Jude 1:1-4 (Teaching)

[0:00] Okay, so we're gonna start this morning.

[0:22] I do want to ask again, I know I did the end of Sunday school last week, but I'll ask again if anybody has any questions or comments concerning the book of James, we finished that up last week.

[0:32] And I just like to get folks the opportunity if someone didn't quite make sense, because I know sometimes things make perfect sense in my head, but once they exit my mouth they don't make sense.

[0:45] So I just want to give anybody an opportunity to ask or comment or whatever. And if not, we'll flip forward from James to the next to last book of scripture, the book of June.

[1:02] I'll just go ahead and tell you all, this is not where I thought I was gonna be this morning. But that's okay, I talked about it yesterday, I've been reading in Colossians, Genesis and Exodus, and I really felt that I was being one of those three books.

[1:18] I was wrong, but that's okay. Missy will testify, it's not the first time I've ever been wrong. But book of Jude, and I said it's the next to last book in all of scripture.

[1:32] The very short book is only one chapter long, it's not by itself and being, so there's other one chapter books in scripture as well.

[1:43] But it's a fascinating book, it's a very, very short, it's not the pistol, there's a whole lot in it, and I really don't expect to get more than a few verses into it this morning.

[2:00] But we'll begin in the book of Jude, the first one. It says, Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called.

[2:16] And we'll see unto you in peace and love be multiplied. So it begins like many of the other epistles do, we begin with a name, Jude.

[2:27] He's introducing himself, he's saying, I'm the one writing this letter. This is quite the opposite of how we normally do letters nowadays, if any of you still write letters, but even in emails, we do the same thing.

[2:41] We'll put the entire body of the email or letter or word in the case is, then we'll sign our name at the bottom, they didn't used to do it that way. But he introduces himself as Jude, he says, the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James.

[2:56] So this kind of gives us an indication of what Jude we're talking about. And there's a few different possibilities within scripture, within the New Testament, of the Jude that this could be, but he says he's Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James. And you see this again, or you see this previous to this, I should say, in the book of Acts, Acts chapter one, when we see a list of the apostles there and lists Jude, or Judas there as the brother of James. Now, why he might be called Jude here and Judas there?

[3:38] I don't know, I wasn't there when he wrote this letter. I don't know if he maybe wanted to separate himself from Judas Iscariot, make sure nobody thought that he had been the one to append this letter, which Judas would have been dead, Judas Iscariot would have been dead long before this was written. But regardless of why it is, he gives us an indication of who he is here now. That being said, we just finished up the book of James, and we know that James begins with brethren, or James, a servant of God, the Lord Jesus Christ in the twelve tribes scattered abroad. So we know that this would be the James that he'd be speaking of. And what did we say about James back when we started that book? James was the half brother of Jesus Christ. So if James was the half brother of Jesus Christ, and Jude is James's brother, then this Jude, if it indeed be that Jude, and I believe that it is, he would also be the half brother of Jesus Christ. But neither one of them began their epistles in such a manner. Neither one of them say, I'm Jude or I'm James, I'm of blood kin to Jesus Christ. Neither one of them begin like that. Jude begins his letter much the same way that James did. He says, Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ, or something, and I can't remember if I brought it up when I talked James or not, but there's something very important about this word servant. And it's the same word that's used in the book of James, the Greek word here that's used as do-loss. Do-loss has one meaning, and only one meaning. It does not mean bond servant. Do-loss means slave. That is the only, that is the only meaning that that Greek word has. It was translated servant, yes. And I can't deny that, we just read it, and we read it the same way in the book of James, but it has one meaning in the Greek, and that meaning is slave. There's a vast difference between being a servant and being a slave. I can be a servant here. I can be a servant standing here teaching Sunday school as I am, but I can also go to a number of other churches and be a servant there and teach Sunday school, or preach, or whatever the case is. You can be a servant in many places. A lot of people work two jobs. You can be a servant for Burger King for the day shift. You can be a servant for McDonald's on the night shift, but you've got two masters there. A slave only has one master, and that's why this is so important to take into consideration. And that's why it's important sometimes, I ain't saying get so caught up in the

[6:22] Hebrew and the Greek of Scripture that you lose the meaning of the passage. Don't do that at all, but it's important to look at some of the terminology that's used and what their definite meanings are. And do-loss, the word that is translated servant here has one meaning, and that meaning is slave. So he's saying, this, my name is Jude, and I'm a slave of Jesus Christ. We don't want to be thought of as slaves. I don't want to be thought of as a slave, and you all don't either.

