The Master‘s Class, LifeChange Church Wichita

TO BE A GROWNUP-PART I (Hebrews 5:7 to 6:1)

The Bible teaches that Jesus Christ died for your sins, my sins, the whole world’s sins, and then He rose again so that we might have everlasting life if we will make Him our Lord and Savior.  Jesus stands today, alive, in the Holy Tabernacle of Heaven as our Great High Priest so that our salvation will be a forever, and ever, salvation.  

So, now that you are saved.  Now, that you know all that Christ has done for you, what should your reaction be?  What should your duty to Christ be?  God answers this question with a command, not a suggestion, but a command to grow as a Christian.  To become a grownup Christian.

Heb 6:1
1 Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,
KJV

It is one thing to become saved, it is another thing entirely to become a full-grown Christian.  I want to put a thought in your mind, and I pray that it will bother you.  I pray that it will bother you so much that it will spur you into action.  I want you to write this down someplace that, every morning when you open your Bible for your quiet time, it reminds you of something very important.  It says, “When I cease to be better, I cease to be good.”

Click on the link below to hear a message that says, if you have stopped growing, then you have begun decaying. Decay always begins when growth ends. The Bible says we are to go on to maturity.  There is more to life than being born. A Christian is a tree planted, not a post stuck in the ground.  We are commanded to grow. There is a “must” about it.  The Holy Spirit of God has so much more for you to know about the grace of God, the blessings of God, and the work of God, but He cannot tell you these things until you are no longer a baby spiritually.

This is a live recording of The Master’s Class Bible Study at LifeChange Church Wichita, KS.

Amen.

JESUS IS SUPERIOR TO MOSES (Hebrews 3:1-13)

The Bible talks about entering into God’s Rest. There is the “rest of salvation” spoken of in:

Matthew 11:28
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
KJV

Then, there is “the rest of redemption.”  The Israelites that came out of bondage knew the rest of redemption.  They were no longer slaves of Egypt.  They came out by blood, blood on the doorposts.  They came out by power---the power of God.  God had brought them across the Red Sea.  God had delivered them.  

Then, Jesus spoke of “the rest of obedience, the rest of enjoying a Christian life.”  

Matthew 11:29
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
KJV

The great failure of believers today is that they have received “the rest of salvation,” but they have not trusted God to do everything He says He will do.  They still want to handle their problems all on their own.  They have not found the peace and comfort, the rest, that comes from living a life of obedience and faith.  “The rest of obedience” that an all powerful God can give you.  

Click on the link below to hear a message on how Christ is a superior Savior and Priest, who provides better security than anything offered by Moses and the Law that God gave the Jews through Moses.  How our belief and obedience to Christ, can bring us into the rest of obedience, the rest of enjoying a Christian life.

Amen.

A VIRTUOUS WOMAN (Proverbs 31:10-31)

Today’s message is a very interesting passage of Scripture because it talks about God’s ideal of a virtuous woman, He is saying that this woman is the complete, perfect, woman.  That is, she is God’s ideal of what a woman, a wife, and a mother ought to be.

Sometimes when you ask a woman what she does, she’ll say, “Oh, I’m just a housewife.”  Well, if that is you, then I hope that you will never say that again after this message here today, because you’re going to find out that perhaps the most difficult, the most demanding job in all of the world is being what some people call a “housewife.”  Now, I’d rather call her a “homemaker,” because she is not married to a house.  So, I don’t like the word housewife; but indeed, she is a homemaker.

This is the ideal wife.  Now, I don’t believe that there is anyone really like her in all of the world.  Yet, God has put into His Word God’s standard, God’s ideal for wives, and God always deals in perfection with His standards.

Listen to me men, if you are married to a good and godly woman, as I am, happily so and for many years, I can tell you that I do not have words in my vocabulary to express to you how much I value my precious wife.  I will also tell you that the real value, the real worth, of a wife is not in her outward charm—though I thank God for outward charm; it is not in the beauty of her face—though I thank God for that; but the real value of a wife is her virtue. God says “Who can find a virtuous wife? Her price is far above rubies.”

To her children, to her husband, and to her neighbors, she’s known as a godly woman, a woman who fears the Lord. That is her glowing witness. I am convinced that virtually all of the major problems that we have in America would change overnight if we just had some more women who met this standard of God’s virtuous woman.  The Bible tells us that the only way to be this kind of a woman is to fear the Lord. It’s all possible because of Jesus.

