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[0:00] Well, good morning, Christ Family Church. If you're visiting, I would like to say a couple things specifically to you.! Are we on? We good? Can you hear me? Hear me? A couple things to our visitors this morning specifically.

[0:14] First is that I'm not the pastor of CFC. The pastor is actually on sabbatical right now. We're giving him a short break from teaching. He'll be back with us next week in person, but I'll also be teaching next week.

[0:27] So if you're thinking, after all this is over, man, that preacher, he was just a nutcase, then, first of all, I wouldn't disagree. But what you're going to see over the next three weeks, actually, is not what you'll normally see if you start to attend here.

[0:43] Second, we're really glad that you're here as a guest with us. There's a lot of reasons to choose a church, and there's a lot of reasons why I've chosen this church to bring my family to and to attend here on a regular basis, to be in fellowship with this faith family.

[0:59] And those reasons are numerous. This is truly a genuine body of believers, and I say that as an affirmation to those regular attenders as well. It's a pleasure this morning to be able to share his word with you.

[1:13] And if you have a Bible, and I hope that you do, turn with me to Colossians chapter 2. Colossians chapter 2. We're going to be specifically looking at verses 8 through 15.

[1:29] We're supposed to be looking at verses 9 through 15, but verse 9 simply is not complete without verse 8. And so we're going to have to take a look at verse 8 as well.

[1:39] And before we jump into that verse, I would really like to open up with more prayer. I know we've already prayed before the sermon, but there's something that's weighing heavily on my heart this morning, and that is a congregation in Charleston, South Carolina, who is potentially for the first time in a long time meeting just like we are this morning, but without their shepherd.

[2:02] Many of you know that there's a congregation this week during their Bible study that a young man opened fire, gunshot fire, and killed nine individuals, nine congregants, including their pastor.

[2:16] And so let's just go to the Lord in prayer for that congregation as they're meeting potentially even right now while we meet and gather together this morning as well. Heavenly Father, we are so grateful that we can come to you freely in our country.

[2:31] Father, we've seen so little persecution in relation to the rest of the world, but Father, we know that there are tragedies that happen. And Father, they open our eyes to the nature of sin.

[2:44] And Father, this is an excellent example, what happened this week is an excellent example of human depravity and the ugliness that is involved and the depravity that exists in our sinful nature.

[3:00] Father, we lift up this congregation even as they hopefully are even gathered together right now that you would encourage them. Father, that you'd lift their spirits and help them to mourn peacefully and help them to mourn well.

[3:15] We thank you for the courage of the city of Charleston, for the way that they've handled it, the whole situation. And Father, we just pray for them right now as they are missing loved ones, as they are missing friends and family, and as they are missing their pastor this morning.

[3:32] We pray, Father, for that congregation. We pray also for us as we gather here together for the safety of this congregation as well. But also, Father, that you would indeed speak in and through me, that you would just illuminate your word for us this morning as we gather together.

[3:49] We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, I kind of want to give you a road map of kind of where we're heading over the next two weeks together.

[4:02] What we're dealing with is worldly philosophy, the sufficiency of Christ, and then kind of in the background, we're dealing with this whole concept of expository apologetics.

[4:15] So, philosophy is a word that appears in verse 8. See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy. Philosophy comes from two Greek words, phileo and sophia.

[4:30] Phileo meaning to love, sophia meaning wisdom. So, philosophy, we can look at it as a word that means love of wisdom. All throughout history, man has pursued this fascination with wisdom, be it for good or for bad.

[4:47] And philosophy itself really boils down to the effort of man to determine the ultimate causes on the earth and the universe. The second aspect to both this morning and next week is the sufficiency of Christ over worldly philosophy.

[5:04] That Christ is sufficient. Christ is greater than, ultimately, he's greater than worldly wisdom or worldly philosophy. And then the third simply flows naturally from the first two.

