Focal Point

Announcer: Today on Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: We cannot avoid temptation in the world, but we can minimize it. And the question is, to the extent that I can control it, what am I doing to steer clear of temptation, particularly the sin that so easily entangles me? I am going to choose carefully my environment.

Announcer: That, by the way, is what Proverbs chapter 4 is all about. Make level paths for your feet.

Announcer: Welcome to Focal Point.

You know, whether it is getting in shape or getting through college, it is important we adopt a strategy for achieving our goals. Better yet, it is a good idea to get some help along the way.

Today on Focal Point, Pastor Mike Fabarez encourages us to keep our eyes fixed on a godly ambition and develop a strategy for overcoming temptation. And right now, Pastor Mike has got a special new booklet that compliments this study that we would like to send any first-time listener called "Battling Sin."

Just reach out online at focalpointradio.org. Well, now here is Pastor Mike.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: In Hebrews chapter 12, and if you have not opened up your Bibles yet to that passage, please do, as we try and understand what it is to fight this battle against temptation.

Take a look at this text. Therefore, and you might want to look back up at verse 11. The therefore comes on the heels of all this motivation that we could one day produce this harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by the discipline of God.

It says, after all of that, here is what you need to do. Here comes the imperatives, two of them. One in verse 12 and one in verse 13. He says, strengthen your feeble arms and your weak knees. Strengthen them.

Verse 13. And secondly, he says, make level paths for your feet. That is a parallelism to verse 12. That is the weak knees, the legs that are not really walking this path as they ought, let alone running this race with perseverance, as we saw in the first part of the chapter. He says, your legs are not working right. You are stumbling. You are not running as you should. He says, you do not want that to be disabled.

Rather, would you not rather have God heal that? And those are the two options. But let us look at the imperatives. Verse 12 says we need to strengthen your feeble arms and your weak knees. And that makes sense, right? And if I am going to be able to ward off some kind of physical restraint, I need to be physically strong. And the same thing is true here.

If you are going to, in your spiritual life, say no to sin that keeps enslaving you to draw back to that same failure again and again, you are going to need to be spiritually strong. And that is the analogy. You are not going to get entangled, you have to be strong. How do you do that? Well, the passage does not tell us, but the book has talked a lot about it.

Letter A, simply this. If you are going to get strong, here is what you need. You need more spiritual food. Just to keep in the analogy here. You are going to be spiritually strong, you have got to have spiritual food. You cannot do it without it. Not going to happen. You have got to get into this book yourself.

You are willing to move systematically through it, just like we do on Sundays. You ought to be doing on your own, moving systematically through the Bible. If you want to change that pattern to recurring sin, it is going to take a new relationship to God's word.

And you need more spiritual food if you are going to be spiritually strong. Here in Hebrews chapter 5 and 6, look across the page at the beginning of chapter 5. There is another element we learned about spiritual strength in the book of Hebrews, and it came from the pattern of Jesus's life. Look at verse 7 in Hebrews chapter 5.

It says, during the days of Jesus's life on earth, he offered up, what is the word? Prayers. Prayers and petitions, what kind of prayers? With loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. We have already seen in this series that if we are going to conquer sin, it is going to take the second basic biblical ingredient. And that is that our prayer life has to be happening.

Okay? Number two on your outline, you not only need more spiritual food and better quality of spiritual food. Secondly, you need more times of focused prayer. Jesus himself was dependent on this to face his trials. What kind of prayers? Well, look at it again, petitions, loud cries, and tears.

That is a different kind of praying than most of us are used to. You want to conquer this recurring pattern of sin in your life? It is going to take a deeper relationship with God's word, and it is going to take more fervent and focused prayer.

You want to get spiritually strong, you need more spiritual food. You need better food. You need more focused prayer. Thirdly, look at Hebrews chapter 10. I know we could list five or six, but these are like the top three in the book of Hebrews. Look at verse 23. Remember this?

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess. That is a great statement about being strong, standing up, not compromising, holding on to this Christian commitment that we have, for he who is promised is faithful.

And, he says, you want to do that, here is a good way to do it. A little conjunction to tie these things together. Let us consider, what does it say, how we may spur one another on to love and good deeds. You are going to do this as a team effort. Let us just put it down this way. You and I, we need more time with strong friends.

