Tony Evans

A man one day went to visit a friend of his who lived on a farm.

He went across the farmland and he had to pass his friend's barn.

He pulled over because he saw something he'd never seen before.

Someone had been using the barn for target practice.

There were 20 targets on the barn.

There was a bullseye in the middle of each of the 20 targets, and there was a hole in the middle of each bullseye.

So whoever was doing the target practice was a perfect shot.

20 targets, 20 bullseyes, a hole in the middle of each bullseye, perfection in shooting.

He got back in his car, drove up to his friend's house, knocked on the door, John answered the door.

He said, Now, John, I just passed your barn.

I saw something I've never seen.

Marksmanship, like I've never seen before.

20 targets, 20 bullseyes, a hole in the middle of each bullseye.

Who was doing that shooting?

Oh, John said, Well, that was me.

He said, Well, but John, where did you learn to shoot like that?

Well, John said, It's easy.

Um, I shoot first and I draw a picture of the target around the hole.

You see, it's easy to look like you're on target.

When really you just may know how to paint.

You may know how to camouflage it so that it looks like things are where they're supposed to be.

I want to talk to you about a life on target.

I want to talk to you about how to create a nation on target.

And it means coming at life a little differently than the culture would have us.

I call it coming to it from the perspective of the king.

And therefore on the basis of his agenda, which I call the kingdom agenda.

I can summarize that by just walking you through Psalm 128.

It is my favorite passage in the Bible because it summarizes the kingdom worldview in six verses.

Walk with me through Psalm 128 and let's look and listen to the king as he walks us through his kingdom so that we can learn how to live a life that is authentically on target.

How blessed is everyone, verse 1 says, who fears the Lord and who walks in his ways.

When you shall eat the fruit of your hands, you will be happy and it will go well with you.

The first thing he talks to, or the first one he talks to, is the individual, and he pronounces a blessing.

In the Bible, the word blessing is the favor of God to you and through you.

You have never experienced the full favor of God unless it's a pass-through.

If you only get it to you and it can't flow through you, you will become a cul-de-sac after a while because you're no longer willing to be a conduit.

God told Abraham, I'm going to bless you, and then through you, all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

So let me give you a little secret.

Whatever you want God to do to you, tell him how it can flow through you.

Because once he knows it can flow through you, then he won't mind passing it to you.

Let him know what the flow through will be.

Blessed is every person who fears the Lord.

The first thing he calls for is the fear of God.

Now, to fear God simply means to take God seriously.

It is the combination of two concepts in the Old Testament.

One is to dread and to tremble, the other one is to reverence or hold in high esteem.

When you mix the two together, it's blessed or favor of God to every individual who takes God seriously as opposed to taking God casually.

Most people, even most Christians, take God casually.

They use him to say grace, they use him for invocations and benedictions.

They'll go to church on Sunday and maybe to a special conference.

They will have a casual relationship with God.

But the blessing that God promises is to those who fear him or to take him seriously.

All of us have in our homes electricity.

Electricity brings us great favor.

We can operate because of it, lights because of it, appliances because of it.

We get great favor with electricity, but what we don't do is stick pliers in outlets because we take it seriously.

While we benefit from it, we don't play with it because we understand it's deadly serious.

I was driving down the highway uh not too long ago and minding my own business, and as I was driving, a policeman pulled on the on ramp close to me.

When I saw him, his presence greatly affected my driving.

My right foot went northward off the accelerator and leftward toward the brake.

I began to stare at my speedometer to look at how fast I was going.

The man didn't do anything, he was just in my space.

And knowing he was there greatly affected my decision making related to driving.

Three miles down the road, he pulled off the highway.

When he pulled off, I went back to my normal life behind the wheel because I no longer had to deal with his presence.

To fear God means to live in light of his presence, to take him seriously.

My wife asked me one day to go to um Walmart to get some things for her on a Saturday morning when she was unavailable to go.

And you have to understand I hate anything with Mart in its name.

If Mart is in its name, I don't feel like it's something I should be able to have to deal with.

But uh on this Saturday I went and I wanted to get in and get out, so I wanted to be like the earliest person there.

When I arrived at this particular Walmart, the rest of Dallas had already beaten me there.

It was packed, jam-packed.

