Contending For the Faith

The Apologetic Dog iconThe Apologetic Dog

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Sermon on Jude verses 17-25.

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Well, good morning everyone It's such a joy to be able to gather together with my my blood family and my church family
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So this morning is kind of bittersweet because we're wrapping up our study in the book of Jude So if you would please turn in your
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Bibles to Jude We've been talking a whole lot about what it means to contend for the faith as we confront
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Apostasy and so this morning we're going to be wrapping up this short book the last closing passage
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We're going to look at verses 17 through 25 so if you would please
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Look with me starting verse 17 where we read But you must remember
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Beloved the predictions of the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ They said to you in the last time there will be scoffers
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Following their own ungodly passions. It is these who caused divisions worldly people devoid of the
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Spirit But you beloved building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the
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Holy Spirit Keep yourselves in the love of God waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life
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And have mercy on those who doubt save others by snatching them out of the fire
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To others show mercy with fear hating even the garment stained by the flesh now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present to you blameless before the presence of his glory with great
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Joy to the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory
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Majesty dominion and authority before all time and now forever Amen So if you would look back up to verse 17
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Where we read a key word, he says but you beloved talking to Christians.
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He says the key word is remember So this morning I want us to remember that ultimately
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God is in control of everything That's the point that I want to stick in your minds all throughout the sermon this morning that God is ultimately in control
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And we must remember that We must remember that as we are
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As we are confronting apostasy false teaching as we contend for the faith the truthfulness of God's Word and So we're going to say that word a lot this morning.
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We're going to talk about apostasy and really there's two types of apostasy that I want you to be familiar with the first one is where somebody departs from biblical truth
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Right, they may claim to be a Christian, but they have erred into Heresy right they have fallen away from what is actually true.
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So you have this type of apostasy These are false teachers and maybe the the type of apostasy
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We're more familiar with the second kind is when somebody just totally renounces their Christian faith altogether.
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They become apostates Right, and so the book of Jude is writing about that first kind of apostasy somebody that departs from the truth
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But they stay in the church I believe this is the more dangerous kind of apostasy because it breaks our hearts
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But when somebody leaves the faith, what do they do? They take their misconceptions their wrong ideas with them
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Right, but imagine somebody who denies who Jesus actually is they stay in the church, right?
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They may creep into our leadership and they begin leading everybody else astray That's why it's so important to be plugged into a biblical church that has godly men a plurality of elders shepherds guarding the flock from this type of apostasy
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It's so important. These people will creep in to our churches. So if you're in Jew look up at verse 4
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Jude says for certain people have crept in Unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation
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Ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and look who they ultimately deny
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They deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ Judas saying that this is happening in his day and this is going to continue to happen throughout the church age
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This is happening in our day So I just want to kind of build up to the context in verse 17 all throughout the book of Jude verses 14 or verse 4 through 6 16.
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It's talking about these apostate false teachers Verse 5 says those who do not believe verse 8 says these people verse 10 says but these people
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Verse 14 says these verse 16 says these following their own sinful desires
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The reality is is these people are already among us They have crept in spiritual warfare is all around us
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And when I start to think about this, it kind of scares me. Sometimes I just think oh, man, they're already among us
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Judas repeatedly saying these these these and in verse 17, he says but you
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Right. This is where we get comforted because it's going to be scary at times But we can ultimately rest in God being in control
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So in verse 17, he says but you talking to the Christians, but you must remember this
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Beloved the predictions of the Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, so even though it's going to be scary as we
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Come in contact with apostates false teachers. This was predicted to happen
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Everything is happening according to God's Master plan so we read in the
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Bible that things are predicted to happen. That means that God has a plan for it We must rest that all things have a purpose there are happening according to the purpose of God who works all things after the counsel of his will
