Favouright

a visited topic that I think should be visited every year.

And no, it's not faith, it's favor.

Yeah, favorite, instead of favorite.

So some of the things we have to look at every year

are things like faith, but this is another thing

that we are so not used to, and so we need to

look at it again.

In Matthew 11, 28 or thereabouts, Jesus says,

take my yoke upon you.

And I often used to wonder why Jesus wears a yoke

or why he's offering me a yoke,

because a yoke is supposed to be a burden.

So why would Jesus offer me a yoke?

And so one has to ask the question,

so what is the yoke that Jesus wears?

What is the yoke that Jesus wears?

Why is he saying to us, take my yoke upon you?

Wear the yoke?

Because Jesus doesn't wear anything

that his father doesn't give him.

He only wears what his father gives him.

So what is the yoke that Jesus wears?

And if you look at his life right from,

you can't look at his life right from the beginning,

because he does not have a beginning,

but if you look at his life,

some of the things you'll notice is that the three things

that he's been wearing ever since the beginning of time,

that he wore when he was on earth,

that he still wears are affection,

intimacy,

trust.

These are three things that he and the father always share.

There's tremendous affection from the father towards him.

He's very aware of it,

and the father would often speak about it.

So he, during baptism, spoke about it.

This is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.

Later on, he says it again,

and it sounded like thunder to some people

in John chapter 12, I think.

John 12 · chapter mention

And at that point he said,

this is my beloved son, listen to him.

And so affection then leads to intimacy,

because the father and son have a very unique,

intimate relationship.

In Matthew 10, in the message it says,

this is a unique father-son operation

that comes out of father-son intimacies and knowledge.

This is a unique father-son operation

that comes out of father-son intimacies and knowledge,

and that leads to a degree of trust

where the father trusts the son

and the son trusts the father,

to the extent that even Jesus quoted David

from the Psalms when he says,

I know that my father will not abandon me to Sheol.

He knew that he would rise up from the dead

even if he died.

These three things are what we struggle with.

We get this right, and our lives will be highly successful

in any condition.

These are the three things that will always be opposed,

that will always be stolen,

that will always be dismantled.

It is critical that we get this right.

Affection.

Affection, intimacy, trust.

This is the yoke that Jesus wears

from the beginning of time.

This is the yoke that he's saying he wants us to take on.

Take my yoke upon you.

Take this that I wear with my father.

He and I have a strained affection for each other.

He and I are intimate.

He and I trust each other.

This is the yoke that I want you to take

so you can walk with me just like I walk with my father.

It is light, it is easy to bear,

and I will teach you how.

These are ingredients of another word called favor,

which is what we want to examine today.

Because the father wants,

I need a little more volume

because the father wants

the same relationship.

The father wants the same relationship with me

that he has with Jesus.

The father wants the same relationship he has,

the father wants the same relationship with me

that he has with Jesus.

I struggle with this because I do not know

the relationship that the father has with Jesus,

so it doesn't necessarily make sense to me.

I do not know the intensity of the relationship

that the father has with Jesus.

You catch glimpses of it when you read the gospels,

but it's not real to me.

So how do you then deal with this?

One of the ways that perhaps you can deal with this

is to think of someone you highly favor or you highly love,

or think of someone who loved you tremendously

and showed you great favor.

And when you begin to think like that,

it can become a little more real

because favor is not a theological construct.

Favor is not a faith thing.

Yes, faith is involved, but favor is something tangible.

So it makes it much easier for me

when I think of someone that I highly favor

or when I think of how I have been highly favored.

And then I begin to think, if God was like that,

that itself would be satisfying,

but God is not like that, he's many times more.

But if I don't have an understanding of this,

affection, intimacy, trust is a non-starter.

Feelings are involved in this.

Faith is involved in this.

Truth is involved in this.

Thank God truth is a person.

Jesus is involved in this.

If you don't wrap your heart around it,

because you cannot wrap your mind around it first,

you have to wrap your heart around it.

If you don't wrap your heart around it,

you will need a lot of faith to live the Christian life.

We are supposed to be loved before we can exert faith.

Faith is exerted because we are loved

and we can trust the one who loves us.

If we are not loved, it is very hard

to exert faith because now you have to stand on scriptures,

not stand on a person.

When you're loved, you stand on the person that loves you.

When you're not loved, when you don't understand

how much you're loved,

then you have to stand on the words they say.

One of the biggest shifts that Christians have to make

is move from the promises of God to the nature of God.

Sometimes I love it when God says to me,

I'm not gonna give you a promise,

I'm gonna give you my nature.

I love that.

Now I don't have words to stand on,

I only have to depend on his nature.

A promise is realized through reading and faith,

nature is realized through relationship.

A promise is realized through reading and faith.

Faith comes by hearing the word of God.

Nature is realized through relationship.

This is what God is inviting us into.

This is what every Christian life is supposed to be.

This is what Adam and Eve were supposed to have

and did have.

Even after they lost it, they still had it.

This is the embrace that he wants us to come into.

And therefore, think of those that you highly favor

and think of how your heart pours out towards them.

Some of the words that we, and guys, remember this,

every attempt of the enemy is to dismantle faith.

