The Gift of Jesus Part 1 – Lawson and Barbara Perdue – 12/23/2024

Praise the Lord. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re connected with us today and tuned in. We’re gonna be sharing today on the greatest of all gifts, the Gift of God’s Son, the Gift of Jesus. And we are celebrating all of this week the gift of God’s son, the gift of Jesus, the gift of redemption. Truly, it is the most wonderful time of the year. Open your heart and receive. Friends, it’s so good to have you with us today. We are celebrating the greatest time of the year, celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ. And we’re gonna be talking all of this week about the gift of Jesus, the gift of God’s son.

I like how you said we’re celebrating this week, but this is something, you know, we celebrate all year long, that we can celebrate the birth of Jesus, our Savior. We know that when we receive him as our personal savior, he lives in us. We are not alone. And again, what a beautiful time of year. But, honey, you know me, I love Christmas all year long, and I like to start getting those gifts, you know, for our family and friends. I think way ahead because I don’t think it should be a stressful time. This should be a time to celebrate. Again, it’s the good news that we get to share of the message of hope.

Right. So you’ve always celebrated, you know? And you’re a true Christmas in July person. You just… You see a great deal, you take advantage of it then, and you know you’re ready when Christmas comes. And I remember when we were younger, we didn’t have a lot of excess. It was kind of challenging when we first started out. So I got a little frantic about spending money. And you would buy everyone else’s gift, and I would only generally buy your gift, and I would wait till, you know, December 24th, most of the time, to get your gift. And I would think, “Well, then I won’t spend too much money, you know, by waiting.” But ultimately, I went to Finland years and years ago on a mission trip in December. We had some friends that went to Bible school with us. And, you know, nobody wants to go to Finland in December because it’s, you know, very dark and a lot of people get depressed. And so they really wanted me to come and minister in Finland. And so I went to Finland. We were preaching around Helsinki, and then we went up beyond the Arctic Circle and, you know, to the North Pole, actually. And they had all these little Christmas trees. It’s so cold up there, these trees don’t grow very much. But they’re just, you know, little probably 15-foot pine trees just everywhere, and it was just gorgeous. And I, I just fell in love with that season, and it really changed my heart about it. After that, I got excited about Christmas, I get excited about giving, and I’m more like you now. I’m excited about giving and sharing all the time. In fact, giving is one of the things that I just love to do.

Amen. Yeah, you do. And, you know, we both grew up where Christmas was just pretty low key as far as the gifts. The gifts were more well-meaning. As far as my family, my mom and my grandparents, her parents, everything was homemade. So they were very thoughtful gifts. It wasn’t about spending a lot of money, but it was very thoughtful gifts. And, you know, some of my greatest memories as a child, honey, are is when my parents… I can’t remember if I already had the doll or they gave me a doll for Christmas, and then my mom made all the little outfits. And I just thought that was so precious. And then my grandfather one year made me a dollhouse, which we have to this day, and our grandchildren are playing with it. And so we have very special memories. And I know you always enjoyed getting, you know, you grew up in the country where you enjoyed hunting. And so you might have got some, you know, shells for all your guns or whatever. And so it isn’t about how much money you spend, it’s really the thought that’s really behind it. And we know that God cares about us and thought about us so much that he sent the best gift ever.

Amen. So let’s jump into this story. We’re gonna begin today in Luke 1:26. And it says, “In the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David, and the Virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came into her and said, ‘Hail, you are highly favored. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women.'”

So stop right there. I like what it says in this verse. You just read, “Rejoice, highly favored one.”

Amen.

And you’re blessed, but they made the comment, “You are highly favored.”

