If you'll notice, as we've had
the establishment of the letter to the Ephesians in our hearts
and minds and amongst our body, we continually go back there.
It's there. It's rooted there. And if we
don't remind ourselves of those things, we'll lose it. We'll
lose the time that we've spent there. And if we don't continually
hone and mature in these things, we don't continually move back
into that which we've learned and be encouraged by it, then
we lose the application of it. The same thing will be with Titus.
Most of us were here during our time in Titus. I don't know how
many weeks we were in Titus, but we did some some time there
and we've learned some things about the ministry, about the
call of defending the faith. And it's very similar to what
we've learned in Jude. And we get through these things. I know
it's interesting because a lot of us who love the Word of God,
we look forward to that new series, don't we? Wow, we're going to
get into a new letter. It's going to be good. And then
halfway through we go, will we get out of this letter? And we just
need to keep in mind that every application, every sermon that
comes out of these letters is just as important and just as
new as the day we started. But for some reason in our mindset
and our culture, we like to do things quickly, get through them
and go. We want to say, I want to do the whole New Testament
this year. Not going to happen. I mean, it's just like with teaching
the Gospel of John. I could say that in the ten years that I've
been in the pastorate, I always started when I got there in the
Gospel of John in some way of teaching that, and the furthest
I ever got was chapter 12. To the people. You just pick it up. Because
what happens is it takes time. I mean, you're talking about
an eight-year journey. Well, hang on. Let's do it. A
Romans that would take five, six, seven, eight, maybe ten
years to go through. We just can't. Because there's
a difference in exposition and just surveys. There's a difference
in just picking, and we don't want to neglect these things,
so we refer to them, we pull from them. That's one of the
things that we've been doing on Tuesday night. We've been in Romans a good bit
on Tuesdays. For those of you who cannot come because of schedule,
the videos of Tuesday nights and the audio are on our church
website, so go and look at it. It's about an hour and 25 minutes
of teaching each night. And we're dealing with the weight
of sin. We're looking at what sin is in the life of the church.
We know what it is in the world. I've said this several weeks
in a row. Sin is death. But as we are believers born
again, we're not absent from sin because it indwells within
us, but we're at war with it. So what is sin to the life of
the church? And what's the severity of it?
What's the consequence of it? And how do we deal with sin and
temptation and repentance? What do all these things mean?
And so that's what we've been going out on Tuesday night, and
I really think it would be good for you to go and look. We actually
had scheduled it for just a one three-hour group on Saturday,
and it seemed to be so important, I decided just to sort of take
it and put it over about a six to eight-week series. But the
same thing with Jude. You know, we're thinking, wow,
we've got one more week, praise God. Let me tell you something. I think we
could spend the next 20 weeks just in verses 24 and 25 of Jude
and never get through with it. You're thinking, that's absurd.
No, I'm not talking about a new sermon each week. But if I preach
the same sermon each week, if I preached Jude 24 and 25 for
the next 20 weeks, I think it would be just as beneficial to
us if I just preached it tomorrow or next week. I think it's that
important. I think that as we hear the Word
of God and as we go through it together, then what we need to
do is we need to take our sermons, not my sermons, but your sermons,
and the preaching that goes on in your mind and in your heart
through the Holy Spirit and the work of His Word, as we meditate
on the Word of God, that that sermon continues to resonate
in our lives. That we look at it in such a
way that it never stops, it never goes down. It's not just an echo
of yesterday, but it's a power for today. Friends, we do what
we do as the body of Christ so that we can be empowered to be
a people. We're all called to the work of the ministry, to
do the work of an evangelist, to do the work of growing the
church into maturity. We are all commanded of God to
do that which God has equipped us to do. We're all called in
such a way that we're supposed to be sharpening each other.
If I'm listening to you and you're sharing the faith, then you're
sharpening me. And as I pray for you through
the Holy Spirit, then I'm sharpening you. And when I respond, then
you're being sharpened and vice versa. Friends, we sharpen each
other and we grow together to the full stature of Christ that
Paul says in Ephesians because the Word of God is in us and
we grow and journey together in that Word. There is no assimilating
of a program or a process or a purpose or anything else that
we can do as the body of Christ with any power of success except
for growing in the Word of God together. So the most important
aspect as a Christian is that we gather together for the Word
of God. So that if our ministry is in these four walls with the
people who are Grace Truth, Or whether our ministry, and it
is both places, is outside those doors in the streets or in the
hallways of our job or in the office or wherever it might be.
It all starts and rises and falls with the local church. It all
starts and rises and falls with the congregation. It all starts
and rises and falls with the body of Christ to whom you feel
an affinity with and the concept of the gospel alone. Period. We don't want a biker church,
or a kite flying church, or a rattlesnake handling church, or a jazz church. We want a Christ filled church.
We want a Christian church. We want to be the body of Christ
that has an affinity with the gospel. So that no matter what,
everything else is nothing. That we lay it all down, that
we say all that which I've gained is garbage. And I lay it down
for the priceless gain of knowing Christ as my Savior and Lord.
I don't want to be known as this guy who does that. I don't want
to be known as the group of guys who do this. I want to be known
as the body of Christ that no matter what race or gender or
economic place we're in, no matter what city we're from, that we're
all unified in the faith that was once for all given to the
saints that we are to contend for. which is not just with our
mouths and the sense of academics, but with our lives as we press
into the Gospel. And all of us have been called,
first and foremost, to the Gospel and to the ministry of the local
church. All of us. For there is no man of God who
has ever been called of God, who has ever been preaching anywhere
of God, who has not been obedient to the call before he was called.
