Focal Point

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

Pastor Mike Fabarez: The letter of Hebrews from a human perspective was written for the edification and the building up of these people. What have you done to communicate to your brothers and sisters in Christ to build them up lately? Seek a greater dependence on the people of God, and they will depend on you. And guess what? It'll be reciprocal, and you will start to depend on them for the kind of mutual encouragement that should be taking place in the body of Christ.

Dave Deway: The answers to the problems of mankind don't change. While people strive in vain to find solutions, the hope for our times lies on our nightstands or in our bookshelves. The hope is the word of God. Today on Focal Point, Pastor Mike Fabarez shows our need for God's word and our need for God's people. There's important application in today's study you won't want to miss as Pastor Mike sums up the book of Hebrews. It's the conclusion of our series titled Countercultural Christians. Well, here's Pastor Mike.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: There is this sense that we are dependent upon God to do anything good for God. That sound like John 15? I am the vine, you're the branches, my father's the vine dresser. And if you can if you want to do anything, you're going to have to abide in me, remain in me, hold tightly to me. Number one on your outline, let's just confess that reality. Number one, you and I, we need to confess our dependence on God's power. Everything we've learned in Hebrews cannot be done without God. He has to make this happen in you.

The prayer of the writer of Hebrews is, I hope God works out great things in your life. Oh, and by the way, I I I hope he prepares you with everything good to do his will. We need him for the equipping process. We need him to work in us what is pleasing. We're going to depend on his spirit to do that. We need him, if you want to go keep going backwards in this passage in verse number 20, to remember that our peace with God is established upon the work of God. But there's more. Here's the postscript.

Here's the personal word about the letter itself. Brothers, the writer of Hebrews says, verse 22, are you with me? Hebrews 13:22. He says, I urge you to bear with my word of exhortation. That's an important New Testament word, to bear with. As a matter of fact, write in the margin, if you would, 2 Timothy chapter 4 verse 3. 2 Timothy chapter 4 verse 3. Here's what it said. A time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. See? But instead to suit their own desires, they'll gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

Okay? Here's the phrase. A time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Same exact Greek word. The point is that the opposite of what the writer of Hebrews is looking for is described for us in 2 Timothy chapter 4. If the world says, I ain't putting up with this. I'm not interested in focusing on this. I don't want to depend on this book. I want to kind of reason my way through this and not really see this as the arbiter of truth in my life. If they won't put up with this, that's the opposite.

Here's the same exact Greek word stated in a positive. I urge you. That's that's strong, to bear with it. To bear with this word of exhortation. That's not a self-effacing false humility. Well, I hope you can find some time. That is a statement of put up with it. And while that stated is very hard Greek word to translate because we don't know how to translate it and make it sound positive. I put it this way, number two on your outline. We need to demonstrate a dependence on God 's word. You need to embrace it. You should depend on it.

You should defer to it. It should be the thing that people can see in your life. You're looking to this book, not just Oprah's latest wisdom or your own intuitive sense or or something that you read in some psychology textbook in in college. This book should be the guide for my life. That's what this word put up with means. I want to deal rightly with God. And to deal rightly with God, the only way I'll know how to do that is by finding out what he expects, what he wants, and what he's revealed. And that means I got to get to know this thing.

I want to let this book make decisions in my life. That's the concept. Let me give you a great expression of this in Psalm 25. David wanted to live his life in accordance with God's word. And often he didn't. Now, he didn't have the indwelling Holy Spirit, but when he recognized his desire to live for God, it always brought him back to a quest to understand the covenant of God. Take a look at this, Psalm 25. See his heart. His heart is to to depend and give deference to the path of God in his everyday life.

Psalm 25. David says, To you, Yahweh, I lift up my soul. You, verse two, says, I trust in you, oh my God. Don't let me be put to shame, nor let my enemies triumph over me. No one whose hope that is in you, no one whose hope is in that is in you ever is put to shame ultimately. But they will be put to shame who are treacherous without reason or without excuse. Verse 4. Now, if I want to trust in God, I want to live different than the rest of the world. I want to follow his path.

