Expanding Our Horizons – Part 10 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Praise the Lord, friends, and welcome to the broadcast. Today, we’re talking about expanding our horizons and specifically the process of receiving the promises of God. And you know what? If you follow this process, I believe that you will prosper just like the word of God says. So stay tuned and receive the good word of God today so that you can move into what God has for you. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re with us today. We’ve been talking about expanding our horizons and specifically about the process of receiving God’s promises. You know, it’s a process receiving God’s promise. You don’t just get saved one day and then everything, you know, is there. It’s not automatic. You know what? It takes faith to receive what God has given us by grace. And first of all, you gotta find out what they are. You know, the Bible says, “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.” In Hosea 4:6, it says, “They’re kept in bondage because they have no knowledge.” But once you find out, then you can begin to believe them to receive them.

 

  And the Bible is just full of the promises of God. You know, I encourage everyone right now to connect with preachers that really preach the Bible, connect with churches where the pastors preach the Bible. I love this ministry, you know, our television broadcast, our church here, because we really preach the Bible. And, you know, visitors that come here, visitors, you know, people who watch our show for the first time, they realize, “Man, I love this show, I love this ministry because you guys preach the Bible.” You know, I’ve seen this funny meme going around where it’s like an old picture of the Apostle Paul and it says, “I wish that the Apostle Paul would write a letter to the American church today because there’s a lot of problems with a lot of churches in America.” But, you know, I kind of, like newsflash, he has written letters to the American church. God’s word is for today. He’s written letters, you know, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, these are all letters for the American church. And I love reading them. I also like love reading the letters that Paul has written to American pastors. As an American pastor, Paul’s written first and second Timothy, you know, in 2 Timothy 4:2 he said, “Preach the word.”

 

  Amen.

 

  You know, that would solve a lot of problems, just preaching the word.

 

  Amen. You know, Kenneth E. Hagin, Papa Hagin said this years ago, he pastored before he became a traveling teacher. And he said, “If people would come to church on a regular basis, they would receive the counsel that they needed in most cases from the pulpit.” And you know what? We got people in the Christian world that run around from counselor to counselor trying to get somebody to agree with them, rather than to tell them the word of God. And I am not against counselors. We work with counselors. I have some great counselors that are my friends, so on and so forth. And I actually get counsel from some of these counselors personally. But at the same point in time, did you know what? If you will do what the word of God says and not forsake the assembling of yourselves together as the manner of some is, but stay connected in the body of Christ. If you’ll stay in the word, stay in prayer, stay in fellowship, and build relationships with good, healthy Christian friends, you know what? That will help you to get what God wants you to get and receive the promises.

 

  Now, recently I was talking to a woman on our worship team, her name is Michelle, but they’re from the Massachusetts area. And they were actually live streaming our church services for a year and just felt that they were called to be here. And then they moved their entire family. They have three children, just moved, not knowing anyone here, just to be a part of a church that really preaches the Bible. And they’ve been here a couple of years now and they’ve just really thrived. Her husband’s work has done well. They’re buying their first home here in Colorado. Their kids are doing well.

 

  Praise God.

 

  With education and athletics. And I just see them all just really growing in the Lord. But a lot of times people just move for various reasons. They move for the weather. They move for money. But man, you need to think about, I mean, where am I gonna connect with other people of faith? Where am I gonna be planted? Those who are planted in the house of the Lord will flourish in the courts of our God. So I find it really inspiring when people actually, hey, we’re gonna make a decision based upon where we’re gonna be planted.

 

