The Legacy of a Man | Sermon by Tony Evans

[Music] i want to invite all men on a journey a journey that has to do with why you matter i know we're living in a day when the importance of men has been downgraded has been reduced and in some places totally removed appropriate masculinity has gone unappreciated and undervalued but god is calling men to rise to a whole new level remember god asked adam a fundamental question adam where are you i'd like to say adam where you at because this whole future of civilization will be keyed in to fulfilling your god-designed god-created and god-given role so then it's time to rise up over the next number of months we're going to be challenging men to a new level of manhood personal family church and cultural impact and when god's men rise up things are going to change when we fail to rise up as the bible makes clear things will disintegrate so join me let's go on a journey together and see what happens when kingdom men rise every responsible man here ought to have a will if you are a man and you have a family you ought to protect their future and that comes through having a will a will is a legal document that says that what you have accumulated in your life this is how you want it passed on to those that you leave behind to not have a will is to say i want somebody else to determine where what i have been able to accumulate the assets of my existence i want somebody else to determine where they go how they are distributed and where they wind up but a responsible man wants to be ahead of that and make the determination of where their assets are to go you see to create a will is saying you are future minded you won't always be here so you're going to be thinking about tomorrow today in your financial or asset planning unfortunately what many do not understand is that there are not only wills of physical assets their wills of spiritual assets what you pass on generationally that has spiritual value attached to it and unfortunately many men who don't even bother to pass on physical assets refuse to pass on spiritual assets one or both because they're not future minded and as a result of not being future minded there is chaos in the future because there was not clarity set forth in the present the bible has a lot to say about legacy about what is passed on to the next generation and beyond in fact proverbs chapter 13 verse 20 2 says a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children translation a bad man leaves no inheritance to his children's children so if there is no future planning you cannot be dubbed a good man because a good man is not only thinking about what's happening with him today but what will happen on a three-generational level he's concerned about today he's concerned about his children and that he's concerned about his children's children his grandchildren so a man who's not three generationally minded god says he's not a good man because he's not thinking long term he may only be thinking about today as though tomorrow will never come so every man all of us as christians but specifically to men a good man has to be generationally minded at least three generations long for god to call you good in judges chapter 2 verse 10 it says that they grew up a generation who did not know joseph who did not know as god and as a result chaos ensued and when you read the book of judges you have a culture in perpetual chaos because there was a transfer of the spiritual baton that did not occur in fact the book of judges says and every man did that which was right in his own eyes because there was no king in those days there was no standard that had been passed on today we live in a day of societal chaos and that chaos can be routed back to men who refuse to build a spiritual legacy many refuse to man up to god's requirement for biblical manhood and like it or not god starts with holding the man responsible for how the legacy works out or does not god says i am the god of abraham isaac and jacob he never says i am the god of sarah rebecca and rachel it's not because he's against the women it's just that the man was responsible the whole condemnation of the human race is tied to a man the bible says in adam all die doesn't say in adam and eve only in adam the man all die that is because the man was held responsible so like it or not one it or not that's just the way it is and so we're introduced in this passage of scripture to a man named asher asher let me tell you a little bit about asher verse 30 says asher had four sons and one daughter asher was the father of five children and when we end the story of asher as you'll see he comes out pretty good but he didn't start that way you see asher is the seventh son of jacob he is the first son of zilpah the seventh son of jacob if he's the seventh son of jacob that means he's been raised in a dysfunctional family because as far as jacob's family was concerned papa was a rolling stone wherever he laid his hat was his home because jacob had 12 kids by four different women jacob created chaos in his family asher the seventh son of jacob participated with his brothers in putting joseph into the pit so he was part of the conniving group of siblings that wanted to ruin their brother's life his daddy jacob was known as the trickster or deceiver he knew how to game and so he played games all of his life and that rolled over to his children so jacob the patriarch created havoc in his family due to his deception it rubbed off on his boys his boys destroyed or tried to destroy one of their brothers he wasn't raised in a good healthy home environment it wasn't the kind of environment that would been