[6:55] Nobody likes to be thought of in that manner. Why? Because somebody has authority over us at that case. Somebody can do with us what they won't do. They can sell us off to another master.

[7:06] They can do with us what they want to, as far as being a slave goes. But to be a slave of Jesus Christ, folks, what does the Scripture say? We're all familiar with the Scriptures as far as having liberty in Christ. We have liberty in the gospel. We have liberty in salvation. Yes, we're a slave to Christ, but folks, Christ is the very one that set us free. We should want to serve Him. We should want Him to be our master, and I do want Him to be my master, and He is my master. I have no problem being a slave to Jesus Christ, but this word slave has grown to mean, or has over the centuries, I shouldn't say grown to mean, but over the centuries, it's gotten a horrible name, and rightfully so, because of the way human masters treat their human slaves. The folks I have a master that doesn't treat me that way. He doesn't treat me the way that we have had it ingrained in our minds that slaves get treated. He has set me free. He has set me free from bondage. He has set me free from sin. He set me free from the wrath of Almighty God. He sent me free from all these things. My master, me being His slave, He has set me free. I have liberty in Jesus Christ, and I praise God for that. But that word servant here, I said that's a Greek word called duos, and that word has one literal meaning, and that meaning is slave. It's not bond servant, it's not maid servant, it's not servant, it is slave, and that's the only meaning that that has.

[8:47] So, and like I said, James in James chapter one, when he said he was a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, he used the exact same word there, duos. He was saying I'm a slave of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, Judas saying the same thing here. He says, and the brother of James to them that are sanctified by God the Father. So, James gives his introduction, who he is and where he stands as far as who he serves, who his master is. Then he says to them which are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called. So, he's given his introduction and he's telling us here who he's writing to. Now, in the book of James that we just wrapped up, James just kept on saying brethren, brethren, brethren. He said that several times throughout those five chapters in the book of James. And so, that's how we knew that James was writing to fellow believers in Jesus Christ. He was writing to the church. Jude here comes out and he just says to them which are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called.

[9:58] He just outright says, I ain't writing this to the lost folks. I'm writing this to those that have been sanctified by God. I'm writing this to those that are consecrated. I'm writing this to those which are saved. Like I said, in the book of James we kept seeing brethren and that's what indicated us who James was writing to. But, but Jude just outright says it. I'm writing this to save people, those that are sanctified by God the Father. What is it to be sanctified? What is it?

[10:26] When God saved you, if you're sitting here and you're saved this morning, when God saved you, He also sanctified you. But, that sanctification doesn't end with the day that you got saved.

[10:39] It doesn't just come to an end right there. You're continually sanctified all throughout the days of your Christian walk. All throughout the years that you walk as a believer in Jesus Christ, you are constantly being sanctified. You're constantly being set aside for the service of God. And he says that he's writing to those that are sanctified by God the Father. I don't, he's in parentheses here, you could put, I don't, I'm not writing this to people who have been sanctified by man or been sanctified by some priest or sanctified by some other doctrine or anything like that. I'm writing to those which have been sanctified by God the Father.

[11:23] And he says, and he says, and preserved in Jesus Christ and called. I praise God that I'm preserved in Jesus Christ and not only have I been sanctified by God the Father but in that sanctification I've also been preserved within Jesus Christ. And folks, Jesus Christ in Revelation 1 of verse 18, he says, I'm he that lived with him was dead and behold I'm alive forevermore, amen, and hold the keys of hell and of death. He says he's alive forevermore and I'm preserved and he who is alive forevermore. That means I have eternal life. Jesus said he that believed in me hath eternal life, he hath everlasting life. If we believe in Jesus Christ, we have that eternal life.

