Nevertheless, At Your Word – Part 5 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Praise the Lord, friends, and welcome to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in. We’re gonna be sharing today on “Nevertheless, at Your Word,” and we’re gonna be talking about how the Holy Spirit will cause the word of God to come alive in your life. Many of you have this question, “How can I hear God?” And we’re gonna answer that for you today. So, stay tuned and I believe you’ll be blessed. Thank you. Friends, it’s great to have you with us today. We’re so glad to be sharing the word of God. And Aaron recently taught this in church. It’s called “Nevertheless, at Your Word.” And the word of God is exciting. Thank God for the word of God.

 

  Yeah, years ago, my dad did a series on parenting and he asked me and my two younger brothers for the top 10 things that we learned from him and my mom growing up, and all three of us for the number one thing we said that he taught us a strong work ethic. That’s something that he really instilled in us. But now that I’ve thought about it more, and actually recently, I spent some time with both my younger brothers and their families. And my wife noticed something. My wife Heather said, “You know what your parents really did “is taught you guys all to believe the word of God, “to believe it like it’s true.” And the word of God is the most powerful force in the universe. So now, I recently did a series just called “Nevertheless, at Your Word.” And the first point I wanna make today is that you have to prioritize the word of God like your life depends upon it because it does.

 

  Amen. Amen.

 

  And we just see all throughout scripture, it’s the importance of believing the word and really putting a high priority over it. Like if the Bible says it, that’s it. That settles it. It’s a done deal.

 

  If God said it, that settles it. We need to live by it. You know, Job said, “I’ve esteemed the words of your mouth “more than my necessary food.” And you know, we usually, most of us eat three meals a day and we make sure our body is taken care of. But we need to continually feed on the word of God. And you know, the Bible actually talks about this in 1 Peter 2:2. It talks about the sincere milk of the word of God and to receive it and it will help you grow. And the word of God will help us grow and mature into what God wants us to be and help us accomplish what God wants us to accomplish.

 

  A few years ago, actually, I was watching a documentary about Billy Graham and he said the first, most important decision in his life was choosing to believe on Jesus. But he said the second most important decision was believing that the word of God is true. That it’s infallible, that it’s incorruptible, that the Bible is the word of God. He said he was in college at the time, and you know, he had to make a, he said basically a decision, am I gonna believe all the Bible or am I not going to?

 

  Yes.

 

  And he said, “By faith, I said, “I’m just gonna believe all the Bible, “that all the Bible is true.” And he said, “When I preached, I just preached the Bible. “And that’s what changed lives. “That’s what brought people to salvation. “I just preached the Bible.”

 

  Amen.

 

  “I just preach the word of God.” And that’s what Paul tells Timothy, too, to preach the word. So, some of you need to get in a church where the pastor preaches the word.

 

  Aaron, I just had a conversation on the way today and I was talking with a person who’s been a partner with our ministry for over 15 years, and he’s had a major leadership role in the church and he’s a great man. And he’s questioned me for the last four years about this. But the church he goes to, they just compromise the message. And they’re not bold about being forward. Now, I finally just told him, you know, it’s not only about where you’re at, but there’s somebody that needs you. There’s somebody that’s preaching the uncompromised message of God’s word. And you know, the Bible actually says this in the book of Proverbs. It says, “He who wanders from the way of understanding “will remain in the congregation of the dead.” And I grew up in a church that I would consider today a dead church, you know? Now, not everything was bad there. I got saved there. But when we got more truth, you know what? We moved and we got involved in a life-giving, bold, truth preaching church, spirit filled church and it changed our lives. Praise God.

 

  And it’s the word that changes your life. You know, I love something that Jesus said in Matthew 4:4. This is when He is being tempted by the enemy. It says, He answered and said, “It is written, man shall not live by bread alone, “but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” And I did a study on the Greek word for word of God. And here Jesus talking about rhema, the rhema word of God.

 

  Yeah.

 

  And throughout scripture in New Testament, it’s either the word of God, it’s either talking about rhema or logos. And I wanna talk about those two. ’cause they’re really important to understand. But here, when Jesus said that man is gonna live by the rhema of God, a rhema, and both rhema and logos are translated as word, but rhema, it’s an utterance. It’s something spoken by the living voice as opposed to something that was spoken in the past, like a past saying. It’s a command. And I added that it’s living, it’s active, it’s an authoritative proclamation, a declaration, it’s full of the power of God.

