The Gift of Jesus Part 3 – Lawson and Barbara Perdue – 12/23/2024

Praise the Lord, friend, and welcome to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in. Glad that you’re with us today. Celebrating the gift of God’s Son, celebrating Jesus Christ. And truly, we have so much to be thankful for. We have so much to celebrate, when we know Jesus personally, as our Lord, as our Savior, and our coming King. Today, we’re gonna be talking about how we can see that reveal. Blessings. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re with us today, celebrating the birth of Jesus. What a wonderful time of year that we can come together, that we could celebrate Jesus, God’s gift to us.

We wanna be some of the first people to tell you, “Merry Christmas.” We just really appreciate you inviting us into your home today to be part of this amazing, glorious celebration, that Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world is born. And that is what we’re celebrating, and worshiping Him today, and glorifying Him. What an exciting day.

Praise the Lord. You know, we’ve been sharing on different aspects, right? Of the incarnation of Jesus coming. We started early in the week on Monday, and we talked about the fact, you know, how the angel came and spoke to Mary, and she said, “How’s this gonna be seeing I know not a man.” And he said, “Well, the Holy Spirit’s gonna come on you, and the power of the highest, the power of God the Father is gonna overshadow you. And the Holy thing that will be born of you, shall be called the Son of God.” But Mary had to believe that word, so that she could receive it. And she said, “Be it unto thy handmaiden, according to thy word.” And then, the Angel Gabriel actually gave her a little bit of encouragement. He said, “Your cousin Elizabeth’s gonna have a child.” She was cold barren. This was a miracle. She’s six months along. So, when Mary went to Elizabeth’s house, then John the Baptist leaped in his mother’s womb. And Elizabeth said, “Blessed is she who believed, for there will be a performance of those things that have been spoken to her.” That is a word for somebody today. Blessed are you who have believed for there’s gonna be a performance. Isn’t that awesome?

Amen. Well, and also we talked about how Elizabeth, when she was greeted by Mary, that she was filled with the Holy Spirit, the babe in her leaped with joy.

Pastor Perdue Yeah.

And then she was filled with the Holy Spirit. So I like something that you’ve been bringing out in previous broadcasts, that when the Trinity’s involved.

Yes.

The amazing, powerful things that happen.

Yes. It took the Trinity. when Mary asked this question in Luke 1: how is this gonna be, seeing that I know not a man? The Angel Gabriel replies, the power of the highest, right, is gonna overshadow you. The power of God’s gonna come on you. The Holy Spirit is gonna come on you. And the power of the Father is gonna overshadow you. And the Holy thing born of you shall be called the Son of God. When you get the Trinity in unity, you find the power of God.

Barbara Amen.

And when Peter was preaching about Jesus, you know, one of the first Gentile houses that he got to share the gospel with the Gentiles, in Acts 10. And because the situation was so supernatural, they nearly began to worship Peter. And he says, “Wait a minute, wait a minute. It’s not about me, it’s about Him. Haven’t you heard how God the Father anointed Jesus, the Son, with the Holy Spirit, and with power.” And he went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him. Again, when you get the Trinity in unity, you find the power of God. You see the promises of God manifested. You see, God promised it, Jesus paid for it, but the Holy Spirit gives us the power, to receive the good things of God.

That’s right, that’s awesome.

Yep. Now, today we’re gonna share from Matthew 2, and we’re gonna talk about these Wise Men that came from the East. You know, wise men still follow Jesus.

That’s right.

But they came to worship Jesus. And you know, the heavens were declaring. The Messiah had been born. So Barbara, why don’t you go ahead and read Matthew 2, the first two verses there.

It tells us: “Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, Wise Men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, “Where is He who has been born king of the Jews? For we have seen His star in the east, and have come to worship Him.””

Right? So the heavens were declaring that Jesus was born. You know what? If you are seeking God, even if you’re in a foreign place where they don’t worship God, you’re going to find Jesus.

That’s exciting.

