Focal Point

Dave Drewry: Welcome to Focal Point. I'm Dave Drewry, and today we’re setting aside the regular teaching for something different. It’s another edition of Ask Pastor Mike Live, where real listeners bring Pastor Mike Fabarez their real questions.

Today’s calls circle two things a lot of us carry quietly. What do you do when the thing you’re praying for won’t move, no matter how long you’ve asked? And if your sin is truly gone, washed away for good, why does the Bible still talk about a day of reckoning?

Let’s get started now with this edition of Ask Pastor Mike Live. All right, let’s get to the phones now. Natalie, you’re on the air with Pastor Mike. How can I help?

Natalie: Hi, Pastor Mike. God knows the desires of my heart, right? And he wants to fulfill the desires of our hearts. Is that correct? As long as they are aligned with his will and to glorify him ultimately. Would that be correct?

Mike Fabarez: You’re probably thinking of Psalm 37:4. "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart." I will generally agree with that because there are two ways to understand this. He will implant your desires. He will guide you with desires.

There is a way in which we understand that as I seek the Lord, as I find my heart continually seeking God, all of this is in the context of knowing the will of God by studying the lamp and light of his truth in the written, revealed Word of God. My desires are going to sync up with what his revealed will is.

The next verse says, "Commit your way to the Lord, trust in him, and he will act." In other words, I'm constantly seeing myself in parallel to what he wants. Of course, I'm aligning my desires with his desires, and so it makes sense that it’s going to be something where he’s implanting those desires and shaping those desires.

I can’t just say that because I'm thinking of passages like 2 Corinthians 12 where Paul has a desire to be pain-free from his illness. That's his desire, and he wants that desire to go away, but God’s not giving him the desire of his heart because his other desire in chapter five is to please the Lord.

God says you can’t have both of these desires fulfilled. You want to please me and you want to be free from the pain of this thorn in the flesh, but you can’t have both. To please me, you’re going to have to have this desire of your heart to be free from this ailment not fulfilled. So I can’t say in every case you're going to have the desire of your heart.

It wasn't God’s will for that illness to go away, and he had to learn that God’s grace is sufficient in this particular area because there was a greater desire he had that he just didn't see were incompatible. It's not a simple answer, but the big answer is yes, it is true, but it needs explanation. Go ahead with your question.

Natalie: I called you about this once maybe like a month ago. My father has been drinking without any repentance. The desire of my heart is for my family to be saved. He is getting older and especially the way he’s treated his body, I'm constantly thinking about him getting close to passing.

I know a desire of my heart tremendously is for him to come to know Jesus before he passes. I was also going to ask you about interceding in prayer for people. The reality is there’s just no way for us to have power when we pray for that transformation in that person’s heart. Each one of us, I mean, I know my prayers have power, but I have got to just let go and let God with this. I'm having a hard time with it.

Mike Fabarez: I get that. There’s one category of desire that is God’s revealed desire. In 2 Peter 3, he desires all to come to repentance. So yes, we can say God desires your dad to come to repentance and to be his child. That is the desire of God, and we know that.

It's like me praying that all 350 million people in the United States become Christians. I can pray that. If I said I'm praying that and I know it’s the will of God because I just read 2 Peter 3, so I'm going to pray that every day for the rest of my life, that would be a bold and ambitious prayer. I could have faith that I believe it, but I have faith it’s in the will of God and I'm swinging for the fences.

If I called in and said I know it’s the will of God, it is the will of God in the sense that it’s his revealed will. But is it his determined will? His determined will is more wise and determined and it is not revealed. I don't know what those secret things are that belong to the Lord.

For me to pray that 350 million people in the United States in my generation will come to faith in Christ, I just know that is not what the Bible says is going to happen. The Bible says what is going to happen is that only a few will find this narrow path and enter through that small gate and find eternal life.

I know that there are two opposing realities here. God wants all to turn and find life. He finds no pleasure in the death of the wicked, and yet I know not everyone’s going to come to faith in Christ. We can pray in line with the heart of God to say I know he wants your father to be saved.

In the end, I can’t have confidence that I know that’s exactly what’s going to happen. I can’t be presumptuous about God’s secret will about what he is planning to do because I don't know. But I would still say pray. Ask God.

