Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: We're going to be looking at the chapters on Paul. We're talking about a man who says, "I don't care what happens to me, as long as I use my life and all the gifts that God has given me to make the devil sorry he started the mess in the first place." That's his whole focus. He wants to be an instrument in the hand of God. He wants to dance to the beat of God's heart. He wants to be in tune with the Lord and have his life impact forever. He's not planning to retire, for example.

It's interesting. Stuart and I are involved in this ministry now in the developing world, and that's where we're living our lives for whatever health and strength we have left. I'm finding that we are being a real irritant to everybody that wants to retire. Sorry about that. Well, I'm really not. It just surprises us that people have said, "But I'm not planning on doing much with my retirement except rewarding myself for working hard all day," and so on.

But you know, Paul, can you imagine him planning for his retirement? I don't think I can. I was reading the life story of John Newton. He was the little sailor boy that went on his daddy's ship and became one of the most cruel slave masters in history, charting his own ship to round up Africans and sell them as slaves. Of course, he got incredibly, wonderfully converted, and he wrote his most famous hymn. He wrote many. "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind, but now I see."

That must have had specific pictures for him. "I once was bound, but now I'm free," for he had been binding human beings—children, teenagers, adults—and selling them all over the world. Of course, he got saved and turned into a wonderful Anglican minister. He had two parishes in England. At the time of his death at the age of 82, John Newton never ceased to marvel at God's mercy and grace that had so dramatically changed his life. This was the dominant theme of his preaching and writing.

On another occasion before his death, he is quoted as proclaiming with a loud voice during a message, "My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things: I'm a great sinner, and Christ is a great savior." Apparently, as his mind failed, they were the only two things that he could remember, and they were the only two things he ended up preaching. Then he'd sit down and somebody else would get up and do the rest of the sermon for him. I love it.

Paul said, "For me to live is Christ." Until I'm done, that's what it's going to be. I think until we capture the next generation—we looked at the next generation—you know what they need? They need that challenge. They need the challenge. They need something to live and die for: the purpose, the driving passion of their life. That's what kids are looking for. We shouldn't be afraid of saying, "Give it to God! Why don't you give your life to God? Go on, give it away, live it away, love it away!" Kids rise to that. Yes, they do.

When I think of the apostle Paul, it's that marvelous phrase, "Christ is my life, death is my gain," that gets to me every time. That's what I want my life, until it's over, to be. He was a world shaker with that sense of chosenness. "I consider my life worth nothing to me if only I may finish the race, dance to the beat of his heart, complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me, the task of testifying to God's grace." Amazing grace. G-R-A-C-E, acrostic: God's Riches At Christ's Expense. Grace.

It's all I want to talk about. It's all I'm living for, and it's what I will die for, which Paul proceeded to do. He was convinced that God had told him he was going to take the gospel to the heart of the empire. Where was the most pivotal part of the world at that time? Rome. They had never heard the gospel; it had never been preached in Rome. Paul said, "I'm going to do it. I'll do it. Can I go, please?" So many of us are praying to go, but we're secretly planning to stay. Paul was not into that. God saw his heart, and he took him and said, "You're going to get to Rome. I'll give you your heart's desire."

So we pick up the story in Acts 21:17, where Paul and his party arrive to give the gifts from the Gentile church for famine relief. It turns dreadfully bad. The whole situation deteriorates. Even though Paul does his best—he takes vows, he does the ritual cleansing, presents himself in the temple—there are two million Jews in the city. The diaspora is a name for all the Jews that lived outside of Israel, scattered all over the world. For this particular feast, they all came home. They all gathered, and they all at some point during that long feast time got themselves into the temple into the holy place.

Across the holy place was written on a sign, "No foreigner is to enter into the forecourt and the balustrade around the sanctuary. Whoever is caught will have himself to blame for his subsequent death." The Jews believed that the temple remained defiled until the sinner was beaten to death. As Paul walked through past that sign, somebody recognized him and said, "There he is! He's been with Gentiles. He's eaten with them. He is living with them. He has even brought some of them to our city. In fact, I am sure he's brought them into the temple."

Immediately, it was just like putting a match to tinder, and the whole thing erupted. A riot ensued. Here were the men that turned the world upside down, doing it all over again in the temple. It says in the Bible, "The whole city was aroused." The word "kineo" literally means moved or shaken. The world shakers are here! The whole city, not just in the temple. The news spread. That man that's been running around saying that people can come into our faith, Gentiles can take part in the promises of the Israelite people, is here.

What's more, he brought one of those people, the Gentile, into the holy place. This was not true, but that's what they said. The Romans, who are very nervous and trying to keep the lid on any riots, and were there in great numbers, looked at this man literally being beaten to death by the temple police and they rescued him. They brought him out and he stood on the steps. As they were taking what was left of Paul at this point into safety and finding out who he was and what was happening, he said, "What a wonderful opportunity! Please can I speak to the people? This is a perfect place, and these steps make a perfect place so that they can all see me. Let me talk to them."

