Expanding Our Horizons – Part 8 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Praise the Lord, friends, and welcome to the broadcast. You need to remember, if God is for us, who can be against us? And how do we know that God is for us? The Bible says, “He that spare not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him the Father, not with the Son, freely give us all things.” We’re gonna talk about possessing your promised land through the presence of God. Stay tuned and be blessed. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re with us today. We’ve been talking this week about the process of receiving the promise of God. And in the first program we talked about, you’ve gotta believe it to receive it. The second aspect we talked about is just because there’s problems, does not mean that God hasn’t called you to do something. And today we’re gonna move in and begin to talk about the presence of God. It takes the presence of God with us to possess many times what God’s promised us.

 

  I love thinking about the presence of God. And you know, a lot of people, actually a lot of people kind of ask me about the presence of God and sometimes they’re just thinking kind of emotionally, just, “I don’t really feel that God’s with me.” Or maybe they’re, sometimes when you’re going through a difficulty and just experiencing a lot of problems or a great problem, people might feel that, “Man, I don’t know if God’s really with me.” But we are assured of God’s presence in scripture. If you received Jesus, you have his presence with you always. Jesus said, “I’ll never leave you nor forsake you.”

 

  Amen.

 

  And I love saying the names of God and the redemptive names of God. These really, these names are promises to us, but there’s a name of God in the Old Testament that really applies to us today as believers. And it’s Jehovah-shammah, the Lord who is there.

 

  Amen.

 

  And man, we have God’s presence wherever we go. And you have the ability to access it and to just dwell there and be encouraged there in God’s presence. So whatever problem you’re facing, God’s presence is with you and you can have full access to his presence.

 

  Amen, you know, right here in Joshua, chapter one, we started in verse one through three, but verse three, this is the promise that God made to them. He said, “Every place the sole of your foot shall tread, have I given to you?” He’s speaking to Joshua, “Just like I said to Moses.” Then He said, “In this land, there’s gonna be Hittites” there’s gonna be different giants, all these different heights. So just because there’s a problem or a giant or a difficulty doesn’t mean, more than likely, if God has called you to do something, there are gonna be some giants there. I know Joyce Meyer said this years ago, “Another level, another devil.” But then He goes and says in verse five, “There will not be any man able to stand before you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, I will be with you. I will not fail you or forsake you.” Just like you’re saying, Aaron, if you’re facing a problem today, remember that God is with you. He has not left you. He has not forsaken you. Remember how much God loves you, praise God, and keep your eyes focused on who He is and what He’s done.

 

  Sometimes you just need to strengthen yourself. One thing my dad taught me years ago is when you’re facing just a lot of difficulty and just feeling like you need to give up, I remember when I was a freshman in college, a few months in, I was just really struggling, thinking I needed to quit and come back home. And I just felt like I had gotten in over my head. I wasn’t good enough. And my dad told me, “Hey, before you make a decision, you need to just pray in tongues 30 minutes a day for a while.”

 

  Amen.

 

  So for several weeks, I would pray in tongues for 30 minutes a day. And during that time, just, God really just strengthened me. The Bible says that you build yourself up in your most holy faith by praying in tongues. That’s in Jude 20. So if you’ve never received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, with the evidence of speaking in tongues, I’d encourage you to actually call us here at the ministry. We have people who are prayer ministers who are filled with the Holy Spirit. They’ll pray with you. That gift is actually available to any believer.

 

  Amen.

 

  On the day of Pentecost, no one was left out in the upper room. Everyone who was there received it. So everyone today, I believe, who has Jesus in your heart, you can receive that gift. You can be baptized in the Holy Spirit, you can pray in tongues. And it’s actually a great way to just build yourself up and just access God’s presence and kind of just bypass your negative emotions, your feelings, just the things you’re experiencing in your soul, you’ll just go straight to the throne room, really, you just pray straight from your spirit to God’s spirit.

 

  Amen.

