Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: If you'd like to turn to the book of Philippians, I explained that the epistle to the Philippians by the Apostle Paul in Rome, or as I like to call it, "jail mail," written by a free man in chains, is all about being chained to an impossible situation and seeing what happens to you, understanding it so that it happens to other people. In other words, Paul says, "What happened to me, happened for you." He sees an opportunity in every difficulty instead of a difficulty in every opportunity as some of us do.

He said to God, "I don't like it here in this horrible jail, but nothing can happen to a child of God outside the will of God, and so this must be where you want me to be." At the end of his life, an old man, a cold man, a man that wanted to go home but couldn't, a man on trial for his life in a jail in Rome writes a letter and sends it to a beloved group of people called the Philippian church. He talks about life in the spirit and how you can live that out in a hole in a jail or you can live it out as a free man, and through your life, the living Christ can be seen so that others are blessed.

It's an incredible piece of literature. It's a piece of literature that walks down the centuries into our hearts and into our lives and can make a difference. I would ask you to read the whole book through from beginning to end to get a feeling. Just shut your eyes and imagine yourself sitting in a little beleaguered group in Philippi where persecution was beginning. In fact, they have just dug up in archaeology pieces of an arena where they believe that the descendants of that first group—Lydia, the Philippian jailer, the descendants of those people, probably their great-grandchildren—were fed to the lions in Philippi. That beleaguered little group was beginning to feel the effects of persecution, and Paul, on trial for his life for Christ in Rome, writes them a letter. Jail mail.

Stuart and I were training pastors in Russia, and there were some pastors from Dagestan. If you go home and look on your map and try to find where on earth is Dagestan, you'll find that it's near Chechnya and all those areas where there's a lot of problems. In front of me, though I knew it not, in my class, I had the very first believers in that whole area. They'd found Christ in jail, criminals in Dagestan. A Dagestani jail would probably have been a little bit like Paul's jail. They had been set free after their sentence, having found Christ in jail, and they stayed there as new believers, the very first believers in that whole area. They began to minister back to the people they'd met in that jail.

I didn't know this; I was teaching, believe it or not, through the book of Philippians. Afterwards, these six or seven young men came up to me and said, "We'd like to pray for you. Where are you going?" I said, "Well, that would be wonderful. Actually, among other things, I'm going to jail." I didn't know that they had been in jail. I said, "I'm going back to America, and I'm going to Gatesville, where there are 8,000 prisoners, and I'm going to be there for a week going cell to cell and speaking and praying."

They said, "Would you take a letter from us to them?" I said yes. They said, "You see, we found Christ in jail in Dagestan. The mothers who are pregnant or get pregnant in jail have to keep their children for three years with them, and then the government takes them away, and they never see them again. So we have a house, and we're trying to keep the women who come out of jail and keep their children so that they can be reunited. We would like to send a letter to our brothers and sisters that are coming to Christ in Gatesville prison in America. Would you take it?"

I took this letter that was translated by my translator in my Bible, a very precious letter. I went into Gatesville, and from cell to cell and time after time, I read the letter from the believers in Dagestan to the believers in jail, maximum security, people that would never get out in Gatesville. They had something in common: their children. There was weeping and openness, and I was able to speak into that and tell them about the thing that makes the difference—that though they are literally in chains, Christ can set them free even in jail. I read it from people that really knew.

We can be chained literally in a situation like that that seems to us so black and dark and be free inside. Paul said, "I'm sitting here in jail, but for me to live is Christ, and if I die, that's gain, and I go through the front door and I see Him face to face." You can't beat a man like that. That's freedom. You might be chained to sickness. I remember inviting Joni Eareckson to Milwaukee to speak, and I stayed overnight in the hotel with her before her meeting in the arena downtown. As we came down the elevator, all the businessmen got in at every floor.

