The Favor Of God Part 1

This is Rodney from the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we explored manhood within Jesus Christ. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Sit back, enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network.

In men's ministry, where they're devoted to breaking down the walls of race and denomination, and challenging men to take their God-assigned role. Here's our hosts, Will Hardy and Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy. Praise the Lord and good morning, good afternoon, good evening, or good night, wherever you're listening to man talk radio from today. We just want to welcome you to another dynamite session that we're going to talk about. And we got Roy on the phone, though.

We're going to say hey to Roy. Good afternoon, good morning, good evening, Will, and I'm glad you opened up that way. That's great. Amen.

We know listeners are listening all over. We thank God for you. But I tell you, Roy, this topic today, as we were speaking a little bit about it earlier, we're going to be talking about God's favor. And the favor of God, I think it reaches far and wide when it comes to believers in Christ. But before we start, I guess we want to put a definition around favor.

I don't know if you got one or not. Well, you know, I'm glad you said that. Give me just one second, and I'll look up the actual definition of favor for us.

And that will do it by the modern technology available to us in today's time. Amen. Well, I wrote a few things down here. I said that it has a person who is well disposed or have great regard or goodwill toward. So as a believer in Christ, that's what we have. You know, God looks upon his church as the, you know, we are his eyes, ears, feet, legs of the world.

So we go out and we do those things that God has called us to do. And as a result of like when we encounter opposition or we begin to look at ourself less favorable than what God looks at us, then God reminds us in his word that whatever it is that I give you, don't look at it from the visual sense, because if we look at it from the visual sense, then we're looking at the problem or not the solution that God has for us behind the scene. Because that's how information enters.

It enters in the eye gate, the ear gate and the mouth gate. And, you know, and once it gets in there, that's what we see. We cannot see into that spirit realm. And that's where God wants us to look. He wants us to look at the things that we cannot see instead of the things we can see.

You still there, Roy? Yeah, yeah, that's good, Will. I was just processing what you were just sharing. Back to the definition, just to follow up behind your definition, from the dictionary standpoint on the Google search, from a now perspective, it says approval, support or liking for someone or something. And then, second is an act of kindness beyond what is due or usual. And I think that's a great description of God's favor, because we certainly don't, it's not due us, and it's not usual, right? It's the supernatural when he shows favor.

And there's certainly nothing that we can do to really deserve it. But he does honor our efforts and our heart for him by showing us favor in particular situations and times in our life. And you know, I think that's the beauty of favor, is that you don't have to work for it, because in some portions of Scripture, and some of them we'll look at as we go through our conversation, is that favor, when in the Hebrew, depending on the context of the Scripture that we read, it could be also translated as grace.

So God gives grace in certain situations that man, and not only the person who he has given it to, or the people who he's given it to, but people who are outside of Christ can see what God is doing, and they may not be able to explain it, that God is doing this for this people. For example, in Exodus, God was talking to Moses, and he said in Exodus chapter number three, and verse 21, he said, I'll give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians. So the people of Israel were crying out to God. God heard their cry. They had to go through what they went through because of their disobedience, but God says, I'm still going to pour my favor on you. And that's exactly what he did, and then he went on to say, when you leave this place, you're not going to leave empty-handed. He basically gave the Egyptians, were just giving the Israelites all kinds of things that they needed, when finally Pharaoh said, get on out of my Egypt and go out to the desert, worship your God, or wherever you're going to go. So God granted favor to the children of Israel when they started crying out to him. God said, you don't have anything, but I'm going to give you everything the Egyptians have. So when you leave here, you're going to have cattle, you're going to have sheep, you're going to have horses, you're going to have oxen, you're going to have everything you need on your journey to the promised land. That's good, Will.

I tell you, that rattled my bones, Roy, and it don't take much to rattle my bones, but when I read that, it was like, wow. So I know you got some examples, too. Yeah, and one of the things I was thinking about, Will, sorry with this microphone, a little bit of feedback there, but one of the things, as I was doing some research on this topic, was the number of times that favor comes up in the NIV.

