Being a Person of Favor

Opening Prayer

Let’s open with prayer. If you have a prayer concern, just offer it up out loud in this space. It can be a situation, a need, a family member or friend. When I sense we are finished I will close out our prayer.

Almighty and everlasting God, you govern all things both in heaven and on earth: Mercifully hear the supplications of your people, and in our time grant us your peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Introduction

We are in the season of the church year called Epiphany, meaning “to appear”. This season celebrates the revelation of Jesus as the Savior of the world. During Epiphany we’re doing a series called The Hope of Glory, and we continue to look at how Jesus revealed his glory, and what this epiphany means for us.

This morning I want to talk about God’s favor, or the word most commonly used for it in the Bible, grace. But I’ll use favor reasons that will become clear soon. I’ve called the message Being a Person of Favor, and I want to look specifically today at what Jesus’ appearing means, not for ourselves, but for others and how we find ourselves most in alignment with God and his mission when we make ourselves conduits of his favor toward others.

The problem then

The context of this passage is what comes before, especially Jesus’ announcement that this is the time of the Lord’s favor.

Quoting from Isa. 61 - a passage about the year of Jubilee

Jubilee was every 50 years. It was the great reset. No working the land, those who had to sell land because of misfortune got it back (eliminated generational poverty), those who sold themselves as indentured servants were released. Every seven years was a time of favor, but the fiftieth year was God’s favor upon favor.

Jesus has announced the time of endless Jubilee, God’s perpetual favor, is now upon them in the person of Jesus himself.

But they only want it for themselves. Our translation makes it sound like everyone speaks well of Jesus. It can be translated, and it makes more sense, as “the witnessed against him” or “marveled” against him. This is Joseph’s boy, who does he think he is?! And so they want him to show them the same things they had heard he did in other places. If you’re God’s man - prove it!

Jesus exposes their heart. They as Jews had always been called to be people who existed to show the favor of God to others. They were happen to have his favor, to think of themselves as his favorites, but they didn’t want that favor to go to others. Jesus exposes through 2 illustrations:

Widow of Zarepheth - even though there were many hungry widows among those considered God’s people in that time, it was only a foreign widow who received God’s favor.

Naaman the Syrian - even though there were many lepers among those who considered themselves to be God’s people, it was an outside leper who received favor.

This widow and this Syrian are pagans. They are undoubtedly idol worshippers. They are enemies of God’s people. In fact, the only reason Naaman even knew about Elisha is because he conducted a raid into Israel and capture a young Jewish girl and made her his slave. And yet these are the ones God wants to give his favor to. Listen! God’s favor is not an endorsement of people’s lifestyles, morals, or sins. But this is how his favor works. As the apostle Paul writes, Romans 2:4 “Or do you despise the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?”

Elijah and Elisha were people of God’s favor. A person of favor goes to wherever God directs them and receives whoever God sends. Jesus listeners showed that they weren’t people of favor. They wanted God’s favor - healing, miracles, signs - without being willing to give God’s favor to others. They showed how far they were from his favor by trying to throw the one who came to bring his favor off a cliff!

The problem now

In relation to this story, we are the Sidonians and the Syrians. We were those who were false worshippers, worshippers of self, enemies of God, far from God. But we are exactly who God extended his favor to so that we too could become part of God’s holy people.

This means we, the church, take up the call to announce the Jubilee. You are now to be a person of God’s favor. If only the attitude of Jesus’ audience was a problem just for that time. Sadly, the church repeats the story of Israel far too often. We have now become God’s chosen, favorite ones. We want God’s favor - his miracles, signs and wonders, healings, blessings - but too often only for us.

We decide who should have favor and who should not. We condemn and refuse to share God’s favor because we disagree with their lifestyle, their morals, their political choices. We decide who we will go to and who we will receive, and in so doing we become gatekeepers of God’s favor.

But that’s not how God’s favor works. We don’t get to decide who is worthy. Please hear me: it’s OK to disagree with someone’s choices. God never asks you to endorse what he calls sin. But it’s never OK to withhold his favor, because it is his favor that transforms lives, and turns enemies of God into people of God. Just like it did for you.

We heard earlier Paul’s great paragraph on love. Love being the epitome of God’s favor. Listen again to how he describes love: it is patient. It is kind. It is NOT envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude. It does not insist on getting its way all the time. And when it doesn’t get its way, it’s not irritable or resentful. It’s not happy when wrong gets done to people, and it is happy when truth prevails.

