Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Welcome to Telling the Truth, the ministry of Stuart and Joel Briscoe. Like a shepherd to a sheep, Christ is your protector and your comforter. Today on Telling the Truth, Joel Briscoe helps you see how your peace and contentment come only from Jesus. But first, right now, people are searching for hope, answers, and truth they can build their lives on. And Stuart and Joel Briscoe's timeless biblical teaching is reaching into those very moments through social media and other digital platforms, a vast collection of vintage videos and wonderful ministry partners. At Telling the Truth, our mission has always been clear faithfully share the truth of God's word so people everywhere can know and experience life in Christ.

And you can be part of that mission. When you give today, you help share hope with people who need to hear biblical truth taught clearly, faithfully, and without compromise. As our thanks, we'd love to send you verses for Advent, a set of 25 beautifully designed scripture cards created to help you keep God's word at the center of the Christmas season. Reflect on a new verse each day through Advent as you embark on a journey from Old Testament prophecies about Jesus to the Christmas story in the New Testament. So please consider a gift today and help us carry out the Great Commission, ensuring that more people can hear God's word and discover the life found in Jesus.

Call now at 262-788-4648. That's 262-788-4648 or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thanks again for listening and for your support today. Now, let's get to Joel with today's message, Rest Stops.

Jill Briscoe: Psalm 23. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not be in want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Familiar words. You know, there are many images that Jesus uses of himself. I am the light of the world. I am the way. I am the truth. I am the life. I am the good shepherd, however, is one that I have found around the world that women specifically take for themselves. There is something about this image. There's something about the shepherd picking you up and placing you near his heart. There's something about him looking for you and you get yourself in a hole and bringing you home rejoicing. There is something about this image that relates to you and I.

And as I think and as I try to stimulate your thoughts, your spiritual thoughts about this and give you some pictures perhaps, I am so glad to revisit this piece of scripture. There was a time in my life when this was the only talk I had. And I used it this way and that. In fact, my daughter said, what are you speaking on, mom? She dropped me off here from the mall we had visited yesterday on the way here. And we had been grazing in the mall on the way. And I said, well, I have to go and be more spiritual now, Judy.

And she said, what are you speaking about? And I said the 23rd Psalm. She said, oh, mother, she said, that's the only talk you had for years, wasn't it? And I said, yes. But that literally was probably when I first of all put this talk together. It was years ago. And I haven't revisited it properly since. And so it's been a great refreshment to me to graze in Psalm 23. And listen, folks, God's grass grows overnight. And I tell you, there's been a lot of grass grown for my nourishment in Psalm 23 in the years since I was able to look into it.

And that's what's neat about the scriptures. Go back and back and back and you'll find a little bit of nourishment in a verse that you never saw there before. And you can do that yesterday and find some more this morning as even I did as I grazed around those green pastures. Familiar passage. Don't always think, oh, I know that thing. I've read that. No, no, go back because God knows what you need, little sheep, every day of your life. And it will be there for you if you will indeed take the trouble to spend time in his word.

Now, as I looked at this, I realized that the first verse would be a place for us to stop and graze for the whole of the session. The Lord is my shepherd. The Lord He is the one who chose to be involved with you and I. Large case letters, l o r d. This is the name of Jehovah. This is the name of the one who walked down the stairway of heaven with a baby in his arms, put him in a bale of hay, and set the world on fire. This is the one who can meet our needs.

The Lord. This is the name of God that talks about connection. God in heaven connecting with us on earth in our need. The Lord, this one that can meet my need and make me content. He is the one who is my shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. You can know that. You don't have to wait to go to heaven and find out if you've been good enough to graze in the green pastures of heaven. No. The Lord is my shepherd, says David. I can know that today. What an incredible thing it is knowing he is mine, my shepherd.

Yes, he's everybody else's shepherd that's here, but he's mine now. The Lord is my shepherd, my personal shepherd. I think I've told the story before of the little boy that got lost in Scotland. Went out in the snowstorm to look for his mommy and got lost and they found his little frozen body a few days later. Now, an evangelist had been to that little church. This is a true story. I know the evangelist that told it and the evangelist that was involved in it. And he had been to this little tiny Scottish village and taught the children in the Sunday school, the Lord is my shepherd.

He'd used his hand. The Lord is my shepherd. And he had taken one of those aspects of the first verse every day. And then he taught the kids on that fourth day, the Lord is my shepherd, to take that finger and put their fist around it if they indeed wanted to be his personal shepherd. When they found that little frozen body, guess how they found him lying like this. Lying like this. And that little boy found the shepherd in time to go to the heavenly fold. The Lord is my shepherd. And we're going to look at the shepherdship of God in this session as we approach it today.

The Lord is my shepherd. Now, years ago, I wrote a book called How to Follow the Shepherd when you're being pushed around by the sheep. It was a bestseller. I wonder why. Because you know, you can come to know the shepherd and then you join the flock and you go into flock shock. You have no idea people like this were in the fold with you. And this can really undo you. Yes, it can. And yet you know something absolutely wonderful. As you get to know the flock, they're not so bad. Just think how bad they'd be if they didn't know the shepherd.

