God's Strategic Favor | Pastor John Greiner

This message introduces God’s Strategic Favor as believers step into a new year, teaching that God’s favor is covenant-based, purposeful, and always directional. Drawing from Luke 4, Psalm 102, and multiple biblical examples, the teaching explains how God releases favor at appointed times to restore, elevate, and advance His people according to their calling. Listeners are encouraged to recognize when favor is active, cooperate with it through faith, prayer, generosity, and obedience, and trust that God’s favor provides divine advantage to fulfill His end-time purposes.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome, Declarations, And Theme
• 0:44 Luke 4 And The Set Time Of Favor
• 2:34 Jubilee, Hesed, And Today’s Economy
• 5:11 Strategic Favor Has Direction
• 7:39 Mephibosheth And Covenant Kindness
• 10:24 Exodus, Transfer Of Wealth, And Favor
• 14:28 End-Time Mandate And Countdown Vision
• 16:43 Inheritance In Christ And Purpose
• 19:15 Waking Up The Church And Open Doors
• 21:03 Jacob And Joseph: Shifting Favor
• 25:01 Personal Stories: Doors Opening By Favor
• 31:54 Recognizing When Favor Shifts
• 33:14 How To Walk In Strategic Favor: Tithing
• 37:08 Windows Of Heaven: Ideas, Concepts, Insights
• 41:24 Prayer Life That Hears And Moves
• 48:17 Agreement, Provision, And Partnership
• 52:28 Please God, Walk By Faith, Receive Favor

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Let's lift our Bibles up and let's wave them around. Make Jesus glad, the devil mad. Let's say this together. So, Heavenly Father, so glad to be here today among people of like precious faith. It's a miracle atmosphere to begin 2026. I'm looking forward to the supernatural increase in my life, and I give you praise for it. In Jesus' name. Amen. Let's turn our Bibles first of all to Luke chapter 4. And while you're finding that, find Psalm 102. And we will get into the word together today. I believe it'll bless you. Luke 4.18. Jesus is speaking in his hometown of Nazareth. And he found the place where it was written in Isaiah 60 about himself, and he began to quote the word and apply himself. That's what we should do. Find a place where it's written about ourselves and confess it. Verse 18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he's anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. In the Amplified, verse 19, it says, to preach the accepted and acceptable year of the Lord, the day when the free favors of God profusely abound. The day when the free favors of God profusely abound. And then in Psalm 102, verse 13. The prophetic word is talking about God. And it prophesies, verse 13, thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion. Hesed. The word mercy there means covenant kindness. You know, covenant, everybody say covenant kindness. You shall have mercy upon Zion for the time to favor her. Yea, the set time is come. The set time. The Moed. There's an appointed time. And so today I wanted to start off the new year with this message: God's strategic favor. God's strategic favor. You know, we're living in the day of fulfillment of Luke 4.19. You know, Luke 4.19 is really all about the uh Jubilee. Every 50 years, everything went back. All the debts were forgiven. All the servants were returned. They went, got back their land. I mean, there was redemption. There was never to the end, the year of Jubilee was to the end that there be no poor among Israel. It was an enforcement of Hesed. You know, you know, some people are just born dumb. And they just don't have any common sense, and people that are smarter will take their stuff from them, and the next thing you know, they've lost it all and they're working for somebody else. And God saw that. I mean, you know, I mean, that's that. Why was that? Well, because of the fall. Because of the fall of Adam, that was the condition of mankind, and he did not want that in Israel, his covenant people. And he wanted them to show each other love, and he wanted to make sure that no one took unfair advantage because if you know it, you know, the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the next thing you know, I mean, you've got a whole generation like we have here in this country. We've got generations of people. Don't they'll never get out, they'll never dig out of you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars of uh student loan debt to go get a degree and that's worthless, that nobody wants, that nobody will hire you for. I mean, things have got to change, don't they? So, anyway, uh God's got a plan for that. It's called favor. And it's tied to your covenant. And so the set time for favor is now. There's a there's a an appointed time, a Moed time. In the New Testament, that would be the Kairos moment. God's not random, He sets everything exact. I mean, look at the stars. I mean, they they you can you that's how the old-time mariners were able to uh navigate across vast oceans is by the stars. They didn't have GPS, they didn't have satellites, and so they had to go by the stars, and God set them in in place, and you could you could you could set it set your instruments and you could navigate across the vast ocean just by knowing the movement of the stars. So this divine favor over the church is real and it's in individual members, and it is strategic in nature. The nature of it is strategic, it's not just carte blanc, 360-degree favor, everything around you is favor. No, favor is in a direction, and that direction is consistent with your inheritance, it's could it's consistent with your calling, with your gifting, with your purpose on earth. That favor will lead you in that direction. It's uh uh the word favor