God's Strategic Favor

Well, let's all stand together, pick your Bibles up, wave them around, make Jesus glad, the devil mad.

Let's say this together say Heavenly Father, I'm here on purpose tonight.

I'm one of the Sunday night fanatics.

I'm hungry for the Word of God and for the Holy Ghost.

The Word and the Spirit working together, put me over in every circumstance.

In Jesus' name, amen, praise God.

Let's turn in our Bibles to Luke, chapter four, and also Psalm 102, or Pusam.

I was preaching a family funeral years ago and it's one of those family funerals you're not totally in control of, and so they've had all these speakers and all these people that wanted to speak and I'm supposed to bring the message, you know, and then I'm the last to speak, and so I've got to cover all the mess that people get up and say you know, there are very few people qualified to do that, you know, but they try.

So this lady gets up and she starts talking about Pusams, and when she said Pusam, she must have said it a half a dozen times Pusam, pusam.

And you knew that she didn't know what she was talking about because she couldn't even pronounce it.

So I'm trying not to grin and all the everybody's looking at me.

I'm seated up front behind the, you know, by the podium and Pusam, and so look at Pusam.

I was hoping she'd go, pusam, out the door, but she didn't.

So Psalm 102.

And let's look at Luke.

First.

This is Jesus speaking in his home synagogue, luke 418.

And he said the spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.

He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives recovering of sight, to the blind, to set it liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

And in the amplified verse 19, it says when the free favors of God profusely abound, to preach the year and the time of the free favors of God profusely abounding.

And so, from that time till now, the church age, that's when the free favors of God profusely abound.

Psalm 102, verse 13.

Psalms 102:13

Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion for the time to favor her.

Yea, the set time, the appointed time, that's the same time Jesus was referring to.

The set time has come, the set time to favor her.

So when was that?

Well, that's post resurrection, ever since Jesus rose from the dead, when the birth of the church, especially the day of Pentecost, when the church was filled with the Holy Ghost.

That is the time.

So we're living in the time of favor, and so tonight I wanted to share a message entitled God's strategic favor.

God's strategic favor.

We talk about all the bad news.

We talk about all the looks like economic difficulty on the horizon, looks like this, looks like that, looks like the other.

I wanna show you what belongs to us, what belongs to the church, is favor, and not just carte blanche, just not favor in every direction.

I mean, favor doesn't work that way.

Favor is not like an aura all the way around you 360 degrees.

Favor is in the direction of God's plan for your life and God's purpose for your life, god's calling of your life.

So we're living in the day of fulfillment, the set time.

The Cairo's moment in the Greek or the Moed in the Hebrew.

It's a set time, and so this is a pretty broad of course.

In the mind of God, the day with the Lord is a thousand years.

A thousand years is one day.

So if he gave us favor for 2,000 years, in his eyes that's a couple of days Worth a favor.

You gotta think the way God thinks.

He thinks that way.

So this divine favor over the church and its individual members is strategic.

It's strategic in nature, it's in a direction to position us consistent, as I said, with his calling.

I mean, if he gave you favor everywhere, you wouldn't know which way to go.

You'd go over here and you had favor, but then it really wasn't God's plan for you to go over there.

See, that's why it's wrong, you know, for somebody to say well, you know, I've accepted a transfer to Timbuktu.

They're going to raise my salary 4%.

Well, yeah, you know, that may or may not be God's plan.

You ought to make sure that's God's plan for your life.

You got a little incremental raise there, but is it worth it?

Is it God's plan for you to move from where you are?

More about that later, we'll talk about that later.

And so the word favor means endowed with special advantage for success.

God's interested in you being successful, yeah, but you know we've got Biden, and I don't care if the Democrats are in every office, I don't care.

We know all that stuff.

We're talking about the kingdom and God doesn't, doesn't, doesn't, hamper us by these kind of things.

So it's, we're endowed with special advantage for success.

We're provided with preferential treatment tending to promote and to ease.

You know God wants you ease.

He wants to make things easy, he doesn't want to make things hard.

So God's favor is preferential treatment.

Think about it.

Let that sink in a minute.

You know God will give you preferential treatment.

Now, over here you might not have preferential treatment.

Over here you might be hated.

Over here you might have conflict.

Over here people don't like you.

But in in a strategic way, if you'll follow the favor of God, strategic, it's going to lead you down the pathway consistent with his call and with his plan for your life.

Well, you know I don't understand.

