“I even I am the Lord, and apart from me there is no…” Come on Sunday School children. This is the memory treasure you’ve been working on during the month of November. Help me recite it. “I even I am the Lord, and apart from me there is no…savior. I have revealed and saved and proclaimed - I, and not some foreign god among you. ‘You are my witnesses,’ declares the Lord, ‘that I am God’” (Isaiah 43:11, 12).
So you’ve memorized that Bible passage, but do you believe it? Do you believe that there is no other god than the God of the Bible? Or do you think, as many people do today, that God goes by many names: Allah, Vishnu, or even Yoda? As we continue our Tweets from Heaven sermon series we’ll be wrapping up our look at the short New Testament book of Jude. As we do, we’ll see how Jude agrees with the prophet Isaiah. He too proclaims that there is only one God and the only way to approach him without fear is through faith in his Son, Jesus Christ. #Glory2Christ! That’s the theme of today’s heavenly tweet. As we rejoice that we have a savior from sin in the person of Jesus, we will also see how God wants us to insist on that truth in our dealings with one another. Listen to our text from Jude 22-25. (Read text.)
Do you remember what prompted Jude to write this letter? False prophets had joined the ranks of believers and were teaching that because we have forgiveness through Jesus, it doesn’t matter if we sin. Jude made it clear, however, that God will not tolerate this attitude. The guy who keeps racking up speeding tickets because he figures he has more than enough money to pay the fines, is in for a rude awakening when the police finally take away his license for repeatedly breaking the law and putting others at risk. Jude told his readers that God did something a lot more drastic when he destroyed the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah for their repeated sins.
Although Jude wanted his readers to be on guard against these false teachers, he also wanted his readers to know that these false teachers weren’t yet a lost cause. Listen again to what Jude said. “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). “Be merciful.” Should it surprise us to hear Jude urge that of Christians? Of course not. After all, God has been merciful to us and has not dealt with us as we deserve. Therefore he wants us to be merciful to those who doubt. If a fellow Christian is struggling to understand or believe a certain teaching of the Bible, that’s not an invitation for us to belittle them. Instead it’s an opportunity for us to show patience as we seek to strengthen their faith by explaining the truth they are struggling to believe.
Now that word “doubt” could also be translated as “dispute.” So Jude wanted his readers to be merciful even towards the false teachers who didn’t just doubt the truth but were also disputing it! That of course didn’t mean that Jude’s readers were to let the false teachers continue to exert their influence. It meant that they were to be patient in their dealings with them since false teachers are also people for whom Jesus died and won forgiveness. Jesus wants false teachers to repent too so they can enjoy the glories of heaven.
But our situation might be a little different than the one Jude was addressing. I haven’t heard anyone in our midst promoting false doctrine lately. But disagreeing over how we should carry out the church’s business or accomplish a task at home happens just about any time two sinners get together. So how are you going to handle those disputes? The way Jude urges you to handle them: with mercy. That means listening to one another and doing your best to understand what the other is saying before drawing conclusions or questioning motives. But that takes patience doesn’t it? It also means swallowing our pride and acknowledging that we actually might not have all the answers and so we would do well to listen to others.
Jude is quite adamant that we reach out to one another in love like this. Listen again to his picturesque language. “…snatch others from the fire and save them” (Jude 23a). When we call someone to repentance it’s like trying to snatch a sliver of steak before it slips through the grill and onto the burners below where it’s lost to us forever. This kind of snatching takes some careful maneuvering though doesn’t it? You have to move the tongs into just the right position and squeeze them ever so gently before you can safely yank that piece of meat free. In the same way it takes some careful maneuvering to call wayward sinners to repentance. You need courage to speak to them about their sin, but tact as well lest the message is lost because of the way in which you presented it. But God wants us to make this effort! He does not want us to stand idly by while people we know hurt their relationship with Jesus through repeated sin. Think of the patient effort God made to rescue Lot. He sent two angels who had to more or less drag Lot and his family out of Sodom before fire rained down from heaven. Who is in your sphere of influence that you can snatch from the fire? Don’t just pray for God to work a miracle and change that person’s heart. Pray that he would use you as his earthly angel, as it were, to snatch the individual from the coming fire of Judgement Day.
But what does Jude mean when he said: “…to others show mercy, mixed with fear--hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh” (Jude 23b). Jude again helps us understand just how putrid sin is in God’s eyes. He wants us to think of sin like puss oozing from an open sore. You wouldn’t willingly brush up against something like that would you? No, but at the same time you would feel sorry for the person who is inflicted with such a wound and do whatever you can to help them. That’s the attitude that Jude wants us to have towards those caught in a sin. He wants us to be careful lest we get taken in by the very sin we’re addressing, or fall into the sin of self-righteousness as we call others to repentance in such a way that gives the impression that we don’t have sins of our own that need constant repenting of.
Be merciful. Snatch from the fire. Hate even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh. Jude has given us serious work to carry out. But these are not Jude’s last words. He’s not like a coach reminding his team of all the things they have to do – hustle, hit hard, keep their feet moving – if they want to win the game. No. Listen to Jude’s comforting closing words: “To him who is able to keep you from falling 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” (Jude 24, 25).
Jude ends with a hymn of praise for the one true God. What makes God so deserving of praise is that it is he who keeps us from falling into sin and unbelief, not our best efforts to keep our noses clean. And it is he who will present us as people without fault on Judgment Day so that we can be certain of a glorious eternal future. All this comes to us through Jesus who has all glory, majesty, power, and authority. To summarize: true religion, as defined by the Bible, is not about what you do for God, it’s about what God does for you through Jesus!
Of course it didn’t seem as if Jesus had the power to do anything in our Gospel Lesson this morning did it? There we heard how Jesus was mocked by Pilate’s soldiers and beaten. He didn’t look very kingly and yet, as Donovan explained so well in the children’s devotion, he was a king who willingly gave his life to save ours. That’s why Jesus is so deserving of our honor and praise. And what’s even more awesome about King Jesus is that he continues to reign on our behalf. Jesus isn’t still recovering from the wounds he suffered on Good Friday. He’s not going to physiotherapy in heaven to get his nail-marked hands and feet working again. No, he has all power and is very much in control of this world and of your life.
Therefore knowing and trusting in Jesus then is obviously way better than knowing the manager at the movie theater who gets you in for free whenever you want. It’s also better than personally knowing a doctor so that when you’re sick you don’t need to make an appointment but can just walk into his clinic and trust that your friend will look after you. You have something better. You know Jesus, the King of the universe. Actually what’s even better than that is that King Jesus knows you because he claimed you as his brother or sister in holy baptism.
Since that is true, let me end this sermon and our study of Jude with words that New Testament writer recorded at the beginning of his letter. Because all glory belongs to King Jesus, your brother and your Savior, “Mercy, peace, and love are yours in abundance” (Jude 2). Amen.
SERMON NOTES
What false teaching was Jude addressing in his letter?
How does Jude urge us to treat doubters and disputers?
What picturesque language did Jude employ to impress upon his readers the urgency of their mission?
Compare and contrast the description of Jesus in the Gospel Lesson (Matthew 27:27-31) with the description of Jesus in our sermon text (Jude 22-25). Are the two views of Jesus incompatible? Explain your answer.
Fill in the blanks: “True religion, as defined by the Bible, is not what __________ do for God, but what _________ does for __________.” How will that truth empower you to serve Jesus this week?
