Apologetics: We're Not in Kansas Anymore

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I want to invite you to take out your copy of God's word with me and turn to 1st Peter chapter 3.
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The title of today's message is We Aren't in Kansas Anymore.
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One of the most famous films in history is The Wizard of Oz.
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The film follows the story of Dorothy who lives on a farm in Kansas and one day when a tornado comes it carries Dorothy away to the land of Oz where she meets a group of friends and goes on an adventure to meet a wizard.
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And at one point in the film Dorothy realizes that she is in a foreign place and she gives the iconic line to her small dog Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.
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The older I get, the more I feel like the world around me is a foreign land, especially over the last few years.
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It seems like things have really changed.
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There was a time when certain truths were simply self-evident.
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They were taken for granted but that has been replaced.
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We are now at a point where even the most basic of facts is being questioned.
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What is a woman? Well, a few years ago that question would have been foolish to ask and now we have those standing before the highest offices of the land going for some of the most important positions in the land who cannot even answer such a simple question.
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We're not in Kansas anymore.
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This is especially true when it comes to the subject of faith.
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The very foundations of the Christian faith, the very claims that are seemingly axiomatic, meaning that they don't have to be proven, they just are assumed, that's what an axiom is.
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An axiom is something that you base other truths on.
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You're alive, right? You don't have to prove it, you just are.
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You base other truths on that.
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That's axiomatic or what we might call presuppositional.
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You assume that it's true, you have to base other truths upon that.
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Well things that used to be simply axiomatic are not anymore.
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Things that used to be truth claims that are simple and everyone understood them to be true have just been jettisoned and people will believe anything as long as it's not in the Bible.
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See there was a time where, at least in our nation, where the Bible was somewhat axiomatic.
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When we wrote our founding documents based upon the fact that we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, speaking of course of the big C creator, that there is one God who made the heavens and the earth.
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That was an axiom, that was something that was just assumed to be true.
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Everyone understood it.
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Not anymore.
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Today, people are easily convinced that extraterrestrial aliens exist and some estimate that there are at least one in ten people who believe that the earth is flat, yet those same people will question whether or not Jesus was an actual historical figure.
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If I stood in front of a group of people, I would have an easier time proving the existence of E.T.
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than I would have to prove the existence of Jesus' resurrection.
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Because we've gone so far from the foundation.
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In addition to this, we live in a world where deconstruction is now becoming common and deconstruction is not what we did to this wall.
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Looks nice, doesn't it? For those of you who don't know, if this is your first time, this used to be two rooms and that's why we have still work to do on the floor, but this is now one big room and we're thankful for that.
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It gives us more room as folks start coming in.
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But deconstruction is not this.
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Deconstruction is the idea that, and this is becoming very common, that people are going into the Christian faith and taking it apart and taking the pieces apart and throwing away the parts that they don't like.
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Now that may be an oversimplification and somebody may hear me say that and say, oh, he's building a straw man.
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And I'm not attempting to build a straw man, I'm simply simplifying the idea.
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Deconstruction is the idea that we're going to take all the pieces apart and we're going to put it back together, but in the way we want it to be.
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Reinvestigating and often departing from the faith is what happens with deconstruction.
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And social media is filled with videos of people claiming that they have found the errors in Christianity.
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They found the falsehoods in the Bible as if we haven't for 2,000 years been answering the same questions over and over.
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And the simple truths of Scripture are abandoned.
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We're not in Kansas anymore.
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Last week we finished our study of Colossians.
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We did 41 weeks in the book of Colossians.
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And oftentimes when I finish a long series in a book, I will take a few weeks and simply depart from that.
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As I prepare my next book study is going to be 2 Corinthians and I just take a little time off and deal with a subject-based sermon.
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So if you're allergic to topical messages, just call it subject-based, it makes you feel so much better.
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But I do want to say that this is actually a message that I have drawn, the series of messages I've drawn from Colossians because it was in the fourth chapter of Colossians that the Apostle Paul, when he was talking to the Colossians, he told them that they need to be wise towards outsiders, always ready to give an answer.
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Always ready to give an answer.
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An answer for what? An answer for their faith.
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An answer for why they believe what they believe.
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An answer for why they're willing to die for their faith.
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You understand that during the time of Paul and Peter, it wasn't just that you could get kicked off of Facebook.
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It wasn't just that you might have someone give you a dirty look for handing them a gospel tract.
