Galatians: The Grace Of Christ Part 4 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

Galatians: The Grace Of Christ Part 4 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

Galatians: The Grace of Christ Part 4 from Pastors Lawson & Aaron Perdue. In the final episode of this series on Grace For Today, find freedom in Galatians 5 & 6 how to not be entangled back into that yoke of bondage called legalism.

Galatians: The Grace Of Christ Part 4 Transcript

Welcome friends to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in with us today. I’ve got my son, Aaron here. We’re concluding our message on Galatians: the grace of Christ. You don’t wanna miss it. We’re gonna be in Galatians 5 and Galatians 6, where Paul says: Stand fast, therefore in the liberty where with Christ has made as free. And do not be entangled again with a yolk of bondage. Praise God, Jesus, set as free to live the free life. Blessing. Friends, I am so glad that you are with us today. We are in Galatians chapter five and six. We’ve been sharing all of this week on Galatians. Really, the grace of Christ, which is really talking about the gospel. We started in chapter one and talked about the problem of religion, the persistent problem of religion. And Paul makes this statement in Galatians 5, or one verse six, he said: I marvel that you’re so soon removed from him who calls you into the grace of Christ to another gospel, which is, not another, but there’d be some who trouble you who would pervert the gospel of Christ. So the persistent problem of religion is this is adding something to Jesus. And if you have to add something to Jesus, it’s like saying that Jesus is not enough. And when you do that, you’re actually, if you move away from Jesus, you move away from the gospel when you try to add something to Him. Then we talked in Galatians chapter three and four about the promise of the gospel. And he says: Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law being made to curse for us, for its written cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, so that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. The promise can be really summed up to this, that when you are born again as a believer, the spirit of Christ lives on the inside of you. And because the spirit of Christ lives on the inside of you, all of the blessings flow forth from that. You’re already blessed in the spirit. You’re already healed in the spirit. You already have peace in the spirit. You already have all of the good things of God in the realm of the Spirit. Praise God. Now, we’re gonna talk about the power of the gospel in Galatians five and six. And the power of the gospel really is freedom. We are set free to live the free life. And Paul says this in Galatians 5:1, he says: Stand there for in the liberty or the freedom where with Christ has made us free and do not be entangled again with the yoke of bondage. So we’ve been set free to live the free life. Praise God. And the free life is the Christ’s life. And as we begin to understand that, it really changes our heart. It changes the way we live the gospel. And he says in verse two: I Paul say to you, if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. Thank God. And so this is the persistent problem of religion. Adding something to Jesus, Jesus plus circumcision equals nothing. Jesus plus law keeping equals nothing. Jesus plus anything equals nothing. The simple gospel is this Jesus plus nothing, equals everything. And he goes on and makes a statement in verse four and said: Christ has become of no effect to you. Whoever you’re justified by the law, you’re fallen from grace. We talked yesterday about what this term means. What does it mean to be fallen from grace?

It means to be trying to reach God on your own works.

Right.

Yeah.

Or you miss out on the benefits of the gospel. You miss out on the benefits of what Jesus has done because you’re trying to get it by your performance. And whenever you try to receive from God based on a performance, it leads to the curse. It talks about that in Galatians 3:10. And so what we need to do is move on over into grace, Praise God. And he says this in verse six: For in Jesus Christ, neither circumcision or uncircumcision avails anything, but faith, which works by love. So we’re free to live and let Jesus live his life big in us. We’re not only free to live, but we’re free to love. And he says this in Galatians chapter five, he says: For brethren, you have been called to liberty, but do not use your liberty for occasion to serve the flesh, but by love, serve one another. We’re free to love, just let the love of God rule your life. You know, love is is a spiritual law. And we’re not talking about the man’s kind of love, we’re talking about the God kind of love. And God love just when we were still sinners. When you understand that it changes how you relate to God. You know, a lot of people still relate to God a lot more out of performance than they do out of grace or out of love. And you need to understand that God is like a loving father. And you know what? A loving father, even when his children don’t deserve good things will give his children good things. Jesus said: You as evil people want to give your children good things, how much more would God give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? And so he says in verse 14: All the law is fulfilled in this one word. You will love your neighbor as yourself. Love is the fulfilling of the law. Love works no ill to his neighbor. Romans chapter 13:10 says: Therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. Romans 13:8 says: Owe no man anything but to love one another. You can’t love your neighbor and steal from him. You can’t love your neighbor and lie about him. You can’t love your neighbor and commit adultery with his wife. You can’t love your neighbor’s wife and commit adultery with her.