Click on the link below to hear a message on God’s ideal of a virtuous woman.

Amen.

This is a live recording of The Master’s Class Bible Study at LifeChange Church in Wichita, KS.

HOW TO HANDLE ANGER (Proverbs 25:8-28)

In today’s message we are going to be talking about how to handle anger. Now, all of us have to deal with anger in our lives.  There are lots of counselors out there who you can spend a great deal of money on learning how to deal with anger, but today we are going to see what God has to say about how to handle anger.  I believe this is a topic that is very important for every believer, because I don’t know of anything that’s doing more damage to people than is the problem of uncontrolled, un-Christian anger.

Not all anger is bad. Some anger is good.  The Lord Jesus says the way to be angry and sin not, is to be angry only at sin. You see, you are to love the sinner and hate the sin. So, how can you tell when your anger is a godly, or sinful anger?  Ask yourself, it is without sufficient cause, if it is without a righteous cause, then it’s sinful anger.  If that anger is against the person rather than the offense, then it is unrighteous anger.  If you have a desire for revenge, then it is unrighteous anger. If you harbor that anger in your heart and don’t want to give it up, then it is unrighteous anger. Then, if you have an unforgiving spirit, then it is unrighteous anger.  If your anger carries one of these marks, then it is an unrighteous anger.  The really wonderful thing about God is that He knows how big of a problem this is.

Click on the link below to hear a message where God gives us six principles right out of the Word of God on how God wants us to handle unrighteous anger.

Amen.

DEALING WITH ANGER (Proverbs 19:11-12)

All of us get angry from time to time, and our message today is about what the Word of God says about dealing with anger.  

Prov 19:11-12
11 The discretion of a man deferreth his anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression.
12 The king's wrath is as the roaring of a lion; but his favour is as dew upon the grass.
KJV

Now, somebody once said that anger is an acid that destroys its container, and indeed it does.  It is a gross form of acid that does harm to anything that it is poured on.  I am talking about ungodly, unjustified, anger.  There are some people who will tell you this about their anger, “Well, it’s just my Irish blood; it just runs in the family,” or whatever ancestry it is that they claim to have.  They are like a loaded shotgun with a hair trigger; and anytime they’re jostled, they blast away.  To excuse this, they say, “Oh, well, it only lasts a little while.” Well, so does a tornado, but when one comes, they are usually weeks cleaning up the wreckage.  It is same way with those bursts of anger.  It can take weeks, months, even a lifetime, to clean up the wreckage that you have caused to the ones you love.  

Now when you are quick to get angry, there is so much that you are going to lose. You can lose your job. You can lose your friends. You can lose your children. You can lose your wife. You can lose your health. You may lose a few teeth. You can lose your testimony. There is nothing more debilitating to your Christian testimony than the fact that you just fly off the handle at anyone who gets in your way, irritates you, or offends you.

When you let the sun go down upon your anger; that is, when you live with your anger.  You and your spouse get into an argument, and then rather than kneeling by the bed and getting right with God, and getting right with one another, you go to bed back-to-back, angry; you let the sun go down upon your wrath—do you know what you’ve done? You’ve opened the door to the devil. What you’ve done is this: you’ve said, “Devil, come in and wreck my home; devil, come in and destroy my family; devil, come in and ruin my testimony.” You have given the devil a place in your heart, that’s what the Bible says:

Eph 4:26-27
26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:
27 Neither give place to the devil.
KJV

Prov 19:12
12 The king's wrath is as the roaring of a lion; but his favour is as dew upon the grass.
KJV

If you’re not a Christian; if you’re not saved; if you don’t know that if you died right now that you would go to heaven, then I want you to look at what this verse says, “The king’s wrath is as the roaring of a lion; but his favour is as dew upon the grass.” 

Now, the King of kings is Jesus. He is the Lion of the tribe of Judah.  One day, you are going to stand before Him to be judged.  For every man, there is a day to be born, a day to die, and a day to be judged.  You can face the Lord’s wrath if you want to, or you can have His favor if you want to. Do you want the King’s favor like the dew on the morning grass sweet, gentle, loving, fruitful, multiplying, and life-giving? You can have it. 