there is uh defined as uh endowed with special advantage for success. I like that one. Endowed with special advantage for success. Another one is provided with preferential treatment that tends to promote and ease or facilitate. I mean, you know, favor will make things easy. When favor, when the favor of God, when you're cooperating in that directional favor, that strategic favor, when you learn how to identify it and follow along with it, it makes everything easy. And it's not fair. See, what was man-made, well, the man-made part of that was DEI. Well, we're gonna hire people just because they're black or just because they're yellow, or just because they this or they're just because of that. They're women. We're gonna get everybody in place, no merit. It's not about merit, it's not about who's smarter, it's not about who's better qualified, it's about the color of their skin, it's about it's about some uh sexual preference. We're gonna give them, we're gonna, well, see, that's a perversion of what I'm talking about this morning. God has something similar, but I'm gonna tell you it's tied to your covenant. Are y'all with me now? Everybody say favor's not fair. Praise God. Everybody say unfair advantage. Now, so when I say unfair, I mean in the eyes of people. I'm not talking about God. God can't be unfair. God has a purpose behind everything he does, he's got a strategy. So, you know, a couple of Bible examples that you may be familiar with, but 2 Samuel 9, we won't go there and read the whole thing. But, you know, David had fought a long time. He became king of Judah and Benjamin, but then the house of Saul was at war with him. Abner was the chief of staff, and of course, Saul was dead, and Jonathan was dead. And the Bible says the house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker, and the house of David waxed stronger and stronger. And over seven years uh it came to the fact that, hey, you know, Abner finally gave up, said, Look, here, here. So all of Israel came under the leadership of David the king. And uh, and and then it very uh soon after that, uh, David asked his staff, is there anyone left in the house of Saul that I may perform Hesed? See, why would he say that? Well, because he had cut the covenant with Jonathan, who is Saul's son, and Jonathan's dead, Saul's dead, and almost all the family's dead, and they said, Well, yeah, there's one son left, Mephibosheth, and he lives in Lodibar. Get him, bring him here. And Mephibosheth, in uh the fleeing, uh, you know, he was under attack, and his maid, the nurse that had charge of him as a child, dropped him, and he was lame on his feet, he couldn't walk. And he was living in Lodabar, which means no pasture, which means poverty. Because they're an agricultural society, so if you don't have pasture for your flocks, that means you're broke. He's living in broke city. And you know, he's been, you know, he's he's he can't walk. He's he's broke. Somebody's just out of the kindness of their heart letting him live with them. And David says, Bring him here to me. And instantly David said, Look, I'm gonna restore all of your father or your grandfather's fortunes to you. I'm gonna give you all your land back. Where who did it belong to, David? David took of all the land and all of the uh the rich farmland, agricultural land, all the animals, and even Saul's servants were now David's. And he reassigned the servants to Mephibosheth and said, now they're gonna work for you, they're gonna work your fields, they're gonna, they're gonna give you the increase. I mean, this man, you know, in one instant, God's strategic favor based on the covenant. Are y'all getting this now? Changed his status from the son of the vanquished to the son of the victor. Brought him out of no pasture to having all the riches uh that his grandfather left that was in the hands of David, but now it's in his hands like it ought to be. I mean, God restored divine order to his house. And not only that, he said, now you've got your own house, you've got your own table, but I want you eating at my table. So he was getting to eat at the king's table from Nino and adopted into the king's family. Are y'all with me now? Everybody say strategic favor. See, preferential treatment. God, you know, David wasn't looking to kill him. Ah, he's the last one. He's gonna probably get revenge one day. Let's kill him now. No. No, he the fear of the Lord, the the covenant was so strong between him, him and Jonathan. Jonathan made him swear that even when you're king, you will not forget my house. Well, that's just part of his house. So uh then another example is over here in Exodus chapter 3, and uh God is speaking to uh Moses in Exodus 321, and he's telling him how it's gonna happen. You know, he's gonna go and he's gonna get the people to get released by Pharaoh because he's gonna, he will smite Egypt with with plagues until he does. And then in verse 21, God is saying this, he said, and I will give this people, talking about Israel, their slaves, I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, and it shall come to pass that when you go, you shall not go empty. See, they're broke. They don't have anything of their own. They have no possessions other than a few goats and a few, you know, a few things, or clothes, but they don't have any wealth. And God said, No, it's not right. You're gonna you're not gonna go away empty. Verse 22, but every woman shall borrow of her neighbor and of her that sojourneth in her house jewels of silver, jewels of gold and raiment, and you shall put them on your sons and on your daughters, and you shall spoil the Egyptians. Everybody say, transfer of wealth.

unknown: 12:55

Transfer of wealth.

