Focal Point

Dave Drewry: Welcome to Focal Point. I am Dave Drewry and this is Ask Pastor Mike Live, where we bring you some of the sharpest exchanges from Pastor Mike Fabarez's weekly call-in broadcast. Today's lineup covers a lot of ground. First up, a listener wrestling with what to do about childhood friends who aren't walking the same direction she is.

Stay close, pull back, or something in between? Then a question about whether crossing a border illegally can ever be justified as a biblical act of compassion. Pastor Mike doesn't sidestep any of it. Let's get started.

Alexis: Hi, Pastor Mike. I just have a quick question. I have a couple of friends that have been childhood friends. Sometimes I try to keep my distance because they are not living the same kind of lifestyle that I am. I wouldn't say they're living a bad lifestyle. They just have different priorities.

I got out of a relationship recently and I've been wanting to take them to church, but I just don't think they'd want to go. For outside-of-church life and recreational activities, they tend to lean more toward parties, alcohol, and stuff. I just don't like that. Since they're childhood friends, it's hard to know if I should drop them or try to help them turn around. I don't know if it would corrupt my morals, or should I try to help them out?

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Here's what's going to happen in every Christian life. We're going to come to faith in Christ and put our trust in Jesus. We're going to repent of our sins and then we're going to be called to take up a cross and follow Christ. We're going to have a lot of people around us from our childhood, maybe from the current life at work, who have no interest in that. As a matter of fact, what they do is contrary to what Christ says, and it's going to affect our relationships. It just is going to.

As Luke chapter nine, verses 57 through 62 say, there's a problem if we just keep saying I just want to keep these things intact. We just can't. It doesn't mean we're not going to deal with our non-Christian friends with gentleness and respect, but we cannot have the same kind of relationship.

Let's put it this way. Let's say, Alexis, you got a job at Best Buy. You're working at Best Buy and the boss is there. He's a great boss and you're committed to serving in this store. You're going to do what he says. He's telling you to sweep this, do that, promote this, and deal with that display. You're doing all that and it's good and you're getting paid well. It's a good job.

You've got three or four guys that work there that you were friends with. You joined this team thinking they were your friends, but they have no interest in obeying the boss. None. Then you have a couple of other guys that work there that do want to obey the boss because they like their jobs, they respect their boss, and they know it's right. Who are you going to have to spend your time with if you're going to keep your job going in the direction it should go in?

It's going to be hard for you to be hanging out with your three friends that don't care about what the boss says. Sometimes they do it, sometimes they don't. They don't really respect him. They don't really see him as their boss. It's going to affect your relationship. That's why First Corinthians 15:33 says that bad company is going to ruin good morals. Eventually, your morality of saying I want to follow Christ is going to be affected if you try to keep the same kind of friendship you had with them.

I'm not saying you should cut them off. You said drop them, but I don't want you to drop them. I do want you to lean into what your job is now. The Bible says in Ephesians that your job is to let the light of Christ shine on them. You're going to call them to follow Christ like you have because you know heaven and hell are at stake.

They're either going to say they are interested and tell me more—and it could be a six-month process or a six-year process—but you're going to move them toward Christ. Or they're going to say they don't want anything to do with that. They'll tell you to shut up about that and say they don't want to talk about that, and they are going to push you away.

It's really going to become their choice as you lean into the most important thing in your life, and that is that you want them to follow Christ because heaven and hell are at stake. You want them to put their trust in the only solution to the sin problem they have. I would say don't drop them, be gentle and respectful, but know your relationship with them is going to have to change if you're going to be dead set on following Christ. They're not going to help in that regard.

If I keep the same relationship with them, it's not going to be good for my obedience and my sanctification. But I'm going to lean into it because my job now with non-Christians is to see what I can do to answer their questions about Christianity and to give an answer for the hope that is in me. I can help persuade them. I can say, "Awake, sleeper, arise from the dead, let Christ shine on you," to quote what Paul said to the Ephesians. That is critical.

