The Master‘s Class, LifeChange Church Wichita

ARE YOU PREPARED? (Proverbs 1:10-19)

Are you prepared?  Well, prepared for what?  In these days of unrest there is a whole group of people who are called “preppers.”  They have go-bags that are at the ready to grab in the event of an emergency, be it a hurricane, a riot, or some other cataclysmic event.  Those bags contain food, camping equipment, and tools for survival without all of the support that we have in our society, like electricity, grocery stores, hospitals, gas stations, and even the internet.  They are prepared to face a crisis event.

So, how you respond to the question of Are You Prepared depends on what you need to be prepared for?  Is it a crisis event, or is it just to go to work today, or to school to take that exam?  

Our message today is going to ask the Christian believer Are You Prepared to go out into the secular world?  This message is for every believer, young or old, rich or poor, educated or not.  For you to live a victorious Christian life you have to be prepared to face a world full of temptation and sin.  This is especially true of our children as they get to the age where they will enter the world.  But even though this message seems to be directed at our children, the principles that Solomon describes are just as applicable to adults.

One of the primary responsibilities of a Christian parent is to prepare their children to go out into the world and live a life that honors and glorifies God.  Now, every parent wants their child to go out and succeed, but a secular parent and a Christian parent should have different definitions for the word succeed.  The world looks at success in terms of wealth, power, happiness, and a family.  

A Christian looks at success as finding fulfillment in always being obedient to the will of God for their lives.  Now, wealth, power, happiness, and a family, may, or may not, come for the Christian, but if they do, they are simply due to the grace of God, not because of anything that we have done.  Our trust is in the love that God has for us, and the certain knowledge that He will provide everything we need, and much more than we deserve.  

If your trust is in something other than God to provide for your needs, like your own hard work, then you are not prepared to do God’s will for your life.  This is true because it impacts your priorities.  If your priority is to provide for your needs, then those needs will always come before your work for God. 

Other than making sure your children know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, teaching them this concept of duty and service to God is the single most important principle that we can give them.  It is to be more important than teaching them how to read, to write, to dress themselves, and to be polite.  All those things are important, but without God, and without a desire to serve God, they will be easy prey for the world.  

Click on the link below to hear a message that asks the question Are You Prepared to go out into the secular world?  

Amen.

LET GOD'S DREAM BE YOUR DREAM (1 Chronicles 17:3-4)

I am going to tell you a little secret about me.  When I dream, I am always the hero.  I am the one who saves the damsel in distress.  I am the one who charges into the fire and carries out the little baby, and I am the one who captures the bad guy and puts him into jail.  In my dreams, it’s me who is the one doing everything wonderful.  In my dreams, I am the hero.  Yeah, I know, I have watched way too many John Wayne movies.  

However, in reality, if something bad happened, I know that I could barely save myself.  I would put up a good fight, especially if you threatened my family, and that includes my dogs.  But, I have learned from experience what my limitations are.  No, I know that in real life, when real danger comes, that it is the real heroes of our society that do the saving.  It is the fireman who climbs that ladder to save the damsel while the building is burning all around him.  It is the policeman who puts his life on the line to catch the bad guy and put them into jail, and it is the soldier who stands on the line between tyranny and freedom.  These are the real heroes.  

Now, truth be told, I am really glad we have these heroes because I couldn’t do it.  Not anymore, and probably never could, but that is not what I tell myself in my dreams.  Hey, a man can still have his dreams, right? 

In today’s lesson, we are going to talk about dreams, and what happens in the dreams that God gives us, and who the hero is in God’s dreams.  You see, sometimes God will put a dream in our heart. Sometimes God will lay something on us and give us a vision. 

I firmly believe that God speaks, God leads, and God will plant things down deep in your heart.  But, I want to be clear that when I say the word dreams or vision in our lesson today that I don’t mean that you will see movies in your mind, but I do mean that God will lay things on your heart.  Things that He wants you to do.

I’m also not talking about human schemes, or carnal ambition. I’m talking about things that God lays on us that I believe from my heart of hearts are from Him.  I believe that God gives a dream to everyone, that is, if they’ll listen. God didn’t just put us here to waste time and idle away. God made us for something very wonderful, and the Bible says, 

Eph 2:10
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
KJV

The word workmanship means that we are His work of art, and God built us to work for Him.

Click on the link below to hear a message about a dream that God laid on David’s heart, and how God expounded and expanded that dream beyond anything that David could imagine.  

Amen.

