Jude, that one little chapter
right before the revelation of Jesus Christ. Verse 1 says, Jude,
the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to them that
are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ
and called mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied."
I want to use that preserved in Christ Jesus. That's the title
of my message. Preserved in Christ. Now Jude
was a half-brother of the Lord Jesus Christ. Of course, all
of his kinfolks would be a half-brother. And through his daddy, But Jude
was a half-brother of the Lord Jesus Christ. But he didn't become
a believer until our Lord was resurrected from the dead. He
didn't become a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ until he was
resurrected. And his brother James is the
one who ran the church, or was the pastor of the church, in
Jerusalem. And he lived, Jude here, lived
a very long, long life, as the historians tell us. The only
other apostle that lived longer than him was John. John lived way up in his 90s.
even though they tried to kill him half a dozen times. He lived
and lived on and on and on. And he's on the Isle of Patmos
as an old, old man, and God gave him the revelation. But I want
you to notice here, though Jude was a half-brother of our Lord
Jesus Christ, look what he said about himself. He said, Jude,
the servant of Jesus Christ. He called himself a servant.
He didn't say the brother of the Lord Jesus Christ. And he
could have told the truth. He could have said a family member
of the Lord Jesus Christ could have told the truth. But he called
himself a servant of Jesus Christ. Jude rejoiced. He rejoiced and
regarded his spiritual relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ more
than his kinship to the Lord. He rejoiced more and found more
comfort and assurance in his spiritual relationship than he
did with his kinship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And we're
the same way. We're the same way. Our spiritual
relations are dearer to us than our own natural kinfolks sometimes. You know, if you don't see them
very long, you don't see them very often. And I tell you, we
go a lot of miles and travel a lot of territory and cover
a lot of ground to go be with people that are spiritual relationships,
our brothers and sisters in Christ. And we hold our relationship
with them like you did with Christ. We hold that spiritual relationship
nearer and dearer than we do our own kinfolk. And I want to
look at four ways, four ways to start with, by way of introduction,
how we are God's servants. How we're God's servants. And
we are God's servants. And that word servant means a
slave. You know, a bond slave. Willingly
the bond slave of our Lord Jesus. But we're His servants. Four
ways we're servants of our Lord Jesus Christ. First of all, we're
servants by covenant. by covenant, the eternal covenant
of grace. And let me say something about
that, that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost
is the one who entered into this covenant. That's the only way
we're in the covenant as God gave us to Christ in the covenant. It's between the Father and the
Son. Now you go right back over here to Hebrews chapter 13 and
verse 20. You know, and that's what he's
talking about. We count the covenant of our
Lord Jesus Christ as between the Father and the Son. The Father,
on the basis of Christ being the Lamb slain from the foundation
of the world, the Father gave the Son a people. He says, those
that thou hast given me. I pray not for the world, but
for those that thou hast given me. Seven times in John 17 it
talks about those that were given to Him. Well, when were we given
to Him? In a covenant of grace between
the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And what the son
did is that he came and his part of the covenant was to be the
surety, to be the one to take the sins of his people, to obligate
himself for his people, to take the place of his people that
were given to him. And then what he done to undertake
to redeem those people that was under that covenant by becoming
one with them through the womb of a virgin. Not ashamed to call
us brethren. And then the Holy Ghost, His
part in the covenant is to come and take the covenant of the
Father and the covenant of the Son and apply that covenant to
us. Apply the death of Christ to
us. Apply the Spirit of God to us. Apply the Gospel to us. To give
us a new mind, a new heart, a new nature. And so look here at Hebrews
13, 20. It's called a blood covenant.
But look what he says here. Now the God of peace, that brought
again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, that great shepherd
of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant.
Now what happens when you're in the blood of this everlasting
covenant? And God said, this is our part of the covenant.
God said, I'll be their God, they're going to be my people.
