Jude 20-23

The Shepherd's Church

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:00

Let's pray. Father God, I pray that as we open your word tonight, that,

00:10

Lord, you would allow us by your Holy Spirit to understand it, to wrestle with it, and to love it.

00:18

Lord God, I pray as we are just here that you would write it on our hearts, that,

00:24

Lord, you would make your word memorable, that, Lord, like you said multiple times in this book, to remember the words,

00:30

Lord, would you cause us to remember them? Would you cause us to cherish them and treasure them? And, Lord, as I preach, would you help me to stay rooted to this word?

00:40

Lord, would you help me not to be ashamed of this word? Lord, would you help me to be passionate about this word?

00:47

Lord, would you help me to speak accurately about this word? Because it's in you that we have our life and our being.

00:54

It's in these words that we find life. Not in our words, not in our productions, not in our performances.

01:02

These are the words of life. And, Lord, let us honor you by the way that they are delivered, and the way that they are listened to in Christ's name.

01:13

Amen. The book of Jude begins and ends roughly the same way.

01:20

It begins and ends with the most beautiful and practical theology, some of the most beautiful theology in all of the

01:26

New Testament. The middle of the book develops and expounds upon all of the problems that were going on in the church.

01:34

Wolves and false teachers had come into this church, and they were destroying the church. But the beginning and the end focus on the believers.

01:43

And the beginning and the end really try to advance one or two major points of doctrine that we must understand if we're going to understand what

01:51

Jude is saying. The first thing that they do is they teach us who we are in Christ.

01:56

The book begins with our identity. The book begins with that we are slaves of Christ. That's our identity.

02:02

The book begins that we are called by God with an irrevocable calling. That we are loved by God with an irreplaceable love.

02:12

That we are kept by Jesus Christ for the day of Jesus Christ, so therefore we are secure.

02:18

The entire book opens up with our identity as a Christian. And then the second thing that it's going to do today is it's going to now show us what are we called to do about it.

02:30

You see, the way the Bible works typically is that it spends the majority of the time teaching you who you are and then a little bit of time at the end teaching you what you're supposed to do.

02:41

It's because identity precedes ethics. Who you are always becomes comes before what you're called to do.

02:50

We see that in the book of Jude. For instance, last week in 17 through 20, we see who we are.

02:57

We are people of the truth. We are people of the Bible. We are people of the Spirit. We are spirit and truth believers.

03:03

And as we saw last week, we are also people who are living in the last days. These are all things about who we are.

03:11

Now, this week, we're going to learn about what we're supposed to do. In verses 20 through 23,

03:17

Jude gives us six practical things that we are supposed to do in light of what

03:23

Jesus Christ has done. So if you will, look at verse 20 through 23 with me. But you, beloved, building yourself up on your most holy faith, praying in the

03:35

Holy Spirit, keep yourself in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our

03:42

Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life, and have mercy on some who are doubting, and then save others, snatching them out of the fire.

03:52

Jude gives us six things that we are supposed to do, but we have to understand how he's structuring his letter.

04:01

You see, in a typical Jewish letter, especially in a Greek letter in the New Testament time, 80 % of the book would be about teaching, doctrine, and identity.

04:11

Only 20 % of it would actually be commands. Now, that 80 -20 rule is thoroughly consistent in every single book of the

04:19

Bible, from Romans all the way to 3rd John and Jude. Every single book of the

04:24

New Testament spends 80 % of the time teaching you who you are, and teaching you doctrine, and then 20 % of the time teaching you what you're supposed to do about it.

04:33

Now, I say that because churches spend almost 95 % of their time applying the text, and only 5 % actually teaching you who you are in Christ.

04:45

We have thoroughly reversed the New Testament order. The New Testament says that we're to teach you who you are in Jesus before we ever tell you what you're supposed to do about it, but yet application seems to be the primary communication tool in today's church, and it's wrong.

05:03

After teaching people who they are, then the writer switches to godly action. It's because teaching on our

05:09

Christian identity must come first. If the New Testament reversed it and taught you what you're supposed to do before telling you who you are, you might end up believing that your salvation is wrapped up in your performance, that your salvation is wrapped up in what you can do, that you can earn your approval before God because of your good works.

05:29

That's false. Identity always comes first. It's like an apple tree.

05:36

You don't get apples without a root. The root has to be present. The root has to grow into a trunk.

05:43

The trunk has to grow into branches. The branches have to receive life and water from the soil. About 80 % of the magnitude of the tree is not fruit, but it is absolutely necessary if you want the fruit to come.

05:58

The root has to come before the fruit. It cannot be reversed. Now, Jude's letter follows this pattern.

06:06

He spent about 80 % of the time teaching us who we are, and even through the harder sections on 4 through 16, he teaches us who we are in opposition to who the false teachers are.

06:21

So he's teaching us through the negative. Either way, he spent 80 % of the time teaching us who we are before he tells us what we do because he doesn't want us to mistake this doctrine.

06:33

He doesn't want us to ever believe that we can earn God's love by being better Christians. We already have

06:39

God's love. Because of what Jesus Christ has done, you're already accepted. These are things that are natural.

06:46

Just like a healthy tree produces fruit, a healthy Christian will do these things. We don't do these things to become healthy.

06:52

We do these things because we already are through Jesus Christ. Does that make sense? I say that because I don't want us to think that we can get a better status with God from this sermon.

07:03

I issue this warning. If you are not in Christ, whether you're here today or whether you're listening online at some point in the future, please do not attempt to live your life like Jesus without first being surrendered to Jesus.

07:19

Because at the end of your life, the only thing that you will have to show for yourself is moralism, legalism, and it will send you to hell.

07:27

Please, if you are listening to this sermon and you are not in Jesus Christ, surrender your life to him.

07:33

Love him. Worship him. Be born again through the Spirit of God before ever trying to live like a

07:40

Christian. You can read the Bible and memorize things and you can start applying them and you can probably improve your life.

07:48

You can probably be a better person. It won't get you to heaven. It won't save you.

07:55

It'll leave you utterly rejected. Unless you are found in Christ, you will be lost.

08:01

That's the unified message of the New Testament. But I issue this also for us who are

08:07

Christians. If you're here, please do not believe that all you have to do is come to Christ and the rest of your life you can do whatever you want.

08:17

That's not what a healthy Christian is. You see, when our roots are in Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ begins flowing through us.

08:25

We begin loving the things that Jesus loves, longing for the things that Jesus longs for. We begin doing the kinds of things that Jesus does.

08:33

It's both. If you are in Christ, you begin living like Christ and that's what we're going to focus on today.

08:42

So with that, turn with me to Jude 20a and we're going to begin the ethical section of the book of Jude by beginning with the first command and that is to build.

08:52

Jude says, Beloved, building yourself up on the most holy faith.

08:59

What Jude is saying here is that there is an expectation of a Christian that if you are in Christ, you will build.

09:06

You will build yourself up in the faith. You will grow. That's an expectation of what it means to be a

09:13

Christian. That you will structure your entire life around Jesus Christ. That you will make continual strides toward holiness.

09:22

The natural consequence of being connected to Jesus Christ is growing into the image of Jesus Christ.

09:28

To Jude and the rest of the New Testament writers, there is no such thing as an unsanctified Christian.

09:34

There's no such thing as a Christian who doesn't build up their life into the faith. There's no such thing as a

09:39

Christian who's content with little faith, little discipleship, little obedience, and little love for God.

09:45

It's not a Christian. Thomas Manton, who's a famous Puritan, said people who are content with little faith have no faith.

09:56

People who are content with little faith have no faith. Why? Because when you are connected to Jesus, you naturally long for Him.

10:09

You naturally want to love Him. Apathy is antithetical to being connected to Christ.

10:16

Loving Jesus and being connected to Him does not produce apathy. It just doesn't.

10:23

So if your affections are not for Jesus, if you have no desire to follow Jesus, you need to work out your salvation with fear and trembling and ask yourself, am

10:31

I really connected to Christ? Why is my heart not in love with Him? Because if you are connected to Him, you want to build your life around Him.

10:43

It's kind of like a pregnancy. When a baby is in the mother's womb, she's connected to her mother.

10:52

She can't help but grow. The baby receives everything that she needs through the umbilical cord, all the nutrients, all of the supplies.

10:59

She doesn't have to think about it. She doesn't have to try to grow. It just naturally happens. Unless there's a problem with the connection, she will grow and she will be healthy.

11:10

In the same way, if your connection to Jesus Christ is secure, it will grow.

11:17

It may not be instant. It may not be fast. It takes the entirety of our lives. But the natural consequence of being connected to Jesus Christ is that you will grow.

11:27

That's what you were designed for. We were not made to remain immature, just like a child.

11:34

A child grows up, and a child begins to take care of itself, and then a child has children, and it starts taking care of others.

11:40

We were designed for maturity. We were not designed for immaturity. Which means that it is impossible for a true

11:51

Christian to not grow over the course of their entire life. It is impossible for a true

11:58

Christian to never have enthusiasm for Jesus and to never long to love Him. It is impossible for us to never grow up in our faith if you're really connected to Christ.

12:09

Because when you're connected to Him, you end up growing. Now, what does that have to do with building? Because what we have received is what we are called to do.

12:20

That's the essence of today's message. What Jesus has done for us, now we are called to do.

12:25

Who's the author and perfecter of our faith? Who's the one who built our faith out of nothing at the cross at Calvary?

12:33

Christ is the true builder. So isn't it interesting that He calls us to build? Christ builds our salvation, but He calls us to build our faith.

12:43

Very interesting. In the Bible, building is a common metaphor for two things.

12:49

I'm going to describe them both. The first one is a way of describing what your life is built upon. Jesus in the

12:55

Gospels talks about building your life on sand. If you're building your life on sand, then you're building your life on the ways of the world and on the world's pattern of thinking.