And this is just an interesting fact for those who are listening. In the NIV version of the Bible, it comes up 125 times the word favor in the whole Bible, and only 21 times in the New Testament, which tells you more about God's favor in the Old Testament, right, in so many different circumstances. And in the New Testament, we hear and we read when Jesus, you remember, left his parents when they went back home and they couldn't find him, he spent three days in the temple, right? And part of that was after he was obviously remorseful for what he had done, but he wasn't because he had to be with his dad, right, had time with his father.

He found favor with God because of his learning and time in the temple. Remember that? Yeah.

Mm-hmm. And that was, I never looked at it that way, even though he was out of alignment with his parents at that moment, but he knew he was about his father's business there. Yeah, see, and he says the same thing in Luke chapter 2 verse 52, that Jesus increased in wisdom and statue and in favor with God and with man. Yeah, exactly. So I think when you get yourself situated in Christ, being a member of the body as a whole, and you're positioned in that body, and you're doing the will of God, then God will just all of a sudden start manifesting himself.

And last week, I just want to share a personal testimony on how God shown favor to me. There was something that I couldn't figure out. I was in there and it was like, I just don't know what the answer is here.

It's just not lining up. And I didn't know where to turn to. It was like I'm sitting there and all of a sudden within myself, it was like, okay, I'm looking at this problem and there's at least three things I can do. So hopefully one of these three things that I can do can, you know, fix this problem. And so I went and did number one, no results.

Okay. I said, all right, I got two more chances. I did number two, nothing.

I did number three, nothing. So now, you know, the old saying, three strikes, you're out. So now it's like, so now I'm sitting there going, wow, I have used up everything, Lord, that I know what to do. And I think that's what God wanted. God wanted me to see here you are attempting to figure it out in your own strength and all you had to do is look to me. So what I did is I didn't even look at that thing anymore.

I didn't even look at it. I said, I'm putting it in the hands of God. I did those things that I figured would work. And then all of a sudden, it wasn't even 30 minutes later, all of a sudden, bam, the answer came. And it was like, you know, I wasted a lot of time. All I could have done was just turn that thing over to God in the first place and not trying to figure this thing out in my own strength. Yeah, I had to worry about it.

Exactly. So, but I looked at that as God was blessing me to do this lesson and just say, that's favor. God granted favor to me to figure that thing out. And I'm saying to our listeners out there, see, when you have exhausted everything that you know what to do in regards to some issues, some problems, some obstacle that's in your life. When you turn that thing over to God, God will grant you favor because he looks at his people that way.

Isn't that right, Roy? Amen. You know, Will, in our own life, just over the recent weeks, you know, and you and our co-worker that we dedicated the show to several weeks ago. As you had brought this topic for us to discuss to the table, one thing that came to mind was seeing how God had showed favor on his life. After he had turned his life over to him, after Roger had made that commitment to follow Christ and just seeing the last several years how his favor was that he kept him alive longer. He kept him basically pain-free with the exception of a few little nuances here and there. But as we talked about, to be saved for cancer and to be virtually pain-free in your final days of living is just unheard of without God's intervention in favor.

And God will show favor and be hopeful to you. We'll be back, Roy. Hold that thought, Roy. We'll be back in a minute.

And Roy Jones Jr., a black guy and a white guy. Praise the Lord, everybody. We are back once again talking about God's favor. God's favor and, Roy, we didn't mean to interrupt you, but we were coming up on that quick break.

