Living the Dream – Part 4 Lawson And Aaron Perdue

  Welcome, friends, to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in. We’re gonna be talking about one of my favorite Bible characters, but I’m gonna be sharing something that I’ve never shared before. I got this teaching from his life. His name is Joseph. And we’re gonna talk about how in different times of Joseph’s life, God was, even though it was difficult, God was developing certain things that helped him fulfill the plan and purpose of God. Blessings. Friends, it’s so good to have you with us today, and I’m glad Aaron’s here. And we’re gonna talk about one of my favorite people in the Bible. We’re talking about “Living the Dream,” but as we get into the program, we’re gonna be talking about Joseph and his life. And Joseph actually had this dream when he was just 17 years old. And really, it was a dream of divine destiny. But just because Joseph had this dream did not mean he had it easy. In fact, after this dream, it seem like all kinds of problems and difficulties came his way, but he never gave up on that dream. Praise God. And ultimately, God’s dream, God’s plan, God’s purpose for him came to pass. You know, the Bible actually says in Ecclesiastes 5:3, that a dream comes from the multitude of business. And I talked to my good friend, Andrew Wommack, he’s a visionary, praise God. He’s an amazing visionary. He is a dreamer. But he says that means it’s a lot of work, praise God. And if you have a dream, it’ll cause you to get up early in the morning, go bed sometimes later in the evening, because you’re living with something that you’re being compelled from the inside. It’s not just physical things that are motivating you, but spiritual things. And I believe spiritual things are greater than physical things. Praise God. So, let’s jump into the Scripture here and look at the life of Joseph. We’ll go into Genesis 37. Aaron, we’ll just start with Joseph’s dream, but he was 17 years old, it says in verse two. And his daddy loved him and gave him a pretty coat, and it kind of caused challenges in the family. We’ll see that later. But here in Genesis 37, read verse five through verse 11.

 

  So it 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 sheaths in the field. Then behold, my sheath arose and also stood upright. And indeed your sheaths all around and bowed down to my sheath.’ 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 took it to his brothers and said, ‘Look, I’ve dreamed another dream, and this time, the sun, 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 to bow down to the earth before you?’ And his brothers envied him and his father kept the matter in mind.”

 

