September 27, 2025 • 26 mins
Being equipped for the work God has called you to do is the topic today on Bold Steps Weekend with Mark Jobe. Mark will share 4 principles you need to keep in mind when it comes to releasing God's power in your life.
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S1 (00:00):
Being equipped for the work God has called us to do.
That's the topic today on Bold Steps Weekend with Mark Jobe.
S2 (00:07):
Spiritual leaders help you discover the gifts and abilities that
are inside of you, so that you begin to realize
God can use me and I have the ability to
pray and minister and reach out and do the stuff
that the holy men do. Because why? Because I am holy, too.
S1 (00:39):
Welcome to Bold Steps Weekend with Mark Jobe. Mark is
the senior pastor of New Life Community Church and the
president of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. I'm Wayne Shepherd. Mark,
you're going to be talking about the power we have
as people of God. And I've heard you say before
that you believe Christians seriously underestimate that power and provision.
S3 (00:58):
I really do, Wayne, and so many people are used
to the concept of going to a service and having
a pastor, a rabbi, a priest to sort of do
the holy things. But that's not at all the picture
that God gives us in Scripture.
S1 (01:14):
It's not biblical Christianity.
S3 (01:15):
No it's not. All of us have gifts. All of
us have a calling. All of us need to roll
up our sleeves and say, God, use me. So in
this message, you're going to discover a little bit how
God has wired you to use you.
S1 (01:30):
Well, let's jump into the message. It's from our new series.
When you believe Everything Changes. Here's Mark Jobe.
S3 (01:37):
And there's four principles. I've distilled it down to four
principles I want you to remember as we talk about
releasing the power of God among his people. And I
want to begin reading in Ephesians chapter four, verse seven.
I'm reading out of the New International Version. It says,
but to each one of us. That's us. that's people
(02:02):
that believe. To each one of us, grace has been
given as Christ apportioned it. Now, let me stop there.
To each one of us, grace has been given. The
word in the Greek for grace is Keras. I've told
(02:25):
you this before, but it's the word that we get
charisma from. It's the word we get charismatic from. Keras
means a gift that God gives us, that we can't earn,
we can't deserve, we can't work for. It has nothing
(02:48):
to do with how good you are or how bad
you are. It has nothing to do with how long
you pray or don't pray. How much of the Bible
you read or don't read, how many sins you've committed
or haven't committed. It has nothing to do with the
quality of your lifestyle. It has everything to do. With what?
(03:10):
With the good pleasure of God. So what he says
is to each one of us as believers, people that
know Jesus Christ and have His Spirit inside of us.
To each one of us a keris has been given
a gift, has been given a grace has been given.
Not to some. It's not one, two, three. You get it? One, two, three,
(03:34):
you get it one, two, three, you get it. No,
it's to everyone. Every single person has received this gift,
these gifts. It may be one gift. It may be
multiple gifts. It doesn't really explain it in this passage,
but in other passage of Scripture, it does. These gifts
(03:55):
have to do with supernatural, what we could call talents
or supernatural Abilities that God gives to you, not just
for you to enjoy, but for you to use for
the benefit of others. It may be the gift of encouragement,
or it may be the gift of faith. It may
(04:16):
be the gift of exhortation, the gift of mercy. It
may be the gift of healing. It may be the
gift of word, of wisdom. It may be the gift
of administration. I mean, there's a whole bunch of gifts
that could be given, but they are given to you,
not for yourself. They're given to you so that as
(04:38):
you use those gifts, you actually begin to build up
in power. Help the people that are around you. Your
gift is a gift to this body. So he says,
but to each one of us, a gift has been
given as Christ apportioned it. Verse eight. Now this is
(05:00):
a bit of a tough passage here, so stay with me.
It says this is why it says now. He quotes
Psalm 68 out of the Old Testament when he ascended
on high. When Christ ascended on high, he led captives, prisoners.
(05:20):
Another translation says in his train or in his entourage.
So when Christ ascended on high, he led prisoners in
his entourage and he gave gifts to men. Quoting Psalm 68.
(05:41):
Now Paul knows that's kind of difficult for people to
understand what he's saying. So in verse nine, he explains
what he's saying. What does he ascended? What does Christ
ascended mean except that he also descended to the lower
earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who
(06:01):
ascended higher than the heavens in order to fill the
whole universe. Now what is Paul saying? Paul is giving
us the image of Christ as a victorious conqueror. When
when a warrior goes off to war and he wins
the battle, he gets to keep the spoils of the
(06:23):
battle that he's won and he gets to take all
the spoils with him. And then when he comes back
to his own camp or to his own city, he
distributes the spoils or the gifts that he has to
those that he loves. Why? Because he's victorious. And now
he can share in his victory. The image that he
(06:45):
gives us is Jesus coming to earth victorious, being put
to death, descending to the lower regions, which means he
was buried, resurrecting on the third day, uh, after 40 days.
