Sermon: Love Worth Keeping

And this morning we're going to look at the end of Jude verses 17 through 25. And let's go ahead and let's pray and ask for the Lord's blessing before we open his word together.

Our Father, even as we just sung in prayer. So now we say in prayer, we believe you will hold us fast.

We pray that this morning that that would be true. And as your word goes out, as it is read, as it is preached, it would grip our hearts. We would find indeed that you're holding us fast by the truth of your word.

It's where there is not life that you would bring it, where there is life that you would encourage it. We would know that after we lead this place, that we would all to a person in this room know that we have heard, we have encountered, and we have been gripped by the living God

for that to be the case. Your spirit must work. And so we pray that your word would not fall on deaf ears this morning. That would not fall on hard hearts, but that you would prepare the way for it. I believe in the Holy Spirit.

I believe that you've poured out him to work on our behalf and be so today in Christ's name. Amen.

Jude verses 17 through 25. This is the holy and errand sufficient word of God.

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, Haiti and 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 or Savior through Jesus Christ, our Lord be glory, majesty, dominion and authority before all time and now end forevermore.

But the grass withers and the flower fades. The word of God is forever. Thanks be to God. Amen.

You will remember those of you that have been here that this entire book of Jude has been about, as he said at the beginning, contending for the faith a few weeks ago. I gave you some different points for how not to contend for the faith. Now Jude finally gets to here at the end of his book, he's going to tell you and I how it is that we are to contend for the faith and he's going to give us one way, just one way to contend for the faith.

And then he is gonna give us three charges from that. And then he is gonna have one concern at the end. So one way, three charges, then a concern at the end. But before we get there, let's start here At the beginning of our passage, Jude, at the very beginning here, he references quote, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is generally stating that the apostles have stated this thing and he's calling this thing to the remembrance of the churches or church that he is

writing to. He's reminding them again as we've seen him do throughout this book. And what is it that he wants them to remember? It is this, that there will be scoffers of the gospel who follow their ungodly passions in the last days. And when you and I think of last days, we often think, ah, this must be the few days before Christ returns or maybe a couple weeks before it turns. No biblically, when we speak of the last days,

we're speaking about everything. Since Christ coming, Christ is the great dividing line of all of history. He comes into the world, everything post Christ coming into the world is the last days. So as he is writing to these churches or church, he's telling them, you need to be aware of this. And these also telling you and I, we need to be aware of this. There will be scoffers.

The grammar here matters. And I want you to notice this. We're gonna look at this in two different grammatical things in this passage that have great impact upon the passage here. Notice the order in the last time there will be scoffers. Now look at the dependent clause. There's a dependent clause following their ungodly passions. The dependent clause is a causal clause. That is it caus the main clause. They're ungodly passions cause them to

be scoffers and as scoffers they cause divisions or disunity within the church. So let's see the order here. Ungodly passions rule them. This leads to being scoffers and their being. Scoffers leads to disunity and division within the church. Or if you wanna say it backwards, why are there divisions and disunity in the church? Because there are scoffers. Why are there scoffers? Because there are people that are being ruled by their ungodly passions

and arrestingly. James says the same thing in James four. James puts his finger on this. He says, what causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? Listen, this is incredibly relevant. It doesn't matter whether you're sitting here with siblings this morning, brothers and sisters, whether you are in a marriage, whether you have college roommates, whether you are in a church.

Here's the warning, your passions, your passions all to be on guard against your passions.

Listen, people don't reject the truth of the Bible because they believe it is false. Objectively, no one does that. It's an impossibility. Rejection is not cognitively and logically driven. It is subjectively driven.

We turn from truth because something else rules us. We scoff at truth because it threatens what we cherish. We reject truth because we don't want to reject our ungodly passions. That's what happens.

