D.E.F.E.N.D. T.H.E. F.A.I.T.H. - PART I

Scripture

1 Peter 3:15

But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;Peter speaks here of those who stand on God’s truth without compromise, yet does so in a loving, logical, friendly, warm, and genuine way. That should describe every child of God.  Since your heart is God’s sanctuary, you are taking the church to the world every day. What kind of church are they seeing?In this Scripture, Peter is telling us to put Jesus in control of every part of your life—mind, will and emotions. Christians are to always be ready when the opportunity comes to explain our faith, knowing what we believe and why we believe it based on God’s Word. Christians must learn how to articulate their biblical worldview in a gracious yet firm way whenever someone wants to know why you are a Christian, whether it is a genuine inquiry or simply wanting to pick an argument. We are to articulate what we believe and why we believe it. Peter tells us to do so with humility, grace, and respect.Using the acrostic of D.E.F.E.N.D. T.H.E. F.A.I.T.H. We will look at each belief based on the Bible:I. DEITY of Jesus ChristJesus Christ is fully God and fully Man. Jesus is all powerful, everywhere present at all times, and knows everything past, present, and future.Matthew 1:23²³ “Behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which translated means, “God with us.”John 1:14¹⁴ And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truthII. EXCLUSIVITY of the Gospel for SalvationJesus Christ, through His death, burial, and resurrection is the exclusive, only way of salvation. There is no other way to have eternal life.John 14:6⁶ Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.Acts 4:12¹² And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no othername under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.I Timothy 2:5⁵ For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,III. FULFILLMENT by Jesus Christ of Old Testament Messianic PropheciesJesus Christ is the fulfillment of specific Old Testament prophecies predicting the coming of the Messiah, the Anointed One of God. If you only took eight of the prophecies that were fulfilled in Jesus, the chance of 1 person fulfilling those is 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000 (1 in 10 to the 17^th power).Revelation 19:10⁵ For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,Luke 24:44⁴⁴ Now He said to them, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.”IV. ETERNAL SECURITY—If Saved, Always Saved“If” denotes the difference between a genuine Christian and a counterfeit Christian. If you are saved, you will not walk away from the faith and stay away from the faith, living like the devil without the intervention of God’s discipline. Those who believe a person can make a decision about Christ and live as though that decision made no difference, have never really experienced the event of salvation. So rather than saying, “Once saved, always saved,” I prefer to use the phrase, “IF saved, always saved.”John 6:37³⁷ All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.John 10:27-28²⁷ My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; ²⁸ and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.“God has never torn up a Christian’s birth certificate” (John Blanchard).V. NATURE of GodThe Character of God manifests truth, what is right; and exposes evil, what is wrong. Some of His character traits are: perfection, goodness, holiness, love, and justice. God is unchangeable, sovereign, self-sustaining, all-powerful, all knowing, and everywhere present at all times. There is no One like our God.Acts 17:25²⁵ nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;VI. DEFINITIONS—God’s Definitions Do Not ChangeBilly Graham said: “Our society strives to avoid any possibility of offending anyone—except God.” Mark Batterson said: “I would rather be biblically correct than politically correct.” Francis Schaeffer said: “the ordinary Christian with the Bible in his hand can say that the majority is wrong.”There is evil in the world, and there is good. There is God, and there is Satan. There is right, and there is wrong. There is truth, and there is falsehood.There are essential definitions that God has put in place that no one has a right to change. Just because culture is not comfortable with certain definitions, does not give anyone the right to say, “Oh we have changed that definition.” Here are four of those definitions that often come up in our culture:

1. Life

Life is that which God creates that begins with conception and ends with death. All human life is sacred.Job 31:15¹⁵ “Did not He who made me in the womb make him,And the same one fashion us in the womb?Psalm 22:10¹⁰ Upon You I was cast from birth;You have been my God from my mother’s womb.Jeremiah 1:5⁵ “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,And before you were born I consecrated you;I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

2. Marriage

Marriage is an institution ordained of God to be a permanent union between a man and a woman.Jesus affirmed this definition in Matthew 19:4-6…⁴ And He answered and said, “Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female, ⁵ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? ⁶ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”So when someone says that Jesus doesn’t speak specifically to the issue of gay marriage, just look at Matthew 19:4-6 where Jesus repeated what God said constitutes marriage in Genesis 2:24-25.

3. Truth

Truth is that which is consistent with God’s character and what He says. Absolute truth is truth regardless of when, where, who or what. It is timeless, for all generations, for every people and culture, for all time.John 17:17¹⁷ Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth.

4. Morality

Morality is behavior which is consistent with God’s character. Right and wrong based on what God said is right and wrong.Acts 5:29²⁹ But Peter and the apostles answered, “We must obey God rather than men.