Destined To Win Part 9 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

Destined to Win Part 9

Destined to Win part 9 with Pastors Lawson and Aaron Perdue. In this episode of Grace for Today, discover how you can fulfill your God-given calling! The Word of God is the truth that makes us free!

Destined to Win Part 9 Transcript

Praise the Lord, friends. I am so glad that you are connected with us today. I have my son, Aaron, on the show. We’re gonna be teaching about how you can fulfill your God-given calling. So you don’t wanna miss this broadcast. Tell your friends to tune in. Tell your friends that they can get it online. We’d love to see them and connect with them, praise God, because we know the word of God is the truth that makes us free. Blessings. Today we are in Ephesians chapter four, and we’re gonna be teaching about how we can walk out our God-given destiny. Before we do that, I wanna lay a little bit of foundation about where we’ve been. The first three chapters of Ephesians talk about the fact that God raised us up and seated us together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. That’s in Ephesians chapter two, verse six. That’s the central verse to those first three chapters. So we begin from a position of victory in Christ. We’re brand new in Christ. We’re blessed. We’re predestined to succeed. We’re accepted in the beloved. We’re redeemed from every curse. We’re forgiven for every sin. We found all those things out in Ephesians chapter one, and then we begin to understand, as we’re seated from this position of victory, then we begin to walk that out through our relationship with God in Christ. And in Ephesians chapter four, Paul says this in verse one, he says, “I, therefore, prisoner of the Lord beseech you that you walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.” So we’re called to do a job in the body of Christ.

That’s awesome.

And we have a calling. That word “vocation” actually comes from the Greek word klesis and it means a invitation or a calling to the feast. So there is a high calling of God in our life and we’re to walk worthy. And he tells us the way that we do this, and we went through these first few verses last week briefly, but he says we do this through humility and through unity and then through our God-given gifts. He says in verse seven, “Unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.” And he talks about how when Jesus ascended that he led captivity captive. So he conquered the enemy. He spoiled principalities and powers. It says in Colossians two, verse 15, “And then he gave gifts to men.”

I love what you’re saying about walking with humility. You know, when you realize that you’re seated with Christ in heavenly places, you won’t be so concerned about how other people treat you here on earth or how people look at you or what, you know, if you feel like you’re important or not. You know, when you realize that you’re seated with Christ in heavenly places, that is huge. You know, I was thinking about that mother, that kind of helicopter mom of the two disciples, the two brothers. And she wanted to know, you know, “Can one of them sit at your right hand, Jesus?” And she was very concerned about their position but, you know, Paul answers this question. He says we’re all seated with Jesus Christ in heavenly places. So when you realize that you’re seated with Christ, that is so extraordinary. You know, when Jesus sent out the 70, you know, to go minister, to go heal the sick, cast out demons, they came back and they were, like, surprised. They said, “Jesus,” you know, “we cast out demons in your name and heal people.” And he just responded kind of abruptly. He said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning.”

Amen And he said, “Don’t rejoice in” you know, “that you can cast out demons. Rejoice in this that your names are written in heaven.” He says, “The true joy comes from your spiritual place of authority.”

Right. From our relationship with God and what he said, that’s in Luke chapter 10, about verse 19, where you’re talking about. And so all of this power and authority operates from our relationship with God. So he says, “Rejoice in your relationship with God.” And all these other things come from that. And I like what you’re saying. I love something Dr. Lester Sumrall said. I probably said it before but he said, “Another person’s head is the wrong place to have your happiness.” And so many people are so insecure, they’re so worried so much about what everybody thinks instead of just really understanding what God thinks of them. And then when you know what God thinks of you, you can move forward in strength to minister to other people.

Amen.

