In this sermon, Pastor Joe Babij examines Jude 20-21 and Jude’s exhortation to remain in the love of God. Pastor Babij explores what this phrase means practically according to Jude’s explanation:
A. By continuing to build (v. 20a)
B. By continuing to pray (v. 20b)
C. By continuing to wait (v. 21b)
Full Transcript:
Let’s take our Bibles and turn to the epistle of Jude. We have been looking at what the Bible teaches about false teachers. God’s people, because of it, can’t sit by the sidelines and be unaware of men and women who come into the church to seek to cause problems. There’s many teachers and pastors who do not believe the major teachings of Christianity. They do not exhibit righteous living. They do not understand the gospel, and therefore they are not saved, even though they portray themselves as being saved.
Remember, Satan plants tares in the church or weeds everywhere, even in the parable that was taught in Matthew chapter 13, where the landowner came and planted good seed. When it sprouted, they noticed that there were weeds amongst the good seed. They asked the question, how could this be? And the answer was an enemy did this. The slaves said to him, do you want us then to go and gather them up? But he said no, for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. Allow both to grow together until the harvest. At the time of the harvest, I will say to the reapers, first gather the tares and bind them in bundles and burn them up and gather the wheat into my barn.
So apostates continue to pose a threat to the evangelical church in our day, and they’re not going away. Actually, they’re multiplying. Jude wants the believers to be able to easily identify them and understand their character and their actions so that the believer will not be fooled into following them or listening to them. Jude groups these hell-bound sinners with some of the worst offenders in the Bible. I already mentioned those, that these apostates use the name of Jesus, but Jesus is not their Lord. The apostates, these unbelieving teachers, were likened to the Israelites who refused to enter the promised land by faith and were judged by God. These apostates were also likened to evil angels who abandoned their beautiful and holy home and came to the earth to engage in gross immoralities. These apostates were also compared to men of Sodom and Gomorrah, who engaged in gross immorality with one another, pursuing strange flesh in direct defiance against their Creator.
These apostate teachers, Jude already said, are bold. They are arrogant sinners. They make empty promises. They are clouds without water – delivering nothing, and fruitless autumn trees, doubly dead and useless to God. They cast up their own shame like the foam of the oceans. They shine for one glorious moment like a shooting star but fizzling into the blackness of eternal condemnation. These are the false teachers, and he gives a graphic characterization of them. So all ungodly will be punished for their grumbling and arrogance, for their flattering speech and their pursuit of sinful lusts.
So what are we supposed to do as Christians? And that’s where Jude is, coming to the place where he’s saying we have a responsibility to these people. So this Lord’s Day, we are given encouragement to be strong in the faith in the midst of apostasy, in the middle of trouble. There are really four points of instruction for discernment and survival in the midst of confusing aberrant apostasy. We looked at the first one. Today we will look and unpack the second one.
The first one is found in verse 17 through 19, and the first one is this, but you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ. These false teachers, they leave the right way, the way of life, the way of following Jesus, the way of following apostolic doctrine. Those who follow them also have departed from the faith and start following someone else. They start following some other teaching. They are following their own sinful heart, the world system, and satanic leading and manipulation.
From last time, these false teachers and those who follow them are unspiritual. They follow natural instincts. They abuse God’s grace as an excuse for sin. They have no Holy Spirit indwelling them. They have no divine wisdom. And remember what James says about wisdom. Either wisdom is going to come from above or it’s going to be earthly. And earthly wisdom, it says in James, is natural and demonic. And why was there earthly wisdom? Because James mentions that there is jealousy and selfish ambition that existed amongst the congregation. That does not come from the Spirit of God. That comes from the world. It comes from Satan. It comes from the flesh. So these false teachers lack a Spirit-led motivation for obedience. The Apostle Peter and James and Paul say that the true followers of Jesus Christ are recognized by their obedience to the Lord. For we read this morning, if you love me, you will keep my commandments, John 14:15.
In other words, recalling the words of apostolic teaching, that’s really the whole Word of God, is the first essential to surviving apostasy because apostasy first begins when one starts drifting away from what has been taught and what has been heard. When people stop listening, they drift away. They drift away in their mind and their heart. So between now and then, what are we to do? Well, one thing we are not to do, and what the Bible is admonishing us not to do and how not to do it, is to drift, to just drift away.
