Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Today on Telling the Truth, Jill Briscoe continues with part two of her message, Partners Together, about how we must make the decision to weather life’s eventual problems together. You’ll hear from Jill in just a moment, but first, if you want a strong and lasting marriage, the best place to look for guidance is the creator of marriage itself, God.

We want to help you build a healthy and fulfilling marriage by sending you Jill Briscoe’s series, Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work. We’ll send you this resource, along with a beautiful Bible verse print, as thanks for your gift today to help others experience life in Christ. This offer ends today, and we don’t want you to miss out. So call to request your copy of this powerful four-message series, 1-800-889-5388. That’s 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here’s Jill with her message, Partners Together.

Jill Briscoe: "As for me and my house," says Joshua. Household is the word. And it’s very difficult to take the culture of Joshua’s time, or the culture of Paul’s time, or the culture of Peter’s time and draw parallels for you and I. But there are principles we can take that never die, that never die. As for me and my household, we. First me, then we. What is our Christian family, partners together? What’s it supposed to look like to the outside world?

What are we supposed to be doing? Two Christians, both of us believers, with our children, hopefully believing children, trying to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord? What’s it going to look like? Huge challenges, if we really take this seriously. What if the household contains an unbelieving spouse? The passage that perhaps we need to hang our heart over is in 1 Peter chapter 3.

This time it’s Peter, not Paul, addressing the marriage and family situation that arose in the early church. And Peter writes, and for the first six verses in 1 Peter chapter 3, he deals with the problem of the women who are in a marriage with a Roman, or a Jew, or a pagan, who have come to Christ through the evangelism of the early church and their work.

And these women find themselves in a situation you and I will never find ourselves in in our particular society. For the Roman husband had the right to put his wife to death if he wished, if she dared to balk him as he chose the religion. So if he chose to serve the Roman god, she’d better shape up or she was not only punished or put in prison, she could be killed.

And these women have come to Christ, and they’re in a situation where maybe they were allowed to come to the little group of believers. Maybe they snuck around. Maybe they had to come in secret, and their husband didn’t know. If the man came to Christ, he changed his religion, he had the right, and he brought the whole of his household to church. But if the woman? She was in trouble.

And these women, loving the Lord, having come into life and faith, began to try and give the gospel. And it says in 1 Peter 3, he says, you've got to win them without words. Now, this is to women. We can't do much without words, folks. Well, women. And what they were doing were preaching at their husband, they were preaching at their husbands. They so longed for their husbands to come to Christ. Some of you are in that situation. You’re the believing spouse, and your husband doesn’t believe. And the temptation is to just bury them under preaching.

Years ago, and I don't know how many people Stuart and I have been involved with in marriage counseling. I can't tell you how many. But I do remember in my Bible study a woman coming to Christ. This is in the 80s, probably beginning of the 80s. And she came to me and she said, "We had a pretty good marriage when we were both pagans. Now I've become a Christian, and there are things that he's asked me to do I can't do anymore. There's places he's asked me to go I can't go anymore. And our marriage is in trouble. And I'm trying to explain the gospel to him, and it's making it worse and worse. What do I do?"

And I remember taking her to 1 Peter 3, and I said Peter said you've got to win him without words. She said, "What's all that about?" I said, "Do you think he'd come and see me?" She said, "I'll ask him." So she asked him, and he said, "Yes, I want to see this woman that's ruined my life and my wife." And so I remember praying very much, actually fasting and praying the day before I saw this young man.

And he comes into my office and he’s mad. I mean, he's really angry. You didn't need a PhD to figure that out. And she comes in looking pretty scared and apprehensive, and we sit down. And I said to the young man, "I really have a lot of sympathy for you because you suddenly find yourself married to a woman you didn't marry." And he was quiet a minute, and he said, "Yes, you’re absolutely right. I am married to a woman I didn't marry. And if she had been like this, I wouldn't have married her."

And I said to the wife, "You've got to make him glad he married you. You’re a new woman, a woman he doesn't know. You've got to love him to death, or to life. That's what you've got to do. Peter said, love each other deeply. Win him without words. Stay there and make him glad you've stayed. Tell him about Christ how? Through your life, through your life."

