Ask Pastor Mike Live

Dave Drewry: Today on Focal Point, as you're heating up the leftovers and maybe recovering from a day of indulgence, take a moment to join us in the Pastor's Study for a special time of Q&A with Mike Fabarez. Well, how was your turkey day?

We're glad to have you with us on Focal Point. I'm Dave Drewry, and each Friday, we take a break from our regular programming to meet with Pastor Mike and ask him questions sent in by listeners like you.

If you have a question you'd like to ask Pastor Mike, you can post it at focalpointradio.org. But right now, let's join executive director Jay Warton for a timely discussion about the historical origins of Thanksgiving.

Jay Warton: Thank you, Dave. I am here with Pastor Mike. Pastor Mike, we just had Thanksgiving, and I thought it would be appropriate to talk a little bit about the historical Thanksgiving and how we as Christians should be looking at it.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: The history books will tell us that back in 1789, our first president, George Washington, celebrated via a proclamation a day of thanksgiving to God for what was happening in our country. You can go back to the pilgrims and before that, but it was his church that he was a part of, the Protestant Episcopal Church, that said, "This needs to be an annual event. We're going to do it every year on that first Thursday in November." That's how this started. It would be a day where everyone would stop and give thanks to God.

Of course, that morphed, and you can read the histories of all of that. But when it came down to it, it was the government recognizing with some deference to the fact that God is the giver of good things and had blessed the United States and had been good to our country to stop and to give thanks.

Now, we're concerned as Christians about being biblical about our thanksgiving. The Bible is very clear that we should be giving thanks in all situations. We should be giving thanks every time we pray. The pattern of New Testament praying in particular is to be profusely thankful, constantly thankful, and habitually thankful for the good that God gives. We need to be looking for it, expressing it, and saying thanks to God probably a whole lot more often than we are.

Jay Warton: Do you find as Christians we're becoming more or less thankful in our lives and why?

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Sometimes I think the anecdotal observation of people that don't have a lot being thankful for a lot more of what they have speaks to the spoiled brat character of so many people in our country today. We have so much. We have so many devices that make our lives so much easier.

We have so many advances in technology, in healthcare, and in science—all these things that make life more enjoyable, easy, and efficient. We have so much, and we've become, it seems, more like the spoiled brat that doesn't even recognize the great things that we have.

Yet you go to a time when a farmer worked all day in the fields, they just got a very small portion to eat at night, sitting down and really being thankful for their food, home, family, relationships, and land. That anecdote is probably more of a reality than we would want to believe because we have so much, and we don't give thanks for what we have. Perhaps it's just we've become presumptuous about the blessings of God.

Jay Warton: What are some ways that we can become more thankful? What are things that we should be focusing on to do that?

Pastor Mike Fabarez: I think you have to look at the Bible. Let that be your guide. If you know it's something we must do, then it's like Psalm 103: you have to tell yourself to do it. You have to say, "Bless the Lord, oh my soul. Forget none of his benefits. Remember what he's done."

You have to make this a point of remembrance and a prompt in your own life to continually say there's a lot to be thankful for today. I need to do it. Maybe you need a post-it note on the dashboard of your car or some kind of 3x5 card stuck next to the mirror of your bathroom to say, "What can I be thankful for today?"

Put up verses about thanksgiving. The psalter in the Psalms is full of verses about our call to thanksgiving. Paul's prayer—he talks about giving thanks for the people in his life day and night. We have so far to go, and I think we can use the prompts of scripture to remind us that we've got to give thanks.

Just see it and say, "I've got to do it." Let's give thanks. It only takes a minute for us to engage in true thanksgiving. Get your heart thinking about what you have, think about what God has done, think about what he's given, and just tell him thank you.

Jay Warton: Well, thank you, Pastor Mike. I know that would be a helpful and informative directive on thanksgiving. We're going to complete our time together with a message you gave called "Count Your Spiritual Blessings."

Pastor Mike Fabarez: I was in one of those big box retail bookstores and was browsing around and came across the title of a book that was on how to complain. How to complain. That wasn't the only title I found in that section. There was "How to Complain Effectively," "Powerful Complaining," and "Complaining for Busy People."

