Show Notes
Jude
Pastor Christopher Chelpka
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Let's pray together.
[00:00:05] Our Father in Heaven, we ask that you would bless us now as we continue to rejoice in our hearts for the forgiveness that you have given us, the redemption that we have in Christ, the grace that has been poured out on us, that we might live and that we might live in the joy of your salvation.
[00:00:28] Lord, as we rejoice, we continue to pray and ask that you would bless us in the hearing of your word.
[00:00:36] Lord, we ask that you would help us not to be filled with pride so that we might have closed ears.
[00:00:46] We ask that the flesh and the anger that we wells up in our hearts and demands our own way and wants our own things, that you would set it aside, that you would even put it to death in us, that we might hear your Word be strengthened and comforted in our own lives and in the life of the church.
[00:01:10] Lord, we thank you for the goodness of your revelation.
[00:01:16] We thank you for your faithfulness, that is, to every generation.
[00:01:21] We ask that you would help us to hear it now, that you would bless the reading and preaching of your word. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:01:31] Well, we finished with Ruth last week and we're starting Revelation next week. So today I'd like to preach from the book of Jude, if you would turn there with me.
[00:01:43] This is the one short letter right before the Book of Revelation.
[00:02:03] Here Jude writes, servant of Jesus Christ.
[00:02:09] He writes to the church and he says, I wanted to talk to you about our common salvation. This is in verse three.
[00:02:18] But there's a pressing matter that needs to be discussed. And that's what the letter is about.
[00:02:24] A danger that is facing that church and a danger that is present throughout times and in some ways has always been present, but especially here in these last times. And so, and when we hear Jude's letter to the saints, we hear Jude's letter, the Spirit's letter to us as well. So let's give our attention to it.
[00:02:50] Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are called beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ.
[00:03:01] May mercy, peace and love be multiplied to you, beloved.
[00:03:08] 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.
[00:03:21] For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation.
[00:03:28] Ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:03:38] I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe and the angels, who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling. He is kept in eternal chains and their gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.
[00:04:01] 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.
[00:04:17] Yet in like manner, these people, also relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones.
[00:04:29] 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.
[00:04:40] But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively.
[00:04:51] Woe to them.
[00:04:52] 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.
[00:05:00] These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, and they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves, waterless clouds swept along by winds, fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead uprooted wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame, wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.
[00:05:27] It was about these that Enoch the seventh from Adam prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with 10,000 of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way.
[00:05:45] And of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him, these are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires, their loudmouth boasters showing favoritism to gain advantage.
[00:06:01] But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, they said to you in the last time, there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions.
[00:06:14] It is these who cause divisions, worldly people devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up in the most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, that leads to an eternal that leads to eternal life.
[00:06:34] And have mercy on those who doubt. Save others by snatching them out of the fire to show mercy to others. Show mercy with fear, hating Even the garment stained by the flesh.
[00:06:46] 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 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority before all time, and now forever. Amen.
[00:07:08] Please be seated.
[00:07:30] So generally.
[00:07:31] Generally, it's easier to deal with a danger that you can see, that you know about, that you're aware of.
[00:07:40] And the church was like that, right? If the. If a danger is coming your way, you're aware of it, you know about it, right? You can be ready to fight against it, you can stand guard against it, you can flee it if necessary.
[00:07:54] And this is.
[00:07:57] This is a very straightforward way, right, of what we do with danger.
[00:08:02] But what if you don't see it?
[00:08:05] It's easier to handle danger that you know about. You can detect, you know what's going on.
[00:08:11] And they knew about it.
[00:08:13] They knew that these things would happen. Verse 18 tells us, in the last time, there will be scoffers. As the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ prophesied, or predicted, and following their ungodly passions, they were warned against it. And yet Jude says these people in verse four crept in unnoticed.
[00:08:34] Later he calls them in verse 12, hidden reefs at your love feasts.
[00:08:41] We went fishing this summer, and we went in a lake where there were basically a forest, forest under the lake. This was not in Arizona.
[00:08:52] There was a forest under the lake. And as the boat moved, we were constantly wondering what was just below, right, Just below the boat.
[00:09:02] It's like this in their community.
[00:09:04] They're worshiping the Lord. They're gathering together. But there are hidden dangers, people that had crept in unnoticed.
[00:09:13] Jude says in the letter that they were the cause of divisions in the church.
