What do you do with the pains and problems of your past? The ones that you just can't seem to let go of? Find out today on Bold Steps with Mark Jobe.
There are some people in this auditorium. You struggle because you've been born again. You have the Spirit of God inside of you. But you have a past where there's hurt. And if you haven't processed the hurt, that hurt can turn to unforgiveness and bitterness.
Welcome to Bold Steps with Mark Jobe. Mark is president of Moody Bible Institute and senior pastor of New Life Community Church in Chicago. And I'm Wayne Shepherd. Yesterday we began exploring the destructive trap of unforgiveness and how it affects our spiritual health. Mark reminded us that harboring bitterness not only damages our relationships with others, but also grieves
the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. Today, we'll continue our journey through Ephesians chapter four, where Paul reminds us of an incredible truth that our bodies are the temple of God's Holy Spirit. So let's dive into part two of our message titled The Trap of Unforgiveness is here on Bold Steps with Mark Jobe.
The address of God is your body. You are a temple of God. Your body is the dwelling place of God. Wherever you go, you bring God. Where you walk. God goes where you drive. God drives. When we dismiss today, we are dismissing thousands of people that go into every corner of Chicago. And if you're born again, you are taking the presence of God, the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit with you. We're going into every nook and cranny of Chicago because the church scatters, but God doesn't
stay in the building. The manifest presence of God is with you via the Holy Spirit. And so wherever you go, you take God in a powerful way with you. Now that's a reminder, though. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. What does that mean? Well, when you were born, you're born physically, but you have a soul, you have a spirit, and you have a body. Your spirit. Not not Holy Spirit, but your spirit is dead. Ephesians chapter two tells us that your spirit is dead because
of sin. But when you come to God, he makes it alive. So the Holy Spirit interacts with your spirit. And as you live your life, when you sin, he brings you under conviction. He brings joy to your life. He guides you. He corrects you. He instructs you. He opens up your eyes to the Word of God. He's called the Paraclete, which means the coach, the trainer, the
one that walks alongside of you. You have a personal coach living inside of you via the Holy Spirit in your body, that wherever you go, whatever you do, the Holy Spirit is there to guide you, push you, instruct you, help you worship. He cries, ABBA, father! When you worship today, when you are worshiping God, the Holy Spirit was saying, come on, worship the father. Come on, worship he's ABBA. Father, lift up your voice. Do you sense his presence? Do
you feel him? It's the Holy Spirit. When you're tempted to sin, the Holy Spirit convicts you. You feel the guilt of sin. You feel the tug of the spirit saying, that's not who you are, that's who you were, but not who you are anymore. When you open up the Word of God and start reading, the Holy Spirit enlightens your mind and he starts teaching you about the Word of God. So your spirit is inflamed by the Holy Spirit. So he teaches you about the Word of God. You
have God living inside of you. You say, well, pastor, I don't understand that. Well, we worship one God, but we worship one God in three persons. He's a triune God. It's hard to explain. It's the mystery of what theologians call the Trinity. But the essence of God is the same God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. He's the same. So he's got the same essence. He's got the same heart. He's got the same essence of his being, but yet three distinct persons. God has
always existed that way. God the father never created the son. He's always existed as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Any teaching that teaches you otherwise, listen to me. It's heresy. Any teaching that devaluates the son or takes away from the Holy Spirit is not from the Word of God. And there's a lot of weird, uh, crazy doctrines about the Trinity or about the Godhead. But there is one God made up of three persons that
have distinct functions. For example, when you pray, you pray to God the Father, but you pray through Jesus the Son that gives you access to God the Father. And it's the Holy Spirit that teaches you how to pray and what to pray. So it's one God operating in three distinct functions and three distinct ways helping you live out your walk in God. So the Bible tells us that when there is unforgiveness within our heart, we grieve
the Holy Spirit. You say, well, why is that so important? Well, it's important because first Romans chapter 14, verse 17 says, the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace. And here it goes. And joy in the Holy Spirit. Galatians chapter five, verse 22 and 23 talks about the fruit of the spirit. What is fruit? Well, if you walk by a pear tree, a pear tree that's healthy has pears at the right season because the fruit is the natural production of a
healthy pear tree. When you are healthy and the Spirit of God is living inside of you, you will have the fruit of love, of joy, of peace, of patience, of kindness, of goodness, of faithfulness, of gentleness, of self-control. You will have that fruit. That's the natural fruit of when the spirit is alive inside of you. Listen to me well. The kingdom of God is made up of joy in the Holy Spirit. Over and over in Scripture, joy in the Holy Spirit are tied into each other.