13:04

And Jesus says that when the storm comes, it will tear your house down because your life is not built on the rock.

13:11

But if your life is built on the rock of Jesus Christ, nothing can knock you down. Nothing can shatter you.

13:17

Your faith is secure to be built, which is what Christ has done, is

13:22

He has built us on Him. We are built on the foundation of Jesus Christ. That's the first point.

13:29

The second way that the word is used in the New Testament is to describe our responsibility to build.

13:37

Christ is the one who built the foundation. We don't get to do that, but we have a responsibility to build.

13:42

Build ourself up in truth. Build ourself up in obedience. The Scriptures teach us that Christ is our foundation, but it says we must build the house.

13:52

Nobody drives up to a perfect, beautifully laid foundation, unpacks their bags and says,

13:57

I'm ready to live here. I'm ready to move in. No roof, no bathroom, no bedroom, no pantry, nothing.

14:03

Nobody does that. Christ is the true foundation, but He calls us to build the house. He calls us to build our life on Him.

14:10

He calls us to build every square inch of our existence upon Him. He doesn't say build a few rooms on me.

14:21

He doesn't say the room that is the church, build that on me. The room that small group and Bible study in quiet time, build that on me.

14:29

But as far as my entertainment preferences and as far as my job and as far as my affections for my spouse,

14:35

I'm gonna put those over here because I'm not gonna surrender those to Jesus. Jesus wants all of our life for nothing.

14:42

He wants us to build everything on Him. When Jude says build yourself up in the faith, he says the most holy faith, meaning that all of you has got to be built on Jesus Christ.

14:52

Every part of you has to be surrendered to Him. This takes time.

15:01

This doesn't happen immediately. It'll take an entire lifetime and even an entire eternity for us to grow into the image of Christ.

15:11

The point is, are you trying? The point is, are you striving? The point is, are you longing to be like Jesus?

15:21

It's like an architect. An architect has all the plans laid out and it can look at a house and it can tell if a house is gonna be up to code or if it's following the plans.

15:33

A building inspector, same thing, can come out to a building and say this is out of code. This is not right.

15:39

In the same way, we have to have courage to examine our life in light of Scripture and find what areas of our life are still not in submission to Christ and then build them towards faithfulness and then build them towards holiness and it might take tearing down some things that you really don't want to tear down and it might mean letting

15:58

Jesus into some areas of your life that you really don't want Jesus to go into and that's okay.

16:05

Because we have a lifetime to surrender our lives to Christ. We must do this.

16:12

Because what Jesus wants to do in you and through you and with you is far better than what you're clinging to.

16:20

Jude says, but you beloved, building yourself up on your most holy faith lets us know that in light of what

16:27

Jesus Christ has done, we have a responsibility to build. We have a responsibility to bring all of our life into submission to Christ.

16:35

That's the first thing that Jude is teaching us. The second thing is that he tells us to pray in the

16:41

Spirit. He says, beloved, building yourself up on your most holy faith, praying in the

16:47

Holy Spirit, which simply means praying in a manner that is consistent with the

16:52

Spirit of God. He doesn't mean wild, ecstatic, nonsensical blubbering.

16:59

Pentecostals have long taken this particular verse out of context to mean a hidden language or a prayer language or speaking in tongues.

17:06

That is not what Jude is saying. There's other verses you can make that argument from, but that is not what Jude is saying. He's talking to people who are under attack.

17:13

We have to remember the context here. These people are under attack from wolves in their church, and Jude is telling these people who they are.

17:21

These wolves are trying to tear down the church, so he tells them to build. Does that make sense? Because of what

17:27

Christ has done, they respond to the dysfunction by doing what Jesus has done. Because of these people who are devoid of the

17:34

Spirit of God, they're called to live life in the Spirit of God. The world doesn't have the

17:39

Spirit. These wolves don't have the Spirit. These people are called to live in the Spirit of God.

17:45

There's no indication whatsoever from the context that this verse means anything other than a normal Christian who is praying prayers with the

17:53

Spirit of God who indwells them because of what Jesus Christ has done. These people are being beaten for their faith, and Jude is not telling them to go hide away in a cloister and speak gibberish to each other.

18:04

That is not what Jude is saying. He tells them to pray as Spirit -indwelled and Spirit -empowered people and showcase the

18:13

Spirit of God in their life. That's what Jude is saying. To pray in the Spirit as men and women who are regenerated.

18:23

As Christians, I don't think we understand this at all. As Christians, we have the very Spirit of God who raised

18:29

Jesus Christ from the dead living inside of us. When we pray, it is a triune moment that is happening.

18:37

When we pray, the Holy Spirit in Romans 8, it says that He is praying words that are too deep for us to possibly understand because our words are not deep enough.

18:46

The Spirit is reinterpreting our words and praying for us. Jesus is standing before the Father in heaven, and He's handing our prayers over to God, and God receives those prayers from us.

