Honoring Christ In Apologetics - [1 Peter 3:14-17]

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So today's message is from 1st Peter chapter 3 and it is titled honoring
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Christ in apologetics honoring Christ in apologetics So as we begin this message
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What is? apologetics Some of you probably know what it means
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But for most of us myself included when I first heard the term apologetics. It was it just felt like I was
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Apologizing for something Should Christians be apologizing? I'm a
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Christian. I'm really sorry that I'm a Christian, you know, just forgive me for being a Christian. Is that is that What apologetics should be?
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Obviously no Apologetics means something other than Apologizing although they both share the same root the word once meant something different than what we now take as an apology
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It is better defined as a defense of the faith It is to give a reason for why we believe what we believe when you think of the term apology
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You're looking in terms of right and wrong. You know, I have done something wrong. And here is my apology for what
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I have done Whereas when you think of apologetics you're thinking in terms of truth categories
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What is true and what is false and you are now giving a reason for what is true? so the picture you want to have is like standing in a
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Court courtroom as a witness and when asked whether this is true or false you are telling them
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This is true. And here is why? And it doesn't have to be limited to a formal setting
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It can be done with your friends and neighbors when they ask you about the gospel and you give them apologetics a defense of your faith
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The term apologia Means a plea or an apology It can be an answer for yourself when someone asks you why you believe what you believe
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And it involves in some sense It's a clearing of the self because people have this notion of what you believe and why it is wrong
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And then you give them a reason why what you believe is true My purpose this evening though is to equip you so that you can honor
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Christ Among unbelievers Especially as you give them the gospel and as you answer the questions that they might have
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So we will begin by reading first Peter chapter 3. I'm going to read a longish section because It will help you see the context of what we are going to be looking at today first Peter chapter 3 from verses 13 to 22
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Our message will be limited from 13 to 17 First Peter chapter 3 verse 13
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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 But in your hearts honor
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Christ the Lord as holy Always being prepared to make a defense and that's the term apologia
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Always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you
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Yet do it with gentleness and respect having a good conscience so that when you are slandered
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Those who revile your good behavior in Christ might be put to shame For it is better to suffer for doing good if that should be
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God's will than for doing evil. I Want to read 18 to 22 because it shows in verse 15
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We it says honor Christ the Lord as holy and I want you to Peter wants you to have an idea of who this
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Christ Is so we'll just read that although we won't be preaching from that We see there for Christ also suffered once for sins the righteous for the unrighteous
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That he might bring us to God being put to death in the flesh But made alive in the spirit in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison
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Because they formerly did not obey when God's patience waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared in Which a few that is eight persons were brought safely through water
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Baptism which corresponds to this now saves you not as a removal of dirt from the body But as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ and this
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Jesus Christ was 22 Who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels authorities and powers having been subjected to him let us pray as we get into this message a loving and most gracious Father as we
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Hear your words this evening quicken our hearts that we may see Jesus Christ afresh
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Resurrected and ascended into heaven and reigning supreme in all glory and honor and help us
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O Lord in our Lives today and this week and as long as you would give us breath to honor him even as we speak to unbelievers and Defend the gospel in Christ's name we pray
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Alright, so first Peter as you know has to do with suffering Peter is writing to the church.
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That's dispersed in Persecution and he is giving them God's Word in order to be prepared for the suffering that is to come
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How should a Christian live in the midst of suffering and even in our passage here versus 13 through 17?
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we will see it is bracketed in the context of suffering 13 and 14 and then 16 and 17 all have to do with some
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Elements of suffering and then right at the middle in verse 15. You have this defense this
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What I would call evangelism there are some Christians who would separate evangelism from apologetics and I think that's a mistake apologetics if you will is a narrowing down a specific element of evangelism as you do it and we will see what that how that works out in Today's text but Peter here is talking about suffering and he's talking more specifically about Speaking or giving an answer to unbelievers as they ask you a reason and we are going to see more specifically in our message
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When you do apologetics, how can you respond in a way that honors
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Christ? When you think of apologists those of you who know apologists
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You can think of two things. One is you can see this superstar apologists
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James White and on all the big guys out there and we just Thank God that they have the wisdom and the knowledge to speak as they do
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But at the same time when you if you were to just go on YouTube and say apologetics Christian apologetics, you would see
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Apologists Christian apologists speak with and Hindu apologists or different atheists and then some of those conversations can get a little feisty and People can get pretty riled up and they say normally if you have a nice room guys
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Like you all you need to do is bring an apologist and you know They'll just lob a hand grenade and before you know it that'll be chaos apologists can get to be a little
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Feisty and Can apologetics be done with gentleness? We will see that in today's text
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But on the other hand if you're not James White it's very easy to get scared when people ask you all these questions after questions after questions and you're like I Know I'm saved and that's good enough for me.