[12:14] We have it in an eternal being, an eternal Savior, an eternal God in whom is no death, in whom is no sin, and in whom is no variance whatsoever. He cannot go back on his word. It's not that he will not, he cannot go back on his word. So I praise God. I thank God that I've been sanctified by God the Father. I've been sanctified by he who sent his son to be the sacrifice for my sins. I've been sanctified by him and I'm preserved in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ died, yes, but he rose again that third day and he ascended to the Father and he is sitting at the Father's right hand forevermore, held in war, preserved in Jesus Christ and called. This is important.

[13:07] If you're sitting here and you've never been called, you've never been saved. It's that simple. God calls those of which he saves. Now you could have been called and not got saved. I didn't get saved the first time I ever got called. First time God ever dealt with me, first time God ever laid conviction, thinking heavy on my heart, I didn't get saved then. So that doesn't mean that calling is automatic salvation, but God does call. God does call. Now if you've never been called of God, if you've never had God show you who you are and what you've done, not that you don't already know it, it's a whole different picture. It's a whole different story when Almighty God is the one showing you what you've done. When God says you may have hid this from a preacher, you may have hid this from your wife or your husband or your children, but I know about it. When God deals with your heart and God calls you to repentance, then you can receive salvation, but you cannot, you cannot receive it beforehand. It has got to take the drawing of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is essentially God and he is showing you what you've done. He is showing you who you are and he's showing you who he is, who God is, and what God can do about your situation. So we get sanctified by God the Father, we get preserved in Jesus Christ, but for all that to happen, we have to be called. We have to be called of God and I thank God that it's that personal. That's what makes it such a personal salvation. I mean, yes, I can go to God. I can go to God and I can make all my prayer requests to

[14:59] Him. I can ask Him for healing. I can ask Him for mercy. I can ask Him for help and guidance and all these other things, but if you're saved, you can do the same thing. But God called me one day.

[15:11] He came to where I was and He called me personally. That's what makes it a personal salvation. You know, it's not like God just shouted from the heavens to to all seven and a half billion people that's on the planet right now and said, all right, I'm ready to save some folks. Who's up for that? He didn't do it. He came to where I was and He made it personal. He called me personally and He showed me my personal sins and He showed me that He could be my personal Savior and I got saved that day. Verse 2 in the book of Jude, mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied.

[15:53] So He's told us who He is. He's told us who He's writing to and now He's pronouncing a blessing toward those to whom He's writing to. Mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. Now, I just said, He made it plain who He was writing to. He was writing to believers. He was writing to the church. He's writing to those of a locked faith, those that have been sanctified by God, the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ and called and He's telling them mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. Folks saying nothing wrong with us praying for lost people.

[16:33] There's nothing wrong with us asking God to intervene in a lost person's life and turn them toward Him. But Jude here was saying mercy, mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you, the believers. I can pray that for the lost folks all day long and you know what? God might just answer that prayer but Jude wasn't praying that toward lost people here. He was praying it toward saved people. Why do saved people need mercy? My goodness, I need more mercy now than I did when I was lost.

[17:02] I need to be shown mercy now because folks, I ain't walking around perfect. I ain't walking around with a halo over my head. I'm not in any way, shape, form, or fashion. Am I perfect? I still need the mercy of God. Even though I'm a born again child of God and I know I'm going to heaven when I leave this world, I still need the mercy of God. He said mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. All these things be multiplied to you and folks. God Almighty is the only one that can multiply these things. He can multiply mercy. He can multiply peace. Why would He be wanting to ask Him to or saying peace be multiplied in the middle of all this? Those are a lot of turmoil in the life of a Christian. I've heard people and you all probably heard lost folks say the same thing. Well, you know, if you're such a great Christian, why is this going on in your life?

