The Healing Word

Guest (Male): The healing word ministry, on one place, is brought to you by the generous donations of people like you. At any time during today's message, feel free to send a prayer request or make a donation using the links provided. Now, I pray you will be blessed as Pastor Jack Morris delivers a message from the word of God that will encourage and strengthen your faith in him.

Pastor Jack Morris: If God has blessed you, if you woke up this morning, you have life in you, and you're not in the hospital, or the funeral parlor, then smile, be happy, say thank you.

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 title of the message, God loves you because Corinne and I were driving along and we just casually began to talk about the love of God to us and to all people. And I asked a rhetorical question just as we were driving. I said, why is it that God loves us so much that he does so much for us? Now, if God hasn't done anything for you, don't smile. Keep that stoic look about you. Frown a little bit. But if God has blessed you, if you woke up this morning, you have life in you, and you're not in the hospital, or the funeral parlor, then smile, be happy, say thank you and ask Okay, good.

You're really following me. Then why should he love us so much? And I asked that question. I thought and I said this to Corinne and she was talking, we were talking. I said, God knows everything long before it happens, obviously. The the the future is like the present. The past is like the present with the Lord. And I said, now here God knew that we were going to break his law and sin as a human race. He knew that. He knew we were going to break his heart. He knew we were going to rebel against him.

He knew all that and he went ahead and created us anyway. I don't think I would have done that. If if I knew that I was going to make something, create something, do something Now, now naturally I don't have that ability, but let's just say I knew that I was going to do something and it was going to it was going to have a backlash and it was going to hurt me. I wouldn't do it. Common sense would just say, don't do that. Why hurt yourself and abuse yourself? But God knew that we were going to fail and he created us anyway.

Now, that is paradoxical. That's something that all these years I haven't been able to figure out. And I've studied theology a lot of years. Now, think about Adam. God created Adam, but God knew that Adam was going to rebel. He knew he was going to sin. He put that tree there and he said, don't touch its fruit. But God knew full well that he was going to go over there and eat it. Why didn't God make Adam? Why did God do that? God made him. He loved him. Why did he love him so much? And then of all things, after Adam went over and ate of that tree, the sin, the rebellion caused Adam and God to be separated.

You see, God created everybody with a free will. You decide who you are, whether you're going to serve God, whether you're going to disobey God. You decide. You decide. You have the choice. God gave you the ability to choose and make decisions and we're all the result of our decision making. Did you I don't better say that last one again, hadn't we? We make decisions then we live with the results of those decisions. Well, Adam made a decision. He exercised his free will. He was made in the image of God. God gave him the ability to choose.

He went over there to that tree and his wife and he ate. Became separated from God. You think God would have given up and said, ha, you know, I'm why try anymore? But love wouldn't let God stop trying to win Adam. And he comes in the cool of the day and says, Adam, where are you? God wanted him back. Now, why should he love Adam so? Why does God care that much? That's the question of driving along in the car all these years and it keeps coming back and it keeps coming back. Why does God love us so much?

His love in Ephesians 3 as Benny Blair said is so high, it is so deep, it is it has such breadth to it. It can't be measured. Why does God love sinners like he loves us? But he does. Now, he sent Jesus, his son, to come into this world through the Hebrew race, the smallest of of all nations, the smallest of all races. But God sovereignly chose the Hebrew race to bring the Messiah into the world, knowing full well, God knowing full well that that race would it reject him, abuse him, ultimately crucify him. Now, if you knew Come on, parents, look at me just a moment.

If you knew that you were sending deliberately your son or your daughter into danger where a bunch of hoods would beat him up and ultimately kill him, you wouldn't do that, would you? You would take that child and protect that child. You would rather go in there yourself. But God knew exactly what was going to happen. The scripture says, Jesus came unto his own, and his own received him not. And they cried out, crucify him, crucify him. Pilot said, I don't know why you want me to crucify this man. I find no fault with him.

I can't find one thing, one reason for capital punishment. And they cried out all the more. There there was a mutiny on the his hands, Pilot's hands. Pilot had to do what he did. Well, he really didn't have to do it, but but the people were were so belligerent and so determined and so vocal. And so they crucified. But God knew all of this was going to happen before it ever happened. And yet Jesus came bringing the love of God to us, knowing that we were going to hate him and crucify him, sin against him, disobey him, do those things that he didn't want us to do.

We were going to do it anyway because we have a free will. You have a free will. You do what you want to do. You serve God when you want to serve him. You serve him to the degree you want to serve him. You you put him first, second, third, fourth, wherever you want to put him. And God allows you to treat him and handle him the way you treat him and the way I handle him. And he puts up with us. Why? Why should he love me so? Why should he love me so? And then I think of myself.

God saved me. I'm a sinner. I disobeyed God just like you and every other child. The first opportunity I got, it wasn't a great sin, a big sin, but I started disobeying my parents every chance I got, telling little lies or whatever it was I did. But I started doing those things that a Christian is not supposed to do. But he loves us still. And he didn't wait God didn't wait and say, now Jack Morris, when you improve, when you get better, when you start acting like you're supposed to act, then I'm going to love you and do some nice things for you.

No, God loved me when I was at my worst when I was a sinner. And that's how he loves you. That's how God loves us. Love, sincere appreciation, to regard with affection, deep devotion, earnest commitment. Now, verse 16 of 1 John chapter 4 says, God is love. Now, I'm going to try to answer the question to the best of my ability, but I won't be able to answer it completely to my satisfaction or yours because it's so far beyond. But it says, God is love. Love is who he is. God didn't become love. God didn't grow into love.

God didn't mature into love. God is love. God has always been love. God always will be love. Now, love Look at the screen for just a moment or God is love. Love is in the New Testament. There are two words. Love is a noun and love is a verb. Love is a noun, agape. Love is a verb, agapeo. It's both. Love love is is God. Love is the very essence of God. Love is who God is. Love is God. Now, God is God is love. And the scripture tells us that that he loved me even even before I was lovable.

And I don't know how lovable I am right now. Are you lovable? You're a lovable person. But I I think when Corinne we were pregnant with our children, we loved those children before they were born, before they ever came into the world and began to breathe. We loved them. Oh, I would touch and feel the baby kick and oh man, what an experience that was. Well, we loved these babies before they were ever born. And there wasn't anything we could do for the child in my wife's womb but to just wait. And back then we couldn't find out the 40 50 years ago the the sex of the child.

So we didn't know whether it was a boy or a girl. It didn't been make any difference. It not a better difference in the world to us. We just loved it and loved it, but we we weren't able to do anything for it. Now, that's the noun part. We just just loving. But then the verb part when the baby was born, now we could hug it and kiss it and feed it and put a blanket around it and put it to bed and and then later on educate it and start doing all of these wonderful things.

See, we loved it and loved it and loved it and then it was born. Now, we can demonstrate or show our love for it.

Guest (Male): Amen.

Pastor Jack Morris: That's how God worked. He loved us before we ever came into the world. And then when we came into the world, he he showed his love by saving us and forgiving us and hearing and answering our prayers and taking care of us. He's a wonderful God, isn't he? Can you say praise the Lord? Sometime ago my daughter read this book, The Power of the Powerless, and the subtitle, A Brother's Legacy of Love. Now, we she couldn't find this. She she had it. And I don't know what happened to it, but she couldn't find it anymore, but she thought that her dad would like to read the book.

And it's out of print and she had to write to England to get it and she did and here it is. I have it here. And it came when it came in it it came in as a used book. And I like used books too. Sometimes I like them a little bit better even than the new ones. I know somebody else read it and so because they read it, then maybe I ought to read it. But I read it and it's a it's about a little boy named Oliver. And Oliver was born crippled. He mute, blind, and deaf.

He couldn't do anything for himself. And his older brother, just a few years older, wrote this book about his brother Oliver who was born in that terrible condition. When Oliver was born, his parents now had loved him while he was in the mother's womb waiting for him to be born, just loved him and loved him and just waited and waited, didn't know whether there was a little boy, whether there was a little girl, didn't obviously thinking that the baby was going to be born healthy. And it was born in this terrible terrible condition. So the physician diagnosed his case and said, Oliver can be taken to an institution, live very unhappily and die soon.

But if you take him home and love him, he can live a number of years, but he'll never get any better. So the parents loved him even in that terrible crippled condition. They took him home, put him in an upstairs bedroom and they took just the the very best of care for Oliver. The only thing Oliver could do when they would touch his lip with a spoon, he would open his mouth and he would take in food. He never saw anybody, he never heard anybody, he never touched anybody, but he could feel people touching him.

They sensed, they believed that the nervous system would reveal the touch. They loved him. Oliver couldn't give anything back. He couldn't make any contribution. He couldn't even love back. But the parents loved him. So they loved him as a noun, agape before he was born. And then when he was born, they began to just shower love upon him and and give to him all of their heart's desire that they could possibly He lived to age 33 and then he died. I mean, love will do great things. And love transformed that family and love transformed the life of that little older brother that cared for Oliver so greatly.

Now, this is the power of love. There is strength, there is power. Love is not weak. Love will go to Calvary. Love will stay on the cross when they say if you're the son of God, come down and we'll believe. Well, that's exactly what Jesus wanted them to do, to believe. And they said, we'll believe if you'll come down. All you have to do is just one thing. But if he had come down from the cross, what would have happened to us 2,000 years later? He wouldn't have atoned for our sins. But love held him there, not those rusty nails or those cords, but love held him there.

Love for you and me, for our redemption, for our salvation. Love held him to the cross. Love is what God does. And that's what he does best. God is love. The very essence of God is love. But love is what God does best and he continues to love. Now, he loves you today regardless of who you are or what you've done or what you're hiding in your closet, what secrets you have in your life, what deeds you've done that you're embarrassed or ashamed of. God loves you still. He loves me still. And he's here calling out, Adam, where are you?

He's calling out, is bringing us into the fold if we will come. But we have a will, we have a decision to make. He's already made his decision. Here's the evidence of it here at the cross. Now, I want to tell you a a true story. Well, Oliver's story was absolutely true also, but here's another one. It illustrates our need for Christ and how Christ responds to our deed. It is amazing to me that God didn't just forsake us after he made us. He didn't leave Adam after Adam sinned, even after you and I have sinned repeatedly.

It it would be one thing if we had just committed a sin when we were 12 years old or 15 years old and we got forgiven and we were okay thereafter. But we have sinned a lot of times. And we'll continue to commit some sins and do some things that are wrong. And I pray that when we do the Holy Spirit will speak to us and we'll confess it to him, not because we want to sin. There was a time that we wanted to sin. We planned on sinning. We thought we were going to get some good time out of it.

We knew exactly what we were doing, but now sometimes just because we're human, we'll make some serious mistakes. And I believe they're called sins, but they're they're not like the sins before we we gave our heart to Christ and we're baptized and came to the holy table. But when we confess, when we repent, when we say, God, I knew better or I didn't know better. I did it. I looked back. I'm sorry. And we mean it in our heart. God's love cleanses us and takes it all away. God washes us and we're clean again. And and that's why we come to this holy table to meet God again and to be renewed in the faith and experience him again.

But this illustration here it it happened a long time ago in August 1957. It happened up on the the Swiss Alps. There were two German men and two Italian men who decided they were going to send descend down over a mountain precipice that was almost vertical and do some exploring, just mountain climbing. Now, the Swiss Alpine Club would go up there, wouldn't let any of endorse any of its members going up there because it was too dangerous. But here these fellows decided they were going to go up there and they were going to give it a try.

