Expanding Our Horizons – Part 5 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Welcome, friends, to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in. I’m so glad that you’re with us. We are talking today about expanding our horizon, and we’re gonna be sharing primarily about how it takes the grace of God to fulfill the purpose of God. We can’t complete our God-given destiny without the grace of God. So open your heart and receive the good Word of God today. Blessings. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re with us today. We’ve been sharing all of this week on “Expanding our Horizons,” and we’ve actually just been sharing on our very first lesson of it, and that is talking, ultimately, about faith and how we move into what God wants us to possess by faith. And we talked about, in Genesis 13:14, God spoke to Abraham, and God told Abraham, “Lift up your eyes and look, for all the land that you see, I will give it to you.” Faith begins with what you see, and if you can see it on the inside, you can possess it on the outside, but it begins with what we see in a spiritual sense. Then, in verse 17, in Genesis 13, he said, “Arise and walk through the land, through the length of it and the breadth of it.” And what he was saying is, “Abraham, I want you to get a revelation of it.” Faith continues with what we get a revelation of. You know, Mark Hankins said this, that every breakthrough in faith is a breakthrough in revelation knowledge. And we’ve gotta get a revelation of what God wants us to have and where God wants us to go and what God wants us to do. And if you get a revelation of it, it’ll change what you’re receiving. Man, when I was 14 years old, I got baptized in the Holy Spirit, and I began to understand who I was in Christ, and I began to see the Bible in a completely different way, that I had a Bible full of promises that I could believe God for, and it completely changed my life. And my experience that I’ve received is far beyond where my parents were.

 

  Yeah, what you see, you know, your horizons, the limits to what you see, it affects your destiny, it affects your reality. You know, when I was studying classical music as a high-level musician, there’s a lot of pressure, and some people really have a hard time overcoming, you know, stage fright, performance anxiety, and I knew this one professor who’s a clarinet teacher, who, his students just did phenomenally well performing, but he was a great coach in overcoming anxiety. And one book he would recommend to his students was actually a sports psychology book is “The Inner Game of Tennis.” But I was observing some of his classes. He was teaching classes that were open to the public, and it was just full of people. It was in Santa Barbara, California, but all these people came to these lessons, and I talked to this one older gentleman, you know, and he said he actually hates the clarinet, and he hates clarinet music, but he said he came to those, you know, classes because he said it helped his golf game. He got so many, so much, but it was about like imagining victory. And it’s, actually, it’s a principle that’s laid out in Scripture.

 

  Praise the Lord.

 

  You know, the first time that Joshua was mentioned in Scripture, Moses appointed Joshua to be a commander.

 

  Yes.

 

  Is when they were going through the wilderness and the Amalekites came to fight them. And, you know, there’s this great victory. Whenever Moses held up, he had to physically do something, whenever he held up the rod, you know, the Israelites would prevail, and if he let it down, the Amalekites would prevail, so.

 

  Right.

 

  He’s holding his arms up so long, they started getting tired, so Aaron and Hur came and helped him. You know, visionaries need help sometimes, help to accomplish what God is calling them to do, but, you know, they were able to keep his hands up, keep that rod up, and Joshua won that victory as the first battle he fought and-

 

  Amen.

 

  They had this revelation that God, Jehovah, is the Lord, our banner, that flag that’s over us. He’s our victory, he’s Jehovah-nissi, and God told him-

 

  Amen.

 

  Told Moses, hey, to rehearse this-

 

  Right.

 

  In the hearing of Joshua, so Joshua would fight a lot of battles.

 

  Amen.

 

  And throughout Exodus, throughout the Book of Joshua, he fought. That was the very first one, but God told him, “You need to rehearse this,” in his ear, so God spoke to me and said, “A lot of people rehearse defeat. They imagine defeat, but you need to rehearse the victory and imagine the victory,” and really, Jesus, he is the victorious one. He is more than a conqueror, but we are now victorious because of Jesus.

 

  Amen.

 

  So you need to picture Jesus, picture him getting up out of that grave.

 

  Amen.

 

  That same resurrection power that raised Jesus out of the grave, it now dwells in you as a believer.

 

  Amen.

 

  So you are not defeated, you are not a loser. You are a victor, and you need to rehearse the victory, you need to imagine victory.

 

  Amen, Aaron, that is great, that is in Exodus chapter 17, where God told Moses, “Rehearse this in the ears of Joshua,” because God wanted Joshua to get a picture on these.

