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. May mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Yet, in like manner, these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, The Lord be with you. But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. Woe to them, for they walked in the way of Cain, and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain, to Balaam's error, and perished in Corda's rebellion. These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves, waterless clouds swept along by winds. fruitless trees in late autumn twice dead or brooded, wild waves of the sea casting up the foam of their own chain, wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever. It was also about these that Enoch VII from Adam prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires. They are loudmouthed boasters showing favoritism to gain advantage. 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 cause 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 garments stained by the flesh. Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time, and now, and forever. Amen. So, Who are the saints? Who are the saints? So, you will know that in church history, the word has been used in some unusual ways. If you have an old Bible, or you have an old commentary on the Bible, it will use things like, you know, Saint Peter says this, and Saint John the Evangelist says the other. And so, for a while, at least, in church history, the word saint was reserved for those who were particularly godly, those who sort of deserved the title of saint. We have mostly gotten rid of that use of the term saint, and replaced it by the biblical meaning. The biblical meaning is simply that a saint is someone who has been sanctified through Jesus Christ. So you might say saved or born again, but this is what it means. Those who have been made holy and therefore acceptable to God. So, I say all that because we are saints, of course. We are obviously saints here today. Now, there are many ways to approach a scripture, as you well know. So we can go through the scriptures one verse at a time through a book. Some people prefer that. Some people prefer sort of topical things. So let's preach today about money and go through a whole Bible and see what it says about money. And so when we come to something like Jude, well, the preacher has to make a decision. He has to look and see what he thinks will be the best. And it obviously doesn't mean that his approach is the best. But in Jude, we could have looked at things like, we could have looked at what's called triads. So there are threes in the book of Jude. There's lots of threes. So we could have focused on that perhaps. And so I chose instead to look at the characters. Well, of course, there's three types of character really in there, so we still come back to that three. But obviously on previous weeks we've looked at angels, we've looked at the sinners, if you like, and today. we are looking at saints. Now I said that a saint is someone who has been sanctified and that the words are connected. But it also says in the scriptures there, it says that we are also called. So just to remind you from a few weeks ago, I said that there was a general call to this world to believe. So if we had the power, we would reach every person alive with the gospel and we would say to them, you are in terrible danger. The Lord is coming after you. You need to flee from the wrath to come. You need to repent and ask him for mercy and seek a divine pardon. So there is that, but obviously, That in itself does not save everyone. That call from God is mostly ignored. And there is a secondary call, a special call, where God targets individuals whose names have been written before the world was. And he targets those and he calls them in what we say is an effectual way. He reaches them with the gospel message, but also at the same time does something inside of them, so that suddenly that message means everything, and this results in someone becoming a saint. I've identified three groups of creatures, if you like, in Jude. So the angels, the lost, and the saved, if you like. But we should remember that all of those are still centered around Jesus Christ, just like everything is. Everything is centered around Him. It all comes back to Him. I mean, even the angels. The angels exist to serve Christ. Sinners are those, by definition, who have broken the law of Christ. And then we have us saints who are united to Christ with everything that comes with that. Today, I thought that we would look at some verbs. So if someone is good at English, they'll be able to tell me the word I'm looking for. It could be participle or something like that, but my English is not that good. So we would have things like contending and praying and so on. And so I've decided we would go through those because for the believers, It has all these instructions for us. Do this, do this, do this. And so I thought we would go through them. And there are four or five of those. And it all comes to a head in the end. Most of them are at the end. The first one we find is contending, and that's found in verse three. Remember Jude? wanted to write one type of letter, but felt moved to write something different. A warning. It was necessary. And so he says to them, in verse 3, that because of the danger in the church throughout all ages, the danger from certain types of people and certain doctrines, We really need to fight for our beliefs. We need to contend, it says. And so that says we need to put real effort into this whatever it is. So whatever this faith is, we need to fight for it with a real effort. So contempt, contempt for what? Enter into battle over what? Well, faith normally refers to this trust that we have in our Lord, but it doesn't always mean that. Sometimes the faith describes the things that we know about God. So the gospel, the doctrines, if you like, And I'm persuaded that here, it doesn't mean trust, it doesn't mean contend for your own faith in Christ. It means contend for the truth, doctrinal truth. And this faith includes, this doctrinal body includes the doctrines of the gospel. And so you might say that in brief, that Nicene Creed that we read last week, You know, that is very much the core of what we believe, the Nicene Creed. And so you might say that those are the types of things that we need to contend for. Now, Protestants, as someone once said to me, are a fighting breed. Protestants must fight. And if they don't fight for the right things, they'll fight each other. We're very good at it. We've been doing it for a long time. But I'd say perhaps the Protestants have too frequently contended for the secondary things instead of contending for the faith, the core things. And they fell out and they've thrown each other out of churches over much smaller things. I would say that why these doctrines are important is that you can have a sort of an enthusiasm for God, you can be on fire, you can pray to Him and tell others about Him, but you need the knowledge with it, you need the doctrine with it, or it becomes poisonous. Now, if you read maybe later Romans 2, Romans 10, and I think it's verse 2. Paul speaks about, for example, the Jews at the time who had a real zeal for God, and he acknowledged that, but it said it was without knowledge. So it didn't have that doctrine that was needed to make it all complete. When we say, you know, about, look, I know there's differences within the churches with levels of knowledge. It's not about that. There's always going to be some people who know more than you, some people who know less than you. It's not about that variation. We're talking here about something fundamental that is missing in your beliefs. Now for Paul writing about the Jews, the fundamental thing that they were missing is to do with righteousness. So what happened was they were trying to establish their right. They were trying to achieve their eternal salvation through their own efforts, their own righteousness. And Paul is saying, it's no good. It's not good enough. You need the very high righteousness of God credited, given to you. And so by shunning the righteousness of God and instead establishing their own righteousness, Paul says, they sealed their eternal doom. And so this can be very, very serious. We need to identify what is most important and fight like mad for it. So someone comes to New Road and they say, you know, Paul, I'll be honest with you, I believe differently than you on the book of Daniel or something. Okay, we can work with that. We'll just discuss it over time and see where it goes. And if someone else comes in and says, Paul, I love God and I love Christ, but, you know, he's not divine. I don't believe he was raised from the dead and all that nonsense. I don't believe in the virgin birth and all this, all that miraculous rubbish. then we would have a problem. Well, we would still allow him here, but if he started opening his mouth too much and trying to recruit people, we would tell him to be quiet or we tell him to sling his hook. So, It is important. I'd say this one more thing about contending. It's being compared to like a boxing match. This contending for the faith is like a boxing match and you'll know from boxing that there's, like most things, there's an offense and a defense. So there is going on the attack and then there's defending. And you might like to think that this contention for the faith, the doctrines of the faith, it involves both. So we promote them, we say them, we share them with others, and we defend them when they are under attack from outsiders. Well, here's the next one. We found building. This is a bit, obviously, later on. So we jump all the way ahead now to verse 20. This is where most of these instructions lie, verse 20 onwards. Building. So with this faith that we are to, that Jude talks about the faith, build ourselves up in a faith. If it does mean the doctrines of the faith, how can we build ourselves up in them? Well, we focus on them. We focus on these doctrines. Do you remember on Thursday at the midweek meeting, Len was asking for ways in which we could remain strongly connected as a branch to the root, which is Christ. How do we do that? And there were some good suggestions put forward, and you might remember that one of them was to do with doctrine. It is the valuing of doctrine which can help us stay close to God. I talked about effort, you know, effort with the faith. There's effort involved in teaching and learning doctrine. There really is. Obviously it won't surprise you that most preachers will put a lot of hours into reading and prayer and study and so on to put together a short message. But there's also effort to take it in. It's not one-sided. It's an effort for people to hear. It's an effort to learn in this way. If I wanted to communicate information to you and have you learn it, then standing here and speaking is probably not the best way. There are better ways. But, this is how we do it. We believe in preaching truth, okay? But I acknowledge, I acknowledge the difficulty in listening, in learning. How do I know it's difficult? First-hand experience. I find it very difficult to listen to someone preach for 40 minutes. I miss maybe a quarter of it or more sometimes. He says one thing and I start to think about that. I miss the next couple of minutes. Or I might get, you know, drowsy because, you know, I mean, this is all stuff I've heard before. You know, usually what the preacher says is stuff I've heard before. Now I need it, but the fact it's so familiar means that I'm likely to glaze over. And so I know, a second reason I know that people find difficult to hear, this is like sort of your fault, if you like, is that sometimes someone will come up and say, Paul, I really think we need to value doctrine, don't you? And I'm like, that's what I was preaching about on Sunday. Where exactly were you for the whole of that sermon? So sometimes it's clear that people don't take things in and that's okay. It's normal, but it takes effort. And so friends, you don't come here to sit and relax and, you know, let it be absorbed. You have to expend actual efforts to remain focused and take it in. This is what it says, going back in Acts now to the second chapter. Do you remember? It says, the early practice of the church was they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, praise. Look at that. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching. Devoted. And so, friends, I would ask you, to ask yourself this question, how much do I devote myself to Christian doctrine? Is it limited to just, I say just, it's important, but coming to church and listening to a preached message, is it limited to that? Do you fully make every effort to learn when you're here? Do you, when you're at home through the rest of the week, is that, do you put effort into devoting yourself to the teaching or the doctrine? It's a challenge we should embrace really. So the next one we find, it mentions prayer. Praying in the Holy Spirit. What is prayer? What is prayer? The word itself means a sort of request. So you might think, well, does that mean that our prayers should be all about asking for stuff? Well, no. The word prayer is used, but it's understood by everyone, by Jesus and everyone, to include more than just requests. And if I'd counseled on you, any of you, on how to pray at all, you would have heard me say that we begin with adoration to God. At that point, we're not asking Him for anything. We praise God, we put Him first. And you also have heard me say that we should put our own requests at the end. So when the adoration is done, when the acknowledgement of sin is done, then come to God with what you want. The church prayer meeting is different. The church prayer meeting is more weighted towards requests. I think that's how it's meant to be. Well, that's what prayer is. It really is. It's requests, but it's bigger than that. It's this communicating to God. So we all know what prayer is, really, but it says praying in the Spirit. What does that mean? Do you just pray? Do you pray in the Spirit? What does it mean? Well, in the scriptures, it's as if our interactions with God in heaven are done in the Spirit. A person who doesn't have the Spirit is unable to properly connect with God in prayer, to experience His love and everything else. You have to be in the Spirit. You could think of in the Spirit as being a state that you exist in. That is a state where all our true interactions with God take place. They take place in the Spirit. Friends, this is how we can be described to be living in this world, but also be seated in heavenly places at the same time. Because we exist, the Christian exists across two worlds, whereas the unbeliever doesn't. And so, it is possible for us, when we have the indwelling Spirit, to be in the Spirit. To be in the Spirit means to be closer to God. Verse 2, if we go back there, is a kind of prayer. Verse 2 is a kind of prayer because it talks about the type of things that we want. We want mercy, peace, and love, for example. We want the mercy of God to be our continual experience. We want the peace of God, which passes all understanding, to be ours. And also, we want God to love us. We want God to love us a lot, and he does. We want them from God, but we also want to express those things ourselves. So, perhaps think of it like this, we are requesting the mercy and the peace and the love of God to flow into our hearts, not just to personally bless us, but also that they might overflow to other people, so that then we will be merciful to others, that we will be peacemakers with other people, and that we will love even those people who are nasty. Karen was saying about how incredible it is when you're able to love someone as a Christian who no one else around you is able to love. Everyone else hates them, but we have this new spirit within us. And so these prayers for these things of God, we want them so much that we want them to, we want too much Too much for ourselves, we have to share it with others. We need to keep praying. And then, we have another doing word, back over in verse 21. Waiting for the mercy. I think there's two sides to this waiting on God's mercy. There's a day by day one. So we have an expectancy of this continual mercy towards us. This is what we want day by day. It says there in verse 24, that this is the God who stops you from stumbling because friends, it's not within our power to keep ourselves on the path. Okay, so we do need God. And so he can keep us left to ourselves. We would fall into the ditch and we would remain there forever. But God is merciful and keeps us from stumbling. But I said there were two aspects to this. And so the greatest mercy of all is That day, when in God's court, we will be justified. And what I mean by that is that we will be justified before the unbelievers, and the devils, and so on. We will be shown, proven to be God's people and to be absolutely blameless, it says. So we can present us as completely blameless. Any punishment due to us, it's already been paid. It's already been paid and so we will be presented as blameless and that is the chief mercy. It is at that time of great reckoning of the judgment of God. And of course, the resurrection, our resurrection, that is the means by which we experience all the benefits. And so we're resurrected and we stand at the judgment. And then if you like the picture, we are ushered that way. Or