The Secret to Freedom and Confidence - Part 1

Today on Bold Steps Weekend with Mark Jobe, you'll discover what the apostle Paul meant when he talked about the mystery of Christ. It's the secret to Freedom and Confidence, and discovering your mission in life.

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Episode Transcript

S1 (00:00):
Today on Bold Steps Weekend with Mark Jobe, we're discovering
what the apostle Paul meant when he talked about the
mystery of Christ.

S2 (00:08):
All of you here have gifts of God, God's given gifts.
God gives that person one gift, that person, someone else
a gift. But we all have supernatural gifts given to
us by God that are graces that God has put
onto our life, that equip us for the mission that
God has called us to accomplish.

S1 (00:39):
Welcome to Bold Steps Weekend with Mark Jobe. Mark is
senior pastor of New Life Community Church and president of
Moody Bible Institute, both in Chicago. And I'm Wayne Shepherd. Well,
we all know people who are great at keeping secrets.
And then there are others. Not so much. Mark, where
do you fall on that scale?

S2 (00:57):
I'm a great secret.

S3 (00:59):
Are you actually, Really? You have to torture it out
of me to get me. But, you know, my kids
growing up weren't that good. My wife would plan a
surprise birthday party or something special, and she would tell
my kids, don't tell dad. Invariably, they would come running
to the door and say, hey, dad, we have a

(01:20):
secret we can't tell you. And it wouldn't take much
to get it out of them. I like really? Okay. Well, what?
And they would just want to blurt it out. Okay, dad.
And they would tell me. That's cool. Well, if he's
in chapter three talks about the mystery, the secret of
the gospel and how it was revealed to us. And
I think this is a very, very compelling, powerful passage.

S1 (01:41):
It is indeed Ephesians chapter three today from our series.
When you believe everything Changes. Here's Mark Jobe.

S2 (01:50):
Here's what I believe. I believe that everybody's called everybody.
Some people think that there are certain certain people that
are called and others that are not called. And so
they sort of have two categories of people. These are
the called people and these are the non called people.

(02:11):
I happen to believe that everybody's called. Now not everybody
responds to their call. Not everybody understands their call. Not
everybody engages in their call. But I happen to believe
that everybody in this room, you have been called, you
have a calling on your life, a specific, unique, custom

(02:34):
made mission that God is, has, has engineered for you
and called you to. And Paul is talking about really
his mission. And in verse one of Ephesians chapter three,
he says, for this reason I, Paul, the prisoner of

(02:54):
Christ Jesus, for the sake of you Gentiles. Now he
uses a very interesting, Steam introduction there. He says, I, Paul,
the prisoner of Christ Jesus, the prisoner of Christ Jesus. Well,
Paul happened to be in house arrest. Don't raise your
hand if you've been in house arrest here, but I'm

(03:15):
sure some of you have. And nowadays, it's not the
house arrest in the days of Paul. Nowadays, they put
a little ankle bracelet on you, and they can track
whether you leave the house or not. In the days
of Paul, there were no ankle bracelets. So he was
in a house guarded by some guards. He was not

(03:36):
in a physical prison. He was in the equivalent of
26 and Cal Cook County, because really, Cook County is
a jail, and the jail is there for you to
await sentencing or await trial. And in essence, Paul was
awaiting trial in front of the Roman emperor. But it

(03:57):
would take sometimes months and even sometimes years to come
before the Emperor because, uh. Hey, that that's. There's a
long wait there. Paul was in house arrest, and he
says this. He says I'm a prisoner of Christ Jesus
for the sake of you Gentiles. The reason that Paul

(04:21):
was in house arrest was because he had a mission
in his life. And his mission, his particular mission and vision,
had led him to preach a message that was unpopular
in Jerusalem, and therefore they had arrested him and were
going to put him to death. But he appealed to Caesar.

(04:44):
And now, because he was following his mission and his
calling in life, he's in prison. Well, let me just
start by saying this. Sometimes we feel that if we're
doing the work of God and following the mission of God,
that everything's going to be easy, but we feel that

(05:05):
doors are going to pop open in front of us,
that if there's any obstacles, God's going to send lightning
bolts to just fumigate him out of our way. That
the Red sea is going to be parting open, that
there's going to be a smell of roses that's going
to lead us to the path of God, and that
we're always going to be happy, energized, and never have obstacles. Not.

