Focal Point

Guest (Male): Today on Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Let me say this about your conflicts with people in the church. The conflicts you have, I guarantee, are not as important as the mission that has been given to us, the work that we have to do. There are souls hanging in the balance. You have work to do this week. All your energy is going toward the mission. Go make disciples of all the nations. That's our job. We don't have time to sit here and pick each other apart. Today on Focal Point, Pastor Mike Fabarez continues a brand new series all about navigating church conflict. It's called Fighting for Peace, and we're unpacking three pictures the Apostle Paul uses for the church, family, business, and army, and why each one changes how we handle conflict with other believers.

Now before we dive in, if this is your first time with us, we'd love to send you Pastor Mike's booklet for this study called Fighting for Peace. Free of charge, just reach out at focalpointradio.org. Well now here's Pastor Mike with his message, Glimpses of the Goal. So we finished Acts 28 and one of the letters I wanted to tackle was one of his prison epistles that probably is not as well known as Paul's other writings. It's the little book of Philemon, and if you could look it up, just find Hebrews, turn back one book, and you'll find the book of Philemon.

Take a look at these seven verses with me. Read from the English Standard Version. Paul begins with something that's familiar to us. It's where we left him in Acts 28, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus. Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus. Now we know that he's literally a prisoner in Rome. And Timothy, our brother. If you said, Mike, how many brothers do you have? I say I have one brother. And you know what you mean by that, and you know what I would mean by my answer, right? I have one genetic, biological brother. That's it.

That's all I got. But if you said, no, no, no, no, no, I'm thinking the way the Bible means it here. Is Timothy Paul's brother? The answer is no, not literally, but metaphorically because we know he's a fellow Christian. Matter of fact, he's an up-and-coming pastor who's going to take the reins of the church in Ephesus, and he calls him in Second Timothy his son. Well he's not his son, but he's his son in the faith, but he's not a brother. This is a metaphorical use of language. It's a familial use of language as you see in verse two when he says, Apphia, our sister.

Is Philemon Paul's brother-in-law? The answer is no. We are not talking about a biological sister. We're talking about a metaphorical sister. Again, familial words in the body of Christ, very common. So we have the familial metaphor. And and then Philemon is described here as our beloved fellow worker. If I said worker or business or marketplace, you know, task, I would say what is Paul's marketplace task? What does he do for business? Well at least on the mission field, he was making tents. And that was very important, particularly in in the city of Ephesus where there was a lot of need for that, with all the pilgrims coming to the temples there, and he made those tents.

That was his business. Am I supposed to think that Philemon is literally in business with Paul and a fellow worker? The answer is no. This is metaphorical language, right? It's not like they they both are running a a tent business, certainly not making that kind of money with that kind of house, making tents. So we're not literally saying your fellow workers, we are metaphorically workers. Talking about some other kind of work. And he says, hey, your son, or maybe just someone in the church that was close to him, Archippus, our fellow soldier. Well I know one thing about Paul because I've studied his life with you through the second half of the book of Acts.

He is not a Roman soldier, right? He's not a Roman soldier. So there's no way that we're talking about him being a fellow soldier as though he's in the Roman army. He's not. This is metaphorical language. So let's think about the metaphorical language employed in this introduction in the first two verses as he thinks about the work that's being done in the church as it meets in his house. And let's think about what that says to the whole issue of what we are going to deal with in the book, and that is interpersonal conflict in the church.

Let me just jam those all together. I've already run through them. We have familial metaphors, we have business metaphors, marketplace metaphors, and we've got warfare metaphors. And all of those might help me if I jam them together, particularly if I take the business and the warfare because in the sense of if you're a marine or whatever, this is your business is to be a fighter. And let's just jam those two together. There's a mission and it's a mission of fighting. And we'll talk about that. And then siblings. Well that's that's what we are in terms metaphorically, we're siblings.

So these things will help us. Jot this down as we jam it together in one phrase. Number one, you need to see yourselves in this church, in your small group, in your sub congregation as siblings with a mission. That is going to help us if we just start there. Okay? Let's untangle all three of those really quickly. Okay, let's start in Romans chapter eight and talk about the family motif. How profound is this that the person you have a problem within the church or will next month is a brother or sister in Christ? How important is that?

