The Healing Word

Guest (Male): Did you ever think of some Christians needing to be born again? Born again from that old attitude, that old lifestyle, that old feeling that's out there on my sleeve all the time, waiting for somebody to do something I don't like so I can get ticked off and get angry and get all upset for days and weeks and months? Friend, listen, come to the altar and give your heart to Jesus Christ. Amen.

Narrator: 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's Pastor Jack Morris.

Pastor Jack Morris: Numbers chapter 6, verse 22: "The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace."

I have been working with this passage for days now, planning it, praying over it, rereading it, and I have just barely scratched the surface of it. I've never given so much thought to this particular passage as I have this past week or two. And I know that I'm just barely, just gradually, just on the surface of it, but oh, the depth and wonder of it all.

And then I thought about you, my beautiful, wonderful congregation, and you've got to get it all in about 25 or 30 minutes. It's taken me days, weeks. I still haven't gotten it. But I have been worried or concerned that I've got to bring something to you that I have been working with and working with and praying over and researching and studying and looking at it. Then I've got to digest all of that and give it out so quickly.

Well, I'm going to try, but I know only by the power of the Holy Spirit will God bring this to you. It can't happen otherwise. It will be a miracle. Now, if you just get a snatch of it today, then you've gotten a whole lot, but more will come. This is a benediction blessing, and it is because of our familiarity with it that we are blind to its richness, its content, its meaning.

We hear it all the time, all our church life long we have heard this one and several other benedictions, but our familiarity has blocked the meaning. Now, this blessing is not a pious hope. It's not something for the future. It's a right now, today, this very split-minute blessing. It's not going to come to you; it's yours now.

It says we have a high priest who has passed into the heavens. Now notice that: we have. We're not going to have; we already have a high priest who is looking out for us, praying for us, blessing us, healing us, providing for us, keeping us. We have it now. Right now, it's ours.

The priests were anointed with a special authority to bring this blessing. A blessing didn't just happen. It didn't just, "Oh wow, did I get blessed today?" No, it isn't just, "Oh wow." It was because you focused on Jesus and Jesus focused on you, and you and Jesus had a connection. That's why it happened. It just didn't drop like a leaf off of a tree.

It is because God focused in on you, saw you, saw your need, loved you. He knew that you were easy to love and that you needed help and you wanted help and you were looking to him to get that help. You knew that he was the source of your help. When you put all of that together, you've got help. The Lord has blessed you and helped you.

Now, when God blesses us in some fashion through a song or a sermon, a message, or a teaching, something happens to us in our body, in our spirit, in our emotion. You can't get blessed and not know you're blessed. When you're hearing the word of God coming forth and it is backed with the authority of our high priest, it is coming from heaven. The Lord is speaking.

Something's going to happen in you. You're going to feel it. There is going to be a warmth, maybe, that will come to your heart, or a peace will settle over you. Unconsciously, there will come a little smile to your face, maybe a tear will come down, or a chill will come over you, or a peace and a contentment that you didn't know all week long.

But something will happen to you. So many of God's people come in and sit down and listen to it. "Well, you know, I've heard it before. This is a new slant on it, but I knew all of that." No, that's not worship. That's not the way God blesses. No, something's going to happen. Look out for it, feel for it, expect it. It is going to happen.

John Wesley said when God touched him, he said, "My heart was strangely warmed." When Moses was on the mount, his face shone. Something physically and spiritually and emotionally will happen, and if it doesn't happen, then the word didn't get in there.

Now, it could be that on the way home, the Holy Spirit will bring something to your mind and you will say, "Wow, that did touch me this morning," or during the week. But you will feel it and you will know it. There is no such thing as getting blessed and not knowing you're getting blessed. No such thing. The blessing of God is too great and is too wonderful.

Now, here we go. Aaron was Moses' brother. This is Aaron's blessing because Aaron was the high priest. Moses couldn't pronounce the blessing because Moses was not a high priest. Only Aaron and his sons. Jesus is after the order of the high priest of Aaron. This is an Aaronic blessing.

Moses commissioned him and said, "You are the one." Just as God sent his son into the world and through Jesus—no other name—but through Jesus, are we saved, brought into the kingdom of God, and blessed. Aaron is the high priest. God used Moses to appoint him, and then Moses turned and received the blessing himself from his own high priest brother.

He was appointed a high priest to bless the people of God, not all the nations. Now, did you just hear that? He was appointed to bless the people of God, not everybody, but a select group who are living in a covenant relationship with the Lord. A select group.

Now, you have to ask yourself the question: am I right with God? Am I living with God? Have I been loose and free with my life? Have I been out there on the fringe? Have I been doing things that I shouldn't be doing? Friend, forget the blessing of God until you confess that and become honest with God. And when you do, the channels will be open, the blessing of God will begin to flow again.

