Christian Apologetics

Welcome everyone. We're gonna go ahead and get started. I'm gonna open up in prayer, and then my friend Andrew will do our introduction tonight. Let's pray God, thank you so much for this great group of believers that you have brought from all over the Metroplex and further, and to be here tonight to hear your word, to just bask in your word and to hear a great Man of God deliver a wonderful message. We pray that we would absorb this, that we would listen, that our hearts would be afresh as we listen to vote speak tonight and share your word, continue to strengthen him and continue to strength in his ministry. We pray in gs naming pray Amen Andrew. Good evening for. Those returning to us, Welcome back, and to the new faces I see in the audience, Welcome to the Church of Concrete. We're very happy and honored to have you here with us tonight, and it's our great pleasure to have a brother in Christ come back to the States. Doctor Bocam lives with his wife and seven of his children in Zambia, where he is the Dean of the African Christian university and he has two children here in the States, so we're very happy that on his time back here in the United States that he was able to have the night with us where he will be speaking further on Christian worldview and apologetics. So, without any further ado, doctor body. Backham Well, good evening, it is good to be back. Excuse me. On last night, we spent our time talking about the issue of worldview, and if you'll remember, we talked about our worldview in a couple of different ways. We talked about two different world views and a couple of different ways that we understand worldview. One was the elements of our worldview, our view of God, Man, truth, knowledge, and ethics. And you can look at worldviews and evaluate worldviews based on, excuse me, the way that they answer those questions, right, who is God? Who is Man? What is truth? How do we know it? And what is the difference between right and wrong? How do we determine right and wrong? And then we talked about the fact that there's another way that we can understand worldview, and that's our meta narrative or the overarching story that explains why things are the way they are. We looked at the two main competing world views of our culture in our day, secular humanism on the one hand, and Christian theism on the other. And we looked at those two really based on both of those views, right, based on view of God, Man, truth, knowledge, and ethics, and also based on our meta narrative, and we applied those to those ultimate questions right, those four questions that every human being asks, regardless of when or where they're born. We all, in one way or another, want to know who am I? Why am I here? What is wrong with the world? And how can what is wrong be made right? And so we answer those questions from the perspective of secutary humanism right, secondary humanism. Who am i? I'm the result of random evolutionary processes. Why am I here to consume and enjoy? What is wrong with the world? Well, people are either insufficiently educated or insufficiently governed. How can what is wrong be made right? We need more education or more government? Right? And with Christian theism, who am i? I am the crown and glory of the creation of God, made on purpose and with a purpose, have inherent dignity, value, and worth because I'm created in the image of God. Why am I here to bring glory and honor to my Creator. What is wrong with the world? You right, me too a little bit, but mainly you right. We're made to bring God glory, but we don't. We sin. Sin is what's wrong with the world. How can what is wrong be made right through the person and work of Jesus Christ, the god Man, who is our mediator between us and God. So those were the the the two competing world views. Today what we want to look at is the issue of apologetics, and we want to do that. Yesterday we looked from the Book of Colossians and Colossians chapter one. Today we want to look from Jude. Jude, don't ask what chapter? Okay, from Jude. We want to talk about the issue of apologetics, Okay and Jude. The word apologetics is taken from a Greek word. It's kind of a transliteration or Greek word that we find in one Peter Trapter three in verse fifteen, right where Peter urges us to always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks us the reason reason for the hope that is in us, and you have to do it with gentleness and respect. And that word therefore the reason response that we are to give is the Greek word apologia, and it's from that Greek word apologia that we get our word apologetics. So apologetics is not about apologizing for anything. Okay, it's I always laugh when I think about that. It was a very famous TV evangelist who you know, just was so tired of the apologist and apologetics and always apologizing for the Gospel, and just that was Yeah. So no, apologetics is not about apologizing for anything. It is a reasoned response. And so we want to look at that tonight, starting here in Jude. And as we look at Jude. Last night we looked at four questions. Tonight, I want to look at four objections. Most Christians don't engage in apologetics. Most Christians are afraid to engage and apologetics. Don't want to engage in apologetics. We just believe that we don't know enough, We're not prepared enough, you know, we're not gifted enough or whatever to engage in apologetics, and so we don't. We don't enter into discussions with people. We're afraid that we just won't have the right answers. We just don't do it. And unfortunately, most of the people who are interested in apologetics, are you know, arrogant young men who love to argue more than they love Jesus, you know who you are. And those people want to be apologists because they just like to fight, right, They like to argue. They always think they're the smartest person in the room, and they want to live a life proving it. And so you have these two groups of people, the one group of