Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: What a wonderful story. Probably the most favorite parable of everybody, isn't it? The Prodigal Son. Certainly, all over the world, if any parable of Jesus is known, it would be this one. And of course, it's found in Luke chapter 15. When I was getting this talk ready, I was thinking what should I call it? Maybe I could call it "The View from the Rooftop" where the Father stands and watch for a world of prodigals to come home. Maybe I could call it "What's a nice Jewish boy like you doing sitting in the pigsty?" Maybe I could call it "Waiting".

And then I decided I'd call it "Lost and Found" because that's really what these three stories Jesus told, this parable, an earthly story with a heavenly meaning or a pointed point, that's really what it's about. It's about God losing something very precious and sending His Son to get it back. This is God's world, and He wants it back. So lost and found it is. It's a terrible thing to lose something valuable like an engagement ring, an heirloom, family photo, or love letter. Of course, one of the worst things is to lose someone like a child.

Of course, there's infinite loss here. A sudden traffic accident snatches away the light of our eyes, or we watch cancer steal away a vibrant young life so full of promise. But there are more ways to lose a child than death, aren't there? There's the death of a relationship caused by a destructive lifestyle, religious views that divide, or the rejection of the faith of our fathers, beliefs we hold dear for ourselves and for them. These losses, as Colonel Garape of the Salvation Army puts it, can cause emotional seismic activity that measures on the Richter scale of our hearts.

When distance grows between parents and children, the sense of loss is searing. Do you know that feeling? What child left home? Which one stayed put yet is as far away from you as the other? Which pigsty are they in? E. Stanley Jones, a missionary to India, puts it this way: "Sometimes one awakens with a feeling of miss, indescribable except to those who know it. And the Lord understands the long wait. He knows what it is to climb the stairs to the prayer place. Remember, He ever lives to pray for us."

He who in infinite love and grace has stood for centuries on the rooftop of our world, patiently watching and waiting for His prodigals to come home, has not done it without a shattered heart. No. The incredible thing is when one here and one there come to their senses and begin the long walk home, He doesn't shout, "Crawl, child, crawl!" He's every right to, of course. He's given us all we need for life and godliness and the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. Yes, we deserve to crawl home and cast ourselves at His feet.

For we are all born with a prodigal heart, and all must arise and go to our Father. But beaten and whipped and crawling has been done. He crawled to the cross for us. He bore the weight of the sin of the whole world, yours, mine, and everyone else's. Such love! Are you ready to take the first step home? Why not say, "I will arise and go to my Father"? God hates losing things, especially valuable things, like a sheep or a coin. A coin being a piece of a woman's inheritance. She wore it in her hair, her dowry, her chance to be married. And when you lost a silver coin like the woman in Jesus' story, you swept the house until you found it.

In each of the little stories, the lost sheep and the shepherd who goes after it, the woman who finds her little silver coin, her dowry, or the father who sees both sons far away from him, in each story, there is a father. And we know who he represents. The Father of lights, the Father of all things. And there is a loss, and there is a seeking God, and there is a saving, there is a finding, and there is a rejoicing. For there is joy in heaven among the angels over one sinner that repents.

The context of Luke 15 is Luke 14. It's always good to see what was happening. And when you look at what had just happened, you meet a group of people who are Jesus' enemies, who are His critics. They are made up of various people: Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, teachers of the law, Sanhedrin people, some of which are all of those things. Tax collectors, sinners, lepers, not in this group. This group is the group that has been around Jesus from Luke chapter 5. So we're ten chapters on and nothing has changed.

This is the group that listened to Jesus more acutely than anybody, more than the crowd, more than the leper that came to be healed, more than the people who were believing and entering the kingdom as He gave the Sermon on the Mount. They were listening, it says, to every single word. They were everywhere. He doesn't tell the crowd anything without them being there, right from the beginning. And right from the beginning, one thing had bugged them more than anything else, drove them up the wall: the fact that He would eat with publicans and sinners. Because that in a Pharisee's book meant they were defiled.

