The Master‘s Class, LifeChange Church Wichita

WHO DO YOU TRUST IN? (1Chronicles 21:1-30)

The America that most of us grew up in, was a country where self-reliance was expected and taught.  You worked to provide for you and your family’s needs.  If that meant digging ditches, or working in a factory, or in an office, then that is what you did.  You relied on your physical skills and your mind to provide for you needs.  You did not rely on the government or others or to provide for your needs.  However, that is not the world that we live in today.  We are told by a corrupt media and educational system that we are to rely on an equally corrupt and all-powerful government to provide all of our needs.  The government takes from those whom they deem to have too much and gives it to those who they choose to give it to.  We are expected, and we are taught, to trust in our government.  

That is what the world teaches.  Yet, as Christians, we are taught to rely on God to provide for our needs.  However, that does not mean that we are to sit on our backsides and wait on God to turn rocks into bread so that we may eat.  The Bible tells us that if we choose to not work, then we will not eat.

2 Thess 3:10
10 For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
KJV

So, the world teaches us to rely on the world, and the Bible teaches us to rely on God.  The question that we have before us today is who and what do your actions, not your words, say that you trust in?

Unfortunately, for most of us, even Christians, the answer to that question depends on how things are going at the time.  When things are going your way, who do you trust in, and what do you trust in?  Is it yourself, your bank account, your skills, and your intellect?  When things are going good, why should you bother God?  He is very busy.

However, when things are going against you, and each bad event seems to just stack one upon the other, then who, and what, do you trust in?  Is this the time that you choose to bother God?

If, when you search down deep for the truth in answering these questions, God only appears when the times are bad, then this lesson is for you.  If God is only your 911 call when things go bad, then this lesson is for you.  

Click on the podcast below to hear a message on one of the greatest sins that man can commit, the sin of unbelief.  

Amen.

A MIRACULOUS BIRTH (Luke 1:30; 2:8-14)

Now, I’m aware that the world laughs at the idea of a virgin birth. They think of it as some sort of primitive, medieval superstition or something. They laugh, they mock, at the idea of the virgin birth. I can tell you furthermore, the devil hates the idea of the virgin birth, because it teaches both the humanity and the deity of his nemesis, and our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. But worse than the mockery of this world, and worse than the hatred of Satan, is the ignorance of many so-called Christians concerning the virgin birth. Many of them doubt it. Some don’t believe it at all. And others think that it is incidental. 

One of the most frequent challenges about the virgin birth of Christ is that Jesus Christ is not the Son of God.  They will state, “You say that Jesus Christ is the Son of God because He was born of a virgin, and that He didn’t have an earthly father.  Well, Adam didn’t have a father or a mother. Wouldn’t that make Adam more a Son of God than Jesus?”  The answer to that question is found at the very root of our knowledge about who Jesus Christ is.  The answer that the Word of God gives us is that Jesus was not the Son of God because He was born of a virgin.  Instead, He was born of a virgin because He was the Son of God.  

What the other faiths do not understand is that Jesus did not have His start in Bethlehem. Jesus Christ has been the Son of God from before the foundations of time.  In other words, He was the Son of God before Bethlehem, and He chose to step out of the glory to become God incarnate in man, and He did so by being born of a virgin.

Click on the podcast below to hear a message on why the virgin birth is so important to our faith.  Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was born of a virgin that we might be born again. He came to earth that we might go to heaven. He became the Son of man that we might become the sons and daughters of God. That’s what it’s all about. That is why we have the virgin birth.

Amen.

WHEN THREE ACT AS ONE (2 Samuel 23:9-20)

God desires to fellowship with us.  God is sovereign, and we are to worship God, and we are God’s servants, but God wants more than that from us.  He wants our fellowship.  The interesting part of fellowshipping with God is that God is one God, but He is also three distinct persons.  So, let me ask you, when we fellowship with God, are we fellowshipping with The Father, The Son, or the Holy Spirit?  

I know the first thought that comes to my mind is that I fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ, but it is the Holy Spirit of God that resides in my heart, and He is the One that comforts me, and convicts me.  So, is He the One that I fellowship with?  

Then, it is the Father that I pray to in the name of the Son.  Now, I have often said that when we pray, we are fellowshipping with God.  It is supposed to be a two-way conversation.  We tell Him our needs, and then we have to stop and listen to Him.  If you do all of the talking, then it is a speech, not fellowshipping, and fellowshipping is what the Lord desires.  So, is the Father the One that I fellowship with?  