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And I want to find a nice little corner where I can hide. I'm scared of talking to these guys who have all these questions for me and And the question is can we have the boldness and confidence as Christians to speak to these guys?
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even if you don't have the answers to their questions and Today, we're going to look at these two extremes and bring them together and say how can we or how can we honor
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Christ in? apologetics Today's message has five points.
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We're going to be looking how we can honor Christ firstly in our suffering Secondly how we can honor
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Christ without fear of our opposition How we can honor Christ by being prepared with the gospel
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How we can honor Christ by being gentle and respectful and finally how we can honor
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Christ with a clear conscience So as we get into this we will begin by looking at suffering which is the general context of the epistle
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So I'm going to read the ends of our section verses 13 14 and then 16 17
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Look closely to see this aspect of suffering that the first point is honoring Christ in your suffering
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Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? but even if you suffer for righteousness sake you will be blessed and Then we're 16 having a good conscience so that when you are slandered which is one aspect of suffering
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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
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God's will than for doing evil If you just back up a little bit in first Peter, you can see
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Peter giving exhortation for godly living How ought a Christian to live he's telling us here is how a
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Christian ought to live We're talking about husbands about wives. You know, this is how Godly Christians should exemplify goodness in their lives.
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They ought not to be sinning and living wickedly, but they ought to be living in a in a manner that is pleasing to God and When he finishes that he comes to verse 13 and asked now who is there to harm you if you're zealous for what is good?
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And it should be pretty common sense. So if you do something good People ought to respond with kindness if you slap someone the probability is someone might slap you back
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But if you help someone the probability is that person is going to say thank you so what
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Peter is saying here is pretty obvious to most of us if you do something good the
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People are not going to be out there to harm you but that verse goes a little further What Peter's saying here if you are zealous for what is good
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The idea you want to have here is like a zealot your life's aim your purpose You're the focus of your life is to be doing good
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You are just a do -gooder you go out and out of your way to do good to the people around you
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So even better right, I mean, it's not just you happen to do good But you're the aim of your life is to do good
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Why would someone want to harm you and this is a rhetorical question? So the answer to this should be obviously no, you know, people shouldn't be trying to hurt you if you are doing something wrong
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The answer is no But it is not a hundred percent all the time because if you look at verse 14
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There's a but there but even if you should suffer for righteousness sake You will be blessed because there are going to be times when you do something that is good that people will not like it
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If a person is hurting and you come alongside and give them something that helps them in their hurt They will probably be thankful if a person is sinning and doing something wrong and you come alongside to do good to them and help them see their hurt sometimes they may not like that and especially when you look at it in the context of the world and You come out with a gospel and you tell them what is good and what is right?
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There is going to be a strong contrast They're going to see your life as good and they're going to say mine doesn't act that way and I'm going to now respond not
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Kindness but rather with hostility and if you are doing the kingdom's work if you are doing the gospel work
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And I think that's what the term righteousness there is referring to the supreme Exemplar of righteousness is
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Jesus Christ and when you are doing what is good on the name of Jesus Christ on behalf of Christ And as you are speaking the gospel, which is doing good on behalf of Christ Christ has actually promised us that you will get persecuted and so there is going to be suffering that comes when you do things that are good on behalf of Righteousness that is on behalf of the gospel, but when that happens
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Peter says counted as a blessing Now, let's look at Peter's time. What was going on in Peter's time that he wrote this
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Christians were being persecuted as you know that In the in the
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New Testament in the book of Acts you see how the church was being persecuted They got dispersed from Jerusalem and then we soon start to see
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Christians Witnessing not just with their words, but with their blood people were getting killed for their blood and Peter soon would die
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This was in the time of Emperor Nero when Rome burns Christians get blamed and you have a persecution of the
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Christians and Peter crucified upside down according to tradition I want to just quickly read a few more verses just to frame our concept of suffering 1st
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Peter 4 12 to 16 Says beloved do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you as though something strange were happening
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To you and then he says but rejoice in so far as you share Christ's sufferings that you may also
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Rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed If you are insulted for the name of Christ you are blessed because the spirit of glory and of God rests upon you
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But let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler
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Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glory
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Glorify God in that name. So Peter would go on to talk in this context of suffering how we ought to Glorify God in our suffering but specific to these three two verses 1st
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Peter 3 13 and 14 We see this it's When you do good, you'd normally don't suffer.