And they would have to go through all this ritual of cleaning in the temple to even go and worship or offer a sacrifice. You never ate with Gentiles, read the story of Peter and Cornelius in the Acts of the Apostles. You never did it. But Jesus did, and it bugged them for two reasons. Number one, they couldn't hear what He was saying. They wanted to know what He was teaching His disciples, what this heretic, what this man that claimed to be God Himself was saying. What was He saying to His little group that He gathered and claimed to be opening the kingdom of God for?

They couldn't hear Him. So occasionally, what they did is they invited Him themselves. And in those chapters from Luke chapter 5 until this particular incident when Jesus told this parable to the Pharisees and these people, in the interim, a couple of Pharisees, very prominent Pharisees, invited Him for dinner. The first one invited Him for dinner in Luke chapter 7. Jesus came; He accepted all invitations. Sinners, tax collectors, He didn't care. Pharisees, Sadducees, fine. He went. They were very rude to Jesus, more than rude.

The women or the slaves came in to wash the feet, and they washed the feet and they washed the feet and they washed the feet until they came to Jesus, and then they took the bowl away. He didn't get His feet washed. He already had missed the kiss of welcome, which was ceremonial. Everybody else got the kiss; they didn't kiss Jesus. And so here He is, and they're watching Him, it says, like a hawk. They're watching His every movement. They're watching and listening for every word. And so a woman comes in who washes His feet, and not with water in a bowl, with tears.

A woman who's a prostitute, a woman who's one of them, the sinners, the ones who aren't in the kingdom, for the kingdom is made up of righteous people like the Pharisee or the Sadducee, et cetera. And she comes in and weeps over Jesus' feet and lets her hair down, which you never do except for your husband in the bedroom in public. But then she's a prostitute, and dries them with her hair and honors Him. Jesus says to the Pharisee, "Are you thinking I don't know what sort of a woman she is? I know what sort of a woman she is." And to the woman He says, "Your sins are forgiven."

Well, that was the big part of the party. They were beside themselves. Who is this that says He can forgive sins? For no one can forgive sins but God. Yes, yes! Get it! And that was the point. That was what absolutely sent them over the edge. He claims to be God! Blasphemy! Punishable by death! Even Jesus' disciples struggled with it, didn't they? One of them, just before Jesus went to the cross, said, "If you'd just show us the Father, then it'd be great. Jesus, if you'd just show us the Father." And Jesus said, "Look at Me. Philip, look at Me, look at Me." And why had Philip never noticed? He had His Father's eyes.

"You're looking at God," said Jesus. So up to the point of this parable, the Pharisees had hounded Him. They had muttered. They had screamed at Him. They had yelled at Him. They had done all sorts of things, to no avail. And Jesus answered them. Sometimes He answered them with a parable like now. Sometimes He answered them directly. Sometimes He gave it them full in the face, like in Matthew 23. He's talking to His disciples, and they're listening, of course, listening, the Pharisees et cetera, to everything He's saying.

Teachers of the law and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat, so you must obey them and do everything they tell you, says Jesus. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. You realize that phrase comes straight out of Matthew chapter 23. "Woe to you," He says, "teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves don't enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to." And that was the nub of the problem.

"The kingdom's here," said Jesus. "Whosoever will may come. The lame, the sick, the leper, the widow, the common people. You can all come." But, says Jesus in chapter 14 that precedes 15, if you come to Me, you must understand there is a cost. There's a cost for the common people, there's a cost for any Pharisee, Sadducee, scribe, et cetera, who will be My disciple. And Jesus has just laid it out. Listen: "If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yet even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Read My lips," He says.

Hate? Did Jesus really say this? Didn't He say we are to love everybody and especially our own? "In comparison to," it means. "If the love you have for Me isn't so much bigger, the love you have for others looks, in comparison, like hate, you cannot be My disciple." It's another way of saying, "Love Me with all your heart and soul and mind and strength." Another way of saying it. Examine yourself, disciples, all you that would follow Me, and take up your cross. Because if you don't take up your cross, He says again, in the same way, "any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be My disciple."

