Focal Point

Guest (Male): Today on Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Our redemption has been completely provided for. Believe it, trust in it, depend on it. Don't try to earn it. It is an offense to God for you to try to earn something that he is offering to you as a gift. You don't somehow contribute to this. You respond to it with repentance and faith, turning and trusting.

Guest (Male): Every once in a while, there will be a knock at our door from someone with a big smile and news about a recent revelation from God. The pamphlet they hand us claims to contain a new message, an upgrade to the gospel. But is there a newer version of God's word?

Today on Focal Point, Pastor Mike Fabarez takes a closer look at the message of Christ to see if it's truly complete. For the next half hour, we'll answer the question, should we be expecting a newer testament?

Pastor Mike Fabarez: The electronics industry released the PlayStation 3, and people went crazy for it, sleeping in front of Best Buy stores and Walmarts. They were anxious to get their hands on the latest and greatest gaming system. Cops were called in, and there were all kinds of people assaulting each other and fighting to get their hands on the new PS3.

Just so you know, we didn't get one at my house. My boys are still living in the antiquated world, the dark ages of the Nintendo GameCube, all of two years old at this point. They want the PS3, but I tell them when the PS5 comes out, I'll get them a great deal on the PS3. Actually, I tell them, "What's wrong with your old one? The old one works. It's good. You've got all kinds of games for that. You like it. You and your brother like it. It's fine."

It's funny how they look askance at me when I say that kind of thing because they've watched mom and dad with their fine appliances and gadgets in our adult life. They watch it and they live it because, like all of us, they have a propensity and an inclination to have the newest and greatest things. They just like that, and that's no different than us.

It's not only outside department stores and Walmarts that people are lining up for the latest and greatest. It's actually happening and has happened that people are lining up outside the doors of the church hoping to find some new truth, some new, late, and great version of Christ or the New Testament. Consider, if you would, historically, names like Joseph Smith, Mary Baker Eddy, Charles Taze Russell, Ellen G. White, Muhammad, or Sun Myung Moon.

All these people, including a whole host of characters on cable TV these days, are in some way discontent with the message of the New Testament. They see the insufficiency of what we know of Christ as presented in the Bible. They don't care for that. They want something a little new. They want Jesus 2.0, truth of the new covenant, or an upgraded version.

They are happy to proffer, hand out, and peddle a new kind of Christ. Unfortunately, there are lots of people lined up to buy it, feeling like they must be missing something, sensing that there's got to be more to this than what we read in the New Testament. The best way for us to respond to all the claims of people saying you're missing out is to read the fine print very carefully of when Christ is presented to us in the New Testament.

We need to learn whether or not he comes with an addendum that says, "Watch out for version 2.0 because that's coming," or whether or not there's verbiage that relates to the finality of the presentation of the truth in the New Testament and the completion of the redemptive work in Christ. If that's there, then that changes everything about how we respond to these folks who are trying to peddle a new and upgraded version of Christ.

Let's start in the book of Hebrews. We've been in it now for 40 weeks. Let's go back to chapter one just to get a little bit of the setting of the entire book. Let's start with the very first three verses of the first chapter of the book of Hebrews, which begins by saying that in the past, God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways.

In these last days, something about this new period that he classifies with the word "last." The last days have lasted for a long time, but he calls them the last days. He has spoken to us not by the prophets at various times and in various ways, but he's done it through his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom he made the universe.

This is no prophet here. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of God's being. He sustains all things by his powerful word. Note this carefully, as this is the theme that's been unpacked for the last 10 chapters. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. That's a reoccurring theme throughout this entire book.

Whatever he did in providing us with forgiveness, when he was done with it, he went back up to heaven. He went up to this place where God lives called heaven, and according to this text and several others, he sat down at the right hand of God. That is a statement of completion and finality. The juxtaposition in chapter 10 is the priests who stand daily ministering over and over and over again with symbols and shadows.

When Christ did his work of dealing with sin, he was done. This priest didn't continue to stand with symbols and shadows. The reality of his ministry when it was over on earth, he went and sat down. Priests in the Old Testament had no duty to sit. They always stood and did their work because it was an ongoing perpetual reminder of the problem.

Christ is presented in the book of Hebrews as solving the problem once and for all. When he was done, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. Christ's work was perfect, unlike the symbols and shadows. Let's read the first half of this chapter and summarize everything we've been looking at for the last six weeks.

We've looked at this middle section of Hebrews and how the old covenant was pointing to one thing, the fulfillment and reality of Christ. The law, all that Old Testament, the ceremonies, and the regulations were only a shadow of the good things that are coming, not the realities themselves. For this reason, it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship.

