Focal Point

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Today on Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez, you need to recognize when someone is blessing someone else in scripture, it is a three-party action. Because what we're really doing in a blessing is this: we are asking God to do good to others. By faith, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future. He was asking for God to do good there. Do you see where that's a prayer? May God do this to you.

Dave Drewry: When planning for the future, we typically think of the days and weeks that lie directly in front of us. But the Bible encourages us to take a wider view of what's to come, and not just 20 or 30 years from now, but generations after us. Today on Focal Point, Pastor Mike Fabarez continues a study about ambitious faith. The Old Testament patriarchs had a broad perspective of the future, and we can learn from their example. Pastor Mike calls this message "Living and Dying with Biblical Confidence."

Pastor Mike Fabarez: When I was in college, I realized that my eyesight was starting to go. Month after month, it just got worse and worse and it was more blurry. Finally, I got in a cab and I went to the Chicago College of Optometry, the only place I could afford. I told them my problem. I said, "Student doctor, my eyesight is blurry, but only far away. I can't see things far away, it's just really fuzzy and it's just getting worse."

He said, "Well, can you see things clearly up close?" And I said, "Yeah, up close it's fine, but far away it's all blurry." He said, "But you can see up close fine?" I said, "Yeah, up close is fine, but I can't see far away, it's blurry." And he said, "Well, that's okay. All the stuff that's far away is just far away. All that really matters is the stuff that's close to you. So, no problem."

Is that what he said? No. Little ambitious student doctor boy, he couldn't wait to throw some glasses on me. He wanted to say, "Your eyes are myopic and they need to be fixed, and we've got just the fix. Sit down." And off he went to fix it. Myopia is just unacceptable. We're going to fix that.

It's interesting how physically, biologically, all of us are not going to be tolerant of myopia. We're not going to be satisfied with it. But spiritually, it seems that we're okay with it. We never say it, but really in our hearts and in our minds when it comes to our lives, it seems like if it's far away, well, it's far away. But if it's close, then it matters.

As a matter of fact, churches seem to cater to this all the time. You listen to what people are preaching, it's always about the here and now and the me and mine and how can we fix tomorrow and today for you. And yet you open up the Bible and you see all of a sudden that God wants us to have a bigger view. He doesn't want us to be myopic spiritually.

As a matter of fact, God is really clear in the scriptures that He's never going to really use you in the body of Christ. You'll never maximize your efficiency and your work for the kingdom unless you have real, clear, unobstructed biblical eyesight. You've got to spiritually be able to see beyond the me and mine and the here and now. You'd better have a broad view and a long view. If you don't have that, God's saying, "Oh man, you've got a problem."

When God sees myopic spiritual eyesight, He says, "We've got to fix this." He knows the fix, but we're not real keen on fixing it. A lot of times we don't want it fixed. We've got to realize that it's critically important to have a broad and a long perspective. Thankfully in Hebrews chapter 11, you can see that if it's ambitious faith, it's clearly going to be something that is required for a broad and a long view.

It doesn't take any faith to be concerned about the here and now and the me and the mine. But it does take some faith to concern ourselves with things that aren't going to happen in this lifetime and things that aren't going to happen in my county or my state or my country. It really is going to require some faith.

In verse number 20, we see examples that though there are no verbal imperatives for us, there's certainly an instructive example, an example that seems to get even more challenging with each passing verse. Begin in verse 20 with me of Hebrews chapter 11. If you haven't opened up there yet, please pull it out and open to Hebrews chapter 11 and look at verse number 20 with me.

We looked at Abraham's life and Sarah's life, and we just introduced a little bit about Isaac who cooperated with that amazing scene on Mount Moriah. But now it says much later in Isaac's life, as a matter of fact, if you look at the Genesis account, it's at the end of Isaac's life, "By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau in regard to their future."

