The Healing Word

Guest (Male): The blessing of God is upon you. I believe the blessing of God is upon you whether you know it or not. That's why you have to lift up your eyes so you can see it. And once you see it in your heart, then you begin to believe it and live like you're under the blessing of the Lord. You are not under sin, you're not under a curse, you're not under judgment, you're under the shadow of the Almighty.

Guest (Male): Welcome to a new week on The Healing Word. If the pressure of life has left you feeling weary or spiritually drained, Pastor Jack Morris has a simple but powerful invitation: Look up.

On Friday's program, we saw how Moses, Jacob, and Stephen experienced God's help when they turned their attention toward him. Today, Pastor Jack Morris continues "The Lift Up Experience," showing us how lifting our eyes, our heads, our hands, our voices, and our souls toward the Lord opens our hearts to his refreshing presence and blessing.

Pastor Jack Morris: You have a sermon outline, this would be a good time to take it out. I've used the same title that I used last week: "The Lift Up Experience." And again, God wants to do that for us, to give us a lift-up experience.

The world is always, always pressing down upon us, very life within us being pressed out of us until we're exhausted and tired and we don't even feel spiritual. The world does that to all of us until we don't even feel like praying, reading the Bible, or going to church. We say, "I need to stay home and take a rest." The world really has a way of moving in against us, being our greatest enemy.

But Jesus comes with resurrection to lift us, and I pray that'll happen today. It happened to people last week. I wasn't able to complete the message. You have a summary there in the outline, "The Lift Up Experience." Number one, you see the word Moses, that was one that was written in the blank. Have a Moses experience even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.

The people who were bitten by the venomous snakes looked up, and as they looked up, God came with healing. And so you can have a healing experience today by looking up, and I encourage you to look to Jesus. He's the physician of the soul and the body and the spirit. He is present to bless, so look up. There's healing today, but you have to look up. You have to take the initiative to look up, to look in his direction.

And the second one: have a Jacob experience. That is a comforting, worshipping experience. Jacob on his way to take a wife, to see the fulfillment of God's promises, went to sleep and he looked up in his dream and he saw a ladder from earth to heaven and the angels of God ascending and descending. And he said, "This is none other than the house of God."

You see, the house of God is wherever you pray. Wherever you pray, that's the house of God. In your home, in the car, mowing the grass, in the church—wherever you really sincerely from the heart touch God, that's Bethel, which means house of God. And so you can have that comforting, reassuring, worshipping experience provided you look up.

And then what's the last one I have there, number three? Have a Stephen experience. Sometimes it's people—and most of the times it's people—who press the life out of us, who frustrate us and aggravate us and tire us and weary us. It's people. As I've always said, if it weren't for people, this world wouldn't be a bad place to live. And aren't you glad you're not people?

People weary us, but I never weary anybody. You ever notice that? You noticed that, right? Assistant Pastor says I never weary anybody, never weary anybody. It's always somebody doing it to us, isn't it? We need to pray sometimes, "Lord, help me to just spread sunshine and not try anybody's patience today."

But when that happens so often, there are big incidents that come along and we carry a scar in our memory and we remember what that person did. And we want to forgive because we know it's God's will for us to forgive, but we can't forgive. But when I wrote down here "have a Stephen experience," I mean an experience where you can look up and say, "God forgive them."

They don't really know how they've hurt me and cut me. I don't think they'd have done it maybe if they had known, maybe they would have done that. But we can't forgive. Now listen to me, dear friends, we cannot forgive if we're not looking at Jesus. We have to look at Jesus. Stephen looked up, he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God witnessing the event, and he prayed in the spirit of Jesus, "Father, forgive them."

The only way in this world—someone says, "I just can't forgive"—of course you can't. You have to look up and see Jesus forgiving you, and then we can do as the Lord's prayer: "forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors." Look at point A in your outline. Here's where I'm going to begin in today's sermon with just a little bit of review from last week's message.

The word tells us to lift up our eyes. You can take your pencil and put down "eyes." In Psalm 121, page 440 in your pew Bible, we read these words: "I lift up my eyes to the hills." And then he asks this question: "Where does my help come from?" Now please notice this, he says, "I lift up my eyes." It's something that I do.

I can't make that more emphasized this morning. I have to take the initiative. I have to get myself up. I have to lift up my eyes. I determine the direction I'm looking in. I determine whether or not I'm going to look down at my problem and be enamored with it and complain about it and pity myself over it all my life long.

Or I can look horizontally and hope that somebody will come along to help me and look to people, or I can look up and I can see Jesus. I lift up my eyes. So friends, that's what I'm here to encourage you to do today. God wants to help you, and all you have to do is look up. And he said, "I lift up my eyes to the hills," which meant he was looking to God.

