Focal Point

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Some people get into ministry because it benefits themselves. That's not what ministry's about. We're asking the wrong question when we say, "I don't know if I'm going to get involved in that because I don't get much out of it."

If that's the way you treat ministries or programs in the church, then there's got to be more than that. God is asking us to get involved because there are people there, opportunities for me to express love to God by loving his people.

Dave Drew: Welcome to Focal Point. Today's the final message in our mini-series, Almost a Christian. So far, we have learned that it's possible to tiptoe right up to the line but not actually cross over into genuine faith.

If we're unsure about whether we're part of the almost group or not, Hebrews chapter six provides practical ways to verify our salvation. Today, Pastor Mike explains that one of those markers is rightly responding to the gospel. The message is called "Making Absolutely Sure We Don't Miss It."

Pastor Mike Fabarez: What is the gospel? It begins with one word. It begins with God. It doesn't begin with you; it begins with God. And in the Bible, if you study what the New Testament gospel is and you work your way through what's being taught in the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and the book of Acts, you start to see there is an assumption even in the New Testament that there is a right understanding of God.

Here's the gospel: God is creator, holy, just, and loving. You're far from it. Jesus came to fix your problem. He's God. He can live that perfect life. That's what he lived, a life you couldn't live. He died, paying the penalty for your imperfection. He rose again to prove that all of this worked. And he says now you've got to repent. What does that mean? Turn from your life of selfishness and sin, turn to God, and do what? Trust in Christ.

Whether you die like the thief on the cross, only trusting in Christ for 10 minutes, or whether you live a life for 100 years as a Christian, you've got to trust him that when you get to the gates and he says, "Why should I let you in here?" you're saying, "Because I'm trusting in what Christ did for me." That's the gospel. Now, the New Testament church had been confronted with that gospel. And I trust that you have been confronted with that gospel.

Everybody sitting in the church in the first century who this letter was written to was going, "Yeah, I think I got that thing figured out. Yeah, I'm all on board with that." That was the assumption. But the problem is sometimes our hearts aren't right with God, and we go through the motions of this, but we're not really there. And so it is that at least we need to say, "Here is the gospel. Have you responded to that rightly? Have you repented of your sins and put your trust in Christ?" and you said, "Well, I think I have." Okay, great. We all need to say that before the rest of the message ever makes any sense.

Now he says this in verse number 10, Hebrews chapter six. That was a long introduction. Verse number 10. Just to make it a little bit longer, look at verse number nine. "Even though we speak like this, dear friends, we're confident of better things in your case, things that accompany salvation." Things that go with salvation. And we said that's the Godward life and the increasing path of sanctification. Those are the things we talked about earlier on. And then he turns to some specifics of things that your life should look like.

Here's what he says. He says in verse number 10, "God is not unjust. He will not forget your work and the love that you have shown him as you've helped his people and continue to help them. We want each of you to show the same diligence to the very end in order to make your hope sure. We don't want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised."

We want you to hang in there. And the hanging in there, we've seen in this series, is proof as the confidence in that thing that we confessed at the beginning is carried on and augmented, and as we continue to grow in that, it's the thing that helps our hearts say, "Yeah, you know what? That's right. We are right before God."

But what are the specifics here? Look again at verse number 10. "He will not forget your work and the love you've shown him." Now underline this phrase: "as you've helped his people," and double underline this: "and continue to help them." He is saying to them, if you want to be sure, if you want to make sure that you're not almost a Christian, if you want to make sure that you really aren't that land drinking in the rain and producing thorns and maybe the hypocritical thorns under the surface that no one can see, make sure that not only you check those things in your life, but you are like this first-century people. You have things that accompany salvation, things like continuing to help God's people and making sure we're ongoing with that.

Three things to note about our text, verse 10, Hebrews chapter six. Look at the three things here. The first one is the word that the writer chooses to describe this. It's the word "work." Look at it, verse number 10. "He will not forget your work." Three things to note. The first thing is it's going to be hard; it's going to be costly. If you're going to minister to God's people, it's going to be a sacrificial kind of thing. It's going to cost another night out. It's going to cost some time. It's going to cost some money. It's going to cost some hours of your life.

You can't say, "I'm going to minister to God's people, it's going to help assure my faith, I'm going to know that I'm a genuine Christian because I'm going to look at my life of ministry," and that ministry not cost you. And you just got to get used to that. And of course, if you remember John three, the message that we've heard is that Christ laid down his life for us; therefore, we lay down our lives for others.

Was that an inconvenience for Christ to love us? For God so loved the world that he gave his only son? And that sounds so simple, but it wasn't just, "Hey, I got a few loose coins in my pocket here." He gave his life for this, a sacrifice, a genuine, costly sacrifice. So it's going to be work.

