The Master‘s Class, LifeChange Church Wichita

RULES FOR MEMBERS OF GOD'S CHURCH (1 Peter 5:5-9)

This week we are going to talk about how to be an effective church member.  So, as I was preparing this lesson, I got to thinking about the role of a church member.  And to be honest, compared to the pastor, church members have it pretty easy.  All they have to do is show up on Sunday for worship services, and maybe again on Wednesday night just to add a little extra learning.  

I mean, it is the pastor and the church staff who are supposed to do all of the work of the church.  If there are people to witness to or souls to save, call the pastor.  If there are letters to send out, call the church secretary.  If there are people to visit either as prospects, or at the hospital, or home bound, that is what the associate pastor is supposed to do.  If there are teenagers or children to be mentored and taught, that is what the youth minister and children’s director are for.

Now, members may need to bring some food, every once in a while, for a fellowship or a funeral, but all of the rest of the stuff like cleaning the church, replacing light bulbs that have gone out, or repairs around the church, that is what we pay the staff for.  My job as a member is to sit in that chair or pew on Sunday morning, stay awake during the sermon, say amen when the preacher says something good, and then go on my merry way letting the staff take care of everything else.  Right?  

If I tore up the bulletin into little pieces during the sermon to keep my mind occupied, it is my job to leave it on the floor of the sanctuary for the janitor to pick it up.  If something is not right with the building, it is my job to find the maintenance guy and let him know about it.  If we are not singing the right kind of music to suit my taste, it is my job to let the music director know.  If the sermons are too long, and the pastor is causing me to be late for the buffet line at the local restaurant for lunch, it is my job to tell the pastor about that, right?  He needs to know the problems he is causing.

Now, I hope everyone knows that I am being sarcastic here, and most people would say that this is not really true.  It is not the job of the shepherd to make more sheep, it is the sheep who make more sheep.  Right?  I also know that there are a lot of pastors out there saying, hey, he’s not being sarcastic at all, that is just what my members think and do.

So maybe we start looking at actions rather than words.  Think about it.  When was the last time you made a new sheep in God’s flock?  When was the last time you saw something that needed to be done for the church, and you just took care of it?  A visitor needed to be shown around the church, and you just did it.  A fellow brother or sister in Christ was at the hospital and his family needed a meal, or to be prayed over, and you just did it.  A paper towel dispenser in the bathroom was empty, and you refilled it.  You didn’t tell somebody about it, so they could fix it, you just did it.  

We live in a secular world where people get paid to take care of all of our needs.  The buildings we work in have maintenance personnel.  The streets we drive on have repair crews and cleaners.  The restaurants we eat at have servers.  So we have this expectation that a church works in the same way as the secular world, but does it?

Are the offerings we give to the church best used to maintain the building and pay the salaries of the staff, or touch souls for Christ?  Now, make no mistake about it, I am speaking to myself as much as anyone else.  I have often called the maintenance guy to take care of a problem, and in some cases, he probably would prefer we let him know about it, rather than doing a poor job of it ourselves, making the job harder for him.  But the core of my question is what should our attitude be about our service for God?  Should we expect others to be the servants of God, or are we, the members, the servants of God?  

Listen to this podcast to learn how to be an effective church member.  How we are to wear the garment of humility, how we are to deal with all of our problems and worries, and most of all, how we are to stand and resist our true adversary, Satan.  

TO BE OBEDIENT TO GOD (Romans 16:19-21)

The word obedience is a great Biblical word in the life of the believer.  It is at the very heart of our service, our salvation, and our sanctification.  Many an invitation call has been made with these words. 

Trust and obey,

For there is no other way

To be happy in Jesus, 

But to trust and obey.

In our lesson today, we learn that to be obedient to the Word of God we must be skillful and intelligent in the truths and ways of God. 