 

  He told him to write it down of in a book too. Write this down, help him, you know, you need to write down some of the things that God has done for you so you don’t forget.

 

  Amen, remember ’em. He told the children of Israel, “When I bring you into the promised land, when I bring you in fields-“

 

  Don’t forget.

 

  “And vineyards you haven’t planted and houses you haven’t built, full of good things that you haven’t put in there.” He said, “When, then don’t forget me.” And so we gotta get a picture of victory. Another great example of this is David. And David, after he was anointed to be king, was out taking care of his father’s sheep. And he got called to go to take his brother some food in the battle, and they had this Philistine giant out there, Goliath of Gath, and he was threatening them and taunting them, and all of Israel was dismayed and greatly afraid, but David, because he was anointed to be God, saw things completely different. And David went and won a great victory, but he saw it on the inside first, but then after it was over, he took the head of Goliath and carried it to Jerusalem, but he took Goliath’s armor and hung it in his tent, and David won victory after victory after victory. God wanted him to get a picture of victory on the inside. And, you know, people have said this, that, you know what, Solomon didn’t have any giants to kill. It was David, actually, that took the children of Israel to possess what God had promised to Abraham a thousand years early, to possess that whole expanse, but he got a picture of victory, and they said Solomon didn’t have any giants to kill-

 

  And the thing about David too, you know, Goliath wasn’t the first battle that he faced. You know, some people just, you can actually grow in faith, you can grow in your revelation knowledge of what God has for you, and, but David, when he, you know, was facing this battle, he was remembering, “Hey, I conquered, I killed a lion, I killed a bear, and I’m gonna kill this.” You know, he’s already imagining that victory based upon the other victories before, and there’s certain things you need to practice. You know, my dad actually grew up in the horse business. His family had an Arabian horse…

 

  Ranch.

 

  Ranch, and they would breed horses, but, and Arabians are a little different than other horse breeds, or Arabians are more of a distance-type horse. But, you know, horses that they breed for like really fast races, like that you’d see in the Triple Crown races that, you know, they’re bred for their speed, but they train them, and they don’t, you know, they actually train them to be victors. They’ll race them against, you know, horses and make the horses lose, so they feel like they’re a champion. If they’re ever racing, they’re gonna win because that’s what they do. So some of you, you need to train yourself to be a winner. You need to find, you need to do some things that you can win, and don’t let the devil train you to just be defeated all the time.

 

  Amen.

 

  And have this defeated victim mentality. You know, David didn’t have a victim mentality. He’d conquered that lion, he conquered that bear. It was training.

 

  Yeah, Aaron, I wanna talk about this. You were talking about these horses, and I grew up with horses, and so we had over 80 horses at one point in time, and I’ve done about everything you can do with a horse, but, you know, I watched one of the Triple Crown races in the last couple years, and I love to just watch the races. I don’t bet on ’em, but I love to watch ’em. And I watched this one horse that won it, and you could just see this horse, and he was actually a little bit ugly, but he had this look in his eye, and his tongue was hanging out, but man, he got towards the end of that race, and he just passed up all the competitors, and he won, but you could just see that horse had the look of victory, and he didn’t look pretty. Faith may not be pretty, but praise God, it will bring you into the victory. Amen, so the first thing in expanding our borders in the realm of faith is we gotta see it on the inside before we can see it on the outside. God told Abraham, “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are.” You gotta get a picture of where you’re going. Number two, he said, “Arise, walk through the land,” the length of it, smell it, feel it. I want it to become real to you. You gotta get a revelation of it. But the third thing that we’re gonna talk about today is this, and this is in Genesis 13:18. After that, Abraham rose up and he moved his tent to Mamre, and he built an altar there. Do you know what, it takes the grace of God to fulfill the purpose of God. If God’s ultimately called us to do things, we can’t do these things in our own strength. We can’t do these things in our own power. It takes the grace of God. You know, Aaron, when Mom and I started our first church in 1988 in Kit Carson, Colorado, I had this mentality. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, Philippians 4:13. That’s a great attitude, but, you know, about 13 years later, we moved here to Colorado Springs, 22 years ago, and when we, or actually, 23 years ago now, and when we moved to Colorado Springs, I told Mom, I said, “Without Jesus, we can’t do this. If Jesus doesn’t show up, baby, we’re toast.” And, you know, Jesus said in John 15:5, “Without me, you can do nothing.” You know, both of those statements are true, but I actually believe the second one is stronger. When you realize that I absolutely need the grace of God, I absolutely need Jesus, and without Jesus, there is absolutely no way I can possess what God wants me to promise.

