When Jesus' half-brother Jude wrote to the early Christians he began by reminding them of their unique standing as followers of Christ. They were called, beloved, and kept.
As Alistair Begg unpacks these truths for us today on Truth for Life, he considers how these same assurances remain true and vital for us as believers. We're looking at the opening verses in the book of Jude. So, from the writer to the readers, to those who are called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ. Unlike some letters, there is no indication of who these people are. No names are mentioned concerning the readers. There's no indication, actually, of where they are.
No geographical pointers to help us with that. But they are all described in terms of what they are. And when Kenneth Taylor, in his living Bible, paraphrases the opening, in light of that, he writes, Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brothers of James, to Christians everywhere. To Christians everywhere. Because these designations that we're about to consider are true of people who are the followers of the Lord Jesus. But of course, with that said, we recognize that the specifics of the letter—and they're very specific aspects—they point to the fact that Jude is actually addressing, without identifying it, a particular church or a particular group of churches or of congregations. And he addresses them in these three words—called, beloved, and kept.
Let's just look at them. The Bible refers frequently to Christians in all kinds of ways. But one of the ways in which it addresses the believer is someone whom God has called. And the word that is used here means something more than simply invited.
It's not that these people have only been invited. For example, when Paul was preaching to the Corinthians, and when he later wrote to the Corinthians, and he was extending the call of the gospel as widely as he could, he then writes, We preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Now, you see, this is what makes it so clear, isn't it? Because when a person actually comes to faith in Jesus, when somebody comes out of whatever religious or irreligious background to an understanding of who God is and what he has done in the Lord Jesus Christ, then that individual immediately finds themselves standing in a long succession of individuals stretching way out behind me and stretching out beyond me of those whom God has called—the call that goes all the way back to Abraham himself, that God calls Abraham out of the Chaldees—our of the Chaldees. If you've been reading through Exodus in McShane's readings, you know that, again, we're seeing this call of God upon his people, so that in many ways the story of the Bible is the story of God's free decision to call out for himself a people that are his very own. And those he predestined he also called.
Now, here's the question. When the call of God goes out—when, for example, we study the Bible together and perhaps we end by singing the hymn, Come unto me, ye weary, and I will give you rest, or Come unto me, you wanderers, Come unto me, you fainting. And we have the great affirmation that comes in the chorus, And whosoever cometh, I will not cast him out, O welcome voice of Jesus, which drives away our doubt, Which calls us, very sinners, unworthy though we be, of love, so free and boundless, to come, O LORD, to thee.
All right. So that is a general call that goes out. It goes out in the preaching of the gospel. It goes out in the singing of a hymn like that. But that doesn't mean that everybody who heard that call came. And there may well be people here this morning for whom this designation does not immediately fit. Because you have never actually come to Christ in that way.
We've used the illustration before, but I think it stands the test of time. You know, when you were a kid waking up in the morning, when you had to go to school, sometimes you were so deeply out of it that it just sounded like there was a voice somewhere. And then you came a little bit out of your slumbers, and then it's actually a voice calling. It's calling. What are they calling about? And then he's come a little bit more out of his, Oh, they're calling me!
They're calling me! And that's, for some of us, the way we have come to Christ. Friends have told us about Jesus, told us about the gospel, told us about the call of God.
We heard it as a kind of vague noise in the background. And then we began to consider and think a little more, until suddenly, one day, in our car, in our home, on our knees, reading a book, whatever it is, he says, Oh Lord, you called me? You called me? I am the weary one. I am the wanderer.
I am the fainting one. That's to whom this letter is addressed—those who are called. Secondly, those who are beloved. Notice the preposition, beloved in God. I looked at that, and I said, Well, surely it's beloved by God.
Well, the preposition is used purposefully. These individuals are beloved by God, but they are beloved in God. In other words, it addresses the issue of the sphere into which these people have come. They've been brought, if you like, within the unfolding orb of God's grace and his goodness.
Beloved. The love of God. Not that we love God, as John says, but that he loved us and that he gave his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. I wonder if you've thought about this in relationship to the words of Jesus as he moves towards the time of his crucifixion, and as he gathers with his disciples in the upper room, and as he seeks to explain to them the wonder of what has happened to them in becoming his followers.
Much of it is shadowy for them. They don't put it all together necessarily until after the resurrection. But at one point he says, you know, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Make our home with him. There's a sort of… There's a dimension to it, which is not simply… It is not cerebral.