You know, between an airplane and every other form of locomotion and transportation, there’s one great contrast. The horse and wagon, the automobile, the bicycle, the locomotive ,the speedboat, and the battleship all can come to a standstill without danger and they can reverse their engines or their power and go backward. But there is no reverse about the engine of an airplane. It cannot back up. It dare not stand still. If it loses its momentum and forward drive, then it crashes. The only safety for the airplane is in the forward and upward motion. The only safe direction for the Christian is to take a forward and upward motion. If we stop or if we begin to slip and go backwards, that momentum is dangerous. In other words, a Christian ought to be going forward, right? Always going forward and upward.
What Jude does next is he gives a message of endearment to the beloved. Notice in verse number 20, what he says to them: but you, beloved. That phrase right there is a term of endearment, like dear friends. Really what it does is underscores a difference between those who oppose the truth and endanger the community and those who seek to know more of God and obey Him. So there is actually a huge difference and the difference carries with it a significant responsibility.
This passage of Scripture that we are about to look at has one command to it and three participles or verbal adjectives that support that one command, which really gives us our instruction. It is describing a person who will follow that one command. I mean Jude is making it very easy. He is taking what we ought to do and simplifying it. Can you obey this one command? Can you obey this one command? If you do obey this one command, you will prove that you are a believer and you will stand up against any false teaching that comes your way. That’s what he is saying to us here. That means that it becomes very significant for us because this basic strategy, and it is basic, should be carefully followed by all Christians everywhere. And why is that? In order to keep you and me from drifting, from going backwards, or just stopping, or coming to the place where we say, I think I know enough and I’m done. I can slide now into eternity.
That brings me to a second essential to spurning apostasy. But before I look at that, let’s pray. Lord, this morning, thank You for bringing us here together. Thank You, Lord, for the Word of God. It is a great blessing to us. I pray that we never take for granted of it, Lord, that we would always be people that hunger for it. And I pray, Lord, as we do so, You would make us strong in the faith, that we’d be able to stand up against anything, that we’d be able to discern very quickly things that come our way, and that we’d be able to put into action what pleases You and shun everything that doesn’t please You. I pray, Lord, in doing that, we would not drift away from You, but we would be effective, vibrant servants of Christ until the day we are taken out by You. And I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Here is the second essential to spurning apostasy. In other words, the question is, what is the one command? Well, look at verse 21. The one command that with three participles underneath it is this. Verse 21, keep yourselves in the love of God, or remain in the love of God. Now, you may think quickly when you hear that, I know what that means. That means I’m to keep loving God. No, that’s not what it means. What it means is to stay in the love of God. As believers, we know that God loves us. Even when we are disobedient, we know He loves us. He continues to persevere with us when we have done wrong. He loves based on the goodness of His own character, not on the worthiness of the objects of His love. Now, once we are in God’s love, nothing can separate us from His love. Many scriptures indicate that. So how are we commanded to keep ourselves in the love of God? Well, let me explain further by using Jesus as an example.
Take your Bibles, turn back to the Gospel of John, because we can’t say that we love God if we do not obey Him. In the Gospel of John 14, verses 21 to 23, Jesus went on to teach this:
He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me;
Go down to verse 23:
Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.
And Jesus returned to this theme in the next chapter, John chapter 15. Notice verse number 9 and 10:
Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
So what did Jesus do? Jesus kept in the love of the Father. He already knew the father loved Him. He kept Himself there, and He did that by what? Obedience by keeping the Father’s commandment. So these verses, we understand here that Jesus abided or remained in God’s love by keeping the Father’s commandment. That means likewise, we remain in Christ’s love by keeping His commandments, and specifically His command here, that God is pleased with obedience and with those who believe in His Son. This is expressed in the fellowship that God has with His chosen ones. We have a responsibility to keep ourselves in that loving relationship, a love founded only in Jesus Christ. Now others, we have already seen, have turned from Jesus. They have departed from Jesus. But our responsibility as Christians is we must remain in God’s love. And 1 John tells us, and whoever keeps His Word, in him the love of God has truly been perfected.