Let me say that again. So these people go, I'm called
to ministry. If they're not doing ministry, they're not called
to squat. I'm called to preach. If they're not preaching, they
better never stand beside the pulpit. Well, I want to be a
pastor. Well, then you better shepherd
somebody. You know what? God doesn't wait for you to get
equipped. He equips you. God does require us to work and
God does require us to grow and study and be dedicated and be
determined. But friends, don't wait on the day when you're ready.
You're never going to be ready. And the day that we can stand
before God and say, well, I'm ready now, He don't need us anymore.
Because He doesn't need us in our preparation. He wants us
to be shown to show His wisdom. People say, well, Paul was this
great learned man. That learnedness, he threw in
the garbage. That brilliance, that mind that
he had to know and do what he did as a Sanhedrin, remember
the Sanhedrin? He threw it all away. He said, this is nothing. I didn't come to you, church,
he said to the Corinthians, in power and in wisdom. But I came
to you in trembling and in fear, barely able to stand, barely
able to speak." I imagine that Paul, as he preached, probably
looked down and trembled and wept. He wasn't that good of
an orator. Like Moses, who could barely
speak and had a stuttering problem, some scholars say. And so God
gives him a stick and a brother Aaron. He says, go anyway. I don't need you to be all that
you can be. I need you to show who I am.
And that's what the body of Christ is for. That's why going through
the text of Scripture is so important for the church. It's why so often
there are multitudes of people who claim the name of Christ
who have no power thereof. They don't know how to deal with
life. They don't know how to share their faith. They don't
have a heart for the poor. They don't have a heart for the
lost. They just enjoy their moralistic lives and they like the idea
that they're looked well upon by society. Well, let me tell
you something. When you follow Christ, you're not looked well
upon by society. When you study the Word of God,
you're a freak to them. When we love each other who are
unlovable, people think we've lost our minds. When we give
of ourselves and of our time and of our talents, when we give
to the point that it costs us, people think we're insane. But
that's what the Bible does for us. That's what the Word of God
does for His people. And so as we go through these
next few weeks, please don't feel. What do they call that
when you've given your notice at work? That part-timers syndrome
or that end-timers or whatever they call it? Don't fall into
that trap. Don't think, well, we're just
going to coast in. Because the most important text in this entire letter is
next week. It is the creme de la creme.
It is the doxology of doxologies. It is the thing that when you're
135 sitting in these chairs, And you look back and you go,
how in the world did I ever stay? You will see that which Jude
wrote. When you wonder, have I been successful? You will say,
no, but God has. And therefore, I stand at the
product of God's purpose for my life. How am I going to hold
fast? How do I keep myself in the love
of God? How do I endure with unsound teaching? How do I handle
the people who are aggravating and divisive and evil and wicked
and mean? How do I handle these problems? Well, next week we'll
show you exactly how it's handled. This week will show us how we
handle those people that cause these things. See, as a way of
reminder, Jude wrote this letter. The occasion of this letter is
there were people who were in the church, who were leaders
in the church, who were professing to be in Christ, who were causing
division. And they were causing division
because their lifestyles depicted something other than their profession.
I am in Christ, they would say, but the way they lived their
lives and the way they journeyed through their lives, they taught
a different gospel with the way they lived. And then when they
were confronted with it, they began to start saying, well,
the Bible teaches that grace is enough for these things, so
I'm just not there yet. I can live a lucidious life.
I can live a blasphemous life because God's grace is enough.
That is garbage. God's grace is enough for Lucidius'
life. God's grace is enough. Jesus Christ on the cross of
Calvary wiped your sins away. If He didn't, you stand condemned.
And you need to repent and believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
You need to come to the place where you yearn and hunger and
cry out that God would save you by His mercy. But if you are
in Christ, then God has satisfied His judgment against your sin
through Jesus Christ. So therefore, there is no condemnation,
Paul would say, for those who are in Christ Jesus. So, oh,
wretched man as I am, who will save me from this? Christ has
saved you from that church. But what Christ did not save
you to was a blasphemous life, was a life to take the grace
of God and pervert it, as Jude would say. And so Jude, though
he wanted to write to them about the common faith, had to write
about those who were being divisive. And he did it so that the church
could contend for the faith that was once for all given to the
saints. So when we look at that, we're talking about the object
of the core doctrine. We say doctrine. I want to remind
you, church, that's not a church word. The word means teaching.
The teaching of the Bible is called doctrine. That's what
it's called. Teaching. If we teach cooking, there's
the doctrine of cooking. When you see teaching about cooking,
you can learn it. But we don't use it for that
term. It's mainly used in our circles in biblical sense. The
doctrine of Scripture is the teaching of Scripture. Theology
is the study of God, which is salvation. I'm not talking about
knowing the different isms and flisms and flapsims and all that
good stuff. I'm not talking about the terminology. I'm talking
about seeing the face of God through the Word of God, who
is Jesus, the Word that became flesh. This is what the reality
of the writing of Jude shows us. that we are a people who
must contend for the faith, for there have been those who have
crept in unawares, unnoticed, who are doing all of these things.
We see this. We saw this thing. Jude goes,
and it's a way of reminder, but I want to sort of bring all the
weeks that we've had up to a head here, and then we'll go into
verses. We're going to be in verses 22 and 23 today. But we see that Jude then reminds
his readers, he not only uses Scriptural history, but he uses
the Word of Mouth history, he uses the Book of Enoch, he uses
the Assumption of Moses, which are not Scripture, they're just
historical writings. And he expressly says that not
only does the Word of God and the history of the Gospel through
the Old Testament teach us this, but also the history of man,
the very chronicles of humanity for those who are in Christ show
us this, that God will never let an apostate go without punishment. That there will be judgment brought
on those who profess to be in the light but walk in darkness.
