Contending for the Faith

Text—the very words of God

Jude 3–4 ESV

Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Introduction

In Geneva, Switzerland, during the Protestant Reformation, John Calvin was the leader of the church.

A hallmark of Calvin’s ministry was his seriousness about the Lord’s Supper table being reserved for Christians and church discipline in general.

Calvin was opposed by a group called the Libertines, who did not support Calvin’s seriousness about the Lord’s Supper table and church discipline.

The Libertines were not just a little unruly.

They were openly adulterous and sexually promiscuous in their living.

They argued they were free to trade sexual partners around as a part of the “communion of the saints.”

Things came to a head on September 3rd, 1533.

The Libertines showed up at Sunday night service and the rumor was that they were going to take the Lord’s Supper one way or another.

After Calvin finished his sermon, it was time to observe the ordinance.

The Libertines got up and started to make a rush toward the Communion Table.

Calvin’s protege, Theodore Beza wrote about the moment in his biography of Calvin.

He said that Calvin put his own body in between the Libertines and the Supper Table and said:

These hands you may crush, these arms you may lop off, my life you may take, my blood is yours, you may shed it; but you shall never force me to give holy things to the profaned, and dishonor the table of my God.

John Calvin to the Libertines

The Libertines backed down.

Beza said that after that the Lord’s Supper was observed in a holy silence, as if God Himself had been visible among them.

Context

This would be an an example of our subject matter this morning.

Calvin, like many saints before him and after him, was contending for the faith.

Standing firm for the truth.

Not retreating when falsehood draws it sword.

As we will see in our text this morning, this is the responsibility of every Christian.

Every church.

In every generation.

The situation Jude faced was not unlike Calvin’s.

Jude is dealing with some Libertines of his own.

As we covered last week, it seems that Jude’s letter is written in response to false teachers among the Christians that he is writing to.

And these false teachers seem to be promoting the lie that being saved by grace allows you to live however you want.

And they seem to claim some sort of elite status that gives them the right to make such an audacious claim.

Ultimately Jude will say that they are shepherds who feed themselves.

Waterless clouds and fruitless trees.

And when liars come distorting the Gospel in the Lord’s church, the Lord’s people must contend for that very Gospel.

After last week’s introduction, Jude’s letter now starts to shift into this subject matter.

Outline

1. Contending for the faith is urgent (v. 3).

2. False teaching is insidious (v. 4).

3. Perverting grace is denying Christ (v. 4).

Contending

We begin with that first teaching point:

1. Contending for the faith is urgent (v. 3).

Subject Change and Faith

Jude addresses the beloved—the called and kept Christians he is writing to—and tells them he has changed his subject matter for his letter.

Initially he intended to write to them about their “common salvation” —the salvation they all share.

But he finds it necessary to shift gears, in order to call on the believers to “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.”

When Jude says “the faith,” there are a couple of things he could be referring to:

Sometimes, in the New Testament, it can refer to the Gospel.

There’s about ten different times that Paul refers to it in this sense.

For example:

Ephesians 4:5 ESV

one Lord, one faith, one baptism,

But it can also refer to the whole unit of truth handed down from Christ to the Apostles in the New Testament.

That which we see in the New Testament comes to us from Christ.

There was a time in which God spoke through the prophets, but now, He has spoken through His Son.

Hebrews 1:1–2 ESV

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

Christ handed the truth down to the Apostles.

Christ is the Cornerstone and their teaching is the foundation.

Now the church is built on the foundation of the faith delivered to the saints.

It may be that Jude has the Apostles in mind here, considering the fact that he calls his listeners’ to pay attention to the “predictions of the Apostles” in v. 17.

Anything that falls outside of the teaching of Christ and the Apostles, which we have in the Scriptures is not orthodox.

It is not “the faith,” that is to be contended for.

Notice that the faith is delivered “once for all” to the saints.

This means that the unit of truth given to the Church by Christ and the Apostles is not to be added to or taken away from.

“The faith” doesn’t need the supplement of human tradition.

“The faith” doesn’t need any subtraction by the means of human invention.

In fact, the Greek word used for “delivered,” is the same one that was used for “hand over.”

Like when a prisoner was “handed over,” from one authority to another.

When something is delivered or handed over, there is the expectation that it will be guarded and watched over.

So not only have the saints of the church received the faith.

They are to guard it.

It has been entrusted to them.

It is much like Paul’s charge to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:

2 Timothy 1:13–14 ESV

Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you.

The church must guard the good deposit.

Contend for the Faith

This is why the faith must be contended for.

It has been delivered to the saints and entrusted to the saints once for all, and now it must be fought for.

The word contend was used in the context of the military and in athletics.

Think of an army struggling to hold a line and not give up territory—contending with the enemy.