So how are we to follow this one command and stay in the love of God? There are three words, terms, participles that we are about to unpack, that express the means and the method of guarding ourselves. As we think of that, it expresses contemporaneous time. That means these are happening all at the same period of time. They’re not happening independent of one another. They’re happening all at the same time. Therefore, it becomes a habitual routine in a believer’s lifestyle. This manner of life is really in direct opposition to that of the false teachers, those who pursue the Lord versus those who abandon Jesus as Lord. Those who keep the faith versus those who have departed from the faith. Those who build themselves up versus those who divide and split the community. So if you are going to be people who follow this one command to keep ourselves in God’s love, we will carry out this threefold responsibility.
And what is the first fold of this responsibility? Well, it’s simply this. The first thing we’re to do is we’re to keep ourselves in the love of God by continuing to build. By continuing to build. Look at verse number 20 of Jude:
But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith,
So this one command to keep yourself in the love of God, and here is how we do it. To build ourselves up. If you notice in this passage right here, the faith once delivered to the saints have become their faith. Hence, our faith. And it is alone the only foundation on which to build upon. There is no other foundation. And when we follow carefully and observe the God-given plans and specifications given to us in the Word of God, we will build a sound structure and we will become sound and strong ourselves.
This phrase, your most holy faith, is what they call a true superlative. The sense is this, that the faith that was given to us, that is our own faith, is a most holy faith. It’s a different faith. It’s a most separate faith. It is a most effective faith. In fact, this faith made us spiritually alive in Christ. It changed everything in our life, this faith. There’s nothing like it when you believe in Jesus Christ and He gives you His Spirit and He makes you a new person. There’s nothing like that. So this growing has to do with each individual growing stronger in the Christian faith, which in turn causes the church body as a whole to become stronger and less likely to be duped by false teachers and their doctrine. So don’t forget that the church is not only about what you get out of it, the church is also about what you put into it, into the body. And so what are we building upon? We’re building upon a foundation that has already been given to us. A passage of scripture in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 20 says,
having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone,
So Christ and His gospel, found in scripture, is our foundation. There is no other place to go. And the proper foundation could be measured by the truth, God’s truth found in the Word of God. Everything that is being built must be built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Again, this is edification, being built up. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing when we meet together. When we hear the Word of God and study the Word of God and read the Word of God, every time we’re being built up by the Spirit of God, and as we’re being built up, we’re building on that foundation that has already been given to us, making us stronger and stronger. That makes the church stronger too.
We’re kind of a growing building, and Paul gave that illustration in Ephesians 2 where he says, in whom the whole building being fit together is growing into a holy temple in the Lord. That the church here in that passage at least is described as a great building showing the unity of each part in its place. So the church is presently in process of being built. At this very moment it has been going on for a long time, that God is building a building. It is growing, and if you are a biblical Christian, then God has built you into that building. So the Lord will one day complete it, but for now the Lord is building His church. So then the church is the habitation of God in which God comes to dwell by His Spirit, and we are to build ourselves up upon this most holy faith once delivered to the saints. I said it was basic, and it is basic.
The Bible does no good to you if you do not read it, if you do not hear it, if you do not meditate upon it, if you do not finally obey it, if you do not finally love it, and know that it is the Word of God. There’s no question about it. If you’ve been reading it, those doubts have been moved away a long time ago. See, the Word of God is the power that will sustain the Christian as they walk with God because they know that the Bible is the source of all truth, power, guidance, victory, God’s blessing, and growth. If we ignore it or neglect God’s word, what happens to us? We become a prey to our own laziness, to spiritual blindness, and to all kinds of false teaching and religious error.
So if we stick close to the word of God for all our truth and life and guidance for living holy and godly lives, then we will store that scripture in our heart, in our mind. We will store it there more and more because we know that the Word of God will keep us from sin. What did the psalmist say? Your word I have treasured in my heart. For what reason? That I may not sin against you, right? The Word of God, it will fill our heart with joy. Doesn’t everybody want joy? Well, where does it come from? Jeremiah says, your words were found and I ate them and your words became to me a joy and a delight of my heart.
And the word of God will fill your mind with peace. People want peace. The word of God will give it to you. It will guard your heart and your mind from worry and will give you His peace. And it does it. It does. And we do that every day. It will give you victory over the evil one. Those who are strong in the Word and God abides you, you will overcome the evil one. That’s what it says in 1 John. It will give you power in prayer. It will make you wiser than the aged and your enemies. It will keep you from false doctrine. It will make you complete, finished for every good work that God has for you to do. And ultimately, it will grow you. 1 Peter chapter 2:2 says those who long for the pure milk of the word of God so that it may grow you in respect to salvation. Remember, a baby’s cry demands a rapid reply, an intensity that must be satisfied. And how does it satisfy? Only by pure milk and for the Christian, pure milk of the Word of God.
If you stop building on your most holy faith, you will begin to drift. You will begin. What happens is that this drifting is not recognizable. So you’ll be thinking you’re doing all right. Oh, I had a couple bad bounce in my life and I haven’t been in the word of God and I really haven’t been able to go to church. And you know, it goes on and on and on before you know it, even this COVID thing, two and a half years later and some people still are not coming to church. And they think they’re doing all right. They’re not doing all right. Not according to God’s Word, they’re not.
A Christian must not only study the scripture. If he or she is to grow in this most holy faith, they must also pray in line with the Holy Spirit for the battle against false teaching is not won just by argument, it’s won by prayer. That’s where the power is. So if you look back at Jude, notice in verse number 20, it gives us the second word that will help us keep ourselves in the love of God – by continuing to pray. So we continue to build and we now continue to pray. Notice in verse number 20,
praying in the Holy Spirit,
The term praying in the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with speaking in tongues or some special prayer language. That would be inferring something that is not in the text. Even when the gift of languages was given, only a few had the gift and it was not given to every single believer, as 1 Corinthians 12:30 confirms, where it says:
All do not have gifts of healings, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they? All do not interpret, do they?
Also, nowhere in all the scripture do we read of a prayer language given to only some Christians. The only prayer language ever given to the church is the language of faith in the Word of God. No special prayer language is ever needed. There is nothing mystical or elusive about praying in the Holy Spirit. Actually, praying in the Holy Spirit is closely linked to the Word of God because the Word of God was written by the Holy Spirit.
So praying in the Holy Spirit means that we will pray for God’s will to be done and not ours. And it means also praying according to the Holy Spirit’s instruction for prayer in the Bible. It means we ought to be yielded to what God, the Holy Spirit, wants for our lives. It means praying with faith, trusting God is good and powerful and active, working in you as a believer. Really, the Holy Spirit has been given to us, according to John chapter 14, to be our helper. When Jesus went back to heaven, the Father says, I promise I’m going to send you another Comforter, just like Jesus. And who is that? That’s the Holy Spirit of God. And what’s the Holy Spirit of God’s job? Is that He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said, of course specifically addressing the apostles, but it’s for us too, right? The Spirit of God teaches us. It illuminates the Word of God so we know what the Word of God says and are able to understand it and put it into practice.
So if a Christian soldier, and we’re talking about being a soldier here, attempts to fight in his own strength, he will be rendered actually very quickly crippled by the devil and his forces. You see, you can believe everything correctly and do everything correctly, but if you don’t believe in the necessity of regular prayer, you are in the battle without comms. That’s a military talk for being cut off from vital communication with the command center. But that also shows here this is communing with God we’re being edified by the Word of God and made strong, and now it brings us into communion with God. That’s what prayer is. Prayer is communing with God. So how do we get strong in the Lord and the power of His might? Yes by knowing the truth of God’s Word, but that’s not all. There is a living connection the soldier must have to the Lord Jesus in order to keep growing strong.
Quickly if you take your Bibles and go over quickly to Ephesians 3:16 and then Ephesians 6:18, it says in 3:16 of God:
that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,
In other words, prayer itself brings us to the place where when we are praying in the Spirit, we are being strengthened inside. The body’s growing old. Gravity’s going to win out. We’re going to the grave. That’s a given – the Bible even tells us that. But remember, there’s three deaths. There’s physical death, spiritual death, which you no longer have if you’re a real believer, and there’s eternal death, which we’re not going to get because we’re in Christ. Because of that, we’re strengthened every day by prayer but then go over to Ephesians 6:18, where it says:
With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit,
In other words, every time we come to the Lord, we are in the Spirit. We’re ready to obey Him in the Spirit. So Christians really do not possess power gained through some driving energy or some polished skill that we have, or some trusted methods that we acquire. No, believers gain and maintain power for spiritual warfare through prayer.
