Four Keys To Faith Part 2 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

Four Keys to Faith Part 2

Four Keys to Faith part 2 with Pastors Lawson and Aaron Perdue. On this episode of Grace For Today, learn from the example of Joshua as you meditate on the victory!

Four Keys to Faith Part 2 Transcript

Hi, everyone. Welcome to “Grace for Today.” I’m Pastor Aaron Perdue here at Charis Christian Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I’m here with my dad, Pastor Lawson Perdue. We’re sharing on the four keys to faith. Today we’re actually talking about meditating the victory. You guys need to meditate God’s Word and meditate his victory. I love that we’re specifically gonna talk about when Joshua had to fight against the Amalekites and God revealed his name as Jehovah-Nissi, the Lord our victory. Be blessed and enjoy the show.

Friends, it’s so good to have you with us today for the teaching we’re sharing on Four Keys to Faith. Yesterday in our broadcast, we talked about the power of making a decision. My good friend Jesse Duplanis made a statement one time and it just stuck in my mind. He said most of the time in the realm of faith, I made a decision, and God honored it. And there’s a lot in the Scripture about making a decision. So you need to make a decision that Jesus is your Lord. You need to make a decision to follow him and to surrender to his plan. Make a decision to walk in the blessing, walk in the promises of God, walk in what God says, to believe the Scripture. Now, today we’re gonna talk about meditating the Word of God and how that changes your life. You know, in Numbers 13, there’s a story of Moses, and God told him to choose out 12 men, each a leader, from their tribes in Israel. And then Moses told him very specifically, they were to go spy out the promised land. He told them very specifically what they were to look for and what they were to do. And then they went, and when they came back, 10 of them said, hey, the land is good, it’s beautiful, but there are giants in the land and we can’t take it. But Joshua and Caleb said the land is good, God is good, let’s go get it. You know, the people that thought they couldn’t do it were right, they didn’t. They died off in the wilderness. And Joshua and Caleb who thought they could were right. They took the children of Israel into the promised land. But you know what, they got what they meditated on, what they thought about, and their thoughts determined their words and their actions. And so before you take action, your thinking directs your words and directs your actions. So we’re gonna talk about the power of meditation, meditating, the Word of God. Now, in Psalm chapter 1, verse 1 through 3, the Scripture talks about this. And Aaron, why don’t you go ahead and read that?

Yes, if you have your Bible, go ahead and turn it to Psalm 1. We’re gonna read the first three verses from Psalm 1. It says, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in his law, he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither, in whatever he does shall prosper.”

Praise God. So do you want what you do to prosper? Do you want your leaf not to wither? God says you can be like that. You can prosper 100% of the time. You can live healthY and strong and blessed 100% of the time. How do you do it? He says his delight is in the Word of God, and in it does he meditate day and night. Now, the Hebrew word for the word meditate here is the word hagah, and it means to study, to think on, to meditate, to imagine, to utter, to mutter, to speak, to dream, to ponder, to consider. And so when we think about this, there’s some things that we need to consider. We need to consider what God says. We need to dream about what God says coming to pass in our life. We need to imagine not in a negative way. Most of the time the word imagination is used in the Scripture, it’s a negative thing. But you can have a positive imagination when you begin to imagine and dream about what God said about you in the Word coming to pass, the promises coming to pass in your life. So we’re gonna be talking about that. So when we talk about meditating, we’re talking about really considering our path. You know, the Bible says in Proverb chapter 4 that the path of the justice is a shining light that shines more and more into the coming of the perfect day. He said the way of the wicked is as the darkness. They do not know at what they stumble. And so we need to consider the Word of God. And Proverbs 4 talks a lot about that.

Mm-hmm, I like what you’re saying about just how meditating, it means to think over and over again. A couple years ago I came across a study that was done, a medical study at the Cleveland Clinic on people’s thinking. And I guess the average person thinks 60,000 thoughts a day. And of those 60,000 thoughts that people think, 90% of those thoughts are habitual thoughts. So they’re thoughts that people think over and over. They’re the same thought you have every single day, but of those, 90% of people’s thoughts are recurring thoughts, but of those recurring thoughts, 80% of people’s habitual thoughts are negative.

So we gotta break out of negative thinking.

So a lot of people are just meditating on negative things, thinking about negativity, and just really stuck there. And I kinda like what the Bible says in Psalm 1, where we started that, “Blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful.” There’s a lot of negative words there about being around sinners, about being around scorners. There are a lot of scorners in the world today.

