Raising Leaders Part 3 – Lawson Perdue

Raising Leaders Part 3

In Raising Leaders Part 3 study 1 Timothy chapter 4 and 5. In today’s Grace For Today lesson, explore both the spiritual and natural aspects of raising good leaders. God cares about your spirit, soul, and body! Discover what scripture says about caring for natural needs and condition of leaders.

Raising Leaders Part 3 Transcript

Praise the Lord friends. I’m so glad that you’re connected today. And we’re gonna be talking from First Timothy chapter four and chapter five about raising leaders. We’re gonna be talking not only about spiritual things, about some natural things. We’re gonna talk about physical exercise, taking care of your temple, what you eat, how you sleep along with the spiritual aspects. So open your heart and receive the good word of God today. I believe you’ll be blessed. Praise the Lord friends and welcome to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in. We are talking about raising leaders today and I’m in First Timothy chapter four, and we’re gonna be in First Timothy four and the beginning of First Timothy five. You know, Paul begins to minister here and talk about this aspect that may be a little bit uncomfortable for some people, but he says in First Timothy chapter four, verse one, “The spirit speaks expressly or specifically that in the “latter time, some shall depart from the faith “giving heat to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.” Now he says some shall depart from the faith. This holy spirit speaks specifically. So, you know, that’s what the scripture says. Now, I know some people don’t believe that ultimately, but that’s what the Bible says. And I’m gonna stick with the Bible. I’m gonna go with what the word of God says. So I couldn’t depart from this room unless I first came into this room. So he says some will depart from faith and he says, they’ll give heed seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. Man, there are a lot of false doctrines out there. There are a lot of evil spirits. I wanna go to another place in the scripture that talks about this, actually in Matthew chapter 24, it’s talking about end times, he says in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith. That’s First Timothy four verse one. But in Matthew 24, I wanna read verse 12 through verse 14, because there’s really two things that are going on prophetically in the last days on the earth. He says this in verse 12, “Because iniquities shall abound the love of many “shall wax cold.” So sin is gonna abound. And because sin abounds the love of many shall wax cold. Do you know what? You’re not hot on fire for Jesus one day and then just cold the next. You’re not just living hot on fire for Jesus and then out committing adultery the next day. It doesn’t work that way. You know what happens is you begin to harden your heart. It says the love of many shall wax cold. And you begin to allow things in your mind. You begin to allow other thoughts and you don’t check those things, you don’t deal with those things. And if you don’t deal with those things, they will become a major issue in your life. But if, you know, it’s not a sin to have a bad thought, but if you’ll deal with that thing in the thought realm, you can, you know what, move out of that. And so he says, he says, he says, “but he that shall endure to the end “the same shall be saved.” You know, James chapter one says, he that, blessed is the man who endures temptation for when he’s tried he will receive a crown of life. And so we can endure temptation. We don’t have to give into temptation, but he says, because sin bounds because rebellion abounds, the love of many is gonna wax, it’s gonna grow cold. They’re gonna harden their heart, but he that endures to the end shall be safe. So that’s really talking about the same thing first Timothy four verse one is. Some will depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils. But then he says in verse 14, “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in “all the world for a witness to all nations. ‘And then shall the end come.” At the same time there is apostacy, there is gonna be a worldwide revival. There are gonna be people coming to Christ. People getting saved, people getting healed, people getting filled with the holy spirit, set free by the power of God, all around the world. So parallel on one side, you’re gonna see apostasy while on the other side, you see revival and you know, the way that you reap and, and get the revival is because you know what, you’re trusting God, and you’re staying in tune with the holy spirit. Now it’s important that we stay in tune with the holy spirit, that we stay hot on fire with God. Now I didn’t focus on a lot of the evil, a lot of the bad things that are in the world, such as you know, the doctrine, for instance of not creation, the doctrine of evolution. I didn’t focus on that. I just taught my boys, you know, in the beginning, God created the heaven and earth and I taught ’em the essence of the truth from the scripture. Why? Because I believe that the truth is stronger than a lie. I didn’t talk about a lot of the evils of sex and drinking and drugs. I talked about that a little bit, right? You still gotta address it, but I didn’t make that the major focus of life, I made the major focus of life the truth of the word of God, because I believe the truth is so much stronger