Focal Point

Dave Drewy: Today on Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Think about your temptations and instead of just focusing on how hard it is to say no to those feelings and impulses, why don't we think about this? Let's fixate on the joy of what would happen if you learned to kick that temptation. That would be a good thing.

As a matter of fact, that needs to overwhelm our thoughts as we're facing temptation. Think about the good that would come if you conquered that sin.

Dave Drewy: Every day we battle with a host of temptations. So how do we stay strong and fight with biblical confidence? Today on Focal Point, Pastor Mike Fabarez presents a hope-filled message about our fight with sin. It's one portion of a study in Hebrews 12.

Right now, Pastor Mike has a special new booklet that complements this study that we'd like to send any first-time listener called Storing Up Treasures. Just reach out online at focalpointradio.org. Now here's Pastor Mike with today's message, "Keeping Our Focus on Christ."

Pastor Mike Fabarez: You want to be a more godly person? You want to grow in sanctification? You want to say no to the temptations that are assaulting your life? Well, follow the example of Christ. As a matter of fact, in Hebrews chapter 12, he's described in the beginning of verse number 2 as the author and the perfecter of our faith.

When he says that he is the author and perfecter of our faith, I think there's a personal element to that. That's very objective. There's a subjective element to how God is going to help us through our trials and our temptations. Take a look at the example of Hebrews 4, for instance, just to stick with the writer of Hebrews.

If he is the perfect one who never sinned but he was tempted like we are, let's see the context of that statement and see if we can't move away from just saying, "Isn't he a great example, let's do what he did." Hebrews chapter 4. Look at verse number 15. Again, even the imagery of high priest gives us a sense that he's an intercessor.

He's involved with us. He's not just a distant template. He's an involved intercessor and advocate for us. Verse 15: "For we do not have a high priest who's unable to sympathize with our weakness, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are, yet without sin."

He goes on, verse 16: "Let us then approach the throne of grace, if that's true, with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." Now, I've got to define "time of need" contextually. In chapter 4, look up a little bit and you'll see in verses like verse number 11, the example of disobedience.

The temptation for this team was that they were being lulled into disobedience and they were starting to compromise. He says, "Listen, your time of need, you need help, not just a good example. You need a coach, and not just a coach who sits from the dugout and screams at you to keep your eye on the ball and your back elbow up."

You need a coach who gets into the batter's box with you. When Satan's throwing temptation at you, you need someone who's going to put his hands around your hands and help you swing that bat. You need real personal, subjective help. When the writer of Hebrews says fix your eyes on Jesus because he is the author and perfecter of our faith, I think it means a little more than just that he's a great example.

Reach out for Christ's help because he's ready to do that for you. You're struggling with sin right now. There's temptation in your life. You fell last week and the week before. Here's the deal: you cry out for the help of our coach, the author and perfecter of our faith, a subjective author and a subjective finisher or completer or perfecter of our faith.

He wants to get in and help you. A lot of times we don't have because we don't ask. He wants to help you. As a matter of fact, the whole point of the discussion in the upper room discourse in John as Jesus is going to leave the disciples and go to the cross was that he was going to send another, the stand-in for Jesus Christ in the lives of the apostles and the disciples.

That was the Spirit of God. He was called the Parakletos. Remember that Greek word? The helper. He's going to come and help you. Jesus said the Spirit has been with you, but when I leave, he's going to be in you. You're going to have some serious help from God. Don't leave that on the table. Take it. Call out for it.

Cry out for that kind of help. Isn't that what we're doing when we're praying? We're not just saying, "Oh God, I'm just reiterating my commitment that it's all about your will." So much of our prayer, I hope, in the midst of temptation and trial is, "Help me. I need your help. Do something in my life so that I won't fall to this."

I have to turn you to this one: Second Thessalonians. We don't look at this one very often. Second Thessalonians chapter 2. God doesn't just want to be an outside force on your life. He wants to be an internal empowerment in your life, and the person of the Holy Spirit is there to do that for you. But Christ is so interested.

