The Master‘s Class, LifeChange Church Wichita

THE HOLY SPIRIT REVEALS (John 16:12-24)

Well, the world has certainly changed since the last time we met to study God’s Word. Instead of being in a building full of people, I am speaking to an empty room because of the coronavirus pandemic. From the looks of things, it may be this way for some time to come. As a result, I want you to know that I will continue our study of the Book of John with a new podcast posted each week. I also want you to know that God is in control. If you are worried, let God take that burden from you. If you are afraid, let God comfort you. If you are sick, let God work His will in your life. God is in control.

It shouldn’t, but it always amazes me when I see God’s timing play out in our lives. For example, prior to all of these events occurring related to the virus outbreak. Before we had even heard the word coronavirus. God has had me teaching about the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. He knew this time of trial was coming. We didn’t, but He did, and He wanted to remind us of how He will be here with us. He wanted to bring to our remembrance all that He has said about how He was indeed in control and that we can depend on Him. If there is nothing else that you walk away from this message with, it is that God is in control, and that He will give you the strength you need to get through this time of trial.

Isa 40:28-31
28 Hast thou not known? hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? there is no searching of his understanding.
29 He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength.
30 Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
31 But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
KJV

This virus did not take God by surprise. He is in control. If you will wait upon the Lord, if you will let Him have control of your life, then He will renew your strength.

In chapter 16 of the Gospel of John, we have been talking about three truths that the Lord Jesus Christ has sent the Holy Spirit to teach us. They are the truths about sin, righteousness, and judgment. In today’s message, Jesus is going to tell His disciples another truth that the Holy Spirit will reveal unto them.

It is A truth about the new age of Grace, and the church of true believers, the body of Christ. It is through this body of true believers, that the Holy Spirit will bring the gospel message of Jesus Christ to the world, and bring words of life and hope to those who need to hear them during the times of tragedy that we face.

Click on the link below to hear a message on the work of the Holy Spirit as He reveals the truths of our Lord Jesus.

Amen.

THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT-PART II (John 16:7-11)

Last week we began a message on three important truths about the Holy Spirit and the work that He does in our lives. These are truths that you will never learn in school. These are truths that you will never figure out intellectually. These are truths that you will never, never, ever know until you lay your intellectual pride in the dust and let God the Holy Spirit speak to you. In fact, the most important truths that will impact your life for all of eternity can only be known by the Holy Spirit speaking them to you. You won’t learn them in school. You won’t learn them in seminary, and you won’t learn them in the school of hard knocks.

These truths are about sin, righteousness, and judgement.

I love this passage of Scripture. The Holy Spirit of God is come to convict the world of man's basic problem. He has come to convict us of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Now in a court of law, first comes the crime. When the crime is proven, then the judgment. That's the order: the crime, the punishment. But with God, the order is different. There is, first of all, sin, then righteousness, and then judgment. God has put righteousness between sin and judgment. God has interposed the precious blood of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now if you don't believe on Jesus Christ, if you refuse, then there is no righteousness between sin and judgment. You just die and go to hell. I'm a sinner, by nature, by birth, by practice, but I believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, and, therefore, God has interposed His precious blood and His righteousness stands between me and judgment. I like that. Between me and hell there's a bloody cross that Jesus died on.

Listen, if you're not a believer, put your hand up there on your chest and you feel that little heartbeat. That's all there is between you and hell. That's all—just a heartbeat. But if you've given your heart to Jesus, if you've trusted the Lord Jesus Christ, if you've said, "My basic problem is I've not trusted Him, but I trust Him now." And then God says, "I'll give you a bountiful provision. I will give you righteousness, and for you there is therefore now no condemnation, and you're not belonging to that tribe that's following Satan. You're twice-born. You're heaven born and heaven bound.”

Click on the link below to hear a message on the work of the Holy Spirit in your life.

Amen.

THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT (John 16:7-11)

Like most people, I spent a good deal of my youth getting an education in school. I went through elementary, Junior High, Senior High, and even college, and I learned a good deal in those schools. Not that I remember much of it, but the one thing that has stuck is how to learn. How to learn about a particular subject. How to study, and how to organize my thoughts about that knowledge in a meaningful way.

