The Buddy Foy Jr Show

Favor not Failure

• Buddy Foy Jr

Share episode

Send us a text

We trace the bold claim of Romans 8 and Galatians 4—that we are heirs with Christ—and show how that identity reshapes favor, repentance, and everyday courage. Stories from Turkey, a Manhattan boardroom, and our family bring the theology down to the street level.

• heir identity reframes favor from earning to belonging
• public devotion as a mirror for quiet faith
• behavior as the Christian uniform
• Romans 8 and Galatians 4 as anchors
• repentance as coming home, not shame
• living favored amid closed doors and delays
• practical rhythms to practice praise and presence
• noon prayer, daily Scripture, quiet public prayer

Please hit subscribe or follow wherever you're listening
And pretty please share the episode with one person, just one
For this week, three simple steps: set your alarm for noon, thank God for one thing, pray for somebody; open your Bible daily; pray naturally in public


This is the Buddy For Junior Show — where faith, truth, and courage come together. Join us as we explore life’s deeper purpose and carry the torch of conviction. The show begins now.

Follow Buddy @BuddyFoyJr

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome. Welcome to the Buddy Before Junior show. Quick favor right out of the gates, folks. Please hit subscribe or follow wherever you're listening. And pretty please share the episode with one person, just one. It helps scroll the episode, and that's a blessing more than you can possibly ever imagine. It's disclosure time, folks. I'm not a biblical expert, not a master's in theology. I'm a guy learning Jesus in real time. I'm in a Jesus gym and I'm sharing my workouts. Folks, sometimes I'm sore, some days I'm strong, but most days I'm weak, but it keeps showing up. So verify whatever you hear from me, read it yourself. I'll put the description below in the show notes, and we can learn this together. All right. Today we're staying in one lane. Heirs favor repentance. We're tying these together, and I'm going to tie it to last week's episode. Other topics that you've been DMing me about, we're going to cover, which include spiritual warfare, Islam, politics. We're going to get to all that and hit those soon. Be patient. Today's identity. Let me start by saying this. Gang, I am pumped up. What a week and a word I've had. I've had a challenging week personally. I had a great conversation this morning with my spiritual director. And once again, I'm just blown out of the water. I'm blown away by how God ties everything together. The Bible is mind-blowing. And man, what hit me again this week hit me just as hard as when it hit me the first time. Ready? We're heirs. We're heirs to the throne. The throne of thrones. And if that's true, then favor makes sense. And repentance makes sense. And the way we live matters. Quick recap, folks. Let me just we're gonna unpack that. Stay right there. Quick recap for anyone joining. My wife and I took an empty nursery tour to Europe. We ended up in Turkey, walked into a mosque, and I got hit by what I call the spiritual sledgehammer, conviction, embarrassment. Not because I doubted Jesus, but because I realized how quiet I've been about him compared to everything else that I'm loud about. And what challenged me in Turkey was seeing public devotion of the Muslim face, of their faith, lived out loud in the public sphere, uniforms, call to prayer, devotion, in the streets, no apology. And that same moment in Turkey reminded me of something that happened years ago at my Jewish clients in Manhattan. They'd pause work, ask us to leave a meeting, rabbis would come in, and I'd watch their devotion in a marketplace. Like it was the most normal thing in the world, everyday occurrence. And that conviction sparked my wife and I back then to get to church and learn about our faith. And Turkey did the same thing. And so I called these my two bookends. Different faiths don't change my theology, but their devotion exposed something in me, how quiet my faith had become, even between those bookends. What I realized is this Christians don't really have uniforms. We don't have this visible marker in public. Our uniform is our behavior. And that's where repentance got real for me. Because if my behavior doesn't show Christ, then who knows who I belong to? Now, here's what hit me this week. We're not just forgiven, we're not just saved. The New Testament says something wild. This is insane. It says we're heirs to the throne, sons and daughters of God. Let me anchor this biblically. Romans eight specifically says the Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now, if we are children, then we're heirs. Heirs of God and co-heirs of Christ. Galatians four. So you are no longer slaves, but God's child. And since you are his child, God has made you also an heir. What? Man, that breaks the guilt religion right there. No more apologizing for favor. Because God's heirs don't live like slaves. God's heirs don't live from guilt. God's heirs don't try to earn. God's heirs, we're as God's heirs, we're supposed to live from belonging. And when that clicked in me, it rewired how I thought about favor. And I got reminded of that again this week. Let me tell you a personal story and why this is so personal to me and how it clicked. When I first started doing or digging into scripture, I would hear my Christian friends that introduced me into the Bible and/or I was studying with seniority over me. Man, I got this interview. I don't know how I'm gonna do it. I got this client I'm working on. I hope I land it. I'm not sure if I qualify for A, B, or C. And I respond probably too bluntly. Wait, aren't you a practicing Christian? Like as I'm hanging on to my Bible. And they would respond, yeah. Well then aren't you favored? If God opens the door, you walk through it. If he closes, he's got something better. And as I kept saying that to them, God kind of turned the mirror back on me. He does this. He turned the mirror on me. Because I realized something. I lived like I was favored in business, but not