The Abundance Of Grace Part 7 – Lawson And Aaron Perdue

The Abundance Of Grace Part 7

The Abundance of Grace Part 7 with Pastors Lawson and Aaron Perdue. On this episode of Grace For Today, you will continue to learn how to live empowered by the power of the Holy Spirit through the abundance of His grace.

The Abundance Of Grace Part 7 Transcript

Welcome friends to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you tuned in today. My son Aaron is with me and we’re going to be talking today about how grace empowers us to live the Christian life. You don’t wanna miss this broadcast. Tell your friends to tune in. Thanks so much and God bless you.

Welcome friends. I’m so glad that you’re here today. We’re sharing my son Aaron’s teaching on the “Abundance of Grace”. And we’ve been talking all week about how grace empowers us. And you said we’re gonna share in this broadcast about how grace empowers us to carry the light of God into a dark world.

Yeah, you need God’s grace to be in your life ’cause grace empowers you to live the Christian life. You aren’t supposed to live the Christian life through your own strength,-

[Lawson] We can’t.

through your own goodness, through your own actions, through your own intellect. You have to live the Christian life through His grace.

It’s been said that you cannot live the Christian life without the Christ’s life. And I believe it’s so true. And one of the scriptures that you had in the teaching, I don’t know if we’ve went there this week yet, is Romans 8:11. “If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He will quicken your mortal body by His Spirit that dwells in you.” That’s talking about that indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. And we can live the Christian life because we have the very life, the very nature of Jesus in us.

Amen, we don’t just celebrate as believers, we don’t just celebrate the resurrection once a year, on Easter Sunday. We celebrate the resurrection every day because that resurrection power is in us-

[Lawson] Amen.

as believers empowering us to be who God is calls us to be and to live just to live as Christ in this world. So let’s go to John 17 really quick. This is actually when Jesus is ministering to His disciples shortly. This is at the Last Supper before He goes to the cross. So this is one of His most important messages that He preaches to His disciples. And He prays for Himself, He prays for His disciples, He prays for all believers. But this is really Jesus’ heart for you. Here in John 17, we’ll start in verse 13, says, “But now I come to You, that these things I speak in the world, that they may have My joy fulfilled in themselves.” Jesus, first of all, to live the Christian life, it takes joy, it takes supernatural joy.

[Lawson] Amen. That’s been said that if the devil can steal your joy, he can take your goods. But if he can’t steal your joy, he can’t take your goods. Nehemiah 8:10, says, “The joy of the Lord is our strength.”

You need God’s supernatural strength. You need His supernatural power to live the Christian life.

[Lawson] Amen.

And I love that He talks about joy right off the bat there. Verse 14, “I have given them Your word.” You need the word of God to live the Christian life. If you think you’re gonna live the Christian life apart from the word of God, man, you’re in trouble. “I’ve given them Your word; and the world has hated them, because they’re not of the world, just as I am not of the word.” The word of God separates us. The word of God sanctifies us. The word of God-

[Lawson] Amen.

I mean, that’s the light that we get to carry His word. So that’s gonna separate you from the world. Just living by the word of God will separate you-

Amen.

from how the world lives. It’ll separate you from the course of this world.

Amen, I love what John goes on to say or Jesus says here in John 17:15, “I do not pray that you would take them out of the world, but that you would keep them from the evil.” So Jesus did not pray that God would take us out of the world. And a lot of people trying to get away from the world. Well, we’re not to love the world. The Bible says, “All that’s in the world, lust of the flesh, lust of the eye, pride of life, it’s not of the Father, but of the world.” “If any man loved the world, the love of the Father is not in him,” 1 John 2. But at the same point in time, we’re in the world, but we’re not of the world.

I find it interesting that He says, “I’m not praying that You should take them out of the world.” The enemy’s main focus on attacking believers is not to take them out of the world. He does kill, he does steal, he does destroy, but the main thing the enemy does is try to attack the purpose for you being in this world. He tries to hinder believers from flowing in that power of God’s grace.