[00:09:20] How is it that they weren't being spotted?
[00:09:25] How is it that this was going undetected? It's like they had been told, stand watch, stand guard at the door. And then all of a sudden, you find out that they're behind you and already in the house.
[00:09:36] And not just one or two, but multiple people. A great danger was happening in the church, and it was actively causing problems. The specific one is divisions that's being mentioned, but there are so many more that are even fairly obvious from the letter.
[00:09:57] How do you miss something like that?
[00:10:00] How do you miss when you've been warned and told, as it says, there will be scoffers following their own ungodly passions? You think that will be easy to notice? Look for someone who's scoffing at the Faith and following their own ungodly passions doesn't sound that hard to detect.
[00:10:22] But Jude tells us how it was happening. He tells us in verse four, he says, they pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ.
[00:10:44] Fake grace, false grace, a false gospel. That kind of sounded like the real thing, but really wasn't.
[00:10:55] Counterfeits, right? Counterfeits are hidden.
[00:11:00] They're purposely intended to deceive, to trick you. They don't come and say, look, this is fake and you should reject it, right? It comes in a tricky way. And that's what was happening here.
[00:11:14] Grace, the mercy and kindness that God gives to people that don't deserve it. Grace, God's forgiveness. Grace, God's love poured out on us when we have not earned it, when we don't deserve it. Grace that saves us from our sins. Grace that. That leads us into joy and communion. Grace that leads us into a restored relationship with God. Grace that leads us into new life where we're no longer slaves of our passions, slaves of our flesh, slaves of sin.
[00:11:48] That grace, they were perverting into something.
[00:11:54] They were taking that message of God's goodness and his salvation and his redemption and twisting it into sensuality, twisting it into sensuality and denying the lordship of Jesus that He is our only master and Lord.
[00:12:17] They were taking this message of grace and doing what people have sadly, often done with it and said, because you have been given God's grace, you can do what you want now with your mind, with your money, with your time, with your body. You can love Jesus as your Savior, but you don't need to worry about him as your master.
[00:12:39] You don't need to follow him as your Lord.
[00:12:44] This lie is tricky to miss because it's a counterfeit, because it's kind of true with the emphasis on the kind of right. It's true in that you hear, God forgives people, God shows mercy.
[00:13:03] God looks over former sins. God doesn't hold these things against you. Those are all biblical things, things we rejoice at, things that make our hearts happy, things that give us relief, reasons why we go forgive other people. That's all really good. And they were saying it.
[00:13:23] They were saying those things.
[00:13:25] The problem, though, is the half truth in saying the truth, in some ways saying the truth about the grace of God. They were then twisting it and twisting it to say that the result of this forgiveness, the result of the grace, means that then you can go and sin.
[00:13:45] Paul addresses this in Romans 6, and he says, shall we Go and sin more so that grace can abound. By no means, right. Part of the salvation that we have received is so that we can now walk in the works that God has prepared for us.
[00:14:03] So that we can live lives of freedom no longer enslaved to our sin. So that we no longer have to be a people that are enslaved by these things and producing works that hurt other people, hurt ourselves, hurt people that we love.
[00:14:23] If you forget about sin, if you forget the effects that sin has in our lives and on other people. Jude can sound just really mean.
[00:14:35] If you think of people as basically being generally good and that the people he's talking about are, you know, just trying to get on with their lives and stuff. And Jude is just coming at him with all of these names and all of these descriptions. And it can sound really mean.
[00:14:51] But if we hear what he's saying, believe what he's saying, that there were people in the church who were doing dangerous things and living ungodly lives. And that ungodliness is not just a kind of preference on how we live, that ungodliness is not just one lifestyle choice among many. Some people choose to obey, some people don't. Right?
[00:15:14] But ungodliness is dangerous.
[00:15:18] It hurts us. It hurts other people.
[00:15:21] His word does not come as just being mean. His word comes as a warning.
[00:15:27] A word of protection. A word that says, watch out.
[00:15:32] If you found out that there was something in your body, whether that's cancer or some system that was not working properly, you would want to know about it.
[00:15:43] If there was some.
[00:15:45] Some pollution or poisoning in the air or in your food, and you didn't know, and somebody said there that food is bad, that food is rotten, right? They're not being mean, being loving, and you want them to speak clearly about it, to snatch you out of the fire, to rush in and. And. And address that issue. And that's what he's. He's doing here. He's helping these Christians to see what they have missed.
