The Healing Word

Pastor Jack Morris: Some of you need healing today. Look up! Some of you need comfort. Look up! Some of you may be becoming bitter because of somebody that has hurt you. Look up! You can pray like Stephen did, "Lord, I love them. Not in my own strength, but in your strength."

Guest (Male): Life has a way of pressing down upon us. Worry, disappointment, conflict, and uncertainty can leave us exhausted in body, mind, and spirit. But Pastor Morris reminds us today that Christianity is the faith of resurrection. The same Jesus who was raised up is able to lift us above the things that weigh us down. As we begin a two-part message, Pastor Morris shows us what happened when Moses, Jacob, and Stephen chose to look above their circumstances and toward God. Here is part one of "The Lift Up Experience."

Pastor Jack Morris: It is my prayer and I have been praying this week that the Lord would help us to have that—I could not think of a better term to express what I want to say than a lift-up experience. The world is always giving us a, for the most part, a push-down, a depressing type experience. God comes with resurrection and desires to lift us. I want every one of us here this morning to have that lifting experience in Jesus Christ. We will if we look upon him with the eye of faith. Somehow if we can turn our thoughts and our attention—not that we are going to see him visibly. I have never seen the visible presence of Jesus Christ, but I have known his presence so real, so very, very real.

I remember one time years ago when I was pastoring in Baltimore, Maryland, and that was a long time ago. I was under a lot of pressure trying to finish a master's degree at New York University and traveling back and forth, doing radio work, and pastoring a church. The former pastor was the founding pastor and after pastoring that church for 30-some years, he died. That is a difficult thing to follow a pastor who had founded a church, who passed away, an older man. I was just so very young at that time, and I really thought I knew it all. I came in there to pastor that church and I had a surprise. What an experience that was.

I had an office in the basement of the church on 35th Street and Old York Road, just a few blocks from Memorial Stadium. I was praying. The pressure was so great. I hope that some of you can relate to it, but if you are under pressure today, I want you to listen and know that Jesus is still the Jesus of resurrection. There were conflicts and problems and the pastor's wife was still living and she was there. She had her own ideas how that church should continue to be run. I had something on my hands. She has now gone to heaven and is in the presence of the Lord, a wonderful lady, and I cannot really fault her for feeling the way she did. I came in there young and enthusiastic and I had all these new ideas and she wanted the old ideas. Her husband pastored it right.

The pressure was there. I remember walking the sidewalks. I would pray in the basement of that church, I would get out on the street, I would walk the sidewalks and look at the cracks in the sidewalks and I would say, "Jesus, where are you, Jesus? Come help me. I want to do your will. I want to serve right. I want to evangelize. I want to follow the vision that you have given me." Then I went in the basement of that church and behind my desk, I was praying and the presence of God, the very presence of Jesus, was there.

His presence is not any greater than it ever is in our midst because he is omnipresent and he is forever present. He said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you," so whether I feel him or whether I do not feel him, he is still there and very real. But he came this particular day and was so gracious to me that I knew that I was in the presence of that which is divine and holy, the very presence of Jesus. A hush came over me until I could not pray, I could not say the words. I knew he was there. I knew that he knew everything and he knew about all of my weaknesses. He knew all about my inadequacies.

I was seated behind my desk and it was a holy feeling, almost trembling in his presence. I was afraid to open my eyes because I knew he was standing on the other side of the desk looking right at me. He allowed me to know that he knew the pressure. He knew the circumstances. He knew the prayers and heard the prayers that I was praying. I waited until the trembling inside began to cease and I knew I was lifted up. I knew I was in a heavenly place even though I was down in a basement and my spirit had been so down. I knew Jesus had visited me.

When that left, I began to relax and I began to open my eyes. The burden was gone. I never felt anything quite like that in my life. I have never felt his presence that real, that great, but he is just as near me this morning as he was almost 40 years ago. He is just as real this morning to you as he was to me. He is with us when we feel him and he is with us when we do not feel him. We do not go by feeling or by sight, we go by faith. He said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you." He said, "Lo, I am with you always."

