Destined To Win Part 11 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue
Destined to Win Part 11
Destined to Win part 11 with Pastors Lawson and Aaron Perdue! In this episode of Grace for Today, discover how to walk in the love of God from Ephesians chapter 5.
Destined to Win
When Jesus saved you, your destiny changed completely! He radically transformed us and brought us from death to life, from sin to righteousness, and from defeat to victory. Pastor Lawson goes through the book of Ephesians in detail and shows us exactly why we are destined to win. We are no longer fighting to be overcomers, we are made victorious through Jesus and any weapon formed against us will not prosper! Jesus came to give us life and have that life more abundantly! Because of God and his great love, we are destined to win!
Destined to Win Part 11 Transcript
Friends, my son, Aaron is with me today. And we are gonna be sharing on walking in love. Praise God. The Bible says, be imitators of God as dear children, mimic God. Let God be your greatest example. And God is love. Great people of faith are great people of love. And so you don’t wanna miss this message. If you want to get your faith tuned up, let the love of God rule you, blessings. Friends, we are sharing from Ephesians 5 and we’re talking about walking in love, understanding who you are changes how you live this life. And the first three chapters of Ephesians, Paul talks about who we are and what we have in Christ. But then he begins to talk about our walk in Ephesians 4:1 he said, “we’re worthy of the vocation you’re called with, “or the calling wherewith you’ve been called.” You have been called with the high calling of God. So walk worthy of that. He says, secondly, he says, “I don’t want you to walk like the world walks, “like the Gentiles walk in the futility “and the emptiness and the vanity of their mind.” You are not God. What you think is not God. Sometimes you need to go with what the word of God says, who Jesus is and what the word of God says. That is the truth. Jesus is the truth and the word of God is the truth. The way you’re set apart from the world is through the truth of the word. And then he begins telling us in Ephesians 5 about walking in love. It is so important. The bible says in Colossians 3:14 that love is the bond of perfection or maturity. And the way you can tell how mature someone is is not by how much they operate in the gifts, but by how well they walk in the spirit. How well they walk in the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit, the Bible says in Galatians 5:22 “is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, “gentleness, goodness, faith, “meekness and temperance, “against such there is no law.” I believe all of the other of the nine, there’s nine fruit of the spirit. I believe the eight flow forth from love. So when you walk in love, love is, the Bible says that God is love. Bible doesn’t say God is joy or God is peace, says God is love, but joy and peace flow forth from love. So when you walk in love, it’ll lead to joy and peace being in your life. So he’s-
Faith works by love too. This is something I kind of had a real realization about is great people of faith are really people who understand God’s love and people who really are quick to forgive, quick to move forward, and not holding on things. We have a lot of great faith preachers that come through our church and preach here like Jesse Duplantis, Mark Hankins, Andrew Wommack, and a lot of these great faith giants, they really understand love and walk in it. And I love it when they preach on love. I love when I hear them and they really love people. And they don’t hold grudges. They get over things quickly and that’s why their faith works so well. So I love to hear, if you wanna show me your faith, show me your love.
Yeah.
First.
James talks about that. And what you’re saying, I mean, Galatians 5:6, “Faith works by love.” And great people of faith are great people of love. Andrew Wommack and Jamie Wommack, Andrew’s been my mentor for years and years, for over 40 years, 44 years.
And he’s been ministering that long too. People who really ministered for decades upon decades and have been very successful in their ministry to other people, they often really understand love. They’ve had to get over bitterness, offense, being backstabbed.
I’ve seen people use Andrew, abuse him, different things, things that have cost him probably hundreds of thousand in the ministry because people went and did wacky things. And yet, you know what, he just let’s it go.
Moves forward, yeah.
He doesn’t hold a-
Because his focus is on God.
It’s on Jesus.
On Jesus, yeah.
And you know what? We need to get over it. And I tell a funny story. I was in Bible school and Kenneth Copeland came to preach and he preached in the morning on love and he preached about good-
This is at Lester Sumrall’s.
Dr. Lester Sumrall’s World Harvest Bible College, South Bend, Indiana, 1987, ’88. And so in the morning, and I worked in the sound separtment, he preached about 80 minutes, we had 90 minute tape, he preached long time on walking in love. And at the night he preached for like two hours. So we had to not make just one tape, we had to make two tapes, ’cause we had a 90 minute, and then we had a 60 minute long one that we plugged in ’cause you never know how long. And the people were out at the, ’cause they’re used to going to Kenneth Copeland’s meetings. And back in those days they had these massive cassette duplicators where they could probably duplicate 300 cassettes at once. We had one that did 26. I worked there in the sound department in the basement.
