Set A Date To Celebrate – Part 1 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Welcome, friends, to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in, I’m glad that you’re with us. We’re gonna be sharing for my son Aaron’s teaching today on “Set a Date to Celebrate.” Weeping may endure for a moment, but joy comes in the morning! You may be down, but you’re not out! It’s not over ’til it’s over. So, open your heart and receive the good Word of God today. Blessings. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re with us today, we’re gonna be sharing, actually, one of my son Aaron’s teachings, he recently taught this in church, and I’ve had so many people tell me how it encouraged them. And so, we’re gonna talk about “Set a Date to Celebrate.” So Aaron, why don’t you just let ’em know what we’re sharing about?

 

  Awesome, yeah. God gave me this word, and I think it’s a word from many of you watching this broadcast right now, but many of you need to set a date to celebrate! As I was reading through the Old Testament, there’s often appointed times, when appointed times to mourn, appointed times to celebrate, appointed times to go back to the temple and worship God, and thank Him for various things. But I was actually kinda, God kinda spoke to me when I was reading about Jacob when he passed away, that it was such a big deal, he passed away, there’s actually kind of a long period of time that was appointed for all of Egypt, all of Israel, to mourn His passing. And there’s also, when the appointed time is over, they want moved ahead. And I’ve kinda realized, a lot of people don’t really understand appointed times. The Bible says, “There is a time to mourn, but there’s a time to dance.”

 

  Right.

 

  And God doesn’t want anyone to be in a perpetual state of mourning.

 

  That’s correct.

 

  That’s why He gives you new joy every morning. That there’s new-

 

  Amen.

 

  God is always giving joy, so.

 

  Amen.

 

  Maybe some of you have been stuck in a perpetual state of grief, of condemnation, of despair. There’s new grace, new joy, new life available for you in Christ Jesus. So, I wanna read from Psalm 30. Actually, dad, you can read the first five verses from Psalm 30, but God spoke to me from this, that when God gives us His grace, when He gives us His blessing, when he gives us His favor, it’s for life!

 

  Amen! “I will extol thee, oh Lord, for You have lifted me up and have not made my foes to rejoice over me! Oh Lord, my God, I cried to You, and You have healed me! Oh Lord, You have brought up my soul from the grave. And kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. Sing unto the Lord, owe you saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness. For His anger endures but for a moment, and His favor is life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”

 

  I love that. That really speaks to me. Joy comes in the morning, so. All of us will face challenges in life, but I love what is spoken in the first verse that “You haven’t let my enemies rejoice over me.” Even if you’ve fought a battle, maybe even lost a battle, you’re not gonna lose the war.

 

  Amen!

 

  That’s why they aren’t ultimately gonna be able to rejoice over you. The devil’s not gonna be able to rejoice over you. People who’ve let the devil influence them, they’re not gonna be able to rejoice over you. These enemies, they’re not gonna have the last laugh, God always has the last laugh.

 

  Amen, Aaron, this is so amazing because I had just been through a major battle this week when you actually preached that. And I was actually on Sunday preaching at one of our sister churches, and God woke me up and gave me Psalm 30, verse 5, among other scriptures, and He said, “You know what? You may be down, but you’re not out!” And God will have the last laugh, right? “He that sits in the heavens will laugh,” the scripture says. And it just encouraged me, it strengthened me. And so, actually, I had got up at 4 in the mornin’, I was prepared to go preach at this church, I had exercise, I got all my message ready. And then, I was just waiting for about a half hour. I was prayin’ and meditatin’, and I actually had my Bible packed in my bag, and all this stuff, and I went over at this hotel and grabbed a Gideon Bible, and it happened to flop open to a scripture, and I said, 28. And it just started this whole thing, and God gave me that, He gave me Psalm 30 here. And it just really ministered to me. But you may be down, but you’re not out, praise God? And that’s a good word for somebody. Praise God, and you need to get a hold of it. So, go ahead there.

 

  Yeah, so your foes, your enemies aren’t gonna ultimately rejoice over you. I love that he says, “God, I cried out to you, you healed me,” sometimes just one of the best prayers is to cry out to God and ask for help. And he said, “I cried out to God and He healed me.” He said, “You’ve brought my soul up from the grave, you’ve kept me alive, that I shouldn’t go down the pit.” Just because you’re still alive, that’s a reason to praise God!

 

  Amen!

 

  I’m still standing, so I’m gonna praise God, “I’m gonna worship Him, “I’m gonna sing praise to Him.”

