Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Today on Telling the Truth, Jill Briscoe continues her series, Women Who Changed Their World, with a message on how God can work through us when we have a willing attitude.

But before we hear from Jill, 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.

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 let's hear from Jill with today's message, "How to Have a Good Attitude."

Jill Briscoe: Now, we are meant to be daughters of Sarah, committed, chaste, and controlled. But I have to say as I begin to read my Bible, I find in Sarah, as I look at her, just like that off the pages of scripture as she gets to know me and I get to know her, I find her a rebel.

I find that she does have a short fuse. I find that she does constantly provoke people around her. And I find that other people are constantly provoked by her. In fact, her story is one of the most turbulent stories in the whole of Genesis.

So then how can Peter say this is the woman I want you women to emulate, be daughters of Sarah, walk in her footsteps? I want to know why. And always read your Bible honestly, openly, ask these questions. Don't say, oh well, Peter must say it and so all this stuff in here that she's doing has no sense. Try and struggle with this and say, well then how does this fit? How does it fit?

How did God take a rebel and turn her into royalty? Because her name means rebel, Sarai, A-I. And God changed her name to Sarah, which means princess. So how did God take a rebel and make her a royal princess? That's what we're going to find out.

Sarah's name, as I just mentioned, comes from the common root of Israel and it means she that strives or is contentious, is a strife-ridden person, full of dispute, controversy, wrangling, irritation, right! That's what the Bible reveals to us of this woman when we meet her.

And actually all along the way until she's very, very old. Contention is actually the meaning of the name. You know when you get these little plaques and you say, oh is that what my name means? If we had had those plaques today, somebody would have bought one and given it to Sarah and said, this is what your name means. Contention! You say something she'll say, but. Oh, but. There's always arguing, always wrangling, always strife. Contention by name and contention by nature.

How do we know this? Because in Genesis 18 and Genesis 16, there are stories of her arguing with everybody, being contentious, provoking and being provoked. And we do not have time to read all these passages. Let me just fill you in on some of them. In Genesis 16:1-6, we have her arguing with Abraham over God's revealed plan.

Remember He was going to send a seed of the woman to bruise the serpent's head. He had promised Abraham it would be one of his sons, his descendants. Sarah, wanting to help God out of a mess that He'd got Himself into, decided to take matters into her own hands. And so in the manner of the times, according to the culture of their times of where they lived, she took her handmade, an Egyptian young girl, Hagar, and gave her handmade to Abraham and said maybe we can have children by Hagar.

Well, as soon as Hagar got pregnant for the very first time in her life, she had something that she never had before. She had something that her mistress didn't have. And in typical womanly fashion, after the fall fashion, she despised her mistress. And when you've got two women living together in close quarters in a tent, it's not very easy to hide, and maybe Hagar didn't even try. I'm sure she didn't say anything, she didn't need to. It was that look that she managed to let Sarah know she was pregnant and Sarah hadn't been able to do that.

Here was something this little slave girl had that she'd never had before and she had over her mistress. And as soon as Sarah saw Hagar with that look on her face, she began to provoke a controversy in accordance with her name, a strife, a dispute. And she went to Abraham and said, "It's all your fault! It's all your fault!" Now I can never figure out why it should be Abraham's fault. He just seemed a bit weak to me in the story, but at least I don't think it was his fault. This was Sarah's idea. "It's all your fault! And now my maid despises me!"

And Abraham almost seemingly from the scriptures with a shrug of his shoulders said, "Your maid's your maid. She's in your hands, do whatever you want to." We don't know whether she beat her. We don't know whether she verbally abused her, but she dealt cruelly, hostilely with her servant maid. Why? Because she dared to look a certain way, because she was pregnant. Whose fault was it that she was pregnant? Sarah's fault. So here you have a woman and you say you mean I'm supposed to follow in her footsteps and she's supposed to be my example?

Sarah was lively all right, no question about it. But you see her arguing with Hagar, arguing with Abraham, and in Genesis 18 arguing with God. Let's just look at that for a minute, because I think this is very typical of Sarah as we get to know her. God has come to visit Abraham in human form, in angelic form. "Where is your wife Sarah?" the angel asked. "There in the tent," this is verse nine of 18 he said. The Lord said, and notice it's capital letters, the Angel of the Lord, a pre-incarnate theophany, self-revelation of God in human form.

Then the Lord said, "I will surely return to you about this time next year and Sarah your wife will have a son." Now look at this, now Sarah was listening at the tent flap. Wouldn't you have been? What is God saying to my husband and did I hear my name? Yes, I heard my name. Wouldn't you have listened at the tent flap? I think I would have been tempted to do that. Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. Abraham and Sarah were already old and well advanced in years and Sarah was past the age of childbearing.

So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, "After I'm worn out and my master is old will I now have this pleasure?" Then the Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh and say will I really have a child now that I'm old? Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year and Sarah will have a son." Sarah was afraid and she lied and said, "I didn't laugh." And God said, "Yes you did, you laughed." "No I didn't." "Yes I did." "No." Here she is! First she argues with Hagar, then she argues with Abraham, now she's arguing with the Almighty.

