The Supernatural Fruit of the Holy Spirit – Part 9 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Friends, welcome to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in. We are sharing today on the supernatural fruit of the Holy Spirit, and specifically on temperance, which is self-control. And Aaron’s got a great saying. He said, you better control yourself before you wreck yourself. Check yourself before you wreck yourself. So stay tuned. We’re gonna have some great teaching. I believe that this will help you move into what God has for you, listen. It’s great to have Aaron with me today and be on the program. We’re talking about the last of the nine of the fruit of the Spirit. Today we’re talking about temperance or self-control.

 

  Awesome.

 

  I don’t think it just automatically comes. I don’t think any of the fruit of the spirit are automatic. You have ’em in your spirit when you’re born again. But it takes time to develop the fruit of the spirit. And you know, when you take gift tests, a lot of times gift tests will put you in a quadrant of a personality thing. But the fruit of the spirit is what kind of pulls you all to the center and helps us work with different personalities and different people. And we need the fruit of the spirit. So we need self-control.

 

  Amen, and the fruit of the spirit. That of course found in Galatians 5:22-23, it says, “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control or temperance against such there is no law.” And we talked about how these last three fruit being faith or faithfulness, meekness or gentleness and self-control, how they really deal with our relationship with ourself. And you do have a relationship with yourself. That’s why, and you know the Psalms, David says, “Why are thou disquieted within me?” Bless the Lord, oh my soul. David was talking to himself.

 

  Amen.

 

  So you might not feel like singing praises to God or blessing God, but you have to tell yourself to do it sometimes. You might not feel like, and that’s part of self-control is actually telling yourself what to do.

 

  And you know, there’s a lot of proverbs that talk about that. Like a man who doesn’t control himself. He’s like a city without walls. Anything can overtake you.

 

  And you can see that Jesus really operated in all these fruit. And we have the same spirit of Christ on the inside of us. But Jesus operated in a tremendous amount of self-control. And you know, sometimes, his disciples wanted to just react with just what they were feeling. Let’s call down fire from heaven like Elijah and just zap all these people. But Jesus operated in self-control. I’m really glad he does. He did and still does today. The Holy Spirit, if Jesus didn’t have self-control, a lot of us would get zapped all the time.

 

  Yeah, Jesus kind of told his disciples in that instance. He said, you don’t know what spirit you’re of. And I think sometimes we get a little bit religious, right? And God’s very gracious, Amen? So we need to continue to manifest his grace and the fruit of his grace, the fruit of the Holy Spirit, which is a spirit of grace, praise God, toward other people.

 

  Yeah, and you know, these last fruit, they’re actually the rarest and they take a little while to see if they’re inside of people. And there’s kind of two tests to tell people how these last three fruit of the spirit that deal with a self relationship. And the first test is time. Time will reveal. But the second test is what happens when you don’t get what you want. And to be a leader in the body of Christ, it’s actually a self-control is actually a requirement. And it’s kind of a rare thing as well. But Paul writes to Timothy just speaking about leaders in the body of Christ, bishops which are overseers or pastors. And also he talks about deacons, which are like leaders within a church, within a body of Christ. Paul’s writing to Timothy in 1 Timothy, 1 Timothy three starring in verse one. It says, “This is a faithful saying, if a man desires the position of a bishop or maybe a pastor, he desires a good work. A bishop must be blameless. The husband of one wife, temperate,” talking about self-control, “Sober-minded of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome. I love that, not quarrelsome. Some people, I’ve kind of observed in, I’ve been pastoring now for seven years. I’ve kind of observed some people just, whenever there’s drama going on, they’re always at the center of it.

 

  And I tend to, and time is a reveal of many things. But when people are at the center of a lot of drama, it’s better not to promote those types of people.