people who say no, not me, can't do it, you know, don't know enough, not ready enough, and the other group of people who say, yeah, absolutely me. And in both cases, the problem is we are defining apologetics wrongly, and we'll see that here today as we answer these objections. There are many objections. I want to answer those objections. The first objection is this people say, you know, so, I don't do apologetics because that's not my gift or that's not my calling. That's objection number one. I don't do apologetics because that's not my gift, that's not my calling. I'm glad you do apologetics because that's your gift and that's your calling, you know. I'm glad you do apologetics because you know that's that's that's your training and your you know whatever. And part of that comes from the fact that we have a wrong understanding of apologetics and a wrong definition of apologetics. We think apologetics means knowing everything about everything so you can answer everyone. Right, that's the way we define it. Who's the apologist, the one who knows everything about everything so he can answer everyone. That's not apologetics. Let me give you a definition of apologetics. And this definition of apologetics I pull straight from the very passage that gives us the word for apologetics, right from one Peter three verse Peter three fifteen, where Peter's saying, always be ready to give an answer for anyone who asks you the reason for the hope that is in you. Right, he doesn't say know everything about every world religion so that you know, always be ready to give an answer to anyone who asks you the reason for the hope that is in you. Apologetics is knowing what you believe, why you believe it, and being able to communicate that in a clear and winsome fashion. That's it. You don't have to know everything about everybody else's religion, you don't have to know everything about philosophy, you don't have to know everything about everything. You need to know what you believe and why you believe it, and you need to be able to communicate that in a clear and winsome fashion. That's what it means to be an apologist. Not knowing everything about everything, okay. And one of the reasons that we define this wrongly is because we have a wrong understanding of people's needs. We think. We think there's several beliefs that we have that are just so incredibly wrong. One of the beliefs that we have is this is that the Gospel is sufficient but not for smart people. We believe that, and that's why people ask questions like, you know, let's say, well, you know, just wondering if you can you can help me, you know, because I got this friend and they're really smart, you know, and we know that the gospel works for dumb people, but it just doesn't work for the smart ones. So can you give me the extra stuff that God has for the really smart people? I mean, because we believe that, right, you know, Yeah, this person's really smart, and they're usually not. They're usually not. Romans Chapter one and Romans Chapter one, Paul tells us something very interesting that basically, men know that they's a God, they know the truth, but they suppress the truth in unrighteousness. They don't lack information, they lack righteousness. And what's wrong with the way most people approach apologetics is that they approach apologetics as if that person's primary problem is a lack of information. And so my job is to go. And get enough information to overwhelm them so that the information will drive them to their knees and say, thank you. I now intellectually know enough to bow the knee before Jesus Christ. And if you've ever engaged anyone like that, you know that's not true, because they can ask you a question and you can be like spot on just I mean, they can just lobb. It across the plate right and usual sh ah, and you sit back. It's one of those ones. You don't even begin your home run trot. You gotta watch it leave right and before you even finish rounding first base. They're not going, Wow, that was awesome, thank you for asking my question, answering my question. They're going, yeah, well what about this why? Because their question is not the question. They don't care what the answer is. They just want the answer to be something other than bow the need to Christ. You smell them. One of seven air, and we just they're just so smart. I just don't know what to do with somebody so smart because I tell them them and then they them in another question. They're not smart. They're fools. If they're well educated, they're just educated fools. But they're fools. The fool has said in his heart that there is no God. And they don't lack answers and information, they lack righteousness. And you don't get righteousness by acquiring more information. You get righteousness, the repentance, and faith. So there's problem number one. So because we have a wrong understanding of what people's need is, we have a wrong understanding of what apologetics is. If their greatest need is more information than the apologist needs to be an information resource, and I have to have the right gifting and the right calling and the right training and all this sort of stuff to engage in apologetics. Right, well, let's look at let's look we're going to look at Jude one through four, and then we're going to come back and we're going to answer all those objections. Remember that first objection though, that first objection is that you know, I don't engage in pologetics because it's not my gifting. It's not my calling. The second objection is that apologetics is not loving. Apologetics not loving. You're saying you're right and other people are wrong. That's not loving. Right. The third objection is as apologetics is majoring on minors, it's majoring on peripher vierraal issues and not the main thing, right, not the main thing. Those are the three major objections that we have to apologetics. I don't want to majorre on that. I want to major on the Gospel. I want to major on the Gospel, not peripheral