Just Like Jesus, Part 1: Growth

Well, I'm beginning a series tonight and I don't know when I'll get to minister the whole load, so I'm just going to start and see where it goes.

But it's the Just Like Jesus series and we're going to do a part one tonight.

Just Like Jesus, just Like Jesus.

And so I have a couple of foundations scriptures of the series.

First one is in 1 John, chapter 4.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

You can turn there with me, verse 17.

It says love has been perfected among us in this, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment.

Because as he is, so are we in this world.

As he is not, was not.

What did Jesus do?

But what is he today?

As he is in heaven, so are we on earth.

We are him here.

We are the body of Christ.

Everybody say I am the body of Christ.

Then in Ephesians, chapter 5, in verse 1, it says therefore, be imitators of God as dear children and walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given himself for us and offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet, smelling aroma.

Ephesians 5 · chapter mention

So we are to be imitators of God.

Just like a little kid I mean when Ben was little.

Now he's 14, he's in high school.

Y'all cry with me.

My only son is in high school, but when he was little, when he was about two and three years old, he had a little plastic lawn mower and he would push that lawn mower.

James would push the lawn mower in the yard and then Ben would push the little plastic lawn mower.

And so today we have a riding lawn mower.

Hallelujah, god gave us a riding lawn mower.

And so now he and James operate the riding lawn mower.

Praise God.

But he is an imitator and kids do that.

It's precious, it's endearing when they imitate their parents.

Amen, god wants us to be so.

We are just like Jesus and part one.

Tonight I want to talk about his growth.

You know I'm going to kind of walk through the.

In this series.

We're going to walk through the parts of life of Jesus' life and look at what he did, because the things that he did are the things God wants us not just to do individually, but that's the track that he wants the body of Christ to be on.

And so when Jesus was a child, we don't know very much about his childhood, but we do know.

In Luke 2, and if you know me, you know that this is something I pray over my kids every day.

I mean every day, and so you can pick up some little nuggets about how to pray over your kids tonight, if you will.

And this is also just for us, how to live our lives.

Luke 2, I'm going to start with 40.

It says and the child grew and became strong in spirit.

Everybody say strong in spirit, filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him.

So we know that Jesus here.

He had wisdom, he had strength, he had strengthened his spirit and the grace of God was on him.

He had divine favor on his life.

All right, so he had those three things.

But then about 12 verses later, in 52, read that it says and Jesus increased.

Everybody say he increased.

He increased in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.

So he had one level and then he increased.

And we can have one level of what God has for us.

We can have one level, but then we can always be increasing, we can be growing and we ought to be growing, just like Jesus grew.

And one thing he and I say that over the abandoned Anna, they're growing in wisdom and stature and they have favor with God and man.

They're growing in wisdom and stature and they have favor with God and man they're growing with.

We say it every night, every night, backwards and forwards, and every other way.

And then one day y'all know our story, how we took our kids.

We had just an urgency to get them into a different school, even though everything was fine on the outside.

We put them in this school.

They were in this school a year.

Was everything perfect in the school?

Not really.

Is anything perfect in any school?

No, but we knew many times along the way that we were doing the right thing.

And then one day, james and I went to a meeting of the school board and they were discussing the end goals that they have for all the students.

And this is something I had never seen before.

They pulled out the Bible and they're on their little scripture sheet, that.

They are in their little sheet, their end goals.

And there it was Luke 2.52.

We modeled our school after Luke 2.52, that the students would grow in wisdom and in stature.

So we have athletics and we want them to have academics.

We want them to have athletics, favor with God, we want them to have spiritual insight and favor with man.

We want them to have a social component in the school.

So here they were, just like that was like every day.

Oh okay, this is our school.

I didn't know that We've been going there a year.

I thought, wow, they based the whole school on that scripture.

We pray over the kids every day and the hair is kind of raised up on the back of my neck in that good way when the Holy Ghost is like see, see, I did that for you, I did that for you, but it's a good pattern.

