Raising Leaders Part 1 – Lawson Perdue

Raising Leaders Part 1

Raising Leaders part 1 from Pastor Lawson Perdue. In this study of 1 Timothy, discover how to train up the people around you to be successful in life.

Raising Leaders Part 1 Transcript

Praise the Lord friends. I’m so glad that you’re connected with us today. Tell your friends about the program, I’m gonna be sharing from first Timothy, I’m gonna be talking about raising leaders. These are principles that I taught my children and that I’ve taught some young men and young women that we’re raising up the gospel and it’s really helped them move forward in the faith and become successful in life. So, you don’t wanna miss the program today. Blessings. Praise the Lord friends. I’m so glad that you’re connected with us today. We’re gonna be sharing today on Raising Leaders. We’re gonna be teaching from first Timothy. We’re actually been talking about family and really, when Paul talks to Timothy, he talks to Timothy as a spiritual son. And there’s some amazing things that we see when Paul ministers to Timothy, when Paul is instructing Timothy. In fact, Paul speaks quite differently when he speaks to Timothy than when he speaks in Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, Romans, I call Galatians Ephesians, Philippians Colossians. The book of Romans, I call that the foundation of the gospel and in those books, Paul is primarily talking about grace, faith and righteousness, and that is the foundation of the gospel. But in Timothy, Paul is really talking about the application of the gospel. In other words, son, if you don’t do this, you’re not gonna make it. I’ll give you a good example that comes from my own life. One time I had taken up an offering in Wednesday night service years ago. And when I took up this offering, I said, hey, in our church, we don’t focus a lot on the tithe. We focus on the seed and when you focus on the seed, praise God, and really that’s what we do. You know, your future is secure. Now I personally believe in tithing and I practiced tithing and I instructed my sons to practice tithing. So that’s what I did when I was taken up the offering. But then when my son Aaron got up to minister and during his time ministering, he said, “I’m gonna tell you what my dad taught us as his sons. He taught us all to tithe.” And because I knew that, you know what I had observed Christians for years and Christians that didn’t get involved in the tithe, do you know what? They missed out on a lot of blessing. They limited God in their own life. And so I was speaking to my son, right, as a son. And I was saying, son, if you don’t do this, you’re gonna, you’re not gonna make it, praise God. So there’s some things you need to do. But when I’m teaching my church, primarily I teach on the foundation of the gospel, which is grace, faith and righteousness. So we’ll see some practical application of the gospel in the book of first Timothy. And then next week in the book of second Timothy, as we teach about these things, we’re talking about, raising leaders and things that we need to do so that we can be successful in life. And so we’re gonna begin right here in one Timothy chapter one, it says in verse one and two, “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the commandment of God, our savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our hope and to Timothy, my own son in the faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God, our father and the Lord, Jesus Christ.” So as we begin to look at this, he speaks into the life of Timothy and he says, grace, mercy and peace from God and Jesus Christ, our Lord. And he calls Timothy his son in the faith. Now the first thing that I think we need to know, if we’re gonna be successful in life is we need to know who we are. And Paul begins to speak to Timothy about that. He says, “You are my son in the faith.” We need to know who we are as believers. We need to know what God has called us to do so on and so forth. And we need to have a personal relationship with the Lord where we’re very, very secure in who the Lord has called us to be and who we are in Christ. So Paul says, I’m an apostle of the Lord, Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God, this is what God made me to be. Or this is who God made me to be. And he says, “Timothy, I’m writing to you as a son in the faith, grace, mercy, and peace from God and the Lord, Jesus Christ.” Now, as we go forward, he goes on in verse three. And he says, “I besought you to abide still at Ephesus. When I went into Macedonia that you might charge them that they teach no other doctrine.” So he said, “Timothy, you’re my son in the faith. And I want you to charge different people that they teach no other doctrine.” So not only do we need to know who we are, we need to know what we believe. Now, what do we believe about God? What do we believe about Christ? What do we believe about the scripture? What do we believe about the