Jude II

MINISTER, Rev. Thomas O. Scarborough.

Jude. Verse 1.

We are looking at the book of Jude this morning. Last time we said that this book of Jude is basically about people who do not understand God’s grace -- and we looked at a few ways that this is still absolutely relevant today.

The word “grace” in the Bible means undeserved favour. Grace is what God gives us even though we are completely undeserving of it. And this morning we started with the hymn, “Amazing grace ... that saved a wretch like me.” When I was undeserving of it -- when I was unfit to receive it.

But we saw last time that there are some people -- and these are the people Jude writes about -- people who only see grace, grace, grace. God is gracious, they say, so everybody goes to heaven. God is gracious, they say, so God forgives every sinner.

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We said last time that the book of Jude was written against some men who had secretly slipped into the Church. In verse 4: "Certain men... have secretly slipped in among you."

This doesn’t mean they crept in through the windows, or climbed down the chimney. It means that they were not the genuine article -- but nobody noticed it until they were right in the middle of the Church life. Nobody noticed them slipping into the Church, and nobody noticed that there might be anything wrong -- until they were right there in the middle.

And again, the problem was grace. They spoke about the grace of Jesus Christ which leads to eternal life -- they spoke about the grace of Jesus Christ which cleanses me of all sin -- but it was all grace, grace, grace, and it was not the full gospel.

That is why we had that reading earlier on. There Peter explains the significance of the death of Jesus Christ in the cross. He says, “The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead -- whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree -- a cross. God exalted Him to His own right hand as Prince and Saviour that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.”

Now forgiveness of sins is all about grace. But notice that Peter says that Jesus came to give repentance and the forgiveness of sins. If you leave out that repentance part, you don’t have the whole gospel. You only have half of it, and that is as good as no gospel at all.

Repentance is a very important word. It is not just regret for your past sins -- many people feel regret over what they have done, but they are never saved. It is not just asking for forgiveness for your sins -- many people ask God for forgiveness, but they have never given Him their whole lives.

One Bible dictionary describes it like this: “Repentance involves a complete change in the mind and will of the believer. It is more than mere sorrow for sin; it is surrender to God.”

We are going to deal with these things in more detail as we go through this book of Jude.

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Now this morning I am going to take a look just at the first verse of Jude.

We said last time that Jude was the brother of James -- we find that here in verse 1. He was the brother of that great and famous leader of the Church, James. James and Peter were to two great leading lights in the Church until James was martyred in the year 63 A.D. Peter was martyred in A.D. 69.

One of the very difficult things to explain -- for those who say that the story of Jesus is not true -- is how it is possible that most of the apostles and gospel writers died for the claim that Jesus was the Saviour -- even a brother of Jesus, which is James.

Now Jude was not only the brother of James -- he was also the brother of Jesus. He is listed a number of times in the New Testament as the brother of Jesus.

We also know that Jude did not believe in Jesus at first. We read in John 7 verse 5: "His brothers did not believe in Him" -- and that of course includes Jude.

But somewhere along the line, there came about a great change in Jude's heart. Just after the ascension of Christ into heaven, we find the name of Jude listed among the first 120 disciples.

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But let’s return to the book of Jude -- and notice how Jude describes his relationship with Jesus. His greatest claim to fame was that he was the brother of Jesus -- and yet Jude does not dare to call himself the brother of Jesus here.

How does he describe his relationship with Jesus?

In verse 1, he describes himself as a servant of Jesus Christ -- that word "Christ" incidentally means "Messiah" -- he is saying here that Jesus is the promised Messiah, and the Saviour of the world.

And then, in our version of the Bible in the pews, he calls himself a "servant" of Jesus Christ -- but that is not the full meaning of the original Greek word -- some Bibles translate this as bond-servant, or as slave. He is the slave of Jesus Christ.

Therefore at some point, he left behind him the brother-to-brother relationship, and he took upon himself the relationship of a slave to Jesus Christ the Saviour.

And it is powerful evidence of the Lordship of Jesus Christ -- that all the brothers of Jesus -- all four brothers -- eventually accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, and witnessed to Him until the day they died.

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Let us look more closely at that word "slave", in verse 1 -- or servant, in our Bibles -- because it shows us a lot about what it means to be a Christian.

In fact this word "slave", or "servant", appears many, many times in the New Testament -- it is used about one hundred times to describe a follower of Jesus. A slave was the property of his or her owner. If you were a slave, then your life was not your own. In fact in Roman times, you could kill a slave, and there was no penalty according to the law -- because a slave was just a piece of property.

Now there are two things that stand out about a slave.

First of all, the slave has no authority over his or her personal circumstances. If your master says: "Those are your quarters over there," then those are your quarters -- that is where you go without question. If your master says: "You are going to be my sheep-shearer,” then you will be a sheep-shearer -- without question.

A second thing about a slave, which is related to the first, is that a slave is obedient to his or her master. No matter what the master says, the slave obeys.

In the old days -- at the time that the Bible was written -- you didn't even think of disobeying your master. A slave was someone who always obeyed.

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Now there are two spiritual lessons we can learn from this. Remember that we as Christians are described as slaves about 100 times in the New Testament.

Firstly, I know that my whole life is under the authority of Jesus Christ. The place where I am today -- the circumstances of my life, and the events of my life -- are ordered by the Lord.

A person who is not a Christian -- the person of the world -- says: "I am in control of my life. This is my life. I am master of my life. I want things my way. I want to go where I want to go. I want to achieve what I want to achieve. I want to do the things I want to do. "

It might sound attractive, but actually it leads to an awful lot of heartache and frustration and loss of peace. There is a wonderful peace in knowing that I am the slave of the Lord Jesus Christ, and I am not in fact my own master -- I have an all-powerful and loving Master in the Lord.

This is exactly what the disciples of Jesus understood by that word "slave". There is a story that when the Lord revealed to the apostle Thomas that he should go to India -- he didn’t want to go -- but he said, “I am a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ.” His life was not his own. He went where His Master commanded him to go.

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But there is one very great difference between an earthly slave and a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The earthly slave has an earthly master -- and the earthly master is often characterised by sin and injustice.

But the Lord Jesus Christ is the perfect Master. Wherever He sends you -- whatever He does with you -- it is perfect.

I wouldn't want to be in the position of the person who is still in the world. There are so many people today who are so frustrated -- they are so uncertain -- they are so disillusioned or impatient or over-stressed by life, because they don't have that peace of knowing that they are slaves of a great and perfect Master, who by His almighty power reigns over their lives, and the circumstances of their lives.

There is a great penalty to bear for taking control of your own life. It is often a penalty too great for a person to bear and still remain really sane in this life.

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A second spiritual lesson we learn about this word "slave" is that to be a slave means to be obedient. If you are a slave, you follow the Master's instructions.

And when you think that we as Christians have the most loving and caring Master, we obey Him not only because we are His slaves, but we obey Him because we know it is for our blessing, and for His glory.

There are just too many penalties involved if you start to go your own way -- if I go my way, and not His way.

At my Bible study this past Tuesday, I dealt briefly with the subject of cohabitation -- or living together. People say, “What can possibly be wrong with living together -- if people love each other, and want to make a life together. What’s a piece of paper, anyway?”

Well God’s Word says don’t do it -- and we looked at some statistics at my Bible study. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, women are 62 times more likely to be assaulted by a live-in boyfriend than by a husband. According to the journal Pediatrics, young men who live together are seven times more likely to be arrested or picked up by the police. The U.S. National Survey of Families and Households found that those who live together before marriage are almost twice as likely to divorce.

This is just one example among thousands and thousands which says -- God’s Word is true -- and we have a wise and gracious and loving Master who wants us to obey for our blessing.

All sorts of things happen when you, as a servant and slave, do not obey your Master. Your life begins to degrade -- it begins to fall apart in all sorts of ways. You lose your spiritual power when you no longer obey. You lose your closeness to the Lord -- and that is not a good position to be in -- it is a great blessing in life to be in good fellowship with the Lord.

And also, you lose the blessing from the Lord. You lose His personal blessing from day to day. Remember that all that happens in our lives is given by God -- it does not merely happen through chance, or even through the laws of physics -- it happens because it was God's personal response to the way we love Him and honour Him.

