Focal Point

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Righteousness from God comes through faith, through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus, through faith in his blood. Now, again, you didn't see his blood. We have to trust not only that it happened, but we transfer our trust to say that payment of his life was the freedom from my sin.

Dave Druey: Walking by faith isn't easy. It's one thing to believe that God exists, but it's quite another to act on that belief and follow a God we cannot see. Thankfully, scripture not only defines faith for us, but the Bible also provides descriptions of what confident, life-transforming trust in God looks like.

Today on Focal Point, Mike Fabarez turns to perhaps the greatest depiction of faith in all of the Bible. It's Hebrews chapter 11 that shows us how to cultivate the core ingredient of the Christian life.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Understand biblical faith. Back to Hebrews chapter 11. What we'll find in Hebrews 11, and I don't even think you need to scan your eyes through this to know, although if you start you will see Abel verse 4, Enoch verse 5, you'll see Noah and Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, you'll see Moses, you'll see the exodus, you'll see the conquest. All these people are being praised and commended, as verse 2 says, not just for some internal virtue, but for something that virtue inside had led to.

It is always something that is prompting them to do something. They don't sit around and say, well, you know, in the depths of Moses's heart, man, he sure had a great and wonderful trust in God. That's not what's praised. What's praised is how the faith prompts them to action. So, the kind of faith that we're looking at throughout Hebrews 11 is a confidence that leads to action. It is not enough to say, I want to build my faith in my heart. Great, let's build our faith in our spirit, in our minds. But that faith, if it's going to be commendable or praiseworthy, the kind of ambitious faith we're talking about, it must prompt to action.

And in Hebrews 11, it's a real exciting, risk-oriented doing. It's a kind of, I'm willing to do something that the world may think is crazy, but I'm going to do it because I have confidence in God. This is what the ancients, we're talking about the Old Testament people, were commended for, not condemned for. This is not the condemnation, it's the commendation.

The commendation of God is explained to us in verse 6. He starts with a negative statement. Verse 6, without faith, it's impossible to please God. Invert the negative to a positive statement. What can you say about faith? Faith pleases God. When you have faith, that is a well-pleasing thing. That's what commending someone means. Now, it says this. Anyone who comes to him must, and here's the first level, believe in ascent to facts like believing that he exists. And more than that, he believes that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. That pursuit of God is always, according to this, something that God rewards.

We need to remember that biblical faith has its perks. And that's not just an indicative statement, that should be a motivating statement. God always is a God who rewards ambitious biblical faith. He rewards it. He rewards it even at level one. Let's jot this down. Letter A, level one biblical faith, and that is the first step we take with biblical faith. He frees us or releases us from sin's penalty. We call that salvation. That's the first thing that happens. And that's not really the point of Hebrews 11, but before we talk about ambitious faith as it relates to all these exploits of these heroes in the Old Testament, let's at least say, hey, you know what, they all had a kind of faith in God that released them from their penalty of sin.

He rewards you in that biblical faith by removing from your account the sin that should toss you away from his presence. And that's grace, but it is faith that God is saying is activating that grace, and that is the gift of God. Let me give you one passage on this. Let's turn to Romans chapter 3 for just a minute. Romans 3:21. Now, a righteousness from God, and that's the real problem is that we're sinners and we're not righteous, and therefore we've got to pay the penalty of our sin. But the good news is there is a righteousness that comes from God and that's what I need. I need righteousness if I'm not going to go to hell.

Apart from the law, that means keeping the rules. It's not based on keeping the rules, it has been made known. And it wasn't a surprise. It was to which the law and the prophets testified in the Old Testament. They knew it was coming. This righteousness from God comes through faith. Ascenting to facts? No, more than that. A transfer of trust, a confidence in. Through faith. And what do I put my confidence in if I don't want to go to hell? Here it comes. In Jesus Christ, and that's available to all who put their trust there.