If we are going to be strong, we need some strong friends around us. That is Paul's perspective in the book of Romans, for instance. Romans 15 verse number 1. What a great passage to remind us what we need. We need we need some strong friends, especially if we have points in our Christian life that are weak.

Those weaknesses are exploited. They we get entangled in recurring sin. Here is what we need. Romans 15:1. We who are strong ought to bear the failings of the weak. Let us stop right there. If there is failings of weakness, right? The strong in the church should come alongside and help those.

Now, there are not people that are consistently perfectly strong and those that are consistently perfectly weak. But in your Christian life, wherever you are at, wherever that point of repeated failure is, that sin that so easily entangles you, there are people, I trust, in the church, in your fellowship that have strength in that area where you are weak.

And the Bible says that those people can be called into your life if you let them and they know what your weakness is, and they can come in and be strength to you. Which, by the way, is counterintuitive for the way churches work today. And I think it is hilarious and I do not quite understand it, but church, the real trend today is to get everybody together in a small group that have the same exact failure in the same area of their Christian life, right?

I do not get that, right? You know, we all struggle with that too. Me too. Well, that is why I am in that group. And if you have a different sin, go down the hall, that group is down there. And I am thinking, wait, I do not get it, right? I do not want to put noodles around my knee if I have blown my knee out. I want a brace with some strong parts there, right? I want to get some things around the weakness of my life that are strong.

So whatever the sin is in your life, okay? You need to be vulnerable enough to let down your veneer and have in some settings where the chairs are not facing the front, but where the chairs are facing each other in some context in the church, and be able to say, you know what, here is my problem, finding a Christian that says, you know what, I used to have that problem, and God has got me through that. I am strong in that area, maybe I can help you. That is what the text is saying. We who are strong ought to bear the failings of the weak.

And not please ourselves, and that is helpful certainly if you turn this truth around. Because if you really start to think about being the leg brace in someone's life, you are thinking, ugh, that is a hard thing to do, and you are right, it is hard.

But if you have conquered a particular area of your life, in our context, then you ought to be willing to get involved with someone that has not. The Bible says, look at the next verse, each of us should please his neighbor for his own good to build him up. That is the word edification, by the way.

To make him stronger, for even Christ did not please himself. And that is an an important principle. And I should say, are you not only willing to let your veneer down in an area of weakness and have another brother or sister in Christ help you through that, but are you willing to be that for someone else? The church has got to work both ways. That Ecclesiastes 4 passage, by the way, is great, right?

Two are better than one, because when one falls down, the other can help him up. And a cord of three strands is not easily broken. The defensive nature of that simple observation by Solomon is so helpful in our spiritual quest. I mean, if I had two or three people in the area of weakness helping me, in that one area, there is there is there is help there. There is strength there.

So we need to get strong. The text says, strengthen your feeble arms and your weak knees. The analogy is, your spiritual life has to be able to fight off the entanglement of the sin that is always cropping up in your life.

But there is something else. Go back to verse 13 of Hebrews chapter 12. There is not only an internal examination of I need to be stronger here, there is something now that flips in verse 13 to being external. Now he does not say, oh yeah, and work on, you know, your diet or something. He says, and let us talk about where you are walking now. He says, make level paths for your feet.

That is a quotation of what passage? Do you see it in the margin? Proverbs chapter 4, verse number 26. That is the context of that. And it is one that is often seen in the book of Proverbs as an image of the Christian life, the ability to follow Christ in a world filled with all kinds of temptations and stumbling blocks and making sure that the environment that we are in is as conducive as possible to me walking and not falling.

And the focus now is on an external thing. To the extent that I can control it, I want to be able to make level paths for my feet. I do not want to be choosing to walk down some gravelly laden path or logs, you know, across the path. I want to be able to to have as smooth a path as possible.

Now, in this world, the path will never be perfectly smooth, right? We cannot avoid temptation in the world, but we can minimize it by choosing to get from point A to point B. Let us just call point A Monday, and point B Saturday. Okay? To get from here to here and touch all the bases, the way I am supposed to. I have got to go to work, you know, we have got to shop, we have got to cook, we have got to deal with all the things of life.

