Grace Life Part 2 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

Grace Life Part 2 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

The Grace Life Part 2 with Pastors Lawson and Aaron Perdue. In this episode of Grace For Today, find out what is the many-faceted grace of God, and how does that pertain to your life?

The Grace Life Part 2 – Transcript

Welcome friends to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in today. John 1:16 says, “Of his fullness, we have all received grace for grace.” We’re gonna be talking about the many-faceted grace of God. It’s a many-faceted thing. Grace for salvation. Grace for growth. Grace for ministry. Grace for eternity. You don’t want to miss this broadcast. Thank you so much and bless you.

Friends, it’s great to have you with us today. We’ve been teaching on the “Grace Life”. We begin in John chapter one yesterday talking about how Jesus is the embodiment of grace and truth. And you know, the scripture says there in John chapter one, verse 14 through about verse 18, he says, “For the law came by Moses, but truth came by Jesus.” And grace came by Jesus. And when you look at that, that Jesus is the embodiment of truth and grace, or grace and truth. The way that you approach truth determines whether it will produce life or death. So truth minus grace equals law and Paul calls law in Second Corinthians chapter three, the ministry of the law, a ministry of death or a ministry of condemnation. But truth plus grace equals Jesus, who is life. And so if you approach the truth with grace, it brings life. It brings Jesus. But if you approach the truth as a law, you know, with law and not with grace, it will actually produce death. And so Jesus is the embodiment of grace and truth. We talked about some examples of that and we talked about how God is our father and we’re in his family. And when you really begin to understand the gospel, you begin to understand that you’re no more slaves but sons, that you’re children of God. And it changes how you approach God. As a good father. And then we’re gonna move on in talking about some different aspects of grace. It says in John one, verse 16, “Of his fullness, we have all received grace for grace.” And there is grace for eternity. I thank God that there’s grace for eternity. But there’s also grace, right? For life and living. And we’re gonna talk about some of these aspects. We’re gonna be in Ephesians chapter two. In Ephesians two, verse five through verse seven, the scripture talks about grace for eternity. Ephesians chapter two, verse five, and we’ll read on down through verse seven. Aaron, do you wanna read that?

Yeah. I’m just thinking about grace and truth, how they really go together. You know, a lot of people try to minister with only truth. And like you said, it’s very harsh. It can come across as very harsh or trying to minister with only grace without even mentioning truth or-

[Lawson] Right.

And that that really isn’t grace, you know. If someone is really hurting themselves, hurting other people to just ignore the truth. That’s not real grace.

[Lawson] Right.

You know, and real truth doesn’t really exist without grace either. They both really go together and work together.

You know, I was just talking to a person who was new in church and he was mentioning this, I was sharing on grace, but he had been watching Joseph Prince and Joseph was talking about this grace and truth and how Jesus is the embodiment. The same thing that we had been teaching prior to that. But he was talking about how that comes together, grace and truth, in the person.

They’re really coupled together. And it’s an effective thing together. Just like atoms has, you know, protons at the center and neutrons and electrons on outside and I thought, and that’s what holds matter together, these atoms. It’s like grace and truth is, they really need to be together.

So that’s the same exact thing that this new person in church was telling me that Joseph Prince had been teaching. Exactly what you’re saying.

Yeah, because if I was just, you know, I have a nine year old son, if I just wanted to be extra graceful and just say, “Well, you can just do whatever you want.” If he just played Nintendo, you know, all the time until till the middle of the night, you know, that’s really not, that’s, I’d be leaving out the truth of like you need to do other things to balance. You need to read, you need to exercise, you need to eat, you need to, you know.

[Lawson] Right.

