Vision – Part 5 Pastors Lawson and Aaron Perdue

Vision Part 5 with Pastors Aaron and Lawson Perdue! In this session we’ll talk about what our vision is at Charis Christian Center, and “Grace for today”.

Vision Part 5 Transcript

Thanks so much friends, for tuning into the broadcast today. We’ve been teaching all of this week on what vision is and how vision works. Today we’re gonna move into talking about what our vision is at Charis Christian Center, and “Grace for today”, you don’t wanna miss the broadcast. I believe that you’re gonna get revolutionary revelation that will help you move into God’s purpose and plan for your life. God bless you. Friends, I’m so glad that you’ve joined us today. I have my son, Aaron, I’m so excited about. We’ve been sharing all week on vision, and actually my series has five messages, but we’ve been on the first message all of this week, and we we’re gonna talk in this broadcast, a little bit about our church vision. I believe it’s very important for us to know where we’re going and to know what we stand for. And so, the Bible actually says in Proverbs 29:18, “Where there’s no vision, the people are perishing.” If people aren’t going in a direction, if they don’t have any prophetic enlightenment and insight, then they’ll run an unbridle, they’ll cast off restraint, right? They’ll go crazy if they don’t have some good godly direction. We all need good godly direction and purpose in our life. So we talked about where vision comes from. It comes from God, it comes from the word, it comes from the Holy Spirit. It comes from people of vision. We talked a little bit about how vision works, and we said “Vision works with our inward man.” You know, the light of the body is the eye, and if your eye is single, your whole body will be full of light. Jesus said that in Matthew 6:22-23. He said, “If your eye is evil, if it’s double, if you’re confused and don’t know where you’re going, it’s full of darkness and how great is that darkness.” So, we need a light and direction that comes from God, that comes from the word, that comes from the Holy Spirit, that comes from people of vision. And God will work with the inward, the picture in your spirit man. Today we’re gonna talk about our church vision.

And I kind of observed something. I’ve been here pastoring for seven years, but, you know, we moved here in 2001 to start the church. But I’ve kind of observed things over time. You know, when we started the church, the very first Sunday, there were just 20 people. I think it took a year to get to 40 people.

[Lawson] It did.

And another year to get to 100 people. So, the ministry, the television outreach, the church itself, the outward appearance has changed, but really the heart of it has always been the same. The heart of your message, the focus of your ministry has been very consistent over the years.

Right.

No matter what building we’ve been in, or no matter what personalities have been sitting where.

Right.

Really the heartbeat of the ministry has been the same. And the focus of your teaching has been very consistent. And really, I think to me, some of the main focuses of this ministry, and the teaching is pointing people to Jesus.

[Lawson] Right.

But also on just understanding the importance of inspiration from the Holy Spirit, revelation from the Holy Spirit, the present day ministry of the Holy Spirit, but also the importance of understanding grace, and having it just be a foundation in our life. Also, the importance of faith, understanding how faith works. So grace, faith, and really also who we are in Christ, our identity in Christ. I think these have been very foundational aspects of what we do as a church, as a ministry. So no matter what. The TV program has looked differently over the years, you know, since you first started it.

Oh yeah.

You’d show up, you know, it was just you and you had one staff member, and you would go to the office you rented at 4:00 AM, and record yourself with just a blue curtain behind you.

Yeah.

But you were preaching a lot of the same things that you’re preaching today.

Well, the message really that I’ve preached, has never really changed. I’ve got more revelation as time went on, and, you know, mom and I have been pastoring for, you know, 35 years, full-time, and I was preaching for a good six years before that. So it, you know, this has taken time to develop into what it’s become. But really, like you’re saying, the message has never changed.

And you’ve been very consistent. You know, one thing about being a visionary person, and accomplishing great things, you need to be very consistent. And you mentioned Cecil and Lisa Paxton, who I think spoke to you just about how you’re very consistent.