Eventually, that is going to harsh them out on their way to their parties and they're going to say they don't really hang with Alexis anymore because he's always calling them to be a Jesus freak and they don't want that. Do it respectfully and kindly. Be willing to open the Bible with them and be willing to talk to them and answer their questions. It doesn't mean every single conversation, but it needs to come up because it means something to them and their eternity. I think that's going to sort this out. They're going to find their place to either lean in to learn more about Christianity or lean away because it keeps making them feel guilty about their life. Do you follow that, Alexis?

Alexis: Yeah, that sounds great, Pastor Mike. I agree with that wholeheartedly. I was thinking about doing that. I just needed the guidance to figure out the proper way to do it.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Just remember, the verb you used was so strong: drop them. Dropping them is not what I want. I don't want you to be rude, mean, or cut it off and say we're done. I just want you to let Christ shine through you with words and actions. Of course, you're not going to engage in the stuff they're engaging in if it's sinful. It's going to affect this. It might not happen in one conversation, but in time, they're going to say they're either in or out. They end up making that decision as you're faithful to be a good evangelist. Thanks for the call, Alexis. Call me back and let me know how that goes.

Let's talk to Chad. Chad, you're on the air with Pastor Mike.

Chad: Hi, Pastor Mike. Thanks for taking my call. This is a follow-up to my call yesterday. I kind of got into a debate with someone about the whole people crossing the border illegally. He says that it's okay to break the man-made law if it requires him to compromise his faith. He's quoting from Acts 5:29 to obey God rather than man.

He's going back to love your neighbor, and so basically let anybody come across our border illegally. How would you go about refuting him saying that he's going to obey God and love his neighbor rather than obey the civil law?

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Let me just say this, Chad. He's going to obey the law of love in his heart as long as other people are doing it. If I showed up with five illegals from Central America on his doorstep and said, "Here you go, I need you to let them live in your house and you feed them and take care of them," he's going to say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. I can't afford to do that."

At some point, you're going to have to say our government and our country—the sovereignty of our country—is going to require that we have borders and that you go through the door after you get vetted and you go through the process. If not, I can't claim that this is all about love and compassion because I find most of these people are never willing to do it themselves. They want someone else to do it. They want someone else's tax money to do it. They want somebody else's programs to do it.

I'm going to say you want compassion, but compassion is not lawlessness. To say the laws don't matter, I'd go to Romans 13. Clearly, they do. I'm supposed to do what the government says unless it's going to violate the Word of God. They're going to say it does because they want to be loving. But they don't. They want me and my tax dollars to pay for it as long as someone else deals with it. I just don't buy it. I haven't found anybody that's willing to really let their home be invaded. They just want their country to be invaded because someone else will deal with it.

Chad: I've asked that same question three times about how many refugees they will put up or if they leave their door unlocked tonight. He said his house doesn't equal the country. He won't answer that question.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: It's a logical extension. It's the microcosm. He puts locks on his door. He doesn't leave his car open and let people drive it whenever they want because that's the loving, compassionate thing to do. He doesn't go and take his Costco order and set it on the porch and let his neighbors take whatever they want. This is not how it works.

Here is what I would do, Chad. This is a good book. It's a big book, but it deals with the issues that end up in public policy and statecraft. They are not about following a party; it's about following biblical principles. That's Wayne Grudem's book. I think it's called Government According to the Bible or Government According to God.

It's helpful. I remember reading it and thinking this is what we need. We need to go back to what the Bible says. Is there such a thing as sovereign nations? Is that important? You go back to Babel and you can see why this is the case. I see the Mosaic law dealing with national sovereignty. I can see property rights. I can see ownership. I can see loaning and capital in the marketplace. These things are built into the principles that are taught in scripture.

They're going to lead me not to socialism or communism or the warmth of collectivism. It's going to lead to what we have in a capitalistic, merit-based system that has rules that cannot be disregarded. He's wrong on this. It's such a typical leftist talking point to always want someone else to deal with their morality.

He doesn't live that way. He can't live consistently that way because he believes in what he brings home in his paycheck. He complains about his taxes and everything else. He wants to keep what he makes. He wants to go to the store and purchase what he purchases and feed his family with it. That's not how he operates.

Even in the United States of America, as we've seen, housing prices are starting to go down under this administration with all that's gone on and closing the border. We're starting to at least see some things happen that have helped the country and the citizens of our country because we've said, just like every other country, we're not going to let just people walk across our border.