Well, I'm going to give you some, some Bible examples of that.

And so, in second Samuel nine, david had defeated the house of Saul.

You know they had a long war with the house of Saul and David waxed greater and greater, saul waxed lesser and lesser in the house of Saul, see.

So let's think about the house of Saul.

What about the house of Saul?

Well, saul was dead and Jonathan was dead.

And then you had was Abner, his, his chief of staff, his leader of the army, and he was zealous against David and he kept the war going.

He just kept things stirred up.

It shouldn't have lasted that long.

Finally, there came a day when Abner said hey, let's bury the hatchet, let's, let's, you know, let's make peace.

And so on that day, seven years after he was king of the Southern kingdom over Judah and Benjamin, he became king of the other 10 tribes.

And so seven and a half years later, he was king over all of Israel.

And.

And so when that happened, it dawned.

The Bible says it dawned on him one day hey man, I'm the king, I'm the king of the, I'm the king, I'm it.

It dawned, it came over him, and, and so he started looking for someone that remained in the house of Saul.

He said is there anyone remaining in the house of Saul that I may show favor to, that I may show kind?

That?

Actually, it says that I may show kindness to.

And I'm not talking about being kind old little darling, I'm talking about covenant kindness.

Covenant kindness is what we have with God.

We have covenant kindness.

He is, he is kind to us, he loves us, he's on, you know, he's on, he's, he gives us favor in a direction that will lead us along his pathway for us.

So they said, yeah, he's got a, jonathan's got a son.

See, he cut the covenant with Jonathan.

Nobody knew that that was done out there in the, in the battlefield, you know, remember, he was running from Saul and and and Jonathan helped him escape his father and and that could have, and his father was suspicious of Jonathan because he knew Jonathan loved David and so forth.

They were close and so, you know, before he left him he said I want you to swear, I want you to cut the covenant with me that you will do show kindness to my house forever.

And so he swore, so he cut the covenant with Jonathan.

Nobody knew that that was private information, but David knew it.

And after he was totally successful years later, and he's looking how can I, how can I keep my promise to my covenant partner, jonathan?

Does he have anybody left?

Is there anybody in the house of Saul left?

And then, well, yeah, jonathan's got a son, mephibosheth, and if it's all the same to you, I'm going to keep calling him that only Phibbe.

I'm going to shorten his name to Phibbe, because let's try this Say Mephibosheth out loud five times in a row, real quick Mephibosheth, mephibosheth.

You know you can't do it.

Maybe you can, but I can't do it.

So, phibbe, we're going to call him Phibbe.

And so they found Phibbe living in a place called Lote Bar, which means no pasture.

I mean, this is a God forsaken place.

I mean, listen, he is a vanquished soul.

His family has lost, his family has been deposed.

He's the Trump family.

His name is Mudd, right, I mean, david is in charge.

David has crushed all opposition and you know, as far as he knew, he's probably thinking, oh my God, he's coming to squish me.

I'm just a flea, I mean, and he was lame in both feet.

I mean, the poor guy had to be carried around.

He couldn't, he couldn't move on his own, he had to be carried everywhere.

He went living in Lote Bar, in someone else's house that had mercy on him, and he finds out that David is looking for him.

And you know, see, he didn't know, he had no idea that Daddy cut the covenant with David.

He had no idea what David's motive was.

What was David's motive?

He wanted to show covenant kindness and he went to Lote Bar and he got him and he brought him into Jerusalem and he cleaned him up and trimmed his feet and he, you know, trimmed his beard and gave him some new clothes and he restored to him all of his fathers and his grandfather's land.

Do you know?

He was a rich dude.

I mean, his daddy was king of Israel.

He owned massive amounts of land that all transferred to David and David gave it back to him and then he assigned laborers to go out into his field and make sure that all the cattle are fed and make sure that all the crops are put in, and he brings him the money.

I don't know what he's going to spend money on, but I mean he's a rich dude.

And not only that, he said you're going to eat at the king's table.

You're not even going to buy it, you're not even have to go to Waterburger ever again.

You're going to eat right here what I eat.

And so what, god?

I mean, he gave him favor because of what the covenant?

Are you with me now?

And he changed his status.

I'm sorry, I'm sucking on a cough drop, you don't mind, do you?

All right, I'll chew it up and get it over with.

Hold on, all right.

So he changed his status from the son of the vanquished to the king's son.

He's now the status of a son of David man.

Look at that.

