Pursuing Christ Can Give You a Fulfilling Tomorrow | Tony Evans Highlight

Dr. Tony Evans discusses overcoming the burdens of yesterday to embrace your divine purpose and spiritual maturity today. Discover how to break free from being defined by yesterday and live as citizens of eternity, prioritizing spiritual values over earthly distractions

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Dr. Tony Evans is the founder and senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, founder and president of The Urban Alternative and author of over 100 books, booklets and Bible studies. The first African American to earn a doctorate of theology from Dallas Theological Seminary, he has been named one of the 12 Most Effective Preachers in the English-Speaking World by Baylor University. Dr. Evans holds the honor of writing and publishing the first full-Bible commentary and study Bible by an African American. His radio broadcast, The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans, can be heard on over 1,400 radio outlets daily and in more than 130 countries. Dr. Evans’ sermons are also streamed and downloaded over 20,000,000 times annually.

You were not redeemed for here. You were redeemed while here, but you weren’t redeemed for here.
You were redeemed for there while being here.
And god expects you to bring heaven’s point of view in earth’s decisions in earth’s priorities, and you can’t change why you didn’t do it yesterday, last week, last month.
So forgetting those things which are behind it’s time to get going now because the clock is moving.
He says, if you’re ever gonna get to tomorrow, you gotta yesterday go for getting those things that are behind.
Many are Christian is crippled by yesterday.
All of us have a yesterday. And there are three things in most of our yesterdays.
1, they are the good things that we’re proud of. The great accomplishments we’ve made.
The things that we positively have done that benefit us and benefit others.
We we can look back and say that’s some good stuff back there yesterday.
But if you’re like most of us, that some stuff you are ashamed of back there yesterday.
So yesterday involves the good. It involves the bad, and it involves the downright ugly.
But Paul said, if I’m ever gonna achieve the purpose for which god created and saved me, and if I’m ever gonna achieve the purpose for my life, for why he left me here, I have got to let yesterday go.
You’ve got to press on to tomorrow. He says, I forget those things which are behind.
And the way I do that is my pursuit of what is in front of me.
Your yesterday doesn’t have to define your tomorrow.
Use your yesterday as a rearview mirror that you peek in every now and then, but live your life in the windshield of where you are going in your suit of Jesus Christ, and you must press on.
Why? Because you are a citizen of heaven, you’re not a slave of earth.
Paul had some things. He had some great things in yesterday because He was he sat at the feet of Gamel Yo.
Hey. He was a learned man. The Bible talks about his education.
He talks about his now It talks about his achievements.
It talks about the greatness of how he climbed the the fur, uh, say, called ladder.
Uh, I mean, he had some things to be of from yesterday.
Uh, but he had some things to be ashamed of for yesterday because he used to kill Christians for a living.
He used the murder. We’re talking about a murderer.
We’re talking about somebody who slew people who named the name of Jesus Christ, and he never forgot that that happened.
But if he would have lived with the fact that that is part of his yesterday, he would have never become the great apostle of god that he became.
He had to overcome yesterday through his pursuit of Jesus Christ today.
Some things that weren’t that good in his background, but he said I press on.
And so I want to challenge you today to not let the devil do a play action on you.
He wants to fake you out to make you think you are chained to yesterday.
You cannot overcome yesterday that yesterday owns you And if he can get you to believe it enough, act on it enough, move on it enough, he will throw a pass down field to cause you to miss out on god’s purpose for your life because he played a play action pass on you, and he duped you in the thinking that you’re defined by your yes today.
He says, forgetting those things which are behind. I press. I keep moving forward. I keep pursuing.
I keep pushing forward. Because I wanna become a tour in Christ, and I want to complete what god laid hold on me for.
What does he mean? He means the purpose. You have a purpose.
Uh, if you’re still here, god’s not finished. God not finished now.
Now now if you’re still here, that means he has a purpose for your life and he is not finished.
That’s why Paul wants you to know you’re not citizens of time. You’re citizens of eternity.
He wants to give you. He wants to change your mindset.
And if I can help you see how tiny time is compared to how long eternity is, it will change what you prioritize.
Because the only reason we prioritize time is we make it longer than it really is.
God wants us to have the proper view of eternity so that we maximize time.
You see, your view of eternity affects time.
Your view of time affects eternity So he does not want you to view yourself as a citizen of Earth, but as a visitor of Earth, and to press in light of eternity and to press by making it the priority over time.
And if you do that, everything changes in time. You know what?
You know why Israel never got to the promised land. They kept looking back.
You know, they lost sight of where god wanted to take them.
They kept looking back and never went anywhere.
Many of us today are being held hostage by yesterday because we won’t press on through the wilderness until god breaks us through to the promised land of spiritual maturity and divine purpose.