Well, to get from point A to point B, there are lots of different paths to get there and still touch the bases. And the question is, to the extent that I can control it, what am I doing to, number two, steer clear, number two on your outline, of temptation? Because that is what it means to make a level path.

I want to pick a path between here and the end of the week that is as free from the temptations of sin, particularly the sin that so easily entangles me. I want to do the best I can to walk a path between Monday and Saturday that avoids as many of those bumps as possible.

So, I am going to choose carefully my environment. That, by the way, is what Proverbs chapter 4 is all about. I mean, and since he quotes it, I think we have license now to camp there for a little while and turn in your Bibles to the Old Testament book of Proverbs. And I want you to see this quotation in context, and maybe glean some principles for us about how to create a life, in a weekly environment, in a sinful world that steers as clear from temptation as possible.

Hebrews chapter 12 takes us to Proverbs chapter 4. Right? Make level paths for your feet. If you look real quick at verse 26, there it is. Make level paths for your feet. Let us get the context though. See what we can glean about this instruction from the book of Proverbs. Let us start in verse 10. Starts this way. The thought starts in verse 10. Listen, my son.

Accept what I say, and the years of your life will be many. This will be a good thing if you do what I am telling you to do. I will guide you in the way of wisdom. There is the analogy to path, and I will lead you along straight paths. That will be better than crooked ones, and ones that are fraught with all kinds of problems.

When you walk, your steps will not be hampered, and when you run, you will not stumble. And that is the analogy and the imagery we are looking at, right? We do not want to run down paths that are going to be, you know, obstacles for my sanctification. So, how do I do it? Several things.

Here is the first one. First instruction, if I am going to walk on a path and not be hampered, run and not stumble, I need to, verse 13, hold on to instruction, do not let it go, guard it well, for it is your life. That is a dramatic and poetic way of saying, whatever he is talking about, it is critical. It is the difference between life and death.

It is the difference between the toxicity and the destructive nature of sin or the reward of righteousness, which he already referred to in verse number 10 and 11. So, I am saying, let us turn that just to keep the motif here. Let us keep the verb the same. Let us put it this way, as some kind of sub point, just understanding the context of Proverbs chapter 4. We need to.

Now, this this is going to be distinctive. You are going to think it is redundant, but it is not. We need to steer our minds, right? Back to biblical truth. Now, point number one, letter A, was that we get that instruction. We need to ingest this this spiritual meaty food.

But look here at this text. It says, hold on to it once you get it. And that is different, to guard it, right? To make sure that my mind is going back to it. Because Jesus, when he was met with temptation in Matthew 4, as we saw earlier in this series, think about that one, right? He had to ingest the book of Deuteronomy, if he was going to recall the book of Deuteronomy when he was hit with temptation.

His mind was not far from recalling and enlisting and employing the truth that he studied. So that is the distinction here. Yeah, if we are going to be strong, we need to ingest spiritual food. But here, if we are going to talk about making level paths, in my daily life, as I am out there, I need to make sure my mind keeps coming back to biblical truth.

But how can we do that? I mean, there are all kinds of ways in taking my morning Bible study and bringing that into my life during the day and having my mind not far from the truth and the instruction of God's word. All kinds of reminders, all kinds of creative ways to do that. But if I am going to win temptation, part of it is taking into the path of my life, see, the the kinds of of guarding of that biblical instruction. Hold on to it. Secondly,

Verse 14. Do not set foot on the path of the wicked or walk in the way of evil men. Whatever that sinful environment is, I need to try to avoid it. I cannot avoid every one of them. As Paul said, I would have to leave the world to live in a perfectly righteous place. But I can avoid the path in many situations.

There is a lot of things that I do not have to read. There is a lot of things I do not have to listen to. There is a lot of places I do not have to go. I can choose to avoid those because I do not want that area, that sinful environment to be accosting me when I am there. I do not want that. I want to, according to this, not travel on it, verse 15. Turn from it and go on your way. Go a different way.

Because people that are in those environments, and you know what I am talking about, verse 16, they cannot sleep until they do evil. They are robbed of slumber until they make someone fall. I mean, it is filled with people trying to egg us on to do the wrong things. Let us put it this way, if you are taking some sub notes here, letter B. We need to steer clear of sinful environments, right? If we are going to steer clear of of of temptation, we have got to steer clear of the places where temptation is highest.