But here's what I also want to say to you this morning. I'm gonna step on toes now. It's not just ungodly passions. There are godly passions that become ungodly passions. And those cause scoffing and cause disruption and disunity in the church. It happens regularly. I see it in myself. I've seen it in the churches I served. People in the church are passionate, they're passionate about this or they're passionate about that ministry.

This or that doctrine, this or that practical issue and this or that thing. It's a good thing. It's a right thing. And the body benefits from each of us being passionate about certain things. The Lord has gifted us that way and he is led us through things to get us in these different ways. And the body is dynamic when we are all passionate about these different things. It works. But our adversary is no dummy. He's happy for you to be passionate about good things

as long as that passion outpaces your passion for Christ.

He's happy.

He wants you to be passionate about these things more than you're passionate about Christ. The temptation is that our appreciation or our love or our conviction about this thing grows into an ungodly passion and pride then rises up in reference to it. And then the doctrine itself or the good practice itself or the ministry itself becomes overshadowed by our pride and by our arrogance. And we demand others to make this thing number one,

it's gotta be number one. You gotta care about as much as I do. And we harshly judge those that don't have the same passion for this thing that we do. And here's what's happened. We're being ruled

a good thing all of a sudden became an un good thing.

One commentator said about this verse, he said one of the distinguishing hallmarks is a tendency to form small cliques within a church creating division between the real Christians, the spiritual aristocracy and the majority. This was happening in the church of the churches that Jude is writing to. Again, we are to contend for the faith. And one of the ways that we contend for the faith is that we tend to our own souls,

making sure that our interest in good things do not become ungodly passions because then we become scoffers and then we sow disunity.

Uh, close to a couple decades ago in a, in a different life, I lived pastor in a different church was one Sunday I was preaching on one Corinthians 15, a great text where Paul says, this is the thing of the most importance. This is the thing of primary importance that I passed on to you. And then he details the thing of first importance. He says, Christ died in accordance with the scriptures for your sins. He was buried,

he was raised on the third day. And then he speaks of all the testimonies of people that have seen him and he ascended to the right hand of the Father. This is the primary thing.

This is the most important of things.

And when I was preaching that sermon, I listed a number of things that I love that were very important, that were not of first importance. And some of those were certain doctrines that are incredibly important to reform, theology, things that I believe with every fiber of my being, but they're not of first importance.

It was an individual that was very upset and enraged and cornered me after the service and gave me a piece of their mind. And then that went on for weeks.

And I was walking this person through this passage. And finally, eventually they said to me multiple times, one day they said, this is, and they said that doctrine, this is the gospel. Insert what you will. This is racial reconciliation is the gospel fighting human trafficking is the gospel. Infant baptism is the gospel. The regular principle is the gospel. Presbyterian polity is the gospel. No important not the gospel.

I was, I would plead with this individual. I was grieved. I'm watching this person eaten up with this thing that it was a, it was a good thing. It was a thing to like, it was a thing to promote. It was a thing to speak to others about. It was a thing to hold fastly to. And yet what had happened is this thing had become more important to the individual than Christ.

We are not to be more passionate about anything other than Christ.

You are to be passionate about him, beyond passionate about him and everything else is a second or a third or a fourth to Christ.

Usually we come compassionate about something that we, through God's common grace, have experienced either in a painful or a joy filled way. We've seen the importance of it. The Lord often leads us to be passionate about the thing or that thing and the entire church benefits. But when my passion of this thing outpaces the importance of the thing itself by placing it above the gospel or above my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, it causes disunity. And,

and I will begin to scoff at the church and eventually the truth itself. And this person as an example, they loved the right thing. But you see they were now scoffing against the gospel. They couldn't see it.

