The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: Friend, this just isn't a church service today. This is an upper room experience. Jesus is here.

Guest (Male): Welcome to the Healing Word, a radio ministry of the Largo Community Church. Here's Pastor Jack Morris with today's message that will grow your faith in God and lead you to a closer walk with Jesus.

Pastor Jack Morris: Jesus is alive. We're at the Largo Community Church. Friend, God has something beautiful and wonderful for you today. The message is entitled "Come Celebrate Jesus." We're going to begin in the upper room with Jesus washing the disciples' feet and breaking the bread, instituting the Lord's Supper, and then follow Him into Gethsemane where He takes the cup and drinks the sin of the world.

This is a message that is beautiful. It's wonderful. It's holy. It moves me perhaps more than any other message or any other part of the Bible. I hope and pray that your heart will be touched and you will begin to realize more than ever before how much Christ loves you. Let's go into the sanctuary and hear the message.

Come celebrate Jesus. Come worship Him, adore Him, praise Him. He's worthy. He has done great and mighty things, more great and more mighty and more wonderful than any of us could possibly even imagine or think. We're going to come to the holy table and remember the greatest of all gifts when He gave Himself and His life in exchange for our life and our self.

Jesus and the disciples went to an upper room to pray, to observe the Passover. This was a custom of the Jews. An upper room was like a box on top of a box. The bottom part of the house looked like a box, and then there was another box with a large room that looked like they just took and set it on top of the under-lower box. Some of the larger houses had stairways on the inside, and many others had stairways on the outside. Well, they were in an upper room, Jesus and His 12 disciples.

And I pray and believe, dear God Almighty, that this sanctuary would become an upper room to every believer here this morning. They were not just in a building, but we are in an upper room where the Holy Spirit is breathing. I pray in Jesus' name that every one of us, dear God, that the Holy Spirit would breathe on us, that some of us would give our hearts to the Lord, that others who have slipped and backslidden and drifted and your spiritual is passive today, that somehow you will be breathed upon by the Holy Spirit and you would know the unction of God's mighty power and there would come revival and life to your soul.

Oh, I pray today. I pray. I'm so unworthy to talk about what I'm going to talk about. But friend, if we're not in an upper room today where Jesus is ministering, where His body and blood is being observed, we are going to go through a ritual, a ceremony, of simply nothingness. Nothingness. We have come to church for nothing, for no reason at all. This could become absolutely ritualistic, and it has in many first Sunday mornings.

But today, oh today, today is the day of salvation. Today the Holy Spirit is moving. Today the Holy Spirit is breathing. Friend, let Him breathe on you. Let Him breathe on you today. I'm praying that He'll breathe on me and that together we will know that we've been in an upper room and Jesus has been at the head of the table in that upper room.

Friend, I'm praying, I'm yearning, that somehow we will see Jesus at the head of the table today. That we won't just hear a sermon, but there will come a revelation of God to our soul. Like we've never seen Jesus before. We will see Him. We will hear His word. We will feel His breath. We will know His ministry of humility, washing our feet and preparing us to walk this journey of life with Him in holiness and in cleanliness. Friend, this just isn't a church service today. This is an upper room experience. Jesus is here. Jesus is here.

Jesus gathered with those 12. He's gathered here today. I somehow sense His invisible presence. He's gathered here today as He was with the 12 originally. They were going to celebrate Passover. Passover is celebrated once a year as the Jews would gather and remember that at one time their people, the Jewish people, the Hebrews, were in Egypt in slavery. Do you remember when you were in slavery to sin? When your passions, your lusts, your feelings dictated and told you what to do and you kept giving in to it, just like a slave would give in to a master? But today you're free, free, free indeed in Christ Jesus. You're alive, and Jesus now has become your master.

Well, they were in that upper room, those 12, seated, their eyes upon Jesus, listening to His word. To see Him, to hear Him, there is nothing that can compare to such an experience as that. And they were remembering that when the death angel passed through Egypt many years ago, after 400 years of slavery, the death angel would see the blood on the doorpost of the house and the death angel would pass over. And if the blood wasn't there, there would be death.

The same today. Either you have the blood applied or you are dead in trespasses and in sins. No in-between, nothing else other than life or death. And everybody here today and everybody in the whole world has that experience. Life or death. If the blood is there, there's life. If the blood isn't there, there's death. And the disciples and Jesus were celebrating the Passover in the upper room. They would soon leave the upper room and they would go into the Garden of Gethsemane where He would drink the cup of their sin.

Now, here's the thing. Jesus knows every heart. You do not have any secrets before God. He knows every heart. He knew that one of them in the upper room was going to betray Him. He knew it. He knew that another, a second one in the upper room, was going to disown Him. He knew that. He also knew that when they got into Gethsemane, every one of them would flee and disown Him and leave Him. He knew that.

