The Abundance Of Grace Part 3 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

The Abundance of Grace Part 3

The Abundance of Grace Part 3 from Pastors Lawson and Aaron Perdue. On this episode of Grace For Today, discover how you have become a part of a new family! You are no longer a victim but a victor through Jesus Christ!

The Abundance of Grace Part 3 Transcript

Welcome friends to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in. I have my son Aaron with me today. We’re teaching on the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness. We’re gonna be talking about how you have become a part of a new family. You are no longer a victim, but you are a victor through Jesus Christ. And God bankrupted heaven, so that you could be part of this family. Thank you so much for tuning in today, blessings. Friends, it’s great to have you today. And I got my son Aaron with me. We’re continuing to teach on the abundance of grace. This is your teaching Aaron, and I’ve really enjoyed it when you were teaching it in church, it was so powerful. But today we’re talking about how grace transforms us, and we said in the beginning that it really takes two things for us to reign in life, according to Romans 5:17. It takes the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness. And then we begin to talk about how grace frees us and we’re free from our past sin. Isn’t that good news? We’re free by the spirit of God. And then grace transforms us. And we talked about grace not only has to transform our spirit, but as to transform our mind, the way that we think. Because if you don’t change the way you think, you’ll still be.

Stuck.

Yeah, and there are a lot of people like that in the body of Christ. I believe they’re born again and their spirit has great things, but they’re stuck in their mind. And you’ve gotta break out of that barrier in your mind so you can go where God wants you to go and do what God wants to you do.

Grace is what transforms us, really. The Bible talks about don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. That’s kind of what we talked a lot about at the start of the show yesterday, just how you have to have grace transform how you think.

And you know what? I just had this picture of a dog, with an underground barrier. And if you have a dog in a fence and you have an underground barrier, especially a very obedient dog. You could have that thing shut off for a month before they’ll even know it’s off. They won’t cross that barrier because that’s a barrier in their mind. And even though you might have the power turned off, in their mind, it’s still there.

It has to be retrained almost.

Yeah, and so we have to break out of barriers, and we can have barriers in our mind. And God really took the barriers off in the realm of the spirit. And I love this that you’re talking about today, how grace puts us in a new family. And we’re no longer victims, but we are victors through Christ. And we have been taught by society many times that we are victims and we should break out of that victim mentality.

That’s really a worldly way to think.

It’s ungodly way to think.

It entraps people too, it enslaves. Having a victim mentality will hinder you from opportunity, from seizing opportunities that God places in front of you. Having a victim just stuck, defeated, defeatist, pessimistic mentality will hold you back so much.

It’s terrible.

So yeah, God transforms us. He transforms orphans into sons and daughters. He transforms beggars into sons and daughters.

Into kings.

Into kings.

Praise God.

Into queens, yeah.

You have this, and this really talks about this, but I’ll read these scriptures and then you can go through and just share on them. But in Ephesians 1:3, I’ll probably just stop at verse seven, but you’ve got through verse 12, we talk about this. But we are a new creation and we have a brand new position. We have a brand new identity. And so He says this in verse three, “Blessed be God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ, according as He has chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world that we would be holy and blameless before Him in love, having predestinated us unto the adoption of children. We are predestined to succeed. By Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He made us accepted in the beloved. In whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our sins according to the riches or the ultimate wealth of His grace.” Grace is an amazing thing that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about receiving the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness. And that transforms you into a new person. You’ve been born into the family of God. I love this very, this first thing that He talks about in verse three, that we’re blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ. I love this statement. You know what? There are only two kinds of believers. They’re those people that are blessed and know it, and the people that are blessed and don’t know it.

And some people reading this, they might see, well, I’m blessed with every spiritual blessing, sure, but that’s in heavenly places. That doesn’t really affect my condition here on this earth. But you’re completely wrong man, your spiritual condition, your heavenly condition, your heavenly position, that is something to rejoice about.

Yes.