Joni Eareckson is a beautiful woman. She was a beautiful girl when she broke her neck diving into a swimming pool, and she's lived her life in a wheelchair. She's chained to a wheelchair literally. She can move her head and a little bit of her shoulder, and that's it. Incidentally, she drives a car. That's scary. Here is Joni sitting there ready to go and speak, and she says to me, "Do you mind if I start off in the arena today and sing a song?" That got everyone's attention. All the business people looked at Joni as we're going down all the floors, and I said, "That would be wonderful. I didn't even know you sang." I said, "What are you going to sing?" She said, "Well, maybe I'll practice."

She began to sing "Amazing Grace." "Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now I'm found, was bound, but now I'm free." I tell you, there wasn't a dry eye in that little elevator in the Holiday Inn in Milwaukee. By the time we got to the base floor, I said to all the men, "Come and hear her. She's speaking tonight." I don't know if they did. Chained to a wheelchair but free. Chained to a body that's like a rag doll. I remember my husband picking her up and putting her into the car to go to that meeting. She said, "It's all right, Stuart. I can't feel anything. Just throw me in," which, of course, he didn't. But he said he remembers just feeling that dead weight, that body. She's chained to a body that died years and years ago when she was 18 years of age. But she's free.

You might be chained to the kitchen sink. You might be chained to teenagers. That's scary. You might be chained to a situation you wish you weren't chained to. I'm chained to a situation I'd rather be free of at the moment. But I have to say like Paul, "What's happened to me has happened for them," and that's what we have to get perspective on. Therefore, if I can find freedom in my chains, I have a message for the world because everybody's chained to something that's impossible and difficult and horrible. What are you chained to? Well, what's happened to you has happened for someone else.

Paul was chained to Roman guards, and he began to tell them hour after hour about Jesus. They'd change the guard every two hours or so, and one after the other would be chained to him and couldn't get away. He led them to the Lord one by one by one. If you read in the last chapter of Philippians, you'll see that Paul signs off with, "We greet you, Timothy greets you, Epaphroditus greets you, everybody greets you, especially those who are of Caesar's household." How did we get Christians in Caesar's house? Because Paul was chained to the guard. And they told another one, and they told another one, and they told another one, and the church was born in Caesar's household, right under Caesar's nose as he worshipped his gods.

So Paul sits in jail and he writes some jail mail, and he talks about spiritual art, the art of liberty. This book is full of spiritual art: the art of liberty, the art of serenity. We're going to talk about worry and anxiety and how you can be free from that. That's what Paul's about. He says, "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain," and you can read about that in Chapter 1. He says in verse 27, "Therefore, whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ." He doesn't know whether he's going to be set free. He's preparing his brief. He has a chance to speak to the highest court in Rome about Jesus, and he's preparing.

He writes to the Philippians and says, "I don't think I'll ever see you face to face again, but I might if God sees fit to set me free. I'll come and see you." As we come into Chapter 2, he says, "Therefore, if in any way I've given you encouragement in Christ, if in any way my love has consoled you, if in any way you've enjoyed the fellowship created by the Spirit, if in any way you've experienced the tenderness and compassion of Christ, then make my joy complete. Think alike, love alike, be of one soul, be of one mind."

Even this little church that was near to his heart, we think the best church in the New Testament and an example of so many of the spiritual arts, even this church had problems because there is no church that doesn't have problems. The problem with church is people. If we could just get rid of all the people, we'd have a perfect church. But we live in a fallen world with fallen people, and we have fallen churches and fallen mothers and fallen fathers who are raising fallen children. Of course, there's going to be problems. Paul's heart was breaking because he couldn't go to them and sort it out, and there was much problem in the church in Philippi. It was people problems—one getting over another and after another and not agreeing on ministry and how it should be done.

You can read in Chapter 4 how there were two very wonderful women that had worked with Paul, and they'd got across each other—Euodia and Syntyche. Some think that one of those women was Lydia. These prominent, wonderful founding members of the church had fallen out with each other, and that was splitting the church because people take sides, and that makes parties. That splits the church. Paul is in Rome and he's in chains, and he can't go and have a ministry of presence and a ministry of encouragement. So he appeals through a letter—the lost art of letter writing, the spiritual art of writing a letter.