You have hundreds of people coming right after-
The guy at the bookstore, he asked for 52, double of what we could make, I think it was 52, 26 times two. And so since Brother Copeland preached, and they asked for 52, we’d made 52 up in the morning. And then we were gonna say, and it was that or close to that. So we had to run double that in the evening. I think it’s actually 23, so double that. And so I had to make, instead of just making 46 tapes, I had to make 92 tapes just to have enough for 46 people to get one because, and then we had to put a rubber band, put ’em together. And the people were out there fighting after they just heard an hour and a half preaching in the morning on walking in love and two hours of preaching nearly at night on walking in love. Like they were out there fighting at the cassette table over the cassettes. And the bookstore manager was standing on the table trying to get them calmed down and he was all worked up. And he called my boss, and my boss just told him, he said, “Listen, you told us this many, “that’s how many we’re gonna do. “They’re gonna all leave before the night’s over.” So you just tell him, we’ll mail ’em to him, take their names and addresses. And anyway, my bookstore manager, my office manager wasn’t too kind. His name was Mike and he’s pretty direct. And so, man, I went to the office, I always went early, and the man who was the administrator for the ministry, his name was Ken Holder, he’s great man of God, had fought in the Vietnam War and married an Asian woman, great man of God. But the next morning when I went in about 7:30, about 30 minutes earlier, he was sitting right there where I worked and I went down there, opened the door and he was, he said, “Did you say such and such “to the bookstore manager?” I said, “No, that was my boss.” And so anyway, the bookstore manager had apologized to my boss. But anyway, they thought it was me, and I don’t talk that way ’cause I’m not the boss. I just did what I was told by my boss. But anyway, we need to- It’s takes effort to walk in love. You gotta let your spirit overcome your flesh and your emotions. And so Paul says right here in Ephesians 5:1, “Be followers of God, be imitators of God, “mimic God as dear children.” You know, when I was a little boy, I just loved my daddy. I thought this son and sat on my daddy. I just thought the world with my dad. And my dad wore big cowboy boots. I always wanted to wear cowboy boots. My dad wouldn’t let me wear cowboy boots because he said my feet had to grow to certain, until I got probably in junior high before my dad would let me have cowboy boots. But I just wanted to be like my daddy, praise God. So we need to mimic God, imitate God, be followers of God as dear children. He says, “And walk in love.” It’s a walk, we’re not talking about, it’s a lot easier to talk than it is to walk. And he says, “Walk in love as Christ has loved us.” Now, how did Jesus love us, Aaron?
Unconditionally.
Unconditionally. Jesus loved us when we were making all the wrong choices, when we were doing all the wrong things. I had a young man that I ministered to just at the end of last year. He just called me last night because he told me he had an incurable disease and virus. And the doctors had told him he would never get over it. And I prayed for him and he went back. And the first time he went back, he came back and it was negative. But then he went back in three months and it was positive. So he went back again, it’s been almost a year. And he called me last night and said, “Hey pastor, “I just wanted to call you and tell you that I’m healed.”
That’s awesome.
And that Jesus healed me. And I told him how much I loved him, how much I appreciated him. He says, “You know, I’m not worthy.” And I told him, “None of us are worthy.” I’m not worthy to do this. This is the grace of God. And Jesus loved us unconditionally. He loved us when we were making all the wrong choices and doing all the wrong things. In fact, Romans 5:8 says that “God commended, “God demonstrated His love toward us, “while that we were sinners Christ died for us.” So Jesus, you know what, He didn’t die for us when we’re Godly. And so it says, “Prior to that,” in verse six, he says, “When we were without strength, “Christ died for the ungodly.” There’s one qualification that you need to meet to be a candidate for the kingdom of God. You gotta be ungodly. And I’m telling you, Lawson Perdue qualifies, amen. And I’m telling you, you qualify too because we’ve all sinned. Now He says, “For scarcely for a righteous man will die, “yet perhaps for a good man “someone would even dare to die.” But God commended, He demonstrated, He revealed His love toward us while we were still sinners, when we were making all the wrong choices, and doing all the things wrong things, Christ died for us. So I told my good young friend, I told him, I just want you to know that it’s about grace and none of us deserve it, amen. So thank God Jesus is a perfect picture of grace. And He says, “God loved us, “walk in love as Christ has loved us “and gave himself for us as an offering, “a sacrifice to God.” He really did it unto God. He says, “A sacrifice, a sweet-smelling saver,” a sweet offering to God love. Love, you know, when people walk in love, there’s a sweet presence about Him. And when you don’t walk in love, there’s a not so sweet presence. And I remember Kenneth E. Hagin, we call him Papa Hagin, talking about how he went to pray for some people, when he pastored to church. And when he went in the door, God said, “There’s strife in this place.” And the Bible says in James 3 “where envying and strife there is, “confusion and every evil work.” So we need to offer our life a sweet-smelling sacrifice to God, and walk in love as Christ loved us. And love is the fulfilling of the law. Romans 13, says that “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” So he says, “Fornication, all uncleanness and covetousness, “not be named once among you as becoming saints, “as is becoming, as is beautifying to saints,” in verse three. So fornication, what’s that talking about?
