Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Are you having a hard time living the Christian life in a world that's not very open to the gospel? Today, we hear from Stuart Briscoe and his message for believers to respond differently to the trouble in the world. He begins in just a moment.

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. Call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Let's head to Stuart now for the message, "Comfort Through Trials."

Stuart Briscoe: Murphy's Law says if something can go wrong, it will, and that it will probably go wrong at the worst possible time. Erman's commentary on Murphy's Law says things will get worse before they get better, but then asks the question: who said they were going to get better?

This is somewhat discouraging. And yet, when you look at life, let's face it, it doesn't always work out the way we want it to work out. The Lord Jesus was very straight with his disciples. He told them that they were in all probability going to run into some problems, but they should not roll over and play dead.

On the contrary, they should stand tall in the midst of circumstances that would be difficult because he promised to give them his spirit. And in the power of his spirit, they were to live in difficult circumstances, lives that were compellingly different and would contribute to the scene of which they were a part.

Down through the ages, Christians have proved that it can be extremely difficult living the Christian life in an environment that is not altogether sympathetic. Hudson Taylor, the great founder of the China Inland Mission, on one occasion wrote, "Envied by some, despised by many, hated by others, often blamed for things I never heard of or had nothing to do with, working without precedent in many respects, and with few experienced helpers, often sick in body, as well as perplexed in mind, and embarrassed by circumstances; had not the Lord been specially gracious to me, had not my mind been sustained by the conviction that the work is his and that he is with me, I must have fainted or broken down. But the battle is the Lord's, and he would conquer."

That is a realistic evaluation. That is a realistic statement of what it means to be a Christian in today's world. Let me read to you from John 15 and verse 18. "If the world hates you," he said, "keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, and that is why the world hates you."

And then move on to verse 26. "When the counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the father, the spirit of truth who goes out from the father, he will testify about me, but you also must testify. For you have been with me from the beginning." And then he says, "When all these things happen to you, remember that I warned you that this would be the situation." And so, we have to be thankful to the Lord that he did not pull the wool over his disciples' eyes. Let's look into this particular passage, however, and see not only what he was teaching the disciples 2,000 years ago, but what he has to say to us today.

Let me talk to you first of all about what it means to encounter hostility. It's rather striking that in verse 17 he says, "This is my command: love each other." And then immediately he said, "But if the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first." Notice the stark contrast of the love of the disciple and the hatred of the environment in which they were going to operate. What he is saying in effect is the environment in which you operate may have an awful lot of hatred in it, but the way that you operate, there's got to be an awful lot of love about it. And therein lies the marked distinctive of the believer in an often invidious environment.

This environment in which the believer is to operate is called the world. Notice verse 18: "If the world hates you, keep in mind it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, that is why the world hates you." The world, the world, the world, the world, the world, the world. Six times in that very brief passage, he talks about the world. Clearly, that is what he is concerned about.

The apostle John tells us in the third chapter of his gospel and the 16th verse: "God so loved the world that he gave his only son." But then in his first epistle, the same writer says: "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world." Now, that looks like a flat contradiction. How could God love the world and tell us not to?

The reason is that he's using the world in two slightly different ways. When it says that God loved the world, he is saying that God loved the humanity that inhabits the world and was concerned for their well-being. When John says that we are not to love the world, he is talking about that underlying attitude that is characteristic of the world, which is described in the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia as "a place of corruption, a place antagonistic and antipathetic to God, a place in the grip of demonic powers."

So the world that was going to give the disciples a hard time was not the world of rocks and rivers and birds and bees. It was the world in the sense of an underlying attitude in human beings towards God that is fundamentally antipathetic and antagonistic. C.H. Dodd, the great theologian, said the world means human society insofar as it is organized on wrong principles and characterized by base desires, false values, and egoism.

This is his interpretation of what John's first epistle, where he says that the world is characterized by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. That is what John means by the world. And he says that this world is in fundamental opposition to the cause of Christ. Now he says to his disciples: don't roll over and play dead, just understand it and remember what it is that you're called to be in that situation.

Notice, however, the attitude of Christ towards the world, this human race that has this hostile attitude. John has a lot to say about this in his gospel. For instance, in the first chapter and the ninth verse, he says that Christ was coming into the world. The next verse he said he made the world. In the 29th verse, he says he came to take away the sin of the world.

