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: The world will squash you unless you have a pressure and a power within you that is greater than the power and pressure that is on the outside of you.

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: You ever have a day when it all started out wrong and it went downhill the rest of the week? Those days sometimes happen to us, don't they? We just get up and things start going wrong and everything goes wrong the rest of the day and we look forward to the night when we can go to bed and get up and try it all over again the next day and perhaps do a little bit better. I heard this minister several years ago tell about an incident in his life. He said that he got up early one morning, but it wasn't early enough.

The alarm didn't go off, there the electric went out and the the clock was was late and so he got up and he had this early appointment and he was running late and he was just frantic almost and he ran in the closet to get a he needed a white shirt. He ran in the closet to get a white shirt and there weren't any white shirts in the closet. So he runs into the hamper and he digs in the hamper and he pulls out his cleanest dirty shirt and he put it on and he drank some juice and ran out to the car and got in the car and he backed out and when he backed out into the driveway, a bump the bump the bump.

The back tire was flat on the drive on the passenger side. He jumps out of the car, he jump opens the trunk, he gets the tire out, he works on it, his hands are all dirty and he finally gets the tire changed and then he backs out onto the street and he starts down the street and there's a stop sign down there and he looked both ways and he slows down, but he didn't see anything coming so he gives it the gas and he goes through the stop sign and just then he sees those lights going in this He said that's it.

He pulls over and this young policeman walks up to him and said, "Mr., what's your hurry?" And he said, "Well, let me tell you, young man." He said, and he tells him about his cleanest dirty shirt, he tells him about his flat tire, he tells him about the alarm that didn't go off in time and he said, "That's how it starts for me today." And the young policeman looked at him and said, "Sir, I used to have those kind of days before I became a Christian. Oh, you just think about it. Just think about it.

Just think about it. The stress of everyday living and then parenting. On top of trying to make a living for our children, we have to parent these children and sometimes there are discipline problems and discipline problems can be very frustrating and very trying. Uh, there's peer pressure and that peer pressure gets into the home and it it even gets on the parents. The other day, my grandson called me, "Hello, Pop Pop." Now, I thought he sounded awfully cheerful and happy to talk to Pop Pop. "Hi, Billy." "Hi, Pop Pop. Pop Pop, could you send me some money?

I want to I want to buy an iPhone." I said, "What kind of phone?" "An iPhone." "Yeah, Pop Pop. You you're the best Pop Pop in the world." You know, I mean, that's was in his tone of voice and and I said, "Well, how much does an iPhone cost?" He said, "Well, about $300." I said, Billy, you already have a cell phone. It takes pictures. You record music on it. You don't need an iPhone. Why do you want an iPhone?" This is I'm not that this is it. Criss cross my heart. He said, everybody has one and they're cool." Well, later I talked to my daughter and she said, everyone does not Nobody has one.

He wants to be the first one to have one. She said, I asked him after he talked to you, what did Pop Pop says? He was honest. He said, Pop Pop says, this is ridiculous." And indeed it is. And then there are, you know, there's scheduling of time. You just don't have enough time, you know, to to work at your job. You get up early, you go through the the the transportation routine and all the backup and the stop lights and and the honking of horns and and all all of that stress and then the same thing coming home and then when you get home, there are household duties.

Now, there was a time when the man did all the work on the outside of the house and the woman did all the work on the inside of the house. That was back at Grandpa's days. You know, that's been that's been a long time ago. But now the wife has to go on the outside of the house, but some of the men are still having trouble to realize they have to now come on the inside of the house and help the wife with some of the chores. All right. If the wife has to go out there into the man's world, then the man has to come in here into the woman's world, right?

All right. Amen.

Pastor Jack Morris: Boy, I'm popular with the girls today.

Pastor Jack Morris: You know, there's just hardly enough time to go around. Then there's you get home, you're late, you have to cook dinner, then there's the children's homework and and then there's the discipline problems and discipline is is difficult enough, but when the husband and the wife, the father and the mother disagree on how the child is to be disciplined, then that even adds more stress. And so it it just goes on and on and it it it it piles up. It it begins to stack up. Then there are financial problems. You know, we have good jobs and good incomes uh making a lot more money than our parents ever made, but still it isn't enough, is it?

It just isn't enough to go around and take care of everything that needs to be taken care of. There's there's the mortgage, the food, the clothing, the recreation, the education, the automobile, the gasoline. You know, that we do these marriage ceremonies, we say until death do we part. It's now until debt do we part. Then there are health problems, relationship problems, in-law problems. I read a bumper sticker sometime back and said, I've been in a rat race and the rats have won." You know, when when do I come up for air? When when do I pause to exhale and catch my breath?

Well, the scripture says, God is with us to help us." You know, there is a difference between a Christian and an unchristian, isn't there? Now, we have the same stressors, the same difficulties, the same time constraints, the same financial problems that anybody else has. You know, a loaf of bread is a loaf of bread to a Christian and to an unchristian costs the same. The gasoline, a gallon, a Christian pays the same as an unchristian pays, but the but the stressors are handled differently. Can you say amen to that? It's handled differently. God has given us a special endowment of strength to handle these stressors without coming down with a heart attack or stomach ulcers, a stroke or whatever.

