Goodness of God Part 4 – Lawson Perdue – 11/18/2024

Friends, I’m so glad that you’ve tuned into the broadcast today. We’re gonna be sharing a continued message where I’m teaching live on the goodness of God revealed in his promises. Thank God the Bible is full of promises, promises for forgiveness, for healing, for peace, for provision. Every area of our life is covered. So open your heart and receive the good Word of God today. Blessings. Psalm 145, we’re gonna start in Psalm 145 tonight. I love these verses. In verse seven, it says: They shall abundantly utter the memory of your great goodness and sing of your righteousness. We need to keep talking about the goodness of God. You know, we were singing about the goodness of God. Amen, and God is truly a good God. And he said: They will sing of your righteousness. We need to declare his goodness and sing of his righteousness. His righteousness is revealed in the covenant. Praise God? When you begin to understand the righteousness of God, first of all, you receive righteousness or right standing with God by faith. But secondly, when you are the righteousness of God in Christ, right standing with God or righteousness becomes the foundation for all of the promises of God. And we don’t get the promises of God because we’re good. We get ’em because God’s good. Amen? And so when you begin to declare his goodness and sing of his righteousness, good things happen. So we’re gonna look through Psalm 145 to begin with, and the greatness of God is revealed in his goodness. Let’s look at the first six verses here. What the psalmist is talking about is praising God for his greatness. Notice what he says in verse one through six: I will extol thee, O my God, O king, and I will bless your name forever and ever. I will bless, every day, I will bless you, and I will praise your name forever and ever. Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. His greatness is unsearchable. One generation shall praise your works in another and declare your mighty acts. I will speak of the glorious honor of your majesty and of your wondrous works. And men will speak of the might of your terrible or your awesome acts, and I will declare your greatness. So we need to praise God for his greatness. We need to keep glorifying God, keep praising God, keep magnifying the Lord. Amen, good things happen when you keep glorifying, praising, and magnifying God. Now, when we begin to understand that, it’s a relation, it’s we declare his goodness and mercy. Not only do we praise him for his greatness, but we declare his goodness and mercy. Look at verse seven. We’ll go on down through verse 13. He says this: They will abundantly utter the memory of your great goodness. How many of you are abundantly uttering, abundantly speaking, abundantly, the memory of his great goodness? They will sing of your righteousness. Look at verse eight: The Lord is gracious, full of compassion, slow to anger, and of great mercy. How many of you glad that God is full of compassion, and he has great mercy? I thank God sometimes. I’m glad I’m not God. Barbara, she just got done having her house cleaned, and I got home today, and she said, “Okay, Moses,” she said, “this is holy ground. Now you get your shoes off.” I had a contractor come a little bit. I said, “This is holy ground, Moses. Get your shoes off,” at his door. He’s like, “I understand, I clean my own house.” And so he took his shoes off before he came in. He’s gonna fix a window for me, measure it, but praise God. You know, sometimes, you know, we might be a lot more judgmental than God is, but God is a merciful, how many of you glad God is a merciful God? I’m glad he’s a merciful God. So he says: He is gracious and full of compassion. He is slow to anger and of great mercy. Verse nine says: The Lord is good to all. Maybe people don’t recognize it, but God is good to all. His tender mercies are over all of his works. You know, we moved in by this neighbor 13 years ago, where we’re living today. And when we moved in, this neighbor was pretty rough around the edges. I would say very rough. But I thought, “This is my assignment.” Praise God? And so I’d witnessed it. Barbara, she said, “It’s hard to be around him.” She said, “It’s hard for him to say a sentence without swearing three words in a sentence.” And he was very degrading to women and different things. But anyway, his brother came to stay with him. His brother was failing in his health. And his brother came and told me one day when I was mowing the grass, he said, “You know, my brother is your assignment.” I said, “Yeah, I know it.” Praise God? And, you know, he’s recently been saved.

Amen.

