The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: Friends, I pray today, in the name of the Lord that you will hear in your hearts, and that anxiety will be taken away. Anxiety, I'm talking about fear and worry. Maybe I ought to just use the word worry. That seems to tell it all.

Guest (Male): On The Healing Word today, Pastor Jack Morris will focus on how anxiety can be cured through prayer, reading, and meditating on His word, and trusting that God has a plan for you. There are so many reasons to be anxious in our world, but turning to the one who is in control and loves you is key to overcoming.

Pastor Jack Morris: A cure for anxiety. Everyone here has, and some of you are presently experiencing anxiety to a more or less degree. But there's a cure. It's not a vaccination, and it's not a pill. It's faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Prince of Peace. And when God removes anxiety because we ask him and we follow the biblical directions, and God moves anxiety out, peace comes in.

God just doesn't move anxiety, he replaces it with peace. And so friends, I pray today, in the name of the Lord that you will hear in your hearts, and that anxiety will be taken away. Anxiety, I'm talking about fear and worry. Maybe I ought to just use the word worry. That seems to tell it all.

Now, before I go too far into this, I must tell you, there's a difference between concern and worry. We're supposed to be concerned about our family, our jobs, ourselves, a legitimate concern. But when we begin to worry, worry depletes us. Worry is a spiritual declension. Worry will bring us down and rob us of victory, put fear in our hearts, and if it keeps spiraling downward, it becomes depression.

It is not of God. It is for God to heal and it is for God's people to look to God and receive that healing. So some time ago, I changed the name of the broadcast to The Healing Word. Physical healing, yes, but oh, the mental healing, the spiritual healing, the people whose lives have been fractured. Healing. People need the Lord and the healing and the blessing that he brings.

Now, this peace that replaces anxiety transcends all understanding, simply meaning you just can't explain it. It's too wonderful. It rises to the highest heaven because it came down from the highest heaven. It's of God's doing, it's divine, and it is so beautiful and wonderful that it defies explaining. It can't be contrived by man at all. There's just no way to receive it.

We live in a world that is inundated with unrest. But the peace of God, here's what it is. The Greek word is Eirene. Eirene. Now, it's a different kind of peace. It's not anything that the world can give, and it's not anything the world can take away. But Eirene peace touches everything you touch, every phase. It works on international governments, it works on individuals, and it works in the home. It's an overcoming, blanketed peace that comes down from him who created it, who is called the Prince of Peace, the Lord Jesus.

Now I'm not going to tell you anything you don't already know, but the confusion that's in the world today, there's no peace. Global conflict, failing economy, political polarization, gun violence, racism, rioting, and on and on it goes. Friends, I believe that this place, you and me together here this morning, is an oasis, a spiritual oasis where we've come apart to receive from the Lord the blessing he has.

So this peace can and will affect nations, continents, and governments, but it is also personal. And when we think about all of the difficulty in the world today and all of the diseases and COVID, it's one variant after another one, they just keep coming and keep coming. Friend, it's time that we learn something from God's holy word that it can only be found in God's holy word, and that is how to receive this peace and to maintain that peace.

This personal hardship, in addition to all that is going on in the world today and the rioting and the hate and the bitterness, people against people, in addition to all that you have your own personal day by day hardships and struggles. I don't usually bring my cell phone into the pulpit, but let me see if I can find it here very quickly.

Okay. Here's just a for instance. This came in last night. I get these rather frequently from the people of the church and people in the radio audience and in the television audience. And then I want them because now I know how to pray more specifically. But again, in addition to all the economic and inflation and difficulty and racism and rioting and hate and war, and it just goes on and on, now we have our own personal struggles.

This came from one of the people of our church that comes rather frequently, but hasn't been here for a while because of the job he has at the hospital that keeps him away. He works in the respiratory section. A very fine Christian young man. Told me, he said, "I'm finally going to get back to church." Friend, do you like going to church? The people have told me, "We've gotten so used to streaming and staying home, it's just so comfortable." The devil knows how to get to us. He really does. And he's doing a job on Christians.

Listen to what he said here. He said, "I'm not going to make church tomorrow after all." This came in just before I went to bed. He said, "I'm sorry. My dad is struggling emotionally without my mom." His mother died two weeks ago. "My mom was actually the strongest spiritually and she kept the balance in their ministry." His dad was a pastor at one time. "Then I was kind of a third leg on the stool also. So my dad is needing balance and helping him stay on track. My sister is needing some support and encouragement also." And then he goes on to tell me.