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Judas telling Christians to remember that God is in control and that we must rest in his sovereignty
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So Once again, he's reminding us that the Apostles have already predicted that false teachers apostates are going to Come and surround the people of God And so I was looking at some of the
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Apostles the Apostle Paul said this in Acts chapter 20 He said after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you not sparing the flock and from among among your own
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Cells will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away Disciples after them
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Apostle Paul was very clear. This is going to happen The Apostle John and his first letter says that the
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Antichrist the spirit of Antichrist are already among you and I think
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Jude might have actually had in mind what the Apostle Peter said in 2nd Peter chapter 3
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The Apostle Peter says beloved I'm stirring up in your sincere mind by way of reminder that you should remember the predictions of the
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Holy Prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your Apostles Knowing this first of all that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing following their own sinful desires
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So Jude and Peter are making the same point You notice that Jude is saying remember what the
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Apostles said now when you look at what the Apostle Peter said He's like listen to us and guess what this was long ago predicted even from the
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Holy Prophets this was always going to happen and Jude knew this
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Okay last week many of y 'all were here Pastor Steven talked about what
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Enoch Predicted and it's actually in the book of Jude look at verses 14 and 15
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Jude says it was about these Talking about who the the apostate false teachers
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It was about these that Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied Saying behold the
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Lord comes with 10 ,000 of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly
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So even all the way back in Genesis going back to the Holy Prophets It was predicted long ago that apostasy would creep into the church that people would try to Drag people away from the truth, but he also said that the
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Lord's coming, right? This is a promise of not only salvation for God's people, but he is going to execute judgment
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So I don't want us to lose the point that Peter and Jude are making we must remember that it was
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Predicted that apostates are going to surround God's people, but God is in control So we must be faithful and obedient to him even though it might get scary
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It will be because it's dangerous, but we ultimately rest in God being in control of all things
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So let's continue to look at the passage this morning. Look at verse 18 the Apostle Peter and Jude talk about Scoffers they both mentioned the word scoffer here in both contexts a scoffer is someone who mocks
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Christ promises Ridicules the things of God and ultimately opposes the true gospel of grace
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They're going to pervert the good news that Jesus Christ did everything in order to accomplish salvation
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It's also that word scoffer This talks about someone who denies the truths of Scripture and they're going to entice other people to go along with them in their error so maybe this should be
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Rather obvious, but we must care about who we surround ourselves with in our lives
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We must exercise discernment, right? We're gonna love on all people But who are you surrounding yourself with on a daily basis or on a weekly basis if it's an apostate?
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These people are gonna damage you spiritually. They're gonna lead you into error That's scary
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But it calls us to know the truthfulness of God's Word so we can detect what when people are leading us astray or not
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I'm also reminded of what the psalmist says in Psalm chapter 1 We read blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of sinners nor sits in the seat of Scoffers some of your translations say nor at the seat of the scornful
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And I want to be really clear that we are to reach out to lost people We're not just saying we're gonna be so distantly removed from them that we never engage with anybody
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No, no, we we engage with the lost world. We love on them, right? We show compassion to them and we preach the gospel to them, right?
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But we don't make them our close Intimate friend group those who who we put in our lives that we talk about our spiritual walk with right?
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We got a guard ourselves of this and I think Jesus is the perfect model of this, right?
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He sat with tax collectors. He ate with sinners with prostitutes. What did he do?
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He preached the gospel to them He loved on them, but you notice they're not a part of the twelve disciples
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They weren't a part of his inner circle Peter James and John Jesus gives us a model that we must exercise discernment love on others, but surround ourselves with Christians people that are going to build us up in the faith
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Psalm 1 is warning us to guard ourselves of the influence that leads from a casual
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Association with with the wicked because that leads to embracing their worldview and sharing ultimately in their fate
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That's why the psalmist goes on to say blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the
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Lord and on his law He meditates day and night We're in the word. We're renewing our mind with Scripture.