 

  So if you’re ever just really struggling right now, I’d encourage you to pray in tongues 30 minutes a day for several weeks and just see what God does in your life. You know, God actually inspired me to stick with it, to keep going. And I remember I was a freshman in college, going to school for music, and there’s a big competition in a few months, and I decided to try out for it. I was actually the only freshman in the school that had enough courage to even enter this competition. And I remember I had to play a 20 minute piece from memory for it. And over winter break, my teacher gave me a piece to work on to do for this competition. And when I did it, I was actually very nervous. I was so nervous during the entire 20 minute piece I was playing, I kept my eyes closed the entire time. I was so nervous. And I made it through, I didn’t completely fall flat on my face. And for me, that was a moment of victory. And actually that first round, they announced who advanced and I was one of the people that advanced. So my teacher said, “Whatever you do in the next round, keep your eyes open.” My teacher told me, she actually was judging a major competition in Munich, Germany and one of her students was in it. And she said her student kept her eyes closed the whole time, and then when she opened her eyes, she was facing the wrong direction. Her backside was turned to the audience. So the second round, I was just so happy that I, you know, didn’t make a complete fool of myself, I just had fun and enjoyed myself and I actually ended up winning that competition as a freshman. It was against every instrument, every grade level, graduate students.

 

  Doctoral students, masters.

 

  Doc, yeah. Only one, they only picked one winner, so. But that really started for me, you know, feeling like I wanted to give up and quit, versus, you know, and then just by praying in tongues-

 

  Amen.

 

  God just built me up.

 

  You know that scripture that you’re quoting in Jude verse 20 where it says, “Building up yourself and your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,” I believe the reason it does is because when we pray in the Spirit, our natural mind doesn’t get involved. Paul actually says in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, talking about this, “When I pray in the Spirit, my understanding is unfruitful.” So what you’re doing is praying from your spirit to God, the perfect will of God. And I’ll go to a scripture in a minute that really focuses on this. But before I do that, the very next verse, in Jude verse 21 says, “Keep yourselves in the love of God looking for the mercy of God to eternal life.” And I believe when you pray in the Spirit, what causes your faith really to work is the grace of God. You keep yourselves in the grace of God. We’ve said this before, if you knew how much God loved you, if you knew how amazing his plan was for you, you would be done serving the devil. God’s plan for you is better than your plan for you any day of the week. And you know, I believe if we’re ultimately gonna walk in that as believers and especially as ministers, you know what? We need to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. We need to keep praying in the Holy Spirit. And this scripture I want to go to tells us this in Romans 8:26-27, he says, “Likewise, the Spirit helps.” If you read this in the Greek, it says something like, “He takes hold together with us against our infirmities or weaknesses.” When you pray in the Spirit, I believe the Holy Spirit comes alongside, He joins you, and, “He takes hold together with you against your weaknesses, whatever they may be, for we don’t know how to pray like we should, but the Spirit makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered.” One version of the Bible says, “Groanings that cannot be uttered in an intelligent language.” “And He that,” in verse 27, “searches the hearts, knows the mind of the Spirit because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.” I believe the Holy Spirit is praying through us the perfect will of God the Father. And Jesus is the one that is searching our heart. I believe if you look at that closely in Romans 8:26-27, you can see the Holy Spirit, you can see Jesus, and you can see the Father, and they are all at work. And when you get involved praying in the Holy Spirit, your spirit is coming and the Holy Spirit praying through you is coming into agreement with Jesus, who knows the mind of the Father God. And the Holy Spirit will bring you into the perfect plan that God has for you. I believe this is very necessary if we’re gonna be all that God wants us to be and do all that God wants us to do, that we understand the power of praying in the Holy Spirit, that we understand the power of the presence of God that is actually released when we pray in the Spirit. You know, in John chapter 16, Jesus talks about the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And he says in verse seven it’s very necessary for you that I go away, because if I don’t, then the Holy Spirit will not come to you. And He talks about this is what the Holy Spirit will do in the world. He’ll convict the world of the sin of not believing on Jesus, of righteousness, that Jesus is the righteousness of God and he makes righteousness available to every believer when he died and rose again, and that Satan, the prince of this world’s already been judged. But then in verse 12 through verse 16, He begins to talk about the Holy Spirit’s ministry to the church. And he basically says, God has this great plan for you, and it’s the Holy Spirit that takes the things Jesus says that are mine and the Father’s and He reveals ’em to you. When you pray in tongues, the Holy Spirit gets ahold of the things that God has for you and Jesus makes available to you and He makes ’em known to you.