SPEAKER_00: 12:56

See, it kind of looks like reparations, doesn't it? That's God's idea of reparations. Now, every woman would borrow of her neighbor. Well, borrow, borrow doesn't mean beg. Borrow says, uh, we're leaving, and I want your, I want your grandma's china. I want the silver, silver set, I want the gold and the silver in your house. And they gladly, they couldn't wait for them to leave. I mean, they loaded them down with the as much as meant. In other words, they paid them to get them out of town. See, I've always believed that the church is gonna get paid to be raptured. I mean, there's gonna be such a transfer of wealth out of the hands of the wicked into the hands of the righteous right before the rapture where we can where we can do a good job on the final harvest. It takes money. I mean, the harvest time is the is the is the highest amount of requirement for wealth. You've got to have a lot of money to get in the harvest. It takes money to pay the laborers. In modern times, that money comes from the harvest itself. They just do a transfer when they weigh the corn or they weigh the wheat, you know, and they get a check, they're able to pay the guy with the combine harvester, so they're able to extend a little credit. But I mean, I'm telling you, God is gonna see to it that we don't go away empty. Now, we can't take it with us, but we can use it while we're here to. Are y'all with me now? Everybody say strategic favor. So let's look at Colossians chapter 1 now. I want to get your faith built up for this year because I really do believe that this year is uh pivotal in God's plan for the end days. I mean, I was I watched Apollo 13 again the other day. I was, it was on, and I usually watch it because I just, you know, Houston is the city of countdowns. And I just wanted to see that countdown again. Where they, you know, they've got the Apollo 13 and the astronauts at the top, and you know, and mission control out here at NASA, and uh, they're 15, 14, 13. You know, we've forgotten all about all the space flight that we did for decades. I mean, it was amazing what what what God had blessed this country with and the kind of uh people we had to do what we did in space and all of that. And uh, you know, God gave me a the countdown year starting in 2001. I mean, he he started speaking to me every year. So here we are, 2026. I don't have a I don't have a uh a message yet for 2026, but I'm I'm on I'm on the trail of it. And God's gonna give me uh something for us to aim at for this year. What was it last year? Milestone. Amen. What was it the year before that? Momentum. What was it the year before that? Power. And so we, you know, God's got a theme for this year. So anyway, uh I saw that countdown. I mean, you know, it just brings tears to my eyes because I've just I know that God has strategically placed this church in the end times. And they even said, you know, uh one of the astronauts said, well, you know, we're all here, you know, to put a man on the moon from the guy that's pushing the broom to everybody else. See, so he made he made reference to the man pushing the broom. What are you doing here, sir? I'm here to put a man on the moon. It doesn't matter what you do in this church, you're here to usher in the end times. All right, so Colossians, if you found it yet, uh chapter uh one, verse 12. Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet or able to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light, who hath delivered us from the power, authority, jurisdiction, and control of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear son. You see, just like Mephibosheth, we were in Lodibar, we were in a place of no pasture, we were lost and undone in the kingdom of darkness, and God literally took us and changed our status from the son of the devil to the son of God, the sons of God. Amen. I mean, he he gave us an inheritance. Did we deserve it? No, did Mephibosheth deserve it? Not necessarily, just by virtue of his lineage is all it was. His uncle Jonathan got it for him. Are y'all with me now? So everybody shout favor. He transferred us into his kingdom and set us at the table. We're eating at the king's table as sons. He restored all that Jesus got back from the devil. Sin, sickness, poverty, fear. They have no power over us anymore. We're not lame in our feet anymore. Are y'all with me now? We have what? Favor. We're endowed with special advantage for success. We're provided with preferential treatment that tends to promote promotion and ease. But it's in a direction. You've got to get that part of it. It's not just carte blanc every direction. It's absolute in a direction consistent with your call, with your purpose, and with your mandates that you're charged with. You know, if you're a member of this church, you're charged with the same mandates I am. You're charged with waking up the church. See, the church needs to wake up. It's beginning to wake up, but there's a lot more work to do. A lot more work to do. But I think about the set time, the set time to favor her has come when I think about my God votes. You know, God, this next two months from now, March the 1st, will be the, let's see, that was 99, so that's 27 years ago. This coming March the 1st, God told me to wake up to church. 27 years.

unknown: 19:19

Hallelujah.

