Letter of Jude. It's been told to me more than
once in my lifetime that if common sense were so common, more people
would have it. And oftentimes the same is true
with most things that are labeled common. And today, when we look
at Jude, verse three, we see. The phrase common salvation. It's often a mistake when we
make salvation a common thing, but according to Jude, it is.
It's common, but not common for the world. It's common among
the saints. And because salvation is common
among the saints, it is, as we'll see today, the one unique thread
through which the whole church is tied. or with which the whole
church is tied. Because of that very thing, we
often neglect it. We often neglect the foundation
of what is common among us. We often neglect the foundation
of what is most precious to us. We often put our time and attention
and efforts and option into trying to do these greater things or
these bigger things or these deeper ideals or understand this
more mysterious doctrines that we lay aside that which is common,
which is the plate on which all that we eat is set. And so I want to ask you today,
have you come to a place in your life where you would say readily,
confess to your own heart, I have taken the grace of God and made
it just sort of so common, I've forgotten it. I've placed the
gospel as this thing that I received, and now I move on to bigger and
better things. I've moved beyond the doctrine
of my salvation to get deep, if that is Your thoughts. It's
OK. We're all there at least one
season of our life prayerfully. Usually in our 20s. And some usually later. But what happens is we fail to
realize that The basics and the foundations of our faith in Jesus
Christ are not that which is elementary, that we are to just
go, here you go little kiddies, here's the Gospel, now let's
move on to big boy stuff. And that's what Jude is explaining
here just in inference because of what he says in verse 3. Let's
read the first few verses together. Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ
and brother of James, to those who are called, to those who
are beloved in God the Father, and to those who are kept for
Jesus Christ. May mercy, peace, and love be
multiplied to you, beloved, called, and kept. Beloved, verse
3, although I was very eager to write to you about our common
salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to
contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the
saints." Verse 4, "'For certain people have crept in unnoticed
who long ago were designated for this condemnation of godly
people who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and
deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ.'" Now let's stop here. Verse 4
we will touch on because it's necessary to see verse 3. Verse
3 this morning, just to go ahead and tell you, I will preach one
part of it and then next week preach the second part of it.
Okay? So verse 3 has two parts to which we must see. We must
understand. Just like we talked about the
introduction last week, we do not just glaze over words. Words are important. Okay? Words
are important. We don't just glaze over a phrase
or a preposition because it's just leading into what we would
call the meat of things. That's what Jude is writing about.
His idea was that he wanted to write to these Christians. and
remind them of the incredible simplicity and beauty of the
graciousness of God through salvation in Jesus Christ. I was very eager
to write to you about our common salvation. You see that? But
because the stuff has hit the fan and these unbelievers, these
crazy people who have come in and just thwarted the grace of
God, He must then deal with this. So there's several things going
on here. Jude is in this relationship of discipling people. How does
that happen? Through the simple gospel. through the continued repetition
of the Gospel, through the continued learning of the simple grace
of God, through the learning of the understanding of God's
mercy and His love and His patience and His hope and His peace given
through Jesus Christ, that we are the beloved, that we have
received grace upon grace upon grace upon grace upon grace. Because that is the meat. That is the sustenance. Picture
this, a plate and this big stack of meat on it. The biggest, most
precious type of meat that you would eat. If you're a vegetarian,
I don't know, the big mushroom or something. Something that
just whets your appetite. You can't wait to taste it. The
meat itself is the foundation of the common salvation of God
in Christ. The taste, the juice, the aroma,
the smell, everything that comes from that is every other doctrine. And without the gospel, none
of the other stuff is. Without the meat cooked properly
and provided to us, there's no enjoyment thereof. Without the
simple gospel, there's no enjoyment of the deeper things of God.
Because they are all just a better look at the simple gospel. Do
you see that? If you don't see it, you will
see it. We often pride ourselves in knowing
things. I saw a quote, and I can't remember
who it's from. I saw a quote recently that stated
that there is nothing, I'm going to paraphrase it, there's nothing
divine about systematic theology. At first, I thought it was a
bunch of garbage, and then I realized what he was saying. It's not
how we lay God out to be seen that's divine. It's God that's
divine. It's not our piecing together
all these things and separating all this stuff. It's not our
exposition that's divine. It's God who is divine. It's
God's Word that when He says, Beloved, although I was very
eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it
necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith
that was once for all delivered to the saints. That's divine. and how we break it apart is
good. But we can have a heady knowledge
of that. We can have a heady knowledge
of Him. We can have an incredible understanding of all the doctrines
and the labels that have been placed upon them. But that is
not worship. It is not divine. It is not pleasurable
for the soul. And it is not purposeful and
provision for the saints and for the church. There are many of brilliant men
with brilliant minds, with brilliant academic careers who are standing
in judgment today. debated with the best of atheists
and the best of cults and the best of world religions to show
that the Scripture teaches without a doubt that God in all His truth
is revealed to man perfectly in Jesus Christ. And there is
no question, but yet they stand in judgment. Remember that the
demons believe and yet they tremble. That's why Jesus says so passionately
to Nicodemus, who is such a picture of righteousness. You must be
born again. He's a picture of understanding
of right doctrine. You must be born again. He's
a picture. There's a common salvation unto
the church alone, for which God has given his Son to create. There's a reality of a common
salvation that I want us to see here. Here's Jude wanting to
write about this common salvation. So it's of utmost importance.