[18:02] Why are you sick? Why do you have cancer? Why do you have heart disease? Why can't you get yourself up out of bed some mornings? Why did all these things happen? You know, it sounds to me like God's got it in for you. No, folks. God never promised us a cakewalk in this thing. Never once did He say that. Not in all of Scripture did God say, I'll save you and you'll live a nice cushy life for the rest of your days. In fact, the Scripture teaches quite the opposite. Jesus Christ said Himself, you'll be hated of all men for my name's sake. And if they hate me, they're going to want violence against me. They're not going to treat me very well. And because of that, I'm going to need peace in my life. And we can have peace in Jesus Christ. And only in Jesus Christ can we have that peace. We can have a temporal peace outside of Jesus Christ. We can actually have an artificial peace of some kind outside of Jesus Christ. But true peace, true peace only comes to those that are preserved in Jesus Christ as we read in verse one. That's the peace that I want. They say in these things, we multiply to you and love be multiplied. To who? To the saints, to those that believe. Mercy, peace and love be multiplied to these people. And God, as I've already said, is the only one that is capable and able to multiply these things in the life of a Christian.

[19:39] Verse three in the book of Jude, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to ride unto you the common salvation, it was needful for me to ride unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. So again, he emphasizes whom he's riding to, beloved. He calls these that have been preserved in Christ and been sanctified by God. He calls them beloved. And he says, when I gave all diligence to ride unto you of the common salvation, what is the common salvation? Most of you didn't get saved by the same blood that I did, you didn't get saved. That's common. Jesus Christ is common. Now, he's an uncommon Savior as opposed to the rest of the world's Saviors. But Jesus Christ is the common salvation. The Gospel is the common salvation. You didn't get saved by a different Gospel than what I did. And I didn't get saved by a different Gospel than you did. It's the Gospel of Jesus Christ that is the power of

[20:45] God and the salvation. And it is only that Gospel that is the power of God and salvation. That's the common salvation. That's the common ground that we can all meet on. You and I might have differences as far as, I hate to use the term worldly, but that's exactly what it is. As far as worldly things go, as far as things of this life go, temporal things, you know, you might like football. I don't like football. Big deal. We can still meet on common ground because we're both believers in Jesus Christ.

[21:16] That's the common salvation that we have. And that's the common ground that we have. That's something that we can relate to one another on. It can be somebody plumb on the other side of the world. We don't even speak the same language maybe, but we can still meet on the same common ground with the same common salvation in Jesus Christ. And we can praise God together. That's common salvation.

[21:40] But James says, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered under the saints. In other words, James is saying, I had intentions of just writing to you about this common salvation, writing to you about this redemption that we have in Jesus Christ, folks. This was the first century church. Things were still just getting started.

[22:06] And I understand we're way past the book of Acts at this point, but the church was still very young at this point. So James was going to remind them of the common salvation, of the common things to do with salvation. He was going to remind them of the redemption that they have in Jesus Christ.

[22:24] He says, this was my intention. He says, but it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith. He said, I was going to write to you about this simple thing, this common salvation, this simple salvation that comes through Jesus Christ.

[22:40] But something has prodded me, something has spurred me to write to you about other things. That's basically what James is saying here. He says, but it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints who should earnestly contend for the faith. What does that mean?

[23:04] You know what a contender is if you've ever watched boxing? You've got a champion, then you've got a contender. You've got somebody that's going to be fighting trying to get that belt. That's what it means to contend. That's precisely what it means. Now, there is a difference between contending and contentious. There's a pretty broad difference between those two things.

[23:31] To be contentious means that you're purposely trying to argue, but to contend just means that you're fighting, not necessarily in a bad way. It could be for a good cause like we would, like Jude is exhorting them here. He says, and exhort you that you should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. Why would they have to contend for this faith? He just brought up common salvation, folks. He just brought this up to these believers in Christ. He said, I'm writing to you to exhort you to earnestly contend for this faith, this simple faith and salvation, this simple gospel. This gospel, it's not simple. It's complex, but it's simple for us to understand. It's complex for me to understand why Jesus Christ, a man who never knew no sin, a man who no God was ever found in his mouth, it's complex for me to understand why he would come here and give his life for somebody like me. That's where the complexity comes in.

