It's changed in our day. We began embracing what has been labeled rightly, I think, as a therapeutic culture. that our self worth depends upon our subjective feelings. Do I like myself? Do I feel good about myself?
And what that does is it pushes you and I inward. to be self-consumed. Self worshipping. self-identifying. And notice though Jude here, he's Christ absorbed.
He's Christ obsessed. And there's so much rest in this. And it's something our culture doesn't understand. There's rest in being a slave of Jesus Christ. There is rest in being a slave of Christ, and that's how Jude describes himself at the beginning of his letter.
This is Renewing Your Mind on This Monday. I'm Nathan W. Bingham and today we will begin a new series that walks us through Jude's short yet powerful New Testament letter. This is the first time any of these messages have been featured on Renewing Your Mind.
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Well, here's today's guest teacher, Jason Halopoulos, senior pastor of University Reformed Church in Michigan, to begin this study in June. It's my delight to be with you. We're going to go through the book of Jude together. I appreciate you being willing to join me for this. Jude is not exactly the book that people hear a lot about or get excited about.
Uh I was thinking just this morning while I was getting ready. I read through it, and it was just under four minutes to read through the whole book. That's all it took, four minutes. And I was thinking poor Jude, you know, that there won't be complaining in heaven, but if someone had reason for complaint, it's probably Jude. He would say, Ah, nobody cared about my book, you know.
I have um we do professions of faith at the church that I serve where children will have a Sunday, they come up and they do their profession of faith, and I introduce them to the congregation and say, You know, what is your name? And usually, one of the questions I ask them is: what is your favorite book of the Bible? And none of them have ever said Jude. None of them. But it is a wonderful little book.
Though she be small, she is mighty. And she has a lot for us to learn as we turn to it over these next seven sessions. It's a message that Jude is putting forth that is helpful not just for the generation he was in, obviously, but it is one that I think is desperately needed today. And he's going to teach us about contending for the faith.
So that's what we're going to look at in this series: what it looks like to contend. for the faith. But I want to pray for us, and then we're going to look at the first two verses and think about the context and the author together in this first session.
So let me pray for us. Our Father, we are thankful that you have given us your eternal word. that it is sufficient for life That is sufficient for faith. We pray that even as we attend to these next seven sessions together, that as you have promised, that your word would not return void, that you would speak to us as we each have need, and that you would bring to the eyes of our hearts the beauty of our Savior Christ Jesus. It's in his His strong name that we pray.
Amen. Let me read verses 1 and 2, and then let's walk through a little context together as well. Jude A servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called beloved in God the Father, and kept. for Jesus Christ. May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
So let's talk a little bit about the author to start with. Obviously, he names himself at the very beginning. It's why the book is named this. It is Jude. And Jude identifies himself in relation to two people.
If you look there in the opening line. Jesus Christ and James whom he calls his brother.
Now, what you need to know is that Jude can be interchanged with Judas. And so some think this was the lesser well-known of the two Judases that were disciples of Christ. You have Judas of James. But of James does not mean brother of, it means son of.
So I think we can rule out that that this is that Judas. There are others that point to Acts 15, and there is a man there by the name of Judas, Barsabas, and there are some that will identify him there, but he's not identified there as a brother of James. And usually when you're interpreting Scripture, this is a good rule of thumb, when you interpret Scripture, the simplest answer is usually the best answer. And so let's think about what would be the simplest answer to this question. Who is this?
Well, notice that Jude simply mentions James here. He doesn't feel like he needs to give any descriptor of who James is. He's expecting that the people that are receiving this letter know James, have some familiarity with James.
So it's likely that this James is a famous individual in the early church. And so let's think through. Who is a James that would be famous in the early church? We know that there is a James that was a brother of Jesus.
So let me just read to you from Mark chapter 6. This, you'll remember the setting. Jesus is in Nazareth in his hometown, as he says in his hometown. It is A prophet in his own town is without honor, right? And he is there, and his family has gathered around him.
And then we read this in verse three of Mark chapter six. Is not this the carpenter? The son of Mary and brother of James.
So here you have a James out of the brother of Jesus. Look at the rest of this. and Joseph's And Judas and Simon. As we said. Judas can often be translated as Jude.
And so here you have a man that is the brother of James. And his name is Jude. James, of course, was a very important Member of the early church, a leader in the early church that had quite a bit of authority in the early church, and men would have known who this is. But that raises the question, right?
Well why doesn't he say he's the brother of Jesus? Right, that would make sense. You're the brother of Jesus, why not say it?
Well, you notice when James writes his book, he doesn't do that either. He doesn't call himself the brother of Jesus. Why? I think it's this. Both Jude and James, what they are doing is they're saying, look, biological relation doesn't actually matter.
That's not what is important. Rather, it is that we have faith. and that we have come into saving relationship. with the Lord Jesus Christ. Lord and Master as Jude calls him here.
