Journey of Faith Part 5 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue – 12/30/2024

Praise God, friends, I’m so glad that you’ve tuned into the broadcast. Today. we’re gonna cut in to a live teaching where my son, Aaron, is sharing on the journey of faith. This teaching has been so encouraging to me, and I believe that it will encourage you in your faith walk. So open your heart, receive the word of God, and be blessed today as you receive great revelation from God’s word.

Alright, so he says, “For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise. And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty, and the base things of the world, and the things which are despised, God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are.” I love that, ’cause it flows with that word that my dad had, about promotion coming from the Lord, and there being a change of the guard, and the low being brought up, and the high being brought down. Amen, and it’s faithfulness that God looks at. People who are faithful to His word, people who are faithful to His promise, people who are just faithful to the relationship with Jesus. And it says God does these things in verse 29, because He doesn’t want any flesh to glory in His presence. It’s not about you, it’s not about me, it’s about Jesus, amen? I would much rather have you leave service today having connected with God than having connected with Pastor Aaron. I’d rather have you leaving today saying, “Man, I’m just so excited about Jesus. I can’t wait to tell people about Jesus.” Rather than saying, “I’m so excited about Reverend Doctor Extraordinaire, Aaron Perdue. I’m wanna tell people about Aaron.” No, I want you to be excited about Jesus. I want you to be excited about the Word of God, the promises of God, amen? It’s not about me, it’s about Him. “That no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, that, as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.'” And after 8 1/2 years of ministry, I still have to trust God. I still can’t rely upon my own natural strengths, my own natural abilities, my own natural wisdom. I always have to trust God. I can’t remember, we were talking about something, to try to figure something out here ministry-wise, and I just told Heather, “Man, like we always really have to live by faith, don’t we?” You think after 8 1/2 years, maybe after 5 1/2 years of marriage, we could just take it easy. Just sit in a spiritual La-Z-Boy and recline, and you know, here’s Herb and Judith Carter, they’ve been over, the leaders of our prayer ministry for like 20 years now. Probably been spirit-filled, believing God, trusting God for decades. And they said they still have to have faith in God. It’s a journey. Enjoy the trip, amen? “He has become for us, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. That as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.'” So even if you think you’re something, you think you’ve really come a long ways, you think you’ve really matured, you think, man, you’re a 8 1/2-year reverend doctor extraordinaire, you’ve done it all. You still have to listen to God.

Congregation Member Yes.

Because no matter how mature you are, no matter how many times you’ve read the Bible, no matter how much you come to church, no matter how much you give, no matter how how long you’ve done it, you still have to hear from God, ’cause He still likes to use small things. He still likes to do unusual things. He still likes to make sure that you’re listening to Him. Man, always be listening to God for direction. He likes to do unusual things in unusual places, with unusual people. About six years ago, I met Heather Perdue for the first time, I met her here at church. Good things happen when you go to church. Anyways, I met Heather here at church. She, one of the ushers, you know, sat her down on the front row, it was her first time here, and I noticed her, and I don’t know if it was my spiritual eyes or my natural eyes, but I noticed, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. And I did though, ’cause it’d be awkward if I was just playing the flute here, staring at her the whole time. But anyways, we became friends. A few weeks later, we were going out with a group of friends to Chick-fil-A after church. And at the time, I just felt like I wasn’t gonna be pursuing any type of romantic relationship, I was just gonna trust God, and I was just a little frustrated with all that at that time in my life. And I just kind of made it a point, like if a young woman happened to reach out to me, which kind of happened at the time. Heather tells me I’m good looking. I look in the mirror, I think so too. You know, she cut my hair yesterday, she made sure I was extra good looking for you all today. But you know, every now and then, a young woman would reach out to me, and say something like, “Oh, you’re the most anointed, most amazing minister I’ve ever heard.” And I knew it was a lie because I wasn’t that good at the time. I still had had to grow a little, and it was a little flattery there, but I just decided I wouldn’t even reply to people. I just wouldn’t, you know, reply or whatever. I might just seem rude and cold, or whatever. But it just, I’m just not gonna go down that right now, unless it’s really a God thing. Anyways, we were at Chick-fil-A with a group of friends, and I just felt like I should buy her son Fisher, who’s four at the time, an ice cream cone. It’s $1. And this is kinda like a Pastor Lawson type of treat for someone. I remember when I was a kid, my dad spent $1 on me for an ice cream cone, that was a big deal. I remember, my dad was in the cattle industry growing up, he would then bribe me to drive from Kit Carson to La Junta where there was a cattle sale barn there. He would bribe me, ’cause he didn’t buy me a lot of treats. And he said, “If you go with me to La Junta,” I think it was about an hour and a half, two hours away, we’d get in his old, you know, Ford truck that he did, like, he used a fork to start, I don’t know, it was interesting. He get his trailer hooked up too, in case we bought some cows there, but he’d bribed me just by buying me some peanut M&M’s. And I just loved going with him to the sale barn there in La Junta, and I’d sit there with all the ranchers, and they all had their boots and hats, and today, I’m wearing my dress shoes. I haven’t worn a pair of dress shoes in two years, I’ve been going back to my roots with all the boots, and I think I’m gonna go back. You know, the boots are a lot more comfortable, these things kinda dig into your ankle, and cowboys know what they’re doing.