SPEAKER_00: 19:21

And all the way, you know, I did everything I knew to do. I I talked to this when I talked to that, but nobody wanted to talk about it. Finally, Brother Roberts had a wake-up call. He had that visitation in 2004. In 2005, I went to interview him. It came, out came a book. He wrote the forward. I thought, okay, here's here I am. I'm on my way now. People are gonna finally pay attention, they're gonna finally start to wake up. Didn't happen. Didn't happen. I mean, it it took all the way until we got to 2020. And in 2020, when we decided we were gonna open for COVID, that was the I mean, it just broke things open. And favor began to flow, and God has hooked us up with ministry after ministry after ministry. They were working alone too, and all of a sudden now we're discovering each other. And now what was just something that was just a mandate that I didn't know how to complete is becoming, I mean, we're getting day by day. I mean, we just hired a capital coordinator from Missouri. I mean, we're we've got 26 states on the line here, 26 out of 50. And of course, you know, if Venezuela becomes the 51st, I mean, we might have to have Glorious Way Caracas. I don't know. I don't really, I don't know. Are y'all with me now? So God's strategic favor sometimes is temporary. It's not it's not intended to be lifelong. For instance, with Jacob. Jacob uh had no favor with Esau. He had favor with his mother, and his mother kind of, you know, had preferential treatment and allowed him to steal his brother's birthright. And of course, then he didn't have any favor with Esau. Esau wanted to kill him. So what did his mother do? His mother used her relationship with her brother Laban, and so then Jacob had favor with Laban, and he goes to work for Laban and he works for 14 years for two women and doesn't make any money of his own. He he does it to get two women, two wives. I don't know why you'd want more than one. One is all I can handle. I can't fit. I mean, if I had two of her, I mean, it would be amazing. One is enough. One is fulfilled, it fills my cup. Fills my cup. My cup runneth over with one. But not Jacob, he had to have two. He had to have two, and so finally he had some ideas from heaven. God gave him ideas about how, you know, in the last six years, he spent a total of 20 years there. And during that last six years, when he started prospering and started moving up, Laban's favor started drying up. And, you know, at the end of the story, after 20 years, Laban's countenance was not what it was before. And so then they separated. And now, after 20 years, when you just read the rest of the story, God gave uh Jacob favor with Esau. Esau, Esau was glad to see him. They hugged, and and remember, Jacob had all these gifts that he had lined up. He was going to bless his brother with all this, these animals and everything. Oh no, keep all that. I don't need it, and I'm rich. I don't need what you're giving. And he wouldn't take it. See? I mean, everybody say favor. Favor in a direction. It was God for him to get back to Israel. He couldn't sojourn in Syria any longer. He had to go back to Israel. Joseph. Joseph had no favor with his brothers. His brothers were jealous of him. His parents didn't know what to do with him. He's a dreamer. They didn't understand him. Next thing you know, his brothers sold him into slavery, but when they did, he had favor with Potiphar. And Potiphar's house was blessed until Potiphar's wife got involved. Then he got thrown in prison unjustly. But what happened? God gave him favor with the keeper of the prison. And anything that was done, Joseph was the doer of it. And he stayed there for a long time until finally he interpreted the dream and he had favor with Pharaoh. He came out of the prison into the palace. He became ruler of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh. And now his brothers come back, and I guess you could say he had favor with his brothers. Actually, what he had, his brothers, when they found out who he was, that that was their brother that they had sold into slavery, they were cold-starked afraid of him. They were their knees were knocking. But you could say he had the favor was restored into his family. Are y'all with me now? And so he had the duplicate chariot, he had the linen robe, the gold chain, the signet ring. All of that was on bit for the benefit of Israel. I mean, he was Israel first. We've got America first. Now we got Israel. They had Israel first. Are y'all with me now? All right. So everybody says strategic favor. And so, you know, I think about all, you know, I've got more stories than we have time to hear, but some of them are a little bit more amazing than others. I mean, I just think about the time we were broke, returned here to uh Houston. Uh I had to move in with my sister, so Gladys and I and Claire and Jay, uh, us, you know, four go into my sister's house, and she still got a couple of kids there. I think three still living at home. It's kind of crowded. But we had favor with my sister and brother-in-law, and they they let us live there because we didn't have any money. And we go back to Lakewood, you know, and we go on a, you know, start getting established and everything. And uh a few months went by. I think I finally picked up a little job. I was getting some money at the time. And on Sunday morning I just noticed that nobody was out there. They had two services, 8:30 and 11. The 8:30 service, we were there for the 8:30 service, and I'm just kind of wandering around the front of the building, you know, close to the console. And uh I noticed that uh the guy that's supposed to open the service in prayer most of the time is running late. And I know Brother Osteen doesn't like it because 8:30, you've got to get started on time so that the church can end because you've got people coming in at 11, and that parking lot's got to be empty for them to park, and the church has got to be empty for them to have a seat, and if the 8:30 goes too far too late, you mess up the second service. So I knew that just as a practical matter. Plus, I knew that Brother Osteen was a man of punctuality. He hated late. That's disordered. He doesn't like disorder. So uh one Sunday, it was getting right on the time, and Doreen was the young lady that was leading the worship. She's standing up there and kind of looking around. So I said, I'm gonna get in her eye gate. I'm