Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Today on Telling the Truth, we'll hear more of Jill Briscoe's message, Easter in My Heart. It's the story of the women that miraculous Sunday morning when they found an empty tomb, the obstacles both of their day and their circumstances, and the God who was bigger than them all. He's the same God that's bigger than your circumstances today. Jill offers encouragement for you and the obstacles you may be facing coming up.

Did you know you can find more life-giving content from the Briscoes at tellingthetruth.org and on the Telling the Truth app? There you can sign up for daily devotionals, watch videos, read blogs, and access a variety of other resources to help you experience life. And while you're there, you can also request this month's featured resource as thanks for your gift of support to help share the abundant life Jesus offers with more people around the world. Visit us online or download the app today and experience life with Telling the Truth. Here's Jill now with the second part of her message, Easter in My Heart.

Jill Briscoe: Watching somebody you love die. I think about God who was watching His Son from a distance on the cross. For sin, yours and mine, came in between and God removed Himself at a distance. And what that must have been like because He could have done something about it and chose because He loved us as much as He loved Christ not to. God was at a distance watching His Son.

I remember when one of our children was going through something really hard. And I remember coming into the sanctuary on Good Friday for the service, sitting down totally unable to concentrate, absolutely living in a nightmare. And I remember writing my thoughts to God. Easter comes around as quickly as Christmas, Lord, or so it seems as I slipped into the back pew. Yes, He said. I'm glad so many people come to Good Friday services. I'm glad I can be here. Silence.

I'm trying to concentrate, Lord, to focus on what it's all about. Well, it's hard for you when you're so worried about your son, He said simply. Yes. And I tried and tried to keep my mind on the service, but in the end of the day, there I was worrying myself into such a state. And the last hymn was announced and I gave a guilty start. Lord, forgive me, I cried in the deep chamber of my soul. I feel terrible. I couldn't concentrate. In fact, I may as well not have been here. Have you ever done that?

You see, my son is in trouble. He's dying inside. Then I heard sweet understanding saying to my soul, when My Son was dying, I couldn't think of anything else either. So I understand. And My Son was dying on the inside and the outside. It's hard watching. Then I sat quietly till all the people left the sanctuary and I thought about the day His Son came home through the front door, all bloodied and beaten up, and I wept. I'm sorry Father, I'm sorry Father for my part. Forgive me. Done, I heard Him say. See you on resurrection morning.

Hard to concentrate sometime. Watching when you're helpless is a crucible of faith. And they had been in a crucible of watching. They had also been in a crucible of weeping. That was their custom. And thank God for a culture where weeping is allowed, nay expected. That is not my culture. You keep a stiff upper lip, you don't cry. And men particularly don't cry, that's weakness. That's my English-ism, or at least my heritage.

I remember Mother Briscoe going through her last ghastly days of cancer treatment here with us in America, Stuart's mom. And I remember her coming back, going to get her from her last treatment down at a hospital somewhere here in the city. And I remember the nurse who had cared for Mother all these months. She said to me, "I have never ever met a woman like this. I have never met such a brave woman. I have never met such a courageous woman. And I have never met a woman who's been through what she has who has never cried." I said, "Well, she's English." And Mother, who was there, said, "What's the use of crying? That doesn't help." I will always remember that. Dear Mother, what she taught me.

But I tell you, thank God for a culture that allows weeping, that allows weeping. A crucible of weeping. They had wept till they could weep no more, men and women alike, men and women alike. And God watches us watch, and He watches us weep. And He sees us standing at the distance because we are helpless to do anything about our situation.

And then there is a crucible of waiting. Oh, that's the worst. Can you imagine what it was like for these women? They had to wait from Friday to Sunday to do anything. And one of the things when you are in crisis and when you are in trauma is everything in us, especially for women, wants action. We want to do something. That's the first thing, if only just do something. That's why I'm so glad I'm English because I can always make a cup of tea. That's doing something. That's doing something.

Crucible of waiting. Crucifixion can take days. Soldiers were amazed at the short time it took for Jesus Christ to die. And I can assure you it felt like days to the women. Waiting is akin to suffering. Ben Patterson says when you're waiting on the way to soon, waiting is akin to suffering. Action helps. And that's what I think the women were doing. They were making the spices. I mean, all it was going to do was anoint the body. They were buying the flowers. But there was relief in it. At least there's something I can do. There's something I can do.

And the thing is, I would encourage you is find something you can do, even if it's useless, even if it's like buying flowers that are going to die in the snow or even if it's like making spices to anoint the body or choose the gravestone or whatever it is. Find something to do in the crisis even if it seems so little. I am only one but still I am one. I cannot do everything, and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something I can do.

