00:00:00
S1: Have you felt stuck in this season of life, waiting for things to change? Well, Mark Jobe has a message for you on today's bold Steps.
00:00:09
S2: I can't wait, yeah. To get married. I can't wait to retire. Can't wait to get out of this job. Can't wait to overcome this illness. Can't wait to pay off my debt. Then I'll start living. I want to tell you. Maybe now is the time that God is really asking you to live in the middle of your prison. How many of you know what I'm talking about here?
00:00:38
S1: Welcome to Bold Steps with Mark Jobe. Mark is founding pastor of New Life Community Church in Chicago. I'm Wayne Shepherd. Today we're concluding a series called life Interrupted as we take a deeper look at the story of Joseph in Genesis chapter 40. Sometimes we find ourselves in a season of life where all we can think about is how to move on to the next. But the truth is, sometimes those seasons that feel like prison are full of God given potential. That's exactly what the life of Joseph demonstrates, and that's what we're learning today as we join Mark Jobe now for a message titled Surviving Your Prison.
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S2: Verse eight. We both had dreams, they answered. But there is no one to interpret them. Then Joseph said to them, here we go. Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams. Well, I don't know. You may have missed that. He said, do not interpretations belong to God? Then why does he say if they belong to God? Tell me your dreams. Because he knew he was a man of God. You see what you. What you may have missed in this is that Joseph felt even in his prison that God was with him. And so he says, hey, in. Dreams belong to God. I'm a man of God. So tell me your dreams. Maybe I can give you insight on your dreams. Now you could talk a lot about dreams. How many of you remember the dream that you had last night? Raise your hand. How many of you have no idea what you dreamed last night? Raise your hand. So here's what I want to say about dreams. Physical dreams when we go to sleep are an actual function of our mind that continues to operate even when we're sleeping. But like anything else, there are times in which the Holy Spirit of God speaks in supernatural ways through dreams. It's not the normative way that God works, but God can speak through dreams. All in Scripture we see that occasionally there'll be a dream that will pop up, that will, that will be a God dream. Now it's hard to distinguish what's a bad dream and what's a God dream. So don't just think that every dream you have has a deep, powerful spiritual significance to it, because it may just be that you just had a bad night the night before and you're just dreaming crazy stuff. But there are certain times, and it's happened to me very rarely, but certain times where you feel like, hey, there's a special significance to this dream. There's, there's this is not a normal dream. There's a power to this dream. When I was 18 years old, I was a student in a Bible college. I had a dream. And I remember it so impressed me. It was so vivid that I felt that this dream maybe had a significance to it. And I got up and I actually wrote the dream down. And I won't get into all the history of that dream. But in essence, I later realized that it was a dream predicting my call to the city of Chicago at the time. I didn't quite understand what it meant, but I saw that it was predicting my call to the city of Chicago. Joseph said, hey, the ununderstood things belong to God. And he. They had a dream. And he said, talk to me about this dream and I want you to notice this, this other thing about the dream. By the way, I want you to notice that here, this he discovered in his own prison a new dimension to his gifting dream interpreter. At 17, he had had a dream. How many of you know? Sometimes we have callings and giftings, but when we're too mature to handle them, we don't know what to do with them. At 17, he had had a dream that God gave him that you remember the dream he told his brothers about, and they became angry. You see, sometimes some of you have a gifting, but you're not mature enough to handle your gifting yet because you haven't grown to a level of maturity to be able to handle the gifting that God has given you. You may have it already inside of you, but you have to develop maturity to be able to sustain the gifting that you have. When he was 17. He had a dream and he didn't know what to do with the dream. And he went babbling it to everybody and turned his brothers against him, because he didn't have the wisdom and maturity to handle the dream that God had given him. But now this is about ten years. 11 years later, he's been through the one on one slavery in Potiphar's house, 101 betrayal from his brothers, and now one on one prison sentence he suffered. He's been knocked off the pedestal of young youth. Youthful cockiness. He suffered some. He's been betrayed. He's had to trust God. There's deeper waters that flow within his veins now. And now when he's exposed to a dream. Unlike when he was 17. Now there's a depth there. Now he's not just blabbing out an answer. Now he turns to God and God in the middle of his prison, in the middle of his dark time, in the middle of his waiting room, God gives him a dimension to his calling that he never knew he had. See, some of you right now. Think that your prison is a waste of time. You think that your waiting room. You wish you could erase it, that it could come to an end. But what you don't realize is that God is using this prison time, this waiting room to forge in you something deeper, something that you could not learn any other way except through a difficult trial, a waiting period God is about to hone. God is about to shape. God is forming in you something that cannot be formed any other way. It may be a new