Focal Point

Pastor Mike Fabarez: We've got to stand up, we've got to step out, we've got to speak up. Let's not settle for some dead orthodoxy or some private sound doctrine. I want to stand up and speak out on the historic faith once for all delivered to the saints. I don't want to cause problems in your life. I don't want to cause problems in my life. I just want to be faithful to what the Word says.

Guest (Male): At one time or another, every Christian will be asked to take a stand for the truth. Perhaps you're in a season right now where God is calling you to be bold about your relationship with Jesus Christ. Today we're reviewing the book of Hebrews, and the author leaves a strong charge for his audience.

So the next half hour on Focal Point, Pastor Mike Fabarez provides motivation for us to be strong and willing to sacrifice for the truth. Let's join Pastor Mike for today's powerful message titled Realities instead of Rituals.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: In Hebrews chapter 13 verses 8 through 16, he gives us the book in a microcosm. He says, I just got to remind you this is all important stuff. After some stern and harsh warnings in the book, he says you've got to make sure you do not leave this place of biblical orthodoxy, sound doctrine. Don't let anybody carry you away into something else.

He says, listen guys, it's good for your hearts, middle of verse 9, to be strengthened by grace and not by ceremonial foods, which by the way don't even work. They're of no value to those that eat them. They really don't strengthen your heart. They might strengthen your body, but they're not helpful in the real issues that God is concerned about.

Verse 10, then he speaks figuratively of an altar. We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat. It's not a physical altar; it's figurative, it's symbolic of a relationship with Christ, and it's a kind of altar that they don't even understand. They don't connect with.

He gets back to what we've already covered at length, the Day of Atonement. He talks in verse 11 about the high priest who carries the blood of the animals into the most holy place, the inner sanctum, the Holy of Holies where the Ark of the Covenant is. They sprinkle this blood in there as a sin offering.

That happens once a year, Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur. But the bodies are burned outside the camp. That's how we know it's the Day of Atonement. It's the one sacrifice where you didn't sacrifice it there in the courtyard on the altar. You took the blood of the animal that was slain as a sacrifice, you brought it into the Holy of Holies, but you took the carcass of the animal outside the gate, and it's got to be burned outside the camp.

That's not the normal sacrifice; that's the Day of Atonement sacrifice. So Jesus, making a parallel now in verse 12, suffered outside the city gate to make the people holy through his own blood. It's kind of like those animals' carcasses that were taken outside and burned up in a very strange sacrifice.

Usually that barbecue, if you will, that religious barbecue was used to nourish the people. They ate the sacrifices. But not this one. This one was consumed wholly by God symbolically in the Old Covenant on the Day of Atonement. And so it was that Christ went outside the gate, and he was consumed, so to speak, wholly by God, but the people were made holy through his blood.

Now look at this figurative statement in verse 13. Let us then go to him outside the camp. Obviously symbolic; Christ is not waiting outside the city of Jerusalem, and we aren't taking pilgrimages there to find him. This is a figurative, symbolic statement about us going out there to him because people who were in the positions of power and influence in their day didn't care for this whole Christianity thing.

The way was not the way for them. So if you're going to go and hang with Christ and hold tightly to this immutable message of Jesus, you were going to have to bear some disgrace. Go outside, bearing the disgrace that he bore. If that irks you, verse 14, just remember, if you realize that holding to Christ is going to cost you something in terms of coolness in this world, just remember that this is not our world.

We're not really interested in this one, for here we don't have an enduring city. We're just passing through; we're aliens and strangers as Paul put it. But we're looking for the city that is to come. That has been a big theme in the book of Hebrews. Through Jesus, therefore, look at the symbolism here, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise.

You're being maligned because you're not sacrificing anymore, and the writer of Hebrews says, oh you are. You have a sacrifice. It's not physical and literal; you're not killing animals in a symbol or a ceremony before God. But you have a sacrifice of praise that you can continually give to God through Christ. It's the fruit of the lips that confess his name.

We talk about confession usually in relationship to First John 1:9, homologeo, to agree with God, to say what God would say. And you to stand with Christ, the immutable message, the New Covenant message of Christ. He says, that's your sacrifice. Don't be carried away by strange teaching.

Now after several, five very stern warnings throughout the book, he leaves this message resonating in their mind in the last chapter. Don't be carried away by false or strange teachings. It's good for our hearts to be strengthened by grace, not by ceremonial foods, which are of no value to those who eat them.

