Imparting Success To The Next Generation – Part 8 Lawson and Barbara Perdue (Updated)

  Praise the Lord, friends, and welcome to the broadcast. We have a great teaching today. Barbara and I are both gonna be sharing on her book, “Imparting Success to the Next Generation.” We’re gonna be talking today specifically about priorities in life, but the priorities in your marriage. And we’re gonna give you some great tools to help you work out relational issues and move forward. Blessings. Friends, it’s great to have you with us today, and so good to have Barbara. And we’re talking about a great subject today. We’re gonna be talking about the priority of family and specifically our relationship with one another as husband and wife.

 

  So we’ve been talking about my book, “Imparting Success to the Next Generation,” and so this week what we’ve been talking about is the importance of having priorities. Boundaries! Priorities. We talked about our first priority, our first relationship is with God. So we talked about that. And then the next priority we’re talking about is our relationship with our spouse.

 

  Amen. You know, in the scripture when you study it out, there was a order of creation. God created everything in Heaven and Earth. And then He created man, right? And He put man in this beautiful garden. And then after He did that, He created Eve, He created woman, right? But He gave Adam some responsibility first. So you’re gonna share a little bit about that.

 

  Yeah, a lot of times people blame God. We’ve been talking about the blame God game, and they blame Him for the mess they’re in really, and they act like God is a God of chaos. And when we read in the Bible, when we read in the Old Testament and New Testament, especially in the Book of Genesis, when God created everything, did you ever stop to think about He created land before He created man? He just didn’t make a man. “Oh, my gosh, I gotta make some land for him to stand on or create some food.” Everything was created in a specific order.

 

  Right.

 

  God is not a God of chaos.

 

  Amen.

 

  And so we’re talking about relationship with spouse and what that looks like. And how Adam had a relationship with God before he got married.

 

  Yes!

 

  A lot of times people make this misconception, “You know, I’m gonna find this other person who’s gonna fulfill me,” and we should already be fulfilled with our relationship with God.

 

  Amen.

 

  And can we add a lot to each other? I know we work as a team. Yes we can, but I was already fulfilled as a person with my relationship with God. I didn’t look to you to fulfill that place in me.

 

  Well, if you take a positive times a negative, you get a negative. And if you take two positives and you add them together, you get positive. Praise God. Or you take a positive times a positive. And so I believe what we have in marriage is we have multiplied strength. If one can put a thousand to flight, two can put 10,000 to flight. And I believe some of the strongest power on the Earth is when a husband and wife come together, right? And they both have a strong relationship with God. But then we have multiplied strength. And I love what you said right at the beginning, and that is, our spouse is not the one who completes us, we are complete in Christ. We’re complete in our relationship with God. And when you find two people who are strong in their relationship with God and you bring them together, you have multiplied strength.

 

  Amen. And so I do have some notes here, some scriptures to read just for an introduction. And so if you have your Bible, you can read along. This is Genesis 2:18-24. And it says: And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone. I will make a helper comparable to him.” So I always have people ask this question: Whose idea was marriage?

 

  Right!

 

  And it was God’s idea. And it doesn’t say that Adam woke up one day and said, “Gee, I’m really lonely. Make someone for me.” He was already fulfilled. Adam was already fulfilled in his relationship with God. God is the one who made marriage or created a marriage. And He said, “It’s not good that man should be alone. I’ll make a helper comparable to him.” And out of the ground, the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air. Do you know how many birds there are? You know when you go to a zoo.

 

  Oh, hundreds!

 

  Or not a zoo, a museum, and it just lists all the different varieties of even ducks and geese. It’s just, and so Adam had a job, he was a productive before Eve even came into the picture. So this was quite a job to name everything because there are a lot of animals, a lot of varieties of animals. But it says in verse 20: And so Adam gave names to all the cattle, to the birds of the air, to every beast of the field. But for Adam, there was not found a helper comparable to him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam and he slept and He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, He made into a woman or built a woman. Some people bring up. And brought her to the man. And Adam said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of me.” I like this in verse 24: Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and they shall become one flesh.

