Focal Point

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Love is expressed in giving. You don't have to give much. Whatever enablement that you've gotten from God, any gracious ability, endowment, propensity, skill that God has given you, you have an ability with your life to serve others. That would be huge. The church would be hallmarked by men and those people love each other.

Dave Drury: I don't know about you, but lists keep me on track. Honey-dos, deadlines, all those little things I can't afford to forget. Welcome to *Focal Point*. I'm Dave Drury. Today Pastor Mike Fabarez begins our next study in Hebrews 13 called "Counter-Cultural Christians" with a list of God's own reminders worth keeping close.

You might want to jot down a few yourself as we go. And before we get started, for any first-time listener, Pastor Mike's got a free booklet we'd like to send you called *Battling Sin*. Just reach out at focalpointradio.org. Well, now here's Pastor Mike.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Kids brought home their report cards. Of course, I sat down with them and worked through line by line. It threw me back to the time when I had to sit down with my parents with my report card and they did the same thing to me. "What's with that? Why is that grade like that?" It's like those times when I said to them, "Well, that grade is like that because the teacher said I didn't turn in my homework."

Of course, the follow-up question is, "Why didn't you turn in your homework?" I tried this one a couple of times. "Well, I thought the homework was extra credit." But of course, if the teacher said it wasn't extra credit, then of course my parents wouldn't think it was extra credit and then I suffered the consequences.

Sometimes we get to the end of a book that we're studying, and a lot of the New Testament books are this way, and we start to see these kinds of rapid-fire, almost proverbial statements at the end of the book. It's kind of in there with "Greet this person" and "Say hi to that person" and "Grace to you" and all that. It's like it just seems like extra stuff. Kind of thrown in there. A little extra credit, maybe.

Well, we've got to be careful when we come to the end of the study of a book like we have now to the 13th chapter of Hebrews. Though we don't have elaborate explanations of all of these statements we're about to encounter, I can assure you that what we're about to get into here is not extra credit. This is core curriculum.

Just because they're short, simple, terse statements, you've got to understand they're all imperatives. They're put in terms of commands. They're not statements like, "If you'd like to do these things, here's a few extra things I thought I'd throw in. I didn't have space for earlier." These are commands coming from the inspired writer of the New Testament and the Holy Spirit wants us to take them seriously.

And that's even more important for us to do as we approach the first three verses of Hebrews 13 because churches like ours can often look at verses like this and say, "Oh, that's just elementary stuff. That's superfluous. All that relationship stuff and kind of loving each other. Give me the hard stuff." This may not seem to you to be a deep truth of the New Testament.

It may not take a lot of brainpower to understand it, but be advised that this is really core stuff because Jesus said the whole adherence to the doctrine of the New Testament will be validated in the world's eyes as they look at you by your love for one another. Remember Jesus saying that? "By this all men will know that you're my disciples if you have love for each other."

Everything that we stand for is going to be validated, particularly as the world watches us, by whether or not this kind of doctrine that we've just learned in the book of Hebrews can be evidenced in our relationships. Is this seen in your church? I know I tell you that story from time to time about the pastor that preached the exact same sermon Sunday after Sunday.

After weeks of the same sermon, his congregation approaches him and confronts him and says, "Come on, pastor, you're preaching the same sermon." And he says, "Yeah, I know. Once you start living that one, I'll move on to the next one." And God's not in His providence stuttering from the platform. He really wants us not just to get it, but I think, as Paul wrote the Thessalonians, He'd like us to excel in this.

When we practice it, not only will it be distinctive from the rest of the world, and it will be that because they're not doing this down at the fraternity house or the Elks Lodge. This is distinctive to the people of God to live out the first three verses here of Hebrews chapter 13. But I think if we got serious about this, it would be distinctive not only from the secular organizations out there, I think it'd be distinctive among Christians.

A lot of people think, like you and I are tempted to think, it's just kind of natural stuff. We just kind of do this. I don't think we do. It is counter-cultural, not just for the world's way of doing things. It's counter-cultural for a lot of us who have spent a lot of time in church trying to understand the Bible and do what it says.