The seven-hill city, the city of Jerusalem being built on one of those seven hills, the hill Mount Zion, and he looked toward Jerusalem, meaning that you and I today are to look toward God. We can close ourselves in and experience his presence with us, looking to him for healing, looking to him for assurance and comfort, looking to him to help us to forgive and restore relationships.

There's nothing more terrible than broken relationships. Alfred Adler, who studied under Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychiatry, Alfred Adler said that the problems that we face today, whether it's depression or anxiety or whatever it is, it's because of broken relationships. Parents have broken relationships and hard feelings with some of their grown children, and children with their parents, wives and husbands.

It's broken relationships. When a relationship is restored, it's wonderful. And I'm beginning to believe that maybe that might be the real, real problem because there's a relationship with God that sin broke. And we'll never know peace until that relationship is restored. Even secular psychiatry is pointing out that broken relationships—you cannot heal that relationship, you cannot have a Stephen experience, unless you look up to whence cometh your strength.

It's going to take more than you and I are able to do in ourselves. And the second verse says, "My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth." Now look at point two under A in your outline. We are to lift up our heads. I just thought I'd do just a little study here and see all of these bodily, physical parts that we are to focus on the Lord. Not necessarily the head, but yes, literally the head.

But it's speaking of a refreshing. That's what the head is in the Bible; it's symbolic of refreshing. In Psalm 110, there is a prophecy of Jesus coming, and no one has ever been pressed like Jesus. Tell me, friends, tell me, how hurt are you? Have you had that Gethsemane experience where you literally yearned and prayed for the situation until the pores were so open that Jesus sweat as it were great drops of blood?

But then it goes on to tell us of this place in Psalm 110 how Jesus prayed and then he went by the brook by the way, it is speaking prophetically, and he drank of that brook. Remember how angels came and ministered to him and how he was refreshed even though he sweat his very life through his pores in a situation? "I will lift up my head," telling us today that there is refreshing and there is the brook by the way that will refresh us.

Jesus went to the woman at the well, John chapter 4, and he said to that woman, "If you knew the gift of God..." See, many of us this morning, if we knew what God wants to give to us, we would look up and receive it. But we're locked into our little worlds where we complain and think and criticize and self-pity. It's a little tiny world, a little cocoon that we put around us.

But Jesus is saying that there is healing, there's wholeness that we can break through. We can look up. And Jesus looked at this woman who was ostracized by her community because of the many marriages and the lifestyle that she had, and he said, "Oh lady, if you only knew what I want to do for you. If you only knew the gift of God, there's not a thing you have to do, this grace is given, it's free. If you only knew, if you only knew."

And he said, "I can give you something that will satisfy. Obviously, life hasn't satisfied you. Life has been very difficult for you," Jesus was saying to the woman at the well. "But I have water—not a cistern, a cistern receives water from the outside and then it just contains it, it just holds it. But Jesus says, 'The water that I'll give you, it's something that I'm going to put in your heart, something that I'm going to put into your life.'"

Listen to it, he's talking to us today. He's going to put life into us and it's going to be something that wherever we go, we carry it with us and it will spring up under all circumstances and in every condition. We can look up and that spring will spring up and we will never thirst, we will know refreshing. Lift up your heads. Say those words: "Lift up your heads." Say this: "I will lift up my head."

That means you're going to be refreshed because you know where the refreshing comes from. It comes from the Lord, it comes from Jesus Christ. And just as he experienced the refreshing from God in Gethsemane, wherever you're having a pressed-down Gethsemane experience, you can look up and drink from the brook by the way and find blessing and find help.

Okay, number three. Look at number three. Our hands. Write down the word "hands." In Psalm 28 verse 2 it says, "Hear my cry for mercy as I call to you for help, as I lift up my hands toward your most holy place." The first time in the Bible where it was ever mentioned that people lifted up their hands in prayer is Exodus 9:29: "I will spread out my hands in prayer to the Lord."

Well think of the hand, and they did it physically, but there's something much more important than doing it physically. Sometimes I'll lift up my hands when I pray. You ought to see me when I pray at home or in my private devotions, my hands are lifted up. But hand, think of the hand. The hand speaks for activity. You work with your hands, your works, your activities.

The hand we reach out to receive, also the hand we reach out to give. And what is he saying? "I lift up my hand to the Lord." The hand also we lift up in surrender. I see the people with a gun comes in a store and he pulls out his gun to the clerk and he says, "Put your hands up" in surrender. That's what the Lord is talking about.

