The Deeper Steps
Notes
Transcript
Jude
Jude
Build Yourselves Up in The Most Holy Faith — The faith is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Gospel means “good news.” Too often the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is lost in the quagmire of religion.
Most people believe that the goal of religious life is to become a good person. That we keep a list of do’s and don’t’s and make a deal with God. We do these things and don’t do these other things and God will declare us good/acceptable and welcome us into heaven when we die.
But God’s standard is perfection! He is holy and we are not. He does not grade on the curve. In order to meet God’s definition of good and acceptable we would have to be perfect.
We cannot do all the thing we are supposed to do, not perfectly anyway. We cannot keep from the things we are not supposed to do, not perfectly anyway. So if my acceptance before God is determined by my actions I am in a hopeless situation…and this is the world of religion.
Every single world religion teaches that a person earns or merits right standing before God by their activity…all except one...real, true, Biblical Christianity.
The American agent for General Motors in Shanghai asked a Christian leader in China if he had much competition, in his missionary work, from the sages and philosophers of Confucianism. The Christian answered by asking the motor dealer a question, "Do you, when you try to sell a Cadillac or a LaSalle, have much competition with the Chinese merchant who sells wheelbarrows?"
The Gospel is that Jesus came, lived a perfect life and died on the Cross to pay for all of our sins. He took upon Himself all of our imperfections so that we might become holy. Our goodness and acceptance before God is no longer dependent upon our ability to do the right things and not do the wrong things…it is dependent upon His sacrifice.
And Jude is telling believers to build ourselves up in this truth…the truth of the Gospel.
Build — ‘to strengthen, to make more able, to build up.’
This is an exhortation given to the church collectively. We are supposed to strengthen and build one another up in the truth of what Jesus has done for us to change us and make us right with God.
I am not to gossip about you, discourage you or condemn you because you can’t keep the rules all the time.
I am not to heap upon you moral absolutes as a standard by which God will approve of your life and love you. I am to build you up in the truth of what Jesus has done for you and allow that to be what changes you.
The gospel is powerful! It has the ability to set a person completely free from guilt, shame, fear and despair. But if it isn’t preached, enjoyed, believed and lived it does us no good. Too often we have left the message of the Gospel for a message of therapeutic moral deism…a legalistic horror of works based righteousness.
We need grace! We need mercy! We need the power of God at work within us…and He is doing just that! We simply must remind one another of it and celebrate the fact.
Pray in the Spirit
Pray in the Spirit
There is a stark difference between the prayers of believers who pray in the Spirit and those of lost men. Lost men through up prayers as a good luck charm, cries for miracles when all else fails and superstitious blabber.
There is a difference between Christians who pray in the Spirit and those who pray in the flesh as though lost.
Praying in the Spirit means “confessing Christ and receiving help in prayer from the Holy Spirit.”
We are not all knowing. We are not all powerful. We are not holy as the Lord. We are not perfect, set apart and different as the Lord is perfect, set apart and different. We do not have the capacity to pray over anything in the way that God’s Spirit does. Sometimes this is very obvious and at other times not as much.
Romans 8:26
In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings.
Tony Evans put it this way, “We don’t know the language of prayer like God does. We are like foreigners , wandering around in the country completely helpless. But, in this unknown territory, The Spirit of God translates for us.
We need God to lead the way for us. We need the Lord to translate His will to us so that we know how to pray. Our part to play is persistence, humility and dependence upon the Spirit.
God desires that we know His heart. He wants us to lean in and depend upon His Spirit to lead us into the way to pray. He desires that we pray His will. But this doesn’t always come right away. The process of praying in the Spirit empties us of self so we might depend upon Him and pray rightly.
George Mueller — Often found it much easier to spend time in prayer after meditating upon a passage of scripture. God would speak to Mueller and shape His thinking…shape His heart in preparation of his time in prayer. This is what prayer in the Spirit looks like…humble, submitted and watchful…prayer that puts God first and desires to both interact and be a part of Him.
Too often we spin it around and make prayer about us. We pray in the flesh…vainly attempting to twist the arm of God to do something we want Him to do for us. But prayer in the Spirit is to submit oneself to God and allow Him to set the agenda of our prayer.
If we get on the same page with God and pray in the Spirit…we make ourselves a part of His bigger and better plans...
Moravian Prayer Revival — They designated a place of prayer in the village, and they prayed in groups of 3 for 1 hour increments...So… at any given hour… 3 people were praying together in the place of prayer...There are 168 one-hour time slots in a week....They filled all 168-hour time slots with 3 people per hour...24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 3 people were always praying in the place of prayer… for 110 years. 110 years!
The Moravians’ hearts began to burn with the things that are on the heart of God…this is prayer in the Spirit. One thing you can with certainty…someone praying in the Spirit will become burdened for the nations.
The Moravian hearts began to burn for the unreached peoples of the world – people who had never heard about Jesus Christ
This small group of 300 Moravians over a 15 year period sent out 70 missionaries who went and lived among an unreached people, learned their language and culture, and then told them about Jesus Christ...
The Moravians started the modern missionary movement...One of the churches that the Moravians started sent out 200 missionaries
One historian estimates that the Moravians would be the largest denomination in the world except that, whenever they planted a new church, they gave it away to another denomination.
One Moravian missionary team was on a ship headed for the American colonies in Georgia in 1736. The ship was caught in a horrible storm and everyone on board (including the captain) thought that they were going to die…but the Moravians on board were not afraid...they gathered into a circle and were singing hymns.
There was an Anglican minister aboard that ship who realized in the middle of the storm that, although he had gone to church his whole life and was now an Anglican minister, he realized that he did not know if he was going to heaven if he died on that ship. This Anglican minister was astounded at the faith of these Moravians – what did they have that he did not have.
The Moravians told this Anglican minister about being born again through faith and belief in Jesus Christ and how (because of that) they had absolute assurance of their salvation. A couple of months later, this Anglican minister had an experience of being born again as he placed his faith and trust in Jesus Christ as the Moravians had told him. The Anglican minister’s name was John Wesley, and he started a movement called Methodism.
Wesley ordained a man named Francis Asbury who came to America and sent out circuit rider preachers to the four corners of this new world.
Prayer in the Spirit changes things.
Conclusion
Conclusion
We have the most precious gift and opportunity of any human beings. We have been saved by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And we have been granted the privilege, in the name of Jesus Christ, to come boldly before the throne of grace and pray.
Our nation is facing a time it hasn’t seen in over 150 years. We are facing civil unrest bordering on war. Many around us are downtrodden and depressed. So many suffer tremendous despair.
It certainly appears many do not even have the capacity to know wrong from right any longer. The lack of conscience is unsettling for sure.
But we should never be found without joy, hope, faith and love. We have the Gospel, are saved by it and in relationship with God through it.
Awake! Isaiah 52:1-2
“Wake up, wake up; put on your strength, Zion! Put on your beautiful garments, Jerusalem, the holy city! For the uncircumcised and the unclean will no longer enter you.
Stand up, shake the dust off yourself! Take your seat, Jerusalem. Remove the bonds from your neck, captive Daughter Zion.”