Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): When your heart is troubled, trust probably isn't the first thing that rushes to your mind, but maybe it should be. Today on Telling the Truth, Stuart Briscoe kicks off a new series exploring what Jesus said in his most difficult days about the God of all comfort. Stuart gets started in just a moment. But first...

Guest (Female): When life's storms suddenly come your way, how do you respond? Do you doubt God's presence, questioning his concern for you? Or do you see storms as part of God's plan for your life and rest assured he cares for you and is in control of all things?

Guest (Male): We want to help you trust in God's care and control in all the storms you face by sending you Jill Briscoe's message, "Weathering the Storms of Life," as well as a set of 12 beautifully designed scripture cards to encourage you in troubled times. In "Weathering the Storms of Life," Jill teaches from the Gospel of Mark, examining the disciples' experience in a sudden storm to address the issues of suffering and faith, challenging you to examine your belief in God in the midst of trouble.

Her teaching and the scripture cards will encourage you as you discover how you can be sure of God's love for you and his control over every circumstance, no matter how sudden, severe, or unexpected. "Weathering the Storms of Life" and the set of 12 scripture cards are our thanks for your gift to help more people experience life through the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth.

So request your copy when you give today. 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here's Stuart with his message, "Comfort Through Trust."

Stuart Briscoe: John chapter 14, verse 1, starts like this: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going."

The Lord Jesus gave some instructions to his disciples, which were simply, "Don't let your hearts be troubled." The reason he said this was that their hearts were deeply disconcerted by the things that he was telling them. But it wasn't just that they were disconcerted; he himself was deeply troubled, too. In fact, there were a lot of troubled hearts in that room. But notice the instruction that he gives to those troubled hearts. It's a very simple instruction: "Trust in God; trust also in me."

People react to being told in the time of trouble, "Trust in God; trust also in the Lord, for in them you'll find comfort." But quite frankly, when the ultimate troubles come and no diversion will help, and no chemicals will help, and no medicine will help, and no physician can help, and even the funeral director is limited in what he can do—where do we turn? We turn very often to where we should have turned much earlier: to trust in the Lord.

That's basically what I want to share with you, that there is comfort for troubled hearts through trust. But I do have a few minutes left, so let me amplify these thoughts for you for a little while. Let me talk to you first of all about troubled hearts, and then let me talk to you about trusting hearts. And then, when we're through, hopefully, we'll finish up with some triumphant hearts.

I identified for you already that the Lord himself was deeply troubled at this time. When he said, "Do not let your hearts be troubled," he used a word that John had already used three times to describe the experience of the Lord Jesus himself. The word "troubled," incidentally, means to be disturbed, to be agitated, to be confused. The Lord himself was deeply disturbed and agitated through the experience that he was going through.

You remember that as he was confronting the cross, he was deeply troubled, John tells us in John chapter 12, verse 27. And he prayed to the Father, "Father, if it's possible, save me from this hour." But immediately he said, "No, that is not the point. I came explicitly into the world for this hour." Why then was he deeply troubled if he was confronting what he'd come intentionally to do?

He was confronting not just the horror and the shame and the ignominy of crucifixion; he was confronting the fact that he was going to be a sacrifice for sin—that he who knew no sin would become a sin offering. He was confronting the fact that when he became a sin offering, the Father who cannot look on iniquity would be separated from him.

He was going to experience that excruciating sense of spiritual aloneness, exacerbated by the fact that he from an eternity had had the most intimate fellowship with the Father. You see, we don't have a God who is remote and removed. We do not have a God who sits in splendid isolation. We do not have the God of the deist who made the world and threw it into space and let it follow its own devices.

We have a God who is intimately concerned in everything. So much so that he assumed our humanity in Christ, lived our life, bore our pain, experienced our troubles, and empathizes with us at the deepest point of human need. That is one of the great strengths of the Christian faith. We have an empathetic God.

The troubled Christ, however, at this particular time is talking to his disciples and he's saying in effect, "I know exactly what you're feeling. I know exactly what you're going through. In actual fact, your troubles are deeply personal. They're nothing compared to what I'm going through. Behold and see, is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow?" Jeremiah said prophetically of the Savior. Nevertheless, don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God.

But what about those troubled disciples? What was it that they were going through? As the Lord Jesus speaks to them, you can sense by the way that they interrupt him and the things that they say that they really are having a hard time with what he's saying. "You know the way to the place that I'm going," he said. Thomas said, "Lord, we don't know where you're going, so how in the world can we know the way?

Three years we've been trying to figure out the way. Three years you've been teaching us. Three years we've been taking notes. Three years we've been passing our exams and we're still no nearer. We don't know where you're going. We're not getting the message." Philip chips in immediately and he says, "Lord, why don't you just show us the Father and be done with it? Why don't we just have some great dramatic demonstration of who God is? Come on."

The Lord shakes his head. He said, "I've been doing nothing but giving you dramatic demonstrations of who the God is for three years. You haven't got the message." The Lord is discouraged with them. They are disillusioned by the whole thing. And of course, now he's telling them that he's going to die on a cross and on the third day he'll rise again. It doesn't make any sense at all to them.

