The Faith Walk

Jonathan Evans: Well, this doesn't sound loving, Jonathan, saying that there's only one way through Jesus Christ. That doesn't sound loving at all. Why wouldn't he give multiple ways? Actually, why would he give sinners any way? You ought to be glad there's one way!

It's loving because it's the truth. That's why it's loving. I want to make sure that you hear it and hear it correctly so that you can go back to your family members and tell them who he is.

Guest (Male): You're listening to The Faith Walk with Jonathan Evans. In a moment, Jonathan will continue today's message. But first, I want to briefly let you know that this week we have two gifts for you to thank you for your support of this ministry.

The first is the audio series called Discipleship for Everyday, equipping you to live out your faith with authenticity and impact every day. And the second gift is the book 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.

Later in today's program, I'll give you more details about these special gifts. Or you can visit tonyevans.org or call 1-800-800-3222. Right now, let's get started with Jonathan's message.

Jonathan Evans: Peter covers the gamut in a few words. As Christ, he's the Messiah, the deliverer, the savior, the anointed one. The anointed one from Psalms chapter two, when it first brings up Christ as the anointed one in Scripture, is back in Psalms chapter two. And it says he is my son, I have begotten him, in Psalms chapter two. And he has the whole earth as his inheritance and he's going to break them with a rod of iron and shatter them like earthenware. It's going back to when he says you are the Christ. He's going all the way back to the anointed one in the Old Testament, who the Old Testament spoke of.

This is not just a prophet. This is the prophecies from the prophets. But then he says, "You are the Son of God, the Son of the living God." So he doesn't just bring in his Messiahship or his being the anointed one. He says, "Oh, you're deity in bodily form." Pulls in the whole faith. And many people understand why that's important. It's important because as Christ, he delivers you. As God, he owns you. Some people want to get in on the Christ part and leave out the God part. No. If you're a disciple of Jesus Christ, you're going to be unleashed. You've got to have that whole thing.

I'm saved and ready to be unleashed at your beckoning will, at whatever you say. I am your servant and you are my God. People have to understand that God's son here is also God the Son here. I had somebody on my social media that said, "Well, how can he be God's Son and God? That doesn't make sense." Well, I understand the logic. Sometimes it won't make sense. You've got to understand that God is God. There's something called the incomprehensibility of God. You're finite. You can't make sense of everything that God is.

But he's God the Son. God the Son is the second member of the Trinity. God is one God who is simultaneously three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. So you've got to understand that when Genesis 1:26 says, "Let us make man in our image," who is "us" and "our"? If Matthew 28 says, "Baptize them in the name," singular, "of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," that's bad grammar unless it's a singular plural. That is who he is.

If I was holding up a pretzel, you'd only see one pretzel, but you would at the same time see three individual holes. One hole is not that hole. This hole is not that hole. That hole is not... there are three individual holes, but you're only looking at one pretzel because they're all connected by the same dough. The reason why that was so good is because that was from Tony Evans. I ain't got no shame. I know my dad is a beast. So yes, Jesus Christ was born of a woman, but he created his mother. You have to have a clear understanding of who he is.

He's the Son of God, God the Son, the second member of the Trinity, mediator between God and man, God who emptied himself taking on the form of a bondservant by choice to give you grace and mercy that you do not deserve at all. This is who he is. And if you don't know who he is, you can't participate in his future paradise or his current program. That's actually exactly what I'm saying. But I'm only saying it because the Bible says it. I'm only saying it because in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

He was with God and he was God and became flesh. I'm just saying that's who he is. And if you don't believe in who he is... "Well, this is really angering me." I know. The reality of Jesus is offensive. "Well, Jonathan, you're preaching like you don't care." Well, actually, I do. That's why I'm preaching it. "Well, this doesn't sound loving, Jonathan, saying that there's only one way through Jesus Christ. That doesn't sound loving at all. Why wouldn't he give multiple ways? Actually, why would he give sinners any way? You ought to be glad there's one way!"

It's loving because it's the truth. That's why it's loving. I want to make sure that you hear it and hear it correctly so that you can go back to your family members and tell them who he is. Peter got it right. He said, "You're the Christ, the Son of the living God." You're my salvation, you're my deliverer, and you are my owner. You are God himself in the flesh. That's who he is. Simon Peter answered correctly. The sad reality is in church, people are still thinking with the culture. The reason why we get such little movement is because we're moving with them.

Jesus was... what did they think about me? Okay, John the Baptist. Okay. But I need to get this right. What do you say about me? And if you're my disciple and you're going to be unleashed, I need to not only save you, I need to own you and you need to understand the reality of who I am. So he tells him in verse 17, "And Jesus said to him, 'Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah.'" You know what that means? That means ding, ding, ding, correct! There were many ways that Jesus talked about himself. He would let some people just be right about him and say, "You're right." And here, Simon is right.

