BUILDING UP YOUR FAITH

#746.2                                    BUILDING UP YOUR FAITH                                                        

Scripture  Jude 20-25, NIV                                                                                      Orig. 8/8/1979

                                                                                                                               Rewr. 9/30/1988

Passage: 20 But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. 22 Be merciful to those who doubt; 23 save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.[a]

Doxology

24 To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— 25 to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.

Purpose: Completing a series from Jude, here sharing with my people the author’s positive charge to them to live their faith.

Keywords:      Book Study                 New Testament Characters, Jude     Faith               Grace

Timeline/Series:         Jude

Introduction

            Jude has spent the first three-fourths of this brief epistle admonishing his readers about what is happening in their fellowship.  There are dangers about, and they must see to them.

            The remaining few verses are to help them to call to mind, “remember” (v17), a few very important things.

            Not only are they to remember, they are to  recall that their remembrance is more than just words.  These are priorities that have come to them by way of the apostles, from Jesus, Himself.  More, they form a message from our Lord  about critical times that have come.  And how they live in those times is of extreme importance.

            Jesus reminds us that such times are on the horizon:

Matthew 24:9, “You will be hated by all nations because of me.”

John 15:18, “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.”

            Peter, in his second epistle, raises almost the same point.  He even mentions “recalling the words spoken . . . by the holy prophets.”  And in the 11th verse of the concluding chapter (2 Peter 3:11) he asks, “since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought [we] to be?”

            Peter and Jude both address their readers in the very same way, agapetos, “beloved.”  They all share a common heritage in Jesus, and that bond is stronger than anything else in their  lives. 

            If we are to be the “beloved” children of God, then we must deal with the things that separate us.  Social values, political issues, variances about the meaning of scripture, but especially in our day-by-day relationships.

I.          He First Establishes the Dominion of Devotion.  Jude 20f “. . . build yourselves up in your . . . faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.  Keep yourself in God’s love.”

            No doubt about it, what we do devotionally is of great consequence.  Our SBC records are replete with proof  of reaching people for Christ who are involved in Bible study.  How many encampment surveys have established God’s call to special service through Missions/Church Training, BYPU/BTU?

            There is serious need in our lives to feed ourselves with spiritual nutrition.  I went to St. Francis for Clergy Health Screening.  The nutritionist pointed out some problem areas.  If it were that easy, I have a nutritionist in my family.  But my problem is, I like hotdogs.

            Jude then instructs them with three criteria.  First, they were to build themselves up in their faith.  No doubt, a  heavy responsibility rests upon those whom God calls.  We are to be part of the cure, not part of the problem.  Ezekiel 33:5f, “If the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet . . . I . . . hold the watchman.”  But they were responsible themselves.  The word is “edification.”  Acts 9:31, “churches had rest . . . and were edified.”  It is a slow, deliberate process.  I Corinthians 3:10f, “According . . . to the grace given me as a wise masterbuilder I laid the foundation.”  Ephesians 2:20, “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, . . . Christ Himself the chief cornerstone.”  And note it is “most holy faith.”  There is no other its equal.  We are wrong to placate a nothing/everything believing world.  Someone has a sermon on this, “Sentinels in the Night.”  How appropriate.  Remembering the slow, deliberate, care given to this building, we must build on the right foundation.  In New Orleans I watched as construction men added 5 floors to Ochsner Hospital while the hospital was in daily use.

            [Second,] to sustain that building process, prayer was essential.  As cement, mortar, bolts, nails, prayer is what keeps things in focus.  But it is not just any old kind of prayer, but Holy Spirit prayer.  Of the heart first, then lips.  In certification of God’s will.  It is opening our innermost being to God’s searchlight.  It is faith evidenced.  It speaks more to our yearnings than of special words.  It is prayer that doesn’t quit.  It has more to do with spiritual position than bodily posture.  Romans 8:26f “We know not what we should pray for . . . but the Spirit . . . maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.”

            The third of these criteria is not additional, but confirming.  “Keep yourself in God’s love.”   They are the agapetos.  They are in God’s agape.  Are we?

II.         Out of This Dominion of Devotion Grows an Extension of Evangelism.  We’ve already seen (Acts 9:31) “a church edified, is a church multiplied.”  It is not just for ourselves that we are “edified.”  It is to the end that our lives may touch other lives, creatively.  The implication cannot be overlooked that there is a link between clean lives and faithful witnesses.  It is another of the Christian graces that we are to grow in.  We gain proficiency by our practice.  We touch lives at the level of their own needs.  If you remember Psalm of Confession (Psalm 51), David builds toward what he sees as a certain responsibility.  “I will teach sinners your ways.  They will be converted.  Psalm 51:13, he calls for God to “have mercy . . . cleanse . . . purge me . . . create in me a clean heart.”

            The essential ingredient of need seems to be compassion.  “As you wait for mercy, . . . be merciful.”  KJ uses the word “compassion,” which means to “suffer with.”  Matthew 14:14, “Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude and was moved with compassion toward them, and he healed the sick.”  Romans 9:1f, “I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart.  For I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren.”

            That compassion is able to recognize differences in people, and the vagaries of their needs.  I Corinthians 9:22, “To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak.”  We are to befriend.  We must  hold the line on spiritual values.  We are not to lose sight of hell as the final abode of unbelief.  The Holy Spirit must reap the harvest, but He does so from seed planted in our faithfulness.

III.       He Concludes at the Last with the Foundation of Faith.  Jude 24, “To him who is able to keep  you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy.” 

            Here is the climax of the message.  Someone calls it “Jude’s Doxology.”  We can lift people no higher than we sense that we have been lifted.  How strongly secure in our faith?  How apparent is our joy?

            We must not overlook the potential to “stumble.”  There  is one thing it may be, and one it may not be.  Christians do stumble in daily life and in testimony.  If we could, we would stumble in  our hold on the Christian life.