Imparting Success to the Next Generation – Part 5 Lawson and Barbara Perdue

  Praise God, friends. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned into the broadcast today. I have my wife, Barbara, and we’re gonna be sharing today on imparting success to the next generation, and specifically on training our children to love their family. The Bible says, “Husbands, love your wives. Wives, respect your husbands.” And if we do what the word says, we will be blessed. Friends, it’s great to have you with us today, and I’m so glad to have Barbara. It’s been a great week teaching with you, Barbara, and we’ve been talking about your brand new books, “Imparting Success to the Next Generation,” which is something that you’ve not only taught in this book, but something that you’ve really modeled. And we’re so very blessed, as have seen God perform His word in our family, and these things that, you know, you’ve taught, that they’re being, that other people are getting a hold of them and getting this revelation, and it’s really helping them. And so I want you to go ahead and jump into the word today.

 

  So we’ve been talking about just some simple biblical truths that not only work in the family, but that work for anybody, any, whether you’re single or married or not. This is a word of God for everybody. We should love the word, we should love God.

 

  Right.

 

  With everything in our heart. And then we taught our children, love their family. Or you could say how to have healthy relationships.

 

  Right.

 

  How to have healthy relationships at home, in the spiritual community, our church, at the workplace. And then of course we also will be talking about some other shows on a practical trade. But today again, we’re gonna be talking about the importance of teaching our children, imparting the success, loving their family. How do you do that? How do you keep loving people? Sometimes people can be difficult.

 

  Thought about something, you know, you can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family. And I’ll tell you, about every family has a challenging person in the mix. And so you’ve just gotta learn how to deal with difficult people. And you gotta learn, how do I love them? How do I love them the way God wants me to love them? You know, how does this look? And it’s probably different for every person in every situation, but there are some basic scriptural direction that we can get ahold of that will help us in these areas.

 

  Well, we have a lot more to say, but let’s get right into the word. Colossians 3:17 through 24. And it says, “In whatever you do,” I like this, I can do it this way. So, “In whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” Then it goes on into all these relationships. “Wives, submit to your own husbands as fitting to the Lord.” So I submit to my own husband, okay? It’s just talking about you. “Husbands, love your wives and do not be bitter toward them. Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well-pleasing to the Lord. Fathers, do not provoke your children.” We talked about this in Ephesians 6:4. “But fathers, do not provoke your children, lest they become discouraged. Bond servants,” or you could say in our workplace, “Obey in all things your masters according to the flesh, not with eye service as men pleasers, but in sincerity of heart, fearing God.” Verse 23. “And whatever you do,” it’s like sandwiched in here. “In whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord, and not to men.”

 

  Amen.

 

  Verse 24 says, “Knowing that from the Lord, you’ll receive the reward of the inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ.” I’m just gonna let you know, this means a lot of, this really speaks clearly in different areas. But at the time when I was studying this out and developing this teacher, this is when our children were little. You know, we had three little boys, basically by the time we had our third one, our oldest was three and a half, or almost four. That’s a lot of little children. That’s a lot of diapers. That’s a lot of housework. We also had cattle. We had began and pioneered our first church. So we were pastoring, you know, building our family and also had this cattle business. And a lot of what I was doing, helping you or serving you, would be considered not very exciting.

 

  Right.

 

  Is it exciting changing diapers? I mean, you change one and then before you know it, it needs done again. You can dust your home and you know, by tomorrow it already looks like it’s been 10 years since you’ve dusted. And you know, cleaning the toilets, and you know, cleaning up after the cattle, you know, you clean the pen and guess what? Tomorrow it’s all filled up again. I mean, there’s just, some things are just so repetitive, but how do we jump outta bed full of joy, ready to serve again? Because this is really serving people. It’s about serving people. But when you do it as unto the Lord, I can do it for him. There’s a grace and a strength that, and a joy that just takes over. And I can do this day after day, no matter how repetitive, no matter that it’s not glamorous. I am doing it for God. And it says, “You’re gonna get a reward, an inheritance from Him.”

 

  You know, I define ministry as serving Jesus through serving people. And everybody’s called to that ministry. We’re all called to serve Jesus through serving others. You know, Paul says in Philippians, chapter two, I think it’s verse four, “Every man, don’t just look on the things that are your own, but look on the things of others.” We’ve gotta think about other people. And how do my actions, how does what I do, how does that affect other people in the body of Christ? And you know, we all affect each other. You know, Romans chapter 14, and the message kind of says this, “None of us is an island.” You know, no man, in the King James, it says, “No man lives to himself or dies to himself.” But we’re all affecting somebody and somebody’s affecting us. And that’s why we need to be connected to the right people, and part of the people are your family. And hey, one thing you brought out in your book, and this is in a different lesson. It’s not really on kids, but we should teach this to our kids. You should never marry somebody that doesn’t love Jesus more than they love you, because the only way they can love you enough is love Jesus first.

