Hope While Surrounded by Darkness
Notes
Transcript
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
There are some things that we read in the Bible that are really hard to read. We talked last week about how negative examples can be hard. The tradeoff is that positive examples are much easier. Jude 4-19 has been full of negative examples. But, Jude 20 all of a sudden provides us with a shift!
See, Jude didn’t just write a letter of doom and gloom. In many ways, I think that Jude’s letter resembles the Christian life. There are highs and there are lows, but in the end, GOD WILL ALWAYS BE WITH US!
And in the end of Jude, GOD IS WITH US!
See, Jdue leaves us with some important instructions. Jude leaves us with 7 discipleship instructions.
I would place these into two separate categories. The first 4 are for “personal discipleship” while the last 3 are more about how we DISCIPLE others!
And to live out the GREAT COMMISSION (Matthew 28:18-20) we have to have both PERSONAL DISCIPLESHIP, or a PERSONAL, GROWING WALK WITH GOD and we have to be DISCIPLEMAKERS who help others do the same!
Part of discipleship is warning! See, disciples are learning and sometimes you have to provide a warning to keep someone safe. Another part of discipleship though is reminding a disciple of GOOD AND OF POSITIVE INSTRUCTIONS!
In Jude 20-23, we see some very POSITIVE instructions for discipleship. In fact, I would say that we see God’s heartbeat of what discipleship is. See, sometimes that term can become ill-defined. But to briefly define it, it’s helping people grow to be more like Christ by LIVING LIFE WITH THEM!
And here in these 4 verses, we will see 7 characteristics that can shape our discipleship!
To summarize this down into a main point:
MAIN POINT: In Discipleship, Rely upon the MERCY and LOVE of our ALMIGHTY GOD!
BODY
BODY
Jude 20 really represents a turn of Jude’s attention. Jude 20
But you, dear friends, as you build yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,
He makes his intention to change his topic clear as he starts this sentence!
“BUT YOU!”
There’s a different subject for these verses!
Although Jude has been addressing believers, he has been giving us warning after warning, 31 total, about troublemakers who seek to destroy the church!
Now, Jude changes the subject. He goes from talking to us ABOUT someone else to now addressing us and providing us with instruction!
Jude begins to make his letter personal.
Some commentators have suggested that Jude writes his letter how he would preach a sermon to this church. We could look at verses 20-23 as HIS application!
And how does he start off? BUT YOU! BUT YOU DEAR FRIENDS!
Jude has talked about division and threats to the body of believers and now he calls fellow believers “Dear friends.”
He shows us our unity. We are in fact friends!
Jude then begins his next set of instructions to his dear friends, which includes us!
Jude gives 7 things that we should do.
Remember, Jude has given us 31 characteristics of troublemakers and now he gives us 4 items for personal discipleship in verses 20 and 21 and then 3 aspects of mercy and inter-personal-discipleship in verses 22-23.
Let me reread Jude 20-21. Jude 20-21
But you, dear friends, as you build yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting expectantly for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ for eternal life.
There are 4 personal discipleship commands given to us here.
We are to:
Build ourselves up in our MOST HOLY FAITH
Pray in the Holy Spirit
Keep ourselves in the love of God
Wait expectantly for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ!
Let’s talk through these four.
First, Jude challenges us to build ourselves up in our MOST HOLY FAITH!
This is a straight forward challenge and it is important that we take it seriously. We need to pour into our faith!
If we care about our faith, if we want to BUILD OURSELVES UP in our faith, then we need to pour into our faith! We need to spend time with the Lord! We need to listen to the Holy Spirit!
In 2020 there was a trend to pick up new hobbies with more time at home. One common hobby was bread baking and many people that I knew started making sourdough bread during the pandemic.
Sourdough is a unique bread. See, you have to feed sourdough. Each time that you get ready to use your starter to make bread, you feed it, the starter grows and then you can make bread! But you have to feed the starter and let it grow!
See, if you do not feed the starter, eventually, you will run out of sourdough! And let me be clear, a sourdough starter is a lot of work! From the time you feed it to the time you bake the bread, it can be 2-3 days!
