S1: Today on bold steps, Mark and his son Josiah team
S1: up to share an important Father's Day message about the
S1: power of a father's blessing.
S2: Lavish affection makes someone feel like I belong to this.
S2: When there's a lack of physical affection, then you start
S2: feeling there's something wrong with me. Something that is unacceptable
S2: about who I am. Therefore, there's little affection towards me.
S1: And welcome to Bold Steps with Mark Jobe. Mark is
S1: president of Moody Bible Institute and senior pastor of New
S1: Life Community Church in Chicago. I'm Wayne Shepherd. Well, Mark,
S1: coming up this weekend is Father's Day, of course, and
S1: for many, we'll be honoring our dads. But there are
S1: also a lot of listeners for whom the word father
S1: doesn't evoke happy feelings. So you're going to talk both
S1: about what it means to live in the blessing or
S1: the vacuum of not having a father present.
S3: Yeah, Wayne, you know the scripture talks about Father God. Typically,
S3: we expect that that would just invoke these warm feelings
S3: of a protective father. But for so many in our generation,
S3: it does not. There's a vacuum there. And this message
S3: is really about what it means to convey the father's blessing,
S3: especially if you've never received it. And so there's a
S3: whole generation of fathers that because of absentee fathers or
S3: divorce or whatever the circumstances, that have never really felt
S3: the power of blessing. And if you've never really experienced
S3: the power of blessing, sometimes when it's your turn to
S3: give it, it's challenging. I believe that every father can
S3: give the power of the blessing, but they have to
S3: sort of experience it from their Heavenly father so that
S3: they can give it out. And so if you've been
S3: struggling with that, I think this would be a great
S3: message for you to listen to because you have the
S3: power to bless.
S1: And it means a lot to you to give this
S1: message with Josiah, your son.
S3: Absolutely. So when Josiah first started preaching with me, he had, uh,
S3: no kids. Uh, but now he's got three boys under three,
S3: so his hands are full. And it really is, uh,
S3: fun to be able to dual teach this message.
S1: So with that said, let's dive into our message titled
S1: The Power of the blessing with Mark and Josiah Jobe.
S2: There's a lot of confusion sometimes about blessing. Some people,
S2: if you ask, well, what's the blessing? They'll say, well,
S2: that's what we do before we eat a meal. We
S2: say the blessing. Some people say, well, that's what happens
S2: after you sneeze. Bless you. They think that's the blessing.
S2: So there's a lot of different ideas about what the
S2: blessing is. Sometimes it's hard to grasp. It's a little
S2: bit generic, ethereal. It's a little bit hard to pinpoint.
S2: I heard two clergy that were having discrepancy about the blessing. Uh,
S2: one was a Catholic priest and one was a rabbi.
S2: And in order to save money, they had moved in
S2: together and bought a car together. And so one of
S2: them said to the other, hey, we need to bless
S2: our car. Yeah, that's a good idea. So the rabbi
S2: looked out the window one day, and he saw the
S2: Catholic priest sprinkling water on the car and, uh, speaking
S2: blessing over the car when he came in. He said,
S2: what are you doing? He said, well, in my tradition,
S2: that's how we bless, you know, the sprinkling of the
S2: holy water. And then speaking blessing, he said, oh, okay.
S2: So the next day, the Catholic priest looked out the
S2: window and he saw the rabbi with a hacksaw, and
S2: he was sawing off the end of the tailpipe of
S2: his car. And he said, hey, what are you doing?
S2: He said, well, in my tradition, we circumcise. That's the blessing.
S2: So he just was, uh. So there's a lot of
S2: understandings about blessing, and I'm not sure what your understanding
S2: of blessing is, but there is something powerful and compelling
S2: when you receive the blessing of the father. Amen. You know.
S4: As we've we preached this message now twice as the
S4: third time we're preaching this message, this, this, um, this Sunday,
S4: what I've realized, and I'm so convinced of the power
S4: that is in blessing. I think one of the main
S4: problems that plagues people today is that so many people
S4: are functioning from a deficit of not having the blessing
S4: spoken into their life. And I think it creates this,
S4: this vacuum in their life that they need. We feel
S4: the need to try to, uh, have it filled and
S4: all of these different illegitimate ways. And so we chase it.
S4: I can't tell you how many people, even after the
S4: service I talked to that said, that's exactly my story.
S4: I didn't have that. I wasn't blessed in that way.
S4: I didn't have somebody in my life that spoke into
S4: my life. And I believe that as we understand this,
S4: it will transform our life. So the idea behind blessing
S4: and the idea behind the word, the idea behind the
S4: Hebrew word, specifically in the Old Testament in Genesis chapter 24,
S4: is the idea of bowing the knee. And in that culture,
S4: if you saw somebody that was a king or a
S4: royal dignitary, you would come before that person. You would
S4: bow your knee before that person, signifying and communicating to
S4: that person. This is someone that has a lot of
S4: value and worth. So when you choose to bless someone,
S4: you're acting in a way that shows that you value them.