We now send an email; that's all right if it can be received. But in two-thirds of the world, that's not possible and won't be for a long, long time. So he uses every means possible and he sends beloved Timothy. Now, Paul had Epaphroditus with him, who was from Philippi. He had been sent from this little group to Rome with a gift of money. Paul was penniless, and the church at Rome wasn't supporting him. They were rather glad he was in jail, and you can read in Chapter 1 why—because they didn't agree with the way he was preaching and they didn't like the way he was doing ministry. The preachers were rather glad he was there because they could take his meeting. The preachers were saying, "Now we can preach. Good, he's locked up."

That was the church in Rome. Here was Paul in Rome, had no help from the church. So the church in Philippi in Europe sent a messenger called Epaphroditus with encouragement. He was a leader; they sent their best. They didn't just send a little intern or somebody that didn't really matter. They took their pastor, one of their pastors, and said, "Go to Rome." He said, "I'll do it." He came to bathe his wounds and bring him food and bring him some money and help, and maybe a change of clothes. He ministered to him, and he had his beloved Timothy there, just two men.

You can read in Philippians Chapter 1 and Philippians Chapter 2 in verses 19 down to Chapter 3 about how Paul, sitting in jail, writes to the Philippians and says, "I'm going to send Epaphroditus back to you because he got sick. He nearly died doing this." Nearly died. We don't know how he got sick, we don't know when he got sick, but he got so sick he nearly died. They heard about it back in Philippi and they were absolutely horrified. "Here's our beloved pastor we sent him to Rome to help Paul and now he's dying."

Paul said he's so sorry you heard about it, he's so sorry it caused you grief, but I need to send him back to you. Then he looks at Timothy. Paul has two people with him, and he says, "I'm going to send Timothy with him. I need to send Timothy with you. You need Timothy so much." Who needed Timothy? Paul. And he sent Timothy and he sent Epaphroditus back, and he was left alone. Two people left in his life facing martyrdom, and in grace and in self-giving, he gives the two most precious things away.

That's what it's all about because as we come into Chapter 2, we talk about the spiritual art of humility, the spiritual art of self-sacrifice, the spiritual art of giving your life away, of living your life out loud. Paul lived his life out loud. Everybody heard about it. One of the things they heard about was that he sent the two people that were ministering to him at the end of his life facing martyrdom back because he cared more about the Philippians than he cared about himself. How do we do that, Lord? How do we do that? Because that gets attention when we unselfishly give our lives away, live our lives out loud. Paul lived his life out loud, and he appeals to them and he says, "If I've had a ministry of encouragement, then you be encouraging to each other. If I've consoled you, then you console each other."

Paul said, "If I get out of here—miracle—I'm coming. I'm going to have a ministry of presence." A ministry of presence is the easiest thing that everybody sitting in the sound of my voice can do. There's a problem over here; put yourself physically into it. I remember coming to America, and within a month became aware that my next-door neighbor was having a problem. I watched a van come up and I watched the young husband put all his furniture in and drive off, and I knew because of the gossip that was around that he was leaving.

I had not even met my neighbors. I was in culture shock. I thought America and Britain was pretty well the same. Churchill said, of course, that they're two people separated by a common language. So we came, and I didn't know if it was right or proper to walk across the grass to my neighbor's house I'd never met, knock on the door, and have a ministry of presence, to just put myself into that very difficult situation. I had no idea. I would have known in England what to do, but I didn't know what was right and proper to do in America.

I sat at my kitchen table watching this, and I said, "Lord, I don't know what to do. Plus, I'm British. You do not intrude on people's privacy. You don't do that. It's just not done." I wrestled with myself, and internally I knew I needed to go and have a ministry of presence. So with my heart beating, I walked across the grass and I knocked on the door and I prayed, "Lord, don't let her open it."

She opened the door, and her face was streaked with tears, and I just said, "I am so sorry. I just had to come." She reached out, grabbed my shirt, and pulled me into the house and shut the door. I arrived in America in this house, and she said, "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. Please, will you stay for a cup of coffee?" I said, "I'd love that. Do you have any tea?" I sat down, another culture shock—coffee, no tea—and began to listen. I had a ministry of presence. I listened for about an hour and a half. I didn't say a thing. I looked at my watch; it was time my kids were coming home. I said, "I just have to go, my kids are coming home." She said, "Please don't go." I said, "I'll come back, don't worry." She said, "Thank you for everything you've said."