Yeah, brother Biermann told me this, he’s one of my mentors from years ago, and his wife recently went home to be the Lord. But Brother Biermann pastored in Burlington, Colorado when we pastored in Kit Carson, and pioneered the church there. And he’d been pastoring there for probably close to 20 years in Burlington, when we moved to Kit Carson and started that church. And he helped me initially and gave me good insight. But Brother Biermann was one of the first people who brought Kenneth E Hagen, Papa Hagen, into the state of Colorado to preach and minister. He has five children, all five of his children are in full-time ministry. And then he actually left the pastor, and he had started two churches in the state of Colorado and been there, you know, really established him, got him on good ground. And then he became a missionary and traveled around the world and really helped, you know, get a lot of young men and young women initiated, going in the ministry. And he really, I believe is an apostle, but Brother Biermann, you know, had a lot of really great things about him. But thinking about all that, we’re still supporting his ministry, right? We’ve supported him and his wife through, but also his son Scott Biermann and Scott’s wife, Sue, have come really to take, they pastored for years now. They’ve come over to take that ministry over and we support them. We just had them here, and sowed a very significant seed into their ministry. And they were praying about going to this private meeting in a very closed country, to the gospel. It’s in a Muslim country. And when we sowed the seed, they said, “That’s our word from God. We’re supposed to go and that’s the provision.” But, you know, thank God for the people that we have that help us. We talked about some, about people of vision, and different people along the way. I remember one time when I first started the church at Kit Carson, some people were mad at me and brother Biermann, you know, we were working in, it was November, we started the church and we moved there in May, and we were digging the foundations to pour the concrete in November. And I was out there, they dug the main hole with the backhoe, and then I was out with the shovel, and we were digging for the footers like at 10 o’clock at night. And I missed a 6:00 AM prayer meeting ’cause I slept through it. And some of the people were mad at me and he said, “They’re just gonna have to learn that you put your pants on one leg at a time like everybody else.” But he told me when I went to see brother Biermann, he was up on the side of his new church that he built, beautiful brick building in Burlington, and he was putting the sign on. He came down, took me to the truck stop. He drank a coffee and I drank a Pepsi. And he said, “Well”, he said, “we’ve been here for 20 some years”, and he said, “we got this one woman in the church. She really doesn’t like my wife.” He said, “tell you the truth, my wife doesn’t really like her, but we love ’em all.” And this is one thing that’s different about the rural areas ’cause there’s, you have to drive a long ways to get into a church like ours from when you’re out there, and so it’s not easy just to quit a church.

Usually stuck with people.

Yeah, so you gotta learn how to get along. And there’s some good things about that because people hold each other accountable.

[Aaron] They’re very consistent.

Different things. Now, I’ve actually told one of our youth pastors here, I said, “Listen, if some of these people that have ministries here in Colorado Springs, in this area, do what they did here, and if they’d lived in Kit Carson, they’d tar ’em and feather ’em and run ’em out of town.” Because everybody knows what you do there. And there’s something about being accountable and having a long-term relationship. And I recently went to Kit Carson, held funeral services there for one of my mentors, and his wife. But, you know, I had people from the Methodist, Catholic, and Lutheran church besides our church that were hugging me and loving on me because they saw that not only did we preach the gospel, we live the gospel and we need to live the gospel. It’s so important that we live the gospel. But like you say these things, faith, grace, who we are in Christ, you know, these who the Holy Spirit is. These things are foundational in our ministry. I remember years ago that Jack Hayford wrote a book on the “Glory on Your House”, and he talked about four pillars that every ministry kind of has four pillars, annointings, where did God call you? And I prayed about, what do you call me preaching, to me then it was salvation, healing, freedom, right, and provision. And I still preach on salvation, healing, freedom, and provision. In fact, we have a vision statement on our wall, right? Know Jesus, salvation, experience grace, healing, right, build relationships, right. You get freedom a lot of times through having good relationships. They’ll help you walk in free because sometimes your friends see things you can’t see and they help you. Sometimes people pull away from relationships because they don’t really wanna walk in freedom. But then the last one we talked about living with purpose and provision a lot of times comes from living with purpose. So our vision statement that’s on our wall is very consistent with what God spoke to me years ago. And some people don’t stay, but man, we’ve just stayed the course and keep preaching the gospel because it works.

And a nice thing about having a very clear vision, a very clear purpose is it keeps you on target. You know, the Bible says, “A double minded man is unstable in all of his ways.” And a lot of people, they have a hard time focusing in on what God is speaking to them. They, like you mentioned, somebody said, “Well, I’m called to go to work, I’m called to go Florida.” And they’re just bouncing around like a pinball.

Yeah and they don’t get much done.

Yeah and man, having a very clear focus, will you can ask yourself, “Is this accomplishing what our vision is?” You know.

