Persevere

READ Jude 17-23

PRAY

Intro

Last several weeks have been not the most joyful. Judgement after judgement.

Tonight our focus shifts back to the believers that Jude is writing to.

Sermon title tonight is : persevere. Thats the point of Judes sections here, a final word to exhort and encourage the believers to press on toward the end.

Two sections: remember and press on.

Remember

Jude gives a call to remember what the apostles predicted…that the FT’s would do just this. Paul warned Timothy that a day like this would come…when people would forget sound teaching for ungodly passions.

If theres a piece of chocolate on the ground, my dog will eat it…no matter what I say or warn her. Unbelievers will always go after the choclate…teaching that tickles their ears and highlights their passions.

Let this be a reminder for you, to stay away from the ungodly passions of this world. Teaching that lifts you up, is accepting of your sin, thoughts that make you the most important thing in your life…flee from these things and run to Christ!

Your ungodly passions will only lead you to destruction, seek continually after the Lord Jesus!

Jude says these frauds, FT’s are devoid of the Spirit, yet they attempt to sway believers away. There is plenty out there like this today. Friends, read and study the word of God, dedicate your life to it. That you may be able to sniff out false teaching like this from a mile away.

Press On

After another reminder from Jude, he then tell Christians to press on and persevere. We are to build ourselves up in our most holy faith. We are to grow in our faith, not remain little spiritual babies only feeding off of milk.

This is a work that YOU take part in. Never are Christians called to stand idly by and be lazy in their walks with Christ. We are, led by the Spirit of God, to build ourselves up in discipline.

How? Reading and studying the word. Prayer. Being a part of a biblical local church and serving within that local church. Evangelizing. Serving others. Worshiping the Lord in all of life.

We as Christians are also to pray in the Holy Spirit. This does NOT mean praying in tounges or another language. Rather, Jude is saying Christians are to pray controlled by the Holy Spirit and led by Him into all truth.

That means praying properly as the Bible tells us. Jesus taught much on prayer, we are to pray as He commanded.

We also are to keep ourselves in the love of God, BECAUSE our God can and WILL keep you! A Christian is a person of godly DISCIPLINE! Does this mark your life? Do you discipline yourself so that you may keep yourself in the love of God?

You ought too!

All of this is in light of waiting on the 2nd coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! He is coming and we await the full revealing of His mercy on us on that last day!

Jude ends this section by encouraging the church, believers, to exercise different ways to pull sinners away from the destruction of their flesh.

Some people will need mercy shown on them as they doubt. They’ll need gentle counseling and loving guidance. Others will need to be snatched! They’ll need to be lovingly but quickly yanked from the fire of their sin and temptations.

That is, they need a stark wake up call in order to see the gravity of what their caught up in.

There is perhaps a third group that we ought to show mercy to with fear. Fear there looks like a humility on the persons end that is showing the mercy to the doubter…lest we be tempted and fall as well!

I love the picture he paints right at the end here…”hating even the garment stained by the flesh”. This is a final word from Jude to beleivers, that we MUST be careful!

False teaching can grab us quickly if we don’t hate sin! This should be our disposition to all that which disregards the Lord and His commands. We ought to despise it!

Not that we go around hating people and make them feel belittled. Rather, this hatred of sin ought to motivate us in love to preach the gospel to unbelievers and lead beleivers away from sin!

Christians do not negotiate with sin and temptation. Rather, we run away! We stand guard and kill it daily in our lives.

Conclusion

Therefore, Christians, let us persevere with all the energy the Lord gives us, to the very end…knowing that God is able to keep us from stumbling!

Remember the dangers of False Teaching and Teachers, flee from it and them, and pursue righteous in Christ empowered and controlled by the Holy Spirit.

PRAY