The Master‘s Class, LifeChange Church Wichita

WHAT MUST I DO TO BE SAVED? (Acts 16:11-34)

This question is asked by the Philippian jailer in our lesson today, but it has been asked by millions, upon millions, of lost people over the last two thousand years.  For it is the single most important question that a person must ask in their lifetime.  The answer to this all-important question is provided for us in God’s Word, and our response is what determines how we will spend eternity.

It is important to understand that it is not the amount, or kind, of sin in our life that condemns us; it is the fact of sin in our life that condemns us.  Yet, we will not be judged and sent to an eternity in hell because of our sin.  We will be judged and sent to an eternity in hell because of our rejection of Jesus Christ and the light of salvation that He has provided to us through the Holy Spirit.

Paul and Silas provided a two-part answer to the jailer.  The first part was “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.” There is only one way to come to God, and that is by faith in Jesus Christ, and not works.

Charles Spurgeon stated the following: “It is not thy hold on Christ that saves thee; it is Christ.  It is not thy joy in Christ that saves thee, it is Christ.  It is not even thy faith in Christ that saves thee, though that be the instrument.  It is Christ’s blood and merit.”

It is Christ’s blood that saves us, faith just grabs hold of it for us—that is all.  

The Word of God is the second part of the answer. The question for the jailer, and any lost person, becomes do you believe God or not?  Our faith comes from our heart.  It is by knowing that the Bible is the Word of God that our faith can be based on knowledge.  It is not some mystery that we cannot know.

Click on the link below to hear a message that answers the question, “What must I do to be saved?”

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

Amen.

THE HOLY SPIRIT LEADS (Acts 15:36 to 16:10)

Just because something looks like the right thing to do, just because all the circumstances point that way, just because one’s own desires affirm the move, and just because everyone else urges it as the sensible thing to do, it does not necessarily follow that it is the will of God.  The important question to ask is, “Lord, what do You want me to do?”  

Your great desire ought to be to know His will.  Your great delight will be to do His will.  Your great danger is to refuse His will.  

The truth about God’s will is that guidance is promised.  God wants you to know His will for your life.  He will make it known to you, if you are willing to fully surrender your life to Jesus Christ.

Now, it may sound simplistic, but the will of God for you is Jesus, just Jesus.  Jesus is the head of the church, and the church is the body.  What is the will of my body? My head.  Who is my head? Jesus. What is the will of the church of the body of believers? Jesus, the head of the church.  The will of God for your life is Jesus.  He is your Lord.  Know Him, know the will of God.

Here are three principles about the will of God:

• The will of God is for your welfare.  It is not something you have to do; it is something you get to do.  

• The will of God will never take you where the power of God and the grace of God cannot enable and keep you.

• You are free to choose.  God will never force His will upon you.  You are free to choose His will.  You are not free not to choose.  You have to make a choice.  When you say, “Well, I just won’t choose anything.” You just made a choice.  You are free to choose, you are not free to choose the consequences of your choice.  You make a choice and the choice chooses the consequences for you.  

Click on the link below to hear a message on how you can know the will of God for your life.  

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

Amen.

GOD'S PLAN PREVAILS (Acts 15:12 to 35)

One of the greatest things about being a Christian is knowing that God’s plan will always prevail.  Amen?  What is sad about this knowledge is that the lost people I know do not have this comfort.  They either have been told about God and rejected Him, or they simply do not know Him.  

The Holy Spirit always has His way in the end.  He does not force His will, He does not coerce.  He remains invisible, inaudible, but infinite, inescapable, and infallible, guiding all things to work out His sovereign will.  This is something that should fill us with joy and praise for God.  

When everything seems to be going wrong, when truth seems to always be playing with a handicap, when the right seems to be outmaneuvered by the wrong, when misguided men have somehow seemingly been able to destroy or disrupt that which was of God, we need to remember that the Holy Spirit is at work and all things will work out to His sovereign will.  The Holy Spirit never loses, never fails, and never deviates from His purpose.  His will always prevails in the end.  