Jesus is our high priest. So I have to ask myself: am I a believer? Am I walking with the Lord? Am I living in a relationship with the Lord? And if I am, the blessing will come. If I am not, I confess to him and then the blessing will come. But you, you are the only one that can make it happen or keep it from happening.

What power you have today. God's trying to get through, but very often our familiarity, just our familiarity—we sing the same hymns, same choruses, same, same, same, same. Same breakfast, same lunch, same dinner, same breakfast, same lunch, same dinner, go to bed, get up, go to bed. We keep doing everything else the same. God's trying to say something to us, is he not? Amen.

Now, what does it mean to be blessed? Jesus came to bless. The whole New Testament opens with Jesus blessing. The very first sermon Jesus preached was the Sermon on the Mount, and nine times in Matthew chapter 5, he said, "Blessed are the poor; blessed are the meek; blessed are those who hunger and thirst." Blessed, blessed, blessed. He came to bless. He yearns to bless. He is a blessing Savior. Our Jesus, he came to bless.

The word bless simply means the life that Jesus gives. Jesus is going to give you something of himself, something of his own life. That's what it means to be blessed. I've heard people say, "Well, you know, I'm blessed." I feel like saying, "Well, tell me what that means. What does that mean to you, 'I'm blessed'?" Well, then we begin to think.

That is what God wants us to do. Think about what he has done, what he is doing, what he can do. He can do the most gracious and most wonderful things. He has blessed us with a blessing that cannot be denied us if we open our hearts to hear and receive and walk in obedience with him.

To be blessed describes the life that God gives. It is a fulfilling of well-being. Let me start there. That's a big broad stroke. To be blessed is to be experiencing the fullness of well-being. Everything is okay. God's in his heavens. Jesus is in my heart. The Holy Spirit Comforter is by my side. All hell can break loose, but everything is okay. I'm living in the fullness of God's blessing.

It is an incredible state of well-being, an incredible state of contentment. It is miraculous. It doesn't come from anywhere else but from above. And it comes to you and it comes to me. Our Lord Jesus Christ, this great and wonderful blessing of the Lord.

Born again from that old attitude, that old lifestyle, that old feeling that's out there on my sleeve all the time, waiting for somebody to do something I don't like so I can get ticked off and get angry and get all upset for days and weeks and months? Friend, listen, come to the altar and give your heart to Jesus Christ. Amen.

Own up to it. Be honest with yourself. God knows you're wrong. You know you're wrong. Even that attitude tells you, "I'm wrong." You know that attitude's wrong. But now look at this: "The Lord make his face shine upon you." That means you've done the right thing. You've listened to God. You've leaned on his strength. You haven't leaned on your own wisdom.

And now God looks at you and smiles. God's smiling at you. He loves you. You know when Moses came off the mount in Exodus chapter 34, Moses came off the mount, he didn't know his face was shining. Did you ever see a person with their face down like this? Their bottom lip, they're about ready to trip over it, stumble over it.

No, your face will shine when you're with Jesus. And do you know why those bottom lips are sticking out? Do you know why? That person hasn't prayed lately. They haven't had a private altar lately. They haven't gotten alone with God and confessed and repented and worshiped lately. No. Why? Their feelings are hurt.

Friend, God knows how to keep his people. And if he can't keep his people, we can't be kept because we sure can't keep ourselves. But when God blesses and God keeps you, and he then starts smiling at you, he knows you've been trusting him. He smiles at you, and pretty soon your face begins to shine.

Moses came off the mount. He couldn't even speak to the people. His face was such a glow that Aaron said, "You're going to have to put a veil over your face." You don't have that down, hound-dog, dismal, lower lip sticking out expression. You look like a saint. You act like a saint. You behave like a saint. My, it is good to be around you. You talk like a saint. Hallelujah. Can you say amen?

God wants to be close to you. "The Lord make his face shine upon you." He wants to be close to you. Only then will his face shine upon you. Only then will you have the glow of Jesus on you. Only then. But you will have it. You don't have to work for it. You don't have to do anything but just stand there and bask in the sunshine of his love and let it happen. And it'll happen. "The Lord make his face shine upon you."

And then it said, "The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace." Read that one on the screen: "The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace." It is one thing for God's face to shine upon us. That is a gracious and wonderful thing for God's face to shine upon us.

But it is a richer still experience for God to lift up his countenance upon us. That means God supports me in my activities. Now you think of what you've been going through, what you've been doing, who you've been talking to, every activity. Listen: does God support you in that?

You know, this is almost as good as a hand clap, but I know you're listening. When God lifts up his countenance, that means that God is supporting you in your activities. It's like a parent smiling at a child. That parent sees that child trying. Sees that child putting forth an effort. Burning the midnight oil. Doing what that child knows to do right. And that parent supports that child.