God is with us to help us. Now, in in 1 John chapter 4 in the first part of the verse, it it talks about false prophets and false promises and the antichrist spirit. I liken that to anything that will distract you from the Lord. With all of these stressors, with all of these time constraints, work problems, child rearing problems, marital problems, our mind, our eyes, our attention can be diverted away from Jesus very easily. Very easily we can grow cold in our experience in the Lord and find ourselves spiritually out of it. We we we we've lost something somewhere along the way.

We don't know when it it happened, but it just gradually, almost imperceptibly happened and it's all of these stressors that has come upon us, that has distracted us. But look at verse four. I want you to look at the screen and read it with me. You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them. Now, notice you, dear children, are from God. We need to remind ourselves that we're Christians. We have the same difficulties and the same problems confronting us that anybody else has, but we have a strength because we're children of God. We have a heavenly father that we can go to.

Others do not have this heavenly father. They can if they choose, if they open their hearts, if they accept Jesus, he's available to all and God will save all. But until they give their heart to the Lord, they don't have the Lord. But you and I have the Lord, don't we? Hey, I think some of us look at look at me. I think some of us have forgotten that we have a God, that we have a father, that we can pray and that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is the God of the present right now.

He's not only Abraham's God, Isaac's God, Jacob's God, he's my God. He's mine. He's yours. And we can rejoice in him and love him and know that we are loved by him. Somehow we can withstand what others cannot withstand. Otherwise, we are just like they are. But we are not like they are. You, dear children, are from God. Do you know you're born of the spirit? The spirit of the Lord is within you. He birthed you. You're somebody. He cares for you tenderly. He cares cares for you greatly. And notice it says, and have overcome them." What have we overcome?

We've overcome some of these problems that are getting some other people down. We have overcome them, the stressors, the difficulties. We've looked to the Lord and the Lord has come to our rescue and has blessed and helped us and we are living in victory today, not in defeat. But I have seen so many Christians through the years, so many Christians lose out with God over good things over over a job over over children. When we drive to church, we go by this house and they have childcare services there and they have a little sign in the yard and it it's called little blessings, these children little blessings.

Sometimes we don't know that think they're little blessings, do we? Not when they come home with bad grades or we have to have a conference at the school with the teachers or whatever. But God has blessed us and God will continue to bless us if we remember who we are and we remember who God is and the relationship that we have with him, God will be there to bless and to give us strength. We have overcome. You say that word overcome.

Guest (Male): Overcome.

Pastor Jack Morris: That means we have conquered some of these stressors. We may not have conquered all of them, but we can conquer them and overcome them. Isn't that what it says? I'm not telling you something that the Bible hasn't already told us. It says we have overcome them. We have conquered them. We we do not yield and succumb to these other pressures that are upon us. We have overcome them in the name of the Lord and by the strength of the Lord. It says in Romans 8:37, let's see if it'll come up. Romans 8:37 or it's in your bulletin.

Know in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. There it is. There it is. Do you see it? Well, do you believe it? Come on, there it is. Read it. Know in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. More than conquerors. We can win the battle, not succumb and allow the enemy, the pressures of life. You sometimes I think the devil has absolutely nothing to do with it. He doesn't maybe have anything to do with the traffic that we have to face going to work in the morning or perhaps in that boss or those other employees.

Those other employees have come through that same traffic jams that we came through. They have some of the same discipline, marital, family, financial problems that we have. They come in cranky. We come in cranky. No, we aren't supposed to come in cranky, are we? We're to come in with victory. And they're going to see the victory and they're going to say, hey, how's come you have some of these same You're working at the same job, getting the same money that I'm getting. How's come you're living in victory? How's come you can smile? How's come friend, there's an opportunity now to give a witness to Jesus.

But if you look and act and complain and moan and whine like they do, why get saved and go to church? I can complain and whine without going to church and without being a Christian. But now that I'm saved and I'm in Christ, I have victory. I have conquered through the power of the Lord and through the power of the Holy Spirit. We're not a defeated people. Now, the world wants to defeat you and it will defeat you and many Christians have been defeated. I think of Christians. I think of choir members who are not in the choir anymore.

And I look out into the congregation, I wonder where they are and they're not even in the congregation anymore. Where did they go? What happened to them? They didn't commit any great sin. They didn't fall by the wayside. What happened to them? Life just got to be too much for them. They just can't handle it all anymore. The the stressors have just overcome them. And there's nothing that's seemingly that anybody can say or do to help them. They're just they're just gone. Just gone. Friend, life can be very very difficult, but we are more than conquerors.

How? Through him who loved us. Do you know that you're loved? Some Christians have forgotten that they're loved. Some Christians have forgotten that they can conquer, that they can overcome. You can overcome in the name of the Lord and be victorious in him. Now, a number of years ago, a song was sung, we shall overcome." It was sung by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He was leading a group of supporters from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama. He was championing equal rights. All he wanted to do was to help these people register to vote. That's all he wanted to do.

