Practical solutions to fight for the faith (Jude 17-23)

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. 

Fight for the faith against spiritual forgery (Jude 4-16)

CMC 2009 Retreat, January 3, 2009

I remember watching Catch Me If You Can directed by Steve Spielberg that tells the true story of Frank Abagnale played by Leonardo Dicaprio. In 1960s Abagnale was so successful at his con work that he was able to forged and altered checks to nearly $4 million in five years. I guess he was the youngest man ever placed on the FBI’s Most Wanted List. Not only was Frank a master in forging check, but he was incredibly good at forging lives as well. He impersonated an airline pilot, an FBI agent, a doctor, a lawyer, and a sociology professor. Good money, living a fantasy life eventually showed its limits as he felt lonely and unfulfilled. He even called the FBI agent Carl Hanratty every Christmas because he had no one else to talk with. His criminality destroys his romance. Carl Hanratty called the con game “living the lie” and told Frank repeatedly that “the house always wins,” which meant Frank would eventually have to pay for his sins. Well, in the end he got caught and later turned his life around by becoming an expert on beefing up security measures to prevent check forgery.

Today’s message is about spiritual disasters of the past brought on by the fakes, who distorted the grace of God into license to sin more and denied Jesus Christ Sovereign and Lord.

With Christian confidence comes Christian responsibility to live out the faith; this is godly life responding to God’s grace that covers us from the past, now to the future with deep thankfulness and our love for God. When this Christian confidence falls into the hands of the godless people mentioned in Jude 3-4, instead of thankful and joyful obedience reaping spiritual fruits, they only produce disasters. The destructive impact was so great that although Jude wanted to write about the salvation we share, he felt he had to write and urge the readers to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints (Jude 3).

Jude responded to God’s amazing grace that covers eternity past, now and future of eternity by humbling himself, entrusting his life in God’s hands by serving God’s son. Jude was a servant of Jesus Christ. He loved Jesus Christ. As in John Piper’s latest email describing his love for Jesus, Jude admired Jesus Christ more than any other human or angelic being, enjoyed his ways and his words more than he enjoyed the ways and words of anyone else, wanted his approval more than he wanted the approval of anyone else, felt more grateful to him for what he had done for him than he did to anyone else…

trusted his words more fully than he trusted what anyone else said, and more glad in his exaltation than in the exaltation of anyone else.[1]

Unlike Jude, these godless men responded to God and his Son not with gratitude and humility, but by distorting God’s grace as license to sin more and by denying Jesus Christ. Jude calls you and me to fight for the faith against this distortion of God’s grace and denial of Jesus Christ. As we learned from Jude how to respond to God as servants of Jesus Christ last night, we can learn something this morning, as we take tour of the disaster sites caused by the fakers. Jude hopes that by exposing the con men that forged God’s grace into a license for immorality and denied Jesus Christ Sovereign and Lord, we will get to avoid being fakers and cause spiritual disasters.

1. Historical disaster caused by spiritual fakers

Three specific events of spiritual disasters are mentioned in Jude 5-8.

· The first from Jude 5 involves the time of Exodus. The Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. God patiently struck down the presumed gods of Egypt one by one through ten plagues and ultimately delivered all Israelites out of Egypt from the slavery. But, none of them except just the handful including Moses, Joshua and Caleb and their families got even close to the Promised Land because they did not believe. They saw God flexed his muscles in major ways. They not only saw but walked on the dry ground under Red Sea when God separated the water for them to pass through. They witnessed the Lord’s fire at nights and his cloud during days to lead them. Yet, when some men came back from exploring Canaan and saw the people living there, they reported, “the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large (Numbers 13:28)… We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them” (Numbers 13:33). Although God brought down Egypt to its knees to release the Israelites, the Israelites couldn’t believe that God could deal with the giants in Canaan.

Only Joshua and Caleb out of all the spies who scoped out Canaan were convinced that they could take the land. Caleb silenced the people before Moses and told them, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”

Joshua and Caleb sought to convince the Israelites they could successfully fight to capture the Promised Land. They urged the Israelites not to rebel against God in unbelief. Eventually, the whole assembly turned against them and they tried to stone Caleb and Joshua (Numbers 14:8-9).