Couldn't be more important. Go to Romans chapter eight and drop down to verse 14. Romans 8:14. Let's read through verse 17. Romans 8:14. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. Now Jesus often says, you'll know them by their fruits. Do we earn our salvation? No, of course not. It's a gift of grace, a gift of grace. But one of the things that happens is the Spirit invades our life, and all of a sudden now it's the odd couple because I like to sin and the Spirit likes to do what's righteous.

He's called the Holy Spirit. So all of a sudden now he starts winning the battles in my life, not perfectly, but I start doing more holy things than I did before I was a Christian. And if I'm led by the Spirit, that's a sign that I'm a Christian and and that means I'm a son of God. It's the proof of it all. You'll know them by their fruits. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. It's not as though I want to do right because if I don't do right, I'm going to be smacked around by by God, my master.

Now is he my master? Yes. Am I a slave? Yes. We'll talk about Greco-Roman slavery by the way next week because it's a very very different than the ethnic slavery of American history. Very big difference here. We'll get into that next time. But is he my master? Yes. Does Paul even use the phrase in the book of Romans that we are his slaves? Absolutely. We're slaves of God. But he says, that's not the primary reason you want to do what's right. It may be one motivation, but I want to be like Dad because he's given us the spirit of adoption as sons.

That's a big I'm his son. I'm a child of God. Now if you want to think about the profundity of this, just go back to when you knew you were rejectable to God, but you became a Christian and now you're accepted to God. How accepted are you? Accepted as though you were Christ himself. God said, I accept you fully. I don't see you for your sin anymore. I've taken your sin and removed it from you as far as the east is from the west to quote Psalm 103. So you've got this spirit of adoption as sons.

I want to be like Dad because he's he's my Dad. God is is my father by whom we cry. Now the context by the way of Romans eight is a lot of suffering in the Roman church. Cry here is a good word to use because when we cry out to God like in the Psalms, that word, that verb to cry, usually when I'm hurting and in pain and in trouble. And it says, your reaction now related to God wanting to please the Lord is even when you're in a jam, the God who said, I'll be your helper, I'll never leave you, never forsake you.

Hebrews 13. All of that is is just reflexively wanting to cry out to God. God, help me. And the word he uses here, Abba, as you probably know, is the dialect that's used in the household of the first century. It's a dialect of Hebrew. Got the classical Hebrew that was taught in the synagogues, and you have Hebrew, you'd read it in the text of the Bible, but you have this this dialect in the household, this Aramaic dialect. And and the word for Dad is is is Abba. We cry out Abba, Father. I feel a closeness to God.

He's my my redeemer. He's sent his son to save me. And when I'm in a jam, just like I was in a jam with my sin facing eternal punishment, I cried out to God and he helped me. I'm crying out to God when there's trouble. He's my father. And I know he cares for me. And all this is internally affirmed. Verse 16. The Spirit himself bears witness with our Spirit that we are children of God. And I know that God cares about me, and I know God wants to be my my rock and my redeemer and my deliverer.

This is great stuff, and if you live the Christian life long enough to go through your first trial, you know, this this is how it is. The nearness of God. And if children, it says, then heirs. Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. Why do I get the riches of the father? Why am I the inheritor of all the riches of God's kingdom? Because I'm related to Christ. Christ is the one who earned it. I'm the one who rides in on his coattails and I'm seen as though I am in Christ. And so I'm an heir with Christ.

I mean, how important is it for me to be a son of God, a child of God? Wow, it's the difference between being cast out of the kingdom and being invited to share in the riches of the kingdom. This is amazing. And then the way he started in verse 14, he ends. There's always going to be the outworking of the fruit of salvation provided we suffer with him. Do you suffer with him? If the fruit of God's spirit is in you, he's leading you down paths that won't be always for the convenience and comfort of your life.

Sometimes he leads you down paths to stand up as your palm sweat to say, I'm not going to compromise and it's going to get you into trouble. You will suffer for following Christ, and he says, and if you suffer with him, of course, in order that you may be glorified with him. See real Christians are going to follow the Spirit sometimes down some very dangerous and and precarious paths to stand up for what's true and what's right. We're going to love God, and when we're suffering, we're going to cry out to our father, and in the end God's going to bring us into the kingdom on the merits of Christ.

This is a great great paragraph. And it's true for you, and I hope that you understood that in your own spirit as it says here in verse 16 that the Spirit of God affirmed in your spirit. Yes, I'm a child of God. And as a child of God, I am special. I'm special to God. That's great. Now here's all I need to say is when he says, Apphia, our sister, Timothy, our brother, he's trying to remind us the familial motif is we're all children of God, and every problem you have with a Christian in our church you're having with a child of God.

That's just a good place to start. I'm having a problem with one of God's children. And that child cries out to God, Dad, just like I do. Let's just start there, and parents know how badly they want their siblings to get along, right? You're talking to someone who has all the riches of the father through the merits of Christ. This should change the way you hold a grudge against someone. Matter of fact, it should start to say, what am I doing? How dare I hold this grudge against the child of God? Yeah, but they really did me wrong.

Well I'm glad you've never done anything wrong. Bible says you better learn to forgive the way God forgave you. You better learn to welcome others the way he welcomed you. The laborer motif. Go to John chapter four. The laborer motif. Philemon, our beloved fellow worker. Fellow worker translates one compound Greek word soon means we work together like in the field. It's the kind of word you'd use for the sweaty labor of a of a of a farmer. I'm out in the fields working side by side with, in this case, Philemon. You're my fellow worker. We're working toward the same goal.

We have the same mission. In John chapter four, you might remember this is the passage that deals with the woman at the well, and Jesus is plowing right through the center of Samaria. He could have gone around like a lot of people did, but he plowed through, didn't didn't mind. He stops at Jacob's well outside of Sychar, and he goes. He's so exhausted, so famished in the middle of his journey. He sends the guys in to go get falafel or whatever, to drive through somewhere. And as they're out having their, you know, drive through delivered to them to bring it back across the valley, he is there at the well, and he asks this woman for a drink, and you know the story.

He starts to share the gospel with a woman with a sordid background, living with her boyfriend, been married five times. This is crazy. And he's having this conversation, and look at verse 27. The disciples come back as he's talking with this woman, and he's basically getting to the issues of sin and redemption and the and the call of God to want worshipers to worship in spirit and truth and all that Jesus wanted to do to reconcile this sinful soul to God. And they come back. Verse 27, they go, what in the world? They marveled that he was talking with a woman, that particular kind of woman, a Samaritan woman, but no one said, what do you seek or why are you talking with her?

Verse 28. So the woman left her jar just as you would if people start buzzing and raising their eyebrows and wondering, what is she talking to this gal for? So she's like, okay, I'm out of here. She checks out. And the woman leaves her jar and she went away into the town, and she goes in that town. She says, hey guys, come see a man who told me all I ever did. He had some weird prophetic insight into my life. Could this be the Christ? Do you think she's convinced that he's the Christ at that point?

Absolutely. She comes and shares Christ with them, and they went out in mass now, went out of the town and were coming to him. Meanwhile the disciples were saying, hey, uh, why don't you eat, Rabbi? And he says, I have food to eat. Verse 32, you do not know about. And Jesus says verse 34, my food, the kind of food I'm talking about, metaphorical food, is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his. Here's our word. Ergos, work. We have work to do. The church has work to do. I hope you got that through the book of Acts.

Took us forever to get through it, but this is all about the work we're called to do. We're continuing the mission of seeing people brought to faith in Christ. We are supposed to be that intelligent, caring, evangelistic co-worker, trying to see people won to Christ. That's our goal. We want to see this thing filled with people who are redeemed. And he says, that's my work. I I thrive on that. That's my food. I can put away a sandwich for a while to do that. That's just fulfilling. Verse 35. Do you not say there are yet four months and then comes the harvest?

You know, there's a lot of watering to do, there's a lot of, you know, tilling and fertilization and all that, but eventually the harvest is ready to be harvested. Look, I tell you, middle of verse 35, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest. Now this is just a great picture. If you get in the mind of how this all worked, you can see in your mind's eye all these people coming across the valley, their turbans, their their robes, the light-colored canvas, and they're coming across the valley. All these men and this woman in the middle somewhere saying this is the, you know, I left my jar here.

Go let's go see this guy. And all they're coming across. Lift up your eyes, guys. You got your sandwiches. Time to put them down. We got work to do. Already the one who reaps is receiving wages and gathering fruit for eternal life. That woman is receiving wages and gathering, it says, this is a great line, gathering fruit for eternal life. She is winning souls. She's told people in a very simple way, not a dogmatic way, but a simple way. Hey, I think I may have found the Christ. Do you think he could be the Christ?

Come and see. And so she is becoming an agent of Christ, an evangelist. Talk about what he told his disciples. You're not going to, you know, catch fish anymore. You're going to catch people. You're going to you're going to fish for men. Here's this scout. She's got a whole net full of men she's dragging across the valley. Man, she's earning wages. Fruit for eternal life that the sower and the reaper may rejoice. That's just a great line. So that me, the Rabbi, the perfect lamb of God and this sinful woman living with her boyfriend that now is converted, she's coming back, we can rejoice to get I can I can see Christ kind of nodding, winking at her.

Look at this. You know I'm the Christ. You know I offer eternal life. You know the father seeking worshipers to worship him in spirit and truth. Look what you've done. And together we're rejoicing. For here verse 37, the saying holds true. One sows and another reaps. I sent you to reap for that which you did not labor. Others have labored and you have entered into their labor. Put your sandwich down. We are going to work. We're going to work the work. And even your desire to eat your food, it needs to be set aside just like my desire to eat my lunch was put aside because we got important work to do.

Let me say this about your conflicts with people in the church. The conflicts you have, I guarantee you, are not as important as the mission that has been given to us, the work that we have to do. There are souls hanging in the balance. You have work to do this week. I I tell you, let's use all of our energy trying to be persuasive. As Second Corinthians five says, persuading people because we know the fear of God. Let's set aside our desire for our pound of flesh or setting it straight or making sure she understands she can't talk to me that way.

Let's get past all of that with other children of God. And let's put our energies on what our task is. The book of Acts made that very clear to be witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and all the way over to Orange County in the 21st century. That this is the work we have to do. We have no time to bicker and bite and devour one another as Paul put it to the Galatian churches. We don't have time for that. You shouldn't have any energy for that. All your energy is going toward the mission. Go make disciples of all the nations.

That's our job. We don't have time to sit here and pick each other apart. The laborer motif, the business motif. There's one more, the military motif. Do you remember Matthew 16:18? Jesus said it very clear, I'm going to build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Gates don't come and attack me. Gates are what I have to attack if I'm trying to get into the territory beyond the gate. Do you follow that? So I'm supposed to be advancing the cause of Christ in my community and my world. And here's the thing about the world.

It lies, First John five, in the hands of the evil one. He's out there trying to blind the minds of the in the eyes of the unbelieving. Second Corinthians four. This is a battle for people's souls, and it's not just work, it's a battle. The mission we have is a is an arduous mission. It's one that Satan is going, don't you dare. It's the one that makes you puts you on Satan's radar. As Jesus said to Peter and and the team, Satan has demanded to sift you all like wheat. I know he's talking to Peter, but he says all of you guys.

You want to advance the cause of Christ into enemy territory as he writes to the Colossians. He says, I want to see people transferred out of the domain of darkness into the kingdom of his son, this kingdom of light. I'm trying to get souls from the enemy territory and bring them back. They're hostages over there. We've got to get released. Do you understand this battle? You will be the target of the enemy. Satan will be there soon. You're not going to take another one. You're not going to take another one, not from this neighborhood, not from this office.

And you're supposed to go assault these walls, these gates, these electrified barbed wire fences of hell and go in and retrieve the loss. That's our job. And you know when there's something heavy like that involved, when there's something like that just takes our our sense of safety and and we we have to join together. I tell the story. My parents will have to give you the the clearer view on this. My mom probably didn't even know, but when I was a kid, I don't remember how old I was. My older brother, he was he was designed by God basically as a reflection of the Wonder Years older brother, if you ever watched that show.

He picked on me endlessly. I had plenty of reason not to like my brother. He's a pastor now in another state, but I'm telling you, we could we couldn't get through dinner without some kind of frustration. We were out to dinner one night, Mexican restaurant, and of course we had plenty to argue with. Well we come home and as often happened when there was something bad going on in the neighborhood, we didn't run lock ourselves inside. My Dad, who was a cop, would say we're going to go and and do something about it. So we come home and I don't remember what it was.