It wouldn’t be, it wouldn’t be kind. It’d actually be very mean even though on the surface you can say, this is very graceful and very-

It could be very unhealthy if you said, you know, you can just, all you need to, you can just let him eat whatever he wants to eat and all he wants to eat is sugar cookies. You can’t do that. It’s not gonna produce long-term health in your life. And so just like a balanced diet, right? Physically is good for you. A balanced diet spiritually is good for you. And we balance truth and grace. It’s important that, you know, I had someone kind of get upset with me for teaching grace. And I said, listen, “I realize that I put grace in about everything that I teach because it really has changed my life.” And before I understood grace, before I had a revelation of grace, I wasn’t the best person to live with, and I wasn’t the best person to deal with. And I still need grace, right? And I still need to share grace and minister grace with other people. But grace has really changed my life. But I said, “I preach a lot of different aspects of the gospel, but truth and grace, we need to get both aspects.” And Ephesians, chapter two, Paul talks about, we’re talking about different aspects of grace. Verse five says this, “Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ by grace ye are saved.” So there’s grace for salvation, which we’ll see on down here. But he also says in verse six and seven, “He raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” So there is grace. We can see in Ephesians, chapter two verse seven. There is grace for eternity future. There is also grace. Sometimes think, people think that grace just started in your life when you got saved. No, grace started in your life far before you got saved. And Paul talks about this in second Timothy chapter one. I think it’s first nine. He said that God saved us and called us by his grace before the foundation of the world. So that’s like eternity past to eternity future.

Yeah.

So there’s many different aspects of grace. And I asked this question in church as I was teaching this one time. How many of you know that the grace of God was really working in your life before you received Christ? And at least 50% of the hands went up. At least 50% of the people in church recognized the grace of God that really spared them even before they got born again, even before they were acknowledging it. And so he goes on to say in Ephesians two, verse eight. So that’s grace for eternity future. But he says in verse eight, “For by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God.” So that’s grace for salvation. So there’s grace from the eternity past. God called us, saved us by his grace. There’s grace for salvation. There’s grace for eternity future. But what about between your salvation and when you go to heaven.

You know, I believe that salvation, it happens when you believe on Jesus. But it’s a continual work that’s at work. That-

It’s a continual work of God’s grace, isn’t it.

It’s, I am, I was saved when I believed on Jesus. I am currently being saved and I will be saved.

That’s correct.

So.

And there’s lots of scriptures that really show the past, present, and future tense.

So if you need a grace to be saved, and if you’re being saved, and you will be saved, you need grace.

Right.

You need a, it’s a-

Well look at it as spirit, soul, and body. My spirit has been saved. My soul is being saved. And I trust that my body will be saved. When we look at this. He says, “For by grace are you saved.” We could say, “That’s past tense”, right, Ephesians, chapter two verse eight, when you were born again. But then Galatians, chapter one verse four, says that God, and it says in Ephesians too, but we’ll be back here. But in Galatians, chapter one verse four, Paul says that “God gave Jesus for us to deliver us from that this present evil world.” That word for deliver is talking about salvation. So I have been saved, past tense. I am being saved from this present evil world through my relationship with Jesus. And I trust in the future that I will be saved. Another scripture that talks about that, this thing you’re talking about, Aaron, is in Second Corinthians, chapter one verse 9 through verse 11. Second Corinthians, chapter one verse 9 through verse 11. Do you wanna read that?

Yeah. Second Corinthians one, verse 9 through 11 says, “Yes, we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a death and does deliver us in whom we trust that he will still deliver us. You also helping together in prayer for us that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to us through many.”