issues. Right. These are the main objections to apologetics. So let's look at these first four verses and then come back and answer those objections. Jude a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ, May mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you, beloved. Although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were designated for this condemnation. Undoubtedly, people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. There it is, this is the answer, or these are the answers. Look at the first one. The first objection is that's not my calling, that's not my gifting. And we see here through these first verses that obviously Jude is calling for apologetics here, there is no mistaking it. Jude is absolutely positively, unequivocally calling for apologetics. He says in verse three, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. Contend for the faith, engage in apologetics. Okay, clearly that's what he's calling for. But to whom is he writing here? To people who happen to have that particular gift or that particular calling? And you number one, where where in scripture do we find that particular gift or that particular calling? Second hesitations? I mean where? I mean where do we where? Where do we find that right? Where do we find the gift of apologists? That that's the first problem. Here's the second problem. Go back to verse one. Jude is are we are we're in agreement. This is just just not we're in agreement that Jude's calling for apologetics here, right, He's calling his audience to whom he's writing to engage in apologetics. Okay, okay, So who's the audience? Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James two. By the way, there's a pattern in in epistles, and it was a pattern for personal letters in the first century. Right A to be greeting, right, A to be greeting. You find that all over the New Testament. A to be greetings, salutations right, some kind of and so a Jude serving of Jesus Christ, brother James two A tow B. So who's b to whom is he writing? Those who are called Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and say that's me. You might not want to claim it. If not, you're in trouble, because look at the second one, be loved in God, the Father. I'm gonna say that's me. Amen, I'm gonna say that's me. And kept for Jesus Christ. I'm gonna say that's me. And if you call yourself a Christian, you better say that's you called beloved in God. The Father kept for Jesus Christ. Now, by the way, let me just share something with you here. One of the things that kind of it's almost amusing, is how people will argue that certain doctrines are just not biblical doctrines or they were made up doctrines, and this, that and the other. And one of the doctrines that people often have a problem with is the doctrine of the Trinity, because the word trinity is just not in the Bible. YadA YadA, YadA, this that and the other. But trinitarianism is I mean, the New Testament is just replete, even the Old Testament replete with trinitarianism and with Trinitarian greetings. And this is a Trinitarian greeting. So let's go backwards. Kept for Jesus Christ. Jesus is the second person of the Trinity, right right before that beloved in God, the Father, that's the first person of the Trinity, by the way, who calls the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit. This is not even a veiled Trinitarian reverence. You don't you don't need a degree in theology to figure out this trinitarian reference. Right, those who belong to the Triune God called by the Spirit, loved by the Father, kept by the Son. To whom is he referring to? Whom could he possibly be referring? Well, obviously he's referring to those among the Christians who happen to have the particular gift of apologetics and the particular calling of apologetics. Because the rest of us, if we don't have that gift, aren't called by the Spirit, aren't loved by the Father, and aren't kept by the Son. Folks that dog won't hunt. That's every Christian. There are no Christians outside of this. You cannot be a Christian outside of this if you are not called by the Spirit, loved by the Father, kept by the Sun. This is a picture of salvation if we were to go to John seventeen and look at John seventeen and see this picture. In theology, it is referred to as the Covenant of redemption. The Covenant of redemption is the covenant that God made with himself an eternity passed before creation, and the covenant of redemption we could see in John chapter seventeen. You would see, in fact, let's just go there John seventeen, beginning of verse one, when Jesus had spoken these words. And you know, it's interesting we often talk about, you know, the Lord's prayer, and unfortunately, when we talk about the Lord's prayer, what we really mean is the disciples as the Lord teaches the disciples how to pray. Right. John seventeen is the Lord's prayer. This is Jesus praying in John seventeen, and he's praying for us. But in the context of this prayer he gives the clearest theological picture of the Covenant of Redemption that you find anywhere else in the scriptures. When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify your son, that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life that they may know you the only true God. And Jesus Christ, whom you have sent, I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence, with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. Again, he's referring to this glory that was before the world exists, It's before creation. Verse six. I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you. For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. All mine are yours, and all yours are mine. And I'm glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you, Holy Father. Keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one. While I was with them, I kept them in your name, which you have given me you following the fame. There I've guarded them, and not one of them has