The Master‘s Class, LifeChange Church Wichita

NOTHING BUT THE BLOOD (Hebrews 9:22)

Today our message is going to be on the wonderful, God blessed, subject of “Nothing but the Blood.”  Someone has said that you can cut the Bible in any place, and it will bleed because the Bible tells the story of what Jesus Christ did for you and me.  This is one of my favorite topics to teach on, because this precious blood of Christ is the reason that I have eternal life with my Lord and Savior in Heaven.  I honestly cannot think of a more important message to teach than this, Nothing but the Blood.

Actually, there are three cords that run through the Bible. One is a somber cord, a dark cord of sin and shame and degradation. The Bible teaches us about the sinfulness of man. The other is a bright, scarlet-red cord of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is a book about blood. And then there’s a golden cord that speaks of the second coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ which tells how He is going to rule and reign forever. The dark cord of sin, the red cord of redemption, and the gold cord of His Second Coming in glory. What a joy it is to read the Bible and find all of those things.  

Actually, the four ingredients of a great church are these: the book, the blood, the birth, and the blessed hope. That is what makes a great church. Those are the things that we just have to keep on preaching over and over again: the book, God’s holy Word; the blood, the sacrificial blood atonement of the Lord Jesus; the birth, the necessity of a new birth, to be a twice-born person; and the blessed hope that Jesus is actually, literally, visibly, bodily, coming back to this earth one of these days.

Click on the link below to hear a message on the prophecy and the provision of the saving blood of Jesus Christ.

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

Amen.

A CLEAN CONSCIENCE PART II (Hebrews 9:13-14)

God is teaching us a theological lesson in these verses. He is teaching that a believer should stay away from that which is dead and that which corrupts, He is saying that for moral and spiritual hygiene, we need to stay away from sin.  Why would He command that? Because it is sin that causes us to have an unclean conscience before God.

So, what is it that we do that causes us to have an unclean conscience before God?  It is sin.  Whether it is deliberate sin, sin by association, or even sin that you stumble into, that sin pollutes your soul.  

Then, what happens when we become unclean in the sight of God?  There is a loss of fellowship with our brothers and sisters in Christ.  There is a loss of freedom with God.  We cannot worship God with an unclean conscience.  Then, there is the loss of fruitfulness in God’s service.  If your soul is unclean with sin, then God will not bless the work that you do.  Sin separates you from God.  Do you know why some churches never progress? Do you know why some Sunday School classes never grow and they’re not blessed? Do you know why some people never win souls? Do you know why some people’s prayers never get any higher than the light bulbs?  I mean they work, they work, they work, but it is dead works because they have got a dirty conscience. They’re polluted. They don’t have a clean conscience with God. 

Click on the link below to hear a message on why you can’t serve God if you don’t have a clean conscience, and that it is the blood of Jesus that makes your conscience clean. I thank God in Heaven there is that perpetual sacrifice, which means that I don’t have to go around with sin on my soul.  I thank God for the finished work of salvation and the precious blood of Jesus Christ that will clean me and make suitable to work for God. 

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

Amen.

THE NEW COVENANT (Hebrews 8:3-13)

The message of the book of Hebrews is that Christ is alive and working for you, right now.  You need to bring Him into your life.  This is a relationship with God that the Jews never had with the Old Testament, or Covenant, that was the Mosaic Law and the Temple rituals.  The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ ushered in a new Covenant, a new relationship with God, and it was actually the fulfillment of all that God had given man in the Old Covenant.  

Under the New Covenant, it is in Christ that we have a better priest; we have a better sacrifice; and we have a better tabernacle.  All of this converges in Christ because He is all three.  He is a better priest that ministers there.  He is the better sacrifice because He offered Himself, and He ministers in a better tabernacle, for He offered his own blood for your sin and mine.  Christ is the Mediator of the better Covenant because it contains better promises.  First, the New Covenant is better than the Mosaic Covenant, not morally, but because it has the power to produce the desired result.  The New Covenant gives us Christ as the Perfect Mediator.  Second, it is established on better, unconditional, promises.  