But how is he going to be our God? How are we going to be his
people? through the death of Christ, through the Holy Spirit
applying the death of Christ to us. Now watch what he goes
on to say. This is what happens when we're
in this everlasting covenant and God saves us by His grace.
Make you perfect! that every good work to do his
will, listen to it now, working in you that is well-pleasing
in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory. He works in
us to do that that's well-pleasing in his sight. Why? Because it's
based on a covenant. Based on a covenant. All right,
let me tell you something else. That's the first way we're a
servant. And then we are a servant of our Lord Jesus Christ by creation. What I mean by that, that our
Lord Jesus Christ, we're His by title. He owns us lock, stock,
and barrel to do with us as He pleases. It's He that made us,
not we ourselves. We was created by God the Father,
and it's God that gave us life, and He gives us life in Christ.
And we're His by right of creation. He owns the title to do with
any human being in this world He wants to do with. He has that
right. He owes a title to that. But
all beloved, and look with me, we are also His not only by creation,
He made us. We didn't make ourselves. We
didn't create ourselves. No more than this universe created
itself. No more than the sun put itself
in the sky. No more than the stars put themselves
out there. No more than the whales and the
fish put themselves in the sea. And so God, we're all His by
title, by creation. But we're also His by new creation. He created us and then He creates
us new. Therefore if any man be in Christ,
what is he? He's a new creation. He Himself
bear our sins in His own body on the tree that He might do
what? Bring us to God. And oh listen, let me show you
something, Psalm 100. This is exactly what I'm talking
about. Look at Psalm 100. I might ought to read this tonight
for my scripture reading. But this is so plain here as
how we're the Lord's service not only by creation. He's got
right to us as the one that created. He's got right. He owns us by
title. He's got title ownership of us.
And I tell you what, my beloved, He has done not only by creation,
but by new creation. Look what He says here in Psalm
100 in verse 1. Make a joyful noise unto the
Lord all ye lands. Serve the Lord with kindness.
Come before His presence with singing. Now listen to it. Know
ye that the Lord, He is God. It is He that hath made us and
not we ourselves. Now this is talking about the
new creation right here because the next one says we are His
people and the sheep of His pasture. That's talking about the new
creation. We didn't make ourselves new creatures. We didn't give
ourselves a new birth. We didn't make ourselves to go
into his pasture. We didn't make ourselves his
sheep. He made us his sheep. He laid us to lie down in the
green pastures. It's He that made us and not
ourselves. So we're His by creation and
by new creation. And then the third way we're
servants of the Lord Jesus Christ, like Jude was, is by redemption. By redemption. By the blood of
Christ. Now, beloved, When we talk about redemption,
I think I mentioned this here a while back. In redemption,
God sent a price. We were held in the awfulest
bondage that there is known to mankind, and that's the bondage
of sin. That's the bondage of sin. You
know, if you go to jail, you might get out. You may be in
bondage to some kind of a drug and you may get over it. You
may be in bondage to something else. But if you're in bondage
to sin, you can't get out of sin. You can't break the chains
of sin. You can't set yourself free from
sin. So what it is, we were slaves to sin, held bondage by sin,
so God sent His own Son, and by His Son, He shed His blood. He gave His life, His death and
His resurrection. And by that, beloved, He redeemed
us, paid the price to set us free from sin's bondage. And that's the greatest. God
Himself could not set us free without blood price being shed.
God Himself would not let us go until the price had been paid
for the redemption of our sins. And now from under the bondage,
that's why He says we're not our own. Why not? We're bought
with a price. What was the price? The Lord
Jesus Christ. He entered into the holy place
with what? His own blood. And He obtained
eternal redemption for us. He said, He hath redeemed us,
bought us, paid for us from the curse of the law. How did He
do it? By being made a curse. And the scripture says, Cursed
is everyone that hangeth on a tree, and thy Lord Jesus Christ hung
on a tree. And I tell you what, it took
the greatest price And God demanded the price for us to be set free
from sin. God Himself set the price for
us to be saved. God Himself set the price that
it would take to put away our sin and make us acceptable in
His sight. And that price was the precious
blood of His own blessed Son. Not with the vain conversations
received by traditions of the elders, but by the precious blood
of Christ as a lamb slain before the foundation of the world.
