Honor God’s Key to Success Part 2 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

Praise the Lord! Friends, I’m so glad that you’re watching this broadcast. We have some great things to share, and I’m gonna tell about one of the boldest moments in my ministry. Did you know what? The Holy Ghost will make you bold. And when you honor God and you honor people of godly authority, you can be bold in the Holy Ghost. So you don’t wanna miss this. Stay tuned. You’re gonna be blessed. Friend, I’m so glad that you’re here and I’m excited to have Aaron. Actually love this teaching. It is so needed in the Body of Christ and in the world today, about honor and God’s key to success. And Aaron, you have some points you shared yesterday, and we wanna jump into that and then move right forward.

Yeah, I wanna say that really honor is absolutely essential. You know, you see honor all throughout the Bible, and there’s great promises attached to honor. And the enemy tries to get people in their flesh and just looking at things in the natural and trying to get you to criticize people and kinda cut off from people that really God has called you to be in relationship with. Maybe it’s a business relationship, a family relationship, a spiritual relationship. Maybe through a ministry, through great teachers, through a church, through a body of believers. And the enemy really tries to isolate people.

Lawson Yes!

And I’ve seen, you know, church attendance has plummeted over the past, you know, 50 years. If you look at the, you know, the numbers, the statistics on church attendance, it’s actually appalling.

Right!

And I think that’s one reason why, like, our nation is the way it is. Like, people need a lot of help and believers included need a lot of help. But we need to go back to this place of honor.

Yes!

You know? And…

You know, Aaron, I was raised old school, right? And I grew up in a traditional church. It wasn’t Spirit-filled, we didn’t know a lot of the promises. But two things that my dad taught me from a very young child, and my dad went to heaven when I was just 17 years old, but my dad taught me, number one: We go to church. And we went to church every Sunday, no matter what. Number one. And number two: So the first of every week we go to church. And the first thing that we do every time we get paid is we give to God. And you know what? I have employed those principles in my life, and those principles have worked for me. Dr. Lester Sumrall said before he would hire someone, he had three questions. I wanna know what you do first thing every week. Do you go to church? He said, “I want to know what you do first thing every day. Do you get in the Word? Do you spend time with God?” And then he said, “I wanna know what you do first time, every time you get paid.” Do you honor God? Do you give to God first? And I know a lot of our friends, Mark Hankins says, “You can’t fix people if they don’t honor God in some areas.” And so it’s so important that we employ the principles of the scripture in our lives. And I believe when you do that, it leads to blessing.

It’s true. And you know, your dad, what year was he born in?

He was born in 1941. January of 1941.

So in that generation, you know, the ’40s, you know, the World War II going on, the ’50s, coming out of that, people understood honor. They understood, like, you need to stand for what’s right. You need to stand for what’s true. You need to stand for freedom, you know? And people were people of honor. It was an honor to be in the military. Like people actually wanted to fight for what’s good.

Lawson Yeah, for freedom.

And, you know? And over time, things kinda switched and rather honoring, you know, freedom, honoring, you know, the US flag, people would burn it and stomp on it, and-

Terrible!

And, you know, even, you know, in times recent, you know, people supported riots and people just trashing cities and businesses and police cars. And, you know, rather than showing just basic respect, you know, it was actually supported by even, you know, government leaders, you know?

Lawson It’s crazy!

To dishonor. And dishonor, it’s a terrible thing. It’s gonna take you in the wrong direction. To really be successful at life, to really tap into God’s destiny for you, you have to be a person of honor.

Yeah!

You have to honor relationships, you have to honor, you know, people around you. You have to honor your, you know, people in your community. You have to honor people at church. There’s a lot of basic things that people lack.

Aaron, you’re talking about that generation in the 1940s. My grandfather actually spoke to me. I worked for my grandfather when I was a really young man from the time I got paid. I worked for him from the time I was about eight till I was 23. But I got paid from the time I was 13 to 23. And my grandfather said, “It didn’t matter what you did in the 1940s, whatever you did would make money. You just had to go do it.” And so when people live with that kind of honor, it leads to great blessing.

And there’s actually a scripture that says, “In all labor there’s profit.”

Lawson Yes!