If you call yourself a follower of Jesus, you don’t get to define what love is, and you don’t get to set the boundary for it. Let me give a current example that may have the same effect as Jesus’ example of Naaman. Joe Biden is our President. Just saying his name has caused some of you ill feelings. Unfortunately, I see on a weekly basis people who I know consider themselves believers saying all kinds of things against this man. Attacking his character, mocking him. When a Christian can repeat the chant, “Let’s go Brandon,” there’s a serious disconnect happening with what God’s favor and love look like. It’s alright to disagree with his policies, but as Christians you are called to love him, pray for him, and rudeness and unkindness and attacks on his character fall outside of God’s definition of love. And the end of the day, genuine love is one that sees someone far from God and yearns for God’s favor to appear to them.

Now, maybe some of you want to throw me off a cliff. That’s OK, because if I never said anything that riled you I probably means I’m not doing my job. But before you do, hear me out. Naaman, after he was healed, asked to take soil from Israel back to his native land so that he could worship the God of Israel there. Because Elisha was a person of God’s favor, Naaman because a worshipper of God.

“It is God’s kindness that leads to repentance” not our judgment and condemnation. They day will come, and is coming, when Naamans who are not like you will walk through these doors - thanks be to God! They will not think like you, live like you, dress like you, and may be totally opposed to everything you hold dear. What will you do? Will you drive them out or extend God’s favor?

The day will come when God will send you into a place filled with Naamans different from you, people you would even see as enemies and hostile to God and the gospel. What will you do? Will you be like Jonah and try to flee from them, or will you be God’s person of favor to them?

The saddest line in this whole passage today is vs. 30. Luke 4:30 “But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.” Because they refused to be people of God’s favor, they lost out on God’s favor, and God went on his way. He went where his favor would be welcomed and extended. We can say all day long that we want God’s kingdom to break out here, but if we are unwilling to be his favor-giving people, I’ll tell you this with certainty: we will not experience his favor, but instead Jesus will pass through our midst and walk on his way. We will miss the moment of his visitation, because he is looking for a people where his Jubilee can rest.

The gospel then & now

There is a stark warning in this passage. We would do well to listen to what the Spirit is saying and take it to heart, and not close our ears and gnash our teeth. But I don’t want to leave us here, because the gospel and God’s favor is also available to us here as well.

Jesus, after he finished reading from Isaiah, sat down and declared that this time of God’s favor has come to fulfillment. The Jubilee of the Lord has come in Jesus Christ. We live in the time when God is putting things right, restoring the lost, healing the broken, forgiving the unclean and the sinner. His favor has come like a flood that washes our wounds and cleanses our filth. We have been brought fully into the favor of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

And we COULD respond like Jesus’ countrymen did, wanting to keep this favor only for ourselves. But wouldn’t it be better to give it away? Wouldn’t it be better to stand in this flood of favor and be washed and renewed? To say to God, “I will be your person of favor to others?”

For this is his calling for you. Remember your baptism. It wasn’t only a symbol of your initiation into Christ’s body; it was a symbol of your anointing in Christ’s Spirit and for his mission. Jesus came to manifest the time of God’s favor, and now he has empowered you by the Holy Spirit to be his person of favor.

You ARE God’s person of favor. You walk in anointing, whether you are aware of it or not. If this is new to you, join us for SOM on Wednesday evening (shameless plug). You are a person who can change the atmosphere. You can change environments by the favor you walk in and bring. You can help restore families by your friendship. You can give comfort to the grieved with your presence and touch. You can lift the brokenhearted by a single word. Do you know who the first person I ever baptized was? A used car salesman. We were trying to buy a newer car, and on the test drive he poured out his life to us, and at the end of the drive we asked if we could pray for him. He came to church the week, and eventually gave his heart to the Lord. This is the anointing you have too! Just release God’s favor on those around you, and see what happens.

Let us not let Jesus pass through our midst unaware. Let us not try to throw him off the cliff because he wants to give his favor to everyone. Let’s ask him to stay, to reside in this place, and let us all ask the Spirit to do his work of transformation in us so that we can freely offer to others the same favor of God we ourselves have received. Amen.

Ministry time...

Communion

Jeremiah 1:4-5 say “Now the word of the Lord came to me saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”” This now applies to all God’s people, because we have all become a part of God’s holy nation, prophets and priests to the nations. This not a result of anything we have done, but by what God has done for us in Jesus’ life, death, resurrection, and ascension to God’s right hand. We come to the Table to rehearse God’s saving acts in Christ, to remember what he has done for us, and to eat the spiritual food that he gives that is able to revive and sustain our souls - so that we can leave this place to fulfill our calling prophets and priests of God’s favor.

Words of Institution

The Lord’s Prayer

Invitation

This is the table, not of the church, but of the Lord,

It is made ready for those who love God and for those who want to love God more.

So come, you who have much faith and you who have little;

You who have been here often and you who have not been here long;

You who have tried to follow and you who have failed.  

Come, because it is the Lord who invites you.

It is God’s will that those who want God should meet here.