gonna see if she wants me to open the service. I'd I decided I just I'll be available, I'll open the service for her. So we locked eyes and and I went like that, and she waved me up. I picked up the microphone, opened the service. And the other guy never did show up. And the second week happened again. And I thought, wow, I mean, I'm not trying to steal this guy's job. I'm just trying to meet a need, but I mean, this is kind of crazy. What's wrong with him? He didn't even show up twice. So the third time she felt guilty about me, so she picked somebody else. I was in her line, her line of sight, but she just kept moving until she found somebody else. He opened the service. So now, the week four, now. Me twice, this other guy once. Week four, here I am again. I'm on my way up there. She's nodded to me. I'm fixing to open the service. But out of the corner of my eye, I hear this guy running full speed across the sanctuary trying to beat me to the platform. And I didn't slow down, I just kept walking. I kind of smiled. I thought, well, who's gonna win? I wonder. But anyway, he got, he, as my foot hit the bottom step of the platform, he came around the corner and he grabbed the microphone out of my hand and ran up and was totally out of breath and couldn't hardly pray. He was so out of breath. And it was a bomb. I mean, it was like a big dud. And uh, and it was embarrassing for him because he looked so foolish. And I, you know, I didn't, it didn't bother me. I mean, I just kind of I tried not to not not to smile, but I wanted to laugh, you know, it was hilarious. So I got a call that next week and said, John, you need to, we want you to start opening, closing services. So-and-so has got too many things to do in television. He's been running late, and we just you're gonna start opening the services in prayer. See, so what did that happen? What was that strategic favor? What did it produce? Well, it produced this church. That one interlude, that one, at a time in my life when I was broke, and a time in my life when I couldn't pay attention, and a time in my life that I had been humbled beyond recognition, God picked me up and gave me a special advantage for success. And that that position of opening the services turned into closing the services and all the services, Wednesday night, Sunday morning, Sunday night. I mean, it it opened a door for me to begin to travel with Brother Osteen. It opened the door for me to be ordained a couple of years later. Are y'all with me now? I'm talking about strategic favor. Praise God. Everybody say strategic favor. I remember later on then when we uh started looking for a building for our first for our first server. You know, we'd started the church. I had a group of people that were uh wanting to be part of it. We'd had a couple of organizational meetings, but I hadn't got a building yet. And I was out looking for a particular building in my memory that I remembered uh eating in. It was Big Ben's Barbecue, and I used to eat there all the time, and then later it became a seafood restaurant. And I started looking for it, I couldn't find it. I kept going up and down 1960. Finally, one of our prospective members called me and says, Hey, Pastor, there's a building for rent right across from Champions Park. That was the building I was looking for, but it it disappeared. I couldn't find it. So I went up to that building, and there was a sign for lease, and it's sitting off the road. And uh, it's like a U-shaped center, and it's at the base of the center, and that's why it was hidden on the road, you just couldn't see it. So I went up and I called the number, and it happened to be a deacon for Champion Forest Baptist. And uh, and he came, he's a commercial realtor, and he had the and so he's working for the Lisore. Now, Lisor's agency is working for the advantage of the person who's gonna pay his commission. But as we began to talk, he said, Oh, you're gonna start a church. Yeah, he's this ideal. In fact, this used to be a church a couple of years ago, then it became this uh, you know, uh golf, little golfing, indoor golf facility. And so, and he started giving me advice. He said, Look, this thing has been on the market over a year. No, we hadn't had one bite. You're the first bite we've had in a year. He's desperate. He will take less. He will, I believe you can get him to accept 60k a year. 60,000 a year. Well, that was like beyond my. I mean, I had no idea it was gonna cost that kind of money. I didn't have$60,000 fate, really, at that moment.$60,000, yeah. He said, look, you're just getting started, so you can structure the lease. I advise you just to make it like a couple of thousand a month for three months or something, and then up it a little bit, and then at the final uh year of the lease, give them over that$5,000.$5,000 a month would be$60,000. So start at two and then at the end make it up and toward the end of the year he has his$60,000. I believe he'll take it. I said, what about the damage deposit? This old building. I mean, it's damaged already. I mean, what in the world? Usually they want$5,000 damage. I mean, it's or it's got$5,000 before me. I'm even moving in it. He said, Oh, just make that just a little bit. Don't make that big. So what's he doing? He's working for me. I have favor with the lease or I'm the leasee, he's the lease or agent, and he's treating me like I'm paying his commission. Are y'all with me now? And what's the result of that, this church? That that core that that coordination and us having a relationship with that person, but it was temporary. It lasted a number of years, that favor, but it was temporary. Temporary. A lot of times favor comes and then it goes. You've got to know, you gotta recognize when favor's dried up. You've got to recognize when favor is has shifted, and you've got to start looking for where's the next position, where's the next direction? Where's the wind gonna blow me now? Are y'all with me now? Glory to God. Everybody say favor in a direction. I mean, that that that guy that was our first landlord is the one that gave us a$9.7 million piece of property, the property that we're on right now. Gifted it to the church. Gifted it to the church. Gifted it to the church in return for what we had already bought from him for a tax write-off when he had a you know, a bear market in the stock market and he was uh doing put options. He was making money