Focal Point

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Prophecy in Scripture is always applicable to life. And if it doesn't change me, then I've misunderstood the purpose of it. And if you pick up your Bible in the morning and you go, "I'm just looking for information," you've missed the point. It should be there as a catalyst for change in your life because God has written it to you and he knows you intimately. And he knows what you need, and he's codified it in the Scripture.

Dave Druey: When the well-known missionary Dr. David Livingstone began his trek across Africa, he brought along 73 books. But as his party hiked the 300 miles, fatigue set in, and Livingstone tossed his books away one by one until he had only one volume left: his Bible. It was the one book he'd never part with.

Today on Focal Point, Mike Fabarez describes the immeasurable value of God's word and why we need to keep Scripture close. We're beginning a miniseries in Hebrews called "A Sharp Sword." Let's get started.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: I remember when we had just had our third child, Stephanie was born. And your third child, it's something. It's when they finally outnumber you, and you're feeling that sense of despair that you're in trouble here. I remember we went out to go buy a new minivan, figured that might help us feel better and transport all these kids around.

I remember we did the research, and we discovered the one that we wanted. We soon realized it was the one that everyone wanted because nobody had one. Every dealership we called didn't have one in stock. So we waited patiently. Finally, we got a call from a local dealer over here. He says, "I got one in. It's here. I don't know if you're going to like it because it's not the model that you want."

Then he said, "It's the model above the one you were looking for." I thought, "Oh, darn." He said, "And it's got one of those fancy GPS things in the dashboard." So I thought, "A few extra bucks a month, okay. It's the only one I can find. We'll take it." So we drove this thing home with this dashboard GPS.

I know a lot of you have one of those. First time I'd ever had one. I remember thinking, guys especially think, who needs one of those, right? We know how to get around. Well, I must confess, though we rarely do confess this: I was thrilled after about two weeks of having this dashboard GPS. Got rid of the Thomas Brothers. We were so excited and we just thought, "This is it, the way to go."

About a few years down the line, we just stopped being so excited about the GPS. It wasn't because we didn't utilize it, and it wasn't because we didn't rely on it. It was because, like with a lot of things you get used to, we began to take it for granted. Well, God fixed all that about a month ago when I was up at a pastor's conference.

They actually had this conference in a place where there's less signage and more twisted and contorted roads than Orange County, believe it or not. I must have reached for the dash about 20 times to turn on the GPS, which of course my rental car didn't have. Boy, I tell you, there were so many times I just prayed for one of those miracles for one of those GPS to pop on the dashboard.

I was lost without it. What was funny is all of us pastors, we were carpooling, and no one knew where they were going. We were hopelessly lost working through these winding streets, and every other street didn't have a sign on it. It was a complete and total disaster.

Well, I realized when I came back home, got picked up at the airport, saw my wife's van, and there was the GPS, how grateful I was for that. I found that it's a lot like a lot of things. We just learn to depend on and rely on things, and then sometimes we just forget how important they are to us.

Scripture is much the same way. We have from God in our laps, every Bible-carrying Christian in this building right now has God's direction for life right there in your lap. It tells us where we're at, tells us where we should be, and tells us how to get there. It is God's clear and direct satellite-guided directions for our life.

And we're so used to having it, I think a lot of us fail to appreciate it the way that we should. A lot of generations of Christians would long for what you have right now: a Bible sitting in your own language, sitting on your lap, directives from God. It's an amazing thing that we have. We're tremendously blessed.

What we need to do is step back and say, "What an amazing thing that we have the codification of God's mind on paper." It's there for us, it's available to us. But much like the GPS, you can have it, but it's no good to you unless you reach over and turn it on.

Yet, the question is how often are we looking to that thing, God's living word, and saying, "I need that. I'm going to get into that. I've got to take that off the shelf and I've got to ingest this into my life so that I can have God's divine direction for life." It's important that we do that, and I think Hebrews chapter 4, verses 12 and 13 couldn't be any better passage in all of Scripture to remind us how important God's word is.

Then to be motivated by the importance of it to get into it. I hope that this week you find yourself enthusiastically drawn to God's word. So let's open up our Bibles one more time, the last time for a while we'll open to Hebrews chapter 4 and come back to this great set of verses and words and phrases about God's word. We need to look at it and ingest each part.

Two sides to this: God's word and God. Verse 12 tells us about God's word. Verse 13 tells us something about God. And I think as you'll see in this text, they go nicely together to make a very strong point about our relationship to God's word.

Let's read the text. It starts in verse 12 by saying, "The word of God is living and active. It's sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." It's all about God's word.