So I did a little word study.

So that's our pattern for tonight.

Luke 2.52 is going to be our pattern.

Wisdom, stature, favor with God, favor with man those four things.

God wants us to grow in those things.

It doesn't matter if you're a kid or if you're an old lady or somewhere in between.

You can grow in these things.

And the body of Christ is growing and stepping out.

And so Acts 19, verse 20, it says the word of the Lord grew and mightily prevailed.

Acts 19:20

God wants us to grow and mightily prevailed and never be satisfied, just staying at one level.

So when I looked up what wisdom meant, that's what blew my mind.

That is what blew my mind.

So I looked up the word wisdom that was used here in Luke 2.52.

And there, in the Strongest Concordance, there is an outline of biblical usage of that word.

And so I'm going to read you some of those things.

I pray that every day, over my kids not knowing what I was really praying, and it got even better once I studied.

I hope this blesses you all tonight.

So here's what wisdom, the outline of biblical usage of that word.

In other words, what does wisdom mean to God?

How did he use that word?

When we pray for wisdom, how many of you ask for wisdom from the Lord on a regular basis?

I mean we should.

Right James said if any man lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives liberally and without reproach, but let him ask in faith, nothing doubting.

So we just ask and knowing that God's going to pour out wisdom.

What are we really asking for?

Listen to this.

So okay, it starts out real.

Okay, the wisdom which belongs to men.

Okay, I've heard Dennis Prager say he's a rabbi that I like to listen to on the radio.

He says that wisdom is applied knowledge.

So you know we talk about.

We hear the word of God, we know something in our brain tissue, we hear it, but to apply it in our lives.

That's wisdom To use it, to be a doer of the word and not just a hearer.

Only If we hear it and don't do it, we'll forget and we'll lose what God had for us.

But if we hear it and then we put it and find a way to do it in our life where it counts, when it's hard, when it didn't make sense, like we didn't know how to apply it, how do we do that?

The Holy Ghost?

The Holy Ghost will help you.

But I can't, claire, I can't afford to tithe.

I mean I know the word says I should, but I mean my bills are just piling up.

I have no, the Holy Ghost, show you there's a way.

But, claire, I tried that already.

I tried holding my child accountable for this behavior, and over here I tried that and it just it didn't work.

The Holy Ghost will help you apply, do what you know to do.

You just be faithful to do it.

So okay.

So wisdom and applying knowledge, that's good, all right.

So the specific and varied knowledge of things human and divine, acquired by acuteness and experience, so not a wisdom is not just what you know in your brain from your human experience, although it can be acquired after years of human experience, but also experience with divine things of God.

You have to know Him, you have to spend time with Him.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.

Proverbs says it's the beginning.

If we wanna grow in wisdom, we gotta start somewhere.

Things, human and divine, acquired by experience and okay, and then science and learning.

This is something that we talk about a lot, because when I read about what all the things that wisdom encompasses, I realized that the church has.

We have stepped back and yielded ground to the devil.

We have yielded ground to the things of this world and we have here's the great commission.

Jesus said all the word he's given unto me, go ye, therefore.

And then in Mark 16, he says go into all the world, all the world, and preach the gospel all the world, all facets of society, not just every country, not just every country, every creature, yes, every people group, yes, but every facet of that society and of our society.

And here's what we did.

We yielded and said oh, science is taken over by the Darwin people and therefore, if we wanted to get accredited for that, if we wanna make a name for ourselves in the scientific community, we have to bow the knee to all the evolution and all the stuff.

And so we just yielded and seeded that ground and no Christians went into the scientific community for a while, or not as many of us as should have.

But science and learning is part of wisdom.

It is part of wisdom, okay, and then there's a supernatural component to wisdom the act of interpreting dreams and always giving the sagest advice.

I like that, the act of interpreting dreams and always giving the sagest advice.

So giving advice that comes from God, that's the wisdom of God.

