The Favor Of God Part 1 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

The Favor Of God Part 1 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

The Favor Of God Part 1 from Pastors Lawson & Aaron Perdue. In this episode of Grace For Today, you will understand how God gives dreams, and how you can move into them through the favor of God.

The Favor Of God Part 1 Transcript

Praise the Lord, friends, and welcome to the broadcast! I am so glad that you are with us today! We are gonna be talking about the favor of God and how the favor of God will give you a dream and you can move into your God-given dreams through the favor of God. You don’t wanna miss these broadcasts this week. It will help you tremendously in receiving the grace and favor of God on your life.

Friends, I am so glad that you’re with us today! I have my son Aaron today with me and we are sharing on the favor of God and what an amazing subject to talk about. We wouldn’t be where we’re at, we wouldn’t have what we have, we wouldn’t be able to go forward from where we’re at, without the favor of God. I actually used to teach a class in Charis Bible College years ago on the favor of God. One of my good friends said, “Lawson, that ought to be your life message. You have so much favor.” And we have had a tremendous, tremendous amount of favor. In fact, when I built my first church in Kit Carson, Colorado, Dr. Lester Sumrall came to dedicate it and Kit Carson, you know, of course, of a town of 300 in a county that, you know, that covers 2,400 square miles, about 2200 people in that county, less than one person per square mile, and Dr. Lester Sumrall came to dedicate our church. He said, “It’s been a long time since I’ve been this far out in the country.” But after he got done ministering for me that night, he said, “You’ve done a lot here and you’ve done it quickly. How have you done this?” I said, “I’ve had a lot of favor.” And he looked at me. He said, “God gives favor. Don’t you ever forget it!” So, praise God, I’ve never forgotten it.

That’s awesome.

Thank God. Aaron, you’ve had a lot of favor.

Yeah, and God’s favor is unmerited. It’s not about what you deserve. It’s not about your actions. It’s just because God loves you unconditionally. That’s the true favor of God and God’s favor, it brings promotion, it brings you into your destiny, it also brings protection. You know, God’s favor will protect you when the world is against you.

Yeah. You know, Psalm 5:12 says this. It says, “The Lord will bless the righteous with favor. He will surround him as with a shield.” So, praise God. Not only will the Lord bless you through His favor, through His grace, but He will surround you with favors like a shield. I know that we’ve been protected by the favor of God.

[Aaron] Mhm.

You know, David said, “Many of those who have risen up against me,” but the Lord protected him. Praise God? Another scripture that I love on favor is found in Proverbs 16:15. It says, “In the light of the King’s countenance, there is life, and His favor is as a cloud of the latter ring.” And you think about the favor of God, you know, and Jesus is the King. In the light of His countenance is life. When the Lord looks on you, praise God, there’s life! And His favor is as a cloud of the latter rain. You know, I grew up farming in Eastern Colorado and we grew a lot of wheat, and winter wheat, and for winter wheat, really, to have a great harvest, you need two rains. You need moisture in the fall to bring the seed up and we plant it in September. It comes up, looks like little green grass, you know, just coverin’ the ground, and then in the spring, in April, if you get, and we had some irrigated wheat, so I would pour, it grew up maybe four to six inches high, and we would just pour the irrigating water on it, right? In April, middle of April, and it, we would call it ‘being in the boot’. If you tore that little grass part and looked down there, there’d be a little image of a head, but it would shoot up like two, two and a half foot high and those heads would fill, and then we would harvest it in July and we would have 100 bushels of wheat on our irrigated wheat nearly every year because the latter rain, the early rain brings up the seed and the latter rain brings the harvest, and I believe we’re in a time of the outpouring of the Spirit of God, of the latter rain, and it’s the reign of the Holy Spirit that is bringing a harvest on the seed of the Word of God in our lives, and so, praise God, there’s blessing through the favor of God, there’s increase, there’s harvest through the favor of God, but there’s also protection. Now, Aaron, I asked you to share a scripture in Psalm 44, verse three that talks about possessing our destiny through God’s favor.

