The Master‘s Class, LifeChange Church Wichita

Sometimes we are chastened by God. The word chastening is a Bible word that means child discipline. God loves you enough to discipline you. Now, you may not appreciate it now, but according to the Scripture, the time will come when you will bless the Lord that He loved you enough to chastise you.

God’s chastisement comes when we disobey the Lord, and as a result, we get into trouble because of our disobedience.  Many times, when this chastisement comes, we fail to remember the exhortation that God has given us in both the Old and the New Testament, which says, “My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.”

Did you know that God is more interested in you being holy than He is you being healthy? Did you know that God is more interested in you being holy than He is you being happy? God is more interested in you being holy than He is you being wealthy. 

God’s plan for you, primarily, is not even to take you to heaven.  Now, I’m going to heaven, but that’s a fringe benefit. God’s plan is for you to be holy. Do you have a desire to be holy? If not, He may carry you to the woodshed and develop that desire in you, and that will be for your profit.

Click on the play button above to hear a message on how a loving God chastises those who are His.

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

Amen.

ARE YOU RUNNING THE RACE? (Hebrews 12:1-2)

When you think of an athlete who is a runner on a track team, what do you think about?  Dedication, training, conditioning, and a sense of complete focus on being prepared to run the race.  Then, when that person is running a race, they are singularly focused on completing that race to the best of their ability, right?  Imagine that there is a young man who is getting set in the starting blocks. Every muscle is tense in anticipation of the start.  The starting gun goes off and he explodes out of the starting blocks. He’s looking straight ahead with complete, total concentration. Every inch, every ounce, every nerve, every fiber, he’s pressing to the goal. He stays in his lane. He’s not moving to the right. He’s not moving to the left, and in this example, he is not running against anybody else. He’s running against himself. He’s running against the clock, and he’s headed toward the finish line. 

But, in this life, if you are a child of God, then you are in the race. I don’t care how old you are. I don’t care how feeble you are. I don’t care how rich, or how poor, you are. There is a race for you to run, and God wants you to run that race like a champion. 

The truth is that most of the people in our churches today are not active soul winners. That’s tragic. You say, “But, I give my money.” I don’t care how much money you give, if you’re not endeavoring to bring souls to Christ, then you are not right with God. You say, “Well, I teach.” I don’t care how eloquently you teach, if you’re not trying to bring souls to Jesus, then you’re not right with God. You say, “Well, I attend faithfully.” I don’t care how much you attend, if you’re not trying to bring souls to Jesus Christ, then you are not right with God. Well, you say, “I live a clean, moral life.” I don’t care how circumspectly you walk, if you’re not endeavoring to bring souls to Jesus Christ, then you are not right with God. Andrew Murray said, “There are two classes of Christians: soul winners and backsliders.” You’re one or the other.

Click on the link below to hear a message on how you can learn to run the race of faith that God has put before you just like the champions in God’s Hall of Fame.

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

Amen.

WHEN FAITH SEEMS TO FAIL (Hebrews 11:32-40)

What happens when faith seems to fail? Sometimes we pray, and God doesn’t seem to answer our prayer the way we wanted.  Maybe we’re going to have an outdoor event, and we say, “Lord, give us beautiful weather,” and the storms come and chase us back indoors. Has that ever happened to you? I mean, it turns everything into a swamp, but you prayed and asked God for it to be a bright sun-shiny day. Sometimes you pray, “Lord, I want to marry that person. Give them to me as a spouse,” and instead, they marry your best friend.  You say, “Lord, how could you?  I prayed and I had faith.”

Then, on a more serious note, sometimes we have a loved one who is sick, and we come to God, and we say, “Oh, God, heal my child. Lord, heal my wife. Heavenly Father, touch with Your healing hand,” and they don’t get better; they get worse, and it seems like some greedy malady is just eating away at those that we love the best, and we see them wind down to the grave. And we’ve tried to believe, we’ve tried to trust, and faith seems to fail.  As a result, we are ready just to throw in the towel, and say, “What’s the use? It’s not working.” Have you ever been there? If not, then just hold on, because your time is coming that you will be. 

There are times that come where the answer doesn’t come exactly as we think that it ought. Sometimes trials, temptations, tribulations, heartaches, tears, fears—they come, and faith doesn’t seem to remove them.