When we pray for that, when we pray for wisdom, we're asking God to give us so much that we can direct our own affairs with discretion and we can help other people.

We can give them the sagest advice.

They're gonna be coming to us.

They don't need to go to the psychologist, the psychiatrist, they don't even need to ask Siri or Alexa.

They can come to you.

You're gonna be known for giving sage advice and even interpreting dreams.

That reminded me of the book of Daniel.

The book of Daniel is an end time book, because Daniel lived in a time where there was a hostile government, hostile to his faith, that imprisoned him, carried his father's away, captive into Babylon, and he had to find a way to thrive and prosper in Babylon in a culture that was against God and Daniel.

That's why I like Daniel.

It's an end time book.

We're talking about Jesus, our pattern.

But hey, jesus is the word, so everything mentioned in the word is our pattern.

And while we're at it, so Daniel, here he was.

How did he get ahead?

He interpreted dreams for the king and the king saw it.

But how did the king even know about him?

Because he lived a lifestyle that was devoted to God, while everyone else around him in the science of that day said if you wanna be a strong young man, you need to drink a lot of wine, you need to eat a lot of fatty foods.

You need to do this and you need to do.

They had a certain diet that they fed all of their leaders in training of the country, and Daniel was among those leaders and his three friends.

They were among those leaders and they said no, we can't eat pigs.

That's against the law of God, we can't do that.

Now, today, we've been redeemed from that amen, and we eat pigs.

Y'all know, y'all know.

But in that day, daniel said no, I'm sorry, that's uncouth for us, we can't do that.

And so I'm gonna read to you out of Daniel one.

So in verse 17, it says as for these four young men, god gave them knowledge and skill in all literature and wisdom, all literature.

They weren't afraid to read other literature, but that God gave them insight even in spite of that.

What it said, if it was lies.

God showed them the truth In all literature and wisdom, and Daniel had an understanding in all visions and dreams.

So there's that wisdom.

And now, at the end of the days when the king had said that they should all be brought in, the chief of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar, the king, and the king interviewed them and among them all, none was found like Daniel, hananiah, michelle and Ezraiah.

Therefore, they served before the king.

And in all matters of wisdom and understanding everybody say all matters, all matters of wisdom and understanding, about which the king examined them, he found them 10 times better than all the magicians and astrologers who were in his realm.

So they were 10, everybody say 10 times better.

They were 10 times better.

They were 10 times better.

Now that's another thing that we pray over our kids.

Sometimes it sounds lofty, but I got it from my mama because she prayed it over us.

She has crazy faith.

She does.

We call her sister crazy faith because she does.

She looked at me and Jay and she said oh Lord, they're 10 times better than all the magicians and astrologers of this world.

They're 10 times better.

But there's a supernatural component, because God's spirit is 10 times better.

He is 10 times better than what passes for science today.

He is 10 times better than what passes for all.

The people are hungry for the supernatural.

Have y'all noticed that, man, all of these creepy movies that have come out?

I think the horror genre has just exploded in the past few years.

I'm always shocked how can they make a horror movie about Christmas?

How did you mix those two topics?

I don't know, but there's a horror movie about everything People want.

They're hungry, there's a hole and they know that there's some kind of supernatural.

We're supernatural creatures.

They know that that's real, but so they're seeking it in all the wrong ways and all the wrong things and they're trying to fill that hole.

And God is a supernatural awesome God and Christians today have explained away all of his miracles and had some scientific reason why that passed away and that doesn't happen anymore, or it never did happen, because the Red Sea was just the Marsh Sea and it was just really a puddle that they crossed over on dry ground.

Well, no, no, it was a sea and they crossed over on dry ground, not squishy, not squishy ground, dry ground, and the water, and it says it heaped up on the sides of them.

It was not just some wind blew across the puddle and dried it up.

It's not, no, no.

