The Master‘s Class, LifeChange Church Wichita

HOW TRUE REVIVAL OCCURS (Genesis 34:1 to 35:11)

HOW TRUE REVIVAL OCCURS (Genesis 34:1 to 35:11)

Jacob’s story is a story that represents the story of many of us. It is a story of pride, of self-confidence, and of deceit.  Yet it is also one of God’s grace, God’s patience, God’s power to transform a life from one of a carnal nature to one of a godly spiritual nature, and ultimately one of God’s love for this man.  It is a story of God’s ability to see through all of the rough edges to find the diamond of the man of faith that Jacob was able to become.  

That is what God does with each of us, He sees past all of our faults to find the man and woman of faith that each of us can become if we will surrender our will to His. And that is what had to take place in the life of Jacob, he had to come to the place where God had broken his self-confidence in his own abilities, and, therefore, was ready to surrender to God.  This did not happen all at once, it happened over a lifetime.  For Jacob did not fully become that man of faith described in the Book of Hebrews until the very end of his life.  

Click on the play button below to hear a message on how God has challenged us to grow spiritually, and He has shown us that our pace should be lead by God, empowered by God, tested by God, and rewarded by God. 

God challenges us to disdain the veneer of religiousness, for the surrender of righteousness.  

God challenges us to make a choice, for we cannot live with one foot in the world and one foot in God’s will.  

God challenges us to seek the revival of the Spirit of God in our lives.  

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

Amen.

A CLEAN CONSCIENCE (Hebrews 9:7-10; 14)

A CLEAN CONSCIENCE (Hebrews 9:7-10; 14)

How does the Bible teach us to face the trials of life?  It says that you can face those trials if you have a good conscience, if you have a great hope, and a gracious companion in the Holy Spirit of God.  When the Bible talks about our conscience, it is really talking about our soul, and the worst pollution of all is the pollution of the soul. Now, all pollution is bad, but the worst pollution is not the kind we breathe, and it seems like we’re just being polluted to death.  But, may I tell you that the real ecology problem is that of Satan and of sin, and the real pollution problem is that of sin.

The word uncleanness stands for a state of mind, and a state of soul, and a state of spirit, that is not right with God, and it stands for sin. Sin makes us unclean.  In our study today, God will make the point that death and sin, or death and uncleanness, are inseparably linked together. Sin causes death, therefore, death is the visible sign of sin.

We often pray for the families of people who died, and sometimes we talk about people who die of sickness, and then we talk about other people who die a natural death. May I tell you that there is no such thing as a natural death, for all death is unnatural. It is not what God planned for us. All death is the result of sin.  Now, listen to me carefully, all death is the result of sin, but not necessarily your personal sin. But, had there been no sin, there would have been no death. There was no sin in the Garden of Eden, and as a result, there was no death in the Garden of Eden, until sin came.  Therefore, death is the visible sign, and the object lesson, of sin.  

Click on the link below to hear a message on what the Bible tells us about the causes of our soul becoming unclean.

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

Amen.

HOW TO WORSHIP GOD (1 Chronicles 16:29)

Most of the people who read my posts and listen to my audio messages have been Christians for a long period of time.  Some of you, like me, were saved as a child.  Others, were saved at some point later in life, and as we get older, we tend to get set in our ways.  

I say all of that to indicate that we have probably also gotten pretty comfortable in on our method of worshipping God.  We know what we like, and how we like to do it.  Some of us will be more ritualistic and formal than others, some with much less formality.  But we like what we like, and we resist change.  Now, I can hear some of you thinking, “Why bro. Keith this is the way we did it back in the church I grew up in, and that is what makes me happy, and you want me to be happy, don’t you?”  Well, I do and that is real good, because in today’s lesson, we are going to see what the Bible says about how to worship God, and who knows, maybe some of us seasoned citizens might learn a thing or two.  

The title of our lesson today is How to worship God.  Now, that is a pretty big subject, with lots of territory to cover, but we are going to make it short and sweet today, because the Bible is pretty straight forward when it comes to worshipping God.  It is us that makes it difficult, or complicated, not God.  

Do you want to have victory in your Christian life? Do you want to really be used of God? Then, learn to praise the Lord. Praise Him. Praise Him continually.  Praise Him creatively.  Praise Him celebratively, and Praise Him, confidently.  God is such a great God! Some people just don’t understand what real worship is.

Click on the link below to hear a message that tells us that Worship is all that I am responding to all that God is.

Amen.

LESSONS FROM FOOT WASHING-PART II (John 13:1-17)

This is the second part of a message on the lessons we can learn from the portion of Scripture where Jesus is in the Upper Room and He washes the feet of His disciples. One thing I want us to remember as we go through this message is that we shouldn’t focus on the physical act of Jesus washing the feet of His disciples, but on the spiritual messages that Jesus was illustrating by performing this act of service. Our Lord is teaching personal service to one another.

Eph 4:32
32 And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.
KJV

What our Lord was doing is saying, "Peter, I am going to forgive you your trespasses. I'm going to wash your feet." Well, if Jesus has forgiven me of my trespasses, then I need to forgive each of you of your trespasses. That's what it's all about. Jesus says, "If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, then you need to wash one another's feet." You need to forgive your brothers and sisters in Christ, and you need to build them up in the faith. There are people around you whose feet you need to wash, spiritually, because Jesus has washed our feet.

Gal 6:1-2
1 Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
2 Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.
KJV

How dare we go around refusing to forgive and restore and renew. Our Lord expects us to be in the foot washing business. There ought to be no animosity, no unforgiving spirit. "Be ye kind, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." "If I, your Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another's feet."

Click on the link below to hear four lessons that we can learn from foot washing:
• Salvation is essential.
• Security is eternal.
• Sanctification is extended.
• Service is expected.

Amen.

HOW DO YOU WORSHIP JESUS? (John 12:12-26)

As Christians, we have chosen to worship God on Sunday. It is to be a special day to us. The Bible says "one man esteems one day above another, another man esteems every day alike, but every man be fully persuaded in his own heart." So, we are instructed by God to seek out our own heart as to what days are important to us. The day we select as dedicated to worship is one that we are to be “fully persuaded in our own heart.” Of course, we are not limited to worshiping God on just one day, in fact, we should be worshiping God on every day of the week, but traditionally, we choose to gather together as a group to worship God on Sunday. We choose the first day of the week in honor of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. The Bible says that on the third day Christ arose, and that day is Sunday.

The problem is that there are a lot of pressures that come on us during the weekend. We all have so much to get done in just a couple of days that we call the weekend. I mean there are football games, yard work, family Bar-B-Q’s, and a host of other things that need to get done. But we have chosen to set aside one of those days, Sunday, to worship God.

In our message today, Jesus gives us two things that we need to do in our worship service to make it a right worship. Glorify Jesus and follow him. If Jesus is your Master, if Jesus is the reason that you go to church to worship, then I want you to beware of the following traps that will destroy that worship:
• A superficial Sunday of worship.
• A self-centered worship.
• A short-sighted worship.

Click on the link below to hear a message on what it takes to worship Jesus in the way that is pleasing to God.

Amen.

ARE YOU THIRSTY? PART II (John 37-39)

Is your life a fruitful life for Christ or is it a barren life? Galatians 5:22 speaks of the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. Is there a river flowing out of you that causes fruitfulness where there was once barrenness?

This world that we live is sick and barren desert that needs life. It needs the fruit of the Spirit. It needs healing. There is a dead sea out there, and Jesus said, "If you thirst, come to me, and drink, and you'll be satisfied." As believers we need to come to Jesus and drink from Him by faith, and then where there was death, there'll be life. Where there was barrenness there'll be fruit.

The truth is that there are members of our churches today who have never been saved. If you are one of these people, then you need to come to Jesus today, and stop enduring religion, and start enjoying salvation. Then there are others who have been saved, but they have only been drinking in such a shallow way. You come each Sunday morning with a shallow thirst and you go home with a shallow satisfaction. In other words, you are only ankle deep. You need to drink deep of our Lord, and let this river flow deeply out of you.

You need to stop coming to church only seeking a blessing, and you need to come to church seeking to bless others with the river of living water that is flowing out of you. Now, don’t misunderstand me, all of us, at one time or another, need to be the one receiving the blessing, but Jesus is telling us that if we will drink fully from Him, then we will have rivers of living water flowing from us to bless all of those around us. We will be a source of life in a sick, dead, world.

Click on the link below to learn how you can be a source of living water for those around you.

Amen.

THE FEAST OF THE TABERNACLES (John 7:25-44)

This is a message about the power of God, the obedience of our Lord to the will of His Father, and to the decisions that we must make about who Jesus is in our lives. No other decision that we make is as important as the one to accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior. To make Him our Master, and to accept the work of salvation that He has completed for us.

