Focal Point

Dave Deway: Today on Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: All of us have sent ones, and it is used in an non-technical sense in the New Testament. As someone who goes as a representative of Christ, not in some revelatory authoritative way, but as a minister, as the as some people poetically say, as the hands and feet of Christ. People are used that way. Anytime someone comes into your life and brings real comfort, they're an instrument of God's comfort. That's what the Bible would teach us. Well, today on Focal Point, Pastor Mike Fabarez launches a brand new study called When Life Beats You Up. And he starts in an unexpected place, not with a promise, but with a warning about what we tend to do the moment hard times actually hit.

Before we get started, if this is your first time with us, we'd love to send you Pastor Mike's latest booklet called Fighting for Peace free of charge. Just reach out at focalpointradio.org. Now here's Pastor Mike with his message, The Basis of Real Comfort. Well, have you acquired your weighted blanket yet? They're all the rage these days. The first time I saw it, I was standing in line at CVS and I see these boxes next to checkout and you know, 15 lbs and 20 lbs and 25 lbs and I did what I usually do when I see weights.

I turned away. And I realized that there were pictures of blankets on the boxes. I didn't understand this. I was like, well, blankets, weighted blankets, you know. I don't think I'm claustrophobic, but being pinned to my mattress all night is not my is not my idea of of comfort. It really isn't. And the only reason I I was thinking about weighted blankets this week is I was looking to see what the world has to offer when you're discouraged or down. You're feeling really bad. Well, I found one website at the top of the list that was get a weighted blanket.

And I thought, well, that's the problem. I'm feeling weighted down already when I'm depressed. I don't I don't need any more weight on me. Uh and and then I found other things. There was this one website that said what you need is what they were selling of course is a a human-sized pillow that you're just supposed to cling tightly to to make you feel better. Um one was a a service you could pay for where they would call your phone periodically throughout the day and some automated voice would tell you positive things like you got it man and go get it and you can do it.

And there was another one that was similar to that where you could you could pay a fee and they would they would sing you like lullabies and like nursery rhymes or something. I I was just that was interesting. I found one that was for crying therapy, not cryotherapy. That's different. Crying therapy where you just get with people and cry. Um probably my favorite the one was you could pay this company. You have to go to them, but they would bury you in the sand. I thought, well, that'll solve all my problems. And then I looked closely.

They don't bury your head. They just bury your body in the sand. I thought, oh, okay. You your problems will still be there when you dust yourself off and get out of your sand therapy. So all of that looking at what the world has to offer when you're not feeling good reminded me that this series at the beginning of 2 Corinthians is probably going to be more helpful than I even imagined because whatever the world's got to offer when you're down and discouraged is nothing compared to what God offers us in the first 11 verses of 2 Corinthians chapter 1.

Today I want to get started with the first three verses. That's all we'll get through, but in those first three verses, we've got a lot of the key to what is going to be expanded upon throughout this opening section and it's all for people that feel discouraged. And if you're not feeling discouraged today, just hang around, right? You you'll be discouraged eventually because everyone gets discouraged. And And there is a great problem that we are all vulnerable to in this sin-laden world is that we're going to we're going to feel bad. So even before we read the first three verses, can you look down to verse number eight in this passage and see that Paul himself, the author of this letter, confesses this.

2 Corinthians chapter 1 verse 8. We'll look at this in more detail in the future, but here's what it says. Here's what it says. For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength. Now this is the key. We despaired, right? We despaired of life itself. I mean, you know what that spells. That's a kind of a poetic way of saying we we didn't want to keep living. We didn't want to live anymore. And he goes on to explain it.

He says, indeed we felt verse 9 that we'd received the sense of death. They were not going to make it through all of this. Now Paul admits that he can feel that way just going about his duties and he's you know, he's a missionary of all things, working for you know, this Christian missions organization if you will, right? And And he's saying I I just felt like I wanted to die. I don't want to keep living. So if you come into this room and you say, well, you might have a little pat on the back, some spiritual pat on the back for my you know, my blues on a Monday morning.