The battle between God and Satan is not a battle of equals. It is a battle between the Creator, and the created.  Satan was created by God, and he will be destroyed by God.  Satan is absolutely no match for the almighty power of God.  

Click on the link below to hear a message about God’s plan for both the Gentiles and the Jews.  How God is visiting “the Gentiles to take out of them a people for His name.” This is why we should feel anxious to share the Word of God. Right now, there are people of every color, every race, and of every nation who need to hear the Word of God.   

What does God do with that Word? He is calling out a people for His name.  Not everyone who hears believes the Word. Not everyone accepts the good news of Jesus Christ. But of those who hear, God calls out a people for His name. 

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

Amen.

DID YOU WORK HARD ENOUGH, TODAY, TO BE SAVED (Acts 15:1-11)

If this is the question you ask yourself at the end of each day, then I have some really good news for you.  That good news is, Your Salvation is by grace, not works.  God’s provision is that salvation is granted to us by our faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  

God tells us in His word, over and over again, in plain and simple words that “No, you have not been good enough.  Not today, or any other day of your entire life.  Not even close.”  In fact, I would not bet on the best 15 minutes of my life to get me into heaven, because it won’t. The truth is, no matter who you are, no matter how good your intentions are, you cannot be good enough to stand before God as righteous.  The Apostle Paul couldn’t.  Peter couldn’t.  Abraham couldn’t.  Billy Graham couldn’t, and the Pope most certainly couldn’t.  Nobody, not one of the great heroes of the Bible, and not one of the religious leaders of today, could stand on their works as justification for their salvation.  

But God does not leave you with just the statement that your works are as filthy rags before His Holiness.  The good news proclaimed in His word is that Jesus Christ, God’s Son, has done all the work for your salvation.  Now, all you have to do is believe on Him, confess and repent of your sins, and accept God’s gracious gift of eternal life.  That is all there is to it.  It is so simple, it is difficult.  It is difficult because most people can’t believe it is that simple.  It is simple because God did the difficult part.  Don’t believe for an instant that your salvation came easily and without great sacrifice.  God choose His only begotten Son to die on the cross for you as payment for your sin, and so that your salvation might be simple.  

Click on the link below to hear a message on the gospel truth that salvation is by God’s grace and not works.

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

Amen.

DEFEATING FALSE RELIGIONS (Acts 14:7-28)

People are drawn to religion.  Any form of religion.  Be it the religion of evolution, or atheism, or voodoo, or satanic cults, man wants to worship something.  The world is full of false religions started by Satan who understands man’s desire to worship.  He just wants to be the object of man’s worship.  

Every religion that Satan starts is just a distraction from the real worship of the almighty God.  Satan’s goal is to send you to hell, by deceiving you into believing that you can work your way into heaven.  He wants you to believe that it is the offering that makes a difference in men today.  The offering of the lost person is his works.  The lost person believes it is his good works that matter, that make him better or worse than someone else.  A recent poll stated that a majority of Americans believed that the basis that someone would get into heaven would be on how good their works were.  It also said that if people believed in a hell, that only the really bad people would go there.  Without a doubt this is the best false religion that Satan has going. 

But no true believer takes the position that he is better than anyone else. The thing that makes him a Christian is that he recognizes that he is a sinner like everyone else and that he needs an offering, he needs a sacrifice, and he needs Someone to take his place and to die for him.  

That Someone is Jesus Christ.  

As believers, we know that for our righteousness to be acceptable to God it must be a perfect righteousness, one that we are incapable of providing on our own, and that it can only come through the blood of Christ.  The Bible tells us that Christ died and was raised for our righteousness. He was the One who took our place.  Our righteousness is obtained through our faith in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

Clink on the link below to hear a message on what it takes to defeat false religion.

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

Amen.

WHICH CHOICE HAVE YOU MADE? (Acts 13:40 to 14:6)

The Bible teaches that every person must make a choice about Jesus Christ.  It is the most important decision that you will make in your entire life.  Will you accept the offer of salvation provided by Jesus, will you choose eternal life, or not?  The alternative is to reject Christ and perish in your sin.  