At the end of your prayer, pray what Jesus prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane: "Not my will, but yours be done." We’ll just have to say God is the judge of all the earth. God is the creator of all things. He creates vessels to do different things in his plan, and I just have to trust him with the people that he’s made.

Even though I share DNA and great love for some people more than other people that I don't share DNA with and I've never met that live in New Jersey, you didn't pray for them today. You didn't pray for them this week. You don't even care about them because you don't even know them.

I'm just going to have to trust God for the people in New Jersey, and I'm going to trust God for the people that we love the most that are lost. You're going to pray for those within your sphere of love and influence. Keep praying, but don't be desperate in the sense that if this doesn't happen, then somehow my relationship with God is going to be ruptured.

This happens all the time. I just heard it yesterday or the day before where someone said that their loved one is mad at God because a loved one died. I'm thinking there are people dying in New Jersey every day, people dying in Orange County every day, people dying in wherever you live every day, and it didn't affect that guy’s life.

Now that it affected his life, the thing that he knows is happening and is going to happen, now all of a sudden he’s mad at God. That’s where we think we can’t get mad at God or be disillusioned or have some rupture in our relationship with God because it’s not his will to save everyone in our family, or even the closest people in our family.

We have to leave this in God’s hands. You're going to have to turn this over to God. I'm going to have to say, "Okay, God, this is your creation. My dad is your creation. You designed him, you made him, he’s accountable to you, and so I'm going to entrust him to you. I'm not in charge of his salvation. I'm not in charge of his life. I'm not the judge of his life, but I want him saved."

You've heard my heart as you pray to him. You say, "God, you know me. I want him saved and I'm just praying that you would." I'm going to be praying every day for the rest of my life that he would be saved until he passes, and then I'm just entrusting him to you.

I'm not going to lie to myself if he never professes faith as though somehow I'm just going to wish against hope that he’s saved. I'm going to be realistic if he never professes faith, but I'm going to pray. I'm going to pray as long as there’s still opportunity and as long as he’s got breath in his lungs.

There are people around you who other people that are related to those people are praying for. Remember that. You could be the answer to someone’s prayer for someone who is praying desperately for some mom or sister or daughter. You rub shoulders with them all the time.

You see them wherever you go and frequent, and they're praying that some good Christian gal like Natalie will run into them and befriend them and share Christ with them because they won't listen to their mother or their sister or whoever’s praying for them. Just know you're going to be the agent and the answer to someone’s prayer if you just continue to be a good representative of Christ in your world every day.

Natalie: Can I ask you one more question? Why don't you like "let go and let God"?

Mike Fabarez: Because that phrase has been used so often to say I'm going to put my feet up on the dashboard of my life, hit the cruise control, and I'm no longer going to lean in and aggressively go after things in the Christian life.

Because of that, I don't like the phrase because I find too many passive Christians that don't work hard, they don't fight sin hard, they don't go after the will of God hard. That’s not what God asked us to do.

From the very beginning, he wants us to work. He wants us to watch. He wants us to fight. He wants us to do the things that I find many Christians are always looking for an out from. If we can say we’ll just let God take care of everything, let the Spirit do his thing and I'm just going to relax and cruise through this, I find that mindset is often employed with that phrase. That’s why I just like to avoid it. I'm not saying everybody who uses it has got that mindset, but that’s why I avoid it.

Dave Drewry: Faith without works is dead. That’s correct, we better work. You're listening to a pre-recorded segment from Ask Pastor Mike Live, and we invite you to join us when Pastor Mike is live on the air and call in with a question of your own. Tune in for Ask Pastor Mike Live, Tuesday through Thursday at 1:00 PM Central, or join in through our website at askpastormike.live. More questions and more of Pastor Mike’s answers are coming up right now. Let’s talk to Harry. Harry, you're on the air with Pastor Mike Fabarez. How can I help?

Harry: Hi, Pastor Mike, how you doing? I've missed hearing you on WDAC. It’s painful.

