Focal Point

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Justification, sanctification, glorification. Enoch illustrates all three of those. He turned to God, he was justified. He walked with God in a process for 300 years, sanctification. And then one day, because he was seeking God earnestly, God said, "I'm going to do something that I'm going to do thousands of years from now with a bunch of people, but Enoch gets raptured off the planet, glorification." That's a great picture, isn't it, of our hope?

Dave Drewie: Today on Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Justification, sanctification, glorification. Enoch illustrates all three of those.

Dave Drewie: This is Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez. The world isn't getting easier to navigate, and for Christians trying to hold the line, that pressure is real. Today, Pastor Mike highlights one of Scripture's quieter heroes. Enoch didn't have an easier road than we did, but he walked it with a devotion that still speaks.

And if you're new to Focal Point, we'd love to welcome you with a free copy of Pastor Mike's booklet, *Offering Our Best*. Just contact us at focalpointradio.org. Now here's today's message, "Ardently Seeking a Deeper Relationship with God."

Pastor Mike Fabarez: If you have your Bibles, let's turn to Hebrews chapter 11 and let us understand that if you're looking for a motivation, a template, an example to follow as it relates to making God and the pursuit of your relationship with God the template of your life, then here's Enoch. We don't know much about him, but what we know about him is what we need to fuel us into going a few levels deeper in our knowledge and relationship with God.

Hebrews chapter 11, beginning in verse number five, where again the theme of the chapter, faith, trust in God, he says is how Enoch really was taken from this life. By faith, Enoch was taken from this life so that he did not experience death. He couldn't be found because God had taken him away. Now that's what he's known for, but notice this, bottom of verse five, "For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God."

And if you want to know what that's about, it's about a life of earnestly seeking God. Next verse, "Without faith, this trust that he had, it's impossible to please God. Anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those—" here's the key phrase that summarizes Enoch's life—"those who earnestly seek him." Why was Enoch a person that pleased God? Because his life was all about an earnest, passionate, ardent desire to know his God.

Take a look at the historic record of it in Genesis chapter five. So let's get the original description of Enoch's life. Genesis chapter five, verse 21. "When Enoch had lived 65 years, he becomes the father of a guy named Methuselah." Ever heard of him? Methuselah. Now this is an interesting phrase, verse 22, "After—" and after, circle that—"he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters."

Something happened there. He has a kid. A lot of things happen when we have our first kid, but something happened with him that redirected his life from doing whatever he was doing that the Bible now makes the contrast that may be subtle here, but it's a contrast that all the rabbis had picked up on. Something happened here when he has this kid and his life is redirected and he begins walking with God.

He walked with God 300 years, had other sons and daughters. Verse 23, "Altogether Enoch lived 365 years. Enoch would walk with God and then was no more because God took him away." Now if you read that and you didn't really have the sense of what we're seeing now in Hebrews 11, you might think, "Well, I don't know, that could just be a euphemism for death." It's not.

Clearly, they understood this both pre-New Testament and New Testament times, as this guy was supernaturally sucked off the planet like that little canister at the bank drive-through. Now that, according to Hebrews chapter 11, though it's sensational, it's really not the point of Enoch's life. The point of Enoch's life is here's a guy who walked with God. Now that's an analogy of what Hebrews defines as a life that pleases God.

And the life that pleases God is a life of faith that earnestly seeks God. So if Enoch is going to be a template for you and I to redirect our priorities and say, "God needs to be a bigger priority, my relationship with God needs to be the focus of something I cultivate from day to day," then I think we should ask the question, "Why is it that we need examples like this, and why is it that everybody isn't like Enoch?"

The reason is because when it comes to cultivating a relationship with God, there's several barriers. Three primary barriers that Enoch's life illustrates. Thankfully Enoch dealt with all three of these problems with the biblical divine solution. Problem number one, Enoch just like us, he had a sinful heritage just like we did. He wasn't born walking with God. That's my point.