You know, I’ve met some people that have struggled. And I said, “Well, you know, hey, in all labor, there’s profit.” Just do something and God can turn it. He can open the right doors for you, especially when you’re a person of honor. When you’re honoring God, when you wanna give, you wanna go extra, you know, with whatever you’re doing, God will open the right doors and He’ll bring increase. Promotion comes from the Lord. There might be people that are, you feel are trying to squash you down, keep you down. Maybe someone in your family, maybe someone you know at school, maybe a teacher, maybe someone in a ministry role that you feel like they aren’t treating you right, they’re trying to keep you from what you think God has for you. Just keep being a person of honor and God’s gonna work it out.

Lawson Amen!

God will remove people of dishonor.

Lawson Yes!

He’ll remove people who have the wrong heart about things.

Yeah!

He’ll move them out of the way and make room for you. So just keep honoring God.

Or He’ll put you somewhere else where people, you know? And a lot of times you don’t know what’s on the inside of an organization. A lot of times you don’t know that the workings, different things that go on.

What’s going on. Yeah. So I wanna talk about this. That honor, you know, you honor God with your possession, with your substance. Honor is a very substantial thing. But honor always goes beyond.

Lawson Yes!

And there’s great promise attached to it because it’s… You’re not gonna do it naturally in your flesh. You’re not gonna always feel like honoring. You’re not gonna always feel like giving. You’re not gonna always feel like working harder. You’re not always gonna feel like treating someone better than they deserve to be treated. But honor goes beyond. Respect is just basic level of what’s due to someone, what you owe someone. Hebrews 12:9 says: Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us and we paid them respect.

Lawson Right.

So human fathers, that might be your natural father, it might be someone who taught you a trade, it might be a teacher, it might be a ministry leader. But you need to pay them respect. And it says, you know, you need to also respect God. It says: Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of Spirits and live? You know, to be in subjection to someone means, like, you realize that they are over you. Realize that God is over you. And, you know, subjection. That kind of relates to the word submit. And that’s not always a popular word in the Body of Christ today. And it means that to submit to someone, it means you’re not always gonna get it your way.

And it’s talking really, submission is really talking about an attitude of heart. You can obey without submitting, because you can obey and actually have a bad attitude.

And to submit means, like, someone else’s might… You do it their way and not your way, the way that you think things should be done.

You know, I got a good friend, he’s a leader of a major ministry, and he says, “I have two rules.” And he employs a lot of people, and it’s a big ministry. He says, “Number one, is the boss is always right. Number two is refer to rule number one.” And the boss may not always be right, but you need to respect the people that are over you.

Yeah. Just basic respect.

Right?

And that’s due to them. But honor actually goes beyond that.

Yeah!

You know, I love you mentioned a scripture about double honor.

Yeah! Well, and I wanna share this before we get over it right now, because this is Hebrews 13:17, and it goes with what you’re saying. Because you’re talking in Hebrews 12:9 to be obedient, right, to our natural fathers, to be obedient to God, our Heavenly Father, but also to honor spiritual leadership. Hebrews 13:17 says this: He says, “Obey them that have the rule over you and submit yourselves for they watch for your souls as they must give account that they may do it with joy.” Listen, I take it serious. I wanna treat the people that work for me with respect. But people that work for other people, right? When I serve other people, when I’m working for somebody else, like, if I’m ministering for a pastor in his church, I’m listening to what he has to tell me. If I’m ministering for Andrew Wommack at his Bible school, I’m taking serious what he tells me. I take serious. He’s one of my mentors, right? I take serious what he tells me in my own ministry, in my own life. I’m listening! I’m all ears. He says, “For they watch for your souls.” I know that Andrew Wommack wants my best, right? I know that these pastors, if I’m serving them, if I’m ministering at their church, that they want what’s best for their church. I want what’s best for their church. I wanna help them. I wanna bless them. I don’t wanna hinder them. I may look at it differently, but it’s their church. They’re the one that’s gonna take account for that, right? They’re the bishop, they’re the overseer of that church. Right? I just preached at a African American church in Delaware, and they were all African Americans in the hood! Man, those people treated me with such respect, but I respected them. They treated me so good. But he says-

But, yeah, you’re being respectful in that house. You know, this is maybe a year ago but someone came to church for a while and they wanted to be in the choir. They said, “Well, I’m gonna write my own songs and just sing it up there on the stage.” And in her message, email, she said, “You know, God told me to do this, and this stage you have, it’s God’s stage.” And she was never invited to come to practice or anything like that, but she just showed up one time. And I just said, “You’re not. You weren’t invited to be here.” And she was throwing a fit. I said, “You can’t sing your own songs that you make up on the spot, you know, in the choir. Like, you need to sing in unity with the choir. That’s the whole point of a choir.” And she was throwing a fit. And I said, “You have one minute to get out of here or I’m calling the cops.”

