Going back to our definition of favour: An approval, support or liking for someone or something; an overgenerous preferential treatment, or an act of kindness beyond what is due or usual.
What we shall obtain approval in the sight of God; receive support from Him; enjoy overgenerous preferential treatment from God shall be accorded to us, and we shall bask in the kindness of God that is beyond usual.
The Bible makes us know that a time came in the history of Man that God became tired of the wickedness of mankind that He decided to wipe out Man and beast from the surface of the Earth; what was surprising though was that a particular man and his family found favours in the sight of God.
Gen. 6:5-8 – And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repented me that I have made them. But Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord.
God created all beings. I’m not sure how many people might be on the surface of the earth at the time, assuming 2 million people. How sad that only 8 people survived the wrath of God. Apart from Noah, the other 7 escaped the flood as there was special favour of God upon the life of the head of the family.
A special lesson for us the men in our families. We must lead in the path of righteousness for our household. It wasn’t Ham, Shem or Japheth the bible said found favours, neither were any of the four women.
May you find favours with God always. May you and your household enjoy preferential treatment of God.
What horror would have filled the faces of everyone living on the earth at the time when the waters kept rising. What a relief and sense of gratitude would have filled the heart of Noah’s family, knowing fully well that they were spared by the special favours of God.
You will not live a horrifying life. Your life shall not be horrible in Jesus name.
God did not just decide to wipe out the works of His hands. He became displeased overtime of man’s behaviour and imaginations. He couldn’t take it anymore. The world we live in now is not different from then. Guess what? It is possible that God is angry right now.
Prayer: Father, whether you are pleased or angry, let me still enjoy your special favours. Let Your favour preserves me and my household.
Noah and his family entered the Ark, he also went in with a pair of every animal (a male and a female). The bible says God Himself shut the door. Which means He took the keys away.
Gen. 7:16 – And they that went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the Lord shut him in.
The waters rose 20 feet above the tallest mountain. Which means no chance of survival for any human or animals.
Prayer: Father, do not allow Your door of mercy to shut against me. Let my life matter a lot to you.
The Ark that Noah was asked to build did not have an engine to move; it was made only to float. With both fountains under the earth and in the sky opened, what a tempest the Ark would have experienced. But God stabilised the Ark throughout.
We live in a tempestuous time. Turbulent seasons and stormy days. May God stabilise your life by His favour
Noah and all the occupants of the Ark had to stay in that restricted environment for over a year. A day came when God told him that it’s time to go out, for the ground has dried up.
To someone reading this, God says it is time for you to go forth.
The parade ground has been prepared for you. It is time for you to march on.
Thank God for the ‘ark’, it has shielded you from flood while that lasted; it is time for you to come forth now. Receive the grace to stroll majestically.
Moses was another person who was exceptionally favoured by God. Right from birth, he was favoured. At childhood, he was favoured. At adulthood, he was favoured.
Moses was born at a time when any male child born had to be killed. The bible says his mother saw that he was a goodly child. Which child is not goodly? What she ought to say was that there was something peculiar/strange about the child. It was the special favour of God.
When Pharaoh daughter saw Moses, she had compassion on him; even though she knew that it was one of the Hebrew’s children. She disregarded the command of her father – the king, and even Pharaoh allowed her to do so. It doesn’t make sense. I didn’t add up.
Moses became a prince in a kingdom where he ought to have been slaughtered. The only difference between Moses and possibly thousands of other boys born in his time was simply special favour.
Privileges that doesn’t make sense, may God grant unto you.
The Egyptian princes and Chiefs would have been seeing Moses in the palace; they wouldn’t be able to say how and why; neither were they able to complain to Pharaoh.
May your critics be dumbfounded at the kind of favours you enjoy.
Moses appeared to blow up the timeline for the freedom of Israel from bondage 10 years before it should happen, yet God kept that assignment for him for an extra 30 years.
Gen. 15:13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years.
Ex. 40:12 – Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years.
Again, despite all the excuses Moses gave when he was eventually called; God refused to change Moses candidature. God was unusually patient with him.
Ex. 3; 4
Kind David was another individual that found special favours in the sight of God.
Jacob was the father of Israel nation. Before he died, he prophesied to Judah his fourth son that the sceptre to rule shall not depart from his tribe till Christ come.
But because Perez the son of Judah was born as an illegitimate child (imperfect seed); it would take ten whole generations before that stain to be cleansed for the prophecy to be fulfilled according to God’s law.
Deut. 23:2 – A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even to his tenth generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the Lord.
Counting from Judah, Jesse was the 9th generation. So, one of his sons would qualify to become the first king of Israel. But about 40 years before this would happen, the children of Israel began to demand for a king too early. To keep their mouth shut, God gave them a captain/ruler/prince/leader.
