Until All Have Heard
Until All Have Heard
The Importance of Holy Week - with Mike Fabarez (Ep. 288)
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This is a week to remember! The events of Jesus’ last days on Earth are full of meaning for Christians. In this edition Ed welcomes his pastor and ministry partner Mike Fabarez who is pastor of Compass Bible Church and speaker on the Focal Point radio program. Pastor Fabarez will help us gain an eternal perspective on life by seeing how Jesus demonstrated his love for us by going to the cross. You’ll want to listen as we help you prepare your heart to commemorate Jesus’ death, and celebrate the victory of the resurrection… Until All Have Heard.
And welcome to a special edition of Until All Have Heard from the Far East Broadcasting Company. And we checked with Ed Cannon, president of FEBC. Something a little different today, but I think looking at the calendar, it's called for, don't you, Ed?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think so. You know, Wayne, we often speak with uh guests around the world from FEBC, directors, broadcasters, people who are on the front line of ministry proclaiming the gospel in their native language to their local people on radio and new media. But we thought, well, Easter is the pinnacle, I think, of Christian holiday. Absolutely. The resurrection is the foremost aspect of our faith.
SPEAKER_01Trevor Burrus, Jr.: It's the hinge of all history, I like to say.
SPEAKER_02So we should probably not treat that issue uh lightly and get someone who's much more eloquent at expressing the truth and the meaning of the run-up to that Easter Sunday with our Lord. So we have invited my pastor, uh Mike Fabaras. He's the host of Focal Point Radio, a an excellent Bible teaching expository. You can probably get it in your city, and I would encourage you strongly to listen to Focal Point. So, Pastor Mike, welcome today. Thanks so much for joining us on Until All Have Heard.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's great to be here, and uh no more important thing to talk about than what Jesus accomplished for us in that last week of his earthly ministry.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So if I could ask you to expound just a bit on what message would you tell those listening to this program today uh in preparation for Easter to focus on the last events of Christ's life.
SPEAKER_00Aaron Powell Well, you know, in first John we're told that if if we say we abide in him and we are related to him and we trust in him and we are saved by him, we ought to uh we ought to walk as he walked, we ought to live as he lived. And of course, we can't uh effectuate anybody's redemption, but um we do know that he said if um in 1 John chapter 3, verse 16, that if he laid down his life for us, we ought to lay down our lives for each other. And you know, that first beginning segment of the last discussion he has there, extended discussion, the upper room discourse in the Gospel of John, um, that's exactly what happens. He he he is, I mean, if you just think about it, if you knew you were going to be tortured and killed at the end of the week, and um, you know, you'd have this really strange uh celebration that you're all that you claim to be in this triumphal entry the week before, just days before, and now you know you're headed to the cross. And as John put it, he having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end, he loved them to the fullest. Uh, he was about to give his life for them. And and the thing that he does that I think impresses me the most here is he's about to lay down his life. Uh, I'm thinking, I'd want to just be served and I'd want people to care for my needs, and I want to cry on people's shoulders about all I was about to suffer. But he takes up a basin of water and um and he washes the disciples' feet. And as that all ends, he says, You should you should do what I've done here, which of course we don't have the need for anyone to wash my feet. I mean, I got socks and shoes on and my feet don't get dirty, but it wasn't about literal foot washing, but it's about this service mindset, right? What we can do, and what I hope all your listeners are committed to doing is being useful to the Lord with our lives, with our resources, with our talents, with our effort, with our time, uh, to do what is best and most important for the world and generation in which we live, right? To lay down our lives for this generation. And what we want, as Paul said, we do all things for the sake of the elect. We want to see people brought to faith in Jesus Christ. That's what FEBC is all about. That's what my life is all about. That's what every church should be all about, making disciples. And I just think Jesus has showed us, even when you wouldn't think there's anything in you that would make you want to serve anymore. I mean, he does the service that is needed. He's showing his love in tangible ways. And he's ultimately, as he begins the discussion after washing feet, uh, he's talking about the most important things, the Spirit of God sent into the world to convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. I mean, I was just preaching this last weekend on just getting the right perspective on this life. And I know I can be accused of being a doom and gloomer when I think about just um the life that we have is difficult, it's filled with suffering. There's a lot of pain, there's a lot of sickness, a lot of trouble. But the Bible says that we should be so focused on the life that is to come that uh it makes all of this pale by comparison. And it's not because I'm trying to utilize things from the scripture to make my daily life, you know, happier and joyful, although there are moments of that. It's that I'm so overwhelmed by the fact that one day I'm gonna meet Christ, that I'm gonna be clothed in his righteousness. I'm gonna be accepted before my creator. I mean, nothing is better and nothing is greater than that. And I think to myself, I got lots of reasons to sit around and not serve anybody, not talk about the gospel, not give myself for the good of other people this week. And yet Jesus is showing me that he served right on to the end. You know, I remember we know on the track team in junior high, they talked about running through the tape. Tape was always gone by the time I got there. I I knew what they meant. You know, they they