Fads and trends come and go, as they say keep it long enough it’ll come back into fashion. So what was your favourite fad of the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s 90’s 00’s? Like did you ever own: a Smoking Joe or a Coffin Bank, or ever get a twiggy haircut, or wear the paisley shirt, listen to the beach boys on your LP player or on a cassette tape, or for fun run your 6 inch record at 33 1/3? Or has it been the same for you that song you bought on vinyl, bought again on CD and now rebought on iTunes, and you’ve watched it many times on YouTube. At your primary school did you call it recess or little lunch, and for fun bring your pet rock or sea monkey’s? Were you ever present for a Harlem Globe Trotters basketball game? Or could do around the world with your Coke-a-Cola Yo Yo? In the 1980’s did you: ever crack your rubick cube, own a cabbage patch doll, wear leg warmers, admit to actually liking Michael Jackson, can you sing the words to Nina’s 99 Luft balloons in German! Or have you ever wanted to be: MacGyver, Magnum PI, a Charlies Angel, the Six Million Dollar Man or Wonder Woman. These things defined those years and in some ways we can point out movements in churches that can define generations of Christians as well. There have been movements like the Toronto Blessing, or the deliverance movement, or even something as sinister like the Jones town Massacre. These are things that take followers of Jesus into all sorts of extreme places. So it is today as we read Jude verses 3-16 we see how Jude, the brother of James, the half-brothers to Jesus,
had to be able to acknowledge Jesus’ rightful place in his life. Jude wants to see these Christians continue to be people of faith. The question is: “How do you reflect your hope in Jesus?” As Jude tells it we are to have a heart check. As we read in Jude verse 3 and the first part verse 4
3 Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints 4 For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you.
And verse 8
8 In the very same way, these dreamers pollute their own bodies, reject authority and slander celestial beings.
The urgency was palpable, as false teachers were at it again, he calls them dreamers, so look again at verse 8. These dreamers weren’t your Walter Mittie types, staring blankly on life, these guys claimed they had direct revelations from God. The trouble for those Jude was writing to was many at this church were too sleepy to notice what was happening. Jude writes to set that straight.
4bThey are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.
This teaching promoted cheap grace, a kind of belief that all you had to say was the magic words “Jesus” and all’s right. This thing Jude was combating was a struggle over forgiveness. In some ways, there is the same struggle for us, like when you reflect on that moment of your sorrow over a sin was that because someone caught us in the act or a true response of conviction because of the sin we had done? It’s the difference between owning up or being caught out. It was why these false teachers were so deadly, they made grace cheap, so see how Jude uses 9 warnings to urge his hearers to keep following Jesus . These hearers of Jude were obviously aware of their Bible’s as first Jude turns to: the example of Israel in verse 5, then the fallen angels of verse 6, Sodom & Gomorrah verse 7, Archangel Michael & Moses in verse 9, Cain, Balaam, & Korah in verse 11, and finally Enoch in verse 14. In each one of these examples form Israel’s history it speaks about giving up, falling away, or thinking we know better than God at how to run life, verse 5
5 Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe.
The example is as Israel that experiences the Exodus from Egypt
Is the same group of people who later distrusts God’s promises their punishment was to wander the desert until all that generation were dead. Or in verse 6 these angels are the same ones we read about in Genesis 6:1-4 in the time of Noah before the flood
1 When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years." 4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days--and also afterward--when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
These Nephliim I take as the angels who experienced the full glory of heaven, and followed Satan in the fall who weren’t prepared to keep their positions in heaven. It’s like Jude’s saying if God can miraculously lead people out of Egypt and is then also prepared to also judge them for faithlessness, or allows angels to fall with Satan (because they were infatuated with the daughters of the earth). Then don’t expect God to ignore sin in your life, don’t think that the words of forgiveness, are ever the same as the actions of repentance if your growth in humility and hope in Jesus isn’t in them. Or later as Jude uses the example of Sodom & Gomorrah in verse 7, we’re told how their perverted demands were punished swiftly by God. The fireball that destroys Sodom & Gomorrah is a small reminder of the coming judgment of God, verse 8-10 (The Message)
8 This is exactly the same program of these latest infiltrators: dirty sex, rule and rulers thrown out, glory dragged in the mud. 9 The Archangel Michael, who went to the mat with the Devil as they fought over the body of Moses, wouldn’t have dared level him with a blasphemous curse, but said simply, “No you don’t. God will take care of you!” 10 But these people sneer at anything they can’t understand, and by doing whatever they feel like doing—living by animal instinct only—they participate in their own destruction.
Living like animals is the way we act when we reject God’s sovereign rule over our lives. Life becomes all about instinct. We hear it all the time, my gut told me to do it, so I did. We are royal children in Jesus who God tests to grow us in humility and hope, in the way we live to give Jesus the glory and not ourselves. Jude now goes into the examples of Cain, Balaam & Korah. As we see that each of these examples are a log of judgement where God was not silent, like Jude says in verse 16
16These men are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage.
As again the people of Israel who grumbled against God at every hurdle on their journey were dealt with swiftly by God. So the question is what is it you find yourself grumbling against God about? Jude brings us towards God to consider how are we going at being followers of Jesus who aren’t run by instincts or just mirroring our world. How do you walk the tight rope of living in the world but not of the world? Are you able to be open, friendly, and inviting for people to come here? How are we going at letting Jesus work on our lives in repentance and faith? So it is as were to remember Jude’s message to us isn’t about turfing out as many people as you can from church to purify it. Jude gets us thinking about how we care for one another at Church, be warned - keep watch, be careful where you find the world makes you sleepy with hearing the call of God in our lives, as our lives are lived before the sight of God. The challenge is who will you intentionally ring up, have a coffee with, and pray for to grow in their trust in Jesus this week.
Let’s pray…
David Hassan @ Tamworth Community Presbyterian Church 11/12/16