Jude 1-7
Jude • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Going through school in my home town, I was the baby of the family.
So, I often had teachers that my brothers and sister had before me...
Oh, you’re Abe’s brother?
Oh, you’re Luke’s brother?
Oh, you’re Holly’s brother?
In life, we are often known by those we are associated with...
Think of applying for a job, you put down references and past jobs for your employer to consider
Well Jude made a choice in how he wanted to address the churches...
1 Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ:
1 - FROM: Jude
Servant of Jesus
Brother of James (IE: brother of Jesus)
TO: those who are called Beloved in God the Father
and kept for Jesus Christ
2 May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
2 - May be multiplied to you
mercy
peace
love
3 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.
3 - Although, I was eager to write 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
4 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.
4 - For certain people have crept in unnoticed
FOUR things about the people who crept in among the church
1) They were designated long ago for this condemnation
God sees the beginning from the end
We are experientially walking through something God has already seen from beginning to the end.
And yet…I beg of you…do not fall prey to fatalism and forsake the call of Holy Spirit upon your heart this day.
Though God knows all things before they happen...
you are responsible, you are accountable, you have an opportunity to day to contend for the faith, you are called to trust in Jesus, you are invited to enter His Kingdom.
He is chasing after your heart in EVERY circumstance of your life
Peter is saying here, God is not surprised by what is happening in His church
We may be shocked that for instance, Paul would have to instruct the church in Corinth that a man should not have relations with his mother-in-law. God is heartbroken over this, but He is not surprised. And in spite of knowing this was what his bride would be faced with, He still sent His Son to die for us.
2) They are ungodly people
They put their attention on self-preservation, self-destruction, selfish ambition, selfish desire
They put their attention on anything other than on God
Their heart is in service of self and the idols of self
…he goes on...
3) They pervert the grace of our God into sensuality
Instead of receiving the grace of God with humility,
they pridefully use “God’s grace” as a covering for sinful desire
saying something like...
we should continue in sin so that we may experience a greater measure “God’s grace” in our life
OR
in a fatalist view…since God knows all my sin (past and future), there is no need to fight my fleshly desire, I can just do what my flesh wants and “God’s grace” will cover my sin.
Rather than being broken before a Holy God, these “certain people” among the churches Jude is writing to are using the twisting the grace of God to justify their continued self-pleasure and service unto the idols of their hearts.
This leads to his final conclusion about them...
4) They deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ
I’m reminded of Col 1:15-20 which says of Jesus...
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.
16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.
17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.
19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,
20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.
Jesus is not just some wise teacher
Jesus didn’t come to just pat us on the back when walk in unrepentant sin and say, it’s okay, I’ll take care of it
NO
Jesus did not die on a cross so we could become the master of our hearts desires
We too often lean on the GRACE Jesus has extended us to ignore the plain call of Scripture to respond in obedience to God’s sanctifying work in our lives.
In response to the cross, we ought not just see Jesus as our Savior…but as our MASTER and our LORD.
Jude’s clear call to the church…whoever has ears to hear is…CONTEND for the Faith.
We serve a holy God
He is jealous after your whole heart
He desires you to have complete and final satisfaction in Him and Him alone.
Contend for the faith that says…I have accepted Jesus as my Savior and I submit to Him as Lord of my life.
In the rest of the this passage, Jude moves on to show that this Jesus will be the Judge of the these certain people.
So, his message to the church is to entrust these certain people to the Lord’s judgement.
His message to these certain people, is take heed of the holy character of our God, repent and believe.
Some people say don’t like the Old Testament…because they feel “the OT God” is too wrathful. There are some problems with that...
God does not change
God’s action in the OT is extremely faithful and graceful
The NT fully embraces the Old Testament
5 Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe.
5 - Now I want to remind you (though you once fully knew it)
Jesus
who saved a people (Israel) out of the land of Egypt
afterward destroyed those who did not believe
6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—
6 - And the angels who did not stay in their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling
He (Jesus) has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day
7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
7 - And Sodom & Gomorrah (other cities) which indulged in sexual immorality and unnatural desire
serve as an example by undergoing punishment of eternal fire
Sexual Immorality
Unnatural Desire
Natural desire in the context of Christian faith is the desire in the confines of a marriage between a husband and wife.
Unnatural desire is ANY sexual desire other than a man for his wife and a woman for her husband
The greek literally says they… “went after other flesh”
While we’re on Sodom & Gomorrah…
While the primary judgement against them is their indulgence in sexual immorality, I’d like to say two things...
First, this was not their only sin...
49 Behold, this was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy.
Second, we should feel the weight of what Jesus said about Caperaum in contrast to Sodom & Gomorrah...
23 And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? You will be brought down to Hades. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.
24 But I tell you that it will be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you.”
Why is grace so good?
Because God is Holy and Just
Because God in His grace He applied His justice to His Son rather than to us.
Jude shows us the unity of Jesus with the Father by identifying Jesus
as the judge of Israel
as judge of the angels
as judge of the nations
Jesus ~ Joshua > The Lord is Salvation
21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
GO WITH THIS...
What title do you go by?
Jude could have chose the title, brother of Jesus Christ. Instead he calls himself a slave of Jesus Christ
15 What then? Are we to sin because we are not under law but under grace? By no means!
16 Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness?
17 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,
18 and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.
19 I am speaking in human terms, because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification.
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
21 But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Contend for the Faith
In your heart
In your discipleship
Let the Jesus be the Judge
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