The Abundance Of Grace Part 6 – Lawson And Aaron Perdue

The Abundance Of Grace Part 6

The Abundance of Grace Part 6 with Pastors Lawson and Aaron Perdue. On this episode of Grace For Today, you will understand how the baptism of the Holy Spirit empowers you to live the Christian life and is a grace gift.

The Abundance Of Grace Part 6 Transcript

Welcome friends to the broadcast. We’re gonna be talking today about how the Holy Spirit empowers us, how grace empowers us. And we’re gonna be talking specifically about the gift of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is every believer. It’s a grace gift. If you have friends that are not yet baptized in the Holy Spirit, have them tune into this program and watch it. Thank you so much. God bless you. Don’t miss this teaching. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re here today and I’ve got my son Aaron, we’re sharing from his series on the Abundance of Grace. And we’re gonna be talking today about how grace empowers you. Thank God for the grace of God. You know our life has been changed by the grace of God. I didn’t always have the revelation or understanding of grace that I have today. I was born again when I was eight years old. Of course the Bible says you’re saved by grace. And then when I was 14 years old, I was baptized in the Holy Spirit and called to preaching, really begin to understand who I was in Christ. That helped me a lot. Amen. And that was in 1978, Andrew Wommack’s Bible study in Lamar, Colorado before his ministry really grew and prospered. But I didn’t get a revelation of grace until 1994. I was 30 years old and I’d been pastoring for six years. And Andrew Wommack came to our church in Kit Carson. Andrew’s actually gonna be on the program with me next week. And we’re gonna be talking about the revelation of grace. I’m so excited about these programs. I’m gonna have him every day next week on Monday through Thursday, we’ll be talking about the revelation of grace. So you don’t wanna miss next week’s broadcast, but today we’re talking about how grace empowers you. Aaron, why don’t you share.

I love that you brought up the fact that when you were 14, from hearing Andrew Wommack in a Bible study in Lamar, Colorado, you were filled with the Holy Spirit. We’re gonna talk a lot about that. But man, there is something powerful about being filled with the Holy Ghost. And that is a grace gift. You can’t earn the Holy Ghost. You can’t earn the power of the Holy Ghost. You cannot earn that empowerment that can only come by a gift to believers. And Jesus wants every believer to receive the Holy Ghost, to be empowered with the Holy Ghost, to be a witness through the power of the Holy Ghost. And man, the power of grace. And we all need that. You know a few years ago, God actually showed me that there are three important aspects of grace. That’s what we’ve been talking about, you know on the series of the Abundance of Grace. But first of all we talked about how grace frees you. You know a lot of people understand that grace frees you. They know that when they come to Jesus their sins are forgiven. When they believe on Jesus they’re freed from their past, freed from sin, freed from the power of the enemy. Some people don’t realize that. They still think they’re always battling the enemy and every just life is the constant battle against sin, but sin is a defeated foe. But you know grace freezes, but also grace transforms us. That’s the second aspect of grace. So Jesus who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might be the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. So we’ve been transformed from sinners into the righteousness of God. So you should not confess or pray that I’m just a plural worm. I’m a plural wretched sinner. You know if you’ve received Jesus, you’ve been transformed into a saint, you should identify as a saint. You should identify with His joy, with His peace, with His, you know as I am so are you in this world. We are now in Christ, we are transformed into Christ. If any man be in Christ. He is a new creation.

You know I love this scripture in 2 Peter 1:2. It says, “Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and our Lord Jesus Christ.” And when you get to know God and Jesus, did you know your really grace and peace are being multiplied to you. And you’re talking about different aspects of grace in this teaching. So many people just think about the grace that saved us. And thank God that we were saved, we were freed by grace. We were delivered by the grace of God. But you’re talking about how grace transforms us and now how grace empowers us.

Yeah and that’s the third aspect of grace. Grace empowers us. And man, a lot of people don’t even wanna identify as a saint because they don’t think they have the power to be a saint, the power to be the righteousness of God. But that’s why we can be transformed cause God actually empowers us. That’s a part of His grace. I love this definition of grace. You know what’s the traditional, or what’s your definition of grace?

