Give your attention to God's holy word, Matthew 9, 35 to 38. And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, for they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. Amen. And then Jude, beginning in verse 17 and reading to verse 23. But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, in the last time there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions. It is these who calls divisions, worldly people, devoid of the spirit. 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, show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. Amen. Lord, again, we seek your help, your guidance, your spirit's work, and each of us, as we consider these words, please, O Lord, help us to receive them and to store them up in our hearts and lives, if we might, walk in a way that pleases you. Teach us your ways, O Lord, and give us ears to hear what you speak, we ask through Christ, our Lord. Amen. You may be seated. What you see in the bulletin this evening is really part two of the sermon we began two weeks ago, where we started to look at these verses in Jude's small little letter, where he begins to more positively call the churches that he writes to, to deal with life in this present evil age, or life as an end times people. He noted that the language of being in the end times is often abused in our day. It's often thought to refer just to like the events right before the second coming of Christ, sort of apocalyptic events. And a whole book series have been written on this, selling millions and millions of copies full of fantastical descriptions of what the end times mean. But when you get down to it biblically, the end times really covers everywhere and every time from Christ's ascension to the right hand of the father to his second coming. It describes this overlap of the ages where we as the church experience both the blessings of the new heavens and new earth and the age to come breaking into our current day as well as the tribulation of living in a world that is against us, is being in the world but not of the world. And we noted from this passage that as those who live in the last times, we ought to be people who have a proper discernment. We need to know what time in which we live. And that's what Jude calls us to really in the first part of this passage, verse 17 and following. Remember that the apostles of our Lord predicted this. And part of that discernment of the times means that we realize that this is a day of great, abundant, light, spiritually speaking. We have revelation. The Lord has spoken to us. We have his words written down. We have the predictions or the prophecies of the apostles themselves delivered unto us by the church throughout its faithfulness in the ages to recognize scripture and to pass it on. And we have the words of life for us by the Holy Spirit that we can pick up and grab and read and devour. and sort of ingest in a way this is what the Lord has provided for us and as part of living well in these last days as end times Christians means that we eat this word just as you see the image in both Revelation and I believe as you go in Jeremiah, you have this call to consume the words of life because, well, it's exactly what we need to survive these end times. That was the first part of what it is to live as end times believers. The first instruction is to discern the times well and know in which day you live. It's the day where there will be scoffers, there will be divisions, The church will be infected or sort of infiltrated by worldly people who do not have the Spirit. Nevertheless, we need to realize that that is the day in which we live. But then that leads to the second instruction that the apostle Jude gives us here, and that is to keep ourselves in the love of God. Now that is the command of these verses. That's where we'll pick up with that command. And we noted last time that if you follow the grammar here in these verses, it really falls apart like this. There's one command. Keep yourself in the love of God. And then there are three participles. There are three ways that this command is fulfilled or worked out in our lives. The first one is found in verse 20. building yourselves up in your most holy faith, which is a call to continue to drink deeply of the living waters of God's word, to consider well the teachings of the apostles and our Lord, and to fill ourselves with them, to build ourselves up, to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, even as we depend upon the Lord who works in us to will and to do for his good pleasure. In other words, if the words of God that we have here and the means of grace are to us like a buffet, like a feast, then engorge yourselves, and eat, and then eat again, as if your life depends upon it, for it does. This is the call of what it is to live in these last days, to build yourself up in your most holy faith. But it involves not just eating and drinking deeply of the living water of God's word, the bountiful feasts that he provides for us. It involves as well praying in the Holy Spirit, which is what we spoke of last time, which involves ultimately a dependence upon God's Spirit as the one who not only prays for us, but teaches us how to pray. It's the one who presents our prayers to God through the Son. We are dependent people as we pray. We noted that prayer is not something that is shared across many different theological or