It puzzles me at the start of a service
how should a minister address a congregation
We noticed that some mission teams from the North
addressed people as “Folks!”
which drew puzzled faces
whereas people in Cork say “Lads” and that includes women.
“Ladies and Gentlemen” sounds too formal.
“People” sounds a bit left wing.
Often in church we use “friends”
but you’ll notice that Jude
in the reading in NIV and many modern versions
speaks of “dear friends”
But to get into the root of what is meant
we need to be daring and say
“beloved” “loved ones” recipients of “agape”
God’s sacrificial committed covenant love in Christ.
If we get nothing else from this service
I pray that we each go away
with that word echoing in our minds and hearts.
“beloved” “loved”
Loved with everlasting love.
The word much loved, dearly loved is the word in Greek “agapetos’
and it is used in the New Testament over 60 times.
For our first reading today we shall read a few of the occurrences.
Something that in the gospels the Father says of his Son Jesus
Matthew 3:17 at his baptism
“…a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
how should a minister address a congregation
We noticed that some mission teams from the North
addressed people as “Folks!”
which drew puzzled faces
whereas people in Cork say “Lads” and that includes women.
“Ladies and Gentlemen” sounds too formal.
“People” sounds a bit left wing.
Often in church we use “friends”
but you’ll notice that Jude
in the reading in NIV and many modern versions
speaks of “dear friends”
But to get into the root of what is meant
we need to be daring and say
“beloved” “loved ones” recipients of “agape”
God’s sacrificial committed covenant love in Christ.
If we get nothing else from this service
I pray that we each go away
with that word echoing in our minds and hearts.
“beloved” “loved”
Loved with everlasting love.
The word much loved, dearly loved is the word in Greek “agapetos’
and it is used in the New Testament over 60 times.
For our first reading today we shall read a few of the occurrences.
Something that in the gospels the Father says of his Son Jesus
Matthew 3:17 at his baptism
“…a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
Matthew 12:18 a quotation from Isaiah
“Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved,
in whom my soul is well pleased: “
At his Transfiguration
“Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved,
in whom my soul is well pleased: “
At his Transfiguration
Matthew 17:5
“a voice out of the cloud, which said,
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him.
In the parable of the vineyard in Luke 20:13
Then said the lord of the vineyard, What shall I do?
“a voice out of the cloud, which said,
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him.
In the parable of the vineyard in Luke 20:13
Then said the lord of the vineyard, What shall I do?
I will send my beloved son:
God the Father has a relationship of the deepest love with God the Son
and in the power of the holy Spirit that love is shared with you and me
As Paul wrote in Ephesians 1.6
“To the praise of the glory of his grace,
in which he has made us accepted in the beloved.”
And if we are accepted in the much loved Jesus Christ
it follows that you and I
are to accept each other and love each other very much
God the Father has a relationship of the deepest love with God the Son
and in the power of the holy Spirit that love is shared with you and me
As Paul wrote in Ephesians 1.6
“To the praise of the glory of his grace,
in which he has made us accepted in the beloved.”
And if we are accepted in the much loved Jesus Christ
it follows that you and I
are to accept each other and love each other very much
1 John 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God,
and it does not yet appear what we shall be:
but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him;
for we shall see him as he is.
and it does not yet appear what we shall be:
but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him;
for we shall see him as he is.
1 John 3:21 Beloved, if our heart condemn us not,
then have we confidence toward God.
then have we confidence toward God.
1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God;
and every one that loves is born of God, and knows God.
and every one that loves is born of God, and knows God.
Jude 1 - 25
1 Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James,
To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for[b] Jesus Christ:
2 May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.
Judgment on False Teachers
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.
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.
I found it necessary to write
appealing to you to contend for the faith
that was once for all delivered to the saints.
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.
5 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.
6 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— 7 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.
that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt,
afterward destroyed those who did not believe.
6 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— 7 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.
8 Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams,
defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.
9 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.”
10 But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand,
and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals,
understand instinctively.
defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.
9 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.”
10 But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand,
and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals,
understand instinctively.
