Ask Pastor Mike Live

Speaker 1

Today on Focal Point, clear your table and pull up a chair. We're having a heart-to-heart chat about why we should care about sharing Christ with others. It's another exciting Q and A session with Pastor Mike Fabarez. Welcome to Focal Point. I'm your host, Dave Droue. I look forward to this time every week when we sit down to answer the listener question of the week.

If you have something on your mind that you'd like to ask Pastor Mike, post it online at focalpointradio.org. Connect. Right now, let's join Focal Point's executive director, Jay Worton, in the pastor's study. We're taking a fresh look at the Apostle Paul's passion for sharing the gospel and reasons to emulate him.

Speaker 2

Thanks, Dave. Pastor Mike. We hear from Paul how fully committed to the gospel he is. Your sermon titles have also put a spotlight on Paul's sold-out commitment to Christ and the gospel. So why is Paul so passionate about the gospel? Well, I mean, he sees what's at stake, and that's part of what's missing in our culture. We don't see as clearly as we used to see or as our grandparents used to see that the difference Christ makes has eternal consequences. Jesus says, "I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

So if we look at the people in the eyes that live around us, we rub shoulders with every day, and we recognize their eternity, it really hinges on whether or not they have reconciliation with God through Jesus Christ. We're going to start to get passionate about this. It's like, as I often say, I probably overuse this illustration, but it's like being on a big luxury cruise ship and it's starting to list and it's starting to sink. And you're sitting there walking through the dining hall and realizing if you don't get to the lifeboats and get on them, you're going to die in these cold waters of the Pacific Ocean.

So we need to get passionate about the message of the gospel. It is the good news that you don't have to die and be punished for your sin by a just and holy God. We want them to experience forgiveness. So that's why Paul is sold out to the gospel. He knows it's the only solution to man's problem. And the more we understand that, as we will, as we unpack this in the Book of Romans, we'll see it's going to make you passionate about the gospel in other people's lives.

Pastor Mike, obviously Paul was a unique figure in the Bible, endowed by God with some great gifts. I'm sure there are people out there thinking to themselves, "Look, I'm not an evangelist. I can't do this. I'll leave that to the people who are good at that." What would you say to somebody like that?

Yeah, well, of course, Paul is a unique figure. And he stands there, I think, of Acts 17, Mars Hill. He sits there at the Areopagus, which was the assembly of all the professors in Athens and all the smart intellectuals. And he stood up in an impromptu speech. He preaches the gospel to these intellectual elites. And if you think, "Okay, well, I'm going to book the lecture hall down at the local university and go preach in public," that's not going to be something that most of us are gifted and endowed to do.

But the principle is the same, and that is that we are called to affect those around us to the extent that we are able. And by that, I mean it may not be in the unique setting that some people are. You see these evangelists or these preachers preaching to large crowds in stadiums. That may not be anything we will ever do. But you've got an opportunity with the audience around you. I like to talk in my sermons about the sphere of influence that you have. What is the sphere of influence that you have? Who are the people you rub shoulders with every day?

Take a document on your computer or a piece of paper and a pen and just write those names down. Who are these people I see every day? And then say, star the ones that you think, "I don't think these people are right with the living God. I don't think they've ever put their trust in Christ," and start to pray for them. That can be something that can transform your view of what you can do as fishers of men. You've got a job, you've got a sphere of influence, and you've got to start to identify that and recognize it may not be large crowds before the elite. You know, whether it's in the Areopagus in Acts 17, or whether it's before the governing officials later in the book of Acts. But you've got a sphere of influence who will hear you out.

I mean, you've got to believe this optimistically. There are those that God has called to hear you out in your sphere of influence, and there are some that are being prepared by God right now to hear from you about the message of the gospel.

Well, once we make that list, what would be our next steps in sharing the gospel with those people?