been lost, except the Son of Destruction, that the scripture may be fulfilled. But now I'm coming to you these things I speak in the world that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in truth. Your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world, and for their sake, I consecrate myself that they also may be sanctified in truth. Verse twenty. I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word. By the way, first, he's talking obviously about apostles. Now he's talking about everybody who believes, because of the Gospel that the apostles preach that they may all be one, just as you, Father are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us. So that the world may believe that you have sent me the glory that you have given me. I have given to them that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them, you and me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they, also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. There's that word again, Oh Righteous Father. Even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them. That's awesome. Covenantive redemption. Before the foundation of the world, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist one God in three persons, perfect harmony, perfect unity, eternal perfection, and the love of God is perfect within the Godhead and in need of absolutely nothing, but in eternity past. God, by his own decision and for his own glory, decided that that love would spill over in creation and an eternity passed. The Father, because of his love for the Son, bequeathed to the son a gift of a people, and the son, because of his love for his father, redeemed the people whom the Father had given him in eternity past, and the Spirit, who was the very personification of the love between the Father and the Son, applies that redemption to all whom the Father gave and the Son died to redeem. This is the Covenant of Redemption. Now with that theological backdrop, look at Jude one again. Jude a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called by the Spirit, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ. That drips with the Covenant of Redemption. I mean, it's just swimming in the Covenant of Redemption. And it is a clear, unambiguous reference to every Christian. So clear, unambiguous call to apologetics, clear unambiguous reference to every Christian. Every Christian is an apologist. Amen, every Christian as an apologist. You may be a bad one, but you are one. You are one. Let's look at the passage in One Peter, First Peter, chapter three. Remember that's where we get the word from right, First Peter, chapter three. Let's look at that. Let's start at verse thirteen. Now, who is there to harm you if you prove zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled. But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you. Yet do it with gentleness and respect, 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, then for doing evil. By the way, if you want to understand the audience here, because you're like, okay, how do you know that that you is referring to all believers, go back to chapter two in verse thirteen, or speed of chapter two in verse thirteen, or actually verse eleven. Okay, beloved, I urge you, as sojourners exiles, to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul. That is a reference to all all believers. Verse thirteen. Be subject, for the Lord's sake, to every human institution, whether it be the Emperor, a supreme or governor sent by him to punish those who do evil. So on and so forth. Again, that's a general injunction for believers. Then verse eighteen. Servants be subject to your masters with all respect. Chapter three, verse one. Likewise, wives be subject to your own husbands. Chapter three, verse seven. Likewise, husbands live with your wives in an understanding way. Chapter three, verse eight. Finally, all of you, everybody, everybody servants, wives, husbands, all of you. So one, Peter. Chapter three and verse fifteen falls under the heading of all of you, from which we get the very word. Apologetics cannot be understood as referring to a specific group of Christians with a special gift or calling, And the passage that we are looking at today in Jude cannot be misconstrued as referring to a specific group or a subgroup of Christians with a specific calling. We do we think, okay, yeah, apologists, man, those are the Green Beret Delta Force, Marine Force Recon you know, Army Ranger. No, no, no, A thousand times no. These are not the Navy Seals of Christians. This is everybody. If you belong to Christ you are not called to be an apologist. You are an apologist. There's no way around it. See, if you were just called to be an apologist. Then you could just be like, Nope, not answering that call. It's not a call. It just is. It just is. It's who you are. You don't have to want to be, it's just who you are. So that's the answer to objection number one. What about the second objection? The second objection is that apologetics is not loving. Apologetics is not loving. Now, in order for us to understand this, we've got to go back to verse three again and in verse three here. But although I was very eager to write you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write a healing to you to contend for the faith. That word that he uses there, the Greek word that he uses here, Uh, the root word is the root is the word from which we get our word for agony, to agonize, but here it's gonizumi. It's like epi. You know epi, epic, right, great epi. So it's agonized greatly, to struggle greatly. And that word there is a word picture that would really have been used in the context of here. It would been before the Olympics, but it would have been the Isthmian Games. It's the idea of wrestling two men wrestling with one another. Okay, Brazilian jiu jitsu. Some of y'all will get that like way later, but but that's the idea. It's two men in the ring, engaged in Mortal Kombat. This is this