I actually think that Jude’s point is similar! See, if we feed our faith, if we build ourselves up in our faith, spending time to build a secure foundation on Jesus, then we will last! When trials come, we can weather them and come out on the other side and we will be fine!
On the other hand, if we do not feed our faith, then one after another, each trial will have an impact on us. And over time we will begin to find our faith drained until it is gone!
So hear me, we have to make sure that we feed our faith! Now hear me, this isn’t about certain actions or inactions! That’s not what feeding our faith is!
You could mindlessly read your Bible everyday, but if you never stop and meditate on the word of God then you are wasting your time!
So, what Jude is calling for here is INTENTIONALITY in feeding your faith! Make this your focus! MAKE THIS A PINNACLE IN YOUR LIFE!
FOCUS YOUR EYES ON JESUS AND ON KNOWING HIM MORE!
Build your life on that! Yes it has a cost, but that cost is so worthwhile! The reward at the end is so worth it!
Give yourself time to be in the WORD OF GOD, ALL OF IT! Give yourself time to meditate on it! Give yourself time to be in prayer! Give yourself time to be in fellowship! EVEN GIVE YOURSELF TIME AND OPPORTUNITIES TO ENGAGE IN EVANGELISM!
THIS TIME IS WORTH IT!
Friends, and I will call you friends in that deeply personal, loving way that Jude does, GIVE YOURSELF, ALL OF YOU, TO GOD! This isn’t just a challenge for you, this is a challenge for me!
We need to BUILD OUR FAITH ON GOD AND GOD ALONE!
So the first of 7 instructions that Jude gives? BUILD YOUR FAITH! And what do we do with it? We GIVE THAT TIME TO GOD! We genuinely trust God and we give God the opportunity to work, knowing that God will strengthen our faith and that we WILL walk closer to God!
The second characteristic that Jude gives is to pray in the Holy Spirit.
This instruction can sometimes be twisted. Jude isn’t telling us to do some mythical ritual to pray in a special language. Jude isn’t talking about tongues here.
Instead, I really appreciate what Charles Spurgeon says about this phrase.
He gives three examples of what it means to pray in the Holy Spirit.
He says that it means (and I’ve updated the language a bit)
The Holy Spirit will help us pray
The Holy Spirit will tell us WHEN AND HOW to pray
The Holy Spirit will intercede for us!
Praying in the Holy Spirit here is all about giving up our claim to having total authority or being in control and is instead about submitting ourselves to God and trusting God!
See, the troublemakers time and time again are linked to what type of attributes?
SELFISH ONES!
They are selfish shepherds, they foam up with THEIR EVIL DESIRES, they DEFILE THEIR FLESH, they seek THEIR POWER AND GLORY!
On the other hand, we are told to pray, NOT IN OURSELVES, but IN THE HOLY SPIRIT!
Jude is taking our eyes off of ourselves and is instead fixing our eyes onto Jesus!
This is really important! If we are to live out our faith, this faith that we are told to build up, then we will be deep in prayer and we will also have our eyes fixated not on ourselves, but instead on Jesus!
Faith and prayer are closely linked!
So as we build up our faith, we are to be in PRAYER IN THE HOLY SPIRIT!
Thirdly, Jude tells us to keep ourselves in the love of God.
Let me encourage us to not over-complicate this instruction. I see two major parts of this.
First, we need to run from the distracting, short-term pleasures that satan tries to distract us with!
Satan will attempt to lead us astray with temptations that seem so good in the short term!
We will be tempted to chase what seems to benefit us the best, but we can’t! Instead, we have to run to God!
The troublemakers that Jude talks so much about have run after short-term pleasures and things that seem best in the short term.
For instance, they deny Jesus and instead run after what their flesh desires!
To put this another way, they reject the love of God and instead chase their pleasures!
We can’t do that! We need to STAY CLOSE TO GOD AND IN HIS LOVE!
Secondly, we need to come alongside one another to support each other!
When we think about keeping ourselves in the love of God, it can be an intimidating thing! After all, we don’t want to leave the love of God!
And that’s part of why community is so important! We can work together to keep one another in the love of God!
We can see places where we are wandering away from God and we can lovingly call that out!
We need to walk together to help stay on track and in the love of God!
The 4th instruction that Jude gives us is to wait expectantly for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ!
This encouragement makes a ton of sense!
What do the troublemakers not do? THEY DON’T WAIT! Instead, they twist things to make them work for themselves!
Jude though tells us that we need to WAIT!
DON’T RUN AFTER FALSE TEACHERS, WAIT FOR GOD!
The troublemakers will try to lead us astray, but we need to STAND FIRM AND TRUST GOD!
And what are we waiting for?
We are waiting expectantly for the MERCY OF JESUS which is shown clearly through eternal life with him!
Hear me on this, the good news of the gospel isn’t ONLY about eternal life, BUT, we cannot have the gospel without eternal life!
To put this another way, our salvation calls for us to live differently! That starts today!
Yet, our faith always should have us future focused!
We need to be future focused because our faith is made complete at a LATER TIME!
Friends, we are always LOOKING FORWARD! In the face of the hardest trial and the worst suffering, we can look forward because we STILL HAVE HOPE!
We know that this is not our home! Rather, our home is with Jesus for eternity!
And that is what we are WAITING FOR EXPECTANTLY!
Although Jude has given so many warnings throughout his letter, here he gives us something to look forward to!
Yes, we need to be on guard against false teachers, but it isn’t all hopeless!
This is all worth it in the end! We have ETERNITY, FOREVER, with JESUS to look forward to!
In Jude 22-23, Jude continues giving us instructions. He gives us 3 more things to keep in mind.
I would describe these as 3 inter-personal-discipleship commands. These specifically need to be applied when the troublemakers are at work, but also should be remembered for discipleship at any time!
Have mercy on those who waver; save others by snatching them from the fire; have mercy on others but with fear, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.
So what are the three things we are to do? We are to:
Have mercy on those who waver
Save others by snatching them from the fire
Have mercy with fear, hating even the garment that has been defiled!
You may notice; there’s a central theme in these three things.
We are to HAVE MERCY!
Just as we have received mercy, and just as we are to LOOK FORWARD TO MERCY for ourselves, we are to HAVE MERCY on those around us!
We are to specifically have mercy on those who waver.
Let’s be honest, walking with the Lord is not easy! There will be bumps int he road and there will be hardship.
It is easy for our faith to waver in those times.
But look at what we are to do! We are to have MERCY!
We aren’t to condemn or write them off, we are to HAVE MERCY!
Mercy is at the core of this!
And what is mercy? Mercy is simply put “undeserved grace.”
You can never earn mercy!
Matthew 18- UNMERCIFUL SERVANT- Servant owes SO SO MUCH and it is forgiven. Then he doesn’t forgive the servant that owes him a much smaller amount! (God always forgives us, do we FORGIVE?)
We need to have MERCY with each other, ESPECIALLY in the case of recovering from the attacks of the troublemakers!
Friends, patience and the patient teaching of TRUTH is key in these types of situations!
The second aspect of mercy that Jude references is that we need to “save others by snatching them from the fire.”
This word for save “zosete” means to save or to rescue! We are to RESCUE those who are struggling!
Have mercy on those around us and RESCUE THEM!
So what does it mean to SAVE others by snatching, or grasping them, to rescue them from the fire?
Well, just as the last group needs to hear the truth, this group does too!
Yet, whereas the last group had time on their sides, this group does not!
There is URGENCY to this situation! You have to act quickly!
Hear me, we have talked about Matthew 28:18-20 and how we are to be disciple makers!
But don’t overlook the URGENCY of it!
We aren’t supposed to “wait until convenient” to become a disciplemaker! We need to make disciples today!
If you have faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, you can make disciples!
And this is really an all-hands on deck situation!
Can you imagine a sinking ship with me? Water is coming over the sides, the storm has struck, everything seems hopeless!
In fact, in a few weeks, when we start our series through Jonah we’ll see a situation like this, but picture this sinking ship with me!
You have two options. You can let the ship go down and drown with it, or EVERYONE CAN HELP OUT!
That’s what Jude is alluding to here when he talks abut SNATCHING PEOPLE FROM THE FIRE!
ARE YOU GOING TO LET THEM GO DOWN TO HELL ALONE, OR ARE YOU GOING TO STEP IN AND DISCIPLE THEM?
Listen friends, this is an urgent situation! And hear me on this, every person on earth is being discipled right now! Some are being discipled by BELIEVERS, but if a believer is not discipling you, the world is!
This isn’t a command that we can delay in! We are to make disciples and it is an urgent task! There are people all around us who have been misled and they need to be snatched from the fire.
And let me tell you how we can do that! We can do that by proclaiming the gospel clearly! We can help people by showing them JESUS’S LIFE!
We will talk more about this in a minute, but understand, that this situation is an abundantly URGENT situation! There is no time to waste!
The final discipleship instruction that Jude gives is that we are to “have mercy on others but with fear, hating even the garment defiled by the flesh.”
This group are people that are far gone and are under the influence of the troublemakers.
Their lives are changing and they are starting to walk in the evil ways of the troublemakers.
If we were to try to think of what this group is, these are people who are beginning to say AND REALLY BELIEVE that maybe there are ways to be saved beyond Jesus!
We are to reach out to them to offer correction, but notice, we are to do so with FEAR!
We are to do this carefully! Hate their sinful action and REACH OUT IN CAUTION!
Sometimes you may hear the phrase “hate the sin, love the sinner” thrown around. I think it is trying to get at this concept, but it misses something.
We are to proceed with caution! BE CAREFUL!
Let’s say you are trying to reach a friend who parties hard and lives a wild life!
YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIVE THAT SAME WAY TO REACH THEM!
Instead, you need to HAVE MERCY AND CARE while also not actively participating in their sin!
While I was at the Midwest Leadership Summit this week, we talked a lot about the way that our culture approaches finding meaning and filling the void in their hearts. For me, this is an emotional topic. It’s emotional because I have so many friends who I see making mistake after mistake in this area!
I have friends who run from Jesus as quickly as possible, seeking to replace him with ANYTHING ELSE! I have friends who try to fill the void with sexuality, friends who try to fill it with drinking, friends who seek out drugs for it. Let me summarize what I see and what we talked about so much at MLS.
There’s a prevalent lie in our culture. The lie is that you can determine your own savior based on your own knowledge and ideas! Listen to any social media influencer. In life, you need to first “know yourself” and then you can make sure that “you do you” to the best ability!
That’s not at all what scripture says!
That’s false teaching! Scripture says that our identity needs to be in Christ- Galatians 2:20 and that our salvation comes only through JESUS!
Consider the troublemakers Jude has just been warning us about! They essentially teach self-determinism! They teach that you can decide who you are and what will save you! The one thing they do claim to know? It won’t be Jesus! Yet that’s just a sign of delusion! And in this third group, we see people who are essentially dragged away by these false teachers! They are almost destroyed!
And what does Jude tell us to do? HAVE MERCY!
FRIENDS, THE GOSPEL THAT WE BELIEVE AND THE GOSPEL THAT WE PROCLAIM IS A GOSPEL OF MERCY! And let me be clear, I’m not the one who was and is wronged when someone sins. THAT’S GOD! But check this out, Jude tells us to have mercy! BE ON GUARD to not be led astray, BUT EXTEND MERCY AND FORGIVE!
Church, can we make a commitment as we move into a time of application? Let’s be a church marked by the GRACE OF THE GOSPEL!
APPLICATION:
Today, we’ve honestly seen a number of application points! Jude 20-23 is really all application!
But I have two more application points that I want to make.
God’s Mercy Towards Us
God’s Discipleship Cornerstones
God’s Mercy Towards Us
THE GOSPEL! PREACH IT FROM THE HEART! THE MERCY OF GOD! THE GRACE OF GOD TO FORGIVE US AND TO LOVE US AND WELCOME US!
