“Stubborn Realities” Matthew 28.11–20, Pent.4A, 6-25-23

 

1.                Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word as we continue our summer sermon series, Defending the Christian Faith, is taken from Matt. 28:11-20, it’s entitled, “Stubborn Realities,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                Even when people ignore Scripture, certain realities remain. You might call them stubborn. They have to be faced. The empty tomb stands out among these stubborn realities. The easiest way for Jesus’ opponents to silence the proclamation “Christ is risen” would have been to take a field trip to the grave owned by Joseph of Arimathea and bring out the body of Jesus. But no one did this. Jerusalem was the spot where people began proclaiming that Jesus had risen from the dead. But Jerusalem would have been the last place in the world where anyone would have listened to such resurrection preaching if Jesus’ corpse went on display. Exhibiting Jesus’ dead body would have stopped the preaching of the Gospel message that our Savior had conquered death through His resurrection. Jesus’ opponents had every reason to stop this proclamation. But they never unearthed his body. Why? His tomb was empty.

3.                In their own way, Jesus’ opponents insisted on this. Some of the guards who had been on duty at the tomb “told the chief priests all that had taken place” (Matt. 28:11). These men experienced the earthquake and saw the angel roll the stone back. They knew exactly what had happened. Now the religious leaders bribed them to say, “His disciples came by night and stole him away while we were asleep” (Matt. 28:13). Matthew noted that “this story has been spread among the Jews to this day” (Matt. 28:15). About 120 years later, as noted by the Church Father Justin Martyr, Jewish authorities were still sending messengers around the Mediterranean world to spread this story. But this deception did admit that the tomb was empty when that first Easter morning dawned. The empty tomb proves to be a stubborn reality.

4.                These days, more than two-thirds of the reputable scholars who publish in the field of Christian origins, historians and theologians, affirm that the tomb in which Joseph of Arimathea and others buried Jesus on Friday afternoon stood empty on Sunday morning. Over two-thirds! This statistic may seem surprising because such awareness of the empty tomb has not filtered down to a lot of textbooks and magazine articles, but the fact remains. Most scholars now say that the reality of the empty tomb shouldn’t be denied. It’s stubborn, all right. Now, the reality that the tomb was empty does not by itself prove Jesus’ resurrection. It does raise a question though: How did his tomb become empty? Two possibilities exist. The tomb was emptied either by natural or supernatural means. Over the years, many have come forth with what they deem as natural explanations for the empty tomb. After all, it seems reasonable that no one can rise from the dead.

5.                The first natural explanation was the one reported in our text, the claim that Jesus’ disciples stole his body. But, the disciples had found themselves shattered and shivering, dispirited and despairing. Peter might have provided leadership in this situation, but his threefold denial of Christ sent him reeling. Would he have come up with the boldness to steal Jesus’ body in death when he couldn’t own up to being associated with Jesus in life? Peter was in no condition to conduct a Mission: Impossible–type operation. That’s what they would have needed to get past the guards who had been posted to prevent just such an attempt. Guards in the ancient world used to sleep in shifts. Even one alert guard could have easily awakened help at the first sign of grave robbers, to say nothing of the noise from rolling the stone away. Could the disciples have stolen Jesus’ body before the guards took their position? Possibly, but that would have been at the point of the disciples’ deepest shock, when they had the least time to plan some daring feat. The stolen body theory won’t hold water. Too many holes!

6.                There are other theories. Maybe the women, who had witnessed Jesus’ burial, became confused when they came out early Easter morning and ended up at the wrong tomb—not the one where Jesus had been buried, but an empty one. Or maybe the gardener had planted lettuce around Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb, and, disgusted with those who came to see the grave site of Jesus, this gardener removed the body and buried it elsewhere. But, either way, the resulting confusion could have been cleared up rather quickly. Jesus’ body would have been located. The “wrong tomb” theory and the so-called “lettuce” theory do not hold water either.  

7.                Then there is the “swoon” theory, which suggests that Jesus did not really die on the cross. He passed out but revived in the cool of the tomb. Then he somehow got out, saw several of his followers, and managed to convince them that he was just fine after all. But, remember that Jesus had been hanging on a cross not for a mere few minutes but for six long hours. That came after he had been savagely beaten, by Pilate’s order, early Friday morning. Recall, too, that the execution squad thrust a spear into his side to make sure he was dead. Roman crucifixion details did not leave survivors. That spear in Jesus’ side alone pokes a massive hole in the swoon theory.