Everybody's born outside of a relationship with God. Everybody is. And that is solved, at least from our perspective, by coming to God on His terms. He's got to pay for it, the payment was the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. But from our perspective, I need to respond to His call. His call is for me to do two things in Scripture: Repent. You have to repent of your sins.

And the next one is you have to put your faith or your trust in Christ. And if you do that, if God works that in your heart, then you have what we often call salvation. So Genesis chapter five, what we know, and it may seem a little subtle and implied, but we have Enoch. No description of his life prior to just that he's a dude who has a kid at 65, but after that, the Bible says he walked with God.

He had a turning point. When could he look at that? Age 65, I got right with God. How about you? When did you get right with God? Hopefully, you can say, "I know a date when that happened. There was a year in my life, there was a change in my life, I got right with God." Just because we're reconciled to God doesn't give us perfect fellowship with God, does it? There's a lot of other problems that take place.

The second layer of problem, I'll call it this, is our sinful acts. I still sin. We may have been reconciled to God spiritually, I may have my account clean before God, but when I sin, there's a problem. It creates a problem of relational distance. Now I know that's an analogy, it represents something, but there's an analogy that maybe we can get our minds on because that's the way the Scripture likes to speak of it in terms of distance.

Now when I sin, I don't get kicked out of the family, but it causes problems in my fellowship and relationship with God. Let me show you an example. Turn with me to the Book of James, James chapter four. You're in Hebrews, it's the next book. In James chapter four, it's interesting, though there's a lot of people that I think miss the point of this text, that it is all set in verbage that relates to a covenantal relationship, in this case, the relationship of marriage.

And he begins to talk to people who are, I believe here contextually, they are followers of Christ. They have been adopted into God's family, but they, like us, have fallen into sin. They do things that are wrong, they've got their priorities messed up, they transgress God's commandments. And then here James says in chapter four, verse number four, he calls them adulteresses. You can't be an adulteress unless you're married.

Would you agree with that? And it's the same thing here. You cannot be cheating on God in this way, in this context, unless I have a covenantal relationship with God. The people in James chapter four, verse number four, are called adulteresses because in their life there's sin that contradicts or denies in some episodic way their commitment to God. So they're called adulteresses and he says, "Don't you people recognize that friendship with the world is hatred toward God?"

Or literally, hostility toward God. In other words, if there's a little bit of sell-out to the world—and we're not just talking about I've got friends that are non-Christians—I'm talking about my life is now absorbing the principles, priorities, and the sinful pleasures of this world. And I know God says I shouldn't do it, but I'm kind of taking in that and I'm doing that anyway. It creates this big thing over here, friendship with the world creates this big thing called hostility or hatred toward God.

And that's going to cause some strain in the relationship. He goes on to say this, "Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God." Now that becomes something that I think people stumble over. How can that be? Remember the context, adulteresses. I have this commitment to God, I say I'm a Christian, but then I engaged in sin. And now that creates this hostility, it creates this enmity between me and God. There's a problem there.

He says, "Or—" and you Greek students know verse number five is a notoriously thorny Greek grammatical sentence, but I think the NIV's got it really close to right here. Read verse five with me. He says, "Or do you think that Scripture says without reason that the—" the only change I want to make is put a capital S on this, "that the Spirit that he caused to live in us—" not talking about my spirit, I think we're talking about here the Holy Spirit that he's caused to live in us—"envies intensely."

Now back to James 4:4. Doesn't that now make sense? I mean, why would I be causing envy in my own spirit? We're not talking about that. We're talking about the Holy Spirit. Because I'm committed to Jesus, I'm a part of his family, when I sin, it's creating this, all of a sudden now the Holy Spirit is envious. It wants me. It wants, as Paul said, this pure devotion to Christ. It wants me to be focused on this, but sin is getting in the way.

The good news is he gives us more grace, verse number six. That's why the Scripture says—in other words, there's going to be a solution for this—"God opposes the proud—" the proud, the prideful, are people that justify, rationalize, try to sweep their sin under the carpet. We're not talking about that. You want to fix the problem, "He will give grace to the humble." He'll fix this if we just humble ourselves, verse seven.