Now, to be honest, I hated studying while I was in school, and by the time I was done with college, I swore that I would never do it again. If I had to pick up a book to learn about something, I decided I could live with being ignorant. Well, you see how that worked out. I now have a job that requires me to study the federal regulations on such interesting topics as boycott laws, trade sanctions, and import and export laws. I also spend a good share of my time at home studying to teach these lessons. In other words, never tell God that you don’t want to do something that He wants you to do, because He has a way of making sure you do.

One of the other things that I learned in school was that a school cannot teach you many things about how to live in this world, especially about what is right and wrong. This is particularly true when it comes to living a victorious Christian life. There are some things that you will never learn in school. There are things that you will never figure out intellectually. There are things that you will never, never, ever know until you lay your intellectual pride in the dust and let God the Holy Spirit speak to you. In fact, the most important truths that will impact your life for all of eternity can only be known by the Holy Spirit speaking them to you. You won’t learn them in school. You won’t learn them in seminary, and you won’t learn them in the school of hard knocks. Our messages over the next couple of weeks are going to be about three of these tremendous truths.

Now, truth is so very, very important. There are those who are afraid of the truth, afraid of what that truth will mean in their lives. There are those who are willing to accept half-truths, socially adapted truths that allow them to deceive themselves into believing they are religious, or just a good person. Then, there are those who arrogantly think they know all truth. My prayer for you today is that you will have the humility to ask the Holy Spirit to speak the truth to you.

Click on the link below to hear a message on man’s basic problem, the sin of unbelief. Not believing on Jesus Christ is the great sin. That is the mother sin, the father sin, the parent sin, the sin of sins. The greatest sin is not believing. Unbelief does not come out of the head; it comes out of the heart. It is a predisposition against Almighty God. It is not trusting the God who loves you. Refuse the Lord Jesus Christ, and you are condemned because you have not believed. You have refused Him. That is the greatest sin, and with it brings the greatest penalty.

Amen.

THE OPPOSITE OF LOVE IS HATE (John 15:21-16:26)

There are people who deliberately choose to hate anyone who loves the Lord Jesus Christ. They hate God’s people because we are different. We separate ourselves from the world. We are a people chosen out of the world. We stand for the absolute truths about right and wrong as expressed by God in His Word. We remind them of the sin in their lives that they do not want to give up. The world cannot tolerate such absolute standards of right and wrong, nor, can they tolerate a sovereign God that has the right to tell them what is right and wrong. The world hates God's people simply because they are His people. They hate God. Therefore, they hate His people.

They hate us because they do not know the one, true, almighty God. Unfortunately, the persecution of Christ and his church has come mainly from other religious people. It has been the same in almost all the ages of the Christian era. Just because people are religious, or sincere in their beliefs, or active in their faith, does not prove that they know God. Behind all Christ-rejecting religion is Satan, who masquerades as an angel of light, who is the father of lies, and a deceiver from the beginning.

They hate us because they know Satan as their master. They do not know the almighty God. They use different names for God, but they do not worship the same God that we do. They do not know God, and the persecution of God’s people comes from this ignorance.

Click on the link below to hear a message on how Jesus wanted to prepare us for the hardships to come. To teach us how we are to love others in a world of hate, and how we are to put aside our own feelings of fear, and to share the gospel message of Christ that can give eternal life to those who will accept it.

Amen.

TO LOVE IN A WORLD OF HATE (John 15:12-26)

Is Jesus Christ your personal friend? If not, you are missing out on the best of all friends. Jesus is my personal friend. I have all there is of Jesus just for me, and yet, you can have all there is of Jesus just for you as well. Only God can do that. Only deity can do that. He loves us all, but, He loves us each. He loves us individually. He cares for us. The God who runs this universe, in and through Jesus Christ, is your own personal friend. What a friend we have in Jesus!

There are a lot of people out there who have never met our friend Jesus, and He tells us, "You are my friends if you do what I command you, that you love one another as I have loved you." If we are to do this, then we need to say, "O God, help me to find someone that I can love and cultivate for Jesus. And help us to make our church a family of friends.'

When people come to a church that loves Jesus Christ, do you know what they should be impressed with? They should be impressed with the way the members love one another: the bigness of their love, and the warmth of their spirit. They should see any church that loves Jesus as a family of friends. We have the best Friend that a person could have, and we should share that Friend with them.

But there is another side of the world. There are people who deliberately choose to hate us just because we love the Lord. The opposite of love is hate. The Lord has been commanding His disciples to love one another. One reason why such love is imperative is because of the hatred of the world for the Lord and his own. He commands us to love one another, including those outside of the church, but He also wants to prepare us for the hatred that the world has for His followers.

Click on the link below to learn how to love as Jesus loves, in a world of hate.

Amen.

ARE YOU PART OF THE FAMILY Part I (John 15:12-17)

So, what kind of church do you belong to? A growing church, or a dying church? Here at Summit, we have a wonderful staff. Our pastors are some of the best pastors I have ever served under. We have good teachers, and dedicated volunteers. God has blessed those efforts, but is it possible for those blessings to become a negative for our church?

We come on Sunday, and Sunday by Sunday, our preachers, our teachers, our workers, and our musicians, they all present a wonderful program. Each Sunday we come and enjoy it and then go home and wait for the next service, and then we come and enjoy that and then we go home. The problem with a successful church, actually with any church, is that there are a few people working very hard, but a large part of the congregation does not share the load. They don’t become a part. They are in danger of becoming a congregation of spectators. They see the blessings, but they fail to remember the real purpose of a church, which is to be a hospital for souls. They forget that there are so many people in our church, and in our community, who need Jesus. There are so many who are hurting, so many who do not enjoy the blessings, the friendship, the warmth, and the love, that we enjoy. We need to ask ourselves, "How can we change this in our church, and how can we reach out to this community?" What is the message that we want to share?

One of the most important things that a person needs is a feeling of belonging. Well, belonging to what? Belonging to a family of friends who cares for them. Are we a family of friends? If we are to reach out to others and invite them into our family, then we must first be a family of friends.

A church that loves Jesus Christ is to be a family. You say, "Well, Bro. Keith, I live alone." That's all the more reason you need a church family because we are your extended family. And whether you have a great big family sitting around your dinner table or whether you live by yourself in an apartment, or in a room somewhere, your church is to be family. But it is more than family. It's friendship. And the two longings that people have in our world today are, for family, or a sense of belonging, and for friendship, or a sense of caring.

Each week you are given an opportunity to invite people who need Jesus to come and be a part of the family. But how many of you invite those people? Many of you have done that. We have been blessed by those that have come. But the fact that you invited them will only get people in the doors of the church. What they find inside the church is what matters. Do they find a family of friends who will welcome them into their family?

Jesus tells us, “This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.” It is not optional, we have a duty, an obligation, a privilege to love others as Jesus loves us.

Click on the link below to hear a message on what it takes to be a friend and to have a friend. To be a family of friends.

Amen.

A LIFE FULL OF JOY (John 15:11)

Many people would define the word joy as happiness. So, what's the difference between joy and happiness? Someone once said, “Happiness may give smiles, put laughter on our face, but happiness is just what the word describes. Happiness depends on what happens. Therefore, you call it happiness. If your hap is good, then you're happy. If your hap is bad, then you're unhappy. It all depends upon happenstance and whatever happens.” But joy depends upon the Lord. It is supernatural. It is not natural. And, therefore, because that joy is supernatural, that joy is steadfast. It is not happiness.

For a believer, joy is more than an emotion. It is a strength. It is the power of our Lord Jesus Christ flowing through us. It is a continuous, contagious, and conspicuous, source of strength for the believer to deal with the tribulations and persecutions of this world. When Christ’s joy emanates from you, people see it, and they want what you have. It is what draws people to you to learn about the Lord Jesus Christ.

Christ’s Joy is a joy that should be a part of every Christian’s life. It is not an automatic gift when you become a Christian, but it is a necessity to anyone wishing to live a victorious Christian life. The problem is that many Christians look for that joy in all the wrong places. They look for it the circumstances they are in. They look for it in their job, their hobbies, the people that they know, such as family members and friends. But those are all the wrong places to find Christ’s joy.

Click on the link below to hear a message on where to find real joy. It is when we abide in Christ that we find the unending love of Christ. It is also where we find true joy, in Christ.

Amen.

FINDING JOY IN THE VINE (John 15:5-11)

True joy is something that every Christian needs in their lives. It is the lubricant of your life. The joy of the Lord is indispensable in serving the Lord. The Bible says, "The joy of the Lord is what?" Your strength! The Bible says, “Serve the Lord with gladness..." The joy of the Lord will take the weariness, and the burden, and the labor, out of serving the Lord. But there are many Christians who do not have this joy. They want it, but they do not have it. Why is that? Why can’t they find this joy?

Have you ever lost something, and you looked, and looked, for it but you couldn’t find it? You looked in almost every place that it could be, but you didn’t find it, and then you found it. Now, why didn’t you find it when you looked in all of those other places? Because it wasn’t there. You were looking in the wrong places for it. Why can’t some people find this true joy that is so important to their lives? Because they are looking for it in the wrong places. They're trying to find it. They are looking, and looking, and looking, but they will not find it because it is not in the places that they are looking. They will never find it until they look into the place where true joy is. You have to look in the right place.

Click on the link below to hear a message on the true source of joy. It is a supernatural source. It is Jesus Christ. If you want to have true joy in your life, stop looking in all the wrong places and come to the source. Come to Jesus.

Amen.

I AM THE VINE (John 14:29 to 15:5)

John 15:1
1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
KJV

The Christian life is similar to the vine that grows in a vineyard. Its branches run everywhere. Its leaves are beautiful, its fruit colorful and abundant. Even the tiniest branch is vitally connected with the parent stem. One branch does not try to dominate or direct another branch. Each branch runs back to the source. The branches are independent, yet dependent. Each adds its contribution to the splendor of the whole. Each is busy producing its own foliage, flowers, and fruit.

Such is the Christian life, whether expressed individually in the life of each believer, or corporately as local churches, branches, reaching out with the life of Christ to the lost of the world.  Without Jesus, we can do nothing. There is no such thing as a freelance Christian. To be a Christian in the biblical sense of the word involves an organic, spiritual, relationship with Christ. In the Bible there is no such thing as a denominational church being ruled from some headquarters, or an independent church ignoring all other gatherings of believers.

All are united to Christ and through him to one another. Christ is the head of the church. Christ is the vine. Severed from him there is no life at all, individual or corporate. Denominational-ism, tradition, programs, or money might keep a dead church going through the motions for a time. But all it produces is worldliness, carnality, legalism, death.

Click on the link below to hear a message on how the abiding life is to become the abounding life, a life that brings glory to the Father by being a reflection of the life of Christ. Jesus is the true vine and we abide in Him, and He abides in us.

Amen.

DON'T MISTREAT YOUR BEST FRIEND (John 14:15-18)

The Holy Spirit bears the name of Jesus. That is, Jesus says, "He comes in My name." He has all the power of Jesus that is released through us, and He makes Jesus real to us. But the problem is that we fail to think of him as a dear friend. If that is true of you, then that is something that needs to change in order for you to live a victorious Christian life. It is vitally important to your relationship with God that you understand that the Holy Spirit is the One, the Person, who makes Jesus Christ real and alive in your heart. You need to know the Holy Spirit of God, personally, and you must not mistreat Him.

Today’s message is about three ways that you dare not mistreat your best friend, the Holy Spirit of God. Each of these are things that I just pray to God that you will not do. Each of them comes from the Word of God.

The first one, is not to let Him in your life at all. First and foremost, you must not resist the Holy Spirit when He tells you that you need to make Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior. The Holy Spirit of God wants to speak to you. How does He speak? He speaks through song, He speaks through Scripture, He speaks through sermons, He speaks through servants, He speaks through situations, He speaks through sorrows, He speaks, and He speaks, and He speaks.

The second way we mistreat our best friend is to grieve His indwelling. If you have invited the Holy Spirit of God in, and if He has come to live in your heart, then don’t mistreat Him by grieving Him. How do you grieve the Holy Spirit, by your unholy character, your unholy conduct, and your unholy conversation.

The third thing is that you will not quench His outgoing. The Holy Spirit is in me. He lives in me. Why does He live in me? He lives in me to minister through me. He wants to bless you through me. He wants to start a fire burning in me that'll reach out and bless you. He wants there to be a stream of living water flowing out of me that will slake your thirst. And, He wants you to be a blessing to me. And, He wants us to be a blessing to one another and to this lost world.

Click on the link below to hear a message on the reason that many of us are floundering around, saying, "I don't know what I'm supposed to do." The reason is that you are grieving the Holy Spirit and quenching the Holy Spirit. When you stop grieving Him, and stop quenching Him, then you are going to be amazed how much power and guidance there is in your life. When you stop grieving Him, and stop quenching Him, He will speak to you, if you will listen.

Don’t mistreat your best friend, the Holy Spirit.

Amen.