It was Dr. Rosscup, who was a professor at Masters Seminary, he’s now with the Lord I think. He wrote a large volume set, I think it was like seven volumes, on prayer. He was the man to go to if you want somebody to pray for you. He said this – we make fools of ourselves, setting ourselves up for mediocrity, emptiness, and disaster, if we do not insist to be much in prayer, whatever the cost. And there will always be a cost when it comes to prayer, always. It may be a little less sleep. It may be a little less time to eat dinner, coming home from work a little earlier, staying up a little later, a little less time surfing social media sites, which I think a lot of time is wasted there. See, there’ll be some denial of self, some discipline of the flesh, some moving around of your schedule, in order to be persistent in prayer.
So if prayer is to be an indispensable Christian activity that is essential to the church’s survival, to our survival, from slipping away, then why is it that there’s so little prayer in the church, and why is it that some of you are not in prayer. When we’re Christians, if we are going to stand strong and be built up, the second essential is prayer. I didn’t say that. God said that. Jude said that. We cannot think of this as some kind of low rung on the ladder. This is on the high rung of the ladder. This is frontline battle.
Paul Gardner, in his comments on the passage in Ephesians, observed this about the modern church’s abnormality. He wrote – it is perhaps one of the strangest anomalies of the modern church, that while it often spends much time talking about evil that is in the world and how dreadful society has become, in the same place spends little or no time in prayer. He went on to say the result of lack of prayer is everywhere everywhere to be seen, for the spiritual forces of evil are at work in our midst. Consumerism, materialism, individualism, and the other gods of our age seem to have influence our Christian thinking far more deeply than we imagine.
So we shall keep alert properly when we pray. That’s what it’s saying in our text here in Ephesians, that our prayer is to be with the help of the Holy Spirit. He’s already given it to us. And then our prayer is to be with disciplined wakefulness. It says in Ephesians 6:18:
and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints,
This is the duty that we are to be involved with, every single one of us, because we’re believers. It means, for the Christian, that if we are to pray in timely effectiveness, we cannot fall asleep at the switch. We cannot fall asleep at our post.
That was the illustration of Dr. Rosscup. He not only had large volumes on prayer but he also wrote western novels. In his western novel, he gave this illustration about tobacco juice alertness. He says early cowboys, American cowboys, who took drastic measures to keep alert and hold fast to their work while guarding cattle at night exemplified this idea of persistent prayer. They would rub tobacco juice in their eyes to make them smart, keep them open, help the rider stay at their vigil, even when very weary. Now I’m not advocating you go chew tobacco and put tobacco in your eyes. That’s not my point. My point is that we have to stay awake. In fact, what does it say in Luke 18:1. It informs us that if we are without prayer, if we do not pray, we will faint. Luke 18:1:
Now He was telling them a parable to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart,
How do I not lose heart? how do I lose heart? Stop praying. How do I not lose heart? I continue to pray. If I came up to you and you said, I’ve been a Christian for a while, and what’s the hardest discipline in your Christian life? You know what it is – prayer. It’s because Satan doesn’t want you to pray. He hates when you do that. Do anything else, but don’t pray, and especially don’t come together and pray. Oh no, don’t do that. We ought to change our habits as Christians. So if you don’t pray, you will faint and you will not be able to fight and you will begin to drift. You have to ask yourself – what is the character of your prayer life? What place does it have in your daily routine? And what place does the public prayer meeting have in your weekly schedule?
We’re doing a zoom prayer now, and it’s been pretty good. I don’t care if you have any problem with technology, get on there and pray with somebody else. We usually pray with just one other person. You say, well I’ve never done that before. Well get on there and start doing it ,and the other person you’re praying with will help you do it. I love meeting with you guys on prayer time. You don’t have to drive anywhere. It’s the same thing we’re going to do here and we get to pray. So work it into your schedule. Move away the doubts or the preconceived conceptions that you have about it and obey the scripture, and say – God wants me to do this. If I’m going to be strong, if I’m going to stand up against falsehood, I must be building myself up and I must be praying. I must be praying. It’s not a choice, to say I’m going to take it or leave it. It’s not. This is the hardest thing you have to convince the church to do – to pray individually, yes, but to pray corporately. It must be a must.
