Fight For The Faith

The church can live out these commands because by God’s grace they are kept for Jesus Christ (vs 2) and Jesus is able to keep them from stumbling (vs 23).

Key Point: Because we are kept for Jesus by his grace, He will give us the strength to contend for the faith against false teachers who are kept for destruction.

Contend For The Faith Against False Teachers (vs 1-4)

Introduction of the Letter and Greeting (vs 1-2)

Jude 1:1-2 “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.”

Jude identifies himself in two ways:

He is a servant of Jesus Christ and he is the brother of James.

From the outset of the letter Jude calls the church to follow his example in making Jesus their master and Lord and become a slave of Christ, and he calls us to do the same today.

“servant of Jesus” is the exact opposite of these false teachers who deny Jesus as master and Lord.

The only way we will be able to contend for the faith and not fall into the lies and ways of false teachers is by first becoming a slave of Jesus Christ, making him our master and Lord, through repentance and faith.

After introducing himself, Jude describes the Christians he writes to in three ways…they are...

Called, Beloved of God, and kept for Jesus Christ.

This affirms their election and assures them of their salvation. God has called them to himself and made them his dearly loved children through Christ.

Now, I want to focus on the word “kept,” for it is a key word throughout the letter to show that God is in control.

The word “kept” refers to watching over them or guarding them, protecting them from evil until the great day when Jesus returns.

The word Kept is also in the perfect passive tense and is not something we actively do but something God does for us, by his grace. However, Jude also calls believers to “keep” themselves in the love of God in verse 21, which shows that we have an active part to play in keeping ourselves in God’s love.

Yet similarly to working out our salvation with fear and trembling, it is first God keeping us by his grace that will give us the strength to persevere in faith to keep ourselves in his love.

God does not call us, make us his beloved, or protect us from false teachers because of anything that we have done…but only because of his abundant grace he has freely chosen to show us in Christ Jesus!

It was important that Jude began his letter assuring the believers and us today, of our salvation in Jesus and it is Jesus who has the power to keep them from stumbling into the ways of these false teachers. Because of who we are in Christ, no false teacher or false doctrine will cause us to stumble!

After Jude’s greeting, he provides his purpose and theme of the letter in verses 3-4.

Essentially, Jude wanted his readers to do two things based on their identity of being called, beloved, and kept for Jesus...

Contend for the faith that was delivered to them.

Know the character of these false teachers and remember their fate based on OT examples.

Purpose of the Letter (vs 3-4)

Jude 1:3 “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.”

Jude wanted to write about the salvation they share, but instead saw it necessary to call them to contend for the faith because (verse 4) false teachers have crept into the church unnoticed.

This demonstrates the truth that Jude cared enough about the church to change his plans and inconvenience himself to denounce these false teachers.

IT WAS THAT IMPORTANT!

Do we care enough about our brothers and sisters in Christ to change our plans and inconvenience ourselves to prevent them from falling into sin, false teaching, etc.?

If we are going to multiply mercy, peace, and love to others, we must be willing to set aside our own agenda and seek to serve our master’s instead.

The word “Contend” in verse 3 means “fight,” “strive,” and is often used in the context of athletic events. Jude uses the intensive form of this word in the Greek to heighten the importance to strive mightily or “contend earnestly” for the faith.

Notice this is an “active” verb not passive. As Christians, we must be actively seeking to fight for the faith of the gospel…

Craig will speak next week specifically on what Jude calls the church to do to fight against these false teachers…but for now, one way believers must contend for the faith is by actually knowing what “the faith” is.

“Faith” refers to not an individual faith that Jude’s audience held, but the confessional doctrines of faith of believers that they held in common.

The “faith” was the faith of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which has been delivered and entrusted to us as believers.

Do we know the gospel? Do we embrace the gospel? Do we live out the gospel? Do we proclaim the gospel?

In speaking on the importance of contending for the faith as believers, Charles Spurgeon once said...

“The great business of the saints is to defend, if necessary with their lives, the faith once delivered to them. We are put in trust with the gospel. We are trustees of a divine deposit of invaluable truth, and we must be true to our trust at all costs.”

We must fight for the gospel by the grace of God, knowing that because we are called, beloved, and kept in Jesus, we will not fail.

Jude 1:4 “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.”

These false teachers have “crept in unnoticed,” meaning that they have slipped into the church secretly and “by stealth.” They appeared to be angels of light but were servants of the devil.

It is the same way for false teachers in our day… they use Bible verses, they look and sound nice, they use smooth words, but they will seek to destroy us.

Yet, even though these false teachers crept in unnoticed by the church Jude writes to…they did not slide past by God…for Jude says that their destruction was foreseen from long ago.

Nothing escapes God’s eyes. He knows all things from the very beginning. This should be an encouragement to Jude’s audience that what they may be surprised about, God is never surprised and is always in control…and this should also be an encouragement to us today.

Jude describes the false teachers as “ungodly,” which means they orient their life away from God and live for themselves.

Their ungodliness can be seen in two ways:

They pervert the grace of God into sensuality.

In other words…they were twisting and changing God’s grace in teaching others to “do whatever they wanted…whatever felt good…whatever pleased them…because God would forgive them in his grace.