18:56

Not because we're worthy, but because His Spirit and His Son have sanctified those prayers and delivered those prayers over to God.

19:02

When we pray, we hold court with the triune God. That is amazing!

19:08

When we pray, we hold court with the triune God as sinful creatures, as creatures that do not deserve it.

19:19

It's beautiful. Knowing these truths, knowing how deeply the Father loves you because of what

19:25

Christ has done, knowing that the Spirit is with you, helping you in your weakness, should cause us to want to pray.

19:32

Do you see what I'm saying here? The Bible doesn't tell you, pray and pray and pray, and then

19:37

God will love you. It says because of God's unbelievable, unimaginable love, your heart should be warm to pray.

19:45

Your affection should be stirred to long to pray. That's what this is saying. A prayerless

19:50

Christian is a contradiction in terms. It doesn't exist. A Christian who comes to God only out of duty without a shred of delight is a contradiction in terms.

20:01

Jude is equipping these Christians for war, but without swords and without guns and without battering rams, he's equipping them to do battle with all of the enemies of God on bended knee and folded hand.

20:15

That's the weapon that God's equipping us with. He's equipping us to live life in the

20:20

Spirit, pray prayers in the Spirit, and that is effective in the kingdom of God. And as we await on the return of Christ, we are not only responsible to build up our faith and to conform our life to Jesus's image, we're responsible to pray.

20:38

We're responsible to cry out to God in the Spirit of God. That's the second thing.

20:44

The third is that Jude says that we're called to keep. He says, but you beloved, building yourself up on your most holy faith, praying in the

20:53

Holy Spirit, keep yourself in the love of God. I love this one so much because it assumes that we're reading.

21:01

It assumes that we're remembering what that word keep actually means. Because if you do what many people do and they open the

21:11

Bible to just a random verse and then they find which one is applicable to them, you might read this verse out of context.

21:19

It might look like it says, you keep yourself in God's love, meaning you have to save yourself and you have to sustain yourself and you have to keep yourself saved.

21:28

It's not what it's saying. Remember what Jude says in verse 1, that Jesus is keeping you, that Jesus is guarding you and protecting you until the day he returns.

21:38

You cannot be lost if you're a Christian. Jude is not saying keep yourself in relationship with God.

21:45

He's saying keep yourself in the love of God. What does he mean by that?

21:51

Because there's a difference. I think about it kind of like a marriage.

22:00

I've used this example many times. If I go home today and I don't take out the trash,

22:06

I don't cease to be married. If for the rest of my life I say to myself, I'm never taking out the trash again.

22:13

I hate taking out the trash. I won't cease to be married. I have a really good wife and she's not gonna divorce me.

22:20

But let's just say that. That doesn't, my performance doesn't improve my marriage and my lack of performance doesn't decrease my marriage.

22:28

Marriage is a legal status. I can't be more married by doing more dishes.

22:35

I can't be less married by doing less vacuuming. It's a status. But that doesn't mean that we will always be happy in our marriage.

22:48

While we are always married, we can do many things to increase or decrease our enjoyment of our marriage.

22:59

There's a spiritual lesson here. Because there is nothing that we can ever possibly do to make

23:06

God love us more. Nothing. The love of God is. There's nothing you can do to improve it.

23:12

There's nothing you can do to decrease it. There's nothing you can do to make yourself more saved or less saved.

23:18

God is keeping you. You are safe. But there are plenty of things you can do to decrease your experience of that salvation.

23:28

Just like in marriage when we do things that we know please our partner. When we do things that we know pleases God and invigorates our relationship with God.

23:35

We're not doing them to impress him. We're doing them because we love him. And when we do those things it invigorates our relationship with him.

23:43

But when we do things that we know are displeasing to God, it sours our relationship with God.

23:50

It hurts our relationship with God. We do damage. I don't know if you've ever sat in the room with an angry spouse.

23:57

I've never had this happen. It's a miserable moment, I'm told.

24:05

There's lots of times that we do damage in our relationship with God. We feel shame and we feel guilt and we feel many things that aren't supposed to be for the

24:15

Christian. And it's because we've brought damage to the relationship, not God. It is entirely possible while you are a

24:24

Christian, while you are saved, while you are going to go to heaven, that God can appear distant and aloof because of the sin that you've allowed into your life.

24:34

It is entirely possible that you can quench the Spirit of God and not feel joy in your salvation because it's not

24:43

God who has failed you. It is you who have done damage in the relationship. That's possible.

24:51

I say all of this because Jude is not telling us to keep ourselves saved.

24:56

He's telling us to fight for joy. He's telling us to fight for pleasure with God and to fight for intimacy with God and to guard our life with the same ferocity that Jesus guards our salvation.

25:10

Jesus is guarding our salvation so that we can never be lost. We have to fight for joy, just like in marriage.

25:16

If you never put forth any effort in your marriage, you'll have a bland and lifeless marriage. If you never put any effort in your relationship with God, it will be stale and it will be lifeless.