Yeah, I’ll read it to you. It’s right here, Psalm 44, verse three. It says, “For they did not gain possession of the land by their own sword, nor did their own arms save them, but it was Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your countenance because You favored them.” I love that. Now, let’s talk about when Israel moved into the Promised Land. You know, God said, “I’m gonna give you houses that you did not build. I’m gonna give you a vineyards that you did not plant. I’m gonna fill your house with furnishings that you didn’t even own.”

[Pastor Lawson] Hallelujah!

And, man, God wants to do that for you. He wants to just bring you an inheritance, bring you things that you don’t deserve, that you do not earn on your own.

Hallelujah!

It’s just by His favor and I love that, “the light of His countenance.” You know, God wants to shine His light upon you.

Amen.

And when He looks at you, His face lightens up. He smiles when he thinks about you! That’s what that means.

Hallelujah! Amen. So, we have an awesome testimony, you know, of the favor of God. You’ve had tremendous favor in your life!

Mhm.

God opened the door, you know, when you went to Carnegie Mellon University-

[Aaron] Mhm.

And, you know, you were believing God and it, I mean, when we first got the word back from Carnegie Mellon, and this was years and years ago, it cost 44,000 a year to go there, and they said, “We don’t have any scholarships.” Well, that wasn’t the last word. Praise God? And between scholarships and different grants that they gave you, they ended up giving you over 20,000 a year, and then you worked for some, we paid for some, you took a little bit of loans.

[Aaron] Mhm.

So, but you had favor.

[Aaron] Mhm.

And then you had favor when you went to Rice University.

[Aaron] Mhm.

And they were looking, I believe, at 100 students for that position, and God gave you that position as a master’s student and they were payin’ all your tuition and givin’ you a little bit of money towards your room and board, and then you worked and earned the rest of it, but you were able to get your doctorate, you know? You got about a half a million dollar education and it’s completely been paid for. Hallelujah! Isn’t that marvelous?

That’s awesome.

Favor of God on your life. So, God’s blessed you, and favor on your family. You got a beautiful wife and an amazing son and daughter and we’ve had so much favor, but your mom and I have had a lot of favor.

Amen!

You know? We’ve built three buildings and they’ve all been paid for. Praise God supernaturally. God has blessed us and helped us and blessed all you boys. Your brothers have had favor, Andrew and Peter, and God’s been with us also. We thank God for the favor of God.

[Aaron] Amen!

It isn’t by our own strengths. It isn’t by our own power, but it’s by the grace of God. It’s by the favor of God that we move into the plan and the purpose of God. Now, today, we’re gonna talk about a person by the name of Joseph. He’s one of my favorite characters in all of the Bible, and Joseph had tremendous favor on his life, and we’re gonna be sharing actually a number of things from the life of Joseph this week as we talk about the favor of God, and it actually says this in Genesis 39, verse 21. It says, “The Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy in the sight of the keeper of the prison.” You know, favor’s not about where you’re at. Here was Joseph and he had favor when he was in the prison. Now, he was wrongfully put there, but he had favor there. “And whatever was done in this prison,” you know, “He was the doer of it.” Praise God? You can have favor wherever you’re at, whatever you’re doing, praise God? And, marvelous things, so, favor everywhere you go, favor in everything you do, it will bless you and protect you. We thank God for the favor of God. Now, we’re gonna go back to the beginning of the story of Joseph in Genesis chapter 37, and we’ll be reading, Aaron, why don’t you read the first few verses there of Genesis 37. Maybe read the first four verses.

Okay, yeah. So, this is Genesis 37, starting in verse one. It says, “Now Jacob dwelt in the land where his father was a stranger in the land of Canaan.” This is the history of Jacob. “Joseph being 17 years old, was feeding the flocks with his brothers in the lands with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and Joseph brought a bad report of them to his father. Now, Israel loved Joseph more than all his children because he was the son of his old age. Also, he made him a tunic of many colors, but when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him.”

And so here Joseph had favor.

Mhm.