If you’re going nowhere, doing nothing, you’re not like a big target for the devil; but when you really begin to live with the purpose of God, the enemy is going to fight you. The Bible actually says this in Hebrews 10 that immediately after they were enlightened, they had a great fight of afflictions. But you can win every battle through faith in Jesus. He’s already won it for you. Amen. And by faith, you enter into that victory, He won.

Amen, so, “I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one. They’re not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. As You sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes, I sanctify myself that they also may be sanctified by the truth.”

So we’re set apart from the world by the word. And what we do with the word is that’s the difference between the world and the church. And in John 14, Jesus talked about this a little bit. In verse 22, Judas asked Him a question and he said, “Not Iscariot, ‘Lord, how is it that You will manifest,’ you’ll reveal, ‘Yourself to us, and not the world?'” Jesus said in verse 23, and He said, “If a man love Me, he will keep My words and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him. He that loves Me not, does not keep My sayings and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s which sent Me.” And so what we do with the word makes a difference of how we operate in this world. The word, the word of God will set you apart from the world.

And you should spend time in the word every day too. That’s just like-

Amen.

a lighting your candle every day.

It gives me strength. The Bible says, “Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to the Thy word. With my whole heart have I sought You, God. Let me not wander from Thy commands. Your word is a light under my path.” And so thank God, a lamp into my feet. The word separates us and the word gives us light. The word strengthens us.

The word teaches us how to live the Christ’s life.

[Lawson] Amen.

You need the word of God. You need grace to teach you. Grace is a powerful teacher. Grace, it doesn’t teach you to sin, to turn… It draws you closer to Christ.

No, anybody that’s seeing how much they can sin and get by with it, they don’t really have a revelation of grace.

Grace is a powerful-

If you- teacher.

really have a revelation of grace, you’re not gonna wanna sin more. You’re gonna wanna sin less because you’ll find out in your spirit as a believer, as a born again believer, you are actually sinless. Your spirit is actually perfect and pure. That’s what gives you the ability to live the Christ’s life in this world.

And some people who kind of kick against grace’s teaching, they wanna kind of stay wrapped up in legalistic kind of teaching, like performance-based teaching, performance-based types of things. I like what the Bible says in Galatians 3:24, it says, “The law was a school master to bring us to Christ.” But now that you’ve been brought to Christ, the law can point people’s flaws out, but the law cannot free people. The law cannot transform people. The law cannot empower people. Grace is what frees you. Grace is what transforms you. Grace is what empowers you. Grace is what empowers you to live the Christian life. It’s not the law. It’s not going back to that school master. Once you’ve graduated elementary school, when you go on… I have a lot of education. I have a doctorate from Rice University. But when I went to get my doctorate, I didn’t raise my hand and ask the professor, “Hey, may I use the, you know, go to the bathroom, may I get the bathroom, the hall pass?” When’s recess gonna be? When’s my milk and nap time gonna be? When… I was passed that.

You graduated-

I graduated. Yeah.

from law school.

And as believers, we should graduate from law school. We should have a new teacher, a new professor, which is grace. The Spirit of God now leads us and guides us as sons and daughters. You aren’t just little kindergartners anymore.

The Bible says that we’re no longer under the law but under grace. And because of that sin, it says this in Romans 6:12-14, one of those verses, but it’s both talking about the same thing, but says, sin will not have dominion over you because you’re not under the law, but under grace. So grace really freed us. And what Paul’s talking about in Roman 6, he’s actually saying, “Shall we continue and sin that grace may abound?” He answers that question in the strongest language that he can say without being offensive, he says, “God forbid!” in Romans 6:2. But if people never ask the question when you teach, what are you saying, Pastor, that we’re just supposed to go out and live in sin? Then you have not adequately taught grace. But when you teach grace and the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness, people will ask that question. But then Paul answers it and he says, really in Romans 5, we’ve left the reign of sin and death, and we’ve come into the reign of grace and righteousness by faith in Jesus. But now since we live in the reign of grace and righteousness, sin no longer has authority over us because we’re dead to it, we’re free from it, we have authority over it and it’s stupid. It’ll kill you. We don’t wanna say-

If someone just living in just a reprobate, rebellious life, they aren’t allowing grace to teach them. They aren’t allowing the Spirit of God to lead them. They’re just listening to their flesh. They’re just living like the world.