Click on the play button at the top of this episode to hear a message on how you can have a mature faith.  Many people have a superficial faith, and a superstitious faith, rather than a strong faith, and a spiritual faith, and a biblical faith. So, if you’re about ready to throw in the towel, if you prayed for your child and your child didn’t get well, and you’re ready to quit coming to God and to church, then I want you to listen to this message.

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

Amen.

STAR WARS (Hebrews 11:32-34)

This message is about a man named Barak whose story is found in the Old Testament book of Judges. As you might imagine, since he is a member of God’s Hall of Fame for the champions of faith, Barak was a man known for his faith. The title of the lesson, which is Star Wars, comes from the Old Testament book of Judges which says, 

Judg 5:20
20 They fought from heaven; the stars in their courses fought against Sisera.
KJV

The background of this story is that there was a battle between Barak and a Canaanite general named Sisera, and the outcome of this battle was known before the battle even started.  It was fixed.  The verse tells us that it was impossible for Sisera to win because he was battling the stars. He had a collision with the stars. The message is very clear, and it is that All the universe is against the man who is against God.  If you are not with God, ultimately, you are destined to fail. The God who runs those stars, the God who created the universe and flung those stars out into space, programmed everything against Sisera. There was no way that he could win, because sin can’t win, and faith can’t fail, and this was a battle of faith, and God gave the victory.

Click on the arrow button above to hear a message on how God’s purposes will prevail. “Have faith in God, He cannot fail; have faith in God, He must prevail. He can’t fail.” Satan cannot win. The stars in their courses are against the man who’s against God. The stars line up for the man who loves God.

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

Amen.

FACING FAILURE WITH FAITH (Hebrews 11:32)

If God were to grade your faith today, would you get an A? A-plus? C-minus?  There was a student who came to the professor and he said, “Professor, I don’t believe I deserve this F.” The professor said, “Neither do I, but it was the lowest grade I had.”  Now, is that the kind of faith you have? What kind of a report card would God give you today if God had to measure you?

The Bibe says that our faith is important because it is absolutely impossible to please God without faith.  So, if you want to get an A from God on your report card, then you must have faith, and not just any faith, but a hall of fame type of faith.  The champion that we will look at today is Samson, and the title of our message is “Facing Failure With Faith.” So, let me ask, do you feel like a failure? Do you feel like you’ve failed the Lord, and to be quite honest about it, you feel like you don’t even deserve a second chance? Then this message is just for you because Samson was indeed a failure. 

However, in spite of what Samson did, God is the God of the second chance. Samson had enough faith to know that even though he was a failure and a disgrace, and that he’d failed and shamed God, that God still loved him and would remember him when he came in repentance and faith.  Now, you may be someone who has failed and you’ve failed so much. But I’m here as a messenger of God today to tell you God loves you, and the same God that blessed ole Samson, loves you. Here was a man, though he failed, he learned to face his failure with faith.

Aren’t you glad that we serve such a God? And aren’t you glad that 1 John 1:9 is in the Bible: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 

Download this message to hear how God wants you to face your failures with faith.

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

Amen.

Would you like God to use you? I mean, would you really, or are you afraid of what God might ask you to do?  Are you willing to say to God, Lord I want you to use me wherever, whenever, and however, you want to use me?  Let’s go a little deeper, when you die, will people remember you as a servant of God, someone who impacted others for God?  In other words, will it make any difference that you lived? Will your story be that He was born. He lived. He died. You draw your breath, you draw your salary, you exist to live, you live to exist, and that is all?  I wonder if there are a lot of us who will not really leave any vacancy when we go. Will it make any difference that you lived? What is your life really, ultimately, counting for?  Is it counting for God?  If that is what you want, then who are the kinds of people that God uses?  Does God use mighty people to do mighty things for Him, or does God use common people to do His work?

Click on the link above to hear a message on the characteristics of the people that God uses to do mighty things to accomplish His will on this earth.

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

Amen.

Today’s message is about a champion of faith named Rahab, and the story of Rahab will teach us that our Lord Jesus Christ is in the transformation business, and the greatest power on earth is the grace of God made available by faith.  A great preacher once said that “nature forms us, sin deforms us, schools inform us, jails reform us, the Word conforms us, but Jesus transforms us.” He changes people. He literally, actually, eternally, changes people.  He cleanses us, justifies us, and washes away all of our sin.  

