Favor Has a Purpose
God’s favor does more than bless our lives—it shapes us into ministers of the new covenant, carrying His life to others and preserving His purposes for future generations.
Last week, we looked at Peter’s transformation. He was zealous for Jesus, but he also made mistakes. On the night Jesus was arrested, Peter cowered before a servant girl and denied the Lord. Jesus later restored him, and then, nearly fifty days after the resurrection, everything changed. On the Day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out. Peter stood and boldly proclaimed the gospel, and three thousand people were added to the Lord (Acts 2).
What made the difference? It was the power of the Holy Spirit.
Have you ever been afraid to talk to someone about Jesus? Peter’s story reminds us that God does not leave us trapped within the limits of our past experience. We have the truth of God’s Word, and we also have the power of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit empowers us to move beyond where we have been and into the purposes of God.
This is why favor must never be confused with favoritism. God’s favor is connected to His calling, destiny, and mission. It advances His kingdom, reaches the lost, makes disciples, and builds His Church. Grace saves and transforms us, but God is also looking beyond us to the generations that will follow.
The psalmist prayed:
“God be merciful to us and bless us,
And cause His face to shine upon us,
That Your way may be known on earth,
Your salvation among all nations.”
—Psalm 67:1–2 NKJV
God’s favor opens doors, but those doors are connected to people and purpose. He gives us influence so His goodness can become visible through us. That may include providing food, meeting financial needs, or serving through humanitarian outreach. It also includes proclaiming the good news, making disciples, praying for the sick, and believing God for healing and freedom.
The early Church understood this:
“And with great power the apostles gave witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all.”
—Acts 4:33 NKJV
Great grace produced a great witness. The believers did not merely enjoy God’s favor; they carried it into their world. Grace received became grace revealed through their lives.
Some have argued that the miraculous power seen in the early Church was no longer needed after the first centuries, especially once the canon of Scripture was established. Yet Jesus Christ is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). If we need a breakthrough, we should believe that God is still involved in our lives. If someone needs healing, we should believe that He still moves with power. God is calling His Church back to both the truth of His Word and the power of His Spirit. It is Word and Spirit, Spirit and Word.
The early Christian witness was not merely theoretical. Historians have noted the way believers cared for the poor and remained with the sick during times of plague, praying, serving, and consistently bearing witness to Christ. Their care and courage helped transform a pagan culture. Prayer for the sick, therefore, should not be a peripheral addition to the life of the Church. It belongs to our life in the Spirit and to our calling as ministers of the new covenant.
Where might God be asking you to move from receiving His grace to ministering it to someone else? How can you become a dispenser of the grace and favor you have received?
Grace Makes Us Ministers of the New Covenant
Have you ever thought of yourself as a minister of the new covenant?
I am not asking whether you have been ordained, attended Bible school, earned a seminary degree, or received a ministry license. Paul teaches that all believers are ministers of reconciliation and ambassadors for Christ (2 Corinthians 5). If you were born again yesterday—or even this morning—you received the life of Christ and became a carrier of His Spirit.
Think about a real-estate agent. An agent connects people with property, while a broker helps oversee and facilitate real-estate transactions. In a far greater sense, every believer has been entrusted with the life of the new covenant. We are, so to speak, “brokers” of the Spirit, carrying and diffusing the life of Christ wherever we go. Whether we realize it or not, our lives become an influence through which others may encounter God’s favor and grace.
Paul writes:
“Our sufficiency is from God, who also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.”
—2 Corinthians 3:5–6 NKJV
A minister is not merely someone who holds a church office. Every believer has been called and empowered to represent Jesus.
The word *sufficient* can describe both amount and quality. If I ask whether you have sufficient funds to buy groceries, I am asking whether you have enough money. With today’s prices, you may feel as if you need a bank loan just to cover the bill! But sufficiency can also refer to capability or qualification.