have been inducive to an orderly family structure there are men here and since he had a daughter there are women here who have been raised in dysfunctional families well before you ever get to first chronicles chapter 7 that's asha that's his history and his background it's not a pretty one it's not to be one to be proud of but somewhere along the line there was a transformation that occurred in the life of ashley because when we read about him here in 1st corinthians chapter 7 we're going to give you some good news so the good news that i want to give all of us here today especially the men but the principle applies to all of us is that your past doesn't have to determine your future that no matter how messed up your yesterday was does not have to control what your tomorrow will be like that you have an option to change your legacy and that the legacy bequeathed to you does not have to be the legacy you dispense to others whether it is your immediate family whether it's your siblings or those who come under your influence such is the case with the change and transformation that took place in the life of asher well let's go to verse 40 because we'll see four things of asher's impact and his legacy that ought to be true of every man and every head of household who is here all these verse 40 says were the sons of asher heads of the father's houses heads of the father's houses his four boys became heads of houses they became leaders in their family head of a house is a leader of a home whatever asha did when he got right so influenced his four boys that they were able to take up responsible reigns in their own families it says that his sons became heads of households that is leaders within their home that is they were willing to own the responsibility for the family the government's not supposed to raise your children the neighborhood is not supposed to raise your children the father in the bible raises the children ephesians 6 4 fathers raise your children the man has to own it he raised his sons to be leaders to be responsible as one woman said to her husband if you're not gonna wear the pants and go to my closet and pick out a pair of mine that is to own the biblical responsible role of headship you say i haven't seen it i don't know what it looks like then like anything you need to know about you learn it but what you don't do is ignore it because every man has been called if he has a family to operate as head the responsible person in it now that does not mean you're the most gifted your wife may be have greater leadership skills than you she may have better organizational skills than you but that has nothing to do with hitchhike headship is not the most skilled person it's where the buck stops it's the responsible person so god has given you the office while you hold the office you learn the gifts of those for whom you're responsible and you maximize those gifts so that your office looks good headship is responsibility headship also involves direction it involves whether it's a president or the head of a company or the head of a church or whatever headship means you are casting a direction so that people know which way we're going if you're lost and you've got folk following you they're going to be lost there since they don't know where you're going they're either going to follow you nowhere or decide they don't want to go nowhere they'd rather go somewhere so they create their own vision to be ahead means that i want to be in close proximity with god so that god can speak to me by his holy spirit and give me direction so that those following me will have a place to go so if the man if god can't give the man clarity then those following him joshua says in joshua 24 15 as for me and my house we will serve the lord i'm going to set the spiritual which is the most important the foundational the biblical direction and what that means is that you're not following the crowd so you're picking up your cues from him so asha recovered in some way and he raised his sons to be heads of households with fire and vision if you're going to be the head you just can't see the acorn you got to look at the oak you got to see bigger than what is yeah things are not looking good but but me and god got to get together and we got to find out how he wants us to fix this correct this straighten this reorient this why because you just said you the man you say you the man well if you're the man you got the man up in a responsible biblical way the second thing we find out about ash's sons is he calls them choice men choice men that means cream of the crop choice men they weren't they weren't running the milk guys somehow in this turn around he said my boys are not going to be like everybody else's sons my boys are not going to just run with the crowd i'm going to raise up some excellent choice cream of the crop boys with one daughter i'm going to raise them up to be the men that god has created them to be i'm not going to let them settle i'm not going to let the boys settle they're not going to be just like everybody else they're not gonna come in here talking about what my friends say if their friends are wrong i'm not gonna let them hang out with anybody because they're gonna be excellent which means i'm gonna give them a standard to shoot for i ain't gonna let social media i'm not gonna let twitter i'm not gonna let instagram i'm not gonna let facebook set my kids standard i'm gonna raise some choice boys up in here up in here there's going to be a divine standard that i that i give them that i want to model before them that i want to teach them that i want to expose them to he says his boys became choice