Telling the Truth

Announcer: How would you rate your prayer life? Today, Jill Briscoe offers insights to help you make it even better when she continues her message, Nothing But Leaves. Jill begins in a moment. Do you ever feel like your faith isn't strong enough or wonder if you have what it takes to keep going when life gets tough? You're not alone, and the good news is God never meant for you to live the Christian life on your own. So we want to encourage you today by sending you Stuart Briscoe's powerful two-message series, Sticking with It When Faith Seems Hard, along with his insightful booklet, The Impossible Christian Life.

In them, Stuart reminds you how God himself provides strength, sufficiency, and practical wisdom for the challenges of faith. You'll find renewed encouragement to keep going when living for Christ feels difficult. These special resources are our thanks for your gift today to help more people experience the life-changing power of God's truth. So request your copy when you give today, and thank you for your partnership in helping people around the world experience abundant life and freedom in Jesus Christ. Call 262-788-4648. That's 262-788 4648. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, with the second part of our message, Nothing But Leaves, it's Jill Briscoe.

Unidentified Speaker: How do you know if you have a fruitless prayer life? Have one that's nothing but leaves. Nothing but words, rustling, pretty, nice words, but you're nothing but w- there's no fruit. Do you know you can move the hand of God on your knees? Do you know you can go anywhere in the world on your knees? Do you know you can go to the White House? You can go to Iran, you can go to Haiti. You've been to Haiti? How many times you've been to Haiti? You can do all that through prayer. And though you might never see the fruit of your prayers, we can know how effective our prayers are from different things, and certainly if there is visible fruit, if there's visible fruit.

Until we who have been chosen to produce fruit through prayer and faith figure this out, we will not see the blessing that we pray for. We have to do the work. Prayer that doesn't work, doesn't work. There is a discipline to prayer. There is a work of prayer. And so many times we think prayer is ecstasy. Prayer is me feeling good after I've been to God and he's, I don't know what we're expecting, but the work of prayer, the intercession that's spoken of all through the Bible, the blood, sweat, and tears spiritually that are required to see God move through us. That's an indication if you are nothing but leaves or not.

He's looking for fruit, love that loves unto death, and the joy of the Spirit that catches your breath. There's a peace beyond dreams the same Spirit bestows, the very patience of Christ that bears with your foes. There's a spirit of gentleness that waits in the dawn, in the garden of prayer where forgiveness is born. Then the goodness of Christ can blossom anew, and a new self-control will produce a new you. The same spirit of God will help us believe and be done with this life that is nothing but leaves. And so what I've done is simply take those words in Galatians 5:22 and 23, and this is what he's looking for.

He's looking for love, joy, peace, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's the fruit. That's the fruit he's looking for. Does he find it? Does he see it in us? Now then, after the incident of the triumphal entry, we have, of course, the trial of Jesus. We have the crucifixion. We have the resurrection. We have Pentecost, and then comes Paul. Then comes Paul, and he writes to a church he's planted. If you turn to Galatians chapter 5, I'm going to look at this now. Now let me tell you the background of the context of the people the Apostle Paul is writing to. He has been running around his world, and he is not nothing but leaves.

He has seen people come to Christ. He is the apostle to the Gentiles, remember? He, Peter was the apostle to the Jews. God called him to do that. Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles. And he has gone to Galatia, which is basically speaking Gentiles, but in every part of that world there was a diaspora and there were Jewish people. Some came to Christ and were mixed in the church body that had never been there before. They were mixed in these little house churches. They were mixed in these little groups. So you had converted Jews, born again Jews, and Gentiles together, and mixed in with them were Jews who had not been converted, but they looked as though they had, and they were nothing but leaves.