And they caused disunity as a result in the church eventually left. It all started with a good right thing, a godly passion that became ungodly

years ago. Lee and I were moving, uh, probably 10 years after I had gone to seminary. And we were moving again to a new place. And there was this box that we had in our basement at the duplex. We were renting and it was sealed. And so I opened it up. Oh, we haven't opened this thing up for 10 years. And I went through the box and in this box was a letter, a sealed envelope. And I took this sealed envelope and I opened it up and Albe, it was a,

it was pre emails where you send emails as references. It was a, a reference I had had the pastor, uh, that I came to save in faith under in college. And I'd served in campus ministry with the pastor, had written me a reference for seminary. I opened it up to see what he said about me 10 years after he wrote it. And I don't remember everything he said except one. And it was something along these lines. Jason gets very excited about some things

and he thinks everybody else should be equally excited about the same things.

And he was right.

Even good things. We had to be on guard with our passions. They so easily become unruly. Jude now makes it clear to us how we contend for the faith. He gives us our marching orders. Now you have to understand the grammar to see what he emphasizes here. The reality is that Jew just has one marching order for you and I. And then he has three charges that flow from it. One imperative. It's the grammar, one imperative that's surrounded by three different disciples.

And the imperative is this. If you look at your text, it's keep yourselves in the love of God. That's the command. Keep yourselves in the love of God. Now how do you contend for the faith? How do you do that? Just one way, one way. Jude saying you keep yourself in the love of God pre les then flow from it, building yourselves up in the most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit and then waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus

Christ. So let's walk through that, those four things before we look at his final concern one way. Three charges. The way we contend for the faith is that we keep ourselves in the love of God. Now, Jesus has made this clear back in John 14. He says this, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. Whoever has my commandments and keeps him, he it is who loves me. If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. Whoever does not love me does not keep my word.

You'll remember earlier in this book, Jude has been hitting this over and over again. We've seen already that the angels did not keep the word of God. They went outside of the bounds of God and so they became fallen angels. He mentioned those three different personalities in the Old Testament where he mentions, uh, Cain and Balam and Quora. All three of them did not abide by the word of God. He's saying, look, you are to keep yourself in the love of God.

And you do that by continually keeping yourself humble under the word of God. This is how you do it.

Keep yourself in the love of God.

But that should send off warning bes in your head. You should think, oh, what about that first week Pastor Jason, when you read the the, so the greeting of the letter, didn't we read there something different? We did. You remember there at the very beginning of the letter he said this to those who are called beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ. So how do you make sense of this? We are to keep ourselves in the love of God.

And yet at the very beginning he says that God keeps us in his love. You are to keep and you are kept. How does that go together?

I believe wholeheartedly. Now the scriptures teach the doctrine of what we call the perseverance of the saints. Believe that with every fiber by mean those who are in Christ are kept in Christ Jesus. John 10, Jesus is very clear. There is nothing, there is no one that can snatch you out of my hands. Once you are in the hands of Christ, nothing can take you out of his hands. I absolutely believe that. So some will say,

well we shouldn't call it the perseverance of the saints. We should call it the preservation of the saints. I don't like that. And people say, well, he says that we can never be lost. So once saved, always saved. That's what we should call once saved. Always saved. No, I don't like that. It's true. Those that persevere, he preserves. Those that persevere once saved are always saved. That is absolutely true. But, but the scriptures are much more fool than that. I

we're kept in Christ. He keeps us. We never deny that. But he also requires that we work out our salvation with fear and trembling. They go together. I like to say I'm a Calvinist who sweats.

I don't sweat 'cause I'm worried whether I'm gonna be in heaven someday. I know I'm gonna be in heaven. I sweat 'cause I'm working it out except for labor. That's biblical Christianity. This is contending for the faith. Keep in the love of God. Even as I'm kept the illustration of the picture that often goes through my mind is years ago when I was a church planter, um, we were planting a church, starting a church. So we were men, uh,

meeting in an elementary school until we had to set up every week set up chairs. And we had to carry in hymnals and bibles every week because there was nowhere to store them. And so I would keep those hymnals and bibles in a box in my trunk and I would go early to set up all the chairs and to put all the bibles and all the hymnals out. And and my son, who at that time was three or four years old, he always wanted to go with me.

