Wrestle for the Faith!
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Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ and a brother of James: To those who are the called, loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ.
May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
Dear friends, although I was eager to write you about the salvation we share, I found it necessary to write and exhort you to contend for the faith that was delivered to the saints once for all.
For some men, who were designated for this judgment long ago, have come in by stealth; they are ungodly, turning the grace of our God into promiscuity and denying Jesus Christ, our only Master and Lord.
I loved watching Stampede Wrestling. Ed Whalen, Mucha Singh, Duke Myers, the Iron Sheik, the Dynamite Kid, and Brett Hart. It was great fun. Then I experienced the WWF, that was a different world - Hulk Hogan, the Macho Man, Andrea the Giant, the Honky Tonk Man, Rowdy Roddy Piper, the Ultimate Warrior, and the Undertaker. I would have loved to have gone to a Wrestlemania event, just to experience it. Great fun, great entertainment, and great fakeness. But something happend to WWF as it became successful and became bigger and bigger. It had to become more. More cutting edge, more dangerous, and more compelling in order, in the owners’ estimation, to keep interest.
So the WWF introduced darker storylines, grey characters that were not black and white, who blurred the lines between good and evil. Bigger and more daring and dangerous stunts. And finally…sex - sexualization of the product, the women, the men, and the storylines. Wrestling has now come to promote the striptease, the objectivity of women, the glorification of the body. Wrestling is no longer kid friendly, nor family friendly. Just another product cashing in, and contributing, on/to the sexualization and perversion of our society and culture. True fun wrestling has given away to apostasy.
The Apostle Jude writes to the church to and encourages it to ‘contend for the faith’, meaning wrestling, fight for the faith once given. Ep-ag-o-nid’-zom-ahee (epagonizomai 1864) is a military term, it is a battle command, it is a reference to wrestle, fight, or to strive and persevere against opposition and temptation.
Contend - 1864. ἐπαγωνίζομαι epagōnízomai; ep-ag-o-nid’-zom-ahee fut epagōnísomai, from epí (1909), for, and agōnízomai (75), to strive, contend earnestly. To fight for or in reference to something, with the dat. of that which gives the occasion (Jude 1:3).
The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament 75. ἀγωνίζομαι agōnízomai
75. ἀγωνίζομαι agōnízomai; fut. agonísomai, mid. deponent from agṓn (73), conflict. To contend for victory in the public games (1 Cor. 9:25). It generally came to mean to fight, wrestle (John 18:36). Figuratively, it is the task of faith in persevering amid temptation and opposition (1 Tim. 6:12; 2 Tim. 4:7). It also came to mean to take pains, to wrestle as in an award contest, straining every nerve to the uttermost towards the goal (Luke 13:24 [cf. 1 Cor. 9:25; Phil. 3:12ff.; Heb. 4:1]). Special pains and toil (Col. 1:29; Col. 4:12). Implies hindrances in the development of the Christian life.
Spiros Zodhiates, The Complete Word Study Dictionary: New Testament (Chattanooga, TN: AMG Publishers, 2000).
What is Jude’s Purpose in Writing?
Jude’s original purpose in writing to the church was to instruct and encourage about the common salvation that believers share in Christ Jesus. His purpose changed because of snakes slithering into the community, by stealth, perverting the redemptive and sanctifying grace that all believers have in Christ, into a license for promiscuity, licentiousness, and denial of Jesus Christ as Master and Lord.
Apostasy has invaded the church, the same apostasy that led angels to give up their proper place, in the Heavens, to defile their flesh, practice perversion, and reject the authority of God the Father. These “dreamers”, these waterless clouds, are selfish discontended grumblers, who walk only according to their desires, with arrogant words and flattery to take advantage of the church. They are scoffers who walk only according to their own will and desires, not having the Spirit of God in them or upon them. They cause division and are unbelievers; and they are the ones destined for judgment and fire from a longtime ago (v.4).
and He has kept, with eternal chains in darkness for the judgment of the great day, the angels who did not keep their own position but deserted their proper dwelling. In the same way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them committed sexual immorality and practiced perversions, just as angels did, and serve as an example by undergoing the punishment of eternal fire.