As he sits at the right hand of the Father, it's as though Christ himself is getting involved in your life if you'd call out for him, if you'd reach out for his help. Second Thessalonians chapter 2, look at verse 16. This is a great phrase: "May our Lord Jesus Christ himself," isn't that a good word, "him and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, may he do what?"

What do we want Jesus Christ himself to do? I love this: "encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word," even the words you speak. Isn't that great? Here is Jesus, who so desperately wants to help you say the right words. So much of our sin really relates to our mouth and the words that we say.

He's ready, if you'd call out for his help, to get involved as the author and perfecter of your faith to be able to get into your mouth, into your life, and strengthen you, help you, encourage you into every good deed and word. Drop into chapter 3. This is the great phrase here. Verse 5: "May the Lord direct your hearts into God's love and Christ's," what's the word? "Perseverance."

Perseverance. Greek students, what Greek word do you think that might translate? Hupomonē. There it is, hupomonē. Because in the battle to do right, you need endurance, perseverance. You need hupomonē. Go back to Hebrews chapter 12. That's what it's all about. We need Christ Jesus himself to lead us into a place of having Christ's hupomonē.

Look at it. Hebrews chapter 12, verse number 2 and 3. Fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him, circle this word. Guess what word it is? Hupomonē. He endured the cross. That was the path and he didn't bail out. He endured it. Consider him who, what's the word? Hupomonē.

Who endured such opposition from sinful men. That's what we need in the heat of battle when the temptation is pressing down on us. We need the ability to stand up under it and do the right thing. Hupomonē. God himself wants to help you do that. He wants to lead you into that. Ask. God is ready to help.

But the point here of our passage is really about the cross and the writer of Hebrews illustrates how he overcame that temptation. So there's some wisdom here we don't want to leave. Let's look at it. Hebrews chapter 12, verses 2 and 3. We're going to fix our eyes on Jesus, verse 3. We're going to consider him. He is the author and perfecter of faith.

That's more than objective; it's subjective. But let's look at what we learn as the inspired writer of Hebrews gives us some insight on his temptation. He's going to endure the cross. How did he do that? First thing we learn: "who for the joy set before him." We need to not only reach out for his help, we need to specifically follow his example.

When I say that, I'm speaking specifically about the wisdom we gain from Hebrews chapter 12, verses 2 and 3. If we're going to follow the example of verses 2 and 3, we're going to find the things that we see there and itemize them. There's at least three observations that are very in your face. The first one is this: "who for the joy set before him endured the cross."

The thing that we see about Jesus as he faces temptation is that he is one who ponders the joy of obedience, and you and I need to do the same thing. Ponder the joy of obedience. That's not our natural tendency. We often fixate on the pain and the sacrifice and the frustration of it all and the deprivation of it all.

But here, the Bible's very clear that the author and perfecter of our faith, as an example, he endured the cross by focusing on the joy that's on the other side of obedience. If you want to get a couple layers deep on this, put in the margin the high priestly prayer of Christ, which is found in John chapter 17.

If you are a Sunday school graduate, you immediately know that passage is Jesus expressing to the Father that now that his earthly ministry was done, or just about done, he had one more thing to do: to go to the cross and be resurrected. He says this: "I'm ready," and he is anticipating and excited about having the glory that was with the Father before the foundation of the world restored to him.

He was ready for being the obedient son who had completed the course of redemption for mankind. He said, "I'm looking on the other side of obedience and that's my focus." If you want to overcome temptation, why don't we do what he did? He focused on the joy of obedience. Often when we think about temptation and saying no to sin, we're often focused on the sowing and reaping that is negative.

That's a motivation. If we sow to the flesh, we will reap from the flesh corruption. That's Galatians chapter 6. It's true; I need to think about that. Now, if I follow this path of temptation, where will it take me and what bad things might come from that? That's a helpful and motivating thought.