I hadn't said a thing. Ah, but I had. I'd said, "I just have to come." That's a ministry of presence. Everybody can do that. That's what Timothy said—"I just had to come, Paul." That's what Epaphroditus said—"I just had to come," and nearly died doing it. Have a ministry of presence. That's what I said in every little jail cell in Gatesville—"I just had to come."

Do you know what that says to those prisoners? Do you know what that says to your next-door neighbor? It says more than you ever could through a letter. Paul says over and over again, "I want to come. I want to come. So if I live, I'll come." He didn't say, "If I live, I'm going to retire. I'm not coming back to Philippi. Every time I come back there, they put me in jail." No, he said, "I just had to come."

If we're going to maintain unity and harmony, which is a spiritual art, we just have to come. We have to say, "Can I help you two get together? Can I offer to be that third person? Shall we have a cup of coffee? What can we do to be that peacemaker that God wants us to be and have a ministry of encouragement and a ministry of presence and a ministry of tears and a ministry of silence?" Because that's what it's all about. Paul could say, "If I come, I'm going to tell you that when something happens to you, it's to happen to other people." What has happened in this argument can be used. If we can reconcile, if we can get on our knees, if we can come together, think what we have to help other people for that are struggling and fighting and having family feuds and all of that.

A ministry of unity is a spiritual art, and spiritual art has to be practiced as much as medicine arts and fine arts and anything else. We have to do it. This is the theory. You're going to do medicine; you get a book and you'd learn it. That's theory. Then you go on the wards and you practice it. This is the theory of spiritual art. Then we go and practice it and we have a ministry of presence and we physically put ourselves into trouble, into problems, and into people's pain. We say, "I just had to come, I just had to come," and then that opens their hearts and their lives and you can say, "Let me tell you what happened to me and how Christ gave me hope and help and consolation and encouragement, and that can happen to you. Happened to me."

Says in Corinthians, God comforts us, not so He can comfort us and we can be all comforted; He comforts us so we can comfort others. That's why it happened. So what happened to you? Did God help you? Well, that just didn't happen so you could be helped; that happened so you could have a ministry of presence in someone else's life and say, "Listen, this can happen to you."

Paul begins to talk about the humility that's needed for that to happen. The humility that's needed. We have this hymn in Chapter 2. They say that it was a hymn. When the groups got together, they would sing a hymn. I don't know if Paul penned this hymn or if somebody else did, a songwriter. But he says, "Your attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus who gave His life away, who lived His life out loud." He was in very nature God, but He didn't consider equality with God something to be grasped. He made Himself nothing. He took the very nature of a servant. He was made in human likeness and being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.

God looked at this and He said, "This is what you think of my Son? I'll show you what I think of Him." And He raised Him from the dead and He put Him on the highest throne and He gave Him a name—Jesus—that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

He writes to the Philippians and he says, "Look, you've got to get your mindset right. You people that are against each other, you've got to humble yourselves. You've got to admit perhaps you were wrong." That's hard. Harder for men than for women, actually. Harder for a man to say, "I'm sorry, I was wrong," than it is for a woman. We know that because when marriages get in trouble, my husband used to pick up the phone because the woman was in his office. She was the first to come. He'd pick up the phone to the business and say, "I've got your wife here. You need to come and see me." Amazingly, in America, the men come. They wouldn't do that in the UK, but they're the second to come because it's so hard for them to say, "I might be wrong."

Paul says it's hard to say you might be wrong, but let me give you an example. He talks about the spiritual art of humbling yourself. "Make my joy complete. Be like-minded. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. In humility, consider others better than yourselves. Each one of you should look not only to your own interests but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who being in very nature God," etc.

