Telling the Truth

Announcer: Hello and thank you for listening to today's edition of Telling the Truth. Today Jill Briscoe continues her message, Thirsty for Living Water, and shares how God wants you to be a spring from which His living water flows to others.

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Jill Briscoe: What is joy? Joy is not God giving me a nice happy feeling. Joy is sensing God's pleasure because you've found the will of God revealed in the Word of God for the world of God for your own personal life, and you're winning it for Jesus Christ. And you sense His pleasure, and you'll never know joy until you find the will of God for your life. That's for sure.

Now, part of this driving compulsion, part of the passion because vision leads to passion, this comes when you understand lostness. If you do not understand that people are lost without Christ, you will never bother with the woman at the well. You will never go to Sychar. Whatever your Sychar is, Sychar might be a difficult kid at school that's on your case that you don't like. Sychar might be a parent that you're out of sorts with. Sychar might be a group of people that you're quite honestly intimidated by.

I don't know what your Sychar is, but you'll never bother sticking your neck out, you'll never bother getting shot at for Jesus if you don't believe in lostness. If you don't believe that the friends you have and even your enemies can spend eternity without God, if you never get that straight, forget this talk because it won't mean a thing to you. Lostness is a great leveler. All of us are born lost and so we need to be found. And that's what Jesus came to do, to find us.

He said to the disciples, "Fellows, we need to be energetically at work for the one who sent Me." He's talking of Himself here, working while the sun shines. When night falls, the workday is over. Working while the sun shines. Boy, that phrase got to me when I found it. Listen, the sun is shining today. I don't know what the date is, but the sun is shining, and there will come a time when the sun won't shine anymore. And Jesus said it'll be night—night, totally night for people that don't know Christ. And I caught that in the way I like to do.

While it's day, I must be working, for the night is coming on. While it's day, I must be telling of the cross of His dear Son. While it's day, you'll find me finishing my Father's will for me. While it's day, you'll find me living with a sense of urgency. For when night comes, no one can work the fields or harvest grain save He who harvests for the place where fear and terror reigns. He'll gather those we love to Him, and we will hear them cry, "You didn't talk of Jesus when the sun was in the sky."

When midnight reigns for sheaves of grain who could have had a chance to cast on Him the crucified one helpless saving glance, when death holds tight, when day is night, what will we hear them say? I don't want anybody I know and I love or even like to say, "You didn't talk of Jesus when the sun was in the sky." Jesus said I've got to be working. There's a sense of urgency. Get your eyes off your lunch. What are you doing? How's your vision? How's your passion?

Some of us just don't like people. That's our problem. I had somebody in ministry say to me, "You know something? I don't like people. I think I'm allergic to them." I'll tell you what'll do it. When God puts His passion for people in your heart. Maybe you've got a prejudice problem. That's why you don't like Samaritans. Maybe you've got a people problem. You just don't like people. What you need to do is say, "God, break my heart for the things that break the heart of God."

Let me give you a definition of compassion. His hurt in my heart. His tears on my face. That's compassion. Compassion. That means you look at the woman's heart and you see it as Jesus sees it. And how did He see it? If this woman only knew, she'd come and ask Me for living water. Have you got a neighbor whose husband's walked out on her? If she only knew. Oh, does your heart say, "Oh"? Do you have a kid at school that's really messing up on drugs and things? What are you doing, staying away from him in case you get involved?

Hey, Christian kids, ask God for the, "Oh, if only that kid knew Jesus." Out of his life would flow blessing instead of cursing. We don't care. We don't care enough. That's for sure. Oh, says Jesus, if you only knew. And we've got to learn to see the heart of people. And Jesus saw the heart of this woman. She had a personal Pentecost. What are you going to spend the rest of the day doing, folks? Are you going to go right past the woman at the well?