But you were saying, go ahead. Yeah, I was just talking about when we get God's favor, sometimes we, like you mentioned earlier, you go at things and try to do it all yourself and then you realize, I just need to sit back and let God resolve this. In our friend's case, he committed his life to Christ three years ago and was in the worst of the battle in terms of physical health. And just watching how God had his hand on him and showed favor throughout so many steps of that last three years and even beyond, he was watching over him before he committed his life to Christ. But just, it's really beautiful when you see how God is actually proving it out every day in people's lives and when they feel like they have nowhere to turn and they finally turn it over to him and how he shows favor even amidst our undeservingness. You know, that we don't really belong there and we don't really belong in a position of favor, but because of our love for him and his love for us, he does show favor. And it's quite a beautiful concept and certainly gives reason for hope for everyone and that's part of what our show's about, is to provide hope to our listeners and specifically to men. And you know, it's come up recently, Will, I know you've had it, you deal with it on a regular basis, as do I in being involved with men's ministry, that men are struggling for hope at times.

They don't feel like they have that and they don't feel like they get much favor because of the position they're in, the person they've put themselves in at some time. And we just need to continue to encourage our listeners to say, God has got you undergirded and will support you and love on you and will show you favor. You just be faithful to him and as we always say, if you'll just step towards him in the natural and let him take care of the rest in the supernatural, a lot of these burdens will go away and just certainly seem much more manageable and you can climb the mountain much easier once you've done that. Amen, Roy, because you know, we're our own worst enemy sometimes, I think. You know, we have a tendency to say, oh, the devil made me do this. But I think, you know, it starts as we have talked about in James chapter 1, you know, every man sinned when he is drawn away by his own lust. So when we're concentrating and looking and thinking about those things, then Satan kicks himself in the gear and said, okay, now I got your mind on this, that or the other thing. Now I'm going to plant this seed and that seed is going to germinate and it's going to create all kinds of roots of bitterness, discourse and, you know, disagreements and contrasting viewpoints and everything else, you know, malicious thought. So, you know, that's a blessing that you talk about that because I think one of the best examples of favor, and again, when you're talking about the Word of God, there is no one that I guess that's better than the other one.

But one that I prefer to talk about is, of course, Joseph, you know, how he, you know, God blessed through his dad, see, because his dad had favor on Joseph. Because he made him this coat of many colors or a tunic, you know, of many colors and, of course, when his brothers saw that, they got jealous. And then they came up with the plot, you know, let's kill him. And then, of course, Reuben stepped in there and said, no, no, no, don't kill him. Let's just pretend like he's dead.

So let's just throw him in the pit. And then they came up with this scheme, you know, of taking a goat, slaying it and dipping the tunic in blood, showing it to the dad and said, your son, your son has been eaten, you know, by a tiger lion, you know. But all of that that Joseph had to go through, God had favor. In Genesis chapter 39 and verse 21, it says, but the Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.

Of course, that's when he was sold, you know, to the Ishmaelites and they took him to Egypt. And then, you know, he found favor, you know, with the second in command. And then all of a sudden, here he is in prison and God is showing him favor there. Because the brothers, the brothers, see, they didn't want to accept his dream when he told him, your sheep gonna bow down to my sheep and, you know, and there's really, you're the youngest and you don't have a say here. But when God gave him that dream, he was showing Joseph favor. And then when he was in the prison, he showed him favor again because the butcher and the baker and the butler were thrown down there in the prison. And Joseph said, hey, you know, you all got a dream, I'll interpret this thing and I'll tell you exactly what's going to happen.

One was favorable, one was not. But again, God showed favor to Joseph because everything, Roy, he had to go through, every single thing. And this is what we're saying to you, listener, every single thing that you're going through, God is showing you favor. Not because of the thing, but he's giving you the strength to be able to go through it.

If Joseph relied on his own strength, he'd be dead, Roy, long time ago. Yes, yes. And that's important. Well, it's a good point we continue to drive to the listeners is that even though you may not think favor is there, it is there. Even though you can't see it, it's there.

