Focal Point

Pastor Mike Fabarez: The Bible says God has a calling for us to be godly. The problem is the world is going to try to push you away from that goal. It constantly wants you to move away from it. You have to resist. If it causes blisters on my spiritual feet, I will not stop fighting even when people say, "Well, God wouldn't want your feet to hurt now, would he?" Step up the resistance.

Guest (Male): No one really intends to slip up and be conformed to lower standards. Moral compromise usually happens undetected as we're gradually swept away by the tides of a permissive culture. Welcome to Focal Point.

Today, Mike Fabarez continues his study in Hebrews chapter 12 called "Reconsidering How Hard We’re Willing to Fight." To strengthen what this study is all about, Pastor Mike has written a new booklet called "Storing Up Treasures." If you're a new listener, you can get a free copy today by going to focalpointradio.org. Now, here's Pastor Mike with today's message.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: We've been looking in Hebrews chapter 12 at the calling for us to fight sin, to say no to temptation, and say yes to what is right. We've done a lot of comparison against the backdrop of Hebrews chapter 11. We've seen a drawer full of baseball cards and hitters that are batting 350. We saw last week even the beginning of a comparison.

It starts to get pretty personal in verse number four. As a matter of fact, there are some people that read this verse and want to quickly just move on to the next verse because it almost feels like a backhanded insult. It is like, "Well, you're just a minor leaguer." People don't like that.

Here is what he says. Hebrews chapter 12, verse number four. He summarizes what we've been talking about. He says, "In your struggle against sin," and you can feel this now, "you haven't resisted to the point of shedding your blood." It's kind of like, "Look at you, you don't even have any blisters yet. Where are the signs of your struggle to really say no to sin and say yes to what is right? I don't really think you compare to the guys we just read about in chapter 11."

It would be good for us to look at those again real quick. We get this rapid-fire list of people, and he says things like this in verse 32: "What more shall I say? I don't have time to tell of Gideon or Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, or the prophets." There's a mouthful of people who did some amazing things for God.

Through faith, they conquered kingdoms. You want to talk about stepping out of the crowd and being distinctive in an ability to follow God and say, "I'm going to do whatever it takes." They administered justice. When the calling came, they stepped up. They weren't perfect; they weren't Jesus Christ. But man, they sure showed that they were willing to follow even at great personal cost.

Speaking of that, in the middle of verse 33, sometimes their commitment to do what's right landed them in places like the lions' den. But the good news is we saw great exploits of these people of faith shutting the mouths of lions. Or how about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? Verse 34, they were thrown into the fire because they were keeping their Jewish dietary laws and not compromising. But look what God did. He met them in the furnace, and they quenched the fury of the flames.

Or how about those people that were so hated for their righteousness they were on the most wanted posters, but God allowed them to escape the edge of the sword? Their weakness was turned to strength, their cowardice was turned to boldness, and their timidity was turned to courage. They became powerful in battle, and they routed foreign armies.

But sometimes, because they stood up for what was right, God didn't protect them. I know sometimes he didn't let their sandals wear out, they didn't even get blisters on their feet, but sometimes they were tortured. Even in their torture, they recognized the privilege of suffering for what is right and they refused to be released. They knew they would gain a better resurrection.

As a regular fare for these people that did some amazing things for God, they were tortured and they refused to be released. They were jeered at, they were flogged, they were put in chains and put in prison. Verse 37, some people threw rocks at them. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, and God didn't deliver them. They paid the ultimate price. They were put to death by the sword.

They didn't get rich off their commitment to godliness. They went around in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted, and mistreated. These are the heroes. The world wasn't worthy of these folks. They wandered in the desert and mountains and in caves and holes in the ground.

After that list, he says, "Being surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us run with endurance the race set before us. Let's cast off everything that hinders us and the sin that so easily entangles us." Then he says, as we saw last week, "Look at Christ. He was willing to go to the cross."

Talk about shedding blood for the sake of doing what's right. He could have wimped out in the garden, but he didn't. He said, "I'll do the right thing. I'll go. I'll be crucified." And now he says, "What about you guys? Back to you again. How about your struggle against sin, your commitment to do the right thing? Oh, that's right. You don't have many scars. It hasn't really cost you a whole lot."

Before you throw up your hands and say, "Well, that's because we're living in a time that's really not hostile to the gospel," I think you'll find there's a lot that we could do to really distinctively stand up for truth that probably would cost us. As a matter of fact, it's the cost that often keeps our mouths shut. It's the pain, it's the ridicule, it's the people looking away from us when we walk into the office, and we don't want to distinguish ourselves that way.