The Roman said, "You're asking me in Greek?" "Well, yes, thanks, I can speak Greek." "You can speak Greek? Aren't you a Hebrew?" "Yes, but I can speak Greek. I was educated in Greek under Gamaliel, a teacher known worldwide, a Hebrew teacher." So the Roman says, "Well, aren't you that Egyptian that caused a riot all those times ago, and like that terrorist that came and had this insurrection? I thought you were him back again." "No, no, I'm a Jew," says Paul.

He stands in front of the mob and begins to talk to them in two languages: Aramaic and Hebrew. When they hear him speaking in Aramaic, that was the language of the diaspora. All the visitors understood and they all quieted down. It says in the Bible then he swaps to Hebrew in and out, and as soon as he speaks in Hebrew, all the Jews go silent. "Who is this man? He speaks our language." He begins to tell his story. He begins to tell the story of his conversion, the story of his conversion.

He gives his testimony. What's a testimony? It's the story of how you met Christ or how Christ met you. Actually, the word means turning around. You're going in one direction and then you turn around and go in the other. Well, that's true of Paul, right? Absolutely true of the apostle Paul. He's going in one direction: persecuting, killing, putting Christians in jail. He is a murderer. He's murdering Christians with permission. Romans turning a blind eye, the Jews giving him letters to do it and permission to do it. Then he meets the risen Christ, and he is converted.

That is a very dramatic conversion. Not only is he turned around and stops doing that, he becomes a Christian himself. He becomes the persecuted. He becomes the one that's tortured and beaten and put in prison and finally martyred. That's a conversion, a very dramatic conversion. Now, all of us need to be converted. It says in Matthew 18, "Unless you are converted, you will never see the kingdom of God." My first question: Have you been converted?

You say, "Well, Jill, I haven't gone around persecuting Christians or murdering my mother with an ax or something dramatic. I'm just an ordinary person. I love my mother; I wouldn't do that to her. I'm a nice person. In fact, I've gone to church all my life. I cannot think of a moment when I met Christ or he met me and I turned dramatically around so people notice the difference. I haven't had a conversion, so maybe I haven't even been converted."

My husband has this picture of a rose in tight bud, and he says some of us are converted like Paul was or like John Newton was, the slave trader turned into a Christ lover, and that's very dramatic. Others of us, it's like this rose, and the warmth of God's revelation comes to us and the rose begins to open slowly, slowly, slowly until it's in full bloom. That's probably the experience of most of you in this room. Most of us do not have a very dramatic Saint Paul experience.

All of us need to be converted. The actual moment is not always the conscious moment. Did you hear that? The actual moment is not always what you're conscious of or what you can remember. But there will be a time if you have been born again, if the spirit of God has come into your life, even if you cannot remember it. If you've been brought up in a Christian home, for example, it's very hard. I remember my daughter saying to me, "Mom, you had a dramatic conversion. You can remember the moment. I can't. I was a little girl, you tell me. Maybe what you're telling me is what I remember because you told me, but I cannot remember the actual moment."

I want to tell you my daughter is a believer. She's in ministry today, and even though she can't tell it, Dr. Billy Graham says of his wife, "I'm a good Baptist boy. I have a conversion story. I was going this way, I met Jesus, I was led to Christ, I can show you where, what chair I was sitting in, who led me to the Lord, who prayed with me. I turned around and went in the opposite direction." Now he says, "Ruth, my wife, doesn't have a story like that. Child of missionary parents brought up in China, she cannot remember the actual conscious moment." But he says, "I assure you she is a Christian."

She was like the flower, and she just bloomed. The important thing is to know now, today, at this moment, that you have been converted, that you have received the spirit of God and you've been born from above. If you're not sure, make sure. Nobody's watching you; nobody's looking at you. Just tune me out, bow your head, and make sure right now. It's easy. "Lord Jesus, I love you. Lord Jesus, I'm not sure, but I want to make sure. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus, by your spirit, and bring me life."

Well, conversion. Once you've been converted, you need to tell it. Your story is just as interesting as any dramatic Paul's conversion. Yes, it is. I'll tell you who it's interesting to: all the people like you, all the people that can't remember the actual moment but know they're a believer. If you could share your story, it would encourage them. Oh, so you don't have to just live a terrible life in order that you can have a good conversion? No, no, no. This is how Christ can become real in reality to you. This is what happened to me.

So your story is very important, whoever you are. You need a beginning, you need a middle, and you need an end. You need to say, "This is how I was brought up," or "This is what it was like. As long as I can remember, I was in this Christian atmosphere, but there came a point where I noticed there had been a difference. I don't know the moment, but I began to want to read my Bible." Life people want to eat; dead people don't. Suddenly, I came alive spiritually and I wanted to eat. I wanted nourishment, so I began to find that I wanted to read my Bible.