As the father of Jacob, who became Israel.

Mhm.

And it says, “Israel,” Jacob, “loved Joseph more than all of his children,” and so, “because he was the son of his old age and he had made him a coat of many colors.”

Mhm.

And so, you know, maybe it’s not best to play favorites.

Mhm.

But, “He did love him and his brothers saw that their father loved him more than them and they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him.” You know, sometimes, you have the favor of God on your life-

Mhm.

And it’s evident that you have the favor of God on your life, and some people just hate you for no reason. They’re really jealous-

Mhm.

Of you. I’ve got a lot of friends who have a lot of favor and sometimes, people get mad at them, get upset with them. One of ’em is Mark Hankins and Mark is a tremendously blessed person and, you know, I think not everybody’s excited about Mark because they don’t have the revelation that he has. Another one, Jesse Duplantis. Jesse has tremendous favor on him, tremendous blessing on him and, you know, people make comments, criticize him, the Body of Christ or whatever, and I don’t think it’s really about what Jesse has. I think it’s about what they have and it’s really jealousy and it’s a sad thing, but you know what? We don’t wanna be jealous of somebody else’s favor. Praise God? If God blesses somebody else and God helps somebody else, we wanna rejoice with them.

[Aaron] Mhm.

We wanna rejoice in the good that God has done for them.

[Aaron] Mhm. Amen. That’s true.

Praise the Lord! So, what do you think about this, Aaron, right here, Joseph’s coat and all these different aspects? This is when he just began to enter into the favor of God. He was a young man.

Yeah, it just said, you know, that his brothers, that they couldn’t even speak peaceably to him. I think that’s kind of interesting that they couldn’t even hold a conversation with him. You know, there’s gonna be some people in life that just, when you get around ’em, it just stirs something up inside of ’em and it’s just like bells and whistles go off, so, you know, I don’t always know why that happens, but sometimes it does and, you know, we aren’t called to always just have everyone like us.

No. I think if you’re gonna accomplish what God wants you to accomplish, and we’ll move into this more as we talk about Joseph, you’ve got to get free from pleasing man. You know, Paul said in Galatians 1:10, he said, “If I yet please man, I would not be the servant of Christ.”

[Aaron] Mhm.

And you know what? If you’re gonna be a man pleaser, you’re not gonna be a servant of Jesus.

[Aaron] Mhm.

So, we don’t want to, we wanna get set free from man-pleasing and we wanna live to please God.

Mhm.

You know, the Bible says Proverbs 29:25, “The fear of man brings a snare, but whoever puts his trust in the Lord shall be safe, shall be protected.” And Joseph, even though, you know, his brothers hated him, really without reason, there was really no reason for them to hate him like they did, but they hated him because he had a dream and they didn’t have one, and if you’re gonna move into the dream that God has for you, do you know what? You’ve got to stay away from dream stealers.

[Aaron] Mhm.

And so, and sometimes, one type of dream stealer can be people that don’t have their own dream.

Mhm.

You know, I generally, like, when we moved here to Colorado Springs to start this church in the year 2001, almost all my friends that were in the ministry and different things discouraged me. They told me how hard Colorado Springs was, how difficult it would be, all these different things, but when I talked to Andrew Wommack, he’s like, “You need to get with it!” Hallelujah! He encouraged me because, you know what? He believed, you know, in the God that was living in me. He believed in, he had a dream of his own and his dream was, you know, far bigger than mine at that point in time and praise God we are moving into our God-given dreams.

[Aaron] That’s awesome.

You know, I had a dream when I was just, like, 16 years old, and I was in Kit Carson, Colorado, of course I’d been, or Lamar, Colorado. I might have been 17 or 18 when I had this dream, but I went to a full gospel church and it was a good church. It was a Word of Faith, Assembly of God church and I loved the pastor, he loved me as a whole, but I had this dream that I was pastoring a church with 500 beautiful blue chairs in it, and you know what? When I was about, you know, 40 years old, that dream came to pass.

[Aaron] Mhm.