Whether I feel that or not, he will not tell me something untrue. He is with me always. He is with you always. He is with you this morning to lift you up, to encourage you, to help you, and to do the same for all who call upon him. Jesus was dead and God raised him from the dead. God elevated him. God took him up and seated him at his own right hand. God gave him a name that is above every name. He is the high, holy, exalted one. He is the one above, and all who are in his heart are resurrected and above with him. Forget how you feel. Your feelings do not count today. You are in heaven in Jesus. You are lifted in Christ because you belong to Christ. He is with you now and he will always be with you. He will never leave you.

Martin Luther's wife one time said to him—she came down the steps one morning early, dressed head to toe in black. Martin Luther looked up and the Reformation was on, the pressure was on, problems from the Pope and the Catholic Church. He looked up at her and he said, "Is there death in the parish? Did somebody die?" She said, "Martin, didn't you know?" He said, "Know what?" She said, "God died." He was living and acting and feeling like God was dead. She was impressing upon him that God is not dead, that God is alive, that God is here.

Friends, look up here. God is not dead. Your God is alive this morning. Can you say praise the Lord? Your God is alive to help you and to bless you and to answer your prayers and to minister to your need. Christianity is the religion of resurrection. It is the religion of lifting up. It is the religion of heaven above. It is the worship of him who is the resurrection and the life, who has ascended to the right hand of God. This morning I want you to with me lift up our eyes, lift up our hands, lift up our heads, lift up our voices, and lift up our souls and he will bless. He is present to do those very things.

There is a new book out entitled "The Gift of Fear" written by de Becker. It is on sale in all of the bookstores now. This past week, the PG Journal referred to the book and had a write-up. It has to do with those things that Americans fear most. Americans are one of the most fearful, insecure nations of people on Earth and yet we have more education, more clothes, more cars, more houses, more money, and more security than any nation on Earth. Yet we are the most nervous, insecure, frightened, and anxious of people. It is a paradox.

De Becker lists the things that Americans fear most. Christians are included in this list of fear also. We fear things too. One of the things at the very top of the list that all Americans fear most is a car wreck. That is why we have seatbelts and airbags and all of the security. My sister was killed in a car wreck. She was only 26. Then this morning a lot of us learned that Princess Diana of Great Britain was killed last night in a car wreck. It is sad. We do need to pray for the families who are involved in that tragedy. The people of a nation are grieving this morning and the people of the world to some degree.

We hear of tragedies and then the next thing is cancer. Another thing people fear is being a victim of violence. It goes all the way down to financial fears, that Social Security will not be adequate when we need it, and that we do not have enough money for retirement. We worry and we fear. Those fears have a way of just pressing us down. Maybe we all ought to dress in black. Maybe our God is dead. But he is not. He is with us. Do not forget this, friends, you are a Christian. You have a savior. Say those words, "I have a savior." Now turn to your neighbor and say, "You have a savior." You really do, but we forget.

We have a tendency to forget that we have a savior. Problems and difficulties come and we as Christians very often begin to respond to those problems and difficulties like the non-Christian. We respond in similar ways and we somehow forget that we have a savior, that we have been changed and transformed. I look and I wonder, have you really been changed and transformed? Do we really have faith? Only joy and happiness and faith when everything is going our way, but when things become adverse and are not going our way and death comes, and death comes to all people and no one is immune to death. Thank God we have a savior. We have Jesus Christ.

A number of years ago, we drove to Denver, Colorado, and I was doing some study there and also we did some vacationing while we were there. We went up on Pikes Peak and that was quite an experience to be way up above that city and look down on the city of Denver. A pastor of a church there tells the story of how he went up on Pikes Peak and there was Denver below, here he is up on Pikes Peak, and between where he was and the city of Denver, the clouds had moved in and blocked the city. He could not see the city. Then those clouds had lightning and thunder and rain. He said up on Pikes Peak the sun was shining and he was looking down on his city and they were under a storm.