Literally, you can look this up. These are real titles. Do we really need books on learning how to complain? I'm thinking before my kids could read, they were masters at it. Now that they can, I'm sure they could write their own book on how to complain.

And not just bagging on our kids—Mom and Dad are pretty good complainers when we put our mind to it. I bet you're not half bad either. We don't need any help complaining. As a matter of fact, God has made it really clear in his word he's tired of hearing all of our complaints.

What God would like to hear more of is a little bit more gratitude. That's what God's looking for. And of course, what was interesting when I thought about that, I went over to look through the titles that might be reflective of people trying to help others learn to be thankful. Guess how many books I found on that? None.

I got back to my computer and I started looking for books on being grateful, showing gratitude, being thankful. Except for a few specialty books on throwing a holiday meal, which I've been to several of those—they're usually not frothing with thanksgiving—there's very few books out there trying to help people learn how to give thanks.

But the good news is God wrote a book, and he's got a lot to say about thanksgiving in it. On a week when we're approaching a time where our culture stops and says, "Hey, we'll give you a few days off. You go have Thanksgiving," I think it would be good for us as Christians, if you are a follower of Christ, to say if anyone should be expert at this, it should be us.

We ought to be people that are good at being thankful to the right person for the right things. God's had enough of our complaining. Let us work this week on being thankful. I want to start this week—this Thanksgiving week—by focusing on a very small passage of scripture in Colossians chapter one that might just help get our minds focused in the right place about the right things.

Regardless of what you're going through—that's the great thing about God's lessons on thanksgiving—they're not rooted in your circumstance. God's truths that should just blow the top off of our efforts to give thanks have nothing to do with your present circumstance. Take a look at this text, if you would, found in Colossians chapter one beginning in verse number 12.

We're jumping right into the middle of a great section and we won't spend long here, but at least note that he would have us give thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and he's brought us into the kingdom of his son, the son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

The great thing about that triad of things to be thankful for is none of it is reliant upon our present circumstance. We've come to the place of realizing by God's goodness and grace that Jesus Christ is the only way to get right with the Father. We've put our trust in him and we've repented of our sins.

These three things are true about you. No matter what you're going through in terms of relational crisis or health problems or whatever it might be for you, these three things will drive like some kind of high octane fuel that should just drive our hearts to be profoundly thankful, not only on this Thanksgiving week but every week.

What I want to do before we get to these three things, which we'll only deal with briefly, is talk for just a second about the components that are resident here in this text. If you look at verse number 12 again, it says very clearly we ought to be giving thanks to the Father. There are two essential components to giving thanks.

If you're going to give thanks, you've got to have these two in place because it seems every year that goes by, people are just forgetting that thanksgiving needs these two things. The first thing it needs is it needs to be directed. There's a lot of people this week that you'll hear say, "I'm thankful."

Well, that's fantastic, but you're not thankful unless you're thanking, and if you're thanking, we need to know who you're talking to. You've got to be thankful to someone. Thankful is a description of someone who goes around giving thanks, and you can't give thanks to thin air. You have to give thanks to someone.

It's important for us to know that because in a world where we talk about thanksgiving, most people all they can do is say they just have an attitude of thankfulness. Or they learn to be thankful purely on a horizontal relational level.

Well, the best kind and most important thanksgiving that needs to take place—the kind that drives sincere horizontal thanksgiving—is a thanksgiving that looks up and says we recognize that every good and perfect gift comes from God. If we don't start giving credit to God for what he's doing, we'll never truly be thankful people.

It has to be directed. Your thanksgiving can't be "I'm thankful" and we go around the table and say, "What are you thankful for, Johnny?" And if Johnny says, "Well, I'm thankful for my bike," well, that's great, but if it's not directed to someone, then it's not thanksgiving.

It's just a nice little phrase to tack on to a little Thanksgiving Day ritual. We need to be thankful. We need to thank God. It's about being directed. Giving thanks to the Father. That's so important. The Bible doesn't tell us to be thankful; it tells us to thank the Father.