 

  And that is in my teaching, yeah. Don’t marry anyone unless they love the Lord.

 

  Jesus, yeah.

 

  And I know you’ve said this over and over, ministry starts in the home, but again, this talked about the home, but then it even talked about in the workplace, you know, “Bond servants, obey in all things.” And I like it. There’s really, I feel like a very unique and healthy culture here at Charis Christian Center. I love our staff, how they work as a team. If someone else needs help, they help one another. And that’s really what should be, to me, created in every workplace, that people help each other. You know, we’re talking about doing it as unto the Lord, serving people, serving in the home, serving in our church, our spiritual communities, but serving in the workplace.

 

  Now, I’m gonna give an example, since you talked about how it’s working in our church staff. Renee Peterson’s here today and she’s helping us. She’s not always here when we’re doing television or, you know, live streaming. But Renee’s here today, and Renee’s the head of our television department. But it’s not uncommon to see Renee helping Lynn Bloss, who’s our children’s pastor, and she’ll just be doing these menial things. Or when we have a funeral, helping prepare food for that funeral or helping clean up after the funeral. You know, she’s always helping serving people. And I think everybody that we have on staff has that servant’s mentality. And it’s not this high and mighty, you know, Jesus said serving looks different in the kingdom. It’s not like the world where you Lord it over them. But whoever’s gonna be great among you, let them first be a servant. And the first place that we really need to learn to serve, and you’ve modeled this very, very well, Barbara, in our family, I don’t think this is something that’s really celebrated in the world, but it should be celebrated, is that you have served me and you have served our kids. And you know, I also try to serve you and serve our children. Not only serve the people at our church, serve the people at Bible school, the people that we, mean, I try to number one, serve Jesus, then serve you, then serve our kids, and then serve the people that I serve in the ministry. Whether it be at church or Bible school or, you know, the ministry leaders that I try to pastor here at the church.

 

  Amen. But again, I just really like that. You know, if you always looked at a person. Like I said, sometimes people can be demanding, or you know, just things are so repetitive, but when you do it as unto the Lord, there’s just a joy that just takes over, a joy that just does not run dry.

 

  You know, I don’t believe Jesus was demanding, demeaning or belittling. But if you have a legalistic mentality, if you have a lot, you know, for the first six years that we pastored, I didn’t have a revelation of grace. And I could say that I was probably demanding, demeaning and somewhat belittling. Not trying to be that way, but I just really didn’t have a revelation of the love of God for me. But when I got a revelation of grace, it literally changed the way that I live life. It changed the way that I am as a husband. It changed the way that I live as a father. It changed the way that I, you know, live as a pastor. You know, even in my business changed. It’s changed probably everything about me.

 

  Well, I know, and I just feel like it’s good to share some funny personal stories. You talked about when we were first married, how you didn’t have a revelation of grace. And you always used the word to preach down at me. And I’ve studied my Bible. I remember thinking, “Well, I’ve studied my Bible too, and if this is how you wanna do it.” And you’ve shared this before, and I know people love this story, but you know, you were not in your office that day. I remember taking all those yellow sticky notes or different colored paper and writing all these, we’re gonna get into-

 

  I think we got into a little tiff.

 

  We’re gonna, we’re gonna-

 

  Probably more than a little one.

 

  We’re gonna talk about Ephesians here just in a second. But I remember taking all these scriptures and writing them out, that a husband is to love his wife, and what that means and all these different trans-

 

  You had scriptures from all over the Bible. My whole office, the whole top of my desk, I had this three foot by six foot beautiful oak desk that the people in Kit Carson had bought and put in my office, and it had a glass cover on it. Man, all the drawers had ’em on the outside. On the inside, you open it up. On the bulletin, everywhere in my office, it was plastered with these scriptures about husbands love your wives and so, and all the things that we need to do as leaders for our families. And really it, at that point, I was very legalistic, and it embarrassed me.

 

  And I told you the word of God shouldn’t embarrassed you.

 

  But it was, because I wasn’t doing it, and, you know.

 

  Yeah, so anyway, we just wanted, it is good to share these stories, like maybe sometimes how to handle some conflict. That’s the real life story. And I wasn’t even that I just had scriptures, but I had numerous translations.