And I remember we would park the car, we'd walk to the back of the car and I would open the trunk and he would almost, without fail, he would say, daddy, let me carry in the box.

And I would say, sure son. And I would get that big box of bibles and hymnals out and he would have his arms out like this. And I would set the box and his arms and then I would put my arms under his arms and he would walk right into the school and I would waddle into the school.

And we would get in and we would put the box down and he would say, almost without Phil Daddy, I carried in the box. Yes you did son. And you didn't,

there was no doubt that the box was gonna make it in. But what I would do is I would give him just enough weight that all his little muscles, those three year old and four year old muscles were strained, popping out. But there was no doubt it was gonna get in because his father had it. There's no doubt.

But he gives us that great privilege of participating in the work.

There'll be no doubt that when you and I get to heaven someday, dear Christians, that we will get there and it will go across our minds. Oh, I've finished my race, I've crossed the finish line. And you have, and it will also go through your minds. He brought me across, he brought me home. Both are true. We strive to keep ourselves in the love of God. We strain with all our being and he keeps us contend for the faith by keeping yourselves

in the love of God. Again. It's not enough to start. Well, you want to end well seek to honor him, clinging to him. Abide in him more day after day. Why? Because you love him. Oh, he's so good And you just want to be more like him and you want to honor him with your whole being. And you want to be conformed more to his likeness. You just want to be more like him 'cause you love him.

Three charges flow from this as they contend for the faith. They're to keep themselves and the love of God by these three things. It should be true of them. It is to be true of us first. Building yourselves up in the most holy faith. How do you contend? How do you fight those ungodly passions in others in you by building yourselves up? A growing Christian is a godly Christian. We're to grow in our knowledge of the faith.

Even the greatest minds have not even begun to master the truth of our faith. You say, how do you know Jason? 'cause you're not one of those minds. I agree I'm not, but I know because you and I are finite beings and he is infinite. You and I will spend all of eternity growing in our knowledge of him. You can never reach the depth, you can never take it all in. And so it is a continual pursuit of his people.

You want to know him. And so you want to know his word more and more. Building yourselves up in your most holy faith. But not just with the mind. We build ourselves ourselves up experientially in faith as well. We want to live it more and more where we are moved by it. Where the sorrows of this book are our sorrows. The joys of this book are our joys. The hopes of this book are our hopes. What it, what it loves. We increasingly love what it despises.

We increasingly despise that. That is who you are being built up in this kind of way. Growing, always building, always growing.

Many of you know I live in a vacation destination of Holt, Michigan. And it was a number of years ago, uh, three or four years ago, I was driving by what is the great city center of Holt, Michigan. Uh, and they were beginning to erect an apartment building and I watched 'em lay the foundation one day and went by the next day and oh, there were walls up. I was incredibly excited. The skyline of Holt is gonna change. Uh,

but then this happened, it stopped

and it stopped for like two or three years. And what I was excited about

all of a sudden became an eyesore. Now an eyesore doesn't take away from the beauty of Holt, Michigan. We got more to offer, but it was an eyesore. Why? 'cause it was incomplete. It needed to keep growing. It needed to keep being built up. It had such promise. There was such hope there.

You and I are meant to keep growing.

A Christian that is not growing is an eyesore.

You're meant to keep growing where you look more and more like the one you profess to love and treasure. He's more upon your lips and more upon your heart. And he's more not just that you have union with him, but you're growing in your communion with him. And so it begins to affect how you think and what you desire, what you like, what you want to be, what you want to do, what you value, what you don't.

