The Healing Word

Guest (Male): He cares for you, he loves you, he's not about to turn you down. You have not because you ask not. Ask and you will receive and the grace of God will come in and it will bless you abundantly.

Welcome to the Healing Word, a ministry dedicated to offering strength and encouragement through God's Word for anyone facing life's challenges. As believers, we want to serve God and walk in His will, though the path isn't always easy. Today's message is here to meet you at your point of need, bringing hope and renewing your faith. Now, here's Pastor Jack Morris.

Pastor Jack Morris: I'm so happy to have you with me today in this worship service. We're going to worship the Lord for He's worthy of all praise, of all worship, of all thanksgiving. He's done great and mighty things for us. We're going to look at Ephesians chapter two, verses one through nine, where it tells us of God's gracious mercy to us. The word "grace" appears over and over in that particular chapter.

There's not a more beautiful word in the Bible than the word "grace," simply meaning God cares, God loves, God's kindness comes to us. Friend, I think you have experienced the love of God, the kindness of God, the mercy of God. I pray that it will be renewed in you today and again in a new and living way, you and I will experience His love, His grace, and His kindness. Friend, you're loved with an everlasting love. Worship the Lord, experience His lovingkindness, His grace, anew.

I want to experience Christianity as it was experienced in the very beginning, when Christianity first came into this world in its very ancient, original, primitive way. That's what I want to experience. Fads come and go all the time. Even among churches. There are churches will fall into a fad, and then you go from one church to another church to another church, and they're all doing just about the same thing. I'm sure that's all right. I'm not going to criticize that.

But I'm not interested in a fad. I'm interested in Jesus. I want to know Him, the power of His resurrection, in the fellowship of His suffering. I want to know Jesus and experience Jesus. And I'm praying that everyone here today will have that same experience. I believe that's why you're here. The Apostle Paul made three missionary journeys from Jerusalem. He went out three different times in his history, and everywhere he went he planted a new congregation.

And to every one of those congregations he later sent a letter and we have those letters as books in the New Testament. He went to Corinth, the city of Corinth, he started a church, later on he wrote them a letter called Corinthians, one and two. He went to a city called Galatia, and later on he writes them a letter and we have it now, the book of Galatians. He went to Ephesus, later on he writes them a letter, to Philippi, to Colossae, to Thessalonica.

Six congregations and we have six books in the New Testament, the very letters that he wrote to them, we have it today. Aren't we blessed? We have exactly what Paul wrote to those churches. Now to every one of those six churches, he starts out with this salutation, "Grace and peace to you. Grace and peace to you." Now notice today's sermon title is "Grace to You," because when you get grace, you will also get peace.

And there are God's people today who are struggling, who are going through very difficult places. They are not experiencing the peace of the Prince of Peace, but Jesus is here today to turn things around and to give you peace even in the midst of tribulation. Even in the midst of tribulation, trial, and difficulty, He's here to give you peace. I don't know whether He's going to change things in your life, in your family, I don't know whether, but I do know this: He'll change things in your heart and in your mind and in your thinking and you will have peace if you get grace. If you get grace.

Now this is what I'm going to do: I'm going to talk about our need for grace, and then I'm going to define grace. I'm going to do several minutes, I'm going to talk about grace and you're going to think, "What is he talking about? I wish he'd explain what grace is." Well, after I talk about it and you get real hungry to know the definition, then I'll go to the definition. And then I'm going to tell you about how this grace comes into our hearts, changes our lives, makes us a new creation.

And then I'm going to talk to you about grace as it continues in our hearts. Grace not only for salvation and being saved, but grace to live by, to overcome. God's grace is beautiful, it's wonderful, it's here for us today and God is extending it and we see it in no greater way than when we come to this holy table and experience His broken body and His shed blood. Now here's our need for grace. Everyone in the world needs grace.

I'm supposing that everybody here this morning has received God's grace. If you're saved, you've received Jesus as your Savior, you have received God's grace. David the Psalmist said this, and what he said about himself is true of every one of us. David said this, "It's true of you too, so I want you to hear it." David said, "I was brought forth into this world, my mother birthed me into this world with a sinful nature. As a little tiny baby, seven, eight, nine pounds, 12 pounds, however big he was, I came into this world with a sinful nature."

Meaning I came into this world with a bent toward sin, with an inclination toward doing wrong. And when I got old enough, this is what David is saying, and it's true of all of us, "when I got old enough to do wrong, I did wrong." That's why the Bible says we have all sinned. Now we've done right things, good things, wonderful things, even before being saved, but we also sinned and went against God's law. In Ecclesiastes it says this, "There is not a righteous man on earth who does what is right and never sins."