And by God, He brings us to Himself. Our Lord Jesus Christ paid the
price. Look at Psalm 46. Look here at
this. This is what we're talking about.
And that's why we're servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. is
because He redeemed us. He paid for us. He paid God. That's who He paid. He paid God. He didn't pay us.
He paid God. He said, I lay down my life as
a ransom. A ransom. A payment for the ransom.
Sin held us in bondage and the only way we can get out from
under that sin. Be set free from sin. is for God to set a price. And
our Lord Jesus Christ came and paid that price. And He paid
it to the Father. For us. Look what it says in
Psalm 46 in verse 49, excuse me. Did I say 46? I meant 49.
49. Look what it says in verse 6. They that trust in their wealth
and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches, none of them
can by any means redeem his brother nor give to God a ransom for
him." He told Job, set him free from
going down in the pit. Why? I found a ransom. found a payment price. I found
what it cost to save him from going down in there. And I list
what he said here, look what he said in verse 8. For the redemption
of their soul is precious, and when it's redeemed, and it ceases
forever. When there's redemption price
being paid, then you don't need no more redemption. Don't need
no more payment for the sacrifice of sin. If Christ sacrificed,
if Christ's blood put away our sin, we don't need another sacrifice. We don't need any more bloodshed.
We don't need any more blood and no more sacrifices. If Christ
did pay for our sin and saved us from the curse of the law,
and satisfied God's payment price. And God said, I receive what
you give me on the behalf of those people. I take it. Now they can go free. Then I
tell you, we don't need another sacrifice. We don't need no more
blood. Until you're washed in that blood. Until you know that
Christ is your sacrifice, until you know that Christ done it
once and for all, then you still need to understand what the blood
does and how He satisfied God. And then here's the fourth way
we are God's servants, is by consent. We consent to be His
servants. Don't you say, oh, no master
is like my master. We willingly give ourselves to
Him. We willingly, we consent to be
His servant. We consent to do it. We'll take
our pity. We'll labor as long as He has
us to labor. When we get to the end of the
way, we'll all get the same. But all, listen, He says, the
love of Christ constrains us. And He says, brethren, I beseech
you by the mercies of God, present your bodies a living sacrifice,
holy and acceptable unto God. You see, we love our Master.
You remember under the, when, when, uh, uh, they had a slave,
they, you know, some slave came in and they kept them. And then
they was after seven years, which they served their time, they
was allowed to go free. And if they had a wife, she'd
go free with them. She had children, they'd go free
with them. But if he had a good master, and he loved his master,
and his master took care of him, they'd call for the judges to
come around. And everybody would make witness,
I don't want to leave my master. I don't want to be free from
my master. And for me to prove to you I
don't want to be free from my master, you all gather around
here, and they'd take him over to a door post, and they got
in awe. Like these women getting their
ears pierced, they got it all. And they put that up against that
door post. And all kinds of witnesses, they stick a hole through his
ear. In that, they stick a hole through there. And you know why
he does that? He said, I love my master and I don't want to
go. Our Lord said, He said, My sheep do not care. He pissed
out of the ear. He put a hole through our ear.
