Truth Will Make You Free – Part 3 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Friends, thanks so much for tuning into the broadcast. I’m glad that you’re with us today. We’re gonna be sharing on, The Gospel Produces True Freedom in your Life. And there’s really two aspects of freedom that first of all, there is the aspect of freedom from sin, but there’s also the aspect of freedom from legalism. And both sin and legalism will kill you. So receive the good word today and be free. Welcome friends to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’re here and I’m so glad that I got Aaron, and we’re sharing on The Truth will Make You Free. And we are in John 8. And we talked about one aspect of this is when you believe on Jesus, when you gotta continue in the word. And as you continue in the word, you become a disciple. And you know the truth and the truth makes you free. And that is a process. Freedom doesn’t happen, just your spirit is free immediately, but it’s a process of renewing your mind in the word of God and then letting the freedom that’s in your spirit flow to your body and really walking in that freedom, you’ve gotta continue in the word of God. And we can talk about that in a number of places. Also, James talks about this, it says, “Be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own self. And again, that’s a process. That’s James 1:22. And in verse 18 it says, “Of his own will, we were born again, with the word of truth that we had be of kind of first fruit of his creation.” And then in verse 21, he said, “Receive with meekness the engrafted word.” We were basically talking about our attitude towards the word. And the sower sows the word. And you know, if you let the word take root in your heart and get established in the faith, the word will produce a harvest like God in your life. And so, we talked about that and we also talked about, so we talked about that. And it also goes on in James and says, “Whoever looks into the perfect law of liberty.” And this is what we’re gonna get into, the gospel produces freedom, and continues there, and that’s James 1:25. This person shall be blessed, in their deed. And so, that’s a process. You’re born of the word, you receive with meekness, the engrafted word, you become a doer of the word and you continue in the word, and the word will produce true freedom, but it’s the freedom of the gospel. And if we go back where we started in John 8, Jesus goes on to say, as he said this, “You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” In verse 33, “They answered him and said, we were Abraham seed and we are never in bondage to any man. How do you say you shall be made free? And Jesus offended their religion.” You know, religious people will get offended. And when we talked about that second kind of soil in the broadcast, the two broadcast before that, that second kind of soil in Mark 4, is the stony soil. And when people hear the word immediately they’re offended over the word sake. And that’s religion. And that’s what happened here, they got offended because of religion. And so, Jesus came to set us free from legalism, because legalism will actually stop the gospel. But it goes on and says in this, Jesus answered them in verse 34, and said, “Verily, verily I say, whoever commits sin is the servant of sin.” So the gospel is what makes us free from legalism and from sin. And when Jesus told him, “Whoever commits sin is the servant of the sin.” He had ’em because, you know, they as religious people studied the law and the Bible says by the laws, the knowledge of sin. That’s in Romans 3:20. And so, they knew sin. And so when he said that they knew, “Man, we aren’t free.” They were saying they were free, but Jesus said, “No, you’re not free.” Because they’re bound in sin. So the gospel came to set us free from sin and it’s the gospel, the revelation of righteousness that makes us free from sin, but also from legalism. And he went on to say in verse 35, “The servant doesn’t abide in the house forever, but the son abides forever.” So you gotta get free and you gotta let the word set you free, and the gospel set you free. And here’s how the gospel makes you free. The gospel makes you free through a revelation of righteousness. That’s the understanding of the gospel.

 

  In legalism, yesterday we talked about how people have a certain way of understanding things, a certain framework in which they believe, in which they operate, in which they live their life. And legalism is a framework. You know, and really the framework, the way that people are just, their understanding and how they operate. Legalism means like it’s based upon your actions, how you receive from God. But Jesus established a new framework, a new system where we receive from God just by putting faith in Jesus.

 

  By grace.

 

  By grace. We receive grace from God by accepting it, by just putting your faith in Him. And that’s how we live, the just shall live by faith. That’s a framework in which you understand the world.

 

  Amen.

