The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: How can I describe? Words are inadequate. Friend, if I spoke with the tongues of men and angels, the heavenly languages, it still would not be sufficient enough to describe God and His great love to us.

Guest (Male): Welcome to The Healing Word, a ministry dedicated to offering strength and encouragement through God's Word for anyone facing life's challenges. Today's message is here to meet you at your point of need, bringing hope and renewing your faith. Now, here is Pastor Jack Morris.

Pastor Jack Morris: I'm going to jump right into the middle of this message. I'm going to go to verse 8, then I'll move to verse 9, and then to verse 10. I'm going to make a reference to verse 16, and then I'll go back to the beginning. I'm doing this because, in verse 8, it has three great, wonderful words, and I don't believe I can move into this message without addressing these three wonderful words. These three wonderful words are also found in verse 16. The words are: "God is Love."

The greatest single statement about God in the entire Bible. There it is. The greatest single statement about God. Someone says, "Tell me about God." God is love. Now, we're not saying love is God. No, not at all. But God is love. This infinite Creator that made heaven and earth, that is also very personable. Jesus taught us to call him Father, even Abba Father, speaking of a dear and intimate relationship that we can have with this great Creator.

I titled the message "God's Unspeakable Love." The reason or the purpose in using the word unspeakable is simply because what else can I say? How can I describe? Words are inadequate. Friend, if I spoke with the tongues of men and angels, the heavenly languages, it still would not be sufficient enough to describe God and His great love to us. God cares for us so deeply, and He loves us so sincerely. This love that has come upon us has now entered into us, and now it's beginning to flow out through us.

The Scripture says, "By this," John 13, "By this." By what? By love shall all men know that you are my disciples. Not by what you say, or what you preach, or what you teach. That doesn't classify you as a Christian. But the love of God that has come into your heart and the love of God that is coming forth—that is true evangelism. That is missionary service. It has happened, and I have seen it, and I have been a recipient of it. I praise God for you and for what He's done in your life and what you have allowed Him to do in your life. God can't do anything for us unless we yield to Him and allow Him to do it.

By this shall all men know that you are my disciples. I'm incapable of talking about God, expressing my thoughts about Him. He is so high, so mighty. He fills the universe. He's filled eternity. Where can I go and hide from the presence of God? God is awesome, and yet God is very personable. He not only loves people and loves congregations, but He loves individuals.

When I was a younger pastor and I was starting in the ministry and began preaching, I used to buy books by A.W. Tozer. You may never have heard of that man. He's gone on to be with the Lord, a great pastor, a great theologian. He addressed this subject, and this is what Tozer said: "I can no more do justice to this awesome and wonder-filled topic than a little child could reach up and grasp a star."

A little child reaching up to grab a star. My hand now, am I any closer to a star? Reaching a star? So, no matter what I say about God, it falls so far short of what He is and His mighty power and love and mercy to us. That's the thing that so staggers my imagination, that this God that is higher than the stars, who created the stars, can be bothered by my little life. Your little life. He can be bothered, and He indeed is bothered. He cares so greatly.

Notice it said, "God is." He is love. That little word "is" meaning He is what He is. What He is now, He always was. What He always was, He is. What He is, He always shall be. Love never changes. Love is forever. Love is for real. This is our God. God is love, the unchangeable essence of God. Now I want you to read verse 9. Read it in unison with me: "This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him."

Notice it said, "This is how God showed his love." It would be absolutely ridiculous to talk about love, to talk about compassion, without showing it. But God shows His love. Love is a noun and love is a verb. Love as a verb, it is an action word. It can't be dormant. It moves. It does. It acts. It behaves. God showed His love. He just didn't sing a song about love and preach a sermon about love. God sent His one and only Son into the world. Love shows itself.

You may have heard the parable of the pit. You may have heard that. I don't know whether you have or not. I hadn't heard it, I don't think I'd ever heard it before, but I wrote it down and I thought I'd share it with you. The parable of the pit. It was a story about some travelers. This man was traveling, and he fell into a pit. He couldn't get out. He's struggling to get out of the pit. So, here comes some people by.

Here's a very sensitive person. A very sensitive person. The sensitive person looks down into the pit and says, "Oh my, how terrible. I really feel for you." Then goes on his way. Now comes the logical person. The brainy type. He looks into the pit and he says, "Hmm, you know, it's logical that somebody was going to fall into that pit. You happen to be that person." I know it sounds silly; it is.

