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.
"There's nothing you can do that can't be done.
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.
Nothing you can say, but you can learn
How to play the game
It's easy."
Recognise the words? Understand them?
I think they reflect an idea that life is good and easy
because … the song goes on to say
"All you need is love, all you need is love,
All you need is love, love. Love is all you need."
Some of us are old enough to remember
when that song exemplified the “summer of love” in 1967.
and it has endured with its simple haunting tune and simple words
But is love simple? Is love easy?
I love 1 Corinthians 13 with its great descriptions of love
but the problem is: honestly we know we are not like that.
What is the love which is all that we need?
At the heart of the letter of Jude vv 20-21.
Jude says we are to keep ourselves in the love of God.
That raises a question which may help us.
Does “the love of God” mean that God loves us or that we are to love him?
Does our building up in faith and praying in the Holy Spirit and waiting for his mercy
mean that as we are faithful in discipleship and prayer
we find out more and more how much he loves us, “beloved” people?
Or are our discipleship and prayer and waiting for his mercy
ways for us to express how much we love him?
The answer is both but the second depends on the first.
We need more and more to enter deeply into the amazing reality of his love for us,
but part of that reality is that his love calls forth a responding love.
On Facebook pages someone says coyly
that he or she is “in a relationship”
For that to be true there has to be a response
otherwise the person claiming the relationship is at best a saddo and at worst a stalker.
Love implies two.
Yes, love is all we need
but true love as in 1 Corinthians 13 is utterly demanding.
We cannot begin to meet those demands without a conviction that God first loves us.
The “love of God” in which we are to keep ourselves is primarily God’s love for us
but it calls forth a responding love for him and for fellow human beings.
We’ll see this as we focus today on the last phrase in v 21
“as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life”
and the verses that follow
which outline how, having received mercy, we are to show mercy.
Why do we have to wait for the mercy of Christ.
Surely we already have this as soon as we trust in Jesus who died for us?
What we have now is an assurance, a confidence
that on the day of judgement we shall be declared “not guilty”.
Being a Christian has past, present and future dimensions.
At the Lord’s Supper, for example,
we look back, remembering Jesus that he died for us
and we celebrate his presence with us today.
But it is also a time of looking forward
of waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring us to eternal life
“for as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup
you … keep/proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes”
When Jesus comes again or we go to be with him.
then we shall know his grace and mercy
more fully and wonderfully than we can at present realise.
We saw earlier:
Grace is getting what you don’t deserve - God’s love and forgiveness
Mercy is not getting what you do deserve - God’s judgement
Rough and ready definitions
but the important thing is that you show practically the true meanings of grace and mercy
by living graciously and mercifully.
Does grace make you gracious?
Does mercy make you merciful?
Jude’s application challenges me:
“John, where’s your mercy?”
… have mercy on those who doubt;
save others by snatching them out of the fire;
to others show mercy with fear,
hating even the garment stained by the flesh.
Or in The Message Version
Go easy on those who hesitate in the faith.
Go after those who take the wrong way.
Be tender with sinners, but not soft on sin.
The sin itself stinks to high heaven.
What we see first is
Mercy with Gentleness … have mercy on those who doubt;
The older I get in ministry
the more I am struck by a great theme in the ministry of Jesus
and in the New Testament letters
the theme of gentleness to those who are struggling and hurt.
People who suffer often wonder
have they done something wrong, does God still love them?
They do not need a harsh lecture. They need gentle reminders
that God does love them, that Jesus did die for them.
People may indeed have done great wrong
and are wondering can they ever be forgiven.
They need to hear gentle servants of the gentle Jesus
who call the weary and the burdened to come to him and find rest
for his yoke is easy and his burden light.
More people are won for Jesus and won back to Jesus
by gentleness than by harsh condemnation.
and your minister is surely an embodiment of mercy with gentleness.
Mercy with Gentleness
Mercy to those under Condemnation
Here’s a bit of a puzzle:
Jude says
"save others by snatching them out of the fire"
but surely only God saves?