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But during the time of Peter and Paul, during that time, to give an answer for the hope that was within you, what might mean that you were giving the last answer you would ever give.
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When those men would bring that cart up and it had that incense that was required to be given as an offering to Caesar.
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And the people lined up to walk up and take a pinch of the incense and drop it into the fire and say, Kaiser Kurios, Caesar is Lord.
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And the Christian standing in that line, knowing that when he gets up to that table, he cannot take the incense, he cannot worship Caesar, he cannot say Kaiser Kurios, but he will say Yeshua Kurios and give his life for that.
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You better be able to give an answer for the hope that is within you.
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You see, that's the context of apologetics.
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The context of apologetics is not winning an argument online.
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The context of apologetics is not getting the lady at Walmart to tell you Merry Christmas.
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The context of apologetics is having a hope that is so firmly rooted that you will extend your neck to the sword.
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Apologetics is rooted, the word apologetics is rooted in 1 Peter 3, verse 15.
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That's what we call the foundational text of this subject.
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And I have taught on this subject for as long as I can remember preaching.
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I have taught this in our academy.
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I have taught this in our Wednesday evening Bible studies.
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I even taught this at a youth camp a few years ago.
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I was asked to come and speak to a group of young people.
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And for four nights in a row, I gave a lesson each night on the subject of defending the faith.
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So this is a subject which some of you have heard me teach before, but I don't think that I've ever done a series on it on Sunday morning.
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And as I began to think about that, I began to think about the fact that this is something that all of us need to hear.
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Not everybody comes on Wednesday night.
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Not everyone comes to the academy.
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And nobody came to the youth camp except for my family.
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So as I was thinking about this, I was thinking this is something we all need.
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This is the corporate time.
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This is the only time when we're all together.
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This is the only time where we're actually mandated to all be together.
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This is the Lord's Day, and this is mandated that we come together on the Lord's Day.
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We worship, and we study, and we fellowship, and we come together on this time and this day.
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So that's why I've chosen to do this subject.
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I almost entitled the series Foxhole Apologetics.
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I may stick with that a little.
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You guys know what a foxhole is, right? A foxhole is what soldiers dig for themselves when they're in war.
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It's a place where they can go and hunker down and fight back and be safe.
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Well, when I think of this term, I think about the fact that I want to give you, I want to challenge you to know how to defend the faith in the foxhole.
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I want to challenge you to know how to give it a defense for your faith embattled.
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We're not going to talk about theoretical questions.
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We're going to talk about the real questions that really come out.
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I have three times now, I have spoken at the Tough Questions, Real Answers Conference at Sunrise Community Church.
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They do it every few years, and I've spoken every time they've done it.
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And we all, Sunrise Community Church is out by the beach.
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It's right near FSCJ, which is right there.
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We always invite college students to come and ask hard questions because we want to know what the real questions are.
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One of the worst things about apologetics, we haven't even read the text yet, so I'm This is still an introduction.
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We're going to get there.
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But one of the worst things about apologetics is people answer questions nobody's asking.
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You want to know the real issue? Is most people spend their time defending the existence of God, and most people believe in God.
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They just believe in the wrong God, or they believe wrongly about God.
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Only 3% of the world is atheists.
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Now that is growing.
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But we all prepare ourselves for the guy who's going to come and say, I don't believe in God, when you're rarely going to run into a Richard Dawkins.
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You're much, much more liable to run into a Mormon who has a wrong view of Jesus.
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You're much more likely to run into a person who says, I believed in Jesus when I was 6, I've never been back to church, and I've never followed Jesus with my whole life, but I'm still saved and I'm going to heaven.
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What do you say to that dude? Because he's not saying Jesus doesn't exist, he's saying I'm fine.
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See that's the apologetics that we don't get into, but that's what we need.
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Because you're much more likely to run into that than you are to run into a Christopher Hitchens or a Richard Dawkins, and if you don't know who they are, they are the mouthpiece of, well Christopher Hitchens was before he died, one of the mouthpieces of what was known as the New Atheism.
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It was popular for about 5 minutes, and now nobody knows who they are anymore.
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It sprung up in the early 2000s, this New Atheism was going to take over the world, change everything.
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It didn't.
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Because nobody wants to hear what they have to say, because nobody believes that we came from nothing, and the people who do are just out of their minds.