I like this next verse, though, right after in a Galatians 5:15, he says: All the laws fulfilled in this, you shall love your neighbors yourself. The next verse, verse 15 says: But if you bite devour one another, beware less you be consumed by one another. People who I watch out for in the church growing up as a PK, you have to watch out for some people.

Yeah.

And being a pastor, you might have to watch… And usually the people you have to watch out for are the ultra religious type people.

Yeah.

Who go around just criticizing all the time thing that they have this great spiritual gift of criticism.

Yeah.

And they’re not really loving people. They’re just biting and devouring.

Crazy, some of these super spiritual legalistic-

And it’s usually legalistic people-

Yep.

…who are just trying to bite devour.

I’ll tell you what, I blessed so many people. I live my life to give. Man, I’ve blessed so many people. I’ve seen these people come back sometimes with some of the craziest accusations, it is unreal. You know, I blessed a young person that came to this church and just blessed him and bought a property for him and turned it over to him, dollar for dollar, what I had in it. I mean, I’m good at making deals. And in a little bit he sold this property and made $80,000 clear. And him and some of his family got on the internet and tried to destroy the church. It’s unreal how ungrateful, ungodly people are. And I’ve blessed other people, and then they make accusations, I’m like: What are you talking about? A bunch of legalistic nuts. And boy, there’s a lot of legalism in the body, and it is terrible. Legalism will kill you. Lester Sumrall said this, he said: There’s a lot of people I’ve done a lot for, man, they didn’t appreciate it. And other people I’ve done almost nothing for, and yet they’ve really been a blessing.

Yeah, when people are like that, do you sense that they’re just biting and devouring? You don’t have to take a fight with every dog. I’m a runner, I like running, and if there’s a dog that’s trying to bite me, I just move on, I don’t try to save it or-

You know, that is great. In Philippians chapter three, verse two, Paul says: Beware of dogs.

It’s the same thing, right.

That’s exactly what he’s talking about. He’s talking about the concision, these religious people, they’re like dogs that bite and devour one another. You know, if a dog gets wounded, a pack of dogs will turn on it and kill it. And that’s how legalistic people are. Well, if you get wounded, they’ll turn on you and kill you, rather than-

And he talks about being just seasoned in grace. How you’re to address when people are overtaken.

Yeah, he talks about that in-

Galatians 6:1.

Galatians 6:1, he says: you who are spiritual, you restore such a one who’s overtaken in a fall, and you consider yourself lets you be taken

Spirit of gentleness.

He says in Romans 15, the first part of the chapter: You who are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak and not to please yourself.

This biting, devouring kind of-

Mentality.

Just attacking, that’s not in a spirit of gentleness. I know some people here who are leaders even at the church who just get this kind of biting, devouring attitude, just-

Boy, if you got that attitude, you need to get rid of it.

And they think they’re great people of grace, but they aren’t, I don’t see the spirit of gentleness in them.

No.

Thankfully, God’s heart is on this ministry, and He really protects us from a lot of…

Yeah, He’s protected us from all this stuff. Man, I have forgiven people, been gracious toward ’em. I had one family, I shouldn’t talk about all this, but you know what? I forgave them for major offenses in that, yet they got offended at one of the other staff members of here and just tried to destroy the church when they left, act like the devil. I mean, they’re just awful. I don’t know if they’re born again. Man, they might have a hard time, but I’m glad I’m not the judge, I’m glad Jesus is the judge. I have forgiven him.

Just move on, yeah.

I’ve let ’em go. I mean, this one person that’s done all this evil against me, I mean about as bad as anybody I’ve ever dealt with, and I was so kind to him and treated him so well. You know what? I’ve completely forgiven him. I’ve told him I’ve forgiven him, and I’m not holding this against him.

Lot similar things happened in Paul’s ministry too. There are people who preach Christ, but it’s not sincere, it’s for their own personal gain.

Yep, we’ve seen that.

And they’re Judaisis and-

Oh my goodness.

