One Message – Lawson Perdue

Praise the Lord, friends, and welcome to the broadcast. You know, I love the word of God. David said, “Oh, how I love Your word. It is my meditation all the day.” I’ve been meditating the word of God for years. But if I only had one message to share with you, I’m going to share that today. So, you want to tell your friends and open your heart, and receive the good Word of God today. Blessings. I am gonna start with this scripture in Hebrews 11, verse six, a message of faith. “Without faith, it is impossible to please God. For he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” I like it in the message, the message says, “For he who comes to God must believe both that He is and that He rewards.” Do you believe both that God is, and do you believe secondly that God rewards those who diligently seek Him? Do you believe that God is a good God? I’m really gonna talk about some of the foundations tonight of our faith. If I only had one message, what would I share? The first thing that I would share is this, God is a good God and He has an amazing plan for your life. You need to know that God is a good God. You need to know that not only is God a good God, but He loves you and He has an amazing plan for your life. I love this verse in James Chapter 1, verse 17. It says, “Every good and every perfect gift comes down from above from the Father of Light with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” If it is not good and it is not perfect, it could not come from God, because God only gives good and perfect things. God is a good God and He loves you. If you have anything good in your life, it came from God. The devil is evil and he wants to destroy you. Jesus put it so simply in John Chapter 10 and verse 10, He said, “It is the thief that comes to steal, to kill, and to destroy, but I have come to give you life, and that life more abundantly, that life rich, that life full, that life extravagant.” Jesus wants to give you an abundant life. He wants to give you a good life. The good life comes from God. He goes on and says in verse 11, “I am the good shepherd, and the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.” So, if I only had one message, the first thing I would tell you is God is a good God, He loves you and He has an amazing plan for your life. I love Jeremiah 29:11. I know you’ve all heard it, but it’s still good. God says, “I know the thoughts that I think toward you. Thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a hope and an expectation.” God wants to give you hope. God wants to give you positive expectation for your life. The first thing that happened to me when I got involved in the full Gospel was I began to understand that God had good things that are available to us. There is a Bible full of promises and we can believe ’em. Hallelujah. So, point number one, God is a good God. He loves you and He has a good plan for your life. God’s plan for you is better than your plan for you any day of the week. The second thing that I would tell people is that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that He came to this Earth, He was born of a virgin, He is God manifest in the flesh. He lived a sinless, holy, perfect, pure life. He never sinned. Hallelujah. He worked miracles. He healed the sick. He cast out devils. He raised the dead. Praise God. He fed the hungry. Man, Jesus did good things, didn’t He? Praise God. He calmed the storms. Jesus was Lord. In heaven, He was in the beginning with the Father, creating all things, but then He was born of a virgin. When He lived life on earth, He lived holy, He lived sinless, He lived perfect, He lived pure, He never sinned, but Christ died for our sins. I love what Paul says in 1 Corinthians Chapter 15. He said, “I’m gonna preach to the Gospel to you that Christ died for our sins. That He was buried, that He was raised again the third day.” So, I would tell you, Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He was in the beginning with the Father, creating all things. He was born of a virgin. He lived on this earth. He lives sinless. He lives holy. He lived perfect. He lived pure. Jesus operated in miracles. He healed the sick, cast out devils, raised the dead, was absolutely Lord on earth. But then Jesus died on the cross for our sins and God raised Jesus from the dead on the third day and made Him Lord. Hallelujah. Jesus ascended into heaven and sent the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ is coming again. You know, Paul said, “If we don’t have this hope,” in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 19, “The hope of the resurrection, we are of all men most miserable.” But thank God, we got a hope that goes beyond this life. We got a hope that goes beyond the grave. I tell people, “Listen, if I die before Jesus comes, don’t come cry over that hole in the ground because I’m not there.” Hallelujah. Paul said, “To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.” I’m so glad that we have this hope in Christ. But not only did He die for our sins and God raised Him from the dead, God made Him Lord. Jesus Christ is Lord. He’s Lord of heaven, creating all things. He was Lord of earth when He walked on the earth, and then He’s Lord of the grave. When Jesus went to the grave because He had no sin, He spoiled principalities, He spoiled powers. “He made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it,” Colossians says. Hallelujah. Colossians Chapter 2 and verse 15. Jesus said this in Revelation Chapter 1 and verse 18. He said, “I am he who lives and was dead. Behold, I’m alive forever more, amen. And I have the keys of hell and death.” I am here to tell you, the devil is not who he used to be. The devil doesn’t have the keys to hell. The devil doesn’t have the keys to the grave. Jesus is Lord, Lord of