That is that lift-up experience. Airplane pilots know how it is when you break through the clouds and it is sunshine up there and just rain and storm below. God may or he may not calm the storm. He may or he may not heal and preserve your life. I do not know what he is going to do, but this one thing I do know that he is going to do: if you look to him today, he will give you the lift-up experience and lift you above the storm so that you can look down on it. We are always looking up at the storm on this side of the clouds, but he can reverse it and put you on the other side of the cloud so that you can look down and see the storm below. That is that lift-up experience. You have a savior. You have Jesus Christ living in your heart.

There is a hymn, "Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus," look full in his wonderful face and the things of Earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. If we look at Jesus—we keep looking at our problems. We keep looking at the things that might go wrong. They have not gone wrong yet but we have full faith and we are anticipating that they are going to go wrong. We keep looking at those things and we keep waiting for when it is going to go wrong. Most of the time they do not go wrong. Statistics come from secular psychiatry research that over 90% of the things that we fear are going to happen to us really never happen to us.

Christians, let's start acting like children of God and believe the Lord and trust in him and he will bring his blessing to bear upon every life. The secret again to have that lift-up experience is to turn our eyes upon Jesus, to look away from the problem, to look to him. When we look to him, all of a sudden that problem begins to fade. It begins to move away, it just diminishes, and Jesus comes closer and closer. Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face.

You have a sermon outline. Pull it out real quickly. When I preach I put sermon outlines in there most of the time. There is one there this morning. "The Lift Up Experience," point A, number one, write down the word "Moses." Have a Moses experience. This is what God wants you to have this morning. You can have a Moses experience. Here is what happened in Numbers chapter 21.

The people of Israel had left Egypt and they were on their way to the Promised Land. God held out this wonderful promise to them and God was doing such wonderful things. We need to look and concentrate and focus upon the wonderful things. Sometimes we even begin to complain about our blessings. We even forget, "Hey, this I used to consider a blessing. Why am I complaining about it?" They began to grumble and complain and they became haughty, these people of Israel. They complained about Moses. They did not like his leadership. They did not like the way he was leading them.

They did not like what they were being fed. There was not a sick one among them. They were all healthy and well and they complained that they just ate manna, manna, manna and their taste buds craved meat. They were tired of eating this same old food. But you are healthy! Yeah, but we are just tired of eating the same old food. They just stayed on his case, haughty, proud, arrogant. God sent little fiery serpents, little snakes that started biting them and biting their children. It has a way of being shared or transferred even to the children.

These people began to become hot and feverish with the fever and the venom of the snake. They soon came to their senses and they came running back to Moses and they said, "Oh, we have sinned, we have sinned." That is the first thing you need to do when you know that you have sinned: acknowledge it quickly. Moses was instructed by the Lord to take a big pole, put this big pole up, and put a bronze snake on it. By a snake it came and by a snake it will leave. I think that those of you who are physicians, don't you still have that as your insignia today, the pole with the serpent on it?

Even Christians have a difficult time believing, but the surgeons and doctors have the truth there on their insignia, on their stationery, all the time they have to look at it. It is time that you look at the truth of God's word. As they looked at that serpent on the pole, as they lifted up their eyes, God said put it up there, elevate it. These people are looking down, they need to look up. When they looked up, they were healed.

The little snakes left them, the fever left them, and everyone became well. But a lot of people suffered and a lot of people died before the truth came about and they looked up. There are people today, perhaps right here, that is why God told me to tell you he wants you to lift up your eyes. There is healing for your soul, your emotions, your spirit, in your body, in your mind, and your thoughts. So look up today. Have a Moses experience. Now number two, have a Jacob experience. In Genesis chapter 28, the scripture says Jacob had spoken to his father Abraham. Jacob was third generation to the promise.