The Master‘s Class, LifeChange Church Wichita

FINDING JOY IN YOUR WORK-PART II (Proverbs 14:23)

Prov 14:23
23 In all labour there is profit: but the talk of the lips tendeth only to penury.
KJV

God tells us that “In all labour there is profit.”  Basically, God is telling us that no matter who you are and what your job is, God has given you that job and it is a sacred job because you are serving the Lord, and it is one that you are to find joy in because of who you are serving.  If you do that job in the name of Jesus, and you do it for Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, then you can find joy in that job.  It doesn’t matter if you are a homemaker, a widow, a retiree, 25 or 85 years old, single, married, or working every day at a job place, God has work for you to be doing, and this lesson is about finding joy in that work. 

Now, you may feel that your work is nothing exciting, nothing meaningful, nothing thrilling.  You feel that you are stuck as an ordinary person in an ordinary job.  There is nothing extraordinary about you, or the work that you do, and you wish that God would call you to do something really special, really extraordinary.  Now, you may be a very ordinary person.  But, God loves ordinary people.  He must because He has made so many of them.  God makes ordinary people.  Then, God takes ordinary people, and He gives them extraordinary power.  If Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior, then God infuses us with His Holy Spirit so we are no longer ordinary, because when we get saved, we become extraordinary. God takes ordinary people; God gives ordinary people extraordinary power; and then God puts those ordinary people in ordinary places. 

Now, this is the takeaway that you need to put in your heart: When God takes an ordinary person and gives them extraordinary power, then puts that ordinary person in an ordinary place with extraordinary power, He does extraordinary things through an ordinary person. If you’ll learn this, and get this into your heart, it’s going to transform your life.

You may not be in an exciting job. But, if you learn what God has to tell you in this message, it is going to turn that drudgery into delight; it is going to turn that monotony into magnificence; and you’re going to find out that you are where God has placed you, and you’re there for a specific purpose.

Click on the link below to hear what the Word of God has to say about having joy in the work that God has called you to do.  

Amen.

FINDING JOY IN YOUR WORK (Proverbs 14:23)

The title of the message is “Finding Joy in Your Work,” and I want to tell you, if you understand what God has to say in this message, it’s going to transform your work. It’s going to change it from boredom to blessing. It’s going to change it from monotony to meaning. It’s going to change it from drudgery to dignity. It’s going to change it from the same old grind to glory, if you understand what God has to say to us in this message today.

You see, so many people are sick and tired of what they do. I mean, they endure their work, whatever it is, they don’t enjoy their work. They think their job is meaningless. They think that some people have happy jobs, some people have exciting work, some people have thrilling things to do, but not them. They draw their breath and draw their salary. They wake up in the morning and take a bath, shave, go down, drink a cup of coffee, eat a piece of toast, scald their throat because they’re running a little late, drink their coffee too fast, then they run out and fight the traffic and get to work. It’s the same old thing day after day. Then they come home at night, take a couple of aspirins, sit down and watch the TV, discuss things with the wife, maybe putter around in the yard a little bit, then go to bed. The next day, the same old thing: nothing exciting, nothing meaningful, nothing thrilling. It just seems to be so humdrum, so meaningless.

Ok, I can already see the wheels turning in a lot of your minds because your saying, “Bro. Keith, you are a little late with this lesson because I am retired.  I don’t have to work anymore.”  If that is what you are thinking, then shame on you.  Did you know that God doesn’t have a retirement program for Christian believers?  If you are a Christian, and you are still breathing, then God has work for you to be doing.  If that were not true, then God would have taken you to heaven.  So, if you are still here, then God has work for you to do.  Now, I am not talking about religious work, I am talking about God’s work, whatever God calls you to do.

Now, there are others who might be saying, “Bro. Keith, I don’t work at a regular job, I just stay at home taking care of my family.”  Let me tell you that the work that a wife and a mother does taking care of her family is one of the most important jobs there is in this world.  The greatest God-given role of a mother is pointing her children to Christ. The greatest desire of a mother who loves Jesus, is that her kids come to know Jesus as their Lord and savior, and then live their lives for Him.  Just imagine, you get to partner with God in the daily discipleship of your children and in leading them towards a saving and sanctifying knowledge of the truth.

