Jude 12-16
Characteristics you do not want
Introduction
A. When’s the last time you killed someone?
B. Have you robbed a bank within the last 10 years?
C. How familiar are you with the County’s bed and breakfast (yes I mean Jail)?
D. Well then we are doing what were suppose to right?
E. Wrong!
F. We unfortunately pick up some bad attitudes along the way.
G. We start showing Characteristics that we do not want to show
H. Today we are going to talk about four of them.
a. Grumblers
b. Fault finders
c. Followers of own desires
d. Braggers and Brownnosers
I. Grumblers
A. Explanation
1. Nobody likes a grumbler. We all have heard grumblers
2. Jude points out one example that the Jews understand all to well
3. This grumbling has been going on for centuries
4. Grumbling here could be translated as murmurings
5. This is what the people of Israel did
6. When they were wondering around the dessert
7. You really don’t think they sat there and said what a fun time this is
8. Walking around in the heat of the dessert, and you thought this week was hot
9. They were sitting there grumbling the whole time
10. This was not a loud up roar of people this was the under the breath type grumbling, (demonstrate)
B. Application
1. Ok so people walking around a desert for forty years were grumbling, that’s nice, what does it have to do with us?
2. Well it does
3. Face it folks we still grumble
4. WE are people that love to grumble
5. WE do not want to actually confront someone and ask them to explain their position we would rather talk about them behind there back
6. WE don’t want to be real loud about it
7. Let me give you so good example off how we grumble
a) The boss, when is the last time he worked, How in the world does he expect me to do something when he doesn’t ever do anything
b) What do we have to sing all these songs in church, why cant we sing a song take an offering and get out of here
c) Just who does he think he is coming here and tell me how to live my life
8. Grumbling is not a part of heaven thank you God
9. Grumbling should not be a part of us
C. Illustration
1. I was counseling with a guy name Jack, he was the biggest grumbler I have ever met. No matter what we did he was always grumbling. We would do the same thing and he would grumble about how boring it was, we would try something new and he would grumble about how dumb it was. No matter what grumble grumble grumble.
2. What if instead of grumbling we were to lift people up and share new ideas
3. What if instead of telling them what they did wrong, accented the positive.
4. I will tell you what would happen. Confidence would go up, performance would go up, love would increase, happiness would be realized, things would get done, and we would have a better concept of how the body of Christ works
5. Stop grumbling already
II. Faultfinders
A. Explanation
1. This is one of my favorites, the all famous faultfinders
2. When Jude wrote this, he was thinking about his Jewish friends
3. The Jews had a unique, un spiritual gift, of finding fault in everything
4. No matter how good of a job they did they would find faults in the work
5. They were people who were impossible to please
6. Everything that was done had faults
7. Could you imagine sitting in a committee with these fault finders
8. It would drive you crazy
9. These Fault finders found fault EVEN in Jesus
B. Application
1. Yes so the Jews found fault with everything, who cares?
2. We should that who cares
3. We can turn into fault finders
4. We love to see something that we could have done better ourselves
5. WE love to say well it was ok but, he should have done this and this
6. Rather then just enjoying what went on
C. Illustration
1. Every once in while, ok more then I would like to admit it, Heather and I will be at something were I will find a fault in whatever they are doing. We went to a really cool multi media laser light show on vacation. Of course being the super genius that I am looked for every mistake they made. I found them. I found times when they could have done something better. No matter what they did it was just not good enough for me. Finally Heather put me in my place and I shut up
2. If you are a fault finder, you will always be able to find faults
3. This world is far from perfect, therefore faults exist.
4. We need to correct each other mistakes, true; the problem lies when we are just looking for the mistakes.
5. It would be like taking a test getting a 99% on it and then telling the kid how stupid he is for missing on question out of 100.