And people have explained away the supernatural and taken, sucked out all of the Holy Ghost out of the church so that it's just dry and just a doctrine of man, just dry, dry and there's no power, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof from such turn away, from such have a prayer meeting and of ecumenical unity, from such turn away.

There's no power there.

There is no power there.

So, anyway, people have this God shaped hole.

They want the supernatural and there is a component in godly wisdom.

There is supernatural utterance, there is supernatural insight.

We watched America's Got Talent in our house, didn't we, anna we, sometimes we turn on America's Got Talent and there's always these.

You know, there's always some act that we have to fast forward, at least one, usually about half of them.

No, we're not watching that gay guy?

No, we're not.

No, this band over here, they're not wearing enough clothes.

But then there's always, like the spiritualist have y'all seen that?

What passes for entertainment?

The guy that reads the minds.

He's reading the minds.

Now, I don't know, some of that is probably just.

There's some kind of logical reason behind.

They have some trick of the trade or whatever.

But I do think that there is.

Obviously there are spiritual forces that work in some of those things and I said, no, we are not watching that, we are not gonna be entertained and ooh and ah over what the devil can do.

I'm gonna ooh and ah over what my God can do, and when we ooh and ah and we get entertained and we get in love with him and what he does and his miracles, we're gonna see that element.

That is true wisdom.

Woo, the word of wisdom is one of the supernatural gifts of the spirit, one of the nine spiritual gifts, and it ought to be flowing through your life.

It ought to be flowing through the church.

We can't every one of us walk in it all the time, but the body of Christ together.

We ought to see it rising up.

The words of wisdom and not words of knowledge about people.

Did you read my mind?

No, the Holy Ghost showed me because he had a purpose, because he loves you, because it's light and goodness and all that dark counterfeit of the real thing is.

We put it down in Jesus' name, all right.

All right, so we're going back to what's wisdom?

What's with the biblical?

I mean, jesus grew in wisdom.

He grew in these things.

He started out in one way and God grew him intelligence.

Events in discovering the meaning of some mysterious number or vision skill.

Okay, here's the good one skill and the management of affairs.

Well, claire, I'm just not good with money.

I'm just not good with this.

I'm not good with housekeeping.

I'm not good with this.

What?

Just where does the rubber meet the road in your life?

Holy Ghost, wisdom will help you.

Just be good at that.

That thing that you're not good at, the thing that you just say over and over again though you've said it all your life oh, I'm just not that person.

Now I let so and so handle that.

I'm not good at this, I'm not good at that.

Stop saying that God's wisdom will give you skill in the management of affairs, day to day, everyday life.

You have skill.

Every say I have skills, I have skills.

So how we communicate, though, if we tell you in church all the time you can't say this and you can't say that, then you get all tied up where you feel like you can't even talk to anybody.

Be honest.

But you can say well, god's given me special skills in managing money.

I'm still working on them.

God's given me special skills.

I'm praying for those skills.

I believe I have wisdom from heaven in managing money.

I believe I have wisdom from God in staying removal techniques in cooking and handling meats for my family.

I believe I have supernatural skill in not burning the toast, amen, amen.

But skill in the management of affairs.

That means you're good at your career, you're good at your job.

You have wisdom, all right, devout and proper prudence in talking with men who are not disciples of Christ.

Skill and discretion in imparting Christian truth.

That's part of wisdom.

Being able to explain your faith to somebody and not drive them away.

Being able to share, right where they live, right, your faith in a way that they will receive.

Skill and discretion in imparting Christian truth.

Ooh, that's good.

Everybody say I received that one.

All right, knowledge and practice for godly and upright living.

Yes and amen.

Okay, now here's the thing that really blew my mind Wisdom of God as events, informing and executing councils in the formation.

Lots of words, okay, information and government of the world and the scriptures.

So in other words, true wisdom in the formation of government of the world.

There's another area where Christians gave up.

We said, no, we can't do science, it's too Darwin-y.

