FINDING FAVOUR WITH GOD Bible Study: 2ND Samuel 7:1-16, Psalm 89, Romans 16:25-27, Luke 1:26-38 To find favour with somebody is to be loved in a special way by that person. To find favour with God is to make God excited about you to the point when he freely bestows special gifts or special blessings or special assignments on you. The Bible is a book about the lives of certain person who found favour with God. Though they were ordinary persons like you and I capable of human limitations, the fact that they found the favour of God marked them out for extra-ordinary accomplishments and as a result, their names will never be forgotten for ages to come. This Sunday, our attention is drawn to two of such persons who found favour with God; Mary, the Mother of Jesus and David, the greatest king Israel ever had. As we reflect on their lives and how they found favour with God, we are called to model our lives in emulation of theirs that we too may find favour with God also, especially as Christmas approaches. A person who finds favour with God is blessed indeed as the Psalmist sings “For the LORD God is a sun and shield; he bestows favor and honor. No good thing does the LORD withhold from those who walk uprightly. O LORD of hosts, happy is everyone who trusts in you.” Psalm 84:11-12. David was just a small shepherd boy but despite his stature, his faith was big enough to bring down a mighty Goliath. Eventually God would send Samuel to anoint him as king in place of Saul who lost favour with God by disobeying the command to destroy the Amelikites. The favour of God upon David shielded him from the attacks of a jealous Saul who wanted to kill him for taking his glory but even when God delivered Saul into the hands of David, David rejected the temptation to kill him but took his shield and sword rather. This action not only touched Saul who became terribly ashamed of himself after then but it made David even more loved by God. And when David became king eventually, people expected that he would kill everyone related to Saul but he surprised all of Israel by refusing to do so and the man who brought him the “good news” about the death of Saul thinking it would make David happy got a reward of death instead. In his lifetime, David fought many wars and he alone was able to rule the whole of Israel as a united kingdom with Jerusalem as its capital. He wasn’t a perfect person but there were things he did that attracted God’s favour. In today’s first reading, David did something that really got God excited. He indicated his interest to build a house for God. “How can I be living in a house of Cedar while the Ark of God dwells in a tent?” Chaiiii! How else can one be humble enough? In his humility, David after defeating the nations would not take any glory to himself. Instead, he realized that what had been saving him was that small Ark which was simply put inside a small tent. He couldn’t just understand why his own house therefore would be better than the house where the Ark of God was kept. As the first Christian martyr, Stephen noted, David became exceptional for his desire to build a house of God. “Our ancestors had the tent of testimony in the wilderness, as God directed when he spoke to Moses, ordering him to make it according to the pattern he had seen… And it was there until the time of David, who found favor with God and asked that he might find a dwelling place for the house of Jacob.” Acts 7:44-46. And for expressing his desire to build alone, see how God showered him with blessing: “Go, tell my servant David, ‘Thus says the LORD: Should you build me a house to dwell in?’ “It was I who took you from the pasture and from the care of the flock to be commander of my people Israel…. I WILL MAKE YOU FAMOUS LIKE THE GREAT ONES OF THE EARTH. I WILL ESTABLISH A HOUSE FOR YOU. I WILL RAISE UP YOUR HEIR AFTER YOU, AND I WILL MAKE HIS KINGDOM FIRM. I WILL BE A FATHER TO HIM, AND HE SHALL BE A SON TO ME. YOUR HOUSE AND YOUR KINGDOM SHALL ENDURE FOREVER BEFORE ME; YOUR THRONE SHALL STAND FIRM FOREVER.” We know quite well, that this blessing of David came to fulfilled eventually in the person of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Son of David whose kingdom will never end and we are part of that kingdom today. And for the promise of God to David to be fulfilled in due time, no other person was found worthy to carry Jesus in her womb other than Mary because she alone had found favour with God. That is why the Angel greeted her saying “Hail Mary, Full of Grace!... Do not be afraid Mary for you have found favour with God” Mary found favour with God because she lived a virtuous life. God saw that her heart was clean enough for him to dwell. “Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Jesus is the Son of Go and at the same time a direct descendant of David, a fulfillment of God’s blessing to David. If the favour of God had not been upon Mary, then there is no way she would have been chosen to be the Mother of Jesus Christ. And if not for God’s favour, David would have remained an ordinary shepherd boy. When we talk about the favour of God, the question we ask ourselves is: “Is God excited about me? Is He thrilled by my faithfulness to his word? Is God impressed by my obedience to his commandments or by my desire to worship him with all I have?” These were the very qualities found in David and Mary that made them find favour with God and when the favour of God rests upon a man, his story never remains the same again as the Psalmist once again sings “Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands-- O prosper the work of our hands!” Psalm 90:17. Without the favour of God in your life, you are just like one who has come to mark register, you come empty and return home empty because God is not excited about your contribution to his Kingdom. By living in sin and disobeying God’s commandments, you easily lose out of God’s favour and when God is not excited about you, you cannot be given an assignment like Mary and David were given. Let us Pray: That by the kind of life we live, we may find favour with God always that he may bestow his special graces in us to do great things for him, that like David, we may not only build a house for him, we may turn our hearts into beautiful tabernacles for him to dwell here in. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen Good morning. Be Happy. Have Faith. Live Positive. It is well with you. Happy Sunday
Posted on: Sun, 21 Dec 2014 04:19:31 +0000
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