So he goes on down here and he begins to talk about how he gave these gifts to men, and then it says in verse 10, not only did he ascend up into heaven and give gifts to men, but he descended first into the, you know, lower parts of the earth. Then it goes on and says this, “That he gave some apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers.” So Jesus gave the five-fold ministry gifts or the public preaching and teaching offices to the church. And an apostle is like a sent one. An apostle works very closely with all the other ministry gifts. If you look at the fingers on your hand as the gift, a prophet is like a pointing finger. He’s revealing things and a prophet, in the Old Testament, was also called a seer and they would operate in at least two of the three gifts of revelation, the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, the discerning of spirits. Then an evangelist is like the middle finger. He goes out farther than all the others. Now Jesus represented all of these five-fold ministry gifts when he was here on the earth. He was the chief apostle. He was a prophet like unto Moses, the Lord raised up. He was the greatest evangelist. An evangelist preaches the good news and heals the sick. He was the chief shepherd. Now the pastor, another the Greek word for is poimen or shepherd, and when we think about the shepherd, it’s like my ring finger. The pastor is married to the church. And then he gave some pastors and teachers. Notice, he says “some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists and some pastors and teachers.” So you can be a teacher without being a pastor but if you’re a pastor, if you’re gonna cause the sheep to grow, you’ve gotta teach them the word of God. So a pastor is married to the church. He’s in love with the flock and then a teacher’s like the little finger. He takes hard things and makes them simple. It like goes into your ear, breaks down the truth. A teacher doesn’t make it more complicated. A true Bible teacher takes the things of the word and the scripture and makes them simple and easy to understand. And so he says he gave these five-fold ministry gifts, or these teaching offices, for the perfecting or maturing of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ, for the edifying. So we’re here to edify the body. And that’s what we’re to do, he says, “’till we all come into the unity of faith.” So we’re not there yet. So these five-fold ministry gifts are still working in the body of Christ today. He says, “the knowledge of the son of God.” You say, “Well, I’m not an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher, but yes, you do have a God-given gift because there are not only these five-fold ministry gifts that Jesus gave some to the church, not everyone operates in these gifts, but there also are seven motivational gifts listed in Romans chapter seven. They are prophecy and serving and giving and exhortation and mercy. All these different, you know, gifts that God’s given. Administration. I think I got six of them but they’re in Romans chapter 12 on about verse six through verse eight. But then there’s the manifestations of the Holy Spirit and there’s nine of them. The word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, the discerning of spirits, the gift of faith, the working of miracles, the gifts of healings, the gift of prophecy, the gift of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues. So Jesus gave gifts. The Holy Spirit gave gifts. The Father God gave gifts. “’till we all come in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God.” So, you know, I believe all five of these ministry gifts are still working because we haven’t all come into the unity of the faith.

I like to think that these ministry gifts, they’re supposed to equip the saints for the working of the ministry,

Right?

so, you know, it’s not just up to pastors and to prophets and teachers, evangelists to do the ministry. It’s up to the saints to do the work of the ministry. And Paul actually really explains what this ministry is that we are all called to. Every saint is called to this ministry to the world, which is this ministry of reconciliation.

He talks about that in Second Corinthians, five.

Yeah, we’re all ambassadors of this ministry of reconciliation. And that word for reconciliation, it’s a very powerful word. It’s actually a money term that was used during Paul’s time. It’s katallage which means to exchange money.

Right.

So, you know, probably during Paul’s time in Israel, you know, if you were to pay Roman taxes, you’d have to exchange your Israeli currency for Roman currency, you know. So you would take your Shekels and exchange them for Denarii and you would go to a money exchanger and you, hopefully, get a good exchange rate. You know, sometimes here on this earth, money exchangers rip you off. You know, one time I got ripped off. I didn’t realize it. I was on my honeymoon with my wife. We went to Rome, Italy, and when we landed there in the airport, I thought, well, I just had a thousand dollars, you know, cash that had been given to me for our honeymoon and I exchanged all that money right at the airport and I didn’t check the exchange rate. But the next day I did and I realized I got ripped off like 200 US dollars.

Yeah.

I didn’t get as many euros as I was supposed to but this exchange that God gives to us, you know, Paul writes about it, you know, like it’s that Jesus, the perfect one who knew no sin, became sin for us, that we might be the righteousness of God in Jesus Christ. Well, you know, when you go to God for an exchange, it’s always…

You come out on the winning end.

You are destined to win.

You know, the Bible talks about in the covenant, the weaker always seeks to make a covenant with the stronger but in God’s covenant, the stronger made covenant with the weaker. And that’s really what you’re sharing. We win.

Yeah, weaker countries wanna ally themselves with stronger countries, you know?

Right.

Like even, I mentioned I went to Europe and Italy. You know, Italy isn’t as strong of an economic power as like Germany is. So, you know, oftentimes, you know, all these countries that struggle a little economically or militarily try to ally themselves, you know, but then the stronger country ends up bearing some of the weaknesses of the…

Yeah.

That’s happened to the US a lot of times.

The US has got in with a lot of weak allies. You know, the US dollar, I know there’s a lot of people prophesying everything is gonna crash, everything is gonna go down but the US dollar is actually very strong in a world position.