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It should compel us to pray for godly friends, right? Is that true? So Jude is warning us about false teachers that ultimately mock the the real truth of God's Word So that's why in verse 19, he tells them that these apostates they are they will cause divisions
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They're worldly and they're devoid of the Spirit. So I was reading this verse
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I thought okay, you got God's people trying to obey the truth. Of course, they're gonna come in and be divisive
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I'm like that's that's pretty obvious, right? They're worldly people, but I think Jude is bringing out the major problem with apostate
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People that are lost they are devoid of the Holy Spirit of God dwelling inside of them a lost person cannot
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I Repeat they cannot understand the things of God because they are unable to discern spiritual truth
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So hopefully I have a scripture posted behind me the Apostle Paul says 1st
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Corinthians 2 14 He is super clear. He says the natural person. Thanks somebody that's dead in their sin and trespasses
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The natural person the lost person does not accept the things of the
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Spirit of God For they are folly to him when you preach the truth to someone who doesn't have the
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Spirit. They're gonna mock it They're gonna be like that doesn't sound right at all. They're gonna make fun of it, right?
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They can't they don't have the Spirit He is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned
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The unbeliever is spiritually dead and their sins and their trespasses
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Therefore they need the Holy Spirit to come into their heart and regenerate them They need the
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Holy Spirit to come in and take out that heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh when
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God starts working on someone's heart the Holy Spirit convicts them of sin and Righteousness and of the judgment to come so that they can see their need for a
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Savior and so when God works on an unbelievers heart in this way a Faithful Christian come along comes along and preaches the gospel and they are able to respond to it
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I want you to think about if Unbelievers do not have the Holy Spirit.
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Then what do believers have? We do have the Holy Spirit Right, the
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Bible is super clear that our Bible or our bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit Our bodies were bought with the price.
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Therefore. We should glorify God with our bodies The Apostle Paul was super clear in Romans 8 9 you believers
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However are not in the flesh but are in the spirit if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you and here's the key
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Part anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him
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So here's the point I'm getting at we're going to come in contact with the lost people We can agree apostates, right?
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They're lost Muslims Jews Roman Catholics Mormons atheists people that are indifferent and don't care
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They don't have the Holy Spirit But there is another type of people that I want us to be mindful of there are church goers
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There are people that come to church Sit in a comfy seat or in a pew and they show up thinking you know what
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I'm gonna do something good I'm gonna go to church and God's gonna look at me with favor, right? I'm here to tell you that that person that comes to church to try to earn favor with God does not have the
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Holy Spirit They are lost Christians that have the
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Holy Spirit. We are no better than a lost person, right? So this should drive us to have compassion and mercy on them to love them in the truth
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And we should pray that the Holy Spirit would come in their life Come in their heart to bring them to the knowledge of the truth to grant them repentance
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And so this morning if you are a child of God Then I want to encourage you with this that you do have the
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Holy Spirit within you You should be eternally grateful for God moving upon your heart in order to receive salvation
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Guys, that's my prayer for myself. I'm reminded that truth daily. I'm like, why me?
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I didn't deserve it and yet I've experienced mercy and grace and you know that too if you have the
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Holy Spirit and if you are saved But here's the reality. We were no different than that lost person that we encounter yet God showed us mercy and grace while we were dead in our sins and our trespasses and Here's the beauty.
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We are able to love lost people because Christ has loved us. That is the only way, right?
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we're gonna engage lost people and We're gonna be like, why don't why don't they want to talk to me?
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Why do they mock the truth? How can we continually do this? Guys, they're dead in their sin. They're spiritually dead.
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Lost people are gonna act like lost people Right, but we've received the Holy Spirit.
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We've received grace and mercy So this drives us to continually love on them and to pray that God would save them
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So If you look in your Bibles at Jude verse 3 We read that we are called to contend for the faith that is once delivered to the
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Saints I love that word contend there that's talking about Struggling right fighting pressing forward for the truth for the faith, right?
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So sometimes that can be hard This is the only way that we're going to protect ourselves in spiritual warfare and Protect us from the devil is by pressing forward not being passive and always on the defensive side.
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We got to take action So let me ask the question. What does it mean to contend for the faith?
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If you continue to look with me at verses 20 and 21 and Jude I believe that we are told four disciplines on how we are to contend for the truth
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Jude says but you Beloved building yourselves up in your most holy faith praying in the
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Holy Spirit Keeping yourself in the love of God Waiting for the mercy of our
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Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And so discipline number one is
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Build yourself up in the faith Now, I know it says your faith and that's because Christians we have a personal experience when we have a relationship with Christ, right?
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It's your faith, right, but it must reflect the biblical reality the truth that there is an objective standard
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Right, you can't just say well I feel this way so I get to take Liberty and say well actually God wants me to do
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This it must reflect the objective biblical standard of truth. That's why Jude verse 3 says the faith, right?
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So we are to build ourselves up in the faith and this means that we are to become doctrinally strong So this is a huge part of our spiritual development as we grow in our relationship with Christ The Apostle Paul said in Acts chapter 20.
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He says this to the Ephesian elders I commend you to God into the word of his grace
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Which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified
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So sanctification means that we are set apart Right think about this dark
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Sinful world Christians are called to be set apart. We are salt in this tasteless world
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We are light in this dark world, right? But how are we built up by the word of his grace?
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You cannot possibly know Intimately your Lord and Savior if you bypass his word, right?
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This is how we know him in spirit and truth This is why our
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Lord the night before his crucifixion He prayed this to the father for the disciples. He said father sanctify them in your truth
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And he says your word is truth So sanctification that being conformed more and more to the image of Christ is through spending time in the scripture
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Right. We are to renew our minds with the Word of God and that's how we have relationship with him and one of my favorite
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Bible passages Tells us how we are to be equipped and complete for everything that we need to know when it comes to the faith the
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Apostle Paul says in 2nd Timothy 3 16 and 17 all Scripture is breathed out by God and for and profitable for teaching for reproof for Correction and for training and righteousness that the man of God may be complete
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Equipped for every good work. And so this is that first discipline we're talking about in contending for the faith, right?
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And it's becoming doctrinally strong so the second discipline for contending for the truth is praying in the
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Holy Spirit and I love this because the child of God Naturally prays, right our heartbeat just wants to talk to our
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Father in heaven, right? And that's ultimately how we have a relationship with God. He speaks to us through his living
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Breathing word that's sharper than any two -edged sword and we speak back to him in prayer, right?
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And so notice the contrast that Jude is making here. He's saying unbelievers Apostates they are devoid of the
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Spirit But believers are called to pray in the Spirit right because ultimately that's the source of our strength
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Now I also believe this that praying in the Spirit is not talking about praying in tongues
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It's not talking about a private prayer language Praying in the Spirit is actually speaking to God with words that have meaning and have clarity not with Confusing babble or heaping up empty phrases and as I was thinking about this
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I thought you know, it's actually pretty easy to demonstrate this because who is the best example
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Given to us in Scripture of how we are to pray in the Spirit Without question it is
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Jesus Christ Right, and so if you would turn with me to Matthew chapter 6
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Where our Lord gives us a model prayer how we are to pray truly from the heart
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And we're gonna look at starting in verse 7 because it's interesting He before he tells us how to pray he tells us how not to pray
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And so verse 7 Jesus says in Matthew chapter 6 He says and when you pray do not heap up empty
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Phrases as Gentile as the Gentiles do for they think that they will be heard for their many words
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And so this is the ESV translation, and I noticed that it says do not heap up empty
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Phrases and so I went to the Greek word. I was like okay I wonder how other translations render the meaning of this
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And so to give you a list here of the New King James says do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do
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The NASB says do not use meaningless repetitions as the Gentiles do and the
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NIV I think shows a very accurate way of bringing out the meaning of what Jesus saying the
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NIV says and when you pray do not keep on babbling like pagans
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So we are called to contend for the faith by praying in the Holy Spirit Jesus is being very clear that our prayers should not be thoughtless words or meaningless babbling phrases
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Okay, now. I want us to look at this model prayer, and Jesus is giving us a model He's not saying just repeat this prayer a whole lot, and you'll gain favor with God He is telling us to pray truly from the heart, and he is saying this is an outline of what that should look like He says in verse 9 pray like this our
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Father in heaven Hallowed be your name. I love this because God is holy
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We should address our prayers to the Father and we should honor him as holy we are not
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We are sinners, so we approach the throne of grace. It should be with reverence in awe
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Verse 10 he says your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven
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And we don't we pray this a lot father your will be done in my life I don't know what's gonna happen, but you're gonna take care of it, and that's
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Oftentimes when we pray we don't know what the future is gonna be like so we don't know Necessarily how to pray in a moment because we don't know the future