It is powerful just thinking about that we are seated with Christ in heavenly places. A lot of people really struggle with just their feeling of self-worth, their identity. They attach their identity to whatever job they may have, whatever relationships they have here on earth. But really our sense of self-worth, our sense of purpose comes from our heavenly position.

[Lawson] Amen.

And Jesus actually, when He sent out the 70 to go minister in His name, to cast out demons, to heal the sick, when He sent out the 70, they came back, they were shocked. They were surprised, like, “Hey Jesus, we actually cast out demons in your name.” And Jesus just kind of interrupted them and said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning.”

[Lawson] Yes.

And He said, “Hey, don’t rejoice in the fact that demons are subject to your name, but rejoice in this fact that your names are written in heaven.” He says, “You need to rejoice because of your heavenly position that your names are written in heaven. You have heavenly authority through me, through my name. That’s why you need to rejoice, not just because of what’s happening here on this earth. True joy, true man, true power. It comes from what we have in heavenly, heavenly put in our heavenly position.

Amen, and that scripture is Luke 10:17 to verse 20. And so you, again, another person’s head is the wrong place to have your happiness. And you’ve gotta have your joy come from your relationship with God and that’s what Jesus is talking about. Your relationship with God, is what makes your authority work. And if you understand, he said, “Don’t rejoice that you operate in authority, rejoice that you have a relationship with God.” And a lot of people fail to operate in authority, number one, because they don’t understand it, but number two, because they don’t have a very good working relationship with God. They don’t really see who they are and what they have. And an understanding of grace and righteousness, is paramount to you reigning as a king, to you operate in the victory that Jesus already won?

I love too, he talks about being predestined. This is in Ephesians 1:5, “We are predestined or predestinated to the adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.” It says before the foundations of the world that he chose us.

[Lawson] Right, right before that.

Like you are chosen, you are predestined to good things. It gives God pleasure. Like let them rejoice and be glad and let them say continue, let the Lord be magnified who takes pleasure in the prosperity of his sermon.

Amen.

God takes pleasure in pouring out his grace upon you.

[Lawson] Amen.

He has good things planned for you. God does not have anything bad planned for you. And even before you were born, he chose you and wanted to bless you. There are no accidental adoptions. My wife, I’ve been married for three years now, she moved here, she had been married before for seven years, had a son, and her husband passed away. So she moved here to go to Bible college and came to our church. So when we were dating and then eventually got married, I knew that at the time when we started dating, her son was four years old. We got married when he was five, just about ready to start kindergarten. But I knew that I was becoming a father.

[Lawson] Right.

Like I knew what I was getting into. I would have to be a father. I would have a son. This isn’t an accidental thing, but before we even got married, I was making a choice to be a father. I was making a choice to have her son become my son. And that was independent of what he would do in the future.

[Lawson] That’s right.

So I’ve chosen him to be my son. He’s chosen, they’ve chosen me to be a father. And that choice was, there are no accidental adoptions.

Now let’s talk about this thing called predestination. I know some people don’t like us to talk about it, but right here it is in the scripture, he predestinated us in verse five, Under the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, I actually believe there is no one who is predestined to damnation, only predestined to salvation that you can, I don’t believe there’s a scripture that you can read that shows that anyone is predestined to damnation. When the scripture says this in Romans nine, these are sometimes scriptures that are hard to explain. But it says, “Jacob, have I loved but Esau have I hated?” Or when you look at that, when you study the life of Jacob, you can see that Jacob who became Israel was a man of faith. And there’s at least 10 ways that I can see faith in Jacob’s life. And Esau, however, was a person of unbelief. So you could really look at that and say, “God loves faith and hates unbelief.” And I really believe that God has a plan, a good plan for every person who’s born into this world. You don’t automatically receive it.

Yeah, to tap into God’s destiny for you, it always takes faith.

Yes.

