Focal Point

Pastor Mike Fabarez: God may be looking at your life and you've stepped up and you've said, "I don't want to just be a mediocre person. I'd like to be an ambitious Christian who's ready to do something in my life or in the world for Christ," and then all of a sudden you're going through pain and you're going, "What's going on here? What's going on here?"

What is going on here is exactly what God needs to do with you to prepare you for that greatness. And the Bible says it never feels pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

Dave Drewey: Every good athlete knows that becoming the best isn't easy. It'll take hours of dedication, discouragement, and even pain. But these men and women push on, even in the midst of difficulty, motivated by the goal they've set.

Today on Focal Point, we'll consider the worthy calling to do great things for God and a realistic look at what it takes to get there. And starting today, Pastor Mike's got a special new booklet that we'd like to send any first-time listener called Storing Up Treasures. Just reach out online at focalpointradio.org. Now let's get into our message.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: If you happen to be anywhere near Cooperstown, New York, it would be impossible for you to miss all the fanfare that surrounds the newest inductees into baseball's Hall of Fame. I started to ponder the kind of sacrifice that it takes to get there, mostly because I'm a Little League dad now and I recognize that this didn't start in the major leagues for these guys. It started when they were little.

To be able to do this, there wasn't just major league games you had to work through, but the sacrifice, the bruises from getting hit with baseballs, the mom having to transport you back and forth to the baseball field. There's a lot of sweat that went into this, a lot of tears, a lot of blood that actually fuel this kind of accomplishment. And yet I sat back and I said, it's just appropriate that guys with that kind of accomplishment are honored. It's only right. It's actually a biblical principle.

I started to think about God's Hall of Fame. He's got his own Cooperstown, I hope you realize, called the New Jerusalem, and he is very into honoring the accomplishments of his major league players. We've been looking in Hebrews 11 at a long list, but I want to show you that it won't stop just in the pages of scripture. Take your Bibles real quick before we get back to this last section of Hebrews 11 and look with me at Revelation chapter 21 as John is describing the place where you and I will live for eternity, if that is you are a genuine disciple of Jesus Christ.

If you are, you're going to live here, and you're going to walk by this place a lot, and you are going to see, as it's described here, that God is into honoring those who are accomplished in the Christian life. Revelation chapter 21, if you drop down to verse number 10, you'll see that he's looking from a great and high mountain and he's scanning and surveying the holy city, the New Jerusalem as it was called at the beginning of this chapter, which had come down out of heaven from God. It's our dwelling place, it's where we will reside.

If you look down at verse number 14, after describing how many gates there are to the city and the walls and all that, it says in verse number 14 that the wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. That's just impressive to me that God has actually, in the home that we will live in, inscribed at least at this particular place the names of the twelve followers of Christ. If you look back up, the gates are also named after the tribes of Israel in verse number 12.

He's putting people's names everywhere, and these are names that have been revered in scripture as being people who were sold out for Christ. It's amazing to me that God is not a God who sometimes acts like us Christians who think that there's no distinguishing us and we're all the same. No, we're not. There are people in God's book that are important, who have distinguished themselves, who have sacrificed more than others, and he says they need to be honored and they need to be recognized.

While we can't have our names on the twelve foundations, and we may never make it into the 11th chapter of Hebrews, God is looking for us to step out of the crowd and be distinguished. It would sure be important for us in our day to say, "God, we don't want to live mediocre lives." And that's where we started. Hebrews 11 is all about that. It's all about stepping out and saying, "I'd like to be considered in God's book as one who's not just going with the flow and going along for the ride and just one of the crowd." We need to have ambitious faith, not mediocre faith.

God's not into lukewarm, he's certainly not into cold. He wants us to be hot and on fire for him. So in Hebrews chapter 11, we've taken a lot of time as you turn back there now to the last section of this great chapter, and it is amazing that we finally arrived at the end of it. But here we've had name after name and story after story and God trying to motivate us and prompt us to consider how we might step out with ambitious faith for him in this world. And then it ends on a note that at least for me is a bit unexpected.

I would think we would end with some rousing positive statement, and we kind of started on that in this last paragraph in verse 32 when he talks about these great names from the Old Testament. And he says in verse 33 how they did all these wonderful things: they conquered kingdoms and administered justice and gained what was promised, and all that's fantastic. But it turns in the middle of verse 35. After talking about some amazing things that God has done for his people that have stepped out in faith, he then says in verse 35, right in the middle, "but the others were tortured."

Sometimes they refused to be released so they might gain a better resurrection. That's an odd statement, more on that in a minute. But not just tortured, they faced jeers and flogging. People weren't real keen on their stepping out and being distinguished for God. Still others were chained and put in prison. Not just one, but many were stoned. People picked up rocks and they threw them at these great people. They were sawn in two and put to death by the sword.

They weren't wearing nice clothes, they weren't decked out in crowns and majestic regalia. No, they went about in sheepskins and goatskins, and they were destitute and they were persecuted and they were mistreated. Then he breaks in the middle of that list and he says, "These are the great people. The world wasn't worthy of these kinds of folks. These people were great men and women." Bottom of verse 38, they didn't live in nice houses either, they didn't have mansions on the hill. God's Hall of Famers, they often lived in deserts and in mountains and in caves and in holes in the ground.

All of these were commended for their faith. Yet none of them received what had been promised. And if we just look up to verse 33 again, that is the promises. They've had a number of promises fulfilled, but this—and if you could see it in the Greek New Testament, and some of you have them out there, look at it—you'll see a definite article there. This is the promise. They didn't get what was the ultimate promise of the Old Testament. They received a lot of promises, they took a few hills, they won a few battles, but the war for them prophetically was not yet won.

As a matter of fact, we though, as New Covenant believers, verse number 40, God had something planned that was better for us. You want to talk about the opportunities for greatness, we've got it now more than they had it then, so that only together with us, New Covenant believers, would they, these Old Covenant believers, be made perfect. It's a big statement, it's an opportunity, it's an open door, but the flavor of the last paragraph is negative. It's a reminder for us, and we've touched on it a few times in Hebrews 11.

Don't make any mistake about it when it comes to those in God's Hall of Fame—which I suppose is not different than most earthly Hall of Fames—you don't get there without some blood, sweat, and tears. It's not going to happen without a great deal, unfortunately, of pain in the Christian life. We need to be reminded and we need to know that great people, biblically speaking, they always, in God's economy, suffer greatly. It won't be that way in eternity, we'll have our tears wiped away, but for now the greatest of people in scripture are those that we can count on for sure have suffered the most.

It's odd how that happens. You often associate pain with God's displeasure, but what you find in scripture is that greatness is always associated in some way on this earth with earthly pain. Jesus, the greatest of all, was known by the prophets as the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He wasn't the one who was always throwing parties in his nice mansion, he was the one who was despised by men, stricken, and we considered him oppressed and opposed by God. Yet, of course, he wasn't.

The connection is very clear, and Jesus wants us to understand it, especially when in our hearts we start to aspire to greatness. When we think, "Okay, I get it, God, you want me to step out and do something that's more than the next person. You want me to not kind of just fit in, you want me to ambitiously step out in faith." Well then you need to understand there's a price tag that goes with that. The apostles stood around thinking about greatness, they did that often.

Often times it was misled. Sometimes God just took that godly ambition to be great and he said, "If it relates to me that's fine, but what you need to understand is there's a price tag attached." Remember a situation that took place in the Gospel of Matthew. Turn there real quick in chapter 20, when actually prompted by the mother of James and John, they were approaching Christ and she was their spokesman and said, "I've got a request. I know that you've picked them as part of the twelve, but I'd like them to be distinguished among the twelve."

"I would hope that my sons," it says in Matthew 20:20, "could be honored." And it's just a favor I'm asking of you. She asks it clearly in verse 21, "Grant that one of these two of my sons may sit, one at your right hand and the other at your left hand, in your kingdom." I want them to be great in the kingdom of heaven. Now that just, a lot of times they're trying to pursue the wrong things. But here, we've been learning in Hebrews 11 to be great in the kingdom of God, that's a godly ambition.

We want to do something that's distinguished. Unfortunately, just asking for greatness, Jesus has to make a clarification in verse 22. And he says, "If you're just thinking about this as a wonderful experience and we're lined with rose petals, it'll be great, there'll be trumpets playing for you and all that, you just need to understand the path doesn't work that way. You don't know what you're asking for because to be great in the kingdom is great and God's all into that, but you need to understand that there's a cup, a bitter cup, to drink when you ask for such things."

Jesus says, "Can you drink the cup that I'm going to drink?" I mean, here is Jesus, the greatest of all, and his cup was the most bitter. His life was suffering more than anyone else. And they said, "Well, we can." Jesus said, "Well, you will indeed drink from my cup." And they will, by the way, have their names on the foundations of the city that you and I will live in. But he said, "You want to be the top of the twelve, sit at my right hand or my left, that's not for me to grant. These places belong to those for whom they've been prepared by my Father."

But you need to understand to get there, no matter who gets there, no matter who is distinguished, there's a cup of bitterness attached. Now when you think about this, just know there are two sides to this. If you think about the connection between greatness in the kingdom and great suffering, just know that part of it is cause and part of it is effect. Suffering is sometimes the cause of greatness, and sometimes it's the effect of greatness. Let me show you both.

Sometimes God uses the pain to make us great. Turn with me to John chapter 15 and let me show you that this is just a basic pattern of how God works. He wants to make sure that you understand that when you suffer in this life, oftentimes it is the training, it is the preparation, just like as I watch the coaches on my kids' baseball teams. And sometimes I don't think it's fair that sometimes he picks out the kids that seem to be working the hardest and he works them even harder. Have you noticed that?

Some of you are Little League coaches, and you're the people doing this, and you recognize that some kids that are just there to have a good time and they don't really care and they don't have a lot of talent or ambition or skill, and they're just kind of filling a place on the roster—well, the coaches, whatever. Yeah, we'll hit you a few fly balls, no big deal. But there are always a few kids on the team that these coaches seem to hone in on. And they're kids with potential.

But it's interesting how the kids with potential who seem to be distinguished among the others, they get worked the hardest. What's with all of that? It's the same way in God's economy. If he's going to prepare you for something great, you've got to know that the pathway is partly the cause for the greatness: the difficulty, the sweat, the training, the pain that you experience. And sometimes we just need to make the connection in our mind. God is preparing us for greater fruitfulness.

Take a look at this in John 15:1. You remember the analogy: he says, "I'm the vine." And he's going to talk throughout this passage about "stick with me, abide with me, hang in there with me, be close with me." And he says, "But here's the deal. There's another factor here. It's not just between you and me. My Father, he's like the gardener." And you attach to me, that's great, and you hang on to me, that's great, but if you attach yourself to me artificially and you don't bear any fruit, because every real branch is going to bear fruit, he cuts those off and throws them away.

Now every branch, though, that he sees bearing fruit—and here it comes, there's productivity, there's good things happening in your life—now look at this next phrase, which doesn't sound like a pleasant experience: "He prunes them so that they'll be even more fruitful." I wish he didn't, right? Can't we just bear more fruit without the pruning part? And yet God says, "No, no, no. If I see you being fruitful, I'm going to prune you and you'll bear more fruit."

If I see that the kid can hit, I'm going to put him in the cages and we're going to work him harder because if he's got the ability to hit and if there's some talent there, we're going to develop that. We're going to make sure he can hit even better. God may be looking at your life and you've stepped up and you've said, "I don't want to just be a mediocre person. I'd like to be an ambitious Christian who's ready to do something in my life or in my environment or in the world for Christ," and then all of a sudden you're going through pain and you're going, "What's going on here?"

What's going on here is exactly what God needs to do with you to prepare you for that greatness. It is part of his process of getting you ready. As a matter of fact, here's a passage to jot down, you can read it on your own later: Malachi chapter 3. Not a passage we go to very often, but in Malachi chapter 3, verses 2 and 3, there's two pictures of God sitting with his people and preparing them for something great. One picture is him as a refiner, and he takes this precious metal and he's going to put it in the furnace and refine it and get all the dross out of it so it will be even more productive or even more valuable in his sight.

That doesn't sound good, being put through the fire. And the second picture is that of someone who's a launderer and he's taking soap and he's scrubbing the fabric so that it can be even more useful in terms of its cleanliness. And that doesn't sound good either. I don't want God scrubbing hard on my life. And yet that's the picture of God. If he's got people that he loves, he's going to get them ready and he's going to prepare them. The process, though, whether it's pruning or whether it's a furnace or whether it's God scrubbing some section of your life, it all sounds unpleasant.

But the Bible says, as it will in Hebrews chapter 12 and we'll get to that soon, we're going to talk about the series there and how God is preparing us for doing the great things in this world, and one way is through the discipline and the pain in our lives. And the Bible says it never feels pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. And God's not going to get you anywhere to be distinguished in the kingdom without developing your gifts and working on your heart and training your spirit.

Greatness and great pain seem to go together in God's economy. As I said, part of it is cause, the suffering is the cause for the greatness. And the other side of that, if you look through the list in Hebrews 11 again—jeering and flogging and stoned and sawn in two—you might say, "Well, that doesn't sound like training." Well some of it I'm sure was for the great people in Hebrews 11. But a lot of it is effect. The suffering is the effect that we have because of this godliness or greatness in our lives.

The more distinguished you are in the kingdom of God, and as you try to live for God here with ambitious faith, the more you will receive the opposition. Let me show you a clear picture of this in 2nd Timothy chapter 3. You need to understand that a lot of the pain that you experience is the process of getting you ready for doing something great. But here's the deal: you do something great in this world, you distinguish yourself in any way in God's economy, and there will be those, as we've looked at throughout Hebrews 11, there will be those that bring grief and pain into your life.