Yet, in Romans 6:1, Paul says that we should never think we can continue in sin even though God is gracious…for how can we, who died to sin, still live in sin??

They deny Jesus Christ as Master and Lord.

The term “Master and Lord” refers to God, which demonstrates the deity of Jesus.

These false teachers denied the deity of Jesus, seeing him simply as a man and not God and one with the Father and Holy Spirit.

These are essentially two of the main things “progressive Christians” do and teach.

Jude has reminded the church of who they are in Christ and called them to contend for the faith because false teachers have infiltrated their congregations.

After giving an overview of the ungodliness of these false teachers, in verses 5-16, Jude reminds the church that the end for these people will be destruction and judgement and he warns them not to follow in their path or they too will be judged.

God Will Righteously Judge False Teachers and Their End Will Be Destruction (vs 5-16)

Jude 1:5-16 “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 rebuke 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 Korah’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, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever. It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh 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 loud-mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage.”

Jude does three things in this passage:

First, in verses 5-7, he gives OT examples of judgement towards unrighteousness.

Second, in verses 8-13, he likens the false teachers’ fate to these OT examples and exposes their nature and fruitlessness.

Third, in verses 14-16, he makes clear that when Jesus returns, their end will be destruction.

Old Testament Examples of Judgement (vs 5-7)

In verses 5-7, Jude gives examples of Israel, angels, and Sodom and Gomorrah from the Old Testament who all rejected the Lord as their master and walked in sensuality through sexual immorality and homosexuality and perverted the grace of God that Jude just mentioned in verse 4.

I don’t have enough time tonight to walk through the details of their actions but the main thing Jude is seeking to tell the church is that because of their unbelief and ungodliness, they were destroyed and judged by God.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 10:1-10 that God has given us Old Testament examples to learn from their mistakes. Jude was was telling the church they must take heed and not follow these false teachers, lest they themselves fall like these Old Testament examples did…And we must do the same today.

The Nature of False Teachers (vs 8-13)

In verses 8-11, using the theme of “three” once more, Jude describes the nature of these false teachers in three ways:

First, They defile their flesh in living in their sexual immoral lifestyle just as the OT examples did.

Second, they demonstrate their prideful attitudes in rejecting authority and blaspheming demons…doing things that even the powerful archangel Michael refused to do when he confronted Satan. Yet, in their pride, they will be destroyed.

Third, they only live for their selfish gain and will be be destroyed just as Cain, Balaam, and Korah were in the Old Testament.

Next, in verses 12-13, due to their ungodly nature, Jude says their teachings will be fruitless.

He uses six examples from nature to demonstrate to the the church that although these teachers appeared to be fruitful and prosperous teachers who cared for them and sought to strengthen their faith…they were actually hidden reefs, that would capsize and destroy their faith. They make promises that are never fulfilled similarly to fruitless trees and waterless clouds who appear to bring prosperity but never produce fruit or rain.

Jude said these false teachers will, like wandering stars, only lead people to darkness and utter destruction.

This points to the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 7:15 when he warned us to beware of false teachers who appear in sheep’s clothing, but inside are ravenous wolves.

Don’t judge a book by its cover…if a teacher is not producing good fruit do not trust or follow them.

Their End Will Be Destruction (vs 14-16)

In concluding this section in verses 14-16, Jude says that because these false teachers’ nature is ungodliness and their deeds are fruitless, when Jesus returns, he will judge them and destroy them in righteousness.

Just as 2 Peter attests, Jude reminds the church that they can look to the return of Christ in the midst of evil prevailing on the earth, knowing that when Jesus returns, he will judge the earth in righteousness and right every wrong.

Response

So how must we respond to this text tonight?

Three Ways:

We must submit ourselves to God, making Jesus our Master and Lord.

We must contend for the Faith.

We must heed the warning of the fate of the false teachers and pursue lives of holiness.

Professor Matthew Harmon sums up this point proclaiming:

Jude sounds a sober warning for those who claim to be converted or are affiliated with the church but do not have genuine faith in Christ. Those who deny the authority of Christ through persistent sexual immorality, greed, and rebellion against God’s leaders should expect condemnation on the last day. Those who are driven by their sinful instincts and desires in the pursuit of pleasure, satisfaction, meaning, and significance face certain condemnation.

Yet God has given us types/patterns in Scripture as a warning to persevere in our faith in Christ and hold fast to the true gospel. As we see the numerous examples of those who turned away from the Lord to follow their own sinful ways, we should ask him to show us areas of our lives where those same sinful desires may be lurking.

And that is how I want us to close tonight...

Ask the Lord…are there areas of my life where sinful desires are lurking…is there anything in my life that looks like these false teachers…sensuality, pride, or greed?

Ask the Lord…Am I contending, striving, and fighting for the faith?

Ask yourselves, Have I submitted to Jesus Christ and made him my master and Lord through faith?

Guys, remember that if you are in Christ, he is able, by his grace, to keep you from stumbling into the ways of these false teachers…so praise him for giving you this grace and ask him to continue to keep you in his love as you pursue him.