Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): When you lose something valuable, what's the first thing you do? You begin to search for it. In today's message, Jill Briscoe shares the story of the prodigal son, sharing what it means for you to be found in Christ. You'll be encouraged, as Jill begins her message in just a moment.

We want to help you grow strong in your faith as you conquer temptation by sending you Triumph over Temptation, a powerful four-message series by Stuart and Jill Briscoe. We'll send you a copy of Triumph over Temptation as thanks for your gift today to help continue Stuart and Jill's legacy of helping others experience life in Christ.

So call today to request your copy of Triumph over Temptation at 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here's Jill with her message, Lost and Found.

Jill Briscoe: Probably the most favorite parable of everybody is the prodigal son. It's about God losing something very precious and sending his son to get it back. This is God's world and he wants it back.

It's a terrible thing to lose something valuable, like an engagement ring, an heirloom, a family photo, or a love letter. Of course, one of the worst things is to lose someone, like a child. Of course, there's infinite loss here. A sudden traffic accident snatches away the light of our eyes, or we watch cancer steal away a vibrant young life so full of promise. But there are more ways to lose a child than death, aren't there?

There's the death of a relationship caused by a destructive lifestyle, religious views that divide, or the rejection of the faith of our fathers—beliefs we hold dear for ourselves and for them. These losses, as Colonel Gariepy of the Salvation Army puts it, can cause emotional seismic activity that measures on the Richter scale of our hearts.

When distance grows between parents and children, the sense of loss is searing. Do you know that feeling? What child left home? Which one stayed put, yet is as far away from you as the other? Which pigsty are they in? God hates losing things, especially valuable things, like a sheep or a coin.

A coin being a piece of a woman's inheritance. She wore it in her hair, her dowry, her chance to be married. And when you lost a silver coin, like the woman in Jesus' story, you swept the house until you found it. In each of the little stories—the lost sheep and the shepherd who goes after it, the woman who finds her little silver coin, or the father who sees both sons far away from him—in each story, there is a father.

We know who he represents: the Father of lights, the Father of all things. And there is a loss, and there is a seeking God, and there is a saving, a finding, and a rejoicing. For there is joy in heaven among the angels over one sinner that repents.

The context of Luke 15 is Luke 14. It's always good to see what was happening. And when you look at what had just happened, you meet a group of people who are Jesus' enemies, who are his critics. They are made up of various people: Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, teachers of the law, and Sanhedrin people.

Tax collectors, sinners, and lepers are not in this group. This group is the group that has been around Jesus since Luke chapter 5, so we're 10 chapters on and nothing has changed. So up to the point of this parable, the Pharisees had hounded him. They had muttered. They had screamed at him. They had yelled at him. They had done all sorts of things to no avail.

And Jesus answered them. Sometimes he answered them with a parable, like now. Sometimes he answered them directly. Sometimes he gave it to them full in the face, like in Matthew 23. He's talking to his disciples and the Pharisees are listening to everything he's saying.

"Teachers of the law and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat, so you must obey them and do everything they tell you," says Jesus. "But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach." That phrase comes straight out of Matthew chapter 23.

"Woe to you," he says, "teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves don't enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to." Now that was the nub of the problem. "The kingdom's here," said Jesus. "Whosoever will may come. The lame, the sick, the leper, the widow, the common people. You can all come."

But, says Jesus in chapter 14, if you come to me, you must understand there is a cost. There's a cost for the common people and there's a cost for any Pharisee, Sadducee, or scribe who will be my disciple. And Jesus has just laid it out.

"Listen, if anyone comes to me and doesn't hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yet even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Read my lips," he says. Hate? Did Jesus really say this? Didn't he say we are to love everybody and especially our own?

It means "in comparison to." If the love you have for me isn't so much bigger that the love you have for others looks in comparison like hate, you cannot be my disciple. It's another way of saying, "Love me with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength."

Examine yourselves, disciples, all you that would follow me, and take up your cross. Because if you don't take up your cross, he says again, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple. Measure yourself. I measured myself by that as I prepared this talk.

How do we know if we've given up everything to become a Christian or to become a disciple? Only if you're tested, I guess. Mother Teresa said you cannot say Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you've got.

I cannot stand here and say to you Jesus is all I need because I've never been down to the pigsty. I've never been totally out. As far as I know my heart, I can say, "Lord, I hope it's true, that my love for you in comparison to the love I have for those I love most supersedes. Lord, you know my heart."

Guest (Male): Lost and Found. This is Telling the Truth, and today Jill Briscoe shares the story of the prodigal son from Luke 15, talking about the joy God has in finding his lost children. Temptation is nothing new. It's been around since the dawn of mankind, and it's not going anywhere as long as we're on this earth.