And they said, no, we can't do government politics, it's too ugly, it's too dirty, it's too embarrassing, it's too, they're gonna drag out my pack, it's too messy, it's too uh, uh, bribes and all that.

You don't have to be like that.

But true wisdom will give us wisdom from God informing and executing councils in the formation of government of the world and the scriptures, so we can use the scriptures to govern the world.

Amen, amen.

We have authority.

Everybody say I have authority.

All right, so we can't govern the world till we do the other thing that we just said manage the skill and the management of affairs First.

We're going to manage our own life, we're going to manage our own stuff and get it together and we're going to get, but we don't have to do it all sequentially.

We can be getting our stuff together and getting our business together all while we're helping it's execute God's plan in the government of the world that he cares about.

He got God to love the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish.

He loves the world.

He does not want us to be under the government rule of someone like the leaders of Haiti or the leaders of Columbia or Panama or Venezuela or Russia.

People there are suffering the people of North Korea.

They suffer under their government.

God loved the world.

He doesn't want people to suffer under government.

He wants wise men who have the fear of God to be in charge of government affairs.

So if that means we got to raise up some school board candidates here in this church, that's what we're doing.

If that means we have to raise and they're going to start somewhere, it doesn't start with government governing the whole world.

It starts with governing your area.

If we have to raise up some precinct chairs, some different, I mean, we're looking, we're always looking, hallelujah, but that's true wisdom.

Wow, I didn't know that when I was praying wisdom.

I'm praying for a lot of stuff.

Psalm 119.99,.

I believe this is a Messianic element to this Psalm.

It says about the child Jesus.

I believe it's speaking of the child Jesus, but I believe it can be ours too.

Verse 99,.

I have more understanding than all my teachers for your testimonies or my meditation.

I understand more than the ancients because I keep your precepts.

Keeping God's word is a source of wisdom.

God will help you, he will show you, he will make it real to you.

We don't have to go to school forever.

We don't have to have been to Oxford University or Harvard, or even we didn't even have to go to Del Mar College.

It doesn't matter where you went to school, it matters the Holy Ghost on the inside of you given you wisdom.

Remember Peter?

Peter was an unlearned fisherman, but they perceived he had been with Jesus.

They perceived how did they?

Because he had wisdom.

He had wisdom.

Want to be like that.

Okay, so wisdom, I got to get done.

All right, wisdom, stature favor.

Everybody say wisdom, stature favor.

All right.

So we were actually out at lunch with Raphael Cruz a few weeks ago when he was here.

What a blessing.

What a blessing just to sit.

And when you're at lunch with Raphael Cruz, he is going to preach you another message.

He wasn't done yet in church and he has more that you're going to glean from it was awesome.

Well, what did he want to preach on that day?

Luke 2.52,.

Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and had favor with God and man.

He said stature is not just physical stature, but stature in the community, respect.

And when I looked it up it meant maturity, the same strong, concordance outline of biblical usage.

Jesus grew in age and maturity, in height and comeliness of stature.

So I pray that over my kids.

I pray that over my son, benjamin.

He's 14.

He's going to play football this year in high school.

He weighs 100 pounds, hallelujah.

So what do I pray over him?

I say he's growing in wisdom and stature.

He has favor with God and man.

Y'all don't see it yet, but I see it, it's coming.

He's growing in stature, but maturity.

Ephesians 4.13,.

Y'all can turn, we might already be in Ephesians.

I am Ephesians 4.13.

Okay, I'm going to back up.

Ephesians 4.11,.

Gave himself some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers.

In other words, the ministry in church, the five-fold ministry in church apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, those five ministry gifts.

God gave them to the church for the equipping of the saints, for the work of the ministry.

Everybody say I'm equipped, I'm a saint and I'm equipped, all right.

Your ex-wife might take issue with that, but you're a saint, god said.

You're a saint, all right, and so you're equipped for the work of the ministry and for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come here's that word again to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of man, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature there's the word stature of the fullness of Christ.

So in other words, the whole point.

