Strategy for Contending for the Faith

Jude 17–22 ESV

17 But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. 18 They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” 19 It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. 20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. 22 And have mercy on those who doubt;

You must remember the predictions.

The Bible is not short of passages that warn the Church to not become complacent as we are living in the end times.

In the last, time there will be scoffers.

What are scoffers? The word translated as "scoffer" in English can mean "one who mocks, ridicules, or scorns the belief of another."

Strength to Endure

In the darkest moment of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Sam, the Hobbit, looks up into the poisonous skies of Mordor, and receives an unexpected comfort: “There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty forever beyond its reach.”

For the first time in days, Sam curled up into a deep untroubled sleep. He once again had the strength to endure.

“This story of little Sam being heartened by the star is so poignant because it resonates with the Christian experience.

Every Christian knows what it is like to want to give up and just surrender if that will quiet the world’s constant battering.

The early Christians who read the book of Hebrews knew that feeling well. However, the author of Hebrews told them, “So do not throw away your confidence; it holds a great reward” (Heb. 10:35)

1. Remember that we are living in the End times.

Note: notice that Jude begins with the word “you.” Not “but” comparing two things. Jude makes it personal. “but you remember.”

They are to remember imperfect prophetic readings or writings.

The verb foretold is in the imperfect form suggesting that his is something the apostles would have told them repeatedly.

They are like Paul who continually used the imperfect verb, “for when you were with me I kept telling you;” “do you not remember when I was with you I continued to tell you...” (letter to the Thessalonians).

Jude Lives in the Post-Apostolic Age

(1) The apostles appear as a group.

(2) Jude does not group himself with them.

(3) The apostles are only mentioned as active in the past.

Remember that the early believers did not yet have the bible bound in a book that they could read. Oral tradition was the method of disseminating information to the Church.

Unfortunately today peoples memory and attention span has significantly decreased. They tell us even our ability to retain and remember information is decreasing every year.

Judean followers are exhorted to remember what they had been told.

*Scoffers will come in the Last Days

What are scoffers? The word translated "scoffer" in English can mean "one who mocks, ridicules, or scorns the belief of another." (example from Mighty Oaks; Shane that is your book…)

2 Peter 3:3–4 ESV

3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”

(1) Scoffers are those who follow their own passions

What does it look like to follow your own passions? A passion is a strong barely controllable emotion. All of us have passion to one extent or another. Everyone is passionate about something or someone.

What our passions say about us. Everyone of us are driven by our passions.

(2) Scoffers are those who mock God’s Moral Law.

“We live in a culture that daily thumbs it’s nose in God’s face in regards to His moral law.

Actions speak louder than words — but desires speak loudest.

The pursuit of pleasure is what drives all our actions and decisions, driving us into relationships, driving us to watch football, driving us toward excellence at work. We authentically pursue what we are convinced will bring us pleasure.

John Bunyan was a pastor who spent considerable time thinking about how pleasures operate in our lives. In one of his sermons Bunyan said: “desires are hunting things.” Stalking through cornfields in boots, camo overalls, and a blaze orange hat is a fitting metaphor for the restless heart in search of pleasures. Our hearts are hungry and our hearts hunt this world for something (or someone) to fill a void.

But of course not all of our desires are good and helpful. Our desires may be pure or sinfully twisted.

2 Trajectories

Bunyan’s metaphor of hunting fits our desires. The promises of pleasure will lead our searching hearts somewhere. Just as the hunter tracks, so does the heart.

This was Bunyan’s conclusion when he stopped to study Proverbs 10:24:

What the wicked dreads will come upon him, but the desire of the righteous will be granted.

Here in this passage is the answer to our question.

What does the wicked dread, death, his own mortality; what the righteous desire eternal security in Christ alone.

Our passions expose our eternal trajectory.

2 Timothy 3:1–7 ESV

1 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. 6 For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, 7 always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.

What are the last days?

The last days started 2,000 years ago as Jesus took His last breath on the cross and walked out of the grave 3 days later victorious over sin and death.

Peter declares on Pentecost that Joel’s prophecy about the last days has been fulfilled in the sending of the Spirit (Acts 2:16–18). Since Jesus has been crucified and exalted, the Spirit is now being poured out on all those who repent of their sins and put their trust in Jesus Christ. The Apostle John even declares that “it is the last hour” (1 John 2:18), and thus we have been living in the last hour for two thousand years.