A righteousness from God, it comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all believers. There is no difference, by the way. And one reason is on the sin side, there's no difference for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And there's no difference or any kind of special treatment to anybody in Israel or outside of Israel, Greek, Gentile, doesn't matter in the sight of justification. You're also freely justified by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

God presented him as an atoning sacrifice, or a sacrifice of atonement, and that comes to my credit through what? Here's the word. Through faith in his blood. Now, again, you didn't see his blood. We can put up crosses all day long and nail things to it and have all kinds of pictures and Mel can make his movies and all that, but you didn't see it. And we have to trust not only that it happened, but we transfer our trust to say that payment of his life was the freedom from my sin.

I'm trusting in that because the sin that I committed, that I deserve to be punished for, as Colossians says, was nailed to his cross. And his righteous life was applied to me. That's the fundamental perk of biblical faith. And if you trust in his death, trust in his blood, trust in his life, then the Bible says, hey, atoning sacrifice. He did this, by the way, why did he have to do that? To demonstrate his justice because God's not good if he's not just. But he is good, and that means he has to be just. So, he has to demonstrate his justice because in the past, in his forbearance, he'd left sins committed beforehand unpunished.

Abraham's enjoying a nice, comfortable place after he died, an experience in his spirit before he gets his body back. In his spirit, he was experiencing good things after his death. How come? Shouldn't he be in hell? Yeah, his sins hadn't been paid for, but God was showing forbearance until the sin was paid for. And it was paid for in space and time by Christ dying on a cross. He did this to demonstrate his justice at the present time so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have, here's the benefit, justification for those who have faith in Jesus.

I've transferred my trust to him, not my resume, not my law-keeping, not my rule-keeping, but in him. Verse 27, where then is the boasting? Can anybody do this? Oh, look how great I am. I'm a Christian, I'm in heaven. No, you really can't boast about it. It's excluded on what principle? Observing the law? No, I guess you could boast if you got there by observing the law, but none of us get there by observing the law. All the boasting is excluded on the principle of faith because we all trusted and then God gave it to us. Verse 28, for we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.

Immediate and instantaneous forgiveness based on faith. Though it's not the focus of Hebrews 11, we must assume that you have in place in your life, if you're ever going to move beyond that into real hot and on-fire ambitious faith for God, is making sure that your trust is not in your rule-keeping. It's in Christ, his life, his death, his resurrection. We have to put our trust there. Your resume will not cut it with a holy God. And if you're going, oh, he says that all the time, I've heard this a million times, great, your neighbors haven't heard it. They don't get it. They go off to Easter and they sit in churches and they think it's all about doing good things so that they can get to heaven. And the Bible says the best and most important perk, the advantage of faith is when you put your faith in the death of Christ, you get forgiveness instantaneously and immediately. You get the perk of eternal life. You get to not go to hell, and that's where we should all start.

And then, let's move on to ambitious faith. What are some of the perks of ambitious faith if God's going to commend it, if he's going to reward those who are acting on this kind of thing, back to Hebrews 11. What is the reward? Well, all you can do, really, right now is start glancing down from 3 to 5 and then 7 all the way to the end. All you can do is really glance your eyes through. We're going to be covering all kinds of rewards. All kinds of rewards. God is doing amazing things in response to people's ambitious faith, and we can divide it into two categories. We got the first one already. What are the last two? Letters B and C, if you will.

There's two ways that God rewards ambitious faith. The first one is, and I'll state it in a negative, because it's really not about houses or boats or yachts or big houses on a hill or whatever. It is really about something that we don't experience. Much like salvation from sin's penalty is a great thing because of what we don't go and experience. And so is the second one. When it comes to the temporal reward of being ambitious with our faith, moving beyond the status quo, one of the greatest things is the more we move forward in ambitious faith, the more we're moving away from something called sin.

Ambitious faith is all about sanctification, and the more I move away from sin, the less I bear the penalties and consequences of sin. Now, here's a big biblical word that's used a lot as it relates to sin. It's called corruption. And the more I move away from sin, the more I move away from sin's corruption. So, let's jot it down this way. Letter B, the other perk that we get with ambitious faith, biblical faith, is freedom from sin's corruption. And the more you're ambitious about your faith to take the path less traveled, to take the high road, the narrow road, the narrow gate, and to say I'm going to live with ambitious faith. The world, they don't have it, but I got it and I want it in increasing measure. I want confidence in God that leads to godly actions. When you do more of that, you get less corruption in your life.

Let me turn you to a passage. Ephesians chapter 4. Paul's talking about God and he says, surely you heard of him and you were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You know about God. Verse 22, Ephesians 4:22, you were taught with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires. Go back to the garden with that statement. Oh, this'll be great, have this piece of fruit. Oh, you'll love it, it'll be wonderful, it'll be so good for you and she goes, chomp. And then all of a sudden, ugh, look at me, I'm naked and there's problems and corruption. Corruption enters the garden and she is lured into it by deceitful desires.

Those deceitful desires weighed a terrible penalty on her life. And the more you engage in those deceitful desires, all it does is corrupt your life. And the more we have ambitious faith to go on a higher road, a higher plane, move higher in doing the kinds of things that Hebrews 11 people did, the more we're going to see less of that corruption in our lives. And the more you're going to see that your heart, your soul, perhaps even your body is going to experience a little bit more wholesomeness, a little bit more freedom from that, and you're going to say, wow, it feels better not doing that anymore.

Yeah, there might be some residual effects obviously, but you know what, I'm not living in that pit anymore. I'm not living with those practices anymore, those habits, that kind of stuff I would pour into my mind or my thought life. Man, it's gone. And you will sit back and count that negative deprivation of corruption as a very big positive. This whole chapter 11's not about how to get your yacht or, you know, get a bigger house. It's not about that. But it's about experiencing some of the freedom from the corruption of sin.

Another passage to jot down, I won't make you turn there, is 2nd Peter chapter 1 verse 4. 2nd Peter 1:4. This is a good text. He says, these great and precious promises are there so that through them we may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption that is in the world that is caused by evil desires. Don't be fooled. God is not mocked. A man reaps whatever he sows. And you want to live that way, you want to sow to the flesh, you will reap from the flesh, same Greek word, corruption. That's what you'll get. So, don't live that way. Isn't that why we cry out to our kids, our teens? We watch them on the precipice of sin. Just don't do that. Oh, I know you think it's fun and your friends think it's fun, but that leads to so much damage in your life.

And God, your heavenly Father, is saying the same thing to you. Stop with being lured by the world's values. Can you start working toward heaven's values? And the more you do, the more you'll see that freedom from the corruption that's in the world that's caused by all these stupid priorities. Let's hold the world's things a whole lot more loosely. It is not about chasing the Orange County dream. It is about living for the kingdom of God. And some of the present advantages, letter B, are that we escape sin's corruption.

Thirdly and lastly, there's another advantage, which is really the bulk of the advantage in Hebrews 11. And that is that there are, I put it this way, several eternal bonuses. Letter C, several eternal bonuses. And I know you've heard it before in the series through Hebrews. We've talked a lot about eternal rewards. But don't sit there and write me off going, oh, I've heard that. He's going to talk about storing up treasures in heaven and not on earth and all that. You know what, there's not one day in the eternal kingdom, not one day you're going to look at me and see me there and go, you know what, I'm really, really frustrated that you spent so much time talking about eternity. I wish you hadn't.

You are going to say, I'm so glad. Why didn't we talk about that more? Why did we waste our time on sermons that didn't deal with investing in eternity? Because all you're going to care about, a hundred years from now or ten thousand years from now, is how much you invested in that place. There are so many eternal bonuses in this text. We're going to see 17 different examples, and those are going to be many of them showing us how God is storing up for people treasure in the eternal kingdom.

And again, if it's real, if he's wanting us to put our hope in something true and real, it will be something that should resonate not only with our hearts but one day our eyes will see it. The new Jerusalem, we will live in it. And all that you did to take the high road and live with ambitious faith and move out from the pack and go from lukewarm to hot, everything will be rewarded in the eternal kingdom. Just remember that. Jesus said it to us because he's begging for us to get it. Please, would you please store up for yourselves treasure in heaven? Stop chasing the foolishness down here.