But as he lives his life amongst the brethren with this common
salvation, something crept in, some things crept in. And we'll
look at those in more detail next week about what Jude says
about what they are. But in a nutshell, they are Basically,
assaults against the gospel. They're assaults against the
common faith of the church. They're assaults against the
known absolutes of who God is and what He's done for us. And
it could be in theory. It could be in philosophy. It
could be in practice. It could be in understanding. But most
likely, it was in taught. It was being taught wrongly. There's a reality of a common
salvation in that it's common because it is for all the saints.
All the saints. Imagine this for a moment, in
that all the uniqueness, and I'll talk about this in more
depth in a minute, but all the uniqueness of every aspect of
the church, the body, all nations, all tongues, all tribes, all
sorts of giftedness, all sorts of maturity, all ages. But there's one thing in common.
Our faith. Our salvation. And so therefore,
in that, we must take heart in knowing that the unity of the
brethren, of the sisters, of the body, is in the commonality
of what God has done for us and who He's made us to be. And I will say to you as well,
as we continue in this, to keep this in mind about that common
Salvation, which includes all the saints of all tongues of
all tribes. It also includes many of the saints who stand
and teach in error today. How easy. Well, these people
are crazy. No, they're not crazy. They're
people. They're people. I read with much difficulty an
old English translation on opedo baptism yesterday from Calvin. It was easier for me to go back
and read the French, so that's what I did. I don't know these
words. So we look and we see that Calvin,
by every Baptist standard, is a heretic on that object, on
that topic, in that doctrine. So what do we do? We thank God
that He is the God of heaven and that we do not put our trusts
in the men who walk this earth, but our faith is in the one who
is faithful. His name is Jesus and that he's long suffering
and patient as we work out these details from season to season
to culture to culture, from peoples to peoples. And in the end, we
have a common salvation. What would be an error in baptism
if you think it's if you think it's effective in salvation,
you are a problem. That's why I think that December
or January we need to do a class on that. That the common salvation
is for all the saints, some of whom are in error. Not in grave
error against the gospel, because that's who Jude's speaking of.
But those who are in error on other doctrines. For example,
like the mode and method of baptism. the frequency and the ferocity
of the Lord's table. Should it be real wine or should
it be grape juice? Should it be Coca-Cola? Can you do Mountain
Dew and Doritos? Or does it have to be some kind
of bread that tastes like garbage? I mean, who said the Lord's Supper
had to be gross? You see these kids, they like the grape juice.
Is it okay for them to go drink all the excess? Or should we
pray over it, pour it out? You see, there's a lot of...
You think that's funny, but I got some Baptist brothers who, man,
I mean, they don't even let people talk when it's the Lord's Table
Day. Signed, ushers at the back, shhh, please enter the place
of worship with reverence. Reverence? What's that mean?
I mean, you know, some high school kid going, reverence? I need
to take off my kicks. I mean, really? Even though we
know what we do and we know what we like, we know it doesn't believe
it doesn't mean that every practice thereof differently is wrong,
even though it may be an error. I will suggest to you that probably
if we were to really get to the core of most of what we practice,
there's probably error in it, at least error in our thinking
as to why we do it. So we just do it and we trust in the grace
of God. And when he makes us aware, that's probably not the
best practice. Let's try the best practice.
And here's another one. The common salvation is for all
the saints, even those who are in error of many denominations. Now, don't hear what I'm not
saying, Church. I'm not saying that anybody who claims to be
in Christ is a believer. That's obvious. The scripture
teaches against that. Matter of fact, Jude wrote this letter
on that same occasion. We profess to be in Christ, but
we're teaching garbage. So you're not in Christ. But there are many denominations.