But you do know the next verse in Galatians 6 tells us that if we just don't grow weary and give up and lose heart and fall into sin, he says we will reap a harvest. So he says don't grow weary of doing good; you're going to reap a harvest in due time. It's coming. The point is we often focus on the negative of the sowing and reaping when we need to start thinking about the positive of sowing and reaping.

As a matter of fact, that needs to overwhelm our thoughts as we're facing temptation. Let's make that practical for a minute. What temptations are you struggling with? Let's think that one through. Can you fixate for a while in your mind, like Jesus did, on the good that would come if you conquered that sin?

Ponder the joy of obedience. What joy and benefit would come from that? Think about the joy or the benefit of obedience if your thought life was cleaned up. If your thought life had all the impurity gone and you beat those temptations and your mind was clean before the Lord and your heart and your mind thought good thoughts, pure thoughts, honorable, excellent thoughts, and your mind dwelt on those things and you kicked that temptation, what good would come from that?

Think about the joy of obedience. What if it's your words and you slip out words you know you shouldn't say and you say critical things behind people's back and you're always having to go back and say, "Well, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that." What if you didn't do that anymore? What would your reputation do?

Just if you were always one who spoke the edifying word that gave grace for the need of the moment, what if that was your reputation? Is there any good that would come from the joy of obedience? Think about your temptations and instead of just focusing on how hard it is to say no to those feelings and impulses, why don't we think about this?

Let's fixate on the joy of what would happen if you learned to kick that temptation. That'd be a good thing. "Who for the joy set before him endured the cross." Let's focus on that. Ponder the joy of obedience. One more phrase there. Are you still there in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 2? He not only endured the cross for the joy set before him, but he was scorning its shame.

Scorning. That's an old word. It's the Greek word kataphroneō. Kataphroneō. It's a compound word, like a lot of Greek words, and it starts with a preposition kata. Kata means down. That's the preposition down. Phroneō comes from the root to think, to ponder. The compound word is to think down on, which doesn't translate well.

When I describe this passage to people, I often like to use the phrase "poo-poo." He poo-pooed the shame. But that's the point. You get that? It's like I just gave it less credence. I gave it less influence. I thought down on it. And here's the deal: we shouldn't go to the pain or the shame or the sacrifice that's involved in temptation to help us make decisions about what to do.

Don't let pain come to the table and influence you. Let's think down on pain. Let's make less of it. Let's don't let it be a power broker in our decision-making. It's just pain. That phrase, "it's just pain," I know that sounds a little masochistic. I got that in my vocabulary as a junior higher.

When I was a junior higher, I went to summer camp at church and we got taken up to this mountain. We had something strange that they don't do anymore because they would sue you for it, but we had an electric chair our youth pastor had made. It was called the hot seat, but really it was nothing more than big batteries we would attach to it and then wires and then they had metallic tape on the top of a stool.

It was called the hot seat, but it was a modified electric chair is all it was. Then to threaten us, he would lay his keys on the hot seat and then it had a trigger on it, a button. Then he would hit the button and turn the lights down and you'd see blue sparks sparking and you'd hear the keys would rattle on the top of the hot seat.

This was a Bible church. I understand they don't do that anymore. But that's what they had and at camp they had this as the ultimate threat. If you had a dirty cabin, if you were late for a meal, you get the hot seat. So we all didn't want to get the hot seat because we had watched from the beginning of the week people get on the hot seat for dirty cabins or late or they did something wrong and they just launched as us perverted little junior highers are going, "Fry him! Fry him! Fry him!"

Their hair would stand up. Well, my cousin, older cousin, was a camp counselor that year and his name was Jaime Dominguez. I don't know what happened to Jaime; the last I heard from him was junior high camp. But he was a counselor and he had developed a love interest, a romantic interest at camp with some other counselor, and so he was late for dinner at the end of the week.