dimension to your call. It may be a new sense of what God is calling you to do just like Joseph. He became a dream interpreter, not in freedom, but in his prison. And here's what happens. So they both tell him. Tell him their dreams. And to the first guy, God's Joseph says to the first guy, to the cupbearer, he says, what's going to happen to you in three days from now? There's going to be a knock on the prison door. You're going to be let out of prison, and you're going to be restored to the position that you had before. You're going to be restored to favor. Just as if you had never gone to prison. He was like, wow. High five all time. So the baker says, me, me, my turn now. He says, you three days knock on the door. You will also be let out of prison, but you're going to hang. You know, you know when the guy comes before you and gets a good answer, you think you're going to get one too. You line up and you get the bad one. And just like Joseph had said, it happened. Three days later. The cupbearer was restored to his former position, and three days later the baker was taken out and was hanged. But here's what I want you to know. I want you to understand that not only did he grow in his dimension as a dream interpreter, but I want you to know because some of you are wasting your prison time, some of you are so focused on getting out of your waiting period that you you have missed what God is trying to do within you and inside of you in your waiting time. Some of you are looking so much at the door that you don't know what God is trying to do inside of your heart. God is trying to shape and mold something inside of you, but you are missing it right now in this waiting period. I believe that sometimes it's in our prison time that we develop the essence of our calling and vision for our life and develop the giftings for our future. I think of a man by the name of Chuck Colson. Chuck Colson in. 1969 to 1973. Served as a counsel to President Infamous Richard Nixon. He was once known as the president's hatchet man. After the Watergate scandal, Colson, who was not a believer, was sentenced to prison. Right before he went into prison in 1973, he gave his life to Christ. And he served for eight months in the maximum prison in Alabama as the first member of the the Nixon administration to be incarcerated. While he was in prison, maximum security prison, He went from Washington. High profile second man to the president, and now he's in an Alabama maximum security prison. But it's while Colson was in prison that he received the calling, the vision, the destiny that he would throw the rest of his life into because it was there in prison that God spoke to his heart. It was there in prison that God said, all that you've been pursuing, fame and fortune and recognition is of no value. I have a calling and a purpose for your life that is totally different than what you have been pursuing up until this time. Colson came out of his prison and he started Prison Fellowship, which is one of the strongest, largest ministries in prisons across North America. Colson went on to be a public speaker and write over 30 books and influence tens of thousands of people, especially focused on other prisoners inside. It was in prison that he found his calling. One of the journalists that, uh, that was mentored by Chuck Colson said this of him. The destruction of Chuck's career freed up his skills for his calling. He would have never chosen providing, providing fulfillment beyond his ambitions. And he often said this. Bless you, prison for having been in my life. That's all I'm saying to you right now is that if you're in prison, a waiting period of disappointment, a place where you feel like your hopes and dreams are not being fulfilled, a place that's hard to be in, a place where you have limited control. A place that you're saying, I can't wait to get out of this season of my life. I can't wait, yeah, to get married. I can't wait to retire. Can't wait to get out of this job. Can't wait to overcome this illness. Can't wait to pay off my debt. Then I'll start living. I want to tell you. Maybe now is the time that God is really asking you to live in the middle of your prison. How many of you know what I'm talking about here? I believe that sometimes our greatest discovery comes in the darkest of places. Some of you are going to look back at this dark place right now, that you're going through this difficult time, and you're going to point to that as your greatest time of growth, your most powerful time of revelation, your defining moment that happened in the middle of the darkest time in your life, but it geared you to your calling, to what God would use for the rest of your life. Number two, write this down. Not only must we not put our life on pause, But remember, God is at work behind the scenes. Don't doubt that God has a plan. Wait with patient expectation. So the Bible says that Joseph interpreted both the dream of the cupbearer and the dream of the baker, and his interpretation was fulfilled. And he told the cupbearer, hey, when you get out of prison and when you go back to the palace, remember me? Remember that I've been unjustly imprisoned. Speak to the king. Ask him. Let him show me favor. In three days the cupbearer was let out. He was elevated to his former position. And guess what? He forgot all about Joseph. How many of you know? It's a lot harder to wait if you think the door Is about to open. If you don't think it's going to open in a long time, it's a little bit easier to wait. But if you feel like the door is going to open now, you're like, okay, I got my bags packed. I'm waiting. Hey, I hear someone walking down the aisle. Hey, hey. No, just feeding me my breakfast. The waiting becomes harder the higher our expectation to get out, the slower the clock ticks. When we feel like the time is getting closer.
