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: How can I love God whom I have not seen and I do not love my brother or sister whom I have seen? Friends, it all goes together.

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. 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: The family of God. What a family it is. Aren't you glad you're a part of that family? Part of the family of God because of Jesus, his precious blood and the redemption that has come to us through him and because of him. Now, I'm going to read How how about if you read along with me Genesis chapter 1 verse 27 and 26. And you have an outline in your bulletin. Genesis chapter 1 verse 27 and 28. Hold your Bible up and in unison, let's read these two verses of scripture together. So God created man in his own image.

In the image of God, he created him male and female. He created them. God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth and subdue it. Okay, there is where you could stop right now. This idea of family began with God. It's God's idea. Long before the man was created, God had an idea about creating man and creating woman, creating children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren. The idea, the concept began in God's mind. He thought of it. He designed it. He planned it and he did it. And you're here, family. Can you say praise the Lord?

It's God's idea. Now, family is the oldest institution in the world. There are two old institutions. Well, there are some many old institutions, but I think of the church. How old is the church? Several thousand years old, at least 2,000 years old the church is. But the family is older than the church. Actually, the family is the oldest institution in the world and God made it. No wonder the devil hates it and is attacking it and causing all kind of problems in the family. It is God's idea. It's God's creation. You see, God created Adam.

He made him a husband and then he made him a father in that order. Then God created Eve, made her a wife and then made her a mother in that order. Woo. I'm not going to say anymore about that. We want to do it according to God's order. And when it's God's order, it works out. When we follow the Lord's word and do it his way and follow his example, and he's certainly given us a lot of word and a lot of example to follow. We know how to be obedient. The problem is, are we going to be obedient and do it God's way?

Then Adam and Eve cohabitated. They had children. They had Seth. They had Cain. They had Abel. And then in Genesis 5 5, we read that they had uh brothers and other brothers, other sisters. They had grandchildren and they had great-grandchildren. They became quite a large family and we're all children of Adam and Eve. It all came down to us. Now, God created man and woman for relationships. He created us for a relationship. He said it's not good that man should be alone. And when he says man, I want you to look at this this verse of scripture, verse 27.

And when he says man, everywhere in the Bible, that means woman is man and man is man. He said, so God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him male and female. Created he them. So everywhere it says man, it's also means wo man as well as man. And so God created man and woman for relationships. It's not good that man should be alone. But you know, through the years I have met people who do not have a family. Uh their parents are gone. Uh they have no siblings. Uh their aunts and uncles and grandparents are gone.

They they're all alone. Not too often do I find a person like that, but every so often I do find a person who really doesn't have any blood relatives at all. So what I do is encourage them to come to church. There's a great family here, but we can't really involve ourselves in each other's relationship in a big congregation as large as our congregation. And then we have the 10:30 congregation that all of us at the 8:30 congregation, we don't know them and they don't know us, but there's a lot of people right here this morning that we really don't know.

So what have we done? We have we have been led by the Holy Spirit to start these small groups so that we can really begin to have relationship and experience spiritual family. We have Sunday school classes. We have a men's fellowship. We have women's fellowship. Uh we have midweek prayer services and and Bible studies. And we have all of these opportunities to come together. And so I invite these people who are family less. They don't have families to come and get involved and experience relationship. If you don't experience relationship, then you are experiencing uh an on absence.

There's a vacancy in your life. We need one another. We have been created for one another. Even the father, the son and the Holy Spirit, there's a Trinity of relationship in heaven. And so God has made us for relationships. Now, the family in recent times has fallen upon hard times. As I moment mentioned just a moment ago, the oldest institution in the world, God created it. Now, God created the church and we know that the church is under attack. Satan does not like the church, but the the the miniature church is where two or three are gathered together, a husband and a wife can become a little church.

And when there's a child, when there's two or three gathered together in his name, wherever those two or three are, there is a church or there is the potential of a church. And so the enemy hates the family because it's God's creation. Now, you wonder sometimes why there's so much conflict, so many problems in our family because God created your family. That 's why. That's why you need to live with God and live close to God and walk with God and invite God in and keep inviting him into your family because if he doesn't get in, I'll tell you one thing, the devil will get in and there'll be something to pay when the enemy gets in because he hates the family.

The family reminds him of church. The family reminds Satan of what God has done. When I was born, I was you know, I was born up near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, family of four. My family is a family of four and a father, a mother, a younger sister and then myself. I was the first born in that family. All of them are in heaven now. I'm so thankful for that. My brother's in heaven, my father's in heaven, my sister's in heaven and I know someday I'm going to go to heaven. How do I know that? Because I know Jesus.

Because I've been following Jesus and I've been following the word of Jesus to the best of my ability. I've been doing that and I've made plenty of mistakes and I've slipped plenty of times, but I want you to know he's merciful. He remembers our frame. He remembers that we're but dust and when we ask for forgiveness, he'll forgive. Even after becoming a Christian, we need to come to the Lord and say, Lord, I slipped. I sinned. I broke your heart. I mean, we have to tell it like it is. And every time I I think I break his heart, I ask him to forgive me because I know that he has a lot of confidence in all of us.