religious traditions as is Muslim prayer and Jewish prayer and I don't know, Hindu prayer are all subset of the same thing as Christian prayer. It's not. There is one true type of prayer, and that is Christian prayer that is in the name of Jesus and in the Holy Spirit and dependent upon him. And we have that access to God that sadly no one else does. And that's not a private statement. It should be a humble statement as we recognize that the access we have to God is not something we have earned. on our own account, it's not something that we deserve, it's something that God has graciously provided for us. And so we're called to keep ourselves in the love of God by, I mean, to use, I guess, another image if, this is not like self-righteousness, this is not Jude saying you gotta try your best to keep God loving you. No, it's as if God's love is poured out like in a fountain. He's telling us basically to sit underneath that fountain your whole life, just let it cover you. call here and so let's pick up in halfway or through the in the middle of that statement of what it means to keep yourselves in the love of God it is first to build yourselves up in your most holy faith it is second to pray in the Holy Spirit and thirdly it is found at the end of verse 21 to wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life and so that's really what we'll see first here is that as end times people Our Lord through his brother Jude calls us to to be a people who wait for the mercy that leads to eternal life. This refers to, I believe, the second coming of Jesus Christ when he comes again to judge the living and the dead. We're waiting for that fullness of mercy that we taste now, that is our life now, that one day we will see and we will touch and we will receive in ultimate fullness. Now there's a few ways that this waiting can be described. First you can say the posture of this waiting is one in which it is not passive We're not just sitting on the couch and you're just waiting for someone to arrive at the door with a knock This is an active waiting. It's a hopeful expectation. It's what we read of this morning in our assurance of pardon from Titus chapter 2. Once you turn your bulletin there, it's Titus chapter 2 verses 11 through 14. We have this great statement of the appearance of salvation in Jesus Christ. This is his first coming, verse 11. For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present evil age. is the present age. That's essentially what Jude is calling us to here, to build ourselves up in the most holy faith, to pray in the Holy Spirit. This is what we do. And then the Apostle Paul says that even as the grace of God has already appeared, we are now waiting for our blessed hope, which is another appearing, the appearing of the glory of, notice the language here, our great God and Savior, our divine Savior Jesus Christ. who gave himself to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. That's the kind of waiting that's in view here. It's a waiting that is already right now filled with zeal, zealous for good works. Again, this is not a twilling of your theological thumbs. This is a zeal for the Lord and a pursuing the good works that he foreordained for us to walk in from before the foundation of the world. to be His holy people. It's a waiting that is filled with anticipation. Think of the faithful servant in the description of Luke 12, about a man who, a master who leaves, and he's gone away, and he's gonna come back sometime, and the blessed servants are those who stay awake and wait for his arrival back, that they might welcome him in joy and delight. In other words, they are ready for his return. They keep their lamps burning. This is how the Lord calls us to wait or to use the language of Psalm 130. We wait for the Lord. Our soul waits. And a part of that waiting is a steadfast, like, immovable hope in his word, going back to where we're assured of his second appearance. So this posture is, the posture of this waiting is active and hopeful. Well, what are we waiting for, according to Jude here? It says, as you're waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. In other words, we're not just waiting for an event. though it will be eventful when Christ returns. We're waiting for a person. We're waiting for our blessed hope, which is Jesus Christ. We're waiting to see him. We're waiting to hold him. We're waiting to be joined with him. We're waiting for that mercy that he will bring at the final day. And this is the ultimate fulfillment of all that God has spoken and of all that we have received to this very moment. We've received a lot in this life. We've received salvation, deliverance from our sins, forgiveness, adoption, justification. We are being sanctified. We have sustaining grace to help us to persevere, to lead us in perseverance. We have all of this already. We have our daily bread. We have our needs met. And yet that is funneling towards this final mercy of God. that we receive when we see Christ face to face. It's what the Apostle Paul calls the fullness. And it's what we are all yearning for. If you're, if you are, if you've been a Christian for any length of time, and if you know yourself well, then you have, even if it sometimes is at the back of your mind, like an unsettledness, like that sort of knowledge that this is not, this is not all. I, I want to know the Lord better. That should be your