It may be coming later in a different form or it may be things that you can't see that he's keeping off of you. And that's what's so encouraging to me as a follower of Christ is no matter how difficult the storm is, that he has it, and I know that I've got favor with him as long as I'm serving him and doing his will. You know, Will, one of the most, I guess the greatest stories back when Mary was being told that she was going to give birth to Jesus, and here she was a virgin, and in that as Gabriel came to greet her, he told her that she had found favor with the Lord and she was highly favored. And, of course, obviously we would all be a little bit scared in that moment, and then he told her that she was highly favored and that she had found favor with God and that she was going to conceive and give birth to Jesus. What an amazing achievement of favor, you know, and I won't say achievement, but more a gift of favor from God. But it was back to her love of God, right, that she found favor and the reason she found favor. And just an amazing story there, and that's why we're here today, because of the favor that was bestowed upon Mary.

That's right, because, you know, and Mary, God had a special plan, just like he has a special plan for each and every one of us. And the plan, we may not be able to see it. And see, I keep going back to this, see it, because we want to see things happen right now. We want to see things happen right away, and when they don't, we just give up sometimes.

Because we say, well, if I don't see it in 30 days, 10 days, 6 days, well, you may not see it for 3 months. But, again, that doesn't mean God is not working. So, when you are being obedient to God, I think God bestows blessings and showers us down with blessing upon blessing. Even, Roy, when you think God is putting you in a situation to where you're not going to receive favor, it's when you receive favor, if that makes sense. Because what he did, this is what he did to Moses. He showed Moses favor, and Moses didn't even know that God was favoring him. In Numbers 11 and verse 11, it says, And Moses said to the Lord, Wherefore have you afflicted your servant? And wherefore have I not found favor in your sight, that you may lay upon me this burden of all these people? So, see, Moses looked at God's favor as a burden. But, see, he couldn't see what God was going to do because he was looking at the task at hand.

He was looking at the multitude of people. You want me to lead this multitude of people, and yet you placed this burden on me. I can't see, Lord, where you're showing me favor.

But he did. That's the beauty. That's exactly right, Will. What's challenging, I think, for followers of Christ is this, especially in our countries we've talked about, is the need for immediate gratification or immediate resolve, right? And part of the growth in following Christ is that you have to be patient because through the tempering, and that being the patience and the perseverance is where our faith grows, that that's where the favor also comes because you're maturing as a follower of Christ. Now, any of us that have been through the fire know that that is the least comfortable place to be, without a doubt.

That's right. In the middle of a storm, it seems hopeless. And to Will's point earlier, folks, Satan is trying to continue to keep you off balance by throwing thoughts at you, bringing things into your life, other discussions and other things that are not edifying or uplifting or positively reinforcing in your relationship with God. So you need to be mindful of that, and when those things start to happen, just take that thought captive for God and for Jesus Christ and say, This is yours, Lord. I don't need to be in this lane of thinking.

I don't need to be swimming in this lane. And when you do that, and then you immediately focus back on the love relationship and the joy that comes from that relationship and the security and the peace, then you're proving your confidence and your faith in God. And God, to Will's point and to our discussion, will bring favor into your life in sometimes ways that you'll never see, as we've mentioned.

And I bet if you sit and think, Listerine, about the many ways He's shown favor in your life, your list is much longer than you would ever imagine. And that's the thing, Roy. We've got to consider it. Consider what God has done. And don't hold on to hate. Don't hold on to anger.

As we end the broadcast, we've got a little less than 30 seconds left on the broadcast. Roy, we've got to continue this next week talking about favor, because I think there's so much more we can put around this subject. But, listener, we want you to take what was said today. Don't look at it in the natural. Look at things in the supernatural. Do what God has done, and He'll bless your soul.

Thank God for you. We'll see you next time. As we wrap up today's show, be assured that TAWCMM, Talking and Walking Christian Men's Ministry, is building a community of men that are Christ followers with the desire to be servant leaders in their homes, communities, churches, and work environments. Check out our website for upcoming events and regularly scheduled meetings. Drop us a note for topics that you would like to have us visit in the future. Thank you for joining us on Man Talk today. Visit us at www.tawcmm.com. Men walking the talk.