Then here comes that curious person. He's very curious, and he sees the man down in that pit and he says, "You know," he said, "I'm just curious. How did that happen? How did you fall into the pit?" Well, then comes the IRS man, the IRS agent. He said, "Are you paying taxes on your pit?" Then comes that self-pitying man and said, "Oh, you're in a pit. Well, wait a minute, let me tell you about my pit. You think that's a pit? Let me tell you about my pit that I was in."

Then comes along the optimist. The optimist says, "Listen, sir, you just cheer up now. Cheer up. Things could be worse." Then the pessimist comes by and says, "Be prepared. Things are bad, but they're going to get worse." Then Jesus comes by and says, "Give me your hand. Come on out of that pit." And He pulls him out of the pit. That's what Jesus does.

The Psalmist said in Psalm chapter 40, "I waited patiently for the Lord. He turned to me and heard my cry," meaning He inclined His ear. God Almighty, He turned to me. Of all the people on the face of the earth, He heard me. He saw me. He turned to me. I guess He just ignored all the rest of you, and He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise.

God heard me. God turned. He focused. He gave me His undivided attention. He heard me. Of all the voices in the world today, all the noises, God heard me. God heard you. The Almighty. President Obama hasn't heard you, has he? No. No other politician, no king, no queen has heard you. But the Almighty God who created the heavens and the earth heard you, and He hears you, and He lifts you, and He blesses you. These are the gifts of God's love. God's love is an active love.

Now I'm going to go back to verse 7. I said I was going to start in the middle and I'm going to go back. Now I want you to read verse 7: "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God." Everyone. You see, God loves congregations, but congregations are comprised of individuals. God loves individuals, and He brings individuals together and they make a congregation. They make a church. Jesus said, "I will build my church."

Now I'm going to tell you the hardest thing in the world to believe. For you to believe, for me to believe. The hardest thing in the world for me to believe, for any person to believe. I'm not talking about believing in a miracle. I'm not talking about believing in healing of the sick. That's maybe hard to believe for a miracle or hard to believe for the healing of someone sick. But there's something harder than that. Are you listening to me? Here it is: the hardest thing on earth for a Christian to believe is that he or she matters to God.

That's the hardest thing to do. Sometimes we have difficulty believing that we truly matter. Now we'll say that. "Oh, I know I matter to God." We may even quote the Scripture from Luke 12 where Jesus said, "Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Not one sparrow falls to the ground without your Father seeing it. You're worth more than many sparrows." We'll also maybe talk about John 10 where Jesus said, "I know my sheep by name." He knows my name. He knows my name.

We'll quote those. But to come to the realization, I mean come to the realization that I matter to God. That God would incline His ear. That God would pause and turn and look at me when I pray. Of all the people in the world, you matter to God. I matter to God. That is the most difficult thing. That's why it's so hard sometimes for us to pray and to believe that God's going to receive our prayer and we're going to receive an answer from the Lord. Friend, He loves you with an everlasting love, a love that will never change, a love that will never stop, a love that will never cease. You matter to God.

If we could ever get our hands around that, or get our heart around that, or get our mind around that—that I matter to God. That God watches over me. He sees me. He takes care of me. He provides for me. Saint Augustine, the theologian from North Africa, said, "God loves each of us as if there were only one of us." Can I believe that? Can I receive that? Look at it, "Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God."

Now we are to do to one another what God has done to us. We're not going to fake it or be hypocritical about it, but we're going to love. It's going to be genuine and it's going to be authentic. It's going to be Christ in me, loving out through me. That's what makes the Christian the salt of the earth. That's what makes the Christian the light of the world. There is something that that Christian is doing that nobody else can do and nobody else is doing. It's love, the greatest power on earth. It's the love of God. God is love, and everyone who knows God and everyone that God knows as his son or daughter knows love and follows love.

Now look at verse 10. Put verse 10 on the screen for me, please. Verse 10, let's read this: "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." This is love. Back in 1937, a man by the name of John Griffin was working in Mississippi for the railroad as a bridge tender. It's those bridges that will open up and let a boat go through and then it'll close back down. Well, this was a railroad bridge. It had rails.

John Griffin was working there, and this particular day his eight-year-old son went to work with him. That little boy had all kinds of questions to ask his daddy. He just jabbered on all day long. Just jabber, jabber, jabber. He looked at everything, explored everything. His little curious mind wouldn't let him rest at all. Then Dad missed his son. He looked all around, couldn't find his son, and he looked out and he saw that the son had left the room where all the levers are that move the bridge.

John had pulled the levers back to raise the bridge up so a boat could go through, a rather large boat. The boat was going through, and he looked out and his little eight-year-old son had crawled up in among the gears. The gears that lock, that make that thing happen. John became panicky. He said, "Oh my God, my son's out there among those gears." He ran out of the booth that he was in, and just as he ran out, he heard the whistle of the Memphis Express with 400 passengers on it coming down the track at a great speed.