But he had a girlfriend, and she left him for another man. And then, he got another girlfriend, and he said he wasn’t ever gonna get married again, and he married this lady, and I knew she was saved. She’s a backslid Baptist, that, praise God. She kept working on him, and he’s been saved. He married her, and now he’s got saved. And Sunday morning, they came to church here for the first time, and they just loved it. And they loved the worship, and they love Barbara, and they love me, they just loved it. And Barbara’s like, “He is a changed man, praise God.” And so, praise God, it’s amazing what God will do when you just, God is a gracious God, he’s a merciful God, and he’s good to all. Years ago, I had got his mail in all winter for him. And so he took Barbara and I out to eat. And when we were coming back, I was telling him about Hosea. And I was telling him that God, he’s very wealthy, physically and financially, and so, I was telling him how Hosea had this married, I said, “This preacher prophet married a prostitute.” And he said, “Well, I bet he had fun.” I mean, that was his response. But I was trying to tell him, because when you read Hosea, Gomer said, “I’m gonna go back, and I’m gonna follow these lovers that gave me my corn and my wine and my oil.” This is in Hosea chapter two. And, basically, God said, “You didn’t know, but even when you were living in sin, I was the one that gave you your corn, your wine, and your oil. I was the one that was good to you.” And I was telling my neighbor this years ago, that God is good to all. His tender mercies are over all of his works. And even when people are not living for God, if they’re receiving any good, it is from God. God is a good God, and he is merciful. Praise God? And, anyway, he wasn’t receiving it, but he’s receiving it now. Praise God? Hallelujah. So, he says: He’s good to all. And he says: His tender mercies are over all of his works. All of your works will praise you, O Lord. And your saints will bless you. They will speak of the glory of your kingdom and talk of your power. We need to keep talking about the glory of God’s kingdom. We need to keep talking about God’s power. We need to keep glorifying and magnifying and praising God. Amen? You know, this thing where Trump, you know, this guy tried to assassinate him, and Trump turned his head at the last minute, and it just clipped his ear. And we were watching that live. And I told Barbara, I said, “He just got shot.” And I said, “God protected him.” But anyway, you know, I’m talking to people, and this one person that I talked to, he’s up in his 90s, and he’s never really confessed faith in Jesus, but he’s a very strong conservative. And so I called him, and he said, “It’s evident that there was a divine intervention.” And I thought, “Hallelujah, praise God,” and the last time I talked to him, I was actually up on the way to Charis Bible College, and he talked to me for 45 minutes about the gospel. And so, praise God, he is coming to Jesus. Amen?

Amen.