And you and I know exactly what we are talking about as it relates to whatever your recurring sin problem is, right? You cannot do that. And I know, oh, here we go, sidebar. I know what people are going to going to think. Oh, you know what, Mike?

I know what that is all that is that whole kind of fundamentalist separatist movement and they are really weird and they button their top button and they, you know, they they are separate from the world and those are the fundies, those are the legalist. There is another one employed to to bash this this position. Can I say this to you?

I do not care what they call you. I do not care what your libertine friends want to say to slander your decision to obey this text. But I would much rather be called names by my libertine Christian friends than to sacrifice my sanctification by trying to show that I am not a separatist, right? That I am not out here trying to avoid temptation and I do not vacation there and I do not watch that and I do not listen to that stuff.

Call me whatever you want, right? I do not want to be in an environment that is going to try to take my mind and pull me back to things that are going to make me stumble. I do not want to do that. So I will willingly separate myself from things that in and of themselves may not be wrong.

But it is an environment that is wrong for me. See? And that is just I think that is just wise living. Because I would much rather not be stumbled in those environments. Call me weak, fine, call me weak. You can be a libertine. But those things may may lead you to sin. Are you tracking with any of that? Because some people go, ooh, you know, it is come on, we are living in the 21st century, you know.

Yeah, fine, fine. But there are things that we willingly forsake, areas, arenas, vacation spots, magazines, television programs, all kinds of things we say, I am not going to be there. And and call me weird if you want. But I know that in those settings, I am more prone to be tempted than in other settings. So I am just not I am not going to have it.

Okay, now, we are not going to build a fortress in the mountains and start a monastery. Cannot do that. You and I are called to be salt and light. So we have to penetrate the world. We have to live in the real world, right? If you are up at men's retreat last weekend, we we have to we have to interface with a sinful world to reach a sinful world.

But we are not going to, when we have an opportunity and a choice to choose paths from Monday to Saturday, we are not going to choose paths that are going to put us in harm's way. We are just not going to do it. At least we should not.

But, you know what, if you avoid the wrong path, look at verse 18, as long as we are here. What a great great verse. The path of the righteous, are you still in Proverbs 4? The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.

Okay, I know we are not going to be perfectly righteous till we meet Christ face to face. But do not you want the path to get brighter and brighter and brighter? Do not you want your life to reflect more the glory of Christ? Is that not what Paul said, reflecting his glory on one level and then next year reflecting it on another level? Well, part of it is avoiding the environment of sin.

And I think it is important to do that. Okay, we have got two. Let us go to three. Let us go to letter B here, verse 23. Above all else, he says, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.

Now, verse number 13 talked about me taking my mind and directing it back to biblical instruction. Verse verse number 23 now, 10 verses later, says just guard your your your mind. That is what your heart is in a Jewish mindset, right? That the analogy is the the the seat of my thinking. That is my heart from a Jewish context.

And and and it says here, guard it. That is a defensive posture. In other words, let us put it this way, I need to steer clear of of tempting thoughts. I need to steer clear of tempting thoughts. If I am going to steer clear of tempting environments and sinful environments, I certainly want to steer clear of tempting thoughts.

Because thoughts always precede action, right? That is why Jesus made such a big deal. If you do not want to be an adulterer, do not look at women lustfully. Because you know what, the thought always precedes the action. And he says, the problem starts in your mind.

And if you do not want to be some kind of of crass Orange County materialist, then stop flipping through those magazines of stuff that you are never going to buy, that would never promote your family or your life in the in the direction of godliness, and you would never buy it anyway. You understand what I am saying?

If you are not going to buy it, if that is not what you want to pursue, don't fill your mind with those things. Watch your heart. He says, that is the wellspring of life. Everything comes from there. Guard your heart. Steer clear of tempting thoughts.

Look at verse 24. Let us get the fourth one here. Put away perversity from your mouth and keep corrupt talk from your lips. Now we move from your mind to your mouth. And the Bible here says that if we are going to walk on a level path that is not filled with temptation, then we are going to have to steer clear of sinful words.

