Imparting Success to the Next Generation – Part 1 Lawson and Barbara Perdue

  Welcome, friends, to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you tuned in today. We’re beginning a brand new series. I have my wife, Barbara. Her book, “Imparting Success to the Next Generation,” has just come out and we’re gonna be teaching some things, I believe, that will help you move into God’s plan and purpose and help you raise children that can live in the light in a dark world. Thanks so much and God bless you. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re with us today. I have Barbara, and we’re actually sharing a teaching that she taught at Charis Bible College for at least 10 years. It’s called “Imparting Success to the Next Generation,” and we’re only gonna get into a little bit of this teaching this week. We’re gonna primarily, this week, be talking about children and helping them succeed in life. And these are principles that we’ve taught, that we’ve used with our children, and they’ve been very successful. And your brand new book has just come out, “Imparting Success to the Next Generation,” foreword by Andrew Wommack and a great word by Cathy Duplantis. So just tell us a little bit about it, Barbara.

 

  Well, praise God. You know, it was really important to us having children… In case you haven’t ever met us before or you don’t know, we have three sons. And it was again, like I said, really important to us to impart biblical values to them because we really wanted them to succeed in this world. Can you raise a family to love and honor God in a sin-fallen world? Yes, you can. And there’s just simple biblical principles that we saw and read and just really made a a point, like I said, to impart that into our children. You know, both of us had similar upbringings, parents that love God, worked hard, but they did have some marriage issues and problems. And so we said when we got married, there are some things we wanna carry forward, you know, loving God, loving His word, loving family, and having a work ethic. Both of us learned a strong work ethic from our fathers. And just the importance of when you do have a problem, that you can go directly to God. And that’s what we watched our parents do. And so, I just began to really study the Bible to see, again, we did this even before we had children, what are some really powerful truths in the Bible that we can see? And we’re gonna start with a chapter just called “Raising the Next Generation.” And I love how Proverbs 24:3 tells us this, “It takes wisdom to have a good family, and it takes understanding to make it strong.”

 

  So yeah, thank God. Wisdom. We get wisdom from the word of God.

 

  Mm-hmm.

 

  And we get understanding from the word of God, and we wanna have a good, strong family. And we’ve actually been very, very blessed. We have three sons. We’ve been pastoring for 30-plus years, 35 years, I believe, this year, full-time. Aaron was just like a year-and-a-half old when we went into full-time pastoral ministry, Andrew was born after we were pastoring, and Peter. And all of our sons love God. They all are in the church. They’re all in different churches. Aaron helps us and works with us, Andrew’s in a good church in Denver, Peter, at this present time, is in a good church in the Miami, Florida area. They all have good wives and they all have children that are doing very well. So, you know, we’re so blessed in seeing our children grow up in the church loving God, loving their wives, loving their children. And also, they’re all very blessed financially. And I don’t believe this has to be the exception. I believe this should be the rule. And I believe that when we teach our children what the word of God says, that this can be the regular thing that we have in life. And we’re only gonna get through part of this and we’re just gonna be sharing from, you know, Barbara’s book, really, some of the lessons, and we’ll just probably get to share on a couple of lessons this week. There’s actually seven or eight different lessons that we go through in this teaching. You have a syllabus on it that we’re gonna make available. But go ahead, Barbara, and share.

 

  Well, I just wanna share one more thing. Another thing that I really liked about first responders… I’m just bringing this out. ‘Cause as a young mom and as serving in the ministry, you know, a lot of times, people act so shocked that our kids actually love God. And I love what the firemen say, “No one left behind.” And I thought, “If I’m gonna pour myself out into the church or into the world, I’m gonna pour myself out first to God.”

 

  Amen.

 

  My first priority is my relationship with God. My second priority as a married person, a married woman, a married wife is to have a relationship with my spouse. That has to be important. The third thing is my relationship with my children. And so, when I would… And I’ve never had problems. I had priorities, honey, as we were raising our children. And if our children needed me, I was there. It was never, you know, “I’m part of this big important committee, and I don’t have time for you. I don’t have time to cook for you,” you know? If I made a meal for someone else or baked cookies for someone else, our kids always got excited because they knew that they were going to get homemade cookies too.

 

  Praise God.

 

  I never neglected them for the world or for the call. They were a top priority, and they knew it. And I like something else Dr. Lester Sumrall said regarding raising his sons. You know, he was a very productive, passionate person just like we are, but he said, “My children always knew that they could come to me anytime. The door was always open.”

