Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Jesus understood what his mission was. Once his mission was completed, he returned to the one who sent him. He had to leave so that the Holy Spirit could come. Today on *Telling the Truth*, Stuart Briscoe will share how when you're troubled and life is hard, you can find comfort through the Spirit.

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, here's Stuart with encouragement on how it's possible to find comfort through the Spirit on today's *Telling the Truth*.

Stuart Briscoe: The general theme of these talks is comfort for troubled hearts, and today we'll talk about comfort through the Spirit. John chapter 16, verse 5, then, we read as follows: Jesus said, "I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. But I tell you the truth, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the counselor will not come. But if I go, I will send him to you.

When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment. In regard to sin because men do not believe in me. In regard to righteousness because I am going to the Father where you can see me no longer. And in regard to judgment because the prince of this world now stands condemned. I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth.

He will not speak on his own. He will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you." Now, the Lord Jesus has just given them some very bad news. He says, "I am going to him who sent me."

But then immediately he says, "It is for your good that I am going away," and they didn't believe him. Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you were told that something was for your good and you didn't believe them? There are situations when it's not good at all. To be told at that particular time that what is going on is good for you is hard to take, but that is exactly what Jesus did on this particular occasion.

Now let's look into it and see what we can learn from it because one of the great advantages of this passage of Scripture is that it was not only teaching by Jesus to his immediate disciples, but he said quite specifically that he also had in mind disciples who would believe as a result of their witness, which, of course, includes us. The first thing I want you to notice is that the Lord Jesus outlined his program.

The problem for these disciples was they were not seeing things the way he was seeing them. He was looking down one end of a telescope and they were looking down the other. If you look down the wrong end of a telescope, you get exactly the wrong picture. Jesus' understanding of his program was very, very straightforward. You'll notice he talks about the Father as him who sent me. That was a not uncommon phrase that Jesus used to describe the Father.

It, of course, is particularly relevant at this particular point because the word "sent" is a key word in the Bible. The word "mission" that we use nowadays comes from the Latin word *missio*, which means a sending. So whenever Jesus talked about being sent or somebody else being sent or the Father who sent him, that was really the mission that he was talking about. He was a man on a mission.

The problem that the disciples were having at this moment was they did not understand the mission. Jesus did; they didn't. He was seeing it down one end of the telescope, and they were looking at the situation from the other end. So the Lord Jesus said, "Look, the reason I am here right now is simply the Father sent me. I have come down here to do what he sent me to do. I'm almost through, and once I'm through, I will not be hanging around. I will be going back to him who sent me."

So his perception of the whole thing was he'd come from eternity sent by the Father. There was a great big loop through planet Earth, and he was going back to eternity and back to the Father, and the time on Earth was simply one little piece of a grand program. But for the disciples, all they could see was a few years, three years to be precise, spent with Jesus, cut out of this great big plan. They didn't understand it.

I submit to you that one of the problems we have in life sometimes is that we're looking at our immediate situation, our immediate circumstances, divorced from the grand plan. If we do that, we'll be looking down the wrong end of the telescope. So the outline of the program is found in this idea that Jesus was a man on a mission initiated by God and that salvation is available to us simply because of God's grace.

Now they misunderstood it totally. The reason they misunderstood the story was this: Jesus is now talking about the grand loop in the plan coming to an end and he returning to the Father. That means for him glory. It means a glorious reception in heaven, the work of salvation having been completed. The conquering hero will return to great universal acclaim in the realms of heaven.

Glory for Jesus, but for the disciples, grief. They can't see the glory because they're consumed with their grief. They can't see the grand plan because all that they're locked into is their own agenda. Therein lies the problem for us so often. As far as they were concerned, they were relating everything to their own perceptions.

As far as they were concerned, they could only hear what he was saying and see what he was portraying through their own preoccupations. So Jesus reiterates the program, and he underlines how good this program is for them, even though at this moment they cannot see it and are disinclined to believe it. Look at exactly what he said. Verse 7: "I tell you the truth, it is good for you that I am going away. Unless I go away, the counselor will not come."

Notice first of all this expression, "It is good for you that I am going away." The going away, of course, also is related to him going to him who sent him. Now then, these two expressions seem pretty innocuous at face level, but when you think about them, what they're doing is referring to the fact that Jesus is going back to heaven via the cross and the tomb and the resurrection and the ascension.

