The Supernatural Fruit of the Holy Spirit – Part 5 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Welcome, friends, to the broadcast. I’m so glad that you tuned in today. I have my son Aaron with me. We’re gonna be talking about the supernatural fruit of kindness. In one place, the Bible calls it the law of kindness, and this is a fruit that you want to get involved in because when you sow kindness, you reap kindness. So, stay tuned and receive the good Word of God today. Friends, it’s so good to have you with us today. I am so happy that Aaron is here with us, and I’m glad you’re… We’ve been sharing on the supernatural fruit of the Holy Spirit. It’s been a great week of teaching. We’re gonna continue this teaching next week. Tell your friends about it. This may not be the most exciting thing in your life, but I guarantee you it will be one of the most productive and rewarding things if you let the Holy Spirit rule your life.

 

  Amen. So, yeah, we’ve been sharing about the supernatural fruit of the Holy Spirit. I like calling it supernatural because that’s what it is. It is not normal. It is straight from the spirit of Jesus that’s on the inside of you. Galatians 5:22-23 says, “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.” So we talked about how the first three fruit, love, joy, and peace, correlate to our relationship with God. We’re kind of now in the second group of fruit, long-suffering, kindness, and goodness, which deal with our relationship with other people. You know, yesterday we talked about long-suffering and how that deals with our relationship with other people. Kindness is also a fruit that deals with our relationship with other people. The last three fruit correlate to our relationship with ourself. You have a relationship with yourself.

 

  Yes, you do.

 

  You can speak to yourself. You can stir yourself up.

 

  Bible talks about that.

 

  I had kind of revelation. A lot of people are going around just looking for other people to stir them up and give them inspiration and motivation. And you need to find that from within yourself.

 

  Amen, that’s what the Bible says in 2 Timothy 1. “Stir up the gift of God that is in you.” We gotta stir up the gift of God.

 

  And David encouraged himself-

 

  In the Lord.

 

  Yeah.

 

  And speak to yourself in psalms, hymns, spiritual psalms, making melody in your hearts to the Lord. All those things that you’re talking about are biblical.

 

  And some people might think they’re super spiritual, but they’re not really producing much fruit, especially the fruit that deals with self. You know, if someone’s not producing much faithfulness, much gentleness, much self-control, they’re kind of lacking in maturity.

 

  Right.

 

  And love is the ultimate test. You know, if people can pass the love test, that’s the ultimate test.

 

  Yeah, the Bible says, “Put on charity,” in Colossians 3:14, “which is the bond of perfectness,” or “the bond of maturity.” So I can’t tell how mature you are by the gifts of the Spirit that you walk in, the word of wisdom, the word of knowledge, the discerning of spirits, the gift of faith, the working of miracles, the gifts of healings, the gift of prophecy, or the gift of tongues, or interpretation of tongue. But I can tell how mature you are by the fruit of the spirit that you actually manifest, that you actually walk in. And so that’s why the Bible tells us to walk in love. That’s why the Bible says, “Put on love, which is the bond of maturity.” That’s why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13 when he’s talking about love, “If I have faith so that I can move mountains, if I have not love, it profits me nothing.” So we need to operate. We need to let the fruit of the Spirit… We have the fruit of the Spirit in our spirit. They’re 100%. We have the exact same spirit as Jesus when we’re born again. The same spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in those who are born again. “If you have not the Spirit of Christ,” Romans 8:9 says, “you’re none of His.” So you either got 100% of it or none of it. But you need to renew your mind to the fact of what you have in you in Christ so that you can begin to walk in that and see the fruit of that in your life.

 

  And we’ve been talking. You know, yesterday we talked about long-suffering. Today we’ll be talking about kindness. You know, in the next teaching next week, we’ll start talking about goodness, but long-suffering, kindness, goodness, all deal with our relationship with other people. And we talked about how these fruit are really demonstrated towards others. And when we talk about long-suffering, really someone who’s long-suffering, the way, to me, I see it that you can really see that fruit in their life in their dealings with other people is, are they a person of honor? Do they continually honor other people? Do they honor, you know, their spouse? Do they honor their children? Do they honor their boss? Do they honor-

 

  The people that work for ’em?

