Jude IV


MINISTER, Rev. Thomas O. Scarborough.

Jude. Verse 3.


We have reached the third verse of the book of Jude this morning -- it’s a verse that we looked at briefly when I introduced the book of Jude a few weeks ago.

Let’s just read verse 3 to begin: “Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.”

Verse 3 is a small verse, but once again it contains several important things. And because this is the Word of God, even one word can make an important difference to what we read.

* * * * * * * * * *

The first thing we notice about this verse -- and this is what I looked at especially in our introduction to Jude -- is that Jude had in fact planned to write something completely different. He never planned to write this book of Jude.

And the basic fact here is that God had a different plan. God by His Holy Spirit compelled Jude to write something other than what he had planned.

Perhaps Jude planned that letter on salvation as his one great contribution to the Church of Christ -- but God put him on a different track, and caused him to turn out this letter, which is now a part of God’s everlasting Word.

And I said a few Sundays ago that maybe you and I think we know what is best for our lives. Or maybe we want the security of knowing where our lives are going-to go -- and perhaps you’ve seen all those adverts which say -- SMS “FATE” to 3-4-600 and you will know your future.

But God may have something different in mind -- God sometimes changes what we think is the plan. Let’s look at two great examples from the Christian Church.

A very well known example is the story of Martin Luther, who was defending the Christian faith against the corruptions and the evils of that time -- maybe you saw the movie -- and if you have DVD, it’s a movie worth watching. Luther was on a very important mission, when suddenly he was kidnapped -- he was bound hand and foot, and they put a sack over his head -- and carried him away on a horse and locked him up in a castle.

Luther hadn't planned to be locked in a castle -- he had planned to defend the faith at a very important time in history.

But what happened in that castle is that Martin Luther sat down and translated the whole of the Bible into German.

And that was one of the most important things that Martin Luther ever did in his life -- and that was the mighty hand of God upon the circumstances of Martin Luther.

* * * * * * * * * *

The great missionary Hudson Taylor had a tremendous passion to reach the people of China for Jesus Christ. He gave up everything to go to China, to be a missionary to the Chinese. His whole heart was in China.

But then Hudson Taylor fell seriously ill -- he couldn't even get up from his bed -- and he was far away from China.

What had God done to his passion for China?

But Hudson Taylor prayed from his bed that God might send others to China. And in one year, God sent 18 young missionaries to Hudson Taylor to learn Chinese at his bedside. The next year, God sent 70 missionaries, to learn Chinese at his bedside -- and the next year the Lord sent 100 missionaries to learn Chinese at his bed -- and Hudson Taylor taught them all Chinese and sent them into China. As he lay in his bed, he had a huge map of China up on his wall, at the foot of his bed.

And the last I heard about China, there are up to 100 million Christians in China today.

So God has a greater plan. He had a greater plan in the lives of Martin Luther and Hudson Taylor -- and He had a greater plan in the life of Jude. He steered Jude in a different direction to what he expected. And He has a greater plan in your life and mine.

Not seldom during counselling, I hear people say, “I walked away from God’s plan for me.” People say they got divorced when they shouldn’t have -- or they wasted too many years -- or they can’t go back on wrong decisions that they made. But God is greater than that. God knows how to use all that to His glory.

In fact the only reason that we can overcome the wasted time, and the regrets of the past, and the wrong turns we took -- is that God is greater.

God is the solution. That’s the bottom line of my ministry -- to tell people -- God is the solution.

If you are in the world, you have no answer as to what to think about plans gone wrong -- what to do about wasted time -- how to deal with the sins and regrets. And so many people end their lives in regret.

But if God is in your life -- if God is working the past into His plan -- if He is making all things work together for good in your life -- past, present, and future -- then all the plans that you suppose went wrong -- don’t matter any more.

The Bible says: "Always give thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus." (Ephesians 5:20). And that has to -- it has to -- include everything that belongs to our past -- everything that exists in our present -- and everything that God is going to do in the future. "Always give thanks to God the Father for everything.”

