Focal Point

Pastor Mike Fabarez: If you turn as Jude said, the grace of our God into a license to sin, you don’t understand grace. And if that’s the case, you ought to be afraid. You ought to be afraid. As a matter of fact, you ought to know that you do not participate in the benefits of the cross. All you have left is a fearful expectation of judgment. You ought to be afraid of the fact that you will have to face retribution from a holy God one day.

Dave Drew: God’s grace radically transforms the direction of our lives. It’s His unmerited mercy that allows us to move closer to God and further away from sin. So if we continue walking in sin, have we truly accepted God’s grace? Today on Focal Point, Pastor Mike Fabarez helps realign our thinking. And before we dive in, let me invite you to get your free copy of Pastor Mike’s latest booklet called Phony Christianity. Request a copy when you reach out for the first time at focalpointradio.org. Now here’s Pastor Mike.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: First John chapter 3, it is such an important text. It’s one of those avoided texts of the New Testament. Not the first few verses, but the heart of the text. Unfortunately, we don’t hear much of this anymore. The first section of the text, we don’t struggle too much with. Take a look at these familiar words when he says, "How great," verse 1, "is the love that the Father has lavished on us." Isn’t that a great text? He just poured it out on us that we should be called children of God. Adopted, a changed relationship to the living God. And that is what we are. John just revels in that. We are, we’re children of the King.

Now there’s a whole eschatology that’s going to come, though, because what we will be, it hasn’t been yet made known. We’re not realized in the place of the New Jerusalem. We haven’t been redeemed in our body, but our spirit has been redeemed. Our judicial standing before God has changed, and therefore we are children of God. Now we haven’t arrived, but look at this. It says we know that when He appears, now, it’s all going to be perfect. We will be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

So what does that mean, we're unchanged? No, it doesn’t mean that at all. As a matter of fact, verse 3, everyone who has this hope, who knows they will be perfect standing in God’s presence, not just with a redeemed heart, but a redeemed body, with no impulses for sin, with no temptation from the devil. If that is our hope, you know what happens? If we have that hope in Him, we purify ourselves just as He is pure.

That’s the process. Justification is being called a child of God by God Himself. You are now adopted into My family. Sanctification, this process of being set apart, is saying, "I know that I am headed to a place of perfection, but now You’ve changed my heart." And because I’m hoping for that ultimate culmination of the Christian message, this place called the New Jerusalem, in the process, I am being purified. I’m less like I was before I became a Christian this year than I was last year because my life is changing.

And here’s the problem when I speak about your relationship to sin. Because Christians cannot be sinless in this life, it’s only a process of purification, every Christian here can think of sin in their life. Please remember the rest of the book of Hebrews. As a matter of fact, I turn you to 10, but go back to 2, and chapter 5, and chapter 4. I mean, let’s at least look at chapter 2, verse 17. Remember that the high priest that we have is made like His brothers? That’s verse 17 of chapter 2.

I want you to recognize that God recognizes that there is a continuation, a punctiliar continuation of sin in our lives that hopefully is getting less and less as the years go by. But he recognizes the fact. He is a merciful High Priest. Why? Because He walked in the shoes that we walked in. For this reason, He, our great High Priest, had to be made like His brothers. That’s why God was made like us. Not just to make atonement for sin, but that He could become a merciful and faithful High Priest in service to God, and that He might make atonement for the sins of the people.

He’s God, so He was without sin. He never gave into it. But you know what, when we fall into sin, Christians, He sympathizes. He knows that. He knows the weakness of humanity. He recognizes that. So for those of you that are real Christians here, I’ve got to be a bit schizophrenic like the writer of Hebrews. Sin is going to happen. The right thing to do, according to the first chapter of First John, is to confess our sins. If we claim to be without sin, we’re just kidding ourselves, we’re deceiving ourselves. But confess your sins. When you sin, be softhearted and turn.

