Honor God’s Key to Success Part 4 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

Praise God! Friends, I am so glad that you’ve tuned in today. We are sharing about honor, God’s key to success. But we’re talking about another aspect of honor today, and that is the fact that God honors you. And if you’ll see yourself the way God sees you as a person of honor, you will move into honor. Stay tuned. Blessing. Friends, we’re so glad that you’re here today. We’re continuing to talk about honor. God has a system of honor, and if you honor God’s system of honor, God will honor you.

Amen. And God has actually created us for honor. I love this definition of honor. I think it’s good for us to understand what it means. It means to treat with great consideration, respect greatly, regard highly, to treat with deference and courtesy, to treat as valuable and precious, to esteem of the highest of great dignity. So God has created us for honor, and it’s actually instilled in us. We are to know that we’re valuable, that we’re to know that we’re to be honored, and also we’re to honor other people. We’re to honor God. You know, God, when he made Adam and Eve, when he created humanity, he created them for honor. It says that he created them in his image. You know, so one thing that enemy tries to do is try to strip away honor from you, like make you think that you don’t have purpose.

Lawson Right

That you don’t have meaning to your life, that you’re, you know, unvaluable.

Lawson Right.

That’s a lie from the enemy. You’re a person of great value. God loves you. He cares about you.

Lawson Amen.

He wants to honor you. You’re not here by accident. God planned for you to be here right now. You know, since the beginning of creation, God actually knew you.

Right, that’s what 1 Timothy 2, Paul talks about it-

He’s had a plan for you. And, you know, he’s actually looked forward to you being here right now, to seeing you, you know, breathe, walk around, interact here on the earth, make friends, mature, grow up, find your talents and your passions, to be a light for him. God’s actually very excited about you. He loves you, so you’re not here by accident. And the enemy, he tries to make you feel like you’re not worth anything.

You know, this is, David talked about this in Psalms 8, and he said when I consider the heavens and the moon and the stars and the mountains and the creation, what is man that you have, you know, that you take thought of him, that you’re so mindful of him. And he says he was created with glory and honor. He was made to have authority, have dominion. And a lot of people don’t see that aspect, especially in the church. Sometimes people get religious. We’ve been talking about honoring God, about honoring leaders in our life, honoring other family members, honoring people. But this is another aspect of, you know, really seeing yourself as a vessel of honor that God made you to be and that we were created for honor. You know, actually in 1 Samuel 2:30, God said, “Whoever honors me, I’m gonna honor.” So God will actually honor man. We were created for honor, and he’ll honor us if we honor him.

Yeah, I wanna read a scripture and say something really important. So listen to the scripture here in 2 Timothy 2. I’m gonna read verses 19 through 21. It says, “Nevertheless, the solid foundation of God stands having this seal, the Lord knows those who are his.” So God, if you’ve said yes to Jesus, you belong to him. He knows you. You’re sealed with the Holy Spirit. It says, “Let everyone who names the name of Christ depart from iniquity.” We’re to depart from iniquity or sin or lifestyles of sin because we belong to Jesus, because we’re not a vessel of dishonor, we’re a vessel of honor.

Lawson Right.

So one way the enemy tries to trip people up and get ’em to live in a lifestyle of sin, live just with these chains of iniquity, is by making them think that they were created for that, they were created for dishonor, but you weren’t created for that.

Lawson Amen.

It says in verse 20, “But in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honor and some for dishonor. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from the latter, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified and useful for the master, prepared for every good work.” So this is what I really want to say. If you’re listening to anything today, I really want this to take root in your heart, is that you are a vessel of honor, and when you understand that you’re a vessel of honor, there is great protection there. You know, for years, I actually taught beginning flute students how to play flute. And one of my students told me a story about a friend of hers, who was also a beginning, you know, band student, and she said her friend played the saxophone, and her friend left the saxophone in the driveway of their house.

Oh, Lord!

And their mom backed up over the saxophone with their Suburban. So I-

That hurts me.

I was getting my doctorate in music from Rice University. I had a very nice flute. My flute actually, for a high level professional flute, it’s at least $10,000. So my flute was worth over $10,000. But I was not gonna give this flute, this vessel of honor to a beginning level student. They play on like $300 flutes. And the reason I wouldn’t do that is because they don’t understand how to protect a vessel of honor.

Lawson Yes.

When you understand that you’re a vessel of honor, there is great protection there. You’re not gonna just get run over by the enemy. You’re not just gonna get smacked up and just destroyed by unnecessary things. So God wants you to realize that you’re a vessel of honor, that you’re sealed with his righteousness, you’re sealed with the Holy Spirit, that you’re called by the name of Jesus. The enemy tries to deceive you and make you think that you’re not valuable. And that’s because he just wants to run all over you. The enemy hates anything that God wants to honor.

Amen. You know, that’s powerful, Aaron. And we need to know, you know, the value of certain things. You know, I recently had somebody give me a very nice gift, and they say, “We’re happy to give it to you because we know that you know the value of it. And in giving it to you, we know that you will care for it.” You know, it’s so disappointing when somebody is given something, you know, personally, or given something in the ministry, and they don’t value what they’ve been given. And really, when you think about it, God has gifted, I believe, every person with gifts that have great value. But we need to value ourself the way that God values us. We need to value the gifts, the callings, the anointings, the different things that God gives us the way that God values them. And if we value them, we’re not gonna get involved in some things that would be a distraction, or take us out of that, or move us away from it.

And one thing I wanna say too about being a vessel of honor, God wants to honor you. And, likewise, the enemy wants to shame you. Shame is really the opposite of honor. And, you know, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. So we aren’t to live in constant condemnation, constant shame, constant guilt. We are set free from those things.

Lawson Yes!

We are vessels of honor. And the enemy wants to shame you. He wants to motivate you by shame, keep you ensnared in shame. And, you know, he wants to take away your value. He wants to take away your purpose, your dignity, your respect. He wants to destroy you.

Right, shame, Jesus not only took our sin, but he took our shame on the cross. And that scripture, Romans 8:1 that you just quoted, “There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.” That scripture is actually saying there’s no judgment against those who are in Christ Jesus. If you’re in Christ Jesus, there’s no judgment against you. Now, I know some of you are saying, but what about the end of that verse? Well, if you understand the flesh, there’s not only this worldly, ungodly flesh, there’s also flesh when you’re trying to trust yourself instead of Jesus. But so if you put your, if you’re born again, there’s no condemnation to you. And Jesus took all sin, he took all judgment, he took all shame on the cross. You know, the Bible actually says that Satan is the accuser of the brethren. And in Revelation 12:10, it says that the accuser of the brethren has been cast down. And so you don’t wanna accept shame, condemnation, guilt, all these things that come from the enemy, because that’s really a trap to try to keep you in a place that’s not right.

And I wanna say this too, just going along about shame, you know, it’s incredibly dangerous because it comes from the enemy, and it leads down his dark path. Without honor, the human spirit is broken.

Lawson Yes!

No one can enjoy living in shame. You know, Jesus came to give us the abundant life.

Lawson Yes.

He said in John 10:10 that “The thief comes to steal, to kill, to destroy, but I’ve come that you might have life and have it more abundant.” No one can have that abundant life living in shame. They’re gonna constantly feel defeated and beat up. I read this quote of just some practical psychologist. They had this to say. They said, “Shame is at the root of all self-defeating habits and addictions.”

Yes.

“Sometimes the addiction surfaces first, and sometimes the shame. Wherever you find one, you will find the other. Shame and compulsive behavior always go together.”

Now, I recently talked to a person, I’ve known ’em for years, but their spouse has been dealing with a lot of shame. And their spouse has dealt with addiction problems. But this person really focuses a lot on the sin, and on the, and I told him, quit focusing on this addiction. Quit focusing because what he’s doing, he’s actually bringing them into condemnation to where they don’t feel loved, right? And that actually adds to the addiction. It actually makes it worse. Now, you can’t blame your addiction on someone else.

