The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: If you have darkness and you just don't know how to get out of the darkness and the confusion, you tell Him that. Lord Jesus, I'm in darkness. It seems like I know I'm saved, but it seems like I'm just wandering and there's no direction. I just can't see my way out. You'll hear Him say, "I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness but shall have everlasting light."

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. Now, here's Pastor Jack Morris.

Pastor Jack Morris: I'm convinced that we need to have our concept of God corrected. That's where the problem lies right now. Our concept of God is wrong. We have an erroneous idea about God. You see, we've heard sermons, we've read the Bible, we've read books, we've gone to concerts for years, all our life. And during that time, a concept of God has formed in us, in our thinking.

But this concept of God that most of us have come up with is a concept of God—a God being made in our own image. Not us being made in His image, but we've made God in our image. With our limitations, with our abilities, we have made God a little God, a diminutive God. Not the great God that He really is. And I pray the Holy Spirit will come like a blockbuster and just break up that erroneous idea. And the image of God that is given in the Bible will be formed in our minds and in our hearts, and we will come away believing that He is truly the almighty Yahweh, Jehovah, and experience His power in our lives.

A diminutive God, a little God. Now, we pray prayers, but just think of the prayers that you pray and that you've heard prayed. The prayers that we pray are usually rather general. We're not very specific in our praying. When we pray a general prayer, we don't really know whether it's ever answered or not. It's a broad stroke, but if we get specific and we ask God to do a specific thing, then we will know when that specific answer comes. But if it's a general prayer, then we don't know if we get an answer or not. That way we're never disappointed. We play in the safe zone with God because we don't know quite sure if He'll come through.

He's a little tiny God. He's been made in our image. Through the years, this concept has been formed. So, in point A in your outline, write down the word "incorrect." An incorrect concept of God. You see, this idea of God that we have is fuzzy thinking. We get the concept of God like He's a big policeman in the sky, or that He's a stern judge, or He's a big sugar daddy. We get these concepts and we hold this image, and we expect God to be acting and conforming to our image of Him. And all the while, He's trying to get His image across to us.

Sometimes we act like God is a distant landlord. Someone out there that we send the rent to or the payment to. A God that is distant, like a landlord who doesn't really care about me and my problems and what's going on in my life. He's just out there to collect the rent. That's all. But God wants us to know that He does love us, that He is concerned about us, that He wants to hear and answer our prayer, that He will literally move mountains for us. But most of us have never had a mountain moved yet.

Now, we believe He can do it, at least we say He can do it. We say He can heal, we say He can do great and mighty things, but we are very, very reluctant to pray for great and mighty things because we're afraid that it won't happen and we'll have a big letdown. So, we have this conflicting idea of God and who He is. Here we have these internal struggles and external struggles. The internal struggles, these feelings of lostness, loneliness, sometimes we're blue, sometimes we're down.

We become depressed. We don't know why. I just woke up this morning feeling down, I don't know why I feel so down and depressed today. I just feel defeated. All of these internal conflicts going on, but somehow, for some unknown reason, we don't take them to God and expect God to deliver us, to lift us, and to give resurrection power in our life for our daily living. These conflicts are there. They come and they stay until they just work themselves out.

There are people today that are so lonely. They feel the need of love. There just isn't anybody coming through for them. But we never tell God that, and consequently, things remain the same year after year. But today, God wants to come through and He will come through. Listen, did you hear what I said? God made a promise. I just made you a promise. I said that God will come through. He will, and He is going to do it in the service this morning.

Now, there are external conflicts that go on. Not only the internal conflicts, but there are people that are having marital problems with their spouse. They're having problems with their children. Children are having problems with their parents. There are external problems at work. At work, there are some impossible people. You don't want to go in on Monday to see them again. You just know they're impossible. I'm glad we're not like that, are we? That everybody loves us. You're not an impossible person to anybody, are you? I just want to make sure we get that cleared up at the beginning.

But there are those conflicts that are there, and yet we never talk to God about it. We never bring it to Him. Somehow, we're not sure that He'll do anything anyway. We think, well, we'll just have to grin and bear it. But we don't. We can take it to the Lord in prayer and He'll answer prayer. Now, why do we have these internal conflicts and these external conflicts? I'm going to give you the answer right now. You got it? Ready? Pencil in hand?