00:14:49
S1: And we'll continue with the final half of today's Bold steps. Message with Mark Jobe momentarily. But before that, I want to tell you where to go. If you've missed any part of our current series called Life Interrupted, You'll find all of Mark's previous messages available on our website at bold steps.org. Or if you want to listen to these programs while you're on the move, maybe hiking or biking or just running errands, be sure to subscribe to our podcast and pull up any of these messages right from your phone. Go to our podcast app, search for bold steps with doctor Mark Jobe, and make sure you tap that subscribe button. And another great way to fit in some more bold steps. Teaching to your busy day is through our Bold Steps app, where you'll find short videos, Bible study resources, and other listening options like the Spanish edition called Bold Steps Apostles Audacious and the Bold Steps Minute. Check it all out today by downloading the Bold Steps app right now, let's get back to our message for today titled Surviving Your Prison. Here again is Mark.
00:15:48
S2: The cupbearer, it says in chapter 40 verse 23, it says, the chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph. He forgot him. In chapter 41, verse one it says, when two full years had passed, the longest 24 months of Joseph's life, two full years, how many of you know that two years can seem like a lifetime when you're having fun? It goes by really fast. When you're not having fun, it goes by really, really, really, really slow. How many of you feel like this season of your life is going pretty slow? Come on, be honest. Slow. When you're waiting, when you're expecting something to happen and it's not happening, it just the clock ticks slower. When I come to a stop sign, a stoplight, I've been at some stoplights. When I'm in a hurry and I'm expecting it to change, I tell my wife this stop sign, this stop lights broken. I'm sure it is. I think I should go through it because it can't really be this long. And she says, no, you're just in a hurry. I've been at Starbucks drive thru. I'm expecting my latte, expecting my coffee, and when I expect it, I just. It feels like time goes slower and I start thinking, what are they? Milking a cow, stirring the milk till it turns to cream. Individually. Individually. Squeezing every grain out. I mean, how long can it take to make a cup of coffee? Seriously, when you're waiting for it? It just goes by slowly. How many of you have been praying for that husband to change? How many of you have been praying to meet that person that will be your life partner? And it just seems. How slow can this go? God, how many of you have been waiting for that acceptance letter? And it just seems like it takes forever. How many of you have been waiting for a circumstance to change that you feel like is holding you back? And it feels like the clock is ticking in slow motion. It's during those times that you have to pause and remember God. You have a plan. And Lord, even though it feels like nothing's moving forward, I trust the fact that you are working behind the scenes doing what I cannot see in the natural. But you're working in the supernatural. Can I remind you folks today God has a plan. God has a plan. God. Yeah, God has a plan. And I want you to notice what happened. Look at this passage. I want you to see what was happening here. And it tells us that behind the scenes, God had given Pharaoh a dream. Who gave Pharaoh a dream. God, he. He's working. While Joseph was sleeping, God was working on a plan. Hear this, hear this. Listen to me well. Listen. Sometimes God stirs a problem in the palace while he creates a solution in the prison that opens up the door to a new and powerful position in your life. Come on now. Sometimes God is creating a problem in the palace while he is stirring a solution in the prison. And while you're in prison, you don't know that God is stirring a problem somewhere else and preparing you to meet that problem. All you know is you're in prison. But God is working behind the scenes. When God gave Pharaoh a dream, Joseph was unaware of it. But God was working behind the scenes. We lose hope when we feel like God is forgotten. We lose patience when we feel like it's never going to change. We begin to wonder, God, what are you doing? Can I tell you? Just because you can't see God doing it doesn't mean he's not doing it. Just because you can't see God. Moving the pieces around for your future doesn't mean that God is not moving the pieces around. God works in the background. We live in the present. We only see this side of what God is doing. But behind, behind, behind. God is working, moving things around. God was giving Pharaoh a dream, and God was giving Joseph the ability to interpret dreams. And when God is formed and in the perfect timing, then God connects the dots. Has it ever happened to you before where suddenly you look and say, wow, God was connecting the dots all along. I just didn't see it. And can I tell you, sometimes God is connecting the dots before you even started to pray. I remember years ago we were in a starting out in ministry and we were doing really, really bad financially. And I was praying, God, we, you know, we're living on the brink of poverty here. And Lord, you need to do something. And I remember praying and the very next day receiving a letter that had a check for exactly what we needed. And I realized God sent it took five days for this check to get here. I just prayed yesterday. Oh, mine. Come on. God was anticipating my prayer and before I ever prayed it, he was already setting in motion the answer to my prayer. Only God can do that. He had already set it in motion before I ever prayed. He was connecting the dots. God is working behind the scenes in so many of your lives and you don't even know it yet. And in verse nine, finally, the cup bearer after the pharaoh had a dream, the cup bearer remembers that his dream was interpreted by Joseph, who was in prison. And it says in verse nine of chapter 41, he said, today I'm reminded. Which leads me to my third and final point. Number one, take your life off. Pause. Number two, see that God is working behind the scenes. Number three, don't harden your heart. Allow yourself to be humbled and prepared for your next season. Pharaoh had a troubling dream. No one seemed to be able to interpret the dream. The cup bearer. After two years, while Joseph is waiting, is reminded. He remembers. Oh yeah. Hey, I know a guy who's about 30 years old, a Hebrew who has this uncanny ability to interpret dreams, and maybe Pharaoh, this guy can interpret your dream. So they hurry out, they find Joseph. Suddenly the door opens when he's least expecting it. They clean, clean him up. It says they shave him. They dress him up, wash him up to be presentable before the Pharaoh. In verse 14 it says, so Pharaoh sent for Joseph, and he was quickly brought before from the dungeon when he had shaved and changed his clothes. By the way, a good idea for some of you guys if you're going on your first date when he had shaved and changed his clothes, he came before. Just a little advice to young men out there. Um, uh, Pharaoh said to Joseph, I had a dream and no one can interpret it. But I have heard it said of you that when you hear a dream, you can interpret it. Here's the most powerful man on the planet, the Pharaoh of Egypt at that time, the nation that ruled the world. And he's speaking to a slave boy, a prisoner bringing him out, saying, I heard that you have the special ability to interpret dreams. And I want you to know this, the seasoned, broken, humbled response of Joseph. I cannot do it. Hallelujah. The cocky Joseph would have said, sure. Here I am. What's up Pharaoh? Lay it on me. Got it down. This isn't a 17 year old cocky kid anymore. This is a broken, seasoned, humbled, mature man of God. He says, no, I cannot do it. The greater you go in grace, the greater you grow in wisdom. The more you discover how incapable you are of doing anything about from the power of God. So maybe you're in the middle of your prison right now, and you're in a place where God is humbling you, teaching you. Maybe you're in that waiting room and you're saying, God, how long? No life experience in God is wasted. If we allow the Spirit of God to work on us. Joseph could have thought, this is wasted time. But God had a purpose in the pain. So I want to speak to you right now, and I pray for you that are feeling right now, that you're in a place of waiting or a place of pain, and you don't know what the purpose is. I do believe that in God's master plan, if we give it over to God that God has the power and ability to use even that which is bad for good. He's not the author of it, but he can use it for good. So father, I pray right now for that person that's in a place of waiting. They don't understand their prison. They don't understand the place of pain. They're not sure why they're going through what they're going through. I pray that you would infuse them with hope. God, I pray that you would give them perseverance in the midst of the prison cell. They find themselves in God. I pray that you would remind them that you are sovereign, that you do have a purpose, and that you do have a plan. And in the right moment, God, I pray that you would unveil that plan, God, that they would look back and see. Yes, thank you God, for those things that I even despised at the time. So God, I pray, encourage that person right now to persevere. I ask this in Jesus name. Amen.
00:27:16
S1: You're listening to Bold Steps with Mark Jobe, the end of a message titled Surviving Your Prison. It's actually the final lesson in our series called Life Interrupted. And if you missed this study, remember you can always listen again by going online to bold steps.org. Once you're there, we also encourage you to check out this month's Bold Step gift. It's a timely and important book called The Church in Babylon Heeding the Call to Be a light in the Darkness, by Doctor Erwin Lutzer. If you've ever felt like a stranger in your own culture, you're not alone. God's people have faced hostile cultures before, and Doctor Lutzer draws on that Babylon exile example to show us how to remain faithful, hopeful, and bold today. So reach out and request your copy when you give a gift of any amount to support the Bold Steps ministry. To make your donation and request this bold step gift, visit us online at bold steps.org or call us at 800 D.L. Moody, that's (800) 356-6639. Now, before we close today, we want to remind you to connect with us on social media. You'll get a more personal behind the scenes view of everything happening in bold steps. And you can find us on Facebook and Instagram by searching for Bold Steps Radio. I'm Wayne Shepherd, inviting you to join us again tomorrow when Mark shares a brand new message titled How Not to Push Away the Presence of God. It's a powerful look at King David and the Ark of the covenant, and what it means to approach God's presence with reverence instead of convenience. Don't miss it. Friday on Bold Steps with Mark Jobe. Bold steps is a production of Moody Radio, a Ministry of Moody Bible Institute.