Mike Fabarez: It’s painful. I just talked to the general manager because I was out there traveling to the National Religious Broadcasters, and we both lamented the fact. But when we get on the air and we say occasionally, "Hey, to stay on this particular station, we need you to call in or send in some donation because this is really listener-supported," we really mean it.

Every month, every quarter, every year, we have to look at whether or not we can afford to stay on it. The station was so good to even help us with discounts here and there, but we just could not continue to take the hit. We've done all we can on our side. I don't take any salary, I don't take an expense account, I take nothing from this. We try to be as lean and mean as possible. I just hope maybe one day we can come back on it. It’s a great station and great people there.

Harry: I sure hope so. My question relates to how in the Bible it says our sins are removed as far as the east is from the west. Jesus’ blood washes away our sins or white as snow. But then on the other hand, we’re called into judgment and to give an account. There are verses that say what’s done in secret will be no longer hidden and be proclaimed on the housetop. I just have a hard time reconciling the fact that it’s washed away forever, but then at some point, you're going to be called on account for that.

Mike Fabarez: That’s helpful to clarify because we need to understand if we had as an issue of qualification to be qualified for the kingdom or to be qualified to be in the family and accepted by God, if there were any sin on our account at all, we wouldn't make it. We wouldn't be acceptable.

To be in Christ is to have all the imputed righteousness of Christ applied to us and all of our sin imputed to his cross. Everything that was supposed to be imputed to me and credited to me is now on the account of the punishment that took place on the cross. We have to have the totality of our sins completely removed from our account.

That is the qualification of being adopted into the family. But just like an adoption, if you adopted a child, Harry, and you said you're going to be in my family, it doesn't take away from the reality that God is not a computer program. He’s not a machine. He knows us. We are his children and there will be an accounting of our lives, not for punishment.

This is where we've got to remember that even in 1 Corinthians 3, which is one of the longest extended sections about the Bema seat judgment, the real issue is revealing the gold, silver, and precious stones, which is the analogy of the good things that we've done.

To get to those good things, we've got to wipe away all the junk and get rid of the wood, hay, and straw. The focus really is on the gold, silver, and precious stone. Now, he throws in the suffering loss if there’s just a big pile of wood, hay, and straw.

Of course, I think it’s hyperbolic because if you’ve got faith, you're going to have works to go with it and there’s going to be some gold, silver, and precious stones for every Christian. Even the thief on the cross has got something there because he did something on the cross that was righteous.

The reality is we’re trying to get to the fact that God wants to reward us for good behavior. How can you have any suffering there at the Bema seat? Well, because you can go to the county fair and have your chili evaluated and maybe get two marks of positive and the rest of it is negative and so you go away without any ribbons. You just get a participation trophy.

You're still allowed into the kingdom. You still get to be a part of the carnival and you're still accepted and he wipes away every tear and everything moves on and it’s great. We don't carry shame. We don't have any kind of jealousy. We don't have any exclusion into the losers' club or the dunce club. We don't have any of the kind of comparisons that we have in the modern era.

We love to remember whatever, but there’s not going to be a perfect person there right now. All the people we think are perfect are not perfect. Everyone’s going to have all kinds of issues. I don't know whether the Bema seat’s going to be in a soundproof room for each person or whether it’s going to be out in the open.

I don't know, but the reality is we’re all going to be people that recognize that the rewards that we get are going to be justly given to us. The bad that whatever is exposed is going to be burned up, it’s going to be swept away. Yes, there’ll be some regret at the Bema seat and there will be an accounting for that.

That doesn't mean that we’re going to be punished for it. It doesn't mean that there’s going to be any response of like you have to be judged for this. There is no purgatory, there’s no purging. It's just a giving of "Here’s the life of Mike Fabarez" or "Here’s the life of Harry" and "Here’s what he’s going to be rewarded for."

You would hope there would be a lot of reward, but all of us are probably going to have less reward than we would like. Hopefully, we’ll gain some kind of "Well done" or "Pretty well done" or "That was a good effort." We're going to move into the good phase where the tears will all be wiped away and we’ll get on with the good stuff.

The distinction between the perfection that we have as Christians is all about our qualification to be fully accepted into the family of God. The reality of our behavior as adopted children, there’s reality there. What’s happening now?

