Jude 17-25 intro

Posted by occwebsite
15th Apr 2020

Some of you, like me, can remember when the seatbelt law came into effect. Some people had a hard time accepting the law that you have to wear seatbelts. One man in New Zealander took it to an extreme. The police ticketed him 32 times over five years for failing to use his seat belt. Even though this was costing him big money, he refused to buckle up.

Finally, instead of obeying the law, he decided to rely on deception. He made a fake seat belt that would hang over his shoulder and make it appear that he was wearing a seat belt when he wasn’t. His trick worked. He didn’t get any more tickets. But then he had a head-on collision. He was thrown forward onto the steering wheel and killed. His fake seat belt couldn’t save him.

If there’s a moral to this story, it’s this: When tested, what’s fake won’t save you.

Jude wrote this short letter to the church about our salvation. He wanted to major on what’s real about our faith:

  • the story of Jesus Christ,
  • the Son of God who became man,
  • who died for our sins
  • and rose to give us new life.

But Jude knew there was a problem.

  • He was writing to a church that had fake seatbelts in use.
  • He was writing to a church that had left this common salvation, this faith once for all delivered, and had instead substituted fake teaching.

While I am focusing on the last few verses this week, let me encourage you to take the time to read the entire book.

This is not just a problem for them. Charles Colson, who was president of Prison Fellowship, said,

Most Christians do not understand what they believe, why they believe it, and why it matters.”

Colson used to ask mature believers to name the fundamentals of the faith. Most of them, he says, looked surprised and perplexed. They wold finally came up with a short list. Colson has stopped in the middle of some of his speeches, and asked the audience, “What is Christianity anyway?” At one church in the Bible belt, there was silence for what seemed to be a full minute before three or four painful answers. Colson concludes, “Our ignorance is crippling us.”

Remember: when tested, what’s fake won’t save you.

In these concluding verses of Jude. Jude explains why it’s so important that we don’t accept false teachings. He doesn’t spend all of his time condemning false teachers. He shows us how we can respond to false teachings, and remain rooted in what is true.

Yesterday I said that we need to remain healthy in these days.

  • emotionally
  • physically
  • mentally
  • socially
  • spiritually

Ask yourself, on a scale of 1(poorly) to 5(great)  how are you doing?

  • Be honest.
  • What is one thing you will do today that will move you in a positive direction in anyone of those 5 areas?

it could be as simple as:

  • emotionally: taking a few minutes to do some deep breathing exercises.
  • physically: going for a walk around the block.
  • mentally: playing a couple games of sudoku.
  • socially: giving someone a call to see how they are doing and to encourage them.
  • spiritually: put on some instrumental worship music and spend 5minutes talking with God.

Make the decision to do that one thing