Journey of Faith Part 1 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue – 12/30/2024

Praise the Lord, friends, and welcome to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in today. I have my son, Aaron, with me. We’re actually gonna be sharing from his teaching on the journey of faith. And today we’re gonna be talking about the fact that faith is not just a movement, faith is a lifestyle. And if you consistently live the lifestyle of faith, you will be blessed. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re with us today, and glad to have Aaron. We’re actually gonna be sharing one of his teachings on the Journey of Faith, and it’s a tremendous teaching. I was really ministered to it when he ministered it in person at the church, I’m sure that you’re gonna be ministered to it. So open your heart and received the word of God today.

Awesome. Well, I wanna start in Romans 1:16-17. Just talking about this journey of faith. So here in Romans 1:16-17, Paul writes, he says, “For I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith.” So faith isn’t just a one time thing when you say yes to Jesus. Faith, actually, it’s a lifestyle. With Jesus, that relationship with Jesus, you’re always gonna be in faith. It always takes faith to walk with Jesus. And God’s not gonna give you a dream or a purpose that doesn’t require faith.

Amen.

Every purpose of God requires faith. You know, I was talking to my wife, Heather, about this, and you know, we’ve been married six years now. I’ve been in ministry for eight and a half years, and we just kind of came to this realization that it always takes faith. You never reach a point where you can just coast and everything just automatic and just go into neutral. Everything’s easy. You know, it always takes faith. And we were actually talking to another minister recently, Lynn Crow, who’s been in the ministry for 50 years.

Yes.

And asked her, you know, do you ever just reach a point where you don’t have problems? And, you know, she just laughed and said, no. So even after being in ministry 50 years, you know, walking with Christ for such a long time, it always takes faith.

You know, I think, God is a faith God. In fact, you know, there’s a lot of people, you know, like in the 1980s, so on and so forth, the late 1970s, there’s a message known as the word of faith. Well, that actually comes from the scripture. Paul said in Romans chapter 10 that it’s the word of faith that we preach. But a lot of people thinking along those lines think, well, faith was just a movement. But faith is not a movement, faith is a lifestyle. And I like, you know, what you’re talking about, Aaron, about anything that God does in our life, it’s done by grace through faith. It takes both of those things. It takes the grace of God, but it also takes faith to receive it. It’s not automatic.

And another thing too, I just love Paul’s passion for the gospel. He just said, I’m not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it’s the power of God. You know, I think a big reason why a lot of churches, a lot of believers don’t experience the power of God in their life is because they are, they’re ashamed of certain things. They’re ashamed of the full gospel of Christ. You know, we shouldn’t be ashamed of the promises of God. We should know them.

Amen.

We should preach them. We should believe for them. And certainly not be ashamed of them.

Amen.

You know, people shouldn’t be ashamed of what Jesus has done for them.

Lawson Amen.

You know, the promises that we have through him. We should be bold about it. You know, the righteous are bold as lions.

Lawson Yeah.

And you know, the believers shouldn’t, shy away from things. We should be at the forefront. You know, the blessing of the Lord makes you the head and not the tail. You shouldn’t back off of what you’re believing for, of what you’re putting your faith towards in Jesus. And I just like that. You know, he says here, it’s the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.

Right.

You know, this is the great equalizer throughout the universe. You know, people want justice and want equality. But this truly is the greatest equalizer ever. It’s the in the realm of faith.

Lawson Yeah.

You know, towards God for salvation. It’s for everyone who believes. So it doesn’t matter if you’re Jewish, if you’re Greek, if you’re male, you’re female, if you’re young, you’re old, you’re rich, you’re poor, the power of the gospel, it’s available to everyone who believes.