The right thing to do when Christians encounter sin is to turn to God and confess it. He is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins, cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But chapter 10, just like he did in chapter 2, just like he did in chapter 6, he says, "But you know what, if your relationship with sin hasn’t changed, if your pattern of sin is, look at the qualifying word, verse 26, 'deliberate'. If there’s deliberate sin in your life and you just don’t take sin seriously, if you hide under some kind of banner like so many Christians seem to do these days, quote-unquote Christians seem to do these days, that it’s all about God’s grace and because it’s all about God’s grace you can sin and it’s okay and you know you’re forgiven because we got our ticket to heaven and it’s okay, so not a big deal. I’m going to sin, it’s all right, but when I’m done I’m going to confess it and I know God will."

If you turn as Jude said, the grace of our God into a license to sin, you don’t understand grace. And you are falling under the condemnation of verse 26 and 27 that you’re continuing to deliberately sin. And if that’s the case, you ought to be afraid. You ought to be afraid. As a matter of fact, you ought to know that you do not participate in the benefits of the cross. All you have left is a fearful expectation of judgment. You ought to be afraid of the fact that you will have to face retribution from a holy God one day.

Can you see this composite creates in the preacher, you know what, don’t, you know, if you stumble this week, it’s okay. God is a gracious God. Confess it, repent. Hey, you know what, if you continue to sin and your whole attitude about it hasn’t changed, you ought to be afraid because you’re going to face the judgment of God. You’re not even saved. We’re still talking about the same topic, sin. The difference is some people don’t take it seriously and some people take it really serious.

Those who take it serious show that they do not deliberately sin. They’re dragged into sin. They stumble into sin. They don’t say, "Yeah, you know what, it’s all right. It doesn't matter. It's all about grace, not about law, not about wrath. I do what I want. It’s okay. And even if it is sin, doesn’t matter, God will forgive me." That is an abuse of grace. It shows you don’t understand grace and as later he says, it’s like trampling the blood of the Son of God under your feet and saying, "I don’t care, it’s not a big deal."

It’s a big deal. Sin is a big deal and we ought to take it seriously. Those who don’t prove they’re not saved, which is the very next thing he says in verse 30 of Matthew 5. He says that. He says it’d be better for you to enter life and to show up with a stub on the end of your arm than to be cast into hell with a complete and whole body. You know, it would be better for you. What’s the difference? People that take sin seriously and people that don’t.

Do you think there are people that go to church, Bible-teaching churches, that don’t take sin seriously? Absolutely. There’s all kinds. And the difference is the proof of a changed heart. If you don’t take sin seriously, you’re not saved. And all you have left to worry about is the day that you face the living God and He casts you into a place called the lake of fire. I didn’t write it, that’s what it says. The fire that will consume the enemies of God. God calls you His enemy if you don’t take sin seriously.

Take sin seriously. It is the core and crux that proves the genuine reality of our conversion. If you don’t have that, you’re not saved. So be paralyzed? No, didn’t say that. If we take sin seriously, we’ll be quick to repent, we’ll be softhearted. We’ll do as Jesus said, we’ll deal severely with the avenues through which sin comes. Verse 28, back to Hebrews chapter 10. The comparison is made of the law of Moses. Moses was considered in the book of Hebrews and of course in the Old Testament as the greatest prophet, bar none, except for of course in the New Covenant, Jesus Christ.

He’s the great Prophet. He’s the one who met with God face to face. He was the one that God treated like, "Hey, let’s talk." And if you gave Moses a hard time, you know, you were in big trouble, just ask Aaron and Miriam. Moses is the guy. And people that highly valued the prophet’s message, Moses’s message, he said if they took that message and thumbed their nose at it and said, "I don’t really care, I’m going to do whatever I want," they were taken out to the edge of town and they were stoned to death. They were cut off from their people.

I'll give you one example. Go to the book of Numbers with me real quick. The book of Numbers. And I think it’s important to go to Numbers chapter 15 because again, it reemphasizes the distinction. And perhaps it will be a comfort to the real Christians here who say, "Wow, I’m thinking of the sin that I committed yesterday or last night or maybe even this morning and I’m freaking out, maybe I’m not saved." If you’re freaking out about your sin, that’s good. That probably proves that you are saved.