in my personal life. Catholic guilt had trained me to think I don't deserve favor. I should expect the shortfall. Somebody else probably deserves the good thing more than me. But scripture, folks, taught me something completely different. This air. I'm an heir. Not because I'm special, but because Jesus is. Let me give you a picture of an air identity. I'm 14 years old. I get into this fight. I know it's not godly. I got no fight. I'm downstairs at the Civic Center by the bathrooms in Glen's Falls, New York, at the Adirondack hockey team. Red Wings. It's 14. Security breaks the fight up, grabs me, looks at my shirt, sees EP Foy's logo, my dad's restaurant, on my shirt. Wait, are you Buddy's son? And I said, Yes, I am, sir. And he looks right at me and says, What are you doing? Your father would be disgusted, but I'm not going to throw you out of here. You can thank your dad for that. You two get back to your seats and tell your father I said hello. Folks, I got favor in that moment because of who I belonged to. I want to say that again. I got favor in that moment because of who I belonged to. Not because I deserved it, not because I earned it, but because of my father's name, because of his restaurant. So when I read Romans 8 and Galatians 4, man, how much more favor do we have as heirs of the Father, the creator of the universe, the Alpha and the Omega? That's air identity. That's what the New Testament is saying to me and you. Now, this got real for me during a six-week freedom course a year ago. We met once a week, working through material, three hours a session, my wife and I and six other couples. And we hit that section, being heirs of Christ or being heirs with Christ. And I remember coming out of my skin, like somebody turned the lights on in my soul. And I said to the group, well passionately, if this is true, what are we waiting for? This changes everything. I even said something crazy like we should be pulling people over in a highway and just telling them that they're heirs. Like I was freaking out. And I meant it. That's what air identity does to you. It lights you up. But then the enemy gets us. We're heirs to the throne of the creator of the universe, but then the enemy gets to us. Life happens. You get busy. He got me busy. He got me distracted. My restaurant had some problems. I had to go fix these things, and noise distracted me. I drift it. Then I'd get fired up again. Then I'd fall back to the grind again. Fired up again, then busy again, and over and over. Until Turkey. Turkey woke me up again. That spiritual sledgehammer moment was God saying, buddy, enough. You're an heir. Start living like it. And that's why I'm talking about it here every week to live it, to practice it, to remember it, to be in a pattern of it. And that's where repentance connects. We talked about repentance last week, and here's the link. Repentance is how errors come home. Favor is what heirs live from. Repentance starts in a heart, it shows up in our behavior. We can't receive an inheritance if we never come home, if we never pivot back. Repentance is not guilt to keep us from home. It's not punishment to keep us from what we have, what we're heirs to. It's not shame on us. It's shame off of us. Because Jesus Christ, Jesus, excuse me, Jesus Christ already paid for it. I say that again, somebody excited, talking fast, because Jesus Christ already paid for it. The enemy wants you to forget you're an heir. He wants you to live like a slave, busy, fearful, apologetic, quiet, guilty. I go through these patterns. But when you remember who you are, when you remember who you belong to, favor stops being theory. Living from favor isn't always easy. I've watched my daughter this year, one of the most spiritual people in our house, get denied over and over and over again. Denied from colleges. She checked all the boxes for, heartbroken from her boyfriend, overlooked by a coach despite being a five-year varsity athlete. And I'm sitting here trying to remind her, God's favor is on you, daughter. God's plan is bigger than this. But I'm also wrestling in real time. What's going on, God? Because God's favor doesn't mean every door opens. Favor means God is with you in the process. Favor means he's not wasting your pain. Favor means he's writing your story even when you can't see it yet. It's hard. That's workout level faith right there, folks. If you're being attacked, if you're second guessing yourself, if things just aren't going your way, if you feel less than, if you feel like you don't deserve something, you do. You are better. You are favored. So a practical takeaway. When you face that door, when you face that challenge, don't say, I hope I'm favored. Say, I am favored, I am an heir, and I trust God with the outcome. If the door opens, folks, and it turns to your favor, remember who gave it to you and praise him. Practice praise. Don't forget where it came from. If the door closes, praise him. If it gets harder, praise him. Because he's still guiding his heirs. Because we're his heirs. Praise him because we receive as heirs. I'm not teaching from a throne here. I'm learning in real time from the road with no shoes on. Favor is real. Living it is a workout, but it's worth it. So here's your Jesus gym assignment. For this week, three simple steps. Set your alarm for noon. When it goes off, stop and thank God for one thing, then pray for somebody. Open your Bible daily. One verse counts, one paragraph counts. Just show up. Pray naturally in public. Start with your meal. Quietly, confidently. Don't hide it. We do these things. We start living like heirs. And favor stops being the sermon word and starts being a daily reality. Folks, thank you for listening. If this hits you, share it with one person. Let's grow this kingdom together. Don't take debate. And a shout out. And I want to thank two people. Thank you. You know who you are. Thank you for your encouragement this week. I appreciate the text message. It helped me question what I'm doing. Gang, don't take debate. Have a great week. We'll see you next week.

Head Shot

Buddy Foy Jr

Host