Maybe they're not throwing us in prison yet, but things are getting worse, aren't they? To stand up and say this is true, Jesus is the way, the truth, the life, and no one comes to the Father except through him, and anyone else who says they're the path to God is wrong—to make statements like that of the exclusivity of the gospel, that's going to get you in trouble. It's getting worse. If for nothing else, it's time for us to gear up and say, what are we willing to pay for this? Are we really giving our all?

I know it's hard, but he makes the comparison. Look at your brethren, if you will, who were spilling their blood to do the right thing. What about you and your struggle against sin? Oh, that's right. You haven't resisted to the point of shedding your blood. You know what he's saying to us? He's saying we're lightweights and we need to admit it.

Number one on your outline, I don't know if you're willing to admit it, but jot it down. I think we should admit we're lightweights. That's a good way to put it. We're just lightweights. Little American Christians with your struggle to do the right thing. Really? Look at what we complain about. "I got a nasty email. I did the right thing and look, they're persecuting me. He hurt my feelings."

Paul is looking over the scars of being whipped and stoned, people throwing rocks at his body, and we're complaining about an email. I often recommend that you read this book right here, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. If you haven't read this, you need to. If you have or you started and it's all antiquated, get another book on the list and spend some time thinking through people like Perpetua, a 22-year-old who was told by the Roman government that she had to deny Christ and say Caesar was Lord.

She wouldn't do it. She's nursing a child, and her father—you can imagine grandparents, can't you?—is trying to speak reason into his 22-year-old daughter who is cradling your grandchild, saying, "Listen, just tell them whatever they want to hear. God will understand. Just say what you have to say in your heart. God knows your heart."

Perpetua said, "No, I will not deny Christ." Perpetua gets thrown into the arena of the lions, and the Romans stand there, the pagans in their revelry, and they watch this young girl get stripped and ripped limb by limb by the lions in the Colosseum. All because she wouldn't say the words that the pagans in her life wanted her to say.

How about guys like John Huss? John Huss, who would stand up to the leaders and say, "You know what, this is not a small issue. This is the gospel. This is a big issue. This is about issues of salvation and heaven and hell. I'm not going to be swayed, and I'm going to tell you you're wrong." Much like Stephen, they took John Huss and they took him out. They bound him after incarcerating him for years and put him in a public display and executed him so everyone could see.

How about guys like William Tyndale? Do you know his name? William Tyndale, known for one basic passion: he wanted to get the Bible in the language of the people. The leaders of the church said, "Oh, we don't want you to do that. We want them to listen to us. We don't want them to have this in their hands."

Tyndale said, "No, we want the plowboy plowing the field to know the scripture as well as the clergyman in the church. We’ve got to get the word of God in their hands." He knew the calling, he knew it was right, and the leaders said no. They ended up taking him and strangling him after incarcerating him, telling him to recant, telling him to burn all of his works. Then they put him in the square so everyone could see as his family stood by, and they lit his body on fire and they burned him on a stake.

Do you have to be such a radical for God? He said, "Yeah, I'm not going to compromise. I'm going to say no to compromise, I'm going to say yes to what's right." These people spilled their blood. All you have to do is get into stories like that and then ask yourself a question when God's call and conviction is on your life to go the extra mile or deprive yourself of some appetite in your life. You're going to go, "Come on, I'm a lightweight. I think I could do more. I think I could say no with a little more resolve, and I think I could say yes to the right thing with a little bit more passion."

The leaders of the church in times gone by and even the rank and file, like a 22-year-old Perpetua, look over the rails of heaven when we're pulling the splinters out of our fingers from the price that we pay for our godliness. When we start to say, "Oh, I'm such a martyr," they lean over and go, "Pfft, come on, grow up. In your struggle against sin, you've not resisted to the point of shedding blood."

How far are you willing to go to do the right thing? Are you willing to pay a little bit more of a price? There are two sides to it and there are two words here that you should circle and underline. They're the verbs that help us understand what this fight is all about. Now, the calling in the whole verse is that we're not really doing it to the extent that our spiritual forefathers have, inside and even for us, outside of the Bible. So we need to recognize that we're relative lightweights.

We're playing tee-ball. We need to be thinking about the major leagues, though. Let's grow up in that. But how do I do it? Two things, two words. If you have your Greek New Testament, you can see in this text that the verse is inverted. A lot of verses sound like Yoda when you read them in Greek because they're all turned around.

That's what happens here. The word that's translated "struggle" is at the end of the verse. It's the last word in this eight-word verse. The word "resisted" in the second part of the verse is at the beginning of the verse. He's talking about the fact that there's been no blood spilt in your resistance, and then the last word he talks about is struggle.

The first component of this is the word "resisted." You haven't resisted to the point of shedding blood. That is a very defensive word. It's a word that is really elaborated on. It's the most colorful use of this word in the Greek New Testament. The standard word that we usually see is a word called "histemi," and "histemi" is the word to stand. Stand up to it, stand firm. Do everything to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.