Yeah, the gospel really is the message of Jesus. But it’s not only that, when you think about the gospel, the gospel’s talking about all of the good things that God provided by grace. So forgiveness for our sin, healing for our body, peace for our mind, provision for our lack. And we have a Bible full of promises, right? That say this. Plus we have Jesus’ death on the cross. And when Jesus died on the cross, he provided four things. He provided forgiveness, healing, peace, and prosperity, all of that. And we can prove that through Isaiah 53:3-5, Matthew 8:16-17, 1 Peter 2:24-25, and 2 Corinthians 8:9. But when you look at all these promises, there’s lots of people in the body of Christ that frankly don’t believe that these promises are always theirs 100% of the time. And the reason is they don’t know what the scripture says. They don’t know what Christ provided in his death and resurrection. But it is, for instance, always the will of God to heal us as believers because Jesus paid for our healing at the same time that he paid for our forgiveness. And when you begin to understand that, faith begins where the will of God is known. And if you don’t know the will of God, you really, it’s impossible for you really to have faith in a situation. But when you understand the promise of God, when you understand the Bible, when you understand what Jesus did in his death and resurrection, what Jesus provided on the cross, when you understand who God said that he is, then it’s easy for you to begin to move into the realm of faith so that you can receive what grace has already provided for you.

And one thing I really want to communicate, you know, in this teaching and throughout the week is that faith, it’s not a short term thing,

Lawson No

Faith, it’s long term. It’s a lifestyle. It’s very long term. And I was thinking about this scripture in Hebrews 6:12. The Bible there says, “Do not become sluggish.”

Lawson Right.

So there’s something that’s driven about faith.

Lawson Yes.

It’s not lackadaisical. It’s not something that just happens, you know, while you’re not, like, it’s a very active thing,

Right.

Don’t become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit at the promises.

Right.

Now, I was looking at that Greek word for patience. And it also means consistency.

Lawson Right.

You know, true people of faith, that word to imitate, you know, a a lot of people want to be like someone else. They have different heroes, they have different people they wanna follow, people that are influencers. But the Bible says we need to imitate, first of all people of faith and people who are consistent.

Amen.

And you know, the greatest things in life don’t happen instantly.

Right.

You know, I know this broadcast goes all around the world, but here in the US, you know, we live in a pretty instant type society where you can get instant food. You know, fast food. People want instant success. They want instant riches, they want instant. And there’s an aspect of a human nature that just really gravitates towards Insta. You know, here in Colorado, and actually all across the United States, they recently changed the gambling laws. So it’s very easy to do online gambling and sports betting.

Right.

And I went to a game, a hockey game with a friend recently, and he was telling me about how many people have gotten sucked into this and just lost everything through online sports gambling. It’s because they want instant riches.

You know, gambling is a terrible addiction. And I really didn’t realize this until a person in my family married a person who was a gambler. And they essentially, this person that they married had gambling debts and all these problems. And it caused the person in my family that married this other person to nearly lose everything, because they were married to this gambler. And it is a terrible, terrible addiction.

Well, it’s that instant thing, you know, and that actually drives other addictions, like even a pornography addiction. It’s just instant gratification. And really the way God has designed sexuality is for it to work in marriage over a long term relationships.

Right.

So faith is a very long term thing. And the best things in life take time to develop, right? The best food, if, you know, I were gonna buy you a dinner and say you can go anywhere you want, most of you wouldn’t pick McDonald’s. You wouldn’t pick instant food. You would pick a better restaurant. You know, somewhere where, you know, the chef has trained for years, where, you know, the meat has been aged for a certain period of time. You know, if you went somewhere and ordered a, you know, a 16 ounce, you know, ribeye, and it was just on your plate 20 seconds later,

Right.

You would think that’s probably not a great ribeye. You know, the best things, the best meals, you know, the best athletes, they didn’t just learn how to play that sport overnight. You know, it probably took years of dedication, years of practice, the best musicians. Again, it takes years of practice, years of training, years of just heart to reach that level. And even the best relationships take time to develop. A lot of people just want to jump from relationship to relationship, even spiritually. They don’t really want to commit to a local church, commit to a pastor, commit to being connected to people. They just want to go from event to event and not have accountability.

Right.

But really a a lot of god’s blessings come from long-term relationships and faith is a very long-term thing.

You know, there are things that God promised Abraham that didn’t come to pass for over 25 years. I’ve had things that God showed me that has taken over 20 years before we’ve ever began to enter into the things that he showed me.

One, if you look at Hebrews 11 at the Faith Hall of Fame, all of these people in Hebrews 11, Abraham, Noah, Enoch, Joseph, Moses, you know, by faith they inherit, but it’s really by faith and patience. You know, Noah didn’t just build an arc overnight.