The same can be said for a wife, and about the love and support that she gives to her husband.  Once the kids are gone, some women can feel that their purpose is over.  But that is simply not what the Bible tells us.  Just as the husband is to help his wife be all that she wants to be in the eyes of God, it is the wife's responsibility to help the husband become all that God wants him to be.  

The point that I am trying to make is that it doesn’t matter if you are a widow, a retiree, 25 or 85 years old, single, married, or working every day at a job place, God has work for you to be doing, and this lesson is about finding joy in that work.

Click on the link below to hear a message about how to have joy in the work that you do for God.

Amen.

TRUE RICHES (Proverbs 13:7)

Everybody wants to know how to be wealthy God’s way.  In our messages over the next couple of weeks, we are going to find out about how to be wealthy. As a matter of fact, many of you may be wealthier than you realize, and some of you may not be nearly as wealthy as you think that you are.  Today, we will put everything in perspective as we talk about “True Riches.”

Now, I know, when I’m talking to you about money, I’m talking to you about something very pertinent—something that every one of us is interested in, and we ought to be. Somebody once said, “The most vital nerve in the body is the one that runs from the heart to the pocketbook.” And sometimes we seem to be so sanctified, but yet when it comes to money, we’re not really as sanctified as we act like we are.  I found a poem that describes the way we often are.

I once knew a Baptist; he had a pious look,
He had been totally immersed, except his pocketbook.
He placed a dollar in the plate and sang with might and main,
“When we asunder part, it gives us inward pain”
—AUTHOR UNKNOWN

Now, I believe there are some like that today, who really tend to love the Lord, at least outwardly, but inwardly there’s another love, an inordinate love for the material things of this world.  So, we’re going to be talking about true riches, and the measure of a man is what that man thinks about money. You tell me about money, and I’ll tell you something about your character. I’ll also tell you something about your faith. Stewardship is that area of life, not only where man makes money, but where God makes men. So, we’re going to be talking about this matter of real riches, or true riches.

Click on the link below to hear a message on the different kinds of riches that God’s Word tells us about. Some riches are not riches at all. 

Amen.

 

GOD‘S MIRACLE MEDICINE (Proverbs 12:25; 15:13-15; 17:22)

We live in a world where a lot of people, including our Christian brothers and sisters, are living with a heavy heart.  The world has taken a pause this weekend to remember all of the of the people who were lost in the terrorist attack on 9/11.  The families of the soldiers and first responders who lost their lives responding to the attack over the last 20 years are dealing with the loss of their loved ones.  There is sorrow, worry, and stress that is weighing down on all of these people, and our lesson today is about God’s Miracle Medicine for people with heavy hearts.

Have you ever heard of a medical term called E.I.I?  E.I.I. stands for “emotionally induced illness.” That is, people are sick physically, but their emotions have made them ill.  Now, I had never heard of this term before, so of course, I went out on Google, the source of all untruth, and searched for articles on it, and there was quite the list.  Some described it as “A psychosomatic illness that originates from or is aggravated by emotional stress and manifests in the body as physical pain and other symptoms.”  Other articles just talked about the real physical effects of long-term stress on the body.  

In our message today, I want to give you a little G.M.M., or “God’s miracle medicine.”  I believe that God is leading me to teach us what God has to say about this idea of the impact our emotions can have, good or bad, on our health.  God tells us: 

Prov 17:22
22 A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones.
KJV

You see, right there in God’s Word, we learn that “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.”  That is God’s Miracle Medicine.  A Christian without joy, a joyless Christian, is a contradiction in terms. Someone has well said, “A religion that wears grave clothes ought to be buried.” I say amen to that. 

Click on the link below to hear a message where God tells us in His Word that true joy is found in the Lord Jesus, and “a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.” I want to share it with you today. I want you to know the Lord Jesus Christ. And for all that E.I.I. that is weighing your heart down, I want you to take a good dose of G.M.M, God’s miracle medicine. “A merry heart doeth good like a medicine.”

Amen.

THE CONTRAST BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL (Proverbs 9:13-10:7)

For the last several weeks, we have been studying about the virtues of God’s Wisdom.  We have talked about the character of God’s Wisdom, the majesty of God’s Wisdom, how to find God’s Wisdom, and then last week we talked about how to apply God’s Wisdom to our lives.  I think it is safe to say that God intends for us to use His Wisdom as we do the work that He has for us to do.  God drives this point home in our message today where He contrasts the differences between good and evil.  A good example of this is the contrast between a wise son and a foolish son.

