Uncommon Favor!
Happy New Year! I declare that for the disciples of the First Baptist Church of Englewood that this will be the year of Uncompromising Faithfulness and Uncommon Favor!
You may be wondering how I came to make such a declaration.
As I was prayerfully preparing for 2025, keeping in mind God’s vision for our church to go higher in worship, deeper in study, and wider in fellowship for far reaching impact for Christ, God revealed to me that In order to realize the vision, that our focus needed to be on stewardship. When I think of stewardship, the parable of the talents as recorded in Matthew 25:14-30 comes to mind. As I ruminated on the passage, the Spirit spoke to me clearly In Matthew 25:20-21:
Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you handed over to me five talents; see, I have made five more talents.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and trustworthy slave; you have been trustworthy in a few things; I will put you in charge of many things; enter into the joy of your master.’
In this parable, we find one who has been entrusted to the care of their Master’s belongings. They took excellent care of what was entrusted to them. They were uncompromisingly faithful. They had a determination to take good and proper care of their master’s belongings. They were given five talents to care for and returned ten talents to the Master. They gave the Master a return on his investment. Likewise, God Is calling us, individually and as a congregation, to take good and proper care of what He has entrusted to our care. For the sake of our community and the Kingdom, 2025 is the year where we are charged to give God a return on God’s investment. Be clear, this more than about money; We are called to be uncompromisingly faithful in every aspect of our lives.
And the good news is that when we are uncompromisingly faithful, God shows us, what Coach Dawn Staley of the South Carolina Gamecocks called, “Uncommon Favor!” In the parable, the Master looked kindly upon the faithful stewardship of the one and blessed them with good words and also showed them an abundance of favor, inviting them into joyful living and greater responsibility. I firmly believe that by the end of this year, if we do our part as faithful stewards, that the uncommon favor of God will rest upon every aspect of our lives and every aspect of our ministries!
Pastor Donna Olivia Owusu-Ansah