(05:29):
That's really not the way it works. Paul was following
his mission and his call, and he ended up in prison.
Sometimes your call, your mission will have a heavy price
tag on it. And it doesn't mean just because you're
going through a hard time, it doesn't mean that you're

(05:50):
on the wrong track. Sometimes God's mission and his call
will lead us to hard times. Now, in order to
understand the call of God on your life, there's four
things you really need to understand about pursuing with boldness
and confidence the mission that God has for you. I've

(06:14):
summarized them into four words. The first word is calling. Calling.
Look at what it tells us. In verse two. Paul says,
surely you have heard about the administration of God's grace
that was given to me for you. If you're taking notes,
write this word calling down. Uh, calling has to do

(06:38):
with the gift that drives us to our mission. Paul says, hey,
I'm sure you've heard by now about the. He says
the administration of God's grace, that word administration, if you
look it up in the Greek, means a special stewardship

(06:59):
or special assignment. I like that word special assignment. So
Paul says, surely you've heard about my special assignment of
God's grace that was given to me for you. So
Paul is admitting that he has a special assignment and

(07:19):
that that special assignment was given to him by God's grace. Now,
here's what I want you to understand. The word grace
in the New Testament Greek is carrots. It's where we
get our English word charisma from. When you say this

(07:42):
person is charismatic, it literally means this person is grace filled.
This person is full of grace favor. We use it
in the context of not not theologically charismatic, but personality charismatic.
When you say that person's charismatic, it means they have

(08:02):
an attraction power, that people are drawn to them, that
that they have a charisma about them that draws people
to them. They have grace or favor upon their lives.
Paul says, I have a special assignment that I have
been called to, and it's been given to me by
God's grace, God's favor. Here's the thing that you need

(08:29):
to understand about callings and missions in life. Your calling
and your mission in life is a gift of God
to you. It's a grace of God, a gift of God.
It has nothing to do with you earning it, deserving it,
marrying it. It has nothing to do with your history background,
with your educational background. It has nothing to do with

(08:53):
your personality. It has nothing to do with your talents.
It has everything to do with God choosing simply, merely
out of the goodness of his heart, out of the
overflowing of his purposes. Just to give you a grace
really important that you understand this. Because if you don't

(09:14):
understand the grace of God, you will make a lot
of wrong assumptions. For example, do you realize that when
you are given a gift from God, a grace from God,
that even if you are slipping away from God spiritually,

(09:40):
you can still use that gift because it doesn't depend
on whether you are good or bad? A gift is
a gift. You don't merit it. You don't deserve it.
You have it. When you're doing well, you still have
it when you're doing bad because it's a gift of God.
Are you tracking with me? Let me explain it in

(10:01):
a way that you may understand. A couple of years ago,
I ran into a pastor that I didn't know very well,
but I had met him before. He was out of
the ministry. He had pastored a church of seven, 800 people,
a church that was well known, doing a lot of things,
seeming to lead a lot of people to Christ. When

(10:22):
I when I asked him what happened, he basically told
me his story. He said that he had been a
pastor for a long time, had a had a master's degree,
a doctorate degree, uh, was uh, married, had a couple
of kids, but there was a crack in his life.

(10:43):
A moral crack in his life. And it started with
internet pornography. He got into internet pornography. It led to
exploring websites, uh, where he was getting on, uh, chat
rooms with married women. It went on to getting on
chat rooms with married women, to hooking up with married

(11:04):
women in cafes, and then actually going to hotel rooms
with these married women. And so over a period of
a year, this pastor that pastored a pretty large church,
doing a lot of ministry, was involved with over a
dozen women. Other married, unhappy married women, was involved with
a dozen women over a period of a year while

(11:25):
he was still pastoring the church and get up on
Sunday morning and teach and preach. And people were still
coming to Christ, and people would approach him afterwards and say, well,
that word was for me. It really touched me. I
needed to hear that they were having the services, people

(11:48):
were getting saved and people were getting baptized. And yet
on Friday night he was in some hotel room with
a married woman having sex. I'm like, how in the
world could that be? I mean, hold on. Was he pretending?
Was it a fake? No. Let me tell you what
it is. The gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.

