Number one, the prerequisite of favor. Now, you can run around here and talk about, “I’m blessed and highly favored”. Let me tell you somethin’, everybody is not blessed and highly favored. Because if everybody was blessed and highly favored, then favor would be normal, and how is it a favor? If everybody’s exceptional, then exceptional is normal, and if it’s normal, it ceases to be exceptional. The truth of the matter is, some of us have been chosen to walk in levels of favor that other people are destined to follow in. If you were meant to shift something, if you were born to provoke change, God will favor you for your assignment. Everybody can’t walk in that favor, somebody has to follow that favor.
See, everybody wants to be favored. Now, that’s the problem. That’s why we got churches on every corner. Everybody wants to be chief, nobody wants to be Indians. Come on, talk to me, somebody. Everybody wants to have the big seat up front, and nobody wants to follow. But it is just as good to walk in somebody else’s favor as it is to be favored. I don’t have to be Noah. I’ll be one of Noah’s sons. They might not talk about me much in the Bible, but I didn’t drown with the rest of ’em, ’cause I was followin’ in the favor of somebody else.
Come on, somebody. Favor, you are either meant to be favored or to follow someone in favor. Because if you follow someone in favor, you get blessed because of their favor. Ruth didn’t have nothin’ when she got to Bethlehem till she hooked up with Boaz. When she got up under his skirts, all the blessings of Boaz came upon her. Just because she was Boaz’s wife, she ended up ownin’ the field that she used to work in. So, it’s not about big I’s a little U’s. It’s really about God’s divine purpose, and I wanna give you the prerequisites of favor to those of you that were born to shift things, that were born to shift things, that were born to create a door for other people to run through.
For this, he gave you favor. It doesn’t mean that you are better than your brethren. But for his plan for your life, he has gifted you with a level of favor that you makes you effective when you do something that other people might not be effective at. Favor makes you effective. It drives people nuts sometimes. They got all kinds of doctorates in theologies and masters in divinity, and they speak Greek and Hebrew, and they can’t understand how my country self is sittin’ up here with all these people in the church, when they have gone to school. They’ve gone to everybody’s school for everything. But more learnin’ doesn’t create more burnin’. I’m gonna say that again. More learning doesn’t create more burning. If you got the burnin’, the learnin’ will help ya, but the learnin’ won’t make ya burn. If you’re not burnin’ before you went to school, school won’t make ya burn, come on.
Think of favor as God’s investment in a trust fund. If God were to invest in a trust fund, the money he invested in the fund is only safe if the trust is there. Why they call it a, “Trust fund”. And the more I trust the fund, the more I invest in the fund. So, what I want you to understand is that favored people are a trust fund. It simply means that there is something about you that God can trust. This is a prerequisites of favor. Why did God pick Joseph over all of his brethren? He wasn’t the firstborn. He wasn’t the only born. He might not even have been the best-lookin’ born. I don’t know. I didn’t see him. But God didn’t pick him on the criteria that people pick. This might help you in who you pick. God picks people he can trust.
God trusted Joseph. That’s why he favored him. He knew that Joseph would not get so bitter that he would get revenge. Can God trust you with the favor that you prayed for? God is not gonna give you the favor because you’re smart or because you’re cute or because you want it. He’s gonna give you the favor because he can trust you not to be selfish. He needs to trust that your heart is big enough. They don’t trust funds are not like savings accounts. If you set up a trust fund, it is for a cause. God can’t trust some of you because if he gave too much to you, you would think it was for you.
Now I’m talkin’ favor to service. And some of you don’t want favor to serve. You want favor to lead. You want favor to stand out. You want favor to be superior. So, I wanna talk about the pragmatism of favor. How do you turn your favor into something that is practical, that you can sink your teeth into, that really adds value to your life? To understand that what Joseph did is, over the course of his life, what started out as euphoric and nebulous and indescript and indefinable, a coat of many colors, “I got a coat of many colors. Look at what my daddy made for me. I got a coat of may colors. I want you to see I got on a coat of many colors. Oh, it’s a coat of many colors”. What good is that?
The pragmatism of favor means until that coat converts into conduct… favor needs to serve somebody. So, let me tell ya how God thinks about favor. He said, “You’re so highly favored. You saw the vision that your brothers were bowin’ down to worship you ’cause you had so much favor. You are so highly favored, I’mma make you a slave. And when I get through makin’ you a slave, I’m gonna sell you to Potiphar so that you can turn that favor from a coat into a conduct”. I do too. And all of a sudden, he is runnin’ Potiphar’s house with his favor. He is controlling Potiphar’s affairs with his favor.
What are you doin’ with what you got? That is always God’s question. It is not, “Do you have it”? What are you doing with what you’ve gotten? How are you making your favor pragmatic, practical, effective? Now, in order for it to be effective, this is why you can’t be in isolation, you only measure effect by results. And you can’t have results alone. Results affect, move something, paint something, cut something. Ooh, it’s effective, and cut it off. It’s effective, it moved it. It’s effective, it painted it. You gotta have a it to have an effect. And you askin’ God for more favor, but you don’t like people. I’m goin’ on. I’m goin’ on. I don’t wanna make you all the way mad. I’m tryin’ to make sure I give you everything God gave me.
Joseph’s favor lay dormant unless it was planted in the soil of someone else’s need. The only time Joseph’s favor activated was when it was planted in the soil of someone else’s need. I told you from the beginning, you’re an answer. You need a problem. “They usin’ me”. Yeah, that’s what they’re supposed to do. His favor only activated when it was planted in the soil of someone else’s need. You’re only valuable when you’re needed.
Okay, number three, I wanna talk about the pain of favor. Joseph’s favor only activated when it regarded someone else. So, in every element of his story, he’s a hero. You throw him in a pit, he gets out. You put him Potiphar’s house, he runs Potiphar’s house. You put him in the prison, he’s runnin’ the prison. You put him in the palace, he’s runnin’ the palace. Here is something… oh, gosh. I almost think… I’mma tell God, “I think you gave me too much”. I wanna get down into everything. Every time you turn around, Joseph is gettin’ up, up out the pit, up out of Potiphar’s house, up in the prison, up in the palace. Then why is he cryin’? Because Joseph is more effective at alleviating other people’s pain than his own.
The text opens up with a man of faith and favor puttin’ everybody out and screamin’ so loud they could hear him all the way down the hall because favor has pain. So I wanna talk to you about the pain of favor. People use you when you’re favored. People take you for granted when you’re favored. And in some cases, you open up their dream, and they get out and forget you when you’re favored. And you down in trouble, sayin’, “Wait, you were supposed to put in a word for me”. But the worst part of his pain is that he ran Potiphar’s house. He went to jail to save Potiphar’s marriage.
He served in the prison as an inmate, and all the while, he ached for a family. He could run everybody’s house and couldn’t get his back. He helped everybody else with their situation, and wondered, “Is my father dead? Will I ever see my brothers again? Maybe it’s just meant for me to serve everybody else. Maybe I’ll never have anything for me. Maybe my joy is yours”. When his brothers walked in that door, he started screaming because it was God saying, “I got you. I am going to restore unto you the years that the cankerworm, and the palmerworm, and the locust ate up in your life. And everything that you thought you would never get back and you decided, ‘I’m just gonna make the best of a bed situation,’ I am goin to restore it back to you pressed down, shaken together, and running over. And your latter day shall be greater than your former day because I’ve got a blessing for you. I use you to bless everybody else, but I have not forgotten you. You will come into your season, and that right early, and everything that you have secretly whispered to me about in the middle of the night, I’m sending it in your direction. And I am going to cause your heart to rejoice in the God of your salvation”. If you receive it, give him a praise.
I want you to understand the purpose of favor. There was a purpose in everything you went through. Joseph uses the word “posterity”. He said, “I did it for the generations that were coming after me, that God positioned me to break a curse, provoke a shift, bring about a change”. I don’t know whether you know it or not, but you changed the game. I better quit ’cause I feel like preachin’ now. I feel like preachin’ right now. Touch your neighbor and say, “You changed the game. Because of you, your children changed. Your grandchildren changed. Your neighborhood changed. Your city changed. Your nation changed”. Oh, my God, I need a game changer that’ll give God the praise in spite of my pain, in spite of my problem. Turn around in a circle. God positioned you to change the game. Everything around you, you moved. It changed the game. That job you took, it changed the game. You got saved. It changed the game. You went to school. It changed the game. Everything you practiced on was preparation for what he is about to release in your life.