Lifestyle of Faith – Part 1 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Friends, we’re beginning a brand new series today on the lifestyle of faith and you don’t want to miss this series. It is great truth and it will help you receive from God what you are believing for today, so stay tuned, tell your friends about the broadcast. Tell your friends you can live stream it at our website and we wanna get the Word of God to you to help you walk in the victory Jesus won. Friends, it’s great to have you with us today. We’re gonna be talking about the lifestyle of faith and I’m so glad that you’re here. We’re gonna be sharing from Hebrews 10, and Hebrews is a great book on faith. Hebrews 11 talks about all these different people, these heroes of faith, but in Hebrews 10, the scripture talks about in verse 36, “You have need of patience that after you have done the will of God, you might receive the promise.” Now, recently I was talking to a good friend of mine, he’s a minister of the gospel, he comes to my church, he’s pastored two different churches, he’s traveled around the world, and I was telling him about how we had faced major difficulties and challenges, but God had brought us through that in grand style. And as I was telling that, he said, “Lawson, when you read the Book of Hebrews in verse 36 of chapter 10, when it says that ‘You have need of patience,’ that word for patience is a different Greek word.” And he said, “That word for patience means consistency.” And he said, “You and Barbara are two of the most consistent people that I know,” and so I went and studied this out and found what he was saying to be true. This word for patience in Hebrews 10:36 is the Greek word hupomone and it means this, that even in the midst of difficulty and the most adverse conditions, you are unswayed in your faith, that you are constant, that you are steadfast, that you have endurance and perseverance and that’s really the way that we live. We just keep living, we keep believing, we keep speaking the Word of God, we keep acting in faith, we never quit believing God. And, you know, when I began to study this out, I saw different things and the first thing that I saw is in verse 35, just before this. He says, “Cast not therefore your confidence, cast not away your confidence, which has a great repayment of reward.” And this word confidence in the Greek is the Greek word paressia and it means boldness, openness, plainness, freedom in speaking, confidence, outspokenness, frankly, and free and fearless speech, praise God. So I thought we need to be bold in our confession. Praise God.

 

  I love that you have need of patience. Faith and patience, and I like how you went further with it talking about endurance and consistency, really great people of faith are very patient, they have consistency, they have endurance in their life, and faith is not just a short burst of emotion like some people might think that faith is, faith is actually a lifelong journey and when you have a faith in Jesus, you’re not gonna lose. The only way you lose is by quitting.

 

  Amen.

 

  And if you look at Hebrews 11, all these people, it’s the great faith Hall of Fame, by faith, by faith, really it’s not just all these people and they just have a short burst of faith. They had a lifestyle of faith.

 

  Amen.

 

  Enoch had a lifestyle of faith. Noah had a lifestyle of faith. He didn’t just buy faith build a ark overnight.

 

  No, it took him 100 years. He was 500 years old when God spoke to him and he was 600 years old when he entered the ark.

 

  So that’s patience, that’s consistency, that’s endurance.

 

  It took Noah and his family 100 years to build that ark.

 

  And you know, and when you do what God calls you to do consistently over a long period of time, the results are gonna be amazing. My wife Heather just texted me yesterday. She came across an old journal of mine from when I was in high school. And I had this journal entry, it was about a year ago in July, so I just finished high school, but I was writing about just God helped me be patient and waiting for the person you have for me. I met Heather when I was 31 years old, but it really touched her that I was believing God for a godly wife.

 

  You waited.

 

  Yeah, and God helped me. Sometimes it takes patience.

 

  You wrote that 13 or 14 years before you were married and you waited that time and you didn’t get ahead of God. And there were some distractions that came along the way, but you didn’t get distracted. And I think sometimes people get distracted before they receive their harvest. But today we’re gonna move into an area, we’re gonna talk about this verse before it, really where it says cast not away your confidence, which has a great repayment of reward, and that word confidence, meaning a bold, outspoken confession, frankness, openness, unashamedly declaring. We’re gonna talk about a bold confession of Jesus. We need to have a bold confession of Jesus. We’re gonna talk about having a bold confession of faith and a bold confession of the Word of God.

 

  You really see just kind of in the times we live in that the church is kind of splitting in two directions. There’s a church here in America, across the world, that’s very bold in the truth, very bold in what they believe, very bold in standing up for Jesus, and there there’s kind of a turning away where there’s really a loss of boldness. I think a lot of people like to come to this church and like tune into this broadcast because we preach a bold message. Really the gospel is a very bold message.