So friend, let me tell you something: You are a sinner, I am a sinner, we have all, that includes everyone. We have all. So none of us can point a finger and say she's a sinner, he's a sinner. Hey, we are sinners. The difference now is we don't choose to sin. We sometimes slip up and commit a sin. There was a time we wanted to sin, we practiced sin, we had habits of sin and wrong behavior. But today we desire Jesus and we want to follow the Lord Jesus, we want to come to this table and remember Jesus.

So David said, "I was brought forth in iniquity. I was brought forth with a desire with this inclination, with this tendency to do the wrong thing." In other words, he's saying it was easier to do wrong than to do right. It just seemed like it was so easy to do it. And I did it. I thought wrong, I behaved wrong, I acted wrong, over and over again. And so Jesus came and He took all our sin and all our wrong in order to bring us salvation. Praise be to the Lord. Can you say, "Praise the Lord"?

Now we all need grace. Let me tell you about the word now. I'm going to describe it to you. Grace means a number of things. The word "grace" is like a diamond that is held up to the light and it just flashes: goodness, mercy, kindness, love. Grace is an all-inclusive word. There's not a word in the Bible that is more beautiful than the word "grace." When you say "grace," you've said everything that is beautiful that God does for us. Can you say that word, "grace"? God's grace.

Now turn to your neighbor and say, "Grace to you." This is what God has given to us, the kindness. I think of His kindness. He's done such kind things for me. The kindest thing He ever did was when He gave me Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior. Undeserving, unearning kindness, favor, love, that's what grace means. Do you know that God put kindness in you? That God put love in you? That God favored you? This is what God has done.

He has done this for us. I pray the Holy Spirit will bring this back to our attention that we will think about His grace and what He has put within us. Undeserving, but He gave it to us anyway. We have all sinned, we deserved nothing of God's goodness, but He gave us His favor. He favored us, He blessed us, and the result in the root of the word, the root meaning meaning joy and rejoicing. Now let me tell you something, friend. God wants you to be in joy and He wants you to rejoice.

Some say, "Pastor, I'm not rejoicing today." Well, this is the day the Lord has made. This is the day to come to the table of the Lord, to confess, to repent, and to leave rejoicing. You say, "Yeah, but nothing has changed." No, but you will change. Your mind, your heart, this is what this is for. And we're going to experience it, be blessed by it in just a few moments we're going to come to this table. Like the song says, "It's me, it's me, it's me, O Lord, standing in the need of prayer."

I think it says not the pastor, not the deacon. Yeah, the pastor and the deacon needs it too. But God's coming with His gift of blessing to us. I think of grace, I think of how did I receive kindness? How does kindness come into me? How does favor come into me? Or love, how does it come in? I thought of this homely illustration of a blood transfusion, how that little needle is put in that IV line, and then another little needle is put in my vein.

And the blood of somebody else comes into me. The Bible says life is in the blood, and it surely is because if you lose your blood, people we've heard of people bleeding to death, life is in the blood. So the life of that person is now coming into me. Well, what about the life of Jesus coming into me? How it comes in, how it makes its way. When that blood starts coming into me through that IV, it goes into my network of arteries, and then my heart begins to pump that blood all through my body into every cell.

Carrying oxygen and other nutrients, making me strong, making me alive. Listen, I can accept it, life coming from another man into me, why can't I accept life coming from God into me? And life does come. He's the author of all life, He is resurrection and life. Friend, come on, let's get out of our grave this morning. Some of us are in a ditch. Somebody said, "You know what a ditch is? It's a grave with the ends kicked out." So I don't know, but I know this: God wants to bless and to bring healing and wholeness into our life. Amen. Amen. Hallelujah.

Now going back to my conversion, you think of your conversion, think of the time you were baptized. If you can't remember the date you were saved, remember the date you were baptized and let that be your spiritual birthday. But rejoice every time that date comes around, rejoice in the Lord. I can tell you right now it was September the 9th, 1951. I know when, where, I have the date. It's my spiritual birthday.

I was born into this world with a natural tendency to sin, with a carnal nature, it's called in the Bible the Adamic nature, it's the nature that Adam had. But then when I was saved at that altar at my grandmother's church and I was born again, that's exactly what it was. It was a new birth experience. The old passed and the new came. I couldn't have gotten it any way, I couldn't have earned it any way, all I could do is, "God have favor on me and bless me," and He did.

God is only a moment away, only just a prayer away to bless and to bring healing and wholeness into your life. The Apostle Paul had a dynamic experience. He was on the Damascus Road, he was doing wrong things, out to seeking to destroy the church and every Christian believer and to bring them home in chains, and Jesus appeared to him. Jesus took the initiative and appeared to him. It wasn't a vision of Jesus, it was Jesus Himself. Paul was dramatically, dynamically saved and brought into Christ.

