Here we are in some of the meaty
portions of the letter. Of Jude. And verse specifically. Verse five. And just on the onset, I'll just
let you know there's a couple of things that are that are happening
here in the teaching of this letter. We are in one, two, three,
four, five, five weeks. This is the fifth sermon in Jude.
I don't think there'll be twenty five sermons, just so you know,
it's not a verse per week, if you will. But there's liable to be 12. Especially during the latter
part. I've made mention several times
of several things, especially in the aspect of how we listen
to Scripture, how we Read Scripture, how we are to think in dealing
with Scripture. And sometimes I think to myself,
well, I'm saying the same thing over and over again. Everybody
understands and knows these things, why am I continuing to say them
over and over again? It's a little insulting to the
intelligence of the people who are listening to you to to say
the same stuff all the time. And so, I find myself relaxing
in that vein. I find myself relaxing in the
teaching that we've done through Ephesians. And then also Titus. Oh, we've been there. We've done
that. And so, we don't need to always
be pointing to those things or always be reminded of those things.
But then I get to verse 5 of the letter of Jude and I hear
these words. Now, I want to remind you, although you once fully
knew it and then we stopped there and I thought, OK, Judas is reminding
these Christians of something. Something that they already knew.
Well, isn't that interesting that. Just as we see a lot of
repetition among the teaching of the apostles, we see even
the word I want to remind you of these things. And I started
to think about that and I thought about my own mind and I thought
about how my mind works and how your mind probably works. I hope
it doesn't work like mine or you're in trouble because mine
is dysfunctional. But not asking to give testimony,
but have you ever lost something really important? You ever misplaced
your keys? Or your glasses. You ever find
your glasses on the top of your head? For those of you who have
glasses. You look for two or three minutes and then you get
frantic. And you're looking in your bags, you're looking in
your purses, you're looking in your pockets, you're looking in jackets,
you're looking on tables. And all of a sudden you bend
down to tie your shoe and your glasses fall off. You're like, look at
there. They came from heaven. But they were there the whole
time. And it's like, I'm losing my mind. Or someone that you've
known your entire life, and they come up to you, you talk to them
every week, and they walk up to you, and they say, hey, how
are you? And you go, and you forget their
name. You ever do that? Maybe it's
just me. It's just me. I know none of
you can relate to what I'm talking about. It's just me. Or those
of you who have multiple children, you go through the roster. Just
somebody please come here. You go through the siblings.
You go through the family. Whatever. Or you say things and your tongue
gets tied up. You don't remember where you were. We call that
chasing rabbits. When I was in Virginia, the congregation
called it arcing. So like a electrical arc shorts
out, goes something else, causes problems. And I could tell when
I was doing it because several of the people in the church would
be doing like this, like you're arcing, you're changing gears,
chasing rabbits, whatever. And I would always go, oh, wow.
I need to get back on task because it's easy to do that. It's our
minds just naturally don't like to stay on task. And even if
they do, if we're focused, you said, well, I'm an expert in
certain things and I won't forget this until as long as I have
my sound mind. But but you are forgetting a
lot of other things. At the cost of being an expert
in one thing. In other words, you cannot be experts in everything. You cannot remember everything.
You can be very detail oriented in specific areas of life and
never forget them. And people say, well, that's
a genius of that. No, you're a you're a genius in that thing,
because in order to become great in one area, you have to let
other things go. Linguistics is a common thing. I love linguistics. If it would
if it would do well, it'd be great to learn as many languages
as you could. But guess what happens when you
learn language, if you have no way to converse or write in it,
you lose it. Your mouth changes, your tongue,
the tongue is a muscle. And as you begin to do certain
things and learn certain languages, your tongue can say those things,
rolling your R's or speaking certain dialects. In certain
languages. But if you stop doing that, the
muscle of the tongue actually loses the ability to do those
things and you have to retrain it. You have to reengage it.
The mind is no different. The mind is no different and
that that which we knew, you know, I've taken many classes
on certain aspects of the New Testament and then I'll read
something I've never heard that before in my life. And people
say, well, you're an educated man. That makes no difference.
Education is just learning to learn. If you don't continue
to learn, you lose it all. The most uncertified person to
teach the Word of God is a seminary graduate. Because the minute
you graduate seminary is the least ready you are. It's like
in our martial arts system. When you get your ranking, when
you first get a rank, and people think, well, I've gotten a rank.
You're a baby in that rank. You've made the absolute minimum
steps to get to the rank. Now you've got to get past that
rank to get to the next one. You've got to become an expert.
And what happens with all the things that we do when we become
we become really driven to know something? It's because it's
usually a passion of ours. And in order to know this, we
forget that you ever cook the recipe for so long you could
do it with your eyes closed. And then you don't cook it for
three years and you're frantically looking for that recipe and it's
on the head, it's on your head with your glasses. You can't
fight it. Well, I just can't remember.
Well, I know there's meat in it, but I don't know anything
else. I haven't cooked it in three years, but you cooked it
for 20. Why can't you remember it? Because you did not utilize
it. Our minds work that way. Now, psychology likes to tell
you, and I'm going to make some some truth claims here that you'll
have to just disagree with or go and look up. I don't have
time to deal with psychological truth, but I am very, very leery
of just the scientific expression of what's called repressed memories.