25:30

Guard your life. Keep yourself in the love of God. Do the kinds of things that please

25:36

God and you'll find that your relationship will be so strong. That's the third thing.

25:44

The fourth thing that Jude calls us to do is to wait. It's to wait.

25:51

Jude says, but you beloved, I keep reading this because it's one sentence in the original language, so I want us to see all of it in full.

25:59

So I'm unpacking a little bit at a time. But you beloved, building yourself up on your most holy faith, praying in the

26:06

Holy Spirit, keep yourself in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our

26:11

Lord Jesus Christ. Again, I love this so much because he's telling us to be active and eager in building up our life.

26:20

He's telling us to passionately and regularly pray prayers in the Holy Spirit. He's telling us to rest in our salvation.

26:26

He's telling us to deliberately fight for our experience of joy. He's telling us to wait anxiously for the day of Christ.

26:33

All of these are active energy words. None of this is passive. All of these things assume enthusiasm and passion.

26:45

All of these things assume deliberate effort on our part. Not to earn

26:51

God's love and because of God's love. Because of God's love we do these things.

26:58

I was thinking about this today. Enthusiasm and passion are things that are marked by new

27:03

Christians, but not older Christians a lot of times. Christians come to Christ and they are so excited and so passionate.

27:11

I remember this woman that I talked to. She was so overjoyed and so blown away by the simple fact that God loves her.

27:19

That God forgives her. That God knows everything that she's ever done and yet he still loves her.

27:26

And she was infectious to be around. She would go to her work and she would tell everybody

27:32

I was afraid she was gonna get fired. She was on fire for Jesus. And I believe that God is pleased with that kind of childlike faith.

27:41

I actually don't think that we should aspire to move beyond that. Jesus said, let the little children come to me.

27:47

And it's, you know, as faith of a child. Very pleasing to the Lord. I think that the Lord loves that.

27:54

But have you ever wondered why so many Christians when they get older in their faith, they lose the joy. They lose the zeal.

28:01

They lose that passion. I remember having conversations with her. There were people who literally came up to her and said, you're in the honeymoon phase of your faith.

28:12

One day it'll taper off and it'll die out. Why would we ever tell that to a brand new

28:18

Christian? Why would we ever say to someone that Jesus is good right now, but don't worry.

28:25

He'll become boring later. Why would we ever say that? Why would we ever tell someone to manage their experience just because we don't have joy.

28:35

We're trying to squash their joy. Just because we are not content in our relationship with Christ, we're jealous and we don't want them to be content in Christ.

28:45

Why would we ever create an expectation that life with Jesus will become boring? These kind of encouragements were offensive to her and hurt her feelings, of course.

28:55

And she would say things like, shouldn't I love Jesus more the more that I get to know him? Shouldn't I be more passionate about him in ten years than I am right now?

29:03

She's right. She's absolutely right. But we come back to the fact that many of us lose that joy and many of us lose that zeal over the course of our life.

29:14

And I think these verses actually begin to help us understand why that happens.

29:22

When circumstances and when life and when schedules and when Jesus no longer seems new and his second coming doesn't seem like it's gonna happen and we lose our joy.

29:31

I think these verses actually help us see why this happens.

29:39

And I think it's because over time we allow the world and its preoccupations to enamor us instead of Christ.

29:48

It says to wait anxiously on Jesus Christ. It doesn't just say to wait. It says wait anxiously.

29:54

This is one of the only times in the New Testament where the word anxious is used in the positive. This reminds me of my dog.

30:03

It's true. When we leave, our dog loves our house. Our dog has so many toys.

30:09

Her name's Snuggie. She looks like a little walking mop. She has toys.

30:17

She likes to play. She's happy. But when we leave, especially when my wife leaves because my wife is my dog's master, she does nothing but sit in the window for hours and wait.

30:30

I've been at home all day when Shannon was gone and she would sit there without moving. She didn't go get her water.

30:36

She didn't go get her food. She stared down the road. And when her eyes were closed, her ears would perk up when she would hear a car coming down the road because she was waiting anxiously for her master to return.

30:47

There was nothing in the house that could bring her joy. There was nothing in the house that could make her excited.

30:53

She wanted her master more than anything. And as I was thinking about that, why don't we want

30:58

Jesus like that? We spend so much time finding joy with all the toys, with all the things that we have, with all the things that this life gives us that we forgot to look, and we forgot to wait, and we forgot to be anxious for the return of Jesus Christ.

31:12

These things that we experience are nothing in comparison to the joy that it's going to be when

31:17

Jesus Christ returns. These things are nothing. This world is meant to meet our basic needs.

31:28

It's kind of like this. It would be very strange if you went to Logan and there was someone who unpacked their suitcase and put out a tent and decided to live in the airport.

31:38

That would be very strange. Because you're not meant to live in the airport. You're just meant to pass through.