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Atheism is the easiest thing to debunk, but we'll get to that.
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So let's actually read, let's go to the text, open your Bibles, turn with me, 1 Peter 3, we're going to read, we're actually going to read in context, we're going to read verses 13 to 17, let's stand together and read.
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Remember I said they're talking about real persecution, that's why I want us to read verses 13 to 17, you see the context of verse 15.
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Peter asks this question, Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed.
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Have no fear of them, nor be troubled.
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But in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is in you.
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Yet do it with gentleness and respect.
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The word respect there, I like the word, the word is phobos, fear, translated sometimes as reverence, but it is, just to consider that for a moment.
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Verse 16, having a good conscience, so that when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame, for it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.
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Father in heaven, we thank you for your word, I pray even now that as we seek to understand what Peter is telling us here, I pray that you would keep me from error, I pray that you would open the hearts of your people to the truth, I pray that we would be able to give a defense for the hope that is within us, but I pray that that hope is truly in us, and Lord, if it's not, if there are those here today who do not have the hope of the gospel in their hearts, that they don't have the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior, that today they would hear the gospel, that they would turn from their sin, and that they would be saved, in Jesus' name, amen.
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One of the most difficult things, being an exegetical preacher who's normally going through books, is anytime I do a single passage or a small portion of a passage, I want to go all the way back to the beginning and talk about everything in the book.
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Unfortunately, time will not allow for that, but it is important to understand that Peter's context, his immediate context, is what I've already said.
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He is writing to a group of persecuted believers.
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He's writing in the first century, meaning that he is writing during a time when Rome is the world power in the West, and so everywhere that Peter is ministering, everywhere that he is going, he is running into the powers of Rome, and as I said, there was very little patience for those who would not bow the knee to Caesar.
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Early Christians were called atheists, ironically, because they would not worship the gods of Rome, and they would not worship Caesar himself, therefore they were referred to as those who denied the existence of God, but they didn't.
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They denied the existence of the false gods.
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They believed in the one true God, but as we read, and as we go through, and as we see through the book of Acts, and through Paul's letters, and through Peter's letters, we see this persecution that they're facing, and it seems like they're always trying to give the church an encouraging word, trying to tell them to stand up under this pressure, to stand up against this persecution, to be able to weather the storm, and as I said earlier, we live in a time and place today where we may receive some societal pushback, but we rarely in our world, in our, maybe I should say, our place in the world, rarely see real persecution.
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There is persecution in the world, don't think for a second that there isn't.
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There are more people today who are dying for their faith in Christ than have ever, ever in the world, because the population increase has spiked so much that now, when anything happens on a large scale, it's much more than has happened in the past.
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Eight billion people exist now.
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Two billion of those claim some fidelity to Christ.
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Doesn't mean there's two billion Christians, but two billion claim some fidelity, whether it's through the Roman Catholic Church, whether it's through the Mormon Church, or whatever, there's about two billion people in the world who claim fidelity to Christ, and all around the world, those people who claim fidelity to Christ are being persecuted.
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But we don't see that in our land, and sometimes I wonder if we really believe that it exists.
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We don't see people in America being drugged from their churches, put on trial, we don't see people being executed for their faith, but that's what Peter saw.
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That's what the early church saw, that was a reality for them.
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Peter died for his faith in Christ, we know that, right? Now tradition says he died upside down on a Roman cross.
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We don't know that that is true, but tradition says it is, and there's really no reason to deny it other than to simply say we can't know for certain.
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Paul likely died by a sword because he was a Roman citizen, and Roman citizens were not subject to crucifixion because crucifixion was considered to be especially heinous, and therefore Paul likely died for his faith, not hung on a cross, but rather with his body laid across a stump and a sword falling upon his neck.
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Much more dignified.
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So when Peter calls the church to apologetics, when Peter calls them to making a defense, I want you to know right away, Peter is not calling them to win arguments.
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I love apologetics, and even in my time in seminary I wrote so many papers on the subject, my master's thesis was on science and the Bible and how true science and the Bible are not incompatible, and so I've loved this study, I've loved this research, and going on now 20 years has been the focus of my life.
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But I have to tell you, if your desire to grow in your understanding of apologetics, if your desire for growing and your ability to defend the faith is so you can win arguments, then it's not the point, and you've missed the point.