I hope that you will recognize that this is in God's providence another reminder that you and I need to take this seriously. So open your Bibles if you haven't already to Hebrews chapter 13 as we get to the non-extra credit section of Hebrews, the passage where the writer of Hebrews begins his concluding remarks, which may be how this whole section is labeled.

By the way, sidebar here, this is a critically important message to put the pen to the paper and jot a few things down because it will be critical to turn this statement of God's truth into a to-do list for your life. I know you feel you get a lot of that here, but this one will not happen unless you put the pen to the paper, I'm almost certain of it. Because there's just too many balls to be juggling in our minds, we've got to write it down.

Okay? So with that said, let's talk about what it means to be a counter-cultural Christian. The first seven verses are going to deal with a lot of topics. Let's start with the first topic that extends for three verses and it happens syntactically in an increasing sacrificial measure. In other words, we go from a simpler statement in verse one to a more challenging statement in verse two to an even more challenging statement in verse three.

Let's read it and then we'll study it. Verse number one: Writer of Hebrews says, "Keep on loving each other as brothers." That sounds simple. That's easy stuff. Come on. Keep loving each other as brothers. Well, it's essential. As a matter of fact, here's one demonstration of it, verse number two: "And don't forget to entertain strangers."

Now, here's a bizarre motivation: "For by doing so some have entertained angels without knowing it." That's kind of weird. More on that later. I won't skip it, I promise. Verse three: "Remember those who are in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners." Now, the first two verses, those painted pictures in my mind of something rather positive.

This one doesn't feel so good. Empathy for those that are hurting. "And those," middle of verse three, "who are mistreated," literally badly treated, "as if you yourselves were suffering. You should live through that with them." Three concentric circles, if you will, from what may be for us the easiest hurdle to a little more difficult one to the highest hurdle on verse three.

Let's start with the easy one. How about that? Verse number one: "Keep on loving each other as brothers." We ought to have a commitment to one another that is like a commitment and sacrifice that is demonstrated in a familial relationship: siblings. Here's the difference between friends and siblings. You get to choose your friends, right? You don't get to choose your siblings.

Isn't that how it is? You get these people and you're locked into these relationships. Even if your parents adopted, they probably didn't consult with you, right? You're stuck with your siblings biologically. That's kind of how it is in the body of Christ. We are in this group not because we all chose to somehow hang out because we all share the same kind of hobbies and interests.

We were pulled together, the Bible says, because of our common commitment to Jesus Christ. We come from all different backgrounds and who knows how you grew up or what your interests and tastes and hobbies are, but we are now in this thing called the local church and now we are to relate to one another.

Not based on our decision to be friends, but based on our connection that God sees that we should have because we're all connected to Him. That's how the church is set up. You are, unfortunately, forced to relate to me and the person across the way and the person in front of you because we're all committed to Christ and fellowshipping in the same church.

We are now called in Scripture, the most popular word that God uses for us, we're called brothers. Brothers and sisters, siblings in the body of Christ. I didn't choose you, you didn't choose me. We had to have this relationship and it's based on commitment. We can use the word friends if we want, but it's a kind of friendship that's a little bit deeper, a little bit more sacrificial, and necessarily a little bit more selfless, right?

Because if you're a parent, you know how this is. You're always trying to get your kids to not just not fight, you would like them to help each other, wouldn't you? You want them to assist one another. When you go to school, watch out for your brother. Be nice to your sister, look out for her. There's all this mutual kind of responsibility that's laid on siblings to not only get along but to be serving one another.

And that's what it's about. It's not just friendship. It's a kind of friendship that's more selfless and it's deeper. So let's put it that way. Number one on your outline if you're taking notes, here it comes. You and I, we need to, level one of sacrifice here, selflessly deepen our friendships. You have relationships that are based on the fact that you go to the same church, and those relationships need to not just be like friendships you might have had in the world.