It always takes faith to tap into his good pleasure, his good will, his good destiny for you. And I love talking about destiny. A lot of people don’t have a sense of purpose, have a sense of God given destiny but it’s really tragic. If you are a son of a great parent, you’re gonna have a sense of purpose, a sense of ownership, a sense of destiny. And a lot of people today, because they don’t believe in God, because they lack purpose. That’s why like suicide rates are so high. That’s why so many people struggle just in their own personal identities and figuring out who they are. Struggle with just gender confusion. It’s because a lack of purpose, a lack of destiny.

A lack of understanding who God is and who you are in relationship to God. And I know you and your brothers, all have a sense of destiny. You all have a tremendous sense of purpose. And your brother Andrew, who’s an engineer, owner of the company, multimillionaire, gonna be 34 years old this year. Tremendous testimony that is, your brother Peter who’s a leader in a multibillion dollar company. His high boss, the owner of the company, is the 25th, the last time I researched it, 25th richest person in the world. But Peter has a tremendous sense of purpose and destiny. In fact, his wife came from a wealthy family, graduated from Princeton University, got born again there in a bible study, evangelical bible study that Peter was part of the leadership when she first came as a freshman. And then she went to Duke University, and then his brother-in-law went to Stanford. And when Peter went to Stanford to his brother-in-law’s graduation, he said he was so disappointed because so many young people don’t have a sense of purpose. And I believe that we are robbing them of this by teaching them lies for instance, that we evolved. There is a creator. We are created for a purpose. God has a very good purpose for our life. That’s what this talks about. In verse five, we’ve been predestined to the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good pleasure of his will. When you study, the good pleasure of his will, there’s the very general good purpose of God’s will that everyone would be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. But then there’s a very specific purpose that he has for each of us. And we find our God-given purpose when we have a relationship with God through Christ. And we find out about that in the gospel breakdown.

I actually got this book from my brother Peter. He took a class at Princeton on the history of sermons in America, and a book that he had in this class, I think it’s called “A City On A Hill.” And it just talks, it’s kind of a historical book about just how preachers and sermons that they spoke really transformed our nation from the Puritan era, clear up through Billy Graham, Martin Luther King Jr. It kind of goes through the middle 1900s but one topic that preachers really preached a lot about at the start of America, around the revolutionary time period, they would preach a lot of messages on the topic of Providence.

[Lawson] Yes.

And providence, that word’s talking about destiny. And I remember I read a biography about George Washington. George Washington was almost killed several times as a young man fighting in battles. And when he was leading our nation as the commander in chief against the British, he really believed that it was God’s will, that he had a providence.

[Lawson] Yeah, absolutely.

To be a founding father of this nation. He really had this, he thought he was invincible basically because of God’s providence in his life.

He had dreams and visions that came from God and he believed in this nation. And we need more people like George Washington in leadership today.

And even when our nation first start, he was such a powerful leader when our nation first started. He was kind of retired but the states were crumbling. The states were united through the articles of the Confederation, which was a very weak federal government and there was a big rebellion of farmers who didn’t wanna be taxed by the federal government. Shays’ rebellion people got killed. It was a very tragic thing. So, all these leaders of the states knew that like we had to have a better form of government. So they came together to form the constitution, but why they agreed to come together was because George Washington agreed to come out of retirement and just preside over the deliberation for the constitution. So all these founding fathers came together in Philadelphia in the middle of summer, in this old building, it’s still there today. But they would close it up. They would close the windows, not allow any ventilation, just because they kept it so private, all their arguing. And they were at it for several months forming the constitution. But they only did it because George Washington agreed to be there. And once they had formed the constitution with our bill of rights, they…

We believe that all men are endowed by their creator with the right to life, liberty, and happiness. We pledge our fortunes and our wealth to defend this nation.

Man, having that revelation that God has a destiny for you that there is the providence, I love that word pro, there’s a city named after these sermons.

Providence, Rhode Island.

Yeah, man, having a sense of providence, having a sense of purpose, having a sense of God, wanting to do good things in your life.

And we’ve had some people that are trying to destroy the foundations of this nation. But if it’s America supports about 90% of the gospel that goes out in missions worldwide. And I don’t believe God takes that lightly, praise God.