I'm going to need this to be answered. Verse number 4. Show me your ways, oh Yahweh. Teach me your paths. Guide me in your truth and teach me. See? That's going to have to be the cry of your heart. I need to be governed by the mind of God. I need to say, what what does the scripture say? How does that govern my values? How does that help set priorities in my life? Then he says this, my hope is in you. This is important phrase. All day long. Now, if his hope is in God all day long and he knows the necessary means to an end is his word, his revealed propositional statements, he's got to be thinking of that all day long.

He's got to be deferring to the Bible all day long. He's got to be reminded of God's values, principles, dictates, and precepts. He's got to go there with his mind. Show me your ways. Teach me your paths. Guide me in in your truth. You're my God and Savior. My hope is in you all day long. Remember, oh Yahweh, your great mercy and love for they are of old. How would he know that? The only way he'd know that is is the revealed word of God, the the historic redemptive purpose of God spelled out in scripture.

Then he says this. He he says verse 7, remember not the sins of my youth or my rebellious ways. According to your love, remember me for you are good, oh oh Lord. Good and upright is Yahweh. Therefore, here it is again. He instructs sinners in his ways. Got to give us direction. He guides the humble in what is right and he teaches them his way. All the ways of Yahweh are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant. I got to go back to the book. For your sake, for your name's sake, oh Yahweh, forgive my iniquity though it is great.

Who then is the man who fears Yahweh? He will instruct that man, that person in the way chosen for him. It's not what we want. That's what sanctification is all about. And you can't depend on God unless you're focusing on a dependence, a daily deference to his word. He will instruct him in the way chosen for him, verse 13. He will spend his days in prosperity. Ultimately, it's a good thing though there are times of training and difficulty. And his descendants will inherit the land. Yahweh, verse 14, confides in those who fear him. He makes his covenant known to them.

My eyes are ever on Yahweh for only he will release my feet from the snare. And it's in the self-help seminar, but you do understand that if we walk in the path laid out for us in the book of Hebrews, it will be a good thing for us and it'll be glorifying to God. And the only way you're going to do that is to keep this book and the other 65 in our brains ever before us, which leads us to a real practical discussion. And that is you can never defer to this in your mind unless you get it into your life.

You have to ingest the word of God. You have to And 1 hour a week by the blabbing, you know, caffeine laced preacher isn't going to cut it. You understand that, right? It's going you going to need more than me. It isn't just one time a week you get your fill. Your gas tank is is far too small for my little throwing the the the the the religious octane that you every Sunday. You need a daily filling of the direction and revelation of God, which means you have got to be a student of the book.

You have got to get this into your life. And you're going, oh oh, I hear all the time I he's always preaching the Bible about That's the point. There's no new way. Right? This is the old way. This is the way to do it. You got to you have to bear with the word of exhortation. So let's get practical. Are you in it? Really, are you in it? We I mean Wednesday, Tuesday, Friday. What what would your relationship to this book be? If you're going to think about it at 2 in the afternoon, you got to get it in your life probably at 6:30 in the morning.

You got to spend time in the book. Just skip an episode of America's Funniest Videos or whatever you're going to watch tonight and say, I'm going to my room for a minute. I need to catch up on my Bible reading. Get it into your brain. All it takes is three chapters a day basically. Three chapters a day and you will ingest the scripture at least at the 35,000 ft level. Now, a lot of people say they're Christians and they've never even read the whole book. I got a I got a bit of a problem with that.

Read the book. And if you said, oh, I did that last year. Do it again. Be good to read it a couple more times. Read it. Let's read the whole book over and over again. My wife and I finished our probably eight the year in a row reading this from cover to cover, 30,000 ft just a few chapters a day, making sure that we read this book. And you know what? Every time we read it, we keep getting an establishment of our minds in the book. And if you say, great, I 'm doing that already.