[5:17] And that is in light of the supremacy and the sufficiency of Christ. Over worldly philosophy, Paul exhorts us to practice expository apologetics.

[5:30] Now, to be clear here, there's probably 18 different ways I could have dissected this passage. And it was really, really difficult to be able to take all the angles on this passage.

[5:41] So, in a very real sense, there's going to be, the best way that I could choose to break it down is to kind of talk about a backstory, something that's going along, the kind of theme that runs throughout the book of Colossians, and also to teach the actual text that we're seeing.

[5:56] And so what we're going to see is this idea of expository apologetics come up kind of in the background of what's going on in all of this. I'm going to try to weave in and out of it gracefully, as gracefully as I know how, and we're going to kind of talk about this idea of expository apologetics.

[6:13] So what is expository apologetics? A lot of you are probably thinking, what in the world? What is this word, expository? Expository simply means to expose a truth from a text, in our case, scripture.

[6:25] So that's what expository means. And apologetics, there's a lot of different ways we could define it, but Cornelius Van Til kind of gives us a broad definition that I find useful.

[6:36] He argues that apologetics is the vindication of the Christian philosophy of life against the various forms of the non-Christian philosophy of life.

[6:47] I'm going to say that again for anybody who might be taking notes, and just so we can let it soak into our minds. Apologetics is the vindication of the Christian philosophy of life against the various forms of the non-Christian philosophies of life.

[7:02] What I really appreciate about this definition is that he basically boils all worldviews down into two separate categories. You have the Christian worldview or the biblical worldview, and then there's everything else.

[7:14] It also is the vindication of the Christian philosophy of life. It's not necessarily the vindication of me. Oftentimes when we talk about apologetics, we want it to be the vindication of me.

[7:27] We want to win the argument, and we want to be the ones who philosophically, or however you want to put it, defeat the enemies of Christianity. And that's not what this is all about.

[7:38] It's the vindication of the Christian philosophy of life, not winning an argument, not the vindication of me, not me wanting to win. So apologetics in the simplest form, the way we can break it down, simple definition, is knowing what we believe, why we believe it, and to be able to communicate that clearly to others.

[8:00] Knowing what we believe, why we believe, and last but not least, certainly not least in this case, being able to communicate that clearly and effectively to other people.

[8:12] That's what we mean when we're talking about apologetics. And Paul was an incredible expository apologist. In the passage that we're looking at over the next couple of weeks, there's some of the finest exhortations that he's using expository apologetics as we're going along.

[8:31] And I have to tell you, if you haven't already figured this out, I'm excited about the next two weeks teaching this, because this is something that we need to be doing in our Christian walk that by and large we're not doing as believers in our culture.

[8:46] And so I hope to not only dissect and exposit the great truths that are in this text, but I hope also that we can have some tools and hopefully we can learn a little bit about this, how we can apply expository apologetics to our life in a very tangible way.

[9:02] As I've been meditating over this passage the past several weeks, I've kind of been not thinking about cookies as Alex, so got us going with that.

[9:12] But I've been meditating and just kind of thinking all angles of this passage. And one of the things that kind of came up to me was some of the times I've been recalling that I've been stumped in a way by somebody who wasn't a believer or just being misled by these empty philosophies.

[9:28] And it's happened to me before. One instance, I was sitting in an ethics class at University of North, well actually it was North Georgia College, State University then. But some of you college students may be able to relate to this.

[9:40] But I was sitting in a class under a professor, an ethics professor, definitely not a believer. And I won't mention her name just for the purposes of anonymity.

[9:50] But she presented to the class what she herself has determined to be the greatest argument against Christian ethics. Okay, she's talking about the problems, how problematic that Christian ethics can be.

[10:02] And she said, when you hold to a Christian set of beliefs or a Christian ethical system, you have to ask yourself, are your actions right because God says they're right?

[10:15] Or does God command them because they already are right? Either way, you have problems. Either answer that you come up with, there are inherent problems with the answer.