 

  You know, that’s really important that a husband and wife, when they come together in their relationship, that they leave their parents and they have their own family unit. And I know one thing my dad told me as a young child, my dad said, “Listen, when you get married, it’s you and your wife.” And he actually had a college professor that told him that and told him, “You know, you need to break away and you guys need to get out on your own.” And you know, I believe that’s healthy for people to have their own individual. And I believe that we can come back and there’s sometimes very positive things when families work together from generation to generation. But some of the wealthiest families on the planet actually send their kids out for a period of time to work for other people, to learn the value of that, to establish their own person, personal relationships and get strong. And then they’ll bring them back into the family business, so on and so forth.

 

  I always kinda tease. I can’t help it. You know, there’s all these little cliches or little sayings and in verse 24 where it says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife.” I always say this, “Nobody wants to be married to a mama’s boy.” And I feel like I can say that because we have three sons. And so I know what it means to give everyone space.

 

  Right!

 

  We’ve got three amazing sons, but we talk about this ’cause one lives right here in the same city as us. One just lives down the highway a little bit. So they’re very close. But we talk about all the time, we’re not gonna call them, we’re not gonna bother them. They need time with their family.

 

  Right!

 

  They need time away from us. And even another son who lives in another state, at one point he lived in another country. We have always tried to encourage them and help build their relationship with their spouse and not cause any friction or cause any problem there. And I think that’s really important.

 

  Right! And we as parents actually look at our children’s spouses, they’re all very different. Our boys are in very different aspects of life as far as work and different things. But we see actually the hand of God, they’re all married to young women that are born of God, that love Jesus, that have a relationship with God. And you know what? We actually look at the positive aspects, but we see how God brought different wives to our children with different areas of strength and how that’s helped our children really, even in businesses. Like our son Peter, for instance, who works in corporate America. He’s currently the chief operating officer of Burger King of the Americas. His wife actually, her dad and mom both worked for a major corporation. They were in international management with Estee Lauder. And so she’s learned things from her parents and she’s able to deal with that lifestyle.

 

  Of living overseas in another country far, far, far away.

 

  Yeah!

 

  And so, you know, praise God. And another thing we’ve talked about this. Again, we’re talking about the second priority, your priority with your spouse, spending time with your spouse. But my mom gave me great advice right before we got married. This was the day before we were gonna get married. My mother said, “If you get in a fight with your husband, you cannot come home.” And so, boy, we’re about to celebrate 40 years of marriage and a lot of that’s thanks to mom who told I had to get along with you. We had to work things out ’cause we had nowhere else to go.

 

  Thanks to the grace of God.

 

  Amen!

 

  It was really the grace of God and much of the grace of God working in you.

 

  Well, and I need to bring out, my mother was aware that you were a Christian, that you loved God. And we’re gonna talk about that too, marrying someone who loves God more than they love you. But first we got some other things to talk about. And we’re talking about, again, order of events. God is not a God of chaos. A lot of times people get things out of order. And so I wanna bring this out in Genesis 1, God creates light and darkness, water and land, seed-bearing plants, sea creatures, living creatures on land. And then in Genesis 1:26, God creates man. Verse 28, God blesses man and says, “We are to subdue and have dominion.”

 

  Right.

 

  And I like this. This is kind of getting fun. You can tell I’m the one that came up with this lesson. Then God shows man where the gold and fine fragrances and precious gems are. This is all in Genesis 2:11-12. God shows man. This is gonna be good information for man to have for later.

 

  Listen, men, listen to what she’s saying. Go buy your wife something nice. Maybe it doesn’t crank your tractor, but it’ll crank hers.

 

  That’s good. That’s it. It’s good to have some fun today and take some time to laugh. And then, I have this in our notes. God gives man a place to live and a job to do. This is Genesis 2:8 and then verse 15. And then I have this in my notes. Then the best is saved for last and woman is created and brought to man in Genesis 2:22. And there was no lack.

