Jude 3

So today we get to talk about the purpose of the book of Jude in typical

Roman letter writing fashion Jude has introduced himself, which is the first part of a good

Roman letter The second thing that he's done is he's introduced his audience That's the second thing that you would normally do and that's very common today.

Jude says that he's Slave, he's brother of James. He's Jude. He calls us the audience the the called the beloved and the kept and then what happens in a

Roman letter is That you give a salutation or a greeting and that's normally something that you would wish well upon your audience

So he says may the mercy peace and love of God be multiplied to you last week

We talked about how the mercy peace and love of God is multiplied not by our own effort

But by God working these things down into us So Before Jude gets to the purpose of why he's writing this letter

He wants to teach them things that are absolutely necessary for their relationship with God verse 1 through 2 in a way is

Kind of like boot camp for the Christian life Jude is preparing soldiers for a great battle as a commanding officer.

He knows the situation out there He knows that the kingdom of God is under attack He knows that it's gonna be an all -out war so before he sends them into action

He spends the necessary time equipping them and training them and the things that they need to survive

And one of the truths that he equips them with it I think is so vitally important is that we will be kept by God for Jesus Christ I think that's utterly important because when we're dealing with the issues that are going on in the church when we're dealing with the

Problems that Jude's audience is facing like heresies and false teachers God has promised to keep the true

Church of Jesus Christ, no matter what which is a great comfort and To us today that is great importance.

There is nothing no matter what it is There's no assignment that God could give us where we are not safe Because we are being kept for Jesus Christ He may call someone in this room to be a pastor in a place where the gospel is hated

And yet even if you have to leave Income status job or anything like that.

You're safe. He may call someone in this room We don't know what the will of the Lord is to Somalia To North Korea as a missionary and you will go there and it could be the end of your life

But as you go you were going in the calling of God and you are promised that you will be kept safe There may be someone in this room who is called the

Lord is laying it on You to be more vocal about your faith and that is going to lead to pressure at work

It's gonna lead to problems. It's gonna lead to stress. It may even lead to termination there's some who are here who are gonna share their faith with a relative or a loved one and they're gonna lose that relationship and We have to understand what it means that we are being kept for Jesus When we walk through this life because we have a view that we're being kept for happiness success

Or relational fidelity or anything like that? Then we have had we have a small view of what we're being kept for You are not at risk

So long as you understand what you're being kept for and you're not being kept for earthly treasures and you're not being kept for success

You're being kept for eternity So no matter what you gain no matter what you lose on this earth.

It cannot threaten your eternal reward and If you think about that, what could we possibly lose in light of eternity?

We could lose a job and that's a big deal and that's hard We're gonna be in heaven with Jesus forever.

And while we're here on earth, he's promised to take care of us He says he knows every hair on her head. He knows every sparrow that falls to the ground

He says if you seek first the kingdom of God, then everything you need will be provided What could we lose?

We could lose a relationship that would certainly be hard But what relationship is compares to the relationship that we have in Jesus Christ?

We could lose our life Paul says to live as Christ to die as game

Is it really a bad thing? To lose your life to open your eyes and to wake up and see

Christ and all of his glory Your last breath here on this planet would be your first glimpse of Jesus Christ.

If you know what you're being kept for if you know what you're being safe or what you're safe from and what you're safe unto those things aren't as Bad as we tend to make them this old tent this fleshly

Bag that we carry around make it hurt But we don't have to spend our lives protecting a rotten bag of bones that is going to end up in the ground

No matter what we do You can eat a good diet. You can exercise and you're still gonna die

Instead it's my hope that we spend our life living for something different That we don't spend our life trying to save our life that we spend our life trying to lose our life and to give it

Over to Christ no matter what it costs it's my hope that we would spend our life living for him and obeying him no matter what it costs because that is

The reward that glorious reward that when we meet him and when we see him and he says well done my good and faithful servant

That is what we are working for not the praise of men not the success not the comfort

All these things are a shadow compared to the surpassing glory that is available to us on the day of Christ and Jude is reminding his people of all these truths like you're gonna be kept safe because They're gonna be facing a very difficult situation in this letter

They're gonna be facing a situation that is uncomfortable to say the least and they're gonna be facing a situation that is still

To this day 2 ,000 years later uncomfortable for us So he's reminding them of this as a way of helping them as a way of protecting him

So what I want us to do now is I want us to go back to Jude chapter 2 There's one chapter.

I want us to go back to Jude verse 3 and I want us to look at the purpose of this letter in light of the beautiful truth that we've already learned and I want us

To see what Jude is telling us as believers that we are called to do

So let's look at verse 3 Beloved, while I was making every attempt to write you about our common salvation,

I felt the necessity to write you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.

Now there is so much beautiful truth in this one verse that we're not gonna be able to exhaust it

You're probably glad of that But we're gonna go through four things tonight from this verse that I think are absolutely

Incredible and the first of those is we're gonna look at why Jude actually wrote this letter

We've talked about the history in the context, but now we're gonna talk about why Jude wrote the letter We're gonna talk about what does it actually mean that we are called to contend?

What does that word mean? It's not a common English word that we often use what are we called to contend for and The last one which we will only be able to go over briefly is

How do we contend? We're gonna talk about what does it mean to contend? What are we contending for and how do we do it?

And I think these things will be very important for us So the first one why did Jude write this letter?

Jude describes the reason here. He said I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation But I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend

What Jude is saying is that he wanted to write a different letter He was actively working on another project probably a theological treatise.

Maybe it was a practical devotional I'm not sure but I know that he was working on something that had to do with our common salvation and he was eagerly actively with all of his faculties working on this project because he wanted to gift his church with an

Understanding of their salvation and this was the project he's working on I wouldn't be surprised if you go to Israel and you happened upon a pot in the ground and it and just so happens that Jude's exegetical study notes are still in there from this project, but he didn't write that letter

He didn't get to get to the place where he could write that and we get a picture a better picture of why that happens in Jude verse 4

He says for certain persons have crept in unnoticed those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation

They're ungodly persons who crept into the church. They're people who turn the grace of our God and the licentiousness

They're the ones that crept into the church. They're the ones who deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. They crept into this church

So what Jude is saying here is that savage wolves have come into the church These are men who are condemned by the

Lord These are men who are ungodly and who pervert the grace of God and Jude said that while he wanted to write this other letter

He couldn't The church needed him to write something different the church needed him to write what we have in our

Bibles This letter that we have is the plan B letter of Jude, but it was the plan a letter from God He wrote this book because he had to He wrote this book because the church was in desperate need and they needed this letter

That's the first reason he wrote the book the second reason he wrote the book is because Jude operates under an assumption that is difficult

For Americans, it is difficult for Westerners. It is difficult for American Christians Jude operates under the assumption that when the church is attacked we cannot stand idly by We can't

We can't just go in our closets and pray about it We can't just stick our heads in the sand and say

God you're gonna have to deal with it When wolves come into the church when the pure gospel of Jesus Christ is being attacked

Jude is saying that we have to do something Jude is saying that we must

We must contend for the gospel and he even goes a step further and he says that we must contend for it earnestly with all our energy and effort and That leads to the third reason why

Jude wrote this book. It's because truth is at stake Truth was at stake back then truth is it is at stake back or now if Christians do not stand up and defend the gospel of Jesus Christ and wolves will come in and they will

Overtake the church and this is all throughout church history. We see this In the modern world we have seen this even happening before our very eyes

Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Chicago, Columbia all places that were designed and And Instituted to train up pastors

But because no one stood up to contend for the truth because no one had enough guts to stand

Against the error these places are no longer places of the truth of God Brown University just as one example was founded.

It's a Rhode Island University. It was founded by a group of Baptist pastors little history about the

American colonies The Baptists were always a weird sort of people. I'm a

Baptist so I can say that and The Baptist got on the Massachusetts Bay Colony people's nerves and they were banished to Rhode Island so Rhode Island in some ways was the prison colony of the

United States and the Baptist when they got there wanted to start their own college and they wanted to start their own college that Taught the truth of Scripture and they wanted a college that would raise up ministers

And they got a council of Baptist ministers together to found this this

College right in the heart of Providence Providence named for the providence of God today

Brown University is home as Of 2014 to one of the longest -running and most well attended

Annual orgies on a college campus. It is a large event held by the

Queer Alliance of Brown it's an event called the sex power God festival and it was dedicated to utter depravity licentiousness and Total depravity

The college itself had to shut it down because the folks at Brown who don't believe in God thought that they had went too far

And that's not one isolated event at Brown The same things you can find at Harvard Yale and others when universities that are founded on biblical truth

Decide to stop fighting for it. They slip further and further away

Generation after generation until they are completely gone into the kind of perversions that will make you cringe

Mainline denominations are no different in America the Presbyterian Church the PC USA.

I say I'm a Baptist. I also Really love the Presbyterian denomination and the Presbyterian denomination has its roots all the way back to the

Reformation These are men like John Calvin John Knox BB Warfield Charles Hodge, maybe these names don't mean anything, but these are

Men of God in church history who loved the Lord Men who stood for the truth

John Calvin it is said that one day Men who did not believe did not love the

Lord came to take communion And he said you can put a sword in my face You can kill me if you want, but you will not take communion on my watch

This is a man who stood for truth This is a man until the day that he died and loved the

Bible and loved truth and yet now the PC USA Is one of the more liberal denominations in America and now joyfully allows anyone of any sexual orientation to all ranks within the church

Practicing or non -practicing it doesn't matter. How is it?

That this great denomination that came out of the Reformation has become so morally bankrupt That the only thing they struggle with is struggling on what new kind of error they're going to give themselves to How is it possible?

Because they stopped contending they stopped fighting for the truth of God and We would be utterly foolish as evangelicals if we thought that we are immune to this

If the true Church of Christ in America does not stand up against error

Fast -forward a few decades and the only thing that will be left will be a shell of what it is today

Heresy at the worst it will be nothing like it is today And it will fall into the same pattern that all throughout history church has fallen into they deny the truth

They hate the truth and then they fall into sexual perversion It's happened too many times.

We are not immune Jude is writing to a sleepy church and telling them it is time to wake up He's not

Encouraging them to get fat on their calling or to get comfortable on their status or to become

Complacent in the fact that Jesus is keeping them. He's not calling them to use

God's mercy peace and love as an excuse He's reminding them of who they are because they must do something

They must contend We must do something

Well, if we're gonna do something we need to know what it is that we're supposed to do So that's why I want us to now talk about what does it mean that we are to contend if all of us are called

To contend if all of us are called to stand up against the onslaught of error, then what is it that that requires?

The Greek Word that Jude uses. It's a really fun word to say so try to memorize it

It will it will thrill you to no end. I promise you epagonism I epagonism

I Now this is the only time in the New Testament that this word is used epagonism

I but The root word is actually used quite often

Ep at the beginning of epagonism I is a multiplier or it's an amplifier

So Jude is amplifying the meaning of this word Epagonism I without the ep is used often in the

New Testament Paul uses this Frequently and when Jude says the new the

NASB translates it to contend earnestly Epagonism I just means to contend now

Again this is the only time this word is amplified the majority usage in the New Testament is Epagonism I now it may be helpful to go through a little bit of the definition to give some more color and shade to The Greek English lexicon of the

New Testament says epagonism I means to exert intense effort on behalf of Something for the benefit of the larger group meaning that we if we are going to contend for truth

We're to give effort towards it We're to give effort towards contending for truth and it's for the good of the church for the larger group

Another lexicon puts it this way epagonism. I means to continue the attack To not stop fighting until the battle is over It essentially means to fight and keep on fighting if you were to read that idiomatically

Now I want to tell a little bit of the history of this so you can see how the word kind of came into being The word actually started as a noun way back in the

Hellenistic period of Greek literature And it just meant the place that we gather it just meant the assembly place.

It meant the place where everybody shows up Now how did a word that means the assembly place turn out to be all -out war fighting like gladiators?

Glad you asked. In Greek culture where people gathered was the games

Where people gathered was the fights So when gladiators came to fight people showed up So the word subtly began changing from the place that we gather to the place that we watch the fight

And then when the verb came into the language it meant to fight it meant to struggle

It meant to contend and it had an aspect of it that meant to do this until the job is finished

Just like a gladiator Would not stop fighting until the battle was over if he did he would lose his head

An NFL example because the NFL works really great in sermon illustrations To win a game is to continue playing the game every down every quarter every every yard

Imagine a cornerback in the fourth quarter of a game who just so happens to decide to be lazy

Tom Brady throws an immaculate perfect pass the game is won and the cornerback has to hang his head in shame

Because he played a hard game for the whole game, but one play he let his guard down and the game is over to contend means to Exert the same effort consistently from the beginning until the end

It's not to let your guard down at the end one lapse in effort could have disastrous consequences

Now this word apogonitza my came into the New Testament vocabulary very early

It became in some of the earliest writings of Paul and we're going to talk about a few of the examples that Paul uses

He says in 1st Corinthians 925 Everyone who apogonitza my eyes or everyone who competes in the games

Exercises self -control and all things they do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we do it to receive an imperishable one

What Paul is saying is that Christian life is not meant to be easy. It's meant to be a fight

There's no such thing Paul would say as a couch potato Christian life as a Christian is Dedicated it's relentless.

It's focused It's it's the same level of dedication that Olympian athlete would would think or would go through imagine

Michael Phelps or imagine any of the other Olympians what? rigorous effort that they went through to get to where they are the diet that they went through to get to where they are

Paul is Saying that everyone who competes in the games Exercises these disciplines for a silly wreath but yet we

Apogonitza my we contend for an imperishable reward that can never be taken from us so Paul's comparing us the

Christian to the Olympian in Colossians 128 and 29 he says we proclaim him

That's Christ admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom so that we may present every man complete in Christ For this purpose.

I also labor apogonitza my striving According to his power which mightily works in me so what

Jude is saying here or not Jude Jude amplifies the word Paul is saying this word means striving and what he's saying is

That preaching is an all -out war and he trains for it. He prepares for it. He fights for he strives for it

He executes it with grave seriousness and his work is done in the power of God It's according to his power which works in Paul So what

Paul is saying is not only do we take our Christian life with the level of Seriousness that an Olympian athlete would that we rest in trust in the fact that we don't have the energy in the effort to do

That so we need God and we need his power at work in us in order to do it That's what

Paul's saying. If you want to contend you need the power of God Later in that letter in chapter 4 verse 12, this is

Paul talking to the Colossians. He says Epaphras is always

Apogonizamai laboring earnestly for you and his prayers That you may stand perfect and fully assured in all the will of God This word is translated laboring here

This man Epaphras is a member of the congregation who helps Paul and what it's saying is is that Paul saying he gets it

His life is an all -out struggle. He's leaning into the power of God, but he's not throwing off little pop shots into heaven

He is going to war and prayer Because and he's fighting like a dog in prayer for the spiritual life of others

So look at how Paul is already laid out for us a case on what? Contending means it means we fight for our faith

We fight for the faith of others and we know that the fight really is by the power of God It's a beautiful rich theology that Paul is unpacking in 1st

Timothy 1 7 and 10. He says Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness

For it is for this that we Apogonizamai we labor and we strive

Because we have fixed our hope on the living God What a beautiful statement that is

He's saying that we contend. He's saying that we fight He's saying that we go to war with our flesh so that we can have godliness in our life because we know the living

God Paul is saying because we know who God is it

Produces within us this kind of effort to contend for the faith to contend for godliness

What Paul is saying is that knowing the living God does not produce half -hearted effort What he's saying is when you really know who

God is When you really catch a glimpse of him in his beauty and his splendor and his glory the most natural thing for you to do is to want to Go contend for your faith contend from prayer contend it for godliness.

These are natural things for the Christian Robert Murray McShane is one of my favorite

Puritans He he says it really well. He says when you gaze at the

Sun it makes everything else dark When you taste honey, everything else is bland.

So when your soul feeds on Jesus It takes away the sweetness of fleshly pleasure

What Mary McShane is saying is that when you really know who God is the most natural consequence of your life

Is that you want to seek him that you want to know him that you want to that you want to plead with him?

You want to pray to him you want to exercise discipline and grow in godliness to him Knowing who

God is does not produce Christian apathy knowing who God is does not produce Christian lethargy.

It produces Christian action Knowing who God is our Christian action doesn't save us

Paul would never argue that our salvation produces the action not the action to salvation

In case Paul hasn't made his argument clear.

He does so in 1st Timothy 6 12. He says but flee these things That's ungodliness

You man of God and pursue righteousness pursue godliness faith love perseverance and gentleness and apogonism.

I Fight the good faith and take hold of eternal life to which you were called

What Paul is saying is that our Christian life is a fight for the good faith

It is not what concert style churches have misled people into believing it is not healthy wealthy and successful It is not a misguided confidence that produces complacency and consumerism

It is the Christian life lived rightly with a right view of God causes us to chase after him and to long to know him

And it produces action that propels us towards him. That is what contending means it's the sustained lifelong action that propels you to God and It's motivated by God.

It's motivated by the love of God But it is what we're all called to do now again.

I want to be clear. We are not fighting contending struggling to be saved

We are fighting because we know the Living God and we want more of him We want to see more of him.

We want to experience more of him We want to know him deeper than we currently know him. That's a fight worth fighting

Who could fight to earn their salvation who could reach up to the heavens and say God? You must rescue me because I'm so good.

But with a God that is that good Experiencing him is worth fighting for Experiencing him and knowing him it's worth giving all of our energy and all of our effort

So that at the end of Paul's life the last Some of the last sentences he says

He says I have a Pagan it's a mod. I have fought the good faith.

I finished the race and I've kept faith Paul's not saying that I got to the end of my life and I was successful Paul sitting in a jail cell

Paul sitting in a room with scars up and down his body with broken bones that have never healed correctly

With relationships that have abandoned him and broken him and on the surface.

He's on death row This man's not successful He doesn't have a white picket fence

He doesn't have a really Bountiful 401k He doesn't have a vacation home or anything else that we would value

But Paul says that he finished well Paul says in abject poverty and on death row

I finished well, and it's because Paul did not define success by American standards

Paul said what brought me joy is That I fought and I did not stop fighting to know my

God and my life Is a is an instance or an image of that?

He's saying that all my life. I fought to know God and it was the greatest fight that I could ever engage in Paul an old man

Gives us great confidence that we now who are still young as we approach our deaths

What will we say at the end of our life that we actually fought for? will we say that we fought for God or will we say that we fought for a vacation home or Finding seashells on a beach somewhere in Sarasota, Florida Or will we say that we fought to know

God? That's what Paul is getting at now When we get to the book of Jude We've just talked about what

Paul uses this word apogonism. I Jude takes it to another level Jude says that I Want you to ep ago nit so my which means

I want you to contend earnestly this is the only time in the New Testament this word is amplified and Jude is using it here to describe the kind of fight that he is calling believers in his church to engage in he's calling them to contend for the faith in a culture that loves error and He's calling them to contend earnestly because the situation is desperate

And we're gonna be exploring all of this in the next several weeks So I'm not gonna treat it exhaustively here but what I do want us to see is that true truths that we have left for us today that Paul or that Jude is

Teaching us is number one. There is the content of what we contend for So we're gonna find out what it is that we contend for and the second

Paul's our Jude is gonna teach us how we contend So we're gonna talk about what

Jude is calling us to contend for and how we contend in verse 3 Jude starts with the what?

Beloved while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith for the faith

Which was once for all handed down to the Saints Paul talks about how to contend for your personal faith and how to grow in godliness by fighting for your faith

Jude is talking about the faith that was once for all given down by the Saints Jude is talking about the

Christian faith. Jude is talking about the delivered and handed down Gospel Jude is talking about the scriptures.

Jude is talking about truth and orthodoxy and doctrine He is saying that I want you to contend for the faith the collection of truth

That was handed down from Jesus Christ to his Apostles by the Holy Spirit written down by the

Apostles into the New Testament and that is what I'm calling you to contend for to contend for the pages of Scripture that are in this book because that is also a fight that is worth fighting for it is a fight worth fighting for to Fight for your faith and it is certainly worth fighting for to fight for the faith

That's what Jude is saying It's not a physical fight Goodness knows the history of the

Christian and the Rome ish Church have erred inexcusably in Thinking that sometimes this was a physical fight does not

We do not pick up sticks or stones and we do not pick up guns and rounds But we also cannot stand idly by When wolves come into the church and undermine the pure gospel of Jesus Christ We can't

In Jude's time men were creeping in and they were undermining the scripture. They were undermining godliness, they were undermining grace

They were denying the totality of who Jesus was and Jude called those believers to contend now.

I think the same is true for us. They're they're actually in my opinion I think the situation is worse

Because in Jude's context it was one congregation who was being attacked by one group of people you go on the internet

There's hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of wolves that are out there Undermining the truth of the gospel

So I think it's worse today and if you look at the fact that Technology gives anyone with an opinion and ability to spew their nonsense on YouTube and Twitter and everything else

I think that the situation is worse When you look at the fact that heretical groups on major television networks like CBN and Daystar and other false doctrine

Profligators when you look at the fact that mega church Mega churches who don't preach the gospel can can on a

Sunday reach 40 ,000 people in Texas But then on the very next day can upload their messages on on the internet and reach millions

They can reach millions of people. Jude never had to encounter an infiltration like that so -called worship bands who mischaracterize the holiness of God release albums on Spotify go around and tour on concert and yet They're undermining true and right worship

We live in an era of unprecedented Ability for wolves to be able to totally feast on sheep entirely unabated

And where's the church? Where's the church Jude tells us that we must content because wolves will come in Because they have an insatiable appetite for the sheep because the faith that we hold dear is at stake

Jude is not saying that it's possible that wolves will come into the church. Jude is not saying that that it's likely that truth is going to be challenged so long as we live in this world and So long as Satan exists the truth of God will be challenged and it is up to the church to contend

Not lay down and die if American Christianity doesn't wake up.

I Expression of Christianity that this country's gonna have to offer is outright heresy. There'll be no pure expression if The church doesn't contend

History verifies this if the church does not contend it will fall into error and it will fall into disarray illusion and Ultimately, it won't exist if Jude were alive today.

I think he would think the situation in our country is dire Let's go through a few statistics the average

American Christian believes that Jesus is the first and greatest created being This is a study that Ligonier ministries did and when

I say average, I mean slightly above average we live in a day when the liberal agenda is overtaking churches like the

Lutherans and the Methodist and the Episcopals in the United Church of Christ and all of these denominations.

We live in a day when the average Christian believes That God accepts worship from any religion so long as it is sincerely held and believed from the people polled in this study

Doesn't matter if you worship Buddha doesn't matter if you worship Allah It doesn't matter if you worship one of the 33 million gods in Hinduism.

So long as you are sincere I think the Lord will cover you the Christians Who've been overtaken by error?

We live in a day when the word -of -faith movement and Mormonism are the fastest growing sex of Christianity Mormonism that denies who

God is Mormonism that says Jesus and and Satan are brothers The word -of -faith movement which says if you think it you can have it and God has to give you whatever you want

These are the fastest growing sex of Christianity in Africa The word -of -faith movement is about to overtake the entire continent

So that there's no faithful expression of the gospel left in Africa. It will happen if we don't contend

Where's the church why have we stopped fighting I Think it's easy in American culture to say well when we fight it doesn't feel good

But Isn't this worth fighting for? This is not a battle that we lay down and die.

This is not a battle that we put on our our sweet Sister Mary Sunday morning Christian hat we pray like Paul We ask

God to move but yet we stand on the truth of the Word of God we must contend

It's not an option. I've heard it said this way

The best way to spot fake is to know the original

I Think a part of contending is knowing the Word of God so well that you can spot the errors before they become

Big before they become pervasive Jude saying that when we're contending for the truth, we must know the truth.

We must fight to know the truth And we must make it a matter of earnest significance in our life

The first moment that we wake up in the morning ought to be an earnest grave necessity to get into the

Word of God to know God To know him in his word

If you're not a morning person at some point in the day get into the Word of God So you'll be prepared when the wolf comes

Which leads to our final question? We know now what we're to contend for we're to contend for the faith.

We're to contend for truth. We're to contend for the gospel Because wolves will attack it.

So we know what Judah's saying. That's what we're supposed to contend for now We need to ask the question how?

How do we do this as Christians? How do we contend and I think

Jude tells us in several practical truths. We're gonna again. We're gonna go over this over the next several weeks But I want to give us four things that Jude tells us on how do we contend

If you want to write these down that's great if you don't that's fine I can post them online But four things we're gonna talk about how

Jude calls us as Christians to contend for the truth of God The first is we contend for truth.

We've already talked a little bit about this in verse 3 But in verse 17 and verse 20, it says but you beloved ought to Remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the

Apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ Building yourself up on your most holy faith and praying in the

Holy Spirit what Jude is saying is one of the primary ways that you will contend is to contend for the truth and the way that you

Do that is to remember the truth Well, how do you remember the truth? We have to learn it and how do you learn the truth?

Well, you actually have to read it. And how do you read the truth? You actually have to open the Bible This is not complicated

I'm just saying that there's a logical sequence that we must be in the Word of God if we're gonna know the truth and if We're gonna contend for it

We must have a steady and consistent diet on the Word of God in order to be able to contend

That's the first way we contend for truth The second way is that we contend against error

Verses 4 through 16 unpack this. In fact, the whole book is an exposition of this, but I want to go into just a few

Truths that I want you to have in summary so that you'll have them for the weeks ahead

The first thing I want us to beware of is we need to know what heresy actually means. I was shocked when

I looked on multiple different theological journals websites dictionaries things that I have in my own library at the ambiguity of What the word heresy actually means some people say that everything is a heresy

If you don't believe in every single thing that I believe then you're a heretic You know almost like they're playing pin the tail on the heretic game

That's some others would say almost nothing is heresy and almost nothing is essential.

I think that there is an actual Moderate stance on this and this is something that came out of the

Westminster confessions of faith Heresy is when you go against a fundamental teaching of the

Bible It's when you not only teach a fundamental hair or fundamental

Truth that goes against the Bible It's that you are leading others astray into your error fundamental truths of the

Bible might be the view of God and who he is or the biblical view of Christ or his

Humanity and his divinity a biblical view would be atonement. How are we saved or grace?

What did it cost and what can we do to earn it? Nothing? It's grace biblical views that that you can be a heretic on or things like justification and sanctification and glorification

Meaning that God declared you righteous justification he's working righteousness into you sanctification and he is going to prepare you for an

Eternity of living with the only righteous one that's glorification. Those are core fundamental

Christian doctrines Another doctrine the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in his office.

This is a core doctrine The way we parse out all of the the different elements of it

You know, we can differ on some of those things but the doctrine of the Holy Spirit the doctrine of sin the doctrine of Savior of Scripture of inspiration of sufficiency there there are

Doctrines that are so core to Christianity that if you lose them you lose the faith.

That's what heresy is when you go against that doctrine, you've lost the faith now

I Say that because again, I think there's a tendency to over heresy in The Reformed Church To overly point your finger and say heretic definitely a heretic that guy

Worse than a heretic. I think that this is is common in the Reformed Church We're not talking about minor doctrinal differences like your view of Revelation or whether you can eat meat or not eat meat as a

Christian These are not Minor doctrines, you're not gonna look at our sister

Lauren who's a vegan and say heretic Sorry, I had to It's just right there

I just couldn't help it you're not gonna do that because it's not a minor or that that's a minor doctrine Essential non -essential doctrines don't make heretic.

We use this word very carefully We use this word with wisdom and we use this word when core doctrines of the

Christian Church have been thrown away now that's the kind of situation that Jude is calling us to contend against and I think that Jude gives us five things that will help us

We're talking about four ways to contend. There's five ways you contend against error. So don't get this confused in your mind

We're talking about contending against error, but there's five things I want to share with you Number one know the

Word of God if you're contending against error You need to know the original the second is do your part to keep this out of the church

Jude is talking to a Congregation of people and he's saying that it's not enough for you to know the truth of God for yourself

You must help defend your brother and sister You must help guard the gates of the church so that error does not come in.

We must protect others It's key characteristic of family life. If you're in a family, you love your family.

You protect your family You lay down your life for your family. That's what Jude is saying The third is to address error directly with truth

I don't know how many times I've been in a discussion in the past where someone says well Kendall I don't agree with you and I say, okay.

Why do you not agree with me? And they say well You know, I just I don't like the way it makes me feel okay, well what a scripture say and That is the question that we must ask when we're talking about error and heresy and when we're talking about Contending for the faith and for the truth.

We must begin to ask the fundamental question. We must make it Really central to our vocabulary.

What does the Word of God say? When someone says I think that homosexuality is right

You say what does the Word of God say when someone says that I think this particular sin is okay

What does the Word of God say when they say that God didn't offer us grace in Christ? What does the

Word of God say we are not called to share our opinions? We are to stand in the shadow of the

Holy Word of God. We have no authority unless he gives us the authority We are called not to share our intelligence and our arrogance and our puffed -up pride about how much we know

We are humble slaves who stand on the Word of God So we must confront error with truth

But For all my truthy people We must address error with mercy and with peace and with love

Jude does not give us permission to launch a truth war Jude does not give us permission with all of our zeal and pride and all of our self -righteousness to sit safely behind a computer and drop truth bombs

Jude prays that the church would have mercy peace and love multiplied to them

So that they could contend with mercy peace and love So while we must be tough on heretics

Because there's wolves in the church and like we said last week, you don't you don't pet a wolf you shoot a wolf I'm just saying that's what you do.

It's unloving to let a wolf live in the sheep pen We show mercy to other believers who are struggling we show mercy and Love and peace to those who are not yet as far along in their doctrine

We must be discerning in the same vein

The fifth thing I would say is that contending for the truth Cannot be absent of biblical character if You have to be self -righteous to contend

You are not contending biblically if you have to be arrogant to contend you are not contending biblically

Christian contending is always consistent with Christian character Now look at what

Jude does he calls out people in? this text who are self -righteous and if you think that you're the guy who can just hurt people and rebuke people and be

Insensitive to people and stir up conflict in the community of God. I want to give you a very strong word of rebuke from the

Bible Proverbs 6 19 says that God hates the man who stirs up disunity in the community of God God hates that man

We talk about fearing the Lord Well, don't launch your truth war with self -righteousness and pride and think that God is going to be up in heaven saying amen brother

Patting you on the back and pumping fist bumps with you. He's not Contending must be motivated out of love for the church and love for Jesus as bride

It must be can it must be rooted in love for truth and love for the souls of men and women who are struggling

Jude says in this text, he calls the deceivers and the wolves in the church. He calls them grumblers, which means contending cannot be about complaining

It cannot be. I cannot believe What little doctrine that they know

I can't believe they just don't get it. They don't understand. They're such simpletons You're in sin.

If you do that, you're in sin. That's not biblical contending Contending does not lead to arrogance and pride

It doesn't lead to self -righteousness it leads to a humble desire for your brother and sister to learn the truth of God Contending must be done with Christian character.

Okay, that's the second contending against error and we talked about five things in that section

The third way we can contend as we can contend for others and I'm gonna go through these really quickly and you're like, yes

We contend for sorry we contend for ourselves in verse 21 of this book

He says keep yourselves in the love of God waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord. Jesus Christ eternal life

Essentially what he's saying is is that when truth is disregarded you must contend for your own personal spiritual life

Because it's almost like the example of the plane You can't help anyone else if you don't put the oxygen mask on first If you're called to be a faithful member of the community who helps other people contend

You must be contending for your own faith. You must be contending for truth How hypocritical and self -righteous would it be to say, you know brother?

You're in error when you're doing all of these things over here What Jude is saying in verse 21 is we have to contend for ourselves first We have to fight for faithfulness in our own life before we will be equipped and prepared to help others

That obviously leads to the next one we must contend for others in verse 22 and 23 He says and have mercy on some who are doubting

These are believers who are doubting the truths of God have mercy on them Save others by snatching them out of the fire

Judah saying is that once we've contended for the truth of God in our own life We have a responsibility to love and care for others in the community

It's not okay to know that someone in the church is struggling and to do nothing about it.

That's what you're saying The final point is contending with both fear and with hope

So so far we've talked about that. We contend for truth We've talked about that.

We contend against error We talked about that We contend for our own faith and our own walk with God and we contend for others

The last thing is we do is we contend with fear, but we ultimately contend with hope in verse 23

Jude says on Some have mercy with fear Hating even the garment polluted by the flesh meaning be careful

If someone is so deeply entrenched in error that you helping them is going to cause you to fall into temptation

Maybe you're not the right person to help them. I Know a guy who was struggling with pornography and another guy tried to help him and that guy ended up falling into sin because in the

Accountability sessions the details of those conversations was tempting him There's other examples of this if you are struggling to help someone and you are being tempted while you're helping someone

Have someone else help that person That's that's what you just saying contend with fear hating even the garment polluted by flesh.

You don't want to fall into sin as a result of helping someone And in verse 24 and 25 he tells us how to contend with hope

This to me is I think two of the most beautiful verses in the entire Bible when you've contended for truth when you've contended against error when you've contended for yourself and for your brother and when you have had a

Reverential fear of your own walk with the Lord. It says now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and To make you stand in the presence of his glory blameless with great joy

To the only God our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory Majesty dominion authority before all time now and forever throughout the whole book

Jude is saying that there's a fight that needs to happen for truth and Christians must stand up and we must fight for truth

And we must fight against error And we must combat it with the truth of the Word of God and we must be gracious and we must be all these things at the end of the day we know that the

Lord is going to keep us from stumbling and we know that the Lord is in control and We have an example of how to do this

We've just been taught by Jude how to do this, but we have an example. Look at Jesus Christ Who for the joy set before him he contended for you?

He fought for you. He climbed Mount Calvary for you, and he didn't give up Remember we said contending means fighting into the bitter end