The junior highers, we saw blood in the water. This was great. A counselor was going to get fried. We were on our feet, "Fry him! Fry him! Fry him!" And so my cousin Jaime, big tall guy, sure enough, the youth pastor's going to fry him on the hot seat before dinner. They call him up. So Jaime, we're just thinking the first time we've ever seen a counselor on the hot seat.

He sits down on the hot seat and he says the youth pastor, "Okay, you've been late; you are now going to be fried." He pushes the button and you hear the battery and Jaime just sat there. He didn't move. And it was totally anticlimactic. We're cheering and then he doesn't move. We're like, "What? We don't get it."

People that had been fried earlier that week are going, "What's going on?" Jaime Dominguez gets up from the stool. I'll never forget this. He walks by my table and he says to me, he looks down to me as he's walking back to his place, he said, "It's just pain. It's just pain." I'll never forget that. "It's just pain."

You know how many times I've enlisted that phrase in my Christian life since that time? I thought to myself, "That's kataphroneō." You know what he said? It's not a big deal. It's just pain. And I thought to myself in temptation, if I could just get that perspective. When Satan's going, "But you'll be deprived, you won't get your needs met, you're not going to be fulfilled, you've got to do this, it's going to take too long if you go the high road, take my way, it's compromise, it's better."

I just got to say, "Yeah, I know what it's going to cost, but I'm going to kataphroneō. I'm going to think down on the pain. I'm going to poo-poo the pain." I don't care. Jesus had to fixate on the joy of obedience and he needed to downplay the sacrifice. Was it going to hurt? Yes. Was it a real pain? Absolutely. Was it shame? It was total shame. It was incurring the sin of the world.

But that's what we need to do. Let's think less of the sacrifice. I'm just going to think less of it. The word is kataphroneō. I'm going to think down on it. It's not going to be loud to the table to help me make decisions about temptation because Satan loves to do that. "Oh, you're hungry, aren't you, Jesus? No, you really are hungry. Just think if you don't get to eat for the rest of the week; it'll be terrible. It's going to hurt."

The cross, same thing. What a terrible thing. All you've got to do, man, look at the deal still on the table: you bow down to me, I'll give it to you now. Downplay the sacrifice. Think less of it. There's a parallel between verse 2 and the middle of verse 3. It says after all that, scorning the shame, downplaying the shame, he sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

That's a place, even in the first century, that in any picture of an ancient monarchy sitting at the right hand of the monarch, the king, that was the place of honor, that was the place of privilege, that was the place of ultimate approval to be at the right hand of the monarch. Approval. Look at the next verse: "Consider him who endured such," what's the word? "Opposition" from sinful men.

When it came to obedience for Christ, he had a choice to make. Obedience, non-compromise, saying no to the impulses of the flesh—that leads to God's approval, the ultimate place of God's approval for him. And you know what, if he were to compromise and do what men thought he should do and kind of go down the path that was popular, he probably wouldn't have had the opposition from men.

People wouldn't have opposed him. So he had a choice to make. We need to crave God's approval. Crave it. Crave God's approval and a whole lot less of man's approval. It's not about pleasing people. It's not even about pleasing yourself. I don't live for myself anymore; I'm supposed to live for the King and I want him to approve my life.

I want him to approve my decisions. I want the King of the universe to be able to look at me and give me those words from Matthew 25, don't you? "Well done, good and faithful servant." That was Jesus's passion. That was his craving. Remember the woman at the well? They were coming back with lunch.

They'd had their Taco Bell or whatever drive-through and they were coming back. Jesus had sat there and shared the gospel with the woman at the well. And when they came back, they tried to offer him food and they said, "Rabbi, eat." This is John 4. And he said this after spending this time sharing the gospel and they're going, "Come on, have something, aren't you still hungry?"

And he says, "I have food to eat that you know nothing about." And they went, "Did someone bring him food?" and he said, "That's not the point." He says this: "My food is to do the will of him who sent me." That's what I crave. Food, yeah, that's good and it's important and I'll eat it later, but I'm more right now concerned about doing the will of my Father.