Sex outside of marriage.
Sex outside of marriage, when you’re not married. Adult who is talking about sex outside of marriage when you are married. And Galatians 5 says that “Those are the works of the flesh,” in Galatians 5:19. So we have the fruit of the spirit, which is love, and we have the works of the flesh. So it says, “Fornication and uncleanliness.” Uncleanliness is talking about other kinds of sexual sin. Any kind of unclean sexual sin, stay out of it. Pornography, there’s a huge amount of men in the evangelical church that have a problem with pornography. And man, if you got a problem with it, deal with it. Man, do what you gotta do. Get some accountability partners, go to a good counselor that deals with that. I’m telling you, if I was dealing with looking at sex, I’d get rid of my cell phone if I had to. I mean, I just would not, I’m not going there. My dad had a bunch of pornography when I got baptized in the Holy Spirit at 14 years old, and I took it out to the fire barrel and poured gasoline on it and burned it. And that’s really easier than a lot of these people have to deal with. But you know, I’ve never went back to it.
Yeah, people will spend thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars on going to a medical doctor if they have a certain illness or sickness trying to get better. But sometimes people have just a lot of issues going on in their soul, but that they don’t want to make much effort or even spend the time or maybe the resources necessary to recover in their heart. But if you know, if you need to talk to a great Christian counselor, find someone who’s good and pay their fee. It’s really important that your soul is made whole.
Yes, Dr. Doug Weiss is a good friend of mine and he has counseled thousands of people and saved thousands of marriages and helped them. And that’s what he talks about primarily is sexual addiction. And he’s got a great practice and he has counselors all around the nation in different place. And I recommend him highly. If you’re struggling in that area, just deal with it. Don’t just act like it’s not happening. Get some accountability partners, do what it takes, amen. But get that junk outta your life. Praise God, He says what? He says, “Don’t let it be named once among you “as is beautifying to saints.” That’ll just hold you up in a lot of areas. You’re talking about how people spend hundreds of thousands of dollars or millions even going to take care of their physical body. And yet they’re emotional man, they don’t… And I guess people spend more money on pornography and sex trafficking than the NFL or NBA or any of that.
It’s a multi-billion dollar industry.
It’s terrible, terrible letting the devil drive you instead of letting God and the spirit of God rule you. So praise God, you have the spirit of God in you, and I believe you can overcome any evil thing that the enemy is trying. So he’s just talking about these are outward sins. They shouldn’t be named once among you. Praise God. Now we’re gonna be back and we’ll talk about some other stuff. It’ll be more encouraging, I promise you, praise God. But we have to take the truth of the scriptures, amen. And live the gospel acts. So we’ll be back in just a few seconds. And we’ll be looking for you. Friends, I’m Pastor Lawson Perdue, and I’ve been teaching “Destined to Win” from the book of Ephesians. This is one of the greatest teachings that I’ve ever done. I’ve had more requests for this teaching than almost any teaching we’ve done. I’ve got it in eight parts as I’ve taught it in church, in CD form, also in a USB. And then I also have the teaching in 16 parts as we’ve taught it on television with my son, Dr. Aaron Perdue. And in this 16-part teaching, I am just thrilled with all the different things that was brought in. So you can get the eight-part CDs or the USB that has all the video and audio, or you can get the 16-part as taught on television. Call us and let us know what you’d like to have. We have a special offer today and we’re so blessed to have you check out our website, charischristiancenter.com. We have this and many other materials. And we have all of these things online for free, blessings. Praise the Lord, friends, we are back. And we’re in a Ephesians 5. And we are talking about walking in love, praise God. The first three chapters of Ephesians, Paul says, “This is who you are and this is what you have.” You’re blessed, you’re favored, hallelujah, you’re predestined to succeed. You’re righteous, you are forgiven for every sin. You are redeemed from every curse. You’re accepted in the beloved. He says all those beautiful things about us, who we are and what we have. But the last three chapters, he says, “Now I want you to walk it out.” And he says, “I want you to walk worthy of the calling “wherewith you’ve been called.” You have been called