And I'm wondering, want to know where did all these people come from?

I got in line, got all of my goods, only to discover that the reason Walmart was full is because people had shown up to get their goods at reduced prices.

It was a store-wide sale.

So it was packed because everything was on sale.

It dawned on me as I stood in line, that's what's wrong today.

Everybody wants God as long as he comes on sale.

But the moment he comes at full price, people will shop elsewhere.

The moment that high commitment, taking him seriously, fearing him, is on, you know, there is a loop around most major cities in America.

A loop.

A loop is on the margin of the city.

It is close enough to gain you access, but far enough you're not bogged down with downtown traffic.

Most people today have God on the loop of their lives.

Close enough to look acceptable, far enough not to be bothered with.

We want God in the vicinity as long as He doesn't own City Hall, where the decisions of our life are made.

He says, Blessed is everyone who fears God and takes God seriously.

Now, I know we want to win back our nation.

I know we want to save our republic.

I know we want to see the transformation of our culture.

But if God can't even get his own kids to fear him, how can we get the culture to take him seriously?

You see, it's like this.

If you're a messed up person and you have a family, you're gonna contribute to a messed up family.

If you're a messed up person contributing to a messed up family and your messed up family goes to church, your messed up family is gonna contribute to a messed up church.

If you're a messed up person contributing to a messed up family that's contributing to a messed up church, and your church is supposed to be the light to the neighborhood, well, your messed up church is gonna make its contribution to a messed up community.

If you're a messed up person contributing to a messed up family, resulting in a messed up church, causing a messed up neighborhood that resides in a city, well now your messed up neighborhood will make its contribution to a messed up city.

If you're a messed up person contributing to a messed up family, resulting in a messed up church, causing a messed up neighborhood that resides in a messed up city and your city's part of the county, well now your messed up city will make its contribution to a messed up county.

If you're a messed up person contributing to a messed up family, resulting in a messed up church, causing a messed up neighborhood that resides in a messed up city that's contributing to a messed up county and your county's part of the state, well now your messed up county will make its contribution to a messed up state.

If you're a messed up person contributing to a messed up family, resulting in a messed up church, causing a messed up neighborhood that resides in a messed up city that's part of a messed up county, contributing to a messed up state, and your state's part of the country, well now your messed up state is going to make its contribution to a messed up nation.

If you're a messed up person contributing to a messed up family, resulting in a messed up church, causing a messed up neighborhood that resides in a messed up city, that's part of a messed up county, contributing to a messed up state that resides in a messed up country.

If your country's part of the world, well now your messed up country will make its contribution to a messed up world.

So if you want a better world composed of better countries, inhabited by better states, because they're made up of better counties, composed of better cities, made up of better neighborhoods, illuminated by better churches, composed of better families, you gotta start by becoming a better person, and that starts with the fear of God.

Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord.

And how do you know if you fear the Lord?

He says you walk in his ways.

You fear the Lord with your feet, not with your feelings.

You feel the Lord with your life, not with your lips.

If you're not moving in the fear of God, you do not fear God, no matter how spiritual you feel.

Your feet measure your fear.

He gives three blessings in verse 2.

He says, You will eat the fruit of your hand.

That is, uh, you will benefit from the productivity of your labor.

He says, uh, he will take care of your fortune.

Then he says, He will take care of your feelings, you will be happy.

And then he says, He will take care of your future, it will go well with you.

Your fortune, your feelings, and your future.

Three blessings that flow from the fear of God.

Because you take God seriously.

And by the way, one of the ways you know you take God seriously is you check with what he thinks first, not after you've talked to everybody else.

He's your starting point, not your ending point.

But after talking about the family, he moves.

Talking about the individual, he moves to the family in verse 3.

He says, Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine within your house.

Your children shall be like olive plants around your table.

He says that the first group that ought to know that you fear God are the folks you live with.

It shouldn't be the church house, it should be your house.

We want to change the white house when God can't even change our house.

He says, if you fear God, starting with the men, he says, your wife shall be a fruitful vine within your house.

A fruitful vine, it takes three things for grape vineyards to be fruitful.

He's talking about a grape vineyard.

If you go to Napa Valley, California, where most of our grapes in the United States are grown, they first of all cling.

They're tied to posts so they don't drag on the ground.