Because we've made God like us. A diminutive God, a little God that can't do much with our marriage, can't do much with that impossible person at work, can't do much with our children, can't do much with our parents. Now, if I were to ask you, you'd say, "Oh, sure He can." Well, then you tell me why hasn't He? Most of us haven't even asked yet because we're not sure that He's going to take care of the situation that is at hand, the one that's getting us down, the one that's confronting us, the one that's causing us all the problems.

Yes, we have some big mountains, but those mountains are going to be big in 2005 because they were big in 2004, because they were big in 2003. Friend, you don't have to live the little life. You can live a resurrection overcoming life, for you have a big God. And He wants to come forth in power for you. Why does God want to have all of that power stored up in heaven? He knows He has it. He wants you to know He has it. He wants to bring it down here and make it very practical for us.

Now, we need a new God. Not new in that He never existed before, but new in that He is the God of the Bible, the God of truth, the God of reality. New to us. Not the little God that is so hard to believe in when we have a financial problem, so hard to believe in when we have a marital problem, so hard to believe in when we have a career problem. Not that God. I'm talking about the new God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God of creation, the God of Almightiness.

This is the God that wants to come through for you and me today, and He will come through. Listen to the word of God. Faith comes by hearing. You will be blessed. Now, we're going to look at Moses. Moses had a wrong concept of God, but he got it corrected. He got it corrected. That's what I want to see happen today and in the next few weeks. I want to get our concept of God corrected. It's just off-balance. It's too fuzzy. We can't truly experience His power the way He wants us to experience it, and it's all because of the way we're thinking about Him.

Now, Moses had this wrong concept, but he got it right. We're going to get it right, aren't we? Can you say amen? We're going to get it right. Now, this is what happened. Moses was adopted by Pharaoh's daughter. He was raised and educated as an Egyptian, but he soon found out that he was not an Egyptian but a Hebrew. These people were not the people of his blood, but these people enslaved were the people of his blood. He was one of them, not one of these people.

One day he saw an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Hebrew. Now, here's this young, robust, hot-tempered, arrogant Moses. Remember, he later becomes the meekest man on all the earth, but he was not always that way. And so he sets out single-handedly to deliver Israel, the Hebrews, and he murders the Egyptian. He kills the Egyptian. He finds out to his shame, chagrin, and embarrassment that he had murdered a person and he has no power in himself. He thought God was just about as strong as he was. But God was greater.

This wasn't the way God had it planned at all. So Moses now retreats to the backside of the desert. Listen, do you know how long it took Moses to get it right about God? Do you know how long? 40 years! Now, I'm going to try to do it with the help of the Holy Spirit in six weeks. And maybe this 20 or 30-minute sermon is going to get it going. 40 years he was on the backside of the desert trying to figure out who God is, to get a correct concept of God, to get it right because he thought that's the way God wanted to do it.

But that wasn't the way God wanted to do it. He wasn't thinking like God, he wasn't leaning on God, he wasn't expecting from God. He thought, "I can straighten this mess up. I can free my people," only to find out that he couldn't do it.

Guest (Male): If today's message from The Healing Word spoke to your heart, we'd love to hear from you. Visit us online at thehealingword.com, a place where you can connect, share your prayer requests, and know that others are praying with and for you. And while you're there, you can also listen to more messages from Pastor Jack Morris and learn more about how his ministry is reaching lives around the world with the hope of Jesus Christ. That's thehealingword.com, where faith is strengthened, prayers are lifted, and hearts are healed through the power of God's word.

Pastor Jack Morris: So, there one day after about 40 years of wrestling with the concept of who is God, an acacia bush lit up and began to burn, and it was irresistible. He went over to examine, and God was in the flame, and God spoke to Moses. During those 40 years, that arrogance, that hot-temperedness, that just can't sit still, I've got to get out there and get it done, ants in my pants, I've got to make God do great and mighty things. It was all just Moses, Moses, Moses. And God was saying, "No, Moses, you've got to look to me. It's got to be me."

And God spoke to Moses out of the bush. Now Moses is ready. God had hammered out, chiseled out a man that would follow Him, a man that would lean on Him, a man that would believe in Him, a man in who now had a correct concept of who God is. Now God can talk. God can't talk to us because we're not expecting Him to say anything. We can go to church and sing hymns and pray prayers because it makes us feel good. That's how we were brought up. We were taught this is the right thing to do on Sunday.

