Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: Turn in your Bibles with me to Isaiah chapter 42. We'll be having a look at some other passages of Scripture as well. In fact, you might like to turn to John chapter 13 for a moment. I'm going to talk about servanthood as we come into the servant songs of Isaiah. There are four of them and I don't know how many I'll be doing. Certainly, I'll be doing two of them.

I've been thinking a lot about what it really means to be a servant. It's a word that we don't like. We object to the idea of being under someone or slaving for someone or being controlled by someone or being trodden all over by someone, which the idea of servant and slave brings to mind. And yet, one of the pictures in the Bible of God Himself is that of a servant.

When Jesus, in John chapter 13, in the upper room before the Passover feast, knelt down and washed the disciples' feet, there was total consternation among His followers, just as there's often consternation whenever you talk about submission, whenever you talk about helping, serving someone else, being their servant.

But Jesus, after the evening meal was being served, the devil having already prompted Judas Iscariot, son of Simon, to betray Jesus, Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power and that He'd come from God and was returning to God. So, He got up from the meal, took off His outer clothing, wrapped a towel around His waist, poured water into a basin, and began to wash His disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around Him.

What Jesus did at that point was something very significant that, of course, is lost to us, not knowing the culture and anything about slavery or living with slaves or having slaves. But there were three or four echelons of slaves. The slaves who were the top of the pile always kept their clothes on. The slaves that were at the bottom of the pile were usually bare to the waist, stripped to the waist. When Jesus got up, He was stripped to the waist. He stripped Himself to the waist.

He didn't just take the place of a favored servant or a top servant. He took the place, actually, of the lowest slave or that of a woman. For only two people ever washed feet: slaves and women. Jesus knelt at His disciples' feet, seeing no one had done them the courtesy and honor that night to wash feet, and He did the job Himself.

Of course, Simon Peter, being Simon Peter, said, when his turn came, "Lord, are You going to wash my feet?" Jesus said, "You don't realize now what I'm doing, but later you'll understand." "No," says Peter, "you shall never wash my feet." Jesus said, "Unless I wash you, you've no part with Me." "Then, Lord," Simon Peter in typical fashion replied, "not just my feet, but my hands and my head."

Jesus answered, "A person who has had a bath needs only to wash his feet. His whole body is clean. And you are clean, though not every one of you," for He knew who was going to betray Him, and that was why He said not everyone was clean. It strikes me when I read this passage of Scripture, it strikes me that Jesus even washed Judas Iscariot's feet.

To wash feet is a humbling thing. When I was in Cambodia, we were with a World Relief worker who asked us when he—he's American—when he brought us to the airport, to pray for him that God would give him a wife. But he said, "I don't know where she is because she would have to want to come and live out here with the Cambodian people." He was living among them down in the worst part, in the squat part. He said that's what he wanted to do. He said, "Where would I ever find a woman from America that would share my heart and want to give their life in service to these people?" He said, "I don't know where she is."

Well, when Dr. Gloria Halverson and Paul Sinclair went out to Cambodia, they went to the wedding of Paul and his beautiful, beautiful Cambodian wife, whom he found, one of the World Relief workers herself, a poor lady who was just a gorgeous girl. We met her when we were out there; in fact, she was our interpreter. They got married. They together are living there washing feet.

The thing that was interesting to me was in the middle of the ceremony, the bride washes her husband's feet and then the husband washes the bride's feet. To me, it was a most moving thing to watch. I watched Paul so tenderly taking that bowl of water and washing his beloved's feet. It's a humbling thing. I don't know what it is about it. Certainly, these disciples' feet were dusty and smelly and dirty and it wasn't a nice job.

Yet, Jesus served them. He says in Luke 6:40 that the servant is not above his master. If Jesus washed people's feet, if He took the lowest point and served people, then how much more should we? Matthew Henry comments on 6:40, "Christ's followers cannot expect better treatment in the world than their Master had. Let them not promise themselves more honor or pleasure in the world than Christ had. Let each live a life of labor and self-denial as his Master and make himself a servant of all. Let him stoop, let him toil and do all the good he can, and then he will be a complete disciple."