[10:29] If morals, that is what is right and wrong. If they are solely based on God telling us what is right or wrong, then God is merely creating morality as he speaks it or as he reveals it to us.

[10:42] Which means that what was right and wrong before he said it did not apply until after he said it. And so there's some inherent problems with that. There's not a universal moral system because of that.

[10:55] And God can change morality however he sees fit. That's their argument at the very least. If the opposite is true, then God commands us to right actions because they already are right.

[11:06] What does it mean? It means that there's some morality outside of God. That there's some moral system or moral code that supersedes God and God has to follow by that moral code as well which makes him not all powerful.

[11:21] He is no longer omnipotent. Which believers have a tough time reconciling. And this is how it was presented to us in class. And I have to tell you, I was stumped by this in class when I was in college.

[11:34] I wouldn't have an answer until several years later when I began to realize at the base level that there was fundamental flaws in this empty and deceptive philosophy that they were trying to teach in a class.

[11:46] By the way, it's the very thing that verse 8 warns us about. You see, her argument was not an original idea. It's an argument that's been presented years, like hundreds and thousands of years ago. and it's been passed down over the centuries.

[12:00] And what she presented is called a false dichotomy. A false dichotomy. It's a clever fallacy that leads someone to believe and there's only two options. There's only two options there.

[12:13] And so as I began to understand the Word and as I began to grow in the Word and grow in my understanding of the character of God, I began to realize that neither option was the case.

[12:24] and the key point that I was missing the whole time that I was mulling over this, and some of you, I'm sure, if you're following along or dying to know the answer, some of you may already know the answer, but the key point is that morality does not exist outside of God, nor does God simply create morality as He goes along, but that Christian ethics and Christian morals are based on the very character of God.

[12:50] And that's the key. It's based on His character, which means that there is indeed a third option there and that everything that God tells us and everything that we know to be true in terms of biblical morality is all centered and all developed within His character.

[13:09] It's within His very character. And that takes us outside of the dichotomy, the false dichotomy, and moreover, God has given us the ability to understand His character in His Word.

[13:21] So we already can know this character. We can already know God through His Word. But this is the way in which the philosophers really work.

[13:31] This is the way that they present these ideas. Most of them deny the existence of God. They try to rationalize away any idea of God becoming God-like in their own minds and creating their own codes of morality apart from God.

[13:48] By the way, this is a very hopeless way to live. It's incredibly hopeless. It's no wonder that people like Bertrand Russell, at the end of his life, at 90 years of age, this philosopher, at least 70 of those years of his life were dedicated to philosophy, worldly philosophy.

[14:05] His last words in his life were that philosophy has proved a washout for me. And that's a long washout. At least 70 years of his life dedicated to philosophy.

[14:19] 90 years of his entire life, everything that he had poured out in his life dedicated to philosophy only to come to the end of his life and to realize that philosophy, this idea that he had been poured his life into, was a washout.

[14:37] Thomas Hobbes, a famous English atheistic philosopher, drawing near to his death, he said this, he said, I am about to leap into the dark, I shall be glad to find a hole to creep out of this world.

[14:52] You hear the hopelessness in these philosophers when they come to the end of their lives and they realize that their whole life's work was a washout. And so it goes for philosophers. This is what happens when you want to eliminate God from your life.

[15:06] When you want to rationalize him away from your own mind. Now the city of Colossae had its philosophers as does every culture and that has existed since the beginning of time.

[15:21] And the little assembly of believers that exist there in Colossae were no different. They were in danger of being captured by this empty philosophy.

[15:32] And this is why Paul is writing to them. They're in danger of being infiltrated by these ideas and their deceptions. And by the way, this is the case for every society. This is the case for us. This is the case for people in the past.

[15:44] It's the case for people in other cultures right now currently in the world. And this becomes Paul's great concern as this early church movement progresses. And this concern becomes really the heart of the letter to the Colossians that we see right here.