 

  Yeah, I think we talked about this in a program last week, but there’s a certain situation we dealt with and you know, I’ve always been of the nature kind of give everybody the benefit of the doubt and trust them until they proved me wrong. And mom grew up, I grew up in the country and we trusted everybody. Mom grew up in the city, right. She grew up in the hood kind of. And mom’s like, we ain’t gonna trust them until they prove themselves. But there was a certain situation I dealt with a long time and I spoke with Andrew Wommack about it. And Andrew kind of told me this. He said, “Lawson,” and I think this is wisdom of a older minister to a younger minister. He said, “If I find a person has a lot of drama around them, I’m careful about how much I really connect to them or promote them, so on and so forth. Until I have seen more fruit. And he basically said, if somebody has a lot of drama, he stays away from them. And that is very good leadership advice.

 

  So saying, not given much wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous, one who rules his own house while having his children in submission with all reverence. So he’s saying, your relationships at home are gonna reflect in your leadership for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how he take care of the church of God, not a novice. So it’s saying someone the has need to kind of proven the test of time. If you put a novice in a position of leadership, you just run the risk of them not working out. ‘Cause you haven’t seen them over a period of time.

 

  I’ve learned something, and this has taken me a long time. I’ve been full-time pastoring for 35 years. But we made a decision this year and I’ve helped a lot of young people get started. I love young people. I love inputting into young people. But at the same point in time, we’ve made a decision at our church from this point on, that if it’s a major leadership position, I’m willing to give young people a place to start, start a position, so on and so forth. But I am never gonna put a major such as a, a children’s pastor, a worship pastor, youth pastor, assistant pastor or one of the heads of my departments, I’m never gonna give that to somebody who’s a novice. Who hasn’t had experience, Who hasn’t kind of proved themself first. And I’ve been burnt several times from doing it. And frankly that’s what this is talking about right here. If somebody’s an overseer, a bishop means an overseer. So we have 20 people work for us. We have three main overseers under me, which are you, you’re over all the pastors and the worship. And then we have a person that’s over all the tech and TV and then we have another person who’s over the office and all the finances. And I’m not gonna put anybody in one of those positions unless they’ve had some experience and fruit.

 

  And it says kind of the danger of being in novice, and we talked about this yesterday, kinda the opposite of meekness, the opposite of humility is pride and saying lust being puffed up with pride. He fall into the same condemnation as the devil. And just how the devil really tries to tempt people, to devour people with pride. And you know, my kind of point, I made a joke about self-control, but it’s you better check yourself before you wreck yourself.

 

  And in context, a lot of people, a lot of these fruit of the spirit, they all stem from a relationship with God, but it’s gonna impact your relationship with other people. And sometimes, and I said these last three fruit that deal with yourself, being faithfulness, meekness, and self-control, the way that you discover someone has these three fruit, which are hard to tell because they’re very much inside of someone is to look at it over a period of time and see how they act when they don’t get what they want. And I said in a church setting, you’re not always gonna get what you want, in any relational setting, you’re not always gonna get what you want. A church is not, it’s not Burger King where you can have it your way. We’re gonna have it God’s way. We’re gonna have it Jesus’s way.

 

  That’s what we ultimately want to do.

 

  And oftentimes when people don’t get what they want, they sometimes just try to separate. And I’ve seen it, it’s kind of a popular idea today that really to connect with God, to be a believer, you don’t have to go to church. And church for me is just going on a hike on Sunday mornings. And I actually have, I’m actually friends with a lot of people on Facebook who were in leadership positions and somehow just disconnected on Sunday mornings. They’re like, here’s my hike. From Sunday, they’re not in a local church. And I know there’s several good options for them, but they just, they’re not in, to me it’s actually very, very sad. ‘Cause I believe that God has called us to a body and if you’re in the vicinity of a strong, healthy Bible preaching church, hopefully a Springfield church, you should connect at a good local church. And thankfully, you can connect also remotely, but if there’s something in your area, it’s important to connect at a local church.

 

  You need to be committed right.