If you want to go with the flow and be liked by people, as Jesus said, "Woe to you when all men speak well of you." You're never going to be distinguished or godly without having some opposition. And it's going to be raised by the greatness that God has produced in your life. 2nd Timothy chapter 3, let's start in verse 10 because here's a list of positives and we all want these things as Paul writes to Timothy, his young pastoral protégé in Ephesus.

He says, "You know about my teaching, you know my way of life." I mean, I've taught well, I've lived well, you know my purpose, I've been sold out to God. "You know my faith, I've trusted in Jesus. You know my patience, you've watched that. You've watched my love, you've watched my endurance." And then everything changes because after that comma everything changes. I'm thinking all of that's good, I want that, I just don't want verse 11. That's why the convenient verse change here so I can memorize verse 10 and forget about verse 11.

The problem is verse 11 comes quickly on the heels of verse number 10 because not only if you develop all of that will you have those things, but you're going to have what comes after that, and that is Paul says, "You also know about my persecutions and you know about my sufferings." And you know what kinds of things happened to me in Antioch and Iconium and Lystra. If you don't, you need to read the book of Acts. Things weren't going well there. They were picking up rocks to throw at him for all this wonderful purpose and faith and patience and love.

He says, "You know all the persecutions that I endured, yet the Lord he was gracious to me, he rescued me from all of them. I'm still here, I'm still alive, I'm still doing something for God on this earth." In fact, you just need to know that's not unique to me. Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. If you don't have that verse outlined or underlined or bracketed or highlighted, that'd be a great thing to do.

When you open this page of scripture, I want in your Bibles to remember that this is a reality. If you live a godly life, if you distinguish yourself in being what God wants you to be, there will be the price tag. It not only is part of your training, it is also a part of the effect that happens. While verse 13, you think it's going to get better? Verse 13, "while evil men and impostors go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived." Do you think it's better today for us? Well they're not throwing physical rocks at us, no, but you might lose your job over this.

You may lose friends over this. You may have people in your family oppose you over this. You want to stand up and have an ambitious Christian life? Great suffering goes along with that. It's going to happen. Keep your eye on the goal, and the goal is to glorify God. If you want to glorify God, then there will be an innate godly desire to be distinguished in the Christian life. Nothing wrong with desiring that. You want to be in God's Hall of Fame? Fantastic.

The bottom line is if I'm going to be a part of that group, there's going to be pain involved. Just like everybody in any field is recognized as distinguished and great, it comes with a price tag. Are we ready to pay that price? I am. Are you ready to pay that price? And some of you distinguished in the Christian life already, you've experienced that. Please share that with other people. When we win people to Christ and we share about the Christian faith and we try and disciple people and bring them up in the Lord, please let them know that this is a part of it. Because if we paint a picture that's not realistic, unfortunately, these people are quickly disillusioned when because of their faith all this opposition rises up.

Dave Drewey: We're pressing on toward something worth every ounce of effort here on Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez. Today's message is part of our series Ambitious Faith, and you can pick up any portion of it at focalpointradio.org or take it with you on the free Focal Point app. And don't forget, if you have a question for Pastor Mike, Ask Pastor Mike Live airs every Tuesday through Thursday at 1:00 PM Central. Call in live or watch anytime on the Mike Fabarez channel on YouTube. Get the details at askpastormike.live.

This month's resource is a book called Sinners in the Hands of a Good God by David Klotfelter. If you've ever wrestled with how a God of love can also be a God of judgment, this book fully addresses that tension. Klotfelter works carefully through scripture, making the case that God's holiness and his goodness aren't competing ideas, they're inseparable. It's the kind of book that can reshape how you read the Bible and deepens the kind of faith we've been talking about all week. To get your copy of Sinners in the Hands of a Good God, reach out to Focal Point with a generous donation today.

Call 888-320-5885 or give online at focalpointradio.org. You can also send your gift to Focal Point, Post Office Box 2850, Laguna Hills, California 92654. This broadcast reaches people because donors choose to make it happen. That's a decision worth making today. When you step up as a Focal Point partner and give monthly, you're not just sustaining a radio program, you're investing in the spiritual growth of every listener who tunes in every single day. Make it count. Sign up now at focalpointradio.org or call us at 888-320-5885.

First time contacting us? We'd love to send you a free copy of Storing Up Treasures, a new booklet by Pastor Mike. Just get in touch at focalpointradio.org. I'm Dave Drewey, and tomorrow Pastor Mike Fabarez turns our attention to the rewards that make every hardship worth enduring. That's Wednesday on Focal Point with Mike Fabarez.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Pastor Mike here. It's an honor to be with you every day, helping you explore the depths of scripture. But I want to be clear: no amount of Bible knowledge is ever going to save you. Be sure where you stand with God. Get in touch with us, we'd love to pray with you and for you. Visit us today at focalpointradio.org. We look forward to hearing from you.

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