I think it's a joke. And the reason I'm leery of that
is because most of us in this room today, most of us in this
room today have memories of childhood. I mean, young childhood. I have
memories of childhood. But the childhood memories that I have
are pictures in my mind or small little moments, things that I
remember, sounds, smells. When I say pictures, I mean things
that I see. But as we grow older and our parents tell us about
these things, and we see actual photographs of these moments,
and then our grandparents tell us about it, we actually think
we remember it like that. Like when we're two years old,
we remember mama saying this, and daddy, no we don't. We don't
remember that. But we can close our eyes, and
we can see that little snapshot that we do remember, and it paints
a big picture of reality. And then when we're old, we tell
people, when I was eight months old, I remember when my mama
used to tell me, you don't remember squatting when you were eight
months old. You are still messing in your pants, eating trash off
the floor. But we think we do. Why? Because
those memories have been planted in such a way and the evidence
of those memories, those pictures, these stories are actually making
us think we've lived these memories and we can relive it in our own
minds so that they actually become valid memories. And in all reality,
it's not even the way it happened. And you think, well, that's just
absurd. No. Well, that only happens with children. No, it doesn't.
It happens with adults all the time. Psychiatrists and psychologists
will go in and dig around in people's minds and try to bring
out these repressed memories. And they'll suggest things and
plant things. And all of a sudden, the next
thing you know, this person remembers some heinous event in their life
that never happened. And everybody that is involved
is dead or old or whatever. And they'll say, that didn't
happen that way. Yes, it is. I remember it vividly. You remember it vividly
because you were shown that picture. You think that's just for crazy
people. No, it's not. A study was done about people who had
with people who had never, ever, ever flown in a hot air balloon
ever. And some psychologists or psychiatrists
actually took those pictures of other people in a hot air
balloon. And the people were at the location, let's say like
a fair. They were there, but they never rode the balloon.
And these scientists took the pictures and doctored them up
to show these people in the balloon. And in talking with them, actually
got them not only to remember riding the balloon, but to share
it as though they'd actually been in it. You think, well, that
never happened with me. Yes, it does every day of your
life. Every day of your life. Psychology says we can have memories. that are not real. So if our
brains are that. Short wired. That we can be tricked
into thinking we've done something that we haven't done and. And the result of that be that
we actually have memory of it. What happens, what happens when
we understand the theology of our mind? That our brains are
depraved, that our hearts are wicked, That our flesh is against
the holiness of God and that even as redeemed people, the
flesh in itself continues to decay. Our body, as Paul says,
is wasting away, but we are being daily renewed in the spirit.
What do we do? Well, we see what the Scripture
teaches. We need to redeem the time. We need to put our minds
to work and get ready for action. We need to remember the things
of God. We need to constantly be reminded. So when I see these
words, I feel great. Two reasons. One is that I don't
have to feel guilty about continually preaching the same stuff. So
for the next six weeks I'm just going to write one sermon and
I'm going to preach it again and again and again and again. I've heard pastors who have shared
this, that they actually preach the exact same sermon, the exact
same text, six weeks straight, until somebody finally came up
and says, well, isn't that the same as last week? Wrote it out and
preached it. I mean, I would feel bad if I
did that and nobody caught it. I'm like, they don't listen to
the things. But it's not about you listening to me, is it? So what do we do with our minds?
And you may think to yourself, well, that's not me, I'm not
having to worry about that. Yes, yes, we all are having to not
worry, but we should all realize that it's not going to it's not
going to go away. None of us are going to be able. People
say, well, how do you remember all that stuff? How do you remember
all that scripture? I don't know. And I remember being the younger
guy who was asking the older guy, how do you remember all
that stuff? And he goes, I don't know, I'm dumb as a bag of rocks.
It just comes. It just happens. You know, the
worst and I'm not saying that we shouldn't do this, but the
worst thing that we can do as as young budding theologians
and Christians is to sit in a room and try to feed ourselves so
much that we get it all. We need to take that which God
has given us and run with it and celebrate it and engage in
it and let it grow in us. And when that thing becomes real
and alive and continual in our lives and our hearts, our minds
are transformed by renewal in the Holy Spirit, by renewal on
the things of God, by remembering. I often find it frustrating that
we should not read through our Bibles, we should read through
our Bibles, but that is not study of the Bible, nor is it intimacy
with the Lord to just read through the Bible. And it's interesting
how people say, well, I've read the Bible 60 times. And good. And you're still dumb as a bag
of rocks and don't know Jesus. I know a lot of people who have
to read the Bible because of their academics. I know a lot
of law students who read sections of Scripture to understand legal
rhetoric and argumentation. I know a lot of scholarly theologians
who are not born again who could wipe the floor with me in the
context of memorization of certain aspects of Scripture, quoting
entire books. But the question is, do you know
Do you know the God of the Bible? Are you intimately engaged in
the Scripture in a way that your life is being transformed from
one state of glory to another continually every day? The mercies
of God are new for you. See, that's the point. What good
does it have to have a thousand people who are heady in the knowledge
of doctrine and that doctrine has no application or implication
in their lives? What does it do? It creates a
worldly people. with theological knowledge. And
so we come to this text today and there's a there's several
things that I want to challenge you on. And we'll get to that
in a moment. But I want to challenge you on
certain things is the way you think. I want you to think about
your childhood. I want you to think about your
marriage. I want you to think about relationships that you've
had, your education, the truth that you like to tell that we
like to call fishtails that are exaggerated truths. It's not
my father. I'm not quite sure if he was
really the greatest football player that Claxton ever saw
or not. But the way that he tells it and his buddies tell it, there's
never been a team like that team in the 70s. Never, ever. See, my mom's about to go, no,
never. There never will be a team. I mean, you think they were the
Dallas Cowboys or something. I mean, you know, on the high school
football. But, you know, and I talked to some other folks
who were in school in a sister city and they go, Claxton was
terrible. So they've got these exaggerated truths. True things,
but they're exaggerated. You know, it wasn't a 105-yard
touchdown out of the bleachers. It was a 5-yard touchdown. It
wasn't a fish that was this big. It was this big. You know how
fish tails are. They get bigger. It was this
big. In our mind, we just think it's bigger. It was a little
bit more. And we're not lying. We really believe it. Oh, you just
won't believe this. 60-pound bream I caught. 300-pound catfish I caught. It
pulled the boat under. I had to snorkel up. Now, you
fell out of the boat. Because you were laughing how
small the fish was. And then it pulled you out. I mean, we
remember these things. What about the experiences in
life that we've had? But most importantly, I want
you to think about the experiences with God that you've had. How
do you know they're real? Now, you sound like a crazy man
up there. But let me tell you something. In the center of my
depression that I had years ago, when I would get up every morning,
I was wondering if the conversations that I'd had the day before were
real or in my head. You know what that's called? Certifiably
insane. And I come to find out after I finally confessed these
things to some brothers in Christ, they had experienced it all too.
And in talking with people who are in the mental health profession,
this is normative for people who are under a lot of stress
and get depressed. The difference is that you've been given the
grace to see that it's not right versus being lost in a false
reality. How do you know that your conversations
with God are correct? How do you know that what you
say that you know about who you know in Scripture is right? How
do you know that your faith is truly faith? Well, friends, that's
what Jude is trying to point out here. That you know, that
you know, that you know, you have experienced a relationship
with God through Jesus Christ because of God's Word in you,
not because of your experiences. Do you see the difference? It's
not based on the doctrine you know and the right theology that
you profess. It's not based on the experience
that you've had or even the way you've come to know Christ. It's
the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ in his word that is true
in you. So when we are unsure or even
when we are sure, we test everything through the through the jury
of God's word. And the scriptures are the final
court in all truth. And no matter what our culture
says, no matter what our pastor says, no matter what our mind
says, or mama, or grandmama, or brother, or sister, or what
doctor so-and-so says, or sister so-and-so says, or brother says,
no matter what anybody says, if the Word of God does not validate
that which we know that we have experienced, it is worthless.
It's worthless. It's worthless. And so I think that one of the
biggest problems, and you hear me say this all the time, but
maybe you won't remember it based on what we're saying today, is
that one of the foundational problems in the church today
of America is the erosion of Sola Scriptura, the removal of
God's Word as the highest, final, only authority of all things,
not just biblical things, all things, truth, Life, matters
of finance, matters of marriage, matters of culture, matters of
government. And not just that it's eroded because a lot of
people say, well, I believe the Bible. But what do you believe
about what the Bible says? And have you been not only instructed
to understand it, but do you study it enough so that you can
get your belief system yours and not mine? What's the point if we cannot
fly, if we cannot trust our flesh and our mind and our heart or
even our eyes? What are we to do? We're to trust
the sovereignty and the solidity of God's word in its fullness. So then we ask the question,
why look what he says here in verse five. Now, I want to remind
you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus who saved
the people out of the land of Egypt afterward destroyed those
who did not believe. Look at verse six. And the angels
who did not stay within their own position of authority, but
left their proper dwelling. He is kept in eternal change
under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day. Seven,
just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which
likewise indulge in sexual immorality and pursued a natural desire,
serve as an example by going by undergoing a punishment of
eternal fire. So what's Jude pointing to here? Well, remember, he says, I wanted
to share our common salvation, but I found it necessary to write
appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all
delivered to the saints. And certain people have crept
in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation,
ungodly people who pervert the grace of God. into sensuality
and who denied the only master and Lord Jesus Christ. Now, he
says, I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it now, I
want you to see that. And I can't really give you a
Greek lesson right now, but I want you to understand that in verse
five, what he's saying there is I want to remind you. Of. That which was once for all given