is it that way? In the scriptures, we are ushered that way and we are ushered into eternal life. And so the great, that is the great, the high point, the end is the high point of the mercy of God for us. And so friends, what this means for you is we wait day by day. So we pray and we wait for the thing to happen, for the mercy of God to continually be ours. Again, we draw on this mercy, but as I said a moment ago, we express mercy as well, don't we? As I said, there's too much for us. We share it. We share the mercy with other people. And one of the chief ways, but not the only way, but the chief way that we express mercy to others is our witness. It is far superior to healing people, feeding them, alleviating poverty, and so on. This is way more important. It is our witness. And verse 22 talks about that, about having mercy on other people. You may have noticed there that there are different methods, different approaches. We won't go into the fine distinctions, but it's clear from what it says in verse 22 and 23. It's clear that there are different approaches in evangelism, right? But the one I want to mention today, you've got Okay, you've got one where it involves compassion and softness and mercy toward them. Other people, it's a bit more urgent. We need something more drastic. We need something more drastic than that, and it's quite urgent. But it says, others have mercy with fear. with fear. I want to show you this scripture in Zechariah. Just to remind you about this connection, this use of the filthy garments in scripture. So Zechariah 3, 3 and 4 says, now Joshua was standing before the angel clothed with filthy garments. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, remove the filthy garments from him. And to him he said, behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments. It won't surprise you, friends, that this imagery, you've seen it before, you've seen this before, about filthy garments. Now, if you were saved from a very young age, perhaps it's a bit more difficult for you, but for people who were saved at an age that they can sort of remember, and they can remember a before and after, for you it's clearer that You were a person who stood before God and with all your best clothes on, He viewed you as someone with filthy, stinking clothes. That's how He viewed you. If your relatives are not saved, He looks at them today and sees them in filthy, stinking clothing. So bad! that he cannot bear to have them in his presence. Which is why we need cleansing. Okay, this is a metaphor, but still it's very powerful. Friends, you had filthy garments and like in our reading there, you had them, if you're born again, you had them taken away and you had them replaced with, if you like, white, pure, clean clothes straight from heaven. You may have noticed it says, show mercy with fear. Now if you read that and assumed it meant the fear of God, then that's okay. That's a perfectly acceptable way of understanding it. But because of what comes afterwards, I'd suggest it's not fear of God, although you have that as well. What Jude intends is fear of something else. He says they have mercy with fear. He goes on to say you need to show mercy but hate the filthy garments, hate the sin. We love the sinner but hate the sin. I don't think that describes God. But that's certainly, people like us who are filthy, that's certainly our attitude towards others. We need to love the sinner and hate their sin. So what is this fear? What is Jude worried about? I believe that Jude fears that people in their evangelistic life will themselves become polluted. They themselves might become contaminated. So it is possible that when you go out in your whatever evangelistic exploits you are able to have, you know, if you know people who are heavily involved in evangelism, you know that they are going right into the enemy territory and it's possible that they could become entangled in sin. So let me give you a couple of examples so you know exactly what I mean. I do go into pubs and clubs where my old friends hang out several times a year, and we don't only talk about God, but we do. They know and they ask me questions, and so there is some opportunity there for witness to them. And I know them and I know how they function. And so I know what to say to them. But is there no danger to me being in that environment? No danger at all. Maybe I'll see them and see them laughing, you know, with the, you've had a lot to drink, laughing and shouting. People are dancing, and I might think, I remember. Yeah, me and all my old mates, I remember we had a great time. There's a temptation there, and Jude says, be careful. I've got another friend, my old Bible college tutor, used to have a ministry to prostitutes in his own town. And so is there no danger there? You're ministering to prostitutes, and you're a man. Is there no danger there? What about a brother of mine who, well, before he was a Christian, he used to sleep with other men. And then the next thing, he's with us on the Gay Pride Witness, preaching to these homosexual men and lesbians and so on. And he's having conversations with them. Are we so stupid to think that there is no temptation at all? Can we assume there's no temptation still in there, in him, for that lifestyle? Maybe. I believe Jude therefore is warning them to be careful. You are going into the lion's den when you go out in public and witness to people. So he says, be careful. Be careful. This is the last of them now. It is keeping. And it's found in verse 21. Keep yourselves in the love of God. The way... I had to read this many times, this short passage. But the way that this is worded, it seems almost certain to me that the building yourself up in the doctrine that it mentions, the praying in the Spirit that it speaks of, and the waiting on God each day, are