For such an important question, the natural response is to try find the absolute truths about sin and eternal life.  Yet, if you turn away from Jesus, where will you turn?  Where can you go for truth if not to Jesus?

One of the places people turn to is the emptiness of atheism.  When someone turns to atheism, they choose to believe that in the beginning, the heavens and the earth created themselves, and then created man.  Now, this just doesn’t make sense at all, and anyone who tells you it does, is just not being intelligent.  

Another place people turn to is the buttery cloud of philosophy.  Do you remember your philosophy classes in school?  Did it seem like they provided answers, real truths about life or eternity, or did they just raise more questions than answers?

The next place that people turn to is the futility of materialism.  Do you think you can find absolute truths in the riches of the world?  The sad truth is that materialism can never satisfy the deepest longing of your heart.  God made you for Himself, and even if you have material things, you will still find your heart and life empty without Him.  

The next place people look for truth is the dead end of false religions.  Many turn away from Christ to another religion.  But remember what Peter said to Jesus: “To whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.”  You can go to another religion, but it is Christ alone that has the words of eternal life.  

So, who can you turn to for the words of truth and eternal life?  Nowhere, but Jesus.

Click on the link below to hear a message on the choice about Jesus Christ that every person must make.  

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

Amen.

ISRAELS MOMENT (Acts 13:30-43)

In today’s lesson, the Apostle Paul will present the nation Israel with a choice, a moment, when they must choose or reject the gospel message of Jesus Christ.  Paul is telling the Jews what the resurrection of Jesus meant to them.  It was an opportunity for salvation.  

This is the good news of the gospel message of Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.  The best news this world has ever heard came from a graveyard just outside Jerusalem: “He is not here … he is risen” (Matthew 28:6).

The gospel is good news. The bad news is that we are sinners.  Sinners by birth, sinners by nature, sinners by choice, sinners by practice, and sinners under condemnation. All of us, without the Lord Jesus Christ, are in debt to God, defiled by sin, and sin has dominion over us.  That is the bad news about sin.

So, what is the good news that obliterates the bad news?  The Good news is that Jesus died for our sins. Jesus died because of our sins, and for our sins. It was our sins that were the nails that held Him to the cross. Our hard hearts were the hammers that drove those nails into His quivering palms and feet. He died for our sin.

When Jesus said on the cross, “It is finished” (John 19:30), that literally means “it is paid in full.” Jesus paid it all. The sin debt is blotted out by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus also deals with the defilement of sin. It is not enough to be pardoned from our sins, for there is still that defilement, that sentence of death in our body.  Jesus, by His sacrifice, not only pays our sin debt, but Jesus also deals with our sin defilement.  And then, by His resurrection, Jesus conquers death, and sin no longer has dominion over us, and we will have eternal life with Jesus in Heaven.

Click on the link below to hear a message on the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. If you will believe it, and receive it, then you will be saved. There is no other way that you can be saved apart from the gospel.  

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

Amen.

ISRAEL'S MISTAKE (Acts 13:26-29)

In today’s message we are going to talk about Israel’s mistake, which was the murder of the Son of God, the Promised Messiah. It was their crowning act of defiance and wickedness against God.  But they were not alone. The same attitudes of ignorance of the Scriptures, and willful disobedience are attitudes that we find in each of us.  They are the sinful attitudes that nailed Jesus to the cross. 

Self-righteous religion crucified Jesus.  Religion without true repentance and change of heart is a dangerous thing.  You have religion, but you don’t have righteousness.  You have Christian culture, but you don’t have Christ.  

Hypocrisy crucified Christ.  The real danger of hypocrisy is what it does to others around the hypocrite.  Some people will miss heaven because they have judged Christianity on the basis of what they see in a hypocrite. 

Cowardly compromise crucified Jesus. Fear is the number one reason many Christians do not take a stand for Jesus when they are out with their friends.  It is that fear of being separate, and different, that leads many into sin.  