Measure yourself. I measured myself by that as I prepared this talk. How do we know if we've given up everything to become a Christian, to become a disciple? Only if you're tested, I guess. Mother Teresa said, "You cannot say Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you've got." So I cannot stand here and say to you Jesus is all I need because I've never been down to the pigsty. I've never been out, totally out. As far as I know my heart, I can say, "Lord, I hope it's true that my love for You, in comparison to the love I have for those I love most, supersedes." Lord, You know my heart.

Have you ever knelt in front of Jesus and said, "What do You see?" Have you ever dared to say, "Tell me, tell me"? Jesus has just told a parable of a great banquet for the important people, but none of them want to come. So the host says, "Go into the highways and byways, bring in the riffraff, the scum of the earth, the sinners and the tax collectors, that my house may be full." The Pharisees have just heard it. Then they hear Him saying, "If you're going to follow Me, you need to give up everything and follow Me, and then you can come into the feast. Then you can come in."

And the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear. But the Pharisees and teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." They haven't moved in ten chapters, folks. It's still getting to them. And Jesus told them this parable, and then He tells the sheep parable, a bit of it, and then He tells the woman bit, and then He talks about the parable of the lost son. And don't tell me they didn't get it. Don't tell me they didn't see in the picture of the younger son, the prodigal who ends up in the pigsty, the common people.

And don't tell me they didn't see in the elder son the picture of themselves. As Jesus tells the story, and note, the father wanted both sons to come home. I mean, have you ever thought, were there any Pharisees, were there any Sadducees, were there any of these people that hated Jesus that were after His blood? Did any of them come to Christ? Did any of them enter the kingdom? Yes, they did! Nicodemus, the teacher of the Jews! Yes, in secret. Yes, he comes at night. "Are You really the one who should come? Are You God? Are You really God? Are You the Messiah?" Right? Nicodemus.

Joseph of Arimathea, ruler of a synagogue, a rich man, a wealthy man. He's the one who is a friend of Pilate's, they say. He's the one that went to Pilate and said, "Give me His body." And Nicodemus joins him, and they carry a dead body, which makes them unclean, unfit to even go to the Passover feast the next day. And they defiled themselves. And Joseph gives his tomb, but in secret for fear of the Jews. What about the Sadducees? Any Sadducees come to Christ when Jesus offered "whosoever will may come"?

Yes! There's a wonderful incident where the Sadducees, who didn't believe in the resurrection, were arguing the toss and testing Jesus and talking about a man who had a wife and then he had another wife and another wife and they all died, and then whose wife will he have in the resurrection? Some story like this. Jesus just takes that whole thing and turns it around, ties them up in knots and throws it back at them. And it says some of the Sadducees and teachers of the law that were listening said, "Well said, teacher. Well said." He got them. Well, He got us.

And it says that many of the Sadducees and the leaders began to believe, but secretly, in case they were put out of the synagogue et cetera. It took Pentecost. It took Pentecost before the leaders and all these people I've been talking about came in groups and droves into the kingdom. But in the gospels, there was one here and one there. I don't think any priests, we don't read any before Pentecost came to Christ, but after Christ they did. For everyone may come, the younger brother, the older brother. The offer is the same.

So what about the younger brother? What happened to him? Well, the younger brother and the older brother came to the father one day, and the older brother heard that something was happening of great importance and so what he did was he made sure he was in the room because he got this rumor that his younger brother was going to get some money from the old man. And so he wanted to be there, and he was listening. And the younger brother said, "Give me!" That's his language. If you're a younger brother, that's your language. "Give me, give me, give me, God!" And God gives you and gives you and gives you, and you take it all. And then he turned it into cash and took off for the pigsty.

He didn't intend to take off for the pigsty, of course; he intended to take off for what he'd always wanted to do but had been hampered by being a younger son, not expected to behave in those ways. The older brother listened, and the father said, "Alright." And divided it, it says, to them. Them. The older brother that was there and the younger brother. The older brother got two-thirds; the younger brother got one-third. He turned it into cash and took off. And the older brother stayed. And maybe that was the point he took off too. Both ended up in a pigsty of sorts. One a promiscuous pigsty and the other the pew.

