In Christ Realities – Part 10 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

In Christ Realities Part 10 with Pastors Lawson and Aaron Perdue. In this episode of Grace For Today you’ll learn about four things that God made, Christ earned us.

In Christ Realities Part 10 Transcription

Friends, I’m so glad that you tuned in today, that you’ve joined us for the broadcast. We’re talking today about four things that God made, Christ earned us. We’re talking about who we are in Christ. We’re gonna talk about one of the greatest problems in the world today is identity theft. But praise God, you’ve got a Bible full of promises that God’s given you, and you’ve got the Holy Spirit so you can know who God made you to be and do what God called you to do. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re here with us today. We are talking today about our new identity is our true identity, and we’ve been talking for two weeks about who we are in Christ, in Christ, realities. And when you begin to understand this, it will revolutionize the way that you live your life. This is revolutionary revelation. Amen. When God was working in Christ, he was working on us, and God did in Christ what he wanted to do in every man. When we understand that, it changes our life, praise God, and so God is so good to us. You know, we’re gonna begin today in 1 Corinthians 1:26-31. Aaron, if you wanna read this, I believe it’s powerful, and then we’re really gonna focus on verse 30.

Okay. It says, “For you see your calling brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence. But of him, you are in Christ Jesus who became for us, wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, that as it is written, ‘He who glories, let Him glory in the Lord.'”

Amen. So it’s saying God didn’t choose the mighty things of the world or noble things of the world. Most times he chooses foolish things, weak things, base things, things that are despised to the world. He says he did this for a purpose that no flesh should glory in his presence. You know, a lot of times people come in the church that are mighty in the world, and we try to make a big deal out of ’em, but God doesn’t make a big deal out ’em, and we need to be smarter and be more like God. And he said he did this for a purpose, so that if somebody’s gonna glory, they gotta glory in the Lord. But right in the middle of that, in verse 30, he says, “But of him, are you in Christ Jesus.” You know, our new identity is our true identity. We are of God in Christ Jesus. You know, you make some people mad saying, “I’m of God in Christ Jesus. Amen. And Christ of God is made under me wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” And when you begin to think about those four aspects of who you are in Christ, who Christ is in you, wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption, all of those things are immediate in your spirit when you’re born again, but there it’s a process of walking those things out. And so they’re immediate and continual. So as far as wisdom is, for instance, I have the mind of Christ, but yet I need to draw on my spirit man, so that I can walk in the mind of Christ, so that I can receive that right and walk out what’s in me. As far as spiritually, I am the righteousness of God in Christ, but I need to renew my mind to that fact so that I can begin to walk in the righteousness of God. Amen. As far as spiritually speaking, I am sanctified by the blood of Jesus. Now, if we have time, in this lesson, we’ll talk about how sanctification affects your spirit, soul, and body. There’s three aspects of an individual that needs to be sanctified. Your spirit is sanctified the moment that you get born again. You’re sanctified by the blood of Jesus. You can’t get any more sanctified than you already are in your spirit, but your mind, your soul needs to be sanctified.

Being sanctified.

Right. And Christ Jesus said, “Sanctify them through thy truth. Thy word is truth.” In John 17:17. But then the scripture actually says this, in 1Thessalonians 4, Paul says that every one of us need to know how to possess our body in sanctification and in honor. He says, “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification.” So we need to live that out in our body and all of these things begin in our spirit. But as we renew our mind in the word, then we begin to walk them out in our body. And it’s not good enough just to have this in your spirit. You need to get it working in your body. You need to get a manifestation of it. Praise God. So, you know, the first one is, I have the mind of Christ. We need the mind of Christ. And you know, as you go through life as a believer, sometimes you think God spoke to you and sometimes you-

Realize it wasn’t.

Realized it wasn’t God. And the way Hebrews 5 actually talks about this, and it says, “By training or by use, we can have our senses trained to discern both good and evil.” So I think we can learn and we can grow in the knowledge of this and learn really to hear God in a clear way and to know him. You know, Jesus said, “My sheep know my voice, in another, they will not follow. Romans 8:14 says, “For as many as they’re led by the sons of Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” You were talking about that recently, Aaron, and what’d you say about that? You said some good things.

Yeah, God, if you’re a child of God, he’s gonna lead you and direct you. That’s a promise that we have as believers, that he can speak to us, we can know his voice and that he’s gonna lead us.