 

  Amen.

 

  Rhema, the word’s related to breath. It’s full of the breath of God, the living breath of God. And I want to take you to Luke 5, because here in Luke 5, this is a great account in scripture. But we see the two words for word used. We see rhema and logos. So, I want to go to Luke 5 and start reading here in Luke 5. It says here, “So it was as a multitude pressed about Him “to hear the word of God “that He stood by the Lake of Gennesaret,” or the Sea of Galilee there. So, it says that people were pressing about Him. I like, whenever I see that people are pressing about Jesus and multitudes are forming and they’re pushing in to encounter Jesus, I wanna know why.

 

  Right.

 

  You know, sometimes it says because He was healing all, the scripture says many times that He was healing all, so people came to Jesus because He was healing. But here it says they’re pressing about Him to hear the word of God.

 

  Yeah.

 

  So I think it’s really fascinating that there’s this revival forming ’cause people want to hear the word of God. And here, that word translated, the word of God, it’s talking about logos, the logos word of God. So the logos word of God, I’m gonna explain it. It’s a little bit different than the rhema word of God. Logos, in scripture, it means it’s a doctrine, a teaching, a saying of God. It embodies a concept or an idea. John, you know, John the beloved had a powerful revelation of what logos means. And he knew that logos, it denotes the essential word of God, Jesus Christ himself, the word made flesh, the personal wisdom and power in complete unity with God, being with Him at creation, reigning for all eternity. He’s the Messiah. The logos is the Messiah, the second person of the trinity, the express image of the Father, and in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. You know, John begins his gospel off by saying, in the beginning was the word, was the logos. He’s talking about Jesus. And the word, the logos, was with God. And the word, the logos, was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him and without Him, nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness. And the darkness did not comprehend it.

 

  Yeah.

 

  So Jesus, He went about teaching. What did He taught? The logos, He taught the word of God. He taught people from Deuteronomy, from the prophets. He was the logos and He preached the logos. And you know, I love something as I was studying this out, something that the great Bible scholar Dake said about people coming to hear the word of God, hear Jesus preach the logos, the word of God. He said, “This is always a sign of a true gospel revival. “And when this is lacking in any church, “the program is mainly human.” So, a lot of churches aren’t really preaching logos. People might just be gathering there for entertainment, gathering there for a social aspect, gathering there to hand out candy bars. But if the logos is missing, it’s not the word it’s not…

 

  Yeah.

 

  It’s not gonna stand for very long.

 

  I’m not against any of those things. I’m not against doing things and being kind to people and reaching out in different ways. But at the same point in time, if we don’t come to a place of preaching the uncompromising word, I don’t believe that we’re really gonna change a lot of people’s lives. And you know, somebody was asking me yesterday, “What does it mean to be a disciple?” Well, a disciple is defined by a few ways. A disciple is defined, first of all, Jesus said “By this, shall all men know “that you’re my disciples “because you love one another as I’ve loved you.” So, a disciple walks in love. And then, a disciple brings forth fruit. In John 15:8, Jesus said, “Here, and as my father glorified “that you bear much fruit, so shall you be my disciples.” But finally, a disciple is a doer of the word of God. And we need to have more than just a Christian social club. We need to be making disciples. And you know, I became a disciple when I was 14 years old, and was baptized in the Holy Spirit in Andrew Wommack’s Bible study in Lamar, Colorado and really began to just get a hold of the word of God. And it wasn’t because anybody just took me under their wing and did all these special studies with me. It’s because the word came alive to me. And we need to let the word come alive to us. And that’s what Jesus was saying in Matthew 4:4 here, that man will not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And the word of God, the thing is, if you’ll spend time in the word of God, God will speak words from His logos, from His written word to your spirit. They’ll become rhema. And the word of God, it’s a living thing. It’s not, this Bible is not, it has perfect history, but it’s not just a history book. It is full of life. And I have had God speak to me words from the Book of Job, from the book of Isaiah, from the book of Jeremiah that have literally transformed my life in ministry. And he’ll just take a word, and it just becomes life to you. And we need to let the word of God become life to us. And I like what you were beginning with, how you were talking about how you and your brothers believe the word of God. And I know not only have you said that, I’ve had other people that know us well and know our family that have observed it. They said, “Lawson, it’s because your kids believe “the word of God.” And you know what, when you believe the word, it will transform your life.

