Raising Leaders 2 Part 4 – Lawson Perdue and Max Cornell

Raising Leaders 2 Part 4

Raising Leaders 2 Part 4 with Pastors Lawson Perdue and Max Cornell. In this episode of Grace for Today, discover how God uses the associations and friendships that you have get you where He wants you to go.

Raising Leaders 2 Part 4 Transcript

Praise the Lord, friends. I’m so glad that you’re connected with us today. I have pastor Max Cornell with me from Charis Church in Kansas City. And we are sharing today on 2 Timothy 4, we’re talking about the associations that we have help us get to where God wants us to go, or they distract us from it. So if you wanna get where God wants you to go, you need to be connected to the right people. Blessings. Hi, friends. I’m so glad that you’re here today. I’m with Max Cornell, my good friend, Pastor Max Cornell from Kansas city, Kansas. He pastors Charis Church and we’re so glad, and this is our last broadcast to be sharing together. But we’re sharing from 2 Timothy on instructions from a father to a son in the faith. And we said this starting out the week, but I think it bears repeating. You know what? Things I’ve told my son were different than things I told my general congregation. Because I wanted my sons to make it. Now, you know my sons. Yeah, Aaron, Andrew, and Peter. They’re in their thirties. They’re all in church. They’re all serving God. They’re all givers. They’re all got good families. They’re very, very blessed. But it’s because principles that I taught them. And I think Paul writes differently when he writes here in Timothy. And he says, son, if you don’t do this, you’re not gonna make it. See in Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Romans, Paul’s teaching on the heart of the gospel.

[Pastor Max] Sure.

Faith, grace and righteousness. But here he is talking on the application of the gospel. And I don’t share these things a lot when I teach, but I’m telling you they’re very practical and they work.

Well, the scripture tells is we can get to heaven and smell like smoke, so we can go to heaven, but our lives can be a wreck on the way there. And it’d be a lot better if they weren’t. And so we need to heed this kind of advice. And I was just gonna say that that’s one of the things that attracted me to you and to this church is the way that your three sons love Jesus and are still serving him. And so it’s awesome.

I didn’t get a revelation of grace until 1994. So my son, Aaron was six years old.

Yeah.

Or seven years old, six or seven when I got, he would’ve been seven when I got a revelation of grace, I had been pastoring for six years. I was 30 years old. So I got baptized in the Holy Spirit when I was 14 in Andrew Wommack Ministry in 1978 and called to preach. And then I graduated from Bible school in 1988, I started my church, pastored the first six years without having a revelation of grace. And then in 1994, I got a revelation of grace. And it really changed the way that I communicate. It changed the way that I teach. I like to say prior to that, about 90% of my preaching was about what we need to do.

[Pastor Max] Yeah.

And about 10% was about what Jesus has done. I’ve turned that around now. I think about 90% of my preaching is about what Jesus has done really about grace. But there is this 10% of practical application in response to the gospel in response to the grace of God or really because the grace of God, is that a major effect in our life, this is how we live.

That’s right.

And so instructions from a father to a son in the faith, let’s jump into this second. 2 Timothy 4, were in verse one. “I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus will judge the living and dead at his appearing in the kingdom, preach the word, be instant in season, out of season reprove, rebuke, exhort with all patients and doctrine.” Go ahead.

Yeah, yeah. Well, so he’s saying that Jesus is gonna come back and we’re gonna be accountable to him. And now thank God for grace and our sins are forgiven and all that, but we need to understand that our choices down here have real consequences. And so we need to live with an understanding that my ability to positively affect those around me is tied directly, to whether or not I’m continuing my relationship with the Lord, whether or not I’m staying in the word, whether or not I’m in prayer. And the more I do those things it’s not that God loves me anymore.

Right.

But the more, I’m in a better position to live the kind of life God wants me to live.

Amen, and he says, “Preach the word.”

Yeah.