to you that you knew. That's what he's saying. And
I tried to look at it and thought, well, how could we really How
could we really verb verbally word for word? It doesn't make
sense. The syntax doesn't make sense if we do that. So in the
in the coupling of the faith that was once for all delivered
to the Saints, Jude is now saying, I want to remind you all of that
once for all part of that once for all. It's yours. You knew
it. You once knew it. for all time. I remind you of
that. So he's not saying I want to
remind you of something. In addition, he's like, I want
to remind you of the faith. Which includes some things. And
the point I want to deal with here, verse 5, 6 and 7 actually
go together. It's all sort of one thought,
but I don't want to. I don't want to get into the
details of those three examples. Because if I do, then I'll I'll
I'll pave over the fullness of the first example and the introduction
or the preface to these examples, which is say it's a and a reminding
of that which you have already received. Does it sound familiar? Well, it should. As we've looked in the last few
weeks, we've assumed several things about you. First, we've
been reminded Week to week to week that our minds are to come
to the table when we read the scripture and that we are not
to allow our prior learning to cloud out new learning, not new
revelation. But learning that which we previously
had not known or as you to say that which we previously had
known, certainly we need to be reminded of. The first week,
I want to just let you know something in an attempt to try to not trick
you, but give opportunity for you to invest and a. See who
would actually seek out, I actually made a mistake in the explanation
of the authorship of this book. A mistake. No one's come to me
and said, Pastor, you little on a little rant there and you
misspoke in the context of this book. No one's refuted it. I made the comment the very first
week I spent about four minutes talking about apostolic versus
apostolic sourcing. You remember that you don't remember
it, do you? It's interesting. You remember
it, anybody? And it left a case in your mouth
that Jude may not be an apostolic book. Remember that? If you look
in some of the historical writings, you'll see that a lot of people
all over the world would say that the Apostle Jude did not
write this letter. And I said, well, if that's the
case, it's in the Bible anyway. And what I did is I argued to
what I have coined apostolic sourcing. It's a new word, new
term. Now, ask yourself if that's congruent
with what we believe about the Bible. Is it? Can a non-apostle
put something in the Bible that we say is apostolically divine,
apostolically authoritative? No, he can't. So whether we are
confused about the language, the writing, the context, The
points and references made, especially verse 17, or even the sense that
you did not recognize himself as an apostle. And if this letter
is. Sort of ambiguous. If it's in
the Bible, and this is where I pointed it out the very first
week, it is apostolic in authority. No matter what we believe about
the authorship. I want you to be careful, because sometimes
in my Wormholes, I'll suck you into them. Be a Berean church,
be very careful not to just go, yeah, I guess Jude's not an apostle
because that's the way it sounded. Jude is an apostle and the letter
is apostolic. And while many refute that Jude
the apostle wrote this, no one refused that Jude was an apostle. But you does not undergird this
writing with the authority of his apostolic office, nor does
he undergird this writing with the kinship that he had as a
half brother to Jesus, because there's a humility in Jude that
he does not want to expose sort of like John. John does not even
name himself in his writing because he does not want he was known
as the one that Jesus loved. He does not want to exploit that
for gain or pride. The same thing with James. The
half-brother of Jesus. He doesn't exploit that in his
writing. But what do we do today? If we
write a book, what do we do? We try to find the most important
person with the most clout, with the most exposure to do what?
Put a little slab on the back of it. This is the greatest book
I've ever read on Chinese rice. You should really read this before
you go to the Great Wall. You should really read this before
you try to stir-fry your own rice. You're not making that
as a funny comparison. But you know how those things
are done? You email a buddy and you say, hey, would you endorse
my book? He says, absolutely. And they give you a little endorsement.
You stick it on the back and that's the end of it. They don't
read it. They don't care. Most people don't. What Jude didn't want to endorse,
he didn't want Jesus' kinship to him to endorse it because
Jesus as his half-brother had no bearing on the context of
the writing. But most importantly, he wanted
to be known as a slave of Jesus, not the half-brother. of Jesus.
He wanted to give the clear message. That this was not coming as an
apostle, but as a servant saved by the glorious faith that was
delivered to him once for all. We see this example throughout
Scripture. What example? The example of
remembrance and first Timothy Paul says, put these things before
them and remember that which you have followed me in, followed
as I have followed Christ. And to Corinthians, he says,
I sent Timothy to remind you of my ways in Christ. And in
2 Peter, Peter writes several times that we are to stir one
another up in reminding each other, in reminder. See, we remember
the stirring up, what does Hebrews say, in love and good deeds,
but we forget about Peter saying we are to stir each other up
in reminder. So now, as I talked at the beginning of our service
about the significance and the imperative of being together
with the saints, how are we to manage our memories if we're
not together when we're supposed to be stirring each other up?
When does that work? Well, it works very simply, just
like someone very recently said to me, I'm worried about my job.
I'm not sure if I'm going to have a job. And maybe I need
to go look for another job. And the response to that is we
can either say, well, you know, you just hold on, hang on, let
go, let God or we can remind them about the gospel, that whether
you have a job or you don't have a job, God is faithful. Whether
you can pay your bills, you can't pay your bills. God is faithful.
You do whatever you think is right. But don't worry and labor
in the context of fear, labor in the context of faith, that
you know that whether you suffer or not, or live or die, or eat
or not eat, that God will give you all that you need for His
purpose and His timing. This is what the Scripture teaches
you. Wow, that's good. So that's how we remind each
other. But why do we need reminding? I think I made that very clear
in the very beginning, because our minds are weakened by the
flesh. They're not going to retain the
things that they should. We have an imperfect understanding
of those things that we do know. Where do you get that? Well, look what he says. I want
to remind you, although you once fully knew it. You fully knew
it once and for all, you knew it, and I want to remind you
of it because we have an imperfect understanding. Even Paul in his
perfection and his apostolic authority and in his divine,
being given divine understanding, he still confessed to the Corinthians
what? That he even prophesied in part. That he himself looked in a mirror
dimly. And we're going, well, that's
just about seeing Jesus. What is not seeing Jesus through
the lens of Scripture? Understanding. And I promise
you, even in the most intimate moments of our worship as Christians
in the place where we think we can never be closer to God, we're
wrong. The places where we think that
this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in the sense of
the doctrine of Christ, you're wrong. It can get so much better.