  Amen, so, this is really, you know, kind of amazing, but we’re gonna talk about some different aspects of Joseph’s life, and how in these different aspects of his life, even though it may have been difficult, that may have been challenging, that God was really doing a greater work. There was a underlying work that was being done. And I believe that Joseph was being developed, and things in him skills and abilities in him were being developed for the future. And so, this is when he was in his father’s house. He was just 17 years old. He had this dream. Now, the first dream, notice, he talks about it and he says to his brothers, “We were binding sheaves.” Now that’s, I used to see these when I was a kid. They would still have binders and they would cut off, you know, like, grain in the fields, and they would put it in big shocks and then they would throw it into a harvester and then it would beat the chaff out and then the grain would go into another area. And so, this is something that was done even, you know, 50, 60 years ago, which is very unusual. Today we have combines and it’s a, you know, it does the same thing, but it’s a total different way and it’s a lot faster. But if you know anything about harvest, even in today’s world, I grew up on the farm and we spent Aaron, in the first 13, 14 years of your life in Kit Carson. And Kit Carson is a big agricultural community, a very small town, but big agriculture. And the average farm in Cheyenne County where Kit Carson is used to be over 2,500 acres. That’s four square miles over four sections. And so, it’s a big piece of property. And you know, a lot of people are bigger than that. But you know, Joseph dreamed this dream and they were harvest. But in harvest time, harvest means work. And I’m telling you, those farmers, when it’s harvest time, they’re getting their harvest in, and they’ll go 24/7 if they have to. And they are primarily big wheat farms in Cheyenne County. And I just talked to a farmer out there and we’ve had more rain this summer than in 120 years in the summer in Colorado. And he’s got, you know, really a couple thousand acres I think, of feed, maybe more than that. Just to feed. And he said, “Lawson.” Well, I said, “You’ll probably be cutting feed till Thanksgiving or bailing feed till Thanksgiving.” He said, and you know, I talked to him in August and you know, he said, “We’re gonna start the 1st of September.” And he said, “We’ll be, we’ll be, you know, we’ll be harvesting for September, October, and November, three months straight harvest because we’ve had so much rain.” Now, that doesn’t happen every year. That’s very unique. But, you know, they work. When it’s harvest, they work. And especially when it’s like wheat harvest, ’cause that’s a, you know, that’s more like a month. Sometimes it’ll run six weeks, depending on how big their farm is. But boy, when that wheat is ready, the moment that it’s dried down, that’s usually about the 1st of July in eastern Colorado. They harvest, you know, wheat somewhere in the world, 12 months a year. But they are immediately, as soon as it, they’re testing it as soon as it’s dry enough that they can bend it, they are in the field with these combines. Some of these new combines cost over a half a million dollars, and they can combine a section, a square mile in a day. But boy, they work and they go to work. And so, I think something that Joseph’s father taught him and what he was learning with his father and with his family was the ability to work. You know, I think this is something that we’ve somewhat lost it, and we don’t know the value of work. We don’t know, you know, before God gave Adam a wife, he gave him a job. And a work ethic is a tremendous blessing. To know how to work and know that work is not a curse. Work is a blessing. We get to do this. Now, you know what, you can work too much. You know, I heard John Hagee preaching years ago. He said, “The Bible says, ‘Six days you work, and one day you rest.'” That means some of us need to speed up and some of us need to slow down. I’m on the slow down side of that. But, you know, we all have to take time to rest. And you know what? They have, not only that, they had holidays, right? Holy days, that comes from holy days. So they had times where they had extra breaks, and we need to do that. But, and there’s actually been studies done on it years ago, that a person who works six days a week is very productive, but then they need to have extended breaks, you know, every six weeks or so. So these holidays, holy days kind of fit in with this. But, you know, he was working, I think he was learning the value of work. And there’s a great value. You know, the Bible says in 2 Thessalonians 3, this is New Testament. “If a man doesn’t work, neither should he eat.” And so, you know, that was my dad’s favorite Scripture. I’m glad that my dad taught me how to work. And you know, it’s served me well. It’s been a blessing to me. So, I get to work. It’s not that I have to, I get to do it. But Joseph dreamed this dream. And I actually preached a message at Charis Bible College on “Dream Steelers.” I think it’s one of my best messages. It’s on our website. But one thing that will try to steal your dreams is people who don’t have their own dreams. And his brothers were really jealous, I believe, because Joseph had a dream and they didn’t have one. It says, “His brothers,” in verse 11, “envied him, but his father observed the same.” So people can be jealous of you and they can be envious of you. That causes a lot, even causes a lot of problem in the church. I think a lot of people that are mad about somebody prospering is really because they’re not prospering in that way. It’s just envy and jealousy, really.

 

  Yeah, sometimes someone who has a lot of motivation, a lot of gumption, a lot of, you know, they’re really working hard. People who aren’t, it’ll, you know, it’ll create some kind of jealousy and animosity. That’s kinda what happened with Joseph and his brothers. So, it’s important if, you know, if you have big ambitions, big goals to be around other people who also have similar-

 

  Amen.

 

  Similar desires and similar ambition and goals and motivation.

 

  Amen.

 

  And that, you’ll soar higher that way.

 

