Tag: Jude

We are reading and reflecting on Jude 17-25.

Jude gets also tells us how to respond to false teachers and those who are being led astray by them. He’s spoken honestly and directly about the danger. Having been reminded to expect that false teachers will come, and having been encouraged to keep ourselves in God’s love, Jude now tells us what we are to do with the false teachers. He divides them into three groups and says:

And have mercy on those who doubt;
save others by snatching them out of the fire; t
o others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. Jude 1:22-23

Jude is addressing three groups of people:

• First, he addresses those who doubt.
  He’s probably talking about some who have started to be swayed by the false teaching. They’re wavering in their commitment to Jesus. They have doubts about the Bible, about the Christian faith. They have questions. They want to know if the Bible is true, if they can trust what they’ve heard.
  Jude says: have mercy on these people. Be helpful to them. Build relationships with them. Your relationship with them should be characterized by mercy. I’m sure you can think of people who fit into this category. You have the opportunity to invest in their lives if you have mercy on those who doubt.
• Second, he says, “save others by snatching them out of the fire.” These people, it would seem, have gone further down the road with the false teachers. They’re in danger of judgment, characterized by fire. Some have been so influenced by false teaching, Jude is saying, that they are teetering on the edge of falling away. We need to snatch them before it’s too late. When we encounter someone who has departed the faith, we can’t just give up on them. God does restore people. Contend for them. Save them by snatching them out of the fire.
• Then there’s a third group. He says, “to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.” I think Jude is talking about the false teachers themselves here. They’ve abandoned themselves to false teaching, but they’re not beyond redemption. Jude says to show mercy to them. Pray for them. Treat them kindly. But also be cautious. Be on guard. He talks about the garment stained by flesh. He’s talking about the clothing worn closest to the body. This is pretty graphic. He’s talking, in essence, about clothing that’s been stained with human waste. Show mercy to them, he says, but be cautious.

Jude’s an important little letter. It addresses an ongoing problem. We face the same issue that Jude addresses. We need to be able to recognize false teaching, and to know how to respond.

• Don’t be surprised.
• Secure your own position by keeping yourselves in God’s love.
• And then reach out to those who are going astray.
  This, Jude says, is how we’re to respond when we encounter false teaching.

We can’t afford the luxury of fake seatbelts. Remember: when tested, what’s fake won’t save you. We need what’s real. We need the real gospel, but we also need to know what to do when we encounter what’s false.

Jude concludes his little letter by rooting us to God. At the end of the book he reminds us that, although we have a role to play, our hope is not in our ability to hold on to God, but in God’s ability to hold on to us.

24 To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— 25 to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

There are real dangers, there are false teachers. But what’s fake won’t save you. But there is someone who’s real, and when he grabs on to you you’re safe forever.

We are reading and reflecting on Jude 17-25.

• How should we respond when the false teachers come? We know they’re coming.
• Do we go on the defensive, building moats and walls so that the false teachers can’t get in?
• Do you go on the offensive, attacking at the first sign of false teaching?

There is a time and a place for this, but the first thing Jude says is: keep yourselves in God love. Secure your own spiritual position. Before you can address the false teachers or the false teaching, make sure that you are secure. Jude writes:

20 But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

I want us to notice a few things here.

First, there’s only one command here: “keep yourselves in God’s love.” Jude describes some steps we can take in order to keep ourselves in the love of God:

• building ourselves up in our most holy faith;
• praying in the Holy Spirit;
• waiting for Christ’s return.

We do these things in order to keep ourselves in God’s love. It’s a good description of some of the things that we need to build into our lives if we’re going to keep ourselves in God’s love. This week, how are you…

• devoting yourself to growth in the faith,
• to prayer,
• and to living in light of Christ’s return.

Second, this is not a command to individuals; it’s a command to a church. He doesn’t say to keep yourself in the love of God; he says to keep yourselves. I need this reminder. We don’t do this alone. We are responsible to do this together. One of our main purposes as a church is to keep ourselves in the love of Christ.