They need to be deeper than that. They need to be the kinds of relationships that you can imagine God looking from heaven as our Heavenly Father, seeing two of His children in the same church, saying, "Come on, guys. I want you to serve each other. I want you to look out for each other. I want you to be committed to each other."

Now, here's the note-taking part that I was talking about. Here's what I'd like you to do. Jot down three names under number one that come to mind. Just right off the top of your head, that you say these are my friends. Just three. Go ahead, write down three names. I'll wait. Write those names down. Okay, you got them down? Here we go.

Now, that's our focus. First thing in anything in the Scripture, we're going to have to figure out the target. What are we supposed to do? Before we know what it means to be brothers and siblings, we've got to know who we're targeting. Let's just start with the easy one: pick three names. Great. Got those names? Here we go.

Let's think through what this means. Let's try and understand this. A passage that's going to parallel this entire section is Romans chapter 12. So let's turn there and then fold down the corner because we're going to be back to Romans 12 because Paul expands in the book of Romans on everything that the writer of Hebrews is saying here in the first three verses of Hebrews chapter 13, talking about our commitment to one another.

And again the word, you Greek students with your Greek New Testaments on your lap, you know the word here is *Philadelphia*, right? It's that word that we transliterate to the city in Pennsylvania. Brotherly love. As a matter of fact, it's a very short word in the Greek New Testament. Got an article and then he says, just let brotherly love keep on going in your church.

Which isn't just let the friendships keep going. It's something deeper than that. So there is a challenge here for us, but make sure there are relationships in church that are a lot like sibling relationships in terms of the commitment and selflessness and care that you give for one another. And Paul gives us some definition here in Romans chapter 12.

Thankfully, he unpacks it with another phrase that gives us some explanation of what this means. Look at verse number nine. Let's start and get a little context here. Love in this verse, *agape*, let it be sincere, without hypocrisy. So this is not just an assignment. I know it is an assignment, I recognize that, but it's not just "Well, I have to do it." Let it be sincere.

Let this assignment prompt something from the heart. Hate what's evil, cling to what's good. Certainly we're going to do things in the realm of what's righteous and good. Now let's talk about it. Be devoted, verse 10, to brotherly love. That's our word again: *Philadelphia*. Now, he gives us a sentence that helps us define this. Here it comes: "Honor one another above yourselves."

*Philadelphia* is that very thing. It is being able to, like you want from your kids, to put the other interest, the interest of the other sibling, above their own. That's different than friendships in the world. Friendships in the world are a lot like this: we're equal partners here. *Philadelphia* and moving my relationships to a real sibling relationship, in God's mind, is the idealized relationship of saying, "I am going to look out for their interest above my own. I'm going to honor them above me. I want them to have their interest come first in my life."

Now, that's a different and that is a bit of a challenge and that's going to take some doing. So let's figure out how to do that. First thing: we've got to identify who they are. Some of you have done that. Wrote down three names. Fantastic. How do we go about doing this? Let me give you four quick ways. These are broad, I won't take time to prove all of these necessarily, but hopefully they're intuitive.

Biblically, if I'm going to, let me give you some proof for the first one. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 25. 1 Thess 5:25. We see the connection in Scripture, which hopefully is no big challenge to you in terms of "prove it to me, Pastor Mike," is that sibling relationships and the commitment to sibling relationships definitely need the key ingredient of prayer.

And Paul here says, "Brothers, if we're brothers, pray for us." And hopefully that obviously is part and parcel of having a commitment to put the other person's needs above my own. I want to pray for you. So if we're making some subpoints, this would be letter A. I've identified a few names, and if I'm going to love them like brothers, then I need to be praying for them.

Let's get real specific. Here's a challenge. I would like you to pray for those three names every single day this week. All three names, every day. Start tonight. You're going to pray for those three names. And if we're going to honor them above ourselves, here's the mental challenge. I want you to pray for them every single day before you ever ask God for anything for you. Got that?

