The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: Check your thoughts and your desires and your imaginations and those pictures that come into your mind. We need to get down before the Lord and say God, it's me, it's me, it's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

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: The scripture says without warning a furious storm came up. That's in Matthew's gospel. A furious storm came up. I looked at the title on the street when I was coming in this morning and I thought, did I do right to name this sermon "Get Storm Ready?" I wonder how many people were turned away by that sermon title. I wonder how many of you came because of the sermon title.

But storms do come and they don't come with notification. They just sometimes come, and we have to be ready for them to come. We have to be a little realistic and know that these things are going to happen to us. I read this story about Jesus and the disciples on the Sea of Galilee, and the storm came. Jesus was in the boat, asleep on a pillow.

The disciples had no idea that there was going to be a storm. Doppler radar doesn't work on the Sea of Galilee, and they certainly didn't have anything like radar back then anyway. But the Sea of Galilee is more than 600 feet below sea level. It's a basin and it's surrounded by mountains, and those mountains have deep cut valleys that act and serve like funnels.

In the Mediterranean high mountains, that cool air comes down through those valleys. There is a number of those valleys and those valleys act like funnels. When that cool air hits those valleys, it enforces that air. It comes at a great velocity. When that cool air hits the human warm air in that basin of the Sea of Galilee, furious storms break out. There's no indication whatsoever that there's going to be a storm until the storm hits.

Today, we're going to talk about getting ready for the storm. Last week, I talked about what do we do when we're in the storm. Well, we do some of the same things when we're in the storm, but if we are prepared for the storm and we're doing those things that need to be done, it's so much easier to do it then again when the storm hits and God will see us through and help us.

God is with us to bless us. Last week, the sermon's title was "Trusting God in Adversity." Today, "Trusting God Before the Adversity Comes." The word trust, you might remember last week if you still have the bulletin, trust is simply a deep reliance on the Lord, a settled confidence in God's care and faithfulness to His word. I believe the word of God. Period. That's it.

I believe God is in every event. That's a big statement. That's an awesome statement. Cancer, heart attack, divorce, rebellious children. Is God in those events? Trust says I can make it through, I can overcome, I can still be me, and I can come out victorious in the end. Trust says I'm going to make it because I'm trusting God and I believe God's word is true and as relevant today as it was when it was first spoken.

What to do when you are already in the storm? That was last week. Today, get ready, you know the storm is coming. This sermon title "Get Storm Ready" came about as a result of Corinne and I in South Carolina, driving down the highway. We looked up at a big billboard, and those three letters were on the billboard: Get Storm Ready. I thought, boy, that would be a good sermon title to preach at church some Sunday. I get sermon titles all the time. Get Storm Ready.

Well, sometimes out of the ocean come ferocious winds and rains pounding the banks of North and South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia. People hear that it's coming, Doppler radar says it's coming, people are preparing for the storm. You've seen pictures on television: they're boarding up their windows of their businesses and their homes.

The highways are bumper to bumper, the interstates barely moving along, people trying to get off the coast and get inland. You go into a supermarket, the shelves where there's been water bottles, bottles of water, they're empty. The milk shelves are empty. All the candles and batteries, they're all gone. People are storm ready.

Listen, if people can be that wise in an announcement like that, how about the spiritual storms? When we're impacted by negative things in our lives, we need to get ready and we are getting ready even now as we're here worshipping the Lord, preparing our hearts to know Him more intimately than before. Get Storm Ready.

1 Peter 4:12 says, "Do not be surprised as though some strange thing is happening to you." Did you hear what First Peter said under the anointing of the Holy Spirit? We become surprised. But why? We already know it's coming. There's going to be tribulation and trials and difficulties. Cancers, heart attacks, deaths, divorce, rebellious children. It's here. It happens to Christian and non-Christian alike. Why be so surprised? What we need to be is to be ready because the storm is going to come. When it comes, we won't be devastated by it.

Last week I told you about my cousin, Reverend Ronald Stanley, I call him Ronnie. He's three and a half years younger than I am. He's been a pastor all his adult life. He retired from the ministry, but before he retired from pastoring, he built a home in Pennsylvania where he was going to retire in that house. Then when he resigned and left the pastorate, he and his wife moved to Pennsylvania and moved in that house.

They were only in that new house four months when he was stricken with this catastrophic stroke. I told you a little bit about it. I called him this past week, and I talk to him about two times a month. He was the one that ministered at my mother's funeral. Someday I hope that Ronnie will be able to come down and meet you and perhaps even preach.