He adds a compound to the front of this word, "anti-histemi." Stand against. It's like, don't just stand firm; lean your shoulder into it, put the shield up, and make sure that when sin's lure and the pressure of sin keeps knocking you back, that you're standing firm.

Sin, according to this passage, is like a force that is being put upon me, and I have to stand against it. So the first part of this whole thing, this fight against sin, is a defensive posture. The question for us is how hard are we really resisting it? Number two on your outline, let's at least say, because our spiritual forefathers did a better job at this, let's at least say this: we need to step up the resistance.

There needs to be a harder resistance in our life to the draw of sin. I think it's helpful to kind of even personify it because there is a draw, a lure, an enticement that sin has. To put it in the context of its goal, I want you to look at a passage, Romans chapter 12. It’s a familiar verse we have our kids memorize in Sunday school, but let's look at it again. Romans chapter 12, verses one and two. It will show us that the goal of this force is to fit us into something.

Romans 12:1 says, "Therefore," and that's a big "therefore" because he's talked about an amazing set of events about how God's sovereign plan in salvation and his work to redeem us is amazing. Isn't God good to us to allow us to be a part of this? He says, "Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy." Here's the upshot, here's the practical point: "Offer your bodies as living sacrifices."

That's a hard, contrasted juxtaposition of two words. We're all into living for God, right? That's the first word. We want to offer our bodies to live for him. But it's compounded with a contrasted word, "sacrifice." That is reminiscent of the call of Christ. If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

There's this pain involved. There is this sense that if you're going to follow me and do the right thing, there will be a sacrifice. It will be difficult, and you need to offer yourself as a living sacrifice and, again, this is the theme of our series, holy and pleasing to God.

You need to recognize that's the goal. To be holy, there are going to be some components to it. There will be that sense of offense in that I'm going to live for God, but there will also be a defensive posture. Look at verse number two: "And do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world."

Do you see that? There's the defensive posture. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of the world. That is such a descriptive phrase. In other words, the world has a template for you. There's a pattern there. If you're a teenager, there's a template for what the world expects teenagers to be. If you're a young married couple, the world has a template for you. There's a picture of what that should be and the values you should have. If you're in the middle of your career, there is a picture for you, a template that the world has. If you're retired, oh, there's a big template for you, and the world has what they expect that you ought to be.

The Bible says that all of that is pressing you into that template. As J.B. Phillips said and many people quote, it's a good way to put this verse. He said, "Do not let the world pour you into its mold." That's a good way to put it. The world's trying to do that. It's not an inanimate system. You realize that it is a satanic force according to Ephesians chapter 6.

We're standing firm against the schemes of the devil, and he's trying to force us into a mold. The mold is not a godly mold. It's a compromised mold. It's a mold and a template of misplaced loves. It's a template of passivity and cowardice and timidity. It's a mold of self-pleasing and self-interest and self-esteem. It's all of that. The world's got a mold and it looks a certain way for kids, for teens, for young people, for middle-aged, for elderly. The Bible says, be resistant to that. You've got to fight the draw.

Does that sound like Hebrews chapter two, verse one? It says we’ve got to pay much more careful attention to the things that are being preached to us, or we will drift. Remember that word, drift? That's so important that we get that. If we relax, here's the thing: you're going to be downstream. It's not going to work out for you. You are going to be less of a godly, holy, pleasing person to God if you relax.

For the next year, you're going to take a step backwards. We’ve got to fight the pressure of the world to have it be like it. There's a defensive posture there. Compromise and sin, it's constantly pressing in on us.

I took the kids to the water park this summer. Did you do that? If you've got grade-school kids, they wanted to go. So dad gives in and we go to the water park. Now, the water park usually is a great thing because I just have to sit there and just chill out. They go do all those crazy rides. I had kids who wanted to do the drop, the straight down drop, and it's just like there's no way. I had kids way too late in life. No, I'm not doing it. I'll wait here with your mom and listen to our iPods. You just have fun. Come back sometime. That's the water park for me.

At the end of the day, my two boys go, "Let's do the Lazy River. Let's do the Lazy River." That had a good title. I thought, "Okay, let's check that out. Lazy River." I'd seen the Lazy River. The Lazy River, you kind of get in here and it's got a little slope like a beach, and it takes you all around the park and drops you off right back where you started. You have tubes you ride in. I can do that. I never thought the kids would be into it. "Okay, let's take everybody, let's just go do the Lazy River."

So we go over there to the Lazy River. There are people and tubes everywhere. I grab a tube, the kids grab tubes, they grab the little tubes, dad's a big guy, grabs a big tube. We get in the Lazy River and we start going, just Lazy River. Well, there's all these 16-year-olds that get these summer jobs as lifeguards at the water park and they give them a whistle, a little red outfit, a little floaty thing in case someone drowns in the three-foot-deep Lazy River. They walk the edge and they watch and they're in charge of the Lazy River.