He said, "My dad and brother-in-law, his sister's husband, my dad and brother-in-law had a little disagreement also last week. So I'm going to be up there for two days to help my sister and by God's grace and strength we will stay beautiful and spiritual." What I'm saying is in addition to all that's going on at your job, at your work, at your home, with your kids, with your finances, with all of the sickness and disease and COVID, in addition to all of that, these things are going on. People are dying, people are sick, people are hurting, people need help. But we're too casual about spiritual things.

And so we're going to try to have a revival here among our youth and young adults. We had a wonderful VBS. And so friends, I need you. I can't do this work that God has called us to do, called us, not just me, but all of us to come together and to seek the Lord. In Matthew chapter 6, the Lord's Prayer that we prayed here just a few moments ago, that we pray every Sunday morning and we rattle it off and some of us didn't even say the Lord's Prayer with the Lord's people this morning. We need to do that.

But listen to this prayer. Here is the new way of praying. In private, before God in secret. He said when you pray say, "Our Father." Begin by recognizing and acknowledging who you are: a child of God with a father. You're not an orphan in this world. You have a heavenly father. I just brought this out a moment ago and went through it. This poor young man in our church wanted to come, he'd been missing and missing and missing because he's had to work.

He's had to be setting up those respiratory machines and hooking people up to them. And he told me one time, he said, "I'm just so tired, I'm just working double shifts all the time." And finally he said, "I'm going to get back to church." Now his mother dies. And now his brother-in-law and his dad. I mean, friend, you can have an argument, a fight, a conflict anytime you want it. There's always plenty of material there to upset you any time of any day if you look for it.

But also if you look for peace in him who is the Prince of Peace, there is a tranquility there that will come into your soul and bring the blessing of God to you. Friend, it's all what you want and what you're looking for. Think of the conversations you're having. Are we talking peace? Are we listening for peace? Then peace will come. It comes from the Lord Jesus. He said, "Our Father." Now the word father, the term father, that's God's name, really, to his children.

The word that Jesus used was the word Abba. A-B-B-A. Can you say Abba? That is a very intimate term. It's not like the synagogue prayer where you just rattle off a prayer because it's prayer time in the bulletin. We need to do that and I shouldn't have said it quite like that, rattle off. No, that is a sincere prayer. But I know I have rattled off some prayers. I've been praying because I knew who was listening and I was more or less praying for the listener more than I was praying to the Lord. Praying to the people.

Come on, friends, let's be open and honest with one another. Be transparent. That's how we need to be with Jesus. Abba. Abba Father. Simply meaning, well, we really don't have a complete meaning for the word Abba. This is as close as I could come to it and it means it's like saying, "Father, Father" or "Dearly beloved Father." When you start coming to God that way, humility will come to the mind and we will be bowed before the Lord.

Abba was the first word that most Jewish mothers taught their children to say. It was like your mothers teaching your children to say "Daddy." They would teach him to say Abba. So Jesus said to the disciples, "You want to pray? You ask me how to pray? Do you have a father? Well then call him Father, dearly beloved Father. Talk to him that way. He stands ready to minister and to bless and to help." This is the thing. I think of God, his vastness. I look up at the stars and I think that wonderful God is on every one of those stars, every one of them, and everything beyond that. He is so vast.

And yet this God comes right down to where I am and listens to me. And I'm amazed, amazed, overwhelmed that God would come from wherever heaven is to where I am and listen to my little complaints, so puny. So puny are my complaints. Yet they're not puny to him and they're certainly not puny to me. But he listens. The God who spoke worlds into existence, planets. He's Abba. How can you be so daddy-like? And yet he is.

This is how he is. God is intimate. Now I want you to know how much God cares for you and how much he loves you. In Zephaniah chapter 3, verse 17, let me just read part of that scripture to you. Listen, dear friends: "The Lord your God is with you." The Lord your God is with you! Oh, you feel like you're all alone, but you're not with that problem, with that difficulty, with that worry. No. The Lord your God is with you. Now here's the part I want you to get: "He will rejoice over you with singing."

He'll sing a lullaby over you like a mother rocks her little baby to sleep. God's going to rock you right into peace. He's going to step you right into paradise. You don't have to wait till you get to heaven, you can have heaven right here, right now. God is with us to bless us and to help us. Now notice, I'm going to verse 6. It says, "Do not be anxious about anything." I thought when I read that, "Oh boy, how?" That's a tall order. "But in everything, by prayer," that's what I've been talking about now, the Abba relationship.