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Now we're gonna talk about the fact throughout this series that you will have times where you face and you give the gospel and someone gives a retort or some kind of rejection and you respond to that, but the goal is not to win an argument.
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The goal is to stand on the truth and know the truth and know why you are confident in what you're saying.
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Peter is calling the church, he's calling his readers, his hearers, he's calling them to confidence in the face of persecution.
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Let me ask you this, and I want you to think of this really, really sincerely.
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If today was the day, if today was the day that the government came in and took you away, oh, that could never happen here.
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Don't fool yourself.
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If today was, how many of you have heard me say, I believe there may come a day where I have to speak to my wife through glass for saying some of the things that I say? I'm not putting myself on a pedestal or saying I have some martyr complex, I truly believe that's true.
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That there may come a day where what I say is illegal and I'll have to make a choice to say it or not say it.
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We had a little taste of this a few years ago when they said you can't open your church.
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Nothing really happened here, but you go up into Canada, they're just now, just now getting over the lawsuits that came about for churches that wouldn't close their doors.
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They're just now satisfying lawsuits because men continued to preach when the government told them not to.
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So don't tell me it can't happen.
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I'm not an end times guy, you know that, I'm not a guy up here spouting out, you know, Mark of the Beast type stuff.
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I'm not saying this stuff's not true, I'm just saying that's not the point.
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A lot of guys spend all their time, they read the newspaper, they read their Bible and they just get all their answers like that.
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That ain't how it works.
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But the reality is, we are in a place where what would happen if men came in, armed, pulled you out of here, put you in a hole and said, you can come out, but you can't talk about Jesus.
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Does your faith have the confidence to endure that? That's what Peter was asking.
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That's what Peter's addressing.
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To always be ready to give a defense is not making a clever Facebook post.
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To always be ready to give a defense is not having an argument with a Jehovah Witness at your door.
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But being able to give a defense means that you can stand against the world who hates Christ and say, I know He lives and I will live for Him.
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It's about confidence.
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I'm going to ask a question right now, it's getting ahead of my sermon, I'm going to get here in a minute, but I'm going to go ahead and say it now.
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Because I would ask, can you defend your faith? But before I even ask that, I would say, can you explain the gospel? That's the key apologetics question, I'm jumping ahead, but that's the key apologetics question.
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Do you understand the gospel enough to defend it? If I ask you to stand up right now and tell me why, first, what the gospel is, and second, why you believe it, would you be ashamed to do so in here where everybody's going to clap when you're done? You know we clap when people get baptized, right? You know what happened in the old world and the ancient world and the first century world when people got baptized? They were put out by their family.
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They lost their jobs.
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They lost their friends.
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They chose Christ over comfort.
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They chose faith over family.
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We clap when people get baptized, it's a good thing people get baptized, we clap.
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No, no, no.
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What if people didn't clap? What if people mocked? What if people laughed? What if people threatened you? You see the difference? Christianity in America has been damaged by comfort, because comfort creates complacency, complacency creates weakness, and weakness gets us to where we are.
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A weak church that won't speak the truth, that won't say anything because we're afraid to offend, because the most damaging thing in the world right now is offense.
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We don't want to offend anyone.
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So Peter gives them this command, and we're going to look at verse 15.
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He says, but in your hearts, honor Christ the Lord as holy.
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I'm not a fan of the way that's written in the ESV.
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Somebody says, well, you better go back and look at a different translation.
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Well, different translations all say it differently.
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Some say sanctify the Lord Jesus in your heart.
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Some say honor Christ the Lord as holy.
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But the word here is the word sanctify.
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The word sanctify comes from the Greek word hagios, which means to make something holy.
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And what Peter is saying is the very first thing you have to do in regard to giving a defense for your faith is you better understand who Christ is.
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Notice what he says.
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He says honor Christ the Lord as holy.
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Set Christ apart in your heart, because if Christ is not your Lord, who are you defending? If Christ is not your Lord in your heart, what is it that you're giving a defense for? We must recognize that Christ occupies a unique place in our heart.
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This is the part of apologetics that I think is often left out, because people want to automatically jump to that word, always being ready to give a defense, rather than starting with who it needs to start with, and that is who Christ is.
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Have you had a life-changing encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ? I mean that.
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I want you to ask yourself that question.
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Have you personally had a life-changing encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ? Sometimes I think about the fact that when a child grows up in a Christian home, sometimes it's hard to remember when they didn't believe, because they sort of just grow up in it, and they're always around it.
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And for my Presbyterian friends, they say, that's the way it's supposed to be, right? They just become Christians through a process of growing into the faith.
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But I would ask this, and I mean this, even if you are a child here, how has Christ changed your life? Because even if you grew up in a Christian home, even if you grew up in a Christian environment, you weren't born, born again.
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You were born a sinner, just like everyone else.
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You were dead in your trespasses and sin, just like everyone else.
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And at some point, Christ made you alive by the gospel.
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Now I don't ask people if they have a place in their Bible written down with a spiritual birth certificate.
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You know how the old Bibles used to have the spiritual birth certificate, and you write down the place where you get saved and the date of your baptism.
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I'm not asking for that, but I do wonder how many of us can sanctify the Lord in our heart, because I wonder how many of us actually have the Lord in our heart.
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Understand this, and this is very important.
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It is absolutely impossible to defend what you do not possess.
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It is impossible to defend what you don't have.
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So Peter says, sanctify the Lord in your heart.
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Understand if he is truly your Savior.
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What does Peter also say elsewhere in his book? He says, make your calling and election certain.
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That doesn't mean count up all your good works and see if you're doing enough good things to be saved, because that's not how you know if you're saved.
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What he's saying, he's saying, do you understand that you were once a sinner, desperate and dead, and Christ came, and he, through the power of the Holy Spirit, changed your heart, gave you regeneration and life, and through that life, you now have a desire that you didn't have before, and that is his desire to serve Christ.
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Is that desire in your heart? You say, well, I'm here, ain't I? Churches are filled with people who aren't saved, and I don't say that because I want you to go out here wringing your hands today, but I will say this.
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The devil is good at two things.
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He's good at making unsaved people feel saved, and he's good at making saved people feel unsaved.
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So Peter begins this apologetic passage by saying, we must set apart Christ as holy, and then he moves into the key phrase for our study, always being ready to give a defense for the hope that is within you.
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Now, that's not exactly as it says it on the board.
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I'll read it as it says it on the board.
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It says, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks for a reason for the hope that is in you.
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Peter tells them they have to be ready to give a defense.
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The word give a defense there is where we get the word apologetics, and I know most of you know this, but I have to say it every time because someone inevitably has come today and may not know this.
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The word apologetics does not mean to say you're sorry.
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In English, we use the word apology to mean I'm sorry if someone does something, if I hurt someone's feelings or if I do something wrong, I'll go to that person and I'll make an apology, which means I'm asking for forgiveness.
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I'm saying I'm sorry.
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But the word apologia in the Greek, the root word is the word logos.
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Now, you're familiar with the word logos.
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It means word.
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Jesus is called the logos, and the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God, right? The divine logos.
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Well, that word logos is a preposition is put in front of it, apo, apo means from, and the word apologetics, apologio, means to make a defense not to say I'm sorry.
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And it was used in the courts of Rome, that when a man was brought before the court, and he would give his defense for his actions, not his remorse, not saying he's sorry, but saying why he did what he did.
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That's the apologetic, apologia.
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That's the defense.
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And Peter says that we are to sanctify the Lord Christ in our heart, always being prepared to give a defense.
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We often talk about going out witnessing.
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Say, we're going to go witness, or we're going to go to the fair and do some witnessing.
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Do you know where the word witness comes from? Greek word witness was martorios.
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That's where we get the word martyr.
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What is a martyr? Well, the English word martyr means someone who dies for something, right? A martyr is someone who gives their life for something.
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And the reason why that word, martorios, becomes martyr, and in English it means someone who dies, is because the early Christians, when they made their witness, were putting their lives on the line.
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They were offering themselves up, and with their martorios, with their witness, come their apologia, their defense.
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Why would you put your neck out for this? This is why.
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Why would you believe in something? This is why.
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You see how they go together.
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Witnessing and apologetics go together, not because you're trying to win an argument, because you're showing to the world why you would put your neck on the chopping block.
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That's the way these two things work together.
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Peter is telling them they have to be ready to bear witness to Christ who is within them, being ready to make a defense to anyone who asks for the hope that is in them.
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And notice that last phrase.
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Anyone asks for the hope, a reason for the hope, that is in you.
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You see, the hope must come from a genuine faith.
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As I said, if the hope is not in us, we have nothing to defend.
