Unless The Lord Builds The House Part 1 – Lawson & Barbara Perdue

Unless The Lord Builds The House Part 1

Unless the Lord Builds the House Part 1 with Pastors Lawson and Barbara Perdue. You can build a strong family in the midst of trouble. On today’s episode learn how to find wisdom from God specifically for your family.

Unless The Lord Builds The House Transcript

Praise the Lord, friends. I’m so glad that you’re with us today. I’m here with my wife, Barbara, and we’re gonna be sharing all of this week on how you can build a strong family in the midst of a world that is crumbling. And we don’t have to be afraid, but we can build our house on the strong foundation of the word of God. And when we do that, a house that is built on the word will last. Stay tuned, you’ll be blessed. Praise the Lord, friends. It’s so good to have you on the program today. And we are teaching from my wife’s series on “Unless the Lord Builds the House.” And we’re gonna be taking several weeks, actually, to talk about family. And so we’re gonna be sharing all of this week on the family, and it’s great teaching from the word of God. And it’s been proven in our family, and it’s proven in the scriptures. And so you can take this stuff, invite your friends to join us today on the program. I’m gonna go ahead and let Barbara get started with her teaching on “Unless the Lord Builds the House.”

Again, I’m so excited to be here and just encourage you and impart you in the walk that God has for you and your family. And I just wanna start off with just a little introduction scripture here. And this is Proverbs 24:3, in the New Century version. And it says, “It takes wisdom to have a good family “and it takes understanding to make it strong.” And I love this because a lot of times I think people forget that we can ask for godly wisdom concerning our homes and our families. A lot of times people think this is just regarding business or things like that, but God says we can have wisdom for our family in imparting and teaching them what they need to know. And another thing we wanna bring out today, this is found in Psalm chapter 127, that it’s important that our homes, our lives are built on godly principles. There’s so many messages with so much social media. What kind of culture is trying to build things, but we wanna go to the word of God and it tells us in Psalm 127:1, “Unless the Lord builds the house.”

And I was thinking about, it takes wisdom to have a good family. And where does wisdom come from? Wisdom comes, first of all, from the scripture, wisdom comes from God. And we need to go to the word of God and get wisdom from the scripture. We can also get wisdom from godly people. And, the Bible actually says, “With good advice, make war.” And it’s like a war raising a godly family in the society that we live in today. But thank God, we have great tools from God, from the word of God, from other people, godly people, that have went before us, we can learn from godly people. I remember one time I was traveling on the mission field and I went to Europe and I traveled with, there was Brother and Sister Emmanuel. And we actually went into the Ukraine, years and years ago, And took a lot of gospel supplies for teaching Sunday School and provisions for Christians. And we were teaching and preaching the word of God. But when I was there, Sister Sonya, she really spoke to me about different things that I could do to make our life better. And I practically applied some of those things personally. And then we practically applied some of those things to our children. And it was a tremendous, tremendous blessing to us. So we get wisdom from the word of God, we get wisdom from the spirit of God, and we get wisdom from other people that have walked this way before us.

It’s really good to have relationships, not only with people our own age, but again, like what you just mentioned. The Bible says the older women are to teach the younger women to be lovers of their husbands, lovers of their homes, their family, and the older men are to teach the younger men. A lot of times in our culture, they really wanna segregate everybody. And I don’t understand that here at Charis Christian Center, we have really built a culture that it’s everyone who is family, whether you’re single, married, male or female, young five years old, or 15 years old, or 55, or we have people in their 70s and 80s still living strong for the Lord. And we can all come together and encourage one another. But especially you do wanna get counsel from other people, counsel from other older ones in the faith. And so it’s really important that we build that culture, a family culture, and not just always be so segregated and separate yourself. We all need help. And so I love how you brought that out, but we’re gonna go to the word of God and just look at some really fun things here but in Psalm 127:1-5, it tells us this, again, “Unless the Lord builds the house “they labor and vain who build it.” There are godly principles that we can build strong families upon these principles. And it says the Watchman stays awake in vain. But in verse two it says, “It’s vain for you to rise up early to sit up late, “to eat the bread of sorrows.” In other words… “And for so he gives his beloved sleep.” We can have peace that God is with us, he’s helping us. I love how it goes on and says, “Behold children are a heritage from the Lord. “The fruit of the womb is a reward.” Children are a reward, not a curse. “And like arrows in the hand of a warrior, “so are the children of one’s youth. “Happy as a man who has his quiver full of them. “They shall not be ashamed, “but shall speak with their enemies in the gate.” And so we’re gonna be looking at some other things. Again, this is just really an introduction today. We’re gonna break all these things down and how do we apply? So how do we get from A to B? How do we apply these things right now, today? And so I like something that you had brought out, that children ultimately belong to God, and God gives children to parents as a man, interest his fortune to his heirs.