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Are y 'all like that a lot of times? I'm like I don't I know someone's sick, and I don't know if God is using this to strengthen their faith
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I don't know the outcome But I'm just gonna pray that they would be healed and that ultimately God's gonna take care of them and what
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Romans chapter 8 promises Us is that the Holy Spirit intercedes on our behalf with groanings too deep for utterance
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And what he's saying is when we don't know how we ought to pray. It's okay the Holy Spirit has our back right
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We passionately pray in whatever direction our hearts leading us, and we leave the final outcome to God's will
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Jesus goes on to say give us this day our daily bread right he is thanking
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God for our daily Provision that's why we thank God usually before we eat right
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Verse 12 he says and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors
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Jesus is showing us How we are to constantly confess our sin to God as we continually turn away from our sin right as we make war
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Against it and since we have been forgiven. He's reminding us. Hey forgive your fellow, man
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Right you've been forgiven of this massive debt you can turn around and forgive another person when they sin against you
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And then lastly here in this in this model prayer Jesus says and lead us not into temptation
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But deliver us from the evil one This is a plea Asking for God's strength as we make war against the enemy.
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We are asking for God's Protection right and so this is Jesus praying in the
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Holy Spirit He is a perfect model of how we are to contend for the faith by praying in the
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Holy Spirit as well And so going back to Jude We are to pray in the power of the
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Spirit the leading of the Spirit and according to the Spirit's will so the first the first principle the first discipline for contending for the faith is
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The second one is praying in the Holy Spirit and building yourself up in in the holy faith And I think that is just having a relationship with God having a deep intimate relationship with Christ And so number three is to keep yourself in God's love
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So keeping yourself in God's love means to be obedient to him Jesus told us in John chapter 15
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He says if you keep my commands you will remain in my love Just as I have kept my father's commands and remain in his love
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And so when it says to keep ourselves in God's love, it's not keeping ourselves saved He is saying we should keep ourself in the sphere of God's blessing
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Okay, think about the opposite when a child of God is being disobedient. We're not in the sphere of blessing anymore
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We've left that we're now in the sphere of God's discipline God loves us so much that in Hebrews 12.
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We're talking about God's children. It says the Lord Disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son whom he receives a lot of people think man
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I hope I don't disappoint God today, but if I sin that maybe he's gonna love me less and that's not true
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Everything about us is not lovable But if we are in Christ that God has a perfect absolute love for his child, right?
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So why do I feel like he doesn't love me right? It's because you're in sin You're not in the sphere of God's blessing anymore, and he loves you so much that he is going to discipline you he's gonna bring you back in and sometimes that's kicking and screaming and I remember when
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I graduated high school Mom told me she said God's spankings are a lot harder than my spankings
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And so I leave you accountable to him and she was right I've had to learn the hard way many times, but I look back.
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Sorry for telling on you a little bit there But I look back and I'm just thankful that God's God protects me, right?
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And sometimes not that's not always the way that we think it's going to happen So when it says to keep yourself in God's love
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This is a super practical way to contend for the faith by being obedient to the
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Lord Okay, so let's move on the fourth discipline is that we wait with hope
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Jude says waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ And so we remind ourselves of the greatest mercy that we have received and that's salvation
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Remember we talked about being once dead and our sins and our trespasses But what what does
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Ephesians to tell us that God is rich in mercy? That he made us alive together with Christ and it's been by his grace that we are saved
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Romans chapter 9 calls believers vessels of mercy, which God prepared beforehand for glory
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And so we're contending for the faith by awaiting right awaiting that with mercy our
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Lord's return Jude says waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life
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He is referring that believers are to live each and every moment with the expectation that Christ could return at any
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Seconds, right and if we live like that, right, we're going to be encouraged We're going to contend for the faith with purpose right and with excitement
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The Apostle Paul and Titus 2 13 calls this our blessed. Hope he says believers
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Waiting for our blessed hope the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ So we're talked about four disciplines here right of how we are to contend for the faith
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So going full circle These are disciplines that sanctify us right make us more and more like Christ by being doctrinally strong praying in the
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Holy Spirit keeping yourself in the love of God and Awaiting for that blessed hope now.
