Permanence in a Changing World

Introduction:

This morning, we will begin what I hope will be a brief, yet substantive survey of Jude’s letter.

It is especially relevant because so much about our world has changed and continues to change.

We are part of something permanent. We might think of it from two perspectives:

Relational to God: our relationship with God through Christ.

Responsibility toward God: contending for the faith.

Let’s outline the situation:

Jude, most likely the brother of Jesus, wrote this letter.

Mt. 13:55.

He, along with Jesus’ other brothers, had originally rejected him (John 7:2-5).

Jude 4.

Permanence of Our Position with God:

Jude describes his recipients in two important ways.

“being loved in God” seems to suggest two things.

First, we can know that in God we have been loved and we stand loved.

There is permanency and consistency here. We may feel loved, we may not experience love in the world. But, despite our feelings, our circumstances, or the world’s hatred, we may rest assured of God’s love for us.

Second, only believers in Jesus Christ have come to understand that God loves us.

Col. 3:12

1 Thess. 1:4

2 Thess. 2:13

“having been kept” in Jesus Christ.

Our position as “called ones” is permanent.

As called ones, we know we have been loved by God, and we know that we have been preserved or kept in Christ.

Permanence of Our Struggle:

The Faith’s Objective Reality (Jude 3b):

Remember that Jude encourages them to “struggle fully or completely.”

What they are to struggle for is “the faith.”

It is a set of authoritative teachings.

It is a way of life consistent with the nature of the God who has given those teachings.

Does our generation have the capacity for recovering this?

Jude describes the faith in two important ways:

“having been passed down.” This is an important word:

1 Corinthians 11:2

1 Corinthians 11:23

1 Corinthians 15:3

It suggests the preexistence of an authoritative word which has been carefully passed down in order to preserve its accurate and truthful form.

We could also understand ourselves to be curators of the authentic and authoritative teachings whose ultimate source is God.

Once and for all.

There is permanency here.

There is finality here.

Jude did not understand himself or his audience to be anything more than those who had the responsibility to struggle for the true faith.

It is a body of information.

It predates us.

Saints could be understood as believers in Christ alone.

It could also compel us to see ourselves as belonging to a long line of “holy ones” who were also entrusted with God’s truth.

We are involved in at least two different kinds of wars.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (external)

Ephesians 6 (the panoply of the soldier against the darts and methods of the devil).

1 Thessalonians 5 (similarly).

Jude (internal).

1 John 2 (those who went out from us because they were not of us).

Note that this struggle is for “the faith” once and for all delivered to the saints.

There is a permanency, a finality to this terminology.

Jude offers no conception of the faith as something malleable, changeable, or influx.

We belong to something established by God. It is based upon his person, and it is his person that gives authority to His Word that reveals “the faith.”

Conclusion

We can live with confidence of the permanency our salvation, but we must remember that we bear the responsibility to struggle, to fight, so that the objective faith does not become perverted through subtle lies.