The Patriarchs: The Legacy of Faith, Part 1

Our culture is raining down evil. It's raining down secularism. It's raining down immorality. Dr. Tony Evans says our responsibility as parents is to make sure we protect our children with God's umbrella of covering.

If your child is not covered, they're going to be soaked by the culture. Celebrating 40 years of faithfulness, this is The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans. Author, speaker, senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, and president of The Urban Alternative. Some claim that it takes a village to raise a child, but if that village, like today's culture, is godless, it can only produce godless children. Dr. Evans says the Lord has already designed the perfect nurturing environment for a child, a God-centered family. Let's join him today as he explores passing the legacy of faith on to our children.

One of the trips that my family took in the early days during our August vacation was to go to Disneyland in California, to be able to see in person what had been viewed on television, to be able to shake hands with Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, and Goofy. After being out there for a while, being wooed by the sights and sounds of the Disneyland experience, we looked up and noticed something, and that is we couldn't find my youngest son, Jonathan. Little Jonathan at that point had gotten lost, and we didn't know where to find him.

We looked around in the immediate vicinity, and he was not there. As panic began to rise in our spirits and in our hearts, because there was so much activity and so many people, and we had lost our son, I found one of the security people and said, I can't find my son, my youngest child. They began to help us search because he was lost in the Magic Kingdom, in the place where there should have been nothing but joy and peace and festivities. I had lost track of my child.

After an inordinate amount of time, we discovered him looking in a toy window at the various toys that were on display. You see, we had run into a dual problem. He had become distracted by the sights and sounds of the kingdom in which he was in. We had become distracted by the sights and sounds of the Magical Kingdom we were in. We got so focused on that kingdom that we lost our son. In other words, the very kingdom we were in had so distracted us that we as parents lost contact with our children.

You and I are raising children in a world today that if you do not watch it, you will lose track of them. While that's not the goal and that's not the intention, the reality is that you have a kingdom out here who will woo your children away and who you will lose sight of. Hebrews chapter 11, verses 20 to 22, it says, By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even regarding things to come. By faith Jacob, as he was dying, blessed each one of the sons of Joseph and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff.

By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the exodus of the sons of Israel and gave orders concerning his bones. We're given the patriarchs, the fathers of Israel's faith, to teach us about faith and faith as it relates to your legacy. Judges chapter 2, verse 10 says that the next generation grew up without knowing God's ways nor his works.

And when you read the book of Judges, you see a society in chaos because the children didn't know God. The greatest collapse in America, in our country today, is the collapse of the family because whoever owns the family owns the future. The saga of a nation is the saga of its families writ large. The greatest cause of poverty, the greatest cause of instability, the greatest cause of dropout rates, the greatest cause of teenage pregnancy, the greatest cause of criminalizing the next generation can all be whittled down to the breakdown of the family. We're living in a day when the breakdown of the family has led to the lack of transference of a spiritual legacy. We live in a day of parental outsourcing where we've outsourced our kids to this center, that center, we've outsourced them to the television, we've outsourced them even to the church, and worst of all, we've outsourced them to the government. We've said, I don't know that I can do this. You take care of this at least for most of the day so that I have limited responsibility.

And as a result, we're raising a generation of children with no spiritual heritage. When I walk through the metal detectors, at least the old ones, they go beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. That means I go back because I had keys in my pocket I forgot to take out or something. And I go back through. Sometimes I walk through, they wouldn't beep. The reason why is because those old magnetometers had to be set depending on how sensitive you set it will determine how soon it went off. Sometimes it wouldn't go off even though I had keys in my pocket because it wasn't set to the sensitivity level. We have a generation of young people whose consciences don't go beep.

And they don't go beep because there was no mama and daddy there to set them. Like water filters in the home, your job is to filter what comes into the minds and hearts and lives of your children. And that job is not to be outsourced. Your responsibility and mine is to lay forward a spiritual legacy for our children. We are to pass on a spiritual heritage for them to grab hold of.

Because I don't care whatever else you pass on, if you miss that one, everything else you did pass on is in trouble. What do I mean by a legacy? A legacy is what you pass on. What do I mean by that spiritually?

Well, let's talk about it physically. Everyone in here has or ought to have a will. It is irresponsible not to have a will, not to control what happens to what God has blessed you with.

A will is a legacy of personal and financial assets, things that you have that after your demise you want to pass on to your family. So you make a will. Now the reason you make a will is because you don't want somebody else determining what happens with your stuff. You don't want the courts determining that.

You don't want folk fighting over that. You want to have an orderly transference of that which has been deposited in your care to be turned over to the well-being and to the safety and use by your family and by your offspring. Well, what you do in a physical will is what God is expecting every parent to do with a spiritual will. The great tragedy is we have people who make physical wills who have no spiritual wills, nothing that they're passing forward to the next generation that is a matter of faith. You see, over and over again in this section it says by faith, by faith, by faith. It is passing on what children need to learn to live under the rule of God in their life in a comprehensive way.