Now, if your religion hasn’t changed your life, then you’d better change your religion, because you don’t have the New Testament kind of religion. Jesus is in the transformation business. There’s no one so bad he cannot be saved. God is not finished with you. God loves you, and there’s no one so good he or she need not be saved.

Click on the link below to hear a message on the transforming power of the grace of God.

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

Amen.

When we greet a fellow Christian today, we will typically ask, “How are you feeling?”  Perhaps it would be more applicable to ask, “How are you faithing?”  You see, feelings are fickle, but it is our that faith keeps us steady.  In fact, you are no stronger than your faith. The Bible says, “According to your faith be it unto you,” and God wants you to be a champion of faith.  Now, today, we are talking about the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ, and we’re going to help you to understand something of the power of faith in the shed blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Heb 11:28
28 Through faith he kept the passover, and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that destroyed the firstborn should touch them.
KJV

When we come to the Lord’s Table, how do we come? With clean hearts, no unconfessed, no unrepented-of sin, because we are celebrating the Lord’s Passover. We’re celebrating what the spotless, sinless Son of God did for us. The Bible says, “For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do shew the Lord’s death, till he come.”  When we come to the Lord’s Table, we are celebrating, we’re not coming to mourn a corpse; we’re coming to hail a conqueror. Jesus Christ has defeated the old serpent. The Lamb has slain the serpent, and we celebrate. 

Now, in the Old Testament, the Jews put the blood upon the doorposts, to openly, and clearly, declare they were for the Lord, and so the death angel would Passover them. In the New Testament, we confess Christ openly as our Savior: “That if thou shalt believe in thine heart and confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, you’ll be saved. With the heart man believes unto righteousness; with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Just as the death angel passed over the Hebrews, he passes over us when we openly declare our love for Jesus Christ.

Click on the link below to hear a message on the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ.

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

Amen.

The most powerful and influential people on earth are not kings and presidents and cabinet members. The most powerful and influential people on earth are parents of faith, and in their hands is the destiny of the world. I cannot overemphasize the importance of family. The Bible states that the family is a creation of God, and it is indisputably important.  Faith is the vital ingredient in any family’s success. Do you want your children to be mighty for God upon this earth? It is a joy, a privilege, and a responsibility to raise your children for God, and you must have faith.

Every child is different. Every child is special. Every child is unique. Children do not come in standard packages. You have to read the label. God has a way for every child. Don’t see your child like a piece of marble or granite there, and you have a hammer and a chisel and you’re going to make out of that child what you want. That will be a great mistake. God has a plan for your children and grandchildren, and parents who are perceptive can see that special child.

We are living in perilous times, and we have been tasked by God to raise these children according to His plan for them.  We are in a battle with the forces of the devil for the spiritual hearts of our children.  First of all, there is liberalism in the churches. Our world is full of churches that do not stand on the authority of the Word of God, and the absolute Lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ.  That is compounded by the humanism in the schools.  Humanism is just a camouflage name for atheism. Then, there is our society filled with immorality.  How are you going to do raise children in this world?  Only by faith. 

Click on the link below to hear a message on parents of faith and how God can help you to be a person of faith.

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

Man is the only creature who knows he’s going to die, and he’s trying desperately to forget it. If you don’t believe that, look at the woman who wears too much makeup trying to hide those wrinkles and age spots, or the man who has already passed middle age, making a fool of himself in a sports car, and trying to dress like a teenager with a gold chain around his neck. We just don’t like to think about death. If you mention death, people will look at you like you have smallpox. In society today, we don’t talk much about death.  You go to a funeral, and in the funeral, we do all we can do to camouflage the fact of death. Our cemeteries look like memorial parks. We just change the subject of death like we switch channels in a television set.  So, why is that? Well, there is a fear of death, and the Bible teaches that the devil keeps people in bondage through the fear of death.  

I want you to understand this, anybody who’s afraid of death, is in bondage. Are you afraid of death? Then Satan has done a job on you, and you have failed to understand what Jesus Christ has done for you.  I want to say clearly and plainly, no one is ready to live until he’s no longer afraid to die. Jesus has come to deliver us from the fear, and, correspondingly, the bondage, of death.  Jesus Christ is the risen, living, victorious as Savior, and because He lives, we live with Him. We no longer fear death. We no longer fear death because we have a Savior, a dear, loving Savior.

Click on the link below to hear a message on how to live confidently; how to die expectantly, and how to no longer fear death. 

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

Amen.