The Battle Plan

If you have your Bible with you, and I hope you do, turn to the book of Jude, which is where we've
been for the last several weeks. And we'll start this morning with a very simple two-question
holiday movie quiz. All right? So here's the quiz. Who is this boy,
and why is he so alarmed? Okay. You know who the... Who's the actor?
That is Macaulay Culkin. Who's the character he's playing? Kevin McAllister.
Way to go. I'm just seeing how well you know this thing. Home Alone, released in 1990,
this movie made $285 million. It was the highest grossing film of the year.
It cost them $17 million to make it, so they cashed in on this one. In fact, at the time this was
released, it was the third highest grossing film ever. Only Star Wars and E.T.
made more money than Home Alone before this was released. And you know the plot of this.
There's an eight-year-old boy who's left home alone. He is mistakenly, his parents have gone off.
They forgot him. They're at the airport. And there are a couple of robbers who want to rob the
house, and he has to defend the house against this pair of burglars who have come on Christmas Eve.
And you know why he's screaming in the picture, right? Why? He just put on aftershave, and he
didn't know what it was going to do to him. All right. It's a terrible movie, by the way. Home
Alone is a, unless you like, The Three Stooges and Roadrunner cartoons,
which is basically all it is. It's just the Three Stooges and Roadrunner cartoons wrapped up in an
eight-year-old boy. Slapstick, gags, the bad guys who are coming in are slipping and getting
pummeled and getting hit in the head. And Kevin is trying to defend that. I watched it all the way
through one time. That was enough for me. I've also, by the way, I've never watched a Christmas
story all the way through. Yes. Never watched the Red Rye. I saw the tongue on the flagpole.
That was enough for me. I didn't want to watch any more of it after that. For my money, give me
White Christmas and It's a Wonderful Life and throw in Elf and I'm good with all of that, okay? But
I'm still going to show you a clip from the movie this morning just to get you in the holiday
spirit. So this is Kevin. He's just come home from the Christmas Eve service at church and he
recognizes he is the one who's going to have to defend the house. So watch this.
I
assume all of you know what that's a setup for right Kevin is putting all of that stuff out and the
rest of the movie is just the bad guys stepping on things and nails and getting their hands burned
and getting hit in the head and it's so wonderful it's just such a heartwarming movie right but
it's it's Kevin's battle plan That's the reason that I wanted you to see that clip.
It brings us back to the book of Jude. You wondered how I was gonna get from home alone to Jude,
didn't you? Well, here it is. Look at verse three in Jude. The purpose for this whole letter,
Jude says, is 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 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 God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord Jesus
Christ. So I don't know that the filmmakers had the book of Jude in mind, but you can see Kevin has
to defend against the people who are creeping in unaware, all right? So that's, again.
It's a stretch, but go with me on this, right? The invaders have come, Jude says. You have to
contend for the faith. You need a battle plan. And then beginning in verse five of Jude,
Jude goes on to describe for us what these false teachers look like. Here's what they act like.
Here's what they believe. Here's what they don't believe. And he shows us over and over again. that
men like this have been present among God's people throughout the history of the church. All along,
this is nothing new. And then after 13 verses of describing the false teachers,
more than half of the letter, he comes to the passage that we're going to look at this morning, and
he turns the corner. He starts to outline for the faithful followers of Christ what the church must
do if we're going to contend for the faith. So he has described the false teachers. Now he says,
here's how you contend for the faith. In Home Alone, Kevin lays out his battle plan for dealing
with the intruders. By the way, for those of you who are interested, you can't get enough of Home
Alone. You can order from Amazon your very own art print of Kevin's battle plan to hang in your
home. Yes, it's right there for you. But Jude gives his readers, including us today,
a strategy for how to respond to false teachers who have crept into the church. How to face them,
how to contend for the faith once for all. And that's what we're going to look at this morning.
Jude's battle plan for how to contend earnestly for the faith. What is that plan?
We're going to see that this morning. Let's look at our passage together. Again, join me in prayer
as we come to God's word. God, thank you for your word. We pray that your spirit would speak to us
through your word this morning, that you would give us eyes to see, ears to hear,
hearts ready to obey your word. And we pray that you would make your word clear to us today.
We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Jude verse 17, follow along as I read this.