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We're not called to defend our parents' faith.
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We're not called to defend the concept of faith in general.
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And might I add, we're also not called to defend a belief in a general God.
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That's my biggest problem.
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And again, I don't mean to take too much of a side note on this.
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My biggest problem with most of apologetics today is that most of apologetics today simply gets people to affirm the existence of a generic God.
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Because they're simply trying to get people to the point where they admit that everything around you couldn't have happened by accident.
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It demands a creator, and that creator must exist prior to creation.
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Because a creation can't create itself, it requires a creator.
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Okay, now what? What do you do once the person says, okay, but I don't believe in your God.
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Okay, but I don't believe Jesus rose from the dead.
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Okay, but how can you believe a book that has so many contradictions, or that's been translated so many times, or has been gone through so many different editions? See, that's the real question.
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That's the real meat of apologetics.
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Getting people to admit that God exists really ain't that hard.
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Because the fool has said in his heart, there's no God.
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And I know you hear this stuff online, people talk about, you know, I don't believe in a wizard in the sky, and blah, blah, blah.
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Those types of arguments are very, very rarely changing people's lives.
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But what does change people's lives is like a relative of mine who, when he was younger, couldn't understand the idea of hell, and he really had issue with the doctrine of eternal perdition.
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And he went to his pastor, and his pastor gave him no answer.
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He went to his fellow church members, and his fellow church members gave him no answer.
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Oh, but the Jehovah Witness came by one day.
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And the Jehovah Witnesses was willing to say, there is no hell.
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There is no eternal punishment.
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Because, you know, Jehovah Witnesses don't believe in eternal perdition.
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Jehovah Witnesses believe in annihilation, meaning if you don't believe, you die, you just go away.
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You just cease to exist.
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And he found comfort in that.
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And to this day, 30 years later, he's still a Jehovah Witness.
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You understand apologetics is not about proving a generic God.
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It's about standing as a defense for what the Scripture says.
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By the way, the Scripture says there's a hell.
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The Scripture says hell exists.
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There's eternal punishment for those who reject the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And they will be there forever and ever without any hope.
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That's the reality.
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Can you defend that? A few years ago, I was invited to give a speech at a conference.
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And the subject of the conference was, well, it was homeschooling was the subject of the overall subject of the conference.
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But I was asked to speak on the subject, why do children depart the faith? And you know why that question comes up, right? Because there is such a large amount of percentage of children who are brought up in the church, who are brought up in the body.
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And yet, when they get to the age where they can make their own decisions, they run off into the world.
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And I think they wanted a clever answer.
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I want to say this, the people who asked me to speak, I think they expected a clever answer.
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Everybody who came to my little speech, because it was like breakout sessions, I had a breakout session.
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Everybody who came in had their pencils ready.
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I think they thought I was going to give them a secret answer to why children leave the faith.
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And I may have disappointed them.
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As I said, the reason most of your children leave the faith is they were never saved to begin with.
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We don't teach them the gospel.
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We don't call them to faith and repentance.
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And we don't teach them why what they believe is worthy of belief.
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We tell them to check their brains at the door, just come in and listen and believe and don't ask any questions.
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And then we wonder, when they get old enough to go out into the world and have other people answer their questions, that they're more than willing to receive their theology from TikTok or Facebook.
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Some of you wonder why I do the social media stuff that I do.
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Because there's a battle out there.
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That is the public forum right now.
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That is town square.
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And so you can either leave them to the wolves or you can go and fight.
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I'm going to go fight and show that there's a reason to believe what we believe.
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There's a reason for the hope that we have.
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And it's worth putting our neck on the stump.
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Is that hope within you? Is that hope within you? One of the most misunderstood parts of apologetics is people think apologetics is for converting the unbeliever.
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It's not.
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Apologetics is about confirming and giving confidence to the believer.
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Because you will never argue a person into belief.
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You'll never argue a person into belief.
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And if you are clever enough to argue a person into belief, somebody else might be more clever than you and argue them back out.
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Apologetics is about knowing why we stand on the truth that we stand on.
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Apologetics is about having confidence in what we believe.
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That way, when we proclaim it, we can proclaim it with confidence.
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Number one reason why people don't witness, what do you think it is? Fear.
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Fear of what? Man, I've witnessed it to a ton of people, and Mike even more.
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How many people ever come at you with a stick? Well, okay, once.