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But if even if you do that's okay and Specifically if you are going to be witnessing to the gospel, you can actually anticipate some of the suffering so my question to you for the first point here is when we look at suffering and I'm going to frame them all in the context of apologetics.
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So let's say you're witnessing to your friends unbelievers and You are now facing some suffering as a result of that Are you are you facing suffering as you witness to your friends?
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If so, what is the reason for that suffering? Is it because you are?
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Doing something that is not good. Maybe you are Needlessly antagonizing them if so, we ought to stop that because Peter says do not
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Be a meddler do not do things that are wrong rather do what is good but on the other hand if you are doing what is good and receiving the suffering you are to rejoice because Peter here says you need to anticipate suffering for the gospel and Jesus says that you will be blessed just as we read in verse 13
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I'm sure Peter is thinking these verses and some of you probably remember this from Matthew 5 10 to 12
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This is what Jesus said in the Beatitudes blessed are they that have been persecuted for Righteousness sake the very same word in verse 13 for theirs is the kingdom of heaven
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Blessed are you when men shall reproach you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake rejoice
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Why? Be exceedingly get glad why for great is your reward in heaven for so persecuted
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For did they persecute the prophets that were before you so Jesus was giving a motivation to his
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Disciples and Peter here is reminding these Reminding us as we go through suffering that that is something that we ought to be rejoicing because we are blessed
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We have a reward in heaven and we need to look forward to that to that blessing In fact the term blessing that is used here is almost is in a sense of favor that God would choose you or or Designed it in such a way that you would be the recipient of that suffering is a blessing to you
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And when you receive these suffering we ought not to say oh, you know Can do back away rather.
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Thank you God because you have counted me Worthy to suffer what you have placed me through now
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Let me now give just a good quick example each of these points. I'm going to give you an example of Apologetics, so let's say you talk to someone about the gospel and then someone says hey stop stop stop right there
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I need you to prove to me that Christianity is of any benefit whatsoever in all of history.
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All I can see is the Crusades I can see these popes I can see these Televangelists I can see these scandals.
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What nonsense is Christianity. Why do you come here and bother my life? Which is going pretty well without all these
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Charlatans and fools that they call themselves Christians. Are you one of them? What would you say it's apologetics, you know, are you ready to give a defense of your faith?
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There are two ways you can respond to this one is you can spend the rest of your life Answering every single question that comes from their way and trust me those answers those questions won't stop when you answer one
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The next question will start Should you be prepared for those specific questions in one sense?
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Yes, but another sense No, what you do need to be prepared with is the gospel.
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You need to be able to tell them one thing At the very least if you are a Christian you need to be able to answer them with one thing
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You should be able to say I can and if you can't answer those questions You can leave them and say
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I do not know the answers to those but I do know one thing I know that Jesus Christ He died and he rose again and he has he is the most supreme benefit in my life
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And I know that he can be in yours too If you trust in him and I can tell you how if you are willing to listen to me and that is the gospel
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So he is talking about benefit of the world But you know that Christ has benefited you and you should be able to tell them the gospel in Simple terms why it is of benefit to him.
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Is that anything wrong in studying? What actually happened in? Christianity through the ages
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Christendom in all its ugliness Not at all You can study but that is not what this passage is talking about when you do study you can actually give them an answer
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You can acknowledge when Christianity was At its horrific worst when people were not
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Christians when they call themselves Christians and you can also talk about how God Used Christian men and women in the past ages to be a benefit to society and how people got saved out of their evil and how
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God transformed Nations by the power of the gospel, but that's secondary what you do need to do is to be able to say this is the gospel and here's why it is good and Important for you.
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So the first point is you need to honor Christ in your suffering. The second point is
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Honor Christ without fear of opposition So we see that in the rest of verse 14 and 15
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Have no fear of them nor be troubled but in your hearts honor Christ the
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Lord as holy Have no fear of them nor be troubled
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The image that should come here is courage under fire. So when you are persecuted who does not fear
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When authorities let's say in Peter's time come knocking at your door and you know that they're going door -to -door
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Checking on Christians and they're gonna take you out and arrest you or kill you who does not get anxious
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But before we dig into this verse, I think it's important to know what Peter is actually saying Peter here is
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Paraphrasing a passage from the Old Testament You don't need to turn that I'm just going to read that very briefly
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It's in Isaiah chapter 8 verses 11 through 14 and we read this for thus says the
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Lord to me as He has taught me with a strong arm that I should not walk in the way of this people saying
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Do not say a conspiracy for all that this people speak is a conspiracy.
