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