pointing towards this one important thing, which is the love of God. the love of God, and so we mean a great deal to God. It says there at the beginning that we are beloved, that we are beloved of God. Verse one as well, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus. We are loved, and I think that what we've spoken about today are means to this great end, which is keeping ourselves in the love of God. Now, if you think that keeping yourself in the love of God sounds something that you're not able to do, you would be right. So, Jude does two things. He tells us to strive and work and fight like mad for these things. But he also says in the very first verse that you are supernaturally kept. You are kept. So, you need to keep those two things in mind. I must do But God does. You need to keep them two things in mind and try not too hard to worry about who's doing the keeping here. We do these things. We do everything for the Lord. And then we acknowledge that God is behind our acts. that He is the driver behind our very acts. So that we can't glorify God for saving us and then take some credit for all our good works. That is not possible. That is not possible. God gets the glory for everything you do in this life as well as you being saved. He gets the glory for everything. It's no good trying to avoid it. He gets the credit and the glory for everything. So, I encourage you today to find ways to devote yourself more fully to doctrine, to pray earnestly in the Spirit, to wait on God, because those things will lead to a closer walk with God. And that, friends, is when you experience the love of God more. It's when you're close to Him that you will, if you like, feel the love inside you. And if you understand what I mean, you will understand that there is no experience better in this life, even for the Christian, than experiencing the love of God. Jesus gives out this instruction in John 15. He says, John 15, 9, As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. Exist in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in His love. Okay, so, there is obedience involved as well. There's obedience involved as well. There's this thing called the law of Christ, and Jesus gives this thing to us, the law of Christ, and we do His will. And likewise, If you take your eyes off God, if you neglect Him, it could be legitimate responsibilities take you away, or it could be laziness. It doesn't matter. You need to find a way around it. You need to find a solution. Because the people who take their eyes off God, and they back away from Him, will not know that they are backing away from Him. They won't realize, they won't come to a point when they panic. Because they can still see God, it's just that He's getting a bit smaller. And before you know it, you're a long way off, and the Father's there on the horizon of your life. And that is a sure way for the love of God in your heart to evaporate. Friends, the love of God will evaporate. You will not experience Christ as you ought to. Do you love Christ yourself? He loves us. But do you love Him? That's a big question. Do you love Him? Well, the scriptures say that you cannot love Him unless He first loves you. So, again, here's the prime mover. But we are to love Him. The two things are connected, you see? Love comes down, love goes out. Do we love Him? How much do you love Him though? How much? Is it a lot? Is it a little bit? Well, I don't expect any of you here will boast about your great love for God. In Protestant circles, we have the opposite problem. People trying to say how awful they are. So Protestants will say, Lord, I am utterly vile in your sight. I am unacceptable to come before you. My love for you is non-existent. My faith is zero. I am a poor creature, and so on. So some of them go too far. Why do I say they're becoming a little bit too humble for their own good? It's because no matter how bad you say you are in the eyes of God, and I'm sure it's true, I'm sure it's true, we're desperately wicked people, but you can't deny that you love God. Just like you can't say, oh my faith is non-existent, my love for God is just not there. You can't say that because you must have faith and you must love God. Because that's a definition of a believer. And to say that you don't love God, I wish I loved God but I don't, does not make any sense. Because if you have the Spirit, then you will love God. You can say it's rubbish, I'll have that, but you can't say it doesn't exist. But you do love him, friends, don't you? You all love God. You just want to love him more. I get that. Does this say, children's hymn? He used to sing it in Calvary Church years ago at the family service when all the kids were sitting there. This is a verse from his hymn. It is most wonderful to know his love for me so free and sure. How shameful then it is to see my love for him so faint and poor. I'd say that was fair. I'd say that was fair. Our love for him, just like our faith, is weak and poor. We might say, oh Lord, if only I had more love for you and more faith. Well friends, Jude is helping you out. Jude is giving you pointers to how you can build up yourself in Christ. So take note of it. Don't abandon Jude when we move back onto the book of Acts. bear in mind what he said. He told us these last few weeks about the roles of the angels. He's warned us, he's warned you and me, about divisive people with bad and dangerous doctrines. And then he's spoken about the saints, the saints, how they are to behave, how they can love, Learn from and lean on Jesus Christ. I thought it would be good to finish our series with the very doxology at the end of the book of Jude, except slightly paraphrased. Now to Him who is able to keep the saints at New Road from stumbling and to present all of them blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen.