Begging for a Blessing, Part 1

We've been grounded by our backgrounds, grounded by our circumstances, grounded by our upbringing. Dr. Tony Evans talks about why we miss out on blessings that can make our lives take off and soar. You can get so used to being a caterpillar so long that you don't even think that you can ever be a butterfly.

But a butterfly is your birthright. 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. If blessings in your life seem to be few and far between, Dr. Evans says it may be the result of something you've given away, maybe without even knowing it. Today he'll talk about how we can get it back.

Let's join him. Every responsible head of a household here has a will. And while it may be somewhat touchy to think of putting together a will which forces us to face our own mortality, not having one won't change anything.

Life is still short. In that will, you will control what happens to your resources for the future. You'll say who gets the house or the car or the different accounts. Your death through the will will become a provision for other things going to loved ones. God has a will. It's called a covenant. It was God's way of sending forth the future. That's why that word is so dominant in Scripture. This word, the covenant, the covenant, the covenant.

It was God creating something to pay forward His promises to His people in the future. These promises came to be known as blessings. The word blessings in the Bible referred to what God was going to provide for His people so that they could fulfill His purposes in history.

That was the blessing. In Old Testament theology, people live for the blessing. To not have the blessing was to not have life itself. To not have something passed on to you from God.

It became apparent to me that the large part of our men who were sitting in church every week had never been blessed. And it's hard to pass on what you've never had. It's hard to pass on a blessing to your children if you don't know what one is and you don't know how to transfer it. And you know what happens to a person that doesn't have a will?

That stuff is up for grabs. Because there's nothing that's been documented that has guided it to where it's supposed to go. Going to these public schools, it's dawned on me. We got a generation of children who've never been blessed. And you can always know when somebody's been blessed because they're future-oriented. A person that hasn't been blessed, everything is now. They're cotton candy Christians. Or they don't even know the meaning of blessing. That's why they're always talking about a new car, new clothes, new house, better bank account, new career. Because that's cotton candy blessing.

In other words, those things which are legitimate and valid in the Bible were the fruit, not the root, of a blessing. And so it's dawned on me that we got a generation that haven't been blessed. I was watching CNN last night, and CNN came on with these 11 and 12-year-old prostitutes. These 11 and 12-year-old prostitutes.

And the lady, their faces were hidden, of course, because of their age. And the interviewer said, why do you do this? And the girl said, because I'm just looking for somebody to love me. I am so desperate for a blessing, a transference of love to me, that if I've got to sell my body at 11 years old, I will do it.

Because I'm desperate. The blessing in the Bible was typically passed down through the father. So then, as we said on Father's Day, if I was the devil, I'd get rid of the dads. So I could stifle the transfer of the blessing. How important was this thing called the blessing?

So important that in Genesis 27, Esau was begging for it. He says at the end of verse 35, bless me, even me, O my father. In verse 36, the last line, have you not reserved a blessing for me? Verse 38, bless me, even me, O my father.

So Esau lifted up his voice and he wept. To not be blessed would make a grown man cry. Esau is 40 years old. He's a 40-year-old, middle-aged man to use our age criteria today, begging, daddy, bless me.

There's some 40-year-olds in here who are still waiting for somebody to bless. And so you've taken every definition of manhood available and you're still looking for a blessing. How serious was this thing called the blessing? You'll see in verse 41, so Esau bore a grudge against Jacob because of the blessing which his father had blessed him.

And Esau said to himself, the days of mourning for my father are near, then I will kill my brother. How important was the blessing? You kill over it. So we ain't talking about a new car or back then a new chariot, a new horse, a new tent. Uh-uh, uh-uh. This thing of the blessing was far more than that. And if all you're doing is showing up in church for that, you ain't come for the right thing. You come for the fruit, not the root.

You come for some cotton candy. And that's why folk who have a lot of stuff without the blessing are miserable people. They have misunderstood stuff, which is not wrong in itself, but they misunderstood it for blessing.

How important is this thing? Look at the many times it shows up in chapter 27. Verse 4, end of the verse, bless me before I die. Verse 10, that he may bless you before his death.

Verse 12, I will bring upon you a curse and not a blessing. Verse 19, that you may bless me. Verse 25, that I might bless you. Verse 27, he blessed him. In the verse 27, the Lord has blessed over and over.

Blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed, blessed. What was this blessing? In summary, it was experiencing and enjoying and extending the covenantal promises of God for your life. It was experiencing, enjoying, and extending, passing on the promises of God for your life. The blessing was when God was operating for them.

The curse was when God was operating against them. It was an umbrella that no matter what rain showers were around them, they were under cover. You walk around with an umbrella and that umbrella signifies you're under cover. It may be storming, it may be raining, it may be pouring, but it doesn't define you because you're under cover. You got a covering over you. You say, but that's Old Testament.

No, not quite. The Bible says when people come to the communion, they pick up the cup of blessing. He calls it the new covenant.

