Focal Point

Guest (Male): Today on Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Think about my job for a minute. I speak for a living. I study and speak, right? I need the muzzle of the Lord on my mouth. Every single pastor that you know who stands up to lead God's people needs a great deal of restraint or tact in their speech.

Our text is pray for us. We're sure that we have a clear conscience and desire to live honorably in every way. We're not much good to you if we're not obedient to the Lord.

Guest (Male): It's been said that the strength of a pastor is dependent on the prayers of the people in the pews. Today on Focal Point, Pastor Mike Fabarez gets personal as he continues his study in Hebrews 13 called Countercultural Christians.

And before we get started, for any first-time listeners, Pastor Mike has a brand new free booklet that we'd like to send you called Fighting for Peace. So get your copy today when you reach out online at focalpointradio.org. Now for today's message, we're picking back up in Hebrews chapter 13, and here's Pastor Mike.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: There are some listening to this likely to be a part of a group, a growing group in our culture of people that have given up on having any spiritual leaders in their lives at all. They've just said, "I don't really, I'm not into that. Christ is my pastor and I listen to preachers and all of that, but I don't have spiritual leaders in my life."

I understand why people do that, and it may be because they've had a really bad experience with a batch of bad church leaders. I get that. Or it may be that you're really sharp and smart and bright and spiritually mature and you're looking at the options out there and saying, "Well, I don't find anybody I can really put myself under." I can understand that too. The options out there are not all that impressive in some places.

The bottom line is, if you don't have any spiritual leaders in your life, I can say unequivocally that you're outside the will of God and that it's not a good place to be. God would have you change that arrangement in your life because the way God has set things up is for you to have pastors and spiritual leaders in your life. That is God's will for you.

Hebrews chapter 13, beginning in verse number seven. That's where the topic of leaders comes up and it says in the text to remember your leaders who spoke the Word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Be like those guys.

Then he gets into some issues that we'll deal with later about the summary of the book. Really, it's the encapsulation of the whole book. And then he returns to the topic in verse 17. Drop down to verse 17. Hebrews 13, verse 17. It says, "Obey your leaders and submit to their authority. They keep watch over you as men who must give an account. Obey them so that their work will be a joy and not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you."

And then he gets real personal. He says, "Pray for us." He is certainly a leader in this church. He says, "We are sure that we have a clear conscience and we desire to live honorably in every way. I particularly urge you to pray so that I may be restored to you soon." Perhaps in prison, bereft of his congregation for some reason, but he's got some personal requests. He says, "You guys need to pray for us."

Now, this is a series of uncomfortable truths for preachers to preach forthrightly, but I think we should do it out of a deference to preaching the whole counsel of God. So let's look at this and try and take this apart a piece at a time and see what God would have us do in response to it.

Verse number seven, it says, "Remember your leaders." Keep them in mind. Remember them, not just for the sake of honoring them, but the preachers who speak the Word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.

If you're afraid that we're going to start selling "What Would Mike Fabarez Do?" bracelets or something like that, we're not going to go that far. But you do recognize that it is a biblical concept that you should think about what would my pastors do in this situation because you know them living in the 21st century, facing the challenges of the current culture and trying to do their best to not only preach God's Word, but to live God's Word and you should learn from that.

It's not thoughtless, it's not blind, it's not just "I'm blindly following these people." It should be thoughtful because the assumption in Hebrews is that these leaders that are preaching the Word of God are good leaders and they're accurately preaching the Word of God. There are exceptions and we'll deal with those throughout the message. But the point is, assuming that you have good leaders who are teaching you the Word of God, number one on your outline, jot this one down: you should thoughtfully follow your leader's example.

Because I know about those big heroes of the faith that are thrown into the lion's den and that's amazing faith. But what about the 21st century when someone who claims to try and live according to the scripture hits real-life crises that we face in our day? What's their marriage like? How do they keep priorities intact in the midst of the challenges and distractions of the 21st century?

You should have people in mind that you know who teach you the Word of God that you say, "What would they do? How do they handle it?" That's not man-worship, that's not unbiblical honor. That's biblical and it's all over the scripture. Doesn't Paul say it? "Follow me as I follow Christ."

So this is not some kind of open-ended, mindless droning of "I just got to obey the pastor, whatever the pastor says," but you do need to choose your pastors wisely. When he speaks about the Word of God, it checks out. I can see that he's speaking the truth, not rejecting the truth.

