Sanctification of the Apologist’s Heart
By Michael Klikas
10 September
2006
Adult Education Hour
1 Peter 3:15
As we get ready to look back into our study on apologetics, I just wanted to recap what we went over before we pick up where we left off last week. The first thing that we said was that the words, to give an answer, is the word apologia in the Greek meant to give a verbal defense. We also said that you may recognize this word today in our English language as the word apologize. So when we apologize to someone we are actually stating why we did something.
Then we went on to define what an apologist is and what an apologist is not. First of all an apologist is someone, anyone who defends their stance on an issue, idea, formula, etc. But a biblical apologist is someone who defends the truth that is in them as a result of being saved. An apologist is also a student of the Bible. Something else that an apologist does is they do not take what is being said and believe it unless they have looked into the word of God to study that truth for them selves. We said that doesn’t mean that we doubt the Pastor or who ever may be teaching, but we go back and study that area of scripture for ourselves. Then lastly we said that an apologist is not automatically right.
Then we defined what an apologist is not. An apologist is not someone who defends the truth of a denomination, system of beliefs, or theories that contain some truth or no truth at all. While some of theses things listed may contain enough truth for a person to believe they do not contain the whole truth that leads a person to the Lord Jesus Christ. Obviously the Lord can save anyone whom he chooses by any means. A person could even be saved out of a New World Translation, but that is solely because of the grace of God.
We also said that an apologist is not the source of truth. No truth of my own comes from me. All the truth that resides in me is a result of the word of God and the Holy Spirit of the Lord abiding in me.
Then we asked what the goal of an apologist is. Does anyone remember what the answer is? The goal of an apologist is to point people to the Lord Jesus Christ. The goal should never be to win an argument, or make someone see things our way. If the Lord Jesus Christ is not exalted in apologetical defense then we have failed even if we think we have won.
We also said that every single person should be an apologist and not just the men. Then lastly we made these three points concerning the attitude of an apologist.
So let’s now pick up where we left off. Please turn your Bibles to 1 Peter 3:12 – 13.
1 Peter 3:12 For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers: but the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.
1 Peter 3:13 And who is he that will harm you, if ye be followers of that which is good?
What this tells us within the context of this passage is that while you are mounting your defense, you should be praying because the Lord will hear you. You already know that you are going to be under attack for your faith, whether it’s the wife with the unbelieving husband, or the Christian who is ridiculed for serving the Lord. So you pray and then wait for the right time to go on the offensive. You are not going to be going on the offensive by yourself. The Bible says that the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. What exactly does that mean and how can that give you confidence as an apologist? First of all you have to ask yourself why you are defending your position. Is it because you are trying to help the other person see truth or is it to prove the other person wrong? Proving someone wrong should not be the goal. The goal should either be to give that person truth so that they might be saved, or if they are saved to see truth from the word of God and not from their own perspective. But too many times we are selfish and do not want to say anything because we are afraid of what that person or persons may say. What will they do, call me names, yell at me, label me? So be it! When you do what is right you have nothing to fear regardless of whom it is you’re confronting with the truth. When you remember that the goal of confronting someone, whether because of a sin issue or as an apologist, your goal should be to magnify the Lord Jesus Christ and point that person or that group of people to the Lord.
But know this if you stand for truth, people are not going to like you. Living a life that is centered on serving the Lord is not a life that is about who likes us and who doesn’t. The Lord did not save you so that others would like you. In fact people may like you less now then before the Lord saved you. However if you are called names, fired from your job, or whatever else can happen, then you should rejoice and count yourself blessed. Notice what verse fourteen says.
1 Peter 3:14 But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye: and be not afraid of their terror, neither be troubled;
Now what’s interesting is the word but. This implies that not everyone is going to suffer for righteousness’ sake or to the same degree. One of the things that come to mind is the question, why not? Now I cannot fully answer that question but I can give you a reason why I think some people do not suffer for righteousness’ sake and that is because no one knows that they are a Christian, except their church family. Obviously the Lord is sovereign, and sometimes, faithful Christians who are very vocal and genuine do not suffer for righteousness’ sake as much as others. At least no one has suffered here in the USA like those martyrs of the past did. But this is just one viewpoint, so let's continue.
Matthew 5:10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Matthew 5:12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Now I want to take a turn because I think that some people do not suffer persecution because as I said before no one knows that they are a Christian. Either that or they are not willing to take a stand for the truth because they don’t want to get involved. So the question still stands, why don’t we say anything? What are we afraid of? We do not suffer persecution in the United States like some Christians do in other countries. I can’t help but think of that Afghan man whom the Lord saved and then the entire country wanted him put to death because he no longer served the devil. He had to flee for his life. Has your life been threatened? Even if it has, the Bible tells us not to be afraid or troubled. Do not waste anytime thinking about it, or trying to figure out how you are going to get out of the situation. God has sovereignly put you in that position and what you need to do is found in the verse that we are using for our study in apologetics.