 

  Any man that thinks a woman can’t preach has never been married. You know, you just, you know, there’s prophetesses in the Bible, and prophet’s one of the, the second highest office as far as fivefold ministry gifts in the church. And if a woman could be a prophet, she could be about anything. And the Bible actually talks about in Romans chapter 16, Andronicus and Junia, who were of note among the apostles, that was a man and woman, and I believe they were apostles. There’s actually 24 New Testament named apostles. If you’re struggling with that, you know, you gotta study a little more. Read that Bible a little closer, praise God, and that’ll help you.

 

  I wanna bring something out. You know, we’re talking about loving their family and really it’s about serving. And then the Bible gives some healthy information about what this looks like. And so we’re gonna look at Ephesians. And I really like what it says in Ephesians 21, ’cause a lot of times when people are teaching on marriage, somehow this verse-

 

  It’s Ephesians 5:21.

 

  Yeah, thank you, Ephesians 5:21. Sometimes people leave this verse out, but it says, “Submitting to one another in the fear of the Lord.” So you know, submitting to one another.

 

  Yeah, when you respect your relationship with God, you learn how to sub, I’ve learned how to respect you. And it’s not, man, I’ve learned how, man, I’m the head of my family, but I’ve learned how to really respect the voice of God in you and hear you, hear what you have to say, because it’s a very valuable part of our life. Man, I could have saved myself thousands of dollars if I’d learned this sooner. But praise God, still good.

 

  Amen. So praise God. Do we need to take a break now?

 

  Yeah, we’re gonna take a break. So we’ll take a break. We’ll be back right after this break, and we’ll continue teaching. And you don’t wanna miss the next scriptures that Barbara’s gonna be sharing. Blessing. Hey everyone, I’ve just finished reading the final script for my wife, Barbara’s book on imparting success to the next generation. It’s a fantastic tried and proven thing that Barbara has proved in our lives on how we can teach our children to succeed. Andrew Wommack wrote the foreword. You don’t wanna miss it, you’ll be blessed. Thanks so much.

 

  Been serving really hard, serving the Lord, running my carpet cleaning business, just going above and beyond, and I’m feeling a little fatigued. I’m healthy, I’m whole in the name of Jesus, but I just wanted to reach out. I’m feeling a little tired coming in today, but right now my whole body feels tingling. I’m feeling good. I feel healing power running through my body right now, and I’m healed in the name of Jesus.

 

  Friends, I’m so glad you stayed with us, and we’re right here in Ephesians chapter five. Barbara, go ahead and share.

 

  Again, we’re gonna be looking at what does Ephesians 5:21, let me see, 21 through 24 say. And we just had read this. “Submitting to one another in the fear of God. Wives, submit to your own husbands.” I like another translation said adapt. But, “Wives, submit or adapt to your own husbands as to the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the church, and He is the savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.”

 

  Now let’s talk a minute about what true submission is. True submission is really talking about of attitude of the heart. And it’s not talking about blind obedience. Some men take this wrong and think that their wives are to obey them no matter what they tell them. And that it says, “As unto the Lord.” So you are to have an attitude of respect. I believe that wives should do what their husbands ask them reasonably, within reason, as long as it does not cause them to disobey God. But first of all, men, it says, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her.” And if you will love your wife as Christ loved the church, and give yourself to your wife as Christ gave Himself for the church, give yourself for your wife as Christ gave himself for the church. Did you know what? I don’t believe your wives will have a problem respecting you and deferring to you, so on and so forth. Go ahead.

 

  So like you just brought out, submit your own husbands as to the Lord. This is a lot of times, like you just mentioned, this has been taken out of context. This is really in the Christian home.

 

  Right.

 

  You know, not at, anyway, I think you explained that very well. But to love your wife as Christ loved the church. Well, how did Christ love the church?

 

  He loved it unconditionally. You know, when we were first married, your parents had been through some difficulty and suffered some lack as a result of, you know, some challenges they faced, and you were really afraid and kind of emotional about it. I remember we lived in this big double wide, and I remember going out of our bedroom that was on one end, going into the other end ’cause you were crying and emotional and upset and getting in bed and other. And as soon as I laid down, God spoke to me from the word and said, “Get your  back in your bed. I said love your wife as Christ loved the church.” Maybe he don’t talk to you that way, but I understood what He said, and I got outta my bed and I went back, and I shut my mouth. Because Jesus loved the church. When the church was making all the wrong choices. He loved us when we were making all the wrong choices and doing all the wrong things. Jesus loved us and died for us. Christ died for the ungodly, while we were yet sinners, Romans 5 says. And if Christ could die for us and love us in that state, He says husbands, we’re to love our wives that way.

 

  And I know these are some things that you put down talking about the role of a husband is to love as Christ, which we just brought out, but to cherish, care for, provide, and nurture. You know, this is another thing, you know, we’re talking about how a lot of these things that we have brought out, loving the word, loving your family, practical trade, was a lot of what the Jewish culture would do. And you know, we’re talking about a husband cherishing, care for, provide and nurture. And we taught all of our children that, you know, we didn’t allow-

 

  Our boys.

 

  Our boys, thank you, our children not to date to a certain age. But even that we said, “You cannot marry till you can afford a wife.”

 

  Yeah.

 

  Til you can show us-

 

  Our youngest son was dating one of our elders’ daughters who was a couple years older and he wanted to get married. He was talking about this at the end of his junior year when he got graduated as a senior. And I said, “Where are you gonna live, under the bridge?” And I sat him down and I said, “There ain’t no way in the world. You are gonna go to at least one year of college before you get married. And you gotta show me on paper how it is.” Now, Andrew, our son went to three years of college, graduated with his undergrad in three years at Colorado School of Mines with honors as a chemical engineer. And then was going in his fourth year as master’s. And he came and brought on paper, he had it written out how he could provide for his wife, Bree, even while they were finishing college. ‘Cause he continued on to get his master’s degree there. And Bree was a couple years older and working as an athletic trainer in Denver. But he came and showed me, “Daddy, this is how we can live, and this is how we can make it.” He probably saw me talk to Peter.

 

  Well…

 

  But you know what, I love, Peter’s doing great. But we have a world that does not wanna take up their responsibility. We have raised a generation of infidels. I’m sorry. The Bible says that if you don’t take care of your own, you are a worse than an infidel, and you have denied the faith. That’s what my dad taught me. And it’s time that we raised some children with some guts and some young men with guts and honor to honor their wives and to take care of them. It’s not wrong for a wife to work outside the home, so on and so forth. Sometimes they may have to. But listen, we need to have honor and respect for our wives. Praise God.

 

  Amen. And you know, when you were saying that, it kind of reminded me of another thing Dr. Lester Sumrall used to say about marriage. He said, you know, regarding marriage and a lot of divorces, he said a lot of those divorces were caused by, they just didn’t, it wasn’t time to be married. In other words, they didn’t wait, they didn’t have things in place. It wasn’t like they didn’t love each other or that love ran out. It’s just difficulties came because they just forgot to get some of those basic foundational things done in place.

 

  Now, I’m gonna share something with you. If you’re married, the Bible says, don’t seek to be unmarried. If you’re not married, don’t seek to be married. You seek God. Let God bring your spouse.

 

  Amen.

 

  And God will help you. I’m not trying to be mean, but I’m telling you we’ve gotta change the way that we think. I also wanted my kids to get a education so that they would be able to make enough money to provide wealth for their families. And you know what? All of our, not only our sons have good educations, and God opened the door and God provided for them and God blessed them and God helped them. Their wives have good educations. Their wives. I mean, our Peter’s wife, Kendra, graduated number three at Duke Law School. She’s a brilliant young woman. And Bree got her degree in, you know, athletic training. And Heather, you know, worked and had her own business before Aaron and her got married. And you know, they’re all brilliant young women, they’re all very, very capable of, you know what they could provide well for their house without our sons. But you know what, we need to teach our children, and we need to, this is part of a practical trade, I’m really jumping ahead, of loving the family. But all these things, love the word, love God, love your family, and having a practical trade. They all work together. And sometimes we in the church are just ignorant.

 

  Well, and I like what you brought out in education. And education may take you going to university, and education can come in the form of apprenticing. A lot of times people will apprentice with somebody.

 

  Right.

 

  And learn a skill through apprenticing. But another-

 

  Listen, if we want our children to be doctors and lawyers and leaders in business and leaders in society, they have to have a certain education to do that. You know, my doctor goes to our church, Dr. Tom Henderson. He’s a graduate of Oral Roberts University. But he is a very good doctor, and he really loves people. But you know what, if he had no education, he would not be a medical doctor. His daughter actually works for us at the church. She’s a graduate of ORU. She’s a beautiful, amazing young woman. Amazing, you know, staff member here at the church. Thank God, we’re so blessed.