As we turn to the Old Testament and see a famous passage of Scripture in Isaiah chapter 42 that begins to talk about God's perfect servant, perhaps we can get a glimpse of realizing how God stooped to earth, how in Christ He stooped to us. And then, as Christ said, "As the Father sent Me, so send I you. As He sent Me into the world, I am sending you into the world." The servant is not above his master. "If I have washed your feet," He said to the disciples that night, "you should wash other people's feet."

I don't know if you ever saw that film—and I've clean forgotten the name of it—where the comedian playing the part is getting a divorce? It opens with him getting a divorce and he can't stand to be separated from his children, so he dresses up as a daily help. *Mrs. Doubtfire*. Thank you. *Mrs. Doubtfire*, right. That reminds me of something that happened that I just have to stop and tell you because it's very funny.

I was in Seattle doing some meetings and I was at a place called Crista, which has many ministries, one of which is elderly care. In the elderly care, they have a thousand beds in these beautiful homes that they have. Women are there and men are there at all different stages of old age, from being able to care for themselves to being cared for. They opened a new wing.

Among other things, I went along with him to the opening of this thing. There was this little old lady, a new resident, sitting there. Jim Gwynn, who's a very gregarious character, was running around among these old people making them feel at home. He sat next to this little lady and I sat there. He started to try and welcome her and he said, "Do you know who I am?" And she said, "No, but if you ask at the desk, they'll tell you."

I nearly fell off my chair. I wish you could have seen his face. It was absolutely priceless. But it just reminded me of that when I forgot the name of the film. I might have to ask you who I am. *Mrs. Doubtfire*. It was a great film except I didn't like the end, but it was a great film in many respects. Remember that part where he nearly blows it and he has to go away for a couple of weeks? So, the wife has to hire someone else and she starts interviewing people?

Remember that little piece in the film? I saw this three times going across on planes. I never went to a movie house, so I knew it off by heart. I was taking all the parts as they came and didn't even listen to the sound to figure out if I could remember it all. This lady comes in and she's very typical of everything you wouldn't want to come and help your kids. She says, "I don't do this and I don't do that. Remember? And I don't do this and I don't do that, and I don't do windows." Remember? She said, "I don't do windows."

Suddenly, sitting in that plane watching that, I thought, "That's the church. They don't do windows anymore." We don't do windows. We do this and we do that and we do the other, but we don't do windows. What would have happened if Jesus had said, "I don't do feet"? We don't do feet anymore. We don't do feet. I don't know what happened, but if we do anything, we want to be thanked for it. If we do anything, we want to be appreciated. If we do anything, we want somebody to notice, or we don't do it. We get very upset if we're not lorded.

Yet, a slave and a servant never get thanked for doing feet. So, let's look at God's marvelous servant from Isaiah 42. "Here is My servant," King James says, "behold My servant. Look. Here is My servant, whom I uphold, My chosen one in whom I delight. I will put My Spirit on him; he will bring justice to the nations. He will not shout or cry out or raise his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness, he will bring forth justice. He will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on earth. In his law, the islands will put their hope."

This is what God the Lord says, He who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people and life to those who walk on it: "I, the Lord, have called you in righteousness. I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison, to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness. I am the Lord; that's My name. I will not give My glory to another or My praise to idols. See, the former things have taken place and new things I declare. Before they spring into being, I announce them to you."

Now, what's happening here? Jerusalem has been destroyed; the temple is rubble. Jehovah has been humbled in the eyes of the nations. Who is this God? People had heard about Him, legendary. He had taken this nation out of Egypt in a miraculous way and brought them into the promised land and, under Joshua, had conquered all these mighty kings and peoples and subjugated them and spread themselves over the earth. But now, it's a different story. Now, they are diminished. Now, they are a slaved people.