See, if all you're doing is taking a wafer and drinking some juice, you miss it. At that table is where you call forth the promises of God to you because you in the will. You in the will, see, because the covenant is the will. Passing through the will are the promises. Esau lost his blessing. The Bible says, chapter 25, he gave up his birthright. Look at chapter 25. I want you to understand the blessing.

Verse 30. Esau said to Jacob, please let me have a swallow of that red stuff, for I am famished. Jacob was making stew in the kitchen. Esau came in, smelt it, and said, I need some of that red stuff, the stew you're making. I'm hungry. Jacob said, first, sell me your birthright.

Now, that's a lot to ask for a bowl of stew. He said, let me sell you, sell me your birthright, and I'll give you some stew. Esau said, I'm about to die, so what use then is my birthright to me?

I ain't getting ready to die. I'm so hungry. And Jacob said, first, swear to me. So he swore to him and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and a lentil of stew, and he ate and drank and rose up and went on his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

What was your birthright? The oldest son got a double inheritance of everything that the father left behind. He got a double inheritance.

Jacob says, sell me your position, and I'll give you something to eat. The Bible says Esau thought so little of his birthright that he was willing to sell it for some stew. But what Esau forgot is that when you give up your birthright, you give up your blessings. See, to say I don't want the will is to say I don't want the stuff in the will, and the blessings are in the will. The blessings had to do with what the father was passing forward.

Dr. Evans will take a look at some of the blessings promised to us in God's will, his covenant, when he returns in a few moments after these words. Life is full of challenges and disappointments. The billows of circumstances sometimes get thick and heavy and overwhelming. Whether it's a pandemic that you're facing, a health crisis, a financial crisis, maybe a family and relationship crisis, sometimes life can become so challenging, so difficult, so painful that your get up and go has gotten up and gone, and you want to throw in the towel. There's help, and there's hope.

So we're not going to let the realities of life, no matter how negative they are, define how things are going to work out in the end. We're going to find hope, even in the midst of our hurt. Go to tonyevans.org to find out more and request your copy of Hope for the Hurting. Tony's latest book, Hope for the Hurting, goes hand in hand with the message we've been hearing today, and that's why we've created a special bundle that includes the book, the entire 20-message Coming to the Comforter collection, as well as the optional companion, Hope for the Hurting Bible Study Guide and DVD. Together, these resources give powerful insight into the purpose behind our pain, afflictions, and the difficult times we all face.

When we approach the Comforter, we can find the help and hope we need to carry on. And right now, we'd like to offer this package of resources to you as our gift, and thanks for your contribution to help support the ongoing work of Dr. Evans and the Urban Alternative. To get the details and make the arrangements, just go to tonyevans.org, or if you'd prefer, give us a phone call at 1-800-800-3222 any time of the day or night to let one of our team members assist with your resource request.

Don't miss out on this limited-time offer. Visit us at tonyevans.org, or call 1-800-800-3222 to request the Hope for the Hurting and Coming to the Comforter offer. I'll have that contact information for you again after Part 2 of today's lesson.

Here's Dr. Evans. "...of the dew of heaven, and of the fatness of the earth, and an abundance of grain and new wine. May people serve you, and nations bow down to you.

Be master of your brothers, and may your mother's son bow down to you. Cursed be those who curse you, and blessed be those who bless you." Let me tell you what's in the blessing. It's in every blessing, and it is what we're going to leave everybody who needs a blessing out here.

This is what you're going to leave with. You will leave with a special future. A blessing meant a special God-designed, custom-designed future.

He says to Jacob, who he thinks is Isaac because Jacob has tricked him, he says to Jacob, let me tell you about your future. Because a blessing talked about the future. Yeah, there was stuff in the present, but the blessing was the future. Where God is taking you, we've got a generation of people with no future. And because they don't see a future, everything is now, right now.

I got to have it now, and they will do whatever it takes, even mess up their lives so they can have it now. Because they have no sense that God is up to something, that they have a destiny. That's why people don't know who they are, where they're going, when they're going to get there. They have no sense that I have a significance so deep that God has even covered my future, which means he's covered everything until I get to it. See, he's not only covered where I'm going, he's covered my road trip there, into the place he is taking me.

Let's break it down a little bit more. See, a caterpillar has a special future. Every caterpillar has a glorious future. I mean, it may be slow and slimy, it may be ugly until it cocoons and establishes its birthright. Once the caterpillar establishes its birthright, once the caterpillar establishes its ultimate reason for existence, as long as the caterpillar is saying, I'm living for now, it's always going to be slow and slimy. But once it establishes what it's really born to do, and that is give birth to something more significant, more substantive, and it cocoons, and all of a sudden inside slowness and ugliness is beauty. Inside this slimy little creature is somebody who's going to take flight to the sky. See, a lot of us have had a caterpillar existence.

We've been grounded by our background, grounded by our circumstances, grounded by our upbringing, grounded by a no-caring, dead-be-dead, grounded by an insensitive mom, grounded by relatives who abused us, who called us names and misused us. But let me tell you about your birthright. Because the moment that you accepted Jesus Christ into your life and were born again, that's your birthright, you were born again. God started the process of creating a butterfly. The problem is you can get so used to being a caterpillar so long that you don't even think that you can ever be a butterfly. But a butterfly is your birthright. It is the transformation that that caterpillar has a glorious future. Let's look at the future. He says, look, three things, three things, Jacob.

