Journey of Faith Part 2 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue – 12/30/2024

Friends, I’m so glad that you’re with us today. We’re gonna be sharing on the journey of faith, and we’re gonna be talking from Genesis chapter 26 about Isaac. We’re gonna share how he began to prosper, how he continued to prosper until he became very prosperous. The scripture goes on to say that he had possession and the Philistines envied him. I believe that’s God’s will for you also. Blessings. Friends, it’s so good to have you today, and we’re sharing on Aaron’s teaching on the journey of faith. And Aaron, when you taught this in church, I just loved it. It really ministered to me. It really encouraged me. So I’m gonna ask you just to go ahead and jump in the word.

Yeah, we’re gonna go to Genesis 26, looking at the life of Isaac. You know, Isaac was, of course, the son of Abraham, this great giant of faith, but he had to cultivate his own life of faith, his own journey of faith. And God showed me something about Isaac, that he had to have faith to begin, faith to continue, and faith to become. And that’s really like faith for all of us. Sometimes people have faith to begin. They’re very excited to start new things. I know, you know, we’re nearing the first of the year. People have, a lot of times, faith to begin, but where people get off track sometimes is that faith to continue, that perseverance-

Right.

that lifestyle, that just, that habit of trusting God, believing God. So faith to continue, and then faith to become. You know, we need to become everything that God has called us to be.

Amen.

So let’s look at Genesis 26, looking at Isaac. Here in verse one, it says, “There was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went to Abimelech, king of the Philistines, in Gerar. Then the Lord appeared to him and said: ‘Do not go down to Egypt; live in the land of which I shall tell you. Dwell in this land, and I will be with you and bless you; for to you and your descendants I give all these lands, and I will perform the oath which I swore to Abraham your father.'” I wanna stop right there because Isaac, you know, was experienced this great famine, and, you know, it says that there was also a similar famine of severity during the time of his father. And Abraham actually went to Egypt.

Right.

That’s when, you know, he took his wife down to Egypt and told the Pharaoh that she’s not my wife, she’s just my sister. So, Isaac knew this story, he knew what Abraham did. And sometimes when you’re doing something, you think, “Well, I’m just gonna do it the way that my dad did it, or the way that my pastor did it, or the way that this person of faith did it. You know, I’m facing something similar and I’m just gonna do what they did.” But you need to listen to God for yourself.

Right.

You know, Isaac, you know, that first part of faith is really hearing God for yourself. And God’s instructions to Isaac were different than his instructions to his father Abraham. You know, Abraham was told to go down to Egypt. And God told him, “Go down to Egypt, everything’s gonna work out. This promise is still true. You know, you’re gonna come back, and this land is yours, to you and your descendants.” But here, Isaac is told, “You’re gonna stay put.”

Right.

And to dwell there. And sometimes, you know, sometimes it takes faith to move, to do something new, to go on somewhere else, but oftentimes it takes faith to stay put.

Right, it does.

To stay exact. You know, a lot of people wanna move, they want to give up, they want to go on, they just, you know, don’t wanna deal with conflict, don’t wanna deal with people, just wanna separate from, you know, their family, or from their church, or whatever. But oftentimes, faith looks like staying put.

I want to share a story about this, Aaron. I had this… I went to school with this young man. I really liked him. He had a great, you know, kind of grasp on different scriptural principles, so on and so forth. But he went to his first church and I think he lasted about six months.

Uh-huh.

And then he went to his second church and he lasted about three months. And then he went to his third church and he was talking about leaving in about two months. And he was talking to me about it, and I said, “I think maybe you need to go be an evangelist,” because, you know, six months, that’s kinda like the honeymoon period, especially if you’re going into a church where the other pastor is pastor. If they haven’t done very good job, you know, you really have a good six month honeymoon period, and then after that, they kind of see who you really are. So after about a year, you know, they kind of figure it out, and you, generally, by the time you’ve been there a year, you know who might stay with you.