I'm not opposed to my Methodist brethren or my Presbyterian brethren
or my Free Will Baptist brethren. You know, they have a lot more
fun than we do. But what I am going to be concerned
with is that when do the issues of practice
and liturgy become doctrine unto salvation? When do these things... Why is it that my hyper-graced
people, when I say, look, do not forsake the gathering together
of believers as some are accustomed to doing, quoting Hebrews, when
I say that part of the covenant relationship that Christ has
with us is He'll never leave us nor forsake us, and He's given
us salvation unto living life together, unto holiness, unto
the praise of His glorious grace, so that we can do this in this
earth together. So, don't just stay home Have
a heart to be among the people of God. You know where I was
at 2.30? Playing that piano right there.
Couldn't sleep. Getting aggravated. Temptation
to just be pity party. I'm tired. Two nights in a row.
Baby's sick. So what did I do? I just came up here and worshipped.
It's the only thing I could do. I could have done it at home,
but play the piano at home, everybody wakes up. I'm just as tired as everybody
else. You're just as tired as you just as sick as you just,
you know, and I'm not I'm not trying to use guilt, but sometimes
when I say that kind of stuff, please make every effort to be
among the saints in your own experience, not necessarily a
proof of truth, but in your own experience, miss two or three
weeks. What happens? You find yourself
in a spiral. You find yourself aggravated
with every little thing that happens in the world. You find
yourself feeling alone and lonely and set apart and removed. And
then you go, I just don't even want to go back to church. I
don't even want to be around those people. I don't even know if we need
to be at Christ's truth because all this stuff starts. Where
is that coming from? The flesh. Well, Paul says make no provision
for the flesh. Do not trust in the understanding
of man. Proverbs, do not lean on your own understanding. Do
not trust the heart for it is intrinsically wicked. It's always
deceiving. How are we to maintain these
things? How are we supposed to be holding fast to our confession
of hope when we're separated from part of our body? And some
of my hyper-graced brothers would say, well, and I have to be careful
how I say that because there's a wide gamut of what that means,
what I just said there. Well, you can't expect people
to be in church because that's legalism. And I love it when
they say that. And I'll say this, two things
are wrong about what you just said. One, it's not legalistic
because it has no bearing on their soul. And secondly, I don't
want anybody to be in church ever. I want the church to be
together in whatever building they occupy. So there's no such
thing as in church. You either are the church Getting
together or you're not. And it's not a play on words.
It's not semantics. It's doctrine. The Bible teaches
that the church is an organism. If the organism is divided, it's
dying. And if you think that you're
so insignificant that you are not loved, missed, or cared for,
you're listening to the wrong voice. The reality of common salvation
is that it's all the saints, even those who are in some error,
of many denominations, but it's only one faith. It's only one
faith. And that's where the dividing
line will be. When we learn next week what it means to contend
for the faith delivered once and for all to the saints, we
will see that when we stand up, that when we fight, when we proclaim
that one faith that is given once forever, it's over. There's
a lot there. You can make four sermons out
of that phrase. So I'm going to just take those
four sermons and make them into four points in one sermon. We'll just do it like that. We need to know what it is we're
standing for. We need to understand that there
is a common salvation. The question that I will pose
to you in the inner parts of your mind and your heart is,
how are you exercising your existence as part of the body to exhort
one another on to love and to good deeds, as it says? How are
you imposing your presence among the people of God who you call
your church family and providing at least, at the minimum, an
ear so that you might petition the Father on their behalf? You know why it's a sin to forsake
the gathering of the body? Because you cut yourself off
from the power of grace. Because you know when we don't
see You, we don't know You, we don't know what's happening with
You, you know how we pray? Oh God, we don't know what's
going on. Please, bring them back. Open
their hearts to us. Open their lives to us. Let them
respond to us so that they would understand the love of Christ
as the people of God. And you know what God does? He
allows temptation to come and press upon your life, and persecution
to press upon your life, just as if you were with the church,
and suffering to press upon your life, just as if you were continuing
to be connected with the body. The only difference is you're
alone. And it makes it worse. It makes it worse. And not only
that, but you can't obey the Scripture if you're not with
the body. You can't bear your neighbor's
burden. You can't make disciples. You can't rebuke and instruct
and correct and train in righteousness. You can't pray. You can't weep
because you don't know why you should. You can't rejoice because
you don't know there's a reason to. You can't. So you live and
continue to obey. But I go to the Internet and
I listen to sermons. That's not your sermon. That's
not for you. If 40,000 people listen to this
message in the next year that's not part of Grace Truth, great!
Let them apply it to their lives. How are they going to do that
if they're not in the body? You can't even apply the preaching
of the Word of God to your life if you're not among the saints.