But at the same point in time, I don’t believe God focuses on our sin. God doesn’t look at our sin. He doesn’t look at our fault. He doesn’t look at our failure. God sees us through the blood of Jesus. There’s actually a scripture in Ephesians 1:6 that says, you know, “To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he made us accepted in the beloved.” And when you look at that term in the Greek, “to the praise of the glory of his grace,” it means this in the Greek, when God sees you, he sees you in your full potential through the grace of Christ. And it says, wherein that word means to come to a fixed position of rest in the grace of God, wherein he makes us accepted in the beloved, or he made us accepted in the beloved.

Basically, God sees every believer in your full potential in Christ, and then he looks at you and he deals with you based on your full potential through the grace of Jesus Christ. And when you begin to understand that, that just elevates you. You understand, if God’s accepted me, if Jesus accepts me, then it really doesn’t matter what anybody else says. And that has really personally helped me. And I believe that’ll personally help those are watching.

Yeah, I heard a great minister, who really focuses on grace, has a great revelation of grace, just talking about someone he was ministering to who was trying to overcome an addiction. I think it was actually an addiction to smoking marijuana. And he said, “Every time you roll a joint and smoke it, you are to say this. You are to say, I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.” So when that person was doing it, they felt crummy. They felt like a, you know, just a schmuck. But he said, “You are to confess who you are in Christ Jesus.”

And religious people don’t understand that. But if you really understand the heart of it, if you, the thing is-

That person was set free though.

Yeah, if you understand the heart of that, the heart of that is if you see yourself the way God sees you, and we could talk more about this after the break, it’ll help you move into what God has for you. And that’s what it did for ’em. It set them free.

So stay tuned. You are a vessel of honor. You are create, you’re a son, you’re a daughter of God. He has great plans for you. Stay tuned. We’ll be right back after this break.

Friends, I hope you’ve been enjoying this teaching. I certainly have enjoyed teaching with my son Aaron, from his notes on honor that he taught in our youth. But I’m telling you, this is good for everybody in the body of Christ. And this is some of the greatest teaching, really, from my son, Aaron, that I’ve ever heard on the subject of honor. So you can download this free of charge on our website. Blessings.

Past, present, and future tense sin were paid for on the cross by the blood! There is no other payment that needs to be paid for your forgiveness as far as God is concerned! He got over your sin at the cross, and you need to let it go! You need to get over it! That is the gospel.

Praise the Lord. Friends, I’m so glad that you stayed with us. Aaron just used this example that a lot of people are really, really challenged with. But if you understand that heart of the gospel and how that sets people free, when they quit seeing themselves as this old sinner, as this old schmuck, and they start seeing themselves the way God sees them, it helps them to move out of darkness into the light. And a couple of scriptures really go with that. One of ’em is Ephesians 5:8. It says, “You were darkness, but now you are children of the light. Walk as children of the light.” If you begin to understand who God made you, righteous, sanctified, justified, truly holy in the spiritual realm, it’ll help you walk into that. You were darkness, but now you are. This is who you are. Light in the Lord, walk as children of the light. So you gotta understand who you are. Another scripture that really goes with this is Colossians 1:12-14. Verse 12 says, in another translation, that God qualifies us, or qualified us for his best blessings in Christ. Then it says in verse 13 that we have, past tense, “Been delivered from the authority, from the dominion of darkness.” And we have been translated, and this fits right into your point, Aaron, we’ve been translated into the kingdom of his dear son, or the sons of his love. It says this in verse 14, in whom? “In Christ, we have redemption.” We already have it. And forgiveness is part of redemption. “In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins.” And Ephesians 1:7 adds, “According to the riches,” according to the ultimate wealth of his grace, we’ve already been forgiven. We’re already, right, redeemed. And part of redemption is forgiveness. So you were forgiven 2,000 years ago at the cross if you really understand the gospel. But when you believe that, you can receive it. So saying, “I am the righteousness of God,” is identifying with who God says you are, and that helps you move into what God has for you. Go ahead and share your point.

Yeah, and, you know, Jesus is in the transformation business. You know, he encountered a lot of people that were just living in shame. You know, it might be from their illness, it might be from their poverty, might be from their sin.

Lawson Right.

He encountered a lot of, you know, even the Samaritan woman at the well. And she came to the well in the middle of the day because she lived in a lifestyle of shame. And Jesus came and spoke to her, and, you know, told her, you know, read her mail. He said, “You’ve been married five times. The man you’re with now is your husband.” She was trapped in shame. But I have-

And Jesus transforms her, and she goes that day and wins her whole city to Christ. I’m sure his disciples were freaking out. They actually were freaking out a little bit.

And, man, talk about a just radical transformation from shame into freedom. And, you know, don’t make decisions based upon shame. Years ago, someone very, very close to me, you know, someone reached out from their past wanting to talk to them, but they were gonna want to bring up their mistakes and their shame. I said, don’t even reply. That is in the past. Let it be in the past. You’re a new person. You know, this is, like don’t even reply. Don’t even go back there.

Lawson Yes!

And don’t be a motivator manipulated by shame.

Lawson Yes.

By feelings of shame.

Lawson No, absolutely.

You know, if you’ve moved on from something, if you’ve repented from something, you don’t need to go back there anymore.

Amen. Don’t let people-

And, you know, the enemy, the enemy is the accuser of the brethren. But Jesus actually is our advocate. The Holy Spirit is our advocate. He’s our man. In the spiritual kingdom, he’s our lawyer. Lawyers are expensive.

Yes!

If you’ve had to hire lawyers, a good lawyer, good lawyers, man, they rake in the dough. They are expensive. And Jesus Christ is our advocate. He’s our lawyer in the courts of heaven. So you don’t need to be manipulated by shame, by guilt. You need to know who you are in Christ Jesus. And I love that you’re sharing about that. This is just a powerful scripture I shared with our youth. And you mentioned that I did this entire series on “Honor: God’s kKey to Success” for the youth. And I just love these verses in 1 Peter 2. I wanna start in verse six. It says, “Therefore, it is also contained in the scripture. Behold, I lay in Zion, a chief cornerstone, elect precious, and he who believes on him will by no means be put to shame.”

Lawson Amen.

You know, I see this young generation, you know, young, you know, teenagers and young adults as a chosen generation, and the enemy wants to trap people in shame. I’ve read statistics on this young generation, what the enemy is trying to do with them, and it’s horrific. He is trying to trap them in shame and just shameful types of things. But, man, if you are in Christ Jesus, you will be no means put to shame. Verse nine says this. “You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people.” I think the King James says, “peculiar people.”

Lawson Yes!

Peculiar means you’re gonna stand out. You’re gonna be different. You’re gonna not fit in.

You’re like one of a kind. There’s no one like you. You know, years ago when we lived in Kit Carson, you know, mom lost her wedding ring. And it’s the wedding ring that I bought when we got married. I was 19, she was 20 when we got married. I bought it when we were both 19 and got engaged, and, you know. You know, it was this little bitty diamond. I think we spent $300 on the whole ring and diamond and everything. And, you know, I said, “Honey.” By then, I’d made some money. You know, I said, “Honey, I’ll buy you a nice ring. I’ll buy you a new diamond. Don’t worry about it.” She’s like, “No, I want that one.” I’m like, “Why?” She’s like, “Because that’s the one that you bought for me when we got engaged.” And, you know, it meant so much to her. And then years later, actually, we were going to a store that buys and sells diamonds here in Springs at that time, and our son, Andrew, was gonna get married and buy a set for his wife. He’s like, “Listen, they trade the nicest diamonds, the best prices in the US.” So we went to this, and they would buy and sell different things. But we went in there, and while we were in there, a young man came and sold the 1.05 karat beautiful diamond for $300. I let everybody else go out after Andrew ordered his ring and everything. I let mom. I said, “You guys go on out.” I talked to the store owner. I said, “Listen, it’s getting ready to be my 25th wedding anniversary. And I want to buy that diamond.” He said, “Well, I have to keep it for 30 days. I know the young man that sold it. I know it’s not stolen. But I can’t sell it for 30 days, but I’ll let you buy it.” So what he did for me, he took mom’s little bitty diamond, and he put it in a white gold cross. He gave her the cross and a white gold chain. He let her pick whatever she wanted. It was a little bitty cross. And he set that in there, put a new setting, and then he set this 1.05 carat diamond. He got a new setting and had it set in there. And he did it all for $300. He just wanted to bless us. And it was so amazing. But, you know, that meant so much to mom. She still got it. And it wasn’t like, that diamond probably isn’t worth $25, $30 to sell. But it was what it meant to her because of the value of it. And God values us above anything. Actually, Aaron, when you look at this scripture in verse six, you know, God’s taken the shame of everyone. You study Romans 10, says that. When Jesus died on the cross, he took all of our shame. But when you look at verse nine, this is our new identity in Christ. This is every born again believer. I’m so happy that you’re teaching this to the young people. I believe every person in the body of Christ needs to know this. “You are a chosen generation,” you know, “A royal priesthood.” One translation says, “You are a royal race.” We’re a royal race. “You’re a holy nation.” You know, you’re holy, you’re set apart. “There’s none like you, a peculiar people.” My own special people. There’s none like you. God loves his people. Jews, God loves Israel, And God loves the church. God loves people, all people. He says, “I’ve called you that you should show forth the praises of him.” When you know who God called you to be, when you know how God values you and what God thinks of you, it causes you to wanna praise him. “Who called you out of darkness, into his amazing, into his marvelous light.” You’ve been called out of darkness. You’ve been called into light. You know, Jesus said, “I am the light of the world.” Then he said, “You’re the light of the world.” You gotta see yourself the way God sees you, the way Jesus sees you, as what Jesus did for you. You gotta see yourself as a new creation in Christ. Then you can move into what God has for you. Go ahead.

I love that. I’ll share my thoughts for tomorrow’s broadcast. We’re gonna talk about honor in relationships, specifically with parents, with family, with husband and wives. I like that you brought up just how you honored Mom by getting this ring. I’ll mention this really quickly, but we’ll explain it more tomorrow. But 1 Peter 3:7 says, “Husbands likewise dwell with them,” with your wives, “with understanding.” And this is just talking about just how to have honor in your own house, in your marriage. And, you know, marriage is one of the first things that God gave to mankind. And it’s also one of the main things that the enemy tries to attack. It says, “Husbands dwell with them with understanding.” So that means you don’t have to try to understand everything and try to fix everything. It just means be understanding, be kind. The second phrase here is super important. It says, “Giving honor to the wife.” And there’s several scriptures that talk about giving honor to people. And in the Greek, that word for honor means to set a value to. So it says that you’re actually to give honor, to increase something’s value.

Lawson Yes.

You know, to increase your spouse’s value, to increase your wife’s value. That means like she might not feel that important, that valuable, but you’re to actually see the potential in her and draw it out, to make her more important, more powerful. You are to empower. You’re to bring, you’re to see the potential. You know, years ago I started a business buying and selling high-end watches, but I try to find things that are selling cheap, that are undervalued.

Lawson Right.

And I’ll buy them cheap, and I’ll increase the value, I’ll give value to it. I’ll shine it up, I’ll fix it up, and I’ll sell it for double the price.

Right, well, you’ll put a new crown on it-

Yeah, and that’s how you increase the value.

You have it serviced, you have it, you know, on these-

But spiritually, this is how we’re to do this in relationships. If you’re gonna honor someone, give honor to them. Honor means to set a value to. To give honor means you’re gonna increase their value. So people that are close to you, your pastors, your spouse, your family members, people in your life, your children, you can honor your children.

Lawson right.

You can honor people at church. The way you do this is to increase their value, to make their life better, to make them feel like they’re more important, to make them realize how important they are right, to treat them like God treats them.

Lawson Right. Amen.

So I’m so glad you’ve joined us today. This is such a powerful series. Be sure to stay tuned. You can go to our website, find this entire teaching. If you need prayer, give us a call. We’d be happy to pray for you. God loves you. See you again soon.

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