The prejudice, the hypocritical life of looking like a son and living like the devil inside. Both a pigsty of sorts. And the younger son went fine while his fair-weather friends were there, right? But then there came a day where the actions that led to consequences came to an end. Our actions are free; you can act how you like. Go to the far country, waste your life and your substance and your privilege. Riotous, rebellious living. Spend everything you've got. You're perfectly free to do it, but you're not perfectly free to choose the consequence of those actions.

End you in a pigsty. And added to that, circumstances of life, isn't that right? Doesn't that happen? Just when you're down, there's a famine. Just when you're down, there's a war. Just when you're down, your husband walks out on you. Just when you're down, a child dies. Circumstances. The famine came, and he began to be in want. He'd never really got that far down. And that's when he came to his senses. And unfortunately, sometimes when you're the younger son, that's what it's going to take. You have to wait till you're spent, till you're out, till you're sitting in a pigsty.

And he came to himself. Good idea. He started to have a little talk with self. "Self, what are you doing in this muck and mire? I don't need to be here. I could go back to my father and cast myself on his mercy and his grace and say, 'I've sinned against heaven and against you, Father. I'm not worthy to be called your son. Make me a slave.' That's what I'll do." And he gets up and takes the first step home. And the angels in heaven say, "Look, look, look, look, he's coming home!" There's rejoicing in heaven. He's coming home.

So I was looking at this story. I took some little time to think about my steps as the younger son. And I tried to figure out when the angels first said about Jill Briscoe, "She's coming home." When'd they first say that? And it could have been in an air raid shelter in a bombing raid when I was six. But I thought, actually, for the first time, of when I was 15. In my little pink and white bedroom in Liverpool. And I had a little bookshelf in my room. And in it was a Bible. I don't know how it got there. I don't know whose it was. I never opened it; I never read it.

But it was there with all my other books. And I was trying to get to sleep and, strangely, I had been thinking big thoughts for a 15-year-old. Like, "Who am I? And why on earth am I? And is there anyone up there? And if so, what's he like? Would I like him if I knew, or would I rather be glad there wasn't anyone because I'm not so sure what sort of a God he is?" Those sort of big thoughts for a 15-year-old, but you know something? 12 and 13-year-olds have those thoughts. I had those thoughts. And suddenly, two voices began speaking to me.

And one voice said, "Jill, open it. Take it off the shelf." And the other voice said, "No, no, don't do that. Need to go to sleep. Got a tennis tournament tomorrow." And the other voice said, "Open it. Read it. Take it down." And the other voice panicked. "No, no, you mustn't do that, you mustn't do that." And I didn't. I turned over and went to sleep. And I've often wondered what I would have read. Would I have read Luke 15 and recognized myself? For I was surely sitting in a pigsty even at that age. Spent, done, hungry. Oh, how hungry for home and I didn't know what that meant. Hungry for the heart of the Father I didn't know what that was.

I'll tell you something I just thought about last week. I believe at that moment the angels said, "She's coming home." It was a step. Long road, long road home. And not for a few years. But I began to think, and I began to wonder. And then not long after, I opened one of those books called the Bible. And God began to bring me home, to call me home. To call me to His house, to call me to His heart. Because you see, He had been standing on the roof of the world, praying for me. It says that in Hebrews: "I ever live to pray for you."

Not only God, people. I don't know who they were. Do you know the power of prayer? Do you have the Father's heart? Will you climb the stairs? Will you ask God, "Give me a heart for the lost, Lord. Give me the tears that cost, Lord. Prayers that persist, that they can't resist. Give me a heart like Yours. Give me the hope that births trust, Lord, that waits out the time if I must, Lord. The love that wins out till they come about. Give me a heart like Yours. Loving, patient, graceful, giving, waiting, watching, grieving, living in the hopeful expectation they will head for home."

When I get to heaven, I'm going to know who stood on the rooftop for me. What you do when you pray for your prodigal? Do you spend all the time saying "why"? "Why? Why did he end up in the pigsty? Why did it happen? Why didn't you send someone? Why didn't you intervene? Brought him up right. Did the best I could. Why did you let those friends take him into the muck and the mire? Why?" Well, don't waste your time saying "why". Stay up there long enough to ask God for faith to start and say "when".