  Amen. You need to hang around people. You know what, hang around people that are going the same place, and it’s easier going. You know, I know my friend in Kit Carson, one of my mentors there, he’s went home to be a Jesus, but he only had an eighth grade education, but a super blessed, super prosperous man. Ended up owning thousands of acres and having ’em all paid for, told me it’s hard to keep his net worth under $10 million. And, you know, thank God, God gives us friends like that. You know, Andrew Wommack’s one of my mentors in the ministry. Andrew’s a dreamer. And you know, there are people that are jealous of him, but you know, they don’t realize what he did. I remember when Andrew lived in an apartment, you know, a little dinky apartment with his wife and two kids and you know, got up at 4:00 AM in the morning and did radio broadcast in the closet. And nobody wrote any dirty articles about him then. A lot of people didn’t know him. He said, “They stayed away from my meetings in droves.” But you know what? He’s grown and he’s prospered. God’s been good to him. Lester Sumrall was one of my mentors. Lester was up in his, you know, 80’s, and he would put young men, you know, they just couldn’t keep up with him, because he had a dream, he had a vision, he was motivated. Jesse Duplantis, the same way. Mark Hankins, the same way. Those guys are workers. You know, they’re busy. Jesse has a jet, because he can’t get to all his meetings without a jet. If you tried to keep, there’s no way he could do what he does without a jet. And yet people criticize him. You know what, you don’t know, you don’t care if some worldly corporation has a jet, but you get mad if a preacher has a jet. Well, unless you’ve walked a mile in his shoes, maybe you better keep your mouth shut. And, but Jesse’s a very blessed man and he’s a hard worker. He’s a dreamer. Praise God. He’s a visionary. Jesse Duplantis, Andrew Wommack, Lester Sumrall, you know. Lester talked about it, ’cause he had an old 20 year old jet back then, and people would criticize him. And he said, “Man, Mattel toys has a jet. Nobody cares about that. There’s a house builder in this town that has a jet. Nobody cares about that.” But, you know, people get all worked up. It’s ’cause they don’t have a vision or dream of their own. So you gotta get a dream that comes from God. It’ll cause you to think different. It’ll cause different things to happen in your, you know, in your life. Now, as Joseph, you know, his brothers went on a trip and they were taking the flocks to find pasture in different areas, and his father sent Joseph just to check on his brothers, so on and so forth. And when they saw him coming down the road, they could see him because he had that pretty coat of many colors that his dad gave him. They said, “Behold, the dreamer comes.” They were saying that in a negative way. But I’m here to tell you that you know what, living the dream is not a negative thing. It’s a great thing when we get to live with the dream that God gives us. And so, you know, then, you know, when he got there, they took him, they took his coat, dipped it in blood, told his father of an animal, told his father that, you know, he died and an animal must have got him and they found the coat. But they took him, threw him in a pit, and then sold him to their Ishmaelite cousins. And Joseph then, you know, was sold into, you know, was sold to them for 20 pieces of silver. A slave is worth 30 pieces of silver. So, you know, they wanted to make a profit, they took to Egypt and sold him to, you know, Potiphar. And that was another part of the plan of God in his life. But Joseph learned in his father’s house how to work. He learned other things in Potiphar’s house. And we’re gonna come after this break and we’re gonna talk about what Joseph learned in Potiphar’s house, what Joseph lived learned in the prison, and what Joseph ultimately, how he fulfilled that dream through in Pharaoh’s house, when he became Prime Minister of Egypt. You know, God has a plan for you. It’s better than your plan for you any day of the week. And if you knew how good it was, you would want to find it. Bless you. We’ll be right back after this break, stay tuned. Friend, I’m so glad that you’re with us today and watching “Living the Dream.” I have these teachings on the website and from when I taught it live in Church also, CharisChristianCenter.com. They’re downloadable in audio and video, and they’re absolutely free of charge, plus many others also, blessings.

 

  The law cannot make you righteous. It cannot free you, it cannot transform you, it cannot empower you. Only Jesus can do that. Only His abundance of grace can do. Here’s what I wanna do, devil, I wanna take this report card from Jesus Christ. And He pulls it up and He puts a slash next to the name and He writes your name next to it. So His righteousness becomes your righteous. His peace becomes your peace. His joy becomes your joy. His healing becomes your healing. His prosperity becomes your prosperity.

 

  Friends, I’m so glad you stayed with us. We’ve been talking about Joseph, and we’ve been talking about how he had a dream that came from God. But you know, he learned certain things in different aspects of his life, even though they weren’t pleasant. He learned things that helped him ultimately fulfill the plan and purpose of God in his life. And not only did he learn how to work in his father’s house, but then he was sold by his brothers, because they were ultimately envious of his dream. And he was sold into, you know, to the Ishmaelite, their Ishmaelite cousins. And then there, the Ishmaelite cousins, it’s says in verse 36, “The Midianites sold him into Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, and a captain of the guard.” But this was ultimately God, you know, that was involved in this. And so, Joseph gets sold the Potiphar. And when he goes to work in Potiphar’s house again, we find that it’s kind of a challenging situation. So Aaron, start reading here in Genesis 39. You can read in verse one on down through verse six.

 

  “Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt, and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, buy him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him down there. The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a successful man. And he was in the house of his master, the Egyptian, and his master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all he did to prosper in his hand. So Joseph found favor in his sight and served him. Then he made him overseer of his house and all that he had, he put under his authority. So it was from the time that he had made him overseer of his house and all that he had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake. And the blessing of the Lord was on all that he had in the house and in the field. Thus, he left all that he had in Joseph’s hand, and he did not know what he had except for the bread which he ate. Now Joseph was handsome in form and appearance.”