S4: You're choosing to do things, act in a way you say,
S4: this person that's in my life is somebody that has value,
S4: and this doesn't have to just be your children, even
S4: though we'll speak a lot from that lens today. This
S4: could be a spouse, a coworker, a boss. You say,
S4: I'm living in a way that I want you to understand.
S4: I'm blessing you. I'm living out a way that's saying
S4: you have value. Now, on the other end of that,
S4: what is a curse? A curse. This word in the
S4: Hebrew literally means a trickle or a muddy stream caused
S4: by a dam or obstruction of to an upstream. This
S4: is the idea that when you curse somebody, it's when
S4: you cut off the things that are good to them
S4: so they can't experience it. And so in our store,
S4: in our life, each and every one of us has
S4: the listen to me has the power and the ability
S4: to choose. Do I want to be a blessing to
S4: those around me where they are getting the good life
S4: and the value that I see in them, blessing them
S4: with the way that I'm living? Or do we want
S4: to be people that curse people? You may say, oh,
S4: I wouldn't say verbally, I'd curse them, but we curse
S4: them by withholding that which is good that they need
S4: in their life and what God has called us to
S4: do is bless people and be people of blessing and light.
S4: And so we're going to talk really quickly about the
S4: four elements of how you say, how do I do it?
S4: I've never seen it. How you can bless people in
S4: your life.
S2: You know, the Bible tells us that when God created
S2: man and woman, it says God created male and female.
S2: He created them in his image. The very first act
S2: of God was to bless. Blessing, as Pastor Josiah said,
S2: is the conveying of favor of goodness transferred from one
S2: person to the next. In 1986, there was two authors
S2: that co-authored a book called The Blessing Giving the Gift
S2: of Unconditional Love and Acceptance, John Trent and Gary Smalley
S2: Only when they wrote this book. I was not yet
S2: a father, but I read it early on and it
S2: shaped some of my thinking. I'd never thought that much
S2: about the blessing until I read this book, and I
S2: was just about to become a father, just about to
S2: experience the birth of my children. And this was a
S2: powerful book that helped me want to make sure that,
S2: as a father, I was conveying the biblical, scriptural blessing
S2: to my children because it helped me realize how much
S2: and how powerful the blessing is. There are four key
S2: elements to the blessing, as you see in Scripture, and
S2: we're going to be looking at Genesis 27 and Genesis 48,
S2: where you see two fathers that are conveying the blessing.
S2: The first element that I want you to be aware
S2: of is the element of meaningful touch and affection in
S2: Genesis chapter 27, you have Abraham's son Isaac blessing his
S2: sons Jacob and Esau. And if you read in Genesis
S2: chapter 27, verse 26 and 27, the Bible says that he,
S2: as he blesses them, uh, he's actually, uh, comes near
S2: and kisses them and embraces them. In Genesis chapter 48,
S2: you see Jacob Blessing, uh, two of his grandsons, and
S2: it says Joseph brought his sons to him, and the
S2: father kissed them and embraced them. Can I tell you something?
S2: They have done studies. Long term studies about the effects
S2: of affection towards our children. Appropriate affection. One study, one
S2: of the longest studies, was a 30 year study. They
S2: studied the effect of babies and toddlers that had received
S2: strong affection embrace, hugs, kisses, a lot of affection when
S2: they were young and as they grew up in as children,
S2: and the effects that they had on them as adults,
S2: they were wondering. And then they studied a second group
S2: that had received very little physical affection when they were young.
S2: And this is the results of these studies, those that
S2: had received a lot of affection, physical affection from their parents,
S2: had higher self-esteem, improved academic performance, better parent child communication,
S2: and fewer psychological and behavioral problems. Those that had received
S2: less affection or very little affection, uh, struggled with lower self-esteem,
S2: feelings of being alienated, hostility, aggressiveness, and antisocial behavior. What
S2: the study was realizing is that children, when they feel loved,
S2: embraced when there's high affection, demonstrated. Because what affection says
S2: is we're close. What affection says is you are loved.
S2: What affection says is you are mine. What affections demonstrates
S2: lavish affection makes someone feel like I belong to this.
S2: When there's a lack of physical affection, then you start
S2: feeling there's something wrong with me. We're not that close.
S2: Maybe we're alienated here. And there's a sense of. There's
S2: probably something that is unacceptable about who I am. Therefore,
S2: there's little affection towards me. A father came up to
S2: me after one of our services, our first service, and
S2: he said to me, and he's in his probably his
S2: 50s now. He said, my father never, ever said, I
S2: love you until recently. He said, my father 70 years old.
S2: And when he said it to me, it shocked me.
S2: There are some men in this auditorium that you grew
S2: up in, a culture that makes it hard for you
S2: to share affection. Some of you grew up with fathers
S2: that were a part of a culture and part of
S2: a generation where austerity and just being tough and not
S2: showing emotion was highly valued. But there are some men
S2: in this auditorium that you grew up wondering, am I
S2: a man? Am I accepted, am I valuable? Does my
S2: dad really care? And maybe he did care, but he
S2: had difficulty expressing Affection. Verbally, physically. The hug, the embrace.
S2: I want to remind you that you have a powerful,
S2: powerful tool at your disposal. And that's the ability to
S2: show affection. By the way, this is not just true
S2: of your children. It's also true of your wife. If
S2: you're married, it's not good enough to say, I love you, honey.
S2: She needs your arm around her shoulder once in a while.
S2: She needs you to take her hand once in a while.
S2: She needs that kiss in the morning. Once in a while.
S2: She needs to know that there's affection that you're showing
S2: towards her. She's probably already told you that. And I'm
S2: just reiterating that to you.
S1: You're listening to the Bible teaching of Mark job and
S1: his son Josiah, and will continue this bold steps message
S1: titled The Power of the blessing, right after a quick break.
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S1: recorded line by dialing 312329 2011. 92011. Now let's get
S1: back into today's message. Here again is Mark Jobe.
S2: I love, by the way, the story that draws my
S2: attention is in Mark chapter ten verse 14 through 16.
S2: Jesus was surrounded by a crowd of people that were
S2: pushing in to hear him. They wanted to be healed.
S2: They wanted to catch a look at him. And there's
S2: also small children that were coming and wanting to touch Jesus.
S2: The disciples, feeling like they were being good ushers, were
S2: keeping the children away. And when Jesus saw this, it
S2: says in Mark chapter ten verse 14, he was indignant.
S2: In other words, he was surprised. Hey, don't do that.
S2: He said to them, let the little children come to me,
S2: and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God
S2: belongs to such as these. Listen, I love this. This
S2: is Jesus, the Messiah, the God who's always had. He
S2: never had a beginning, never had an end. The God
S2: Almighty who was there when the heavens were created, the
S2: earth was formed, born of a supernatural, Immaculate conception, the
S2: sinless Son of God. It says, and he took the
S2: children in his arms, put his hand on them, and
S2: blessed them. Amen. I love that first element of the
S2: blessing is the willingness to show meaningful affection. Let me
S2: close with this. Some of you were really good when
S2: your kids were babies. You hugged them, kiss their cheeks,
S2: embrace them, showed affection. But you became much more awkward
S2: as they grew older. Let me tell you, your teenage,
S2: maybe even your adult sons and daughters still need the
S2: power of affection in their life.
S4: You know, as I was studying this, this passage this
S4: week and preparing for this and also reading this book,
S4: the blessing that I had never read before, you know,
S4: I was so ministered to it myself. I'm trying to
S4: raise my boys well, and I'm really thinking about how
S4: can I really bless them and, and, you know, enable them.
S4: And I realized as I was reading through the book
S4: and almost kind of going through the checklist in my
S4: mind that I was given an amazing example up close,
S4: because I feel like as I go through this passage
S4: and study what the blessing is, I was able to
S4: in my home and under my father and my mother's,
S4: you know, leadership and their love, able to experience every
S4: one of those in a healthy way, really. And I
S4: want to honor, you know, my father, my father in
S4: that way. Because what I've learned, here's what I've learned
S4: in talking with so many people. What I've learned is
S4: oftentimes the people that we want to become, we don't
S4: we don't become because we default to what's behind us,
S4: and we grab back at whatever we've experienced, whatever we've
S4: grown up with and, and under, you know, under the
S4: new reality of the life that we have with God.
S4: We have to choose to to to pull to what,
S4: you know, grab back to what God has now for us,
S4: not just what we've been raised with that may be
S4: dysfunctional or may be good. Right? The second step, really,
S4: or element of how to bless, is a spoken message
S4: that attaches high value. Part of the blessing, part of
S4: the way we bless people around us is not just
S4: by hugging them or kissing them on the cheek or
S4: holding their hand, but part of the way we bless
S4: them is with the power of our words. Proverbs 1821 says,
S4: the tongue has the power of life and death. You know,
S4: I'm trying to teach my little son Saint right now,
S4: my two year old. I'm trying to teach him the
S4: value of words even from a young age. And one
S4: of the things he. I don't know how he learned
S4: it or why he says it, but every once in
S4: a while, even this morning, my son will go up
S4: to my. My other son who's in his jumper, and
S4: he'll go, go way Dallas. And so me and my
S4: wife are being very clear. We don't want him to
S4: say that to his little brother. And so I've told him,
S4: I said, hey, Saint. We don't say that to our brother.