Probably most of us are. But if only we'll say, "Give me a vision and I'm willing to pay the price. I'm willing to do my homework." Jesus had done His homework. He knew this woman was a Samaritan. He knew her history. You've got to look at the people and look at their history. Where were they brought up? What denomination did they come from? What do they understand of God? Do they think they've got to work their way to heaven? Do they know, as Jesus said to the woman, you'd have asked of Me? It's a gift. It's a gift. You can't earn a gift. Do they know that?

Jesus knew that all her faith had got wrapped up and muddled up and it was a mongrel faith by the time He met her at the well. He understood it. And He didn't argue theology. He used her religion as a bridge instead of a barrier. And He walked over it into her life. And she was arguing. She was saying, "Well, my church is better than your church. And our music's nicer than your music. And our doctrine's better than your doctrine." And He said, "Listen, it isn't where you worship. It's who you worship, woman. Denominations are fine."

A little boy said to me on the streets one day, "What abomination do you belong to, miss?" And I don't for a minute believe—and listen, all of you that are listening to me on radio—I am not saying that denominations are abominations. He got the word wrong. He wasn't even being facetious. Lostness is a great leveler. Whether you're a lost Catholic, or whether you're a lost Presbyterian, or whether you're a lost Baptist, you've got to be found, you see. You've got to ask Him for the gift of salvation.

Then He'll put that well in your life and you'll find a sense of mission. A sense of mission. So how did the great evangelist reach a whole town, a region, a world of Samaritans? Let's look technically at what He did. He had a strategy. He started with a person, actually not a program at that point. Programs are fine, but you start with the individual. You start with the person. We are not numbers to God. We have names. God knows our name. He calls us by our name.

He started with a person, an ordinary person, a nothing person. In His world, a woman was nothing, nothing, nothing. And she came at noon. She came when she knew that no other woman would be around. Why? Because she was ashamed of the life that she'd lived. I cannot tell you the women that came up to me after the last sermon and said, "I am the woman at the well. I go to shop when I know my friends will not see me. I am ashamed to go out because my husband left me. He abused me and then he left me."

Stuart and I were in Nigeria, and I said to a pastor's wife, "What do you do with the divorced people in the church in Nigeria?" She said, "Jill, it's terrible. There is a bench at the back of the church, and the person who has been divorced, the woman, not the man, the woman who has been divorced, has to sit on that bench. And she has to sit there after the congregation has come. She can't come in before the congregation. And then she has to leave during the last hymn so they won't have to walk past her. And that is the divorce bench."

And I said, "That's if a woman deserves to sit there, in your terms?" She said, "Oh no." She said a woman whose husband has abused her and left her, the people in the village will say, "Well, you must have done something to send your man away. On your bench." That's the church ministering to the divorced. And those women in Nigeria who are seeking God sit. Can you imagine what they feel like?

But you bring that into our culture and I can tell you, because I work with women, I can tell you women that say, "I do not shop when I know people that know me are going to be there. I'm the woman at the well." And what's that do to you? Anything? Oh, if they only knew the forgiveness of God and that He has a place by His side for women. He chose a woman. He knew He had to get the message out. He said, "I'll use a woman. I'll use a despised woman. I'll use a woman that's been married five times and is living with a man that isn't her husband."

"And I'll use a little boy if I want to feed 5,000 people. And I'll use a crazy madman tied to a tomb in the graveyard if I want to use a whole area called the Gadarenes. I'll use him. I'll heal him. I'll make him new. I'll put a well in him. And out of his life will flow rivers of living, living water." However small you are, however crazy you've been, however ignorant you are like the blind man, He'll use you to turn the tables on the clever Pharisees. He loves to use little people, no people, women, despised, rejected, hurt people because they're usually the people that know the grace of God.

They're usually the people that are crazy about Jesus because He's met them at the well of their wantings and has filled them up. He used a woman. And after He put the well of water in her, she went back and she did two things right. If you want to know how to start, how to share Christ, do it like she did it. She went back and said, "Come and see a man who told me all things that ever I did." She didn't say, "Come and hear my testimony. I've got quite a testimony. I've been—want to hear about it? Want to hear all the gory details?"