Why do we believe in church ministry at all?

Because that's what helps to mature you.

You will grow in God when you are matured.

First, peter 2, 2 says desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby the word of God will mature you.

It will mature you in ways your momma's didn't spank you enough, or whatever.

The word of God will mature you.

It will help you learn, it will give you a pattern to follow where you can, because people are lacking.

They're lacking direction and guidance in their life.

We don't have more guidance, we have way less, and people need it.

They need maturity, they need guidance.

Hallelujah, it's never too late, all right.

So Jesus grew in those things.

As he grew in maturity, people knew they could look to him, people began to recognize the call of God on him, people began to see.

And so all right.

So wisdom and stature.

And then I'll close with favor.

Jesus grew in favor and that word blew me away.

That word blew me away.

And remember favor not just with God, yes, with God.

God pours out his favor on us.

He loves us.

We know God loves us.

We have trouble with that man part that people.

Do we have favor with people?

Hard to believe that sometimes.

But he wants you to say I have favor with God and with man, hallelujah, all right.

So here's what favor means.

Obviously it means grace, that which affords joy, pleasure, delight, sweetness, charm, loveliness and grace of speech.

So we have those things in God.

We give God joy and pleasure and delight and sweetness and charm, hallelujah.

And then he gives us, he takes joy and delight in us.

All right, the merciful kindness by which God, exerting his holy influence on souls, turns them to Christ, keeps them, strengthens them, increases them in Christian faith, knowledge and affection and kindness, and kindles them to the exercise of the Christian virtues.

Okay, all right, that's the thing I really like the best Kindness which bestows upon one what he has not deserved.

In other words, god gave you something you didn't deserve Mercy.

On the other hand, is not you not getting what you did deserve?

We did deserve hell.

We sure did deserve that, and we didn't get that.

We had mercy.

God saved us out of that.

He didn't stop with just saving us out of hell.

Instead, he showed us grace, he showed us favor of God by shining the light of love on us and giving us a spot in his family, which we did not deserve.

He bestowed that kindness on us.

We did not deserve it.

Now, I like how it put it in the past tense, because I don't like to beat myself up.

I don't like to go around and say, well, I don't deserve, I do not, I do not, I do not deserve what God did for me.

I don't like to say that.

I think that puts us in a.

I think we did not deserve it.

But I like to.

I like to pray over myself and over you that we walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him.

You are worthy.

Everybody say I am worthy.

No, we did not deserve God's favor.

But now we have received it, hallelujah.

And he's going to give us all eternity to get to deserve it, to to walk worthy of his calling Ooh, to walk worthy of his calling.

Awesome.

We did not deserve it.

It's benefit, it's bounty, it's recompense and it's reward.

We get the reward that Jesus deserved.

We didn't deserve it, but we get his eternal reward according to his riches and glory, by Christ Jesus.

He sat down at the.

He said it is finished.

He beat the devil.

He sat down at the right hand at the throne of God.

We did not do that, but we get the benefit as if we did divine favor with God.

He loves you and it is unfair, it is unmerited, it is undeserved, but we got it anyway and so we're going to have it, we're going to own it, we're going to act like it and with man and with man, favor with man when it.

You know what?

It took me a long time because we want to earn it.

Our pride says oh, we want to earn that spot on the team.

We want to earn it.

I remember I mean we're talking about people praying over their kids.

This is kind of a theme.

My mom had prayed over us, things that did not make any sense.

Do you know how shy and awkward I was in sixth grade?

Do you know how just painfully embarrassing it was for me to appear in public in front of anybody?

But my mom was a cheerleader and she wanted me to be a cheerleader and she knew there was a spot on that squad for me and she had one of her mom friends.

She was friends with one of the moms of the cheerleader about two years older than me and she said oh, mary Claire, mary Claire, I have a.

Becky's mom said you could come over to her.

Becky was going to show you the cheers for for triads she's going to show you.

And I did not.

