Speaker 1: Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation
Speaker 1: Church and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank
Speaker 1: you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope
Speaker 1: it builds your faith. Hope it gives your perspective to
Speaker 1: see God is moving in your life. Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: Glory to God in the Highest and on earth, Peace
Speaker 1: and goodwill toward men and women on whom his favor rest.
Speaker 1: Somebody put in the chat he's talking about me. That's me,
Speaker 1: that's me. His favorite rests on me. I used to
Speaker 1: let you touch your neighbor, but I'm scared they'll lock
Speaker 1: us up in jail if I have you touch your
Speaker 1: neighbor right now. So just look at somebody, wink at
Speaker 1: him and say I got the favor of God. Say
Speaker 1: it like that, say it kind of yeah, like that
Speaker 1: with a little bit of swag. I got the favor
Speaker 1: of God. Anybody who knows that, just put it in
Speaker 1: the chat. I have the favor of God. I have
Speaker 1: the faith of God. No, no, no, no no, no, not
Speaker 1: a fancy favor. Oh Lord, I thank you for my
Speaker 1: parking space. Thou hast given me a parking space. So
Speaker 1: very convenience. I'm not clapping for convenience. No, no, no no, no,
Speaker 1: that's fancy favor. I'm clapping cook. I could have been bed,
Speaker 1: I could have lost my mind. I could have gone crazy. Buddy,
Speaker 1: got me? I shot faith or got it now? I'm
Speaker 1: not thank you, Lauren. How many are excited about the
Speaker 1: favor of God? I love y'all. It's a delayed reaction.
Speaker 1: You're like, I gotta think about that. And that's exactly
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do today. We are going to consider
Speaker 1: as this year ends. I wonder how many of you
Speaker 1: are new to our ministry. By that, I mean you've
Speaker 1: been a part of this ministry for less than a year.
Speaker 1: Put it in the chat say I'm a nube, now
Speaker 1: use it right. So sorry, my kids just cringe every
Speaker 1: time I try to say something that's remotely relevant. You
Speaker 1: can't say that, so it's weird. But this message is
Speaker 1: for those of you, whether you're brand new to the ministry,
Speaker 1: have been here a long time, because we end each
Speaker 1: year kind of wrapping a word from God around the year,
Speaker 1: and you are not going to believe what God told
Speaker 1: me to call this year in Because I had to
Speaker 1: get this one from the spirit. I could not do
Speaker 1: this with my mind because I would have tried to
Speaker 1: figure out what to call twenty twenty. If you are
Speaker 1: on planet Earth and watching this in a future year
Speaker 1: and everything looks weird, I can just imagine if you
Speaker 1: watch Elevation in twenty nineteen and then turned it on
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, you could be like what happened to
Speaker 1: the people if you didn't know, if it was much
Speaker 1: later and you didn't have the historical context, that'd be
Speaker 1: kind of crazy. But I want to give you some
Speaker 1: context that every year we finish the year with one
Speaker 1: word from God, and this year the Lord told me
Speaker 1: that we were going to you're ready, Finish with favor.
Speaker 1: That's my message today. Finish with favor. Go ahead and
Speaker 1: put it in the chat. I mean as big as
Speaker 1: you can. I wish you could do a size twenty
Speaker 1: four o'clock for every hour of the day. Finish with favor.
Speaker 1: Put it right there. Finish with favor, and you may
Speaker 1: be seated. Let's get this sermons started. Finish with favor,
Speaker 1: I said Lord. I can't say favor is the word
Speaker 1: for twenty twenty in good conscience. They'll think I'm crazy.
Speaker 1: And it was as if the Lord said to me,
Speaker 1: not out loud. They already know that. The people that
Speaker 1: are still there figured that out a long time ago,
Speaker 1: and they like it. The right kind of crazy. I'm
Speaker 1: the right kind of crazy. I'm the I'm the right
Speaker 1: kind of crazy. I'm the right kind of crazy, at
Speaker 1: least I want to be. I've been all kinds of crazy,
Speaker 1: I really am. It isn't it weird to call this
Speaker 1: the year a favor? I've heard a lot of people
Speaker 1: use a lot of words to describe twenty twenty, and
Speaker 1: some of them even started with the letter F. But
Speaker 1: they they didn't. They didn't, they didn't say it was
Speaker 1: the year of favor. I went through a lot of options.
Speaker 1: I was thinking, well, Lord, you know, we should call
Speaker 1: it the year. We should call it what people have experienced.
Speaker 1: And the first thing that came to my mind, and
Speaker 1: I don't know where your mind went when I said
Speaker 1: the letter F but I thought the year of fear
Speaker 1: would be an appropriate thing to call it. So show
Speaker 1: them on the wide shot, on the white shot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the year of fear. But it didn't look right. When
Speaker 1: I saw it in print, I was like, well, that's
Speaker 1: not really too terribly inspiring. We're giving an offering next week,
Speaker 1: and how many of you are excited to give to God?
Speaker 1: How many of you have been excited to keep giving
Speaker 1: to God? And then we go above and beyond. I
Speaker 1: made my check out this week. I'll tell you I
Speaker 1: fought God like never before writing my check this year,
Speaker 1: because there's more fear. There's more fear, and I thought
Speaker 1: it was hard to give in previous years because we
Speaker 1: always try to stretch. But this year, I was like
Speaker 1: and I had to practice writing the number down a
Speaker 1: few times before I put it on the check because
Speaker 1: I knew what he was speaking. But there was so
Speaker 1: much fear, And I think the Year of Fear would
Speaker 1: be a good thing to call twenty twenty. If we're
Speaker 1: gonna if we're gonna keep it one hundred, as the
Speaker 1: kids say, oh yeah, we have found things to be
Speaker 1: afraid of that we didn't even know we were supposed
Speaker 1: to be afraid of. I was never afraid of a
Speaker 1: handshake until this year. Put it back on the screen,
Speaker 1: the Year of Fear. I thought we could call it
Speaker 1: the Fear Offering. That didn't sound right then, sundvery biblical,
Speaker 1: So I thought about that, and then I thought no,
Speaker 1: we should call it. If you really want to be
Speaker 1: accurate about it, we should label it the Year of frustration,
Speaker 1: because that starts with an F, and you can say
Speaker 1: it in church. The year of frustration, the frustration of
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what in God's name you are
Speaker 1: going to do not next month. Now I have to
Speaker 1: check my phone every five minutes to see if it's
Speaker 1: safe for me to go outside of my door. I
Speaker 1: feel like so it's frustrating me because I'm a rule follower.
Speaker 1: And that surprises you because some people say that this
Speaker 1: church breaks all the rules. But I really like people
Speaker 1: to tell me what I'm supposed to do. And what
Speaker 1: I can't figure out is I live in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: but sometimes I go to South Carolina, and even between
Speaker 1: two states, I can't figure out what the freaking rules are.
Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying. The frustrating you feel it,
Speaker 1: You feel my frustration. I am terrified to go on
Speaker 1: a plane, not because it might crash, but because I
Speaker 1: don't want to have to deal with the deal. It
Speaker 1: was already bad enough before the year A frustration set in,
Speaker 1: telling me I have to pull up my mask in
Speaker 1: between SIPs. I just don't think I can do it yet,
Speaker 1: I'm not ready for it yet, and I don't want
Speaker 1: to end up on the news, so I'm standing away
Speaker 1: from planes until further notice. I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated right
Speaker 1: now because the truck is supposed to be full and
Speaker 1: there's like three hundred people and they're all spaced out
Speaker 1: and there's empty rolls, and it stresses me because it's
Speaker 1: bad out dynamics and I don't like it. But I
Speaker 1: got the write three hundred in a row favor. But
Speaker 1: I'm frustrated. It has certainly been If we just want
Speaker 1: to label this year according to the facts, everybody say facts,
Speaker 1: as the kids say facts. Oh, Graham's gonna kill me
Speaker 1: after this one. He's gonna hate this. If you want
Speaker 1: to label it by the facts, I think we could
Speaker 1: call it the Year of fighting all things that start
Speaker 1: with the letter F. We have found places and spaces
Speaker 1: to fight. We fight over syllables, we fight over punctuation
Speaker 1: marks on Facebook. In this year the Year of fighting.
Speaker 1: You can get canceled when you use a comma instead
Speaker 1: of a semicolon. In the year twenty twenty, somebody will
Speaker 1: pick you apart. I'm telling you for everything you say.
Speaker 1: It's different from people who have a microphone or a
Speaker 1: platform or something, but I think everybody's experienced it at
Speaker 1: some level. Everything is controversial, everything you do. It's some
Speaker 1: big epic message and we're all supposed to figure it out.