 

  And every believer, just like I talked about Billy Graham, he said the second most important decision of his life was choosing to believe the word of God, that it’s true, and that’s how I wanna live my life.

 

  Amen.

 

  Every believer has to make that decision. You know, I was thinking about my youngest brother, Peter, he went to Princeton for finance. He’s extremely successful in his career. Right now, he’s the COO of Burger King of the Americas. He’s one of the top people in that corporation. And when he first got married, he was living in Southern California and him and his wife were going to an okay church. It wasn’t like a super strong, logos-preaching church, but it was a good church. And they became small group leaders, and five couples came to their group. And of the five couples, I think four of them were living together and not married. And he did a, so we’re gonna go through James and just said, “Faith without works “or corresponding action is dead.” And he’s basically saying, “You have to believe the word “and apply it to your life, and live it out.” And that’s how you’re gonna find good success.

 

  Amen. Peter actually said there’s a lot of people that go to church, but they don’t know what the Bible says. So, we wanna start living by the word of God. We’re gonna be right back after this break. Blessings. Friends, we’ve been sharing on “Nevertheless, at Your Word.” And we have this teaching from my son, Aaron, in one teaching available free of charge, downloadable audio, downloadable video on our website. Also, you can get my book, “The Power and Life of the Word.” Use these resources. God bless you. 2 Corinthians 5:19 said, “God was in Christ, “not imputing the trespasses of the world to them, “but He has forgiven them for all trespasses.” So, as far as forgiveness is concerned, with God and a born again person, you have already been forgiven. In life of the word of God. We’re sharing from Aaron’s message, “Nevertheless, at Your Word.” So Aaron, why don’t you go ahead and jump into your message here in Luke 5.

 

  Let’s dive back into Luke 5. It says here in verse one that “the multitude pressed about Jesus to hear Him, “to hear the word of God,” that logos word of God. That’s why that multitude was forming. “And He stood there by the Lake of Gennesaret “and saw two boats standing by the lake, “but the fishermen had gone from them “and were washing their nets. “Then He got into one of the boats, which was Simon’s, “and asked him to put out a little from the land, “and He sat down and taught the multitudes from the boat. “When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “‘Launch out into the deep “and let down your nets for a catch.'”

 

  Amen.

 

  Now, this word that Jesus spoke, something shifted here. He was preaching the logos word of God, but this, when He spoke to Simon, this was actually a rhema word of God. It was a command, it was a declaration, it was a promise. And it was something that Simon was either gonna have to respond to or either do it or not do it. And I find it interesting that said, in verse four, “He stopped speaking and He said.”

 

  Yeah.

 

  This happens to me, sometimes I’m reading the word of God, I’m reading the logos word of God. It’s saying something, but then it stops and it says something.

 

  Right.

 

  It becomes rhema. Something just becomes alive and powerful. And I know God is speaking to me currently, active, full of life, full of power. God, you know, sometimes you might be at a good church hearing a pastor preach from the logos, and he’s speaking, speaking, speaking, but then he stops and something.

 

  Yeah.

 

  Just comes alive to you.

 

  In your spirit.

 

  Yeah.

 

  It’s your spirit that the word of God will speak to your spirit and you need to get ahold of what God is saying to you in the realm of the Spirit.

 

  So, it said, “He stopped speaking “and He said to Simon.”

 

  Yeah.

 

  “Launch out into deep “and let down your nets for a catch. “But Simon answered and said to Him, ‘Master, “we have toiled all night and caught nothing.'” So, he’s actually kind of complaining and whining, and just, I don’t really wanna do this. I know you’re saying this. I just heard some of your message there, it sounded all right, but like you don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re a carpenter, I’m a fisherman. This is pointless. But something, he says something really important here, and this is the title for this entire series. “Nevertheless, at your rhema.”

 

  Praise God.

 

  At your, he knew that that command, launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch. It was a rhema word. If you look it up in the Greek here, it says nevertheless at your word, at your rhema, at that living, breathing active declaration command. That is my priority. I’m gonna let down the net.