Nevertheless, these dreamers likewise defile their flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme glorious ones.
But you, dear friends, remember what was predicted by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ; they told you, “In the end time there will be scoffers walking according to their own ungodly desires.” These people create divisions and are unbelievers, not having the Spirit.
Jude’s purpose in writing to the church is to exhort, to call, the believers to fight, to wrestle for the faith that has been given, entrusted to them. The Faith is under attack and is being invaded, by stealth, to pervert the grace of God inherited by the disciples of Christ. What is the grace of God perverted? That the endless grace of Christ covers boundless sin, so sin because God’s grace will cover it through Christ payment on the cross.
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace might increase?May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
Wrestling with the world does not equal submitting to the world. It does not mean loving the world with more sugar and cream. Jude says fight for the Faith delievered once and for all. Fight for your righteousness inherited through the sacrifice of Christ, the God-man, who was, is, and always will be God. We Christians tend not to see fighting as an option with the world. We say we are to love the world as Jesus loved the world, dying in sacrifice for their salvation. Tell me, is allowing the powers and principalities of the Devil, to subvert, twist, and change the teachings of Jesus loving? Is it loving God?
When your child desires candy before dinner, do you give him/her candy? Should you give them candy? My mother refused, as we did. Why? Because it destroys their appeitite for what really satisfies, or is of real nutritional value to their body. You give candy to a child instead of real food, what eventually will happen? They will get sick, their teeth rot, their body will deteriate, diabetes will set in, and eventually limbs will get cut off, and they will die.
Our Problem with Wrestling is a Problem with Love
Who is our first priority in this life? Who is our first priority in our faith? God. Our first responsibility is to love God with all our heart, mind, and person. Our first priority is vertical love, not horizontal love. It is not about loving us first, it is about loving God first. So what is Jude calling the church to do? Love God first. Contend for God…stand up and fight against the powers and principalities that would destroy the faith. The Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 6:10 -12
Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by His vast strength. Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the tactics of the Devil. For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.
Paul also says to the Corinthian church battling heresy this 2 Cor. 10:4-5
for the weapons of our warfare are not merely human, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle raised up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ.
Most of us would take this verse and apply it to ourselves, our inner life, our thought lives. But what about the outer life? The context of this verse is verse 2 and 3.
I ask that when I am present I need not show boldness by daring to oppose those who think we are acting according to human standards. Indeed, we live as human beings, but we do not wage war according to human standards;
The lover of Christ is to take every thought, every contention, every ideology that puts itself in place of Christ and His Word, and expose it, fight it, and wrestle with it, to bring it to submission to Christ. Are you ready to do that? Are you willing to do that? Because we are called to that! Jude says contend for the Faith! Note: when we are wrestling with ideas, opinions, and worldly theology and beliefs, are we to fight against the person promoting these things? What does it mean to love the sinner but hate the sin? We contend against the ideas, beliefs, and worldview, but in such a way that we still love the sinner, the lost, the mislead.
What is the Reward for Contending for the Faith?
Mercy, peace, and love multiplied to you. For those called (by the Spirit), loved by the Father, and kept by Jesus, will experience the mercy, peace, and love of God multiplied unto you, as you content for the Faith. These are triune statements made by Jude on purpose to give us boldness and confidence in our wrestling with the world. God will be with you and His presense will be upon you. His grace will envelope you and your confidence will not be shaken. Romans 8:3
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?
As was, is today, and will be tomorrow. God is unchanging and faithful. Apostacy is unchanging and faithful to what it is and looks like. It is in the church, it has invaded the church. The question is, will we stand up and fight for the Faith once given to all of us? Or will we allow it to grow like yeast, unchecked, unknown, until it is infects the whole loaf? Do you even know what the yeast is? What is smells like, what it looks like? Contend for the faith.