The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: God so loved the world that He gave His only son. While we were yet sinners, He died for us.

Guest (Male): Welcome to The Healing Word. This is a ministry of the Largo Community Church. On the program today, Pastor Jack Morris is going to lead us in a study of God's love and explore what the Bible has to say about this most awesome gift. Let's go to Pastor Morris now for an introduction of today's message: God's Love.

Pastor Jack Morris: Hello, friend. I'm Pastor Jack Morris. The sermon I'm going to bring this morning is found in Romans chapter 5, verse 8. Let me read it to you: "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Isn't that amazing? It amazes me that while I was disobeying God, not loving him, not serving him, doing things that broke his heart, he loved me, took my sins, went to the cross, and took the penalty.

He did that not only for me but he did it for you and everyone who will turn to him and believe on him. While we were yet sinners, breaking the law of God and doing it repeatedly, it's amazing. I want to bring this message to you. It's in my heart, and I pray that the Holy Spirit will take it from my heart to your heart and that you'll hear it and know how much God truly loves you that he did something for you that will last forever and ever if you give your heart to him. He has already given his heart to you.

God's blessings be upon you. Let's go into the sanctuary and hear this message of God's abounding love that knows no limits. His love is reaching out today. I'm truly praying that his love will touch your heart and you'll respond by giving your heart to his heart.

God's love. I don't know that I have a more favorite subject than God's love. The power of God's love is awesome, and that's what I want to talk to you about this morning: God's great and wonderful love. We talk about the love of God so often. We read John 3:16 and quote it very frequently. These words have become so old and so familiar that we can read them and quote them with little or no emotion. We're just so used to these holy words that they just glibly pass through our lips without producing awe or amazement.

We've just become maybe too familiar. So I'm praying this morning that the Holy Spirit would come upon every person here and that we would hear these words like we've heard them for the very first time. I pray that the word of God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, would sink deep into our hearts, that we would be moved, and there would come an awe, a reverence that God loves us. I think everybody here would be able to say, "Yeah, I believe God loves me." But I mean to really know it, to feel it, to experience the warmth of it, the transforming power of God's holy and wonderful love.

Now this is the thing that amazes me the most. I'm awed and I'm stirred by it as I read Romans 5, verse 8: "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." That's amazing. I can't get over it, and I don't want to get over it. While we were still sinners, God didn't wait until we got good. While we were still bad, God came to us and loved us. Once that penetrates my mind and my heart, that God did this for me because he loves me, now in return I start loving God back.

That's the only way that I can love and reverence God is to experience first God's love to me. Once I have experienced it—not just read about it or heard about it but truly experienced it—now something starts happening in me, and I start to think. This wonderful God who cares so much for me and loves me so greatly, now I'm beginning to love him back. Love produces love. Let me tell you a story that happened over 50 years ago at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland.

There was a sociology professor there who asked his students to go downtown into the slums, inner city of Baltimore, and interview 200 young men, and then come back and predict what's going to happen to their lives. His class went downtown, interviewed the students, got their names, addresses, and everything they could get regarding those young men downtown. They came back to the classroom, and that sociology class predicted that 90% of those 200 young men would spend time in prison. That was their prediction.

These were educated sociology students. Well, 25 years passed. Now the sociology professor is still there, and he has a new class. He asked them to search and find those 200 young men and see where they are today. They had their names and addresses, and they began a search. Amazingly enough, that class was able to locate 180 of those 200 men. They came back to the class and they discovered that only four of those 180 had spent some time in jail.

Their prediction was absolutely way off. So now the question and the discussion is, "Why were we so wrong? Why was that class 25 years ago so wrong?" So they began to search for a common denominator. 100 of that 180 all had one particular teacher in common that they reverenced, who greatly influenced their lives. Now the search is on: "Where is that teacher?" They found her in a nursing home in Memphis, Tennessee. The news went there to her, and this old lady, her name is Sheila O'Rourke, said that she didn't understand why all this fuss was being made about her.