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These are four disciplines I don't think it's any accident that we're told this right before we go into the next two verses We got to keep these disciplines at the forefront of our mind as we encounter these three different types of lost people
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Okay, look with me at verses 22 and 23 in Jude He says and have mercy on those who doubt
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Save others by snatching them out of the fire to others
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Show mercy with fear hating even the garment stained by the flesh Jude is clearly recognizing
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Different strategies on how we are to outreach different kinds of people You're gonna have some lost people that are into Satan's error, but they're just doubting they're not just they're not planted in the truth
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Right, and we got to come along sent alongside them and gently bring them back to the
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Word of God Then you're gonna have other people that are deeper into Satan's error, right?
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They're gonna be convinced of this error and they're gonna be committed and we gotta we gotta change our strategy
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We gotta we gotta plead with them and be like look you're in a false view Salvation you will die and you will experience hellfire
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We got to discern who we're talking to we can only do that by getting to know them And so Jude has this in mind
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I want us to kind of look through these these three different types of people The first group is referred to those who doubt these people are confused, right?
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They're open -minded to kind of anything. These are the people that are swept away by every wind of Doctrine and I'm sad to say these are victims to the apostate false teachers
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So we're to have mercy on them by being intentional in their lives and constantly bringing them to the truthfulness of God's Word And so this is this first level of satanic error that these people who doubt and are confused are in So this next group of people they are deeper, right?
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They're in this next level of satanic error or read save others by snatching them out of the fire
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These people aren't just doubters. They are Convinced of Satan's error and it's going to require a more severe outreach.
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I'm convinced of this these are the people that we urgently warn about the coming hellfire for anybody that embraces this false system and Providentially God would have it me and my buddy
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Josh were hanging out at Walmart last week and These two men approach us and they're like, hey, we'd love to invite you to our
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Bible study If you could just seen my face, I was like, oh, I can't wait to talk with them. Like this is great
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I'm probably the minority when it comes to that, but I was excited and Eventually we started we started asking questions about Oh, what's your understanding of the gospel?
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And they kind of took a step back and like oh, it's a good news That's how what's the good news about and they're just and then what they said was well, you're asking a lot of questions
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What do you think the gospel is? I'm like, oh great Started laying out the gospel of grace, right?
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I was excited, right? They they approached us and I'm like, this is this is awesome And so we started laying out the gospel of grace and how we're sweet There's no good works that we could do to earn
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God's favor. Jesus did all and he wants us to respond With repentance and faith to love
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Christ. And so we started laying out the gospel of grace. I could tell this was kind of The wheels were turning a little bit because they were talking about you got to meet together on the right day of the week in Order to be saved, but they are looking at me and I could tell they're like, oh this this feels like works
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Right, and they didn't want to and I asked them if if you don't meet together on a Saturday to worship, are you lost?
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Well, they felt like oh, that's not my place to judge, right? They didn't want to actually say if that's right or not
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But guys I started thinking and like I said There's this was no accident that we bumped into them because I was thinking about this passage in Jude I'm like, oh no, if they're believing a wrong gospel
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They need to know what the consequences are because God has spoken Right, and so I'm just saying if we're contending for the faith and if we love people
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We're gonna have to snatch them out of the fire by saying this is urgent. This is a wrong view of Salvation I'm committed or I'm convinced that we must believe in the right
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Jesus in order to have our sins forgiven So we meet other types of people.
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There are people out there that call themselves Jehovah's Witnesses They claim to believe in Jesus.
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They're like, oh, we're all Christians. We're all on the same team here But when you start talking to them guess what kind of Jesus they believe in they say that we believe that the
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Father created Jesus Okay, and the Bible is so clear in John chapter 1
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Hebrews chapter 1 and Colossians chapter 1 that Jesus is the eternal God He is the creator of all things and if you believe in a
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Jesus that's less than that You believe in a false Jesus you believe in a Jesus that cannot save you from your sin
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And so we come in contact with these people we got to plead with them about the coming judgment
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She just said in John 8 24 unless you believe that I am You will die in your sins.