It can become so much more intimate. But sadly, we don't stay there
anyway, so we're always sort of refreshing ourselves, not
Going deeper. That's why we need reminder. We have imperfect understanding.
Secondly, we need reminder because our minds are weakened by the
flesh and therefore we forget even the small bits. We forget.
We love them. Let me give you an example of
how this memory issue happens among the church. We find a place
in life in a season of life where we're really focused on the necessity
of God's love for us. We feel downtrodden. We feel
destroyed. We feel hurt. We feel abandoned.
And all of a sudden, the word of God comes to us by grace and
we're lifted. You know, It's a good place and
we're lifted and we remember the affection that God has for
us, not because of us, but in spite of us, because he's holy
and loving and good and gracious. And he's our father and he takes
care of our needs. And we go, oh, wow. And so for months and
months and months, we are so enamored by the beautiful love
of our father and the beautiful love of the Savior that we forget
about holiness. Or we forget about justice. And
we ride the wave of affection to the point of license, which
is where Jude is really going, isn't it? When we pervert the
grace of God, we can just do what we want to do because God
loves me so. Well, I wouldn't do that. Yeah,
we would. We do that even in small things. See, a lot of times
also, let me show you how you think we think about perverting
the grace of God. Well, I'm just going to live
a life of assiduousness or debauchery and I'll just do all these wicked
things. We're thinking of all these wicked things that people
do. Yeah, that's just about what about frustration? What about
doubt and fear? What about a lack of pursuing
holiness through the Word of God? What about a lack of a taste
for godly things? What about that? What about when
preachers just go through the motions and don't have any kind
of a spiritual life themselves? You'll never know which ones
they are. Aren't those sins? Isn't it a
sin to get up on Sunday morning blow the dust off of our Bible,
say, oh, Lord, I better get to church. Because we've just been complacent,
but you know the beauty of that, God is faithful. God is faithful
to stir us up to reminder, you see the point. Shepherds remind
the sheep. And it puts us in a very precarious
situation as the shepherd of the local church is also a sheep. It's frustrating. Because our minds are weakened
by the flesh, we become careless, we become apathetic, we lose
fervor. And I think that's how these
people come in on an unnoticed. We know how they snuck in. We
know what they were doing. They had right doctrine, but
their life did not where they assumed right doctrine, but their
life did not depict that. And so and there are arguments. Oh, my gosh, there are 50 billion
pages written on the arguments of what the false teaching was
in Jude's situation. And nobody knows. Let's don't
assume. Does it matter? False teachings, false teaching,
especially when it's evidence by false living, just like first
John teaches. But we become careless. We lose
fervor. We lose our option. We lose the fire when we're not
reminded of these things. So we must be spurred on and
our attitude must be right in order to receive the word of
God. How is your attitude today as you're being reminded of these
things? How is your attitude toward it?
Let me tell you how it should be. And in some sense, I'll try
to stay away from the majorly negative ideals in this. But
our attitude should be rejoicing in the remembrance of the grace
of God. Our attitude should be excited about repeated instruction. Our attitude should be just courageously
refreshed. with boldness. Yes, this is great
that I'm being reminded of that which I already know. Because
what's the antithesis of that? I got it. I know it. I see it. You know what I'm talking about. It's like parents and their children.
Didn't you say this last night? Yeah, I'm going to say it again
tomorrow. We're no different. We all I and you, we all need
reminding of these things. We don't move on past the gospel
church. We don't move on past these things. We continue in them, which means
we are reminded and our attitude should be rejoicing, not this
day. Do not despise instruction, the
proverb says, do not do not have contempt for the word of God. Our attitude should also. Be that which hides the word
of God in our heart, what does David say in the Psalms, I hide
my word and your word, Lord, in my heart, why that I might
not sin against you? That's why we have the word of
God in our heart. If we don't hide it in our heart, if we don't
have that attitude that we want to hide it. Hiding the Word of
God in our heart is so much more than just memorizing verses.
It's so much more than memorizing passages. It's not really about
memorizing the Word of God at all, but it's about investing
that Word in our lives so that it has roots. So that it has
fruit. A tree with no roots doesn't
bear fruit. Just words, just trees laid over on their sides,
laid in a field. Even if you water them, they
wither up and die to be burned. If we don't have root in our
hearts and minds with the Word of God, in other words, we plant
it there. We go, oh yeah, that's good for me. I see that. I'm going to put that to work
in me. That's mine. For the sake of us, it's ours. And I want to hide this word.
in me and remember it and be spurred on to remember that which
is there. What does Paul say to Timothy?