"Do you want to hear about the five men that were my husbands and why I'm now living with a man who isn't?" No. She didn't say, "Come and hear about a woman." She said, "Come and hear about a man." You see, it's all about Him and not about us. And she did that right. She went back and they could see, just see the grace of God in that woman's life. There was something animating from her. There was something flowing from her. Yes, the Holy Spirit. Of course.

What was it that brought the entire town out when she asked them to come, a woman like that? So she teaches us how to do mission. "Come and see a man." That's all we have to say. "Could this be the Christ? Come, come and see Him. Come see Him." And then the second thing she did was she made sure they heard Him for themselves. We've got to get them to hear for themselves. We've got to either get them under the sound of the Word of God, reading it for themselves.

If they won't do that, let them read us. You might be the only Bible that somebody ever reads because they're not going to come to church with you, or they're not going to go to the evangelistic event. And all they've got to read is you. What did they read this morning in your life? I don't care how you get them under the sound of the Word of God so they're hearing Him. We've got to do it. Somehow we've got to get them under the Word of God.

Because when that happened in this story, the Samaritans said to Jesus when they met Him at the well, "This woman's been telling us the most incredible things. We can see even immediately there's something different in her life. She says that You might be the Christ. Would You come and stay with us, sir? Would You talk to us, sir?" Do you think Jesus wanted to do that? Think about it. I think that was the last place He wanted to go and spend two days at that point in His life and ministry among that bunch and different culture and those people living like they did down in Samaria.

But He did it because the will of God and the work of God superseded His own personal needs. And after two days, the men of the village said, "Now we believe. We believe that You are the Christ, the Son of the living God, not because of her word, but because of yours." And this is the power. We're getting away from this. We're getting away from this. If you want people to come to Christ, you have to expose them to the Word of God, not anything else that's froth. Don't be afraid to use the Word of God. It's a powerful sword. They might not believe it, but prick them anyway. And they'll feel it. So she teaches us how to do mission.

Now then, these last few minutes, let me talk to some of you here who don't know what I'm talking about. "I am not an evangelist. I don't know what that even means. I don't want to talk about my faith. My faith's private and personal." And it might be that you, whether you're a woman or a man, or a boy or a girl, or a teenager or a college student, or an old person or a young person, it might be that you are actually the woman at the well. And that's why you're here.

You are not here by accident. You are not here because somebody dragged you here or invited you here. You are here today to meet with God. And this is a surprise to you, but I'm telling you, I'm letting you into the secret. He wanted you here to hear this. And I am merely His spokesperson. And He is saying to you what you need to do are three things. You need to leave your water pot, the symbol, if you will, of what you've been trying to get satisfaction from.

You need to turn away from that, whether it's men or women, whether it's the well of your wantings in relationships, whatever it is, you need to turn away and say, "I've just missed the whole thing. I don't know how old I am, but I've just missed it. How could I miss it? I've been in church all my life, but I missed it. And I'm going to leave my water pot with Jesus." And then as Jesus said, you've got to bring your husband to Him. You've got to bring your failings.

Now, He knows all about it, but He wants you to say it. He wants you to say, "Jesus, I've had five husbands and the man I'm living with is not my husband." He wants you to name it. He wants you to call things by their real names. He wants you to say, "God, my temper's got me into trouble. I am so angry. I have hurt people physically. I've hurt people emotionally with my tongue and my temper. God, that is my husband, and I'm bringing my husbands to You." And Jesus says, "Good, now I'm going to forgive all that and we're going to start again. I'm going to give you a well of water in your life."