  You know, Kenneth E. Hagin said this, I’ve already quoted him once, but he said, “People shouldn’t move across the nation “to take a job or different things “unless they know that they can connect “with the good church.” It is so important, the word of God. When you make the word of God a major priority, when you make the things of God a major priority in your life, it will lead to your blessing, your success, your prosperity. In fact, we’re gonna talk about this from Joshua chapter one. We’ve been in Joshua chapter one, verse one through nine, and we’ve been talking about this process of receiving the God, the promise. And first of all, it’s believing the promise God gives you. In verse three, God spoke to them and said, “I’ll give you every place the sole of your foot treads.” In verse four, he said, “I’m gonna be with you.” Or there’s gonna be problems. There’s gonna be Hittites. I’ve given you the land, but they’re giants in the land. You know what? Contrary winds are evidence a lot of time that God has told you to do something. God spoke, or Jesus spoke to his disciples and told them to go across the sea. And they faced major storm. It’s not that God hasn’t called you to do something and that’s why there’s problems. Sometimes there’s problems because God has told you to do it. But then you gotta remember, God said, “I will be with you.” In verse, the very next verse, in verse five, praise God. God’s presence is with us. He has not left us. He said, “I’ll never,” Jesus said, “I’ll never leave you or forsake you.” And then we talked about God’s serious about you possessing your inheritance. God said in verse six there, he says, “Unto this people, you’ll divide this land, Joshua, “for an inheritance.” But Aaron, I want you to read Joshua chapter one, verse seven through verse nine, that is really talking about what happens when you possess your inheritance.

 

  I love this. Verse seven, it says, “Only be strong and very courageous “that you may observe to do according to all the law “which Moses, my servant, commanded you.”

 

  So this is talking about just the word of God, how important it is to just follow the word of God, just put that as the foundation of your life. You know, I’m very thankful for the Bible. It never changes.

 

  Amen.

 

  And the Bible should always be the foundation of our life, the foundation of everything we do. It says, “Do not turn from it to the right hand “or to the left.” Man, this is just so powerful. There are a lot of people who get away from the word of God, and as soon as you get away from the word of God, things start falling apart very quickly.

 

  Amen.

 

  So you need to just settle in your heart that I believe the word of God. If it says it, that settles it.

 

  Amen.

 

  Period. Don’t turn away from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. That word prosper, it means to flourish, to receive your inheritance. I’ve been accused of being a prosperity preacher.

 

  Well, praise God.

 

  And there’s a lot of promises relating to prosperity and even having possession. But that word to prosper, it really means to just enter this wealthy place, this place of abundant fulfillment.

 

  Amen.   You know, I love the scripture that talks about you’ve taken us through the fire, you’ve taken us through the flood, and you’ve brought us to a wealthy place or to a place of abundant fulfillment.

 

  Amen, praise God.

 

  Thank God there are promises for prosperity. Man, I heard ’em when I was just 14 years old. I was raised in kind of a dead church, and I got saved there. That’s the good news. But they didn’t teach the promises. They didn’t teach you that you could believe God for healing or believe God for financial provision, so on and so forth. They didn’t really teach that. They said, well, it’s kind of up to God. You’re just kind of hanging in there, one foot in the grave, one foot in the banana peel, hoping whatever will be will be, and you know what? That is unscriptural. You know, the scripture actually says this in 3 John 2. It says, “Beloved, I wish above all things “that you prosper and be in health, “even as your soul prosper.” And that word prosper in the Greek is the word judo, and it means to help along the way. And 3 John is written like from a pastor to his church or like a father to his children. You know, you and your two brothers, Aaron, had no question when I raised you that I wanted you to prosper. And you know what? God wants you to prosper. God wants you to be in health. He has many promises, Old Testament and New Testament, for those things, and you know what? Jesus ultimately is the fulfillment of it. And so God wants us to prosper.

 

  In verse eight, it goes on and says, “This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, “but you shall meditate in it day and night “that you may observe to do according to all “that is written in it. “For then you will make your way prosperous “and then you will have good success. “Have I not commanded you, be strong and of good courage. “Do not be afraid nor be dismayed “for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

 