My pastor taught me this. So I had a really great pastor when I was about 16, 17 years old and Kenny Davis from Lamar, Colorado. And he immediately, I’d been in Andrew’s Bible Study, Andrew left Lamar. And I’d been in Andrew’s Bible Study for two to three years and was moving to Colorado Springs. And then we tried to start a church with a guy that didn’t know what he was doing, we didn’t know what we were doing and we failed. Well, learned some lessons from it.

[Pastor Max] Sure.

But at the same point in time, I ended up in this word of faith simply of God and my pastor was Kenny Davis. And Kenny told me when he first started out preaching, he had a hard time struggling with what am I gonna preaching? An older minister of the gospel told him, you got a whole Bible full of things to preach.

Yeah.

Preach the word.

Amen.

Man, there is so much to preach, Now, it’s like, what do I, there’s so much, what do I preach?

Yeah.

And figuring out, you know where to go next, but preach the word. Be ready all the time. I think if you get ready, God will give you a place to share.

Yeah, that’s true.

And God equips the faithful. And so get prepared and God will give you a place. And when you get out there and start operating, you’ll see where you’re gifted. And there’s some people trying to pastor, for instance, they’re not pastors. I heard that Mario Murillo came and they had a preparation meeting. They had 800 people in this preparation meeting for when he’s coming 500, 1,300 another, ’cause they outgrew the venue.

Wow.

But he was preaching. And he was saying, some of you had taken your small groups and split in the church and he just laid it on them and you’re not pastors. And the fire God was on him. And he just told him it was. And a lot of these people, We’ve seen this happen in a very negative way. It’s sad to say.

Yeah.

But people, a lot of times, don’t tend to be people of integrity in those areas. And they think there’s something when they’re not.

[Pastor Max] Yeah.

But if you’re anointed and you’re called to do something, you prepare yourself and God, you can’t call yourself into the Fivefold Ministry.

That’s right.

Jesus is the one he said, he’s given some apostles, prophets of pastors and teachers, according to Ephesians 4, 11, 12. But if you’re called God equips those who are called, but you be faithful for that call and you get prepared and God will give you a place. He says, “Be ready all the time ins and out in season, out of season. Reprove, rebuke and exhort. Now I found that people don’t always like reprove. They don’t always like rebuke. However they need it. He says exhort with all patients and doctrine, I’ve simply told some people, listen, I don’t agree with you on this. I mean, you’re doing really good over here, but I don’t agree with you here. So because I don’t agree with you. I’m not gonna give you my support in this realm. They’ve got mad, it’s I love you. You’re a great minister of the gospel.

Sure.

But I just don’t, it’s just, and maybe I shouldn’t be so honest, but I’m very honest and very transparent. I guess I’ve always been that way. I think that’s the best way to live life.

Yeah.

But he says reprove and rebuke. Sometimes people don’t like that.

They don’t, but they need it. And as a leadership principle, the way people respond to correction, tells you whether or not they’re ready to be in a greater leadership role.

That’s correct.

And we don’t always like to hear that, nobody likes to be corrected, but if we want to be in a leadership position, you have to be able to receive constructive criticism. You have to be able to receive feedback. And you’ve sat me down in your office before and told me stuff and it’s not fun, but I need to hear that and be encouraged and be redirected.

Well, you did a great job when you worked for me. I did tell you a couple times.

Just a couple things, I mean not, but I mean…

But your heart see your attitude’s right?

Yeah.

I told Andrew Wommack, one time I said, “Andrew, you can tell me anything you want to.”

Right.

“And I’m here to listen, anytime.”

Yeah.

And I told him this after I was here three or four years in Colorado Springs, but realized I’d been at that time, probably following Andrew for 30 years, close to 30 years and so Andrew, what I told him, he’s like, “Listen, Lawson. I already know.” I’m like, “How do you know that? I’ve never told you that.” He said, “It’s the attitude in which you conduct yourself.” He said, “I already know, see, I’m here to learn. I’m here to listen.”