 

  Amen, so when you look at Joseph here, and he goes to work right, for Potiphar. Potiphar’s a wealthy man, he’s captain of the guard of Egypt. He’s working, you know, in Pharaoh’s, Pharaoh’s, you know, basically the Egyptian empire is the greatest empire in the world at that time. So Joseph’s working for one of the wealthiest people, and the greatest empire in the world. And God is with him, and God causes him to prosper. And everything that he does prospers, and his master can see that. So the master sees that, you know what, it’s prospering, so he puts everything, you know, in the hands of Joseph. He didn’t even know what he has except what he eats every day, and he is prospering like never before. And it even says here in verse five that “The Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake. And the blessing of the Lord was on all he had in the house and in the field.” Covenant blessing was on a man who wasn’t a covenant man, because he employed a covenant man. Hallelujah! Isn’t that amazing? Now, look at this. I believe, not only did Joseph learn to work an he wouldn’t have been prospering in Potiphar’s house unless he knew how to work. But I believe what he really learned in Potiphar’s house was management, and how to manage not only resources, not only finances, not only, you know, wealth, but he learned how to manage people. “You know, in the church, you know, people are very, very valuable, and they’re a great resource. We have lots of volunteers at our church and in our ministry, and we couldn’t really accomplish a lot of things that we accomplished without volunteers. And so, he learned the value of management. And it’s so, so important, you know, and we have people in our church that have good management skills. Not only, you know, I’m overseeing certain people, but I don’t actually oversee it. That’s not my main gifting, right? But I have you overseeing the pastors. I have Damon Peterson overseeing the office and the finances, and I have Nate Carter overseeing all the tech and TV, and you’re all gifted in different areas, but we are learning how to manage better and become more productive as a whole, become more productive with what we do. So I believe that Joseph really learned the value of management. But then, when his boss was on a trip, Joseph’s wife began to, or Potiphar’s wife, excuse me, began to lust after Joseph and say, “Lie with me.” You know, lust turns the hatred when it doesn’t get its own way. And Joseph, this really shows the heart. If somebody sins, there’s a breakdown. But ultimately, the breakdown is in the relationship with God. And Joseph makes a statement in verse nine and said, “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God? I don’t want to sin against God.” And if you get involved in certain sins, I’m telling you, there’s a breakdown in your relationship with God, because there’s certain places that if you’re in a close personal relationship with Jesus, there’s certain places you’re not gonna go and certain things you’re not gonna do. That’s just not, it’s not there. I mean, the devil will temp you, but you don’t have to go there. And Joseph didn’t go there. But anyway, when she didn’t get her way, one day he was in the house and there’s nobody else in there, and she grabs his coat. And again, his father gave him a coat and his brothers took it away. His boss gave him a coat and his boss’s wife took it away. And so, he’s out working. When the boss comes home, she says, “Listen, that Hebrew servant you got,” there’s a little, you know, what do you call it?

 

  Racism.

 

  Racism in there, you know, going on. And she said, “This is what he tried to do.” And the boss more than likely knows that his wife’s a little, you know, crazy. But to save face, he has Joseph thrown into prison. And Joseph is thrown into prison where the, you know, king’s prisoners, where the Pharaoh’s prisoners are. But when he’s in the prison, it says this, read this Aaron, in the end of it, in Genesis 39:20-23.

 

  “Then Joseph’s master took him and put him into the prison, a place where the king’s prisoners were confined, and he was there in the prison. But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy. And he gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison. And the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph’s hand all the prisoners who were in the prison, whatever they did there, it was in his doing. The keeper of the prison did not look into anything that was under Joseph’s authority, because the Lord was with him. And whatever he did, the Lord made it prosper.”

 