We had moved here to Colorado Springs in 19, or what was it? 2001 we moved here, and then in 2004, we moved into Andrew Wommack Ministries building on Elkton Drive, and Andrew Wommack actually preached our first service there, and it was our third anniversary and I was just 40 years old when we moved in there, and Andrew preached and, you know, a few weeks later, I was preaching and here, we were preaching in this sanctuary, we had about 500 beautiful, blue chairs set up. I thought, wow, that’s my dream that came to pass! That’s amazing! But, you know, I told that to some people when I was in Lamar and they didn’t like my dream.

Mhm.

And, you know, not everybody’s gonna love your dream, but you know what? It’s God who brings your dream to pass, and Andrew Wommack, when I told him about it, he’s like, “That’s amazing! I paid for your first dream!” Hallelujah! But, praise God for the dreams that God gives us. Now, we’re gonna come back and talk a little bit, after this break, about the dream that Joseph had and how we need to be dreaming the dreams of God. So, stay tuned. God has a dream for you. Blessings. Friends, I wanna tell you about some products that we have available that I believe will help you move into God’s plan, to God’s destiny for your life. The first one is my book, “Uncommon Favor.” This is my life story and there are a lot of just really simple stories, things that have happened in my life for the last 30 years, and really how God has blessed us and helped us, you know, move into what He has for us, and I believe that God is no respecter of persons. What God has done for me, He will do for you. I have so many people read this book. It’s a very simple read, and they’ll tell me, “Pastor, I was so encouraged! That really helped me and gave me hope for my life!” And so, you don’t wanna miss getting this book, “Uncommon Favor,” and we package it together with my teaching on the favor of God and this is a 3-CD teaching on the favor of God. You can get this by calling our office or you can check us out on the web at charischristiancenter.com. Praise the Lord, friends! I’m glad that you’re with us today and I have my son, Aaron. We’re talkin’ about dreaming the dreams of God and we’re in Genesis chapter 37. We’re gonna be sharing verse five through verse 11 and I’m gonna have Aaron read it, but this is talking about Joseph. Joseph is one of my favorite characters in the Old Testament, and we’re gonna talk about dreaming the dream of God. So, Aaron, go ahead and read verse five through verse 11.

This says, “Now, Joseph had a dream and he told it to his brothers and they hated him even more. So, he said to them, ‘Please hear this dream which I have dreamed. There we were, binding sheaves in the fields, then, behold, my sheaf arose and also stood upright and indeed your sheaves stood all around and bowed down to my sheaf.’ And his brothers said to him, ‘Shall you indeed reign over us or shall you indeed have dominion over us?’ So, they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. Then, he dreamed still another dream and told it to his brothers and said, ‘Look, I have dreamed another dream and this time, the son, the moon, and the 11 stars bowed down to me.’ So, he told it to his father and his brothers and his father rebuked him and said to him, ‘What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come and bow down to the earth before you?’ And his brothers envied him, but his father kept the matter in mind.”

Now, when we look at this, there’s a key right there. We’re talking about, you know, dreaming the dreams of God and you’ve gotta watch out for dreams stealers. So, when Joseph shares this dream that God gave him as a young man, it says in verse 11, “His brothers envied him.” One reason I believe they were fighting him in the favor of God and the dream that he had from God was because they were jealous. They weren’t dreamin’ their own dreams, but generally, if you hang around people, right? That are dreamin’ their own dreams, they aren’t gonna try to steal the dream from you. They’ll try to help you accomplish the dream that God has in you.

Mhm.

I love helping people. I love investing in younger ministers of the gospel and in investing in different people in the gospel, some of them older, different ones, helping them fulfill their dream, you know, and praise God! I get to do that, you know? And mama’s been praying this scripture over me that says, “He that waters others will himself be water.”

[Aaron] Mhm.

And we’ve helped a lot of people over the years and, you know, God brings that seed that we sow into others’ lives back to us.

[Aaron] Mhm.