So you have to say, God, what is the something I can do? And God appreciates this. I mean, He knew it was useless. There wasn't a body to anoint. But He saw the relief that the women had had in the little thing that they were doing. They were buying the flowers. There are four reactions to crisis. Realism: there's nothing I can do that will make a difference so I'll do nothing. Fatalism: may as well accept it and live with it and you do nothing. Stoicism: I'll grit my teeth and get on with life and pretend this isn't happening.

And optimism. Godly, spiritual optimism. Spiritual intelligence that tells you what I believe as a Christian is true. It's true! It's true! That He arose! Have you ever seen a dead body? What power does it take to raise a dead body? Stand and look at the next one. There is only one power in the universe like that. And if I cannot have a spirit of optimism when all I'm looking at is death, the death of a relationship, the death of whatever, a job, or hopes, or dreams, or money, I don't care what it is that you're looking at. What is that stone?

If you will walk in faith and trust towards it, and in fear and trepidation, and even in doubt and disbelief. I mean these women believed nothing that they should have been believing, but walk towards it anyway. Go to the tomb and you'll find resurrection life all over the place. Light arising that you never dreamed possible even in your heavy heart. And these women, the lessons that they learned. They should have believed the word of God. Do you know what the angel said? "Why are you looking for the living among the dead? What are you doing here?" I can just see him sitting on the top of the stone. "Well, nice you came, but what are you going to do with those ointments in your hands? Tough. No body, huh?"

Why are you looking for the living among the dead? The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men. "Remember," says the angel, "how He told you when He was still with you in Galilee?" Then they remembered His words. These women had been following Jesus. These women had been with Jesus when He said, "Third day I'm going to rise again. Third day I'm going to rise again. Third day I'm going to rise again." Mary was sitting there. They heard Him. All these women, Susanna, Joanna, and all the others that are unnamed heard it.

But in crisis and the crucible, you forget. And if you are there, what you need to do is hang your heart over the word of God and remember what you remember and know what you know and affirm out loud what you believe. That there is no situation too terrible that the light of God and the life of God cannot be all over it. God wants to get His hands all over our life and He wants to get His hands all over our situation and He wants to say walk on and you will find light arising in your heart. Yes, you will.

So remember the word of God. May you experience the glory of God in your heart. And then lastly, experience the power of God. Just watch God work. The crisis leads the crucible of faith where trustfully our faith will come forth as gold. And the crisis and the crucible teach you about the Christ. When they looked up and saw the stone that was very large, it had been rolled away. And I want to tell you something. The angel didn't come along with Jesus lying there as a mummy, all bound up, still dead, and move it away and shout into the tomb, "Jesus! I've moved the stone away, you can come out now."

The angel came a long time after Christ was risen. He was long gone. And the angel moved the stone away to let us in, not to let Him out. It was done. He didn't even need the stone rolled away. God raised Him from the dead. And you know what the Bible says? The power, that power that raised Christ from the dead lives in us. The believer, the Jesus-lover, the one who says I'm a Christian. Yes, I'm a poor Christian, I'm a poverty-stricken Christian, I'm a doubting Christian. I don't have any faith. You.

The power that raised Christ from the dead didn't need an angel to move the stone away. Long gone. That power lives in you and that's what can turn fear into faith and that's what can send you out, can send you out to run and tell the disciples what it's all about. "Go and tell my disciples," says Jesus, the risen Christ. And after Pentecost, go and tell the world. And they began to minister out of their pain and sorrow. Do you know what it says in the Bible? They were full of fear and joy. So they weren't all joy yet, they were learning.

But they ran full of fear and joy, that strange mix. Full of wonder. Talk about double shock. First of all, you've just had the funeral and then you meet the corpse all alive and well. Think about it. But they went out of their pain and sorrow and confusion and crisis and crucible and they began to minister out of their pain. And God gave them a song to sing and God gave them words to speak. God gives songs in the night. I love this, it's anonymous. Many a rapturous minstrel among the songs of light will say of his sweetest music, I learned it in the night. And many a rolling anthem that fills the Father's throne sobbed out its first rehearsal in the shade of a darkened room.

And out of our pain and out of our problems can come a proclamation: He's risen, He's risen indeed. So I don't know what you're facing. I don't know what the stone is. I have big stones in my life at the moment that I'm walking towards. I don't want to go away again, which I have to do for six weeks. I don't want to do that. I don't want to go to Europe. I don't want to go to South Africa. I don't want to go to Singapore. For all sorts of reasons. There are big stones in my life.