run all the way through the finish line. And Jesus did that in the last week of his life just by doing the most basic service. It's like, it's like if you went to a meeting and you found the leader of the organization out there washing everybody's car. I mean, that's what this was like. It's like, what are you doing? What are you doing? It just didn't make any sense. And yet he's saying, listen, even when there's nothing left in the tank, right? We give, we serve, we spend, and we're we're being expended for the souls of people. And there's nothing more important because this life's gonna come to an end. As Jesus said, nighttime is coming when no one can work, right? But we're gonna work as long as it's day. And that's what I love about this organization. That's what I love about being a Christian, is there's so much good work to do, and we're gonna do it until God calls us home, and then we're gonna enter into the kingdom prepared for us from the foundation of the world. Nothing could be greater than that. And Jesus, I think, showed that in such powerful ways in that last week of his life, in particular in the upper room discourse.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Ross Powell, you know, Pastor Mike, I I have to point just a few minutes ago, you said you people think you might be a gloom and doomer or a doom and gloomer, I guess. Sorry. But and and and I sit under your preaching regularly, um, but I want to applaud you for for being that way. It's not doom and gloom, it's joy and beauty and heaven and eternity. You're constantly preaching on keeping an eternal focus on this life. And if we think about just making this life happy, that's so short-sighted because this is such a short life. I heard a guy once tell me that you know this life is like the taxicab ride to the airport to an eternal vacation in glory. And we have to think about who cares what the taxicab looks like, right? That's this life. So don't think for one second that people like me and many at your church think you're a doom and gloomer. They think you're a guy that helps us focus on that which is important. And I appreciate so much that what you just said about focusing on this last week.
SPEAKER_01You know, even as you say that, I I think about the people we've met around the world who serve Christ through FEBC, and I see this in them. I see this eternal perspective. Pay the price now, you know, regardless of what that price is. And I ask myself, what's the difference? What why don't I have that in my life? Why don't I see more of that around me? And I think it has a lot to do with the comfort and all the distractions that we have. And they understand hardship and how it leads you closer to God. I mean, uh d you've seen that too, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And I want to really say that I think what we see in those people is their commitment to Christ and their dedication to the service of Him. You're right, that they have so little that getting more doesn't have to be a good thing.
SPEAKER_01What we say is so little. Oh, yeah. Yeah. By our standards.
SPEAKER_02Aaron Powell Yeah, right. I mean, we have directors who don't have pavement on the floors of their homes, who cook their food over wood fires that they pick up sticks in the jungle to cook, and they're they're completely happy with that. They're content. Um I r I remember a story not long ago. We were with a lady in Cambodia who was a former Buddhist monk, and she lived in a tiny little shack. We went to her shack and she gave us tea, she wanted to serve us. And one of our staff noticed that she had two brand new radios in boxes back in the back corner of her little one-room home and and asked her, Why do you have these two radios? And she said, Well, because um, you know, I know people who don't have radios, and out of my abundance, I want to give something to them. And her abundance was uh abject poverty by a U.S. standard. But anyway, I'm off track. Uh Pastor Mike, I appreciate your focus on eternity.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'll tell you, I was thinking as you were saying that, Wayne, uh, in 2 Corinthians 4, it says that we're not to look at the things that are seen, but the things that are unseen, right? Because things that are seen are transient, things we don't see are eternal. That's the hard part about shifting anybody's focus to eternity because we don't see it. And it's really something, as you said, Wayne, that in in a world where there's a lot of shiny things for us to see, it's hard for us to get our eyes off of that, right? And the more blessed we are, right? Like the rich young ruler in Matthew 19, the more he has, the more he can fix his eyes on, which by the way, in Ecclesiastes 5, that's precisely what Solomon says happens when you get a lot of stuff. You fix your eyes on them. And to fix your eyes on them is certainly more than just I got to keep a watch on them so no one steals them. It's like Jesus says, we set our hearts on them and we fixate on them. And it's hard for us to say, well, hey, we're Christians. We we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen. So, in some ways, it is easier, right, when we're living with less in this world. And that has led people in church history to take vows of poverty. And I don't think that's necessary, as it says in 1 Timothy 6, you can have a lot that God gives you to enjoy, but then he says, be generous and ready to share, rich in good works. So as long as people are are seeing themselves as stewards and they're not fixating on it, they're not obsessing with this life and all of its stuff, then we can all be on the same page, which preceding that verse in 2 Corinthians 4, it says, even if the outer man is decaying, right, the inner man is being renewed day by day. Because we know that that light and momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, which is exactly what Romans 8.18 says. You really can't compare, no matter what struggles we go through for the gospel, no matter how much poverty we go through, how much cancer we go through, whatever this world gives us, right? Like you said, it is the taxi ride on the way to the most amazing vacation when God says to us, enter into the kingdom. It's going to be a great day, and we shouldn't be so concerned about how good our taxi cab is. And we're comparing taxi cabs, and we really, it's not worth it. It's not worth it.