[16:00] So as we get to chapter 2, verse 8, we're really getting into the heart of this entire letter. This is really Paul's verses 8 through 23. This kind of can be taken as one section.

[16:10] And we're really getting to the heart of what Paul's main message is to the Colossians here. And if we broke them down into different types of philosophy that Paul is speaking to in these verses, we would essentially find four different aspects of these false doctrines or these heresies that he's combating here in these passages.

[16:27] Verses 8 through 15, this is kind of giving you an outline of where we're going as well. Verses 8 through 15 deal with human philosophy or humanism. This is primarily where we're going to be living this morning for our purposes.

[16:40] Verses 16 through 17 for next week, they're speaking to legalism. Verses 18 and 19 talk about a rather mystical worship of angels. And then fourthly, there's an element of asceticism, which is a false type of humility that we would see, for instance, in monasticism where monks and nuns, how they try to remove themselves from all pleasure in the world at all.

[17:08] And so we see this false humility being combated against. And so as we read this passage together, by the way, we're jumping in from that background phase back into the text.

[17:18] Okay, so we're going into what this text directly teaches us. So as we read this passage together, I want you to notice two diametrically opposed ideas that are going here. The first is captured by philosophy or complete in Christ.

[17:31] captured by philosophy or complete in Christ. This is the story of every human being because every human being is either captured by worldly philosophy or he is complete in Christ.

[17:45] There's only two options there. It's pretty simple. Either a man or woman becomes a victim of empty human philosophy or he or she becomes complete in Christ. Let's begin reading in verse 8.

[17:55] See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.

[18:08] This is what Paul is saying here. It's essentially a warning. To beware lest those of you who have already been rescued out of the dominion of darkness and brought into the light through the blood of Christ lest you be carried off like captives and being enslaved again.

[18:24] And so this whole idea that Christ has captured us away from the darkness and from the dominion of darkness and brought us into light you don't want to go back to the darkness. This is a warning that Paul has given to us.

[18:36] This is a call to vigilance to continually be aware and watchful lest we be led astray. The church is always under siege by false teachers.

[18:48] Matthew 7.15 Jesus warns Beware of false teachers who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. And this is happening all over America whether you realize it or not there are people in our congregations all across America and the church as a whole a capital C church where people are pretending or demonstrating themselves they appear to be one of the sheep one of God's elect one of God's chosen followers and yet they are wolves and they are leading people astray and this isn't just people in the congregation this is pastors there are pastors and people you can just flip on the TV most of the people on TV won't list any names but most of the people on TV they've gotten to the point where they are because they're really really good with words and they're really really good with leading people astray.

[19:44] a lot of these televangelists that you see on TV they come with this positive message they come with they come looking like sheep and yet they're leading people astray by the thousands if nothing else they're leading people in a mediocrity into doing nothing with their faith they're leading people into not fulfilling the great commission that we are called to and this is a wolf in sheep's glory they're not going to present themselves as wolves they're going to present themselves as sheep as light it's going to look like light but really inwardly the ravenous wolves Paul warns us in Ephesians the Ephesians elders in Acts 20-29 he says this I know that after my departure grievous wolves will enter among you not sparing the flock Peter warned as well 2 Peter 3-17 beware lest you be led astray with the air of the wicked fall from your own steadfastness so Jesus warns us Paul warns us Peter says beware this hollow philosophy is deceptive in other words it's a lot like fishing right fishing deceptive anybody like to fish