 

  Right.

 

  And so, I just wanna make that really important that we can’t ever treat our children as not important, that our jobs, our careers, our ministries, our callings are more important. And so, we’re gonna start, if you don’t mind, in Psalm 127:1-5 because it talks about building your house on ungodly principles.

 

  Right. Before you get there, let’s talk about this thing. I think what you said really talks about a… I think we have to re, maybe, define success.

 

  Oh, that’s good.

 

  And I believe, you know, if you’re gonna really be successful, you’ve got to impart success to other people. And so, I think a lot of people have looked at success and they’ve looked at it more on what they do on the outside, how their ministry looks on the outside rather than, you know, number one, my relationship with God, number two, my relationship, you know, with my spouse, and number three, my relationship with my children. And so I think, you know, we want to impart success. For instance, if I’m gonna be a successful husband, you know, I first have to be, it’s in making you as my spouse successful. If I’m gonna be a successful father, it’s making my children successful. If I’m gonna be a successful pastor, it’s making the people that I take care of in the flock successful. If I’m gonna be a successful Bible school teacher, it’s making those successful. So, you know, we redefine success but it begins, just like you talked about, with our relationship with God.

 

  I actually have a quote. Do you remember saying this? “You are not a success until you have made someone else successful.” I believe that’s even in my book ’cause I always thought that was really powerful. Because we’ve been married a while, we’re coming on 40 years of marriage, and this is how you’ve been our whole entire marriage. You’ve always made a life out of helping other people in whatever capacity you could.

 

  Right.

 

  And you love helping young people, not just even our own children. But this is just how you’ve been since we’ve been married. So I like that. That really is a different definition. A lot of times in the world, I believe even my father’s culture was, you know, everyone’s trying to get to that top of the ladder and you knock off whoever’s in your way, and that’s really not scriptural. And so, I love that we can teach some simple truths. We know this works because we’ve seen it work in our family. So these are simple biblical truths that anybody can impart and start implying at any point in their life, whether they’re married or single. These are all truths that we, strong biblical truths that we all need in our personal life, as well as our family.

 

  Amen. The Bible, the word of God, will work for anybody who believe it.

 

  That’s right.

 

  It’s for whosoever.

 

  Mm-hmm.

 

  Whosoever believes in Jesus shall have eternal life and whosoever believes shall have whatsoever-

 

  Amen. That’s right.

 

  … he believes and speaks, so on and so forth. But we need to believe the word of God. So jump into Psalm 127 there.

 

  Well, again, for those watching, we’re gonna look at Psalm 127:1-5. And really, it’s talking about our homes need to be built on godly principles. And that’s what it says starting off in verse 1, “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it. Unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows, for so he gives his beloved sleep.” I love that. “Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, a reward, a blessing. The fruit of the womb is a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one’s youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them. They shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with their enemies in the gate.” You know, something that was interesting that started when I was a young woman beginning our family, you know, at that time, I thought it was very odd, there were literally countries, some European countries, who are having to pay women to have babies. They’ve made it almost like it’s not a good thing, like a curse to have a baby, and that children are in the way. And now, we see this crazy mentality that, you know, you’re supposed to really talk your children out of accepting the wonderful plan that God has for their life. They’re trying to bring it in schools that children are taught as a 10-year-old, that they could pick their own gender, and that they can get the medication without their parents’ knowledge to change them and that sterilizes them. It’s really an attack against God and His creation.

 

  Yes. You know, the Bible says in Genesis 5:2 that God created them male and female.

 

  This is so simple.

 

  And He called them. You know, you are what God made you to be. And you know, we listened to a great message by an African-American pastor in Philadelphia the other night. It was sent to us by Derrick Wilburn, who comes to our church. He’s the head of Rocky Mountain Black Conservatives. But it says, “What is a woman?”

 

  What is the definition of woman? ‘Cause right now, our own congress is not wanting to define that, and they’re wanting to call women or mothers, what, baby carriers, and they’re like-

 

  That’s just terrible. And so anyway, he said his definition of a woman was, “Your mama is a woman. Every one of you has a mama. Your mama is a woman. It takes a woman to bring forth a child.” He brought this forth. This is terrible, this thing that’s being done. And we’re actually standing up against it, you know, where we live here in Colorado Springs and we’re having great success in our school district in getting-

 

  Making a change.