In a common faith, with a common salvation. It's impossible. It's
ridiculous. It's wicked. That's why abandoning the church
is an issue of discipline. It's an issue of discipline where
publicly the church and the community see you put out because you're
saying you're in the gospel, but you live as though you're
not. And either it be pride or ignorance. Pride says, I don't need that,
and that's sinful. Ignorance says, I don't want
to know, and that's sinful. You three, I'm very eager, eager, very eager to write to
you about our common salvation. Now, I want you to think, have
you thought about that? Have you mentioned in your mind, have
you paused for a minute? Wow, he was very eager. In other
words, he had a drive inside his soul to write to the saints
about the gospel. And I would say that that drive,
had they come up into his yard, would have been equally expressive
in his voice, would have been equally expressive in his care,
in his contact, in his involvement. Why? Because Jude was called
of God under the power of the Holy Spirit to share the gospel. And he wasn't an apostle. Just like you and I are not apostles. We have the same call of God
to share our faith. Do you know what? Sharing our...
We use that term in America. Oh, you must share your faith.
Share your faith. Evangelize, evangelize, evangelize. Let me tell you something. It
tells us in Acts 2 what Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of
the earth. We don't jump out of Jerusalem
and go to the ends of the earth when we're not willing, what? Or even doing. You know how one
of the first tests of a missionary's call, to make sure it's true,
is that before they ever left where they were, they were known
as a missionary. Don't ever, ever, ever think
that somebody's called to missions when they have a mission to their
own neighbors. their own church members three years. I'm calling the missions and
you don't know anything but that about them. Don't put your hands
on somebody who says that and then pay their way for three
years to go off and plant churches in Malaysia when they've not. That's why the eldership looks
at people for stuff like that. That's why the church has the
power to oversee that type of stuff. No. We love you, brother,
but you're not a missionary called of God because you're not serving
God now. You're not going to serve Him
somewhere else. Not on our approval. We're not going to ordain you
to the gospel ministry, brother. You called to preach the gospel.
You're trying to find a church job is what you're trying to
find. Sorry. Go find some other cult to be
a part of. I mean, that sounds harsh. Why? Because that's what
it perpetrates. That's a little harsh. You know
what? You do it for ten years and send men out improperly and
see how convicted you are. So I can stand on that soapbox
and look in the mirror and preach. I'm being honest. It's hard to
swallow glass. But God is gracious and faithful. Ah, that's the full package.
What's your name again? Hey, look at our new pastor. Look
at our new church members. Come on down. We're going to
make a thousand this month. Come on down. A thousand people. Three hundred baptisms. Six hundred
at Sunday school. And there's no names there. There's
no faces there. Are you compelled? Are you very
eager to share your common salvation with others? Friends, it starts
with your home that moves into your church family. There is no other. You want to
know what the church membership looked like in the first church?
In Acts 6 and 7, they divided up people by region and they
put their names on lists. And if your name wasn't on the
list, you didn't get ministry. You didn't get it. You couldn't
go, jump town and say, I'm a widow and I get food, sorry. Your name
wasn't on the list. Go see the apostles. Go see the
elders. Go see the deacons. That's how
it works. And I like how sometimes we use
the little out clause. Well, I haven't joined yet, but
you've made yourself a part of our church. So whether you've
joined or not, the Bible makes you part. So we care for you anyway. And
if you disappear, we're coming for you too. That's a little creepy. Good!
I want it to be creepy. I don't want to be like the world.
How many birthday wishes did you get on Facebook? Those people
don't know you. And they don't care about your
birthday. Happy birthday! I'm like, wow, you all remembered
until I finally realized that it popped up for people. Wow,
500 people wish me happy birthday today. I didn't know I had so
many. Who is that? Who is that? I don't
even know you. Delete. See what kind of culture
we live in? Friends, Facebook doesn't work
like that. I'm not playing a joke on Facebook.
I'm just saying it doesn't work like that because that's the
way it works. It works like that because that's
the way we are as a culture. We live like Facebook in the
real world. Before there was Facebook. We
show up. We do our little spiritual thing.
We have our little spiritual clothes on. We have our little
spiritual song time. We have our little spiritual class time.
We give our little spiritual money in the plate. We have our little
spiritual closure service. We walk out the door, shake hands,
smile, get in our car, weep all the way home. Nothing's changed. So if it sounds creepy to be
intimate with other people, good. It should be creepy. Why? Because
the world looks upon it and thinks it's foolish. And the religious
of the world look on it and think, I hate that. Jude had a call of God and he
could not ignore it. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel.