Uh-huh

And… But anyway, I looked at him and I told him, “Well, I think maybe you need to go and be an evangelist,” because, you know, anybody could be happy somewhere six months or three months or, you know, two months, but, you know, you’ve gotta be there for a while and figure out things and people figure out you. And I remember one time we were in Kit Carson and we had been there, at that point in time, 10 years. And Andrew Wommack came to minister. For me, of course, Kit Carson’s a very small place, town of about 300 in the eastern plains of Colorado. And I said, “Well, Andrew, I got this one lady, you know, that really doesn’t like me.” And Andrew kind of looked at me, and I was actually going to minister at a church. And this church had a regular attendance of over 800 people a week. That was their numbers. Hard numbers. They had numbers about everything. They had their own television station, all these different things. He said, “If you go and you’re at that church,” he said, “There’s gonna be about 300 people who don’t like you.” You know, you can’t get disturbed by the people that don’t like you. There’s usually some that don’t like you. But it’s like, you know, like you’re saying, you know, you gotta stay, and there’s faith, right, to begin. And a lot of people have that faith to begin, but some people don’t have that faith to continue and stay through the thing. And you’re talking about dealing with famine. And there’s actually three aspects of dealing with famine, and the first one is you gotta stay alive in the famine. And the last one is, you gotta learn to laugh at the famine. Joseph could laugh at the famine because Joseph knew what was coming. But you gotta learn how to begin and then continue. Go ahead.

Yeah. So God, you know, tells Isaac, “You’re not gonna go to Egypt, you need to stay here.” And he continues with the blessing. And this is the same blessing that was spoken to Abraham. And this is actually the same blessing that’s available to us who put our faith in Jesus. You know, the blessing of Abraham has come upon the Gentiles through faith in Jesus.

Amen. Galatians 3:13 and 14 tells us that. So here, part of this blessing that we have as believers on Jesus, when we put our faith in Jesus, this is part of our blessing as well. It says, “And I will make your descendants multiply as the stars of heaven.” I love that word ‘multiply.’ You know, the blessing of the Lord, there is multiplication in it.

Right.

And again, sometimes it takes, you know, you have to have faith to be begin, but faith to continue. You know, I actually asked this question when I taught this, but if I could give everyone watching this right now two options. One option is to receive $1 million right now, the other option would be to get $2 right now, but with the promise that there’s multiplication attached to it. So that $2 would multiply by two every day for 30 days. Now some people will say, “Well, just give me the million dollars right now.” But if you took that $2 that would multiply by two each day for 30 days, after 30 days, that $2 will turn into over $2 billion.

Right.

$2.1 billion. So that blessing of the Lord that’s upon us through faith in Jesus, it’s a blessing of multiplication.

Yeah. Well, let’s take this and let’s put it in a different light. Let’s say 30 years-

Uh-huh.

because faith is a long term thing. I’ve been baptized in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues filled with the Holy Spirit, called to preach, believe in the full gospel now for over 40 years. 46 years to be exact that I’ve… And, you know, what, things in my life keep getting better and better and better. But a lot of this supernatural blessing and increase didn’t come until I had been in full-time ministry for over 30 years. And so, you know, if you took that and put it over 30 years instead of 30 days, a lot of people could stay the course 30 days, but what about staying the course 30 years? Because ultimately, if you gave me a million dollars, right, on a year, or gave me two, most people, they’re gonna say, “I’m gonna take the million dollars right now.” But if you took that two and multiplied it every year by two, doubled it, right, that’s gonna be ultimately a lot more money than a million dollars even invested, you know, at a reasonable interest rate-

Well, and some people-

if it doubles every year.

some people miss the faith to begin because it looks so small.

Right.

But some, usually God will give you something small, and it might seem insignificant on the surface, but he’s gonna see how faithful you are with that-

Right.

before that blessing really starts multiplying in your life.

When you start out in ministry, God sent you to a town of 300 people. Now, you’re in a town, you know, that’s multiplied over 300. This is, you know, 300,000, 600,000, probably close to a million people within this area. You know, so there’s a much bigger area you can reach. But you had a church of a hundred people and you have a church of a thousand people. But you were faithful there for 13 years. You know, being where God has called you to be, being planted there, doing what he’s called you. Some people don’t have that faith to begin because they think it looks too small. You know, for a period of time, you were in the cattle industry, but when you started with cattle, you just had three cows.

Right.

