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.

[Music]

welcome as we continue our journey

through kingdom men rising as we come to

this

last segment of our time together i hope

you’ve been encouraged

challenged and inspired to be different

and to make a difference

as i think about the stones behind me

i’m

reminded of the stones of remembrance

that

god gave his people as they crossed over

into the promised land

there were actually two sets of stones

one was the reminder for that generation

of what god had done

for them and how far he had brought them

the second set of stones was for the

next generation to be reminded

he wanted to do the same for them the

second generation could reflect back on

the first

set of stones and say yes god did it for

them

but that second set said we need him and

want him to do it

for us you know discipleship

is not just about what you do

and how you walk with god but it has a

transfer

principle we like to have our own

trophies in our own trophy cases

and there’s a place for that we need to

encourage the next generation to get

their own

trophies because of their relationship

with god and not just piggyback

on what he’s done for us

this generation needs discipleship

so that they can move forward with god

and be reminded that what he has done

for us

he is more than willing to do for them

because only as we disciple the next

generation

can we fix a broken culture

[Music]

fatherlessness dominates

our cultural landscape today

40 of all children in our country

are raised without their biological

father

in the african american community 72

percent of children born are born to

single parents

now fatherlessness comes in many shapes

in many forms

some are fatherless because they’ve been

abandoned by their father

their father sired a child that they

were not willing to take responsibility

for

other forms of fatherlessness is that

the father may be there but he might as

well not be there

because he’s not accepted the

responsibility of fatherhood

and so what we have developed is a

generation of young people

children who are growing up in a

fatherless

environment and so they go seeking

pseudo fatherhood things that look like

it could be a father for me whether it’s

a gang

or whether it’s their posse or their

homies or

whether some other influence that’s not

in their

best interest

fatherlessness has become the daunting

overwhelming

painful reality of our culture

that is fraying us

when god created man

he before he gave him a wife and gave

him children

he gave him the responsibility

to act on his behalf but now we have

men who are simply satisfied to say

i’m not happy what we are having today

men because they are no longer happy

abandoning responsibility

so at the heart of our crisis today

is the crisis of fatherlessness that has

imposed

on us a curse on the land malachi

chapter 4 verses 4 through 6 says when

the fathers are separated from the

children

there will be a curse on the land

and so we are finding ourselves

enveloped

in a cursed environment because

of the crisis of fatherlessness

in our passage today we have a

son begging for the blessing of his

father

esau is begging for a blessing

now you might you must strip your mind

about the casual use of the word bless

we say you know god bless you i bless

you

we use the word fairly casually today

many times

but when esau was asking daddy to bless

him he wasn’t just saying

daddy say i bless you no the blessing

was speaking about something else it was

speaking about

the continuity of the covenant

a symbol for the word blessing was

covenantal continuity let me explain

what i mean

it is my hope that every head of a

household here has a will

if you do not have a will you’re not

operating responsibly

a will simply says this is what i want

to happen with what i’ve been entrusted

with

to pass on to the next generation

not having a will is not going to keep

you from dying

many people say well i don’t like to

deal with wills because it reminds me of

death well you need to be reminded

it is appointed under man wants to die

and after that the judgment

it is irresponsible not to have a plan

that you make

rather than a plan that some court makes

for you

so a will is bequeathing forward

that which you have accumulated in your

time on earth

you will it forward a will

speaks of an inheritance usually related

to stuff

in fact folk gather

when wheels are red with their fingers

crossed

hoping that there’s a little something

something in there for them

or more importantly a whole lot of

something something

in there for them a will is bequeathing

forward an inheritance

when esau sought a blessing and when

jacob tricked esau out of his blessing

he was after the inheritance

but the inheritance or the blessing is

called a covenant

it was an agreement that god made to

pass on

the program of god into the next

generation

and so that’s what the blessing was it

was passing on

the inheritance of god and that’s why

you regularly read in the bible i am the

god of abraham

isaac and jacob god never says i am the

god of sarah rebecca and rachel

not because he was against women but

because the man was responsible

to pass it on the man was responsible

to make sure that the next generation

all of us as parents

should want our children to be better

off

than we are that should be a desire

okay that should be a goal that your

children are better off than you are the

problem is

that we only think of better off in

terms of stuff

we think of better off in terms of money

or closer housing or

you know the other uh physical features

of life and certainly

inheritances include that but the

blessing in the bible

while it included stuff included much

more

because the blessing included the divine

stamp that was placed on the next

generation

from the previous generation and

in the scripture you lived and you

looked for the blessing

in our story