Now look at verse 13, some information about God now. "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account." We're going to look at the three words that describe God's word: that it's living and active. And then it says in this metaphor that it is sharper than any double-edged sword.

We're also going to look at some of these phrases about God in verse 13: that nothing is hidden from his sight and that everything is uncovered. We'll make note of the inference that's put right in front of us by talking about creation, that we're a part of God's creation, and then lastly that last phrase, that we must give an account.

So if we can, we'll work from the outside of this chart to the middle to try and understand what God is having us value about God's word. That word there, living, of course is a word that is in contrast to dead. You might think, "I don't know any books that are dead. All these books seem about the same."

But I think if you gave it a little thought, you would recognize that some books are simply dead to you and other books are very much alive to you. We got the great news in the office that we celebrated not long ago that my longtime assistant is expecting her first child after years and years.

So of course, I'm the guy who likes to give books. But I went to my library and didn't have any books that would help her. So I said, "Let's go down to the bookstore." So we drove right over here to the big bookstore. We walked in the bookstore, we got one of those baskets, and I just started loading up all these books.

And what I realized as I went up to the counter to pay for these books, the gal looked at me and of course I realized none of these books had any applicability at all to my life. *What to Expect When You're Expecting* never has, it does not now, nor ever will have any applicability to my life.

She looks at me funny, and I had to say, "It's for her." All these books on motherhood and children and pregnancy. Now to Maggie, they're very much alive. As a matter of fact, you find if you had those books or had access to some of those books when you gals were pregnant, I mean, that just becomes very much alive to you.

It becomes alive to you because it's relevant. It has something important to say to you. Scripture is being described here as something living. Here's a word I'd like you to put in that box next to the word living. What we mean by that, of course, it's a metaphor. It doesn't move across the table on its own, it doesn't move from the bookshelf to your car if you forget it.

It's not alive in that sense. It's alive in the sense that God's word is relevant to you. It's relevant to you. Now look across to verse 13 because God is a God who sees everything. "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare."

God is a God who, in statements like "nothing hidden" and "everything uncovered," is what we call in theology: God is omniscient. He knows all things. And to be specific, he knows all things about you, and he knows all things about me. Now take a look at those two together. Why is God's word alive to us?

It's alive to us as people because God is a God who's writing it to us and he knows all about us. And what's true about me and what's true about you is explained and described, and it is a message that is designed specifically for us. You can't get away from that.

As a matter of fact, just above point number one, jot down those two words again: God's word is relevant because God is omniscient. It's important to you as a relevant book because God has written it to you and he knows all about you. Therefore, when it comes to God's word, we need to, number one on your outline, we need to approach the Bible as applicable.

Now I don't know how many times you've been confronted with folks that want to teach the Bible, or maybe classes in college or even high school where they like to talk about the Bible as literature. Have you taken a class like that? There's ways to look at the Bible where you approach the Bible as history.

Learn about ancient Mesopotamian kings or Babylon or Assyria or Tiglath-Pileser or the Pharaohs of Egypt or whatever it might be, and it becomes a textbook of information. But God's word is living, the Scripture says, because God is a God who looks at us and knows everything about us and he's got something to say to us.

And in that sense, the Bible is not some objective thing that we can just look at as a list of facts and information. It is for us as people recognizing this book comes from God. It's very much applicable to my life. It's alive because God knows everything about me.

Take a look at this text. If you keep your finger in Hebrews 4, turn with me to Psalm 139. Psalm 139. God has said as an omniscient God that he knows us. Here's the declaration in Psalm 139. It's a Psalm credited to King David. David says these words beginning in verse number one.

Psalm 139:1: "O Yahweh, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you're familiar with all of my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in, behind and before; you've laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it's too lofty for me to attain."

It's a good place for us to be. Are we really amazed at the fact that God has us completely wired? He knows everything about us. As a matter of fact, if you wanted to hide from God, you couldn't. Verse 7: "Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?"

"If I go up to the heavens, you're there. If I make my bed in the depths, you're there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me and your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, 'Surely the darkness will hide me and the light will become night around me,' even the darkness will not be dark to you."

"The night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful. I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth."

"Your eyes saw my unformed body; and all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!" It's amazing, the psalmist says. It's amazing that God knows us intimately.

And Jesus comes on the scene, affirms the same thing. He says there's not a bird that falls out of a tree that God doesn't know about and ordain. And then he goes on to talk about every hair on the top of our head is numbered. Scripture is presented to us as a message from someone who knows us intimately.

And though you're not going to find your name or your street address in this book, the Bible is written to people just like me and you. And I think we start to isolate ourselves in our own mind thinking, "I'm so much different than everybody else," and you're not. Everything that David needed was given to him in God's word.