The Bible says that the disciples were gathered around and
(07:05):
Jesus levitated. Wouldn't that been fun to watch? They're there
around him, and Jesus starts levitating off the earth. Slowly
he's rising. Floating. He stops as the disciples stand there
(07:28):
with their mouths open wide like, hey, Jesus, just did
this balloon disappearing act on us? Now what are we
supposed to do here? And as they stand there with
their mouths open, an angel says to him, why do
you stand there with your mouths open wide? This Jesus
(07:51):
that has now ascended will in the same way descend
when he comes again. And he left. When Jesus was
in the grave, he defeated. He defeated the power of sin,
the power of death, and the power of demons and
(08:12):
powers and principalities. Because only if you have sinned can
the grave keep you down. Uh, you know, theologically, you
need to understand that the reason that Jesus rose from
the grave is that Jesus had no sin. He was sinless.
So therefore the grave could not tie him down. There
(08:37):
was no power in death because he was sinless. So
he raised on the third day, and he ascended to heaven.
And he sits at the right hand of the father,
placing all principalities and rulers and everything under his feet.
And because he's victorious and he's conquered death and Satan
(09:00):
and sin and disease. He's conquered all of that. He
has the ability and the power to give gifts to
whoever he wants to give gifts. Why? Because he is victorious. Now,
I know once in a while I'll run into someone
that says, I wish I would have lived when Jesus lived. Man,
(09:21):
it would have been so cool just to hear Jesus,
to walk beside him, see what he looks like. What
did his voice sound like? It would have been so
cool just to sit at the feet of Jesus and say, hey, Jesus,
I got four questions. I just wondered, you know, since
(09:43):
Adam was never born, really, since he was created, did
he have a belly button or whatever question you may
ask him? So you got a better one than that?
And I know people that really think that they would
love to have lived when Jesus was on earth. But
(10:03):
here's the thing. It tells us in John chapter 15
and 16 that the reason that Jesus left Jesus said,
I must go, because if I go, I will send
to you. Oh, I will send to you the helper,
the Paraclete, the advocate, the one that walks alongside of you,
(10:27):
your own personal coach, as long as I am on earth. Listen,
if Jesus were on earth today, you know he would
have 12 apostles. And I know some of you think
that he would choose you as an apostle, but okay,
let's just say he didn't choose you. Then there's some crowd.
Believe me, you wouldn't be palling around with Jesus. You'd
(10:48):
be at the back of some crowd saying Jesus over here!
And he'd hard to get access to Jesus if he
were physically here. So Jesus left so that you would
not have to have that problem. So every believer that
would come. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon ten thousands
of believers that would come after him would have direct
(11:10):
access to him. So that now, via the Holy Spirit,
the Spirit of Jesus is in every single believer 24
hours a day. Coaching, empowering, guiding, giving wisdom. He's there
when you go to sleep and there when you get up.
He's there when you ride the El and he's there
(11:31):
when you drive in traffic. He's there when you're at
a bears game and a Bulls game, he's there when
you're in the kitchen and he's there when you're in
the office, he's there. He's there all of the time.
It's a powerful thing to have the presence of Christ
inside of you. And that's why Jesus left, so that
(11:52):
the presence of Christ would be inside of us. And
along with the presence of the Holy Spirit comes the
gifts of the Holy Spirit as well.
S1 (12:04):
You're listening to Bold Steps Weekend with Mark Jobe, and
we'll get right back to the program. But I want
to take a minute Mark and say thank you today
to all of our bold partners. We could not be
where we are today without those bold partners.
S3 (12:15):
Yeah, we don't get to say thank you as much
as we would like, but we want to just say
a very warm, heartfelt thank you to those of you
that decide to give every month to the program to
help us spread the good news. And this number is growing,
and we want to say thank you, thank you, thank you.
S1 (12:35):
You can become a bold partner by finding us at
Bold Steps org and then making a commitment to give
a monthly gift to support this ministry in whatever way
God is leading you to give. Consider breaking up a
one time gift into monthly payments, whether it's $5 or $10,
or even $50 a month. When you commit to giving
$30 or more a month, you'll also receive 50% off
(12:55):
the purchase of any item in the Moody Publishers online store.
Is our thanks for your generous support. Thank you so
much for considering becoming a bold partner so this program
can reach as many people as possible. Right now, Mark
is going to be laying out the second principle when
it comes to unleashing people power. So let's get back
into the message.