confession, and if you've been a Christian for any length of time, it is your confession. I hate my sin. I can't stand my weakness, even though it's a good thing, according to the Apostle Paul, and where God is strong. But yet still, it's nagging, it's annoying, and we long to be made fully whole. And that only comes when Christ returns, when we are made new. When this body of mortality puts on immortality, when we are changed to be like our savior, when we see him as he is, when Eternal life is ours in fullness. Now, we already have eternal life, which is intimacy and union with God. But it's not like we have it in its fullness. We await seeing him with our eyes, both the eyes of our hearts and obviously even our physical eyes, laying our gaze upon Jesus Christ. and seeing the brightness of the glory of God in his face. This is the mercy we wait for. And it is a mercy that is, again, it's not passive. It's not without activity. It shapes our current life. Because we live as a people with this expectation, it really should influence how we think of everything. In other words, we live with eternity in our sight, with eternity in view. We, yeah, are tempted to despair at times, but we don't live in despair, because though the days are evil, we know that the Lord is the king of all days, and he's the one who will bring an end to this present age of evil triumphing. He will put all things right. We face difficult trials. Our bodies break down. We face pain, sorrow, and grief, and loss. But even that's not ultimate. Life is hard. I mean, life is really hard. And each of us will have a particular path to walk that will be uniquely hard for us. You can always find someone who has a more difficult life than you. It doesn't negate the fact that you are called to walk the path that God has set before you, with the trials that are given to shape you, to refine you. The Apostle Paul puts it like this, even recognizing the good that he's experienced, he says that his operating procedure in life is to continue pressing on for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Not looking back, but looking forward, having eternity in his view. This is what the writer to the Hebrews says when he says that we should live with our eyes fixed upon Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that is set before him endured the cross, despised it, yes, but because of the joy which was set before him, which is you and me, the people he would receive as an inheritance He set his face to the cross and he endured the pain and shame of it. So we do not, as we said this morning, tie our hopes and security to this present age. We look to Jesus for when he returns, he is the one who is our life and we will appear with him in glory according to Colossians 3. So this is the hope that is to shape us. This is the hope that is to define our day-to-day, like in and out, messy lives, is that the Lord has promised he will return His Son will come again, and He will put things all in their rightful order, and He will bring justice for His people. He will wipe away all the tears of their eyes. He will be with them unto the end. This life of a believer, then, in this present day, as end times people, is marked by building ourselves up in the faith, is marked by praying in the Spirit, and by waiting for mercy. But Jude doesn't stop there. If we are a people who wait for mercy, then that implies that a part of our waiting for the ultimate great mercy to come, we ought be a people who show mercy. We should be as well, and this is our third point in this larger two-part sermon, that we should be a merciful people. And that's where Jude shifts to focus on, what Jude shifts to focus on in verses 22 through 23. Look at those verses. And have mercy. on those who doubt. Save others by snatching them out of the fire. To others, show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. Jude shows us how we're to respond to others, especially, I think he's speaking here of those within the church, within the covenant community of God's people, who are faltering, who are deceived, and who are in danger. Now, he's not talking about the false teachers. Let's get that out at the outset here. To those whom he has warned the church against, who, I mean, just read the main chunk in the middle of this letter here. He does not say, have mercy on these people, for they are to be judged. The arm of the Lord is to be brought against them. And actually, the prayers that you should pray in the Holy Spirit, in the light of this church, should be, save us from these wicked people. But he's speaking of those in the church who doubt, who are deceived, or being deceived, and who very much live in danger. The first sort of response the church is to have is that of mercy. Now, before we get into these three types of people, just the very presence of this command shows us that we should expect, and as God's people, in this current day, these end times, we should expect not only ourselves to go through seasons where there is doubt, but to find it in other fellow believers. And this is a part of that hard Christian life, that the Lord sets before us. And some of you are more prone to that doubt and that struggle than others. Some of you might have never struggled with this. Praise be to God if that's you. And rest assured, I'm pretty sure you have many other struggles that perhaps others don't as well. Many of