GUARD YOUR ROOTS

Introduction

-{Jude}

-I am excited that we are making this morning’s worship service a part of our DNOW weekend, so that the whole church is able to learn what the students have been learning. Their theme and message important for all Christians. We live in a day and age where truth is relativized and where Christians have become more swayed by culture than by God’s Word. And that needs to change today.

-The theme of the weekend is ROOTED. The concept comes from Psalm 1 where we are told that a BLESSED PERSON is one whose DELIGHT IS IN THE LAW OF THE LORD (the Word of God) and they meditate on that Word DAY AND NIGHT. When you delight in God’s Word and you take in and meditate in God’s Word, you become rooted in the faith, rooted in truth, and as the psalmist says, you become like a TREE FIRMLY PLANTED BY STREAMS OF WATER THAT YIELDS ITS FRUIT IN ITS SEASON, AND ITS LEAF DOES NOT WITHER, and you PROSPER IN ALL THAT YOU DO. Listen to what it’s saying: WHEN YOU BECOME ROOTED IN THE WORD, YOU BECOME ROOTED FOR LIFE.

-When your life is rooted in God’s Word, you will not be influenced or conformed by the culture and the world. When your life is rooted in God’s Word, you will not be tossed and turned by every event and circumstance that happens around you. You are firmly planted by streams of living water when you are rooted.

-But, I have to give you a warning today. There are enemies out there who will try to cut you off at the roots. There are enemies out there that do not want you rooted in truth and in faith. If they are able to take you out at the roots, they know that they can deceive you and influence you and eventually destroy you. And so you must guard the roots that you have established. If you do not guard your roots, they are vulnerable, which makes you vulnerable.

-It makes me think of something from several years ago. At our first house in Southaven, MS we lived near a large park. Almost every weekday we would drive through the park to get the kids to school. One night there was a large storm that had come through. That morning on the way to school we found that several very large trees in the park tumbled over. Why didn’t the roots keep them standing when the storm came? There may be several reason. The roots may have been rotted. The roots may have been diseased. The roots may have been plagued with bugs. The roots may have been tampered with by man. Something happened to the roots, so that they were no longer strong enough to keep the tree standing.

-This is a warning to us. Yes, we may have planted some roots in God’s Word, but we cannot ignore our roots. We cannot let up constantly building our roots and feeding our roots and strengthening our roots, lest some enemy or some sort of rot come in and undo everything that we have done. We have to guard our roots.

-So, the main idea of today’s message is for us to know that we are called to guard our roots of faith because there are enemies who threaten our foundation of truth.

Jude 1–7 ESV

1 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: 2 May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. 3 Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. 5 Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

-{pray}

-So, what do we need to know about guarding our roots?

1) There is one, single faith that holds the truth

-Jude tells us to guard THE FAITH THAT WAS ONCE FOR ALL DELIVERED TO THE SAINTS. The faith in this context it is the body of doctrine and teaching that God revealed to His prophets and the Holy Spirit inspired to write down. It is talking about God’s Word that is God-breathed (according to the apostle Paul in 2 Timothy) and which we now have preserved for us in the Bible.

-Jude says that the body of truth was delivered to God’s people, being passed down to the faithful century after century, without any deviation from its message. It is the body of faith once for all delivered to us. That means that it will not change, it will not disappear, it will not be added to, and it will not have anything taken from it. It has been given once for all. Jude teaches us that the Bible, and all it contains, is truth from God that is eternal. It is as relevant today as it was 2000 years ago. And it is as truthful today (within its context) as it ever has been or will be.

-This is important in our day and age where truth is constantly called into question. This is an age where it is taught that truth is fluid and can change, even to the point where you can make your own truth. But this goes against the whole concept of truth. And we know and hold that the Word of God in which we root ourselves is truth. It tells us the truth about man’s fall. It tells us the truth about Christ’s life and death and resurrection. It tells us the truth about the gospel and the way of salvation. It is the only body of faith that tells the truth. Truth is important and keeps out falsehood.

-Imagine if one person says that the tablet that I have on the pulpit here is an Apple iPad. And another person says that it is an Amazon Fire tablet. And another person says that it’s a Samsung Galaxy. They cannot all be right. The truth is whatever corresponds with reality—this tablet was made by Apple, it runs an Apple Operating System. It has all the Apple apps. That means it’s an Apple iPad. That is the truth of the matter.