And it proves, probably if you analyze that sin, you’ll probably see how you were dragged into that sin. Not as an excuse, but as a true objective analysis. And now that you recognize that you are in sin, you want to repudiate it, you want to repent of it, and you want to move forward. That’s exactly what’s addressed in verse number 27. He calls it unintentional sin. Numbers chapter 15, verse 27: "If one person sins unintentionally, he must bring a year-old female goat for a sin offering and the priest is to make an atonement before Yahweh for the one who has erred in sinning unintentionally."

He didn’t plan it. He didn’t map it out. It just happened. And when atonement has been made for him, he will be forgiven. One and the same law applies to everyone who sins unintentionally, whether he’s native born in Israel, I don’t care what his pedigree is, or whether he was an alien living among you, doesn’t matter, he will be forgiven. But, verse 30. Are you with me? Anyone who sins defiantly, I love the Hebrew idiom, it was worth writing in the margin, here’s the phrase in Hebrew: "with a high lifted hand," with a hand lifted high, with a hand up in the air.

And there’s a few ways and a few reasons people would do that. One was to take an oath. "I’m going out and I’m doing it, that’s what I’m going to do." It’s like calling attention, saying, "That’s what my heart’s going to do and I’m in and I’m planning it and I’m going for it." With a hand lifted high, NIV translators translate that Hebrew idiom "with a defiance." They sin defiantly. With an oath, with pomp, with a beat of the chest, "This is the way I’m going to do it."

Whether they’re native born or alien, I don’t care what their pedigree is, they blaspheme Yahweh. That person must be cut off from his people, which doesn’t mean we kind of put a no longer in service on his mailbox or whatever. This means we take him to the edge of town and on the testimony of two or three people that saw him pompously and defiantly sin, they start throwing the big rocks and he’s executed as a capital offense. Why? Verse 31, "Because he despised Yahweh’s word." Who did that come through? What was his name? Moses.

And broke His commands. That person must surely be cut off and, look at this, he doesn’t get forgiveness. His guilt remains on him. The distinction again. And the point is the difference of how I value the word of God that comes in the Old Testament case through the prophet Moses in the first five books of the Old Testament. And the Bible says if that’s the way it was treated then, how much more should we, because of our respect not for Moses, but because of something greater than Moses, which was the whole point of the early part of Hebrews?

Jesus Christ. And that that Christ didn’t just get up and speak for God. He died in our place. How much more will we be guilty? Back to Hebrews 10. How much more does that man deserve to be punished who has, now look at the bottom of verse 29, look at the words here, it’s like he’s trampling the Son of God underfoot. It’s like he’s treating as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that, quote-unquote, sanctified him. And who has insulted the Spirit of grace?

Number two on your outline. The whole emphasis here is they respected Moses and his word. Now the writer of Hebrews is saying, "What about our respect for the love of Christ that was demonstrated in a cross? How highly do we value that? Does that change our relationship to sin?" Let’s just put it down this way, number two. You and I need to learn to highly value the love of Christ, which you might want to put next to that, was demonstrated in the death of Christ.

Remember that childhood Sunday school Awana verse, Romans 5:8, that He demonstrated His love toward us, how? In that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. What did Jesus say in the book of John? No greater love has any man have than this, that a man would lay down his life for a friend. Romans 5 says the same thing. Someone might die, maybe, for a righteous famous person, maybe. But Christ’s love was so incredible. He looked at sinful people who defied His laws and He died for them.

And if He did that for you, how much do you value that? Does it change your relationship with sin? Or are you still willing to say, "Well, the grace of God, whatever, it’s okay, I’ll get forgiven on the other side"? It ought to change our relationship with sin. Why? Because I’ve learned to value the death of Christ. I wonder how hard we’d work. Maybe you got a few free coupon that somebody came out and handed you at the Chevron station. They said, "Hey, here’s a free coupon. Put this code in and you can drive through the little car wash here for free."