you might have. And here Jude instructs us all on how to think of those who are doubting. Let's see what he says here. Again, verse 22, have mercy on those who doubt. Some in the church that he's writing to here are perhaps struggling. Maybe they're confused by this false teaching that they've heard. They've heard conflicting theologies. They're not grade A theological students. They're like, what do I believe? How should I think? Help me here. And they're woefully confused. by the division and the turmoil that has taken place in the churches to which Jude is writing here. There has been tumultuous days here. That's why Jude began his letter in verse 3 by saying, I was very eager to just write a general letter outlining the basic theology of salvation that you might be equipped to know what you believe and why you believe it. But I found it necessary to write something completely different, that you would fight for, contend for, strive for the truth of the gospel, for the faith once and for all delivered to the saints. Because the church is in a tumultuous time here. And perhaps there are those who are completely confused by it. Maybe they're traumatized by this. This is their life. They look to the church to provide a stability that they have lost because they've named Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Whereas once there was a stability in the Roman Empire and in the communities they existed in, but now because they hold fast to Christ, even that has been taken out from underneath them. And they go to the church, which is supposed to be a place of peace, or what we read this morning in Romans 14. The church is to reflect the kingdom of God, which is a place of not just eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and the joy of the Holy Spirit. And what do they find in the church? But the very same struggles and divisions and difficult people in difficult times as you find in the world. And to those who doubt the cause of that, or those who are weak in their faith, or uncertain in what the Lord is doing because of their trials, the response, first order response to the church is not condemnation, but mercy. It's coming alongside those who are weaker, and speaking words of life, and strengthening them, and helping them to come back to You know the truth. Perhaps the quintessential description of this type of mercy is found in our Lord as he's met by a man who longs, a father who longs for his son to be healed. And in the interchange in Mark 9 between this man and Jesus, Jesus says he can heal him, but he's shocked at this man who kind of shows he has a wavering heart and the man blurts out, I believe, oh Lord, help my unbelief. Like there's that cry unto Christ that the Lord hears and responds to with care in healing this man's son. That's our Lord showing us his very same mercy to help those who struggle with unbelief. The Apostle Paul calls us to this in Galatians 6.1. He says there, if anyone is caught in any transgression, in that, yeah, sin, but... You can expand that to any struggle in the Christian life. You who are spiritual, you who are stronger, brothers and sisters in the Lord, come alongside him and restore him, but do it so in a spirit of gentleness, not of harshness. What are you doing? How can you be so naive and just crazy? And how can you not know? The Bible says this. Why can you not do it? I mean, there's a place for that sometimes. But instead of being harsh, the church is called to be patient. bearing with the weak, knowing that Christ himself is a gentle and patient shepherd, Isaiah 42 speaks of our Lord who does not break a bruised reed or snuff out a faintly burning wick. Rather, he gently cares for them and he restores them. And he does so through his people. So there's a call to those who doubt. I believe that refers to people who have this common question, common struggle with Christian life for whatever reason. The second type of people here he refers to are those who are in very, very real danger. Look at his language here in verse 23, save others by snatching them out of the fire. Now, these are those that you don't have a low sort of slow regard of mercy for. These are, these are ones who are in grave spiritual danger. They're teetering on the edge of destruction and it requires drastic action. Um, Imagine the picture is sitting around a fire. And you know, I grew up where, if you're, and kids are like this, you know, if there's a fire, the one thing you want to do is throw stuff in it, okay? And so imagine like taking sticks and you're throwing sticks in the fire, but lo and behold, your watch flies off your hand and lands right there at the edge of the fire. What are you going to do? You're going to do everything you can, at least safely, hopefully, to grab that out of the, get that away, grab a stick and kind of save your watch because it's not, it doesn't belong there. Why lose that? Same images here of others who are like on the edge of fire, on the edge of spiritual death, pluck them from the fire. This calls the church not just to be merciful, but to be bold, to be bold in warning people and calling them back with like an urgency to it. You are headlong running into flames. It's reaching out. like a shepherd with a shepherd's staff or a crook to grab the sheep right on the edge of destruction. In many ways, this is like, you could say, describe this as hard love or love in action, but