S4: We like our little brother. We say nice things to
S4: our little brother. We say things like, thank you, Dallas.
S4: And so then he goes, okay, thank you Dallas. Words matter.
S4: We can say things that build people up, that add
S4: value to their life, that encourage them when they're down.
S4: And we can also use our tongue and our words
S4: to tear people down, break them down, and remove a
S4: lot of the value that God has already instilled in
S4: them as a child of God, or a creation of his.
S1: Well, that's the voice of Josiah Jobe, Mark's son. And
S1: you're listening to Bold Steps, the Bible teaching of Mark Jobe.
S1: And today his son as well. Today's message is called
S1: the power of the blessing. And you can hear part
S1: two of this special Father's Day message right here tomorrow.
S1: So please keep listening. In the meantime, we encourage you
S1: to visit our website and check out all the special
S1: resources and opportunities we have available by going to Bold steps.org.
S1: One resource we really encourage you to check out is
S1: this month's exclusive Bold Step gift. And to tell us
S1: more about it, Mark, we have the authors with us,
S1: Aaron and Jason Davis.
S2: Jason, you mentioned in your book Lies Boys believe that
S2: one of the most harmful lies that boys can fall
S2: for is that reading the Bible just isn't for me.
S2: And in an age of declining biblical literacy, how can
S2: parents help their sons develop a love for God's Word
S2: and really want to read it?
S5: I think that you're right on and it is a
S5: real issue. But an exciting thing is that searches for
S5: Bible related content have skyrocketed over the last several months.
S5: So I think there's a resurgence of interest in things
S5: of Scripture. But when we're dealing specifically with young men,
S5: I think that, yeah, it can be daunting, especially if
S5: they just randomly open up their Bible and it's a,
S5: you know, numbers and they're just reading these chains of content. Uh,
S5: and that's important content, but it's probably more appropriate for
S5: somebody that has a better grasp on the full scripture.
S5: So where I think families should start is with something
S5: simple like lies, boys believe something to spark an interest
S5: in Scripture and then challenging their their son. Hey, did
S5: you read the Bible today? Did you can tell me
S5: about an adventure that Jesus had? Or tell me about, uh,
S5: a challenge that Jesus faced. Tell me what the disciples
S5: were up to and make it relatable to story instead
S5: of just facts and figures. And boys will relate more
S5: to the story, especially when it involves adventure or challenges
S5: and overcoming those challenges.
S6: And if I could just talk to the mom or
S6: the grandma listening. It looks different for our husbands and
S6: our sons, and it does for us. Uh, for me,
S6: it's a quiet morning with my Bible open and a
S6: cup of coffee nearby. I gather with a group of
S6: women in a circle every week, and for a long
S6: time I had that expectation for Jason, my husband, and
S6: my sons. And it looks different for them. Jason and
S6: I teach boys and girls Sunday school, so he teaches
S6: the boys. I teach the girls. We're on the same hallway,
S6: and the girls literally are sitting quietly in a circle
S6: with their Bibles open, reading the verses out loud, and
S6: we can hear the boys all the way down the hall.
S6: I don't know what they're doing, but they're they're loud.
S1: Jason.
S6: Jason's taught me that it's important that those boys love
S6: church and that they walk out of Sunday school going,
S6: that was a great time. And they're getting the Bible,
S6: but it looks different than it does for us. And
S6: that's part of celebrating the differences between boys and girls.
S6: And so I just think as moms, we can sometimes
S6: have an expectation that our sons interactions with the word
S6: will be quiet and they will exegete with us and
S6: they will want to dialogue. And that just isn't always
S6: how it happens. And they should have the freedom to
S6: explore the word in the ways that are meaningful to them.
S2: Yeah, and I love that you're pointing out the differences
S2: with how boys and girls typically learn. There's always exceptions
S2: to that. But thank you so much. This is a
S2: great resource. I'm encouraged by the way. Uh, Jason, you
S2: mentioned that there's an uptick in biblical literacy. They say 22%
S2: sales of Bibles have gone up. And I'm also encouraged
S2: that we live in a season where there's an upsurge
S2: also in young men going to church. And I do
S2: think that some of it has to do with the
S2: lies that they've been raised with, and they're looking for truth.
S5: Absolutely. They'll find it in Scripture. They'll find that truth.
S2: So let's get them started. Young lies, Boys Believe by
S2: Aaron and Jason. Thank you for this tool. I think
S2: it's going to be a blessing to a lot of families.
S1: I'm sure it will be. And we want you to
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S1: of any amount to support this ministry, just call us
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S1: signing off for now, but be sure to join us
S1: again tomorrow for part two of our message on the
S1: power of the blessing. That's Friday on Bold Steps with
S1: Mark Jobe. Bold steps is a production of Moody Radio,
S1: a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.