The Master‘s Class, LifeChange Church Wichita

There are many things that I am grateful to God for, the love of my family, the love of a wife that I have been married to for 35 years, and a loving God that uses me to teach and preach the Word of God.  God has truly been gracious to me and my family, but most of all He has been gracious to each believer for we serve a risen Lord.

Listen to this podcast to learn how the ascension of our Lord is as significant to our faith as the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus is.  Jesus is alive and working for us today.  Jesus did not just go off into heaven and leave us never to be heard from again.  His work on earth has provided us with a perfect and complete salvation.  His work in Heaven continues our salvation as our great High Priest in the Holy Tabernacle in Heaven.

Jesus is alive.  Jesus is working for us in Heaven, and Jesus is coming back.  These are things that distinguish our faith from all other religions. These are things we base our faith on.  Join me as we give thanks to a gracious and loving God.

One of the most important events in the life of a believer is the resurrection of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ.  The resurrection of Jesus Christ provides each believer with a living Jesus Christ sitting on the right hand of God the Father.  He is sitting because He has accomplished the work of our salvation.  

The resurrection of Jesus Christ provides us with a message to tell others about eternal life, about power over sin in our lives, and about our ability to stand before God clothed in the robe of righteousness purchased with the precious blood of Jesus Christ. 

Listen to this podcast to learn the message that Jesus has commanded us to go out into the world and preach about the gospel of His death, burial, and resurrection, baptizing them in the name of the Lord.  

This is why the death of Christ and the resurrection of Christ are so important to us as believers.  Jesus Christ is alive and because He is alive, and I have made Him my Savior, I know that I know, that I know, that I am going to be with Him for all of eternity.

It is my prayer that each of you will be there with me.

Do you have any core beliefs that you will not compromise on, that you cannot be dissuaded from, and that you will stand up and proclaim no matter the audience, no matter the danger, and no matter the consequences to you?

Such beliefs must be important to you personally for them to have such meaning.  They must be things like your integrity, your belief in the inherent rights of the individual to life, liberty, and their ability to choose how they will exercise that liberty.  For many they include the right to worship God freely in the manner they choose without interference from the government or others.  

These core beliefs are what define you as an individual.  They define how you will react in a given situation, what you stand for, what you will tolerate from others, and what you will choose to put your life at risk for.  They are what drive a young lady to stand when a cowardly man with a gun in his hand demands that all Christians are to stand up.

Every true believer in the gospel message of Jesus Christ has at their foundation two such beliefs:

(1) The death of Christ.  Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross for our sins.  It is the blood of Jesus that was shed on the Cross that makes our salvation possible.

(2) The resurrection of Christ.  Christ rose bodily from the dead.  He conquered death and sin with His resurrection, and because of this, we can have eternal life in heaven with Jesus.

The gospel declares that Jesus was made sin for us, (this means that He took on our sin, He paid the penalty for our sin,) that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him, (our ability to stand before God, clothed in the righteousness of God, is only because Jesus died for us and was raised again for our justification.)

The unique fact of the gospel is the Resurrection. All other religions record the death of their leader. Only the Christian faith records the Resurrection of its Founder. 

All other religious leaders are dead. 

Only Jesus is alive.  Listen to this podcast to learn why this is absolutely important and imperative for you to know and believe.

Have you ever asked the question, Did Jesus really die on a cross or is that just some story from the Bible?

And if Jesus did die on a cross, What does that have to do with the things that I may have done during my life?  How can something that Jesus did have any effect on me and my eternal life?  

These are the basic questions that form the foundation of the gospel message of Jesus Christ.  The answers to these questions are told, retold, and symbolized over and over again, in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation.

God specifically provided an inerrant and infallible book, called the Bible, so that man could know and understand what the life, death, burial, and resurrection, of Jesus Christ means to each of us.  

Each of us has come short of the mark of absolute perfection demanded by a holy, perfect, God.  The penalty for that failure is death.  

As a just God, God must condemn those that have failed to meet this mark of absolute perfection.  

As a loving God, God sent His Son to pay the penalty of death that we deserve.  Jesus willingly took our punishment for us.  

Listen to this podcast to learn Why Jesus had to die.  Jesus tells us that Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  Listen and learn just how much Jesus loves you.

Over the last several weeks our politicians have demonstrated the power of a person’s attitude to do things to hurt others and our nation.  We have seen self-righteousness, hypocrisy, and cowardly compromise, on full display by people who are elected to represent the needs of the people rather than their own enrichment.  We have also seen the courage of a few to demand changes, even in the face of overwhelming condemnation from those in their own party.  