That is what every other country does. I can't move into Mexico tomorrow and start buying real estate and claim myself a citizen just because I come across the border. It's that way in almost every country of the world. Those like in Europe or in America that feel this weird sense of self-loathing compassion that we should just open our borders, they do it to their own demise. We see it. Europe is a couple of laps ahead of us on this and it's just not smart. It's not wise.

Call me back with what he says next. I'd love to hear what he says next. It just doesn't follow, nor is it lived consistently.

Lisa, you're on the air with Pastor Mike Fabarez. How can I help?

Lisa: Hi, thank you for listening to my question. What I was wondering about is how in the Bible it says in the end times there will be a great falling away from the church. I've noticed I got hurt at a church and then it just seemed like churches have these rules. I'm not talking about the Ten Commandments. I mean like women can't do this or that.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Give me an example of what you mean. Like women can't be pastors or women can't wear skirts?

Lisa: No. Like women couldn't lead a prayer group of junior high kids. I was put in place by the youth pastor, but then he left and the next youth pastor saw my group was growing. One year it went from three to 10 and the next year it was 20. Then they just announced they were going to have the kids meet with the high school kids instead. They didn't even tell me about it.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: I don't want to hijack the question with that, but I can get back to that later because there may be a good reason for that. Go ahead and say in the church now you find there are a lot of rules that aren't biblical, at least from your perspective, and then you're asking about this falling away. Tie it all together for me and let me understand your question.

Lisa: Okay, because I've met many people that say they believe in Jesus but they don't go to church anymore because they felt unhappy at the church. I was just wondering if maybe it's getting more man-led. When I first went to church 30 years ago, they were like you need to obey how God leads you and if it's not against the Ten Commandments, follow the Holy Spirit. Now it seems like it's follow me as I follow Christ. They are supposed to be the leader and I feel like it takes away from people depending on God and more like looking up to the pastor.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Okay, buckle up because I don't want to offend you in this, but I want you to know there is something very clear in scripture about the falling away. Second Timothy chapter three continues to talk about the downward decline of people who love themselves. They love their money. They're proud, arrogant, disobedient, ungrateful, and unholy. The general moral and ethical decline is predicted in Second Timothy 3.

In Second Timothy 4, it says the job of the preacher is to preach the word whether it's popular or not, in season or out of season, to reprove, rebuke, and exhort with patience and teaching. Because here's part of the falling away: the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but having itching ears, they'll want to accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.

The problem is what you stated as the summary of what you once heard: as long as you're not breaking the Ten Commandments, follow the Holy Spirit. I don't think that's wise advice. Most people don't want to look to the Word and they don't even really study the Word. They just listen to their feelings and blame it on the Holy Spirit and then they say I'm just going to do what I want.

That fits into the moral decline that is predicted in Second Timothy 3. When someone actually does preach the Word and says women shouldn't teach or exercise authority over a man, or just because you feel like it's the spirit leading you, it's not biblical and here's why, then they say they don't want that. They're going to find someone else that's going to say it right. For a lot of people, that means I'm not even going to go to church. I'm just going to be a Christian and run into people at Starbucks that say they are and call that church and we'll all just be fine without someone barking at us from the pulpit.

I'm going to say the job of the preacher is to spend all week in God's Word being able to teach it to every little thing, all the way down to whether Lisa should be leading a small group of junior high boys. That could be a good question to tackle and I might have some things to say about that. It's certainly on the edge of where I think people are getting as close to the line as possible because the Bible is super clear on male leadership in the church and particularly over men. I would say that starts when boys start growing hair under their armpits.

It becomes something that I think is going to harsh your mellow out because you're going to say I don't think they have the right to say that. Follow me as I follow Christ is exactly what scripture says. Not only the apostle Paul says it, but Paul says you need to take note of people that are doing what I've taught, what the Bible says, what the apostles have taught, and follow them.