 

  But being on your own, being on your own is different than being in a local body of believers.

 

  And you know, just, just also, just meeting with coffee with your friends isn’t church either.

 

  Okay, so what about me, Aaron? Okay, so I’m the senior pastor here at Cares Christian Center. I started the church. So what’s my attitude? Who can tell me no. See, this is a good question you have to ask yourself, right? In this meekness and self-control area is who can tell me no, who am I submitted to? Because the Bible actually says, see, the Bible says in one Corinthians 12:18 that God has set the members in the body, everyone as it pleases him. So I believe, just like he set it says later, he set in the church, first Apostles, secondary Prophets, after that teachers’ then miracles and gifts of healing. And I believe that’s actually talking about the ministry of apostle, the ministry of a prophet, the ministry of a pastor, teacher and the ministry of an evangelist. And that’s God’s order in the fivefold ministry gifts. Okay? But we also have to be set, we have to have checks and balances.

 

  So there needs to be accountability there,

 

  There needs to be accountability. So I’ve actually had, at certain times, I went to Andrew Wommack about 20 years ago, and I told Andrew, “Andrew if you ever want to say anything to me, tell me anything. I’m here to listen.” And you know what Andrew told me? He said, “Lawson, I already know that.” I’m like, “How do you know that? I’ve never told you that.” And Andrew said, “It’s the manner in which you conduct yourself.” I’ve actually had things where people have recommended certain benefits for me as a pastor. And I’m like, you know what, if my advisors in the church agree with that, I will receive that. And I’ve always kept my pay on the moderate end of things. And there’s times that my advisors have said no. When other people in leadership, much higher. Have recommended things. And you know what I’ve said, if that’s what they say, that’s fine because I don’t always get my way. And that’s what people have to realize. I’m not in this for what I can get. I’m in this actually for what I can give. And you the ministry takes care of me very well. But at the same point, I give a lot of that back. Praise God. And I thank God for that. But we all have to have people in our lives. Even in the marriage relationship.

 

  So my point is there’s a, I just wanna come back to my point, which is there’s a lot of people who are disconnected, right? And they think, it doesn’t matter, but it actually does matter. You being on your own is not church. You’re just meeting with a few friends is not church either. And it’s actually very dangerous to think that that’s what a church is where there’s no accountability. A few years ago, our youth went to Chick-fil-A after, youth service on a Wednesday night. And there’s actually another group of young people, like a young adult group that they said we’re a church. But it turns out they were actually going to go on a hike or the evening to go to go smoke marijuana. But they weren’t actually connected to a real, they they were just, it wasn’t a church.

 

  It was just kooky. And I like this quote from Tony Evans and he says this, “I hear people say, I don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.” He says, “They’re absolutely right. Salvation is through faith alone in Christ alone. But you don’t have to go home to be married, but stay away long enough and your relationship will be affected.”

 

  Right, I heard a person, actually we have allowed them to be in the building and have their own independent meeting in our building, which we don’t do very much anymore. But this person from my stage said, “Well, God has called, the prophets into separation.” And I went,

 

  Isolation.

 

  Isolation,

 

  Yeah.

 

  Or separation.

 

  Yeah.

 

  Isolation to separate themselves or isolation. And I actually went to talk to that person within two or three days. And I said, “Listen, this is what the Bible says. Anybody that puts themself in that kind of place, and you think that you hear from God better than anybody else, and there’s nobody that can tell you no, you are in a very dangerous situation. And frankly, I don’t wanna listen to anybody that acts like that.”

 

  But the Bible actually says this in Proverbs 18:1. This is the scripture. We’re gonna let the scripture say it, “Through desire.” And I want you to read Proverbs 18:1 outta the new King James, because I actually like it better in the new King James version. “A man having separated himself, seeks and intermeddles with all wisdom.” You are coming into contention with all wisdom when you separate yourself and begin to think that you’re all to yourself.