I Sam 10:1 – Then Samuel took a vial of oil, and poured it upon his head, and kissed him, and said, Is it not because the Lord hath anointed thee to be captain over his inheritance?
About 27 years into Saul’s reign, God asked Samuel to go and anoint the real first king He had prepared for the people. To the human eyes, it was very glaring that Eliab would pass for the king for his looks and stature; but God had rejected him.
It was David, Jesse’s 8th son that was especially favoured to be the king.
I Sam. 16:1-13
May God prepare you for the coronation that is coming.
May your head be made qualified to wear the crown.
Let’s go to the New Testament.
Jesus is the Saviour of the world. He shed His blood for the whole of Mankind. But when He was physically here on earth, His principal assignment for those 3 years was to save the Jews first and then raised them as instruments for Him to save the world. That was the blueprint from Heaven. That was what He did. That was why He said, “It is finished”, when places like Africa, Asia had not even heard about Him.
John 1:11-12 – He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name:
Mt. 10:5-6 – These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Training ground for their ministry when He wouldn’t have gone.
That was why most of Jesus ministry was in the regions of Galilee, Judea and Samaria. One day though, He secretly went into the border town of Tyre in Phoenicia, and a mixed-race woman came for the benefit of salvation – Divine healing. Jesus answer was not only No, but with an affirmative.
Mk. 7:24-30 – And from thence he arose, and went into the borders of Tyre and Sidon, and entered into an house, and would have no man know it: but he could not be hid. For a certain woman, whose young daughter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell at his feet: The woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by nation; and she besought him that he would cast forth the devil out of her daughter. But Jesus said unto her, Let the children first be filled: for it is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it unto the dogs. And she answered and said unto him, Yes, Lord: yet the dogs under the table eat of the children’s crumbs. And he said unto her, For this saying go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter. And when she was come to her house, she found the devil gone out, and her daughter laid upon the bed.
Out of special favour though, the woman got what she was not yet qualified for.
Immediately after that, as Jesus travels back to Galilee, He still met a non-Jew who was deaf and dumb, again going ahead of the timeline of Gentiles benefitting from His coming, He took the man to a secret location and favoured him.
Mk. 7:31-36 – And again, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, he came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis. And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue; And looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spoke plain. And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it.
There is someone reading this, you are not yet qualified for something by law. I hear God says He will give it to you.
God says “I will put prescribed orders aside for your sake. No matter how it has always been, for you, there will be an exception”.
There was this man the bible called ‘The lame man at Bethesda’.
John 5:1-9 – After this there was a feast of the Jews; and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is at Jerusalem by the sheep market a pool, which is called in the Hebrew tongue Bethesda, having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, withered, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first after the troubling of the water stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had. And a certain man was there, which had an infirmity thirty and eight years. When Jesus saw him lie, and knew that he had been now a long time in that case, he saith unto him, Wilt thou be made whole? The impotent man answered him, Sir, I have no man, when the water is troubled, to put me into the pool: but while I am coming, another stepped down before me. Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed, and walk. And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked: and on the same day was the Sabbath.
Jesus was passing by and out of a great multitude of lame, blind, deaf and other sick people, He focused on just an individual. Was this fair? Especially as the person He chose does not even appear to be ready for a miracle. No faith perhaps. But God is more than fair, He is just. He will be gracious to whom He chose, without a query.
Jesus healed this man and walk away. Walk away? Always hard for me to swallow. Did Jesus had the power to heal every one of them? Yes. Would those people be happy if they got healed? Yes. Why did He walk away healing one out of many? Favours! Favours! Favours!
May the favours of God single you out among multitude.
Every expectation of man to keep you suffering and begging are cancelled right now in Jesus name.
May God favours remove blindness from your life. Remove lameness; deafness; dumbness; paralysis; remove lack; fruitlessness; infertility; failure; shame; bareness; backwardness; death in Jesus name.
I wonder how the other sick people would have felt when this lame man must have shouted in excitement and walk away. May God not neglect your case.
As I round up. There is a big lesson to learn from Noah’s life.
In order to continue enjoying the preferential treatment from God.
Genesis 6:9
These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation. Noah walked with God.
Righteous – obtain by faith. E.g. He believed that it would rain when it had not rained before.
Blameless – obtain by obedience and keeping instructions. E.g. He built the Ark with precision as God stated.
Walk with God – obtained by fellowship and service. E.g. For 120 years, despite humiliation from people, he kept communicating with God.
Are you righteous? Are you blameless? Are you walking with God? These are favour triggers. If you have and do them; you will always find favours with God.
Prayers
Father, make me to continually find favour in Your sight.
Father, beyond my person, my work, my faith, let Your favour prevail over my destiny.
The sermon was delivered on April 28, 2019.