Oh my goodness. There are.

And if you’re really following God boldly, if you’re a person of faith, you’re gonna come across some scorners. The world is gonna scorn you for being a person of faith. But you can’t just sit there with the scorners. You have to keep going back to the house of the Lord, where there’s people of faith, where there’s people who aren’t just stuck in constant scorning, stuck in constant, you know, negativity. You need to be around some positive, faith-filled, laughing, you know, people of God.

Praise God.

Yeah.

You know, I wanna hang around people that are believing big, that are thinking big, that are going places and doing things. And you know what, you can’t just hang around the average person, you know? And that’s really, when you look at Psalm 1, that’s talking about a ungodly progression. If you start standing in the way of sinners, you’ll start sitting in the seat of the scornful and listening to the council of the ungodly. And I don’t wanna listen to, you know, we recently had a very conservative person, Lauren Boebert, come and speak, and she is full of God, full of faith, full of the Holy Spirit. And she made a joke, and these liberal-

Scorners.

Nuts, scorners, and religious people came out of the woodwork to say what they think about it. And I mean, so much that they gave us death threats, so on and so forth, to a number of our staff members because she made a joke, and people laughed about it. And it’s just crazy how the world is. But I’m telling you, that girl is full of God, she is full of the Holy Ghost, she loves Jesus, amen. She’s pro-God, pro-Christ, pro-life, and pro-freedom, and we need more people like her in this United States of America.

It’s interesting, before she actually spoke at our church, I looked at her Instagram account, and I was just looking at the comments on posts she’s made. And I showed my wife Heather this. My wife is very much into social media and understanding trends on social media. But I just noticed, like she just has thousands and thousands, like 90% of people who leave comments just hate her. Like you said, she really just stirs up every devil in hell. And it’s kind of funny, when she spoke here, you know, just the power of God was here at our camp meeting. We do it every summer here in June. And she was just like running around, and the Holy Ghost, just falling down, worshiping God, praying in tongues. But man, the devil does not like that. The devil does not like positive, faith-filled people. And there’s a person who has a large following on Twitter who’s actually an Antifa person who has a large following on Twitter who pulled this joke of hers out of context and just blew it up, and the mainstream liberal news accounts took this Antifa person’s video and just blew it up all around. So a lot of Antifa, just anti-Christ type people were attacking the church. But it’s interesting, these people were scorning the church, but also religious type people were scorning the church. And you need to be careful who you’re in alliance with. If you’re in alliance with anti-Christ, anti-God, anti-Jesus type people, you’re probably in the wrong camp. You better check yourself and get in the right camp. Don’t be scorning people of God.

You know, there’s this thing, and it’s kind of part of the secret sensitive crowd. An idea about how we oughta run churches, that you oughta just get along with everybody, not be too bold about anything, don’t say anything too strong about faith or healing or prosperity or government, so on and so forth. And you know, let’s not cause any division. And I was preaching last Sunday from John chapter 10, verse 19, and it says, “There was division therefore among the Jews for these things because of what Jesus said.” And if you read John, the gospel of John, in John chapter 7, there was a division because of who Jesus said he was. In John chapter 8, there was a division because Jesus forgave a woman caught in adultery, between the religious crowd and Jesus. And there was a division in John chapter 9 because Jesus healed a man who was born blind. And this man boldly confessed Jesus. His parents did not confess Jesus because they didn’t wanna be put out of the synagogue. And then we see a division in John chapter 10 because of who Jesus said that he was. And so if you’re gonna follow Jesus, there’s gonna be a little division once in a while.

Yeah, and you need to decide to just stay away from scorners. You know, scorners are just gonna be those types that are constantly pessimistic, constantly negative, not really faith-filled, Bible-believing people. You need to have your delight in the law of the Lord. Go to the house of Lord where there are people of faith, people who are optimistic, people who are full of joy. And just make that your delight. Get away from the scorners and make your delight the law of the Lord, the Word of God. I know you’re watching this show because that’s what you delight in. You could change the channel and be watching some scorner, speaking to you right now, but you you’ve chosen, I wanna be full of the Word of God. And I like that it says in his law, in the Word of God, he meditates day and night, he meditates.

We need to meditate.

He ponders, he considers it day and night.

