Take Your Place - Part 1

Today on Bold Steps Weekend, discover how to take your place. Starting a new series based on the book of Ephesians, Mark will outline some important and practical steps to taking your place in life.

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:01):
Discover how to take your place today on Bold Steps
Weekend with Mark Jobe.

S2 (00:06):
I believe that at some times in our life we
have a lot but don't know how much we have.
Sometimes we live like paupers when in reality we're children
of the Most High King.

S1 (00:34):
Welcome to Bold Steps Weekend with Mark Jobe, senior pastor
of New Life Community Church in Chicago and president of
Moody Bible Institute. I'm Wayne Shepherd, and I'm excited today
because we are starting a new series based on the
book of Ephesians. And Mark, you're going to outline some
important and practical steps we need to take if we
want to maximize sharing our faith.

S2 (00:53):
That's right Wayne. And again, let me just say how
excited I am to jump in the book of Ephesians
with you. You are going to be thrilled because this
is a powerful, powerful book. And really, at the core,
Paul starts out by telling us, hey, so many of
us don't understand who we really are, so we need

(01:16):
to take our place because we're living as you'll see
from this message, we're living sometimes in poverty when really
we're rich. And I'm not talking about finances, I'm talking
about spiritually.

S1 (01:27):
We get it. Let's turn to Ephesians now and get started.
Our message series. When you believe everything changes. Here's Mark Jobe.

S2 (01:37):
Oftentimes you are much richer. You have much more than
what you know you have. But oftentimes we don't know
how to access what we already have. I heard of
a story a little while back of a woman by
the name of Hetty Green. Hetty Green was known as

(01:58):
America's greatest miser. She ate cold oatmeal because it cost
too much to heat it up. Her son had to
have his leg amputated because she wanted. She waited too
long for medical attention while she was looking for a
free clinic. She even died from a ruptured blood vessel

(02:22):
in her brain while arguing about the benefits of skimmed milk.
Was she crazy? Maybe. Eccentric? Without a doubt. But one
thing was for sure she wasn't poor. When Hetty Green died,
she left an estate that was valued at over $100 million.

(02:50):
You mean here's a woman that doesn't want to heat
her oatmeal because she wants to conserve, yet she's got
$100 Million dollars. She's living like a pauper, when in
reality she has the ability to live like a queen.

(03:11):
I believe oftentimes I run into believers that way. Believers
in Jesus Christ that have the capacity to live at
a level much higher than what they're living at, but
because they're not sure how to access what they have,
they live almost like paupers. So I'm going to ask
you to take your Bibles and turn to Ephesians chapter one.

(03:35):
Now there's a couple of things I want to tell
you about before we jump into actually reading this passage.
I want you to understand a little bit about Ephesians. And, um,
I want you to understand a little bit of why
it was written and how it was written. Have you
noticed that? Well, first of all, Ephesians was written by

(03:57):
the Apostle Paul. If you look at Ephesians chapter one,
verse one, it says, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus,
by the will of God to the saints in Ephesus,
the faithful in Christ Jesus. Well, Paul is the author

(04:18):
of the book of Ephesians, but was Paul one of
the 12 apostles? It's a trick question. Many people think
that Paul was actually one of the 12 apostles, but
he was not. Paul was not one of the 12
disciples that walked with Jesus that we normally consider an apostle.
Paul was actually anti-Christian. A persecutor of the church he

(04:45):
hated followers of of Jesus. In fact, it was the
Apostle Paul who, before he became known as the Apostle Paul,
was known as Saul. It was the Apostle Also Paul
that gave the gave the orders to approve the first

(05:06):
martyr of the Christian church, who was Stephen. And they
stoned him, and Paul was there encouraging them to stone him.
He hated Christians so much that he was on a
mission to eliminate and imprison as many Christians as he could,
and he took a trip on the way to Damascus

(05:28):
to look for Christians in a town called Damascus. And
as he was on his way, he had an encounter
that would radically change his destiny in his life. Sometimes
Jesus will do that to you. And on his road
to Damascus, he had an encounter with Jesus that threw

(05:50):
him off his horse. He heard the voice of Jesus saying, Paul, Paul,
why do you persecute me? And after this encounter with Jesus,
he was left blind, stunned, confused. He went to the
town of Damascus and a believer prayed over him and

(06:10):
explained the ways of God. And he was so utterly
converted that from that day on he began to preach
the gospel just as fervently as he had opposed the
gospel of Jesus. Oh, I don't know. I'm assuming that
there were some of you in this auditorium that at
one time were very anti-Christian. Were some of you? Anybody

(06:35):
remember the day that you'd cuss Christians out, get that
Bible away, get that blankety blank Bible away from me, huh?
You can admit it. And then finally, when you came
to Christ, just as strong as you were against, you
became pro what Jesus has done in your life. And

(06:56):
so it was the Apostle Paul that is writing this
letter to the Ephesians. Now where did we get the title? Ephesians? Well,
basically a lot of the books of the Bible are
named after the cities that the letter was written to.
For example, the city of Thessalonica is where the Thessalonians lived.

(07:19):
And so we have the book in the New Testament
called Thessalonians. Colossae is a city where the Colossians lived.
And so we have a book in the Bible called Colossians.
Philippi was where the Philippians lived. And we have a
book in the Bible called Philippians because it was written

(07:41):
towards the Philippians. If Paul were to write a letter
to Chicago, the church in Chicago, then the letter would
be called Chicagoans, and we would turn to the letter
called Chicagoans, and it would be the letter that was
written to the church that lives in Chicago. So Ephesus

(08:03):
was a city. I've been to Ephesus. The ancient town
of Ephesus is currently located in Turkey. In those days
it was called Asia minor. And Ephesus is where the
Ephesians lived. And so Paul wrote a letter to the Ephesians.
And the first time that Paul ever visited Ephesus is

(08:27):
chronicled in acts chapter 18. He went to Ephesus with
a couple, a ministry couple called Priscilla and Aquila. And
he went to this city, a big metropolitan city, and
he began to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. There

(08:49):
Paul had to move on to Jerusalem. And so he
left Akilah and Priscilla to talk to people about Jesus
while they were talking to people about Jesus. And by
the way, can I just interject here. There's something very
powerful about ministering together as a couple. You see me

(09:09):
here up front on a regular basis. Because I'm the teacher. Preacher.
But I want you to know that since day one,
since the very first day that I came to this church,
my wife has been as involved in ministry as I have.
Don't ask her to teach. Don't ask her to preach
because she doesn't like to do that. But she has

(09:32):
been as involved as or more committed than I have
been from day one. And we've been here almost 25 years.
And there's something really powerful to minister as a couple.
And she's actually sitting right here. Usually she's in Sunday school.
Good to see you, hon. In fact, I remember when

(09:54):
I was dating my wife, uh, she wasn't my wife
when I was dating her, but when I started dating, um,
we were actually leading a Bible study. And I remember
thinking to myself, I don't know if a relationship is
going to be a distraction or if it's going to

(10:14):
really help me out. And I remember we were I
was leading a Bible study by 71st in Springfield near
Marquette Park. And I was still in college at the
time and leading this Bible study. And, uh, d uh,
started coming to that Bible study, and I realized that

(10:35):
she had this way with working with other women and
and being involved and calling and ministering. And it's the
first time the light came on in my head and said,
I thought to myself, you know what? We make one
dynamic team. I like this, I like this. I tell

(10:58):
people that are in ministry or trying to do something
for God. There is no neutral. There's no neutral spouse.
A spouse can either be a hindrance and liability or
incredible asset in whatever you're pursuing. And when two people
come together with one vision and decide in a united

(11:22):
way to say, we're going to do something for God,
watch out, because incredible things can happen. But I've seen
people in ministry spiral downward because one person feels called
to ministry and the other person doesn't like it or
doesn't want it. And I've seen those places take. And

(11:43):
so I believe there's something really powerful about ministering together
as a couple. Well, this couple, Akhil and Priscilla, were
ministering together in, in the, in the town of Ephesus.
And as they were telling people about Jesus in Ephesus,
another fellow by the name of Apollos came. And Apollos

(12:04):
was a very good speaker and orator, and knew about
the things of God. And he began to attract a
big crowd. And when a killer and Priscilla heard of
what he was doing, they met up with Apollos. And
they realized that although Apollos was very good at speaking,
he only had half the message. Because Apollos had been

(12:26):
converted under John the Baptizer, but he had never been
under the instructions of Jesus. And so when Paul came
back to Ephesus, he found himself with a group of believers.
And he began to talk to this group of believers.
And he asked them about the Holy Spirit. And they said,

(12:49):
we don't even know there is a Holy Spirit, because
they had not been taught the full gospel. And it
was at that time that the Apostle Paul prayed over them,
put hands on them, and ask that they would receive
the power of the Holy Spirit in their life. At
that time, incredible things began to happen in the town
of Ephesus. The Bible tells us that so many people

(13:12):
began to come to Christ and get saved and give
their life to God. Many of them were involved in
witchcraft and sorcery, and when they came to Christ, they
repented of their witchcraft, their sorcery, their occult practices. They
brought their books, their paraphernalia, their, uh, their scripts and

(13:35):
everything they use in their sorcery and created these big
mounds of things that they were getting rid of. And
they had a huge bonfire to burn all of the
pagan elements that they used to worship and follow. Here's
the thing I want you to remember. You cannot have
a conversion experience and choose to follow Christ without leaving

(14:00):
certain things behind.

S1 (14:07):
You're listening to Bold Steps Weekend, a message from Mark
Jobe titled Take Your Place. We'll continue this message in
a moment. And remember, you can always catch up on
these lessons anytime by going to our website. Bold Steps.
If you'd like to replay or share today's lesson, you
can also do that there. Or listen and share the
message directly from your smart device by subscribing to our podcast.

(14:29):
Search for Bold Steps Weekend with doctor Mark Jobe. While
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The Bold Steps Minute and Our Spanish Minute Apostles Addthis.
You'll find them conveniently located inside your podcast app. Now
let's return to Mark's message titled Take Your Place.

S2 (14:53):
When God gets Ahold of someone, you don't stay the same.
You start getting rid of things. Shedding things. I think
all of us need a bonfire in our life. Hello. Hey, you!
Come to Christ, men. There may need to be a

(15:15):
bonfire while you pull out those Playboy magazines and other
such things and get rid of it. Because what you
start realizing is that this is incompatible with my new
life in Christ. You cannot add Christ to your life
and continue with all the old stuff. There are certain
things that when Christ comes in, you leave behind that.

(15:37):
That's called conversion. And they had this huge bonfire experience,
and God began to work in such miraculous ways that
it was at this time that the Bible tells us
that even the handkerchief that came from Paul and touched
people was healing people from physical diseases, such as the

(15:58):
anointing and the power of God upon Ephesus at that time.
There are times when God works in some miraculous, powerful
ways supernaturally that we cannot explain when God is seeking
to do something. It is also at that time that
there was a major riot, because anytime the church progresses,

(16:20):
there will always be opposition. Count on it. When God
begins to do something, there will always be opposition to
what God is seeking to do. This time, the opposition
came via the unions of the city of Ephesus. Making

(16:41):
idols and pagan gods was a big business. In the
days of Ephesus, there were hundreds of gods that existed.
There was the god of fertility, and there was the
god of vengeance. There was the god of the shoemakers
and the god of the sailors. There was the god
of the farmers, and the God of the multitude of

(17:04):
things of gods, and every person. If you went into
their house in those days in Ephesus, everybody would have
their little statues, the gods that they would pray to,
and they were sort of their sponsoring God, so to speak.
And if you walk down the streets of Ephesus, they
were statues of different gods that would line the streets

(17:25):
of Ephesus. And and the tradesmen made much of their
money by building these statues out of wood and and
out of rock and out of iron. And they would
build these statues, and it was a big money business,
and people would buy their statues and dedicate their statues.
When people started coming to Christ, the union trades workers

(17:50):
began to realize Christianity has no God statues. They have
an invisible God, that they worship, an invisible God that
they worship, that claims that he rules heaven and earth.
And they began to realize that if Christianity spreads, we

(18:14):
will lose our business. No one will buy statues anymore.
We'll lose tens of thousands of dollars and go out
of business. So they organized a riot. How many of
you know that sometimes the opposition of Christianity is not
just on religious views. Sometimes it can be political, racist

(18:37):
and economic. Hello. Don't be naive into thinking that opposition
will just come. Out of spiritual opposition.

S1 (18:59):
Well, we're just getting started with our message from Mark
Jobe called take your place here on Bold Steps Weekend.
Make plans to join us for part two next time,
and you can learn more about Mark and his ministry
when you visit us at Bold Steps. Org on our
home page. You'll also see that we're offering a brand
new bold step gift, one that really speaks to the
moms and dads of young boys. It's a book called

(19:20):
Lies Boys Believe, written by two people who join us
now Jason and Aaron Davis Wayne.

S2 (19:26):
We have Jason and Aaron. They're authors. They are a
married couple, and they have written a book called Lies
Boys Believe and the Epic Quest for truth. And great
to have you in the studio with us. And one
of the lies you address in this book is that
following Jesus is boring. And I think that's, well, that's

(19:49):
an important lie. Jesus is anything but boring, isn't it?
So tell me why you think boys are susceptible to
this particular deception?

S3 (19:58):
Well, a lot of times when boys are introduced to
to faith and to Jesus, it involves a lot of
sitting still listening to a Bible story. If there is
an activity, a lot of times at least me growing up,
it was like a flannel board with the story up there. And, uh.

S1 (20:18):
And Moses kept falling off the flannel board in my life. Yeah, right.

S3 (20:21):
That's right. And, uh, if if our modern boys are
anything like I was, I had a real hard time appreciating, um,
the stories when I had to sit still and be
forced to hold my hands in my lap and be
super well behaved. But what we what we find in

(20:42):
Scripture is that the life of Jesus was anything but boring. Uh,
the things that boys yearn for in their innermost parts
is the adventure of following a leader and leading other men.
And that's exactly what we see in in The True
Stories of Jesus, where he, uh, he went fishing and

(21:06):
he was on adventure all the time. He was, uh,
challenging people and encouraging them and healing them. And, uh,
the people who followed Jesus, the disciples were anything but
boring men. Um, they were very real, very active, very engaged.
There were arguments. There were lots of challenges in their lives.

(21:27):
And that's really part of the adventure that we kind of,
I don't know, whitewash out of Jesus. A lot of
times when we're telling Bible stories to our young men,
following him is anything but boring.

S1 (21:39):
Aaron, I don't know about your four boys, but sometimes
it can be hard to get boys to read. And
I know this book is for parents to use with
their boys. You had that in mind as you wrote
and designed this book, right?

S4 (21:49):
Yeah. It's different. There's actually several books in the live
series lies. Women Believe lies, men Believe lies, Girls believe,
which you mentioned. And this book is very different from
the format of those. And yeah, our boys did not
love to read. I remember being a little girl and
if I had a free afternoon, I would spend it
with a book. That's not how my boys operate. They
want to be outside playing swords with sticks. So how

(22:10):
do we get them in the content? So we were
really intentional. It's a fiction book. The others are not.
They're just straight trade books. And it follows a dad
and his sons on this big adventure. It actually models
a trip that Jason and our boys have taken. They
go out west and they encounter all kinds of excitement. Um,
and there's also things that happen in the book. They're

(22:30):
going to turn the book all different ways as they're
reading it. They're going to there's things they're supposed to
do with the corners of the book. There's quests they
do within the book. There's cryptograms where they're trying to
solve riddles, and none of that is an attempt to
bait and switch them into the Bible. As Jason said,
we think the Bible is the most exciting book in
the world. And so this is to be in parallel

(22:50):
with the Bible. And what we've heard from parents and
boys over and over again is my boy couldn't put
it down, and he hasn't done that with any other book.
And that's because we intentionally invite them into this story
with these other men and boys that are people they're
going to want to be like. And they're encountering truth
all along the way. And I actually think that models

(23:11):
life pretty well. Life is an adventure, and we are
encountering challenges, and Jesus is with us every step. And so, um,
we we were excited to give it to boys in
a format that we thought they would love, and our
boys loved it. They're fiction readers. Our boys are. We
toss a nonfiction book at them, they might roll their
eyes and they might or might not read it, but

(23:31):
a great fiction story with an epic adventure, they're going
to read it. So we hope this book is that. Yeah.

S2 (23:37):
That's great. Well, there you have it. Jason and Aaron
have written this book specifically for 6 to 12 year
old boys. So if you are a grandparent, a parent,
if you know someone that's raising boys in that category, listen,
this is the book to get into their hands as
soon as possible.

S1 (23:57):
We'll be happy to send you a copy of this
bold step gift today. When you give a gift of
any amount to support bold steps. Just give us a
call at 800 Moody or give online at Bold Steps.
You can also send your gift and request the book
Lies Boys Believe by writing to us in the mail.
Simply address your letter to Bold Steps. 820 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago,

(24:20):
Illinois 606 ten. And if you've come to value the bold,
Bible based teaching of this program, but you're not yet
part of the team, I want to invite you to
become a bold partner today. It's easy to sign up
and become an official monthly partner by going online to
Bold Steps. Org or give us a call at 800.

(24:42):
And then a final question for you today. Who are
you really? When someone asks, tell me about yourself. What
do you say? Well, the world often assigns us labels
as followers of King Jesus. We've been given a brand
new identity. That's why we're thrilled to offer you more
than a label. Discovering who you are in Christ. A
brand new 15 day devotional from the desk of doctor

(25:03):
Mark Jobe. In this powerful new resource, Mark takes you
on a journey through God's Word to reveal the truth
about your identity in Christ. Through this devotional, you'll uncover
who God created you to be, why your identity matters,
and how to live out your true purpose and calling.
This exclusive new resource is available to you today in
addition to our bold step gift with your donation of

(25:25):
any size to support the ministry. So whether it's a
single donation or a faithful investment as a bold partner,
request your copy of More Than a Label when you
give today at Boldsystems.org. I'm Wayne Shepherd, thanks for joining us.
Be sure to come back next weekend when Mark continues
the series called When You Believe Everything Changes. It's coming

(25:46):
up next time on Bold Steps Weekend with Mark Jones.
Bold steps is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry
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