The Book of Jude
Part 3: Building for Eternity
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
All right, like I said, today we're going to be wrapping up our series in Jude. And so far in our series we've talked about this overall theme of contending for our faith and this plea that Jude has to guard against false teachers. We've learned about recognizing the counterfeits, which highlighted the corrupted character of the false teachers and told us of examples of God's judgment, which Jude mentions as a warning for the church and for the church today. It's been a series that has called us to be proactive in our faith, warned us of the dangers of those who are intentional in their corruption of God's truth, the gospel. And we're reminded throughout this book, this short letter, of how seriously God takes His gospel and therefore how seriously we should take protecting that gospel. We need to value keeping the integrity of the gospel whole and intact. So far we've covered the why. Why is it important to contend for the faithful? Because of those corrupted teachers and the immorality that spoils the gospel that they preach, the false gospel. And now we're going to learn today, the very end, about Jude's instruction of how to contend. And so this instruction, written to the early church, is also meant for us today, the modern church. And it's going to help us here at Spring Valley be a strong, growing, and healthy body of believers. Again, at the end now, in the last few verses here, Jude is wanting the believers to be equipped to strengthen their faith, to rely on God's power, and to live with this assurance of the ultimate victory provided through Christ. Before we jump into our text, I just want to remind us this morning that the tone of these letters in the New Testament, the epistles, is one of, it's got a communal tone to it. So maybe unlike us in the modern day West, where we often think of ourselves, we hear something, we think individual first, how does that pertain to me, and then we think, how does that pertain to the community around us, in that time they would have done the opposite. They would have thought, how does this pertain to our community, how does this pertain to our church? And then secondly, they would have thought of how does this pertain to me. And I don't think there's a right or wrong in that. I just don't want us to miss the second part for us. We often think individually, right, how does this text apply to me? But sometimes then we just stop there, and we don't think, well then how does this fit into my church? How does this fit into the community that I belong to? And so as we hear the words of Jude, we want to hear this instruction and understand that we are meant to carry this out and do this together as a church. The early church and the apostles writing these letters knew that their faith was not just an individual faith, but the strength of their faith correlated to the strength of their faith community. So I think we need to remember that. And if we're thinking, hey, I'm in a good place with God, are we thinking how do I help others and share my faith with others and bring them along with me? And if we're in a place where we're struggling in our faith, are we correlating that with our community? Am I close to my community? Am I going to my church community as a way to strengthen my faith, to build up my faith?
So let's keep that in mind as we finish out our text in Jude today. If you guys want to open up your Bibles or you can follow along on the screen, we're going to be starting in verse 17, and we just want to go verse by verse as Jude ends this quick powerful memo with some very important truths. Verse 17, I'll read the first couple. It says, "But dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, in the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires. These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the spirit." In this section right here, Jude is telling the church to remember the warnings. He reminds them to stay vigilant in the face of division. His instruction is to be on the lookout, be on guard, be ready. It's this little image of a guard, and those guards, they cannot be lax in their job. They can't be sleepy, they can't be nonchalant, they can't be relaxed. They have to be on guard. And if that guard were to be tuned out, just zoned out, not there, would it be any surprise that on their watch something bad would happen? He's like, "No, that makes sense." He wasn't even doing his job. He wasn't ready for what could happen. In the same way, are we surprised if someone who is not intentional, not on the lookout, not guarding their faith, is led astray from the gospel? Or communally, as a church, if we are all asleep in our faith, not proactive, not vigilant, not intentional to pursue God with everything that we have, will not our church suffer? Remember the warnings given by Jesus, by the apostles, and by Jude. Watch out for those who bring division. Notice that so far Jude hasn't criticized the bad theology of these leaders, which is often what we do today when we're trying to figure out who is preaching truth and not, and that is fine, but he hasn't even talked about their theology. Rather, he's talked about their immoral way of life, most notably in their character and how their character causes division in the church. And he states that these people who bring division are the ones who are following mere natural instincts. He's referencing our natural sin nature that we all have, our sin nature that makes us prone to serve our selfish hearts, makes us prone to serve our pride, to desire control, to feed our egos. The church is to be known as a place of unity in Christ, but these false teachers are prone to divide people. These false teachers are the cause and they encourage this us-versus-them culture and mentality, which is unhealthy in the church. Jude makes it very clear that these people do not have the Spirit. And how informative for us in today's church, right, to know this is what we should be looking for. The opposite of that, those who are uniting people in Christ. We need to look for those leaders who are bringing people together under the love of God. Jude is saying, in other words, look for those who show evidence of the work of the Spirit within them.