[20:52] I love the fish we've taken Joseph a couple times already this month it's a lot of fun it's a great pastime it's really beneficial to the fishermen right not so much to the fish the interesting thing about a fish hook is that's not what the fish expects right a lot of comedians have joked about this they say we should just call fishing what it really is which is tricking and trapping or tricking and killing we trick them and then we eat them right that's kind of how it works philosophy works kind of the same way just like the fish is not he sees something that he thinks he's going to get something really really good really delicious he's going to have his meal for that day and what he really gets is this entrapment he gets a hook in his mouth and it ultimately leads to his death this hollow worldly philosophy is the same what looks wonderful and satisfying and beneficial turns out to be entrapping it turns out to be enslaving and after struggling through it it ultimately leads us to death that's why you have all seen these supposedly we see these supposedly great philosophers coming to the end of their lives and saying it was a washout everything I dedicated my life to in philosophy was a washout

[22:18] I love this quote by Robert Zastrow he's not a believer but he says this about science and about the biblical accounts of creation I love this I have to share it with you just because it's so great it says the details differ but the essential elements in the astronomical and biblical accounts of Genesis are the same isn't that interesting a scientist saying this this is an exceedingly strange development unexpected by all but the theologians they have all believed in the world of the bible but we scientists did not expect to find evidence for an abrupt beginning because we have had until recently such extraordinary success in tracing the chain of cause and effect backward in time he wrote it seems as though science will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation for the scientist who has believed by his faith and the power of reason there's the empty philosophy there the story ends like a bad dream he has scaled the mountains of ignorance he is about to conquer the highest peak and as he pulls himself over the final rock he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries you have to love that when science and philosophy find true wisdom does that mean that we should just come to

[23:42] God with a blind unreasoning faith absolutely not God's given us brains and he expects us to use them to be able to reason to be able to find understanding and ultimately to be able to understand who he is through his word and through the power of the spirit revealing himself to us that is christian there is a whole load of christian philosophy I took a class on a seminary and it is fascinating and it is in the wisdom that is found in his word and given to us by the holy spirit that we find understanding of him that we can understand and know him and walk by faith in his truth as such Paul continues in verse 9 for in christ all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form and you have been given fullness in christ who is the head over every power and authority in other words who needs the philosophy of this world who needs that we have the fullness of the deity of christ in us

[24:47] I love how Paul just kind of throws it in there it's like he's saying oh and by the way he is the head of every power and every authority it's all these philosophers who are climbing the ladder they're working their way up in this thing where they're building themselves up and they almost have this worship of themselves and how their minds have been able to transform from lowly regular thinkers into higher upper level thinkers that have this whole thing and it's like Paul saying by the way no matter how far you reach in knowledge no matter how much you gain and what you think is wisdom christ still has power over you he is still no matter how much you try to reason him out of your life he is still in control he is still sovereign over you and he's sovereign over me for the believer this is incredible news because his fullness is imparted to us and the implications of that are far reaching they're far reaching for our lives I don't even know that I can explain it in my own words or in the human

[25:51] English language I don't know that I can fully explain this but I'm going to try let me help you try to understand this this word for fullness is pleroma Greek word pleroma and so Christ is the pleroma of God Christ is the pleroma of God and we are the pleroma in him God literally passes himself to us through Christ through the sacrifice that he paid on the cross and we have been complete in him with eternal results not just temporary results we're so used to the temporary the way we think here on this earth we get used to that this has eternal results in our lives you're once dead in your trespasses completely without hope destined for eternal destruction and in one glorious moment Christ calls you out of the darkness and into his marvelous light and you receive the fullness the pleroma of

[26:53] God through Christ this is huge this is tremendous you are now complete in him you're complete in Christ for the believer which means by the way that you don't need Dr.