Yet He instituted the Lord's Supper. He washed their feet. He loved them. He cared for them. You see, God is love. God is love and He cares for us. He still loved them. He loved Judas who would betray Him. He loved Peter who would disown Him and take an oath, "I never knew Him." He loved all of them who were going to flee and leave Him standing alone, arrested by the Roman soldiers. But having loved His own, the scripture says, He loved them to the end.

Friend, He knows our hearts. No secrets. But whether we are in sin or out of sin or toying around with a little private sin, He still loves us. He will never stop loving us, but we will continue on to have an experience of losing out what God has intended us to have.

Okay, let's look at what happened in the upper room. Then we'll go into Gethsemane. Jesus takes off His outer garment. The disciples are there, 12 of them. I just can't see how Judas could sit there like he did, the thief, and let Jesus go through all of this. But at any rate, let me get back to Jesus took off His outer garment, laid it aside, took a towel, put it around His waist. I can only imagine the disciples looking at Him wondering, what are you doing? Then He gets a pan of water, pours water in it, and He comes over and He gets down on His knees like a slave. Like a slave. And He starts washing their feet.

Now, He was following a custom of that day. The custom was that when somebody, a guest, would go to a prominent Jewish home, outside that Jewish home by the front door stood a slave with a pan of water, a tub of water. And the guest would come in because they walked dusty roads and they wore sandals. They didn't want to track all that into the house. The slave would take the sandal off, take the feet one at a time and wash that off. And now the dust would not go in the house and the feet would be comfortable because of all that grime that had gathered walking that dusty road.

So Jesus is now the slave to the 12. He comes to minister to give Himself and He takes the position of a slave. And He kneels down and one by one, I can only imagine when He got to Judas. Now, Judas had already sold Him out. Judas had already betrayed Him. Judas took 30 pieces of silver and betrayed His Lord. I believe there are many today who have sold out even cheaper than he sold out. There are many today who at one time served the Lord in the church, very active, and today they're not in the church. They sold out for something. I don't know what it was, but they sold out. They sold their soul so cheap.

But Jesus still loves and Jesus will take us back. And I truly believe in my heart the terrible death that Judas died, that he took that money back. He took it back and he threw it at the people who gave it to him. And then he went out and hung himself and the rope broke and he fell. His body burst open. I mean, he died a horrible death. I won't talk any more about it because it's ghastly the way he died. But I do believe that if Judas had walked up Calvary's hill and he walked up to the cross and he looked up into the face of Jesus and said, "Jesus, I sold you out. Will you forgive me?" I believe Jesus would have forgiven him. I believe He would have restored him.

Friend, if you need restoring today, look at this table. This is how much the Lord loves you and this is where He will restore you and me if we'll come to Him. He is a loving God, a God who restores. Then after Jesus did that, He took bread like I'm going to take in just a moment and He says, "This is my body broken for you." And He breaks the loaf. Previously He said, "I am the bread of life," meaning I'm the one that will give you your spiritual strength and cause you to have the power and strength to live the Christian life and to be Christlike in your behavior.

And notice what He said. He said, "Take, eat. This is my body," meaning be very purposeful when you come to this table. You don't just run up here and throw something in your mouth after you've dipped it or taken the little cup and think, oh hey, I'm okay now. This is my magic charm. This is my rabbit's foot. You know what a rabbit's foot's for, don't you? Good luck charm. No, this isn't going to do anything unless you and I come as sinners needing salvation. As sinners giving praise to God for the salvation that He's already given to us. We need to come. That's what Jesus said. Take, eat. You don't have to take it, but I'm asking you, just what Jesus is saying. I'm asking you to take this with intention and purposefulness.

He said, "This is my body." And then He said, "Eat it," meaning my life that was expressed through my body, the healings, the miracles, the forgiveness, the teachings. I want you to take it and take it into yourself. Eat it all. Take it in and let it assimilate with you until your flesh becomes like my flesh. Until your life becomes like my life. Take and eat. This is my body which is broken for you. This is a holy moment, a sacred time we're coming. And then He takes the cup. He takes the cup. This was the last thing He did. And He said, "This is my blood. This is my blood."

And He even asked them, "Do you know what you're doing? Or do you know what I am doing? Do you have an understanding of what's going on here today?" I'm sure many of those disciples didn't. They looked and wondered what was happening. This had never been done before. He is now going to be the Lamb of God that the death angel will pass over once the blood is applied to the heart. Now, after that was finished, they go into the Garden of Gethsemane. They sang a hymn. I've often wondered what kind of voice did Jesus have? Did He have bass? Baritone? Did He have tenor?