SPEAKER_01But even the vacation is not for us. It's for us to spend glorifying him, right? So that's right.
SPEAKER_02That's right. So as we uh uh as we think about wrapping this discussion up today, Pastor Mike, how how would you leave it with our listeners that they should focus on preparing their hearts this week as a run-up to Resurrection Sunday? How should they pray? How should they they spend their time?
SPEAKER_00Well, I'll tell you, it's easy for us to focus on some of the lessons of Christ, and he does give us those lessons, and we should do as he did, and we should lay down our lives for each other. But we would be uh really remiss if we didn't focus on what Christ accomplished, right? This is so important that we focus on this. It's so important that God set up this ordinance of the church, the Lord's Supper, so that we could proclaim his death until he comes. So this is the centerpiece of our theology. While other religions are saying, you know, be good, clean your life up, you can earn your way into heaven. The Bible is saying you can be the thief on the cross, you could, you could be, you, you could have, I mean, all of us come to Christ with nothing but our sin in this transaction to offer. And we need to say, we are Christians and distinctly Christian, because we look at that death on the cross as Christ being us on that cross, the sinners that we are, and the father treating the son as though he were me and you, right? He's Wayne and he's Ed and he's Mike, and and he's he's enduring the pain, absorbing the justice from the father. And and we are clean. We are clean because we by faith trust in that transaction, and we say this is the centerpiece of our theology, right? You could you can put Christ on a on a on a statue, dying on a cross, but not trust in him fully for your forgiveness. We have to trust in him fully. We have to say this is what our Christianity is all about. Christ died for us, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. And so don't lose sight of that, this this holy week, right? And the resurrection is just the celebration that it all worked. But what we're celebrating is that it did work, that Christ died for me, and therefore I'm righteous before God.
SPEAKER_02Well, as I expected, that's a great message for our listeners today, Pastor Mike. I do appreciate that. And as we wrap this program up today, I would I would ask that you pray particularly for the broadcasters around the world with FEBC as they use this resurrection Sunday as a huge opportunity as an outreach. It is. This time of year, people are much more open to hearing about Christianity. They're much more interested in the faith of Christians as they see us celebrating um Christ's resurrection and the forgiveness of sins through the payment of the punishment that we deserve. So please pray for them. Pray for the effectiveness of the ministry and pray to open the hearts of those people who have yet heard the gospel so that this Easter Sunday, when they hear it, perhaps for the first time, they'll believe the truth that Mike was just talking about and come to faith in him. Once again, Pastor Mike, thanks a a lot for joining us today. It's been my joy to be with you. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01We didn't mention Compass Bible Church is uh is where Pastor Mike serves. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
SPEAKER_02And Alyssa Viejo.
SPEAKER_01California. Trevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_02It's a wonderful church. And you have how many church plants around the United States, Mike?
SPEAKER_00Trevor Burrus, Jr. Five or six church plants. I was just meeting before I walked in for this broadcast with the pastor of our church in Guatemala City. So we have some international and we have a lot domestic, but uh we're excited about church planning because we know it's a tool to see people come to faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_02Perhaps we could partner on planning a church in Bangkok or Sumatra, Indonesia, something like that.
SPEAKER_01There you go. We'll see how the Lord uh what he does with that idea. All right. Thank you, Pastor Mike. Of course, we ain't thank you for listening to Until All Have Heard. There is much more information at our website about this ministry, febc.org. And uh men, I'll simply say Christ is risen.
SPEAKER_02Amen. He is risen. Thanks, Pastor Mike. Of course.