So when he says, “We had this sentence of death”, so we were spiritually dead and we were, headed right to eternal death. But he says in verse 10, “God, we trust in God who raises it. Who delivered us”, past tense, right? Who has saved us from death for by grace, we have been saved through faith. That, and he says, and we, he says, “And does deliver us.” He is delivering us. I thank God that I got saved, right? At a young age. And then not only did I got saved, but I got baptized in the Holy Spirit when I was 14 years old. And I began to get a revelation of who I was in Christ. And that just saved me from a lot of destruction and death and problems and difficulties. But he says, “In whom we trust, he will yet delivers.” I’m trusting that I’ll be saved when Jesus comes again. And in verse Peter one, Peter talks about this. I’m just showing in the scripture exactly this is, you know, a lot of times people think, well, God saved me and then forgot about me. That’s not how it works. He had a plan for your salvation from the foundation of the world. That’s grace in Ephesians past, second Timothy 1:9. But then you got born again. You believed on Jesus when you heard the gospel and you were saved, right? He has delivered us. But since you’ve got born again and you’re renewing your mind in the world, you’re being saved from a lot of the death and destruction and problems in the world. And we trust when Jesus comes, that we will be safe. Notice what he says in second Peter chapter one, verse three through five. He says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his abundant mercy, has begotten us again to a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.” We have been saved. We’ve been born again. He said, “To an inheritance that’s incorruptible and undefiled that fades not away reserved in heaven for you.” We’re trusting, right? That we’re gonna be saved in eternity. Those of you, he says in verse five, “Who are kept by the power of God.” I like to say by the grace of God through faith unto salvation. That’s ready to be revealed in the last time. So that shows that there’s not only salvation present, there’s salvation future. So exactly, the scripture bears out exactly what you’re saying. That there is a past tense of salvation. We have been saved. There’s a present tense of salvation. We are being saved through our relationship with Jesus, through our relationship with the word, through our relationship with the Holy Spirit. And we trust that we will be saved when Jesus comes again. So, we wanna let that ongoing grace have an ongoing work. So it’s not just something that happened. And then I’m just going on with my life the way it was. Paul talks about this in Ephesians too, where after he says in verse eight, “For by grace are ye saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God.” Not by words. It’s not by our actions. It’s by his actions. He says then in verse 10, “For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus.” That’s a work of grace. “Unto good works, which God has before the foundation of the world ordained, chosen that we should walk in them.” So there is grace and we’re talking about there are many different aspects of grace. Hallelujah, grace for salvation, grace for living, and grace for eternity. Praise God. Thank God for the grace of God. Now, when we move into this, we’re gonna move forward and talk about, there’s also grace for growth. Peter says this. Second Peter, chapter three verse 18. He says, “But grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” James says, “But God gives more grace.” He resists the proud, but gives grace into the humble. And when you grow in grace, you get more humble and you receive more grace. Praise God.

That should be a goal for every believer. To grow as a person. To grow in their walk with God. To grow in their revelation of God.

Amen.

To grow just in the gifts and callings that God has for them. I think every believer should want to grow.

Right.

You know, and it’s sad to me when people stop growing or regress really in the plan that God has for them.

It’s a real tragedy.

Yeah.

And I don’t believe that’s the plan or purpose of God for any person, but sometimes people choose by an act of their will.

To step out of that grace.

To go another way, you know. And if you’re not growing, you’re probably going backwards. You’re not just sitting still. And so we’re gonna take a few seconds and just have a short break, but we’ll be right back. And we’re gonna talk about grace for ministry. Grace to do different things in life. Praise God. So we’ll back right after this. Friends, I’m gonna be talking about in this series about how grace has revolutionized my life. And you want to get this because I’m telling you, it changed my home, changed my marriage, changed my children, changed my church, changed my business. Grace has changed about everything about me. And not in a negative way. In a super positive way. My wife Barbara says, “I’m not even like living with the same person and not negatively. Positively.” She said, “I don’t know how it would’ve went on if you would’ve continued on the way that you were going.” But thank God, grace changed me. And do you know what? God is not respecter of person. He’s a respecter of faith. But I believe that the grace that’s changed me will change you as you believe the gospel. And I’ve got two things that we’re making available as a package during these teachings. One is my series. It’s a 10 part series on the “Grace Life”. It’s the most in-depth teaching I’ve done. The other one is the “Revelation of Grace” with Andrew Woodman. Bless him. Praise the Lord, friends. I’m glad that you stayed with us. We’re right here talking about different aspects of grace. James 4:6 says, “God gives more grace.” He goes on to say, “He resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” So we wanna keep a humble attitude, right? Towards God, towards other people even so that we can really see more grace manifested in our life. We were just talking about growing in grace.

Pride. Pride stops people from growing.

Oh, it’s pride, isn’t it?

I see when people start acting proudful. They start speaking proud things. They start-

Arrogance.

And it’s a dangerous place to be. And I think that’s actually how the devil devours people.

Right.

You know, he goes about like a roaring lion seeking those whom he may devour. And the way he devours people oftentimes is with pride.