You know, Mary was highly favored to get to be a part of God’s plan of redemption on the earth. Of course, we know the promises, right, that God made. First of all, the first promise of redemption in the Bible is found in Genesis 3:15, about 4,000 years in time before Luke recorded this. And the seed of the woman will crush the serpent’s head. Jesus is the seed of the woman. He was born of a virgin. And he, the serpent, will bruise his heel. So the devil today is under our feet. Jesus is the head, we are the body. We are the fullness of Jesus that carries out all things according to Ephesians chapter one. But God had to work his plan of redemption, right? And he had to find a willing person, and he had to find someone that would believe with him.

I like what you just said, too, what you brought out that the devil is under our feet.

Amen.

A lot of people, the way they communicate give him way too much focus or power. Jesus came and took that authority and gave that to us, that we have authority over all spiritual darkness and the enemy and the weapons. I like that, “No weapon formed against you shall prosper.” I just think it’s good to bring this out too. I know we’re talking about the gift of Jesus, this beautiful time of year. But what all this means and entails, it’s such a big picture, again, that God loved us so much, he sent the best. And, you know, Jesus, we’re celebrating Jesus, our savior being born, but what that means even today and going forward.

Is that we have authority. And ultimately, if you look at the Bible, the Bible is a book of redemption. And the Bible begins with man in paradise, in the garden with God, and God gave man authority. But Adam gave into the lies of the enemy. Eve was tempted, didn’t really realize what she was doing. She was deceived. But Adam knew full well what he was doing. So when Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, essentially, he gave his authority. Satan usurped the authority of mankind, of humanity, over to Satan. And so Satan became the God of this world. He still is the God of this world, of this present evil age. And so what God did immediately was God came in Genesis chapter three, and he made a promise. And this promise of redemption, the seed of the woman is gonna crush the serpent’s head. And we saw that after Adam ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the earth was cursed, the serpent was cursed, the woman was cursed, and the man was cursed. But Jesus came to break the curse of the enemy. And he came as a perfect man because he never sinned. When Jesus died on the cross, he had authority over the devil. And he spoiled principalities and he spoiled powers. And he took authority over the devil. And then when he was raised from the dead, he said, “I am he who lives and was dead, and I have the keys of hell and death.” Of course, what’s he done with those keys?

Amen. I like what you just brought out. It’s worth repeating that we are not cursed.

Amen.

A lot of people really think they are, maybe because of family, past things, or whatever, but we are not cursed. We know that Jesus exchanged places. He became the curse on that tree. And I know we’re talking about his birth, but there’s so many things that are so exciting when you have that personal relationship with Jesus Christ to celebrate not only this week, but to celebrate all year long what it meant to have the Savior be born.

Amen. So we’re not cursed, we’re blessed, and we have authority. Jesus had the keys, but then he gave the keys to you and I. When we believe on Jesus, we are actually born into authority. And so it’s up to us to take authority over the devil. And we don’t want to give him too much airtime like you were talking about. Many people talk way too much about the devil. He is real, he is the God of this world, but we have authority over the works of the devil in the name of Jesus.

Because he’s a defeated foe.

Yeah. So when Mary saw this angel, her initial response, you know, of course, probably would be all of ours. It says when she saw him in Luke 1:29, she was troubled that is saying and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said, “Fear not, Mary, for you have found favor with God.”

So it’s repeated again.

Yes.

You have favor with God. That’s awesome.

Yes. And today we have favor with God through Jesus. “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth the son and call his name Yeshua, Jesus.” The Savior, the Messiah, the anointed one. “He will be great and be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord will give unto him the throne of his father, David.” So Jesus is the seed of the woman. This is another lesson. He’s the seed of Abraham, right? It talks about that in Galatians chapter three, where it says Jesus took the curse for us and gave us a blessing. But he’s also the seed of David, the coming king. And it says, “And he will reign over the house of Jacob or the house of Israel forever. And of his kingdom, there shall be no end.”

I like that. “In his kingdom, there shall be no end.”

So he begins to, you know, share these promises that were given for years. But what was Mary’s response? As we look in verse 34, Mary said, “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man.” In other words, “How can this be? I haven’t come into a physical relationship with a man.” And, you know, she just understood the facts of life, right?

