Today on bold steps with Mark job, we're discovering rock solid living.
You're not defined by your background. You're not defined by your social status. You are not defined by those things. You are defined by the presence of God. You have something to give. You're a giver and you're not a taker. That's the value of the Kingdom of God.
Welcome to Bold Steps with Mark Jobe, president of Moody Bible Institute and the senior pastor of New Life Community Church in Chicago. And Wayne Shepherd, in your life, are you more of a giver or a taker? It's an honest question to ask. Given that we live in a consumer driven culture, we're often reminded to take care of number one at all costs. But is that what God wants from us, or is he calling us to more? That's the question Mark answers today as we continue our study.
Rock solid living. If you've missed any of the messages in this series, you can catch up online at Bold Steps. But right now, here's Mark Jobe with today's message titled Thou Shalt Not Steal.
In Deuteronomy chapter 27, verse 17, it says, cursed is the man who moves his neighbor's boundary stone. Now, in an agrarian society, your land is your most important source of income. You plow you till you plant and your income comes from that. So if you lose land and what some of the ancients would do is they would move the boundary, they would move at night, they would move the rocks that mark the boundary of their land.
And if they could move it over 3 or 4ft, they would gain a whole stretch of land and increase their income. But it was robbing their neighbor. And God says, cursed Is the man that moves the stone. In other words, when you rob your neighbor, there's a curse that comes upon your life. The withdrawal of the favor of God. First Corinthians chapter six, verse ten says, do you know the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do
not be deceived. And then he lists a whole bunch of things that will not inherit the kingdom of God. And he among them he says, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor the slanderers, nor swindlers will inherit the
kingdom of God. What I'm pointing out to you is that God takes seriously the breaking of the Ten Commandments, the Ten Commandments, but he takes seriously the breaking of the eighth commandment that violates the nature of God's heart, which is the heart of giving and turns us into takers. One last verse I want to give you under this is Malachi chapter three, verses eight and nine. It says, Will a man rob God, Yet you rob me because you ask, how do we rob you in tithes and offerings?
You're under a curse, the whole nation of you, because you're robbing me. God is saying anything that you take that doesn't belong to you. Anything that you owe someone else, including what you owe to give to God. And yet you do not give, becomes a curse to you. I believe that giving and releasing jumpstarts a Kingdom of God cycle in your life that counters the enemy's cycle of destruction. Notice what the Apostle Paul told to the Ephesian believers
in Ephesians chapter four, verse 27 through 28. I want you to listen to this. This is huge. I want you to grasp this because some of you may be arguing, well, pastor, I don't see what the big deal is. Okay, so I checked out a half hour early at my job without working. I don't see what the big deal is. Okay, so I lied a little bit on my income tax. Do you know I need the money a lot more than the US government needs the money. Okay, so I took a few tools from my job. Our tendency could
be to excuse it. What I want you to understand is that it's not just about the quantity. It's not about the dollar amount. What it's about is the seeds that you are planting in your life, and the negative effect that they can have. And you may be sowing curses, so to speak, into your life without even realizing it. Upon the violation of the eighth commandment, I want you to see this. Ephesians 427 through 28. It says, the apostle Paul says, and do not give the devil a foothold.
Now how many of you know what a foothold is? If you don't know all you all you have to remember is when you were in junior high And your brother, your older brother was chasing you around the house because mom was out buying groceries and he's chasing you around the house. I'm going to get you. I'm going to get you. And you run into your bedroom and you slam the door closed and you think you're safe. But you realize that although the door is almost closed, it's
not closing all the way. And so you slam it again, only to realize as you look down that he's got a foot in the door. Oh, and you can slam it and slam it, but once there's a foot in the door, then what comes next? Oh, you know, once he's got a foot in the door, then he's going to put his hand in there, his shoulder in there. And before you know it, he will overpower you to open the door, because when there's a foot in the door, it gives room for more to go in the door.
And pretty soon he's in there beating you. And spiritually, what God is saying is that when you give a foothold to the enemy, it means that the door is wide enough open so that more and more can start slithering in through that foothold that you've given to begin to bring about an atmosphere of destruction upon your life. And so the Apostle Paul says, and do not give
the devil a foothold. And then he says, he who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need. Hold on a second, he says. If you've been stealing. Stop the stealing. Get a job. Get a job for what? To pay your bills. He doesn't even mention your bills. He says get a job so that you can earn income. So that you can begin to share generosity into other people's lives. Why?