And initially, it didn’t look very good. You know, one cow got sick and died. One cow ran away. Only one of three cows worked out. But at one time, because he stuck with it, you believe that God called you to that industry, to be an entrepreneur in the area and to grow it, you had 3000 head of cattle.

Yeah.

God grew it.

Mom and I personally have fed over 30,000, you know, really more like over 35,000 head of cattle, you know, in the time that we were involved in that industry.

Uh-huh. And I had one of the roughest starts, one of the hardest starts. Most people, man, when one cow ran away, and one cow died, and you only had three, you’d say, “Man, God didn’t call you to be in that business.” In fact, I remember one time when we were pastoring in Kit Carson, Colorado, and at that point in time, you know, I had about a thousand head of cattle, and, you know, we had a big blizzard and I lost about a hundred thousand dollars. And I had this Baptist pastor friend. And I loved him. He is a great pastor, great friend. But he said, “Maybe God’s telling you to get out of the cattle business.” Well, you know, I only made a few million more dollars in the cattle business after that time. That was just a setback. And sometimes there are setbacks, but you don’t want a setback to be, you know, determined. You know, the outcome of where you’re going or what you’re doing. You know, I actually stayed in the cattle business for another 20 years, made a few million more dollars before I exited that business. And now we’ve transferred that, we’re in the real estate business, and we do other things in investments, but God gave us wisdom on how to do that. But a lot of times, people think, because they’re having a temporary challenge, they don’t know how to deal with that temporary challenge. But you gotta know the difference between the temporal and the eternal. And when you understand the difference between the temporal and the eternal, you’re gonna stick with the eternal.

I love that the word has this promise too. In Job 8:7, “Though your beginning was small, yet your latter end would increase abundantly.” So we can actually rejoice-

Amen.

in some of those small beginnings, ’cause placed in, you know, the hands of the Father, they can grow exponentially.

Amen. I wanna remind you, if you need prayer, to give us a call during the break. We’ll be right back after a short break. 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. I wanna tell you that the blood of Jesus has, once and for all, settled the issue. The blood of Jesus has already appeased the wrath of God. The fact is God’s anger was appeased at the cross, and God is not mad at you, He’s not even upset. Friends, it’s really good to have you with us on the broadcast today. And I want Aaron just to go ahead and continue. He’s got some great revelation here from Genesis 26.

Yeah. So we’ve been talking about the journey of faith, and also, specifically, we’ll be talking about faith to begin, faith to continue, and faith to become. We were talking about having faith to begin. How sometimes God uses something small. And some people aren’t faithful over that which is least-

Yeah.

and they kinda lose that faith to begin. They think it’s insignificant, not worthy of their time or their effort. But sometimes God uses something small to just see if you trust him with it.

And when you trust him with it, when you put your faith with what he’s called you to do, he can grow that. There’s great blessing attached to it. And that blessing of the Lord, it’s a blessing of multiplication. We see that here in Genesis 26 when God is speaking to Isaac. So there’s a great famine going on. Isaac was thinking about going to Egypt. That’s what Abraham, his father, did during this famine. A similar famine. But God told Isaac to stay, to dwell there, and, you know, gives him this promise. We’ll go to Genesis 26:4. “I will make your descendants multiply,” again, that word ‘multiply’ is part of the blessing, “as the stars of heaven; I will give to your descendants all these lands; and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed; because Abraham obeyed My voice and kept My charge, My commandments, My statutes, and My laws.” And verse six is really the important verse here. It said, “Isaac dwelt in Gerar.” He stayed put, he did what God called him to do. Sometimes it takes faith to move away, to go on to something else, but oftentimes God just wants you to stay and keep doing what he’s called you to do. It takes faith to stay faith to dwell. And I know that Isaac had faith to stay there because what he did. You know, when people are planning on leaving, when they’re planning on exiting, when they’re planning on, you know, maybe leaving your life, they’re gonna stop investing in you.

Right.

You know, when people are planning on leaving, they stop caring.

Right.

They stop investing, they stop sowing, they stop… You know, you wanna connect with people who care, who are gonna, you know, continue to invest in you, continue to see that potential in you, to continue to see that blessing in your life. I remember when I was 18 years old, you were taking me around the nation to meet different flute professors. I studied classical music. I actually have a doctorate in classical music on the flute. And when I was 18, I was meeting different professors. And music is a very unique field, the classical music, ’cause you’re gonna study one-on-one with the teacher.