You know, the Bible, actually, I think it’s Deuteronomy 4:29, but, God told the children of Israel, “If you go to a foreign land where they’re serving foreign gods, if people from there will seek for me with their whole heart, they will find me and not another.” If people seek for God, they’re gonna find Jesus. I know there’s this great leader in Africa. And Dr. Del Ron Shirley has been to his church many times to minister. But the way this man got saved was he came to a Christian wedding to take pictures, and he was the photographer, and it was at a little Baptist church, and he got a revelation of Jesus. And he came back, right? To find out about Jesus. And he was saved. And now, he pastors this like mega, mega, mega church with, you know, lots of congregations, and really well over a million people. And it’s just amazing that if people will seek for God, if they will seek, they will find Jesus. They’re gonna find Jesus, if they seek God with their whole heart. So they came and they have this question, where is He who was born king? Jesus was born king.

You know, we talked about this, how a lot of times, we have something stereotype, you know, this was prophesied about Jesus coming.

Pastor Perdue Right.

And a lot of times we have a certain stereotype of how things should happen.

Mm hmm.

And when they should happen and what it should look like. And so, you know, we talked about how Jesus was, you know, born in a manger, and the angel came out to the shepherds, the night watch. And then, you know, the heavens opened up, and they, you know, heard and saw all the angels worshiping him. And so, people probably didn’t have a stereotype of Jesus being born in a manger. And now we have these Wise Men coming. And at this point, you know, you’ve studied it out. We believe that, you know, some time has passed. Maybe this wasn’t right.

Well, after. After this, you know, these Wise Men came to Herod. Herod was intimidated, right? Because he was the physical king, the acting king.

Right.

But they were looking for him who was born king. So, because the Wise Men were warned of God in a dream, right, not to go back and tell Herod, because Herod said, “I wanna come worship him.” But they were warned of God in a dream not to come. So they departed and went a different way.

Right.

Herod came and killed. And God had warned Joseph then, in a dream, and he and his Mary, wife, Mary, with baby Jesus, fled to Egypt. Jesus was actually a refugee. And they fled to Egypt. But he killed all the young male children two years and under. And this was after Jesus had been born. So Jesus would might’ve been, you know, nearly two years old when this happened. And actually these different people think these kings could have come from anywhere from Iraq clear to the east side of India. So they came anywhere from 500 to 3000 miles, whatever it was, it was long way, especially when you’re traveling by camel or by foot. Right? To see Jesus.

See, like you mentioned, you could only go so many miles a day.

Yeah, they only traveled about 20 miles a day. In those times.

So this took. It was a long journey, or it took many days, weeks, and months.

Right. So it took a long time to get there. And so they wanted to see Him who was born king. They said, “For we have seen His star in the east.” You know, the heavens bore witness that the Messiah was born, the Savior of the world is born. And they said, we’re come to worship Him. Wise men still worship Jesus. We still need to worship Jesus. And when Herod heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him. You know, who? Who is this king? And so he gathered the chief priests, and scribes, and people together, and demanded of them where Christ should be born. Of course, he had ulterior motives.

Barbara Mm mm.

“And they said, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it’s written by the prophet.” Micah 5, I believe it’s verse two, says: Even though Bethlehem, you’re little among the thousands of Judah, He’s gonna be born of you. The house of bread in Bethlehem, means the house of bread who will rule Israel. Jesus the Messiah, praise God. “And so in you Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, the least in the princes of Judah.” It says this again. “”For out of you shall come a governor who will rule my people Israel.” Then Herod, when he privately called the Wise Men, inquired of them diligently, what time the star appeared.” When did this happen? When was this star appearing? Because he wanted to know, what’s the approximate age of this child? Because he didn’t want anybody taking his throne.

Well, when you see an entourage of these Wise Men looking for a king, and like you said, this was the acting king, that would be, you know, I’m sure he felt very intimidated. Like, why are these people wanting to worship someone other than me? So anyway.

Right.

It’s kind of interesting.

So the heavens bore witness, right? These Wise Men bore witness. “So he sent them to Bethlehem, and said, “Go and search diligently for the young child, and when you have found him, bring me word again, so I may come and worship him also.” Again, right? This Herod. And the Herods have a terrible track record, right? They are horrible. He had ulterior motives. But you know what? If you’ll believe God, it doesn’t matter who tries to keep you outta where God has you, and, you know, what God’s plan, and God’s purpose, and God’s promises. God can bring it to pass, no matter who’s trying to stand against it.