I love what Paul is writing here about being predestined to the adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. That’s awesome.

Praise God.

I wanna, yeah, we’re gonna take a brief break, but when we come back, I’m gonna talk about how much you are really worth. So stay tuned, we’ll come back very shortly.

Friends, I wanna tell you about our grace package. I received a “Revelation of Grace” in Andrew Womack’s Ministry in 1994, after I’d been pastoring for six years. It revolutionized my life and it’s helped me in so many different ways. I actually have been called to preach and filled with the Holy Spirit in Andrew’s Ministry, 16 years prior to that but when I received a revelation of grace, it changed me. We’ve also included a great teaching from my son, Aaron Perdue, on “The Abundance of Grace,” a single CD on “Entangled,” a great message on grace from Aaron and my series on “Galatians: The Grace of Christ.” You don’t want to miss this teaching, just like it’s revolutionized my life, It will revolutionize yours. You can share this with your friends. If you don’t want to call in and get this, you can actually listen to these free on our website at charischristiancenter.com. We want to get the word to you, blessings.

Well, thanks for coming back here after the break. We are really excited to be talking about the abundance of grace. Grace frees you and grace transforms you. Grace puts you in a new family. That’s what we’ve been talking about here in Ephesians chapter one. We started in verse three. We’re actually down to verse six now. I want to talk about how much you are really worth, what determines your worth. The Bible says here in verse six, that he has made us accepted in the beloved. A lot of people really struggle with rejection, maybe someone important in your life rejected you. Maybe a spouse rejected you. Maybe a parent rejected you, maybe a brother, a sister, your children rejected you. Maybe a teacher rejected you, told you you wouldn’t be worth much. Maybe a boss rejected you, didn’t see your value. Your value does not come from those people. Your value, what determines your value? This is kind of an economic question. What determines something’s value? If I was to just ask you what determines the value of gasoline? Gasoline has kind of gone up in recent years here in America. And economically, what determines the value of a commodity, it’s the laws of supply and demand. The greater supply of something that’ll lower the price. If it’s in short supply, it’ll raise the price and also demand. If there’s a great demand that’ll increase the price but if there’s not much demand, that will lower the price. But if something is a rare commodity, a rare object there, it’s a one of a kind. I buy and sell watches for fun and to earn a little extra money, but right now, I have a very nice watch on. It’s a Breitling, it’s a 50 year old watch. It was made in 1972. It was actually worn on the moon. The same model by Scott Carpenter, the astronaut. It was worn on the moon. And someone might say, “Well, I’ll give you Pastor Aaron, I’ll give you $100 for that watch or I’ll give you 200, I’ll give you 1,000.” What determines the value of this watch, isn’t just what overall people are willing to pay. It’s what the highest person is willing to pay. If it’s a one of a kind item, I could put it up for auction. And it doesn’t matter if someone says, “Well, it’s only worth 100, or it’s 200.” It would go to the person who paid the most.

[Lawson] praise God.

So if I put this on auction, it would probably go for three to $4,000. So I’m not gonna sell it short to someone who only wants to gimme $100. You are rare, you are one of a kind. There is no one like you. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. Don’t let these low bidders determine your worth, your value. These people who do not value you, that does not determine your value. If you were put up for auction, there is someone that’s gonna far outspend anyone else.

The Lord God, the most high God.

He paid the highest price for you. He paid with the price of the blood of his only begotten son. So that’s how much he loves you. That’s how much he cares for you. He has made you accepted in the beloved by that payment with the blood of Jesus.

There are so many people that struggle with insecurity and really, nobody else can do anything about that except you. And you just have to make a decision that another person does not determine my wealth. Another person does not determine my worth, but God is the one who determines my worth. And I have people who are great leaders in the body of Christ. God’s blessed me that have been my mentors that have helped me. But sometimes some of my best friends, some people that I really look up to, have said very negative things about me in the past. Now they don’t say those things anymore. And it’s because I renewed my mind and I began to see myself the way that God saw me. And you know what? God determined your worth when he sent Jesus to the cross. Jesus determined your worth when he died on the cross for your sins. And in that scripture in Ephesians chapter one that you were just quoting, verse six, it says, “To the praise of the glory of His grace.” When God sees us in Christ, he sees us through the grace of God, He sees us in our full potential through grace. And that’s what we’re talking about. Grace, what frees you, grace transforms you and grace empowers you. So when God sees you in Christ, he sees you in your full potential in grace. And then he says, accepted. And that’s a form of grace. comes from Charis. Accepted in the beloved. So you’re not accepted. You’re accepted based on your full potential in Christ through the grace of God.

Yeah, and a lot of people also struggle with just feelings of isolation. And really, if you’re accepted in the beloved, you shouldn’t just feel isolated, feel lonely all the time. Even even, there have been periods in my, I was single for quite a while till I got married. I was 32 I think, when I got married. But even though there was a period in my young adult years where I was alone, lived alone, did a lot of things on my own, I never really struggled with loneliness, with isolation, because I always knew that God was there with me.

Listen, that’s such a powerful teaching, and we could teach a whole series just on that but your worth is not determined by a relationship. Your worth is determined by your relationship with God. I’m not talking about people and their opinion of you. Now, I wanna get through this verse seven really quickly, and I’ll just read it again Aaron, and you can comment on it. But we have two things that says in him, in whom, in Christ, We talked about that earlier this week. “We have redemption through his blood.” So Jesus has purchased us with his blood. We’re redeemed from every curse. And he says, and he explains it, “Included in redemption, is the forgiveness of sins according to the riches or the ultimate wealth of his grace.” So we’re forgiven for every sin. We’re redeemed from every curse.

I love that the riches of his grace. We’ve been talking about the abundance of grace, the riches of his grace.

And it’s a really unfathomable thing, the grace of God.

The abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness. Again, we’ve been talking about Romans 5:17 as well, to reign in life. It takes those two things, the abundance of grace and the gift of right. It’s so extravagant, it has to be a gift. You can’t pay for what God wants to give you through his grace, through his right. It has to be a gift. It’d be like if someone wanted to give you a 20 million property. For most of you watching this broadcast right now, you would not be able to afford it.

You couldn’t pay the interest.

Afford the payments side.

If it was one person.

You couldn’t pay the taxes. You couldn’t pay the utility bill. You couldn’t pay the gardener. You couldn’t pay the cleaning lady, you couldn’t. But God’s grace, it’s so rich. It pays for everything.

Amen.

Past, present and future.

It’s a marvelous thing.

So if you try to make payments on it and say, “Well, I’m gonna earn it through my own power, through my own strength.” You’re gonna be instantly bankrupt.

Yeah, and so we can’t do it.

So just accept the free gift.

God bankrupted heaven.

Yeah.

So that you could be ultimately wealthy. Isn’t that marvelous? Hey, tune in to tomorrow’s broadcast. We’re gonna continue to teach on the abundance of grace. If you need prayer or if you want a partner, be sure and give us a call. God bless you. We love you, God loves you.

Hi ladies, I am so excited to invite you to our Rejoice Women’s Conference, February 9th through the 11th. This is an event for women, 13 and up. It’s time to rejoice.

Not only are you gonna have a lot of fun and laugh a lot, you are also gonna experience the power of God when you see signs, wonders, and miracles.

[Heather] Amen, we’re gonna have a lot of fun. We have Cathy Duplantis is coming. So make plans and register today.

[Narrator] What is grace? What is the purpose of the law? And how do you appropriate God’s grace in your life? Get answers to all these questions and more with the Grace package. You’ll receive “The Abundance of Grace, the Revelation Of Grace, Galatians: The Grace of Christ,” and “Entangled” CD series, all for $39 when you call 719-418-4000 or visit charischristiancenter.com. 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 could ride us at PO Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80962. See you next time on “Grace for today.”