 

  Amen. Praise God. You know, if you get things right, right? And this is something that we really instilled into our children is a good work ethic. But, young ladies, you need to marry a man that’s got a good work ethic, that loves God more than he loves you, and that has a good work ethic.

 

  We’re gonna be talking about that. But again, if you see what we just shared, God is not a God of chaos.

 

  Amen.

 

  And so there’s some very simple things, and I know we taught this to our children. Before you can get married, you need to have a job and a place to live.

 

  Amen.

 

  Before you even get married.

 

  Yeah. You know what? Not being able to pay the electric bill is not romantic. And so I’ve seen some people in those situations before. Now you can believe God, you can trust God, but if you put God first, like we were talking in yesterday’s program, you seek God, seek the Kingdom of God first. Put Him first, all these other things will be added to you. So God will meet your needs and God will help you if you’ll believe Him and trust Him in that area. And so some of you may need prayer, and I wanna welcome you. You know, as we’re going into the break, you can call in for prayer and we’re gonna be right back after this break and we’re gonna share more on our relationship with one another and how that’s really worked out in life. Hi, friends. We’ve been teaching from Barbara’s book, “Imparting Success to the Next Generation.” These are principles that will help you establish a strong marriage, a strong home, and be a blessing to your children. We’ve also made the syllabus for this free of charge on our website at CharisChristianCenter.com. Blessings.

 

  December, I found someone who said that Habitat for Humanity build home for the low income people, and so I went and applied and they said, “No, we’re not taking the application.” Then January, God told me to call again the office. By May I was approved.

 

  You got a five bedroom, two bath house within a year. It’s exactly what Jesus told you.

 

  Yes.

 

  And you said what you believed. Friends, I’m so glad that you stayed with us and we’re sharing on how to have a strong relationship with your mate. Praise God. And not only do we have a strong relationship with God, but we need a strong relationship with one another. And really the foundational building block for a healthy society is, number one, relationship with God. But number two, it’s having healthy, strong families. And that begins with a strong relationship with your spouse.

 

  You know, we brought out earlier how Adam was completely fulfilled in his relationship with God. But we always say, excuse me, we have three things to remember before you get married. So again, three things to remember before you get married. Marry someone who loves God more than they love you.

 

  Amen.

 

  Marry someone with integrity, and then marry someone with a job or a work ethic.

 

  Praise God.

 

  You wanna marry someone who has a work ethic.

 

  And I wanna say another thing that I’ve heard you say, marry someone who’s a giver. Right? You can’t out-give God. But most marriage breakdown when there’s an areas of selfishness. And when you look at the words for marriage in both the Hebrew and the Greek, they mean this: The root meaning is it’s to give yourself to the other. So Christ gave himself for us, we’re to give ourselves one to another. And I like to say this: When the giving stops, the marriage stops. And so marry somebody that loves God more than you. Marry a person that has a good work ethic, marry a person of integrity, but also marry someone who is a giver.

 

  Amen. Yeah, we do add that too. And so we’ve been bringing out how important it is to understand that we are already complete in Christ. And I know we keep talking about this over and over, but for me to put all that pressure and responsibility on you.

 

  Right.

 

  To say, “You need to complete me, you need to help all my feelings.” And I mean, there’s definitely things spouses can do for one another. We’ll get into that about respect and honor and things that the Bible talks about. But really you’ve gotta understand that you are complete in Christ. That’s not a really, to me, a good reason to get married. I need to be completed, so I’m gonna marry someone or I won’t be completed. So we’ve talked about this. We know from what we read in the Bible that Adam was already complete in his relationship in the Lord. Marriage was God’s idea. It wasn’t Adam. He wasn’t bar hopping trying to find that perfect person. He was-

 

  That’s a disaster.

 

  Yes, he was loving God and had a relationship with God. And so if you have Colossians 2:10, you can read Colossians 2:10.

 

  It says: And you are complete in Him who is the head of all principality and power or all principality and authority. So Jesus is the head of all authority. And if you’re studying through Colossians, He’s the head of all authority in Heaven. He’s the head of all authority on Earth. And He’s also the head of all authority in the grave. So we are complete in Him. Barbara, I wanna take a little bit of time and I wanna talk about another thing that you were just mentioning, but you were talking about if you put all this demand on me for your needs to be fulfilled, that you’re gonna overwhelm me. And also if I as a man put all my demands on you to fulfill me, right? I am not gonna be, I’m gonna break you down. And so what we have to realize, the greatest need in a woman, if we go to Ephesians 5, and Paul uses this great information from Ephesians 5:20-31 or on down through the end of the chapter.

 

  Yeah.

 

  About not only our relationship with one another, husbands and wives, but our relationship with Christ and how our relationship with Christ is really a picture, right, of God’s relationship with His Church and our relationship in the marriage. And so he says in those scriptures, in Ephesians 5, he says, “Husbands, love your wives. You love your wives as your own body. You love your wife as yourself, and you love your wives as Christ loved the Church.” So you love her physically, you love her emotionally, you love her spiritually. And he actually begins with love her spiritually as Christ loved the Church. So Jesus loved the Church when the Church was making all the wrong choices, doing all the wrong things, right? Then he says, “Love your wives as yourself.” When he talks, that’s the self part of you is your soul, right? Your spirit is God-conscious, your soul is world-conscious, and your body, or your soul is self-conscious, and your body is world-conscious of the physical realm. And so he says, “Husbands, you’re to love your wives spiritually, emotionally.” You know, you used to say this when we were married for a few years, “But I just want you to be my best friend.” Now, I don’t hear you say that because I think-

 

  We are best friends.

 

  We are best friends, praise God. But then not only spiritually as Christ loved the Church, not only emotionally like caring for one another, spend time with one another, communicating with one another, right? But also physically, right? We are to, husbands are to care for their wives. But then he says this to wives, he only says one thing. He says, “Wives, respect your husband.” Now psychologists have studied this out and they say that the greatest need in a man is to be respected, and the greatest need in a woman is to be loved. You just said this. If you put all your need to be loved, you put that on me, it’s gonna break me down because I can’t really love you enough. Now I can work with God. That’s why God tells me to do this, right? I’m made in His image. But if I put all my needs on you to be respected, I’m gonna break you down. And you do a really good job at respecting me. But at the same point in time, you need to get your sense of being loved from God. And I need to get my sense of being respected from my understanding of who I am in Christ. So your sense of being loved comes from your relationship with God. My sense of self-worth comes from my relationship with God. And if you don’t have that right, you’re gonna break your spouse down.

 

  You know, I’m sure I’m gonna share something really shocking with people right now, but I don’t believe that marriage, a husband and wife relationship, but I don’t believe marriage has to be hard, has to be difficult, has to be a big fight on a continual basis. I believe if we do what the scripture says, and I mean we’re all people, we all fall short, we all get tired, we all get a little bit selfish and want our own way. But I believe if we just do what the Bible says, it doesn’t have to be fight. Because again, who created marriage? God did. And what God creates is good. We’ve gotta get a shift in our thinking and get this worldly cultural thing out, because the world will teach you that it should be your way or the highway. And that’s not the biblical way.

 

  Right.

 

  And I don’t believe that marriage has to be difficult, has to be a fight. But I like what you brought out about the scripture and, again, seeking what God says, but I like what you always say is, “Try to out-give the other person.” And I know you’ll help around and help me with things. We help each other with different tasks around the home and things like that. We’ve learned over the years to work as a team. The first three years we were married, we farmed and ranched, and you have to learn how to work together. There’s just some things you can’t do by yourself. But I just like how you say that. Try to be out-giving, like out-give the other. And it’s really just, it’s just common courtesy.

 

  Right!

 

  You know, acts of kindness just being courteous to one another.

 

  Right!

 

  Like, you’ll see people be really courteous to perfect strangers, but are you opening the door for one another? Are you helping prepare the food? Or just to me just common courtesy that should be happening in the marriage.