6. When I was in college taking sermon delivery classes, after we would get done preaching it was time for the professor to totally rip us to shreds. However, no matter how bad we did, and believe me sometimes I did badly. They would always start with some positive things. And then when they did start ripping you to shreds it was not done in a mean way, it was done out of love. I never thought there were trying to find my faults I thought they were trying to help
7. If you notice a fault in someone fist ask yourself, am I just jealous, and if the answer is no, go tell the person in love
8. Tell the person their good points, tell them how well they are doing, then mention the fault, in love
9. Don’t just rip somebody up just because you can. That is not love
III. Own Desire Followers
A. Explanation
1. Jude is following up on a comment that Paul made in Col. 2:18
2. (Read Col. 2:18)
3. What was happening while this book was written is people were doing there own thing and call it worship
4. They were not sticking to the commands of the Bible
5. They would find whatever they liked and worship it
6. It did not matter were the source came from just as long as there was something that liked, or something that they could make other do.
7. Remember when Mosses received the 10 commandments on the mountain came down and saw every one worshipping a gold cow
8. They made that cow up
9. They were worshiping the cow as if it were God
10. That is the type of person that Jude is after
B. Application
1. Ok so a bunch of people follow their own will and worship cows made out of gold, That’s nice Pastor Dan but the last time I check I never made a golden cow
2. That is probably true.
3. However, we find our own Golden Cow to worship
4. We find other things that become our first love
5. This is so easy to do
6. We can easily begin to worship the TV without even thinking about it, we will put it before everything else that we do
C. Illustration
1. Back to me running, someday I am sure you will all get sick of me telling you running stories; however do not grumble about them J. Running ran my life. It took over everything that I was doing. It really became my first love. All I would think about was running. That is all my brain could process. Running was my Golden Cow.
2. See how easy that was to happen
3. That is what we do when we follow our own desires rather then God’s desires.
4. That is what we need to make sure that we avoid at all cost
5. Don’t make golden cows
IV. Braggers and Brownnosers
A. Explanation
1. We begin to explore an age old problem
2. Jude was upset, to say the least, at these people who loved to boast about themselves
3. They would make sure everyone would know exactly how much they would give
4. They made sure that they were recognized by everyone
5. Instead of saying stuff like, the Lord did that is my life, it turned out to be this is what I did
6. These people would never pass up the opportunity to flatter others (if, and only if, it benefited them)
7. They could tell if someone important walked in they would bend over backwards for them
8. However if it was just a normal person, they would make the normal person bend over backwards
9. Whatever gave them the fame, they were fore it
B. Application
1. Ok, but we our much better then them, how does this apply to our lives today.
2. Giving is to be done in secret, nobody should not how much you put in the offering plate
3. Sarah does a wonderful job at recording the amounts and never looking at who is giving what.
4. Serving is done out of Love for God, not wanting to get recognition
C. Illustration
1. Janet has been working hard on all the decorations for VBS. However, she does not want everybody coming up to her and saying what a good job you are doing. She takes every opportunity to thank those who have helped. This is not about making her self-feel good. This is about serving the Lord
2. Another problem that we face is how we treat different people
3. If a person driving a brand new sports car would come to this church how would we treat them? If a person driving a 1983 Cavalier that was falling apart would we treat them the same?
4. I sure hope we would, I hope that we would not flatter then one just for our advantage. “Look because of me John Doe is now coming to this church, and he is tithing (only because I told him to) and our annual budget has doubled. Look at me look at me.”
5. That is what we have to avoid.
6. There is not place in this Church or any Church for an attitude like that.
Conclusion
A. These are characteristics that we are talking about we know are bad and we know we should not be like
B. These Characteristics that we are talking about we have problems with unfortunately
C. We need to be ever watching them
D. We need to be making sure that we are not doing them
E. WE need to make sure that we are not Grumbling
F. We need to make sure that we are not fault finding
G. We need to make sure that we are not following our own desires
H. We need to make sure that we are not bragging and brown nosing
I. Wow that is a lot to watch out for
J. However that is what Jesus called us to do.
K. No, this is not easy, just required.
L. Trust in the Lord. He will guide you and make your paths straight