than a lie. I didn’t make my major focus the darkness of this world. I made my major focus, the light of the gospel. You know what? Because light is stronger than darkness. Truth is stronger than a lie. I didn’t make my major focus the hatred that’s in the world. I made my major focus the love of God. Why? Because life is stronger than death and love is stronger than hatred. So I didn’t focus on the death of the world. I focused on the life of God. You know, the Bible actually says this at the end of Romans, chapter 12, it says, “Be not overcome with evil, “but overcome evil with good.” And I think many times Christians make a mistake of focusing on all the lies, all the darkness, all the death, all the hatred in the world. And yes, it’s out there. I’m not gonna be, you know, and we see more and more of it. That’s what the scripture said would happen. But at the same point in time, I’m focused on there is a revival. There’s an outpouring of the spirit. There’s people being saved, healed, set free by the power of God. I’m focusing on the good of God in the world. And so he says, there’s people that are gonna leave the faith. Now he says they will speak lies in hypocrisy. They will have their conscience seared with a hot iron. He said they will forbid to marry command to abstain from meats, which God has created, to be received with thanks giving of those who believe and know the truth. So there’s people who’ll forbid to marry. I’ve heard a lot of these things, people that will abstain from, from meats and commanding people. Now, I don’t care if somebody’s a vegetarian, even a vegan, but I’m not making that commandment, right? He says, what we have to realize is God created these things to be received with thanks giving of those who believe and know the truth. For every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused if it’s received with thanks giving for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. You know, I know sometimes people are caught up in the law and the Old Testament, they won’t eat bacon. They won’t eat ham. They won’t eat shrimp. They won’t, you know what? I eat bacon, ham, shrimp, I eat a lot of good roast beef, praise God, eat some good steaks, some good hamburgers, hallelujah, eat a chicken once in a while. That’s one of the clean foods in the Old Testament, but you know what? I still eat will eat a shrimp. I’ll still eat a good piece of, you know, pork. In fact, I had a missionary friend one time, great man of God recently went home to be with the Lord, but we were traveling with him and he’d come to the states. And boy, he would not eat pork. He was so strict, but we were getting ready to go into the Ukraine. And we traveled from Europe, you know, across Germany, then across Poland. And we were going into the Ukraine for about 10 days of ministry and when we were going, you know, across Poland getting ready to go in the Ukraine, everywhere that we stopped, he ate schnitzel I think, and it’s white pork. And I thought, man, he comes to America, he won’t eat a pork chop, he won’t eat, you know, bacon. He won’t eat all these things, but here he’s you know, he was getting ready to go on the Ukraine and he knew the food supply there wouldn’t be as good as what they had in Poland. So he was eating everything that they gave him. And I believe we even had some Polish sausage along the road, which might have been pork might have been beef. I don’t know. We didn’t ask them. We just ate what was given to us. So he says, every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused. If it’s received with thanks giving for it’s sanctified by the word of God and prayer, he says, if you put the brethren in remembrance of these things, you are a good minister of Jesus. Do you wanna be a good minister of Jesus? Tell the brethren about these things nourished up in the words of faith and good doctrine, where of you have attained. But refuse profane in old wives fables and exercise yourself to godliness for God, bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable to all things, having the promise of life, which now is, and which is to come. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation before we both labor and suffer reproach because we trust in the living God, who’s the savior of all men, especially those who believe. These things command and teach. And so he says, listen, don’t get caught up in legalism. Don’t get caught up in dos and don’ts, don’t get caught up in a bunch of dietary laws. So on and so forth. Those things may have some wisdom, but at the same point in time, don’t teach those things. He says everything, every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused. If it’s re received with thanks giving, because it’s sanctified by the word of God and prayer. If you are a good minister, you will nourish up the body of Christ in words of faith, in good doctrine, he says, refuse these things, but exercise yourself to godliness. He says, godliness is profitable to all. So teach people how to be godly. Live a godly life live. Live right, amen? Hallelujah. I remember one of my minister friends, years ago, I had Jesse to plan this, and he was sitting there and Jesse and Kathy were there another minister friend and our wives. And, and we were sitting around at a table, you know, sharing and eating a meal. After Jesse administered the church, he said, Jesse, how can I stay in the ministry for a