He told me this past week, he told me the story again. I wanted to make sure I had it right. That for the last four years he has suffered from this stroke. The question was from me to him, "Ronnie, did you tend to become bitter and question God? You've been a faithful pastor, you've preached the word, and then God would allow this to happen to one of His pastors, one of His ministers? Did you ever begin to feel sorry for yourself?"

He told me, "Yes, I did. I felt bad." And he said, "I even felt that..." Well, let me tell you what he said. "I was in the hospital. I looked out and I saw the pastor of the church that I started attending in Pennsylvania, four months while I was moving into my new house and before I went into the hospital. I saw the pastor coming, and I thought to myself, why are you coming to me? I didn't want to see that man."

Friend, you've got to get ready for the storm. The storm's going to come. I said, "Well, how did it happen?" He said, "No notification at all. One nice morning, my wife and I got up. I drove her to the store. She went in the store, and I decided to just wait in the car because I knew she wouldn't be in there long. While she was in the store, I got out of the car and I walked up to McDonald's. I was feeling fine. I walked back from McDonald's, just strolling along, got in the car and sat down."

And he said a blood clot in my leg that I didn't know was there, a piece of it broke loose and hit my brain. When my wife got in the car, my face was all twisted. He said, "I've been in therapy for four years." He says, "My whole left side is still paralyzed, but I'm now able to drive with the car with my right hand and my right foot only around town, just a little bit around town."

But my concern was how are you doing spiritually now? "Oh," he said, "I'm in church, hearing the minister preach the word." He said, "I sold my house and I moved into a condominium. I started a Bible study, a small group, Tuesday morning. The senior citizens come and I teach them the word of God." He made a comeback. He made a comeback. Friend, you can come back wherever you fall. God will lift you up. Like Corinne said, the devil knocked me down but God picked me up.

God cares for you, friend. He loves you, but this is a real world in which we live in. There are sicknesses and diseases. Every year, Corinne and I get the flu shot. You know why? The flu is coming. We hear that all over the time, all the time, and we get ready. Now, some people don't believe in getting flu shots and that's okay. I talked to a man at the bank a couple of weeks ago and he told me that his dad all these years never got a flu shot, never got the flu. And he said for some reason a year or so ago, he decided to get a flu shot and he got the flu.

So he's never going to get a flu shot again. But I get flu shots. Like the man said, I opened the window and in-flu-enza. So influenza's coming whether you're a Christian or whether you're not a Christian. It doesn't make any difference to the flu bug. The flu bug comes. Now we strengthen our bodies to resist some disease or some ailment. We take vitamins, whatever.

Minister Mazza has been after me for years to join the gym. He won. I paid the bill, though. It isn't much, is it Phil? No, not much at all. But I went in the gym and there was... I thought I'm going to build this body up. I'm going to be strong and big and healthy. Well, I've always been strong and big and healthy. You know that, don't you?

Well, I was in the room and here was this big fella, great big guy. He had shoulders like that, his arms were like that. I walked over to him and I said, "Pardon me, sir. Can I look like you someday? Have a body like that?" The mirrors all around, those mirrors, and we stood up, we faced each other. He stood right beside me and we both went like that. When he went like that, his arms went way up. Mine went up a little bit. I stood there and I looked at myself and I looked at him and he looked at me. And he looked at me and said, "Almost." He was a nice guy.

But we exercise our physical... how about exercising our spiritual lives? You still with me, friends? Let's get ready for the storm. The storm is going to come. Now, the Bible is so relevant. Listen to this. I've already told you 1 Peter 4:12, "Do not be surprised as though some strange thing is happening." Now listen to this one: 1 Timothy 4:7-8. "Train yourself to be godly, for physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both present life and the life to come."

Hey, you can take care of yourself right now. In taking care of yourself right now, you'll be taking care of yourself for all eternity. Yes, bodily exercises, I think I did the right thing by joining the gym. I'm going to get bigger and stronger all the time. You're not going to recognize me after a while. So I need to do that. We walk and we jog and we do all these things, but how about doing something that is of lasting value, eternal value? These bodies are going to decay. No matter how strong we are, it's appointed unto men once to die. But every one of us have an eternal soul. Let's get ready for the storm. Let's get ready for eternity. Let's seek the Lord.