It is.

And so we just thank God, you know, for that. Thank God for the goodness of God to this nation, allowing us to preach the gospel around the world. And so I like what you’re saying, Aaron, in that we’ve received this from God and we’re to build up the body and we’ve received this ministry from God, the ministry of reconciliation. It talks about that, Second Corinthians five, verse 18 and 19, were the verses- in verse 21.

This is something else I’ve kind of realized too about those five-fold gifts. You know, my dad’s a great pastor, but I think, really, people who are full-time ministers, you should be helping people walk worthy of that calling, walk worthy of their vocation. So maybe some people are called to be a stay-at-home mom. Some people might be called to be teachers. Some people might be called to be entrepreneurs but I think getting in, you know, in connection with a really great minister who teaches you who you are in Christ, that’s gonna draw that out of you. You’re gonna be a better entrepreneur, a better mom, just…

We all need to be connected in the body where God has us. You know, there’s a scripture in First Corinthians 12, verse 18, I think it is. It says, “God has set the members in the body, everyone as it pleased him.” And really, if we’re gonna operate in our God-given gifts, we need to find our set place in the body. I believe it’d be wrong for me to pastor a church that God didn’t call me to pastor or pastor in a city that God didn’t call me to pastor in but at the same point in time, you know, a lot of people are just running around. They’re really not connected with the body. They’re not connected with the five-fold ministry and we need to be connected with the body of Christ. And, you know, I’ve been fortunate since I’ve been a young man, I’ve had people in my life who were apostles, you know. Dr. Lester Sumrall was an apostle, you know, really, and a great evangelist, you know, sharing really, you know, the love of Jesus Christ and then, you know, Andrew Wommack, I believe is an apostle of the message of grace and just teaching the gospel so profoundly and so perfectly. I got, you know, baptized in the Holy Spirit and called to preach in his ministry. And so I’ve had apostles in my life and those who were prophets. I remember when you were young, we had a prophet, Bobbie Jean Merck, or prophetess, you might say. There were women prophets in the Bible so there’s women ministers. It’s one of the highest offices according to First Corinthians chapter 12 verse 28. God said first in the church, prophets… First apostles, secondarily prophets then evangelists. And we’ve always had, you know, people who were evangelists and we still have people who are evangelists, who go share the good news of Jesus, heal the sick. You know, we have Carlie and Ashley Terradez that we’re in relationship with. We have people in our lives and we’ve seen different people who minister in these different gifts, and some pastors and teachers. And so thank God I had a pastor when I was a young man, Pastor Kenny Davis from Lamar, Colorado, that really invested in me and taught me the word of God, taught me good doctrine. So I thank God for all these different things and teachers. Again, Andrew Wommack was teaching me. I believe he’s an apostolic teacher. All these different gifts but they mature us and they develop us and they help us fulfill our place in the body. And he says these are given “’till we come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the son of God to a mature man.” Do you know we’re not gonna mature if we don’t have the gifts of God operating in our life. We need the gifts from God. We need other ministries. You know, no man, Romans 14 says this in verse seven through verse 11, that no man is an island. It says that in one translation. We’re all affecting somebody and somebody’s affecting us.

I was thinking about that same thing actually. Just when we were kind of talking about, you know, the people who have influenced you, like Lester Sumrall and your pastor, Kenny Davis. Just how important the local church is too for believers to be connected to. I was talking to my wife, Heather, about this the other night but when I was going to college, I went to a secular university. So there weren’t a lot of Christians around but every now and then I’d bump into someone who was a Christian or maybe someone would, “Hey, you need to meet this girl. I heard she was a Christian” and I’d be excited because I never really had much of a love life and there weren’t a whole lot of Christians. So if I met a Christian, I got really excited. Maybe I would go, you know, out to lunch or have coffee with someone, with a girl. And one of the first things I would ask her is, you know, I was excited that she was Christian, I go, “Where do you go to church?” And a lot of times they said, “I don’t go to church.” And for me, that was, and I never realized it, but it was a deal breaker. I never… If they said “I don’t go to church”, I knew I didn’t wanna date them ’cause..

You were raised in the church.