Suppose you hire an electrician who is not sure which wire is positive, which is negative, or what to do with the ground wire. He touches one and says, “Well, that one is a little hot.” That is not the person you want wiring your house. You want someone who has received proper training, completed the necessary work, and knows what he is doing. You want someone sufficient for the task.
When Paul says God has made us sufficient ministers, both ideas are present. God supplies what we need, and God makes us capable of the assignment. Our sufficiency comes through new birth and the indwelling Spirit. We should memorize, study, and understand the Word because it establishes our faith and keeps us anchored. But it is the breath of the Spirit that takes the written Word and makes it living within and through us.
The law serves as a tutor that leads us to Christ (Galatians 3:24), but the strictness of the letter cannot produce life. The Holy Spirit does what the letter alone cannot do. When we receive Christ, the Spirit breathes new life into us, makes us a new creation, and brings us into the body of Christ.
How, then, do we pray for the sick, encourage someone, share Christ boldly, or minister to a person in need? Not by the letter alone, but by the Spirit. We learn and prepare, but our confidence can never rest in our education, personality, experience, or natural ability. Our sufficiency comes from God.
I do not possess, in myself, the grace to heal the sick, and neither do you. God does. I do not always know how to pray for someone with cancer, but I can pray and trust Him. I have seen God heal cancer, and I have also prayed when the healing did not come as I hoped. In either case, I continue to trust God. All of heaven stands behind Christ’s body when we make ourselves available to Him.
As Carolyn said during the offering, we can be like a coin in God’s pocket: “Spend me where You will, Lord.”
We can learn practical ways to pray, share the gospel, disciple others, and wait on the Spirit. Training is valuable, especially for those called to serve in pastoral or vocational ministry. Yet none of us will ever learn enough to make ourselves spiritually sufficient. Even my sufficiency to stand and preach does not come from my preparation alone. Preparation helps, but my sufficiency is the Word and Spirit of God.
Church was never intended to be a place where everyone expects one person to do all the ministry on Sunday morning. The body of Christ is participatory. Different people carry different gifts, callings, and anointings. I am grateful for the many people in our church who serve in so many capacities, and I invite everyone to ask, “Where can I help?” But our ministry also extends far beyond Sunday. It reaches our neighbors, coworkers, the person at the grocery store, and every other place God sends us.
You are an empowered and sufficient minister of the new covenant. Be that minister wherever you go.
We Are Living Letters
Paul told the Corinthian believers:
“You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men.”
—2 Corinthians 3:2 NKJV
Before people read the Bible, many will read our lives. Coworkers, neighbors, and people who come to receive a food box may observe us long before they open the Scriptures. They will notice how we respond to pressure, how we treat people, how we forgive, and whether our faith produces love.
Being a living letter does not mean being perfect. We all have room to mature and grow in grace. It means that Christ is the sufficient One within us. That truth relieves us of the burden of performance.
Have you ever shared Christ with someone and later felt that you did not get the words right? Most of us have. I can guarantee that I have preached a bad sermon—once or twice, of course! Yet I trust God to work even through an imperfect message because His Word goes out and does not return to Him void (Isaiah 55:11).
Before the New Testament was written, the stories of Jesus were shared verbally. People testified about His life and demonstrated the power of His resurrection. The written Word is essential, but it is the Spirit’s power behind the testimony of Jesus that makes the difference.
You do not need to have a vast amount of Scripture memorized before you can tell someone what Jesus has done for you. You may meet an atheist or agnostic who raises questions about an apparent discrepancy in the Old Testament. If you do not know the answer, it is all right to say, “I don’t know, but I know this: Jesus changed my life.” You do not have to be a scholar to be a witness.
We are not merely delivering a message; we are becoming the message. The Spirit writes the character of Christ on our hearts so that others can see Jesus through us. New-covenant ministry is not only proclaimed with our words; it is demonstrated through transformed lives. It goes beyond written words to a life lived by the Holy Spirit.