Think about it. Go back to Acts 5. Ananias and Sapphira were wiped out for what? Lying to the Holy Spirit. Did they really lie? They just basically pretended that they gave $100,000 for the piece of property when really they gave $100,000 but they really got $175,000 for it. They just kind of let people believe the wrong thing, but God struck them dead.

How many times does that happen in the church and God just lets it slide? All the time. There’s a lot of things that we do that doesn't get dealt with. All I'm saying is there’s going to be a reminder of "Hey, we should have done better, could have done better," but it’s not going to be reproach.

He’s not going to take our nose and like a dog stick our nose in it. That’s not what the judgment is about. It really is, I think, clearly about the reward because that’s what it is for Christians, and that is revealing the gold, silver, and precious stones. There has to be some kind of exposure and that’s wiping away all the other stuff.

Harry: I appreciate it so much. What do you say? I'm a sinner. I can't explain why I acted that way or why I did that thing. Even looking back on my life, some of the mistakes I've made and done, I couldn't give you a reasonable explanation.

Mike Fabarez: Remember even in the concepts of 2 Corinthians 5:10, when it says "We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due for what he’s done in the body, whether good or evil." I know the good part is us and he’s already unpacked that in his first letter to the Corinthians, and that is the gold, silver, precious stones, and he’s rewarded for that.

What’s the evil? That’s the next verse: "Knowing the fear of God, we persuade others." In other words, there’s going to be a judgment for the lost and they will get the reward for their evil deeds. We don't get a reward for our evil deeds.

There’s a distinction there. There’s no retribution. There’s no condemnation for those in Christ (Romans 8:1). Whatever it is, is there going to be embarrassment? There may be shame, and the way it’s described, I do think it’s hyperbolic if all there is is wood, hay, and straw.

If there’s just stuff that you did nothing for Christ, no one’s done nothing for Christ or they’re not Christians. That’s the whole point of 1 John. So there has to be something there, but we’re making decisions every day and the whole point of a Bema seat is to get us to invest more in eternity. "Store up for yourselves treasure in heaven," Jesus says.

This is a motivation. Even the call reminds me, Harry, that it’s motivating you and it should motivate all of our listeners because that’s why these verses are there. Not to be saved by our good works and I hope every listener knows that. Clearly not. We're not cultists. But to help us push on in our sanctification.

Harry: I appreciate it so much.

Mike Fabarez: It’s good and the tension is right. Just know the call is motivated by the right tension and I like it as long as we don't start thinking that we’re going to be held up and people are going to go "Nanny nanny boo-boo, look at what Harry did." I don't think that’s what’s going to happen because there’s nobody throwing stones in the glass house of the Bema seat.

Christ has already told us "No condemnation for those in Christ." And yet we’re not going to skate through it with our nose in the sky. All right, thanks for the call.

Dave Drewry: You’re listening to Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez and another edition of Ask Pastor Mike Live, featuring calls from the weekly broadcast where Pastor Mike takes real questions from real listeners. Now, if any of today’s questions stirred up something in your own mind, know the door is open for you, too.

Ask Pastor Mike Live airs Tuesday through Thursday at 1:00 PM Central, and the phone lines are open. Everything you need to join in can be found online at askpastormike.live.

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This month, we want to put a resource in your hands that reaches past personal devotion. It’s called Making a Difference: Impacting Culture and Society as a Christian by R.C. Sproul. Sproul makes the case that following Christ was never meant to stop at Sunday morning or stay locked inside private conviction. He walks through what it looks like for ordinary believers to carry biblical conviction into their neighborhoods, their workplaces, and the wider culture without losing the gospel in the process.

Request your copy of Making a Difference when you send a generous gift to Focal Point today. You can give over the phone by calling us at 888-320-5885 or give online at focalpointradio.org, or send your gift by mail to Focal Point, Post Office Box 2850, Laguna Hills, California, 92654.

And if this is the first time you’re reaching out to us, we’d like to send you Pastor Mike’s latest booklet called Battling Sin. Just say hello online at focalpointradio.org. I'm Dave Drewry. We’ll be back with more from Pastor Mike Fabarez next time here on Focal Point.