Ask Pastor Mike Fabarez

Speaker 1

Well, 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 and A with Mike Fabarez.

Well, how was your turkey day? We're glad to have you with us on Focal Point. I'm Dave Drouy, 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.

Now, 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 Worton for a timely discussion about the historical origins of Thanksgiving.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Dave. I am here with Pastor Mike and 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.

Speaker 3

Well, the history books will tell us that back in 1789, the President, our first president, George Washington, celebrated via a proclamation a day of thanksgiving to God for what was happening in our country. Of course, 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. And 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, that we should stop and give thanks. Now, of course, that's the national observance of Thanksgiving.

But we're concerned as Christians about being biblical in our thanksgiving, and the Bible is very clear that we ought to be giving thanks in all situations. We ought to be giving thanks every time we pray; we ought to be giving thanks. I mean, 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, we need to be expressing it, and we need to be saying thanks to God probably a whole lot more often than we are.

Speaker 2

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

Speaker 3

Yeah, you know, sometimes I think the kind of the anecdotal observation of people that don't have a lot being thankful for a lot more of what they have speaks to kind of the, I hate to put it in these terms, but kind of 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 and in healthcare and in science and all. All these things that make life more enjoyable and easier and more efficient.

And 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. And yet you go to a time when a farmer worked all day in the fields and they just got a very small portion to eat at night, sitting down and really being thankful for their food and for their home and for their family and for their relationship and for their land.

And 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. And perhaps it's just we've become presumptuous about the blessings of God.

Speaker 2

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

Speaker 3

Well, I think you have to look at the Bible. Let that be your guide. And 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, you know, bless the Lord, O my soul. Right, Bless the Lord, O my soul. Forget none of his benefits, you know, remember what he's done.

So you kind of 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 little post-it note on the dashboard of your car or some kind of three by five card stuck, you know, 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 talks about giving thanks for the people in his life day and night. I mean, 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 and just see it and say, I got to do it and 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.

Speaker 2

Well, thank you, Pastor Mike. I know that would be a helpful and informative directive on Thanksgiving. And we're going to complete our time together with a message you gave called count your spiritual blessings.

Speaker 4

In one of those big box retail bookstores, I 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. You know what I mean? And now that they can read, I'm sure they could write their own book on how to complain. And it's not just a dig at our kids; mom and dad are pretty good complainers when we put our minds to it. I'll 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 that He's kind of 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 He's real clear about it.

Of course, what was interesting when I thought about that was when 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?

Speaker 1

None.

Speaker 4

Well, I got back to my computer and I started looking for books on being grateful, showing gratitude, and being thankful. Except for a few specialty books on throwing a holiday meal, which I've been to, several of those are usually not frothing with Thanksgiving. There are 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. I mean, we ought to be people that are good at being thankful to the right person for the right things. And 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. And that's the great thing about God's lessons on Thanksgiving: they're not rooted in your circumstances. Because God's truths that should really just blow the top off of our efforts to give thanks ought to be something that drives us to excel in this area, and it has nothing to do with your present circumstances.

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 domain 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 that none of it is reliant upon our present circumstances. 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, and 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. It 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 kind of forgetting that Thanksgiving needs these two things.

The first thing it needs is it needs to be directed. It needs to be directed. Is that what I had on there first? Yes. Great. Letter A. It needs to be directed. There are 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. See, you cannot just be thankful. 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 the 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, saying, "What are you thankful for, Johnny?" And if Johnny says, "Well, I'm thankful for my bike," see, 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's qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light? He's rescued us from the domain 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. See, what you see is them saying, "Thank you, comma. Here's a few things I want to tell you."

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. And if you don't believe that, just go up to someone this week and say thank you. You know what they're going to say? "What for?" Why? Because it doesn't mean anything if it's not specific. I mean, even in your closest relationships, you walk up to my wife and say, "Honey, thanks," and that's just not good enough. See? "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 I mean, that's worth the price of admission here today, right? I mean, just to understand from Colossians 1:12 that you and I need to have directed and defined Thanksgiving. Until we reach that place, 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. 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. And that's a biblical mouthful. Unfortunately, it's full of words that seem pretty ethereal, a bit foggy, and a little far off. 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."

It's something that he's qualified us for, and 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. Is that not right? God says, "No, no, no, that's not it. I have qualified you to share in the inheritance." It says 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 this week. If you can't thank God for anything else, and if you are a Christian, thank him for this: Number one on your outline, thank God for securing heaven. I'm reluctant to use the word heaven because, again, that even gets even more cotton ball cloutish, you know, 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, if you want to be very specific, to Google map it or whatever, it's the New Jerusalem, okay? I tried to Google Map it, but 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." But 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 of 1 Peter, chapter 1. He's called us into an inheritance. Take a look at this great text, First Peter, Chapter 1. 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 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, 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.

And 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?"

Speaker 1

Right?

Speaker 4

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 trouble; he knows it's going to be tough in this world. You'll have tribulation, trials, and 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." You know, that's a good thing to do, but it's risky because things may be really bad for you this week. And that's why we have to look above the temporal; we need 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."

Verse 13, Colossians, chapter 1, 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 domain of darkness. He's rescued us from the domain 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.

The Bible says that God has had to notice this, rescue us from that domain because that's where we were headed. And 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 on your outline: 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. 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. 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.

Okay, now 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. What we deserve is a place that reflects our lives. Our lives haven't been all that peachy, and 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. The whole point of verse 14 in Colossians, chapter one, is that 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 on your outline 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. 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, 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," there was from that point on for us no condemnation for us and that we will have heaven secured for us, a perfect place, and that we can rejoice today to say thanks with sincerity and focus directed to you and very specifically defined. Thank you for saving us. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Speaker 1

Amen. You're listening to Pastor Mike Fabarez here on Focal Point and a portion of the message called our own Thankfulness. Now to hear it again, just go to focalpointradio.org.

Hey, our Hebrew series is ready. It's another comprehensive verse-by-verse expository series by Pastor Mike Fabarez. Enjoy an unparalleled seminary-level presentation of important issues surrounding God's living tabernacle. Every chapter of Hebrews is all in one place, plus charts, maps, timelines, and interesting facts. Go check it out at focalpointradio.org.

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We want to thank the Henrica family, who recently wrote Pastor Mike and said, "In searching for God and His truths, you're a true blessing and inspiration. Your God-inspired efforts have helped us to read the Bible more, break the silence in spreading the word, and be proud of the Christians we are. We see your work as the most honorable work that can be done in this life, and it truly receives our respect and admiration."

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Well, Dave Drewie here for Mike Fabarez inviting you back for more from his Luke series Monday on Focal Point. Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries. Sam.