Right.

You know, one-on-one, and that relationship is really important. You wanna find a teacher that believes in you, that’s gonna invest in you. You know, I remember we went to one teacher in the state and she just flat out said, “He doesn’t have what it takes and, you know, he’s not worth my time.” And you said, “Well, that’s the last time we’re ever gonna see her again.” And she wasn’t even that great of a teacher. She just very negative. And you can just tell she wasn’t gonna care. She wasn’t gonna really stick around.

Right.

So I ended up finding a teacher that was gonna stick around, that really cared-

Right.

that really invested into her students.

Well, and the teacher that you had, she had been first chair in the New York Philharmonic, am I correct?

Uh-huh.

And she’d also played in Boston? And a great teacher. And she really saw the gift in you and invested herself in you.

Uh-huh. So you wanna find someone who’s gonna be around for the long term. Isaac dwelt there in Gerar. And why I know that he was planning on staying was because he sowed.

Right.

He was looking for a harvest. And this is a word I have for everyone watching right now. There is great blessing attached to sowing.

Amen.

There’s so many promises about sowing and reaping, but there are great promises attached to sowing even in the time of famine. When things are difficult, when, you know, it takes a lot of faith to really stay where God has called you to stay. There is so much tremendous exponential blessing attached to that. So if God has called you to stay somewhere, if he’s called you to give, even though you might be facing famine, keep doing what God has called you to do. There is so much harvest attached to that type of sowing

Amen.

when you stay with God, who, you know, has called you to stay with, even though it’s difficult. You know, some of you might be in a difficult marriage, but, you know, God is telling you to stay there, to keep trusting him not to go anywhere. God is gonna bless you abundantly. You have to hear God for yourself. And again, it’s not just what someone else did or what this person says, you have to hear God for yourself. Isaac had to hear God for himself. God told him to stay there. And because he believed God, he sowed there. And it says in verse 12, Genesis 26:12, “Isaac sowed in that land.” He was sowing because he was planning on staying. You know, here in our church, we have a lot of farmers. We have some people in the agriculture business. And, you know, if they’re planning on selling their farm, they’re not sowing. You know, if you’re gonna sell your farm and move away, you know, move away to the city, you’re not gonna sow. You know, go through all the effort of buying the seed and planting the seed and watering the seed if you’re just planting on leaving.

Well, they’re gonna sow when it’s time to sow.

Yeah. They’re looking for the harvest. You sow because you’re expecting a harvest. You know, if you give to this ministry, this is a great ministry to sow into. If you give into this ministry, I encourage you to believe for a harvest.

Amen. Praise God.

So it said, “Isaac sowed in that land, and he reaped in the same year a hundred fold; and the Lord bless him.” That is a tremendous harvest, and he sowed in the time of famine. But he believed God’s promise, he believed that blessing, that God was gonna bless him, multiply him, give him that land and to his descendants. He knew that God called him to stay put, so he sowed, and in that same year, even that great difficulty, he had a tremendous outpouring of harvest. God has great breakthrough. I love that word, ‘breakthrough.’ You know, David had that revelation. He gave God that nickname. He is the Lord of Breakthrough, like a breakthrough of water. So you might feel like things are damned up, things aren’t really trickling, things aren’t really flowing. Keep believing God, keep trusting Him, and there is gonna be great breakthrough, like a breakthrough of waters. I can see that right now in people’s lives who really trusts God, who believe his promises, who keep doing what he’s called them to do, who keeps sowing where he calls ’em to sow. I just see those dams breaking like a great breakthrough. God has done that in my life.

Right. So Isaac sowed, and he received in the same year a hundred fold because the Lord blessed him. You gotta understand who is blessing you. You gotta understand who you’re looking to. But he didn’t stop there, did he, Aaron?

No. and I love what it says in verse 13. This is where I got the whole premise for this message. It says, “The man began to prosper-“

Yes.

“and he continued prospering-“

Amen.

“until he became very prosperous.”

So he began, and he didn’t just stop there-

Right.

he continued.

Right. You’re reading out of the New King James.