Right? Second Peter. You talked about this. First Peter chapter five talks about that. And you talked about how, you know, we need to be humble so that we can really see God’s grace and God’s plan work in our life. And don’t let pride get you off track. Let’s go. We talked about grace for salvation. We talked about grace for eternity, grace for growth. But there’s also grace for ministry. You know, I love something Paul says in Galatians chapter three verse two. He says, “I have a question for you. How did you get saved? How did you receive the spirit?” Did you receive the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? How’d you get saved here.

By the hearing of faith.

You just believe the gospel. You heard the gospel and believed it. He says, “Are you so foolish having begun in the spirit, having begun just trusting Jesus? Are you now made perfect by the flesh?” Then he asks another question in Galatians chapter three verse five. And he says, “He then who works miracles among you and ministers to you”, you know the spirit, how does he do it? Does he do it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?

The same way. By hearing of faith.

The hearing of faith. But here’s what happens in a lot of churches. We tell people, you come to God just like you are, he accepts you. We realize it’s grace that saves us cuz most of us are smart enough to know, man, I couldn’t be saved on my own. But then after we get in church, we say, now you gotta pray. You gotta read your Bible. You gotta give. You gotta, you know, go to church. You gotta love your neighbor. You can’t cuss. You can’t steal. You can’t, you know. You can’t smoke. You can’t drink. You can’t, you know, all these different things. And you can’t dance. You can’t play cards. I mean, legalism. People get legalistic. I actually saw, to become a member of a church years ago, you had to sign on this card that you wouldn’t go to the movies. That’s, you know. There’s good movies. There’s bad movies. Right? Mom and I kind of have a policy. As a whole, we do not watch rated R movies or worse, right? Now, we did watch the “Passion of the Christ”, right? Talking about Jesus on the cross. But we are very selective about that. And that’s just our own guide. And I think different people have to have their own guides. But we, if we see something and it’s not PG-13 or better, you know, we just don’t watch it. And there’s some of those that we shut off almost immediately. And so that’s just kind of our way of staying on the right track and not going down a track we don’t want to go down.

Well, even today, there’s stuff that’s rated G that’s inappropriate for children.

Oh, it’s awful.

So.

I mean, I was with your kids one night and we turned on a, you know, kids movie and it was horrible what they were teaching. They were actually teaching, you know, worshiping your ancestors. And it was just awful. People try to get away from God. What they’ll teach. It’s just terrible. But anyway, there is grace for ministry. And the same grace that saves us is the grace that… You brought this out, that empowers us. And we can’t minister without the power of God. But I’ve heard people say, you know, if you’re gonna operate in the power of God, and if you’re gonna see miracles, you’ve gotta fast and you’ve gotta pray and you’ve gotta do this and they take the focus off of Jesus and they put the focus on us and that’s not what we want to do. We wanna keep the focus on Jesus because it’s Jesus that saved us and it’s Jesus who keeps us and it’s Jesus who ministers the Holy Spirit’s power through us and we need to keep that.

I heard this story. I think it’s from Mark Hankins. But he was telling a story about Kenneth Hagan. How he was ministering somewhere and he stayed with a family in that town. And this family, I think they’re a wealthier family, but they had a really nice arcade setup. They had really fancy, you know, pinball machines. And Kenneth Hagan, he, I guess he loves pinball, loves arcade games. So before he was ministering, he spent a lot of time just really enjoying this arcade that was set up in this house. And this family was really surprised that they, because later that night, he was really ministering in the power of God. And they thought, you know, for him to minister in the power of God, he needs to-

Fast and pray and do all this stuff.

Yeah. You can’t be playing pinball before you, you know.

But there’s something about just the way that you live every day, right? Living a fasted life, right? Staying out of strife. Staying out bitterness. Staying out of unforgiveness. Just letting the love of God flow. And I’m not trying to make it about me or about us or what we do, but at the same point in time, you live in a certain way and that affects your life all the time. And so there’s certain places I’m not going. There’s certain things I’m not doing, right? But at the same point in time, because I don’t wanna have a violated conscience, and it’s really hard if your heart condemns you. First John three at the end of the chapter talks about this. He says, “If your heart condemns you, God’s greater than your heart.” And he knows all things. But at the same point in time, it’s really hard to operate in great faith when your heart is condemning you. And so you, again, you don’t want to do things that violate your relationship with God, your relationship with your spouse, your relationship with your children, your family, your relationship with people at your workplace.