to a hot calling in Christ. And this word calling, I had a young man argue with me, say, “I’m not called to do nothing, “I’m gonna be a banker or whatever.” But he hasn’t lived out his Christian life very well either. But you gotta understand God has a call on you. And this word calling is the Greek word, klḗsis and it means, invitation or calling to the feast. We’re all called to heaven, glory to God. And so live like citizens of heaven on loan on the earth from God. Then he says, “Don’t walk as other Gentiles walk, “as the heathen walk in the vanity “and the futility and the emptiness of their mind.” Renew your mind in the word of God and let Jesus live His life big in you. And finally he says here in Ephesians 5:2, “Walk in love as Christ has loved us and given himself.” Love is the law that really should drive our life. And we talked about this briefly in the first part of the broadcast, but I really didn’t go there. Romans 13:8-10 says this, “Owe no man anything but to love one another.” We aren’t to owe people something like I owe you one. But he says, “but love,” we owe each other love, “for he that loves another has fulfilled the law, “for this, you will not commit adultery, “you will not kill, you will not steal.” So we talked about some- Paul talks about some of those physical sins right there. Don’t let him be named once among you. But he says it is briefly comprehended in this. He says in this saying that you will love your neighbor as yourself. You gotta see how God sees you. That’s what the first three chapters of Ephesians talk about. Then you see yourself the way God sees you. So you love God first, then you love yourself because God loves you. Some people make a really bad choice in relationships because they don’t see their selves the way God sees them. So we need to see ourselves the way God sees us. And he says this, he says, “Love works no ill to his neighbor, “therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” When you love your brother, you’re gonna fulfill God’s law, amen.
I like what Jesus said. He said, “I didn’t come to destroy the law, “but to fulfill the law.”
[Lawson] Yes.
And what commandment did Jesus give His disciples?
To love one another.
This is my commandment that you love-
Yes.
One another, so.
It’s the greatest commandment. He said, “By this, your all men know “that you’re my disciples “because you love one another.” And so we gotta learn to love with the love of God. There are different kinds of love. There is agape, that’s the God kind of love. That’s unconditional love. That’s the highest form of love. There is phileo, that’s friendship. So when we have friends and we appreciate our friends and we respect things, Philadelphia, it’s called the City of Brotherly Love. It’s based on phileo, that Greek word, that brotherly love. There’s storge, that’s affection. Blood is thicker than water. I love you ’cause you’re my family, praise God. Now I thank God for the body of Christ. We’re family in the body. But then finally there is eros. And that’s talking about a physical sexual kind of love, which is beautiful in the marriage relationship. So there’s these four main Greek words for love. But we’ve gotta love with the love of God. The love of God is greater than all of them. And if you let the love of God rule you, it will change how you walk towards your brothers, your sisters. Now he talks about don’t live like the world, right? Avoid sexual sin, uncleanliness, covetousness, fornication, all those things. It’s not beautifying to you. But then he says in verse four, “Neither filthiness nor foolish talking, nor jesting “which are not convenient, but rather giving things.” So don’t let filthiness, foolish talking. Sometimes people just talk foolishly and they’re caught up in the world, the world. Man, the world is filthy. And he says they’re not convenient. It’s like gross trip, older women, right? As your mother, younger women as your sister. Honor the opposite sex. Different areas, he says, “But rather giving of thanks.” Be a thankful person.
I like something that you, a verse that you have quoted often, which is “Love covers a multitude of sin.” Some people get very legalistic and wanna expose everyone’s sin and expose other ministers when they’ve fallen short or they don’t do the right things or say the right things. God loved us, and He’s not just into exposing all of your faults.
[Lawson] Yes.
I just think there’s a lot of attacks within the body of Christ where everyone’s trying to expose, just trying to attack each other all the time.
A good friend of mine, her husband got in a sexual affair and divorced her, and she’s a minister of the gospel. And she went to Dr. Lester Sumrall, and he says, “Just don’t talk about it.” Sometimes you don’t need to talk about everything. Sometimes you don’t need to just-
Identify with.
