Persevering in the Love of God

As we look back on our series in Jude, we are reminded of some critical truths that we cannot afford to forget. We know that we as Christians are the beloved of God, that we are kept for the Lord Jesus Christ, we are a community of believers that are saved by one Christ, one God, one Gospel. We also are reminded that this world is fallen, it is broken, and I would argue that the brokenness of the world that so many use as an argument against God in some ways is one of the strongest arguments for God. Look at it in this way, if all we are is the descendants of evolution, then who are we to make any claims to morality? If there is no standard of truth, no standard of righteousness, no image of God, then everything that happens is for nothing and no one has a single right to feel offended or push back against anything. Jude, time and time again, in this letter reminds us that in this world there will be trouble, but we can take heart because Jesus has overcome the world. Just as wicked men and wicked people were held accountable and judged in the past, God will continue to hold people accountable and judge perfectly both now and in the future. When we get to Jude 17-25, which is where we will be tonight, Jude brings us back to the great hope that we have as believers and the joy that we have as a community that has been purchased by Christ. What are we going to see tonight? We are going to see Jude remind his readers of the sureness of the Word of God. Where the Bible speaks, God speaks. We are going to read that we are to persevere in the faith. God keeps those that belong to Him and yet we are still to do as Paul commands in Philippians 2:12, to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. We are going to read that not only do we have a responsibility to pursue faithfulness in our own lives, we have the responsibility to help others pursue faithfulness in their lives. Then finally, we are going to see what I think is one of the most glorious and majestic ending to a book of the Bible in all of Scripture, Jude’s great doxology in Jude 24-25. Let’s open up in prayer and then we will dive in.

Jude 17–25 NASB95

But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you, “In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.” These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. And have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

The Sureness of God’s Word (Jude 17-19)

In both verses 17 and 20, we see Jude contrast what he had written before with the words, “But you, beloved.” Remember, even though we have talked so much about justice and wrath and judgement in these 5 weeks going through this book that Jude references love in 20% of these verses. He reminds the believers that he is writing to that not only does Jude love these brothers and sisters in the faith, most importantly God loves them. In verse 17, Jude is contrasting the false teachers with all of their grumbling, self-centered desires, arrogance, and false flattery with the words of truth that have been delivered to the saints by the apostles. Back in Jude 5, remember that we said that Jude isn’t writing anything new to these believers. Instead he is writing to them what they already knew. How did they know what they knew? Because it has been delivered to them through the apostles and through the Word of God. He says to them, “You ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.” With Jude traditionally being thought of as a book written later in the history of New Testament writings, we can assume that the believers were aware of at least some of the letters written by the apostles that would become a part of the New Testament canon. We know that Jude makes strong references to 2 Peter and traditionally, that places these books around 68-70 AD. Even if the believers that Jude is writing to did not have a complete New Testament, they were readily aware of New Testament teaching. They were aware of the Old Testament and the apostles would have shown these believers how Christ is at the center of Old Testament interpretation. Jude says remember what the apostles said to you: “In the last time there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts.” Just two quick references here, Jude references “the last time.” Some translations will say end of days or the end of time. People like to speculate whether or not we are in the end times and the answer is yes. I can very confidently tell you that we are in the last days and we have been in the last days for close to 2,000 years. John writes in 1 John 2:18 “Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour.” John says we know that this is the last hour. The last hour, the last day, the end of days, whatever we may want to call it, we have been experiencing from Christ’s first coming and we will be experiencing it until His second coming. So in many ways, this doesn’t mean that every single time where we see some world event happen that we should immediately say, “Oh this is it, this is the big one. This is THE event that will kickstart the return of Christ” and I say that because it has already happened. The clock has been ticking ever downward for a while. We can’t look at things like World War 1 or 2, the Cold War, September 11th, the pandemic, the Ukraine invasion, you name it, we can’t say, this is the starting point. Because the starting point was 2,000 years ago and it has been planned for all eternity. I’ve said in the past that everything in history prior to Christ’s first coming happened in anticipation of His first coming and now that we are on this side of the incarnation, this side of the cross, this side of the empty tomb, everything is responding in light of His first coming and in anticipation of His second. So are we in the last days? Yes, very confidently we can say that we are. But can we say with certainty that it will happen today, tomorrow, 2,000 years from now? No we can’t. You may have heard me say before but the purpose of the book of Revelation isn’t so that we would all speculate on times and seasons and events so that we could make a guess on the date of the return of Christ, the purpose was so that Christians could see the world that they are living in and trust in the promises of God, lean on the authority of God, and endure regardless of what they go through and 2,000 years of church history testifies to the fact that that message has worked. The day could be today and I would love for it to be, it could be tomorrow, we don’t know but we are told that we are to look ahead with joy for that day. Paul tells Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:8 that we are to love and long for the day of Christ’s appearing. Paul lived a life in anticipation of Christ’s return. Some people will argue that based on 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5 that Paul believed and expected that Christ would return in is lifetime. Paul didn’t have any insider information on that day. I don’t think he was speculating either. I truly believe that Paul was a man that lived every day with the eager expectation and hope that His Lord could return at any given moment and he should be ready. The same holds true for us. We live each day with the hope that today might be the day where we finally get to go home. The second thing to look at from verse 18 is that where Jude says that there will be mockers, following after their own ungodly lusts, he isn’t saying anything that hadn’t been said in other parts of Scripture. Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:3 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires,” Peter in 2 Peter 3:3 says, “Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts,” What Peter says is coming, Jude says is here. He says in verse 19, these are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. Everything that Jude references in his letter points to the fact that these people are present, they are active, they are trying to cause as much chaos as possible. What can the faithful do then? They ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles. If a word is new, it isn’t true. When these teachers come in and say, “No, you’ve got it all wrong, this is the correct interpretation” or “here is a new and sure word” we are to reject it. If it can’t be backed up by what is already revealed in the inspired Word of God, if it has never been seen from Scripture, we deny it. We run from it, we cast it out. We need the Word. We need to be like the people in the days of Nehemiah and Ezra that cry out, “Bring out the book.” When we gather as the church, we must gather upon the firm foundation of Christ and His Word. Martin Luther would go as far as to say that the church has no reason for gathering if the Bible is not taught and its truths proclaimed. John Calvin during the reformation said that the defining mark of the true church is the faithful proclamation of the Word of God. The most important thing that the pastor of any church can do is preach the Word. That doesn’t mean that Ken or I shouldn’t do pastoral ministry or totally neglect it but our primary duty is to deliver the Word of God. If we fail at that point, we fail the church. Notice that in Scripture in the description of the task of deacons, much of what is expected of a pastor in pastoral ministry falls to them. Again, this isn’t to say that we as pastors shouldn’t do that work, it’s just to say that our highest duty is the faithful proclamation of the Word of God because that is the firm foundation on which the church of Jesus Christ must stand. We must stand on the authority of God’s Word. If someone comes along and says, “I have a word from the Lord”, we don’t want to hear it unless it comes with a chapter and verse. When the Word and doctrine is neglected, false teaching will run rampant.

Keep Yourself (Jude 20-21)

Jude reminds his readers that nothing in the world that happens should catch them by surprise. They live in a fallen world with fallen men teaching unholy things and after this final reference to the false teachers in verses 18-19, Jude reminds them once again that they are the beloved of God. Look again at Jude 20-21

Jude 20–21 NASB95

But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.

At this point, Jude turns to the individual responsibilities of believers. If we want to avoid false teaching, reject false teachers, we must do it in God’s way. Jude says that the believer is to do 4 things. The first is to build yourself up on your most holy faith. This isn’t optional, this is a necessity. All 4 that Jude mentions are commands. If we want to build ourselves up in the faith, it must be done by growing in our theological understanding of who God is. Douglas Moo says that Christians are to build themselves up in the faith because what Christians believe is the doctrinal and ethical core of Christianity and that is what the false teachers were attacking. The last 2 times that I’ve preached in 1 Peter, I have mentioned that the way that the Christian grows and endures isn’t through less doctrine, it’s through more doctrine. If we want to grow as believers, it cannot be done without devotion to the core components of the Christian faith. The second command that Jude gives is that the believer is to be praying in the Holy Spirit. This isn’t a reference to our Pentecostal friends that all of our prayers should be saturated in tongues but that we should pray with God-intended purposes. Our prayers must be that God’s will would be done and not our own. Paul says in Ephesians 6:18 “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.” To pray in the Spirit is a complete contrast to what Jude says in verse 19 of how the false teachers are devoid of the Spirit. To pray in the Spirit means that we depend upon the Spirit to direct our prayers in a Godward direction and that He would turn all of what we pray into something that is pursuing the will of God. To pray in the Spirit means that we are, in the words of Van Til, to think God’s thought after Him. To pray in the Spirit means that we are totally relying upon God’s direction in our prayers and His will in all things. He that is not led by the Spirit will not seek the will of God, they will only seek the advancement of themselves. Those that are not praying in the Spirit are those that come to God with a list of wishes and demands and not with a spirit of, “not my will, but your will be done.” The third command that Jude gives is that we are to keep ourselves in the love of God. Now this can cause some confusion. If we can’t earn our salvation, how can we keep ourselves within our salvation and in the love of God? It is also confusing because remember what we saw in Jude 1. Jude says that the Christians are those that are called, beloved in God the Father, and kept for Jesus Christ. If we are kept for Jesus, how then are we supposed to keep ourselves in the love of God? There is a tension that exists in Scripture between God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility. All true believers will endure to the end. All true believers cannot fall out of love and fellowship with God. But we still have the responsibility to pursue God in all that we do. All believers are called to be obedient to the commands of God and the believers that reject the commands of God, never loved Him to begin with. Paul says in Philippians 2:12 , which I mentioned earlier, “So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;” Paul says that we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, not work FOR our salvation with fear and trembling. What Paul is commanding is not that we earn justification but that we pursue sanctification because all true Christians are those that pursue sanctification. They embrace that they have been set apart. To keep ourselves in the love of God is that we would continue to pursue Christlikeness as God holds on to us. Thomas Schreiner explains it better than I can. He says, “God keeps his own, and yet believers must keep themselves in God’s love. Jude represented well the biblical tension between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. On the one hand, believers only avoid apostasy because of the grace of God. On the other hand, the grace of God does not cancel out the need for believers to exert all their energy to remain in God’s love.” What Schreiner is doing is reinforcing the need for the people of God to do all they can to look like the people of God. Finally, the fourth command we have sort of talked about already. The believer is to wait anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. The Christian is the one that is almost in a constant state of being homesick. We know that we are made for another world. Not everything in this world is horrible. God has given great gifts to us. He has given us families, children, homes, the church, God has given us great things but even on our absolute best day, we know that this isn’t everything. Benji and I have been reading a book by Andrew Peterson called On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness, it’s part of a series called The Wingfeather Saga and there’s a part in the book that I think really captures well how we feel here on earth, I guess you could say on our best days. There’s 3 kids, the Igiby children and Janner is the oldest child and he’s standing in the town listening to a singer sing this beautiful song and he has a tear fall down his cheek and he describes the experience of when he hears this guy sing, it’s like a snowy day at home, there is a nice warm fire, his grandfather is telling him stories while his mom is making this amazing home-cooked meal, and he says that there is nowhere he would rather be than right there and yet even in the midst of that, he still feels homesick. That’s where we are at. There in days in my life where there is nowhere I would rather be than on the Jurassic Park ride at Universal Studios in Orlando. That’s probably my favorite place in the world right now because I have so many great memories connected to that. I also have really sad memories connected to that. I was at Universal Studios at a time in my life where ministry was so difficult and I was ready to give up but there was a conference that was on Universal property and I got to go to the park as part of the conference where God used that time and that place to charge my battery just a little bit more to keep me going and now every time I go, I think back to that moment and how God used it but as happy as I am there, I’m not home. But I know where home is and I know that it is coming and for that I’m anxiously excited and we pray that home would come soon. The return of Christ is our coronation day. It is where all of this is happening and it is the moment where we can finally and fully say, good really did triumph over evil. We know what God has done in the past, we know what He is doing now in the present, and we look ahead with joy to what He will do in the future. Dick Lucas puts it well when he says, “God’s promises are still waiting for their final fulfillment, and Christians pin their destiny on the future rather than the present.” The things that we do as Christians are not solely for us, they are for the benefit of the church. Look again at Jude 22-23.

Christians and Community (Jude 22-23)

Jude 22–23 NASB95

And have mercy on some, who are doubting; save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.

Christianity is not an isolated religion. You can be introverted to be a Christian but all Christianity will bring with it fellowship that cannot be experienced anywhere else. I will say it to the day that I die, the best thing that came out of the pandemic was the reminder for so many that we need each other, that we need the church. We need to look out for the interests of our brothers and sisters in the faith. Warren Wiersbe said, “The Christian life must never stand still; if it does, it will go backward. A house left to itself falls apart. The apostates are in the business of tearing down, but each Christian must be involved in building up- first, his own spiritual life and then his local assembly.” We build ourselves up almost so that we can turn right around and build up others. Jude describes 3 types of people in these verses. He describes those Christians that are going through a season of doubt. Some of the greatest saints in history went through moments of doubt. John the Baptist had a season of doubt and yet Jesus still said that there was no one greater born among men than John the Baptist. Believers will sometimes go through seasons of doubt. It isn’t the responsibility of the church to say, “You blockhead, why are you doubting? Are you even a Christian? Come on, get back in the game!” Jude says have mercy on them. Minister to them and to their souls. These are people that deserve compassion. There are people all through this church that need you to show mercy to them. There are people all through this church that needs you to encourage them. They need to be reminded that though the clouds may hide the sun, the sun is still there. They need to be reminded that our salvation does not depend upon how greatly we hold to God but how securely He holds on to us. William Gurnall said, “The weak Christian’s doubting is like the wavering of a ship at anchor; he is moved yet not removed from his hold on Christ.” The second type of people that Jude describes are those that have sunk deep into unbelief and maybe they have even already gotten involved with the false teaching that has started to make its way into the church. It is our responsibility as believers to do all that we can to get believers away from that which is harmful to their souls. I would say that it is even our responsibility in regards to non-Christians that we do all we can so that they would avoid false teaching. We don’t want their introduction into what is claimed to be Christianity to be founded upon falsehoods. There is a reason why I take the prosperity gospel books that I see in bookstores and move them to the fiction section. I don’t want that to be the first quote on quote introduction to the Christian faith that people receive. This is again such an important reminder that we need to know the Word of God so that we can combat the attacks of the evil one. The Word of God is our sword and it won’t do us much good if we never use it or even learn how to use it. It is our duty to our neighbor to pull them as much as we can to the truth. In our evangelism, in our apologetics and defense of the faith, we need to know the faith. Are we really doing all we can to share the truth with those who need it, both in and outside of the church? Adrian Rogers told a great story once of how there was a preacher who had a painting in his office of a sinking ship, the ship had gone down, the lifeboats were in the water and people were spread all around in the ocean and there is one particular lifeboat where a guy is putting his hand out to one of the men in the water and both have hands extended to the other person. The pastor’s young son came into his office one day and he looked at the painting and he goes, “Daddy, is that man trying to save those people, or is he just shaking hands with them?” Are we doing that? Are we trying to save people? Or are we just extending pleasantries as the lost are being lost? Martyn Lloyd-Jones left his great medical career partially because he recognized that he would do all that he could to heal people’s bodies and then they would go right back out and keep sinning and making the same mistakes again. He wanted to do something that would actually make an eternal difference in their lives. Are we presenting a Christianity that just lets people go out and keep living the life that they are already living? Or are we making eternal differences in the lives of those around us? The final group that Jude references, and to these he says that we should show mercy with fear, are those that are hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. What he means by this is that even those that are causing harm in the church, as much as possible, the believers were still to show mercy because they needed mercy. They needed the true and living Gospel and the only way that they or anyone could ever receive it is if God extends His mercy. These false teachers are totally ruined by the falsehoods that they have been teaching, they are like a stained and ruined garment but they were no more deserving of the gospel than anyone else. If anything, Jude is calling that the believers would do all that they could to show mercy and perhaps save some of those that were followers of the false teachers. The false teachers may be lost but if we want to pull people out of the flames of affliction, we need to be in contact with them but this must be done with caution so that believers don’t risk getting pulled in and seduced by false teaching. To do this will require a tremendous amount of mercy and a tremendous amount of knowledge and observation. Paul says in Romans 16:17–18 “Now I urge you, brethren, keep your eye on those who cause dissensions and hindrances contrary to the teaching which you learned, and turn away from them. For such men are slaves, not of our Lord Christ but of their own appetites; and by their smooth and flattering speech they deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting.” He urges the faithful to keep their eyes open for those that hinder the faith of others. It is their responsibility to point men and women to the truth. So as you can see, we as believers have a responsibility to all types of people. We have a responsibility to believers and unbelievers. As we extend mercy to them, we must pray that God too would extend His mercy as well. Now let’s wrap up with one of the most beautiful endings of a book of the Bible that we could ever possibly read. Look again at Jude 24-25.

To Him be Glory Forever (Jude 24-25)

Jude 24–25 NASB95

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

I love this benediction. I think it was Calvin where if you look at so many of his sermons, this was the closing benediction that he would use time and time again. I wish we ended every service that we did with these verses. This is a high view of God. Who is the Lord to the believer? It is Him who is able to keep us from stumbling. We are kept by God, we are chosen by God, we persevere to the end because of what God has done. This is the firm reminder that those whom God saves, He saves to the end. God in His perfect power and sovereignty is able to keep all believers from falling away. Not only is He willing to preserve us to the end; He is able to do it. It is one thing for Him to say, “I would love it if these people would be able to endure.” It is another thing for Him to be able to do it. Not by our power, but by His. Those that belong to Jesus, belong to Him forever and nothing will remove the believer from the hand and heart of God. Jesus says in John 6:37-40:

John 6:37–40 NASB95

“All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out. “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. “This is the will of Him who sent Me, that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. “For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.”

It is the will of God that the Son will lose none of those that have been given to Him and Christ Himself will raise them up on the last day. Spurgeon once said, “I knew that I could not keep myself, but if Christ promised to keep me, then I should be safe forever.” Jesus also reminds us in John 10:27-29:

John 10:27–29 NASB95

“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand. “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.

The Father, who is greater than all, has given believers to the Son and no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth can remove the man or woman of God from the hand of God. John MacArthur said, “God Himself perfects, confirms, strengthens, and establishes us who are His children. Though His purposes for the future involve some pain in the present, He will nevertheless give us grace to endure and persevere in faith. Even while the enemy attacks us personally, God simultaneously perfects us. He Himself is doing it. He will accomplish His purposes in us, bring us to wholeness, setting us on solid ground, making us strong, and establishing us on a firm foundation.” Jude reminds us at the end of verse 24 that it is God alone who can make us stand in His presence with great joy because the blame has been removed from us. Because Christ has saved us, we don’t stand before Him shaking in our boots in guilt and shame, we stand before Him love, cleaned, and accepted. This isn’t our doing. Salvation is not what we do, it is who Christ makes us. He makes us spotless and He takes our heart of stone and in its place puts a heart of flesh. He is the only way. He is the only God and savior and it is to Him that is to be glory, majesty, dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. What Jude captures here is a picture of what is described by John pretty much just 1 page later in Revelation 1:5-8

Revelation 1:5–8 NASB95

and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood— and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father—to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen. Behold, He is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen. “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

Here we see glory, majesty, a King on a throne with ultimate authority that extends for all time and forever. There is no end to His kingdom and no end to His reign. And all that we can say to that is, “Amen.” Amen and come soon Lord Jesus. But until He comes, we are to build ourselves up pin our most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keeping ourselves in the love of God, and have mercy on others. Let’s pray. Before we leave, I have some discussion questions for us based on what we’ve read tonight.

Why do you think that it is easy for us to often neglect Scripture even though it is our greatest tool against false teachings?

What are some ways that we can build ourselves up in our faith as a community of believers?

What are some ways that Christians have shown mercy to you when you have been doubting?

How can we use Jude 24-25 as a tool to point people to the life saving message of the Gospel?