* * * * * * * * * *

Now there is something that I said when we started the book of Jude -- that I’d like to say again this morning -- and that is -- the past might have been wasted, and past plans may not have turned out the way that you saw it. But your future now depends on how you walk with the Lord your God.

How do we know that the future will be profitable?

The main thing is that you and I should remain people whom the Lord can use -- people who are in step with the Lord -- people who will be filled with His Spirit when that moment comes that the Lord will use us.

Imagine that Jude had not been ready to write this book of Jude. Imagine that he had not been walking with the Lord. I doubt that God would have chosen him to do a new and unexpected thing with him.

Your future depends on how serious you are with the Lord. You might achieve many things without God -- and many people do -- but you won’t achieve something that has eternal value -- if you are not walking now with the Lord your God. Or rather I should say, God will be unwilling to use His power through You if you are not personally devoted to Him now.

So what I am saying is: we need to be faithful -- that’s all. God doesn’t first look for great striving and ambition and talent -- God looks for a humble soul who is serious about the Lord. The Bible is full of examples of that -- such as David and Mary and Cornelius the centurion.

* * * * * * * * *

Well let’s move on in verse 3 -- and here we have a very well known phrase -- to contend for the faith -- or to defend the faith. Jude says: "I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith."

The original Greek word here means “to contend against others” -- in the same way that you would contend to win a debate, or contend to win a chess game, or contend to be the athletics champion.

In the dictionary, this word “contend” means “a struggle to attain an object”. It means “to strive or vie in contest or rivalry or against difficulties”. It does not mean to fight -- it does not mean to quarrel -- it means to strive for something -- it means to do all you can for the outcome you are looking for.

In the context of this book of Jude -- Jude is talking about people -- if we look at verse 4 -- people who are godless -- who do not understand grace, which is one of the most basic teachings of the Bible -- and they deny that Jesus Christ as the only Sovereign and Lord.

So Jude is talking here about contending for the faith in the face of people who don't have that faith -- or in the face of people who have the basics of that faith mixed up.

Notice that in the book of Jude, this is a contending for the faith inside the Church. James urges Christians to contend within their Church for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.

And this is a message to each one of us. Don’t just sit back and be an idle pew-warmer -- but contend for the faith.

In fact the only reason why our Church today has the life and strength that it does is that there were people who contended for us being an evangelical Church, and keeping this an evangelical Church. There were people who contended for us to receive, as far as possible, only believing Christians into membership. There were people who contended over the years for holiness of life and example in the Church. There were people who contended for us to be a tithing Church.

A Church needs members who contend.

But notice also what it is that members should contend for. Jude doesn’t say you should contend for a nice Church garden, or contend for your pals in the Church, or contend for the Church to keep up with the times -- Jude says contend for the faith. See to it that the faith is all that it ought to be within the Church of Christ.

* * * * * * * * *

I have no doubt that Jude’s words apply also to the world. Not only should we contend within the Church, but we should contend for the faith in the world.

And this verse 3 in Jude gives us an important guideline as to how we should respond when our faith is challenged in the world.

There are various approaches you could take if a non-Christian talks about your Christian faith in a muddled way -- or talks about it in a way that questions it -- or even seeks to attack it. It might be someone at work -- it might be a non-Christian friend -- or even a non-Christian on the T.V. or radio.

According to Jude verse 3, we should not just pretend that we never heard anything, and we not just think that we can keep on quietly believing for ourselves.

That is not what it means to contend. Contending means to come to the defence of the faith. It means to stand up for it.

And contending does not mean quarreling or even fighting for the faith. I read once about a man whose Christian faith was challenged, and he picked up a stick, and hit the man who challenged him.

That is also not what it means to contend.

Basically, in verse 3, Jude is telling us to be always ready to take a firm and quiet stand -- and to come to the defence of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

"I urge you to contend for the faith."

Present the faith in such a way that it is held up clearly in the face of confusion -- so that the true faith is contrasted clearly with any kind of false picture that others are holding up.

And contend for the faith where it comes under attack. There is always a defence for the faith -- there is not a single question that cannot be answered in its defence. There may not be a defence for the things that Christians sometimes do -- but there is always a sure defence for the Word.