Because the Kingdom of God is about giving. The King of the enemy is about taking. Anytime you see a taker, it's part of the Kingdom of God value system. Anytime you see a giver, it's part of the Kingdom of God value system. The takers. The Kingdom of the darkness value system giver is a Kingdom of God value system. And you need to ask yourself, what kind of mentality do I have? If you got into marriage thinking, well, why did you get married? Well, I have needs. I
want them met. I need someone to love me. I need someone to give me companionship. I need to have sex on a regular basis. And I'm thinking maybe I have someone to do my dishes. Do my laundry. You know, my mother says I'm 30 years old. I should do that on my own. She's not doing it anymore. So I got married because I have knees, let me tell you.
Wrong answer. But here's what happens. As soon as your needs stopped being met, you will feel like I want out of this deal because my needs are not being met. And you entered into that relationship with a taker mentality. Let me tell you how God wants you to enter into that relationship. You enter into that relationship saying to yourself, I want to go in. I want to give of my love. I want to give of my heart. I want to pour into this. I want to serve. I
want to flow. Give as much to this relationship as I can. And the byproduct of you giving was that you will receive in return, but you go in with a giving mentality. Kingdom of God mentality. We go into a community, and our mentality, even as a people of God, needs to be a giving mentality, not a taking mentality.
Even as a believer, as you come to a community of faith like this, you could you could take on a takers mentality and you could ask yourself, well, I'm going to see what I can get out of this service. I hope I get a lot. I hope I like the songs that they choose. I hope the message is for me. And if I if I can get, then I'm okay with it. If I don't feel like I'm getting, then I'm not okay with it. And you can come with that mentality, but I call that an immature mentality. Oh,
I hope you receive and I hope you get. But maybe not every service you're going to get as much as the other service. But I believe that a mature mentality, a kingdom of God mentality comes into a community of faith, not only saying, I hope this will be a blessing, but I hope I can be a blessing. And you enter in. Yeah, this is how you enter in God.
I know that every Sunday, with 1400 people meeting at our midway campus, I know that there's someone that's going to be discouraged, someone that's going to have maybe marital trouble, or contemplated suicide, or lost their job, or praying for a prodigal son. And so, God, I pray that as I go to church this morning, oh God, help me to be a blessing to someone I hope I can minister, encourage, deposit. I'm going to be looking to do something to give away,
to help someone out. Because I'm not just coming to take man. I'm coming to give.
While you're listening to pastor Mark Jobe, and we're taking a brief pause from today's message to remind you that we would love to hear from you. Your encouragement, your comments, regardless of what they are, are important to us. And Mark, recently, in that light, you made a statement on the program that in Chicago, we have one of the most bigoted cities in the U.S. and that got some response from some listeners.
Yeah. So let me first of all say that I love Chicago, and I've lived here for many, many years. My wife was born and raised in Chicago's Southwest Side. But when I started pastoring in Chicago, I also realized that there is a lot of segregation, and I pastor a largely minority congregation there, a lot of different ethnic groups. And I came to realize that there has been a lot of polarization, racism in the city of Chicago. And
that's not just my opinion. Sociologists study cities say that Chicago has been one of those cities that has struggled a lot. I want to say, praise God that he is doing a lot in this city, and praise God that he's breaking down barriers, but not with a lot of fight. And when I look across our congregation on Sunday morning or look at our worship team. African American, Asian. Hispanic.
White worshiping together. It reminds me of a piece of heaven, but it also reminds me, as I minister in cities like Chicago, there's a lot of places around the US that there's still a lot of work to do.
Amen. Yeah. And thank God for churches like New Life Community Church that I think are doing the right thing in this city.
Yeah. I remind our congregation, oftentimes, look around, there are people because of their skin color or the background that they came from, that in your former life you would have nothing to do with. But now you call them my brother. My sister. And I think the church should be leading the way.
Well, we thank that listener for contacting us with that comment, Mark. You can connect with us on our social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram, or contact us through our website boldsystems.org. All right. Let's jump back into the second half of today's message now.