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Do not fear their fear nor be afraid Sanctify the
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Lord of hosts himself and he shall be your fear and let him be your dread and he
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Shall be your refuge or your sanctification but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offense to the two houses of Israel for a snare and a ruin to the inhabitants of Jerusalem What is going on here is a has this is referring to the events in 2nd
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Kings chapter 16 Ahaz is the king of Judah you have the king of Syria and the king of Israel out to attack the king of Judah and The king of Judah a has instead of relying on God instead of trusting
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God in the face of this opposition in in the face of the suffering and persecution that is to come is now going to go to the king of Assyria and look for help and Very soon that king that very king will come over and take over the land and Isaiah saying do not think like the people
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The people are looking for help with the nations But you ought to be looking for help from the from your
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God in heaven. He says do not fear like the people do Do not be afraid with the kind of fear they have do not be afraid of them
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Don't be troubled But rather sanctify the Lord of hosts as holy and the idea here is
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Jehovah is holy in your heart You need to honor him and look from him for help and Peter here is taking the same
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Reference and then using it in the context of suffering if an army were to come against you Instead of going out to help from the rest of the nations
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You need to be looking up to God when suffering comes your way you ought to be looking up to the God and here he actually
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Replaces the Lord of hosts with Christ the Lord as holy so you can see how the
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Spirit inspires Jesus Christ as the same person here who ought to be reverenced as holy
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So let's now look at this verse in a in a more rounded context in verse 15
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Peter says but in your hearts, what is this? But have no fear of them nor be troubled
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Where does our fear come from a fear comes by looking at our oppressor the person who's bringing the suffering to us?
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So if you look at this person and he is intimidating he is threatening You can tend to get afraid
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Your anxiousness and your troubled hearts can come when you look at your own circumstances You can say
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I have no means of protecting myself against this enemy What am
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I going to do? I have no hope in this circumstance because I cannot see how I can get out of this mess and this giant that is coming against me and Peter says in light of this cons in these circumstance
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I'm going to tell you to do one thing and that is to honor Christ the Lord as holy
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Peter is saying essentially take your eyes off your oppressor Take your eyes off your situation take your eyes even off of yourself
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But fix your eyes firmly on Jesus the Lord and when you do that something is going to change in your circumstance
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So I'm going to now switch again to apologetics. How do we do this in the context of apologetics?
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So here you are. You remember we you are confronted with a question by an unbeliever. Maybe a guy
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PhD in apology atheism I don't know and then here you are trying to give him the gospel or you haven't finished your 10th grade
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But you do know that Jesus saved you You are cowering under this oppression that this person is bringing to you.
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Your mind is humbled by the superior intellect yes, God gave him that intellect and God gave you what he did and Part of you is looking for self -preservation.
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You you don't want to feel like a fool in front of this person You Honestly don't have a solution to the problem that he has posed before you what are you to do?
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You are to honor Christ the Lord as holy What does that mean?
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You are not when God makes us holy he sanctifies us when we make
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God holy in our Hearts as some of your translations would have that means you are setting him apart
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You are recognizing that he is your Lord, which means that you are under Jesus Christ So when you are confronted by this person, you are not under that person
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You are not accountable to that person, but you are accountable to one person and that is Jesus You are honoring
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Jesus as Lord in your life. You recognize that Jesus is not just Lord over your life
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He's the ruler of the entire universe. You are sanctifying or making holy Jesus as Lord of the universe and When you set
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Jesus apart as holy What happens is you recognize something about who you are you are a child of the king and you receive the confidence that you have from God himself that he
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Abides with you in those moments of trial. You are not just a helpless fledgling a little turtle
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That's born and picked up by those Scavengers but rather you are the child of the king and you have the divine protection of God himself and you can speak
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Boldly of what God has done for you and If I want to expand this a little more the idea here is remember which kingdom you belong to You are in the world, but you are not off it
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Very often we forget because we got saved out of the world and as we are talking to people in the world
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We just sometimes think we are still citizens within the world playing by its own little silly games No, we are not we may be living in the world, but we are definitely not off it.
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We belong to a different kingdom You may have to be subject to the world's laws, but you are ultimately subject to the divine lawgiver
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You have a higher King under whom you live It is his kingdom that you belong to ultimately and you should never forget that even as you interact with people in the world
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And as I'm saying this some of you may probably be thinking, you know, what kind of boldness is that when
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I'm confronted in this world? I just kind of escape into another another kingdom. Is that and trust me if you are doing apologetics people will
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Confront you with that question. You're just escaping From my questions because you have no answer that's not true
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But I do want to let you know that this confidence is not just an internal confidence. Okay.
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I just have this assurance I'm fine, you know deluded people can have that too, you know, just some weird
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Feeling of confidence and then you know, they just go right before a running truck That's not the kind of confidence
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Christians have and we will see that in a moment Nor is this a sinful bravado not just an arrogance saying alright you say whatever you want
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I'm gonna say whatever I want, you know, I don't care what you what do you think? That's not the sense in which we have this confidence our confidence comes by honoring
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Christ the Lord as holy We are under him We recognize his rulership and that gives us a confidence to do something which we will see next
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But before we go there, let me give you one more of these apologetics Questions or challenges that you may face.
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So here comes an unbeliever and says as you give him the gospel Prove to me that God created the world and six days.
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Ha ha ha and prove to me that evolution is wrong Those of you who went to VBS, you could probably give the simple answer.
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What is the simple answer? That's right.
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The Bible says it simple That's I'm glad that you you taught that in the
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VBS to the children because that's pretty much it How can you know what happened at the beginning of the universe? only by the person who made the beginning of the universe and yes, the current science may be overflowing with theories and concepts that are in some cases anti -christian
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Anti -god, what would you say when you are told?
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Ha ha ha you believe in six days You don't believe in evolution which planet which nation are you from?
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Oh, you're in America, huh? Okay, tell me tell me what you believe about Jesus Now the key here to remember is that you both belong to two different kingdoms the and in apologetics
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We call that worldviews When a person doesn't believe in God They have to develop a system of seeing the world in a way without God and that's what you have in evolution
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You have a system that says let me take God out of the picture And how can I explain everything that I have and you come up with a theory and that's what they believe
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But we as a Christian we belong to a different kingdom. We have God's divine
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Inspired truth of what happened in the beginning and we now see the world through the lens of scripture
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We can actually see what happened as God himself has revealed it to us so when you talk to someone who does not believe in God or the
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Bible you have a conflict of worldviews and What you need to do here is never forget that God is
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Central in your worldview this person who asked you this question has no God and when you try to answer that person a fool
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According to his folly you'll just be spinning your tails forever there is a way to answer this person and we will see this in the next point, but You should never forget the kingdom that you belong to you ought to honor
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Christ The Lord as holy and your worldview needs to have God right smack in the center of it
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And that's from where you need to begin to explain to this person and you could you should begin. Well Maybe I will just say this here so you can say well you believe that Everything that we see the beautiful world and the complexities of life came from nothing, right?
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Yes Theories fine and I'm believe that everything that you see including yourself and me were created by an all -powerful
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God You can see the reasonableness of this is it make more sense for an all -powerful God to create the complexity of a human being or nothing just to evolve into something with nothing in between That's another subject for another topic
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But what you need to do is get back to the gospel when you talk about this creator You want to extol him and explain him to a person whose worldview has no position for God He is not going to accept it, but you are doing here
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What is called evangelism and in your defense of the gospel and you're telling this person through the instrument of his?
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Problematic question the good news that will save him and open his eyes to the truth So let's move on So the first point was we are to honor
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Christ in our suffering the second is to honor Christ Without fear of opposition and that's because you honor
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Christ you belong to a different kingdom The third point that we have here is honoring
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Christ by being prepared to answer Unbelievers and this gets to the heart of apologetics verse 15
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Always being prepared to make a defense to anyone Anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.
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I want you to just watch this word carefully It says being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason
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This is a command you you can't just say if I feel like it I will do it if I feel bold enough.
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I will do it. This is something that you are Expected to do as a Christian. This is not just for James White and the other apologists.
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This is for every single Christian who can testify to what God has done who can give a defense of a reason for the faith that they have
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Now this verse gets to the heart of the issue. There is something you need to do before you get into suffering
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There is a preparation that is necessary. And what is that preparation? Peter here says you are to be prepared and It's not just be prepared.
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Sometimes it is be prepared always Always be prepared If you are thinking in Peter's time so here come the authorities
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I Would find this hard to imagine so here are all the Christians The authorities are out looking for them and they say well, let's party and then, you know plan for preparation, you know next year
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Ha ha ha. No I mean when do and you know that the authorities are knocking at your door You better be prepared for what is going to happen next
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You probably make sure your family is safe and you you have sanctified Christ as Lord in your hearts and you are ready to speak to them when the time comes for you to go because you know
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It's just a matter of time. It is not it is not something that is far out and for us today
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That is very much the same thing there is suffering that is going to come as you give the gospel and you ought to be prepared when you
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When you are asked for a reason for the faith that you have I'm gonna say a few more things.