8.                But another theory starts the claim that Jesus’ followers experienced one or more hallucinations, and as a group. According to this theory, they wanted so much to see Jesus alive that they became convinced that they had seen him, one after another as the hallucination grew contagious. But far from having reached any height of expectation to see Jesus, these followers had all their hopes dashed upon his death. Besides, to account for the resurrection through hallucination would have required not one or two people to have “seen” Jesus, but groups as numerous as 500 and more (1 Cor 15:6), all seeing the same thing. Then they all stopped seeing him at exactly the same time, forty days later. But, a hallucinated Jesus could not have been touched and would not have eaten a piece of fish, as noted in our previous sermon. And the hallucination theory in no way accounts for the stubborn fact of the empty tomb. The hallucination theory and all the other “reasonable explanation” theories do not clear up matters as much as they open up problems. So what gives these theories their staying power? Experience, for one thing: people do not rise from the dead in our experience, so it becomes tempting to conclude that no one ever could. But, applied strictly, this kind of reasoning would rule out anything new ever occurring. This thinking begs the question, how often does something have to happen before anyone recognizes that it happened?

9.                But there is more to the staying power of these theories. They result from stubbornness—the stubbornness of unbelief! They amount to stubborn attempts to account for the stubborn reality of the empty tomb. They try to evade the truth of the resurrection, and with it the truth that Jesus is God. Lest we become too arrogant, though, let’s recall that we Christians remain sinners in this world. We, too, try to evade God’s will and ways, starting with failing to trust him completely at every moment and with every step. But God’s law remains stubborn too. You can’t get rid of it by trying to explain it away. As much as with other sinners, our old Adam stubbornly wants to travel the road away from God, and by ourselves we would be powerless to head in any other direction.

10.              Even though we do not deserve it, our God has come to us with his grace and salvation. Jesus Christ is Immanuel, “God with us” (Mt 1:23). He went through being abandoned on the cross—even crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46)—to take our place under God’s wrath and make it so no one has to be without God for all eternity. Then he rose. He rose from the dead in utter reality. In Lutheran Television’s old animated program Easter Is, a boy named Benji struggles with sadness when his dog Waldo gets lost a few days before Easter. Benji concludes that he’ll never see his beloved dog again. But on Easter Sunday morning, as the family walks out to their car to go to church, Waldo bounds up. What a reunion! The narrator tells us Waldo came back because of his love for Benji. There is the connection with Easter. Jesus, “God with us,” loved us so much that he could not stay away. Not even death could keep him from us.

11.             The apostle Paul wrote by inspiration in Romans 5 that, “while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son.” But what good would it do to be reconciled to a God who lies dead? As Paul went on, “much more, now that we are reconciled,” are we “saved by his life” (Rom 5:10). The risen Christ lets nothing stand between himself and us. Put differently, he is reconciled to us and the world. When this reconciliation becomes ours by God-given faith, “we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom 5:1). Jesus lives and personally imparts to us his peace.

12.             Jesus remains determined in this. More than “determined,” we may call Jesus more stubborn than death itself! His gracious reaching out to a rebellious world turns out to be the most stubborn reality of them all. It has made all the difference for us. Even when unbelievers try to evade Christ’s forgiving love, Jesus graciously reaches out all the same. If people make it clear that they want to have nothing to do with you, how do you tend to treat them? But Jesus keeps on reaching out. The resurrection shows Christ’s stubborn love. No natural explanation can account for such love. It can come only from God. God’s love for undeserving sinners does not seem reasonable by any reason we know; it’s grace.

13.             The Lord reaches out with his grace through means. Later in Matthew 28, Jesus told his Church to go and “make disciples” not only by “baptizing . . . in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” but also by “teaching . . . all that I have commanded you” (Mt 28:19–20). The guards mentioned earlier were taught to spread a false natural explanation of the empty tomb. But, the Church teaches about the stubborn reality of the empty tomb by setting forth the true supernatural explanation. We do not omit teaching Christ’s strong and stubborn love either. With this love, his work, concluding in his resurrection, turns out not to be just news or really big news but the greatest Good News. It’s the word that makes disciples.

