1st John – Part 1 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Friends, we’re beginning a brand new series today. We’re gonna be sharing from First John, lessons we learn as we walk with God. And today specifically, we’re gonna talk about where fullness of joy comes from. There’s only one place that fullness of joy comes from. It doesn’t come from more money. It doesn’t come from a better relationship with people. It doesn’t come from a greater position. So stay tuned and you’re gonna be blessed. Friends, it’s great to have you with us today. I am so glad to have Aaron and we’re sharing on the book of First John. And when we go into First John, we really see lessons that we learn as we walk with God. John the Apostle, the beloved, wrote this. He wrote it about 90 AD. So this is nearly 60 years after he walked with Jesus on the earth, about 57 years after the crucifixion. So he’s one of Jesus’ closest disciples and he has a great revelation of the love of God. And we’ll be talking about that. And so lessons we learn as we walk with God are our relationship with God. It’s so important that we understand our relationship with God.

 

  And it’s really important to understand that God loves you.

 

  Yes.

 

  That’s such an important message, that’s so important for every single believer to have a revelation of how much God loves you. You know, we come to God through faith. And faith works by love. You know, there’s a lot of ministers actually that don’t really understand how important it is to know that God loves you.

 

  Yes.

 

  You know, and man, it’s just so important for every believer to understand how much God loves you, how much you’re valued, what God did for you to be in relationship with you. You know, everything with God, it all comes down to relationship.

 

  Amen.

 

  And his love is so tremendous, so transforming, so powerful.

 

  Absolutely.

 

  You know, we just have to keep coming back to it. I think that’s why John, you know, it was impossible for people to kill him, to get rid of him, just ’cause he was just full of God’s love, and really he called himself the beloved. He knew that he was the one that Jesus loved.

 

  Yes.

 

  His identity was just wrapped up in God’s love for him. And it made him just, you know, undefeatable, unconquerable, unboilable. Even so, man, God’s love’ll change your life.

 

  Amen. It will. And I thank God, actually, Aaron, that you have a revelation of love of God. When you first went to Pittsburgh and were attending college, mom and I went out there with you. We went to a couple of different churches, but we really, one of them, you know, we liked, but it was about 28 miles away and you didn’t have a car, so you were relying on other students to take you there. And you’re used to going to church every Sunday, and unless you’re dead, and then we take you to church and raise you from the dead. But no, you were raised, that’s how you were raised. And so these students would only go about half the Sundays, and so you needed to find another church. And we hadn’t met a person at this church actually that was the dean of admissions, at Carnegie Mellon University where you were going. And so you went and talked to him, asked him where to go, and you went to this kind of secret sensitive church where he sent you, a full gospel church. But you went there for five Sundays, and I think four out of the five Sundays you called me and you were frustrated. And one Sunday they, you were there, you heard this person who I knew of, and I knew about this person, I knew what they taught. And you called me and you were just really upset Sunday afternoon and said, “Hey, this is what this person’s teaching, they’re teaching that the fear of God will keep you outta sin, but the love of God won’t keep you outta sin.” And you said, dad, that is absolutely wrong, because you’re my dad and you love me, because you love me, I respect you. And he said, “I want do what you want to do.” So you said, “Hey, the fear of God grows outta the love of God, therefore, the love of God, we will keep you outta sin.” And that’s what John’s talking about. And I said, Aaron, that is exactly right. I remember how elated I was, because here you were 19 years old and you had really had a revelation of the grace of God. You had a revelation of the true gospel. And I didn’t get a revelation of the true gospel till I was 30 years old. And I’d been pastoring for four years. And there’s a lot of pastors that don’t have a revelation of love of God. But I remember I shared this scripture with you, from First John, chapter five, verse three. And it says, “This is the love of God that we keep his commandments and his commandments are not grievous.” And you know, a lot of people, when they read First John, they get spiritual dyslexia and they start thinking, well, if I keep the commandments I love God. That is not what that’s saying. What that’s saying is, if you love God, you’re gonna keep the commandments. In other words, it’s the fruit of the relationship, not the root of the relationship. And so we’re gonna get some great truth. And I think John has this revelation, just like you’re saying, of the love of God. You get a revelation, the love of God, it’ll transform your life. You’ll live 10 times better with 10% of the effort when you know it’s Jesus and not you. Praise God and you’re not trying to perform to please God. The fact is Jesus pleases God and Jesus lives in you. And so therefore, if you’re born of God, you please God. Faith in Jesus, faith in God is what pleases God.