And in a way, he's referencing Jesus' own words, which we find in John 14:15, which read, "If you love me, keep my commandments." These false teachers are not doing this and he's saying it's very clear. Those false teachers, you can tell, by the way, that they're not keeping God's commandments and this is what's happening from them. This is the fruit that they produce. But if you love me, keep my commandments. For Christians of every age, how we live is the most reliable indicator of what we actually believe. In some ways, it doesn't matter what the words that we say. If the fruit, the character that we produce doesn't match that, then our words are pointless, right? We have to be living a life that shows the fruit of the Spirit at work in our hearts. So while we internalize that and hold ourselves to this standard, making sure that we are loving God by obeying Him, we can also be putting other people through that same filter, specifically the leaders that are claiming to follow God. We can see, are they living a life of obedience to God's laws? Are they keeping His commandments? And therefore, do they truly love God? This whole section, remembering the warnings and being vigilant in our faith, is about being on guard. I don't know if you've...this example in this week kind of came to my mind. I don't know if you've been paying attention to the news, but there's been a lot of airline mishaps recently. And if you've flown, God protect you. And maybe we're just seeing more of them. But there's one in particular, that one plane that flipped over. Thank God everyone was safe. Everyone made it alive. But I thought of...I heard the reports that the people, the stewardesses, the airline attendants did their job wonderfully. They got everyone out. And it was because of them that that situation went so well after the tragedy of the plane flipping over. But if you've flown before, you know that they go over those safety protocols every time. And they're up there with their little flaps, and they do the little examples. And usually, either we're tuning out, we're like, "I got a text message before I got to turn my phone off." Or you're one of those people that like, "I am giving them my full attention. I want them to see that I am like a type A student, and I am giving them everything." But they go over everything. And whether we understand it all perfectly or not is...who knows? But they know what to do. They are ready for whatever situation happens. And so when the worst of the worst happens, and these situations where that plane flips over, they knew exactly what to do. And they got everyone out. And they got the exits, and leave everything behind, and leave. And everyone got out. And the people in the news reports afterwards were thanking them that those people took care of us. Because they were on guard. In the same way, we have to be ready. We have to know what to do when we hear something that isn't true, that doesn't align with God's Word. We have to be ready for these situations. We must be vigilant.
Let's keep reading. Verse 20, it says, "But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. Be merciful to those who doubt. Save others by snatching them from the fire. To others, show mercy mixed with fear, hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh." This is where we're getting into the how-to. This is Jude's step-by-step explanation of this is how to contend for the faith. He's waited to the very end to show us. And he's doing it through a series of metaphors. So we're going to unpack this together and put together this visual that he's laying out here. So the first thing is that the community of believers is God's new temple, the church. It's no longer a temple like they have in Israel where you had to go to the physical temple. Now it is a gathering of people, unified in Him. We as a church are the temple of God. And then he says the community, this temple, is to build their lives on the foundation of the most holy faith, which is the gospel, the good news of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection. I can't think of a better foundation to have. So we have a foundation, the gospel. You builders know, that's where you start. You start on your foundation, let's build up from there. On that foundation, the church is to build itself up. Well, how? Through dedication to prayer and by devoting itself to the love of God through obedience. So as a community of believers, as God's church, as his temple, we build up, we strengthen the church by building yourselves up in the faith. We do that by knowing God, by reading his word, by following the ways of Jesus. It says by praying. Praying is this act of submission. Praying is the key way in which we commune with God. Praying is how we make our desires known to him and how we align our hearts with his. Praying is where we express gratitude and where we ask for guidance. So build yourselves up in the faith by knowing him, by praying, and by keeping ourselves in God's love.