Yeah.

And you know what? I actually try to listen to everybody.

Yeah.

And then I try to evaluate what everybody’s saying and then do what the Lord tells me to do.

Amen.

And you know what? I’ll listen to the poorest person in my church. I’ll listen to the richest person in my church.

Sure.

I recently had somebody got angry and quit to church because I wouldn’t do what they wanted me to do. What they felt like was the model that we should follow. The challenge was Jesus spoke to me and told me to do something different.

Yeah.

So Jesus always comes first.

Amen.

And it wasn’t a heaven or hell issue, it was just a different mentality of the way we go about doing ministry in the local church.

[Pastor Max] Yeah.

We’ve gotta follow Jesus. We’ve gotta keep him first place. We’ve gotta do what he says.

You and I talked to a lot of pastors and I think one thing we’ve learned is you have to be yourself and you have to be the person that God called you to be and do ministry the way God called you to do it. And I can’t be a different kind of pastor. There are other types of churches that do ministry models differently than me and I think that’s great. I’m not here to criticize them, but I can’t be something that I’m not. And so I’m primarily a teacher, so I have to focus on teaching.

Right.

And you told me that and I think that’s important.

You just need to be who you are.

That’s right.

This is something I learned from Chris Hodges.

Yeah.

Chris has a great church in Birmingham, Alabama, and Church of the Highlands. And I’ve been to a number of his training sessions. Now I follow a different model than Chris. We’ve tried to do what Chris does that hasn’t worked very well for us.

Yeah.

So that’s all fine. I love Chris has a phenomenal church, but he said, “You focus on your strength.”

That’s right.

“And do what you’re really good at.” So if you can build on that and grow from that. And that’s just good educating. It’s kind of like Andrew Wommack and I, we teach 95%, maybe 98% of the same thing.

Yeah.

I mean, and there’s a little bit that we look at differently and by the way, a number of his teachers and people on his board, even look at these aspects of the gospel differently. But 98% were just right down the line. We minister the same thing. But the way that I communicate is completely different.

That’s right.

Than the way he communicates.

Yeah.

Our personality is totally different. but you know God doesn’t, I’m not trying to be Andrew. Andrew’s not trying to me being me for sure. We are who we are. We need to be who God made us to be.

That’s right, that’s the only way to really have lasting fruit.

Yeah, and so he says, “Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all lung suffering and doctrine, the time will come. He says, “When they will not endure sound doctrine, but after their own Lu will heap to themselves, teachers having itching ears.” We have people that just wanna hear what they want to hear. They don’t want to hear what they don’t wanna hear. He says, “That’s gonna happen.” He said, “And they’ll turn away their ears from the truth and be turned to fables.” Just stories, just ideas that have no foundation in the scripture. He says, “Watch in all these things, endure affliction, do the work of an evangelist, prove out your ministry.” Prove out what’s on the inside of you. “Make full proof of your ministry for I’m now ready to be offered.” I wanna say these words one day with the Apostle Paul “And the time of my departure’s hand, I fought a good fight.”

Yeah.

“I have finished my course.” I don’t have to finish your course.

That’s right.

You don’t have to finish my course. I don’t have to finish Andrew Wommack’s course. I don’t have finished Jesse Duplan- I just need to finish what God told me to do. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. What beautiful words.

Amen.

To say at the end of your ministry, he says, “Because of this, there’s laid up for me, a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge will give me it that day and not to me only but all those who love is appearing.” Amen.

Do we love the appearing of Jesus? Are we look looking forward to his coming with expectation? We can have positive expectation of Christ coming of good things.

Amen.

Amen.

When we keep following the scripture and when we have good godly means.

Yeah.

