The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: Many of us are in the valley of decision. Decision can be a valley experience, a downtime. We want to make the right decision and we can. We make it so difficult because we make decisions based on our thinking, the circumstances, and what we know about the situation. Friend, forget all of that and say, "God, I walk by faith. I walk by believing, not by seeing."

Narrator: Welcome to The Healing Word. Today, Pastor Jack Morris will demonstrate through events in Jesus's ministry our need to maintain a close relationship and allow him to guide us through decisions and events in life. Let's go to today's message, "The Rule of Peace."

Pastor Jack Morris: Look at verse 15. If you have your Bibles open, would you read it off the screen. "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts." Now I must confess something. The word "rule" comes from the original where we get the word "umpire." Now those of you who were here last week, you heard me say "empire." Do you remember that? You remember things I don't want you to remember.

After the service, there was a minister here from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania—that's up my neck of the woods. He met me out here in the lobby and he said, "It's not empire, it's umpire." Then he pronounced it in the Greek. He's a smart man to be able to do all of that. But it's umpire. I did caution everybody that I'm not a sports fan, I'm not into sports, so when it comes to sports language, I could miss it sometimes. You're just going to have to guess what I'm talking about if I'm going to use a sports illustration.

But let the peace of God be like an umpire in your heart, settling disputes and making final decisions. Let the peace of God be the green light that tells you it's okay to go ahead. But if there's an amber light, you better put on the brakes. Look both ways. Get some good direction. Like the man that came up in the court and the judge was about to sentence him. He looked down at him and said, "Sir, don't you know what that amber light means?" He said, "Yes, sir. It means step on it because it's going to turn red."

Sometimes God puts up an amber light and it's caution. There's something wrong, something's amiss. We've got to consider. In our hearts, there are many decisions to be made. In the book of Joel chapter 4, it refers to the "valley of decision." Decisions can be hard and difficult because we can't predict the future and we don't know, we're just hoping. To many people, it's a roll of the dice. We just hope we make the right decision.

But we don't have to do it that way anymore because we have Jesus in our lives. Jesus is our savior, the prince of peace. Where Jesus is, there's a green light. My daughter just recently married. She had been single for well over 30 years. Corinne and I have been praying that the right person would come into her life. God sent this nice Christian man. They came- we weren't there for the wedding, but they came to our house later.

Every morning Corinne and I have prayer, we read the scripture, and then we say the Lord's Prayer. Normally, we get on our knees. It's not necessary- I don't think God actually looks at the physical position of our bodies, but in our hearts, we need to be kneeling before the Lord, humbling ourselves. We knelt and he knelt and we prayed around the circle. When he prayed, he gave thanks to God for bringing him into this Christian family. He's a born-again man.

Now, my daughter and Jim—that's the husband's name—are looking for a church home where they'll both be happy. They'll love the pastor, the pastor will love them, they'll love one another, and they'll hear the word of God. Jim wrote me yesterday an email. He said, "I want you to look at the website of this particular church. Here's a sample of the pastor's preaching. I'd like your opinion." This is what I wrote back, and this is what I'm going to give to you this morning, something very similar to this.

I wrote back and said, "Hi, Jim. It's nice to hear from you and get information on North Lake Baptist Church where you and Rebecca are considering membership. I like everything about the website: the building, the pastor's sermon, all the ministries and activities of the church. If the two of you decide to affiliate with that church, I believe you will hear the word of God and will grow in the grace of Jesus Christ. I encourage both of you to pray that the Lord would lead you.

I know that he will answer prayer and put peace in your heart regarding the decision you should make. That peace that transcends all understanding will grow stronger and stronger as you're getting the green light. But if you pray and there's an amber light, and you pray again and there's an amber light, back away because God has something better. It might be okay to speed through that amber light and ignore it, but you're taking your spiritual life in your own hands and you're not allowing Jesus to be the shepherd to walk you through the path that he has for you."

Many of us are in the valley of decision. Decision can be a valley experience, a downtime. We want to make the right decision and we can. We make it so difficult because we make decisions based on our thinking, the circumstances, and what we know about the situation. Friend, forget all of that and say, "God, I walk by faith. I walk by believing, not by seeing." The Lord will guide you and he'll put the green light in your heart. He will be the umpire that will make that final decision, settle the disputes.

Notice how it starts out: "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts." It's something that you've got to let him do. You pray and you let the peace come in. But if you don't pray and look to the Lord and ask him, the peace won't come in. When I was in Africa doing some missionary work with Pastor Charles Blair a number of years ago—Pastor Blair is in heaven now, but he had a big decision to make. They were going to build a hospital, a Bible college, an orphanage, a school. A lot of money was involved and a lot of people involved.

Here's this old gentleman, 85 years old, having to make these kinds of big decisions. His door was open to his motel door was open and I walked by and I looked in and I saw him. I walked in and we were standing there in the middle of the floor, talking. As we talked, he was trying to figure it all out. You know friends, sometimes you just can't figure it all out. You've got to go to that person who knows what's ahead.

But he was becoming distracted about all of the money and all of the workmanship and all the people. All of a sudden, I just found myself reaching over and grabbing him by the hand and pulling his hand toward me and starting to pray: "Let the peace of God, let the peace of God... you have to let it, I have to let it, you have to let it." It won't happen until you let it happen. Isn't that what the scripture says? Verse 15, "Let the peace of Christ..."

We prayed together. He went on to be with the Lord in heaven, but the work of God continued right on. You see, God has a plan and he wants to make that plan become a reality either now in your time or after you go to be with him. But let the peace of God that transcends, that goes higher... you can't understand how it works. You don't have to understand; all you need to know is that it works. Peace of God works.

In Luke 10, Jesus went to Lazarus' house, Martha and Mary. Martha, no doubt, was the oldest because it says that it was her house. The family, no doubt, left the house to her when they departed this life. She had a younger sister named Mary and a younger brother named Lazarus. He was the one that Jesus raised from the dead. But Jesus shows up one day with 12 big, strapping, hungry men. How would you like 12 men to walk into your front yard for lunch?

They didn't have cell phones and didn't have refrigeration. I don't know how she got all that food together to feed all those people because there was Jesus—that's 13—and then there was herself and her sister and her brother. So there were a lot of people, and that's why I'm wondering where she got all that food without any refrigeration. But at any rate, she was so happy to have Jesus, she set out to make him a meal. In the meantime, Jesus and all of the fellows went in the living room and they sat down.

The younger one, Mary—she was just a young girl—she went in and sat down on the floor at Jesus' feet. She wanted to hear what Jesus said. God's people want to hear what Jesus has to say because everything he has to say will bring good into our lives. When we really love the word, that means we love Jesus—he is the living word. Mary sat down at Jesus' feet. Martha was in the kitchen trying to prepare a meal for all those great big strapping fishermen, hungry men.

They had to walk everywhere, they really built up an appetite, and she was doing her best. Finally—sometimes Christians get a little bit bent out of shape—she was getting a little bit bent out of shape and she goes in and she addressed her remarks to Jesus. This is what she said: "Jesus, don't you care?" Whoa, she was bent out of shape. I never went to the Lord Jesus in prayer and said, "Lord, don't you care what's going on in my life? Don't you care what's going on in my family?"

Don't you care? Of course he cares. She really- "Don't you care?" The scripture said—and here's the word that it uses in Luke chapter 10—that Martha became distracted. Now friends, here's what I want you to understand. You can become distracted doing something good for Jesus. But you have to do something good the way he wants it done, when he wants it done. After all, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit.

We say, "Lord, I surrender all," and then we do what we want to do when we want to do it. We've got to know who we are in Christ, that we truly belong to the Lord and we've got to do it his way. It's his church. You're his servant, you're his teacher, you're his singer, you're his preacher. Get your directions from the commander-in-chief, the Lord Jesus, and say, "Lord, this is the day you have made. What do you want me to do today?"

Oh, I've got to get up and look at my calendar. I have it all ready, all figured out. And then we wonder what went wrong. We've got calendars without Jesus in the calendar. Martha went in and she said, "Jesus..." Basically, she was tired, she was wore out, she was frustrated. Maybe she didn't have enough food. "Don't you care?" Jesus said—basically what he said one time at the woman at the well to the disciples when they went into the city and bought food and they came back and they wanted him to eat.

They even said, "Come on, let's eat." He said, "I have meat to eat that you know not of." I'm not going to be distracted by a lot of things. I'm going to let Jesus have first place. I'm going to let him rule in my life. I'm going to let him tell me when and where and how. Friend, when you do that, the peace of God that passeth all understanding... you won't be so frustrated and mixed up and physically tired all the time. Let Jesus take over.

That's where Martha, doing something good but doing it like she felt it should be done... Jesus would rather teach the word than to let the younger sister help out. So, you still with me? Okay. We need to know how to get peace, but we also need to know how to have and keep peace. I know that some of you have had wonderful peace at times, and some of you haven't had wonderful peace at times. But you've got to find out what's distracting you, and usually it's not something distracting you that's evil at all.

It's usually you're doing something good for yourself, for the family, for the church, and it just got you just tied up. Peace, peace, wonderful peace, coming down from the father above. That peace is here today. Let's get back on track. To get back on track is not to speed through the amber light. This message today is helping us to know that there is peace in Jesus. Martha was distracted, but Mary chose the good thing.