 

  … different leadership in there and getting rid of these LGBTQ books. I’m sorry, friends, but that stuff is just as deadly, if not, as pornography.

 

  It’s worse.

 

  And pornography is terrible.

 

  No, it’s worse what they’re trying to put in schools or put in libraries, or even if you homeschool. Whatever avenue you’re educating your children, it’s just everywhere. It’s in TV, it’s in commercials, it’s in cartoons, it’s on the website. Parents have to be very proactive in really watching what your children are reading or reading online, reading in books. And I love this teaching on “Imparting Success to Next Generation.” What our priority was teach our children the truth.

 

  Amen. You know, the-

 

  And then, they’ll know the truth and they won’t believe a lie or be confused. They’ll know the truth. It will what set you free.

 

  The truth is always stronger than a lie. We never really focused on the lies. We didn’t focus on the darkness.

 

  We didn’t focus on sin.

 

  We didn’t focus on hatred. We focused on the truth. Because, for instance, in the beginning, God created the heaven and earth. That’s stronger than the lie of evolution. Evolution is a lie. There’s no fossil record. But the truth is always stronger than a lie. So we didn’t focus on the lies, we focused on the truth. Love is stronger than hatred.

 

  Amen.

 

  And so, we just taught the truth of the Bible, the truth of the word of God. I didn’t go into a lot of the, you know, anti, you know, like unveiling the darkness, so to speak. We just taught the truth of the word of God because that stands strong. Now Aaron, our son, has told me, you know, he said, “Dad, I’m having to teach Fisher, my son, things… He’s 9 years old but you told me when I was 17.” And he said, “The challenges that we’re dealing with in public education and the school system today are a lot greater than the challenges we dealt with.” But don’t think you won’t deal with them, you know, as homeschoolers in Christian schools, so on and so forth. My mom taught both in public school and in Christian school, and actually she saw a lot worse problems in the Christian school than in the public school. But we’ve had homeschoolers have major, major problems, and it’s not… Sin is a universal thing. And so, we have to teach our kids the truth, whether they’re in Christian school or homeschool or public school. We have to do what’s the best for our children. But we have to realize that that, you know, we have to just do what’s best for our children, but teach them the truth of the word of God.

 

  Yeah, I might bring something out because what we taught is, you know, there is a God.

 

  Amen.

 

  He loves you. Our children heard that every day, at least twice a day. There is a God. He loves you. He wants to have a relationship with you and He created you with anointing for special purposes. And I think that’s really a key too, and we’ll talk more about that. But again, we talked about the truth and the light, not the sin and the darkness. Because there is an enemy to God, the devil, and he is the great deceiver. He can’t make you do anything, but he’s always trying to deceive you. And hallelujah, we can teach the truth and shut that deceiver off.

 

  Amen. We’re gonna take a short break. And right after this break, we’re gonna come back and we’ll continue to share on the next generation, “Raising the Next Generation.” Blessings. Hey everyone, I’ve just finished reading the final script for my wife, Barbara’s, book on “Imparting Success to the Next Generation.” It’s a fantastic, tried-and-proven thing that Barbara has proved in our lives on how we can teach our children to succeed. Andrew Wommack wrote the foreword. You don’t wanna miss it. You’ll be blessed. Thanks so much.

 

  The sermons are so rich. There’s so much scripture and there’s so much depth to what’s being taught here.

 

  I’m really eager to learn more about the Bible and I really like going to hear Aaron on Wednesdays. He delves into scriptures and really wraps his mind around it. We love all four pastors. Each has a different kind of calling on their life, I feel.

 

  Praise the Lord, friends. I’m glad you stayed with us. I have Barbara here and we’re teaching from her book, the first lesson actually, “Raising the Next Generation,” from your book, “Imparting Success to the Next Generation.”

 

  I wanna get on into 2 Timothy 1:5. We’ve been talking about teaching our children. You know, it’s important, like we mentioned, whether you have a family or whether you’re single, instilling faith, knowing the truth. And I love it, both of us had mothers who really instilled faith in us. So I love this scripture, how it brings out, again, this is 2 Timothy 1:5. And it says, “When I call to remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwelt first in your grandmother, Lois, and in your mother, Eunice. And I am persuaded in you also.” I like this. This is something that was passed down. This was something-

 

  Amen.

 

  You know, years ago on a Mother’s day, I taught faith that was, you know, taught and caught.

 

  Right.