The old King James Bible says, “Contend earnestly for the faith.”

If that faith is compromised -- if that is muddled up -- it could mean the loss of someone’s eternal salvation. And after all, we want people to have such a clear picture of the faith that they can come to salvation.

* * * * * * * * * *

Let us return to our text, in Jude verse 3.

At the end of verse 3, we read that "this faith was once for all entrusted to the saints". I’ll deal with the second part of those words first. The Christian faith was entrusted to the saints.

Let us notice the word "entrusted".

Another Bible version -- the Message -- says that the faith was "entrusted to us as a gift to guard and cherish".

The saints are those who have been saved by putting their faith in Jesus Christ for salvation. We are called saints because we have been justified --- by the blood of Christ, our sins have been washed away --- We are not saints because we do not sin, but we are saints because Jesus Christ cleanses us of all sin.

Notice that Jude does not simply say that the faith -- the gospel -- was given to us. He doesn’t simply say that it was deposited with us. If you give something to someone, then they keep it. It stays with them. It goes no further.

But if you entrust something to someone -- like a family heirloom, or even a box of chocolates -- you expect that they will look after it, and then pass it on.

You and I have not simply been given the Christian gospel. God has entrusted us with the gospel of His Son. It is our duty to see that it gets passed on to others, and to other generations. It is our duty to see that it gets passed on to others around us.

If I am entrusted with a box of chocolates, it might be very tempting to enjoy them all for myself -- it might be very difficult to pass them on to others -- but the fact is that because they have been placed in my trust, I have a responsibility with what has been given to me.

In the case of the gospel, we need to see that it reaches its intended recipients -- we need to see that it reaches the Church, and reaches the world. And not only that, but we should see to it that our gospel rings true and rings clear from generation to generation -- not that it gets obscured and muddled along the way.

That has sometimes happened over the ages -- where one generation of the Church for some reason -- instead of passing the gospel on, they dropped it somehow -- so that the next generation didn't really care any more, or they didn’t understand any more.

* * * * * * * * * *

I’ll close this morning with that phrase "once for all". The old King James Version just says "once". The gospel was given to us -- "once".

And the meaning of this is very simple -- and that is that the gospel does not -- change.

If some men come into the Church -- as they did here during the time of Jude -- and they tell a different story -- remember that there is only one gospel, delivered once for all -- and that doesn't change.

It's the same faith, it’s the same message. It speaks the same basic truth from age to age --- in fact you also find that Christians -- from age to age -- have the same spiritual life, and the same spiritual understanding. You can read a born again Christian who lives a thousand years ago, and feel as though they were your nearest of spiritual kin -- and you can meet a Christian from the other side of the world, and have exactly the same understanding of basic spiritual truth.

The gospel never changes -- and therefore those who receive it will also believe the same thing, and they all have the same heart about the same things that really matter.

There are people who say that the gospel message doesn't apply today as it used to apply when it was first delivered to the saints. There are people who want to change its original message. There are people who have changed its original message. There are people -- like the troublemakers that Jude talks about in his book -- who manipulate the real meaning of the faith -- but Jude says here that it was entrusted to us once for all. It doesn't change.

There may be different situations, in different times, where different parts of the Bible need to be emphasised -- but the good news that we can be reconciled with God through Jesus Christ -- and all that that means, and all the results of salvation in our lives -- are forever the same.

That is because the Bible is God's "once and for all" revelation to humankind -- and it is because God Himself has entered into a Covenant with humankind, which means that He always deals with us on the same basis. No matter where we are, or who we are, He deals with us in the same way, on the same basis, through all the centuries -- and He will deal with humankind in that way until Kingdom come.

* * * * * * * * * *

So that is the Word of God in Jude verse 3 -- and I might as well mention in closing that we have a nice new stock of Bibles which happen to be in our trust for a short period of time -- you can take a look at them at the back of the Church, and help us to distribute them in the world. The Church pays 50% of the cost, so that we can encourage people to shift the Word of God into the world.

AMEN.

No comments: