Favor Ain't Fair

Somebody say, favor ain't fair. Favor ain't fair. Anybody in here know an awful gift giver like awful gift giver. Like awful you think you're thinking of them right now, right you're thinking of the gift that you received to them. You think about the fact that when they bring a gift, you want to go into another room so that you don't have to tell your face to lie to everybody who's in the room because you are about to open this gift that you know is going to be awful. You know, you you got that person in mind, and then you got the one person in the room that you're like, hey, I want that person to give me a gift. That's not what I'm talking about today. We're talking about the awful gift giver. See, in my family, it's my mother. She is the worst gift giver of all time. Like nobody gives worse gifts than my mother. She is a great woman. She's a great human being. I love her to the ends of the earth. I love her, but she is the all time worst gift giver. You never got a worse gift than a gift from my mom. If my mom ever comes around, she's like, Oh, I got you a gift, just prepare yourself. You have to tell your face to lie, because you're gonna hate it. It's gonna be awful. I don't care what it is. She's given me gifts my whole life, and every one has been awful. Never gotten a good gift from my mom ever, not one time. I love her mom. If you're watching like I love you so much, but save your money. Don't give me any more gifts, because they're just so bad. Here's the reason that my mom gives such bad gifts, because she's got three boys. I'm the oldest of three, and she feels like that if she gives one of us something, she's gotta give the other two of us the exact same thing, because it has to be fair, right? She lives by this rule that it has to be fair, if it's good for one, then it's good for everyone. There's a problem with that. Though I'm the oldest of three, like I say, and I'm six foot three and 250 pounds, and my youngest brother is six foot and about 170 pounds, soaking wet. Well, a couple years ago, my mom, being the awful gift giver that she is, thought, Well, I'm gonna buy the boys pajamas for Christmas. First of all, Mom, I'm a grown man, and I'm not wearing pajamas to match my brothers. If I was going to be forced into wearing matching pajamas. I do it with my immediate family. You know what I'm talking about. Come on, all you husbands, just say, Amen, that your wife like we're wearing these on Christmas like, okay, nobody loves doing that stuff, man, stop it. Stop the madness. Okay, stop it. So my mom and her fairness got all three of us boys matching pajamas, and they were all the same size. Mom, I don't wear a medium, okay, like I just don't. But in the name of fairness, she gave that really awful gift the grandkids. She loves the grandkids, and she loves to give awful gifts to the grandkids as well. A couple years ago, she sent a box of gifts and my mom, the other thing about my mom is the gifts always show up. They're like, Okay, this is for Christmas, but it gets here in April. You know what I'm talking about. It's just the weirdest thing ever. It's just so, so weird. They show up and the Christmas gifts come, and my kids know, they're like, Oh, grandma, she's the best, you know. So we're opening the the gifts, and they pull out beach towels. I don't know if you know this. My mom, apparently doesn't. Nebraska is the only triple land locked state in the country. There's no shoreline here. We ain't going to the beach. The beach towels were totally appropriate for the grandkids who live on the coast, but they were not appropriate for the grandkids who live in the Great Plains. I mean, it just doesn't make sense. She's an awful gift giver.Awful. But God's not like that everybody. God is a good gift giver. In fact, not only does he give good gifts, he gives them appropriately in each season, and he gives them according to the place in life that you are uniquely. He knows you uniquely. He knows you personally. He knows you intimately, and he will give to you according to where you are currently. Now this is difficult for some of us who expect God to be fair. Can I tell you something? God is not fair. The title of this morning's message is favor ain't fair. See, because God is not fair. He's just he gives you what you need for this season, appropriate to you, not appropriate to somebody else. I know there have been seasons in my past where I've been disappointed with God because the giftedness that I'm operating in isn't equivalent to the giftedness somebody else is operating in. But I think, Well, God, they have it. Why can't I have it too? And God's saying, in His grace and His goodness, Matt, you're not ready for that gift, or that's not appropriate for you in this season, what I've had to learn how to do over the sea, over the years, is learn to trust God and that He knows what's best for me in each season. See you and I, we get our feelings hurt because we expect God to be fair. God is not fair. Favor ain't fair. Look at your neighbor and say, favor ain't fair. We should understand that when God's hand is on us, releasing grace to us, there is a sense of this unmerited favor, which is the definition of grace, something that you can't earn, something that you can't work for, it can only be aligned to. It's a mark on our lives that will separate us from but also separate us to something it will separate us from the world, but it will separate us to God, that's what his favor. Does this favor? My friends? It will not appear to be fair. People will look at you and they'll be jealous of you, or you might look at others and be jealous of them, but it's not going to be fair in the eyes of people, because it's not given based on benchmarks, duties, titles, timelines, or even deadlines, and it also doesn't just fall from the sky. Favor is honestly a bit of a mystery. It just happens over time, one choice at a time, one step at a time, one decision at a time, one act of preparation at a time. If there were a formula for the favor of God, I believe that it would be faithfulness and consistency. Faithfulness and consistency over time. Faithfulness and consistency one year at a time, one month at a time, one week at a time, one day at a time, one moment at a time, over time, and when that favor comes, when it comes pouring out of heaven from the Heart of God, you better look out, because it means that there's something on your life, that nothing can remove it from God's hand is on you, saying yes over you, releasing an anointing to you, a favor on you, that all the time in the world, that all the hard work in the world could not create. It's just God's yes over you, over the course of a life, when you feel like maybe everyone else is saying no, and you've never seen the reward when God releases his favor, it's a yes and a yes in all things. You can't explain it, you can't earn it, you can't work for it. You can't pay for it. It's just released by the goodness of God, and I don't know another way of getting it, except through faithfulness and consistency. So how do we normal, ordinary people, you and me, little old Lincoln Nebraska. Seward Nebraska, me, how do we get this favor? How do we get this favor? What does it look like today? I think there's a portion of Scripture that reveals a few little things, if we read in between some of the lines where we can learn. And so let's jump into Acts chapter number one. So just to catch you up, if you're not familiar with scripture, you're not a Bible person, necessarily. Where we're going to jump into Scripture is the disciples, the original disciples have. Reconvened in a place called Jerusalem after the betrayal, the death and the resurrection of Jesus, and they were gathered together considering, okay, what is our next step? How do we move forward from here? What's tomorrow going to look like? We know that yesterday was scary. The last several days have been unknown, like, are they coming to kill us? Are we next? Are we going down? And so they're coming together, but there's a couple of orders of business that have to be attended to. So here we are. We're going to pick up in verse number 12. Then the apostles returned to Jerusalem from the mount of Olives, a distance of about a half mile. And when they arrived, they went upstairs to a room, room of the house they were staying at. Here are the names of those who were present, Peter, John, James, Andrew, Philip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew James, Simon and Judas, son of James. They had to clarify, because how many of y'all have heard of Judas like the Judas like Don't be a Judas. Anybody heard of Judas? Judas was the one that betrayed Jesus, not that Judas a different Judas. You gotta watch out for Judas. Can I tell you something about Judas. I think there's a Judas in every room. I think there's a Judas in every church. I think there's a Judas in every workplace. I think there's a Judas in every school. I think there is a Judas, honestly, inside of every one of us. I can't wait to preach that series. Seriously, I got a whole series ready to roll. Are you Judas? Am I Judas? I think there's a Judas inside of all of us. We'll talk about that in a few weeks. Though, not that Judas is a different Judas that's here present. They all met together and were constantly somebody say constantly, they were constantly united in prayer. I think that we have to pay attention to this word, constantly or consistently in prayer. It's impossible for us to be consistent in the big things if we're not consistent in the small things. See, you and I, many of us would consider prayer to be a small thing, but one of the things that the writer of this portion of Scripture saw fit to add was the fact that they were constantly in prayer. There was something about the consistent nature of their prayer life that brought this situation about, along with Mary, the mother of Jesus, several other women and the brothers of Jesus, during this time, when about 120 believers were together in one place, you see that word one, they were together in one place. They weren't they weren't unified in a million different places. They weren't unified in two different places. They were unified together in one place. They were consistently in one place together. Peter stood up and addressed them brothers. He said the scriptures had to be fulfilled concerning Judas. Judas the bad Judas, not Judas the one that was in the room with him who guided those who arrested Jesus. This was predicted long ago by the Holy Spirit speaking through King David. Judas was one of us, and he shared in the ministry with us. Judas had bought a field, a field with money, and he that he received for his treachery, falling head first there, his body split open, spilling out all his intestines. Somebody say, I love reading the Bible. Man, it's just so fun. The news of his death spread to all the people of Jerusalem, and they gave the place an Aramaic name, which means Field of Blood. Peter continued. This was written in the book of Psalms, where it says, Let his home become desolate with no one living in it. It also says, let someone else take his position. Somebody say, let someone else take his position.How are they going to identify someone else to take his position? See, here's what you have to understand about Judas being in every room that you and I are ever in, that means that a position is being filled currently by somebody whose heart is turning away from God. Nobody ever turns their back on God unless they first turn their heart from God. So in every room and every situation, in every circumstance of our lives, there's somebody whose heart is turning away from God. Is it because they believe that God's not fair? Is it because they're not okay with him being just? Is it because they're expecting a reward? I don't know what the answer is. All I know is there's somebody who's not displaying the consistency. Of heart that a follower of Jesus should display. Therefore, the danger of becoming like Judas is there, and someone is going to take the position. So now we must choose a replacement for Judas from among the men who were with us, the entire somebody, say, the entire time, the entire time we were traveling with the Lord Jesus. So what are we looking for? As we're looking to replace Judas, somebody who had become inconsistent in their heart posture toward Jesus in such a way that they turned their back on Jesus, they vacated a position that needed to be fulfilled in order to advance the gospel. What are we looking for? We're looking for somebody who has been consistent. We're looking for someone who has stayed the course. We're looking for someone who has remained faithful from the time he was baptized, from day one until the day he was taken from us, and whoever is chosen will join us as a witness. So they nominated two men who qualified as consistent Joseph called barsabbas and Matthias. And then they all prayed, oh Lord, you know every heart. You know every heart. We're looking for consistency of heart, a heart that's turned toward the Lord, because we know that when a heart is turned toward the Lord, you can never turn your back on the Lord or the things of the Lord. So which of these men have you chosen as an apostle to replace Judas in this ministry? For he deserted us and gone to where he belongs. So they cast lots, and Matthias was selected to become an apostle with the other 11. This cast lots thing is really interesting. I'm not going to preach that today, but I want to do a series on that as well. I think that would be so fun. I love the Bible, everybody. I hope you love the Bible too. Are you all on the Bible reading plan with us so far? Come on, everybody. It's so so, so, so good. So there's obviously a lot to unpack in this portion of Scripture, but here's what I want to say to start all of this off, this promotion or favored opportunity came from one thing and one thing alone. What did they look for? What did the scripture say? They looked for somebody who was with them the entire time, someone who was consistent. He was consistent in prayer, he was consistent in his pursuit, he was consistent in his passion, he was consistently present. He was there. They were there. That's how they chose. And if you and I are going to be people considered for the favor of God or the giftedness of God, there are some things that we're going to have to know about consistency. And let me start by saying this, not only consistency, but faithfulness. We gotta stay faithful in the place where God has called us to be, because you never know what position has been filled by a Judas that will end up vacating that position that maybe you feel called to you ever been at a works workplace, or maybe a school or on a team, and you thought, Well, why am I here? That position is already filled. Have you ever been a part of a church? And you've wondered, why am I even here? It seems like all of those positions or places are filled God. Why did you bring me here? If you think for a moment that God places people on accident. You are wrongly mistaken, because God does everything on purpose. He does everything decently and in order. It may just not be your season yet, but what happens is we look around and we see that there's no vacancy. And so we start to look other places and going other directions, wrongly, assuming that there's no room for me here. Well, what happens when Judas shows up and that position is vacated? Oh, Coach, I want to come back to the team. And wrong answer, come on, stay put. Hear from God. Where are you supposed to be? Stay faithful in that place. Don't compare yourself to somebody else. Don't think I deserve more than they do. God knows what each of us need in each season that we are in according to each of our unique qualities. A few things that we've learned through church life about Judas over the years. They're always present, and they can manifest at any moment, be your favorite person one day and then the next day. It's like, Get behind Me, Satan. Y'all hear what I'm saying. I. Another thing that I've learned about Judas is that it's not my responsibility to expose Judas. It's God's responsibility to expose Jesus Judas. You know what my responsibility is? My responsibility is to stay faithful. My responsibility is to stay consistent. My responsibility is to remain pure in focus and heart turn toward Jesus and Jesus alone, whenever you start questioning the motivation or motives of people, the the mindsets of people you are, I'm telling you, you are getting on a very slippery slope, because Judas isn't just in the heart of Judas Jesus. Judas is in the heart of all of us. It's our responsibility to keep our hearts turned toward Jesus and know that God in His perfect timing. If it were right, he would have selected me. We must remain faithful and consistent. I got three thoughts on consistency that I'd love to share with you this morning. If you're ready for him, you're ready for the three thoughts on consistency, look at your neighbor and say, I think I'm ready. I think I'm ready. First thought on consistency is this, consistency cultivates our character. Consistency cultivates our character. Character is the you that comes out when nobody is there to look out for you, look over you, or look into you when there are no other eyes on you. That's your character. The way that you act towards your wife when nobody's looking on that's your true character. The way that you navigate the Internet when nobody else is looking that's the real you. The way that you are working when your boss isn't around, or you're working from home, that's your real character. Everybody, when nobody's there to look after you, or look into you, check up over that's who you really are. Can I tell you something about character? Character is the thing that will keep you when nothing else will see. It's your giftedness, the giftedness on your life, that might open a door for you. It's the giftedness on your life that causes somebody to want to pick you, that causes somebody to choose you, or causes somebody to hire you, but character is what keeps them from firing you. Will you do what you said you would do in the interview, even when nobody's looking after you. That is character, my friends, see, courage will cause you to start, but character will cause you to finish. Anybody can start something, but not everybody can finish something. True character will not be fully realized until you've endured some trial, some pain and some suffering, until you've walked through something that has made you want to quit, caused you to want to coast, or to just pick your own way, but you didn't give in. You have a really developed character. Come on until you want to quit, until you want to fight, until you want to just coast and go through the motions because of something that's happened to you and injustice that's come your way. You've never really had an opportunity to develop your character. There's something to be said about someone who just keeps showing up, someone who keeps going strong, someone who remains faithful, hopeful, steadfast and true, even when there's no reward given, even when there's no reward given, you're just going to keep showing up. You're going to stay faithful. Everybody's asking you, why do you keep doing that? Why do you keep going there? Why do you keep working so hard? Why do you stay so faithful? Well, because you're developing your character. Don't let people around you who have no character try to help you develop your character. If somebody's trying to talk you out of commitment, if somebody's trying to talk you away from excellence, if somebody's trying to talk you down from faithfulness, then you can be sure they have no character, and you don't want them speaking into yours.The thing to be said about those types of people, the people who remain, they stay hopeful, steadfast and true, is that they've established character. God, let us be consistent. Establish character in us, cultivated in us. God, the second thought on consistency is this, consistency celebrates small wins or small things. See, we say this at Mercy city. We believe it with all of our heart that what we celebrate we will attract more of we believe that celebration attracts things. We believe that everything we do is a seed. We believe that the words we say are seeds, the thoughts that we think are seeds, the actions that we take are seeds. And if we want those seeds to come. Come back with a solid and powerful harvest, then what we need to do is celebrate even the smallest of wins or opportunities. The Bible says, Be sure of this, my friends, you will certainly reap what you sow. And if you sow good things, you're going to reap those things. But if you sow bad you're going to reap those things as well. And if we believe this to be true, then what we want to do in all things is cultivate a culture of consistent celebration in the small things and in the big things. Don't overlook the small wins that you have. You ever heard somebody say, oh, that's no big deal. No, no, it is a big deal. It is a big deal because if you treat it as a big deal now, when it's actually a big deal, you'll be able to honor God in that too. We need to honor God in the small things. Celebrate God in the small things. Thank you God for this opportunity. I can remember when I first started in ministry, I started serving in the parking lot, and I used to thank God for the opportunity to wave people in. I remember being out there snot signals just frozen, just, you know, I'm saying, God, thank you for the opportunity to wave people into your house. Because there's nothing like people being able to connect to your heart and to your house. And I've got the opportunity to serve and to point people in the right direction, a direction that they should go. Thank you, God. I had no idea I'd ever be pastoring or leading a church. I just want to be faithful in the moment. And you may not be called to pastor or lead a church, but I promise you, each and every one of you are called to something greater tomorrow than you've living in today. But some of us won't be ready for that tomorrow, because we're not grateful and celebrating today, every day, every mundane task, every ridiculous ask, you ever been insulted by something your boss asked you to do because you're beyond it. I wonder what would happen if you started thanking God for it. I wonder if you wouldn't be in the position that you thought you should have been in five years ago. But the reality is, you never learn how to celebrate the small things. Let's consistently celebrate even the small things. Last thought is this? Last thought is this? Consistency seizes opportunity. Consistency sees us opportunity. Here's something that we must understand about opportunity, and I'm sure many of you do, but every opportunity has a lifetime. It's got a lifespan. It's the beginning date of the opportunity and the end date of the opportunity. Every opportunity has this, you know, you start talking about a promotion within the company, and what happens is, they put a job posting on, let's just say, on January 27 there's a job posting. Okay, well, we're looking to fill this position by March 1. So there's a January 27 start date and a march 1 end date. And in order for you to get that job, you have to apply for that job within the lifetime of the opportunity for the job. Does that make sense? Everybody makes sense, okay? Every opportunity, I don't care what, every opportunity has a lifespan. It's got a lifespan. Okay? Got, got a lifespan. I told first service we are. We're baseball fans in in our house. So we love baseball, and our our college baseball players that are part of our church, they're getting ready