And that's exactly what happened to us.

Let's look at Colossians, chapter one talking about God's strategic favor, lotta bar.

Think about Lotta bar, man, you don't want to live in Lotta bar.

There's no past.

Remember Psalm 23,.

The Lord is my shepherd.

I shall not want he leadeth me beside the steel waters, you know, making me to lie down in the green pastures.

Well, where, where Lotta bar is, there's no green, there's no food for anything, it's barren.

And so that's really where we were living.

Colossians, chapter one.

It says, verse 12, giving thanks unto the Father which has made us meet or able to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who have delivered us from the power of darkness and have translated us into the kingdom of his dear son, in whom we have the redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness or really a better rendering would be remission of sins.

So God drew us out of Lotta bar, the kingdom of darkness, drew us out, and he transferred us to his kingdom and set us at the table as sons, prepared a table for us in the presence of all our enemies.

Just think about what he did for you when you got saved.

You, you were the son of the bank, which you were the son of the devil, and that's what he told the Pharisees you're of your father, the devil.

The works of your father you shall do.

That's what all the that's what the whole spirit of this world is.

They're all children of the devil.

They're going to do their father's work.

The devil is crazy.

And the devil's more crazy right now than he's ever been because he knows his time is that much shorter.

So that is being, that's being transferred into his children.

That's why they're crazy.

They're, they're, they're going off their you know, rockers.

They're wacky, I mean.

The things that they want don't even make any sense.

Why in the world would you want to take away our oil and gas?

For what reason have you ever been on the freeway?

What?

What if you snapped your fingers and all those cars just didn't have any gasoline?

Then what are we going to do with those cars?

How are people going to go?

Well, they're going to go in buses.

Well, there's not enough buses or not enough trains to carry all the people that are in cars.

They don't even know what they're doing.

Anyway, so he restored all that.

Jesus got back from the devil.

Jesus took everything back away from the devil and gave it to us.

We've got it.

We're not lacking anything Thin, sickness, poverty, fear.

They have no power over us.

We have what Favor, we have favor.

We have been endowed with special advantage for success and we are provided with preferential treatment tending to promotion and ease the ease God wants us to have it easy.

Don't you want your kids to have it easier than you did?

Well, god's the same way, jesus the same way.

He didn't want us to have to go through everything he went through.

That's why he went through it, so we could be delivered.

Yeah, well, but what about?

I mean, we live in this world and things are going bad and judgment is happening, and judgment in American.

We live in America.

Let's go back to Exodus here real quick.

I want to remind you of something, because things were pretty bad.

I mean, as far as I know, we're not slaves, right, we don't have slavery.

You know, the Jewish people were enslaved.

I mean, they had to work all day under the whip for nothing, and then in their spare time they had to go and grow crops on the Nile Delta and they had foot powered irrigation.

So the harder they worked, the more crops they grew.

But they didn't.

They had to feed themselves.

I mean, they are slaves, they didn't?

You know, in most places where they're slavery, at least the slaves get to get to have a place to live and some food.

It's substandard, but they they're provided something.

I mean, the Jews didn't get anything, they had to provide everything for themselves and still work for free.

Pretty bad, pretty rough and so.

But in Exodus 421, god is talking to Moses and he said I will give this people talk about the Jews favor, everybody, shop favor, favor in the side of the Egyptians.

And it shall come to pass that when you go, you shall not go empty.

But every woman shall borrow of her neighbor.

The word borrowed is not borrowed like we think.

It means to make a demand.

So every woman shall make a demand of her neighbor and of her that sowed her in her house jewels of silver, jewels of gold and raiment, and you shall put them upon your sons and daughters and you shall spoil the Egyptians.

Well, how in the world would you ever spoil the Egyptians?

Well, god places upon you favor, and the favor is in the direction of deliverance from Egypt.

So you're going to spoil Egypt on your way out of town?

Well, I don't know.

Well, that's in the Bible.

Why is it in there?

It's a type and shadow of what's going to happen in the end days.

We're going to spoil this world before we get out of here, but the reason we need the wealth is to is to reap this final harvest.

It's going to take a lot of money, so I'm proposing to you tonight that there is favor available for us right now.

Amazing favor.

Are you with me now?

I know, well, we're talking about the national debt.

Look at the Fed.

The Fed is doing this, that and the other.

All these bad.

There's all kind of bad predictions about what's going to happen.

Here's what I knew about the Wall Street firms.