He thinks he's talking to Esau because he's been tricked, but he says three things, three things. The first thing is divine provision. He says in verse 28, the dew from the heaven will fall, and of the fatness of the earth, an abundance of grain and new wine. In other words, heaven is going to rain down what you need to get the promises of God fulfilled. I don't care how hard you work the earth. If there is no rain from heaven, nothing's going to grow. Some of us are working hard to make something of our lives. We're working hard to give ourselves a future.

We're making hard to get something done in our lives. We wonder why nothing is growing if there is no rain from heaven. It doesn't matter how hard you work on earth, nothing is going to grow. If heaven doesn't visit earth, there are no vegetables. If heaven doesn't visit earth, there is no grain. If heaven doesn't visit earth, there is no fruit.

There is no grass for the livestock to eat so that the cows can give milk. If heaven does not visit earth, earth can't show up with anything. A lot of us wonder why everything on earth is not working out because we've not yet gotten a visit from heaven, which is in the will. It's in the covenant. It's part of the blessing. He says this blessing means that heaven is going to visit you.

That's why God told him, he says, now, I want you to leave Egypt and I want you to go to the promised land. He says, now, when you get to the promised land, here's what you're going to find. You're going to find a land flowing with milk and honey.

That means highly productive. You're going to find when you get to your future, you're going to find I've already gone ahead of you to your future. There are some sinners in there, but while the sinners are occupying the territory, I'm going to tell them to dig some wells. While the sinners are occupying the territory, I'm going to tell them to plow the fields. While the sinners are occupying the territory, I'm going to tell them to plant some grapes so that when you arrive, stuff has already been taken care of. Heaven will have already visited earth and earth will have been produced so that you're going to arrive to stuff that you didn't know existed and when you get there, it's going to be more than you expected. He says heaven is going to visit earth and earth is going to produce that which you need to see the promises of God fulfilled in your life. Second, spiritual authority. He says in verse 29, the people will serve you. The nations will bow down to you.

You will be master. He says you're going to have authority. Like Adam, a place over which you are to rule. Using your gifts, your talents, your skills, and the opportunities that God brings you, everybody here has a garden. There's no Christian here that has not been given a garden, a place where God wants to root you in order to service his kingdom and to service you for good and to be a blessing to others. Everybody in here has a garden, a place over which you function as master, a place where you call the shots.

And he says, and I'm going to make sure when I take you to where I'm taking you that you are running your garden. One of the greatest things in the world is to know that there is a place for you, that you are not a mistake, you're not an evolutionary mishap. There is a place for you.

God didn't just leave you here to wonder and to just go around bouncing around like a pinball machine. There is a place for you to master. There is an area where he wants you to control.

He has given you gift skills and time, and he wants you to use that for the mastering purposes for which he has given it. That is a secure place. It is a secure place to know that God has a place for me, so for you to get me out of my place, you have to overrule God.

Overrule God? That is a secure place to be, that you have to slap God to get me. Because he says, in the place I'm putting you, you will master that place.

And that's the bad thing about folk getting in places that they're not theirs. Because now you don't have any, you're not under the umbrella, see, because God is only going to give you the umbrella in the places he's provided you. See, that's why I never have to worry about being voted out. Because if I am, it won't matter. That makes you free from threats and folks saying, well, if you don't do it my way, all right. Because I have my garden, and God's governing that garden, and I'm supposed to master the garden that he's governing that he's put me over. And you have one too? That's the blessing. That's a little bit more than having a little money and driving a nicer car that's depreciating.

That is a positioning in life. Dr. Tony Evans, talking about how God multiplies what's waiting for us when the blessings of our birthright are restored. Let me encourage you once again to take advantage of that special package of resources I mentioned a little earlier. For a limited time, when you make a contribution to help keep Tony's messages coming to you and others here on this station, we'll say thanks by sending you all 20 full-length messages in his current audio compilation called, Coming to the Comforter.

You'll get 10 lessons on CD and 10 as downloadable MP3s. And as an added bonus, we'll also send you one of the first copies of Tony's latest book, Hope for the Hurting. Just reach out to us while there's still time, make a donation, and request this special resource bundle. You can make the arrangements online at TonyEvans.org or by phone anytime 24-7 at 1-800-800-3222. We look forward to saying thank you for your partnership in this ministry by sending you this helpful package of study tools. In fact, you can also get the companion Bible study guide and DVD. Check it out when you contact us. Once again, that's online at TonyEvans.org or by phone at 1-800-800-3222. Blessings come from God, but not just from God. Tomorrow, Dr. Evans will touch on the importance of the blessings we pass on and what to do if they were never passed on to us. I hope you'll join us for that. And until then, we encourage you to bless someone you meet with an act of kindness in God's name. The alternative with Dr. Tony Evans is brought to you by the Urban Alternative and is made possible by the generous contributions of listeners like you.