jacob the younger wants the blessing

so he concocts a plan with his mother

rebecca

as you’ll see in a moment

esau was the athlete so he was daddy’s

favorite

he was the hunter

jacob was the mama’s boy he liked the

cook

says rebecca loved jacob that was he was

mama’s boy

they concocted a plan

to steal the blessing from the older son

esau and so

while esau went out to hunt to get food

in order to bring it back to his

father for him to get the blessing

rebecca told

jacob look what you do is you go get me

a goat

i’ll cook the meal you go put on your

brother’s clothes

cause your father can’t see it says his

eyes were dim

he won’t be able to see you go in there

with your brother’s clothes

and you uh bring the meal that your

brother’s supposed to bring

and let him bless you so jacob

does that he goes gets the goat the

mother cooks the goat he goes puts on

his brother’s clothes

he walks in his father isaac says who’s

that who’s that who’s that

and jacob says no it’s me it’s esau

your oldest son

he says i have your food

he says come close to me

he says now you feel like esau but you

sound like jacob

it says in verse 23 he did not recognize

him

and so he blesses him i’ll talk about

that in a moment

all i want you to get now is how

critical the blessing was

he was willing to join partners with his

mama against his daddy

in order to get it

because this thing involved his

future now this raises the question

because obviously jacob is wrong and

rebecca is wrong

because they’re tricking isaac

yet throughout the bible god

praises jacob and not esau

even though jacob is doing the wrong

thing

the question is why well you need

chapter 25 to answer that if you go back

a page

to chapter 25

verse 27 when the boys grew up

so they’re younger in chapter 25 when

the boys grew up esau became a skillful

hunter

a man of the field he’s the athlete

jacob was a

peaceful man living in tents

now isaac loved esau because he had a

taste for game because he’s the athlete

and rebecca loved jacob when jacob had

cooked stew because he’s hanging with

mama

so when he had cooked stew esau came in

from the field and was famished starving

so esau says to jacob verse 30 please

let me have a swallow of that red stuff

there for i am famished

verse 31 jacob says first sell me your

birthright

sell me the rights of the firstborn and

i give you some need

esau said behold i’m about to die i’m so

hungry

so of what use is a birthright to me if

i’m a star of the death

and jacob said first swear to me

that you’ll give me your birthright the

rights of the firstborn

so he swore to him and sold his

birthright to jacob

then jacob gave esau bread and lentil

stew

and he ate and drank and rose and went

on his way

here it is thus esau despised

his birthright

esau thought so little of his

birthright he was willing to give it up

for some food

as far as esau was concerned stay with

me

there was no connection between my

birthright and my blessing

my birthright is over here and my

blessing is over there

but when you read hebrews chapter 12

verses 16 and 17

it says don’t be like the immoral

godless esau

who sold his birthright for food

in other words the problem with esau

is he was only present oriented

he only wanted what he wanted now

because he wasn’t thinking about the

future later

he says i’m hungry now i want some food

now

give it to me now and uh i’ll deal with

later when

later comes cause i’m starving right now

one of the problems we have among men is

their present oriented i’m not happy now

i don’t want the responsibility now it’s

all about now it’s not all about now

it is about you passing forward the

blessing

that is the divine statement of god

from you to you and through you because

you are

future oriented

but because so many men and i praise god

that we have

so many exceptions of that in our church

men who have

taken a stand for god for his kingdom

but far too many men are present

oriented and so because they do not

think beyond themselves

they abandon their families abandon

their children become irresponsible

refuse to turn around because they are

abandoning

the blessing which is future

oriented he just wanted food now

he made a separation that was going to

catch up with him

so

he gets tricked but god doesn’t

interfere

with it because he didn’t value his

birthright

and so we have esau begging

for a blessing i mean he’s saying

please daddy

there are men here today how many men

here today were raised by single parents

you were raised by a single mother you

were raised by a single mom numbers of

you

and that’s becoming more and more common

in our culture and praise god for the

great job

that so many of our single women do

but all a mother can be is the best

mother she can be

she was never meant to have dual roles

when there should be a man in the

picture

he says father bless me

because that’s what the father is

supposed to do

he’s supposed to pass it on and the next

generation should feel god all over

them if you’ve got kids in your house

father bless me not mama bless me father

bless me

so that i become the boy i become the

person

that i was meant to be pass on god to me

and all the stuff

that goes with that but pass that on to

me now what did the blessing include

first of all his father

kissed him verse 26 please come close

and kiss me

because the blessing included an

intimate touch

he says here’s the blessing my son verse

28 and 29

may god give you of the dew of heaven of

the fatness of earth of the abundance of

grain and wine

may people serve you and nations bow

down to you

may you be master of your brethren and

may your mother’s sons bow down to you

cursed is he who curses you and blessed

are those who bless you

god reached all the way back to the

abrahamic covenant abraham passed on to

isaac isaac and now passing it on to

jacob where it should have been passed

on to ethan who turned away his

birthright