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We're going to look at a couple of verses and we'll see how far we get today We saw already in first Peter 4 the goal of suffering is to glorify
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God So end of the end of the day when everything is done your life through that suffering must honor and exalt
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God in the circumstances that God places you and We're gonna see a few verses where God is actually going to give you
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Opportunities through those suffering that you might not have otherwise had Sometimes you get to speak to officials and kings who otherwise would not have cared to even see you and We're going to see another verse that it's going to balance this just as we need to be prepared
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There is another way way that we should not be prepared and we look at those together and put together what you ought to do
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The way you ought not to be prepared comes from the words of Jesus himself again. You don't have to turn
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I'm just going to read them. It's in Luke chapter 12 verse 11 and Jesus says here and when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities
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Do not be anxious how or what you shall answer or what you shall say
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For the Holy Spirit shall teach you in that very hour what you ought to say So when it comes to the content of what you need to speak and those of you who do apologetics or do evangelism
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You know this It is Impossible to be prepared for every single question that is going to come your way
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And if you're an early Christian whether in the time of Jesus or Peter afterward if you are going to be thinking of all the question that these authorities and the synagogue rulers and Officials are going to bring your way
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You will get not just anxious you will get hyperventilated because I can tell you you can answer
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Everything in this little finite mind what you need to say to those people when they ask you those questions that will leave you dumbfounded and God Jesus here says that the
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Holy Spirit will give you utterance. He will tell you what you need to do So what you ought not to be looking at is
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And this is one of the things I want to impress upon you when we think of apologetics the big picture all we think of is
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I need answers. I need to be able to answer everything that is not what was 15 is talking about When it comes to preparation there, is there anything wrong with preparing these questions?
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No, but you are that not that ought not be the focus of what you are doing in your preparation
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So, what is it we will get to that in a moment But I want to give you a few more verses that talk about the purpose of God in these sufferings
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So we also see in Acts chapter 6 This is with Stephen The Apostles were pleased with the whole gathering and they chose
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Stephen a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit and then the other men and Then we read in verse 9
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Then some of those who belong to the synagogue of the freedmen as it was called and of the Cyrenians and the Alexandrians and Cilicia and Asia they rose up and disputed with Stephen But they could not withstand the wisdom and the spirit with which he was speaking and you know what goes on afterward as Stephen speaks by the
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Spirit and Convicts them to the point where they had to kill him We see this further in the life of Paul just as in Stephen's life
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We see in Paul's life where Paul gets saved and then God tells Ananias go for he's a
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Chosen instrument of mine to carry my name Listen to that carry my name before the
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Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel there was an express purpose why Paul was going to face his suffering and that was to proclaim the excellencies of Christ to and to Straight out of society that he otherwise would not have gotten to and Paul himself later in Acts would say this
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God telling Paul he recounts this he says I have appeared to you for this purpose to appoint you as a servant and a witness to the things which you have seen
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Delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles to whom to whom I am sending you and the purpose
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To open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God That they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me
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So when you are coming under apologetics remember this It's very easy to get defensive and even apologize for what you're asked but rather the purpose of God here is to provide you an avenue to proclaim the excellencies of Christ and to In his sovereign design to actually save some who get to know the gospel through you
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So let's get back to verse 15. What should you do? We've already seen in verse earlier in 15 that we can be confident because we honor
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Christ the Lord as holy So the preparation that you have here is not necessarily the content but rather your attitude
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It is to recognize that you are Prepared first and foremost to honor
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Christ in the circumstance that God has placed you But there is a little bit more than that If you look back at verse 15, the person is asking you for a reason for the hope that is in you
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So there is something that is going on in you that will provoke the unbeliever to ask you for the reason you have a hope a
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Supernatural hope a hope that is Inexplicable to the world and they want to know why you have that.
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Are you mad? Is that why you believe in what you believe or is there a reason for what you believe? and let me tell you this and I will we will probably stop with this point today, but When we try to give reasons let me get to this in a minute, so let me finish this first So let me say that you are
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Suffering physically on account of the gospel. So let's say you are a rich wealthy man
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You got saved maybe like Zacchaeus you realized you were earning your money the wrong way.
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Give it all up and Your wealthy friends say what kind of madness is this?
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Why would you give up your money keep your money and worship your God? What? What's wrong with the money is not sinful and then
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You are now asked for why you're doing what you're doing what is this hope that you have that is in the eternal that gives up things that are good and pleasant for the world to enjoy and You need to be able to give a reasoned account of why you count the excellencies of Christ Why you cry and count heaven and God's righteousness more important than sinfully amassing wealth
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Simple so when you have thought through the reasons for the hope that you have in you you can actually give a reason for why?
