CMC 2009 Winter Retreat, January 3, 2009
1. To fight for the faith, you need to keep yourselves in God’s love by fixing your eyes on the mercy of Jesus Christ that will sustain you.
Jude says in Jude 21, “Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.”
This is the important strategy to fight for your faith. To fight for the faith, you need to always ground yourselves in God’s love for you.
As a preacher, I am always looking for modern parables that illustrate for me the reality of God’s love for us. Well, it came to me few weeks ago when I was watching Fox network’s new reality show promo called “Secret Millionaire.” The first episode was aired on 12/3. It is a modern-day twist on “The Prince and the Pauper.” It takes America’s wealthiest individuals away from their luxurious lifestyles with huge mansions, private jets, spending $5,000 easily for a dinner. It takes them away from their unbelievably rich lifestyles and places them undercover into some of the most impoverished neighborhoods in America.
Embedded into these impoverished neighborhoods, they are to live on minimum wages. Their goal is to befriend those in need and decide to give their own $100,000 to one of them in need.
The one I watched featured a businessman/entrepreneur Greg Haerr, who’s got a small fleet of airplanes, a helicopter, Ferrari 512 TR, two yellow Porsche Cabriolets, Rolls-Royses, lives in a mansion 7500 square feet. And, he said in the beginning of the show, “If any body deserves to live like a king, it would be me… If you can treat yourself, uh, to the good life, you know who’s gonna do it for you?” You get the idea. I was quite irritated by this self absorbed snob say the least.
Well, he leaves it all behind for a short time and gets embedded into North Las Vegas where the crime rate is the double the national average with over 12,000 people living in the streets; he gets to live in the North side of Las Vegas where not only him, but most of the people who travel to Vegas never even know exists in such a poor condition.
He finds a place to stay at a cockroach infested motel; he doesn’t have enough money to stay so he works there to stay, cleaning, taking out trashes… He finds three individuals to help; a lady who runs a community center to give foods and other goods to those in need, a boy named “Wheels” with Spina Bifida who rides his wheelchairs like it is a skateboard and a lady who runs a placed called “Street Teens,” a homeless shelter for teens. He gave $30,000, $20,000 and $100,000 to these three individuals. The most moving parts of the whole episode were about how these three individuals responded when they were given these unexpected gifts. I was especially moved by Lisa who runs Street Teens. The building they were renting to run the shelter was foreclosed and they were on 60 days notice to vacate the property. As of Greg’s visit, they were dangerously close to having to shut down the program; you can see in Lisa’s face. She was cheerfully working, yet you could see her thinking, “What if, nothing comes through…” To hope without knowing how it is going to work out is not easy. When Greg revealed his true identity Lisa was stunned, shocked; she was deeply grateful to receive this totally unexpected gift of money to find a new place to continue their program from this guy who she thought was doing a documentary on poverty.
I have to admit though that I felt very cynical about this multi-millionaire who at the end of the show riding on a limo and saying, “This experience has changed me forever.” I keep thinking what is $150,000 to a guy who has about fifty million dollars? Later I calculated and it is about 0.003% of his wealth. How does giving away 0.003% of your wealth really change your life? If you earned $40,000 last year, it would be equivalent to giving away precisely $120. Can anyone of us having earned $40,000 and giving away 0.003% last year in the amount of $120 make this millionaire’s claim, “This experience has changed me forever.” None of us in the right frame of mind would make this claim. $150,000 sounds a lot, but as giving away $120 from your $40,000 doesn’t hurt you at all, it makes virtually no difference to a millionaire. It is no sacrifice at all!
Now, consider Jesus Christ Sovereign and Lord. Jesus wouldn’t make silly statement like this millionaire, “This experience has changed me forever,” after giving away his 0.003 5 of his wealth. But, the statement Jesus would make is “My giving will change you forever.” He gave it all. He gave his blood, he gave his body, he gave it all for you and me. Now, that’s sacrificial love to brag about.
2. To fight for the faith you need to do life together
Jude 20 gives us another command, “But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith…”
This command is really subordinated to Jude 21 of keeping yourselves in God’s love. The logic would be to keep yourselves in God’s love you work on building yourselves up in your most holy faith.
It is important to notice that Jude doesn’t call us individually to build our faith. Instead, Jude’s emphasized the corporate nature of building together. The idea here is that we cannot build faith apart from the body of Christ. 1 Peter 2:5 says, “you… like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house…” When you build, you build it together.
In a corporate setting like this, as we have fellowship with each other, talking about how God is moving you and me, listen to the word of God and express our appreciation, our passion, our love to God in songs, we can grow together.
Just to verify if this rings truth for us, would you raise your right hand high if you feel built up this weekend?
And, as you feel built up, do you also feel closer to God? And, as you feel built up and feel closer to God, do you feel like you can run harder, faster?
This is why doing life together is so important. You do life together in Christ! That is how you are going build yourselves upon in your most holy faith.
3. To fight for the faith you got to pray in the Holy Spirit
This is a call to pray according to the Spirit’s will to accomplish God’s work by God’s power.
How do you know the Spirit’s will? 1) by the word of God prompted for specific situation, 2) by the situation prompting by the Holy Spirit. Obedience to the word of God makes it possible for us to obey the Holy Spirit when he prompts us in situations.
4. To fight for the faith, practice mercy for those who doubt
Fight for the faith won’t happen unless we are captivated by God’s mercy and express God’s mercy.
When I visited House of Prayer, a church serving homeless people and homeless people serving in Chicago, I witnessed how people who have so little expressed their joy in Jesus Christ in their worship, in their testimonies and in their prayers. They have been deeply touched by God of mercy and it showed!
To possess the guts to fight for the faith, Jude calls us to show mercy to those who doubt. In order to show mercy, we must have the firsthand experience of God's mercy.
5. To fight for the faith is to look for those who need to be snatched from the fire and be saved.
Jude's call for us to snatch others from the fire and save them reminds me of Zechariah 3:1-10. In this passage, you find a high priest named Joshua who was snatched from the fire. Before the angel of the Lord, stood Joshua, the high priest, but standing at his right side was Satan who heaped accusations against Joshua. And, the Lord said to Satan, "LORD rebuke you, Satan! The LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?" And, along with the Lord's defense against Satan's accusations and his rescue, he also ordered Joshua's filthy clothes be taken off, to take away his sin and to put rich garments on him. This is a beautiful picture of how God delivers people out of the power of Satan and establishes their righteousness in him.
To fight for the faith means we as Christians look for opportunities to be used by God to deliver those who are being tormented by Satan's accusations and his power.
6. To fight for the faith, you got to learn to hate sin.
Hating even the clothing stained (filthy with excrement) by corrupted flesh (sinful flesh)... how we need this holy hatred against sin. To fight for the faith, we need to be brutally honest before God who searches us and knows everything about us, even better than we know ourselves. Sin of unbelief, sin of lust, sin of laziness, sin of all shapes and sizes must be dealt with brutal honest before God.
And, to genuinely hate sin, our love for Jesus Christ needs to be real and grow deeper.
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