Your Favorable Day 2 Corinthians 6:1-13; Job 38:1-11; Mark 4:35-41
Grace, mercy and peace to you, from God our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, who has won God’s favor toward us.
Our message is, Your Favorable Day, based on our Epistle, verses 1 and 2: Working together with him (Christ), we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. For he says, “In a favorable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation, I have helped you.” Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
Who’s having a good day today? Who expects to have a good day tomorrow?
Emma’s parents and sponsors, it’s your job to answer for her. Would you say Emma is having a good day today? In fact, she’s having a great day.
Today is a great day for all the baptized children of God, as tomorrow will be.
In Christ, every day is your favorable day. No matter what may happen today, with your faith in Christ, today you are loved, you are forgiven, you are saved, you are empowered, and you are blessed.
Because of what Jesus did for you that day on Calvary’s hill, the shedding of His blood and the giving of His life, because of His loving sacrifice, today is your blessed day.
And tomorrow will be too, and the day after, and the day after that, and on and on.
With Christ, our days of favor and blessing never end; they start here, and continue in eternity, an unbroken chain of life and love.
So in Christ, every day forever, you have God’s favor toward you.
With His love to uphold you, and His grace to cover you, even what may seem like the worst of days, is a day of favor for you.
God is still blessing you in many ways, more than we can count, or fully realize.
We don’t know the troubles and challenges tomorrow might bring, but we know that any difficulties we may encounter, Christ has already overcome, and so in Him, the day will be blessed.
In John 16:33, Jesus warns us: In this world you will have troubles… and then He encourages us, but take heart, I have overcome the world.
Whatever might trouble or wrongly oppose you today or tomorrow, Jesus has already overcome by His holy death and mighty resurrection.
His resurrection is that great. It was a triumph over all the evil that would hate and harm you.
Now by the gift of faith, which connects us to our Savior, more than that, binds us to Him in love, now through faith in Him, the victory is made our own, for us to live and rejoice in every day, making each day our blessed and favorable day, no matter the troubles.
And so as our text says, Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
1 Corinthians 15:57 concludes and proclaims: But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord, Jesus Christ!
Every day, I need the victory of His grace to cover me, because every day, I’m weak and selfish to give in to sin, and to worldly ways… and so are you, so are we all.
So we need God’s abundant grace and favor today; and we’ll need it tomorrow, and the day after.
Every day we need our Baptism, to wash back sin’s selfish, greedy power in us; and oly SPirit, HHHoly Hto raise up in us, a new person within, patterned after the love and mind of Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says, If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, the new has come.
With this new and better person always rising up in us, we always have a worthy reason to get up and confidently live the day, in honor to God, and in loving service to others.
With Christ, today is your wonderful, favorable day; without Him, today is awful.
Without His mercy and love, today is a horrible, miserable, don’t-even-get-out-of-bed kind of day.
In the end, I have nothing going for me today without God in my life, but with Him in my life, today is beautiful and blessed.
No matter how many earthly treasures or joys or achievements or accolades I may receive today, if my day is not lived in Christ, it’s a squandered day, a waste of His grace.
And so in our Epistle, Paul pleads with us, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain. Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.
Today is the day to believe and let God bring new love and blessings into your life, to turn your day around, and turn your life around.
We all need to be reoriented in life. There are so many distractions, we can easily lose our way for a while.
We need the light of the Gospel, to point us back to a better way, to re-direct our lives toward grace; toward Christ and all His good and holy ways.
So let us join little Emma, in living today as our baptismal day, your favored day. The Holy Spirit would renew you in your baptism every day.
What has happened to Emma this morning doesn’t stop today, it starts today, and continues tomorrow, until the eternal promises God has given her are fulfilled.
God will not stop; He will not leave a promise unfulfilled for her, nor for you.
For the sake of His Son, God has so much favor toward His dear, baptized children.
In a similar way, parents have so much favor toward their children.
I remember Jacquie, one evening, walking into the bedroom, carrying either Katherine or Danielle in her arms, I don’t remember which; she was tearing up, and she sat on the side of the bed and said, “You just want so much for them.”
Yes we do; we want so much for our children. We want better for them, than for us.
But here’s the thing: as the children of God and brothers and sisters of Christ, we’ve all been given the best, the Gospel in our lives and God in our hearts.
This morning, more has been given to Emma than her parents, or grandparents, or anyone else could ever give her.
The absolute most that could be given to her, has been given.
God has given His children, the most and the best He has to give… and no one has more or better to give than God, who gave an undeserving world His holy Son.
Emma will never have more in her life, or better in her life, than having Christ in her life. He’s as good as there is: holy in love, almighty in power, as we saw in our Gospel, when he stilled the storm, and great and generous in mercy.
Emma now has His perfect righteousness to count as her own, as her salvation, making her entirely worthy of Heaven’s perfect love and glory.
Nothing better can fill her spirit, than the Holy Spirit, now given to abide in her, with great power to believe, and to love.
Nothing can cleanse her life and clear her conscience like this washing away of her sins, God’s complete forgiveness for her.
No earthly home can compare to the heavenly home now prepared and waiting for Emma, where her dear Grandma Jacquie now lives and rejoices.
No earthly wealth can compare to the everlasting inheritance promised to her, and that by faith in Christ, she, and we, are sure to receive.
No earthly knowledge or information or instruction, can compare to the enlightenment of God’s Word for her and us…
… the eternal truth that sets us free, Jesus says in John 8:32…
… and makes us wise for salvation through faith in Christ, Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:15.
All this is just a little bit of Emma’s blessings, what she now has going for her, and what we, in Christ, have going for us.
Today is absolutely Emma’s favorable day, and your favorable day… and tomorrow will be just as favorable for you, every bit as blessed.
So when the day looks grey, remember, you live in God’s favor today, and that means you have everything going for you, everything that matters most.
In Christ you have the most, the best, what lasts the longest, for eternity, and what’s most rewarding.
So with Him, every day is truly and forever your blessed and favored day… so live each day in His love, and to His glory!
And finally, living every day in God’s favor, we have His peace, which passes understanding, and guards our hearts and minds, in Christ Jesus, in whom every day is richly and greatly blessed. Amen.