Well, that's part of what we try to do in our ministry. We try to equip people for that. The series that we're preaching on right now is going to help with that. It's going to help you understand what the issues of the gospel are, how to open up conversations with people and talk to them. You can go on our website at the Focal Point Ministries website and look at our partners program. It's going to give you a great method and tool to try and look at the elements of the gospel that are essential and make sure that when we share it, we're not just sharing an aspect here and a little part of it there and kind of get an imbalanced picture of the gospel.

So we want to help you with that, but it begins just by getting people in conversations about Christ. And then I hope if you're attached to a good church, I mean, the very least we can do is say, "You know what, there's a lot about Christ that we're talking about and teaching on all the time at our church. Why don't you come and hear our pastor preach? Or why don't you come to this Bible study and listen, and we'll go out to coffee afterwards or lunch afterwards, and I'd love to hear your reaction to it."

Utilize your church as a part of your evangelism to have things that are brought up in that sermon that are going to be platforms to talk about their need for repentance from their sins and faith in Jesus Christ.

Well, thank you, Pastor Mike. This is a very important topic, and we are going to continue this conversation with a message you gave called "Responding to the King of Kings" from your series called "The Big Assignment."

As sometimes happens when I get away, my study breaks break here slash vacation, and spend some time looking around and thinking about what's happening at the church at large. Because I get to do that. It's great. I get to go to churches and have no responsibilities there. And I traveled about, went to several places, several ministries, got to sit in the back row and check out what's happening. And you get to read a lot of things about what's happening in Christianity at large that I don't normally get to read in the regular crush of, you know, responsibilities and reading that I do for the sermon prep that I do.

So it enlightens you as to what's happening in Christendom at large and in churches at large and in evangelical groups at large. And, you know, some of it is encouraging, some of it's surprising, and you know, some of it's depressing. But I'll tell you what it all does. No matter what I'm dealing with or what I'm experiencing, it certainly helps me kind of lift my eyes from the programs, the preaching, the conferences, the retreats, all the things that we do, and gets me looking at the big picture.

What is this all about? Why do we function this way? Why do we have those programs? Why do we expend so much time or effort or resources on this thing or that thing? And it gets me looking at the big picture. The last book of the Bible, you do remember Revelation, chapter 2 and 3. Here are the seven prominent churches of Asia Minor. And God goes right down the list. And he evaluates them and assesses them, and they don't all get A pluses. You've read it, right? I mean, there's a lot of, you know, D minuses and C plus, and you had some things. And sometimes it was a glowing report, and sometimes it was, you know, you're about to fail miserably. As a matter of fact, so much so I may shut the whole thing down.

Now, if Jesus is saying that about the corporate entity of these churches, it would be good for us and for you to identify with a church that's on the right path. And every now and then we got to pull the map out and say, "Are we heading in the right direction? Are we doing what we should be doing?" Because a lot of people have a lot of ideas about what ought to be going on in a church, right? And when you see what's happening, you think, "Okay, it's all over the map." But why do we do what we do?

I recognize that what we're doing here all comes back to the big assignment, the Great Commission. These three sentences at the end of the book of Matthew where he tells the church what ought to happen, what they ought to be doing. What is every successive generation of Christians supposed to be engaged in?

Context. Jesus has done his earthly work in redemption. He's lived in our place. He died the death we should have died. The wrath of God was poured out on him. It was God's will to crush him. He was resurrected from the dead, declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection. He now gathers the 11 remaining apostles on this hill where he said to meet them. And he says this, right, verse 18. Jesus came and said to them, "All authority, are you with me? This is verse 18, Matthew 28. In heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore," right? I mean, here's the predication of the command based on that. "Go, therefore, I got authority to tell you this and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you, and behold, I'm with you always to the end of the age."

Those last few words, that's helpful to recognize this was not a historically bound contextual command to the eleven apostles. And after that, we don't know if it applies to anybody else. They're not around anymore. It's been 2,000 years. He still is having this command and this promise apply to every successive generation of Christians who recognize that we need the roadmap. We need to know what you want us to do. What are we here for? What is our purpose? What is our mission?