I mean, really nothing but leaves, like the real judgment of God on them. But they were called Judaizers, and what they wanted to do was when they saw the Gentiles converted and in these little Bible groups or churches, these called out little groups, they wanted to say it's fine if you believe in Jesus, but you have to keep on keeping the law. And even some people that had been converted said, well, there are some laws in the Old Testament that you just add to your Christianity, like circumcision, et cetera. And that's what had happened in this little group of people in Galatia. And Paul says, when he writes to them, so you're saying I'm not an apostle and I don't matter and you're the teachers here, et cetera, et cetera.

But I want to tell you something. God called me to be your teacher. I planted the church, and you are perverting the gospel and you are stumbling. You are not making it easy for these converts who are Jewish and Gentiles, and you're telling the Gentiles they have to add this ceremony and that. So you, yes, you can be saved not by grace alone. You can be saved by grace alone and this, that, and the other. They were called Judaizers. And he begins this chapter by saying, in this letter to this group in Galatia, "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery." Which yoke of slavery?

Of being bound like with a chain to rules and regulations. And I can't remember how many hundred rules the Pharisees had added by this time in the history of the Bible. But there were hundreds of rules that they said, well, yes, you can accept Jesus and all of that if you must, but what you need to do is keep all of these rules instead. And what Paul says, there is no other gospel. I am an apostle called by God. I planted the church. God has given me the gift of teaching the church. The apostles' doctrine was the foundation of the church. And by faith, not observation of the law, not by being good, you will be saved and be sons of God.

I spoke in a very posh country club in Mexico. Stuart and I, it's a wonderful story, actually. I was up in the coffee fellowship, and this elderly gentleman and his wife came and were looking around. I was just there greeting visitors like I love to do on a Sunday, and this was a long, quite a long time ago now, and this very well-dressed couple came up to me and said, we've come to meet our pastor. And I said, oh really? Have you been coming a few weeks? They said, no, we've never been here before. And I said, well, who's your pastor? And he said, Stuart Briscoe. And I said, how is that? And they said, well, we live half the time in Canada and the other half in this beautiful, gorgeous resort where we have bought into one of these condominiums overlooking the sea in Mexico.

And what happened to us was, and this man said, I'm a Lutheran, I've been a Lutheran all my life from Canada, and I've always been an elder, and I've always had my church, but in this place with about 300 retired people for half the year, and then they go back to Canada, that sort of situation, we don't have a church. And I began to think, oh, I can't go to the Mexican church in the little village, I don't understand the language, etcetera, and we should have something here. And just about that time, a doctor who lives in the next condominium to me visited Milwaukee and met a man who happened to be one of the elders here.

And this surgeon friend of ours, he said, I came for a medical conference, I'm a doctor, invited me to this amazing church called Elm Brook Church. And so while I was teaching in the medical college here, I went with him about 6 weeks to Elm Brook. And he said, I'd never really heard anything like it. There was a man speaking who didn't insult my intelligence and who made me think. And he said he was British, I think, but he was just wonderful. And if we could somehow either bring him down here so he could tell us what to do about having a church, that would be wonderful. And so the friends I was talking to said, well, we're going up to Canada, and we could pop into this church on the way.

We could take a diversion and meet him. And so the first time they came, they didn't meet us, but they saw it was videoed, okay? And so they got in touch with media person and said, is there any way we could pay for these videos or borrow these videos so we could have a church? And so, without telling anyone, said, oh yes, that's a wonderful idea. And he began sending the videos down. I don't know how long this went on till we actually met this couple who came and said, we want to meet our pastor. Okay? And so we went to Mexico. They came and they said, we want to invite you to come to Mexico.

It was one of the most incredible weekends of our life. And what they'd done is their meeting room was the restaurant for the thing. It was the bar, actually, and the restaurant. And so they got a television and had a bar church, they called it. And so after Sunday brunch, they would put this television on the bar, and anybody that wanted to watch did. There was no hymns, there was no service, that was it. And that had been going on for quite a while, and they arrived and they invite us down. So we went down to meet our congregation. And it was marvelous. It was one of the most wonderful weekends of my life.

One afternoon, they split the men and the women. They just kept everyone together up there, and I got the women in the bar, and Stuart went somewhere else and talked to the men. And I remember looking out at these people, and I said, we've been talking at you amazingly for two days. Let's just have questions. Anybody got a question? And this very well-dressed, sweet little older lady, very much older, sitting on the front row, straight as a board, said, I've got a question. And I said, what is it? She said, how good do I have to be to get to heaven? And I said, perfect. She said, what? I said, perfect.

That's all you have to be, just be perfect. Why do I have to be perfect? Well, I said, God doesn't want you spoiling heaven like we spoiled his earth, and only perfect people can live there. Well, that made sense. Then she said, then who can go? I said, only those who've been forgiven their imperfections. What's an imperfection? Well, the Bible calls it sin, but anything that isn't perfect, all have sinned and come short of Jesus, et cetera, et cetera. And I always remember that, the hush that fell over. Only those, and only those who have been forgiven by grace alone can go. And you know, she'd been in church all her life and never heard it.

I don't say it hadn't been preached, don't say it hadn't been in the prayers, et cetera, et cetera. How do I know? But she'd never heard it until that moment. And what Paul is saying, it doesn't matter how many rules you keep of the Pharisees, it doesn't matter how hard you try, it doesn't matter how good you are, if you're not perfect, you're not going to go to heaven. And what you need is for God to forgive you and justify you. Let me split that down for you. Justified, never sinned, it means. Looks at you, even though he knows you have and sees you just as if you'd never sinned. And only he can do that, and he does it by forgiving us.

So, Paul is trying to get all this over to a church that is being split up and decimated by these false teachers who are saying you need Jesus and. You need Jesus and you need to go to communion. You need Jesus and you need to keep these rules. You need Jesus and, you know, all the rest. And so he said, it's by grace and faith alone that man is made justified. And he writes to his converts and says, my dear brothers. So who are the brothers? These people I've told you about. And he says, you have been given freedom from all laws, not freedom to do wrong, not freedom for license to live as you like, but freedom and power to live as you ought.

We do not have our freedom so we can live any other way we choose. We have freedom to live rightly and not wrongly, and that, of course, is a choice. Well, at this point, he begins to talk about the war within us, the war to live rightly, the war to live in peace and joy and fruitfulness and faithfulness and patience and all of that stuff. Because suddenly we find an enemy within. We've accepted the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ and what he did for us. He's in our hearts, but suddenly we find within our hearts the Pharisee, but we also find within our hearts somebody that is trying to stop me living like Jesus.

And I realize there's a war going on. And this is not a war I felt before I ever accepted Christ and became a Christian, because then I was just living how I wanted. There was no war. But when I became a Christian, received the Holy Spirit, suddenly I found turmoil inside. Who is this enemy? Well, the Bible calls this enemy different names. For example, it calls the enemy within the flesh. It calls the enemy within the old man. You'll find all these verses in the NIV and the King James and other translations. It calls the enemy within self, the old self that always lived there. When Jesus came in, the self did not depart, and we became perfect.

So you've got these two natures. It calls the enemy within the sin nature. It calls the enemy within the sin principle. What does that mean? Something we're born with, a principle of wanting to do wrong instead of wanting to do right. We are born in sin. In other words, that bias, that sin principle, that old nature, that's what we're born with. Another name that's used is the natural man. A natural man is somebody that's been born without Christ, and they live after the flesh. They live naturally, like a natural man without God would live, okay? A spiritual man is somebody that has heard the gospel, accepted the Holy Spirit, and is trying to live in step with the Spirit and become like Jesus as his Spirit transforms them.

So what is a carnal man? A carnal man was a natural man, became a spiritual man, but is living like a carnal man. You got it? He is the spirit of wisdom and revelation. So ignorance, conceit, arrogance, folly grieve him. He is the spirit of power, love, and discipline, so that which is barren, fruitless, disorderly, confused, and uncontrolled grieve him. He is the spirit of life, so anything that savors of indifference, lukewarmness, spiritual dullness, and deadness grieve him. He is the spirit of glory, so anything worldly, earthly, fleshly grieve him. He wants us to be like Jesus. We grieve the spirit when we say no to God and yes to Satan when he lures us into sin.