So in the very simple term like "I am going away" and "I am going to him who sent me," you have wrapped up the details of the grand program that are totally eluding their understanding at this particular time. I submit to you that in the trauma of our lives, if we overlook the goodness to our lives of the grand program of God, we may find ourselves totally submerged by our traumatic circumstances.

In the deepest, bitterest moments of life on Earth, there is a sweet song from heaven. A sweet song from heaven that emanates from the cross and says, "I love you enough to die for you, enough to forgive you and to reconcile you to myself," and that can make all the difference in the bitter moments of life. But notice that Jesus went on to say this: "In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me."

What's he referring to now? Well, obviously he's referring to the fact that in a little while he'd be taken from them forcibly, terribly abused, put on a cross. He would die, be taken down from the cross, put in a tomb, hidden from sight. As far as they were concerned, that was it, everything had collapsed. "In a little while you will not see me," but then he says, "But in yet another little while you will see me again." Resurrection.

So Jesus is reminding the disciples, "I am going away back to the Father. It's all part of the grand plan. It's all the big loop. It is all Plan A. This is not Plan B because Plan A came unstuck. This is why I came. I came to die and rise again." The resurrection is terribly important, and we need to understand the good that accrues to us because of the resurrection. Let's get right to the point.

The weak point of Christianity is the resurrection. That's our Achilles' heel. The apostle Paul himself said if Christ is not risen, our faith is invalid. All you need to do to save my arguing time and your arguing time is knock a hole in the resurrection, disprove it, and we're finished. The church is a phony sham, an utter fake. Don't waste my time arguing, show me the resurrection isn't true.

If you do that, I promise you I will return to earning an honest living. It hasn't happened yet. Nobody's knocked a hole in the resurrection. They're not going to, either. It happened. And one of the benefits that accrues to you and accrues to me because of the resurrection is simply this: it gives us that underlying confidence that the death of Jesus was accepted.

On the cross, man did his worst. At the resurrection, God did his best. At the cross, God leaned out of heaven and said, "How dare you do that to my son? Is that what you think of him? Right. This is what I think of him," and he raised him from the dead. The death of Jesus by the resurrection is proven to be conclusively efficacious. "It's for your good," Jesus said, "that I'm going."

But in saying "I'm going," he's talking about the way he's going: the death, the tomb, the resurrection, but then the ascension. But the Lord Jesus then goes on quite specifically to underline the promise that has been made, the promise of the sending of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit could not be sent until Jesus had concluded his work of death, resurrection, and glorification. Once that was out of the way, the time had come for the Spirit.

The lovely song reminds us of this: "Thank you, oh my Father, for giving us your Son and leaving your Spirit till the work on Earth is done." This promised Holy Spirit, of course, was promised many, many times in the Old Testament. The prophet Isaiah—in fact, both of them predicted the coming of the Holy Spirit.

You remember on one occasion that they were talking about Israel being like a barren landscape with donkeys wandering all over it. But when the Holy Spirit would come, it would become a fertile field. Have you ever seen anybody's life that was like a barren landscape with donkeys wandering all over it? Don't apply it too meticulously at this point.

Have you ever seen those lives sort of become like fertile fields, where they begun to blossom, they begin to develop, they begin to show new graces and new aspirations? The Spirit was at work. The work of the Holy Spirit as he comes into the believer and the great army of the church, and they begin to take the word of God which the Spirit inspired, the great work of the Spirit is to be so proclaiming the Christian truth in word and in deed and in life and with lip that there is a powerful movement of the Spirit of God exposing to men and women's hearts the sinfulness of their own sin with a view to leading them to repentance.

That's what's supposed to be going on. He explains what he means by sin. He said the Spirit will convict of sin because they don't believe in me. What is the greatest sin? Some people say murder. Some people say rape. Some people say pride. Jesus said the greatest sin is unbelief, an unwillingness to accept the truth of God. An unwillingness to yield obedience to the truth of God, an unwillingness to claim the promises of God.

The essence of unbelief is, "I prefer what I think to what God says." The essence of unbelief is, "I prefer to go my way rather than his direction." The essence of unbelief is, "I much prefer independence of God to dependence upon God." The essence of unbelief is, "I choose not to obey God, I choose to please myself." When you've got that attitude, then depending on your circumstances, depending on your environment, depending on your heritage, then all manner of sins will be manifested.