Yeah!

And, you know, she was fleshing out.

You know, you have a younger leader that works over that department and her parents actually contacted me and they were so thankful that you told that woman, ’cause she was a little older, how it was. Because you’re the one in authority in that place. And, you know, if I’m working under someone, right, and I’m challenged with what they say, you know what? I’m… If I can’t do that and obey God, I’ll go somewhere else. But you know what? I respect godly authority. And it says they do it because they must receive account. So we gotta guard our heart and keep it. He says, “For they do it with joy and not with grief, for that is unprofitable.” I know I’ve had some people work for me and it’s grievous when they don’t listen, when they don’t have respect, when they live with dishonor. And I don’t wanna be grievous to the spiritual leaders that God puts over me, or the natural leaders.

Grievous to the Holy Spirit too.

Oh, I don’t wanna grieve the Holy Spirit.

So, yeah. Keep being a person of honor. And, you know, when you honor other people, God’s gonna honor you. He’s gonna go beyond what you deserve too.

Lawson Yes!

And, man, I just realized when I tap into God’s honor system, you know, it’s not always easy, but there’s great promise attached to it. So sometimes when you least feel like honoring someone, that’s when you need to make it a point and be intentional and honor someone.

Amen!

And there is just great breakthrough, there’s great, you know, increase financially. There is great revelation that comes from that.

Amen!

Stay tuned with us!

Friends, I hope you’ve been enjoying this teaching. I certainly have enjoyed teaching with my son, Aaron, from his notes on honor that he taught in our youth. But I’m telling ya, this is good for everybody in the Body of Christ. And this is some of the greatest teaching, really, from my son, Aaron, that I’ve ever heard on the subject of honor. So you can download this free of charge on our website. Blessings. Jesus said three beautiful words in John 19:30! He said, “It! Is! Finished!” There is nothing more that needs to be paid in the realm of redemption. The price has already been paid! Friends, I’m so glad that you’re still with us and we’re talking about honor and how honor goes beyond, and we have some scriptures really talking about how we respond to godly leadership, right? To leadership in the ministry. You know, there’s different areas of leadership. There’s leadership in the home, there’s leadership in the family, there’s leadership at work. There’s leadership in the ministry, right? And we need to understand these. But it says this in 1 Timothy 5:17: Let the elders, right? That’s the ones that are spiritually older, that rule well. Generally-

Aaron Pastors!

This is talking about teaching elders in this context. That rule well, be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the Word and doctrine. You know? So if I have a pastor, if I have a minister, you know, who I respect, I wanna treat them well financially. He says, “For the scripture says, you shall not muzzle the ox that treads out the corn and the laborer is worthy of his reward.” Now, years ago when we started Charis Christian Center here in Colorado Springs, I had a man after several years, after three years or so, I was taken about half what the average pastor would take as far as in the same setting, same size of church, same income at church, same type of area. You know, they had books, you know, in the United States. I had a book done by a major ministry. And so anyway, I had a actually legal board member who’s a head of another ministry, and he sat down when we were having our annual meeting. And he threw, he told me, “I want you to take more money and if you’re not gonna take more money than I’m gonna resign.” And this man had served me and helped me for years. And I actually, I said, “Well, I really don’t want to.” And so, he opened his Bible to this scripture and read it. The one I just read and threw it down on the table and said, “If you won’t do it, I’m gonna resign. That’s the way it is.” I said, “Well, I’ll do it under one condition.” He said, “What?” I said, “Well, you come. I’m gonna be taking a mission trip, taking some people to another country, doing a mission trip, leading, overseeing this group going down to the Dominion Republic.” And I said, “I want you to come and minister at my church and you talk to my in-church elders.” Right? I had an advisory board in the church at that time of seven couples. “And if they will agree with this, then I will do it. But you’ve gotta get them to agree.” And so, he came and met with them. I took this mission trip, he preached for me Sunday and then met with all these elders. And they said, “Hey, we’ll do that. We’ll do more.” And you know what? They blessed me. You know what happened, Aaron? The income of the church exploded. The income of the church went up dramatically. And so, it was really amazing. You know what happened with the income of the church? And you know what? Everybody was blessed! The church was blessed, I was blessed, the people. Now I gave a lot of that money back. You know, Mom and I don’t limit God to 10%. In fact, we’ve given over the years about 30% of our income back to the church and to the different ministries. And you know what? There’s only one way that you can explain the blessing in my life. It’s supernatural! Hallelujah.