Speaker 1: I thought of calling it the year of Fuci, but
Speaker 1: that felt a little bit limiting what we could say.
Speaker 1: And the Lord said, you can call it any of that,
Speaker 1: or you can call it what Luke four nineteen says,
Speaker 1: and tell my people, proclaim this over my people. It's
Speaker 1: the year of favor. Somebody shall favor the year. Put
Speaker 1: it on the screen. It's supposed to come up. The year. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the one. The year. We had to wait for
Speaker 1: it for a minute. We had to get to the
Speaker 1: end to figure it out. But it's the year of favor.
Speaker 1: The spirit of the the Lord is on me. That's what
Speaker 1: Jesus said. Favor. Put that word in the chat. Favor favor.
Speaker 1: Put it in the chat. Say it with your mouth, favor, favor, favor.
Speaker 1: Are you famil with that word? The kids don't say
Speaker 1: favor much anymore. This is a word. See my kids
Speaker 1: introduce me to new words that I'm unfamiliar with. But
Speaker 1: I want to introduce some people who are spiritually just
Speaker 1: growing into your faith to a word that you may
Speaker 1: not have heard, and the word is favor. Now I
Speaker 1: can't figure out. This is why I've been trying to
Speaker 1: figure out. Going over to Luke Iour in your Bible,
Speaker 1: because we're going to study this today. We're going to
Speaker 1: talk about the year of the Lord's Favor and how
Speaker 1: to finish with favor. What's going to require you to
Speaker 1: do is maybe forget how the first eleven months went.
Speaker 1: Paul said, this one thing I do forgetting what's ahead
Speaker 1: behind and straining toward what's ahead, I press toward the mark.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, that's two things, forgetting and straining. He's like, no,
Speaker 1: you got to do them both. In order to move forward.
Speaker 1: You got to forget. So let's just make a deal
Speaker 1: right now. I won't bring it up if you don't
Speaker 1: all the little temper tantrums, pity parties that you had
Speaker 1: this year, all that other stuff that is not appropriate
Speaker 1: for us to talk about in a big group like this.
Speaker 1: Uh huh did you hear it? Did you hear the
Speaker 1: whole crowd go south? The stuff this year that the
Speaker 1: other stuff that was fear based frustration, based fighting against
Speaker 1: people that you're supposed to be fighting for. I won't
Speaker 1: mention it if you don't. Today we'll talk about favor specifically.
Speaker 1: The Lord said, we are going to and I want
Speaker 1: a personally says you are going to finish with favor. Now,
Speaker 1: nothing in me wanted to tell you that, because I
Speaker 1: cannot prove it by the percentages of COVID cases. And
Speaker 1: I certainly cannot tell you that a flip of the
Speaker 1: calendar is going to wave a magic wand and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden make all of the conflict disappear. And
Speaker 1: now I can't say any of that. But I think
Speaker 1: the word favor, although it's unfamiliar to some, it's overly
Speaker 1: familiar to others. And I can't figure out which One's
Speaker 1: harder to get somebody who is overly familiar with the
Speaker 1: concept to unfamiliarize themselves. Sometimes I think I'd rather teach
Speaker 1: somebody who had never heard of Moses, or, as the
Speaker 1: country preacher said, somebody who doesn't know the Book of
Speaker 1: Ruth from a baby Ruth. Amen. I'm telling you, I
Speaker 1: think it's harder sometimes to get someone who has heard
Speaker 1: the word favor. I went to the store and I
Speaker 1: got some shoes and they were twenty percent off. It
Speaker 1: was favor. No, it was Black Friday, that's all it was.
Speaker 1: It wasn't favor. It was marketing because we cheapen it.
Speaker 1: Or we will think favor is like is like fame.
Speaker 1: It's a false equivalent. So we'll say, oh, look at
Speaker 1: how I heard somebody say about a person one time
Speaker 1: that was getting very popular. They said, they're blowing up.
Speaker 1: And see, I knew the person personally, and I knew
Speaker 1: they are blowing up. They're blowing up their marriage, they're
Speaker 1: blowing up their physical health, they're blowing up their emotions.
Speaker 1: So while one person saw the climb of their fame,
Speaker 1: I didn't really think it was favor. But see, we
Speaker 1: have a hard time knowing what the word means. Did
Speaker 1: I use that right? Did I say that right? And
Speaker 1: I'll be honest. The last time I preached on favor
Speaker 1: at elevation was twenty eleven. I thought maybe the word
Speaker 1: needed to be retired, but then I realized it just
Speaker 1: needs to be reclaimed. So today you came on the
Speaker 1: right day, you clicked at the right time. We are
Speaker 1: reclaiming the favor of God in our life. I am
Speaker 1: reclaiming God's favor for my family, for my perspective, for
Speaker 1: my business, for my church, for my ministry, for my emotions.
Speaker 1: I am reclaiming the favor of God. So what is
Speaker 1: the favor of God? Is kind of hard to give
Speaker 1: you a definition because I don't know that we have
Speaker 1: like a worldly equivalent. You know, if I'm trying to
Speaker 1: explain to you the favor of God, it's easier for
Speaker 1: me to show you than to tell you. Remember when
Speaker 1: we used to say that all the time, I can
Speaker 1: show you better than I can tell you. She said
Speaker 1: that a lot, and it was never a good thing.
Speaker 1: But in this case, it's a good thing. I could
Speaker 1: show you. I could give you a picture better than
Speaker 1: I could show you a definition. Now, what some of
Speaker 1: you need to do, and you don't know this yet,
Speaker 1: is you need to take a selfie and look at
Speaker 1: it and the fact that you're still here with light
Speaker 1: in your eyes and a smile on your face. It is.
Speaker 1: It is a picture of the faith. I wish I
Speaker 1: could see. I wish I could see a selfie right
Speaker 1: now on Instagram and tag me and say and say
Speaker 1: and say in the in the tag, this is my
Speaker 1: definition now now what you're doing. When you do that,
Speaker 1: you are defining to the devil that the proof of
Speaker 1: the favor of God on your life is not the
Speaker 1: absence of attack or ambiguity in your life. This year,
Speaker 1: it's a picture of God's favor. It's a picture of
Speaker 1: God's favor. And sometimes a picture is better than a definition.
Speaker 1: So we're going to see a picture of God's favor
Speaker 1: from Jesus, and he gave it to us in Luke
Speaker 1: for thirteen all the way through verse thirty. This is
Speaker 1: so good, This is so good. Are you familiar with
Speaker 1: the favor of God? Have you heard about it? Have you?
Speaker 1: Have you? Yeah? Well, I mean even if not familiar,
Speaker 1: it's probably better because again I can't really explain. It's
Speaker 1: not like luck. It's different than luck. It's something different
Speaker 1: than that because luck is validated and proven externally. So
Speaker 1: it's different. And I knew when I said it's the
Speaker 1: year of the Lord's favor that it would make some
Speaker 1: people just think, what are you in an alternate reality? No,
Speaker 1: but I am in an alternate kingdom, and I do
Speaker 1: have a different spirit than the spirit of the world.
Speaker 1: I have the favor of God. So when I heard
Speaker 1: Elijah's friends the other day and they were calling one
Speaker 1: of the kids a simp. I didn't know what a
Speaker 1: simp was, and I said, I'm not familiar with this
Speaker 1: term simp. What meaneth this? They said, Uh, it's kind
Speaker 1: of hard to describe. And they said it's have you
Speaker 1: heard this term simp? Your kid's not old enough. When
Speaker 1: when Joel gets a little older, he'll start saying, crap,
Speaker 1: you won't have a clue what it means. So what
Speaker 1: you'll do, you'll try to correlate the word to things
Speaker 1: we used to say when we were growing up, and
Speaker 1: sometimes there is no equivalent. So he said, it's a
Speaker 1: it's a guy that'll do anything for a girl. Uh,
Speaker 1: and just doesn't care how it looks. And he said,
Speaker 1: and they named somebody and they said he's he's a simp.
Speaker 1: And I was like, okay, I got it now. I
Speaker 1: got it now. And I thought, wow, it was easier
Speaker 1: for you to give me a picture of it than
Speaker 1: a definition of it, because we don't I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know what what did we call it? A guy
Speaker 1: that was? I mean, some of the things I'm thinking
Speaker 1: of you can't say like that. But but I don't
Speaker 1: think we had an exact word, and I don't think
Speaker 1: we have, Like y'all stay with me. It's been it's
Speaker 1: been a it's been a weird year. So it requires
Speaker 1: some some different kind of preaching. So I was saying,
Speaker 1: I don't think I could put it in a word
Speaker 1: for you. Let me give you a picture. And I
Speaker 1: thought about Moses, how he found favor with God. I
Speaker 1: thought about Noah, how he found favor with God in
Speaker 1: a flood. I thought about Ruth how she found favor
Speaker 1: with bo Ass. God can give you favor with the person. Yeah,
Speaker 1: bo Ass. A lot of single people like that bo Ass.