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There is incidentally a great question in the Christian Church -- that is linked to this subject of obedience.

And that is -- if on the day of your conversion you invited the Lord Jesus Christ to be your Master, and you promised to be His slave -- you handed over your whole life to Him in every part, and gave Him complete obedience and allegiance -- is it possible ever to take some of that obedience back?

And if I take back some of that obedience -- will there come a point where the Lord takes back my salvation?

Some Christians say that a Christian can withdraw their obedience only for a moment. After that, they are no longer a Christian -- they lose their eternal salvation.

But what about two moments? --- And how long is a moment?

Let’s think again what it means to be a slave. Once you are a slave, you are a slave. A slave doesn’t have the power not to be a slave. Once you sell yourself into slavery, you are a slave. And as a slave, you might disobey -- but the one thing that does not change is that you are now a slave.

You will run into a lot of trouble if you don’t obey -- and it will be more trouble than you ever thought was worth it -- but you will never stop being a slave of your Master Jesus Christ. I’ll return to this briefly in a moment.

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Let’s move on to the last part of verse 1. And here we have a sweeping picture of what it means to be a Christian. It is a summary of the whole Christian life, in just a few words.

You will notice that there are three points here.

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Firstly, we read that we are called. And the Bible says that God calls you and me by name. God says, "I have redeemed you. I have summoned you by name. You are mine." (Isaiah 43:1).

I see a great picture here. I see the world --- that is, I see the people of the world -- a great expanse of people, who all belong to a kingdom that the Bible calls the kingdom of darkness -- and God calls -- and those who hear His call, come out from among them, and become a special people for God, set apart for God, to worship God.

If you call someone, you and calling them out -- you are calling them away -- in fact the Greek word for “Church” in the New Testament is "ek-klesia" -- which means those who are called out.

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Secondly here, we see that we are loved by God the Father. When you are called out of the world, you come under God's love. When you were still out there in the world, you were under His condemnation -- now you have come under His love, and everything that He does in your life from now on will be an act of love.

One of the greatest struggles of Christians, I think, is to see just how great is God's love for them. They can't really believe that God loves them -- or they can't really see how great is His love in their situation. They have a sudden illness, or they run into financial difficulty, or they suffer a time of depression -- and they cannot see that actually, God is pouring out His love upon them. And His love is perfect -- He knows what he is doing.

This is one of the problems with the so-called prosperity gospel. If you emphasise too much the prosperity you should have as a Christian, it becomes so easy to miss the love of God that He shows you also through adversity, and heartache, and things that don’t go your way.

One person who could see -- just how great is God’s love was the apostle James -- we spoke about him just a moment ago. He said, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds.” (James 1:2). That is because he fully understood the love of God through Jesus Christ.

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And then thirdly, in verse 1 -- and this is an important point that we often forget -- we are kept by Jesus. And notice that it says here that we are kept by Jesus Christ. I am not kept by me -- I am kept by Jesus Christ. This refers above all to our salvation -- we are kept for Him -- He won’t let us drop away. Once we are saved, He keeps us.

Another Bible version says we are protected by Him. He is more powerful than our weaknesses, and our decisions, and our mistakes.

And this is partly an answer to the question we looked at a moment ago -- can a Christian withdraw his or her obedience from the Lord once they have given their life to Him?

The answer is yes they can --- and yet there is one fact that will never change. One a slave, always a slave. The Christian believer is kept by the Lord, and therefore the Lord will find a way to bring them back to humility and repentance and a close relationship with Him.

I know people whom the Lord has brought back to Himself, and they have sais: "Praise the Lord, He did not abandon me, but He was faithful, and He brought me back -- He restored me to Himself. How could I have missed what I have come back to now?"

So often Christians seem to think that they keep themselves. "What if I make the wrong decision? What if I make the wrong choice?”

The answer is that we are kept by Jesus Christ.

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Well that brings us to the end of verse 1 -- we have completed one whole verse of the book of Jude -- and next Sunday we shall continue from verse 2. May God bless His Word to us this morning.

AMEN.