We Carry Life, Not Condemnation
The letter, apart from the Spirit, may expose sin, but it cannot transform the heart. People need a heart-level transformation, and that happens by the Spirit rather than by the law alone. The Spirit brings conviction, freedom, righteousness, and life.
This distinction matters deeply in our families. A son, daughter, grandchild, or other loved one may become involved in behavior that is contrary to Scripture. Our temptation can be to turn immediately to the right page and say, “Here is what the Bible says.” The verse may be true, but the person’s heart may not yet be ready to hear it.
That does not mean we water down the Word. It means we recognize that the Spirit gives life. Sometimes people first need to know that we love them. As we continue praying and loving them, the Spirit can work in their hearts. In time, they may open the New Testament for themselves and discover what it means to follow Jesus.
I know this personally. Before I came to Christ, someone told me for three months that I was going to die and go to hell. Yet I already believed that Jesus had died, risen again, and would return. I knew about Him, but I did not really know Him. Eventually, I began looking more seriously at the Scriptures and became ready to surrender my life to Christ and have a relationship with Him.
God may have used what that person said, but condemnation was not the best way to reach me. In today’s culture, that approach is likely to anger people and push them away rather than draw them to Jesus. The heart of God is restoration and reconciliation:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
—John 3:16 NKJV
Paul calls the new covenant “the ministry of righteousness” (2 Corinthians 3:9). Our assignment is not to ignore truth, but to carry truth with the heart of Jesus.
Jesus ate with sinners, and the religious crowd hated Him for it. When religious leaders brought Him a woman caught in adultery, Jesus confronted their self-righteousness: the one without sin could cast the first stone. One by one, her accusers dropped their stones and walked away. Jesus did not pretend her sin did not matter. He asked where her accusers had gone, then told her, “Go and sin no more” (John 8:3–11). He reached the heart without making Himself a broker of judgment and condemnation.
We do not enter the world merely to point out what is wrong. We enter carrying the presence of the One who can make people new. This changes how we minister:
– We speak the truth without self-righteousness.
– We correct with humility and love.
– We call people toward freedom rather than defining them by their failures.
– We depend on the Holy Spirit to accomplish what human pressure cannot.
– We demonstrate the gospel through mercy, integrity, service, and reconciliation.
When people encounter our faith, do they primarily experience judgment, or do they encounter truth carried in the life and love of Jesus? “Mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13).
Some families have left our church because they did not think I was hard enough. They found churches that were very firm. I would rather err on the side of grace than on the side of judgment.
The Freedom We Receive Is the Freedom We Carry
Paul writes:
“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”
—2 Corinthians 3:17 NKJV
This message matters for the generations. Many people are walking away from forms of religion that seem legalistic and full of condemnation. They are hungry for the life of Christ.
Yes, the written Word matters. God’s commands matter. But we must allow the Spirit of Christ to transform human hearts instead of imagining that we can change the world merely by legislating Christian behavior across a society whose people may not know Him. We are called to be the light and fragrance of Christ, carrying His love and grace.
The freedom Christ produces in us becomes the freedom we carry to others. I do not want to bind people beneath a legalistic, judgment-driven gospel. Christ paid the penalty to free us from judgment. If we want grace and mercy for ourselves, why would we carry bondage to someone else?
As we behold the Lord, the Spirit transforms us into His image “from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18). New-covenant ministry therefore begins with ongoing personal transformation. We cannot consistently give others what we are unwilling to receive from God. The Holy Spirit transforms us so that He can minister through us.
The longer I walk with God, the more I recognize the importance of extending mercy and grace. Two encounters have made that especially vivid for me.
A Prayer of Blessing in Brazil
Several years ago, Carolyn and I were ministering in Brazil. God was moving powerfully. A mother and an aunt drove many miles to bring a young man, perhaps twenty-one or twenty-two years old, to one of the meetings. He spoke fairly good English; the two women needed an interpreter.
They were passionate Christian women, and they asked me to pray for the young man to be set free from homosexuality. After listening, I asked if I could speak to him.
“How are you doing?” I asked.