When they cling, then they're free to climb.

They run along the post.

When they cling and begin to climb, then they begin to cluster and sow their bunches of grapes.

They're squeezed and become grape juice, which is fermented to become wine, and you know what wine will do, it'll make a sad man glad.

He said, Your wife shall be a fruitful vine within your house.

The proof that a man fears God is the change he sees in his mate.

If the change is not showing up in his mate, then he has to question how much he fears God.

Because his fear of God should be a change, bring a change in his home.

In fact, Paul says a man is to be his wife's savior.

Now, last time I I checked, saviors go to crosses.

If you haven't been to the cross, then you're not a savior.

A man told me one day, my wife is killing me.

I said to him, Well, you said you want to be like Jesus, didn't you?

You can't be a savior and not have a cross.

Man was on the plane one day, had his wedding ring on his right on his right hand.

Man sitting next to him said, Sir, are you married?

He said, Yeah.

He said, Well, uh, he said, You have your wedding ring on your wrong hand.

He said, Uh uh, I married the wrong woman.

It's it's it's it's he says, Your fear of God shows up in homes.

The divorce rate among Christians is as high as non-Christians.

Somebody doesn't fear God.

So it's not the personality difference that's the issue.

Somebody does not fear God.

Satan wants the family because whoever owns the family owns the future.

Most of the social decay that we are discovering in our country that's showing up in the schools we work in is tied to the breakdown of the family.

Did you ever notice Satan never bothered Adam until he got married?

He got married, all hell broke loose.

Satan wants to control the future.

Plato wasn't right about a lot, but he was right about this.

The saga of a nation is the saga of its families, written large.

He says, Your wife shall be a fruitful vine within your house.

And then he says, And your children shall be olive plants around your table.

Not olive trees, olive plants.

You see, it takes 15 years for an olive tree to become an olive plant, but if you nurture it right, it'll produce olives for 2,000 years.

Because see, if you go over to Israel to the Garden of Gethsemane, you'll find 2,000-year-old olive trees still pumping out olives because their roots run deep.

He says, Your children are to be olive plants that is to be nurtured to become olive trees, which are highly productive.

There's a whole mountain, the Mount of Olives.

It's a highly productive agent in Israel.

He says, and they will become that around your table.

Here is where men, a Jewish father, raised his children.

He raised them around the table.

Today we can't find fathers at the table.

They used the table not just for eating, but for leading.

It was around the table he made sure behavior was in order.

It was around the table he made sure devotions took place.

It was around the table he made sure schoolwork was done.

All of that happened at the same hour that he had to eat anyway.

Because the table was for more than food, it was for leading.

And when he couldn't be there, the wife was the helpmate to f the helpmate to fill in the gap until he could be there because it was understood we want these olive plants to become fully blown olive trees.

When I go through the airport, if I forget to take my keys out of my pocket, it goes beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.

I gotta back up, take the keys out of my pocket.

Sometimes I walk through, forget the keys in my pocket, but it doesn't beep.

That's because of how it's set.

You see, magnetometers can be set at different levels of sensitivity.

So if it's not set real sensitive, I may be able to get through without my keys causing it to beep.

We have a generation of young people today whose consciences don't beep because they haven't been set.

It is the job of a mother and father to set the conscience, the sense of right and wrong for the next generation.

We're seeing craziness in our culture today because we have a generation of young people who never had anybody at the table to set the beeper for them.

Of what is good, what is bad, what is right, what is wrong, what is godly, what is not.

You can't straighten out a country if we can't even raise children.

He starts with the individual, fear God.

He moves to the family, then he comes to the church.

Verse 5 the Lord bless you from Zion.

Ah, Zion.

Zion is one of those lofty biblical words.

You see, uh, there's a mount called Zion, Mount Zion, the holy mountain of God.

On the mount called Zion is a city called Zion, the city of David, which is called Zion too.

On the mount called Zion, in the city called Zion, is a building called Zion, the temple.

All three of those are called Zion in scripture, the holy dwelling place of God.

There was a holy mountain, a holy city, and a holy place of worship, the temple.

He's talking about the temple because he's gonna get to the city in just a moment.

Why did a father and a mother take their family to Zion?

To let them see we are part of something bigger.