[27:07] Phil to make these little statements to make you feel better you don't need to fill your head with Psycho Bible this empty idea that psychology presents to us you don't need Sigmund Freud or Frederick Nietzsche or for crying out loud Ayn Rand I don't know why we focus so much as believers I see believers posting Ayn Rand quotes all over the place she's not a believer she had a really messed up ethical system really messed up philosophy we don't need to fill our head with unbiblical ungodly truths you are full and complete in Christ this is where Paul is driving us towards to understand the fullness and the completeness that we have as believers in Christ that we can have this philosophy this world view through scripture that is far far reaching and far above any other worldly wisdom or any other worldly philosophy that is out there it's not that we don't use our minds it's that we supersede because of Christ because of the philosophy that is taught in scripture we supersede those ideas

[28:10] Paul continues on in him you are also circumcised that's a fun word don't get tripped on it just yet we're not talking about physical circumcision but in him you were also circumcised in the putting off of the sinful nature not with the circumcision done by hands of men but with circumcision done by Christ having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God who raised you from the dead so Paul isn't referring to a physical circumcision what he's talking about is a relatively new concept to these Colossians okay so they would have understood what physical circumcision is because even if they were Gentiles they would have known this tradition that the Jewish people were practicing up until this point and so he says this is not a physical circumcision this is a spiritual putting off of the old flesh and you are a new creation in him he's saying look your salvation is absolutely complete there's no need to be circumcised you've been baptized so make no mistake that

[29:27] Paul is continuing this apologetic he is combating the philosophy of this time that people have during this time among many heretical movements trying to persuade believers from truth there were the Judaizers these were the people who were still promoting Jewish ceremony essentially this Jewish ceremonial law that Christ had come not to abolish but to fulfill and so Christ came to fulfill this law and these Judaizers believed that Christians should remain true to Jewish ceremonial law and they would come from the mindset that's fine great you believe!

[30:05] in Jesus Christ but we have all these ceremonies that we have to keep doing and you need to be circumcised so Paul makes a clear distinction here we're not talking about surgery we're talking about putting off the sinful nature that we were born with having been buried with him in baptism literally immersion or submersion being raised with him through your faith in the power of God what's most fascinating about this is that Paul doesn't appear that he is talking about water baptism the same way he's not talking about physical circumcision he's not talking about water baptism here he's talking about this thing that happens upon regeneration when we come into faith in Christ there's something that happens to us and we are immersed in him and along with that all of our sins all of our shame all the horrible things that we committed throughout our lifetime all of these things are immersed in

[31:08] Christ you are buried with him as is your sin everything about your former self and you are raised to new life in him everything that you once were was immersed in him he takes on that sin and then we are raised to new life amazing truth and by the way this is not to!

[31:25] say that water baptism is something we shouldn't practice we are absolutely commanded to do that and what a beautiful picture it is of what happens to us upon regeneration this immersion in Christ that happens spiritually speaking and we do we do baptism through immersion so that we can see a very real picture of what happens to us upon regeneration amazing truth and it's all done by the operation of God through his son and the everything that he did for us this is how we are made complete in him verse 13 when you were dead in your sins and uncircumcision of your sinful nature God made you alive with Christ he forgave us not some not most but all of our sins having canceled the written code with its regulations that was against us and that stood opposed to us he took it away nailing it to the cross this is the difference between a believer and an unbeliever so if you are an unbeliever in here this morning and we know that you're amongst us and we're glad that you're here we're glad that you're hearing

[32:41] God's word this is the difference between a believer and unbeliever it's the difference between hope and hopelessness! it's the difference between being held captive by sin and having the freedom from sin through the blood of Jesus Christ see a lot of times as unbelievers I've talked to unbelievers I like conversing with unbelievers because they have a different perspective than what we do I don't tend to judge them because they haven't come in and see the light they don't know these great truths yet but the interesting thing is they think that this Christianity is all about a set of rules and a set of morals and that you are then entrapped by these set of rules once you come into faith in Jesus Christ it couldn't be more far from the truth that is a lie from the enemy because once we come into Christ we have the freedom from that sin we have the!