 

  Amen.

 

  And this is just a powerful picture of grace here. Really, Simon, his faith probably wasn’t on a super high level, you know, you can see that we’ve toiled all night, we’ve caught nothing. But he just responded to the word. He didn’t understand what Jesus was saying. He didn’t know how it was gonna happen. But he said, “Nevertheless, at your word.” When God speaks to you, you don’t have to understand how it’s gonna happen.

 

  That’s right.

 

  You just have to believe it and act upon it.

 

  Yeah.

 

  And that’s where the power comes from. I love understanding, I love knowledge, I love wisdom. I seek wisdom. I seek revelation. I went to college for 11 years. I have a doctorate from Rice University. But there is some things that God speaks to you’re not gonna fully understand.

 

  That’s right.

 

  And even if you don’t fully understand it, if you just believe it and do it, it will work. I bought recently, I bought a nice, new truck. I don’t know anything about the engine. I don’t know anything about the truck. I know things about the word of God. I know things about music. I have a doctorate in music. But concerning vehicles, I don’t know anything. I know what kind of gas I need to put in and I know how to put it in drive and push down the pedal. When I first got this truck, whenever I parked it, here in Colorado, there’s a lot of guys that like trucks. There’s a lot of trucks. And whenever I park it in the parking lot, there’d always be some guy with a truck parked next to me. And he came up to me and asked me about all the details of the truck, how many liters is it, how many horsepower, how how much does it tow? And I know nothing about it. But I don’t really have to understand how it works to make it operate.

 

  Yeah.

 

  I can make that thing operate and it’s fun to operate. I know like it’s got a turbo engine. I can just push down that pedal and it’s gonna go.

 

  I’ve driven it, it’ll beat about everything off the block except a Tesla, a little old dinky Tesla. Little electric car.

 

  So, it’s good to have understanding. But you know, right here, Peter didn’t, Simon Peter didn’t really have much understanding. And he said, his understanding, “I’ve worked all night, “I’ve toiled, I’ve caught nothing.” But here’s where things shift. “Nevertheless, at your word.” He placed a priority over that rhema word that came from Jesus.

 

  Amen.

 

  That was the priority. Not his experience, not the circumstance, not what he was feeling. A lot of people base, really exalt their feelings.

 

  Right. You know, it’s, I’m gonna say this, you said a lot of times maybe we don’t understand everything. I’m gonna tell you, most of the time when God speaks to us, we don’t understand it.

 

  The Bible says your thoughts are higher than our thoughts.

 

  Yeah, we don’t have to completely understand it. But we do need to obey. And we do need to trust God. You know, we’ve recently taken a major step to grow and expand our ministry, so on and so forth. And in the natural, it would not make a lot of sense, but I just kept feeling for like a year like God wanted me to do this, and then I checked on it and it’s like almost nothing was happening. It didn’t look like anything was gonna happen. And then I was actually teaching in a Bible school and I got a text from my person who helps me administrate the office. And he said, “I’m gonna get ready “to answer these phone calls after the first of the year.” And we hadn’t even heard. I texted him back, “You’re like, Jesus, I love you.” And you know, God calling those things that be not as though they were. And you know what, within 20 minutes of when I texted him back, I got a text from the leadership at this major ministry and they said, “Hey, we want you “to send us more information.” And I thought, “Well, they’re interested.” And by the next day they offered us a great contract and we took a major step. It’s the largest step that we have ever made in outreach ministry in our ministry. And you know what, since I did that, we hadn’t even got the word out, but things just began to come and it’s good. And I believe God, you know what God pays for what he tells you to do.

 

  Amen. And I love here that Simon Peter just said, “Nevertheless, at your word.” I wrote down that he just placed a priority on the word, on that rhema word from God, from Jesus here. And we see what the results are here. Verse six, it says, “When they had done this, “they caught a great number of fish “and their net was breaking.” To me, this is just a beautiful picture of grace. Whenever grace is manifest, whenever it’s evident, it’s always in abundance.

 

  Hallelujah.

 

  It’s always unexplainable. Only God.

 

  Yeah.