You know, I quoted Proverbs chapter 4, verse 18 that says, “The path of the just is the shining light that shines more and more until the dawning of the day. But the way of the wicked is darkness,” in verse 19. They don’t know what they stumble. Then it says, “My son,” Proverbs 4, verse 20, “attend to my words, incline your ears to my sayings. Let them not depart from your eyes. Keep them in the midst of your heart.” You know what, if you’re gonna keep the Word in the midst of your heart, you’re gonna have to give attention to it. You’re gonna have to keep it before your eyes, keep it in your ears. He says, “For they are life,” in verse 22, “to those who find them, and health to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. Put away from you a forward mouth, one that’s speaking good and evil. Perverse lips put far from you. Let your eyelids look right on and your eyelids straight before you, ponder the path of your feet. Think about it, consider it, and let all your ways be established. Do not turn to the right hand or the left. Remove your foot from evil.”

I like that.

You know, we’ve gotta consider the Word of God. We gotta consider the promises of God. We need to consider, you know, really, where our thinking is taking us. And if you think the wrong thought, you’re gonna say the wrong things, do the wrong things, go the wrong places, and have the wrong results. And I don’t wanna end up in hell. And I’m telling you, some of these people, you were talking about these people that attacked us. And I got a letter yesterday, and one of them said, “There is no blankety-blank God, there is no,” and just went on, and then tore into Lauren Boebert. And then at the bottom, it said God. This didn’t come from God. It came from some wicked heathen that doesn’t know God, said there is no God. And then the next letter I got, the next one I opened, it was from somebody else and said, “It is unchristian, you people.” Because we believe in freedom, and because we stand boldly for pro-life, so on and so forth. We need believers to stand up and be counted, stand up for what, I’m telling you, God is pro-life. Hallelujah, glad he’s pro-life or you wouldn’t be here today, amen? Neither would I or you. We’d all be wiped out.

That’s true.

God is a merciful God. And so, you know, we don’t wanna condemn anyone that’s had abortions, so on and so forth, but at the same time, we need to stand up for what the Bible says to stand for. And so we need to consider our path. And he says consider the Word of God. He says it’s a light to all those who find it and health to all their flesh. The Word of God is health to your flesh. And the word for health here is the word marpai, the Hebrew word marpai, and it means healing, a cure, health, a remedy, praise God. I know for a period of time, Aaron, you had Scriptures on a little binder, healing Scriptures, and you’d go over the-

Yeah, one way to meditate, and this is just a practical way to meditate on the Word of God, is to just write down Scriptures that really speak to you, that God has spoken to you, write them down on little postcards, and you can just keep a few in your pocket. But what I did, I actually had, you can buy, you know, they’re kind of study tools, but you can buy a pack of like 50 on a little ring, and just read through those, keep them in your pocket. And that’s one way you can just keep the Word of God close to you. I remember one time I was counseling a young woman who was just dealing with a lot of fear, a lot of anxiety. And I told her, you know, you take that Scripture that says God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power and of love and a sound mind. I said whenever you feel anxious, whenever you feel afraid, just pull that Scripture out of your pocket. I think she ended up putting it in the back of her phone so she could see it on her phone. A lot of people are looking at their phone all the time. Maybe just put a scripture right on your phone so you’re saying that every time you pull for your phone. And I told her, you don’t just read it, but say it out loud. And one aspect of meditation is to actually mumble, to say over and over again. So when God speaks a word to you, say it over and over and over again.