here in a couple of weeks to start their season. Okay, they've got an opening day schedule already ready to go. And then at the end of the season, there's a big, Big 10 tournament, okay, there's a national championship. And in order for them to seize that opportunity, they can't win the 2025, Big 10 championship last year, last year, we were Big 10 champs. This year. There's there's a there's a new opportunity. Do you see what I'm saying? Every opportunity has to be seized within the lifetime of the opportunity. It's one of the Bible words that refers to time is Chronos. Okay? Chronos, which means this, seconds, minutes, hours on a clock, days, months, years on a calendar. It's where we get our term chronological time. There's a time frame for every opportunity to be seized, except there's another term for time in the Bible and. There's a start time and an end time. The problem with this time, it's called Kairos time, is it's opportune time. It's the time to take action. Some some even call it an open Heaven time, where it's just like heaven opens the problem with it is, you can't put it on a calendar because it's not measured by seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months. It's just measured by God's Yes. And here's here's the deal. God can choose to say yes whenever he wants to say yes. And the reason that many of us believers miss these open heaven times is because we don't display consistency enough to be in position for when one of these yes times comes. We don't know when Judas is going to betray. We don't know when the position is going to be vacated. And the problem is so many of us have Americanized the kingdom of heaven so much that we're like, Okay, God, if you want to move, you got to do it in this hour on Sunday morning. That's your time. He's like, nothing. That's your time. It might not be my time. Come on, this whole series followed the leader. We've been talking about the timing of God. We just didn't know it yet. See, because remember week one when I said I made up my mind. Jesus showed up to those two disciples. John recognized this is the Messiah. He went back and told his brother. He's like, this is the Messiah. This is the these are the guys. Jesus didn't say, hey, Andrew, go tell your brother, because I'm coming. I'm coming to call No. John had had this conversation. Andrew went and told Peter, and he's like, Hey, this is the Messiah. We need to be ready. We need to make these decisions in the moment before the moment, because we don't know when the time Jesus didn't say, hey, I'll be by next Tuesday. It's not what he said, because that would have been Chronos time. This was Kairos. This was an opportunity of heaven. Many of us miss heaven opportunities because we're not consistently praying. We're not consistently in God's presence. We're not consistently saying God speak if you ask, I'm saying yes right now. And we've missed opportunities. Here's my heart this year, as we follow the leader, we don't miss any more moments. Come on. Pastor Carrie talked about the the 10 bridegrooms last week, there was five who were prepared. They had the oil. They were ready. They had been practicing consistency, so that when the opportunity for the feast came, they were ready, but then there were five who were foolish, and they missed the moment the Kairos time. And you might think, Well, God, that is sure tricky. Couldn't you just put it on my calendar? Like, I can't believe that you showed up for Tuesday morning prayer this Tuesday, but last Tuesday, when I was there, you didn't show up. Could you just put it on the calendar that way I know when to be present, but then it wouldn't even require a relationship. Would it if God only said, Hey, Sunday morning, first service, I'll be there. Second service, oh, no, y'all hear what I'm saying. What's it required? It requires a personal relationship. It requires a constant pursuit of Jesus consistently, consistently. So let me ask you a question as we're closing, what would the consistency of your pursuit of Jesusafford? You see, the reality is, everybody you can continue to settle for the pajamas that are too tight. You can settle for the beach towels, if you want to, but those are not good gifts. Those are awful gifts. God's got good gifts for you, but they're probably not coming according to your calendar days they're coming, according to that Kairos time, that opportune moment, that open heaven, where it just wants to release to you because of the consistency you've displayed. See, there's a choice about to be made everybody. And when I say about, I mean relative. If I don't know when, could be about two hours from now, could be about two minutes from now, could be about two years. It could be about 20 idle, and it's about to happen. Our responsibility is not to figure out the day, the time or the hour. Our responsibility is just to pursue Jesus, just to lean in relationship with him. Say, God, I just want to be with you. But what would your consistency say? Are you ready for the opportunity that God wants to bring your way? Are you ready for it? Come on with your heads bowed and your eyes closed, you might say, Pastor Matt, I want to be more ready than I am right now. I want to be more ready than I am right now, if that's you, would you just lift your hand? Would you raise your hand? I want to be more ready than I am right now, Father, you see the hands in all of our rooms, people whose hearts are stirred saying, I want to be more ready than I am right now. Father, the consistency of our lives, the character that you establish, the celebration that you establish, enabling us to seize opportunities. Father, solidify it in each and every heart, in all of our rooms across the life of our church, that we might be people who are ready to seize Kingdom opportunities, to advance and to move according to your will, your purpose, your plan and Your destiny in Jesus, Mighty Name, Amen, amen, amen, amen.