Now, their proud city, the city of the kings, Jerusalem, is nothing. The temple that God was supposed to abide in, the place where all nations were supposed to come and worship and acknowledge Him, is no more. From heaven, God summons the nations that He may be vindicated and His honor restored. Who's going to do this? Who's going to turn the tide? His servant.

Here in the book of Isaiah, God begins to present a picture of this God-man, a picture of His perfect servant who will come to earth and accomplish this, so that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. This is what's called a Messianic passage. It looks forward to the coming of the God-man of Christ. Behold the man.

Remember one day Jesus said to people around Him, "Destroy this temple"—He was outside the temple, the brick temple at the time—"destroy this temple, and in three days I will put it back together again"? The Pharisees said, "He's nuts. He's mad. What does He think He's talking about?" This mighty temple, if you've ever had a chance to see or to understand how big the temple was or to go to Jerusalem and see a plan of it and have it explained to you, you'll understand how ridiculous that statement was. What did He mean, destroy this temple? Well, He was talking, as the Scripture says, of the temple of His body. Destroy this temple and in three days God will raise it again.

So, God is going to do it. This is speaking of Christ. The role of the servant of the Lord is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, God in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. Now then, this servant was to be chosen and elected. In one verse, we've got the Father's sovereign will, "Here is My servant," the Son's willing obedience, "My chosen one in whom I delight," the Spirit's fullness of grace, "I will put My Spirit on him," setting Him apart for His real work. He will bring justice to the nations. The fulfillment, of course, is in Luke 4:16-21.

Now, what is the application of this? He was chosen. He was elected. How can we apply that to us, this sense of election, this sense of choosing, this sense of sentness? Well, Jesus said in John 20:21 to the disciples, "As the Father sent Me, so I am sending you." He sent Me; I'm sending you. Everything that applies here that God was going to do for His servant, Christ is going to do for us as we are sent into the world, even as God sent Christ.

There is a sense of choosing. He has chosen us. It's something neat about being chosen. I remember when I was a little girl, if I was ever chosen for anything, I was always very excited. You're standing there and there's a big group of you and two captains are brought out and they choose, and they choose one from this and one from that. You're standing there and you want to be chosen. Isn't it wonderful when you're chosen? If you're chosen first, wow, that's terrific. If you're chosen at all, it's wonderful.

I remember staying in a home of some dear friends, and they were wonderful Christians. They mentored Stuart and I as a young married couple. We loved to be in their home. We felt that the bedroom that we shared, we used to go there every weekend we could, invited by this older couple. He was a banker and his wife was a wonderful woman. They had four rambunctious kids, and we wanted to call our bedroom the observation post because, as a young Christian couple, we just observed what a Christian family was all about and how they dealt with each other and treated each other and brought their kids up. A lot of fun, a lot of laughter in that home.

I remember Harry Green getting onto Doris about something or other and he went on and on and on. In the end, she said, "Harry, you had all the world to choose from and you chose me. Now, be satisfied." I don't know why I've remembered that, but I have. I have really remembered that. He had all the world to choose from and he chose her. Now, just get off her back and let her do what she was doing and stop quipping. It was just such a cute little thing. I thought, "Yes, he had all the world to choose from and he chose her." It's wonderful to be chosen. It's wonderful that the man of your life had chosen you to be his partner, his spouse, his mate, isn't it? It's special.

It's that specialness: somebody chose me. Somebody selected me out to do something very special. Well now, God has chosen you and He has chosen me to do our real work. Now, what do I mean by that? You say, "Well, my real work is being a mom." No, your real work is being sent because you're chosen as a special envoy and ambassador for Jesus Christ. That's your real work. Every single believer, that's your real work.

This sense of election, of choosing, of sentness, of mission should permeate all your mothering, all your wifing, all your friendship, all your living, not just underlying it, the very foundation of what you do and who you are. That's your real work. I remember when I was a young mother, hundreds of years ago—and it seems to be hundreds and hundreds of years ago now—but I remember asking God to keep that sense of choosing and election in my life in the daily doings.

When you're living in Nazareth and your daily doing, daily doing and there's little children all around, it's very hard to keep that holy sense of selection, election around you. But what it did for me was to open my eyes to the fact that there would be no other time of my life when I could be sent to young mothers like them. I remember when I was in college and I first came to Christ, and we had a wonderful time and we had a little revival in our college and many, many girls came to the Lord, not just me, in that plethora of blessing that God poured down upon us at Homerton College at Cambridge.

I remember thinking one day in my little tiny college room, "There will be no other time in my life like now that I can reach students. I'm a student; I have my little student room. I am living here. I am among them. As the Father has sent Christ, so He is sending me to students." Then, I got married and I had that same sense. There will be no other time—and there has been no other time. I speak to thousands of young mothers, and yet there was never a time in my life when I had so much opportunity to speak and be heard as when I was a young mother.

If you can get the sense and excitement of that. Now, in England, we had prams, pramulators, baby buggies. Don't you like pramulator better than baby buggy? I do. I remember thinking, "My baby doesn't have a buggy" when I first came over here. But we had these big-wheeled pramulators and mothers used to go to the park and you'd push your baby and sit in the park and the kids would play, and it was just wonderful. What an opportunity.

I remember as I sat there and made friends with those other young mothers and we had so much in common, so there was a bridge that you had something to talk about and something in common with those young moms. I remember saying to one or two of them, "Do your kids go to Sunday school?" "No." Well, they were farm ladies living in—I was living in the country at the time. So, I said, "Well, would they like to come to my house and we can have a little Sunday school class?" Two or three of them said, "Yes, that would be nice. That would be great. We could bring the children on Sunday. We don't go to church or anything, but we'd like our children to have a little Sunday school."

So, there in the little tiny mission house, with Judy in her little carrycot and David messing everything up probably—he was two years later—and Pete not on the way yet—or maybe I was pregnant with him, I think, when I began that Sunday school—three or four of those mothers, just my neighbors that I'd met in the park pushing my pram, came to my little tiny house.

That sense of sentness, that sense of, "God has chosen me for this moment before the foundation of the world. He has sent me with a mission to tell these people about Christ. I am an ambassador for Christ. I am His representative, His elected official to give His messages to them." One by one, they began to come to the Lord. We moved out of my little room into this big farmhouse of my neighbor. She was an absolute character. I won't tell you the sort of lifestyle she was living though she was married. Her husband owned all the land around. So, it was a fabulous farmhouse, huge, great, old-fashioned English farmhouse. She had a massive kitchen.

We started to fill up this kitchen with our Sunday school. And then, we had a parents' day and all the parents came, and I put a little play on. It was all started back there, what you see over there on a Sunday on the platform. I first began in a farmhouse in England starting to do all these little drama things, and God began to move. It was such a thrill. What was my real work? Being a mom to David, Judy, and Peter? That was a lot of it, but my real work was to be a servant of the Lord. As God had sent Christ, so Christ had sent me, and He sent you too.

That changes a whole lot of mundanity in your life. Every morning, along with your cornflakes and your newspaper and your schedule, review the sense that today may be the day that one of those young mothers in your neighborhood, one of those young mothers you've met at the exercise class—I don't know—but somebody that you are in a prime position to reach might come into the kingdom, might be in heaven because of you.

Above all, the servant of the Lord is a trusted and obedient official, a government representative, a humble volunteer. How are we to do this? We are to do this humbly, gently. There are some marvelous verses in this passage of Scripture and also, of course, my mind is leaping forward to that passage of the suffering servant where it says that He didn't raise His voice in the streets. He was quiet, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth.

There's many symbols of animals that apply to the servant and Christ in the Scriptures. The dove is one of them. You know, all the other sacrifices brought to the temple made an awful lot of noise when they smelled the blood and they knew what was going to happen to them. But the dove never opened its mouth. It would lie in the priest's hand as the knife was put to its throat, offering its neck to the knife, speaking of the humility of Christ. There are passages of Scripture that apply that picture to the way that Christ offered up His life.

Just as we go around our volunteering, our mission work, our chosenness, we are to be a humble volunteer. He will not shout or cry out or raise His voice in the streets. There was a voluntary humility about Him. Matthew Arnold says, "He shall not speak with a high, vehement voice of men who contend. God's servant would bring the hearts of men the word of reconciliation and salvation by the gentle method, spiritual ways and behavior." Calvin says He didn't boast; He forbade people to publish His miracles.

I remember reading that about 10 years ago and asking God, "Do You want me to use a pseudonym to write?" I remember going through that because Jesus forbade people to publish His miracles, and it occurred to me that I was putting mine out for bids. At that point, I submitted all my writing to God and I said, "I don't know what You want to do with this, but I will not contend. If You want my books to get into print, then get them into print. Help me to do it the gentle method. Help me to do it the humble way. Help me not to raise my voice in the streets."

It doesn't mean you're not visible. Christ's ministry was un-hysterical, humble and quiet, and we have to say is mine. We reject fame and power, but we want to be famous and powerful, says Alexander. We reject it in words, but here again, our whole attitude of being a servant has to be that humility, that humbleness, that quietness.

And that determination to delight. "My servant in whom My heart delights." Jesus determined to delight God. "I do always those things that please Him." And God, in turn, was delighted with His servant and His obedient humility. I love this. Are we determined to delight God? Are we determined to delight the Lord, and is He delighted in us? Is He finding pleasure in us? Is He pleased with us?

Do you remember Eric Liddell in *Chariots of Fire*? I remembered the name of the movie. Remember that? I saw that in a plane as well. What a marvelous, marvelous movie that was. Now, I'm trying to remember the name of the book for you: *A Boy's War*. It's a book you should get and read if your children are old enough, to your children. That's the story of J. Hudson Taylor III, who was a little boy and Eric Liddell was his teacher in the concentration camp where he died eventually under the hands of the Japanese.

It's a wonderful story, Eric Liddell, this Scottish Christian, missionary at heart, but he loved to run. Remember? And he was gifted. He had an ungainly way of running; he wasn't a pretty runner. But boy, could he run. Do you remember what he said? "God made me fast. God made me fast, and when I run, I sense His pleasure." Isn't that wonderful? "God made me fast, and when I run, I sense His pleasure."

When you are doing His real work in the middle of the other work that we are called to do, you will sense His pleasure. Spiritual work, mission work—mission fields between your own two feet, folks. That's where it is. And when you are involved in being a servant of the Lord, being His ambassador and giving His message out to your world, you will sense His pleasure.

There'll be a stab of joy every time you are doing what God wants you to do. And that, of course, involves the mothering and the doing and all of that. But in the middle of your mothering, are you bringing your children to know the Lord? Is that the real work that God has called you to do? Oh, yes, to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, and you will sense His pleasure when you are in the right place, you are doing the right thing, the right day, the right moment.

If you have this determination to delight Him, you will sense His pleasure, your heart set on His approval, this mindset of voluntary humility, a soul set on delighting Him. "Mine elect," says God, "in whom My soul delighteth." This is My beloved Son, My precious one. Precious isn't a word used for a casual acquaintance. Precious. When God looks at you and your heart and mindset is right, and you are being a servant and a slave for other people, you are running around the world saying, "What can I do for you? How can I help you?" then you will sense His pleasure. He will be approving of you. You will be precious to Him.