We have an altar from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to eat. The high priest carries the blood of the animals into the most holy place as a sin offering, but the bodies are burned outside the camp. And so Jesus also suffered outside the city gate to make his people holy through his own blood.

But you need to be strengthened by the message of grace in Christ, not ceremonial foods. I know people want you to go back to the ceremonial foods; that's not what it's all about. Note this, there's another vein to this whole thing that leads us down a path of heretical teaching, heresy, a choice to step off the path of the immutable teaching of Christ.

It involves the ceremonial foods and probably some other things that we've already looked at in the book and the book of Galatians was dealing with at length. That is this kind of comfort of the ceremonial forms. It's very amenable in New Testament teaching, and it's always something that is to be seen as a means to an end and not an end in itself.

Remember the parable of Christ in the Gospel of Luke? There was a guy who goes up to the temple mount to pray, a Pharisee. Pharisees are great on the forms. When it comes to being right with God, he answers it this way: Well, I fast twice a week, I tithe a tenth of what I have. What's he trusting in? What's he hoping there's power in? His participation in the forms.

Churches love to focus on that. The Bible says that's not it. As a matter of fact, even the ordained Old Covenant ceremonies and forms, look what he says at the bottom of verse 9: they're of no value to those that eat them. None. There's no power in the form.

Verses 15 and 16, if you've got those things right—okay, I'm not going to be chasing the latest theological fad, I'm not going to focus on forms, I'm going to talk about a purity of a spiritual connection with God and not rely on forms, and I'm not going to worry about fitting in—you can at that point say, well if I understand the theology of the New Testament of the book of Hebrews, I'll be okay.

Well, there's one more thing that will make it increasingly more difficult for you. That is the exhortation of verses 15 and 16. That is that you can't have sound biblical New Testament faith and not allow that faith to step up and step out. It will make you vulnerable.

A lot of people say, well I'm going to have good doctrine, and when all the discussion comes up at the Christmas table with all those Christians or whatever it is at work with my Christian friends, when all that comes up, I'll just be quiet. You can imagine that maybe I can avoid all the problems if I just maintain sound doctrine but I just shut up about it. I get it. I understand that temptation too.

But we're going to have to do the hard work of speaking and living this message. It's going to be a message that takes you down behavioral paths that everybody else isn't walking down, that takes you down verbal doctrinal discussions that no one else wants to have. You're going to have to stand up and say the things people don't want to say.

It starts with proclaiming Christ. Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise, the fruit of the lips that confess, that agree, that affirm his name. Just watch Larry King to see this just absolutely dismantle just about every pastor they put on the panel. Go to YouTube and watch the reruns.

All it is, there's some mystic weird air they pump into the Larry King set. You get the pastors there, and you ask them the hard questions. You talk about the exclusivity of Christ, Jesus Christ proclaiming and confessing him as the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through him. That's the rest of that verse, very clear New Testament doctrine.

Watch the pastors fold, boom, boom, boom, like dominoes. You've watched this? It is absolutely stunning. Here's how they skirt it: Well, you know, I'm not God, I'm not the salvation police, and who am I to judge, and I don't know. Well, are you trying to say that Jews aren't going to heaven, is that what you're trying to say? Well, I don't know really who am I, I'm not God.

Watch his jaw hit the table if you say: No, that is what I'm saying. Jesus Christ the way, the truth, the life, no one comes to the Father except through him. Jews that are trusting in something other than Christ, they're going to hell. I'm sorry. Buddhists, Muslims, whoever it is trusting in something other than Christ, yeah, they're going to hell.

If they are in some other religious system and they're trusting in Christ, they're not going to be in that system for long. They're going to step out and join the clan of people following Christ. But you've got to be willing to step out and step up. It begins by proclaiming God for who he is, praising him through Christ, and then living a life.

I love verse 16, the backdrop of it all. That's a lot of work, and we don't care for that. Letter D, here's part of the problem: we like to avoid hard work. We shy away from it. It's not our favorite thing. That's why we buy the Roomba to vacuum the floor for us. I got one of those for Christmas, greatest thing I've ever received.

Carline says, hey we need to sweep the floor. No problem, I got it. Hit the button, done. Hand me the remote. That's wonderful. We prefer the path of least resistance. We like to not put our neck out there and not work. I get it. I'm there too. But Christianity is a kind of faith that the faith is always going to lead to verbal and behavioral action. You're going to have to speak up and step out. Just how it works. We avoid hard work.