Right. Speaking of faith and patience, we’ll have to come back in the last part of the broadcast and share more on, you know, what the Bible calls patience. And the Greek word for that in the book of Hebrews, where we were sharing in Hebrews chapter 6:12, be followers of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. So we don’t have time really before the break, but we’ll come back in the last half of the broadcast and we’ll talk about what this Greek word for patience means.

And thank God when you patiently believed God, you know, when I was baptized in the Holy Spirit when I was 14 years old, that was 46 years ago. You know, there were things that God showed me that I started believing for. And, you know, some of those things I didn’t really enter into, you know, from, you know, till, you know, 8, 10 years later. Just the beginnings of them and other things that God showed me when I was like 16 years old. I didn’t even enter into ’em for 20 years, till I was like 36, began to enter into ’em. I mean, even 25 years, a lot of the things that God showed me before I just got in the very beginning of those things. And so faith isn’t like Aaron says this thing, that you just believe it and then you receive it. Well, salvation, you receive instantaneously in your spirit when you believe, but you need to continue believing Jesus. So we’ll be back after a short break with more on this subject. Hi, friends. Today we’ve been teaching on the journey of faith, and we actually have a lot more information on this on our website at charischristiancenter.com. We have hundreds of hours of downloadable audio, downloadable video, and a free children’s curriculum on our website. So check it out at charischristiancenter.com today. Blessings. And when Barbara and I are in a tight spot, we don’t call 10 or 15 or 20 or 30 people and say, would you pray for us? We don’t do that. Do you know what we call? We call one or two good friends, people of faith, our people who know God, and we get them to agree with us and believe God with us. It’s not because you pray many prayers, it’s because you pray in faith. Friends, I’m so glad you stayed with us. We are sharing right here and we’ve been talking about the just shall live by faith. So faith isn’t a movement, faith is a lifestyle, and the best things in life take time. And Aaron’s been sharing on this, and I love this verse here in Hebrews chapter 10:35-36, where it says, “Cast not away, therefore your confidence, which has great repayment of reward. He says in verse 36, for you have need of patience that after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise. And the word here, I love the Greek words for both confidence and patience, but the word for confidence is parrhesia. And it means confidence, outspokenness, being frank, free, fearless, bold, speaking, open, plainness, and freedom in speaking. You know, when you really believe something and you’re competent, you can be open, you can be bold, you can be plain, you can be direct. Right? So he says, “Don’t cast away your competence, which has a great repayment of reward for you have need of patience.” Now, this word, patience, he says that after you’ve done the will of God, you might receive the promise, is the Greek word, hupomoné. And it means steadfastness, consistency, endurance, perseverance. It means to patiently wait ford, and persevere for a purpose. Now, when we think about consistency. You know, I have this evangelist in my church, and he’s traveled all around the world and all around the United States. He’s spoken in very, very large churches. He pastored, you know, some pretty good sized churches himself for a number of years in the Midwest. But he said this to me years ago. I said, “Well, with all the drama and the different things we’ve went through, we’ve really done well.” And he said, “Well, you and Barbara,” speaking of mom, he said, “You know what? You are two of the most consistent people that I’ve ever seen. And when you just consistently believe God, you don’t have to let every thing just blow you away, every challenge, every difficulty, every problem. In fact, a lot of people look at us and they say, well, you’re so blessed. You receive all these things. And it’s like, you know, everything that you touch turns to gold. I’ve had people say that about me, and they don’t realize some of the challenges, the difficulties, the problems that we’ve been through. But what they see is a lot of times when we’re going through a test, when mom and I are going through a test, we don’t tell people about that test. We tell people the testimony on the backside of the test. And so a lot of times people think, well, we always win. Well, the good news is we’re the head and not the tail. We’re above and not beneath. But if you’re gonna win long term, you’ve gotta consistently believe God. And you can’t get caught up in the emotion of the challenges that you face many times.

And speaking of imitating those who through faith and patience or consistency, and here at their promises. You know, I was just looking back at my own life, at my own upbringing, something my parents did with me and my younger brothers at a young age, they taught us to do certain things consistently. Like, you need to read your bible every day. So as kids, we’ve read the bible, a chapter of the Bible every day.

Right.

And you know, a lot of people say, you know, a lot of teenagers when they go off on their own, they fall away from the faith, but they actually never really developed a consistency in their life, even reading their own, reading the Bible for themselves.

Lawson Yeah.