is this is a this is a martial reference, a military reference. If you will fight, agonize war for the faith. And there are people who go, yeah, see that's that's just that's just not loving, and so I just don't want to engage. We're Christians and we'll call it to love, and that's just inconsistent with love. There's just there's just a tiny problem with that because we say that verse three is inconsistent with the love that characterizes Christianity. But verse three comes after verse two. May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. So riddle me this batman. If what he's calling us to in verse three is inconsistent and incompatible with love, why do he put it after verse two? It is he disconnected from reality. It's just like the cognitive dissonance that we talked about on yesterday. Is this some sort of strange mental illness that would allow him to do this? Or are you the one with a misunderstanding I'm going with I'm going with the second choice, by the way, and I'm going to prove it in a minute, but for now, just trust me. We're going with the second choice. That if you think that apologetics is inconcern with love, it's because you don't understand apologetics, or you don't understand love, or both or both. So here's our problem with the first of that, with not understanding love. One of the reasons that we don't understand love is because we have a purely horizontal view of love. We have a purely man centered view of love, and we believe that love has to be measured by our horizontal relationships with one another. And so real love, genuine love, authentic love is that which looks at you and sees you as the center of the universe and does everything in its power to see that you have your needs and desires met. That is love. Anything that doesn't do that is not love. It's purely horizontal. But there's a problem with that. The problem is this love is not a concept that just magically appeared someday. God is love. Love is defined first and foremost vertically before it's defined horizontally. By the way, here's what's so important. You may be asking, why why don't we go through that whole John seventeen. Thing right, you've made your point. I mean I believe your point. You know, called love. Okay, that's trinity, d D D DA. Why John seventeen, here's why, Because the Covenant of Redemption is about what it is about love before the foundation of the world. It is about the love that actually spilled over in creation. It is about the love that actually led to and defines creation. It is about perfect love that is the standard by which all love must then be measured. It is about the love that is the only reason that we can think of love. It is about the perfect love in the Godhead. It is about the love of the Father for the Son and the Spirit, and the love of the Son for the Father and the Spirit. The love of the Spirit for the Father and the Son, this love that spills over into creation so that we see the love of God. It's about this vertical love that makes a way for horizontal love. It's the only reason that we are able to even think about loving one another horizontally. Where love comes from. So if we are going to love each other horizontally, we must do so. Within the confines of that vertical love. And if what we are doing horizontally is not commensurate with the way love has been defined and given to us vertically, then watch this. It ain't love. It's not love. First of all, a purely horizontal view of love is idolatrous. It's idolatrous because it ignores the vertical reality of God himself. I'm going to love you, and that love is going to be defined by you. It's going to find its origin and its meaning, and it's end in you. That's idolatry, pure and simple. It's idolatry. Love is defined in God, it is sourced in God, It flows from God and is designed to give glory to God. Love has to be vertical before it's horizontal, or its idolatry, and idolatry is not love. Here's a second problem. The second problem is that if God is love, and if you exist because of the love of God and for the love of God and by the love of God, and if love itself is from God, who is love, then I have to look horizontally. I mean I have to look vertically in order to know what it means to love you. Horizontally I have to. I have to. Those are the guardrails, right, And here's the final piece. If God is love and all of love is defined vertically before it's defined horizontally, then how how can I love you? How can I love God with all my heart, all my soul, on my mind, and all my strength and watch you being disobedient to God and fail to do or say anything about it? How can I see you not in right relationship with God and fail to do or say anything about it, all the while claiming that I love you? What could possibly be defined as loving? For me to know that you stand under the judgment of God himself, who is love? But I value whatever it is that I get from you more than I value your soul being right with God? How can I call that love? How can I call that love? I don't want to talk to you about the gospel, because then if I talk to you about the gospel, you may get upset with me. And if you're upset with me, then I won't be able to enjoy what I get from you horizontally. So I will use you for my emotional fix and watch you go to hell, because I'd rather see you go to hell than take a chance on me not being able to get from you what I enjoy so much. That's not love. It's not love. And it's amazing. There's so many people, so many constituencies now because we've allowed this horizontal view of love to dominate our world. Right, even as Christians, we've allowed this horizontal view to dominate our love. So people come to us and they say, here I am, this is my identity. My identity shakes its fists at God. And you say you're a Christian, which means you're supposed to be loving. So what that means is, while I'm shaking my fist at God, you have to not only ignore it, but you have to say celebrate my fist shaking, because