I don't think there was any doubt how that race was going to turn out. Do you?
No need for instant replay on that one. Hey, welcome. My name is Brian. I'm one of the pastors here at Mercy Hill. And today we're going to be wrapping up our series through the book of the Bible called Jude.
Jude was actually a letter that Jude wrote to the church out of great concern that we might drift away from God's truth as revealed in Jesus Christ. So think about drifting with me for a moment. Think about drifting maybe out in the ocean. Drifting is what happens when you're just passively being carried along. There's no effort being applied.
There's no set direction that you are aiming for. And the big idea of this message series has been that passivity never produces perseverance. Passivity never produces perseverance. If you want to grow or you want to sustain in really any area of your life, it takes intentionality. It takes effort. So think about a relationship in your life right now that you would say is absolutely thriving because you have done nothing to cultivate that relationship.
Right? If you don't talk to someone, if you don't ever see someone, the relationship doesn't thrive, it grows stale. And the same is true with our relationship with God. We understand that God is the one who initiates a relationship with us. We understand that we can't earn God's love. But we still have a responsibility to cultivate our love for God.
We cultivate that relationship so it doesn't grow stale but instead it thrives. Something that you might find this interesting about me is I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina and something interesting about where I grew up is most of the people that I grew up around, my family, my friends, we didn't know how to swim. Like we would never swim. And I can remember as a little child going on vacation to the beach and my dad who could not swim had this raft, inflatable raft thing that he would go out on into the ocean, ride the waves on and fall asleep. And it would terrify my sister and me.
Right? We would be so scared like, oh, there's dad. He's going farther away. And we knew he had no way of getting back unless he was just brought in with the waves. Here's the point. The danger of drifting is you risk finishing in a place you never intended to go. And that's where the fear comes from. And that's where the fear comes from. And that's where the fear comes from. And that's where the fear comes from. And that's where the fear comes from. And that's where the fear comes from. And that's where the fear comes from. And that's where the fear comes from.
And that's where the fear comes from. In the speech of Yahweh, Jesus said for in the church leaders who call themselves Christians leaders who are teaching ideas that sound persuasive and their personality is appealing, but yet they are leading people farther and farther away from God's truth. And so, Jude's message is he implores us to contend for the faith. You got to keep the faith.
You got to apply for this one good thing. The four words. Next It's an important message. I'm sure it's an important belief with the group.
The number oneendor, because every time we talk, it's an investment ninety seven, twelve. And the reason why we say it, it's that it's because what we try to get there is that we're given, this will get the faith away from this beautiful piece of persuasive and their personality is appealing, but yet they are leading people farther and farther away from God's truth. And so Jude's message is he implores us to contend for the faith. You got to keep the faith.
You got to apply effort to grow in your relationship with God. And so the point of today's message is that focusing on the gospel is what keeps us faithful. Focusing on the gospel is what is going to help us finish where we intend to go. And so if you have a copy of scripture, I invite you to turn to the book of Jude.
It's the last second to last book of the Bible, or you can pull it up on your device and we'll begin in Jude verse 17. Jude writes, but you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, and the last time there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions.
It is these who cause divisions, worldly people devoid of the spirit. Okay, so he's setting up this contrast between those who are going in the right direction, true believers, and those who are fake Christians going in the wrong direction. And those who are the, the fake, the false Christians, the false teachers and leaders, he calls them scoffers. Other translations use the term mockers. Now when I hear the word scoffer, I think of someone who is rude, dismissive, cocky. They just don't care. But we can scoff in more subtle ways as well. The attitude of a scoffer is simply, I don't have to do that.
That doesn't apply to me. Have you been to the hardware store recently? You go to the hardware store, and they have a hundred designated parking spots right up near the storefront, right? All the normal parking spots are like a block and a half away. And I'm riding there one time, and I have a buddy with me, and I'm like, man, where am I going to, I'm going to have to park so far away. And he's like, no, no, no, no, just park up there.
I'm like, I can't park up there. I'm going to get out of this truck, and people are going to know that I am not an expectant mother, right? But he was like, don't worry about it. It doesn't matter.
We're just going to go in, be out, be quick. That doesn't matter. It doesn't apply.
You're good, right? That's a form of scoffing the sign, scoffing that rule. There are other rules that we scoff and we mock all the time, like the sign that says no outside food or beverages.
And you've got a picnic hidden away in your bag, right? Well, what about this? What about you get an invitation, and the invitation says, please RSVP. And you're like, nah, they know I'm coming, right? We think that we have better reasons than to follow these rules, follow these signs. It's ways that we scoff at things that we think just don't matter. Well, Jude isn't just warning us of people who are shaking their fist at God to mock him. He's warning us of people who just live as if some of God's rules don't apply to them.
It can sound something like this, well, I know God says that sex outside of marriage is wrong, but we really love each other, but we're probably going to get married anyway. I know that God tells us that we should be generous and give, but in this economy, I know that God says to live with self-control, but all the stress that I'm under, I know God says to forgive, but if he knew what that person had actually done to me, it's just ways that we mock and we scoff God's commands. You know, scoffing in the Bible is contrasted to submission to the word of God. In Psalm chapter one, the Psalmist says that blessed is the man who does not sit in the way of scoffers, sit in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is on the law of the Lord. See, instead of submitting to God's authority, Jude says these false teachers are following their own ungodly passions, right? Their mindset is, well, if it feels right, it must be right, and even if it's maybe not the best, God loves me anyway, he's going to forgive me anyway, it doesn't really matter. See, false teachers, they change their beliefs to justify their behavior. Their doctrine follows their desires. How else are there churches whose main mantra is to affirm one another no matter how they feel when Jesus preached repent?
How else are there churches that promise blessing to your bank account when Jesus said, do not store up treasures for yourself on earth, but in heaven? Instead of bending their will, they bend God's will, they bend God's commands, and the struggle between God's will be done and my will be done, we find reasons to do our will and then convince ourselves and others that, well, it must have been God's will too. See, the struggle to contend is a battle within the heart.
The struggle to contend, it's a battle that takes place within our hearts, within our desires. And if your choices are driven more by your own desires than by obedience to God's commands, then scripture gives you no confidence of your salvation. Again, Jude, he's contrasting those who are truly following Jesus versus those who are going in the wrong direction. His ultimate denouncement of these false teachers, these false leaders, it comes in the end of verse 19 where he says that they are devoid of the Spirit. God's Spirit is simply not within them. See, the dividing line between a true Christian and a fake Christian is not something that is found on the outside.
It's not in external affiliations, right? It's not the name of the church you go to. It's not the denomination that you're a part of.
It's not the podcasts that you listen to. It's not the music that you sing to, okay? Those are not the defining marks of a Christian. The defining mark of a Christian is the internal presence of God's Holy Spirit, Christ in you. See, when God saves you, he places his Spirit in you to guide you. Every single one of us, we have ungodly desires within us that we are prone to follow. We are prone to chase after, but God's Spirit is put within us to convict us of those desires and to do battle with those desires within us. One of my favorite preachers from long ago is a man named J.C. Ryle.
He lived back in the 1800s, ministered in England, and he wrote a book called Holiness. And in that book, Holiness, he talks about when a person becomes a follower of Jesus, he says that there is a new joy that they experience, that there is new peace within them, peace that really cannot be explained any other way, but he says there's also a new war. There's a new battle that goes on within our hearts. It's the struggle between, am I going to follow God's way or my way?
We must contend for the heart. And that's why Jude is going to tell us that the way that we contend for the faith, the way we contend for our hearts is to keep ourselves in the love of God. Look at verse 20. He says, 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. Keep yourselves in the love of God. This is Jude's main charge for us church. Now, first it sounds like Jude is telling us to, to live in such a way that's going to keep God loving us, right?
To modify our behavior so that God is continually pleased with us. Growing up, I used to golf with my grandpa. I haven't golfed in years cause I'm a horrible golfer and it's just not worth the money.
But uh, you know, when, when I had my grandpa that would pay for my green fees, I love to go out with him. And I remember one time I'm on the tee box with my grandpa and his buddies and I tee off and I hit one and it just, I shank it right into the creek. Okay. But instead of hitting the water, it hit a rock and then bounced back onto the fairway.
It ended up being like the best shot of my life. Okay. And then immediately my grandpa's friend says, well, he must be living, right? Right. And it's that, it's that mentality that we think that, okay, that God is going to bless and God is going to favor those who, who have morally clean living. But what the Bible teaches us is that God's love is not based on our goodness but on his goodness.
And that's really, really good news. See, God does not love you because of anything that you have done in your past. God does not love you because of what he knows you will do in your future.
God loves you because he loves you. And if we are to keep ourselves in the love of God, then we need to understand rightly what this love is, what God's love looks like, how he loves. First John four eight says that God is love. And then the very next verse, it tells us how God has shown his love, how he has made it known.
First John four nine will be on the screen. It says in this, the love of God was made manifest among us. It was shown to us that God sent his son, his only son to the world so that we might live through him.
In this is love. Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. That word propitiation just means that Christ was a satisfaction for the punishment that we deserve.
So we are not left to guess at what God's love is like. He has demonstrated to us in the gospel. Now you may be thinking, what is this gospel? What does he mean by gospel?
Gospel is the really, really good news that starts with some really, really bad news. The bad news is that all of us were born with a nature inherited from our first parents, Adam and Eve, that we want to do our own thing. We are bent towards doing our own will opposed to God's will. And all of us have chosen to go after those desires, those ungodly desires, to pursue them and ignore God's way and his design. And the punishment of going our own way, the punishment of those what the Bible calls sins is death. It's something that we can never make up for. The payment to satisfy that payment would require us to spend an eternity separated from God in hell.
That's the really bad news. But the really good news is that God initiated and sent his son Jesus to die on a cross. Jesus lived a perfect life, perfectly obedient in every way, and yet he died trading our sins for his righteousness, taking on our punishment to give us the reward that only he deserves. Three days later, after dying on the cross, Jesus rose from the dead in victory over sin and death, and he ascended to heaven and will one day come and return and rule forever in his kingdom.
And that is our hope. That is the hope that we put our salvation in, not in what we can do, but in what God has done. See, the gospel is not good advice telling you to do better. The gospel is good news telling you that God loves you not on the basis of what you have done or what you will do, but God loves you on the basis of what Christ has done for you. Jude uses one word to help capture the idea of God's love, that God's love is not based on our goodness, but on his goodness. And that one word that Jude uses is the word beloved.
We've already read it two times. He uses it four times in this letter, and he uses his word with intentionality and significance. Beloved is more than an expression of Jude's own feelings towards his readers. Beloved communicates God's heart towards his people, is to be loved by God. You can look back to the very first verse, how he introduces his letter.
Jude says, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James to those who are called to the Christians beloved in God, the father, and kept for Jesus. You're beloved in God. You are beloved by God.
He didn't say, hey, to those of you who are so lovable, to those of you who are so lovely. No, he says to those of you who are beloved, God places his love on you with enthusiasm. Now there's a unbelievable connection with this word beloved that I want to show you.
You don't have to go there, but in Matthew chapter three, we read the account of Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist and the account there, it says that when Jesus comes up out of the water, the spirit of God, like a dove descends upon him and then a voice from heaven speaks and the voice from heaven says, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Beloved is how God the father addresses his perfect divine son, Jesus Christ. And now if you are in Christ, beloved is how he addresses you. Because of this gospel, God does not love you more or love you less depending on your behavior.
God loves you with the same unending, unwavering love that he has for his perfect son, Jesus. And Jude wants us to remain in this love, to stay focused on this love. You cannot remain in God's love until you receive God's love. It's a gift that must be received that cannot be earned and maybe some of you today need to take that first step and receive God's love.
Why else does Jude tell us to keep in God's love, to remain in God's love, to keep ourselves in God's love? Well, I think of if you ever had a puppy, a young dog and you're trying to train that dog and I know there's all sorts of theories and philosophies on how to train a dog, but one thing that you want to desperately teach your dog to do is how to stay. Why is it so important that you teach a young dog to stay? Because they are prone to chase, right? They're prone to run after that other dog. They're prone to run after those other people in hopes of getting petted.
They are prone to chase after a squirrel, a rabbit, whatever it is. They're prone to chase and you want them to just remain, to stay. We too are prone to chase after things. Chase after things that we think will give us more significance. Chase after things that we think will give us greater security, but what more significance can you have than to know that you have the love of God?
What more security can you have than to know that the one who holds the future loves you with enthusiastic affection? So keep yourselves in the love of God by staying focused on the gospel. Stay focused. Stay committed to the gospel. Now this point, maybe there's some confusion.
Maybe you're thinking, okay, wait a minute. I understand that I can't earn my salvation, but am I the one, is it up to me to keep it? Is that what Jude's saying? Staying in the love of God, remaining in the love of God means you got to somehow keep your salvation? So let's look at the last couple of verses of Jude verse 24 he says, now to him who is able to keep you, him who's able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy to God, only God, our savior through Jesus Christ, our Lord. It is God's power, his ability that's going to keep you faithful to the end. Many of us are familiar with the scene of a mother holding the hand of her child for safety.
Maybe it's because they're walking through a parking lot or crossing the street. Question for you, is that child safe because he is holding his mom's hand? Yes. But is it the strength of the child? Is it the guidance of the child that is the one protecting him?