There will be judgment that is there. As a matter of fact, Jude
says that God keeps them for judgment. I want you to hear
that, church. Because next week we're going
to refer back to that in comparison of who God keeps. God keeps all
men. God keeps some men for judgment
and some men for life. Who are those for judgment? Those
who deny the Gospel. Who are those for life? Those
whom He has saved through the blood of His Son. There is no
other spot. There is no other pot. There is no other gate.
There is no other group. You're either in Christ or you're
not. And if by faith you're not in Christ, you are against Christ.
By faith, if your hope rests in a Gospel that's a worldly
Gospel, if your Gospel rests in a finny Gospel, or if your
Gospel rests in a moody Gospel, or a Graham Gospel, or a Tippins
Gospel, then it's not a Gospel. If your Gospel's not in a Jesus
Gospel, if your Gospel's not in the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
if your faith isn't in that truth and the One who saved you, you
have no certainty of hope. In verse 17, after all these
things, He said, but you remember. See, He's saying, but you. There's
a contrast there. This is all review. Remember
beloved. See, the contrast between beloved
and those who are apostate. The contrast between the beloved
and those who are among the beloved but are not beloved. Those who
are living a life contrary to the Gospel and those who are
walking in the faith. Beloved, let me remind you of
the predictions of the apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ. So
I want you to remember that there will be those who are devoid
of the Spirit amongst the church. That's why church discipline
is an important aspect of our life together. That's why teaching
the Word of God through the discipline of exposition is a very important
thing for our life together. And praying for one another is
an important discipline for our life together. Being in fellowship
with one another in an intimate way, I mean real way. I'm not
talking about how's it going. It's awesome. and our butt's
on fire. I mean, you know? What's that
smoke? I'm barbecuing. No, you're burning.
It's not a barbecue. This isn't a picnic. You're on
fire and I love you. I want to help you put the fire
out. That's real. Don't fake it in the church.
Don't fake it amongst your brothers and sisters. Have wisdom, but
don't fake it. And so we see these things. There
are people who are among us. Remember, they are devoted to
the Spirit. They will always be there. They are not going
anywhere. We do our best to weed them out.
And there's a way that we should treat them. And that's today's
sermon. How do we deal with people who are apostates in the church?
And he continues to talk and teach. There will be those. And
in verse 20, he says, But you, this is review, you're not like
them. You're contending for the faith
by building yourself up in the most holy faith through the praying
of the Holy Spirit. See, I wanted to teach a sermon
on that. We'll touch on it in a moment. Praying in the Holy
Spirit. What is that anyway? That is
praying that which the Spirit prays. Praying that in agreement
with the Holy Spirit of God. In Romans chapter 8 it says that
in our weakness, the Holy Spirit prays for us. With words and
groanings and utterances that cannot be understood. We know
that the Spirit of God prays for us. And not only that, but
we also see in other places, like in Ephesians 6, we pray
in the power of the Holy Spirit. We pray that God's will be done. We saw in Matthew in one of our
Tuesday night services when we looked at the model prayer that
Jesus taught. We pray in the power of the Holy
Spirit. We pray, Thy will be done. When we pray that which
is the Lord's will, it is done. It is already done. But the question
is, as James would teach, do we want that which God wants
or do we want that which we want? Do we think that our desires
are more wise, are wiser than God's wisdom for us? But we're
supposed to contend for the faith. We're building up in the most
holy faith through the praying in the Holy Spirit. We're supposed
to guard ourselves, Jude says, by keeping ourselves in the love
of God. That was last week's sermon.
We're to do that. We're to hold ourselves, knowing
that the fullness of our keeping is in God and the Holy Spirit.
But we are to build ourselves up in the most holy faith, pray
in the Holy Spirit, keep ourselves in the love of God, as we wait
for the mercy of God, of our Lord Jesus, that leads to eternal
life. And so in the aspect of that, what are we going to be
looking at? How do we relate to ourselves?
And in that line of thought, how do we relate to others who
aren't walking the way we walk? Well, let's look at that. Look
at verse 22. And see why I had to sort of go back and do the
auctioneer version of a little bit of review? Because there's
a word and there. Have mercy on those who doubt. Let's back up. Let's look at
verse 20 and we'll read all the way through verse 23. It says,
But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith, and
praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God,
waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads
to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt,
save others by snatching them out of the fire, to others show
mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. So we've given examples of what
they look like, these devoid of the Spirit people, these unbelievers
who profess to be believers. We've given examples of what
their actions look like. We've given examples of what
God's judgment is going to look like on them through the historic
judgment of God. We've been given examples of
what they do, how they become divisive, that they come to our
love feasts. You know what the love feasts
were in the first century? Fellowships, potlucks. They get
together and they have a feast and they love each other at those
feasts and they feed each other. Those who have food bring food
for those who don't have food. And they take care of each other's
needs. They gather together very often for the breaking of bread
so that they may give themselves, dedicate themselves to the apostles'
teaching so that they could remember the Gospel, so that they could
pray for each other, so they could sing praises together.
And there are these unbelievers who are stirring up trouble right
there in the midst of them, possibly serving the food. And the Scripture
says that they're without fear. They think they've got it made.
They've got no discernment. They've got no remorse. They've
got no fear at all in their hearts. They're just there. Remember, beloved, you're not
like them. You're not like them. You are
those who are growing and serving and living by the power of God.