And so you've got to leave the seeking after satisfaction in the wrong place. Turn around, come to Jesus and bring all your hurt, all your rejection. Some of you are women literally who've been abused and used by men. Some of you are men who've been left and abused by women. And you've got to bring that hurt to Jesus and say, "Here are my husbands." And you've got to climb the hill of Calvary towards the cross and you've got to ask. You've just got to ask. Do you know what the Bible says? You have not because you ask not.

You have not because you ask not. And some of you have never asked. And some of you say, "Jill, I don't know how to ask. I've been at this point that you're talking about so many times, and then nobody's helped me ask. I know I need Jesus. I know I'm thirsty. I know I need salvation. I know I'm lost. And I know Christ is the answer and that He can make me truly happy. But I don't know how to ask." Well, borrow her words. It's wonderful to borrow someone else's words.

And some of us aren't very good with words. We don't know what to say. I lay in a hospital bed when I was 18. I didn't know what to say. And the girl next to me said, "You are drinking at the wrong well." And I said, "You're sure right." And she said, "Have you ever heard of Jesus?" And I said, "No, I haven't." And she told me about Christ. And that Christ was sitting at my bedside saying, "I came from heaven, Jill Ryder, to tell you you're drinking at the wrong well. And oh, if you only knew. If you only knew Me."

And I took a long, deep drink from that well of salvation when I was 18 years of age. And I've never been the same since. Just got worse. Just got fuller and fuller and fuller until, oh God, please, I'm a well-watered garden. And there is a spring of waters that never fails within me, you see. Just an ordinary person, ordinary college student, ordinary teenager with an extraordinary, great big God living inside of me who supplies my every need.

You've got to say, "I'm the woman." And use her words. "Sir, give me this water." Anybody can say that. "Sir, give me this water that I thirst not, neither come anymore to this stupid thing I'm trying to do to get myself happiness. Sir, give me this water." And then you can say, "Come and see a man. Tell me everything I ever did. You need to hear Him for yourself. Will you read this Bible? Will you take this book? Will you come with me to church?" You need to introduce them to Jesus.

Now, don't accept Christ unless you're willing to do that. Okay? And the girl that led me to the Christ said, "You want to pray that prayer, give me this water." She said to me, "If you're not willing to stay single, if you're not willing to be a missionary, don't say this prayer." Took me a couple of days to think about that. And in the end, as best as I knew how, I said, "Okay. Any place, any time, anywhere, anything. Sir, oh give me this water. Oh, I'm thirsty. I'm thirsty."

And Christ came in. Christ can come into your heart right now, and I want to help you to do that. Pray with me if you will. And I want to pray first and foremost for anybody here that wants to pray that prayer, anyone listening to me on radio. Just where you are, you can just shut your eyes and say this prayer after me. Lord Jesus, I am thirsty. I am so soul-thirsty. I've been trying to satisfy my thirst in all sorts of ways and it hasn't worked.

Sir, give me this water that I thirst not. Pour into my soul Your forgiveness and Your life by Your Holy Spirit. Be my Savior. Be my Master and Lord. And teach me what it is to do the will of God revealed in the Word of God for my world, for God. Thank You, Lord, for coming into my heart. Amen.

Announcer: Thanks for joining us today. We're so glad you're listening. And we hope today's message encouraged you to experience more of the abundant life Jesus offers. We're hearing from people across the globe and from all walks of life about how Telling the Truth has made an impact in their lives. People like Julie in Washington state who shares, "Thank you so much for your faithful ministry of His Word around the world. We're so grateful for your sacrificial gifts of teaching through such a time as this. You encourage us every day to keep on trusting and following our Savior and Lord who loves us."

And then there are listeners like Chioma in the UK. She recently shared, "Telling the Truth is a spirit-filled ministry that enables me daily to rest in His presence." We're so grateful for your sacrificial gifts of teaching through such a time as this. You encourage us every day to keep on trusting and following our Savior and Lord who loves us. And then there are listeners like Chioma in the UK. She recently shared, "Telling the Truth is a spirit-filled ministry that enables me daily to rest in His presence."