1 Peter 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
Yes we are here at the verse that is our springboard for our study in apologetics but we had to take our time in getting here. The reason we had to take our time is because as I have already stated you can take any verse and build a defense for why you believe what you believe, but if the verse is taken out of context, you have nothing but your own opinion or agenda to stand on. This verse however represents one of the most important truths that we must live out in our lives, regardless of whether we are mounting a defense of the truth or just living life. Again, when you suffer for righteousness’ sake, don’t be troubled or afraid but sanctify the Lord God. So how does this apply to apologetics? The very first thing that you must do as an apologist is sanctify your heart to God. What exactly does that mean and what does it mean to sanctify? The word sanctify in Greek is:
áãéáæù Strongs No: 37
Transliterated: hagiazo; Pronounced: hag-ee-ad'-zo
It means:
1. to render or acknowledge, or to be venerable or hallow
2. to separate from profane things and dedicate to God
a. consecrate things to God
b. dedicate people to God
3. to purify
a. to cleanse externally
b. to purify by expiation: free from the guilt of sin
c. to purify internally by renewing of the soul
To separate from profane things and dedicate to God has to happen in the heart because this is where everything about life emanates from. This is where conversion takes place. This is where the words that we say and the actions that we do come from. If your heart is bent on proving someone wrong rather then exposing them to truth so that they might be converted then you have not sanctified the Lord God in your heart. If your Christian walk is anything but circumspect and you treat sin like it is no big deal then you have not sanctified the Lord God in your heart. If proving others wrong, whether they are members of a cult that teach false doctrine, members of your own family, members of your own church, or you are just out witnessing to lost people who oppose the gospel, is your goal then you have not sanctified the Lord God in your heart. Sanctifying the Lord God in your heart means that you give every area of your life over to the Lord and every thing you do is based on pleasing the Lord and not yourself. Being an apologist is not about who is wrong and who is right. It is about doing what is right according to the Lord and exposing your heart to truth long before you ever expose others to truth, or expose what they think is truth as nothing more then lies of the devil. What do lies do? Lies pervert the truth. A lie may contain truth, but only in part. The word sanctify means to purify. There is nothing that can purify your heart other then the word of God. Now there is someone who needs to be exposed to the word of God because of false teaching that they believe. So you are going to expose them to truth. They are spiritually starving and they have just enough truth to keep them alive. So you are going to feed them to give them strength.
You cook up something spiritually and you take the dirty spiritual dishes that have been in the sink for a couple of weeks that have dried caked on food on and the plates and are now changing colors. You take this meal that you have cooked up that looks appetizing and place it on this nasty plate and hand it to them to eat. How have you helped them to get their strength? You have just added more corruption to their life by the fact that you have failed cleanse the plates that you served your food on. In other words, you take some truth that you know and add it to what you perceive to be truth without truly searching the scriptures to see whether those things are true and hand a big portion of it to the already spiritually anemic or in some instances, the spiritually dead. They have not gained anything by what you have fed them, because in your preparation you did not sanctify your heart first to the Lord. The point is, is that everything in your life must be sanctified or cleansed. You cannot allow any part of your life to be filled with the filth of this world. Every part of your life must be sanctified by the word of God. Which brings us to the second point of this verse and that is sanctification is done by the Lord and to the Lord alone. Anything else is not sanctification.
The object of our sanctification is the Lord. We must look to the word of God and must prepare our hearts by praying and studying if we are ever going to be sanctified for the defense of the scriptures. Not only is the Lord the object of our sanctification but he is also the object of our affection. Our defense is not only based on duty but also on love. When my wife and I were on our honeymoon one of the places that we stopped was Jamaica. We had just climbed half way up a waterfall and then exited to go see some of the shops. No sooner did we step on dry ground then some shop attendant grabbed my wife by the hand or arm and started to pull her into the shop where he was. I immediately grabbed him and said, “let go of my wife!” In my mind, no one touches my wife like that, and this guy was about to take a nap if he didn’t let go of her. Why did I get so upset at that? I became upset because I love my wife and would do anything I had to, to protect her. If I didn’t love her as much as I do it would have been no big deal. I would have said something like, um you shouldn’t do that and I would have said it softly and half-heartedly. If you do not love the word of God, then you will only half heartedly put up a defense when people twist it and use it to meet their own needs! There should be such a passion and desire burning inside you for the Lord that you want to know more about him, no matter how long you have studied the word of God, and when someone says something that is wrong your ears should perk up like a watch dogs. Those who want to have an intellectual working knowledge of the word of God read it and critique it either to impress others on how much they know, or to try and find contradictions either in the word of God itself or in Christians. So my question is why would you not want to know as much about your Lord as you possibly can? If you do not want to or have a desire to defend the truth of the Holy Scriptures then what do you have a desire to defend? Those things that are important to you will motivate you. If you desire to know the Lord more and more you will want to tell others about what the Lord has done to your heart. That leads us to the third point here and that is, what’s in your heart?