Let me fan into flames that good deposit that we put in you. What
is that good deposit? Some people think it's this imparting
of spiritual things. No, the good deposit is the Word
of God planted in Timothy. First by your mother, Lois, grandmother
Eunice, or the other way around. And then by me as I taught you
these things. Don't forget this, Timothy. I'm
going to spur you into remembering these things. There's a lesson for us parents
there. Instead of trying to get our children to act right, let's
help them remember who lived right for them. And that they
are no longer bound as believers by the flesh, but are free to
be a slave to righteousness. Our attitude should be that we
have love for the word of God because love for God's word is
a love for God. Without a love for Scripture,
there is no love for God. We can't love God because he's
a cosmic peace in our life. We don't love God because he
did something on our behalf. We don't love God because he
gave us eternal life. We love God because he's worthy
of our love, because he first loved us. We love God because
when we read his word, we see his face. I often like to use
the example of little love letters when you're in school or when
you're younger. You ever get a card from someone
that you deeply care for or a letter or like the juvenile letters
of affection that we see in the elementary schools? Do you like
me? Check yes or no. And you always
draw the box and go maybe. Or not sure or let me think about
it or get lost. You think that's silly. But what
do we do for those people who have deep affection in our hearts,
that we have deep affection for? We want to hear from them. We want to see them because hearing
their words and seeing their writing puts us in intimacy with
them. That's no different with God. As a matter of fact, it's
solely vital for the Christian to have time in the Word of God
intimately. Stop seeking theological understanding
and start seeking love with the Father. Stop going to the Word
of God to try to find a way out. Looking for the tabs of saying,
how am I going to be happy today? Or, I want to have a better marriage
today. Or, how am I going to be joyful today? Or, hey, let
me find a place where they'll tell me how to get my shoes tied
correctly. Go to the Word of God in love with Jesus Christ. And through that intimate relationship
of affection that God gave you, He will show you all these things. See, it goes against our nature.
We want a fast-food push-button, flip-chart Christianity. We want a Bible that's on a tablet
that we can not have to read through, that we just go, hey,
show me how I'm going to be happy today. I have a hurt foot. Twenty-five
verses on how to have a happy day with a hurt foot. And we just go, hallelujah. You
know what? That's fortune cookie Christianity. It's opening up the little cret
and pulling out the little sentence and doing it on the back. If
you're really, really, really good, you've got lotto numbers.
It's like playing a game of chance. And it's not God the Father and
His Son Jesus Christ walking with you in the challenges of
life. It's this mystical, I don't know, fun time show. But the
B-I-B-L-E, that's the book for me. We don't live like that. Children don't live like that.
There's no faith. That's not faithful. That's not
saying I trust in the Bible. Being in Christ, walking with
Christ, walking with the Word of God in such a way, what do
you carry the Bible to? Where do you have it? Where is it? Where do you put
your Bible? Is it prominent in your life?
Does it get in the way? Are you worried about the pages
getting messed up? When it rains, you put on your shirt. Have you
ever got these pages? That's like you can. It's one
grade below blowing your nose. I mean, above blowing your nose.
That's what these pages are like. They get wet. They're ruined.
Do you have it? Is it with you? And if it's digital,
good. But is it on the top of your mind? I don't want you to
feel guilty about this church. I want you to be reminded of
these things. That's what Jude is doing here.
I want to remind you. He's already said that these
who have crept in. Who long ago were designated
for condemnation for this kind of nation, he's about to explain
three examples of this condemnation. And as we study the law and have
a love for the word of God, it's because we love the Lord, we
ought to have an attitude that is humble as God allows us to
remember. And we ought to have an understanding
here, so I'm moving on, I promise we need to have an understanding.
That we will forget again. We're going to forget again.
We're going to forget what we learned today, we're going to
forget about the grace of God, we're going to forget about what
John 3 really teaches us about the new birth. We're going to
forget it when we're raking a yard. We're going to forget it when
we're driving to the office. We're going to forget it when
we're teaching or when we're sewing or when we're digging or when
we're crying or when we're watching television. We're going to forget
it. We're not going to be thinking about these things. We're going
to forget it. If just for a moment, we're going to forget it. How
are we going to continue to stay in it when we're reminded and
spurred by each other, by the Word of God, by the preaching,
by the reading, by the study, by the fellowship? Here's a shocker for you, preaching
has nothing to do with wisdom and nothing to do with discovery
of incredible doctrine and mystery. But preaching is a plain reminder
of what God has simply said. If you're looking for great wisdom,
how does Paul write that in 1 Corinthians 1? I did not come to you with
lofty speech or wisdom, for I decided to know nothing among you except
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Now, I want to stop there for
a second and put this in application. It just came. I'm just going
to share it. Here is Paul, the Apostle, who gives us all this
great teaching. And he says, I come to you, Corinth,
Christians in Corinth, I come to you knowing nothing except
Christ and Him crucified. How often do we really remember
the crucifixion? Easter. And for really cool pastors,
Christmas. Neither of which are biblical
holidays. So what do we do? He says, and
I was with you in weakness and in fear and amongst trembling
and my speech and my message were not implausible words of
wisdom. But in demonstration of the spirit
and of power that your faith might not rest in the wisdom
of men, but in the power of God. How often does your preaching
that you listen to suffice for your time with God when they're
not the same? Makes sense. You once fully knew it, Jude
says. Once and for all, you knew that which has been delivered
to us. Now this says something about
Jude. What's he doing here? He's doing that which God has
called and ordained him to do, which is what? To remind these
Christians of the power of God and of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
He says, I want to remind you that which you've already known,
which you fully now know once and for all. And so the role
of the apostles, the role of the scripture, the role of the
authority of God's word is to remind the church of what we
know every single day. We often remember the idea of
God's mercies are new every day. How many times do we misapply
that reality by saying, oh, God's just merciful to me today and
is new to me today? Good. But how is it new in our
lives? It's new in our lives when the
Word of God is refreshed in us, when we put our minds on the
things of eternity, not the things of this world. How often do we
put our faith and our walking in the Word of God, even in a
worldly way? Well, what do you mean by that?