I was raised… So I, you know, and I met Heather at the church and she, you know, came to the church, got really connected here and…

You know, she came and like, from the beginning she started, she just jumped right in and she was serving. We knew her mother and her mother was a great woman of faith. Her mother came to our church and, you know, 10 years earlier when her mother came to Bible school and then her mother became a pastor. And Debora, you know, from Shelbyville, Tennessee, has a great, you know, work there. And so, you know, we loved her mother, we loved Heather. But you know, we all need to get involved in the body.

Good things happen. Yeah, good things happen when you-

Yeah, and you know what, I think these things were foundational in the foundation of our nation. The scriptures, you know, people honored the scriptures, people honored the Bible. People read the Bible. You said Abraham Lincoln read the King James Bible every day out loud.

Every morning.

You know, and the founding fathers, there were people that came here and said, “We wanted to see where the great strength of America was.” And they said, “We didn’t see it until we went to the church and saw the pulpits filled with fire.” And I’m telling you we need the power of the Holy Spirit, we need the fire of God in the pulpit, and we need people to get back into fellowship in the body of Christ in the church. The foundations of this nation, in many ways, have been eroded. And we need to realize, what made this nation great will keep this nation great and we need to have our foundation strong. You know, your mother and I, we were raised in a traditional church and you know, we didn’t always know the things that we know today about divine healing and provision, the promises of God but we were saved there. Hallelujah. We’re gonna take a short break and we’ll be back right after this. Thanks so much for staying tuned. We’re gonna talk about how we can continue to walk in the victory that Jesus has already won for us. Friends, I’m Pastor Lawson Perdue and I’ve been teaching “Destined to Win” from the Book of Ephesians. This is one of the greatest teachings that I’ve ever done. I’ve had more requests for this teaching than almost any teaching we’ve done. I’ve got it in eight parts as I taught it in church, in CD form, also in a USB, and then I also have the teaching in 16 parts as we’ve taught it on television with my son, Dr. Aaron Perdue. And in this 16 part teaching, I am just thrilled with all the different things that was brought in. So you can get the eight part CDs or the USB that has all the video and audio or you can get the 16 part as taught on television. Call us and let us know what you’d like to have. We have a special offer today and we’re so blessed to have you. Check out our website, charischristiancenter.com. We have this and many other materials and we have all of these things online for free. Blessings. Friends, we’re back. I’m glad you stayed tuned and you know, Paul was talking about how God gave these five-fold ministry gifts to complete the saints, to do the work of ministry, to build up the body. He says “’till we all come in the unity, the faith, the knowledge of the Son of God, the mature man.” Now you need gifts to mature, the ministry gifts. He says to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that from this point we should be no more children tossed to-and-fro, carried about with every wind of doctrine. You know, some people, they go here, they go there. You never know where they’re at. He says, “by the sleight of men, and their cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But we speak the truth in love.” We need to keep telling the truth. We need to keep speaking the word of God. “May grow up into him”, into Christ, “in all things, who is the head.” He says, “From whom, from Jesus the whole body is fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplies.” You know what, every member has their part, you know, to do to hold the body together, to make the body effective, to make the body increase. And I like to use this example, but I used to say, you know, you could have a quarter million dollar combine and you could break a $5 bolt at the end of the sickle and it’ll make that whole quarter million dollar combine ineffective. You have to have that $5 bolt in its place and every member of the body is important. Paul talks about that in First Corinthians chapter 12 and how God set these members in the body as it pleased him. But now I’d have to say, you know, it might be a $500,000 combine and I grew up in eastern Colorado on the Great Plains and some of these combines will combine a square mile in a day if they have a long day. If it doesn’t… If the dew comes off early or they might get… Sometimes they rolled 24 hours. And so that man, when it’s harvest time, they’re out there getting the harvest and it is harvest time in the spirit. So we need every member doing their job. He says, “every joint supplies according the effective working in the measure of every part” You’ve gotta have every part working effectively.

If you just think about a Sunday morning service at church, you know, I help oversee the worship team. So like, if, you know, for instance, if the drummer didn’t show up, I know that’d be a really big problem ’cause there aren’t a lot of people who can play the drums and there aren’t a lot of people you can call last minute to play the drums, you know? But if Pastor Lawson didn’t show up, I’d probably be less worried than if the drummer didn’t show up because someone can preach. There’s someone out there who has a message that they can preach and it will be a pretty good message. But, you know, if your nursery workers don’t show up and you know, you have to have 20 babies inside the sanctuary or…

We have like a hundred, between 90 and a hundred volunteers just in children’s church and nursing. Children’s ministry.