Jude says, 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, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying 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. Amen. May God add his blessing to this reading of his word. The grass withers and the
flower fades, but the word of God will last forever. Verse 17 is actually a turning point in Jude's
letter. He began this letter by talking to his readers directly back in verses 1 through 3.
He tells them, who he is, I'm Jude, I am the half-brother of Jesus,
or I'm the brother of James, and I'm a bond slave of Jesus, I'm writing to those of you who are
beloved and kept by God, and he's talking about God's work in their life and in their midst,
that's what I wanted to write to you about, and then he takes a turn and says, but I have to write
to you about these false teachers, and he starts talking about who they are. And instead of talking
to the reader now, he's saying, here's who they are. These people, in verse 8. Again,
these people, in verse 10. Woe to them, verse 11. Here's who they are. These men,
in verse 12. Verse 14, Enoch prophesied against these men. Verse 16,
these men are grumblers. So he's been talking about them all the way through. And now you get to
verse 17, and he turns and says, but you must remember, beloved.
the false teachers. Now here's what you need to do. Here's how you respond to these men.
And he lays out five imperatives that we're going to be looking at this morning. Five elements of
the battle plan that he has for us. Five things we must do if we're going to contend earnestly for
the faith. We must remember. That's in verse 17. We must build.
That's in verse 20. We must pray. That's in verse 20.
We must keep. That's in verse 21. And we must wait. Five verbs we'll look at this morning.
And the first one is you must remember.
Look at verse 17. You must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Again, he's turning back to his audience. Here's how he described the false teachers so far
now. He says, but you, beloved, Goes back to the start of the letter. Verse 2, he called them the
beloved and the kept. But he starts off and he addresses them as the beloved.
He begins the letter that way, calling them beloved. In verse 17, he again reiterates that. It's
the word agapetos, beloved. And think about that. He could have addressed them not as the beloved.
He could have addressed them as fellow bond slaves. That's what he called himself back in verse 1.
He could have called them little children like John does in his letters. But he wants to drive home
this idea that they are beloved of God.
And he doesn't, he may be saying you're beloved by me. He does in fact love them.
But I think it's bigger than that. They are beloved by God. Back in verse two, beloved of God is
what he says. So when he turns and he says, but you beloved, I think he's not just saying I love
you, but you're beloved of God. This is central to them understanding their identity,
their status with God. They are beloved by God. And so are you.
if you're in Christ. I just want that to sink in this morning.
You are beloved by God. God's primary disposition toward you is love.
He loves you. Now, parents, those of you who are parents, you know the depth of the love you have
for your children. The essential aspect of how God sees you and what's true about you is that He
views you as beloved. He has that parental love that you have for your children.
And this is what Jude wants us to get our heads around. He wants us to see our belovedness as
central to who we are.
When you know as a child that no matter what happens to you, no matter what you do,
your parents will always love you. And by the way, if you're a child, that's true. No matter what
you do, who you are, your parents will always love you. When you know that, it gives you security,
confidence, courage, whatever happens to know that you're beloved.
That's a powerful part of your identity when you know that you have a father who loves you no
matter what you do.
One of my favorite singer-songwriters. who I've mentioned to you before.
We actually had him here for a concert in the early years of Redeemer. It's a guy named Bob
Bennett. And Bob wrote a song that's one of my favorite songs of his.
It's called A Song About Baseball, except it's not really about baseball. Listen as I read the
lyrics. The lyrics go like this. Saturdays on the baseball field and me afraid of the ball.
Just another kid on camera day when the Angels still played in L.A. I was smiling and living black
and white. Baseball caps and bubble gum. I think there's a hole in my glove.
Three and two, life and death. I was swinging with eyes closed, holding my breath. I was dying on
my way to the bench.
But none of it mattered after the game. When my father would find me and call out my name,
a soft drink, a snow cone, a candy bar, a limousine ride in the family car, he loved me no matter
how I played. He loved me no matter how I played.
That's what Jude wants his readers, you and me, to understand and to remember. God loves you.
You are beloved no matter how you play.
He loves you with an everlasting love. His steadfast love endures forever.
So you need to remember that you are the beloved of God.
Verse 17. You also need to remember that the apostles told you that all of this with the false
teachers was going to happen. They told you that there would be false teachers who would show up.
You know, it helps to get a heads up when you're going somewhere. Think about when you're on an
airplane and they come on. And they say, ladies and gentlemen, the captain wants you to buckle up a
little early. We're going to face some turbulence as we head into our landing and make our final
descent. So head up and just be prepared for that. It helps to know that the captain knows that
there's turbulence ahead. When you face the turbulence, it's still a little startling and can be a
little frightening. But if you know the captain knew this was here and he's done this before.
It just gives you a little more confidence. Remember, the captain told you this was coming. That's
what Jude is saying here. Remember the turbulence we're experiencing in the church today with these
false teachers. The captain knew this was coming. They warned us to expect this.
Jesus said it would happen. In the Sermon on the Mount, he said, watch out for false prophets.
They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they're ravenous wolves.
He says, Watch out, this is coming. In Acts chapter 20, Paul tells the Ephesian elders when he
leaves them that savage wolves would come in among them who would distort the truth and draw away
disciples after them.
And then Peter in 2 Peter, which most scholars agree was written a couple of years before Jude. He
said, there will be false teachers among you who will secretly introduce destructive heresies.
even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them, bringing swift destruction on themselves. Jude
says, remember, Jesus said this was going to happen. The apostles said this was going to happen.
They knew false teachers were coming. And then he goes on to give a recap of who these false
teachers are to sum up everything he's been saying about them in the last 11 verses.
They are scoffers. They follow ungodly passions. They cause divisions. They're worldly people,
and they're devoid of the Spirit. Now, I want to look at that. summary of these false teachers for
a minute. But before I do, let me just make an observation about the power of remembering. That
word remember. Most of the time when you get spiritually derailed in your life, it's because you
have forgotten something or you are failing to believe what you're actually remembering.
We forget the promises of God. We forget the truth of what God has said. And when we do,
we get off track spiritually. And when you are spiritually derailed, the path back to God often
involves remembering and re-believing what he said is true.
Let me show you what I mean by taking you to a passage that you've undoubtedly read or heard, but
it's one we need to remember again. It's in the middle of the book of Lamentations.
Lamentations is all about what the title says it is. Lamentations is about about sadness and
discouragement and hard times that are gonna come. That's what Jeremiah is describing in
Lamentations. He's talking about afflictions after affliction. And in chapter three in verse 19,
he says this, remember my afflictions and all my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall.
My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. But this I call.
What's he doing?
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end.
They're new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul.
Therefore, I will hope in him. If you are struggling spiritually in life,
if you're facing hardships or afflictions, you're confused, you've lost hope,
feeling like nobody loves you, what do you need to call to mind? What do you need to remember?
What do you need to re-believe in this moment?
You need to renew your mind with what is true and re-believe it in the midst of the hardship.
You need to remember. Maybe you need to remember, that God causes all things to work together for
good for those who love him and who are the called according to his purposes. Maybe you need to
remember that you're to count it all joy when you encounter various trials. Maybe you need to
remember that you're experiencing what are light and momentary afflictions that are producing in
you an eternal weight of glory. Maybe you need to remember that you're to rejoice in your
sufferings because suffering produces endurance. There is power that comes in remembering and re
-believing the promises of God. So the question is, is there something you need to remember or be
reminded of this morning? A word from the Lord that you can anchor your soul in so that you can
make it through the hardship you're experiencing.
Jude wants his readers to remember that the apostles said these hard times were going to come
because he knew that remembering that this was expected would put them at ease. Again,
it doesn't mean it won't be bumpy when it happens, but it shouldn't take you by surprise. The same
God who told you these things were going to happen also tells us that the gates of hell will not
prevail against his church. So whatever you're experiencing, it may be hard,
but don't worry. The church is going to make it.
So the first step in the battle plan against false teachers, against any attacks of the enemy, is
to remember again and again and re-believe the promises of God. It's the first thing you do when
you're facing hard times. In this case, when you see the false teachers who are exposed in the
church, remember God said to expect this. Don't let it throw you.
And again, after calling his readers to remember that this was foretold, Jude then gives a summary
description of these false teachers in verses 18 and 19. He says,
the apostles said to you, In the last time, let me just pause there. The last time,
that's a specific phrase you'll see in the Bible. When the Bible talks about the last days or the
last times, that means from the time Jesus rose from the dead until the time Jesus comes back.
That's the last time, the last chapter. So when people say,
are we living in the last days? The answer is yes. Been living in the last days for 2,000 years.
But is it going to happen really soon? Who knows? The Lord knows.
We don't. But you're still living in the last time. And so the phrase,
in the last time, means this time. He says, in these last days, false teachers will emerge.
And he says they are scoffers. That's the first thing he says about them. Scoffers are people who
mock, who project an air of superiority. They dismiss those with whom they disagree.
That's a scoff, right? I did that with Mary Ann yesterday. She said, you're scoffing. Do you
remember what I was doing? She said something, and I went like that, and she went, you're scoffing,
because we've been talking about this passage. So I repented of my scoffing, and she was still
wrong, but I repented of my... If you see somebody, listen to me,
if you see somebody presenting himself or herself as a spiritual leader, and that person,
a teacher or a shepherd, and that person routinely mocks other people,
is a scoffer, your antenna should go up. You should be on guard against that person.
That is not the characteristic of a true shepherd.
And I can think back on people. Sometimes we delight in, you go to Twitter,
X, whatever it is, scoffing is everywhere on Twitter. And sometimes you can fall right into it and
go, yeah, you get them, you tell them. That's not who a godly leader should be,
a scoffer, a mocker.
So they are scoffers. Second thing, they follow their ungodly passions. We looked at this back in
verse 15 when it says the ungodly people doing ungodly things for ungodly reasons. It's just
ungodly, ungodly, ungodly. They're following their own ungodly passions. When following Jesus
conflicts with their own desires and passions, they go with their own desires and passions and
leave Jesus behind. That's what it means to follow your ungodly passions.
God wants this, I want that, I'll go with what I want. They cause divisions.
You need to watch out. You need to be on guard against leaders who demand allegiance and loyalty to
them no matter what. Somebody who says, you've got to be loyal to me, you've got to be,
there's allegiance. When they draw firm lines where firm lines should not be drawn,
they are creating unnecessary division. Now, there is necessary division in the Bible.
Jesus drew lines. Jesus said, you're either for me or you're against me.
There's a line there. But the lines should be drawn around things that are essential.
There are hills to die on. There are lines that are necessary. False teachers stir up unnecessary
division by drawing lines where you shouldn't be drawing lines. They make secondary issues into
primary issues. You need to be on guard against people like that.
Then they are worldly people. That's the next thing that this passage says. Worldly people means
they prioritize the things of this world over the things of eternity. It's not that we're supposed
to neglect the things of this world, but our priority should be the eternal,
not the temporal. Our priority should be the things that will last forever,
not the things that are going to be destroyed. We should set our minds,
we're told, on things above, not on things that are on earth. False teachers make worldly things a
higher priority than eternal things. They live for worldly pleasure. They live for worldly power.
Whatever it is, they care more about the here and now than they do about eternity.
They have a worldly perspective. And then the last thing he says is they are devoid of the Spirit.
They profess to believe in Jesus, but they don't really believe in Jesus. As a result,
they have not received the gift of the Spirit. They are devoid of the Spirit. They don't walk by
the Spirit. They're not filled with the Spirit. They don't show the fruit of the Spirit because
they don't have the Spirit. Anyone who is a true child of God is given, when you become a child of
God, the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes to be with you and in you.
These men who claim to be followers of Christ show no evidence of being led by,
controlled by, or influenced by the Holy Spirit. I'm just going to pause here for a second. Francis
Chan wrote a book a decade ago or so. It was a book about the Holy Spirit called The Forgotten God.
And I think that title is exactly right.
Because we live in the post-enlightenment West, we tend to be rationalists and materialists.
We tend to focus on things we can see, touch, feel. Because of the absurd and sometimes heretical
views of the charismatic movement, where the Holy Spirit has been mischaracterized or
overemphasized, we tend to be people who pull back and downplay or minimize. the person and work of
the Holy Spirit. And on one level, it's appropriate for us to back off from the Holy Spirit because
the Holy Spirit wants us to focus on Jesus. That's his ministry.
You get too focused on the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will say, no, focus on Jesus. I'm here to
point you to Jesus. That's his work.