Thank God we have some good godly means. We’ll talk more about that right after this break, stay tuned. Praise the Lord, friends, I am so excited to be sharing with you this great teaching, I’m sharing from my series on first and second Timothy on “Raising Leaders,” part one and part two. Also my wife’s series on “Unless The Lord Builds The House.” And then we have a special edition, “Faith That Is Taught and Caught” by my wife, Barbara. And you know what? We are making these things of available to you because we know the principles in these will help your family, just like they’ve been a blessing to us. And we’re not talking about something that doesn’t work. We’re talking about something that we have proved in our own family that we have proved in our church for years and years and years. You know what? The word of God is true. And when you live your life and conduct your family by principles of the scriptures, you will find the blessing that God promises in his work. So we want you to call us today and get this product, thanks. Praise the Lord, we’re back friends and we’re sharing from 2 Timothy 2 verse, we’re jumping into verse nine. He says, “Do the idea to come shortly unto me.” He says, “For Demas says forsaking me, having loved this present world and is departed to Thessalonica, Crescens to Galatia, Titus unto Dalmatia. Luke is with me, take Mark and bring him with you for his profitable be for the ministry, and Tychicus, I sent to Ephesus. The cloak I left at Troas with the coat with Carpus. He said, ‘When you come bring that with you when you come and the books, especially the parchments.’ Alexander the coppersmith did mean much evil. The Lord repay him according to his works of whom beware also for he is greatly withstood our words.” Now, when we look at these things, you know what’s he saying? You gotta hang around the right people, the wrong people are gonna take you the wrong direction. They’re gonna move you away from your God given purpose. And the right people are gonna connect you to your God given purpose. And I’m a person like I love to hold onto relationships. I’m a long term relationship person.

Yeah. For instance, I got baptized in the Holy Spirit and called to preach in Andrew Wommack Ministry in 1978. I still support Andrew Wommack. He’s still my friend. He’s still my mentor. I still listen to him teach. I love to keep long-term relationships. Once in a while, there’s a relationship that needs to go by the wayside.

Yeah, it’s true.

I had that happen earlier this year. And it was kind of a difficult thing for me, a person that I’d been in relationship with over 30 years, broke off relationship with me. And it really wasn’t. I didn’t have a lot to say about it.

Yeah.

And they had some grievances and different things and they wrote up a big long thing and I went through them and God said, “Well, here and here, and here, there might be a little basis to that, but here there’s no basis and I will tell you this because that’s not true.” And they’ve been holding some things for over 10 years. I said, “Listen, this is my word to you. If I have a problem with something you’re doing, I’ll address it within no less than 30 days.” I am not gonna hold on.

Sure.

If something really bothering me, I’ll pray about it, whatever. But I’m not gonna hold onto it.

Yeah.

And most of the time it’s gonna be less than 30 days. I’ll talk to you soon because I don’t want these issues to go on and on and hinder me. Rent space in my head.

Yeah.

And I can’t just imagine holding onto grudges and stuff for 10, 15 years. And the certain aspect was actually a complete lie. And they had said different things about, Andrew Wommack and how I tried to limit their relationship in the realm, and I called Andrew about it. And he said, that’s just untrue. He said, that’s untrue. You’ve never done anything besides bless them and speak positively about them. And nobody’s ever said anything to the contrary. And I said, well, they said this. And he just, but anyway, people think what they want to think. And the devil, don’t let the devil try to destroy a relationship. Don’t let the devil rent space in your mind, praise God.

Amen.

Another person’s head’s a wrong place to have your happiness. But look he says, listen, “Some people forsook me, other people help me.” Then he talks about Mark. Earlier he had separated from Mark.

Yeah.

He said, he’s a mama’s boy. He left for this he… But listen, Barnabas took Mark and raised him up and trained him up. He says, “Now bring him with you.’

Yeah, yeah. So he grew.

He did.

