The Healing Word

Guest (Male): The healing word program is a ministry of the Largo Community Church where Christ is honored and people are loved. You're invited to join us in worship via live streaming this Sunday morning at either 9 o'clock or 11 o'clock. Visit largocc.org and click on watch live.

Pastor Jack Morris: I'm now in Christ and Christ is now in me and his love that compelled him to come to earth to go to the cross and to die for me. His love that compelled him to love me now compels me to act like him and loving others and in obeying the father.

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: If you have your Bibles open, oh there it is. It's on the screen. Let let's read it together. Just look up at the screen. In unison, for Christ's love compels us because we are convinced that one died for all and therefore all die. For Christ's love compels compelling love. This is where I got my sermon title. For Christ's love compels us meaning another translation. For Christ's love leaves me no choice. Or another translation. For Christ's love has a tightening grip on me. I feel closer tied into Jesus the longer I live for Jesus. Christ's love in you.

The apostle Paul said it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. Now listen listen to me friends. Doesn't this make sense or doesn't it make sense? If Christ is living in me then I'm going to act like Christ, right? I I I think I'm right on that. That's what the Paul said. It is no longer I who live. I once lived a life. I don't live that life anymore. Somewhere along the way that life died and a new life took over. And the the new life that took over was the life of Jesus and I I no longer live that life that I once lived.

I now live the life of Jesus. I'm act like Jesus, think like Jesus, behave like Jesus. Oh I I feel like this morning that I'm standing on holy ground and I truly believe I am. This new life that I live and that you live as believers we we live for the glory of Jesus. Number one and we think behave and act like Jesus toward others. That's the only way I know to interpret the Christian life. I'm now in Christ and Christ is now in me and his love that compelled him to come to earth to go to the cross and to die for me.

His love that compelled him to love me now compels me to act like him and loving others and in obeying the father. You are a believer and because you are a believer you listen you are Jesus all over again. Jesus looks like you. He's as tall as you. He's as short as you. He's as old as you. You are Jesus all over again. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. A Japanese boy first named Toyoka. He's his parents died when he was 4 years old. He lived with a relative on a farm who physically abused him, ostracized him.

All his life long he lived with the scars of loneliness. But when he was 15 years old a Presbyterian missionary reached him with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he so loved what he heard about Jesus that there is somebody in this world who loves me. My parents died. I don't hardly remember them. My relative on the farm didn't like me at all. But somebody loves me. And Toyoka memorized the entire sermon on the mount. And when he was 15 he was baptized in water. And he loved Jesus so much and Jesus was so real to him.

And when he became 21 he wanted to know more about Jesus and he decided he was going to go to seminary. So he takes all his belongings, the little belongings that he had and he put in a cart into a cart. And he pushed that little cart all the way to Colb Theological Seminary. There was an old shack there with a one room in it, 6 by 6 and he moved in that room. And there's where he lived eating two bowls of rice a day. Living in a shack eating two bowls of rice a day just so he could learn more about Jesus.

Boy, that's a hunger to learn more about Jesus, isn't it? He shared that old shack with anybody who needed logic. He started visiting the sick, the hospitals, wherever there was the elderly. He started acting like Jesus, behaving like Jesus. His love for God was so great that he loved others like Jesus loved him and wherever there was a need that's where he went. Now I think today one of the one of the his very favorite hymn was Jesus keep me near the cross. Now Toyoka said he was born in the religion of Shinto, Confucianism, Buddhism.

And he said I'll always be grateful for to those religions because they taught me reverence. But he said only one who could declare this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the remission of sins. Beautiful religions in the world and every religion has has some good things about it. Every religion. Even this Japanese boy said so. But he said there is only one religion that says this is my blood of a new covenant that is poured out for many for the remission of sins. Only one religion. No, it's not a religion.

It's a person we're talking about. And his name is Jesus. And Jesus touched his heart and met the need of his life. Now I see Christians today. They're going to nursing homes, hospitals. They're going to jails. They're going to prisons. Somebody needs communion. They go and they do it with joy because they're serving the body and blood of Jesus. The one who loved them now they're able to serve another. We're we're Jesus to this world. We act like Jesus. We behave like Jesus. We smile like Jesus. We are Jesus to the world. I told you the story so long ago that the president of the college that I was in told the story about how they this man was walking down the street after car pulled up he got out.

There was this little boy standing looking in a shoe store. And he was it was cold. The the man had a overcoat on. And and this hat. A little boy in the bare feet out in that cold and his feet were just as dirty as they could be and he just was looking in there at those shoes. That boy must have been about 7 8 years old. And the man never said a word to the boy. Just reached down and took him by the hand and the little boy took him by the hand. He walked into the shoe store and he told the the salesperson he said fitting him up with a pair of those Buster Brown shoes.