Matthew 10:16

16 Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

KJV

We are to be wise in the Word of God so that we can determine that which is really good, from that which is counterfeit; wise so that we can distinguish things that are untrue, in order to improve our opportunities to serve.  All the while knowing that we remain surrounded by those who would deceive us, and therefore take us away from God’s work.

Proverbs 14:8

8 The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way: but the folly of fools is deceit.

KJV

We talked last week about how the believer is to recognize the truth among a sea of counterfeit.  You learn to tell the difference by diligent study of the real thing.  To rightly divide the word of truth requires meticulous, constant, study, an open heart to the words of the Holy Spirit, and simplicity in our faith in Christ.

We are to be wise enough not to be deceived, and yet so simple that we will not be deceivers.  It is a Holy simplicity that Paul describes here.  To have a holy simplicity means that you are someone who does not contrive, or have evil intentions.  We are not to be sophisticated in the ways of evil, we are to be simply faithful in our knowledge of the Lord.  

An obedient believer is to recognize wisdom, recognize evil, and recognize that both can be found in the church.  To believe otherwise is to be naive and foolish.  To be obedient to God requires that we know the truth of what God says so that we will not be deceived by the lies of Satan.  

DEALING WITH FALSE TEACHERS (Romans 16:17-18)

How do you deal with those who deliberately, not accidentally, teach a doctrine that is different from what is found in the Bible?

When a Jehovah’s Witness comes to your door, what do you do?  Do you engage in a debate with them, or do you shut the door?

How do you identify what is true and what is false in the teachings of people who profess to be Bible believing Christians?  They may even be in the leadership of the church as the pastor, or a deacon, or a Bible teacher.  How do you know when they begin to teach something that is false?

Many of these people will use the same words that we use, but they use a different dictionary to define them.  They say they believe in Jesus as the Christ, but they mean a Christ who was not the Son of God.  They say they believe in the resurrection, but they mean a spiritual resurrection, not the physical, bodily resurrection that the Bible declares occurred.  

The subtlety of these teachings is that they use a paraphrased truth from the Bible and then mix it with a lie, for the very best lies are based on a fragment of truth.  Just enough truth to seduce you, but filled with the lies of a false religion.  

Our lesson today is on how to deal with false teachers in the church and on your doorstep.  Today, as Christians we have two weapons to combat Satan and his disciples which are sufficient for our victory in spiritual warfare: the Spirit of God and the Word of God.  Filled with the Spirit, we can unsheath the Word of God to answer every devilish challenge that Satan and his demons can make.  All the craft and subtlety that Satan can muster is useless if the believer can began every statement with the words “Thus saith the Lord”.  

If there comes among you a teacher who knowingly and willfully does not teach the truth about Jesus Christ as He is defined in the Bible, then Paul says that we are to mark them, to shun them, and to avoid them.  We are to correct them under the leading of the Holy Spirit, but if that fails, then they are to be removed from the body of believers just as you would a ravening wolf that was prowling among you.

THE WHEAT AND THE TARES (Matthew 13:24-43)

As a believer, you have been placed in this world as the ambassador of Jesus Christ. Your mission is to share the gospel of Christ.  Satan hates everything that God does, so he has placed his own agents in the world right alongside the ambassadors of Jesus Christ. Their mission is to dilute the message of the gospel of Christ. They are to deceive those who hear the message of Christ with their own version of it. They are to destroy the message of the gospel of Christ. The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares is a story from Jesus that describes the world that we live in today. How God's messengers are hard at work, and what Satan is trying to do to stop it. Listen to this podcast to discover how believers are to respond to the work of Satan's agents and what will happen at the time of the harvest.

THE ONE WITH ABSOLUTE POWER (Mark 5:1-20)

What kind of world do you think we live in?

Is it one of promise, and goodness, where evil is a rarity?The world is full of promise, but one look at the daily headlines tells us that evil is not a rarity. It happens every day. There is a constant struggle between darkness and light.

