Chosen and Highly Favoured: God Is Waiting for You to Dare to Ask

Sermon outline

You are justified, chosen and highly favoured, and God has handed authority on the earth to His church, so favour comes to people who expect it, dare to ask and use the authority and power they have been given.

1. Expect favour: there is a posture for receiving from God

   God gives to people who expect blessing, so you have to be an expecter and be in the right posture to receive. Jesus is always present by His Spirit, but not everybody touches Him. Those who are hungry and come with a specific purpose make a demand on Him, as the woman with the issue of blood did when she pressed through and touched the hem of His garment.

   Illustration: Jesus turned and asked, 'Who touched me?', because He perceived that virtue had gone out of Him. Some come dry and they leave dry.

   “If you don't expect the favor of God, you will not receive the favor of God.”

   • Mark 5:25-34

2. The just shall live by faith: justified and made righteous

   Reading Habakkuk 2:4 and Romans 1:17, he says 'from faith to faith' shows there are measures of faith and that we grow. 'Just' comes from 'justified', and God deals with you as if you had never sinned, whether you feel it or not. Righteousness is right standing with God, a free gift imparted to your spirit the day you said yes to Jesus, and it gives you a blood-bought right to be heard and answered. Your past no longer counts, because you died, were buried and rose with Christ into newness of life.

   Illustration: Paul persecuted the church, yet after he met Jesus on the road to Damascus he could say, 'I have wronged no man.' He was not lying: he had a revelation of the new man. When you remind God of the nasty things you did, He says, 'I can't remember.'

   “Justified actually means just as if you've never sinned.”

   • Habakkuk 2:4
   • Romans 1:17
   • Romans 5:17
   • Acts 9:1-6
   • 2 Corinthians 7:2
   • Romans 6:4

3. Christ lives in you, so you do not lack wisdom

   Jesus promised another Comforter who would dwell in His people, and Scripture says you are the temple of the Holy Ghost, so the resurrected Christ lives in you by His Spirit and wherever you go, God goes. Christ is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption, so the new creation believer does not lack wisdom. Faith works by love and by knowledge: knowledge of the Word puts faith in you, and God wants you, not Him, to move your mountain.

   Illustration: He has the people say, 'I'm just like Jesus', and notes that some found it hard because a religious mindset says Jesus is holy and far above them. He plays on the conference name: catch the Word and you will catch the fire.

   “When you have a revelation of God living inside of you, you fear nothing.”

   • Luke 24:49
   • John 14:16-17
   • 1 Corinthians 6:19
   • 2 Timothy 1:7
   • 1 Corinthians 1:30
   • Galatians 5:6
   • Hosea 4:6
   • Mark 11:23-24

4. Who has the legal right on the earth

   God gave Adam and Eve dominion and so transferred authority on the earth to man. When they sinned, that authority passed to Satan, the god of this world, and God could work only through righteous people He found and made covenant with, such as Abraham, David and Noah. Satan came as a spirit and usurped authority, but Jesus entered legally, born through a woman. After His resurrection He sat down at the right hand of God, sent the Holy Spirit to stay, and delegated authority and power to the church.

   Illustration: The angel greeted Mary as highly favoured. He likes that word, and adds that Mary needed salvation and a Messiah just like all of us.

   “You can only have legal entry into the earth if you come born through a woman.”

   • Genesis 3:15
   • Luke 1:28
   • Genesis 1:26-28
   • 2 Corinthians 4:4
   • John 10:1
   • John 16:7
   • Hebrews 7:25
   • Acts 1:8
   • Acts 2:1-4
   • Acts 10:44
   • Matthew 5:13-14

5. You are chosen, and God needs your permission to move

   The church is the ecclesia, the called-out and chosen ones. You were not saved by chance: God chose you, whatever your past, money, family or former religion, and people chosen by God are highly favoured by God. Wars, famine and disasters show that God is not simply controlling everything; He has commissioned mankind and given the power back to the church. So He needs a hand, a man, a woman, and you have to ask Him and give Him permission to move in your home and your finances.

   Illustration: He quotes John Wesley, whose book he read: 'It seems to me like God can't do nothing on the earth except through man.' James tells the sick to call for the elders, so God needs the elders to lay hands and pray the prayer of faith.

   “When God put his eye on you, he chose you.”

   • John 15:16
   • James 5:14-15

6. Hope is for the future, faith is now: dare to ask

   Hoping is good because it gives you something to look forward to, but faith is now, and the just shall live by faith. God will not give you a bigger house or a better car because you are a good Christian who dresses and smells nice; He is looking for a man and a woman who will stand up, agree and dare to ask. Do not consider your circumstances any more than Abraham considered his age or the deadness of Sarah's womb. He shares what God is doing in his own church to encourage them, because God has no favourites by surname or looks.

   Illustration: A couple tired of living in a two-room house who agree together for a four-bedroom house, and the man kick-starting and pushing a rust bucket. From his own church: a man with HIV whose tests came back clear after prayer, a Hindu woman with cancer of the spine who was carried in and healed within two minutes, and a baby with TB healed after the mother took the child a teddy bear he had prayed over.

   “He's looking for a man and woman that will dare to ask him.”

   • Hebrews 11:1
   • Ephesians 3:20
   • Romans 4:19

7. The difference between authority and power: you have both

   The command to preach the gospel and cast out devils was given to the whole church, not only to pastors, so every believer should be coming on Sunday with testimonies. Authority is conferred by a higher authority; power is the ability to enforce it. A believer has both, and lots of each, but like a policeman he can have them and still fail to discharge his duty.

   Illustration: The government trains a policeman and gives him authority; the gun it gives him is his power. He can watch a robbery and do nothing because there are six of them and he is scared. In a bank robbery where the policeman's gun has been taken, the policeman has the authority but the crook has the power.

   “The policeman has authority. The crook has the power.”

   • Mark 16:15-17

8. If it is not allowed in heaven, it is not allowed in your house

   Jesus said that if two agree it shall be done, and that whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth is loosed in heaven. The words 'on earth' show that the people who legally bind and loose are the church. You bind the works of the devil and loose the blessings of God. Sickness, poverty, disease, strife and lack are not allowed in heaven, so they must be disallowed in your home.

   “Anything that's disallowed in heaven must be disallowed in your house.”

   • Matthew 18:18-19
   • Matthew 16:19