And so we do it, but we don't expect miracles in our life. We don't expect God's intervention in our families. We don't expect God's help in our career and in our finance. We just don't expect it. We go to church, but we go to church not believing in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So, Moses finds the true God, or the true God truly finds Moses. Now in point B in your outline, write down the word "personal." A personal encounter with God. This is what made the difference.

When we talk about a personal encounter with God, often you're thinking, "Oh, Pastor's talking about sinners getting saved this morning." No, I'm not talking about sinners getting saved. I'm talking about Christians who are already saved. Listen friend, if you as a Christian cannot have a personal encounter with God at church on Sunday morning, how do we expect the unsaved to come in and have a personal encounter with God? God wants you and me, our spouse, our family to have a personal encounter with Him.

That's what made the difference with Moses. He saw the bush, he walked over to the bush, and now it's just God and Moses. Very personal. Just God and Moses. And God began to deal with this man and get him ready to do a great and mighty thing. God has great plans for our lives, just like He had a great plan for Moses' life. But Moses had to wait 40 years because he moved too quickly, leaning on his own strength, not understanding that God was going to do something great through him. He thought he could do the greatness.

It took 40 years to get that pride, that arrogance, that hot-temperedness out of him. But God got it out of him, and when God got it out of him, then God got in. But God can't get in and cohabitate with that. So here is Moses, ready now to listen to God. And so God speaks to Moses and says, "Moses, I want you to go to my people. Now's the time. It was not like when you murdered that Egyptian. You can't free them, but I can do it. I can do it. I can do it."

Moses said, "Well, who shall I say sent me? They're not going to believe me. I'm just a backward country boy out here 40 years tending sheep. I haven't even talked to many people. You want me to go back there to that whole nation of two to three million people? What shall I say to them?" You just tell them that "I AM WHO I AM" has sent me to you. And Moses said, "Oh boy. Oh boy. I AM WHO I AM has sent me to you. That's what you want me to do?"

That's what God said, "That's what I want you to do." Some of the things that we're thinking about, we're the ones that complicate it. God makes it simple. God says, "I just want you to go back there and give them one sentence." But heaven is in that one sentence. The very power of God is in that one sentence. "I AM WHO I AM." Point C in your outline, write down "correct." A correct concept of God. When God said, "I AM," God was using a Hebrew word, the word Yahweh.

"I am," those two words together in Hebrew is Yahweh. Now, Yahweh is also Jehovah. The words are used interchangeably by many Hebrew scholars. Yahweh was spelled with only consonants. I know enough about it that I can tell you this much. And then the people of Hebrew had to put in the vowels, and then after about a thousand years or more, they forgot how to say it because the generations passed on the truth orally. They forgot how to say it.

Most of the Hebrew scholars today in the scripture will write down the word Lord, L-O-R-D, with capital letters. Which means Jehovah, or the original was Yahweh. And when God said to Moses, "You tell them I AM WHO I AM has sent me to you," you'll be telling them that Yahweh has sent me to you. Who is Yahweh? Whoever heard of Yahweh? Moses, you just go and you tell them what I'm telling you.

Now, this Yahweh is the God who makes things happen. That's exactly what the word Yahweh means. It means "the God who makes things happen." But your God, your God and my God, the God we've been serving, hasn't made very many things happen in our life or our family for some time. But He wants you to know His name so that you might believe in His power. That He is the God who makes things happen.

We don't just send up some general prayers to Him, sing a few general hymns to Him, go through some worship liturgical motions to Him to make us feel comfortable that we've been to church. No, this is the God who moves into our lives in Almightiness to make things happen. And when things did not happen as God was expecting them and hoping that they would happen—God has some expectations of us. One big expectation is that we'll believe Him. You still with me?

That we will believe Him. So what God did, He sent His son down to this earth. God says, "I've got to come even closer to the people of earth because the people are not believing me. I have all this power stored up here in heaven ready to open heaven and pour out a blessing on them that they can't receive, and I just cannot get them to the place of faithfulness and consistency so that I can do it." Why does God want to bank all that power up there when it's needed down here?