Well, I have three different definitions.

Three. Okay. Yeah.

First of all grace is divine favor that by which we’re saved. And secondly, grace is not only divine favor, that by which we’re saved, we’re saved by grace through faith. But grace is divine ability. Grace is God doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves in the person of Jesus Christ. And that’s in 1 Corinthians 15:10. The Bible actually talks about this. Paul says, “I am what I am by the grace of God.” But then there’s also this thing that we’re talking about how grace empowers us. And in Titus chapter two, the Bible says that the grace of God has appeared to us teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lust, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world. And so Strongs defines the Greek word for grace, charis as the divine influence on the heart and its reflection in the life. And I believe that’s very accurate translation. So it’s divine favor, it’s divine ability. It’s also divine influence. The divine influence.

I like what Charles Capps said about grace. He said, “God’s grace it’s His willingness to use His power and ability on our behalf, even though we don’t deserve it.” So I love that. Yeah. We don’t deserve it. And I love that he calls God’s grace, His power, and His ability. Now there is an empowering site of grace that we need to understand. And you know first of all, God’s grace empowers us to be a witness. You know I think one reason why, you know Jesus told His disciples, you’re to go out into all Judea, all Sumeria into the uttermost ends of the world. But He said, “Don’t leave until you receive the promise from the Father.” And I like that He calls it the promise. He didn’t just say, this is just a, it’s the promise. So it’s a big thing. You know the baptism in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. It’s a big thing. It’s an empowering thing. It’s to empower you to be a witness. You know Jesus didn’t want that old, you know little security cat chicken disciples to go out and try.

Peter, woo! I mean, but you know the Holy Ghost took the chicken outta Peter, didn’t he? Because on the Day of Pentecost, when Peter was filled with the Holy Ghost, he got up and he preached the one who you crucified. And wrongfully God has raised Him from the dead. And He Jesus has sent forth this which you now see in here, He boldly proclaimed salvation through faith in Jesus and the baptism in the Holy Spirit. And they said, “Well, how can we receive this?” And he said in Acts chapter two, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. And you shall receive the Holy Ghost, for this promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are a far off.” That’s you and me. Even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

And I love when Peter was talking to Jesus before the crucifixion, he was just saying, I’ll never deny you, I’ll never be offended because of you. And Jesus probably laughed and said, “Before the chicken crows, before the roaster crows three times, you’ll deny me three times.” And man, I think some people get too easily offended. And it’s because they’re not allowing that empowering site of grace to just flow in their life.

Yeah. And Peter, did you know what? He had an excuse because the Holy Ghost hadn’t been given, but we have no excuse. And you know what? There’s quite a few people in the church that have not received the baptism. I’m talking about the body of Christ as a whole that have not received this second work. We might call it a second work of grace. The baptism of Holy Spirit. But if you’re born again, if you’ve believed on Jesus as your Savior, you’re a candidate for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And you need to receive the baptism of Holy Spirit. I received it. I was born again, received Christ as my Savior when I was eight years old. But I wasn’t baptized in the Holy Spirit till I was 14. But that transformed my life. And you know what, you need the baptism of Holy Spirit.

And it does. It transforms your life. It empowers your life. And I think one way that believers can stop the power of grace flowing in their life is through pride. Just, oh, poor me. Just thinking about yourself. You know pride there are many forms of pride. Pride can be like thinking to highly of yourself, not submitting, but pride can also be just thinking that you’re weak, you’re incapable that your feelings get hurt all the time. That it’s just the focus is on you. It’s not on the big picture. It’s not on what God’s trying to do. That’s pride and that will stop grace, the grace that God wants to empower you with flowing in your life. And it’s really sad when that happens, but it happens a lot.

Yes.

And a lot of just people getting easily offended, just you.

So you talked about offense and pride.

Yeah.

