The Master‘s Class, LifeChange Church Wichita

WHERE IS GOD? DOESN'T HE CARE? (Revelation 9:12-14)

With events like the terrible tragedy that occurred in Las Vegas last week, it would seem that everything not nailed down is coming loose, and that Satan is busy at work prying loose everything else. Every day it seems that evil is growing and dominating the world. It would be easy to understand if there are people who are asking Where is God? Doesn’t He know? If He knows, doesn’t He care? If He knows and cares, can’t He do anything about it?

Click on the link below to learn that God does know, God does care, and God does have a plan. If you want to know where God is, He is right on time. With God, timing is more important than time. If you want to know if God knows and hears your prayers, the answer is yes, they are before Him as incense. If you to know if God cares, yes He does, He cares so much that He sent His only begotten Son to die on the cross so you do not have to. If you want to why God is not doing anything, God says, just wait, my plan will occur just as I said it will, because I am sovereign, and nothing, and no one, can stop or deter my plan. Amen.

THE YEARNINGS AND THE HOPES OF THE BELIEVER (Romans 8:23-27)

Think about the things that you yearn for.  These are the things that start as a desire deep in your soul and well up into your heart and mind.  These are not our simple wants, but the things that are so passionately desired by our soul that we groan for them.  Now think about how you could ever go about obtaining these things.  Are they even within your power to obtain?

Next, think about the things that you hope for.  Are they the same things that you yearn for?  To hope for something is to look forward to something that you have not seen or realized yet.  Do you hope for a body that is free from disease and pain?  Do you hope for an end to loneliness?  Now think about how you could go about obtaining these things that you hope for.  Are they even within your power to obtain them?

Our lesson today is about the yearnings and the hopes of the believer.  What are the things that a believer wants so badly that they well up from the bottom of their soul?  And what are the hopes of a Christian?  Are they different from a person who has rejected Christ as their Savior?  And best of all, what is the solution for how a believer goes about obtaining these things.  

THE SOURCE OF WORLDLINESS (James 4:1-3)

When we think about the term worldliness we think of the envy and strife that exists in our secular lives.  Political parties split, and one group becomes pitted against another.  As management and labor meet around the conference table, there is a battle going on.  In the corporate world there are climbers on the corporate ladder who are stepping on the hands of others as they go up.  In our neighborhoods, one family does not speak to another family.  Within families there are quarrels, brother against brother.

When a church allows worldliness to enter its doors, the characteristics of the world become evident in the church.  The envy and strife that exists in the world are displayed within the church.  The symptoms of a worldly church are divisions, conflict, power struggles, and open warfare among its members.  

Worldliness can be exhibited from both the pulpit and the pew.  It can pray with self-righteous eloquence.  It can find triumph in the middle of a deacon’s meeting.  It can take over a trustee’s meeting.  It can split churches over the color of the carpet, or a building program.  It will begin in a fight over who to ordain to its ministry, who can become a church member, or who can be baptized.  All are topics that can destroy the fellowship and evangelistic efforts of the church.

Listen to this podcast to learn that symptoms of worldliness are evidence of a problem that lies much deeper.  It lies within the heart of the church member.  

What is the answer to worldliness?  Prayer.  Personal prayer, properly performed, can reveal the worldliness in our hearts and can cleanse it.  James teaches us the secret of obtaining an answered prayer from the almighty, living, God who tells us that we have not because we ask not.