At the same time, we need to understand that the only way you can live out your life for the glory
of God is in the power of the Holy Spirit. You have this gift that God has given you,
his presence with you and in you to empower you, to strengthen you, to help you make it through the
day. And you ought to have a functional awareness throughout your day that the spirit of God is
with you and in you and is present. You need to be walking by the spirit, be filled with the
spirit. You should be manifesting the fruit of the spirit in your life. And when you do, It's
because the Holy Spirit is at work within you, conforming you more and more into the image of
Christ. He is your comforter when you become anxious or troubled. He is your counselor when you
turn to him. You don't turn to him for some kind of subjective guidance on issues apart from the
Scripture. You turn to the Scriptures and ask the Holy Spirit to speak to you through the
Scriptures.
He gives gifts. to all of his children so that we can use those gifts to edify the body of Christ.
He convicts us of our sins. And some of us are going, that doesn't sound like a...
I mean, who wants somebody following you around always pointing out when you sin? You do.
Here's why you want that. Because somebody who will kindly, graciously, gently tap you on the
shoulder and say, no, no, no, no. This is not what a child of God should act like. This is wrong
and can point you back to confession and repentance and restore your relationship. That's a good
gift. The Holy Spirit doesn't convict you of sin to shame you. The Holy Spirit convicts you of sin
so that you can be right with God by restoring all of this. There's a whole lot more we could say
about the ministry of the Holy Spirit. That's another sermon. But in this message, notice that
these false teachers are devoid of this. They don't have any of this. And as children of God,
we have the spirit and need to embrace that. These men are not spirit-led.
If you are a child of God, you have the spirit with you to point you back to Jesus and the gospel
throughout the day. You should not focus too much on him, but you should not lose sight of him.
Make sense? Okay, so Jude has now summarized these. false teachers,
scoffers, following ungodly passions, causing divisions, worldly people who are devoid of the
Spirit. Once he has done that summary of the false teachers, verse 20, he says, but you, beloved,
remember, he's back to beloved, verse 17, now again, he wants you to remember, you are beloved,
beloved, you, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit,
keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now I told you
there were five verbs in this passage that we were going to look at. The first one is remember back
in verse 17. And then there are four more in these two verses. Build, pray,
keep, and wait. Those are the four verses. But let me show you something interesting about these
verbs. And it shows up in the translation. If you've got the English Standard Version translation,
you will notice that... Three of these four verbs in this passage end with ing.
Building yourselves up, praying in the Holy Spirit, waiting. One of them does not have an ing
ending. Keep.
What does that mean? Well, this is reflecting what's actually in the Greek grammar. And you guys
know I'm not a Greek scholar, but people who are Greek scholars point out that the one verb that
does not have the ing ending, keep, that's an imperative verb. The other three with the ing
endings, those are participles. Here's what that means. It means that in these verses,
Jude is saying to his readers, you are to keep yourself in the love of God. And you do that by
building yourself up, praying in the Holy Spirit and waiting for the mercy of Jesus Christ.
So the center of this is keep yourself in the love of God. And the way you do that is by building
yourself up. praying in the Holy Spirit, waiting for Jesus to come back. So even though this is
gonna be out of order, I'm gonna start with keeping yourself in the love of God because I think
that's the overarching command here. And we'll look at that one first. Keep,
keep yourself in the love of God. Two ways you can understand what Jude is saying here.
And I think both of them are true. So I'm not sure which he means, maybe he means both.
But when he talks, about keeping yourself in the love of God. He may be saying you need to keep
maintaining your love for God. You need to keep it kindled.
The second option is that he's saying keep yourself in a place where you are experiencing God's
love for you. We should be loving God. He does love us. Keeping yourself in the love of God could
mean keeping yourself in love with God, or it could mean keeping yourself in a place where God's
love is your regular experience. Again, both are true, and I would say both of these are vital for
you to stay spiritually strong. You need to, first of all, be keeping yourself Keeping kindled in
yourself your own love for God. Remember the church at Ephesus in Revelation chapter 2 when Jesus
is giving messages to the church. The church in Ephesus in Revelation 2, he says to them,
I have this against you. You have lost your first love.
Revelation 2, 4. They had solid doctrine. They were not growing weary.
They were confronting false teachers. But Jesus says, that's all good, but I have this one thing
against you. You have lost your first love. And by the way,
Jesus said that would happen. He said that people's love for him would grow cold.
Back in Matthew 24, many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.
And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.
In order to grow in godliness and be protected against false teachers,
you need to keep your love for God freshly kindled every day. You need to be stirring up your own
passion and affection for God on a daily basis. Now, how do you do that?