Peter says in 1 Peter 3:4, "Wear the jewelry of Christ’s character, the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, of a calm temper, a contented mind, a heart free from passion, pride, envy, and irritability." You know something? I've never heard a man say, "I'm looking for an angry, jealous, never-satisfied woman who's full of herself, loud and touchy, selfish, and arrogant." Have you ever heard anybody say that? Do you know a man that would look for a woman like that?

Do you know how many men wish their wives were content? The content of contentment is Christ. Women are not content. Always want more, always want that. But when Christ is in your life, when you've said "As for me, my relationship with Jesus is number one, it’s all that matters," and out of that flows all my other relationships, you’ll be content. In fact, it says in the Bible, "Be content with such things as you have, for he has said, 'I'll never leave you nor forsake you.'" If we’d have more contented women, we’d have better marriages.

So it’s to your advantage, men, that your woman loves the Lord. For this we need Jesus. But for this we have Jesus, if he’s come into our life. So then how do we blend family and serving the Lord when both of us are believers? This is a challenge, huge challenge.

Guest (Male): You’re listening to Jill Briscoe on Telling the Truth with her message Partners Together. She’ll be back in just a moment. One question we often hear from Telling the Truth listeners is, what’s the Bible’s secret to a long, happy marriage? Over their years of ministry, Stuart and Jill Briscoe have both had a lot to say about this question. After all, they had the biblical wisdom and real-life experience over 60 years of marriage to back it up.

And in Jill’s four-message series called Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work, she shares timeless truth on marriage from the Bible, along with practical, day-to-day advice from her own marriage to Stuart. We want to help you build a marriage that stands the test of time as you apply biblical truth to help your marriage not only survive but thrive. That’s why we’re excited to send you Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work, as well as a beautifully designed print featuring a Bible verse on marriage as our thanks for your gift today.

This is a special offer that ends today, so don’t forget to request it when you give. Your gift will help keep sharing the life-changing truth of God’s love with people around the world through the resources and teaching of Telling the Truth. Remember, the offer ends tonight. So call now to request Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work when you give. 1-800-889-5388. That’s 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here’s more from Jill.

Jill Briscoe: And so here we have new rules for those who have come together in matrimony, partnership. Both individually saying, "My first allegiance is to God and what he tells me to do," and then as partners together, as partners together. How do we balance it all? Understand us, so nothing will hinder your prayers. There's a cost. There are priorities that need to be looked at.

Both Christians, I wrote a book on this. I tried to find a couple in the Bible in ministry. It was hard because, of course, we’re starting with the early church. But I found Peter and his wife. Yes, his wife is there. There are four or five references to her. We know she was there. Starts off in Mark 1 where she is there, and her mother-in-law's sick, and Jesus heals her mother-in-law, and her mother-in-law gets up and serves, and the whole town gathers at the door. Remember the story?

And this little Galilean, home-spun woman couldn't read or write, finds herself married not to a fisherman, who she married, but to the head of the church, right? That was a shock. Huge shock. She didn't marry a pastor, a preacher, an apostle. She married a fisherman. And suddenly she finds the whole town gathered at the door, and her mother-in-law, who's just been healed, gets up and serves them.

And so Jesus walked into her life, this little girl. I wish I knew her name. I'm going to meet her in heaven. She's been a blessing in my life as Peter's wife. And the whole town gathers at the door, and their home becomes another thing, a house without walls, a place that the world can come. The leper, the demon-possessed, the kids, the old people, the sick, the needy, the lost.

And she exercises the gift of hospitality. Do you know what hospitality is? The word means the love of strangers. People think hospitality is having all our friends and neighbors and our church people in to our house two or three times. That's not hospitality. Hospitality is saying, "World, welcome. You can come anytime you want, for our family is serving the Lord. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

Oswald Chambers said, "God breaks up the private lives of his saints and makes them a thoroughfare for the world on the one hand and himself on another." And I want to testify that was been the hardest thing for me as an English lady whose home is a castle in the whole of my Christian life, is realizing that my home was not my home. It's his. And I don't have any right just to invite who I want into my home. It's his home. So he can invite who he likes, and he's got some weird friends. He has some really strange friends that he has every right to invite into our house.