If you take on that mentality, do you also say, I want to serve, not pay? You know, it was hard to find parking today. I hope those parking guys get it together. You may want to say, hey, I want to offer to serve in the parking lot once a month. Bless. Giving mentality says I'm not just coming to see how my needs can be met. I'm not a consumer. I'm a giver. I'm a part. Jesus. When he came to earth, Jesus said, I did not come to be served, but I came to serve. He was
the Son of God. He could have asked that everybody would meet his needs, that everybody would bow, that everybody would, would, would cater to him in everything. But instead Jesus said, I have come to serve. And he, he, he gave of himself. He gave of his love. He gave to the poor, he gave to the needy, and ultimately he gave his life. Why? He's building a culture. It's called the Kingdom of God culture. It's a culture that releases. It's a culture that gives. It gives. It's a culture
that thrives in generosity. It's the opposite of stealing, the opposite of taking. It's a giving culture that exists in the kingdom of God. My prayer is that not only in our individual lives, that we would take on a giving Kingdom of God culture, but I pray that corporately we would give a kingdom of God giving culture. That's why my prayer is wherever we plan to campus. My prayer is that that that we would be able to bless that community because we give to that community, not
just take from that community. Let me give you an example. Our our our team in Little Village realized that that there's tons of violence happening in the summertimes and tons of especially Latino youth killing one another senselessly. And we happen to be in Little Village. We happen to be on the border kind of on the on the border line of two of the major gangs in the little
village community. And you know that whenever you're in the border, whenever you're on the border line, that that's where the friction happens. And so we decided a couple of years ago that we were going to start a softball league. So we started a softball league in Little Village. It's different than more softball, most softball leagues, because 90% of the people playing in that softball league are gang affiliated. This year we had 20 teams, 300 participants. The great
majority affiliated with the gang. You say, well, why do you want to do that? Oh, we want to do that because we're givers and not takers. That's why we want to do that. We want to do that because we want peace in our neighborhood. So we do one softball league on this side and another softball league on that side. Some of the highest ranking members of some
of the gangs are part of that softball league. And then at the end, we have a championship in which this team plays against that team, against an opposite gang. We don't do it in the neighborhood and we call a lot of cops. We did it on our own. We funded it on our own. This year, the city of Chicago saw what we were doing and saying, hey, you guys are doing this. You're doing a great job. They gave us a $25,000 grant to run the softball game. What am I saying? I'm saying that we are givers.
That from the very beginning we say, God, you have given us something. We operate in the Kingdom of God mentality of giving and not taking. We give life. We don't take life. We impart hope. We don't take hope. We infuse love. We don't just take love. We give to people. We don't use people. The mentality of the Kingdom of God is a king is a mentality of generosity.
It's a mentality that overflows. It's a mentality that says, I have seeds to sow and I will sow those seeds and I will reap a harvest of righteousness, but I will sow, because God's heart is a heart of giving. And as we give, we know that the byproduct will be expansion of the kingdom of God and the values of the Kingdom of God. Yesterday we did a community fest in our Humboldt Park campus, which is a very
rough little neighborhood that we're in there. I got a couple text messages early in the afternoon about 11:00 or so, and they said, hey, pray for us, pastor, because, um, we're trying to put on a community fest with music and games and stuff for a community that's super dysfunctional. A lot of gangs, a lot of violence, a lot of stuff going on there. And they said, pray for us, because there had just been a drive by shooting on opposite.
People heard that we were doing a fest there and wanted to disrupt it for the people in the community. So they drove by and there was a drive by shooting in on the block that we're about to do a a community fest in. The good thing is the alderman had dropped by to see how things were going. So he got to experience a little drive by shooting of his own. I called Pastor Danny up and said, how are we doing, pastor? What's going on there? He said, man, I call him up in the afternoon. Later he said,
we're going full fledged. We got the band going, the people coming out, man, that's not going to stop us. We're not going to let the enemy stop us from what God has called us to do. What is that? It's a giving. It's it's it's a giving kingdom of God atmosphere. Instead of taking kingdom of God atmosphere. I believe listen to me. Well, the reason that we're givers
is that we have something to give. If you have the Spirit of God in your heart and the Holy Spirit dwells inside of you, I don't care what your bank account says you are, you are not defined by the money that is currently in your savings account. You are defined by the presence of God in your life. And if you have God, you have something to give every single one of us here. Listen, you're not defined by your background. You're not defined by your social status.
You're not defined by whether you are employed or unemployed. You are not defined by whether you have a criminal record or do not. You're not defined by whether you have a BA degree, in Ma degree or no degree at all. You are not defined by those things. You are defined by the presence of God. And if you are a possessor of the Holy Spirit and the presence of God, you have something to give. You're a giver and you're not a taker. You bless. You don't use.