And everything that you and I need and all the commonalities of our struggles and our hurts and our fears and our temptations, God says, "I've addressed those in a book." And he's got a book presented to us and he says, "It is applicable to you." And the knowledge and a message, it makes all the difference.

Even if you might say, "Well, I know the Bible is relevant and I should do it," if you're not completely immersed in the understanding that God knows everything about you, there's still a distance that you can put between God's word and you. And it won't be fully living because you think, "Well, I know God wrote this and I know it's applicable to me, but I'm just not going to pull it closely."

You won't pull it closely and feel the same conviction unless you know that God has you in mind and he knows you intimately. It's the difference between Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was on the Presidential Council for Physical Fitness. Do you remember when he did that? And out went the proclamation that "All you guys are lazy and you all need to be strong and fit like me."

Now, I remember hearing that from Arnold, and I must admit I realized that that was relevant to my life and was applicable to me. But it doesn't have the same effect as if my wife were to walk into the bedroom and say, "Hey, you're lazy. You're fat. You need to work out."

If my wife says that, the sting and pang of that conviction is strong and lasting. Now what's the difference? Arnold can write it saying, "I'm the chairman of the Presidential Fitness Committee," and I know when he says you need to do so many sit-ups and pull-ups and push-ups and all that, I know I can say, "Well, that applies to me."

But when someone who knows me intimately and has seen me without my shirt on says I'm fat, boy, that feels different. It feels different because I know the person telling me that intimately knows me. And when God opens up for you in the pages of Scripture the problems that you face as a human being, do not dare think that the infinite omniscient God didn't know that you would be reading this someday and need to hear this.

He wrote it for you. He wrote this book so that you would know it and that it would do something in your life. The difference between my wife saying something about my weight and need for physical fitness and Arnold saying something about my weight and my need for physical fitness, I trust, will be the difference between doing something about it and simply agreeing with it mentally.

That's why underneath number one, at least jot this down. You need to make sure if you want to test whether or not you see the Bible as applicable to you because of a God that knows you, you need to check whether or not it's making a regular change in your life.

If you don't approach it as a Bible that is applicable to your life, then you're not going to see much change. But if you approach it every morning saying, "God, I know that you know me, you left this book for me as a guide for my life, you gave me knowledge about you in this book, I need to know how that can change me."

Then you're going to go away and start to see a pattern of change in your life. And guess what? You're approaching the Scripture properly then. You're approaching the Scripture as an applicable book to you. Make sure it's making a difference in your life. Jeremiah is a frustrated prophet in many ways. I'd like you to turn to one passage in Jeremiah chapter 25.

It reminds me a lot of Ezekiel 33 because Ezekiel had the same problem that Jeremiah had. Jeremiah 25 he refers to it, and so does Ezekiel 33 as Ezekiel confesses that although I'm here giving God's message, people aren't listening to me. And he says that's the problem.

Prophecy in Scripture is always applicable to life. And if it doesn't change me, then I don't understand it. I've misunderstood the purpose of it. Look at Jeremiah in Jeremiah 25. Verse 3. And by the way, as you approach this text, remember that God's word to me is applicable to me for my good.

It's not that God is trying to do something bad in your life; he's trying to do something good in your life. And if only Israel would have figured that out when Jeremiah was out there. As a matter of fact, look at verse 3: "For 23 years," Jeremiah says, "from the thirteenth year of Josiah until this very day, the word of Yahweh has come to me and I've spoken to you again and again, but you haven't listened."

Here's a guy who's been preaching to these people for 23 years. "And though Yahweh has sent all of his servants, the prophets to you, again and again, you have not listened or paid attention." Oh, they listened, but there was no listening to make a change in their lives.

Verse 5: "They said, 'Turn now each of you from your evil ways and your evil practices, and then you can stay in the land that Yahweh gave you and your fathers forever and ever. Don't follow the other gods to serve and worship them. Don't provoke me,' God says, 'to anger with what your hands have made. Then I won't harm you.' But you did not listen to me," declares Yahweh. "You've provoked me with what your hands have made and you've brought harm to yourselves."

Here's a God saying, "I'm speaking to you," and people are listening, just like in Ezekiel 33, they're listening politely, but they're not doing anything about what they hear. And because of that, God's word is nothing more for them than a beautiful song that's played, and they go, "That was nice," and they leave without any change in their lives.

Obviously, James chapter 1, you've heard it hundreds and hundreds of times, God doesn't want us to be hearers of the word only; he'd like us to be doers of the word. And if you pick up your Bible in the morning and you go, "I'm just looking for information," you've missed the point.