 

  Amen, and I don’t apologize for the Word of God. I don’t apologize for Jesus. You know, when I read this word paressia meaning competence, outspokenness, frankness, free and fearless, I’ve been bold and outspoken and have competence. Like when we were going through the pandemic and the governor commanded all the churches to be closed in the state of Colorado and God told me to open our church. We were the last big church in Colorado Springs to close. We were the first big church to open. And you know what? We were open months before some churches opened. And you know what, it’s just what God put in our heart.

 

  And really the local authorities even attacked our church. They said if you don’t do exactly what we say, we’re gonna turn you over to the local media and have you blast it on television.

 

  They did turn us over to the local media.

 

  They did and people saw there’s a church open. It actually worked out in our favor. We’re the only organization in this county where the health department blasted someone through media. Like we only had one confirmed case of COVID at the time and they blasted us saying this could be a potential hotspot.

 

  They couldn’t call us an outbreak because they didn’t have two confirmed cases.

 

  But it was really atrocious that just local.

 

  There’s a business across the field. I love ’em, In-N-Out Burger, they make great burgers, they put scriptures on the bottom of their cups, I believe they’re a Christian company, but you know, they had 66 cases or 68 cases and remained open just in their store with their workers, and yet they attacked us for one case. I mean, this is how ludicrous the world is coming against the church.

 

  And really boldness it, it offends people ’cause a lot of people are cowards, just to be quite frank, even a lot of Christians are, and when you’re bold, really the righteous are bold as a lion.

 

  That’s what proverb says.

 

  So, you know, understanding your righteousness, understanding your authority in Jesus, understanding.

 

  When you know God has told you something, when you know God has said something, and that’s what that’s like when we opened the church, you know, I knew that God had put this in my heart. We actually got on the health department’s website, God showed us to do this, and we found out that churches could be open and we believe that we were correct. We had an attorney look at it, he agreed with us. We actually emailed the health department, told them, you know, like two weeks before, a week and a half before what we were gonna do. We called them and told them what we were gonna do. We had a detailed plan laid out. It wasn’t like we were being stupid and we had 10 different things that we were doing, and even at all that they called us, but they waited till the Friday before, like, you know, almost 10 days, eight or nine days after I contacted ’em at 4:45 PM to tell me that we couldn’t be open and I just told them, you know what, you’re disagreeing with what my attorney says so we’re gonna go ahead and do it. You’re too late. The horse is already out of the gate. We’ve already announced it. We’ve already sent out emails. We’ve already told people. And there’s other cases where we’ve been bold and outspoken for Jesus.

 

  Well, a lot of pastors in Colorado were on conference calls with the governor. Our governor here is extremely liberal. He’s gay, he’s married to a man two decades younger than him. This governor has pushed-

 

  I think we call it abuse.

 

  This governor has pushed for a abortion to be up until the day of birth here in Colorado. He’s just very ungodly and he’s on conference calls with pastors telling him, you know, I care about y’all.

 

  Yeah, and he was saying necessary-

 

  Just don’t open, just wait until I tell you you can open.

 

  I was told that I should get on that conference call and I could tell when I got on the conference call that he had no plan to open the church whatsoever. And this was like in April or May and it must’ve been in April because they closed the end of March. We opened by the 1st of May, first Sunday of May, and I just knew he had no plan. He said, “Well, we might open in September. We might open in January.” And you know, here’s what me and one of my good friends, Pastor Al from the West Side Calvary Church, Al Pittman, a great man of God. We had both the same thoughts and he opened, he closed a week before I did and opened a week after I did, but this was both of our thoughts. The liquor stores opened, the marijuana shops are open, the bars are open, the abortion clinics opened and the churches closed? What is wrong with that picture? And that’s just like the world. They’ll open all these ungodly things, but yet they wanna close the church and I just told them when this health department called me, I said, “Listen, Walmart down the street can have 953 people at once,” and I said, “If you test every one of those people, there’ll be at least 100 people in that store today that have COVID.” And I said, “My church is bigger than Walmart. I got 120,000 plus square feet so I figure if Walmart can have 953, I could have 953.” Amen, you see, we just lay down and play dead sometimes. We had the same thing happened years ago when we put our Jesus is Lord, bus benches were attacked. They had one call against us in a long-

 

  One complaint.

 

  Period of time and they told us that that was political and that using the name of Jesus was hate speech. I said, “You guys, this is a lie.” And I said, “You know what, we’re gonna, we put those up. We’ve been up for three years using the name of Jesus in our ads and we’re gonna stay up.” And we stayed up.

 

  We paid for these ads too.

 

  Yeah.

 

  Right now in Colorado Springs, you go downtown and there’s actually pride stuff on city property and I know that’s not paid for.

 

  Gay pride.

 

  Yeah.

 

  That’s pathetic.

 

  Yeah, and that’s a religious statement and that’s being endorsed by local governing whoever allows that, but I know it’s not paid for.

 

  No. It’s appalling to me.

 

  The righteous are bold as a lion, you can see that people of faith are bold. We should not be ashamed of the gospel. We should not be ashamed of our faith. We should not be ashamed of Jesus.

 

  Amen.

 

  The only part of the gospel that will work for you is the part that you’re not ashamed of.

 

  Amen, praise God, that’s the truth. Let’s go to Hebrews 10, Aaron, verse 23 to verse 25. This talks about having a bold confession of Jesus. And we’ll read one of these verses and then actually maybe we’ll read ’em all three here and read Hebrews 10:23-25.

 

  It says, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who is promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching.”

 

  Amen, so we need to hold fast to the profession of our faith, to the confession of our faith. We need to have a bold profession of faith in Jesus. For he is faithful who promised. Amen, we shouldn’t be moving away from our confession of faith. We shouldn’t be moving away from our profession of Jesus. And so many people, you know, they start out strong, but somewhere different things come. The Bible says, “Immediately Satan comes to steal the Word out of your heart.” And then it says, “Because persecution and affliction for the Word’s sake, immediately they’re offended.” There’s all these different attacks on really our faith and on the Word of God, but we need to stay bold. We’re gonna come back after this break and we’re gonna talk more about having a bold confession of Jesus, so thank you so much for staying tuned. We’ll be back right after this break. Don’t miss this good news. Friends, I’ve been teaching with two of my greatest friends, Andrew Wommack and Jesse Duplantis and we taught with Andrew on the revelation of grace, and then with Jesse on insights to faith. You don’t want to miss this great teaching. That is the heart of the gospel, grace, what Jesus has done, and faith, our positive response to it. Blessings. 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 are 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’re talking about having a bold confession of Jesus. You know, in Matthew 10, I believe it’s about verse 32 to 36 in there, Jesus said, “Whoever will confess me before men, him will I confess before my Father. But whoever will deny me before men, him will I deny before my Father.” And we need to have a bold, unapologetic, open confession of our faith in Jesus.

 

  You can’t have a silent boldness.

 

  No.

 

  Faith can’t really be silent either, it’s spoken.

 

  Amen.

 

  You have to have a bold confession. You have to say something.

 