"Submit ourselves then to God, resist the devil, he'll flee from you." Now here's the relational distance, verse number eight. If you would just close this relational distance, "if you would come near to God—" what does it say? "He'll come near to you. He'll close that gap. Wash your hands—" here's what you have to do, get sin out of your life. "Confess your sin, repent of your sin, purify your hearts, you double-minded."

See, he can only call double-minded—we're not talking about lost pagans here. We're talking about people that say, "Oh, I'm committed to Christ, oh but I still kind of like this sin and kind of engage in this sin." And God says, "No, when you do that, envy, Spirit envy. There's this adultery, there's this double-mindedness." What do you do? Humble yourself, repent of your sin, wash your hands, purify your hearts, grieve, mourn, and wail.

Change your life. They're out carousing with the world and he says, "Stop laughing, start looking at your sin seriously. Turn your joy to gloom, humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up." And that's one example with very, very harsh words. And I picked that one because it's got the most dramatic terminology in it, but we could look all over the New Testament and find the same principle.

And the point is this: When you and I sin, it creates relational distance. The good news is God says we can fix that and it can be repaired. We can draw near to God and God will draw near to us. We can—we already quoted First John 1:8, you memorized First John 1:9, though, right? Remember he says if we're without sin, we're kidding ourselves, truth not in us, we're not sinless. Then he says this, next verse. Do you know verse nine?

"If we confess our sins," what does the Bible say? "He is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins, cleanse us from all unrighteousness." He wants to fix this. And the point is our sinful behavior, our compromise, our engagement in idolatry—if I can use that word and you understand what I'm talking about—that other things become supreme priorities and loves in our lives. If we would just humble ourselves, God will close the gap.

And if we can get out of the ditch faster, if we can stay out of the ditch more often, if we can stay on this path of increasing sanctification—see, we can grow in intimacy with God, we can have a tight and close relationship with God. Seeking, pleasing, or to use the words of Enoch chapter five, walking with God, that's the solution. That's staying out of these sinful ditches.

That's making sure that my accounts with God are short. That's making sure that when I'm tempted to sin, I'm developing a kind of love and devotion to God that keeps me from being lured down that path as often. I'm now focusing more and more on the goal of being tight and intimate with God, which means saying no to sin, fighting these battles of temptation in my life, connecting with God with a tighter, more ardent intimacy.

Now let's sort these out with theological words. The first level barrier, we fix that with what we call justification. The second level problem, we fix with something that's a process called sanctification. Is this all making sense now? We get right with God, close the barrier, reconciliation, we get justified before God. Now we're on a path of sanctification, getting increasingly closer and closer to God.

Now Enoch had a lot more time than you and I have. How long did he walk with God? 300 years. The point was, though, he was doing pretty good. 300 years, he was cultivating a deeper and deeper, more intimate relationship with God. He was known for that. He was earnestly seeking God that entire time. But he still had a problem. And you and I will still have a problem.

Even if we walk with God for 30 years and we're getting more and more in tune with Him, we're walking in step with His Spirit, we are being sanctified to a degree we've never been sanctified to before, we really, really feel like we are connecting with God, we know God, we're walking in step with God, temptation's not that big of a deal anymore, we're really just forging a strong relationship with God, you still will not have perfect fellowship with God.

You've still got a problem. And the problem is you're still here. We call it this: There is a problem of our sinful existence or our sinful bodies. The Bible calls it in the New Testament our flesh. We live in a fallen body. We're encased in something that cannot have fellowship with a holy God. As First Corinthians 15 says, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. This humanity that is bent to sin because remember in the garden, when they were kicked out of His presence, the other thing that happened was their bodies were cursed.

Not only was the ground cursed, their bodies were cursed. And in that cursing of their bodies, not only was it now subject to a biological corruption, it was also now subject to a moral corruption, to where our bodies, if they're left to their own devices, do their own thing. They want to do things that are contrary to what God asks us to do. Does your body work that way? Think about it. You don't want to nod at me, but I know it's true.