I hate to lay another layer on you, but here it comes. You need to read a few chapters a day. Here it comes. And you need to study a few verses a day. We need the 35,000 ft view. We got to have it, but then you got to take a few verses and grapple with it up close. You have to do that. Just to fly around up here, you'll never really know the landscape of God's mind unless you get into it. You need to take some consecutive verses and study them every single day. Got to do it.

You have to do it. If you want to take one day off a week, okay, but that'll be the worst day of your week. You've got to spend time in the book. Do it. And well, I I don't know I don't know where to start. Your new covenant Christian, right? Start in the new covenant. Okay? And well, I don't know, just start at the beginning, go to the end. Some suggestions. Say your life is peachy and great. Study 1 Thessalonians. That'd be a good one. Start there and just take one or two verses a day.

Three if you're feeling ambitious. Get a notebook out and sit there and ingest as much of that as you can. Then fly at the 35,000 ft level and read your your three chapters a day. Okay? And the next day, take the next two or three consecutive verses and ingest those as best you can. Study those. Okay, if your life is going really bad, go to 1 Peter and and study that just a few verses a day. If your life is really confused, go to the book of James and start there and work through it. You should be working through about a book a year as you work through the whole entire Bible every year.

And you should be taking just a verse or two a day. If you don't know where to start and well, I'm not confused and and I I'm not happy and I 'm not sad. Great. How about the Gospels? Pick a Gospel. Any name you like. Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Which one did you name one of your kids? Just pick that and just start moving through it, couple verses a day. And if you will get that up close picture and roll your sleeves up, get a notebook out, do the then always now, the tan method, if if if for nothing else, do that.

Just get a notebook out and say, what's going on then? What are the eternal principles that are always true? And then what difference does it make now? If you did that with three verses a day and you read three chapters a day, you'd get the big view, the up close view, and you would give God now the opportunity to bring your mind in sync with his word at 2:00 on Thursday afternoons. But that means you got to get into this every day. Ingest more of the Bible once a week. Yack, yack, yack from pastor man will not cut it.

Guarantee you. You got to get in it yourself. Demonstrate a dependence on God's word. We got to have it. Thirdly, he ends with this, verses 23 through 25. He says, I want you to know that our brother Timothy has been released. He was in jail apparently, but we assume it's the same Timothy. He's now out. If he arrives soon, apparently he's going to come to wherever the writer is. We assume Italy, maybe not. He says, I'm going to come with him to see you. He's going to go on the trip and minister to the people he wrote this letter to.

Hey, greet all the leaders. Greet them all and all of God's people. Those from Italy, they send greetings to you. They send their greetings. And hey, grace be with all of you. We move from a focus on God to a focus on his word and now we get a focus on his people. And the great thing about this description and and list of proper nouns and pronouns is is that there's always and it seems to be the pattern in the scripture, always this focus at the end of these epistles on the fact that there's an interdependence in God's people.

They're always sitting there teaming together. There's no independence here. They are corporately dependent on their shepherd. They are corporately dependent on the written word and they're corporately dependent on one another. Number three on your outline, just state it that way. You and I like the writers of the book books of the Bible. We need to demonstrate or well, how did they put it? Seek a greater dependence on God's people. And you and I need that in a culture that's moving the opposite way. I know people can disappoint you. I know when you let them in, you feel vulnerable.

I know that sometimes they burn you. I know sometimes it's inconvenient, but you've got to do this the way the Bible says. And that is the action and and and description and example of letting people in and doing this together. We got to connect Take a let's just use the writer of Hebrews as an example. Build a few quick subpoints here real quick. Number one, he would prefer obviously to team up with Timothy to do ministry. Is that not clear there? He wants Timothy to go with him to minister to them. Okay? Let's put this down as letter A.

You need to be thinking about that. You want to serve God. We talked a lot about sanctification growing in our faith. Think about doing this good work, doing the the good things, his will. Think about doing that together. Who are you going to partner with? You want to live for God in this world? Can you lock arms with a couple of other Christians and say, I'm going to partner up for ministry? That's so important. We often want to do this alone. Partner with people. I want to do things for God this year, but often we it's I and me and my.

