Jude- The Purpose
Notes
Transcript
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.
Intro:
Intro:
Opening illustration: Yogi Berra, the well-known catcher for the New York Yankees, and Hank Aaron, who at that time was the chief power hitter for the Milwaukee Braves. The teams were playing in the World Series, and as usual Yogi was keeping up his ceaseless chatter, intended to pep up his teammates on the one hand, and distract the Milwaukee batters on the other. As Aaron came to the plate, Yogi tried to distract him by saying, “Henry, you’re holding the bat wrong. You’re supposed to hold it so you can read the trademark.” Aaron didn’t say anything, but when the next pitch came he hit it into the left-field bleachers. After rounding the bases and tagging up at home plate, Aaron looked at Yogi Berra and said, “I didn’t come up here to read.”
He calls them beloved.
As Jude has experienced Gods love, that love flows from him to them.
It is love that compels him to write and address a difficult issue that will cause division and conflict.
Love is his motive and love required action. He was going to write a doctrinal treatise about salvation but when he heard about the false teachers, he felt compelled to urge them to contend.
Contend Earnestly for the Faith
Contend Earnestly for the Faith
Contend
Contend
Contending means to struggle, fight, wrestle, lawsuit.
Contending for the faith is first and foremost a spiritual battle; not a fleshly one.
It will not be won by arguing, although that is included, but by communicating the truth.
Contending for doctrinal purity is not for leadership only, it is for everyone.
I hope you as parents are contending for truth with your kids and your families.
Jude, as a leader, took the initiative, to give them direction to deal with this problem in the church. Spiritual leadership among other things is asserting yourself, under the influence of the Sprit, for the good of Gods people.
Yes, as a church we are called to unity
BUT we are never told to have unity at the expense of truth
We unite around truth
We speak truth in love
But we MUST speak truth
When false teachers enter in, we must stand for truth
It is urgent to stand for truth
We must filter what we take in from others
We must never ignore false teaching and false teachers.
The faith
The faith
The faith once and for all delivered to the saints.
He sees the Christian faith as a body of information deposited to them
He use “the faith” where we would say doctrine.
It is defined and objective (ie subj and objective).
God expressly stated what He wanted to say.
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.
For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.
For it would have been better for them never to have known the way of righteousness than after knowing it to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.
The Bible is God's word
Want to hear from God? OPEN your BIBLE!
Gen to rev is God’s inspired and inner at word
Some issues are essentials and others are less
Main difference is clarity of the word.
Where the Bible speaks clearly, we must speak clearly
for example: The gospel is spelled out plainly in many texts
There is no room to compromise on that!
Other issues aren’t made as plain
There we can have grace to differences
Many of these come down to personal conviction
Example: The whole meat and idol debate
As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions.
One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables.
Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him.
Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
Therefore let us not pass judgment on one another any longer, but rather decide never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of a brother.
I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.
For if your brother is grieved by what you eat, you are no longer walking in love. By what you eat, do not destroy the one for whom Christ died.
So do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil.
For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men.
So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.
It is worth contending for and must be contended for because the truth is consistently threatened within the church
Indifference to doctrine, error is a danger of spiritual apathy and sluggishness, the influence of world and a danger to the church.
Once and for all delivered.
Once and for all delivered.
NAS: handed down
That is literally what happened
God gave us HIS word and it is complete and lacking nothing
We need no more additions.
We need no special interpretations
You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you.
Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.
I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book,
and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.
From the Law to Revelations, including a stop in the wisdom literature, we clearly see the Bible is complete and we need no other revelation and we sin if we search for it, embrace it or tolerate it!
Our task is to know what the word says and live it out.
There is no “new idea” on what it means
Narratives are narratives
Prophesies are prophesies
Teaching passages are teachings
God’s morals are God’s morals!
The Holy Spirit guides us into all truth
He isn’t giving NEW truth
That work was completed long ago
He works to apply the word to conform us to the image of Christ.