 

  That’s really a temptation for a lot of people. They realize they’re saved by grace, but at some point, they can, you know, kinda lose that revelation of grace and get the focus on themself and their own ability rather than on who God is, and Paul, Paul really got after people, if we read his, you know, epistles, for slipping out of grace and going back to law-keeping, going back to performance. And he said, you know, the work, you know, “How do we continue ministering to people? How do we continue, you know, the working of miracles and healings and people?”

 

  Yeah.

 

  It’s not about you, it’s about who God is and his grace for you.

 

  In Galatians 3:2, he said, “I have a question for you. How were you saved,” basically. “How did you believe?” He said, “Was it by the hearing of faith that works in the law?” And the answer is it’s by faith. But then he asked him another question in verse five. He said, “You who begun in the spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh? He who works miracles among you and ministers in the spirit, how does he do it? By the hearing of faith or the works of the law?” And the answer is the hearing of faith, so it took the grace of God to save us, but it also takes the grace of God to keep us. It takes the grace of God for us to move into what God wants us to move into. It takes the grace of God for us to have what God wants us to have, to go where God wants us to go, and do what God wants us to do, and we absolutely, I believe we become much stronger when we learn how to rely on the grace of God.

 

  And don’t leave it either. You know, when Jesus, in Revelation, spoke to the church at Ephesus, you know, the thing he had against him was that they left their first love. They kinda left that place of grace and faith, just that simple relationship with God. So you need to keep going back to God’s love for you, his grace for you, and just responding to that in faith.

 

  Amen. We’re gonna be back right after a short break, and we’re gonna talk more about this, so stay tuned. Friends, I’m so glad that you’ve been watching today. We’ve been sharing on “Expanding our Horizons.” We have multiple hours of this teaching in downloadable audio, downloadable video, and many others, free of charge, on our website at charischristiancenter.com. So take advantage of these resources and be blessed. I got a word from God. A lot of believers want shazam, and a lot of times, the things of the kingdom of God aren’t shazam. Jesus said, “Everything operates according to the parable of the sower of the kingdom.” How many of you know the devil is the enemy of the Word because he knows if you get ahold of the Word of God, the Word of God is literally gonna change your life? Friends, I’m so glad you stayed with us. We’re gonna continue to talk about how it takes the grace of God to fulfill the purpose of God. You know, it’s the grace of God that makes faith work. You know, Galatians 5:6 is, “In Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything but faith that works by love.” And in that Scripture, it’s actually not talking about loving one another, it’s actually talking about when you understand the love, when you understand the grace of God, it will cause your faith to work. I love to say this, that faith comes alive in the presence of God.

 

  Mm-hmm. And I love it too. The Bible talks about going from grace to grace. You keep going from grace to grace, and when God gives you a picture of something he has for you, promises that you need to believe for, you know, ministry that you need to accomplish, it takes his grace to do it.

 

  Amen.

 

  You know, he gives it to you by grace, and you continue growing in grace.

 

  Amen, I wanna share this Scripture, Aaron, because years ago, when Andrew Wommack made that statement to me about the grace of God, he said, “Lawson, I’ve taught grace all around the world.” And he said, “There’s people that get it, and there’s people that don’t get it.” And he said, “I am really, you know, convinced that it takes a revelation from the spirit of God to get, you know, to get a revelation of grace.” And the Scripture actually says this, and it says this in 2 Corinthians chapter three, where Paul is comparing the ministry of the law and the ministry of grace, and he says this, in verse 16, he’s talking about, in verse 15, when Moses is read, the veil is still in their heart, so an unbeliever, when they read the law, their mind is veiled. But he says, in verse 16, “When their heart will turn to the Lord, the veil will be taken away.” So with that veil is removed, and he says this, in verse 17, he says, “Now the Lord is that spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there’s freedom.” In other words, it takes the spirit of God to give you a revelation of the grace of God, so that you can move from the glory of the law to the glory of grace by the spirit of the Lord. And then he says this in verse 18, “But we all, with an open face, beholding, as in a mirror, the glory of God.” When we look into the Word of God, we see Jesus, and we’re changed in his same image from glory, from the glory of the law to the glory of grace, even by the spirit of the Lord. It takes the spirit of God to give you a revelation of the grace of God.

