We contend without being cynical. We don't fall into the trap of thinking the worst of everyone out there. Why? Because Jesus is Lord and Master. He reigns.
Someone that is on this path of destruction with their teaching or what they've embraced in a moment can go from there. to end Christ for eternity. No one is beyond his grace. It can be easy to become discouraged, to become cynical. As you grow in your understanding of God's Word, you may see error all around, whether intentional error or out of ignorance.
You hear someone in your Bible study pray. and you realize they've fallen into a Christological or Trinitarian heresy. In that moment, How do you contend for the faith? This is the Wednesday edition of Renewing Your Mind, and today you'll hear a final message from Jason Halopoulos' series, Contending for the Faith, the book of Jude. If you'd like to study Jude more, you can request the entire series and the study guide, and you give a donation at renewingyourmind.org in support of Renewing Your Mind.
We'll also send you a Renewing Your Mind notebook or to express our thanks for your support of this program.
Well, here's Reverend Halopoulos with five warnings for when you contend for the faith. In this lesson, what I want to do is just take a step back a little bit from. The text for uh this lesson and think through together uh contending I think often when we hear that, we immediately have objections, and there should be some concerns, or at least... I have some concerns. I think you have concerns as we watch different people, and maybe even as we see in our own hearts as we're seeking to contend for the faith.
So I want to think through a couple of those objections here in this lesson, and then also think through a few warnings for you as we seek to contend. for the faith. The first objection that people often offer, and you read something like Jude, where Jude comes out of the gate so strong, you need to contend for the faith.
Well, doesn't that sow disunity? If you're contending, if you're agonizing, if you're fighting, to use Paul's words, doesn't that sow disunity? And isn't unity important in the body of Christ?
Well, it is. We see this over and over throughout the scriptures, and you think of. 1 Corinthians 12 or Romans 12, or you think of Jesus' longest recorded prayer in John 17. Much of it is about the desire for unity within the body of Christ. And so it's very much a concern of the New Testament and the New Testament writers and should be yours and my concern.
But look at what's happening here. Why is it that they need to contend for the faith? It's not the contending that sows disunity. Rather it is that false teachers have come in. and false teachers are teaching something that is different from the faith.
and they are the ones that are sowing disunity. And so what Jude is saying to them is, you need to fight, you need to contend against that. for the sake of unity. We contend for the sake of unity.
Now that doesn't mean that we have to contend for everything. We are always looking at, is this a first order doctrine? Is this a second order doctrine? Is this a third order doctrine? Is it not even something that we should be worried about?
I'm going to read to you. Illustration: I read a number of years ago: Craig Barnes, who pastored the National Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. wrote an article in the 90s about how he found himself in his church sidelined by a coffee table. He said this, he said last spring the hospitality committee put a little coffee stand in the narthex. The next day the head usher of twenty five years quit in protest, saying this was sacrilege to the church sanctuary.
All the ushers quickly became upset. Since a committee had put the coffee there, The session had to decide on the issues, so they set up a task force that met for eight weeks to listen to the ushers in the hospitality committee. One Sunday a bunch of ushers decided not to show up to usher because we hadn't brought back the head usher yet.
So then the elders were ticked off at the ushers. In the middle of that, I'm not talking about Jesus to anybody. I'm not making hospital calls or shepherding people through grief. I'm trying to figure out whether we should serve coffee in the narthex. And it would be funny.
If it wasn't so horrific. It's the wrong thing. The Christian knows that there are differences among the things that we are speaking about, and that you have to do a kind of theological triage. Uh I don't know if any of us in the room are have worked in an ER before. I never have, but I know what triage is and I know what they do.
I've watched enough movies where somebody is rushed into a emergency room to The person with the stubbed toe, though it's awful they have a stubbed toe, Hello?
Sorry if you have a stub toe this morning, that's important. But it's not quite as important as the man who has his head cracked open and his brain matters falling out. You don't have the whole hospital descend upon the man with the stubbed toe. You triage. This is of importance.
of greater importance. We do this all the time. You do this as parents, with your children. Everything can't be a fight with your children. You have to decide.
Is this something we need to address? Is this something we don't? You you do this with your friends or Otherwise you won't have that friend any more if everything you got to call them on. I had um I think about this in marriage. I had a young husband approach me one day and He said to me, he said, Pastor, How often should I be correcting my wife?
I said, well, brother, a lot less than you think. I think that is safe to say. You do triage, or you're not going to be married for very long. In the church, we do triage. There are things that are worth fighting for.
There are things that are not worth fighting for. And that's not being a coward. It's been wise. Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 1: Wage the good warfare.
Well, what? Warfare is worth waging? What is worth contending for? The faith. The faith is worth contending for.
This is of the utmost importance. It is worth it. For the unity of the Church. When you and I contend For the faith. We're actually maintaining unity in the church.
So, I want you to think about this. It isn't just our day and age that we're concerned with. You and I belong to one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. There is one church under God. We are united here, the church militant on earth.