 

  And, which you live and you operate. I just started reading a biography about Martin Luther. And he had throughout his life, when he came to this understanding of faith, and you know, we don’t receive from God based upon our actions or based upon what we pay in indulgences, we receive based upon faith. You know, he had this revelation of the just shall live by faith. It changed his personality. Before he was very serious and rigid, and kind of miserable. But then after he, you know, I don’t really think of him as the type here, but he would joke around a lot, you know, pull little pranks on people and it shifted his personality.

 

  Amen.

 

  And just because he had this change in his operating system.

 

  Amen.

 

  He went from legalism to grace.

 

  And you know, it’s happened the same way in me, mom, your mom says, I’m not like living with the same person since I got a revelation of grace. And I didn’t get a revelation of grace until 1994. I was 30 years old, you were just seven years old. And you know, we pastored in Kit Carson. I’d been pastoring for six years, when I got a revelation of grace and I was very rigid before that, but I got a lot freer and I have a lot more fun in life.

 

  You should be careful what kind of preachers you listen to. If they never smile and never laugh and never joke, then I don’t really know how much the Holy Spirit is operating in them. You know?

 

  Yeah .

 

  The kingdom of Heaven, it’s joy in the Holy Ghost. It’s not meat and drink. It’s not just religious rules and regulations.

 

  Romans 14:17 says, “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost.” And what we’re talking about, the cure for sin, right? Jesus nails ’em when they’re saying, “Hey, we’re Abraham seed, we’ve never been in bondage.” He said, “No, you know, whoever commits sin, is a servant of sin.” Well, they studied the law and by the laws of the knowledge of sin. So we had ’em right there. And then he went on to say, “And the servant doesn’t abide forever.” You know, if you think about in the old days here in the United States, when they had the plantations and they had slaves, a slave might have done a really good job for a day and he might have gotta come in, at the end of the day and sit at the master’s table and eat with the master and got a really good meal because he did a really good job that day. But at the end of the day, he went back in the back 40 and he lived in a shack. He lived in the slaves quarters. But the master’s son, we’re talking about grace. He would eat at the master’s table every day, whether Johnny being a good boy or Johnny been a bad boy, because he was born in the house. And that’s what Jesus said. He said, “The servant does not abide forever, but the son abides forever.” And Jesus was saying, “I am the son and I’ve come to take you out of this law system.” And we need to get in a grace system like you’re saying, and grace and faith. And you know what, before I got a revelation of grace, I was really serious. I thought you could never tell a joke. You couldn’t, you know, and I just, man, when I got ahold of grace, it just changed the way that I think. And you know, my preaching’s a lot more about Jesus than me. Praise God, and I’m a lot happier person. Mom’s like, you know, she says, “I’m not even like living with the same person.” She said I was hard to live with. I was demanding, I was demeaning, I was belittling. She said she felt like she never measured up. Well, that’s all the results of legalism. And I didn’t do that on purpose. There are a lot of people, and they’re not religious on purpose. They’re not legalistic on purpose. They just grew up, and you know what? They were in a legalistic system and they didn’t even realize it. But man, you can get out of it. You can get set free and you can have fun. It’s fun to serve Jesus. The kingdom of God. Again, you quoted it here in Romans 14:17, it’s not meat and drink, it’s not rules and regulations. It’s right standing with God, it’s righteousness, it’s peace, and it’s joy in the Holy Ghost. Thank God we’re right with God. Thank God we have joy and we have peace. Amen.

 

  I think we’re gonna be kind of surprised when you get to heaven and meet all these people and just see how humorous they are. You know, God has a sense of humor.

 

  I didn’t know this about Martin Luther, but that’s great.

 

  Yeah, he had a big influence. You know, even we know about Martin Luther King Jr. You know, his dad was actually a Baptist minister and was at a conference in Germany or somewhere in Europe and then these Baptist preachers, they took him, to learn about Martin Luther. And he was so impacted by the story of Martin Luther’s life, he changed his name. He legally changed his name. His name was like Michael King, I think. And he legally changed his name and his son’s name. He legally changed his name and his son’s name to Martin Luther after …

 

  Wow, Martin Luther did a tremendous amount of good for the Kingdom of God. And you know, actually historians say that Martin Luther was baptized in the Holy Spirit.

 

  I think he was, I think.

 

  And you know,

 

  So I’m excited, I just started reading this biography about him, it’s by Eric Metaxas.