when the stock market went down. And uh, how many of you are interested in knowing how to walk in God's strategic favor? I've got three things I want to recommend to you that you practice on. How to walk in God's strategic favor. A lot of people don't understand strategy, they don't understand direction. That's the biggest thing I can, besides favor itself, is the idea of that it's many times temporary and it's always in a direction when God sends it. He's got a purpose behind it. Does he love you? Well, yeah, that's the biggest purpose. But God doesn't waste anything. God knows how to shape events around you to put you in a direction where you can obey his uh commands over your life. So the first one, uh, how to walk and and how to follow and walk in God's strategic favor. Number one, be a tither and a giver. Jacob was a tither. Early on on his way to Laban, he said he committed himself. He had a visitation on the way, and God and saw angels ascending and descending and all of that. And he said, Surely the tenth, if you will deal kindly with me in this place and bring me back here again, surely the tithe, the tenth, will be yours. The tenth is the tithe, the first tenth. Where did he learn that? Well, he learned it from his daddy. Where did he learn it? From his daddy. See, it went all the way back to Adam. Tithing is not just Old Testament, tithing is not just the law, tithing is Bible. Tithing is a spiritual law like gravity. And so let's hold our place here and go back to Malachi. We want to identify this early in this year because your tithes and offerings are gonna help shape your favor. It has everything to do with whether God can give you favor or not. Malachi chapter three. Yet you have robbed me. But you say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. And offerings. Don't forget offerings. They've robbed in tithes and offerings. In other words, they didn't give the tithe and they didn't get offerings. When you don't give the tithe, you don't give offerings. Well, no, but Pastor, I do. I give offerings. I just don't tithe. I said, Well, it's not an offering. Because if you don't give the tithe first, whatever else you give is not qualified as an offering. So there's no multiplication on it. Well, Jesus didn't say anything about tithing. He said he ought to do it. This you should have done and not leave the other undone. He believed in tithing, he wouldn't have been a rabbi. The rabbi lived off the tithe, Doofus. Yes, he believed in tithing, and he mentioned it. But when he said in Luke 6, 38, give and it shall be given unto you, good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over. That assumed that they tithe first, the first tenth, and then they get multiplied with the offerings. When they give the offerings, God will give you favor with men. Notice how when you give, it opens up favor with men who will give to your bosom. Some of them are lost men. Some of them are people that don't know the Lord. Everybody say, transfer of wealth. So you've robbed me, even this whole nation. You are cursed, verse 9, with a curse. You have robbed me even this whole nation. Bring you all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open up to you and prove me now. See, it's the only verse where God invites you to test him and prove him. And you know, if you don't really think about tithing, my brother-in-law didn't, he didn't, he didn't want to do that. My sister was trying to get him to tithe, and finally she approached him after a long period of time of prayer, because he wasn't really, I don't even think he was saved at the time when he started tithing. But anyway, later on he got saved. He's in heaven now, but Marianne's husband, Frank, my brother-in-law. So she presented, look, Frank, it says in the Bible to tithe, and he said, Prove me. Look, would you please let me tithe our income? I believe God will bless your business. I believe you'll get, he was having a little trouble. He was uh uh teaching radiation safety, and he would go to hospital. Anybody, pipeline companies, anybody that had uh radiation that they used and x-rays and pipelines and hospitals, I mean, they had to have a, you know, you had to have a safety course once a year. And he was having trouble. He was, he was, his phone wasn't ringing off enough. She said, you know, I really believe if we start tithing, your phone will ring off the wall and you'll be able to pick and choose where you want to go do these. So she just told him, he said, prove me now. Give me give me six months, Frank. And after six months, if it doesn't work, we won't tithe anymore. So she was both. See, God gave her a plan and he approved it, and you know, they never quit tithing, and his phone started ringing off the wall. He was busy all the time. Busy all the time. Then he got saved. All right. So bring all the tithes into the storehouse or be meet in mine house and get prove me now, herewith, saith the Lord, if I will not open up the Windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive. And I'll rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and uh he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your vine cast a fruit, for it's time in the field, saith the Lord of hosts, and all nations shall call you blessed, for you shall be a delightsome land, saith the Lord of hosts. So there's three things. Brother Roberts talked about when I went to interview him. Everybody say, ideas, concepts, and insights. He will open up the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing there's not room enough to receive. What's that blessing? Is it money? No. God doesn't rain money out of heaven, it would be counterfeit. He doesn't make money up there. There's no money for him to give you, but he will give you, he knows where all the money is here. And he will give you ideas. One idea from God can make you rich. And then you get the idea, and then it becomes a concept, and you start studying about how to implement your idea. And then before long you get insights. And so my example of that is Jacob. Jacob had an idea, he had a dream about whittling sticks and planting them in front of the feeding troughs at mating season, and the goats would come up and they would mate and produce after their own kind. And they would produce ring-straped and spotted cattle. And he had more cattle born of his, and they were stronger than Laban's. And so that was an idea