The Master‘s Class, LifeChange Church Wichita

JESUS IS GOD'S ANSWER TO MAN'S DESPAIR (John 6:15-21)

Each of us face times of great trouble and despair. Maybe you're not there right now. Maybe everything is fine for you. Maybe it is smooth sailing for you right now. If so, just wait, just wait, sooner or later you're going to find the wind is going to begin to blow and things are going to seem to reverse on you. If you're having smooth sailing now, I'm grateful. I want you to enjoy it. But, the day will come when you face a time of despair.

The Bible says that you will have trouble in this life. You will have tears and heartaches. But, if the Lord Jesus Christ is your Savior, then I'm going to promise you something on the authority of the word of God. You are predestined to be like Jesus. Paul tells us in the book of Romans "all things will work together for good to those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose." One of these days your destiny will be fulfilled. For the Bible says in Philippians one six, "he who hath begun a good work in you will perform it." If you're in trouble right now, God’s eyes are on you. He's praying for you. He will come to you and I can promise you this, He is going to see you through. God does not promise you a life of smooth sailing, but He does promise you a safe landing. God said in His Word, "I will never leave thee or forsake thee." He will see you through to a safe landing.

Click on the link below to hear a message about six anchors for your soul that will help you to ride out the storm. When the storm comes, these are six things for you to learn so you can say with real meaning that Jesus is God's answer to man's despair.

Amen.

JESUS IS THE BREAD OF LIFE (John 6:8-36)

Are you willing for God to use you? If you are, then ask yourself, have you given everything to Jesus Christ? Some might say, “Whoa, wait a minute, That's absurd! I need some for myself. I have a family to take care of.” Well, if that is your response, then I have to tell you that you have got a real problem. If you want God to use you, then you need to give everything, I mean everything, I mean totally, one hundred percent of all that you have, all that you are, your family, your friends, your reputation, totally to Jesus Christ.

Matt 16:25-26
25 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
26 For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
KJV

One of my favorite quotes from Adrian Rogers is, “If Jesus Christ is not Lord of your all, then He is not your Lord at all.” Do you believe that? Really, truly, believe that? Do you live your life with that as a truth in your life? Let me tell you something, Jesus already owns everything you have, whether you believe that or not. It is all His, but we don’t act like that is true. Yet, when we live our lives like it is true, then you don’t bargain with God about how much you tithe, when you tithe, or whether you tithe at all. When that is true, you don’t go places and do things that God would not have you do. When that is true, you love your neighbor as you love yourself, because, the very first thing that you did was to love God with all of your heart, mind, and soul. You love God with all of you and all that you have. If Jesus Christ is not Lord of your all, then He is not your Lord at all. Put that in your heart, and live your life with it.

Click on the link below to hear a message how Jesus is the bread of life. You are hungry for more than fish and bread. You are hungry for Jesus. Whether you know it or not, Jesus is life's hidden hunger. What you really need, the only thing that will satisfy the deepest longing of your heart and your soul, is Jesus Christ. Men are searching everywhere for satisfaction, but they will never find it until they find it in the Lord Jesus!

Amen.

JESUS FEEDS YOUR DEEPEST HUNGER (John 6:1-14)

Our message today is about the miracle where Jesus fed the 5,000 using just five loaves of bread and two little fishes. We will see that Jesus performed a miracle, and it was a miracle of feeding physical bodies. However, if all you learn from this message is that Jesus can miraculously feed 5,000 people with five loaves and a few fishes, then you have missed the whole point of the message God has for us today. What I want you to do as we talk about this miracle is to look beyond the miracle and on to Jesus. Jesus did not come to this earth as God incarnate in man in order to feed you physically. Jesus did not come to heal you physically. Jesus did not come to solve all of your physical, material, problems. He is a Savior. He came to save you from sin, and you need to look beyond these miracles and on to Jesus. We need to believe in miracles, but trust in Jesus.