All these Wall Street firms are basically globalists.

They're socialists and they are happy that Bidens and Ball they gave billions of dollars to his campaign and they will get paid back.

They are eager to do business with China.

They're eager to do business with our enemies.

They're very short-sighted.

Well, so are we.

We're long-sighted, but we have a short time to be here.

So we can God can give us favor with these entities.

I mean, if you're in the stock market, stock market's all time high right now.

It hadn't dropped since Trump left.

Why?

Because that group were against Trump.

They, you know it's crazy out there.

So God can give you favor.

I'm saying God can give you strategic favor, favor, and everybody say favor in a direction.

Now, sometimes favor is temporary.

You know the book of Genesis.

We have the story of Jacob and Esau.

We know Jacob essentially supplanted.

His name means supplanter.

So he took Esau's birthright and he took his inheritance and he sold his birthright for a pot of soup.

Esau did.

He talked about short-sighted.

He was so hungry.

So he said a man, give me that soup, I'm starving.

Well, you're going to have to give me your birthright.

Oh, what good is a birthright if I starve to death?

Yeah, go ahead and take it.

See, he had little honor for what his father had given him as the firstborn.

So he got rid of his birthright.

And then, by subtlety, his mother figured out a way to steal his inheritance.

And so when Esau found out about it, he started threatening to kill his brother.

He was angry at his brother, so his mother sent him away to her brother's place and Laban.

And then, god, his favor dried up at home.

And now where was the favor?

His favor was over here, miles away, in his uncle's house, laban.

And he winds up making a deal.

Hey, I worked for you seven years for this beautiful thing here.

Yeah, rachel, man Woo, I want Rachel.

And he got substituted, and then you know what he reaped.

He reaped what he sowed.

He sowed subtlety, he sowed treachery.

And the first thing when he woke up he thought he was waking up with his new wife and had Leah instead of Rachel.

So then he worked another seven years for Rachel.

So he worked 14 years for two women, and then they have all these kids and he winds up working 20 plus years for another man and he, finally, he starts watching the guys countenance.

It's not as it was before.

Favor starts drying up.

Are y'all with me now?

Favor starts drying up.

Favor was needed for a season and then he was able to get that dream and he found out how to get rich on his own.

You know whittling sticks, and he had his own crop of cattle and all that.

And so in the next six years, from 14 years to 21 years, he was a very wealthy man, and when Laban saw that he was richer than he was, he didn't like it.

He was threatened by it, he was jealous of it, and so that's when he had to go back home and go back and confront his brother and he wasn't sure what his brother would do after all these years.

He assumed that his brother was gonna probably try to take everything back, get paid back and everything.

So, remember, he spread out all of his gifts.

He started giving his brother all these gifts and he'd have a herd come in you know a little while and then another herd had come after that and then a flock of sheep had come after that and I mean he kept giving his brother, trying to bribe his brother, and his brother said I don't need any of this.

And they had a reunion and favor he had favor to go back to his hometown.

Favor in a direction.

I think favor sometimes is temporary.

Favor can lead you into blessing, but you've got to be sensitive.

You think that favor is gonna last forever.

Sometimes favor is temporary, sometimes favor is there until you're sensitive and then you can follow your favor back in another direction, where the next stage is.

Are y'all getting this?

Now?

Joseph, the same way.

Joseph had no favor with his brothers.

He had favor with his daddy.

Daddy, his mother gave him a coat of mini color.

I guess his father gave it to him.

His mother must have sewed it, but he had the coat of mini colors.

His parents loved him but his brothers hated him and they sold him into slavery.

That's pretty bad.

I mean, you talk about dried up favor, that's dried up favor right there.

But when they sold him into slavery, potiphar picked him up and he had favor with Potiphar and everything that Potiphar wanted done.

He was the doer of it.

I mean Potiphar, he was in charge of his investments and he prospered.

But then there was Potiphar's wife.

He didn't have favor with her.

Well, he had favor with her, but it was a wrong kind of favor.

So what happened was she falsely accuses him and he's thrown into prison.

What happens there?

He has favor with the jailer and the jailer made him the head trustee and he was over everything and everything that was done.

He was the doer of it and God gave him.

What Favor with the jailer.

And then years go by and of course the king has the dream and so forth and God gives him favor with the ruler of the country and when he comes out of prison he went from the prison to the palace say favor, favor, say favor, in a direction he never was without favor.

I said he was never without favor, but it was in different directions.