holy spirit? Well, the first thing, let’s talk about what we believe about Jesus. We believe that Jesus is the son of God. We believe that Jesus is the savior of the world, that he died on the cross for our sins. We believe that God raised Jesus from the dead and made him Lord on the third day, we believe that Jesus sent the holy spirit. We believe that Jesus is coming again. So, what do we believe about Jesus? He said, I don’t want you to teach any other doctrine. He goes on in verse four and says, “Neither give heed to endless fables and genealogies, which minister questions rather than godly edifying, which is in the faith.” And he says, “Now the end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart and a good conscience and a faith unspotted.” So he says, “Listen, the end of the law, the end of the commandment is love out of a pure heart, of a good conscience and faith unspotted or faith, untaint, pure, simple faith in God. Now we see something that Paul mentions here that’s a recurring theme throughout the book of Timothy, but he talks about having a good conscience and faith. He makes this statement in verse 19, also of first Timothy empty chapter one, where he says, “Hold faith in a good conscience, which having some put away concerning faith have made shipwreck.” So we need to have faith and a good conscience. So if we’re gonna really move forward in the gospel, we need to keep a good conscience. So thank God for faith, but also we need to keep a good conscience. In Acts 24:16, Paul said, “I’ve exercised myself to have a good conscience towards God and towards men.” So not only we have a need to have a good conscience towards God, we also need to have a good conscience towards people. And so he says, “Timothy, I want you to know who you are. And I want you to know what you believe.” Praise God. Do you believe in Jesus? I believe in Jesus, I believe he is the son of God. I believe that he’s the savior of the world. I believe that he died on the cross for our sins. I believe that God raised him from the dead and made him Lord. We need to know what the scripture says. And we need to know that we’re really established in grace or we’re established not in what we do. We’re not established through the law through performance, but we’re established in grace. We’re established in what Christ has done and putting our faith simply in Christ and the work that he has accomplished. He said, some people have swerved from this in verse six, 1 Timothy 1:6, “Swerved from a pure heart, a good conscience of faith unspotted and turned aside to vain, jangly, desiring to be teachers of the law. They understand not what they say, nor wherever what they affirm.” And we know that the law is a good, in other words, the law is a good thing if a man use it lawfully. And so, he explains what the lawful use of the law is. The lawful use of the law is actually when you use it on people who are unregenerated. He says this, who are not born again, who don’t know Christ. And so it says in verse nine, “Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for lawless disobedient, ungodly, sinners, unholy, profane, murders of fathers, murders of mothers, man slayers, horror mongers, for those who defile themselves with the mankind for men stealers or kidnappers, liars, perjured person, if there’d be any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine, according to the glorious gospel of the blessed of God, which was committed to my trust.” So he said, if people are living ungodly, right, you can go to the law, right? He says, if they’re living lawless and disobedient, sinful, unholy, profane, murdering their father’s mothers, man slayers, horror mongers. If they’re living in adultery, in fornication, those who are defiling themselves with mankind, all kinds of sexual sins, kidnappers, liars. If people are living ungodly, you can take the law and show them that they’re a sinner. That’s what the law was made for. He says, we know that the law is good if we use it lawfully, so the lawful use of the law is to use it on ungodly people and show them that they need to repent, that they need to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and to be saved. And so, the first thing Paul says is you need to know Timothy who you are, then you need to know what you believe. Praise God. What do you believe about Jesus? I believe Jesus is the son of God. I believe that Jesus came as a man, that he’s the son of man. I believe that Jesus lived a sinful, holy, perfect, pure life that he did no sin. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. I believe God raised Jesus from the dead and made him Lord. I believe Jesus ascended into heaven and Jesus sent the holy spirit. And I believe that Jesus Christ is coming again. I essentially, I believe that Jesus’ God manifest in the flesh. He is the eternal God, the creator of the universe. What do we believe also, concerning the scriptures for instance, we believe that the scriptures are inspired that God breathed them into the hearts of men that they recorded. Those men recorded what he said, and the scriptures are what we build our doctrine from. So where do you find out about God and Jesus, the holy spirit? Where do you find out about the fall of men, about salvation? Where do you find out about eternal life? Where do you find out about divine healing? Where do you find out about water baptism? Where do you find out about heaven, about hell? We believe in all of these things. Well, we find them in the scriptures. So we believe in the scriptures inspired, right? The Bible is the inspired word of God, God breathed into the hearts of men. They recorded what he said. And we believe in Jesus, we believe that Jesus is God manifest in the flesh that he was in the beginning with God, that he created all things that he was born of a virgin, that he lived a sinless, holy, perfect, pure life that he died on the cross for our sins. We believe that God raised him from the dead on the third day. We believe that Jesus ascended into heaven, that Jesus sent the holy spirit. We believe that Jesus is coming again. Now, if you agree with me about Jesus, praise God, we’ll probably spend eternity together. All the rest of it, amen, is whatever will be. But if we agree that the Bible is the word of God and Jesus is God manifested in the flesh, he is the son of God. He is the savior of the world, Jesus is Lord. And he’s the coming king. We’re probably gonna spend eternity together. Some of these other things we might just agree to disagree on. We might look at a little bit different, but I don’t believe ultimately a lot of those things are heaven and hell issues. Now he goes on in verse 12 and he says this, “I thank God. I thank Jesus Christ our Lord, who has enabled me for he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry.” This is the next thing I really wanna focus on. Not only do you need to know who you are, not only do you need to know what you believe and who you believe, but you need to believe, know who Jesus is and not only know who Jesus is. You need to be faithful to the Lord, Jesus Christ. You need to know who you believe, who is your Lord? Is Jesus your Lord? He says, “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has enabled me for he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. Jesus is the one who puts us in the ministry. Jesus is the one who enables us to live a successful and victorious life. I believe no matter what we do, praise God, in life it’s the Lord, Jesus Christ who’s given us the ability to succeed in life. And so we need to have a personal, ongoing relationship with the Lord, Jesus Christ, and realize that he is the one who enables us. He’s the one who’s given us talents, given us gifts, given us abilities. And he’s the one who counts us faithful and who ultimately puts us in the place that he wants us to be in, in life. As we believe him, as we trust him, as we put our confidence in him. So, a lot of times people are playing political games. They’re trying to get close to this one, get close to that one, get close to another one. What we really need to do is get close to Jesus because ultimately Jesus is the only one who’s gonna cause us to succeed both in life, I believe and eternity. Now this is something you say, pastor, you’re talking about raising leaders. You’re not only talking about being in the ministry. I see this as being important in being the ministry, but what about life in general? Well I told my son, Andrew, for instance, my middle son, I told him when he was just graduating from high school, I said, Andy, you need to remember that Jesus made you smart. You see, Andrew had never had a B in all of his school from kindergarten clear through senior, in high school, he was a straight A student the whole way through. He was actually interviewed on television, here locally in Colorado Springs. And they asked him, they said, “Have you ever had a B?” He said, “No, I’ve never had a B.” And I told him, “Andrew, you need to realize that Jesus made you smart.” He said, “I will daddy, praise God.” Well, he went on to Colorado School of Mines. He graduated with his BA degree in three years, actually, which it takes most people at Colorado School of Mines, five years to get their BA. And he got his masters in chemical engineering in four years. And he’s went on to be very, very successful in life. And he’s been very generous to the church. So he remembers that the Lord Jesus Christ is the one who has made him successful. Praise God, the Lord, Jesus Christ is the one who’s made him smart. The Lord Jesus Christ is the one who’s given him talents, given him ability. And ultimately I believe the Lord, Jesus Christ and God, the father, the holy spirit are the ones who’ve prospered my son, Andrew. And I believe they’ll prosper anyone who put their trust in them and believe what the scripture says. Now I’m gonna be back after a short break. So stay