If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? Of course, they would have, for the worshippers would have been cleansed once and for all and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. Those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins because it's impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. They didn't do it. They reminded you, symbolized the need, and pointed to the solution, but they weren't the solution.

He quotes Psalm 40, which is one last Old Testament example that is fulfilled in Christ as he replaces the sacrificial system with the sacrifice of his body. Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he echoed the words of Psalm 40: "Sacrifice and offerings you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me. With burnt offerings and sin offerings, you were not pleased. Then I said, 'Here I am. It is written about me in the scroll. I have come to do your will, O God.'"

Not with sacrifices of animals but with a body. Of course, we know the will of Christ with a body was to die in our place. He explains a bit of this, saying that first he says sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them, although the law required them to be made. Obviously, that was an obedient act, but it was all symbolism.

Then he said, "Here I am. I've come to do your will." This explains what he accomplished, death on the cross to substitute our place for his, so that his righteousness could be applied to me and my sin could be laid on him and God could take it out of the way. The body as opposed to the sacrifices are the two things set against each other here.

He sums it up by saying he sets aside the first, all the animal sacrifices and regulations, to establish the second, the sacrifice of his own body. By that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all. Every day the priest stands and performs his religious duties again and again. He offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.

When this priest, Christ, according to the order of Melchizedek, had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he didn't continue to stand and minister. He sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time, he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool because, by one sacrifice, he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

The Holy Spirit testifies to us about this. First, he quotes Jeremiah 31 where he says, "This is the covenant I will make with them after that time. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds." Then he adds, "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more." Whatever the new covenant was going to do, it was going to once and for all settle the problem of sin.

He sums it all up and says where these have been forgiven, sins and lawless acts, there is no longer any sacrifice for sins. If God accepted the sacrifice of the body of Christ for your sins so that they're forgiven, there's no other sacrifices to be made. As a matter of fact, all sacrificing is over. Christ can now sit down at the right hand of the Father. He's done his work. Your sins and mine, if we've responded to that word through repentance and faith, are forgiven, nailed to the cross, and done.

Christ changed everything. Should we be looking for a newer testament? If we're moving from old to new covenant, maybe there's a newer covenant out there. Let's just start with this fact and this simple summation: Be assured that the New Testament provides a perfect and complete salvation. Whatever was needed for me to be right before a holy God because I've got a sin problem just like you, it was perfectly, completely met, satisfied, and settled by Christ's death.

There was nothing else that needs to happen for me to be forgiven. There's no other work to be done. There's no going to jail for 2,000 years in a make-believe place called purgatory before I get there. There are no good works or penance that I can do. There's no meeting God halfway. It's completed.

The assault on the completion and perfection of the ministry of Christ begins first of all by the assault on the sufficiency of Christ's death. People are saying what Christ has done is good and you need it, but it's not enough to make you right before God. That's what a lot of churches today are peddling, a gospel that says, "I know Christ did a lot for you, but there's stuff you've got to add to all that good that he did so that God will look at you one day and say you're acceptable to him."

That's why when you ask your friends if they are going to heaven when they die, they a lot of times say, "I hope so." Based on what? Are you hoping that Christ did completed work on your behalf, or are you hoping that if this holy equation depends on your adding to his merit, you've done enough good things? And that's exactly what they mean.

They don't know if they've done enough good things. They think the big balance scales will be there and they need to pour a few more good works on there so that God will accept them. If you ask if they need Christ, they'll say, "I need Christ, I know that, but I also need this big trunk full of treasures called good works. If I pile enough of those up there, then God will embrace me."

It's one of the first verses you learn as a tike in Sunday school. Ephesians 2:8-9 tells us in clear and no equivocation that by grace we've been saved through faith. It's through trusting him. It's not from ourselves. It's a gift of God, not as the result of my works, so that no one should boast. No one does this when they go through the finish line and says, "Look at what I did to get here into heaven." No one walks through the gates going, "Yeah, I did it."

You didn't do it. As a matter of fact, you could confess Christ and put your trust in Christ's atonement at the very last minute of your life, which I don't suggest because you never can plan those death things very well. But you could. If you hung on to Christ at the last moment of your death and said, "Okay, I trust you. I'm a sinner. I repent. I trust in what you've done to make me right before a holy God," you will be right before a holy God.

Jesus proved that by dying next to a bunch of slimy criminals. One of them who was hanging there next to him, he looked at and he said because he confessed Christ and put his trust in Christ, "Today you'll be with me in paradise." How in the world does that criminal get off thinking that he's going to be right before a holy God? Well, all the merits of Christ fulfilling all of the law on his behalf are now transferred from his life to that criminal's life.