Under the New Covenant we obey God as a result of our worship of God.  Not because we fear His judgment; that has already been settled by Christ, but because of our faith and love.  True worship means the living Christ is real to you, you walk with Him daily, and you serve and obey Him.  Then, we have a better covenant because the New Covenant secures the personal revelation of the Lord to every believer.

Click on the link below to hear a message on the fact that with Christ as our Great High Priest, and the New Covenant that God has made with man, that we now have a salvation that is secure, and the power of the Holy Spirit in our heart to enable us to do the will of God in our lives.

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

Amen.

JESUS, OUR GREAT HIGH PRIEST (Hebrews 4:13-5:4)

Jesus Christ is our Great High Priest, that is the role that Christ is playing in our lives today.  He has completed His work of salvation, and now He is in heaven as our Great High Priest.  

In the Old Testament, one of the functions of the priest was to hear the confession of sins so that a sacrifice could be made to obtain forgiveness of that sin.  Un-confessed sin was and is a burden upon the person who sins.  However, as a believer that has made Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, in this age of grace, we know that all of our sins have already been forgiven.  We already know that we will not have to face the penalty of our sin, for Christ has already done that for us.  Yet, sin is still a burden on our spirit, and we are certainly told to confess our sins. 

We confess our sins out of obedience and a desire for cleansing.  If we do not acknowledge our sin, it becomes like a malignancy which spreads to consume our energy, our spiritual zeal, and it is always present with us draining our ambition to serve the Lord.  It robs us of the joy of being in God’s will, and for the Christian, being in God’s will is the zone, it is that special place we want to be.

Hebrews 4:16
16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.
KJV

This is telling us that we can come with great freedom unto the Throne of Grace.  We can speak freely to the Lord Jesus Christ.  We can tell Him things we wouldn’t tell anyone else.  He already knows everything there is to know about us, so why not speak freely with Him.  Christ understands us; He knows all of our weaknesses.  And when we approach that throne of Grace it is so “that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” We can come with full confidence that He will hear us, and He wants to extend to us His Grace, and Mercy, when we are in a time of need.

Click on the link below to hear a message on the fact that our sin is not a secret, God sees it all, and God expects us to confess that sin.  The message today is about the One who now stands in the office of High Priest, and to whom we must confess.  Jesus Christ, God’s Son, is the Supreme High Priest.

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

Amen.

THE MARVELOUS TRUTH OF HIS COMING (Hebrews 2:9-18)

We have been talking about the purpose and the reasons behind Jesus coming to earth as a Man. Why He would care so much about us that He would even do such a thing, and the wonderful blessings that His coming means for us now and throughout eternity.  Just think, if you choose Jesus Christ as your Savior, then you will spend eternity with the Son of the Living God, the Almighty Creator of all things, in a place in Heaven that He has especially prepared for you. 

So, why would Jesus do this?  Because Christ alone could redeem man, and He could do it only by dying on the Cross.  It was the only way.  Jesus was and is man.  Jesus was and is God, Jehovah, and the second person of the Godhead.  Jesus stood as the Perfect and Ideal Man before God.  This meant that as the Ideal and Perfect Man, whatever Christ did would stand for, and apply to man, or in other words, it would cover for man. 

•When Christ died, His death would free man from ever having to die in judgment for our sins.
•When He arose, His resurrection would assure man that he, too, would arise and live eternally.
•When He was exalted into Heaven, His exaltation would make it possible for man to be exalted into heaven and to rule and reign over the universe with Christ.

Click on the link below to hear a message on how Christ made it possible for man to be restored to his destined glory and dominion.  Christ has made it possible for man to live eternally with God, and to fulfill his purpose for God.

Amen.

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

WHAT IS MAN THAT GOD WOULD CARE? (Hebrews 2:5-9)

The only way we can truly understand what man is, is to understand what the Bible says about man.  It is from the Word of God that we learn the truth of how God views man.  How God answers the question, “What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou [didst visit] him?”  From a biblical perspective, the key question that we need to consider is why do all the worlds of space exist?  What is their purpose?  Has God any pleasure in dead matter? Is He not the God of the living? Can inanimate matter praise Him, the Lord of all life?  No, they cannot, and so there is man.  