That's the that's the value of the kingdom of God. Thou shalt not steal. You will never flow from a take mentality to a give mentality, unless you first of all understand what you have in God. If you view yourself as poor, if you view yourself as undeserving, If you view yourself as no identity. If you view yourself as having nothing inside, then you will have a need mentality. In every relationship you're in, every job that you're in, you will take more than you give. Every group that
you're in, you will take more than you give. You'll look for opportunities to take advantage of people because that is built out of a need mentality. That's not who you are. Look me in the eyes. I want you just to see the whites of your eyes. That is not who you are. You're not a taker. You're a giver. Give the power to give. Spirit of God, the right to give. The obligation to give. The beauty to give. You're a giver, not a taker. Dads, you're a giver,
not a taker. Moms, you're a giver, not a taker. Employees. You're a giver, not a taker. Employers. You're a giver, not a taker. That's that's your DNA. That's the Kingdom of God mentality. We live in a dog eat dog world. We live in a world that's taking, taking, taking. You're going to have to fight the culture and be a giver. You say, pastor, I don't want to be taken advantage of. Let me tell you, there'll be times that you will
be taken advantage of. But you know what? I would rather err on the side of once in a while, being taken advantage of as a giver than err on the side of being consumed in the kingdom of darkness is simply a taker.
This is bold steps, and you're listening to the Bible teaching of pastor, author and Moody Bible Institute president Mark Jobe. We've just begun a new series on rock solid living, and if you've missed any of the messages in this series, you can catch up online at Bold steps. Org. Well, Mark, there might be some people out there who say, pastor, I'm a violator of the eighth commandment. I take more than I give. What's your message to them right now?
Yeah, I would say that our natural tendency in the flesh is to be takers. That's the nature of our dark side, so to speak.
Let's be honest about that, huh?
But the most famous verse in the Bible, John 316 For God so loved the world that he gave. And I think when you embrace the kingdom of God, and the Spirit of God comes upon us and starts to transform us, he shifts us from, what can I get out of this? To how can I contribute and give to this? And so some of you are going wrestling through the old habits and nature and trying to put on the new self made in the image of God. And I want to say, hey, it is it's a process.
I acknowledge it's a difficult process, but I'm so glad that you've engaged in it, willing to say, God, here I am. Change me into a giver more than a taker.
And how thankful we are for the word that holds itself up like a mirror, so we can see these things in our life.
Yeah, sometimes. Sometimes we don't like what we see in that mirror. But praise God that if we look intently and are willing to submit to God, it's a place of great transformation.
Which leads me, Mark, to mention this brand new devotional you've put together called Discovering Who You Are in Christ. Sometimes we need to ask ourselves, who am I really? And this booklet can help us.
You know, in so many people, especially younger people, struggle with identity issues like who am I really? And your identity affects how you walk talk, how you live, how you behave, how you think. If you have some labels on you that define you in a way that's not consistent with how God defines you, then it affects everything about your life. And I think some of you need to start ripping those labels off, and the only way to do that is through the renewing of your mind.
And so this devotional helps you for 15 days start to think of who am I in Christ? What does God say about me? What does the Word of God say? What is my true identity? 15 days of starting to renew your mind.
And 15 days will lead to a habit, won't it?
That's our hope, is that you start down this road and that you'll start to develop that sense of, I'm going to start meditating, thinking and focused on who I am in Christ.
Well, it's called more than a label discovering who you are in Christ. It's a powerful look at your identity, not through how the world sees you, but how God sees you. And Mark, I'm so glad that you've put this together. Thank you for doing this. I'll tell our listeners how to get a copy, but you see us using it every day for 15 days straight.
15 days in the morning. There's a little devotional thought, and then there's some questions right next to it that you can answer and fill out. But the idea here is that you would meditate every day on your new identity in Jesus.
Sounds great. So if you've ever struggled with self-doubt, insecurity, or just wondered why am I here? This study is for you and we'd love to send you a copy as our way of saying thank you for your gift to Bold steps. Request your very own copy today of more than a label discovering who you are in Christ at Bold steps.org. Look for the devotional tab and click on that or call 800 Moody. That's (800) 356-6639. I'm Wayne Shepherd inviting you to join us again tomorrow. And Mark
explains the important meaning of the ninth commandment. The message is called thou shalt not lie. And you'll hear it right here. Tuesday on Bold Steps with Mark Jobe. Bold steps is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.