Amen. I’ve always said that. And it’s something I think that’s so powerful that people really need to get that. I look at my children as these are gifts from God to me. And these are not my children, but they’re God’s children. God has given me the responsibility of training them up in the right way, and raising them and directing them. And so I don’t look at them as an expense. I look at them as a blessing that comes to the Lord. We get to invest in our children and praise God. The Lord has really blessed us and our children have done really well. And they’re all serving Jesus. I’m so glad. And they’re in the church and the body of Christ. Only one of them comes to our church, Aaron, who helps us, our oldest son, but our other children are in different walks of life, different areas of life in business.

In different cities, different in different states.

In different cities, in different states. But they’re all connected to the local church. They all have good wives, and good families, and they’re raising their children well. And they’re raising their children in the church, praise God. So we thank God for that.

This is another comment you made. And I have it down here. Basically, I’m summing up what you just said, but I love this. You said, “To love, care, and sacrifice “for the next generation “is one of the ways we honor God.” Again, this is so different from the social media culture. It’s all about me and children are taking up too much air. I’ve heard some crazy comments like that. And it’s ridiculous.

The Bible actually says, “A good man “leaves an inheritance for his children’s children.” And I’ve seen crazy bumper stickers like, “You know what? “My kids won’t have an inheritance “because I’m spending my children’s inheritance.” And that is an ungodly way to think. And the Bible actually says, “It’s not for children to lay up for parents, “but parents to lay up for children.” And so again, we’re thinking about investing in our children and training our children up in the ways of the Lord and not only our children, but for our children’s children, for our grandchildren. And God has been really, really good to us. And we thank God. He gives us wisdom. And I think our children have a lot of wisdom. I actually have learned a lot from my children. So praise God.

There’s another scripture I really wanted to bring out today. And we actually even have a CD, or a single CD teaching on this. We’ll be talking about this, but it’s important that we instill faith to our family. And this is brought out in 2nd Timothy 1:5. I love this. It says, “When I call to remembrance, “the genuine faith that is in you, “which dwelt first in your grandmother, Lois, “and in your mother, Eunice, “and I am persuaded is in you also.” It’s very advantageous to be raised in a loving, Christian home, but it was said here that we could see that same faith, passed down to the next generation. And I actually taught a message called “Faith That is Taught and Caught.” I ministered this on a Mother’s Day and I really brought out how my mother empowered me in the word of God, taught me to stand on the Bible, and just really helped create a very strong culture in believing God, having a strong faith. And I just love it, that my mother just really taught me that all things are possible with God. That’s what we passed down to our children. And that we had always, when we came to the dinner table, as far as when we were raising our children, and this is what I learned from my mother too. But when we came to the dinner table with our kids, we never talked about lack. Everybody has problems. We all live in what’s called a sin-fallen world, but the difference was at our table. We didn’t talk about the lack, or look at the lack, we looked at what God in his word said about the situation and how God in his word is so powerful that he could change anything if we just put our faith and trust in him.