S3 (13:20):
The second thing that Paul tells us to remember is
not only that each of us has been given a
special gift that we have not earned or deserve. But
then he also goes on to tell us that we
need to remember that the leadership gifts. Oh, I wish
you could hear me. This is really huge that the
leadership gifts are given not to do the work of ministry,
(13:46):
but to empower or to equip the people to do
the work of ministry. Okay, I'm about to show you
one of the biggest lies that has affected Christianity down
through centuries of existence. Notice what he says. Open your Bibles.
(14:11):
Let's start with verse 11. It was he who gave some.
He's talking about giving gifts to the body. Everybody has
a gift. And now he says he's also given the
gift of leaders to the church. And he lists five
leadership offices or callings that he's given to the church.
(14:33):
Some people call this the five fold ministry. He says,
and he's given some to be apostles, some to be prophets,
some to be evangelists, some to be pastors, and some
to be teachers. Now these are callings that he gives.
Each one of these callings are different. Trick question here.
(14:57):
How many of you believe that there were only 12 apostles.
Since I said it's a trick question, you're not raising
your hand. Okay, good. Because although many people believe that
there were only 12 apostles, the reality is there's more
than 12 apostles. In fact, the fellow that wrote Ephesians,
(15:21):
the Apostle Paul, we call him what Apostle Paul now
was a Paul, one of the 12 that walked with Jesus. No,
Paul wasn't even around walking with Jesus when Jesus had
his 12 apostles. He wasn't a part of the 12.
In fact, it wasn't until Jesus was crucified, buried, rose again,
(15:47):
ascended into heaven that Paul was even converted. He was converted.
After Jesus was gone, he was on the road to
Damascus and had this encounter in which he had a
vision of Jesus. He fell off his horse. He was
converted radically. And then he became an apostle. And so
they called him the Apostle Paul. So what I want
(16:08):
you to understand is that there's more than 12 apostles.
There was more than just Paul. There were other apostles
in scriptures as well. So what is an apostle? The
word apostle means sent with a message. There are some
leaders that are apostles that are sent with a message
to start what the Apostle Paul do. After he became converted,
(16:32):
he started churches. He would go around. He did several
missionary journeys. He started churches, raised leaders, oversaw them. He
grew the work, and then he appointed people to do that.
That was an apostolic gift. So the apostles are sent
out to start working churches, appoint leaders, get them up
and going, and they multiply churches. That's what apostles do.
(16:54):
Then there are, he says, not only are some apostles,
but then there are some that are profits. What is
a profit? A profit is someone that speaks, that foretells
and foretells God's Word for that moment at that time.
Sometimes it involves the foretelling, which means talking about future events,
(17:17):
but sometimes it just involves, hey, this is what God
is saying to us today. Now. And you know that
it's a it's a word from God for us at
this moment and this time that we need to hear.
That's prophet. And then he says, evangelist. Evangelist is someone
(17:37):
that proclaims the gospel and recruits people to the cause
of Christ. They do it with great anointing as they
proclaim the simple gospel message of Jesus. Many people come
to Christ and they have the ability to communicate it simply,
powerfully with anointing so that many people come to Christ.
So you have apostles, prophets, evangelists. Julius. Then he says
(18:00):
pastors or another translation is Shepherd. What does the shepherd
do or a pastor do? A pastor cares for the flock.
They make sure that people don't fall away. They make
sure that the hurting are cared for. They protect the sheep.
They watch over the sheep. If someone is straying, they
make sure they bring them back. They they're concerned about
(18:22):
relationships and building the community, making sure that people don't
go astray. And then you have teachers. What does a
teacher do? A teacher understands truth and communicates truth. They
break it down. They they they communicate it in such
a way that people understand sometimes complex truth in a
(18:43):
simple way, because it's taught. So people are built up
five fold ministry. Say it with me apostles, prophets, evangelists,
pastors and teachers, five fold ministry. History. Here's what I
want you to grasp. Look at verse 12. What is
(19:05):
the responsibility and the job of these fivefold ministries? What
is it to do the work of the ministry? No
no no no no. What is it? Say it out loud.
To prepare God's people for the work of service. So
(19:27):
the responsibility of a pastor is not to do the
work of God. It's to prepare people to do the
work of God. The responsibility of an apostle is not
just to plant churches. It's to prepare people to plant churches.
The responsibility of a prophet is not just to prophesy,
but to prepare people to unleash them into the prophetic.
(19:48):
What the Apostle Paul is teaching is that spiritual leaders,
what they do is they don't pray for everybody, disciple everybody,
lead everybody to Christ. Mary Berry and baptize everybody. What
spiritual leaders do is spiritual leaders help you discover the
(20:12):
gifts and abilities that are inside of you, so that
you begin to realize God can use me, and I
have the Holy Spirit of God inside of me, and
I have the ability to pray and minister and reach
out and do the stuff that the holy men do.