THE PURPOSE OF PRAYER (John 17:1-23)

Today’s message is on prayer and it comes from chapter 17 of the Gospel of John. This is a prayer of the Lord Jesus. It is a deep and profound prayer. In times like this, a time when great numbers of people are dying from a disease, a time when great persecution of God’s people is taking place, a time when there is doubt and fear about what is happening in the world, prayer is the most important thing in a Christian’s life. It is prayer that prepares us for anything. It is prayer that allows us to be prepared to face any fear, any tragedy, any persecution. The best preparation for anything is to pray.

The purpose of prayer is that God will be glorified. Prayer prepares us to do what God would have us to do. Then, when we do what God would have us to do, God will be glorified.

If you wish to learn the purpose of prayer in a Christian’s life, then I can’t think of a better way to do it than to eavesdrop on the Son of God when He prays. Imagine that, we get to hear the words of the Son of God as He prays. What a privilege that is.

Click on the link below to hear a message on how prayer can take you through any tragedy, any trial, in order that you might finish the things that God has for you to do.

HOW DOES GOD'S WILL CHANGE THE BELIEVER? (Romans 12:2)

What is God’s will for our lives, and how does that change us?  Finding God’s will is accomplished by sacrificing our whole being to God as a living sacrifice.  This means that we surrender our life to God.  He is ours to command.  He is the Master and we are the slave.  We obey Him.  

Jesus commanded that we are to be salt and light to a dark world.  Salt is a preservative, an antibiotic, and a flavor enhancer.  It is applied externally and it draws attention to something different.  A believer is to be a preservative of the absolute truths about right and wrong that God has established.  We are to stand up when the world decides to call that which is wrong, right, and that which is right, wrong.

The believer is also to be a light unto the world.  One of the great facts about light is that darkness is simply the absence of light.  No matter how deep the darkness, the simple candle will chase that darkness away.  No amount of darkness can overpower the light of that candle.  When there is light, darkness goes away.  Light for the believer comes from within.  Salt is external, and light is internal.  Light emanates from the core of the believer.  We are to be a light to a dark world.  We are to show the world that there is an escape from the deep darkness of the world.

In order to be salt and light, the believer must be changed from what they were before.  If we look and act like everyone else, then we are neither salt nor light.  Yet, this change in who we are does not happen all at once for most of us.  Most believers will spend a lifetime having their body, soul, and spirit conformed to the image of Christ.  But the world needs to see this difference.  It needs to see the light of God’s Word shining through us.

In order to accomplish this us we must consecrate our body so that the Holy Spirit, who has made it His temple, might have free access to all its members, and free control over all its activities.  The believer who presents his body in this manner is changed.

Romans 12:2

2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

KJV

Listen to this podcast to learn how a believer is not to be conformed to this world, but is to be changed morally and mentally to show the world that the will of God is truly good, acceptable, and perfect for each of us.

WHO ARE YOU CONTROLLED BY? (Romans 12:1)

If you were to ask the general population of this country, Who are you controlled by?  Many, if not most, would declare that nobody controls me, I control myself, for this is the land of the free and the home of the brave, right?  However, the truth of the matter is that there are likely a number of entities and people that we submit ourselves to be controlled by.  For example, the government bodies that we live under, both nationally and locally.  We submit ourselves to the authority of, and the rules and procedures of, these men and women who say they have the authority to rule us.  

There is your employer, you submit to their authority.  Your spouse.  Your peers.  Your religion.  Law enforcement.  So there are lots of entities and people we allow to control us.  We submit to their authority, and what they tell us to do, we do.  We are controlled by them.

Now, most Christians would immediately reply, Well Keith, obviously I am controlled by God.  And my reply would be, do your actions match your words?  Considering the way society’s shift in morals is moving at breakneck speed today, Christians are going to be faced with some difficult decisions.  For many years, in this country, the general moral and ethical principles of the country were based on Judeo-Christian values, so the Christian in this country had it fairly easy.  

Yet, we stand today at a crossroad in this country.  Nine men and women in black have decided that marriage is defined by what they say it is and that it is not defined by God.  Never mind that it has been defined by God as one man and one woman, and for almost all of history, and in almost every civilization, as one man and one woman.  Man’s definition is that marriage can be two women, or two men, or three women and men, or ten women or ten men, or in other words, anything goes.  For without the absolute truths of right and wrong as established by God, anything does indeed go.  

This decision by the U.S. Supreme Court has set the stage for the U.S. government to criminalize Christianity.  If you choose to say what the Word of God says about homosexuality, it will be deemed as hate speech.  The consequences of this will be that you can be fined, arrested, or have your business, your home, and your job taken away from you for stating what God says.  