 

  Oh, wow.

 

  Who, he is a very great writer and thinker. And he’s actually been here to Colorado to share at Andrew Womack’s ministry.

 

  That’s awesome.

 

  And I read another biography by him about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was a pastor during World War II, and he was actually part of a conspiracy to take out Hitler, but he was captured and martyred basically. But it’s kind of neat learning about, even I read this really thick biography about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, it’s a great, I like biographies, I like learning.

 

  About people.

 

  About people.

 

  Yeah.

 

  And I like history but like, I like.

 

  Lester Sumrall used to do this. He used to travel around a lot of the biggest churches and ministries. And he would come back and say, “Now this person says that they’re great because this, this, and this, and they teach this, this, and this.” But then he would look at the individual. And for instance, one time there was this pastor in Puerto Rico that had a huge church and he would say, this is what made me great. But Dr. Sumrall said, he was trained as an architect and his dad was a military man. And so his dad was very diligent and very purposeful. And as an architect, he saw certain things. And I know you went and studied music and you studied classical music and you studied at a very, very high level. And you know, in classical music, if you don’t get the little details right, it stands out badly. And you know, what it taught you was to focus on the details. And I know when you teach, you’re teaching, you’re very focused on details and you bring out little things. And I’m thinking, I’ve never heard that, man, that is good, and that is right there in the scripture. And a lot of people don’t see the benefits, but there’s benefits people don’t see sometimes, they don’t realize these different things. And you grew up in my house, so we were constantly teaching you the word and different things like that. And, you know, hallelujah. But praise God. You know, the gospel makes us free. And we’re gonna come back after a short break and we’re gonna share briefly and we’re gonna talk more about the gospel, and how the gospel is first of all, a revelation of righteousness. And the very same scripture that Martin Luther got ahold of in Romans 1:17, we’ll talk about it. “The just shall live by faith.” Amen. So stay tuned, we’ll be right back and we’ll talk about a revelation of righteousness, a revelation of gospel, and how that frees you from sin and legalism. Praise God. We’ll be right back after this break, blessings. Friends, our partners have made our product free of charge to all those who are watching, all those who connect with us online at CharisChristianCenter.com and you can get these teachings in live form from when I taught them in church or on our shows. You can get downloadable audios and downloadable videos free of charge on the website.

 

  December, I found someone who said that Habitat for Humanity build home for the low income people. And so I went and applied and they said, “No, we’re not taking application.” Then January, God told me to call again the office. By May I was approved.

 

  You got a five bedroom, two bath house within a year. It’s exactly what Jesus told you.

 

  Yes.

 

  And you said what you believed. Friends, I’m glad that you stayed with us. We’ve been talking about how a revelation of the gospel sets us free. So we’re gonna go on over to Romans 1, and in Romans 1:16-17 Paul says, “I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.” I’m not ashamed of the message of Jesus. The message of grace, we’ve talked about that, what Christ has done for us. For it, the gospel is the power of God. When you hear the true gospel, when you hear the grace of God preached, the grace of God releases the power of God. I like to say, where great, great is preached, great power is released. And you can read in Acts 4, I think it’s verse 33, when they preach the gospel, how the power of God came. And so he says, “It’s the power of God to salvation, to everyone who believes it.” It’s a combination of grace and faith. You’ve gotta believe the gospel to make it work. If you don’t believe it, it won’t work for you. But if you’ll believe it, it’ll work for you. He says, “To the Jew first and also to the Greek or to the Gentile.” The gospel is for Jews and Gentiles. When your brother Peter went to Princeton University, he actually took a course on the book of Romans. And they had this question, was Romans written for the Jews or for the Gentiles? And it’s actually both. Romans was written for both. And they actually took my notes that I teach in Charis Bible College on Romans that I developed myself. And the teacher loved my notes on the book of Romans, there in Princeton University. And so Peter asked me this question, is Romans for the Jews or for the Gentiles? It’s for everybody. It’s for the Jews and for the Gentiles. He said, “It works for everyone who believes, for therein, in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed.” The gospel is the revelation of righteousness. If you have no understanding of righteousness, if you have no revelation of righteousness, did you know what, you don’t have no revelation of the gospel. He says, “For in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, from the faith of the Jew to the faith of the Gentile. As it is written, the just shall live by faith.” Man, that is the scripture that as Martin Luther was climbing up these steps to this Catholic church, you know, and bloody in his knees, he was trying to see how pain. You know, Jesus suffered for us. We don’t have to suffer in that way. You know, we identify with Jesus. There is a suffering when the world persecutes you, when religious people persecute you. But you know, when we identify with the cross, but it’s not talking about, you know, that we have to go to the cross. You know, we identify with the cross of Jesus, but Jesus took our sin. We in no way pay for our sin. We in no way pay for any of the promises. Jesus paid for them all, that is the gospel. And so he said in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith according as it’s written the just shall live by faith. So the gospel is the revelation of righteousness. And if you have no revelation of righteousness, you have no revelation of the gospel. And how does righteousness come?