11 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.
12 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;
13 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.
and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error
and perished in Korah's rebellion.
12 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;
13 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.
14 It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, “Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones,
15 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.”
16 These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires;
they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favouritism to gain advantage.
15 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.”
16 These are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires;
they are loud-mouthed boasters, showing favouritism to gain advantage.
A Call to Persevere
17 But you must remember, beloved,
the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.
18 They said to you,
“In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.”19 It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.
the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ.
18 They said to you,
“In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.”19 It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.
20 But you, beloved,
building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit,
21 keep yourselves in the love of God,
waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.
22 And have mercy on those who doubt;
23 save others by snatching them out of the fire;
to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment ]stained by the flesh.
building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit,
21 keep yourselves in the love of God,
waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.
22 And have mercy on those who doubt;
23 save others by snatching them out of the fire;
to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment ]stained by the flesh.
Doxology
24 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, 25 to the only God, our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever.
Amen.
and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25 to the only God, our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever.
Amen.
I don’t know if you do “Messy Church” here
in the sense of getting parents and children together
to encounter the Bible through crafts and all sorts of messy stuff
a creative way of doing “Sunday School”
which involves the whole family.
There is a sense in which every church is already messy, messed up
because the lives of Christians are messy, dysfunctional, conflicted.
We say one thing and do another,
other people let us down, we let other people down
and life doesn’t seem as simple as it once did.
The letter of Jude reassures us that messy church is nothing new.
Were you struck by the contrasts, as we read it?
The beauty of keeping yourself in the love of God, 21
and of God keeping us from falling and presenting us perfect
and the ugliness of e.g. v 4 of godless men,
in the sense of getting parents and children together
to encounter the Bible through crafts and all sorts of messy stuff
a creative way of doing “Sunday School”
which involves the whole family.
There is a sense in which every church is already messy, messed up
because the lives of Christians are messy, dysfunctional, conflicted.
We say one thing and do another,
other people let us down, we let other people down
and life doesn’t seem as simple as it once did.
The letter of Jude reassures us that messy church is nothing new.
Were you struck by the contrasts, as we read it?
The beauty of keeping yourself in the love of God, 21
and of God keeping us from falling and presenting us perfect
and the ugliness of e.g. v 4 of godless men,
who change the grace of our God into a licence for immorality
and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.
Please don’t put yourselves off with the bits of Jude which are scary
“clouds without rain”
“autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted— twice dead.”
“wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame;”
“wandering stars …”
but do note how contemporary it still is.
v16
“These men are grumblers and fault-finders; they follow their own evil desires;
they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.”
Does that not have social media written all over it?
Messy church.
Unholy, ungodly, grumbling, divisive and dividing messy church.
Jude gives the wonderful ultimate answer to messed up church and messed up lives.
That very beautiful and key word
by which Jude and the other New Testament writers describe Christian people.
Jude uses it three times (vv 3,17,20).
That rich, deep word “Beloved"
used, as we saw earlier, of Jesus in his relationship with God
is also used of Christians in their relationships with each other and with God.
Is there a shorter and more powerful description of the gospel than
“beloved” “much loved”?
You can sum up Martin Luther’s story in that word.
Scared of God, living without peace, trying to please him by being a monk
and getting nowhere until he realised the wonderful liberating truth
that we simply trust the Saviour whose death fulfils the penalty for our sin.
Then he knew beyond all doubt that God loved him and he was able to love him, freely.
And not just Luther, you and I are God’s beloved.
I hope and pray that you get that
not at all to say that we different from Roman Catholic people
and somehow proudly better than them
but as simply a reality that you come before God as “accepted in the beloved”
and in no other way
that your worth, your identity, your true security
lies in him who loved you and gave himself for you.
I wonder how many of us Ulster Prods really get that liberating truth.
We live by working hard and doing right and trying to be a good person
but we miss the motive power for all those good things
which is to know and keep ourselves in the love of God
and go by what he thinks of us
rather than what we think of us
and still less by what other people think of us.