Well, actually, Jesus tells us. After he tells the church at Ephesus that they've lost their first
love in Revelation, he goes on to say in Revelation 2.5, remember, therefore, from where you have
fallen, repent and do the work she did at first. One way to rekindle your love for God is to
remember who you were before Jesus saved you.
Repent, that means turn away from how you're walking right now. And do what you did at first.
You remember when you first came to Jesus, the things you did, you couldn't get enough of his word.
You were telling everybody you knew about Jesus. You were just, it was just bubbling. You need to
start that again. Stir that up again. Remember from when you came,
repent, turn away, and start doing what you did at first. Remember the gospel. Remember who you
were. Remember what God has done for you in Christ. Confess your sin. Repent. Turn around. And I
would say spend time meditating. If you spend time meditating on the attributes of God and
meditating on the person of Christ, the reality of the gospel, if that does not stir in you fresh
love for Jesus, then just rinse and repeat. Do it again.
I don't think a child of God can dwell on God's attributes,
his love for us, manifest for us in Christ, and not have your love for him rekindled.
I know you can go through desert seasons where you just read this and it's dry for you. And I'd say
when you're in those desert seasons and it's not stirring up your love again for him, keep doing
it. And ask the Holy Spirit to refresh your love for him.
And at the same time, make sure you are pursuing holiness.
It's not that God loves you less when you're sinning. But your experience of God's love is muted in
your life when you are sinning. Remember David in Psalm 51, when he's confessing his sins to the
Lord, actually in Psalm 32, David talks about God's hand being heavy on him. He says,
when I kept silent about my sin, at the end of that Psalm, he says, many are the sorrows of the
wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord.
Be glad in the Lord and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright at heart. Here's
David after saying, when I confessed my sins, the joy came back. So many are the sorrows of the
wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the Lord. If you need to rekindle your
love for God, trust in the Lord. Be glad in the Lord, rejoice, shout for joy,
worship.
Keeping yourself in the love of God involves Staying away from sin, confessing and repenting of sin
when you do fall into sin.
David says in Psalm 51, Lord, I've confessed my sins. Restore to me the joy of my salvation.
That's keeping yourself in the love of God. Now back to Jude. We keep ourselves in the love of God.
Three ways to do that. First of all, by building up your holy faith. Verse 20.
Your holy faith here is a reference back to verse 3, the faith once for all delivered to the
saints. It's called your holy faith, meaning it's set apart. Our faith in Jesus is different than
any other faith that exists. There are lots of world religions. Honestly, there are lots of labels.
There are only two world religions. There is the religion of human achievement,
and there's the religion of divine grace. Every world religion,
apart from Christianity, teaches if you do these things,
they all have a different set of what these things are, if you do these things, you will earn God's
favor. You want God's blessing, his favor? Do these things and it will happen. That's every world
religion. Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, you name it.
They're all teaching, do these things and you will earn the favor of God. Christianity stands out
as different than that, saying there's nothing you can do to earn God's favor.
This is our holy faith. There's nothing you can do to make yourself right with God. The reason is
you've sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. God's standard is a high standard.
It's perfection. You're not perfect, so you've failed the test. But Christianity,
the gospel says, there's good news for you. Even though you've failed the test, Someone has already
done for you what you were supposed to do. Jesus came and lived the perfect life that you should
have lived. And then he died in your place bearing the sin,
the penalty for sin, that you committed. The technical term for this among theologians is double
imputation. The righteousness of Jesus, his perfect life,
what he earned by living a perfect life, is imputed to you. It's transferred into your account.
And the price that you should pay for your sin, which is death, the wages of sin is death,
Jesus pays that. Forgiveness is also imputed to you. Your sins are imputed to him.
His righteousness is imputed to you. Double imputation. That's all by grace,
not by merit. That's what makes our faith a holy faith.
It's a set-apart faith from every other religion in the world. And you strengthen yourself,
you build yourself up in your faith by believing in the gospel and then by living like it's true,
responding in faith. to what God has said. You build up your faith muscles by exercising faith.
You exercise faith by responding to the truth of God's word positively and obediently,
even when it does not make sense to you. Are there times when you read God's word and you read
something like love your enemy and you go, that does not make sense. If you knew my circumstances,
God, you would not be asking this of me. If you knew how bad that person was. The faith response is
to say, I guess that's what I'm supposed to do. I don't want to. Doesn't seem right to me.