[33:37] freedom! from that bondage of sin that once held us and this is the difference between a believer and an unbeliever the regenerate and the unregenerate what Jesus accomplished on the cross was a cancellation of the eternal debt that we owed and he took it away and nailed it to the cross and having disarmed the powers and authorities he made a public spectacle of them triumphing over them by the cross in other we can put it another way in a different tense that Jesus is winning and has won he has the final victory over sin over death over powers over authorities over everything in this world in him we have that same victory as believers which means that we have all the more reason to be ready to give an account for the hope that is within us and this is the reason why

[34:37] I so readily agreed when Nathan asked he asked if I would be willing to preach for either one or two I readily agreed for two weeks in a row because of this we're going to get into right now we're really going to be shifting a little bit into a transition right now we're going to bridge the gap between this week and next week this next verse that we're going to start with next week begins with therefore therefore which means it connects back to this week in light of the truths that we talked about this week we're going to see the application of those truths next week and what we see is Paul's warning not to be taken by empty philosophy then he demonstrates how the completeness in Christ gives us superiority over worldly!

[35:29] And then next week we get to therefore so Paul begins to combat a series of false doctrines that have made their way into the church that the church is at risk of being infiltrated with and into the culture of Colossae and in doing so his discourse is using expository apologetics Paul uses apologetics in order to teach the church of Colossae and so want to give us some things to be thinking about before we head into next week's passage we've already defined expository apologetics in its basic form is knowing what we believe why we believe it right and then being able to communicate those truths effectively to other people that's the important part being able to effectively communicate those truths to other people so the bible talks about apologetics throughout for example in in Exodus 9 16 God says to this guy who has kept the

[36:31] Israelites in captivity for hundreds of years to show for this purpose I have raised you up to show you my power so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth one of the purposes for Israel's time in Egypt one of the purposes for the plagues that happened one of the purposes for all these things is to demonstrate his superiority over the gods of Egypt little g gods these false gods that they served or that they worshipped not just for the Egyptians not just for everybody looking from the outside into the situation but also for the Israelites the Israelites have been in captivity for hundreds of years at this point and God didn't want to take the Israelites out of Egypt before taking Egypt out of the Israelites and so the plagues also applied to the Israelites and then little by little you begin to see the plagues not not being for the Israelites the Israelites were omitted from these plagues throughout times but

[37:32] God said I'm setting a people apart for myself and I'm doing this for my glory and you look at the way that God releases them from the captivity in Egypt and he does so in a way that only God can do it how many people do you know can take a staff and part this huge body of water I don't know anybody can do that it's only a work of God that can do something like that so God does it so he can glorify himself and he says he does it to show his power that by his name his name may be proclaimed in all the earth so God participates in apologetics titus 1 9 apologetics and pastoral ministry he must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught so that he may be able to give instruction and sound doctrine and to rebuke those who contradict it apologetics is required for every elder those of you who are looking into becoming an elder or pastor or maybe pastoral ministry apologetics is required for you if you're!

[38:37] not an! anthropologist you are not qualified to be an elder that's what the book says you must be able to rebuke those who practice sound doctrine it also applies to every believer you might say okay I'm not going to pastoral ministry I'm not going to be an elder I'm not going to be a pastor this applies to you as well 1 Peter 3 15!

[39:00] in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy always being prepared to make a defense for everyone who asks you for the reason for the hope that is in you yet do it with gentleness and respect and that's key there folks doing this with gentleness and respect we're not shutting people down we're not doing this we're going to get into this more next week but that's every believer every believer called to apologetics commanded to be an apologist not just there in Jude chapter 3 beloved although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation I find it necessary to write to you appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints this contending for the faith is apologetics it's contending for the faith and this is what Paul is doing throughout the book of Colossians from the beginning to the end so if that is true if every believer is called to expository apologetics why do most of us not do it for some of us maybe it was because we didn't realize that there was a call to this thing maybe some of us are just now learning about what apologetics is but now you know so that's not an excuse anymore right you know now but

