Finding the Favorable

I decided to do a series on “Favor” because I got sick of hearing about favor that was only pseudo-Biblical. I kept hearing things like, if you pray for 18 days, then God will do 18 miracles in 180 days; or if you ask God and rub his lamp a certain way, you get three wishes and it’ll change your life; or my absolute favorite, if you pay tithes, then you will get 100% of that tithe back. So let’s get this straight—you can fast for 40 days and experience nothing except hunger in your life; you can ask for three wishes, but you’ll probably wish that you never asked in the first place; you can pay tithes and get nothing back, since God already gave you a job that you’re taking 10% from, so, don’t think doing something that is expected from you as a reason to get favor. Political “favors” usually work in a tit-for-tat type of motion where you scratch the weird spot on the left side of another person’s back and he/she scratches your itchy spot. That’s not Biblical, that’s business. If you don’t already know, “favor” is something that is bestowed upon you just because. Most times, it doesn’t even need a reason. This is Biblical “favor” anyways. Romans 5:6-8 says, “6 You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. 7 Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Jesus didn’t have to die for us to save us from ourselves; but because he favored us, he did. This is the ultimate favor, but you already knew that. You know that we don’t deserve favor and received it, so it makes it harder for us to ask God for anymore favors. At least that what I hear sometimes. We’re afraid to ask. We’re afraid to take from somebody giving us a favor. It is God’s favor and He wants to give it, yet we sit favorless because we have some messed up thought in our head that tells us that “favor” is a bad thing and that we would owe somebody something later. We already owe God our lives and being; why not also take some of His favor too? This is the argument I am going to make over the next month. • 2/5 – Finding the Favorable – yes, I’m a systems guy and you know it because I’m going lay out the Bible map on finding the favorable moment and time. • 2/12 – Finding Favor in Brokenness – Being broken may be the exact thing we need to see where favor comes to live in our lives. • 2/19 – Finding Favor as a Foreigner – Sometimes being a foreigner puts us at a disadvantage, God’s favor says, this is where even more mercy and grace is bestowed. • 2/26 – Finding Favor in Sorrow – Yes, there is favor in being sad and depressed. Lets start this morning with finding the favorable—because all of us are favorable when we realize it. 13 Then Moses said to God, “If I come to the people of Israel and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” 14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” 15 God also said to Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you.’ This is my name forever, and thus I am to be remembered throughout all generations. 16 Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying, “I have observed you and what has been done to you in Egypt, 17 and I promise that I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt to the land of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, a land flowing with milk and honey.”’ 18 And they will listen to your voice, and you and the elders of Israel shall go to the king of Egypt and say to him, ‘The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us; and now, please let us go a three days’ journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.’ 19 But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. 20So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt with all the wonders that I will do in it; after that he will let you go. 21And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and when you go, you shall not go empty, 22 but each woman shall ask of her neighbor, and any woman who lives in her house, for silver and gold jewelry, and for clothing. You shall put them on your sons and on your daughters. So you shall plunder the Egyptians.” – Exodus 3:13-22 Here’s the first thing: God is observing your life. We read this in verse 16. God sees your afflictions. You may feel alone. You may feel like there is no favor in your life. But the mere fact that God is watching you and observing the beatings you are taking mentally, physically and emotionally makes you favorable. Just think about it. If you were not favored, there would be no reason for God to watch you in your struggle. He’s not watching your life to be entertained; He is watching you and feeling your pain. You’re not one of them subway car shows, absolutely not. He is watching you because you interest Him. The reason God watches your life and observes your life is so that He can bestow upon you favor. Let me define favor then as an action. Favor is an opportunity to change your life. People don’t get that about favor. When you have God’s favor, He is offering you an opportunity to change the circumstances that hold you prisoner. He is giving you a promise declaring that when you accept His favor that the game changes. Look at verse 17, it says “I promise to bring you up out of the affliction.” This is the beauty of favor—it can’t be manufactured. Favor is something God does for you because you can’t do it for yourself. I know it’s counterintuitive, but we have been taught by the American social system that we make our own favor when we hustle and bustle; there is a myth that says we can pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and take matters into our own hands. That is a lie—there is always somebody or something granting us favor to