If you've heard me teach on this before or you've read some good stuff on this, you understand there's one main verb. We're going to tear all this apart in weeks to come. Three participles which are very helpful. As we think about these three things, we recognize they all tie together with one central command. And all of our church ought to be able to find fit into that grid. Either that or we're deviating off course.

Before he gives us the big assignment, he talks about his role. His role, I hope, in our church and his role in our lives. Certainly his role objectively in the universe. He says this. Look at it again. Verse 18. "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." Think about that. All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Now you think, "Okay, definitions. God by definition has all authority." Well, yeah, think about God. I mean, for all these centuries you had God, this spirit, this transcendent living there somewhere in this place called heaven. Every now and then maybe we have a manifestation of his glory in some cloud in a building called the Tabernacle or the temple. And yeah, I get all that, but it's kind of, you know, ghosty and weird and translucent. And now there's the thing called the Incarnation. And as the Old Testament had foreseen, we have the authority and power of heaven now coming in this form of the Son of Man, as Daniel talked about.

We have this child born not of natural birth, but now claiming to be the great I am of the Old Testament. God has spoken a lot in the past, Hebrews one says, in a lot of forms and a lot of ways. But now he has revealed Himself and spoken to us in His Son; he's the image of God. All fullness, Colossians says, of Deity dwells in him with fingernails, right? With knuckles, with eyelashes, with toenails, with kneecaps. Now we have God in human form.

As Philippians says, the second person of this triune spirit has taken on human form. The incarnation you've heard me talk about. You have a carne asada burrito, right? Chili con carne. What does that mean? That's Spanish. But it all fits, right? Meat. God puts on meat and fingernails and eyelashes, and therefore he wears sandals and robes. And he walks around looking like one of us in the form of a human being.

And God, the triune God, now says, "Now listen, when it comes to human beings, as we speak to all those who exist, in this person, all authority resides. Every claim and every right to lead. All of that thing, all those people, all of creation resides in him. All the authority in heaven and on earth. Here's your king, here's your leader. Here's the person in charge." And the key word there is all authority.

Think that through. We're not used to that. All authority. When you have someone claiming to have all authority in any corner of the world, we call them a monarch, and their kingdom is called a monarchy. Right? Think that through. Monarchy. You know that word, the combo of words that both come from Greek, manos means one, right? Mano. It comes through Latin and all that. Mana. 1. Rk. The Greek word means the ruler. And we just have one ruler.

We're not used to that. One ruler. One ruler who doesn't have checks and balances. There's no congress, there's no senate. Right? There's no judicial branch and executive branch and legislative. Don't have any of that. No supreme Court. I mean, nothing to balance that. No elections, no voting. Right? No polls. Right? None of that. Because we have one person. And in that one person resides all authority.

Now that, if you are a Christian, you're acknowledging that indicative truth, that reality. And I think we need to get used to it. We need to let that marinate in our minds. If you're taking notes, that'd be a good thing to write down. We need to get used to a monarchy, get used to it where there's no debating. You look around the world right now, you may have some people that have the title of monarch. And in history, you read about monarchs, and there were some that had some monarchical power.

Someone may claim to be a monarch somewhere on the other side of the ocean, but you don't care, do you? You don't care what he says, you don't care what he thinks. You don't live under his authority. As a matter of fact, we don't even care for authority. That's why we like our system, because there's always a, you know, a court of appeals. There's always someone we can defer to. There's always some argue. I can hire a lawyer. There's something I can do to get out from under your authority. We don't like people having authority over us.

That's why we learned it on the playground. You're not the boss of me. Remember that? You may not say it anymore, but you think it, right? We don't want people being the boss of me. I'm the boss of me. I don't like monarchies. Right. You need to understand this. We live with an absolute monarch who has been given all authority. God the creator, by virtue of being Creator, the triune God possesses it. And it has now all been focused for you with him. You've got to give an account to. You have to deal with him. He's resided all authority in the sun.

And that person, whatever he says is what you must do. There's no debating. There's no polls. He doesn't really care about how you feel about it. There's nobody sitting around a home fellowship group going to change it. You can't debate it. He speaks, you respond. He is the monarch, the king, the absolute authority. And we need to get used to that.