She said, "The only thing I ever did was to love each one of those boys. That's all I ever did." Love begets love. Now her love, Sheila O'Rourke's love, an imperfect human love, gave those boys a life. Now God's love is divine, and it's perfect. If human, imperfect love can give a life, what can perfect, divine love do? It gives eternal life. Friend, God loves you, and his love—if you'll open your heart and receive it—it'll change things. It'll turn things around. It'll make everything brand new.

Believe me this morning, it's for your life, your spouse, your children, your home. Love changes things. There's power in love. Now there are three witnesses of God's love to us. First, there's the witness of his word. He tells us repeatedly; this is a whole letter of love to us. Let me ask you a rhetorical question. You think now, and answer it in your mind. Who do you love? I want you to think of some people. I want you to name them. You think about them. Who do you love?

Well, I love my family. Parents love children. Children love grandparents. There are aunts and uncles and siblings and on and on. That's wonderful. I know you love them. You love your friends. Friends are people who treat you nice, right? You don't have very many friends who treat you badly. If they do, you'll begin to ignore them and separate yourself from them. Friends who treat you nice, people that you treat nice. They do nice things for you; you do nice things for them.

Well, let me ask you another question. Is there anybody else that you love other than family and friends? The answer might be, "I don't suppose so. Who else is there to love?" God so loved the world and everybody in it. World meaning cosmos, the ungodly, sinners, lawbreakers. God didn't love just friends, people who treat him nice, but he loved all of us so much that he gave his only begotten Son. What a gift! Why would God give his Son for me? I wouldn't give my son for you. Would you give your son for me?

Think about it. God gave his Son. When I begin to realize that, and that begins to get inside me and churn, and I begin to ruminate that, belief in my heart begins to grow and my spirit is quickened. Can you say amen? Amen. That's the first witness: the written witness. The second witness is the creation testimony. Paul says in Romans chapter 1, verse 20, that creation itself is a witness that there is a God and a God who prepares for us. We look at the trees, and we were going to put stained glass windows in the building.

We thought we wouldn't because I thought it's so nice sometimes just to glance out and look at creation and look at the clouds. So we decided years ago that we wouldn't do it. If I had it to do over, I'd put more glass all over this place so we can look out and see God's creation. Creation is there, but creation is not enough. We can be awed by creation and never know the creator. There are people, you have neighbors and I do too, and we'll ask them, "Do you believe in God?" "Yeah, I believe in God." But they don't live for God, they don't worship God, and they don't go to church.

A lot of people can look at the tracks and know there's something behind it all, but they never know the author. We can look at creation, and we know it just didn't happen, that there's an author behind creation, but still never know the author, never know the God who designed it all. Now Jesus comes today to speak to us about eternity, about God's great love for us, to help us to know him, to serve him, and to love him. Friend, I don't know how, and I'm really having a difficult time right now trying to express myself.

We have all of this evidence: churches everywhere, we know they're places of worship. We have all of creation. Some people even go to church and join a church and even go through the sacraments and never, never know what it's all about or the person behind it all. How many people come to the holy table and partake? They hear, "This is the body, this is the blood." They hear it all over and over, but they never know the person whose body was broken and whose blood was shed. They know the sacraments, they can tell the history, but they never know the author.

January 12, 2007, a young man took Metro downtown Washington D.C., got off the Metro, walked over by the wall, stood by a trash basket, takes his violin, opens it up, takes out the violin, leaves the violin case open, and he takes some pocket change and a few dollars as seed money and he puts it in, thinking that people will go by and put some money in. Then he begins to play. He played beautifully. He's a white man, has on jeans, has on a long-sleeve t-shirt, and has a Washington National ball cap on. Very nondescript.

He was only there for 45 minutes, and approximately 1,000 people walked by. He played Mozart, he played Schubert, he played the most beautiful music, and very few people paid any attention at all. This was all designed and done by the Washington Post. This very man, three days prior, was at the Boston Symphony Hall that was packed out, and the ordinary seats went for $100 a seat. Three days later, he's down here in Washington D.C. and people just walk by. Now Jesus came into this world, and his own received him not.