[24:34] But the simplicity of it is he gave his life for all. He gave his life for you, he gave his life for the murderer and the liar alike. He gave his life for the adulterer, he gave his life for the covetous, he gave his life for everyone, for every sinner that ever walked the face of the earth, Jesus Christ gave his life for them and that makes it common. It's a common salvation, but he says, I'm writing you to exhort you to earnestly contend for the faith. You keep a hold of these simple things that you've learned. You keep a hold of this faith and you contend for that faith that was once delivered unto the saints. He says, for there are certain men crept in unawares, and he's telling them now why he's writing this. He says, I was going to write to you about the common salvation, but this is what I'm going to write instead. And in verse 4, we learned why he's writing that. For there were certain men crept in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. This is the why of the matter. He tells them the what in the verse before. This is the why. For there are certain men crept in unawares, folks. It's no different. 2,000 years later, we have got to earnestly contend for the faith as much as I love to hear about the common salvation, as much as I like to hear about how God come and saved my unworthy soul and how he made, how God made a way through Jesus Christ that that could be done and through His shed blood, as much as I love to hear those things, I've got to keep in the back of my head. There are people that creep in unawares into churches, into families, into work, and all these other things. With all these other false doctrines, you've got to also do this. Believe in

[26:29] Jesus Christ, yes, but you've got to do this too, or you can't do that and still believe in Jesus Christ and be saved. No, folks, it is believe in Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. You believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. You confess Him with your mouth and thou shalt be saved. Joel chapter 2 says there will come a day when anyone that calls upon the name of the Lord shall be delivered.

[26:53] That's all it is, and you ain't going to call upon the name of the Lord if you don't believe he can do something for you. Anyway, there are certain men, cryptic and unawares, certain men, not everybody, but there are certain men, cryptic and unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation.

[27:13] They've been around since Jude's time and they were around before then. You read in the Old Testament very locked things that took place. People would know the law of God. People would know the Ten Commandments. People would know these things that God demanded, and yet they would be persuaded to go a different route. They'd be persuaded to go a different way, and that's all people are trying to do now. And folks, it says that they were before of old ordained to this condemnation. They're ungodly men. What does that mean? They're without God. They don't have God. If you're godly, you have God. If you're ungodly, you don't have God. It's that simple. It's like people, and I've gotten flack for this in the past, but folks, it makes as much sense as what I just now said. People will say to get saved, you have to come to God with a godly sorrow. If you ain't saved yet, you can't have godly sorrow because you're an ungodly person. Ungodly people can't have anything that's godly.

[28:27] We can't do that. Yes, we come in repentance. Yes, we come with a broken heart and a contrast spirit. I understand all that, but we can't have anything godly unless we're godly people.

[28:41] It's impossible. It's an impossibility to do that. And he says these are ungodly men. These certain men that are crept in unawares, they're ungodly. They are without God, but they can certainly present themselves as having God. And it happens now. It happens now more often than I care to see. Don't believe me. Go on YouTube. Search for preaching. Just type in preaching in the search part. And it will take you long at all to come across a preacher that preaches absolutely false doctrine and people follow them by the droves and it's dangerous. Certain men crept in unawares who are before the world were dangerous kind of nation. Ungodly men turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness or turning it into filth or turning it into sin. This is exactly what they're doing. Basically, it was the people coming in here and they were and Paul actually addressed this in his letters to should sit about that grace me much more about God forbid. And this is the same thing that people were coming in that Jude was writing about here. The same thing was going on. People were coming in to the congregations and coming into the midst of the believers. And they were saying that's great that you're saying that's great that you have salvation. Now go out and live your best life now. Go out and live it up. Do what you want. Do what you will. That's a dangerous doctrine to preach. Folks, that ain't what scripture teaches. That is not what scripture teaches. Jesus said if you love me you'll keep my commandments. That's pretty simple to understand.

[30:23] But they turned the grace of our God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. How are they denying maybe outright? Maybe just saying maybe just saying Jesus Christ don't exist but folks that throw up a lot of red flags. How in this letter here and in this context how are they denying the Lord Jesus Christ by turning the grace of God into lasciviousness.

[30:51] That is denying Jesus Christ and that is denying the reason that he came. The reason that he gave his life. The reason that he bled and died. It's denying all of that when you turn that grace and that salvation into lasciviousness. You turn it into filth. You turn it into disgust. You turn it into something that God never intended for it to be. So they deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ in these things and that's as far as we want to get to them. I don't really want to get any further into that because I won't stop. Anybody got any questions or comments?

[31:31] Anything at all? Lord Will and we'll put it back up in June next week. Thank you.