The consequence was that what could have been taken few weeks before they could move into the Promised Land, none of them were allowed into the Promised Land wondering in the desert for years. So, the whole generation that rebelled against God in disbelief died out in desert. This was the spiritual disaster brought on by their unbelief and rebellion.

· Jude’s second example from Jude 6 is about the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their own home. The detail is sketch as to what Jude is referring to. What is certain is these angels instead of being faithful to where God had placed them, they decided to take matters into their own hands; like the Israelites, they too rebelled in disbelief thinking that they had better things to do than where God positioned them.

They too were judged as God kept them in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day (Jude 6).

· Then there was the infamous story of Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns. The people living in these cities gave themselves into the sexual immorality and perversion so completely that when the angels came to visit them, instead of being struck with fear and awe, they tried to sexually violate them. You know how the story ends, right? The Lord rained down burning sulfur on Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24) and by the time when he was done all that Abraham could see was dense smoke rising from the land, like smoke from a furnace (Genesis 19:28).

Jude 11 mentions another three figures from the Old Testament who also are like those who distort God’s grace and deny Jesus.

· Cain worked the soil while his brother Abel kept flocks. Both of them brought offering to the Lord. But, it says Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord, while Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock (Genesis 4:2-4). Abel thoughtfully and carefully chosen the best from some of the firstborn of his flock to offer to God; it shows that Abel loved God. But, Cain just brought some fruits he could get his hands on instead of carefully picking the best firstfruits to offer God. God who searches and knows our hearts and our motives only accepted Abel’s offering with favor, while rejecting Cain’s offering.

This made Cain very angry. He could have acknowledged and confessed his sloppiness and lack of care in the way he offered to God; he could have confessed his unthankful heart to God. Instead of dealing with his sin, he decided to direct and unleash his anger to Abel. Cain was really angry at God. And, since he couldn’t do anything to God, he went after Abel and coldheartedly murdered him. This is what happens when we ignore sin in our lives. It gives birth to greater sins. God told Cain, “if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it” (Genesis 4:7). Obviously, Cain didn’t care what God told him since he allowed his sin to dominate him and be slaved by it.

· Balaam… is a man from Numbers 22-24. He was a prophet who was hired by Balak to curse Israel, but God wouldn’t allow him to curse Israel, only to speak blessing over Israel. Throughout the narrative from Numbers, it appears as though Balaam was submitting to God’s rule over him.

But, later accounts show that he was nothing but a con man who only appeared to be a follower of God. Balaam later became a principle instigator who seduced Israel into sexual immorality by promoting the Canaanite practices of Baal full of sexual immorality.[2] Later he too was killed by God (Numbers 31:8, 16).

· Korah… from Number 16 was a potentially great leader but never got there because he was overcome by passion for power. God led Israel through Moses and Aaron as a high priest. Yet, hungered for power, Korah cut Moses and Aaron down and challenged their leadership. He didn’t oppose Moses and Aaron on his own. He led other 250 Israelites men with him to oppose God’s chosen leaders. And, he led them all to destruction along himself when God judged them. God’s judgment showed who true followers of God were. Moses and Aaron were, but Korah and his 250 other fakers weren’t.

2. The anatomy of the spiritual fakers

What are the common threads that connect these historical disasters? They involve men and angels who loved themselves in self engrossed way, they were selfish, they certainly didn’t love God or people; they were manipulative with very high opinions of themselves who only to answer to their own instincts.

They are known according to Jude 1:8 as dreamers who claimed to have special visions from their dreams and embraced them as truth even though dreams contradicted the way of God. In following their dreams, they became their own authority while denying Jesus Christ Sovereign and Lord.

Even the chief angel Michael in dealing with the devil would not rebuke the devil with his own authority; instead Michael rebuked the devil by saying, “the Lord rebuke you” (Jude 9). He positioned himself under the authority of God in order to fight the devil. But, the godless the fakers foolishly assume authority even over the angels.

They were also known for the way they were driven by their instinct, like unreasoning animals rather than subjecting themselves to God’s truth as their guide (Jude 10).

Their self engrossed ugliness is revealed for they are shepherds who feed only themselves. Shepherds’ job is to look out for the flock, to feed them, to take care of them. But, these cons, fakers only look out for themselves. They are shepherds who let the flock go hungry and become emaciated and left to perish.

More graphical illustrations are given in Jude 12 -13. They are like “clouds without rain blown along by the wind” and “autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted-twice dead.” Jude is pressing the point; these are fakers. They have the appearance of Christianity, but has no substance when it comes to knowing and living in the kingdom of God, for the King of Kings and Lord of lords. As though they may appear to genuinely following God, like wild waves of the sea their shame foam up and giving away their true identity. They are like wandering stars that are no good for giving accurate directions.

Jude 16 sums it up. “These men are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own devil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.” The single thread that runs through Jude 16’s description of spiritual faker is love for themselves that trumps everything else. Why do they grumble and finds faults in others? It is because the people irritate them; they get in their ways. They are overly gracious to their own faults and but get enraged by others’ faults. They love themselves and they pride in themselves. When they appear to speak good words to others, you find out they are only doing it to fatten themselves.

As it wasn’t clear Jude presses on to make his case, spiritual fakers, cons will have to respond to the house, for “the house always wins.” Looking forward on the dreadful day of the Lord’s coming, he will come and judge everyone. He will judge the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way, and of all that harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

Conclusion

Why did Jude go through all this trouble to talk about the spiritual forgery by these fakers? One purpose is for us to know how to spot spiritual forgery. The Carl Hanratty was single-mindedly devoted to exposing Frank Abagnale.

The call to fight for the faith against disasters must include self examination to root out spiritual forgery. The thing about spiritual forgery is that it is built on hearts that are deceptive. Being a Christian means witnessing the transformation of our deceptive hearts that are engrossed with ourselves into the new hearts that are most passionate for God, most in love with Jesus Christ, most in sensitive and obedient to the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Spiritual forgery thrives because Jesus Christ Sovereign and Lord is not taken seriously. Spiritual forgery manifests in sensuality. Sensuality of all forms and shapes that loves self more than loving God and loving people.

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[1] http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/TasteAndSee/ByDate/2008/3476_I_Love_Jesus_Christ/

[2] Allen, Ronald B. “(1) The involvement of Israel in the worship of Baal Peor (25:1-3)” In The Expositor's Bible Commentary: Volume 2. 915. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, © 1990.

Fight for the faith in the secure knowledge of God at work (Jude 1-5, 24)

CMC 2009 Winter Retreat Sermon #1

Some of you guys remember about a year and half ago or so how God was really moving among us. If I trace back, I can pint point to a moment after watching the movie Facing the Giants. It is a movie about Coach Grant Taylor trying to survive through another impending defeated 7^th season for Shiloh Christian Academy after loosing a star running back to a rival team. Things only seem to get worse for him. Those who used to support him now have serious doubts; they want him out and replaced. The poor coach’s car won’t start! His house literally stinks. And, he learns that he and his wife Brooke may never have any children. And, his team will be matched up against the undefeated Giants.

In the midst of the struggle, a man who’s been praying for the students and the coach tells him a parable about two farmers. They are both praying really hard for rain. One waits for it hopefully. And, the other waits for it while “preparing his fields.” And the man asks the coach which farmer is truly trusting God? The core message was this: genuine faith in God’s provision gives our very best. Faith is against earning. You cannot earn God’s provision. But, faith doesn’t oppose earnest effort, our very best instead it requires it.

So, many of us took this message to our hearts, and we tried to give our best. But, along the journey, our initial enthusiasm met slow progresses, defeats, fall backs, boredom and apathy.

Looking back, what I realize is that it is not merely enough to try to give my best when things don’t look promising, discouragement sets in. Down under the trench while bombshells rain on you, the call to give your best doesn’t evoke the kind of courage needed to get through the drawn out, distracting, disheartening times. It is easy to walk when all things are hunky-dory smooth, when things seem to be falling into place. But, when simple ordinary moments become crucible testing grounds, I need something more than the cheerful call from the side, “Hey, do your best!” What I need is to fight! The devil constantly prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8) and try to turn our perfectly normal ordinary days into complete boredom, discouragement, or chaos, what do you need? What we need is to dig our heels into the ground into all out fighting stance to stand firm and resist (1 Peter 5:9).

I don’t know about you, but I know I am a creature that wants things to be easy. I wish following Jesus is easy, effortless, somehow it comes to me and flows; inspiration, motivation, perspiration just comes naturally and I don’t have to work at it. I wish I could run this spiritual marathon on my bicycle. But, Jesus says, “You are invited to run this race. But, Steve, you cannot bring your bicycle here. You cannot expect someone else to run it for you either. You got to run it. But, if you would trust me, I will be your coach. I will train you. I promise you that it is not going to be easy road ahead. You are going to feel some pain. You are going to feel like quitting. But, I am going to help you fight to stay the course.”

Jesus calls me, Jesus calls you to come after him and he tells us that we must deny ourselves and take up our crosses daily and follow him (Luke 9:23). To follow Jesus, I need to get this idea that I can run the race without having to fight, without having to experience any pain. Runners out there know that pain is expected in training to push your limit.

God wants to define our year 2009 as the year when we will fight to stay on the course.

Christine who will be departing to Texas this Sunday will be going through her basic boot camp for the Army. I asked her since she is enlisted as an officer doing dentistry, why she would need to go through boot camp. Foot soldiers I understand, but dentist? Apparently, the Army requires that everyone enlisted to meet a certain level of fitness and combat skills. She said to me that she’s been working out and she is able to do 20 pushups. And, I asked her if that’s with her knees on the ground. She said, “No! No, knees!” I was impressed!

I want you to envision 2008 to be a training ground when you and I are going to learn to dig our heels and stand firm to resist, to fight off the devil that prowls around to devour us. That is what’s going to take to grow. Men and women of warriors in making!

Some of you are wondering if I am going to talk about Jude at all. Well, here it goes.

1. Jude’s call to fight

The call to fight comes from Jude 3 where he urges you and me to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. The word, contend means to exert intense effort on behalf of something, to struggle for something.[1] Eugene Peterson paraphrases in Message this way, “you fight with everything you have in you for the faith entrusted to us as a gift to guard and cherish.”

If Jude had his way, this wasn’t something that he was eager to talk about it at all. He was very eager to write… about the salvation; to discuss doctrinal foundation. But, he said, in Jude 3, “I felt I had to write and urge you to content for the faith.” And, in Jude 4, he explained why he felt so strongly to urge the reader to contend for the faith.

It is because as stated in Jude 4 certain men who were godless men slipped in among the readers, whose condemnation was written about long ago. Two things were wrong about them. One, they were redefining what grace is by saying grace gives them a license for immorality. Two, they denied Jesus Christ, Sovereign and Lord. I will talk about them in greater detail tomorrow when we cover Jude 5-16. But, for tonight it is suffice to say that Jude made his urgent call for Christians to contend, to fight for the faith entrusted to them because he saw some reinventing the gospel to justify their sinful lifestyle. And, the spiritual truth is that you cannot promote sinful lifestyle while counting on God to cover it with his grace. The reason they were degrading God’s grace into a license to sin more was because they deny Jesus Christ only Sovereign and Lord.

This is why Jude felt utterly compelled to call Christians to contend for the faith entrusted to them, to fight for the faith that was gifted to them.

2. Fight for the faith as a servant of Jesus Christ

Take notice in Jude 1 where Jude describes himself as “a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James.” James whom Jude refers to is one of the half brothers of Jesus mentioned in Matthew 13:55. He is half brother because Joseph although was wedded to Mary, Jesus was born without Joseph’s physical involvement. Jude a brother to James would make Jude also a half brother to Jesus. Yet, what you don’t see here is Jude making any mention of this relationship to Jesus. But only other thing he mentions is, “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ.” For Jude, his physical connection to Jesus through his Mary was not important. What was important to Jude was that he was a servant of Jesus Christ. Jude was simply a servant, a bond-slave who did the will of God in Christ. Jesus said that his true brother, sister and mother was, “Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother (Mark 3:35).” For Jude, this was all that matter to him that he was someone who served Jesus Christ to advance God’s will.

