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.
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.
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