The fruit of the spirit is joy. Hear me well. There is no such thing as a spirit filled church that doesn't have joy. Joy is part of the natural essence of God. Some of you were raised in churches that felt like funeral homes. In fact, the more sad you looked, the more holy you looked. I don't know about you, but when I look at these stained glass windows and some of the pictures of quote unquote, the saints,
they always look like they just drank lemon juice. When you look at them, I don't think I ever see pictures of saints smiling. They're all like this. And it feels like the the the meaner or sadder you look, the holier you are. Listen, can I tell you something? If we have the Spirit of God, there's joy in
this place. Some of you come from backgrounds and you actually come to church and people are clapping and laughing and smiling and raising their hands, and and you get all nervous like, hey, are we like, are we allowed to do that in church? Is is that okay? I mean, this is I don't know, people are kind of making a little bit too much noise and they're laughing and they're clapping. Listen, the fruit of the spirit is joy. Joy is part of who we are. Joy is a
result of the spirit. It's the essence of the spirit. Joy should be part of what naturally emanates out of you when you're full of the spirit. In fact, a joyless believer is a believer. That's, uh, there's something wrong with your spirituality. And listen. Unforgiveness. We cannot be grieving the spirit and have the joy of the spirit at the same time. Let me say that again. When you are grieving the spirit, the spirit is who should be producing joy in your life. When you are grieving the
spirit that is should be producing joy. You cannot have the joy of God when you're grieving the Spirit of God at the same time. Therefore, some of us who should be experiencing the joy of God do not have the joy of God because the Spirit of God is grieving inside of us. So you feel the grieving of God instead of the joy of the spirit.
You're listening to Bold Steps with Mark Jobe, who again is a pastor and a president pastor of New Life Community Church in Chicago and president of Moody Bible Institute. We'll continue today's message in just a moment. But, Mark, we get so many encouraging messages and calls from listeners who are being helped by these powerful Bible lessons on bold steps. I wish we could play them all, but we don't have the time. But I do want you to hear a voice message we recently received.
Hello. Greetings. My name is Molly, Doctor Joe. I just want you to know that in my walk with Christ, you've been very encouraging. I've been wavering, you know, in and out, in and out. Very lukewarm. But your. Your words have been encouraging, and it's helping me to to just get focused and stay focused. So I just wanted you to know that. Be blessed. Thank you so much.
Molly. It's so encouraging to hear you say that God is using this. I don't know where you're from, but I love your accent, by the way. And, um, you know, God is using these messages in so many different places. We hear from people really all around the world. Thank you for letting us know that ultimately, it's the Holy Spirit taking these messages to challenge people to live for him.
Yeah. Thank you for contacting us. I'll give the number in a moment where you can call and leave a message for us. But Mark, our bold partners make this possible, don't they?
They really do. And I want you to know bold partners, that I've mentioned this before, but God is opening up so many doors around the world. And we are broadcasting now from LA area and California to the other side of the continent and.
Coast to coast, as they say.
And new Jersey and Pretoria, South Africa. Just started there, and Malawi and Singapore and just a lot of places that God is opening up doors for us. And so continue to pray as we seek to keep up with these open doors and some exciting open doors that are coming at us really quickly. So thank you for being bold partners. A bold partner is someone that says, I give monthly to help this ministry. You can choose the amount that you'd like to give monthly, but you're saying
I'm going to give on a monthly basis. It really helps us budget, especially at this time of the year.
We truly appreciate each and every gift you give, especially when you become a monthly supporter. So thank you for that. Now, when you do become a monthly supporter, you'll receive a copy of Mark's book, unstuck. There's access to our Bold Partner post, and for those who give $30 or more each month, a 50% discount on all items at the Moody Publishers online store. Signing up is simple and easy. Just visit Bold Steps and to leave your voicemail message,
as our listener did a few moments ago. Call (312) 329-2011. Now let's return to our message titled The Trap of Unforgiveness.
I believe to be sealed with the spirit means that it's permanent, that it implies ownership, and that you cannot be unsealed. I believe once you are born again to the Spirit of God, I believe in the assurance of believers that if you're born again, you cannot be unborn again. You are sealed unto the day of redemption. You may struggle, you may fall, you may come under discipline, but you
are sealed unto the day of redemption. Number two unforgiveness This evolves always if it's undealt with into something destructive in our attitudes and our behaviors. Notice what he says after do not grieve the spirit. He says, get rid. That means get it out of your system. Be done with it. With what? With the fruit of unforgiveness. What's the fruit of unforgiveness? The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace,
long suffering, gentleness, faith, meekness, temperance. The fruit of unforgiveness is bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, slander along with every form of malice. Now I want you to hear me well. Anger which is listed here. Anger is a secondary emotion. Counselors and and therapists would call it a secondary emotion. Anger is not a sin, it's an emotion. None of your emotions are sin. To be sad is not a sin. To be angry is not a sin. To be happy is not a sin. But it's what you do with
your emotions that can become sinful. If in your anger you start to abuse someone that's sinful. If in your anger you start to verbally put someone down, that's sinful. So to have the emotions of anger is not sinful, but what you do with your anger can be turned sinful. So what the Apostle Paul is telling us is that you cannot grieve the Holy Spirit. The fruit of unforgiveness
and he defines it bitterness. What is bitterness? Bitterness has been defined as the embittered or resentful spirit that refuses reconciliation. Rage is amped up. Anger that lashes out against the world and system and everybody. Anger can have multiple forms of expressions. It can simmer deep inside or it can explode on the outside. He talks about brawling, brawling. Is this this attitude in which you're always ready for a fight, always on the verge of altercation? Slander is when you're
angry at someone. You speak ill of that person because you have anger or resentment inside of you. And malice is simply that desire to do evil against other people. Because you're so mad and angry at them that you want bad to happen to them. All of these are the fruit of unforgiveness. Now, there are some people in this auditorium that you struggle because You've been born again. You have the Spirit of God inside of you, but
you have a past where there's hurt. And if you haven't processed the hurt, that hurt can turn to unforgiveness and bitterness. Look up at me. This is really important. Show me a 25 year old in this auditorium today that if when you were six or 7 or 8, you were verbally abused, physically abused, criticized, lived with an addict stepfather that maybe sexually abused you and you felt unwanted and demeaned by the time you're 25. If you have not dealt with it, you are an angry individual.
There's rage, there's anger, there's slander, there's brawling. Why? Because there's a lot of pain inside that hasn't been processed. and your pain turns into undealt with anger. Explosive anger inside of you. People around you say, what's wrong with you? Ah, this world and you. If I didn't know. And you go off. Let me tell you, if you don't deal with the hurt of the past, if you haven't processed it, dealt with it before God gone through this process of forgiveness,
then you let it simmer inside of you. And when it simmers inside of you, it turns into something that's toxic to you and to the people that are around you. In the city of Chicago. We hear about these crazy acts of violence. And one more time we'll hear on I-55, someone honked at someone. Someone gave him a dirty look. And before we know it, someone shot and killed on the expressway. And we say, wow, traffic is terrible in Chicago. Can I tell you it has nothing to do with traffic?
This is not about the honk. This is not about the driving. This is about the guy that, at five years old, was physically abused, beaten up, and abandoned by a stepfather. And they haven't processed it. And they're full of anger and they're full of issues in their life that they haven't dealt with. And when you when you tip it, it spills out. If I had an opaque glass here, you wouldn't be able to tell what's inside of it. But if someone bumps me, whatever's inside is
going to spill out. If I'm full of anger, rage, brawling, unforgiveness, then it takes a honk on the expressway and it spills out. And everything that's directed towards that stepfather that abused me now becomes the rage against the person that just honked at me. And people say, I don't know why I'm like this. I love my girlfriend or I love my wife and but I explode and I just call her things. I don't know what's wrong. I know what's wrong. What's wrong is you haven't dealt with your issues.