We are united with the church triumphant in heaven. One church. What they believed We are to believe. The core. Where to contend for that?
It doesn't matter how many churches in our generation. Buy into this new thing that either adds or subtracts from thee faith. It doesn't matter how many there are and we identify. We can identify with him no? We belong to the church through the ages.
We are seeking to maintain the unity of the Church, not just in our day. But through the ages. And so when we contend for the faith, we're actually contending. for unity. The second objection is that contending doesn't sound loving.
Aren't we supposed to be lovers as Christians, not fighters?
Well yeah, you're you're supposed to be lovers. and sometimes being a lover requires that you are a fighter. When we lose the faith. If we lose this truth, We lose the one hope. For mankind trapped in darkness.
It is the most unloving thing we can do. To lose the faith. Because people without the faith. are destined to eternal darkness. As Jude will get to.
Eternal fire As Jude will get to. It is actually the most loving thing that we can do. is to contend with the For thee, faith. It doesn't need adapting. Just doesn't.
This faith that you and I contend for, that we are united with all of the church through the ages with, that actually is contending for this is an act of love, it's the same faith that Saved in the first century? It's the same faith that saved in the fourth century. Same faith that saved in the 19th century? It will save in the 21st century. And if the Lord does not return, it will save in the fortieth.
century. The same faith. We contend for it. But let me give you five warnings. As you seek to contend.
FIRST, Contend without being contentious. contend without being contentious. We are not to love fighting. And we should not always be looking for a fight. The man who never fights.
or finds anything worth fighting about is ungodly. The man who is always fighting and fights about everything is equally Ungodly. We are to contend but not be contentious. If everyone loves you, there's a problem. If everyone hates you, you are a problem.
Don't be contentious. You contend. Again, notice Jude, he he did not want to write as he wrote to them. He didn't want to do this. He wanted to write about, as he said in verse three, our common salvation.
It was only because of the disruption that he saw in the churches that he felt like he needed to contend and to encourage them to contend. He's not contentious for the faith. He's contending for the faith. It is godly. It is godly to be a reluctant fighter.
We only contend because we have to. We are, as the Apostle Paul said, as far as it is possible to live at peace with all men. contending reluctantly, but with no less resolve, his godliness. That's what it looks like. I think back, um some of the staunchest defenders of Christian truth through the ages have been marked by this.
They contend, but they're not contentious.
Some of my favorites are Old Princeton Theological Seminary. When it was a faithful seminary, and they were standing against liberalism in their day, and those. old Princeton scholars and theologians, They contended for the faith. But they were reluctant. to fight about everything.
I was reading a number of years ago. I was reading through all these different memorial addresses of some of these early men at Princeton.
So Archibald Alexander and Samuel Miller and Trump. Charles Hodge. one week ago. And something kept jumping out to me as I was reading these memorials at their funerals, you know. The sermon that was that was preached or a memorial that was written up in a journal or something after they died.
And over and over and over I saw the same word Gentlemen. He was a gentleman. I'm not quite sure when we started frowning. upon such a description. That's a good thing.
To be a gentleman, to be a gentle woman. We contend, but We aren't contentious. Second. We contend without being conceited. Pride has no place.
And the Christian. I think it's the ugliest thing on planet Earth is a Christian filled with pride. How can that be? Save by grace. Grace Whatever I am, I am by grace Whatever I know I know by grace.
Whatever I've come to understand I understand by grace. And so we don't look down with disdain upon those that we engage with when we contend for the faith. We understand. that all that we have is by grace. Often on Mornings.
A lot of mornings. When I'm shaving in the morning I will stare in the mirror at myself, and I repeat the same line to myself Say, Jason, you just aren't that important. While you were sleeping The Lord held together planet earth and all the universe fine without you. You're not that important. And I start that with my day.
I want to be faithful. I want to be godly. I want to be effective as much as I can. But frankly, I'm just... Not that important.
He is. I often walk around cemeteries for this very reason. I love walking through cemeteries. And you look at all of these gravestones and some of these people, I mean, good night, they have monuments that reach towards the sky. How important they must have been.
And nobody knows them today. I read history and You hear about these people that are so important in their day. Yeah. Everybody knew them. They were a household name back in their day.
I mentioned them to you today and you go, Who? When did they live? Being conceded to the city of the city. It just has no place for you and I. We are not that important, God is, so we contend.
without being conceited, For the glory of God. for the good of the body. Third. We contend without being callous. We contend without being callous.
Samuel Miller was the second professor of Princeton Theological Seminary and was a stalwart. and was a gentleman. And he would argue and contend for the faith often. I was reading in one of his memorial lists when he called when he went to heaven. Call them a a a man with a quote gentlemanly bearing.
So much so. that the memorialists remembered one avid opponent, an opponent of Miller's in theological controversy. That opponent said this about Miller. He said, he, quote, could not but regard him with the highest respect. Can't stand what he believes.