Someone jumping over a fence, ski mask, something in our little East Long Beach neighborhood. And and Dad drops Mom off, puts her inside, and has the Fabarez boys drive. I was probably eight, nine, 10, I don't know, fourth grade. Dad's not on duty. We just went to go get, you know, wet burritos from the from from the Mexican restaurant. And and Dad reaches into his sock holster and pulls out a little snub nose 38, hands it to my brother who's writing now in the front seat. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a buck knife, opens it up, hands it to me in the back seat.

Takes out his 357, and now all the Fabarezes are armed. We're chasing down some hoodlums in some neighbor. I don't even remember, and it was just as I I can see it in my mind's eye as we're chasing these people and I'm sitting in the back seat with a buck knife. And I remember them getting the doors open and them going out and dealing with these guys, and I'm just watching the car with my knife. And and I'm thinking to myself, I got a lot of reasons not to like my brother, but that day we were best friends.

Right? I mean, if you can't shoot him, Dave, I'm going to knife him. That just was like, we're going to we're going to get through this. All I'm telling you, you got conflict in the church, you and the person you have conflict with go out and share the gospel with three people this week and engage in conversation in demon territory, and I assure you you'll have no time for your little petty problems with your neighbor, your brother and sister in Christ. You're going to say, our efforts got to be to join together. We are in a battle.

We're in a war. The familial motifs, the business motifs, and the military motifs, the brother in arms, that's a big deal in a foxhole. We're going to get along because we're fighting a common enemy. The setup for this is great. See yourselves as siblings with a mission. Philemon, it's printed there for you in verse three. Grace to you and peace from God our father, Lord Jesus Christ. Hey guys, all of you, Philemon, Apphia, Archippus, hey, church at Colossae, grace to you. Grace to you and peace. Where's it come from? From our our father, God our father, and of course his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, applied of course by his spirit.

All of that needs to be done, and it needs to come from heaven. God's favor and and his peace be given to you. Now here's the interesting thing about that redemptive work that what here's a good word for that reconciling work. We read in our DBR this week from from Isaiah 59:2 about the separation our sins make. What we need is a reconciliation with God. We're born sinners, we're born apart from God, we're born as children of Adam. We need to be reconciled. So God goes and reconciles us. He does the work to reconcile. He sends us a God so loved the world he gives his only son.

And he reconciles us.

Guest (Male): You're listening to Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez and a message called Glimpses of the Goal. You can revisit today's lesson and find more from this brand new study called Fighting for Peace anytime by going online to focalpointradio.org or by downloading the free Focal Point app. Before we go, there's something important we want to put in front of you. Confidence in the Bible doesn't happen by accident. It's built one honest answer at a time. That's exactly why Pastor Mike wrote a brand new book that's just released this month called The Bible, a book like no other.

He wrote it for the person who's never quite known how to answer when someone challenges scripture. And by the end, you will. But there's a bigger vision behind this one. We're working to get this resource directly into the hands of students, skeptics, and everyday believers who are asking these exact questions right now in dorm rooms, break rooms, and living rooms across the country. People who would never go looking for a resource like this on their own. When you give a gift to Focal Point today, this book comes to you as our thanks. And if you're able to give above your usual amount this month, you'll help us put a copy directly into someone else's hands.

Call 888-320-5885 or give online at focalpointradio.org or mail your gift to Focal Point Post Office Box 2850, Laguna Hills, California 92654. Today we also invite you to step into something ongoing and become a Focal Point partner standing with us every single month. It's one of the simplest ways to make sure this teaching and this book keep reaching people who need it. Sign up as a Focal Point partner at focalpointradio.org or call us at 888-320-5885. Why does grief still cut so deep even when you're certain of where your loved one landed? And was slavery in the Old Testament really the horror it sounds like today?

Well tomorrow Pastor Mike Fabarez confronts both plainly and biblically in another edition of Ask Pastor Mike Live. That'll be right here on Focal Point.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Hey there, Pastor Mike here. We're almost out of time, but before we go, I want to personally invite you to contact us here. Let us know how we can be praying for you. Head on over to focalpointradio.org and click the contact page or send me a note on Facebook, facebook.com/pastormike or x.com/pastormike. Can't wait to hear from you.

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