Right.

She was engaged to be married to Joseph, but she wasn’t yet married. And she had, you know, she was lived right, she lived good, she lived pure. And so, “I’ve not come into a relationship with man, How can I have a child?” But the angels spoke to her in verse 35, and he said, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you. And that holy thing, which shall be born of you, shall be called the son of God.”

You know, I believe we all have a calling on our life to do great things for the Lord. And a lot of times, it does involve things that are very supernatural. We put so much focus and thought into what we can see and hear, and we don’t understand that the supernatural is also part of us, you know, talking about heaven and God and amazing things that can happen. And, you know, as we read throughout the Bible, we see amazing stories of people doing amazing things, like Daniel in the lions’ den. You know, we talked about both of us growing up in church where we heard these Bible stories about Noah building an ark, something that had never been done before. And, you know, he did it without power tools and fancy machinery. But, you know, God has called us all to do amazing things for his glory, and it always has to do, again, with the redemption story of bringing people to the knowledge of who he is that they could receive him. I mean, we have a lot of good news to share.

Amen. If you need prayer, we’ll be back right after this break and you can give us a call. We’d love to hear from you. Friends, we’ve been sharing about receiving God’s gift, the gift of Jesus Christ, but we have something that we want to give to you. We literally have thousands of hours of downloadable teaching audio and video available free of charge on our website at CharisChristianCenter.com. Also a great children’s curriculum, free of charge.

What I think… What I was always longing for raised in a Pentecostal church… When you are coming here and you are seen. There is no drama. Jesus showed us here how a healthy church is really working. God wants to show us like how church really worked. So, that was wonderful to see here.

Friends, I’m so glad that you stayed with us, and we’re sharing, you know, the story of Jesus. Really, it’s the story of redemption. It’s the story of the gospel. It’s the message. Praise God. And God made a promise, right? He made a promise to humanity. In Genesis chapter three, we talked about that. And then over and over, there were these promises. The seed of the woman, the seed of Abraham, the seed of David, all these promises of the Messiah coming. And now it’s come to pass. But to have it come to pass, he has to find a willing vessel to work on the earth.

And, honey, we were just talking about that before we went to break, that God is still looking for willing vessels, again, to get the good news out to people, that they are loved, that God loves them, and that there is a savior that they too can receive with a personal relationship and celebrate.

Right, and then God has promises for us all to receive, and he has things for us to do, but we have to willingly accept it. We can’t… It just is not automatic. It takes faith. And we’re gonna see that very clearly here in Luke chapter one. And so the angel Gabriel comes to Mary, says, “You found favor with God,” shares the promise with her, right? “You’re gonna bring forth the Son. He’s gonna be Jesus, Yeshua,” right? The Savior. The one who’ll save us from our sins, the Messiah, the anointed one. “He’s gonna be great. He’s gonna be called the son of the highest. He’s gonna reign on the throne of his father, David. He’s gonna restore the kingdom to Israel.” Wow. “He’ll reign over the house of Israel forever. And of his kingdom, there’ll be no end.” This is verse 33 of Luke chapter one. “Mary then says, ‘How is this gonna be? Seeing I know not a man? I’m not coming to a physical relationship with a man.'” And the angel says, “Listen, it’s gonna take the Trinity.” The Trinity was involved in the incarnation, in God becoming a man. Jesus was fully God and fully manned. God manifested in the flesh. And so the angel answered and says to her in verse 35, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you. The power of the Father God will overshadow you.”

I like how you just brought something out that I think is really awesome, that this involve the Trinity. ’cause we’re talking about God, we’re talking about the Holy Spirit.

Yes.

This is really beautiful.