Every attempt of the enemy is to dismantle favor,

affection, intimacy, and trust.

Since he knows the battle is lost

in terms of getting you unsaved,

why not make your life miserable and unfruitful

by removing these four things from your life?

Because he can't take you away from him

whose hands you are held in.

You are saved.

Christ lives in you.

Satan does not have the power to remove Christ from you.

Or you from Christ.

So what can he do?

The only thing he can do is,

can I strip you of affection, intimacy, trust, and favor

so that your life here in Christ is miserable?

Or is an exertion?

So wrap your hearts around it.

If you try to wrap your mind around it first,

it's not possible.

Because our minds have not experienced favor here on Earth.

This kind of favor we haven't experienced.

So let me define favor.

Before I go there, every time you talk to God,

every time you talk to God, just remember this,

every time you talk to God,

it will be in the context,

it will be in the context of how you think he sees you.

Hey, that's a really cool song.

The blind man stood by the road and he cried.

The blind man stood by the road and he cried.

He cried, oh, oh, oh, oh,

show me the way, it's too high.

Every time you talk to God,

it will be in the context of how you think.

Who's leading the song in?

Yeah, sounds really good.

It's very distracting.

Every time you talk to God,

every time you talk to God,

it will be in the context of how you think he sees you.

How you perceive he's towards you.

This is something you need to recognize,

that every conversation you have with God

is based out of the context of how you think he sees you.

And therefore, when affection, intimacy,

and trust and favor are not your context,

not the matrix that you operate out of,

it is very hard, it's very hard.

We literally have our own wailing walls

and our own days of atonement every day.

But if I get it right, if I get this right,

then the father begins to have the same relationship

with me that he had with Jesus.

God is dealing with you not in terms of how you should be,

but how you presently are in Christ.

He's not dealing with you as you should be,

because if you don't have the right relationship

with him, he's not dealing with you as you should be.

Because if he did that, he would never get to have you

till you got to heaven.

He deals with you as you are in Christ.

So my deficits are made up in Christ.

So let me define the word favor in many different ways

so that we get the hang of it.

So how about approval?

But doesn't it say in the Bible

that you should study to be approved?

Yes, it does.

Doesn't it say in the Bible that obedience

is met with approval from God?

Yes.

Doesn't it say that if you overcome, God approves you?

Yes.

All that is true.

Approval operates at different levels,

but the bottom level of all approval is you are approved

because you are in Christ.

That's where it starts.

Everything else is built on top of that.

What we do as Christians is we are so not used

to being approved without doing anything

that we begin to measure our approval

based on what we have done.

None of us are used to being approved

without doing anything.

It's in the very nature of parenting

to not approve your child unless the child measures up.

It is sad, but that's how we parent our children.

If some of you young dads and moms who presently have kids

that are less than a month or two months old,

if you could begin to help that child understand approval

before the child has done anything,

you already give that child an advantage

that very few of us have had.

Words that explain approval.

High esteem.

This is why I said, if you have shown someone favor like this,

you will understand this.

If you have received favor like this,

you will understand this.

And if you haven't, then we must begin to do this

so that someone else can experience it.

And you can be made richer by it.

One of the things we Christians should do

is behave like God,

even if we haven't received this kind of behavior.

So maybe you've never received this kind of favor.

Maybe you haven't gotten it from parents,

from pastors, from anybody.

You've not received this.

Well then, time for you to start doing it

because someone will receive it

and you will know what it is to give it

and someone else will know what it is to receive it.

If you haven't got favor,

they click on immediately because their heart wraps around it.

But how can I give this if I haven't received it?

You've got God in you, you can start.

Approval, high esteem.

Delight.

Love that makes you laugh.

Guys, even these first five or six,

do you realize how alien it is to our experience?

This is the poverty of humankind.

That this is not a common experience.

Maybe we can't do it for 20 people, 30 people,

how about two people, three people?

I can't think of God constantly stamping me with approval.

I can't see God highly esteeming me

when sometimes I don't esteem myself highly.

I can't see God absolutely delighted with me

because there are things that are not delightful about me

and I can't see God who loves laughing over me.

These things are so alien.

I'm praying God that as I speak,

the Holy Spirit will start doing something

in my heart and yours because I can't do this for you.

No words will make this happen.

I can try and present a picture

but he can take the picture and emboss it.

And if you're not a feeling person,

then it is not the way God made you.

It is the way you have become

because of your environment, background, situations

and God can change that too.

Some of the most amazing miracles

are the change of personality

that sometimes happens overnight.

Overnight.

When fear goes, it's a miracle.

Overnight.

When personality changes happen, overnight.

What does he want from you?

A little bit of cooperation.

What does that look like?

A little bit of water that you allow

onto the hard clay of your life.

That's all.

That's all it takes.

Love that makes you laugh

or makes the person who is showing you a favor laugh.

Targeted kindness.

Targeted kindness.

As in, this is kindness that is especially towards you,

that you understand.

Access.

Favor gives you access.

As in, if I favor someone, they have access.

Whenever you favor someone,

you give them access to life, to things in your life.

You give them favor.

I don't know your bank pin code.

I mean, Dawn to 7777.

But besides that, most of us, we don't know.

Have you changed it since you got married?

