The Master‘s Class, LifeChange Church Wichita

STUBBORN UNBELIEF (John 12:37-50)

Jesus Christ has been my Lord and Savior since I was a young man. His Holy Spirit has lived in my heart for more than 50 years. In fact, it is hard for me to remember a time when the Holy Spirit was not my constant companion in everything that I did. I have chosen to live my life in the center of God’s will. I am God’s servant and that is the desire of my heart, to serve God in all that I do. However, that has not always been the case. There have been periods of my life when I have ignored Holy Spirit who lives within my heart. I have put Him in closet within my heart and told Him that He was not welcome in certain areas of my life. I wanted Him close by if I needed Him, but otherwise I didn’t want to be bothered. I wanted to live my life, my way. Now, every single time I did that, the Holy Spirit convicted me, chastised me, even took me out to the woodshed to discipline me. In short, I failed in all aspects of my life when Jesus was not first in my life. It is when Jesus is the President of my life, not just a resident, that I truly live an abundant life in the way God wants me to live.

As a result of this lifelong relationship with Jesus, it is sometimes hard for me to understand why someone would choose to reject Jesus as the Son of God, as their Lord, and as their Savior. Knowing what I know and what it has meant to me, it just doesn’t make sense to me why the vast majority of people would turn away from the free gift of eternal life in heaven with Jesus. It boggles my mind. Yet, it is true. Whether it is for self-centered reasons, or to chase after a false religion, they deliberately, willfully, and knowingly, choose to reject Jesus as their Lord and Savior. It doesn’t mean they cannot be reached. It doesn’t mean that they are morally bad people. It just means that, so far, they have made a deliberate decision to reject Christ. It means that if they were to die today, they would spend eternity in Hell, without God. Unfortunately, the longer a person lives rejecting Jesus, the harder it gets to ever reach them with the truth of who Jesus is. In other words, their mind is set in its ways. Their heart becomes hardened to the gospel message that is found in the Bible. They say, it cannot be true. That the words of the Bible have been corrupted by man. When you die, you die, and that is it.

Listen to me, the Bible is the one true word of God, and the God that I believe in, is powerful enough to protect His word from any efforts by man to corrupt it. If you believe that man can corrupt God’s Word, then you do not believe in the same almighty Creator of all things that I do. You do not believe in the God of the Bible.

I also believe that there comes a time in everyone’s life when they must choose Jesus as their Savior, or to reject Him. The Holy Spirit is patient with each of us.

2 Peter 3:9
9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
KJV

Jesus declared that He stands at the door knocking.

Rev 3:20
20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.
KJV

Jesus wants you to choose Him, but when the Holy Spirit determines that your decision is final, He will stop convicting you, and walk away. He will harden your heart to the word of God, and you will be doomed to die and go to Hell.

Click on the link below to hear a message about how the Jews, in their stubborn unbelief, finally rejected Jesus as the Messiah, and Jesus stopped knocking, stopped pleading with them, and then hardened their hearts.

Amen.

WHY DO YOU BELIEVE IN JESUS CHRIST (John 6:64-69)

This is an important question to have a ready answer for, because if you cannot articulate a response to that question in your own mind, then you will not be able to explain it to someone else. You cannot effectively share the gospel of Christ without explaining who Christ is and why you believe in Him.

Now, as believers, we all will agree that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that He came as God incarnate in man. That is the easy part. Yet, many of us will have a different answer to the question of why we believe in Jesus Christ. It will be different because each of us came to know Jesus as our Lord and Savior in our own way. Some of us, like me, knew Jesus from a very young age, others not until much later in life, and still others after a tragedy or trial occurred.

How we were saved is the same for each of us, for there is but one way to the Father and that is through Jesus Christ, but how we learned to love Jesus is different.

Click on the link below to hear a message on why I believe in Jesus Christ, and hopefully, it will help you learn how to express your own reasons.

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.

THE LAST MESSAGE OF THE BIBLE (Revelation 22:14-21)

The last message of the Bible is choose Jesus. It really is that simple. The whole Bible was given to us so that we might choose Jesus. The last promise from our Lord is Surely, I come quickly. The last prayer of this book is Even so, come, Lord Jesus. In these last words, the Lord Jesus Christ makes a proposal to every person who is alive today. He asks you to choose Him as your Lord and Savior. He is asking you to spend eternity with Him in Heaven, instead of eternity without Him in Hell. Choose Jesus, that is the last message of the Bible.