Now you need to be saved, born again, born from above. To be saved means that every sin is forgiven. To be saved means that Jesus Christ now lives in your heart. To be saved means that when you die, you’ll go to heaven.  So, if you want to deal with that anger that is in your heart, then the first thing you need to do is ask Jesus Christ to be your Lord and Savior.

Click on the link below to hear a message on what the Bible tells us about how to deal with anger.

 Amen.

THE POWER OF COMMUNICATION (Proverbs 18:21-22)

Outside of loving the Lord, I believe communication is one of the most important things in our homes.  Whether it is between you and your spouse, your children, your married kids and their spouses, or just people that you know, how you communicate is very important to that relationship.  

Now, it may be that you think you married the wrong person, but it may also be that you have not married the wrong woman at all. It may be, instead, that you never really learned how to communicate with your wife and vice versa.  I am convinced that the number one problem in marriage is communication. Now, whether you’re married or not, let me just say one of the biggest problems in life is communication, because many times, whether it is with our spouse, or our family, or our friends, many of us deliberately miscommunicate.

Prov 18:21-22
21 Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.
22 Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord.
KJV

The highest form of fulfillment is sharing with someone else.  Being fulfilled is not having things; it’s not doing things; it is sharing, whether that be with God or with someone else. Sharing is the highest form of communication.

Click on the link below to hear a message about what the Bible says about the power of communication.  The secret to communication with anyone that you care about is to first get right with Jesus Christ.  Accept Him, accept that He has accepted you, accept yourself, then accept others as Christ has accepted you.  The power of communication is not about power at all, it is about using communication to share your love with others, the same love that Christ has shared with you.  

Amen.

A TRUE FRIEND (Proverbs 17:17)

A TRUE FRIEND (PROVERBS 17:17)

Like most of you, I can count on one hand the number of true friends that I have had throughout my life, and still have fingers left over.  A true friend is a gift from God, and it is something that we treasure because they are so rare.  In today’s lesson, I am going to flip this around and talk about what we, you and I, need to do in order to cultivate and become a true friend to someone else.  So, what do I mean when I say a true friend?  Somebody has said, “A friend is someone who comes in when everyone else goes out.”  If you want to know who your true friends are, face some real tragedy in your life, and then see who jumps ship, and who comes to be with you.

Prov 17:17
17 A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.
KJV

A true friend will make you a better person. A true friend is faithful, and a true friend will care enough and love enough to confront you.

Now, for the believer, the best friend that we will ever have is Jesus Christ.  Just think about the blessings of knowing Jesus and having Christ as a friend, and all of the things that it ultimately means to us. How His friendship for us lifts us to a new level, and the fact that we didn’t choose Him, but He chose us.  

Now, let me give you something to understand.  Grace is God’s acceptance of me. Faith is my acceptance of God’s acceptance of me. Peace is my acceptance of me. Love is my acceptance of you, and then, fellowship is your acceptance of me. Grace, faith, peace, love, fellowship—there’s an unbroken chain. We need to learn how to accept God’s acceptance of us so we can accept ourselves and so we can accept others.  

Click on the link below to hear a message on what it means to be a true friend to someone else.  As a Christian we offer eternal life with Jesus Christ in heaven.  If this is truly our vision, then it is very important for you as an individual to have friends and to be a friend.  But, if we are to bring more people to a saving knowledge of Christ, then we need to meet their needs, and one of the things that meets needs is that spirit of friendliness.  

Amen.

THE DANGER OF PRIDE (Proverbs 16:18)

THE DANGER OF PRIDE (PROVERBS 16:18)

God talks about pride, or being proud, 97 times in the Bible, so this is a subject that God really wants us to understand what He thinks about it.  

Prov 16:18
18 Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.
KJV

Pride, more than any other sin, is holding back revival in our land, in our home, and in our church. Pride, more than any other sin is destroying homes and ruining happiness and joy in the home. Pride, more than any other sin, is undermining the foundation of America, this great nation that we love. Pride, more than any other sin, is causing Christians, born again people, to live lives of defeat. Pride, more than any other sin, is populating and filling up the place that we call hell. It is a dangerous sin.

But not only is pride a dangerous sin, it is a deceitful sin. Now, so many people do not understand that they have pride or what pride is doing to them. There’s a benefit at least to being a drunkard or a thief, as bad as that is. At least the drunkard knows he’s a drunkard. At least the thief knows he’s a thief. But the proud person says, “Well, if I had any sin, I’d confess it.” He doesn’t admit his problem. His pride, that is his problem, keeps him from admitting the problem.