Not only his own but those of us today. We know about him. We know about John 3:16. We know about the Bible. We know about communion. But everything has become so ordinary and nondescript that we don't see the reverence and feel it. We don't experience the worship and the awe. We don't know him. It's all about him, but we don't know him. We look at creation, but we don't know the creator. Friend, I've got to ask you a question this morning: Do you know him? If you don't, please give your heart to the Lord Jesus Christ.

That young man downtown playing that violin—27 people walked by and dropped some money in. They counted the money. It came to $32, and they didn't know the man. They paid no attention to the music, but only three days prior, it was $100 a seat. Some years ago, a young man and his father had a falling out. They really had a bad argument. The boy did something that was bad, and his father was just outraged by what his son had done. The argument was so severe that the boy left home.

He was gone for several years. The father didn't know where his son was, knew nothing about his son, but the mother knew where the son was and kept in touch with the son. They wrote letters back and forth, but the mother never told the father because the father was just so very angry with that boy. Well, several years passed and it was getting close to Christmas time, and the boy wanted to come home. He knew that if his father hadn't forgiven him, he wouldn't be accepted.

But he wanted to come home and he wrote to his mother. He said, "I want to come home. I want to see you and Dad." The mother wrote to him, and they corresponded back and forth. The boy said, "Do you think Dad will forgive me and let me back in the house? Do you think Dad will love me? Do you think Dad will forgive me?" Well, they wrote back and forth until there was no more time to write letters. This was before email. There was no more time to write letters, and so the mother wrote him one more time.

She said, "Son, I want you to come home, but things have to be different here in the house. You can't come in unless your dad has forgiven you. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. You catch the train, and when the train nears the station near our house, if there's a white cloth tied on the limb, you'll know to get off, that Dad has forgiven you. In the meantime, I'm going to talk to your father and see if I can get him to acknowledge forgiveness for you."

She said, "But if you don't see that white cloth, it would be best for you not to get off but to keep on going." So the boy got on the train, they neared the station, and the boy was so nervous now that he said to his friend that was traveling with him, "Would you look out the window? I can't. I'll describe the tree to you, but I can't look out that window." So they exchanged seats. When they came near the station, several minutes before they got to the station, the companion looking out the window was quiet.

He didn't say a word. Then he turned to his friend and he said, "There's a white cloth tied on every limb of that tree." Now in a sense, Jesus is that white cloth tied on a tree called Calvary, saying, "I want to save you, daughter. I want to save you, son. Come home. I want to save you, I want to love you, I want to make your life beautiful, I want to help you. Come home. You're forgiven." God so loved the world that He gave His only Son.

While we were yet sinners, He died for us. Jesus is here this morning, friend. You'll never have a better opportunity. I know in my heart right now some have drifted, and your experience in Christ has become dim. You don't have that spiritual luster that you once had. Friend, he's talking to you also. Come to this altar today. But before you come down—and everybody's welcome, you don't have to be a member of the Largo Community Church. All you need to do is be a Christian, a follower of Jesus.

This is not a denominational table; this is the Lord's table. So I have no right over it. Only he has the right over it. But give your heart to the Lord. Experience his love. Experience it. Feel it. That's what I'm talking about. Embrace him who is and has embraced you.

Guest (Male): Have you personally experienced God's love and the forgiveness he offers through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross? If not, reach out to him in prayer right now and thank him for creating you and for that love that will stand for eternity. We pray that you were blessed by today's message.

But before we go, feeling stuck in habits or struggles that hold you back? The new ebook, God's Power For You, written by Pastor Jack Morris, is your guide to breaking free and transforming your life. This book isn't just about inspiration but real change through God's love and grace. Filled with faith stories, practical steps, and biblical wisdom, you'll learn to tap into God's power to overcome obstacles and find lasting transformation.

Don't let life's burdens weigh you down. With God's Power For You, discover the courage, strength, and faith to live in victory. Go to thehealingword.com and click on resources to receive your free copy today. Join us tomorrow for another Healing Word message. Until then, blessings on you.