31:45

You're meant to be there en route to your destination. That's all this world is. It's a temporary dwelling place that we're here for a moment of time, the blink of an eye en route to eternity.

31:56

Don't dig your roots deep down into this world. Be anxious for the return of Christ.

32:01

Long for his return. See this world actually for what it is.

32:06

This world's not our home. In a sense, Jude is telling us to stop trying to let the things of this world make us happy.

32:15

Stop letting your kids give you happiness. Stop looking for your spouse to fulfill you, or your family to complete you, or the lack of these things that identify you.

32:25

If you're single, that's okay. Be content in Christ. If you're married, that's okay. Be content in Christ.

32:32

For every person in every situation, we are to wait anxiously for Christ because he is better and he is good.

32:40

Stop looking at all of these things around us because they're empty and yearn for Jesus Christ.

32:46

That's what Jude is saying. When you look at the news later tonight, and you see all the problems in the world, yearn for the day that Jesus Christ returns.

32:55

When you hear murders and robberies, yearn for the day of Jesus Christ. When you see the good things in your life, know that they are not really good in comparison to the great and mighty

33:04

Jesus Christ who, when he returns, then we will finally have a definition for the word good. Stop looking for the world to satisfy you.

33:14

Use all the anxiety that you have. I have anxiety. I have depression. I have all that stuff. Use that energy to fuel you to Christ.

33:22

This week was really hard for me. I had like 15 things that happened, and when life hits you, it disorients you.

33:30

It makes you focus on yourself and on your problems and on your situation, on your circumstances, and I stopped looking to Christ.

33:37

And I started looking at all of the things that were going on, and I got sad, and I got frustrated. And I remember this week in my room,

33:44

I had to fight for joy. I had to fight and pray and ask God to help me with this because every feeling inside of me was just weighing me down, and I was feeling sad and depressed, and what

33:54

I realized is that if I take my eyes off Jesus Christ, and I start looking to everything in my life,

34:00

I will become depressed. I will be a mess. When you do that, you won't lose joy.

34:08

You won't. It's when you stop doing that that you lose joy. When you do that, it'll be easier to build your life on Jesus because he's all that you have.

34:18

When you realize what the world is, it will cause you to pray because it'll propel you to Jesus Christ because he's all that you have.

34:26

It'll be easier to find love and intimacy and pleasure in God because you won't even think about trying to find it in anything else.

34:33

When you wait anxiously for Christ, it will actually help you accomplish all of these things that Judah's telling us to do.

34:41

Paul says it this way, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time, and Paul had some good things happen in his life.

34:48

He categorizes every bit of it as suffering, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us on the day of Jesus Christ.

34:59

Paul learned the secret. Instead of navel -gazing at his circumstances, Paul realized the secret was to look up and to wait and to hope for the return of Jesus Christ.

35:10

In Philippians 4, he says it like this, I've learned how to be content in every circumstance I'm in.

35:15

I know how to get along with humble means and I know how to get along in prosperity. In any and every circumstance that I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both in having abundance and suffering.

35:28

How? I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Look, I grew up in a

35:34

Christian school and this was the verse that we prayed every time we played a basketball game because we could do all things through Christ who strengthens us.

35:41

That's not what this verse means. I actually chose that verse as my verse in my yearbook.

35:47

I didn't know what it meant. Paul is saying we can do all things through Christ because he is better than all things.

35:56

That's what he's saying. Don't put your hope in victory. Don't put your hope in possessions and materialism.

36:02

Don't put your hope in anything other than Christ and all of that stuff doesn't matter anymore because you found the secret of being content.

36:09

To be content you have to find Christ all -satisfying. That is what Paul is saying. Paul didn't find contentment in this world and in his possessions.

36:17

That would be utterly fickle. Paul had a crazy life. Paul's life often looked like the cardiogram up and down, up and down.

36:26

Do you realize how schizophrenic his life would have felt if he put his hope in his circumstances and how bipolar your life will feel if you try to put your hope in your circumstances.

36:35

Put your hope in the anchor that is Jesus Christ. He'll never fail you. He'll never let you down. He's always consistent.

36:41

He's always good. Wait anxiously for Christ and you will have joy. That is what

36:46

Jude is saying. To stop trying to find pleasure in the world and find pleasure in God.

36:53

C .S. Lewis says it like this. I love this quote. Pretty much everything C .S. Lewis says is gold, but this is one of my favorites.

37:01

He says, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong but too weak.

37:08

We are half -hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us.

37:17

Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the streets because he can't imagine what it's meant by an offer of a holiday at the sea.

37:26

We are far too easily pleased. What Lewis is saying, what

37:32

Jude is saying is that these temporary things that we can find pleasure in are nothing compared to Jesus Christ.

37:39

It's the equivalent of trying to make a mud pie in the street compared to a holiday at the beach.

37:44

That's what elevate your gaze. Look to Christ. Now before we continue, that's the first four ethical commands.

37:55

What I want us to see is this beautiful theology that runs all the way through them.