 

  Right! Just, you know? And look at your spouse’s needs really over your own. And we’ve both seen people that are very selfish. You know, I had a situation in our family when I was a child. Now it wasn’t in my immediate family, but I had an uncle and we went to the house and my uncle had a number of children and there was not one stick of food in that house. I mean, there wasn’t a grain of rice, there wasn’t a piece of spaghetti, there was zero food. And yet he had a six pack of beer in the refrigerator and 1/5 of whiskey in the glove box in his truck. And you know what? Alcohol was driving him. And you know what? That’s a real problem. And you’ve gotta think of your spouse, you’ve gotta think of your children. But I wanna talk a minute about what you said. It just doesn’t have to be a big fight. Now we can communicate with one another, right? And you and I have communicated. When we were younger, it was a little fiery. And I think we’re still kind of fiery people. You and I are both pretty strong-willed. I think I’m probably stronger-willed, but you’re pretty strong-willed. And you are a very, very good communicator and we need to communicate with one another. That’s one of the major areas of breakdown: Communication, finances. Okay, we’ve talked about working and giving, that can really help in the financial realm. But you know what? You don’t have to just be angry and be upset all the time. And I think sometimes this may be a learned behavior that people learn from someone, maybe their parents, maybe somebody else, you know? But they’re like, just quit fighting all the time. Just quit just being at odds with one another and love one another. I heard Dr. Lester Sumrall brought this young couple in and said, “She’s a beautiful young lady. He’s a nice looking young man. You guys get along.” And he just told them and they got over it. Praise God. Some of you got some differences and it’s really not that big a deal. Let it go.

 

  Well, like what we’re bringing out is just do what the Bible says. Again, our world or the culture just communicates that everything should be hard. You know, that marriage should be hard. And because the world is totally different, opposite of the church and how God created to be and the world really presents a message of selfishness, and the Bible is just totally the opposite. And it’s really, again, my relationship with the Father that I’m complete in Him.

 

  Amen.

 

  My relationship with my spouse and that I see the wonderful person that God created and that we come together as a strength. And I like it how my pastor, when we got married, what he told us is he’s like, “We see things maybe differently, but when we come together, our strengths of each other fill in what could be a weakness.” But as our strengths come together.

 

  You talked about how many times people with different strengths attract. So when you put your hands together, it’s like I could say, this is my strengths and this is my weaknesses, yet Barbara’s strengths fill in where I’m weak, right? My strengths may fill in naturally where she’s weakened. Rather than use that to grate against one another, use that to compliment one another and begin to look at your spouse’s strengths. If you’ll take a yellow pad of paper and begin to write down and thank God for 30 minutes a day for the positive things that you see in your spouse. If you only see one to start with, you just start doing that for 30 minutes a day. Do that for a month and see what happens in your marriage. I believe it will be good. Amen. Well, Barbara has this great book. It’s a great thing. I’d love to have you get it. It’s available on Amazon, it’s available on our website. And so check that out. And if you need prayer for your home, for your marriage, you know, whatever it may be, be sure and give us a call. God bless you and I’ll be right back.

 

  It is important to keep God first, family second, and our ministry third. In a busy world, it is essential that we understand and act upon these priorities. Raising kids to love the Word, value family, and live with purpose will bring them great success. Get your copy of Barbara’s new book, “Imparting Success to the Next Generation,” for 15.99. Go to CharisChristianCenter.com and order yours today.

 

  Friends, I certainly hope that you’ve enjoyed the program today and it’s ministering to you to move into that which God has for you. And I wanna say a great big thank you to all of our partners for helping us share this gospel across the United States and across the world. It’s because of our partners that we can take this message of grace and faith around the world. If you would like to join our partners and receive that blessing, give us a call today. Blessings. Friend, I invite you to pray with me now. Heavenly Father, I believe that Jesus Christ is your Son. I believe that He is the promise and He provided every promise for me. And right now I surrender my life to the lordship and dominion of Jesus Christ. Jesus, come live in me and have your way. Amen.

 

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