That goes back to that John 15 passage of abiding in him, abiding in him daily, talking with him, meditating on his word. In the Old Testament, we would say this phrase, "walking with God." And you can see if you read the Old Testament, you see these stories of this person walked with God. That doesn't necessarily mean that God's right next to them walking, but it gives us that visual of every day in their life, step by step, they are following him. They are walking in the way of the Lord. And that's what we are called to do. In every situation that you find yourself in, whether at work, at home, with family, with friends, you are walking with him in that moment. We keep ourselves in God's love by obeying him, following the way in which he told us to live. Then it continues, "to be merciful to the doubters, to save others from snatching them from the fire." We'll get to that in a second. But by doing these things, we ensure that the temple of God, this church, right, we have our foundation of the gospel, then our church, our hearts are interlocked with God and his gospel. And this is important. The integrity of that building, of our church, will be maintained by staying alert for the truth of Jesus, as well as by helping each other stay faithful. In this analogy of our building, the building's integrity is weakened if there are people within our church, within this structure, who are acting out of selfish ambition, who are trying to corrupt the gospel. Are we tracking still? Are we putting this together? I'm understanding Jude's metaphor here. Another way of looking at these instructions is how these instructions relate to us, and how there are certain things that we focus on inwardly and other things that we focus outwardly. So inwardly, we build ourselves up in the faith, right? That's pursuing our relationship with God, praying in the Spirit, keeping ourselves in God's love. These are things that we do within ourselves, in our own lives. This with others, but maybe first and foremost with ourselves. We are putting effort and being intentional to ensure that we are participating in this way.
And then there's this outward focus of what to do with other people. Be merciful to those who doubt. Rather than just accepting that some people are lost, we should feel the responsibility and the burden to try and convince them of the truth. It then says, "Save others by snatching them from the fire." These false teachers that can be in churches are on the path to experience God's judgment and wrath. And as they gain followers, they are bringing other people into God's eternal fire, into his eternal wrath and judgment. And so we are to help, again, convince those people, "Don't follow that way. Come back to the truth of the gospel." And then it says, "To others, show mercy mixed with fear." Jude just said, "Be merciful to others." So what does he mean, "mixed with fear"? Well, sometimes we need to exercise caution towards those who have succumbed to false teachers. It's a good desire for us to want to play a role in bringing people to the gospel, bringing people to their Savior, but we have to remember that we are not their Savior. That role is for Christ and Christ alone. So we want to exercise caution. And then this metaphor at the very end of the clothing stained by the corrupted flesh, this just conveys how Christians are to hate how sinfulness brought on by false teachings has ruined the lives of those who do not resist. There should stir up in us a certain anger of someone whose life has succumbed to a false gospel. Because we know what really happened, that someone purposefully twisted God's truth to hurt someone, to rob someone of the true eternity spent with Jesus. And so there should be an anger, there should be a sadness within us when that happens. So all this, in this short, just three verses, this is how to contend for the faith. This is how to fight against false teachers. This is how to strengthen the church to build ourselves up in the truth of the gospel. As Pastor Chris mentioned last week, this is a short letter, but there is so much here, so much instruction for us.