14.             The false natural explanation that the disciples stole Jesus’ body was spread among the Jews, but the risen Christ wants his Church to take the true supernatural explanation to the widest circle, all nations. For “the gospel . . . is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom 1:16). Everyone needs Christ, and he came for all. He still comes, through his Gospel. Someone has observed that it takes more “faith” to believe any of the so-called  natural explanations for the empty tomb than simply to acknowledge the eyewitness report that Jesus rose from the dead. The trouble lies not with the evidence for the resurrection itself. Hardly any other ancient event has such solid evidence. The apostolic proclamation “Christ is risen!” accounts for the empty tomb better than any other explanation. Troubles start when people make assumptions about what can and cannot happen, and then run with these assumptions.

15.             When people take such evasive action, you can show them the holes in their natural explanations. But still more, spotlight the Savior, who loved even evaders so much that he came back from the grave. Although people stubbornly try to evade the reality of the empty tomb, the risen Lord keeps coming in grace through His word. Amen. May the peace that passes all understanding, guard your hearts, and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting. Amen.

 

“How Do I Know He Lives?” (Luke 24:36–48) June ’23 sermon series

 

1.                Please pray with me. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock, and our Redeemer. Amen. The message from God’s Word, as we continue our Summer Sermon Series, Defending the Christian Faith, is taken from Luke 24:36-48, it’s entitled, “How Do I Know He Lives?” Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                 Sometimes people think that unbelievers’ most important question is whether there is a God. Not so! The most important question is whether Jesus rose from the dead. You could spend a lot of time trying to convince others that God exists. But, even if that effort were successful, they still would not necessarily know that this God loves them. Merely to believe there is a God is not to believe the Gospel. When asked about his authority, Jesus said: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (Jn 2:19; see Mt 12:39–40). Jesus rested his claims on his resurrection. From the fact of Jesus’ resurrection, you have only to take a short step to discuss its importance in the forgiveness of sins for all and for the eternal life of believers. Today’s sermon and the next two will focus on the central apologetic topic, the resurrection of Jesus.

3.                The hymn “I Serve a Risen Saviour,” written by Alfred H. Ackley, asserts that it’s possible to be confident that Jesus lives because we know he lives within our hearts. But, this answer is inadequate. Once a Lutheran Pastor was discussing the Christian faith with a college student who said, “You’re saying I should stake my whole life and future on Jesus, but how can I know?” If the Pastor told her, “I know he lives within my heart,” what do you think would have happened? She might have said, “Well, he doesn’t live in mine.” End of conversation. She could have written off Christ’s living in the Pastor’s heart as a case of heartburn.

4.                You can’t directly demonstrate to anyone else that Jesus lives in your heart. You can’t use some spiritual can opener on your heart and show him there inside. You can’t show the risen Savior to someone else in this way. “For out of the heart,” Jesus said, “come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Mt 15:19). As a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit, yet “the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do” (Gal 5:17). This tension can also keep us from thinking as straight as we should.

5.                In Luke 24, two disciples walking to Emmaus ended up talking with the risen Christ. Their hearts burned within them, but that didn’t enable them to recognize who was at their side (see Lk 24:13–32). How do we know that Jesus lives? We need something besides assurance that he lives within our hearts. When these disciples on the road to Emmaus finally recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread, they rushed back to Jerusalem to find the eleven. While they were giving their report, Jesus stood in the midst of the whole group saying, “Peace to you!” He invited them to touch him. “For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” Then he asked, “Have you anything here to eat?” (Luke 24:36, 39, 41). He ate a piece of broiled fish. If you asked these people how they knew that Jesus lives, they could have said they knew from the touch of his body.

6.                In eating that piece of fish, Jesus showed them that they were not hallucinating. Today people still try to dismiss Jesus’ resurrection as some hallucination. But, no hallucination consumes fish, probably leaving a few bones behind! Jesus was alive, raised from the dead physically, so he could touch and be touched. Earlier that day, Mary Magdalene had touched Jesus at the empty tomb. What Jesus told her was not “Don’t touch me,” but instead, “Do not cling to me” (Jn 20:17). I imagine that in her joy Mary was giving Jesus a big bear hug. She really could touch him.

7.                How do I know Jesus lives, and how can I point others to his resurrection? We know from the Bible that Jesus lives. Even as Jesus stood among them on that first Easter, He took His followers to the Scriptures. I invite you to think of the Bible in two respects. First, note that it includes eyewitness testimony that Jesus lives. Second, see it still more as God’s own Word. These two points fit together quite well. Let’s consider each in turn.