A person’s attitude can also be used to draw people to you, or drive them away.  It is the same in politics as it is in matters of faith.  If your message of faith is positive, affirming, and compassionate, then it will draw people to you.  On the other hand, if your message is negative, condemning, and filled with words of anger and hate, it will drive most people away from you.  Most of all, your attitude must be matched by the way you live your life.  Hypocrisy is in every area of life, and it is easy to spot.  The most dangerous part of hypocrisy is what it does to those around you.  Many people will walk away from the gospel message of Christ because of what they see in counterfeit Christian.  

Listen to this podcast to hear the second part of a lesson on how the attitudes of those around Jesus caused the Creator of all things to be rejected and crucified on a cross.

A person’s attitude is a powerful thing.  It has a great deal to do with how we act while we are doing a task, how we think about that task, and how we speak about it.  A simple example is how we approach our job, if our attitude is one of enjoyment, or one of passion for that job, it makes the days go quicker, and we have a true feeling of accomplishment about our job.  You feel good about yourself and who you are.  

On the other hand if our attitude is one of dreading our job, or it is just a thing we do to pay the bills, it creates stress in our lives which has an effect on our health, the days drag on and on, and we are just looking forward to quitting time so we can go and do something we love.

But our attitude about something is even more powerful than that, for it can be used to drive us to do things that we would not ordinarily be capable of.  Consider the attitude a person would need to have in order to knowingly condemn a man to die a horrible, painful, death for a sin that He did not commit.

Listen to this podcast to learn the seven attitudes that lived in the hearts of the people responsible for the death of Jesus Christ.  As you listen, look for these same attitudes in your own heart.  

On a human level it is very hard for us to willingly take the blame for what somebody else has done.  Our natural reaction is to defend ourselves, to make sure that everyone knows who is rightfully to blame, especially when the punishment for the crime carries with it a heavy penalty, such as years in prison, or even death.  It would take a great deal of love for one person, who was innocent, to willingly take the blame for a crime they did not commit to save another from facing that penalty.    

Yet this is what Jesus Christ did for each of us.  

Listen to this podcast to learn why Jesus stood silent before His accusers when He was falsely accused of crimes He did not commit.  Learn why Jesus would allow a mob of men to take Him to be crucified without putting up a fight to resist them.

Jesus did all of this, including dying on a cross, so that you could have everlasting life.  Jesus died in your place. He took your punishment.  He suffered so that you would not have to.  Jesus did all of this because He loves you.    

When was the last time that you participated in taking the Lord’s Supper? 

How did you go about preparing yourself to participate?

Why is the Lord’s Supper an important part of the believer’s life?

Listen to this podcast to find out what the Bible says about the Lord’s Supper.  Jesus instituted this ordinance of the church for us to remember what He has done for us.  Later, Paul tells us that we are to be serious, and not casual or flippant, in our preparation and participation is this very important ceremony.   

This is to be a time of remembrance of the love that God has for us, and it is to be a time of self-assessment and repentance. 

Don’t miss the wonderful message that is to be found in the believer’s heart as they remember the finished work of salvation that Jesus has done for you.

Life often places us in situations where we have a loved one who is suffering in great pain, or emotionally from a loss.  Our natural desire is to be able to reach out and remove that suffering from them and place it on ourselves. We want to take their place, and let us handle the pain.

I remember watching my mother as she suffered in pain from terminal cancer.  There was nothing more that I wanted to do than take that pain away from her and let me bear it.  I wanted to do this because I loved her enough that I was willing to take her place, even if it meant that I would die.  

If we as people are capable of this kind of love, how much more so is a holy God capable of this kind of love?  It is because of God’s love for us that He sent His Son Jesus to die on a cross so that we could avoid the suffering and pain of an eternity spent burning in the Lake of Fire.  Jesus took on our suffering so that we could choose not to.  God loves each of us so much that He desires that none of us should perish.

Listen to this podcast to learn how Jesus suffered great pain on the cross.  How Jesus suffered emotionally on the cross. How Jesus suffered at the hands of a holy God on the cross, and Jesus suffered at the hand of Satan while He was on the cross.  

Most of all, hear why Jesus had to suffer.

Who was in control of the events that led to Jesus dying on the cross?   

Was it the Jewish religious leadership?

Was it the Romans?

Was it Judas who betrayed Jesus?

Listen to this podcast to discover the answer to this question is that Jesus was in complete control of the events that led to His death on the cross.  He deliberately, knowingly, and willingly walked to the cross.   God so loved each of us as humans that He sent His only begotten Son to die so that none should perish and each of us should have the opportunity for everlasting life. 

Jesus tells us that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.  Jesus went to the cross to make that possible. 

Join us as we begin a series of lessons that describe the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.   Listen as God shows us just how much He loves us.