One reason that I’ve spent a lot of my time pastoring, and I travel and preach, there’s more than a gift of pastor in me. I know the gift that’s on me. I know what God’s called me, appointed me to do, and I help other people and I can, but it’s because I see the fruit that comes from it, in having these long-term relationships, and I see what I’m doing, you know, and I go other places and I help what young ministers, and I help them move into what God has for ’em. But even when I’m here at home, I’m developing different people. I’m investing my life, right. Because I want this to go on. And part of, we’ll talk about more, you know, in this series, building relationships, but we wanna talk in the last part of this broadcast about our overall church vision. And that’s to know Jesus. I believe the primary goal of the gospel is to know Jesus. And we wanna know Jesus and make him known. And Paul really talks about that in Philippians 3:10-14. So we could talk about that, Aaron, why don’t you begin reading Philippians 3. We’ll start in verse 10 and maybe read through verse 14. We’ll make a couple of comments and then we’ll come back in the latter part of the broadcast and talk more about it.

Yes, this is Philippians 3:10. It says that “I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings being conformed to his death. If by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead, not that I have already attained or am already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold for me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind in reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

So you know that I may know him and the power of his resurrection. You know, that is the goal of the gospel, to know God, to know Christ, to know Jesus, being made conformal to his death. Actually, the author of the book of Hebrews basically says something like this in Hebrews 8, talking about the new covenant, about verse 10. He says this, “For this is the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel. After those days, I will put my laws in their mind and write them in their hearts, and I will be to them a God, and they will be to me a people.” God wants to be our God. He wants us to be his people. “And they will not teach”, look at verse 11, Hebrews 8:11, “every man, his neighbor, or every man, his brother is saying, know the Lord, for all shall know me from the least to the greatest.” So God wants you to know him. Now, we’re gonna be back right after this break, and we’re gonna continue to teach on the rest of our vision, which is know Jesus, experience grace, build relationships, and live with purpose. And we’re just gonna give a general overview. But you wanna stay tuned. You’re gonna get great revelation from this time together. Thanks so much and God bless you. Friends, I wanna tell you about our product that we have available with this teaching. And we have a special offer. First of all, we have the “Vision” series, and I have five messages that I taught on vision. You can get them on CD or digital download on our website. You can get them immediately. And then my “Uncommon Favor” book, this is my life story from just a few years back. It’s a lot of different stories. A lot of people tell me when they read my “Uncommon Favor” book, “It encouraged me because it gave me hope that if God did this for you, he would do it for me, and he would help me.” And there’s so many ways that God has blessed me and helped me, but it’s not unattainable. You see, God is no respecter of persons. He is a respecter of faith. So when you get ahold of the Word of God and begin to believe God, you can move into the vision and the plan that God has for your life through the favor and grace of God on your life. Thanks and blessings. Friends, thanks so much for staying with us. We’ve been talking about vision. God wants us to have a vision. If we don’t have a vision, we’re gonna cast off restraint. If we’re not gonna, if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything. It’s one reason it’s so important for us to get a good foundation in the scripture. The Bible says, “All scripture is given by the inspiration of God.” It’s God breathed. Right? And it’s profitable, what? For doctrine. We need to know what we believe from the scripture, praise God and we need to have a vision. We need to have enlightenment, insight, that comes from the scripture. The scripture we started with this week, we’ve been really sharing on Proverbs 29:18, “Where there is no vision, the people are perishing, but he that keeps the word, he that keeps the law, happy is he.” Where there’s no prophetic enlightenment and insight, the people are running wild, they’re running unbridled, right? They have no restraint. But he that keeps the word, happy is he. So the word gives us vision for life. And we talked about the first aspect of our vision here at the ministry, at Charis Christian Center, “Grace for today”, is knowing Jesus and making him known. And you read that scripture in Philippians, let’s go back there to Philippians 3, where you were. And Paul makes this statement, “That I may know him in the power of his resurrection”, but then he goes on to say this in verse 12, “Not that I had already attained, either were already complete or perfect, but I follow after that I may apprehend”, or I want to get ahold of what Jesus got ahold of me for and we’re not just saved to, you know, drink tea, and eat crumpets, and just live the good. You know, God wants you to live a good life, but it’s not just about you living a good life. You wanna make Jesus known to other people. And he goes on and says, “I do not count myself to have received or have apprehended this one thing I do. I forget those things that are behind me, and I press toward the mark of a high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” There is a high calling of God in Christ Jesus. To know Jesus and to make him know. And there’s different ways that we make him know.

I love, you know, I really believe that like Paul, his ministry, that was his main goal is to help people know Jesus, know who God really was. You know, when you’re very clear on your goals, very clear on your mission, sometimes when you’re mistreated or misrepresented, it doesn’t make you fall apart. You know, people came against Paul, they would go to churches that he’s set up, and tried to bad talk him. Say, “You know, don’t do what he said, you need to keep the law, you need to do this, Paul doesn’t know.” Like, churches that Paul planted himself, but he kept doing what God called him to do. And you know, because it was about Jesus ultimately.