Exam results are in the air this week
and I suppose we need them as a necessary evil.
But let no-one here become proud because you or someone close to you did well
and let no-one become distraught because you didn’t do well.
Your ultimate, eternal worth does not depend on doing well in exams
no more than it depends on people liking your Facebook posts,
your ultimate worth depends on being a beloved of God.
Jude contrasts the beloved believers with some people, false teachers,
who were twisting and corrupting Christian faith.
Some were even saying
because you are forgiven by God you can live as you please
which is a sad and deadly twisting of the wonderful truth of being freely loved by God.
4 For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago
have secretly slipped in among you.
They are godless men,
who change the grace of our God into a licence for immorality
and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.
There’s a huge difference between liberty in the grace of our God
and a licence for immorality.
The first sets us free to please God
the second gives us the false freedom of pleasing ourselves
which leads to the wrong kind of messy church
In a messed up church
people are into religion more than relationship with Jesus,
they show more of themselves than they do of Jesus,
they can talk well but don’t walk well.
grumblers, fault finders, negative, divisive.
Could that be true of you and me?
We all love to sing “What a friend we have in Jesus!”
but what kind of a friend is Jesus to us or we to him?
A close friend, a dear, beloved friend
or not much more than one of a hundred Facebook “friends”?
We so need to hear what Jude writes to the "beloved" in vv 20-21
A literal translation goes like this
“building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit,
keep yourselves in God's love … ”
The main thing here is in the command in v21
"Keep yourselves in God's love "
and what Jude writes both before and after it
helps to explain what it means and how we do keep ourselves in God’s love.
We can sum it up in three short words: Building Praying Waiting
Build! “build yourselves up in your most holy faith.”
and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.
Please don’t put yourselves off with the bits of Jude which are scary
“clouds without rain”
“autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted— twice dead.”
“wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame;”
“wandering stars …”
but do note how contemporary it still is.
v16
“These men are grumblers and fault-finders; they follow their own evil desires;
they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.”
Does that not have social media written all over it?
Messy church.
Unholy, ungodly, grumbling, divisive and dividing messy church.
Jude gives the wonderful ultimate answer to messed up church and messed up lives.
That very beautiful and key word
by which Jude and the other New Testament writers describe Christian people.
Jude uses it three times (vv 3,17,20).
That rich, deep word “Beloved"
used, as we saw earlier, of Jesus in his relationship with God
is also used of Christians in their relationships with each other and with God.
Is there a shorter and more powerful description of the gospel than
“beloved” “much loved”?
You can sum up Martin Luther’s story in that word.
Scared of God, living without peace, trying to please him by being a monk
and getting nowhere until he realised the wonderful liberating truth
that we simply trust the Saviour whose death fulfils the penalty for our sin.
Then he knew beyond all doubt that God loved him and he was able to love him, freely.
And not just Luther, you and I are God’s beloved.
I hope and pray that you get that
not at all to say that we different from Roman Catholic people
and somehow proudly better than them
but as simply a reality that you come before God as “accepted in the beloved”
and in no other way
that your worth, your identity, your true security
lies in him who loved you and gave himself for you.
I wonder how many of us Ulster Prods really get that liberating truth.
We live by working hard and doing right and trying to be a good person
but we miss the motive power for all those good things
which is to know and keep ourselves in the love of God
and go by what he thinks of us
rather than what we think of us
and still less by what other people think of us.
Exam results are in the air this week
and I suppose we need them as a necessary evil.
But let no-one here become proud because you or someone close to you did well
and let no-one become distraught because you didn’t do well.
Your ultimate, eternal worth does not depend on doing well in exams
no more than it depends on people liking your Facebook posts,
your ultimate worth depends on being a beloved of God.
Jude contrasts the beloved believers with some people, false teachers,
who were twisting and corrupting Christian faith.
Some were even saying
because you are forgiven by God you can live as you please
which is a sad and deadly twisting of the wonderful truth of being freely loved by God.
4 For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago
have secretly slipped in among you.
They are godless men,
who change the grace of our God into a licence for immorality
and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.