Proverbs 10:1
1 The proverbs of Solomon. A wise son maketh a glad father: but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.
KJV

Do you see the contrast here?  “A wise son maketh a glad father: but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.”  You have the wise son and the foolish son, and the impact they have on the family.  

Now, many parents have understood the truth of this proverb. It describes the experience of a loving set of parents when their son, who is likely in his teenage years, goes through a rebellious phase and, as a result, he goes seriously wrong.  The young man may have run away from home, experimented with alcohol and drugs, and he ends up getting arrested, and is likely headed to jail.  The young man has rebelled against parental discipline, chose his friends from a worldly crowd, and had no use for preachers who have their own faults, or the church full of hypocrites.  He especially does not want to hear the Wisdom of God’s Word.

Solomon says that such “a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.”  This means that the son’s actions drive the mother into a state of depression.  You can imagine the feelings of doom and gloom in the hearts of both of the son’s parents, but it especially impacts the mother.  Of course, the devil is having a heyday with all of this.  That is when the mother becomes convicted and asks the Lord for help, both for her and her wayward son.  She wears out the rug on her knees as she prays.  After perhaps months, or even years, of these nights spent in prayer with a broken heart, there comes a day, when late that night, the son comes stumbling into the house after a night of partying.  He sees his mother there, on her knees, talking to the Lord Jesus about her son.  He might even pause to listen to her cries for help, and see her tears fall down her cheeks.  

Sometimes, the son is impacted by this image of his mother praying over him, and other times it pushes them even further out.  But, I still believe there is nothing stronger than a mother’s prayer for her children.  Sometimes, that rebellious son will be so impacted by what he sees that he chooses to return and be saved.  It is then, that the foolish son becomes the wise son, and Solomon tells us, “A wise son maketh a glad father.”  A wise son is a blessing to both of his parents.

In this life one of two things happens to us. Either our sins get blotted out, or our names get blotted out. There can be no greater horror for a man than to wake up in a lost eternity to the terrible realization that his name is not written in the Lamb’s book of life.  If he had but chosen to make Jesus Christ his Lord and Savior, if he had been redeemed, then his name would have been written in the Lamb’s book of life to be remembered for Christ’s sake forever.  

Click on the link below to hear a message on God’s Wisdom of living an honorable life that is pleasing to God.

Amen.  

THE PROBLEM OF IMMORALITY-PART II (Proverbs 7:16-27)

I believe that God wants us to understand this problem because of the devastating impact the sins of immorality will have on our lives.  God loves us, and He wants what is best for us, and so in His Word He warns us about the dangers of immorality.  He then commands us to not commit those sins.  Then, He follows that up with the story of the flood, and of Sodom and Gomorrah, where He shows us the consequences of His judgment on those who ignore His warnings, ignore His commandments, and choose to commit the sins of immorality.  

Now, the wonderful thing about God is that He doesn’t just command us not to do something without providing us the wisdom that we need to avoid committing those sins.  God tells us in His Word,

Prov 7:1-2
1 My son, keep my words, and lay up my commandments with thee.
2 Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye.
KJV

Our news media never tires of exposing the scandals of mighty men.  The headlines tell of the fall of religious leaders, politicians, and celebrities, and it doesn’t matter if happened yesterday or 20 years ago.  We also see that most people have a double standard. They expect a much higher moral profile in those they elect to public office than they expect from themselves, and woe betide the person who lets them down. Many a promising career has suddenly been shipwrecked because of a past immorality. 

This warning may sound overly dramatic, especially in the times that we live in today, with its acceptance of all things evil as good.  But, this is God’s warning, and it is a warning that is to be taken literally.  God will judge those who commit the sin of immorality. 

There is also a spiritual application in these words for us.  So far, we have been talking about committing physical adultery and immorality.  However, the Scriptures also have a great deal to say about spiritual adultery.  That is what God called it when His people left Him and went after idols.  They departed from the living and true God. They were to be joined to Him, but they had separated from Him. They were actually playing the harlot; they were being unfaithful and untrue to Him. That is spiritual adultery.

Today we have many cults and “isms” and all types of false religions around us.  For example, someone will say that “You don’t need to follow Christ any longer as you are following Him.  There are many ways to heaven.  What you need to do is join our group and do what we do, act as we act, and worship who we worship, and you can earn your way to salvation.”