And so finally, by the providence of God, he went up and he gave the king the interpretation of that dream the king had, and he became the ruler, the second only to Pharaoh.

And he had what he had the duplicate chariot, identical to the Pharaoh's chariot.

He had the linen robe of rulership, he had the gold chain around his neck, he had the signet ring which meant that he made a decree and stamped it himself.

He didn't even have to go through Pharaoh, he was second in command, second only to Pharaoh, and he ruled the country.

And then, when the brothers come back, I guess you could say he had favor, because they were afraid of him.

And when they found out who he was, they feared him, and so it turned out from their terrible treatment of him.

Then they feared him and honored him.

Are y'all with me now?

So favor, favor in a direction, and favor's available right now.

It is as bleak as things look in the situation.

That's why it's best not to get all overwrought.

We have to be faithful in these things.

We get involved in electoral politics, like James is.

Well, god gave him a platform, so he's gonna be faithful in that.

He's gonna be influential in that.

He's gonna do whatever he can do that's worthy of paying attention.

Pay it, do what we can do, but in the end, god gives us favor in a direction, just like Claire was saying.

I mean, people came against him and God gave him favor with people he's never met and here they are on defending him on Facebook.

He didn't even have to, you know.

I think he did answer it, but then they started rallying around him.

So strategic favor, favor in a direction.

One example in my life it was real pivotal when Gladys and I moved back from Corpus.

We were down there for a year and a half and the first year I was there it was a God had given me favor and I didn't know this for years.

God didn't share this with me for a long time until I was able to hear it, but I found out that I was in the permissive will of God not the perfect will of God but he gave me favor and covered my life during a time of Houston and a depression in the 80s.

I mean, my business, my industry was hit hard and so God gave me favor in Corpus.

I went to work down there.

I had a one year contract.

The year ended and the year contract that I had.

It was a six figure contract and I mean we were blessed, we were leaders in our church where we were going and used in the ministry and had a lot of favor while we were there.

But when the year contract ended, I know now I didn't know.

Then God was done.

He wanted me back in Houston because brother Osteen had open heart surgery that the summer of 1986.

And I should have been back to Lakewood and been in place that I could have been an aide there.

I didn't know any of this, I just hung on, I didn't know.

I didn't know how to find out the will of God.

So after my contract ended I got laid off.

That company that I was working for went bankrupt.

The same trouble that hit Houston took a year for it to get to Corpus and it, you know they went belly up and they owed me about $8,000 in back funds and all of that.

So the final six months that we were there, man, you know, no favor.

I mean we were in this little business we started and I don't know, I just didn't make any money, I just just everything we had just started leaking out.

So I was a church every Sunday.

Man, we were dedicated.

We were never.

But thanksgiving of 86 November, my family was getting.

They had started a church in the hill country.

My brother was part of the church.

My brother, my sister, brother in law, were part of the church and so they wanted us to come.

And so we said, yeah, we'll come.

We hadn't seen our family in a long time.

We're all in.

You know, basically in bondage is what we were.

We were in bondage.

I didn't know it.

The controlling spirit had attached itself to me and was manipulating me.

I didn't know it.

So we went to the hill country, to this church, and so we went to the church service and Sunday morning the pastor turns to Isaiah 32 and starts preaching out of Isaiah 32.

And I'm sitting there.

You know, and I mean I'm, I've been in one church.

I wouldn't even let myself watch Lakewood on television.

I wouldn't let myself because I missed it so bad that I knew that if I, if I let it, it would compromise my commitment where I was.

You know, I didn't know it, but God was done with me there.

So I I was in the permissive will the first year where I was blessed and then, after that, six months, I'm out of the will of God.

Locationally and church wise, I'm not.

I don't belong there.

So Isaiah 32.

He was preaching out of this Little pastor in this brand new church.

Isaiah 32, 17 and the work of righteousness shall be peace shall be Shalom and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance, forever and every day.

When I was in Corpus, even when I was in the permissive will of God, it was a struggle to connect with God.

It was like brother, brother Hagin, used to say when you're in the permissive will of God, it's like taking a bath with socks on.

You ever heard him say that, and so that's how it was uncomfortable.

I just it was hard for me to get connected up with God.

He just taken me a lot longer.

It just took me.

I had to labor to get into his presence.

And then in the final six months it was tough because I was out of the will of God.

I was really disobedient because I it's on me to find out and I didn't.

I listened to man and man held me there and my finances leaked out.

