Good evening, everyone. If you have your Bibles, open them up to the book of Jude. Jude, starting in verse 20. We're going to read the 20 through 23 to begin our time together. Jude, starting in verse 20. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith, and praying in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt. Save others by snatching them out of the fire. To others, mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. I wanna pray for a sermon. I also wanna pray for David Bush. He found out today he has a really bad problem with his other ear, with his hearing. He already has one ear that's all but gone. So I just wanna lift him up in prayer in our time tonight. Would you join me? Father, thank you for this night. Thank you for the gathering of the saints. Thank you so much for your word. It truly is a light unto our path. We are so thankful for your revelation. I thank you for this body of believers. I thank you for the love that we share together in Christ. And right now, Father, we want to lift up David Bush to you. We ask that you would comfort him in his diagnosis, that you would allow these steroids to work and help him recover some hearing. And Father, that you would be glorified in David's life, and may he cling ever so more dearly to his Savior. As it pertains to this sermon, Father, give me clarity as I preach your word. Give us ears to hear, and allow us to behold wondrous things from your word. We thank you and ask all of this in Christ's name, amen. Compromising. is something that is good in certain areas of life and terrible in other places. A good place is if my wife and I are fighting over the restaurant that we're going to go to for this next drop-in date. Praise the Lord for Sarah Asdale and all the people that do that. Compromising and letting her pick where we go is a good decision, for it's dumb for a husband to argue over something such as that. However, it's not so good of an idea to compromise. If my work were to ask me to fudge some numbers on this next budget that I have to give them, fudge the numbers of how much we spent as a company, this would be a terrible decision because it compromises the ethics of my belief system. And if you really think about it, compromising makes up most of what we do on a daily basis, choosing which hill to die on in our life. When we're in this conversation or that, do I press what I want to say or do I concede to the moment? Sometimes it's necessary in your marriage to have that confrontational conversation. Sometimes at work it is, but often it might be just better to compromise, come up with a better solution, try to see it from their side, from their point of view. And as human beings who do what is right in our own eyes, the problem is we often compromise at the wrong times. Rather than compromising to the person we're talking to and trying to come up with a solution, we get spitting mad and we have to assert our opinion. Or another time that we get it wrong is when the culture asks us to to compromise our convictions, and we do so. So much of life, because we do what's right in our own eyes, we're always compromising at the wrong times. The temptations of this world have always been the plague of God's people. The plague His people in the Old Testament had, and the plague that covers the pages of the New Testament. And Jude's letter is no exception. It is written to a messy church, hoping that they will rise out of this perverted gospel and become an uncompromising church. Now, in our journey through the letter of Jude, we started in verse 1 through 4 talking about how believers have this call of duty to stand up and fight for the faith because false teachers creep into the church unnoticed, and they distort how we think about Christ and how we live for Christ. And that was the first time that we had together. This last week, we talked about verses 5 through 19. And I began the sermon talking about false teachers. And I really wanted to get at, how do they come in unnoticed? And I talked about the grooming process of criminals. We know this in America. Police and criminal analysts have sought to teach civilians the grooming ways of convicts, of people who are criminals, better yet, because they're not convicts yet. They go about doing their crimes without getting caught because they gain trust in people and the walls are down, the alarms are off. That's what these false teachers did. They had groomed the church. And then in verses 5 through 19, Jude helps us to see through their grooming process, through those five arguments concerning their lineage, lifestyle, and looming judgment. He shows us their true colors that we might be able to not be taken back by their desire to gain our trust. And now Jude gets to how we fight for the faith in verses 20 through 23. And his big idea here is us coming together in our common salvation to keep the faith and to keep reaching out to others. That's his big idea here. And he gives us four commands for fighting deceptive teachers and teaching. Four commands make up this passage of scripture that we have here before us tonight. Now, this may all seem a bit intense, but we must understand its necessity. I've personally seen a church who thought God was moving among them. And then someone