Let’s say you did that and you know what those are like. Your windows get all spotted and sometimes it's worse than if you didn’t get your car washed. But you go through the little Chevron drive-through car wash. I wonder, based on that, a free car wash and it's not all that great, I wonder how hard you’d work this week to not park under that tree at the office or drive through that broken sprinkler main that’s shooting up in the middle of the highway. I wonder how hard you’d work to keep your car clean if you got a free car wash on the way home from church. Not that much.

But let’s say that your children, you got young kids maybe like me, they get allowance. Maybe they saved up their allowance for an entire year. And all three of your kids, like my kids, they all came and they said, "Dad, we love you so much and you know what we’ve done? I know you didn’t know this, but we’ve been saving our money, Dad. And what we did is we saved up 200 dollars. And last night when you weren’t looking, Mom allowed us to have a detailer, the best detailer in all of Orange County, and he charged us 200 dollars. And we spent the last two years of our saved-up allowance and we got your car completely detailed. They washed it, they waxed it, they buffed it out. Man, it’s as clean as your car has ever been. It’s cleaner than the day you bought it, Dad."

Now if I drove off this week, I wonder how hard I would work to keep my car clean. If every time I looked through that pristine windshield, I remembered that my kids spent their entire savings to have this thing detailed. Would I have tried to avoid the mud puddle in the road that’s there at that little wash at the front of the parking lot of the office? I think I would. Would I park under that tree that gives me that nice surprise in the afternoons? No, I’d probably find another place to park.

If I knew that my kids saved up for a whole year to get my car cleaned, I wonder how hard we would work to keep our lives clean this week if we really understood what a great cost God, the God of the universe, went to in having His own Son crucified and beaten by thugs, Roman soldiers. Having nails driven into His head, those thorns from ancient Palestine that are as hard as nails driven into His head. Pommeled so that He wasn’t even recognizable, as the prophetic Old Testament word said.

Having His beard pulled out, the Messianic Psalms say. I wonder how hard we’d work to keep our life clean if we knew because of that death our lives were washed and cleansed and before the Father now, our lives were clean and now as Christians, having embraced the solution for our sin, we are now clean before the Father and God hands us a new clean life. I wonder how hard we’d work to try and make sure that we don’t sin if we really knew what it cost to clean us up.

I think we’d work a little harder than most of us work now. And all it is is a change in perspective. It’s a change in perspective in knowing, wow, forgiveness, it was expensive. It cost the Son of God His life. And when we sin defiantly, look at the description. It’s like we’re trampling the corpse of the Son of God. We’re just walking over it after the Roman soldiers pull it off that execution beam. It’s like we’re just saying, "Hey, I’m going to go over here and sin. Excuse me, walking on the corpse of Christ."

It’s like the blood that spilled out and down the posts of the cross. It’s like we’re like, "Oh yeah, no big deal. Can’t get that blood off there, would you? Can you clean that thing up?" It’s like we’re treating it unholy. And you know what, the Spirit of grace because it was all about grace, thinks of that. He is insulted if we don’t take sin seriously. And you know what it means, valuing the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. That that was costly. My forgiveness cost a lot.

There’s that little phrase, just a little excursus here, "that sanctified him." What does sanctification mean? What does sanctified mean? To be set apart. Now we know that if you’re thinking to be set apart in the sense that I am judicially no longer a child of the devil, if you will, as First John 3 intimated, but I am now a child of God. If we’re talking about that kind of setting apart, we can’t be talking about that because we know where these people end up, verse 27.

And we know what they’re doing. They’re saying that the Son of God is not all that important. So we can’t mean that. And much like a lot of words, we can define them with a capital S or a small s. And we know according to Hebrews chapter 6 that there’s a lot of small-s sanctification going on in the lives of people who attend the church that this letter was written to. They are set apart. What does that mean? They’re no longer a part of their old circles. They got new friends now at church.