it's watching someone who's walking toward destruction and doing whatever you can do to intervene, to help. This is especially what church discipline is aimed after, which is not to just hurt someone, or to shun them. Church discipline itself is aimed to reclaim the one who is running headlong into destruction. It's aimed for the glory of Christ as well, in the reclamation of such a sinner. It's like Jesus, when he tells us of leaving 99 sheep, he's a good shepherd, to go after the one, which sounds quite I don't know, just unfathomable. Doesn't seem actually to be wise or caring. Leave 99 aside and go after one who is lost, but that's not the point of the parable. It's to show us the love that Christ has even for one, when most of us would just write off. Well, 99's a pretty good score to get, rather than that one that went astray. But our Lord shows us that he himself goes after the one in danger. How much more should his people urgent rescue is required. Save others by snatching them out of the fire. In other words, there are gentle times that are required to those who doubt, but others need those hard words and need drastic action. The third group of people here in the universe 23 are those who need mercy, but who need it with fear. Or I think the image here is that with wisdom, with very, very careful action. To others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. This is the third group. This would be those who are perhaps like deeply entangled in sin or in addiction. I think addiction would very much fit this here. Or in just like false teaching and they're deep into it and they're very much straying. They're still called to receive mercy, but with wisdom and caution. In other words, the church is to help them, but not compromise, not to be drawn into the deception or addiction themselves. This is why the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10 verse 12, he says, lest he fall." This means, like Paul says in Galatians 6, which you quoted earlier, you know, you who are spiritual seek to restore one, but beware lest you fall to their same sin, you know, lest you be tempted in the same way as they are. This is the apostle calling the church, or our brother of our Lord, to call the church to exercise wisdom, to be careful in confronting some sinners. Those who are deeply tangled up in addiction, whether it's a drug or pornography or whatever this world has which is addicting, calls the church and Christians and pastors and elders to be careful, be wise, that you aren't tempted and fall to it yourself. You know that in constantly counseling someone who's struggling with a particular addiction or temptation, it doesn't birth in you some, you know, desire to say, well, I don't know what that's like. Maybe I should test it out a little bit. This is a very real temptation. The apostle warns us against and the brother of our Lord here warns us against to have caution. Another application of this would be, you know, if you're coming alongside or trying to help someone who is constantly prone to like manipulation because of their addiction or something, someone who is so wrapped up in say a lifestyle of drug abuse that you have to be very, very, very careful because they will just instinctively sometimes stretch the truth still from you, make up false accusations against you, so you have to very much be on guard. That's what Jude is telling us here. Show mercy, yes, but with fear, with wisdom. This is It calls well for the church to maintain holiness, to not approve sin, even as it ministers to sinners. That's why Jude says we should hate even the garment stained by the flesh. In other words, to not be complicit in sin, to hate sin the way that God does, yet still longing to see the sinner reclaimed. And all in all, this gives us a picture of a people who are to use the language of Micah 6, 8, are those who love mercy, not only having received it themselves, but who love showing it to others. This is one of the major ways, one of the three ways, according to Jude here, that we as the church live in these last days. If you could summarize the call to be merciful here, it's very simple. It's be merciful to sinners because Jesus is. and because he's been merciful to you, because you were once a people who had not received mercy, but now you have, and because you have this calling, even from God, to be a witness, to be a means, perhaps, of mercy being shown to sinners, to be one through whom others might come to know of the Lord Jesus Christ in this present evil age. So be a people who aren't quickly ready to jump to condemnation or to harsh words, but a people who love mercy and long to see others recognize it and live in it. Here we're called to discern the times well. To know what days we live in is both filled with blessing and trial, to hold fast to God's word, which is how we keep ourselves in the love of God, by drinking deeply from it, building ourselves up in the most holy faith, by praying with dependence upon the Lord's spirit, waiting for his mercy, which is surely to be ours when he returns, and as we show mercy to one another and to sinners in this present day. Patience to the doubting, urgency in snatching those from the fire, who are in danger, and a cautious mercy to the addicted and the wayward. Let us be those who imitate our Savior in this way, as we live confident in the gospel that is ours in Him. Amen.