And we willingly say, You're my master and I ain't going out. We love our master. We love our
master. And I tell you, beloved, as servants,
we must give an account. We must give an account. You
know, we're trusted with gifts. God gives us all gifts. gifts
of prayer, gifts of giving, gifts of love, gifts of kindness, gifts
of generosity, gifts of preaching, gifts of singing. He gives us
all these gifts and we're trusted with these gifts and how we use
these gifts and we must be faithful to our Lord Jesus Christ, our
Master. Be faithful to His message, be
faithful to His gospel, be faithful to Christ, be faithful to His
message, be faithful to His church, be faithful to His Word. We must
be faithful as servants of God. And I tell you always, always
look on preachers, look on preachers as servants. Just look on, don't
never set a preacher above what he ought to be. Never. I don't
care who it is. And I love preachers. I love preachers and I steam
them all very, very highly in love for their worship. But we're
sinners saved by grace. The only difference in me and
you is that I'm called to be a preacher and you're not. But
I couldn't be a preacher if God didn't give me people to preach
to. Now, ain't that right? And so, see, that's a gift that
God gives me. Now, look back over here in June. Let's look
at this together. There's three descriptions of
God's people here that Jude writes to. And here's just what he said,
Jude the servant, I gave you several reasons why we're servants
of Jesus Christ. The brother of James, and you
can look who James is and you're marching when you get ready,
to them that are sanctified by God the Father, preserved in
Christ Jesus and called. There's three things there, sanctified,
preserved, and called. You know what that tells me?
The salvations of the Lord. God the Father sanctified us,
the Lord Jesus Christ preserves us, and we're called. And we're
called. And all that shows is the salvations
by the Lord. Sanctified by God the Father.
You know, and this word sanctified, we've dealt with this so many
times. That means to be set apart. It's
all sanctified in God who has set us apart. And what He did
sanctified by God the Father. God set us apart for a holy use
and for holy purposes. We belong to Him. And what God
says is, you know, when they were in the temple and the tabernacle,
they had vessels that was used. Some was made out of wood, some
was made out of brass, some was made out of gold, some was made
out of steel, some was made out of clay, some was made, you know,
they had different instruments. But they were all, in the use
of that tabernacle, they were considered holy. And people have
the same stuff in their houses. But it wasn't holy. When God
says something's holy and separate to Himself, He says it's what
makes it holy. And God said here, God says when
He sets us apart, He says, You're mine. You belong to Me. And what I'm going to do, I'm
going to set you out of the world, and I'm going to set you over
here for Myself. I'm going to set you apart for
Myself. And I'm going to use you I'm
going to make you mine. I'm going to express myself to
you. I'm going to reveal myself to you. I'm going to teach you.
I'm going to keep you. I'm going to protect you. And
I'm going to do what's necessary to save you all the days of your
life. I set you apart from the world
in electing grace. And I set you apart from the
world by power. It took power for God to set
us apart from the world. And then, oh, he says, oh, it
set us apart by love. Love, the love of God set us
apart. God's love set us apart. Having
loved us with an everlasting love. Everyone, everyone needs
love. Everyone wants love. People look
for love. And people say, God did not have
to love anybody. Yes, he did. God described two
things about him in 1 John. God is light and Him is no darkness
at all. And God is love. And wherever
love is, it has to be expressed. And God loved a people and He
expresses that love. And He expressed that love through
Christ, through the Gospel, and setting us apart. He said, I
love you because I love you. He loved Jacob, and He expressed
His love for Jacob before Jacob was ever born. And if God loves
you, He loves you, and He done it, and He expresses that love.
And that love that He expresses sometimes absolutely overwhelms
us. How can it be, how can it be
that thou, my God, shouldst die for me? And oh, we sing that song, the
love of God, where the skies of parts been made. And every man a scribe by trade,
and every stalk on earth a quill, and the earth was filled with
ink, and though the stain was stretched from sky to sky, the
scroll could not contain the hope of the love of God. And I tell you, do you know when
we're really gonna know it? Now this is the thing that just
gets us, is how in the world He could love me? But He does. And you know how He loves you?
You know why you know He loves you? You know whether God loves
you or not. You know why you know He loves
you? Because He sets you apart. If He hadn't set you apart for
Himself, you wouldn't know God's love. If He hadn't expressed
it, you wouldn't know it. And that's what we want Him to
do for our families and our brothers and sisters and our sons and
daughters. Listen, you know what broke my
heart when I seen the love of God? I really saw it when I saw
the Lord Jesus Christ nailed on a cross and the only thing
I seen Him nailed on that cross was for me. I didn't care, I
didn't think about anybody else when I saw Him hanging on that
tree. By the Spirit of God, by the Holy Ghost of God, by a revelation
of Christ, when I saw Him hanging on that tree, and He did it for
me, that was it. That just, that just, the love
of God just overwhelmed me. Not only that, but He sheds the
love of God abroad in our hearts. It bursts out of us. breaks out
on you, don't it? Oh, to be loved by God would
mean nothing unless he could express that love, and he does. How? He sets you apart. You're
mine. And then look what else it says
here. Not only sanctified by God the Father, but also called. This is how he sets us apart.
By calling us. By calling us. And you know what
it is? It's an effectual call. It's an effectual call. Peter
says, make your calling and election sure. How do you make your election
sure? By your calling. By your calling. He said, for you see your calling,
brethren, how that not many wise men are to the flesh, not many
mighty, not many noble, But he took the foolish, he took
the wise, he took the foolish, he took the weak, and he took
people like us. Nobodies. Nobodies. There's all these senators and
presidents and professors and PhDs and all the talking heads
on TV. God passed by all of them. And
come here and say to Sartre, nobody's like us. He said, Boy, I'm not nobody.
I am. I'm like old Scott, I'm nobody
from nowhere. And the only thing that made
me somebody was the blood of Christ and God the Holy Ghost
set me apart. That's the only thing. And so
he called Abraham was called. All the prophets were called.
Paul was called on the Damascus road. Zacchaeus was called down
out of a tree. Bartimaeus was called. He said,
just shut up. The master calls. That's what
he said. The master calls for thee. And
if the master calls for you, you come in. He brought him to and said,
what do you want? Mercy, and I want to see. No, Lord, that's
what we say. We still say, give me mercy,
Lord, and we want to see as much now as we ever saw. Don't we? Our Lord Jesus Christ says in
Mark 3.13, He says, He went unto a mountain, and you know what
it said? He called unto him whom he would. You know who He calls? He calls
who He would. Because who would? Ain't you
thankful He called you? Ain't you thankful He called
you? One day He called you. It's like Samuel, when the Lord
spoke to Samuel. He got up and went to Eli and
said, Eli, I'm here. He said, well, I ain't said nothing.
I ain't called you. Go way back down. That happened
again. Next night, he went in and told
Eli, said, oh, I'm here, Master. I'm here, Eli. I'm here. I'm
here. Father said, go lay down. Now this time, when you hear
that voice that says, speak Lord, thy servant heareth. He thought
it was somebody else. But oh boy, when God speaks to
us, we say, speak Lord, thy servant heareth. We come here with our
ears set to listen. We come here with our ears set
to listen. Then look what it says, and preserved in Jesus
Christ. kept in Christ. That word preserved
kept in Christ and kept for Christ. Preserved means to guard. When
you preserve something, you know, they put the original Constitution
and the original Declaration of Independence and
they put them under glass. They preserve them. They guard
them. Somebody watched them all the
time. And they keep them. And they hold him firmly. That's
what it means for Christ to be preserved in Christ. Christ guards
us. He keeps us. And He holds firmly
to us. I tell you what, that ain't no
way. You can't get away from Him.
You know why? He's guarding you. Who's He guarding against? Evil!
Satan! Yourself! Error! He keeps you! And He holds firmly to you. He
says, I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish. they're in my hand and the father
which gave them me is greater than all and he said I give them
unto my father's hands and in my hand and I tell you what beloved
he said that's a firm hold on you when you're held by the father
and the son both that's a firm hold and I thy Lord Jesus Christ
will keep his sheep and he says I've kept all of them and none
of them's lost said the son of perdition not one now listen
to me not one whom is preserved in Christ, set apart by the Father,
and called of God, not one of them will become an apostate.
Not one of them will become an apostate. Not one of them will
ever leave Christ. Not one of them will ever leave
the Gospel. They're sealed. They're preserved.
Huh? Look over here at 2 Timothy.
Go back over here and look at 2 Timothy. And look what Timothy
said over here. Paul told Timothy. That's right
before Titus that we was at there a minute ago. Look what he says
over here in Timothy 4.18. Look what he says. Our Lord Jesus
Christ, I know that we will not become an apostate. And I used
to be scared to death of that. Scared to death that I would
leave Christ, that something would get me and I'd leave. And I would, if Christ did not
preserve us, if we weren't preserved in Christ, what would happen to us? Look
what the Apostle said here in verse 18, talking about being
preserved. And the Lord shall deliver me
from ever evil work, and listen to this, and will preserve me
unto his heavenly kingdom. I'm going to guard him, I'm going
to keep him, and I got a firm hold on him until I take him
into that heavenly kingdom. And over here in Jude, back over
here in Jude, look what it says here in verse 24. I love this
verse of scripture, just love it. Jude 24, being preserved
in Christ. Now, unto him that is able to
keep you from falling and to present you faultless before
the presence of his glory with exceeding joy." I won't present
you. You've got to be kept and preserved
to be presented. We're guaranteed to be presented. And then let me show you back
over here in verse 1 again. Back over here in our text. Look
what a blessing for those that are sanctified, preserved, and
called. Verse 2 says, Mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. God preserves his saints by the
merits of Christ giving us mercy and peace and love for Christ's
sake for Christ's sake and here's the thing he says mercy unto
you mercy unto you and peace and love now everybody knows
what to be multiplied is everybody knows what to be multiplied is
You take one and multiply it by three, or by six, or by ten,
or by twelve, and that's what he said. The peace and love of
God. Just keep multiplying and multiplying. Let's do it by threes. Get nine. Do it by nine. We'll get eighty-one.
Get it by, well, I can't go that far. Don't leave myself up close
enough as it is. Sure you can get it by eight
if I ain't careful. But you know, let it be multiplied. Let it
just go on and on and on and more and more and more and more.
And oh my! And is there anything, anything
whatsoever can separate a saint from God? Sin came because Christ
redeemed us from it. What about our circumstances? He said our Lord Jesus Christ
is at hand. And you can't good loose God's
love because we didn't do anything to get it. He just willed to
give it to us. And on he sheds it abroad in
our hearts by the Holy Ghost. We're preserved in Christ Jesus.
And who and what could ever separate us from the love of God that's
in Christ? Preserved in Him. I hope that's a blessing. I hope
that's a blessing. Our Father, O our Father, blessed
name, precious name, glorious name of our Savior, the Lord
Jesus Christ, thank you for allowing us to meet here tonight to be
with the people of God, to rejoice in your Word, to delight in your
Word, be instructed in your Word, encouraged in our Word, enlightened
and cause our hearts to rejoice, O our heart rejoices in our Lord
Jesus, Oh, Father, thank you. Blessed be your name. And as
these dear saints of God go home, go to their jobs, go to their
works, wherever they go and what they do, preserve them going
in, preserve them going out. Protect them and uphold them.
And please be merciful and gracious to those that are weak among
us, those that are sick among us, and those that are frail. We ask these things in Christ's
name. Amen. Amen. This, uh, first and last
verse of the love of God. Let's see, where's that? I messed
that up. The love of God. 21, 21. Stand
together. We'll sing the first one, and
we'll sing the last one. That's where I got it, couldn't
we? We think those are good. The
love of God, how good or far that tongue or pit can ever tell. It goes beyond the highest stone, The guilty pair bowed down with
care, God gave His Son to win. His erring child He reconciled,
and purged from his sin. O love of God, a scribe by trade. To write the love of God above
would drain the ocean dry, nor could the scroll contain the
whole, though stretched from sky to sky. The love of God, how rich and
pure,