It must be the first four.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah.

Usually once you get married,

it's the first four digits of your wife's birthday.

So once you figure out Kezia's birthday,

you have all their money.

Yeah.

Access.

I love this word.

Intentional bias.

Intentional bias.

God, favor is intentional bias.

Favor is intentional bias.

Doesn't compute, huh?

That God is intentionally biased towards me.

It's extra benefits.

Extra benefits.

If you're favored, you will get extra benefits.

If you're favored,

your debts and deficits will be settled.

If you're favored, you have tailored goodness,

which is the same as targeted kindness.

Tailored goodness.

Tailored goodness.

Because of God's furious love,

because of God's furious love for me,

because of God's furious love for me,

favor is,

and favor is an I am pleased with you.

Or you are special to me position.

In Christ.

If the only thing you did this week was go over this

again and again and again,

perhaps your life could change for the next little while.

Any questions?

It'll be impossible to escape favor

when you think like this, eh?

It'll be impossible to escape favor.

It'll be impossible to escape favor

when you think like this.

You'll anticipate favor in situations.

You'll expect favor in situations.

It's not a matter of favoring or not.

It's a matter of favoring.

It's a matter of favoring.

It's very, very hard to think like this.

It's not a negative confession.

I'm just telling you the truth.

The ground has become so hard after 30, 40, 50 years

of not being most favored in any relationship.

It becomes very hard.

It is our responsibility to act like this

towards those around us.

Pick two or three or four or five.

It's our responsibility.

Pick your spouse, pick your children,

and then pick two or three more.

They must know what this is like.

If they know, then it is so easy for them

to connect with the father.

Do people a favor.

Help them connect with the father faster.

Approval.

Highly esteemed.

Delight.

Today I was going over people that have favored me.

Over the last few days I've been going over this.

People that favored me and how they showed me favor

and people that I favor and how I show them favor.

I'm trying to put God in the picture.

I seem to be able to give favor and receive favor

much easier from people than from God

because that is not the God that I always think of.

I struggle with this.

I would suggest that you struggle with it too.

What if I approved you always?

What if I thought of you with high esteem?

What if I delighted in you?

What if just watching you makes me laugh out of love?

What if I could target you with my kindness?

What if I could be a good friend?

What if I could be a good friend?

What if I could target you with my kindness?

What if I gave you access?

What if I had an intentional bias towards you?

What if you were always the recipient of extra benefits?

What if your debts and deficits

were my pleasure to wipe out?

What if I tailored goodness towards you?

What would your life be like?

What if you did that for me?

Then every time I'm in your vicinity

there's an expectation of favor.

Every time I'm anywhere near you

or even if I know that your influence spreads

and you're nowhere near me,

I will still anticipate this.

This becomes my life.

This becomes my life and things are tough.

This becomes my life and things are easy.

This is what I expect.

What is the opposite of it?

Self-hatred, anxiety, self-condemnation, fear.

And despite these two extremes,

an honest question to all of us, including me,

how many of us will actually spend time

to make this happen for ourselves?

How many of us will try to figure this out with our minds

and will fail by tomorrow and abandon it?

How many of us will live under our privilege

in a world of instant gratification?

We find it very hard to spend time figuring this out.

And so what do we dilute it down to?

If God answers my prayer, I'm favored.

If God doesn't answer my prayer, I'm not favored.

We become like spoiled children.

That is a measure we use for favor.

Spoiled children do that.

That he didn't give me, he doesn't love me.

Really?

That means he does.

Yeah.

Any questions?

Yeah, we can show this to non-believers too.

Because this is a God who sends rain

on both the good and the evil.

Any questions guys?

When you don't know how God thinks of you,

when you don't know how God thinks of you,

you are 들어�, uniform, siafe,

and you don't share desires with God.

Only when you know God will find peace for you.

All the people who are hearing talented people

You're a product of your past, you're a product of your past, you are a product of your past, present or future.

Or the perception of others.

When you don't know how God thinks of you, then you're either a product of your past, as in what happened yesterday, your present, as in what may be happening today, or your future, as in what may be happening tomorrow.

So there might be some days that you think well of yourself and some days when you think really lousy of yourself.

Because it's based on your struggle. Your struggle becomes your identity. Never let the struggle become your identity, because it wants to do that.

Your struggle becomes your identity. And then everything I do when I pray, when I exert faith, everything comes out of the identity that I have now taken on, which is my past, present or my future.

Because I do not know how God thinks of me. Because this is so hard to wrap my head around.

But this is how he thinks of me in Christ. And this is not cheap grace. This is not some kind of cheap grace message.

No, I'm just telling you how the Father thinks of the Son, and because I'm in the Son, how the Father thinks of me.

This is the kind of favor that has showered on me, but it's like wearing a raincoat and never getting wet.

Any questions?

This is why we need to visit favor and faith and things like this every year, man, or maybe twice a year, because it's very hard to remember.

Any questions?

What are some of the ways you can move from not living this to living it? What are some of the strategies?

I think one of the biggest ones is to go over it again and again and again, until you at least begin to get some hang of it.

Or receive it from ones that are showing you favor, or give it to someone so that you have some context to place it in.

If I show someone favor, at least I know what it tastes like. If I have been a recipient, and either am or no longer a recipient,

at least I can go and remember the favor I used to have and think, wow, that is what it feels like.

And then try to bring God into it, because really when people say to you, God loves you as much as he loves Jesus,

sometimes it's hard to compute because you really don't know how much God loves Jesus.

And then the next one is, he loved Jesus and he sent him to the cross, so maybe he'll send me to the cross even though he loves me.

That doesn't help at all.

I don't think he sent him to the cross, I think Jesus took him to the cross.

Yeah, but my mind kicks in other ways.

Very hard, man.

We behave like that because we are like God, but they will not be able to receive it like we receive it.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, just like forgiveness is present, but an unbeliever cannot wrap their head around it.

Because remember guys, we are actually two different spirits.

It is in us and them. The difference is that we all have distorted lives and someone restored our lives.

We have a different spirit and therefore this is the only way you can behave.

But just as a note, they do recognize it.

I didn't hear your question a total time, but I have a sister who's cut herself off from us with him, but she sees something in me that she doesn't see in others.

Others, yeah.

So they do recognize it.

Go ahead, Vivian.

Sorry?

Okay, where does favor come to play when you're under spiritual attack or are bound?

That's your question?

Yeah.

If I favored you and I saw you under spiritual, under physical attack, if I favored you and I saw people ganging upon you,

if I favored you and I saw you being surrounded and intense towards you are harmful,

then if I favored you, something would rise up in me and that's the word I use.

Furious love would rise up in me to protect you.

So most of the time we don't even recognize furious love.

We just say Jesus loves us.

It is a furious love.

It is the love that spouses have for each other even though they've had two months of fighting every day.

You go try to harm to one of those spouses and something in the man leaps up and says,

she may have bashed my head in 30 times this month, but my God, if you touch her, I'll bash your skull in.

I know it sounds violent, but it's just to show you the intent is not that you bash people's heads in.

The intent is furious love.

Furious love is the kind of love that rises up and will do anything to protect its own.

Do anything to protect its own.

But because I don't think God is like that, I think of God taking his own sweet time to set me free.

I think of God coming up with different loopholes that I have to jump through before he will set me free.

I think of God bringing out a list that he typed up on a computer saying this, this, this, and this is wrong.

Get this fixed, this fixed, this fixed, and I'll help you.

It may well be that he has to go through that list, but I must operate from this place of I am favored with furious love,

and therefore there's an intentional bias towards me.

There's tailor-made kindness and goodness towards me.

That is the confidence that one should operate from, and that is the confidence we do not have.

And pastors are part of the problem because this is not what is presented.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, so there is favor that keeps, eh?

Favor keeps. Otherwise we'd be completely wiped out by now.

Just take the seed we have sown. If those crops actually grew, our lives would be destroyed.

So there is a keeping power of God.

But wrap your heart around this.

Favor gives you access. Favor gives you access.

Favor gives you access. Whenever you're favored, you have access.

Whenever you're favored, you have access.

Favor is access to the ultimate place of relationship.

Favor is access to the ultimate place of relationship.

Favor is access to the ultimate place of relationship.

What do you mean by that?

Jesus favored John.

It doesn't mean that he did not rebuke John.

It doesn't mean that he didn't make life tough for John.

Usually those you favor are the ones that probably have to really go through the wringer.

But Jesus favored John, perhaps because John was the youngest among the disciples.

He might have been 15 or 16.

And he lived the longest. You find him on the island of Patmos years later.

He's the same guy who brings his mother to a fight.

So he's a young kid, 15 or 16 years old.

And so Jesus favored John.

And in John, I don't remember the scripture,

John himself used to say, Jesus is beloved disciple.

I mean, what audacity.

John had the same problem that Joseph had.

I'm my father's favorite.

I'm my father's favorite.

And John does that where he, in his gospels, he writes in John,

he writes, and Jesus, he's writing the book and he's saying,

and then Jesus turned to his favorite disciple, his beloved disciple.

Peter, when he read it the first time, must have thought, my God, this guy.

And so in John 13, 23, you see how the favor is playing out.

If you read John 13, 23 from the message, it really captures the essence of it.

John 13, verse 23.

John 13:23

It says there,

one of the disciples, the one Jesus loved dearly,

that's John writing, one of the disciples, the one Jesus loved,

I really like John.

Yeah, there's something there.

One of the disciples, the one Jesus loved dearly,

was reclining against him, his head on his shoulder.

Beautiful, eh?

Favor gives access.

Favor is access to the ultimate place of relationship,

and it inevitably leads to intimacy.

You cannot enter intimacy.

Hear me.

You cannot enter intimacy if you do not understand favor.

You cannot enter intimacy if you do not understand favor.

Not possible.

You can see why children are robbed of it.

Do not let your children earn their way.

Do not give them medals or take them to the white spot

just because they ran in a race and came last.

But do not approve them because they did something.

They must be so confident of this.

We are the products.

I look around and I see our lives,

starting with mine and looking at yours,

one of the reasons we struggle, one of the reasons we've had to use

so much faith and to break habits to come through

is because our parents didn't know any better, man.

Our teachers didn't know better.

Our pastors didn't know better.