  Amen, so when you think about this, you know, this word of God shall not depart out of your mouth. This is a practical way to see God’s plan and God’s promises work in your life. Number one, you meditate the word of God. You know, whatever you meditate, you’re gonna start talking about. If you think about the word day and night, if you think about the promises, if you think about what God’s told you, you can’t help, start talking about it. So as you meditate the word of God, did you know what? You start talking the word of God. You start speaking the word of God. You start saying what God says about you. Well, there’s some times when people have said terrible negative things to me. When we were coming to Colorado Springs, I had this banker sit across the desk and this person said, she looked at my past three years of 1040s and she said, “You can’t even afford to buy a lot here, “let alone a house.” And boy, I looked across the desk and I said, “If I couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t be here.” And I was really blunt and bold. But see, God had already spoken that to me and put it in my heart and it was a reality to me. Your mother said that I embarrassed her. I wasn’t trying to embarrass my wife, but the word of God, what God was speaking to me was more real than what this natural situation was speaking to me and what this banker. And I had to go to six banks before I found a banker that would loan me money to buy a house in this community. And this banker just said, “You know what? “I’m gonna prove your income another way.” And I heard this about Sam Walton who started Walmart and later Sam’s. He had to actually go to nearly a hundred banks before he could get financing when he started Walmart. But he finally found one person who believed. You might have to, when you get a vision and a picture on the inside of you of what God wants you to do and where God wants you to go, it doesn’t matter how many people say no. You just gotta find one. If God before you, who can be against you? You and Jesus are a majority. Praise God. And so he says this word of God, you begin to meditate it, you begin to speak it. As you begin to speak it, you begin to act on it. You know, you act out what you think on. If you wanna change where you’re going, you gotta change what you think about. Then it changes what you speak and it changes what you do. And as you act it out, he says, “You may observe to do according to all “that is written therein. “Then you will make your way prosperous “and you shall have good success.” Good success is what God has called us to do. Amen, you can’t have good success without God. Man, we need God.

 

  Yeah, and when you put your focus on the word of God, you know, I love that it says, “Be strong and of good courage, “don’t be afraid or dismayed.” That word dismayed, I think it means like to be depressed. There’s a lot of depressed believers out there and it’s really because you need to put more focus on the word of God, meditate on the word of God.

 

  Amen, we’re gonna talk more about it when we come back in the second half, so stay tuned, blessings. 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.

 

  Wednesday afternoon, my knee started hurting, my right knee went out. So I went forward for prayer. The change didn’t come immediately and my husband Mitch encouraged me, just keep laughing, ha, ha, ha. Devil, you think my knee is not healed, but ha, ha, ha, I believe I’m healed. Just continued getting better and better. And so I was able, by the time we got home, I was able to kneel down on the carpet.

 

  Friends, I’m so glad that you stayed with us. Aaron made a statement right before the break that I wanna talk about. He said, “There are lots of believers that are depressed.” And you know what? I found that to be true, but not really in my churches that I pastored with people that are really connected and have been in this church for a period of time. In fact, Andrew Wommack came to my church in Kit Carson, Colorado years and years ago. And he preached this message on joy and how believers need to be happy and joyful. And we had a church of about a hundred. And then he gave an altar call about it. Only one woman came forward. And he said, “That Lawson, this is amazing.” ‘Cause I go to other churches and other places and preach this and generally 50% of the people come up because they’re struggling with depression. And your church only one basically out of a hundred, about 1%. He said, “What’s the difference?” I said, “This is something I live. “I have learned to rely on the joy of the Lord.”

 

  Yeah, several years ago, a very famous influential pastor that I follow on social media was writing a book. And he did a poll on Instagram, just yes or no, are you depressed? So he has hundreds of thousands of followers. And I think tens of thousands of people answered and like 80% of them said, “Yes, I’m depressed.” And I thought that was so sad that 80% of these people are dismayed. And you’re right here in Joshua 1, verse nine, it says, “Have I not commanded you be strong “and of good courage, do not be afraid nor be dismayed “for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” So you need to remember that God is with you.

 

  Amen.

 

  And as you think about that, as you think about God’s word, about his promises, about just your relationship with him and his presence with you, you shouldn’t just be stuck in this state of depression, stuck in this state of being dismayed.

 

  You know what? If people are like that, it’s because they haven’t fixed their focus on God. Isaiah 26, verse 3 says, “You will keep him in perfect peace, “whose mind is stayed upon you because he trusts in you.” We need to fix our focus on God. We need to fix our focus on the promises of God. We need to fix our focus on who God is, on what he says, on what Jesus has done. We need to fix our focus on the fact that the Holy Spirit is with us and not just focus on all these problems.

 

  I was listening to a message by Pastor Bill Johnson. He’s the pastor of Bethel Church. And he mentioned that when COVID kind of started and their church was in California, so they had a lot of pressure from the governor there. The governor even made it illegal to sing in churches and things like this. But he said when that started, he had a word for the church. And that is if you get depressed during this time period, and we know a lot of people struggled with depression during that time. He said it’s a self-inflicted depression is because you’re not focusing on the word of God. So don’t pay attention so much focus on the news and on what’s going on around you, but you need to keep your focus on God and on his word during this time. ‘Cause if you get depressed, he’s basically saying it’s self-induced.