When it comes to Sanctification Christians should be some of the most optimistic and overjoyed people in the world because we enjoy the end time gift of the Holy Spirit.

God keeps us humble by reminding us how far we have to go. It also gives us a drastic picture of the difference between living for the flesh as apposed to living for the Spirit.

Jesus declared the End times have begun.

When Jesus began his preaching ministry in the synagogue at Nazareth, he opened the scroll at Isaiah 61:1–2

Isaiah 61:1–2 ESV

1 The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn;

Then he dramatically closed the scroll and announced the fulfillment of this prophecy in his ministry. He deliberately did not include Isaiah’s next few words, ‘and the day of vengeance of our God’. By that simple omission, Jesus divided the Old Testament hope into two.

The Old Testament looked forward to the day of salvation and the day of judgment, the two coming together in one event.

(3) Scoffers are those who Divide

Satan loves to divide, rip, and tear, making sport of moral convictions, apart the body of Christ.

How do people cause division, the more

They foster and promote strife instead of unity. They promote their own agenda above God’s.

Those lacking respect for spiritual leaders; making sport of moral convictions; downplaying theological distinctives. The distinctive of such people are those who begin to create cliques or factions within the Church that divide. (James, trying to divide the group)

The closer we get to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ we should take great joy in working in unity with the body of Christ. We should work for unity above all other things within the body. Yes, we are to be faithful to truth but not contentious separating ourselves from other believers.

It is evident that the church cannot put up with those who unashamedly denounce doctrines like the Trinity, original sin, and other essential Christian beliefs. Less clear are those cases when we encounter people who are not blatant heretics. There are some issues on which believers loving disagree on when scripture is not explicit.

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Signs of a Divisive Person

(1). The divisive person is someone who most likely knows the Bible.

(2). The divisive person seems more motivated by being right than being loving.

(3). The divisive person tends to sabotage their spiritual growth by keeping a messy, meaningful community where discipleship flourishes at arm's length.

(4). The divisive person is highly dogmatic.

(5). The divisive person frequently finds themselves in quarrels but they believe the issue is with other people.

(6). The divisive person creates an echo chamber where they only listen to people (teachers, authors, social media, friends) that reinforces their narrow views.

(7). The divisive person distracts the church from its mission of making disciples because they suck the time and energy from the mission tied up in endless squabbles.

(8). The divisive person keeps people from experiencing true unity, joy, and fellowship with the body of Christ.

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John 17:20–21 ESV

20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.

The sign of a Spiritually mature person is how we theologically disagree with someone and still be able to experience unity.

(4) Scoffers are those who are Spiritless

The saddest description is that these people are devoid of the Spirit. This means that they are lost, unregenerate, and do not have the spirit.

Romans 8:9 ESV

9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

They claim to be in Christ but do not know Him.

They boast of the spirit, but their lives betray their confession.

They are spiritual frauds, and a religious shame.

Titus 1:16 ESV

16 They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work.

It is very easy to claim to be led by the Holy Spirit. And any sensitive believer might pause momentarily to consider whether they really are being led by the Spirit.

However, when the Bible is declared outmoded, the resurrection denied, the saving death of Jesus watered down or the biblical guidelines on sex and marriage are made amenable to people’s greed, and all in the name of ‘where the Spirit is leading us’, we can be sure that the Spirit is not leading us there at all.

2. Being Kept in the Love of God.

Notice that Jude does not tell his readers to do anything about the false teachers, but, rather he focuses on what we should do about ourselves.

It only talks about what to do about the false teachers after we have checked our own spiritual state.

The only imperative statement that Jude makes is to “Keep yourself in the love of God.” then there are three other supporting statements.

Here is the Spiritual strategy that Jude gives us.

(1). Building yourselves up in the most holy faith.

(2). Praying in the Spirit.

(3). Waiting for the mercy of Jesus Christ to bring you to bring you to eternal life.

*We must grow in the Scriptures.

“The Faith as we have continually seen in Jude’s letter is the body of doctrine that Christians have believed from the earliest days of the church.”

Building yourself up in the word of God.

Ephesians 2:20 ESV

20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,

Note: the apostles of Christ believed the word of God to be of paramount importance and Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of that foundation, then why would we in anyway conclude that we do not need the word?