It's not just about me and your mother and your brother and your sister.

There are a whole lot of folk who think like we think, act like we act, talk like we talk.

Zion was the covenanted gathering of God's people to let them know they belong to something bigger.

That was Zion.

But you say, but that was in the Old Testament, not quite.

Hebrews chapter 12 says, and when the church comes to worship, they come to Zion.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

Zion was the gathering place of God's people.

But not just for them to get a song and a sermon, it was for them to legislate God's will from heaven on earth to reflect the view of the king in history.

America has embassies all around the world.

Every known country has an American embassy.

An embassy is a little bit of America a long way from home.

If you get in trouble and you're overseas, you want to get through that gate.

Because once you get through that gate, you're in America now.

The laws of America rule, even though the embassy is located in a foreign country.

You know what the Church of Jesus Christ is supposed to be?

A little bit of heaven a long way from home.

It's supposed to be where the values of eternity are resonant in history so history can see the thinking of eternity implemented through the people of God who belong to Zion.

Help me out.

How can we have all these churches on all these corners with all these preachers and all these members and all these buildings and all these programs and still have in America all this mess?

There's a dead monkey on the line somewhere.

And that is what many people do not understand.

God checks with the church before he decides what he's gonna do in the culture.

Ephesians 3.10.

God checks with the church, and if his church is not right, he will not respond to your prayers about the society.

He works through the church to the powers that be, Ephesians 3.10 says.

And that's why the most important gathering corporately in society is the church.

I know we're in a political season and I know we're concerned about who wins versus who loses, but that's not the problem.

The problem is if God does not have a church that is part of his covenantal agency through which to work, it won't matter who you vote for.

Because he works through the church to the powers that be.

Want to change our city or our nation?

Well, we better get some biblically sound churches who are working across uh uh legitimate uh racial and cultural and denominational lines who want to see the kingdom of God advance in history.

He says, The Lord bless you from Zion.

That means you engage your time and your talents and your treasures to make Zion strong.

I remember when I was playing football and I'd come home after two of days, and I'd come in and I'd say, Oh, I'm so tired.

I think I'll go upstairs and rest.

I was telling my mother, don't ask me to do anything.

I was serving notice as I walked through the door.

Two of days, I'm tired.

My mother would say, You better get your big ugly self in this kitchen and clean up these dishes and do the stuff I asked you to do.

I said, But mama, you don't understand.

I'm tired.

I'm tired, I'm I'm I'm tired.

She said, Did you say you were tired?

She said, Let me explain something, boy.

If tiredness were a criteria of function, your breakfast wouldn't be cooked, your lunch wouldn't be made, your clothes wouldn't be clean.

She said, Let me explain something.

If tiredness was a criteria of function, I'd have gotten rid of you today after you were born.

What she was saying is, you can't.

You you can't get all the benefits from the house and incur no responsibility in the house.

That's called a leech.

You can't say, sing to me, preach to me, pray for me, comfort me, encourage me, but don't expect anything from me.

That keeps Zion weak and anemic.

And then he comes to the city.

He says, and may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life.

Indeed, may you see your children's children.

Hey, it comes to the nation.

Peace upon Israel.

Notice.

We only get to the city Jerusalem and the nation Israel after the individual fears God, the family has gotten straight, and the people are doing right in Zion.

Now we can talk about Dallas and the U.S.

We're going about this the wrong way.

It's called Backwards Christian Soldiers.

It's a different song.

We want to change Washington.

We can't even change our streets.

He says, then you will see the prosperity, the improvement in Jerusalem.

Let me ask you a question about your job.

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?

Because your decision making is like everybody else.

Your orientation is like everybody else.

There's nothing distinctively kingdom about you.

It should be clear that you belong to Jesus Christ appropriately but unapologetically.

In football, they give you, you know, six, eighty thousand people don't come to watch 11 grown men bend over in a huddle.

That's not why they come.

They don't mind a huddle as long as you're only in it for 25 seconds.

They'll tolerate you in a huddle, but the reason they want to come is to see what difference the huddle makes.

Having huddled, can you now score?

What are you gonna do about 11 other men on the other side of the ball daring you to go public with your private conversation?

They want to know what difference the huddle makes.

This gathering tonight is magnificent, but it's a huddle.