in that church tried to warn the pastor saying, hey, I think something's wrong with the revival we're having, the things we're teaching, the things that we're letting slip. And the pastor didn't listen to him. And through a series of life events, this guy left. the church, and after a year or so, got in contact with the pastor, and the church was nothing like it was a year or two ago. The church had much division, much animosity, fighting, and there was just a spirit of depression upon the church. There was no fervor like once before. And the problem was, is in the frenzy of people coming, the church being full, the pews being full. They weren't on guard against that which was creeping in. And like cancer hidden below the surface, it finally came out. And this church was cut in half because they weren't on guard to how the church is always being under attack from within, always being under attack. So it's important to understand that we always fight for the faith because the problem of unnoticed false teachers usually happens to those who don't think it'll happen to them. And that's why it is so important for us to study Jude and to love all of its wisdom. So the question is, how does the church handle deceptive teachings and teachers? God gives us four commands to fight deceptive teachers and teaching here in verses 20 through 23. Jude's first command to the church is to keep ourselves in the love of God. Keep ourselves in the love of God. Look at verse 21. He says here, keep. This is our main verb in these first two verses. You'll notice that surrounding this verb, there's the verb building, building ourselves up. There is praying. And then right after keeping, there is waiting. These four ideas make up our first command as the church. How do we fight? How do we preserve the body in the midst of corruption? It's to keep ourselves in the love of God. So let's look at these four ideas that make up this one command. The first element of this command is to build each other up in the implications of our sacred faith. Jude says here the church is to build each other up as opposed to being torn down. This is seen in contrast to the false teachers who in 19 are charged as those who cause division. In last week's sermon, I talked about how causing division is not just simply based on whether we have unity or not. I could preach a false gospel, we all agree on it, and I would still be someone who causes division. Because our unity is not ultimately in our fellowship, it is ultimately in Christ and our conformity to scripture. This imagery that Jude uses of building up one another is all throughout the letters of the New Testament. And the main takeaway for believers is that we should be concerned whether or not our teaching, our songs, our small groups, even our individual actions within the church and without our day, are they building up those around us? Do we seek to edify in every conversation we have? Does building others up mean much to us? If anything we do in this church isn't about building up, then ultimately it is divisive like false teaching. In Jude's situation, he commands the believers to build themselves up specifically in the gospel. Our faith has thousands of implications making the believer more like Christ. And the church is not simply here to hand out tickets to heaven. Rather, it is the stewardship of the church to take the entrusted gospel and spread it to the ends of the earth and spread it to every habit, hang up, and hobby that we have. What I mean by that is the gospel is to infiltrate every recess of our being. It is to, it's like a white t-shirt stained all over, put into some bleach to make it bright white. And the gospel isn't done with you or me until every aspect of our being or every fiber of our life has been bleached in its color. The entrusted gospel is to go to the corners of the earth, but also to the corners and recesses of our heart. And this is the pursuit of a lifetime, for as you and I know, we must continually come to the fount to be washed over and over and over. There's also this corporate element that I want to emphasize here, because in our individualistic culture, it just doesn't compute that we are a body of believers, that we are a people, and that our identity should be in this corporateness of the Church. He says, to build each other up, which means we have an obligation to one another, an obligation to teach one another, to pray for each other. and when necessary, to confront each other. One of the things I love about Faith Community Church is how many brothers and sisters here who are so intentional about encouraging people and carving out time in their schedule that they may just love on people. Meeting for cups of coffee, being there when they're needed most. I have seen so many people here have lesser schedules or lesser items in their schedule so that they can be more for the members of this church. And it has been such an example to me to want to do the same. We as a church should want to pray for each other, pray through the members list, grab a cup of coffee on a Friday afternoon, find ways to encourage the other members of this church. And those who do as such are those who have learned the blessing of Proverbs 11, 25. He who waters will himself be watered. That is the blessing of building each other up. We are poured into as we pour ourselves out for one another. And the last component here of this, of building up ourselves, is the gospel is referred here to our most sacred faith. The ESV translated it most holy faith, but in the Greek, holy and sacred are the same word. But I think it helps to emphasize the sacredness of the gospel. It emphasizes that to mishandle the gospel should be as inconceivable as Uzzah presuming to touch the sacred Ark of the Covenant. The sacred gospel should be as inconceivable as a person in the Old Testament walking right in to the Holy of Holies. Do you see the gospel as something so sacred that it must be preserved, not tampered with? That's how Jude sees it here in his letter. It is a sacred trust and must be treated as such. And this is the very opposite of how false teachers handle the gospel. It's not sacred to them. It's a means to their ends. The second element of our command is we keep ourselves in the love of God, praying in step with the Holy Spirit, found there in verse 20. Now, you'll notice I added the words in step with the Spirit. That's for us to help understand this first century phrase in the 21st. It's so abstract to think, what does it mean to pray in the Spirit? I'm sure many of you know what some people have done with this kind of language. But it really means to be in line with what the Spirit's doing. Paul in Galatians 5.25 says, if we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. The Bible teaches that the Spirit has a task on this earth to do. And we are to be in step with his movement like a soldier in the military, keeping cadence on the march. He's doing stuff, and we're getting in the train to follow with Him, being a part of His mission in this world. This command is seen as contrasting those who are devoid of the Spirit, those who are directed by their debased dreams and passions. The Spirit has come on mission to testify to the Son, to convict of sin, and to be the believer's advocate in the race of faith. Therefore, our prayer life is to be shaped by the Spirit's work both in our lives and in the church. Unfortunately, many people pray according to what is right in their own eyes. Praying for things that are not necessarily wrong, but are out of balance with the weightier matters of life. This would be a prayer life summed up by prayers like, keep me happy and keep bad things from happening. If that's the sum of your prayer life, you are praying according to what is right in your own eyes. You are not praying in step with the spirit. Now, obviously, we want protection. Those things are not bad to pray for. But there are so many other things that should mark our prayer lives. We know that in John 16, that the Spirit comes to convict the world of sin, that people might see their need for Christ. So I ask, how much does evangelism and missions come into your prayer life? Does the Spirit's work of evangelism shape your prayer life? The Spirit comes to help us in our pursuit of holiness. How much does your growth and grace and confession of sin mark your prayer life? The Spirit brings the word of God to bear on our lives. How much does scripture shape your prayer life? Praying in step with the Holy Spirit is the command of our Lord and is seen as one of the ways we defend against false teaching. So if you're here tonight and you don't have a prayer life in step with the Spirit, I give you one concrete example. It's something that has helped me so much in my prayer life. I'm sure you've heard of the acronym ACTS, Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, and Supplication. This is one way that I use in my life to keep me from praying what's right in my own eyes. When I get up in the morning, I read my Bible. And when I get to praying, I start with adoration. Beholding our King and His beauty. I read through passages in Isaiah, trying to adore more my King. And in light of His beauty, confession. Confessing my complete unworthiness in light of His absolute splendor. Confessing my sins. And then from there, leading into thanksgiving. Thanking God for the gospel, that He is faithful and just to forgive those who ask for forgiveness. And then after adoration, confession, and Thanksgiving, then I actually start to bring my requests to God. And every time, every time, those three things alter what my requests were before. They shape what I was going to pray for. They shape what I was going to ask God for. So this is one concrete way for you to shape your prayer life by staying in step with the Spirit. The third but central part of that command is what Jude says, keep ourselves and other believers in the love of God. This is in verse 21. As I mentioned, there's four verbs here. It's very unique what Jude does here. But he couples them all together hand in hand. But he lets keep be the championing verb of the four. I don't know where else it's done in the New Testament, but it's quite unique. And so as we read these, we need to see how they go hand in hand. Now, this idea of keeping ourselves in the love of God may seem like an unusual phrase. But really, Jude is referring to keeping the faith. This is Jude's way of saying, keep the faith. We have Paul's use of keep the faith in 2 