There’s a huge difference between liberty in the grace of our God
and a licence for immorality.
The first sets us free to please God
the second gives us the false freedom of pleasing ourselves
which leads to the wrong kind of messy church
In a messed up church
people are into religion more than relationship with Jesus,
they show more of themselves than they do of Jesus,
they can talk well but don’t walk well.
grumblers, fault finders, negative, divisive.
Could that be true of you and me?
We all love to sing “What a friend we have in Jesus!”
but what kind of a friend is Jesus to us or we to him?
A close friend, a dear, beloved friend
or not much more than one of a hundred Facebook “friends”?
We so need to hear what Jude writes to the "beloved" in vv 20-21
A literal translation goes like this
“building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit,
keep yourselves in God's love … ”
The main thing here is in the command in v21
"Keep yourselves in God's love "
and what Jude writes both before and after it
helps to explain what it means and how we do keep ourselves in God’s love.
We can sum it up in three short words: Building Praying Waiting
Build! “build yourselves up in your most holy faith.”
Building is a purposeful activity over time.
When our son Peter was small he loved to build with Lego;
he built patiently, carefully, fitting each piece in,
making sure it would all hold together.
Isn’t that what good adult builders do?
Carefully planning and measuring at every stage,
to see that the lines are straight and the levels flat and the mixtures right
and it’s not going to fall down at the first puff of wind.
To build yourself up in your most holy faith
is to be doing constantly and consistently and carefully
the very things we promised
when we took our first steps as Christian disciples.
Take for instance some of the promises asked
of people seeking full membership of the Presbyterian Church:
to join faithfully with your fellow Christians in worship on the Lord's Day;
to be faithful in reading the Bible and in prayer;
to give a fitting proportion of your time, talents and money
for the Church's work in the world;
depending on the grace of God, to be unashamed to declare
that you are Christ's, to serve him in your daily work,
and to walk in his ways all the days of your life;
All of those commitments require that we are regular and disciplined
that we keep building
that we will keep going,
that we will be careful about the details of our lives
every day.
Maybe you’ve been to Portstewart or New Horizon or New Wine
or Summer Madness or Coleraine Assembly Bangor Worldwide
and you’ve been blessed, you got a spiritual high, and that’s great.
But what will you do on a wet Monday morning in the middle of November,
will you still be keeping yourself in the love of God?
God is looking for "a most holy faith"
not just a muttered commitment when we joined the church
or put our hand up at a gospel meeting
nor even something affirmed with great zeal and passion
at a moment of spiritual ecstasy at the summer convention.
God is looking for a faith that is "faithful" reliable, regular
which keeps doing the simple yet difficult daily building blocks of discipleship
such as prayer, church involvement, generosity, simple witness
which over time blossoms into a faith that is genuine, holy, Christlike
Praying “pray in the Holy Spirit”
What does it mean to pray in the Holy Spirit?
It’s not a question of whether you stand or sit or kneel.
It’s not a question of whether your prayers are short or long,
or whether you read prayers or pray your own.
It is all to do with, in whatever way you pray, how your heart is with God.
It means to pray in such a way
that you are genuinely, humbly, in touch with God your Father through Jesus
and that you are genuinely, humbly, open to other people.
To pray with a self righteous attitude which denies that you are in the wrong
is not to pray in the Holy Spirit.
To pray with self pity is not to pray in the Holy Spirit.
To pray with resentment about other people is not to pray in the Holy Spirit.
But to pray with thanksgiving even for small things,
that is to pray in the Holy Spirit.
To pray with passion for other people to find Jesus Christ,
that is to pray in the Holy Spirit,
to pray that God would bless the people you would naturally want to curse
that is to pray in the Holy Spirit.
To pray "not my will, Lord but yours"
that is to pray in the Holy Spirit.
Or when you pray simply wanting to deepen your friendship with Jesus Christ
that is to pray in the Holy Spirit.
As we patiently plug away building in detail our most holy faith
and as we pray more and more in the Holy Spirit
we will find that we will know more and more of the reality
of that precious title "beloved" "much loved".
And, as Frank Carson used to say “there’s more”
as well as building and praying there is “waiting”
waiting for God’s mercy and showing mercy,
but I hope you won’t mind waiting till next Sunday
for us to explore that truth.
But you as you wait, each morning this week, when you wake up
say to yourself
“I am deeply loved by God in Jesus and I want to explore that more deeply.”
I want to build up in faith, intentionally, patiently.
I want to pray in such a way as to truly communicate with God
and deepen that relationship into which he has invited me.
When our son Peter was small he loved to build with Lego;
he built patiently, carefully, fitting each piece in,
making sure it would all hold together.
Isn’t that what good adult builders do?
Carefully planning and measuring at every stage,
to see that the lines are straight and the levels flat and the mixtures right
and it’s not going to fall down at the first puff of wind.
To build yourself up in your most holy faith
is to be doing constantly and consistently and carefully
the very things we promised
when we took our first steps as Christian disciples.
Take for instance some of the promises asked
of people seeking full membership of the Presbyterian Church:
to join faithfully with your fellow Christians in worship on the Lord's Day;
to be faithful in reading the Bible and in prayer;
to give a fitting proportion of your time, talents and money
for the Church's work in the world;
depending on the grace of God, to be unashamed to declare
that you are Christ's, to serve him in your daily work,
and to walk in his ways all the days of your life;
All of those commitments require that we are regular and disciplined
that we keep building
that we will keep going,
that we will be careful about the details of our lives
every day.
Maybe you’ve been to Portstewart or New Horizon or New Wine
or Summer Madness or Coleraine Assembly Bangor Worldwide
and you’ve been blessed, you got a spiritual high, and that’s great.
But what will you do on a wet Monday morning in the middle of November,
will you still be keeping yourself in the love of God?
God is looking for "a most holy faith"
not just a muttered commitment when we joined the church
or put our hand up at a gospel meeting
nor even something affirmed with great zeal and passion
at a moment of spiritual ecstasy at the summer convention.
God is looking for a faith that is "faithful" reliable, regular
which keeps doing the simple yet difficult daily building blocks of discipleship
such as prayer, church involvement, generosity, simple witness
which over time blossoms into a faith that is genuine, holy, Christlike
Praying “pray in the Holy Spirit”
What does it mean to pray in the Holy Spirit?
It’s not a question of whether you stand or sit or kneel.
It’s not a question of whether your prayers are short or long,
or whether you read prayers or pray your own.
It is all to do with, in whatever way you pray, how your heart is with God.
It means to pray in such a way
that you are genuinely, humbly, in touch with God your Father through Jesus
and that you are genuinely, humbly, open to other people.
To pray with a self righteous attitude which denies that you are in the wrong
is not to pray in the Holy Spirit.
To pray with self pity is not to pray in the Holy Spirit.
To pray with resentment about other people is not to pray in the Holy Spirit.
But to pray with thanksgiving even for small things,
that is to pray in the Holy Spirit.
To pray with passion for other people to find Jesus Christ,
that is to pray in the Holy Spirit,
to pray that God would bless the people you would naturally want to curse
that is to pray in the Holy Spirit.
To pray "not my will, Lord but yours"
that is to pray in the Holy Spirit.
Or when you pray simply wanting to deepen your friendship with Jesus Christ
that is to pray in the Holy Spirit.
As we patiently plug away building in detail our most holy faith
and as we pray more and more in the Holy Spirit
we will find that we will know more and more of the reality
of that precious title "beloved" "much loved".
And, as Frank Carson used to say “there’s more”
as well as building and praying there is “waiting”
waiting for God’s mercy and showing mercy,
but I hope you won’t mind waiting till next Sunday
for us to explore that truth.
But you as you wait, each morning this week, when you wake up
say to yourself
“I am deeply loved by God in Jesus and I want to explore that more deeply.”
I want to build up in faith, intentionally, patiently.
I want to pray in such a way as to truly communicate with God
and deepen that relationship into which he has invited me.
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