In the morning, by breakfast time, I'm sure you're thinking, "God help me. I've got to have this and I need that. I've got a big assignment today." As that starts to slip out of your mouth, put it all back in and say, "Uh-oh, I committed. I'm devoted to this thing called brotherly love and I committed myself to pray for them first."

So every morning, these three names, you're going to pray for them and you're going to ask God to do something for their good before you ever pray for anything for yourself. Deal? There's a pastoral discipline, a little workout regimen that will help our church to become distinctive, not only from the world but I think distinctive and counter-cultural even among other churches.

Here's a church where you've got people putting the prayer requests of other people before their own. And you probably, if you put three names down of people you know, you probably already know what you need to be praying for for those people. If not, give them a call and ask them. "What can I pray for you about this week?" And then every day, you are not going to talk to God about your need until you talk to God about their need. That's honoring them above yourself. Prayer: key ingredient.

Letter B: Second thing you can do. If you're going to express brotherly love that has a concern about them. Here's another expression of this in the New Testament and I won't chapter and verse this, but I'll look back at the whole canon of the New Testament. Let me just make this observation. When it comes to the New Testament, if I'm going to help build someone up, here's how the Scripture typifies and illustrates this for us. It does it with words.

Here's the example. There are 27 books of the New Testament, right? Did you know that there are eight of them that are written to individuals? Eight of them. You might dispute the eighth, but there are eight in my opinion. Eight New Testament books are written to individuals. Well, what are you trying to say? But they are one Christian reaching out and writing to another Christian to edify that person.

The tool in Scripture is building them up, honoring them, helping them, putting their needs above my own through my words. So if you're going to pray for them every day, you've got seven-day assignment now to pray for those three people before your... Here's the second assignment, letter B: I'm going to use my words at least once this week.

Intentionally, purposefully, my words to somehow edify each of those three people. So you've got this week an assignment to take your words, whether written, email... I don't know how you want to do it. You want to talk to them on the phone? But you're going to make the phone call, you're going to write the email, you're going to send the letter specifically for the purpose of, "I want all three of these people to be edified by my godly words."

I want to say something that's going to lift these people up. That, I mean, can you already see is going to make a big difference? Can you imagine text messaging, emails, postcards, phone calls that have the sole and exclusive purpose of edifying those people? Do you think that would be a unique church to attend?

The church would be hallmarked by men and those people love each other. They said that about the early church. Letter C: Got four things here. Here's the third one. 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 10. 1 Peter 4:10. Don't need to turn there but jot it down. You're maybe familiar with this simple statement that Peter throws out to us.

He says whatever gift you've received, and by that he means grace or enablement, that's the word. Whatever enablement that you've gotten from God, any gracious ability, endowment, propensity, skill that God has given you. He says employ that gift or that grace to serve others, faithfully administering the grace of God.

In other words, God has given you things that you can do, insights that you have, skills, talents, endowments, whatever. You have an ability with your life to serve others. And I'm just saying those three people right there, let's make this a month assignment. One time this month, you're going to use your life experience, your life skill, your trade, your insight, your experience, whatever, and you're going to personally serve all three of those people.

So you're going to pray for them every day, you're going to write them an encouraging note this week or talk to them and give them specific communique to edify them, and now I'm saying use what God has invested in you in terms of your abilities and your giftedness and employ that in those three people's lives at least once.

"I'm going to try and help you. You know, I know I have some insight in that and person doesn't, and I have this ability and I'm going to use that ability to somehow help you." And that's... I don't know what your thing is. I don't know what God has gifted you to do, but He's gifted each one of us. Bible makes that very clear.

1 Corinthians 12, 1 Peter 4. Now use whatever that giftedness, that insight, that ability, that skill, and serve those three people. Isn't that as a parent you'd love to see your kids do that with each other? I mean, just imagine that. Just imagine your kids coming and using their ability to just without prompting, without God kind of forcing to have them say, "Yeah, I'd like to serve you."

That would be huge. Critically important. Pray for them. Use some words to edify them. Serve them for their good. Lastly, and this is distinctive from letter C because letter C is about you serving them. Letter D: Let's just jot this one down. Luke chapter 6, verses 33 through 35. Luke 6:33 through 35.