And I like that it says, “Let the elders who rule well.” You know, so this is pastors and teachers who do a good job, you know?

Lawson Right!

Someone is terrible at that job, maybe they don’t need to get double honor.

Yeah! I am gonna say this because I’m on a number of ministry boards, right? And different things. And I would rather fail in the area of generosity than fail being too cheap, right? Or too… As far as with ministers and leaders. And I have always been that way. Even before I was ever in ministry, before I ever got paid for ministry, I was in leadership at a church. But even before I was in that leadership role, I gave extra. I wanted to bless the minister. I wanted to bless! I would give him personal gifts. I would do things. And listen! Mom and I, at that point in time, we made $20,000 a year. We lived in a trailer house, we drove our car, had lots of miles. We gave 50% of our income to the church. It was a miracle. I don’t even know how we lived! But you know what? God blessed us.

Yeah! And I like too that when you said when your, you know, board member and your advisors agreed to, you know, compensate you well, that you said the church really exploded the income here.

Income, I tell ya!

When you do things God’s way, it causes growth. It causes it.

Yes!

You know, like a healthy situation.

Right!

To occur, so.

Let’s read the next verse here. He says in verse 19, “This is another area. You’ve gotta guard yourself.” It’s like you talked about earlier this week. It’s so easy to criticize.

Aaron Yeah!

And God hasn’t given you the critic attitude.

Yeah! And the Bible has a lot of things to say about gossiping, about murmur, murmurers, about whisperers.

Lawson Yeah!

And to, you know, that there is some very negative spiritual things attached to gossiping, to murmuring, to whispering.

Lawson Yeah!

And I love this next verse because it just…

Lawson Go ahead and read it!

The Bible is very direct. Here in 1 Timothy 5:19, it says: Do not receive an accusation against an elder except from two or three witnesses.

Lawson Yes!

And this is actually a scriptural principle. You know, this is something that Paul is quoting. He’s writing to Timothy. Timothy was a pastor, he was an elder, he was over a church, and he’s just telling him how to run church. And you do it with scriptural foundations. And the Old Testament said, “You don’t receive a witness. There has to two or three witnesses.”

Okay.

And he’s just saying this is the same in the New Testament church too. You know, you don’t just gossip about something because you heard someone said it. You know, there have to be two or three-

I’ve had that happen about me!

Firsthand people!

Yeah, people say stuff. They don’t have a clue. And they’re out to lunch. And I usually don’t tell them, I just listen. But…

And, you know, it’s just great instruction. You know, verse 22: Do not lay hands on anyone hastily. That’s talking about promoting people, you know? Calling them, ordaining them, calling them into ministry. Don’t do it hastily.

We’ve had this happen. So when we first started the church here, you know, we might have had a hundred people. We’d have people come and they’d wanna tell us how to run everything. And we’d been pastoring for, you know, 15 years at that time, full-time pastors. And I’d been ministering a lot. At least five years before I started pastoring, I was teaching the Word of God and preaching. So I’ve been ministering a long time. And they’d come tell your mother, “Blah, blah, blah.” You know what your mom told some of them? She said, “Where’d you go to church before you came here?” ‘Cause it just Bible school people. She said, “Well.” They said, “We didn’t go to church ’cause there wasn’t a church that was good enough for us.” She said, “Well, you go out and when you leave Bible school, you go start a church. And when you get a few hundred people, you write a book about it and then you send it to me.” Well, they never done nothing! And these people, a bunch of rebels, spiritual rebels, a bunch of old-fashioned donkeys.

You know, in different cultures, they’re a little more black and white about honoring and about… I have kind of a funny story I heard. A minister I follow named Jonathan Shuttlesworth.

Lawson Yeah!

And he’s a, you know, Pentecostal evangelist.

Lawson He’s all right.

But he was sharing a story about his cousin. He has a cousin who’s also an evangelist about his same age.

Lawson Yeah!

He was planting a church in Florida. But his cousin was just starting out in ministry and someone very spiritual and critical came up to him and said, “You know, I have a very long, you know, prophecy to share with you.” And his cousin just, I think, knew this person was kind of cuckoo and he just said, “Well, here’s what you need to do. You need to get a purple crayon and write it on blue construction paper and write it out. And then, you know, mail it to me.” And like a month later in the mail, he got this, like, hundred page thick construction paper with, you know, purple markers written out, you know? Instructions on what he needs to do.

Probably can’t even read it.

But he just didn’t wanna, you know, waste his time, so. They’re pretty black and white.

I’ll tell you what. That went to file 13! That’s what my daddy called it. File 13 or the circular file. Glory to God. We call that the trash can.

Aaron So-

You don’t know, and I don’t care. Hallelujah.

Well, we really need to honor the people of God in our life.

Let’s talk about this. Years ago, Andrew Wommack came to our church when we were pastoring in Eastern Colorado, Kit Carson, a town of 300, and we had this guy that came up from a friend of ours’ ministry in Southern Oklahoma, and he decided that he was gonna move to Kit Carson. He called himself a prophet, and he would kinda blow in and blow out. He wouldn’t come to church very much, you know? Once or twice a month. And so one day, he came in and he said, you know, he told me that I wasn’t supposed to be in the ministry and I should have never went in the ministry and I should have stayed on the farm. I’d been in the ministry at that time about 11 years, 12 years. And so after he kinda went on a little bit, I stood up and I said, “You shut up and get outta my office!” And he stood up and he was kinda shaking, and he kinda wobbled out the door and went out the back door. And then I called one of my mentors in the ministry that would speak words into my life and I’d speak words into his life at that time, and he was a traveling evangelist. He was traveling somewhere in Arkansas at that time. And he said, “You know what you did?” I said, “No.” He said, “You just cast out the devil.”

Yeah. I wanna say this too. You know, God will speak through people, you know, in your life.

Lawson Amen!

He’ll speak. But the devil will speak through people.

Yeah! And you know, I told him at that time, I said, “Listen, if you got something to say, you talk to Andrew Wommack, you talk to Billy Epperhart, you talk to this person, you talk to this person, and if they come and confirm that, I’ll listen. But you don’t have anything to say.” And then a couple or three years later, I’d moved to Colorado Springs and he called me. He said, “You’re doing very well and God’s blessed you. We’re glad to see that.” So he changed his attitude.

And people can change. And I have this to say too. I know actually quite a few pastors and ministry leaders watch this broadcast. You know, just recently a pastor that you never met in person, but just from watching this broadcast, invited you to go to his church in Wilmington, Delaware to preach. So I know a lot of pastors.

A great man of God! Kenneth Gaines, Spirit Life Ministries in Wilmington, Delaware. He is a great man of God. I wanna tell you, that’s a great place. That’s a great minister of the gospel. If you’re anywhere around there, that’s a good place to go.

Before we run out of time, I do wanna say this. You know, if you’re a pastor or a ministry leader and you have been dishonored, God, you can let things go.

Lawson Yes!

And God is the one who will honor you. Promotion comes from the Lord. So even if you’ve been hurt, even if you’ve been rejected, even if you haven’t received the recognition really that you should, you know, God has a way to honor you.

Lawson Amen!

Even when people have dishonored you and treated you poorly, God can make things right.

Lawson Amen!

He is a restorer, so keep trusting God. He’ll bring healing. He’ll make things right.

Amen!

I wanna say thank you so much for watching our broadcast today. This is a powerful ministry. If you wanna honor God, if you wanna honor the Word, if you wanna honor just the seed that we’re planting around the world, you can actually sow into this ministry. You can give a one time gift, you can become a partner. And I believe that if you honor God with your substance, He’s gonna open up great doors of opportunity for you. So just give us a call if you’d like to give. See you again soon. God bless you.

Announcer Discover the power of honor with Pastor Aaron’s life-changing series, “Honor: God’s Key to Success.” Pastor Aaron reveals how humility, gratitude, and respect help you build meaningful relationships and step into your God-given destiny. We’d like to bless you with a copy of “Honor: God’s Key to Success,” a $25 value free of charge. Visit CharisChristianCenter.com today.

Friends, I wanna thank you for being with us today. It’s our pleasure to share with you the Word of God. We believe it changes lives. And because of that, we’re broadcasting all around the world. It costs me right now around $2 million a year just for my staff and paying for our broadcast costs. But if you wanna become a partner and help us share the message all around the world, we would love to hear from you today.

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