John had to get that bridge down again, otherwise those 400 people would be killed. But if he put the bridge down, his eight-year-old son would be just chewed up and ground. What a decision he had to make. The whistle was blowing and the train was coming. John goes back into the booth, he pulls the lever, and the bridge comes down and just chews that little boy's body all to pieces. As the train went by, John looked. The people on the train had absolutely no idea what was going on. Some of the people went by and they waved at John.

John said he saw people reading the newspaper. There were people in the dining car relaxed and enjoying themselves. There was his little son just all chewed up. God gave His one and only Son. My sin and your sin beat Him, chewed Him up. Blood. I thought about it as I was thinking last night. Did Jesus have any more blood? Was there such a thing as a blood transfusion back then? I don't think so. But there He was, and God looking at His one and only Son until God Himself, the Almighty, couldn't look anymore and turned and looked the other way.

His Son was just so chewed up with my sin and the sin of the world. God gave His one and only Son. When God turned His face the other way, Jesus said, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" All alone. Now friend, He cares. He loves you. He died for you. He gave His all for you, and He hurt just like any other human being when our flesh is pricked or hurt. He went through pain and went through agony. Somehow that truth has never gotten quite through to so many people. Maybe to some, I hope so.

But I think there's so many people today, they'll just drive by a church and think that's a nice building. Or they'll come in the church on an occasion once every few months, and it's sort of like they're going by and sort of giving God a wave. "We know you're there. We believe in you." Do you believe in God? "Oh yeah, I believe in God." It's just like the train going by and the people looking out at John knowing that John had just killed his own son to save them.

Jesus sacrificed His own Son to save me. To save you. To bring us into the kingdom of God. Friend, I'll say it again. I pray that the Holy Spirit will get it through to me and get it through to you: that you matter to God. You matter to God. I cannot get away from that. I don't want to get away from that, that I matter to Him. Have you given your heart to Him? Have you given your heart?

The way we come into the kingdom of God is we come knowing that our sins Jesus took. Our sins were like the gears that chewed up that little eight-year-old body. Our sins, our lives have gone the way of sin, and sin has destroyed our relationship with God. Now we come back to God and confess that sin, and God forgives and God restores. This is what God does. He yearns to bring us into His family and to bring us into His kingdom. He yearns that we become born again and live the life that He gives us.

Sin destroys us, but God brings us back and gives us life. This is what God will do if we'll humble ourselves. Don't just say, "Yeah, I believe in God and church is a nice thing and nice people go to church." You're just sort of waving at God as you pass by. All the while, God's Son, even to this day and in eternity, and when you stand before Him in that day, you'll see the nail prints in His hands. Sin made Him ugly. But oh, those hands are so beautiful. So beautiful.

I think I told you the story one time about the girl in the living room with her girlfriend from school. She was a teenager, had another teenage girl in, and her mother walked through. Her mother had terrible scars on her face. Her mother was made ugly. One day, when the mother went through and walked into the other room, she heard her daughter say to her girlfriend, "Oh, that's just the woman that comes to help us, to clean the house for us."

It just about broke the mother's heart. When the girl's girlfriend left, the mother came back and she said, "Honey, I have to tell you something. When you were only two or three months old, our house caught on fire. You were there and I was outside. The house was burning, and I couldn't allow you to burn with it. You're my baby. I ran back in the house and the fire fell on me and the beams fell. But I got you. I made it to you."

She says, "I grabbed you up and threw a blanket around you." She says, "And my arms and my hair all burned off and my face." She said, "You see these scars? That's how they came. I wasn't born this way. I rescued you." Her little daughter began to cry and took her mother's hand and started kissing those scars. Those scars are on Mom's hands and her face and all over her body that the little girl doesn't see because of the dress. But those scars are there because Mother saved me.

She was ashamed of her mother's scars. Jesus took our sin, our hell, our scars, our beating, our crucifixion. He, the pure Lamb of God, He took it all in order to bring us in. And still some aren't willing to commit to Him, to make the confession, to repent. Friend, He loves you with an everlasting love. You matter to Him. He wants to help you, but you've got to open your heart and say, "Help me, Lord. Forgive me, Lord. Come into my heart." When you do, He'll put His arms around you. He'll save you. But those scars, He has them today on His forehead, on His head, on His hands, and His feet. He will carry those scars. When He resurrected, He said to Thomas, "Behold my hands and my feet, and my side." Even in His resurrection body, He bore the scars. He chose the nails. You matter to Him. You matter to God.

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.