Number two, let's look at the passage one more time. But let's just look at it this way: that's the defensive posture. We've got to watch out for our quest and desire for innovation, focus on forms, our peer pressure, we want to fit in, and avoiding hard work. I get all that.

But number two, let's work hard. That's the point. To hold on to, number two, sound doctrine. That's the whole message of the book of Hebrews, and that, inverting verse number nine, is the message of this text. Don't be carried away by strange teaching. As Paul wrote to Titus, the people in your church, and especially you as leaders, need to hold on to sound doctrine. Work hard to do that.

So we may not like hard work, but it's going to take hard work. What we're going to need to do is look at this passage again and put in the safeguards against these propensities of our humanity. That would start with this. Number one, if the world's chasing innovation, if Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and everyone's trying to go into the new latest thing, then I need to, letter A, master, let's put it this way, here's a great word, inscripturated truth.

I need to master inscripturated truth. Truth is something that doesn't change. I don't need the faith of some new free-thinking 28-year-old who's writing articles in the coolest Christian magazines. I need the message of the New Testament. I need to understand this ancient text that is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.

When all the theories of the 21st century in ecclesiology and church growth movements or whatever else are all dead and gone, this word will endure forever. So I would like to master this. I want to sit around in symposiums and discuss this. I want to try and figure out what this has to say because it is enduring forever. It is God's Word. He has spoken. Let's master his Word. That would be good for not only your pastors to do, be good for you to do.

We need to master this. I'm tired of reading all the latest and coolest articles by all the emergent pastors. It's time for me to open up my Bible and study what this has to say. Let's master inscripturated truth. Sound doctrine isn't moving, it's not evolving, it's not emerging, it's not a moving target.

I quoted Titus 1:9, by the way: hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught. That I've got to hold on to sound doctrine. I love Philippians 3:1. Remember this statement? Finally, brothers, he says, it's no trouble for me to write the same things to you again. It's a safeguard for you.

I know a lot of people, oh I'm tired of my grandpa's old message. I get it. But it's the only message that saves. It's the only truth that God has spoken, and we need to master it and discover the depth of it, the breadth of it, the height of it, the length of it, which is not looking to new ideas from people that ponder their navel all day. It comes from digging back into the Word of God.

I read an article in the paper about somebody who presented as a churchgoing Christian person. Said the most outlandish things. If the paper is accurate in quoting this person, my head spun around. I thought: how can you be a churchgoing person, let alone a redeemed person, and say those kinds of nonsensical things?

Immediately, not only did I have a sense of frustration about this person's spiritual disciplines in this book, but I had to blame the pastors too. Either you're sleeping through it, listening to your iPod, text messaging, you're doing something other than absorbing the teaching, or your teachers are bad. Because that kind of nonsense and false doctrine should never come out of your mouth.

And yet you're someone that claims to be right in the center of evangelical Christianity. Ephesians chapter four says you've been given pastors and teachers to equip you, to prepare you for good deeds, for ministry, the work of ministry, so that you will not be infants tossed here and there by every wind of doctrine. Need to find a good church that teaches the Bible, you need to be there every week, you need to be good Bereans and study the Scripture.

We need to master inscripturated truths. You've told us that before. That's the point. It's no trouble for me to repeat it, but it's a safeguard for you. Wash your hands, kid, right? That's what I'm telling my kids all the time. Wash your hands. Same old story. Tell us something new, Dad. No, this works.

Verses 9, second half through 12: ceremonial foods aren't where it's at. If we're going to avoid the focus and assigning power to forms, letter B, then whatever we do in the Christian life, we need to always, letter B, engage our brains. Got to engage our brains. You can't go through a Lord's Supper, you can't get baptized, you can't sing a Christian song in church without engaging your brain.

Because if you don't engage your brain and you think I went to church, I sang songs, I sat through sermons, if you don't engage your mind, you'll start to think the value is in the form, and the value is not in the form. The form is a means to an end, and you've got to engage your brain. It reminds me of John 4 when the lady at the well was saying: what about, is it that mountain, that's what us Samaritans say, you guys say over there in Jerusalem's where you've got to worship, where should we worship?

And Jesus said, well the forms are passing away. The time is coming and now is when real worshippers will worship me in spirit and in truth. It ain't about a mountain, and it's not about a particular form of worship, a particular style of music, a particular whatever the evangelical forms are of our day. Whatever it is that you do, you need to engage your brain.

Paul was addressing an aberrant teaching in Corinth, the twisting of the gift of languages, and he said: you guys, if I'm going to pray with my spirit, I'll also pray with my mind. If I'm going to sing with my spirit, I'm also going to sing with my mind. I can't let my mind be unfruitful. Don't do anything in the Christian life where your brain lays dormant. God didn't design it for that. You will inevitably assign power to forms.

And I might add, just in terms of my particular choices for ministry leadership, it'd be good to be somewhat of an iconoclast. It would be good for you to say: if the form isn't necessary, I should be careful in using it, and if I do use it, I should use it sparingly. People today, they're in love with their forms, and forms we've got to be careful. Maybe you can track with that, maybe you're not tracking with it, that's probably my fault.

But we're moving on to point C. If we've got to go and bear the disgrace, I wouldn't know how to respond to that if it weren't for verse 14, which says, listen, here's how you bear the disgrace: here we don't have an enduring city, we're looking for the city that is to come. Letter C, you've got to cherish our future vindication.

The only way I'm going to be able to be a dork in the modern Christian world is to recognize it ain't about this life, it's about the next one. I've already decided that about fitting in with the world; now I've got to decide that about fitting in with the Christian world. Because I'm probably not going to fit in there either. No one's asking me to write articles for Christianity Today or Leadership magazine.

Because if we're going to go back to the Word, they're going to yawn their way through that and say, been there, done that. What you need to recognize is that our stand on the immutable message of New Testament doctrine is something that you've got to ride through the bumps of that by saying, it's all about the future.

When every knee bows and every tongue confesses that Jesus Christ is Lord, and I'm going to live with that value, and I need to regularly cherish our future vindication. It's coming. Everything else that people are peddling that is not the centrality of Christ is useless.

As the hymn of our grandfathers put it—remember that great hymn? It says: Our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness, which is not even popular anymore in Christian periodicals. I dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus' name. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.

I know it's cool to be out there on the beach, but it ain't going to last. All other ground is sinking sand. Verses 15 and 16, we've got to get to work. We've got to stand up, we've got to step out, we've got to speak up. Letter D, make sure your faith works. Let's not settle for some dead orthodoxy or some private sound doctrine.

I don't want to be pejorative, I'm not trying to be a pain in the neck, I'm not trying to be the odd man, I'm not cherishing being the dork, but I want to stand up and speak out on the historic faith once for all delivered to the saints. Faith without works, as James said, is dead. I don't want to live with dead orthodoxy.

You know, I have a lot of people lately, and again, you know I'm not creating the topics for each week's sermons, you know that? I'm moving through the message of Hebrews. If you think I'm totally adding stuff to it that's not there or I'm off base, then great. I don't know what to tell you. You need a guy who's going to be faithful to the text then.

But if you're recognizing that what I'm saying is coming from the text, you need to recognize that I'm not out there trying to come up with things to say to cause problems in your life. I don't want to cause problems in your life. I don't want to cause problems in my life. I just want to be faithful to what the Word says.

A lot of people think, well he's on a kick about bashing everybody else. I'm not. Boy, trust me, we could make a sermon like this a wonderful name-calling session for an hour. I didn't do that. Not into that. Not interested in that. I'm not trying to pooh-pooh anything that God doesn't pooh-pooh. How's that for a great quotable line? I don't want to.

But if God says there's strange teaching out there and don't be carried away by it, that's all I want to repeat to you. I don't want to say anything more than what the Scripture is saying, and I want to apply it to our context. The 21st century is full of groups that do not tolerate sound doctrine anymore. Wanting to have their ears tickled, they gather around themselves all kinds of teachers that say what their itching ears want to hear.

I just want to say I don't want to do that. I don't want you to do it. I don't want to bear it gladly. I want to be able to say now we're going to have to stand up for sound doctrine. Because the truth of Scripture doesn't change. Christ is immutable ontologically and doctrinally. He doesn't change. Let's pray.

God, help us through this. In a day where the ultimate value politically, sociologically, philosophically is this message of let's affirm everybody's belief in everything and everyone has equal value and everybody's opinion is equally correct, I pray that we'd be willing to say that while we want to love people, we want to love them enough to say what is true.

The Scripture is your mind in print that makes it clear that Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father except through him. And that our eternal destiny hangs on our doctrine. God, the difference between your blessing and full-blown apostasy is whether or not we're willing to keep our doctrine clean and pure and accurate. Help us in this regard, I pray, knowing and recognizing that all other ground is sinking sand. Not being arrogant, not being mean, but being accurate and speaking the truth in love. Amen.