Let me tell you I did not deserve a spot on that squad.

I did not deserve it.

But my mom had prayed it in and Loretta helped her.

Because every time Loretta would pass by our yard, my mom would be out working in the yard and she'd pull over Loretta on and Loretta would be driving through our neighborhood and because we shared a neighborhood with the Dyer family and she'd say, loretta, we have to pray for my clerk, pray for my clerk.

She's trying to.

We have cheerleader trials.

We have cheerleader trials this week and she's learning the cheers, loretta.

And my mom prayed me a spot on that, on that squad I was a cheerleader through junior high and high school.

I have many stories and I don't.

I look back.

I know it was probably good for me, probably helped stretch me, but I had favor with I had favor.

I had divine favor on my life and I still have.

I did not earn it.

I didn't earn the scholarship I got at Sex A&M.

I can list you people who are moving and shaking the earth who got money from Texas A&M, maybe in lesser quantities than I did I got.

I had favor with man and it was not deserved.

I'm not even pretending like it was.

I'm not even pretending like anything I ever did was deserved.

It was a favor of God on my life.

Do people like you a lot?

Is it because of your bubbling personality?

No, it's because of the favor of God.

Give God glory for it.

Did you get that promotion at work?

Maybe you worked hard for it?

Yes, maybe you did, but it's not because of what you did.

It's because of the favor of God on your life.

Give him glory.

Whoo, if you will give him glory, there's more.

There is more.

There is more Jesus.

They all bear Luke 4.22.

They all bear him witness and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth and they said is this not Joseph's son man?

We knew him, we thought we knew this guy, but he's got more in him than we imagine.

There is more to this guy.

There is something different.

There's something different about Linda the way she works with those kids.

There's something different about Anita.

There's something different.

There's something God's it's your, god's favor, and people won't always, they won't recognize it as such, but that's exactly what it is.

James' family came to visit us.

It was awesome.

We hadn't seen some of our family in years because one his sister lives in Germany and his other sister lives in New Hampshire.

And they and it was just, we had favor.

It was delight, we just picked right up.

It was God.

They were drawn to the love of God.

I just know we just got to love them.

The word and the John 1 14, and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us talking about Jesus.

We beheld his glory as the glory of the only begotten, of the Father, full of grace.

That's favor and truth, favor and truth.

They come together.

We can speak the truth and still have the favor of God on our lives.

In fact, if we spook the truth and don't have the favor of God, it gets a shot down.

But if we have the favor of God on our lives, we ought to never be afraid to speak the truth in love.

All right.

John 1, 16.

And of his fullness we have all received, and grace for grace, favor for favor, we have received.

Of his favor Everybody say I received favor, all right.

In Acts 247, the early church had favor, praise in God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved.

The church had favor with all the people.

It looks like the world is against us but everybody say the church has favor.

We have to say it.

When it looks the most untrue, we have to say that the church has favor.

Our confession is the church has favor.

Okay, acts 433, and with great power, gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and great grace, great favor was upon them all, upon them all, upon them all.

That means there's nobody in this room left out of the favor of God.

Great favor, great grace is upon them all.

Oh, give him praise tonight, give him glory, for the favor of God.

I'm expecting good things, I'm expecting great things.

The favor of God is on the hatcher family right now, the favor of God moving him to the top of the list.

A heart, a kidney transplant Some people would say, oh, oh, that's two organs.

Oh you, you know you've got to meet all these requirements.

No, he's got favor.

He's at the top of the list.

Hallelujah, you have favor with God and therefore you have favor with man who can, who can mold the hearts of men.

We will just have faith and believe it.

Quit expecting people to hate you, quit expecting people to look down on you.

Quit expecting that.

Expect God's favor and grow in it.

Have you had favor in your life a little bit?

There's more, there's more.

So we okay.

So everybody say I'm growing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man.

That's our confession.

That's our confession.

We're going to have it.

We're going to have no less than that, amen.