John chapter three verse 17: he came not to condemn but to save the world. Verse 19: he came to give light to the world. God did not say: all right, I see this environment full of people who have a fundamentally hostile attitude towards me, who want to go their own way rather than my way, therefore, forget them. No, he loved them and determined to send his son to live in the midst of them. But to the surprise of nobody, he was greeted by fundamental hostility.

If you notice, it says in John chapter one verse 11: "He came unto his own, but his own did not receive him." Very, very quickly Jesus discovered the underlying attitude towards God and to his Messiah. They did not want him. He was outright rejected even though he had come with salvation in mind.

If you notice in John chapter three verse 19, he says that he came as the light into the world, but the most incredible thing happened: men loved darkness rather than light. Why in the world would human beings ever prefer darkness to light? Crooks prefer darkness to light because their deeds are evil and they don't want them to be exposed.

And this is what Jesus ran into. He ran into a buzzsaw when he came into this world. Because when he began to show who he was and say what he said and do what he did, there was a fundamental reaction to him. Because what he was exposed men and women for what they are. And they preferred what they were to what he was. And they rejected him.

And that of course is the attitude of the Cosmos. That is the attitude of the world. John chapter 15 verse 18 tells us that when it really came down to it, they absolutely hated him. And Jesus said: if the world hated me, then you must understand in all probability, it will exhibit some degree of hostility to you.

Some of you sit in there and you say to yourself: what's all this stuff about hostility towards Christians? I don't get any hostility. I just get up and I do my thing and I do my job and I go home and I just live my life and nobody's giving me a hard time. I want to suggest they don't know.

The Lord Jesus made it very clear. He said: the Holy Spirit will come to you, and when the Holy Spirit comes to you, he will testify about me. But then listen, verse 27: "But you also must testify." In other words, we are not in an environment that is fundamentally hostile to Jesus in order that we might simply live in a comfort zone and fundamentally deny him. He is looking for men and women who, convinced of who he is, identify with him and his cause and live in a society that is fundamentally hostile to him.

So much for encountering hostility. Now, let me talk to you for a minute about understanding hostility. Why does it work this way? Notice what he said in verse 19: "If you belonged to the world, the world would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world. That is why the world hates you." It's a matter of belonging. It's a matter of really being part of something.

Now, let me give you an example. Supposing a young man and a young woman, a couple of real pagans—I mean, they don't have a thought of God between them. They're not interested in spiritual things at all. They're totally materialistic. They're operating on the basis of their hormones and their senses. That's them. They're in this for what they can get out of it. Nothing else matters. They meet each other, they live together for a while, and then they decide it works all right, so they better make it look respectable, so they get married. And they live a totally acceptable, pagan marriage.

And then one of them does the most remarkable thing. They hear the Christian gospel, they believe it, they repent and they turn to Christ. They're born again. They're a new creation in Christ Jesus. And suddenly, their spouse discovers they're living with somebody they didn't marry. For suddenly, their spouse no longer wants to live a pagan lifestyle. They want to live a Christian lifestyle.

The one who's changed knows what's going on. The one whose spouse has changed does not understand. They feel rejected, they feel hurt, they feel put down, they feel abandoned. And the hostility builds up and they begin to say to themselves: what makes you think that you're so much better, holier than thou? Why is it that you are condemning me? Why is it that the life that we lived isn't good enough for you anymore? Why is it that you've reneged on the contract that we had? And they become hostile.

There are not a few people living in circumstances like that who don't understand it. To me, it's perfectly understandable. It is perfectly understandable if two people, having got married, one of them becomes a believer and the other stays as pagan as they ever were. You know why? Because a pagan heart is fundamentally antagonistic to all that Christ stands for under a thin or a thick veneer of acceptance and respectability.

Not only that, in verse 20 of chapter 15 here, the Lord Jesus says: remember the words I spoke to you. No servant is greater than his master. If they persecute me, they'll persecute you. This is just a little reminder about the servant attitude of Jesus. This is something that changes when a person becomes a Christian. A lot of people are out there in the world for what they can get out of it. But Christians are in the world for what they can put into it.

Now, if you live in a society that is basically interested in what I can get out of it, what's in it for me, and you go in it and you're interested in what you can put in it and your overriding concern is: what is it in me that I can give to you? Guess what happens. You'll find totally different approaches.

In the workplace, it's not uncommon for people who are members of a union to become believers. When they become believers, they discover that they don't just want to toe the union line because the union may not always be right, and they want to do what's right in the context of the union. And what do they discover? They will discover then that because they're living on another basis for another principle, that those with whom they had close fellowship before now become antagonistic towards them.

Jesus said: if they obey my teaching, they'll obey yours. The implication of course is: if they disobey my teaching, they'll disobey yours. How many people who are Christians have discovered that their friends will be perfectly amenable to them until you start communicating to them what Jesus said about something?

How many of you have had problems in your families when you've tried to talk about Christian marriage to your friends who are simply living without the benefit of marriage? How many of you have run into problems with your friends when, as long as you didn't say anything about the fact they were cheating on their taxes, you got along fine? But as soon as you started talking about being honest, they didn't like that one little bit. Hostility comes up.

Peter sums it all up beautifully for us. He says: "Dear friends, don't be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ. If you're insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed. If you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God."

Finally, how do we address hostility like this? Well, the first thing we do is: don't be surprised by it. It is perfectly understandable. It is to be expected. This does not mean we go out of our way to be objectionable. It doesn't mean that we go out just causing trouble. It doesn't mean that we're going out of our way to make ourselves martyrs. What it means is we're living consistent Christian lives in a situation that is not fundamentally Christian.

We're not surprised by the hostility. Secondly, we're not intimidated by it either. For the Lord Jesus said the counselor will come, the Holy Spirit will come, and he will become an inner resource for you so that in your school or in your university or on your athletic team or in your business or in your partnership or even in your marriage, you will discover inner resources from the spirit of God to enable you to stand tall in invidious circumstances.

Don't be intimidated by it and don't forget the spirit of truth. If we are to be Christ's disciples in a world that is fundamentally hostile, in the power of the spirit of God, we have to stand tall and not be surprised if we suffer trials, but to take great comfort from the fact that we are partaking in the sufferings of Christ.

Guest (Male): More teaching from Stuart and Jill 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. Now, here's Stuart Briscoe with more.

Stuart, how can we love the world while not loving the things in the world?

Stuart Briscoe: The problem as far as this question is concerned is that the writings of John in the New Testament appear at one point to contradict themselves. God, we are told in John chapter three verse 16, so loved the world that he gave his only son, etc., etc. But John in his letters—he wrote three of them in the New Testament—says we are not to love the world. And so what appears to be contradictory is this: if God loves the world, surely we are to follow him and we should love the world, but John says we're not to do it.

The problem with this is very simply answered. And the word Cosmos that is translated world in the English could mean different things. It could mean the universe, or it could mean humanity, which is a crucial part of the universe, or it could mean humanity in its fallenness that has rebelled against God.

And so when it says God loved the world, that's talking about humanity. We should love humanity. But when John is saying don't love the world, he's talking about humanity in its fallenness, resistant to God. We shouldn't be involved in that attitude.

Guest (Male): Stuart, how can a person begin to develop a servant's attitude?

Stuart Briscoe: The place to begin developing a servant attitude is to rethink the basis upon which your sins were forgiven and you were given the gift of eternal life and a promise of living in the new heavens and the new earth for all eternity with God. And what was the basis of all that being made available to you?

And it was simply on the servant attitude of Jesus. The Lord Jesus came into this world and he said very, very simply: "I did not come to be served. I came to serve and give my life a ransom for many." That is the basis of your salvation. That is what it all hinges upon. If Jesus had not had a servant attitude, there would be no possibility for you to be forgiven. There'd be no possibility for you to receive the gift of eternal life, etc., etc.

So now I've committed myself to him. I'm going to follow in his footsteps. His spirit is coming into my life to change me from the inside out. And I begin to discover the development of a servant attitude.

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 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. Call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thank you for being with us today. We hope you'll join us again as the Briscoes share more powerful truths from God's word. Experience life next time on Telling the Truth.