Congregation Member Yep, yep.

We should just vote how cowboys vote. You know, if you look at a map of America by county, how it votes, it’s all red, and there’s just like 15 cities that are blue, and it’s just like all these 15 cities trying to tell the rest of the country what to do. And those 15 cities, you know, really suck, and have a lot of problems, and can’t get it right themselves. So if you don’t know how to vote, just talk to a cowboy, talk to a guy who’s wearing boots. Pastor Lawson wears boots too, so you can talk to him. He’ll tell you how to vote, he’ll tell you. So everyone now in the church can have a voice, amen, for such a time as this. But he’d buy me peanut M&M’s, and a lot of these cowboys, cattlemen would be smoking cigarettes. So, you know, as I grew up and went to college, a lot of my friends in classical music, they’re from different countries, a lot of people would smoke cigarettes, and during the breaks, our orchestra practice, we had breaks, I’d go outside, and I’d be fine hanging out with people smoking because it always just, it brought back fond memories of me and my dad and cows, and I’d just start craving peanut M&M’s. So cigarette smoke has never bothered me, it always just makes me crave peanut M&M’s. But anyways, I bought Fisher this $1 treat and I thought, this isn’t a big deal. This is a very small thing, it’s not much money, it’s very insignificant. But later that night, Heather thought she should, she’s from the South, and in the South, we have manners. You know, we tell people, “thank you,” and she didn’t want to say thank you to me. She came here, she did not want a husband, she came here just to go to school, Bible school, to grow with God, she was not looking for a husband. And she did not want to even say thank you, really. but just her Southern etiquette just, it got the best of her, you know, the 11th commandment, you better do what your mama raised you to do, in Tennessee, so she got on Facebook, ’cause she was gonna send me a message. She said she had it typed up, but then she said she deleted it. “I’m not gonna say thank you. I’m just, don’t want any open doors there.” And she said, as she deleted it, she accidentally hit the wave button, Facebook used to have a wave button, a poke button. She accidentally waved at me on Facebook, and I still don’t know what that means, but I’m very thankful that whoever created Facebook and the wave button, it led to Pastor Aaron not being, you know, single for the rest of his life. She hit the wave button, and she felt awkward about, I don’t know what this means, I better send him a little message now, and she said thank you, and something very short, but I felt like I should reply back, and I did. You know, eventually we started dating, and she broke up with me, and then she kept coming to church though, ’cause she wasn’t coming to church just because of me, or because it was weird with me or whatever, she came to church because God told her to come here, and that trumped her feelings. And so she kept coming and God kept bringing us back together, and now we’re married, and that $1 cone that I thought was a very small, very insignificant, very inexpensive gesture, when I look at my credit card every month, it’s much different than when I was, just a single bachelor, you know, to someone who’s just raised by Pastor Lawson Perdue. Like, I didn’t have a single piece of new furniture in my house at the time. When I married Heather, I didn’t have any boots either, I’ve kind of, yeah, Heather’s helped me a lot, so, but I know when I married Heather, it wasn’t just the $1 I was giving her, my dad led us in the traditional vows, which says, “With all my worldly goods, I thee endow, in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” So Heather, you know, if Pastor Aaron were to be caught up with the Lord, you know, I don’t think I’d be the one caught up, and she’d be the one left behind. There’s one of us taken, one of us left behind, it’d probably be the reverse, but I’m glad that we’d both be caught up together. But that $1 thing has turned into something a lot more. God can use something small, something insignificant, something that you might not think has a lot of meaning, and do something really amazing with it. So listen to God, He likes to use small things, small gestures, people that might seem small, going somewhere that might seem small, and doing something really extraordinary. Learn to treasure the small things, learn to appreciate them, when those small things are dedicated and placed in the hands of the Lord, it is no longer small, it’s no longer insignificant, it’s no longer worthless, it’s no longer forgotten, it’s no longer rejected, it’s no longer lacking, something supernatural begins to occur. You might think it’s not much. You know, when Jesus was speaking to the 5,000, and wanted to feed these people, all they had was this one boy who had five loaves and two fish. His disciples thought that was very insignificant, that is not very much, but they left out something important. What that something small, what becomes of it when it’s placed in the Master’s hands? Jesus took those five loaves, those two fish, He blessed it, He thanked God for it, and then He put it in his disciples’ hands. And something happened. From something so small, He blessed it, there was a blessing on it, there was a multiplication on it, there was increase on it. Man, I love that word, multiplication. We often see in scripture, whenever it’s tied to the blessing, the blessing of the Lord is a blessing of multiplication. And when things are multiplied over, and over, and over again, it’s called exponential growth. God wants to do something exponential in your life.