 

  Yeah, parts 18:1 in the new King James says, “A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire. He rages against all wise judgment.”

 

  So you don’t want to come against wise judgment. Every one of us need accountability in our life, including Lawson Purdue. But I don’t only have accountability, right? In my own congregation I listen, I care what everybody says. Doesn’t mean it’s gonna move me, right? But I’m listening, okay? I also have people in positions of leadership as advisors. I listen to what they have to say, and I also have people who are like apostles and very major leaders in the body of Christ that are speaking into my life. But not only do I have that Aaron, I have learned as a husband, Right? And a father. I am very in tune with my, what my wife says. And my wife actually has very valuable information that God has has added to my life. And it’s very important to me what she has to say about certain situations. So we all have to learn this attitude of humility, of meekness, right? And self-control. And it will help us move into what God has for us. We’re gonna take a short break and there then we’re gonna be back right after this break and continue to talk about this last fruit of self-control. It’s very, very important. We’ll be right back. Friends I certainly hope that you’ve been enjoying watching this broadcast. My son Aaron taught this series on the supernatural fruit of the Holy Spirit here in Church Live. And it is fantastic teaching. In fact, I had one of my staff say that’s one of the best teaching that he’s ever done. So you can get these live teachings from the church by accessing our website free at Charis Christian Center. Isaiah 5:13 says, “They’re kept in bondage because they have no knowledge. But when I found out the truth, I remember that I was so excited when I first heard the full gospel preached, when I found out I didn’t have to be sick and poor and defeated by the devil, that I could believe God, that God had a better life. I remember I was so excited.

 

  Friends, it’s great to have you with us. And we have Aaron, we’re continuing to minister on self-control. So Aaron, go ahead.

 

  Awesome, yeah. And we were talking about these last three fruit of the Holy Spirit that really deal with your relationship with yourself, being faithfulness, meekness, and self-control. And you know, sometimes you you have to, you have to talk to yourself. Psalm 42:11. It says, “Why are you cast down oh my soul, why are you disquieted within me? Hope and God, for I shall yet praise him. The help of my countenance and my God.” We believe that you are a spirit, there’s a part of you that’s eternal. You possess a soul. Your soul is your mind, your will, your emotions, the attitudes, these types of things are your soul that you possess and you live in a body. And God spoke this to me, but he said, you shouldn’t let your soul possess you. You should possess your soul. And Jesus says this in Luke 21:19, “In your patience possess ye your souls.”

 

  So I like that he said, in your patience. So this is something that takes patience, something that takes effort, that takes intentionality to really control yourself. So you better control yourself before you wreck yourself.

 

  Right. You could train wreck your life by not just by letting your emotions. I actually think a lot of people who call themselves full-time ministers and we call it pulling the God guard, they’ll say, God told me. And and maybe it’s not something that’s black and white in the scriptures, but a lot of times they use that. And a lot of times after they go do what supposedly, and a lot of believers do this too, what God told them, they have a train wreck and I actually, and then they blame God. And I actually believe a lot of times God never spoke that to them. They were just being emotional. Now the thing I’ve done a lot of business outside of in the church, and I have felt at times that maybe God spoke to me when God didn’t speak to me. And at the end of it, that investment, so on and so forth, I realized, hey, that was not God, that was me. That was emotions. And we are one third spirit, right? But we’re not a hundred percent spirit. We still have a mind, a will and emotions. We still have a physical body. And so we have to check ourselves. In Hebrews chapter five, the end of the chapter actually talks about having our senses trained to discern both good and evil. And I think when you study that it’s part, if you go back to Hebrews 4:12 of discerning what’s coming out of the flesh and what’s coming out of the soul as well as what may be coming out of the spirit. And you can develop that. I don’t believe anybody is just a hundred percent in that all the time. And so we have to learn and set up different ways that we hear God. And for instance, in hearing God’s voice, number one, it’s the word, number two, it’s the Holy Spirit. Number three, it’s the peace of God. Number four, we have relationships, listening to other people, godly counsel, and the Bible talks about all these. And number five, we have the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But it’s not just one of those apart from all the others, it’s through a combination of that that I believe that we can really hear God.