38:00

You see, these four commands are saturated with the triune

38:05

God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The first ethical command that Jude gives is build up your faith.

38:13

How do you do that? Pray in the Holy Spirit, keep yourself in the

38:19

Father's love, and wait anxiously for Jesus Christ, Father, Son, and Spirit.

38:26

What Jude is saying is to cure the problems in your life, the hurt in your life, the pain and the depression in your life, the times that you've been abused, or the times when you've been the abuser.

38:36

The cure to everything is a satisfying, deep relationship with three people, and it's the triune

38:42

God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We cannot be just Jesus -only people. We can't just be

38:47

God -only people. We have to be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit people. We have to have a triune faith.

38:54

What I love about Jude's encouragement here is that we are to have an active relationship with the

39:01

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and if we do that, it will cure everything in our life. It's not about wealth.

39:08

It's not about prosperity. It is about orienting your gaze to the one and only God who is

39:13

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. These are the four ethical commands, and they're bound up in the

39:20

Trinity. The final two that Jude gives us dictate now how we do life in the community.

39:28

The first four are really how we do our relationship with the Lord on an individual level. These last two talk about how we do life in the community of God, the church.

39:38

The fifth one says that we are to have mercy. Again, all of this is one sentence.

39:44

That's why we're taking all these verses together. But you, beloved, building yourself up on your most holy faith, praying in the

39:51

Holy Spirit, keep yourself in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life, and have mercy on some who are doubting.

40:02

Now, Jude is not a fan of run -on sentences for no reason. Paul sometimes has nine and ten verses that are just one sentence in Greek.

40:12

There's no period until you get all the way down here. Jude is not just a fan of useless run -on sentences here.

40:18

He cannot, and he will not, separate any of these thoughts together. They have to go together, because when you love

40:24

God, that means you will also begin loving others. That is what Jude is saying. Jesus even says it in the

40:31

Gospels that we are to love the Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and that should fuel us to what?

40:37

Love our neighbor as ourself. If we love the triune God, if we worship the triune

40:43

God, it should fuel us to godly behavior in the community. It should fuel us to want to have mercy on others who are doubting.

40:54

No one loves the triune God rightly and becomes selfish. No one loves the triune

41:00

God rightly and turns in on themself. No one loves the triune God who has always and forever, all eternity, been in relationship with one another.

41:08

No one loves him rightly and ends up in isolation. It's impossible.

41:15

The most natural thing that we can do as we grow to love God is also grow to love others, especially those in the household of faith.

41:25

Now, there's a lot of different ways that this can happen. I'll give you two wrong examples, and I'll give you the right one.

41:32

There's some churches that believe that the best way to love their people is to create concert style events.

41:40

That's the way that we love our people, and that's the way that we make sure that they have proper faith is we entertain them and we turn them into consumers.

41:46

That's wrong. The second wrong way that churches have sought to teach this is that we become overly academic, and we become so deep and so full and so rich and so dry that we don't even know who

41:58

God is anymore. We just have right doctrine. Those churches talk about God, but no one ever gets to meet him because he's so high and lifted up.

42:07

The right way is when a church puts forth God in all of his splendor and majesty and invites people to meet him.

42:18

When you do that, you will begin loving your community, caring for the broken, and having mercy on those who are doubting.

42:25

Jude says, but you, beloved, build yourself up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourself in the love of God, wait anxiously for the mercy of our

42:33

Lord Jesus Christ, and have mercy on those who are doubting. That and, and have mercy, the only time he uses the word and in the sentence means that he's connecting those two thoughts.

42:44

All of those things that come out of the love for God and have mercy on others means that we can have mercy on others because we love

42:52

God. Loving God causes us to love other people. That's what he's saying. When you know who

43:06

Christ is and who God is and who the Spirit is, it causes you to love others better. For instance, when you know how much mercy

43:13

Christ has had on you, it makes you joyful to give mercy to others. Do you remember what verse 1 says in the very beginning of the book?

43:22

That God is multiplying mercy, peace, and love in the believer. He's not doing those things so that we can get fat on his grace.

43:31

He's not doing those things so that we can be gluttonous with his gifts. He's doing those things.

43:37

He's creating a storehouse of mercy in us so that we can be merciful to others. He's given us mercy, peace, and love in abundance so we can turn around and love others.

43:51

Because he has loved us, we can love. Because he has shown grace, we can show grace. Because he has forgiven us, we can forgive.

43:57

Because he forgave us, we can forgive others no matter what they've done.

44:05

What God has deposited in us, we must use in the service of others. That's what

44:11

Judas is really getting at. And we can do that by showing up. We don't have to do anything extravagant.

44:19

We can just sit and listen to where someone's at and hear them. We can give an ear. We can give our time.

44:25

We can give our talents. We can give our resources. We can give sacrificially. The point is to give what

44:33

God has given to you to others, to not hold back. We let every grace that we gain from the triune

44:40

God not rest in our spiritual trophy case, but lavishly shower it on others.