When we think about what the purpose of the Church is as we revisit the big assignment of Matthew 28, you need to think about the person giving this to you as the one who has been granted and given that authority, not one who you might envision in what I call phase one of the Incarnation. You know, there are two really, you know, clear divisions in the Incarnation. The first one, theologians like to call his state of humility, remember that Isaiah talked about it. There would come a suffering servant. That's phase one. There would be one who would be lowly and meek and mild, and all of that, matter of fact, he would be subjected to death, even death on a cross.

But then there came phase two. Even in Isaiah, who talked about the suffering servant, also talked about the exalted king, the glorified one. And so it says in Philippians 2, right? The one who humbled himself right, made himself nothing, became this person found in the human form, the form of a human being. He humbled himself even to death, even death on a cross. Now, though, when that's over, phase two begins. And then he's highly exalted. What does the Bible say? Given a name above every name.

That just means nothing to us because we wear name tags. It's just the name. But you understand what that means. There is the essence, the proclamation, the expression of all of his power. He has the power, the name, the authority above every authority, that at the name of Jesus, the authority of that one person, every knee should bow in subjection to that authority and every tongue should confess it openly. He is the Lord, the boss, the king that he's the boss of me. He's the boss of everything.

Turn to Revelation 11. I know I quote this a lot, but it's because we need to hear it a lot. This is an important shift. Now remember, Revelation is going to be this multimedia presentation that the angelic beings give John about what's going to happen. So now we're down the road in the eschatological timeline. We're at the place where the seventh trumpet sounds, the end of this whole thing. Look at verse number 15 when it says the seventh angel blew his trumpet. This is Revelation 11:15. And there were loud voices in heaven saying, "We're done with all the rival authorities. We're done with all the people that think they possess the claims to lead other people and other things. There's no longer any conflicting interests here. The kingdom of the world has now become," right, that's the emphasis. The trumpet blew has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. And he shall reign forever and ever.

There's the commencing of something. There's the inauguration of something. Now here's the point. Now picture this if you can. In phases. We got the Incarnation, humble stage. He leaves, gets exalted and starts Incarnation phase two, where he has all authority, all the symbols and accoutrements of authority. He speaks and all authority is his. Now there's another part of phase two where that authority now is implemented. That authority now is asserted. That authority that he possesses

Speaker 1

You're listening to Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez. The message you heard is titled "Passionate about the Gospel," and you can hear a complete uncut version when you go to Focal Point Radio. And while you're there, look for our free offer this month. It's a colorful booklet containing 100 prophecies fulfilled by Jesus—a perfect reminder and conversation starter to keep handy as you enter the Easter season. Find it online at focalpointradio.org.

Some say spiritual things are a matter of preference, but certain facts are non-negotiable truths. Learn where that defining line falls. Our featured book this month is filled with simple and effective strategies to prepare you for the difficult line-drawing conversations you might encounter as you share Christ, maybe with a relative, friend, or possibly with your coworker or neighbor. The book is titled "True for You, but Not for Me," and it's yours when you give a financial gift today by calling 888-320-5885 or online at focalpointradio.org.

If you appreciate God's Word without compromise, you're the reason why Focal Point presents the truth of the Bible unfiltered and in context. Biblical truth is what answers the hard questions of life. Help advance our mission for Biblical fidelity nationwide with a timely donation today. Call 888-320-5885 or go to focalpointradio.org. Whether you give a one-time gift or give monthly as a dedicated Focal Point partner, you're standing with us on the power of God to change lives.

For any gift over $75, we'll send you a flash drive preloaded with our entire Presenting Christ series. It's also available on CD. Ask for your Presenting Christ flash drive when you call 888-320-5885 or online at focalpointradio.org.

I'm Dave Drouey, wishing you a restorative weekend ahead. We'll come back next week when Pastor Mike Fabarez continues his message dealing with objections, Monday on Focal Point. Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.

Speaker 2

Sam.