Who cares if a sinner goes to hell? The Lord Jesus cares. Jesus said, "I sent a message with an angel, and I said to that angel, go to the churches and give them this message. I want them saved." The Lord Jesus cares if you go to Hell. That's why Jesus stepped out of the glories of heaven and walked the dusty shores of Galilee. That's why Jesus left heaven's love for earth's abuse. That's why Jesus was nailed to that horrible cross and died in agony and blood.

Why? With every drop of His blood, He is saying, "I love you and I want to save you." It is a Biblical truth that if you die and go to hell, you will have to climb over the battered, bruised, body of Jesus to get there. He's saying, "Stop! Don't go to hell."

Click on the link below to hear a message on how much Jesus Christ wants you to choose Him.

Amen.

GAINING VICTORY IN JESUS (Revelation 15:3-8)

Let me ask you a question, have you ever considered celebrating the wrath of God?

Chapter 15 of the Book of Revelation talks about the tribulation saints standing in victory on the crystal sea of glass, or the Word of God, and celebrating the victory of our Lord Jesus Christ. We can learn three principles about our victory in Jesus Christ from these Tribulation saints, and how to celebrate that victory. We are studying the Tribulations saints and the events that occur during that Tribulation Period, but there is much that we can learn from this set of verses and apply to our lives today.

Have you ever looked at the sin of those around you and asked the question, Where is the wrath of God? Doesn’t God promise to punish sin? Yet, when you look at rape, child abuse, blasphemy, sexual perversion of all kinds, and the horror of terrorism, we are all tempted to ask, Where is God? And where is His wrath?

The answer to the question of where is God? Is, He is on His throne. The answer to the question of where is God’s wrath? John tells us “Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name?... for thy judgments are made manifest.” God’s judgements are God’s wrath for sin. John says that God’s judgment, or wrath, is made manifest, or visible, for all to see. One thing the Bible teaches us for certain is that all sin will be punished. Your sin will be punished. My sin will be punished. Every sin, whether it be that of a lost person, or a saved, will be punished. The only question is, who will bear that punishment? Every sin will be either pardoned by Christ, or punished in hell, but it will never be overlooked. Nobody’s sin is ever overlooked. All sin is dealt with.

Don't ever forget that the secret of our victory is the wrath of God. Apart from the wrath of God, apart from the righteous judgment of God, there can be no ultimate victory. Sin must be dealt with. We celebrate the Wrath of God, because we know that God will deal with all sin. God is indeed a loving God, but God is also a just God. God will deal with all sin. As believers, our victory comes from three things, the Word of God, the redeeming works of God, and the righteous wrath of God.

Amen.

GATHERING CLOUDS (Revelation 14:14-15:2)

Without a doubt, I praise the Holy name of God that, during the period that I have been alive on this earth, there may have been wars, there may have been rumors of wars, but there has not been a major world war to endure the tragedy of on a global scale. There was the Vietnam war, the Cold war, Israel’s Six-day war, the battle of Yom Kippur, The Falkland Islands, the Iraq wars, and the war on Terror, just to name a few. Each of these was terrible in its human toll of death and injury. Now, make no mistake about it, when you are a soldier fighting, and your friends are dying around you, it doesn’t matter if the war you are in is called a world war, a police action, a skirmish, or a conflict, it is horrible, it is tragic, and I am glad we have soldiers willing to fight these wars.

But the scale of deaths in a global conflict is staggering. If we look at WWII, just as an example, depending on where you look, they estimate the total deaths due to the conflict as anywhere from 35 million to 96 million people. All of these other wars that I mentioned earlier pale in comparison to the deaths and casualties that occurred during WWII.

Yet, one thing is consistent no matter the size of the conflict, each of these wars had a period at the beginning where the storms clouds of war were gathering. People, rulers, and nations, made decisions that either cast their country into war, or turned toward peace. We have many of those events happening in our world today. North Korea and Iran are two that come to mind. Either of these countries could throw the world into a major war based on the decisions their rulers make.

Chapter 14 of the Book of Revelation tells us of a turning point in Satan’s worldwide empire that will exist during the Tribulation Period. It describes that from this point on in our study, God is going to start intervening in the events of the world until it reaches a point where Satan is defeated, the world is judged, and those who have rejected the gospel message of Christ will be cast into the Lake of Fire with Satan, the Antichrist, and the False Prophet. This chapter tells us that the storm clouds of a truly epic war, unlike anything that mankind has seen before, is about to become a reality. Decisions are being made, and eternal destinies are being decided.

Click on the link below to hear a message about the coming of the Day of the Lord. The storm clouds are gathering as God moves toward judging the evil of the world at the Battle of Armageddon.

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.

THERE IS NO PROMISE TOO HARD FOR GOD TO KEEP PART II (Revelation 7:1-8)

This Biblical truth is important to all believers because it gives us assurance that when God says something in His word about the future of the world, the future of the heavens, the future of the lost, and especially the future of believers, we can trust that it is true. That what God says, God will do. This allows us to stop worrying about the future and focus on the task that God has for us to accomplish to move His purposes and plans along.

We are to be looking for and hasting the day of God, which is that day when Christ completes all that He is to do and delivers the kingdom to the Father so that God can be all in all. We are to be working on witnessing and bringing lost souls to Christ, that is our purpose and that is our reason for being here. Not all of us are evangelists, but all of us have a role to play, and a story to tell about how real God is in our lives, and what He has done for us.

We cannot be bashful about praising our Lord, for people want to hear that God is real and working in this world. This is the missing element in so many people’s lives. Man was created to worship God, and when they do not, they have a hole in their lives. They know something is missing and so they try to fill it with all kinds of things, and yet there is still a hole. It is our testimony that can help them find the Lord Jesus Christ to fill that hole.

Click on the link below to learn how one way that God fulfills His promise to Abraham that all of the families of the earth will be blessed by the children of Israel. God chooses 144,000 Jews from each of the 12 tribes of Israel, He seals them, and they become His servants to spread the gospel message of Christ during a time of Great Tribulation. There is no promise too hard for God. Amen.

UNMASKING THE FALSE (2 Peter 2:1)

We are surrounded by different kinds of religion. There are Baptists and Buddhists, Islamists and Methodists, Catholicism and Confucianism, Evolutionism and Gnosticism. There are as many religions as there are colors in crayon box. If you don’t like the way one religion makes you feel, pick another, or another. We are encouraged to believe that we all worship the same God, and there are just different ways of coming to Him. Unfortunately, we are being encouraged to believe a lie. When you look at all of the religions of the world, and you analyze the differences between them, when you boil it down to the basics, there are but two kinds of religion, the true and the false. That’s it, the true and the false. That which is authentic from God, and that which in inauthentic and has the curse of God upon it. If it is false it is dangerous and the world is full of dangerous doctrines.

I am going to say something that does not fit in our politically correct society. It is likely to cause college students across the nation to run to their safe zones, to grab a cup of hot cocoa and a binky, and curl up on the coach in their jammies, afraid to face an idea that does not meet their narrative. They may even need counseling after they hear this.

There is but one God, and there is but one way to Him, and that is through His Son Jesus Christ. It is not a religion that will give you eternal life in heaven, it is a relationship with Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior that will give it to you. It is a relationship, not a religion.

Yet, you can hear false doctrines from false teachers on every corner, on every website, and in the pulpits of churches, temples, mosques, and synagogues everywhere. Peter knew that this was true in his day, and the Holy Spirit knew it would be true in our day. There are false teachers among us today, in our own churches, and so we are going to spend the next several weeks studying about that which is authentic and that which is false. If you are going to be effective in your witness you must be able to recognize that which is authentic from that which is false.

Now, I think everyone would agree that it is wrong to tell a lie. You would agree with me on that, right? It is wrong to tell a lie. It is even worse to teach a lie, but it is monstrous to teach a lie about God. There is no greater crime in the eyes of God than to be a false prophet, or a false teacher, who preaches lies about God. God takes this crime very seriously. In the days of the Old Testament prophets, God had this to say about false prophets.

Deut 18:20
20 But the prophet, which shall presume to speak a word in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or that shall speak in the name of other gods, even that prophet shall die.
KJV

Now if God acted with a bolt of lightning every time a false prophet spoke a lie about Him, that would certainly thin out the ranks of false prophets. Unfortunately, God does not always act on our time frame. However, make no mistake, God hates lies taught about Himself, and He will punish the false prophet. The Bible says, even that prophet shall die.