Friend, just sit down at the feet of Jesus. Calm yourself a little bit. Notice what it said: "Let the peace of God..." God's not going to just jump on you and make you stop. You've got to figure it out. Hey, I'm busy about many things, many good things, but I'm not sitting at the feet of Jesus. I'm not choosing what Mary chose, the better things. Let's sit at the feet of Jesus.

So now look at chapter 3, verse 15. It said, "Let the peace of Christ..." Look at verse 16: "Let the word of Christ..." Hey, verse 15, "Let the peace of Christ." Verse 16 says, "Let the word of Christ." There must be some connection between the peace of Christ and the word of Christ, wouldn't you say so? But the very last two words in verse 15 says, "Be thankful." Be thankful.

Thankful results in remembering. We've got to stop long enough to remember: hey, I'm saved. Do you have your spiritual birthday on the calendar? I have it in the flyleaf of my Bible, the date when the Lord came into my life, and I thank him daily. There's never been anything that's happened to me in all my life—and I've lived a good life, a long life, a good life a long time—but that's the greatest thing, and I must stop and thank him for what he has done for me.

I shall never forget. I shall always remember. As I do, when I start giving thanks to the Lord, peace comes, wonderful peace. Now I'm in the family of God. I remember it. I thank him for it. Now I'm part of the family of the church. I thank him for it as I thank him for each one of you. It all begins with thankfulness. Remember, friend, and as you remember—notice on the front of the altar—"In remembrance of me, in remembrance of me."

Can I forget what Jesus did for me? Never. God forbid that I would become so distracted that I forget to say every day of my life, "Thank you for saving my soul. Thank you for the blood of Jesus that has cleansed me from all my sin. Thank you for putting my name in the book of life." Can I ever thank him enough for that? If I'm going to be distracted, I want to be distracted by just praising the Lord. You know, everything will work out okay if you give praise and give thanks to the Lord and remember.

Give thanks to God, then give praise to him, and that wonderful peace will come and bless you. "Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly." It starts out verse 15, "Let the peace of Christ." Now we go down to verse 16, "Let the word of Christ dwell... Let the peace of God dwell." But if you're not careful, what happened to you is like happened to Martha: you're going to be doing so many wonderful good things, but you're going to forget to say thank you to Jesus.

How many times God has answered a prayer of mine, and then I've been driving along in the car and an hour or two later... Ah, Lord, I forgot to thank you for answering that prayer. It just slipped my mind. I was quick to ask, slow to thank. Now psalms, hymns, spiritual songs. Psalms are the psalms that we have here in the Bible, the New Testament. Back then, they didn't have publishing houses to publish hymn books or choruses or to put on the screen.

They had psalms. Jesus and the 12 disciples in the upper room before he went into Gethsemane, they sang one of the psalms put to music. They sang it. The church has always been a singing church. Jesus is a singing savior. Friend, don't miss the song service. Sing in your car, sing in your living room, but sing with the company of the redeemed. Jesus sang with the 12, the company of the redeemed.

He sang psalms, and then it goes on and says hymns. Friend, I want to do what the Bible tells me to do. I want to conduct services, worship services, like Jesus conducted one. He had communion. They sang a hymn. Isn't that a beautiful way to do it? The peace of God that passeth all understanding will fill your mind and your heart. And it says verse 17, "Whatever you do—whatever you do—whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus giving thanks."

There it is again. My text is three verses: verse 15, verse 16, verse 17. In all three verses: thankfulness, gratitude, thankfulness. Now I'm going to turn over quickly and we're going to close with Revelation chapter—let me see where it is now—Revelation 14, verses 2 and 3. Now this is what's going to go on in heaven, and we've got to do some practicing down here.

"And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder." A sound, a roar, a rushing, and like the peal of thunder. Wow. Sound, rushing, peal, thunder. "The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing on their harps." And here it is: "And they sang a new song." That song sounded like a sound from heaven, like roaring of rushing waters from heaven, like the peal of thunder, and they sang enthusiastically. They really put some volume into it. This is what they're going to do in heaven. Friend, we need to do a little practicing, don't you think?

Narrator: Giving praise and thanks to God not only benefits our spiritual lives but also improves our attitude, outlook, and physical health. God in his love for us provides all things good, so reach out to him today and thank him for both the blessings and struggles in life, knowing that all things work together for good.

If today's message strengthened your faith, we invite you to stand with The Healing Word through your prayers and your generous support. Every gift helps us to take the gospel to more people who desperately need to hear that Jesus still saves. Join us tomorrow for another Healing Word message. Until then, blessings on you.