We should expect the spirit of God to direct us. We should expect his counsel. You know, counsel in the heart of man that says this in Proverbs is like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw it out. I believe you got all of these things in your spirit. You have the mind of Christ. I like to say I have the mind of Christ. I know what to do, when to do it, how to do it for I have the mind of Christ. And I don’t always make every decision right, but I make a lot more right than I do wrong. And so we have the mind of Christ. The scripture talks about that 1Corinthians 2:16, and so he says, “Of God, are you in Christ Jesus who is made under us wisdom?” We have the wisdom of God. You know, the writer of Proverbs talks about the value of wisdom. It’s his wisdom is the principle thing. Get wisdom and get understanding. With all that, getting wisdom is more precious than Ruby’s. You know, I just recently had one of my ministers go home to be with Jesus, but man, this guy gave me more than money, he gave me so much wisdom. And you know, I was in the cattle business for a while when we pastored in Eastern Colorado and actually kept that going. Helped me start the church here. But, you know, had it going for a long time but 85% of the time, at least, when this guy, man, when this person gave me advice, it was good. You know, you can learn from people of wisdom. Some people don’t want to have godly counsel. Man, one of the ways to be led by the spirit. I told an individual one time, I said you’re trying to be the voice of God for people. I’m trying to get people to hear the voice of God. And here’s how you hear it through the word of God, through the spirit of God, through the peace of God, through godly counsel and through the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And this person is very gifted in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But that’s not the only way that you hear from God. You hear number one by the word, number two, by the Spirit of God in your spirit speaking to you, three, by the peace of God, but the peace of God, if I’m not gonna do nothing, I don’t have major decisions, I don’t have peace about it. If I don’t have peace about it, I’m not gonna do it. I don’t care who says I should, I’m gonna be led and directed by my spirit, by godly counsel. Most of my major decisions, I go to people and I listen to what they have to tell me. And then finally, by the gifts of the Holy Spirit, there’s certain things that we know just as the spirit of God speaks to us. So we have wisdom that comes from God. Now, when Christ lives in us, he is the head of wisdom. You know, I’ve often asked people to pray. You know, my granddad, when I used to sit down with him as a young child, would pray nearly every time, God give us wisdom. You know, give us wisdom to do our work, give us wisdom, you know, in business, in certain things, he would pray for wisdom. And so people would say, “What could we pray for you?” Andrew Wommack asked me one time years ago, when we pastor , “How could I pray for you?” I said, “Pray for me to have wisdom.” He said, “You have wisdom.” How do we have wisdom, Aaron?

Through Jesus.

Through Jesus.

In him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom.

Yeah. Colossians 2:3 says that, “In whom are hidden, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” Wisdom and knowledge is in Jesus. And Jesus is living in us, so we have his wisdom, but we’ve gotta learn to draw on our spirit, man, and walk out that wisdom that has been given to us. But boy, when you do it, man, wisdom is a powerful thing. You know how Dr. Delron Shirley, he was the dean of my Bible school at South Bend, Indiana. Now he lives here in Colorado Springs and works here, ministers, travels around the world. Primarily worked at Charis Bible College where I teach and am good friends with the founder Andrew Wommack. And Andrew’s one of my mentors, but Delran told me years and years ago, 30 years ago, he said, “Lawson, you have a lot of wisdom.” I said, “Not that I’m that wise, I just surrounded myself with wise people.” You know, I went to school, my best friend in high school was, and I talked to him recently, and I believe he’s a multi-millionaire like me. But you know what? I was talking to him and his dad was the Republican County commissioner in Prowers County where I grew up, and his dad’s talked about Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan was elected when I was in high school and one of the best presidents that we’ve ever had in the United States of America. But he said, Ronald Reagan may not be that smart, but what he’s done is surround himself with smart people. Man, the smarter people that you surround yourself with, the smarter you become. Proverbs 13:20 was one of my favorite scriptures, “He that walks with wise men shall be…”

Wise.

But a companion of four shall be destroyed. Amen. So, praise God, we’ve got wisdom that comes from God and we can learn from people of wisdom. Now, he says, Christ is not only made unto us wisdom, but he’s made under us righteousness. What is righteousness, Aaron?

It’s right standing before God.

Right standing before God, and it begins in our spirit. The moment that we were born again, our spirit is made righteous. You know, the Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “God made him Jesus to be sin for us who knows him, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” It’s not talking about what we do, it’s talking about who we are. You know, we’re developing this children’s curriculum and they wanted to teach that righteousness is keeping the commandments. And I said, “No, it’s not what we do, it’s who we are.” Now what we do changes when we understand who we are. But I didn’t want it about doing, I wanted it about being. And so many people in Christianity, it’s about doing rather than being. Praise God. So we gotta find a new way to teach that Jesus is righteous and we’re made righteous in him. His righteousness was given to us. He never sin, but he became a sin offering for us. 2 Corinthians 5:21, I just quoted it. “We weren’t righteous, but we were made righteous.” Now that we’re made righteous, right? We live the righteous life of Jesus out. So I say this, righteous living, the righteous life is not the result of righteous living. But righteous living will have you walk in the righteous life, Amen. The result of the righteous life of Jesus is righteous living. However, the righteous life is not the result of righteous living. So when you’re righteous, when you’re made righteous, would you believe on Jesus? And you receive that gift of righteousness and renew your mind in the word of God, you begin to live out the righteous life of Jesus. And 1John says, “He that does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.” The way we live as a result of who we are. So when we understand who God says that we are, who God made us to be in Christ. And that’s what he’s talking about here in 1 Corinthians 1:30. See, there’s two great problems in the world today. There’s identity theft, right? And so identity theft, and then there’s just a lack of identity. People don’t know who they are. And so when you understand who God made you be in Christ, and you don’t let the devil steal your identity, you’ll begin to live right, you’ll begin to walk in wisdom, you’ll begin to walk in righteousness, you’ll begin to walk like God says you are when you understand who God says you are. But the challenge in the church is a lot of people, they’ve received a new identity in Christ. In their spirit, they’ve been made new, they are righteous, they are sanctified, they have the mind of Christ, they are redeemed, but they don’t know it. And what you don’t know can hurt you. So we’re gonna come back right after this short break and we’re gonna continue to talk about who we are and what we have in Christ. And if you begin to understand this as a believer, I guarantee you it will liberate you. It will change your life. You will live better accidentally than you did on purpose if you don’t know this. So stay tuned, we’ll be back after short break. Blessings. Friends, I’m so glad you’ve been watching. Today, we’ve been teaching on the subject of redemption and who we are in Christ. This is some of my best teaching. In fact, I got a revelation of this over 40 years ago in Andrew Womack’s meetings when I was just a child and it revolutionized my life. And I believe if you get a revelation of who you are in Christ and what happened in the death bear on resurrection of Jesus, it will literally transform your life. And so we have a lot of great teaching on redemption, what Jesus did for us in his death, bear on resurrection and who we are in Christ. I encourage you to get this teaching, I believe just like it transformed my life, it will transform your life. So get on the internet, give us a call. We’d love to hear from you. Thank you so much, and God bless you richly as you lie his word in first place. Friends, I’m so glad that you stayed with us. We are right here in 1 Corinthians 1:30. And we’ve been talking about, we got a brand new identity in Christ.

I like that you talked about identity theft, how there’s a lot of identity theft.

Oh you had this happen.

In people’s lives. Well, the thing about identity theft is this, when someone steals your identity, they steal your authority. They can start making purchases in your name, getting things that should be going to you sent to them instead. And when your identity is stolen, you actually lose a lot of your own credibility. You lose your own authority. You go to, make a withdraw from your accounts and you can’t even access your own accounts.

You have this happen.

Yeah, this happens to a lot of people in the world today too, and it’s a lot of work to get your-

Identity back.

On your accounts. Yeah, so you don’t want the devil to steal your identity. You need to know who you are in Christ and operate in that authority again. When your identity is stolen, your authority is stolen. Your power is stolen. Things that rightly belong to you, your rights and your privileges are stolen. Things that belong to you are taken away. Like a lot of things stem from your identity, and that’s why it’s really important for believers to know who they really are, to have a firm identity in Christ.

Amen. You know, I really believe that’s helped you and your brothers prosper so much in life because we taught you from a young age who you are. I’ve talked about this several times, but I’m so excited we’re developing this new children’s curriculum, and then we’re gonna develop a youth curriculum also for our church, and we’re gonna make it available to people, you know, around the world, churches and praise God.