Paul gave him the opportunity to change and he’s profitable for the ministry. So sometimes maybe somebody’s departed for a season, but now they’re back. You just have to know where you are in at that point in time with this specific relationship, he says, “I sent this person to Tychicus, I sent to Ephesus.” Now he said so practical, “Bring the coat. I forgot my coat over there. Bring that with you when you come.” And the books, “But especially the parchments I’ve been writing, I’ve been working on some stuff and I left it over there. Bring that with you.”

I think it’s so human. I love that part. I love that as we read the epistles of Paul, that we get a sense of who he was as a person, not just his theology. And we see that in that practical thing. But as you’re talking about just having to let go of that relationship, that kind of thing is so hard. And it is really difficult to navigate sometimes who we need to be closely connected with and all that. And I always encourage people to pray. Not just God, what should I do with my life? But Father, who should I be with?

[Pastor Lawson] Yeah.

Who should I be in relationship with? Who should be my closest connections? Who should be in my inner circle? Because that ultimately is gonna determine my destiny, even more so than my education or anything like that. It’s who I’m with.

My son, Peter went to Princeton University.

Yeah.

And he graduated with honors, but he said, daddy, it’s not anything the knowledge that we learned, he said, “The number one thing that I learned at Princeton is about making relationship, connecting with the right people.”

It’s networking.

Networking, that’s what he says. And Peter’s been very, very successful. He has a very high position in corporate, American Burger King, he’s vice president of Burger King of the Americas, I think he’s 32 years old. I mean.

Praise God.

Tremendous position for his age. He’s worked in Canada. He’s worked in the US. He’s run 11 states and then all of Asia, living countries and then all of Asia for Burger King and then.

Wow.

And came back to the states and they made him vice president finance and he operates at a very high level. In fact, I shared this or I’m sharing this on a program with Mark Hankins in the future but Peter actually told his mother, he said, “What I do is very hard. And a lot of times I don’t know what to do, but this is what I say.” I say, “I have the mind of Christ. And when he was about 12, 13 years old, he was in seventh grade and he was struggling in geometry, took algebra one as a sixth grader. He was the highest place he could be in the shine mountain school system as a seventh grader, taking geometry and he was struggling initially. And he told me I was taking him to school one day. And I said, “Peter, say this. I want you to say this every morning, every night, every day when you think about, I have favor with God, I have favor with man. I have a good understanding and I have the mind of Christ.”

Amen.

And so I taught him that and I asked him a couple weeks later when I was taking him to school. “Peter, how you doing in geometry?” “Oh, I got it. I’m the top of the class.”

That’s awesome. Now Peter is in this position, in very high position, corporate position, 32 years old, he told his mother today. He said, “A lot of things that I, challenges I face they’re really difficult. And I don’t know what to do, but this is what I say.” He said, “I say, I have the mind of Christ.”

That’s right. “And God shows me what to do.” Praise God.

Praise God.

My son Andrews, an engineer. He works in design, in the oil field. Early in his career, he was called to go down to Amarillo, Texas, and work on a problem. Nobody that he knew in the field could answer the question, could understand what was going on. He called me, “Sit down, I don’t know what to do. I’ve called everybody. I know nobody in the field understands this. Can explain what’s going on.” I said, “Andy, take some time and pray in the Holy Spirit.” So prayed in tongues for a half hour.

Yeah.

God revealed to him what the problem was.

Wow.

And he solved it.

Praise God.

Praise God.

You know life isn’t fair? We have favor.

We have favor.

And we have the Holy Ghost.

Amen.

But we need to stay connected to the right people and this is what Peter brought out. The number one thing I learned at Princeton University is it’s not all the knowledge that we gain, but it’s the relationships that we gain. The power of networking. The reason he took the job at Burger King, it was owned by 3G Capital. He said, “Daddy, there’s a bunch of young guys, running this company and they’re gonna promote me very quickly.” He prophesied his own destiny. He got exactly what he said. And he’s super, super blessed. I mean, challenges me to see, you’re talking about your son’s running farther, faster. Peter bought his starter house 2.2 million.