  Hallelujah. That reminds me of a story, Aaron. Years ago I was part of a full gospel church in the Southeast Colorado. I loved the church, loved the pastor, but we had some people that were meeting in this other room and they had this sign on the wall that said, “God’s secret service saints.” And I was up there with my pastor and we were praying, and I said, “Can I take that sign down?” And he said yes and I ripped it off the wall. I don’t believe that there are, there’s any such thing as a secret service saint. I believe you oughta, whoever confesses me before men, I’ll confess before my Father. Whoever denies me before men. You know what, if you’re a Christian, you’re gonna have to stand up and be counted. Amen, we shouldn’t be, you know, I’m not ashamed of Jesus. I’m not ashamed of the Holy Spirit. I’m not ashamed of the gifts of the Spirit. I’m not ashamed of the promises of God, divine healing, provision, whatsoever they may. I am not ashamed, praise God. And so many people, they just wanna water down the Word. They want to make apologies for the Word of God, for the Holy Spirit, for the promises of God and I’m not gonna make any and you know what? When the rubber meets the road, praise God, God shows up. Hallelujah, and I believe if you’ll be bold for God, he’ll be bold for you. You know, you think about Daniel, Daniel and the three Hebrew children. You think about his three Hebrew friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and they, you know, they threw them in the fire. They said, “Listen, King,” they said, “If you throw us in, we’re not gonna bow, throw us in. If you don’t, God’s gonna deliver us.” So they threw, the king was so mad, he heated the fire seven times hotter and he threw ’em in the fire and Jesus showed up in the fire. He said, “Didn’t we throw three men in that fire?” And he was looking maybe from his palace looking down on that from far away. They said, “Yeah, we threw three in.” And he said, “Weren’t they bound?” They said, “Yeah, they were bound.” The fire was so hot, it killed the people that threw ’em in there. And he said, “Well, I see four walking around in the fire and the fourth one looks like the Son of God.” Oral Roberts had a great message on the fourth man in the fire, praise God. You know what, if you’ll be bold for Jesus, he’ll be bold for you. If you’ll stand up for Jesus, if you’ll stand up for the Word of God, God will stand up for you. And so we just read these scriptures, Hebrews 10, that says, “Let us hold fast to the profession of our faith without wavering, for He’s faithful that promise. Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works.” You know, if you lay down, you’re not considering other believers. Then it says, “Don’t forsake the assembling of ourselves together.” You know, a lot of people doing every other thing besides assembling themselves together. You know, mom and I talk about this often, but our parents, both of our parents ended up, took us to church and they didn’t know all the things that we know. They didn’t know about the baptism of Holy Spirit. They didn’t know about the promises about divine healing. They didn’t know about promises about provision, but they did take us to church and we got saved there, praise God, and we were raised in the church, praise God. And it was good for us. And so he says, “Don’t forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhort one another and so much more as you see the day approaching,” praise God. I believe people can tell by your lifestyle that you are a Christian, that you’re a believer, but also by your confession of Jesus. He goes on down, let’s read Hebrews 10:32-35. It talks more about this bold confession of Jesus.

 

  It says here, “But recall the former days in which after you were illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings, partly while you were made a spectacle, both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated. For you had compassion on me and my chains and joyfully accepted the plundering of your goods, knowing that you have a better and enduring possession for yourselves in heaven.”

 

  Amen, praise God. So he says, “Call to remembrance the former days. After you were illuminated, you received a great fight of afflictions.” Why do you think, Aaron, it’s after that we’re illuminated that we receive a great fight of affliction?

 

  That’s the easiest time for the enemy to come and pluck something up before it really starts growing and taking root.

 

  Amen. Yeah, we just talked about that in Mark 4. You know, Satan comes immediately just, you know, you’re not a threat to the devil when you’re not going anywhere, not believing anything, just kind of sitting around, hanging in there hoping to God you make it. But when you start believing and boldly confessing Jesus and boldly confessing the Word of God and boldly confessing the promises, you become a threat to the kingdom of darkness and so I think that’s why the devil will come and attack you, but he says, “Partly you were made a gazing stock by reproaches and afflictions, and partly while you became companions of those who were so used.” You know, what’s that mean to be a gazing stock? I think, you know what, when you’re boldly standing and you start out making a bold confession of Jesus, there’s people that are watching you. There’s people are saying, you know, “Is this person gonna do what they said? Are they gonna stand? Are they really? Is this who they really are?” And I can tell you, I know a lot of people and some of ’em aren’t who they say they are, but there’s those who are, praise God, and it’s a witness, it’s a testimony to other people. When you’re bold in your confession of Jesus and then you just stay the course. And he says, “Partly while you become companions.” You know, there’s people that have made a bold confession of Jesus and you know what? They’ve stood no matter what the cost and some of ’em stood, if you read in Hebrews 11 and received the victory, some of them received the victory and went on home to be with Jesus. But you know, they stayed the course. And and then he says this. “For you had compassion on me and my bonds and took joyfully the spoiling of your goods.” Now, we’ll probably talk about this later in the week, but one area that we gotta stay consistent in is giving and receiving, not only in our confession of Jesus, our confession of faith, our confession of the Word of God, but we need to be consistent in giving and receiving. You know, there’s a lot of people that hear the promises of the Bible and promises concerning provision and they start out, but they quit somewhere. But I don’t wanna quit. And I’ve had people that criticize me because I’m boldly, you know, a person of faith. I’m boldly who I am. I boldly believe the promises of God. I boldly believe in prosperity and I have people that criticize me for that, but you know what? We’re blessed. People actually talk about our church and different people be coming and they say, “Oh, you’re going to that prosperity church.” Well, we gotta build, and they just gave us a tax valuation, almost $29 million, it’s paid for. Now, we didn’t pay that for it. God gave it to us by the Holy Spirit and different things, we paid 5.7 million, built it out for $2 million, it’s a miracle of God. And the day we moved in it, praise God, it was paid off. That’s a miracle of God. God’s helped us over and over again and you know, when you believe the promises and you’re bold, it works out good, amen. And we’re givers, we started this church 22 years ago and we had almost no people and no money and we’ve given away 10 to 27% of the income every year. Praise God. You know, we’ve built seven churches in India this year, praise God, and I just heard from a partner last night, I think he’s gonna send me more money to build more. They’re so excited about what we’re doing, praise God, and so we get to do this, hallelujah. And we help people all around the world. I had a minister today that got locked out of another church. He was gonna have a special event and because of political things, they shut him down and told him last minute they’re not gonna do it. You know what, I gave him a donation and said, “Here’s a place you can probably hold the meeting.” Hallelujah, this’ll pay for it, hallelujah. I get to give, praise God. We give thousands and thousands of dollars and hallelujah. We give over $1,500 a day from this church away and it’ll increase in the future. I believe there’ll be a day that we’re giving over $15,000 a day, hallelujah, it won’t be that long. Amen, God is good. You know, and when you get involved and sowing in reaping, it’ll come back. You can’t beat God giving. Proverbs 11:24-25 says, “There is he who scatters and yet increases, and there’s he who withholds more than he should and that tends to poverty.” Man, we are blessed. We get to do this. We get to be part of the Kingdom. We get to give. Your mother and I have given over 30% of our income over the years, and you know what? Our net worth is about three times of all the money we’ve ever made. You cannot make sense of that. It does not make natural sense, but that’s the blessing of God. That’s the promise of God. Hallelujah, there’s he that scatters and yet increases. Hallelujah, God just keeps increasing us more and more. He says, “Therefore, cast not away your confidence.” Be bold in your confession of Jesus. You know what, we’re gonna come back tomorrow. We’re gonna be talking more about this. We’re gonna be talking more about having a bold confession of faith. You need to have a bold confession of faith. Man, faith speaks. If you really have faith, you can’t help but speak. You can’t help but say some things.