It isn't a question of Him delighting me; it's me delighting Him. We've got it all the wrong way around, don't we? So, if we get up in the morning and say, "May I bring delight to You today?" that's the way to go. When I came to Christ, I was a very selfish person, totally selfish. I was probably the most selfish person around. Janet Smith, who led me to Christ, said to me, "Now, your life is going to change 180 degrees, Jill, because you are a very selfish young woman." Well, she'd only known me a week, so you can imagine how selfish I was. But she was absolutely right.

She said, "From now on, God is going to turn you around and start to make you self-less instead of self-ish." I said, "How's He going to do that?" She said, "Service." I said, "What do you mean?" She said, "Are you asking me what service is because I'm sure you don't know?" I said, "Yes." She said, "Well, up to now, you've expected everybody to serve you, right?" "Yes." "Well, from now on, you're going to serve everybody else." I said, "How do I do that?" She said, "You go out into your world and you ask everybody you meet every day, 'What can I do for you?' Very simple. Try it." I said to her, "Will they tell me?" "Oh, yes." She said, "The world is short of people running around saying, 'What can I do for you?' because the world is full of people saying, 'What can you do for me?'"

So, I started to try it back at college. "What can I do for you? How can I help you?" Girls struggling with her artwork: "Can I help you with that? Why don't we just get on our bikes and go down and do some more sketches together? I'll come with you; I need to do some more anyway." "Can I help you with this?" Somebody on the tennis team wants some extra practice: I was playing tennis for my college at that point. "Why don't we just go out and knock some balls around?" "Can I help you? I see that you got a letter today and you're upset. What can I do? How can I help you? Need to clean your room? Oh, I haven't been able to do it; I've got exams and whatnot." "Why don't we get up early before breakfast? I'll come over at seven o'clock. Let's get it out; let's do it."

Their eyes get big; their mouths drop open. "How can I help you?" That's as simple as that. And yet, we spend our life figuring out who can help us. The voluntary humility of a servant. For this, you will be clothed and endowed, which is the master need of mankind: clothed with power from on high, clothed with the Holy Spirit. Clothed and endowed. "I will put My Spirit on him." You will be dressed for this battle. It is a battle to be selfless. It is a battle to quit laying down your wishes to try and fulfill other people's needs.

One thing that's very good to do if you're trying to learn how to be a servant and you're a selfish person is volunteer for everything. Just volunteer for everything. Don't select, just do it. I made up my mind early on in my Christian life I would never say no. I would never say no unless I absolutely had an incredible reason. I would never say no. I try to keep going on that, with the result that I am totally over-committed. I just keep saying, "Yes, yes, yes." People ask us to go and serve them and we say yes.

So, what you do is open yourself up to wash feet, basically, and to serve. And then, of course, circumstances and age and other responsibilities put the limits on it. But if you start with the mindset of no, then you're never going to get anywhere. Volunteer. This servant of the Lord—and the word is volunteered to be dressed for battle. God put His Spirit on him because he was going to need power to do this. And this man was driven to speak. He was driven to speak, determined to preach, destined.

Don't worry about the word preach; all of us are supposed to be preaching. It just simply means decimating truth through personality, giving out truth through different personalities. That's what the word preach means. Every one of us has a different personality, and each of us needs to give out truth. Now, some of us do it from up here, some of us do it from down there, some of us do it sitting on the plane, some of us do it standing in the supermarket.

But every time you are an ambassador for Christ—and that's what 2 Corinthians 5 says; we are His ambassadors—every time you're an ambassador for Christ, it will sound different, it will be put in a different way because that's the glorious variety of the people that you are. It will never be said the same way. God has somebody for you to tell about Jesus, and they will hear it in a way it has never been spoken of before because you are you and you have a different way of speaking, you have a different way of looking, you have a different way of thinking.