Pride brings national ruin. Pride brings domestic ruin. Pride brings financial ruin. Pride Brings emotional ruin. Pride brings spiritual ruin and Pride brings eternal ruin.

Click on the link below to hear a message on five ways that pride can destroy your life.  Pride is a dangerous, and a deceitful sin that’s doing more damage in homes, and hearts, and lives than any of us may dare dream. And every one of us, wrestles with the sin of pride.

Amen.

DISHARMONY IN THE HOME (Proverbs 15:13-22)

When a man and woman are married, there is to be what is called the “The Music of Marriage.” You have the husband, or the father, who is the leader of the band.  It is the father who sets tune in the home. He is the leader of the band.  Now the Music of Marriage requires that there be “Harmony in the Home,” and if there is to be harmony in the home, then husbands and wives must sing the same song, but they sing different parts. That’s what makes it harmonious, and not a mere melody, but wonderful harmony.  

Now, this harmonious Music of Marriage occurs when we play the part that God has equipped us to play. So, husbands and wives are singing different parts of the same song, but hopefully they are singing in the right rhythm, so they sing it together. But, the message today is on this subject: “Disharmony in the Home” I’m really talking about tension in the home, and what can we do to deal with it.  How can we have the harmonious music of marriage that God wants us to have?

As a young man I tried to learn to play the guitar, and I have dabbled trying to play the piano.  I was not successful in either endeavor.  I can’t seem to tap my foot to keep time and play the notes at the same time, and a metronome drives me crazy.  But, playing the guitar did teach me a few things besides having sore fingertips.  I learned that in order for the music coming from the guitar to sound harmonious, each of the strings have to be in tune.  Now, to tune those strings you have to adjust the tension on it.  If the string is not tight enough, then the music is flat and dull.  But, if the string is too tight, then the music is shrill and high-pitched. But if the string is even tighter, the string will snap.    

One of the major obstacles to the harmonious Music of Marriage is tension in the home caused by stress and strife. Stress is related to raising your voice, to raising your pulse, and raising your children. Listen, if you’ve got children, then you have stress just built in, and being in today’s home, the string can get mighty tight, and sometimes it can snap.

Click on the link below to hear a message on how God intends for you to deal with the stress in your home, and how you can have that harmonious Music of Marriage that God wants for your home.  

Amen.

RIGHTEOUSNESS INCREASES LIBERTY-PART I (Proverbs 14:34)

This is a message that talks about a subject that weighs heavily on my heart as I read and see what is happening in our country today.  We live in a time when the very foundations of our nation are being challenged, and in many ways those foundations have already been unalterably changed.  The proverb that is the focus of our message today is very fitting for the subject at hand, because we are speaking today on this subject: Righteousness Increases Freedom.

Prov 14:34
34 Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.
KJV

I believe the American Dream was placed into the bosom of our Founding Fathers by God Himself—I believe that with all of my heart. I believe that this is a Heaven-rescued, God-blessed land. I like what the Declaration of Independence says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident … that all men are endowed by their Creator, with certain unalienable rights.” This means that, our very nature—the very nature of this land—is rooted in a belief in Almighty God.  

When George Washington was sitting in the gallery amongst the members in the Continental Congress, somebody wanted to know which one he was.  And, a friend said, “Well, if you want to see which one Washington is, when Congress goes to prayer, he’ll be the tall man who gets on his knees.”  Washington was the one who went aside in the snows at Valley Forge, and got down on his knees, and prayed, and asked God to bless his little ragtag army.  God did bless those revolutionaries, and out of that came America as we know it.

Thomas Jefferson said, “The God that gave us life, gave us liberty at the same time.” 

Alexander Hamilton said, “People get the kind of government they deserve.”  This means that the government that we have is a reflection of the character of our people.  You see, God ordained three institutions: the home, the Church, and the government. And, all three—the home, the Church, and the government—are but a reflection of the character of those people.

Now, here is another truth: if the government reflects the character of the people, then you are going to find that the greater the character of the people, the more freedom, the more liberty, those people will have. The less the character of the people, the less freedom, and the less liberty, those people will have. Another word for character is responsibility, because character is responsibility assumed.

Click on the link below to hear a message on how the righteousness of our people will determine the freedom and liberty that we enjoy as citizens of this great Heaven-rescued, God-blessed land.

Amen.