[00:16:16] He's helping them to see that there are people among them, people not outside of the church, but people in the church. A hidden danger, a counterfeit danger that's preaching a gospel that's not the gospel.
[00:16:32] They're saying it's good news. And it's not good news, it's bad news. It's dangerous news. It's causing divisions, it's creating problems and worse.
[00:16:46] So this generates a question.
[00:16:49] If the danger is hidden, how can we be safe from it?
[00:16:54] If it's something that sometimes we miss and sometimes we don't notice? How can we avoid it?
[00:17:00] What do we do? And this is what Jude answers.
[00:17:05] The answer is at the beginning and the end of the book.
[00:17:09] And that's what we'll spend the rest of our time thinking about.
[00:17:12] The answer is that Jesus Himself keeps His people from the threat that he warns them of.
[00:17:20] Look how he addresses them in the very beginning to those who are called beloved in God and kept for Jesus Christ. Kept by who?
[00:17:30] Kept by God.
[00:17:32] And we'll look at this more in a minute.
[00:17:36] We see that Jesus is the one who keeps us against the threat he warns us of. And we want to think about how he does that.
[00:17:44] First, he warns us of what the counterfeit looks like.
[00:17:48] Second, he holds us in Himself.
[00:17:51] And third, he sends us back after others who are sinking, others who need to be snatched and cared for.
[00:18:01] So let's think about each of these first. Let's start with counterfeit training. Right. You are now in class.
[00:18:09] We are going to learn how to detect the falseness that was being preached here. We've already started. Right. First of all is to notice that there's a perversion that happens. A perversion that happens with the Gospel.
[00:18:26] It's a theological thing that we've talked about. A theological thing in which the Scriptures tell us something true about God. That God saves us not unto works of unrighteousness, but he saves us unto works of righteousness.
[00:18:43] Now, that doesn't mean that the righteous works that we do kind of keep us in salvation or somehow earn us our salvation at the end. It just means that this is the path, the kind of life, the way of life that God has prepared for us.
[00:19:00] Heaven.
[00:19:01] Right? Heaven is not just beautiful things and glorious things. Heaven is not just peace and safety. Heaven is also holiness.
[00:19:12] The opportunity to live our lives without the pressure of. Of sin, without the battle against the flesh. An opportunity and a realized opportunity when the Lord returns, that we can live as the people that he made us to be. People in his image, people made to be in fellowship with him and with one another.
[00:19:38] Holiness, goodness, life.
[00:19:43] What these people are leading into and emphasizing is not that. And we see it in their actions.
[00:19:51] He talks about ungodly things, ungodly deeds, in many different ways and places.
[00:19:59] One place we can look up, we can look and see this in. We've seen it in verse four, but we can also see it in, for example, verses 12 through 13. 12, 13.
[00:20:10] He says, these are hidden reefs at your love feasts, and they feast with you without fear. In other words, they know what they're doing and they don't care.
[00:20:20] They just go for it.
[00:20:22] They are shepherds feeding themselves.
[00:20:27] Waterless clouds swept along by winds. Fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead uprooted wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame. Wandering stars from whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.
[00:20:42] They're described also in verse 16. These are grumblers, malcontents following their own sinful desires. They are loud mouth boasters showing favoritism to gain advantage.
[00:20:56] In verse 8 we read that they blaspheme the glorious ones. What does this mean? It's likely a meaning, and we see this in Second Peter as well, of somebody basically saying bad things, slanderous things about God's. About the spiritual creatures God has made, even the unclean ones.
[00:21:19] It's a remarkable thing.
[00:21:21] How do you slander a demon?
[00:21:25] What could anybody possibly say is good about them, right? It's not about saying something good about unclean spirits.
[00:21:34] It's about saying the truth about them.
[00:21:38] If we blow off and say that there are not real powers and they don't have real danger, that Satan, for example, doesn't prowl around like a roaring lion, that he is not in fact dangerous and poses real danger to his people, these are ways in which we blaspheme the glorious ones.
[00:22:00] And Jude's argument here, which I won't get into too much further, although we can talk about it later, is that even Michael, this archangel, when talking with the devil, even he didn't slander the devil, but instead said, the Lord rebuke you. But these people, they don't care.
[00:22:21] They say whatever they want. They do whatever they want against God, against other men, against.
[00:22:27] They don't care about their sin. They don't care about the dangers that are opposed, that are dangerous to them. They defile flesh, Jude says, they reject authority, they reason to their own destruction. On and on it goes.
[00:22:46] One more verse seven. 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.
[00:23:03] These are people who say, don't worry about it, just live your life. Do what you want, love what you want, love whom you want. Go where you want. Spend your time how you want, spend your money how you want. Care about what it's really about you.
[00:23:18] It's really about living your life to the way that you see. Don't worry about what the Lord says.
[00:23:25] Don't worry about its effect on other People you do you.
[00:23:37] It is a perverting the grace of God into sensuality, pursuing, using the grace of God as a false reason to then go pursue the desires of the flesh.
[00:23:53] Sexual immorality being one of the ones that is listed in all of this.
[00:24:03] We have our training, this kind of ungodliness. And it's not the ungodliness of people who struggle like we all do.
[00:24:13] It's not the ungodliness of everybody who's who. Who falls, which we all do. It's not the ungodliness of seasons of life where we get really kind of wander off the path.
[00:24:27] It's the kind of ungodliness that is doubling down, that says, I follow Christ, you should follow Christ, and then does whatever they want.
[00:24:42] It's a very particular kind of danger. It's a danger that comes not from outside of the church in terms of institutions and membership and these kinds of things. It's a danger that comes from inside the church.
[00:24:56] There's one other thing I really want to spend a moment on as we get our counterfeit training here.
[00:25:03] And it's this way in which Jude talks in 12 through 13, in which I read.
[00:25:10] It's a bunch of empty promises, waterless clouds. Oh, right. This is the right year to talk about this. Right time of year. The clouds appear in the sky. It's always raining somewhere else, right? And here they come.
[00:25:24] Here they come. Is it going to rain over my house? And they're heavy and they're big, and they just go away every time. Okay, not every time, but. But that's the metaphor that he uses to describe this kind of person.
[00:25:39] This kind of person that calls themselves a Christian, calls themselves a brother. Promises everything, and then just nothing ever happens. They go their own way.
[00:25:52] They're like winds. They toss you all around and then all that's left is foam. They're like trees that just don't produce anything. They keep being trees or looking like trees. There they are, and they've got their big branches and there's all this talk and then no fruit.
[00:26:14] Shepherds feeding themselves.
[00:26:17] Ezekiel has some really intense images about this when he talks about the shepherds of Israel gorging themselves on the sheep instead of caring for them.
[00:26:29] Sometimes these people are our pastors.
[00:26:33] Sometimes these people are our friends, our family members.
[00:26:40] These are hard things.
[00:26:45] One way that the Lord protects us is by warning us, telling us, waking us up, and helping us to see and to be aware.
[00:26:54] The other thing he does, as I began to mention, is he holds us instead of being devoid of the Spirit. He has given us the Spirit for discernment, for prayer.
[00:27:05] We are beloved by God, he says multiple times. We are kept by Jesus Christ.
[00:27:12] This should be a great comfort to you, beloved as the Lord's beloved.
[00:27:21] People listen to the description of your Savior who holds you.
[00:27:26] We find it in the doxology at the end.
[00:27:29] Now, to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, praise God and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory.
[00:27:38] Praise God with great joy. Praise God. To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and authority before all time and now and forevermore. Amen.
[00:27:51] Someone who can take me. Talking about Mimi. Someone who can take me and present this guy blameless before the eternally glorious, perfectly holy God is someone to be praised.
[00:28:11] Someone that can keep me from stumbling in this life and then bring me to the end and. And say, here he is.
[00:28:20] I did it.
[00:28:23] That's an amazing thing because I know my heart and I suspect some of you know your hearts and know that a God who does that is a God who is amazing and a God who is worthy of praise and a God who shows you a lot of grace indeed. To him be glory and majesty and dominion and authority before all time, now and forevermore. To him be all praise. To him be all glories. To him be obedience.
[00:28:57] He is our Lord. He is our Savior. Why would we not follow Him? We must follow him.
[00:29:07] Not so that we can be saved or save ourselves, but because we are saved.
[00:29:14] Because we love him, because he first loved us.
[00:29:22] Jesus does this not only at the end of time, but, you know, he's already secured that through his death on the cross.
[00:29:31] He's already laid down his life. God sent Jesus into the world to die for the sins that we commit. All the ungodliness, all the sensual, all the pride, all the anger, all these things that are in us, he's already given his life for and paid that price perfectly and fully to redeem a people for Himself.
[00:29:54] This is what he came to do. To give us life and to give it abundantly.
[00:29:59] You can guarantee that the work Jesus has done is not in vain.
[00:30:04] And he will bring us to perfect completion at the end. He can keep us, and he is keeping us. He will keep us.
[00:30:15] And in all of this, we'll end with this. Not only does he warn us, not only does he promise to hold us, to keep us, to be at work within us, but he even promises to use us to help others.
[00:30:28] And we see that in these verses in 22 and 23, when he says, have mercy on those who doubt. Save others by snatching them out of the fire to others, show mercy with fear.
[00:30:45] This gives us an important distinction, which we don't have time to spend much time on here. But it's important to notice that there's two different kinds of people that Jude is talking about here.
[00:30:57] There are Christians who struggle, Christians who doubt, Christians who are nearing the fire and need to be snatched from it.
[00:31:08] That's a group of people.
[00:31:10] There's a different group of people who are false Christians.
[00:31:15] These are not people who are struggling. These are not people who are wandering. These are people who are pretending like the waterless clouds, like the trees.
[00:31:26] They're deceiving, they're tricking. These are different groups of people.
[00:31:32] And that's why Paul will say something like in First Corinthians 5, 9, 11, where he warns that we shouldn't associate even. This is a hard word. We shouldn't associate even with someone who calls themselves brother, but then lives in this way.
[00:31:52] But notice what he says in there.
[00:31:54] He says, I'm not talking. He says, this is First Corinthians 5. He says, I'm not a talk meaning at all the sexually immoral of this world or greedy, or the swindlers or idolaters. Since then you would need to go out of the world.
[00:32:08] He's talking instead about the people that Jude is talking about.
[00:32:12] So there's a distinction.
[00:32:14] There's a distinction here.
[00:32:18] How do we manage these things? How do we know what's what? How do we know what to do, how to care for people, how to show mercy, how to plead with people, how to be compassionate and gentle and gracious and all these sorts of things.
[00:32:32] It can be difficult, but remember who our Lord is.
[00:32:37] Remember his character, remember his promises, remember what he is doing.
[00:32:44] He gives us these warnings so that we can trust in him and help others, so that we can trust in him and give mercy to those who doubt and to come when those who are in need and to act, to act quickly.
[00:33:02] There's more that we can say, and I hope that you will have a lot to discuss over lunch.
[00:33:09] But I want to leave you by reminding you that, yes, this kind of false gospel and false grace exists.
[00:33:18] Yes, it's a danger in the world, and yes, it appears in these last times, the same times in which we live as these early Christians.
[00:33:28] In it all, we have to remember, most importantly, that it is Jesus who is our Lord.
[00:33:36] He is our provider. He is the one who guides us. He is our protector and he's our Savior. He gives to us a grace that we don't deserve. And he promises to keep us to the very end.
[00:33:48] We can turn from our sins. We can turn to him in our struggles, we can turn to him in our weaknesses. We can turn to him in our fear. And he promises to take care of us and to even use us for the blessing and salvation of others.
[00:34:05] And so let us not fear, but let us love the Lord and put our faith in him.
[00:34:14] Let's pray.
[00:34:16] Our Heavenly Father, we ask for your blessing on us as we seek to live our lives as your people that are grounded in your grace.
[00:34:29] Help us not to be people who pervert the grace of God into sexual immorality, who pervert the grace of God into sensuality. Oh, Lord, how terrible that would be and how horrible it is when we do it. We confess our own sins. Lord. We are not in any place to be prideful, to be looking down on other people.
[00:34:51] We submit ourselves to you, Lord. We humble our hearts and know the struggles, the temptations that are in us, the ways in which we think that we want and do sometimes go our own way.
[00:35:07] And so, Lord, this is why we pray to you and ask that you would show mercy on us, that mercy, peace and love would be multiplied to us, Lord, that you would protect us from the evil one who seeks to use even the truths of the gospel to lead us astray.
[00:35:30] Lord, we ask that you would do this by your almighty power and indeed to you be all glory and majesty and dominion and authority now and forevermore.
[00:35:40] You have our hearts.
[00:35:42] We pray this in Jesus name, our only Savior. Amen.