No. It's the strength and the guidance of the mother, right? It's the mom who, if she sees a car coming by, will stay the child. If the child stumbles and trips on a crack in the concrete, it's the mother's grip that's going to keep the child standing. It's the mom's ability that is the reason for the child to hold her hand and not chase after other things. So it is God's strength that keeps us, and it is good for us to remain close. It's God's ability to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before him. That is our reason to remain in his love. You see, we can remain in God's love because God's love remains.
His love is not going anywhere. A couple months back in the winter, I had three boys, and they were doing a basketball camp, and I was there watching them play, and I noticed that while one of my sons was playing on this court, the court right beside him, my neighbor's son was playing, and my neighbor was there. And so my neighbor and I were sitting together, and we're talking, and we're kind of looking back and forth at the different games, watching them both go on, and all of a sudden, I turned back to my son's game to see how it's going, and my son is standing mid-court. The game is still going on. All the other players are behind him continuing the game, and he is deadlocked, looking straight at me.
I'm like, oh, no, what just happened, right? He is looking at me, waiting for me to turn around, and he says, Dad, I just scored, right? Like you missed it, Dad.
And yeah, Dad failed in that moment, but it got me thinking. There is never a time where we turn to our Heavenly Father, and he is distracted, but he is always engaged. He is always looking with great affection at his children. You are beloved.
There is nothing you did to awaken God's love for you, and there is nothing you can do to end his love for you. So how do we remain in God's love? How do we do it, right?
Because remaining, it's not just this passive, right? It takes action. So how do we do it? Well, Jude gives us three practical ways with three simple words, building, praying, and waiting. Let's look again at verse 20 and 21. It says, 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. Building yourselves up in your most holy faith. Now, that kind of sounds like Jude is saying when he says your most holy faith, like, okay, let's take your Christianity to the varsity level, but he's not actually referring to your personal amount of faith, right? There aren't JV Christians versus varsity Christians. There's only fake Christians versus real Christians. So what is it that makes our faith holy?
It's not our effort. Our faith is holy because it's from God. It's from heaven. Holiness is a characteristic of God. It's not of this earth and we don't make our faith more or less holy through our effort. Our faith is holy because our faith is in the Holy One, Jesus Christ. Our trust in Jesus is the most significant thing that shapes the totality of our lives.
So here's how I'll say an application point. Build up what matters most. Build up what matters most. You know, there's a lot of things that we build throughout life. We build resumes, we build careers, we build families, we build finances, we build our image. There's a lot of things that we can build, but what matters most is building your relationship with God.
Growing up during summers in high school, I would work with a construction crew building houses and I had a lot of fun doing it. I learned a ton of very practical things, but I also learned that progress is made by working steady and by working together and so when you are building your faith, when you are building your relationship with God, it's going to take time. Don't expect things to change just overnight and it's really, really helpful to do it in a community with people.
As Judas writing, he's not just writing to individuals, he's writing to the church and so he says, keep yourselves in the love of God. This is a community effort and so one really practical way to do this here at Mercy Hill is that if you are not in a community group to jump into a community group where together you will meet weekly to study God's word, to apply it to your lives, will help you to keep yourselves in the love of God, help you to build that relationship with God that matters most. There are new groups that are opening right now all across the triad and you can jump into a new one or maybe if you're a student, I would encourage you to sign up for summer camp, right?
Summer camp is one week that equals three months of relationship building, plus you don't want to miss out on those Crowder Mountain Campochinos, okay? So get yourself in community, build what matters most. Second application point comes from the word praying and I would say it this way, pray for what honors God the most. Jude says, praying in the Holy Spirit. This might be misunderstood as some special elevated experience, maybe speaking in tongues. Like there might be some times that we pray in the Spirit, but not all the times we pray in the Spirit. Well, Paul told the Ephesians to pray at all times in the Spirit. So what does he mean to pray in the Holy Spirit? A good way to think about this is to consider, well, what is the role of the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is yes, helping us to discern which desires are good and pure. The Holy Spirit also has the aim of exalting, magnifying Jesus, bringing glory to God. So praying in the Holy Spirit is to pray with the ultimate aim of glorifying God. This is how Jesus taught us to pray in Lord's Prayer. He said, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
Hallowed means honored. God, I want your name to be lifted up, I want your name to be exalted. And how many times in my own life do I just, I skip over that part and I go directly to praying for needs, my needs or the needs of others. I go directly praying based upon the circumstances that I'm finding on my end, and I just want a solution to those circumstances, rather than orient my heart to say, God, I want you to be glorified through this. I want you to be honored.
