The Master‘s Class, LifeChange Church Wichita

TO HAVE ITCHING EARS (2 Peter 2:2-5)

Why do people listen to false teachers? What is the appeal that they bring?

Certainly, nobody likes to hear that they are living a life that is displeasing to God. Most people’s first reaction to that message is that they live good lives, they help other people, they don’t do any bad things like steal, or lie, or hurt others. So, how could that be displeasing to God? People would rather hear that man is inherently good, that the meter which determines right from wrong, and good from bad, is an evolutionary thing, that it changes as society’s morals change. That which was wrong in our parent’s day is no longer wrong today, and they want to hear someone tell them that is a good thing. That those who preach and teach otherwise are homophobic, racist, and hateful.

People who want to have followers, lots of followers, know that this is true, and so they deliberately say the words people’s itching ears want to hear. We see this in the pulpits of our churches, and in politics, on every side. We see it in our colleges. We see it on our media, TV, movies, and social networks. If you want to get a bunch of likes in social media, say the politically correct things, say the things their itching ears want to hear.

However, the gospel message of Christ is not a negative message, it is a joyous message. It is not a message about do’s and don’ts, it is a message about life, eternal life. It is a message about the unconquerable love of God for His creation, man, even when man totally rejects Him. It is a message about the sacrifice that Jesus Christ gave for the ruined human race. How He chose to die for the sins of the world so that man might find eternal life. How salvation from an eternity in Hell is a free gift of God, by the grace of God alone, through faith in Christ alone, and by Christ alone.

Yet, this is not the message that tickles the ears of those that want to hear the popular message, the feel good message, and the socially correct message. People want to hear that their destiny is within their ability to earn, by what they do, and by how much they give. The false teacher, or the predator teacher, knows this and gives that person tasks to perform, and places to send their money. They can then look at their fellow members and say, See what I have done, see what I have given. They feel good about themselves, right up to the point they stand before God on Judgment day.

We said last week that it is wrong to tell a lie, it worse to teach a lie, but it is monstrous to teach a lie about God. These false teachers know that the words they share are a lie about God. They know that their lies are drawing people away from the true gospel of Christ, and they know that people will spend an eternity in Hell because of their lies. They know this, and they count the money they have earned by these lies all the way to the bank. That is their motive. They covet wealth, power, and an immoral lifestyle.

Listen to this podcast to learn about how these false teachers, who are ever present, are deceiving many, and God’s assurance that He will judge them for their lies.

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.  

OUR RESPONSE TO GOD'S GRACE (1 Peter 2:9b-10)

Today is Mother’s Day.  It is a special day for everyone, because no matter who you are, you had a Mother.  You may not know who your Mother was.  You may not have had a very good Mother, but if you are like most people, your Mother is very special to you.  Your Mom was there when you fell.  She was there when you cried out in fear of the darkness.  She was there when you hit a home run, or when you struck out for the third time that day, and she was there when you walked across the stage as a graduate.  She loved you no matter what.  She loved you when you didn’t call her, when you didn’t come by to see her, and even when you forgot her on Mother’s Day.  She just loved you.  How do you respond to that kind of love, to that kind of grace?

Do you tell other people how great she was?  Do you tell your children what a great mom you had?  Do you do your best to make her proud of you, of what you have become?  Not everyone’s Mom is still with us.  In fact, in a class with people of our age, some of our mom’s passed away some time ago.  I firmly believe that my Mother is looking down from heaven on me and my sister and brother, and she is checking up on us to make sure we are doing what she taught us to do.  My guess is that she has a conversation with Jesus every once in a while telling Him what she thinks of us.  

How do you respond to that kind of love and grace?

Our lesson today is about several things, we are going to finish up our discussion on our position before God, about the mercy and grace that God has shown us, but we are also going to talk about how we are to respond to our God who has loved us so much, and has shared His grace upon us.

How do you respond to that kind of love and grace?  Pretty amazing isn’t it?  Listen to this podcast to learn how to respond to God’s grace.  