 

  Yeah, their pastor. Are they a person of honor? Are they someone who’s easily offended and just goes chopping off everyone and just like a bomb going off all the time? I’ve known some people who like that, who think they’re great spiritual giants, but they’re just like all the time, just it’s like a bomb going off, and they just wanna go chop off.

 

  They’re full of drama. I’m telling you, I’ve seen enough of it.

 

  Someone who’s just constantly full of drama and the center of drama, that’s the opposite of being long-suffering.

 

  Right.

 

  Because you’re not really trying to… You’re just… And you see a pattern of it. The fruit of someone’s heart, the fruit of someone’s life, are gonna become more evident over the period of time.

 

  Right.

 

  And a good way to see, you know, how people are relationally is to see what they exhibit when they don’t get what they want.

 

  Yeah. That’s great.

 

  You know, as soon as you don’t get what you want, how are you responding? Are you still being loving, or were you just loving, or were you just trying to be kind to manipulate someone?

 

  Exactly.

 

  To flatter someone.

 

  I’ve seen that happen.

 

  I’ve even seen, like, you know, I’m a young man. I’ve dated before I met Heather, but if someone doesn’t get what they want, do they blow up and cuss you out? Do they, you know, suddenly reveal another Jekyll-and-Hyde type thing?

 

  Right.

 

  When someone doesn’t get what they want, what fruit do they show?

 

  Yeah.

 

  And I’ve seen, even in the church world, sometimes people can be some of the most immature people. They don’t get what they want. Like, they aren’t doing the songs that I want. Or, you know, the pastor wouldn’t meet me at the time I wanted to meet him. Or, you know, I didn’t get the position or the platform that I wanted to get.

 

  Right.

 

  And the moment you don’t get what you want, are you still kind? Are you still long-suffering? Or is there a shift?

 

  Right.

 

  And if there’s a shift, then really-

 

  I’ve actually had people say, “Well, why aren’t you talking about me anymore?” Well, ’cause I saw some of the fruit manifested in your life and just don’t need to promote it.

 

  And just stay away from drama. You know, life’s too short to be full of drama.

 

  Listen, I talked to Andrew Wommack. You know, there was a minister, I was warned about him. Andrew was warned about him, this minister. And, you know, after a couple of year relationship, I saw what was happening, so on and so forth. So I called Andrew Wommack, and I said, you know, and Andrew’s my mentor in the Lord. I said, “Listen, what these people have said is probably so. I just want to tell you.” And Andrew said some things to me in regards to that, but a word of advice from Andrew, who’s an older minister to me, a younger minister, was, “I’ve observed, and the people have a lot of drama around them, I do not get too connected with them.” I thought that is very, very good advice. So me to you, Aaron, as a younger minister, I think you’re actually wiser in many of these areas than I am, and I’m glad that you are, but is if you see a bunch of drama around someone, be careful about getting too connected with them and especially in the ministry. You know, Paul talks about some people, and you were talking about relationships. You know, I don’t think we do very much ministry-wise that’s long term outside of good godly relationships. Romans is actually my favorite book of the Bible. But in Romans 16, Paul talks in the first 16 verses, I think, about positive relationships. And he talks about numerous people and groups of people who have helped him. But in Romans 16:17-20, I believe it is, he says, “Mark those that cause divisions and offenses contrary to the gospel and avoid them, knowing they gender strife,” so on and so forth. So, you know, Paul doesn’t say this… That’s a public letter. He actually says in a couple private letters, he names people. And he doesn’t say this in a public letter that’s going like to a whole church, but to another minister friend, he’s saying, “Listen, you avoid Alexander the coppersmith. He’s done me much evil.” You know, so he lays it out on the line in a private manner. He doesn’t publicly get up and renounce people. I don’t like to publicly get up and renounce things, but sometimes privately you say, “You know what? You better watch that,” praise God?

 

  So I wanna talk about kindness and, you know, true kindness. This means it comes from God. It’s not like you just being kind because there’s something in it for you. You know, if you’re only kind when there’s something in it for you or only giving when there’s something in it for you, you know, that’s actually a perverted, demonic type of relational manipulation. God is not a manipulator.

 

  Absolutely.

 

  And when people are manipulative, maybe they’re trying to financially manipulate or just flatter with their words, that’s actually not… The Bible has a lot of negative things to say about that.

 

  Right.