That’s a good word.

Amen.

That when God has plans for us, that no one can keep it from us.

Amen.

The amazing plans He has.

It’s awesome.

So that’s good to know that no one, and praise God, you know, we are worshiping, again, the birth, and celebrating, the birth of Jesus Christ, our Savior. This is exciting.

So there they were worshiping, you know, Jesus. And we’re gonna come back in a little bit, and we’re gonna talk about how they worship Him. And what that actually meant. And you know, a lot of people thinking about gifts today, but we need to think about the greatest of all gifts. We need to think about the gift of Jesus, the gift of eternal life, the gift of salvation, the gift of righteousness, the gift of God’s Son to us. Again, I’m so glad that you’re watching. We’re gonna be back right after a short break. So stay tuned. We’ll be back. We’ll have more to share about how wise men still worship Jesus. Blessings. Friends, we’ve been sharing about receiving God’s gift, the gift of Jesus Christ. But we have something that we want to give to you. We literally have thousands of hours of downloadable teaching audio and video, available free of charge on our website at charischristiancenter.com. Also a great children’s curriculum, free of charge. This is a problem with many people. They’re identifying with the problem rather than identifying with the promise. And if you identify with the problem rather than the promise, it’s gonna be hard for you to receive the promise. Now, what would you act like if you really believed that God had already answered your prayer? Praise God? Hallelujah. There you go, you’d start shouting. Friends, I’m so glad that you stayed with us. We’re talking about how wise men worship Jesus. And you know what? We wanna receive the greatest of all gifts, the gift of God’s Son, the gift of eternal life, the gift of righteousness. We also wanna receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. That’s another gift, right? I actually have a teaching, it’s on our website, free of charge, we have downloadable audios, downloadable videos, on gifts, gifts and more gifts, talking about all these kind of gifts that God has working.

Amen.

In the church today. And you know, it’s impossible to be really who God wants you to be without receiving his gifts. So we need to receive these gifts, but they came to bring a gift to King Jesus.

And you said something earlier in the show today, this was in Matthew 2:2, where it said that, “We have seen His star in the east and have come to worship Him.” You talked about how even the heavens were declaring Him. And I love how God is revealing Himself to people. How Jesus.

Oh, amen.

The Lord. One of my favorite. We have a women’s ministry, “Flourish”, that meets two times a month on Thursday. And if you can’t be here in person, you can live stream, you can go to a website, charischristiancenter.com, look this up, live stream, our women’s ministry, “Flourish”, again, we’d love for you to be a part. But I had a young woman, a number of years ago, come speak, and, honey, she shared the most powerful testimony. She said, her father claimed to be an atheist.

Pastor Perdue Right?

But she said, she could see the Lord working in his life and.

Right.

Revealing Himself to her father over and over. And she said that’s how she got saved, was watching how the Lord was revealing Himself.

Amen.

Openly. And eventually, praise God, her father did receive Jesus as well. But she said, that’s why I received, because I saw how the love of the Lord was pursuing after her father. Saying like, “Here I am.” You know, here I am.

Yeah. And you know, we live in Colorado now, we live in a more conservative area, in El Paso County, and the rural areas are still very conservative, but you know, a lot of these more larger areas have become very liberal. But it’s amazing what God’s doing. University of Colorado, which has been a very liberal place. They got a Christian football coach, and you know, he just boldly professes his faith in God, and faith in Jesus. And man, he’s. And he’s turning the whole, you know, team around. And then we got a recently had a different player as far as a quarterback on the Denver Broncos. And you know, they say he’s actually started out better than John Elway started out. But he’s doing well, at this point when we’re recording this broadcast. But he again, is a believer, he is a spirit. And you know, we know he’s got. So God has always has a witnesses. There’s always witnesses.

Barbara Amen.

You know, you think of all these witnesses around the incarnation. The Angel Gabriel spoke to Mary, he spoke to Joseph, right? You know, the people, Anna, the prophetess, that came to pray for Jesus, right after he was born, Simeon, all the different ones, all the witnesses beforehand for 4,000 years, God had been speaking the seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the seed of David, born of a virgin, right? Isaiah spoke. And so there were all these witnesses, that the Messiah is coming, Messiah is coming, Messiah is coming. Hallelujah. Now He’s come, praise God. So receive Him.

So now He’s here. And so the Wise Men are coming to worship Him. They are bringing Him gifts.

Pastor Perdue Yes.

And so they’ve talked to King Herod, who is, like we mentioned, intimidated about them coming to worship a king, when he’s the active acting king. And the Lord warns them.

Right.

To go a different way, not to go back, when they find the baby Jesus, when they find the Savior.

Right.

They are warned to go a different way.

Right.

And so that’s where we’re gonna take off now.

And in verse nine, when they heard the king, it says: they departed and lo the star, which they saw in the east… So God causes the star to reappear. “It went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child.” Here is another thing, Jesus wasn’t just this little baby now, he’s a young child. And then Herod goes and slaughters all the young male Israeli children, Jewish children, that are two years and under. So they, but when they saw this star, they rejoiced with exceeding joy. Hallelujah. We should rejoice with exceeding joy, because the Savior, the Messiah. Jesus, has been born. God’s gift.

Amen.

We have a reason to rejoice today, because Jesus is born. Praise God.

In verse 11, it says: and when they had come into the house, they saw the young child with Mary, His mother, and fell down and worshiped Him. And when they had opened their treasures, they presented gifts to Him, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Then being divinely warned in a dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed to their own country another way. And I know you’ve studied it out, potentially what these gifts were worth at that time.

Right? Actually, Peter Daniels, and he’s a great leader in the body of Christ, had his own business, actually had his money, that’s backed by gold, actually has gold in it, made in Australia. But he spoke at our church a couple of different times. And Peter Daniels did a study on this, and if I’m correct, he said, “Just the value of their gifts was worth something like 4 million dollars.” And it. Listen, it makes sense, right? If these guys have come somewhere between 500 miles, and they’re kings, right? They’re people of authority. You know. And 3000 miles. If they’ve been traveling for months to bring a gift to the Messiah, the King, you know, the Creator of the universe, if they’ve come to do this, where’s He who’s born? They’re not gonna bring $20. They’re gonna bring, and after Joseph receives this. These Wise Men who came, they’re warned by God to go back a different way, because God doesn’t want Jesus to be destroyed by Herod. Right? Then Joseph’s warned in a dream, and Joseph then goes to Egypt, where, you know, they live for a few years as refugees. But guess what? God’s not gonna be in debt to Joseph. He’s not gonna be in debt to Mary. If God asked you to do something, he’s gonna provide for it. So, Jesus, more than likely, Jesus was not some poor kid. Like a lot of people have portrayed. You know, Jesus wore a robe, and when they crucified him, they wouldn’t tear it, because it was made of one thread. It was so valuable. A lot of people don’t see this. Jesus traveled, right? With 12 disciples. Man, it’s enough just traveling. You know, I get stressed out, because I was raised and we didn’t have a lot. And sometimes different things go up, and sometimes I get stressed about the funniest things, more than I should be. But Jesus is traveling with 12 men. Jesus has a treasurer who’s a thief. Now, if you got $5 in the bag and he steals one, you’re going to know it, right? So if you got a thief that’s stealing from the treasury, there has to be lots of money going through, right? The account, in order for him to steal and it not to get found out. So there’s lots of, you know, different ways, you know, that Jesus, you know, they ask when Jesus was there ministering, right? To like 20,000 people, 5,000 men, plus women and children, they said, “Shall we take 200 penny worth of bread?” That’s like, you know, that’s 200 days wages. So if a day’s wage is $200. Shall we take, you know, $40,000 and go buy food for 20,000 people? And it takes, even if you’re just buying the stuff to make lunch, it takes about two bucks a person, right? And so Jesus had some money, don’t think he didn’t have some money. You. But a lot of people fail to realize these things. And you know.

