Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Following instructions may sound easy, but in today's telling the truth, Stewart Briscoe describes how so many people just get it wrong. We'll hear from Stewart in just a moment, but first, if you've ever struggled with the pain of betrayal or the weight of resentment, you're not alone. Forgiveness is one of the hardest things we're called to do, but it's also one of the most freeing. That's why we want to send you Freed by Forgiveness, a four-message compilation from Stewart and Jill as our thanks for your gift today. In it, you'll discover how you can break free from bitterness and step into the healing and freedom Jesus offers.

So request your copy of Freed by Forgiveness when you give today. Knowing your support helps more people around the world experience freedom in Christ. Many for the very first time as they hear God's truth thanks to you. Call now at 282-788-4648. That's 262-788-4648 or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thanks again for listening and for your support today. Now here's Stewart Briscoe with his message on how following instructions can put a smile on God's face.

Stuart Briscoe: I doubt very much if any of you have taken a course entitled How to Learn to Please Yourself. My hunch is that it sort of came naturally. There's something instinctual about it. I don't know if it's a genetic thing, whether it comes in the bloodstream or in your mother's milk. But somehow or other we we seem to have that innate capacity whenever options come our way to veer towards pleasing ourselves. The idea therefore that we should look at something else probably is a little difficult for us to embrace. This idea that we've been pursuing for instance that we should instead of pleasing ourselves, we should think in terms of pleasing God.

That probably strikes us as a little strange. And if it is true that there's a sort of an instinctual response to situations that leads us to please ourselves, I think it would be equally true to say that we do not instinctively want to please God. Now very frequently the two things are in conflict. And that being the case, if there is some reason that we should be interested in pleasing God, clearly there's a lot of education needed, a lot of discipline is got to be needed, probably some major changes of heart. That's what we're exploring at the present time from scripture.

Now it it may be that some of you said yourself, well, you know, the problem that I have is that I see absolutely no necessity for me to even consider pleasing God rather than pleasing myself. It just doesn't register. And I think it why in the world should I even consider that that would be an important factor in my life? Well, I think perhaps we before we proceed any further, I should look into that with you. And there's some people in the spiritual life, they take a step and stick. And there other people start off and they get into all kinds of exciting things.

They have a wonderful time and fizzle out. Fizzle out. Where are they? What happened to them? Where have they gone? What is God looking for is some good old solid solid Swiss believers who just keep on walking, progressing steadily through life. And you watch them and you see the growth. You see the development. You see the maturity. Now notice how Paul describes this. He says now I want you to walk in this way in order to please God. In fact, that's what you're doing. Now he says I ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more.

In verse 10 he says, in fact, you do love all the brothers through Macedonia. Yet we urge you brothers to do so more and more. In actual fact, this is one of Paul's favorite expressions. He is always encouraging people, you've done well. You've made a good start. You've really progressed. But oh, listen listen. There's so much more growing to do. For instance, Romans chapter 15 verse 13, he talks about people having hope or confidence. But he says, I hope that your confidence will grow more and more. You're more confident in the Lord now than you were 6 months ago.

He says, I pray that your love would increase more and more. Are you finding greater capacity for love than you could 5 years ago? In 1 Corinthians chapter 12, he talks about his using our gifts more and more effectively. Are you more in touch with your gifting? Are you more in tune with what it is that you're supposed to be doing with it? Have you refined it? Have you developed it? Are you using it more than you ever were before? You see that's what he's looking for. And that puts a smile on the face of God because he sees your progress.

He sees your progress. Well, that's the first thing. The first instruction members not as a suggestion. It's an instruction. Now here's the second thing. We please God by following instructions about priorities. Notice what he says in verse three. It is God's will that you should be holy. It is God's will that you should be holy. Look in verse seven. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. Now notice two little words there, will call. Will call. The will of God and the call of God are two dominant themes in scripture.

What do they mean? Well, the will of God means that God created this world for an intelligent purpose. Many people look at the world in which we live and they say it is total chaos. It's spinning hopelessly out of control and it is heading for inevitable disaster. If we don't we breed ourselves to death, we'll starve ourselves to death or the ozone will choke us to death or we'll blow ourselves to pieces. The whole thing is hopelessly out of control. That's one theory about the universe. Our people sometimes come to me and they say, you know, Stewart, I have a problem.