For our modern minds, think of an offensive and defensive line pushing against each other at the goal line on a Saturday night in the SEC.

Jude is appealing to these believers to make an intense effort for the sake of the faith.

The Urgency of Contending

And this effort cannot be put off until later.

This is why Jude wrote his letter with such urgency.

This is why he has changed the letter’s content.

False teachers had crept in unnoticed and it could not be tolerated.

The Gospel was at stake.

The grace of God was being perverted.

This was a matter that could not wait.

Nothing has changed in our generation.

The urgency to contend for the faith remains because of the time we live in.

That time is explained by Paul in 2 Timothy 4.

After explaining to Timothy that he must preach the Word in season and out of season, the Apostle says:

2 Timothy 4:3–4 ESV

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

That time is here.

That time has been here.

In Revelation 12 the Bible tells us that after the Ascension, Satan would be hunting the church in the world.

One of the ways the Enemy has done this in the age of the church is by spreading lies in an attempt to combat God’s truth.

People do not endure sound teaching.

People will not endure sound doctrine.

Instead, they accumulate teachers who scratch their itching ears and tell them that it is okay to gratify the desires of their flesh—whatever they may be.

Therefore it is all the more important that the saints contend for the faith as people turn from listening to the truth and stumble off into myths.

On one hand, we may consider contending as a fight for doctrinal purity.

Teaching the truths of the Word with a powerful precision

Dividing Word with great attention and presenting the Gospel with clarity

Articulating The Cross and Resurrection so that in the church there would be comprehension for all.

These things are undeniably important.

But we have to say that contending for the faith is much more that being strong evangelists and strong theologians.

The threat from the false teachers in Jude seems to be wrapped up in sexual immorality, as we will see in v. 4

Therefore, contending for the faith doesn’t just mean teaching the truth, but contending for a godly lifestyle in the church that matches up with the truth.

There should not be a gap between the faith believed and the life lived.

If the faith is truly believed, the faith will be lived out.

Within Jude’s audience, there was a failure on both points.

Wrong things were believed.

Wrong living was being promoted by the false teachers.

Therefore, the effort of contending for the faith became like an ambulance going down the road.

Everything needed to get out of the way for this effort, because there were wolves among the saints.

It is Our Turn

There are many who have done this work before us.

The Apostle received the truth from Christ and handed it down.

And in the last 2,000 years we have had:

Scribes who painstakingly made copies of the Bible to preserve the Word for us.

Theologians who have engaged in public and private debate for the sake of the truth being maintained.

Pastors who have guarded the Lord’s Table from those who would pollute it.

Missionaries who took the true Gospel to the field, finding ways to communicate it in a myriad of cultures, without ever compromising it.

There are even martyrs who gave their lives in this contention for the faith.

But now it is like a relay race where a baton is handed off to the next runner.

Church—this is our time to run.

This is our time to do the work of contending for the faith once for all handed down to the saints.

We cannot shirk this responsibility or take it lightly.

Instead, we contend urgently—for false teaching is still lurking.

The Enemy is still lying.

The church must keep contending with the utmost urgency.

Insidious

Let’s keep going with our 2nd point today:

Jude 4 ESV

For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

2. False teaching is insidious (v. 4).

In Jude’s letter, the urgency is driven by the fact that “certain people have crept in unnoticed...”

This is what we mean by insidious.

The false teachers snuck into the community of the church with subtlety.

They came in gradually.

The New Living Translation says they “wormed their way in.”

And they did it with harmful intentions.

This is what false teachers do.

They don’t tend to show up in the church with a shirt on that says, “I AM A FALSE TEACHER,” with a matching hat to boot.

They sneak in.

Paul said this about the false teachers who were saying Non-Jewish men must be circumcised before they can follow the Messiah:

Galatians 2:4 ESV

Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery—

Peter spoke the same way about opponents to the truth:

2 Peter 2:1 ESV

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction.

Liars are sneaky.

They are slippery.

Just like Satan—the father of lies, who Paul says comes as an “angel of light.”

They are doctrinal and religious creepers.

It is imperative that believers stay on guard for people like this because they can so easily seduce us.

False teachers don’t preach things that don’t appeal to the flesh.

They always spread lies that make the flesh “oooh” and “ahhh.”

The Apostle John says that the sin in the world is this:

1 John 2:16 ESV

For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.

This is what false teachers want to appeal to.

Your flesh says, “Feed me.”

They appeal to that appetite.

Your eyes desire that which they see.

The false teachers say, “Have it. You deserve it.”

The sinful, self-centeredness that can lurk within needs to be crucified.

The false teachers say, “Let it live.”

They want to whisper in your ear and say, “Did God really say?”

And often, they mix the lies with the truth so that one will be fooled into taking the bait.

This is what Satan did in the Garden.

He didn’t make up something totally new.