-The Bible is either true or it isn’t, and it has shown itself to be historically accurate, theologically accurate, and existentially accurate (which means accurate about life). All other religions contradict the Bible. If the Bible is true, that means that they aren’t. And so, it is important to know and live out the fact that there is one, single faith that holds the truth, and it is the Christian faith as given to us in God’s Word. But next we need to know...

2) There is a call for us to defend the truth

-Jude says that he originally was just going to write a letter to Christians to just talk about the faith that we hold in common. But there was so much false teaching and so many enemies of the faith that he had to completely change the subject of the letter. Things were so desperate and urgent in his day that he had to call Christians to spiritual warfare because their roots were at stake. And that is the day we live in right now. We need to raise up spiritual arms and prepare for spiritual warfare because the body of truth is at stake and our own roots are at stake.

-So, what Jude tells them is that they need to contend for that faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. The word “contend” means to struggle, to wrestle—it literally means to fight as a combatant. You are out in the field of battle and it’s either you or your enemy. In war, you are fighting for your life, you are fighting for your family, you are fighting for everything that you believe in. You fight with every ounce you have to defend what you love, what you have, what you believe in.

-The struggle for the faith, the struggle for truth is no less important. Just because it is not a physical fight doesn’t mean that it’s any less of a battle or that you should put any less effort into the battle. The only difference is that we don’t wrestle against flesh and blood and our weapons are not earthly. Our battle is in the realm of the spiritual and our enemies are from the realm of the spiritual, so we fight with spiritual weapons. We fight on our knees in prayer. We fight by knowing God’s Word and believing that it is truth, and settling within ourselves that we will not be convinced by someone telling us any different. Because if we don’t, not only will we be cut off at the roots, those around us will be hurt as well.

-Imagine that someone breaks into your house to do you and your family harm, and you have the means to protect your family and your house and your property and your life. Would you not do all you can to defend since so much is at stake? Or would you just stand there and let them kill you and your family and burn your house down?

-Christian, there are enemies to the cross of Christ that are trying to cut you off at the roots, that are trying to undermine the faith of your family, that are trying to prevent others from coming to Christ—are you just going to sit there and let it happen? Or will you get up off of your pew and go to battle for the sake of the gospel, for the sake of the faith, for the sake of your family, for the sake of truth, for the sake of Christ? There is a call for us to defend the faith. The reason this is so important is because...

3) There are enemies trying to undermine the truth

-There are real enemies to the truth of the faith, but they aren’t always so obvious. It’s not like back in WWII where the enemy had a Nazi swastika on it’s uniform or the Japanese flag on the uniform, so you knew it was an enemy. Jude warns us that sometimes the enemy will look exactly like us—meaning they will look like they’re Christian and believe in the same faith that we do, but they actually don’t. He says that certain people have crept in unnoticed. The word literally means to sneak in under stealth. These enemies somehow slipped into churches and denominations and started spreading their lies and nobody even noticed that they got in there.

-It made me think of something that I saw a while back. Several years ago I led mission trips to Japan. One day we visited the city of Kyoto where there are several temples and palaces from centuries ago. We went into this one palace that was hundreds of years old where a shogun lived (a shogun was a Japanese military leader/dictator…they’re not just restaurants). The palace was built with a certain alarm system in place. The floors and the walls and the ceilings were built so that even the slightest movement would cause it to subtly creak. Do you know why they did that? It is because there were real, actual ninjas in that day. And the ninjas would be able to sneak through all of the other defenses that they had in place to get in and assassinate the shogun. So, the rooms and hallways would be built to creak to warn them when ninjas had gotten into the complex and they would be able to stop them before they got to the leader.

-Our enemies are like spiritual ninjas. You have the human enemies that are under the spirit and influence of our spiritual enemies. But they don’t come into churches and denominations like a bull in a china shop. They don’t come announcing themselves and their intentions. They don’t approach you saying: HELLO, I’M A FALSE TEACHER AND I’D LIKE TO LEAD YOU ASTRAY FROM FAITH AND TRUTH TODAY. These enemies sneak in like a ninja, and you don’t even know they’re there.

-And what they do is slowly, over time, they undermine the truth. It’s like the water drip that over time eventually breaks the big boulder. These enemies don’t overwhelm you at once with all of their false teachings. They’ll start by undermining one area of the faith, and then they’ll move to the next area of the faith, until they have completely overthrown the entire foundation.