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He says unless you believe that I am This is the eternal name of God when he revealed himself to Moses in the burning bush
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If you don't believe that Jesus is the eternal I am you believe in the wrong Jesus and He says you must believe that I am so this is where the
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Bible tells us that true saving belief is Repentance and faith, you know, you must not only believe in the right
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Jesus But you have to also in truth understand how you are to receive the right biblical
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Jesus Okay, now this breaks my heart because I see it all the time as I talk with people people want to twist
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Repentant faith into some form of works Okay Repentance is this changing your mind this means in your heart your will and your disposition changes from loving
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Sin and turns to loving Christ and putting all of your trust in him. There is no works about that That is on the inside right repentant faith is of the heart
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But as I begin to talk with people I hear Man, I sure did pray that prayer when
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I was younger I walked down that aisle and I repeated this prayer and pastor
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Steven talked about what's called easy Believism anybody can get up and do that But that's works if you're putting your trust in a prayer that you prayed you're putting your faith in your own works
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That's hard because guess what that's in Baptist culture all the time. I Hear I talk with other people from other denominations that believe you have to be baptized to be saved and this is this breaks my heart because it's obvious to see that it's worse when you got to get up and walk to the
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Baptistry and and and be dumped right I get that we're called to be baptized But it's after you've been saved if you think you're your steps to the baptistry contributes to your salvation wrong gospel wrong gospel
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In Baptist life a lot of people go to church because they want to do the right thing
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They want to earn God's favor, right? They're trying to clean up their lives with this moralism works
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Not repentance and faith you got to believe in the right Jesus and You must receive him with repentance and faith and if you bypass those two
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There's no way that you can have your sins forgiven And if we truly love people if we are truly concerned for the lost people in our lives
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Whether it be family or friends. We should plead with them about these truths Guys I get so I get so broken over these things
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I read this this quote from Charles Spurgeon, and I'm like man this guy got it.
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I Think Jude was probably the verse that prompted Charles Spurgeon to write this
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He said if sinners be damned Let them leap to hell over our bodies if they perish let them perish with their arms wrapped about their knees
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Imploring them to stay if hell must be filled let it be filled in the teeth of our exertions and let not one go unwarned or unprayed for guys if we love our family if we love
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People that God has put in our lives, then we will act like this Right we will plead with them.
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We will we will attempt to snatch them from the fire Right and we will be in our knees praying for their salvation
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Now you notice Jude says save these people and not a person in here believes that we could save anybody
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Right right God does the saving but we might be the instrument or the means on how
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God saves that person That's exactly how the book of James concludes his letter
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He says my brothers if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back
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Let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from the wandering Will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins
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Right God does the saving but he uses faithful Christians And so this third group of people
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I believe they're not they're not doubters They're not just convinced but these people are committed to their false view of salvation, right?
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It says in Jude to others show mercy with fear hating even the garment stained by the flesh
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These people are committed to this. I think I think this is the most dangerous types of apostate false teachers, right
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They're dangerous. That's why Jude says show these people mercy with fear with fear
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We must have a type of terror or dread knowing that if we spend too much close personal time with these people
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They are going to influence us Right. We got to be careful Galatians 6 1
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Says if anyone is caught in any transgression Let you who are spiritual you should restore him in a spirit of gentleness
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But goes on to say keep watch on yourselves Lest you to be tempted the
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Bible says bad company corrupts good morals Right. So if we make these people are close personal friends, they are going to corrupt and ruin us spiritually
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They're going to damage our walk with Christ So how much how much more important it is for us to pray for godly friends right to build us up and encourage us in?