Timothy 4, verse 7. John frequently says to believers to abide in Christ. These are all the different authors way of saying the same thing, their own unique color that comes to the charge to persevere in the faith. This isn't new, obviously, but it is so present in American Christianity for us to keep the faith. Preserving in the gospel seems to lose its luster and beauty to so many in Christianity. They don't champion preserving in the gospel. They're always looking for something new. They get tired of the old time gospel. They're like a boat not tied to the dock, people who drift from the shore and into the sea, tossed to and fro by the waves of the world, the flesh, and the devil. But if we are reading our Bibles rightly, we will see that keeping the faith, abiding in Christ, and keeping ourselves in the love of God is to be our focus and one of its greatest themes in the New Testament. And as we think about this practically, I believe that satisfaction in Christ Jesus is key to keeping the faith. What do I mean by that? Our delight in Christ is the power that enables us to fulfill our duty to abide in him. Delight fuels our duty. Take your life, for example. Your work is way easier when you delight in it. But when you don't delight in your job, it is nothing but drudgery. In our duty to keep the faith, to abide in Christ, your satisfaction in Him will be key to your preservation in the gospel. You must kindle the flames of your delight in your Savior, praying, meditating on the word, fellowshipping with believers, and finding a thousand ways to express your adoration for the King, whether it's in song, people writing poetry, journaling, all kinds of ways, finding that way for you to express your adoration for Christ Jesus. And we do all of this that we may be like Paul in 2 Timothy 4, saying, I have fought the fight. I have kept the faith. I have finished the race. Beloved, we must focus on keeping ourselves in the love of God, especially, especially in the midst of American Christianity. And now we get to that fourth side of the diamond in that first command. Jude says, keeping ourselves in the love of God, verse 21, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. Jude says, our keeping the faith in the midst of perversion, keeping our faith in the midst of a gospel that our heart is prone to wander from. One day, all of this will give way to Christ Jesus' return. And as I think about his return, I cannot wait for that final mercy, that final forgiveness that is ours in Christ Jesus. That's what Jude's getting at here. We are in the midst of perversion and mess. And Jude is fighting for the faith. and is ready to hang up the armor. He's ready to check out and spend the rest of eternity with our Savior. He's ready for this fight to be done. And so as we keep the faith, let us be those who yearn for the end, waiting for the coming of Christ, wherein we will receive our final mercy. We've received mercy now, but we shall receive mercy then. It's that already night yet that we live in. We have been saved. We shall be saved. We are new in Christ Jesus, but we will be glorified one day. We wait. We're thankful for the down payment of the Holy Spirit that we've received now. But there's that part of us that is unsatisfied with the down payment and wants the completion of being with Christ Jesus forever. That is what Jude is talking about here. And so this first command to keep ourselves in the love of God is like this amazing diamond with four sides, building, praying, keeping, and waiting. And now we come to the other three commands. But I promise that there's not so many facets to these three. These three are straightforward, and they are commands for how we handle those on the fringe. These are not true believers, but they are nonetheless connected to the church. The reason why I say that they're on the fringe is because these are not hardcore atheists in this text. These are not agnostics who want nothing to do with the church. These are not zealots from other religions trying to persecute Christians. These three kinds of people in verses 22 through 23 are on the fringe of the church. They are those who want to be in the sheepfold, but they have not entered through the narrow gate. They are the ones who have hopped the fence, have come in on their own terms, whether intentionally deceiving or because that's the only gospel they've ever known, thinking that they are a part of the true church. But nonetheless, they have not entered through that narrow gate. These three groups of people here are in one way or another, they represent three stages of false gospel cancer. How much it has infected them, and Jude handles them in progressing order. And as he tells us of these three stages of false gospel cancer, he commands us how to treat them. So there's three types of cancer, three types of treatment. And mercy is what shapes all of that treatment. Mercy for their hearts. So let's look at that first stage of false gospel cancer. These are the doubters. Look with me at verse 22. After keeping the faith, he says, and have mercy on those who doubt. This is stage one. And the treatment is to have simple mercy on them. These are those who are confused by who to follow. The lusts of their flesh draw them towards