 

  Yeah, faith speaks. I notice too, like people of faith, people have a lifestyle of faith, they’re very generous people.

 

  Yes.

 

  They’re very much big givers and even bold with their giving so if you’re looking for good ground to invest in, to invest in the gospel, invest in a bold message of faith in Jesus, this is really good ground to sow into, so if you’d like to become a partner, you can call us right now, you can partner. You can just give a one time gift or give a monthly amount. I know that when I started, I left for several years to go to college, but before I came back to become a pastor, I actually started giving here to this ministry and I saw a lot of harvest, a lot of growth because I know it’s good ground. When you plant your seed in good ground, there will be a harvest and I’m just really excited about what God is doing here in this ministry. We get calls all the time, people wanting to know more about Jesus, to receive the Holy Spirit, to get prayer for healing. There aren’t a lot of ministries that are really bold with every aspect of the gospel.

 

  Amen.

 

  That God wants you well, even as your soul prospers.

 

  Amen, amen, God wants you to prosper yourself.

 

  Be in health and prosper.

 

  Amen, that’s 3 John 2. And so you know what, if you wanna partner, there’s a strong anointing on this ministry of increase and if you wanna partner with us, I believe God will increase you and help you if you wanna sow a seed and believe God. But if you need prayer, if you need to receive Jesus, receive the Holy Spirit, receive healing, if you need wisdom and direction in your business, whatever it is, give us a call today. We have trained prayer ministers that are here. They’re ready to receive your calls, to minister to you the gospel. They will pray for you. And I believe that God will help you and bless you. I believe that God is faithful to his Word and he keeps it every day. Thank you so much for tuning in. God bless you today.

 

  Faith isn’t just a momentary thought or a burst of emotion. It’s a lifestyle of trusting in God and his unfailing Word. Take a step of faith and trust in God’s plan for your life. Faith is a journey, so enjoy the trip. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of the teaching “Lifestyle of Faith,” a $20 value free of charge. Download it today CharisChristianCenter.com.

 

  I wanna tell you about something great coming up at Cares Charis Christian Center. It’s our 22nd anniversary.

 

  God can work all kinds of miracles, but you and I have to believe that God can.

 

  You’re the one that has authority, not the devil, and you’ve gotta get mad and come against that thing.

 

  We want you to come, we want you to be here. For more information, go to our website at CharisChristianCenter.com.

 

  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.”