This is something I was just thinking about too. You mentioned like just having a fasted lifestyle. Really, it’s your entire life. And I was thinking about that in terms of worship. You know, I oversee the worship ministry here at church and just the condition of someone’s heart is really important when you’re worshiping God and leading other people in the worship. But I was just thinking about really to have the right heart. It’s a lifestyle of worship. It’s, and you’re worshiping God, not just with your instrument, but you’re worshiping God with your giving.

Right.

You know and if you’re not a giver, then-

That’ll limit the grace of God in your life.

I don’t really want to hear you sing if you don’t even give, you know. It’s-

Right.

You’re not a true worshiper.

Yeah. And people will say one thing and do another many times. And I know there’s people that you have not allowed on the worship team because they want to make it about them

[Aaron] And just seeing-

Being seen, being recognized. And yeah, and it’s not really about Jesus. And we’ve seen really the fruit of that. And so we wanna keep it about Jesus and we want our hearts to reflect Jesus. And I know we’ve spent some time at Chris Hodge’s place and he has a school there and he has a really great church. And you know, when we’ve been at his place, he has these signs up. When you go on the stage, it’s a privilege to be on the stage. I think sometimes people forget what a privilege it is for us to be able to serve Jesus in the ministry, right? And we’re all ministers. There’s grace for ministry. In fact, Paul said this, he said in Philippians one verse seven, “You are partakers of my grace”, of my gifting, right? The grace on me for ministry. And he said this in Romans 1:11. He said, “I long to see you that I may impart to you some spiritual gift that you or some grace that you may be established.” He says, in First Corinthians, or in, excuse me, Romans 12:3, “I say, through the grace given to me, there’s different graces on people.” And he says this. “As every man has received the gift, so let him minister the same one too.” We’ve all received gifts of God’s grace. And we need to minister of the gifting of the grace of the many faceted grace that we’ve received. If you study the gifts, there’s 21 New Testament gifts. There’s five ministry gifts. There’s nine manifestations of the Holy Spirit. There are seven motivational gifts. 21 in all.

Yeah.

But we need to recognize those gifts so we can be effective ministers of the grace of God.

Yeah. Just when God blesses you with something, with certain gifts, certain talents, you can pass those on to other people. You know, just as a practical example, my wife and I got married three and a half years ago and about half a year into our marriage, we bought a new house together and we, I sold all of our old furniture and got some new stuff. But one thing I did, my dad actually helped me. I found a used dining room set and we’ve had it for three years. And my wife has wanted something new and updated. And like my dad was with me when I went to this family. He helped me move this hutch and dining room table and chairs. But it’s a really nice set. Solid wood, very nice, great condition. I think I got it for $600. But as I decided to bless my wife and just go ahead and purchase a brand new dining room table and chairs. And I was thinking, man, I think I just paid $600 for that set. And I know that family, they bought it for $6,000. I’m like, I could sell it for two grand. Make money. But I just thought, you know, God gave me, blessed me with that set. He gave me a great deal. He gave me favor with this, the people I got it from. Maybe I could just pass that blessing on to someone else. So I’m, actually we’re passing it on to another staff member, Nate, here at church. I texted him pictures and he was super excited about it.

Now he will be.

So.

His actually mother deals in furniture.

Yeah, so he knew it’s nice.

So he understands the value of it. It’s really nice.

We were excited to just pass that blessing on to someone else who’s gonna appreciate it and value it.

That’s great.

Yeah.

Well, thank God for the grace of God. And you know what? If it wasn’t for the grace of God, we couldn’t be doing all that God’s allowed us to do. And so if you need prayer today to receive salvation, to receive healing, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, just give us a call. We have trained prayer ministers. Or if you wanna become a partner, we would love to hear from you today. Thanks so much and blesses.

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