Because why? Because I am holy to washed by the
(20:36):
blood of Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit.
S1 (20:45):
Learning to discover those important gifts and abilities. That's today's
topic from Mark Jobe on Bold Steps Weekend. We love
hearing from listeners, so if you'd like to connect with
us and tell us a little about your testimony and
how Bold Steps has played a part in your spiritual growth.
We'd love to hear from you. You can send us
a message online at boldsystems.org or through email. That address
(21:07):
is bold steps. Or you can give us a call
and leave your message on a recorded line by dialing
312329 2011. That's (312)Â 329-2011. You can also reach out on
your favorite social media platform. Just search for Bold Steps
Radio and click the like or follow button on Facebook
(21:28):
or Instagram, and we look forward to seeing you there. Well,
we all want to be more like Jesus, but where
do we start? Dan Spader's book Walk Like Jesus provides
the answer through daily lessons that touch on the practical
aspects of Christ's life and ministry. Well, Mark, let's take
a moment and talk again with Dan Spader. Dan is
a great friend of Moody, uh, was educated here, became
(21:50):
alumnus of the year at one point, and now leads
an incredible ministry and has written the book Walk Like Jesus.
And let's talk to Dan about this bold step gift.
S3 (21:58):
Yeah.
S4 (21:59):
You know, what I love about Dan is that he's
devoted his life to the idea, concept and practicality of
making disciples. So.
S1 (22:08):
And it started when he was a young man. And
not that you're old now, Dan, but this this carries
us all the way through life, doesn't it?
S5 (22:14):
Yeah, it does, it does.
S4 (22:16):
Dan, let me ask you this in Walk Like Jesus. Uh,
you have a ten week study that examines the the
basic elements of Jesus life. So you cover everything from
his relationships to his dependence on the Holy Spirit. What
made you choose these particular aspects of Jesus life to
focus on?
S5 (22:37):
When I would go out and do training with pastors
and laypeople, I would often hear the statement, I can't
do what Jesus did because he was God and I'm not.
And part of that is true. He was fully God.
But when he added humanity to his deity, he became
flesh and dwelt among us. He he became fully human
(23:00):
and Jesus did what he did. I believe in the
power of the six character qualities we talk about in
this study. He was Holy Spirit, dependent, prayerfully guided. He
learned obedience. He was word centered. He exalted his Father
and everything in relationships of love and integrity. This is
(23:20):
the core of what it means, I believe. First John
two six to walk as Jesus walked because Jesus said
40 times, do what I've done. Walk as I walked.
Follow the pattern I gave you. He said, you can
even do greater things than I did. Now, not that
we can do greater miracles, signs and wonders. I'm not
advocating that. But in four years he made 12 reproducing disciples.
(23:45):
11 one flunked out. But that turned the world upside
down in 28 years. And and we, by God's grace,
can have 40 years to impart our lives to other.
I love how Ian Thomas says Jesus in his humanity
was man as God intended man to be.
S1 (24:03):
Oh, yeah.
S5 (24:04):
So we worked really hard in this study to say,
what was it about Jesus in his humanity that caused
him to make such a great impact with his life?
And of course, we had to start then with understanding
his humanity, that he was fully human. He fully trusted
the Holy Spirit. He 45 times slipped away to pray.
(24:26):
He 84 times quoted from the Old Testament scriptures. We
looked at the character qualities of what it means to
be man as God intended man to be.
S1 (24:36):
Mark, it sounds like Dan has done his homework and
putting this book together, don't you think?
S4 (24:40):
No. I love and I love that it's so practical.
And so I want to encourage you, if you're listening
to this and you say, you know, I struggled with
just understanding how to live and walk like Jesus. I
love those practical listening to the Holy Spirit prayer, the
power of relationships. And so Dan takes this and he
(25:00):
brings it down where the rubber meets the road, so
to speak. And so thank you for doing this, Dan.
I think this is going to be a blessing to
a lot of people. And we would love to put
this study into as many hands as possible. I think
it's going to bless a lot of people.
S1 (25:15):
And you can request a copy of this bold step
gift today when you give a gift of any amount.
Simply call us at 800 Moody. That's (800)Â 356-6639. Or give
online and request the book when you go to boldsystems.org.
And thanks for being with us today. Be sure to
join us next weekend, where Mark will talk about the
(25:35):
final two principles of unleashing God's power and provision in
the world. Our message comes from our series called When
You Believe everything changes and you will hear it next time,
right here on Bold Steps Weekend with Mark Jobe. Bold
Steps Weekend is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry
of Moody Bible Institute.
Being equipped for the work God has called us to do.
That's the topic today on Bold Steps Weekend with Mark Jobe.
S2 (00:07):
Spiritual leaders help you discover the gifts and abilities that
are inside of you, so that you begin to realize
God can use me and I have the ability to
pray and minister and reach out and do the stuff
that the holy men do. Because why? Because I am holy, too.
S1 (00:39):
Welcome to Bold Steps Weekend with Mark Jobe. Mark is
the senior pastor of New Life Community Church and the
president of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago. I'm Wayne Shepherd. Mark,
you're going to be talking about the power we have
as people of God. And I've heard you say before
that you believe Christians seriously underestimate that power and provision.
S3 (00:58):
I really do, Wayne, and so many people are used
to the concept of going to a service and having
a pastor, a rabbi, a priest to sort of do
the holy things. But that's not at all the picture
that God gives us in Scripture.
S1 (01:14):
It's not biblical Christianity.
S3 (01:15):
No it's not. All of us have gifts. All of
us have a calling. All of us need to roll
up our sleeves and say, God, use me. So in
this message, you're going to discover a little bit how
God has wired you to use you.
S1 (01:30):
Well, let's jump into the message. It's from our new series.
When you believe Everything Changes. Here's Mark Jobe.
S3 (01:37):
And there's four principles. I've distilled it down to four
principles I want you to remember as we talk about
releasing the power of God among his people. And I
want to begin reading in Ephesians chapter four, verse seven.
I'm reading out of the New International Version. It says,
but to each one of us. That's us. that's people
(02:02):
that believe. To each one of us, grace has been
given as Christ apportioned it. Now, let me stop there.
To each one of us, grace has been given. The
word in the Greek for grace is Keras. I've told
(02:25):
you this before, but it's the word that we get
charisma from. It's the word we get charismatic from. Keras
means a gift that God gives us, that we can't earn,
we can't deserve, we can't work for. It has nothing
(02:48):
to do with how good you are or how bad
you are. It has nothing to do with how long
you pray or don't pray. How much of the Bible
you read or don't read, how many sins you've committed
or haven't committed. It has nothing to do with the
quality of your lifestyle. It has everything to do. With what?
(03:10):
With the good pleasure of God. So what he says
is to each one of us as believers, people that
know Jesus Christ and have His Spirit inside of us.
To each one of us a keris has been given
a gift, has been given a grace has been given.
Not to some. It's not one, two, three. You get it? One, two, three,
(03:34):
you get it one, two, three, you get it. No,
it's to everyone. Every single person has received this gift,
these gifts. It may be one gift. It may be
multiple gifts. It doesn't really explain it in this passage,
but in other passage of Scripture, it does. These gifts
(03:55):
have to do with supernatural, what we could call talents
or supernatural Abilities that God gives to you, not just
for you to enjoy, but for you to use for
the benefit of others. It may be the gift of encouragement,
or it may be the gift of faith. It may
(04:16):
be the gift of exhortation, the gift of mercy. It
may be the gift of healing. It may be the
gift of word, of wisdom. It may be the gift
of administration. I mean, there's a whole bunch of gifts
that could be given, but they are given to you,
not for yourself. They're given to you so that as
(04:38):
you use those gifts, you actually begin to build up
in power. Help the people that are around you. Your
gift is a gift to this body. So he says,
but to each one of us, a gift has been
given as Christ apportioned it. Verse eight. Now this is
(05:00):
a bit of a tough passage here, so stay with me.
It says this is why it says now. He quotes
Psalm 68 out of the Old Testament when he ascended
on high. When Christ ascended on high, he led captives, prisoners.
(05:20):
Another translation says in his train or in his entourage.
So when Christ ascended on high, he led prisoners in
his entourage and he gave gifts to men. Quoting Psalm 68.
(05:41):
Now Paul knows that's kind of difficult for people to
understand what he's saying. So in verse nine, he explains
what he's saying. What does he ascended? What does Christ
ascended mean except that he also descended to the lower
earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who
(06:01):
ascended higher than the heavens in order to fill the
whole universe. Now what is Paul saying? Paul is giving
us the image of Christ as a victorious conqueror. When
when a warrior goes off to war and he wins
the battle, he gets to keep the spoils of the
(06:23):
battle that he's won and he gets to take all
the spoils with him. And then when he comes back
to his own camp or to his own city, he
distributes the spoils or the gifts that he has to
those that he loves. Why? Because he's victorious. And now
he can share in his victory. The image that he
(06:45):
gives us is Jesus coming to earth victorious, being put
to death, descending to the lower regions, which means he
was buried, resurrecting on the third day, uh, after 40 days.
The Bible says that the disciples were gathered around and
(07:05):
Jesus levitated. Wouldn't that been fun to watch? They're there
around him, and Jesus starts levitating off the earth. Slowly
he's rising. Floating. He stops as the disciples stand there
(07:28):
with their mouths open wide like, hey, Jesus, just did
this balloon disappearing act on us? Now what are we
supposed to do here? And as they stand there with
their mouths open, an angel says to him, why do
you stand there with your mouths open wide? This Jesus
(07:51):
that has now ascended will in the same way descend
when he comes again. And he left. When Jesus was
in the grave, he defeated. He defeated the power of sin,
the power of death, and the power of demons and
(08:12):
powers and principalities. Because only if you have sinned can
the grave keep you down. Uh, you know, theologically, you
need to understand that the reason that Jesus rose from
the grave is that Jesus had no sin. He was sinless.
So therefore the grave could not tie him down. There
(08:37):
was no power in death because he was sinless. So
he raised on the third day, and he ascended to heaven.
And he sits at the right hand of the father,
placing all principalities and rulers and everything under his feet.
And because he's victorious and he's conquered death and Satan
(09:00):
and sin and disease. He's conquered all of that. He
has the ability and the power to give gifts to
whoever he wants to give gifts. Why? Because he is victorious. Now,
I know once in a while I'll run into someone
that says, I wish I would have lived when Jesus lived. Man,
(09:21):
it would have been so cool just to hear Jesus,
to walk beside him, see what he looks like. What
did his voice sound like? It would have been so
cool just to sit at the feet of Jesus and say, hey, Jesus,
I got four questions. I just wondered, you know, since
(09:43):
Adam was never born, really, since he was created, did
he have a belly button or whatever question you may
ask him? So you got a better one than that?
And I know people that really think that they would
love to have lived when Jesus was on earth. But
(10:03):
here's the thing. It tells us in John chapter 15
and 16 that the reason that Jesus left Jesus said,
I must go, because if I go, I will send
to you. Oh, I will send to you the helper,
the Paraclete, the advocate, the one that walks alongside of you,
(10:27):
your own personal coach, as long as I am on earth. Listen,
if Jesus were on earth today, you know he would
have 12 apostles. And I know some of you think
that he would choose you as an apostle, but okay,
let's just say he didn't choose you. Then there's some crowd.
Believe me, you wouldn't be palling around with Jesus. You'd
(10:48):
be at the back of some crowd saying Jesus over here!
And he'd hard to get access to Jesus if he
were physically here. So Jesus left so that you would
not have to have that problem. So every believer that
would come. Thousands upon thousands upon thousands upon ten thousands
of believers that would come after him would have direct
(11:10):
access to him. So that now, via the Holy Spirit,
the Spirit of Jesus is in every single believer 24
hours a day. Coaching, empowering, guiding, giving wisdom. He's there
when you go to sleep and there when you get up.
He's there when you ride the El and he's there
(11:31):
when you drive in traffic. He's there when you're at
a bears game and a Bulls game, he's there when
you're in the kitchen and he's there when you're in
the office, he's there. He's there all of the time.
It's a powerful thing to have the presence of Christ
inside of you. And that's why Jesus left, so that
(11:52):
the presence of Christ would be inside of us. And
along with the presence of the Holy Spirit comes the
gifts of the Holy Spirit as well.
S1 (12:04):
You're listening to Bold Steps Weekend with Mark Jobe, and
we'll get right back to the program. But I want
to take a minute Mark and say thank you today
to all of our bold partners. We could not be
where we are today without those bold partners.
S3 (12:15):
Yeah, we don't get to say thank you as much
as we would like, but we want to just say
a very warm, heartfelt thank you to those of you
that decide to give every month to the program to
help us spread the good news. And this number is growing,
and we want to say thank you, thank you, thank you.
S1 (12:35):
You can become a bold partner by finding us at
Bold Steps org and then making a commitment to give
a monthly gift to support this ministry in whatever way
God is leading you to give. Consider breaking up a
one time gift into monthly payments, whether it's $5 or $10,
or even $50 a month. When you commit to giving
$30 or more a month, you'll also receive 50% off
(12:55):
the purchase of any item in the Moody Publishers online store.
Is our thanks for your generous support. Thank you so
much for considering becoming a bold partner so this program
can reach as many people as possible. Right now, Mark
is going to be laying out the second principle when
it comes to unleashing people power. So let's get back
into the message.
S3 (13:20):
The second thing that Paul tells us to remember is
not only that each of us has been given a
special gift that we have not earned or deserve. But
then he also goes on to tell us that we
need to remember that the leadership gifts. Oh, I wish
you could hear me. This is really huge that the
leadership gifts are given not to do the work of ministry,
(13:46):
but to empower or to equip the people to do
the work of ministry. Okay, I'm about to show you
one of the biggest lies that has affected Christianity down
through centuries of existence. Notice what he says. Open your Bibles.
(14:11):
Let's start with verse 11. It was he who gave some.
He's talking about giving gifts to the body. Everybody has
a gift. And now he says he's also given the
gift of leaders to the church. And he lists five
leadership offices or callings that he's given to the church.
(14:33):
Some people call this the five fold ministry. He says,
and he's given some to be apostles, some to be prophets,
some to be evangelists, some to be pastors, and some
to be teachers. Now these are callings that he gives.
Each one of these callings are different. Trick question here.
(14:57):
How many of you believe that there were only 12 apostles.
Since I said it's a trick question, you're not raising
your hand. Okay, good. Because although many people believe that
there were only 12 apostles, the reality is there's more
than 12 apostles. In fact, the fellow that wrote Ephesians,
(15:21):
the Apostle Paul, we call him what Apostle Paul now
was a Paul, one of the 12 that walked with Jesus. No,
Paul wasn't even around walking with Jesus when Jesus had
his 12 apostles. He wasn't a part of the 12.
In fact, it wasn't until Jesus was crucified, buried, rose again,
(15:47):
ascended into heaven that Paul was even converted. He was converted.
After Jesus was gone, he was on the road to
Damascus and had this encounter in which he had a
vision of Jesus. He fell off his horse. He was
converted radically. And then he became an apostle. And so
they called him the Apostle Paul. So what I want
(16:08):
you to understand is that there's more than 12 apostles.
There was more than just Paul. There were other apostles
in scriptures as well. So what is an apostle? The
word apostle means sent with a message. There are some
leaders that are apostles that are sent with a message
to start what the Apostle Paul do. After he became converted,
(16:32):
he started churches. He would go around. He did several
missionary journeys. He started churches, raised leaders, oversaw them. He
grew the work, and then he appointed people to do that.
That was an apostolic gift. So the apostles are sent
out to start working churches, appoint leaders, get them up
and going, and they multiply churches. That's what apostles do.
(16:54):
Then there are, he says, not only are some apostles,
but then there are some that are profits. What is
a profit? A profit is someone that speaks, that foretells
and foretells God's Word for that moment at that time.
Sometimes it involves the foretelling, which means talking about future events,
(17:17):
but sometimes it just involves, hey, this is what God
is saying to us today. Now. And you know that
it's a it's a word from God for us at
this moment and this time that we need to hear.
That's prophet. And then he says, evangelist. Evangelist is someone
(17:37):
that proclaims the gospel and recruits people to the cause
of Christ. They do it with great anointing as they
proclaim the simple gospel message of Jesus. Many people come
to Christ and they have the ability to communicate it simply,
powerfully with anointing so that many people come to Christ.
So you have apostles, prophets, evangelists. Julius. Then he says
(18:00):
pastors or another translation is Shepherd. What does the shepherd
do or a pastor do? A pastor cares for the flock.
They make sure that people don't fall away. They make
sure that the hurting are cared for. They protect the sheep.
They watch over the sheep. If someone is straying, they
make sure they bring them back. They they're concerned about
(18:22):
relationships and building the community, making sure that people don't
go astray. And then you have teachers. What does a
teacher do? A teacher understands truth and communicates truth. They
break it down. They they they communicate it in such
a way that people understand sometimes complex truth in a
(18:43):
simple way, because it's taught. So people are built up
five fold ministry. Say it with me apostles, prophets, evangelists,
pastors and teachers, five fold ministry. History. Here's what I
want you to grasp. Look at verse 12. What is
(19:05):
the responsibility and the job of these fivefold ministries? What
is it to do the work of the ministry? No
no no no no. What is it? Say it out loud.
To prepare God's people for the work of service. So
(19:27):
the responsibility of a pastor is not to do the
work of God. It's to prepare people to do the
work of God. The responsibility of an apostle is not
just to plant churches. It's to prepare people to plant churches.
The responsibility of a prophet is not just to prophesy,
but to prepare people to unleash them into the prophetic.
(19:48):
What the Apostle Paul is teaching is that spiritual leaders,
what they do is they don't pray for everybody, disciple everybody,
lead everybody to Christ. Mary Berry and baptize everybody. What
spiritual leaders do is spiritual leaders help you discover the
(20:12):
gifts and abilities that are inside of you, so that
you begin to realize God can use me, and I
have the Holy Spirit of God inside of me, and
I have the ability to pray and minister and reach
out and do the stuff that the holy men do.