The Bible says only by pride comes contention. That’s in the Book of Proverbs. So if you are contentious, right? If you’re offended, then you are operating in pride. I’m sorry. That’s what the Bible says. And you know sometimes if the shoe fits, wear it. Andrew Wommack used to say this years ago, he said, “If that rubs the cat the wrong way the hair on the cat, turn the cat around.”

Yeah. Turn yourself around.

Repent.

Yeah, and that’s what happens when Peter gets filled up with the Holy Ghost. Man, it’s amazing what happens when he’s filled with the Holy Ghost.

Just transformation.

Complete. Yeah. And he’s empowered to be a powerful witness. Just 50 days before, just two months before he was denying Christ and blaspheming Christ. And man here, he gets up and, and stands in front of people and preaches one of the greatest sermons. You know the day the church is born.

So Jesus appears to the disciples for different times right after His resurrection and ascension into heaven. He appears to the disciples for about 40 days, showing them by many infallible proofs that He is the resurrected Lord. He is the real deal. Then they say, Lord, this is in Acts chapter one, “Are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel at this time?” Because they were good Jews and they were looking for God to set up His physical kingdom on the earth. And Jesus says, “That’s not really in my power and that’s in the Father’s power.” And that’s not the time. But what you need to realize, what we really need to realize in the body of Christ today, is you shall receive power. Acts chapter 1:8. “After the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you’ll be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, Judea Samaria, under the uttermost part of the earth.” And so that word power in the Greek is the word dunamis. Acts 1:8. And it means special, wonderful miracle working power of God. The same power that God gave to Jesus, that Jesus operated in. You know Jesus needed the Holy Spirit to fulfill His ministry. So how much more do you and I need the Holy Spirit to fulfill our ministry. And you say, well, your pastors. Well, but you know what? When I talk about ministry, the Bible says this in 1 Peter 4:10. It says, “As every person has received the gift, so let him minister the same one to another as good stewards of the many sided grace of God.” And in one sense of the word, we’re all to be sharing Jesus. And we need the Holy Spirit to share Jesus effectively.

Amen. Yeah. And like I said, it’s a free gift that it’s a grace gift to receive the empowerment that power that comes from the Holy Ghost. And maybe you’ve never, maybe you really love Jesus, you really love the Bible, you love good teaching like this, but you’ve never just taken, it’s a step of faith actually to receive.

You can call in to our prayer ministers, we have a lot of people call in and receive the baptism of Holy Spirit right over the phone. You know you had somebody drive down from Denver to meet you and set up an appointment here at the church, an older man to receive the baptism of Holy Spirit. You prayed for him in your office. He received the baptism of Holy Spirit. We pray for people at every service at Charis Christian Center to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We literally over a year’s time, I believe we see hundreds of people that are baptized in the Holy Spirit and receive this gift. And so if you don’t know Jesus as your Savior, you need to be saved. You need to receive Him as your Savior. If you don’t have not received the baptism of Holy Spirit, you’re saved, you know Jesus, you have given your life to the Lord, but you’ve never received this gift. I invite you in this break to give our prayer ministers a call and receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Amen. That’s awesome. And it’s very simple to receive. Jesus wants you to receive it. So it’s not a hard thing to receive.

It’s already been given, it’s already been poured out. All you have to do is receive it. Praise God.

Yeah, if you’d like to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit and start praying in tongues and just flowing those grace gifts, those empowering gifts that God has.

You say, “Why do I need that?” You know it seems so foolish. That’s why you need it. Because when you pray in your understanding, it’s your natural mind gets involved in whereas our attack, our the battle is usually in the mind, right? But when you pray in the Spirit, you are praying from your spirit with tongues of men and angels, with a language that God has given you from heaven. Paul says, “When I pray in the Spirit, my understanding is unfruitful.” You don’t know what you’re praying, but your spirit is praying to God. It’s like a hotline to heaven, the perfect will of God. And you need to receive this gift from God. So give us a call today and receive that if you have it. We’ll be back in just a few seconds. So stay tuned and we’ll be talking more about how your life can be transformed to praise God and empowered through the baptism. Friends, I wanna tell you about our grace package. I received a Revelation of Grace in Andrew Wommack’s ministry in 1994 after I’ve 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 wanna 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 wanna call in and get this, you can actually listen to these free on our website at charischristiancenter.com. We wanna get the word to you. Blessings. Praise the Lord friends. I’m glad that you stay tuned and we’re continuing to teach on the baptism of Holy Spirit. Aaron, what scriptures do you wanna talk about here?