This this goes all the way to the core of people saying I don't want to live anymore. And godly people can feel the way Moses felt that way, confessed it to God, take my life. Job felt that way, a very godly man, the most godly man in his generation, says I curse the day I was born. I wish I weren't even born. We see it in Jonah, maybe not the best chapter of his life there in Jonah chapter 4, but he says, God just kill me. We see that there are godly people including Paul himself feeling so disillusioned, so discouraged, so depressed that he feels like I don't even want to keep living.

Well, these first 11 chapters are going to help us sort all that out. Let's start with the first three verses. I'll read it for you, then we'll take it one verse at a time to see if we can get the elements that will be key for us dealing with this in a much better way than you buying a a human-shaped pillow to hang on to at night. Verse 1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother to the church of God that is in that is at Corinth with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia.

Now I gave you a map on this, not that we're going anywhere, but this is the setting of where we're at in this city. And as I often say, if you've heard me preach for a while, I I'll refer to Corinth sometimes as as the Orange County of the ancient world. And one of the reasons is where it is. And now I know it's hard to find on the map, but if you see that little map there, you you might recognize this as Southern Greece. Now in the Bible, we often talk about the two words Macedonia, the region, and Achaia, right?

That's like the Northern part that's off this map to the North. And then this is all here including the Peloponnese, that big island there that looks like an island. It it's all part of what we call in in the Bible Achaia. Now if you look closely, right? The landmass that comes down on Greece there and there's a little little bar of of of land. It's so small you can hardly see it. It's called an isthmus, just a little connecting piece of land. That's where you'll find, right smack in the middle of that, you'll find the city of Corinth.

Now you could think about how if everything is like this this this hourglass that goes through this one little piece of land. There's a lot of traffic that goes through Corinth. And because also to the North, you'll see the Gulf of Corinth and then underneath a a gulf that feeds into the Mediterranean, you have so much commerce coming through from the North and the South. This becomes a wealthy place. And it's a very well-established place by the time the apostle Paul goes there in Acts chapter 18 and we learn that he stays there for a while, has success in leading people to Christ by God's grace.

People become Christians including people that were leaders in the synagogue. And this becomes a thriving church. Now this is 2 Corinthians. Paul's already written what we have in our Bible says 1 Corinthians and even confesses in 1 Corinthians he's already written them before that. So there's several communiqués that he sends off to Corinth, a very important church and a very important city. And And he says, I'm writing to this church in the whole of Achaia, people all over the place that come and worship together under the leaders, the pastors at Corinth. And then he gives his traditional salutation in verse 2.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And then we start And if you're reading from the ESV or most translations, I'm going to start a new paragraph here and there's a heading here, God of all comfort. If you're reading from the ESV and whatever it might say in your English translation, it sets off the beginning of this theme. But I 'm going to connect these first two verses to where we're going in this paragraph. And it starts with verse 3 that gives us the heading. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and here's where the ESV gets this title, and the God of all comfort.

And then he's going to go on to explain more of the application of this. But we can get a lot of application from this if you can just read it with me a little bit anachronistically. And by that I mean that there's a lot that we 're going to read back into the first couple of verses just by way of applicability. In other words, there's a lot that's going on even in the first verse that helps us understand that it 's important to the whole theme of comfort. If God is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort and he's going to talk about I've even felt like despairing of life, but here's the thing.

God can comfort us in all of that. It's helpful even to know how the first verse helps us see the connection to some of the solution that he's going to give us in this book. So let's look at that first verse again that simply identifies himself as an apostle and with Timothy our brother. He says our brother because he's not his biological brother obviously. As a matter of fact, he calls him a son in the book that he writes to him, the letter he writes to Timothy. He calls him my son, my true son in the faith.