As you come into his presence, surrender your activities, surrender your gifts, surrender those things that have been given to you. Just surrender to the Lord. Just look up and surrender. Lift up your hands and let that surrender come about and you will know this power, this blessing, this refreshing that comes from the Lord. Say those words: "I'll lift up my hands."

Remember that's your activities, your behavior. It's also to receive. God is saying, "I want you to receive something today. I want to give something to you. I want you to take something from me today." And the Psalmist is talking about lifting up the hands. And number four, write down the word "voice." Psalm 22 verse 3: "You are holy, enthroned in the praises of Israel." Enthroned.

When we praise God, we literally enthrone God. And when we praise God and enthrone him, his presence is very near us. I don't always feel like praising the Lord. None of us do. Those times come to us all. We just don't feel like singing, we just don't feel like doing it. But do it anyway. Take the initiative. Say with me now: "I love you, Lord. I praise you, Lord. I worship you, Jesus."

It's those little statements, whether you feel like it or not, and it may feel like rote and you're just pushing the words out, but go ahead and do it anyway. This is what the Psalmist is saying: "I'm going to lift up my voice and I'm going to enthrone him, and he is going to inhabit those praises of mine." And then look at the fifth one. You write down the word "soul." Our soul.

Everything that is in one, two, three, four above, that's the soul. The soul is the emotions, the joys, the personality, the fears, the angers, the resentment. Everything that is within you becomes transparent to him, and the blessing of God then comes. Now you lift up today, tomorrow, wherever you are, wherever the situation arises, you lift up to the Lord.

Lift it up, and the blessing of God will come. You need to take these notes and look at them and take them home with you and let them become part of your prayer life and lift up. Only as you lift up—I'm going to say it again, maybe I'll say it again and again—you must take the initiative to do it. It's not a feeling religion. The blessing doesn't come only when you lift up to the Lord.

Now the Lord has lifted up upon us his very blessing and his very presence. Let's turn to Numbers chapter 6. Look at Numbers chapter 6. Here is a high priestly prayer. It was given to Aaron, the brother of Moses. It's a prayer of benediction that I often use, but I wonder sometimes if I'm even aware—and I confess I don't think I am—even aware when I pronounce this blessing, when I lift up my hands over this congregation and you're about ready to leave.

Some of us are thinking, "It's over. Gotta get out of here. The sermon is done. He's going to say this, we're going to hurry up and sing the threefold amen and then hit a door somewhere or a window or gone." But look at this prayer. Look at verse 24: "The Lord," notice it's all in caps L-O-R-D, "the Jehovah, the creator, the almighty, bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you."

"The Lord lift up his face"—or as the King James is, "countenance"—"upon you and give you peace." The Lord bless you. The word "you" in the Hebrew language is singular, and it speaks to the individual. Now it can be used to speak to a group of people, but for the most part, we are to think of it as singular. And in just a few moments after we come to this altar, I'm going to lift up my hands.

I'm going to go way, way back thousands of years. I'm going to step into the role of Aaron, and I'm going to in the name of Christ bless you for the week. You must then leave knowing, thinking, realizing that something very holy and divine has come upon you and will now rest upon you as you leave. You are blessed. You leave blessed. That's what he meant: "The Lord bless you."

Now it's singular. He's talking directly to me. The Lord is going to bless all of us, but me in a particular way. And oh, God knows I need the blessings of the Lord. I'm going out on dangerous highways. I'm going to walk in dangerous places. Who knows what a day will bring forth, let alone what a week will bring forth? I need the blessing of God. And God says from days of old, "I lift up my blessing to rest upon you."

The Lord bless you. Now the word "bless" simply means a state of well-being. I've come to church, I've met God, I've worshipped with God's people, it has been holy and wonderful, I've received a fresh blessing. I am now in a state of well-being. I will leave and live this week in a state of well-being, a state of peace, a state of prosperity, a state of love. I have been blessed. Me, not only the whole congregation, but I in particular as an individual, I have been blessed of the Lord.

Now notice: "The Lord bless you and keep you," meaning that blessing of God will watch over us, keep us, protect us from harm, from danger, from care. This is a dangerous world out here, is it not? A very dangerous place, and it's becoming even more so. I don't want to walk the streets and drive the highways and meet people in and out of stores and business places; I want to know that I walk with a special covering, with a special blessing.

And I can know that and you can know that if you look up, and if you'll take it and remember who you are and who God is and God's great love and care. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord do that. Bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine upon you, meaning God's going to be real near, so near to you. He'll make your life aglow. He'll turn darkness into daylight and keep you in his love and in his care. That was the prayer of blessing, the ancient prayer of blessing that God gave to Aaron.