long time? Jesse said don’t sin. I love something Jesse said, if you don’t embarrass sin, sin will embarrass you, praise God. And so, you know what you stand up for what’s right, you do the right thing, you live godly, stay away from sin. Amen. Amen. If you wanna go for a long time. Now he says something else here that I wanna address, because I think it’s important. He says, bodily exercise profits a little, there is some profit in bodily exercise. You know what? I generally exercise six days a week. Now I exercise less on Sunday because that’s church and I’m preparing to go to church. I’m gonna preach a couple times and, and have a lot of responsibility. So I don’t wanna be completely wore out. But you know what? I generally exercise most mornings about an hour. And I run, I swim, I do cardio because I found out that’s good for my heart. That’s good for my health. That’s good for my emotions. It helps me deal with people. You know, a lot of times there are stressful things in dealing with people. And so I’ve learned there’s different things that I can do that will help me physically and emotionally deal with those things. In fact, one of my people that this friends helped us start this church number of years ago, I was really struggling with depression and it was in late November, it was bitter, bitter, cold outside. And her husband worked for me. And I said, his name’s Mike, I said, Mike, he’s my first employee, worked for me for 12 years. Great man of God, Mike Peterson. But I said, Mike, what’s wrong? And he said, you haven’t been exercising. And I hadn’t, I hadn’t been running. I hadn’t, and you know what? I made a decision. I’m gonna get out. I’m gonna run at least 20 minutes every day, get out and get in the fresh air. And that helps me emotionally deal with some of the challenges that I have to deal with, dealing with people. So on and so forth in the church and staff, all these different responsibilities that I have. So Mike told me that, and I hadn’t been running for a couple weeks. It is bitter cold icy. And so I just decided no matter what, I’m gonna get out and exercise. He says, bodily exercise profits a little. So personally, I exercise right now about an hour a day, Monday to Saturday, Sunday, I’ll cut that back some because I’m gonna be ministering so on and so forth. And I wanna be ready for that, don’t wanna be too tired. But he says this, he says, but godliness is profitable to all things. And there’s some questions that I ask people if they’re struggling emotionally, if they’re struggling with depression, number one, what are you eating? How are you sleeping? Right? Besides are you in the word? Are you in prayer? Are you in the church? Do you have good relationships? Right? We talked about those things yesterday. We need to have that right in our life. But here’s some other natural things. Not only the spiritual things, the, word prayer, right? In church, right? And the word, prayer, in church, and godly relationships, but your eating ships, but you’re eating. Are you eating healthy? Are you sleeping enough? Do you have good sleep? Right? And the third thing, bodily exercise, are you exercising? And I had a good friend who’s a minister of the gospel. And he said he had a friend that was feeling depressed, feeling like he wanted to commit suicide and kill himself. And he called the doctor he knew, and the doctor said, you go out and run 30 minutes and then you call me back. And so after 30 minutes of running, he called him back. He said, how do you feel now? He said, I feel fine. Well, my friend told me the amount that I exercised is like, is like taking several Prozacs a day. You know what? That releases endorphins. And it helps you, praise God, emotionally deal with challenging things in life. And so I do that. And I also teach that. I think it is good, it’s not the gospel, but bodily exercise profits a little. And this is something that I trained all my boys. I have three sons, all of them, they, most of my three boys, they run three times a week. And then they lift weights three times a week. So they do different things to take care of their physical temple. Your body is the temple, the holy ghost that you have of God, it’s not your own. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. That only means that not only means don’t live in sin, that means take good physical care of this physical temple. Now he goes on and he says, this is a faithful say, and it’s worthy of acceptation. And he says, these things command and teach. So teach people these things, praise God, teach people, praise God, focus on the truth. Truth always overcomes a lie, right? Have words of faith, good doctrine. Don’t get caught up in legalism and you know bodily exercise profits a little. I’m gonna be back right after this break. 