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. When Paul prays, I like how he prays. Because there’s never a sense of need, there’s never a sense of lack, there’s never a sense of defeat. There’s never, there’s only a sense of this is who God is, this is who Christ is, so if you wanna know how to pray in a New Testament way, take Paul’s prayers and pray them.

Alright, let’s go to 1 Samuel 15. I want to talk about the spirit of God generating momentum. 1 Samuel 15. And we’ll start in verse 35. So here, right? This is right at one of the toughest points in the history of Israel. Saul was anointed to be king, God chose Saul, Samuel anointed Saul, he looked the part, he felt, he sounded like a king, he looked like a king, everyone wanted him to be king, but it didn’t work out. Why didn’t it work out? It’s because of Saul’s own heart. Sometimes things don’t work out because someone just has a heart shift in a bad way. That’s why this didn’t work out. It wasn’t God’s fault, it wasn’t Samuel’s fault, it was really Saul’s own personal heart that shifted away from God. So it says here in verse 35 of 1 Samuel 15, “Samuel went no more to see Saul until the day of his death. Nevertheless, Saul mourned for Saul, Samuel mourned for Saul, and the Lord regretted.” And you have to do something pretty crazy for the Lord to have a regret. But the Lord doesn’t stay stuck in regret. “The Lord regretted that he made Saul King over Israel. Now, the Lord said to Samuel, ‘How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? Fill your horn with oil.'” He’s saying that there is something shifting right now. Maybe you’ve been mourning, maybe you’ve been regretting, maybe you’ve been stuck, maybe you just feel like you’re stuck in a famine and you just wanna just, “I don’t wanna continue. I don’t wanna continue believing for this, I don’t wanna continue staying where God has called me to be.” The Spirit of the Lord changes everything, the Spirit of the Lord generates momentum. Fill that horn with oil. I have a word for some of you here today who’ve been stuck, who’ve been regretting, who’ve been just in a perpetual state of mourning and famine. Fill your horn with oil. There is an anointing oil here for you today. You can fill your horn with oil. Jesus is pouring out His spirit today. He is pouring out His life today, He’s pouring out His joy today, He is pouring out that anointing that breaks the yoke, that breaks the chains of addiction, that breaks the chains of frustration, that breaks the chain of depression, that breaks generational curses. He pours out that oil, fill your horn with oil. The spirit of the Lord shifts things, It generates momentum. He said, “Go, I’m sending you to Jesse the Bethlehemite, for I provided myself a king among his sons.” And I wanna skip ahead to verse six here. And this is really important. It relates to what I said earlier in the service, no matter how well you think you hear God. No matter how mature you think you are, no matter how much you’ve read scripture, no matter how much time you’ve spent in prayer, you always have to be listening to God, you always have to be tuned in with faith, you can’t just go on a spiritual vacation. And if anyone could have just put it in neutral, it was Samuel. Samuel could hear the audible voice of God since he was a kid. And he thought, “Man, I got this, I got my horn, I got my oil, I know where I’m going, God told me to go to Jesse’s house. It’s just gonna be bada-bing, bada-boom, It’s gonna work out exactly how I think it’s gonna happen.” But he gets there and sees the very first one, he said, “Man, this is easy. That is it.” “He looked at Eliab the oldest, and says, ‘Surely the Lord’s anointed is before him.’ But the Lord spoke to Samuel and said, ‘Don’t.'” Man, sometimes the Lord starts off a word with “Don’t,” “Don’t look at his appearance or at his physical stature because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” That is why it is essential that every believer, no matter how far along your faith journey you think you are, you always have to trust God, you always have to hear God, because he still likes to use unusual people, do unusual things. Have you do unusual things sometimes, “Jesse called Abinadab, and made him pass before Samuel. And he said, ‘Neither has the Lord chosen this one.’ Then Jesse made Shammah pass by, and he said, ‘Neither has the Lord chosen this one.’ Jesse made seven of his sons pass before Samuel, and Samuel said to Jesse, ‘The Lord has not chosen these.’ Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Are all the young men here?’ And he said, there yet remains the youngest, and there he is, keeping the sheep. Samuel said to Jesse, ‘Send and bring him, for we will not sit down till he comes here.'” So when he sent and brought him in, he didn’t look like a king, Saul, it’s said he was tall, he was dark, he was handsome. And here’s this little redheaded pretty boy, that played the flute. That was, “He was ruddy,” That means red-haired. “He had bright eyes,” meaning blue-eyed, “Good looking.” His wife just gave him a haircut. He wasn’t married at the time, probably. “But the Lord said to him, ‘Arise, anoint him for this is the one.’ Then Samuel took that horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers. And the spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward.” When the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, there was a shift in momentum. No one else saw it. I believe Samuel saw it and knew it, and I believe David saw it and knew it, He knew that something on the inside was shifting. There was momentum that was being generated. And when the Spirit of God comes upon you, He’ll take what’s natural to you, and He’ll add his super to it. David was a naturally good shepherd. God put that super on it, and he became a supernatural leader. David was a naturally good musician. He played the flute, I mean, the harp. Wrote songs, but God put something super on it, so even when he played the harp, and sang his songs, there’s something supernatural now happening. You weren’t just singing to the sheep, but you were breaking the chains of demonic oppression off of people. We have people up here who sing, you might think, “Well, this other church has a better singer than that. Why would I even go to church? I should just listen to the radio.” There are leaders here, who God has put his super to their natural. And there are things shifting in the realm of the Spirit. Don’t just listen with your natural ears, don’t just see with your natural eyes, don’t just feel with your natural emotions. The Spirit of God will add super to that natural, and we always have to be listening to Him for it. Let’s go now to chapter 17. So no one else saw it, no one else in the entire country saw it, Jesse didn’t see it, his brothers didn’t see it, no one in all the armies of Israel saw this. All the armies of Israel were suited up, fighting against the Philistines. Fighting against Hamas, fighting against the same kind of junk that still goes on in the world today. And here’s Goliath, just shouting these obscenities against Israel, these obscenities against the people of God. Be careful who you defy. They might look small, they might look insignificant, they might look weak, they might look powerless, but there might be a God with angel armies backing them up. This Philistine said, “I defy the armies of Israel this day, give me a man, that we may fight together.” When David rolled up, he just rolled up in his little shepherd outfit, He had his little flute in his pocket, his little harp, or whatever. He didn’t even have a sword. There were thousands, upon thousands, upon thousands of Israeli men who looked like soldiers, who had armor, who had helmets, who had swords, who had spears, who had shields. They might look like a soldier on the outfit, but they were all posers. The only one who was a real soldier was this little anointed red-headed kid who didn’t even care how he looked, didn’t care what he wore, he knew that the Spirit of the Lord was upon him, and that things were shifting. And he knew what came natural to him, God added super to it. “Now, I could naturally kill a bear. I could naturally kill a lion,” it’s said, when he was telling Saul about this, trying to vouch for himself, “And so I grabbed him by the beard,” and just, David probably wasn’t that pretty. He probably had scars, you know, claw marks, teeth marks. He was a tough kid. Even though he didn’t look like a soldier, it was God that saw his heart. The heart really does matter. Man, the heart matters more than what you look like on the outside. God sees the heart. God sees that heart that’s after Him. God sees your faithfulness. God saw that in David, and He added His super to it, keep being faithful to God, He’ll add His super to it. He’ll anoint it with His spirit. Amen, and things will shift. He was trying to vouch for himself. Saul tried to put his own armor on him, just make him look like a soldier. It didn’t work. David went out, he got five stones and his sling. I believe that even if he had missed, David was so full of faith, so charged up, so just, “Man, I grabbed that lion by his beard. I grabbed that bear, look at that Philistine giant, 10 foot with his beard.” I don’t know if he’d missed that first time, missed the second, missed the third, fourth, fifth. I believe he just, with his 5’7″, 140-pound, red-headed. Just go into beast mode, and just climb up his back, and grab his beard, and rip his head right off.