Yet, the Bible is clear that we are saved by the grace of God alone.  

Eph 2:8-10
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
KJV

Paul is telling us that “Faith plus nothing equals salvation.” We are to be absolutely, utterly cast upon Jesus Christ as our Savior. Yet, many people cannot accept a salvation that they did not earn.  

God’s answer to this is that the believer is joined to Christ. A person who has been saved by grace, and grace alone, is joined to Christ.  Then, once saved, Christ has said that we are to keep His commandments if we love Him, and His commandments are not grievous. We are to love one another. We are to be filled with the spirit of God. We are to witness to the world. Those are His commandments today. We are joined to a living Christ; we live on a higher plane. The fruit of the Spirit should be evident in our hearts and lives.

Today there are isms and cults all dressed up like a woman of the street.  They are flattering and they are calling men and women. Yet, God tells us that to follow them is like an ox going to slaughter. It is like a fool going to the correction of the stocks.  God is reminding us that we cannot settle for anything less than the person of Jesus Christ!

Amen.

THE PROBLEM OF IMMORALITY (Proverbs 7:1-15)

Here are a couple of questions for you.  What type of sin caused God to destroy the world with the flood?  Immorality.  What type of sin caused God to bring fire from heaven to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah?  Immorality.  So, some of the most dramatic and seriously devastating judgements from God have been caused when man allowed immorality to consume their lives.

Gen 6:5
5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
KJV 

When we think of the sin of immorality, we often think of the sins of pornography, adultery, fornication, or any sexual act that takes place outside of the bonds of Holy Matrimony as it is defined by God.  However, immorality is more than just sexual sins, it includes those sins, but it also includes sins that violate the moral standards established by God as right and wrong.  Words like evil, wickedness, promiscuity, sexual deviation, are all associated with the sin of immorality.  But make no mistake about it, sexual sins are the first thing that comes to mind when we talk about immorality as it is discussed in the Bible.  

The fact that God has reserved some of His most severe judgments upon man because of the sins of immorality should tell us a great deal about how God feels about the sins of immorality.  I believe it is important to God because of the devastating impact the sins of immorality will have on our lives.  God loves us, and He wants what is best for us, and so in His Word He warns us about the dangers of immorality.  He then commands us to not commit those sins.  Then, through the story of the flood, and of Sodom and Gomorrah, He shows us the consequences of His judgment on those who ignore His warnings, ignore His commandments, and choose to commit the sins of immorality.  

God is speaking to His children, to you and I as believers, and the overriding message that He repeats over, and over, and over again is to keep His commandments and to bind them in our hearts.  God’s wisdom is found in His commandments, and the solution to every problem that we have in our lives can be found right here in God’s Word.  All we have to do is follow them and bind them in our hearts.  Amen?

Click on the link below if you want to hear a message on how to stop immorality in your life.  There is only one way, you have to deal with it in your heart using God’s Word.  Although the irresistible logic of God’s Word may be clearly understood and accepted in the head, the irrepressible love of God’s Word in the heart is what holds tight the fortress walls of the soul against the full force of the foe. 

Amen.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT SIN? (Proverbs 6:16-19)

In today’s message I want us to look at the way we think about sin, and how we rank sin, from little sins that everybody accepts as ok and it is no big deal, to the really bad sins.  I want you to ask yourself what are the really bad sins that people can commit, and how does that compare to the way that God thinks about our sin.

You see, we set a standard of the sins that we think are really bad, and those that are not so bad.  We would say that pride is a sin that is not good, but murder is much worse.  We would say that gossiping is just what people do, but a person who steals is much worse.  Yet, that is not what the Bible tells us about how God thinks of these things.  In fact, we have been studying over the last couple of weeks that pride makes the top of the list of things that God hates, and gossiping can be described as someone that "speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren," which is also in the list of seven sins that God hates.

Prov 6:16-19
16 These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:
17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,
18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief,
19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
KJV

Now, I believe that the Bible says that God hates all sins, and we are required to repent of any sin, and there are no sins that we can just ignore.  But, the Bible does tell us how God feels about different sins.  For example, we know that God hates pride, and He hates it because pride is the sin that leads to all of the other sins.  It is the sin that started it all with the fall of Satan and the fall of the human race.  Pride is the root sin of all the others because it starts by saying God, I don’t need you.  When you think you can say that God doesn’t matter, then all of the other sins are not really sins anymore because you get to decide what is right and what is wrong.  That is the problem with pride, it is a deceitful sin.  Anyone who thinks they can ignore God has a judgment day, and a place in hell, waiting for them.  Because God will not be ignored.  