 

  I had a word for this this year here, that it’s gonna be a only God could have done this type of year. When people look at your life, God wants to bless you so much. He wants to pour out his grace on, you through you, to such an extent that people are gonna see, even nonbelievers around you are gonna see that only God could have done this and it’s just gonna be an open door of opportunity for you to testify of the power of God, the power of Jesus. And it says that the net was breaking “So they signaled to their partners in the other boat “to come and help them. “Then they came and filled both the boats “so that they began to sink. “When Simon Peter saw it, “he fell down at Jesus’ knees saying, ‘Depart from me “or I am a sinful man.’ “Oh Lord, for he and all who were with him “were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken.” You know, God wants to leave His mark. He wants His glory to shine so greatly that people are astonished.

 

  Amen.

 

  You know, I was reading through the Book of Acts, people just saw the miracles, they saw the power of God, and it says they were filled with awe. God wants people to be filled with awe. He wants people to be astonished. You know, God is not done astonishing people. God is not done astonishing you.

 

  Amen.

 

  He wants to astonish you. He wants to astonish people around you. They’re astonished. And it said, “Also, where James and John, “the sons of Zebedee who are partners with Simon “and Jesus said to Simon, ‘Do not be afraid. “From now on you will catch men.'” So, He spoke another rhema word to them. And it said, “When they had brought their boats to land, “they forsook all and followed Him.”

 

  You know, I mean them, when you act on the word of God. You know, when Jesus spoke this word, Peter had to obey what He said. Peter had to do what He said. And you know, faith without corresponding action is dead being alone. James chapter two talks about this. He said, “Faith without works “is like the body without the spirit, it’s just a corpse.” It’s going nowhere and accomplishing nothing. But when he acted on the word of God, when he did what God told him to do, he had this great harvest. And it not only blessed him, it blessed everybody around him. It blessed all that were in relationship with him. And when he saw this, it actually brought him into a greater relationship with Jesus. And then Jesus called him from that into a greater calling. And you know what? We need to see the power of God wherever we’re at, whatever we’re doing, whether we’re farmers or fishermen or teachers or doctors or bakers or whatever walk of life we’re in, we need to see the power of God. It needs to be real to us.

 

  And you need, and it starts by hearing the rhema word of God. You need to be listening. God is speaking, he’s speaking from His word, from the logos, from from the Old Testament and New Testament. But you have to be listening to God.

 

  Amen.

 

  Sometimes just in today’s culture, we can get so caught up in just the busyness, the kind of rat race of living that we forget we need to live. This is what we live off of. Years ago, I heard a very, very influential minister just say that someone, he was just really dried up. He felt just very dried up and just, someone asked him, “When’s the last time God spoke to you?” And it had been several weeks that he thought like, “I’ve really connected with God and heard God speak to me.” So he just really made it a point that every day I’m gonna spend time in the word of God, in the logos, and I’m gonna really listen to God and get a rhema word from God.

 

  Yeah, let the word of God become life to you. Let the word of God become real to you. And you know what? God’s word is full of life. It’s full of power. And God’s word has the power to change our life when we’ll believe it. You know this one word from God change Peter’s life. And I believe that one word from God can change your life. I believe one word from God can change your spiritual destiny. One word from God can change your financial destiny. And so, we need to have a relationship with Jesus. And we also need to have a relationship with God to where the word of God becomes alive to us, and we let God minister to us from His word so we can move into what God wants us to move into and accomplish what God wants us to accomplish. I wanna just invite you today to call us if you need prayer or if you want to become a partner. And call us here at the ministry. We have people that are here waiting to receive your calls. And so, I wanna say thank you so much for tuning in. Thanks so much for being part of the broadcast. And I don’t wanna leave this broadcast without giving you the opportunity to pray with me. Pray with me right now. Heavenly Father, I believe that Jesus Christ is your son. I believe He died for my sin and you raised Him from the dead and I surrender to you in Jesus’ name. Friends, I wanna invite you to give us a call today to receive prayer. Whether you need salvation, healing, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, or any of God’s other promises, we have trained prayer ministers here waiting to receive your call and we would love to hear from you today. Thanks so much. Blessings.

 

  God has breathed His life into our spirit and he has breathed His life into scripture. When the promises of His word become alive in your heart, everything changes. Keep building your life upon the sure foundation of the Word of God. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of the teaching “Nevertheless, at Your Word,” a $5 value, free of charge. Download it today at charischristiancenter.com.

 

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