And sometimes we betray that confidence and and we do slip and we do fall. Well, my parents separated when I was about 15 years old. Now, they had a rocky marriage all those those years that we were they were living together. But when I was about 15, they separated. They never went back together again. My dad continued to live in Western Pennsylvania. My mother, sister and I moved to Baltimore. My grandparents were living in Baltimore. They had a little farm in West Virginia, but they they moved down to Baltimore for a little while and then later on they moved back to West Virginia.

Well, I don't know that I was ever really lonely or sad. You know why? Because I identified with this another family, the church. The church became my family. I love the church. I remember Now, my dad was a was a good supporter. He supported the family even while we were there. When we moved away, he would come to see us. He would give money to us. He supported me in my education when I was going to college the and university to become a minister. He supported that. He believed in education. He wanted me to do to do education.

But I'll tell you one thing, when when Abel when he found out what I was going to do with my education, that I was going to be a minister, he you know what I mean, he had a great work ethic. The job came first. I mean, it really came first in his uh in his life. And uh when he heard that I was going to become a minister, you know what the first thing he asked me? How much does it pay? Well, he stumped me. And I I said, well, I don't know. I said I I just take what they give me.

He said, what? He said, what kind of job is that? You just take what they give you. I said, yeah, well, I I stammered and stuttered for a while and I I didn't know what to tell him. He said Listen, he said, when you get a job, when you grow up and you get a job, and I even even this was even before that, when I was even small, he would talk to me. He said, now you find out what kind of pension plan they have, what kind of retirement. I was 18. I'm never going to need a pension plan.

I'm never going to I'm 18. And I listened to that kind of talk. And but that's the kind of mindset he was. He was a real hard worker and his job came first. Well, he would come down to Baltimore and visit us. My sister and I would go to the train station and meet him. He'd catch the train and come down. And at first, my mother was was very angry with him. But as the years went by, their relationship mellowed and uh we'd go to the train to meet him and my mother and dad they were divorced, they were separated, but they kissed each other.

I would stand there and they'd get ready to go home. We go down to the train station. They'd kiss goodbye. And man, two people so kissy. And they can't live together. I mean, they they can get along as long as they didn't live together. But when they lived together, they couldn't kiss. But when they were separated, they wouldn't kiss. But you know, that was good for my sister Grace and me uh to see that and I would love that. We wanted that and we knew that they were friends. And when my dad was dying in the hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he was asking for my mother to come.

He wanted her. And uh when my mother was uh very old, nearly 92, she just had Alzheimer's. And uh you know what she asked me for? She said, do you have a picture of your dad? And my dad had been gone for years. And before that, they'd been separated for years. And but she said that she had forgotten she just about forgotten what he looked like. And so I questioned her about her relationship and how she felt it. She acknowledged. She said yes. She said, I love him. He was the love of my life. You see, the devil hates families and the devil will do everything he can to tear up a family.

Do you know, listen to me now, listen good to me now. There are as many Christian families breaking up and divorcing as there are none Christian families breaking up and divorcing. Now, there's something wrong. There's something wrong. Somebody or some bodies aren't following the Lord and following the book. There's something wrong. That's why we have a class here in the church at least two times, maybe three times a year where the uh Noles and Grace and Patricia and Dwayne teach a six week or an eight week uh premarital counseling class. And then we have individual counseling.

Minister Hill also and his wife do counseling. My wife and I do counseling. We we're trying to help couples understand what it is to be family. Family can be one of the most blessed, richest experiences, but it can also be hell. You have to decide and you will decide whether the devil gets in or whether he doesn't get in. But friend, regardless, it takes it takes uh two to to make a good family, but it don't takes one to break it up. Do you hear what I just said? It's going to take a husband and wife working together to make it work, but only one of them can break it up.

But a family, the family of God, this is the family that God has blessed. And so I went to that little church. It wasn't a church nearly the size of this church. That's where I met Korean in that church. We got married. We fell in love and got married in that church. She became uh the I became the president of the youth group. She became the vice president of the youth group. So we had to plan those services together. And we found out we were working so well together. We thought, well, why don't we just make it permanent?

Our children were born and our children were dedicated in that church. It was just a little church. It wasn't a big church. It was almost like a Well, it was just like a little family. But when a church gets this size, then we were going to have to make some changes. We're going to have to reach out. We're going to have to extend ourselves. You see, God created you for a relationship. And you may or may not have a relationship with your spouse that is a Christian. And if you don't, then you need to get in a Sunday school class, one of the men's fellowship, women's fellowship, small group.

But you need to be in relationship because you were created for relationship. And if you're not experiencing wholesome Christian biblical relationship, then you're living below the threshold of God's blessing, the complete fulfillment. And you may be happy in the Lord, but you're not as happy as you could be in the Lord if you would get into a relationship. Are you in a relationship? Well, get in a relationship and get in a family relationship. And the church became a relationship on every every Friday night. I mean, every Friday night. I don't know why I'm really going into all of this.