2 Peter 2:12
12 But these, as natural brute beasts, made to be taken and destroyed, speak evil of the things that they understand not; and shall utterly perish in their own corruption;
KJV

Jesus told the Pharisees that God has reserved a special place for them in Hell because they had led the people away from God. So, it is important that we know and understand that which is authentic and that which is false. We need to be able to unmask the false prophets and teachers so we are not deceived.

Listen to this podcast so that you can know how to unmask the false teachers who are among us.

MORE SURE THAN THAT (2 Peter 1:19-21)

For most things, if we want to know that something is really true, or actually real, we want to see it, touch it, hold it in our hands, shake it around, and simply check it out for ourselves. I am not likely to buy something sight unseen, just because somebody tells me about it.

Important events in our lives are easier to accept if we are able to physically be there, or see them happen. For example, if you told me one of my family members had been seriously hurt, my first reaction would be to immediately go to them so that I could see for myself how they were. When a major tornado hit Wichita, it happened on the other side of town from where I live. I could hear about the destruction on the news. I could see it in the video coverage, and read about it in the newspaper. However, nothing brought home the real amount of damage the tornado caused until I went to see the damage personally. Seeing whole neighborhoods completely flattened made the storm more than just another news story that we hear about every day, it made it real.

This is how many people feel about Christ and the gospel message of salvation. They hear that Jesus Christ was real and that He is the Son of God, and they say, show me. They hear that there is life beyond the grave and they say, show me. They hear that heaven and hell are real and that you will spend eternity in one of them, and they say, show me. They say if you want me to believe that God exists, show me.

God certainly knows that this is true about us, and so He designed a world that no man could possibly create, and no amount of science could explain, no matter how hard they try. He did this so that man would know that an all powerful Creator existed. God made man so intricate in the mechanical and biological portions of his body, that man would know that he was created, and could not possibly have come into existence by accident. Yet, knowing a Creator existed, and that we were the product of that Creator’s work was not enough to allow a holy God to forgive all of the sin that exists in the world. We needed a loving God to provide a path to our salvation from an eternity in hell without God, to an eternity in heaven with God. We needed a Savior, and so God sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross that man might find salvation in His Creator.

And so Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, came to this earth to live as a Man, God incarnate in man, fully God and fully man. He did great miracles as signs to show mankind who He truly was. He healed the sick by the thousands. He made the lame walk. He raised the dead, and He fed thousands using the contents of a lunch box from a small boy. Jesus Christ came knowing that He would be rejected, knowing that He would be beaten and mangled, and knowing that He would be crucified and suffer a horrible death. He did this because He knew that it was only His sacrifice and His precious blood that would allow the terrible sins of man to be forgiven by a righteous God. The blood of animals would never be enough. The blood of mortal man would never be enough. It had to be the precious blood of the Son of God that would wash the sin away in the eyes of God.

God, then raised Jesus from the dead. Jesus walked around in His resurrected body for 40 days and he was seen by hundreds of people. People touched Him, felt of Him, put their fingers through the holes in His hands, and ate with Him. People believed because they had seen Him do those miracles, and they had seen Him die and then rise again. They saw Him, they felt Him, and they touched Him. He was real, all those things really happened, and so they believed.

Yet, all those things happened two thousand years ago. Today, people say they would also like to believe, if only they could see those things as well. If they could see Jesus Christ perform miracles, then maybe they would believe that He was truly the Son of God. If they could see Him in His resurrected form, then they would believe that there was life after death, and they would accept the gospel message of salvation. If only, they could see Him, feel Him, and shake Him around a little just to make sure He was real, then they would believe.

Yet, even if God did do this, we know that many would still reject Christ. Christ was seen by many thousands of people, and still He was crucified. So, seeing is not always enough. Sometimes we need something more. Our memories are faulty, that is why we take pictures and videos of our lives, because we forget. We remember how we want to remember things.

God knew this about us. He knew that seeing, touching, and shaking was not enough. People who did not want to believe would corrupt those memories handed down by oral tradition. He knew these things and so He gave us something more sure than that. He gave us His more sure word of prophecy.

Listen to this podcast to learn how God gave us His written Word, and how we can depend on it to live our lives in His will.