It is, insofar as it engages our minds, but it is a far more significant thing than that. He says to them, I want you folks to know that I'm writing to you that you are the called of God, we're the people of God, saints, everyone, because of the blood of Jesus Christ the Son, and you are beloved in God—a love which stretches all the way across the Old and the New Testament, a love which is unimpaired by time or by distance, a love which is enjoyed in Jesus. I met a fellow this week. His name was Benjamin. They called him Ben, but I think Benjamin is a great name. And every time I meet a Benjamin—although I did not say it on this occasion, I didn't think it was necessary—but I often say to a Benjamin, I say, You are a man with a great name.
A man with a great name. And the reason I say that is because in the blessings that come to the people of God in Deuteronomy chapter 33, the blessing of Benjamin is as follows. The beloved of the LORD dwells in safety, for he shields him all day long, and the one the LORD loves rests between his shoulders. I think that's the closest I can get to the idea of beloved in God. You take the picture of the shepherd picking the lamb up, putting it between his shoulders, and bringing it safely into the fold—all of us like sheep going astray, coming up with our own ideas, heading in our own direction, and the call comes. The call of the shepherd, Come to me. I am the good shepherd. I give my life for the sheep. And he picks us up and carries us on.
So, called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ. Kept. I'll keep that for you, the best man usually says. And depending on who the best man is, I look at him and say, Well, you'd better make sure you have it when I need it. I'm referring to the wedding ring for the girl.
Every so often you find a clown who thinks it's funny to pretend that he lost it, and nobody actually has ever found that remotely funny, but because you've really got one job, Charlie, and that is just, give us the ring, we need it. Now, the keeping power of God is important here. We're not going to delay on it, but you will notice this verb, to keep, throughout these twenty-five verses. For example, staggeringly, in verse 6, these angels have been kept in eternal chains. In terms of the readers of his letter, he is urging us, in verse 21, to keep yourselves in the love of God. In other words, that we're not brought into the realm of passivity, where we just sit back and wait for God to do everything?
No. We are kept, and so we are to keep ourselves in the awareness of the fact that when we finally reach the end, in verse 24, it is in the company of God who will keep us from stumbling. When we read the Psalms, and at the beginning of the Psalms, we have that great opening moment where, in Psalm 2, the psalmist says that God will give the nations as his inheritance—a messianic psalm, speaking of Jesus. And you will have the prize for which you died, an inheritance of nations as we often sing it.
So much so that when you get to the book of Hebrews and in chapter 2, Jesus is saying, Behold, here I am, and the children you have given me. You called them. You love them. I've kept them. Whoever loves me will keep my commandments, and I too will love him, and I will show myself to him, and he will live in my house with me.
You can be sure of that. That's what he's saying. Now, this is something that is vast enough for the greatest mind to ponder, and it is simple enough for the little child to get. When we used to sing it at Sunday school—and I don't know if we sing it here, but the hymn, When He Cometh, When He Cometh, to make up his jewels, all his jewels, all the bright ones, the loved and his own—speaking there of the wonder of what God is doing as he adds children to his family. And the hymn writer says, And they shall shine in their beauty bright gems, for his crown. Now, you see how good a pastor Jude is here?
Because look at what he's doing. You paid careful attention as I read the balance of this letter, and there's a lot of material that is coming that is quite devastating. But before he delves, if you like, into the woes that are about to follow, he establishes the truths that it is vital for the people of God to understand.
Hence, the central bank of Kenya. Called, beloved, and kept. See what he's saying? In all of this, he is a servant of Jesus Christ. I didn't introduce myself as the half-brother of Jesus. I'm the brother of James, and I am the servant of Jesus Christ. In other words, what I'm writing to you is also true of me.
I am one with you in this. And then, in verse 2, and I am praying for you. Now, what you're going to discover as we study this together is that Jude is very keen on these little three statements, or three words, that all go together—little triads. And here you have another one.
For me, it is the Milwaukee Public Library, if that's helpful to you. To help me remember these three words. What are they?
Let's just look at them as we close. Here's my prayer for you. He says, I pray mercy, mercy, whereby God does not give us the things that we deserve. The great wonder that dawned on the self-righteous Pharisees Saul of Tarsus, when he looks back on things and he says, To me I was shown mercy. I was shown mercy. He didn't think that he needed mercy. He felt that he was in perfect shape, until God showed him that he was in need of his mercy. What grace is mine that calls through the night to save my hidden soul or hiding soul? And from his wounds poured mercy that would plead for me. May mercy… Do you think much about mercy? Do you think if God gave us what we deserve, what a predicament we'd be in?