He took what God actually spoke and twisted it.

God said, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat...”

Satan said, “Did God actually say, “You shall not eat of any tree in the Garden?”

Satan scrambles the words to attempt to fool Eve into questioning the goodness and generosity of God.

And what I have seen happen with people is that they hear things that sound Christian and seem Christian, but really are not.

Before long, they are believing lies, thinking they are believing the truth.

This is why learning and listening in the church always requires discernment.

1 John 4:1 ESV

Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

Whenever we sit with our Bibles open and listen to a preacher...

Whenever we sit in a Bible study and someone starts talking...

Whenever we are reading a new book on theology we ordered off Amazon...

We have to stay discerning.

Pastor Erik Reed calls this your “bologna detector.”

When lies are being spewed, even when wrapped in the truth, we must have our bologna detector working.

Does what we are hearing line up with what we see and hear from God in His Word?

Is what we are seeing and hearing truly THE FAITH once for all delivered to the saints?

Designated for Condemnation

Now—with all of that said, notice that God is not fooled by these teachers at all.

He has designated them for condemnation long ago.

Their judgment is pre-scripted.

How long ago was it designated and pre-scripted?

According to v. 13, “the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.”

This is emphasized twice over in the letter so that the Christians Jude writes to knows that God has not been taken by surprise.

These false teachers have crept in on Jude’s audience, but not on God.

From even before the ages began, their condemnation was booked by God Himself.

They may be having a field day in the church, but it will not last.

They will have their Day in God’s court, when they dace His judgment.

Just as the salvation of the elect is a part of God’s sovereign plan, so is the condemnation of those who harm God’s church.

Proverbs 16:4 ESV

The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked for the day of trouble.

Destroyed Now

But as those who are discerning, there is no need to wait.

The false teacher will have their Day in court with God, but we can destroy their arguments even now.

As Paul writes to the Corinthians, he says:

2 Corinthians 10:5 ESV

We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

As we are discerning and we hear false teaching, we must watch out and avoid it.

Romans 16:17 ESV

I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them.

When we recognize the insidious lies of the enemy coming out of some velvet-mouthed preacher, our response should be to call the lie and lie.

And then drive it out of our minds by clinging to the truth and rejecting the lie.

If we sense that false philosophies and ideologies and theology has taken root in us—every time it rears its head, we must say, “There’s that lie again.”

And we take it to the Lord and say, “I do not believe this. Increase my knowledge of You and my trust in Your truth.”

Contending for the faith and combatting insidious teachers is a matter of spiritual warfare.

And it is a matter for the whole church—not just the individual Christian.

What Lies Are You Believing?

So what lies are you believing?

What false teaching has wormed its way in with you?

Don’t assume that you are free from this impacting your heart and mind.

There was a time when the Christian pretty much heard their pastor, listened to Billy Graham a couple times a year and maybe watched some TBN—though it is rarely wise.

But these days we are inundated with voices that claim to be Christian.

YouTubers.

Political commentators.

Podcasters.

Preachers at conferences.

And somehow—STILL TBN.

Content is flying at us from all directions.

Not everybody is hitting the target.

And some may be intentionally missing it.

Destroy arguments and lofty opinions that have crept in.

Stay on guard in the church for false teachers and teaching that has crept in.

We must be discerning and take every thought captive.

This is part of contending.

Perverting and Denying

Let’s move to our final point this morning:

3. Perverting grace is denying Christ (v. 4).

Jude identifies the false teachers in four ways.

We have already covered one—they are designated for condemnation.

But there are three more we can focus on in v. 4.

They are ungodly.

They pervert the grace of God into sensuality.

They deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

A) They are ungodly.

We may throw this term around, but what does it mean at its core?

What does it really mean to be ungodly?

Well think of it this way:

If you met someone and they were cussing constantly...

They were burping and scratching...

They were throwing their trash on the ground instead of finding a trash can...

And they were bragging about how they are one of these people who never return the shopping cart at the grocery store and just leave it sitting out in the parking space...

You would say—This is an UNMANNERED person.

And what you would mean is that they live without reckoning to society...

As if society doesn’t even exist...

Well this helps us understand what ungodliness means.

It is those who live without reckoning toward God.

They live as if HE does not exist.

In fact, the ungodly raise themselves up—puff their chests out—and they attempt to take God’s place.

They reckon only with themselves and their own desires.

B) They are perverting God’s grace into sensuality.

These teachers are treating God’s grace as if it is a license to sin.

They not unlike the Libertines in Geneva in Calvin’s day.

They felt they had a right to the Lord’s Supper table no matter how they were living.

In the case of Jude’s opponents, we can be just about certain that the sinful living they were engaging in was sexual in its nature.

The Greek word for sensuality is always translated into the English word lasciviousness by the King James.

That is not a word we use very often.

It means gross debauchery.

And excessive enjoyment of physical desires.

We are clued into those desires being physical in nature by the reference to Sodom and Gomorrah in v. 7.

Sodom and Gomorrah was a place where two angels came to visit Abraham’s nephew, Lot.

The men of the city demanded that Lot would bring those men out to them so they could have relations with them.

Genesis 19:4–5 ESV

But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house. And they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them.”

God judged Sodom and destroyed the city by fire.

The reference to that city a hint to the nature of the sin these false teachers engaged in and promoted.

Sexual sin is also what Jude is talking about in v. 8 when he says they “defile the flesh.”

And if you remember from last week, these false teachers justify this behavior by “relying on their dreams.”

They seem to claim some elite level of revelation where they are saying, “God deems this okay. He told us.”

C) They deny our only Lord and Master, Jesus Christ

Christ is the only Lord and Master.

He is the only Lord and Sovereign.

He has an exclusive authority as the crucified, resurrected and ascended King, that belongs to no one else.

He has been given the name above every name.

Philippians 2:9–11 ESV

Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Though these false teachers may toss Jesus’ name around, they do not honor Him as the highly exalted Lord and Master.

They do not bow to Him—they bow to their sinful desires.

In v. 8, Jude says that these creepers reject authority.

This would not just be the authority of true leaders of the church.

This is also the authority of Christ Himself.

The Connection Between Perversion and Rejection

Now here is what we must understand:

The perversion of grace and this rejection of Christ’s authority as Master and Lord come hand-in-hand.

You cannot pervert God’s grace and treat the freedom you have in Christ as a justification for sin, while maintaining a proper submission to the Lordship of Christ.

People think otherwise, but you cannot do it.

John 8:36 ESV

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

When we are saved from sin by Christ, we are liberated.

There is no doubt about it.

But we are not liberated to sin.

We are freed from sin and liberated to obey God.

Romans 6:17–18 ESV

But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.

You have been liberated from the slavery of sin, that you may now be a slave to righteousness—NOT MORE SIN!

Paul addresses this directly in that same chapter:

Romans 6:1–2 ESV

What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it?

These false teachers were saying otherwise, and we must be honest with ourselves if we are also saying otherwise in our own hearts and minds.

Do you think, “Well—I am saved by Christ, which means I am going to heaven...so I’ll engage in a little habitual sin and then get right with Him at some point?”

You are committing the same error as Jude’s opponents.

You are perverting grace.

And in perverting grace and disobeying Christ, you are denying Him as Lord and Master.

This is what we do when we sin.

We are saying, “I get to call the shots. Not Jesus.”

We are seeking to wrestle the throne from Him.

And when we do this as Christians, it is like we are saying, “I know you died for me, but I actually believe that entitles me to live how I want.”

How offensive is this to our Savior?

Liberty Used to Submit to Lordship

Instead of using liberty for licentious living, we should use it to actually submit to the Lordship of Christ.

There was a time in which we were spiritually dead to God.

We had no heart to obey Him.

But as those saved by Christ, we have been given a new heart.

Let us use the freedom of spiritual new birth to honor the One who broke the bonds of our chains.

Christ does not give freedom to believers so they can do what they want but so they can, for the first time, do what God wants, because of love for Him.

John F. MacArthur

So—brothers and sisters—how are you using your liberty?

Are you abusing it and perverting grace?

Or are you using it to obey Christ as the only Master and Lord?

This is why we said earlier that contending for the faith is more than doctrinal purity.

Contending for the faith is taking God seriously when He says, “Be holy as I am holy.”

The contending Christian will be a holy Christian.

The contending church will be a holy church.

Instead of perverting grace, they will live on it.

Conclusion

When I was around 15-16 years old, there were some unbiblical ideas floating around our youth group.

I hate to say it, but I was believing some of them.

Theologically, we were a bit of a mess.

The church sent one of our deacons, a retired pastor named Charlie Donadio, up to our youth room on a Sunday night and he confronted us about the bad teaching we were believing.

I remember we all argued with him a bit, but we really could not withstand his knowledge.

That day came and went and my youth group years came and went, but in the decades that have followed, I look back on Charlie fondly for that.

He contended for the faith with the younger generation of the congregation.

He threw his body in the way of false teaching.

In many ways—the whole deacon body of the church did.

Years later, as I have come to agree with Charlie and disagree with my younger self—I look back and say, “Praise God that Charlie gave up a Sunday night to debate some teenagers and contend for the truth.”

In our churches...

In our personal lives...

Let us be Judes.

Let us be Calvins.

Let us be Charlie Donadios.

The truth is a precious jewel given to us by God.

Let us guard the good deposit.

Let us contend for the faith delivered once for all.

It is worth whatever it may cost.