S1: Have you felt stuck in this season of life, waiting for things to change? Well, Mark Jobe has a message for you on today's bold Steps.
00:00:09
S2: I can't wait, yeah. To get married. I can't wait to retire. Can't wait to get out of this job. Can't wait to overcome this illness. Can't wait to pay off my debt. Then I'll start living. I want to tell you. Maybe now is the time that God is really asking you to live in the middle of your prison. How many of you know what I'm talking about here?
00:00:38
S1: Welcome to Bold Steps with Mark Jobe. Mark is founding pastor of New Life Community Church in Chicago. I'm Wayne Shepherd. Today we're concluding a series called life Interrupted as we take a deeper look at the story of Joseph in Genesis chapter 40. Sometimes we find ourselves in a season of life where all we can think about is how to move on to the next. But the truth is, sometimes those seasons that feel like prison are full of God given potential. That's exactly what the life of Joseph demonstrates, and that's what we're learning today as we join Mark Jobe now for a message titled Surviving Your Prison.
00:01:14
S2: Verse eight. We both had dreams, they answered. But there is no one to interpret them. Then Joseph said to them, here we go. Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell me your dreams. Well, I don't know. You may have missed that. He said, do not interpretations belong to God? Then why does he say if they belong to God? Tell me your dreams. Because he knew he was a man of God. You see what you. What you may have missed in this is that Joseph felt even in his prison that God was with him. And so he says, hey, in. Dreams belong to God. I'm a man of God. So tell me your dreams. Maybe I can give you insight on your dreams. Now you could talk a lot about dreams. How many of you remember the dream that you had last night? Raise your hand. How many of you have no idea what you dreamed last night? Raise your hand. So here's what I want to say about dreams. Physical dreams when we go to sleep are an actual function of our mind that continues to operate even when we're sleeping. But like anything else, there are times in which the Holy Spirit of God speaks in supernatural ways through dreams. It's not the normative way that God works, but God can speak through dreams. All in Scripture we see that occasionally there'll be a dream that will pop up, that will, that will be a God dream. Now it's hard to distinguish what's a bad dream and what's a God dream. So don't just think that every dream you have has a deep, powerful spiritual significance to it, because it may just be that you just had a bad night the night before and you're just dreaming crazy stuff. But there are certain times, and it's happened to me very rarely, but certain times where you feel like, hey, there's a special significance to this dream. There's, there's this is not a normal dream. There's a power to this dream. When I was 18 years old, I was a student in a Bible college. I had a dream. And I remember it so impressed me. It was so vivid that I felt that this dream maybe had a significance to it. And I got up and I actually wrote the dream down. And I won't get into all the history of that dream. But in essence, I later realized that it was a dream predicting my call to the city of Chicago at the time. I didn't quite understand what it meant, but I saw that it was predicting my call to the city of Chicago. Joseph said, hey, the ununderstood things belong to God. And he. They had a dream. And he said, talk to me about this dream and I want you to notice this, this other thing about the dream. By the way, I want you to notice that here, this he discovered in his own prison a new dimension to his gifting dream interpreter. At 17, he had had a dream. How many of you know? Sometimes we have callings and giftings, but when we're too mature to handle them, we don't know what to do with them. At 17, he had had a dream that God gave him that you remember the dream he told his brothers about, and they became angry. You see, sometimes some of you have a gifting, but you're not mature enough to handle your gifting yet because you haven't grown to a level of maturity to be able to handle the gifting that God has given you. You may have it already inside of you, but you have to develop maturity to be able to sustain the gifting that you have. When he was 17. He had a dream and he didn't know what to do with the dream. And he went babbling it to everybody and turned his brothers against him, because he didn't have the wisdom and maturity to handle the dream that God had given him. But now this is about ten years. 11 years later, he's been through the one on one slavery in Potiphar's house, 101 betrayal from his brothers, and now one on one prison sentence he suffered. He's been knocked off the pedestal of young youth. Youthful cockiness. He suffered some. He's been betrayed. He's had to trust God. There's deeper waters that flow within his veins now. And now when he's exposed to a dream. Unlike when he was 17. Now there's a depth there. Now he's not just blabbing out an answer. Now he turns to God and God in the middle of his prison, in the middle of his dark time, in the middle of his waiting room, God gives him a dimension to his calling that he never knew he had. See, some of you right now. Think that your prison is a waste of time. You think that your waiting room. You wish you could erase it, that it could come to an end. But what you don't realize is that God is using this prison time, this waiting room to forge in you something deeper, something that you could not learn any other way except through a difficult trial, a waiting period God is about to hone. God is about to shape. God is forming in you something that cannot be formed any other way. It may be a new dimension to your call. It