allow for an opportunity to walk through the doors of change. Therefore, true favor is a seeking a good thing and getting a God thing. If we don’t want change or something different to happen, then we won’t get it. Absolutely not. The Israelites have been crying for a change to their socio-economic predicament for 400 years! That’s four generations! If they weren’t seeking a change (the good thing) there would be no way God would make a God thing for them. I want to share with you now the crazy thing about favor. Favor comes with heavy opposition. When you become favored by God, there will be principalities standing between you and getting God’s thing. The powers that be, don’t want change, they want you to get “good” things, but if you receive a “God” thing, it would upset power and turn everything on its head. That is not what Satan wants, it is not what people want. They want you to be minimized so that they can get the glory, so that they can take advantage of their circumstances. By God favoring you, it takes away from their ability to capitalize on that. Opposition allows God to make good things into God things. I want you to underline verse 21—“And I will give this people favor.” I want you to say it with me now. “I want to give this people favor.” God wants to give you favor, but you have to ask God for His favor. Favor must be asked for so that it can be bestowed. Now I want you to circle this phrase in verse 21—“you shall not go empty.” Just having an opportunity is not enough when God is bestowing upon us, His favor. It absolutely isn’t. He wants us to have, not only an opportunity, but He also wants us to have a chance to maximize on that opportunity. Do you know why God gave the Israelites gold and silver from the Egyptians? It’s because gold and silver can be used to barter. God gives us favor, but also gives us tools to use that favor! Does that sound unfair? Absolutely it does and it is unfair, but to the favorable, it is an awesome gift that we should receive with humility and thanksgiving. Honestly, I am a recipient of God’s most awesome favor. I’m not bragging, but I want to share this with you. When I got the chance to change my life like 12 years ago by going to Notre Dame, it was by God’s favor. I had good opportunities at other colleges I could have gone to, but it was God’s opportunity that was at Notre Dame that made me go that way. The former CEO at Chase Bank gave me money to go to school. He not only paid for my college degree, he gave me allowance money so that I wouldn’t be struggling to make it. There was a lot of opposition when I went to college too! I want to say also that this favor wasn’t possible at all without God bestowing upon this CEO a feeling that he should have favor on me. I want to keep reading, Exodus 33. 12 Moses said to the LORD, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ 13 Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” 14 And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” 15 And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. 16 For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?” 17 And the LORD said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.” – Exodus 33:12-17 Here’s what we learn in verse 13—Favor comes from personally knowing the one who bestows it. This is so important. This can apply politically, economically, and theologically. You can only get favor if you know where the favor is coming from. Likewise, you can’t get favor if the person bestowing it doesn’t know who you are. Moses asks God, “show me your ways.” This sentence sounds like a tautology, but it actually isn’t. The favor Moses talks about in the first part of the sentence is “grace.” When we receive “favor” we are receiving “grace.” Not some plain ‘ole grace, but unwarranted grace. You did nothing to deserve this. Then when we get to know the bestower of this “grace” personally, we get “favor” in the form of “blessing” or opportunity. I had to through that in there so you get a grasp of what’s going on—that is, we receive favor despite what we do. You see, favor is about who we are to the bestower of that favor. Verse 15, “if your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here.” If you live your life and don’t feel God moving and shaking, your life doesn’t have the favor of God. It’s as simple as that. You may have gotten God’s favor when you walked through an opportunity to change your life, but if God ain’t there, then there is no actual favor—it’s luck and that runs out quick. The favor of God is in His presence that is with you. When God’s presence is with you, you become marked with distinction. You become an “it” person. If we look at verse 16, we see what it means to have God’s presence with us. A favored person’s life is distinct from other people. When the Israelites began to move out of Sinai and into the promise land, the indigenous people knew that there was something distinctive about them—the Israelites were set apart for something. This is because the presence of God went out with a bunch of slaves to conquer fortified city-states. We talk about favor today because we live like we don’t have any favor, when all we have is the presence of God, distinctively marking us apart from the rest of the world to change something and do something that we were never able to do. We just never took hold of that. I haven’t said this in a while, but this is what this church we’re working on building is about. We want to be marked distinctively to do something for community, for society that is just not possible with our own power. I want you to live it and reflect upon it this week. Answer those reflection questions. Let’s pray.