How about we and our and us? How about putting in our perspective of I want to I want to pull a couple of people into my circle and and and and move forward into making a difference for for God in this world with other people. At least follow the example here of trying to partner for ministry with people. Secondly, let's think of the book itself. The writer of Hebrews is writing a lengthy, thought out, cogent, logical letter. Number two, let's think of it and it was all for the good of the people. Number two or letter B.

Let us communicate more with the people of God. And let us communicate more with their well-being in mind. The letter of Hebrews from a human perspective was written for the edification and the building up of these people. What have you done to communicate to your brothers and sisters in Christ to build them up lately? I mean we call people when we need some. We we write people when there's some issue that needs to be dealt with, some logistical thing that needs to be scheduled. How often do you sit down and communicate with the people in the body of Christ for no other reason than to encourage them and and help their spiritual well-being?

Make that something that you say, I got to do that more. Seek a greater dependence on the people of God and they will depend on you. And guess what? It will be reciprocal, and you will start to depend on them for the kind of mutual encouragement that should be taking place in the body of Christ. How often do we communicate with concern for the sake of the good and well-being of those around us? Let's just start doing that. Partnering up for ministry, communicating with concern. Okay? Uh how about the next verse? Verse number 24. Greet all your leaders and we can supply the verb again.

Greet all God's people. And speaking of greetings, all those from here are sending their greetings to you. Greet, greet, greet, greet, greet. How many of the New Testament epistles in this way? A lot of them. Some of them take it a step further. I mean greeting is obviously a positive word. It's a word of affirming. It's a word of a of endearment. It's a word of of of brotherly affection and and and and connectedness. Okay? But five of the New Testament letters end with this. Greet one another. And then it tells us how with a holy with with a kiss.

Right? Now, that's a little much. It's over a little over the top. But but see see what the Bible is doing? And I know you could say, well, that's their cultural expression and all of that. I realize that, but in the scripture, and God knew this would be recorded for all time, he I I I got to believe he's pressing the paradigm of our our expression of endearment. Let's put it that way if you're taking notes. Okay, we want to partner for ministry. You want to communicate with concern. Thirdly, or letter C, let's have more expressions of endearment.

Okay? Maybe there are people that you need to express a little bit more of the brotherly affection that the Bible is calling for. Even the word Philadelphia where we started the chapter in chapter 13 brings with it that sense of of brotherly affection, brotherly touch, brotherly connectedness, brotherly expressions of we're in this together. Express it. Do the best you can to let it get out. People assume a lot. Right? I just know that he knows I'm there for him and you know, let's do less assuming and more expressing. Expressions of endearment. Lastly, verse number 25.

The connectness that we're all in this together ends with this phrase. In grace be with you all. Grace be with you all. The great thing about how this phrase plays out in context is we've already kind of established the dependence on God, the dependence on his word. Now, we're talking about interdependence and he brings us back to the focal point, the cohesion of our of our fellowship. Grace be, he says, with you all. The thing that's different about the church is that we're not just a club trying to get it. It's not a social network where we're just trying to get together and see, you know, how we can kind of like each other and accept each other.

Our focus is singular as a church. Right? I know that the the secondary focus is on people, but it's all related to the first and primary focus. The primary focus is we're in this for God. It's all about God. It's all about relating to him. It's all about his grace. It's all about the connection we have with God. And that is as as you kind of maybe seen it illustrated. It's like a triangle. Our goal is to draw near to God. It's to experience the grace of God. It's to know the grace of God. It's to express the grace of God.

And that tends to bring people together. People that would normally go together. And that's kind of helpful too. You ever think about that? There are times I've had times just recently where I'm sitting around with people having fantastic times of fellowship and I'm looking at them going, if it weren't for Christ, I would have nothing in common with you. Right? But because we share a common love for the God of the universe and we're seeking with all of our heart to experience the grace of God, to love him with our heart, soul, strength, and mind, we have good fellowship.