So, there's this wonderful variety. I think it was years ago that I needed somebody to go to Australia with me. I was going to do five weeks' ministry right across Australia, and I said to Stuart—my back was bad at the time—"I need somebody to go with me because I don't know how well I'm going to do on my own on this." And he said, "Well, isn't there somebody you could ask at church?" I said, "No, I really can't think of anybody that could give me five weeks and I would ask them."

So, he said, "Well, why don't you ask Judy?" who's my daughter. Well, she'd just got married, so there were a lot of reasons why I shouldn't ask her. However, I did. I said, "Judy, do you want to come to Australia for five weeks?" Greg was in the middle of his Master's degree at Northwestern and was living in the library at the time and said to her, "Go, Judy. I'm not going to be home for five weeks. This is the run-up to the exams. It's a great idea." There were no children; they were free to do it. He said, "Just go with your mom and I'll get this over and by the time you come back, we'll be ready to go."

So, Judy came with me—she'd been married probably three months—to Australia for five weeks. It wasn't easy for her to do it, but she did it. She came to carry my bags. She came to look after her mother, which is not an easy job. She came to find all the things I would lose, which was everything: my Bible, my keys, whatever I happened to have. She would pick it up and find it and she would care for me, and we would giggle and we would laugh and we would have great fun.

I got on the plane after bending down to, I don't know, do something the day before we went and feeling that pull in my back and thinking, "Uh-oh." I didn't go to the doctor because I knew he would say, "Don't go." So, I got on the plane and went 15 hours, whatever it is over to Australia. About an hour before we landed, I turned to Judy and I said, "I can't move." And she looked at me and said, "Don't do that, Mother." I said, "Judy, I can't move. I've locked in place."

I always remember her horrified face, and I couldn't move. I couldn't get off; they had to carry me off the plane. So, began five of the worst weeks of my life, physically, as I faced this incredible itinerary. I said to Judy the first day before the biggest meeting in Sydney, 2,000 women, "You're going to have to do some of this." I remember her looking at me saying, "Huh? Mother, don't do this." I said, "Judy, I'm going to be able to do one session. I'm going to sit somehow. I'll get through it. I cannot do three sessions a day, there's no way. You can do the next one, and then somehow maybe we could do the final one together or I can manage with an afternoon rest to do the final one in the evening."

She said, "What am I going to do?" She had never spoken to adults; she had spoken to the youth group. She had one talk on anxiety. Wonderful. I said, "It'll do." She said, "I don't have it with me, Mother." I said, "Sit there and try and remember everything you can." We started to put that talk on anxiety together, and I remembered Stuart's talk on anxiety from Matthew 6, and she remembered something else. Of course, she's a psychologist, so she'd got some stuff that she could throw in there on stress and all of that. So, we began to put her talk together.

The day came and I sat there and did my best. I can't remember what I said. I was in blinding pain. I don't know how I ever got through it and, as soon as it was finished, I got up. I was drenched in sweat. I went into this little room and I sat down and Judy came and said, "Mother, what can I do for you?" I said, "Just get up there and do your thing, Judy." Well, she said, in her words, "I sat there listening to my mother. I prayed fervently she would not be good." Get it? "Don't let her be good, Lord. Please." Which you can understand. I would have prayed the same thing.

However, apparently, I was good. I can't remember whether I was good or bad or indifferent. So, all these women kept coming up to her saying, "Oh, your mother's wonderful! How marvelous! How over-what a blessing! This is marvelous!" and she just had to get out of this. She walked out and she walked along this little path and she said, "God, I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't stand in my mother's shoes. I can't give my little talk on anxiety."

She opened her Bible to a verse. I think it was the one in Corinthians, but it was one she said that had to do with instruments and sounds and notes and it said, it said this: that every instrument has its own note and not one of them is without significance. Now, you go play your instrument, play your note, Judy. You've got something to say that your mother hasn't got to say. You've got a way to say it that she could never say it. You have the heart of the young women that are sitting out there. She's a mother; she's a grandmother. You're a 23-year-old. You can do it.