Yes. Learn from yesterday, but you can’t live in yesterday if you’re gonna move for 2 tomorrow.
So he says that your purpose must be secured.
It must be it must be fixed.
By moving forward in pursuit of your spiritual maturity and your divine purpose.
Well, how do you do that? How do how do you how do you do that?
Because it’s hard to press when you got something pressing against you. You may have people pressing against you.
You may have circumstances pressing against you. And you wanna press through, or you wanna press through verse 15.
And if anything you have, uh, any of you have a different attitude, God will reveal that also to you.
In other words, if you ain’t getting this, god’s gonna have to help you.
If you don’t get this, that the eternal must be placed above the temporal because you are citizens of heaven.
He says, god has gotta show you this. Because until you see it, you won’t act on it.
But if I can get you and me to see, that eternity is more important than time, you will begin to maximize time and be ready for eternity.
He says in verse 17, brethren join in following my example.
Observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us for many walk of whom I often told you and tell you even crying weeping.
They’re enemies of the cross, destruction, they’re they’re god is their appetite, their glory is their shame, and their minds are on earthly things.
He says, if you wanna pursue, you better watch out who you hanging out with.
Paul says, follow my example and the rest of who are walking this way.
If you don’t have a spiritual group of people in your life who share your spiritual values, who are pursuing God They just connect with you because of the career.
They connect with you because of the money.
They connect with you because of the prestige, but have no heart for god And he says and you know them because here it is.
Here it is. You won’t like it, but here it is. It says they mind earthly things.
In other words, they don’t see the spiritual side of things. They don’t see god’s point of view.
Heaven is not their focus. So all they’re gonna give you is more earth.
Gonna give you more time and more temporal. They’re not gonna give you more eternal. Why?
Because they are earthbound. And he’s talking about Earthbound Christians who he calls enemies of the cross.
You can be a Christian and an enemy of the cross.
Because you have diminished the citizenship up there for the temporal down here.
And I’m trying to explain that if you make time more important than eternity, you lose out on both.
But if you make eternity at more important than this little teeny minute that you and I are here called time, eternity explodes and time has improved.
Because now you’re living for the purpose for which you’ve been redeemed.
And and and it’s amazing to me how many Christians are offended when spiritual people give them spiritual perspective.
And they’re offended. They just offended because spiritual people giving them spiritual perspective when that’s the only perspective god will honor.
He will never honor an earth view that contradicts a heaven view no matter how educated, how rich, how fancy the person is giving you the data.
See, because we’ve been Duke by Earth.
So we think Earth folk must know because they got a little something behind their name or something in the bank but when it comes to living your life, unless it is god’s point of view, there will be no god assistance to you, even if you pray about it.
He says, follow our example and not those who are earthbound.
Who are working against the plan of god, attach yourself to a person pursuing maturity and purpose.
And then he comes and he tells you again in verse 20.
For our citizenship is in heaven.
Uh, your citizenship that is the country to which you belong is not here.
It’s it’s not here. You you you were not redeemed for here.
You were redeemed while here, but you weren’t redeemed for here. You were redeemed for there while being here.
And god expects you to bring heaven’s point of view in earth’s decisions, in earth’s priorities, and you can’t change why you didn’t do it yesterday, last week, last month, last year.
So for getting those things which behind. It’s time to get going now because TikTok. TikTok. TikTok.
The clock is moving.
He says you are citizens of heaven folks, you know, 80, 90, 75 years here is temporary.
You are citizens of heaven. Your future is not here. This is not your future.
And then he tells you about your perspective because he says he says from which we are eagerly awaiting a savior, the lord, gee, is Christ.
This is called the imminent return of Christ 2000 years ago, 2000 years ago, Paul was looking for the return of Jesus.
See, this is 2000 years old now, over 2000 years.
He he says he he says we are looking for eagerly. I’m I’m I’m excited. I’m anticipating.
I can’t wait for the return of Jesus it’s called the imminent return of Christ, meaning he can come at any moment.
Now that’s good news and bad news. Good news is he’s coming.
Bad news is we don’t know when.
So he wants us to live our lives as though it could be any time. K?
So he says I’m eagerly looking for the return of Christ. Why? Cause he’s a heavenly citizen.
Now We are to live in anticipation that he could come at any moment.
1st John III verse 2 says that we are purified by anticipating his coming, but he might decide to bring you to him first.
To transition you from earth to heaven, from time to eternity.
But either way, a meeting is going to occur.
Whether he comes to you or brings you to him to the big house, he says, I want you to be ready for the time we connect.
And I want you to live each day in light of that reality because it could be today.
So let me ask you a question.
If Jesus Christ called you today, or if he returned today, would you be excited or say I wish I had more now.