Today on Bold steps with Mark job. We're learning how to be victorious in our walk with Christ.
What God does is he fills our spiritual tool belt with the tools that we're going to need to be successful. God does not call you to be a follower of his without giving you everything you need to succeed.
Welcome to Bold Steps with Mark job. Mark is president of Moody Bible Institute and the senior pastor of New Life Community Church in Chicago. I'm Wayne Shepherd. Well, going against the crowd or the cultural norms of any given society can be difficult to do. But it's nothing new, as we'll see. Today, it's something that even the apostles
had to deal with and work through. Our message is called Take Your Place, and if you have your Bible handy, flip to the book of Ephesians, because Mark is going to be showing us that when you believe, everything changes.
Hey, you come to Christ, men, there may need to be a 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. There are certain things that when Christ comes in, you leave behind that. 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 anointing and the power of God upon Ephesus at that time. There are times when God works in some miraculous, powerful way, supernatural 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, 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 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 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 gods, so to speak. And if you walk down the streets of Ephesus, there were statues of
different gods that would line the streets 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 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 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 and economic. Hello. Don't be naive into thinking that opposition will just come. Out of spiritual opposition. When we went to buy this church building here that you're in right now, this was a factory, 84,000 square foot factory. And we decided that we were going to buy this building and convert this building into a church ministry center, and we're super excited about it. We were challenged by raising the money for this because
it's a lot of money. It was $2 million to buy this building. 2 million? Thank you. Jesus. There's a lot of money. That's a whole nother story. How God provided that and how people sacrificed. But when we went to get this building, uh, the building in Chicago, you have to zone a building for something. This building was zoned for manufacturing. For what? Factories are zoned for. And we need to design it for a church use. And in order to zone it for a church use, you
have to get approval downtown at City Hall. And in order to get approval downtown at City Hall, you have to go through the alderman's office here. And in this case, to go through the alderman's office here. He had a zoning board that we had to come before, and the zoning board had to approve it in order to change the status so that we could get a church here. And I thought, no problem, no big deal. They're going to love us because we do a lot of good
for the community. We'll help out, we'll bless, we'll open up the doors, and we will do anything that we can to help the community. And when we went down to try to get the zoning, most of the people on the zoning board were favorable. Happy for us. But there was a few people that were belligerently opposed to us starting a church here. Aggressively opposed, like door to door. Say no. Oppose it. Get against it. And I didn't understand why they said it would be parking congestion. And
they said it would be hard. But when it all came down to it, what I heard behind the doors is there was two issues with us having a church here. Number one. Number one, there were too many Hispanics. Straight out blatant bigotry. Sometimes that's how the devil opposes things. It's not always theological. Sometimes it's blatant prejudice and bigotry. And number two, it was religious. We were an evangelical church. And there was opposition behind thank God. Praise God that
God is the opener of the doors. And God can go before us, and God can open and God can close doors. God fights our battles. God rises up. God does things when things are opposed. But but it doesn't mean we didn't work on it. And so I want you to understand that that sometimes opposition will arise on a lot of different ways to the progress and spread of the gospel. It doesn't always come just out of
theological persecution. It can rise up out of economic and racial bigotry that that that rises up to try to put the stop to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Well, in this case, it was economic. Christianity did not make statues and the early Christians did not have other gods. I oftentimes run into people that walk into this auditorium coming from different backgrounds, and they look around at this bland auditorium and they think to themselves, this must be
a poor church. They can't even afford statues. I mean, where are the images of statues of Jesus and Mary and the Saints. And. Poor, poor church. Well, let me just say this. That there's a reason that we don't have statues. And I know some of you grew up in traditions where you would walk into a church and there would be many images, um, of different saints and images of Christ and Mary and many other religious images. But I want you to understand that we deliberately have
no Jesus on a cross here. We deliberately have no statues of Saint Paul or Jude or Peter or the Virgin Mary. We deliberately have no statues. Why? We have no statues. Because one of the Ten Commandments is. Thou shalt have no graven images before me. One of the Ten Commandments is that we will make no graven images that we worship and pray to. And I've been around way too many places where people would go up to an image of stone and touch it and pray to it.
And even though they know it's not Jesus, you look to an image of Jesus and you begin to think that it's sacred. And I've been to too many places where people are making pilgrimages to touch a statue, be blessed by a statue, pray to a statue. The Bible calls that idolatry. And the very thing that you think is going to help you pray is actually angers the heart of God. Therefore, we have no statues in this place.
When you worship Jesus, I want you to envision and pray to a Jesus that's risen, alive, reigns on high over the earth. A living Jesus, not a Jesus on a cross. When you approach Jesus, I don't want you to approach a statue and touch a statue and ask for blessing from a statue. I want you to go in prayer and look to the heavens and say, Jesus, you are alive in spirit and in truth, and I come to you as a living being, asking you to touch me, bless me, answer my prayers. That's the living
Jesus that we follow and worship. And you say, pastor, well, what about the images that I have in my home? I don't want to be harsh or critical of anybody if you have images or statues in your home, but if it were me, I would get rid of them. There's too much danger in making these images something sacred, something holy and beginning to put your confidence in something. An image made in the image of God rather than in God Himself. There is no nothing made out of wood, stone,
marble that can help you. It's the spirit of the living God that has power to help you. It's he that saves you. And we must be very careful not to fall into idolatry. This huge riot that broke out in Ephesus broke out because they were afraid that Christianity was building no statues anymore. I've been in the amphitheater in Ephesus. That amphitheater, said to be 490ft in diameter, 63 rows of seats that provide seating for an audience of close to 24,000 people. 24,000. How many does the
United Center seat? 20 Has the capacity to seat as many people or more than the United Center, in my estimation. I've been in that theater. I was there in Turkey, and I knelt on the stage of that platform, and I envisioned a crowd of 20,000 people. That was anti Paul and the church. And I remember kneeling there and I prayed, Oh God, give me the boldness that Paul had to be able to stand up in front of a crowd, of be willing to stand up in front of a crowd of 20,000 angry mob that would have
killed them. Yet he was so desirous to preach the gospel that they had to hold them back for him not to go in there and preach the gospel of Jesus. God, give us that boldness.
You're listening to Bold Steps with pastor Mark Jobe, or pausing our message to let you know about our Bold Partner program. Mark, we are so thankful for people who support us on a monthly basis.
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It. I'm looking at some of the books through Moody Publishers, and we have counted all joy with John Perkins, that is. Looks like a great book. The Pathway to Freedom Alistair Begg, The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer. Classic, right. And here's one that I actually wrote the foreword to. Or an endorsement for Michael Riedel, Nick's book, the 50 Most Important Bible Questions. And of course, he has a program, a weekly program called Open Line where he answers Bible questions.
So that's just a sample of what's from Moody Publishers. But this discount applies to the whole catalog. So $30 a month or more gets you this 50% discount. Click on the Bold Partner program at Bold Steps. Now back into God's Word with Mark Jobe.
Four years later, Paul was in prison in Rome, and it was from that prison in Rome that Paul wrote to the church that he loved. He wrote a letter to the Ephesians. Ephesians chapter one, verse one. It says. Paul, the apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus. Now let me ask you a question. When he says, I'm writing to the saints in Ephesus, to whom is
he referring? Christians. Now, I'm going to shock some of you with this, because some of you, when you think of a saint, you think of someone that lived a very, very good life, did a lot of very, very good things, died, did a couple miracles, and then years after they die, the church votes on it and decides to make them a saint. And then we see pictures of them with a halo, and we believe that they are the saints.
But I'm going to destroy your image of that. When he says, like in the book of Romans, it says to the saints and the book of First Corinthians it says to the saints, when he says to the saints in Ephesus, he's talking. He's talking to everyone that's a believer and follower of Jesus Christ in the Bible is
considered a saint. Well, I know that shocks some of you, but if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, washed by the blood of Jesus with the Holy Spirit inside of you, you are a legitimate saint before the eyes of God. So just to break down that mentality a little bit, let's just practice for a moment, say Saint. And now put your name behind the word saint. Go ahead Saint. For some of you, it's really like, whoa, this is hard to do. Saint mark. I like the
sound of that. And from a biblical perspective, that's the way God sees you. You are considered a saint not because of what you have done or not done, but because of what Christ has done for you and in you. The word saint comes from the word holy. The word holy means set apart unto something. So any person that has been set apart unto God for the work of
God is considered a saint in the Bible. So when the Apostle Paul says to the saints that are in Ephesus, he's saying to the church that is in Ephesus, the called out believers, the ones that know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, to the to the saints in Ephesus, the faithful in Christ Jesus, grace and peace to you from God our father and our Lord Jesus Christ. And now Paul begins to explain. And for the first verses that you see in verse three through verse Uh 13.
He begins to talk to them about what they have and who they are in God. Or another way of saying it is what they have in their spiritual tool belt. Oftentimes what God does is he fills our spiritual tool belt with the tools that we're going to need to be successful. God does not call you to be a follower of his without giving you everything you need to succeed. God knows that in the future you may encounter a wall that needs nails in it. So he gives you
a hammer. God realizes that in the future you may encounter something difficult to take out, so he gives you pliers. God fills your tool belt, your spiritual tool belt, in order for you to succeed in life and in Christ. And he has filled your spiritual tool belt with all the tools that you need to live victorious in Christ Jesus all the way victorious. And so in Ephesians, what he starts telling us is he starts telling us what
is in our spiritual tool belt. And I'm going to show you for a second what he's placed in your spiritual tool belt. If you're taking notes this morning, write it down. Number one, you are blessed. So one of the things that's in your tool belt is your position in Christ. Notice what it says in verse three. Praise be to God and the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every
spiritual blessing in Christ. Praise be to God in our father, our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in spiritual realms. With what? With every spiritual blessing. Not just some. Every spiritual blessing. Listen to me well, listen. This world is divided into two worlds. There's a dichotomy means divided into two. We have the physical world that is, the world that we can see, touch, smell, feel, hear. That's the physical
world that we live in. But just as real as the physical world, there is a spiritual world as well. It's a world that you cannot see. You cannot feel, you cannot touch, you cannot smell, you cannot hear because it's in the spiritual realm, in that spiritual world. There is good spirits and bad spirits. There is the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of God. But there are also fallen spirits or evil spirits as well. Our spirit is
in that world. Half of our body is in the physical world, and half of our self is in the spiritual world. Your physical body is here. But listen, the moment that you die, you do not cease to exist. Because you are not just made of body, you are made of body, soul and spirit. Your soul and your spirit, which are spiritual, continue to live even after your body dies. Are you tracking with me? There have been many people that have been close to death. Have you heard the stories?
When someone's on an operating table and they're about to die, and they tell stories about how they see themselves. The back of the doctor's head operating on their body, trying to revive them. And when they come back to life, they'll talk about having seen themselves on the operating table. Why? Because their soul and their spirit is starting to leave their body. And as their body's revived, then they go back into their body. And so you and I live
constantly in two worlds. We live in the world of the spirit and we live in the world of the body. Many of us believe that the solutions to our problems are that we need more in the physical world. And someone asks you, well, what's your problem? Will I need a raise at my job? I need a bigger house, I need a car. I need more health to my body. And we're aware of our physical world. But I want
you to understand me. Well, the key to the physical world is, first of all, found in the spiritual world because our spiritual world influences and affects our physical world. Whatever is changed in the physical world, first of all, is changed in the spiritual world.
This is bold steps, and you're listening to the Bible teaching of Mark Jobe. And here at Bold Steps, we love getting letters from listeners like the one we heard earlier. And if you'd like to share your story with us, there's a number of ways you can reach out. You can send us a message through our website, npr.org. You can email us at Bold Steps. You can also call us and leave a recorded message over the phone by
dialing (312) 329-2011. That's 312329 2011. And of course, as always, our mailing option just send your letter to Bold steps. 820 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 606 ten. And then I have 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. And 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 Mark job. 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 while your identity matters and how to live out your true purpose in calling. This exclusive new resource is available to you with your
donation of any size to support the ministry. So whether it's a single donation or a faithful investment as a monthly bold partner, request your copy of More Than a Label when you give today at Bird-stamps.org. I'm Wayne Sheppard on behalf of the entire Bold Steps team, thanks for being with us today. Be sure to join us again tomorrow when Mark concludes this discussion on learning to take
your place. This message comes from our series when you believe Everything changes, and we invite you to listen Wednesday to hear more bold steps with Mark Jobe. Bold steps is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.