You know, when the Trinity comes together in unity, amazing things happen. Jesus was born right here, right? The Holy Spirit comes upon you. The power of the Father God is gonna come on you. And the holy thing born of you shall be called the Son of God. Jesus is the son of God. But we read in Acts chapter 10:38, when Peter was preaching at, you know, Cornelius’s house, right? Kind of the first message after the resurrection of Jesus to the gentiles. And, you know, they almost, because it’s so supernatural how God led Cornelius, Cornelius sent to bring Peter, Peter comes with some men and they start to worship him. He’s like, “Wait a minute. Don’t worship me. Haven’t you heard Acts 10:38? How God, how the Father anointed Jesus of Nazareth, the Son with the Holy Ghost and power.” When you have the Trinity in unity, you find the power of God who went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with him. Jesus wants to do good things in your life. God’s with him. You see, really, God promised it, the Holy Spirit gives us the power to get it, but Jesus paid for it.

Amen.

And if we’re gonna receive the promises of God, we’ve gotta realize, “Hey, this is what God promised. The Holy Spirit gives me the power to get it, but Jesus has already paid for this.”

I like how you said, when all is involved, powerful things happen. And I love that. Here at church, at Care Christian Center, on a lot of times, our Sundays and even Wednesdays, we know when the Holy Spirit is moving and we give him time God to move. And it’s just amazing what happens as people are just worshiping him and have their focus on him. And just how he takes care of things. And, you know, there’s healings and, you know, people are receiving what he has from ’em. It’s just beautiful.

Right. So the angel Gabriel doesn’t only answer her and say, “This is how it’s gonna happen. It’s gonna take the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost all working together to bring this about,” right? But he gives her an example to help her in her faith. And he says in verse 36, “Behold your cousin Elizabeth, she is conceived a son in her old age.” And this is the six months. She’s six months along with her, who was called barren. They called her barren, but God worked a miracle in her life. With God, nothing is impossible. And he says that. “For with God, nothing shall be impossible.” I’m glad that all things are possible with God.

You know, that was one of our favorite scriptures. And when we were raising our three sons, this is something we had written down on an index card, and we had our children learn that with God, nothing shall be impossible. Again, we all have a calling on our life to do amazing things that are gonna impact others. And it’s always about God. God’s gonna get the glory.

Amen.

But like you said, we still have to step out in faith and trust him just as Mary, had to accept and receive this message and walk in it, live in it.

And Mary said, “Behold the handmaiden of the Lord, be it unto me according to thy word.” So God doesn’t just automatically do things. He doesn’t just sovereignly do things and sovereignly bring about his promises in our life. We have to accept God’s plan of grace, God’s favor for our life, right? The angel spoke to Mary twice, “You have favored,” but we have to accept it by faith. It’s not just God doing it, right? It’s, we have to believe it to receive it.

Barbara Amen.

You know, if Mary wouldn’t have believed what the angel spoke, and he gave her an example. This was called impossible, right? “Your cousin Elizabeth was barren.” John, her husband, was even having a hard time believing it. So he went nine months without talking.

That’s right.

Wow. But when he is born, he said, “What’s his name?” “His name would be John.” Hallelujah.

Then he could talk again. So that’s pretty exciting. Sometimes, you know, we both grew up with parents, I know I heard this a lot. If you can’t say anything positive, don’t say anything at all. In other words, if you can’t speak things of faith, maybe just hold your tongue till faith is stirred up in you. If you can’t say anything positive or faithful, just stay quiet.

Your tongue can get you in trouble. David said, “Teach me, O’ Lord, to set a watch over my lips.” You know, and the challenge with our words, Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks,” and really what we believe. So Mary just asked this question, and then, you know, the angel Gabriel gave, “This is how it’s gonna happen. The Trinity’s gonna come into unity here, and we’re gonna see the power of God.” Just like today, when the Trinity, when you got the promise of the Father, the provision of the Son, what Jesus made available in his death resurrection and the power of the Holy Spirit, what? Good things happen. People get healed, people get saved, people get filled with the Holy Ghost. People get set free by the power of God.