Jot it down, Galatians chapter five, verse 16. "So I say—" Paul says to the Galatian churches—"so I say live by the Spirit and you will not gratify—" now the NIV translates this "the desires of the sinful nature." You got that in your translation? The word is sarx, flesh. Your fallen human encasement. It's got desires and if you live by the Spirit, you're not going to gratify the desires of your flesh.

Verse 17, "For the flesh—" same word—"desires what is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh." My body in its fallen state wants to do things that do not line up with God's principles. Your body work that way too? You're still not nodding at me, but I know it's true. You and I are wired in our flesh to do the wrong thing. That's why in the New Testament over and over again, Paul says we need to marshal the members of our body to do the righteous thing.

Our spirit needs to begin control over our flesh. We have to be in a constant battle as long as we're in the encasement of our fallen flesh. That's why, by the way, in Romans chapter eight, Paul is looking forward to the great consummation of the Christian hope. And the last level of that he calls it the redemption of the body. Do you remember that? That's what he's waiting for. Can't wait for the redemption of the body. I have been reconciled to God, I'm growing in sanctification, but there's one more level, the redemption of the body.

What does our body do that creates—well you could say it creates more second-level problems? It does when you give into it. But even if you've mastered a lot of your bodily impulses and you say, "No, I'm marshalling the members of my body to live righteously," as long as you're in that body, there's another barrier. The effect of that I'll call it this: is personal distance. Personal distance. First Corinthians 15, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.

You cannot be in God's presence with that body. It is wired wrong, it is laced and laden with sin, it cannot be in a place where you and God have perfect fellowship. Therefore, your Christian life, no matter how sanctified you are, still has one last barrier. That's why the hope of the Christian life is not just worded this way, the redemption of the body, it's more often worded this way in Scripture: That we will see him one day face to face.

Do you remember that? John says, First John 3, what we are or what we will be hasn't yet been realized, right? I mean, because one day we're going to see him face to face. Why is that such a big deal? Why is it now just I'm kind of fully experiencing all the blessings of Christianity now? Because you've still are encased in your sinful flesh and you need to, if you're going to have perfect fellowship with God, get this thing changed.

It needs to be changed out. As a matter of fact, this may sound really, really morbid, but if you want to solve this problem, here's God's solution to the problem: It's called death. Does that sound morbid? Are you afraid we're going to pass out Kool-Aid next? What do you mean? That's solving a relational problem with God. I hate to put it that way, but that's the solution.

But you remember in the garden that God in His grace shut down access to the garden and put the cherubim there with their flashing swords, and here's the rationale, "So they will not stretch out their hand and reach out to eat the fruit from the tree of life and live forever." God was saying, "I don't want them in this cursed and fallen state to live forever in that state." Death, believe it or not—don't quote this out of context—death, believe it or not, is the thing that God does in His grace to free us from fallen humanity.

And now, if we're redeemed, give us an opportunity to be in a new reality with a new body. It's called the resurrection, where now I can live with God in His presence without fallen flesh, without being encased in fallen humanity. Are you tracking with all that? That was a lot of theology right there, but did you get it? The bottom line is I need to die and in that reality, it would be better.

Does that sound biblical? What did Paul say in Philippians chapter one? "For me to live is Christ and to die is a real drag and a bummer." Is that what he says? "For me to live is Christ and to die is gain." I don't know which one to choose, what should I do? I don't know, should I just die or should I keep living on? Why the big deal here? Why are you struggling with that? Isn't death a bad thing?

Well, death is a bad thing because it's a result of sin. But for the Christian, I have one last barrier to get through and that is I can't have perfect fellowship with God in my fallen state of humanity. I have a personal distance. I see through a glass dimly, but then face to face. What I will be hasn't yet been realized, but one day I'll see Him face to face. I am at a personal distance with God.