Yeah, here’s a good example of this. In Acts 13:14, Paul goes to Iconium, to Lystra, to Antioch, when he goes, and I don’t know what order it is, but when he goes to this place, you know, the first town, they run him out of, the second town, they run him out of, the third town, they stone him. And I believe his, you know, his fellow believers join around him and raise him from the dead. And what’s he do? He doesn’t get up and run. He gets up and goes right back to where they stoned him and preaches the gospel. And then he gets up and he goes to the next town that they ran him out of it and preaches the gospel. And the last town, he just retraces his steps and goes right back. And like you say, I mean, you can’t be just so self-centered, a self-centered person won’t do that.

Yeah and I just love that our church and our ministry, we’ve made it very clear with our first point, our first vision point is to know Jesus. It actually affects things on a practical day-to-day basis. You know, you’ve mentioned that I oversee the worship ministry here, but one of my goals I ask myself, you know, “Are we, everything that we do should be pointing people to Jesus.” So, and sometimes, you know, musically talented people or artistic people, can want attention themselves, but what we’re doing should be pointing the attention to Jesus. So that affects, you know, how you’re playing your instrument, how you dress. You know, are you trying to draw people to Jesus or draw people to yourself? Even how I preach, you know, I like it when people say, you know, “Pastor Aaron, you’re a great preacher, you’re a great teacher.” But really the ultimate goal of what I’m trying to do is point people to Jesus, point people to his word. I want them to love Jesus. I want them to love his word more than they love me.

Right, and Aaron, you know, we’ve spent some time at Chris Hodges, some of his leadership things, but John Anderson is the head of his worship ministry. And John has been with Chris for probably over 30 years, and you know, doing ministry at different levels. But you know, that’s one of their key goals in their worship ministry. And they have, you know, numerous churches, right. But they wanna help people. It’s about Jesus.

Well you see a lot of ministry type things today that the focus is on the person. And when the person messes up, people will say, “Well, I’m not gonna be a Christian anymore.” There’s like a big falling way because the focus that they had a relationship or an attraction to that preacher, or that Christian musician,

Minister,

rather than to Jesus. So when that Christian musician screws up and you know, says-

Or maybe they don’t screw up.

Yeah.

Maybe they just go somewhere else or do something else and then that person falls apart because they were connected. You need to be connected to Jesus. It needs to be about Jesus. The gospel needs to be of Jesus.

And growing in your relationship with Jesus.

Yeah, not about people.

Knowing Jesus.

And so, you know, Paul proves this out. He says, “I forget the”, you know what? He got stoned, put to death. He forgot it immediately went right back and preached to them. They ran him out of the town before that. He went right back to them and preached to them. The town before that they ran him, he went right back and listen, he forgot it and went forward. He says, “I pressed toward the mark of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” So, know Jesus, make him known. The second thing we have is experience grace. Paul makes a statement in 1 Corinthians 15:10. And he says, “I am what I am by the grace of God.” And he says, “His grace, which was bestowed on me was not in vain, for I labored more abundantly than they all.” But then he caught himself. You see, it’s so easy to go from grace, what Jesus has done to us, and then he caught himself and said, “Yet it wasn’t me but the grace of God that was with me.”

I love that we have a big emphasis on grace and how impacts us.

It’s the grace of God that saved us. It’s the grace of God that frees us. It’s the grace of God that keeps us. It’s the grace of God that heals us. It’s the grace of God that helps us.

And our faith is just a response to that grace that God’s given us.

Yeah, when you really understand the grace of God, it will cause you to grow in faith. You know, when you really understand the love of God. Paul makes a statement, I think it’s in 2 Thessalonians 1. It might be, but he said, “I give thanks that your, you know, that your faith grows exceedingly, and your love is abounding.” You know, he’s talking about love to one another. But really when you understand the love of God for you, it will cause your faith to grow.

Yes.

You’ll grow in the realm of faith. You know, I understand we have the faith of Jesus, but we’ve gotta grow in the operation of it. When a baby is born, it has every muscle in its body it needs. But if you’re gonna become a world-class weightlifter, you gotta develop those muscles.

I love too, that our third point is to build relationships. You know, as a, you know, as a ministry, you know, we have a church, we do do things with television, with broadcasting. But you’re a very relational person, and relationships are very important to you. And I see how that’s, it’s part of the fabric of our ministry. You know, even people who work here, who are on staff, like their families do really well because you and your families like all your children, me and my brothers have done well, and we have strong families because that’s a part of who you are, and things that you care about, you care about relationships, you care about marriages, about families and people who are a part of that. It’s an anointing that trickles down a lot.