I remember learning that as we got married. Stuart's still in the bank, I'm still teaching. Manchester, little row house, across the road is the Cat's Whisker coffee bar. Gangs of kids would hang out there, leather jackets, chains on their backs, tough kids. Stuart would be preaching in the churches, which were empty save few little old women. Every weekend he’d be away for the bank in the week catching criminals, he was a bank inspector. And then in the weekend he’d go and preach where he was asked to.

And I said to him one day, cradling my baby in my arms, "Why don't you do something about those kids instead of rushing around to the three little old ladies? Look at them, you know, why don't you?" And he said, "Why don't you do something? You’re here, I'm there." And I said, "But I've got my baby." He said, "As for me and my household, we will serve Jill, go get them."

And so I got three little teenagers from our little tiny church and I trained them to go and reach these kids. And then I said, which was very nice of me, "I'll pray for you." And I did. And I watched with my baby in my arms. And my three little well-trained evangelists went over. There was a fight, they closed the coffee bar, and to my horror, I saw them pointing at me over the street. And what they did was say, "See that lady watching us? She's invited you all back for a free cup of tea."

And that was a turning point in both my husband's and my life. And they came and they filled our house. The only place I could stand was in the little tiny hallway with my baby David in my arms. Stuart came back at midnight, they were still there. Tried to get in, but he couldn't, it was full. And I remember this long-haired kid with hair dyed in all different colored stripes opening the door and saying, "Sorry, mate, there's no room," shutting the door.

It was the beginning, partners together. As for me and my household, we will serve. We will be a serving family. Is there a cost? Of course there's a cost. Anything that's worth something costs something. What is it costing you to serve the Lord at the moment, as believing couples, as proclaimed Christian families? Is it costing you anything? And you said, "But what will it cost my children?" I don't know.

Don Carson, professor at Trinity, said this: "I look at my children and I wish for them enough opposition to make them strong, enough insults to make them choose, enough hard decisions to make them see that following Jesus brings with it a cost, a cost eminently worth it, but still a cost." But I'm a Christian parent. I'm praying, "Save them, Lord. Protect them, Lord. Bless them, Lord. Kiss every hurt better, Lord." And we should, and we can, and we must.

But when you’re serving the Lord, it’s not always possible to save them every hurt, and it’s not always possible to save them the cost. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord. And one of my kids reminded me the other day, "I remember when Daddy sat us down and said the ethos of this family is serving the Lord, and that carries with it a cost." And all our children have obviously remembered because they too have households that serve the Lord.

So how does it work? Let me come back to the beginning of my talk. How does it work? In your initial commitment to the Lord, in the nurturing of your interior life, in that being the first responsibility you and I have. As for me, whether my husband ever finds you or not, I will serve the Lord. Whether my children ever make it or not, I will serve the Lord. I will serve the Lord. I will serve the Lord on and on and on.

And so, how's it going deep down in your life? Are you trying to do all this stuff outside your life, but what's happening inside? Have you collected a few gods along the way? Or is the family god instead of God the God of the family? Is yours a serving family? Are you paying the price? It all starts down here, down in your life.

Down in my life where it's restless and wild. Down in my life where the adults are child. Down in my fears and worries and cares, suddenly Jesus is there. Touching my heartstrings, he sings me a song. Quiets the child till she's steady and strong. Banishes worries, just smiles them away, turning my night into day.

Down in my life where the troubles run deep. Down in my life when I can't get to sleep. Down in my life when life isn't fair, suddenly Jesus is there. Rebuking the turmoil, he sends it away. Gives peace in the panic and helps me to pray. Turns sorrow to praising, surprises my pain, and bids me to face life again.

So down in my life when I'm lonely and old. Deep in my heart when my spirit is cold. Down in my life when I don't know what's best, suddenly Jesus gives rest. Gift doesn't age, he remarks with a smile. I'll set your soul dancing and make life worthwhile. I'll guide you in righteousness, wisdom's delight, and nerve your faint heart for the fight.