And you remember that two of them on the road to Emmaus after the crucifixion were walking along and they're talking to themselves, and they say the most poignant statement of disillusionment: "We had hoped," they said. There's nothing more troubling than disappointed hope. What does it mean to trust in God in the midst of things that are deeply disconcerting? Let me identify for you a couple of things here.

The Lord Jesus gives these people a solid basis for belief. He doesn't just say, "Trust me." The Lord Jesus gives ample grounds for trust. God does not simply say, "Just trust me." He says, "Look at the evidence that proves I'm trustworthy." But there's a problem, for human beings have an innate sense of distrust. There's something about our nature that prefers distrust to trust.

There's something about us that prefers independence to dependence. There's something about us that refuses to accept the fact that we were made by God, wired up to be dependent. When God created human beings in the first place, he made it abundantly clear that the way they were to operate adequately as human beings was in intimate fellowship with God.

The intimacy of that fellowship would be demonstrated in loving, trusting obedience. And what God was doing in Christ was coming back, endeavoring to restore his reputation as a trustworthy God. And he was coming to give men and women ample reasons for believing that fullness of life is found in intimacy of relationship with him.

But let me point out something very obvious. As we look at our society today, we would find that very, very often people wallowing in their troubles blame God instead of trusting him, question God instead of trusting him, get angry at God instead of trusting him. What is needed in the midst of our trouble is to get back to that basis of simple, loving, obedient trust.

But what are the bases for believing this to be true? Well, notice three things that the Lord tells us here. He makes a very powerful point. He tells us that "I tell you the truth" more than once. This is a common expression in John's Gospel. The Lord Jesus is simply claiming that if you examine his teaching, you will find it to be utterly, totally trustworthy.

But he goes a step further and he says to them, "Now if you're not prepared to trust my words, believe my works." This, of course, was particularly beneficial for the disciples who'd lived with him for three years. They had had front-row seats on the 50-yard line to see the kind of things that he'd been doing. They had observed with their own two little eyes the remarkable things that he had accomplished.

So he says to them, "Believe my works; they are utterly trustworthy. But if you're so skeptical and so distrusting, believe my works." The second thing that he points out is that he states his position: "I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life." He is making superlative claims for himself. He is saying, "Listen, I am the means of access that you so desperately need in the midst of your trouble with the God upon whom you're intended to be dependent.

I am the means of getting back in touch with him. I am utterly truthful as regards that statement. And I am the one who will impart to you a quality of life that comes only from relationship with the Father. I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. There isn't another way." Now, that's either true or false.

If human beings accept the trustworthiness of Christ in terms of his word and his work, look at the uniqueness of Christ in terms of him being the only one in whom the way to the Father is found, the truth of God is discovered, and the life of God is experienced, then they begin to roll their burden on him and begin to discover they're on the way. They're building their lives on truth and they're experiencing the life. That is the basis of belief that he's giving us.

But then there's a third thing that he says: he outlines his promise. "In my Father's house," he said, "are many rooms. If it weren't so, I would have told you. I'm going to prepare a place for you. And if I go away, I will come again and receive you so that you might be where I am." Now, those are familiar words to people who've read their Bibles for some time, but they may be rather new to some of you.

What that means is this: there's room for everybody who wants to be there. There really is room for everybody who wants to be there. Now then, the fact that there's room for everybody who wants to be there doesn't mean that they have access to be there. But I'm the way, and I'm going to go into the presence of God to open a way into his presence for all eternity for you.

And I promise you this: I'm going, I'll do that, and I'll come again. And I promise you that either by death or by my glorious return, I'll take everyone who looks for my return to be with me forever. And that's a promise. Now, look at it this way. You sit there in the midst of your troubles. What do you do with your troubles? Do you try to drown your troubles? That doesn't work.

Do you try to celebrate meaninglessly and look for entertainment that helps you divert attention? That doesn't work very long. Are you in some troubles now where even the medical people have said, "We don't know what else to do for you"? To whom should you turn? The answer is you should turn to the one to whom originally you were wired up to turn anyway.

You turn to the Lord and you find that the God who seems remote and removed is neither, that he has come into our world, lived our life, felt our pain, borne our troubles, empathizes with us, has died for us that our sins might be forgiven, has opened a new and a living way into the presence of God, invites us to be there and says, "If I go away, I'll come back for you."

And you're living your life now in the settled assurance that that is the truth, that he is the way, that you're experiencing his life, and it's only a matter of time until you will enter eternity with him. And you bear this in mind in the midst of your troubles. The trusting heart when I have a troubled heart. What happens with all this? Well, what happens with all this is that eventually, I'll finish up with a triumphant heart.

Jesus said incredibly to his disciples, "Because I'm going away, the works that I've done you will do, and greater works than these will you do." That's an incredible statement. Notice it's all predicated on him going away. That means if he didn't go away, he wouldn't send the Holy Spirit. But if he did go away, he promised to send the Holy Spirit.