I don't know God's will for my life. I just don't know God's will for my life. This is common common problem people have. Let me let me see if I can help you with this. Obviously we can't tell you the details of what God has planned for you in the future in detail, but there's very good reason for believing that we can have the broad parameters clearly set in our mind. And I'll tell you how to find out. I hope that you have in your library at home a concordance. If you haven't got a concordance, which is the simplest tool for Bible study, sell your shirt and get one.

You should have a concordance. You say what is a concordance? A concordance is a large book that contains in it in alphabetical orders all the words in the Bible. Now then the beauty of this is that because if you know your alphabet, you can follow the alphabet through and you can find in alphabetical orders some words in the Bible. Then you can look under that word and it will give every reference to that word in the whole of the Bible. Then you can turn it up and you can study that word. So for instance, people say to me, I don't know what the will of the Lord is.

So I say all right, sell your shirt by a concordance. Turn to the letter W. Follow W until you come to the word will. Run your finger down all the references to will and find the ones that talk about will of God. Make a note of the reference and then turn to your Bible. Turn up every one of those references. Get your notebook out and write down in your own words everything that each of those references says about the will of God. And guess what? You'll never be able to say you don't know what the will of the God is yet.

Cuz it's there. It tells you. It's a no-brainer really, isn't it? Now then when we know what his will is, we say God, give me a desire to do it. And then when you begin to do it, you put a smile on the face of God. Now notice there's a definite connection between the will of God and the call of God. The call of God is all about God's invitation to us to experience him. But as we experience him, we begin to discover that he has outlined the details of experiencing him. So the call of God is not only an invitation, it is also a summons to behave in a certain and in a particular way.

That being the case, we look into the scriptures and we say God, what have you invited me to? Well, let me give you an example. Jesus gave a wonderful invitation one day. He said, come into me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Oh, how many people have responded to that invitation. I am worn out. I am tired. I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. And you say that you can give me peace of heart and you tell me you can give me rest to my soul.

Oh, do I need it? And they come to Christ. But then they begin to discover that that's only half of what he said. Come unto me all you who weary and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Then he said, take my yoke upon you and learn of me. Now to take the yoke upon you and to learn of him, that is the language of discipleship. So the invitation is to come and be blessed. But there's a summons to come and behave. The invitation and the summons come together. And that's what the call of God is.

God takes the initiative, extends the invitation and says, come and be blessed. And he says, as you come and be blessed, realize that you're coming into a relationship with me that requires a certain behavior. Come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me and then you will find rest for your soul. So what do we do? We recognize the will of God. We embrace the call of God. We put the two together and we say the priority of my life is to discover and delight in and do the will of God.

And the highest aspiration of my life is to respond to God's call on my life and to be what he called me to be. And the smile on God's face lights up heaven. And he says, great. That's what I'm looking for. Somebody who's making progress and somebody who's got their priorities right. Now then you'll notice in your Bible that he says that God did not call us to impurity, but to live a holy life. You'll also notice in our passage it says this is the will of God that you should live a holy life. So the call and the will have many dimensions to them, but one of the overarching dimensions is that we are called to holiness.

He wills that we should live a holy life. Now the idea of holiness does not turn a lot of people on. They could think about a lot of things they're more interested in. They're more interested in being happy and healthy than being holy. But but God seems to have a slightly different order here. He doesn't say an awful lot about you being happy, although he's not opposed to it. And he doesn't say an awful lot about you being healthy, although I think he's very happy when you are. But the thing that he does specifically talk about is being holy.

The other part of it of course is learning to live as if you are his. And that is why to be holy is a status that you are introduced to when you come to faith, but it is a progressive development as you come to know Christ. So you are holy that you're called to live a holy life. Or in other words, you have become something. Now you are called to be what you have become. Now you're called to be. I have become. I achieved the status. But now I have to learn how to behave in a manner that is commensurate with that status.

I have to learn how to be what I have become. When I committed my life to Christ, God made me holy. He set me apart for himself. He said, now you belong to me. And for the rest of my days, he said, now learn to behave like it. That's my will and that's my calling. And that's why you're here. And that's not a suggestion. It's an order. If I get those priorities right and if I begin to see that progress, I put a smile on the face of God. Smile on the face of God. The third thing that he talks about is purity.

Now I don't have time to get into this now, but I want you to look at it. But then very quickly let me just summarize it for you as follows. One of the things that Paul is concerned about if these people that he's writing to in Thessalonica are going to live holy lives is this. They're going to have to be very very different from the pagan culture in which they live. Now that would not be too difficult for them because the pagan culture in which they live were so bad. One of the big problems that they had in the culture of the day was sexual immorality and sexual promiscuity.