 

  The Devil is crafty. He tries to twist what God has given in purity. And we’re gonna talk about just pure kindness.

 

  Amen.

 

  Where there’s nothing in it for me. This is just flowing out you because it’s who you are.

 

  The Bible says that we oughta be good to all men, wanna be kind to everybody. You know, Kenneth E. Hagin, Papa Hagin, said this years ago. He said, you know, “Jesus never spoke evil about anybody.” He said, “If God talked about the Devil,” He’d say, “Well, he’s a persistent cuss,” you know? And sometimes that’s hard. That’s more difficult to live and to manifest than it is to talk about, but it’s reality.

 

  I remember one time, this is years ago, but Oprah was doing some kind of undercover show. Like she was working at McDonald’s as the person who takes the drive-through calls. And her lawyer actually came through the drive-through and was like chewing her out, cussing her, didn’t know who it was. And then she realized, “That was my lawyer who’s acting like a complete jerk,” and she fired him. And he probably lost millions of dollars over that. But you know, how are you treating people who maybe don’t have much to give you in return?

 

  Right.

 

  You know, are you really a kind person or not? And kindness-

 

  I need to practice that.

 

  The way kindness is demonstrated towards other people, it can be different ways, but this is what God showed me. The way kindness is demonstrated towards others is with your mouth.

 

  Yeah.

 

  And there’s a lot of great spiritual laws. I love teachings on spiritual laws, spiritual truths, and the Bible has a lot to say about laws of faith, laws of authority, laws of sowing and reaping. But there’s also a spiritual law of kindness.

 

  Right.

 

  And this is spoken of in Proverbs 31:26 about the virtuous woman, but it applies to everyone, is that “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness.” So kindness must be expressed verbally. And you know, it tastes incredible. It’s one of the best-tasting fruit, and it’s also very rare and expensive. But kindness should be something that you practice. You’re intentional about it. You make it a regular thing. You do it frequently, and it has to be spoken. You know, I wanna have kindness. I oversee the praise and worship, the music team, here at church, and I wanna have kindness be part of what we do.

 

  We have a great team now. Aaron, you have a number of leaders. We have really great leaders. I can tell they’re not in it for themselves. They really wanna please Jesus. They wanna please the leaders in the church. And they’re doing a fantastic job. And I’m gonna tell you that is so pleasant to have that. We have had times in the past when it really hasn’t been that way. And there might’ve been immaturity, different things working, but it is really, really awesome. And we’re gonna come back and talk about how kindness is manifest in our words. You know, my dad, when I was a little boy probably told me he loved me 100 times a day. Many times I tell your mother many, many times a day how much I love her. And she said, “Well, you just say that.” But you know, it’s important for us to express our kindness in words, not only words, but also actions. So we’re gonna come back right after this break, and we’re gonna share more about how kindness is manifest and how you can manifest the law of kindness in your life. And I believe that when you do that, God will be kind to you. Blessings. We’ll be right back. Friends, I certainly hope that you’ve been enjoying watching this broadcast. My son Aaron taught this series on the supernatural fruit of the Holy Spirit here in Church live, and it is fantastic teaching. In fact, I had one of my staff say, “That’s one of the best teaching that he’s ever done.” So you can get these live teachings from the church by accessing our website free at charischristiancenter.com.

 

  I’ve been redeemed from the curse, so that means I’m re redeemed from death. I’m redeemed from slavery. I’m redeemed from sickness. And I’m redeemed from poverty. And I just am so thankful to be here to learn these kind of things because I’ve never been taught this before.

 

  Friends, I’m so glad you stayed with us. We are talking today about the supernatural fruit of the Holy Spirit. And Aaron has been teaching from his series. He’s actually teaching right now about the fruit of kindness. And we talked in the first part of the broadcast about how kindness is manifested in words. The Bible talks about in Proverbs 31, “The law of kindness is in her lips.” Well, not only hers, but his. So we need to let kindness be a law that governs us.

 

  I was gonna mention one thing. I started to mention this before the break, but I talked about making kindness a priority and systematically making it a practice of things that you do, especially if you’re in a leadership role, maybe in your family, at work. But one thing I do with the music team here at church, being a leader over that is I, every Thursday at practice, we start off with a devotional. I do something called the hot seat. So I just pick someone from the team that day, and I have ’em sit in the middle of us, and we go around, and people on the team just express verbally kindness towards them. It might be a compliment, just something that they’ve noticed about them, maybe a scripture that God places on their heart. They might have a prophetic word for them. But we make kindness a practice of what we do. We actually practice it at practice.