Secondly, it's going to be prompted by love for God. If you look at this, it's not for these people's sake that I'm loving them; it's for God's sake. It's the scenario: I'm taking care of your kids, though they're bratty at times, but I'm taking care of them because I love you. It's not that God's people are so wonderful to serve. I don't want to say anything else about that statement. But that's not the reason that there's such a joy to serve. It's that you need to be serving them because you love God.

We love them for God's sake. Literally, the Greek text says "for his name's sake." We do it for his name. We love people in Christ's name in the body of Christ. Some people get into ministry because it benefits themselves. That's not what ministry's about, though it will have the payoff of assuring your heart before God because you can say, "Man, look at my Christian life. I've been serving God's people faithfully. I've worked and helped them and continued to help them for God's sake."

Just remember this: it's going to be something that is going to be for their good. That's the primary thing. It needs to be for their good. Because I know some people say, and it just breaks my heart, they say, "Well, I'm not going to get involved in that. I don't get much out of it." If that's the way you treat ministries or programs in the church, then there's got to be more than that. God is asking us to get involved because there are people there, opportunities for me to express love to God by loving his people. We're asking the wrong question when we say, "I don't know if I'm going to get involved in that because I don't get much out of it."

So let me ask you: do you have a ministry? Do you do something or are you engaged in something? Do you continue to be engaged in something for the good of the body of Christ? Do you love them because God first loved us? Don't stop ministering to God's people. This will help set your heart at rest whenever your heart decides to say, "Hey, you're not a Christian. Look at your life." You can say, "Yeah, look at this. Look at this evidence of my love for God. I've been serving faithfully God's people."

Number two, verse number 11. "We want you to show the same..." circle it, what is it? "...diligence to the very end in order to make your hope sure." And then look, this connects with it thematically, verse 12, first part. "We don't want you to become..." what's the opposite of diligence? Laziness. Number two: if you want to make sure that you're a Christian, you want things that will help assure you of your faith, then you need to number two, always fight spiritual laziness.

Do you spend time in prayer? Do you have a prayer list? Do you work systematically through things that you know God wants you to be praying for? Those are spiritual disciplines. You can be great at the gym but never have a prayer list or a prayer time or do any kind of personal Bible study, and I'm going to say you're spiritually lazy. So there is a difference here. I'm talking about spiritual laziness. Always fight spiritual laziness.

Remember that passage in Philippians two. He says that we are going to have to work out our salvation because God's at work in us. It's going to feel like this cooperative effort, but we're going to feel the work, and we're going to get involved in this as an effort. We've got to show diligence to the end. It's a marathon. You pace yourself and you go because we're in it for the long haul.

Jot this passage down. We don't have time to look at it, but Galatians chapter six, maybe you know it, verses nine and 10. It says, "Do not become weary of doing what is good." Don't get weary of that. Keep doing it. When you get tired of doing the good thing and the right thing and spiritual disciplines and serving God's people, don't stop. Keep going.

And I find so often people do exactly the wrong thing. When they're in trial or crisis or pain or doubt or uncertainty, they pull back from doing what God wants them to do. They stop their spiritual disciplines. They give less effort to it because they say, "Well, right now I'm just hurting." One of the things God wants you to do is not wane in doing what is good and what is right. And in that, he says you will reap a harvest if you don't give up.

Then he says next statement, which connects with the first verse. This is Galatians 6:10. He says, "As we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially those who belong to the family of the believers." Goes back to verse one. Don't give up on the first part. "Well, I used to serve and I was in AWANA and I led a group, but you know, I'm just so tired. I was getting burned out. So you know what? I just need to relax for a while."

Great. That's going to be a period where you're vulnerable to spiritual doubting, to spiritual uncertainty. I'm not saying that one ministry is the ministry you got to stay with your whole life, but jump back in and get involved in it. Don't grow weary of doing what's right.

I was thinking of spiritual lethargy or spiritual laziness, and I went into Proverbs this week because I thought there's so much in Proverbs about laziness. And I know we don't have time for this, but let me give you five things that I find in the book of Proverbs that will give you some diagnostics as to whether or not you're spiritually lazy. So these are diagnostics on laziness. These are all from Proverbs.

First one is: you are generally lethargic, chapter six, verse nine. You are generally lethargic. When you think about ministry, when you think about life, when you think about doing something for God, when you think about evangelism, it's like, "Oh, I don't know. I'm tired. I'm getting old. Don't have the energy I used to." Lethargy.

Chapter 13, verse four: we're generally dissatisfied. There's a dissatisfaction in our life about all kinds of things. Number three: we're good with excuses, chapter 22, verse 13. We are good with excuses. And maybe you find yourself, "Man, I got out of that pretty well." Maybe your ability to make excuses that work not only with others but maybe they work with yourself, but you find yourself making them is a diagnostic indicator that you are in the lazy camp.

Fourthly: I think I'm pretty smart, 26:16. The sluggard, the lazy man, is wiser in his own eyes than seven men who can answer discreetly. "Oh, I know, man. Everybody else stupid. Everybody else is a buffoon, but you, you got it figured out." Lazy people have that perspective. Did you know that? Goes hand in hand.

When you start seeing yourself able to criticize everyone except yourself, just know it's probably an indicator that you have a lazy heart. Lazy people get good not only with excuses, but they start pumping up their own sense that they've got the answers and they know how to do everything better than everybody else.

Fifthly: chapter 26, verse 14. You don't really enjoy rest. You don't enjoy your time off. You don't enjoy the breaks. As a matter of fact, there are so many proverbs on this about the sluggard who buries his hand in the dish and he's just too tired to lift it to his mouth, or 26:14, you can't sleep. The lazy man turns back and forth on his bed. You can't enjoy the time off.

And that's the problem sometimes when we get into a pattern of laziness. The hard worker loves his sleep, the Scripture says, and it's sweet to him. It's refreshing to him. Time off is great because he's worked hard. Spiritual laziness is much the same. A lot of lethargy in your life? Generally dissatisfied? Good with excuses? You think you're pretty smart? Can't enjoy your time off? Those are bad signs.

So what do we do? Let's declare war on spiritual laziness. Let us recognize that it is something we have to work at, Philippians two. Let us also at the same time, Colossians chapter one, know it's something we need to depend on God for. We need to depend on God for it. We need to cry out to God: "God, strengthen me."

I love this prayer that Paul prays for the Colossians in verse 11. "I'm praying that you would be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you can have great endurance and patience." That's a great statement. Pray to God. Have you prayed to God lately for diligence and the ability to show that diligence into next month and next year and the year after? Pray for it. Ask God for it. It's a cooperative effort. It's really all God's credit, but it's going to feel like a cooperative effort.

The next verse is telling as well. Actually, it's the last word of verse 11 and the whole sentence in verse 12 of Colossians one, and it turns immediately to worship. "Learning to joyfully give thanks to the Father who's qualified you to share in the inheritance." Let me just throw this in. You may not see the connection, but I think learning to be good at worship is key.

When I can learn to be thankful, rejoice, say thank you, pray with thanksgiving, worship with joy and thanksgiving, you know what? It's a great safeguard against spiritual laziness. And maybe you're busy listening to who knows what in your car, and you need to get to learning to praise God on your commute to work. You know what that'll do for you? I think that will make you spiritually strong, help you fight and declare war on spiritual laziness.

Don't stop ministering to God's people. Show diligence to the end. Don't become lazy. Last thing, verse 12. This will be hard for us. I know this is difficult for a lot of people. Number three. Look at verse number 12, bottom half. Don't become lazy. Instead, he gives a very practical exhortation to them: "but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised."

He says, now put your sights on people that persevere to the end. Put your sights on people that do work hard, who are people who have faith in God and patience and endurance and all of that. This one's a tough one. But if you want to be more assured that you're a Christian, don't stop ministering to God's people, fight laziness, and then thirdly, very practically, adopt some hard-working role models. Make them your spiritual templates. This is critical.

As a matter of fact, this word here in verse number 12, "imitate," is the word, and it's connected, you can see the connection to the Greek word. The Greek word is mimētēs. Mimētēs. What do we get an English word of? Mimic. To mimic. Mimic them. Set them up, learn of them, watch them, and mimic what they do. And they're the kinds of people that have great trust in God and patience, and they continue on to inherit what God has promised.

Are you in Hebrews six? Turn to Hebrews chapter 13. Same word, same Greek word, same English translation. He says this in verse seven of chapter 13: "Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life." Look at how their life is going, look at how it bore fruit, and do what? "Imitate their faith." Paul said it this way. This is an easy verse to remember: First Corinthians 11:1. "Follow me as I follow Christ." Nothing unbiblical about that.

As a matter of fact, your pride will keep you from it. We should all have spiritual templates, spiritual role models. I've got mine; you should have yours. And you should say, "There they are, and I follow and imitate their faith." Now, let me mention three levels of pride that will keep us from this.

All-out, flagrant pride. And those people don't have any role models. Why? Because everybody's a buffoon. They're the only person that knows what time it is. That's spiritually prideful people. They are so full of pride everybody's stupid and they're the only smart person. And if you took their faith and you said, "Tell me one Christian you respect, tell me one Christian you admire, tell me one Christian you are imitating and following after," and they're going to go, "Nobody. I follow Christ." That's what they're going to say. Then slap them and quote Hebrews chapter six and say, "That's stupid, man. Not only is that stupid, you are unbiblical. You are disobeying God's word." It's all over the place. First Corinthians four, he says I urge you, imitate me. And he says why? "Because I'm your pastor in this case." That's what Paul's saying to the Corinthians. Mimētēs. Follow them. Flagrant pride will keep you from having any spiritual role models.