And the reason he had that is because he'd been given the heart
of God through the Holy Spirit. And he had a love for all the
saints who had received the mercy and the peace and the love of
God, and he prayed for them specifically that God would multiply these
things in their lives. Friends, that's not a person
who just administrates the people. That's a person who loves the
people. He loves the saints, and he's
called and compelled by God to teach them. He says, Beloved, You, I want to tell you about
the greatness of our God and His gospel, but because this
garbage has gotten in the way of that, let me deal with the
garbage. Let's clean up this false teaching. This common faith. This common
salvation. is the gospel alone. It is the gospel of God. It is
the good news of Jesus. Brother Tim Oliver in California
sent me a video, an email yesterday. I don't even know how to put
this in words. A group of men speaking outdoors
with Bibles and signs. They were not preachers and they
were not Christians in Florida. And they were awful. It was a
seven-minute video. He says, please try to endure
seven minutes. This is not the right way to do it. And in ten seconds, I had so
much anger in my spirit that had I had the money to replace
it, I would have punched my computer just to feel better. You ever
felt like that? You ever seen something so wicked and so dark
and so gross and so just abominable? And I'm not talking about the
two men kissing in front of this expositor. I'm talking about
what he was saying to them. And I replied back to my brother,
and I said, man, if I were there, I have to tell you, at ten seconds
in, we would have kung fu mastered this guy in the throat. I would
have gone fleshly, crazy gorilla on him. And then turned around
and said, that's not the God of the Bible. You know? I wish God would open the doors
to be Joshua just for a day. But who am I to yield that sword
when we have the true sword of God right here? What's the point
there? There's a lot of people that
proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ and get out and do a lot
of good things. And sadly, beloved, the wicked
of the world and the delusioned of the world and the self-righteous
of the world are actively going more than the people of God are
going. And I think it's because of malnutrition. I think it's
because there is a lack of exposition that's followed up with expectation. Does that make sense? Even good
preaching can be complacent. Even good teaching can be sleepy. Even right doctrine can put us
into apathy. Not if it's expected. See, there's another reason why
the church must be together. Because we can't get away with
just coasting through our faith. You ever been sitting somewhere
and weary and tired out in public and somebody comes up and you
know they're about to come to your table and you lower your eyes? You don't even know them. You
just lower your eyes. You think, oh, I need five minutes,
please. Have you ever been there? Find
the furthest table in the back of the darkest restaurant and
just have a cup of coffee. Get your Bible out. Look at it. And the oddest thing, people
through brick walls. Hey, there's somebody with a Bible. I'm going
to go bother them. I'm going to go bother them. I'm going
to go bother them. But there's sin in that. Bow your head and go, Just one
moment of peace, please. And he goes, nope. That's not
why I let you here. That's not why I called you.
That's not why you're the beloved. You are my voice. You are my
hands. You are my face. Go and listen and preach and
teach. You know, it's a split-second
thing, but it's there. Don't lie. It's there. I don't know,
Jesse, if you've preached outside for a couple of hours and you
get in your car, have you ever had somebody just come up and
knock on the window or stop you and you're thinking, Well, I'm
tired, but hey, this is what I'm here for. It's not wrong to battle for
a second. Oh, the flesh is willing, but
it's so weak. The Spirit's willing, the flesh
is so weak. But Christ is stronger, so we go. The gospel alone. What is it? What is it? The Gospel is the
good news that God is holy, He is perfect, He made everything
that is, and He's just. Therefore, sin and evil and darkness
and wickedness cannot escape His rule and His reign. Therefore,
because He's just, because He's holy, because He's righteous,
He will set these things correct. He will bring recompense against
all wickedness and any individual from whom wickedness comes. So God's justice. But then we
see an element of the gospel. So that's good news, even if
there wasn't this element. That's good news, y'all, that
God's holy and righteous and going to send all wickedness
into condemnation. That's gospel. But the gospel
continues in God's mercy. See, this is where it starts
getting really good. This is where the good news of
the common salvation is to explode from our mouth, to explode from
our from our senses to explode from our hearts. It's a common
salvation about the mercy of a holy, just and righteous God
who should not allow us to be forgiven. And there then comes
the aspect of God's mercy. What do we see there? Mercy,
peace and love. How do we get this? That God
created an opportunity. He provided an opportunity in
creation that He would send Jesus the Son to become a human being.
The Creator becoming like the creation. The One who made it
all becoming like the one He made. That He may suffer the
penalty of the people of God so that God would still be just
in the forgiveness of our sins. I know this. Yeah, but it should
be done every day. This is the common salvation
that without all these greater things are worthless. This mercy, this peace and love
multiplied to the Beloved in Christ who satisfied the wrath
of God, who made peace with the Father, who is the fullness of
love, who is the example of love. God has come. Jesus is His name. Believe on Jesus and live. Believe on Jesus Christ and be
born again. A few more things to think about. This common salvation, though
it is all the saints, recognize that it also is inclusive of
all the nations. Preaching the truth of the gospel
is our call, as it was Jude's. And I want to share something
with you that's going to sound a little frustrating. Jude is
going to preach the gospel of grace, as he's done already,
and then he's going to point to error. But they are not the
saints. Preaching the gospel and pointing
to error are not the same. Have you ever gone into a store
and paid with a twenty? And the person takes it and holds
it up to the light, tastes it, smells it, gets a marker and
puts a mark on it. You know what I'm talking about?