And she got up and gave her talk. Of course, the heart of the women were absolutely with her. She started off telling them that she'd prayed I wouldn't be any good, and they loved that. And then she told them why. She said, "I am so frightened and so anxious and so scared." She said, "Will you pray for me?" And, of course, this great wave of affirmation came from all those women to Judy. That's where Judy Briscoe Golz began her ministry. It was quite unexpected from her, from me, but not from God, for He had chosen her. He had gifted her. He had endowed her. And that day, He dressed her for battle. He put His Spirit on her. At the end of that talk, I can't remember the words she used, but in essence, she said, "I sensed His pleasure. I sensed His pleasure." She was doing what God had made her to do.

So, He will clothe us, He will dress us for battle and, as we are driven to speak, we will find we can do it. I can't, but then He never said I could. He will; He always said He would. I can't, but then He never said I could. He will; He always said He would. The servant of the Lord will not only be chosen and elected, clothed and endowed, but cared for and encouraged. He will not falter or be discouraged till he establishes justice on the earth. Bruised but never broken, dim but never out. Jesus plowed His way from Bethlehem to Calvary. He got discouraged. He got discouraged with His disciples. "How long must I be with you?" He said at one time.

On the cross, He was nearly snuffed out, but He wasn't. He was bruised. In fact, it says He was bruised for our iniquities, and it pleased the Lord to bruise him. When you figure out what that means, tell me; it's the most incredible verse of Scripture. It pleased the Lord to bruise Him. In other words, He was bruised that I might never be broken. The only way that God found pleasure in bruising Christ on the cross and judging Him instead of us was because He loved us to distraction. He loved us as much as He loved Christ, and by bruising Christ, He could mend us.

But He was bruised but never broken, dim but never out. As the Father sent Christ and encouraged Him even in the hard things of life when He was bruised and raw, so He mended Him. So, Christ will send us and we will be bruised but never broken. We will be dim but never snuffed out. I put in my Bible, "Tough, I've had enough. Don't snuff." And He won't.

You can be dim and God will put His hands around you and blow by His Holy Spirit and the light and the lamp of Christ will come back in your life again. You'll be battered and bruised and think, "I am red raw with what God is allowing in my life," but you'll never, ever be broken, you'll see. For as the Father has sent Me, so send I you, says Christ. He will be our encourager and He says to you, "You will be bruised. This is a hostile environment that you're going to be My ambassador in, but you'll never be broken. You'll be dim but never out."

Let me read you a poem:

Bruised but never broken,

down but not destroyed.

Battered by life's problems,

sick or unemployed.

Struggling with a marriage,

rejected we may be.

Bruised but never broken,

His promise is for me.

Dim my wick is burning,

darkness all around.

Few can see my life-light,

days with tears are drowned.

Yet nail-pierced hands surround me,

the breath of God breathes low.

My little light flares upwards

and sets my life aglow.

He heals the broken-hearted,

He sets the prisoner free.

Those desperate for forgiveness,

for hope and empathy.

He touches, comforts, strengthens

and turns their life about.

Bruised but never broken,

dim but never out.

Pray with me: You have told us, Lord, that we are chosen. We are precious. You have elected us. We wish to be Your obedient official, Your representative, Your humble volunteer determined to delight Your heart. Thank You that we are endowed with power from on high. We are dressed for battle and, as we are driven to speak of our Savior as His servant, help us. Care for us. Encourage us. May we not falter. May we not be discouraged till You establish justice on our earth. For those of us who are bruised, thank You that You were bruised for our iniquities, that we might not be broken. For those of us that are dim, put Your hands around us. Breathe, oh breathe, Your loving Spirit into every troubled breast. Fan the flame, Lord. Breathe on us, breath of God, and may our life-light leap up to meet Your torch. So, Lord, help us to remember today, as the Father sent Christ, so Christ sends us. May we be Your humble obedient servant for Christ's sake, Amen.