 

  Amen.

 

  “You saints of His.” I love that it says, “You saints of His.”

 

  Amen! I wanted to comment on that. “I will sing praise to You that You’ve kept me alive!” I went, and I was ministering at this church on winning when the odds are against you, some of these same things that you’re sayin’. But I said, “You may have lost a battle, but you’re not dead, you’re not done, God’s still on the throne, Jesus is still Lord, the Word of God is still true. So, keep believing God, and keep rejoicing.”

 

  And I just love too that, it says, “His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life.” I’ve met so many believers, even very, very famous ministers who just think that God’s mad at them. And they’ve kinda left that, when people get saved, they realize that God cares about them, loves them, wants to save them, but sometimes, even very famous, very influential ministers just reach a place where they think God’s mad at them. God is not mad at you. If you’re a believer, if you have Jesus on the inside of you, He’s not mad at you! His favor is for life! His favorite endures, His goodwill towards you, His loving mercy, His kindness. It it is for all eternity towards you.

 

  Amen!

 

  And God’s grace for you, His favor for you, it doesn’t diminish, it actually increases in your life. Your life is supposed to grow closer and closer to God. And He wants to pour more and more grace upon you. He wants to pour more and more blessing on you, more and more favor. And yeah, it kinda bothers me when believers, they realize when they get saved, that God has a good will for them, but later on, they think, well, God wants me to be poor, God wants me to be sick. God wants, no, no, the blessing of the Lord is supposed to increase in your life.

 

  This mentality that God’s mad at me. We’ve written a new children’s curriculum. And I was just goin’ over it today, the first quarter. And we’re making this absolutely available free of charge on our website. And we were payin’ $900 a year for a downloadable children’s curriculum. But there is just so much religion in it. And ideas like sin separates you from God! That has been taught in the church. And our knowledge of sin actually separates us from God. But sin can make it hard for us to hear God. Sin can make it hard for us to understand God. But what happened when Adams sinned in the garden? God came walkin’ in the cool of the day! And said, “Adam, where are you?” God came after Him! So, a lot of these things are just fundamentally, we have believed some things that aren’t really scriptural. And so, it’s like, I think that fundamental thinking is that God is angry at us because of sin, so on and so forth, where in reality, when you understand the gospel, is that God poured all of His anger, He poured all of His wrath, He poured His judgment out on Jesus on the cross. And because of that, Romans 8:1 says, “There’s now no more condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” And so, this fundamentally, we have created a thing that causes people to run from God when they sin, so on, and so forth, or think God’s mad at Him. If I think somebody’s mad at me or angry with me, I don’t want to go spend a lot of time with him. So I-

 

  So, His favor is for life, you know?

 

  Yeah!

 

  If you think someone’s mad at you, that’s gonna cause you not to wanna celebrate either.

 

  But all, like Jesus, when he talks about us being united with Him, it’s always a celebration, it’s always a great feast, a great party. All these parables about, like the wedding feast.

 

  Bride.

 

  The bride of the church coming together with Him, the groom. It’s always a celebration.

 

  Well, another great one is the loving father and the prodigal son! And that son repented when he was in the pigpen. Sin will take you to the pigpen! Right? Sin is never good! But you know what? When he repented, he came to himself, he said, “I’m gonna go, and I’m gonna say, Father, I’ve sinned against heaven and in your sight.” And he’s gonna beg for a position in his father’s house. Just let me be his one of your hired servants. And the father is watching for him. And he sees him coming way down the road, and he runs to meet him! And the son can’t even get a confession of sin out of his mouth! And the father says, you’re talkin’ about “Set a Date to Celebrate!” He says, “Listen, bring my best rope, put shoes on his feet, put a ring on his hand. For my son, which was dead, is alive,” and let’s have a party! Glory to God! So, this is exactly what you’re talking about.

 

  Well, the son, in that the parable of the prodigal son and his father, there’s one thing that’s very consistent, one thing that’s constant throughout that story, and that’s the love of the father. That’s that favor of the father towards His son. It’s for life! It never changed! Even though the son changed, even though he messed up and eventually repented and came back, that the love of the father, the favor, that unmerited favor of the father, that never changed. And man, His favor is for life, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning.”

 

  Hallelujah.

 

  God is always gonna send reasons for you to rejoice.

 

  He doesn’t change. He’s always giving good things. “Every good gift, every perfect gift is from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation, no shadow of turning in Him.” He does not change. He’s always gonna be giving you good things, perfect things, reasons to rejoice. “Joy comes in the morning. You have turned for me my mourning into dancing.” This is verse 11. In Psalm 30. He wants to turn from you, your mourning into dancing. And we really see that prophecy fulfilled in the life of Jesus. People who were mourning, people who were beggars, people who were paralytics! He gave Him a reason to dance. He gave them the ability to dance. And Jesus would tell you, tell people, “Pick up, take off that beggar’s robe, pick up that beggar’s bed. And you have a reason to dance. You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness.” Jesus was a happy person. He was a joyful person. The Bible says that, “He was anointed with the oil of joy.” He had more joy than any of His companions! And because he had joy, he’s able to give you joy. If I give someone a handy down, I have a nine-year-old son, and he’s a pretty big kid, but he has other friends that are his age that aren’t as big as him, so he outgrows his clothes really fast, and we give it to his friends, and some of his friends really like his stuff! And you can’t give something unless you have it! Jesus can give joy because he had it, and he wants to clothe you with joy. Some of you need to go shopping with Jesus!

 

  And get some clothes that Jesus wants to put on you. Some of you have been wearin’ mourning and sackcloth, and.

 

  The Bible says this in Isaiah. It says, “Put on the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.” And “Put on the oil of joy for mourning.” Beauty for ashes. He gives us all these things. And so, sometimes, we’ve been dealing with heaviness, with sadness, with discouragement, with different things because we’re in a world that’s been affected by sin and by Satan. But if we’re constantly staying in that place, we haven’t looked at Jesus! And we need to get our eyes off of all these problems, off of all the difficulty, off of all the things the devil’s tried to do, and we need to put our eyes plainly on Jesus. And realize that, you know what? He wants to give us the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, beauty for ashes, that we may be called the trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified! God wants to be glorified in our life! But it’s hard for Him to be glorified when we’re walkin’ around just mopin’ all the time, and lookin’ at what the devil’s done, instead of looking at the promises that what God’s doing, and what God’s, you know what? I don’t care what problem. You say “Nobody’s had it like me!” That’s a lie! The Bible actually says that, “Temptation is common to man, but God will, with that temptation, make a way of escape.” And I believe He’s already made it in the person of Jesus! So, we gotta take our eyes off of ourselves, we gotta put our eyes on Jesus, and we gotta turn away from just looking at the problem, looking at the difficulty, and just start glorifying and praising, and worshiping God, and move into the victory that Jesus has won, so. We’re gonna take a really short break, and we’ll be back after this. And continue, Aaron’s gonna continue to share, praise God on “Set a Date to Celebrate,” bless you. Friends, I hope you’re enjoying the teaching today. This came from a message that my son Aaron taught on Sunday morning, “Set a Date to Celebrate.” I have heard so many compliments. So many people have told me how much this encouraged them, how much that this helped them. So, I want you to go to our website, and you can download either the audio or the video of that single message, I believe it will bless you.

 

  I want you to know that paradise is not found in the lifestyles of the rich and the famous! Paradise is found through knowing Jesus Christ! And if you don’t know Jesus, you are poor! You are poor spiritually! You may have a lot of money, but spiritually, you are bankrupt if you don’t know Jesus!

 

  Praise the Lord, friends, I’m glad that you stayed with us. Aaron’s gonna go ahead and continue to share on “Set a Date to Celebrate.”

 

  Yeah, we’re just talking about how like God has good things planned for us, His favor is for life. The favor of God is for life, and that he wants to bring joy into your life. Joy comes in the morning. God wants to bring more joy into your life. And it’s really important for believers to realize this, that God is not mad at you!

 

  He’s not mad at you, He’s not out to harm you. When he sees you, he sees Jesus.

 

  That’s right.

 

  If you have Jesus on the inside of you, if you’ve been born again, you’re a saint. You’re not a sinner.

 

  Your righteousness, it’s for life.

 

  And when He sees you, He sees Jesus. And that’s why you can come boldly before the throne.

 

  Of grace, in every hour of need. If you think about, when Jesus, when he died on the cross, was buried, the Bible says that he entered, not just the Holy of Holies here on earth, but he entered the Holy of Holies in heaven! And when he did so, in the Old Testament, when the priest would enter the Holy of Holies, it would only be once a year on the Day of Atonement, on the Yom Kippur. I’d only do it once a year, and he would have to enter with blood. There’d have to be a sacrifice. And the way he entered, I guarantee it’s different than the way Jesus entered the Holy of Holies.

 

  In heaven! And Jesus entered with the blood sacrifice. It was his own blood that was shed. He entered with his own offering, the offering of himself. And when he went in, he didn’t enter worried, fearful, am I gonna-

 

  No.

 

  Be struck down? He entered boldly! He entered as a son with righteous authority, with the position. And the same way that Jesus entered the Holy of Holies in heaven! That’s how we get to enter the Holy of Holies in heaven.

 

  Amen-

 

  We’re actually seated with Jesus.

 

  In heavenly places, the Bible says in Ephesians chapter 2!

 

  So, we had a reason to celebrate. You have favor with God.

 

  And I love a confession that my dad says all the time, and you can say it with me, it’s, “I have favor with God, I have favor with man. I have a good understanding, and I have supernatural increase.”

 

  The favor of God, it increases, we’re gonna go from grace to grace. It’s not gonna diminish in your life, God’s goodwill towards you, His mercy, His loving kindness towards you. It doesn’t diminish, it actually increases in the life of a believer.

 

  And so, I believe that there is a spirit of increase, a supernatural increase on this church, on this ministry, on my dad, on myself. And man, I’ve seen it so many times. If you’re not a partner with our ministry, I encourage you to partner. And you can actually call us here and become a partner for any amount you’d like to. It’s very simple, but I believe that when you partner with us, that you’ll tap into that spirit of increase.

 

  I actually started tithing here, years ago before I moved back to be a pastor, I’ve been here seven years now, but probably three years before I moved back, I started, I just felt connected to this ministry. I felt this is where I was being fed. This is the bread I was eating, how I was growing, so I started tithing here. And God actually multiplied my income times 10.

 

  Yeah! That’s amazing. Aaron, you preached a great message the other night. And you preached a message about don’t eat stale bread! And you were in Deuteronomy 28, and you were talkin’ about how that bread connected to doctrine-

 

  How the blessing, yeah. God wants to bless your bread and your kneading bowl! And oftentimes, in scripture, we see that bread is symbolic of doctrine, of teaching! And Jesus said, “Beware the leaven!

 

  Of the Pharisees.

 

  So, when you have a kneading bowl, you pound the dough with yeast, and you’re pounding it. You’re needing it. And if you have bad leaven, you’re gonna have bad bread, you’re gonna have a bad life. And a lot of people aren’t really operating in the blessing because they’re eating bad leaven!

 

  They think wrong!

 

  They think wrong, and that they’re going to churches that just preach bad doctrine. And good doctrine is this, it’s found in Hebrews 13:8. It says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.” And right after that, in Hebrews 13, verse 9, the writer says, “Beware of strange and various doctrines.” So if it’s not “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever,” it’s various, it’s strange, it’s bad leaven, you should beware it, don’t eat it! Don’t put it in your bread, don’t, when you hear good teaching, it should cause you to kinda knead it, to pound on it, to chew on it for a while, to digest it. It takes time to digest good leaven, you don’t want bad leaven in the mix. And some of you aren’t increasing, some of you aren’t celebrating because you’ve just been eating some bad leaven! And if you’re hearing teaching that says like, “Jesus doesn’t wanna do miracles anymore today, or Jesus doesn’t heal anymore today, or God’s will has changed,” like, that’s bad leaven.

 

  There’s so many people there, and they just think poor, they think sick, they’re defeatist in their mentality. And you know what? It’s really limiting them! I was recently in a situation where we were bein’ put down because we’re prosperous! Because the church is prospering, ’cause the church is doing well! Well, it was kind of ridiculous. But I’m telling you, those people that are putting us down, they’re gonna be limited because of their thinking! But I never put down somebody because of what they have or what they don’t have, that’s crazy!

 

  And-

 

  Well, so that’s a very worldly, demonic, communist way of thinking. Quite frankly, Karl Marx was influenced by the devil. And there three intellects from the late 1800’s, that kinda shifted the thinking of the world. One was Karl Marx, another was Friedrich Nietzsche, who was a philosopher who said, “God is dead.” And another was Sigmund Freud, who just kinda ushered in a lot of crazy, sick thoughts on sexuality and the human cycle. And you can just see how the world has really gone down that track. But that have’s versus the have not’s, a lot of that mentality, and just hating the people who have. Even a lot of politicians seize upon that. And they might have a lot themselves.

 

  Right! I’m telling you this, the truth is, a lot of these preachers that are declaring poverty make a lot of money. And they’re not really being honest about the situation. But I believe it limits them ultimately, and it limits where they can go, but I believe God wants us to prosper, and I can prove that to you, Philippians 4:19, Psalm 35:27, 3 John 2, I can prove that to you in the Old Testament and the New Testament, all over. But I don’t want to get off, but I was just in a situation recently where this was just comin’ outta people, and they really used it against us. But I’m gonna tell you, God’s my source, God’s with me. At the end of the day, we’re going forward, we’re blessed, God’s on the throne, Jesus is Lord, the Word of God still works, and you know what? We’ll just rise higher and higher.

 

  And God has great things in store for you. I just wanna share this kinda last verse before we close the teaching today, but this is from 1 Corinthians 2 verse 9 and 10. It says, “But as it is written, eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.” So, when you’re in relationship with God, it’s all about having a relationship with God. For those who love Him, for those who are in, a lot of people know about God, but they don’t really know God. I’ve talked to some young adults recently, that there’s kind of this trending word that a lot of young adults who kinda grew up in the church, but they kinda left the church, they like this word, deconstruction.

 

  And they said they’ve deconstructed, but really, they weren’t constructed to begin with. They didn’t have much figured out to begin with. And I’ve talked to some of them, and they don’t know scripture at all. To really construct your faith, you’re gonna have to know the Word of God. You’re gonna have to spend time, really knowing who Jesus is, knowing what the Bible says. And just in my conversations, I can tell, they didn’t have, they had like a cardboard box constructed for their faith, quote unquote. But they might think that they knew about Jesus, they knew about God, but they didn’t know Him. Well, there’s a huge difference in knowing God intimately and personally, and knowing about God.

 

  And God doesn’t want you just to know about Him, He wants you to know you, He wants to have a relationship.

 

  With you! And I just love that it says, like, God has things prepared that you can’t even imagine. 1 Corinthians 2 9-10, it says, “But God has revealed them to us through His spirit. You’re not gonna know everything just with your mind, with your think, it’s great to be able to rationalize why you believe something, but ultimately, you’re gonna have to know God deep within yourself in your spirit. There is a part of you that is eternal, that is indestructible, that’s gonna last for all eternity. And that part of you, that’s where God really connects with you. That’s the part of you that he places Jesus on the inside of you. Like, Jesus talks about the new covenant being like the wine of the new covenant. He wants to place these things inside of you, and the part of you that’s indestructible.

 

  Like, you can’t deconstruct your spirit!

 

  You know what-

 

  Your spirit is indestructible.

 

  Your spirit’s gonna live forever somewhere-

 

  Be for eternity somewhere. And it needs to be in heaven and not in hell. And hell is a real place, by the way. So, and Jesus talks about it as being a place where there’s weeping and gnashing of teeth. He talks about it being a place of fire. Jesus talked about hell is a real place. And every single person who’s lived on the face of the earth needs a savior, they need Jesus. And he is the only way you can be saved. If you’ve never called out to Jesus to be saved, you need to call out to Him right now and say, “Jesus, save me.” Cry out to Him, if you’ve not done that-

 

  Amen.

 

  You’re on your way to hell. And you need to go to heaven. This is the most important decision of your life, is to say yes to Jesus, “I need you, come into my life, I will live for you.” And if you wanna do that, if you wanna make that decision right now, you need to call us, we’re gonna pray with you, agree with you, and this will be the greatest decision, the greatest moment of your life. I guarantee it. God’s favor is for life!

 

  Amen, praise God! If you’re watching and you need prayer. If you wanna pray with our prayer ministers, if you have never received Jesus and don’t have a personal, intimate relationship with God today, I encourage you just to give us a call. We have trained prayer ministers that are waiting to receive your call. Also, I wanna encourage you to go to our website. We literally have hundreds of hours of teaching that are free of charge, downloadable for you there. Blessings.

 

  God is not mad at you. He’s not a joy stealer, He’s a joy giver. Now is the time to taste and see that the Lord is good. Because of Jesus, you have a reason to “Set a Date to Celebrate.” We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of the teaching, “Set a Date to Celebrate,” a $5 value free of charge. Download it today at charischristiancenter.com.

 

  Friends, I certainly hope that you’ve enjoyed the program today, and it’s ministering to you to move into that which God has for you. And I want to say a great big thank you to all of our partners for helping us share this gospel across the United States and across the world. It’s because of our partners that we can take this message of grace and faith around the world. If you would like to join our partners and receive that blessing, give us a call today. Blessings.

 

  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.”