Down in your heart, down in the deepest part of your being, there is a hunger that only God can satisfy. Pascal once said, "In every man's heart there is a God-shaped vacuum that God alone can fill through His Son Jesus Christ." And that is the hunger that I want to talk to you about today, not the physical hunger that we have.

Click on the link below and learn how there is never a problem too big for Jesus to solve. In every problem you face, God already knows about the problem and He has a plan to solve it. So many times, we have a problem in our lives that we're trying to solve. We are using all of our strength, at least so we think, but there is a heavenly Father who is ready to help us with His strength in order to solve our problem. The moral of the story is, there is never a problem too big for Jesus to solve, you just need to ask Him.

Amen.

HAVING SPIRITUAL STRENGTH (John 5:1-6)

Our physical bodies are ultimately going to fail. You could be the strongest person in the world, but if Jesus doesn't come beforehand, you are going to die as well, no matter how much strength you have.

Isa 40:30
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
KJV

Since we know our bodies are going to fail, our great problem is not what is going to happen to our bodies. It is, do we have that inner strength that God wants us to have in order that we might live our lives for Christ? Why would we need spiritual strength? Because, by our nature, we are spiritually paralyzed and without strength. Yet, in Christ, we have power for living. Why do we need power for living? Because God has a greater plan for us.

The Bible describes every person who is without Christ as being without strength. The primary source of that weakness is sin. When we are without strength, we are unable to be godly. We do not have the strength to be godly. We all have a need to be godly in our lives. Yet, we don't have the strength to be godly. I don't care how hard you try to be godly, you don't have what it takes to be godly. Yet, there is an answer for your weakness, and His name is Jesus Christ.

Rom 5:6
6 For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
KJV

If you wish to have spiritual strength, the strength to be godly, the strength to be holy, then Christ died and rose again for you. The longer a person is physically paralyzed, the weaker their body gets. It is the same for a person without Christ. The longer they live without Christ, the worse their spiritual condition gets. That is the reason that no man should put off giving his or her heart to Jesus Christ. If you need to be saved, then you ought to be saved today because tomorrow you will only have more sin to repent of and less time to repent in.

Click on the link below to learn how to have spiritual strength in this life, and life everlasting.

Amen.

A STRONG, SAVING, FAITH (John 4:48-54)

Why do we Follow Christ? Think about your answer to that question, why do you follow Christ?

Do we follow Christ because of promised healing? No, that is not the reason we follow Christ, because Christians get sick and die just like everyone else.

Do we follow Christ because of protection from disaster or accidents? I see no evidence that Christians escape disaster and accidents more often than others. A bullet makes no detour around the body of a believer.

Do we follow Christ for promised prosperity? Again, I see no evidence that Christians are particularly favored with wealth and success in the world.

Do we follow Christ because of a promise of stronger personalities or fewer neuroses than non-believers? I have watched Christians suffer emotional and mental disabilities, just like non-believers.

So, why do we follow Christ? Why become a disciple of Jesus when life may become more complicated as He so often warned us it would?

For one reason alone. In Jesus we behold the face of God. He is the truth, the everlasting truth. I trust in Him and His promises. He is the one certain thing in an uncertain world. He is to be worshiped, not so something will happen to me or to the world, something already has happened to me and the world, but because He is God, who through Christ has reconciled the world to Himself. He saves me. He is my justification. He is the center that holds. We offer our lives to Him because He alone has claim upon us."

Don’t base your faith in Jesus Christ based on signs and wonders. Jesus is the Savior. He suffered, lived, bled, and died for you, rose from the dead, and if you'll trust Him, I promise you, according to His Word, He will save you and He will keep you, and one day we'll be gathered around the throne to give Him praise forever and ever and ever. Believe in miracles, but trust in Jesus, and you go from a superficial faith, to a strong faith, to a saving faith. That's what matters.

Click on the link below to hear a message on how to progress from a superficial faith based on signs and wonders, to a strong, saving, faith in Jesus Christ.

Amen.

RESURRECTION AND REBELLION (Revelation 20:5-10)

The title of our message today is Resurrection and Rebellion. In the first part of our message we will talk about the order of the resurrections of the just and unjust. Contrary to what many will tell you, the Bible does not teach of a single resurrection. Instead, it teaches of two resurrections. The first resurrection is for those saints who have Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The second resurrection is for those who have rejected Christ as their Savior. Instead of joining Christ in heaven for eternity as the saints will do, these who have rejected Christ, will now stand before Christ as their Judge.

The second part of today’s message is about God’s plan to bring a final resolution to sin on this earth. Jesus Christ is going to come and rule for a thousand years. This will be a literal period of one thousand years when man will live in a perfect society. The animal kingdom will be changed, the mineral kingdom will be changed, and the earth will become a regenerated Garden of Eden. Men will live for a thousand years, they will be but youngsters at the age of 100 years old. Satan will be removed from the scene and cast into the bottomless pit, where he will remain chained until the very end of this one thousand year period, when God will let him loose for a little while.

The people of the earth will have been living in blessing for a thousand years. They will have children during the millennium. The population of the world will grow again. Even though they are living with the Son of God right before them, in blessings, in peace, many of them will reject Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord. Jesus will rule the nations with a rod of iron. There will be no uprising during that time. There will be no Satan leading in rebellion. But down in the human heart, latent in the human heart, there will still be sin if it has not been washed by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is these children, who, after a thousand years, are going to rebel against God when Satan is let loose. God is demonstrating to the world two great principles when He does this.

Number one: Punishment is not the final answer. Satan has been in the prison house doing hard time for one thousand years and he comes back to rebel one more time. Even a thousand years of punishment did not reform Satan. Punishment is not the answer to reform the heart of man.

Number two: Environment is not the final answer. Make your environment as good as you can, but after one thousand years of peace and righteousness down in the human heart this latent sin comes bubbling up. That is the way it is with sin in the human heart. There is only one answer to sin and it is the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

God will deal with this rebellion and He will deal with Satan, bringing a final resolution to sin. Sin will be no more.

Click on the link below to hear a message on the order of the resurrections and how God deals with rebellion against Jesus Christ.

Amen.

THE SIGNS OF ARMAGEDDON (Revelation 19:12-16)

One of the greatest lessons that we can learn from Bible prophecy is that God is in control of all things. If you get nothing else out of Bible prophecy, you need to be comforted by the fact that God is in control of all things. When we look around at all of the crazy things that are happening in this world, it would be easy to wonder who is in control. But, let me tell you a truth that you can bank your entire eternity on, the almighty Creator of all things, the true and living God is in control, no matter what you see or think.

Anybody with even walking around common sense, that is someone who just barely has enough common sense to walk down the street and not get lost, even someone like that, can read the headlines of our news, and see what is happening. The storm clouds are gathering. The dynamite has been laid, the fuse is in place, the match is struck, and we all know that we are running out of time. A battle called the Battle of Armageddon is rushing upon us.

Click on the link below as we bring together all of the parts of Revelation that deal with Armageddon, and mix in some of the signs found in other parts of the Bible that speak of the coming of Armageddon. We are going to get a look at the big picture today as we see these signposts on the road to Armageddon.

Amen.

A BEASTLY BEAST (Revelation 17:10-18)

There is coming, with ever increasing rapidity, a world religion and a world government. As a reborn child of God, you don't belong to this world government; you belong to Jesus Christ. He is King of kings and Lord of lords. You don't belong to the harlot church; you are the bride of Christ. And in these days, though we are not yet in The Tribulation, nor will we be when it does come, coming events cast their shadows ahead of time.