Amen.

Amen.

I, again, love what it says here in verse 38. Mary said, this is how she responded. “You know, behold the maidservant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word.” In other words, she had to accept the amazing plan here. To be a part, like you said, we have to accept. God has amazing plans for all of us, but we still have to accept them.

You know, in Isaiah chapter seven, there’s a promise of the seed of woman, right? “A virgin will conceive and bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel, God with us,” Isaiah 7:14. But in Isaiah 7:9, the Bible says this, “Surely if you will not believe, you’ll not be established.” And if you want to receive the promises of God, the good things of God, you’ve got to believe so that those words can be established in your life.”

That’s right. Well, I want everything God has for me.

Amen, I do too. Praise God. You know, I grew up in a traditional church, so did you. And and not everything was bad there. We both got saved there. Hallelujah. We learned about Jesus. But we really didn’t… We really weren’t taught the will of God as far as the promises of God, for instance, for healing or for vision or, you know, any other area. We were just kind of taught, “Well, Lord, if it be your will.” Well, we can know the will of God today from his word. He’s magnified his word above his name.

Barbara That’s right.

Now Mary goes to visit Elizabeth. So Barbara, if you’ll read verse 39 to verse 45.

Okay. So again, 39, it says, “Now Mary Rose in those days and went into the hill country with haste to a city of Judah and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. And it happened when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, that the baby leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.”

Amen.

That’s pretty exciting.

John was excited about Jesus coming.

Isn’t that amazing? You know, that just shows you and shows me just the power of the baby in the womb. You know, when you used to play the piano… I remember being pregnant with our first son. And when you would play the piano, he would begin to move in my womb. He was like, he was praising the Lord right along with us. So, you know, this is really exciting to me that the baby leaped when she heard the voice. And then verse 42 says, “Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, ‘Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb.’ But why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the baby leaped in my womb for joy. Blessed is she who believed. For there will be a fulfillment of those things which we’re told her from the Lord, but blessed is she who believed there will be fulfillment.'” We’re about to run out of time today, so we’re gonna kind of have to start wrapping things up and we’ll be talking even more tomorrow. But that is exciting.

Praise the Lord.

Blessed are you when you believe there will be fulfillment.

Amen, praise God. You know what? What you receive, most of the time, is what you believe. And when I got involved in the full gospel 46 years ago, man, I got filled with the Holy Ghost, and I started believing these promises of God, and my life is amazing. And it doesn’t always happen immediately. But when you keep believing the word of God, keep speaking the word of God, you know what, keep acting on the word of God, good things are gonna come. Praise God.

And we just wanna make sure everyone also knows that we’re gonna be celebrating special Christmas Eve services here.

Yes.

And we would love, if you are in the area, to invite you to join us for our special Christmas Eve services. If you are not able to join us by driving here and be in person, you can live stream and celebrate the birth of our savior with us.

Yes. What a marvelous time of year. And so we are really celebrating the gift of God’s son, the greatest of all gifts. And this is, you know, this is, you know, like I said, the most wonderful time of year. It’s a wonderful time to be alive. It’s a wonderful time to be worshiping God and loving the Lord Jesus Christ and to be receiving the good gifts that God has. One of those is the Holy Spirit. And if you’ve never received the Holy Spirit as a believer, if you’ve never been baptized in the Holy Spirit and received your personal prayer language, you can call in and receive prayer and receive that today. We got lots of things to say. 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 at 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’ll also be ministering. It’s gonna be a great time. Look forward to seeing you there.

Friends, in the last few months, we have heard from over 50 nations in the world. People from all around the world are downloading our curriculum, our syllabus, our downloadable audio and downloadable video teachings, our confession cards, and all of these great teaching materials. And you can go receive it too at CharisChristianCenter.com. Receive these resources and be blessed.

Announcer 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 P.O. Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80962. See you next time on “Grace for Today.”