So men and women would now become vehicles in which the Holy Spirit would work. The Holy Spirit had worked in the man Christ Jesus. He'd been limited by one body. He'd been limited living in one era. He'd been limited by time and space. But now the Holy Spirit is going to be shed forth into the lives of men and women all over the world, down through the eras, down through the centuries, down through the millennia.

All these millions of people indwelt by the same Holy Spirit in hundreds of cultures, in dozens of countries, in many millennia are going to see the same Holy Spirit at work. And guess what will happen? If the Spirit is limited by the man Christ Jesus, he is unlimited by the church, and all the works that Christ did and greater things will be done by that same Holy Spirit indwelling the believer.

And what does that mean for the individual believer? It means this: that there is for the individual believer adequate resources to handle all that God calls us to experience. So we now know the comfort of knowing God, and we know the comfort of adequate resources in and through the indwelling Holy Spirit.

But there's a third thing that gives us great comfort as well, and it is the comfort of knowing answered prayer. Listen to how Jesus concluded this particular section of his talk, verse 13: "I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it." Now be careful.

He did not say, "You may ask me for anything, and you've got it." He said, "You may ask anything in my name, and as I glorify the Father, so I will do it." There are two preconditions of effective praying. One is that you're praying with the mind for the glory of God. The other is that you're praying in the name of Christ.

To pray in the name of Christ does not mean come with a shopping list and say at the end, "In Jesus' name, Amen." What it means is I align myself with Christ, with his cause, with his purpose, with his will. That's what I want. Not my will, his. My praying is not that I might get what I want; my praying is that I might see his cause, his purpose, worked out in my life. It's in his name that I pray.

Moreover, I am not praying for my own advantage; I am praying honestly and genuinely that God would be glorified in these circumstances. There's comfort in answered prayer. There's comfort in knowing God. There's comfort in adequate resources. And you discover them in the midst of your trouble by learning to trust.

Guest (Female): Stuart, would you tell us about a time when you knew God as an empathetic God?

Stuart Briscoe: Empathetic God—that's an interesting expression. I've never really thought of it before. But to be empathetic means to go deeper with a person's problems than purely being sympathetic. To be empathetic means to become deeply involved in the person's problems rather than to be sympathetic and say, "Oh, I'm so sorry that you have such a problem."

Sympathetic allows you to respond at something of a distance; empathetic means that you get involved in the situation. I think perhaps I first became aware of God being involved in my situation when I read in the Bible that Jesus had been tested and tempted in all points like as we are, yet was without sin. And he is touched with the feelings of our infirmities.

In other words, Jesus fully understands the fact that we have enormous struggles down here on earth. And how can he be so empathetic on this? Because he's been there. He's been there. He's been tested in all points like as we are, yet he is without sin.

Guest (Female): Stuart, a lot of people say there are many ways to God, but Jesus said he is the way, right?

Stuart Briscoe: Now that we live in a world where we're very concerned about being politically correct, there's no doubt about it that to insist that Jesus actually did say, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father but by me," is to be written off as a bigot. But the simple fact of the matter is this: according to John's Gospel, that is precisely what he did say.

Now, the problem, of course, is that we do not want to demean other people's deeply held beliefs. We don't want to insult them. And I think it's right that we should not demean what people sincerely believe, and we should not go out of our way to insult them. However, what we do have to come to terms with is this: that if it is true that man is sinful and needs to be reconciled to God, that the wages of sin is death, and the only way a man can be reconciled to God is either through suffering death or having a substitute—a perfect substitute to die in one's place.

And as far as all the religions of the world are concerned, none of them suggest for a moment a perfect substitute for the sacrifice of sin except Jesus. And I therefore believe there are many ways of coming to Jesus, but there's only one way to the Father, and that is through a crucified and risen Lord Jesus.

Guest (Female): Thanks for joining us today here on Telling the Truth. We pray today's message has helped you to experience life in all its fullness through Jesus Christ. We want to share a special note we received from a listener named William. He wrote recently to share: "Thank you all and God's continued blessings on you as well. My deepest thanks for all the years of teaching as well as your books, which have been such blessings to me."

Thank you for the encouragement, William. We'll be sure to keep the encouragement coming. When life's storms suddenly come your way, how do you respond? Do you doubt God's presence, questioning his concern for you? Or do you see storms as part of God's plan for your life and rest assured he cares for you and is in control of all things?

We want to help you trust in God's care and control in all the storms you face by sending you Jill Briscoe's message, "Weathering the Storms of Life," as well as a set of 12 beautifully designed scripture cards to encourage you in troubled times.

Weathering the Storms of Life and the set of 12 scripture cards are our thanks for your gift to help more people experience life through the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth. So request your copy when you give today. 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thanks for joining us today on Telling the Truth. Come back tomorrow to hear Stuart explore how your relationships with God and others offer comfort in difficult circumstances. Listen in and experience life next time on Telling the Truth.