And I’ve not only helped people, younger people come up, I’ve helped people that are my senior because I’m sowing where I’m going. Amen? And so, praise God! You know, Joseph had a dream that came from God and not everybody’s gonna understand your dream.

And you don’t have to prove your dream to other people either or argue with people or try to make ’em understand. Sometimes, if people don’t understand or try to tear you down because of your dream, it’s better just to go on. I remember when I was 18 thinkin’ about goin’ to college for music. I went to a flute professor here in the state of Colorado to have a lesson and see what she thought and she didn’t really believe in me. She didn’t think I’d do that well. So, I remember my dad, he just said, “Just forget about it. Just, you won’t be auditioning here. Don’t even worry about her.” And I auditioned at places that were actually a lot harder to get into with higher level, you know, flute teachers, higher level music schools, and got into some of those, but if someone doesn’t believe in you, just kind of wants to belittle you, tear you down, you can just move on and don’t worry about it.

Praise God. Now, ultimately, you auditioned at four different places and got into three of ’em and one of ’em was CSU where that person had been teaching, right? But you had an opportunity to go there and have a full ride scholarship or opportunity to go to Carnegie Mellon and study with Jeannie Baxter at a much higher level, right? And then you also auditioned at Boston. What was the school there in Boston?

Well, so, the flute teacher here in state who didn’t really believe in me was at DU.

Oh, DU.

So, I didn’t even apply there.

Okay.

I applied at CU Boulder-

I got that wrong.

Carnegie Mellon and New England Conservatory in Boston.

Yeah, So, Jeanie Baxter taught at both places, but you liked Pittsburgh better and that’s where she was ending up gonna be stayin’ so you went there and you were very blessed there.

[Aaron] Yeah.

And I, you know, I left the decision up to you ’cause you had to believe God, ’cause you had to. You don’t believe God, I don’t know, for 20,000 a year or somethin’. They scholarshipped you. Ended up, when they started out, they, you know what? The first word’s not the last word.

Yeah.

And their first word is, “We have no scholarship money for you whatsoever.” But we went back and asked again and again, I believe, and we got about 20 or 25,000 scholarship and grants, right? Every year that didn’t have to be paid back? And then you worked for some of it and I gave you some, I invested some in it, and then also, you took some loans.

[Aaron] Mhm. God supernaturally blessed you, but you went there and God blessed you there.

[Aaron] Amen.

Hallelujah. You actually won their competition at their whole conservatory, over everybody, over all their master students and doctoral students and undergrad students at Carnegie Mellon in the first year when you were a freshman. That was supernatural.

Yeah.

So, you can’t believe in these liars, right? You can’t believe in people who don’t believe in you. You just keep it goin’. Praise God? Keep it truckin’. Amen? And so his brothers, it says here in Genesis 37, verse 11, “His brothers envied him.” Some people are mad about your dream ’cause they don’t have one their self. “They were jealous of him, but his father observed the saying.” His father knew there was something about Joseph that was unique, and so later, his brothers went and they were feeding the flock in different areas, and so his father sent Joseph to check on them and they had went in a different area so Joseph, you know, figured out where they were, and it says in verse 18, “When they saw him afar off before he came near to them, they conspired against him to kill him.” Not everybody’s as happy about your dream as you are.

[Aaron] Wow.

And so they wanted to kill him, and they said, “Here comes that dreamer.” Now, they said that in a derogatory sense.

Mhm.

But you know what? You should be dreamin’ dreams and it might cause people to speak about you in a derogatory sense, but don’t worry about what everybody else says about you. And they said, “Come now and let us kill him and slay him and throw him in a pit, and we’ll tell our father that, you know, an evil beast has devoured him and we will see what will become of his dreams.’ But his older brother, Reuben, heard it and delivered him out their hands.” That was really the grace of God, and said, “Let us not kill him.” And so, anyway, “They took him and they cast him in a pit. The pit was empty. There was no water and when they sat down to eat bread, they lifted up their eyes and looked in a,” this is in verse 25 of Genesis 37, “a company of Ishmaelites. Their cousins came from Gilead with their camels bearing all these different things to go to Egypt, and Judah said to his brothers, ‘What profit is it if we slay our brother and can conceal his blood? Let’s sell him.'” Praise God? Now, they were good Jewish people. They knew how to make a profit. “To the Ishmaelites and let not our hands be made to him, for he is our brother and our flesh.” And really, this was the hand of God. This was God working through them. “And then the Midianites passed by the merchantmen. They lifted Joseph out of the pit and they sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for 20 pieces of silver and they brought Joseph into Egypt.” In this aspect, he’s a type of Christ.