You know, a lot of young people haven’t read the Bible for themselves, don’t really know scripture. So even even older believer, you know, adult believers, you need to read the Bible consistently, at least a chapter a day. You know, if you read–

Lawson Right.

Three or four chapters a day, you can read through the Bible in a year. So there’s certain consistencies that you need to have in your life that are really gonna help you. Reading the word, going to church every Sunday.

Right.

You know, that’s something that’s actually really been, you know, not prominent in society and in a lot of believers’ lives, but we need to gather together with other believers, worship Jesus together. You know, have a pastor. You know, it used to be a much more consistent thing culturally, but today it’s really pathetic. But that’s something that, you know, that’s really helped me when I was 18, moved away to school in Pittsburgh, then Houston, I was always at church Sunday.

It wasn’t easy to get there. I had other things I could do. I could say, well, I’m gonna, you know, but if there’s a good church that believes the Bible that isn’t woke, that, you know, hopefully it’s a spirit field church, if you can get to it. You know, we have people that drive two hours to be here at church. You know, they might, you know, come once or twice a month to lives, and other times, but they’re connected with a local body and it’s a priority.

Yeah.

And it really helps, it really helps you, it really helps your family. You also help other people too,

Lawson Right.

You know, we all have something to supply. So, you know, read your bible, go to church. I think tithing is a great thing.

Lawson Right.

And there’s people that teach against it, which I think is really idiotic to be quite frank. You know, this is something that, you need to do it consistently. It’s gonna benefit you. There are great promises attached to it, so.

Right.

That’s something you instilled in me and my brothers at a young age, to read the Bible every day, to go to church every Sunday, to tithe. And it’s true. You know, it’s brought so much success.

And so much blessing. You know, Dr. Lester Sumrall was one of my mentors, and they said that he would ask potential staff members, you know, three things before he would hire them. He said, I want to know what you do first. I wanna know what you do first thing every week. In other words, what do you do the first day of the week? Do you regularly attend services at a local fellowship? You know, right before this, we were just in Hebrews 10:35-36, where you have need of patience or consistency, that after you’ve done the will of God, you might receive the promise. But verse 25 says, “Don’t forsake the assembling of yourselves together.” He says, “As the manner of some is.” And manners are something that you do consistently.

Right.

You know, my wife is from the south, so she’s tried to teach me some southern manners, some etiquette. You know, she tries to teach those things to her kids, but manners are things that you do consistently.

So he asked that question. Number one, what do you do first thing every week? What do you do first thing every day? Are you in the word. Do you study the word of God on a regular basis every day? And you know, I know you’re talking about when you were children. I had you and your brothers read a chapter of the Bible every day. And if I was on a long mission trip, say I went to Russia one time, and back in those days we didn’t have cell phones. You know, I might have only got to the phone once in 10 days to call you. But when I called you, I would ask you, did you read your Bible today? Did you do your schoolwork today? You know, I would ask you specific things. So, you know, he would ask, what do you do first thing every week? Do you regularly attend services, right? On Sunday? He’d ask, what do you do then? Every day are you in the Bible? Do you study the word of God? Now, when I ask you that, you and your brothers would see mom, you would see me, we would be reading our Bible first thing every morning. You know, I go in. A lot of times, you know, I go to the gym five o’clock in the morning, and if I’d go before Barbara, when I come back, she’s sitting there drinking her coffee, reading the scriptures, or sometimes she gets up before me and maybe I go down at five o’clock in the morning from the bedroom. And she’s sitting there already. She’s already in the word, she’s already studying. She’s already spending time, fellowshiping with God. So what do you do first thing every week? What do you do first thing every day? What do you do first thing, the third thing would ask them every time you get paid. In other words, are you a tither? Are you a giver? Do you practice stewardship? And you know, a lot of people, even though they go to church, don’t practice those things. Now, you know, my dad taught me when I was just a little boy to tithe, and I’ve tithed my whole life, and I’ve been really, really blessed. When I was getting married, I didn’t know how I was gonna pay my bills. I was only making $800 a month. I was giving $200 a month to the church. And you know, of course it was years ago when things weren’t as expensive, 1984. And now I took on a $300 house payment. But my pastor said something to me, he said, Lawson, you’re a tithe and you’re a giver and you’re never gonna lack for money. And you know, I started, I just started, kept giving $200 a month to the church, just, you know, $80 tithe. And you know, then offerings, you know, $120. And I was paying now $300 house payment. And you know what? God changed the way that I got paid. And I was able to, I was able to make it. I know Jesse DePlantis called me and he asked me, you know, in this aspect, talking about tithing and giving, he said, pastor Lawson, you teach grace. He said, “Do you believe in tithing?” And I said, “Well, of course, brother Jesse, I believe in tithing.” You know, some people think if we teach grace that we don’t believe in tithing, because there’s some grace teachers that say they don’t believe in tithing. Well, that’s crazy. You know, the Bible talks about grace in 2 Corinthians eight, nine, the most of any place in the scripture besides Romans five and six, where it’s talking about receiving, you know, righteousness in Romans five and six by faith in God’s grace, right? And in 2 Corinthians eight, nine, it’s talking about the grace of giving. Those are the two places that you see grace talked about most. And one of them’s in receiving righteousness, receiving right standing with God. And the other one is in the area of giving and receiving. So of course, I believe in tithe and I believe in giving. And then Hebrews chapter seven, right? Talks about when we tithe, Jesus, who is our great high priest of the new covenant, receives our tithes. I get excited about tithing. I don’t legalistically tithe. I give about 30%, so about a triple tithe, okay? But you know what, we give and we receive, and you can’t be God given. And when you understand the blessing that’s attached with that, and I teach more on the grace of giving than on the tithe itself. But at the same point in time, there is a blessing that is associated with tithing. And it would be crazy as a believer not to be a tither.

And it’s something that, the nice thing about tithing, it’s something that you do consistently. You know, for years, I’ve just kept a little strip of paper in my wallet and whenever I get money for something or, you know, get a paycheck, or whatever, I’ll write down in my wallet on that strip of paper, a 10th of that. And on the first of every month, I’ll go and add all that up and I’ll write a check to the church. But I have in my desk, I’ve kept, you know, all these strips of paper.

That’s a tremendous test.

I have all these, and it’s just amazing to see what God has done. It’s just, it’s just, you know, the numbers don’t lie. God, you know, he wrote a book called Numbers. And I have all these numbers in my desk. And it’s true. You know, I’ve never lacked. You know, he’s opened the windows of heaven in my life. He’s poured out such blessing. It’s hard to contain. And he’s rebuked the devour for my sake.

Lawson Amen.

You know, he really has. I have divine protection in my life, over my health, over my, you know, family, over my finances, over my property. That there’s just this hedge of protection around it. And I believe it’s that promise that’s attached.

Blessing. And you’ve got blessing coming every way Aaron. Blessing comes. And it’s not because, you know, you work here at the church and I pay you a lot of money. I pay you good, but you know what? You started here and you weren’t making hardly that much money at all. But you prosper no matter what. And you know, I believe that no matter what, we get paid from our regular job, that we can prosper. And it’s not dependent on me, it’s dependent on Jesus. And so ultimately, you know, we need to make the Lord our source. And I wanna remind you before we go off the air today, that if you need prayer for anything, be sure and call us. We have trained prayer ministers ready to receive your call. Blessings. Friends, I want to tell you about a great resource that we have available on our website, absolutely free of charge for your children. It’s a two year children’s curriculum teaching them who God is, who Christ is, who the Holy Spirit is, who they are, and many other promises of God written by a professional curriculum writer. And I developed all the outlines for it. It will be great for your children and we made it free just for you. Blessings.

Hi ladies. I am so excited to have you personally join us for this year’s Rejoice Women’s Conference. I know that God has something amazing in store for you. I know that he has good plans for us. I hope to see you there February 6th through eighth. Cathy Duplantis is our keynote speaker. My daughter-in-law, Heather Perdue, will be joining us as well as I’ve even asked my husband, pastor awesome Lawson. And he’ll also be ministering. It’s gonna be a great time. Look forward to seeing you there.

Friend, we here at Charis Christian Center and grace for today believe in being good stewards of the resources that God has given us. So we pay a professional service that’s actually available to help you do that in a couple of ways. Number one, you can make a will absolutely free of charge with professional legal help. And number two, you can go to Tax Smart Ways of Giving. You can find them all on our website.

Narrator 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.