That helps. But I wrote this book and I want to just read you a little bit from the first chapter. I want to tell you a little bit of my story. I didn't know I was a sheep in shepherd's clothing. Looking back, I don't know how it could have been so certain that I was qualified to shepherd others and so blind to the fact that I was actually being led from behind. One of the problems about being led from behind, however, was that none of my friends had any sense of direction either. We all live for the present moment with little or no sense of destiny letting the world go by.

Have you ever driven down a narrow road behind a bunch of sheep? At the approach of the car, the animals at the back panic and quicken their pace so that the leaders are propelled forward despite themselves. This was what was happening to me. Pressured by that rear rush, I found myself the upfront animal crowded into behavior patterns by the pacesetters at my back. There seemed to be no other option but to explore the senseless, futile pursuits that lay along the crooked paths we took together. And yet the first time another sheep tried to get me to admit my sheepishness, I heartily resented the very idea.

I was understandably offended at the mere suggestion I was being led meekly along. It was during the second semester of college that I met the lamb who drew attention to my predicament. Something in my stomach had begun to hurt me painfully enough to cause the authorities to rush me to hospital. And there I met Janet who was placidly lying in the stall next to me. As we had time on our hands, we were able to get to know each other and it didn't take me long to realize that we were very different. She was kind and generous to her remarks about the people who were caring for us while I was cruel and critical.

Hearing her bleat appreciation all over the place only served to evoke a strange embarrassment in me. I didn't know the verse of scripture that said, come now and let us reason together, says the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as wool. Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as white as wool. However, already that inner debate had begun. I was responding internally about this strange difference I sensed in my new friend and the guilt her transparent life evoked in me. And so Janet led me to Christ. She was the one that looked cared for on the inside.

I remember looking at that little sheep that had been found and thinking somebody's looking after her. I didn't know what it was about her that evoked that response in me. I just knew that I was looking at a found sheep. She led me to the Lord and she said, now you got to follow him. I said, where? She said, anywhere he wants to take you, Joel. I realized that the Christian life all depended on fellowship. I had been into hollow ship and now I was into fellowship. The shepherd was the one that was now leading me.

And I wasn't following my friends anymore or following my heart or following my dreams and ambitions. I was to follow the shepherd. He had indeed washed my wool white, if you wish, my crimson wool. And now I was to follow him.

Guest (Male): More teaching from Stuart and Joel Briscoe is coming up, so stay with us. 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.

All right, let's get back to Joel with more of today's message.

Jill Briscoe: Now, along the way, there were rest stops. Rest stops. And I want to talk about three of them because everybody is in one of these three places. God wants to take us to these various places in our lives and show us how to be content, show us how to rest there, to nourish ourselves in the green pastures in each of these places. And the first one is in the lush meadows. Did you notice it says that he leads us into these places. He makes us to lie down in green pastures. The message says he beds us down in lush meadows.

It's a wonderful picture of the shepherd leading us to a place of nourishment. Now, some of us are living in the meadows of life in this place at the moment. The sun is shining on our little woolly rumps. Every now and then we give a fleet bleat and gamble a little. Gamble as in g a m b o l not g a m b l e. So here's this gorgeous picture of this sunshine out and some of you are in this period of life now. You can say I shall not want. I have everything I need.

I don't need a thing. And God in his grace in the rhythm of life, I would say probably has led most of us into sunny slopes. I trust all of you are in that place, although I know that not to be true. But in your life, I'm sure you can look back to those places. And I want to say that this is the time of life, if indeed all is well. This is the time of life you should be learning how to bed down in green pastures and nourish yourself because there will be other times coming around the corner of your life.

Do you know what it is to soak yourself in the green pastures? These are the green pastures. Do you know what it is to learn to nourish yourself? For the shepherd does not take you there and take your little sheep mouth and go chomp chomp chomp chomp chomp. That's your choice. He'll lead you there. He'll put this in front of you in 12 different translations. Oh, how rich we are. And to whom much is given, much will be required. And he expects you to learn how to chomp yourself. You're supposed to be munching in the meadows when you're on the sunny slopes.

Do you know how to do that? I remember asking the sheep in the next bed to me, Janet, how do you do that? How do you learn to nourish yourself? And so she gave me a Bible and said, here's the green pastures. Just munch. Go on munch munch munch. Chew it over. Think. You're supposed to take a bite of scripture and chew it over like a sheep. Do you know I lived among sheep for 14 years based in the English Lake District. They were the most extraordinary animals and frustrating animals I've ever met in my life.