There will be signs of life somewhere. You need to think about that. So you tell them what happened before and then you tell them the difference after. If possible, you can pinpoint, "I think it was when I came to realize that I was a child and I needed to own my own faith, not my mom's or my dad's. This had to be mine." Or, "I went to college and I had my back against the wall, and one day I testified and suddenly in my heart I thought, 'Yes, I have believed in my heart and now I'm confessing with my mouth,' and something happened then." I don't know. Your story is wonderful; everybody has a story.

When we did this at our church, Stuart wanted to know how people had come into contact with Christianity. We had wonderful, wonderful stories. Basically, many of them were about how they'd come into church at Elmbrook, that's our church in Milwaukee, and that's where they'd found the Lord. One young man's story was hilarious. He had been coming up I-94 trying to go to his business. He was not a believer. He wanted to stop off at the office. It was Sunday morning and he found himself in the wrong lane.

Everybody was turning off, and there were hundreds of cars. So he just turned off with them. He didn't have any opportunity to go straight. Then he gets to the traffic lights and he says, "What is happening? Is this a festival or something?" But there's hundreds of cars streaming in from the four different directions. So he just follows them. They go up this big, big place and there's a huge building without a cross on the outside, so he's no idea it's Elmbrook. He thinks, "What's this? I've never seen this. This is amazing, all these people. Where are they going? There must be something going on."

So he gets out of his car and just goes. He goes in, and somebody greets him and says, "Come this way," and literally takes him. He thinks, "Where am I going?" He arrives in the sanctuary, and it's Elmbrook. Now he's there; he might as well stay. He gets totally, thoroughly converted. Isn't that a wonderful story? That's where he was. God has his ways. So you need a beginning, you need a middle, and you need an end.

I remember standing by a casket with a 70-odd-year-old woman. She wasn't odd, she was very sweet. She was our neighbor. She had been in church all her life along with her husband. Good, good, solid traditional Christians. Milwaukee was 90% Lutheran and Catholic at that point. They didn't know the Lord. They hadn't had that moment. They didn't know they weren't believers until we moved into the neighborhood, and I got to know all my neighbors by different means. I invited them to an event at Elmbrook.

This old couple came. I think it was the second time they'd been there, they realized they had not had that experience of God coming by his spirit into their heart. So they both came to Christ. Shortly after that, about a year later, her husband died and my husband did the funeral. I had never been to an American funeral, and this was an eye-opener for me. It was like an Irish wake, but in Ireland you don't have the coffin, you just have the body, so that was the only difference. You had the open coffin and the body, and actually the man looked better than he had when he was alive.

Which puzzled me for a bit, and then I realized what you do to the body, which we don't bother doing in Europe. However, I was in shock at all of this. The widow said to me, "You stand at the casket and greet all the people with me." I said, "Sure." So I'm standing, she's clutching my hand, and all these people are coming past this open casket saying silly things because what do you say? You always say the wrong thing; you can't find anything to say.

Her sister came, who was mourning without hope, the sister of her husband. She stood there for a long time and she said, "There he is. There he is. There he is, there he is." Jenny said in a very loud voice, "Betty, there he isn't!" which got everybody's attention in the room. "If I thought there he is, I wouldn't be standing here! That's my old man. No, no, no. He's with Jesus, you see."

I stood in that funeral parlor next to the corpse all afternoon while Jenny gave her testimony. "You see, my old man and me..."—I mean, she was off—"My old man and me, we sat in church all our lives. We are in our 70s, and we didn't know, you see. And then we found out." That was the middle bit, and how Jesus came into their life. "And now my old man had one year to love Jesus down here, and now he's loving him up there. There he isn't! There he isn't!" It was quite a day.

So you can give your testimony anywhere, anytime, anyplace. You don't have to be presented with a little audience to do it, like, "Well, if you round up all your friends, I'll give my testimony." You do it everywhere. You just gossip the gospel. That's what was happening in the book of Acts. So get going on your story, every single one of you. Paul gave his story, his conversion story, over and over again. Five times you'll find altogether he gives that story. Never tired of telling, just as John Newton was never tired of telling, "I'm the sinner, Christ died to save," until he had no mind left and he had few words, and that's what he was still doing. "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain."

Little practical things as you read. I hope you'll go back and read his testimony and find these points. Speak in a language they'll understand. Paul used Greek, he used Hebrew, he used Aramaic. Well, you don't need to do that, but the point is speak in a language they'll understand. Don't get all scriptury and King Jamesy on them. Just talk their language. Number two: find a point of agreement. He said, "I was trained under Gamaliel," a point of agreement. "I was a Jew," a point of agreement. Find something that's not going to antagonize them immediately, because you're going to antagonize them before you're finished. So first of all, speak in a language they'll understand, find a point of agreement, and keep it simple. It's so simple.