“I’m doing okay.”
“Do you want to be here tonight?”
“Not really,” he answered, “but I came because I love my mom and my aunt.”
I asked how he felt about their request for prayer and whether it was something he wanted. He said it was not.
“Could I simply pray a blessing over you?” I asked.
“I would really like that,” he replied.
He was not ready for what his mother and aunt wanted. I could have bound and loosed, shouted, and used every Pentecostal expression I knew, but it would not have changed his heart. It might only have wounded him more and ensured that he never walked into a church again.
So I prayed something like this: “Lord, bless him. Let Your peace and grace rest on him. Help him experience how amazing You are, Jesus—how much You love him, how deeply You care for him, and how You do not despise or disdain him. Draw him close to You.”
That is the power of the gospel: not merely pointing out what someone has done, but carrying the presence and love of the One who can make a person new.
Kindness on the Golf Course
More recently, I was golfing when a man standing on the tee box said, “I don’t know if I’ll ever be good enough to go to heaven.” I knew he was Catholic, and I had been raised Catholic. Just as he was preparing to hit the ball, I started asking questions.
“Do you believe Jesus came to earth, died, and rose again?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe He is coming again?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe He is the one true God?”
“Yes.”
“Then you’re good,” I told him. “Give your heart to Him. Try to walk with God.”
He was a former Marine, and I had served in the Navy, so the directness worked. He hit the ball, and we moved on. Later, however, his friend told me, “He isn’t used to people being kind to him.”
That is true for many people. They are not used to kindness, and sometimes the Church has added to their burden through legalism. We do not have to abandon truth to love people. We simply need to relax our grip on self-righteousness and let the Spirit do what only He can do.
I still have a cassette recording of the first sermon I preached aboard an aircraft carrier after I was born again in the 1980s. If you heard it, you might say, “God really has done a work in him!” I was full of hellfire and brimstone because that was what I had heard during the months surrounding my conversion. God is so much bigger than that, and He has continued transforming me.
We Carry Treasure in Earthen Vessels
Although God has made us ministers, we remain ordinary and dependent:
“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.”
—2 Corinthians 4:7 NKJV
The vessel may be fragile, but the treasure is powerful. Our weakness does not disqualify us; it keeps us dependent on God. We live in a tension: in ourselves we are weak, yet through Him we are strong.
Have you ever needed help picking up something heavy? Perhaps you injured your arm, or the object was simply too much for one person. Does needing help to lift a hundred-pound bag make you a failure as a human being? Of course not. It reveals that you need someone else’s strength.
In the same way, we will not get everything right all the time. Our dependence does not cancel our calling. Paul says we may be hard-pressed, perplexed, persecuted, or struck down, yet we are not crushed, abandoned, or destroyed (2 Corinthians 4:8–9).
Pressure does not cancel our purpose. Hardship can reveal that the power sustaining us comes from God. Pressure can also produce perseverance, strength, and beauty—just as immense pressure is associated with the formation of diamonds.
First Peter 5:10 promises that after we have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace will complete, confirm, strengthen, and establish us. Where do you feel inadequate or under pressure? How might God reveal His treasure through that place of weakness?
Favor Forms Us for Generational Purpose
Joseph demonstrates that favor and hardship can coexist in the same life. He was betrayed, enslaved, falsely accused, and imprisoned. Nevertheless, Scripture says:
“But the LORD was with Joseph and showed him mercy, and He gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison.”
—Genesis 39:21 NKJV
Joseph’s circumstances did not look favorable, yet God was using them to shape his character. His imprisonment was not proof of God’s absence; it was preparation for greater influence.
We can view Joseph’s story through the lens of new-covenant ministry. God led and comforted him in Potiphar’s house and in prison. The Lord gave him dreams, understanding, and wisdom. The same God who promises never to leave or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5) was with Joseph in every season.
Eventually, Joseph understood the broader purpose:
“God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.”