 

  And I believe both of us really caught that spirit of faith from our mothers. I learned a lot from my mother watching her believe and stand on the word and seeing amazing things coming to pass. But again, both of us had mothers who really believed God’s word, stood on it, and we watched it and it’s important. We’re gonna talk about it. You can read this. But I love… We’re also supposed to communicate our faith to our children.

 

  Right.

 

  Amen.

 

  So he says this when he is talking about, you know, “I’m persuaded this faith was in you. It was in your grandmother, it was in your mother. I’m persuaded you have it too.” And he says, “Wherefore I put you in remembrance,” in verse 6, “to stir up the gift of God.”

 

  Amen.

 

  You know, a lot of your teaching along these lines of, you know, raising, you know, children, you know, raising the next generation, imparting success to the next generation is you have a gift from God. And I think this is something that is really key with our children, that you looked at them and you look for their God-given gifts and talents. And I think Aaron has said, “You never told us as parents that there was something that we couldn’t do.” And you know, of course, as they grow, they learn. Peter, our youngest son, played football, did really well in junior high, really well in high school. Andrew also did good in junior high and high school. Andrew had a offer to play college ball and get a small scholarship, which he turned down so that he could actually help us in the church. Peter actually got into Princeton, and part of it was through football and different things. There were other parts of that too. But Peter played D1, you know, football in college and he had this dream maybe of going to NFL. When he got to college, Peter weighed about 175 pounds dripping wet. He was extremely fast and kind of… I took him out to a football camp at Princeton. When they saw him run, I think he ran a 43, 40 or something on a wet turf field in tennis shoes, and the coach is like, “Wow.” And the coach was over talking to us that night after practice. And that’s part of what helped open the door for Peter to go to Princeton. But after he played a couple years, he just said, “Dad, at this level…” Peter weighed 175 pounds dripping wet. I mean, extremely fast. He could bench press 355 pounds. So he was one of the, you know, even though he is one of the lightest people on the team, he could bench press as much as about anybody on their team. But he said, “Daddy, at this level, when they hit, they hit really hard. And there’s better ways to make money than play football.” But you kind of learn, you know, your ability in your body size different things that God’s given you, so on and so forth. But Peter went to Princeton. Ultimately, he started out in engineering. He found out in a really quick time that he didn’t like engineering. So the second semester, he turned to Business Finance. And ultimately, he’s been involved in corporate business and worked in the financial side and, you know, the corporate management. He’s currently, as we’re teaching this, the chief operating officer of Burger King of the Americas at only 32 years of age. This is really amazing how God has promoted him and blessed him.

 

  Well, I’m gonna bring something out ’cause you started this, but again, I love how this faith is passed down. And then it goes on to, “I remind you to stir up the gift.” You know, I love Dr. Sumrall. He would say, “Burnout? I don’t believe in burnout.” He’s like, “I don’t have time to be burnout.” And we know the Bible also uses David as an example, that he encouraged himself in the Lord. It’s really important that we ourselves and we teach this to our children how important it is to keep yourself stirred up and encouraged in the Lord, praying, and speaking in tongues, and praying in the Holy Spirit. Because you talked about college and all that, I wanna bring out another thing that we did as parents. We never, and they tell us this, we never told our kids, “You can’t do it.” We always said, “With God, all things are possible.” We never told them as they were younger and studying, we never said, you know, “We’re pastors, so don’t play. You know, you can’t afford to buy a car. You can’t afford college because we’ve put everything into, you know, starting churches.” We just said, “With God, all things are possible. You know, do good in school, do good in…” And we had them in band, we had them in music, we had them in sports. And so, you mentioned about Peter, but when Peter was in middle school, he said, “I’m gonna go to college and it’s gonna be paid for.” Then as he was in high school, he said, “I’m going to Princeton University.” And this was a revelation he had himself.

 

  Right.

 

  And I’m just gonna bring it out really quick and you might wanna share something too. So it was so amazing, I believe it was the second year he was there, he was invited to a dinner. They have what’s called endowments, and he was able to meet some of the family that had left this endowment, and it was in the 1800s. A couple left money for someone’s children who was in full-time ministry. And you know, that was a hundred years before our son even needed it, but God had already placed that there. There is provision to do what you are called to do.

 

  Amen.

 

  That’s what we taught our children. That’s what we believe. That’s what we teach here at the church and-

 

  Amen

 

  … at the college campuses.