boys high character high integrity high standards the third thing it says about asher's sons he speaks in particularly of he says they were mighty men in verse 40. mighty men they were raised to be warriors mighty men not mediocre men these are some mighty dudes they were raised to be warriors see you have to understand we're in spiritual warfare here we're in a war you now have to fight for your kids well right now you and i live in a post-christian era it's called post-modernism where the absolute standards of right and wrong no longer apply so people are making up their own rules as they go along of what's right and wrong so you bet not just send them out to play with anybody you do have to watch what they're being taught in school and so he raised warriors you've got to go to war you've got to fight he says he raised warriors men who would fight he would battle for his kids his family and who would be willing to take the hit fight for your kids fight for the future wade spiritual warfare you take them before the throne of grace you take them you you have devotions with them you pray over them go to war because the devil is going to war form he says he raised his sons to be warriors to fight for that which was right and then he says fourthly he raised them to be mentors because he says heads of the princesses he raised him to be mentors you see a prince is a king in waiting he says he raised they were heads of princesses they were they were raising future kings he says they were mentored they were raised as princesses that is position for future kingship and so the question is what level of mentoring are we giving our kids and remember to the third generation our grandkids many a young man has been spiritually castrated because he's not been given a sense of his royal standing in the family and most importantly with the lord they've been duped and ripped there's no godly male figure who loves god who loves them who gives them a biblical worldview and who spiritually imparts to them so that they take all of god into all of life into all of their world but the good news is that god can change your yesterday no matter how messed up it is and give you a different tomorrow i know your daddy wasn't there or he was a bad daddy that was there i know you've had bad experiences and you've had sins and rebellion i know all that but then all you are is just give yourself a name call yourself asha cause you got some dysfunction in your history but the good news is he shows up in chapter seven of first chronicles a brand new man so your yesterday doesn't have to control your tomorrow because look at how this thing closes it says at the end of verse 40 and the number of them enrolled by genealogy for service in war was 26 000 men oh wait a minute now we started off with one man four sons and one daughter but the time by the time this man got through he got 26 000 in his legacy that are ready to go to war see you just can't be thinking about you you got to be thinking about the generations behind you and you got to build yourself an army an army of men and women that meant women were in it because more boys were being born and so you got to build yourself an army the problem is satan has been building his army while god's army has been shrinking so we got to build an army 26 000 men you got to have a bunch of folks who take a stand with god and with one another so what god is looking for are men who want to recover men who want to get back the dignity that god created you with who want to fulfill the role that god has given you in super bowl 43 when san antonio holmes caught the pass that won the super bowl don't forget one minute earlier he had dropped the ball ben roethlisberger threw him the ball and he dropped it but then ben roethlisberger called him back and said i'ma throw it to you again and this time don't drop it so if you've dropped it yesterday you got kids you don't live with kids you sire that you don't talk to grandkids that you don't know okay you dropped the ball but god's ready to throw you another pass and now you got to be willing to catch the ball and move from here you say but i wonder whether it's too late well no it can't be too late because in hebrews chapter 11 verse 21 it says that jacob even with his grandchildren recovered because he blessed his grandchildren while he leaned on his staff just before he died so if it's too late with your kids get your grandkids so that you reach them and impact them for time and eternity god is a generational god he regularly speaks about one generation to another he talks about i am the god of abraham isaac and jacob he talks about a good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children god is a generational god so men must think and function generationally it's not just about your life nor is it just about your children it also includes your grandchildren when we do not think about cross-generational impact we're not thinking about legacy and if we're not thinking about legacy that means we don't care about the future we must make our decisions now in light of the generations to come when we do that not only do we give ourselves purpose and dignity and impact we give our names longevity remember legacy is more than a name legacy involves the kind of impact you make in the lives of others in such a way that you inspire them through your legacy to build and transfer their own [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Tony Evans

Views: 30,847

Rating: 4.9134021 out of 5

Keywords: sermon, sermons for men

Id: yjLyLbMx6nM

Length: 27min 40sec (1660 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 06 2021