Oh, what do we do? Quit our jobs or roving preachers? Not saying that. Fine, let's put food on the table, I'm all for that. But can we stop thinking that's what life is all about? The Bible says it's not. Your life does not consist of the abundance of your possessions. That's just temporal goosebumps, man. It has nothing to do with where you'll live or how you'll live in eternity. One last passage. Luke 19. Luke chapter 19 verse 11. While many were listening to him, he went on to tell them a parable because, this is important, he was near Jerusalem and the people thought, underline it, that the kingdom of God was going to appear at once.

See, now that wasn't going to happen. Now, facets of it, phases of it, okay, he's the king in my heart, but the king is not sitting in Jerusalem ruling in a new uncursed society. That's coming. That's what the Bible promises. Our hope is in that. But in the meantime, we're going to have to live in this world's system for a while and wait for his return. So, he tells a story. Verse 12, a man of noble birth went to a distant country to have himself appointed king and then return. Isn't that what's about to happen? Jesus about to go return to his Father, be crowned with glory and honor being given a name above every name by which the name of Jesus every knee should bow, all of that. You know those passages. He's going back to the Father to be crowned the king and one day he'll come back to get his subjects.

But in the meantime, that's what the parable's all about. He gives this example. So, he called ten of his servants together and he gave them ten minas. A mina is a three-month wage. So, depending on your income and a minor worker or a major middle worker, whatever, let's just put it in today's terms. 20,000 bucks. Decent job, 20,000 bucks, three-months' wage. Now, he gives them ten, right? Gave them ten minas. So, you got $200,000 in today's terms. And he says, take this $200,000 and put it to work until I come back. Basically, do your homework. You're going to work, you're going to invest right now.

But his subjects hated him and sent a delegation after him to say we don't want this man to be our king. But he was made king, and that was the crucifixion. He was made king, however, and he returned home. Now, it's time for some accounting. Then he sent for the servants whom he had given the money in order to find out what they had gained with it. And the first one said, sir, your mina has earned ten more. So, here's a guy with $200,000 in today's terms, and he now says, hey, man, I worked at this. I invested what you entrusted to me and I doubled it. Here is $400,000, from $200,000 to $400,000.

Now, this repeats itself. We'll just look at the first example. After he said that, verse 17, here's what the master said. Well done, my good servant. His master replied. Now, stop right there. We hear that all the time, well done, good and faithful servant. And you kind of picture Jesus patting you on the top of your head, good boy, good son, that was really good. That's really not the point of the parable. Now, that's just the commendation and it starts with that. Commendation leads to reward, and that's the part that should impress us. That's the impression of the passage.

Look at how it finishes, verse 17. Because you've been trustworthy in a very small matter, you've turned $200,000 into $400,000. He says, take charge of ten cities. What do you think cities are worth? Because there's a lot of resources, there's land, there's property. I mean, there's a municipality, there's all, I mean, think of the wealth. I mean, to be in really control of that, that's a big stewardship there.

And Jesus is telling this parable to convince people that if they are invested things from God, God expects them to take that investment and turn it. And to their amazement on judgment day, God will say great job, that was such a small thing. Doing your geometry homework was a small thing. Here, here's your corner office, here's your giant expense account, here's your responsibility, and they, because of their investment in a geometry class, will for them earn an eternal weight of glory, the apostle Paul says. They will be experiencing the benefits of this forever.

And if you think Mike's just harping on us to sign up for the nursery or they need helpers or somebody to paint the church, it's not about that. It's about you and I getting for ourselves because it glorifies God. If you really want to be super spiritual, it brings glory to God to invest more of our lives in the eternal kingdom. And really, if there's nothing else that comes from Hebrews 11, I trust it will be an inspiration for us to put more of our hope into this thing called the Christian faith so that we might see our lives reflect more of the advantages of these people in Hebrews 11. These are heroes, and one of the reasons is they are kicking back with God's blessing and commendation and reward in a way that I just would like to have a little part of. Wouldn't you like to have a little part of it? Don't be status quo, man. We don't need to be status quo Christians and God forbid Compass would be a status quo church. Let's go after it with ambitious faith.

Let's pray. God, we need this encouragement. We need this motivation. We need you to get involved in our hearts and to press us to be more of what we need to be. God, we need to take the high road. I know that's going to mean personal sanctification. We're going to be saying no to more sin, that would be great. And we'll experience some temporal rewards for that. It'd be great not to have sin's deceitfulness corrupt our spirit, our heart, and even our bodies.

But God, ultimately, it's not about that. This is just prep. It's prep for eternity. And I pray that we might be able to say, man, you know what, our lives are more positioned to do more ambitious, risky things for the kingdom. We're out there ready to live on the edge and do something big for the glory of God. And ultimately, we know that we cannot invest too much in this. You are going to be a God that makes every step of it worthwhile. Oh, and the world may not understand and it may be hard and even the things that Hebrews 11 may cause us to do, to step out, maybe change careers, maybe move geographically, maybe invest in some posts for utilizing our gifts that we have, I mean, there may be some hard temporal things involved.

But ultimately, God, we know that's where you want us to be. You don't want us to be fat and lazy spiritual people waving our ticket to the spiritual Disneyland in the sky going I got mine, isn't it great, I'm a Christian, sing me another song and tell me something I already know. You want us to live on the edge with ambitious faith. So God, make that a reality for us. Motivate us, prompt us. May your spirit equip us with all that we need to be aggressive in our Christian life, knowing that radical Christianity, that ambitious faith is normative stuff. It's just what you expect from us. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.

Dave Druey: Groundbreaking faith isn't for super Christians, but for every follower of Jesus. A powerful takeaway from Mike Fabarez today on Focal Point. And you're listening to a message called Cultivating the Core Ingredient of the Christian Life.

This month, we're excited to offer you *The Journals of Jim Elliot*, edited by Elisabeth Elliot. And if anything in today's message got you thinking about what it actually costs to trust God without reservation, these journals are a place to take that. Jim Elliot wasn't a theologian writing for publication. He was a young believer writing to stay accountable to his own convictions. He asks himself the questions most of us quietly avoid, and reading them has a way of prompting you to do the same. Request your copy of *The Journals of Jim Elliot* when you give to Focal Point. Simply call 888-320-5885 or go online to focalpointradio.org. Now, let me hand things back over to Pastor Mike for something you're going to want to hear.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Thanks, Dave. I'd like to invite you to join me September 19th through the 26th, 2026, on a Christian cruise through New England and Canada. We'll sail Holland America's Zuiderdam, known for its elegance and exceptional hospitality, to historic cities like Boston, Halifax, and Quebec City. We'll gather for devotional times in God's word followed by thought-provoking Bible teaching throughout our journey. Grammy-winning musicians Keith and Kristyn Getty will lead us in worship. You'll enjoy the stunning autumn landscapes as we explore charming coastal villages, all while building friendships with like-minded believers. It's a unique opportunity to deepen your faith and see some of the most beautiful scenery on the eastern seaboard. Space is limited, so don't wait to sign up. Secure your cabin today at focalpointradio.org. Just go to focalpointradio.org.

Dave Druey: Well, I'm your host, Dave Druey, inviting you to tune in tomorrow when Pastor Mike Fabarez answers the intriguing question: Do you have a guardian angel? We've got a fascinating conversation about God's heavenly servants you won't want to miss. Coming up on Friday's edition of Ask Pastor Mike, here on Focal Point.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Pastor Mike here. You know, it's an honor to be with you every day, helping you explore the depths of scripture. But I want to be clear, no amount of Bible knowledge is ever going to save you. Be sure where you stand with God. Get in touch with us. We'd love to pray with you and for you. Visit us today at focalpointradio.org. We look forward to hearing from you.

Dave Druey: Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.