(12:12):
That means that when God gives you a gift, you
can use that gift. Even if spiritually you're not doing well,
you can still use a gift, and that gift can operate,
and that gifts can still function. And that gift can
still bless people, even when your character is not measuring

(12:33):
up to the administration of that gift. Are you tracking
with me?

S1 (12:42):
You're listening to pastor Mark Jobe, and this is Bold
Steps Weekend. We're taking a quick break right now, but
please stay with us. If you're just joining us, remember,
you can always catch up online at Bold Steps. Org
or download the Bold Steps app so you can hear
Mark's bold and passionate teaching no matter where you go,
it's completely free and full of bonus content and teaching

(13:03):
from Mark. We'd also love to invite you to join
us for Mark's daily program, Bold Steps. And again, the
address to find us online is Bold Steps. Now let's
return to today's message called The Secret to Freedom and Confidence.
Here's Mark Jobe.

S2 (13:23):
Never put a man or woman an evangelist, a pastor,
a teacher, anyone on a super spiritual pedestal. Because sometimes,
I mean, oftentimes I run into people that they think
that because someone has a gift that's ministered to them,

(13:44):
and God is using a gift that that person doesn't walk.
They sort of float on clouds. Oh, no, they don't walk.
They float. And we sort of pedestalize people and think,
oh no, they don't pray like I pray, man, I, I,
I pray and get put on pause. By God. They
pray and have the direct line. God says, yeah, you called.

(14:08):
They never struggle with sin. And sometimes we put people
on pedestals because of the gift that is being ministered, uh,
through them, without realizing that the gifts and call of
God are irrevocable and have nothing to do with the
man or the woman that is using the gifts. They're
gifts of God, and a person doesn't lose a gift

(14:28):
even when their heart is falling away from God. They
don't lose a gift. That's why we all hear of
these scandals where where God can use someone. And then
behind the closed doors, we find out that there's impropriety there.
There's laundering of money, there's sexual scandal, power abuse. And
we're shocked that they happen because the gift and the

(14:49):
call of God are irrevocable. So be very careful ever
to elevate someone to high. Every man and every woman's
feet are made of clay. Hello. Only Jesus will never
disappoint you. Now. Eventually, when someone's character isn't isn't right.

(15:14):
Eventually that will catch up to them. And it'll sabotage
whatever they're doing. And it'll leave. Leave? A lot of hurt,
messed up people. Because the character of an individual eventually
will show itself. It may take a while before their
character catches up to their gifting, but eventually it'll show itself.

(15:35):
That's why. Listen, some of you have the gift of evangelism,
and and I've had people with the gift of evangelism.
They fall away from Christ. They're not even going to church.
They're at a bar drinking it up. And next thing
you know, I'll meet someone in church and I'll say,
how'd you get. Well, I met this guy at a bar,
and he started talking to me about God. Why? Because

(15:57):
even though you may be backslidden. Listen, Your gift doesn't
go away. It's still there. So you're backslid and fallen
away from God doing lousy. You go to a bar,
you see someone, your gift kicks in, you start talking
about God, and you say you need God is what
you need. And here, let me tell you about God
and your ministering, even though your heart is away from God. Why?
Because your gift has nothing to do with your spiritual life.

(16:20):
It's irrevocable. It's a grace of God. It's just like salvation.
Salvation is a gift of grace. You don't earn it
by being really good and you don't lose it when
you're bad. It's a gift. It's a gift. You can't

(16:42):
earn a gift. You can't lose a gift when you
really have a gift, though in the Spirit of God
dwells inside of you, you're going to want to live
for God because it's inside of you and it's real.
So Paul is saying that he had an administration, a
special assignment given to him by the grace of God,
by the grace of God. So I want you to understand.

(17:05):
I want you to understand and grasp that all of
us have gifts of God that have nothing to do
with how we've merited or earned it. Now you can
take a gift and you can not unwrap it. Hello.
All of you here have gifts of God, God's given gifts.
But not everybody unwraps their gifts. Sometimes you have a gift.