You'll face temptation every day, and sometimes moment by moment. So we want to send you a special resource to help you stand strong in God's word when temptation does come along. It's a four-message series from Stuart and Jill Briscoe called Triumph over Temptation.

They created it to help you not only conquer temptation but to grow stronger in your faith as you do. This series will give you powerful biblical tools to defeat sinful desires and encourage you with the truth that every temptation to do wrong is also an opportunity to do right.

We'll send you Triumph over Temptation as our thanks for your gift today to help keep sharing the life-changing truth of God's word with people across the globe through the resources and teaching of Telling the Truth. So call today to request your copy of this resource at 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Let's go back now to Jill with her message.

Jill Briscoe: Have you ever knelt in front of Jesus and said, "What do you see? Have you ever dared to say, "Tell me"? Jesus has just told a parable of a great banquet for the important people, but none of them want to come.

So the host says to go into the highways and byways and bring in the riffraff, the scum of the earth, the sinners and the tax collectors, that my house may be full. The Pharisees have just heard it. Then they hear him saying that if you're going to follow him, you need to give up everything and follow him, and then you can come into the feast.

The tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear, but the Pharisees and teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." They haven't moved in 10 chapters, folks. It's still getting to them.

Jesus told them this parable, and then he tells the sheep parable, and then he tells the woman bit, and then he talks about the parable of the lost son. Don't tell me they didn't get it. Don't tell me they didn't see the common people in the picture of the younger son, the prodigal who ends up in the pigsty.

And don't tell me they didn't see the picture of themselves in the elder son. As Jesus tells the story, note that the father wanted both the sons to come home. Have you ever thought, were there any Pharisees or Sadducees who hated Jesus and were after his blood? Did any of them come to Christ? Did any of them enter the kingdom? Yes, they did!

Nicodemus, the teacher of the Jews. Yes, in secret. He comes at night. "Are you really the one who should come? Are you God? Are you really God? Are you the Messiah?" Nicodemus. Joseph of Arimathea, ruler of a synagogue, a wealthy man.

He's the one who is a friend of Pilate's, they say. He's the one that went to Pilate and said to give him his body. And Nicodemus joins him. They carry a dead body, which makes them unclean and unfit to even go to the Passover feast the next day. They defile themselves. Joseph gives his tomb, but in secret for fear of the Jews.

What about the Sadducees? Did any Sadducees come to Christ when Jesus offered "whosoever will may come"? Yes. There's a wonderful incident where the Sadducees, who didn't believe in the resurrection, were arguing and testing Jesus.

They talked about a man who had a wife, and then he had another wife and another wife, and they all die. They asked whose wife he would have in the resurrection. Jesus takes that whole thing, turns it around, ties them up in knots, and throws it back at them.

Some of the Sadducees and teachers of the law that were listening said, "Well said, Teacher." He got them. Well, he got us. It says that many of the Sadducees and the leaders began to believe, but secretly in case they were put out of the synagogue. It took Pentecost.

It took Pentecost before the leaders and all these people came in groups and droves into the kingdom. But in the Gospels, there was one here and one there. I don't think any priests came to Christ before Pentecost, but after Christ, they did. Everyone may come. The younger brother and the older brother, the offer is the same.

So what about the younger brother? What happened to him? The younger brother and the older brother came to the father one day. The older brother heard that something was happening of great importance. He made sure he was in the room because he got this rumor that his younger brother was going to get some money from the old man.

The younger brother said, "Give me." That's his language. If you're a younger brother, that's your language. "Give me, give me, give me, God." And God gives you and you take it all, and then he turned it into cash and took off for the pigsty.

He didn't intend to take off for the pigsty, of course. He intended to take off for what he'd always wanted to do but had been hampered by being a younger son and not expected to behave in those ways. The older brother listened. And the father divided it to them.

The older brother got two-thirds and the younger brother got one-third. He turned it into cash and took off. And the older brother stayed. Maybe that was the point he took off, too. Both ended up in a pigsty of sorts.

One was a promiscuous pigsty, the other was the pew, the prejudice, the hypocritical life of looking like a son and living like the devil inside. Both were a pigsty of sorts. The younger son went fine while his fair-weather friends were there.

But then there came a day where the actions that led to consequences came to an end. Our actions are free. You can act how you like. Go to the far country, waste your life and your privilege with riotous, rebellious living. Spend everything you've got. You're perfectly free to do it, but you're not perfectly free to choose the consequence of those actions. It ends you in a pigsty.

Added to that are the circumstances of life. Doesn't that happen? Just when you're down, there's a famine. Just when you're down, there's a war. Just when you're down, your husband walks out on you. Just when you're down, a child dies.

The famine came and he began to be in want. He'd never really got that far down. And that's when he came to his senses. Unfortunately, sometimes when you're the younger son, that's what it's going to take. You have to wait until you're spent, until you're sitting in a pigsty.