 

  Yeah, you’re gonna read from Hebrews, you’re saying.

 

  No, I just was shared in that scripture, Hebrews, it’s actually Hebrews chapter five about verse 12. You can read through the end of the chapter there and talk about that. But I think you gotta develop your ability to hear God and let the Holy Spirit discern what’s coming from your pleasure, your spirit.

 

  And I think, we talked about how these last three fruit of the spirit are very rare and you know, self-control being one of those. But you know, James kinda talks about controlling your mouth and you know, a lot of people kinda lose control of that.

 

  Your tongue is a fire.

 

  And Jesus really controls himself. Sometimes when he could just unleash his authority and unleash his power. Sometimes when he was being attacked, he would just close his mouth, remain quiet. And I’ve known some people who didn’t get what they wanted and they left a relational setting, but they didn’t do it with much self-control. And I kind of just wish, sometimes just don’t run your mouth so much. And you need to be careful about what you speak when you lose control of your mouth, because life and death is in the power of the tongue. And when you just lose control of your mouth, you’re sowing things that you’re gonna reap.

 

  Right.

 

  Amen. And you have to, if you don’t wanna reap certain things, you don’t wanna sow certain things. So we wanna keep sowing, right? You’re talking about Galatians five, right? But then Galatians six talks about sowing to the spirit and reaping of the spirit life eternal. But it also says, if you sow to the flesh and he talks about not only the fruit of the spirit. In Galatians five, he talks about the works of the flesh. And Paul says there, if you sow to the flesh, you shall of the flesh reap corruption. So whatever we’re sowing to, we’re gonna reap a harvest. So I wanna sow to the spirit, And you can tell plainly, he says, the fruit of the spirit of these means love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith and tempers self-control. And if you have no self-control, but you know what, you’re not gonna manifest a lot of the other fruit of the spirit. It kind of ties right back in to that very first fruit of love. And the Bible actually says, love suffers longness and kind. Love is patient and kind. Love controls itself. Love is not self-seeking. So we gotta, we can’t be self-seeking another translation puts it that way. But we have to be God seeking.

 

  And we have to think about, it took me a long time really to learn this scripture in Philippians 2:4. It says that we’re not to look on just our own things, but also the things that of others. And I think a true spiritual person, he says, for Jesus didn’t only consider himself, right, he thought about other people. And so just the whole mentality of, it’s not just about me, it’s about who, in my case, it’s about who I serve. Am I serving Jesus well? Am I serving my wife well? Am I serving my children well? Am I serving the my church well? Am I serving the Bible school where I teach well? Am I serving my congregation well? And I wanna be a good representative to all those people and for all those people. And if I’m gonna do that, it can’t be just about me. I have to think about what is best for all these other individuals and that ultimately works out to what’s best for Jesus and the body. Praise God.

 

  That’s awesome. We’re kind of getting towards the end of this broadcast. I wanna encourage you to tune in tomorrow as well. We’re gonna kind of sum up the entire two weeks of teaching on these nine Supernatural Fruit of the Holy Spirit. But I wanna say thank you so much for joining us today. We have a lot of people actually that partner with our ministry and we just wanna say a big thank you to all of our partners. If you’d like to become a partner, just give us a call. You can also go to our website and do so. You can make a one-time gift or do it on a monthly basis like many of our partners do. But thank you so much to all of our partners. We actually have hundreds and hundreds of hours of free teaching available on our website as well. So you can check that out. Also, if you need prayer today, we have trained prayer ministers that just walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. So if you need someone who’s faith filled and spirit filled to pray with you, give us a call. We’d be happy to pray with you.

 

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