There’s not a lot of strong children’s curriculums available, no, like spirit filled, full gospel, who you are in Christ children’s curriculum. There really isn’t that much that’s been produced as of late. And to me, it’s a huge need in the body of Christ.

It’s a huge.

People’s identities are shaped when they’re young, when they’re children, when they’re teenagers. So it’s really important that at a young age, you’re firmly rooted and grounded in who you are in Christ.

Now, Aaron, you’ve talked about this, but you’ve had a lot of experience teaching, right? You’ve got a doctorate in music performance and you’ve taught students from seven or eight years old to over 60 years old. And you said when you start out teaching these younger kids, they have a lot of vision, they have a lot of hope.

They have a lot of creativity.

Yeah.

They have an imagination.

What happens is they get older.

A lot of people lose their imagination, they lose their sense of creativity. And it’s kind of shocking actually to see how people lose that sense of creativity, that sense of spark and wonder.

Amen. And you said they kind of getting junior high and they’re a lot less… They have a lot less hope or a lot less dreams because they’ve kind of given up in high school even less.

It’s more creativity.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And you know, you’ve got a song and somebody actually got mad because we sing this song, but this song’s a little edgy, but I like it. It’s a prophetic song and it talks about how we have favor. And the words of that song have been coming to me in the night. And we’re moving into what God has for us. We have favor, you know, what are the… Give me some the words.

It’s called overflow.

Overflow.

It’s walking in abundance. Walking with this at the speed of the Holy Ghost.

Amen.

And then I’ve taken over.

Amen.

It’s actually seen a blessing in a-

Amen.

Someone kind of got offended by the song and…

I’ve taken over. Well, I-

But really the blessing, the curse is that you’ll be taking over, that your enemies will take over you, that you’ll be defeated.

Yeah.

And the blessing is that you’ll take over.

We have authority. See, a lot of people don’t have a revelation of our authority.

And it offends them when you speak up. But Jesus, Jesus has given us authority in His name. And it’s through him, it’s through the speed, the power of the Holy Ghost.

Amen.

And it’s actually a great song. It’s by a, written by a great worship artist named him Sinach. She wrote Way Maker.

Yeah.

So everyone knows Way Maker.

Yeah.

Well, those words of that song have been coming to me in the night for two weeks. I’ve been in the night just going over that in my mind. ♪ Walking in abundance ♪

Moving at the speed.

Moving at the speed of the Holy Ghost.

I am favored.

I am favored. Those words, walking in abundance, moving at the speed of the Holy Ghost, I am favored been coming back to me over and over. And then God’s been giving me dreams. I don’t dream a lot of dreams, but I’ve been dreaming some things that are amazing. Hallelujah. And then God’s spoken to some things to me, and I know you, you’ve preached on him. I was actually on vacation and I watched your Wednesday night service twice because Sunday morning in the service, the early service before that, God spoke to me and then you were preaching about it. You’re very prophetic many times in things. And man, it was speaking to me, and then God’s been rolling those words. It’s so important what you meditate on. You know, we’ve been talking about mind renewal. You know, we’ve been talking about who you are in Christ. And in this session we’re talking about our new identity as our true identity, right? That we are, Christ is made under us wisdom and righteousness. We have the mind of Christ. We’re the righteousness of God and sanctification. We’re set apart from the world, by the spirit of God, by the blood of Jesus. We’re sanctified, our spirit is sanctified. Our mind is sanctified by the word and by the spirit, and then our body is sanctified when we just make, let our flesh submit. You don’t let your body rule you, you let your spirit rule. You praise God. And redemption, redemption, sanctification. Really, when you understand it, it’s talking about your ministry, your effect in this world. And if you don’t let sanctification, you know, work in your life and live it out, it will greatly hinder your ministry, your effect in this world, you accomplishing God’s purpose and helping people. And then redemption and redemption’s talking about, you know, I am redeemed from every curse and I’m walking in these things that God has given to me, the promises. If you wanna walk in the promises of God, I like to say I’m redeemed from every curse. I’m forgiven from for every sin. That’s the gospel truth. That is our new identity. And so we need to understand these four principles. You know, John Wesley, when he died, this was one of his favorite scriptures. And he said, “Best of all, God is with us.” You know, when he started out and he was filled with the Holy Ghost, a lot of people don’t realize this. Martin Luther, John Wesley, these revivals, they were filled with a Holy Ghost. And man, he started out, they made laws with some towns. He couldn’t come within five miles of town, you know, but by the end of his life, he didn’t have a horse fast enough to get to all the meetings. But he said, “Best of all, God is with us.” Man, Paul talks about it. Boy, people fought me. They were like the beasts. But he said, God was with me. The Lord was with me, and you stood with me. And he thanked God for the handful of people that stood with him. But you need to understand your new identity is your true identity. You know, I’ve been teaching, you know, all these last two weeks we’ve been teaching on these two things, redemption and In Christ Realities. And you know what, Jesus made these things a reality in our life. And if you’ll get these teachings, I guarantee as a believer you get these teachings, it will transform your life. Amen. It is revolutionary revelation. And you can actually access these programs free of charge on our website. You can listen to a lot of our teachings, absolutely free of charge. On the web, oh hundreds of hours of teaching. And you know, I thank God at a young age, I got filled with the Holy Ghost and I began to understand when I first got filled with the Holy Ghost, I begin to understand who I was in Christ, that I am the righteousness of God in Christ. And you know, it made me bold. And you get filled with the Holy Ghost and begin to understand who you are in Christ. It’ll make you bold.

