THE FAVOUR OF GOD

J. T. Brown (Grangemouth)

Psalm 30: 5; Romans 6: 23; Luke 23: 39–43; Deuteronomy 33: 23; Ephesians 1: 6, 7

I desire to say a brief word about the favour of God. I think today we have experienced what it is to be in the divine favour. We sang in our hymn,

‘The favour of God’s house

Stands open now to thee’ (Hymn 59)

What God has in mind through the glad tidings is that we should come into His full favour.

That is what God has in mind for all men. He has no desire that men should remain at a distance from Him. His earnest desire is that men should come to know the nearness of divine love. How precious that is. Not only do we say in the glad tidings that that is what God has in mind for all men, but we must be very personal and say that is what God has in mind for you.

No matter how young or how old you are, God has in mind to bring you into the greatness of divine favour. What do you think of God? I often challenge myself with that question. What do I think of God? There are many persons in this world who only think of God when disaster strikes in their lives or in their circumstances, and often that is to blame God, or to wonder why He allowed it. But O, I desire to tell you that God’s heart towards you is one of love and He desires to bring you into the blessedness of His favour.

Peter tells us that “Christ indeed has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God”, 1 Peter 3: 18. Christ has died in order that we may know the joy of forgiveness of sins. If there is anyone in this room who is not living in the enjoyment of the forgiveness of sins I commend to you the glorious work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Christ has once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust. It speaks to our hearts of

the perfection of Jesus, it speaks to our hearts of the absolute purity and sinlessness of Jesus who did no sin, who could not sin. The very thought of sin was abhorrent to the blessed Lord Jesus Christ. He was spotless, pure, and perfect, “holy, harmless, undefiled, separated from sinners”, Hebrews 7: 26. He wants to be your Saviour, and He died in order that the saving power of divine grace might be known in your soul. But that was not all that was in His mind.

He suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust to bring us to God. That is in order that we might come into the favour of God and know the blessedness of a living vital relationship with God through Christ where He is in that position of glory. In Psalm 30 it says, “For a moment is passed in his anger, a life in his favour”. Jesus lives currently in the wondrous favour of God.

He is living, seated and crowned at the Father’s right hand in glory. He has sat down in complacency on the Father’s throne. Now the Father’s grace and love are being made available to you by Christ from where He sits on that throne of grace.

Christ will live eternally in the favour of God. What a wonderful place He occupies at the present time, but it says also, “a moment is passed in his anger”. There was a time when Jesus experienced the wrath of a holy God against sin. He suffered at the hands of men; it is wonderful to contemplate the way that Jesus was prepared to go, when His body was in the hands of men who hated Him without a cause. There was no reason for man’s hatred of Jesus, apart from the fact that man is a sinner. That is you and me as away from Christ, beloved friend. Men hated Him. His body was devoted to the will of God, as we sometimes sing,

‘Holy vessel of God’s pleasure

In His service day by day;

Nothing but His will Thy measure

All along that suff’ring way’ (Hymn 30)

What a suffering way Jesus took but He was prepared for that. He committed Himself unreservedly to the will of His God and Father, knowing full well that the end would be suffering and death. Not only did He suffer at the hands of men, but He suffered at the hands of a holy, sin-hating God. He suffered the wrath of God. He cried on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Psalm 22: 1. In one sense that question has gone unanswered. I believe, beloved friend, it is our responsibility to answer that question in the secret of our souls. “My God”, He cried, and there was no answer, and again, “my God”, and there was no answer. Why was there no answer? Because at that time Christ was being made sin; the One who knew not sin was made sin for us. That awful thing, sin, so hateful to His heart, and so hateful to the heart of God, and from which His holy soul recoiled, He was made on our account. He endured the wrath of a holy God. He suffered the anger of God in order that we might go free. Christ, through His finished work and through the shedding of His blood, “is the propitiation for our sins; but not for ours alone but also for the whole world”, 1 John 2: 2.

If you put your, trust in Jesus, you can say that Jesus bore my sins in His body on the tree.