Well, look at it this way. I'm focused on the world and
the problems of the world, so to get me through it, I'll use
Jesus like a pill. I'll I'll just put my mind away
from all these things and just ride the gospel wave. I'll just
I'll stay in it as much as I can to keep my mind off the reality.
That's not what it means to put our mind on the eternal things
we have. We are not mindless drones meditating
into a Nirvana. We are not Buddhists. We do not
believe in being snuffed out. We do not believe in all these
things. We do not believe in a utopic
society. We do not believe these things. We believe that even
in the midst of darkness, do you think the people who were
displaced in the dispersion, the Jews who were ridiculed and
suffered, those who Hebrews talks about who lost their property,
those who John talks about who were losing their heads, Do you
think these people just sat in groups and just forgot about
all their problems and forgot where they lived and forgot they
were in prison and forgot they were dying and forgot their children
had just been burned at the stake? Do you think these people just
let all that go and just sang hallelujah choruses? No. In the midst of it all, while
they feared for their lives, they trusted and relied solely
in the grace of God through His Word given by the apostles, and
there was no one who could rationally give them the answer, no one
who could logically give them the argument, no one who could
teach them or coach them. There's no amount of coaching
or counseling or life coaching at all that'll give them the
solidity that they need to stand under the pressures of life.
Only the Word of God, intimately engaged in the midst of the storm,
at the gates of the hell that we walk into every day, where
the enemy almost, almost keeps us from entering the gates of
eternity. If he could, he would. And in
our mind, we think, wow, he's trying to keep us out. He's not.
He's lost. But how do we stand under it?
We stand firm in the promises of God through his word. We stand
firm in the power of his might. We stand firm facing the enemy
for Christ is our victor, who is our righteousness, who is
our heaven of salvation, who is the sword, the word of God,
who is the shield of our own faith. He is the only one who
defends us and protects us and prepares us for the presence
of God and righteousness. So when we think that we're going
to just part our ways from this world and meditate on Christ.
Friends, we've lost our minds. And we've been deceived, we stand
firm in the midst of the storm with the fullness of joy, not
ignorant to the realities of our suffering, but rejoicing
in them. That's the point. I want to remind
you. You once knew this, and there's
several things that Jude is reminding us. He reminds us first in this
verse, two things that I think are important. There's three
examples that we see here. The example of Israel and specifically
in Numbers chapter 14, where he says there that there were
those Jesus, you notice he says, Jesus, who saved a people out
of the land of Egypt. He after we Jesus, then afterward
destroyed those who did not believe of whom he saved out of Egypt.
You see the point? He didn't get people out of Egypt,
save a group and then destroy a group. He saved the whole group
and then out of that group he destroyed the unbelievers. How
did he do that? Numbers 14 teaches us that. What
happened? God had delivered the Israelites
to the Promised Land. He delivered them in might and
power out of Egypt, out of slavery. And Joshua and Caleb and some
of the other spies, they went into the land, didn't they? And
they looked and all but two All the spas, but Joshua and Caleb
came back and said, there's no way we're going in there. We're
not going in. There's giants in the land. They'll destroy
us. They'll devour us. We cannot succeed. Though God
had said they would, they did not believe. You see the point?
There's a great there's a great example there. What's the giants
in our life? I don't want to make this into
a little, you know, life lesson, but we see unbelief when we look
at the giants of our life and we don't trust in the sovereignty
of God. And in Numbers 14, they came
back and they said, no, we don't see it. And a majority of a lot
of people in that camp believe the other spies. And Joshua and
Caleb said, let's go. Let's go get it. They're huge. It will
never defeat them. Let's go take them. Like David. He went to feed his brothers,
if you will, to take care of them in war, and this Philistine
giant standing there mocking God. And David was like, Y'all
hear what he's saying? Go kill this guy. He's defaming
the name of our Lord. Go kill him. You see him? Nobody's going to kill him. I'll
do it. And he does it. But he doesn't
do it, does he? God doesn't. In Numbers 14, we see that these
that Jesus rescued, saved out of Egypt, that a majority of
them, those 20 or older, had to die in the wilderness before
the Israelites would inherit the Promised Land. So you're
thinking, well, there's a bunch of old guys, probably in their
90s or 300s or whatever, that needed to die out. They were
just setting their way. No, it was the younger crowd that God condemned because of
unbelief. God says, I promised you this, and then they acted
in unbelief. So he destroyed them. How did he destroy you
want to live in the desert 40 years until you die? And you just reminded them of
this reality, that God is a God of sovereign, divine salvation. But that also that God is a God
of sovereign, divine judgment. There's the point. Of the gospel
and why it's good news that God is a God of remember last week,
we really focused on the holiness of God and introduction to our
message. God is a God of justice, so justice must be given for
unbelief. God is a God of justice. Justice
must be given towards sin. God is a God of justice because
God is holy. But God is a God of grace because
God set his justice against his son so that He could save a people
who are undeserving of His grace. You think, well, I already knew
that. But you need to be reminded of it. See how simple that is? I'm tired of hearing about Jesus
dying for my sins. I'm tired of hearing about the
judgment of God against Jesus. No, you're not, church. Please
don't fall and pray to that. There's nothing else to preach.