may be a new sense of what God is calling you to do just like Joseph. He became a dream interpreter, not in freedom, but in his prison. And here's what happens. So they both tell him. Tell him their dreams. And to the first guy, God's Joseph says to the first guy, to the cupbearer, he says, what's going to happen to you in three days from now? There's going to be a knock on the prison door. You're going to be let out of prison, and you're going to be restored to the position that you had before. You're going to be restored to favor. Just as if you had never gone to prison. He was like, wow. High five all time. So the baker says, me, me, my turn now. He says, you three days knock on the door. You will also be let out of prison, but you're going to hang. You know, you know when the guy comes before you and gets a good answer, you think you're going to get one too. You line up and you get the bad one. And just like Joseph had said, it happened. Three days later. The cupbearer was restored to his former position, and three days later the baker was taken out and was hanged. But here's what I want you to know. I want you to understand that not only did he grow in his dimension as a dream interpreter, but I want you to know because some of you are wasting your prison time, some of you are so focused on getting out of your waiting period that you you have missed what God is trying to do within you and inside of you in your waiting time. Some of you are looking so much at the door that you don't know what God is trying to do inside of your heart. God is trying to shape and mold something inside of you, but you are missing it right now in this waiting period. I believe that sometimes it's in our prison time that we develop the essence of our calling and vision for our life and develop the giftings for our future. I think of a man by the name of Chuck Colson. Chuck Colson in. 1969 to 1973. Served as a counsel to President Infamous Richard Nixon. He was once known as the president's hatchet man. After the Watergate scandal, Colson, who was not a believer, was sentenced to prison. Right before he went into prison in 1973, he gave his life to Christ. And he served for eight months in the maximum prison in Alabama as the first member of the the Nixon administration to be incarcerated. While he was in prison, maximum security prison, He went from Washington. High profile second man to the president, and now he's in an Alabama maximum security prison. But it's while Colson was in prison that he received the calling, the vision, the destiny that he would throw the rest of his life into because it was there in prison that God spoke to his heart. It was there in prison that God said, all that you've been pursuing, fame and fortune and recognition is of no value. I have a calling and a purpose for your life that is totally different than what you have been pursuing up until this time. Colson came out of his prison and he started Prison Fellowship, which is one of the strongest, largest ministries in prisons across North America. Colson went on to be a public speaker and write over 30 books and influence tens of thousands of people, especially focused on other prisoners inside. It was in prison that he found his calling. One of the journalists that, uh, that was mentored by Chuck Colson said this of him. The destruction of Chuck's career freed up his skills for his calling. He would have never chosen providing, providing fulfillment beyond his ambitions. And he often said this. Bless you, prison for having been in my life. That's all I'm saying to you right now is that if you're in prison, a waiting period of disappointment, a place where you feel like your hopes and dreams are not being fulfilled, a place that's hard to be in, a place where you have limited control. A place that you're saying, I can't wait to get out of this season of my life. I can't wait, yeah, to get married. I can't wait to retire. Can't wait to get out of this job. Can't wait to overcome this illness. Can't wait to pay off my debt. Then I'll start living. I want to tell you. Maybe now is the time that God is really asking you to live in the middle of your prison. How many of you know what I'm talking about here? I believe that sometimes our greatest discovery comes in the darkest of places. Some of you are going to look back at this dark place right now, that you're going through this difficult time, and you're going to point to that as your greatest time of growth, your most powerful time of revelation, your defining moment that happened in the middle of the darkest time in your life, but it geared you to your calling, to what God would use for the rest of your life. Number two, write this down. Not only must we not put our life on pause, But remember, God is at work behind the scenes. Don't doubt that God has a plan. Wait with patient expectation. So the Bible says that Joseph interpreted both the dream of the cupbearer and the dream of the baker, and his interpretation was fulfilled. And he told the cupbearer, hey, when you get out of prison and when you go back to the palace, remember me? Remember that I've been unjustly imprisoned. Speak to the king. Ask him. Let him show me favor. In three days the cupbearer was let out. He was elevated to his former position. And guess what? He forgot all about Joseph. How many of you know? It's a lot harder to wait if you think the door Is about to open. If you don't think it's going to open in a long time, it's a little bit easier to wait. But if you feel like the door is going to open now, you're like, okay, I got my bags packed. I'm waiting. Hey, I hear someone walking down the aisle. Hey, hey. No, just feeding me my breakfast. The waiting becomes harder the higher our expectation to get out, the slower the clock ticks. When we feel like the time is getting closer.