 

  That’s awesome. Yeah. And I love the Greek word that’s used in scripture for the Holy Spirit being a helper. The Greek word is paraclete or parakletos and it means a helper. But another meaning of that means to be a legal advocate.

 

  Amen.

 

  And I think that’s so profound, when you’re praying in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit is your legal advocate. He has the authority to do things, to intercede for you. You know, we have an advocate with the Father who’s Jesus, but here on the earth we have an advocate as well. And that’s the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit actually has legal authority-

 

  Amen.

 

  To work on your behalf, to help you, which is awesome.

 

  Amen, you know, there’s two things that Jesus talks about in John 14, 15, and 16. And he was preparing his disciples for His departure. Number one, He talks about our authority in Christ, the authority that we have in the name of Jesus. And number two, He talks about the presence of the Holy Spirit with us. And you know what? If we’re gonna fulfill God’s plan, you know what? We need to understand our authority in Christ and the power of the person and presence of the Holy Spirit. And inevitably, that’s two things that the church usually leaves out. And we need both of those to do what God’s called us to do.

 

  And we’ve been talking about the promises we have from God, but the Holy Spirit, the gift of the Holy Spirit is, Jesus called the Holy Spirit the promise, not just a promise, but the promise from the Father.

 

  Amen.

 

  And you know, our Heavenly Father only has good things to give. So I’d encourage you, if you’ve never received the promise, the promise of the Holy Spirit to actually give us a call, and we’d be happy to pray for you that you receive that gift of the Holy Spirit and that you’re just baptized in the Holy Spirit and you can pray in tongues as well.

 

  Amen, we’re gonna take a very short break and we’re gonna be back talking about that God is with us. Friends, I’m so glad that you’ve been watching today. We’ve been sharing on “Expanding Our Horizons.” We have multiple hours of this teaching in downloadable audio, downloadable video, and many others free of charge on our website at CharisChristianCenter.com. So take advantage of these resources and be blessed. 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 you, you know, 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. Friends, I’m so glad that you stayed with us and we are right here. We’ve been in Joshua chapter one and we’ve been talking about the process of receiving the promise. We talked about, first of all, you gotta believe the promise to receive it. Secondly, we talked about many times how problems or giants are evidence that God has called us to possess something. The third thing is we said, you gotta remember, and that’s what we’ve been talking about all today. The presence of God is with us. And we’ve been talking specifically about how we can access the presence of God and you can access the presence of God through praying in the Holy Spirit. But I’m gonna talk about, a little bit, about remembering the presence of God is with us because of the purpose. And you know, the fact is, when we go to Joshua chapter two and Israel begins to go and they, God sends out these spies, right? And when these spies go into Jericho, before they start to possess this promised land, they find there a woman, her name is Rahab.

 

  Yeah.

 

  Rahab is a woman of faith. She’s actually listed in the Faith Hall of Fame. And it says in Hebrews chapter 11 that by faith, the harlot Rahab, praise God, think of, you know what? Faith will work for anybody, anywhere. Faith will work for you no matter how you’re fettered, that’s what Smith Wigglesworth said years ago. And he understood the subject of faith. But you know, one reason that we need to possess the promise because somebody is waiting there for us to possess the promise. Aaron, I want you to read Joshua 2:9-11. I want you to look at Rahab’s confession. You can tell she’s a woman of faith. In fact, she’d been believing in God for 40 years.

 

  Mm-hmm.

 

  It’s amazing. You know what, there is somebody that is waiting for you to go and possess your promised land so that they can receive what God has for them.

 

  One of my favorite books in the Bible is the book of James. And James talks a lot about faith.

 

  Amen.

 

  And you know, one famous scripture from James is, “Faith without works is dead,” and he’s talking about, faith has to move you.

 

  Amen.

 

  And you have to have corresponding action, and that’s evidence of your faith. Like faith should be evident. And the two examples that James uses, he uses Abraham as an example and also Rahab-

 

  Yeah.

 

  As an example. So James was actually, you know, a brother of Jesus, and he was actually the first pastor of the church in Jerusalem. So he probably had a lot of, you know, messianic believers.

 

  Right.

 

  Jewish believers there in Jerusalem, but he was teaching ’em, “Hey, this faith works for Jews, it works for Gentiles, it’s not about you.”

 

  Amen.