The most important thing that I want right now is for you to be honored in my life and how I respond to the situation, no matter the circumstantial outcome. When we pray in the Spirit like that, with an aim to glorify God, it's going to help us cultivate pure desires, the desires that He has. And then third, wait for what lasts forever. Wait for what lasts forever, Jude verse 21 says, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. See Christian people are people who live in anticipation.
The scoffers, the mockers, they live for the convenience of the now, for what benefits them in the now. But Christians are awaiting, we're awaiting the kingdom of God and waiting is not passive. It means letting the promises of God shape your perspective, that the present troubles that you are in, do not compare with the glory that's going to come. You know, earlier I said that when the JC Ryle quote, that when God saves a person, there's that new joy, there's that new peace, but there's also a new war. Well, the good news is the joy and the peace last forever. The war is temporary.
It's only momentary. So stay focused on the eternal life to come. How do we keep ourselves in the love of God?
We do it by building what matters most. We do it by praying for what honors God the most, and we do it by waiting for what lasts forever. And church, when you keep yourselves in the love of God, you will not forget his mercy towards you and your awareness of his mercy is going to have two outcomes in your life.
The first outcome, it's going to be an overflow of mercy towards others, and the second outcome is going to be an overflow of worship towards God. Jude 22 and 23 says, and have mercy on those who doubt. Save others by snatching them out of the fire to other show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. In your Christian journey, you will encounter some who are doubting God's love.
You will encounter some who have begun to be influenced by the wrong ideas and the false teachers and you will encounter some who have given up on Jesus. To all three, we are to show mercy because we understand that we have received mercy and mercy received leads to mercy extended. Now, don't confuse mercy with niceness, right?
We're not called just to be nice to everyone, right? True mercy, true compassion has their best good in mind and sometimes it takes different strategies that Jude is even talking about here, right? Sometimes we understand that we have been rescued out of the fire and we need to go in and rescue others, right? A firefighter doesn't stand at the door and knock and wait for someone to answer when the building is on fire, but he, he enters in and some of us need to enter into someone's life with boldness and with courage, all the while keeping compassion.
See, contending for the faith is not about winning arguments. It's about winning people. It's about rescuing them. It's about sharing the mercy that you have been shown with them. Here in a moment, we're gonna have a time of response when we're worshiping. Maybe some of you today need to just come to the altar here and just pray, asking God to give you greater compassion and greater courage to confront the people in your life who are, who are doubting, who are wandering, who are drifting away from the faith. The other outcome of keeping yourself in the love of God is an overflow of worship towards God.
The final verses of this letter, Jude, he transitions from instruction to worship. And maybe today some of you are experiencing a transformation in your desires. Maybe before you would acknowledge that you have been living, following those desires that you have, but now you're, you're being convinced there's something greater. Rather than chasing after significance and security and things of this world, you're realizing that no, it's the love of God that's going to give me my greatest significance and my greatest security. And your desire is no longer to pursue your own selfish desires, but it is to pursue what God wants, to do his will, to see him honored, to see him exalted, to have him be the authority of your life, to give him glory. And so I want to invite all of us across the room, just take a moment and let's just pause and reflect and close your eyes and bow your head.
And if that's weird to you, that's fine. You don't have to, but just to give you, create a space where, Hey, this is between you and God. This is a moment where you don't need to worry about the person beside you, the person in front of you, the person behind you, just you before God. If today is the day that you need to receive God's love so that you can remain in it, and I encourage you to pray, to voice that to God, a prayer, something like this, a prayer that's something like, God, I admit that I am a sinner and have followed my own evil desires. God, I believe that you sent your son Jesus to take the punishment that I deserve. And God, now I confess that you are the leader of my life.
I'm committed to following you. Thank you for your love. Father, I want to pray, God, that you would increase our affections for you. God, that as we sing here, we would remember your mercy. God, we would remember that you are good and your plans for us are good. God, stir us in your love Christ name I pray, Amen.
All across the room. I invite you to stand as the band comes and it's going to lead us and as they come, I want us to again read this doxology that Jude ends his letters with again, as we sing the altar open if you want to come and you want to pray for greater compassion, for greater courage to show mercy to those who are drifting in your life or if you want to come and just mark this moment and say, God, today is the day that I'm committed to remaining in your love. Thank you for your salvation. But to lead us in this time of response, let me read from Jude. Now to him who was able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our savior through Jesus Christ, our Lord, to him be glory, to him be majesty, to him be dominion, to him be authority before all time and now and forever, Amen.