I have a question if they’re even born again, really. There’s a person that used to lead this great ministry and then he had a very personal problem. I actually believe that was going on for a long time. But he kept it fairly well-covered. And recently it came out, he’s done something like this again or people with-

He’s continued it. Yeah.

Yeah, and so people were asking me, do you need to go or do other pastors in that community need to go to him? I’m like, no. He wouldn’t even listen to the advice he got right from his counsel around him. He didn’t follow through with that, which I believe is part of the reason he relapsed and went back. But I have a question. Number one, was he ever born again in the first place? Or number two, is he reprobate? And if you’re really born again, I don’t believe you wanna see how close to hell you can live and still make heaven. And I believe Jesus is really addressing this here in John 17. Listen, when you have the word and the word is lighting your path, the world may hate you, but you’re set apart from the world by the word and the way we’re. And he says, and now being set apart from the world, you’re sent to the world. And Jesus said, “For their sakes I sanctify Myself.” Sanctification, what sanctification will do for you as a believer living the sanctified life will help you have a stronger testimony in this world. And one reason, right, that I don’t wanna sin, that I don’t wanna live in sin, right, and just rebellion. Number one is I don’t wanna ever do anything that violates my personal relationship with Jesus. Number two is I respect my relationship with your mother, with my wife. I don’t wanna do anything that would discredit her. I don’t wanna do anything that would hurt you and your two brothers, right? Because sin is very expensive. I don’t wanna do anything that would violate my relationship with Jesus, violate my relationship with my mother, that would do damage to you as my children. I don’t wanna do anything that would bring a reproach on my mentors, right? Those who’ve went before me in the faith, Dr. Lester Sumrall, Andrew Wommack, who’s my mentor, who’s alive and serving Jesus today. I don’t wanna do anything that would bring disrespect and reproach on my church, on the people that I serve in the congregation. I don’t wanna do anything that would bring reproach on those who I’ve served in Bible school and those who I’ve minister to around the world. And last of all, I don’t wanna do anything that would bring reproach on the name of Jesus, my witness in this world. And I remember years ago when we had a major leader fall here in Colorado Springs and I was on broadcasting on Christian television, a very simple way in those days. And I was standing in line at the grocery store, and a man walked up behind me and said… That fallen leader was very well known. And he just looked at me and then said his name. And it was like, “What a disgust. Oh, you’re one of those.” Well, I don’t wanna bring that kind of reproach on the name of Jesus. But you know what, that man, whoever that was, I don’t know who he was, one day he’s gonna stand before God. And I know somebody was actually bringing this up to their parents about how this person fell again, la la la. And he’s actually using an excuse, I think for his sorry way of living. But he’s gonna stand before God one day and there will be no excuse because you stand before God on your own two feet, right, on what you’ve done with Jesus or not done with Jesus. And it’s nobody else is gonna take that blame. And so a lot of people wanna blame a preacher, blame a minister of the gospel, blame-

A family member.

a family member, blame whoever, their boss, blame their grandparents or their parent. Listen, when you stand before God, it’s not gonna be about your parents, your grandparents, your pastor, another minister of the gospel. It’s not gonna be about somebody you work for. It’s not gonna be about your brothers or sisters or someone else. It’s gonna be about what did you do personally with Jesus? The Bible says there is no excuse. The law was given that there wouldn’t be any excuse. And Jesus made a way for you to live right before God. It’s called grace. Amen.

Amen.

That may not sound very gracious, but you need to hear the gospel. Amen.

We’ll be right back after this break. We’ll be talking about how grace teaches believers how to live the Christ’s life.