[40:26] I think the reality is that most of us don't practice this because we think apologetics is for the elite Christians it's for the Ravi Zacharias and for those who are seminary professors and those who are elite what we think of as being elite Christians we believe that apologetics requires a certain level of knowledge of science and philosophy and logic and how to debate people we believe that apologetics requires an intimate knowledge of cults and heresies and we think that if we don't have this then maybe we can't do this ourselves so this is what I want you to think about over the next week this is what I want you to meditate over in addition to whatever your currently doing in your own quiet time I want you to think about this and I want you to take this with you and chew on it over the next week until we get to next Sunday there are 66 books of the Bible most of us know that 66 books of the

[41:27] Bible and there's not going to be anymore the canon is closed so we're going to always have 66 books of the Bible Scripture is already complete which means there are a limited number of things that we believe there are a limited number of things we believe everybody track with me so far there's a Bible there's only 66 books that's there we're not going to add any more therefore we have a limited number of things that we believe!

[42:08] which means that there are a limited number of objections that we must answer in apologetics as we contend for the faith and thirdly there's a source to those answers and most of you brought that source with you this morning and we've been reading from it this is our truth source we have the answers here within scripture so everybody with me there's a limited!

[42:35] number of things that we believe there's a limited number of objections that can be raised and we have the source for the answers to those objections which means the answers are already there we don't have to make them up we don't have to think of this amazing elaborate argument for it we already have the answers we don't have to make them up which means that you can do it it!

[42:58] it! it! this whole apologetics thing is doable you don't have to have a high level degree master of divinity doctorate whatever you don't have to be Ravi Zacharias who by the way is really good at it because he's been doing it for so long we get better and better as we go through these things as we practice it but you can do this no matter how young or old if you're in for the faith it's amazing it's amazing that three year olds even two year olds can do this if they can speak they can do this we practice catechisms in our home usually during dinner time just a good time for us to ask questions and provide answers by the way if you don't know what a catechism is it's a question that has a predefined response and then as we Joseph he filters the questions that people ask him through what he knows to be true and what we've taught him through catechisms and so we've had people ask him questions like man where did you get those beautiful blue eyes and you expect a two or three year old to say mommy or daddy or he might try to reason through something like daddy has blue eyes mommy has green eyes so he must have got my blue he filters things through this category and by the way he's not perfect we're not perfect parents we're not trying to pretend like we are but he filters these things through this list of questions that he goes through and when he was asked where did you get the blue eyes from he didn't even miss a beat he says from

[44:47] God from God of course it's from God and he was right I didn't choose his eye color we didn't choose his eye color it's not like you can go to a drive through and request these things from God or anybody else I like to have a blonde hair blue eyed child that's well balanced with the side of a large ability to learn and a medium order of athleticism it's not like we can do this and order these things that's not how it works but Joseph got the answer right and he got the answer right in front of someone who as far as I know hasn't been to church in a long time it's really really cool to hear the way this works why did he get the answer right is because his first catechism question is who made you God made me what else did God make God made all things why did God make you in all things for his glory how can you glorify

[45:48] God by loving him and doing what he commands where is God God is everywhere can you see God no but God always sees me the list can go on and on and on do you realize how much theology that you can learn through catechisms that your children can learn through catechisms alone somebody asked them where is God!

[46:08] don't He is everywhere He is omnipresent which means that He is everywhere and His answer was right God is everywhere if my three year old can contend for the faith you can too you can we caught him we walked in on Joseph sharing his faith though I don't know I don't think he's regenerate I don't think he fully understands all these truths yet but he's filtering these things through but don't be able to make it next week it will be online try to make every effort to be here or make the commitment right now that you want to go online to watch it after it over we are going to pick back up on this idea of expository apologetics and talk to you about some tools you can use in doing this

[47:24]  I've already told you about one of them catechisms is a great tool that we can use in helping us to quickly come up with answers and we're going to see how Paul does this in Colossians chapter 2 how he can backs these ideas so if he can be here try to make it where he can be here if not make sure you make the commitment to see it online it's not going to be good because I'm teaching it it's going be good because God's word is good so let's pray together