Out of the New King James translation. And then he became very prosperous.

You know, God’s began things in my life, but I’m not just gonna stop there. I’m continuing. I’m not just gonna stop there. I want to become everything that God has called me to become. I’ve began to prosper, I’ve continued to prosper, and I wanna become very prosperous. And verse 14 is awesome here too. It says, “For he had possessions of flocks, possessions of herds, and a great number of servants, so the Philistines envied him.” Notice he had possessions of flocks, possessions of herds, and a great number of servants. He had possessions of things that could multiply.

Amen.

Some people, when they begin to prosper, they just get things that can’t really continue. They buy a bunch of junk.

You buy a bunch of junk.

You know, one thing my dad taught me and my brothers when we were little kids, I actually remember at the age of five you explaining to me the difference between assets and liabilities. You know, assets are things that you can invest in, things that can grow, things that can multiply. You know, liabilities are things that are just going to shrink and dwindle.

I have a personal rule in my life, and I actually have written a book on this. You know, “Provision: Releasing Supernatural Increase in our Lives.” And you know what, I went through the Bible and there’s a lot of things on provision, but it’s things that I’ve taught you and both of your brothers, and all three of you are in your thirties, and you’re all millionaires and multimillionaires, and it’s not because I gave it to you, it’s because you took principles that I taught you from the scriptures, that I’ve taught all in this book on “Provision: Releasing Supernatural Increase in your Life,” and you use them, you applied them. Praise God. And so it’s caused you to become very, very prosperous. But anyway, I actually have this thing that I teach that I don’t want to borrow money on anything that depreciates, that goes down in value. In fact, when I was in the cattle business, I dealt with for a period of time National Livestock in Oklahoma City. They’re one of the two largest livestock lenders in the United States of America. And when they were looking, my banker was looking at my balance sheet, he said, “Lawson, you hate depreciation.” And that’s the truth. I hate things that depreciate. So I don’t mind borrowing money on something that’s gonna appreciate and get worth more in value, right? But I don’t want to borrow money on things that depreciate because they get worthless.

And I wanna say this too, talking about Isaac, you know, sowing in that land. I remember years ago, I was about, I’m 37 years old now. I was 24 years old, I just finished my master’s, and I believed God that within a year, I’d pay off all my student loan debt. You know, I went to school for classical music, I just finished my master’s, and I had to start paying back $30,000 in student loans. And God led me. He showed me what to do to begin to prosper. And he actually showed me that I could buy things online and sell them for a profit, fix things up and sell them. So I started buying watches online, fixing them and selling them. I was able to double my money on them. I just started doing it with a few things, but then it multiplied.

Right.

So I just bought a few things, but during that time, I got this revelation that I was blessed, whatever my hand touched was blessed, but also that I needed to sow. God actually led me to start tithing here to this church. Even though I was living in Houston at the time, I really felt strongly that God instructed me to start tithing to this ministry because this is where I was being fed and growing and where I was connected at a heart level. This is years before I moved here to become a pastor, but I started tithing. And at first, it was a hundred dollars a month, but within about a half year, I was tithing a thousand dollars a month to this ministry. I remember that first time I wrote a thousand dollars tithe, I was so excited because I knew that it was the blessing of the Lord. And great people of faith are generous people.

Amen.

This is a great ministry. This is great ground to sow into. I believe that if you’re looking for a harvest, if you wanna invest into the gospel, invest into a message that is just full of truth, full of the power of God, full of the blessing of the Lord, I’d encourage you to call us, become a partner, maybe make a one time gift. But don’t… I believe that as you’re giving, as you’re sowing, I don’t want you just to do it. Just casting your seed, not caring about it. Expect a harvest.

Yes.

Expect a harvest. And God is going to be begin to do things in your life, He’s gonna continue to do them, and you’re gonna become everything he has called you to become.

Amen. I wanna encourage you today to call in if you want to become a partner. And we’ll send you this book on provision if you become a brand new partner today, absolutely free. Or if you need prayer, just give us a call today. Thank you so much, and God bless you. 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 8th. 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 will also be ministering. It’s gonna be a great time. Look forward to seeing you there.

Friends, it’s great to have you with us today. And I want to 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 and 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.

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