But what do you do with these people? What do you do with them? You know who they are. If I had
little cards and pencils, little golf pencils that some churches
have, take out a card, take a little golf pencil and write down the
name of one person that came to mind. Could we not all do
it? And they may be sitting close to you or they may not be here.
They may be in a church congregation of years past or one that's just
fresh on your mind. It may be somebody that lives
next to you. It may be somebody that served you. It may be somebody
that hurt you. Are there those who profess to be in Christ who
are preaching in pulpits? You betcha. And they're really
not in Christ. And I would suggest to you that
for the most part, they're the most popular. Popularity doesn't mean they're
devoted to the Spirit. But I'll tell you what's most popular
in the world today is unspiritual teaching. Unbiblical teaching. What do people flock to? Paul
tells Timothy, people flock to things that make them feel good
about them. Well, you know what really gives me the fullness
of joy? Is to not be God. But to know that I'm a product
of God's grace. Because any other way is wanting to be God. Well,
no, I just want to know that God loves me. Because you care
more about you than you do His sovereignty and His holiness.
You want to be the object of God's affection rather than God
the object of His affection. Now see, that angers people.
I used to say it this way, that God loves Himself more than He
loves any of us. You know why? Where do you get that? Because
why did He save you? So that He would be worshiped
for His grace. Why? Because He's worthy to worship.
Only God and God alone is worthy to have self-worship. He's not
sinful. He's not maniacal. He's holy. We've sinned against Him. We're
guilty before God as human beings. So He is just, perfect, holy,
and loving to condemn us all to judgment. But in His great
kindness, in His great love, in His great mercy, He causes
us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection
of Christ from the dead, so that we may say we are not objects
of destruction, but vessels of mercy to be raised to life, which
Paul says we've already been done. We've already been raised
to the newness of life in Christ when we were born again. That's
awesome. But the world wants to hear a
different gospel. Lost people, who are not empowered
by the Holy Spirit, want to hear a man-centered gospel. Whether
it be, all you've got to do is act, God's going to let you do
what you can do to save yourself, and He'll meet you in the middle.
Or whether it's, if you just believe, God will keep your daughter
alive, or your family safe, God will keep your crops in the ground.
God will give you the house you want, or the car you want, or
the prestige you want, or the health you want. You see, that's
a different gospel. God will make you happy beyond
your wildest dreams. That's a different gospel. God
will give you happiness beyond your wildest dreams. If your
joy is complete in Christ. As you suffer in this world to
show what? To have a kinship with Jesus?
To have fellowship with Him? To have an understanding of His
suffering? And to show the world what is
lacking in the suffering of Christ? Oh, that sounds blasphemous.
That's what Paul says in Colossians. I pray that in my suffering,
which is for your sake, that I may fill up what is lacking
in Christ's suffering. Because Christ is invisibly suffering,
but His body is. So we suffer well. It is well
with my soul. In the day of death, I rejoice. I may have a frown, I may have
tears, but I have joy. That's not the Gospel that the
world wants to hear. The good news of the world is, I want
it all to be my way. I want it to be perfect. I've
got this picture in my mind. I've got this fairy tale in my
brain. And it's what I really want. And here's what some people
like. I've heard it with my own ears out of mouths of people
that I love dearly. If God loved me, this is what He'll do for
me. If God loved us, He will give
us eternal life in Christ Jesus. What else do we want? What else
do we want? What's a wasted life? You know
what a wasted life is? To take everything God's given
us and throw it away for our own pursuits. A wasted life. I used to have a big auditorium
and could preach to a bunch of people and the residents and
all. You can use the microphone for a lot of cool sound effects
and you can use it in the sense of getting people's attention.
If we live a hundred years on this earth, and it's gone. What's left? See, it doesn't
really have that effect in this room, does it? It should. Are we living our lives as a
waste? Are we living our lives in Christ?
And yeah, even those of us who live our lives in Christ, we
waste a lot of time. And God in His time through His
Word and among His people will press us into being the people
that God has created us to be. We don't have to figure it out.
We just have to keep growing in it. We don't have to organize
it and outline it to such a degree that we know what tomorrow brings.
What are we going to do today? Where are we going to go with
our feet and our mouths and our lives today? So back to the point. How do we deal with these people?
How do we deal with these people? Because in my tenure in ministry,
I'm young. I'm getting younger by the day.
And one day I'll be very young and be looking out at a whole
different group of people. And all of us will as we transfer
our lives. It's interesting that at the local cafe over here,
you know, some of us young guys sit on this side and some of
the older guys sit on this side in the mornings for breakfast
when we go over there. And these guys are here every day, all
the time, seven days a week. It's what they do. Get up, come
up here and they fellowship together. And I was meeting with a brother
not a few months back and I looked over there and he was making
comment and I said, hey, that's us in a couple of years. He realized
we're going to change sides. And they're going to be in the
ground and we're going to be over there and there's going to be two young guys looking at them
going, look at those old guys over there. How are we going to do it? We
often look and we create little, I don't want to use the word
cliques because that's not the point, but we create little divisions in our own mind.
Okay, here's us and we and there's them and even though we're all
us, we divide ourselves out. But really the only division
that should be happening among the church is that those that
we pray for salvation and those that we pray that God would grow
in their salvation. Now, we have a different respect
for things, and we deal with things a little bit differently
as far as our membership requirements are, because we're able to screen
people a little bit differently than they did in the first century.
People just getting saved by the thousands and showing up to people's
houses. You just took their word for it. And now there's so much
scrutiny that we have to make sure that we say we believe the
Word of God. Oh yeah, I believe the Word of God. You know what?
Every heretic in the world believes the Word of God. Every apostate
so-called Christian in the world believes the Bible is true. I'm
not talking about cults and unbelievers that people go, I hate all that
religion, they'll quote. But I'm talking about people
who are in the Bible, in Christ, in the body of Christ, supposedly,
amongst the proximity of the church, and they'll all believe
the Bible. And so there's the division in the church. People
who are not holding to sound truth and people who are. And
you know what we have? You know what happens? What we
do in our own mind and our own culture. Okay, that's wicked
and evil. We need to get it out of here. So let's chop them up
like Joshua did. Let's disembowel them. Of course,
we can't do that. But let's do like they did in
the days of Moses. Let's just stone them. Because
isn't that what Deuteronomy says? I read Deuteronomy 13. Our brother
Jesse, God bless him, is in Jamaica right now with Robert and McCreary
and a bunch of those guys that like to grow long beards and
preach outside. And Jesse is too baby-faced for
that. He needs to grow a beard. What was I saying? Gosh. I lose my train of thought too
easily. Anyway. Weather sure is nice. Isn't that funny? Oh, you get
these people, you know, we... Yeah, Deuteronomy 13. There we go. I'm back. Why did
I mention Jesse's name? Because he told me. And I'm reading
that, and I'm reading what the Word of God says to do with prophets
whose prophecies even come to pass, but they point to another
God. It says to seize him, and by
your hands put your hands on him, and by your own hands stone
him to death. And if those same prophets who
prophesy or say, let's go over here to this city, say, point
to something and their prophecy comes to pass, and they're pointing
you to a different God than the one you have known, not only
do you put your hands on them, but you do in such a way that
you coerce out of them where it is they want to take you,
and then you go to that city and you burn it down. I'm like,
yes! That's what Jude is telling us
to do! Burn it down! Stone them! No. He's not. He's not. It would be too easy, wouldn't
it? But tit for tat. Isn't that the way it works?
For people who are opposed to the truth, those who hold the
truth, historically have what? Burned. have been crucified. And our laws don't allow it today,
but I guarantee you if we did not have the jurisdiction of
the Constitution of the United States and the local laws and
the authorities of the state and the authorities of the local
government instituted by God, there would be a lot of us hanging
by our feet. Because church leaders and congregational
pastors and people who hold fast to their unbelieving faith hate
the Gospel. It was not the lost in the sense
of the worldly. It was not the worldly who crucified
Jesus. It was the religious leaders. It was not the apostate. Well, they are apostate, but
it wasn't cult leaders and Satanists who went city to city through
the numerous crusades, was it? It was the church claiming to
be Christ. Repent or die. So, who should we fear are those
who are causing division. It's not the obvious sinner.
You know what's funny about the person living worldly who rejects
the gospel? They don't stick around the church.
You don't have the guy selling drugs on the front row. You don't
have the guy who wants to open a house of repute trying to become
a deacon. No, you've got these upstanding,
solid, type A community leaders who are standing there going,
I love the Lord and I believe the Bible and I think we need
to reach the world for the gospel, with the gospel. Don't we? And so that's the division. How
do we treat them? What do we do? Like Titus says,
have nothing more to do with these people. To call it out.
It gets to that point, but in the same way, can we call out
sin and still sin in the process? Yes. How many times has somebody
offended you or talked ill of you or spoken poorly of you? You know what it does to us?
It hurts us. Then it makes us mad. Because we want to be vindicated. We want to be right. We want
people to say, oh, he's not a false teacher. She's not a liar. She's
not in a cult. They're not in a cult. We really
are good people. We want to be vindicated. That's
our flesh. But the Scripture says that vengeance
is mine. God says that He will avenge
those. And we see even in the apocalypse
of John, we see that those who are martyred, they're waiting,
they're crying out, when, Lord, when, Lord, will you avenge us?
God will avenge. those who hurt His sheep, His
children. So no matter what it takes, we
have to deal with public sin as a people. It's inevitable. You can't let it go. We have
to deal with private sin among each other. Matthew 18, verse
21-22. It's commanded of us. Why? Because
the Gospel, by foundation, does several things, and one of the
biggest tests of being born again is our love for each other. And
if we can just ride it off and say, well, we'll just go our
way, you go your way, and we hate you and you hate us, that
doesn't work. But at the end of the day, no
matter how stern and hard we have to be on drawing lines,
there's a heart toward it. And let's look at these Scriptures.
I know I've talked a lot before we get to the Word, forgive me
for that, but I wanted you to get the feel for where we're
going. several things, and have mercy.
Do you hear that? Have mercy. What is mercy? Mercy is, for example, and I
think about the days of execution of missionaries, like John and
Betty Stamm in communist China, and numerous others who will
never be known. And how mercy was though they
were going to have their heads taken because they were preaching
the gospel, mercy was they used a sharp sword to do it. So sometimes
mercy is quick. Mercy could also be in the context
of those who are guilty of sin or guilty of a crime. And the
judge, as I've seen many times in the A courtroom where someone was guilty of a
DUI. Actually, recently, in the last year, I've seen this. A
man's guilty of a DUI and he drives to work and the judge
says, you're guilty, you're pleading guilty. He says, what I'm going
to do is I'm going to give you a suspended license for 12 months,
but I'm going to give you a temporary permit to drive from home to
work and from work and to home. I'm going to give you mercy.
Because you know what? The law says you get a suspended driver's
license and the consequences of that, you pay. So if you lose
your job, you lose your job, you lose your house, you sleep
in the street, you sleep in the street, you die. Mercy is getting that which is
not deserved. So the Scripture here has said,
have mercy on those who doubt. In other words, be merciful.
Why? Because Jude already said over in verse 2, may mercy, peace,
and love be multiplied to you, because we have offended God
beyond this. And God in His kindness has given
mercy to us. Therefore, because we have been
given mercy, we can be merciful to others. One of the greatest
proofs that someone is not born again, or one of the greatest
alerts that should make us question, is when they are merciless. toward
those who are different, toward those who are undeserving, toward
those who hurt them or sin against them or cause division in their
lives, merciless. We're supposed to have mercy.
And he's not talking about those who doubt. He's saying that there
are people who maybe are amongst these who are divisive, who are
clearly lost. Judas saying, church, Christian,
have mercy on them. They're doubting the truth because
they've heard it, you know. They've been in the church. They've
heard right preaching. They've been amongst the people
of God. They've been corrected and they continue to push back.
Judas says, have mercy on those. And not just those who are clearly
divided, but those who are on the fence. Those who are being
pulled between the two. Those who are, in my experience,
weighing whether or not they're going to support the pastor or
the deacons. This part of the church or that
part of the church. This family or that family? Well,
this family poured the slab and this family laid the brick. So,
whatever they want goes. And when they're divided, something's
wrong. What about those who doubt? What about those who are really
thinking, well, I hear what the Bible teaches, but it's too hard
for me. And I like what they're saying
better, it makes more sense, gives me better peace because
I don't have to struggle with it. Friends, peace is not the
lack of struggle. Peace is the confidence and the
assurance in the struggle. Peace is knowing that the outcome,
the end game is victory. Peace is not a lazy river floating
in a tub with hot bubbles boiling up going, oh, this is the life.
Peace is when we're going under in the rapids and we are smiling
going, we know there's a hand at the end of the fall. Because God is a God of mercy.
We must also be merciful to those who doubt. We must be merciful. We must be kind. We must weep.
Jesus, when He looked over unbelieving Jerusalem, He didn't wrench His
teeth in His fist. He didn't snarl at them, now.
He whipped some in the temple. And when He comes back and He
returns to make final judgment, He will be carrying, we know
the sword is the Word of His mouth, the Word. But we see the
depiction. He will be a warrior. He will
be a judge. He will bring. That's the depiction
that we see in the apocalypse. Blood to the bridle of a horse.
Those aren't nations He's killing and putting under the wild press
of His judgment. They're unbelievers. Individual people. Jesus wept over Jerusalem because of their unbelief. We're too easily angered, church,
when we hear people disagree with our doctrine. And not our
doctrine. Let's just get that off the table
already with the doctrine of Scripture. With what we know
as Southern Baptists. Baptists as the doctrines of
grace. The Second London Confession
or the Baptist Faith and Message or whatever you want to say.
That's why we have to have these things in history. Because everybody
believes the Bible. Well, what do you believe about
salvation? God saves. Oh yeah? How? How can you be
right with God? Well, granddaddy always said,
Aunt Maile always said, well, what did God say? They may be
right, but don't let them show you. Let God show you. The Bible
says this. The Bible says that. Well, I
don't like that. I'm sorry that history as a Christian
has been built on tradition, not truth. We need to have mercy on those
who doubt. Verse 23 says, Save others by
snatching them out of the fire. You see the expression there.
Save others. Now I'm going to ask yourself,
if we're having mercy on some, does it remind you of any text?
Does it remind you of Paul's teaching to Timothy? When he
says, pray that God would have mercy. What? Have mercy. In 1 Timothy chapter
1? Verse 18, this charge, I entrust
to you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies
previously made about you, that by them you may wage the good
warfare, and I'm going to impart, Jude, with mercy, holding faith and good conscience. By rejecting this, some have
made shipwreck of their faith, among whom are Hymenaeus and
Alexander, whom I have handed over Satan, that they may not
learn to blaspheme. And where else does he talk about
these things? Over in the second letter. Verse 22, flee youthful passions,
pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those
who call on the Lord from a pure heart. We've got the contrast
here, but you beloved, who mercy and grace and peace have been
multiplied to in Christ Jesus. Those who call on the Lord with
foolish, ignorant, controversial... I mean, call on the Lord from
a pure heart have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies. You know that they breed quarrels.
And the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind, merciful
to everyone. able to teach patiently, mercifully,
enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness, kindness,
and mercy, God may perhaps grant them repentance, which leads
to a knowledge of the truth. I want you to see that, church,
which leads to Them coming to their senses and escaping the
snare of the devil after being captured by him to do His will.
When we're merciful toward people, it is a giving of grace. How are we to know that we're
not being wicked and hateful toward someone whom God is saving?
Were we not all like them before we came to Christ? Came to the
knowledge of the truth? And do you know how we come to
the knowledge of the truth? God grants repentance through the
hearing of His Word alone. Period. End of story. We don't
change our mind about sin until we're born again. Until we've
been granted repentance that we can see it. Believe it. This is a work of
God. Save others by snatching them
out of the fire. What is the fire? So I believe
that maybe Jude would say, have mercy on those who doubt. Through
that mercy, you will bring salvation to those. Is not grace how salvation
comes? Alone? Save others by snatching them
out of the fire. What comes to mind there? Snatching them out
of the clutches of the enemy. 2 Timothy. Snatching them out
of the blindness of the God of this world. 2 Corinthians. Snatching
them out of what? What is Paul saying? Colossians.