8.                People may not consider the Bible to be the Word of God, but they can still understand the importance of eyewitness testimony. Eyewitnesses might be wrong, but isn’t testimony from eyewitnesses preferred to guesses from people who have only an indirect grasp of the facts? The more eyewitnesses, the better! The New Testament includes writings from several eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus. The apostles Matthew, John, and Peter all saw Jesus in our text. Paul saw him later. Early church testimony indicates that Mark wrote up the recollections of Peter (see 1 Pet 5:13). Luke points out that he did research with eyewitnesses (Lk 1:1–4). Knowledge of many events in ancient history rests on far fewer sources, maybe only one, and maybe not an eyewitness source at that. Hardly any ancient event stands out as so well as the resurrection of Jesus. If you deny what can be known concerning his resurrection, to be consistent you would pretty much have to give up the rest of what can be known about the ancient world.

9.                You ask me how I know that Jesus lives? Witnesses saw him alive after he had died. Their testimony has come down to us in the Bible. They wrote things like this: “For we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses” (2 Pet 1:16). They didn’t gain much by saying so. No, they had everything to lose. Eventually this testimony cost almost all of Jesus’ apostles their lives. If the apostles had simply made up the resurrection story, isn’t it remarkable that not one of them withdrew his story that he had seen the risen Jesus, not even when threatened with death? “You are witnesses of these things,” Jesus said, and they didn’t forget (Lk 24:48). Who gives his life for something he’s made up?

10.             We know from the Bible that Jesus lives, since the Bible includes eyewitness testimony. Peter said, “we are witnesses to these things.” He added, “and so is the Holy Spirit” (Acts 5:32). This takes us to the second respect in which to consider the Bible. For, inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Bible is God’s Word. We know that Jesus lives from the Bible, and the Bible is the Word of God. Not everyone will share this understanding, but Christians do. Think of what Paul wrote to the Church at Thessalonica: “That when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the Word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers” (1 Thess 2:13). Because this word comes from God, it packs his power.

11.             At the heart of this Word of God, stands the incarnate Word, Christ himself. In the text from Luke 24, Jesus said, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44). Jesus began opening their minds to understand the Scriptures. He was leading them to see what had been there all along, centering in himself and his saving work. As one veteran professor put it: cut the Old Testament anywhere, and it will bleed with the blood of Christ.

12.             The Old Testament told of the coming Messiah in many ways. It would be impossible for a single individual to come along and fulfill even some of what the Old Testament had foretold about the Messiah. Jesus fulfills it all because he is the eternal Son, promised and sent by God the Father to be your Savior. Not only did he “suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,” but also “repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations” (Luke 24:46–47). By this proclamation, God creates saving faith in sinners.

13.             Jesus didn’t do what he did so it would be hidden away. He brings forgiveness and salvation home to people by his Word and Holy Spirit. When God works faith in people, they begin to regard the Bible as Christ himself regarded in the Old Testament. They recognize the Bible as not only reliable human testimony but still more as God’s own powerful Word. In the Bible, God himself addresses me in judgment and grace, giving repentance and forgiveness. This towers over everything else in our lives! Christians know that Jesus lives from the Bible, which is God’s Word.

14.             The Lord doesn’t stop there. The Bible says that on the night when he was betrayed, Jesus gave his disciples bread and invited them to eat it. “This is my body, which is given for you,” he said. “Do this in remembrance of me.” He then gave them wine to drink, telling them that it was the new testament in his blood (Lk 22:19–20). Through his Word, Jesus provides this meal and invites you to it. You have eaten his body and drunk his blood in his Supper. There, you have had the touch of his body.

15.             It’s not the local touch that people experienced in his Easter appearances like the one in the text, in which he occupied space. “He can still employ this mode of presence when He wills to do so, as He did after His resurrection and as He will do on the Last Day.” But while “in the bread and wine in the Supper” he “neither occupies nor yields space,” he nonetheless is present bodily, and quite genuinely (FC SD VII 99–100). He remains flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone, giving us all the treasures he won for us on the cross as he gives us his body and blood. Don’t expect to go into this right away with someone who asks you to give a reason for your hope in Christ. You can’t put a consecrated wafer under a microscope to demonstrate the Lord’s bodily presence. But don’t forget the blessing and encouragement he gives as your mouth receives his own body and blood.

16.             Not only does Jesus live for you, he also comes to live in you. Jesus said, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him” (Jn 14:23). Yes, Christ promises that he and the Father live with Christians. So does the Holy Spirit: “And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, ‘Abba! Father!’ ” (Gal 4:6). The living God does live in your heart. But this won’t make for an apologetic tool. You can’t show anyone else that Jesus lives because he lives in your heart.

17.             We know that Jesus lives from the Bible. It includes eyewitness testimony, which can be pointed out to unbelievers. Through the message of repentance and forgiveness in his living and life-giving Word, God bestows saving faith. He did this for you. He can do it for others through you. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.

 

“Prepared to Make a Defense” 1 Peter 3.15, June ’23

 

1.                Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The message from God’s Word, as we begin our summer sermon series on Defending the Christian Faith, is taken from 1 Peter 3:15, it’s entitled “Prepared to Make a Defense,” dear brothers and sister sin Christ.

2.                When one little girl misbehaved, her mother told her, “Go to your room and stay there until you’re sorry enough to come out.” A few minutes later, the bedroom door opened with a creak. There stood the little girl in the doorway. “Now then,” the mom asked, “are you sorry enough to come out?” The girl said, “I’m sorry enough that I want to keep the door open.”

3.                When you hear about an apology, maybe the first thing that comes to mind is: saying you’re sorry. So, when you hear the word apology linked with Christianity you could think we’ll be talking about saying you’re sorry for being Christian. But, that isn’t what these sermons are about. We’re using the word apology in another sense: defense. Christian apologetics is defense of the faith. The apostle Peter wrote, “In your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense [apologia] to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Pet 3:15). This sermon series will help us all to: be prepared to make a defense.

4.                What is it to be conversant in the faith? It means you can talk about something freely with someone else. Being conversant in the faith amounts to more than knowing your Bible, your catechism, or your hymnal. It also involves an ability to converse with others about Christ. When we have such talks with others, objections will arise. If we don’t give an answer, as St Peter encourages us to do, how long do you suppose a conversation about Christ will last? To bring the Good News to our neighbors, it helps if we are prepared to defend it.

5.                We defend the faith, by answering objections. Think of the disaster workers first on the scene after hurricanes or tornados. Some of them clear debris off roads for emergency vehicles. In the same way, Christian apologetics moves to the side various objections that people bring up so that the life-giving Gospel can have right of way. For example, someone who does not think Jesus ever lived will reject the Gospel out of hand.  A Christian apologist should be prepared with an answer for that objection. At times, the best defense can be made with a good offense. Christian apologetics challenges the false assumptions of an ungodly world. For instance, these days it’s often thought that the only real knowledge is the sort of knowledge that can be demonstrated scientifically. But, this idea that real knowledge has to come from science doesn’t emerge from any scientific experiment. We can point that out. Attacking a non-Christian worldview is an important aspect of Christian apologetics.

6.                When you wash your hands, you have to be against dirt. If you allow some dirt as acceptable, you will probably not get your hands clean. Ways of thinking that oppose the Gospel turn out to be dangerous. In no way does it serve our neighbors if we say, “Whatever.” There’s a defense to be made before our neighbors charged by the kind of attitude held by the psalmist who was overwhelmed by God and his Word. This psalmist said to the Lord not only, “How sweet are your words to my taste,” but also, “I hate every false way” (Ps 119:103, 104).

7.                Defending the faith is also a way of loving the Lord. Loving God, we need to be careful in defending the faith. For we are not God. Our apologetic efforts dare never set ourselves up on ground that he alone should occupy. However well-meaning we might be with our apologetics, we can never argue him or her into saving faith. We can’t do this for others any more than we did it for ourselves. We give a reason for the hope that is in us, but we did not place the hope there. Only God can do that.

8.                Toward the end of Job, God, in effect, said: “So I’m not quite up to snuff with what you want?” Well, that was too bad. God remained God, and Job was not God. So also, our apologetic efforts do not love God if they end up trying to cram him into some box of our making. Nor are we loving God if our apologetics come off as a sophisticated version of an altar call. If we’re not careful, we might make this impression: “All right, now I have given you reason A, which stands against objection B, and fits into slot C, then becomes the basis for the big D—your decision for Christ!” No, salvation always comes by God’s grace. He gets all the glory. “By grace you have been saved through faith,” the Bible says. “It is the gift of God” (Eph 2:8). In fact, God even gives the faith. “For it has been granted to you that . . . you should . . . believe in him” (Phil 1:29). After all, “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit” (1 Cor 12:3).