You know, the nursery workers might not feel all the time that they’re that important, but if they aren’t there, I can tell you that things will start grinding to a halt pretty quickly. Now, if you had 20, 30 screaming babies in the main sanctuary when you’re trying to preach.

It doesn’t… It’s not too edifying.

No, it’s not. It makes things kind of grind to a halt so.

And so when everybody is working in their place, it makes the whole body grow together and mature together in love. Now we go on down. So he’s talking here in the first, you know, 16 verses of Ephesians chapter four, how we walk worthy of the vocation, the calling wherewith we’ve been called. We’ve been called to a great high calling in Christ. But now he begins to turn and he begins to talk about “don’t walk as other Gentiles walk, in the futility, in the vanity, in the emptiness of their mind.” So we’re not to walk like the world. We’re not to walk like unbelievers. He says in verse 18, “they have their understanding darkened, being alienated”. Now, I believe this is a biblical definition for spiritual death. You know, traditionally we have defined spiritual death as separation from God by sin. But what happened after Adam and Eve sinned in the garden?

They received the… Well, God came after them.

God came after him, immediately. He came and he spoke with Adam. So this is a biblical definition of spiritual death. “They have their mind, they’re understanding darkened, they are separated, alienated, from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of the blindness of their heart.” You know, their minds became blind. You know, the Bible says in the book of Second Corinthians that the god of this world has blinded the minds of those that believe not, lest at any time, the light of the glorious gospel of Christ should shine unto them. So, you know, we wanna keep bringing the light, praise God, and getting people in a relationship with God and that light turns on, they come back and walk with God. And that’s what it eternal life really is about.

I heard someone say, you know, one of the greatest problems with the young generation, like young adults right now, is that this generation, they think too highly of their own thoughts. So really, a lot of young people have been taught, “If you think something then, then it’s true.” You know, if you think that you are this gender, then it’s true. Then everyone else has to bow down to what you think.

That’s crazy.

What you feel, which is really crazy. You know, your thoughts, your thinking process has limitations, you know, and it’s actually wise to realize that you’re not always gonna think clearly. You’re not always gonna be able to solve every problem. That’s really a problem with the world today, is that they think that we can solve every problem. If there’s a sickness, if there’s a pandemic, then we can solve it.

Listen, man never solved their problems in the Old Testament, in the days of Noah we lived human in government and man will never solve them today.

Yeah.

In the minds of man, you know what, never solved the problems of man after Adam fell and they’ll never solve them today. You know what the truth is? The truth is the scripture.

Yeah.

Jesus said, “sanctify them through that truth. And thy word is truth.”

I love that God said, this is in Isaiah, “but my thoughts are higher than your thoughts. And my ways are higher than your ways” so.

Yeah and we find that out through the word of God. We’re gonna come back in tomorrow’s broadcast and we’ll be talking about how we renew our mind. You know, it is so important, once you’re born again in the spiritual realm, to renew your mind. And if you renew your mind, that means to have a absolute renovation of your mind so that you can begin to see the life that God’s placed on the inside of you, flow to the outside of you and walk out this victory that Jesus already won for you. Praise God.

Yeah, the way the world thinks is very different than the way God thinks.

Amen.

And the Bible says this, “to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” And to become more spiritually minded, you really have to renew your mind in the word.

Amen. You know, and that’s a acid test to see if you’re carnally minded or spiritually minded. If you’re experiencing life and peace, the Bible says that’s what? That’s from spirituals mind.

Spiritual mindedness.

Romans 8:6. But to be currently mind is death. So if you’re experiencing death, you need to renew your mind and experience the life of God. Thanks so much, friends, for being with us today. Tell your friends about the broadcast. You can also get this on demand on our website at charischristiancenter.com. And if you need prayer today or want to become a partner or want product, just give us a call. We have trained prayer ministers waiting to receive your call. God bless you. We appreciate you.

Hi ladies. I am so excited to invite you to our Rejoice Women’s Conference, February 9th to 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.

Amen. We’re gonna have a lot of fun. We have Cathy Duplantis coming, so make plans and register today.

[Narrator] Do you know your true position in Christ Jesus? You have been saved, raised up and seated in heavenly places with him. You can stand against any attack of the enemy from a position of victory. You are destined to win. You can get the eight-part live teaching on CD for $48 or on USB for $35, or get the 16-part as seen on TV USB for $59 when you call 719-418-4000 or visit charischristiancenter.com. 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 P.O. Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80962. See you next time on Grace For Today.