Because there's no competition in the room.

Everybody here basically agrees with everybody else.

The question is: when you break huddle and go back out there, can you now score for the glory of God?

That's why we've adopted these schools and are partnering with you and are trying to train churches over the country because we want the church to break the huddle and impact the community where the unrighteousness is taking over.

Because our schools are only the way they are because Christians left.

And how can you criticize darkness when the light is nowhere to be found?

He says, and you will see your children's children.

This is my favorite story, my favorite passage, because it's also my story.

When I was 10 years old, my father was converted.

I was raised in a tumultuous home situation, but two men showed my father the gospel and he got on his knees and trusted Christ.

My mother didn't like him as a sinner but couldn't stand him as a saint.

And she made life miserable for him, except one night while he was reading his Bible at midnight, she came downstairs crying.

He said, What's wrong?

She said, I don't understand what's gotten into you.

I hate you and you love me back.

I make it hard for you, you make it easy for me.

Everything I do against you, you come up with some positive.

Whatever this thing is must be real.

How can I have it too?

He got on his knees with my mother and led her to Christ.

They then gathered the four of us.

I'm the oldest of four children, and uh shared the gospel.

And at 11 years old, I trusted Christ.

I became my father's high school dropout.

I became the first one to graduate from high school.

Then I became the first one to go to college.

Then I left college in Atlanta and came to Dallas where I where I uh enrolled in Dallas Theological Seminary.

I became the first African American to get a doctorate degree from Dallas Theological Seminary.

While working on my doctorate degree, we began Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship with 10 people in my house.

As that church grew, we began this outreach locally and now nationally, radio TV all around the world and adopt training churches how to adopt schools.

I didn't tell you that to tell you about me.

I told you that to tell you about my father.

See, he learned to fear God.

My mother became a fruitful vine.

I became an olive plant.

He took us to Zion, and that's the reason I'm at Gateway tonight.

Oh, by the way, he said, you'll see your children's children.

So my grand my father will turn on the television and watch Priscilla teaching a large group of women.

He'll turn to another channel and watch Anthony singing God's praises to people.

He will come to Dallas and watch my son Jonathan play a football game.

He will see his children's children.

That is the way it's supposed to work.

When God hits the individual, moves to the family, gets to the church, and reaches out into the society.

That is his agenda.

That is how his kingdom explodes.

Yes, we want to fix our country.

But if God can't fix us, why do we think he's gonna change America?

We were talking about in James Robinson before I got up.

Superman, my my uh my my favorite program growing up as a boy was Superman.

I love Superman.

As Clark Kent, he was a bumbling idiot.

Lois Lane didn't like him, Jimmy Olson would make fun of him, and Perry White would sometimes skip him.

Oh, but don't let him find a telephone booth.

The evil in Metropolis would begin to spread, and somebody would say, Where's Superman?

I'd be sitting on the floor next to my brother.

Clark Kent would unhook his tie, take off his glasses, I'll look over to my brother and say, There you go.

He'd go inside a telephone booth or inside a closet, break out lickety split in the red and blue jumpsuit, and come out, and now, and now he is no longer clunk cat.

He's faster than a speeding bullet.

He's now more powerful than a locomotive.

He can now leap tall buildings in a single bound.

He goes streaking across the sky and they say, it's a bird.

No, it's a plane.

Uh-uh, it's Superman.

Here he would come.

He would crush guns and break knives and pick up criminals and discard them.

He transformed the culture of Metropolis.

How could this man transform the culture of Metropolis?

Simple.

He wasn't from here.

He was from a place called Krypton.

But he brought the reality of where he was from to the place where he was now living.

He brought the reality from up there and lived it out down here so that down here was transformed because he was actually from up there.

So God is looking for some folk who are ready to change clothes.

Take off that all way of thinking, all way of walking, all way of talking, and put on your Christian jumpsuit and come out and be faster than speeding evil, more powerful than unrighteousness, able to leap over this culture with a single battle.

So that when the folks from Gateway show up, they say it's a bird, it's a plane.

No, it's them super saints from Gateway Church.

That's who that is.

May God bless you as you take it to the community and change our culture for God.

Father, bless your people and bring your name glory in this house.

I'll be back at the book table.

Look forward to meeting you.