The faith that we continually see brought up in Jude’s letter is the fact that doctrine is extremely important. It matters what you are following. Are your following the word of God or the word of man. Do you fear God or man.

Paul writes in Galatians 1:9

Galatians 1:9 ESV

9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

The word of God is of paramount importance to your spiritual growth and ability to defend against false teachers and their doctrine. Without it you are desperately exposed.

We read in 2 Timothy 3:16 that all of scripture is the very breath of God and breathed out by God. Jude has made it abundantly clear the fate of those who hijack and distort the word of god. Paul says that they should be accursed.

When the Bible tells us that we should be guardians of the truth of the word of God, it tells us to do so fearlessly.

We should be offended anytime anyone distorts or twists the word of God for their own gain.

What do you think we are doing every Sunday when we come together as the body of Christ? We are here to teach Christians how to live in a world filled with all kinds of false teaching and belief systems in the world today.

The Christian must study scripture to grow in faith and be of any use to the body of Christ. Show me a Christian who is not growing in the whole counsel of the word of God daily and I will show you a Christian who falls into all kinds of false teachings and ideas in the world today.

Show me a Christian who is daily growing in the whole counsel of the word of God and I will show you a Christian who is a stronghold for the church and bearing fruit that will never perish. I am tired of believers who are a mile wide and an inch deep. Their faith and knowledge of God and the character of God is weak.

*We win the Battle on our knees.

How much time did you spend this past week on your knees in prayer?

The battle against false teaching is not going to be won by how well we can craft an argument against it.

2 Corinthians 10:3–5 ESV

3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

It is likely that the false teachers had given up prayer. Many ‘advanced’ Christians have done so today, on their own admission. But to try and outrun the word of God and prayer is to outrun Christianity altogether.

Jude is contrasting the difference between those who have the spirit and those who do not.

What does it mean to pray in the Spirit

It means to be praying God’s will to be done God’s way, not our will to be done our way.

What Praying in the Holy Spirit is not.

Praying in the flesh:

Praying in the power of the flesh relies on our human ability and effort to carry the prayer.

We all know what it is to feel deadness in prayer, difficulty in prayer, to be tongue-tied, with nothing to say, as it were, having to force ourselves to try. Well, to the extent that is true of us, we are not praying in the Spirit. (Martyn Lloyd-Jones)

Praying in flesh calls on our human flesh and ability to push past the difficulty in prayer.

Jesus warned us against trying to pull together allot of empty words

Matthew 6:7 ESV

7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.

Sometimes people try to overcome deadness in prayer by focusing on how well we can pray. We subtly trust in having perfectly composed, doctrinally correct prayers that rely upon the right diction, cadence, language, emotion, or volume.

Ephesians 6:18 ESV

18 praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,

Is it impossible for the believer to do anything apart from the Holy Spirit?

Galatians 2:20 tells us that “we are crucified in Christ therefore, we no longer live but Christ lives through us.”

Now Romans 8:26 tells us that the spirit helps us in our time of weakness when we do not know how to prayer as we should pray.

The spirit does not just help us sometimes with our prayers but he is regularly. He prompts, enables, and empowers us in our prayers.

Praying in the Spirit:

Praying in the Spirit means we will pray for God’s will to be done, not our own will.

This is a stark contrast between the false teachers who definitely do not have the Holy spirit living inside of them and the believer who does have the spirit.

Just as we have stated that it would impossible for a believer to pray in any other way than the Holy Spirit it would also be impossible for those false teachers outside of the faith to ever pray according to the Holy Spirits will and plan. They may string together many fancy and good sounding words that are completely devoid of the Holy spirit.

Praying in the Holy Spirit is our communion with God.

Commune:

A commune is a place where everyone shares everything together. They share food, possessions, life. So, when we are communing with God it means that we are sharing everything together. This is what the Christian is doing when they are continually praying in the spirit. It is a very genuine and heartfelt relationship.

We do know that communing with God is the end for which we were created.

Communion with God is a staggering thought.

God created billions of galaxies and calls every star by name (Isa. 40:26; 42:5). He never had a beginning and will never end (Ps. 90:2). His ways are inscrutable and his judgments unsearchable (Rom. 11:33). His thoughts are as different from ours as the heavens are high above the earth (Isa. 55:8). “The nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales” (Isa. 40:15).