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the faith These apostate false teachers Jude calls this corrupting influence the garment stained
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By the flesh. This is the same type of imagery that the the prophet Isaiah uses when he says all of us are
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Unclean all of our self -righteous works are like filthy rags are like a polluted garment
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And so if you think about this if you handle a dirty garment too long, you're gonna get sick You're gonna get polluted and that's what he's saying is be careful right reach out to these people with love
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But be fearful don't spend too much time, you know with these people allowing them to corrupt you right,
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I Love how Jude says we are to still show these false teachers mercy right with fear
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But we still love on them. We pray for him Right, we we preach the gospel to them and we plead with them that they would turn put their faith in Christ that they would repent of their sin not cleaning up their life, but repent of loving your sin and turn and Loving Christ that is how we show them
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Mercy, so I want to begin to close this morning with how Jude closes his letter
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You may think man. This sounds kind of scary There's a lot of false teachers already around us and have crept in it is scary right because it's dangerous
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Right, you might think oh, no This is so dangerous that I too might get so corrupted by their influence that I might fall away and lose
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My salvation. I think that's a legitimate fear after really studying these things
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But perhaps Jude saved the best for last in his letter He tells us now to him this is talking about Christ this is talking about the mighty powerful triune
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God now to him who is able to keep you from Stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy
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Guys this is really good news for those of you that know that you were in Christ Judas reminding
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Christians that the all -powerful God will never let anything in all of creation cause you to stumble away
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And be lost not apostates Not Satan not anything in this world
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This is where Jesus Promises to believers my sheep hear my voice, and I know them and they follow me
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I give them eternal life, and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand guess
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What you can't break that grip not even you right I hear a lot of people say well
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If I decide nope nothing can allow you to stumble away and fall away and be lost
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You know why because the Holy Spirit did a mighty work in you and changed that heart of stone and gave you a living beating heart for Christ So the question is are you in Christ if you're not then you don't have any of these promises
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You simply await a just eternal punishment because you have sinned against the eternal
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God I Want you to think about how good God has been to you in your life.
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He's allowed you to Experience the sunshine right he puts breath in your lungs
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He allows you to eat tasty foods and have earthly relationships with people he's been so wonderful He even extends the gospel to you.
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He even says look. I've done it all right look to my son Jesus So maybe you're a churchgoer.
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That's doubting Okay, remember that first level of people that we're gonna interact with that are lost.
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There's people that go to church Man, I'm not really sure I want to encourage you keep reading
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God's Word What alleviates doubt is being reminded of the truth and eventually you're gonna have so much trust that there's not gonna be any more doubt
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It just goes away So Jude is talking to Christians with this promise
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He says that if you're in Christ Then you have the promise that God will keep you from stumbling away from him in fact the
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Apostle Paul was so confident of this Very truth he says in Philippians 1 verse 6
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I'm sure of this that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ We as Christians those who are born again
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They have a new heart new will new desires to follow Christ We cannot lose our salvation because of the mighty work that God began in us you didn't do it
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He did it and so he is going to keep us this is known as the beautiful doctrine
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Referred to as the perseverance of the Saints God is going to preserve us to the end because he started the good work
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He's going to keep us until one day. We see him in glory We have the
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Holy Spirit that has sealed us to the day of redemption And so Jude closes with how he opened this letter at the beginning
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He said that he refers to believers He refers to them as the called
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And he says they will be kept for Jesus Christ and Jude ends his letter by reminding the
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Saints of our assurance of our salvation We are eternally secure in Christ And we got we must contending for the faith we must remind ourselves of these truths because who's going to creep into our lives
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Satan False teachers apostates, but that's okay because the
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Almighty triune God Has everything under control? That's why we can conclude with Jude to the only
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God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory Majesty Dominion and authority before all time and now and forever
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Amen Let's pray. Holy Father. Thank you so much
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For your son, well, I pray that people's hearts would be stirred Well, I pray that your Holy Spirit would do a mighty work
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God I don't know in the future But God my heart says I pray that if anyone here is not saved that they would look to you
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Jesus Holy Spirit. I pray that you would do this work in people's lives God pray that as we leave this place that we would be driven to your word that we would look to you
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In relationship not looking to ourselves and anything that we can do or offer
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But always looking to you Jesus the author and the perfecter of our faith in your name.