Infiltrated by False Teachers
Infiltrated by False Teachers
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.
He gives us four descriptions of the false teachers:
They have crept in
They have crept in
He has a specific group in mind, certain men (Mat 13:24-25; 38-29).
He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field,
but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away.
The field is the world, and the good seed is the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one,
Movies have misguided us about spiritual warfare
It isn’t the horned devil with a tail and pitchfork
It is a false teacher and their diabolical lies
For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.
We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,
being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.
They seek to build strongholds of bad thinking
“arguments and lofty opinion
Take every thought captive
the battlefield is our mind not against haunting presences and spooky things!
The enemy is far more subtle
HE is trying (and succeeding) in lulling us to sleep
These teachers have crept in unnoticed (active verb – present danger).
Enter our lives and churches looking like they belong
Their lies are subtle but dangerous!
1 twist of the gospel and they keep people in their sins!
Unnoticed
Unnoticed
False teachers look like everyone else, many times they are the nicest people and really believe what they teach is true.
Their sincerity isn’t necessarily in doubt
BUT: Truth matters, not just sincerely
You can have sincere belief and be wrong!
People who have fallen for the deceptions of the enemy lovingly share it trying to “help”
Yet they are not delivering God’s word
It is often so subtle:
IL Frog in the Kettle
Prophesied about
Prophesied about
They were prophesied about in
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.
The danger is within the church, not outside it. That is important to know and to see.
Our chief enemy and battle begins right here at home
We must use discernment with everything we being in.
songs
literature
teachers
etc.
Paul also warned the Ephesians about this
I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock;
and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.
wolves come in wearing sheepskin
they are here to feed and tear us apart
their aim: draw away disciples
Illustration: We have gotten accustomed to the blurred puffs of gray fog that pass for doctrine in churches and expect nothing better. From some previously unimpeachable sources are now coming vague statements consisting of a milky admixture of Scripture, science, and human sentiment that is true to none of its ingredients because each one works to cancel the others out. Little by little Christians these days are being brainwashed.
One evidence is that increasing numbers of them are becoming ashamed to be found unequivocally on the side of truth. They say they believe, but their beliefs have been so diluted as to be impossible of clear definition. Moral power has always accompanied definite beliefs. Great saints have always been dogmatic. We need a return to a gentle dogmatism that smiles while it stands stubborn and firm on the Word of God that lives and abides forever.
--A. W. Tozer, I said, “A miracle! Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Fundamentalist Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?”
Ungodly
Ungodly
They are ungodly,
The show a lack of reverence, respect, seriousness toward God because they pervert or alter the grace of God into a license to sin (Rom 6:1).
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound?
They redefine sin and grace
sometimes is like this:
can’t help self… so GOD made me this way
Therefore, any sin I want to justify becomes ok for me
IT is a lie from the devil!
Grace is not only pardon for sin but it is empowerment to overcome sin (gospel).
When we sin, we bear all the blame
God provides grace to escape temptation!
We should never try to blame God for our sin
Apparently they believed that forgiveness freed them to follow the moral commands Scripture and follow their inner nature or instincts.
Deny our Lord
Deny our Lord
Lastly they deny our Master and Lord Jesus Christ.
Ultimately, they fail to bow to the Master
They ignore His commands and teachings
They invent yet another false religion disguised as truth
Still any songs
Still may read or refer to a verse
But the Jesus they preach never existed
They turn from truth if person and work of Jesus and invent a false messiah
They misquote, take out of context, and twist the Lord’s teachings to justify their sin and support their projects and ideas
Jesus never was a social justice crusader trying to usher in a socialist utopia
He came to seek and to save the list!
Jesus of Bible
Who He is
John 1:1-2; 14
And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.
For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.
And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.
And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.
What he did
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand,
and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures,
that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
Now he saves all who call on Him
Conclusion:
Conclusion:
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.