 

  So he was really showing people grace by his two examples, Abraham, which everyone at that time would’ve seen Abraham as this great faith giant. But he used Rahab in the same, you know, he used two Old Testament examples of faith, Abraham and Rahab. So God likes to use unusual people, from unusual places to do unusual things. And it really gives glory to him. Faith, faith ultimately glorifies God.

 

  Amen.

 

  And we see this just in the life of Rahab. So Joshua 2.

 

  Beginning in verse nine.

 

  Nine, it says, “And said to the man, ‘I know that the Lord has given you the land, that the terror of you has fallen on us, and that all the inhabitants of the land are faint hearted because of you.'” I find that really interesting, what she’s telling, you know, these Israelites, that everyone is terrified of you. They’ve heard of these stories, they’ve heard what God has done for you. They’ve heard about the plagues in Egypt. And you know, the majority of the Israelites, they were the ones that worried, they thought, “Man, we’re grasshoppers in everyone’s sight.” But she’s saying the opposite. You might think that you’re just a grasshopper, that you’re so, so weak and so, you know, lowly, but it was actually the opposite. They weren’t grasshoppers in their sight. People were afraid of ’em. They were afraid of what God was doing. They had heard about the Red Sea. They had heard about these different things. So they said, you know, “We’re faint hearted because of you.” Verse 10 says, “For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea for you when you came out of Egypt and what you did to the two kings of the Amorites who were on the other side of the Jordan, Sihon and Og, whom you utterly destroyed. And as soon as we heard these things, our hearts melted, neither did there remain any more courage in anyone because of you, for the Lord, your God.” And that’s Lord all caps. So that’s Jehovah or Yahweh, “The Lord, Yahweh, your God, He is God in heaven above and on earth beneath.”

 

  Wow. What a confession of faith. You know, our faith is released by two ways, by our words and by our actions. When you read the book of Hebrews chapter 11, which is the Faith Hall of Fame, it talks about all these people of faith. And it says, basically, you can see faith by what they did and by what they said. And it says by faith, the harlot Rahab, praise God. I love those words. And I want to turn there and just read the rest of this in Hebrews chapter 11. But it says in verse 31, Hebrews 11:31, “By faith, the harlot Rahab perish not with those who believe not when she had received the spies with peace.”

 

  Mm-hmm.

 

  Praise God. You know what, there was a peace in her heart about doing what God had called her to do. And actually, I believe that she had been waiting for 40 years for the children of Israel to come into this, you know, possess the promised land. And one reason you need to possess what God’s promised you is because there is somebody there that is waiting on you. Who is waiting on you to get up and to move forward and to possess what God has promised you? And you know, then we go into Joshua chapter three, and in Joshua chapter three, they began to possess this promised land. And what happened in Joshua chapter three was that the spies went before Israel and, or not the spies, the priest carrying the ark. And when they took the ark and when their feet touched the water, the Jordan was in flood stage, it was in the time of harvest. It caused the waters to stand up on the top side and below to go on down. And Israel walked through on dry ground. Praise God. But one thing God had them do, he had Joshua choose 12 men, right, from these tribes and they were each to bring a stone and put those stones there by the Jordan River. So years later, when their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren would see these stones, they’d say, “What does this to mean?” It became a memorial to them. Praise God. I know that you and your brothers, Aaron, saw faith in the life of your mother. You saw faith in my life, and I know that’s inspired you to go have great accomplishments of faith on your own. Praise God.

 

  It’s so important to remember what God’s done and I love that-

 

  Amen.

 

  God instructed Joshua to take these 12 stones to actually set up a physical memorial. Not just talk about it, but to do something physically about it. So I think it’s important to just actually do something to celebrate what God has done, to celebrate these promises that have come to pass in your life.

 

  Amen.

 

  Really, the enemy wants you to forget what God’s done. And it’s really crazy how easy it is to forget what God’s done.

 

  Amen.

 

  And we see that in scripture too, and God would remind people all the time to remember to set up memorials, to celebrate, you know, what I’ve done for you, to celebrate the victories, to celebrate the deliverance, to celebrate these things. Don’t forget-

 

  Amen.

 

  Who I am and what I’m doing, and if I’ve done it before, I’ll do it again.

 

  Amen.

 

  And the devil tries to rewrite history. He tries to erase God from history. He tries to erase what God has done from your own memory. But you need to remember what God has done. You need to remember the promises. And if he did it once, he’ll do it again.

 

  Amen. Praise God. We need to remember our past victories. We need to remember what God has done and remember that God is with us. There’s a couple of things that we celebrate in the church on a regular basis that help us to remember. One is communion. You know, we take communion in our church, and I don’t care how people do it, really, ultimately, they need to focus and realize this represents Jesus, right? His body and His blood. But we take communion on the first Sunday of every month, and we do that as a regular, consistent thing. And the scripture talks about this in 1 Corinthians chapter 11, that you show the Lord’s death till he come. Praise God. So communion is one way. Another way that we can remember what God’s done in our own personal life is by being baptized. You know, it’s to remember, praise God, I identified with Jesus, I am dead to sin. I’m alive to God, just like Jesus died once and has been raised and lives to God. I have died and I am dead to sin and I’m alive to God and identify with the work of Jesus. Praise God. So we need to constantly be remembered. Another way you can go to the word of God. Look at the word of God and just keep your focus on God. Keep your focus on the promises. Keep your focus on Christ and what he’s accomplished, that the victory has already been won. The enemy has already lost. Praise God. There’s only one way that you can lose in the body of Christ, in the eternal scheme of, and that’s to quit believing. That’s to reject Jesus. So keep believing God and never, ever reject Jesus.

 

  And remember God is doing things sometimes that you’re not even aware of. You know, my dad mentioned water baptism and just how that’s a celebration of what God has done. Just at our most recent Sunday morning service, this older couple came up to me and they said, “Hey, a few months ago, y’all had a water baptism service, and our son was baptized. He just received salvation, just got baptized, and that exact same day he became sober and he hasn’t had alcohol since.”

 

  Praise God.

 

  He actually got in a program, a faith-based program.

 

  Amen.

 

  To help him just stay that way, and they were just super excited.

 

  Amen.

 

  And they just wanted to tell me what God has been doing in his life since he received Jesus and was water baptized to your church.

 

  This will help you enter the presence of the Lord, in Joshua chapter three and four, they had these, they went through the, and then they put the memorial stones there. But in Joshua chapter five, they, you know, circumcised, again, those who had not been circumcised in the wilderness. And then Jesus, the captain of the army of the Lord, appeared to Joshua, and he said, “Where you’re standing is holy ground and Jesus ultimately is leading us into this and we need to remember that he is with us, that he has not left us, that he is ultimately leading us to possess what God has promised us.” Amen. And so we need to remember Jesus today. We need to remember what he’s accomplished in his death and resurrection, and that he has already won the victory and that victory is ours as we believe.

 

  And if God’s on your side-

 

  Amen.

 

  Yeah, and he is on your side. That’s what Joshua saw. He saw the commander of the Lord’s armies. You know, there are angel armies that are fighting on your behalf.

 

  Amen.

 

  And there are more that are for you than are against you. If God be for you, who can be against you?

 

  Amen, and the way that we know God is for us is by what he did in his death and resurrection. Friend, if you’ve never received Jesus, this all begins with Jesus. I want you to pray with me right now. Heavenly Father, I believe that Jesus Christ is your Son. I believe that He died for my sins. You raised Him from the dead and made him Lord. And I surrender to you in Jesus’ name. Friends, our broadcast can now be seen by over two thirds of the world’s population. And it’s our partners that have made this available. I wanna invite you today to become part of this blessing by becoming a partner of Charis Christian Center and “Grace For Today.” So we would love to hear from you. And thank you so much for prayerfully considering this today, blessings.

 

  As you grow in wisdom and understanding, you start to get a bigger picture of what God has in store. But you have to see it in your spiritual eyes before you can go there. With Jesus, you have incredible purpose and your future keeps getting brighter. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of the teaching, “Expanding Our Horizons,” a $15 value free of charge. Download it today at CharisChristianCenter.com.

 

  What can you tell, what’s different?

 

  I struggle with pain in my neck and my shoulders consistently.

 

  Uh huh. Yeah.

 

  And they just prayed over me and it was gone.

 

  It’s gone? That’s awesome.

 

  It’s gone. See that? Hallelujah. Amen.

 

  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.”