There's all these different things. I've seen people snap them, people hold them to
the light. That's a twenty. When the fives first came out,
I paid with a five. At that store over there, and
he looks at it like this, he said, where'd you get this? From the bank.
Got a whole stack of them. Well, that's weird. People are cautious. They see
that, and it looks a little weird. They know that people have passed
off funny money before, so they check it. There's a couple of
counterfeit bills on the wall of a Chinese restaurant down
there. So they've got a pin. They just check them. Fifty or
a hundred. People don't even take those
anymore. You ought to frame those and put them in your house. Nobody
will take them. Well, I'm sorry, your bill is
$107. Here's a hundred and a five and three ones, two ones. Sorry,
I don't take hundreds. Okay, here's a fifty. What did I say? Oh, the counterfeits. So people
are leery. We ought to be leery when we
hear things that sound true and be a Berean and look at it and
investigate it. But the question is, Do we walk
around with fake money? Do we walk around with counterfeit
bills? Everybody look, there's counterfeit. It looks like it's
got value. It's got no value. Because what
happens when we do that? Everybody's interested in the
false. Everybody's interested in the counterfeit. Everybody's
interested in all the wrong things. Always. That's the nature of
humanity. That's why the tabloids at the
grocery store sell out. What? Empty, empty, empty? And,
you know, Time Magazine, Wall Street Journal, full. Guns and
ammo, and, you know, Elvis' bat-boy baby. That's all gone. Why? Why do we read that? Because
we like that kind of thing. We like the negative. We feed
on the bad news. If the news in the evening at 11 o'clock,
who stays up for that? A lot of people. Why? They want
to see if they're in trouble, in danger, or about to have a
hurricane. And they always put the weather
last. Why? Because that's the only reason people watch the news
at 11. I know what it's going to be like. I'm like, you know
what? Go to Google. Let people like it. They trust
that. But you know what? You never see a coverage of anything
on the news when there's been a great, sunny, beautiful day.
Look at the beautiful day we had here in Savannah. The breeze
was great, the gnats were low, and today we went on the street
and we were going to spend 20 minutes talking to people about
how wonderful their day was because of the great weather. But if
wind blows and it floods, they're going to show the same picture,
the same dude traveling the same way down his raft on River Street
for five days. And he barely made it out alive.
Look at this. Like that accident you saw last
night. A truck flipped over four or five times. The man was ejected
from the truck and the truck almost tipped over on him and
then went right back up. Right in front of Kelvin and a few
other guys in Statesboro. If that were put on YouTube,
it'd be watched over and over and over. Why? You know, but
nobody's going to watch a video of someone driving normally down
the road. Hey, check me driving from my
house to my job. Nobody's going to look at that.
See, we giggle at it. Nothing's different when it comes
to doctrine. Now, sadly, I think it's... I
don't know the word. I just can't imagine why truth
isn't exciting. I can't imagine why truth isn't
inciting. I can't imagine why the truth
of the gospel is not something... It satisfies every need for us,
church. But what had we rather see? We'd
rather go and find... I saw a quote yesterday. I saw
a quote Friday that was sent out by the Christian Research
Institute. And it was a quote by Jerry Buckner
about a false teacher and the future of our country in a spiritual
way if something doesn't change soon. And the quote was dated
1999. And I thought, how often are
we continuing to pull the... And so as I went there, and then
I went and I clicked every link on it, and I read article after
article after article, and then I realized, this is old. So I
spent 45 minutes looking at old news about wrong teaching rather
than spending that 45 minutes just investing myself in the
truth. You know what good that did for you? Nothing. You know
what good that did for me? Nothing. Nothing. Wasted my family's time,
wasted my time, wasted everybody's time. Well, now, there's a reason
that... No, there's not. There's not a reason to go hunt
down false teachers. They'll show up soon enough. And let me tell you, there are
millions of them, greater and bigger, with bigger influence
than these people we see on television. And here's something more to
be said. Just this morning, as I was talking with a fellow pastor
about 8 o'clock, and he's telling me what he preached
on last week and what he's going to preach on this week, and I'm
listening, and he says, I want to get pastors together in this
area. I said, I'd love to see that happen. You try. I'll be
there. You call it, I'm coming. It'll
be me and you, like we are right now. And we just happened upon
each other. It was just a coincidental meet,
if you will. And I turned to Jude and I said,
here's what I'm talking about. Speaking to exactly what you're
thinking of is this common salvation, this unity of the brethren. We're
one church in this community, in this county, but we have many
congregations. And I started sharing my faith
and sharing what God had put upon my heart to walk in a few
weeks. And he stands up and says, I've
got to go. And I've been blessed and I have been blessed by what
he had to share. And he turns around as he's about
to leave and he says, you know, I mentioned last week to my congregation,
so many of them are caught up in all this wanting God to give
them something. And he says, and I've learned
that we're not promised prosperity. So all these people that they're
listening to is probably not good for them. So I took him
to 2 Timothy 3, verse 12. It said, All who desire to live
a godly life will suffer persecution. And here's this man whom I don't
even know. This is the second time I've
made acquaintance in public. He is a child of God and through
the right teaching of the Word of God, God has given him discerning
ears that when something else came up in the flock of his oversight,
he went, something wrong with that. Now I'm going to talk about
why that's wrong and what is right. You see, so God's sovereignty
Overcome. We don't have to put a list.