When God made man, God breathed into man’s nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living, eternal, soul.  It is your soul that makes you of infinite worth.  Your soul will be in existence when the sun, and the moon, and the stars have turned to cinders. Your soul will go on endless, timeless, dateless, measureless, for God breathed into you the breath of life.  Man was created in the image of God, and you could no more cease to exist than God Himself could cease to exist.  

God is mindful of you. He sees you now—He’s looking at you right now. He desires you; He loves you. God doesn’t love us because we are valuable; we are valuable because He loves us. The dignity of man is that God is mindful of man, that God desires man.

Click on the link below to hear a message on why God loves you so much that He would send His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on a cross to pay the penalty of your sin. 

Amen.

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

OUR SO GREAT SALVATION (Hebrews 1:13 to 2:4)

Who was it that thought up this idea of salvation? Not you, not me. It originated in the heart of Almighty God.  Before God ever swung this world into space, before God ever scooped out the seas, and heaped up the mountains, and flung out the sun, moon, and the stars, salvation was in the heart and mind of God. 

Why is this salvation so great?  Because Jesus, with His rich, red, royal blood tasted death for every man. Jesus died instead of you. His death had your name on it.  Only the dead in hell can even begin to know what Jesus suffered on that cross, and He did it for you. If you refuse this salvation, if you just drift on by, then you trample underneath your feet the precious blood of Jesus and pour contempt upon His death.

So, the writer of Hebrews asks this question: “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation.” That’s the question. That’s a question that no lawyer can answer. That’s a question that no scientist with his computer can answer. That’s a question that no philosopher with his thick volumes can answer. That is a question that no soothsayer can answer. That is a question that even God Almighty cannot answer because there is no answer to the question “How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?” There is no answer because there is no escape. 

Click on the link below to hear a message on our so great salvation that God has provided for us.

Amen.

 

HOW TO FIND GOD (Proverbs 8:27-36)

Gods’ wisdom is evident everywhere in God’s creation.  The promise of God’s Word is that if we seek Him, then we will find Him, and when we find Him, then we will obtain life everlasting.  

Deut 4:29
29 But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul.
KJV

God is not hiding from us.  He can be seen in all the wonders of the world we live on.  

Rom 1:20
20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
KJV

Then, when we find God, we find life everlasting.

Prov 8:35
35 For whoso findeth me findeth life, and shall obtain favour of the Lord.
KJV

There is a God sized hole in every individual.  We were created to have God living in us to fill that hole.  You can spend your entire life trying to fill that hole with the things of this world, but you will never be satisfied, you will never be complete, until you find God and make His Son, Jesus Christ, your Lord and Savior.  Now, all you have to do to find God, is to seek Him with all of your heart.  

Where do you look for God?  God’s Wisdom tells us that God is all around us in the universe that He has created.  God’s Wisdom is available to be seen and found by whosoever chooses to love God and seek Him.  God promises that if we will love and seek Him, then we will find Him and find life.  

Amen.  

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 FAMILY DIVIDED (2 Samuel 13 to 18)

One of the great privileges of being a Christian is the knowledge that even though we may sin against God, He is sure and just to forgive us of those sins if we will repent of them. This just means that we go to God and tell Him that we agree that what we did was wrong and commit in our heart to not do it again.  If we do this, then God will restore our relationship and fellowship with Him.  However, this does not mean that we will not face the earthly consequences of that sin.  For example, if we commit adultery, we may still lose our marriage, or if we steal something, we may face time in prison.  Our sins are forgiven in the eyes of God, but there are still consequences to that sin.

God loved us so much that He sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die on a cross so that we might have this privilege of redemption and grace.  Yet, there are so many people who choose to rebel against God’s offer of forgiveness and eternal life.  They resent the fact that God is sovereign, and it is God that decides what is right and what is wrong.  They resent that they must go to God and ask for His forgiveness.  Instead, they choose to rebel against the almighty God.  They raise their fist, shake it at God, and tell Him no, they will not worship Him and make Him the Lord of their life.  Instead of eternal life with God in heaven, they choose eternal death separated from God. 

Click on the link below to hear a message on how a son can rise up against his father.  How a person can hate God so much that they will tell God no, I will not accept your mercy and grace.

Amen.