Every job. I mean, just the fact that he
put Jesus as the savior of the Israelites out of Egypt, not
Yahweh, not Lord, even Jesus. Why? Because Jesus is God. It is the God of heaven, Jesus Christ,
is his name who saved the Israelites out of Egypt with a foreshadowing
of his own death of the lamb that God put forth in the in
the Garden of Eden and killed to cover the sins of Adam and
Eve as a as a type of Christ. These are the things that Jude
is reminding his people. The people of God, God is a divine
savior. Remember him. There's the answer. Remember him. Remember his justice. Remember his grace. Remember
his law. Remember his word. Remember his
righteousness. Remember. Because there are people
who have come in unaware or unnoticed. And they pervert the grace of
God. Don't forget about that grace. And don't forget that
these people who have come in, though they're benefiting from
the church, though they're partaking of the presence of the church,
they will not escape the justice of God. Lest they believe. And be saved. What must you believe to be saved? You must believe. That God is
absolutely holy. That He's absolutely righteous. They're not the same. That He's
absolutely just. And that He is righteously just
and holy to bring recompense on every sin and sinner who would
ever be consummated or conceived in this world. You must believe that. And you
must believe that the fullness of all the fury of all His holy
anger given toward the blackness and the darkness of the depraved
was poured out upon the Son, Jesus Christ, to be received
by faith. You must believe that. And that
belief is not about you going, got it. It's right. It's true. I know it's true. That belief
is a continual, ongoing, eternal, holy, powerful, supernatural
faith. that never dies and never fades
and never quits, even in the midst of its ebbs and flow, it
comes out alive. It's a living faith that expresses
itself in the midst of sin. It's a living faith that expresses
itself in the midst of doubt. It's a living faith that expresses
itself in the midst of anger and frustration and depression. And it does not quit because
it is a gift of God who by His Spirit has sealed you for redemption. And you believe when there's
no reason to believe. And you hold on when there's
nothing to hold on to. And you do not quit. You stay. You rest. You acknowledge. You receive. You trust. You run
after. You dive into the grace of God
through Jesus Christ. And nothing can keep you away.
That's what it means to believe in the Gospel. Unreserved, absolute commitment. And I can hear the teeth of some
of my brothers and sisters now gritting at that statement. Not
in here, but across the world. Who would say, oh, you have really
crossed the line and you've now become a legalist. Did I say
any of that affected anything for you eternally? And did I
say that you'd be bound and gagged and thrown into hell and lose
your salvation if you dare let any sin into your life? No. What
I did say is there is no gospel if there is no justice against
sin. It is not good news for God to
let sin go. It is wicked. That sin must be
paid for. And either it's paid for through
the life and death of Jesus Christ Or it's paid for by you for all
of eternity in hell. We don't like to preach about
hell anymore. My friends, if you don't know that there's a
just God who will rightly put you in the judgment of hell forever,
you can't be saved. And if you think being scared
to go there will save you, think again. You must believe that Christ
is the only way to God. His righteousness is the only
way. These little examples, we'll
look at all three of them next week. These little examples are to
show us to be reminded about God. And I should have taken
more time today to remind you about Him rather than the process
of reminding. Oh, well. Take what is good and
leave what is left. So, do you believe? Are you a
believer? Are you certain of your eternal
salvation? Not because of your experience,
but because of God's essence given through His Word that you
are not a vessel of destruction. but a vessel of mercy through
Jesus Christ alone. Is your hope there? Is your joy there? Are you able
to rest in that? I pray you believe that. Let's
pray. Lord, spur us to. Remember. Spur the children in this room
to hear and remember. Spur us to pray for each other
to help us remember. The greatness of your glory.
The fullness of your being. the immenseness of your love,
the justice of your righteousness, the power of your gospel, the perfection of your Son, the beauty of the cross. Help us to remember. the unworthiness of our salvation. Help us to remember the suffering
of our Savior. Help us to remember the judgment
of the wicked. Help us to remember that it's
not just for our sake that we remember, but for the sake of
each other. That we may use our gifts, including our faith and
our knowledge and our memory for the sake of our brothers
and sisters in Christ. We love You, Father, and we thank
You that You love us first, that we may have glorious joy in the
midst of disastrous realities, knowing that our hope is not
set upon this world, but upon the one to come. Most specifically,
the one who created them both. In Jesus name, Amen.