Because why? Because I am holy to washed by the
(20:36):
blood of Jesus Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit.
S1 (20:45):
Learning to discover those important gifts and abilities. That's today's
topic from Mark Jobe on Bold Steps Weekend. We love
hearing from listeners, so if you'd like to connect with
us and tell us a little about your testimony and
how Bold Steps has played a part in your spiritual growth.
We'd love to hear from you. You can send us
a message online at boldsystems.org or through email. That address
(21:07):
is bold steps. Or you can give us a call
and leave your message on a recorded line by dialing
312329 2011. That's (312)Â 329-2011. You can also reach out on
your favorite social media platform. Just search for Bold Steps
Radio and click the like or follow button on Facebook
(21:28):
or Instagram, and we look forward to seeing you there. Well,
we all want to be more like Jesus, but where
do we start? Dan Spader's book Walk Like Jesus provides
the answer through daily lessons that touch on the practical
aspects of Christ's life and ministry. Well, Mark, let's take
a moment and talk again with Dan Spader. Dan is
a great friend of Moody, uh, was educated here, became
(21:50):
alumnus of the year at one point, and now leads
an incredible ministry and has written the book Walk Like Jesus.
And let's talk to Dan about this bold step gift.
S3 (21:58):
Yeah.
S4 (21:59):
You know, what I love about Dan is that he's
devoted his life to the idea, concept and practicality of
making disciples. So.
S1 (22:08):
And it started when he was a young man. And
not that you're old now, Dan, but this this carries
us all the way through life, doesn't it?
S5 (22:14):
Yeah, it does, it does.
S4 (22:16):
Dan, let me ask you this in Walk Like Jesus. Uh,
you have a ten week study that examines the the
basic elements of Jesus life. So you cover everything from
his relationships to his dependence on the Holy Spirit. What
made you choose these particular aspects of Jesus life to
focus on?
S5 (22:37):
When I would go out and do training with pastors
and laypeople, I would often hear the statement, I can't
do what Jesus did because he was God and I'm not.
And part of that is true. He was fully God.
But when he added humanity to his deity, he became
flesh and dwelt among us. He he became fully human
(23:00):
and Jesus did what he did. I believe in the
power of the six character qualities we talk about in
this study. He was Holy Spirit, dependent, prayerfully guided. He
learned obedience. He was word centered. He exalted his Father
and everything in relationships of love and integrity. This is
(23:20):
the core of what it means, I believe. First John
two six to walk as Jesus walked because Jesus said
40 times, do what I've done. Walk as I walked.
Follow the pattern I gave you. He said, you can
even do greater things than I did. Now, not that
we can do greater miracles, signs and wonders. I'm not
advocating that. But in four years he made 12 reproducing disciples.
(23:45):
11 one flunked out. But that turned the world upside
down in 28 years. And and we, by God's grace,
can have 40 years to impart our lives to other.
I love how Ian Thomas says Jesus in his humanity
was man as God intended man to be.
S1 (24:03):
Oh, yeah.
S5 (24:04):
So we worked really hard in this study to say,
what was it about Jesus in his humanity that caused
him to make such a great impact with his life?
And of course, we had to start then with understanding
his humanity, that he was fully human. He fully trusted
the Holy Spirit. He 45 times slipped away to pray.
(24:26):
He 84 times quoted from the Old Testament scriptures. We
looked at the character qualities of what it means to
be man as God intended man to be.
S1 (24:36):
Mark, it sounds like Dan has done his homework and
putting this book together, don't you think?
S4 (24:40):
No. I love and I love that it's so practical.
And so I want to encourage you, if you're listening
to this and you say, you know, I struggled with
just understanding how to live and walk like Jesus. I
love those practical listening to the Holy Spirit prayer, the
power of relationships. And so Dan takes this and he
(25:00):
brings it down where the rubber meets the road, so
to speak. And so thank you for doing this, Dan.
I think this is going to be a blessing to
a lot of people. And we would love to put
this study into as many hands as possible. I think
it's going to bless a lot of people.
S1 (25:15):
And you can request a copy of this bold step
gift today when you give a gift of any amount.
Simply call us at 800 Moody. That's (800)Â 356-6639. Or give
online and request the book when you go to boldsystems.org.
And thanks for being with us today. Be sure to
join us next weekend, where Mark will talk about the
(25:35):
final two principles of unleashing God's power and provision in
the world. Our message comes from our series called When
You Believe everything changes and you will hear it next time,
right here on Bold Steps Weekend with Mark Jobe. Bold
Steps Weekend is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry
of Moody Bible Institute.
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