 

  And you need to continue in it. You know, it’s always such a sad thing when you see a great church or a great ministry, they start out in the power of God, they start out moving by the spirit of God, and, you know, it’s a God thing, but then they slip into, it’s just a flesh-and-blood thing. We’re gonna put the Holy Spirit in the back corner, you know. Maybe we had the Holy Spirit in the early years of this ministry, but now we’re gonna put the Holy Spirit back in the storage room, and it’s a very sad thing. You need to continue and, you know, continue in grace, continue in the power of God.

 

  Amen. You know, Paul actually said this in 1 Corinthians 15. He’s actually defending the doctrine of the resurrection. And when he was doing it, he was talking about all these different apostles that had seen Jesus, and then he says, “Last of all, he was seen of me,” in verse eight, “also as one born out of due time.” But then he says in verse nine, “I’m the least of the apostles. I’m not even sufficient to be called an apostle because I persecute the church.” You know, the devil will try to remind you of your past and keep you out of what God has for you. But then he makes this awesome statement in 1 Corinthians 15:10. He says, “But I am what I am, or I am who I am, by the grace of God.” And then he moves this, and he says, “And his grace, which was bestowed upon me, was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than they all.” You know, it’s so easy to move from grace into works. But then he catches himself, and he says, “Yet it was not me, but the grace of God that was with me.” Man, if we’re gonna do what God wants us to do and accomplish it, we need the grace of God.

 

  And the grace of God, it’s the unmerited favor of God, but the grace of God is full of the power of God.

 

  Amen.

 

  As well.

 

  So there’s a great example of this actually in the Old Testament in Zechariah, chapter four. Aaron, if you wanna go to Zechariah, chapter four, we’ll read in Zechariah 4:6-10. And we’ll talk a little bit more about how it takes the grace of God to fulfill the purpose of God.

 

  So it says here in Zechariah 4:6, it says, “So he answered and said to me, ‘This is the Word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, not by might nor by power, but by my spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts.” And a lot of people know that verse, it’s really powerful, and it’s not by might, not by power, but by his spirit.

 

  Amen.

 

  While all of this came by the word of Lord, we always need to be hearing from God.

 

  Amen.

 

  And it goes on, it says, in verse seven, “Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel, you shall become a plain.” And Jesus kind of talked about this, “Say to this mountain, ‘Be cast into the sea.’ Believe in your heart, and it will be done.” “And he will bring out the capstone, with shouts of, ‘Grace, grace to it!'” So grace is talking about the power of God, the unmerited favor of God. It’s not about you, it’s not about how righteous you are, it’s about God’s power. Verse eight, “Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this temple, his hands shall also finish it. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you. For who has despised the day of small beginnings, for these seven rejoice to see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel. They are the eyes of the Lord, which scan to and fro throughout the whole earth.” So, you know, Zerubbabel started something, but it was getting difficult.

 

  And if you look at the historical perspective of this, what had happened was Cyrus, the Persian king, commanded the rebuilding of this temple. And so Zerubbabel started building this temple, rebuilding the temple of God. But then Xerxes, who was a Babylonian ruler, complained about it, and so they gave them a commandment to stop rebuilding the temple. And so, what happened was Darius, then immediate Persian ruler, who reigned after Cyrus, came and he found out that Cyrus is actually the one who had commanded the building of this temple. And so even after they’d commanded them to stop, so it looked impossible, it looked like a great mountain that was in their way, Darius commanded them to resume, so Zerubbabel not only laid the foundation of the temple, but he put the capstone on it. He finished, he completed that which God wanted him to do. And you know what? It takes the grace of God to save us, and it takes the grace of God to keep us. It takes the grace of God for us to minister and for us to fulfill our God-given destiny. And actually, the Bible actually talks about this in Ephesians 2:7, that God wants to show us the exceeding riches of his grace in the world to come, and so grace is this thing. In fact, I ask this question many times when I’m teaching in Bible school. I ask people, “How many of you recognize the grace of God on your life that spared you before you even got born again?” And I’ll have, generally, 50% of the hands of people will go up, that they realize it was the grace of God. Even before they got saved, they could see the grace of God working in their life. You know, Paul talked about this in 2 Timothy 1:8. He said that God saved us and called us with the holy calling before the foundation of the world. And he said it wasn’t according to our works, but it was according to his grace. Thank God for the grace of God. Man, I wouldn’t be where I’m at, accomplishing what I’m accomplishing, without the grace of God.

 

  If you just take time to just look back and think about what God has done in your life, you don’t have to go too far to see that his grace, his love, his mercy, it’s all over your life-

 

  Amen.