He just said: You know, well, if they preach Christ, I preach Christ, and I wanna just move-

Yeah, just thank God they’re preaching Christ and go on, some of ’em, we just let it go and go on. Praise God

There’s nothing new under the sun. We’ll have lots of stories to share with other.

There’s lots of flesh around. And boy, you know what? You are not above the flesh. Nobody is above the flesh. You can sin, and there’s-

You have to crucify the flesh.

He talks about, yeah we talked about, I’m crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live. And that’s really talking about the law, right? In Galatians 2:20, but we need to die to sin, die to self, die to the law and die to the world. But a lot of people understand the aspect of death to the world, but they don’t understand dying to self and die to the law. And it’s deadly. And he talks about these works of the flesh. He goes on and says this: This I say then, see, we’re free to love, right? We’re free to live. But he says: Walk in the spirit and you will not fulfill the less of the flesh. Most people turn that scripture around and say: don’t fulfill the less of the flesh and you’ll walk in the spirit. That is not what that says. That’s a law mentality. You know what? I knew that you had a revelation of grace, Aaron when you were 19 years old, I think, and went to college. You might have been 18 and you were first at college, and you know what, you saw this guest preacher at your church and he was preaching that the fear of God will keep you outta sin, but the love of God won’t. And you called me that afternoon and said: Dad, that is wrong. You said: you’re my father and you love me and because you love me. I want to do what’s right, I want to please you. I know you want what’s best, and you said: God is my father and He loves me, and because He loves me, You said: I respect him and I wanna do what’s right. You said, “The fear of God,” this is a true statement, “The fear of God grows out of the love of God. Therefore, the love of God will keep you out of sin.” I said: Aaron, you are exactly right because in 1 John 5, I’m gonna read this, most people read one John with dyslexia, religious dyslexia. But he makes this statement in 1 John 5 and says: For this is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous. That does not say that keeping the commandments will make you love God. But if you love God, the result of loving God is keeping the commandments. And what are the New Testament commandments? 1 John 3:23-24 says: Believe on Jesus and love your neighbor as yourself. All the laws fulfilled in this. He talks about this right here in Galatians 5. So it’s the same thing that he’s really ministering, that he’s really talking about, and he says, he makes this marvelous statement and says: If you’re led of the Spirit, you’re not under the law. Man, it is not your performance.

It’s like if you’re being, we talked about how the law was a tutor, like an elementary school-

Right.

…if you’re led by the spirit, this Holy Spirit is now your teacher, the law is not your teacher. When I went to college, my kindergarten teacher wasn’t my, I wasn’t calling my kindergartner teacher asking for assignments, asking for help with my college level courses,

Right.

We’re now under the spirit.

He says: Now the works of the flesh. And a lot of times we look at adultery, fornication, and lasciviousness which are all different kinds of sexual sins, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred. But then we forget about variance, which is contention. Emulation, which is striving to get ahead at the expense of another wrath, strife, sedation, these little cliques in the church or sedition, heresies, envies, murders, drunkenness, reveling and such. If it’s like that, stay out of it. This is works, man, this is not the spirit. This is works. And so he includes strife, sedition, and heresy with adultery, fornication, with drunkenness. I mean, all these things are works of the flesh. And so there’s not only this worldly flesh, there’s this religious flesh. And he says-

This stuff flows out of religious flesh too.

Oh. yeah.

Big time.

He says: I’ve told you in time passed that they would do such things, shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Two ways to look at that scripture. The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. When you’re operating in adultery, fornication, lasciviousness, witchcraft, hatred, sedition, strife, envy, murder, hatred, all these different things, drunkenness, did you know what? You’re not gonna operate in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. So that’s one aspect of the kingdom of God. Another aspect is if the flesh is just ruling you and you’re not born again, man, you’re gonna miss heaven. There’s only two kinds of people. There’s born again people and people that aren’t born again. And you know, born again people are going to heaven. Amen. And people that aren’t born again. So this can work on your consciousness either way. If you’re not born again, you need to get saved. You need to believe on Jesus, but if you’re born again, don’t let the flesh rule you, don’t let the old life rule you, don’t let religion rule you. Paul’s really coming against religion in this aspect, in this context, but he says: The fruit of the spirit, it’s works of the flesh or fruit of the spirit, its love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, maintenance and temperance against such, there is no law. So he says: Walk in the spirit, let the spirit rule you. I love this where he says the fruit of the spirit. What fruit? He’s talking about this supernatural fruit of love. And God is love, it doesn’t say God is peace, or God is joy. But from love flow forth all of the other of the nine fruit of the spirit, joy of peace, long shin, gentle is goodness, faith, maintenance and temperance all flow forth from love. Praise God, so when you walk in love, all these things rule you. And he says: they who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its affections and love. Less if we live in the spirit, let us walk in the spirit. Let us not be desirous of being glory provoking one another and envying one another. Well, we’re gonna be back in just a few seconds and we’re gonna continue and finish out Galatians 6. Amen. We are free to forgive, praise God. And we talked about this already a little bit, but a gracious attitude is a mature attitude, is a godly attitude. So we’ll be back, stay tuned. Blessings. Thank God. Friends, I wanna tell you about our grace package. I received a revelation of grace in Andrew Womack’s ministry in 1994, after I’d been pastoring for six years. It revolutionized my life and it’s helped me in so many different ways. I actually have been called to preach and filled with the Holy Spirit in Andrew’s ministry 16 years prior to that. But when I received a revelation of grace, it changed me. We’ve also included a great teaching from my son, Aaron Perdue, on the Abundance Of Grace, a single CD on Entangled, a great message on grace from Aaron and my series on Galatians: The Grace of Christ. You don’t wanna miss this teaching, just like it’s revolutionized my life it will revolutionize yours. You can share this with your friends. If you don’t wanna call in and get this, you can actually listen to these free on our website at carischristiancenter.com. We wanna get the word to you, blessings. “You overtake it in as all you who are spiritual. Restore such a one in the spirit of maintenance and consider yourself, less you also be tempted.” So man, we’re free from the law, we’re free to love, we’re free to live, and we’re free to forgive. “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill all the law of Christ. If a man thinks himself to be something when he’s nothing, he deceives himself.” We need to not only receive grace, but we need to have an attitude of race towards other people. You know, I had this man who was a leader in Dr. Lester Sumrall ministry, and he said: It puzzled me how Dr. Sumrall could be friends with pastors that were on this side of the fence on an issue, and pastors on this side of the fence, and he said: you get those guys together, they might choke one another. But Dr. Sumrall have a great relationship with both of them. And I’ve seen this in Andrew Womack, I’ve seen this in other great leaders. But you know what? They build a relationship with people based on their strengths. They’re not looking at what they do wrong. And if you wanna build any relationship, your marriage, your relationships at church, your relationships at work, your relationship with your children, with your boss, whoever it is, your friends, you build that relationship based on their strengths. If all you do is focus on their faults you’ll destroy that relationship. And he’s saying, man, you have received grace, so you need to give grace. And he says: if any man thinks himself to be something when he’s nothing, he deceives himself up. Let every man prove his own work, and then he’ll have rejoicing in his own self alone and not another. It’s been said that we’ll oftentimes judge other people by their actions and ourself by our plans or-

Intentions.

Intentions. And a lot of times we need to have an attitude of grace, and be a little, you can be too hard on yourself. You can have a religious criticizing academic conscience, but you know, you need to be kind towards other people like you are towards yourself. And he says: For every man will bear his own burden, let him who’s taught in the word communicate to him that teaches in all good things. So in the first five verses of Galatians 6 Paul says: We’re free to forgive. So we’re free, number one to love. We’re free to live, and then here he says: we’re free to forgive. Finally, he begins to talk about, we’re free to give in verse six through 10. Aaron you got a lot of revelation on giving, Why don’t you share verse six to 10, read that and then share a little bit.

Yeah, so it says: Let him who’s taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches, do not be deceived, God is not mocked. For whatever a man sows that he also reap, for he who sows to his flesh will the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the spirit will of the spirit reap everlasting life. Let us not grow weary while doing good for in due season, we shall reap if we do not lose heart. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith. Now, I just love that first verse, especially verse six. It says: Let him who has taught the word share in all good things with him. And that’s saying, if someone is a great teacher of the word, you should give towards them, give towards their ministry, help them out. One thing that my wife and I like to do, we like to give to where we’ve received from, where like people have really preached the grace message, have impacted us. My wife loves to listen to Joseph Prince, she loves to listen to Mark Hankins, loves to listen to Andrew Womack, loves this church especially, but wherever we’re receiving from, we like to give and invest into those ministries.

Amen, I love the word that you said investment. I love to invest in the gospel. And when you look at your giving as an investment if I have an investor, I use professional investors, and if they’re doing a really good job with my money, I’ll give them more. If they start doing bad, I’ll take it away from them, give it to somebody else that’s doing better. But I look at a lot of my giving in the gospel as investing in the gospel. When you look at that, I give to some of the richest, most well off ministries in the world, and yet I give to some things that are just meeting the needs of the poor, so on and so forth. I sow a lot of seed in a lot of different eras. I believe it’s all good ground, right? And I’m receiving multiple harvests. I like to look at all my giving, I believe in tithes, offering and alms. Somebody just wrote in a thing: Do you believe in tithe? Then they’d asked one of our secretaries and they said yes, and they were all upset and they said Abraham gave, started tithing and he was a pagan, or Melchizedek was a pagan, I’ve gotta write him back, because Abraham was not a pagan and neither was Melchizedek.

Yeah.

They don’t understand that Abraham started tithing and he gave a 10th, the scripture says in Hebrews 7: That he gave a 10th. In Hebrews 7 says: That Jesus receives our tithe. But I believe the major focus in the New Testament is giving and sowing seed in 2 Corinthians 8 and 9. Yeah, there’s only one time that the scripture says, it says: Levi paid tithes in Abraham. And it’s not even talking about what Levi did, it’s talking about the gift when Abraham gave a 10th to Melchizedek. Melchizedek was the priest king of Salem, Jerusalem, the city of peace. He was a type of Christ that means my king of righteousness. I don’t know how anybody could think that Abraham was a pagan. So do I believe in tithing? Yes, I believe in tithing and it means a 10th. But listen, I give way more than a 10. Your mother and I, over the years, have given about 30% of our income. We give much more than.

I was asking one of my friends, he’s actually been my best friend since high school, he’s a part of a different denomination. He’s born again, but I just asked him if people, I was just curious if their denomination kind of emphasizes tithing and he said that they mention it, and I don’t think they were tithing themselves, but just recently his wife told my wife: Yeah, we just started tithing to our church. And I didn’t harp on it, I just mentioned it to him, but just when mentioning to him inspired them to start doing that and-

Amen.

And he’s a very blessed person. He’s actually helped our church a lot. We’re very different than his church, but he’s helped us. he has a business, buy and selling computers. He’s blessed-

Aaron, you taught him how to buy and sell on the internet, and God blessed you with that business different type of selling and buying while you were in college, and you still do a little bit of it and super blessed in it. But man, he has been super blessed, and it’s good that you shared that with him. And now they’re sowing seed in the kingdom of God. I’m believing one day he’ll come to this church.

Yeah, when you have just a heart of generosity, that’s what blesses God.

Amen. You know, Paul makes another statement here, and I want to just jump down to this verse 14 to verse 15, he says: God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of Jesus by whom the world is crucified to me and I of the world, for in Jesus Christ, either circumcision, avails anything or un-circumcision, but a new creation. It’s not what you do, it’s not your keeping the law or not keeping the law that saves you. It’s faith in Jesus and faith in Jesus alone that saves you. And we glory in the cross. We glory in the work that Jesus did when he died and rose again. He says: finally in verse 18: Brethren, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Thank God for grace. And grace has changed who we are. And if you let it change who you are it will also change what you do. And what you do is not to perform, to try to get something from God, but it’s a result of the gospel. It’s not the root of the gospel, it’s the fruit of the gospel, amen. And so when you understand the grace of God, your life will bring forth much fruit, praise God. Thanks so much for being with us today. I hope you’ve enjoyed these broadcasts. This is a great group of teachings. And so if you wanna call in today to get product, to receive prayer or become a partner, we would love to hear from you. Thank you, and God bless you, blessings.

[Announcer] What is grace? What is the purpose of the law? And how do you appropriate God’s grace in your life? Get answers to all these questions and more with the Grace package. You’ll receive the Abundance of Grace, the Revelation of Grace, Galatians: The Grace of Christ, and Entangled CD series, all for $39. 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 at, if you’re in Colorado Springs, you can see us Sunday morning at 8:30 or 10:30 AM live. But you can also watch us with our livestream congregation at 8:30 or 10:30 AM 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 could write us at PO Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80962. See you next time on Grace for Today.