But I did notice one thing out of my little lodge window. I would look at these incredible, beautiful British mountains and hills surrounded, not dotted with sheep, just sheep all over the place. You could hardly see the grass. And I would notice something. Even when they were lying down, their mouth never stopped. Never stopped. Sheep's mouth never stops. Even when it's asleep, it's chewing. And incidentally, put your head in a pillow of scripture. Take a little blade of grass into your dreams and chew on it. I had an extraordinary example of that when I was to address a very important, strategic group of people.

And I was understandably and rightly nervous. And my talk was a mess. I had lots of material, but I didn't know what to do with it. And I didn't know how much and which parts and I'd run out of time to overprepare, which is my want. And in the end, exhausted, I said, Lord, I'm going to have to go to sleep. I need a little bit of sleep. I'm just going to have to do this. And I was almost in a panic. And I remember taking my talk, which was far too long, and simply reading it right the way through from start to finish from my notes.

And then putting my head on the pillow and going to sleep. I woke at 4:30 in the morning with the entire outline of that talk just there. I leapt out of bed literally and grabbed a paper and it just came. And what had been happening is I'd been chewing it over. No question about it. And God had been helping me order that even in my dreams. A sheep's mouth never stops even when it's asleep, chewing it over, thinking it over. So you learn to bed yourself down in the lush meadows and learn when things are good.

It's very hard to learn that when crisis comes and you're in the deep valleys and in the dark places. Learn it in the sunshine. Learn it in the sunshine. You're responsible to do that. God will hold you responsible. Now, the content of contentment is Christ. Think about that. The content of contentment is knowing Christ. However, if you're a sheep with a sheep's nature, you will always believe the grass on the other side is greener. And there'll be a little hole that will appear in your hedge, no doubt. And you might see another little sheep pop through it.

And you might watch that little sheep munching munching munching munching and looking very happy doing it. And you might be suspected to think that grass looks more nourishing and more exciting than the grass that the shepherds provided for me. Don't believe it incidentally. That sheep will be full of empty. However much that sheep eats. Only the grass that the shepherd has provided for you will nourish yourself. And yet the devil who apes God, he never wanted to be the devil. He always wanted to be God. And so he tries to be God. He will provide some verdant looking grass for you.

And he will also make sure that you see it through some hole in the fence. And part of your sheepish nature for that does not change until we are perfected in heaven. Part of your sheepish nature will always believe the grass on the other side is greener. What am I missing? You have this sneaky feeling you're missing something. God is withholding something from you that is far more delectable, the other side of the fence. Now, when this happens, what do you do? Well, hopefully you talk to the shepherd about it. I find so many discontented Christians in this world, so many discontented Christians.

We spend money we don't have to buy things we don't need to impress those we don't like. That's not my quote. It's very good. I have no idea whose quote it is, but it I'll take it. We spend money we don't have to buy things we don't need to impress those we don't like. I'm talking about Christians. There is no difference in the discontent of Christians and non-Christians far as I can see. It's in the church just as much as it's in the world. We have this greed need. We're talking about a book called Ace.

I can't remember what it's called. What's it called? Ace Things. That's really going to make you want to read it. The author can't remember what she wrote. Anyway, well, there is a chapter I do remember on on on on the greed need, on the greed need. And it's really addressed to Christians. It's all in the book of James, a study in the book of James. There's so much of money and things in there. And James was talking to Christians. He wasn't talking to non-Christians. Sheep are prone to wander. And to be satisfied with such things as we have for God has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you, is has been a lifetime's quest for me.

I come from wealth into ministry. And so I was faced with things that I had had that I didn't have anymore. And actually I did quite well with that period of my life. Mother Teresa said, you cannot say Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you've got. I certainly have never lived where Jesus was all I got. I do, however, work among people where that is the case. And I have met Christians in Rwanda, in Bosnia. And I have met Christians who are doing that because they're not exempt and they're content. So I know it's possible.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening to Telling the Truth today. We're thrilled you've joined us and pray today's message has helped you experience more of the abundant life Jesus promises. Right now, people are searching for hope, answers, and truth. They can build their lives on. And Stuart and Joel Briscoe's timeless biblical teaching is reaching into those very moments through social media and other digital platforms, a vast collection of vintage videos and wonderful ministry partners. At Telling the Truth, our mission has always been clear faithfully share the truth of God's word so people everywhere can know and experience life in Christ.

And you can be part of that mission. When you give today, you help share hope with people who need to hear biblical truth taught clearly, faithfully, and without compromise. As our thanks, we'd love to send you verses for Advent, a set of 25 beautifully designed scripture cards created to help you keep God's word at the center of the Christmas season. Reflect on a new verse each day through Advent as you embark on a journey from Old Testament prophecies about Jesus to the Christmas story in the New Testament. So please consider a gift today and help us carry out the Great Commission, ensuring that more people can hear God word and discover the life found in Jesus.

Call now at 262-788-4648. That's 262-788-4648 or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thanks so much for listening today. Join us again tomorrow as the Briscoes share more powerful truth from God's word. Come back and experience abundant life in Christ next time on Telling the Truth.