tuned. We’re gonna continue to talk about raising leaders and how we can be a success in life, 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 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 word. So we want you to call us today and get this product. Thanks, praise the Lord. We’ve been talking about raising leaders, how we can be a success in life. We talked about, first of all, we need to know who we are. And we get that. I believe ultimately from our relationship with God, but we also get it possibly from our human relationships from our natural parents, different people around us. Now you can know who you are from God, even though your natural parents may have not done the best job training you and teaching you so on and so forth, you need to really get established in that. But that’s very important in being successful. In fact, I remember Warren Buffett saying two things really caused him to be successful. He’s one of the all time, best investors in the world. He said, “Number one, I knew that my father loved me.” And number two, he said, “I was willing to take risks.” So you need to know who you are. Number two, we need to, we’ve talked about, we need to know what we believe. What do we believe about the scriptures? What do we believe about Jesus? Number three, we need to know who we believe. He says, “I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord who enabled me in that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry,” praise God. We need to know Jesus. And Jesus is ultimately the one who makes us a success in life. Now Paul goes on and he begins to talk about who he was before he came to know Christ in verse 13, 1 Timothy 1:13. He says, “Who was before a blasphemer, a persecutor, injurious. But I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief and the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ was exceedingly abundantly with faith and love, which is in Christ Jesus.” Now, my father-in-law told me this years ago, and I believe this bear’s repeating. He said, there’s two things I believe every church needs to be a success and you need faith number one, and you need love, praise God. He was raised really in a religious Pentecostal setting and they, him and my mother-in-law went through a very hard time in their marriage. But after that, he had come back to my mother-in-law and they got involved in the charismatic movement and he really began to move forward. But he said two things that he saw in his church that he believed that everybody needs were faith and love. He says this in verse 15, 1 Timothy 1:15. “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sin of who I am chief.” In other words, again, without him, I am nothing. He goes on and says this, “How be it for this cause I obtained mercy that in me first, Jesus Christ might show forth all long suffering for a pattern to those who should hear after believe on him to life everlasting. Now to the king eternal immortal invisible. The only wise God be honoring glory forever and ever amen. This charge, I commit to you son Timothy.” Again, he calls Timothy his son. He was really his spiritual son, a son in the faith, “According to prophecies, which went before you, that you might by them wore a good warfare. So I thank God for the gifts of the holy spirit. I thank God for our relationship with the holy spirit. I believe it’s important number one, to know who we are, know what we believe, know that Jesus is our Lord, but I believe also we need a relationship with the holy spirit. And when you know what the holy spirit is speaking, that helps you plan, that helps you prepare. That helps you move forward into the destiny that God has for you. Ultimately, I wouldn’t be where I’m at today, accomplishing what I’m accomplishing if I didn’t have this ongoing relationship with the holy spirit. And so he says holding faith in a good conscience, which some have put away concerning the faith made shipwreck. So along with following the holy spirit in his direction in your life, you need to keep your faith. You need to keep a good conscience so that you don’t wreck your ship of faith. If you don’t keep a good conscience along with your faith, right? You’re gonna wreck your ship of faith. He says of whom is Hymenaeus and Alexander, who I delivered under Satan, that they may learn not to blasphemy. So there was some people, that Paul knew in the gospel and he said they didn’t keep a good conscience. And so he said, because of that, they cause trouble. I delivered them, I turned them over to the devil. Now I don’t like to talk a lot about turning people over to the devil, but listen, we’ve gotta keep our confidence in our faith, totally in the Lord, Jesus Christ. Now we’re gonna jump into chapter two. The next thing he begins to talk about, he says, I exhort that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions and giving of thanks be made for all men for Kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in