that you know all this, but disconnected from love, you missed the entire game." And I'm not saying that you shouldn't know the Word; you should. The Bible says meditate on my Word day and night.

But not so that you can just be smart and like yourself. Not so that you can pray loud, nice prayers that everybody can hear with the vicissitudes and all of that kind of stuff. He don't care about none of that. He's sitting and he looks at the Pharisees and he says, "I know that that's you. I can tell by the way you pay your tithes.

You do it because you know you should, but you don't love me. I can tell by the way you serve and give. You do it because you've been in church long enough to know you should, but you don't love me. You know what to do, you know what to say, you know how to play the game."

The entire indictment on the person who asked the question was, disconnected from all of that knowledge is love, and it all doesn't matter if love is not involved. So, I want you to learn. I want you to grow in your knowledge of Jesus Christ and read His Word, but not to show off.

A guy came to me, asked a question, "So, what do you think about Revelation when it says..." And I could tell by his posture, once you start pulling on your shirt and you start buttoning it and you start doing all that. And he was talking about the bowls and the trumpets and so he's asking a question, then started telling me what he thinks.

And I could tell, I was just like, come on, bro. So, he finished asking the question, and I said, "Tell me about your relationship with your wife." He said, "What that got to do with the bowls and the trumpets?" I want to know do you love your wife? I want to know do you take care of your kids? I want to know do you sit around the table and talk to them about them bowls and them trumpets?

Don't come to me with all that. Jesus could smell them. I want to know if you love me. This is the basics of the faith. He took them to AWANA to bring them all the way back to playing the game with the actual ball. So, how do you love Him? Well, He tells you: "You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart."

The heart is the central location for life. Spiritually speaking, it's the central location of the overwhelming desire to radically live for or follow Jesus. It is the desire within a person. I used to have coaches who would say, "That boy or that girl got heart."

They're not talking about the science, they're not even talking about whether they're good at it. They're not talking about their training; they're talking about their passion in the game. In other words, it's evident, and then they'll say, "That's not something you can teach. I can't even coach that. Like, I want that kid. I could teach that kid, because their heart in which they play the game, they value the game, and you can tell."

My dad would always say, "Are Christians destroying America?" Because they leave the church and they don't play with no heart. Yeah, they like debates and all of those things. Social media, let's do all these debates. But do you have heart? People can see heart.

Remember when I was playing for Baylor? Let me talk about myself for a second. I was playing for Baylor. We had a conditioning test, and the conditioning test was six 300s with 30 seconds rest. You all act like that's normal. That is not normal. Six 300s, and you only get to rest for 30 seconds? That's not normal.

So, this was our summer conditioning. I stayed home. I stayed at the house for the first half of the summer conditioning because it wasn't mandatory, so I said I'm going to come later. I got a call and my boys were like, "Bro, you going to die. Like, you're not here working out, you're not here getting trained, like he's teaching us how to run it, how you're supposed to do all those different things."

And I said, "Well, what is it?" They said, "Six 300s with 30 seconds rest." Now, the way they were running it is they were running a lap around the outskirt of the football field that equaled 300 yards. He didn't tell me that. All I knew was I wasn't going to show up and look like a fool. I was going to make my time.

So, I took my stopwatch, wrapped it around my hand, went up to Duncanville High School by myself and started running 300s. The way that I ran them was wrong. They ran one continuous lap. I didn't know any better, so I ran 100 yards, stopped, turned around, ran 100 yards, stopped, and then ran back 100 yards.

Do you all know how hard it is to stop and build your speed back up than run a continuous lap? I didn't know any better. I didn't have the training; all I knew was I had a desire to win. So, when I came to the summer workouts and they was like, "Bro, you going to die." I got on the line, I started running.

And as I was running, I said, "Oh, we just running around the field?" And I got back after number one, I was like, "Okay." Then we got to number two, we got to number three. At number three, I'm still standing there, and they're like this. And I said, "Oh, I'm going to make it."

We got to number four, I got a little bit more tired, but then the boys were like, "He might make it." And when you get to two left, when you only have two left, you got to make it. So, we got to number six. There was two guys ahead of me, and I started picking up, it's my last one. And I heard the coach say, "That boy got heart. You can't coach that."

We finished, I made the time. Six guys made it out of 60. I went down to the other field and the coach was so mad that the people who trained couldn't make the goal, he made them run six more. I know. And he looked at them and said, "How you all got the training and you couldn't meet the goal?"

It's because he got heart. And a lot of people have been running for a long time and you're still missing the goal because you ain't got no heart. And you're still trying to figure out the Christian life and you're still trying to figure out based on training how you're supposed to do it and what's the rubric and what's the list and what's the law.

And Jesus was like, "Give me your heart." And once you give me your heart, that changes the entire game. The Pharisees had it in their head, but they didn't have it in their heart. Let me tell you about the disciples. Acts 4:13 says they were untrained men, but they knew they had been with Jesus.

The Pharisees didn't change anything; the disciples, 12 of them, changed the world. And what happens when you have 2,200 to 2,500 people who can leave church with a heart that has been given to Jesus Christ? If 12 can change the world, we can at least change the community.

The problem is we've been satisfied with being the salt to the shaker and not the salt to the world. So, we come to church and we learn, "Ooh, that was a good sermon," and we leave with the same stale heart that still hadn't fallen in love with Jesus. He sat down with the Pharisees and he said, "I got your brain; I'm trying to get your heart."

That's the Law. Oh, and you look good, but I don't care about that. He said when He was choosing David, man looks at the outer appearance. I don't. I look at the heart. You look cute and pretty and handsome, all the things, and that's nice for us. Jesus said, "Love me. Do you have heart?"

And many of us, just like me, for a long time I thought I loved Him, but I didn't. I listed Him or lawed Him. And we get it confused when we list Him or law Him because it's like this little line where we do so that God will respond, instead of responding to what God has done.

This is just my gratitude and my response. I love Him. I'm not trying to enlist Him. He said, "Love the Lord your God with all of your heart." That's the unleashed part; you can't teach that. He says, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, beating desire, and all your soul." While your heart gives life, the soul is positioned to perpetuate the life that you have.

Guest (Male): That was Jonathan Evans. Before you go today, I want to remind you that we have a gift for you. It's a copy of Jonathan's book called *Your Time is Now*. In this book, you'll understand that God has a purpose for you, even if you think you're not ready to make a difference.

Move beyond inaction and embrace the calling God has placed on your life. The book *Your Time is Now* is our gift to you to thank you for your donation to help support the ministry of The Alternative. It's our way of showing appreciation for the continued support of listeners like you who make this program possible.

Get all the details online at tonyevans.org. Again, that's tonyevans.org. Or you can call our 24-hour resource request line at 1-800-800-3222 and let one of our team members help you. That's 1-800-800-3222. Find your way out of distractions and into God's purpose for your life.

Thank you for listening to today's program with Jonathan Evans. This program is produced as a part of the Urban Alternative, a ministry of Dr. Tony Evans.