It connects us together and it draws his people together. We need to I don't know how did I put it, focus on our spiritual bond. A if A if you're taking notes, partnering for ministry, communicating with concern, more expressions of endearment, and lastly, more focus on our spiritual bond. You should be able to pick any Christian in here and go to lunch with that Christian and have something in common that you both can talk about for hours on end because you're all trying to develop a walk with Christ. You're all seeking to grow in your faith because you're all participants.

If you're regenerate people in the grace of God and you all have that to discuss, it is the glue that binds us together. The world's full of a focus on individualism. Our world is getting worse, not better as it relates to autonomy and people trying to go it alone. Don't go it alone. We are as God's people just just forever dependent on God himself. We are also practically dependent on this book and we got to make it the passion of our life. And lastly, and it's comforting to know together we are dependent on one another, interdependent on each other to do the first two points, to depend more on God and depend more on his word.

We're in this thing together. And I thought to myself, you know, I hope as I thought about the the closing theme here that there's a sense of of unity, that that that there's this feeling of you know, it really we're together. We're we're we're rallied around a common goal to love God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. We we have a common loyalty to Christ. There's an increasing clarity about our our our commonality in doctrine. There there's that there's a commitment and a and and an articulation of our of our common commitment to the values.

And And you know, we're walking into the future. We're leaving Hebrews behind and and we're moving into into a new phase, but we're we're doing it together and we're doing it more unified than we've ever been and we're looking forward to the good days that God has ahead. I trust that Hebrews will linger and resonate in your mind as a profitable profitable book. Let's pray together. God, been good for us, I think, in many ways and I pray as we linger on this theme of togetherness, commitment to one another, dependence upon you, that as we've tried to ingest the book of Hebrews that we are we're better for it.

We're more in tune with your spirit. We're more in step with him. We are reflecting I trust and hope more accurately the the values and and priorities of Christ. God, we need each other in this and and though there's lots of risk involved in opening up and seeing ourselves as as part of a team, part of a family and not just a individual person with a personal savior in our in our lives. It's it's vulnerable. It's hard. I pray God we'd work through all that. Let us take a risk for you in in in expressing and living and valuing and and confessing our dependence on one another.

As I pray God that we would we would have an increasing sense of of unity, commitment, commonality in Christ. Purify our hearts and our doctrine. Purify our minds and our thinking. Purify our values and our priorities, God, as we step into the future. Use the the residual application of this of this book to do great things in and through us for your glory, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Dave Deway: You're listening to Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez and the end of a series called Countercultural Christians. Remember, you can always revisit these messages by going to focalpointradio.org or take it wherever you go on the free focal point app. And if a questions been sitting with you, we invite you to bring it straight to Pastor Mike. The lines are open Tuesday through Thursday at 1:00 p.m. Central on Ask Pastor Mike Live. Find everything at askpastormike.live. In a recent research says that over a half of self-identified Christians don't strongly believe the Bible is even accurate. And nearly half of churchgoing adults say there's no such thing as moral absolutes anymore.

Maybe you've noticed it yourself, a child or grandchild who doesn't want to hear from an outdated book or a coworker who simply calls himself spiritual, not religious. Well, that's exactly why Pastor Mike wrote his brand new book, The Bible, a book like no other. He takes us through the archaeology, the history, and the fulfilled prophecy that builds the unshakable case for why the Bible truly is the word of God. You won't need a seminary degree to follow it. And once you see how these threads fit together, it's hard to look at scripture the same way again.

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And for first time listeners, Pastor Mike also has a brand new booklet called Fighting for Peace. Reach out at focalpointradio.org and we'll send you a free copy. Well, I'm Dave Deway. Join us tomorrow when Pastor Mike begins a brand new series about peace in the church. That's Wednesday on Focal Point.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Hey there, Pastor Mike here. We're almost out of time, but before we go, I want 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. Can't wait to hear from you.

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