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You live the way you live. This was just a simple example, but primarily it comes back to the gospel Why do you believe in Jesus Christ?
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Why do you believe in heaven? Why can't you just enjoy the good life now and you should be able to say here is why because he saved me from the
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Depths of darkness and sin and the life that I now live I enjoy more than I ever did with all the money and all the friends and every single thing that you have
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Counts nothing to me because God is so good and I want you to know this
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God because you too can enjoy this goodness and go straight away into the gospel give them the good news and That is the preparation that you need to have it is not just all the answers for all the million questions
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But rather why is Christ sanctified in your heart? Why do you believe what you believe? You do not need to have an answer for their questions, but you need to have an answer for your questions
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What was the purpose for? Salvation what was your the purpose that you committed everything you surrendered everything to Jesus Christ?
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and that should be the way you point them to this eternal Savior and you can say that this is your blessing and your great reward and Speak well of Jesus Christ now you see when you honor
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Christ as holy Christ the Lord as holy Speaking of Jesus becomes a lot easier
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When you're looking just at defending yourself, okay? I'm in a bad state here. Let me try to give an answer
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We're just gonna get defensive We're just gonna try to give them more and more answers dig a bigger hole if you don't really know what we're talking about and Then look even more foolish, but on the other hand if we are looking to honor
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Christ as Lord Speaking of him well comes easy. It doesn't matter what the unbeliever thinks about me because I believe in Jesus Christ But I believe in Jesus Christ And he's good to me, and I do not care and I'm going to tell tell you why he is good
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Give them a reason now when we talk about reason. This is what I wanted to I defer to later
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We all want to be reasonable in fact one of the dangers and apologetics today if you look at many of the apologists out there
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They all want to look reasonable and speak reason in the plane of the unbeliever
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You do want your answers to make sense you do want what you say You know if they ask you in English you don't want to answer in Greek you want them to get what you're saying
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But there is a big difference in trying to be reasonable in the view of the world
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Let me maybe give you a few words around this we already saw worldviews unbelievers think in a certain pattern they have certain underlying ground rules according to which they think
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We call this presuppositional apologetics, so when you look at an unbeliever. He has some things that he presupposes
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It's on the basis of those presuppositions. Maybe there is no God. Maybe I am the Arbiter of my own life
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These are all the rules by which they think and if you try to answer them according to their own folly you will get nowhere
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Rather you need to be able to say this I Understand what you're thinking I've been there. I've thought that let me tell you something more something better Here is something that you do not know which you need to know
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There is a God and this God is your creator He is the one the
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Bible says is holy and righteous I know you do not know him But I'm so glad that God has given that knowledge to me through his word
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And I want you to have that knowledge too without this vital piece of information Nothing I say makes any sense to you, so just listen to what
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I have to say and and let me explain to you the goodness of what God has done talk about why man is sinful in this today's world people do not even know what sin is without a holy
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God there is no sin and Why we as a people are in need Talk about Jesus Christ as the
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Redeemer He was not just a man who came and died and then disappeared and people wrote legends about and that's the myths that these people
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Are fed talk about the excellencies of Christ that this Jesus Christ died for my sin took my sin
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And he rose from the grave and then There is an important agenda here because if you do not believe in Jesus Your sins will not be forgiven and remember
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Collette's coming back to apologetics. You are defending the faith you're giving a reason for why what you believe is true, and you can say what
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I do believe is true and This truth will judge you in the end and it is vital for you
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It's not the Christian who's on the dock But it's the unbeliever before God's dock and he needs to get out of there by the only way
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God has provided which is the gospel and So when you're trying to be reasonable to them
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This is the supreme reason God is the source of reason he has revealed his reason to us in the scriptures
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And you do not need to be ashamed of proclaim thing claiming this reasonably to an unbeliever even if he does not have the foundations in his worldview for God and sin and Creation you can speak to him of what
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God has revealed to us in the scriptures, but speak to it Reasonably explaining what the
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Bible says and to do that you need to understand the scriptures in fact if you look at Stephen and Paul, I mean
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Stephen starts talking he has the Old Testament pretty much Memorized I think he's just talking about God's actions in the
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Old Testament when Paul talks whether to the Jews or the Atheists He's talking about what the
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Bible says about himself and he is able to speak eloquently because he has studied the scriptures and he's able to speak of God to these people and that's what we need to be prepared for we need to know the scriptures and be able to speak of the scriptures and That does not mean you need to have a
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PhD in the Bible if you're a believer, you know enough To be able to say what the gospel is and the more you study the more confidence you will have to be able to explain
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It in greater depth I'm just going to throw out a few verses.