Because the the the gap between thoughts and action is words. Rarely are you going to fall into a pattern of repeated sin that has not in some way or another been articulated with your mouth. And the connection between your mouth and your heart is a close connection in scripture. Jesus said, the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart. It is coming out of your heart.

The fantasies of your mind are going to leak out of your mouth, and they will probably precede the actions. So let us guard our mouths. Take a look at 25. Let your eyes look straight ahead and fix your gaze directly before you.

Now again, I understand that the analogy is an analogy of walking on a path and keeping your eyes on the path. But because scripture so often ties our sin to our eyeballs, Jesus did it, John did it in 1st John. He talks about the lust of the eyes, then I think it would be appropriate when the analogy is is here to make that a a point of its own. We need to steer our eyeballs away from temptation.

And that is what I mean. Let us get back to the magazine example. Let us just not watch things, look at things, put images in our eyeballs that that are going to perhaps inflame a temptation in the sin that so easily entangles us. I put it this way, and it is a principle we see throughout the scripture. We need to just to keep the analogy going and the verb going. We need to start steering.

Let us put it this way, on a daily basis, before the day begins. We need to start steering before the day begins. If you and I are going to avoid temptation, why don't we start after our time in the word and our time in prayer? Why don't we start with a commitment that says, today I am not going to fall to temptation?

Now I know what immediately our current 21st century culture of Christians says. Well, I do not want to make that commitment because I may break it. I I do not understand that thinking either. I just do not get it.

I I I do not want people at weddings saying, well, we do not want the whole vow thing, because, you know, it may not work out, right? I mean, at weddings, let us say, I do, okay? Even knowing that in a sinful world, who knows? Maybe at some point you won't. But you should start with I do, and then by God's grace, hopefully you will. See?

And I think with the whole commitment to living godly lives, let us start every morning that way. God, this afternoon and tonight when the temptation comes, by mid-morning when the temptation is there to backbite, to gossip, to lust, or whatever it is that is the recurring sin in my life, I am making a commitment this morning, God.

That that I am not going to let my foot swerve. I am going to stay on the path. I am not going to deviate to the right or to the left. Make that commitment, let it come out of your mouth. Well, I might have to apologize to God by the end of the day. Fine. You are more likely to walk on a path of righteousness if you start with a resolve to do it.

Start steering before your day begins.

Announcer: It is much easier to avoid temptation than to battle it out. Perhaps you can think of a few specific ways you can steer clear of sin this week. You are listening to Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez. Our series in Hebrews chapter 12 is called Our Fight With Sin.

And you can revisit any portion of it at focalpointradio.org, or take it with you wherever you go on the free Focal Point app. And by the way, if there is a Bible question or topic you have been wrestling with and want to put straight to Pastor Mike, the lines are open Tuesday through Thursday, 1:00 PM Central, on Ask Pastor Mike Live.

Cannot catch it live? Well, every episode is sitting on the Mike Fabarez YouTube channel, ready whenever you are. For more details, go to askpastormike.live.

Here is a tough question. Does your faith actually show up anywhere outside of church? This month, Pastor Mike thinks it is worth handing you a book that pushes on exactly that, called Making a Difference: Impacting Culture and Society as a Christian by R.C. Sproul.

Sproul is not asking you to pick a side in a culture war. He is making the case, step by step, that ordinary faithfulness in ordinary places carries its own weight. We will send you this impactful book by R.C. Sproul when you make a generous gift to Focal Point today.

Call 888-320-5885, or give online at focalpointradio.org. You can also mail your gift to Focal Point, Post Office Box 2850, Laguna Hills, California, 92654.

You know, every day this broadcast airs, somebody is covering the cost of the studio, the airtime, the people making it happen behind the scenes. Focal Point partners are the reason that Bill gets paid every month, quietly, without you ever seeing it.

Join with a recurring gift and you are making sure the next person who lands on this frequency hears something worth staying for. Get started at focalpointradio.org, or call us at 888-320-5885.

Well, that is all for today. I am Dave Drewy, inviting you back for the conclusion of our message from Pastor Mike Fabarez, called Breaking Recurring Patterns. That is Wednesday on Focal Point.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Hey there, Pastor Mike here. We are almost out of time, but before we go, I wanted 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. Cannot wait to hear from you.

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