Sometimes the times of the greatest difficulty are actually the times of the greatest opportunity. And a lot of people fail to see that. But, I’ve had some businessmen friends that have done really, really well in business, but some of the times when they really go forward is when everybody else is really challenged. And it’s really difficult. They say, “Well, I’ve never seen opportunity like this.” And there are great opportunities, I believe, that are all around. And we need to keep our eyes focused on the word of God and focused on God. But I love this where he says, Paul is saying to Timothy in verse five, “I called to remembrance the unfeigned, “the pure faith that is in you, “which was first in your grandmother and in your mother.” And he says, “I’m persuaded that it’s in you too.” He said, “I saw this faith in your grandmother, Lois.” “I saw it in your mother, Eunice. “And I’m persuaded that you have faith also.” And so one thing is that we want to instill faith in our children. And one way that we instill faith is by teaching them the word of God. Romans 10:17 says, “Now, then faith comes by hearing “and hearing by the word of God “or faith comes by declaration, “and declaration by the mouth of God.” So when we declare to our children, this is who God is, and this is what God has done. When we study the word of God, a lot of people really have the wrong perspective of who God is. But if you study the scripture in the old Testament, there is a progressive revelation of who God is, that he is our provider, our healer, that he is our deliverer, that he is our peace, that he is our righteousness, our sanctification, that he’s our ever present help in a time of trouble. And that’s really, there’s seven redemptive names of God in the old Testament, you study that out. Now, when you look at the life of Jesus, Jesus came to put a face on God and revealed to us all who God is. So we taught our children about God, but we taught our children that God is a good God. And God wants to do good things for you. Of course, all of those seven aspects of God in the redemptive names of God are positive. And when you have a positive relationship with God, and know that God is good, amen, and know that God is your provider, he is your healer, he’s your deliver, he’s your protector, he’s your righteousness, he’s your sanctification, he’s your peace, he’s the Lord who’s there. He’ll never leave you or forsake you. When you begin to understand that it really changes how we approach God. And it changes how we live our life. And you know what? We don’t have to live our life defeated, but we live our life in victory. We’re gonna take a break for just a few seconds, but we’ll be back right after this. Praise the Lord, friends. I am so excited to be sharing with you this great teaching, I’m sharing from my series on 1st and 2nd Timothy on “Raising Leaders,” Part I and Part II. Also my wife’s series on “Unless the Lord Builds the House.” And then we have a special edition, “Faith That is Taught and Caught” by my wife, Barbara. And you know what? We are making these things available to you because we know the principles in these will help your family. Just like they’ve been a blessing to us. And we’re not talking about something that doesn’t work. We’re talking about something that we have proved in our own family, that we have proved in our church for years, and years, and years. You know what? The word of God is true. And when you live your life and conduct your family by principles of the scriptures, you will find the blessing that God promises in his word. So we want you to call us today and get this product, thanks. Praise the Lord, friends. We’re back again. And I know Barbara is just ready to share the word of God. So I’m gonna let her jump right into it here.

As you were talking about some things about teaching our children the word of God, and how to do that. I just thought of the scripture in Matthew 7:24-27, you were talking about building our lives, our families, our homes, on godly principles. But again, this is Matthew 7:24, and it says, “Therefore, whoever hears.” So I have that word, here, circled. “These sayings of mine and does them.” I have that word, does, circled. We need to not only be a hearer, but a doer of the word. And it says, “I will like him to a wise man “who built his house on the rock.” Verse 25 goes on and says, “And the rain descended, “the floods came, “and the winds blew, “and beat on that house and it did not fall “for it was founded on the rock.” The word of God is building our homes on a solid rock. “But everyone who hears these sayings in mind “and does not do them “will be like a foolish man “who built his house on the sand. “And the rain descended, “the floods came, “and the winds blew, “and beat on that house and it fell, “and great was its fall.” A lot of times people need to understand this. You brought out that God is a good God, he’s not bad. But we brought out that we do live in a sin-fallen world. And it rains in snows on all of us. Storms come but what do you do in those moments? We need to take the word of God and build a strong foundation and have that trust, and faith, and confidence that God is with us. And he is going to help us.

When you look at the wise man and the foolish man here, the foolish man built his house on the sand. I am sure that in the beginning it looked like this foolish man was doing a much better job, had a much bigger, outfit, things going so on and so forth. But when the storm came, his house fell flat. He’s the one that heard the word, but didn’t do anything with it. But the one who digs deep and builds his house on the rock, he took time, and it might have looked like he wasn’t going anywhere very fast. I know Andrew Wommack talks about this. After he got on television, in the year, about 2001, 2000/2001, they said, “It’s amazing how you’ve had this instant success.” And he’s like, “Yeah, about 35 years before that.” He was a long time just building his house on the word of God. And you know what? If you’ll build your house on the word and you dig deep, it might take time. But when you are a hearer and a doer of the word of God, you’re building on a foundation, that’s gonna last through time and eternity. The Bible actually says that heaven and earth will pass away. Jesus said, “But my words shall endure forever.” So we wanna build on the honored principles of the word of God. And when we do that, when we not only hear it, but do it, we are building on a foundation. Like you said, storms come to everybody. Everybody faces storms. Why do we all face storms? Why doesn’t God just protect everybody from storms? Well, we’re in a world, like you said, that it’s been affected by sin and by Satan. Jesus said, “In the world, you shall have tribulation, “but be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.” And we can live an overcome in life when we put our faith in Jesus and build a strong foundation on the word, God.