What a wonderful thing that God convicts us when we grieve him. Now, what you do with all of that? You walk in the light as he is in the light. You let the light shine in. He shows you all the dirt and muck, and we confess our sins, and he's faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us. Don't you like to be clean? So we begin to find out how to walk after the Spirit when we begin to recognize the works of the self or the flesh or the old man. We can't pray for the world until that is dealt with. It's called confession, and I think the evangelical church knows little about it. Our denominational sisters and brothers know a lot more about the necessity of confession and forgiveness and cleansing before we do the work of changing the world from our knees.

Announcer: Jill spoke more in depth about a few thoughts from today's message. Here's what she had to say. Jill, why is it so important that we display the fruit of the Spirit as believers?

Jill Briscoe: The Bible says that by their fruits you shall know them. What does that mean? Well, by the lifestyle of a believer, you should know that they believe something and that they're acting out of their belief, that they're behaving out of their belief. And so if somebody is being very loving and patient and kind and gentle, which are some of the fruit of the Spirit of God, then you will know them. You will know that they're a believer. In other words, our life should talk, not just our lips. And many believers, myself included, can be full of talk and no walk, as somebody has said. And so we are to walk the walk, not just talking the talk.

And I think that's how people will know we're a Christian. By our love, by our love, they shall know we're a Christian by our love, as the song says.

Announcer: You know, Jill, everybody can relate to the flesh versus spirit battle. So what can we do to ensure that the spirit wins more than the flesh does?

Jill Briscoe: Um, what we can do is learn discipline. What we can do is to be in our Bible so that the word of God is checking whether we're walking the walk and not just the talking the talk. And I think we can ensure that the spirit wins more than the flesh, number one, if we're seeking to be obedient to the word of God and do what it says, and for that reason you need to be in the Bible. How will you know if you're walking the walk if you're not finding out what that walk is by reading the instructions, especially Paul's letters are a great place, lots of instructions so that we know what to be obedient and how to live our lives.

And we can also know by the conviction of the Holy Spirit, that's one of his jobs, that if we are living after the flesh, if we're doing something that is inappropriate as a believer, as we claim to be, the Holy Spirit prompts us. He sort of taps us on the inside of our shoulder and says, uh-uh, that's not acceptable anymore, now that you've professed to follow Jesus. And so we can know as we read the Bible, it will point it out to us. We can know as the Holy Spirit convicts us, oops, I shouldn't be saying those words anymore, or I should really work on my temper a little bit more, et cetera, et cetera.

So he convicts us, he makes us sad when we're not being obedient to the word of God.

Announcer: Thanks for tuning in to Telling the Truth today. We're so glad you're with us, and we pray today's message has encouraged you to walk confidently in your faith. We love to share notes from listeners, like this one from Brenda in Detroit, who says, I've been a listener for years and have been tremendously blessed by the Word of God through your ministry. May Telling the Truth continue to be blessed by spreading God's Word always and forever. Thank you for helping me to continually learn and grow in Christ Jesus. Blessings to you as well, Brenda. Do you ever feel like your faith isn't strong enough or wonder if you have what it takes to keep going when life gets tough?

You're not alone, and the good news is God never meant for you to live the Christian life on your own. So we want to encourage you today by sending you Stuart Briscoe's powerful two-message series, Sticking With It When Faith Seems Hard, along with his insightful booklet, The Impossible Christian Life. These special resources are our thanks for your gift today to help more people experience the life-changing power of God's truth. So request your copy when you give today, and thank you for your partnership in helping people around the world experience abundant life and freedom in Jesus Christ.

Call 262-788-4648. That's 262-788-4648. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Tune in next time for more biblical truth from the teaching team here at Telling the Truth. Join us then and experience life right here on Telling the Truth.