That's why that child can keep crying and Aaron won't even move a muscle.

Favor is access to the ultimate place of relationship,

and it always is an open door.

Open door to intimacy.

Any questions, guys?

Okay, favor is the fullness of permission.

Favor is the fullness of permission.

I don't want to make these sound profound.

I want to simplify it.

Favor is the fullness of permission.

As in, you can go anywhere in Christ.

You can go anywhere in Christ.

So let's assume my favor, Tooni,

and so now I'll give Tooni the keys to my apartment.

I'll give him the buzzer so he doesn't have to buzz.

Oh, this is so funny.

I told Evan, meet me at 11.15.

On Friday, I texted him saying, meet me at 11.15.

Need to talk about Victoria.

And I'm in my PJs and I'm about to go to bed,

and suddenly someone's opening my door.

I'm thinking to myself, who's coming to my whole door?

I mean, I've taken off my wig and my dentures,

and I'm just sitting watching TV.

And I'm thinking to myself, who just walked in?

And I panicked in there.

It was Evan, 11.15 at night.

What do you do with people like this?

Thank God I didn't say one, eh?

Because if you'd have come at one,

that would have really freaked me out.

So...

So...

Pardon?

The wig and the denture?

Yeah, that too.

Okay.

So...

So let's assume I favor Tunis.

So now I give him my keys, I give him my buzzer.

He has access.

He has access.

It's an open door now.

And so he now has permission to go and get anything anywhere.

This is how it works.

Favor allows you to do this.

But till you get into that space where you understand this is how God is,

it's not possible.

You would not dare.

You would not dare.

Most of the things that we ask for in faith is basically for the things of life.

We do not dare step into greater things.

Because to even ask that would be unworthy.

Favor is the fullness of permission.

That's why you see guys like Joshua, guys like Moses, guys like Abraham,

asking for things that no human should ask for.

They didn't need faith for it.

They first had favor.

Out of their favor they ask.

It is out of favor that you ask for the son to stand still.

It is out of favor that you bargain with God and reduce Sodom down to five.

It is out of favor that these things happen.

It is out of favor that Moses is lying before God,

knowing that I have enough favor to stop Israel from being destroyed.

It is not faith.

When you have these things, why do you need faith, man?

When you have these things, faith is so easy.

If you know you're approved, if you know you are highly esteemed,

if you know he delights in you, if you know that he laughs out of his love for you,

if you know that he targets you with kindness, if you know that you have access,

if you know you have intentional bias towards you,

if you know you have extra benefits, that your debts and deficits will be settled,

if you know that there's tailored goodness towards you,

first, you wouldn't care about the things of life.

Two, knowing all that, you would be able to ask for the moon.

When you ask for the moon, it's not for yourself.

None of the guys who exerted great faith ever did it for their own sakes.

None of the guys in Hebrews 11 who exerted great faith ever did it for their own sakes.

But they knew they had favor, this kind of favor.

Why is it that I can't wrap my heart around it?

I think it's because we don't understand what holiness is.

Perhaps.

Got to wrap our hearts around it, man.

Favor is the confidence I have.

Favor is the confidence I have.

That deficits or flaws will be filled by Christ

and will not be reason to fall out of favor.

God of the gaps.

God of the gaps.

God of the gaps.

If you are supposed to bridge the gap, if you're supposed to fill the gap,

fill it with favor.

God of the gaps.

This is not a humpty dumpty wall that you fall off.

You can't be a little bit of a coward.

Favor is being condemned to generosity.

Favor is being condemned to generosity.

Favor is to be condemned to generosity.

Favors being condemned to generosity.

What if every time you meet someone, you condemn them to generosity?

What if you go anywhere near them,

and they're thinking of, how can I be generous? How can I be extravagant? How can I be lavish?

How can I embarrass this person with more?

Let me say that again. Favor is to be condemned to generosity.

What if you're around a person who's looking for ways to be extravagant,

who's looking for a way to embarrass you with more, who's looking for how to be generous?

How can I do something else that will make this person blessed?

That is being condemned to generosity. This is your God.

Where are our eyes going as we speak about this?

To our circumstances. It's okay. Let your eyes go to your circumstances.

But at least know this before your eyes go to your circumstances.

Let your heart know what your eyes can't see. Let your eyes see after your heart knows.

Let your eyes see after your heart knows. If your eyes see before your heart knows,

then your heart will also see what your eyes see.

I can't allow that. Let your eyes see what your heart...

Know in your heart this before your eyes see. Otherwise your circumstances will become your identity.

Your circumstances will become how you think God sees you.

Everything is measured by our circumstances. Everything is measured by your circumstances.

The one thing that having Jesus in your heart changes that. They had a physical Jesus in their boat,

and their circumstances took over. They had Him in flesh and blood.

They had seen His power, and there was nothing that He could do in their lives in the middle of circumstances.

Because in their heart they did not know.

Repent, eh? We need to repent. Repent is to change our minds.

So let's just pray a prayer of repentance right now. Father, we repent of our hard hearts

and our stiff-necked minds.

We repent. We repent, O God. Repenting is metamorphosis,

which is a changing of the mind. Metanoia, sorry, Father.

A changing of the mind.