He got it correct. He said flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. I'm so glad that God will skip our depravity to give us destiny. And watch this, he looks at him in verse 18 and he says, "I also say that you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church." Peter's that dude. He said, "I say that you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church." The word Peter there is used in the Greek as Petros. Petros means stone or rock. Jesus said, "Upon this rock I will build my church."

Now when he uses the name Peter, it's Petros, which means stone or individual stone or rock. So Peter is viewed as a rock because when he talked to the group, Peter stood up and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Jesus said, "You are a rock." Let me pause for a second. We need more rocks. We need people who are not ashamed of the gospel, who are rocks and will say, "I see what you're saying, but what I'm telling you is Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God." So he's viewed as a rock here and God calls him Petros. That's what I'm talking about, Peter. You are a rock.

And then he says, "On this rock I will build my church." Now he's not building his church on Peter. That's not what he's building the church on. He goes from Petros and then he says, "on this rock," Petra. So he changes it. He goes from individual stone and Petra means a massive formation of stones coming together to form a bigger cleft or rock than any stone alone can be on its own. So he says, "What I'm going to build my church on is a massive formation of Peters who can stand on the Christ, the Son of the living God, and who are not confused on who I am."

When I can get all of y'all to be like Peter was and step forward and say, "This is who we are. We ain't putting up with no mess. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. Like this is what it's going to be. This is how we're going to do it because this is what his word says." I want to build on that. This is not sidelining Jesus as the reality of the church. It's based on him. 1 Corinthians 3:11 says there is no foundation other than the foundation that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Ephesians tells you he is the cornerstone, which everything else links together.

But he's saying I need a massive formation... I'm building on a massive formation of believers who are stone-cold believe the exact same thing Peter did. And that massive formation, the gates of hell cannot prevail against it. That's what he says. If I can get the Petros to become Petra with that understanding of who I am as the foundation, as the head of the church, oh man, that's unstoppable! You can't do nothing with that. Therefore, if hell is winning, then we are not building his church. We're building our church while conveniently using his name.

See, for many people, Jesus is a rabbit's foot. Just think about how we pray. For many people, Jesus is the four-leaf clover in their pocket. For many people, he's the stump at the Apollo you rub on before you go out and do your act. For many people, he's the coin at the wishing well. And that Jesus is not this one. And hell will prevail against your life, hell will prevail against your marriage, hell will prevail against the church, hell will continue to prevail because we're walking out a Jesus who's not the Jesus of the Bible. Give me a coin, flip it, hope for the best. That's not him.

Guest (Male): 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. And along with the book is Jonathan's six-part audio series, Discipleship for Everyday.

This six-part collection goes beyond routine religion, equipping you to live out your faith with authenticity and impact every day. It's designed to help you grow as a disciple and inspire others to do the same, leading to stronger families, more vibrant churches, and communities transformed by the gospel. 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 a rest of today's message.

Jonathan Evans: Give me a coin, flip it, hope for the best. That's not him. He's the Messiah, God himself, who owns you. I will build my church. My church. Not your church. If it's your church, you're definitely going to fail. But when I build my church, we're on offense. We're not reacting. We're building and hell's trying to stop it and they can't. I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. That means, ladies and gentlemen, the opponent of hell is the church.

We try to make the opponent of hell everything else. And God's like, "I know I raise up kings and tear kings down, but I'm just letting you know that the opponent of hell is you." And you're up in arms about that. I'm not saying that don't matter... Romans 13, I mean, the Bible says politicians... it's got all that in there. I'm just saying the opponent of what you're worried about is you. And you're like a teenager putting the responsibility on everybody else. It's you. It's us. And we spend so much time as the church disagreeing that we can't agree on attacking the culture with godliness.

If we came together and got serious about this Jesus stuff, everybody in the government be like, "What y'all want? It's a lot of y'all. I need your vote." But we're too busy proving how smart we are in disagreeing on stuff that we can't even come to the one agreement our whole faith is built on. Because when he uses the word church, church there is Ecclesia, which means legislative body that makes decisions in the culture. And I'm not hating on singing and preaching. I'm one of them. But if it stops there and the disciples aren't unleashed linking arms as a massive formation of rocks on this belief, we still have missed it.

Now I thought I was smart when I was in seminary. I came to my dad. I said, "Dad, eschatology, which is the study of the end times, teaches us that the world's going to get bad anyway. That's how you know Jesus coming back." So I tried to stump him. I said, "It's going to get bad anyway. The world's going to get bad anyway because it says that it's going to be bad in the last days and all that kind of stuff. So why we got to do this church stuff when we already know how this ends? Church don't fix it. Jesus fixes it when he comes back." And I did like this.