 

  And I just love going through First John too, because some of the things John was addressing, communicating to churches at the time, they’re things that we’re still dealing with today. You know, the spirit of antichrist.

 

  Right.

 

  And it’s very prevalent on the earth today. But we have hope that Jesus is coming again. We don’t have to be deceived. You know, we have an anointing. We have the spirit of Christ in us that leads us, that teaches us, that guides us. But we don’t have to fall for that spirit of antichrist that’s in the world today.

 

  Amen. So when you think about that, and that’s John’s really written, you know, with that focus, there was a spirit of antichrist. I know recently I made a statement in our service that if it wasn’t for the church here in America, the spirit of antichrist would take over. You know, there was a Jewish girl won a major swimming competition recently, and the people boot her, you know what, we’re right back to 1936 with Adolf Hitler. And in 1936 at the Olympics, Jesse Owens won, you know, the a hundred meter in a number of races. And Hitler had this, you know, thing about the aryan race, and he just blew ’em all out of the water. But we’re right back to that. And if it wasn’t for the church, the church is the salt of the earth and the light of the world. And if it wasn’t for the church resisting the spirit of antichrist, the spirit of antichrist take over America and the rest of the world. And I believe once the church leaves, then it’s gonna be all downhill from there. But thank God we have the spirit of Christ, not the spirit of antichrist. And we let love motivate us. And you know, we’ll talk about love and light, because that’s the nature of God. So let’s jump into First John, Aaron, if you want to, read verse one through verse four.

 

  So it says here in First John, it says, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled concerning the word of life. The life was manifested. And we have seen and bear witness and declare to you that eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us. That which we have seen and heard, we declare to you that you also may have fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.” You know, understanding how much God loves you, it’ll give you great joy.

 

  Amen. Praise God. And we’ll talk about that. You know, I like to say, he says, “That which was from the beginning.” I like to say him. He’s really talking about Jesus. He said, “We heard him, we saw him, we looked upon him.” Not only did they see him, but they took notice of who he was. “And our hands have handled,” they came into a personal relationship with Jesus. The word of life. That’s what this whole book’s talking about, having a personal relationship with God through Christ. He says, “For the life Jesus was manifested, we’ve seen him bear witness of him.” And we demonstrate, when you come into a relationship with Jesus, you’re gonna demonstrate Christ’s life to other people. That eternal life, which was with the Father and may known to us in verse three, “Him who we’ve seen and heard.” They personally experienced Jesus. And their personal experience of Jesus changed their life. And it, they say, “We declare Him to you.” It’s hard to declare Jesus to other people if you don’t understand who he is. Aaron, go ahead and read there.

 

  Yeah, well I like that it says, “That which was from the be the beginning.” He’s talking about Jesus. And I loved, you know, the Gospel of John. It starts off saying, “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God. And the word was God.”

 

  Amen.

 

  He was in the beginning with God. So Jesus has existed for all eternity. He is Lord.

 

  Yes.

 

  And he was with the Father when all things were created. We talked about, you know, later here in First John, we’ll talk about that spirit of antichrist. But you see it actually very strong in America, especially today. And I think that spirit of antichrist is rising up in America, because the gospel, it has such a strong foundation here in America. You know, the United States has preached the gospel to the entire world. You know, so much resources. So many ministers, so much evangelism has come outta the United States. That spirit of antichrist. And I see it in a lot of different key ways right now. You know, one key way is all this, you know, preferred pronoun stuff, really that preferred pronoun stuff. It’s actually anti-creator.

 

  Right.

 

  Anti-Christ, because God created them, male and female.

 

  That’s right.

 

  And when people are pushing and saying, no, you can choose, choose your gender, you know, children should be able to-

 

  That’s crazy.

 

  To you know, take hormones and even mutilate their own bodies, castrate themselves really.

 

  This is demonic.

 

  It’s actually, even in Europe, they don’t allow, you know, children to do things that’ll hurt their bodies. So they can’t, you know, reproduce later on in life.

 

  Yes.

 

  It’s actually illegal in a lot of European countries. And typically Europe is much more liberal than the United States. But here in America, that antichrist spirit, it’s so-

 

  It’s vile.

 

  It’s very vile. And you know that anti creator type thing, Jesus is the creator. He was in the beginning. So coming against male and female, it’s coming. It’s, it’s an offense to God.

 

  That’s right.

 

  So if you are in a workplace where they want you to choose your pronouns, just don’t, say that’s against my beliefs. That’s an offense to God. That’s an offense to my faith. I’m not gonna participate in that, because really it is an offense to God as a creator. It’s antichrist. So don’t even participate in that stuff.

 

  Amen. Glory to God. No believers shouldn’t be involved in that at all. So when we talk about Jesus. He was made known, we him, they said we’d bear witness, we demonstrate, in other words, coming into a relationship with Jesus, so changed their life, that they demonstrated this life of Jesus. We show to you that eternal life, right? His life became our life. You know, really, when we understand the gospel, we find out that we have the life of God. We have the character, the nature, the very same life that Jesus had in him, we have in us. And so he said, we show to you, because it’s changed our life, that eternal life that was with the Father and made known to us. So we’re gonna come back and share more here on the life of Jesus. And now how we’ve come into a communion, a fellowship with Jesus and a fellowship with one another. And we’re not here on our own. Thank God he didn’t leave us as orphans and thank God he is with us. And if you know that, that will help you overcome some of this darkness in the world. So stay tuned, we’ll be right back. Friends, we’ve been sharing from my Bible school class, First John, our relationship with God. And these truths have revolutionized my life. We are making the teachings of this available live from church, and you can receive them downloadable free in audio form and my syllabus, free online, blessings. How many times have we been in a place where we’ve suffered a great loss, a great difficulty, a great problem, and maybe we didn’t even realize it, but Jesus was right there with us all the time? In fact, the scripture says that He will never leave us and he will never forsake us. Thank God, even when we don’t feel it, he’s there, so many times. Friends, I’m so glad that you stayed with us. And Aaron, one thing you were talking about in the first part of the broadcast is how America has been really a stronghold for the gospel. And how America, you know, about 90% of the gospel that’s went out in the world has come from America. And you know, we have a worship leader that comes here, helps us with some of our special conferences, and on certain occasions will come here. His name is Philip Renner. And he actually grew up in his dad’s church in Russia, and he recorded a CD, it went, you know, like however it did. But, but all these worship songs went, you know, skyrocketed over there and it was known all over, you know, Europe, all over Russia, all over these different countries. And then God called him to come back to America. And when he decided to come back to America, his Russian friends are like, oh, America’s going to hell in a hand basket. You shouldn’t go back to America. And this is what he spoke to them, and I believe this is a word from God. He said, “America has sown more seed in the world as far as the gospel is concerned, than any other country on the face of the planet.” And so he said, “I believe there’s gonna be a great harvest in America. And I believe that we’re gonna see that in time harvest in America. And there’s gonna be great revival that comes to America in these last days.” And I know Andrew Wommack has talked about a great awakening. So I believe that. Now in verse three, he goes on to say, talking about Jesus, “The one we saw and heard, we declare to you.” You know, when you come into a personal experience of Jesus, you can’t help but tell other people about him. But he said, “We’re doing this for a purpose that you can come into fellowship with us. And truly our fellowship is with the Father and his son, Jesus Christ.” This word fellowship in the Greek is the word koinonia. And it means a partnership is sharing, joint effort together. Thank God we’re not on our own. Praise God we don’t just have our own ability. We have the ability of the Holy Spirit. God is with us and Christ is innocent. The Holy Spirit is our helper. But he said that we’ve come into this communion, this partnership, this sharing, this fellowship. We have a relationship with the Holy Spirit, with the Father, and with the Son. And we’re sharing that with you, because we want you to come into fellowship with us.

 

  One thing I love just too as we go through John, is just his understanding of how much God loves him and that determines his value.

 

  Right.

 

  You know, he knows that he’s a son of God. He knows that he’s part of the family. A lot of people, even you watching right now, might feel that, you know, you’re rejected, you’re not really a part of that fellowship. But that’s a lie from the enemy. Your value is determined by God’s love for you. It’s not determined by what other people think about you. Maybe you’ve been rejected by family members or you know, a boss or whatever. But your value is determined by God’s love for you.

 

  Amen. You know, Aaron, there’s a scripture in Ephesians chapter one, verse six, and it says, “To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein he made us accepted in the beloved.” When you study that out in the Greek, that that term, and it’s used a couple of times in Ephesians one, “to the praise of the glory of His grace” means when God looks at you, he sees you in your full potential, through the grace of God. Wherein means to come to a fixed position of rest. So when you come to a fixed position of rest in the grace of God, it says, “he made us accept that in the beloved,” the word for accepted is a form of charis, the Greek word for grace, charitoo. So, you know, I used to see people struggle, right? With acceptance by maybe their parents or their boss or society, maybe a teacher, maybe a pastor, maybe a church. But the fact is you need to know that you’re accepted by God and you’re accepted because of the grace of God. God sees you in your full potential in Christ, through the grace of God. And then he stamps accepted.

 

  I love that you’re talking about God seeing us and really loving us, because he sees us in our full potential. You know, the way you set value to something is you set value to it based upon its full potential. For instance, I have a doctorate in classical music. I play flute. Years ago I was playing a concert in Washington, DC and one of my friends left his violin in my green room, and he asked me if I could watch it for him while he went and used the restroom. I thought that was really silly that he asked me to like babysit this violin. But when he came back, he told me it was actually a Stradivarius violin.

 

  Oh my goodness.

 

  He was Canadian and he won a competition that this wealthy person, you know, who own this Stradivarius violin put on, so someone could play this violin for a period of time. He won this competition and he had a million dollar Stradivarius violin.

 

  Wow.

 

  Now, if you had a five year-old beginner playing that violin, it would just sound like scratchy. It wouldn’t sound that great, because that 5-year-old isn’t playing that thing to its full potential. But how that five-year-old is playing that violin and how it sounds, doesn’t determine its value.

 

  Amen.

 

  You know, the value of that is determined based upon its full potential, like based upon-

 

  It’s maker.

 

  Based upon the maker, and based upon, you know, the capability that someone who’s an expert can play that thing. So when you let Jesus live his life in you and through you, you’re gonna reach your full potential.

 

  Amen. That’s awesome. And that’s how God sees us. He sees us by grace no matter where we’re at, in this walk with him, he sees us in our full potential through the grace of God, through the blood of Jesus. And then he says, “You’re accepted based on that.” So no matter who’s rejected you, I remember years ago I was counseling this lady and she said, “I’ve been married for 42 years and my husband just doesn’t love me.” I said, “Well, who cares what he thinks.” You know, we’d been pastoring the church for, you know, seven or eight years when she came to counseling and she’d been in the church for maybe a year or so, and she’s still in the church today. I still see her once in a while. She’s up in years. But after I talked to her, she said, “I wish I’d have been in this church 42 years ago.” You know, a lot of people aren’t really teaching the full gospel. They’re not really teaching people. It’s not about somebody else’s opinion of you. It’s about God’s opinion of you. That’s the only opinion that really matters. And you know, I can take it when people in the world look down on me and this and that. Sometimes it’s harder if a family member says something negative about you. I tell you, I’ve had some of my mentors, one of my mentors that I really respect, said some really negative things about me before. And did you know what? I knew actually when he was saying this, my mind had changed and I’d be begin to renew my mind in that era. So I thought it won’t be long, and they’ll see this change. And now those same people and people around them, they say the completely opposite thing about me. And do you know what? It’s because I’ve got a revelation and I had that revelation. You see, you can have revelation working in your mind and it can be transforming you, but it’s not evident to other people on the outside. But when you get a revelation of the word of God, it’ll transform your life. But God sees you in your full potential and God’s never gonna be negative about you. That’s good news.

 

  And I love this message. And you know what he says here in First John one, four.

 

  Yes.

 

  He’s writing these things that your joy may be full.

 

  Amen.

 

  When you know that God loves you, when you know that he sees you in your full potential, in Christ that gives you fullness of joy.

 

  Amen.

 

  If you’re just kind of latched on to dead religion and you think you’re just God’s angry at you all the time and you’re just a big screw up, you’re not gonna have fullness of joy, you’re gonna look like you’ve been sucking on lemons all the time. That’s what religion will do to you.

 

  Amen. You know, fullness of joy does not come from other relationships. Fullness of joy doesn’t come from how much money you’re making. Fullness of joy doesn’t come from your position in life. Fullness of joy can only come from knowing Jesus. And that’s what he’s talking about right here. You gotta know God through Christ. In fact, Jesus said in John, 17:3, “‘This is eternal life that they may know the, the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom thou said.” You know, that’s the ultimate goal of gospel, is to know God. And we’ll talk about that as we go through John. But when you get a revelation of love of God and you get to know God, Paul says, “I’ve given up everything that I may know him and the power of his resurrection.” And there’s so many people that are trying to be fulfilled in so many other things, but there’s only one way to really be fulfilled. And that’s to get to know God.

 

  I love this next verse here in First John, one, verse five. It says, “This is the message which we’ve heard from him.” I love this. So this is a gospel message here. This is what Jesus preached. This is what John is preaching. “This is the message which we have heard from him. And declare you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all.” That’s actually a huge statement that a lot of believers, a lot of ministries don’t get right. A lot of people attribute everything to God.

 

  Yes.

 

  You know, they attribute every, you know, just recently I saw a very prominent minister, a very prominent pastor here in Carter Springs, say, “You know, you never know what gift you’re gonna get from God. It might be a bad diagnosis that you receive from the doctor. It might be you get laid off at your work.” And I thought, these aren’t gifts from God. You know?

 

  No.

 

  Jesus said in John 10:10 that, “The thief comes to steal, to kill, to destroy.” But Jesus said, “I came to give you life and to give it to you more abundant.” God is completely good. He does not give anyone sickness. Sickness is actually a work of the devil.

 

  Amen.

 

  And Jesus was manifest to destroy the works of the devil.

 

  Yeah. That’s what First John, 3:8 says.

 

  So Jesus was manifest to destroy the works of the devil, which includes sickness, which includes lack.

 

  Amen.

 

  And Jesus was a provider. His very first miracle was a miracle of provision.

 

  Amen.

 

  Yeah. Know he was at a big wedding feast and they ran out,

 

  Yes.

 

  Of wine. And he turned water into wine. He was a miracle worker. He was a provider.

 

  Amen.

 

  You know, people were hungry, thousands of people. And he took five loaves and two fish, thank the father for it, blessed it, and break it, broke it and fed 5,000 men. And man, he’s such a provider, he came to destroy the works of the enemy.

 

  Amen.

 

  And you know, God, God doesn’t give evil things. He doesn’t give bad things. He doesn’t give sickness.

 

  Amen.

 

  His complete light and in him is no darkness at all. What a great message to preach.

 

  Amen. You know, James 1:17 says, “Every good and every perfect gift comes down from above, from the father of lights with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” The verse before that, verse 16 says, “Do not err, my beloved brethren, don’t turn from this.” You know, the gospel is really simple. God is good and the devil is evil. God does good and the devil does evil. And if you can get that down, that’ll help you. You know, a lot of people are blaming God for the devil’s work, because they have this wrong picture of God, because they’ve only got an Old Testament picture of God when they, you know, God really didn’t reveal himself completely to them, because they didn’t have authority. He didn’t reveal who the devil was to them, because they didn’t have authority over the devil. Like we have authority over the devil.

 

  Amen.

 

  So we’re gonna be back all this week. We’re gonna be sharing from First John, you don’t want to miss it. Lessons we learn as we walk with God or our relationship with God, you’re gonna get some fantastic thing. And you know what I’ve taught this for years at Charis Bible College. I have my entire syllabus. It’s online, on our website, free of charge. You can get it and you can get all these teachings, free of charge right there on our website. So I encourage you to go Charis Christian Center, and you can see this and many other great teachings that we have that are free to you. If you need prayer today or if you wanna partner with us, give us a call at the church. We’d love to hear from you. I have trained prayer ministers that are waiting to receive your calls, and we want you to be blessed as you allow the word to work big in you. I’ll be back right after this.

 

  When you know Jesus and experience his incredible love for you, you’ll know who you truly are. You’ll understand the anointing that’s in you, and you’ll realize that you’re part of God’s great family. You can come home to him today through the person of Jesus. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of First John, a relationship with God, a $21 value free of charge. Download your copy today at the charischristiancenter.com. Download the Charis Christian Center Mobile app today. Day or night, you can send us your prayer requests where our team of anointed prayer ministers can pray over you. We also make it safe and secure for you to give or partner with this ministry, so that you can give with peace of mind. You also have access to all the hundreds of hours of teaching right at your fingertips. So download the Charis Christian Center mobile app wherever you get your favorite apps today.

 

  Friends, if you’ve never received Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, I want to give you an opportunity to pray with me right now. Pray with me, and surrender your life to the Lord. Heavenly Father, I believe that Jesus Christ is your son. I believe that he died for my sins and you raised him from the dead on the third day and made him Lord. And I surrender my life to you in Jesus’ name.

 

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