Hebrews chapter 13 says you should do as your teachers are doing. That is a biblical concept. It's repeated six times in the New Testament. I'm just saying your statements and even the summary of what you learned earlier in church that you liked, I'm going to say is being corrected probably by teachers that are giving the Word of God to a culture of Christians where the cultural standard has declined. Therefore, they have itching ears and want to hear someone tell them what they want. What they want is to be able to do what they feel is right and they don't want someone quoting scripture at them and telling them not to because they don't agree with that because it doesn't agree with their feelings.

They're blaming their feelings on the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit wrote a book. It's called the Bible and the Bible's very clear. Your preacher should know it well and your teacher should know it well and your discipler should know it well and should be able to say whether the Bible speaks to this issue, even if it offends you and even if it's hard.

That's why the words reprove, rebuke, and exhort are all really hard words that really hurt people's feelings. It's going to hurt people's feelings and that's why they say give me under some teaching that doesn't tell me all this. A lot of them say I can't find any so I don't go to church anymore.

Look at those people, Lisa, and say that's really the church's problem and the church is falling away. These are the real Christians outside who say they're spiritual but not religious and they love Christ but they don't love the church. There's no such thing in scripture. The church is the pillar and foundation of the truth. There will always be a remnant church that is teaching the Word. I can tell whether it is or not just by looking at what they teach and what they state in their doctrinal statement.

Does this comport with scripture? If they have a high view of scripture, they're going to teach that scripture whether or not people feel good about it or not, and sometimes it's going to step on toes. I'm a little concerned. If I were you in my town, I'd say I want to get you here in our church. I want to get you discipled. I want to make sure that we are always deferring to what God's Word says.

Whatever feeling you have is not the Holy Spirit if it does not comport with the book that the Spirit wrote. He wrote it. It's clear. It's powerful. It's active. It's sharper than any two-edged sword. I would want to tackle every one of these things that bothers you to see whether or not it's what the Holy Spirit wants or not. You can't default to your emotions to tell me that you don't agree with that because the Holy Spirit is telling you different. The Holy Spirit cannot tell you different than the thing that He wrote in His Word.

That's what we need: good interpreters and teachers and expositors of God's Word. That's the key. I'm not trying to torch you on my answer, but I do think you should find a good Bible-teaching church. Let the sermons sting and let the sermons step on your toes and go home like a good Berean and make sure that's what the Bible says. Don't be motivated by your emotions, but motivated by your brain and what God's Spirit has equipped you with in your faculties of thinking and rationality to be able to look at God's Word and interpret it and be able to say my preacher's right, even if I don't feel good about it.

What matters is we need to do what God says. All of us have to take up our cross and deny ourselves and submit ourselves to Christ. That's what it means to follow Christ. He's not here physically, so we're following what He taught and what His apostles have put in writing. This is the work of God's Spirit. The Spirit has led them along to write these things so that the final result is a God-breathed text. It is what God has wanted inscribed on paper and that is the judge of your life.

If your feelings don't like it or my feelings don't like it—which happens to me like every other day when I study the Bible and don't like what I'm reading because it messes with my freedoms to do what I think I want to do—I've got to subject myself to it. I think that's the hard thing for all of us: to submit ourselves humbly under the hand of God, which is clearly given to us not through our emotions but through the text of scripture.

I've got to rightly understand that. Keep listening, Lisa, and I hope that as we continue to keep tackling whatever questions come our way, we can continue to learn to say we just want to be biblical Christians. God gave us a constitution and a set of instructions and we want to follow it. I think that's where we need to all be: humbly under the teaching of what God has taught us in His Word.

Dave Drewry: That's Pastor Mike Fabarez here on Focal Point. What you heard today was another edition of Ask Pastor Mike Live, drawn from Pastor Mike's weekly call-in broadcast where listeners bring their real questions and he works through them straight from scripture. If you'd like to put your own question to him, the show airs every Tuesday through Thursday at 1:00 PM Central and the lines are open. Find the call-in number and everything you need at askpastormike.live.

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You'll come away seeing Christ in passages you've read dozens of times and finding more there than you ever expected. Request Songs of the Son with your gift today at focalpointradio.org or by calling 888-320-5885. Well, I'm Dave Drewry, inviting you back for more from Pastor Mike Fabarez next time here on Focal Point.

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