So Jesus, we repent. I repent of my hard heart that has an ability to resist

a highly favoring God.

It doesn't matter how many times you say it, I always come up with a reason not to walk in it

or fall out of it. And I repent in my mind, my stiff-necked mind

that just switches to senses and my thinking and my feeling and my sight

and I just shut you out. I repent of it. Jesus, corporately we repent of it.

We want to come into this matrix called favor, out of which we can operate, out of which

in which we swim, in which we drown, and then see circumstances after that,

knowing something in our hearts.

In Jesus' name.

Please try this throughout the week. Please go over and over it.

Because all of us are going through difficult circumstances in our lives.

Some of us are sleep deprived. Some of us are money deprived. Some of us are peace deprived.

And it's not one day or two days. Some of us have been going through it for a while.

I must be buried in this.

Favor is being condemned to generosity, condemned to

preferential treatment.

It is undeserving,

so what? And it is heart-stirring.

I spent most of my mornings going over this

for the last little while. Affection, intimacy, trust, favor.

Just sit on my armchair and think of this, think of different situations

where I have received and I have given favor, and then move into receiving it

and giving it from God. And then when I get into that sweet spot,

after that, everything else is easy peasy.

If you look at Isaiah 61,

which talks about the year of favor, or in other words,

Jubilee. It talks about, he has

come to announce a year of favor. What does a year of favor entail?

Look at what it entails. Provision is supplied.

Security is restored.

If you read Isaiah 61, 5 to 11, security is restored.

Double honor is bestowed.

Promises fulfilled.

Debt reversed.

Debt reversed.

Clothed.

Fruitful.

Generations blessed. This is what favor looks like

in Isaiah 61.

Don't look for money, look for favor.

After you stand in favor,

then it's different. We look for money first,

and then we measure favor by the money we receive.

And if it comes fast, we are highly favored. If it doesn't come fast, then we go to faith.

It's not very good.

It's the same with healing. It's the same with everything. We don't stand in favor.

For some reason, I'm scared to abandon myself to thinking like this.

Someone asked, so how do we go about it?

What are some of the things we can do? One of the things you can do is, guys,

we said focus on it.

Focus on it. Then the next one is

indulging God-directed self-talk, which is the definition of meditation.

God-directed self-talk.

That is what meditation is.

God-directed self-talk. As in, this is what God says.

These are the things I have learned. I will now engage in something called God-directed self-talk.

Words, voice, talk,

God-directed, indulge in it.

God-directed self-talk.

Father, though things are difficult today, as I look at the rest of the day,

I just come and sit and imagine what it is to be highly favored by you.

You actually fully approve me and right now you delight in me.

Father, you have an intentional bias towards me.

I'm special to you

and I please you. You know my name. You trust me.

I know how I show favor towards others and have affection for others.

If that is the intensity with which I can show affection towards them,

I kind of know the intensity of the affection towards me. If I didn't multiply it at all,

I just took it as that. Father, I want to sink into this

where I know that I have your favor,

that you are for me, you're not against me, that you already know the answers to my problem.

I don't know where these things are going to come from, but I suddenly think of Peter

and there was nothing. That's how I feel right now. But my God, those boats began to sink

in that movie, Chosen, because there was an overabundance. When have you not been like that?

When have you been miserly? When have you been stingy? When have you not provided?

When have you? Has there ever been a time? All my days you have been faithful. All my days you have been so, so good.

With every breath that I am able,

I will speak, sing, voice the goodness of God as I'm doing now.

As I begin to do this, something begins to stir in my heart. Suddenly, instead of praying from a distance,

I have my head on a shoulder. I begin to think to myself, what in the world

were you so upset about? Why were you so troubled? Why are you so

distressed? Put your hope in God, for I will yet

praise him, my Savior and my God.

This is God-directed self-talk.

Scripture is weaving, your thoughts are weaving, your feelings are weaving, your heart wraps around things, your mind begins to

change. Why? Because as you speak these words, the Spirit of God takes what is alive and

begins to make your mind the student. He becomes the teacher. And as your mind changes, your heart is

wrapped around God. What is left? Your body will get up and say, bring it on.

Because this God is my God.

This is not positive confession. This is the truth.

God-directed

self-talk. Third one is very similar.

Speak the favor you have

back to God.

Speak the favor you have back to God in agreement.

Because it propels you forward.

I agree with you, God.

I agree with you, God. This is how you see me. What I indulged was in God-directed

self-talk. Now, can you stay out of it, Father, because I want to talk to you.

It's your turn to listen. You don't need to direct me.

Because now my heart is going to sing. Because I am convinced. So listen to me now, Father.

I agree with you. I am so approved. I am

highly esteemed. I can't believe that. But I am highly esteemed. I am someone you have an

intentional bias towards. And I feel like laughing to think that I have, you have an

intentional bias towards me. That you absolutely delight in me. I am very sure of this.

That you are pleased with me. I am special to you. I heard that

said by a guy 20 years ago and it still stands true. That you know my name.

What do you really call me? And now you are having a conversation back to him. You are agreeing with him

and throwing at him the very words that he spoke. Only you are throwing it as kisses.

Back at him.