As I looked at this hymn, I was absolutely overwhelmed. Jesus known in glory-time walking the golden streets, cherubim and seraphim falling flat on their faces in front of Him, ten thousand times ten angels singing a song that shook the Father's stars in space, and He let it go. He packed a little suitcase with baby clothes and He came here. He didn't think equality with God, which was His right, was something to be grabbed and held onto. He let it go for us.

Abraham Lincoln went to church one day to hear a new preacher. Afterwards, the man who had taken him said, "What did you think?" He said, "I was disappointed." "Why were you disappointed?" "Well, he didn't challenge me to do something great," he said. Interesting. Said, "I want to be challenged to do something great. Didn't ask me to do something great." Do you know something? God asks us to do something great. Do you know what it is? Learn to be small. Want to be great? Learn to be small. That's something that makes God big in your life. What's your ambition? Want to be big? Learn to be small.

Let this mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus. Release the need for acclaim and affirmation and reputation, what others think of us. Don't grab the glory and honor that might rightly belong to you. Let it go. Let it go. How do you do that? You fall off your pedestal in front of people. You hang around a stable, you clean it up. You do menial things. You refuse to take yourself too seriously. You take responsibility to keep yourself humble.

The Message says: "Don't push your way to the front. Don't sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourself long enough to lend a helping hand." Jesus didn't hang on to His reputation, He didn't hang on to His glory. He had a scepter in heaven, He had control. He let control go. Some of us are control freaks; we have to control. We have to let that go. He made Himself nothing. He emptied Himself, not of His deity, but of His glory. His glory. He became a man and He stepped down. We want to step up; Jesus stepped down.

Everyone in America, and I'm out of America all but six and a half weeks of the year now, but everybody when I come back in the church of America, you know what? They want to serve in an advisory capacity and they don't do feet anymore. Jesus did feet. Jesus stepped down. Jesus came with nothing and He let it go. His scepter, His glory, His reputation.

I remember worrying about my reputation when a street kid asked me to go into the pubs and meet his friends years and years ago. I'd sort of got a reputation of being that nice lady that kept all those street kids off the streets in this youth place, and it felt good. I liked that sort of reputation. Nice Christian lady. I didn't realize that I was liking it too much until this young man said, "Would you come into the pubs tonight? I can't get them to come to the meeting, Jill, but if you would come with me, the kids would listen."

Suddenly, I didn't want to go. I didn't know why I didn't want to go, but on my knees, I figured it out. "Oh, I'm bothered about my reputation." So I stayed on my knees and I read the book of Philippians because that's where I was in my Bible reading. I came to Chapter 2. He made Himself of no reputation, Jill, so what are you worrying about yours? So I went with Trevor into the pubs and God began a work and a mini-revival broke out on the streets in my hometown because I had to step down. I had to let it go.

Being made in human likeness, being found in appearance as man—where? In a back alley behind a pub, down a lane, round a corner among the fleas and the ticks and the animals. Have I ever done anything like that for Jesus? No, no, no. Not yet. What have I done incognito where nobody sees and nobody watches and nobody acclaims and nobody writes it up? What have I done this week for Him that nobody sees? What's my right hand done that my left hand didn't see? I have to take responsibility for that.

So, want to be big? Learn to be small. Number two: remember you're dead. He died on a cross. Do you know what Christianity is? Christianity is the "I" crossed out. That's what it is. The great big "I" crossed out. Even death on a cross. He died to all that was His by right. So we have to remember we're dead. We are crucified with Christ. A dead man doesn't step up, and a dead man doesn't push his way to the top, and a dead man isn't right or wrong, he's dead. If a habit's got you by the throat, remember you're dead. You do not need to respond to that. Paul says, "I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me." Mystery.

So you want to be great? Learn to be small. Remember you're dead. Thirdly, let God give you your throne. Therefore, God exalted Him. God gave Him a position, God gave Him a job, God gave Him what glory He needed to have and what honor and what acclaim. Some of us want to choose our ministry. Some of us decide what we'll do for Jesus. Some of us say, "Well, I won't do this, I'll do that." We have no right to do that. Let God give you your ministry.