heaven, Lord of earth, and Lord of the grave. Philippians Chapter 2 says that, “Because Jesus humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross, that God has highly exalted Him and given Him a name. At that name, every knee should bow and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father.” I’m so glad that God is a good God, and God loved me, and God loves us, and God has a good plan for our life. But that plan is established in our life when we believe on Jesus Christ as the Son of God, our Savior, our Lord, and our coming King. I love what John recording Jesus said in John Chapter 3, verse 16, you all know it so well. “For God so loved the world that He gave His own begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but should have everlasting life, eternal life.” Not only eternal in time, but eternal in quality and consistency. We have the life of God on the inside of us, every one of us who believe on Jesus. He goes on and says in verse 17 of John Chapter 3, “For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” I’m so glad that we can be saved by getting to know Jesus. Isn’t that good news? Praise the Lord. I love what Paul says in Romans Chapter 10. He’s preached everything in Romans, up to Romans Chapter 10, and he’s really bringing it all together, and he’s talking about that the Gospel is the revelation of righteousness. He said the Gentiles needed it, they were caught up in philosophy, idolatry, lust, all kinds of ungodliness. He says the Jews needed it in Chapter 2, they were caught up in legalism and religion, and they were caught up in that. But he says they made their boast in the law, but through breaking the law, they dishonored God. The Jews needed righteousness. He said in Romans Chapter 3, “There’s none righteous, no, not one.” Everybody needed righteousness. But God gave us righteousness in the person of Jesus. And now He sent Jesus that He might be the justifier of Him who believes in Jesus. When you believe in Jesus, you’re justified, everybody who believes. It doesn’t matter how much you sin, how little you sin, we all sin. We’ve all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Nobody can boast, boasting has been excluded by what law? He says, “The law of faith.” So, it tells us how we receive righteousness in Romans Chapter 4. He says, “It’s by faith in the grace of God.” He tells us in Romans Chapter 5 that by one man’s sin enter the world and death by sin even so now by the righteousness of one, Jesus.” Hallelujah. We can all receive grace, and through the abundance of grace, the gift of righteousness, and we can reign in life through one Jesus Christ. I’m here to tell you that you don’t have to be under, you don’t have to be under the dominion of the devil. You don’t have to be under the dominion of sin. You don’t have to be under the power of sin or the results of sin. You can reign in life. The Amplified says in verse 17 that we can reign in life as kings. We leave the reign of sin and death when we believe on Jesus, and we come into the reign of grace and righteousness. And now as the righteous redeemed children of the Almighty God, “Sin,” Paul says in Romans Chapter 6, “Has no more dominion over us.” Praise God, we’re dead to sin, we’re free from sin, we have authority over sin. And sin is stupid, it’ll kill you, but you don’t have to let sin rule in your life anymore. You can let the grace of God and the righteousness of God rule in your life. I love what he says in Romans Chapter 7. He said, “Just like we died to sin,” in Romans Chapter 7, he said, “We died to legalism, we died to the law, we died to works, and we’re alive to God. We’ve been delivered from the law now that we can serve Jesus.” How many of you are glad we can serve Him who’s been raised from the dead? So, we’re dead to sin, we’re dead to the law, we’re dead to legalism, but now we’re alive to God in Christ. And he really tells us the answer in Romans Chapter 8 when he says this, “There is now no more judgment against those who are in Christ Jesus.” You see, in your spirit, you’re either a child of God or you’re a child of the devil. You are either in Christ Jesus or you’re outside of Christ Jesus. Paul explains it this way in 2 Corinthians Chapter 5, in verse 17, he says, “Therefore, if any person be in Christ, the same has become a new creation. All things are passed away and all things are of God. All things have become new and all things are of God.” He says in verse 21, “For God made Him, Jesus, to be sin, or to be a sin offering for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.” I’m so glad that God gave us Jesus, that in Acts, the apostle said, “There’s only one name given under heaven whereby men must be saved, the name of Jesus.” Jesus is the only one who was God, who became a man, who lived holy and perfect and pure, and died on the cross and took our sin and paid for ’em and conquered the devil and rose from the dead. And then what’d He do? He sent the Holy Spirit. Hallelujah. Paul goes on, I didn’t finish that up, in Romans Chapter 10, he gets it all together and he says, “This is what it’s about, guys. Jesus already came from heaven. He already died on the cross. The word is near you now. It’s in your heart and in your mouth, the word of faith that we preach,” he says in verse eight. What he’s saying is God put the ball in your court through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. He already did all the work, now all you gotta do is believe it to receive it. So, if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus in verse nine, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved, for with the heart, man believes under righteousness. How did you receive righteousness? A right standing with God. You believed the Gospel. You believed on Jesus, and when you did that, you went from the