 

  Amen.

 

  And this is one thing I had to say too about your speech and especially being in a leadership role, is it’s not always just what you say, but how you say it.

 

  Absolutely.

 

  So Colossians 4:6 has, “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.” So it’s not just what you say, but how you say it.

 

  Right, those verses in Ephesians 4 at the end of the chapter are a lot harder to live than they are to talk about, I’ll tell you that.

 

  And-

 

  It really shows spiritual maturity.

 

  Yeah, and some people you want… Sometimes in a leadership role as a pastor, you have to bring truth. You have to bring correction. But kindness needs to be a part of what you’re saying to people.

 

  Right, Aaron, I had a man who’s a great leader. He’s a great leader in the business world, and in the ministry world, he worked for Andrew Wommack for years. He’s a very close personal friend of mine. His name is David Hardesty. And he said this about leadership. And he operated in leadership, right, in a major corporation in the world, in the Sears Corporation and then working at Andrew Wommack Ministries for a number of years, brought Andrew Wommack Ministries from about four million a year to 40 million or 40 million plus a year. But David said this. He said, “You need to praise in public and correct in private.” And that’s just part of being kind. And he said, “For every time you correct somebody, you need to praise them at least three times.”

 

  That’s really good, yeah, and I have this in my notes. This is really great. But, you know, if you are in a leadership role at home, at work, at school, at church, remember that when you need to bring correction, it’s always best done with kindness.

 

  Yes.

 

  You know, sometimes things need to be pruned and addressed. But kindness, it’s like sharpening and disinfecting the pruning shears. Pruning should always be done with kindness.

 

  Right.

 

  And we’ll talk about this later when we’re talking about gentleness. But the Bible says, you know, if someone’s caught in junk to restore them with a spirit of gentleness. You don’t just bring out the chainsaw. When you leave out kindness, it’s like just taking a chainsaw and just, you know, wreaking havoc on people. And that’s not the fruit of the Spirit.

 

  Right.

 

  So, kindness, there’s a law of kindness, and it goes along with the wisdom of God too.

 

  Right.

 

  You know, “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness.”

 

  Right.

 

  So wisdom and that law of kindness flow hand in hand.

 

  That’s great.

 

  And basically, you know, my mom taught me this. If you don’t have anything kind to say, don’t say anything at all.

 

  Amen.

 

  If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. That’s kind of the law of kindness.

 

  You know, my great-grandfather was a Methodist, born-again Methodist. And he told my grandmother, your great-grandmother, Ruby Perdue, he told her… She grew up Ruby Thompson. He said, “There’s so much bad in all the best of us and so much good in all the rest of us, or all the worst of us that it hardly behooves any of us to talk about the rest of us.” And there’s a lot of truth in that. And my mother had this saying. We had some cowboy sayings in our house and our trailer house when I grew up over the kitchen sink. And it said, “Be careful of the words you speak. Keep them soft and sweet. You never know from day to day which ones you’ll have to eat.” And so kindness, it’s a law, and we need to live by it.

 

  And you know, I have this in my notes as well. It’s good to just stay away from rotten fruit. And rotten fruit attracts flies.

 

  Yes, it does.

 

  You know, gnats and flies. And you know, there is a demon associated with flies, Beelzebub. And, you know, with your mouth, you can actually summon, you know, angels, or you can summon demons. And complaining, gossip, murmuring, lying, whispering-

 

  Right.

 

  One time in scripture, there’s a word used, whisperers. And it’s actually used-

 

  Backbiters.

 

  He was talking about the works of the flesh kind of in contrast to the fruit of the Spirit. It’s actually found in Romans 1. I’ll read a few of these verses ’cause you see how big of a deal it is. Romans 1, I’ll start in verse 28. It says, “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do these things which are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness, whisperers.” That’s that word there.

 

  Right in there, whisperers.

 

  “Backbiters, haters of God.” And whisperers means like, you are slandering in private.

 

  Right.

 

  So maybe not blasting this from the pulpit or blasting it, you know, in a newspaper, but you’re going around whispering and slandering someone’s reputation, not speaking truth.