  Again, you know, God was with him in his father’s house. God was with him in Potiphar’s house. And now, God, wherever you’re at, that doesn’t mean God’s not with you. God was with him in the prison. But you know, most of the teaching that we teach in the Spirit filled church on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, came from a man by the name of Howard Carter. And Howard Carter received that by revelation when he was thrown in, when he was put in prison as a conscientious objector during World War I in England. And so, you know, Joseph learns to work in his father’s house. He learns to manage resources and people in Potiphar’s house. But I believe, look at, if you look in in verse 21 here in the King James, it says, “Whatever they did there in he was the doer.” But Joseph learned the ability to administrate. And I believe that his ability to work, his ability to manage and his ability to administrate really led him into ultimately God’s plan and purpose. And God prospered him. You may be think you’re in a bad place, but God can prosper you wherever you’re at. You just need to keep believing Him, and realize He hasn’t, you know, forsaken you. Now, while he’s in the prison working, he’s taking care of a couple of the king’s prisoners, the butler and the baker, and they have a dream and they’re, he goes in one day and they’re sad. It was an odd thing for people to be sad in Joseph’s prison. He said, “Why aren’t you so sad today?” Now, that’s odd, because in most prisons you’d think most people are sad on most days, but Joseph brought joy wherever he was. And so, the butler told him his dream. Joseph said, “Listen, in three days they’re gonna find out where the conspiracy lies and you’re gonna be restored.” The baker said, “Hey, that’s a good interpretation. What’s mine?” He said, “Three days they’re gonna find out you’re the problem. They’re gonna hang you from the highest tree and the birds are gonna eat your flesh off your body.” And it happened just like Joseph said. Now, Joseph told the butler, when he gave him the interpretation, he said, “Now you remember me, when you come into Pharaoh’s house,” but he forgot Joseph. But a couple of years later, you know, Pharaoh had two dreams and one was of seven fat cows coming out of the Nile River, and then seven skinny cows. And the skinny cows ate the fat cows. And then seven fat stalks of corn, and then seven skinny stalks of corn. And the skinny stalks ate the fats stalks. And Pharaoh was troubled. And then the butler said, “What you troubled about?” He said, “I had a dream.” He said, “Oh, I remember my evil. There’s a Hebrew boy down in the prison. He interprets dreams, he knows God. And whatever he says, boy, they come to pass.” So they went and got Joseph. And you know what, this is something that’s really unique in chapter 40, Joseph changed his clothes in verse 14, shaved himself. So he got ready, man looks on the outward appearance. He didn’t go in there looking like he had been in prison for a long time. He got ready to go in the presence of Pharaoh and Joseph tells Pharaoh, “God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace.” Joseph didn’t have a chip on his shoulder. He wasn’t some victim saying, “Pharaoh, your prison system is broken and I shouldn’t have been there.” Well, you know what? He goes in there and says, “God’s gonna give you an answer, a peace.” You know, if you wanna get where God wants you to go and do what God wants you to do, you gotta get over your bad attitude. You gotta get over the chip on your shoulder. You gotta get over that victim mentality, and you gotta start looking at God and what God wants to do. and looking at people like God sees ’em. And he says, “Listen, Pharaoh, God is going to give you an answer of peace. God is the answer.” And Joseph interprets the dream, said, “Listen, we’re gonna have seven years of great plenty, then we’re gonna have seven years of great famine. Find a man and take up 20% of the land.” I love to teach this in finances. You take the first 20%, you give the first 10%, you save the next 10% and you learn how to live on 80%. And if you’ll do that, you’ll prosper. You’ll prosper. And Joseph made Pharaoh the richest man on the planet. He got all, first of all, he got all the, you know, grain after he’d stored up that grain. Then he got all the people’s money. Then he got all the people’s livestock. Then he bought all the land and then he bought them. And then he was very generous and he actually became a landlord. And all these nations around there, Pharaoh now owned all the land. So Pharaoh was a landlord and he gave the people 80%, which is very generous from a landlord standpoint and just kept 20% for Pharaoh. But Pharaoh became the wealthiest man in the world, because he had a man who was directed. He said, “Can we find anybody such a man like this, in whom the Spirit of God lives?” And you know what? It is the Spirit of God that gives dreams. It is the Spirit of God that gives vision. Now, not all dreams and visions come from the Spirit of God. I know I’ve had some that came straight out of the pit of hell, and I know what to do with them, praise God. I don’t believe them. I’ll stand. And sometimes it could be God warning you about something, but you know what, if it didn’t come from God, I don’t receive it. Praise God. And so I just don’t receive those things. I believe the Word of God. I believe what God says. And you know what? Praise God. We are blessed and we are walking in the vision, the dream, the purpose, and the plan that God has for us. Praise the Lord. If you need prayer today, I want you to call our prayer ministers. If you wanna become a partner. This ministry has a great anointing, I believe for financial increase. I believe if you sow into this ministry, God will prosper you. And if you wanna know more about our product, you can get on our website. You can get it absolutely free of charge. And I just wanna say thank you. Tell your friends about the broadcast and invite them to tune in the same time tomorrow. Thank you and blessings.

 

  Faith isn’t just a momentary thought or burst of emotion, it is a lifelong commitment to trusting in God and His unfailing Word. Now is the time to take a step of faith and trust in God’s plan for your life. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of the teaching, “Living the Dream,” a $15 value free of charge. Download it today at CharisChristianCenter.com.

 

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