Amen. Amen. And there’s nothing that’s really important, there’s so many things I really wanna talk about in this session, but I do wanna bring up, we were also in 2nd Timothy, and I wanna bring something else up that’s very powerful. And this is really important for families, again. For us, with families, for those building your lives on godly principles. I don’t wanna leave out a couple more scriptures, found here in 2nd Timothy, but as we go on to verse six and seven. It’s interesting, it talks in verse five about instilling faith in the next generation, but then it also goes on, again, this is 2nd Timothy 1:6, it says, “Therefore, I remind…” I have that scripture or that word, remind, underlined. “I remind you to stir up the gift of God “which is in you “through the laying on of my hands “for God has not given us a spirit of fear, “but of power love, and a sound mind.” We don’t wanna have burnout. I don’t wanna have burnout as a relationship, myself with Christ, but I don’t wanna have burnout as far as being a burnout parent or burnout in my family. And this is talking about stirring up that gift, the Holy Spirit, and speaking in tongues, it’s really important that we spend time with God every day in his word, praying to him, but then praying in this spirit, that will keep you fired up for whatever comes your way. When we had our children, I believe when the youngest was born, the oldest was only three and a half. I literally had a house full of little boys. I had three little boys, again, three and a half and under. That’s a lot of energy, a lot happening. It was really important for me as a wife and mother to take that time, even if it was just a little bit of time, or in between, or while he’s doing dishes, or changing diapers, or cleaning the toilets, but to keep myself stirred up in my relationship with God, keep myself bold, and pray and sing in the spirit. And it says you’re gonna get built up. And I like how it says, goes on and says, “We don’t have a spirit of fear.” These are gifts that we should be bold in, be bold in with our family, and our homes, and everywhere we go, whatever errands. But I think of something, honey, when we’re first married, we lived out in the country. And I wanted to surprise you with a big, fancy dinner. I was so excited and I thought, “Oh, I need to add a dessert.” And again, we lived out in the country at that time. And so all’s I had in our pantry, as far as something, a last-minute dessert, was that cook-and-serve pudding. Who keeps cook-and-serve pudding on hand? I mean, you can buy pudding already made, but I think, again, when you live out in the country, you have things that have a longer shelf life. And so I was so excited. I thought, “Oh, anything chocolate’s good? “And this will be a great dessert.” And I looked on the box, and so I made sure I had all the right ingredients. I had the pan, I had milk, I had the powder there, and I had a spoon, and I thought, “This is easy. “These are simple ingredients.” And so I put it all together and turned that stove top on and got it going, and then got really distracted with other things. So it wasn’t too long, I started smelling something that was burnt. Well, it was this pudding, it was burnt and sticking to the bottom of the pan. And when I read on that box, it said, “Remember, stir continually, “stir consistently.” You can have all the right ingredients, all the right everything. But there’s a few simple things we don’t wanna forget. And that is to keep ourselves stirred up in Christ, keep ourselves built up, praying in the Holy Spirit.

You brought this out recently, but it’s you that have to stir yourself up. And you said, “You live with me “and I stay pretty stirred up.” And, but at the same point in time, you said, “Even though I live with you “and you stay pretty stirred up “and pretty on fire, “it’s my personal responsibility.” It’s not my responsibility to stir you up. It’s not your responsibility to stir me up. Now we can encourage one another in the things of God. And we often do that but praise God, we need to keep moving forward in the things of God. Now we talked about it takes the Lord to build the house, we wanna instill faith, but here’s another one. You put down that, we are not of this world. And we taught our children that, Hey, we’re to be a witness to this world. We’re in the world, but not of the world.