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Okay, I had a guy with a stick.
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But you do it so much.
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It's the law of averages.
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Mike's one of the most consistent evangelists I know.
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And in general, what do people do? They either ignore you, cut you out.
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You might get cussed out.
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You ever been cussed out? Ain't gonna hurt you.
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Yes, I would.
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What'd you get for your sermon today? If I get cussed out, it ain't gonna hurt me.
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No, the reality, though, is we're so afraid of what? You know the biggest thing people are afraid of? He might ask a question that I don't know the answer to, and I'm afraid of being embarrassed.
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He might ask a question that will challenge me, and I won't know the answer.
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So what does Peter say? Get ready to give the answer.
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Learn your faith so that you are prepared to give the answer.
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I meet men sometimes who have hobbies, and they invest so much in their hobbies.
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Pastor Keith, look at this new rifle I bought.
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It was only $3,000.
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Don't tell my wife.
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Pastor Keith, I love this hobby, and I spend all my life knowing about this hobby, but I can't defend my faith.
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Let me tell you something.
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I've seen Christians passionately defend sports teams.
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I've seen Christians passionately defend their politics.
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Oh, heavens.
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You mention Donald Trump or Joe Biden, ready to go.
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I've seen Christians passionately defend wild conspiracy theories, but when it comes to their faith, crickets.
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Let me tell you something.
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If you're more likely to defend the Second Amendment than you are the inerrancy of Scripture, you've got a problem.
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If you're more equipped to defend the Second Amendment than you are to defend the inerrancy of Scripture, you've got wrong priorities.
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And this is coming from a guy who teaches shooting.
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So don't say, oh, he said something about the Second Amendment.
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Listen, it's on my wall.
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Come on over to my house.
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It's emblazoned right next to a verse.
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I ain't lying.
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My wife has a verse.
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It says, blessed are the children who walk in the Lord.
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A well-regulated militia.
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It's like three feet from each other.
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So I'm not saying you can't have those things and care about that.
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Care about it, but care about your faith more.
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If you get more concerned when someone kneels during the national anthem than when someone rejects the exclusivity of Christ, your priorities are wrong.
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If you can give me ten reasons why we need a border wall, but you can't give me one reason why you believe the 66 books of the Bible are supposed to be there, you've got a problem.
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And your problem is priorities.
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You're doing what Jesus told you not to.
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He said don't focus on worldly things.
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Focus on things that are above.
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We study that in Colossians.
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Oh, now, he stopped preaching.
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He started meddling.
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No, I'm telling you the truth.
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These are the things that matter.
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And I'm not telling you you can't care about those other things.
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I have not gone woke.
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You can care about border walls and second amendments, and you can care about the Republican primaries, but if those things are what is the things that motivate your heart and not the word of God, then we have a problem.
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Our priorities are out of line.
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Oh, and by the way, you can also get your faith priorities out of line.
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If you can do Daniel math and figure out who the Antichrist is going to be, but you don't know how to explain the doctrine of the Trinity, you've got some issues.
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You know what I'm talking about, Daniel math, right, 90 this, 60 that, right, whatever, how many weeks.
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And I can figure out who the Antichrist is, but I can't explain that God is one in essence and three in person, and these three persons are co-equal, co-eternal, and distinct.
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I just explained the doctrine of the Trinity in 30 seconds.
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You understand there's priorities even within our faith.
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There are things that matter, and there are things that are secondary, and there are things that are adiaphora.
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You know what adiaphora means? It means things that don't matter, and your particular view of the end times, they don't matter.
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It's not unimportant, but it doesn't change whether or not you're a believer, but if you deny the Trinity, you're not a believer.
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That is the oldest and most foundational gospel truth, that God is one in essence and three in person.
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So apologetics is not just about defending the unknown, unnamed God.
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It's about knowing the Word of God to the point that you can give a defense for the hope that is within you, and it has to start somewhere, so I'm going to give you something today to take home with you.
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Here are the gospel essentials, six things that you need to be able to do or you need to understand about the gospel, because if you don't have the gospel right, apologetics doesn't matter.
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If you can't share the gospel, if you don't understand the gospel, you don't have anything to defend, amen? So six things very quickly.
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One is a right understanding of God.
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God is the creator, sustainer, sovereign Lord, and relational God.
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He's a God who actually relates to man.
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Understanding God and having a right understanding of God is the first step to understanding the gospel.