That if he didn't give to Jesus to bear the punishment that we deserve, we would be hopeless? Samuel Rutherford, the great Scottish divine, left in his memoirs sufficient material for a Presbyterian minister's wife called Cousins to write a poem which spanned some thirty-three verses, about five of them sequestered as a hymn which begins, The sand of time is sinking, the dawn of heaven breaks. But in the course of that poem, one of the stanzas that she put together from Rutherford's words goes like this, With mercy and with judgment, my web of time he wove. And aye, I—routinely, consistently—and I, the dews of sorrow, were lustered by his love.
It's a wonderful picture, isn't it? He says, As I look back over my life, I realize with mercy and with great judgment, he has woven my story together. We all have bits and pieces in our story we'd like to change.
We all have disappointments that we look back on with regret. But the God—the God who called us, who loves us and keeps us—is the God of mercy. Now, this is very important not only for these readers to think about it in relationship to themselves. It is vitally important, because they're going to have to move amongst people who are involved in destroying and creating chaos. And he's preparing them for the fact that if you don't understand mercy for yourself, you will not be merciful to others who are in need—to those who are drifting from the path, to those who are losing confidence in the Bible, to those who are tempted to say, Well, surely the influence of the culture matters so much that we must go with that. If we're going to be relevant, if we're going to be involved, if we're going not to be a strange group of people left on a side street somewhere—all of that rings in our ears.
No, we're going to know mercy. Peace. Peace. Peace in the face of disruption, peace in the face of opposition. May mercy and peace… The prophet Isaiah says, You will keep in perfect peace the one whose mind has stayed on you. And love—love. Part of our reading this morning was, what, 1 Corinthians 13, wasn't it?
And I thought about it just as I read it earlier. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast.
It is not arrogant. This is very important, loved ones, because I'll tell you, it's not uncommon to hear series on Jude that gets so excited about contending. We're contending! And so the guy's vein gets more and more contending! Contending!
Right? Okay, you've got that picture in mind, and watch for it. If you see it in me, you come back and say, Wait a minute. What about the opening two verses? Because the same contending is not involved being contentious. Because love is patient and kind. It doesn't envy or boast. It's not arrogant. It's rude.
It's not rude. It doesn't insist on its own way. It's not irritable or resentful. It doesn't rejoice at wrongdoing. It rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Mercy, peace, and love. Notice, be multiplied to you. Remember those days in school when you learned the multiplication tables?
It was such a great day, wasn't it? That you knew that twelve sevens were eighty-four, and that meant that seven twelves were eighty-four as well. It's amazing discoveries.
Twelve nines were a hundred and eight. I don't know what else that goes from there. But this is fantastic, that God multiplies things. Before we went to sleep last night, Sue and I were reading from a book, and we were pondering the fact that God could have made just one fish, could have made one animal, could have made one flower, could have made, like, fifteen stars, and be done with it.
Why doesn't he do that? Because he's God. He's the multiplying God. So he says, My prayer for you is that these things will not just simply be, you know, like, added to your portfolio but that they will be multiplied to you. Because I was planning on writing, really, all about this, all about salvation. But I decided that I needed to appeal to you, but I want you to understand, before I come to my appeal, that you are called, that you are beloved, that you are kept, and that I'm praying that mercy, peace, and love will be multiplied to you. Which, of course, bears testimony to the wonder of salvation itself. God grant that we might hear your call to us so that we find ourselves believing in you.
You're listening to Truth for Life with Alistair Begg. Here at Truth for Life, we know that it is God's Word, not the words of any man, that can seep into the soul to convict those who need to be convicted, comfort those in need of comforting. That's why we teach the Bible every day. We trust God's Spirit to work through the teaching of His Word to convert unbelievers, to establish believers in their faith, and to strengthen local churches. If you benefit from listening to this daily program, can I encourage you to join the team that makes all of this possible? I'm talking about our truth partners, listeners like you, who give any amount they choose each month to help bring Alistair's teaching to a worldwide audience. Whatever amount you contribute adds up when many participate. It's the collective giving of all that covers the cost of producing and distributing Truth for Life. Truth partners who commit to giving $20 or more each month are encouraged to request the two monthly books we recommend. Think about that. You can build an incredible library by adding 24 new books each year, all while helping to take solid Bible teaching to a global audience.
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