And if you get it in your spirit, this word mutter, or meditate, in the Hebrew, hagah, meditate, utter, mutter. It’s like you get something on the inside of you. It’s in your craw. You can’t help but say something about it sometimes. And once in a while people are like, don’t say anything, be nice. But something just on the inside of you comes out. And when you meditate the Word of God, the Word of God’s gonna come out of you, and it’ll produce very positive truth. We’re gonna be back right after this break. Friends, this week we’ve been sharing on faith in God will change your world. And I am so happy to be sharing with you this faith package. I have this book from my good friends Mark Hankins, Mark and Trina Hankins, on “The Spirit of Faith.” We have “World Changing Faith,” one of my best series. We have “Four Keys to Faith.” And then finally we have, “Have Faith and Doubt Not.” These are some of my very, very best teachings on the realm of faith. And if you begin to understand faith, I believe it will literally change your life. It’s changed mine. Praise God. It’s changed my financial position. It’s changed my spiritual condition. It’s changed my physical condition, and it’s all good. God wants to do good things in your life. And he does it through grace and faith. So if you wanna get this teaching, just give us a call today or check us out online. Thanks so much, and blessings. Praise the Lord, friends. I’m glad that you stayed connected with us. We are talking about meditating the Word of God. Now, as we talked about Psalm chapter 1, it says, “Blessed is the man who doesn’t walk in the council of ungodly, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful. But in the Word of God, does he meditate day and night. And he will be like a tree planted by the rivers of living water that brings forth his fruit in his season. His leaves shall not wither. And whatever he does shall prosper.” Do you wanna live in life and prosperity, health and blessing? Meditate the Word of God. Now, we’re gonna talk a little bit about rehearsing the victory. And you kinda got into that. As we meditate the Word of God, you get to a place where you begin to speak that. In our next lesson tomorrow, actually in the Four Keys of Faith, number one, make a decision; number two, meditate the Word of God; number three, speak the Word of God. But we need to rehearse the victory. And we can do that in our mind. In Joshua chapter 17, there is an instance where Moses sent Joshua out to battle, to fight with the Amalekites. And Aaron and Hur went with Moses and held his hands up as he held the rod of God on the mountain of God, on the hill of God. And when Moses held his hands up, Israel prevailed. When his hands came down, their enemies prevailed. But Joshua went out there and won that victory, praise God. And they called the name of the place Jehovah-Nissi, the Lord is my banner, the Lord is my defender. And when we think about this Scripture, but God told Moses, “Take these words and write them in a book. This victory, and write it in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua.” And you know what, I believe that’s in-

Exodus 17.

Exodus, excuse me. Exodus 17, verse 14, “The Lord spoke to Moses, ‘Write this for a memorial in a book and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua, for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.'” I believe that God wanted to write this victory. He wanted Joshua to get a picture of victory on the inside of him that was so big that he just didn’t think about losing. And you know, Joshua took the children of Israel later into the promised land, and he went from victory, to victory, to victory, to victory, to victory. And I believe it’s because Moses took this, they wrote it in a book, and they rehearsed it in the ears of Joshua. And so he had a big picture of victory on the inside of him.

That’s awesome, yeah, and Exodus 17 is actually the first time that Joshua is mentioned in Scripture. So this is kind of the first battle that the Israelites had, a fight after they crossed the Red Sea on their way to their promised land. You know, God wiped out the Egyptians at the Red Sea, but here they had to actively fight. And Joshua had to step up. He commanded the armies. Moses was on top of the hill raising up the rod of God. When he had it up in the air, they would prevail. If he lowered it down, they would be defeated. So Aaron and Hur of course helped him. But this is the first time Joshua is mentioned. And I love that, yeah, God told Moses you need to write this down for a memorial in the book and recount it in the hearing of Joshua. You need to imagine victory. Remember, remember the victories that God has brought in your life. I think the devil tries to remind you of moments of defeat, moments of failure. The devil is the accuser of the brethren. But remember what God has done for you, what God has done through you. Remember the victories he’s brought to you in your life, and rehearse those victories.

Amen. Now, in verse 15, Moses built an altar, and they called the name of the place, this is Exodus 17:15, Jehovah-Nissi, the Lord is my banner. Aaron, you have a phenomenal teaching on the names of God. And you have a great teaching about this Jehovah-Nissi. So just share a couple things about that real quick.

So the word nissi, it means my victory or my banner. It’s from the Hebrew word nes, nas, which means a flag. So in battle, you know, back then they didn’t have walkie-talkies, they didn’t have ways to communicate. So if you wanted to communicate with your army, you would raise a flag. So if you needed to rally together at a rallying point, you would raise a certain flag, and people would come together and fight from that position. So when Moses gets that revelation that Jehovah, that Yahweh, that the Lord God Almighty is our flag, he’s saying we need to rally around the name of the Lord. The name of the Lord brings us victory.

Hallelujah. Now, we fight from a position of victory. We begin from a position of victory. Jesus won the victory in his death and resurrection. And he is Jehovah-Nissi, he is the Lord, our banner. Praise God, and I have a good friend that wrote a song years ago. You probably remember him, David, that used to come to church and sing and play the guitar from Nashville, Tennessee. But he wrote this song, “I’m not fighting to gain a place of victory, but I am fighting my victory to defend.” And thank God we have victory in the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, the Bible says in 2 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 14, “Thanks be to God who always causes us to triumph and gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” We are triumphant through Jesus. Now, you wanna share.

Yeah, I wanna share one other word. Just going back to that name, Jehovah-Nissi, the Lord our victory, that word that comes from nissi, nes, to be raised up like a flag, it’s also found in Zechariah. This is Zechariah chapter 9, verse 16. I love the book of Zechariah. There’s actually more messianic prophecies in Zechariah than any other book of the Bible. So this is a messianic prophecy, a word speaking about Jesus in Zechariah 9:16. And this is the only other time where we find the root of the word nissi, which is nas, like to be a flag. This is Zechariah 9:16, it says, “The Lord their God will save them in that day as the flock of his people, for they shall be like jewels of a crown, lifted like a banner.” That word banner is that flag, that word nas. “Lifted like a banner over his head.” So this is saying the Lord God is gonna save you. If you have Jesus in your heart, you are saved. And it says that God wants to lift you up like jewels in his crown. That’s the victory crown that Jesus wears. We are part of his victory. We are jewels in the victory crown that Jesus wears. When he conquered the grave, when he got up out of that grave, and he is seated, we’re seated in heavenly places with him. We are part of that victory crown that he wears. We’re like jewels in his crown.

Praise God, you know, I’ve got written in my notes, practice, plan, and picture the victory. And what you’ve just given us is a picture of victory. You see, the fact is, the battle is already won before we get there, and God wanted Joshua to know that. Listen, this battle is won. I’ve given you this land. By the way, there’s gonna be a few devils in it. But he overcame again over and over and over. He got a picture of victory. And when you see that you are a jewel in the victory crown of Jesus, praise God, hallelujah. Jesus has already won the battle for us. He spoiled principalities and powers, made a show of them, openly triumphing over them in it. When you get that revelation, it changes the way that you live your life.

And you need to meditate on that thing, too. You know, there’s practical things you can do to imagine victory. I remember when I was a kid, I loved music. I played the flute. My dad would actually drive me three hours one way to have a two-hour lesson with a great teacher at the University of Northern Colorado. I would have a two-hour lesson. But one thing she taught me when I was a kid, you know, I grew up in Kit Carson, a town of 300, not a lot of great musical things happening in such a small rural area. But she said, “Hey, when you practice this month, I want you to pretend that you are the best flutist in the world.” So I would go with my dad to church and practice in the sanctuary there at Church of the Redeemed in Kit Carson, Colorado. I would practice, but I remember for a month, I would imagine that I was James Galway. At the time, he was the most famous flutist in the world. So even though I was in a small town out in the sticks, out in the middle of nowhere, I pretended that I was the greatest musician in the world. And when I came back, my playing had just increased tremendously. So you need to imagine the victory. You need to maybe imagine, what would Jesus be like in this situation? Jesus is super victorious, he was victorious over every sin, over every temptation, over sickness, over poverty, over death. Jesus is victorious. Imagine Jesus in that situation that you’re struggling with and imagine him being super victorious, and realize that you are in him and he is in you. We are more than conquerors through him who loves us. You are more than a conqueror through Jesus. So just imagine Jesus in that situation. He would not be defeated by that situation. So stop imagining defeat, stop imagining victory. Start imagining Jesus in that situation.

Start imagining victory. Didn’t you go to a masterclass with James Galway?

I did. Yeah, I did.

Yeah, and that was up at CU, and the teacher there was from Australia. And she told us to buy you a good flute. And one day you were playing at the church, and these people drive from Colorado Springs, stop by the church to use the restroom. We were parked on the south side, away from, and they just stopped by, and they ended up giving you a thousand dollars to help you buy that new flute. That’s a miracle.

God provides for us. He provides for us when we need help, and he’s gonna help you be victorious.

Bless you.

[Announcer] What is faith? Do I need more of it? And how do I exercise what I have? In this package containing Mark Hankins’ book, “The Spirit of Faith,” and CD series, “World Changing Faith,” “Four Keys to Faith,” and “Have Faith, Doubt Not,” you’ll learn the answer to these questions and more. You can get this special package for $59 when you call 719-418-4000, or visit CharisChristianCenter.com.

Praise the Lord, friends. I wanna invite you to church this coming Sunday morning, whether you’re in Colorado Springs or whether you’re wherever you are at. If you’re in Colorado Springs, you can see us Sunday morning at 8:30 or 10:30 a.m. live, but you can also watch us with our livestream congregation at 8:30 or 10:30 a.m., or you can go to our website and get it anytime at CharisChristianCenter.com.

[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 can write us at P.O. Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80962. See you next time on “Grace for Today.”