A 16-year-old girl looks down at me and she sees my tube and she says, "Hey, that's the wrong tube for the Lazy River. That tube's not authorized in here." I'm looking at her like you've got to be kidding me. That's what I'm thinking, but I've got my kids all watching now. An authority figure telling dad to do something. What's dad going to do?

I gave her the look without my kids seeing, like, "No, you're kidding me. Don't do this to me." Because we're way down from the start of this thing. So we're floating and, "That's the wrong tube for there." I don't understand the damage caused by the tube that I'm in. "That's for another ride," she said, and just kept on. I'm trying to be a good example for my kids, submit to governing authorities. Okay.

Reluctantly and slowly, I disembark from my big tube. The girl points and says, "There's one over there." It was on the bank that I had passed about 30 seconds ago upstream. So I gave her the tube. "Here's your special little tube for the other ride, okay? I'll go get that one."

I start going, realizing now that the Lazy River is not real lazy at this point. I'm fighting traffic here. People floating by me going, "What's that guy doing?" And I'm walking upstream. My kids at this point, they're like small on the horizon. They've written off dad.

There's the tube, it's there, I can see it. I'm making progress. I realize the tube is right near the jets at the side of the Lazy River that keep the river moving. So the closer I get to the tube, the water is shooting at me. About that time, I thought about how much I paid to get my family into the water park and I said, forget it. This guy's going to ride the Lazy River without a tube, which by the way, is not a lot of fun. I don't float well enough or something, but I wanted the tube, but I gave up. "I'm not going to get this tube. Forget it."

The Bible says God's got a calling for us: be godly. The problem is the world's going to try to push you away from that goal. It constantly wants you to move away from it. You have to resist. As I'm sitting there trying to resist the flow of traffic and people are floating by and going, "What are you doing?" I'm thinking, "I don't want blisters. I'm not going to get bloody over this thing. I paid a hundred bucks to get my family into this. Forget it." And so, I was done.

If you relax in the Christian life, you're going to be downstream next year. You cannot relax. The world's trying to press you into a mold. You will adopt more values that Satan wants you to adopt unless you "anti-histemi," you lean into this battle and you say, "I'm not moving." If God says don't think that way, I'm going to fight this thing.

I know the propensity of my mind, I know the temptation of the devil, I know the system of this world is going to want me to adopt that thinking pattern, I know it's going to want me to adopt those values. I'm not going to do it. I'm going to stand firm, I'm going to stand against, I'm going to resist. If it causes blisters on my spiritual feet, I will not stop fighting even when people float by and say, "Well, come on, I don't understand. God wouldn't want your feet to hurt now, would he?" Think of all the rationalizations we give to give into sin. Step up the resistance. We need to do it.

Guest (Male): We're talking about reconsidering how hard we're willing to fight here on Focal Point. That's the title of today's message from pastor and Bible teacher Mike Fabarez. The complete series is available at focalpointradio.org or through the free Focal Point app.

Don't forget, "Ask Pastor Mike Live" airs every Tuesday through Thursday at 1:00 PM Central, and anyone can call in, so feel free to join the conversation. You can also watch and catch up anytime on the Mike Fabarez channel on YouTube. Everything you need to join or listen is at askpastormike.live.

This month, we want to put a book in your hands that gets to the root of a tension a lot of Christians never fully work through. It's called "Sinners in the Hands of a Good God" by David Clotfelter. Once you understand that God's holiness and his goodness were never in competition, a lot of the Bible's harder passages stop feeling like contradictions and start feeling like consistency.

Clotfelter lays that groundwork carefully from scripture itself, so you're left with a God who makes sense all the way through. Ask for "Sinners in the Hands of a Good God" when you make a generous gift to Focal Point today. Call 888-320-5888 or give online at focalpointradio.org. Or mail your gift to Focal Point, Post Office Box 2850, Laguna Hills, California, 92654.

Listener support is the lifeblood of this ministry, and the most meaningful way to give is as a Focal Point partner. When you commit to a monthly donation, you're making a decision that pays forward every single day, keeping the teaching on the air, funding future programs, and reaching the person who hasn't yet had the chance to hear it. Make that decision today, join the team as a monthly partner at focalpointradio.org or call us at 888-320-5888.

So what happens to the youngest, most innocent lives when Christ returns? Well, Pastor Mike Fabarez fields real questions about prophecy, the afterlife, and the end times in another edition of Ask Pastor Mike Live, Friday on Focal Point.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Hi, Pastor Mike here. God's word promises it will 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. Then be sure to join us again tomorrow right here as we continue to explore the depths of scripture. We'll see you then.

Guest (Male): Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.