false teachers teaching and lifestyle. They're wanting their sin and him. These are the people who listen to all kinds of preachers but don't know why there's such a distinction between false teachers and true gospel preachers. They don't understand the difference. They look at Jude and they go, what are you talking about? False teachers who are perverting the gospel, denying the Lord. What are you talking about? Why is he so bad? Why is she not supposed to be preaching? I don't get it. These are the doubters. These are the people who have A false gospel understanding yet can't see the distinction. They are doubters. And the treatment is we are to show them mercy. They're ignorant, if I could just be blatant. They don't know any better. No one has taught them the difference. And so when someone like Jude comes along and says, hey, that's a false teacher, they're like, what? What are you talking about? But that person's done so much in my life. Mercy, showing them mercy and gentleness, encouraging them, walking them through the scriptures. They need subtlety and salty words from us that they might start to see the distinction between those who are true preachers and those who are false teachers. They need that graciousness from us. And the reason why they need that mercy in the form of graciousness is because if we come off too strong, they often see us as overzealots. They go, what are you talking about? You must not be full of love. These people need our examples of finding supreme satisfaction in Christ. As those with carefully chosen words seeking to sway them away from that which they are so ignorant of. The second stage of gospel cancer is there. He says, to save others, snatching them out of the fire. These are those dangling over the fires of hell. It's not just showing mercy, it's saving them by snatching them. These are those who are further steeped in false teaching on the paths to fire. Without serious intervention by the true church, these people will enter the fires of judgment. They have been hooked, lined, and sinked by false teachers, but there's hope. They need someone to snatch them from a fire, like that thing that gets thrown in the fireplace and has but two seconds to grab it before it actually gets taken up by the flames. That's the kind of imagery that Jude has here. It's the same kind of imagery in Zechariah 3 that I referred to in the last sermon, where God describes himself as plucking Israel from the fire, the fire of their sin and judgment. And just like our Lord, we see those who are on that fringe and they are on the path of destruction and we reach out to them. doing what is probably uncomfortable to us, confronting them, coming after them, like the shepherd who leaves the 99 for the 1. When finding the lost one, he literally picks it up, throws it over his shoulder, and walks all the way home with it. That's the kind of snatching we do. This is not Just the simple, salty conversation trying to persuade them. This is going to their house, knocking on their door when you haven't seen them in a while, when they haven't returned your phone calls. And you know that they are struggling with the false teachings of this culture. This is the kind of intensity, as a believer, that you go way out of your way, way out of your comfort zone, to snatch them from the fire, because the cancer is spreading in their soul. And then the third group of people he has here, to others, show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. We have the doubters, those who dangle above the pit, and here we have the debased, the false teachers themselves. Now Jude doesn't refer to them exactly, but he actually doesn't do that in any of this letter. He always refers to them as certain people or these people. And by the treatment that he prescribes here, we can tell exactly who he is talking about. These false teachers seem doomed for destruction, but it is not our place to pronounce slanderous verdict on their fate. That's kind of what we talked about in verses 8 through 10, about the slanderous verdict of false teachers. They are on the road to destruction, but their fate is in God's hand, and we're not to pronounce judgment on them. But yet we show them mercy. Show them mercy like Paul in 2 Timothy 2, who said that we are to patiently endure evil, correcting our opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to the knowledge of truth. And they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, who has captured them to do his will. They are in God's hand to do with them as he pleases. But our command, nonetheless, is to show them mercy with fear. This is a mercy that keeps them at a distance. They are false teachers. They are ravenous wolves. We don't just bring them into the fold. We keep them at a distance, yet we don't pronounce slanderous verdict on them. We both fear their lifestyle, afraid that it might take us in. Seeing their perversion of the gospel entices the lusts of our flesh. And so with fear, we keep them at a distance. We don't hate them, but we keep them with a fearful distance as we show them mercy. Many commentators, as I was looking at this verse, said that showing them mercy with fear probably refers to just praying for them. And that could be it. It could be that these