Well, the two Germans came up missing and they have never been heard of since. But the two Italians became stranded on a very narrow ledge way down into the abyss of of that mountain, way down. And the Alpine Club the Swiss Alpine Club decided we're not going up there. We're not sending any of our members. None of our experts are going up there. We're just it's just too dangerous. But these two Italians were were were exhausted and they were dying. So several men decided they were going to go on their own independently and try to reach those two Italians.

They got the machinery together and one man, Alfred Hellopart, decided he would be the man that they would strap up and they would lower him down into that abyss. Hellopart says, all I'm going to read I want you to listen to me. And I I don't do a lot of reading from the pulpit, but I want you to hear what he says. This illustrates Christ coming to us in our lost desperate desperate situation. The Hellopart describes the rescue in his own words. He said, as I was being lower as I was lowered down the summit, my comrades on top grew further and further distant until they disappeared out of sight.

At this moment, I felt an indescribable loneliness. I didn't see anybody up there anymore. There was nobody beneath me. I was completely alone. Then for the first time I peered down into the abyss of that that mountain. The terror of the sight robbed me of my breath. The brooding blackness of that mountain falling away in almost endless expanse beneath me made me look with an awful longing to that thin cable disappearing about me in the midst. I was a tiny human being dangling in space between heaven and hell. The sole relief from my terror was my mission to save the climber below.

I believe that's exactly what brought Jesus to us. That's exactly what kept him coming to us. That's exactly what kept him on the cross. He knew we were lost without him. And he left heaven. He left heaven. Why? Why should he love me so? Why should he leave heaven? Why should he come down into this this dark sinful abyss and go through the hell that he went through to the extent he was completely forsaken by God himself. You talk about being alone. The only thing that kept him going kept him on that cross until he gave up his spirit.

The only thing was love for you and me. And why, why, why? I don't know why such love, only that God is love. I can't explain that part. Only that God is love, but it kept him coming. God lowered himself. The people trapped below. I'm talking about you and me. The gospel is much more radical. Now, listen to me, friends. Listen to me. I am closing my sermon now. The gospel is much more radical than just another religion telling us how to be good in our own power. You can't be good in your own power.

I cannot be a good person. I'm a bad person by nature and by birth. I have grown up. And until my heart is changed by God's love, I'll never be able to feel love. I'll never be able to give love. But God is love. And he comes to deal with your sin and mine this morning in love. Do you love him? Look at the screen and read the conclusion with me, please. God loves you because God is love. Because you are his child and he loves his children because he brought you into this world to love you.

Shall we pray? Father, heavenly Father, looking so mercifully in grace upon us. You are love. And you look to us in love. With our heads bowed in just a moment of prayer, I want you to think about the message, what you've just heard, the word of God. Even though I've sinned, confess that to him right now in this moment of silent prayer, where you are. In your heart, with your lips, tell him, Lord, I've failed. I've sinned. And be specific about it. This is what I did and I'm sorry and I ask for forgiveness. Friend, he'll take it away, forgive you right now instantly.

Christian, love him back with all your heart. I wish I loved him more than I do, but I try to love him with all my heart. Sometimes I must confess even even now my devotion isn't as fervent sometimes as it should be. But his devotion to me never wavers. It's perfect love. What a savior. What a savior. Thank you for hearing and answering prayer. Thank you for forgiving us of our sins. Thank you for being our savior and God. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Amen.

Guest (Male): We hope that today's message has been a blessing and has strengthened your faith in God. But before we go, here is Pastor Jack Morris.

Pastor Jack Morris: May the word of God you hear on this program bring healing and wholeness to your life, spiritual healing, emotional healing, physical healing. In Psalm 107 verse 20, he sent his word and healed them. We appreciate your prayers and your financial gifts for the support of this ministry. Friend, Jesus loves you and we love you too. I'm Pastor Jack Morris.

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