Secondly, you'll see that he gets into some details. He says, "Who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. He's rescued us from the dominion of darkness. He's brought us into the kingdom of his son that he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

You don't find in scripture people saying to God, "Thank you." Period. Never. What you see is them saying, "Thank you," and then here's a few things I want to tell you thanks for. Thanksgiving needs to not only be directed; it needs to be defined. You cannot just say thank you without defining what you're thankful for.

If you don't believe that, just go up to someone this week and say, "Thank you." And you know what they're going to say? "What for? Why?" Because it doesn't mean anything if it's not specific. Even in your closest relationships, I can walk up to my wife and say, "Honey, thanks."

And that's just no good. Thanks for what? Be specific. What is it that you're thankful for? And thanksgiving, if it's not directed and if it's not defined, it's really not thanksgiving. So those are two things, and that's worth the price of admission here today just to understand from Colossians 1:12 that you and I need to have directed and defined thanksgiving.

Until we reach that point, we're not being thankful; we're just pretending to be thankful. We can't say "Thank you, God" without giving him a reason and being very specific. We have to be specific in our thinking. Three things we need to be thankful for in this text.

Let's take a look at them in verse number 12. The first thing it says is that he's qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. That's a biblical mouthful, and unfortunately, it's full of words that seem pretty ethereal. They seem a bit foggy, they seem a little far off, and frankly, we can yawn our way through that, but we need to stop and think about it for a second.

God has promised to us, if we put our trust in his son and if we've repented of our sins, if we are followers of Christ, he says, "I have qualified you to get an inheritance." Even that's helpful because even the ancients could say that sounds like a really good thing.

Unfortunately, when we think about the future that God has planned for every Christian, no matter how difficult your life may be, it's something where we need to say I may not be able to grasp the whole thing, but it's good, and I know it's good.

And it's something that he's qualified us for. That's not the religious mindset of most people. Most people think that we get in with God by doing a lot of good things so that we can qualify ourselves. God has said, "No, that's not it. I have qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light."

Now that again may not be real attractive to people right off the bat, but we need to ponder it. Let's start by stating it clearly. We need to thank God this week. If you can't thank God for anything else, and if you're a Christian, thank him for this: thank God for securing heaven.

I'm reluctant to use the word heaven because again that even gets even more cotton-ball cloudish and translucent. But God says one day the dwelling of God will be among men, and he will dwell with them. Whatever our future entails, it entails a perfect God coming and providing for us a perfect place.

Specifically, the New Jerusalem. I tried to Google Map it; it didn't show up. The New Jerusalem is a place specifically in scripture where God's dwelling place is brought down out of heaven. The Bible says—I don't know how to get you excited about this because it's beyond your comprehension really—it's like a bride coming down beautifully dressed for her husband.

Here's a place where he says now the dwelling of God is among men, and that's going to be a perfect place for us. Take a look at verse 4, 1 Peter chapter one. He's called us into an inheritance. Take a look at this great text. Into an inheritance that will never perish, it will never spoil, it will never fade, and it is kept—literally, that's a strong word—it is reserved in heaven for you.

For you who are through faith shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. God could pull the trigger on this tonight. Anytime, boom. The point is, until he chooses to pull the trigger on this, until we walk through the gates of this eternal place where everything's good and nothing's bad, the bottom line is he's going to protect it.

It is shielded by God's power, not your power, but by his power. In this you should at least greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief and all kinds of trials. That's the reason we don't give thanks. And yet the Bible says how about that place?

What if it's guaranteed for you? What if it's never going away? What if it's already paid for? Can you now be happy a little bit? Can you read the books on how to give thanks and not how to complain? Can we spend a little bit more time being grateful even though, take a look at it, now for a little while you'll have to suffer grief and all kinds of trials?

He knows it's going to be tough. In this world you'll have tribulation, trials, trouble. We know that. But you can be thankful anyway. I'm not asking for you to say, "Hey, let's have a great Thanksgiving. Let's be thankful for all the things we have around us." That's a good thing to do, but it's risky because things may be really bad for you this week.