false teachers are so dangerous to our own spirituality that our way of showing mercy to them is praying for them, praying for their souls. And so if you're someone who finds it a challenge to try to go out and save that atheist or that agnostic, No. Remember that we show mercy with fear. We are not prideful, thinking that we can persuade people. We keep them at a distance, but yet we show them mercy. These are not people that we can win over with our rhetoric. These people are dangerous to our souls, yet our command is to show mercy. And there's one more modifier he has here. He says we are to hate their sins. Hating even the garment stained by the flesh. The garment is the inner tunic worn closest to the skin. The staining here most likely refers to the bodily fluids from their immorality getting on that inner tunic. This is quite the illustration from Jude. is supposed to create nothing but repulsion in you as you think about their sins. Hating the garment stained by their immorality. In our dealing with these people, we should be repulsive in our disposition at what they have done in profaning the bride of Christ. And so yes, we show mercy, mercy to false teachers. but we do so with fear and repulsed by the effects of their sin. They have taken the way of Balaam that we talked about last week. They have sought to pervert God's people like in Numbers 31. I also think that it's important for us to know that we're supposed to show them mercy because if you remember in Revelation chapter two, the church of Ephesus, those who hate false teachers What was the charge Jesus had against them? Jesus says in Revelation 2, you've hated these false teachers, which I hate also. I hate what they've done. But he says, I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. So in the midst of false teachings, we still show mercy, making sure that our hearts don't grow cold, praying for them, wanting them to be delivered from the snares of the devil. In the fight for our faith. You and I must never lose sight of our love for the Lord. It's actually our love that stimulates our fighting for the purity of the gospel. It's like a husband who fights for his bride when someone tries to steal her. Like in Ezekiel, when the devil tries to take away the bride of Christ. This is a pursuit that stems from love. Love is what motivates us all. May we never lose our love in the way we treat false teachers. So in the big picture, Jude's three final commands are all concerning mercy to those on the fringe. And here we've seen the four commands that lead to an uncompromising church, uncompromising in its abiding in the gospel and uncompromising in its ministry to those on the fringe. To some, this text may seem irrelevant, but it will only be irrelevant until they've experienced a church that has been divided. Jude's commands here are so helpful to us, helpful for what we need to be focused on in our own hearts and among us, but also in how we treat those who want into the church, but don't want to enter the proper way. They want to jump and hop over the fence rather than entering in through the narrow gate of the gospel of Christ Jesus. This is how we handle those people so that we might be an uncompromising church. To be uncompromising we learn in the book of Revelation is the key to making it to the end. Not perverting yourself with the beast or with the woman who tries to deceive the people of God. Uncompromising is the picture of the believer who makes it through all that tribulation in Revelation. We should be a people who champion the idea of refusing to compromise. That should be such a focus in our lives because our Savior is uncompromising. In his ministry on this earth, Satan tried to compromise him in his mission to save us. One of his closest disciples deceived him and betrayed him in the garden. One of his best friends, Peter, denied him. Jesus himself in the garden of Gethsemane prayed, Father, if there's any other way for me to secure my people, let it be so. But what is the one thing that doesn't mark Christ's life? Compromise in his mission. And as the church, we are to reflect our wonderful King, who is uncompromising. And he yearns for his people to do as such, who never detract from the mission of protecting and projecting the gospel to the ends of this earth. And so as we close, think upon. the uncompromising mission of Christ. He would not ever falter in his path to the cross. And he calls us to do as such in a perverted world who wants to distort the purity of the gospel and the purity of his bride. Will you pray with me? Father, thank you for this text. Thank you for the letter of Jude. Up until this sermon series, I hadn't seen so much of its beauty, so much of its practicality in my own life. Father, I pray that we would be a people who take it so serious to never compromise in the things of the gospel. because our Savior never compromised in his mission to save us. And Father, as we go forward, may we be a church that knows how to keep the faith together and knows how to treat those on the fringe who try to get into the sheepfold, but not through the narrow gate. And may all the while, May we keep our love for Christ, delighting in Him always. Thank you, Father, for this night. Bless us in Christ's name. Amen.