Jude 1-3
Here the word of the living God,
this is Jude, and I’m gonna read, actually read the whole thing
tonight, but we’ll only look at verses one to three. So there’s just
one chapter, so 20, 25 verses. Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ
and brother of James. to those who were called, beloved,
and God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ. May mercy,
peace, and love be multiplied to you. Beloved, although I was
very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found
it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith
that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people
have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this
condemnation. ungodly people who pervert the
grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and
Lord Jesus Christ. Now I want to remind you, although
you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out
of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.
And the angels who did not stay within their own position of
authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal
chains under gloomy darkness, until the judgment of the great
day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which
likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire,
serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
Yet in like manner, these people also, relying on their dreams,
defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.
But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was
disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce
a blasphemous judgment, but said, the Lord rebuke you. But these
people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are
destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand
instinctively. Woe to them! For they walked
in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain,
to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion. These are
blemishes on your love feast as they feast with you without
fear, looking after themselves, waterless clouds swept along
by winds, fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead uprooted,
wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their own shame,
wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been
reserved forever. It was also about these, the
Enoch, the seventh from Adam prophesied saying, behold, the
Lord came with 10,000 of his holy ones to execute judgment
on all and to convict the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness
that they have committed in such an ungodly way and of all the
harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These
are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires. They
are loud-mouthed boasters showing favoritism to gain advantage.
But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles
of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you in the last
time there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions. It
is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the
Spirit. But you, beloved, build yourselves
up in your most holy faith. Pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep
yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our
Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy
on those who doubt. Save others by snatching them
out of the fire, to others show mercy with fear, hating even
the garment stained by the flesh. Now to him who is able to keep
you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence
of his glory with great joy. To the only God, our Savior,
through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion,
and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen. Well, if you were one of Jesus’
brothers, wouldn’t you tell everybody? Yeah, we’re worldly, so yes,
it would be on our Twitter handle. I’m James, the brother of Jesus,
and we put yes, that Jesus. We like connections, we like
to brag. Especially, yes, if you wanted
people to read your message or read your New Testament letter.
But you notice in verse one, Jude does not do that. But that’s exactly who he is.
He’s the half-brother of Jesus, Mother Mary, Father Joseph. The
reason he’s half-brother is why? We believe in the virgin birth,
the Holy Spirit conceived Jesus in the womb of the Virgin Mary.
So, half-brothers. But he doesn’t say it, does he?
He doesn’t say, hey everybody, this is Jude here, half-brother
of Jesus, listen up, listen good. He says, actually, the brother
of James, one of the other half-brothers of Jesus, the leader of the early
church, the writer of the epistle. But notice also what he does
say. So he omits that he’s a brother
of Christ. But he says, second word in,
a servant of Jesus Christ. When I was in seminary, the New
Testament word for servant is doulos. And so we were all called
doulos. And if you were on doulos duty,
that meant you had to keep the professor’s cup of coffee hot.
cream and sugar just like he liked it, and you ran to the
copy machine and back. And so it was a way to keep us humble,
not only with the grading system, but with the title Doulas. And notice what he says, Doulas
of Jesus Christ, never mentions brother, half brother, just a
servant of Christ. You’ve seen the little sticker
on the back of people’s cars that says he and has the greater than
sign, you know, from math, whatever the little arrow is. And then
it has I, he greater than I. That’s kind of the idea here.
What do we know about James or Jude? I’m sorry. He’s a Galilean.
He’s an itinerant minister. He is not one of the apostles.
Interesting. But he’s at the disposal of his
Lord. Now, Couple things about this little book. It had a hard
time getting into the Bible. After we read it a few minutes
ago, you don’t really have to wonder why. It has some strange
stuff in it, some strange sayings. It quotes apocryphal books. The other interesting thing,
I just mentioned it, you might’ve caught it, Jude is not an apostle. Who generally writes Bible books?
New Testament ones, apostles. And so it had a hard time getting
into the canon of scripture, but in the process of God, the
Holy Spirit, confirming to the church who received his word,
it’s in our Bibles. And I think what we have in Jude
is a strong message, a strong message for God’s people in the
early church, but it’s a strong message for us today in the 21st
century church. You’re gonna see Jude has a heart
for God’s people. Very, very tender language. Did
you notice the beginning was sweet and the end was sweet? The middle was a little rough.
