Ask Pastor Mike Fabarez

Speaker 1

Today on Focal Point, from Pastor Mike Fabares, the meaning of serving.

Speaker 2

You want to have a great, you know, love for anyone. And we think specifically of our marriage. I think, how can I be a servant in this situation?

We come into the relationship to get— you complete me, right? You meet my needs, you make me happy. All of these things that we want.

When it's all get, get, get, and it's not, "I'm coming here to sign up to see how I can serve your life," then we miss the point altogether.

Speaker 1

What do you think of a waitress snapping her fingers at you or a plumber handing you a wrench? We live in a world where we expect to be served, and that's even trickled into our marriages.

Today on Focal Point, Pastor Mike Fabarez holds marriage up to the standard of servitude we see in the Bible. What would happen if you regarded your husband or wife as the one person you've been assigned to serve, as if they were Jesus himself?

We're taking a look at agape love in marriage.

Speaker 2

One of the things that we're called to do is to love one another the way God loved us. The Bible is always trying to compare the love of God toward us with our love toward one another. And no place in Scripture is that done better than in a bit of a confusing text for some: First John, chapter two. So let's look at that now.

If I said, "Listen, I got the key to your marriage and to you having a kind of marriage where, as a husband or a wife, you'll never stumble, you'll never fall down. This will get you to the end of your life, whether you're married 45 years, 55 years, whatever, and you will never stumble," what would that be? This text says, as it relates to our lives in general, it's the love that we have for other people. In our marriage, we need to bring it into the microcosm of the marriage that we live in every day. Our lives are really going to either make it or be broken. We're going to thrive or we're going to stumble, depending on whether or not we have the kind of love that God has reflected in the life of Christ toward us.

Now, six quick observations about what the Bible says about agape love. If Christ's love for us, God's love for us, is the standard, then I want to say, what does that look like in my marriage? So let's be real specific about God's love as the template for my love for my wife or your love for your husband.

Okay, number one: Agape love, if it's anything in the Bible, is going to seek good for my spouse. That's the orientation, and that is the focus. Jesus did not come to complete himself in his relationship with us. He didn't come to love us so he'd be fulfilled. He didn't come to love us so that he would feel good. He came to love us to seek a need in our lives and fulfill it.

Keep your finger here in First John because we're going to come back to it, but turn with me to Matthew, chapter 20, just to show you how often he tried to define everything by this orientation of his life: to serve us. These are the kinds of things that should float through my mind as a husband. If I'm going to love my wife, not only as my friend, my best friend, not only as my lover, but now as someone reflecting the love of God, I should be looking at my wife and saying, "My job here is to say, how can I better her life? How can I do good for her?" That's my job.

As it relates to agape love, drop down to verse 25 in Matthew 20. Jesus called to them his disciples and said to them, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them. They love to flex their authoritative muscles over the people that they're over in their authority, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you, but whoever would be great among you must be your servant." There's the word, right? I need to be a servant. "Whoever would be first among you must be your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a payment, a ransom for many people."

He says, "The greatness that you attribute to me as the Son of God, you need to look at my authority, my power, my resources. I came to see how I could fix your problem, how I could improve your lot, how I could fix your plight. That's how I came." Now, you want to be great? You want to have a great love for anyone? We think specifically of our marriage. I think, "How can I be a servant in this situation?"

People often come into the relationship to get: "You complete me," right? "You meet my needs, you make me happy." All of these things that we want when it's all get, get, get, and it's not. I'm coming here to sign up to see how I can serve your life. Then we miss the point altogether. Are you a servant to your spouse? I guess that's where we're going with this. In provision, in love, in protection, in prayer, in encouragement, in enjoyment, do you seek to say, "How can I make your life better?"

Number two: If you're going to do this—and this is pretty logical—but if you go back to First John, if I'm going to say, "I want to be a servant to my wife," and if you say, "I want to be a servant to my wife or servant to my husband," you need to be attuned to their needs. Okay? That's the second thing. Agape love is attuned to his needs or her needs, depending on who you are. What are my wife's needs? See? Attuned to needs.

You're back in First John. Look at chapter three, First John 3:16, which is a great complement to the gospel of John 3:16. "By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers." We kind of dealt with that already, just briefly, at least. Christ was meeting our ultimate need, the exchange of his life for ours. We needed righteousness. We didn't have it; he provided it. We needed our sins paid for; he paid the penalty on the cross for us.

So he's saying, "Now you can't do that kind of work, but you can sacrifice to meet the needs of your brother. So do it. If anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need and yet closes his heart against him, how can the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or in talk, but in deed and in truth." You could put the whole Good Samaritan parable in there. The attitude of meeting the need begins with, and this is just a logical thing, knowing what the need is and making sure that when I see the need, my heart doesn't close against it.

I need to be attuned to needs. Now, frankly, a lot of us don't want to know what the needs are because then we'll feel guilt if we're not meeting them or we'll feel obligated to meet them. I mean, there are lots of situations. There are always people that you picture always wanting something from you. At work, for instance, you know, that you avoid in the hallway because you know there's going to be a question, or they’re going to have to have you do this thing or hand you this project or that file.