I just wanna say something. When our oldest son went to preschool, in kindergarten, I actually took him to the Bible. He was just four and five years old. And I showed this to him. And this was John 17:14-19. It says, “I have given them your word “and the world has hated them “because they are not of the world “just as I am not of the world.” Our children grew up in the church around a lot of amazing people, but they needed to understand that when you were out in the world, that sometimes that spirit in someone else does not like the Jesus in you. And I wanted them to be ready for what it was gonna be like when they stepped outside of our door and not to be in fear of it. A lot of times people make this misconception, we gotta just all hang out together, and don’t ever…. The Bible does not say, hang out together, hide in your basement, it says that we are to be the salt and the light that he will protect us from the evil one. I’ll read it so you know what I mean? But not that we are to be taken out of the world, but that he’ll protect us. These are scriptures we taught our children so they could walk in their bold faith of Jesus and be bold and share his love with others. But again, it says, “I have given them your word “and the world has hated them “because they’re not of the world just as I’m not the world. “I do not pray that you should take them outta 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.”

So the way that we’re set apart from the world is through the word of God. And Jesus is praying, and he said, “I’m not praying,” in verse 15, “that you take them out of the world, “but you keep them from the evil.” And a lot of times Christians are trying to just protect themselves from the world, protect their children from the world. But you know what, we’re in the world and the world has been affected by sin and Satan. And our children are gonna be tempted. And I personally think it’s better to have your children tempted and deal with that temptation while they’re in your home, while you can talk to it, while you can help them walk through it, and teach them, and show them the right way. But to think your children are never gonna be tempted is crazy. And even I know people that send their kids to Bible schools to try to get their kids saved to major good colleges. But, and sometimes that works out good. Sometimes it doesn’t work out good, but it’s every individual’s choice. But the word of God is what sets us apart from the world. You said, you told this to Aaron, our oldest son, just before he went to kindergarten. And I remember when he was in high school, he said, “Daddy, in my high school, “you can get anything you want. “You can get drugs, “you can get sex, “you can get alcohol, “you can be in witchcraft, “or you can serve Jesus.” And what he was saying was I have made a choice that I am serving Jesus Christ. I am surrendered to Jesus Christ. And so you had one more point today that I think is so powerful that we really instilled in our children. And that is to develop an overcomer mentality. 1st John 4:4 says, “Greater is he that is in you “than he that’s in this world.” 2nd Corinthians 2:14 talks about, God always causes to us to triumph in the Lord, Jesus Christ. And you just talked about these different things.

You might read Psalm 112:2. This is something you prayed over our family.

Yeah, I prayed Psalm 112 very often.

Oh, I have it right here.

Okay, go ahead and read quickly.

It just says, Psalm 112:2 tells us this, “His descendants will be mighty on the earth “and the generation of the upright will be blessed.”

Praise God. So you know what? We can take these Bible promises. And I know Psalm 112 is one that I believe, that I’ve prayed, that I’ve spoken, Psalm 115:9-16 is another one that I’ve believed and I’ve prayed, and I’ve spoken over our family. And you know what? These things are working in our life, they’re working in our family. We have three sons, they’re like between 30 and 40 years old. They’re all prospering. They’re all serving God. They’re all in the church. They’re all blessed. They have good families. And we thank God. It’s the fruit of the word of God, of years and years of investing the word of God into our children. And you know what the word works and the word’s not gonna turn you wrong. I’m so excited about what we’re teaching and we’re actually, I’m gonna actually have a special package that I’ll be offering. I’m gonna be teaching from 1st and 2nd Timothy. And the next few weeks on “Raising Leaders,” which I teach at Charis Bible College and they ask me to teach it. But also we have Barbara’s series, “Unless the Lord Builds the House.” We’ve just taught one part of that today. And we’ve got a special addition, “Faith That is Taught and Caught.” So, we’re gonna have great information for you and you can get it. And I believe it’ll be a blessing to you. Thanks so much for tuning in. And if you need prayer, be sure and give us a call, blessings. We appreciate you.

[Announcer] What does it take to raise godly children? In this package, containing, “Unless the Lord Builds the House,” “Faith That is Taught and Caught,” and “Raising Leaders,” parts one and two, you’ll learn spiritual principles and practical advice to help you raise up the next generation. You can get this special package for $49. 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 want to say a great big thank you to all of our partners for helping us share this gospel across the United States and across the world. It’s because of our partners that we can take this message of grace and faith around the world. If you would like to join our partners and receive that blessing, give us a call today. Blessings.

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