Congregation Member Yeah.

Man, you better be careful who you pick a fight with. Some people might look like they don’t have much backbone. Like they don’t have much strength, like they have much skill, these little red-headed ones are the feisty ones. They know that the righteous take it by force sometimes.

Congregation Member Yeah.

So what happens here? 1 Samuel 17:49, “David put his hand in his bag, and took a stone and he slung it.” That one small stone, “Slung it, and it struck that Philistine in his forehead so that the stone sank into his forehead, and he fell on his face to the earth.” And then everyone else could see what David already saw, what Samuel already saw. They knew that that momentum was turning, that it was spinning, that the Spirit of the Lord was upon it, and when he grabbed that sling and that stone, it was a Spirit of the Lord that slung it right into the middle of his forehead. Then every single person saw that momentum happening. God is generating momentum in your life right now. He’s generating momentum in your heart right now. And if you sense the Spirit of the Lord speaking to you today, other people might not see it, the person sitting next to you might not see it, no one else might not see it, even for weeks, even for months, but they’ll see it. Keep trusting God, amen?

Congregation Member Amen.

So for the conclusion, I want you to repeat after me, say this, “I’m not giving up.”

Congregation I’m not giving up.

I’m gonna keep doing what God has called me to do. I will keep trusting in all of His promises. He is working mightily on my behalf.

Congregation He is working mightily on my behalf.

The cards are stacked in my favor.

Congregation The cards are stacked in my favor.

There is a momentum of blessing coming my way.

Congregation Coming my way.

I have faith to begin.

Congregation I have faith to begin.

I have faith to continue,

Congregation I have faith to continue,

And I have faith to become.

Congregation And I have faith to become.

In Jesus’ name, amen, amen.

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.

Presenter 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.”