Don't you love it when somebody you favor acknowledges it? Or do you say, oh please,

no, no. It wasn't really favor. You love it when someone acknowledges favor.

Where did we go wrong, guys?

Why is it that after a child turns one and a half,

this disappears? Till one and a half, that child can poo on your head and you are happy.

And then suddenly it stops.

You are not going to give me an explanation.

Sorry, go ahead.

Yeah.

So when we say generosity, in my notes I put generosity

and in brackets I put dollar signs and cut it. Meaning we think of generosity

as money. Do not think of generosity as money. So when we think of faith

as favor as generosity, think of someone you really like.

How your heart attitude towards them is generous.

It could be as simple as they like eggs, so in their curry I am going to add

an extra egg. They don't like walking, so instead of dropping them off

at the intersection, I will drop them right at home.

They like brown leather shoes,

so let's get them brown leather shoes. You are constantly thinking of them.

You go to a bakery and you see a muffin and it's a blueberry muffin and you think to yourself,

I already have six muffins, but because of my generous favoring heart, I will buy an extra blueberry muffin for them.

You are constantly thinking of this person

with brown shoes who likes blueberry muffins

and who does not like walking and likes eggs in anything.

And this is how it is.

And the person knows, the person knows and it begins to

expect it. Begins to expect it. One of the coolest ways you know that someone

has begun to walk in favor is when the person expects favor.

That is when you realize, see there is a difference between self entitlement and expectation.

Self entitlement is when an expectation is not met and now your entire

life is dismantled or ruined by it. That's self entitlement because you now think

it is your right and if it is not given, then something is wrong. No, this is expectation

of generosity. There is a very fine line,

very fine line. This is what

favor-filled generosity looks like.

We actually practice this with the ones we love.

And if we don't, we should.

If we don't, we should.

Open our hearts to receive from the favor of God.

I'll wrap up.

See you Victoria guys.

Guys,

initially favor will have to be

extracted. We'll end with that.

Favor needs to be extracted because

we don't know it yet. So we'll have to go and

extract it as in fight for it as in we'll have to

learn how to pull it because we don't know how to

walk in it.

So,

so let's assume you've shown me favor in some

area, okay? So let's assume that

I know that you favor me, but I've fallen out of it because

either I haven't walked in it for a while or

haven't kept in touch with you and I've fallen out of favor. Now to get back

into it, I have to remember. I have to dare to take

advantage of the favor that you have for me because your favor towards me

never changes. It is my coldness that makes me think that I do not have it

anymore, that I have to work my way back. Yeah. So with God,

sometimes we have to fight to extract it again. His heart hasn't changed,

but mine has gotten cold. And so then I have to

extract it. I have to fight. I have to literally be shameless and

say, give me what is mine.

And that's when we go into

stuff like I am a worm. Prodigal son, that's exactly

what is happening. He lost favor because he literally stole his inheritance,

wanted his father dead and walked away.

Because in asking for his inheritance, he's saying that's usually given when

a father dies, but he's asking for it much ahead of time. So his father doesn't

matter, the inheritance matters. Give it to me. I can't wait till you die. Takes it, squanders it, comes back.

What he doesn't know, he has never lost favor with his father.

But what is he coming back as? He's coming back as a servant.

That's our approach to favor. Our approach is that of servants.

So we come and we say, I'm only a servant, would you please grant me this?

That's not the posture. There is a posture of servitude before

God in different areas. There's a posture of worshipper. There's a posture of majesty and subject.

There's also a posture of father and son in favor. And we have to know

postures because otherwise we can just mess the whole thing up.

There's a posture of faith.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.

And so the son thought he was self-entitled to the inheritance,

so he took it before time. That self-entitlement where he should not have been like that.

But when I approach God with favor, I'm not going there as a servant.

When I sit in the morning and talk to him about favor, I'm not talking to him as a servant because a servant does not have favor.

Sons have favor.

Servants give obedience.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

If you were convinced of how much I favor you,

you would not look or measure what is happening to you

or what is happening in your relationship with me based on whether something works out or not.

It would not come in between.

If you know that I highly favor you, then you also know

that there is nothing that Jacob will do within his influence or his power

that will not be to my advantage or benefit.

It would not even occur to you.

Every time there's a disappointment, you would run to the one place where you know you are safe, and that is the place of favor.

There has to be an ax that is brought

to the connection between answered prayer and favor.

They are not connected. It's the product of one.

But favor is the real thing.

I know that if I favor someone, there's nothing I will do.

I will work hard at it. I will write to people. I will email.

I will call them. I will not abandon them. I will stand with them.

I will make sure that what is mine has to be theirs also.

If it does not work out, it doesn't mean my favor ends.

I won't shrug my shoulder and say, well, too bad, Emmanuel. It didn't work out.

No. Now the next thing will be, alright, now that it hasn't worked out, what do I have to do?

That is a finite Jacob. How much more?

An infinite, highly influential, loving, powerful, whatever I will shall happen, God.

And therefore, this idea of favor is so important because

our idea of favor is based solely on circumstances. Your question is so valid

because that's how we think. So valid.

Yeah. If you know that you are highly favored, Betty,

and you have asked me something, you're not going to harass me about the answer

because you know you're highly favored. That is always going to be something that Jacob will make happen.