That's the ultimate priority. You want to learn from Christ? You want to see the master? You want to know what God incarnate does? The ultimate godliness? It's a willingness to say, "I'm more worried about what God thinks of this decision than what people think or what I think or what my friends think or what my family thinks. I'm more willing to do the right thing to hear from God, 'Well done, good and faithful servant,' because that's the most important thing."

It's really not about these other people saying, "Well, we like you; you're a good guy." I've got food to eat that you know nothing about. I hope that in our quest to live godly lives, that in the midst of temptation we're not only thinking of Christ, we're not only calling out for his help, we're not only saying I'm going to focus on joy, but I hope that the resonant truth of this message would be I want to hear from God you did a good job, you fought the good fight.

Right on. We want to hear that. I know all the blessings come with it. He says, "Take charge of these cities," in that parable of the steward and the master. I get it. But the real heart-warming part for a child of God is to be able one day to hear from him you did it, you fought that, you kicked that thing. That's exactly what I wanted you to do. Well done, good and faithful servant.

Pray with me, please. God, a lot of temptation in this world. Our fallen humanity, our flesh still cries out to do what is wrong and we, as redeemed people, for those of us that are genuine Christians here today, we have to fight that battle every single day. And it's hard, God, and there's plenty of failure, but we pray right now that you might help us to move forward in our sanctification to become more like Jesus Christ.

In doing so, God, we know that we're going to have to crave your approval; it's going to have to be the most important thing. We're going to also have to be able to say that it's better for us to be obedient here than to enjoy, as the early part of Hebrews 11 said, the passing pleasures of sin. God, help us to get our priorities straight this week.

As we stand in the batter's box, so to speak, as Satan throws stuff at us, I pray that we'd rely on you, we'd cry out to you, and that we'd be serious about doing the right thing. God, help us not to throw up our shoulders and say, "Well, you know, God's gracious." Help us to look into your face and say we want to hear from you, "Well done, good and faithful servant." So make us successful this week. We rely on your grace and your empowerment in Jesus' name, amen.

Dave Drewy: Those are words I look forward to hearing as well. You're listening to Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez. Our series in Hebrews chapter 12 is titled "Our Fight with Sin," and you can revisit any portion of it at focalpointradio.org or take it with you wherever you go on the free Focal Point app.

And a quick reminder, got a question for Pastor Mike? Ask Pastor Mike Live is on the air Tuesday through Thursday at 1:00 PM Central and the phone lines are open. Missed it live? Find it anytime on the Mike Fabarez YouTube channel. Everything's at askpastormike.live.

Here's an interesting question: can God be both terrifying and trustworthy? Pastor Mike thinks the answer matters enough to hand you a book on it this month, Sinners in the Hands of a Good God by David Clothfelter. Clothfelter doesn't try to talk you out of the tension between divine judgment and divine love; he shows you page by page that Scripture never asked you to choose between them.

Sinners in the Hands of a Good God is yours when you make a difference-making gift to Focal Point today. Call 888-320-5885 or give online at focalpointradio.org. You can also mail your gift to Focal Point, Post Office Box 2850, Laguna Hills, California 92654.

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Take that step today, won't you? Sign up at focalpointradio.org or by calling 888-320-5885. And are you brand new to Focal Point? We'd love to send you a free copy of Storing Up Treasures, a new booklet by Pastor Mike. Just get in touch at focalpointradio.org. I'm Dave Drewy, and tomorrow Pastor Mike Fabarez challenges us with a message called "Reconsidering How Hard We're Willing to Fight." Don't miss this important call to action Wednesday on Focal Point with Mike Fabarez.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Hi, Pastor Mike here. God's Word promises it'll never return void. So I wonder, how is God's Word moving in your heart right now? Drop us a line, let us know. We'd love to hear from you. We'd love to be praying for you here. Just go to focalpointradio.org. And then be sure to join us again tomorrow right here as we continue to explore the depths of Scripture. We'll see you then.

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