Dr. Evans will tell us more about how to put that idea into practice when he continues our message in just a moment. First I want to tell you about a special offer that includes Tony's current series, Heroes of the Faith, as well as his brand-new book, Kingdom Heroes. Both of these powerful resources take a look at very ordinary people who became some of the most familiar characters in the Bible simply by their obedient faith in God, believing what he said and staking their lives on the fact that he tells the truth. They're perfect for your personal study or to share with your church or Bible study group. In fact, if you request these resources today, we'll even include the companion Bible study workbook as an added bonus. You can get this Kingdom Heroes package, including all 13 messages from the two-volume Heroes of the Faith CD and MP3 series as our gift in appreciation for your contribution toward Tony's ministry. Just visit us at TonyEvans.org and make your online donation and resource request.

It's very easy to do. You'll see a link right on the home page to this special package. Again, that's TonyEvans.org, or call us any time of the day or night at 1-800-800-3222, and let one of our resource team members help you.

That's 1-800-800-3222. Dr. Evans will be back with more of today's lesson right after this. Coming to theaters this November. I'm here in Bethany, the place where Lazarus was raised from the dead. I'm here in the place where it's believed was the tomb from which he walked when Jesus raised him from the dead.

Dr. Tony Evans brings the New Testament Gospels to life as he visits the locations of Jesus' earthly ministry, connecting them to their significance for humankind today. What do you think has died in your life? Maybe hope has died. Relationships have died. Maybe your dreams have died.

Guess what? Jesus is still the resurrection. He can take things that are dead and bring them back to life again. November 15th, 16th, and 17th. Travel with Dr. Tony Evans on a life-changing, eye-opening journey with Jesus.

Find theaters, showtimes, and learn more at TonyEvans.org. Adam and Eve passed on a curse to their children. When they rebelled against God, Cain killed Abel.

They passed on a curse. And so one brother slays another brother because Adam and Eve rebelled against God. What we're seeing in the craziness of children is what is being passed on by mother and father. So the father is disrespectful to the mother, so the son is disrespectful to his wife, and the mother is not committed to the family.

She's committed more to her career than the home, so it gets passed on to her daughter. And so you wind up with generational curses because that was the DNA of the legacy. He says that by faith, there was something generationally passed on, a spiritual will, if you will. The key question of this passage, and you'll see it a little bit clearer in a moment, is what kind of spiritual will, spiritual legacy, are you and I passing on to our children?

Now, it says that they passed on the promise of God. God has a will, and the name of His will is called a covenant. A covenant is God's will. God has a will that every believer is to pass on to the next generation.

Every parent is to pass on to their child. It's called a covenant. God made a covenant with Abraham, passed on to Isaac, passed on to Jacob, passed right down. What is a covenant? A covenant is a spiritually binding relationship that God makes with His people in order to cover them. A covenant is a spiritual covering. We have a generation of children uncovered because their mama and daddy are uncovered.

Because guess what? You can only write in a will what you yourself possess. See, you can't will somebody else's stuff, and you cannot will to your family somebody else's faith.

You got to own it so you can transfer it. So that means if you have no faith to transfer, they have no asset spiritually to receive, unless somebody else adopts them. He says that He passes over a covenant.

I've explained this. It's like an umbrella. A covenant is an umbrella. It's raining outside, and you have an umbrella. You open up the umbrella, and you are covered. The umbrella does not stop it from raining. It just stops it from raining on you because you're under cover. Now, you can have an umbrella but not open it, so you have a covering that you're not using. But if it is raining and you are covered by it, you don't stop the rain.

You stop it from raining on you. Our culture is raining down evil. It's raining down secularism. It's raining down commercialism. It's raining down immorality. It is raining down evil. It is raining down redefinitions of what God has set as His standards. And if your child is not covered, they're going to be soaked by the culture.

But guess what? God has given every mother and father an umbrella. And you're supposed to cover your household like Joshua did in 2415 when he said, As for me and my house, we're under cover. Because he told the folks, he said, Now, I don't know what y'all going to do, and I don't know what God you're going to worship. But as for me, this is how we roll up in here, up in here, up in my house. We're under the spiritual covering of God that we are setting up to be a legacy for our family. When God was instructing parents on how to raise their children, in Deuteronomy 6 and Deuteronomy 11, verses 18 and following, He sets it up, and He says, Now, I want you to teach your children, but not just in Sunday school. He says, I want you to teach them over the doorpost of your own house. So rather than spend so much time talking about what's wrong in the White House, we need to spend more time talking about what's wrong in our house. He says, You are to set it over the doorpost so that when they walk in and when they come out, they keep bumping into God. It's like a pinball machine.

Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. Mama, how come we keep bumping into God here? Because this is how our house rolls. God's standards, God's point of view, God's instruction. He says, It's not all formal devotions. He says, As you get up, as you lay down, as you walk, as you talk, as you move, in other words, you just pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, snap, crackle, pop, God here, God there.

You just keep bumping into Him. Because you're trying, I'm trying, we're trying to leave a spiritual legacy. We want our children to succeed. We want them to be all that they can be. We want them to maximize their potential.