 

  Right. You had somebody approach you about something here in the church, and they were just gossiping, and you told ’em plainly. I mean, you’re pretty bold, Aaron, but you just told ’em, “Hey, that’s gossip. It’s demonic. You need to stay away from it. It’s not true. There’s no truth in it.” And they said, “Well, I’m gonna pray about it.” And you just said, “No, that’s demonic, and you need to stay out of it.” And you know what? They repented, and they’re still in church. They’re doing a good job. I’m proud of ’em repenting.

 

  Yeah. And I didn’t necessarily correct in a super kind… I mean, I was fairly kind, but-

 

  You have to be direct. Sometimes people don’t understand it.

 

  Yeah.

 

  Right? Sometimes you just gotta say, “This is how it is.”

 

  And you know, there’s better fruit to eat. And I love the law of kindness. And man, when you just tap into that kindness and just, I’m gonna speak words of life. I’m not gonna… Man, the words you say are so powerful on both ends of the spectrum. Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.”

 

  Amen. Praise God. So, man, it’s awesome. You know, and the thing is when you sow kindness, the Bible says, “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy.” And when you think about all of these fruits of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and temperance, that’s the King James Version. But when you think about ’em, you know, sowing and reaping is still here. And when you sow to the flesh, you will reap of the flesh corruption or death. But when you sow to the spirit, this is Galatians 6, you will of the spirit reap life everlasting. And so if you want to receive kindness, you know, sow kindness. You know, you’ve been talking about this in the marriage relationship. 1 Peter 3 talks about this. And it talks about not being bitter against one another and “rendering railing for railing, but contrariwise blessing that you might inherit a blessing.” And one of the best places… You know, listen, you need to use this in your home with your spouse, with your children, with your parents because when you sow kindness, you’re gonna reap kindness. Praise God? And when you sow bitterness, you know, or strife or railing, you’re gonna reap railing. You know, chewing people out all the time, it’ll come back to you, and you won’t like how it comes back. So you can stop. Maybe your spouse had a bad day, but you can stop that stuff in its tracks. You can stop it before it gets started. And you can let the Spirit of God rule you, and you can minister grace, right, to those in need. And when you minister grace, you receive grace.

 

  And you know, if you’re like dealing with your flesh and wanting to flesh-out on someone, maybe at work or at home, just keep your mouth shut.

 

  Yes.

 

  You know, I’ve seen some people who maybe had good intentions, but I just don’t know why they opened their mouth and said the things they did ’cause if they just had kept their mouth shut…

 

  They’d have a lot better results.

 

  They’d have a lot better results, but they didn’t. They ran their mouth, and…

 

  It’s ugly.

 

  And that affects your reputation. That affects your name. That affects your future, your inheritance. So, you know, if you’re just still growing, which all of us are, sometimes it’s better just to, just keep your mouth closed.

 

  Yeah, when you don’t know.

 

  I’m not gonna speak death. I’m just gonna keep my mouth shut. And you know, sometimes I’ve been in an argument, and I’ve been upset, and I just wanted to let my mouth run, but just don’t say anything at all.

 

  There’s some places you don’t wanna go. If you can’t say something good, then don’t say anything at all. Well, praise God, I’m glad you’ve been with us. I hope you’ve enjoyed the broadcast. I want to encourage you to check out our website at charischristiancenter.com. We have these broadcasts. We actually have hundreds of hours of teaching and audio and video downloadable. It’s actually free of charge. It costs me hundreds of thousands of dollars to get all this stuff and put it up there and make it available to you. But we do all of it free. So check out our website. If you wanna partner with us, check out our giving. We have different ways that you can give, tax advantaged. You can actually have a will made. It doesn’t cost you anything at all. Professional attorneys help you free of charge. And if you’re in Colorado Springs Sunday, we’d love to see you at Charis Christian Center. Blessings.

 

  We have access to the supernatural fruit of the Spirit as believers. When we choose to walk in the Spirit, we will receive the inheritance that God has made available to us. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of the teaching “The Supernatural Fruit of the Holy Spirit,” a $20 value, free of charge. Download it today at carischristiancenter.com.

 

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  My house and everywhere I walk, there is bright glory and light shining because God is with me.

 

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  It’s time to rejoice.

 

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