And these don’t make good Christmas messages. That’s why we’re doing
it on Sunday night during Advent. I figured y’all are tough, y’all
can handle it. But he has a heart for God’s people. I think also
he is a watchman. It’s the little title we put,
the watchman says watch. He’s a watchman, Ezekiel. The
book of Ezekiel speaks of God’s servants, God’s pastors, so to
speak, as watchmen. Watchmen over error and over
danger. The watchman was on the wall.
And what did he do? He watched for enemies. One of
the things Paul tells Timothy, warn people of error. So many ministers in today’s
culture, they’ve gotten away from preaching the word. They’ve
gotten away from preaching verse by verse, and what do they do?
Well, they get this book, and so they preach it, and they get
this book, and they preach it, and they hear this teaching,
and they preach that, and they get this one, and they teach
that, and so in the span of their ministry, they’ve really not
taught the Bible, but they’ve taught every wind of doctrine
that has passed around, and it doesn’t feed God’s sheep. And
so we have in Jude the brother of Jesus, the servant of Christ,
a heart for God’s people. Watch, warn. There’s error and there’s danger.
His audience is a Jewish Christian audience and Gentiles. And he
writes this letter about 70 or 80 BC. So about, oh, say 50 years
past the death of Christ. That’s when this letter is making
its way through the early church. Notice it’s not a letter to like
the church at Ephesus or the church at Corinth. It’s a letter
with a writer’s name on it. And so it’s probably what we
call a circular letter. It made its way to various churches. 24 verses. I’m going to take five Sunday
evenings. Tonight we’ll look at, the first
three verses, but this is gonna speak to us about salvation.
It’s gonna speak to us about defending the faith. It’s gonna
explain wickedness. It’s gonna talk about ways saints
can be encouraged in hard times. And then we’ll look at the last
couple verses, which I’m sure you immediately recognized as
one of the greatest doxologies or praises to God in the Bible. Jude is gonna put hair on our
chest. Okay, it’s going to beef us up. We’re going to eat our
Wheaties. We’re going to swallow our spinach like Popeye. We’re going to get beefed up
and encouraged, but I hope it will also sharpen our eyes for
ungodliness in the world. So tonight we want to look at
three verses. There’s an old Scottish minister
named Alexander McLaurin, and he says that every preacher,
you’ve wondered how we get three points. Every preacher has in
their study a golden hammer, and they just pop the rock, the
word, and it breaks into three nice little pieces. And that
has happened tonight. We’re gonna look at calling,
comfort, and conflict. All right, so first, calling. How does Jude address his recipients? Well, he addresses them biblically.
He says to those, you see it in verse one, those who are called,
beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ. How does Paul, for example, in
another way, address in his letters? To the saints of God in Ephesus,
to the saints in Corinth, to the saints at Colossae, to the
saints at Philippi, or those kinds of things. Jude is radically
biblical here when he addresses, and so we think of this word,
important word, calling. Those who are called in eternity
past, those who are called by God for His own glory, those
who are, those who have the affections
of God Almighty set upon them, those who are specially and specifically
chosen, selected by Almighty God, they’re in covenant relationship
with Him. He has known them, as Ephesians
says, from before the foundation of the world. We are in Christ. We are his beloved special covenant
people. So he’s called them. It’s a powerful,
sovereign, and gracious calling. A couple weeks ago when we were
looking at the shorter catechism before we got to the commandments,
we looked at effectual calling. Effectual calling is the work
of God’s free grace where he persuades and enables us to freely
embrace Jesus Christ as he’s offered in the gospel. How do
we become Christians? How do we realize we’re sinners?
How do we know that we need grace? Well, God, like his son Christ,
calls down into the tomb, like he did with Lazarus, and he tells
us to come forth. He tells us that we’re dead.
He tells us that we’re in sin. He tells us that we’re in great
need and in great danger. And so to address God’s people
as those who are called ought to bring to our minds and our
hearts great joy, because you could be not called. And what
would that mean? Dead in sin, left in your trespasses,
stuck in your sin, stuck in Adam, not living for God, but living
for evil. And so we have been called from
darkness and slavery and sin into God’s marvelous light, into
his service and into obedience. Now, if that’s not good enough,
he refers to them as beloved in God, the father. Now, I know
a pastor who refers to his congregation as beloved. When he stands up
before them, you know, make announcements, we say, good morning. He says,
beloved. He says it loud and affectionately. And I think that’s
a neat, tender thing that he does. It’s biblical. Beloved
in God, the father, because God simply, what was that we learned
in Sunday school the other week? Why does God love us? Because
he wants to, right? He didn’t look down the corridor
of time and say, doggone it, those people in Burlington are
just gonna be such wonderful people. No, he loves us because
he simply wants to. He sets his affection on whom
he will, and when he does, boy, are you a spoiled child of Almighty
God, in the right sense. Here’s something to think about.
We’re beloved by God the Father, because we are in the Son. And
if he loves the Son, does not also love those who are in the
Son. And this love is an active love. This love is a wonderful love. Think about this. You are an
object of divine affection. Think on that. You know, we live
in a time where, We don’t stop, we don’t think,
we don’t fill our minds with truth. No, that hopefully doesn’t
happen here. We try to read the Bible, we
try to sing the Bible, we try to fill up Sunday with lots of
Bible, and hopefully you think on these things, but you are
an object of divine affection, and if you haven’t thought of
that in a while, You need to think a little harder. You need
to think a little more. As C.S. Lewis said, we live under
the bridge when we’re children of the king. So we need to work
at knowing who we are and what we have in God. We have a love
that will not let us go. John, in his first epistle, he
wrote the gospel of John, of course, but first and third John.
In first John 3.1, We read this statement, see? The love of God the Father, we
are his children. It’s a radical thing to be a
child of God. Or sometimes we sing the hymn
on Sundays, How Deep the Father’s Love for Us. Or another good hymn that we
sing, We Are God’s People, the Chosen of the Lord. And so under
this section, under this calling, because we are called, because
we are beloved in God the Father, there’s a third blessing in our
calling here, we’re kept by Jesus Christ. You see that again in
verse one. You see how it just rolls to
those who are called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for
Jesus Christ. I have in my Bible underlined
called, beloved, and kept because those are special action verbs
of God Almighty related to me, related to His church, related
to those of you who have faith in him. Those are special words.
You know, some of you probably have your love letters, you know,
back when you were in puppy love and, you know, you were writing
each other and that’s a lost art. Now we text, you know, I-L-L-U-V-U,
the letter U. You don’t want to save those
because that would show it, ignorant love. But hopefully you have
a shoebox of sweet nothings that were written to each other. This
is God’s way of saying, I love you, called beloved. and God
the Father kept for Jesus. These are significant words.
Kept by Jesus Christ, just think of that for a moment. And think
of it in light of all the evil he’s gonna say is gonna come
against the church. Think of this in our 21st century context.
If we are kept by Jesus Christ, his redemption accomplished at
the cross, we are united to him, right? You’ve been hearing all
these things around here lately. You’re protected from Satan.
You’re gonna get safe passage to heaven. And you are kept,
notice, for Jesus Christ. High priestly prayer in the garden.
I pray, Father, for these, my children, that they may be one.
But he also prays that you would you would get them through life
under the evil sun as God had done Christ. I pray that they
will be with me where I am. This kept for Jesus Christ, you
are being kept by God for Jesus as an answer to his prayers.
Ever thought of that? I know you think about this with
your mothers. My mom prayed for me, I did stupid things, but
her prayers kept me from living on the street or dying in a ditch
or whatever. better way, Jesus praying for
you, and you’re gonna be kept for Jesus, by Jesus, for the
day of the Lord Jesus. You remember the doxology at
the end? Now to him who is able to keep you and present you faultless
before his throne, and on and on from there, you’re in his
grip. The perseverance of the saints is true, safe and secure
from all alarms. I don’t know if this song is
in our, Our Psalter hymnal, I know it’s in the Trinity hymnal, and
I thought y’all might like to hear these words. I know you
have sung it. What a fellowship, what a joy
divine, leaning on the everlasting arms. What a blessedness, what
a peace is mine, leaning on the everlasting arms. You know, the
little refrain. What a fellowship to walk in
this pilgrim way, leaning on the everlasting arms. Oh, how
bright the path grows from day to day, leaning on the everlasting
arms. Here’s the comfort. What have
I to dread? What have I to fear? Leaning
on the everlasting arms. I have blessed peace with my
Lord so near. Leaning on the everlasting arms.