I have one family, Aaron, that started with us in Kit Carson, and I’ve ministered to four generations in their family, you know, and the granddad came to our church, helped me start the church. You know, his children came to our church. Some of them still come to our church. His grandchildren now are coming to this church. They drive, some of ’em drive over 120 miles to come to church on a Sunday morning, and come here pretty regular. And now his great-grandchildren are coming to this church and receiving from the ministry here. So, you know, ministry is about relationship. And Paul, you do not violate your own friend and your father’s friends do not forsake. I learned that as a young man, my dad died when I was 17, and as much as is my power, I honored my father. If somebody was my dad’s friend, they were my friend. And I don’t violate relationships and you have to do a lot to get me upset. And there’s some people that, boy, they’ve done it.

Well, I love it ’cause you know, all these vision points to know Jesus, to experience grace, to build relationships and lastly, to live with purpose, there’s fruit from it, so you can see if you’re on track and with that vision from what fruit is happening, are people really coming to know Jesus? Are they growing in their relationship with Jesus? Are people experiencing grace? Are they being set free? Are they being healed? Are they growing in that grace? Are they going from grace to grace? How are, like what is your relational impact look like? And you know, you are a very purpose driven person, and I think, you know, we’re gonna expand, you know, in the coming week, as we teach on these, on those points and just really explain all those points.

Yeah, we wanna build relation, you know, or you know, know Jesus, experience grace, live-

Build relationships.

Build relationships and live with purpose. And you know, Jesus lived with purpose, for this purpose was the Son of God manifest that he might destroy the works of the devil. How did Jesus do that? We’ll talk about that in the broadcasts next week. Praise God. But God wants you to have purpose. Paul, lived with a purpose. I believe that God has a purpose for our life that is greater than ourselves. And if we begin to move into our God-given purpose, it’s gonna affect other people positively in the kingdom of God and so thank God for that. Don’t forget to check out our product offer today. I just have this here “Vision”. This is a five CD series. We’ve spent all five lessons this week just talking about the first message. And then we’re gonna take time next week and talk. But I’ve also got a book on “Uncommon Favor” we’re gonna put together in the package. “Uncommon Favor” is my life story from a few years back. I really need to write another one. But so many people read that and they say “It just encouraged us because it shows how you did it, and if you could do it, I could do it.” Praise God. And you know what? God is no respecter of persons. He’s a respecter of faith. And so you can go on the internet, you can order that. You can go on the internet, you can download all the broadcasts from this week, next week, they’ll all be up on Monday for the whole week. You can tell your friends about it. CharisChristianCenter.com. Just go there to our website. We’ve got literally hundreds of hours of teaching on a lot of different subjects, on healing, on financial provision, on the Holy Spirit, on grace, on faith, on all these different things, on who you are in Christ. And you can listen to those free of charge on the website. So we wanna help people grow in this. And I wanna say thank you so much. You can also check us out on the App Store. You can get our app, Charis Christian Center at the App store, and you can receive all this teaching absolutely free on our app so thanks so much. If you’d like to give us an offering, we’d love it. Praise God. I believe it’s good ground. God bless you, we appreciate you. Thanks so much. Blessings.

[Announcer] Too many people live their lives without ever connecting to their God-given purpose. Learn the importance of having a vision and some practical steps for walking it out. God has a tremendous plan for your life. Start now and see it come to pass. Get the “Vision” package, which includes the book “Uncommon Favor” and the “Vision” CD series for $24, or digital download for $15 when you call 719-418-4000, or visit CharisChristianCenter.com.

Hi friends, I’m Pastor Lawson Perdue from Charis Christian Center in Colorado Springs. We wanna invite you to Family Camp Meeting. We’re gonna have special speakers, Mark and Trina Hankins, Congresswoman Lauren Boebert, full of the Holy Ghost and fire, Philip Renner with special music, special teaching, Max Cornell, Ashley Terradez, myself, Aaron Perdue. We’re gonna have a great time. If you can’t come in person, check us out online at CharisChristianCenter.com.

[Announcer] Thanks for watching “Grace for today”. This broadcast has been made possible by our faithful partners. If you would like to become a partner, need prayer, or have a question, please call us at 719-418-4000, or to partner online, go to CharisChristianCenter.com/give. You can write us at PO Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80962. See you next time on “Grace for Today”.