And he came to himself. He started to have a little talk with self. "Self, what are you doing in this muck and mire? I don't need to be here. I could go back to my father and cast myself on his mercy and grace. I'll say I've sinned against heaven and against you, Father. I'm not worthy to be called your son. Make me a slave."

That's what he does. He gets up and takes the first step home, and the angels in heaven say, "Look, he's coming home!" There's rejoicing in heaven. He's coming home. What do you do when you pray for your prodigal?

Do you spend all the time saying why? Why did he end up in the pigsty? Why did it happen? Why didn't you send someone? Why didn't you intervene? I brought him up right and did the best I could. Why did you let those friends take him into the muck and the mire?

Don't waste your time saying why. Stay up there long enough to ask God for faith to start saying when. Father stood and stands and says, "I expect the people my Spirit is working with in answer to your prayers to come home." Ask him for faith.

I had two parents come up to me last night and say, "We have stood on the rooftop and prayed for our two children for two decades. And one of them's coming home." Sometimes we nearly gave up. Sometimes all we could do was say, "Why, why, why?" And then God turned it into when. We'll watch, we'll pray, we'll believe, and we'll do the Father's work. It's hard. Miracles take time, though.

Guest (Male): Jill Briscoe on today's Telling the Truth. She's coming right back to answer a question about the joy God has when he finds his lost children. We all struggle at times with sinful desires and selfish motives.

When you do, you must remember that every temptation to do wrong is also an opportunity to do right. That's the empowering truth Stuart and Jill Briscoe wanted to help you grasp when they created their four-message series Triumph over Temptation. This series will equip you with powerful biblical tools to help you triumph over temptation and grow your faith in the process.

Triumph over Temptation is our thanks for your gift to keep sharing the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth with so many people around the world. Generous friends like you keep broadcasts like this one going, reaching others with God's healing love so they can experience life in Christ and find strength to carry on with courage.

So if you haven't given before, consider a gift today to help keep God's word going out around the world to you and many others. Remember to request your copy of Triumph over Temptation when you call and give. Just call 1-800-889-5388. 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org. Let's go back now to Jill to wrap up today's message.

Jill Briscoe: Go out and find some acorns, folks. Fill your pockets with them. Give them to people and say that miracles take time. Look at the oak tree. It all comes from this little tiny acorn.

There's the miracle of seeing a child come back to their faith, a child finding their way to forgiveness, or a child coming out of their coldness and hardness of heart. The older brother is the one who's never strayed from Sunday school. I've just been reading a book that has really worried me this week.

It's called Already Gone. It's a system of statistics that people that work with youth have compiled. They're talking about junior high kids and senior high kids in church. This book says they have done research, and really it's talking about the older son.

He looks like an older son, he's never ended up in the pigsty, and he's been a good little boy or girl. He's been through youth group, he's even been on mission trips, and he's done the Father's work. But he's gone.

It isn't actually in college where they lose their faith. They're already gone. We've had kids come in and say, "I was gone. I need to come home." The older brother was mad with the younger brother. Why was he mad?

Because he'd been a good boy. His sister or brother had been a loser, had a baby out of wedlock, or been on drugs. They get converted and they come back to church and give their testimony and everybody says yay and has a party.

"And I've been here slaving. I have no relationship with my father. He's of no interest to me. There's no joy in coming to church. There's no joy in doing church stuff." Not in here. The older brother.

As surely as the father ran down the road—incidentally older men in the East never run, it's not dignified—he ran. He didn't make him crawl, remember. He went out to the older brother too. He said, "You need to come home. Please come in. It's right."

The kingdom's open to the Pharisee and the Sadducee. The kingdom is open to all the people that have tried so hard to keep the rules and done a pretty good job. But it didn't do anything in the heart, you see. Come into the joy. Come into the party.

Come into your brother. Listen to his language. "This son of yours." No. "This brother of yours." You've got siblings? Siblings that are divided and need to forgive each other? Only God can do that work. Do you know what it is to climb the stairs and ask for the Father's heart? There's a cost to it, of course.

Jesus just mentioned it. It's got to come before everything else. Before your family. Before your job. So where are you in the story? Are you a prodigal? Are you in the pew and nobody knows how far away you are from God?

Guest (Male): Powerful words we need to hear as believers. Before we go, we want to remind you, when you give to continue Stuart and Jill's legacy of sharing God's word through Telling the Truth broadcasts like this one, we'll say thanks with the Briscoes' four-message series, Triumph over Temptation.

These encouraging messages will help you defeat temptation and grow in your faith as you do. So please request your copy when you call 1-800-889-5388. 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org. Be sure to come back next time as Stuart and Jill share more life-changing truth from God's word. Tune in and experience life right here on Telling the Truth.