Third, Jude addresses his letter in verse 1 to “To those who have been called, who are loved in God the Father and kept for [by, in] Jesus Christ.”

• If you are a follower of Jesus, you are someone who is called, and who’s kept for and by and in Jesus Christ.
• You’re being guarded and kept by and for and in Jesus Christ.

But here in verse 21 he says, “keep yourselves in God’s love.”

• Which is it? Are we kept, or do we keep ourselves?
• Yes. God has done everything we need in the Christian life;
• But we need to respond.
• God keeps us; we keep ourselves in what God has done for us in Christ.

It’s a beautiful picture of the Christian life. God has done it all: we need to keep ourselves firmly planted in what God has done.

What Jude is saying, essentially, is to keep yourself anchored to how God has loved you in Jesus Christ.

“Moving ahead in the Christian life often involves looking to the past… The foundation must be secure before the building can go up. We can never grow away from our roots; we can only grow through them” (Douglas Moo).

One of the best things we can do in a world of fakes is to make sure that we have what is real.

The best antidote to false teaching is for us to continually be keeping ourselves in God’s love, to continually be growing into the truth. So don’t be surprised; keep yourselves in God’s love.

Throughout this short letter, you get the impression that Jude is not conveying new information. He’s reminding us of something. For instance, in verse 5 we read: “I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it…”. Then in verses 17-19 he writes:

17 But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. 18 They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” 19 These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

What Jude is saying is that we need to remember that this is to be expected. Don’t be surprised. We have been adequately warned. Other places in the New Testament, we read:

• 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. (Acts 20:29-30)
• Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons… (1 Timothy 4:1)
• But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. (2 Timothy 3:1)
• I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. (2 Peter 3:3)

Throughout the New Testament, we are warned that in the last days – the days between Jesus’ death and resurrection and his coming again – false teachers and scoffers will appear. It is expected. Not only that, but they won’t come from out there. They will arise from within the church. Scripture consistently warns us to expect this and to guard against it, because it’s going to happen. Jude says: don’t let it surprise you.

Jude is saying: False teaching is coming whether you’re prepared for it or not. You can get comfortable and be unprepared when it comes. But if you’re smart, you’ll remember that you’ve been told to expect it, and you’ll be prepared to deal with it when it comes. Don’t be surprised, he says, by false teaching.

When we get bombarded by all the stuff that comes across the news and our facebook feeds, it wears us down. This week a former neighbour of our died of COVID-19, the sister-in-law of a family member, who is a nurse, has COVID-19. This is real. It is not fake news.

We need to make choices if we are to remain healthy.

• 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: go to bed 1/2 earlier than you usually do.
• physically: do some gentle exercise.
• mentally: write a short poem expressing how you are feeling.
• socially: if you go for a walk, greet everyone you see.
• spiritually: read and reflect on Psalm 18.

Make the decision to do that one thing

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

In the last few days,

• we have shared together in an online communion.
• reflected on Good Friday.
• sat through the mystery of Holy Saturday.
• celebrated in a very different way Easter Sunday.

Now what?
It’s easy to keep focus when we have these major markers to guide us.
But now… what?

If we are honest…

• Some of us are tired, weary.
• Some are feeling overwhelmed.
• Some are frustrated.
• Some are feeling cut off and lonely.
• Some are fearful – there is so much uncertainty.
• Some are anxious.
• Others are feeling depressed.
• Others are thinking how can I teach my kids?
  • how will we pay our bills?
  • how can we stay safe?
• Many are wondering will we ever go back to normal?
  • What is normal?

How do we remain healthy in these days?

• emotionally?
• physically?
• mentally?
• socially?
• spiritually?

I want to reflect on these questions this week. We are going to use as our starting point is a little letter that Jude, a brother of James wrote:

17 But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. 18 They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” 19 These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.
20 But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.
22 Be merciful to those who doubt; 23 save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.
24 To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—25t o the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

This week, let’s read this passage together. Each day I will share some reflections on this passage.