you know what the you know what the

covenant was you know what the blessing

was

divine favor moving forward

divine favor moving forward

the blessing was future inheritance

from god please notice the language may

god do this may god do that may god do

this

may god do that see that’s where the

blessing is missing

we’re just saying i want you to do this

and i want you to do that oh you want to

be a doctor you want to be a lawyer you

want to be an engineer you want to be a

teacher

nothing wrong with that but the blessing

was what

god would do i want god to do this i

want god to do that

want god to do the other i want god it

was about god god god god god

not just what i want for you or what you

want for you

but what god wants for you that was the

blessing

because it would happen because of god

and so

they wanted he wanted the blessing it

was

a declaration of divine favor of divine

provision

of divine protection and of divine

dominion

whenever you see a caterpillar

it’s got a glorious future now i know

what you’re looking at right now

much but when that thing cocoons

it’s gonna be pretty and it’s gonna take

flight

we’ve got a generation of children who

don’t take flight

they’re still crawling because they’ve

never been blessed

they’ve never had the blessing stand

over them

to affirm them and to speak god into

them not just stuff for them

but god into them who will bring them

the appropriate stuff your will must

be more than stuff my will must be more

than

stuff it must be god

and the transfer of divine favor

iraqi five rocky is

retired because he’s gotten bruised and

beaten his eye is bad

he can’t fight anymore rocky fine

he comes across a young

upcoming fighter named tommy gunn

and tommy gunn has admired rocky balboa

as he followed his career and so they

meet and become friends and he says to

rocky balboa rocket

italian stallion will you will you train

me

boy yeah that i can stay in the fight

game by helping you

so yeah i’ll train you so rocky works

with him and

tommy gunn goes up the ladder up the

ladder up the ladder and becomes the

heavyweight champion

of the world due to the influence of

rocky balboa

the movie comes down to the last 15

minutes

the whole movie zeroes in on that last

15 minutes

see tommy gunn has now become the

champion of the world and it’s gotten to

his head

so he’s gotten a lot of money man got a

lot of attention a lot of notoriety in

the news

so tommy gun is living large and he

doesn’t need rocky anymore

in fact he gets belligerent with rocky

in that last 15 minutes they’re in a

a gathering and tommy gunn

hits rocky balboa’s

wife’s husband his brother-in-law i mean

he clocks him

and knocks him down because of some

argument they were having

then tommy gunn insults rocky and

insults rocky’s son

then tommy gunn dares rocky to do

anything about it

rocky tears off his shirt

and the rumble begins they out in the

street fighting each other it’s a street

fight

the problem is tommy gunn is too young

too strong and too fast

and so while rocky is doing the best he

can he can’t keep up

with this young guy and so it comes down

to a punch

that tommy gun throws and he hits rocky

and he sends rocky down in the gutter

beaten man

while in the gutter

while down and out

rocky remembers up on the screen

above his head it shows what he’s

thinking

so he thinks back to rocky one and rocky

tune

and he remembers apollo creed

and how he fought and became

champion of the world

and when he remembered apollo creed he

tried to get up but he couldn’t

then he remembered club elaine rocky iii

and how clubba lying had beaten him but

how he fought

back to win back the championship and

when he remembered

he tried to get up but he couldn’t

then he remembered ivan drago

the russian monster and

how he went over to russia

and defeated him on his own turf so that

the russians were singing

the national land and he remembered that

and he tried to get up but he couldn’t

but then he remembered somebody else

he remembered his old coach mickey

now mickey had died in rocky iv ricky

was already dead but mickey was already

there

but he remembers mickey when mickey was

standing over him

saying get up

get up get up you bum

cause mickey loves you now that’s when

the music came on

music comes on and rocky balboa he

stands up

he shakes it off tommy gun is walking

off in the distance

rocky balboa looks in the distance and

says yo

kame one more round

he found strength he didn’t have and

power he didn’t possess

and he was able to defeat the young buck

why was he able to defeat him because he

remembered somebody who had died

who had then come alive again to remind

him

of what he could do i don’t care how

long you’ve been down in the gutter as a

man

how long you’ve been defeated as a man

jesus christ is standing over you today

saying get up

get up get up you bum

cause jesus loves you so it’s time to

take your stand

and being the man and father god has

called you to be

[Music]

one of the great longings in the jewish

family

was for the father to transfer what was

known as the blessing

to his sons this was

the favor of god and a

hopeful future that would be transferred

generationally

because it would be understood that

those sons

were to have families that would

replicate the values

the covenants the commitments and the

hopes

that god had given to the nation we have

a nation of

young boys who have missed the blessing

they’ve not had fathers in their lives

to pass on

divine favor and as a result

they are aimless helpless and often

hopeless

that’s why the need today is for a

blessing

much of the carnage you see are young

men

looking to be blessed by a father

so if there is no biological father

there needs to be a surrogate father

because a generation is crying out

for the blessing and without it

there is no hope for the future let’s

give the next generation

the blessing of a father

[Music]

[Music]

you