And it seemed like such a simple thing, but the opposition Friend, let me tell you something. There will be opposition. You're you're a Christian, but it's not a joy ride. Yeah, there will be opposition. There will Even doing a good thing He was Martin Luther King Jr. was doing a good thing. You're doing a good thing. You're raising your family. You're providing your for your family. You're educating your children. You're you're doing all of these good things, but it's sometimes it's the good things that get us down and sap our strength and our energies. The world is a negative power, but it is a strength and a power and it had brought more Christians down than I think anything else.

Just the stresses of life, just trying to make everything happen. People said, I'll tell you, I've worked all week. I have to work and clean up my house and get it ready on Saturday. The only day I have left is Sunday. That's exactly where the devil wanted you. He got you right where he wants you. And you're going to rest, but you're going to lose your spirituality. You're going to lose the touch of God. You're going to lose the fellowship of the church. You're no longer going to be numbered among the redeemed. And what has happened Not that you committed some great sin, you just allowed stressors to come.

Take those stressors to the Lord. Wherever it is, talk to the Lord about your job. Talk to God about child discipline problems. Talk to the Lord about the finances. We are more than conquerors. How do we conquer? Point two in your outline. Here's the means of overcoming. The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. Look at the up at the screen and read that with me in unison. The one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. The one who is in you, the one who is in you, the one who is in you, the one who is in you Somebody's in you and that somebody is Jesus.

He is resurrection. He's always rising up. He's always lifting up in rapture. He's there to lift you above the mundane and the stress and all of the problems and difficulties and temptations and stressors that will get you down. He's stronger. Notice again, the one who is in you is greater greater greater than the one who is in the world. Yes, there's a power in the world that is great, but there is one who is greater and he's in you. He's in you. Hey, turn to your neighbor and say, there's Jesus in you. There's Jesus in you.

Go ahead. Tell your neighbor, Jesus is in you. Sometime ago, I'm going to tell you a story that happened back in 1963. Long time ago, submarines were being built that would dive way down deep into the ocean. And this particular submarine, the Thresher, was built strong bulkheads, strong plated armament and it dove deep down into the ocean, down deep as far as it was supposed to go. Now, it was time to turn and resurface and come back up, but at that moment the nuclear powered engine stopped and they couldn't get it going. That nuclear power engine was the only thing that could bring that submarine back to the surface.

When the engine shut down, the submarine started sinking slowly and it kept sinking and kept sinking until it went down some 8,400 ft. Do you know how far down that is? That's 1 and 1/2 miles. That's pretty deep. That's deep water, isn't it? 1 and 1/2 miles down. And that those bulkheads buckled and that boat squashed like you step on a tin can and 129 people died. Well, the Navy sent out a a rescue vessel. There was nobody to rescue, but this vessel that they sent out to to explore was a like a round ball, just like a round piece of steel and it was lowered on a cable down into the ocean.

And it went down a mile and 1/2. It could It was stronger than the submarine. It It could withstand somehow the the the dynamics and the design That that submarine at at a mile and 1/2 down, it's 3,200 lb per square inch. Can you imagine 3,200 lb per square inch all over your body? It was just nothing. And they found that submarine and it would look like somebody had stepped on eggshells. It just smashed, squashed. But here's this something else that they noticed. They noticed there were fish down there swimming around and they thought, well, why aren't the fish squashed?

There is 3,200 lb per square inch not only on the submarine, but also on the fish and the fish are alive and they didn't have steel plated armament. They had just regular skin that looked only perhaps a fraction of an inch thick. Well, they later discovered that there was as much pressure on the inside of the fish as there was on the outside of the fish. Now, that's what it is for the Christian of The world will squash you unless you have a pressure and a power within you that is greater than the power and pressure that is on the outside of you.

Hallelujah. This is the power of God that is available to God's people and available to you. Don't let the world stop you and and and squash you and destroy you and just push and and squeeze the very spiritual life and joy out of you. You won't enjoy your job. You won't enjoy your spouse. You won't enjoy your family. You don't enjoy church. You don't enjoy The joy of life has just been squashed out of you, but there's a power Greater is the Come on, read it again. Greater is the one that is in The one who it Come on.

The one who is in you is greater who is in the world. God's power. God's power. You have been called to be victorious. You have been given the ability and the strength that we must recognize it. We must recognize who we are in Christ and what God has given us. God wants everybody to be an overcomer. Go out there and overcome the problems on the job, in the home, in with the children, in the school, with the finances. You can do it, not in your own strength, but the one who is in you is greater.

Oh, I think you ought to go all week long. You get up in the morning, memorize that verse. The one who is in me is greater than the one who is in the world. This is going to be a great day because there is more power in me pressing out than there is out there that's trying to press in. Hallelujah. You can do it in Jesus' name. You can do it. With Jesus, you can do it.

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