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So you have this context in mind why I think apologetics comes under evangelism All of you know
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Matthew 28 18 through 20 Jesus saying all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me
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So when you speak to these people you remember that you're under Christ and Christ has the supreme authority You are acting on his behalf go therefore make disciples this is part of what you're doing when you are witnessing to those and Baptizing them in the name of the
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Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit Teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you and behold
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I am with you always even to the end of the age God abides with you He is
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Emmanuel. And then when you look at Romans 10 10 through 15, I Want to just read 13 through 15 here for everyone who calls on the name of the
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Lord will be saved How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed and how are they to believe in him of whom?
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They have never heard and how are they to hear without someone preaching and how are they to preach unless they are sent as it is
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Written how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news and the good news for you My friends is that you are called of God to speak of Jesus Christ to every single person that God brings in your way
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And you are to be prepared in your hearts in your minds to honor Christ The Lord is holy and give a defense a reason the gospel to those who ask you for the good news
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So let me maybe wrap up with this last question and this is probably the most famous question of all
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Prove to me the unbeliever eyes that God exists Prove to me that God exists
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Show me God and I'll believe Once again, we come to the clash of worldviews when a person does not believe in God we have
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Psalm 14 1 the fool says in his heart there is no God and Then David goes around to explain why that happens
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They which we all belong to before we got saved are they are corrupt They do abominable deeds and there is no one who does good
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There is a reason why the unbeliever says there is no God. Do you know why? We are rebels
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We do not want to be confronted with the truth of God The Bible says in Romans 1 the truth of God is in this in this capable the world around us showcases it
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Within the heart of man. We know that God has made us but you know what? I like my sin a whole lot more and I want to suppress that truth and it's been suppressed for so long that people don't recognize that they have done that and For you to go and be
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God and expose God in their hearts and say here is God and let me prove it to you
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Is an impossible task? But there is something that you can do and in fact
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God has ordained this as the only the chief means by which you can answer that question you can try to talk about the
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Design argument look at everything and that points to God you can talk about teleological argument You can say how everything has a goal and there needs to be a goal giver
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You can give all those stuff and that's helpful in its own place But the chief way you can answer it is by the gospel because the gospel is the power of God unto salvation
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No matter what you answer. There is only one thing that God honors in Salvation and that is the good news and you need to give them that good news and say let me tell you about this
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God that you do not believe that you say you do not believe but who you know very well
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Let me explain him to you And when we talk about apologetics, there are two sides to it.
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One side is the positive side and where you are Uncompromising you say let's not try to pretend to be friends
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We have two worldviews that are inimical to each other and they just can't meet I Will tell you what the
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Bible says is true and you need to share this because when you die Whether you believe it or not, you're going to face this
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God of righteousness and I want you to face him on his terms Because if you face him on your terms you're going to hell and I do not want that for you and Then when you've given him the gospel, you can't talk to him about his worldview because today in the world
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Atheism and whatever ism is very popular when you actually get into their ism and talk about what they actually believe
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That is ridiculous. What the world considers is true Everything out of nothing with nothing directing it and getting somewhere and Man, what what is the reason for trusting man's reason?
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Just because I said so Without God as your supreme reason the person who made you able to think you have no reason to trust your brains as much as A monkey has its reasons to believe its own brains that is doing math correctly
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I'm telling you the Atheists and the unbelievers views of foolish but they have hardened into rocks that have been honored by this society that we live in and You it is not that hard to break it
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But that's not our primary job My our primary job is to make sure we know the gospel and we are not ashamed of it and we want to honor
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Christ The Lord as holy we will stop here And the last two points that we had are in 15 and 16
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Which is honor Christ by being gentle and respectful even as you saw the tone of what I was saying in this point
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You can see it's easy to get heated up but God expects us to do things his way and that is with gentleness and respect and finally to do it with a good conscience because End of the day you will get suffering and you want to make sure when you suffer it is
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For doing good rather than doing evil because when I'm pushed against the wall
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I can try to do things my way and often they are sinful and not holy But rather we ought to be honoring
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Christ as holy. He is our Lord and not be ashamed of the gospel among unbelievers
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Let us pray Dear God our Heavenly Father.
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We thank you for saving us We know that without your work in our lives we would be just as deluded by the
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Prince of this world and we would find Things that Satisfy our own sinfulness
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We thank you for revealing your son Jesus Christ And giving us your good word Help us oh father to be faithful to Jesus Christ Help us to honor him in times when it is easy to become fearful and troubled
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Use us oh father use every single person here Even as we go forth from here to proclaim your excellencies