Number two on your outline, let's just codify that in this simple phrase: You need to graciously obey your leader's directives. Biblical counsel, not reluctantly, not belligerently. You need to graciously comply with that. Graciously obey it.

Pastors, if they're good-hearted and teaching the truth, they're very careful about what they say that you should do. Again, is this mindless? No. If your leaders can't be trusted, if your leaders are giving you things that aren't true, go somewhere else. Find a church where the leaders are doing the right thing and then you need to obey them and submit to their authority.

And again, if you say, "Well, now we're just so far away, this is just so Jim Jones, I can't take it," remember the implication of the passage. It says that if you obey them, middle of verse 17, their work will be a joy. And that's another sermon, but yeah, it's much better to lead people that are leadable. They're compliant and then they want to do the right thing and they take your advice and counsel.

But if it's a burden, in other words, you don't obey them and they're always pounding their head against a wall in trying to lead people who don't want to go the direction they're leading, the Bible says that would be of no advantage to you.

Let's first of all invert that. If you do make it a joy and you're compliant to the directives of your pastoral team, here's the deal: it will be an advantage to you. Do you see we're back to the James 1:25 principle? If you do what the pastors tell you to do from the directives on the overhead on a weekend Bible teaching, or to the directives you get for your marriage in biblical counseling, you will be blessed. It will be an advantage to you.

If you don't do it, it won't be an advantage to you. It is all about the blessing of God that is mediated through the directives of biblical leaders. That is what the Bible is teaching. Invert it for just a second back to where it is in the text. If you don't do it, it's not an advantage.

I think there's a bit of an implied threat here, is there not? Jot this in the margin if you would: 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 8. After all the directives about how they were to conduct their lives, the punchline in that text is this: "He who rejects this instruction does not reject man, but rejects God."

And again, if you're thinking that's just too one-sided, it's not one-sided. Look at what we just blew right over in verse 17. They keep watch over you as men who—here it comes, it should scare you future pastors and current pastors—men who must give an account.

And the Bible says, here's a good passage for you, James chapter 3, verse 1: "Let not many of you become teachers because we who teach will incur a stricter judgment." Here's the deal: my judgment is going to be much stricter than your judgment. And I know I'm the guy throwing up imperatives for you every week and saying, "Do this, do this, do this, do this."

And because that's my role, and because your teenager's youth pastor has that role, we are as teachers of the Bible going to incur a stricter judgment. Or in this case, we're going to have to give an account. You remember the Bema Seat judgment lecture we did? That will not be a day of just high-fiving everybody.

That'll be a day when I have to answer for my leadership. I have to give an account for the things that I told people to do. I have to give an account for things that I didn't let people do or neglected to tell them. The text says I'm supposed to be watching out after the congregation entrusted to my care and every pastor has to recognize you're going to incur a stricter judgment. That's going to be a strict time, a rough time.

So, graciously obey your leader's directives. Don't do it blindly. Be a good Berean, but recognize that we will give an account to God for our directives. Biblical counselors, opening up a Bible, telling you what to do with your relationship, your marriage, your whatever—they will incur a stricter judgment. Pick your leaders carefully because this is the requirement for you and your church leaders.

Verse 18. "Pray for us." That's what the leader who writes this book to the congregation that he's obviously intimately acquainted with and preaching to here. He says, "Pray for us. Pray for us and we're sure that we have a clear conscience and desire to live honorably in every way."

I mean, we're trying to live up to the high calling of the leaders in scripture, of a pastor. He says, "And I particularly urge you to pray so that I may be restored to you soon." Apparently, there was some historical circumstance, perhaps imprisonment, perhaps some kind of death threat. I don't know what it was, but the pastor here had some particular issues and he's saying, "Pray for me because I'm facing some hard times. So you guys pray for me."

Well, in the passage so far we have, well, you should defer to the example of your leaders. You should defer to the directives of your leaders. Thirdly, you should be deferring to the importance of your leader's life to the extent that you're saying, "I'm focusing on you before God in prayer. I'm praying for you."

And not just "Yeah, bless the pastor." I am being specific if he has needs and problems and pressures, I'm going to pray specifically for him and every other person in my life, which is probably a small list, but a list of four or five people that teach you the Word of God and lead your spiritual life. Those people you need to be praying for.