Speaker 1: I don't want broke Ass or Boas or any of those.
Speaker 1: What I want bow Ass. So you could you could
Speaker 1: get a picture from We can edit this and we
Speaker 1: gotta take the life. But you're good. I can't tell
Speaker 1: if you're smiling behind the mask. It's all right now.
Speaker 1: So I thought we would skip right to the one
Speaker 1: who not only spoke of the favor of God, but
Speaker 1: showed the favor of God, Who was the favor of God,
Speaker 1: Who is the favor of God. Now get ready, this
Speaker 1: is why I can tell you it's the year of
Speaker 1: the Lord's favor, and I hadn't looked at your bank balance.
Speaker 1: This is why I tell you the your Lord's favor,
Speaker 1: and I hadn't looked at your medical report. This is
Speaker 1: how I can tell you your Lord's favor. And you
Speaker 1: don't even like the go home right now because you
Speaker 1: can't stand who you're living with. This is how I
Speaker 1: can tell you it's the year of the Lord's favor.
Speaker 1: Luke for thirteen. When the devil had finished all this tempting,
Speaker 1: he left him. How many of you want to get
Speaker 1: to that part? Let me read that again. Doesn't that
Speaker 1: sound good? When the devil had finished all this tempting
Speaker 1: he left Jesus. I thought about calling this sermon, are
Speaker 1: you done yet? Devil? Because Jesus has been out there
Speaker 1: fasting forty days and forty nights, and he's doing this
Speaker 1: not only for preparation for his own ministry, which is
Speaker 1: about to really really take center stage. In the passage
Speaker 1: I'm going to read you and I can't wait to
Speaker 1: show you. But I had to put verse thirteen, and
Speaker 1: it seemed important because if you don't realize that the
Speaker 1: announce of God's favor came after a season of testing
Speaker 1: for Jesus, you might not recognize God's favor in your life.
Speaker 1: Now I want to read it again so we don't
Speaker 1: misunderstand it. When the devil had finished all this tempting,
Speaker 1: he left him until an opportune time. So it doesn't
Speaker 1: mean it's over. It just means that, see this one
Speaker 1: thing you can know about every battle in your life.
Speaker 1: It won't last forever. This is what you can know
Speaker 1: about every blessing in your life. It won't last forever.
Speaker 1: So if you're in a blessing right now, enjoy it
Speaker 1: because there will be another battle. If you're in a
Speaker 1: battle right now, endure it because there will be another blessing.
Speaker 1: Now I need you to put it in the chat.
Speaker 1: By faith, there will be another one. There will be
Speaker 1: another one. And every time I say put it in
Speaker 1: the chat, y'all say it with your mouth in the
Speaker 1: room so we can join our faith. Right, whether by
Speaker 1: thumbs or by tongues, we're going to confess the word
Speaker 1: of God. Got it, Say it out loud. There will
Speaker 1: be another one, another one. So there was a temptation.
Speaker 1: It was forty days and forty there will be another one.
Speaker 1: And I kept reading that over and over again. How
Speaker 1: the enemy tempted Jesus in the wilderness. And then the
Speaker 1: part I'm about to read you shows Jesus in the synagogue,
Speaker 1: which was kind of like church. So he's in the
Speaker 1: wilderness all alone, and he's in the church with people
Speaker 1: that he knew and that knew him. And God showed
Speaker 1: me that it was the same favor in both places.
Speaker 1: So I saw that the same favor that we're about
Speaker 1: to encounter working through Jesus in the worship service was
Speaker 1: with him in the wilderness. And that's what let me
Speaker 1: know that the favor of God is not contingent on
Speaker 1: a place. You can find favor anywhere, And that's why
Speaker 1: I don't know what to compare it to, because I
Speaker 1: can't say that about anything else in life. You can
Speaker 1: find great pizza anywhere. No, there are some places where
Speaker 1: the pizza is better than others. You know, you can
Speaker 1: find a good man anywhere. You can find mate anywhere.
Speaker 1: How many want to put it on the petition, Tiffany
Speaker 1: should make mat change his name his last name to Hammer,
Speaker 1: and her name can change to Hudson. She just got married.
Speaker 1: But I think they need to do a reverse because
Speaker 1: Hammer is way cooler than Hudson, so you'll put it
Speaker 1: in the petition, put it in the chatts. But see,
Speaker 1: I can't just say you can find a good man anywhere.
Speaker 1: I can't just say that there are some places. But
Speaker 1: the favor of God can be found anywhere you want
Speaker 1: to look for it. It was the same favor that
Speaker 1: enabled him to endure the isolation and testing of the wilderness,
Speaker 1: that enabled him to proclaim the truth in the synagogue.
Speaker 1: You can find favor anywhere, or maybe a better way
Speaker 1: to say it is favor can find you anywhere. Because
Speaker 1: can I be honest, there were sometimes I wasn't looking
Speaker 1: for God's favor at all. I was looking for other stuff.
Speaker 1: And just about the time I thought I couldn't make it,
Speaker 1: the angels of God came to minister to my spirit.
Speaker 1: When my flesh was weak, when my tears were falling,
Speaker 1: when my hope was kind of foggy and faded and fuzzy.
Speaker 1: Here came favor. Here came favor. Here came favor. Here
Speaker 1: came favor, Here came favor. Here came grace, Here came love,
Speaker 1: Here came mercy, Here came favor. Wasn't looking for it,
Speaker 1: but it came wasn't praying about it, but it came.
Speaker 1: Didn't even think it was possible at this point. But here, Hey,
Speaker 1: how many have that testimony that favor found me. Oh
Speaker 1: that's a good one. Favor found me. Thank you, Lord.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, y'all give me twenty seconds, because all this year,
Speaker 1: all this year, the goodness and the mercy of the
Speaker 1: Lord were following me. I saw a table, and I
Speaker 1: saw enemies. And I sat at the table in the
Speaker 1: presence of my enemies. And I was said, by the
Speaker 1: favor of God, and I was said by the mouth
Speaker 1: of ravens, and I was said by every word that
Speaker 1: proceeds favor. Favor found me in the comments. Favor found me.
Speaker 1: To your neighbor, Favor found me. Favor found me here.
Speaker 1: I am God. Here, I am God. I need you
Speaker 1: in this wilderness. I wanted you to know that the
Speaker 1: favor of God that was with Jesus at the resurrection
Speaker 1: was with him in the wilderness. The same faith of
Speaker 1: God that came to marry, that was with Jesus in
Speaker 1: his mother's womb, that was with you before the beginning
Speaker 1: of your life, that same favor is with you, same favor,
Speaker 1: different place. Say that same favor, different place, Favor with
Speaker 1: a mask on, favor with the church on YouTube, and
Speaker 1: your home because you can't go out to church because
Speaker 1: you live with your aging parent. You're scared to get
Speaker 1: them sick. Favor where you are, same favor, different place.
Speaker 1: Y'all please pray for me. That's just verse thirteen. I'm
Speaker 1: so scared to go any further though, because it felt
Speaker 1: familiar to me. Forty days, forty nights in the wilderness,
Speaker 1: forty in the wilderness, forty in the wilderness, forty days
Speaker 1: to make up for forty years when Moses was in
Speaker 1: the wilderness he failed. So before Jesus began his ministry,
Speaker 1: he set up a rematch with the devil. See Moses's
Speaker 1: story in the Old Testament. He struck the rock twice
Speaker 1: instead of speaking to it. He became so afraid that
Speaker 1: he became frustrated. He became so frustrated that he started fighting.
Speaker 1: You remember that from the beginning of the sermon. And
Speaker 1: so Moses's story ended in failure. He didn't get to
Speaker 1: go into the land that he led the people to.
Speaker 1: But Jesus came so that what Moses ended in failure
Speaker 1: he could finish with, say Danish with finish with. And
Speaker 1: I can't explain this to you because it's like a neube,
Speaker 1: or it's like a simp, or it's like something that
Speaker 1: I don't really know how to describe this to you
Speaker 1: because we don't have a context for it. See, you
Speaker 1: are so familiar with earning, so you're reflecting on the year,
Speaker 1: and you're thinking of all the failures that you had.
Speaker 1: But Jesus said, I want to set up a rematch.