What's wrong is you haven't gone to those hard places. What's wrong is you haven't processed your hurt, you haven't forgiven. You haven't gone to those places that are causing you to be an angry person. And until you deal with it, you may deal with the emotions. And you say, well, pastor, I know what I'm going to do. I'm just going to count to ten. When I'm angry. That's good. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six.
I'm just going to go for a jog. Some of you are really good shape because you're you're angry so often you're going for a jog or I'm going to just breathe deeply. And you know what? I'm happy you're doing that because I don't want people around you to get hurt. But that will not deal with the core issue. The pressure cooker will still have pressure unless the flame is turned off, unless you deal with the root of
your hurt, unless you deal with that unforgiveness. Unless you deal with the pain, unless you confront it and process it before God and deal with it, it will continue to surface. It will continue to boil up. So there are some people that are believers in this auditorium today. And you come to me, I know because you talk to me about it and you say, pastor, I don't know what happened. I was doing so good for three months, and then I fell, and then I did so good
for five months, and then I fell again. And then I was doing really good for another four months. And then I fell again. Let me tell you what's happening. What's happening to a lot of people is that you do well until you get angry. And when you get angry, then suddenly all the old stuff, you, you go immediately back to whatever made you feel good in your old life. That's what it tells us earlier in this chapter, in Ephesians chapter four, verse 26 through 27, it says, be
angry and do not sin. Listen. Do not let the sun go down while you are angry. Do not give the devil a foothold. When you become angry, you give the devil an opportunity and a foothold. You're doing really well fighting pornography. But when you got angry, you wanted something to make you feel better. And so you. You opened up that old pornography page that you go to, and you fell. You called up that old girlfriend and
fell sexually. You went out and over drank. You lit up one more time that cannabis just to calm your nerves down. And you were doing so well. You know why? Anger. And so what the Apostle Paul is telling us is he's telling us that we have to deal with our anger. We have to get rid of this bitterness and rage
and brawling and slander. It tells us in Matthew chapter six, verse 14, Jesus was teaching his disciples to pray, and at the end of the prayer he says, if you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your heavenly father will not forgive you your sins. What does this mean? It simply means that when you have unforgiveness in your heart, you're living in sin and God cannot
release you from what you're continuing to do. You have to choose to get rid of it so God can release you from it. So the Apostle Paul is talking to these believers about walking in victory, and he's describing to them how they can overcome. And he ends up this passage with this last exhortation. Which leads me to my third point. Unforgiveness can only be overcome with Genuine forgiveness.
So the Apostle Paul says in verse 32, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ, God forgave you. So the Apostle Paul really gets the root of the solution when he says, hey, you can't grieve the spirit by having unforgiveness that leads to the fruit of unforgiveness. Until you get to the point of saying, I gotta release, I gotta forgive, I gotta let go.
You're listening to Bold Steps with Mark Jobe in the middle of a three part message on the trap of unforgiveness. Make plans to join us tomorrow to hear the final segment. And if you can't tune in tomorrow, you simply want to find more content from Mark. Be sure to visit our website. Bold steps.org. We're nearing the end of today's program, but before we close, I want to tell you about an exclusive new resource we have available something special from
the desk of Mark Jobe. It's a brand new 15 day devotional called More Than a Label Discovering Who You Are in Christ. In this powerful study, Mark takes you deep into God's Word to explore the truth about your identity in Christ. You'll discover who God created you to be and why your identity truly matters. This devotional will help you uncover your purpose and calling as you open God's Word and learn to live out your true identity.
And during this month, we're happy to make this special offer available to you for a gift of any size to support this ministry. Don't let the world define you by labels. Step into the life and purpose God has planned for you. Get your copy of More Than a Label today, and begin your journey toward discovering the incredible person God created you to be. Simply visit boldsystems.org to donate or request more than a label by calling 800
de Moody. That's (800) 356-6639. Or you can mail your donation and request for the devotional at Bold Steps. 820 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 606 ten. And don't forget to join our online community. You'll find daily inspiration and connect with fellow believers by following bold steps on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Mark Jobe's YouTube channel. Just search for Bold Steps Radio and become part of the conversation. I'm Wayne Shepherd,
that's our time for today. Join us again tomorrow and Mark concludes this lesson on the trap of unforgiveness. That's Wednesday on Bold Steps with Mark Jobe. Bold steps is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.