So here I'm sitting in that church, a little church in utopia, texas, and when he preached he just opened up the message with that verse and I.

It hit me like a ton of bricks.

I said, oh my God, that's what's wrong with me.

I don't have any peace, I'm out of the will of God, just like that.

I was ready to go home and later that day the Holy Ghost spoke to me.

He said I want you back.

Listen carefully, I want you back.

I spoke an audible voice to me.

I want you back at Lakewood Church in Houston, texas.

Now, why would he say that?

I know where.

I know where Lakewood Church is.

I know it's in Houston.

Why would he say I want you back at Lakewood Church in Houston, texas?

Well, I knew the answer to that question.

That is an order that he wants us to to, to pay attention to.

More important than anything is where you go to church and then after, that is the location.

So it's the locational will of God is so, so critical.

When you're outside of the locational will of God, you're outside of his favor.

You're in Lodibar.

Corpus Christi had become Lodibar to me because I missed his marching orders.

I got bound by obligation and a lot of it self-imposed.

But then also, man, I mean you know when you're doing everything and in a second banana, and doing over here and doing over here and you're stable and you're and all of that.

We had given a ton man.

We are tired and are giving above the time.

We were valuable members and I can understand my pastor would want us, but really his responsibility was to hear from God.

I asked him, I asked him to agree with me to find out what God's will was.

He just didn't.

Really I wasn't asking him to tell me what to do, but there was very little encouragement.

I mean, when people come to me I say, look, I'm not going to hold you, you know we're going to believe God If you're going to leave the church.

I very seldom, ever, consulted.

Most people can tell me on the way out the door Well, I'm moving, I'm retiring, I'm going to move to Timbuktu.

Well, okay, blessings.

I might know that they miss God, but I'm not going to tell them.

Then I'd have to follow them around the rest of their life and tell them what the will of God is.

But I've learned the hard way.

The location of the will of God is the most important thing.

It's bigger than a job.

It's bigger than a career.

It's bigger than anything you've got is where you go to church period, and so that was in November, got back and the very next week after I got back, the phone rang and it was Jim Scalise.

Anybody remember Jim?

Jim and I had a unique relationship.

I used to travel with Jim and he would give his you know, he'd preach and give his testimony at Full Gospel and I'd do the singing, and we were good friends.

But I hadn't talked to him and probably since I moved, he was not for me leaving.

He didn't like it, and so he called me and said what are you doing, brother?

What's going on?

I've been praying for you, praying for you, brother.

I was calling me brother and I said Well, things are kind of interesting.

He said Listen, things are loosened up in Houston.

Get back here.

You belong back here.

You should have been back here.

You should never left, and I don't like people telling me what to do.

But he was right.

He was right because it never was God that I left to begin with.

I missed God and again, I didn't know any of the things that I tell you until later.

God didn't tell me all these things because I couldn't have borne them.

It took me a while to realize that I had missed it back when I committed myself to build a bunch of houses and it was outside the will of God and that that ruined my finances, ruined my company, and so forth.

That, just like dominoes Once you miss God's leading, it interrupts your favor.

I had no favor with the banks in Houston.

That's because I didn't follow the correct favor.

I had favor doing something else and I didn't pursue that favor.

Are you with me now?

I had no favor in a direction and so, praise God, we got back to Houston.

And so, january of 87, our stuff, we moved and we were homeless.

We had no home.

We lived with my sister.

I didn't have any money.

I had no money to lease anything, rent anything, and my sister just said you live with us.

And we went back to Lakewood.

I didn't feel to go back in prayer partners.

We were prayer partners.

When we left, I just didn't feel a connection anymore.

You know, william and Barbara, what's wrong?

How come you're not back?

At the meeting I said well, I just feel like I've got changing some things and I'm just gonna let him change some things.

He's changing so much.

I'm gonna let him change some things, I'm just gonna.

I'm not against you, I love you, but I'm just not gonna come back in there right now.

I'm not saying I won't, but so we'd get there at 830.

They had 830 service, 11 o'clock service.

I'll wrap up here pretty quick.

The early service.

We'd get there early.

Most of the time Gladys would go and pray with prayer partners and I'd just hang around the sanctuary, talk to people, and I noticed that the guy that was supposed to open the services in prayer was often late, and Doreen was the.

Remember Doreen?

She was a really good worship leader and so she was always having to look for somebody to open the service in prayer because he wouldn't be there at 830.