00:14:49
S1: And we'll continue with the final half of today's Bold steps. Message with Mark Jobe momentarily. But before that, I want to tell you where to go. If you've missed any part of our current series called Life Interrupted, You'll find all of Mark's previous messages available on our website at bold steps.org. Or if you want to listen to these programs while you're on the move, maybe hiking or biking or just running errands, be sure to subscribe to our podcast and pull up any of these messages right from your phone. Go to our podcast app, search for bold steps with doctor Mark Jobe, and make sure you tap that subscribe button. And another great way to fit in some more bold steps. Teaching to your busy day is through our Bold Steps app, where you'll find short videos, Bible study resources, and other listening options like the Spanish edition called Bold Steps Apostles Audacious and the Bold Steps Minute. Check it all out today by downloading the Bold Steps app right now, let's get back to our message for today titled Surviving Your Prison. Here again is Mark.
00:15:48
S2: The cupbearer, it says in chapter 40 verse 23, it says, the chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph. He forgot him. In chapter 41, verse one it says, when two full years had passed, the longest 24 months of Joseph's life, two full years, how many of you know that two years can seem like a lifetime when you're having fun? It goes by really fast. When you're not having fun, it goes by really, really, really, really slow. How many of you feel like this season of your life is going pretty slow? Come on, be honest. Slow. When you're waiting, when you're expecting something to happen and it's not happening, it just the clock ticks slower. When I come to a stop sign, a stoplight, I've been at some stoplights. When I'm in a hurry and I'm expecting it to change, I tell my wife this stop sign, this stop lights broken. I'm sure it is. I think I should go through it because it can't really be this long. And she says, no, you're just in a hurry. I've been at Starbucks drive thru. I'm expecting my latte, expecting my coffee, and when I expect it, I just. It feels like time goes slower and I start thinking, what are they? Milking a cow, stirring the milk till it turns to cream. Individually. Individually. Squeezing every grain out. I mean, how long can it take to make a cup of coffee? Seriously, when you're waiting for it? It just goes by slowly. How many of you have been praying for that husband to change? How many of you have been praying to meet that person that will be your life partner? And it just seems. How slow can this go? God, how many of you have been waiting for that acceptance letter? And it just seems like it takes forever. How many of you have been waiting for a circumstance to change that you feel like is holding you back? And it feels like the clock is ticking in slow motion. It's during those times that you have to pause and remember God. You have a plan. And Lord, even though it feels like nothing's moving forward, I trust the fact that you are working behind the scenes doing what I cannot see in the natural. But you're working in the supernatural. Can I remind you folks today God has a plan. God has a plan. God. Yeah, God has a plan. And I want you to notice what happened. Look at this passage. I want you to see what was happening here. And it tells us that behind the scenes, God had given Pharaoh a dream. Who gave Pharaoh a dream. God, he. He's working. While Joseph was sleeping, God was working on a plan. Hear this, hear this. Listen to me well. Listen. Sometimes God stirs a problem in the palace while he creates a solution in the prison that opens up the door to a new and powerful position in your life. Come on now. Sometimes God is creating a problem in the palace while he is stirring a solution in the prison. And while you're in prison, you don't know that God is stirring a problem somewhere else and preparing you to meet that problem. All you know is you're in prison. But God is working behind the scenes. When God gave Pharaoh a dream, Joseph was unaware of it. But God was working behind the scenes. We lose hope when we feel like God is forgotten. We lose patience when we feel like it's never going to change. We begin to wonder, God, what are you doing? Can I tell you? Just because you can't see God doing it doesn't mean he's not doing it. Just because you can't see God. Moving the pieces around for your future doesn't mean that God is not moving the pieces around. God works in the background. We live in the present. We only see this side of what God is doing. But behind, behind, behind. God is working, moving things around. God was giving Pharaoh a dream, and God was giving Joseph the ability to interpret dreams. And when God is formed and in the perfect timing, then God connects the dots. Has it ever happened to you before where suddenly you look and say, wow, God was connecting the dots all along. I just didn't see it. And can I tell you, sometimes God is connecting the dots before you even started to pray. I remember years ago we were in a starting out in ministry and we were doing really, really bad financially. And I was praying, God, we, you know, we're living on the brink of poverty here. And Lord, you need to do something. And I remember praying and the very next day receiving a letter that had a check for exactly what we needed. And I realized God sent it took five days for this check to get here. I just prayed yesterday. Oh, mine. Come on. God was anticipating my prayer and before I ever prayed it, he was already