This was Sarah. A rebel, lively, contentious, provoking, provocative. But lovely, lively but lovely. Genesis 12 tells us that Abraham said, "I know thou art fair to look upon." How did he know that? Because the entire world knew she was fair to look upon. They were among hostile people. There was a famine, they went down to Egypt. The princes saw this incredibly wealthy man coming to get grain and all the people that were with him and their herds, and of course he was invited to the princes' socials and who went with him? Sarah.

And the princes looked upon her and said, "She's fair to look upon." Now by now she was over eighty, folks. And they recommended her to the Pharaoh that she might become his wife. That's how beautiful she was at the age of eighty. You're saying now there's something wrong here. And with Sarah if what we read about her in the Bible is true that there was not only this outward beauty but this inner beauty as well, then we know why the princes and why the Pharaoh and later King Abimelech, another king, wanted her to be wife.

So she was lively and she was lovely except her beauty was always getting her into trouble. Never envy somebody that's very beautiful, folks. It brings along with it its own peculiar and particular problems. She was lively, she was lovely, and she was a liar, right? She was a liar. She was still lying at the age of eighty. She was loyal to a fault. Why was she lying? Because Abraham told her to lie. Why did he tell her to lie? Well here we do have Abraham in a bad light, because he was scared of his skin.

He said if they see you and you're gorgeous and they want you and they know you're married to me they'll kill me. So say you're my sister. Now this was not actually a full-blown lie. This was half a lie, but half a lie is a whole lie. Any sort of lie. She was his half-sister. He had married his half-sister. So really it wasn't a full-blown lie, but it got them into a whole lot of trouble.

So here Peter encourages us to be like her and you say you mean I've got to lie for my husband? If he is in authority over me and he is ruling over me and he tells me to lie for him, did she do the right thing? I have heard people say from pulpits she did the right thing and God kept her safe. I've also talked to a girl who took that point of view and went to a wife-swapping party because her unbelieving husband told her that she had to go with him and ended up in bed with somebody else. God does not always keep us safe when we submit to anything, and the Bible doesn't say submit to anything.

If the law of man contravenes the law of God, then Sarah must say no. Sarah didn't say no. At that point if only she had been able to live like a Genesis 1 or 2 woman, she would have said, "Abraham where's your faith? Come on! They're not going to kill you. God has promised you that you are going to be the father of so many children that it's like the stars of the sky. So why's He going to kill you? Let's trust God for this. I'm beautiful because God made me beautiful. He can look after that like He's looked after us in this godforsaken wilderness all these years."

But she didn't. She went along with her husband. She was lively, she was lovely, but she was a liar. So what made her into a princess? I think the opportunity to let God control her and her situation. The lifestyle that they'd lived in Haran and Ur had to be left. You know when they moved out, they moved out of a lifestyle. And Sarah had an opportunity to discover what really is important in life. And it isn't things. It's people. It's our relationship with God and with others.

And part of making Sarah from the rebel into the princess that she became was an opportunity to do without the things she was used to doing with in life. And then also what God allowed to happen where the children were concerned or where children were not concerned. The fact that she went all the way through her life, past the years of childbearing, without the promised child, and the testing of an unanswered prayer. That's a way that God makes us into a princess.

The nos, the waits, the clinging on to what you really know of God when nothing seems to be working out. God tempers our spirit, that contentious, feisty, fighting spirit into a meek and quiet, controlled, peaceful, serene spirit. That way as we learn patience to wait for the things that God has promised. And also in the lessons that she learned. The lies that she told that did not do anything but bring dishonor on God's name. They were sent away in disgrace publicly. They were rebuked as Pharaoh and then later King Abimelech when he did the whole same thing again later on in their life.

Publicly rebuked Abraham and Sarah for the lie that had been told and sent them away with their tail between their legs. God's name wasn't on them through that. And Sarah had to learn it was not the wisest thing I ever did to try and take matters into my own hands and try and find a baby through Hagar. It was not the wisest thing I ever did to tell those lies even though my husband told me to tell them. And I believe it's in our mistakes, I believe it's in the things that we do not do right, I believe it's in the decisions that we make that are just pure bad choices and bad decisions that often God uses those very things as tools in His hands to craft a princess out of a block of granite, out of a rebel and change us.

So what does this word submission mean? Now we know it doesn't mean submission to any old thing, to any old sin. But what does it mean? Maybe we'll talk a little bit about this in the series as we go along. Many women rise up in horror against that word. So let me take it away from you and give you another one that might be more helpful: responsive. What does being a responder mean? Or a servant, what does a servant spirit mean? And that's really what the word submission means, to serve.

What does it mean that Sarah should be an example to us in a submissive servant attitude in her relationship to Abraham? To be a princess and he her prince? What does this mean? Well, I believe it means knowing when to disobey your husband. There is a time when to disobey your husband and you obey your Heavenly Husband. You don't check your mind in the cloakroom when you marry a Christian man. You don't check your soul in there either.

The secret is an open, willing to be changed attitude. Sarah was a willing to be changed woman. Submission is a general Christian grace. It gives our fallen nature a chance to learn to be like Christ. For Christ submitted Himself to a womb, to a single-parent family, to a poor lifestyle, to a cross, to a tomb. And so He gives us a chance and He says, "Be submissive here, be submissive there, because in telling you to do it and in practicing it you'll become like Me."

I'm so glad he said "wives to husbands." He could have said "wives to policemen." He chose the neatest way to give us practice. And he also told husbands to be submissive to wives. There is plenty of people for all of us to be submissive to, to learn to be a servant. So how do I develop this Sarah spirit? I dress my soul daily in prayer. I start naked before God and I choose a garment for the occasion, a petticoat of patience, a sweater of silence, a hat of helpfulness. I decide what I'm going to dress my soul in today, and I'm going to take as much care over that as I do to dress my body.

If I have ultra-suede on the outside, I'm going to make sure I have ultra-suede on the inside and not ultra-rags. I'm going to learn to listen to God and decide to be teachable. I believe Sarah, who laughed when God told her something, learned to listen and believe. And instead of a cynical, "go on, show me God" attitude, she came to listen to God and decide to be teachable. And I believe that's why God loved her and wanted us to use her as an example.

When you've got a rebel nature, you can decide to be made into a royal princess. It's a matter of choice. Will I be a handful or will I be a handmaid? I can choose to be compliant. I can welcome situations that cause me to depend on God. And I believe that Sarah was able to do that. I think she was terrific. She took off into that desert with her man, committed to God and His cause and to her husband. And she said, "Okay, I don't know what this means but I'm going to do my best. I will hang my chandelier from the tent pole and that'll do, that's fine. Let's do it."

And she welcomed situations that caused her to depend on God, and that'll change you. She quit fighting, she quit arguing with God and with His spokesman. She didn't laugh at God anymore, she didn't lie to God. I believe she gave Him control of the wild donkey inside her. For that word "meek" means control like a wild horse by bit and bridle. And what you've got to do is give God the control of the wild donkey inside you. Let Him ride you. That picture of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on the little donkey.

I use that as a story, a children's story, "Caleb's Colt." Jesus sat on him and you know, we need Jesus to sit on us and get hold of the wild donkey. So that in triumph He can be seen as we ride along in life. Have you given Him control of the wild donkey? Are you a Sarah by nature? How many of us are? I know I am. I'm contentious, I'm feisty, I argue, I want to be my own person in the wrong sense, instead of submitting to a God who submitted Himself to the cross for me. And then strangely in the losing of myself in Him I find myself and my true identity. And as I serve Him and listen to Him, He tells me to serve other people and helps me discern when I should do what other people tell me to do. And He gives me people in my life that I can submit to, as He submitted to people in His life so that I can learn to be a princess. So I can be a royal lady instead of a royal rebel. And that way I will be following in the footsteps of Sarah, whose daughters, Peter says, we are.

Guest (Male): Now here's Jill to answer some questions about today's message. Jill, why submitting to our husbands is not about obeying his every command, correct?

Jill Briscoe: Correct. I mean, what happens if one of his commands is not a godly command? Are we supposed to obey rubbish? Are we supposed to do what God tells us not to do? No, obviously we obey God rather than men. So it's not obeying every single thing your husband tells you to do. Submitting means respecting and coming alongside your husband's godly headship and leading, but it doesn't even mean submitting to everything that he says if you have any doubts that what he's saying is not the right thing to submit to. So be careful about this and realize that it's in the context of both submitting to God. In Ephesians, the fullness of the spirit we need to submit to anyone. And so we both submit to God, and the man submits to God, and the woman submits to the man, and the children submit to the parents, but it's all a mutual submission in the power of the spirit. That's what it's talking about.

Guest (Male): Jill, how does God use our bad choices or bad decisions to better us?

Jill Briscoe: How does God buy back, because redeem means buy back. How does He see us make a bad choice that leads to all sorts of problems and troubles for us and other people sometimes? How does He redeem that? Well, how does He restore the messes we make? Maybe that's another way to put it. It says in the Bible that God restores many of the years the locusts have eaten, some of the years the locusts have eaten. He cannot restore all the years the locusts have eaten. The big locust, the little locust, the mistakes we make, the stupid things that we do, the disobediences that we willfully engender in our lives that often not only hurt us but other people. But we can certainly learn by our mistakes. We can certainly not do it again. We can certainly learn how to humble ourselves and find forgiveness and repentance and make restitution if it's possible to make in other people's lives. And that betters us, obviously. That makes us bigger people and better Christians along the way.

Guest (Male): 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. When you give to keep the teaching you love from Telling the Truth on air and online, you make it possible for people like Joanne to be strengthened and guided through the wisdom of God's word. She recently shared with us, "I look forward to the daily encouraging word. I have a hard time understanding some of the verses sometimes, and I get excited when one is chosen as a message. Thank you for sharing gifts from God to those of us who enjoy them."

Thank you for sharing, Joanne. 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. Tune in tomorrow to hear Jill's message, "How to Be a Servant Leader." Experience life, Wednesday, on Telling the Truth.