Knowing that evil exists, each of us tries to create a bubble of security around us. We try to shield our families from the darkness. Yet evil intrudes when a man walks into a school and shoots innocent children.

Listen to this podcast to learn the source of that evil, and find the only ONE with the absolute power to defeat it.

DIRTY BIRDS AND DIRTY BREAD (Mark 4:24 to 31)

As believers, it is easy for us to look at the world around us and see that it is growing farther and farther from God. The world’s religious system has taken the inerrant and infallible Word of God and homogenized it, water its truths down, and added the philosophies of man to it, so that it will be more socially adjusted and accepted by the world.

Listen to this podcast to learn how Satan has used his dirty birds as agents to create the dirty bread to pull people away from the true gospel message of Christ.

DID SATAN HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO OFFER A KINDGOM? (Mark 1:14-15)

Did Satan have the authority to offer Jesus the kingdoms and the glory of the world during the temptation of Jesus?  If yes, does he still have that authority?    As a believer, what can you do to combat such a powerful foe?  What was the purpose of Jesus, the Son of God, coming to this earth in the form of a man?   Listen to this podcast to find the answers to these critically important questions for the believer.

JESUS IS ANOINTED AND TESTED (Mark 1:9-13)

Why would Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, need to be baptized?  Did He need to repent of anything?  Did He need to turn from religion to faith?  For that matter, why would Jesus Christ, the Creator of all things, need to be tempted by one His own creations, Satan?  Did Jesus, the last Adam, fall in this temptation, just as the first Adam did in the Garden of Eden?  These are compelling questions with significant answers to all those who call Jesus, Lord and Master.  Listen to this podcast and learn what the Word of God says about these questions that are the foundation of our faith in Jesus Christ.

RECOGNIZING THE WORK OF SATAN (2 Cor. 11:8-20)

Most people would not willingly choose to trust in Satan.  The Bible describes him as the father of all lies.  To be deceived by Satan is put your eternal destiny at stake.  To be deceived by Satan means that you will spend an eternity in hell away from God, instead of an eternity in heaven with Christ.  Yet, how can you discern the work of Satan from that of God?  Can you recognize the work of Satan by the outward appearances?  To have beauty on outside is often equated with truth and honesty on the inside.   To have great physical strength is perceived as being the protector of the innocent.  To be eloquent of speech appeals to the ear and projects the image of intelligence, education, and sophistication.  Those who are confident in their speech, draw those that lack the confidence of their convictions.  Recognizing the false from the truth is not easy.  Satan has been perfecting his deceptive lies for the entire history of mankind, from the Creation of man, to this day.  He knows what works, and what draws man to him.   He knows that man is an inherently religious being, so he creates attractive religions.  He knows that man finds certainty in boundaries, rules, and the predictability of ritual.  So that is what he gives them.  Yet, when man follows these religions he finds himself in bondage, bankrupt financially and spiritually, and beaten by those that would enslave them.   Listen to this podcast and find out how to discern between the work of Satan and God.

THE TRUE GOSPEL (2 Cor. 11:1-7)

How do you decide what is true and what is false?  When it comes to salvation, how do you know the true gospel from a false gospel?  When Satan tempted Eve in the Garden of Eden he was described as being subtle, or crafty.  There are many teachers who proclaim to be from God.  They cry out that they provide a gospel message of salvation.  Yet these false teachers have taken the Word of God and subtly changed it to meet their own form of religion.   They apply rules to a free gift of God.  They apply religious ritual to God's gift of grace.  They apply legalism to the gospel message of Christ that frees man from the burden of the law.   Eve faced the temptation from Satan with two weapons, the Word of God, and the Spirit of God.  Satan attacked those weapons by creating doubt about the authority of the Word of God, then he denied the accuracy of the Word of God, then he created delusion about the acceptability of the Word of God.  Satan uses these same tactics today.  Listen to this podcast and find out how to determine the true gospel message of God.  Learn how Satan is currently working in our world and how to combat him.