I don't like that one. I'm going to love my enemy. When you do that,
you are strengthening your faith muscles. You are building yourself up in your faith.
You are training yourself to respond in faith to the word of God.
You see what God tells you to do and you do it even if it doesn't make sense. You trust God's word
to be true even when it's confusing to you. And the more you do these things, the more your faith
becomes strong. You are building yourself up in the faith. And when you do,
that will keep you in the love of God.
The stronger you are in your confidence in God and his word, the better protected you will be when
the false teachers come along.
You come to a place in your life where you recognize that you have fallen short of what God
expects? You have not lived the kind of life that you know you ought to have lived,
a life that is honoring and pleasing to God. Have you come to a place where you have believed in,
trusted in, and are following Jesus and his promises, where you are responding by faith to his
word, where you recognize that his righteousness can be a gift to you and that your sin can be
transferred to him? Are you walking in that today?
Are you growing stronger in your faith? If you've never taken that first step toward Jesus by
acknowledging that you've fallen short and that you need someone to rescue you,
you can do that this morning. That's the promise of the gospel. Jesus says, come to me,
all you who labor. and are weary and need rest. You've been trying to earn God's favor and it's
wearing you out. He says, come to me. I'll give you peace. That offer is available to anyone who is
hearing God's spirit press on him and calling him. If that's you this morning, you can take that
first step today. You can just call out to God and say, Lord, that's me. I need your grace,
your mercy, your forgiveness.
Jude says, build yourself up in the faith, build those muscles. And he says, also pray in the Holy
Spirit.
This doesn't mean, as some have suggested, that you're to pray with some kind of an ecstatic
utterance or an unknown tongue. That's another sermon for another day. Here's what praying in the
Spirit means. You're to pray with a conscious awareness that the Holy Spirit is your prayer
partner.
Have you ever sat down with somebody and said, let's pray together? Praying in the Holy Spirit
means you sit down with the Holy Spirit and say, Holy Spirit, let's pray together. And then you are
guided by the Spirit. You are praying in concert with the Holy Spirit.
You pray in alignment with what God's Word says. The Bible tells us that God's Word is the sword of
the Spirit. You ask the Holy Spirit to help you pray when you don't know how to pray.
You stay alert to how God the Holy Spirit may be prompting you. with thoughts in your own mind,
bringing scripture to mind, leading you in that time of prayer. In the book of Ephesians,
after the Apostle Paul tells... The people in Ephesus, how they're to prepare themselves for
spiritual battle by putting on the whole armor of God. He ends that section by saying, take the
helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in
the spirit with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making
supplication for the saints. Keep yourself in the love of God, not only by building up your faith,
but by praying diligently in concert with, in alignment. with the Holy Spirit who will keep
directing you to the word of God and what God's word teaches about how to walk with him.
So build yourself up in your faith, praying with the Holy Spirit. And then the third way that we
keep ourselves in the love of God is by waiting for the mercy of the Lord Jesus.
That's what it says in verse 21. Waiting for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ. It's an
interesting phrase because if you're a believer, You've already received mercy.
In fact, 1 Peter says that. Once you were not a people, now you're God's people. Once you had not
received mercy, now you have received mercy. So believers in Christ, we are recipients of God's
mercy. But this verse has in mind that last day, the day of judgment,
when we will stand, all of us, before the judgment seat of Christ and have to give an account for
our lives. And in that day, the accuser Satan will step forward and read the charges against us and
they'll all be true.
Think about that.
You're standing before the judge of the universe and he says, what are the charges against this
one? And Satan stands up and says, it's a long list. Let me read to you. He starts going through
your whole life and pointing out all of the ways that you have transgressed the law of God.
It's going to take a long time, isn't it? It's going to be a long day when they're reading through
that list. And you're standing there, and every time you hear something else, you go, oh,
this is bad for me. Do we have to go through all of this? Yes, we've got to go through all of it.
When the list is done, all who have surrendered to Jesus,
Jesus will step forward as your advocate, and you will experience in that moment mercy that's been
promised to you.
That's where Jesus will step forward and say, everything. you've read is true,
I paid for it.
And that mercy is applied to you. Are you longing for that day of mercy?
Are you waiting for that day? That's what Jude says. You build yourself, you keep yourself in the
love of God by remembering and waiting for that day. Believers in Jesus are expectantly waiting,
looking forward to the day when Jesus will return and when mercy will be poured out.