There are people on the Internet who have websites dedicated to
the sole necessity of looking at every public preacher and
finding everything they've ever done wrong. And I will tell you,
they are the devil's toy. They are Satan's puppet. And not only are they Satan's
puppet, but they mock Jesus. because they ridicule and they
scoff and they poke fun of and they do videos and they spend
their entire lives not once having ever made a disciple, ever shared
the gospel, nothing they've ever said will ever bring anybody
to saving faith and knowledge of Jesus Christ. They're not
supplanting themselves as a seed for the purpose of the church.
They're doing nothing. They're doing nothing but purveying
the devil's division. There's a time and a place and
a way to contend for the faith. We must make disciples of all
nations walking with them. And when error comes up, we go,
whoa, it's bad. This is good. That's bad. Bad
fruit. That's what Jesus has done. And it wasn't even that
these people that He's speaking with had fallen for that, but
because it came to their camp, He said we must deal with it.
See how that works? Why would I preach a series against
prosperity gospel with Grace Truth Church? What a wasted ten
weeks. And no, it may be thirty. Take
a whole year. Because it doesn't fit the whole
of our need. Because if I just teach the Gospel and show you
the suffering exemplified in Scripture and show you the teaching
directly that people are going to suffer, like we talked about
in Job, I don't have to preach against that because when you
hear it again, you're going to go, that just doesn't make any sense anymore.
That's wrong. Why point to things also that
no one has ever seen? Jude's going to point to several
things. He says, "...who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality
and deny our Master and Lord." He didn't say, oh, and by the
way, the Gnostics over there in Ephesus, they're trouble too.
And remember Paul's guys that left him? Watch out for them.
Put their name on the list. Because then these people were
like, I ain't heard about that. Let me go look at that. Oh my
golly, I didn't even know that. That's cool. Hey, did you know
this? Hey, did you know this? Like, like, like, like, like,
share, share, share, comment, comment, share, share, share,
like, like, like, tweet, tweet, tweet. Next thing you know, 5,000 million
trillion zillion people have seen everything but the truth. It's the human nature. It's not
a common salvation to teach an uncommon error. Another thing I want you to see
is that a common salvation includes a common faith, which is a narrow
way. Jesus says, I am the way, I am
the truth and I am the life. And the outcome of the way and
the truth and the life is that we come to the common truth and
we receive the common life. So therefore, we not only have
the common way to God, but we walk in the way of God. Because God changes our hearts.
God puts in us a desire for holiness. We worship together. We grow
together. We study with the saints of God
together. We grow in a community of faith
as the body of Christ. One of the errors that I've made
in the last year as your pastor is to simply just assume that
our teaching through Ephesians has just stayed on top of your
mind. Oh yeah, we've been there. It's
not purposeful. I just assume that your ecclesiology
just sort of, you know, that you go back and look at my notes
every few days. Listen to those sermons about
once a week. I know you do. No, you don't. If I have to go back to my own
stuff to refresh myself, then I better be reminding you of
things. Because if I have to be reminded of things that I've
already Been there and done. I need to make sure I remind
all of us. A common faith. It's a faith that's
once and for all delivered. One time for all delivered to
all the saints. And we have a heart for humility
and exhortation of others. It's worrisome when many who
claim Christ do not desire to grow in Christ together with
the body. It's worrisome when people say
that I can on my own Be a successful believer. Be a fruitful Christian. But even if you can, where is
that learning being put? Where's it being put? What was one of the rebukes that
Jesus gave the Pharisees? That you shut people out of the
Kingdom of Heaven. You've had the oracles of God. You've had
the truth of the Gospel. You've had the prophecies. You've
had the prophets. What did Stephen tell them? The prophets. And you killed
them all. And now you killed Jesus. You stiff-necked, uncircumcised
heart and ears. You stiff-necked people. You
rebellious, wicked, dark, devoid of life. People, they shut their
ears like this and screamed at the top of their lungs as they
rushed Him and stoned Him and killed Him. We should be striving to be the
body God has created us to be. And the last thing I want you
to understand today is this. This common salvation is inclusive of a common faith. And it starts now. Our salvation starts now. At
the time of rebirth, not at death. Friends, it is a really bad disease. especially amongst the elderly
of a lot of SBC churches, who their whole testimony is, can't
wait to get to heaven. Can't wait to get to heaven.