That's the only relation that actually matters. It is not DNA. Like James. Jude most likely became a believer after Christ's resurrection, and from then on, he did not see himself primarily as Jesus' brother. He saw himself, as he says here.
primarily as Jesus's servant. That's how he sees himself. The servant of Jesus.
Now, servant is a word that many of you know that have been around the church for some period of time. It is that Greek word doulos. And it has that range of meaning.
So if you're looking at an ESV translation here today, it will have that word servant. And you understand that that works here. You can translate it as servant. It's in the range of meaning of this Greek word of doulos. And the ESV, if you go to the beginning of ESV Bibles, especially their study Bibles, they'll have a whole section where they define why is it that they chose to use servant instead of slave in our context today, and you understand why they would.
But I think it takes away from what Jude is actually doing here. When he identifies himself, he is identifying himself as a slave of Jesus Christ. He went from brother of Jesus. To slave of Jesus. You think, well that that feels like a step backwards.
But it's not. It's not for one that knows Christ in saving relationship. It is the happiest place to be. is to be a slave of Christ. To know that you have been brought from darkness to light, you have been clutched from the The clinches of hell and sin and our adversary?
And you have been brought into the very family of God. And it is a happy designation. To call yourself a slave of Christ. He sees himself as belonging to another. to Jesus, as he says, his Master, his master Never be ashamed.
of belonging to Jesus. I've often thought over the last number of years as Western civilization seems to be changing radically, and you see all of the unrest that. One of, it seems like to me, one of the greatest errors of our day, and one of the underlying currents is that. We don't want any kind of authority over us. We don't want it.
No one's going to be the boss of me. And that can be true of government, that can be true of parents, that can be true of ecclesiastical authorities. That can be true of God. And this is goes back to the great air in the garden. Art Adam and Eve.
Adam wants to be the decider of what is good and evil. Wants to unseat God from his throne. It's an act of cosmic rebellion when they eat from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. No, we are a people that are under authority. And so, Jude is happy to acknowledge that Jesus is his authority, a slave of Jesus Christ.
That's odd in this world. People find that odd, and it is odd. I was reading someone recently that was a commentator on culture, and he said, you know, ever since the 1960s, he made this observation. He said that. People derived their self-worth from their relation to God.
or from what they made of themselves in the market place. One of those two things. But it's changed in our day. Rather, now what we are to do in our day is that we begin embracing what has been labelled, rightly, I think, as a therapeutic culture. that our self-worth depends upon our subjective feelings.
Do I like myself? Do I feel good about myself? And what that does is, it pushes you and I inward. To be self-consumed.
Sof worshiping. Self-identifying. You'll notice though Jude here, he's Christ absorbed. He's Christ obsessed. And there's so much rest in this.
And it's something our culture doesn't understand. There's rest in being a slave of Jesus Christ. He knows that Christ died for him. He knows he has purpose in this world because he has been called to serve. He knows he has worth.
Because Jesus shed his blood for him. His life matters, and his life is not his own. I belong body and soul, To my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ, as the Catechism says. Have a Sign that my wife made for me that when I walk into my study at home, it's right there on the wall. When I walk into my study, it just says, I am not my own.
Just a reminder. I'm not my own. I I belong to someone, I've been purchased by someone. slave of Christ Jesus. You have to lose your life to gain it, Jesus said.
Thomas Brooks. Wonderful. Old Divine said this. He said, Here is a wonder. God is on high, and yet the higher a man lifts up himself, The farther he is from God, And the lower a man humbles himself, the nearer he is to God.
Slave Christ Jesus. It's a happy place. And he's happy there. The recipients that he is writing to, that he is addressing, these Christians, they are in a mess. And they're in a mess because there are false teachers in their context.
In fact, as Jude identifies himself as a slave of Christ, his favorite designation for these false teachers is that they are godless. He calls them that in verse 4, he calls them that in verse 15, and he calls them that in verse 18. His life is centered upon God. Their lives are very far from God. They are ungodly.
And then he's saying to these Christians, though, he's writing to them and he's getting ready to warn them, and he gives them a designation. He gives them a threefold designation. He calls them beloved in God the Father. kept for Jesus Christ. And then the first that he says is that they were cold.
So cold, Beloved. Keep. Christians are those who are called. Beloved and kept.
So I'm going to walk through those with you here in this session. First, Christians are those who are called, that's first. Christians are not those who surge. They aren't even those who first believe. They are those who are first called.
You can't believe. without first having been called. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them. And they follow me, said Jesus. His word goes out.
And his people receive his word, that calling, And they come. Come to me He says. His word accomplishes his purposes. Cod Coles. That's staggering.
Pure Christian. That God calls me. They called me. And that's where Jude is going to begin with them. As he's getting ready, he's going to say some hard things to them, but he wants to remind them at the very outset of who they are.