I like what you were bringing out how they followed the star. It was a long journey. They had a desire to worship Him, and they came with gifts. And I like what you brought out. It was gifts really for for the Savior. But you know, you have talked about this, I’ve heard other people mention it too, that it really provided the parents the money to raise the King of kings, the Savior of the world.

Right.

And we’ve been talking about this week, how we all have a very unique calling on our lives. And you’ve mentioned this more than once, that when God calls us to do something, there is provision to fulfill that. And we do have to step out in faith and believe Him.

Pastor Perdue Right.

And trust Him. And you know, we’ve talked about other stories too. Like, you know, Noah building the ark. He didn’t say, “Well, where’s the wood gonna come from?” I’m sure he just went out and chopped down a tree one at a time, and the wood was provided. So faith without works is dead. But you know, when we see all these amazing stories, and as we’re celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ. How the Wise Men came and they gave Him gifts.

Right.

And.

Gifts of gold, and frankincense, and myrrh. And that was really prophetic. Gold to honor Him as a king. Frankincense, right, for His burial as a man. And then. Or frankincense as a priest to worship. And then myrrh for His burial as a man. So Jesus was King of kings, right? And then He was the great High Priest. Jesus is our great High Priest today. And He was also a man. He came as the Savior of the world, to die, to take our sins on the cross.

So.

Yeah.

What a marvelous redemption that we have.

That’s really amazing. And then I love that not only did they present these gifts and they worshiped Him, one of the greatest things that we can do, and that you can do today is worship the Savior. Worship Him.

Pastor Perdue Yes.

And seek Him for yourself, and praise Him, and glorify His name and be grateful. And take the time today to tell Jesus thank you for everything that He has done for you. This is a joyous day. Don’t fall for that depression. That’s just from the devil. When we receive Jesus Christ, there is joy.

Amen.

That’s unspeakable. That’s joy that no one else can understand. And we can have that kind of peace and joy that Jesus says, He gives it to us. The world didn’t give it to us, and the world can’t take it away. So this is a day to rejoice.

Amen. And you know, you say, “Well, I don’t have a lot.” You, if you have Jesus, you have everything. If you don’t have Jesus, really, you don’t have anything. So, you know, remember the greatness of the gift of God’s Son, the gift of Jesus. You know, we’ve really received the greatest of all gifts, when we receive Jesus, when we receive eternal life, forgiveness for our sins. You know, when we receive right standing with God. What a marvelous gift, the gift of salvation.

We just wanna remind everybody, the Bible tells us, whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. We can say, Jesus, I love you. I ask you to come into my heart today. I receive you, thank you for saving me.

Amen.

And giving me a wonderful life. Lord, I praise you and rejoice in your birth today.

Amen. Amen, thank God today for Jesus. Friends, we’re so glad that you stayed with us. Again, we have hundreds of hours of teaching, downloadable video, downloadable audio, a full children’s curriculum, on our website, absolutely free. Blessings. Friends, I want to tell you about a great resource that we have available on our website, absolutely free of charge, for your children. It’s a two year children’s curriculum, teaching them who God is, who Christ is, who the Holy Spirit is, who they are, and many other promises of God, written by a professional curriculum writer. And I developed all the outlines for it. It will be great for your children and we made it free just for you. Blessings. Hi, ladies. I am so excited to have you personally join us for this year’s Rejoice Women’s Conference. I know that God has something amazing in store for you. I know that He has good plans for us. I hope to see you there, February 6th through 8th. Kathy Duplantis is our keynote speaker. My daughter-in-Law, Heather Perdue will be joining us, as well as, I’ve even asked my husband, Pastor Awesome Lawson, and he’ll also be ministering. It’s gonna be a great time. Look forward to seeing you there. Friends, I want to thank you for being with us today. It’s our pleasure to share with you the Word of God. We believe it changes lives, and because of that, we’re broadcasting all around the world. It costs me right now around $2 million a year, just for my staff, and paying for our broadcast costs. But if you wanna become a partner, and help us share the message all around the world, we would love to hear from you today.

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