Are you tracking with this? Justification, that solves barrier one. Sanctification, that progressively solves barrier two. Glorification, that's the biblical word for solving the last barrier. Now you're saying, "I'm not big on the death thing." I can appreciate that, it's better to die, but I don't want to do that. You know what? I don't prefer to do it either.

That's why the Christians have always kind of hoped they are in that last generation that First Thessalonians 4 talked about. Because in the last generation, the Bible says that when the trumpet sounds, we who remain and are alive will be harpazo, caught up together with him in the clouds. Now think about that. That's a weird thing. That's like that tube at the drive-through bank teller window.

And some people say that's a very unbiblical thing, caught up together, what kind of foolishness is that, there's no precedent for that. There is a precedent for that. His name is Enoch. Right? And he's got another guy in his club. What's his name? Elijah. Right? He got sucked up too off the planet. They went looking for him and couldn't find him because God took him.

In Hebrews chapter 11, verse five, the word is sometimes translated to be metamorphosized, to be changed. He was caught up, he was taken up, he was translated. He was moved from one state to another state. Paul says the same thing in First Corinthians 15, "We will not all sleep—" that's a euphemism for death—"we will not all die, but we will all be changed." We have to have a new body to be in fellowship with God.

So there's three things. There's death, which then is a gap for those who die because they leave their bodies behind, they live in God's presence spiritually. Their software is there, their hardware's in the ground. Then one day, the trumpet will sound, the dead in Christ will rise first, the hardware will be reassembled, and those people will get their bodies back. And we who remain and are alive at that point, we hear the trumpet, we get caught up, harpazoed, into heaven. We get to be with God and meet him in the sky.

That's called the rapture. And Enoch is a picture of that. Justification, sanctification, glorification. Enoch illustrates all three of those. He turned to God, 65 years old, he was justified. He walked with God in a process 300 years, sanctification. And then one day, because he was seeking God earnestly, God said, "I'm going to do something that I'm going to do thousands of years from now with a bunch of people, but I'm just going to kind of try it out. Off he goes." Enoch gets raptured off the planet. That's a great picture, isn't it, of our hope?

Dave Drewie: Learning from the example of Enoch and how he sought after God with all his heart. You're listening to Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez and a message called "Ardently Seeking a Deeper Relationship with God." If you want to hear it again or share it with a friend, just go to focalpointradio.org.

If Enoch's example inspired you today, this month's featured resource is worth picking up. *The Journals of Jim Elliot*, edited by Elisabeth Elliot, puts you alongside a young man who refused to let his faith stay comfortable. Jim Elliot wasn't writing for readers. He was writing to keep himself honest before God. The questions he put to himself are the ones that so many of us sidestep.

Reading through his journals makes that harder to do. Request your copy of *The Journals of Jim Elliot* when you give to Focal Point. Simply call 888-320-5885 or go online to focalpointradio.org. Now let's join Pastor Mike for an important announcement about a limited-time opportunity you don't want to miss.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Thanks, Dave. I'd like to invite you to join me September 19th through the 26th, 2026, on a Christian cruise through New England and Canada. We'll sail Holland America's Zaandam, known for its elegance and exceptional hospitality, to historic cities like Boston, Halifax, and Quebec City.

We'll gather for devotional times in God's Word, followed by thought-provoking Bible teaching throughout our journey. Grammy-winning musicians Keith and Kristyn Getty will lead us in worship. You'll enjoy the stunning autumn landscapes as we explore charming coastal villages, all while building friendships with like-minded believers. It's a unique opportunity to deepen your faith and see some of the most beautiful scenery on the eastern seaboard.

Space is limited, so don't wait to sign up. Secure your cabin today at focalpointradio.org. Just go to focalpointradio.org.

Dave Drewie: I'm your host, Dave Drewie, inviting you to tune in tomorrow when Pastor Mike Fabarez tackles the question, "Is anything absolutely true in a relative world?" Don't miss this enlightening edition of Ask Pastor Mike here on Focal Point.

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