 

  Well, again, it might, and we’ll be talking about this coming ahead, but sometimes you do need to take the time for education or taking the time to be apprenticed. And so I love this. We’re talking about love your family. How do you do that? Colossians 3 tells us.

 

  Right.

 

  You know, do it as unto the Lord. And then it goes on and after it says everything, “Do it heartily as unto the Lord.” Really understanding that, you know, maybe where you’re in your home or maybe even in the workplace, you don’t feel like you’ve been celebrated, but the Lord says, “I’ll make sure you get the reward.”

 

  Amen. When you do it as unto the Lord God, you know what? When you get into the practical trade, which we’ll get into probably ne next week’s teaching, so we’ll continue to teach on loving our family, but then a practical trade. But part of that, you know, is you gotta have the ability to do it. And you get that from God. And you know, you work at that. And if God doesn’t bless you in one place, you know, you honor God at your job. You serve your boss, right? And you do the best to bless him in any way that you can, any way that’s not ungodly. And if God can’t bless you and promote you there, God will bless you and promote you somewhere else. But your attitude of heart is really important. And boy, we got a lot. A lot of people, they have skill, they have ability, but their attitude stinks, and they wonder why they’re struggling in their job. Man, you need to go to work with the attitude, “I am here to do all I can do, I’m gonna give it 110%.” When I went to work for Lester Sumrall, I replaced three people. I did the jobs of three people. And I’m telling you, sometimes in ministries, people have bad attitudes. And you know what, I was blessed there. They offered me a salaried position in a few months. But I said I can’t do that because God’s called me to pastor. Go ahead, Barb. We just have a few seconds, so.

 

  Yeah, we just have a little bit. I just really wanna encourage those watching, especially, I believe I just really have a heart for the young parents right now, the fathers and the mothers. If you’re in that stage of life where your children are really little, you know, it’s just nonstop. We have some of our family right now and, you know, they have toddlers and babies, and you know, you just really don’t get any breaks. But we just wanna encourage you, serve, serve, take care of your children, you know, serve one another as unto the Lord, and He’ll give you that strength that you need each day. There’s a reason why the Bible says take one day at a time.

 

  Amen. Love God, love His word, love your spouse, love your children, serve people. Praise God, this is so practical, but it’s so invaluable. And you know, I really believe that it’s God’s will for every person to prosper. But I believe we need to look at the word in a different way and we need to apply it in a practical way to our life.

 

  I just wanna remind everybody, at that season I was in when my children were all very little, you know, three boys, four years old and under, you know, I was aware, I really believe, I really felt God’s presence with me in the home. No one else was around, and it was just scrubbing the toilets and changing the diapers, and I really felt God was pleased, that God was watching me, and He saw my heart, and He was pleased. And I just wanna encourage you to know God sees you. You’re not alone, and He is pleased with you. He will give you that strength, the wisdom and energy you need, and He will reward you.

 

  You, know, whether you’re two or 92, God’s word will work for you.

 

  Amen.

 

  Praise God. And I just want to say a great thank you to our partners that have helped us make this available. I wanna let you know we have some great stuff on our website. Not only this book, “Imparting Success to the Next Generation.” We are developing an entire new children’s curriculum. And you can go to our website under our store and we’re making it free of charge. I’ve been paying over $900 a year for a curriculum that we have to change because they won’t allow people to teach what we teach about the Holy Spirit, about faith, about the promises of God. But you know what, you can go and you can get those. Also, you can get the book, “Imparting Success to the Next Generation” on our website, on amazon.com. Or if you come here to church at Charis Christian Center physically. If you’re in town this Sunday, please come and attend services, 8:30 or 10:30. Tell your friends about the broadcast. Tell your friends about the church. Or if you’re not in town and can’t be here physically, watch online at charischristiancenter.com. Blessings.

 

  It is important to keep God first, family second, and our ministry third. In a busy world, it is essential that we understand and act upon these priorities. Raising kids to love the word, value family, and live with purpose will bring them great success. Get your copy of Barbara’s new book, “Imparting Success to the Next Generation,” for $15.99. Go to charischristiancenter.com and order yours today.

 

  Hey everyone, I wanna let you know about something coming up for our livestream congregation. We have Brother Jesse Duplantis gonna be here at Charis Christian Center.

 

  You let God do what He wants, and He’ll bless you beyond your wildest dreams, spiritually, physically, and financially.

 

  You’re gonna get some great revelation with Jesse Duplantis. Tell your friends about it. Charis Christian Center, Sunday, November 5th.

 

  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.”