But I know better than to treat it with fatalism or sheer realism without faith. And I know better than not to walk towards my challenges and other challenges too without spiritual optimism. I am a believer. And what I need to do is say, God, I need to see Your light arising in my darkness, in my heart. I need to have an Easter in my heart and I need to believe that when I get to this impossibility, trusting You, that's the key, trusting You, the stone will have been rolled away. Somehow resurrection life will be all over this situation. Somehow the word of God will address my problem if I hang my heart over it. Somehow the glory of God will be seen here or there or some other place.

I remember even in the death chamber, and I did get home to see my mother walk into heaven. And I was sitting by her side when it happened early in the morning. And this is what I wrote that day. Someone I loved deeply had just walked through the front door. I talked to the Lord about it. He told me to read the story of the raising of Lazarus. And so sitting by my mother's side, I read it. And I read this, "Take off the grave clothes. Let her go."

God didn't wait for me to come to the front door. He met me in the pew in church looking at that box with Peggy's remains inside for months. "Father," I whispered. "I was there when my Peggy went through the front door." "I know. I saw you there sitting by her side holding her hand." "Well, Lord, suddenly the room was all light and airy as if Your breath blew into that stuffy death chamber." "Angels' wings," He said without any explanation. But then I knew it anyway. You know you know when it happens.

"Were You there?" I asked. I knew the answer before He spoke. "I opened the door," He said simply. "I knew it was You!" I blurted out breathlessly. I was reading about Lazarus and just as I got to the bit where You said, "Lazarus, come forth," I looked up because— "Because you heard Me, didn't you, Jill?" "Yes, Lord," I whispered. "Did you hear Me tell the angels, 'Loose her, let her go'?" He asked me. Well, I couldn't answer. Too many scalding tears were running down my face. He put them in His bottle to carry them away.

"Precious tears, precious Peggy, precious Jill," I heard Him say. "I lost a mother once," He said quietly. "It was Me who had to go through the front door first. Not the usual way it happens." "I know," I said. "It was hard watching her watching Me," He said. "I couldn't put my arms around her. They were pinned quite securely in place. So You could open the front door for her one day. Yes. Thank You. You'll see Peggy soon, you know, when it's time. I'll bring her with Me. I'll bring her to the front door to meet you." I couldn't speak again, but then I didn't have to. He understood. Then a measure of peace came and the stone was rolled away and there was light and there was glory and there was power. There was risen life in that death chamber. He will roll the stone away. Trust Him.

Guest (Male): Jill, in the midst of a crisis, how does a believer just stand back and watch God work?

Jill Briscoe: I don't think you need to stand back. Just keep talking. Just do something. Don't just stop and wait for the sky to fall or something to appear and happen. Just keep dealing with the happenings, whatever happens. That's what Paul says in Philippians, by the way. Whatever happens. He says it four or five times. Go and read the book of Philippians as soon as you've finished listening to me and underline every time it says whatever happens and then look what he's telling you to do. Great piece of scripture for this.

Guest (Male): How can a person minister out of pain? What does that look like?

Jill Briscoe: Well, I use the phrase, I've used the phrase, don't waste the pain, use the pain. What am I talking about? I'm not talking about literally using pain as a stimulus to say something or act or do something, a physical feeling of something. I'm meaning use the experience of what you learned through the pain to help somebody else.

And you need to read 1 Corinthians chapter one, where it's talking about the God of all mercy and comfort who comforts us in all our tribulation—read pain. Who comforts us in all our pain. What did that look like? Was it something somebody said to you? Did somebody come along and do something helpful? Did you get a plan of action when before your mind had been blank? How did God help you in the last pain you experienced? Now the chapter goes on to say, as God helped you, now you can go out and help somebody else. Let the pain flow through you. Let the lessons of what happened when God allowed pain in your life, the lessons you learned, now you pass those lessons on to someone else. And actually in that chapter it says God doesn't comfort you just to comfort you, you know. God comforts you so you can go and comfort someone else and you let the lessons flow through you to the next person in pain that you meet.

Guest (Male): Thanks, Jill. We love sharing notes from listeners who've been encouraged by the teaching and resources friends like you help make possible through your support. Listeners like Joseppina in England, who writes, "I love your preaching and I love to listen to you all. May God bless you abundantly for teaching your children the wonders of Your love. Thanks be to God."

Tell it like it is. Tellingthetruth.org and the Telling the Truth app are great resources to help you grow in your spiritual life. Packed with videos like Ask the Briscoes, articles from Stuart and Jill, and encouraging audio teaching content, you'll find a treasure trove of resources to encourage you and others in your family. And while you're there, you can also request this month's featured resource when you give a gift to help more people around the world experience life in Christ. So visit us online or download the app today. We look forward to connecting with you.

Coming up next time on Telling the Truth, Stuart shares a powerful Easter message called What Really Happened on the Cross? You don't want to miss that encouraging teaching tomorrow on Telling the Truth.