These songs we sing, these truths we proclaim are for a reason. I don’t know how you identify
yourself, Got your ID card in the south, got your belt buckle,
right? Got your name on it. Got a nickname, right? Child
of God, called, beloved, kept. Those are good ways to identify
yourself. Some of you have been long in the faith, many years
in the faith, and maybe these things are new to you. Maybe
some of you are young in the faith, but get to know all that
you are, all that you have in Christ. That’s why we’re studying
the salvation words on Sunday morning. That’s why those words
are important. They tell us who we are, what we have in Christ
Jesus. Well, the next little C we want
to think about after calling is comfort. And these other two
C’s are pretty short, so that was a long one, I know. And it
seemed to have three parts to it, but that’s okay. It won’t
be worse for the wear. Comfort, verse two. I love how
he says this. May mercy, peace, and love be
multiplied you. I’ve used that on occasion as
a benediction. May mercy, peace, and love be
multiplied you. That’s like a locker room prep
talk. You’ve read the middle part of the book now, as we did
a few moments ago. It’s gonna be pretty dark. It’s
gonna be pretty hard. The church is gonna be under
attack, the missiles coming in from the top, the soldiers coming
in from the sides, and it’s gonna be dark and difficult for the
people of God if what Jude says is true. And so this is like
a locker room prep talk. This is a platoon leader speaking
to his garrison, his group of soldiers. May mercy, peace, and
love be multiplied to you as you go out to battle. This is
a battle they’re facing. They’ve not yet… seen it, he’s
not yet explained it to them, but they’re in the midst of it.
I think we would say we’re in a spiritual battle as well. One
of you mentioned earlier tonight the little article that was in
the Alamance News about creation and Christmas was put right next
to, and I have to know it was the editor of the paper’s funny
sense of humor, he put it right next to the Melbourne City Council
band’s Prayer to God or whatever it was. I didn’t catch that until
it was pointed out to me. That may seem subtle. But you know, Mebane is a small
town. Probably a lot of Christians in that town. That’s not the
way it would have been several years ago, but that’s the way
it is now. Are we ready for battle? Are we recognizing that we are
in it? Well, Jude’s prayer is for comfort.
That’s what this second C is. We’re called, we have a calling,
but he’s also gonna give us comfort, security. He’s gonna give us
confidence. A twofold Jewish blessing was
to say to one another, mercy and peace. And so to Christianize
this little Jewish blessing, mercy, peace, and love, we think
of mercy as God’s compassion. We think of peace as wholeness.
We think of love as a result of mercy and peace. Often in
the New Testament, when there’s a list, the list builds. You’ve got mercy. And because
of mercy, you have peace. And because of mercy and peace,
you have love. You see that? way it builds. It’s like building
a brick wall, stronger and stronger as it goes up. Love is the love
of God in Christ Jesus. Peace is the result of no more
hostility because of the love of God in Christ at the cross.
And then mercy, God’s compassion, God’s tenderness to those who
are needy. We have so many wonderful blessings
in the Christian life. And he says, mercy, peace and
love be yours, be multiplied to you in abundance. God doesn’t
give seconds. He doesn’t give microwave leftovers
out of the fridge. Hopefully none of you are still
eating turkey. Hopefully that’s all been thrown out. God doesn’t
give seconds, leftovers. He gives first, He gives fullness. Psalm 23 tells us of God’s provision.
My cup runneth over. And so God, in His love, When
He comforts us, He gives us great provision, plenteous provision,
tender provision, abundant, eternal provision. It’s rooted in His
covenant love. It’s rooted in His steadfast
mercy and kindness. And so we have a last C, a last
little thing to think of in this passage, and it’s conflict. Our
calling in Christ is wonderful. The comfort we have in Christ,
the mercy, peace and love is wonderful, but we’re going to
face conflict. We are still the church militant,
right? There’s the church triumphant,
those who’ve gone on to be in heaven, but there’s the church
militant. And so he speaks of conflict.
There’s a lot of things I love about pastoral ministry. The
one thing I do not love is conflict. You know, I was telling somebody
today, we had a visitor with us who knows our church pretty
well. And I was telling her, I said, we’ve had about three
years of really sweet, quiet. And she was thanking the Lord
for that. But constant conflict, no matter
what it is in your life is miserable. But what if it’s in the place
where there’s supposed to be mercy, peace and love? What if
it’s in the place where there’s supposed to be joy and fellowship
and sweetness? That’s not the way it ought to
be. But sometimes it is necessary. Sometimes it is necessary for
the church, for the elders, for the people to engage in conflict.