if you don't, then you don't really love me, and you're not the Christian that you say you are. And we go, okay, no judgment. That's not love. That's idolatry. That's idolatry in the highest form of hatred. Let me just put a finer point on it. The person who practices homosexuality, the person who identifies themselves with that lifestyle. They say, this is who I am, and you say you're a Christian, which means you're supposed to be loving, so you have to love me and receive me and accept me just the way that I am. And we just go, well, okay. We more than just go okay. We turn around to the church and we say the church is so bad and so wrong because we haven't been loving, and we haven't been receiving, and we haven't been open, and we haven't been We're horrible. These people ought to feel comfortable here, God says, it's an abomination. They're made in the image of God. They're blaspheming the image of God, and they're supposed to feel comfortable in the place where God is worshiped. That's not love. Love doesn't watch somebody go off the rails and run headlong toward the fires of hell and say I'll hold your hand and smile in your face all the way. It absolutely does not, nor does it holds up signs. It says, God hates facts. But here's the news flash, there's something between the two. People want to make us think that there isn't right. They want to make us think that either we're all the way over here or we're all the way over there. Nothing could be further from the truth. Love begins vertically and not horizontally. It is only when we understand love vertically, receive love vertically, and give love vertically that we are able to do so properly horizontally. It's God's centered, not man centered. If it's man centered, it's idolatry, and what's worse, it ultimately ends up being hatred. You heard this when you were a kid, If your parents wear anything like my mama, boy, I do this because I love you. I can remember days and I was like, Mama, don't love me so much. But if you grow up and have any sense, you turn around and you go back and you say thank you for loving me enough not to leave me in my life foolishness, and not to give me everything I wanted because I was stupid and I didn't even know what to want. But you loved me, and you love me enough to say no to me. You love me enough to whoop my behind. You love me, You love me, You loved me. I did not understand it when I was in my folly, but praise be to God, I understand it now. So one of the main reasons that we believe that apologetics is inconsistent with love is because we don't know what love is. We started off talking about the fact that we don't know what apologetics is, right, Amen, Because what's apologetics knowing what we believe and why we believe it, being able to communicate that in a winsome, ineffective way. Right, How is that? How is that not loving? Or unloving? Now let me quickly hasten to say, Okay, it's kind of redundant. Quickly and hasten, but whatever, you get my point, right? A lot of what we've seen in apologetics is unloving. I stated that at the beginning. It's just arrogant and self serving. It's bullying. But that's not apologetics, Amen, And what's wrong with it? It's horizontal. I want to win an argument with an individual. I want to be the smartest person in the room. That's just self serving. That's not But that's also not apologetics. If we had time to go through that first Peter three passage, and I do, I'll go through it in the book Expository Apologetics. The context of that whole passage is suffering and suffering unjustly. Peter's essentially saying, when you suffer unjustly and people ask you how it is that you're able to endure this unjust suffering, be ready to tell them why. That's the context wherein we get the very word for apologetics. Not arrogant know it all, but meek, suffering thing. And here's the great irony when we decide that we are going to reject this idolatrous horizontal version of love and instead embrace the truth of vertical love, and no longer by the lie. We will suffer in this culture. We will suffer because this culture will tolerate everything except in tolerance, which is kind of intolerant. But you know whatever, and so we'll suffer. But why would we want to do that? Verse four? For certain people have cryptis noticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation. Ungodly people. They do two things. They pervert the grace of our God into sensuality. Wow, they pervert the grace of our God into sensuality or lawlessness. They pervert grace into lawlessness. The law says this, I don't care what the law says. This is how I was made. They pervert grace into lawlessness. Christianity is loving. Back to the homosexual the homosexuality issue. One of the things that people argue is, well, God is love. If two people are loving each other, how can we say that's not from God? How can you again, how can you be against people loving each other? And again we just kind of go, God, I guess you have a point. They pervert the grace of our God into sensuality. But here's the second. In doing so, they deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. They redefine him as something else. And what's the problem with that. Here's the problem with that. I've used I've used this illustration for decades, but it just works. You leave here if you've heard this act like you haven't, you leave here right and you go, hey, what did you what did you guys do this? How we went to this this two day event and you know, Worldview and apologetics and there was this guy this vote Vody I'm not sure and they go, wait, vote Bacam. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's you know, Vody Bokam. Yeah that was a guy. Wait, you spent the last two days with Voti Backham Like yeah think what like like like the vote Bocam, it could happen. And you go yeah, they go wow, Vody bo you shout like a little white guy from Mississippi. Now at this point, you've got a couple of choices. Either number one, you could go, actually, you're talking about somebody else, or you could say that's your interpretation. Now we laugh, But that's exactly what people do with Jesus. They start defining him as someone completely other than whom we find in the scriptures. And instead of saying, that's not Jesus, that's your interpretation, what's the problem with that? If we leave people with their wrong pictures of Jesus, with their wrong interpretations of Jesus, we leave them lost. Because here's the thing. If somebody runs up on a little white guy from Mississippi that they think is me, it won't matter how sincere they are, they'll be wrong. Sincerity is not enough. You can be sincerely wrong. This is why we engage in apolitanics, And isn't it ironic? It's because we love people, and more importantly, because we love the Gospel and we love the Lord. They're denying our only master in Lord, Jesus Christ. This is a problem in two different directions. Number One one, this is a problem because we desire for Christ to have the fullness of the reward for which he died. I want you to know Jesus. I want you to know the real Jesus. I want Christ to have the fullness of his reward. Amen. But then here's the second problem. I love Jesus and I can't just sit around and allow you to blasphem him. You think I allow you to just sit around and bad talk my bridget Huh, No, you're not. No, that's not no, we're not we're not going No, we're not doing that. We're not doing that. That's my wife. You can't do that. I love her. I'm not gonna sit around and just you know, your bad mouth and my wife. But but I really want us to be friends, you know, so I just sort of ignore while you bad mouthed my wife. No, can't do that. How much more with the one who bled and died on an old rugged cross to save my soul. My vertical love won't allow that, and my horizon a love won't allow that. Objection number one, apologetics, that's just for certain Christians. But special gifting and special calling answer wrong. Objection number two. Engaging in apologetics is just not loving. Answer wrong. There was another objection, you remember, And that other objection was this that other objection was that this is majoring on miners. Right. We got to be concerned with the main thing. We got to be concerned with the Gospel. We got to be But notice this, look again in verse two, be loved. Although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, that's a that's a primary issue. That's not a secondary issue. Amen. So listen to this. Here's an apostle under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, who says I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation. I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith, which means contending for the faith is not a secondary issue. It's a primary issue. You don't say, hey, I really wanted to address this primary issue with you, but instead I'm gonna address this secondary issue with you. You. Here's the other thing. He's not even saying it's a different issue. We don't engage in apologetics instead of the gospel. We engage in apologetics because of the Gospel. Because if people are wrong about who Christ is, if they are wrong about righteousness, if they are wrong about grace, then they're wrong on the Gospel. So should we engage in evangelism or apologetics. Yep. Absolutely, Absolutely, we engage people with the gospel. And as we engage people with the gospel, what we're going to discover is that people don't suffer from a lack of information. They suffer from a lack of righteousness. Now they'll ask us questions when they ask this question, we should answer those questions about what we believe and why we believe it. They asked us questions that we don't know the answer to. Guess what we get to say, that's a good question. I don't know, But here's what I do know. Here's what I do believe. And there's a whole lot more that we could talk about in terms of technically how we do this and how we engage in this. And although that's important, I believe that's important. I wrote a book about it because I believe that that's important. But I think before we even get there, we have to settle this issue. Because if we don't settle this issue, we don't think that we need to get there right, Why worry about how to engage in this practice, in this process if we believe that's not for us. But once we understand that, there's no way around it, and that we're all called to it. Ah, Now there's a different story. Now I'm mumbligated figure out how to do a better job of knowing what I believe and why I believe it, and how to communicate that in a winsome and effective way. And notice I said a winsome and effective way. We don't need to go around communicating in ways that aren't effective or in ways that aren't winsome. We need to be good at this, and there's some things that we can do to be good at this, and I want to encourage you in that, but before you get there, you need to be assured that this is your calling. This is our calling because we belong to Christ. Let's pray. God, we thank you for your mercy and kindness toward us. We thank you for the grace of the Gospel. And we confess that we are are at times fearful, afraid to engage others with this good news, because somehow we believe that we have to know the answer to every question. Grant by your grace, that we might be delivered from this falsehood, and that we might rest in the truth of the Gospel that saves us. Grant by your grace, that we might make our calling an election sure becoming better witnesses who know what we believe and why we believe it, and who are always ready to give a reasoned response to anyone who asks us what we believe and why we belie Leave it and grant that we might do it with gentleness and reverence, that we might do it with humility and with great joy, to the end that the lost might hear the Gospel and be saved, and that Christ might have the fullness of the reward for which he died. For. We do ask this in his name and for his sake. Amen.