God Said, Not God Prayed: How the Favour of the Lord Begins

Sermon outline

The favour of the Lord begins with the Word: you are already blessed, so say what God says as He did in Genesis 1, know that promotion comes from Him alone, and draw near enough to the anointing to make a demand on it.

1. The just shall live by faith, so don't look back

   Four times the Bible says the just shall live by faith, and faith comes by hearing the Word, dropping into your spirit and moving you to act. After receiving the kingdom there is no drawing back and no considering an alternative. Forget what you have lost or given up: God is not a subtractor, your latter end will greatly increase, and the years ahead will be better.

   Illustration: Many people live their lives driving while looking in the rear-view mirror. Job received more than he lost.

   “Your end will be better than your beginning.”

   • Habakkuk 2:4
   • Romans 1:17
   • Galatians 3:11
   • Romans 10:17
   • Hebrews 10:38
   • Job 8:7
   • Job 42:10-12
   • Jeremiah 29:11

2. Everything begins with the Word of God

   You may not yet see the office, the factory or the car, but that does not mean you do not have it. Your God is invisible and always starts in the invisible realm. Healing, prosperity, favour and promotion all begin with the Word, not with your experience, your degree, your bank balance or what your family left you.

   Illustration: He has the congregation wave their Bibles at him and say, "The word of God, pastor, the word of God."

   “Before you see something in the natural, you must first build it in the spirit.”

   • Hebrews 11:1

3. In the beginning God said

   Your prosperity, favour and career all have a beginning, so he walks the church through Genesis 1 verse by verse to watch God at work. Over and over the pattern is the same: God said, then He saw, He made and He called. If we can see how God began to create, we can do the same thing.

   Illustration: He asks the older Christians, who think they already know Genesis, to listen as if for the first time.

   “He said, He saw, He made, He called.”

   • Genesis 1:1-25

4. God blessed them: empowered to prosper

   The word blessed means empowered to prosper, and cursed means empowered to fail. Prosperity is more than money: it is your marriage, family, children, business, job and health all being well, with nothing missing and nothing broken. What Adam lost, Christ regained for us, so Genesis 1:28 applies to the born-again believer. Put your own name in the verse and meditate on it. God also said to be fruitful and multiply, and not only in the number of your children.

   Illustration: Give a blessed person a rocky garden and what he plants will be green and multiply. Fishermen should say "I have dominion" before they cast the line.

   “The word blessed means empowered to prosper.”

   • Genesis 1:22
   • Genesis 1:26-28

5. Function like God: say what you want to see

   God functions by faith, so His children call those things that be not. You look at sickness and say healed, at an empty order book and say business comes to me. Shyness and timidity are not from God; He has packed you with power and potential, and the devil has been stealing what is yours. Man lives by every word from the mouth of God, not by talent, experience or background.

   Illustration: Men boast about a BMW M3 or a Mercedes C63, yet a car is destined for the scrapyard from the day it leaves the production line, and you are not. When he sees bad weather he opens his window and speaks to it, and he says that within two hours everything is dry, which has increased his faith.

   “I'm not going to say what I see. I'm going to say what I want to see.”

   • Romans 4:17
   • Matthew 4:4
   • Deuteronomy 8:3
   • Proverbs 28:1
   • Genesis 1:28

6. Your pedigree is blessed

   He says he wants to give people something they can go home and work with, not a pie-in-the-sky sermon. Every child of God comes from one bloodline: God blessed Abraham and his seed, and the New Testament says we are Abraham's seed. However little you have now, it is a starting point, and blessed hands using the Word will build a great future. He speaks directly to the young people about this.

   Illustration: Someone says, "I just have one pants and one shirt and I'm ironing it all the time." He answers that it is a good beginning and that those blessed hands will bring more.

   “All children of God have a pedigree. It's called blessed.”

   • Genesis 12:2-3
   • Galatians 3:29

7. God said, not God prayed: know when to pray and when to say

   Man is made in the image of a God who speaks things into existence, so when man asks how to function, God answers, 'Just like Me.' Genesis 1 does not say God thought, meditated or prayed; it says God said. Pray and worship in the morning until your fellowship with the Lord is established, then spend the day saying. Many are praying when they should be saying.

   Illustration: He acts out a conversation between God and man, then re-reads Genesis 1 as if it said "and God prayed" to show that it does not. Tell your wife this will be the busiest week you have ever had, and speak to the fax machine and the laptop to let the orders and emails come.

   “So you are praying when you should be saying. And sometimes you are saying when you should be praying.”

   • Genesis 1:26-31

8. Promotion comes from the Lord

   Returning to Psalm 75, he reads verses 6 and 7 in three versions: promotion and lifting up come from nowhere on earth but from God, who puts down one and sets up another. Settle it in your heart that your future promotion is not from any man, company, circle of friends or qualification. And if it comes from the Lord, its base is His Word.

   “Your future promotion is not from any man. It's from God.”

   • Psalm 75:6-7

9. What favour means: God is your friend and you are His favourite

   Prosperity takes in wisdom, success and favour, and favour opens doors that look impossible in the natural. He gives the Webster's definition: friendly or kind regard, goodwill or approval, and unfair partiality or favouritism. So God is friendly towards you, He has stamped you with His approval, and you are His favourite. The highly favoured person is loved wherever he walks in and gets the job over nine others.

   Illustration: One child has to tug at his mother's dress and beg. Another is met with, "Come to Mommy. What does my darling want?" Favour is like that: God asks what you need before you ask.

   “Sometimes I thought God was an enemy. Now I know Him as a friend.”

10. Number one: close association with an anointed man or woman of God

    There is a way to get the favour of the Lord, and the first key is to be closely associated with someone who carries it, so that it rubs off. You cannot follow from afar. The anointing on a man of God hangs in the atmosphere until someone makes a demand on it, as the woman with the issue of blood pressed through and prophesied her own future. A word from a man of God draws out what God placed in you at the new birth. He wants his own congregation, his first children, to receive what people far away are receiving.

    Illustration: He calls down from the gallery a man from Zimbabwe, about three months in the church, who that day had left groceries and two envelopes for the pastor without asking to see him, and speaks open doors and wealth over him. He also tells of a meeting of about 300 business people and pastors where the Lord told him to sow, in front of everyone, the US dollars he had been keeping for a trip to the States. Nobody else went forward. Then a pastor testified that a year earlier he had thrown his last hundred rand at the same preacher's feet and was later given a million rand, and the preacher told Dr Sing, "A lot of money is coming into your life soon."

    “It is promotion by association.”

    • Mark 5:25-34
    • Matthew 18:18-19