reign of sin and death, you went to the reign of grace and righteousness. It’s all by faith in Jesus. He says, “For with the heart, man believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is made.” I better watch where I’m walking. Unto salvation. Hallelujah. So, why do I confess Jesus is Lord? Friends, I certainly hope that you’ve been enjoying the word of God today. Did you know we have a website, and on our website we have hundreds of hours of free teaching, downloadable audio, downloadable video, a free children’s curriculum, and soon to come a free youth curriculum, plus much more on our website at Charis Christian Center? Check it out. Sometimes, you think, “Well, now that I’m believing God, I’m not gonna have these difficulties, I’m not gonna have these problems.” He said, immediately, after the light turned on. When the word is sown in their heart, the enemy comes to steal the word. Satan is an enemy of the word. Remain bold in your confession of faith. Why do we confess Jesus is Lord? We confess Jesus is Lord because God made Jesus Lord, when He raised Him from the dead and we heard the Gospel and believed it. See, you confessing Jesus is Lord doesn’t make Him Lord, God made Him Lord when He raised Him from the dead. But when you hear the Gospel and believe it, you confess it. I can’t help but say Jesus is Lord. How many of you are glad Jesus is our Lord? Now, the next thing that I would tell you, number one, God is a good God. He loves you. He has an amazing plan for your life. The second thing, Jesus is the Son of God, He died for our sins. God raised Him from the dead and made Him Lord. And Jesus is the only way that you can receive eternal life, the very life and nature of God Himself. The third thing I would say is this, the Holy Spirit is our counselor, He’s our comforter, He’s our advocate, and He’s our guide, and we need the Holy Spirit’s help in life. You know, I’m glad that we don’t have to do life without the Holy Spirit. You know, Jesus talks about that over and over. We can go over here and look at these scriptures. But in John 14, he says this in John 14, verse 26, he says, “The comforter, the Paraclete, the one called alongside your helper, your advocate, your intercessor, your aide, your assistant, the one who’s pleading your case,” I’m glad I got to plead my case. How many of you are glad you got somebody greater than yourself to plead your case? The Holy Spirit will plead your case. Hallelujah. I remember years ago when we pastored in Kit Carson, we went out to the country to visit some people and they had this guy and he was really ornery, and he kind of got in a little argument with Barbara and she just stayed in there. But I said, “Man, you ain’t gonna win with that guy.” Just some people you just let go, but we got somebody that pleads our case better than any attorney here on the earth, and He’s called the Holy Spirit. He is called the Holy Ghost. Oh, there’s victory in Jesus and you don’t just have to wait to heaven to get it. You can get some of it right here and right now, but he says, “The comforter,” in John 14:6, “Who is the Holy Ghost, to the Father will send in mind.” See that? You got the Holy Spirit, then you got the Father, and then you got Jesus right there in verse 26. He will teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatever I’ve said to you.” He says in John 15, verse 26, but when the Comforter has come, whom I will send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of me, the Holy Spirit.” Number one thing He’s gonna do is bring what Jesus said. He’s gonna make the word come alive to you. He’s gonna bring what Jesus said to your remembrance. Number two, He’s gonna testify Jesus. If He doesn’t testify Jesus, you don’t need much to do with Him. Amen. But that’s what the Holy Spirit does. Now, in Chapter 16, verse seven, I love this, and we’re gonna read a few verses beginning in verse seven. “Nevertheless,” Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, it’s very necessary for you that I go away, because if I don’t go away, the Holy Spirit will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send Him to you.” You know, when Jesus was here on the earth, the devil was dealing with one person in one place that was full of the Holy Spirit. But after Jesus died on the cross and went to the grave and conquered the devil, and God raised Him from the dead, when the Holy Spirit was sent on the Day of Pentecost, there were 3,120 people that were full of the Holy Spirit. The devil was dealing with one person in one place at one time, and now on the first day the church was born, there were 3,120 people going everywhere with the power of God. 1 Corinthians two says, “If the princes of this world would’ve known what would happen when they crucified the Lord of Glory, they never would’ve done it.” Oh, he says, “If I don’t go away, then the Comforter won’t come to you. When he’s come, he’s gonna reprove or convict the world of sin and of righteousness, and of judge.” I don’t have to convict anybody of sin. I’m so glad we got the Holy Spirit. But He says, “Of sin,” why? “Because they don’t believe on me.” The greatest sin’s not believing on Jesus, because if you don’t believe on Jesus, He can’t do anything about the other sin in your life. “Of righteousness, because I go unto my Father.” The Holy Spirit convicts us that Jesus is the righteousness of God and that Jesus made righteousness available to every person when He ascended into heaven and put His blood in the throne room of heaven. I’m glad the blood of Jesus cries from the throne room of heaven, forgiven, redeemed, blessed. How many of you are glad? Hallelujah. And he says, “Of judgment,” why? Because the prince of this world, Satan, has already been judged. Satan is not who he used to be. How many of you are glad he’s not who he used to be? Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning.” But you don’t have to rejoice in that, rejoice because your name is in the Lamb’s book of life. Your name’s written in heaven. Rejoice because you have a relationship with God, because it’s a relationship with God that makes that work. But then He goes on and says this, I got a lot of things. He’s talking to His disciples to tell you, “But you can’t bear them, you can’t understand ’em. However, when the Spirit of Truth has come, He is gonna guide you into all truth.” I was preaching a message one time. I said, “The Holy Ghost is like a seeing eye dog.” When you don’t see things in the Spirit, but the Holy Ghost says, “Stop here, turn here, go here.” Praise the Lord. The Holy Spirit will direct you. I thank God we get directions from the Holy Spirit. He’ll guide us into the truth. He says, “For He will not speak of Himself, but whatever He hears, He will speak and he will show you things.” I thank God the Holy Spirit shows us things to come. Amazing. It’s literally amazing. “He will glorify me,” He says in verse 14, “For He will receive of mine and show it unto you.” So, the Holy Spirit guides us into truth, the Holy Spirit shows us things to come, and the Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus. How many of you are glad for the present day ministry of the Holy Spirit? I love what Jesus said in Acts Chapter 1, verse eight, when His disciples were talking to Him after His resurrection, they were saying, “Lord, when are you gonna set up Your kingdom?” He said, “That’s not in my power, but here’s what you need to know.” How many of you know you need to know what you need to know? You’re gonna receive power. Dunamis, special, wonderful, miracle-working power, the same power that Jesus had. You’re gonna receive power after the Holy Ghost comes on you, and you’re gonna be witnesses unto me. If your life doesn’t witness to Jesus, it’s not gonna witness to very many people all. In Jerusalem, right here in your hometown. in Judea, right down the road a little bit, and all around the world. If it doesn’t work at home, don’t export it. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Jesus said, “Start right where you’re at.” Amen. Praise God. Glory to God. I’ve witnessed to my neighbor for 13 years and he finally gave his life to Jesus, and then he came to church. That’s a miracle. Hallelujah. Glory to God. The one before that, we witnessed to him seven or eight years, we lived there 10. Then he asked me to watch his dog ’cause he was going in the hospital and he went in to have a little surgery and never came out. Went into a coma, then I went in the hospital. They left him there to die like a month later. When I went in the hospital, he came out of the coma and I talked to him about Jesus. I said, “Ken, do you believe that Jesus is the Son of God?” “Yes.” I said, “Do you believe that he died for your sins and is coming?” “Yes.” I believe I’m gonna see Ken in heaven. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Then I walked out of the room and he went to sleep and went home to be with Jesus just a few days later. Wow, that’s really close. You don’t wanna wait that long. Amen. You know, there’s a parable in the Bible about a person that had an orchard and he called these people to work, and he called the some at morning and 8:00 AM, put ’em to work and said, “You can get a penny a day.” That was the going wage in the day. Then he called some people at noon and said, “Work the rest of the day, I’ll give you a penny.” And he gave them a penny, called some people at the last hour of the day and said, “You work the rest of the day, I give you a penny.” Then he called the last ones first and he gave them their penny and then he called the middle ones and gave them their penny, and then he called the ones that came to work first and some people complained. These people have been working all day and they got the same thing as the people who get, but you know what? You don’t get it ’cause what you did anyway, it’s a grace deal. Everybody say grace deal.

Audience Grace deal.

So, if I could tell you just one message, I’d tell you God is a good God. He loves you, He has an amazing plan for your life. I’d tell you, Jesus is the Son of God. He died for our sins. God raised Him from the dead and made Him Lord, and He is the only way to eternal life. And Jesus, after He ascended into heaven, sent the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is our Helper. We need the Holy Spirit’s help in life. Hey, everyone, I want you to mark your calendar for Family Camp Meeting. We’re gonna have great teaching with Mark Hankins and Pastor Max Cornell. Great worship with Philip Renner sharing the grace of Jesus all around the globe, and we’re gonna have great children’s meetings, great youth meetings, something for the entire family right here at Charis Christian Center in Colorado Springs. We wanna see you here. Blessings. Friends, it’s great to have you with us today, and I want to invite you to attend services with us at Charis Christian Center in Colorado Springs. The atmosphere is amazing. Recently, in one service, I had people from 10 Nations in several states. They watch us on a regular basis online and they said, “This is amazing.” So if you can’t come physically, come and attend online at Charis Christian Center or YouTube. Blessings. Friends, in the last few months, we have heard from over 50 nations in the world. People from all around the world are downloading our curriculum, our syllabus, our downloadable audio and downloadable video teachings, our confession cards, and all of these great teaching materials, and you can go receive it too at CharisChristianCenter.com. Receive these resources and be blessed.

Presenter 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.”