He's in, fully in, completely in. Is he 100% perfect before God? Absolutely. Why? Because of the work of Christ. That is the message of grace. It's being attacked all the time by people with lofty positions in quote-unquote lofty churches with big Bibles in their hands, saying you've got to meet him halfway. You do enough good things and maybe you can get there. That's heresy. That's not the Bible.

Romans 4:4 is a great connection for a society like ours, a great analogy. It says that when a man works, his wages aren't credited to him as a gift. You don't go, "Oh, that was so sweet of you to give me that check this Friday. That was so nice." Do you do that to your boss when you get your check on Friday? No. You're angry if it's a day late. You want that thing in your account right away. Why? Because you earned it.

It's not a gift. You don't send a thank you note every 15th and 30th of the month. No. Why? You worked for it. You logged in those hours. It's a quid pro quo. You do this and you get that. If salvation is a "you do this and you get that" and it's a reward, then it isn't grace. The man who does not work but trusts God, who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited to him as righteousness as opposed to an obligation.

It would be an obligation if you could get saved by adding something to the work of Christ. Christ did all the work to forgive. He did all the work to cleanse. He did all the work to take your sins away from you as far as the east is from the west. There is nothing more you can do to the atonement than respond to it. You can't add to it. Redemption has been completely provided for. Believe it, trust in it, depend on it. Don't try to earn it. It is an offense to God for you to try to earn something that he is offering to you as a gift. You respond to it with repentance and faith.

The other assault on it is not on the work of Christ, but on the documents that contain it, the New Covenant documents. In many ways, most aberrant groups begin by saying what you have in your lap, the Bible, that's not enough. There's something else. There's more. Those documents are insufficient. They might even suggest that Christ provided all you need to get to heaven, but really there's more that you've got to know if you want to live right before God.

Pick the plethora of cult groups, particularly those that started in the 19th century in America, where people said, "What you need is more information." Maybe God can save you based on the merits of Christ, but you need more information if you're going to live in a way that's holy and pleasing to him. People were out there peddling all their extra and new revelations to people, saying, "Come and line up and listen to me and I'll tell you what you need because what you have in your lap is not everything you need."

Second Peter chapter 1, verse 3 says that God's divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these, his glory and goodness, he has given us his great and precious promises so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption that is in the world caused by evil desires.

I'd like to get to heaven and I'd like to live a good and godly life that's pleasing to God. Those two things, according to this, have been provided in the great and precious promises of God. I've got them. Whatever I need, I've got it from the inscribed promises put down in black and white that the apostles and prophets have provided.

The Bible is very clear that the church is now being built upon two things: the foundation and the cornerstone. The cornerstone is Christ. The foundation was the ministry of the apostles and prophets. That's the ministry that God founds the church on. Then he says, "You Ephesians are being built on top of that." You're being built on top of the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Their ministry provides us the inspired, great, and precious promises of God. From that, we build the church.

Guest (Male): We should be on guard against anyone who comes claiming that God has issued a revision. What we have in his word is final, sufficient, and complete. That's the word today from Mike Fabarez on Focal Point in a message titled, "Should We Be Expecting a Newer Testament?"

You can dig into additional resources when you head online to focalpointradio.org. Today, when you get in touch with us for the first time, we'd like to put something in your hands at no cost. It's a booklet written by Pastor Mike himself called *Phony Christianity*. If you've ever wondered how to tell the difference between the real thing and a convincing imitation, this booklet cuts straight to it.

Request *Phony Christianity* free when you contact us for the first time by calling 888-320-5885 or reaching out online at focalpointradio.org. If you missed any part of today's program, you can subscribe to the podcast and have these daily broadcasts sent straight to your phone or grab the free Focal Point app for even more content.

Before we close, we want to put this month's featured resource in front of you. It's a classic that has shaped the prayer lives and spiritual hunger of believers for generations: *The Pursuit of God* by A.W. Tozer. In this short but striking book, Tozer writes with an urgency that cuts through the noise of religious routine and goes after something deeper, a genuine consuming knowledge of God himself.

If the themes we've been working through in our series have stirred something in you, this book has a way of giving that stirring somewhere to go. Request *The Pursuit of God* when you stand behind Focal Point through a financial gift or by becoming a monthly Focal Point partner. Just call 888-320-5885 or get started online at focalpointradio.org.

You can also reach out through the mail by writing to us at Focal Point, P.O. Box 2850, Laguna Hills, California, 92654. Join us tomorrow as Pastor Mike continues with part two of "Should We Be Expecting a Newer Testament?" Tuesday on Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Pastor Mike here. You know we live in a culture where every point of view demands affirmation. It would be easy to tell people what they want to hear, but we must teach the Bible accurately, unapologetically, and without compromising and without editing it. God's word is truth. If you want to send me a question, I encourage you to get in touch with us at focalpointradio.org.

Guest (Male): Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.