And Jesus makes a contrast and comparison and it's challenging. He says, "You know what? If you're good to those that are good to you, big deal. Whoopee." I mean, basically he says even the pagans do that. If you give to those who you know are going to give back to you, what good is that? Even the pagans do that.

But he says why don't you be like God who gives without expecting anything in return? Here's the fourth one: Give them something. You don't have to wait for their birthday or Christmas. Give them a gift. Literally. Give to them. That is the essence, is it not, of biblical love? Love is expressed in giving.

"Well, I don't have much." You don't have to give much. Give them something, though. Now, I know in number three I'm giving them myself in some way. "Hey, can I help you with that? Can I come over and do that? I want to serve you." Here's the fourth one: I'm going to give you something. And that may seem so bizarre to you but just do it.

I had someone give me a random gift last month, completely and for no reason. And I don't know if they were just at the checkout, you know now they have all those gift cards that you can be at the hardware store get gift card for Ruth's Chris right there. It's bizarre. But they're all hanging there now everywhere.

And that person, for whatever reason, grabbed one of those cards, put a little bit of money on that, wrote me a note, "Hey, just thanks for being my pastor. Here it is." Card. Total blessing. And it was a blessing not because the card, "Oh great, now I can buy something there," but it was just the expression of care and concern and love. "Hey, I love you. Here's a gift." Amazing what that'll do.

Well, it's not my birthday, it's not Christmas. What...? Just a gift. Three people on your list. These shouldn't be a high hurdle. You didn't put three enemies on there, right? Put three of your friends on there. Give them something this month, okay? So you're going to serve them, you're going to give to them, you're going to pray for them every day, you're going to write them this week or say something to them for their edification and their good.

Again, imagine what church would be like if just half of the people that hear my voice this week put this into action. It would transform this church. It would be distinctive. Selflessly deepen your friendships. You've got them here, you should have them. If not, build some and put this list to work. Let it happen. It's a different kind of relationship. It's not like the relationships in the world. We're to keep loving each other as brothers.

Dave Drury: You're listening to *Focal Point* with Pastor Mike Fabarez and the very beginning of a series called "Counter-Cultural Christians". You can revisit or share today's message titled "Sacrifice Instead of Selfishness" anytime by going online to focalpointradio.org or by downloading the free *Focal Point* app.

And don't forget, *Ask Pastor Mike Live* is on the air every Tuesday through Thursday at 1:00 PM central, and anyone listening is welcome to call in. You can also watch and catch up anytime on the *Ask Pastor Mike* channel on YouTube. For more details on any of this, just go to askpastormike.love.

You know, living as a counter-cultural Christian doesn't mean retreating from the world. It means showing up differently within it. Well, that's exactly the ground Pastor Mike's book pick tackles this month: *Making a Difference: Impacting Culture and Society as a Christian* by R.C. Sproul.

Sproul pushes past easy slogans and gets specific. What does faithful presence actually look like at your job, in your neighborhood, behind your own front door? It's a powerful read that reframes how you see your Monday morning. Request your copy when you give to *Focal Point* this month. Call 888-320-5885 or give online at focalpointradio.org. Or mail your gift to *Focal Point*, P.O. Box 2850, Laguna Hills, California 92654.

Here's a bold ask: don't stop at giving once. Step into something ongoing and become a *Focal Point* partner standing with us every single month. Not because we need to hit a number, but because a counter-cultural faith needs counter-cultural support: people willing to fund something that culture isn't.

Your monthly gift keeps this teaching reaching listeners quietly figuring out how to live differently in a world pulling them towards sameness. It's a way of putting your money where your convictions already are. Step up today. Sign on as a *Focal Point* partner at focalpointradio.org or by calling 888-320-5885.

When pain won't let up, is God trying to get our attention? And how far does honesty have to bend when someone we love is at risk? Hear honest biblical answers in the next edition of *Ask Pastor Mike Live*, Friday on *Focal Point*.

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