Yeah, let’s go to Acts two. I actually just wanna look at Peter really quick here in Acts two. Just when he’s empowered with the Holy Spirit, it’s a notable difference in his life. So let’s go to Acts two. So it says here in verse one, “When the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.” I love that they were in unity together. The Holy Spirit really works where there’s unity. So they were in unity together. “And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind. And it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues as a fire and one sat upon each of them and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

Yeah, I wanna comment on that really quickly. We used to have Bobby Jean Merck, you remember Bobby Jean? She operated as a prophetess, very powerful. And we had her in Kit Carson. I remember one time that she came, she didn’t do this every time, but she prophesied over every one of you boys. We wrote those prophecies down. Mom put them in a book. I know one time she mailed one of them to you when you were in college, I believe. But it’s amazing how we’ve seen every one of those words come to pass. But she was holding a meeting one time, I believe it was in Atlanta, Georgia. I mean she was full of the Holy Ghost. And on this hotel where she was holding a meeting, somebody pulled by fire alarm cause they saw flames of fire on the roof. And it was the power of the Holy Ghost. There was fire and the place wasn’t being burned up. Man, the fire of God. The power of God. I remember when I first met her in 1981 in the Lamar, Colorado. My earthly father had just went home to be with Jesus. He checked out early when he was 40 years old. I was 17 years old but I remember those meetings. I just literally could see the glory of God on her. And people were being healed and set free by the power of God. I remember one time she was in a service and this baby, which is screaming, and she said, “Bring that child to me.” And this baby’s mother carried this child up to Bobby Jean and she put that child in her arms as she was ministering. And immediately that child quieted down. Now usually you take a child from it’s mama when it’s upset, it’s more upset. But that was a demonstration of the Holy Spirit.

That’s awesome.

And we’ve seen many demonstrations of the Holy Spirit through the years. We’ve seen people healed of all kinds of cancer, blindness, deafness, deaf ears opened, heart disease healed, all kinds of disease. We even saw a man recently raised from the dead. Jesus is amazing. The Holy Spirit is amazing. And you know what? We need the Holy Spirit. We need the power of the Holy Spirit in our life to change our life. Praise God.

That’s awesome. So it says in verse five, “That there were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews devout men from every nation under heaven. And when the sound occurred, the multitude came together and were confused because everyone heard them speak in his own language. Then they were all amazed and marveled saying to one another, ‘Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? How is it that we hear each in our own language in which we were born?’ So all these different people from all these different nations were there in witnesses.”

Every major people group in the world was there at the Day of Pentecost, praise God. Every and God had, you know God has always had a witness. Do you know when every major world religion was born, there was a prophet of God. There was a man of God speaking, there was a woman of God in that situation. Dr. Lester Sumrall wrote a great book about this called “Where Was God When World Religions Were Born.” But When the Holy Spirit was sent and the church was born, every major people group in the world was in that place.

That’s awesome. So Peter actually stood up, it says in verse 14 with the 11, “Raised his voice and said to them, ‘Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and heed my words for these are not drunk as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel.'” And I love that he quotes Joel here, the Prophet Joel. “He says, ‘It shall come to pass in the last days.’ Says God that I shall pour out of my Spirit on all flesh.” You know we are living in the last days. This sermon that Peter preached, it’s still valid for the church today. It wasn’t just valid for the early church, it’s valid for this church. We’re actually, we are in the last day. So this is very valid. This prophecy is valid. The baptism in the Holy Ghost is valid for today. And needed for today. “He said, ‘It shall come to pass in the last day says God.’ That I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and daughters shall prophesy. Your young man shall visions, your old men shall dream dreams. And on my men’s servants and my maid servants, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. They shall prophesy, I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire, vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, the moon into blood before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. And then shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” And he just goes on and just preaches a fantastic message. You know he preaches the word of God. I love that He starts off preaching from Joel. And I remember when I first started preaching six years ago, you taught me how to preach. You said you always start off with the word of God. You don’t start off with your own thoughts or a story. You start off with the word of God. That is exactly how Peter preached. You start with the word. He preached Jesus. You know every preacher should be preaching Jesus. He said he was attested by God, by signs, miracles, and wonders. God backed up the word of Jesus Christ. And he preached the crucifixion of Jesus. He preached His resurrection. He said in Acts 2:24 that God raised Him up having loose the pains of death because it was not possible that He should be held by it. He preached His exaltation, he preached He is Lord, He is the Christ. He preached repentance.

Amen.

He said you need to repent. He preached about the Holy Spirit. He said this promise in verse 39. “It’s for you, for your children, and to all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”

Now I quoted that a while ago, but you know when Jesus died on the cross, He called all men into salvation. You know the Bible says in John 12:32, “If I be lifted up, I will draw all men to Myself.” Jesus took the judgment for the whole world on Himself. And everyone is called at the cross into salvation. You have to answer that call first by faith, right? And receive Jesus as your Lord before you can be a candidate for the baptism of Holy Spirit. The Bible says in John 14:17, the world cannot receive Him. So you have to receive Jesus as Lord and Savior before you can be a candidate for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But if you have received Jesus as your personal Lord, then you’re a candidate for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. So if you have not received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, if you have not received Jesus as your Lord and Savior, give us a call today and receive Jesus as your Lord. Receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Be empowered to be a witness for Jesus.

Amen. God wants to empower you with the baptism in the Holy Spirit. You know that day when Peter preached, 3,000 souls were added to the church.

You know God never loses when the law was given in the days of Moses, 3,000 people died. And now here.

It’s a grace gift.

You know a couple of thousand, not 2,000, but a short 2,000 years later, you know 3,000 people are saved. Praise God. And the church is born and the church goes forward in great power. Signs, wonders and miracles being done. The same works that Jesus did in greater works were being done and we call this the Acts of the Holy Ghost. It was the Acts of the Holy Ghost working through the body of Christ, working through the church. And you know the Holy Spirit is still working in the church. And I’m so glad that he’s alive. I’m glad I’m alive. And this day it’s wonderful.

I know it’s awesome. You know the body of Christ is alive and well, I love reading about the birth of the church, the birth of the body of Christ. But things get exciting. If you’ve ever had a child and you know you’ve been there for the birth of it, it’s exciting. But it’s exciting to see that child grow and–

The power of God. You know we see miracles all the time. I was recently in Tennessee, mom and I ministering, and there was a mom gave a word of knowledge that somebody had a shoulder problem and a man, there was a whole group of men that came from a 12-Step Program and he had his shoulder problem. He said, “I went and got this shot in my arm and nothing happened. And it’s in terrible pain and I can’t lift it up.” And I laid hands on him and he began to stretch that arm forth and tears began to roll down his face. And he said, “Wow, wow, wow.!” It was such a testimony of all the people, you know there were people from several different churches there. And you know what? It’s amazing to see the power of God being poured out and demonstrated today in the day that we live in.

That’s awesome.

And so the Holy Spirit empowers us. What a marvelous thing.

And it’s such a simple thing to receive. You know Jesus wants you to. If you love Jesus, you’ll love the Holy Ghost. So if you’d like to receive the Holy Ghost, pray in tongues, flow into those things, give us a call. We’d be happy to pray with you and you can receive it today.

Amen. Thank you so much for being part of the program. Tune in tomorrow, we’ve got great things to share. Blessings.

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