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Number two is having a right understanding of man.
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Man is made in God's image.
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By the way, I'll send this out, an email later, because I know some of you, you don't have to sit here and try to write every word of this down, I'll send it out to you.
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But a right understanding of man.
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Man is made in God's image, he's not an animal.
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He's not a byproduct of some cosmic belts that happened 4.5 billion years ago.
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He was made in the image of God by the word of God, and he's responsible to God.
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People say, I heard one atheist one time, he said, if I die and see God, I'm gonna tell God that he should have given me more evidence for his existence.
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I say, no, what's gonna happen is when you die, and you see God for the first time, you're gonna fall on your face, and you're gonna realize why the Bible says the fool says there's no God.
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And you're gonna realize that Romans 1 has said that you knew the whole time God existed, and you suppressed that truth in unrighteousness.
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And you are gonna be responsible to that God.
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Number three, you need to have a right understanding of man's problem.
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Man's problem is sin.
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Sin is defined as breaking God's law.
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First John chapter three verse four says, sin is lawlessness.
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I ask people what sin is, sometimes I get a lot of really creative answers.
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The simple answer is sin is breaking God's law.
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God is the eternal judge of the universe, and when we break God's law, which we all have, we stand as those who have broken an eternal law against an infinite God, and that deserves an infinite punishment.
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People say, why is hell eternal? Because God's eternal.
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Number four, a right understanding of God's provision.
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What is God's provision? God sent forth his son, who lived a sinless life.
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Jesus lived a life without sin.
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He never broke God's law, not even once.
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You can't go 30 minutes.
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He went 30 years, and he didn't break God's law in thought, word, or deed.
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And then he went to the cross, and he gave himself on the cross, having received in himself the punishment due us.
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All our sins have been laid upon him, and he received the penalty for those sins in his own body.
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That's God's provision.
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You were dead in your sins.
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You don't deserve mercy, and I'm going to send my son, and my son will take what you deserve.
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You need a right understanding of God's plan.
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God's plan is this.
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Salvation comes by grace alone, not of works.
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Salvation is received by faith alone, not faith plus works.
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And salvation is in Christ alone, and nothing else.
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That's God's plan.
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I talk to people a lot who try to find salvation in something else.
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I'm a big fan of the old D.
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James Kennedy evangelism explosion question.
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If you're not familiar with him, he was a pastor, a very famous pastor, Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, and he created something called EE, which is evangelism explosion, and he would ask this question, if you died tonight, and God said, why should I let you into heaven, what would be your answer? Anything other than Jesus Christ is a wrong answer.
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Anything other than what Christ has done for you is a wrong answer, and let me tell you, I've heard some wrong answers, but the most common answer, I'm a good person.
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I take you back to number three.
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The problem is you're not a good person.
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You're a sinner.
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You are sinful before a holy God.
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You deserve his punishment, but God sent forth his son born of a woman, born under the law that he might redeem those who are under the law and give them the adoption of sons.
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Finally number six, a right understanding of God's promise, and this is the promise that I hope will give you confidence.
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I've talked today a lot about confidence.
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Apologetics begins with having a confident faith, and the confident faith is the faith that says this, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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Why can we put our neck to the stump? Why can we offer our body to the fire? Why can we stand against whatever comes? Because there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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That's why.
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Beloved, is there more to it? Yes, but not less.
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So I challenge you today to begin this series on apologetics with this, make the gospel something that you fully understand as best you can.
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I say fully, we're all learning.
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As best you can, make the gospel something you understand and something you can defend.
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And if you came here today and you've never heard the gospel, you have heard it now.
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And as I said earlier, number two, the right understanding of man is this, you're created by God and you're responsible to him.
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Therefore, I call you now, if you never have before believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, turn from your sin, trust in Christ and be saved.
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The Bible says, all the father gives him will come and the one who comes will in no wise be cast out.
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So come to Christ and trust in him and be saved.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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Thank you for the opportunity to study your word today.
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And I pray Lord that as we now move to our time of holy communion, that we would be reminded of Christ's work and that we would understand that what is pictured in this bread and in this cup is a picture of the sacrifice that has been made for those who believe.
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Lord, I pray for everyone who will receive it, that you would bless them with confidence to know and proclaim the truth of the gospel.
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In Jesus' name, amen.
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Amen.
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Amen.
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Amen.