Number three on your outline: You need to be ardently praying. And here's the deal. What I'm saying to you is that I need prayer more than the next guy. Some of you are going, "Yeah, you probably do." No, I do. I need prayer more than most people in this room because the scripture says the job that I'm doing is vulnerable to a kind of attack and opposition and pressure and labor that most people's lives aren't subjected to. So you need to pray for us. That's exactly what he calls them to do. Pray ardently for your leaders.

Let me give you six things to pray for real quick. If this is true, and I'm telling you it is—I'm not lying to you—this is hard, difficult, opposed. I can give my life for the church. I can love families and love people and all it takes is one sermon or one illustration for them to turn their back and say, "We don't like you anymore." That's normal. Talk about the kind of pain, personal pain involved in this work. It's unlike anything else I know.

Six things to pray for. If this is all true, you need to pray for my protection. Not just mine, but everybody who is a leader who brings you the Word of God in your life. Pray for their protection. Pray that God would protect them. Satan wants to take us out. You believe that? There are demons assigned to us to take our lives down. That's the truth of it. We have opponents, we have enemies, we have people that would want nothing more than to gloat over our failure. Pray for our protection.

Secondly, and the scripture says that by the way, here's a passage you might want to write down next to that one: 1 Corinthians chapter 16, verse 9. "Wide open door of effective ministry, there are many who oppose me." And I think that's the principle: the wider the door, the more effective the ministry, the more opposition you face.

Secondly, pray for our attitude. We need a good attitude in this. It is hard. Jot this one down: 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 8. It says that Paul, in the course of his ministry, despaired of even life. How transparent should I get right now? You need to know I don't know any pastor who gives himself for the work of the church that doesn't at one time or another think it's not worth living anymore.

From the beginning! Look at the beginning of scripture. The leaders that God raises up to speak for Him, the people that He calls to leadership from Elijah straight on down the road, people are constantly despairing of life. Paul says he's suicidal. He doesn't even know if he can go on. "I wanted to die." I know very few professions where the people feel like that as often as they do in the past.

Pray for our attitude. Pray that we don't get discouraged. Pray that we don't get depressed. Pray that we don't get frustrated. We're fighting that all the time in this work. 2 Timothy chapter 4, Paul at the end of his life, it's the last book he ever wrote in his ministry. He looks back and he says, "I praise God that the Lord stood by my side and gave me strength."

Third thing: pray for our strength. Pray that we would be strong in our minds, in our marriages, in our lives. We need strength from God. We wake up in the morning and we say, "Can we do this another day?" And it's not just about discouragement; some days we go, "I'd like to do it, but we need the strength to do it." Because the need and demand of ministry goes on all the time. Do you understand leaders in this church are constantly needing the strength of God to manage? We need strength to carry on.

Fourthly, 2 Timothy chapter 2, verses 24 and 25. I think of this verse literally every single week. 2 Timothy chapter 2, verses 24 and 25 says, "The Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome. Instead, he must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct in the hope that God would grant them repentance and lead them to the knowledge of the truth."

I put it this way: tact. We need tact and diplomacy. Think about my job for a minute. I speak for a living. I study and speak. And how often I have this situation where I'm just thinking of 18 different ways to say something that would just wrestle you to the mat right now. I need the muzzle of the Lord on my mouth to be kept my diplomacy, restraint, care, not resentful. Be gentle, be kind, don't be quarrelsome.

Boy, I can argue. I've got to make sure that I'm careful. I need tact. Every single pastor that you know who stands up to lead God's people needs a great deal of restraint or tact in their speech. Our text in verse 18 says, "Pray for us, we're sure that we have a clear conscience and desire to live honorably in every way."

We're not much good to you if we're not obedient. So can you jot that down? We need to be obedient to the Lord. We're no good if we're a bunch of hypocritical liars. We need integrity, we need obedience, we need holiness in our life. Pray for our lives, pray for our minds, pray for our marriages, pray for our habits and our attitudes. We've got to be obedient to the Lord.

And lastly, Mark 6, I think of this one all the time as well, verse 31. Ministry was hard even in the 1st century and Jesus saw the people coming and going and just the disciples were spent. And here was Jesus's response. He says, "Come away with me by yourself to a quiet place and get some rest."

I put it this way: refreshment. We all need refreshment in this work. The crises don't stop. People keep dying, people keep needing to be married, there's all the problems and issues and challenges of administration and programming and staffing in a volunteer organization. We need refreshment. We've got to have those times off. Even if it's just that respite to have a day or two off, to turn it into a Monday and a Tuesday and a Wednesday and get away to a quiet place and get refreshed.

Everybody needs that. The pressure on your youth pastors, the pressure on your counseling pastor, the pressure on your senior pastor. We need refreshment. Protection, attitude, strength, tact, obedience, refreshment. When you think of your pastor, I want you to pray these six things for us. We need it.

In short, your prayers for our good, I trust, are motivated by the principle in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, which says you should love us. Again, I'm the neighbor coming over. "Hey, just remember to love me." It feels weird, but it's the truth. The Bible says you ought to love your pastors.

It puts it this way, verse 12: "We ask you, brothers, to respect those who work hard among you, who are over you in the Lord and who admonish you." That may be hard to do. It says, "Hold them in the highest regard because of their work. Hold them in the highest regard," I missed a word, "in love, because of their work."

Here's a risky one, let me just tack this one on the end: Galatians 6:6. And I know again this is the height of being accused of self-serving and I'm not looking to get on your Christmas list, okay? But here's the deal. Maybe you've gone in for biblical counseling with our biblical counselor here on staff.

When God helps you through that, even if it's a dead end but you got biblical instruction, here's what Galatians 6:6 says: "Anyone who receives instruction in the Word must share all good things with his instructor." Can you do something tangible, nice? Share the blessing of your life with our counseling pastor.

If your teens now have been turned on to following Jesus Christ and you see those guys laboring there weeknights, early mornings, long weekends where they're not off playing with their families on Saturdays, they're studying the Word of God and preparing for services on the weekend when you are blessed of God, I want one of the first people you think of is who in my life, my kid's life, my children's director, whoever it might be, how can I bless them with the blessing of my life?

Get specific and share those things. When someone in your Bible study, you watch them preach the Word of God on a women's Bible study this week and they share with you the labor of their study and it makes a difference in your life, do something nice and don't wait for Christmas for this kind of stuff. Share with them something tangible, express the goodness that God has blessed you with to them, extend it to them.

You'll be blessed too. And more than that, let's just say this: God will be honored because the church of Jesus Christ is doing what He told us to do. That would be a good thing. I want God to look down from heaven and say, "It's happening properly, as it should."

But understand this too, it's not just about us. The great thing about what God is doing through this church is these messages are streamed on the internet. It goes out to over 300 radio stations and for the sake of the hundreds, if not thousands of pastors that are represented by people that will hear this message, most of them laboring in out-of-the-way places, they're overworked and underpaid and underappreciated, may the Word of the Lord be a blessing to thousands of pastors out there. Wouldn't that be good news? That because we sat here and preached the Word of God, that maybe people across the country would be blessed.

So with that in mind, let's commit our application and all those who hear this message to the Lord. Pray with me, please. God, I know it's important for us to understand what Your Word has to say, to recognize that pastors should be examples to us in the real world of how to live the Christian life.

I understand also that the Word of God is clear that people who have chosen a church and chosen their church leaders should obey them and submit to their authority. And God, also I recognize, as we see so often at the end of these New Testament epistles, it is so important that congregants pray for their pastors.

And I pray that this congregation would not only pray for me and others in the church that preach the Word of God to them, but as I said just a second ago, I pray that the kinds of pastors that are laboring in difficult, some are despairing even of life because people hear this sermon, that they would be encouraged.

That gifts would come to them, that encouragement would come to them, that the lie of the enemy that is trying to take pastors down and discourage them would not infiltrate the ears of those who hear this sermon. Lies like we need to keep our pastor humble, we need to keep our pastor poor, relying on God.

All the nonsense that goes out there that does nothing but play right into the hands of demons, so that pastors will be discouraged, frustrated, underappreciated, underloved, underpaid. God, I pray that wouldn't happen. Please, because of this text that is often avoided by pastors because they're afraid it'll be seen as self-serving, I pray that the proclamation of this text would make a difference in many people's lives.

And God, ultimately I know as we started this morning, it'll be a blessing if we just do what Your Word says. It may feel like we're taking a risk in loving someone we're not even sure we know that well or obeying someone that we're not intimately acquainted with.

But I pray God, as Bereans, as we give our allegiance and our commitment to a congregation, that we would recognize the importance of the spiritual leaders in our life. And that we would follow through in what You have commanded us here in Hebrews chapter 13. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.