Now here's how we can do it. Are you listening? Have your ears now? Have your attention? Number one: Confession. Yes. Come on, read that scripture with me in unison. 1 John 1:9. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Now notice, "If we confess our sins." We. Who's writing that? The beloved disciple John. John is saying we, he is including himself. Friend, let me tell you, regardless of how long you have been saved, you and I still sin in word, in thought, in getting upset, getting ticked off.

Somebody did something that we didn't like. That person didn't know that we were doing something that you didn't like. They didn't have you in mind at all, but you got upset. That's a sin that we need to confess and it happens to Christians. If we confess our sins, confession needs to be an ongoing experience all the time.

We come to the holy communion table, this do in remembrance of me, helping us to realize that it's through His broken body and His shed blood. Friday evening, Sunday morning, we're going to come to this table and we remember that we need an ongoing cleansing. That's why we have an ongoing coming to this table. But we need to confess those thoughts, those words, those deeds, those actions, those imaginations, those desires. Not because we choose to be a sinner, but because we're human.

The scripture says God remembers that we are human, He remembers our frame, He remembers that we are but dust. Friend, you're not as big a saint as you think you are. Check your thoughts and your desires and your imaginations and those pictures that come into your mind. We need to get down before the Lord and say God, it's me, it's me, it's me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.

God cares for us, He loves us, but we have to keep our heart, our mind constantly... friend, if we allow it to build up and we don't confess it out, that spiritual thing that is happening to us that I'm calling sin... let's just call it a wrong thought or wrong behavior. Maybe that will make it just a little more relevant because use the word sin, that's a big word, it's an ugly word, you think of adultery or murder. That's sin.

But let's just talk about these wrong thoughts and wrong behaviors and wrong attitude. That's sin too, but we won't call it sin because of trying to make it as relevant as we possibly can. But if we don't confess it out... and that's the only way to get it out. The Bible says if we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in our heart that God has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believes unto righteousness and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

On that very first Palm Sunday, Jesus rode into Jerusalem amidst praises and thanksgiving. Jesus always rides in when there is praise and there's thanksgiving. Do you want Jesus to ride into your troubled situation? It's entirely up to you. All you need to do is to remember His blessing and to begin to praise Him, singing Hosanna to the Lord, waving the palm branches of praise in your heart, and Jesus will ride in. You need Him to ride into something in your life this morning? He will ride in and He will bless you and minister to you today. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed is He who comes, who comes to me in the name of the Lord. He is here, friend, to bless.

And then thirdly: the word and prayer. Talking to God. In the Song of Solomon or the Song of Songs, we read the story. It's a love story of a bride and a bridegroom. It's a simile of Jesus, the bridegroom, and the bride, the church. You, me. How the bridegroom and the bride fall in love with each other and an intimate relationship develops. A strong, caring, protecting, serving, loving relationship. There are things that are going to move in your life and my life that will try to break down that intimacy, cause my spirit to become cold, indifferent.

But that intimate relationship, that love relationship, just isn't strong like it once was. Well, I need to come to the Lord and tell Him, "Lord, I don't feel toward You, toward the church, toward the word, like I used to." Tell Him about it. That's a good confession. He'll hear you, bless you, restore and bring blessing to you.

The bride then says to the bridegroom in the Song of Solomon, "Take me away with you." That's the church praying to Jesus. "Take me away with you. I want to be with you. I want to hurry to be with you. I don't want to delay and put off and procrastinate. Today is the day of my salvation. I'm repenting, I'm confessing, I'm coming back, I'm getting ready. My soul, my mind, my heart, I'm ready for whatever the enemy brings because God will not allow it to come upon me more than I can bear." Friend, establish that wonderful relationship with the Lord. Draw me, draw me away with you, draw me with the power of love to the cross where love is poured out. Praise be to the Lord. God is here today. You've heard the word of God. Now you know how to be prepared. And I know you are being prepared. I want to be prepared with you. Let's bow before Him, alright?

Guest (Male): Prayer is such a vital part of our journey as Christians. It helps us keep connected to God, our source of power and peace. Through prayer, we find guidance, overcome temptation, discover our purpose, and draw closer to God by expressing our gratitude and our need for Him.

With the Pray Now app available at thehealingword.com, you can choose a topic that speaks to what you're facing, pray with Pastor Jack Morris, and receive an uplifting message grounded in God's word and strength. Visit thehealingword.com today and find the encouragement you need to walk forward in faith. Join us tomorrow for another Healing Word message. Until then, blessings on you.