But all of this means that there there's a close relationship that Paul has with Timothy, a fellow minister among the churches. But Paul identifies himself as an apostle, an apostle of Christ. Now I just want to take those two words together because they're two words that share something in common. And if you've been around here, you often hear me say the difference between a translation and a transliteration. And here we have two words and you should know the second one clearly is a transliteration. The word Christ comes from the Greek word Christos. Christos means one who has been anointed.

And the anointed one from the Old Testament picture, if you had a priest or a prophet or a king, they would have the anointing oil poured on their head as a ceremony that begins their ministry. And Christ of course is the prophet, priest, and king. He's the ultimate anointed one. So we transliterate the word Christ and we use it all the time in English. We know what it means. The word apostle is also a transliterated word. Translates, if you will, the word apostolos, which obviously is just we're trying to anglicize in our English language what we are saying in the Greek language and we don't translate it.

And why that's important is because Jesus pulled all of his disciples together. Disciples means they were followers or learners of Christ. And he says, I'm going to designate 12 of you and I'm going to designate you apostles. Now it has a very specific technical definition. And it means when he calls them apostles, you're not just going to be my followers and you're not only just going to be teachers among the people, but you're going to carry my authority in the early church here as my representatives. And when you speak as an apostle, you're speaking with the authority of Christ.

You're my delegates, my envoys, my sent ones. And that by the way would be the translation we would use if we tried to translate the word instead of transliterate the word. We would say the sent one. I just want you to think about that. When Paul says sent one, he means something big. I'm sent with the authority of Christ here. And the reason I say that and might include him even in the way I explain that as part of the 12 is because I'm assuming in the new Jerusalem when it says the 12 names of the apostles of the Lamb are going to be inscribed on the foundation stones of the new Jerusalem.

I'm assuming Judas's name isn't going to be there. And in the book of of Acts, it seems like Paul takes this very important role as an authoritative spokesperson so much so that God's spirit uses him to write scripture that he's probably going to be, and this is just an opinion here, the 12th apostle. Just an idea. It's not Matthias in Acts chapter 1 that they rolled dice for. But the idea of us saying he's an apostle, clearly it means much more than what we're going to see in this first 11 verses, but it certainly involves the application of where he's going.

And that is that if we're going to talk about comfort, God uses people, the instrumentality of human beings as sent by the will of God to accomplish the goal. God is the the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. But guess what? He uses people in this regard. Let me prove this to you. Go to the seventh chapter of 2 Corinthians. 2 Corinthians chapter 7. Here's a good example of what it what I mean by this. And of course you've got to give me some latitude here that I know what apostle means in the largest sense, a sense I just explained it.

But I just want to show you one small slice of it is yeah, all of us have sent ones and it is used in an non-technical sense in the New Testament as someone who goes as a representative of Christ, not in some revelatory authoritative way, but as a minister, as the as some people poetically say, as the hands and feet of Christ. People are used that way. And as it relates to comfort, that's clearly in view in the first 11 chapters and throughout the Bible including this passage. Look at verse 5. 2 Corinthians chapter 7 verse 5.

Even when we came into Macedonia, which remember is what we would see as off the map to the North in Greece, our bodies had no rest. Okay, now that's part of the problem that some of us have when we feel down and dis- disillusioned and depressed and and despondent. It is you know, our bodies are not at rest. So we're we're kind of set up for feeling bad. And it says we were afflicted at every turn. And that's a an analogy about driving through life and we turn this way and that way and every way we go it's it's everything's going wrong as we might say.

Fighting without that's kind of a tough translation. Let's just say this, fighting on the outside of my life compared to this and fears on the inside of my life. And you know what that's like. It's like we got conflict here, conflict there and on the inside I'm just scared, I'm afraid. And then it says, but God who comforts the downcast. You want to know what downcast feels like? With no rest, afflicted, fighting, fears, all of that. But God is a God who comforts the downcast. He comforted us. Now here's the instrumentality by the coming of a human being.