If you know a little bit about your Old Testament, you know those are his two sons. His sons, he's going to bless and he's thinking about their future. Now this is a future he won't live in because he's about to die. That's the context back in Genesis 28 and 29. It's this sense of, "I'm not going to be here, but I'm concerned about your life in the next generation."

Next verse, verse 21: "By faith Jacob," that was Isaac's son, "when he was dying, he blessed each of Joseph's sons." Now who was Joseph in relation to Jacob? His son. Now he's not blessing his sons, he's blessing his grandsons. Do you see the concentric circles getting a little wider here? Isaac blessing his two sons, but then you've got Jacob blessing his grandsons.

This was not just, "I hope you really prosper and have a really fun life." The concern was a spiritual one. In verse 21, he worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff. He was concerned about God and God's agenda. He looked at his grandsons and he was concerned with their life, a step removed from him, and he's concerned how that goes with them.

Still familial though, it's still family. Verse 22 gets even more broad, longer. It says, "By faith Joseph, when his end was near," at the end of his life, he spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. Not just his biological progeny, he was concerned with the spiritual descendants of Abraham, the whole community. His view was broad.

Then it says he was concerned not only about them leaving Egypt, but he gave instructions about his bones. He even wanted his remains to be a monument of God's faithfulness in bringing Israel out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. He was thinking down the road. "I know I won't experience it, I won't be there, but I'm concerned about those future generations that God would fulfill His plan for them."

That's some pretty broad thinking, big statements. He's concerned about life where he wasn't going to be the spectator, at least not the direct spectator. He's got a long view, a broad view. Before we look at this a little more closely, perhaps it would be helpful to get all these names sorted out. We're talking about fathers and sons and grandsons, so we need to know who these guys are. These are called the patriarchs, the spiritual fathers of the faith in the book of Genesis.

There are four if not five generations that become specifically important. Let this first box be easy. This is Abraham. We talked about him last week. Abraham wasn't alone in this. He had a wife. The covenant came to Abraham and his wife was going to bear a child. What was the wife's name, interactive church? Sarah. Jot that down. Abraham and Sarah, Abram and Sarai. That was their names. God changed their names and they were going to be the parents of this great nation.

It was going to start with a late-in-life birth that was so odd that it was funny. They were going to name this child laughter. They had a child, but they didn't call him laughter because it wasn't translated, it's just transliterated for us and that word, we know him by the name Isaac. Late in life, 75 years old, Abraham gets the promise of God. 25 years later, they have the son named Isaac.

As Isaac is growing up and Abraham is ready to die, he's concerned that he doesn't take a wife from the Canaanites where they were living as aliens and strangers in tents. He sends Eliezer, his servant, back to Mesopotamia to find him a wife. It was very important that he has a wife from his extended family. Off Eliezer goes and he meets this beautiful girl with a jar drawing water. He goes through the whole thing to find this wife and sure enough, she's responsive and her name is Rebekah. Isaac and Rebekah.

Rebekah and Isaac meet up, they get married, and they have twins, right? Twins is an interesting thing. We could list both their names, but what we're interested in is the child of promise, the one through whom the birthright would come. We know this guy because he's a little bit slimy, he's a mama's boy. There's not much about him we like when we meet him. His brother's more of a man's man. He's the hairy red-headed guy who's out in the field hunting and all of that.

When he's born, you remember this guy was grabbing the heel of his little twin brother as his hairy little red-headed brother pops out first. He's called the heel grabber because in many ways that's what he was doing, tripping people up. He was a bit of a deceiver, but that guy's name, heel grabber, what's that name? Jacob.

Jacob, tripping people, heel grabber, and he was a bit of a slimy guy, deceiving his parents and even swindling Esau out of his birthright for stew. The Hebrew word is really chili, because you really wouldn't trade your birthright for stew, maybe chili with cheese and onions. He gets the birthright and he gets the blessing because his scheming mother, as they're in the kitchen, they scheme to get the birthright while Esau, the man's man, is out hunting dinner for his dad.

Think of Jacob. He gets a wife. When he's growing up, he finds this gal. She's a bit of a tomboy but she's beautiful, and she's a shepherdess. She's out in the fields watching after these sheep. He really is enamored with this gal and he goes to her dad, Laban, and says, "I'd like to marry your daughter." He says, "Well, you're going to work for me first for seven years."

Then the deceiver gets deceived. Laban tricks him seven years into it and doesn't give him the daughter Rachel. Instead, he sneaks in with a lot of veils on, apparently, he sneaks in the older daughter, Leah. So that becomes wife number one. But his heart was really given to wife number two, for whom he finally has to work seven more years, although he lets him marry her in the seven-year period. Working for a father-in-law for 14 years, that's depressing anyway for most people. Bottom line is he gets his wife and her name is Rachel.

Beautiful Rachel comes on the scene. So we've got Abraham and Sarah, we've got Isaac and Rebekah, we've got Jacob and we've got Rachel. Rachel and Jacob have a big family. This is Brady Bunch times three. A lot of kids, it's crazy. But they have a favored child, a child that's so favored. Dad loves him very much, the favorite kid. Much like his dad, Isaac, had favored Esau, Jacob's got a son and he loves him so much that he gives him the fancy jacket, the colorful blazer.

The brothers don't like it. Not only was Dad favoring him, but God was favoring him with these dreams about how he would ascend and all his brothers would bow down to him. If God exalts you, obviously, as often happens, the brothers are jealous and envious, and so they go out to destroy him. You know the story of this guy, what's his name? Joseph. Joseph with the fun blazer.

He gets thrown in a hole, then they say, "Well no, let's sell him." They sell him and he ends up in Egypt. In Egypt, he picks up a wife, which is a daughter of a priest. If you've been hitting a thousand so far with Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob, Rachel, Joseph, this is the bonus question for 20 points: Joseph's wife. That's a hard one. Asenath. Oh yeah, that's why I don't remember her. Strange name. She doesn't belong. This is the Sesame Street, "which one doesn't belong?" She doesn't belong because she's not from Mesopotamia, she is an Egyptian, the daughter of a priest, the priest of On.

God in His providence pulls in this wife and between them, they have two sons that become very important in the biblical picture. Their two sons' names are important. The reason is because this will all make sense if you think about Jacob who had another name. The other name that God gave Jacob was Israel. One who struggles with God, wrestles with God.

Israel has children, the children of Israel. Jacob had 10 older brothers. This is the real bonus question around dinner tonight. Who were the 10 older brothers that started with the oldest? His name was Reuben, and then there was Simeon, then there was Levi, then there was Judah, then there was Dan, then there was Naphtali, then there was Gad, there was Asher, there was Issachar and Zebulun. All 10 of those guys.

Then Joseph comes along, and Joseph has a little brother by Rachel. Rachel and Jacob have a little brother, and Joseph's little brother, and his name is Benjamin. We know the oldest, Reuben, and the youngest, Benjamin. So that's good enough. Got them all. Now you say, "Oh, there's the 12 sons of Israel. Nice and neat." No, really, here's what happens. Joseph and Asenath have two sons that when Jacob, in the passage that we're referring to here in Hebrews 11, blesses, he doesn't bless the son, he blesses the two grandsons and says, "I favor you so much, your portion will be doubled in the Promised Land," which is what happens. "And you will have two shares and they will come by your sons."

Do you remember their names? One starts with an M and one starts with an E. There's your hint for five points. M is Manasseh and E becomes the name to represent all the northern tribes of Israel and that name is Ephraim. Very good. Well wait a minute, that doesn't add up. If you've got Reuben and Simeon and Levi and Judah and Dan and Naphtali, Asher, Gad, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, that's 11, Benjamin, 12, Manasseh, Ephraim, that's 14.

Remember, Joseph is replaced by Manasseh and Ephraim, double portion. So Joseph doesn't count. That's still 13. I thought there were 12 tribes. There are 12 allotments and 12 territories, but one of the brothers didn't get an allotment, or his descendants didn't, in the Promised Land. That was the tribe of Levi. Levi didn't get an allotment because they were the priests. That was the priestly tribe, and God would be their allotment, God would be their inheritance.

Don't get it wrong, it wasn't like they had no place to live. There were 48 cities allotted to the Levites in the Promised Land. Much like Paul said about New Testament ministers a lot of times, you own nothing but you own everything. If a Levite wanted a vacation home, everybody was going to throw them the keys. They had access to the kingdom, but they didn't own it. They weren't owners of property. But they had what they needed and they were favored amongst the tribes of Israel.

12 territories, 12 initial sons, two replace Joseph, Levi didn't get an allotment. That's why it all adds up to 12. You should memorize it at some point because when you get to the kingdom, all 12 names will be inscribed on the walls of Jerusalem, the New Jerusalem. But that's another sermon.

Did that help sort it out a little bit? If you're a Sunday school grad, that was a refresher course. If you weren't, that was new stuff. You can sort it all out and you can understand what's going on here. Our story talks about Isaac. Last week we talked about Abraham. Then there is Jacob and Joseph and Ephraim and Manasseh show up in verse number 21, although they're not named. You might want to put in the margin Joseph's sons, well those are two guys, Manasseh and Ephraim.

The passage is about blessing. Look at verse 20: "By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau." Look at verse 21: "By faith Jacob when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons," his grandsons. That word gets thrown around a lot even today in Christian circles. We talk about bless and blessing. In this passage, we see a use of it that's not the way we normally talk about it. So we need to sort it out. There are three distinct ways we use the word bless, and they all have a different definition.

The first one is from the bottom up. We speak vertically up to God and the Bible says we can bless God. I jotted down one reference for you: Genesis chapter 9 verse 26 where Noah, it says, blessed the Lord. That's one way we use the word. We bless God. Then there's the other direction, coming down the other way. That is that God, we often say in scripture and today, blesses us. Even at the beginning, Pastor Dale came out and asked for God to bless us today. You get a new baby in your family, you say, "That's a blessing from God." You get a new job or a new house, we're blessed by God. God is blessing us. We can bless God this way, God blesses us this way.

This is the passage that we're dealing with today where we're not talking about either one of those. This seems to be more of a horizontal direction. This is what our passage is about today, is about people blessing one another. Look at it, verse 20: "By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau." That's one person blessing another. "And by faith Jacob when he was dying, blessed each of Joseph's sons." To keep these distinct in your mind, let's give them a brief phrase definition.

When we bless God, what are we doing? When I say, "I bless you, Lord," what does that mean? Did He sneeze? What we mean is we are crediting God with good. If you think through that, all that is is worship. That's another word for worship. To credit God with good, to attribute Him with good, that is the essence of worship. It usually happens when we're being thankful. All of those concepts overlap. God does something good, we bless Him. When Noah had good come to his life, he blessed the Lord. That means, "God, You have done good, You are good." We are crediting God with some good, good that He's done. We're saying, "God, You're a good guy."

When God blesses us, is He crediting us with good? Is He telling us we're great? Is that what a blessing is? No, totally different. Here's the phrase we might want to jot down to define this: when God does good to us, and that's out of grace. Every good and perfect gift, James 1 says, comes down from above. It is a blessing of God. We say, "God, You gave us something good, You blessed us today." You've done something good. The word is positive, it's a concept of being positive.

What's this horizontal usage then? What are we talking about when we say one person blesses another? That one seems a bit odd. What you need to recognize is when someone is blessing someone else in scripture, and so it should be for us if ever we dare to do it, is not a two-way deal. It is a three-party action. Because what we're really doing in a blessing is this: we are asking God to do good to others.