-In Jude’s day, they would sneak into the church and they twisted God’s morals and ethics. Jude says they perverted the grace of God into sensuality. What they probably were teaching is that since you are saved by grace, you can go live any way you want and you’ll be OK with God. Whereas the gospel says that Christ died for you, you believe and are saved, and you are given a new heart with new desires and you will be given the Holy Spirit to live according to how God has said to live. The false teachers, on the other hand, say that you can have Jesus and live in whatever sinful lifestyle you want. Boy, that sounds familiar.

-But here’s the danger, they erode one area of faith and truth and the rest starts toppling down. Because once they were able to pervert the grace of God into sensuality, then they were able to lead people to deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. Their perversion of one area of truth and faith led them to deny who Jesus was. For them, Jesus was no longer God the Son who died and rose again. Now, for them, Jesus was nothing more than a prophet or a good moral teacher. And then they led people to deny that Jesus is King of kings and Lord of lords. As the Casting Crowns song says, it was a slow fade.

-And that’s what we have to guard against today. There will be people who claim to be Christians and even act like Christians, but they’re wolves in sheep’s clothing. And you have to be aware and guard against being led astray, because we quickly see this morning...

4) There are consequences for those who fight against the truth

-These false teachers, and then those who follow them, will face the consequences for their falsehoods. For the teachers themselves, Jude says that they were long ago designated for condemnation. That’s how serious it is to lead people to falsehood. If you are a false teacher, you are condemned. It’s not that you lost salvation, it’s that you never had it to begin with. This is how serious God takes the body of faith that He has revealed to us. This is how serious God takes the truth. If God takes it serious, then we should too.

-And there are consequences for those who get caught up with these false teaching. In the book of Revelation, in Christ’s letter to Thyatira, Jesus uses very picturesque language to describe what happens to false teachers and their followers:

Revelation 2:20–23 ESV

20 But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. 21 I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. 22 Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, 23 and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works.

-Jesus don’t fool around. And then Jude, in vv. 5-7, demonstrate this truth in things that happened in history. The Israelites were brought out of Egypt to go into the Promised Land, but they didn’t trust God or believe He could do it, so they ended up wandering around for 40 years and all the unbelievers died in the wilderness. Jude uses the example of angels who decided that they no longer wanted to be under God’s command, so they rebelled against God and His truth and now are set for judgment. Sodom and Gomorrah wanted to live an immoral lifestyle where they went after unnatural desires (a clear indication of LGBTQ lifestyles) and God destroyed them with fire. And Jude says that these are given as examples to everybody else that if you mess with the truth you too will undergo punishment of eternal fire.

-This obviously demonstrates that the body of faith God revealed is the truth and God takes that truth seriously, and we are to live in that truth. But, there are enemies that want to cut us off from the truth. So we very earnestly need to guard our roots so that we are not cut off from that truth.

Conclusion

-But I want to quickly close with our response to having been warned here about the need to guard our roots:

(a) Know the truth

-How is the truth going to impact your life if you don’t know the truth? How will you know what you are to believe if you don’t know the truth? How will you have faith that gives you roots without knowing it? Get into the Word and know the truth. But also...

(b) Live the truth

-God’s Word and the faith and the truth is not merely something to know like a subject in school or for trivia. The truth is best known when it is applied and lived out. The man or woman is blessed because they meditate on the Word, and they are firmly planted as they live that Word out.

(c) Defend the truth

-It is so important to know what you believe and why you believe it and why it is truth. How are you going to defend the truth without knowing why the truth is the truth? You need to know the truth, but also why it is the truth.

(d) Share the truth

-The majority of the world is living under a lie, and we have the truth. We don’t want them living out a lie or falling for a lie, and so we share the truth in love, praying that the truth will impact them as much as it impacts us.

-I’ll close with this thought. There was a Barna research done back in the ‘90s that found, at the time, that a vast majority of people believed in God (around 74%). But at the same time, 65% of them agreed with the statement that there is no such thing as absolute truth.

-You can’t know God and deny truth. God is the author of truth and He is truth, and we need to be rooted in that truth. But you have to guard your roots so that you are not moved from the truth.

-Christian, come and pray at the altar for strength to guard your roots. Church, I want to call you to come to the altar and pray for these youth that God would guard their roots. I also want to invite you to pray that God would use this generation to bring about much needed revival.

-But if you are not a Christian, you don’t have any roots and you are without truth. Believe in Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life, and no one can come to the Father apart from Him...