Walking in the Favor of God – Part 1

In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. Next on In Touch, Walking in the Favor of God, Part One. The Bible says, Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth, and that every intent and thought of his heart was only evil continually. The Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and he was grieved in his heart. The Lord said, I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth, from man to animals, to creeping things, the birds of the sky, for I am sorry that I have made them. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord. And that's what I want to talk about in this message, and that is walking in the favor of God. And this is the first of three messages on this title, Walking in the Favor of God. And when I think about that, I think, first of all, what do we mean by the favor of God? We mean, first of all, of God's approval, and His acceptance of us, and His support, His provision, His divine energy, His joy. All of that and all of these are expressions of the favor of God. So ask yourself the question, do you feel like you're walking in the favor of God? Do you sense His presence and power in your life? And when you were saved, the Holy Spirit came into your life to seal you as a child of God? And the process of doing so, I am certain that He intended for every one of us to sense His favor, to feel His favor, to experience His favor, and to know that the love of God had been poured out upon us to save us from our sin. So, then I'll ask you simply this, what is one of the evidences of the favor of God in your life? The first indication is simply this, that you're listening to Him, that you're listening to God, that you've learned how to listen to God. Until you learn how to listen to God in your life, you'll never have His favor, because you'll be living outside of His will, justifying what you're doing, declaring everything is all right, and that you're a Christian, but it takes more than that. So, when I think about that, learning to live in His favor, these verses are very important.

Turn, if you will, to Psalm thirty-two, verse eight and nine. Psalm thirty-two, verse eight and nine, listen to what He says. I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go. So, I've got to be listening. I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Do not be as the horse or as the mule which have no understanding, whose trappings include bit and bridle to hold them in check, or otherwise they'll not come to you. So, if we're going to be listeners, listen, I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go. In order for me to know the will of God and the way of God, the first lesson is I've got to learn to listen to Him. How do you listen to God? Have you thought about that in your own life? Do you listen to Him? When you go down to pray, do you take time to listen or do you do all the talking? This is why the Holy Spirit came into our life the moment we were saved, to be our internal guide and director. He's the one who points us in the right direction. He's the one who gives us awareness of what's happening. He's the one who shows us on the other side of the question that you and I couldn't figure out without His good counsel. So, learning to listen to God is the basic lesson of being a godly person. With my eye on you, the assurance that we are in His care and in His presence. If I'm not focused on Him, I'm not going to be listening to Him. So, ask yourself this question. In any given day, how much time do you spend being quiet and just listening to God? You say, well, now you know I have to get up and go to work or get up a few minutes early. In other words, you'd be better off getting up a few minutes early and or lying there a few minutes longer and being quiet and just simply praying, God, I don't know what this

day holds because You don't. I don't know all that's going to happen, You don't. I don't know who all I'm going to meet, You don't. I don't know what all I'm going to need, You don't. I can ask a hundred questions and You don't know the answer to any of them. That's why we need to start the day listening to God. And somebody says, well, I don't know exactly how to do that. Well, just keep listening to this message, you'll find out. Because this is one of the basic lessons. of the Christian life, it is absolutely one that we need to be reminded of continually. How do I listen to this God whom I worship, sing about, pray to, give to, how do I listen to Him? So, in order to listen to God, we must learn how to identify His voice. So, let me ask you a question. Don't raise your hand naturally. Now, think about this soberly and seriously, if you had to answer this to God, do you know how to listen to God? Do you know, are you aware when God is trying to speak to you? Do you know in your heart, when you may say, well, my conscience said this or my conscience said that, do you think about the fact that the Holy Spirit is speaking to you? He's trying to say something to you. Sometimes it won't make any sense to you at all. But that's not the issue. The issue is that He is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent. He knows exactly what we need, when we need it, and how we need it.

And He knows how to say it to us in a way that we can understand it. In order to listen to God, we've got to learn how. First of all, God's voice will be consistent with Scripture. The one thing that you always have to remember, God is not going to tell you something that is a violation of the Word of God, never. I may not understand it, but He'll never ask us to violate the Word of God. So, it's going to be consistent with Scripture. And secondly, oftentimes it's going to be in conflict with human reason. Somebody says, well, this is the reasonable thing to do. If you obey God, it will not always be the reasonable thing to do. If you listen to God, it won't be sometimes the reasonable thing to do, because He knows past, present, and future. He knows your abilities, talents, skills, and He knows His will for your life. A third thing is, it's going to clash with fleshly desires, sinful desires that crop up in a person's life. We all have to be sensitive to that. And listening to God, what you hear is going to clash. There'll be conflict. You will sense the conflict. This is what happens when you are tempted in some particular area of life. You feel this conflict on the inside. That's the spirit versus the flesh trying to give you direction for what to do.

Oftentimes, it'll challenge your faith when you listen to Him. You listen to what God is trying to say to you, it'll challenge your faith to do what you probably don't think you're capable of doing. Sometimes it calls for courage in your life. And that is, God, are You sure You want me to do this? Yes. Because listen, when God gives a command, He also accompanies that command with His power, strength, energy, know-how, and all of that to help you to be able to do what He called you to do. So, when somebody says, Well, I know God's calling me to do this and so, but I don't think I can. Remember this, God does not call you without giving whatever is necessary to help you and enable you to do it. He speaks quietly. Every time somebody says, I never heard God speak. Well, you expect Him to shout? He's not going to shout because He has the Holy Spirit living inside of you and the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, and God, the Father, God's Son, all three persons of the Trinity, they whisper to us quietly, This is my will. This is the way, walk ye in it. One thing about it, He speaks very clearly. I can't ever remember God saying, Figure this out. He always speaks clearly. Somebody says, Well, God's never spoken to me. Yes, He has. You may not have been listening.

It may be a shock to you that He spoke to you. He may have spoken to you in a way that you didn't expect, you didn't anticipate, but to say that you've been saved by the grace of God and God didn't speak to you, surely He did. That's the reason you got saved. He convicted you of your sin. Somebody was preaching or you read something and you felt convicted of your sin. That was the Spirit of God speaking to your heart. He told you that you needed to be saved. That's the Spirit of God. Healed your life to Christ. That's the Spirit of God. God doesn't stop talking to you when you're saved. That's the beginning of the voice of God in your life to not only bring you to conviction and salvation, but to bring you to live a daily life of obedience and surrender to Him. He speaks personally. Watch this. God will never say, You all. He speaks to you and to you and to you and to me. Never you all. He may say to all of us as a fellowship, I want you to do less than so, but He's speaking to each of us individually. That's God's awesome, personal, loving, individual care for you. That He loves you enough to speak to you about your situation. It may be about your marriage, about your children, about somebody you're going to marry, or your finances or whatever it might be.

Watch this carefully. God speaks clearly and individually to us about every single concern that we have or things that we're not concerned about that we ought to be concerned about, convictions of sin, He's always speaking. For example, have you not said to your children, listen to me? Have you ever said to them, if you don't listen to me, who are you going to listen to? They have an answer. If you don't listen to God, who are you listening to? You're listening to somebody who doesn't really know you. There are lots of people who know you who want to tell you how to live your life and what you should do and what you shouldn't do, and they can influence you in different ways. But here's the important thing. God who created you, who indwelt you with the Holy Spirit the moment you were saved, He is the one whom we are to listen to above everybody else in the world, no matter who they are. He's the only one who is infinite in His wisdom. He's the only one who knows everything about you. He knows your potential. He knows His will, His purpose, His plan. He knows who best suits you. He knows where you ought to live, what you ought to drive. He knows everything about us. We should consult Him about everything in life. Name me one thing you should not ask God about. So ask yourself this question. Would you say that you're a listener? Among God's children, would you say, count me in as a listener to God? I pray to Him and listen. I listen to the messages.

I listen to the voice of those speaking the truth. I listen to the words in the songs. I'm listening to God. It is a sacred duty and absolute essential in our relationship to God to listen to Him. So how does God get our attention? Well He gets our attention in different ways. And probably if we had you just stand and say, well, here's the way God gets my attention, it'd be different in different people's lives. One of the ways He gets our attention is to feel restless. You can't quite put your finger on it, but you have this restless feeling inside. And so, you get out to pray and you don't feel like you're getting through. Or you kneel to pray and you think, well, God, what are You trying to say to me? Sometimes He has to get us very restless about our life in order to drive us to finally say, well, God, You must be saying something to me. Because watch this. It's natural and normal for us to look at the first thing that we think could be the issue and think, well, God, You must be saying this, or not even include God in it. This must be happening. My kid's this. My husband this. My wife this. Our relationship. And so on we go, the things about our debt. And so, God gets us restless enough to get us quiet enough to say, well, Lord, what are You trying to say to me? And so, it's very important that He get our attention. Sometimes it's a message from somebody else. Sometimes God may say something to you through someone else because God has spoken to them about you, because He cares about you. Watch this.

God isn't, He's not tattling on you. That's not the issue. God wants to get your attention and sometimes somebody else has to be the avenue through which God speaks. So, I learned a long time ago when somebody says, well, here's what God told me to tell you. I have two thoughts. First of all, who is this? What kind of life are they living? Before they start telling me what God's saying. Because sometimes I've heard the most bizarre things that God absolutely could not, would not, should not, can't say. And then sometimes somebody would say something and I think, well, God, I needed to hear that. Thank You very much. So, we have to be careful of the messages that we receive from somebody else. And likewise, be careful of the message you give somebody else. If you tell somebody else, well, here's what God told me to tell you. You better be sure about what you're saying or you mislead somebody. And before you say that, you need to ask the Lord, now, Lord, is this right in my life? Before I start giving somebody else direction, Lord, is this right in my life? So, we have to be careful about a message we give to somebody else. And so, one of the ways He gets our attention is to bless us. And what does that usually do? We usually say, well, Lord, I surely didn't expect this. I don't deserve this. Thank You very much. We can't thank Him enough. That would be our choice way of God getting our attention. But it's not His usual way. He's usually asked to get to something deeper than that.

But that is one way He gets our attention, to remind us how good He is. Do you ever think about how good God is to you? One of the ways God gets our attention is when we stop to think how good you are to me, God. Then, of course? His unanswered prayer will get our attention. Now, is that bad? No, it's not bad. Because I can think about some times in my life when God was making a major change and direction in my life that came to me, first of all, as a little sense of restlessness. I didn't know what was going on. And I would pray and when I got through praying, I was just as dissatisfied as when I started. And a day went by, a week went by, and a month went by, and two or three months went by, and I'm still talking to God about the same thing of which I do not have any idea what it's about. And so, God knows how to get our attention, and he knows how to get us intense. And when I think about a few times I've made big moves in my life, have usually been times when I've been through a season of asking and searching and seeking, and usually those times are introspection, looking in my life to be sure everything is right between God and myself. And is there anything I can correct or change or whatever? And so, unanswered prayer is one of his methods of getting our attention till he gets to the root of the issue until we're able and willing to say, okay, God, I'm willing to do it. Sometimes he gets our attention by disappointments. Everything's just going along fine, and we have a big

disappointment in life. And so, we think, well, what did I do? How could I have avoided this disappointment? Sometimes that's the way God gets our attention. So, when we get disappointed, what do we do? We back off and say, okay, God, what are you trying to say to me? And then sometimes there's failure. Failure gets our attention. All failure is not bad. If failure in any given area of your life gets your attention, gets you on your knees before God, once that happens, it's not all bad because failure, what does it do? It drives us to God. Sometimes it's financial problems that oftentimes gets people's attention, especially if they could lose their house, especially if, for example, they could lose their job, lose their opportunities. And so, people, instead of turning to God, they go borrow some money. And so, instead of listening to God, obeying God, they try to avoid this uneasy feeling. And that uneasy feeling is God's goodness. It's God's grace, getting the person to realize maybe you made the wrong decision. Maybe you aren't listening. And God can correct any decision we make if our hearts are genuinely committed to Him and sincere in the process. Sometime it's sickness. Sickness or injury gets our attention. And I've met people down through the years who've said, you know,

I was heading in the wrong direction. God's laid me out and here I am, and here I've been. And I can remember the last time I fell and was laid out for a little while, and I thought, well, what's going on? It took me about six weeks of praying and listening to God. But when He got my attention, I said, yes, Lord, thank You, thank You, thank You. If this is what it took to stop me, if this is what it took to get my attention, I want to thank You, thank You, thank You for it. So, sometimes that's what He uses. So, to walk in the favor of God, whatever it takes, it's worth it. And when the Scripture says that amidst all the sin and wickedness in the world, that Noah found favor in the eyes of God, look what God did with him when he found favor in Him. So, ask yourself this question. Am I walking in the favor of God in my life? Be honest. Am I walking according to my pattern of what I want? Am I walking in His favor? Is that the witness of the Spirit to my spirit, that God and I are on the same track? We're on the same timetable. We want the same things. I desire the same objectives in my life. I desire the same goals in my life as God wants. Am I walking in His Spirit, by His Spirit? Do I want the same things that God wants for my life? Are my desires the desires of God?

Ask yourself the question, is this what God wants? Sometimes, watch this, God will want more for you than you want for yourself. Sometimes He'll want something better for you. You'll say, I don't deserve it. That's not what God says. Sometimes He doesn't. You think, well, I couldn't ever deserve it. That may be exactly what God wants. Watch this, God is not a taskmaster. God is an awesome, wonderful, exciting, beloved Heavenly Father, who wants the best for us in every area of our life. He wants us to do what? He wants us to walk in His favor. But to walk in His favor, I must learn to listen to Him. That's the first step. What does that mean? It means I want to walk with His approval. I want to walk with His acceptance, His support, His provision, His divine energy, and His joy. Learning to listen to God is lesson number one. Amen? Father, we thank You for loving us. Thank You for reminding us that as we want to teach our children very early in life to listen to us, when we are saved, first lesson, listen to You. I pray for people seated here this morning who are not listening. They're making up their own mind.

I pray that You'll bring great conviction upon them, which will be an act of love on Your part to stop them dead in their tracks this morning from heading in that relationship, which should not be, buying that which they should not do, going there, living that, doing this, doing that without asking for Your direction and guidance. I pray that You'll stop them dead in their tracks to remind them that You are willing to give clear direction, and with that direction comes Your blessing. And I pray the Holy Spirit will speak to somebody here today who's never trusted Jesus as their Savior. They've been living on their own, doing pretty good, they think, but Lord, what they don't know is what's coming. I pray that they'll be willing to stop right now, ask You to forgive them of their sin, repent of their sin right where they sit. Lord, be willing to be honest with themselves and acknowledge that You've been trying to speak to them for a long time and they've been ignoring You, but today they're listening, they're surrendering their life to You. I pray the Spirit of God will be heavy, heavy, heavy, heavy, God, on every heart that's living in sin, living in disobedience, have plans to sin, plans to disobey You, make them so heavy, dear God, they have to repent right here and now, sitting right where they are in order to get right with You before they walk out of this service today. Thank You for Your awesome love for us. Lord God, we surrender ourselves to You today and we praise You for Your forgiveness, Your love and Your goodness to us.

In Jesus' name, amen.