Our loyalty to our Lord and Savior is going to be tested severely, and we will need to double down and remain loyal to the heavenly bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ. As the body of true believers, we are the bride of Christ. We cannot flirt with false religions. There have been many who have told me that they need to study other religions in order to better defend our faith. I believe that is true for some special warriors, and if you are one of these, then God will provide.

But, for me, and the vast majority of Christians, I believe that there is so much that I do not know about the depths of the Word of God, that I could spend the rest of my life digging into it, learning the Mind of God, and barely scratch the surface. I have made up my mind to spend every moment I can learning more about God, rather than waste a single moment learning about a false religion. I will defend the gospel of God not by my own words, not by using the words of a false religion that I have studied, but by the Word of God.

Luke 21:12-15
12 But before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake.
13 And it shall turn to you for a testimony.
14 Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer:
15 For I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor resist.
KJV

We are going to be persecuted, and during this persecution, there will come a time for us to give a testimony of our faith. We are to always be ready to defend our faith.

1 Peter 3:15
15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
KJV

We are to do this by diligent study of the Word of God.

2 Tim 2:15
15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
KJV

And when that time comes for you to give your testimony about the God you serve, to those who persecute you, let God lead you, “Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer: For I will give you a mouth and wisdom.” The Bible says that we are to be true to Jesus. We are to know the Lord Jesus Christ. Any time that we spend studying, or playing with, a false religion is like flirting with a married woman. It is called spiritual iniquity. We are to remain spiritually pure to our Lord Jesus. I challenge you to get a bulldog grip on the truth because there is going to come a time when we will be under great pressure if we dare to say that Jesus Christ is Lord.

And if you are not saved, my best advice to you is to give your heart to Jesus Christ, for the time is coming when you will believe the lie, and not the truth.

Click on the link below to learn how there is coming a beast to dominate the world, as Bible believing Christians we cannot be ignorant of the coming events that are told to us in God’s Word.

Amen.

DEALING WITH PERSECUTION (Revelation 11:5-13)

The Bible says that all who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. If you live for Jesus, and your life is in obedience to the will of God, it is fruitful for God, and you are sharing the light of the gospel to a dark world, then the Bible says that you will suffer persecution.

To know that this is true, all you have to do is read the headlines of the news today. Christians are suffering severe persecution in countries all around the world. So, the question that we will look at today is, How do you deal with this persecution? What are the Biblical truths that we must apply to our lives, if we are to be successful in dealing with persecution on both a physical and spiritual level?

Click on the link below to learn the five factors that the Bible tells us in the book of Revelation about the two witnesses for God, and how they dealt with persecution. These are important lessons that we must settle in our hearts and mind if we are to be victorious in our witness for God.

Amen.

JESUS CHRIST THE ALMIGHTY GOD (Revelation 10:3-11)

The Book of Revelation presents to the world Jesus Christ as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, the Creator of all things, and the Lord of lords and King of kings. Jesus is the One we worship.

One of these days, sin's clock will be stopped, and the mystery of God will be finished, and delay will be no more. Sin has been on a rampage. Righteousness seems to have suffered. It is now coming to a conclusion. God has given the inhabitants of the earth time for repentance, but time is running out. The clock will strike its last note and sin's clock is about to be stopped. God’s mercy for sin is about to end. The time for repentance will come to an end.

Don't get the idea that you have time before the rapture to turn to God, for that may come at any moment. Don't get the idea that even after the rapture, that God will continue to give you time, even if you've never heard the Gospel before. There is coming a time when time will run out. When God's clock stops, that's it! And if you are not on God's train, you are going to be left.

The Book of Revelation tells us about the majesty, the mastery, and the mystery of Jesus Christ. When I see the majesty of Christ that means Jesus, my Savior is due my total worship. When I see the mastery of His power that means that Jesus my Lord is worthy of my total confidence. He is the one who has everything under control. When I see God’s mysteries are revealed, then God’s mercy ends.

Click on the link below to hear a message on our Lord Jesus Christ as He is revealed in The Book of Revelation.

Amen.