And that’s what he’s telling them. He says, hey, these people
have crept in among you unnoticed. Doesn’t that sound a little like
Genesis 3? The serpent, who was more crafty than any other beast
of the field, slithering into the garden. One of my good friends
in ministry, when he has a visitor, he doesn’t say, hey, how are
you? It’s nice to have you. He says, who are you and what
are you doing here? Because generally it means they’ve
left another church. Right? And he doesn’t really
do this. This is just pastoral at Cracker
Barrel joking and talking. But it’s our attitude. Who are
you and why are you here? What are you running from? What
problems are you bringing with you? Yeah, the elders chuckle,
don’t they? It ain’t so funny though, is
it? Sometimes there’s conflict. And it’s the pastoral duty to
do what Jude does here in verse three. Look, if you will, there
it says, Beloved, although I was eager to write to you about our
common salvation. So he was probably gonna do a
little study on salvation words. He’s probably gonna have a happy
study on salvation words, but notice what he says. I found
it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith
that was once for all delivered. to the saints. It’s his pastoral
duty to God’s beloved. It’s his pastoral requirement to change course. What do we
call it? When the quarterback on the field can’t run the play,
the coach is called, he calls an audible. He can’t write this
wonderful treatise on a common salvation. He can’t write a happy,
joyful letter. He has to Well, he has to get
them to clench their fists and to work out and eat their spinach,
to eat their Wheaties. I found it necessary, he says.
I was burdened, even mandated. Remember, he’s writing a Bible
letter here. The Holy Spirit kept him from
writing something sweet. And the Holy Spirit instead puts
a burden on him to write a quick and compressed, brief but powerful
letter. You would think after we read
those 25 verses, we had just read eight chapters. It was a
little heavy. But I felt compelled. I can’t
sleep. I’m worried for the church. Sheep
with wolves among them. And that reminds us, doesn’t
it, what we love we must fight for. A lot of you have lived
through the rise of liberalism in the Christian church in America.
I grew up in it in the early years. I can remember the cost
to our family of having to leave a denomination, to leave a church,
to venture out and start a new church. Many of you were there
when the Presbyterian Church in America started in the early
70s. I don’t think any of you were
alive in the 30s with the Northern Church, but we have seen in our
lifetime the rise of liberalism, and when the watchmen were sounding
the alarm, what did a lot of people do? Well, we’re just gonna
get with the times. We’re going to say, you know,
scripture is antiquated and, you know, it’s just time to elevate
certain things into the church. The watchman sounded the alarm,
the sirens were going off, the air raids were air raiding. People
were complacent. Church needs to get with the
times. People gave their pep talks.
There were these soldier-to-soldier speeches like Jude to the church.
People said, oh, well, we want to be with it. We want to be
modern. It’s time for the church to change. And Jude says, no,
we are going to contend for the faith. once and for all delivered
to the saints. Paul is going to say in his letters
to Timothy, when you are raising up men to serve the church, you
are going to pass the baton, you’re going to pass the torch,
you entrust what you have learned to faithful men. When we read
the qualifications for elder, you know, there are certain things
that protect and safeguard the church from just handing it off. to those who will squander the
stewardship. And so he’s exhorting them, he’s
encouraging them, he’s urging them, I want you whole, I want
you to overcome, I want Christ Church to be pure, no apostasy,
so to contend for the faith. Three things we’ve looked at,
a calling, we’ve looked at God’s comfort,
but we’ve looked at this conflict He’s gonna say in the weeks to
come as we look at this, you’ve got to strive, you’ve got to
fight, you’ve got to be vigorous and continually agonize over
the church and its purity. Whatever it takes, contend for
the faith, this body of belief that has been handed down to
us once and for all delivered. Some of us will never have to
fight for the church. Some of us will just happily get to come
I think from time to time about this, not so much anymore, but
I think about what it takes to have a peaceful church, a pure
church, a prospering church. It usually means four or five
people carry it on their backs. Four or five people are willing
to say no. Four or five people are willing to say, buzz off,
go away, no thank you. And it’s not popular and it’s
not fun. You lose sleep over it and all
the rest. But as you get to walk into church and sing biblical
songs and hear biblical messages and be among biblical people,
think sometimes to be thankful that there are those behind the
scenes contending for the faith. But also, you may not be in the
fray of the battle, but you can be a person of prayer. It takes
a lot of prayer to keep a church faithful and pure. And when we
don’t pray, what happened with Moses and Aaron when they held
up Moses’ hands? When his hands went down, the
Amalekites prevailed, but when Moses’ hands went up, they prevailed
over the Amalekites. And so may God give us grace
to stay on course. Let’s ask for his help. Lord,
we do pray that you would bless us with strength as a church
to know our calling, to know our comfort, but to know our
conflict. And may we be strong in the battle,
we pray in the name of Christ, amen.