Jude and I as your pastor want to see mature godly men and godly women in this congregation. Church flourishing not only in numbers but flourishing in maturity. That's the goal. For

that to be the case, you need to be under the word that's Jude's point. You gotta stick close to the word. You gotta be in the word week in and week out. You gotta be in here where you're hearing the word being preached in the morning for sure. Maybe coming back in the evening isn't a bad idea and hearing more of the word preached. Or maybe you're in a small group, one of our growth groups where you're living lives bumped up against other

people and you're studying the Bible together and your life is being informed so that you're being built up. Or if you're in high school or middle school, you're going to dig because there you're sitting under the Bible or if you are a student, you're going to Ss c F or you're going to our young professionals class because there you're receiving the word. Or if you're an international student, you're going to Spartan,

international Christian Fellowship or Christianity explored or doing our international Sunday school class. Or if you're a woman in the church, you're going to the women's Ministry Bible studies or the doctrine study. Or if you're a man in the church, you're going to these new Colossians studies on Saturday mornings or you're going to truth and grace where you're working through different issues, sexual struggles or as if you're older in the church,

an older man in the church as they've affectionately begun to call their group the geezers group. You get together with the rest of the geezers and you study the Bible because this is how you build yourselves up. Joel Hussein, you stick close to the word. We have other opportunities to build yourself up. The Biblical Theological Foundations class, the about your C class, other adult education classes, which will begin in October.

And the list goes on all centered upon the word. So we are built up. This is how he chooses to build us up.

Second, he charges prey in the Holy Spirit. Judah has already made it clear that the false teachers are devoid of the spirit. And here's the truth, you cannot pray apart from the Spirit. And so he's reminding these congregants, pray. Why? Pray? Because you have the spirit contending for the faith, keeping yourselves in the love of God. It isn't mysterious, it isn't. You have to find the trick in the Christian faith. No,

it's quite simple. It's not complex at all due to saying it's to be filled with the word and with prayer. God uses these ordinary means the word and prayer to keep us in the love of God. You tend to these ordinary means. Sin wants you, Satan wants you, your passions want you and they want to control you. So he's saying keep yourself in the love of God. How you have to have your nose in the Bible and you have to have your knees bent

in prayer. That's how it's not rocket science.

You don't know how to pray. You struggle with it. I'll tell you a secret. Most every person in this room does.

Every single person in this room does. And so we lean on each other.

So Tuesday mornings we have a prayer meeting on Google Hangouts. You don't even have to show your face. You don't even have to click on the microphone where your voice is live. Just listen and pray with others. On Sunday evenings, once a month we have a prayer meeting where our evening service turns into a prayer meeting. You could come and you can just sit and listen to others pray. And you begin to catch what it's like to pray.

We have people right now during this service that are downstairs praying for this service, for your receiving of the word in here. And there were people in the first service that are in this room now that are worshiping, that were praying during the first service so that they would receive the word. You could join that and just listen to others pray,

want to be prayers contend for the faith by keeping yourselves and the love of God by building yourselves up in the Word and praying in the spirit. Third, we're to wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. See, Jude's a good pastor. He knows as soon as he said both of these things that we start to get anxious because look, yes, I'm in the word and I'm gonna continually be growing, but I never reach that perfection. That's right. Judas saying,

and you know what I pray And there's sometimes that I don't see the answer to my prayers. And he's saying, that's exactly right. So you know what you have to do? You have to wait expectantly. And this may be as the hardest of spiritual disciplines where you and I keep ourselves anxiously waiting, expectantly waiting for the Lord's return. And all of these things shall be realized

is often the hardest. There's more and there's better to come because Jesus is returning this word that you and I put ourselves under and that we are willing to conform our lives to will be vindicated. Everlastingly, the world can mock it. False teachers can come in and mock it. You stick to it, you will be vindicated. Everlastingly. Those who say it's a waste of time, that you're on your knees in prayer, get up and do

will be vindicated everlastingly.