 

  You know, so Peter was at our youth camp, and actually God spoke to him when he was in junior high and said, “You’re gonna get in through football,” and he came back all fired up. And then, when he was a junior in high school, God spoke to him and said, “You’re gonna go to Princeton University.” Of course, we had him apply for three different colleges and he was accepted all three. But Princeton was where he really wanted to go. And, you know, he was studying engineering, which isn’t Princeton’s forte. His second choice was Colorado School of Mines, which is very high in engineering where our middle son went, but Peter didn’t like engineering in the first semester so he changed to Business Finance. And that worked out really, really well with what he’s doing, and Princeton was the place for him to be. And God knew that and God directed him. But it was through his relationship with God and it was through church and it was through, you know, our youth camps and different things and being really involved that he heard God for himself.

 

  Amen. I’m gonna bring something out, a lot of times, people don’t teach this, and I think it’s really important. You know, we’re talking about raising the next generation, building our lives, our homes on ungodly principles, instilling faith. And another scripture I have in here, and this is what we really taught our children, what we teach here at the ministry, and this is Deuteronomy 30:15 and 19. And it says, “See, I have set before you today life and good, and death and evil,” and then it goes on in verse 19 and it says, “I call heaven and earth as witnesses today. But again before you, I have set life and death, blessing and cursing, therefore,” I love how the answer to the test is given, “choose life. You know, that both you and your descendants may live.” You know, life is about choices. And it encourages here in the Bible, choose life. In other words, choose a life with God.

 

  Amen. And you know, right here in this scripture, you know, He’s actually saying, if you read verse 11 through verse 14, He’s saying, “Listen, my plan, my commandment is not hidden from you.

 

  Amen.

 

  It’s not across the sea, it’s not in heaven, you know? It’s near you.” And you know, we get the scripture in Romans 10:8, “The word is near you, even in your heart, in your mouth. That is the word of faith that we preach.” So it’s about a choice that you make. You make a choice to believe Jesus and be saved. You make choices to believe that you can find the will of God for your life. You can follow that and you can fulfill that. And when you make these choices, you know, all of our kids went to secular colleges, but they didn’t struggle with their Christianity. They didn’t struggle with their identity. They serve God while they were there.

 

  I like what-

 

  And they continue to serve God.

 

  I like what you just said, “They didn’t struggle with their identity.” I love that we have different ministers that come here and really teach, Mark and Trina Hankins are one, but they teach on your true identity in Christ.

 

  Amen.

 

  Your identity is in Christ.

 

  Amen. And you know, the Bible actually says this in Philemon verse 6, “The communication of your faith becomes effective by acknowledging every good thing that is in you in Christ.” Again, we’re not teaching them all the darkness and all the lies and all the bad things about that. We taught them the truth of the word of God because, and we taught them who you are. You know, we just developed a new kids curriculum and we’re still developing it. But the first year is, Who is God? Who is Jesus? Who is the Holy Spirit? And who are you? That’s the first four quarters. We’ve made this absolutely free of charge. We’re making it through the body of Christ. Bunches of churches are getting ahold of this, homeschoolers are getting ahold of this, different teachers, and they’re teaching. This is the foundation for life. And we’re making this again available on our website, charischristiancenter.com, free of charge. Remember our book, Barbara’s brand new book, “Imparting Success to the Next Generation.” You know, if you need prayer today, if you need to receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior, if you need prayer for healing, if you need prayer maybe for a relationship, someone in your family, I encourage you today to just give us a call at the church. I have trained prayer ministers that are here. They’re waiting to receive your call and they’re here. We wanna minister to you. Also, I wanna say a great big thank you to our partners. It’s our partners that have made these things available to where people can receive, for instance, this curriculum free of charge and we’ve got hundreds of items free of charge on our website. Blessings.

 

  It is important to keep God first, family second, and our ministry third. In a busy world, it is essential that we understand and act upon these priorities. Raising kids to love the word, value family, and live with purpose will bring them great success. Get your copy of Barbara’s new book, “Imparting Success to the Next Generation” for $15.99. Go to charischristiancenter.com and order yours today.

 

  Hey everyone, I wanna let you know about something coming up for our livestream congregation. We have Brother Jesse Duplantis is gonna be here at Charis Christian Center.

 

  You let God do what He wants, and He’ll bless you beyond your wildest dreams, spiritually, physically, and financially.

 

  You’re gonna get some great revelation with Jesse Duplantis. Tell your friends about it. Charis Christian Center, Sunday, November 5th.

 

  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.