It should be there as a catalyst for change in your life because God has written it to you and he knows you intimately. And he knows what you need, and he's codified it in the Scripture. It's a great verse, just jot it down. We won't turn there. Psalm 19:9.

Those great words about the Scripture. Just remember that, "By your ordinances your servant is warned," the psalmist says. "And in keeping them there's great reward." You need to approach the Bible as applicable because what God is doing in those pages is something for your good. It may not feel good in the short term, but it's for good in the long run.

God's word is relevant because God is omniscient. The second description in verse number 12 is that God's word is not only living, it's an active word. It is a document and information that is active. The Greek word is *energēs*. And I say that because if you transliterate it, it spells the word energy. We get the word energy from it.

It is something that is powerful, something that gets in us and it works. It does something royal, something big. It's an important word, a word that ought to move us. Now across in verse 13, the Scripture also is quick to throw in a word that helps us remember the position of God over this universe.

He doesn't just say that everything in the world is laid open before God, it's not hidden from God. He uses a word that whenever you see it in the Scripture ought to remind you that the writer is trying to get you in perspective. And the word is, he says in verse 13, "Nothing in all creation is hidden from his sight."

Now we blow over that so quickly, we forget what it means. It means that God is our creator. Put this down in the box next to active. Active is a word that speaks of power: something large, something strong, something that works powerfully. And it works powerfully because God is a God who is in the position of boss of the universe, creator of the universe.

He's the manufacturer of all things. God's word is powerful because God is your creator. And when your creator speaks, it ought to be different than when everyone else speaks. And in that regard, his word is a powerful word. It's big, it should be something we stop and take notice of.

And everything else ought to get quiet when the creator speaks. And his word is a powerful word. And you ought to, number two on your worksheet, you ought to approach it as authoritative. You don't open the Bible as a book that's just another opinion about how to raise children or how to live your life or how to do marriage or how to conduct your business.

It's not an opinion. This is not Tony Robbins' book, right? This is God's book. And God has spoken through the prophets and apostles and codified his instructions, and they're coming from your creator. And if you know who this is coming from, that this is not just someone who knows you, but this is someone who has made you, then all of a sudden now the information becomes even more important.

And we ought to come with that respect for God's word that gives me a sense that I'm reading an authoritative book. It's a book from the manufacturer.

Dave Druey: When we study Scripture, we need to realize who the author is. And that realization makes it a book we'll never want to go without. That's the reminder from Mike Fabarez today on Focal Point. It's one portion from a study in the book of Hebrews titled "A Sharp Sword."

To review this study or take advantage of Pastor Mike's sermon notes, head over to our website, focalpointradio.org. And speaking of things you won't want to part with, we're thrilled to announce Pastor Mike's 2026 cruise to New England and Canada. Join us September 19th through 26th aboard Holland America's elegant Zaandam cruise ship.

You'll experience in-depth Bible teaching and inspiring worship with Grammy winners Keith and Kristyn Getty, all while taking in the breathtaking autumn scenery as we visit historic cities like Boston, Halifax, and Quebec City. Space is limited for this special adventure, so reserve your cabin today by visiting focalpointradio.org.

As we step into a new year and a new month, we're featuring a resource that addresses one of the most fundamental questions believers face: *Seven Reasons Why You Can Trust the Bible* by Dr. Erwin Lutzer provides clear, compelling evidence for Scripture's reliability. From manuscript accuracy to fulfilled prophecy, this book strengthens your confidence in God's word and equips you to answer skeptics with conviction.

No matter what this year has in store, be armed with the power and confidence of God's unwavering truth by requesting your copy of this insightful resource today. Just ask for *Seven Reasons Why You Can Trust the Bible* when you support Focal Point with a generous gift. Simply call 888-320-5885 or make your donation online at focalpointradio.org.

You can also mail your gift to Focal Point, Post Office Box 2850, Laguna Hills, California 92654. Got a theological question weighing on you? Well, Pastor Mike hosts live Q&A sessions each Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 1:00 PM Central. Text LIVE to 90398 for instant alerts or check out focalpointradio.org/live.

I'm Dave Druey inviting you back again tomorrow when Pastor Mike continues unpacking the nature and impact of God's written revelation. That's Tuesday on Focal Point.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Pastor Mike here. Ever wish you could corner your pastor and challenge him with your toughest questions about the Bible, about faith? Well, now you can. Send me your questions. Head on over to focalpointradio.org and click on "Ask Pastor Mike" or send me a note on facebook.com/pastormike or twitter.com/pastormike. I can't wait to hear from you.

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