You were cold. You're cold. What is that coal? I grew up when kids still played outside until dark, and I can remember living on Drawbridge Street. A single bomb and be out there with the neighborhood boys, and we're playing basketball.
catch or whatever we were doing, And then I would hear and That dusk hour would hear Jason It's time to come home. And what did that mean? I was loved? I was protected. I was provided for?
Come. Christians are those who are called. And so he's reminding them. He called you, he called me. You have to remind yourself often.
As a Christian, he called me. Again, think of the context. Jude is encouraging them. He's writing to a church that is filled with trial. It is filled with disruption by heretics.
And there is all kinds of division that is happening. And so he reminds them of this at the very beginning. God called you. He called you. There's rest in that.
Why were they cold? Because as Jude says They are the beloved in God the Father. The Christian is cold. and the Christian is beloved. Beloved in God the Father.
Interestingly, these are two terms that are used of Israel in the Old Testament, and now he is writing this to the church, and that is right. They are identified the same way. Why? Because Israel was the Church in the Old Covenant Age, and the Church is Israel in the New Covenant Age. We are the beloved of God.
We the church are the beloved of God. You notice that. That God is the active person. It is worthy ones that are acted upon. Christians are the recipients, the Beloved of God the Father, He's the actor, He's the initiator.
Why did he choose to call you? Because he loved you. There's that wonderful passage, Deuteronomy 6, the great Shema, where God is walking through Israel, the thing that will mark them more than anything else as. the people set apart for God, you know, that they have one God. And then you get to Deuteronomy 7, and Deuteronomy 7, one of my favorite passages where.
They are being spoken to, and Moses is speaking to them about this fact that they have been set apart by God, for God. And he says this. He says, for you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasure possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. Why is it that he chose them instead of the Canaanites?
Why did he choose them instead of the Egyptians? Why did he choose them instead of the Chinese? And Moses has one answer. Because the Lord loves. You.
Your beloved. It's not because of something you were going to become. It's not because of something that you are. To Israel, it's not because you were numerous. It's just because he loves you.
that he called you. Why does he love you? He loves you because he loves you. It's his sovereign choice. But notice It's not just that we are beloved by God the Father.
The preposition there is in God the Father. We receive His love. But it's even more than that. were surrounded his love. You dwell In his low as a Christian.
That's your orbit, that's your sphere That's where your life is lived.
So you take a step to the right. You are in his love. You take a step to the left. You are in his love. You can't escape his love.
You walk into singleness, you're in his love. You walk into retirement, you're in his loaf. You walk into widowhood, you're in his loath. You walk in the midst of trial, you are in his loath. You walk in the midst of joy, you are in his love.
Beloved in God the Father. You dwell in his love for ever. Because you've always dwelt in his love. My favorite quotes from all of church histories where Gerhardus Voss is reflecting upon this. And Voss says this He says the best proof that he will never cease to love us.
lies in that he never began. He's always loved you. From eternity past he loved you. He never started loving you. Always.
In eternity past, the Father and the Son covenanted together what what theologians will call the covenant of redemption. They covenanted together, if you are a Christian, to call you. Why? Because they loved You. An eternity passed.
He will never cease to love you because he never started to love you. He's always loved you. Now that doesn't mean life is always easy. Go have moments where it feels like everything is set against us, where Don't want to get out of bed or you get out of bed to start your day, and it just feels better to let's return back to bed because everything's I'm gonna face today. But it's this.
It's this that we return to over and over. and beloved in God. I've been called by God. In that truth, it safeguards the heart more than anything else in what is so often a discouraging world. Cold Beloved and now kept.
This church, or the churches that Jude is writing to, they are experiencing gross sin. There is heresy, there is conflict, there is division. You think, maybe they're not worth it. Maybe you give up on this group. Or maybe you give up on this church or give up on these individuals.
Dismiss them as not worth it. But Judah at the outset is reminding them: No, this God who called you. This god who loves you. is the same God who keeps you. You are more than worth it.
So much so that he will keep you. No matter what. Our God is not in the habit of losing that which he has purchased. He's not in the habit of not completing a work that he began. No, every single one of our enemies has triumphed over our God.
He wins. And because he wins, We win. He loses nothing. Jesus said, I lose nothing of all that the Father has given to me. But raise it up on the last day.
Cold. Beloved. Kept. He can no more abandon us. than he can deny who he is.
which leads Jude simply To end his greeting this way with a hopeful prayer. May mercy Peace and love be multiplied to you. It's already theirs. It's already theirs. And now he just wants it multiplied.
So before he gets to the hard work. He's just set the stage for who they are in Christ. God can no more abandon us. then he can deny who he is. That was Jason Halopoulos from his new series, Contending for the Faith, The Book of Jude.
I'm glad you're joining us for Renewing Your Mind and getting a first listen to this brand new series from Ligonier Ministries. Reverend Helopoulos is a senior pastor. And you can hear his pastoral warmth. and his thoughtfulness as he teaches. If you'd like him to walk you through all of Jude, I do encourage you to request digital access today.
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