Now, I have somebody here, a dear friend, Artis Hampshire-Cowan, vice president of Howard University. Years ago, I heard a testimony, not from her but from somebody else, about how she thought that maybe she wasn't performing as a little girl in school the way she would like to have been performing. But she had a daddy that was supporting her in her activities. Artis, would you come up here? Let's welcome Artis.

Artis Hampshire-Cowan: Good morning, church. You know, when Pastor called me, I kept saying, "That's an old story. Where did he hear that story?" It was Dean Richardson, Dean of the Chapel at Howard University.

Well, I grew up in Pritchard, Alabama, a small town where it was basically school, church, and work and chores and family. For those of you who grew up in the South, you know that having kids recite poems was important. That was entertainment for the family, and it's also something we did in church and in school.

So, I was entered in an oratorical contest in the seventh grade. I was pretty good at it, around the house and church and whatever. This was a big deal for me. I was in the seventh grade and I had all the confidence in the world because I had really prepared. I got on the stage and I started and I went blank. And of course, I panicked.

But my father was there. My father stood up and he raised his hand. He did that. And of course, I started over and I won that contest. So that is my story. Now, I have to tell you that all the kids in my high school—junior high and high school is one school for us—joked me about that my entire high school year. They would always do that. That was a way to pick on me.

But you know, over the years, that image of my father has taken me through so much. Just that visual image of him. I'm always able to forge through and get done whatever it is I'm able to get done. I have to tell you that my mother passed in 2008. One of my friends from school who was the person who picked on me the most about that came by to see me. And as he left my mother's house, he did that.

So it also says to me that though it was embarrassing to me when I was young, all of my friends also recognize what it meant to have my father there. As I reflected after touching base with the pastor last week, I thought to myself, now, I've always taken that for granted and it's certainly been a blessing to me, but it was a tremendous sacrifice for my father to be present because he was not paid when he was not working.

But he never missed any activity that his children were involved in. So I think that's a lesson for us today, that just showing up and being there when our kids are doing things, you have no idea the impact it had. It has certainly blessed me and taken me a very long way.

Pastor Jack Morris: Hallelujah. Thank you, Artis. That was beautiful. Amen. Now, do you think God would do less for you? The scripture says, "If you being evil"—meaning people of the world—"know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to them that ask him?"

God's child, and you know what God is doing? He sees you in the arena of life. He sees you in the home, you're trying to live that Christian life. He sees you on the job, you're putting forth every effort. You're in school, you're trying to be the very best. And God lifts up his countenance, God lifts up his face upon you.

He smiles. When he sees you seeking God, doing just a little bit more, going beyond the call of duty, not just enough to get by, God then lifts up his countenance. God's looking at you and going, "You're going to make it because you've got a high priest in the heavens that has the authority to bless you, to care for you, to make his face shine upon you."

This young man, I ask him where he goes to school. He said Hampton University. I said, "Do you have a church down there? Do you have a church, a spiritual family?" He said yes. He said, "I work with the chaplain of the university. I serve in the chapel. I serve the chaplain. I'm on duty." How old are you? 21. 21, and for 21 years he's been coming to this church.

Hey, we've got some great young people here. Hallelujah. And when God sees you parents supporting your young people, backing them up, praying for them, getting them out here, do you know what God's doing? God's looking down at you, mom and dad, and saying, "Keep it up. I'm on your side. I see what you're doing." God is there. He's supporting you in your activities. "The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace."

And then it says, "So they will put my name upon the Israelites, and I will bless them." How many times does God have to say that he's going to bless us? But we have become so familiar. We count your blessings, name them one by one. Well, go ahead and count them then.

What are your blessings? Reflect on them, think about them, call them out to the Lord, thank God for them and watch God open the windows of heaven, smile upon you, support you, and pour out a blessing on you that you can't even receive. You haven't counted the old ones yet. Count the old ones and you'll get some new ones.

Then he said, "I will put my name upon them," meaning that God is going to imprint the very image of Jesus in your life. You're a new person, a new creation. God has done great things for you and his blessing is upon you. The stamp and mark of ownership is on you. Now you're his child, you're his daughter, you're his son, we're his kids, and he's taking care of us, blessing us.

Now I pray today and every day when one of the ministers comes up here to benedict us, that we will think: I'm going out there. I'm going out there. It's not easy out there. You already know it's not easy out there. But you're going out there with God blessing you and keeping you. God lifting up his face upon you and smiling. God lifting up his countenance upon you and giving you peace.

God has stamped you this morning. God has stamped you. Listen, have you felt anything today? Has there been a smile, a tear, a sensation, a peace, a heart-warming? Has anything happened? Now you can go in peace knowing that this is not the end; this is but the beginning.

Narrator: If today's message strengthened your faith, we invite you to stand with The Healing Word through your prayers and your generous support. Every gift helps us take the gospel to more people who desperately need to hear that Jesus still saves. Join us tomorrow for a new Healing Word message. Until then, blessings on you.