The man measured his foot. He said put some socks on. He said pulled socks over those dirty feet. Put those shoes on him. Tied them up. The man paid the cashier, took the little boy by the hand, walked down on the sidewalk, left let loose the little boy's hand. Nobody had said a word to anybody and the little boy looked up and said mister is your name Jesus? Friend, has anybody mistaken you for Jesus? You look like him. You act like him. You behave like him. You love like him. Compelling love. There's some things now that that I have to do that I want to do, that I find joy in doing.

But I'm compelled by the love of Jesus, the same love that compelled him to think about me when he was way out there in heaven somewhere. And he thought about me. Same love that compelled him to leave heaven and come all the way to this earth. The same love that compelled him to go to the cross and to take my sins in his own body. Compelling love. Now I pray that I'm able to say what I'm going to say and I'm going to say it clearly and that we'll understand it, that I'll be able to say it so that we can understand it.

I'm going to go all the way back to Isaiah chapter 7 53 verses 11 and 12. It talks about the travail of his soul. Isaiah said somebody is going to come and they're going that person is going to to travail and bring you in to the kingdom of God. The analogy is that of a woman travailing in giving birth to a baby. Jesus said a woman when she is in travail hath sorrow because her hour is come. Travail means pain. It means sweat. It means labor pain. It means blood. It means anguish. A woman when she is in travail has sorrow for her hour has come.

Now Jesus in Gethsemane travailed in birth to bring you and me into the kingdom of God. Oh God help me. God help you to listen and to receive. The scripture says a woman in travail has sorrow. She sweats. Jesus in Gethsemane sweat as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground. Jesus in Gethsemane said my soul my soul the the part of me within me that is travailing is sorrowful unto death. Friend, you just didn't get saved. Somebody birthed you into the kingdom of God. You were born again through the sweat and the blood and the travail, the anguish and the sorrow of Jesus Christ.

It's so easy to come up here and take communion. It's so easy to become a Christian. It's so easy to be baptized. But he travailed to bring you and me into the kingdom of God. Now a mother when she is in travail she gives birth alone. The husband, the father may be there but he cannot enter into her sweat. He cannot enter into her anguish. He cannot enter into her blood. Her body being torn and broken. He can only look. She's alone. She and Jesus in Gethsemane. Look at him now. He takes Peter, James and John.

But prior to that he took the disciples into the garden. Now I'm not sure why he did this but he stopped and he said you three, Peter, James and John, I want you to come on in just a little bit more. And they go deeper into the garden. And then he asked them he said now you stay here. The disciples there, three of them here and he went in just a little farther. But those three disciples they saw him differently than they've ever seen him before. And they had no idea what was happening. They saw his eyes were so perplexed and troubled.

Their hearts became fearful and anguish. What is this? They wondered. What's happening to him? We've never seen him like this before. There was something of crushing weight that had fallen upon the heart of Jesus. There was a horror of great darkness that had come upon his soul. When he got in there all alone like a mother ready to travail he falls on his face and the sweat and the blood and God the father put the cup to his lips. And Jesus looked into that cup and what he saw in that cup recoiled him. He revolted.

He backed away. And he prayed father don't do this. Take that cup from me. If there's any other way in the wisdom of God, in the wisdom of heaven if people can be saved any other way. You know sometimes people get saved and they they they come in and they they open the doors of the church they call it. That's a fine thing to say. That's that's okay. Or they give an altar call or they say come forward. People come forward, they shake the preacher's hand, get their name on the book and then they go.

It's all over. I'm a Christian now. I'm a member of the church. But here Jesus he goes back and he looks in that cup again. Is he really seeing what he is seeing? Three times he looks into that cup. Now what he saw in that cup was your sin, your sin, your sin, my sin. He saw every imaginable filthy sin that was ever and would ever be created. And he had to drink that slime and rot into his soul. Nothing ever unclean had entered him. And he said how how can I become an alcoholic? How can I become a sex pervert?

How can I become a liar, a cheat and a thief? And finally he put that cup to his lips and he drank that slime. He prayed Abba father. Beloved father don't hold that cup to my lips. But you know what happened? Love are you listening? Love compelled him to drink it. That 's why he came into this world to drink your sin and my sin. And he takes that cup and when he drank that cup I listen listen carefully. In drinking that cup he was taking humanity into union with himself. For all have sinned. That's humanity.