Titus, by the coming of Titus. So God wants to comfort Paul. And here seven chapters later he says, yeah, God is the is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. And one of the things that happened in my life he says here in chapter 7 is God comforted me. I was downcast and he did it through the instrumentality of Titus. And it says not only by his coming verse 7, but by the comfort with which he was comforted by you, you human beings gathered at the church at Corinth. You encouraged Titus and Titus encouraged me and the news and I just read this for the sake of where we're going in the book of 2 Corinthians.

He says and and he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me. Okay, those three words attached to the object which is him. And he says, you longed for me, you mourned for me, and you had zeal for me. I wasn't there. You wanted to see me, you you mourned for me, you longed to have me there and you had zeal for me. You were you were a champion for me. Now you think, well, that's kind of just selfish and he's got a fragile you know, ego and maybe he's so overly concerned for his reputation.

That's not at all what's going on here. The apostle Paul knows there are threats to the church. There are people that are false apostles. They're claiming the authority of Christ. And you can imagine the problem in the first century when we don't have a written New Testament. And here are people saying here's what Christ thinks, here's what Christ says, and here's the real apostles as he says in chapter 12 verse 12. We'll get to that later. The idea of him proving that he wants to remind them I am telling you the truth. And therefore when they long for him, mourn for him, have zeal for him, he's knowing this, right?

You're accepting the truth. I 'm bringing you the truth and there are false teachers bringing you something false. So he's I'm very comforted. I 'm encouraged by the fact of the news that I got from Titus regarding your feelings about me. That's what this means. And he says and because of that I rejoice still more even though I was comforted just by the fact that I was in Macedonia and I was a mess. And here's what happens. Here comes God ministering to me, the God who comforts the depressed, the downcast. And he comforted me by the coming of Titus.

And you had comforted him. But all the comfort comes from God. So I just want to make this point. Paul is the sent one for much much more than comfort, but he's also coming to comfort the Corinthians. And anytime someone comes into your life and brings real comfort, they're an instrument of God's comfort. That's what the Bible would teach us. Matter of fact, it goes on. Go back to verse 1 of this book, goes back to the concepts of what it means to be a church. Look at these words. To the church of God that is at Corinth.

They now Paul and Timothy together as we often see leaders together working as a group, right? Which never a solo endeavor. And then it says to the church. Now church is translated, but sometimes you've been around church long enough, you've heard the Greek word for church which is only helpful to hear because it's a compound word. Ekklesia, right? Ekklesia is the word, but it's a compound word. Ek means out of and klesia means like it's it's the noun called to be called out. Now called out, a lot of people have made applications of this that go further than it should because to be called out is someone calling out for people to come together.

Just like we're here at a particular time, we meet together, have hundreds of people in this room because we have called this meeting. And the church comes together to assemble. That's why sometimes the word ekklesia is translated assembly because people are coming to assemble. And I just need to make that clear for all watching online. I hope you're traveling on business or something or sick in bed because church is not supposed to be done through the internet. It's not supposed to be done through podcasting. It's not supposed to be done on YouTube. Church is to be done as the church assembles.

That's what the word means, the assembly. We call a time we come together and it's all life on life. They didn't know the technology, the internet. Of course they didn't even have the option. And nor should we make it an option for us unless we're sick in bed and on our back or traveling for business or whatever we're doing when we have to use that. So we are assembling together as a church. It's like Paul even on his missionary journeys does not go alone. He goes with people like Timothy that he calls his brother because not because they're biologically related, but because they're tight, they're together.

It's always a group effort. Why? One reason is because you shouldn't isolate as Christians. And the more you isolate, right? The more you're vulnerable to the kind of downcast and the discouragement that Paul had from time to time when because of circumstances he was alone. And that's a problem. He says the church of God that is in Corinth with all the saints and just for completeness sake, let's make sure you former Roman Catholics don't don't mistake the word saint. Does that mean all especially those really super godly people in your church or if you grew up with a definition in the Roman Catholic church, well, some person that has been applied to be a saint and because of time and a recorded miracles and all the impact they've had and their holiness of life, we're now going to canonize them as saints and then we can make statues and put them on the you know, the dashboard of cabs in New York or whatever.

We say, well, we have a saint. That's not what a saint is. Saint by the way just for more etymology because it's fun on Sunday morning sometimes. Saint comes from the word sanctus. Sanctus is Latin, Latin word sanctus. And into Spanish we get words like san and santa. Santa Ana, San Juan, all those words, right? Represent the word holy and we get the English word saint from that. The word in Greek is different, hagios, and we translate hagios into Latin sanctus. And sanctus becomes a a root for all kinds of English words, but what does it mean?

It doesn't mean someone's been voted on in a meeting in in the Vatican. What a saint is is someone who's set apart. Set apart is the basic concept of the word. Even though saint in your mind may reference something holy, well, it has that meaning too. But the idea of a saint means that someone now has been adopted into the family of God and you're no longer out there in the world. You're now in relationship with God. You're one of his children to be set apart, to be a saint. Now you should start to be more saintly when you become a saint.

But every Christian you have some 13-year-old in the church that's that's going 2 miles on foot to to go and worship and hear the word of God taught at the church of Corinth. And there's still a saint because they're set apart because they put their trust in Jesus Christ and they've been adopted through the imputed righteousness of Christ to become part of the family of God. That's what a saint is. And I love the the the all-encompassing word all here, all the saints, right? All the people in the church and all who are in the whole of Achaia, no matter how far they're coming to hear the word of God here at the church of Corinth, all of them.

And again all of this is communal, all of this is connection, all of this is assembly, all of this is person in person, life on life as people like to say shoulder to shoulder, face to face kind of Christianity. And the problem is if you want to talk about discouragement, disillusionment, you want to talk about being downcast or discouraged or depressed, you're going to find this. You want to get there fast, just get yourself isolated and you'll get there pretty quick. And when bad times happen, then you're tempted to isolate. You cannot isolate just by the whole introduction in the first verse.

I'm reminded that you cannot shut Christians out of your life, so don't do it. Number one on your online, don't shut Christians out because as soon as you shut Christians out, not only you're vulnerable to discouragement, if you are discouraged or circumstances make you discouraged, you're going to spiral.

Dave Deway: You're listening to Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez and the opening message of a brand new study called When Life Beats You Up. You can revisit today's lesson or catch up on anything you've missed anytime at 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. There's a kind of comfort that comes from knowing the book you're leaning on can actually be trusted especially on the days life beats you up the hardest. That's exactly the confidence Pastor Mike wants to hand you in his brand new book The Bible, a book like no other.

He lays out the manuscript evidence, the history, and the case for why this book has survived everything thrown at it across the centuries, translated and retranslated and still standing. So when you open it on a hard day, you can trust every single word inside it. Reach out and give a donation today by calling 888-320-5885 or online at focalpointradio.org. And 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, someone who may be facing their own hard season right now wondering where to even begin.

Again just call 888-320-5885 or go online to focalpointradio.org or mail your gift to Focal Point Post Office Box 2850, Laguna Hills, California 92654. Pastor Mike just warned us about the danger of pulling away the moment life gets hard. Well, there's a giving version of that same instinct quietly stepping back assuming someone else will keep this ministry on the air. A standing gift as a Focal Point partner is the opposite of that. It's showing up every single month for the listener who needs this exact program on their hardest day. Sign up as a Focal Point partner today at focalpointradio.org or by calling 888-320-5885.

Well, I'm Dave Deway. Thanks for spending this time with us. Tomorrow real listeners bring their toughest questions straight to Pastor Mike in another edition of Ask Pastor Mike Live. That'll be right here on Focal Point.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Pastor Mike here. You know, it's an honor to be with you every day helping you explore the depths of scripture. But I want to be clear, no amount of Bible knowledge is ever going to save you. Be sure where you stand with God. Get in touch with us. We'd love to pray with you and for you. Visit us today at focalpointradio.org. We look forward to hearing from you.

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