If that were not enough to make communion with God unthinkable, consider that all of us are naturally rebellious against him. Therefore, his omnipotent wrath rests on us. We are by nature hostile to God and do not submit to his law (Rom. 8:7). Therefore, the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against us (Rom. 1:18). We are “by nature children of wrath,” “sons of disobedience,” and “dead in . . . trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1–5). How then can there be any thought of communion with God?

Communion refers to Gods communication to humanity. How is it possible that this God wants to commune with us. The answer is in verse 21 of the text. It is all about the Savior who comes in our looking and waiting for him.

*We Learn to Wait for the Savior

Waiting has the idea of an expectant kind of waiting

We all know that Christ will return as the victorious conquering king over sin and death. As we read in 1 Thessalonians 4:16 that the Lord Himself will descend from the heavens with a cry.

Jude states that it is coming of mercy to eternal life through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The Christian’s heart and eyes are fixed heavenward, looking for a rider on a white horse whose name is Faithful and True, whose eyes are like a fiery flame, and on his head are many crowns.

We are looking for one whose robe is dipped in blood, and on his thigh he has a name written: King of kings and Lord of lords (cf. Rev 19:11–16).

Until then we will:

GROW IN HIS WORD

PRAY IN HIS SPIRIT

AND WATCH FOR HIS RETURN

CONCLUSION

Rescue the Wandering Who Are Lost

JUDE 22–23

3 Groups of People

Those who doubt.

Those who are in danger of the flames of Hell.

Those corrupted by the lies of the false teaching.

According to the North American Mission Board, 95 percent of Southern Baptists never verbally share the gospel with a lost person. Never! They never tell someone how to be saved. They never share the gospel even once in their lifetime. In 1950 the ratio of members to baptisms was 19 to 1; in 2004 it was 42 to 1 (“ACP Analyst,” 44). George Barna has said American Christians have “commitment issues.” He sees us “lowering the bar on Church commitment” and the emergence of a “soft Christianity.” He writes,

Americans are willing to expend some energy in religious activities such as attending church and reading the Bible, and they are willing to throw some money in the offering basket.

Because of such activities, they convince themselves that they are people of genuine faith. But when it comes time to truly establishing their priorities and making a tangible commitment to knowing and loving God, and to allowing Him to change their character and lifestyle, most people stop short.

We want to be “spiritual” and we want to have God’s favor, but we’re not sure we want Him taking control of our lives and messing with the image and outcomes we’ve worked so hard to produce. (Barna, “Americans Have Commitment Issues”)

Did you notice no mention of soul winning, sharing the gospel, or doing the work of an evangelist?

In light of such an analysis, we would do well to remind ourselves that the Son of Man came on a rescue mission for lost, dying, wandering souls, to seek and save the lost (Luke 19:10).

If we do not care enough that people are saved, we might also well consider whether we are saved.

A LOVE FOR CHRIST SHOULD COMPEL US TO HAVE A LOVE FOR THE LOST

*Have mercy on those who doubt.

I think that sometimes we assume that there is no room for doubting in God’s economy. We are called to extend the same mercy and grace to those who doubt, waver, or struggle with the truth of the Gospel and scripture.

(story of Shane and His doubting)

*The Call for a Quick and Decisive Rescue Mission

The alarm has been sounded to snatch those who are doubting from falling head long into the pit’s or Hell. No one likes to talk about Hell. Many do not ever want to think about Hell. However Gehenna or Hell is mentioned more times that heaven is in the New Testament.

They think if we ignore it, it will just go away. We, however, must never forget as long as we live: given enough time, every person will one day believe in hell. Sometimes confrontational evangelism is necessary. Sometimes it is our only hope!

Pulling someone from a raging river requires us to get muddy too.

If we simply toss a rope, the current pulls the rope downstream and out of the victim’s reach. But if we secure ourselves to a steady place on the shore and slowly enter the racing water, we’re more likely to reach them. However, this requires the rescuer to get wet, dirty, and cold, and to place themselves in dangerous scenarios too. This is the Christian walk of serving others well, and it is also the work of evangelism: when we get into others’ spaces to offer rescue, we often get messy in the process.

Are you building yourself up in the word of the faith?

Are you praying on your knees for the lost?

Are you waiting with the expectation that more will be rescued from the raging river?