There's another level, it's a little bit of moderate pride that no one really sees. Check this out now. It's the people that only have spiritual role models who've been dead for a long time. Be careful of that. Are there a lot of great Christian role models that have been dead for a long time? Absolutely. I've got some; you should have some. But if that's all you've got because everybody alive now is a buffoon, but there were some great Christians back in the olden days, stop it with that.

As a matter of fact, I think Ecclesiastes seven is good: stop saying those old days were better than these. It's not wise to say that. Spiritual pride that says it was great back then but now, whatever, I'm the only righteous person around now. I had some real compadres, but they all died in the 17th century, so it's just me now. So I don't have any role models that are alive. Shut up. You're prideful.

Flagrant pride doesn't respect anybody. Moderate pride, we respect dead people. Then there's those that just struggle with bouts of pride. And I think this one's easy too. They have role models, but they've got to live at least 50 miles away. They can be alive. There are some great Christians, they just don't live around here. Don't know any around here. But there are some—I got some great Christian people that I just think are the best—but they live out in the East Coast.

If your role models are pushed back into history or they're at least 50 miles away, I think pride is in the way. We struggle with that. I love Proverbs 27:10. It says, "Better is a neighbor that's nearby than a brother far away." I have some spiritual heroes and they're near. I have some spiritual heroes and templates that are far, and I've got some dead ones too.

But I got to have some close by. Problem is you get any spiritual template too close and you start to see, "Wow, they're not perfect." If you're living in a fantasy world that your templates have to be perfect, can't help you. They're not. None of them. Find one in the Scripture that you go, "There's the perfect person in the Bible." There's only one. See, that's the problem. Everyone else is unholy. Don't let pride get in the way of this. Adopt some hard-working role models.

"We don't want you to become lazy. We want you to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what's been promised." And we could go on and on about how important it is for us to have some people we say, "I just want to be more like that person." Because that person right there seems to be bearing fruit for the long haul. And look at the outcome of their faith. Look at their life. I want to be more like that. Adopt some hard-working role models. We all need them.

I know this series has been tough because we've looked at the fact that some of us can sit through all of this church stuff, including myself because I did it for years, and miss the point. I understand this can be hard and it can be unsettling. But the upshot of this text, as we'll continue to see in verses 13 and following, is that we have confidence in the fact that God is true to his word.

And if we continue to see evidence in our lives and we put a few things in place, like we continue to minister, we continually fight laziness, and we continue to follow good templates and spiritual models, God says your heart will be assured. Because that's where we start in verse 13. If God makes a promise and says, "You respond rightly to the gospel and you start to see evidence of that in your life," you can know that that gospel and his promise saves you.

The goal of this series has not been to make us always and perpetually uncertain about our faith. It's to lead us back to Second Corinthians 13 to say let's test ourselves, but then like Paul says, if you examine us closely, he says you'll see we pass the test. And he wanted them to pass the test. And the point is, I want us to spend these four weeks and the month that we've had in this text saying, "I have spent some time and I've been humble enough to examine my heart, but when it comes down to it, I see that I am a Christian."

Great. That's where I want to leave you. And that's where we need to be. And just know that there is a humility about that. And that may sound prideful, but there is a humility in that because, as we said, last point of the gospel is that when I trust in Christ, I recognize it's all based on his work, not mine.

Dave Drew: A few practical ways to know our salvation is secure. You're listening to a mini-series from Mike Fabarez called Almost a Christian, and this is Focal Point. Over the past few weeks, we've been studying the New Testament book of Hebrews. And if you've missed any portion, let me remind you it's not too late to hear these messages again.

All of these teachings along with Pastor Mike's sermon notes are available on our website whenever you need access. Simply visit focalpointradio.org. Or bring us along wherever life takes you by downloading the Focal Point app at no cost from your app store or subscribe to the Focal Point podcast.

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I'm Dave Drew, inviting you back again tomorrow for more Bible teaching. Pastor Mike Fabarez unpacks the encouraging truth that when God makes a promise, he'll never break it. Gain assurance in God's word Thursday right here on Focal Point.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Pastor Mike here. I pray today's message will help you live out your faith with truth and love. After all, that's the kind of biblical faith that changes lives and transforms a crooked culture.

But if you haven't truly surrendered your life to Christ, then I'd like to invite you to get in touch. We'd love to pray with you and help you discover God's plan of salvation. Visit focalpointradio.org.

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