What we see is humility of James for purposely not writing about his connection to Jesus through Mary. And, this humility of seeking no other recognition than being a servant of Jesus Christ enabled his call to contend, to fight for the faith in Jesus Christ whom he called Sovereign and Lord (Jude 4).

It is a difference between either Jude authentically contending for the cause of Jesus Christ or for the cause of Jude, himself. Jude’s object of contending was fighting for the causes that mattered to Jesus and to the Father. That is what servants do; they serve the interest of their master, their king.

Can you and I make this genuine claim? “Jesus is my King, my Sovereign, my Lord. And, I am his royal servant.” If you are not clear on this, you are not going to be able to fight for the faith because the faith is faith in Jesus Christ as King, Sovereign and Lord.

The Christian faith is trust in Jesus Christ as God’s Son who came to dwell in our world as God-human person, who took our sin upon himself, went to the cross, took the blows of our punishments, nailed and pierced on the cross, died, buried, and in three days resurrected from the dead, defeating the power of death, the power of Satan.

And, he now sits at the right hand of God as Sovereign and Lord and when he comes back second time around, we are going to see his name written on his robe and on the side of his thigh, KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS (Revelation 19:16).

It is not enough to know Jesus as one who forgives our sins when we ask him for forgiveness as though we can now do whatever we would like to do; we accumulate enough sins then we come back and he is ready to forgive us more. And, we go back and sin more comfortably knowing he will forgive us. This would be reducing Jesus Christ to superpower soap that can remove the guilt of our sins from us whenever we need him for.

What Jude understood was that Jesus Christ forgives us in order that we can freely serve him without shame and guilt, to fight for Jesus’ cause to advance God’s will in our own lives and around us.

To fight for the faith, you must be a servant of Jesus Christ because you know Jesus as your Sovereign and Lord.

3. Fight for the faith on the knowledge that you are called, loved and kept by the Triune God

Notice with me how Jude as a humble servant of Jesus Christ addresses the reader. “To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ.” (Jude 1)

Without being secured in the knowledge that Triune God has been working since the eternal past, is working now and will be working in the eternal future, you may serve God thinking this will help you earn a good standing before God.

But, you don’t serve the King hoping that he will accept you as a servant. This will be like by serving you are hoping to earn a place of a servant in the kingdom of Jesus Christ. No, you serve Jesus Christ, Sovereign and Lord, because he has made you his servant, his own.

The same idea applies to God the Father. To do the things the Father wants you to do, hoping that you will become his child doesn’t make any sense. You do the things God the Father wants you to do because you are his son through Jesus Christ.

God has called you means he has chosen you in the past to reveal himself to you through his Son Jesus Christ. The fact that God has called you and you’ve responded to his choice of you, you are now loved by him as your Father and you are kept by Jesus Christ. Do you have this certainty of being called by the Father, loved by God the Father through Jesus Christ and how you will be kept by Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit?

Do you know that your past, your present and your future are all secured by God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit? My prayer is that you do know this. And, if you don’t have the conviction of being called and loved by God and preserved by Jesus, my prayer is that you do know this tonight. I pray that you experience God’s touch.

When you know that you are called, loved and will be preserved, your fight for the faith takes a different shape. You don’t fight for the faith out of doubts about your standing before God. You fight for the faith because you love God who loves you in Christ. Contending for your faith becomes simply an expression of your committed love for God who is in charge of your past for he called you, who is in charge of your present for he loves you, who is in charge of your future for his Son will keep you.

Look down with me to Jude 24. “To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy- to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore.”

Although the great theme of Jude is about you and I contending, fighting for the faith, ever greater overarching theme of Christian life that is vividly expressed in these two verses is that God is contending to keep you; he is fighting to keep you from falling; he is fighting to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy.

The call to contend, to fight for the faith is only possible because it is God who first called us, loves us and will keep us and present us to his presence as righteous sons and daughters through Jesus Christ. This is what it means to fight for the faith, to simply respond to God in your love for him who fights for you, who loves you, who is committed to you.

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[1] Louw & Nida, epagwnizomai (39.30).