And you know, you had to start on time because that service needed to be done no later than 10 30, because you got an 11 o'clock service and you got 5000 people fixing to come in there with all their cars outside.

So you, you got to get.

You got to get the thing going on time.

You can't be late, and I knew all that.

I knew Brother Aston hated being late.

He knew everything's very punctual, so.

So I noticed that she would do that.

So I just thought well, you know what, I'm going to stand in here and be available.

And so one Sunday she looked at me and she went like that.

And boy, I walked up, picked up the microphone, got up on the platform and opened the service and prayer.

And I don't know where the guy was.

He never did show up that I saw but anyway.

So the next Sunday the same thing happened and she looked at me and I walked up there and opened the service and prayer.

So the third Sunday she hated to get me back up there three times in a row, and so she.

She looked at me but she kept looking and she found Bob Bobola.

And Bob Bobola used to work at NASA, was working at NASA at that time and he's a real, you know his engineer, deep voice.

He's about as exciting as grass growing.

Ok, don't tell him I said so, but he's not the kind of guy you know.

Did you want to lift 3000 people up at 8 30 in the morning?

You got to have somebody's got a voice.

You got to have somebody that's got some energy and get them.

And so he got it started.

It was barely.

It's like a bricks and stratton motor when you rank, yank on the thing and it doesn't start right away.

It's kind of like they kept cranking on it until it finally started.

I'm just joking.

Y'all, y'all, we tease each other all the time.

I've known him for 40 years so I can, I can tease with him.

I would do it if he was sitting right there, but anyway.

So in fact he said that I stole his job, but anyway, that wasn't true.

So here we go the next Sunday, and she wasn't about to choose him again.

So she so Doreen is this guy?

Where is the guy that's supposed to do his job?

I mean, are you brain dead?

You've got a very important job that thousands of people are looking, waiting on you to say something, to get things started, and you don't show up.

What are you doing?

So never did get that question answered, but anyway.

So she nodded at me I'm going, and so this time I'm headed up and out of the corner of my eye I see the doors wide open and they slam open.

He's running, I mean not just trotting, he's running full speed across that sanctuary to try to beat me to the front to get the microphone to open the service.

And I kind of glanced and I knew what was going to happen and I thought I wonder who's going to get there first?

And you know, naughty me, I just kept going.

I didn't speed up, I just kept going.

I just kept walking, kept walking and I got to.

I got there first and I picked up the microphone and that guy came in front of me.

He whipped the microphone out of my hand and cut in front of me and got up on the platform and he was so out of breath he couldn't talk and I turned and I went like that and everybody was laughing.

It was such a such a crazy occurrence in a church.

It was just crazy and and I just kind of smiled and went on back down.

Nothing happened.

And so later that week I got a call from Jim Graff.

John pastor wants likes the way you're opening the services.

He wants you to open the services from now on.

I thank you very.

I'm honored.

Thank you very much.

Praise God, favor in a direction.

When, at a time I was unemployed, at a time when I felt like I was beat up, I had come back broke, it looked so bleak and you know, god began to give me favor.

He gave me favor and about a year later I had my own business back again, building houses.

About a year a little, about a little, about a year and a half later we started in business.

So favor in a direction.

There's strategic favor available for us right now.

Don't be intimidated by any reports you get or the way the news portrays things.

Listen, god has got favor for you.

Three things real quick.

Be a tither and a giver.

That's what you are.

I mean, give it, it'll be given unto you.

Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over.

Shall men give unto your bosoms?

Well, that's favor with men.

I've used that over and over.

God gives me favor with people in the direction I need to have.

And then you know, develop your prayer life.

You have to know when God's done in a certain area and when it's time to look for someplace else.

And usually it's when your favor starts drying up.

Sometimes there's a time to stand and sometimes there's a time to look for where what's next.

And so you only know that if you, if you get your prayer life developed, stay close to God.

And then the last one is when we walk by faith and not by sight.

You know Proverbs 16, 7, when a man's ways please the Lord, he make it to even his enemies to be at peace with him.

So what are your ways?

Your ways are ways of faith, your faith and patience.

So if you'll do that, god will give you strategic, patient, strategic favor.

He'll give you preferential treatment.

Amen, come on, lift your hands and receive tonight Hallelujah.

I went a long time, but it was worth it.

Amen, I believe you've received favor from God.

Well, it's a pointed time.

Now's the time for favor.

Amen, we're taking out of this tonight.