that in just six short years he became rich, richer than Laban was. Are y'all with me now? So uh everybody say ideas, concepts, and insights. And then, of course, then the other thing is that he uh he will protect your assets, he will rebuke the devourer for your sake. The devil comes to steal, kill, and destroy. He will protect your assets. You don't have to worry about uh theft and you don't have to worry about down markets, God. If you're a tither and a giver, he'll protect your assets. And then the last part of that is he'll give you favor. He'll give you favor. So your tithes and offerings have a whole lot to do with your favor and its direction. All right. Really, tithing is all about honoring God. That's why, you know, when you don't honor him, see, you can't, well, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of evil. The fear of the Lord means you respect God enough you don't you don't have narrowed eyes and tight, you know, uh tighter than Dick's hat band. Have you ever heard that? I mean, the guy's so tight, he's tighter than Dick's hat band. I mean, you can't listen, you can't be chinchy-shminchy with God. You need to be generous with God. You need to be, you need to honor him with your tithe and offerings. And, you know, the more generous you are with offerings, the more blessed you get. And it's not short term. I mean, it takes, it takes a while to prime the pump, but if you will put God first and honor him, the tithe, you know, uh in Proverbs it says, honor the Lord with your substance and with the first fruits of all thine increase, so shall you barns be filled with plenty and your presses will burst out with new wine. All through the Bible, this principle is repeated. It's not just in Malachi, it's all through the Bible. Everybody say uh favorite. All right. And then uh number two, the Bible says that in James chapter 5. You gotta have a prayer life to go along with your giving and your word life. You've got to have a prayer life. James chapter 5. Let's get it in front of us here. Is any among you afflicted? Let him pray. Let him pray. Sometimes we have affliction, sometimes we're going through tough times, sometimes we have uh uh resistance to what we're trying to do. Maybe it's uh about healing, maybe it's about finances, maybe it's about relationships, marriages, children. Whatever the affliction is, let him pray. I mean, before you get everybody else praying, you need to do some praying. Is in the theme of this is you do something, not somebody else. This is the theme of what James is putting up here. Look what he said. Is any among you afflicted? Let him, the one that's afflicted, pray. Well, yeah, but I just call the prayer line. See, that's lazy. You need to have a prayer line. Quit calling everybody else to pray when you're supposed to do the praying. You can't hear from God through the prayer line. They're not gonna call you back and say, you know what God showed me about your situation? They're not gonna do that. But if you pray, God can give you some information. Isn't he merry? Let him call the prayer line and let them sing songs. I'm so happy today. Would you sing me a song? I mean, isn't that stupid? No, if you're if you're happy, you're supposed to do the singing. If you're afflicted, you're supposed to do the praying. So you develop your prayer life, and prayer life is a dialogue. Get your Bible up like this. And let's say this together. This is God speaking to me. See, when you pray and you have a word life, then God can use this word to speak to you. That's how this church started. That's how I knew when it was time to start this church. In fact, I went past, you know, I went past it a little ways and it hurt me. My last house, I didn't build in God's providence. I built out of just, you know, determination I was going to build one more house. And it wasn't God's time. God's timing was really a year and a half before we started this church. I should have started in about 93. Instead, I started my last house and it never sold. It didn't sell for two years after we started the church. I mean, it sat there, it had moss growing out all on the inside of it. I mean, that thing. Nobody wanted to buy it. It was so cursed, nobody wanted to buy it. And it was the prettiest, biggest house I'd ever built in 25 years of building. That just shows you when you've got your plan, it's no good. Unless the Lord builds a house or labor in vain that build it. Amen. So develop your prayer life. It's a dialogue. Stay close to God. God will alert you, God will show you, God will witness with you. And uh I remember I had been laid off. I'd gotten a job running a remodeling company. And I'm a home builder. I'm not a remodeler. I don't really know. I mean, I'd remodel some of my houses to sell them. Occasionally we'd have somebody say, I'll buy the house if you'll move the light fixture, I'll buy the house if you'll change this cabinet, I'll buy the house if you'll change the wallpaper, that kind of thing. Well, you do what you have to do to sell a house. So that kind of remodeling. We do a little minor stuff. But now I'm working for a guy that's that's the money guy. He's he owns the company and he's hired me to run a remodeling company, and I'm having to do the bidding, and I'm having to do the find the work, and I'm having to compete, and I don't do any of the work. I am not a craftsman. I don't, I'm not a carpenter, I'm not a painter, I'm not a cabinet builder. I so I have to hire, I'm not a roofer, I have to hire that done. So what happened was that I'm trying to use subcontractors to do remodeling, and I just wasn't competitive. And I found that out real quick. You know, it was pretty obvious that I wasn't going to be successful in this business because I'm not doing the work. Most of the successful ones at least do some of the work, and then they have people to help them, and and they're able to get big enough where they can, you know, delegate some of it, but generally they they do a lot of the work themselves. Anyway, uh, and I got laid off because it wasn't making any money. I totally understood it. And uh, and so I started praying. I said, God, what do I what do I do? We've been laid off. He said, sow a seed. Well, we had$35 in the bank. I said, sow a seed. Pretty tiny there. And uh I sat down, I said, well, what would it take to get back in the home building business? And all I could come up with