You can come to an appreciation that Christ has taken the place that was rightfully yours in order that you may go free. Thanks be to God His work was completed. He has died and gone into the grave but He has burst the bands of death; He could not be held by the power of death. The power of death had to give way to Jesus. He has gone into death and broken its power. He “has annulled death, and has brought to light life and incorruptibility by the glad tidings”, 2 Timothy 1: 10. He has gone through death that “he might annul him who has the might of death, that is, the devil; and might set free all those who through fear of death, through the whole of their life were subject to bondage”, Hebrews 2: 14. Death is the penalty for sin, but Jesus has gone into death and annulled it. He has broken its power in order that we may go free. I think Jesus annulled death by going into it. You may remember at the beginning of Joshua, it was when the feet of the priests who bore the ark dipped into the bed of the Jordan that the Jordan had to flee (see Joshua 3: 15). I believe Jesus annulled death by going into it. Death had to flee from Jesus. “What ailed thee, thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan, that thou turnedst back?”, Psalm 114: 5. The Jordan has had to turn back on account of the One who has entered into the domain of death. Jesus has gone that way for you, but now He is living in the favour of God. He now lives a Man in heaven, seated and crowned at the Father’s right hand in glory just waiting to dispense blessing to men. How wonderful it is to realise that our salvation and all our blessings are secure in a blessed Man who is in glory. Does that not touch a chord in your heart that Jesus has entered into glory and there He is waiting to dispense blessing to needy souls such as you and me.

We have read of persons who came into the good and gain of salvation. We are told in Romans 6 that “the wages of sin is death; but the act of favour of God, eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”. I would like to take this scripture and the scripture in Luke 23 together because I think those two men who were crucified there beside the Lord Jesus were suffering on account of their sinnership, on account of their responsible pathways; they were suffering the penalty of death that lay upon them. Because of sin coming into the world through Adam the penalty of death lies upon the whole human race. Every one of us is a sinner before God and so the penalty of death lies upon us. But there was one man here in whom there was a change. The scripture says, “Now one of the malefactors who had been hanged spoke insultingly to him, saying. Art not thou the Christ? Save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost thou too not fear God, thou that art under the same judgment?” What comes to light is a work of God in this man’s soul, the work of repentance was operating. The way to salvation, the way to the fulness of God’s blessing is to come by way of repentance, to own our place as a sinner before a holy sin-hating God. This man said, “Dost thou too not fear God?” The fear of God had entered into his soul. Now I trust that the fear of God may have a prominent place in the hearts and souls of each one of us. He says, “thou that art under the same judgment”; the penalty of death lay upon them. “We indeed justly, for we receive the just recompense of what we have done; but this man has done nothing amiss”.

Here was a Man who was distinct, a Man who was unique, and the malefactor came to a recognition of the perfection there was in the glorious Saviour in whose presence he was, and he said to Jesus, “Remember me, Lord, when thou comest in thy kingdom”. And Jesus said to him, “Verily I say to thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise”. How blessed that he came into the enjoyment of the act of favour of God. The act of favour of God is eternal life.

You may say, he died. Yes, he died but his soul went into paradise. It has been said that at this time this man was as ready to go into paradise as Christ was. God can do that through the glad tidings. He can do that righteously through the finished work of our Lord Jesus Christ. I suppose this man went into paradise as justified. “Jesus our Lord, who has been delivered for our offences and has been raised for our justification”, Romans 4: 25. That is, that God can regard us as being as free from sin as Christ is. He can do that righteously on account of the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. The work of Christ is efficacious and can bring us into the most wonderful blessings. In the beginning of Genesis, as a result of Adam’s disobedience the way to the tree of life was guarded by the cherubim with the flashing sword and man was driven out of the earthly paradise (Genesis 3: 24). As a result of the finished work of Jesus you can know the joy of what it is to come in to the paradise of God and find that the tree of life is there. That is, you can enjoy eternal life, you can enjoy conditions of life in a relationship with the blessed Man who is in glory. God has superlative things in mind for men. He has superlative things in mind for each one of us to come

into and enjoy. Beloved, put your trust and faith in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ and know the blessedness of what it is to be justified—