Me either. But I've got a whole lot more
to do in obedience to the Word of God as I wait to get to heaven. And when I get to heaven, I'm
going to be waiting to get out of heaven. What? We believe in
the resurrection of the body, don't we? How long, O Lord, the saints
in Revelation say, before you bring your justice amongst the
earth? How long before you bring recompense? How long before the
fury of the winepress of your judgment is going to tread upon
the earth? How long before we are vindicated,
God? So what is salvation now? What
does it bring? It brings a change. It brings a visible change to
our lives. It brings a sense of newness
to our hearts and minds. We long to worship. We long to fellowship. We long
to learn and to grow and to be intimate in the Word of God.
We long to be holy. We long to be holy. Jude wrote to them. Not to Him. Jude is writing to them for us,
not for me. When we experience regeneration,
we are freed from the power of sin. Our salvation from sin starts
then. We're no longer bound to the
power of our flesh, but have the power to overcome it and
to strive for holiness in the cross. God has placed in us a
spirit of newness, a spirit of passion, a spirit of holiness
that we want to walk in righteousness. And we do so not in our own power,
but in the power of God. so that it be clearly seen that
our works are carried out in God. This is the work of God
that you believe in the gospel. All of these things, not of your
own doing, but to what? To do good works that were created
beforehand for you to walk in. See, why that class is so important,
because every one of us now have things, well, I can't get that
out of my life. But Christ can. And the repeat of the truth here,
as we saw from last week, is that there's mercy and peace
and love multiplied to the church. Friends, understand that though
we are unique, each and every one of us, we are common in our
salvation, common in our Savior, common in our love, common. We are common. We are all alike
in our salvation. So, some closing questions for
you to contemplate. Do we live as a family concerned
for truth above comfort? Are we motivated to live together
as a holy people? Are we gifted or called by God
in a specific way? And if so, are we compelled by
God to use these gifts for the benefit of His people? Are we found solid in our truth? Are we found in the life of Christ? Are we found to walk in the way
of Christ? Are we together prepared to contend
for the faith? Are we prepared together to stand?
Are we prepared together to hold up the gospel? Are we prepared
together to engage the culture with truth? If we're not living
for that purpose among ourselves, I think we work in vain. I think
at the church, each part is not living for the sake of each other's
sanctification and joy. We live in vain. Yes, we have
a lot of other things. We have a lot of other ministries.
We have a lot of other activities. We have a lot of other necessities.
But as we go about these things, our life is to be centered around
the gospel and around the people who have been saved by the gospel. We have one faith, one Lord,
one baptism, one savior, one spirit, one glory, one truth,
one message, one hope, one God. Who is our father, whose son
is Jesus Christ, and we have one common measure of a certain
hope in a faithful God who keeps His children for Himself. And that is that we maintain our purpose in our common
faith for the common good of each other. That's the measure. That we rise together as a holy
people, as a people who worship the grace and mercy of God. And in doing so, we find ourselves
graciously empowered with contempt when we hear someone impair or malign the truth of
God. We are enraged with a righteous
rage when we hear someone make light of the gospel of grace.
We are unable to reconcile why such a thing would be permitted. But before we get all bent out
of sorts about those who malign the gospel, let's ask ourselves,
do we malign the gospel in failing to live the gospel together? Because in not living for the
body of Christ, we are ourselves an assault on the Gospel. Because Christ bought a church,
a bride, not many. Let's pray. Thank You, Lord, for Your holiness in us. For Your Son given for us. Thank You, Lord, for Your Word. And for being gracious in me
that I could just go on and on. Lord, plant that which is necessary
in the ears and the hearts of Your people. And let the wind just blow away
that unnecessary stuff. Help us to be humble. And even
when we are angered with those who alter and impair Your grace,
we know You're faithful to correct it. You need us to stand with
all of Your power and glory around us not charge into some fool's
errand thinking we have the right or the ability to make right
your name. Let it begin with us that we
may be a holy people for Your name's sake. That we may invest
in each other in a powerfully intimate way that only can be
explained because of Your grace and goodness in us. Let it begin,
Lord, with a zeal for Your Word and a zeal for Your people, evidenced
by prayer and study and investment as we teach each other. In Jesus' name, we pray these
things.