Of course salvation comes ultimately from God
but God has his agents on earth, you and me.
Heather met a woman the other day who said of a minister
“That man saved my husband’s life.”
A genuine, heartfelt, if theologically imprecise thing to say
and Jude would absolutely approve.
Starting with friendship through 5 a side football, encouragement, prayerful counsel
the minister helped this man to faith in Christ and to sort his life out
so much so she said he was helping that week with the church holiday bible club.
But what is this about snatching out of the fire?
A clue to this is found in
ZECHARIAH 3:1-4
1 Then he showed me Joshua the high priest
standing before the angel of the LORD,
and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him.
2 The LORD said to Satan, "The LORD rebuke you, Satan!
The LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you!
Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?"
3 Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel.
4 The angel said to those who were standing before him,
"Take off his filthy clothes."
Then he said to Joshua,
"See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you."
Do you see what is happening?
Joshua the high priest has sinned.
he is dressed in filthy clothes,
he deserves to be lost,
Satan is condemning him and claiming him.
But Joshua is described as a burning stick plucked out of the fire.
He is scorched, but not destroyed.
Do we realise how much we live in a spirit of condemnation?
Do we realise when we condemn we are doing the devil’s work?
But as John 3.17 says “God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world
but that the world might be saved through him.”
We who have received mercy should be merciful.
We who are not under condemnation should as the servants of Jesus
be in the business of saving people not condemning them.
But we are not to be stupid.
Mercy with Gentleness
Mercy to those under Condemnation
Mercy with Caution
“to others show mercy with fear,
hating even the garment stained by the flesh.”
Probably the reference to Zechariah is continued.
We cannot continue in filthy clothes.
The image is from the Jewish fear of contamination
by contact with a dead body.
Clothing so contaminated needed to be torn off and burned.
We need the balance that Jesus showed
of accepting people without approving of their sins.
I’ve been around the evangelical Christian scene long enough
to have met those whose clothing stinks to high heaven.
A Presbyterian elder convicted of crimes against children;
rightly he was sent to prison.
His crimes were dreadful, coming from a man so prominent in Christian work.
How the press condemned him: "beast" “worse than an animal” "monster".
Of course people were right to be angry with him,
especially those most closely affected
but we must not lose our perspective of "mercy with caution"
That man was still someone made in the image of God,
someone for whom Jesus died.
not be demonised as subhuman.
The question is
How does the church treat such people
professing Christians who have done disgraceful things?
Or a zealous bible believing Christian,
with a track record of moving from one church to another around the province
with a track record of shady financial dealings in each place.
Or a man currently in prison for a long long stretch
for a double murder and for abusing people in his professional care.
I knew this guy and thought him a pleasant Christian man.
I wonder now how once he is released and I meet him how I should treat him
or how the leaders of any church he might then seek to attend.
The answer is
just as Jesus said we should be innocent as doves and as shrewd as snakes
that we treat such folk
with both mercy and with caution.
A child abuser, a fraudster even a murderer
should still be welcomed in church
but should never be allowed again to work with children, or handle finances
or be allowed to manipulate in any degree.
We show mercy but we are very careful.
Knowing that the gospel is for great sinners we seek to befriend
but we also make it clear that we hate, as God hates, the dirty clothes.
We hate thieving. We hate abuse of the vulnerable. We hate murder and deceit.
And we hate what Jude called in v 4 the perversion of the gospel into “a licence for immorality”
deceiving others as well as themselves.
Showing mercy isn’t being soft on people;
it is rather, in a profound sense,
treating others as God in his mercy treats us
with kindness, without condemnation and also without gullibility.
Some things to reflect as we close:
Are we gracious but cautious
to those who have messed up big time
and have messed others up?
Could people say of us that we have saved someone’s life?
Could people say of us that we reflect the gentle mercy of Jesus ?
Are we waiting for God’s mercy to be revealed
that he will as Jude’s closing words say present us without fault and with great joy?
May God’s grace make us gracious.
May God’s mercy make us merciful.
and may we rest our hope on him who alone
can keep us from falling
and present us before him
without fault and with great joy.
Prayer
Yes Lord, all we need is your love
received and lived out in mercy and in wisdom
May we be so captured by your mercy
that we will just want to be merciful to others.
standing before the angel of the LORD,
and Satan standing at his right side to accuse him.
2 The LORD said to Satan, "The LORD rebuke you, Satan!
The LORD, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you!
Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?"
3 Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel.
4 The angel said to those who were standing before him,
"Take off his filthy clothes."
Then he said to Joshua,
"See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you."
Do you see what is happening?
Joshua the high priest has sinned.
he is dressed in filthy clothes,
he deserves to be lost,
Satan is condemning him and claiming him.
But Joshua is described as a burning stick plucked out of the fire.
He is scorched, but not destroyed.
Do we realise how much we live in a spirit of condemnation?
Do we realise when we condemn we are doing the devil’s work?
But as John 3.17 says “God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world
but that the world might be saved through him.”
We who have received mercy should be merciful.
We who are not under condemnation should as the servants of Jesus
be in the business of saving people not condemning them.
But we are not to be stupid.
Mercy with Gentleness
Mercy to those under Condemnation
Mercy with Caution
“to others show mercy with fear,
hating even the garment stained by the flesh.”
Probably the reference to Zechariah is continued.
We cannot continue in filthy clothes.
The image is from the Jewish fear of contamination
by contact with a dead body.
Clothing so contaminated needed to be torn off and burned.
We need the balance that Jesus showed
of accepting people without approving of their sins.
I’ve been around the evangelical Christian scene long enough
to have met those whose clothing stinks to high heaven.
A Presbyterian elder convicted of crimes against children;
rightly he was sent to prison.
His crimes were dreadful, coming from a man so prominent in Christian work.
How the press condemned him: "beast" “worse than an animal” "monster".
Of course people were right to be angry with him,
especially those most closely affected
but we must not lose our perspective of "mercy with caution"
That man was still someone made in the image of God,
someone for whom Jesus died.
not be demonised as subhuman.
The question is
How does the church treat such people
professing Christians who have done disgraceful things?
Or a zealous bible believing Christian,
with a track record of moving from one church to another around the province
with a track record of shady financial dealings in each place.
Or a man currently in prison for a long long stretch
for a double murder and for abusing people in his professional care.
I knew this guy and thought him a pleasant Christian man.
I wonder now how once he is released and I meet him how I should treat him
or how the leaders of any church he might then seek to attend.
The answer is
just as Jesus said we should be innocent as doves and as shrewd as snakes
that we treat such folk
with both mercy and with caution.
A child abuser, a fraudster even a murderer
should still be welcomed in church
but should never be allowed again to work with children, or handle finances
or be allowed to manipulate in any degree.
We show mercy but we are very careful.
Knowing that the gospel is for great sinners we seek to befriend
but we also make it clear that we hate, as God hates, the dirty clothes.
We hate thieving. We hate abuse of the vulnerable. We hate murder and deceit.
And we hate what Jude called in v 4 the perversion of the gospel into “a licence for immorality”
deceiving others as well as themselves.
Showing mercy isn’t being soft on people;
it is rather, in a profound sense,
treating others as God in his mercy treats us
with kindness, without condemnation and also without gullibility.
Some things to reflect as we close:
Are we gracious but cautious
to those who have messed up big time
and have messed others up?
Could people say of us that we have saved someone’s life?
Could people say of us that we reflect the gentle mercy of Jesus ?
Are we waiting for God’s mercy to be revealed
that he will as Jude’s closing words say present us without fault and with great joy?
May God’s grace make us gracious.
May God’s mercy make us merciful.
and may we rest our hope on him who alone
can keep us from falling
and present us before him
without fault and with great joy.
Prayer
Yes Lord, all we need is your love
received and lived out in mercy and in wisdom
May we be so captured by your mercy
that we will just want to be merciful to others.
Thank you John, a most humbling reminder.
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