Wouldn't it be something to hear Jesus sing and to lead that congregation of 12 disciples? And they sang the Hallel, which is like Hallelujah. The words come from Psalm 113 through 118. Those words are put together and the Jews to this day still sing that. And so Jesus sang that. And after they sang, they went into the Garden of Gethsemane. The Garden of Gethsemane was an olive garden that was fenced in, had a gate that went in. Inside, there was an oil press. The olives were taken and put in the press and then the olive juice was pressed out.

Now friend, I feel like Moses whenever I get to this place. All these years, every time I get here, I feel like Moses at the burning bush. I feel like I need to take my shoes off for I'm standing on holy ground. There are angels all around. The disciples and Jesus sang the Hallel, the Psalms. They went into Gethsemane to the oil press, one of Jesus' favorite places. You may remember those of you who were here at the prayer clinic, I talked about a certain place where you frequent that place in prayer. Maybe a chair, a room, a place. Well, Jesus had a special place. Now, there were times He would pray in the mountains, but He had a special place. Even Judas knew where that place was.

I hope my family knows where I pray and when I pray. Judas knew where to find Him. That was Jesus' place of prayer, the oil press. Jesus was alone. He took the disciples in the garden. You see, they couldn't help. They couldn't help him at all. You see, He had to do it alone. There are not 12 disciples or 12 saviors or 13 or I don't know how many. But He had to do this alone. Take my sins in His own body. He asked them to wait. He goes on deeper into the garden. The scripture says about a stone's throw, however far you could throw a stone. And He knelt, the scripture says. And something started happening inside Him at that moment. It was a mysterious internal tempest that started going on inside of Him.

God came to Him with the cup. And God walked over to Jesus and put the cup to His lips. And when Jesus looked into that cup, He saw the sin and the rottenness, the crime of the world. He revolted. He turned back, walked away, prayed, "God, is there any other way that we could bring about salvation without me drinking the filth of the world into my body?" It didn't just turn His stomach. I mean, it was the garbage of mankind. And God came back a second time. Jesus had not changed. Still filled with corruption and filth. The third time Jesus drank the cup.

When He took their cup and He drank that slime, the filth of the world, it was like a vaccination. He took it into His body, into His stomach, and His digestive system began to work just like anything you take into your body. And His digestive system pumped that out of His stomach into His bloodstream. The filth of the world, the sin of mankind was pumped out into His bloodstream. Now, the soldiers came into the garden and arrested Him. They take Him to the religious trial. That went on for hours. Secondly, they then take Him to the political trial. That went on until daylight.

All night long, your sin and my sin was in His body coursing through His bloodstream. What was happening was that He was building up an antitoxin that would come forth as a serum to cure sin. And then they led Him to Calvary the next morning. The antitoxin had been built up and they drove the nails, they drove the spear, they put the crown of thorns, and a serum, an antitoxin came forth much like a vaccination to heal you and me of our sinning and to cleanse us of our sin of the past. Jesus is our savior. There's no other name under heaven.

I went with a man just Friday. He asked me to go to lunch with him. And he asked me again, this is the second time, what does it mean to be born again? I have done well with my life. I have treated people with great respect. I have never taken any man's money. He said, "Doesn't that count for something?" And I said if it did, then you'd be your own savior. You atoned for your own sin. Your good works has made it possible for you to go into the kingdom of God. What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus because the blood of Jesus is the antitoxin, is the serum that once applied to my heart cleanses me from all my sins.

And this man then he came by my house and then we sat in the car and I told him, I said I want to pray with you. And he reached over and there was humility and he took me by the hand and we prayed together. You pray for that man. He needs the Lord. Friend, you're a sinner. I'm a sinner. We have all sinned and we continue to sin. We have sinned since we last came to this table. We need to come again. Jesus is here. Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. His love will never change.

Yes, you're redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. But there are things and we are but dust that causes us to stray, to think, to say a word, to think a thought. We need to come back to this table in all humility, say, Lord, cleanse me. If you don't know Him today as your personal savior, you've never asked Him to come into your life, then do it today. The Lord is here to hear our prayers, to answer our prayers, to forgive us our sins, to redeem us, to cause us to have a relationship with the Father, to cause us to know that in our hearts there's eternity.

There's love. And as I talked to this dear gentleman that I've known for many years, I told him, I said I can't explain to you what's inside me. But I said it's there. It's very subjective what happens, but I said it's very real and this is a gift that God has for us all. So friend, we're going to bow before the Lord and we're going to come to this altar today and we're going to give Him our hearts. You say you've already done it? I'm glad you did. That means you're a Christian. But come and give your heart to Him again. Amen. Amen. All right, will you bow with me, please? Praise be to the Lord.

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