setting in motion the answer to my prayer. Only God can do that. He had already set it in motion before I ever prayed. He was connecting the dots. God is working behind the scenes in so many of your lives and you don't even know it yet. And in verse nine, finally, the cup bearer after the pharaoh had a dream, the cup bearer remembers that his dream was interpreted by Joseph, who was in prison. And it says in verse nine of chapter 41, he said, today I'm reminded. Which leads me to my third and final point. Number one, take your life off. Pause. Number two, see that God is working behind the scenes. Number three, don't harden your heart. Allow yourself to be humbled and prepared for your next season. Pharaoh had a troubling dream. No one seemed to be able to interpret the dream. The cup bearer. After two years, while Joseph is waiting, is reminded. He remembers. Oh yeah. Hey, I know a guy who's about 30 years old, a Hebrew who has this uncanny ability to interpret dreams, and maybe Pharaoh, this guy can interpret your dream. So they hurry out, they find Joseph. Suddenly the door opens when he's least expecting it. They clean, clean him up. It says they shave him. They dress him up, wash him up to be presentable before the Pharaoh. In verse 14 it says, so Pharaoh sent for Joseph, and he was quickly brought before from the dungeon when he had shaved and changed his clothes. By the way, a good idea for some of you guys if you're going on your first date when he had shaved and changed his clothes, he came before. Just a little advice to young men out there. Um, uh, Pharaoh said to Joseph, I had a dream and no one can interpret it. But I have heard it said of you that when you hear a dream, you can interpret it. Here's the most powerful man on the planet, the Pharaoh of Egypt at that time, the nation that ruled the world. And he's speaking to a slave boy, a prisoner bringing him out, saying, I heard that you have the special ability to interpret dreams. And I want you to know this, the seasoned, broken, humbled response of Joseph. I cannot do it. Hallelujah. The cocky Joseph would have said, sure. Here I am. What's up Pharaoh? Lay it on me. Got it down. This isn't a 17 year old cocky kid anymore. This is a broken, seasoned, humbled, mature man of God. He says, no, I cannot do it. The greater you go in grace, the greater you grow in wisdom. The more you discover how incapable you are of doing anything about from the power of God. So maybe you're in the middle of your prison right now, and you're in a place where God is humbling you, teaching you. Maybe you're in that waiting room and you're saying, God, how long? No life experience in God is wasted. If we allow the Spirit of God to work on us. Joseph could have thought, this is wasted time. But God had a purpose in the pain. So I want to speak to you right now, and I pray for you that are feeling right now, that you're in a place of waiting or a place of pain, and you don't know what the purpose is. I do believe that in God's master plan, if we give it over to God that God has the power and ability to use even that which is bad for good. He's not the author of it, but he can use it for good. So father, I pray right now for that person that's in a place of waiting. They don't understand their prison. They don't understand the place of pain. They're not sure why they're going through what they're going through. I pray that you would infuse them with hope. God, I pray that you would give them perseverance in the midst of the prison cell. They find themselves in God. I pray that you would remind them that you are sovereign, that you do have a purpose, and that you do have a plan. And in the right moment, God, I pray that you would unveil that plan, God, that they would look back and see. Yes, thank you God, for those things that I even despised at the time. So God, I pray, encourage that person right now to persevere. I ask this in Jesus name. Amen.
00:27:16
S1: You're listening to Bold Steps with Mark Jobe, the end of a message titled Surviving Your Prison. It's actually the final lesson in our series called Life Interrupted. And if you missed this study, remember you can always listen again by going online to bold steps.org. Once you're there, we also encourage you to check out this month's Bold Step gift. It's a timely and important book called The Church in Babylon Heeding the Call to Be a light in the Darkness, by Doctor Erwin Lutzer. If you've ever felt like a stranger in your own culture, you're not alone. God's people have faced hostile cultures before, and Doctor Lutzer draws on that Babylon exile example to show us how to remain faithful, hopeful, and bold today. So reach out and request your copy when you give a gift of any amount to support the Bold Steps ministry. To make your donation and request this bold step gift, visit us online at bold steps.org or call us at 800 D.L. Moody, that's (800) 356-6639. Now, before we close today, we want to remind you to connect with us on social media. You'll get a more personal behind the scenes view of everything happening in bold steps. And you can find us on Facebook and Instagram by searching for Bold Steps Radio. I'm Wayne Shepherd, inviting you to join us again tomorrow when Mark shares a brand new message titled How Not to Push Away the Presence of God. It's a powerful look at King David and the Ark of the covenant, and what it means to approach God's presence with reverence instead of convenience. Don't miss it. Friday on Bold Steps with Mark Jobe. Bold steps is a production of Moody Radio, a Ministry of Moody Bible Institute.