 

  Aaron, we were the last big church in Colorado Springs to close in COVID. We kind of disobeyed the governor’s orders on that side. And we were the first big church to open and we disobeyed the governor’s orders on that side. And the reason is we felt like God spoke to us. And when we opened back up, we told the health department here, you know, a little over a week and a half before we called them on a Tuesday and told them what we were gonna do and told them we felt we had a legal right to do it. And we had consulted with our attorney and our attorney agreed with us and saw this within their law. And on Wednesday, we emailed them and we gave them a very specific plan about measures that we were taking, so on and so forth and what we were gonna do. And they waited till Friday before we were gonna open two days, before we were gonna open like almost 10 days after we called them. And they called me at 4:45 PM and told me that we couldn’t do it. And I said, “You’re too late.” I said, “We’ve already emailed over 2000 families. “We’ve already announced this to all these people “and the horse is already out of the gate “and we’re gonna do it.” I said, “By the way, the Walmart down the street.” I said, “They can have 953 people in there at once.” And we asked the Walmart and that Walmart is smaller than my church, less square feet. So we ought to be able to have at least 953 people here, praise God. And I went on to tell them, “If you test every person that goes in that Walmart a day, “there’s at least 100 of them that have COVID.” And I just told them how it was. You can’t just accept orders from some of these ungodly people. You gotta stand up and be who God told you to be and do what God told you to do. Praise God. You gotta go by the word of God and by the spirit of God.

 

  Well, actually there’s a Supreme Court case that two churches in Denver, two little Baptist churches started because they just said, what the mayor has done here, what the governor has done is illegal, it’s unconstitutional.

 

  It was.

 

  And it ended up being decided in their favor that you can’t make rules that allow businesses to be open. There were marijuana shops here open. And they’re saying churches have to be shut down. And a lot of churches, a lot of pastors just went along with it, which is horrifying to me. Our governor is gay. He’s really pumped out LGBTQ sexual education in public schools here. And a lot of ministers just look to the governor like he was the Pope and we’re just gonna do whatever he tells us to do.

 

  Man, I was told by some of my Christian friends who I really respect, another pastor, and he said, “Well, you need to get on this call “with the governor.” And I got on and listened. And I could tell he didn’t have a plan whatsoever to open the church. And this is about 30 days after they had ordered us to close and different things. Like I said, I stayed open a week longer as a big church. And then I opened up way ahead of when they said you could open up. And I was the first large church. But you know what? I got on there and I could tell he didn’t. And I have a good friend and he pastors an evangelical church. And I have great respect for him. Even though he focuses on a different aspect of the gospel, we both preach Jesus and we both get people saved, amen? And this man opened it up a week after we did and got attacked by the health department.

 

  Cease and desist order.

 

  Yeah, and I went and gave his church $1,000 offering to pay their attorney bill. And I also went and gave him a personal gift. And I just wanted him to know that we were agreeing with him. But you know, he said something and it was the same thing that was in my heart. And he said, “The pot shops are open, “the marijuana stores, the liquor stores are open, “the bars are open, the abortion clinics open, “and the church is closed. “What is wrong with this picture? “And I don’t know why more people of God “don’t have more fire in them “and stand up against some of this garbage “that’s going out there in the world. “We need to stand up. “And you know what, we need to do what God says.” And I’m not talking about being stupid, but your mother and I noticed it was this fear agenda that was being pushed by the world. And the people that came to church, we had very few people in our church get sick and have problems with this. And you know what, we have a large church. And the people that continue to come to church, that continue to worship, that continue to go out and do things, those people stayed healthier than the people who hold up. Not good for them.

 

  That’s really true. And I encourage you to connect with ministers that take a strong stand for the gospel, that take a strong stand for Jesus, that take a strong stand for truth. Now’s not the time to be just a lukewarm Christian. In the last day of church, there’s gonna be a Laodicean lukewarm church. And it’s very prevalent today. And there’s also gonna be a faithful church like the Church of Philadelphia. And you’re gonna see just as the time of Christ’s return gets closer and closer, you’re gonna see that contrast between the Laodicean lukewarm stuff and the faithful church. And I’m really surprised at how many people who are just fine being lukewarm. And I think that whole, man, just in recent years, it’s been really apparent that, you know, just the woke-ism, the ungodliness that the world is really pumping. If churches aren’t taking a strong stand against that, they’re becoming lukewarm, lukewarm, lukewarm. And they’re gonna be vomited out by Jesus. People aren’t gonna be getting saved there. People aren’t gonna be getting transformed there, filled the Holy Spirit there. You need to be a part of churches, of ministries that preach the truth, that preach boldness, that preach Jesus, that preach the full gospel. They don’t water things down. And I don’t wanna be vomited out by Jesus. And quite frankly, all this lukewarm stuff, lukewarm Christianity, compromising Christianity, it makes me wanna puke too.

 

  And I’m gonna tell you about another church. And ’cause one of my friends, and he still goes to one of these half-dead churches, I’ll be honest with you. And I helped him, and he’s a great man of God. I helped him start a ministry to stop this liberalism in the schools, so on and so forth. But he still goes to a church. And this church has a name that it lives, but it is dead. And Jesus talked about that in Sardis. I actually felt like at one time the church I was pastoring had a name that it lived in was dead. And these seven churches of Revelation chapter two and chapter three, Jesus is Lord of the church. Jesus had a message for everyone. But this church of Sardis that had a name that it lived in, it was dead. There are churches like that. And I think we deal more with that. There’s a lot of people and they feel comfortable in this seeker-sensitive place. They don’t give altar calls anymore. They don’t wanna make anybody feel uncomfortable. They don’t give any altar calls for salvation. They don’t give altar calls for the baptism of Holy Spirit. They don’t even teach on the baptism of the Spirit, most of them. They don’t teach the promises of God. And I love these people. They’re born again, praise God. But at the same point in time, I found out when I was a young man, there’s more and I want more.

 

  I remember recently we were having a big service for Christmas Eve here at our church. And we do a lot of special things for those types of services with dancers and the kids being involved. My dad preached a really good message on receiving Jesus. And he made this statement that you’re either with God or you’re not. And there’s a young man who helps on the worship team who spent a period of time kind of away from God and away from the church. But God’s really drawn him back and he’s wanting to be involved. And I’ve been trying to mentor him and pastor him. But he doesn’t always sit in service, but he was in on that service. And I guess he said, “Man, I wanna be with God.” And he was making a decision to live for God, to receive Jesus. And you’re either born again or you’re not.

 

  Amen. You know, the scripture actually says in Romans chapter eight, verse nine, if you are Christ, you’re either all of his or none of his. And you know what? You either have the spirit of Christ in you as a believer and you’ve been born again or you don’t have the spirit of Christ and you’ve never been born again. And if you’ve never been born again, we wanna invite you today to pray and to receive Jesus as your Lord and Savior. I just want you to pray with me right now. Heavenly Father, I believe that Jesus Christ is your son. I believe that he died on the cross for my sin. I believe that you raised him from the dead and made him Lord. And right now, Heavenly Father, I surrender my life to you. And Lord Jesus, I ask you to give me the strength and I’ll live for you as you give me the strength. In your name I pray, Jesus. Amen. Thank you so much and God bless you.

 

  Been serving really hard, serving the Lord, running my carpet cleaning business, just going above and beyond. And I’m feeling a little fatigued. I’m healthy, I’m whole in the name of Jesus. But I just wanted to reach out. I’m feeling a little tired coming in today, but right now my whole body feels tingling. I’m feeling good. I feel healing power running through my body right now. And I’m healed in the name of Jesus.

 

  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 charistchristiancenter.com.

 

  Praise the Lord, friends. I wanna invite you to church this coming Sunday morning, whether you’re in Colorado Springs or whether you’re wherever you’re at. If you’re in Colorado Springs, you can see us Sunday morning at 8:30 or 10:30 a.m. live, but you can also watch us with our livestream congregation at 8:30 or 10:30 a.m., or you can go to our website and get it anytime at charistchristiancenter.com.

 

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