And it's our longing for that day, our hope for that certainty that keeps us in the love of God.
So Jude says, in response to false teachers who have come into the church, here's what you do.
Don't be surprised. Remember, the apostles told you this was going to happen. Keep yourself in the
love of God. Build yourself up in your faith. Be strong in the Lord.
Weak people will not contend well. You have to be spiritually strong. to stand up.
Keep yourself in the love of God by making it a pattern to pray regularly in alignment with the
Holy Spirit and be waiting expectantly for Jesus to return and so that you can experience and
realize his mercy on that day.
Now, as we wrap up, two interesting notes about these verses. First of all,
look at verse 20 and 21. We're told to pray in the Holy Spirit, keep yourself in the love of God,
wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus. Notice that in those verses, all three members of the Trinity
are present.
Jude wants to drive home. that all three members of the Trinity are here.
Pray in the Spirit, keep yourself in the love of God the Father, and wait for the mercy of our Lord
Jesus Christ. He also includes the three things that the Bible says are going to last forever.
Faith, hope, and love. Hope is not mentioned specifically, but waiting for that mercy is a
reference to hope. So you are... in the Holy Spirit. You're keeping yourself in the love of God.
You are building yourself up in faith. You are waiting for the hope of mercy.
Father, Son, and Spirit, faith, hope, and love all tied together.
I was in Tulsa this past week to celebrate Thanksgiving. We were over there with our family.
We had a big Thanksgiving. We had 30 of us, I think, over at Marianne's brother's house for
Thanksgiving with turkey and all of that. Great day. We enjoyed it. While I was over there, Our son
David showed me a clip from a pastor in Tulsa who had just stepped down at the end of October after
31 years of being the lead pastor at First Presbyterian Church in downtown Tulsa.
His name is Dr. Jim Miller. And under Jim's leadership, First Presbyterian Church in downtown Tulsa
has sought to remain faithful to the scriptures and to the gospel while other churches in his
denomination have drifted away from gospel truth. He has continued to call his church back to
contending for the faith while others in the denomination have moved away. So when Jim...
preached his final sermon to his church at the end of October,
a month ago, he chose Jude as his text and pointed them to Jude verse three,
where you're to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. As he steps
down from his role as a leader in this church, the burden on his heart for his own congregation and
his denomination is the burden we've been looking at all fall in this letter. It's a burden to
stand firm and to contend for the faith and not to drift spiritually and be seduced by false
teachers. He knows firsthand about false teachers who have crept into the church and into his
denomination. He knows there are pastors in his denomination who long ago gave up on believing that
Jesus actually physically rose from the dead. They don't believe that anymore. And they're
pastoring local churches. He knows there are pastors in his denomination who have adopted a
sentimental view of Christianity. They're big on what Jesus has to say about love and peace,
but they dismiss what he says about holiness and hell.
He knows there are seminaries in his denomination that are teaching that Jesus' death was to show
solidarity with the oppressed. And that evangelism in our world today is colonialism.
There are seminaries teaching this kind of stuff. If you're fulfilling the Great Commission, you're
being a colonist. He's watched his denomination slip away from the faith once for all delivered to
the saints. He doesn't want his own church to slip. So he says, contend for the faith in the midst
of this. He knows that unless the leadership and membership of a local church remains vigilant,
False teachers can creep in any time and take this thing sideways. It could happen here
unless we stay alert,
unless we keep ourselves in the love of God, unless we build ourselves firm in our faith,
unless we are praying regularly and faithfully in the Holy Spirit, unless we keep looking forward
to the day when the revelation of God's mercy will come in that last day. That's the strategy we
have to keep coming back to, to stand firm against false teachers and to contend for the faith.
Pray with me. Father,
thank you that you have not left us here alone, ill-equipped, that you have given us what we need
so that we can remain faithful and stand firm and continue the work of your church.
Lord, we pray for the church in America.
a church that is drifting, people who are being seduced. It is so easy to be seduced by false
teachers.
We pray that you would continue to raise up men and women who stand firm in the faith.
Lord, help us to be diligent in our own, caring for our own souls and protect this church,
I pray. Protect us. for generations to come,
for as long as you would be at work in this place. Keep us faithful. We ask it in Jesus' name.
Amen.