Well, I think on that understanding of In Christ Realities, who we are in Christ, that’s really central to a lot of your ministry, a lot of your teaching. And really it’s been foundational just in your over 30 years of pastoring and ministry. Everything you minister is kind of founded upon that reality of who we are in Christ.

Amen. When God was working in Christ, he was working on us, and God did in Christ what he wanted to do in every man. And when you begin to understand that, listen, you’re getting ready to take off. You’re getting ready to move into some great things, praise God. I’m so excited about God and Jesus and you know, we get to do this. And it’s not like we never have any challenges. You know, some people that are around Mama think we don’t have any challenges, but it’s because we wait till it’s a testimony and then we tell people about the test that became a testimony. And so they think we never have any problems. We never have any… No, we’ve had problems, we’ve had battles, but we just keep believing the word and speaking the word and we identify with what Jesus has done for us. You need to identify what Jesus and what he’s done. Praise the Lord. Aaron, share something.

That’s awesome. Well, I just believe, yeah, these are great teachings. I know this is kind of our last session that we’ve been doing on two weeks on In Christ Realities, but I just encourage you, if this is kind of a newer subject to you, if you really just struggled with your sense of purpose, your sense of worth, maybe you just wanna grow in the things that God has in store for you, I just encourage you to give us a call and order these teachings. They’re also available, actually free of charge online.

And you can get ’em online. You know, you can go to the website, you can get these things online, our website, many of these hundreds of hours of teachings, absolutely free of charge. You can download our app where you can get things on all of our newest stuff is there, all the time you can get it, access it, free of charge. It costs me hundreds of thousands of dollars between the staff and all these things to make this available to you. But you know what? My staff costs me about a million dollars a year now but it’s well worth it to get the gospel out to the world. The world needs to know Jesus and what he’s done.

Awesome. So I believe that God just brought you here today for a purpose. You weren’t watching this by accident, but God, you know, had a purpose for you on watching this today. So just thank you so much for joining us today. I know that God has great things in store for you.

If you’d like to partner with us, we’d love to hear from you again. You can check us out today on the website charischristiancenter.com. And we have secretaries here Monday through Thursday and prayer ministers, so give us a call, check us out online. God bless you. Have a great weekend.

[Voiceover] You have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus. The power of sin is broken and you are no longer a sinner but a saint. Get the redemption package, which includes Redemption and In Christ Realities on either CD or digital download for $37 when you call 719-418-4000 or visit charischristiancenter.com.

Hey everyone, we wannainvite you to Family Camp meeting at Charis Christian Center. We’re gonna have guest Speaker Mark and Trina Hankins. We’re gonna have Congresswoman Lauren Bobber full of the Holy Ghost and fire. Special Worship with Philip Renter. Special youth meetings, kid meetings, a number of adult teachers in addition to this. It’s gonna be a great time, you don’t wanna miss it. You can check it out at familycampmeeting.com. Blessings.

[Voiceover] 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 PO Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80962. See you next time on Grace For Today.