 

  From beginning to where you’re at now, and I believe that his grace and mercy will be over your future as well. You know, one thing the enemy tries to do is he tries to erase God from history. You know, he tries to erase God from, you know, American history. You know, I’m very thankful for great historians who are believers, who point out, “No, like God was very present.” People’s faith was very present, people’s, you know, worldview being founded on Scripture is very present. But, you know, a lot of, you know, worldly historians have tried to eliminate, just erase God from our history, you know, but this nation is a nation founded upon God. In God, we trust, one nation under God with liberty and justice for all, but the enemy, you gotta be careful, he tries to erase God from your own history.

 

  Yeah.

 

  He tries to make you forget about the good things he’s done for you, the promises he has fulfilled in your life. He tries to erase God from your history, but you need to remember, you know, someday, when I go on to be with the Lord, if Jesus doesn’t come again before then, I want people to be able to look at my life and see Jesus written on every page.

 

  Amen.

 

  His grace on every single page of my life.

 

  Amen, you know, when we were talking about Zerubbabel and rebuilding this temple by shouting, “Grace, grace to it,” and he says, basically, Zerubbabel, even though they made a commandment, it’s a great mountain that you’re not gonna do it. You laid the foundation, and you’re gonna finish it. So he’s speaking by the prophetic, and then he said, “For who has despised the day of small beginnings.” And then he says, “These are the eyes of the Lord that run to and fro throughout the whole earth.” 2 Chronicles 16:9 says, “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, seeking to show himself strong on behalf of him whose heart is perfect towards him.” And if we’re gonna have a perfect heart towards God, we’ve gotta realize that, man, this is not me. This is not my strength, my wisdom, my ability, but this is the absolute grace of God that is with me. And if it wasn’t for the grace of God, amen, I couldn’t do it. You know, the Bible actually says this in Ephesians 3:20, it says, “That he is able to do exceedingly, abundantly above all that we can ask or think according to the power that works in us.” Aaron, what power works in us?

 

  The power of the Holy Spirit, the same spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. I love that you talked about the, you know, the eyes of the Lord running to and fro throughout the whole earth. You know, God’s will for us, it is to pour out grace, to pour out power, to fulfill his promises in our life. That’s his heart is to do that. Some people have this kind of just attitude that God is just, you know, not a very kind person, he just allows bad things to happen, he’s just out to get people, but, really, God’s heart is to pour out mercy on people, to help people, to pour out his spirit, his power-

 

  Amen.

 

  His grace in people.

 

  And when we rely on his grace, we can fulfill his purpose. It takes the grace of God to fulfill the purpose of God. Well, all this week, we’ve been sharing on, you know, “Expanding our Horizons.” We said, number one, it begins with what we see. God said, “Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are.” Number two, you gotta get a revelation of it. It continues with revelation. And number three, we said this. Ultimately, it takes the grace of God to fulfill the purpose of God, and we can’t complete God’s purpose without his power, without his grace. I trust that you’ve enjoyed these broadcasts, trust that you’ve enjoyed the word today. And you know what, if you want more information, you can go to our website at charischristiancenter.com. We’ve got literally this teaching and many other teachings that are downloadable free audio, free video that we’ve made available to you, and you can receive it all there free of charge. We’d love to have you at Charis Christian Center on a Sunday morning if you could come. And before we leave this broadcast, I wanna give the opportunity to pray with me to receive Jesus. Say Heavenly Father, I believe that Jesus Christ is your Son I believe that he died for my sins, and I believe that you raised him from the dead and made him Lord, and right now, I surrender to you in Jesus’ name.

 

  As you grow in wisdom and understanding, you start to get a bigger picture of what God has in store. But you have to see it in your spiritual eyes before you can go there. With Jesus, you have incredible purpose, and your future keeps getting brighter. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of the teaching, “Expanding Our Horizons,” a $15 value, free of charge. Download it today at charischristiancenter.com.

 

  Hi, friends, I wanna invite you to go to our website, charischristiancenter.com, where you can receive hundreds of hours of teaching free of charge, downloadable audio, downloadable video. We’ve made this available for you, and we’d love to have you go there and check out what we have available. Thanks so much, God bless you.

 

  Download the Charis Christian Center mobile app today. Day or night, you can send us your prayer requests, where our team of anointed prayer ministers can pray over you. We also make it safe and secure for you to give or partner with this ministry, so you can give with peace of mind. You also have access to all the hundreds of hours of teaching right at your fingertips. So download the Charis Christian Center mobile app wherever you get your favorite apps today.

 

  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 P.O. Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80962. See you next time on “Grace for Today.”