Thoughtless conformity crucified Jesus. The biggest cult in America is the cult of conformity.  You can listen to the crowd and form your opinions from the polls of the day, or you can say, “I will follow Jesus, come what may.”

Hard-hearted cruelty crucified Jesus. We live in a world today where some people are absolutely coldhearted, especially when it comes to Jesus and His crucifixion.  A person does not have to kill someone to be hard-hearted.  They just have to reject the love of the Father.

Casual indifference crucified Jesus. It takes more than sentimentality or crocodile tears to change a life.  Some people come to church every Sunday, listen to the message, and maybe even make a few notes.  But it never changes their lives.  

Click on the link below to hear a message on the mistakes we have each made that led Jesus Christ to the cross.

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

Amen.

ISRAEL'S MISSION (Acts 13:14-25)

ISRAEL’S MISSION (Acts 13:14-25)

Today’s lesson is about Paul beginning his first missionary journey. It is when we know the will of God, and we are obedient to it, that there is no challenge too great, no danger too hard to face, the key is seeking and finding the will of God. The question becomes how do you decide when and where to move in the work of Lord? Certainly, for most believers, the most difficult part is separating the desire of our own heart from the desires of the Lord. Sometimes they coincide, and sometimes they don’t.

Seeking the Lord’s will is something each Christian should be doing on a daily basis. Finding the Lord’s will is the result of quiet, careful, meditation on the Word of God with a surrendered heart, and an open ear. So how do you know which way is right? Ask these questions:

1) Is your heart in a condition that can even hear the will of God? In other words, are you speaking from a surrendered heart that is fully obedient to God?  

2) Have you prayed and asked God to reveal the sin that is in your heart, and then confessed and repented of it? If there is unconfessed and unrepented sin in your life, that sin will keep you from hearing God’s will.

3) Have you searched God’s Word for the answer to your question of God’s will for your life? The answer to most of life’s questions can be found in the Scriptures that God has given us.  

4) Have you prayed about the question and then listened for God’s response, or have you simply told God the answer you want to hear?  

5) Is what you want meeting the purpose of Christ for this church being here, or for you still being on this earth? For example, Will it bring lost people to know Him?  

6) Are you willing to accept God’s answer, whatever it may be?  

Click on the link below to hear a message on how Finding the Lord’s will is the result of quiet, careful, meditation on the Word of God with a surrendered heart, and prayer with an open ear.

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

Amen.

THE HOLY SPIRIT KNOCKS (Acts 12:16 to 13:13)

Let me ask you a question, how long has the Holy Spirit of God stood outside the door of your heart, knocking, asking that you let Him in?  You can just imagine His thoughts while He waits on you to respond, “I know he is in there, I know he has needs, if he would just open the door I could answer all of his prayers, but he has to open the door first.”  The Holy Spirit will never overpower us, even though He easily could.  The Holy Spirit will patiently wait for our response.  

2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”

God’s desire is that you will accept His offer of forgiveness of your sins and eternal life.  He is patient as He waits for you to choose to open the door of your heart to allow the Holy Spirit of God to become the president of your life.  

Yet, God also tells us in His Word, that those who refuse to answer the knock of the Holy Spirit, those who reject the light that is Jesus Christ, will face an eternity in the fires of hell, separated from God, and all that is Holy.  The only unforgivable sin is rejecting Jesus Christ as your Savior.  

But, the Holy Spirit not only stands outside the heart of the lost person knocking, He also knocks within the hearts of believers.  The Holy Spirit is always present within the heart of the believer, and when He wants to fill another area of the life of the believer, or when He has some task for the believer to fulfill.  It is then that the Holy Spirit knocks and the believer must choose whether to respond or not. 

Let me ask, is the Holy Spirit knocking on your heart, either from the outside for the unbeliever, or from the inside of the heart of a believer?  If so, respond, open the door and let the blessings of a gracious God fill your life.  

Click on the link below to hear a message on how the Holy Spirit knocks on your heart.

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

Amen.