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 GREATEST POWER OF ALL (Romans 8:1-4)

When you look at the world around us, what would you say is the greatest untapped source of power in the entire world?

Is it nuclear?  Is it hydrogen with all of the water on the earth? 

For the vast majority of believers and non-believers alike, the Holy Spirit of God is without question the greatest untapped source of power in the world. 

For the non-believer, or the lost person, the Holy Spirit is outside of their ability to tap for power.  The one role of the Holy Spirit with the lost person is to convict them of their need for a Savior.  The lost person cannot turn to the Holy Spirit for power.  You must be a born again child of God to have this power.

For the believer, the Holy Spirit is indwelling in their heart, waiting on the believer to turn to Him for power.  The sad fact is that most Christians do not know how to, or simply choose not to, tap into the power of the Holy Spirit to live a victorious Christian life.  We find that joy and peace are to be given to the child of God in this life.  We are to live for God in the very presence of sin.  Sin is not to dictate our life’s program.  

Paul has already shown us that there is nothing in the justified sinner that can produce this ideal state.  We have seen that even though we have a new nature, that new nature has no power of its own to do the things of God, and our old nature has no good in it at all.  We simply cannot live for God under our own efforts.  

The obvious question is then how is a child of God to live for God? 

Paul cried out for someone’s help, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24).  In other words, who is going to enable me to live for God?

Paul concluded chapter 7 by saying, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” 

Now chapter 8 will give us the modus operandi; that is, the means by which the victory for the Christian is secured.  Listen to this podcast as we begin a series of lessons on the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.

THE ROLE OF GOD'S LAW IN OUR LIVES (Romans 7:1-9)

What is the role of God’s Law in our lives?

Is it to establish the absolute truth about what the Creator of all things, including man, declares as right and wrong?

Is it to define the punishment for violating God’s Law?

Is it to define sin in the eyes of God so that man can know that he has missed the mark of the holiness and glory of God?

Is it a tool to reveal the sin in your life?

The answer is yes to all of these, but the most important role of God’s Law in our lives is to bring us to an awareness of our need for a Savior.  That Savior is Jesus Christ.  The Law says that all men have sinned and come short of the glory of God and the penalty for that sin is death and eternal separation from God.  The Law says that we are hopelessly lost and doomed forever.  Yet God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. 

The role of God’s Law in the life of a non-believer is to bring them to Jesus Christ for salvation from the condemnation of the Law.

Listen to this podcast to find out that the role of God’s Law in the life of a believer is to demonstrate the wonderful love of God for a sinful man.  As a believer you no longer need to fear the power of the Law.  As a believer you no longer need to be dismayed by your inability to meet the perfect standards of the Law.  When Jesus Christ died on the cross He broke the power of the Law over the believer.  He paid your penalty.  He satisfied all of the demands of the Law so that you are now free from the Law.  He died and rose again so that you might have eternal life.

HOW CAN YOU DEFEAT SIN? (Romans 6:1-5)

As a believer, would you say that you are in a constant battle with sin in your life?  

Every Christian should answer yes to this question, for Satan has never given up on destroying you, especially once you became a Christian.  But the wonderful good news that God has for us is that each believer has the power of the Holy Spirit of God to defeat sin in their life.  They can be victorious against sin.  

The process of sanctification is the ability of God to make sinners, whom He has declared righteous, actually righteous.  Paul will tell us that the justified sinner cannot continue in sin because he died and rose again in Christ.  This does not mean the believer will not sin, but it does mean that they will not continue live in sin.

To continue in sin leads to slavery.  Believers have been freed from the slavery of sin.  There is no reason for them to go back to it.  The believer has a new nature now, and he is to obey God.  

Union with Christ in His death and resurrection means that He is now our Lord and our Master.  He gives us freedom, but that freedom is not a license to live in sin.

Today, we are going to begin a series of lessons that talk about the power that we have, as Christians, to be freed from slavery.  The slavery that a lost person has to Satan and sin.  We are going to see how the power of God frees a believer from the dominance of sin in their lives and empowers them to live a victorious Christian life.

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.

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.