Then, it is the Holy Spirit that takes my words and makes them palatable to the Father, and it is the Son that is my advocate and High Priest before the Lord.  So, is it the Lord Jesus that I fellowship with?

The truth is that when I fellowship with God, I fellowship with each of the three persons of God, and yet I still fellowship with just the one God.  In other words, the three distinct persons of God act as One as they fellowship with me.  Now, isn’t that an amazing concept?  But that is not all.  

In today’s message we are going to study about an act by three of David’s mighty men where they rose up and acted as one to fulfill a need that David had.  It is a picture of what God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit did when they acted as One to fulfill our most important need.  The need for salvation.  There is, in the heart of every one of us, a thirst for the water of everlasting life. 

John 7:37
37 In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.
KJV

Rev 22:17
17 And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
KJV

Our insatiable thirst is for the water of life.  Not the water of this world, for the water of this world can never satisfy the deepest longing of the human heart, and people are trying to satisfy that craving.  There is in every one of us an insatiable thirst that can only be satisfied with the wonderful water of life that Christ said, “And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”

The next time you partake of the Lord’s Supper, I want you to think of this.  I want you to think of what God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit have done to bring the water of life to you.  When we take the precious elements into our bodies, when we hold these things in our hands, we’re saying, “This is what God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, did for us, that our deepest thirst might be satisfied.” But, we’re also saying, “Here, Lord, I give myself away. ’Tis all that I can do”—a life given, and a life given back.

Rom 12:1
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
KJV

Click on the link below to hear a wonderful story in the life of David, that reminds us what the three persons of God, acting as the One true almighty God, have done to meet our deepest need, salvation.  

Amen.

MAKING EXCUSES TO GOD (2 Samuel 19:32-39)

Have you ever made an excuse to God to explain why you didn’t want to do something that He asked you to do?  God says “Keith, I want you to go witness to that big guy over there that is decked out in motorcycle gang leather and chains.”  I look at the man, at the long beard, the ear rings in his ears, and then I look back up at God, and say “Well God, he looks pretty busy right now, and I am pretty tired, I sure don’t want to have a long conversation right now.  You know God, the more I think about it, I am not sure I am the right person for the job.”  

Did you ever try to talk God out of making you do something like that?  It never works out, does it?  In fact, after you have been a Christian for a while, you learn to just say “Yes Lord, thank you Lord, I love you, Lord,” and then you go do whatever He wants you to do.  Things work out a whole lot better when we don’t make excuses and just be obedient to God. 

When I think of Biblical characters that gave excuses to God, the person that comes to my mind is Moses when God told him to go back to Egypt and stand before the Hebrews and Pharaoh.  Moses said things like, “Listen God, I’m not good enough.  I don’t have all the answers.  People won’t believe me.  I am a terrible public speaker, and, I am not qualified to do that.”  Making excuses didn’t work for Moses either and in Exodus 4:14 we see how God reacted when it says that “the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses.”  God got tired of the excuses and sent Moses on down the road.  

Then, I think of a shoe salesman named Dwight L Moody that God called, or Billy Sunday, a professional baseball player.  God called both to be great evangelists, yet both had to wonder “Why me?  I am not qualified to do that.  I don’t know enough to do that.”  Yet, they both responded, and God used their faithfulness to reach millions.

Well, today’s lesson is about one of those men in David’s life that put on a good show to start with, but then just made excuses when David asked him to do more.  The man’s name is Barzillai.

Barzillai uses a whole list of excuses to not go with David, and he eventually looks at David and says, "I'm not going, David, and that's the end of it. There's Chimham here; he wants to go, take him." And David did. He said, "All right, Barzillai, please yourself, have it your own way. I wanted you to help me run an empire. I'll never ask you again. Good-bye. Come on, Chimham, come and take this old man's crown."

And that is where the Holy Spirit leaves him—where David left him, heading back for the rut that would soon become his grave.  Make no mistake, there is a limit to how many times the Holy Spirit will listen to your excuses before He says, “Ok, please yourself.  I wanted you to help me to bring the gospel message of Christ to a lost world, but you said no.  I will never ask you again.”  

Ask yourself, how many excuses have you given to God at this stage of your life, whatever that is, young or old?  I just can’t imagine that anything could be worse for a child of God than for the Lord Jesus, at last, to simply leave a person to himself.  Then for that believer to face, one day, the judgment seat of Christ and see someone else take their crown.  

Click on the link below to hear a message on what it means when we tell God, “I will go a little way for you Lord, but I am not going all the way.” 

Amen.