But the root problem is unbelief. There needs to be a movement of God's Spirit and the proclamation of the gospel that will identify the unbelief or the sin in people's hearts because they need to be confronted with righteousness. The work of the Spirit of God is to convict people of sin and of righteousness. Righteousness is being right with God and living rightly, having been made right with God.

Now he says, "The Holy Spirit will convict you of righteousness because I'm going to the Father." I'm going to the Father is shorthand for the cross. He will convict you of righteousness because of the cross. You look at the cross, you see the only righteous man there ever was spreadeagled on a cross dying a criminal's death, and you ask why. He says, "I came to give my life a ransom for many."

On the cross, you'll see righteousness crucified. You'll see righteousness dying for unrighteousness in order that unrighteous people might be forgiven and made righteous. And the message of the gospel in the power of the Spirit must be proclaimed in order that men and women will be convicted of sin and righteousness and of judgment.

The justice of God requires that he must judge sin, as we've already seen. Why is this the case? Because the prince of this world has already been judged. There is a power of evil in the world, and that's the purpose of the Spirit's coming to the world: to convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. But that's not the only reason he comes.

The Holy Spirit comes also to minister to the believer. If he comes to bring a message of guilt to a hostile world, he comes to bring a message of grace to a grieving believer. Notice what he says here in verse 12: "I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear." Notice this word "bear." It means the ability to bear up under overwhelming burdens.

The Lord Jesus said, "I recognize the overwhelming burden that you are trying to bear at this moment." He says to his disciples, "No point talking to you now, you won't get the message." The good news is the Holy Spirit has come, and when the Holy Spirit comes, he comes in order that he might minister to us as we are able to bear different things.

So the question we need to ask ourselves is this: when I look at the way things are going, do I sense that the Spirit of God is making a barren landscape into a fertile field and a valley of bones into a mighty army? He is pouring out my Spirit into my life, and I have become part of that gracious, powerful, unequivocal convicting of the world of sin and righteousness and judgment with a view to leading them to repentance. Am I discovering in my own life the grace and the guidance and the encouragement that comes through the Paracletos? These words are for our good.

Jill Briscoe: Stuart, at the cross, God did his best. How should believing that change us?

Stuart Briscoe: It's well nigh impossible for us to begin to understand what actually went on at the cross. Our understanding is so limited. But what we have to recognize is this: that the cross was totally intentional; that whilst on the one hand, as Peter said on the day of Pentecost, wicked men took Jesus and crucified him, on the other hand, it was according to the determined purpose of God.

On the cross, Jesus was dying in accordance with all that God had planned from a bygone eternity. When God, therefore, sent his Son into the world in order that he might live and die and rise again and ascend back to the Father, God was putting into operation the means whereby the sins of the whole world could be dealt with and the possibility of mankind being reconciled to God was released on Earth. God was doing his best. To begin to understand that should fill our hearts with awe, with delight, and with a great desire to serve the God who did his best.

Jill Briscoe: Stuart, why is unbelief the greatest sin?

Stuart Briscoe: The problem with unbelief is not necessarily, as many people think, that we *can't* believe. The person in the Bible who's best known for being straightforward about his unbelief was Thomas. We call him Doubting Thomas. A lot of people seem to think that Thomas's problem was that he couldn't believe.

But if you read very carefully what he actually said, it was this. He said, "Unless I put my hand into his side and put my fingers into the holes in his hands," speaking of the crucified body and risen body of Jesus, "I will not believe." He didn't say, "I cannot believe." It was not a matter of his intellect being incapable of grasping what was being presented to him. It was a point where he was dictating terms to God.

He was saying, "Unless this, unless that, I absolutely, emphatically refuse to believe." Now, to refuse to believe is basically to say, "God, I am not prepared to accept what you are saying as being truthful and reliable." That's an insult to God.

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us today and here on *Telling the Truth*. We pray today's message has helped you to experience life in all its fullness through Jesus Christ. We have a heartfelt message we'd like to share with you from a listener named Chioma.

*Telling the Truth* is a spirit-filled ministry that enables me daily to rest in God's presence. I can't thank you enough for the work you're doing to support the body of Christ, the people that are yet to believe, and the world. May the Lord bless you all immensely.

Thank you for your kind words, Chioma. 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. Coming up tomorrow, Stuart once again is offering comfort for troubled hearts. If you've experienced the loss, Stuart will show you where you can find comfort in grief. That's tomorrow here on *Telling the Truth*.