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 you know, 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, friends, I’m so glad you stayed tuned. We’re talking about raising leaders and practical principles that we see. Paul was raising up Timothy as a son in the faith. And he said, Timothy, here’s some things you can do. I know this isn’t super spiritual sometime. It’s very practical. Well, you know what? There’s a practical application of the word of God. Now about 90% of what I teach is grace, faith, and righteousness, the foundation of the gospel. But there’s also this 10% I believe we need to teach of the practical application of the gospel. Now he goes on the next thing Paul tells Timothy in verse 12 of First Timothy chapter four is let no man despise your youth, but be an example. We need to live our lives as examples. You know what? When my little, when my boys were little, you know, when they went to bed before I did, before they got up in high school, I used to go and lay hands on them nearly every night and I would pray over them. And I’d say, heavenly father, I thank you for watching over my sons. I thank you for keeping them healthy, keeping them in strength. I thank you, father God, for making them a good witness for you. And I thank you for giving your angels charge over them, to keep them in all their ways. And did you know what God answered my prayers. Hallelujah. In fact, my son, Aaron now is about 35 years old. He’s teaching and preaching and he’ll he’s, he’ll actually quote me sometimes say when my was a little boy my daddy prayed for me nearly every night, prayed for my brothers, keep us in good health, keep us in safety, give your angels, charge over us and make us a good witness. And you know what? All my boys are connected in the local church. They’re all good witnesses of the gospel. Praise God, they’re living the gospel. They’re living examples. And so Paul is telling Timothy, don’t let anybody despise your youth. Be an example of the believers in your word, in your conversation, your lifestyle, your behavior. He says in love in charity in spirit. Keep a good attitude. You know what? If you keep a good attitude, it’s gonna set you apart from other people in faith, right? Keep a good, you know what? Be an example of believers in faith. Be a believer. You are a believer, be one, praise God. In purity, praise God, live a pure life. Live a godly life. He says, ’til I come give attendance to reading exercitation and doctrine. I love something that Smith Wigglesworth said years ago about the Bible. He said about the Bible, read it through, pray it in, work it out. Amen. Praise God. You could say, this is my Bible. I am who it says I am. I have what it says I have. And I can do what it says I can do. Thank God. Amen. Get ahold of the word of God. He says, do not neglect the gift that is in you. You have a gift. I believe God has given gifts to every person who’s been born on the earth. Don’t neglect a gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy. In other words, when you got around other believers, they begin to speak and they begin to say these things out. They saw what was in you with the laying on of hands of the prosperity, meditate on these things, meditate on the things that God has said to you that God has spoken to you. Give yourself wholly to them, give yourself to the things of God that you’re profiting may appear to all take heed to yourself and unto your doctrine. Take heed, guard your heart, guard yourself. Continue in them for in doing this, you will save yourself and you will save those who hear you. So be an example, praise God. And you know what? Take heed to yourself. Now in First Timothy chapter five, he begins to talk about benevolence in the church and he begins to talk about taking care of widows. And not only that, he talks about family’s responsibility. Remember we talked about this before. Family is your first responsibility. God is your first priority, or we should turn it around and say, God is my first priority. My family is my first responsibility. He says, “Don’t rebuke an elder.” First Timothy chapter five, verse one, “But treat him as a father. “And the younger men as brothers, the elder women, “as mothers, the younger, as sisters with all period.” Listen, treat older women like your mother. How would you want somebody to treat your mother? How would you want somebody to speak to your mother? How would you want somebody to speak about your mother? Right? How would you want somebody to look at your mother? So on and so forth. He says the younger women as sisters, how would you want somebody to look at your sister? Right? How would you want somebody to treat them? Treat younger women with this, with all purity, right? To speak to them with purity, treat them with purity. Look at them with purity, honor widows that are widows indeed. Now some people he says really aren’t widows, but he says, if any widow has children or nephews, let them learn first to show pride in home. In other words, if they’re in your family, you take care of them. He says, and requite their parents for that is good and acceptable before God. Now she who is a widow indeed in desolate, and trusts in God, continues in supplications and prayers. Not only do they need to be a widow, if you’re gonna support them so on and so forth, they need to continue in supplication and prayer. But she lives in pleasure and is dead while she lives. Now I want to address one thing here. You know, some people say this is completely the church’s responsibility. This is not the responsibility of the government whatsoever. However, a lot of us don’t have choice about paying taxes. In fact, we’re commanded by the scripture to pay our tax. And so, you know what? I pay a lot of tax and I have a lot of people that pay taxes. I had a man in church that got support, some, you know, for disability. And he had a major disability and he was condemned over that. He didn’t wanna get the support. And he came to me and I said, listen, I have people in my church that pay hundreds of thousands of dollars of tax every year. And it’s not a problem for you. I understand what you’re doing. I understand you don’t want to take advantage of the government, that’s a good attitude. That’s a good heart, right? My dad could have got disability. My dad wouldn’t do it. You know, he was too proud. But at the same point in time, if somebody gets some help from the government, I don’t have a problem with that because I don’t have a choice about paying taxes. And I got a lot of people in my church that pay taxes and they don’t have a choice about it. If everybody in the church didn’t have to pay tax and they gave that money to the church and they tithe and gave offerings to the church. You know, I think it’s about 20% in the average church that does it. Our church may be 50%, but at the same point in time, if everybody did that, it wouldn’t be a problem for the church to take care, a lot of these social responsibilities. But in many cases, people have no choice about paying this tax. And so I don’t believe it’s wrong if people get some of that support from the government, when we have no choice about paying the tax, okay? Now we still do give, we still do honor widows. So on and so forth. He goes on and says, listen, if she’s a good widow, if she’s trusting God, if she’s not living in pleasure, in other words, you know, so on and so forth, she’s living pure and holy before God, he says, take care of him. But if any provide not for his own, especially those of his own house, he has denied the faith and he’s worse than an infidel. So I taught my sons, listen, it is your responsibility to take care of your house. Now he’s talking not only about your, your immediate family, your wife and your children, which is first priority, right? God is, or God is first priority. Your family’s your first responsibility, but he’s also talking about your mother. He’s also talking about aunts, different ones. It’s the family’s responsibility. He says, let not a widow be taken into your number under 60 years old, having been a wife of one man. Okay. She wasn’t married to more than one man at one time. Well reported of for good works. If she’s brought up children, lodged the strangers, washed the saints feet, if she’s relieved the afflicted, if she’s diligently followed every good word. I’ve had some people that were trying to use the church. I had a young man, one time in his twenties that wouldn’t keep a job that had a bad attitude. That was always trying to use everybody in the church and talking about his needs, came up over to me one time, you know, at a Wednesday night service. And he said, would you lend to the Lord? And I said, are you talking about me supporting you? He said, yes. I said, I want you to come to my office tomorrow. And I took him to these scriptures. And I said, now, what part of that do you fulfill? He said, none of it. I said, and I’m not gonna help you either. Now I had helped him in the past, but listen, there comes a point where people will use the church and they will use different people and that is not right. That is not condoned by the scripture. God doesn’t condone people being a victim. He goes on and says, younger widows refuse for, they will begin to wax want against Christ. They will marry having damnation because they cast off their first faith. I don’t wanna really get into that right now with all they learn to be idle wandering about from house to house busy bodies, talking about the things they shouldn’t. He says I will that the younger men get married, have children, take care of their house. Don’t give any occasion to the enemy to speak reproachfully for some already turned aside after Satan. He said, but if any men who believes have widows, so a man or a woman, right? He’s talking about your responsibility for your house, let them relieve them and let not the church be charged that it relieve them that are widows indeed. In other words, if you have a widow, she doesn’t have any sense of support right? Now we’ve helped widows. We’ve helped buy houses sometimes out of foreclosure. I’ve done this a number of times, at least three different times. I’ve helped people with those kind of situations. We’ve helped the poor, but at the same point in time, he says it’s the family’s responsibility first. And then if they don’t have any support, if the family doesn’t have, we, we had a woman that came from another nation that could get no government support. And we gave her major support for a period of time after her husband died. And you know what, then she’s self-supporting and now she’s actually got a ministry taken care of over 900 widows and orphans, in Africa, amazing woman of faith. But there was a period of time when her husband died, that we took care of her. So let’s practice what the Bible says so that we can be good leaders, blessings.

[Voiceover] 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.

Friends the scripture says, if you will continue in the word of God, you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. If you go to our website at charischristiancenter.com, you can get all of our materials there on the website, as you watch ’em, as you listen, absolutely free of charge. And we’ve done that just to be a blessing to you. And I believe that the word that has freed me will free you, blessings.

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