Wow.

I was praying, God help him. And it was one of Vice President Bush’s cabinet members or something owned it.

My goodness.

But there were all these liens and all these difficulties and man, I was like, hoping it, I mean, but I’m praying God give Peter wisdom.

Yeah.

And it ends up going through and he gets the house bought. And then I noticed all the houses around him selling for 2.7, 2.8 million and much smaller than his. Wow, not as I thought, well, he got a good deal. His was larger, whatever. Then they sold the house across the street. It was either three or 3.2 million. And it’s the same size as Peter’s, but they tore down the house and it was just the block. They just put the blocks in. They didn’t even build the house. He said, “Daddy, they still got 700, 750,000 to spend. They’re gonna have nearly $4 million in this house.”

Wow.

And he’s got one for 2.2 across the street. I think it’s a good deal. And he put a lot of money down. He’s been very blessed. He put a lot of money down and it’s all right. It challenged me, but praise God, we brought him to, and our son’s faith should go beyond where are at and they should do more, praise God. And so this is exciting when we see it, but we wanna stay connected to the right people and get away from other people. You know this one relationship. I didn’t want this thing to end, but they ended it. Now my son, Aaron and Heather they’d been praying for two years and been telling me, you need to have Mark Hankins on your board. I said, “I can’t have him with this other person because they don’t get along.” Both Mark and this other person agreed with me because they had a deal from years back, but they just a disagreement. And I said, I can’t have them together. Now they’d tell me the same thing. But the one got off and then we put Mark on. But see, I believe that time there was a season for that and then it was time for that season to change. Now he goes on and says this. We wanna get through the rest of 2 Timothy. “If my first answer, no men stood with me, but all men forsaked me. I pray God that it would not be laid to their charge. Not withstanding the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, that by the preaching, by me, this preaching might be fully known that all the Gentiles might hear. And I was delivered out of the mouth of a lion and the Lord will deliver me from every evil work and preserve me to his heavenly kingdom of whom be glory forever and ever, amen. Salute Prisca and Aquila, and the household of Onesiphorus Erastus abode at Corinth, Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick.” You can believe God for health, but still have somebody get sick. But the good news is he got healed.

Amen.

And went with them to the next place that they were preaching.

Amen.

He says, “Do your diligence to come before winter. Eubulus greeteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren and the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Grace, be with you. Amen.” Let’s go back to verse 17. He says, “The Lord stood with me and strengthened me.” Now I quoted this and you said, yeah, I got that from you years ago. Best of all the Lord is with us.

That’s right.

Praise God.

Amen.

Years ago, John Wesley said that. When he started out preaching, they put cities that if he would get within five miles of town preaching, they would arrest him. By the end of his life, he didn’t have a horse fast enough to get to all the meetings. God so changed through revival.

Amen.

You know what was happening there, but best of all, God is with us.

Amen.

Man, when we know that we’ve done what God said, and we know that God is with us, we are going the right direction.

Amen, praise God.

Go ahead, cheer something, please.

Well, yeah. Well and John Wesley, I love his story. He said, “I don’t think I ever had a bad day in my whole life.” He just had a positive attitude, his whole life. And he was preaching up into his 80s. He had a man carry him on his shoulders, through his swamp so he could get to the next meeting ain’t that wild? I mean, they didn’t have cars or nothing. So he was getting carried on a guy’s shoulders to go preach. And that’s those words that he spoke there. “Best of all, God is with us.” That was on his deathbed. That was his last thing that he said. And he’d seen so many lives change. He’d seen so many things changed by the power of God. But his favorite thing, his favorite thing was the fact that he knew he was in relationship with the Lord. Amen, thank God. Pastor Max, it’s been great to have you. If you’re in Kansas City, visit Charis Church, Pastor Max and Molly Cornell. Great church, great community, great teaching. And if you need prayer, give us a call today, blessings.

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