Father stood and stands and says, "I expect the people My Spirit is working with in answer to your prayers to come home." Ask Him for faith. I had two parents come up to me last night and said, "We have stood on the rooftop and prayed for our two children for two decades. And one of them's coming home. And sometimes we nearly gave up. And sometimes all we could do is say, 'Why, why, why?' And then God turned it into 'When'. We'll watch, we'll pray, we'll believe. We'll do the Father's work."

It's hard. Miracles take time, though, "no less a miracle," as Lewis says. Go out and gather some acorns, folks. Fill your pockets with them. Give them to people and say, "Miracles take time. Look at the oak tree. Look what comes from this little tiny acorn. No less a miracle." And the miracle of seeing a child come back to their faith, a child finding their way to forgiveness, a child coming out of their coldness and hardness of heart. The older brother, the one who's never strayed from Sunday school. I've just been reading a book that has really worried me this week.

It's called "Already Gone". And it's a system of statistics that people that work with youth have compiled. And they're talking about junior high kids in church and senior high kids in church. And this book is called "Already Gone". And they have done research. And really, it's talking about the older son. And he looks like an older son, and he's never ended up in the pigsty and he's been a good little boy or a good little girl. And he's been through youth group; he's even been on mission trips and he's done the father's work and all of that.

And he's gone. He's gone. So it isn't actually in college, which I've thought up to now it was, they lose their faith. They're already gone. And we've had kids come in and say, "I was gone. I was gone. I need to come home." The older brother, mad with the younger brother. Why was he mad? Because he'd been a good boy. His sister or brother been a loser, had a baby out of wedlock, et cetera, et cetera, on drugs. They get converted and they come back to church and they get to give their testimony and everybody says "Yay, yay, yay!" and has a party.

"And I've been here slaving. I have no relationship with my father. He's of no interest to me; there's no joy in coming to church. There's no joy in doing church stuff. No joy. Not in here, not in here." The older brother. And as surely as the father ran down the road—incidentally, older men in the East never run, it's not dignified; they never run—he ran. Didn't make him crawl, remember? He went out to the older brother too. He said, "You need to come home. Come in, please come in! It's right."

The kingdom's open to the Pharisee. The kingdom's open to the Sadducee. The kingdom is open to all the people that have tried so hard to keep the rules and done a pretty good job, but it didn't do anything in the heart, you see. Come into the joy. Come into the party. Come into your brother. Listen to his language: "This son of yours." "No, no, no, this brother of yours." You've got siblings? Siblings that are divided? Need to forgive each other? Only God can do that work. Do you know what it is to climb the stairs, ask for the Father's heart?

There's a cost to it, of course. Jesus just mentioned it. It's got to come before everything else, you see. Before your family, before your job. The work of the kingdom has got to come first in your job, in your family. Yes. So where are you in the story? Are your kids? Are you a prodigal? Are you in the pigsty and nobody knows? Are you in the pew and nobody knows how far away you are from God? Wonderful story this morning. Little girl whose parents have stood on the rooftop for a long time and prayed.

She hasn't been in church; she hasn't been in anything for a long time. This morning, she woke up and said, "I want to go to church." Mother nearly fainted. And so they came. And the little girl said, "I want to come home." And she did. Yay God, right? Yay God. Pray with me. Maybe we can just isolate our hurried heart and make it sit still for a minute. Maybe some of you just want to say, "Lord, I'm coming home." Just simple. Just say it. I hope you hear Him say, "I see you. I'm waiting. Hurry home. You should have come sooner."

He's waiting to put a ring on your finger to do His work. He's waiting to cover the muck and the mire with a robe of rightness. He's waiting to put shoes on your feet, for only sons wear shoes. He's waiting with grace and forgiveness and a plan for your life. Just ask Him to forgive you and just come home. Come on home. And for some of you, it's harder because there's bitterness in your heart and anger and all sorts of things that nobody but God knows about. Just say the words, "Lord, I'm coming home."

And some of us who gave up praying want to say, "Lord, I'm sorry, I quit. I'll do it. Whatever the cost, for my prodigals, for other people's prodigals, for children who've never had anybody pray for them. I'll do it. Teach me how. Lord God, hear our prayers and let our cry come unto Thee. For Your sake and in Your name. Amen.