 

  By faith.

 

  By faith, there’s only one way that you can get righteous. There’s only one way you could be right before God. And that is to believe Jesus, praise God. And when you believe that Christ died for our sins, that he was buried, that God raised him from the dead and made him Lord, you are saved. Amen. The Bible says that if we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, we shall be saved, for with the heart man believes unto righteousness. Basically what he’s saying, that’s Romans 10:9-10, but if you read verse six to 10, he’s really saying that Jesus, this is the gospel. Jesus died on the cross for our sins. He did no sin, and he went to the grave and he conquered the devil. And it says, we don’t have to say who’s gonna go to heaven to bring God down. And we don’t have to go to the grave to say who’s gonna bring God up. Jesus already came from heaven, he came to the earth, he lived holy, perfect and pure, and died on the cross for our sins. And he went to the grave and God raised him from the dead and made him Lord. And if you believe that, see now the ball’s in your court. He says this, he says the word is in you, in your heart and in your mouth. The word of faith that we preach, it’s your choice to believe it. That if you confess with your mouth. You see, when you believe the gospel, you will confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, because you believe that God made him Lord, when he raised him from the dead. And he says, if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you shall be saved, for with the heart, man believes, you believe out of sin, out of the kingdom of darkness. And you believe into righteousness, the kingdom of God’s righteousness. Amen. The kingdom of his dear son. He says, “Believe with the heart, man believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” So I confess Jesus is Lord, because I believe he’s Lord, I believe God made him Lord when he raised him from the dead. And when I did that, I was made the righteousness of God. So righteousness is two things. We become righteous or right with God by believing on Jesus. That is the revelation that Martin Luther got when he was climbing those steps. Amen. When he was trying to inflict himself with so much pain to see if he could please God. Jesus took the cross for us. And he said, “Man, the just shall live by faith.” It’s not by us doing all these things, it’s not by us crucifying ourselves. You know what? It’s by believing on Jesus. It’s by faith in Jesus. So you receive righteousness by faith and then righteousness and understanding of righteousness really becomes a foundation in your life, so you can receive all the promises of God. If you still think you’re an old sinner, you’re an old worm, and you’re all focused on your performance, it’s gonna be hard for you to receive from God. But when you understand I am the righteousness of God in Christ, man, it becomes much easier to receive from God. Praise the Lord. So thank God we live by faith. And the gospel is the revelation of righteousness.

 

  That’s a powerful thing about grace and what Jesus has done, not only did His grace take your sin away, his sacrifice took your sin away, but he gives you his righteousness.

 

  Amen.

 

  So when you believe on Jesus, when you live by faith, it’s not just that your sins were removed, but you’re given his righteousness.

 

  Amen, as a gift.

 

  Yeah, in the Old Testament, those sacrifices would remove sin for a time, but it didn’t make anyone righteous. It didn’t have power to even, to really cleanse people from within to purge their conscience. The blood of Jesus can now purge your conscience.

 

  From dead work, from our performance.

 

  From that framework of just constantly thinking it’s about you and what you do.