That's why we've got to look above the temporal and we've got to lift our eyes up a little bit higher and say beyond the threshold of this life, here's something I've got absolutely guaranteed. It's already paid for. Heaven's been secured.

Take a look at verse 13, Colossians chapter one verse number 13. Not only are we already qualified, it's already been paid for, it's done, and not only are we in, we need to not only rejoice about where we're going, take a look at verse 13. We ought to rejoice for a little while with what we're missing. He has—look at this verb—rescued us from the dominion of darkness.

He's rescued us from the dominion of darkness. As a matter of fact, to be cast into outer darkness is absolutely the worst thing that could happen. The Bible calls it hell. The reality of it is away from the presence of the Lord and the glory of his power will be the worst possible reality that anyone could ever face.

It's terrible because we're shut out from where the good stuff is, from where God is, from where truth is, from where righteousness is. And the Bible says that God has had to—notice this—rescue us from that dominion because that's where we were headed.

We were headed there because we deserved it. But the point is he's rescued us from it, and therefore it's done. It's not going to happen. Once it's canceled, it's canceled. Number two: we can rejoice this week. If you're a follower of Christ, you can be thankful because hell has been canceled.

You can be thankful for that. Heaven's been secured for you, and hell has been canceled. It's been canceled, and I know you can chafe against that and say, "Well, I didn't really deserve it anyway." You know what? We did. Let's just think that through for a second.

The home we deserve to live in is the home that reflects our heart and our lives. And if we've lied, then we deserve to live in a place where people lie to us. If we've not been faithful, we deserve a place where people are not faithful to us.

If we've neglected God and let him down, we deserve to live in a place where God neglects us and lets us down. You go through that list, you know what that spells? Hell. That's a terrible place to be. Reverse it, though. Here's grace. You're not going there.

You deserve that place, and I deserve it too, but here's the deal: he's rescued us from the home that we deserve to live in. That's called grace. Grace is about you and I getting something we don't deserve, and what we deserve is a place that reflects our lives. And our lives haven't been all that peachy.

God says, "You know what? The home you deserve, I'm not going to take you to that place. I'm going to free you from that. I'm going to secure for you a place where everything's good." And that's what the bottom half of verse number 13 is all about and the whole point of verse 14 in Colossians chapter one.

He's brought us—here's the third verb—into the kingdom of the son that he loves. Not only has he rescued us from that place, he's brought us into the kingdom, which we've already talked about in verse number 12. And then he says, "You know what's so great about it? In whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins."

The reason you and I aren't going to hell if you're a follower of Christ is because the problem that leads you to hell has been extracted from your life. It's called forgiveness. Number three: this week you and I can be thankful for this: we can thank God for complete forgiveness.

Because you don't sort of go to heaven. You either go or you don't. And if you go to heaven, it's because the whole thing that should lead you the other direction is gone. Are you tracking with that? You're not going there because what you have that earned hell has been completely extracted.

There's no need to go there anymore. It's the gospel. Christ died for us so we could go to a perfect place instead of the place we deserve. His forgiveness is complete. Psalm 103: here's what he can do with our sin, verse 12: as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

I'll take all of your guilt, I'll nail it to the cross, and when Christ says, "Paid in full," I'll take that sin and I'll remove it from you as far as the east is from the west. There will be no record of that sin on you. That's complete forgiveness.

Now, you got relational problems this week? You got financial trouble? Got problems at work? Big deal compared to the fact that heaven has been secured for you, hell has been canceled, and your sin—everything that God could be mad at—is completely removed from you.

Let's just make it through the difficulties of this earth and get to the other side where everything will be perfect. And you know what? The bottom line is this: there's nothing that should be more profoundly exciting and joy-producing in our heart than that God has done this for us.

We've got a lot to be thankful for. God, what a powerful reminder for us that you've gone to extreme measures to take sinful people like us and wash us clean. You've provided the ultimate payment for us, and thankfully, we praise you with gratitude that when Christ said, "It is finished," that there was from that point on for us no condemnation, and that we will have heaven secured for us.