It was riddled. The culture was riddled with it. And the apostle Paul says this, if you're going to live a holy life, you will not do many of the things that the people around you do. Conversely, if you're going to live a holy life, you will do many of the things that the people around you don't do. You say you know why they are doing those things because they're pleasing themselves. Do you know why you don't do the things they do? Because you're pleasing God, not pleasing yourself. Do you know why those people don't do a lot of things?

It's because they just rather please themselves. Do you know what you do as a believer? You do do the things they don't do. Why? Because you're not pleasing yourself, you're pleasing him. And one of the areas in which this was particularly relevant in that culture, and dare I say it, I believe in our culture today is this. People who are set apart for the Lord do not engage in sexually immoral behavior. I'm not being dogmatic there. I'm simply telling what scripture says. And there is a total contradiction on the part of the person who claims to be set apart for Christ and is engaging in sexually immoral behavior.

That is not what we were called to. We were called to purity. And that is abundantly clear. And the fourth and final thing in this passage, we are called to a lifestyle of productivity. There were people in the Thessalonian church at that time who had got caught up in all kinds of exotic and esoteric spirituality. They were half flying high all over the place. The only problem was they were floating up there in the heavenlies and they didn't have their two big feet planted in the earthlies, which is where God left us to live out our spirituality.

The apostle Paul says, look, get your act together. Dampen down a lot of this excessive spiritual exuberance and begin to recognize that if you want to be credible in this culture, you're going to have to get down to being consistent. You're going to have to get down to being productive. You're going to have to get down to working hard because if you don't, the people who are outside of the believing community will look at you and they will despise you. But if they see some productivity there, they'll begin to reckon that there's something really worthwhile about you because you are productive factors in the culture of which we're part, sisters and brothers.

If we want to have any credibility, we want to have any credibility at all in the culture where we are placed, we had better be productive producers of something worthwhile in the culture and in the community of which we're part. Now tell you something else. When we do that, we put a smile on the face of God too. Productivity, purity, priority, and progress. Those are the four areas we concentrate on. And when we do, we put a smile on the face of God.

Guest (Male): Stewart, you mentioned that those who are set apart by God are not sexually immoral. Were you getting to anything in particular?

Stuart Briscoe: Yes, but I was getting out with sexual immorality. Now that's a bit of a smart answer, so forgive me. But I I was not thinking in terms of anyone specific sexual behavior. What what I was what I was trying to deal with was what the apostle Paul was talking about. What we have to realize is is this that when Paul was dealing with basically pagan cultures, these these pagan cultures had all kinds of sexually immoral practices. For instance, some of them even combined sexual immorality with their religious exercises. And so he was he was dealing with these kinds of situations.

I don't know that we are today, but what we've got to recognize is this the Bibles the Bible says that God created male and female to enjoy sexual relations in marriage. And for us to enjoy sexual relations outside the confines of marriage is fundamentally immoral.

Guest (Male): Okay, we shouldn't worry about what the world thinks, but does God smile when the world sees believers living productive lives?

Stuart Briscoe: The the the problem for for many of us is that that we we do know that we much prefer being liked to being disliked. And we do want to be accepted rather than ostracized. And so it is important to us what people think. The the issue I was trying to deal with here is is is this that if we are simply operating on the basis of trying to please people and and particularly trying to please people who who do not think in terms of the Lord at all, then we we may find ourselves very very easily sidetracked that in the end it is pleasing the Lord that that really matters.

In the in the end God is not going to ask us well, how many people would vote for you? How many people voted for you? That that's not the point. The point is he's going to ask us, did you do what I called you to do? Did you fulfill what I redeemed you and created you to fulfill?

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening to telling the truth today. We're so glad you've joined us and want to encourage you further with a powerful resource from Stewart and Jill Briscoe. If you've ever struggled with the pain of betrayal or the weight of resentment, you're not alone. Forgiveness is one of the hardest things we're called to do, but it's also one of the most freeing. That's why we want to send you Freed by Forgiveness, a four-message compilation from Stewart and Jill as our thanks for your gift today. In it, you'll discover how you can break free from bitterness and step into the healing and freedom Jesus offers.

So request your copy of Freed by Forgiveness when you give today. Knowing your support helps more people around the world experience freedom in Christ. Many for the very first time as they hear God's truth thanks to you. Call now at 282-788-4648. That's 262-788-4648 or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thanks again for listening and for your support today. Next time on telling the truth, more from the Briscos about how you can experience abundant life in Christ. We hope you'll be listening then.