Click on the link below to hear a message about Jesus Christ forcing people to choose who He was, a good man, a prophet, or the Promised Messiah and the Son of God.

Amen.

A DEAD CHURCH (Revelation 3:1-6)

When I say that a church is dead, what does that mean to you?

Can a conservative church be dead? Can a liberal church be dead? Can a legalistic church be dead? How about a church with a large beautiful campus with services filled to capacity multiple times a week, can that church be dead?

A dead church is one that no longer exists to serve Christ. It serves tradition, or religious ritual, or the world, but not Christ. If your tradition, or ritual, is more important than what the Word of God says, then you are in a dead church. We have many dead churches in our world today. In fact, we have many more dead churches than we do live ones. Some of these churches started out as Holy Spirit led churches, but as time wore on, and tradition and ritual set in, the church let the fires go out, and they existed to serve their religion, not Christ.

Many, large, popular, churches, are dead churches. They may sing all the right songs. They may say all the right Scriptures. The preacher may have a compelling message, but Christ is not the focus of their worship. In fact, they won’t even mention Christ, or sin, or Hell, or the final judgment. They will talk about a far-off, distant God, who set the world in motion and then stood back to watch how things turned out. They may have their own prophet who gives a more enlightened word that they follow. A church that does not serve and worship Christ as their Lord and Master, is a dead church.

Clink on this link to hear a sermon on a church that the Lord Jesus calls a dead church.

A WORLDLY CHURCH (Revelation 2:12-17)

A worldly church is one that has compromised its doctrines to be acceptable in the world around it. A church that says they don’t want to preach a message on sin that might offend people. It is a feel-good church. A church that doesn’t teach about the importance of the soul cleansing power of the blood of Jesus Christ, because it is too graphic. A church whose message about Jesus is that He just wants to be your best friend, not your Savior, not your Master and Lord, but your best friend?

Today’s lesson is about a church that had compromised with the ideas and morals of the world around it. It is about a church, like many of our churches today, that no longer feels the great commission of winning souls for Christ is the most important mission they have, but it is one of entertaining the members, and getting along with everyone.

Click on the link below to hear a sermon on what the Lord Jesus thinks of a church that has turned away from the absolute truths about right and wrong found in the Bible, to the social ethics of the world.

OUR POSITION BEFORE GOD (1 Peter 2:8-9a)

If I were to ask you what your position in this world was, what would you say?  What is it that you are identified by?

Are you one of the social elite?  Not many of us would say yes to that, even if we were.  It would not be politically correct to be so crass.  If you are such a person, you just know it, and live it, you don’t have to brag about it, and people just identify you as such.  

Are you a victim of something?  That is the popular position to be in today, because if you are a victim of some type of injustice, then society owes you something.  You have the supposed right to take away something from your victimizer, and declare it as yours, whether you earned it or not.  If you can get the government to do it for you, even better.  You can usually be identified as a victim by the anger in your actions and your words, your intolerance of others, and the chip on your shoulder.  

Are you a proud member of the middle class?  Hard working, providing for your family.  You are a blue collar worker with a strong back and calloused hands to prove it.  You are identified by your work.

Are you a parent?  Which means you are a provider, a cook, a teacher, a caregiver, a protector, among a hundred other things.  This is what you are identified by, the family that you raise.   

Do you have a position in a religion?  Are you a priest, a preacher, a bishop, a cardinal, a deacon, a deaconess, a choir member, a Bible teacher, a back row Baptist, or a member of the amen pew?  Are you identified by the collar you wear, the cross around your neck, the ring on your finger, or the religious book that you carry around with you, be it the Bible, the Quran, the Book of Mormon, or the New Testament that you have in your pocket?  

What is your position in this world?  What are you identified by?  When someone introduces you, how do they describe you?

Our lesson today is about the position that we have before God, both the believer and the non-believer.  

Last week we discussed Christ as the Living Stone, the foundation stone of the church today.  Christ was rejected as not fitting in with the ideas of the Messiah that the Jews had, so He was killed, but God raised Him from the grave, and now He is our Royal High Priest serving in the Holy Tabernacle of Heaven.  He is the rock that our faith is built upon.  

As believers we are members of the family of God, joint-heirs with Christ, and royal priests, in the same manner of Christ.  That is our position before God.  But, what about the person who rejects Christ?  What is their position before the Living Stone that is Christ?

 

Listen to this podcast to learn your position before God.