That's the story of humanity. Sin. He takes humanity into union with him. He makes man and women unions of his own body. And he draws what he is doing. He's drawing off our corruption when he takes that in. Now blood does two two major things. It does many things but it does two major things. And science has always been interested in blood. And they're always looking for more blood. That why we have blood banks. That's why we give blood and they're always calling more blood, more blood. And when they examine you they draw your blood.

Blood is so important. Why? It does two two great major things. Number one, it brings nourishment and moisture to every tissue of the body. That's one of the things it does. The second thing, blood will draw off all of the poison and corruption and waste in our system. So it gives health. It gives nourishment. It gives strength and then it draws off all of that corruption. It pulls it pulls it out of our system. Now when Jesus gave his body and his blood, which you're going to hear me in a moment say the words that he said in the upper room, this is my body broken for you.

This is my blood shed for you. This is what he said. He was saying that his body is going to provide you the nourishment and the help that you and I need to live the Christian life. Every tissue he's going to strengthen, bring moisture, bring health. And at the same time this is my body. This is my blood. His blood is going to draw off the waste and the infection and the corruption. In the year of 1880s diphtheria was identified. And an old Presbyterian minister that taught me when I was in Bible college Robert Cummings, I shall never forget him.

And my heart rejoices now with thanksgiving. Sometimes when I get happy I cry. So the the he he was so so blessed to go to India and India was so blessed to have him in the nation of country of India. And he said now he was an old man when he was teaching me and I was in my 20s. He's been dead for many years. So in the early 1900s he was there about that time. And diphtheria was just killing the children in America too, all over the world, killing the children. And he said the scientists discovered a certain kind of horse, a certain type of horse that when they would take the germ of diphtheria that poison and they would inject it into the bloodstream of that certain kind of horse.

This was an ancient way of they don't do it that way anymore but this it worked back then. This was the only remedy that anybody knew for diphtheria. It was killing the children and killing adults also. They would inject that germ of diphtheria into that horse and the horse would become sick. Now notice here this the horse would become sick not with its own poison, not with its its own germ but with a human germ. Diphtheria was killing humans, not horses. And it takes in a foreign element outside itself was put into that horse. And the horse gets sick.

If the horse lived the horse would build up a serum or an antitoxin that would fight and destroy the germ of diphtheria in children and in adults. The horse became sick. But as they it's it's something like that today when you get a flu shot they put a little bit of that germ in you and then your body works and and builds up an an immunity to it. It's the same same basic thing. And so the the germ of diphtheria came into contact with the horse's blood and a war came about. The diphtheria tried to fight down the horse's blood and kill the horse.

And the horse's blood attacked the germ of diphtheria and overcame it and destroyed it and built up an antitoxin that was an immunity. And when that immunity was there in the horse the horse's blood then is extracted from the horse and little boys and girls came and got a shot. They received overcoming blood. Their blood couldn't fight off diphtheria. No more than you and I can fight off sin once it reaches out and poisons us. We can't turn over a new leaf. We can't break that habit. We can't move beyond and act good. It can't be done, not in all sincerity.

Now this was so when Jesus looked upon the world and God looked upon the world and they and the father and the son and the Holy Spirit saw that the blood of bulls and goats just wasn't strong enough. Blood and bulls and goats could not do away sin. Friend, sin is strong. Sin is mighty. And so Jesus said I'll go down there. And Jesus was and is to you and me and everybody who believes on him what that horse's blood was so many years ago to little children. Friend, let me say it again. You didn't get saved easily.

Or you did when you came. I just had to kneel and say forgive me and I was forgiven. But he travailed. He drank the poison. He drank the the corruption. He took it into his body and he fought it. He sweat as it were drops of blood. He went to Calvary. They put a crown on his head. They put nails in his hands and in his feet. They put a sword into his side and out came overcoming pure for your redemption. Don't go out there and act like you used to act. If you're really saved God changed you and me, our disposition, our character.

God help us to love God with all our soul, with all our mind, with all our might, with all our heart and to love our neighbor as our self. If we don't love God that way and love our neighbor that way he died for nothing. But he died for something. And that's why it is said there is salvation in no other. For there is no other name under heaven given among men. No church, no religion, no bulls, goats, pigeons, turtledoves, nothing but the blood of Jesus. Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Nothing but the blood of Jesus.

Guest (Male): If today's message has blessed you and strengthened your faith in God, would you consider partnering with pastor Morris and supporting the healing word ministry with your prayers and donating to keep the gospel of Jesus Christ reaching thousands, go to the healingword.com and click the donate button to pledge your support. And remember the faith building message you heard today is our gift to you. Your donation is your gift to God.

Guest (Male): Join us tomorrow for another healing word message. Until then blessings on you.