But the big gulf between heaven and here is that we don't think He's big enough to help us with our family problems. You say, "Pastor, that's not true. I do believe." Well, then you tell me why you're still having family problems. Why you're still having career problems. Why you're still having these inner conflicts that are within, depressions and anxieties and fears and this dysfunctionness that is going on. Friend, it's time to look to God and experience the power of Yahweh. He's on standby.

He's ready now to pour out His spirit. He sends Jesus down to this earth, and Jesus is Emmanuel, which is what? God with us! Which is Yahweh! Yahweh is with us to do great and mighty things. He has come in the form and in the power of Jesus. Jesus Himself, when talking to these people in chapter 8 of John, they were questioning Him, "Who are you?" and when He spoke up and He says, "Before Abraham, I AM." Before Abraham, Yahweh!

Jehovah! They said, "You blasphemer, you." They're going to take rocks and stone Him to death. Who are you to come down here and tell us that you're Yahweh? That name is so holy we shouldn't even mention it. When the people of Hebrews would read and they would come to the word Jehovah, they would stop and be silent and skip that word because they wouldn't even speak it. And you have the audacity to say that you are Yahweh, Emmanuel, God with us?

He said, "Before Abraham, I AM." Friend, let me tell you something. You have a mighty Savior today. A mighty Jesus today who cares and loves you personally, individually. He's not a distant landlord. He's not a big policeman. He's not a stern judge. He's not a big sugar daddy. No, He's your almighty loving Savior who cares for you and your life. He is with you, Emmanuel.

Now, I want you to do this this morning. I want you to begin to identify your struggles. I mean by identifying them, begin to think about it for just a moment and think, what is it that's really bothering me? What is it that's getting me down? My children? My husband? My wife? Some of my siblings, my brothers and sisters? My finances? Some impossible person at work? Friend, listen to me. I'm just running down that list trying to help you to think.

What is it? Not that that bothers everybody, but that troubles you! That really troubles you! Now, when you can get a hold of that, you say, "Well, I'm upset a lot, I get blue a lot, I get down a lot, I don't know what it is that's really causing it." That's what I want you to think about—what's causing it? So you can name it to the Lord. So you can call upon God and you can take it to God and present it to God's holy throne.

God will hear you, and Yahweh will come to your defense. He will come, He will bless you, He will minister to you. This is how it'll work. You have fears and insecurities? He will speak to you and He will say, "I AM. Have no fear." And when you hear that, the waters will stop raging over you. If you have darkness and you just don't know how to get out of the darkness and the confusion, you tell Him that.

Lord Jesus, I'm in darkness. It seems like I know I'm saved, but it seems like I'm just wandering and there's no direction, and I just can't see my way out. You'll hear Him say, "I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness but shall have everlasting light." How many God has a promise for you today? He does. If you're worried, you say, "I'm just worried, my mind is just so worried."

If you'll tell Him that, you'll hear Him say, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." Friends, when you hear that, it'll be like God's voice coming out of the burning bush to Moses. It'll burn in your heart, a warmth, a love, a reality will be there. Loneliness? You feel lonely? There's just no one close to you? You don't have a relationship? Tell Him, and you will hear Him say, "Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

God has a promise, a promise that He wants to ignite like I would light this candle. See this candle? That's how most Christians live. You're a Christian, you're a candle alright, but there's no flame. There's no light. There's no heat. How do I get that thing going again? We'll get it ready for the next service. No, you have to choose. God wants to light up your life. That's what He wants to do today.

He wants to bring light and glory and happiness. Yahweh, I am in Christ, with us now to do what we thought impossible. Now, say, "Well, I've just got to live this out, you know. I've made my bed, I'm going to have to lie in it." No, you don't. You don't have to lie in that tomb. He will bring you up. Alright, we're going to bow before Him now. We're going to talk to Him. You get a hold of that conflict, whether it be internal or external.

You name it to the Lord. You ask Him, say, "Lord, I'm just having a hard time really understanding where it's coming from, help me to see where it's coming from." He'll even help you there. He'll help you all the way, all the way to healing.

Guest (Male): We pray that you were blessed by today's message, but before we go, start your week with encouragement from God's word. Sign up today for The Healing Word weekly devotional, delivered every Monday morning right to your inbox. It's a powerful way to begin your week with hope, scripture, and inspiration for your daily walk. Go to thehealingword.com and sign up today. Let God's truth speak to your heart every Monday morning. Join us tomorrow for another Healing Word message. Until then, blessings on you.