And whatever it is, we want them to go further than we went, and we want them to reach the top. But if you go downtown Dallas and you look at a skyscraper, you can bet your bottom dollar on one thing. The higher that building went up, the deeper they drilled down. Because it's hard to build a skyscraper on the foundation of a chicken coop.

You can't have a chicken coop foundation and a solid skyscraper building, because no matter how high you build that building, if it's not resting on a solid foundation, when the wind blows, it's gonna fall over. We have a generation of parents who want their kids to have skyscraper potential on a chicken coop spiritual foundation. We've not invested in their spiritual foundation, their spiritual well-being. We've not found out if they're learning anything, if they're growing.

We're not even sure that they're saved and somebody else will have to lead them to Christ. Because we're not concerned about the foundation, we're just concerned that they become a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, a principal. We want to make sure that they reach the height of the world. We often want to make sure that our offspring make the team, whether or not they are entering the kingdom. In fact, we'll get upset if they're sitting on the bench too long. My son can play. My son can play better than he can play.

How come my son is still on the bench? We will get irate about sports, but not irate that they're not learning the word of God, not applying the word of God, not hearing the word of God. We're not concerned about that, but we want them to be a superstar, whether or not they enter or inherit the kingdom. The job of the parent and parents is to give their kids a solid foundation and then trust God for a superstructure, high-rise life. Nothing wrong with wanting them to maximize their potential.

It's everything wrong with wanting them to have a skyscraper life on a paper-thin foundation. And so even when we're tired, we'll get them to the game. Even when we're tired, we'll stay for the game.

We'll do all of that no matter what. But if we're too tired for the Bible, if we're too tired for prayer, if we're too tired for that, we're just too tired. He's speaking about a legacy here. He's speaking about something that is transferred because—watch this— the covenant involved a blessing. The blessing was the passing on of the favor of God related to the covenant. So that's why there was this big fight between Ethan and Jacob over this blessing, over this birthright, and over this covenant, because it had to do with passing on the blessing. And that's what covenants are designed to do, Deuteronomy 29, 9. My covenant is to bless you. The covenant is God's favor being— what greater thing can we pass on to our children than God's favor? But it dawned on me.

That's the problem. We have a generation of parents who haven't been blessed. So they don't have anything to pass on. That young man, that young lady has never had somebody who is spiritually responsible lay hands on them and say, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father, I transfer to you the rule of God to operate in your life so that all that God has in store for you will come your way. Whenever they did a blessing in Scripture, they placed their hands on you. And they placed their hands on you and say, I'm transferring to you through me, through my fingertips, God's favor on your life as it has been in my life so that you will have more of His life in you than I had in my life so that God will take you further than He took me because I am transferring the blessing. And it's hard to transfer a blessing you don't know anything about.

That's why when you have a lot of unfathered fathers becoming fathers, you have generational chaos with 50% of your children being raised without a father, and in some communities 75% because they're unblessed parents. Your baby is waiting for that blessing. Your baby is waiting for mom and dad to lay their hands on them and say, I pronounce God's favor in your life as you follow His way, His will, and His word. They're begging for it. Because if you don't do it, Satan is ready to curse them. If you don't bless them, Satan is ready to curse them, to bring them under his regard and under his regime.

He's ready to do that. So even if you failed at a young age and have to make it up as a grown man, you get that thing right with those kids that you failed so that you can begin to live by faith at the position you're in. So you say, oh, I wish I was a better father when they were two, three, four, and five. Yeah, I wish you were two. They wish you were two. God wishes you were two.

Now they're 35 and 40 years old. What's a man to do? You're to go back and make everything right you can make right because you want still whatever legacy God can lead to be transferred. And so, in the same way you can look at a caterpillar and say you have a glorious future, because when this thing starts working inside of you and starts twisting and turning, when you cocoon up against that tree, you're going to come out flying with all kind of beautiful colors popping up off of you, and you're going to take flight.

You may not look like much now, but when me and God or God through me, when we get through with you, the colors will start to flourish because God has a plan. You are to pass on the blessing, and nobody is to do it for you. Dr. Tony Evans with an important and yet encouraging challenge for moms and dads today. This message, Patriarchs, the Legacy of Faith, is part of that featured resource package I mentioned earlier, Tony's 13-part Heroes of the Faith audio collection and his brand-new book and Bible study, Kingdom Heroes. Don't forget we'll send you this entire resource package as our gift when you make a contribution to support Tony's ministry here on this station and around the world. We rely on the generous support of listeners like you to carry on this important work. So visit tonyevans.org to make your request today, or give us a call at 1-800-800-3222, where members of our resource team are available around the clock to help you. That's 1-800-800-3222. Well, tomorrow, Dr. Evans will dig deeper into our look at the most important inheritance that we can leave for our children, the legacy of faith. I hope you will be back with us. The Alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by The Urban Alternative, celebrating 40 years of faithfulness thanks to the generous contributions of listeners like you. Music