How many of you are Twitter followers? I’m not, so forgive me if I don’t have this quite right. The way I understand Twitter is that it’s the ability to email the world without having to have anyone’s email address. The catch is that your message, or tweet as it is called, can’t be more than 140 characters long. I would have to send out three tweets just to get to this point in the sermon. In spite of that limitation, or perhaps because of it, there are currently 284 million Twitter users sending out 500 million tweets a day. That’s sixteen tweets for every Canadian! People obviously like messages that are short and sweet.
It shouldn’t surprise us then that there are a number of books in the Bible that are short and sweet – like tweets from heaven. Over the coming weeks during the seasons of End Times and Advent we’ll look at a couple of these “tweets” to see how they prepare us for Jesus’ second coming.
The first tweet from heaven comes to us through the New Testament book of Jude. Jude identifies himself as the brother of James, and they had another brother, a half-brother that you all know: Jesus, our Savior. But did you also know that neither Jude nor James was an early follower of Jesus? In fact they were among those who mocked Jesus’ claim to be the Messiah and the Son of God. They eventually became convinced of the truth and James even served as a leader in Jerusalem and was recognized by the Apostle Paul as one of the pillars of the early church. James went on to write a New Testament book that is five chapters long. Jude, on the other hand, is not listed as one of the early church leaders. And although he did write a New Testament book, it is only 25 verses long. It’s probably a book of the Bible that you can’t remember anything about even if you have read it before. But it’s worth reviewing so listen to how this “tweet from heaven” begins. “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James, To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ: 2 Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance. 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. They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord” (Jude 1-4).
If Jude were to give these verses a hashtag (#) so that Twitter users would know what his main point was, it would be: #Contend4theFaith. That’s a fitting theme for Reformation Sunday since it’s exactly what Martin Luther did some 500 years ago. He fought to bring to light the biblical truth that we are saved by God’s grace through faith in Jesus and not because of anything we have done. The false teachers that Jude had to contend with, however, were not denying that salvation is God’s free gift to us through Jesus. No, they celebrated that free and full forgiveness but concluded that it now no longer matters how we live. Jude summarized the false teaching like this: “They…change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord” (Jude 4b).
I have yet to stumble across a church’s website that encourages its members to party it up and to give in to their body’s cravings, no matter how sinful, because according to the Bible we are forgiven so we might as well enjoy life! There may be no false teachers today who are so bold in promoting such lies, but I know that this attitude lurks within my heart. And apparently it’s also observed in others who call themselves Christians. Listen to what one Christian blogger wrote when he wondered aloud whether or not there is a hole in our holiness. “We live in a culture of cool, and to be cool means you differentiate yourself from others. That has often meant pushing the boundaries with language, with entertainment, with alcohol, and with fashion…[We’ve] willingly embraced Christian freedom, but have not earnestly pursued Christian virtue…When is the last time we took a passage like Ephesians 5:3-4 and even began to try to apply it [to our fashion choices], to our joking, our movie picks, and to our YouTube clips? Ephesians 5:3-4 says: “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be…foolish talk or crude joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.”...God would have us be much more careful with our eyes, our ears, and our mouth. It’s not pietism or legalism to take holiness seriously. It’s the way of all those who have been called to a holy calling by a holy God” (Kevin DeYoung: The Hole in Our Holiness).
Could that writer be describing you? Are you quick to embrace Reformation hymns which speak about God’s free grace and favor, but then just as eagerly view the latest racy video clip that’s making the rounds? Do you rejoice that you are clothed in Christ’s righteousness through baptism, but don’t care how your wardrobe choices make it difficult for others to stay pure in thought when they see you walk by? Do you cherish Jesus’ gentle words of encouragement and forgiveness, but then excuse your sinful nitpicking and criticism of others?
An invitation to stay at someone’s house for the weekend is not permission to leave your dirty socks on the living floor for your host to pick up is it? Nor is it the green light for you to invite ten of your friends over to this house to party like it’s 1999 and leave the mess for your host to clean up and to pay for damage done to the furniture. We would never think of treating a gracious host like that, but we do it all the time to Jesus. He’s invited us to taste of his forgiveness and experience the freedom that comes from knowing our guilt has been lifted off of us and onto his shoulders. But this is not an invitation to now shrug those burden-free shoulders at our sin! Oh, we know we should stay away from the “big” sins. We know that abusing the elderly and stealing from our neighbor is wrong. And we can’t figure out how anyone in their right mind can walk up to an unarmed person and shoot them dead. But little do we perceive that that’s what our unkind comments do every day to the very people we claim we would give our lives to save from a crazed gunman! Friends, you can’t embrace Jesus’ forgiveness and cozy up to sin any more than a married man would be allowed to hug his wife while holding his ex-girlfriend’s hand.
“But temptation is all around us. We can’t avoid falling into sin!” No we can’t. And that’s why Jude is urging us to contend for the faith. Contending means fighting. Confirmands, you know what it feels like to contend for the faith. You engaged in that struggle when your sinful nature suggested that you just give your confirmation memory treasures a passing glance instead of buckling down to commit them to long-term memory. Contending for the faith is also what you do when you deny an urge to spit back an ugly retort at someone who has just belittled you. This contending for the faith is going to go on for the rest of your life. Every minute of every day you’ll need to make conscious adjustments to your attitude the same way you make constant adjustments to your car’s steering wheel even when you are driving down a straightaway. If you don’t, you’ll end up in the ditch. The same will happen to your faith if you don’t keep contending for it.
But Jude doesn’t want you just to be concerned about yourself. He wants you to help others contend for the faith as well. This is how he put it at the end of his letter. “Be merciful to those who doubt; 23 snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh” (Jude 22, 23). False teaching and false attitudes are harmful. And so we will warn others away from them, but we will do so with mercy and humility understanding that we ourselves often fall into the same kind of sins.
Thankfully contending for the faith is not a task we engage in by ourselves – as if we are a batter facing down an ace pitcher in the bottom of the ninth inning with two strikes against us. Listen again to what Jude said in our text: “To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept [for] Jesus Christ: 2 Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance” (Jude 1b, 2a). Jude wanted his listeners to know that God’s love for them was more than a feeling. His love leads to action – and not just to an action in the past that moved him to send Jesus to die for us. God the Father continues to love us and he demonstrates that love by keeping us in the faith for Jesus.
You’re like a war medal a proud father has received for an act of valor his son carried out on the battlefield. That medal is sent to the father for safekeeping while the son continues to fight on the front lines. Do you suppose the father will throw that medal into the junk drawer with greasy bolts and rusty nails? Of course not! He will guard and keep it in a safe place until his son can come home to claim the medal.
That’s exactly what God is doing with you right now with this tweet from heaven - these words from Jude. He is keeping you safe for Jesus until he comes to claim you at the end of time. The Father is doing that by reminding you of your savior and assuring you of forgiveness. He’s also empowered you through his Word to keep contending for the faith as you turn away from sin instead of shrugging it off. As Jude said, God’s mercy, peace and love are yours in abundance. So keep contending for the faith until Jesus comes to claim you. Amen.
SERMON NOTES
List three things you learned about Jude.
Jude urges us to contend for the faith. How did Martin Luther do that 500 years ago? What different threat to faith did Jude pinpoint?
One Christian blogger wrote that there is a hole in the holiness of Christians today. What did he mean by that?
Give three examples of how we can contend for the faith.
In what way are we Christians like a war medal?