So he stands in my shadows and the light on his face reflects all his love and his mercy and grace right down in my life where nobody goes. Deep in this heart, the Lord knows. Down in my life where it's restless and wild. Down in my life where the adults are child. Down in my soul, I'm acutely aware, suddenly Jesus is there. That's where it’s at. So it isn't just suddenly I'm aware, but that becomes a constant moment-by-moment consciousness of the living God in my heart. That's the choice you've made. And maybe what we need to do is choose today, re-choose, re-commit who we’re going to serve.

Guest (Male): You’re hearing from Jill Briscoe on today’s Telling the Truth. We’ll hear how Jill responded to some questions about today’s teaching in just a moment. But before we do, God has given you the secrets to a long-lasting and joy-filled marriage, and they’re found throughout the pages of scripture. We want to help you mine the treasures of God’s word so that you can grow your marriage God’s way.

That’s why we’re excited to send you Jill Briscoe’s four-message series, Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work. This powerful series will breathe new life into your marriage as you learn to anchor your relationship to God’s truth. And through today only, we’ll send you Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work, along with a special design print featuring a Bible verse on marriage as thanks for your gift this month to keep sharing the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth with so many around the world.

Generous friends like you keep broadcasts like this one going, reaching others with God’s healing love so they can experience life in Christ. If you haven’t given before, consider a gift today to help keep God’s word going out to you and many others. And remember, today is your last chance to request Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work and your Bible verse print when you call and give. Just call 1-800-889-5388, 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org. Now let’s chat with Jill.

Jill, some people are not exactly known for their outstanding contentment skills. How does a person learn to be content? How have you?

Jill Briscoe: Well, I'm not always content. Who is? Except the content of contentment is Christ. I know that I have the power to be content. Paul said in every and any situation, I have learned to be content. So contentment can be learned. That encourages me. I can do that. I can learn something. It isn't a feeling, actually. It's an attitude.

Paul was able to say that sitting in prison, incidentally. In any situation and in all situations, I have learned to be content. And so my question is, how did he learn that? Well, he didn't learn to be content in contented situations. What would you need to learn if you’re content and everything in your life is wonderful? You only learn to be content in a situation that isn't very nice, or worse.

The contentment that comes is knowing nothing can happen to you if you’re a child of God outside the will of God. And so you settle into it, knowing that in God's strange permissive will, he's allowed you to be in hospital, or in trouble, or whatever it is. And in that situation, he can give you peace of mind, peace that passes all understanding, and help you maximize the situation for him and be content. Just be settled, it means, in your spirit and not be screaming all the time, "Get me out of this, change the situation, kiss it better." But to settle for his strength being made perfect in your weakness.

Guest (Male): Jill, what would you say to that couple who has said, "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord," when they’re feeling the cost of that commitment?

Jill Briscoe: I would say to them, "As for you and your house, you will serve the Lord in whatsoever situation, learn to be content, to accept, sometimes the unacceptable, and not to demand an explanation, to accept the unexplained." That's hard, unless he chooses to explain it. And to say, "You can change this situation. I ask you to, but if the answer is no or wait, help me to be settled in it, content, until you change the situation and serve you in it."

I remember being in hospital. I didn't quite understand what got me there. But I remember quitting praying, "Get me out of here, heal me now," and saying, "Until you get me out of here, until you do the slow healing that this is going to require, how can I serve you?" And that changed my whole time in hospital and it was actually very exciting time from then on. I asked if I could lead a Sunday service in the ward I was in. And they brought a wheelchair for me and sat me in it and brought everybody in. This was just after I got saved. No right doing this. But I remember learning this lesson very early. Until he changed my circumstances, I would serve him. So that's how it has to be for all of us.

Guest (Male): Thanks, Jill. Before we go, we want to remind you that through today only, when you give to continue sharing God’s word through Telling the Truth broadcasts like this one, we’ll send you Jill Briscoe’s four-message series, Eight Things That Make a Marriage Work, along with a Bible verse print about marriage.

This powerful series will encourage you with eight biblical keys to a healthy, life-giving marriage. This resource offer ends today, so don’t miss out. Be sure to request your copy when you call 1-800-889-5388, 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org. We’re glad you’ve joined us today. Come back next week for more powerful teaching from God’s word. Experience life, right here next time on Telling the Truth.