44:46

That's what Judas is saying. And along with that, the final command that he gives us is to rescue those who are wandering into the flames.

44:56

I'm gonna say that now the entire section of Scripture. It's one sentence. Jude says, but you, beloved, building yourself up on your most holy faith, praying in the

45:06

Holy Spirit, keeping yourself in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life, have mercy on some who are doubting, and save others, snatching them out of the fire.

45:20

The final ethical command that Jude gives is just like all the others. What God has done for you, you go and do for someone else.

45:28

When God has rescued you, you go and be a rescuer. It's essentially what he's saying.

45:34

He says our role is to save, which simply means to rescue those who are teetering too close to the edge, those who are too close to the flames, those who are abandoning

45:42

God, those who are giving themselves over to sin. There will be people in the community who stop coming because they have things going on in their life that they're ashamed of, that they're embarrassed of, they feel like no longer, that God no longer loves them because of those things, and we are called to love them, not by abandoning them, not by writing them off, but by chasing after them, by loving them, by caring for them.

46:07

Many people have left the church because they said that they've experienced all kinds of hurt. I know people who've said,

46:12

I love Jesus, but I hate the church. I've heard so many people say that. I've heard others say that I can't go to church because it's filled with hypocrites.

46:20

That's true, but that's actually not the problem. Because if the church wasn't filled with hypocrites, the only member who would be there is

46:27

Christ. Hypocrisy is not the problem. We're all hypocrites. We all fall short of the glory of God.

46:33

We all don't live up to the standard. People get hurt in churches when people don't follow the counsel that Jude is arguing for here.

46:41

When they look at people and they say, goodbye and good riddance, we don't need you. When they say, if you want to leave, fine.

46:47

When they don't call someone who they know is hurting, that's when people get hurt by the church. We're to have mercy on them, love them, and pursue them when they're broken.

47:02

See, the church is actually more like a family. The church is the people of God who've been bought and paid for by Jesus Christ who now are family, more than a family.

47:13

We said a couple weeks ago that the blood of mom and dad is not as strong as the blood of Jesus Christ, and because of his blood, we are now a family.

47:22

Well, if we're a family, then we have to love each other and care for one another and minister one another. We can't just yell at people with good doctrine.

47:29

We have to actually get our hands and our feet dirty and actually get on the business of loving people.

47:36

We can't just say that we love people. We actually have to do it. I want to conclude like this.

47:46

We don't do these things to have God love us. I want that to be abundantly clear. We do these things because God loves us.

47:56

You see, at the cross, Jesus did all these things for us, every single one of them. At Calvary, Jesus did everything that he's telling you to do before you would ever do it for him.

48:07

He built you up and established you at the cross of Christ. Now he calls you to build. He prayed for you in the garden, and he sent his spirit to you.

48:16

Now he tells you to pray in the spirit. He fought for you for the joy set before him. He endured the cross.

48:22

Why? So that you could be in the love of God, so that nothing could separate you from the love of God. Now because he's fought for you, fight for him.

48:30

He rose from the dead and has been waiting for us patiently, so now we wait for him.

48:38

He's had abundant mercy on us when we've sinned, so now we have mercy on others. When we were teetering too close to the flames and we were ready to fall into hell because of our sin, he came down and he rescued us and he snatched us out of the flames.

48:52

That's the gospel. So all Jesus is saying is, what I have done for you, now you go and do for others.

49:01

That's what Jude is saying. That's how we apply this text. What God has done for us, now we get to do for one another.

49:08

Let's pray. Father God, I pray that we would not mistake these words as a self -salvation project or as a clean our life up project.

49:20

Lord, I pray that we would be rooted in the truth of who you are and who you've called us to be.

49:28

Lord, I pray before we do anything for you that we would know what you've done for us. And Lord, I pray that as we know those things, that it would fuel us to a life of faithfulness.

49:39

Lord, I pray for this church. Lord, I pray that we would grow up as a healthy church.

49:46

Lord, I pray that we would grow up in unity. Lord, I pray that we would grow up into a dynamic community who loves one another and who loves

49:55

God, the two great commandments. Love God with everything and love each other. Lord, I pray that this community would be so contagious that when people hear about it and walk in these doors, that they would see that the love of God is in this place and that they would wonder what has happened.

50:12

Lord, you say that in the book of Corinthians, that when your people gather, it's such a spectacle that the world has to look with their jaws dropping down to the floor and say, what is going on in this place?

50:22

God must be here. Lord, I pray that people would be able to say that of us. Lord, I pray that we would catch such a vision of who you are and your majesty and your glory and your splendor that it would cause us to be new people, different people, people who love one another in spirit and truth, just as we're called to love you.

50:41

So, Lord, I pray for us as a people. I pray that you would work these truths down into us and that,

50:47

Lord, you would cause us to be all of these six things, just like Judas said. Lord, we pray these things in Christ Jesus's name.