‘Now I can say I am pardoned,

Happy and justified, free’ (Hymn 122)

I would like to take Deuteronomy 33 and Ephesians 1 together. These are the words of Moses, words of blessing in Deuteronomy 33, “And this is the blessing, wherewith Moses the man of God blessed the children of Israel before his death” (Deuteronomy 33: 1). It says of Naphtali, “satisfied with favour, And full of the blessing of Jehovah”. He was just about to take possession of his inheritance, to come into the enjoyment of it, and it says of him, “satisfied with favour”. God desires that we should be satisfied with the favour that He would delight to confer upon us and bring us into at the present time. What He has in mind for such is His best, “Possess thou the west and the south”. He wants you to live the rest of your life in the favour of God. We know not how much longer we have left but He wants us to be enjoying the favour of His house. So in Ephesians 1 Paul, speaking, I believe, not so much as an apostle, but rather as a Christian living in the full enjoyment of his heavenly and eternal inheritance says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in Christ”. Like Naphtali, who was satisfied with favour and full of the blessing of Jehovah, Paul’s heart was going out in responsive praise to the heart of the blessed God. That is God’s end in the glad tidings.

Then he says, “he has taken us into favour in the Beloved”. Our blessings are secured in that One blessed and glorious Man. There are no blessings outside of Christ; they are secure in the Beloved. The Beloved would give us some sense of what Christ is to the heart of the blessed God. I think that is the true Jedidiah. When Solomon was born it says, “Jehovah loved him.

And he sent by the hand of Nathan the prophet; and he called his name Jedidiah, for Jehovah’s sake”, 2 Samuel 12: 25. Jedidiah means ‘beloved of Jehovah’. The glad tidings are for God, that there may be a response from our hearts for the satisfaction of the heart of the blessed God. We often say the glad tidings proceed from God, they come from the throne of God. The rights of God have been maintained on account of the fact that Christ has gone to the cross and has suffered and has died. Christ’s work has been completed so God has now a basis to come out in blessing to mankind. But not only do the glad tidings proceed from the throne of God, they proceed from the heart of God and they proceed from the house of God. We were impressed during the week with the waters that issued out from under the threshold of the house (Ezekiel 47: 1), as bearing on God’s infinite blessing which is flowing to you and to me, flowing from God’s house, flowing from the heart of God, and flowing from that sphere of love down here. There can be no greater glad tidings, my friend, that you and I can have a part and place in that sphere from which the glad tidings have come.

It says in Nehemiah chapter 3, “And the fountain-gate repaired Shallun the son of Colhozeh, the chief of the district of Mizpah; he built it, and covered it, and set up its doors, its locks and its bars, and the wall of the pool of Shelah by the king’s garden, and to the stairs that go down from the city of David” (Nehemiah 3: 15). That is the way the glad tidings are coming out, coming out from the pool of Shelah, and from the king’s garden. These stairs that go down from the city of David give us some sense of the way that the glad tidings are coming out; but then in chapter 12 it says, “And at the fountain-gate, and over against them, they went up by the stairs of the city of David, at the ascent of the wall, above the house of David, even to the water-gate eastward” (Nehemiah 12: 37). The movement here is reversed, if the stairs go down from the city of David they also go up from the city of David, that is in view of the gratification and satisfaction of the heart of the blessed God. God is His own object, God has come out, He has made Himself known, He has revealed Himself. In this dispensation He has been made known as Father in order that men might have a place before Him in sonship.

What could be greater? Sonship is for God. God told Moses to say to Pharaoh, “Israel is my son, my firstborn ... Let my son go, that he may serve me”, Exodus 4: 22, 23. As believers we have been set free from the bondage of corruption. As the result of the finished work of Christ we have been set free from everything which would militate against the work of God in our souls in order that we may worship and minister to the heart of the blessed God. May these things be the result of our time together, so that there may be an answer from your heart and from mine in worship to God Himself, from whom every blessing comes. May it be so for His name’s sake.

Preaching at Denton, Texas
5 March 2000