And so you don't want to see the needs in your relationship with your spouse. Though the whole point of being the servant who loves with agape love requires that you know the needs, right? You must know what the needs are of your spouse. You are the number one resource in God's toolbox to meet the needs for your spouse. Think of it that way.

And the problem is there is this sense of not wanting to even know. Sometimes I would challenge you not only to start praying in the mornings, "How can I do good to my spouse?" but another prayer that needs to follow that is, "God, show me the needs of my spouse. Let me know how I can be a blessing to their lives in a specific way," because there is something there that I can do.

This works both ways, but it's stated for men, and I've already quoted it. You don't need to turn there, but at least jot it down if you're taking notes: First Peter 3:7. I think the drama of the way that the grammar is spelled out in the original language is helpful. It's translated this way: "Husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way," but literally it says to live with them with knowledge. Live with your wives and have knowledge.

And the point is, have knowledge of who they are. Then he goes on to say, "Your wife is not like your buddies, right? She is this delicate vessel," literally. That's how it lays out in Greek. It's translated "weaker vessel," but the point is, she's delicate. She's different than you. She's wired differently than you. And it says this: "You are to live with her as an heir of the grace of life so that your prayers aren't hindered."

God now is holding us accountable to live with our spouse with knowledge. Now that's a thought. Think about dying today on the way home, standing before God, and when he gets around to evaluating your marriage, one of the points of accountability is, "How well do you know the needs of your spouse? Did you live in an understanding way to where you really understood what your spouse's needs were?"

I mean, that's really the requirement here, that God has a concern in my relationship with him, in this case on earth. He'll even hinder my prayers if I'm not really understanding my wife and who she is and how I should adapt to the needs that she has. And you can flip this around, though it's specifically to the husbands, who I think maybe are harder-headed in getting attuned to their wives' needs. It works both ways.

Wives, do you really have a sense as to what your husband needs? You need to look at your spouse. What is the need here inherent in how my husband or my wife lives her life or his life, where I can meet the need? It starts with praying. It starts with recognizing, "I need to know what pressures my wife faces, what anxieties she fights, what exhaustion she feels, the patterns of her day, the patterns of her week, how my life can be some kind of complement to her."

So pray, observe, think, whatever it is, get to the place that when you stand before God, you can say, "I lived with my spouse with knowledge. I understood her needs, and I knew that as a servant and as a husband or a wife, I understood those needs and I worked hard to meet them."

Number three: Agape love involves risk and faith. Let's just jot that down and then we'll talk about it. Agape love always involves risk and faith. It should go without saying, I suppose, if you think about it. If you really said, "My job is to be the servant to my spouse, and therefore I'm going to seek to pray and know the needs of my spouse, the specific needs and even the general needs of my spouse," all of a sudden you start saying, "Who's going to meet my needs?" That's the concern I have.

It feels risky for me to go into any relationship and say, "I'll take the role of the servant and let me serve you." That's a risky thing because all of us have needs, and we want our needs met. Turn to Hebrews 6 real quick and let me answer that. I think this is a practical point that has to be addressed. Drop down to verse 10, Hebrews 6:10. "For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work." And that's what it feels like. It's a lot of work. It's hard.

"And the love, the agape, right, that you have shown for his name in serving the saints as you still do." Now let's read that again. "For God is not unjust. God's not in heaven and going, 'Oh, look at that servant giving everything and getting nothing in return.'" God doesn't overlook that. He sees the work, the love that is all expressed in serving the saints, right? If you continue in that.

And he says in verse 11, "And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness and the full assurance of the hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but be imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises." And the promises are as simple as the promise that was made to Christ. He humbled himself, being found in the form of a servant, a bond servant, right? He was obedient even at the point of death, even death on a cross.

"Therefore God highly exalted him and bestowed upon him a name above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, heaven on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord." Now think about that here. Jesus takes the risk, if you will. Though it was no risk for him to be a servant, he was 100% focused on the need. God then says, "I am going to get involved and make sure I'm not unjust to overlook that kind of stuff. I will then exalt you."

That picture of humbling yourself and God exalting you can be found everywhere, right? 1 Peter 5, I can think of all kinds of places where the principle is to take the risk of being the servant and watch what God does with you. He's not unjust to overlook that. He is someone who always brings the promise to fruition of caring for his saints that are servants.

No better way to live than to live with the risk and the trust in a God who fulfills the promise of exalting those and caring for those who care for others. No better place to be. Agape love always involves risk. I'm telling you, take it and have faith. You'll have to trust him, and ultimately God will always pay special attention and bless those in real tangible ways who are servants like his son.

Number four: If you look at what agape love is in the text we even read, one would be a good example: "He sees a brother in need and meets that need." That's the goal. This is not an emotion, okay? This is not something that is driven by any kind of feeling, even storge or eros feelings that those words speak to. This is a decision.

And you've heard this preached on a million times, I'm sure. But think about love this way: Agape love needs to act and let feelings catch up, if ever they do. And usually they do. That's how I put it. Number four: Agape love acts, and it always lets feelings catch up. Feelings aren't the drive for agape love; decisions are. Feelings are always the outcome. They're always something that follows along.