Friends, I wanna tell you about our grace package. I received a “Revelation of Grace” in Andrew Wommack’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 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.

We’ve been sharing about how grace empowers you. You need the abundance of grace. I love grace. We see it all through scripture from Genesis to Revelation. Whenever God reveals His grace, it is always abundant. It’s never in short supplies. So we all need God’s grace to empower us to live the Christ’s life. So let’s go to Titus, actually Titus 2:11. We’ve been talking about how the law was a school master to bring us to Christ. But now that you’re in Christ, you’ve graduated from law school, you are now in grace school, grace is now your teacher. So this really talks about this here in Titus 2, starting in verse 11. It says, “For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, teaching us.” So I love that. You’ve talked about how grace, there’s saving grace, but as a believer, you need grace to live life, to live the Christ’s life.

Amen. And this word grace in the Greek is the Greek word charis. We call our church Charis Christian Center. And in the Strong’s Concordance, Abingdon’s Strong defines this word grace, charis in Titus 2:11 as the divine influence on the heart and its reflection in the life. And what a phenomenal.

And we see that here, especially in these verses, how it’s reflected into our life. It says, grace, verse 12, “Teaches us denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age.”

Now, when we look at this, okay, he says, “The grace of God,” we could say, who brings salvation, “has appeared to all men.” So it’s talking about Jesus. Jesus is the embodiment of grace in John 1:14. Now, Jesus, we just read these scriptures in the first part of the broadcast. John 17:19, He says, “For their sakes I sanctify Myself.” Because Jesus wanted, right, to have a good witness. He wanted His disciples to have a good testimony and witness. And what we’ve been talking about now. He says, grace teaches us. So Jesus teaches us. Go ahead.

Yeah. Jesus is a great teacher. The Holy Spirit is our teacher. I mean, that’s one of the aspects of the Holy Spirit is He’s there to teach us how to live in this present age. The age that this was written, it was a very dark time for Christians. It was a very worldly time, much like today. And as the world gets darker, your light’s just gonna stand out brighter.

Amen. And so as grace teaches us to live right in the wrong world, right? He says, “We look for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus.” Thank God we have hope in the gospel. Thank God. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:19, he’s talking about Christ coming. If we as believers do not have this hope, we are of all men most miserable. And so thank God for the hope of the gospel. Thank God for heaven. Thank God for Jesus.

Amen, so we’re looking forward to the appearing of Jesus Christ “who gave Himself for us,” this is verse 14, “that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works. Speak these things, exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you.”

Amen.

[Aaron] I love that.

So Jesus gave Himself to purchase us, to buy us back from all inequity, all lawless deeds, or New King James says, or rebellion. You don’t wanna live in rebellion. I don’t wanna live in rebellion. The Bible says that the way of the transgressor is hard. Some people think it’s hard to live the Christian life. It’s hard to live the Christian life if you’re trying to do it in your own strength. You can’t do it. I had a man tell me years ago, I was probably 15. Well, by then I might have been 17 years old. My daddy had passed away. And this man was driving me home one night and he says, “Well, I would become a Christian, but I just can’t live it.” And I said, “Listen, you don’t have to live it. It’s not you living it, it’s Jesus who lives this life through you.” And Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I’ve been crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.” He says that in a sense in Galatians 2:20, Paul’s actually talking about death to the law. And he says, “If I build those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.” He’s talking about, if I go back to the law to try to be justified. And trusting self, right, trusting ourself for performance is like going back to the law. But we can’t, we don’t go back to the law. We just simply trust Jesus. And when we do that, then we realize it’s not us, but it’s Him. I’ve been crucified. It’s not really about me. Praise God. Nevertheless, I’m alive, yet it’s not me living, it’s Christ who’s living His life in me. Paul says this in Colossians 1:27, he says, “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” We have the hope of the manifested presence, power and purpose of God. Life because Christ is living in us. He goes on and says in verse 29, “I labor according to His working, which works in me mightily.” I believe as you become focused on the Christ’s life on the inside and the Holy Spirit on the inside, on the work of grace, the work of grace that He called us. He called us, He saved us, He changed us, He completes us. Jesus Christ in us who’s doing the work. It’s not us.

It says, I’m zealous for good works. Sometimes I hear people in ministry who kind of burnout. And just… Not too long ago, I saw someone on Facebook who’s a minister, and they stepped down from their position and they just said they needed a couple years to detox.

Oh, that’s terrible.

They burned out. And I was just kind of thinking about it. There isn’t any letter from Paul just saying, I just need a couple years to detox from. Now he’s saying, I’m zealous for good works.

And I’ll tell you why I think that is. If you study the word ministry, right, in the Bible. Ministry really is three things. Most people think about ministry is going to the world, going to the world, going to the world, going, Jesus said going to all the world. But I believe ministry starts with ministering to the Lord. And the Bible actually talks about the priest in the Old Testament. They were to minister to the Lord. The Bible talks, in the Bible, when you study the word ministry or minister, it talks twice as much about ministering to the Lord as it does ministering to one another in the body of Christ. 1 Peter 4:10, “As every man has received the gift,” you’ve all received the gift of salvation, you’ve all received different gifts as believers, “so let him minister to one another.” So first of all, our first ministry is to Jesus, then he says, we minister to one another, right, then we go to the world. I believe that the reason most people burnout is they try to go to the world without first ministering to the Lord, right? Then without being ministered to in the body, in a body sense, having people who minister to you, right, and then going to the world. So we’re to go into all the world, we’re to preach the gospel to every creature. But my first ministry responsibility is not the world. My first ministry responsibility is the Lord, right? We’re called to exalt the Lord, we’re called to edify one another, and we’re called to evangelize the world. And I think if we keep ministry in that order, I think you avoid burnout. Lester Sumrall get mad when people talked about burnout. “Burnout! Who’s burned out?” He just, man, he was fired up. I remember one person was getting ready to go home with the Lord, and he said, “He’s talking about dying.” He said, “I wanna live, live, live!” I mean, the speakers were going . He said, “This world’s the only waiting place you can win souls and do works for Jesus.” And he was excited. He was over 80 years old.

And a giant sense of purpose.

Yes, preaching the gospel and getting people saved. He preaching over 300 meetings outside of his own church every year, probably preaching over 300 cities. And preaching his own home church, 50 out of 52 Sundays a year. What a man of God. I’m so glad that I got to spend time with Dr. Lester Sumrall, having good relationship with his son Steve today, with his son Frank. We’ve had a good relationship with Peter his youngest son went home to be with the Lord. But praise God we had a good relationship with Peter. And so we respect all the investment that Dr. Sumrall made in over the years in his sons and in the body of Christ and he made in me. Dr. Lester Sumrall came to our church at Kit Carson, not once, but twice. He came and dedicated our building. Just about 15 months after we were there, we built a new building and he came and dedicated it. And then he came just a few months before he went home to be with Jesus, about six months before he went home to be with Jesus.

That’s awesome.

And we thank God for those who’ve gone before us, and we wanna be a good testimony, amen.

Amen.

Aaron, pray for the people.

I’m gonna pray for you. Thank you God so much that Your grace is there for them today. Lord, I just thank that Your grace is a teacher. Your grace teaches us how to live the life that You’ve meant for us to live, Lord. I just thank that we are anointed with Your life. We are anointed with Your truth, anointed and sanctified by Your word, Lord. And I just thank You that we can live through the power of Your grace, in Jesus name.

Amen. I wanna say a great big thank you to all who’ve tuned in to be with us today. Make sure you tell your friends about the broadcast. We’re gonna have special broadcast next week. Andrew Wommack’s gonna be on with me, and we’re gonna be talking about the revelation of grace. You don’t wanna miss it. If you need prayer, if you wanna become a partner, if you need product, just give us a call today or go to our website and check us out at CharisChristianCenter.com

[Announcer] 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.

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 wanna 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.

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