I remember when we came to America, Stuart said, "You need to work with women." I said, "I don't like women. I want the kids. Give me the kids. Give me my kids." "No, no, somebody's working with the kids." "Well, I want to work with the kids. I've done it for thirteen years." "You have to have the women." So out of sheer obedience, I began to speak to women. I went down and met a woman in Tennessee, Mrs. Pettit, who ran the rescue mission. She asked me to speak. After I'd spoken, she said to me, "You know, Jill, you're the best speaker technically we've ever had here, but you don't love these women and it shows." That's called leveling in love.

I said, "You're right, Burla, and I don't want to love them because if I love these women, God will just give me more. And I want to work with kids." I wanted my throne. I wanted to choose. Did Jesus choose? No, God gave Him His position. God gave Him His throne. God said, "You go here." And when Jesus went to the cross and was risen from the dead, then God gave Him His throne.

Humility is a spiritual art. Want to be great? Then learn to be small, a lover of Jesus and servant of all. Want to be rich? Then learn to be poor; give Him your everything, then give Him more. Want to be happy? Learn to be sad; weep with the weeping, visit the bad. Want to be great? Learn to be small, a lover of Jesus and servant of all. Read Micah 6:8 when you go home and list what God requires from His servants. He's shown you, oh man and woman, what is good. What does the Lord require of you? Act justly, love mercy, walk humbly with your God. Learn to be little, remember you're dead, let God give you your throne. Learn to be small.

After I had hung my heart over this passage, I wrote this:

Have you ever heard the still small voice speak really loudly? Funny, that's a paradox. You know, like you give to get, you die to live. There it was again, and it couldn't be ignored. I went to the deep place where nobody goes and I sat on the steps of my soul, and He whom my love came and sat with me. "Did you say something?" I asked Him. "Well, you know I said something." "Was it 'learn to be little'?" "Do you have a problem with that, Jill?" "Yes, because I want to be big." "Well, that's honest enough."

And I sat down and I read in the golden book about the Lord stepping down from glory. "That was a mighty step," I said in awe. "Learn to step down," He said. I knew then why He'd said what He said. I was struggling with wanting to step up. "Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus," I read. Oh, bother.

Then I was lost in the wonderful hymn that sang a song about my wonderful Lord. In my mind's eye, I saw that great graph of grace He made from heaven's glory to hell's halls, the one He made for me. "You laid it down," I murmured—image, status, glory, control, all that the world and my haughty heart holds dear. You let it go. Your Father didn't even have to pry Your fingers open. "Learn to be small," He said again.

I thought about a quote I'd heard: "Learn to do something great." And I put it together. God was asking me to do something great—to learn to be small so that He could be big in my life. He was asking me to have the mind of Christ. "I don't know how to do it," I began awkwardly. The golden book lay in my lap and the song sung by angels rang in my ears: "Lay it down, lay it down, lay it down."

Then there was silence, and I climbed the steps of my soul and I found the world in the shallow place where everyone lives—stepping up, fighting to be first, pushing to the front, sounding loud, rude, and just being human. And I joined them. But all day I heard the song of angels who so long ago were left stunned holding His glory in their hands. Glory laid aside in the hallway of His home waiting till Ascension Day. The song wouldn't quit, and I swear the choir was standing on the steps of my soul.

And He laid it down, and He came down, and He knelt down, and He lay down on a rough-hewn cross. It was all about down. And I knew then with a painful sense of reality that my life was usually all about up. Do something great—learn to be small. The voice wasn't loud anymore, just insistent. "Your attitude should be the same as Christ Jesus. Learn to be small, learn to be small, learn to be small." Lord, oh, that felt so good. Just saying it and meaning it. Lord, Lord. And I joined in the high hymn of heaven with all my heart. Can you hear it? The golden hymn. Shh. Listen to the angels. What are you doing up on your feet? You're too tall. Learn to be small.

Pray with me. Lord, Lord, Lord, we're too tall. Forgive us. Teach us to remember how small we are. How great You are. It's all about You and not about us. Jesus' name, Amen.