Mhm.

You know, Jesus was sold for 30 pieces of silver, but here Joseph was sold for two-thirds the price of a slave. Of course, the Midianites were gonna make a profit, right? So, they were takin’ him and they sold him the Potiphar. It says in the last verse, “Who was an officer of Pharaoh’s, captain of the guard,” in verse 36. So, ultimately, this was the hand of God in positioning Joseph for the future of where he wanted to go. So sometimes, when people are mad at you and do different things about you, you never know when God might be working through them-

Mhm.

To position you for the future.

Mhm.

Praise God?

That’s what the favor of God does. It can turn things around. When people are tryin’ to put you down, tryin’ to steal your dream away from you, God’s favor will turn that thing around.

Amen.

Yeah.

So, we need to believe in the grace of God, believe in the favor of God even though, you know, it may look hard, it may look difficult, but you keep your eyes on God.

Mhm.

Amen? And Joseph kept his eyes on God in all these different things that he went through. Did you know what? Joseph never got a bad attitude. He kept a good attitude.

Mhm.

And if you’ll keep a good attitude, no matter what difficulties you face or challenges come your way, God can work through, you know, work in spite of circumstances and situations, and actually work in those circumstances and situations to bring you out on the other side. Hallelujah. So, we’re gonna be sharin’ more about Joseph. You can tell your friends about this broadcast and, you know, you may be watching us on television. You can also watch this on our website, charischristiancenter.com, and you can tell your friends. They can go back there to our website and see this broadcast, but I want you to understand today, you don’t wanna get mad because somebody’s mad about your dream.

Mhm.

You don’t wanna get upset. You don’t wanna get angry because they’ve done somethin’ to you because you never know when God is working. If you keep the right attitude, you know, God can work through that situation and bring you out where he wants you to be.

Mhm.

And God will bless you in spite of what different people try to do to you and how they come against you. Praise God? So, you keep your eyes on Jesus, keep smiling, praise God. Keep a good attitude. Keep looking up and God will bring you through where He wants you to be.

Well, certainly, anything about Joseph too is he didn’t let bitterness, he could’ve gotten very bitter, right? From the get-go with this situation, but he didn’t. He kept his eyes on God. He kept his focus on God and that dream that He placed in his heart and that kept him purehearted.

Amen! Praise the Lord! Well, thank you so much for being with us on the broadcast. Tell your friends about the broadcast. Tune in tomorrow at the same time. We’ll be here and may God bless you as you allow Jesus first place in your life today.

[Announcer] The favor of the Lord has the power to change your life. In this “Favor” package, you’ll learn how you already have more than enough favor because God loves and cares for you. Get the “Favor” CD series along with the book entitled “Uncommon Favor,” for $24 when you call 719-418-4000 or visit charischristiancenter.com.

Hi, ladies! I am so excited to invite you to our Rejoice Women’s Conference, February 9th through the 11th. This is an event for women 13 and up. It’s time to rejoice!

Not only are you gonna have a lot of fun and laugh a lot, you are also gonna experience the power of God when you see signs, wonders, and miracles.

[Heather] Amen. We’re gonna have a lot of fun! We have Cathy Duplantis coming. So, make plans and register today!

[Announcer] Thanks for watching “Grace for Today.” This broadcast has been made possible by our faithful partners. If you would like to become a partner, need prayer, or have a question, please call us at 719-418-4000, or to partner online, go to charischristiancenter.com/give. You could write us at PO Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80962. See you next time on Grace for Today.”