—Genesis 45:7 NKJV
Later, he told his brothers:
“You meant evil against me; but God meant it for good…to save many people alive.”
—Genesis 50:20 NKJV
God’s answer to a famine was a faithful servant. Joseph’s favor was not merely about personal advancement. God positioned him to preserve lives and protect future generations. Favor forms the minister before it expands the ministry.
Our blessings are for a future generation. Our victories are for a future generation. Even our hardships can become part of what God uses to help a future generation. We may not always recognize the influence of our stories, but a faithful life can make an enormous difference.
Building for People We May Never Meet
Our church property offers a visible illustration. The first buildings—the old sanctuary and the narrow building in the center of the property—were constructed in 1956. At that time, this was near the edge of town, with a ranch nearby and houses beginning to appear in the area. A generation of believers had faith that God wanted to establish a church here. They stepped out, purchased property, and built.
In 1977, another group added what is now the fellowship hall where we distribute food boxes, along with an addition to the old sanctuary. Years later, after we planted our church, we acquired the property in 2004. Eventually, God began speaking to me about constructing a new sanctuary.
We could not have done that if people before us had not intentionally purchased the vacant lots at the front and back of the property. Their choices created room for a future they could not yet see.
The same principle applies to parents and grandparents. We must be intentional about teaching and raising our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. We want them to know God, walk with Him, and carry His principles and truth into their generation.
Our present sanctuary was completed in 2011 after a season of considerable hardship. A few months before it was finished, I remember sitting outside when the Lord spoke something simple to my heart: “You are not building this only for your ministry or for the years you serve as pastor. Another pastor will come after you.”
I am not running away, but the gray hair tells the truth: eventually, someone else will pastor here. We are not doing this only for our generation. Perhaps one day this place will be so full that it needs five Sunday services, with people entering through one door and leaving through another. Who knows what God may do?
The believers who began building in 1956 probably could not imagine everything that would happen on this property decades later. In the same way, we may not understand how God will use what we faithfully place in His hands today.
God’s answer is often a faithful servant upon whom He can bestow favor—a servant with a heart for the generations. You may be God’s answer in a family, workplace, or neighborhood. The important question is not simply, “How can I receive more favor?” It is, “Who does God want to reach through the favor He has placed on my life?”
Favor may open a professional door, restore a relationship, provide financial resources, or expand our influence. Whatever form it takes, favor should become a channel through which others encounter God’s grace.
What difficulty might God be using to prepare you? Who might be blessed because you remain faithful? That question challenged me personally as I prepared this message: “What difficulty, Bob, might God be using to prepare you, and who might be blessed because you remain faithful?”
It is easy to lose perspective in difficult seasons. Joseph’s story reminds us that hardship does not mean God is absent and pressure does not cancel our purpose. If we remain faithful, God can use our lives to bless people we know and generations we may never meet.
Confirm the Work of Our Hands
We are blessed to be a blessing. We are favored to release God’s favor and grace to others. We are ministers of the Spirit, empowered by Christ to bring His life to our world.
Let this prayer from the Psalms become our prayer:
“Let Your work be revealed to Your servants
And Your glorious majesty to their children.
And let the gracious favor of the Lord our God be on us;
Confirm for us the work of our hands—
Yes, confirm the work of our hands.”
—Psalm 90:16–17 AMP
God has not favored us merely to make us comfortable. He has made us living letters, carriers of His Spirit, ministers of life, and vessels of His treasure. May He anoint the work of our hands and take us beyond merely making a living into the revelation that we carry His life wherever we go.
May the Holy Spirit deepen our understanding that our lives make a difference. May He empower, strengthen, and prepare the body of Christ for greater service than we have imagined. May He accelerate, enlarge, and release us to walk in His love, grace, and mercy so that our generation—and those that follow—may know the goodness and salvation of God.
We are ministers of the new covenant.
Our sufficiency is from God.
We carry truth with love.
We carry treasure in ordinary vessels.
We carry favor for others’ freedom.
We carry God’s purpose for future generations.
