Jude 17-23 A Church for the Crisis

Into the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches from his series, Short Letters, Big Stuff, a study in 2nd and 3rd John, and also Jude. Let's listen in.

Welcome everybody, I'm Don Filsak, I'm the lead pastor of Recast Church, and I'm glad that you've tuned in to this YouTube channel again this week. It is crazy, I don't think we could have ever imagined six months ago that we would be going this long without having a gathering, voluntarily having a gathering in this place.

We're gonna be picking back up in the same series that we've been in, moving through the little books of 2nd John, 3rd John, and the book of Jude. We're almost done, next week is actually the last week that we have in this series, and then what I'm gonna do after that is I'm gonna be picking up in the book of Matthew, and that's been a series, kind of a go-back-to series.

It's a long series, and to be quite honest, it takes a long time to preach through one of the Gospels, and so there's a lot of stories, and it's pretty dense, and it's packed in, and so we're gonna be jumping back into Matthew after next week, and just really taking on some of the life of Jesus there.

But all of these letters that we've been going through right now, they're tiny little letters at the end of the entire Bible, and often, I think, overlooked because of that. They're so small, they're way at the back, and if you were to read from Genesis to Revelation, well, some of you might never get there, and so, and especially Revelation kind of puts people off, so people try to keep their distance from the book of Revelation, but these have a lot of significant stuff to say to us in a world full of confusion, a world full of doubt, and uncertainty, and conflict, and these three letters are really dealing with, that's not COVID, that's just a little bit something in my throat, but they say a lot to a church that's in conflict, a church that's in confusion, and so far, most of the letter of Jude has been a stern indictment, particularly on false teachers.

That's been the real goal. Jude has highlighted judgment, and even highlighted the dangers that threaten the people of God when false teachers infiltrate the church, so a lot of it has to do with what's going on inside the church during conflict, and I think that it's kind of interesting to think about what's going on inside the church during this conflict because, well, where is the church?

We're not gathering together right now, so what is, but I would suggest to you that there are things that are going on inside all of us that we have to wrestle with and think through, and I don't think it's a stretch to compare the crisis of the church during Jude's time with the crisis of our time.

They are different, there's differences, significant differences, but there's also some overlap in that there is conflict, there is confusion, there is uncertainty, and there was so in Jude's time as well, and he's addressing it specifically.

So although the threat looks different, I believe the answer is very much the same. When a church is in conflict, when a church is going through the fire, so to speak, what is the solution, and you see, our text conveys a central point of the book of Jude.

God wants the church to be the church in the midst of crisis. He wants the church to be the church during a crisis, and that's what he's calling us back to in this text. He's calling us back to an understanding of the fundamentals of the faith, back to the foundation of what it means to be a church, and to take that on and to grow in that, and so I would even go so far as to say that the strength of the church is that we are intended to shine brightest in the midst of a culture of conflict, confusion, and uncertainty.

That's when we shine, that's when we show that we are different, that we have a different hope and a different gospel, a different good news than what the world is looking at for their good news is out there in the culture, because everybody right now is spouting some kind of good news.

They have some kind of solution, some kind of an answer, but we have the one that truly matters, the one that truly affects change. We have the one good news, and so the conflict in Jude's time was internal to the church.

I want to be clear about that at the outset, but as we read this text together this morning, pay attention to what he's calling the church to in their time of crisis. He wants them to be the church, and many of these commands are the fundamentals of what it means to be the people of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

If you're not already there, open your Bible, open your app, whatever you have available to you to dig into Jude, verses 17 through 23. Again, one chapter in Jude. You can pause this to get there, because I know it's clear at the end of the Bible.

If you have an app, it's a little easier. Type in Jude, but verses 17 through 23 is what we're gonna read, and as I like to remind you, every week when we're together, and every week when we're not, this is God's holy and precious word, Recast.

This is an opportunity that we have to take in what God desires for us to hear this week, and there's no chance, there's no coincidence that you're tuning in right now. If you're listening to this, then I believe that this is a message that God desires to communicate to you, so let's listen in to what God has to say this morning, and then we're gonna be talking about that and kind of taking that apart and dissecting it, but Jude 17 through 23.

But you must remember, beloved, the prediction of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, in the last times, there will be scoffers following their own godly passions. It is these who cause divisions.

Worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life, and have mercy on those who doubt.

Save others by snatching them out of the fire. To others, show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. Let's pray. Father, I thank you so much for your grace and mercy that has been given to your church to call us out from the judgment that we deserve, the judgment that was so clearly expressed in the last large section of the book of Jude.

And I thank you for your salvation that comes only through faith in Jesus Christ, that we have this message to share to the world around us, that we are awaiting a mercy that comes and results in eternal life through Jesus Christ, the mercy that comes through him.

We have that to express to others, even in our waiting. Even in our waiting during this era and during this time, this unprecedented time of history, Father, we have an opportunity to shine brightly. And so, Father, I pray that you would make that a reality among us, and even in creative ways.

Right now, it seems like a primary way of communication is online. I pray that you would help us to know how best to connect with others during this time, and to be a voice of positive, unifying, loving in our culture and our community.

Father, I pray that you would speak through me with accuracy, with clarity, with zeal this morning, that you would allow your words to have its impact, its desired impact in people's hearts and minds, that you would remove distractions.

I know there's distractions in living rooms and in family rooms that are listening to this right now. Father, I pray that you would remove those distractions and allow the focus of your word during our time to be sweet and beneficial to each person listening.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Jude’s Final Exhortation to a Church in Crisis

All right, let me encourage you to settle in for the remainder of our time here, but also let me encourage you to keep your Bibles or your devices open to Jude verses 17 through 23. You can dig in there, and you can see the things that I'm saying are coming from God's word.

I say that regularly at Recast, but our desire is to see that the word of God is speaking to us, not Don, not my opinions, not my thoughts, but I'm just trying to study God's word, let it impact me in our culture and where we live, and then sharing that with you.

And so, really, verse 17 starts the ending conclusion of the letter of Jude. It's the beginning of the end, so to speak, and although it's a very short letter, we need to remember that 17 through 19 serve as a recap that sets up his final challenge to the church, where what we need to remember is that verses five through 16 were a huge section comparatively in the size of this letter, the bulk of this letter in Jude, taken up, dedicated to explaining the just judgment of God against false teachers.

And he now turns his attention to the church. He's certainly been talking to the church the entire time, talking about the just judgment of false teachers and people who would come into the church and lead people astray, lead people into sin, lead people to walk away from Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

But you see that at the beginning here in our verses, but you must remember, and the people that he wants to remember are plural. It's like, use guys, as my very Polish grandfather would have said, I never heard the guy ever say you, singular, he was always use, use.

And all of us, it's plural, and all of us are being called to remember a prophecy that should make us expect hardship and attack by false teachers. In other words, he's saying, you should have expected this.

You should have seen this coming. This should not take you by surprise. The apostles themselves told the church in Jude's days that there would arise mockers and scoffers who would follow their own ungodly passions, and that has come to pass.

And I just wanna point out, what in the world is a mocker? What in the world is a scoffer? And how would they arise within the church while it's happened in our era, it's happened in our day and age? It's people who would call themselves and would title themselves with Christian, even in our day and age, would title themselves evangelical, would say that they hold the gospel high.

That's what the word evangelical, it's got mixed in with all kinds of politics and all kinds of, but the start of that word was a person who believes that the gospel should be shared, an evangelist, and an evangelical is somebody who holds that central, that the good news is the core, and in that sense, I would be fine being called an evangelical.

But there are people who even have infiltrated the evangelical ranks who would say, they would literally mock, I've heard a person that called themselves an evangelical, mocking the gospel, saying that the cross and the atonement of Christ and the common evangelical understanding of the son appeasing the wrath of the father as being divine child abuse, like that's a scoffing.

That is a mockery. I've heard Christians who call themselves evangelicals or who call themselves Christians call themselves evangelicals deny the virgin birth outright or deny the trinity outright. These would be scoffers.

They would mock the core orthodox views of scripture. They would literally mock what scripture says. Sure, I mean, I understand there's room for kind of some sarcasm towards theological debate and stuff like that, but they're mocking God's word.

And Jude says it started early in the church. It started early in the church that people would infiltrate and make fun of the doctrines of the cross, would make fun of those who believe Jesus Christ literally is calling us to lay down our lives, to pick up our cross and follow him.

And I think Jude clarifies this here in these first three verses to cover anyone who might have thought that they signed up for something else. What did you sign up for when you came into the church? What did you sign up for when you signed all in with Christ by faith?

It's like Jude is saying, in case you signed up for the everything easy, everything fun, everything simple group, well, you're at the wrong meeting. They meet every other Friday in room 312. Today is Sunday, and this is the day that the church meets, says Jude, and nothing is easy.

It isn't all fun and games. And it is not just simple. But didn't you hear what the apostles, the very first followers of Jesus said? It's gonna get tough. People are gonna come in and they're gonna want to stir things up.

And there's gonna be conflict, and there's gonna be wolves in sheep's clothing that come in, and there's gonna be difficulty and uncertainty and just circumstances that go on like viruses and earthquakes and hurricanes, natural disasters that come from outside, and internal disasters that come from broken, sinful human lives.

And so in verse 19, Jude reminds us that the people have come into the church subtly, that there are people who have come into the church subtly with an agenda to cause divisions. They would love to separate, they would love to divide.

There are people driven by the system of the world. That's what it means to be worldly people, driven by the systems of the world. I had mentioned therapeutic pragmatism that says just whatever works, just do that.

The common sense kind of worldly wisdom that at the end of the day does not apply to theology. We are not being called to apply common sense to our understanding of God and then go with that. We're called to believe a revelation, a word that has come from him.

So not armchair theology, but biblical theology, to dig into the word and let it drive the discussion. And then further, they are not, these people that have slid into the church and mocked and are scoffers, they are driven by the world system.

Yes, they are worldly, but further, in more of an indictment, they are devoid of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Now it's clear that Jude assumes that these false teachers were not even in the faith by his use of this phrase, devoid of the Spirit, because having the Spirit is a fundamental gift of saving faith.

If you are saved, then you have the Spirit. In other words, no spirit, no salvation. You cannot have salvation and be devoid of the Spirit. But now from verses 20 through 23, we see the meat of the lesson to the church in crisis, and this is where we're gonna camp.

And I can summarize it as a overarching command. Here's the big picture command that we're gonna break down into several different commands, seven different commands, actually, but the fundamental command is be the church.

In crisis and in all of these judgments and all of these concerns that he has for the church in his era, Jude says, here's what I need you to do. Be the church. Be the church. Be, anybody else can be the political masters, anybody else can do all of these other things, but at the end of the day, there's one thing that only the church can do.

And that is be the church. And so those are my words that are the overarching heading, and it falls into line in Jude's thinking through seven commands. Here are seven commands of what he thinks the church needs to be and is made to be.

In a time of crisis.

And I'm gonna summarize these commands that amount to that one central call recast during this crisis, be the church, but here's the first command that he gives us in that heading. Build yourselves up.

Build Yourselves Up on the Most Holy Faith

Build yourselves up. He wants you to be strong. He wants the church to be strong together in unity. Yes, even in a time of physical separation, he wants us to be strong together. The construction metaphor, by the way, the building up is a construction metaphor, like hardhat, like excavators and pouring foundations and all of that kind of stuff, like that kind of building is what's in mind here.

And it's a construction metaphor, it's a common one that was in the ancient world, a common one that was used throughout Scripture for the Bible, and the word for build in this text is subtly unique in the Greek language.

It means not to build from scratch, but to build upon something. In other words, the foundation has been laid for us, church. The foundation, he even goes on to say, what are we to build upon? We are to build upon the most holy faith.

The foundation is your holy faith. This holy faith, not your holy faith in God, but the holy faith that has been delivered. It is what Jude already defined for us. Back in verse three, you can glance there if you want, but it is the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.

It is the central gospel truth. It is the central core bullseye of the doctrine of what we believe that he's saying, build on that, build on the gospel. And that is what we were told back in verse three to contend for, contend for that holy faith.

It is the gospel faith that we must build our church upon and build our lives upon. You see, Jude seems in this text, and in the Greek, and in what's written here, and in the culture, it seems that he's most concerned that the church is strong corporately, that we have a strong presentation that as bricks, think of us as big blocks of stone that God is building into a temple as Paul referred to it.

And so each one is cut on each end, and on the sides, and on the tops, to fit together well, and we have to cut off the rough edges and the bumps in order to fit well together. And the more that we fit well together, and the more that we're sharpened, and the more that we're chiseled for God, the more that we fit well together.

And he's very interested in having a strong building.

Is the metaphor.

Strong together, church, strong in building up and encouraging one another, and even being willing to, at times, lop off rough edges of one another, and that's what it means to be community, that's what it means to be the church.

But I would suggest to you that as much as he wants that togetherness, we also need to be attentive to ourselves in this as well. You see, we will not be a strong church together if we are filling our own lives, our personal lives with junk and crud, and then being forced to gather together to act spiritual when we meet.

When we spend time in community groups, when we even Zoom with one another, or when we interact with one another on the phone, and all of a sudden there's an act that has to be played because we have to put a mask on, because at the end of the day, the only thing that's been sticking to us during this crisis is crud and junk and Netflix.

And it's all that we've been pouring into our lives, and so when we gather back together again, will we be stronger or will we be weaker? A strong church is full of skilled builders who recognize what it means to build a life based on the gospel.

We must be building, hear me carefully, we must be building us up together. And that involves some personal up-building that empowers us and strengthens us to build the church up so that then in turn the church can build the community up, and has something to share together of love and unity and strength and truth.

But one application from this first command recast during this time of crisis is just simply this, build each other up on this most holy faith, which is primarily the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is what we are being built upon.

That is where we are, that's the starting point in our personal lives, that's the starting point in our church life. We have been brought together by the gospel of Christ, we've been brought into salvation, not so that we can just sit back and munch Fritos and sit and watch Netflix, we've been brought in so that we can grow together, so that we can have an impact in the world around us because of the gospel.

And I wanna suggest to you that I've seen all kinds of gospels being presented by the church, the Big C Church, like people out that I know on Facebook, that I know online that are connected to Christ or claim to be connected to Christ, and there are all kinds of gospels being presented out there right now, from the church and from outside of the church.

Some of the gospels I've seen Christians really digging into is the gospel of political activism. Good news, politics is gonna save us. Good news, we're gonna get our way, and when we get our way, then we'll be saved.

The gospel of medical intervention, a vaccine, a therapy, a cure, and then we'll be saved. Or the gospel of statistics. Think about it. Well, 98 of people recover, right? I'm in the younger category, so I'm okay.

I'm social distancing, so I'm okay. And we run the statistics, and we can begin to appear to present a gospel of statistics. The good news, the good news is 98 make it.

That's the good news.

Is that the good news? Is that what the church has uniquely to offer during this time?

I suggest it isn't.

The church of Christ has only one good news. Jesus Christ, sinless life, came here to rescue us by paying the price for our sins on the cross and rising again three days later victorious.

That's good news.

So that anybody who, by faith in him, anybody who presents their faith in him and trusts in him and his work, finished work on the cross, will have eternal life and will be raised on that last day. Praise God, and brought into an eternal kingdom where there will be no COVID, where there will be no sin, where there will be no more, whoo, no more arguments on chat groups and things like that.

The church of Christ has the only one good news, and we must be building on this foundation if we have any hope to be strong and a strong help to others during this era and this time of crisis. So the first thing was build yourself up.

The second is pray in the spirit. I do not believe that this is about speaking in tongues. The emphasis in the text definitely is on the word spirit because what he has said is they like to create divisions, so you build up a stronger wall, you build up a stronger building.

Build it tighter. They're trying to divide, you build. What the church does is the church builds tighter. They are devoid of the spirit. We pray in the spirit. So the emphasis is that we have the spirit.

Those false teachers didn't. And so I don't think at the end of the day he's talking about speaking in tongues or praying in tongues or any miraculous thing, and I believe that instead because Jude is encouraging us all to consider the location of our lives.

Where do we live and move and breathe? And we live and move and breathe as followers of Jesus Christ brought into the realm of his spirit. We walk in the spirit. We live in the spirit. We are to love each other in the spirit.

We should drive in the spirit. We should do our work for others in the spirit, and we are to pray in the spirit. So I point out that list, not to say that they're all synonyms or that they're all done equally together in the same way, shape, or form, but I use those as an illustration to say we are called to do a lot of things that are not supernatural in the spirit.

We are to live our day-to-day lives in the spirit, and we are also to pray in the spirit. Again, what does the church have to offer in a crisis? We are indeed to be, and ought to be, and called to be a people who pray.

We are a praying people. I found that this crisis personally has moved me into a place of an improved prayer life. I have a long list of people sitting on my makeshift desk at home, and I'm praying for people using that list daily as I look down at that list, and I've called a lot of people and I've talked with a lot of people on the phone, and then I'm able to interact with people on a little bit more of a known way because I've been able to take prayer requests from people specifically, and the chances are fairly good that if you're listening to this, then you are likely on that list if you attend Recast.

But the best way to learn how to pray, hear me carefully, is to just do it. If you're new to it, let me just suggest to you that you start in a place where Jesus would have you start. Start with the Lord's Prayer.

If prayer doesn't come easy and prayer is difficult, then certainly use a pattern and a form, a really good pattern and form, and you can find that in Matthew 6, 9 through 13. Again, Matthew 6, 9 through 13.

Jot that down, look it up later. Pray this for yourself, pray this for others. I love, by the way, how the content of the prayer here in our text, it says pray in the Spirit, praying in the Spirit, but it doesn't tell us the content of that prayer.

But that's partly because I believe praying in the Spirit is a way of trusting the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, to guide you into the right words, the right praise, and to trust Him that you're giving the right requests.

Now, I'm not suggesting to you, then, that you sit there silently waiting for the Spirit to tell you what to pray. Prayer in the Spirit means that we launch out into the words, we launch out on our knees, we launch out into the talk with God, or as we're driving the car with our eyes open, we're talking to God, or as we're walking down the hallway to a difficult business meeting, or as we're getting ready for a Zoom meeting, or as we're interacting with somebody face-to-face that we're discipling through media, or on the phone, or whatever, that you're talking with God, and you're certainly saying the words, and you launch out and you speak it while trusting the Holy Spirit to get it right.

Often, we don't even know what to pray for. Often, we don't know if we're asking for the right thing, so we come to prayer with a holy humility that says, I'm asking for this healing. I'm asking for this cure.

I'm asking for this therapy, or this vaccine. I'm asking for it, and I might be asking for the wrong thing. What I really need the Spirit to do is translate that prayer into help sustain us in the difficulty, because maybe that's what God has for us.

And so the application comes down to a word, and I think you've guessed it, pray.

Pray, pray, recast.

This is the time, this is the season, where you should come out the other side of this crisis, deeper in your understanding and your commitment to prayer. It's one of the only things we have left to us, and when it's one of the only things that we have left to us, boy, oh boy, should we be taking advantage of that.

The third thing is keep yourself in his love, a strange one, and in some sense, Jude is a keep sandwich. In verse one, he said, we are kept by Jesus. Jesus is the one whose power holds us in his hands.

How do we stay in his hands?

He keeps us.

In verse one, kept by Jesus. In his conclusion next week, he will give a doxology, and the doxology will be to him who is able to keep you, to the one who is able to hold onto you, to make sure that you stay in his hands and that you don't jump off, and here in verse 21, so he keeps us, verse one.

Next week, I think it's verse 24, he keeps you. He keeps you, he keeps you. Verse 21, keep yourself.

Well, which is it?

Does God keep us or do we keep ourselves? And some of you who have a very sensitive conscience and are constantly worried about losing your salvation, you're going, you got my attention, you got mine, and the short answer is both, but let me suggest to you that whenever it's both, the more powerful wins.

Who is more powerful? If the scripture says that he keeps you, and then it commands you to keep yourself, who do you think has the upper hand in that power struggle? No question in my mind who it is that is granting me the power to stay.

He is from beginning to end my salvation. He is the one who is able to keep me and to present me holy and blameless on that final day.

We'll see that next week.

Don't wanna steal my own thunder, but I would put it this way. In this text, in verse 21, there's no question that we are commanded to remain, to keep ourselves in, or as Jesus himself put it in John 15, abide in me, abide in my love, he said, and what does he mean when he's talking?

Why would he command us this way?

Well, I think he wants to talk to us.

About our life position. That's really what the keep of verse 21 is all about, life position, where are you living? You're living in the realm of the Spirit, and you're living in the realm of his love, stay there.

Anyone who has faith in the finished work of Jesus on the cross has been placed into the love of the Father. Back at the opening of this letter, he talked about that. We are forgiven, we are washed, we are cleansed, we are granted eternal life.

So Jude says, stay there, stay in his love. And this is not like a governor, this is not like our governor saying, stay home, stay there, stay safe. This is like vacationing at a resort in Mexico, and having your boss and your wealthy uncle teaming up and calling and saying, you know what, we've got your work covered back here, we've got the funds covered for you to stay,.

Just stay there, that's a good stay there.

You know, you're at the end of this really great vacation, and you're kinda lounging on the deck chairs going, man, the flight tomorrow doesn't sound so great, I don't wanna go, I don't wanna leave this place, this place is full of, switch the metaphor, full of love of the Father, full of hope, full of purpose, full of a heart of joy and peace.

I don't feel like going anywhere else.

Being told to keep ourselves in a location right now doesn't feel like that. It might not ring very good in our ears, we who have been for six weeks now told to stay in the same place, but you see, keeping yourself in the love of God is not working.

It's not a call to work for it. It's already been granted, it's already been given, you've already been placed in the resort, you've already been placed in the love. Not anything that you've done that earned it, not anything that you've done that's deserved it, just by mere trust in what his Son has accomplished for you, you have been placed in that place.

And so what is he calling us to in staying there, in keeping there, in remaining there, in abiding there? It is to lean into the love he has already expressed to us. In other words, keep trusting in his love for you.

Keep living, moving, and breathing in that love. Don't come out of it into works. Don't come out of it into sin. Don't come out of it into the love of sinful people. Jude says, don't wander off into other loves.

Stay in this love.

Stay here.

And so as an application, consider the location.

Of your life.

One way to determine if you're resting in the love of God is to just take an analysis of your anxiety and fear. Are you in the kingdom, are you trusting in his hope, in his salvation, in his good news, is your life being built on that foundation?

Are you reminding yourself of the cross of Christ daily? Let me suggest that you spend time each day reflecting on his love already given to you. Stay in the place of his love. Don't wander out into other solutions and other hopes that only can ever leave us exposed to fear and anxiety because they cannot make good on their promises.

And that leads to the fourth point. The fourth point is wait. This is a crazy point. This one seemed to jump right off the pages of scripture at me this week because isn't that what we're, in a sense, all doing?

Waiting for the governor's next mandate, waiting for things to be released, waiting for this slow and subtle return. It's closely tied to keeping ourselves in the love of God, according to this text. For it is only as we remain planted in the soil of God's love, only as we stay in that location,.

That our hope will sprout.

So if we're scrambling around, think of it this way, if we're scrambling around grasping hope in statistics or hope in political activism or hope in reopening or hope in staying close, we are gonna miss the glorious call in this text.

To wait.

To wait.

We're not good at waiting. We're not good at demonstrating that our trust is in something else. We are very good at making our own destiny, making our own hope, getting this governor to open this economy, getting something active.

Do something right now, right? While the text is telling us to wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. You see, that mercy leads to eternal life. So what are you waiting for? What are you waiting for?

Answer that question for yourself right now. Are you waiting for the economy to reopen? Are you waiting for a vaccine to be discovered? I believe firmly, those things would be really nice right now. But if that is all the world hears from the church, then I would suggest to you that we have squandered this quarantine.

If that's the only thing that they're hearing from Christian voices out there right now. And where are they hearing Christian voices? Well, certainly within your family, you might be having some interaction.

Certainly some of you are still essential workers and so you're still going to work and there's some banter and some conversations that are happening there. So you might have a little bit of an outlet there.

Some of you maybe have some minor interactions with next door neighbors or people around you in your neighborhood. So you might have some voice there. But let me suggest to you that the Areopagus, the location where the exchange of ideas is happening in our culture right now is online, like it or not.