We wait. We wait. Knowing his mercy will overshadow whatever struggle, whatever difficulty, whatever trial, whatever pain that I've gone through here for the sake of Christ, I clinging to him, refusing to let go

and just wait and wait or experience his mercy one way. Three charges. And now his final concern, again, he's such a good pastor Juda, is he, he, he just seems to know how our minds and hearts work. Uh, we're reading a book with the staff this week and instead of a a pastor that someone said of him at his funeral, he said he must have been a very wicked man in his youth because he knew the evils of the heart so well. Uh, Jude's like that. He, he,

he knows, he knows our minds. He knows how our hearts work and he knows that as soon as he talks about contending for the faith that he knows you and I have a tendency then to be callous towards others. We wouldn't admit it and we subconsciously will push it down. But the reality is this is that most of us, many of us, too many of us we're fine. As long as we're safe. Our family members are safe and some close friends are safe.

But the worry outside of that just feels like too much to be too concerned. And Jude's saying that's not good enough. Have mercy on those who doubt, save others by snatching the matter of fire. There's discussion among commentators whether this is two groups, whether it's three groups, I think it's two groups. And he has two important things for you. And I know one, he's encouraged not to be indifferent to those around us.

Living in a way whereby we are unattached and we're disinterested and in effect we're heartless even as we contend for the faith. And we do this by looking past others. We're callous.

The second is that he charges them to take action for those around,

not simply not to be indifferent, but to be active for their sake. He says, have mercy on those who doubt. Save others by snatching. Why? Because mercy has been extended to you and those who have received mercy give mercy.

Whereas indifference flows from a callous spirit, lack of action usually flows from a haughty spirit. What's wrong with him? Why can't he get his act together? What's wrong with her? We've told her over and over the answer to this question

that is not contending Well, Jude is telling us because don't you know that apart from mercy you would be be there and apart from being snatched you'd be there.

Think of those college students my freshman year of college that would sit with me for hours and hours and hours and hours as I wrestled through all of my doubts concerning the faith. I was arrogant.

I was self-consumed, I was foolish.

And they just extended mercy.

Just extended mercy.

Jesus says the Thomas touched my hands and feel my side

when Peter should have been abandoned 'cause he was dangling over the fires of hell, having denied Jesus. Jesus snatches him. Does Jew love me more than these?

He did it for them. He has done it for you.

Jude is charging us not to be indifferent as we contend. Rather we are to be active, not to be clueless, not to be haughty as we contend, rather to be merciful and loving. No one is too far gone for the mercy of Christ. No one.

You don't know what I've done. No one. You don't know how many times I've stumbled no one. And that's why he ends this way with this great benediction. At the very end, Jesus is able, he can do this now to him who is able, his arms are there 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. But he doesn't know who I am. He does and he's able,

he doesn't know how bad my teenage child has wandered. He's able, he doesn't know what this person did to me. He's able,

and to him who is able, and here's what's so fascinating to me. At the very end

he said that he presents us before the throne with joy. Now what's fascinating is it's ambiguous. Is it our joy before the throne? Yeah. Surely we've been snatched from the fires of hell. We've received mercy. All that we were growing up into All those prayers that we have prayed where there realizes we step into heaven and we are now face to face with our savior. This one who has loved us and bought us and kept Us. We're home.

And there will be joy unspeakable.

But it's ambiguous because he will also be filled with joy.

It's filled with joy to bring you home.

Let that for a category adjustment for some of us Christ rejoices over me,

not just I rejoice over him, he rejoices over me.

He's called us. He loves us with an everlasting love and he has kept us and he will rejoice to have us home. You keep contending.

Keep making sure that you keep yourself in the love of God. This is a love worth keeping yourself in even as he keeps you. Let's pray.

Our Father, we are thankful that you've called us, that you love us with an everlasting love and that you keep us.

We're thankful that you've taken rebels and made them sons and daughters of yours for all eternity.

And it seems impossible to us that this would cause you joy. And yet we know that it's not only possible that it's guaranteed.

Make our heart sing in love to you. Keep us even as we seek to keep ourselves in your love. Help us to contend for the faith with all that we are. Tell that day that we cross the finish line or face-to-face your dear son and our savior. It's in his name we pray. Amen.