(17:27):
You don't use it. You don't unwrap it. You leave
it there. How many of you know you can get
a gift? You say, I don't think I'm going to
like that gift. Just leave it there. Not wrapped. It's
still yours. You still possess it, but you're not using it.
Every Christian has gifts. They come to you via the
Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit dwells inside of you. They're
gifts of encouragement, teaching, wisdom, faith, healing, evangelism, whatever. There's

(17:50):
a whole bunch of list of gifts you have. That
gift you're not better be better than someone else because
you have this gift, and someone else has that gift
because you didn't do anything to earn it or deserve it.
Just because you have the gift of teaching doesn't mean
that you're better than someone that doesn't have the gift
of teaching. Just because you have the gift of faith
doesn't make you better than someone that doesn't have the

(18:11):
gift of faith, because you did nothing to earn it.
God just gave it to you. It's your gift. God
gives that person one gift, that person, someone else a gift.
But we all have supernatural gifts given to us by
God that are graces that God has put onto our life,
that equip us for the mission that God has called
us to accomplish. God has gifted you with things, empowered

(18:36):
you with things, and it's those people that walk in
faith that usually utilize their gifts more. Number two, I'm
talking about how to embrace and understand your calling, how
to engage in the calling that you have by looking
at what Paul says about his calling. Verse three says,

(18:58):
that is the mystery made known to me by revelation,
as I have already written briefly in reading this, then
you will be able to understand my insight into the
mystery of Christ, which was not made known to men
in other generations, as it has now been revealed by
His Spirit to God's holy apostles and prophets. Paul now says,

(19:23):
not only does he have a calling given by God's grace.
Paul goes on to say, what feeds my calling is
that I have revelation. He uses the word mystery in
the Greek. It's the word mysterium in our English language.

(19:43):
When we think about a mystery, we think about something
that's dark, obscure, secret, unknown to other people. That's really
not the emphasis in this passage. It simply means something
that is known to that person, but unknown to others.
Paul says, I have a mystery that's been revealed to

(20:05):
me that people before me did not understand. But I understand.
What is that mystery? The mystery was simply this. The
Jewish people thought for hundreds of years that the promise
that the covenants that they were the chosen people, and

(20:26):
that no one outside of them was chosen. The mystery
that was revealed to Paul was that the Jewish people
through Abraham were the chosen people. But through the gospel
of Jesus Christ, anybody that believes and receives that message
becomes children of Abraham and children of God also chosen

(20:50):
people with the same promises that Israel had with the same, uh,
united with Israel, united with everything that God had promised
to Israel now becomes ours when we believe. And because
we are children of faith, as the people of Israel
were children of Abraham, now we already know that here,

(21:11):
because a couple thousands of years have passed. But in
the days of Paul, that was a new revelation. Now,
let me just warn you about revelation for a moment.
There's different types of revelation. There's natural revelation. That is
what we see in nature. Romans tells us that we

(21:33):
can learn a lot about God through natural revelation. Look
at look at creation and you can discern a lot
about the creator. All you have to see is someone,
someone's artwork, and it tells you something about how that
person thinks and what's going on in their head, right? Um,

(21:53):
you see a painting of a certain kind and you,
and it tells you you hear music composed by a
certain person, it tells you something about how they think. Um,
look at creation. If you knew nothing about God, if
you had never been taught about Jesus and never been
taught anything about Scripture, the Bible, and you were just

(22:17):
plopped down on planet Earth and said, look around at
what is here now. Tell me something. Tell me what
you learn about the creator by what you see. What
would you know through natural revelation? Well, you'd be able
to tell this. This creator is a God of order.

(22:39):
I mean, there's day and night, there's seasons. There's a
rotation of the planets. There's the universe. There's a time
to begin, a time to end. I mean, there is
order in this universe. It's not just chaos. There is
a sequence and an order to the universe. You'd be
able to tell that the creator loves diversity because it's

(23:02):
not all black and white.

S1 (23:09):
Learning the different types of revelation will continue this message tomorrow,
so please keep listening to Bold Steps Weekend with Mark Jobe.
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(23:31):
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(23:54):
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(24:39):
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the secret to freedom and confidence. Learn how to be
clear and confident about God's call for your life here
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(25:51):
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