CHURCH, IF WE WANT THE GOSPEL TO BE SPREAD TO THE WORLD, WE MUST HAVE A GOSPEL CULTURE OF GRACE AND MERCY HERE!
God’s Discipleship Cornerstones
Jude has given us a bunch of very important things to do today! But let me circle two for us. These two are Mercy and LOVE!
See, these two are both reflections of core attributes of God! God’s MERCY TOWARDS US AND GOD’S LOVE TOWARDS US ARE ABSOLUTELY WORLD SHATTERING!
Friends, let’s consider these for a minute and how practically we can show these!
(Forgiveness and walking WITH people around us)
This can’t just be a thing we think about sometimes, this needs to be baked into the CULTURE OF OUR CHURCH!
In all that we do, we will proclaim the gospel on Sunday mornings, but hear me, in all that we do, we need to LIVE THESE TWO OUT!
We need to LIVE OUT MERCY AND LOVE ON A DAILY BASIS!
To do that, let me challenge us to do something counter-cultural. Let me challenge us to FORGIVE! When someone wrongs you, let me challenge you to forgive. Now, let me just put a qualifier here. There are times where someone deeply hurts us. Forgiveness doesn’t mean that we blindly put ourselves in a BAD SITUATION, but forgiveness means that we don’t actively seek out revenge!
Forgiveness means that we give it to God! We LET GO OF IT! In other words, we show mercy!
Likewise, let me challenge us to be LOVING PEOPLE!
Our love comes not from us though, it can ONLY COME from the HOLY SPIRIT!
So let me encourage you to love the people around you! It won’t always be easy. Let me assure you of that. But imagine if the next time that the annoying coworker, and I’ve had a few, starts doing there thing, imagine if you LOVED THEM! Let it go! Instead of getting frustrated, what if we handled it in a calm way!
Or in a similar way, what does it look like for you to care for the people around you and to love them?
Do they have a need? This week, I had the chance to visit with one of my neighbors and to just hear about their week! He’s an older man and with the bad weather he really hasn’t gone outside. So I just gave up a minute of my day and I LOVED HIM! I just listened to him!
So let me encourage us, it doesn’t have to be anything grand, but let’s be known for, AND HEAR ME, THIS ONLY COMES THROUGH OBEDIENCE TO GOD, let’s be known for our GRACE, MERCY AND LOVE!
Let me pray for us.
31 Days of Prayer- we are going to end by asking the Lord to be with us in our CORE VALUES THAT WE HOLD CLOSE! For three days, and that’s all that’s left in January, I want to challenge us to end by bringing to God some of the things that we hold the closest! Things like discipleship, spiritual growth, EVANGELISM! We want to bring these before the Lord again. And there’s a specific reason that we are bringing our eyes back to those. These are the things that unite us. These are things that we agree and covenant to support one another on! So, what better way to end our month than to end it by PRAYING FOR THOSE THINGS TO EXPLODE!
Let me explain #2. I wrote down “Pray for 1+1.” This week as I drove back from my conference I got praying. And as I prayed, a thought popped into my head. What if we prayed as a church every week, daily, for God to bring us 1 new family that week and 1 new college student! What if that was our heartbeat? Just think about that with me! 1 New family that comes to know the Lord and is discipled and 1 new student that is discipled! This isn’t about growing Cornerstone, this is about THE KINGDOM OF GOD!
And let me be clear on that! This is not motivated by church growth, this is motivated by kingdom growth! So, as we finish our month of prayer, and as we move forward, would you begin praying for our 1+1 EACH WEEK! We want to pray expectantly and with full faith! We know God is so GOOD and we know that we can TOTALLY TRUST GOD IN THIS! This is not a short-term prayer, This is a long term prayer! But we want to pray expectantly and full of faith knowing that GOD CAN BRING 1 FAMILY AND 1 STUDENT NOT JUST TO CHURCH BUT TO FAITH IN HIM EACH WEEK!