My dad said... first of all, he was like, "Are you trying to test me, huh?" And I said, "Yeah, and I think I got you on this one. What's the point if I already know how this goes?" He said, "Do you work out?" I said, "Yeah." "What's the point? You know you're going to die." How I lose in ten seconds? Ten seconds went by and I lost. He said eschatology is not a reason for lack of responsibility in ecclesiology. Don't make your eschatology make you a buffoon of the faith. "Well, it's going to be bad anyway." That's what people say in their individual situations, in their marriages and all these... "Well, it's going to be bad anyway so I'm just going to stop trying."

No. You've got to go to the judgment seat of Christ and he's going to judge you. Peter got it right and Jesus said the gates of hell will not prevail against this understanding of a massive formation of believers who get this right. Not only will the gates of hell not prevail against it, but understand this. Here it is. Verse 19 says, "I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."

If you get this Peter thing right, God gives you the keys to the kingdom. That's called access. Camden, my younger son, came up to me and said, "Hey Dad, can I have the keys to the car? I want to start it." No! I'm not going to give someone irresponsible that much power. And many of us are wondering why we don't have the backing of the kingdom. It's because the kingdom only sees your back. I'm not giving that much power to somebody irresponsible. But those disciples who are ready to be unleashed and have concluded that he is the Christ, the Son of the living God, I will have your back.

You'll have the backing of the kingdom and you'll have access. He says I will give you the keys to the kingdom. Why are keys plural? Because hell has gates. And for every hellish gate, there is a corresponding kingdom key. You will bind, which means restrict, or you will loose, which means set free. And I believe there's some believers in the house today that some things need to be bound and some things need to be set free. And we give our commitment to Jesus Christ, he gives you the keys to the kingdom so that you can bind things and you can loose things.

You can bind your addiction and you can loose self-control. You can bind disunity and you can loose unity. You can bind fear and you can loose faith. You can bind instability and you can loose standing on his word. There are some things that need to be bound in your life, some things that need to be loosed in your life, and you're waiting on God and God is looking at you holding a key. And as long as you're like this, he ain't giving you no key.

Twelve years ago, I made an offer on my house with full confidence. The reason why I made an offer on my house with full confidence is because I had the backing of the bank. Because I had the backing of the bank, I ain't had no money. The bank had the money. I just had a little down payment, FHA, y'all know what that is. The bank had the money, but because I had the backing of the bank, I could get something that's much bigger than what I had in my bank account. I could go much further than what I had because the bank gave me backing. And you know what really set me free is they gave me a pre-approval letter.

They say you're pre-approved, go shop. You're pre-approved, go do what you do. What am I trying to say to you? I'm saying that you have the backing of the kingdom and this Scripture is your pre-approval letter. It say I have given you the keys to the kingdom. Whatever you bind has been bound. Whatever you loose has been loosed. So go ahead and make your offer for the change. Go ahead and make your offer for a better home. Go ahead and make your offer for a better community. Go ahead and make your offer for a better government. Go ahead and make your offer for a better society because you have the backing of the kingdom.

And just because you ain't got it, don't worry about it. The kingdom got it and it's not even a loan. He gives it for free to those who are willing to stand on his word. Because when God is for you, I said when God is for you, when the Messiah, the Son of God is for you, you are more than a conqueror. Who can be against you? No one can stand against what Jesus is building. So when we start building what he's building, it's over. When we start building what he's building, things change. When we start building what he's building, we can stop whining about it and be a part of the change we're whining about because we have the backing of the kingdom.

Do I have a witness in this place? Because he is who he says he is and we believe it. We're not still thinking, we're not still trying to figure it out. He's the Christ, the Son of the living God. We believe it.

Guest (Male): That was Jonathan Evans. Before you go today, I want to remind you that we have a couple of gifts for you: Jonathan's book called Your Time Is Now and his six-part audio series, Discipleship for Everyday. 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.

The book Your Time Is Now by Jonathan is our gift to you as a thanks for your donation to help support the ministry of The Alternative. And along with the book is Jonathan's six-part audio series, Discipleship for Everyday. This six-part collection goes beyond routine religion, equipping you to live out your faith with authenticity and impact every day.

It's designed to help you grow as a disciple and inspire others to do the same, leading to stronger families, more vibrant churches, and communities transformed by the gospel. Both are a 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. Thank you for listening to The Faith Walk with Jonathan Evans. The Faith Walk is produced as a part of the Urban Alternative, a ministry of Dr. Tony Evans.