But we gotta share all, you know, it just is exciting to me to see, you know, what God does, and some people come sooner, some people come later, but praise God, they come, amen? And we get to share with so many people about God’s goodness, and so, he says: The saints will bless you. They speak of the glory of your kingdom, talk of your power to make known to the sons of men, his mighty acts and the glorious majesty of his kingdom. You know, we’re here to praise God. We’re here to tell people about his mighty acts. Amen, and the glorious majesty of his kingdom. Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and your dominion endures throughout all generations. Praise God? God’s kingdom’s an everlasting kingdom. It’s gonna go on forever and ever and ever. And so we need to declare his goodness and his mercy, and that he’s good to all, his tender mercy is over all of his works. And do you know what, God’s goodness is revealed to those who trust in him. You know, we were singing this song that really goes back to this verse in Psalm 27:3, but it says: I would’ve fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. You gotta just keep believing to see the goodness of God in the land of the living. And if you keep believing it, amen? And you keep speaking it, you’ll start receiving it. It says here in Psalm 145:14: The Lord upholds all who fall and raises up all who are bowed down. It says: The eyes of all weighed upon you, and you open, you give them their meat in due season. You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing. What that scripture is saying is that God provides for every living thing. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and he owns the hills under him. He feeds every bird. You might not think it’s a lot, feeding the birds, but man, birds can eat a lot. Praise the lord. And, you know, we just have these little bird feeders. But we were on the farm, we had these granaries, and, you know, if you didn’t hurry up when you had the little pile of grain because you were auguring it up into these big bins, if you had a little pile of grain, it might’ve been 10 or 15 gallons, if you didn’t get out there and clean that up, it would be gone, and it wouldn’t take ’em very long to eat it. But God satisfies, he opens his hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing. Praise God, and so he does that. He says: The Lord is righteous in all of his ways and holy in all of his works. The Lord is near unto them that call upon him, all that call upon him in truth. How many of you calling on the Lord? Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. That’s about as simple as you can get, isn’t it? Just call on Jesus, just trust in Jesus, just… He says he will fulfill the desire of those who fear him. He will hear their cry and save them. He’s gonna fulfill your desire. I love the scripture in Psalm 37:4: Delight yourself in the Lord, and he’ll give you the desires of your heart. You just start delighting yourself in the Lord, and he’ll give you the desire of your heart. It’s amazing the things that God has done for us. Amen, it’s amazing. I’m so blessed, I’m so fulfilled in life, amen? And it isn’t been by my knowledge or my strength or my ability, it’s just been loving Jesus. Praise God, just start loving Jesus and stay in love with Jesus. Praise God, and just follow him, and he’ll fulfill your desires. It says: He’ll hear your cry and save you. The Lord preserves all those who love him, but the wicked will he destroy. My mouth will speak the praise of the Lord and let all the flesh bless his holy name forever and ever. So we need to keep praising and blessing and glorifying God. Amen? The greatness of God is revealed through his goodness. And we need to praise him for his greatness and declare his goodness. His goodness is revealed to everyone who trusts him. Amen, God is a good God. Hi, friends, we’ve been sharing on the goodness of God, and we’ve got these teachings, and many others like them, absolutely free of charge on our website at CharisChristianCenter.com. They’re downloadable audio, downloadable video, and we also have a great kids’ curriculum free of charge. Thanks so much. We’re back to the Word, blessings. Isaiah 5:13 says: They’re kept in bondage because they have no knowledge. But when I found out the truth, I remember that I was so excited when I first heard the full gospel preached. When I found out I didn’t have to be sick and poor and defeated by the devil, that I could believe God, that God had a better life, I remember I was so excited. I wanna show you some things in Psalm 84. And Psalm 84 is really talking about the goodness of God being revealed through a relationship with him. And, you know, we need to understand the goodness of God at a heart level. I’m gonna begin at the end, and then we’ll go back to the beginning and work through it. But it says this in Psalm 84:11-12: For the Lord God is a sun and shield. He will give grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man who trusts in you. The Lord is a sun. He’s powerful, right? And he’s a shield. Praise God, he gives grace and glory. His glory is manifested in his grace. Jesus was a manifestation of the grace and the glory of God. He says: No good thing will he withhold. God is not in the withholding business. You know, a lot of people think that God’s up in heaven. And God is saying, “You know what, I’m gonna bless Herb, and I’m gonna keep Judith poor, and I’m gonna, you know, heal Carla and keep Larry sick. You know, and I’m gonna make Mario give him peace, and I’m gonna make Sharon crazy as a coot. And I’m gonna forgive this one’s sin, but I’m gonna send this one to hell.” That’s not what God’s doing.

Right.

Right.

Amen.

You know, in the Scripture, when God sent Jesus, God said yes, and he meant, and he said yes to every, every good thing is in Jesus. He said, “Yes, forgiveness is yours. Yes, healing is yours. Yes, peace is yours.” You know, it’s all in Jesus, and it’s all in the covenant. Yes, the blessing of God is yours. And you know what? God said yes in Jesus, and there is not a question, God is good to all. His tender mercies are over all of his works, but you know what we have to do is we have to believe it. And if you’ll start believing it, you can start receiving it. I just thank God that, you know, 46 years ago, I heard the full gospel preached. You know, I grew up in this traditional church that taught, just like, just exactly like I’m saying, that, yeah, God helps some, and he keeps others poor. God, you know, gives some peace. And, you know, and he makes others crazy. And, I mean, this is, it’s just all up to God, and we’re just kinda hanging in there and hope in God we make it, but that’s not the truth.

