Favor Underground: The Favor of God You Can't See Yet
Updated: 2 hours ago
It was a rainy Saturday in Concord on October 10, but Pastor Doug Lattimore told the room at Solo Faith Church that it wasn't raining inside. After worship he opened Psalm 90:17 and introduced a two-part message called Favor Underground: the favor of God can be at work on your life long before anyone, including you, can see it.
Psalm 90:17 and the Favor of God on Your Work
He read the verse slowly: "Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands upon us." Then he turned it toward the church's own work. Solo Faith has built a way to feed people "naturally and spiritually," he said, and he named DoorDash, Walmart, Target, First Presbyterian Church and Rocky River Processing among those who help our online food pantry reach Concord families. "But it doesn't mean anything unless God establishes it."
You can put in your time, your money, your experience and your wisdom, he said, and still only take a thing so far. Whether the work is ministry, a family, a career or an education, it needs God's favor to come to pass. And favor, in his reading of the verse, has a purpose. It is not given to make anyone look successful. It is given to establish the work of our hands so that it reaches somebody else.
If God can get it to you, he wants to get it through you.
He pointed to David as the model: a king who, once he came into his kingdom, asked who was left from the house of Saul that he could show kindness to for Jonathan's sake (2 Samuel 9). Favor that stops with the person who receives it, Pastor Doug said, is favor God will look to place somewhere else.
Favor With God, and With People
Luke 2:52 says Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. Pastor Doug lingered on the second half. God usually uses people to invest in the work He has blessed, he said; the good measure, "pressed down, shaken together, and running over" of Luke 6:38 is something men give into your bosom. Some of those people won't be your friends, your family or your coworkers. They will simply see what God is doing and decide to support it. That is the same reason the church invites neighbors to give to the pantry ministry. Most gifts, he noted, come five or ten dollars at a time.
Joseph, the Prison, and the Test of Hate
Joseph carried his father's favor, and his brothers tried to kill him for it. God later used Pharaoh to lift him out of prison, gave him a new name (Zaphenath-paneah, Genesis 41:45), and put him over the work of a nation. Joseph's own summary in Genesis 50:20 became the room's refrain: you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good, to save many people alive. "It's for the whole city," Pastor Doug told the congregation, and they said it back to him.
Then came the hard line of the afternoon: if you cannot handle the hate on this level, you will not be able to handle it on a higher one. He described rejection from family, friends and coworkers as a kind of training that toughens a person for bigger opposition later, so that when it comes, you don't take it so personally. It echoes what he preached from Psalm 2 earlier this year in Anointed for the Opposition: pushback can be evidence of a calling, not proof that you are off course.
Why the Favor Was Underground
Some of the attacks come early, he said, at 10, 11 or 12 years old, before anyone can see what God has planned. Pastor Doug's explanation was the title of the message: the favor was underground. Hidden from view, it was protected from people who would have cut it down, and the waiting exposed who was really for you. When the season changes, the favor comes up, and those who showed their hearts earlier cannot simply act as if the past never happened.
He closed in prayer, thanking God for putting the church underground for a season to protect it, and pointed to John 7:38: out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water. Things, he prayed, are starting to spring up.
Questions to Sit With This Week
Where does it feel like nothing is growing in your life, and could that be a season underground rather than a dead end?
If God's favor reached you this month, whose life should it reach through you?
What opposition are you taking personally that may be preparing you for something larger?
What work of your hands have you been trying to establish without asking God to establish it?
This was the introduction. Pastor Doug continued with Favor Underground Part 2 on Sunday, October 11. You can join us Saturday or Sunday at 1 PM at 587 Old Charlotte Rd SW in Concord or online. If you want to go deeper into Scripture between Sundays, take a free Solo Seminary course online at your own pace.
Part 3 of the series, Joseph's coat was never the favor, follows Joseph from the pit all the way to Pharaoh's house.
Solo Faith Church shares this message because many of the neighbors who order from our pantry, watch online, or walk through our doors have been told for years that nothing good was coming for them. A sermon that says God may simply be working out of sight is worth putting in writing, where they can find it again on a hard day.
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Community Support Note: This recap is part of Solo Faith Church's effort to share the teaching heard in Concord with neighbors who could not be in the room. It was written from the computer-generated transcript of the October 10, 2026 service and the published video, not from separate interviews. Scripture references were added to match the passages Pastor Doug read or alluded to.
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