So the answer is something that you now will follow after you

because you dwell in favor. The answer is something that follows you.

It's not something you're running after. The answer is not something you're running after.

This is the hard part of Christianity. This is the hard part of charismatic Christianity.

This is the hard part of faith-based Christianity. Faith-based Christianity makes the answer

or the outcome the main thing. Favor is the nature of God.

Answers are outcomes of promises. Both are important.

One is more important.

Promises must come to pass. Therefore, if God promises something, there is an outcome to it.

So I'm not dissing that. Faith is rewarded. Faith must have expectation and hope.

So you must expect an answer. Please don't think you shouldn't expect an answer.

But it should not be trumping favor.

It is a relationship that I dwell in. The answer is then something that happens.

I just wanted to share a quick question.

Daniel had this week. There were seven monogamous where he tried to meet the church.

He didn't even do that anymore.

He was still worshiping with us.

He was very young.

If we don't practice this every day, we won't live in it.

You have to practice this every day.

Let's stop there because there's plenty more.

Let me stop at this sentence. In today's instant gratification

Christian culture, we have neither the time or the discipline or the strength

to explore God's favor.

In today's instant gratification Christian culture, we neither have the time

nor the discipline nor the strength to explore the favor of God.

Time is not enough. There is time and discipline.

And then the strength to hold on to that conviction that has been forged

in time and discipline and say, this is where I dwell.

This is what is upon my head. This is the crown on my head, the crown of favor.

In a world of instant gratification, this isn't happening.

And therefore then we are like spoiled children who delight or despise

favor based solely on answered prayer.

Let's kind of pray.

How to pray, man.

You pray quietly and I'll try and figure out how to pray.

Pray for this favor thing, eh?

Why is it so hard, Father, to wrap my head around?

You know,

when I went to Israel and

was sitting opposite the garden

that's supposed to be Gethsemane,

they point out a tree that was

a tree that Jesus sat under and then they've taken another tree

and they've grafted them together so they're intertwined.

And that's perhaps where Jesus sat in, which may or may not be true.

But why am I bringing this up?

Ungraft the intertwining of the trees.

Ungraft the intertwining of the trees.

Set circumstances and answered prayer aside.

If that is the one thing we can do today, let's just start there.

Father, I unwind. What is intertwined I unwind.

I separate favor from everything else. I just want to be

one tree. I don't want things to intertwine. If that is the only thing we can ask the Holy Spirit to do,

then let that be the only thing we do. Let's start there.

Separate it from circumstances. Separate it from answered prayer.

Just sit under the tree of favor.

Ungraft the intertwining of the trees.

Ungraft the intertwining of the trees.

Ungraft the intertwining of the trees.

Ungraft the intertwining of the trees.

Ungraft the intertwining of the trees.

Ungraft the intertwining of the trees.

Ungraft the intertwining of the trees.

Ungraft the intertwining of the trees.

Ungraft the intertwining of the trees.

Can you bring me to a Christianity, oh God, where

I'd be satisfied with

knowing what it is to

knowing what it is to

have the favor of the Creator and the King of the Universe upon my life.

Can I not connect

my circumstances and my desire to have prayer answered to it.

and my desire to have prayer answered to it.

All those songs, the Aaronic blessing,

All those songs, the Aaronic blessing,

All those songs, the Aaronic blessing,

make His countenance and make His face shine upon you.

It's a face, that's what He meant by favor.

That is the idea of favor.

Can you help me find favor?

It's already upon me, but I lose it.

I don't know where it is. Can you help me find favor?

Can you help me grow in it?

Spirit of God, words can't do this, but life can do this.

Can you bring life all across this church right now?

I can't do more than this.

When we leave here, can we walk away with a constant

pebble in our shoe called favor?

Always aware of it, annoyingly, irritatingly aware of it, until it becomes part of our shoe.

Can you bring back memories of people that favored us?

Can you bring back memories of people that favored us?

Can you bring back memories of people that favored us?

People that we show favor to.

How our hearts long to show favor, how our hearts were satisfied when favor was shown to us.

Can you remind us

of perhaps mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends?

Can we then superimpose that on you and you'll be a million times better?

There's a scripture in 1 Peter 5, 7.

It says, He cares affectionately for you

and He watches over you carefully.

You care affectionately for me and You watch over me carefully.

You care affectionately for me

and You watch over me carefully.

Can you help our hearts receive that?

Jesus, work a miracle in my life, Jesus.

Jesus, work a miracle in my life, Jesus.

This is all I need to live here on Earth.

So I receive, Father, Your love.

So I receive, Father, Your love. I receive Your affection.

I exchange things, I exchange condemnation,

self-hatred, fear,

failure, repeated failure,

failure, repeated failure, anxiety.

I exchange it.

I throw it away.

Can you give us each before we leave right now?

Can you please come to each of us

and give us a robe of favor as you did Joseph?

Eat in it, sleep in it, walk in it, laugh in it,

do it with circumstances in it. Never take it off.

It's self-cleaning so we don't have to worry.

So I wrap that around us, Father, as a church right now.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

See you guys when I see you. Oops!

I wrapped it around, it slipped a little.

The robe of favor.

Bless you guys.