If you are a Christian, you will then have a choice of submitting yourself to the authority of the government, or to God.  While the Bible is clear that we are to submit ourselves to local authorities, which are established and allowed by God, it is also clear that this obligation only goes until they dictate you violate God’s Word.  So this question of, who are you controlled by, will quickly transform from an intellectual exercise to a reality.  

Now, as for me and my family, our choice is that we are controlled by God, and no government, especially 9 people in black robes, is going to change that.  While I understand that those are brave words, and that they will very soon be tested, therefore, we are depending solely on God to empower us to live those words in our lives as we offer ourselves as a living sacrifice to God, wholly controlled by Him.  

TO KNOW GOOD (James 4:15-17)

If we are to know what is good in the sight of God, then we must understand what God’s will is for our lives.  

Now, it is easy to say that we are to seek God’s will in all that we do, but how do you really do that?  How do you communicate with God on such a basic level that you can determine what His will is for your next moment?

We do this by fellowshipping with God.  This is God’s desire, to fellowship with us.  When we pray to God and God responds, that is fellowship.  It is through this fellowship that we discover God’s will for us.  It is through constant fellowship with God that we discover God’s will for the next moment, the next day, and so forth.

As believers, we have the awesome capability of fellowshipping with the almighty Creator of all things.  Yet, even as a believer we must deal with the sin in our lives or that sin will cause our communication line with God to be blocked.  Sin separates us from God. 

If you want to know good, then you must fellowship with God.  If you want to fellowship with God, then you must deal with the sin in your life.  

Listen to this podcast to learn how fellowshipping with the almighty Creator of all things is possible for you.

CAN YOU DEPEND ON THE FUTURE? (James 4:13-14

Can you depend on the future?

We all make plans for the future.  We plan for our kids to go to college.  We plan for our retirement.  We plan for our career.  It is considered prudent to do all of these things, and foolish not to, but can we depend on the future happening like we want it to, like we are planning for it to happen?

It would be great if we see into the future and know exactly what was going to happen, so we could better plan for the events that were going to occur.  For instance, if you knew that you were going to lose your job in a few months, you might begin to save money to prepare for it.  

This is why horoscopes, soothsayers, fortune tellers, and psychics, are so popular, people will try anything to look out into the future.  The problem is that none of these methods really work because they cannot really see into the future.  Only God can see the future.  Only God is omniscient.  Only God knows exactly what you will be doing in the next minute, the next hour, the next day, the next year, until the day you die.  

Satan cannot see the future.  Satan cannot prophesy, only God can prophesy.  So if we are to make plans for the future, wouldn't it make sense to consult the only One who knows exactly what is going to happen to us, when it will happen, and how it will happen?  God knows it all.  

Listen to this podcast to learn why it is so important to always consider God’s will for your life in any plans that you make, for it is God that commands your heart make the next beat, or He is the One that tells it to stop beating.  In this lesson, James tells us how foolish it is to leave God out of the equation when we need to depend on our future.   

ARE YOU ALL SHOW AND NO GO? (Mark 11:12-26)

Are you all show and no go?

For many people religion is about appearances.  On every Sunday morning they get out their best pious religion suit and put it on to go to church.  They sing the worship songs, they raise their hands, they may even say an amen or two as the preacher gives his sermon.  Then they go home, they take off their pious religion suit and put it back in the closet until next Sunday. 

They are all show and no go.   

Listen to this podcast to learn how God intends for the believer to have fruit to show for his labor.  In fact, the day is coming when Jesus will judge the works of a believer to determine the rewards, or the loss of rewards, that believer will receive. 

In this lesson, you can learn how to be serious about your desire to work for God, how to have your prayers answered, and how to earn the fruit that God is looking for in your life.   

THE HOLY SPIRIT LEADS (2 Cor. 2:5-13)

Do you know how to discern God's will and then apply it to your life?  In this verse-by-verse study of 2 Cor. 2:5-13 Paul describes how the Holy Spirit leads us.   How He leads us in dealing with those believers that have strayed from the will of God.   How the Holy Spirit works in conviction of the fallen brother, and how He leads us in our efforts to reconcile that fallen brother.   How He leads us in the path that we are to travel.   How He leads us as He opens doors for our lives and He closes doors for our lives.  Listen and learn how to discern God's will for your life.

To Know The Will of God

As a church we are seeking the will of God.  We are asking the question, how do we become the light unto the city that God wants us to be?  How do we bring more people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ? Each of us as a believer is seeking the will of God for our lives.  Are we doing what God has planned for us, or are we doing what we have chosen for our lives?  Are we touching the people around us with the gospel message of the cross? This is a study on how to discern God's will for your life.