I guess maybe the Lord wants me to tell you tell you and be more open to you. But every Friday night, we had a youth meeting in that church. And do you know that church? The attendance on a Friday night youth meeting. My wife is here. I'm not exaggerating. She rebuke me when I go home if I do. She might rebuke me before I finish the sermon. But Friday night attendance was almost as great as Sunday morning attendance. The the young and the old came to that church to support those kids, all of us kids.

And I remember being asked to preach my first sermon. I was about 16. I was scared to death. Almost I'm almost that scared right now. I mean, you stand up here and you see all those eyes looking at you, even my eyes behind me. I'm surrounded by eyes. And everybody has two. So so that's double the number. So I was asked to preach and I got a little sermon together and I got in the pulpit and um I I must have told them I was called to preach and I wanted to be a preacher someday.

And so I started to preach and I forgot everything. I mean, I forgot everything. And uh I my heart began to palpitate and uh I I I went into the sermon maybe three, four minutes at the most and and I was done. I was gone. And I I knew I was about to faint. I I was going to faint. And I heard a hum in my head. Hum. And and literally the congregation seemed like it was everybody was moving away. They were getting smaller and smaller. And I knew I had to get out of that pulpit now or I was I was going to faint.

And uh and so I told the people, I said uh I I'm finished. It's all over. And but I said maybe next I said next time I'll do better. So I went back into the choir loft and I remember my my grandmother telling me. She said, if you ever feel like you're going to faint, that means the blood is draining from your head. Now, I don't know why what that really meant, but the boy, I didn't have any blood up there. I don't think at all. And she said, put your head down between your knees and it'll revive you.

Well, I I remembered that and I went back and I put my head down and I revived. Sure enough, I I came back to my senses. After the service was over on the first or second row, this elderly couple, they were at church all the time, gray-haired people. And uh they they always called me by my first name. I was only 10 and um can't think of their names right now, but uh she said to me, she said, Jack, what happened to you this to to that she said literally she said, your face turned green.

But now after several more years when the church was going to set me forth as a minister, it was her husband that stood up and said that uh in the congregational meeting that they were going to set me forth as a minister. But it was those people, they became my fathers, my mothers, my sisters and my brothers. It says in the scripture, let me see if I can find it here real quick for you. Uh 1 Timothy 5 1 Paul said to Timothy, he said, I want you to treat the older men of the church as fathers.

I want you to treat the older women of the church as your mothers. I want you to treat treat the younger men of the church as your brothers and the younger women as your sisters with absolute purity. Well, that's what happened. The church became my mother. The church became my father. The church became my brothers and sisters. The church became my family. That's why. Listen to me, friends. With that kind of background, surely you realize why I am so concerned about getting people into small groups and getting them into Sunday school, getting into men's fellowship.

I knew what it did for me. It was my salvation. I would have been lost forever if it hadn't been for mothers and fathers, spiritual mothers and fathers who extended themselves, who came out to hear me, to watch me make my mistakes, then to encourage me to keep on and to get behind me and say, I too believe you're called to the ministry. Hey, I'm not finished my sermon, but I want to sing that course. I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God. I really am. I am so thankful that I'm part of you and you're part of me and we're part of one another.

Do you know Americans have less friends today than ever before in history? There was a study done at the University of Chicago not very long ago. And in 1985 the average American, listen to me, in 1985 the average American had three friends. In 190 I mean, in 2004 the average American has two friends. And the study revealed that 24.6% of Americans don't have any friends. We are a nation of strangers. God help us that the church doesn't become a church of strangers. And we sing I'm a fan member of the family of God and it's only a song, but it's never a reality.

I want it to be a reality, but friends, you're going to have to do something to make it a reality. Just sitting in a pew and slipping out, friends, you're going to have to do more than that. I'm so glad that you're here, but I want you to have all that God has for you. And I want all the parents and the mothers and fathers to be mothers and fathers spiritually to those kids over there and all of those kids that come in for communion. I want us to all be brothers and sisters in the Lord, love one another, look forward to being together, look for every excuse to come and to meet one another.

The family of God. Listen. Isn't it interesting that when God was going to send his son to this world, he sent him through a family. He didn't make Jesus like he made Adam. Jesus could have just come walking out of the woods somewhere. Just like Adam just came walking up out of the earth. A full-grown man about 40 years old, I would suspect. Jesus could have just appeared, but God believes in family so much that he sent his son into the world to have a father and a mother, to have sisters and to have brothers.

God believes in family. God loves family. And Jesus came born of the Virgin. God also gave him a daddy and brothers and sisters. Jesus went to the synagogue. He grew up being uh an apprentice to Joseph. He was a family man. And what a man he was. And he loves the family. And then when God began to talk to us about our relationship to him and our relationship to one another, he used family terminology. Now, listen. He said, I want you to call me father. And every prayer that Jesus ever prayed, he prayed family. And then he even gave us a family prayer.

Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. We're praying it here every Sunday morning. And Jesus prayed Abba Father, meaning not just father, but an intimate, close, dear, endearing, precious relationship with him. How can I have that kind of relationship with him and not have that kind of relationship with his children? It just doesn't work. How can I love God whom I have not seen and I do not love my brother or sister whom I have seen? Friends, it all goes together. Let's do God's will. Let's be God's family.

Let God through Jesus the Abba Father.

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