Speaker 1: I want to redeem the year. I want to redeem
Speaker 1: me elet January February. He said, I'm stepping in to
Speaker 1: the last month of the year so you can finish
Speaker 1: with Thank you, Jesus, I received your favorite and I
Speaker 1: receive your grace, and I am your righteousness. And I
Speaker 1: thank you that you beat that devil that was beating me,
Speaker 1: and you took away that sin that was suffocating me,
Speaker 1: and you you stripped that shame that was sabotaging my life.
Speaker 1: I thank you that you that you broke the back
Speaker 1: of fear. I thank you that you broke the yoke
Speaker 1: of frustration. I thank you that that I no longer
Speaker 1: have to fight from a place of defeat. I don't
Speaker 1: have to fight in my flesh. I don't wrestle against
Speaker 1: flesh and blood. I have the spirit. The spirit of
Speaker 1: the Lord is on me. He has annoyed in me.
Speaker 1: He broke that failure, he broke it off your life.
Speaker 1: That's why you're gonna finish with failure favor. Sorry, See
Speaker 1: how easy it was to slip back into the whole one,
Speaker 1: because that's what I'm familiar with. You slip back into
Speaker 1: what you're familiar with when you're afraid fear, when you're frustrated,
Speaker 1: and when you're in it, when you're fighting, you just
Speaker 1: do familiar stuff. That's why you call people names that
Speaker 1: you love. That's why you yell at people that are
Speaker 1: trying to help you. Because when you're in fear, phil,
Speaker 1: that's why you strike the rock twice. That's why you
Speaker 1: do it. Now, let me show you this, because because
Speaker 1: this is so powerful. When Jesus finished in the wilderness,
Speaker 1: it said the devil was done, but Jesus wasn't. So
Speaker 1: the enemy got tired before the Savior did. All right,
Speaker 1: so you're gonna overcome. You're gonna you're gonna du this.
Speaker 1: You're gonna finish with favor. You started with some other stuff.
Speaker 1: I know you did, But you're gonna finish with favor.
Speaker 1: Lord told me to tell you that you're gonna finish
Speaker 1: with favor. And this is how we know, uh luke
Speaker 1: for fourteen? Did we really only do one verse so far?
Speaker 1: Y'all need a bathroom break or intermission or something like that.
Speaker 1: Just get up and do what you need to do.
Speaker 1: I'll be right here when you get back, all right, Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: so the Bible says he left the wilderness. That's the
Speaker 1: first place. And you want to study this later. There's
Speaker 1: several places that we're talking about talking about the wilderness
Speaker 1: where the devil was finished. But Jesus wasn't. He outlasted him,
Speaker 1: and he lives in you. So you have that spirit
Speaker 1: of perseverance in you after the point that you've give
Speaker 1: up when you're tired and hungry and lonely and all
Speaker 1: those things, and the devil's trying to get you to
Speaker 1: do crazy stuff. People are doing crazy stuff this year.
Speaker 1: That's all right, because it said that Jesus did what
Speaker 1: Moses couldn't do. And then in verse fourteen, it says
Speaker 1: that Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the
Speaker 1: spirit that in itself is amazing because he didn't return
Speaker 1: of the in the pessimism or in the pain, or
Speaker 1: he returned into power after forty days of being tested
Speaker 1: by the devil. And so it let me know that
Speaker 1: the favor of God doesn't mean that he stops the test.
Speaker 1: It means that he continues the transformation so that he
Speaker 1: keeps working in my life, so that he has unlimited
Speaker 1: patience and grace. Thank you Lord. This is this a powerful, powerful,
Speaker 1: annoying that that's on this word today. Finish with favor.
Speaker 1: So he outlasted the devil. I'm just laughing because Graham,
Speaker 1: my cockiest child, was telling me the other day. He
Speaker 1: told me the other day that he thinks he could
Speaker 1: beat Mike Tyson in a fight because Mike is sixty.
Speaker 1: He was serious, he said, I think I could outlast him.
Speaker 1: He's old anyway. That's what made me laugh. I was
Speaker 1: thinking about Jess I last and the devil. I thought,
Speaker 1: that's that's crazy. But I guess that's some kind of
Speaker 1: self confidence delusion. You'll pray for Graham, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Jess returned to Gottie in the power of the spirit. Wow,
Speaker 1: in the power of the Spirit and news about him
Speaker 1: spread through the whole countryside. This is the real breaking news.
Speaker 1: This is the real breaking news. He broke the chain,
Speaker 1: he broke the shame. That's that's the breaking news. That
Speaker 1: that's what I mean. Is the year of the Lord's favor.
Speaker 1: That's what I mean. That's what the Lord said. So
Speaker 1: it spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in
Speaker 1: their synagogues. Remember he was in the wilderness. Now he's
Speaker 1: in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. He didn't pay
Speaker 1: any attention to that. He knew that man's empty praise
Speaker 1: and treasures that fade are never enough. That's Jesus' favorite
Speaker 1: worship song, grays out the garths. He loves that one.
Speaker 1: He look at this verse sixteen because it's important. He
Speaker 1: went to Nazareth. Just please put that right there on
Speaker 1: the on the side, so I can I can tell
Speaker 1: you about that in a minute. Where he had been
Speaker 1: brought up. And on the Sabbath day he went into
Speaker 1: the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read,
Speaker 1: and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him.
Speaker 1: Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written.
Speaker 1: He found the place where it is written. Somebody say,
Speaker 1: find the place, Find the place, Find the place, Find
Speaker 1: the place. The spirit of the Lord is on me
Speaker 1: because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to
Speaker 1: the poor, breaking news, good news. But wait a minute,
Speaker 1: they're poor. No, no, no, I'm not talking about situation.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about circumstance. I'm not talking about fame.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about I'm talking about favor. Good news
Speaker 1: to the poor, a report that contradicts the reality. Let
Speaker 1: the week say, I am strong, good news to the poor.
Speaker 1: I love all this stuff. He sent me to a
Speaker 1: proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for
Speaker 1: the blind, to set the oppressed free. Read verse nineteen
Speaker 1: with me out loud, ready read to proclaim the year
Speaker 1: of the Lord's favor again, to proclaim the year of
Speaker 1: the Lord's favor one more time. To proclaim the year
Speaker 1: of the Lord's favor. And I put twenty twenty by
Speaker 1: it in my Bible because I don't see that necessarily
Speaker 1: right now, but I believe it because faith is the
Speaker 1: substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things
Speaker 1: that I can't even see. So I want to ask
Speaker 1: you something. Will you proclaim something that you can't currently perceive.
Speaker 1: He said, proclaim to the poor. That's not easy to
Speaker 1: the blind, that's not easy to the prisoners. And let
Speaker 1: me tell you something. When Jesus was on Earth, there
Speaker 1: is no widespread record of people getting out of prison
Speaker 1: in mass but he still said it was the year
Speaker 1: of freedom and favor, year of the Lord's favor. And
Speaker 1: watch what he did. You'll know how. I hadn't had
Speaker 1: the stool out here in a while. I brought it
Speaker 1: today just for this moment in the sermon. It's a prop.
Speaker 1: Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to
Speaker 1: the attendant, and sat out. So that's why I wanted
Speaker 1: to bring this out, to show you what Jesus did
Speaker 1: while you're stressing out, to show you what he's doing
Speaker 1: in heaven right now. I was surprised to see that
Speaker 1: in Revelation chapter five he was seated on the throne.
Speaker 1: I thought that was weird. I'm like, well, that's the
Speaker 1: whole problem. God, if you'd get up and do something
Speaker 1: about this crazy mess. How are you gonna sit down
Speaker 1: at a time like this. Mary helped me in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: You know, Martha, remember that story. I'm thinking, how could
Speaker 1: you be seated right now. Especially what really got me
Speaker 1: was that Jesus is quoting Isaiah sixty one. Let me
Speaker 1: show you this real quick. You can just flip there
Speaker 1: in your Bible right on your phone, So do that
Speaker 1: real quick. Now. Jesus didn't have you version Craig Groschell
Speaker 1: Bible at none of that verse of the day. For Jesus,
Speaker 1: they handed him the whole scroll. It was probably the
Speaker 1: attendants and the synagogue leader there in Nazareth. It was
Speaker 1: probably his decision which scroll handed him, and Isaiah the
Speaker 1: whole thing was probably on the scroll. And you now
Speaker 1: you have the verse markers in your Bible. I say,
Speaker 1: turned to Isaiah sixty one, verse one and two, and
Speaker 1: you're like, okay, it's sixty sixty two, the one between
Speaker 1: the sixty one. That's how we do it. There were
Speaker 1: none of those in the scroll that Jesus read. He
Speaker 1: didn't need them. He found the place. He found the
Speaker 1: place he knew the word that good was the word.
Speaker 1: So it's kind of easy to find the place when
Speaker 1: you are what you're reading. All that to say, when
Speaker 1: you know who you are, When you know who you are,
Speaker 1: you know where you below. You can always find a
Speaker 1: place you can always when you know that, when you
Speaker 1: know that the favor of God is on your life,
Speaker 1: you can find your place anywhere. Is't that good? Isn't
Speaker 1: that good? Don't you want to live like that? I'm
Speaker 1: not there yet. You're not either what Jesus was. So
Speaker 1: he's like, okay, we're reading Isaiah. Okay, all right, this
Speaker 1: is the park. This is this uh, this is something
Speaker 1: I wrote about me. How cool is Jesus? Somebody shall favor.
Speaker 1: He wasn't talking about circumstances. He wasn't talking. He wasn't
Speaker 1: talking about lemons and lemonade, and he wasn't talking about vaccines,
Speaker 1: and he wasn't talking about candidates or any of that.
Speaker 1: He so knew his purpose that he found on this place,
Speaker 1: same favor, different place. So he unrolls the scroll, make
Speaker 1: the sound effect. He goes, yeah, this one, this one,
Speaker 1: this one right here. This is what I want to say.
Speaker 1: You listening, Rodney, you're listening, Carol, you're listening. David, you're listening.
Speaker 1: Because he knew these people, because it's the place where
Speaker 1: he grew up, and they knew him. They thought they did.
Speaker 1: They thought they did, they thought they did. We think
Speaker 1: we do, see We're so familiar, aren't we. I wonder
Speaker 1: if familiarity is sometimes the enemy of favor. I wonder,
Speaker 1: I wonder if familiarity is the enemy of God's favor.
Speaker 1: And the reason I wonder that Isaiah sixty one, I
Speaker 1: hadn't even found it yet. I'm telling you all how
Speaker 1: he found it, and I hadn't even turned there yet. Okay,
Speaker 1: here it is. He said, This is Isaiah, hundreds of
Speaker 1: years before Jesus. That amazing. He said, the spirit of
Speaker 1: the Sovereign Lord is on me because the Lord has
Speaker 1: annoying to me to proclaim good news to the poor.
Speaker 1: Sent me to bind up the broken heart. It proclaim
Speaker 1: freedom for the captives, and to release from darkness for
Speaker 1: the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor
Speaker 1: and the day of vengeance of our God. Does that
Speaker 1: sound familiar? Some of it does? Give me looke for again.
Speaker 1: Let me show you this. It said that he stood
Speaker 1: up and unrolled it, found the place. Give me verse eighteen.
Speaker 1: The spirit of the Lord is on me because he
Speaker 1: has annoyed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
Speaker 1: He sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and
Speaker 1: recovery of sight. For the blind, to set the oppress free,
Speaker 1: to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. Then he
Speaker 1: rolled up the scroll, gave it back, and sat down.
Speaker 1: Go back to Isaiah sixty one one more time. Verse
Speaker 1: two he said, to proclaim the year of the Lord's
Speaker 1: favor and the day of vengeance of our God. Go
Speaker 1: back to Luke for the same verse that I just
Speaker 1: read to you verse nineteen. One more time he said,
Speaker 1: to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor one more time.
Speaker 1: I want you to see this, this powerful. In Isaiah
Speaker 1: sixty one two, the prophet said, hundreds of years before
Speaker 1: Jesus to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and
Speaker 1: the day of vengeance of our God. Go back to Luke,
Speaker 1: for Jesus said to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor,
Speaker 1: and he sat down. Why do you stop there? See
Speaker 1: this was the problem. It wasn't that the people listening
Speaker 1: didn't know the scriptures. They were very familiar with the scriptures.
Speaker 1: So we think that's the problem a lot. If people
Speaker 1: knew the Bible more, if people knew the word of
Speaker 1: God moral, I'll tell you, then this nation with America
Speaker 1: would turn back to God in all of that. No,
Speaker 1: no, no no, no. They knew the Bible. They knew the
Speaker 1: rest of the verse, the year of the Lord's favor
Speaker 1: and the day of angeance of our God. That was
Speaker 1: in their Bible. So when Jesus said the year a
Speaker 1: favor of the Lord and then rolled up the scroll
Speaker 1: and sat down, they were confused because they were waiting
Speaker 1: for the vengeance part. When are you gonna finish this
Speaker 1: member of mortal combat? Finish him? That's what they wanted
Speaker 1: for the Roman oppression. That's what they wanted him to
Speaker 1: come and do. That's what we want the Lord to do.
Speaker 1: Get rid of this. I want this to stop. I
Speaker 1: want this to be done. I want the bad people punished.
Speaker 1: I want the right. I want the wrong to be
Speaker 1: made right. I want the favor of what we say
Speaker 1: when we say the favor of God is we want
Speaker 1: all the enemies eliminated. Jesus came to save the people
Speaker 1: that they wanted him to wipe out. Oh yeah, he
Speaker 1: came to fulfill the law, not abolishit. He did it.
Speaker 1: He came to fulfill the vengeance of God because sin
Speaker 1: has to be punished and shame has to be dealt with.
Speaker 1: But he did not put it on you, and he
Speaker 1: did not put it on me. And see, this is
Speaker 1: the breaking news. This is the good news of the gospel.
Speaker 1: This is what will set the captive free. He didn't
Speaker 1: come to put it on you. He came to take
Speaker 1: it on himself, that he became sin who knew no sin,
Speaker 1: that you might become the righteousness of God. This is
Speaker 1: the gospel. It's good in twenty twenty. It was good
Speaker 1: in twenty It was good when he said it, and
Speaker 1: is good to the last. Draw. Now take this gospel
Speaker 1: and drink this blood and receive this word. It is finished.
Speaker 1: Come on, Praise him like his finished. Praise him like
Speaker 1: he won it. Praise him lucky he did it. So
Speaker 1: I need you to know what he did. I need
Speaker 1: you to know that, he said, it's the year of
Speaker 1: the Lord's favor. Period you're looking at it. Don't look
Speaker 1: for the new car. That might be favor. It might
Speaker 1: be payments. Don't look for that for favor. Don't look
Speaker 1: for bow ass hmm. Don't look for any of that.
Speaker 1: He sat down. He said, I don't know how to
Speaker 1: tell you what favor is. You showed a picture. List,
Speaker 1: let me show a picture of this. Let's shaw a
Speaker 1: picture this man. It'd be so cool to endiscernment here,
Speaker 1: but I can't because I didn't write the Bible. I
Speaker 1: wish at that moment that they would have put finished
Speaker 1: with favor on the chat subscribed on YouTube, turned on
Speaker 1: the bell and gave the tie to the year end offriend.
Speaker 1: We cando they didn't do that. Remember, we read the Bible.
Speaker 1: It's what is said, and it's where it said. So
Speaker 1: saying that he defeated the devil in the wilderness where
Speaker 1: it happened tells us that he was doing for us
Speaker 1: what we could never do for ourselves. That's the grace
Speaker 1: of God. If it starts with grace, it ends in favor.
Speaker 1: If it starts with effort, it ends in frustration. Finished
Speaker 1: with favor, Start with grace. He stood up and he read,
Speaker 1: and he stopped at the part that he came to fulfill.
Speaker 1: He came to do that for you. You can't do
Speaker 1: it for yourself. That's the whole point. Rolled it up,
Speaker 1: gave it back to Timmy, the synagogue assistant. He put
Speaker 1: it back in the art and Jesus said, I'm the
Speaker 1: arc you can put that up. I am, I am
Speaker 1: the word of God. Isn't that amazing? He opened the scroll,
Speaker 1: read the passage. He's going to set the prisoners free,
Speaker 1: good news to the poor. What you don't have, God's
Speaker 1: going to make up the difference in all these things
Speaker 1: that we can take symbolically. They don't even have to
Speaker 1: be literal. That's what he's doing in your life this year.
Speaker 1: It's not This is not Andy Dufraan's style. Do you
Speaker 1: remember when he got out of prison. This is a
Speaker 1: spiritual prison. This is spiritual blindness. And what really ministered
Speaker 1: to me in the text is to know that he
Speaker 1: said he came to open the eyes of the blind,
Speaker 1: and he said in verse twenty one, today this scripture
Speaker 1: is fulfilled in your hearing. Look at the whole verse.
Speaker 1: He began by saying to them, he finished with favor.
Speaker 1: He began to speak, he sat down. When God sits,
Speaker 1: he's not tired. He's finished. The work is finished. It's accomplished. Okay.
Speaker 1: So he began by saying, today, if I say today
Speaker 1: not January first, twenty twenty one, when absolutely nothing changes
Speaker 1: and we all promise to go on diets and to
Speaker 1: do better, and we think something that's known, and today
Speaker 1: this is the year of the Lord's favor. This scripture
Speaker 1: is fulfilled in your hearing. And they were amazed. Give
Speaker 1: me twenty one and you'll just keep up with me,
Speaker 1: because I'm going to go off the screen. All spoke
Speaker 1: well of him, and we're amazed at the gracious words
Speaker 1: that came from his lips. But watch what they said next.
Speaker 1: Isn't this Joseph's son, they asked, And that messed the
Speaker 1: whole thing up. And tell you this, but when we
Speaker 1: went to see Jody and Emiley a while back. This
Speaker 1: is my brother in law. He works at North Greenville
Speaker 1: College where I went to school, North Greenville University. Now
Speaker 1: they've really really moved up, and we were talking about
Speaker 1: how beautiful the campus was, not necessarily the buildings, but
Speaker 1: the buildings are fine, but it was the Blue Ridge
Speaker 1: Mountains in the background. He said something to me. I
Speaker 1: can't get this out of my head. He said, can
Speaker 1: you believe we had this the whole time we were
Speaker 1: here as students. I said, what do you mean? He said, bo,
Speaker 1: that's what he calls me. We call each other that bow.
Speaker 1: He goes, he points to the mountain range. It's a
Speaker 1: real pretty day too, He goes. This was in our backyard.
Speaker 1: The Blue Ridge Mountains were in our backyard. You know.
Speaker 1: Me and Holly went to that school. We never went
Speaker 1: on one hike. It was in our backyard. Crazy, and
Speaker 1: I looked at it. I was like, this is like
Speaker 1: the kind of thing I would pay the vacation at now.
Speaker 1: Not the dorm room. The dorm room was crap. And
Speaker 1: I think that was the problem. I think this is
Speaker 1: what I said to him I was looking at I said,
Speaker 1: we were so focused on what we were living in
Speaker 1: that we didn't even realize what we were looking at.
Speaker 1: When you're living in it, you don't even know what
Speaker 1: you're looking at. That's why we really have to be
Speaker 1: careful not to wish away stages of our life. Wade,
Speaker 1: because that was in your backyard. It took twenty twenty
Speaker 1: to get some of us to see that's. Showing up
Speaker 1: early to get a seat at Valentine at nine thirty
Speaker 1: on a Sunday morning was a privilege back when we
Speaker 1: could all do it without fear. We had the favor
Speaker 1: of God. We still do, but some of it it
Speaker 1: was our backyard. Just looked at it. I was like, dude,
Speaker 1: this is trippy. Are you sure they didn't move these
Speaker 1: mountains in since we left. Are you playing with me?
Speaker 1: Did you slip something in my turkey? What's going on?
Speaker 1: Is this really here? My illusion? It was there? He
Speaker 1: was there, He had been brought up there. He was
Speaker 1: a Nazareth. That's where he grew up. Is familiarity the
Speaker 1: enemy of favor? Because I think it is sometimes, I
Speaker 1: really do. I think we choose what is familiar, even
Speaker 1: the expense of God's favor sometimes. And I'll prove it
Speaker 1: to you not from psychology. I have no degree in that.
Speaker 1: I'll prove it to you, not from sociology. I prove
Speaker 1: it to you from theology and the text. Why is
Speaker 1: it that the place where Jesus should have been able
Speaker 1: to do the most, he was able to do the least.
Speaker 1: That should have been the place for the greatest favor
Speaker 1: of God? Okay, now I need to say this to you.
Speaker 1: This might sound rough. Some of the places where God
Speaker 1: should be working the most in your life, you're letting
Speaker 1: him do the least. And the reason is you are
Speaker 1: choosing what is familiar, and you are chasing away God's favor.
Speaker 1: For many of us, we're waiting on the vengeance. Ah,
Speaker 1: we think we know so much. And when he rolls
Speaker 1: up the scroll and sits down, and we think, well,
Speaker 1: it must be over because God didn't do what I
Speaker 1: wanted him to do. Look at me is finished when
Speaker 1: he says it's finished. He is who he says, he is,
Speaker 1: not who you think he is. And you are who
Speaker 1: he says. You are, not what they say you are,
Speaker 1: whether they is your thoughts, your addictions, your insecurities, your
Speaker 1: secret stuff, your secret stuff. You are not what that
Speaker 1: says you are or your life. That's not what we
Speaker 1: mean by favor. We don't mean the facts. We mean
Speaker 1: the father. So when they were looking at him, there's
Speaker 1: a Greek word that they use, and it's used ten
Speaker 1: times in the Book of Acts, only twice in Luke.
Speaker 1: It says, when he said what he said, he said
Speaker 1: today the scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Faith comes
Speaker 1: by hearing. Faith comes by hearing, but not with physical ears,
Speaker 1: spiritual ears. And it's a terrible thing. The famous woman said,
Speaker 1: I can't remember her name right now. To have sight
Speaker 1: but be blind, it's a terrible thing because he's talking
Speaker 1: about opening blind eyes. But they are blind to the
Speaker 1: Blue Ridge mountains that are in their own backyard because
Speaker 1: He is favor, and he's right in front of them,
Speaker 1: just like the favor of God is right in front
Speaker 1: of you. I promise it is. It's everywhere. You bumped
Speaker 1: into it trying to get in a fight on your
Speaker 1: way out the house. Today, you bumped into the favor
Speaker 1: of God. You had to push the favor of God
Speaker 1: out of the way to get to your bad attitude.
Speaker 1: He said, today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.
Speaker 1: And he sat down and they spoke well, but they
Speaker 1: were so familiar. That's Joseph's son. Wow, he talks good,
Speaker 1: but we know him. We know him familiar favor. Familiarity
Speaker 1: is familiarity keeping you from God's favor. Are you addicted
Speaker 1: to feeling miserable? Feels familiar? If fear is your natural
Speaker 1: habitat for long enough, you'll seek it out. You'll find
Speaker 1: something to be afraid about. I started looking up a
Speaker 1: state taxis the other night and freaking out. And I
Speaker 1: don't think I'm dying. I just needed something to be
Speaker 1: worried about. I just needed something to freak out about.
Speaker 1: I didn't have anything in the moment. It was too good,
Speaker 1: it was too good. I had to make something up
Speaker 1: in the moment. Isn't that crazy? But I think I
Speaker 1: was seeking what was familiar and to receive and accept
Speaker 1: God's favor. When he says the year of the Lord's favor,
Speaker 1: the other translation is the acceptable year of the Lord. Now,
Speaker 1: the Jewish people knew a concept called jubilee every cycle
Speaker 1: of seven years and fiftieth or forty ninth year. The
Speaker 1: rabbis differ as to which one it fell on. Originally,
Speaker 1: the debts would be forgiven and the prisoners would be released.
Speaker 1: And Jesus was saying, I am your jubilee. You don't
Speaker 1: have to wait till the fiftieth year. You don't have
Speaker 1: to wait till twenty twenty one. You don't have to
Speaker 1: wait till you get married. You don't have to wait
Speaker 1: till you get divorced. I mean, everybody's trying to go
Speaker 1: somewhere else, he said. Today. Today, this is the everybody
Speaker 1: saying this is the year, this is the year. This
Speaker 1: is the year. But if frustration is a more familiar
Speaker 1: state for you, you you will create frustration. You do this.
Speaker 1: I know this is hard to hear, but please hear
Speaker 1: me with spiritual ears. Please hear me with spiritual ears.
Speaker 1: Some of the frustration you just got to get through
Speaker 1: because it's not your fault. Some of it you're creating.
Speaker 1: You're creating it. When you compare yourself to other people,
Speaker 1: you're creating it. When you overload yourself with all this
Speaker 1: stuff you're looking at, you are making yourself frust And
Speaker 1: the reason you're doing it, I'm gonna tell you why
Speaker 1: you're doing it because it feels familiar. So you want
Speaker 1: what's familiar, because that feels like nazareth favor feels funny.
Speaker 1: There's no equivalent for God's favor. People don't love you
Speaker 1: like that. They don't love you like that. So when
Speaker 1: God tries to you push out away. That's not familiar.
Speaker 1: That's not familiar. I can't just trust that my sins
Speaker 1: are forgiven. I can't just pray to God in any situation.
Speaker 1: I can't just give God this burden. I can't just
Speaker 1: roll it on him and trust that he cares for me.
Speaker 1: I can't smile I'm going through this. I can't trust wholeheartedly.
Speaker 1: I can't take the next step without knowing all the details.
Speaker 1: That's not familiar. So I will create frustration through a
Speaker 1: spirit of manipulation, just to feel what feels like home
Speaker 1: to me. It said, they fastened their eyes on him.
Speaker 1: The word is adnitzio and spell it. You can look
Speaker 1: it up on a bible at at neat seo. It's
Speaker 1: used to describe a very emotional attention. I gotta show you.
Speaker 1: This is too important. Go all the way back to
Speaker 1: verse twenty one, please, yeah, no, twenty two? Yeah, yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: twenty three. You want the right one the whole time.
Speaker 1: Sorry about that, but I can't find it. Is it
Speaker 1: still there? I'm sorry. I am not messing this up,
Speaker 1: because this is what makes the difference. This is why
Speaker 1: I didn't see the mountains. This is why I couldn't
Speaker 1: see the Blue Ridge mountains because yeah, yeah, yeah, the
Speaker 1: gracious word came from his lips. Uh da da da
Speaker 1: da dah. All the eyes, yeah, the eyes of everyone
Speaker 1: verse twenty That's where it was. That's where it was.
Speaker 1: The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were at neat seo.
Speaker 1: It's an emotional focus. It's the same word. Listen to
Speaker 1: this halt. When he was taken up in X one
Speaker 1: to ten, they at need Ceo. They watched because they wondered,
Speaker 1: if he's leaving, what's going to happen? To us, that's
Speaker 1: how you felt all year. Well, if I'm losing this,
Speaker 1: if it's not like this anymore, what's going to replace this?
Speaker 1: That's what the word was. It was the same word
Speaker 1: when Peter was cussing, when Jesus was being taken away
Speaker 1: to be crucified. The servant girl at needs CEO fastened
Speaker 1: her eyes. It was an emotion. It's not just like
Speaker 1: you look. It's like you're emotionally focusing on something. And
Speaker 1: here's the thing I found out about God's favor. My
Speaker 1: emotional focus determines whether I go to frustration, fear, fighting,
Speaker 1: or favor. So the Lord said he wanted to give
Speaker 1: you the gift this last month of the year, whoever
Speaker 1: this is for, He wants to give you your emotional
Speaker 1: focus back. And what that is going to require. I
Speaker 1: want to make sure you're down because this is not
Speaker 1: going to be easy. You are going to have to
Speaker 1: let go of some certain attachments to familiar things that
Speaker 1: are blocking God's favor. I don't mean you're gonna leave
Speaker 1: the city. I don't mean you're gonna flee the state.
Speaker 1: I don't mean you're gonna move to Canada. I mean
Speaker 1: that in this moment, you are going to decide what
Speaker 1: has been in your backyard all along that is bigger
Speaker 1: than what you're going through and living in right now
Speaker 1: that my focus, listen, my focus is my favor, not
Speaker 1: your favor. God gave you a favor. God gave me
Speaker 1: a favor. God gave you a family. God gave me
Speaker 1: a family. God gave you a gift. God gave me
Speaker 1: a gift. Every preacher watching me, God gave you a church.
Speaker 1: God gave me a church. Everybody watching this that wants
Speaker 1: God to do something that he's doing for somebody else,
Speaker 1: it is time for you to focus on the favor
Speaker 1: that God has given you in this season of your life.
Speaker 1: And I promise you this, at Nisio, you will find
Speaker 1: what you're looking for. If you want to look for goodness,
Speaker 1: it's on your right hand. If you want to look
Speaker 1: for mercy, it's on your left hand. So he rolled
Speaker 1: up the scroll and he sat down and said, you
Speaker 1: want favor, it's right in front of you. It's right
Speaker 1: in front of you. It is right in front of you.
Speaker 1: It is not out there somewhere. It is not to
Speaker 1: be found in any earthly promotion. It is not to
Speaker 1: be found in any earthly acclaim. It is in the wilderness,
Speaker 1: it is in the synagogue, it is in Nazareth. But
Speaker 1: the place where he was brought up was the place
Speaker 1: where they were so familiar with him that they could
Speaker 1: not receive the favor because they chose what was familiar.
Speaker 1: That's Joseph's son. Are you open to seeing the favor
Speaker 1: of God? I asked the Lord to do three things
Speaker 1: for us. Make us conscious of his favor. You got
Speaker 1: to see it, to help us cooperate with his favor.
Speaker 1: Stop fighting against what God is doing in my life.
Speaker 1: And then the biggest part of all this, why I
Speaker 1: want to give my offering next weekend to make me
Speaker 1: a conduit for his favor. I want that because this
Speaker 1: is the year of the Lord's favor, and I don't
Speaker 1: know about tomorrow. He opened the scroll, you know, that's
Speaker 1: the same thing he did in Revelation five. They couldn't
Speaker 1: find anybody to open the scroll and break the seals.
Speaker 1: And then there was a lamb next to the one
Speaker 1: who was seated on the throne, not stressed, not freaking out,
Speaker 1: and neither should you be, because no matter how it started,
Speaker 1: it's gonna finish with favor. What sins started in the garden.
Speaker 1: Jesus dealt with on the cross, and he buried in
Speaker 1: his tomb. So I'm making the declaration you're gonna finish
Speaker 1: with favor. I wonder do you receive that or are
Speaker 1: you gonna chase it away? Are you gonna chase it away?
Speaker 1: That's what the people did to Jesus. He starts speaking
Speaker 1: about the favor of God. He said, it's the year
Speaker 1: of the Lord's favor. And they were ants. They were
Speaker 1: looking at him. They were expecting one thing, you know,
Speaker 1: like we all are. This is how it's gonna be.
Speaker 1: This was supposed to work. They're looking at it. They're
Speaker 1: focused on what they think he's going to do. But
Speaker 1: he said something very powerful. He said in verse twenty four, Truly,
Speaker 1: I tell you, amen, I say to you, no prophet
Speaker 1: is accepted in his hometown. Oh do you accept what
Speaker 1: God is doing in this season of your life? I
Speaker 1: know what you expected him to do, But will you
Speaker 1: accept what he is doing? He said, you are too
Speaker 1: familiar to receive the favor that is sitting right in
Speaker 1: front of you. You are so used to rejection that
Speaker 1: you find it when it's not even there. And you
Speaker 1: are so unfamiliar with acceptance that you can't receive the
Speaker 1: love I'm sending you. And whoever you are, and whatever
Speaker 1: this year has been like for you, the Lord send
Speaker 1: me with the message. Today is the day of the
Speaker 1: Lord's favor. It is right in front of you. And
Speaker 1: I don't care how it started. I don't care what
Speaker 1: it looks like. It doesn't matter what happened up until now.
Speaker 1: You will finish with favor. Confess it. I will finish
Speaker 1: with favor again. I will finish with favor. And he
Speaker 1: sat down right in front of him. He said, the
Speaker 1: problem with you, well, you can't receive the favor. This
Speaker 1: is to the Jewish people who should have really known him,
Speaker 1: the people who saw him running around when he was
Speaker 1: two years old. Their familiarity killed their favor. And this
Speaker 1: is kind of sad that Jesus was rejected by the
Speaker 1: people that should have recognized him. Listen to this verse
Speaker 1: twenty five. I assure you this is Jesus speaking to
Speaker 1: the people that he knew that should I've known him,
Speaker 1: but couldn't see it because their emotional focus was on
Speaker 1: what they expected God to be like? Is that where
Speaker 1: your focus is what you expected your kid to be
Speaker 1: like at age eighteen that you expected that you would
Speaker 1: have kids by now what you expected to happen this
Speaker 1: year in your career. If that is your emotional focus,
Speaker 1: it is going to kill your favor. That's what happened. Here.
Speaker 1: Jesus goes all the way back to their history and
Speaker 1: he says there were many widows in Israel twenty five
Speaker 1: at Elijah's time. You remember this story? Do you all
Speaker 1: remember this? I hope you don't, because if you're unfamiliar
Speaker 1: with it, you'll hear it better. I hope you don't know.
Speaker 1: He said there was a drought three and a half years.
Speaker 1: There was a famine caused by the drought. Yet Elijah
Speaker 1: twenty six was not sent to any of them, but
Speaker 1: to a widow in Zaraphath, in the region of Sidon.
Speaker 1: And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the
Speaker 1: time of Elijah the prophet. These are famous Bible stories,
Speaker 1: first King seventeen, second King's five. You can look these
Speaker 1: up later, but what you'll see is this that God
Speaker 1: sent his greatest favor to the people who were least familiar.
Speaker 1: And I wonder do we know too much? I wonder
Speaker 1: do we have too much of a blueprint of how
Speaker 1: God is going to bless us. And I wonder have
Speaker 1: we lived in it so long that we no longer
Speaker 1: see it for what it is? He said, God had
Speaker 1: to go to a woman at Zarapat, had to go
Speaker 1: to a Syrian commander named name and to show what
Speaker 1: he could do because the people who should have received
Speaker 1: his power I couldn't recognize what was right in front
Speaker 1: of them. Can you God has given you some great
Speaker 1: opportunities this year. He's done some amazing things in your life.
Speaker 1: This year, He's shown you some ugly stuff that if
Speaker 1: he didn't show it to you, it would have killed you.
Speaker 1: Can you receive that? Is this the acceptable year of
Speaker 1: the Lord? He's talking about his salvation, his deliberance as ministry.
Speaker 1: But I wonder have we accepted this for what it
Speaker 1: really is yet? Because that's the key. Will you accept
Speaker 1: the favor of God? Or are you pushing it away
Speaker 1: because it feels weird? That's what they did, It says
Speaker 1: in verse twenty eight. All the people in the synagogue
Speaker 1: were furious when they heard this. They heard about God's
Speaker 1: favor and they were furious, Yeah, because it wasn't what
Speaker 1: they were familiar with. I don't like this. I'm done.
Speaker 1: What if Joseph would have said that when his brothers
Speaker 1: threw him in a pin. What if Mary would have
Speaker 1: said that, when the angel visits, I don't like this.
Speaker 1: This doesn't feel good. Do you understand that somebody else
Speaker 1: is counting on you to find your favor in your situation?
Speaker 1: They don't have the last word. That's why I love God.
Speaker 1: If he said, this is the year of his favor.
Speaker 1: This is the year of his favor. If he said
Speaker 1: I'm annoying, I'm annoying. If he said I can do it,
Speaker 1: I can do it. If he put it in my hand,
Speaker 1: if he gave it to me, I'm gonna unroll it.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read it. I'm gonna sit down with him
Speaker 1: and trust that it is finished. But they got up
Speaker 1: verse twenty nine, drove him out of the town, took
Speaker 1: him to the brow of the hill on which the
Speaker 1: town was built, in order to throw him off the cliff.
Speaker 1: Watch this. They chased away God's favor because it was
Speaker 1: not familiar. You have been chasing away the favor of
Speaker 1: God because it's been coming looking like trouble. You have
Speaker 1: been chasing away the favor of God because it has
Speaker 1: been coming looking like challenge. You have been chasing away
Speaker 1: the favor of God because it's not comfortable. You're gonna
Speaker 1: chase it away? Are you gonna embrace it? I believe
Speaker 1: God's favor is finding someone right now. And what I
Speaker 1: want to leave you with on this message finished with
Speaker 1: Favor is verse thirty that when the favor of God
Speaker 1: is on you, you can do what Jesus did. But
Speaker 1: he walked right through the crowd six feet back, six
Speaker 1: feet back, six feet back, six feet back, six feet back,
Speaker 1: six but he walked right Go ahead and take a
Speaker 1: selfie right now for a picture of favor, because guess what,
Speaker 1: there were some times in April and May and June
Speaker 1: and July. I'm starting my New Year's Eve. Sermon early,
Speaker 1: I'm starting to right now. Listen, right now, We're gonna
Speaker 1: finish with favor. So go ahead and take the picture
Speaker 1: right now now and post it with a hashtag finish
Speaker 1: with favor. Watch this. The devil should have killed you
Speaker 1: while he had the chance. He should have killed you
Speaker 1: in the cradle. He should have killed you before you
Speaker 1: found out that the power of God is on you.
Speaker 1: He should have took you out before you have found
Speaker 1: out I got the favor of God. It can't kill you.
Speaker 1: It can't kill you. And he went on his way
Speaker 1: because it is not finished. When they say it is,
Speaker 1: it is not finished. When Hell says it is, it
Speaker 1: is not finished. When a government official says it is.
Speaker 1: Jesus said, I will bill my church, and the gates
Speaker 1: of Hell will not prevail. I declare over elevation. This
Speaker 1: is a ministry that was started in the mind of God.
Speaker 1: I declare it over your family. I declare it over
Speaker 1: your calling. You didn't start it. You don't have to
Speaker 1: finish it, and you don't have to figure it out.
Speaker 1: So walk right through in the favor of God. Walk
Speaker 1: right through in the favor of God. Walk right through
Speaker 1: in the chat with your mouth say I'm walking in
Speaker 1: the favor of God. Again, I'm walking in the favor
Speaker 1: of God. And they that wait on the Lord shall
Speaker 1: renew their strength. They'll mount up on wings like eagles.
Speaker 1: Oh it feels good to get above it. Sometimes they
Speaker 1: were running, not crow weary. I like progress when I'm
Speaker 1: getting there fast. But one thing is said, they were
Speaker 1: walking and not fame. I don't know if you got
Speaker 1: very high this year. A lot of us didn't. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you got very far this year very fast.
Speaker 1: It's been slow progress for a lot of us, and
Speaker 1: even some steps backwards. But I'm still walking in the
Speaker 1: favor of God. You're gonna chase it away they chase
Speaker 1: Jesus out of their town, or are you gonna embrace it?
Speaker 1: The favor of the Lord. It's right in front of
Speaker 1: It's not far off. It's not in some distant galaxy.
Speaker 1: It's not waiting for some future version of you that
Speaker 1: has better scripture, reading habits. No, no, no, no no, no,
Speaker 1: The favor of God is here. Lord. We're We're really
Speaker 1: tempted right now. That's the true We're tempted to be afraid.
Speaker 1: It's familiar. Everybody's doing it. It's really foreign concept for
Speaker 1: us to resist the temptation to fear. It's really easy
Speaker 1: to fear. It's familiar. We know how to do it.
Speaker 1: We're good at it. We are professional fearers. We're frustrated
Speaker 1: about the things that keep on slipping on us. It's
Speaker 1: hard for us to believe that you're at work even
Speaker 1: in those areas. Some of us were born fighters, but
Speaker 1: the problem comes when we start fighting against the very
Speaker 1: favor that you gave us, the gift, the situation, and yes, Lord,
Speaker 1: even the thorn. So Lord, when you gave me this proclamation,
Speaker 1: I thought it was weird. I thought it was weird.
Speaker 1: I thought the Year of the Lord's Favor didn't sound
Speaker 1: right for twenty twenty. But then you showed me that
Speaker 1: the fear, the frustration, the fight, that's what favors for.
Speaker 1: That's what favors for. That's why you gave us that
Speaker 1: favor to raise that child. That's why you gave us
Speaker 1: that favor to be patient as we wait. That's why
Speaker 1: you gave us that favor to battle that addiction. That's
Speaker 1: why you gave us that favor. We take our seat
Speaker 1: with you now. People are taking stands everywhere this year.
Speaker 1: Just for a moment, we want to take a seat
Speaker 1: with you. We thank you that you're worthy to open
Speaker 1: the scroll. You know what's going to happen in the future.
Speaker 1: You've already been there, and you declare that because you
Speaker 1: finished with favor, we will too. Surely, goodness and mercy
Speaker 1: will follow me all the days of my life, and
Speaker 1: I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
Speaker 1: I will finish with favor given praise. If you received
Speaker 1: this word, thank you Lord. It's the year of the
Speaker 1: Lord's Favor. Do you believe that takes faith? You have
Speaker 1: to look right in the of circumstances that seem to
Speaker 1: say otherwise and still declare I will finish with favor.
Speaker 1: And I want to thank you for helping us finish
Speaker 1: this year with favor as a ministry not only to
Speaker 1: receive God's favor, but to be a conduit of God's favor.
Speaker 1: When you give here in our year end offering, just
Speaker 1: know that you're a part of building God's kingdom that
Speaker 1: can't be shaken, and I'm excited about seeing how God
Speaker 1: uses you. We're designating December thirteenth on that Sunday for
Speaker 1: our offering weekend, but of course you can give any time.
Speaker 1: Eleviationchurch dot Org. I want to appreciate all of you
Speaker 1: who tied, those of you who are beginning to do
Speaker 1: that to put God first. This is a great time
Speaker 1: to do it, To tell God before a new year begins.
Speaker 1: I want to thank you for your favor, and I
Speaker 1: want to trust you in faith and put you first.
Speaker 1: For those of you who are giving above and beyond,
Speaker 1: just know that we're praying for you. Know that we
Speaker 1: believe that God is going to supply all your needs
Speaker 1: as you continue to respond in obedience to Him. But
Speaker 1: above all, know this that he's already gone before. I
Speaker 1: want to put the blessing on you before we go.
Speaker 1: The Lord bless you and keep you. Make his face
Speaker 1: shine upon you, and be gracious to you. The Lord
Speaker 1: turned his face towards you and give you peace. May
Speaker 1: his favor be upon you. We're finishing with favor. Nothing
Speaker 1: can stop what God has started. We love you.