Right.

Right.

And God, you know, God heals this one, and God keeps that one sick. That is not God. When God sent Jesus, God in Christ on the cross paid for everything. And so the Bible says this in 2 Corinthians 1:20, see, a lot of people have their doctrine, and they believe what they believe, no matter what the Bible says.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, but the Bible says this in 2 Corinthians 1:20, it says: All the promises of God in Christ are yes and amen to the glory of God by us. God gets glory when we walk in his promises. And it’s like when God sent Jesus, he said, “Yes, that’s the grace of God.” Jesus said, “Yes, forgiveness is yours. Yes, healing is yours. Yes, peace is yours. Yes, provision is yours.” And when you believe it, by faith, that’s the grace of God. By faith, you’re saying, “Amen,” and God gets glory when you walk in it. And a lot of people think it’s all up to God, but it’s not all up to God. A lot of what you get’s up to you, and you just gotta start believing it. I thank God that I started believing. Amen, years ago, 46 years ago. And, you know, I’m believing God today for more than I’ve ever believed him for in my life. And I’m telling you, it’s gonna get better and better and better.

Yes.

Amen.

And I’m speaking it.

Yes.

Hallelujah, I’m saying what God says about the situation. So he says: He is a sun and shield, and he gives grace and glory. No good thing will he withhold. God is not in the withholding business from those who walk uprightly. Praise God? He is not withholding from us, amen? He says: O Lord of hosts, God of the angel armies, blessed is the man that trusts in you. I’m gonna keep my trust in him. I’m gonna keep believing him. So when I, when you go through Psalm 84, there’s a number of things that he says. The first thing that he talks about in the first four verses, he talks about desiring God’s presence. He says: How amiable are your tabernacles, O Lord of hosts. My soul longs, even faints for the courts of the Lord. My heart and my flesh cries out for the living God. Yea, the sparrow has found a house, and the swallow, a nest for herself, that she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of my host. He says: My king and my God, blessed are they who dwell in your house. They will still be praising you. David desired the presence of God. Do you desire the presence of God? Man, the presence of God is amazing. He said: I would rather dwell in the, be a doorkeeper in the house of God than to dwell in the courts of wickedness. I’d rather hold the door at the house of God than to, you know, be highly esteemed with the wicked. Amen, just desire the presence of God. And then he says: Don’t only desire the presence of God, but trust in his strength. Look at what it says in verse five through eight: Blessed is the man whose strength is in you, whose heart are the ways of them, who, passing through the valley of Baca, make it a well, and the rain fills the pools. They go from strength to strength. Every one of them in Zion appears before God. How many of you know that we can go from strength to strength, we can go from faith to faith, we can go from grace to grace, we can go from glory to glory? Amen, you don’t have to go from failure to failure. Amen? He says: We go from strength to strength, every one of them. Zion appears before, and Zion is a prophecy of Israel, but it’s also like the church, when you see the word Zion, because in Zion, the Holy Spirit was poured out, and that’s where the church was born. Praise God. So everyone in his church appears before God. O Lord of hosts, God of the armies of Israel, hear my prayer and give ear, O God of Jacob. Stop and think about that, Selah. Whenever you see Selah, that’s what that means. It means stop and think about that. Some of you know need to stop and think about some of these things. And so he says: Desire his presence and trust in his strength. But then in the last part of this verse nine through 12, he says: Live in his goodness. Behold, O God, our shield, and look upon the face of your anointed, for a day in your courts is better than a thousand. And here’s where he says this, he said: I’d rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. Hallelujah, David desired the things of God. The Lord God is a sun and shield, for the Lord will give grace and glory. And no good thing will he withhold from them who walk uprightly. Man, God is not holding out on us. God is not keeping us back, amen? O Lord of hosts, God of the armies of Israel, or God of angel armies, blessed is the man who trusts in you. So desire his presence, trust in his strength, and live in his goodness. You know, our lives should demonstrate the goodness of God. I believe we get to be a