That's number one. Number two: "by prayer and petition." Now that you have that relationship, now that that relationship has become aware to you, listen, God isn't just going to knock you down and say, "Go ahead and pray." No, God says that he's waiting at the door of our heart. But he said now after we have established that relationship, I'm a child of God, I've been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb, I'm rejoicing in the Lord, now petition. Petition is asking God those little tiny things.

They're not little and tiny to us. Inflation, marital conflict, conflict on the job, conflict in the church. Friend, wherever you want conflict, you can have it, but wherever you want peace, you can have that also. You get what you want. Talk to the Lord and he will be your shepherd and shepherd you right into that paradise experience that he gives. But notice, here it comes. Petition. Here's where you're talking about the conflict, COVID, this man's mother dying, this man's brother-in-law having an argument with the dad.

Why that young man would have an argument with his father-in-law who just lost his wife two weeks ago? Can't he keep his mouth shut just a little while and let that man grieve and let the healing come? But oh, our mouth, I'll tell you, our mouth, it's set on fire of hell, the Bible says. We've just got to get it out. No, we don't have to if we pray. If we look to the Lord. Jesus was as a lamb led to the slaughter and opened not his mouth. Come on, be a little bit like Jesus. Just a little bit.

That's my prayer for me, for you, for God's people everywhere. But here it is. Now in the Lord's Prayer, notice, it's to number two in the outline, petition. Number two after we get that relationship going again. After we get that going, now we talk about our daily bread, our job, our career, our income, inflation. We talk about temptation, lead us not into temptation. We talk about difficulties and troubles. Yes, we talk about those things to him! Not talking about somebody else's mistakes to him.

We can say God love them, God bless them, they're my brother, they're my brothers, they're my sisters. Yeah, we could do that. But the disciple said, "Teach us to pray." And sure enough Jesus taught them to pray. Ever hear that, "Sure enough"? Sure enough he did. And then he said, look at verse 6: "Prayer and petition with thanksgiving." You can't complain and mumble and whine and be thankful at the same time. It just doesn't work that way. With thanksgiving.

Remembering the precious blessings that the Lord has brought into our lives. God help us to remember. We forget so easily. I don't know how many times I have prayed and about an hour later, I think, "Hey, that prayer has already been answered." And I go to the Lord and I say, "Lord, I was quick to ask, but I'm slow to thank." I have done that numerous times. We just sort of get caught up and drawn away. So there's the secret of prayer. The secret of the cure for anxiety. Put it on the screen.

The pluses. You don't have it. Okay. It's prayer plus petition plus thanksgiving. One, two, three. How more simple can it be? But that is the Jesus way. That's his answer to teach us to pray. And he will do that. Now, we're going to pray in just a moment, but I want you to look at this "Teach us to pray". Verse 7: "You do it that way and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus."

I can't go there today, but I'm going there next week and I'm going to talk to you about how peace will be like a sentinel, a guard, a garrison around our mind. How peace will guard our hearts and mind in Jesus Christ. If you have no idea how it works, how peace will guard, then by all means come out Sunday morning, next Sunday morning. But right now we're going to look to the Lord. We're going to pray. Would you put one, two, and three on the screen again, and then we'll get to the conclusion.

We're going to pray. We're going to present petitions and then we're going to give thanks to God. So if there's anxiety, worry, fear, depression, sadness, sorrow, if you're on a downward fall, watch the Lord turn that thing around in resurrection power and bring you right back up again.

Guest (Male): Knowing that God loves you and wants the best for you is important. Seek his help and trust in his love and guidance today as you work to overcome your anxiety. And remember, God has a plan for your life and is in control. Are you seeking a way to start your week filled with hope and inspiration? Every Monday morning, receive a fresh devotional delivered right to your inbox to uplift your spirit and encourage you throughout the week.

Pastor Jack Morris carefully crafts each message with scripture that speaks to the heart, reflections to inspire growth, and practical steps to help you live out your faith every day. These are words of hope and strength meant to meet you right where you are. Ready to begin? Just visit thehealingword.com and click the banner to sign up. Start each week with renewed purpose, feeling connected to God and ready for what lies ahead. Join us tomorrow for another Healing Word message. Until then, blessings on you.