was$25,000. I had faith, I said, you know, if I had$25,000, I could start a business by going to all the savings and loans that have these vacant houses in places like Bear Creek. There was a thousand vacant houses in Bear Creek subdivision. A lot of them with broken glass, they were being vandalized. I had this plan, I'd go there, you pay me this perk per home, I'll fix the glass, I'll fix the vandalism, I'll mow the grass, I'll keep it up until it sells. You pay me a fee. And I figured I needed$25,000. And then I could parlay that into a home building business because they're all in the real estate business, maybe I'd get enough favor with them. And that was my that was my plan. So$25,000, but I've got$35 in the bank. A hundred-fold return is not enough. Well, I got Deuteronomy, the Lord make you a thousand times more numerous than he has today, so I got a thousand-fold return. We put$25 in the offering on Wednesday night, and we were believing God for$25,000. That's pretty slim. That's pretty crazy. That sounds ridiculous, actually, but that's what I felt to do. I said, okay, God, I've done that. I sowed this seed, I've got$10 left in the bank. Got$10 left. What's next? Just like that. See, I've been reading my Bible. See, been reading my Bible, and I talked to and it talked about favor in there. He said, You need someone to agree with you about the$25,000. And he gave me three businessmen at Lakewood that that I knew. And and they were all, you know, upper income guys, successful guys. I said, Lord, as soon as I call them and ask them to agree with me for$25,000, they're going to think I'm trying to get it out of them. They're going to think I'm trying to get them to give me the money. And I I, Lord, I just can't do it. I, you know, that's, I don't want to mess my reputation up doing this. He said, just tell them that I gave them their name, that they, that I said that they would not be intimidated, that they had the faith to agree for$25,000. Not everybody has that kind of faith. And they'll like that. So that's exactly what I did. And so I got two of them on the line. They agreed with me. They were kind of, whoa, he said that about me. Yeah, I sure did. Okay, cool. Let's agree. So they agreed. So the third one I called. He said, John, I need you to come, I want you to come out to my house. Well, I knew where he lived. I'd been to his house a couple of times. I said, Well, okay, sure, I'll I'll come. He said, I want my wife and I to agree with you. I want to I want to pray over you and let's do this, not do this over the phone. So I drove out to his house and we went into the music room. Does anybody have a music room in your house? He's got a house with a music room in it. Music room holds a hundred people. Because he would have prayer meetings at his house, Bible studies at his house, big enough to start a church in. And so we stood in the music room, and him and his wife grabbed hands with me. And they began, both of them began to weep as they prayed. They were really into it. Man, I mean, they agreed. They absolutely agreed. I said, Well, thank you so much. I appreciate it. And I left. The next week came up to me at church. John, we need to have lunch. I can't get you off of my mind ever since we prayed. I mean, you come up before me in my prayer time. I can't, I can't think about anything but you. I mean, God, I think God wants to do something. I think He wants us to be in business together or something. I said, Well, I'm not looking for a partner. I'm just looking for$25,000. I'm not looking for a partner. Because I don't need a partner. A partner can't help me other than money. A partner can't help me. Because I pretty much know the building business. That's the only business I'm interested in being in. Well, let's have lunch today. So after church, we went to lunch. He said, This morning when I woke up, just as I was waking up, I heard this voice, like many waters, he said. And he's sitting across from it in Lubies, you know, across the table. And he kind of leans, and that voice said, just like this, with his look on his face. His breath hit me in the face, you know. And I said, That's a command. Just like that. That's a command. And his eyes got big. He said, That's what Brother Osteen said. So he'd already shared it with Brother Osteen. And so to make a long story short, that's my partner. And it took a while for me to get the peace to have a partner. But after a couple of weeks, God turned my heart, and within a month, we had$100,000, not$25,000, in the bank, and we began our home-building business in West University Place. Are y'all with me now? I'm talking about favor in a direction. And finally, the last one is Proverbs 16, 7. When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him. Hebrews 11, 6 says, without faith, it's impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he's a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. So if you want to have favor even with your enemies, and that's why why would I want favor with my enemy? Sometimes your enemy has control of resources that you have a need of. I mean, you can't just be afforded to have enemies just on your own. I mean, you know, some people are going to be your enemies because they're the enemies of God. But I mean, sometimes, sometimes God can turn the hearts of people who have worked against you in the past and give you favor with them. What is the requirement that you please God? Well, how do you please God? You please God by walking by faith and not by seems like. We're not to walk by emotion, we're not to walk by what it seems like, feels like, looks like. We're not to walk by what it looks like in the economy and be moved by the economic condition one way or the other. Are y'all with me now? We walk by faith and not by sight. And that's how you please God. So you hear from God, and how do you hear from God? Well, it's a combination of your prayer life and your word life. God will use this Bible to inform you, to give you things. And then as you commit yourself to this, he can give you specific information, like he did me. And God wants to use his strategic favor for your benefit. Come on, lift your hands and receive today. Everybody say, I believe I received God's specific favor for 2026 in my life. I'm learning how to cooperate more and more with his plan. Come on, let's rejoice this morning. Glory to God.

unknown: 56:18

Hallelujah.