So we keep ourselves in the love of God by continuing to build on our most holy faith. Secondly, by continuing to pray in the Holy Spirit. And thirdly, notice, back to Jude. Look at verse 21. I’m beginning each one by saying, you beloved. It says:
waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.
So here’s the third thing. I continue to wait. Wait for what? Look at the text says, and we’ll look at that. You don’t wait anxiously for something you don’t like or you don’t want. You wait anxiously for something you very much desire. You look forward to something that you very much desire. And what are we looking forward to? Look again at our text – for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.
Now, mercy is a very significant term. It is a word that is often used in a judicial setting. You hear people often say things like, he needs to throw himself on the mercy of the court, right? The reason why he says that is because the person hopes that the court will be lenient with their judicial decisions. Even in the Old Testament, a very interesting narrative in the Old Testament in 2 Samuel and in Chronicles, it’s recorded if you’re reading through the chronological approach to reading scripture, you’ll have come across this passage of scripture recently. David sinned against God by numbering the people of Israel, and the Lord had to hold judgment on David’s sin. The Lord gave David three choices for judgment. He could choose either seven years of famine, to be chased by his enemies for three months, or three days of pestilence in the land. And how does David respond to that? What does he choose? You know what he chooses? He says, I’m going to cast myself on the mercy of God. This is what it says in scripture. Listen to it. It says, Then David said to Gad, he was the prophet then, I am in great distress. Let us now fall into the hands of the Lord for his mercies are great. And then he says this, but do not let me fall into the hand of man. Man is ruthless. Man has no mercy. It’s recorded in Chronicles, the same passage, same wording, except he adds a word. He says the mercies of God are very great.
So all people, all people will receive either justice or mercy from God. If they receive Christ as their Lord and Savior, they will receive mercy. If not, they will receive justice. Justice means really that people will get quite accurately what they do deserve from God. Because God will execute fair justice right across the board. He will be fair with everyone. He also has accurate records and clear discernment about our lives. Mercy means that God will not give you what you do deserve. And what do we deserve? We deserve His wrath and we deserve His justice. Another word used for the word mercy in Scripture is the word compassion. In Romans 12:1, Paul tells us there:
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship.
What are we supposed to do? It says in Scripture, the motivation for dedicating our lives to God is His tender pities and His compassion toward us, His mercy toward us. So every day I give myself over to God as a living sacrifice. Why? What motivates me to do that? Because God didn’t give me what I deserved. That’s why. He’s been compassionate to me. That is the pity arising from the miserable state of one in need and unable to help themselves. And that’s who we were. God’s mercy is never condemning, but always overflowing with compassion. Compassion is a term often used for an action, to do something about what one sees. And what did God see? He saw us in our need. He saw us when we called out for salvation, and He moved toward us with compassion and not with wrath. Of course, the example we can find for that is Jesus’ compassion on the wandering lost people, unable to find their way. Where it says in Matthew 3:
Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.
So you see, the admonition comes by God’s compassion, which had pity on us in our sin, in our lostness, in our inability, and then brought us from our former pitiful state to our present high and blessed state as saints, as those who are in Christ Jesus. Christ presented Himself for our need and in the name of these compassions, we are to present ourselves wholly because of God’s goodness and God did not give us what we deserve. So what are we looking forward to from Jude? We’re looking forward to God’s compassion towards us in providing us full salvation, full redemption. Now if you look again at Jude, verse 21, it says, for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. The Father devised the plan and chose us, Christ set the plan in operation by shedding His blood, and the Holy Spirit causes people to be united to Christ by sealing believers with the seal of promise until the day of redemption, until the day He redeems us. So the Spirit is the seal and guarantee that the believer will enter in complete redemption at the return of Christ.
So building ourselves up with the Word of God and becoming more familiar with it makes everything more clear, stronger in the Word of God and in God’s will. Praying in the Spirit makes things more intimate and personal, stronger in our communion with God. And then waiting with expectation makes our hope and faith more tangible, stronger in our faith in God. We have by faith a place that we are going, whose builder and maker is God. So all this says that that is what it means to keep ourselves in the love of God, by obeying the Lord – in building, in praying, and in expecting him to come, living with expectation.
We wait expectantly because we know Him, the Lord and Savior, the Lord of lords, the Lamb of God, the Lamb of Judah, the lily of the valley, the Lord of the harvest, the Maker of heaven and earth, the Man of sorrows, the merciful high Priest, the Messiah prince, the Mediator, the Master, the Messenger of the covenant, the man Christ Jesus, the name above every name, the nourisher, the nobleman, the neighbor, the Nazarene, the offspring of David, the offerer and the offering, the Overcomer and the only begotten One, the omnipotent One, the omniscient One, the omnipresent One, the only wise God, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. We know Him. That is why we expect Him. And that’s why we’re looking forward to being with him. That’s what the Spirit of God does in our life. We know what we will receive from Him, our Lord. It is the mercy that Christ will grant us at that last day. See, that’s what we’re now. Why would you be looking forward to judgment and wrath? I’d be afraid of that. I wouldn’t want to expect that, but I want to expect His mercy because that’s what He promises in the Word of God. That’s what He promises in the Word of God. Matthew 25:34:
Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.
That’s what we’re looking forward to. We’re looking for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. While we await this day approaching, it is a good motivation for godly and holy living. That’s how Peter ended his epistle. He says, what sort of people ought we to be in holy conduct and godliness, if these things are going to take place?
But I do want to say this, that there are some souls here today and watching at home on live stream who are lying in some intensive care unit, and the only diagnosis that can be given is this, that their soul is suffering from a lack of remaining in the love of God. They stopped their building program. They stopped following the means of grace that God has given to grow His children. Some have neglected to hear the Word of God, and so they don’t ingest it. Some neglect the private reading and meditation of the Word of God, so they don’t digest it. Others neglect to assemble themselves together, and maybe they have gotten in a bad habit because of COVID-19 mandates and restrictions, and it is time to poke them back to assembling with each other, as it says in Hebrews:
and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
See, certain ones have neglected God’s appointed ordinance of fellowship together with believers and the Lord’s table for stirring up their soul. Don’t be so proud to think that you can do without these. Some get by on a very meager spiritual diet, suffering from all sorts of spiritual malnutrition. This is not contending for the faith. This could mean that you already are drifting away and may not even realize it yet, and most of the time you don’t realize it. That’s why you need somebody to come and poke you. Get back serving the Lord. Get back to the first time when you became a believer and you were excited about it. Get back there if you have drifted away from there.
So we have no excuse. We’re to be growing Christians. We are to guard our mind from false teaching. We are to guard against sin. We have a responsibility to keep ourselves in the love of God. So I’m asking you a question – are you a person who follows the one command, to keep yourself in the love of God? If you are, then you will continually be building yourself up in your most holy faith. You will continually be praying in the Spirit. You will be continually ready and expecting Jesus’ mercy at His return. You will be waiting for Jesus every day. As soon as you walk out the door and look upstairs and say, Lord, are you coming today? I’m ready to go. But until you tarry, let me not drift away, but let me be faithful every day. And believe me, is this not the basics? The Word of God, prayer, expecting Jesus. That’s the basics. Nobody should forget that when you walk out that door. Everybody should remember that, but everybody should be putting it to practice. See, that’s how we stand up against apostasy. That’s Jude’s advice to us. Well, it’s not just advice. It’s God’s Word. Obey it.
Let’s pray. Lord, thank You again. Lord, Your Word is amazing. It so cuts down to the depth of our heart. But Lord, it doesn’t leave us there. It builds us back up. It makes us stronger. It makes us more discerning. It makes us more desirous to go be with You. It motivates us to come and pray to You about all things, no matter what they may be. And so I pray, Lord, today, work the Word of God into our hearts so, Lord, these things become a reality to every one of us. And that, Lord, we would stick to these things and that we would keep ourselves in the love of God just as You kept Yourself in the love of the Father by obeying His commands. And so, Lord, bless us in that way. And I pray in Christ’s name. Amen.