 

  Amen. To make us servants of the living God, not only does the gospel, the message, the revelation of righteousness free us from sin, but the gospel frees us from legalism and slaverism. Let’s go on over to Galatians 5. And I’ll read Galatians 5:4-7. But then I want you to comment on Galatians 5. You’ve got a lot of revelation in Galatians chapter, actually, excuse me, Galatians 4. And I’ll read verse four through verse seven, but I want you to comment on Galatians 4:4-7, because we’re no longer slaves, but we’re sons. And it’s the gospel that set us free from slavery and legalism. So he says, “But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman made under the law to redeem, to purchase those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because you’re sons, God sent forth the spirit of his son into your heart, crying, Abba Father, wherefore, you’re no more a servant but a son. And if a son then an heir of God through Christ.”

 

  And that’s just powerful, I love that. That he said Jesus came to redeem us who are under the law. And that word redeem, it’s a powerful word. It means to buy back.

 

  Right.

 

  You know, you wanna know how much something is worth, you gotta understand, what’s the purchasing price for it? And if you wanna understand your value, look at what God paid for you. God values you tremendously. He was willing to pay with the blood of his only son. That’s how valuable, that’s the price of redemption for you.

 

  Amen.

 

  And man, you’ve been redeemed and there’s a reason why we were redeemed. Why did God want to pay with the blood of his only son, the blood of Jesus? He wouldn’t do that so that we would go from a slave system into his family, that says we can be adopted as sons, adopted as children of God. And man, when you adopt someone, it’s not an accidental thing. You know, me and my brothers would joke with each other. I have two younger brothers, like who’s the accident? You know, they’d say, “Aaron, you’re the accident ’cause why would mom and dad wanna have have you when they were so young?” And I’d say, well, I was the perfect child. So you guys were both accidents ’cause why would they wanna have any other child after they already had the perfect. But when you adopt someone, it’s intentional, it’s not an accident. I married a widow who had a son, when I met my wife Heather, she had lost her prior husband and she had a four year old son. So I knew that when I married her, I was gonna be a dad too.

 

  Right?

 

  And I chose to be Fisher’s dad. And it wasn’t an accident like adoption is always intentional. And I love that God wants us to realize that we’re his children and he did it so much so that he actually put his own spirit within us. And his spirit within us constantly cries out to, it’s like a navigational system.

 

  Right, it’s amazing

 

  You know, that’s always pointing you back to the father. God is our father, that’s our home. Where your father is, that’s where your home is. So we know like here on this earth, this isn’t our home, our home is with God, with Jesus.

 

  Amen.

 

  That’s our family, that’s our home. So we have his spirit within us, it’s always pointing us to home.

 

  Amen.

 

  And if you get off track, that spirit within you is gonna keep drawing you back home, just like the prodigal son. He knew he screwed up, but there’s something within him that knew his father loved him.

 

  When he came to himself.

 

  He came to himself, he came to that revelation, that thing inside of him knew that he was a son, that was his father, and he’s gonna go back.

 

  You’re talking to somebody right now and there’s somebody watching right now. And you know what? You’ve been on the wrong road. You’ve been going the wrong way. And in a way you’ve been living in a pig pen of your own making. And God is calling you back and you know it’s time to go home, praise God. It’s time to come back to God your Father and Jesus your Lord, and quit living in the pig pen of sin and just receive his love, receive his grace. Aaron, before we go, pray for the people.

 

  Yeah, just God, I thank you so much for everyone watching this right now. Lord, I just thank you that you are with them. I thank you Lord that, man you are constantly calling people home. I just thank you that you loved us, you paid the ultimate price for us and you placed your spirit within us. So I just thank you that your sons and your daughters are led by the spirit of God. So I just thank you for people right now who think they’ve never been able to hear God’s voice, never been able to be led by him. I just thank you that right now they can tune into that voice. Jesus, you are a shepherd and we your sheep, hear your voice. So, I just thank you that right now people are able to hear your voice, be led by you and they just know your love for them.

 

  Well, thank you so much for tuning into the broadcast. If you need personal prayer, you wanna become a partner, just give us a call today. Thank you so much and God bless you.

 

  Freedom comes from knowing and walking with Jesus. God’s word is consistent and will remain forever. By continuing in His word, you will know the truth and be able to walk in it. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of “Truth will make you Free” a $20 value, free of charge. Download it today at CharisChristianCenter.com.

 

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

 

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