Certainly, the ultimate expressions of agape love in the Bible didn't feel good. Would you agree with that? "No greater love has any man than this, that he'd lay down his life for his friends." Think about that. Or, while God, I'm thinking of Romans 5, demonstrates his love for us in this, his agape love for us in this, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Laying down your life, dying for you, is not a feeling. It is a feeling. It creates bad feelings, not good feelings. Servanthood, in terms of God's expression of love in sacrificing himself, is not a feeling. Many times, servanthood, meeting needs, being attuned to those needs, serving, taking the risk of that is going to involve some hard work, some pain, some difficulty, some struggle. I get all of that.

But we're not doing it because we feel it is good to do. And I thought about that. I've said this humorously in the past. Can you imagine at a wedding, you're standing at a wedding and someone says, "Do you take this person better, worse, rich or poor, sickness and health?" You don't expect someone to say, "Well, I will if I feel like it," right? "I will if you don't change. I will if you'll meet my expectations. I will if you remain someone who makes me feel good." None of those things.

You expect only one answer at that point, especially if the guy's marrying your daughter, right? And that is, "I do. I will." This is my commitment. This is my resolve. Not "I'll try." I hope so. I will. This is the decision we make every day, every year, every season of our marriage. Not begrudgingly, but trusting that God will let our feelings catch up. And often he does.

Number five: And I always need to deal with this, certainly throughout 1 John. It is predicated on the redemptive work of Christ, though I'm not going back here for a few of these points. First John is constantly comparing, as we saw in 1 John 3, the love that we have for other people with the way that Christ died for us. And that was because we needed forgiveness.

And I do want to turn you to this passage, though, and it's helpful, I suppose. It's a description of agape love in Colossians 3. If you want to mimic the agape love of God, it's eventually going to get around to forgiveness because the people we're called to love, with the exception of God himself, they are all in need of it. They'll sin against you. You spend time with someone long enough, they're going to sin against you, they're going to violate some commitment, they're going to offend you, they're going to hurt your feelings, they're going to be rude, they're going to do something that will require your agape love to express itself in forgiveness.

That's what Colossians 3 is trying to remind us of. Verse number 12 says, "Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience." These are great words: "Bearing with one another. If anyone has a complaint against one another, forgiving each other." Here's the kathos, or the comparative: "As the Lord has forgiven you, so you must forgive."

And above all these things, right? This is all. These are all elements of this, the thing that sits above them all. It all fits into this rubric right here: "Put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony." So if you want to work backwards, I'm loving my spouse. In this case, I'm loving the people in Colossi, if I'm a member of the church and a part of that. One aspect of that is not only kindness and humility and compassionate hearts; it's that I forgive.

Agape love, of all loves, if I'm going to say by that, the code for God's love, God's love is the kind of love that forgives the most heinous kind of crime. I mean, if you think about what we've done, if we think about God's love toward us, our sin, as the Bible puts it, have nailed him to the cross. I don't know; it would be really hard to think of forgiving someone who kills my child. Pick one of my kids and you murder them. That's the picture.

And it's an ultimate example of God's magnanimous, extensive, endless, boundless love. The love that forgives even the most heinous kind of sin. That would change so much. It would take the grudges out of the way. It would take retaliation out of the way. It would change all of this nitpicking and stuff that we do against each other. Just learn to forgive. That's what agape love does. It must do that.

Back to 1 John, finally, 1 John 4 specifically makes a point that I think we should end with here, which is essential. 1 John 4:7 says, "Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God. Whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. If anyone does not love, does not know God, because God is love."

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Speaker 1

You're listening to Pastor Mike Fabarez, and this is Focal Point. Today's message is called "Agape Love in Marriage." It was part of a marriage retreat called "More Than Friends," held at Compass Bible Church in Aliso Viejo in Southern California. You can find the audio for all three parts at focal.radio.org.

In marriage, you are given a partner for life. This partnership was designed by God to be a support and encouragement throughout your entire life. In the same way, we're so thankful for the way our Focal Point partners shore us up with their unfailing support every single month. If you're one of these faithful friends, you're the reason why so many will tune into Focal Point for the first time today. Pastor Mike will connect with you in his monthly Partner Pass video sent directly via email.

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Today, we want to say thanks with the book "Twelve Faithful Men: Portraits of Courageous Endurance in Pastoral Ministry." Those who serve as pastors, shepherds, and leaders in the church face special demands that call for courage and a steely resolve. The editors of the Gospel Coalition have collected inspiring stories of 12 faithful men who endured great suffering for the cause of Christ. These compelling stories show that suffering in the context of ministry is expected, but never wasted. Be inspired when you request the book "Twelve Faithful Men." Call 888-320-5885 or give online at focalpointradio.org.

Well, I'm Dave Droueh inviting you back after the weekend when Pastor Mike Fabarez returns to our study of Luke with more about your role in the harvest. That's Monday on Focal Point. Today's program was produced and sponsored by Focal Point Ministries.

Speaker 2

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