What is in your heart? Is there clutter and secret sin? Are there secret idols that you think no one knows about? Do not think that you can be affective in the defense of the scriptures if in your heart you really don’t believe or love what you are defending. If you do not love the Lord and his word then you are not going to defend it because it has not made its way to your heart.
Matthew 22:36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Matthew 22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
Matthew 22:38 This is the first and great commandment.
If we are not obeying this commandment, then we will never defend the truth as we have been called to do. We may be able to intellectually defend it and it will mean nothing because our heart is not in it. I have to wonder if someone who does not defend the truth from the word of God is even saved. Here’s my point. We will fight to the death over things like who is the greatest quarter back to ever play the game. We will fight over other things, like which is the best way to cook a turkey, and no it’s not with orange juice. There are many things that we will become very passionate about, take a stand on and refuse to move off of our position, yet we will stand by quietly when someone uses the Lord’s name in vain or says that the Bible is just another book. Politics is another area that we get riled up over. Yet when someone says something like the word of God was written by men so you can’t believe everything in the Bible, our heart isn’t moved with the passion of defense for the word of God and we keep quit. When people say that all the church wants is money, we quickly change the subject or avoiding getting into it with them. While we shouldn’t get into it with them, we should defend the truth that has been given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ. When someone uses the Lord’s name in vain, we do not get offended. If we do, we do not get offended enough to say anything to that person. This is because our heart, our inner man, the person that we are when no one else is around is not wholly given over to the Lord, so we just pass them off as a vile sinner and what can you expect from them.
What if this same person cussed out your spouse or your child, would you say anything to them? What if they said something bad about your favorite sports team, would you say anything to them? What if they said something about your country, would you say anything to them? So now I ask you again, have you sanctified the Lord God in your heart, or have you just cleared out a little space for the Lord so that you can be spiritual when you need to be? Believe me; I am just as guilty of all the charges that I have mentioned. I am ashamed to say that I have failed in every area that I just mentioned and I have failed in more areas that I haven’t mentioned. And I am sure that if you were honest you would admit to the same thing. But admitting to it and doing something about it are two totally different things.
Now notice 1 Peter 3:15 again.
1 Peter 3:15 But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear:
Before you can ever defend the truth you first have to purify or sanctify the Lord God in your heart as we have just covered. But then notice the next part of this verse. The Bible says to be ready. The Greek word for be ready is:
åôïéìïò Strongs No: 2092
Transliterated: hetoimos; Pronounced: het-oy'-mos
It means:
1. prepare ready
a. of things
1. ready at hand
2. opportune, seasonable
b. of persons
1. ready prepared
a. to do something
b. to receive one coming
There are a lot of interesting definitions here. The first one that is mentioned is prepare to be ready at hand. This means that you are poised and ready for whatever comes your way and that no matter what someone says to you, you are ready to answer them. Obviously no one has all the answers except the Lord, but that is no excuse for not studying the word of God and being prepared for whatever comes your way. You do not have to be a scholar to answer someone who is in a cult. Neither do you have to be a preacher to answer questions that may be presented to you at work, at school, or even when you are with your extended family. What you do have to do is take advantage of those opportunities. Sometimes those questions are sarcastic ones and other times they are questions out of curiosity. Sometimes they are genuine questions from a person that is lost and has heard the gospel before and now has some questions. But there is another point that I want to touch on because so many times we think that we are going to get into this great debate with someone who believes in things like tongues, or JW’s who do not believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is God, but what about the struggles that we face each day where we doubt the word of God and wrestle with the Lord. You see if we do not truly believe what we are defending then we will half heartedly defend the truth and maybe not even half heartedly. Everyone goes through doubt at one point in his or her life but as you study and as you defend the truth you see the truth revealed and it becomes alive and real and it changes you. The truth no longer seems to be some obscure thing that is unreachable. The truth becomes so much a part of your life that just like a pin prick upon your finger when you are not expecting it you are shocked and offended when truth is twisted and perverted by man. You can’t help but draw your hand back in defense and do your best to not allow this to happen again. But when you do not study you become apathetic and dull and the pin prick though unexpected, causes no reaction because we have allowed our own struggles to deaden our spiritual senses. We have all but given up.