Out of the domain of darkness. God snatches. He pulls. He drags. Like Lazarus in John
11, He says, Lazarus, and His dead ears hear Him. John chapter
5, Jesus says that the dead will hear My voice. And all of them
will come out of the graves, some unto eternal life, some
unto eternal damnation. But every dead man will hear
the voice of God. I don't know which professor
and which seminary and what year and what effort and what degree
it was, but I remember one telling that one seminary professor,
when he was in school, used to take all of his students the
first week of class to a cemetery. And he'd line them up and say,
I want you to all pick a grave. I want you to get the name off
that grave. And on the count of three, I want you to call the name of
that man. Louder! Louder! Call Him! Call Him out
of that grave!" And after the illustration was done, he would
say, you see, nobody came out. You know why? Because they're
dead. And the only one who has power over death is Jesus. Friends,
let's not forget that when we're dealing with living dead people.
We cannot affect life and the life of people who are walking
this earth who are dead to God, or dead apart from Christ, dead
in the flesh. Only through the Word of God
and prayer, building ourselves up as the people of God in this
most holy faith, and being merciful and kindness will we snatch people
out of the fire. What is that fire? It's the fire
of judgment. It's the fire of judgment. He says to others, show mercy. Show mercy with fear. So see, the theme of grace, the
theme of mercy is never leaving. Mercy, grace is what snatches
people out of the clutches of death. Mercy and grace is what
snatches people out of the clutches of condemnation. Mercy and grace. I mean, is it gracious? Is it
gracious? Let me just put our minds at
ease for a minute. Just a little application here because I think
sometimes we think gracious is weakness. Yes, in the context
of how God gave His grace and made it effectual, Christ became
weak, but at no time did He ever lose His divinity. At no time
did He ever lose the opportunity or the power of His holiness. At no time did Jesus ever stop
becoming fully God. So that He became weak through
His submission to God the Father, Jesus Christ was still mighty.
Though He willfully and passively obeyed, being put on the cross
to obey the Father, it was only because He desired it. And sometimes we think that being
merciful and kind eliminates any harsh conflict, eliminates
any hard words. Friends, it is kind and merciful
to say to someone, your faith in that gospel is going to put
you in the hand of the judgment of God. And if you do not repent
of that belief, you will die and you will suffer under His
judgment forever. Oh, that doesn't sound kind to
me. That's not merciful. What is
merciful? Oh, I know we've got our differences,
but come on over for some coffee. Oh, I love you. Look what my
son painted. Look what my daughter did. Look
what my grandmother made. Well, I'm sorry we've had some
problems. It's alright. It's water under
the bridge, honey. Let's just all love Jesus. That's not kind. That's cruel. Well, they don't like me. They
don't want to be around. Of course they don't. Nobody
wants to be around truth when they're running from it. I've never known of a drug dealer
to say, hey, where do you want to meet? Let's go over to the
sheriff's office. They'll never suspect a thing.
And what are y'all doing? We're playing marbles. Jacks. Nobody does any of that anymore.
Paddle ball. I mean, what are y'all doing?
Trading baseball cards. Nobody's going to do a drug deal at the
sheriff's office. Nobody's going to do tax evasion at the IRS
office. And nobody wants to hang out
amongst the people of God when they're running from truth. So
sometimes you've got to snatch them by their pants as they're
running away and jerk them out of there. And whatever that application
means for us, friends, there's somebody in our life that we're
desperately wanting to see come to faith. And most of them, most
of them have professed to be in it already. Many of them. So, to others show mercy with
fear. So we've got this thing of continuing
with graciousness because God has given grace to us. God has
given mercy to us. God has snatched us out of the
fire of judgment. And now it says, to others show
mercy with fear. What does that mean? It's hard
because our culture, we live in a day, I'm telling you, When
we're not really scared of anything, but we're scared of everything.
We live our lives with just... I mean, we're not worried about
the ground swallowing us up, the sky falling on our heads.
We're not worried about walking too far and falling off the edge
of the earth. We're not worried about the spirits coming in and
giving us diseases. We don't have a whole lot of
fear in our world, especially in our culture here. But yet
we're scared of everything. We're worried about the economy.
We're worried about the government. We're worried about the taxes
and we're worried about this and we're worried about that. We don't walk in fear from it,
do we? It concerns us when we think
about it or what's in conversation, but we do what we want to do.
We garden. We watch a show. We read a book.
We study. We come to Bible study. We do
whatever we want to do because we're not really living in fear.
We're not doing like some of my brothers and sisters have
to do in China and take an hour to get 20 people in a building
so that the government can't follow them around and arrest
them. Or like some of my brothers who do ministry in Afghanistan. who have to lie and say they're
humanitarians. Smuggle Bibles in. Tape money
to their chest so they can buy supplies and get on an airplane
sweating like they're some kind of a cartel member. So they can
get the Gospel in the hands of people. You know, we don't have
to worry about that. We don't really have much fear.
But Scripture due to saying, save others, show mercy with
fear. You know what we really have
to fear in this world? There's only one thing. God. Oh, no, no, no, no. Now, I've
been in Sunday school since I was an embryo. And I've been told,
Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so. And
I don't fear those that I love. Oh, really? And you've never
been paddled by your daddy. or fly swatted by your mama or
hand swatted by your granddaddy. You can love somebody to death
and they can love you and you can fear them in the same breath. One of the most horrible sounds
as a child is... And as an adult is... in the
middle of the night. We can fear that, which we love.
We can fear those. And I'm not meaning that we stand
around in horror, but there's an honor, there's a gravity,
there's a respect, there's a trembling. Friends, do you know how serious
it is to teach God's Word? It's not a joke. It's not something that we just
haphazardly mull through. And as I was shared with, wow,
Almost 20 years ago, James 3.1, many of you ought not be teachers,
beloved, for those who teach the Word of God will be here
to restrict your judgment. What is that? Is that a paddle
boat down the canoe? No. That's dangling over a raging
rapid by the mercy of God that He doesn't snap that line. But
it also comes with a complete confidence. a complete confidence that we
are not going to have to expect eternal judgment because we are
in Christ. It's not a dichotomy. It's not a contradiction. We
can have complete confidence in God's mercy, but it doesn't
mean that we don't have fear. And here's what Jude is specifically
dealing with in this fear. He says, to save others by snatching
them out of the fire, to others show mercy with fear. Well, I
think they go together. And then the very last phrase
goes together, because it says, hating even the garment stained
by the flesh. Now, I want you to understand
what we should fear here. Have you ever gotten news about
someone that was bad and you feared for them? Even as a church,
we've prayed in that situation in the last month or two. Fear
for them. Well, what's more dangerous?
Sickness? Death in the flesh? Bad news
at home? Loss of a loved one? Or the judgment
of God? Fear He who can cast both body
and soul into hell. So as we show mercy to others,
we look at those who oppose the truth. Not us. They don't oppose
us, church. No one's opposing you when they
disagree with truth. No one's opposing my preaching.
No one's opposing our congregation or that congregation. No one's
opposing Christians. They're opposing Christ, who
is the judge of all the cosmos, who is the one who will right
all wrongs, from whom no one will escape. So as we have mercy on those
who bleed division, who blab out falsehoods, who continue
to say, well, I love you, brother, but I hate you, by their actions,
we have mercy on them with fear. For if they do not see the truth
of the Gospel, they will stand in the judgment of God. That's
what that fear is. And when we love them, And we
do. We love our enemies. We care
more about their eternity than we do about our feelings. We
care more about their eternity, their soul, and the judgment
of God on them because it is not temporal, folks. Despite popular opinion of Baptist
members in the last few years, there is a hell. And it is a physical presence
of the justice of God. And it is good. It is right. It's not good for those in it,
but it is right. And so when we show mercy with
fear, we know what these people are expecting. We know what remains
for them. No longer, Hebrews would say,
remains forgiveness of sin, a sacrifice for sin, but a fearful expectation
of judgment. Hebrews 6. And then he closes and says,
this thought, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. And that brings us back to the
very understanding that this common salvation which we have
been given by the mercy, grace, and peace of God that is multiplied
to us, though others oppose it, we build ourselves up in it together. Praying in the Holy Spirit, holding
fast to the confession of our hope, waiting for the mercy of our
Lord Jesus Christ, which leads to eternal life, as we show mercy
and kindness with fear on those who oppose it. And because we are the blessed,
beloved, we don't have a heart for sin. We have the propensity. We still have the flesh that
wars against the new man within us, but we no longer love sin. We hate it. We hate unbelief. Even as much as the imagery here,
hating even the garments stained by the flesh. You know why we
wash our clothes? Even when we've just sort of worn them a couple
of times and not been outside? Because they're dirty. Our body makes our clothes dirty. My friends, in a spiritual sense,
those who live and practice sin, Everything about them is stained. But Jude is saying, hating the
garment, but not the person. Hating the sin, but having fear
and kindness toward the person. And that kindness is not camaraderie,
folks. There's a reason Paul says to
treat that person as a tax collector. See, we don't know what that
means. They were hated. You didn't associate with them.
What about Levi? They were born again. They repented
of their wicked tax collecting. We hate every aspect of sin,
even when it's seemingly by our world standard, unable to be
broken from. Homosexuality or addiction or
bigotry. We don't hate people. We are
kind toward them. But most specifically and explicitly
here in this context, we are to be kind to those who hate
truth. While we correct them. While
we pray for them. As we build ourselves up in our
most holy faith by the power of the gospel. And just so that
we part knowing when we'd ask the question, how am I not to
fall prey in being one of these? Because God's mercy that has
been given to us will keep us. Listen to the verses that close
out this letter. Now to Him who is able to keep
you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence
of His glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior through
Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority
before all time and now and forevermore. So it is. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, we're so thankful to be
able to know that You are the One who holds us. Father, even
as we show kindness to those who oppose You, You are the one
who will save them. But Lord, in Your wisdom, You've
done that which seems so weird, that You've chosen to use what
is natural in this world, what is common, what is lowly, to
bring down those things that are. To use the wisdom of man,
and actually, the stupidity of men, if you will, to bring down
the wise, to say to the world, look, this foolishness of God
becoming man and dying on a cross and being raised alive, that
satisfies your judgment. That's foolish. But you've chosen
to use these things. You've chosen to use weak and
foolish men and women and children who you've brought to your Son
and given to Him by faith, Lord. They have come to see your face. And You've chosen for us to take
the Gospel from Your Word to dead people that You might bring
them to life as You brought those dry bones to life through the
prophesying of Your Word in Ezekiel. So God, help us to just be gloriously
satisfied in our salvation. Who is Jesus? and that all the benefits that
come with it are really secondary to the prize who is Christ. Lord,
help us to be patient with those who doubt. Help us to be patient
with those who are obviously opposed to truth. Help us to
be patient as we pray for them, as we preach to them, as we grow
up each other in the faith. Let us war together as the body
against falsehoods. as we stand and contend for the
faith that You've given us. And Lord, we pray that through
Your grace and through Your mercy and through Your Word, that You
would save those who are in need of salvation, Lord, that You
would quicken their hearts through Your Spirit, that You would rebirth
them anew, that they would see and that they would repent, that
they would believe, that they would have faith, and that it
would be seen and obvious that You've created them anew from
the inside out. Save us, Lord, who need saving. Grow us, Lord, who are already
in Your hands, as we trust in You to keep us until that day
when You take us to be with You. In Jesus' name, Amen.