living testimony of the goodness of God to people all around. And people see our lives and they can tell, hey, God’s been good to us. You know, just talking to someone here, and they were telling me about these people, they were very successful businessmen, and their farm was about three miles south of my granddad’s farm. And they said, yeah, they had this place in the mountains. They owned a really large trucking business. They’ve trucked a lot of cattle for me. But they told me that they tuned in and watched our service and they thought it was at 10:30. I said, “That is fantastic.” He just blessed me. Praise God? But you know what, I bet them people can tell. God’s been good to me, ’cause they knew me where I grew up, they knew me when I pastored in Kit Carson and ran cattle, like they hauled a lot of cattle for me in Kit Carson. And now they can see what God’s done, amen? Our lives testify to people, when you keep believing God and just stay at it and don’t quit, amen? I’m telling you, if you just keep believing God, and you just stay at it, and stay at it, and stay at it, and stay at it, and stay at it, I mean, you know what? It gets, it just, it’s good. Amen, and it testifies to a lot of people, it testifies people here, far away, amen, of the goodness of God, amen? I believe our life is testifying to people all around the world. Hallelujah. I’m going in November to preach for a guy in Wilmington, Delaware, and he called in the other day. I didn’t know nothing about him, but I said, “Yeah, I’ll come.” I could just tell he’s a good guy. I’m gonna go out first of November and preach for this guy. Hallelujah, and I’m excited about it. Glory to God, and I looked up his website, he was talking about the favor of God, the grace of God, and faith in God, and talking about good things. I said, “Man, this is gonna be great,” amen? We’re gonna have a good time, amen? Praise the Lord, so we get to tell people all around about God’s goodness. We desire his presence, trust in his strength, and live in his goodness. The prophets declared the goodness of the Lord. Let’s look at this in Isaiah 61. This is a prophecy, y’all know it, of Jesus. Jesus actually opened his ministry with the verse one and the first half of verse two, but it says this: The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach the good news to the meek. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted and proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to those who are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. When Jesus opened his ministry, he read right to there and then closed the book. And it says: The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he said: Today, is this scripture fulfilled in your ears? You know what Jesus was saying? “I am here to declare the grace of God, and I’m here to demonstrate,” amen, “his goodness to you.” Praise God? It goes on to say this: In the day of the vengeance of our God, that’s a future thing when Jesus comes again to comfort all that mourn, but then I wanted to go to verse three: To appoint into them that mourn in Zion to give them beauty for ashes. This is a twofold prophecy. On one side of it, it’s prophetically speaking to the church, amen? And so he gives us: That mourn in Zion, beauty for ashes, and the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified. Friend, I’m so glad that you’ve been watching the broadcast. We have great services like this every week at Charis Christian Center, and you can connect with us every week, Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings. So we’d love to see you. Coming up, blessings.

Faith isn’t complicated. It’s simply trusting God by knowing who he truly is. God is absolutely good. Like Daniel did, who stood strong against the odds, you can live in victory no matter the challenge. God’s goodness is running after you. Discover these life-changing truths in Pastor Lawson’s teachings, “Spirit of Excellence, Lessons from Daniel,” and “The Goodness of God,” both $20 values, yours free today. Download them now at CharisChristianCenter.com.

Did you know God has good plans for you? I wanna encourage you to save the date for our Rejoice! Women’s Conference. We’ll be meeting February 6th through the 8th. We’re gonna have Cathy Duplantis as one of our special speakers. My daughter-in-Law, Pastor Heather, will be here, Pastor Lawson Perdue. Bring your daughters, bring your granddaughters, bring your friends, come hang out with us for a special time of worship and teaching how God has good plans for you. Everyone is welcome. See you there.

It’s great to have you with us today, and I wanna 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.

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.”