And now years later, many years later, he's out establishing churches and something happened to him physically. It was perhaps poor eyesight. He talks about writing large letters. He healed many others, right now he's ill. His eyes no doubt oozing with this fluid coming out. And he prayed three times that God would heal him and take it away. It didn't go away. It didn't go away. Friend, I don't know whether your problem is going to go away or not.

All I know is this: God can change you that you can handle that situation that has been getting you down and defeating you. Do you believe that? You can handle it with God's help. Amen. And God's going to give you the grace today. He's going to give you the kindness, the joy, the rejoicing, the favor. He's going to give it to you. You have but to ask of Him and He's here. Well, here was Paul with this physical condition, and he's writing these large letters.

I mean when he printed, he made a big Y and a big O and a big U. But he wrote these letters, we have them today in the Bible in the New Testament. And he prayed, "Lord, would you take this away from me?" He said this, "I know that it's Satan," I'm using my own words, paraphrase. Paul knew that it was the work of the enemy on him. Friend, the devil's at work today and he may be at work at your home, in your life, in your finances or where you work.

I don't know where he's working on you but he's not going to leave you alone too long until he comes back again. But Paul prayed that God three times that God would change this situation and bring healing to him but it never happened the way Paul wanted it. This is what God said to Paul, "My grace is sufficient." There's that word again. My lovingkindness, my favor is on you. My lovingkindness is on you.

Your problem is greater than the God's favor is upon you. If God's favor were upon you, you wouldn't be so defeated and so down. Come on, this is the day for you. This is your day to experience the favor of God and to allow that favor to come in. Oh, I pray that you'll listen. I pray with all my heart and I prayed for this service today and I prayed for you, that you're hearing today what Paul heard. What did Paul hear? "My grace is sufficient."

My grace is enough. Friend, is God enough for you? Or do you need something else other than God? He said, "My grace is sufficient," meaning sufficient meaning it's enough, it's more than enough. You can make it if you know my grace. Call on the grace of God and experience it and live a victorious, rejoicing life of joy. This is what God would have you have. You see, God's grace came right out of the womb of God's heart.

God birthed it like a woman would birth a child. And He birthed it to give to you, to put in you, to put in your heart so that you might know that sufficiency of overcoming and living victorious in the Lord. A lady had a husband that abused her in many ways, that man abused her. She says that I stayed because I had these little tiny children and I had no skills, I couldn't get a job. I didn't know where to go to work and if I got a job it would be a job that wouldn't pay very much.

Because I didn't have any skills. And I afraid my children might be without food and I didn't know how to even go about renting a place, and where would I rent, where would I get the money? And so I stayed. I had no choice, I had no recourse. What did she do? She said, "I looked to the Lord and God gave me grace. And I lived with that devil of a man all those years. And I lived in victory. He kept on abusing me, but I had rejoicing and perennial joy. I had it because God gave it to me."

Listen, friend, you have to listen and you'll hear, "My grace is sufficient. My grace is sufficient." I have kindness, I have favor, I have love that is enough to strengthen you and you can walk through Hades. But even though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will be with you. Friend, you got to make up your mind. Are you in God and is God in you? Are you walking with God, is Jesus walking with you?

If not, today's the day to make it happen by coming to this altar and believing on the Lord and receiving His grace. Hallelujah. David said, "I was born and shaped in iniquity." But God's grace. Paul the Apostle found that grace. I found it, you found it. Where did it go? Come on, we can get it back today. God is ready to restore and to bless and to make us whole. His grace is sufficient. Yes, His grace is sufficient for you.

Tell me your problem. No, don't tell it to me, tell it to Him. I'm available, but He's the one that'll make it make you strong and give you the victory and you'll overcome and go forward in Him. You'll be strong. We sing that chorus here, sometimes I wonder, are we aware of what we're singing? We sing that chorus, "Give Thanks Unto The Lord." And then it goes on to say, "Let the weak say I am strong. Let the poor say I am rich."

Friend, we can say it and sing it, but until we have it we better shut up and go to an altar and get along with the Lord, alone with the Lord, and allow Him to come and to refresh our spirit and to refresh our soul. Friend, God has an infusion today. He has a spiritual IV. He's already plugged up to the heart of Jesus and the very blood of Jesus is flowing today from Calvary. Here it is for us to remember and to rejoice. And that life of Christ is coming into us, that sufficient grace to help us to overcome and to live for the Lord Jesus Christ.

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