I don't have power to do good to the next generation, particularly when I'm dead. I can't bless you. What I'm doing is I'm asking God, I'm beseeching God with a lot of optimistic faith. I'm asking Him to do good to you. That's why if you look carefully at examples from Isaac's life and Jacob's life, when we see them blessing someone, it usually starts with this: "And he blessed his sons saying, 'May God...'" Do you see where that's a prayer? May God do this to you. It seems very focused toward you, but really it's the assumption of, "I'm asking God to do this for you. I want God to bless you." And that is a three-way conversation.

Someone sneezes, we often say "God bless you," which is another sermon. But we should be asking God to bless someone, and probably not just when they sneeze. We should be saying, "I want God to do something good in your life."

Which one are we doing when someone asks you today at lunch to give the blessing? When someone is praying, you don't want to bless the food. That's not the way to ask. You don't say, "Would you bless the food?" Because the food has no hope. It's done. The food is gone. The food is going to be processed and digested and there's no future for the food. So don't bless the food and say, "God, may you please bless this food. I hope it has a wonderful future as it travels through my digestive tract."

No, what we're doing is we're saying, "God, I bless You for giving us something good." That's why if it's a good meal, "God, I want to bless You for this." In scripture, sometimes we mess that up because in the New Testament, the object is not clearly defined in some passages. For instance, it will say that he lifted his eyes up to heaven and he gave a blessing or he blessed, literally in Greek, "blessed." What we have to fill in is he's clearly blessing God. He's lifting his eyes up to heaven or lifting up this bread and blessing God and saying, "God, thank You for this food." That's what you're doing, you're thanking God for food.

You're not doing the horizontal usage before a meal. You're doing the vertical usage before a meal. When we're praying for someone with a prayerful reliance on God with optimism, it is a horizontal blessing.

Dave Drewry: Imagine having an impact on generations to come. We'll continue to explore that topic next time here on Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez. Today's message is titled "Living and Dying with Biblical Confidence." Remember, you can always revisit or share these daily lessons with someone you know by going to focalpointradio.org or by downloading the free Focal Point app.

This month's resource is a natural fit alongside what we've been covering in Hebrews, and it's called Songs of the Son by Daniel Stevens. The book zeroes in on nine psalms that are directly quoted in Hebrews. Walking through each one twice, first to unpack its original themes, then to reread it through the lens of how Hebrews interprets it. What emerges is a clear picture of how the Old Testament psalms were always pointing forward to Christ: His nature, His voice, His work on the cross. Ask for Songs of the Son when you send a gift to Focal Point today. Call our team at 888-320-5885 or give online at focalpointradio.org.

If you'd rather send your donation by mail, just write to us at Focal Point, Post Office Box 2850, Laguna Hills, California 92654. If this ministry has made an impact on your life, here's a tangible way to say so: become a Focal Point partner. Monthly giving is what keeps the wheels turning. It funds the broadcast, it underwrites the outreach, and it puts Pastor Mike's teaching in front of people who haven't heard it yet. One decision made once makes a difference every single month. Sign up at focalpointradio.org or by calling 888-320-5885.

First time contacting us? We'd like to put something in your hands right away: Pastor Mike's booklet, Do the Right Thing. It's a solid introduction to what this ministry is about and it pairs with our current study in Hebrews. Get your free copy by calling 888-320-5885 or go online to focalpointradio.org. I'm Dave Drewry, and we'll see you next time for part two of our lesson titled "Living and Dying with Biblical Confidence." That's Thursday on Focal Point with Mike Fabarez.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Hi, Pastor Mike here. God's word promises it'll never return void, so I wonder how is God's word moving in your heart right now? Drop us a line, let us know, we'd love to hear from you. We'd love to be praying for you here. Just go to focalpointradio.org. Then be sure to join us again tomorrow right here as we continue to explore the depths of scripture. We'll see you then.

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