I believe that what we have in these verses is a look into the mind of God and how He looks at sin.  I believe God hates all sin, and that we need to look into our own hearts to determine if we agree with God.  Are there some sins that we think are ok, some that we like and want to hang onto in our lives?  Are there others that we believe are far worse when we look at the sin in other people’s lives?  The truth is that sin is sin, and God hates all sin.  Until we come to the place where we agree with God about all the sin in our lives, we will never live a victorious Christian life, and we will never be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Click on the link below to hear a message on how God thinks about sin.

Amen.

GOD‘S BUSINESS ADVICE (Proverbs 6:1-15)

In today’s message God gives us some advice that is good for anyone in the business world today, for Christians or non–Christians. These are simply some good business principles.  It is interesting that God has given us a lot of good advice for all mankind, the saved as well as the unsaved.

So, if I were to ask you what are the keys to running a successful business, what would you say the main ones are?  Making sure you have a product that people want, right?  That it sells for an amount that people are willing to give up their hard-earned money for.  Good customer service, both before and after the sale.  When it comes to choosing who you are going to buy from, customer service will usually win the ties.  Price is generally first, but if it is a tie, or close to it, customer service can win out.  Having good employees.  Being innovative with your product, always improving it.  Being able to manage your finances well, like when to borrow money, and just plain hard work, right?  

Now, these are the things that you can learn from any business training class.  Well, God has some pretty good advice for the business person in our lesson today on the topics of loans, hard work, and the kind of people you need to be careful around.  

Click on the link below to hear a message on God sharing His wisdom on how to handle our business life, and our moral life.  He tells us to beware of borrowing or co-signing on a loan, then He tells us that it takes hard work to succeed in anything that we need to do, most of all in completing the work that God has for us to do.  In other words, don’t be a sluggard, and then we are to beware of the wicked person who has no other intention than to harm us.  These seem like pretty common-sense pieces of advice, the question is, are we smart enough to listen and apply it to our lives?

Amen.

DON‘T MISS GOD‘S SPECIAL BLESSING (Proverbs 5:1-23)

This week my wife and I celebrated our 43rd wedding anniversary, and if you add the years that we dated before we got married, it has been 47 years.  At the age of 16, I fell in love with a young lady that I met in church, and then we happened to go to the same high school as well.  She was the first girl I ever dated, in fact, she has been the only girl I have ever dated, and the only girl I have ever wanted to date.  There has been no other in my heart, but her.  God’s special blessing has been on our relationship from the very beginning.  

The topics of love, and romance, and marriage, and all of the things associated with them, are subjects that everybody is interested in. At least, you ought to be interested.  It is a universal subject, no matter who you are, or where you live; and you never really outgrow it. Now, the girls get interested a little bit before the boys because they mature a little earlier.  This means that the girls start thinking about the boys before the boys start thinking about the girls.  That is a good thing because the girls need a head start before the hormones start raging in the boys.  But, it is not long before the boys are catching up with the girls, and from then on it is “neck and neck.”

Love, romance, and marriage, are very wonderful things, and we need to find out what God has to say about them, because God has some very definite wisdom on the idea of romance and love, and how to be blessed by your marriage.  Now, contrary to popular belief, God is not some kind of “cosmic killjoy.” Don’t get the idea that God is against love and romance and marriage. He is not.  Yet, when God says, “Flee fornication, and “Thou shalt not commit adultery,” God is not trying to keep sex from us. He’s trying to keep sex for us.  Because it is a wonderful gift of God.  

God has a special blessing for you when you allow God to choose your mate.  God wants you to be fulfilled. God wants you to have sexual fulfillment. God wants you to have real joy. God doesn’t want you to miss His best.  Don’t miss God’s special blessing for your life.

When God says, “Thou shalt not,” what He is really saying is, “Don’t hurt yourself.” When God says, “Thou shalt,” He’s saying, “Help yourself to happiness.” God wants you to have satisfaction. God wants you to have joy.  This is God’s plan. This is the design that we should follow.

Click on the link below to hear a message on how you can receive this special blessing by finding the right spouse, and then how to keep from destroying, or ruining, this wonderful gift of God.  

Amen.