9.                Preparing to defend the faith is not only something that should be done, it also can be done. We Christians can do it by God’s grace. We continue to be sinners. All too easily, we forget about making a defense of the faith. Truth be told, silently we might wish that no one ever asks about the hope that is in us. Some way to serve our neighbors or love God! Remember, Jesus said: “Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels” (Mk 8:38).

10.             The only hope for sinners lies outside of ourselves, including our efforts to defend the faith. So, today’s message isn’t: “You haven’t been defending the faith as you should, but do what you can from now on and hope for the best.” Only in Christ the Savior does anyone have a hope that stands firm and solid, because it rests entirely on what God has done: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Pet 1:3). Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, once for all. But he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, with ongoing effects. This is the Gospel by which we are saved. “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation” (2 Cor 5:19). That’s the way a repentant heart talks, one that has put on “for a helmet the hope of salvation” through Christ (1 Thess 5:8).

11.             With such hope, we can prepare to defend the faith. And don’t lose the focus on Christ as you actually enter into apologetics. One famous apologist reported that no point of Christian teaching used to appear so unreal to him as one that he had just defended. So, he kept reminding himself that the only hope for any of us lies outside of ourselves and our efforts, including our efforts to defend the faith. Defenders of the faith need the Gospel every bit as much as the people to whom they make the defense. As you daily return to your Baptism in repentance and faith, be assured that “the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you” (1 Pet 5:10).

12.             In this spirit, we Christians can be prepared to defend the faith. We know our neighbors’ greatest need maybe better than they do. Christian apologist John Warwick Montgomery has for years recommended giving people the Good News and then engaging in apologetics only as needed thereafter. Nothing can be more basic than Christ’s life and death in place of our whole world of sinners and his living to tell the tale for you. This forms the heart of the saving Gospel. If a person voices objections, then you can make a defense. But, don’t bring up possible objections that had not occurred to the person in the first place.

13.             Find out what is really bothering people. Sometimes what seem to be apologetics problems turn out to be quite different. Such problems can be moral. A veteran campus pastor remembers college students who announced that they no longer believed in God. Interestingly, this used to occur about a month after these students had moved in with their boyfriends or girlfriends at school! The problem here was essentially moral. But this isn’t always the case. People sometimes have genuine intellectual problems with the Christian faith, and you can be prepared to make a defense.

14.             In any case, you can’t assume you know what objections people bring unless you listen to them and learn from them. This can entail informing yourself about their unchristian assumptions and worldviews so you can converse with them intelligently. Then you can defend the faith, as Peter wrote in the text, “with gentleness and respect” (1 Pet 3:15). Literally, that last word is “fear,” which reminds us not merely to be respectful before other people but still more to make our defense in a wise way before the Lord. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Ps 111:10). Learning about the positions other people take becomes a spiritual sacrifice. To do it, you spend time thinking about probably unfamiliar things, not for you to embrace them but rather to take every thought captive to Christ (see 2 Cor 10:5). “Therefore,” Peter wrote, “preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 1:13).

15.             This brings up a final suggestion, quite in line with the gentleness and hopefulness mentioned by Peter: be patient. In the end, apologetics should serve to present a person with Christ and his forgiveness for poor, undeserving sinners. So, while your every thought should remain captive to Christ, recall that, when you deal with people, you are trying to clear the way for the Gospel. It’s not necessary that every single particle of debris be removed. After people believe the Good News, the Holy Spirit works in their hearts to take their every thought captive to Christ.

16.             Remember, from the beginning of this sermon, the little girl standing in the doorway of her bedroom? She said she was sorry enough to want her door kept open. I suppose she would have been willing to offer a halfhearted apology, in the sense of being sorry. But we’re not sorry about the Christian faith. Our apology is a defense of the faith. Be prepared to make a defense. Do so, with full confidence in Christ. By all means, keep the door open—to people all around you. Someone will want to know about the reason for the hope that is in you, and you will be prepared. Amen. Now the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, until life everlasting. Amen.