And he ends with one final encouragement, verses 24 through 25, says, "To him who is able to keep you from stumbling, to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy, to the only God our Savior, be glory, majesty, power and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord before all ages, now and forevermore. Amen." This is my favorite part. I love these two verses. He so eloquently yet simply states that a relationship with God is the ultimate safeguard against false teachings. God is the only one who can keep us from falling victim to the lies and the heresy in this world. And again, it serves as a reminder that you cannot simply on your own strength and ability keep yourself from stumbling. Can't do it. If you want to try, as vigilant as you may be in your relationship with God, you can't do it on your own. We are all sinners. We all fall short. We cannot on our own strength keep ourselves from stumbling. We can't keep others from stumbling. But God can, and He does. It is God who keeps us. As I mentioned in the beginning, it speaks to this necessity of a community of believers. God works through the church, works through each of us together as we pursue Him together to keep us and protect us from falling too far from His grace. So trust that God is the one who keeps us from stumbling.
And then the next part, the next picture is a beautiful picture, an eternal perspective as Jude brings us to the moment that we will be with God in heaven. It says, "He will present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy." This is temple sacrifice language from the Old Testament, where a person would have to bring forth a perfect animal, which was a spotless animal, and you present it before the priests, which meant before God. And there was a joy in doing this because it meant that they would be made right before God. And so it was a moment of worship. It was a moment of joy going to the temple, bringing your sacrifice. Now we no longer have to make animal sacrifices, thank you, Lord, but we are still able to appear blameless before God, not on our own doing, because even as believers, right, we still have sin within us, but because of Christ, because of the sacrificial death that He died on the cross. He functions as our sacrifice to make it able that God sees us blameless before Him. So instead of seeing our sin, God sees the perfection of Jesus. What love God has for us to send His Son, Jesus, who died for us, and that will bring us with Him into heaven, where there is no sin, where we can commune with God for eternity. And then Jude ends with this beautiful affirmation of Jesus and God being one, to the only God, our Savior. Be the glory, majesty, power, and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord. Jude testifies to both God's character as one worthy to be praised, and to God's right to rule all things, both now and forever. What a way to end this letter. A letter full of warnings, full of encouragement, full of truth, and then he ends with this protective blessing and prayer over the church. And to me, it's moving, it's inspiring, it's powerful. So as we close, I want to take a moment to reflect on our own lives, and as a community of believers, right?
So I have a couple questions for us. I want you just to think and answer these to yourselves. Be honest in your own heart. First one is this, are you living vigilantly? Are you attentive and astute to the truth of the gospel? We should take that warning to the false teachers seriously. And as Pastor Chris said last week, we should also be taking an internal inventory of our own lives, of our words, our actions, and hold them up to the truth that Jude says here and has instructed us. Are we contending for the faith? Are we on guard? Or as John 14, 15, do we love God? Are we following His commandments? So are you living vigilantly? Secondly, are you living with the hope and assurance of victory? Are we living in a way of anxiously awaiting the new mercies that we will experience with God in heaven? Are we expectantly anticipating and living in the light of God's future deliverance? Do we have that hope? Do we have that divine peace with us? Do we live with, yes, being present here in the now, but also with a part of our minds on the future and the glory of being with God? And then lastly, are you living with your trust in God? This is easy to say yes to and a lot harder to actually implement and live out every day trusting God fully. Do we have that peace in our heart that He is keeping us, that He is protecting us, that He has us, He's taking care of us? Are you letting selfish ambition or anxiety control and drive you? Are you living out of fear? Is any of your trust, are you trusting yourself in any part of your life more than you are trusting God with that part of your life? Some areas are easy. We're like, "Yeah, in this area, God, all you. Trust you. You got this." And in other areas of our life, we're like, "God, I think I know what I'm doing." So you can just hold on a second and we don't have these conversations with God, right? But this is how our actions play out. So I just want to ask, are you living with your trust in God? And this week, how can you take a step toward trusting God more? And I pray that as you answer these questions to yourself between you and God, that the Spirit will convict where conviction is necessary, that He'd encourage you where encouragement is necessary, maybe you're doing a great job and you would feel encouraged in your faith, and that in other areas, He would guide you and that you would listen and follow Him.