godliness and honesty for this is good and acceptable in the sight of God, our savior, first of all, prayer, pray, make prayer a priority. We need to understand the priority of prayer that we keep our confidence in the Lord, Jesus Christ. And when we put confidence in the Lord, Jesus Christ. One thing we’re gonna do is we’re gonna pray. In Luke chapter 18, the Bible actually says, “When the son of man returns, shall he find faith on the earth?” And then Jesus taught a parable later in Luke chapter, I believe in chapter 18 and said that men always should pray and not faint. Well, if you have faith, one thing you’re gonna do is you’re gonna pray and you’re gonna pray to Jesus. Now prayer alone is not a side effect. There’s a lot of people pray that don’t put faith in Jesus, right? And it’s not faith in our prayers, it’s faith in Jesus. But when we put faith in Jesus and we have confidence in Jesus, we are gonna pray. The Bible actually says this in 1 Thessalonians 5:15, “It says pray without ceasing.” We always ought to be praying. Like prayer is a sign that we have faith in God that we’ve put our trust in God that we’re relying on God. The Bible says this in Colossians 4:2. It says, “Continue in prayer and watching the same with Thanksgiving.” I want you to think about the Lord Jesus Christ and his life on the earth. Did you know what Jesus was always praying. He would go out sometimes and pray all night to God. And when different people saw Jesus pray, his disciples saw him praying. They said, “Lord, teach us to pray.” Why, I believe Jesus relationship with the father. And he prayed out of a relationship with God motivated the disciples to want to pray like him. And so they said, Lord teach us to pray, praise God. And so, Jesus was a praying person. Now I believe that Jesus Christ, the son of God needed to pray while he walked on the earth. We as believers need to pray while we walk on earth. And I believe when we pray, we’re really saying that we put our trust and confidence in God. So he says, I want you to pray first. I want you to ask God intercede, pray for others. Give thanks to him. He says, pray for Kings and pray for those who are in authority, we need to do that. He says, this is good and acceptable with God. He said, “God will have all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. It’s God’s will for everybody to be saved. It’s God’s will for everybody to come to a knowledge of the truth. He says for there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom or a payment for all to be testified in due time wherein too I’m ordained a preacher and an apostle. I speak the truth in Christ Jesus and line on a teacher of the Gentiles and faith and truth. I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting.” So keep your confidence in Jesus, keep your trust in Jesus. Keep praying to the Lord Jesus, keep praying to the father in Jesus name. And so here’s some basic elements that help us really move forward as sons and daughters of God, amen. As children of God, we need to know who we are. We need to know what we believe. We need to know who our Lord is. And we need to know who we trust. Keep our confidence in Jesus, pray first. Well friends, I hope that you’re enjoying the broadcast. These are simple principles, right? That Paul taught Timothy. I believe it helped Timothy be a success in life. And I believe, did you know what? If you follow the simple principles that are laid down in the word of God, just like Timothy followed these words from the apostle Paul, his father and the faith that you can be a success in life. I believe that God wants you to be a success in life. And I believe these will help us. These are principles that again, I taught my children. They help them to succeed. We have a group of material, this isn’t all of it. This is part of it today, but we’ve got “Raising Leaders.” That’s what I’m teaching right now. We’ve got, “Unless The Lord Builds The House,” a series Barbara, and we’ve got this actually eight messages on this in two series, “Raising Leaders,” one and two. And we also have faith that is taught and caught in our family package. We wanna get these materials too. You can get just a part of this or all of this, but we believe that this will help you to invest in other people and help them to be successful in life. If you need prayer today, please call us. We have trained prayer ministers that are waiting to receive your calls. Thank you so much for tuning in, tune in tomorrow at this same time, blessings.

[Narrator] What does it take to raise godly children? In this package containing, “Unless The Lord Builds The House” “Faith That Is Taught And Caught” and “Raising Leaders” parts one and two, you’ll learn spiritual principles and practical advice to help you raise up the next generation. You can get this special package for $49 when you call 719 418 4000 or visit CharisChristiancenter.com.

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