Yeah, it doesn’t help anybody really. And I know you want to minister to people that are hurting, but some things you don’t need to bring out and talk about all the time in the public, so on and so forth. It’s not edifying. It’s not really helping a lot of people. And so he says, “Be thankful.” Be thankful, let Thanksgiving rule your life. Let love rule your life. He says, “But for this you know “that no harm, hunger or unclean person,” he says, “Nor covetous man who is an idolator “has any inheritance in the kingdom of God in Christ.” So this is talking about your spiritual condition. So if your spirit has not been born again, because you can’t be born again and be a home hunger in your spirit. Now born again person can commit adultery, right? But God forgives adultery just like He forgives all kinds of sin, right? “Nor unclean person.” That’s again, talking about different types of sexual sins. “Nor covetous man who’s an idolater.” Covetousness, the Bible says Colossians 3:5 is idolatry kind of written. Paul writes Colossians a lot like he writes Ephesians. And he says, “Has any inheritance in the kingdom of God in Christ. So you just want to stay away from some of these things, just stay away. There’s some things you just don’t need to get involved in, period. Let Thanksgiving rule your life. Let love rule your life. Let faith rule your life. Great people, you brought this out at the beginning of the broadcast, Great people of faith, Andrew Wommack, Lester Sumrall, Jesse Duplantis, Mark Hankins. They are great people of faith, and they’re also great people of love. So let the love of God rule you. And I’m telling you, strife is expensive. Unforgiveness is expensive, praise God. Bitterness is expensive. So don’t be a bitter person, get better. Praise God. Don’t let strife rule your life. Let love rule your life. Let the love of God rule you. And he says, “Let no man deceive you with vain words,” in verse six. “For because of these things, “the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience.” So man, don’t let anybody lie to you. Sometimes people try to take grace and this is a great book on grace, and they try to make it a license to sin. It is not a license to sin, it is the power of God to live right. He says, “Be not par takers with them.” So there’s things that the world’s involved in that you don’t need to get involved in, praise God. That you can just live there, praise God.
This is something that God showed me about grace. But there’s three important aspects of grace. Grace, first of all, frees you, Grace transforms you and grace empowers you. I love you talking about how grace is the power of God. Grace frees you from sin, but it also transforms you into the righteousness of God. But lastly, grace empowers you-
[Lawson] Amen.
To walk it out.
Amen, and we can walk out the gospel through the grace of God. Titus, Paul says, “The grace of God which has appeared to all men-
Teaches us.
Teaches us to live soberly, righteously and Godly in this present world. And that’s Jesus, He is the grace of God. He’s the full embodiment of grace. Of him, we have received of His fullness, grace upon grace. I’m gonna write a book called Grace for Life. Man, a revelation of grace has changed my life. And I live better accidentally than I did on purpose before I understood Grace. Aaron, you knew me just a little bit before I got a revelation of grace. I got a revelation of grace when-
It really has to come by Revelation too. God has to really reveal it to you what his grace means and what it’s done for you and what it’s gonna continue to do for you. I know people who’ve, I mean, sat in a Grace Church or heard grace teaching for years, but really never caught it or got it. And it’s kinda sad, but God can reveal it to you just the power of His grace to you.
Amen, praise God. Grace teaches us to live soberly, righteously, godly. The Bible says this in 2 peter 3:18 “Grow in the grace, “and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” So when you really understand love, I think when you get a revelation of grace, it causes you to understand the love of God for you. It will transform your life, amen. And you will be a living testimony of Jesus. Thank you so much for tuning into the broadcast. If you need prayer today, give us a prayer. If you want our product, we’re teaching from my series, “Destined to Win.” So if you’d like this teaching, just give us a call. We’d love to get it out to you. God bless you and we appreciate you. Friends, the scripture says, If you will continue in the word of God, you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. If you go to our website at charischristiancenter.com, you can get all of our materials there on the website as you watch ’em, as you listen, absolutely free of charge. And we’ve done that just to be a blessing to you. And I believe that the word that has freed me will free you, blessings.
[Narrator] Do you know your true position in Christ Jesus? You have been saved, raised up and seated in heavenly places with him. You can stand against any attack of the enemy from a position of victory, you are destined to win. You can get the eight-part live teaching on CD for $48, or on USB for $35. Or get the 16-part as seen on TV USB for $59. When you call 719-418-4000 or visit charischristiancenter.com. 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 could write us at PO Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80962. See you next time on Grace for Today.