They sit in benefit from the preaching of the Word. They put things into action and principles in their lives, and their lives are different now. Man, they sure are different. They’re doing different things. Oh, they’re really not converted. And here’s people saying, "I’m a Christian. I stand with that group. I’m set apart with them. I’m a part of the church, the ekklesia, the called out ones. I’m over here with you guys."

If you are set apart in your fellowshipping with us, the question is how do you treat the thing that really sets us apart, capital S? Well, if you treat it like, "Well, I know He came to destroy the works of the devil, He came to change my relationship with sin, but I kind of like sin and it’s okay and it’s all about grace anyway," well, you’re treating the blood of Christ as an unholy thing. We need to learn to highly value the love of Christ.

And I know we’ve been all introverted and it’s all about us and I realize that, but let’s turn the eyeball out for a minute. That’s a motivation to police my life, and it’s a motivation I hope to police your life. But just turn your eyeballs out for just a second. And you look at this picture and here’s the writer of Hebrews saying, "It’s like you’re trampling the Son of God underfoot. It’s like you’re treating as unholy the blood of this precious blood of the innocent one. It’s like you’re saying it doesn’t even really matter."

And I’m looking at that and I’m thinking there is a real passion in the pen of this writer, is there not? And I think about the fact that there are men in this audience right now who would probably go to fist-blows with other men if their wife was insulted in the parking lot. If somebody deliberately sinned against them, I think there are men that would physically fight other people in standing up for the honor of their wife.

I think there are some moms here that would pull some hair and yell and scream and kick and yell and raise their voice and scratch a few people in the face if the honor of their children was in some way defied or someone walked over their body like they didn’t care. I think they would look at their kids and say, "I love my kids so much. If you walked on him and deliberately sinned against him, I would physically go after you." I think there are women here that would do that.

So what’s wrong with us, Christian, when we watch people do the same thing to the Son of God? And we watch them because of their defiance, and they call themselves Christians and they say, "Oh yeah, I’m set apart too. I’m in your group too," and they sin against the Holy One. What is our response? "Well, I don't want to get involved, and who am I? I'm not the Holy Spirit, and I don't want them to think I'm a holy Jesus nut, and I don't know, God will take care of it."

Is that the way you deal with it when your wife is insulted and deliberately sinned against? Moms, is that how you deal with it if your kid gets trampled purposefully by some thug? I don’t think so. I think you get upset about that. How is it that we are so benign when it comes to watching people make a mockery of the atonement? How can we sit by and say, "Well, you know, let's just go, I'm not the Holy Spirit"? How does that work? I don't understand that.

I mean, not so much as a measured word of correction comes from the mouth of the average Christian today. And I think it’s because we do not value the love of God. He died for us to redeem us from sin. We watch people sin who claim to be Christians, and we stand by and say, "Well, you know." Let’s learn to highly value the love of Christ.

Dave Drew: How seriously do we take sin? It’s an important question to consider in light of the grace of God. You’re listening to a study in Hebrews from Mike Fabarez today on Focal Point, and our lesson is called "Motivated by the Fear of Being Phony." You can revisit or share this message anytime by going online to focalpointradio.org or simply download the Focal Point app to take all of this with you wherever you go.

This month, Pastor Mike is pointing us to The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer, a book that has been pushing believers towards a deeper, more honest walk with God for generations. Tozer has no patience for secondhand religion. He writes with the kind of spiritual restlessness that makes you want to put the book down and actually pray. It’s brief, but it has a way of staying with you long after you finished it. Request The Pursuit of God when you support Focal Point with a gift today. Call 888-320-5885 or donate online at focalpointradio.org. Now let’s join Pastor Mike for a quick announcement.

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

Dave Drew: That’s focalpointradio.org. I’m Dave Drew. We’ll see you back here tomorrow when Pastor Mike continues our message titled "Motivated by the Fear of Being Phony." That’s coming up Wednesday 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 Drew: Today’s program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.