But respect him. By the way. of his demeanor. Contend? without being callous, We contend, but not as the world contends.
It does so callously. We're not to be like them. We don't adopt the world's message. And we don't adopt its manner. The Lord Jesus said, Blessed are the Meek.
The meek The few months ago was trying to put in my own words what meekness is, trying to wrestle through it. There's a definition I came up with. A godly gentleness Informed by true knowledge of ourselves before God. that manifests itself. in our actions and attitudes towards others.
in life's circumstances. A godly gentleness informed by true knowledge of ourselves. All that I am, I am by grace. Before God that manifests itself in our actions and attitudes towards others in life circumstances. I can't be callous with others.
Even while I contend, They're in air. And I'm not Only because of grace. As Paul says in Romans 12:14, Bless those who persecute you, do not curse them. It would have been easier if Paul had simply said the negative, do not curse them, but he also says the positive, bless. There's no limiting factor, therefore, it's an ethic.
that encompasses the negative, do not curse them, and yet it surpasses it. Contend without being callous When Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan, the Levite didn't do anything wrong. It's not like he beat the man. It's not like he kicked him. It's not like he said something harsh to him.
He just didn't do that which was right and good. He was callous. When you and I contend for the faith, we are to do so with tears. It is a sad reality that that person. is being led astray.
and is embracing untruth. We contend with tears. Fourth. We contend without being cynical. We're to be on guard against ungodly people who creep in, as Jude speaks about here, but we don't fall into the trap of thinking the worst of everyone out there.
Some of us are half glass full, some of us are half glass empty, some of us are what glass?
Okay. were not to be cynical. Why? Because Jesus is Lord and Master, He reigns.
So no one No church. Dare I tread here? No denomination. Is beyond his grace. He can work in a moment.
And snatch from darkness and bring them into the light.
Someone that is on this path of destruction with their teaching or what they've embraced in a moment can go from there. to in Christ for eternity. No one is beyond his grace. And so we contend without being cynical. Finally.
We contend completely. What we contend for is truth that safeguards the sheep of Christ. and ultimately gives glory to Christ. And so we contend with all that we are, Don't throw the towel in on this one. Paul's language where he speaks about that he is happy to be poured out as a drink offering for the sake of the people he serves often goes through my mind as a pastor.
It's the most menial. of sacrifices. And he's happy for his life to be poured out for them. to be expended for them. Why?
Because they're worth it. Christ died for them. Christ's Word is worth contending for. It's the means by which he gives life. Christ is worth contending for.
This is worth being spent for. Christ So we contend completely. Completely. My favorite. episodes from all of church histories when That great Bishop Polycorp is Crabbed by The Romansen.
He's being let off to Rome, duh. to be put to death in the Coliseum. And He's led into that Coliseum, and the pro-council is there. is threatening Polycarp with with death. And You know be entire Coliseum is filled with people chanting for his death.
And The pro-council says to him, you know, just just Just say away with the atheists because Christians were called atheists then, because they didn't believe in the. Myriad of gods. And polycarp in this. wonderful moment points at the crowd and says away with the atheists. And the pro counselor says to me, Just Curse Christ.
Just curse Christ. It's all you have to do, and I won't feed you to the lions. That's all you have to do. Curse Christ. Polycarp's eighty-six years old, old man.
And he says this. For eighty six years I have been his servant. And he's done me no wrong. How can I now blaspheme my King and Saviour? He's going to contend for the faith.
To the end. Why? Because Christ has done them no wrong. And every single Christian can do that. We just substitute our number into it.
Sixteen years, twenty-six years, thirty-six years, forty-six years, sixty-six years. He's done me no wrong. When we are in eternity and in the future and we have been there for two millennia. We can say for 2016 years. He has done me no wrong.
He's worth contending for. His church is worth contending for, it's his bride. His word is worth contending for. This faith is worth contending for. Let's just do it with a Christian ethic.
So, where to contend without being contentious, conceited, callous, or cynical? and where to contend completely. You just heard from Jason Halopoulos, the featured teacher in this brand new series on the book of Jude. It's titled Contending for the Faith. The call to contend was urgent in the first century.
and it's urgent in the 21st century. to take the time to work through the book of Jude to learn the why and how of contending. and what was happening that prompted Jude to write this letter. Simply give a donation at renewingyourmind.org or when you call us at 800-435-4343 and this series and study guide will be yours. Plus, we'll send you a Renewing Your Mind journal for your sermon notes.
Hopefully people in church will ask you, what is Renewing Your Mind? You can tell them about this podcast. Give your gift before midnight tonight at renewingyourmind.org or by using the link in the podcast show notes. Only hours remain. Thank you.
God has revealed himself in creation. Everyone has the knowledge of God. But we need more than what is revealed to us in creation. And that's called special revelation. RC Sprawl will be back tomorrow as we consider the need for special revelation.
That'll be Thursday here on Renewing Your Mind.
