Lake Michigan can be an unrelenting enemy for homeowners on its shores. Over the years, especially in the last few years, homeowners have been seeing their lakefront property steadily eroding. People who had big lakefront yards and beaches have seen them wiped out by storm surges. One homeowner said, “Who would’ve guessed this big beautiful pond would become such a land-eating monster?” Jerry Sanders of Michigan’s Dept of Energy and Great Lakes water division said Lake Michigan is “one of the most inhospitable places on the planet.”
This has led to revetment efforts to protect their property and ultimately protecting their homes from the very real threat of crashing into the lake as the ground literally crumbles out from underneath it. Homeowners are building seawalls and riprap to keep the waters from chewing away their yards and getting closer to their homes.
Now setting aside all the complications that these actions have created, and the certain failures engineers say they will certainly lead to, the idea of revetment is important to our text today. Revetment structures such as seawalls and riprap are intended to protect property from the constant destructive forces that crash and batter against them, so that those properties don’t erode and ultimately come crumbling down.
That is exactly why Jude is writing his letter – to protect the property of Jesus Christ – the Church – from the waves of false teaching. He wrote his letter to reinforce their walls that were protecting them from the very real threat of a different kind: the waves of false teachers. What did Ephesians 4:14 says? “They [believers] will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves…by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming.” The waves of false teachings were battering the church and Jude wrote a letter to urge the believers to build seawalls and riprap to protect themselves. Otherwise, as Jesus said, “their house would come crashing down when the waves and storm come” (Mt 7).
Jude was trying to do what all the authors of NT letters were trying to do: help his readers have a deeper grasp of their salvation. Call it moving on from the ABC’s, or going from milk to meat, or from beginner to novice, to matured expert. Jude wanted to talk about justification (Romans 3 & 4, Gal 2-3); he wanted to expound on adoption (Rom 8, Eph 1); he wanted to dig into redemption (1 Pet 1) and regeneration (1 Cor 3, 6 and Titus 3); he wanted to dissect being reconciled to God (2 Cor 5; Rom 5); and dive deep into being loved by God (Rom 8 and 1 John 4); he wanted to open up on works being the fruit of salvation and not the other way around (Eph 2, Jms 2, 2 Peter 1 and 1 John). Maybe he wanted to go where Hebrews went and show that our salvation comes from a different priest, a different sacrifice, a different blood, a different temple, a different covenant.
But he couldn’t. He had to set that aside to tackle a very pressing issue that his beloved readers were endangered by: false teachers in their midst.
Last week we began verse 3 and saw “Dear Friends,” “Eager” and we began “Contend.” Lets start there with contend
CONTEND
First, Contend! It means to fight with zeal, to struggle, or earnestly contend in a contest.
This is the only place in the whole NT that the word appears so there are no other places to see how it is used. However, the whole idea of guarding truth from false teachings and contending for the faith is ALL OVER the NT. Turn to 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 with me….. Timothy was instructed “guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you” (1 Timothy 2:14). He was also told, “If you point these things out to the brothers you will be a good minister of the Lord Jesus Christ” Point out what? Everything he just warned about and taught in the first 5 verses. The Ephesian elders were warned that “savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from among your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after themselves” and they were to “watch over the flock whom the Holy Spirit had made them overseers.” Watching over the flock involves protecting against false teachings (Acts 20:29-30). Titus learned that he must “refute those who oppose [sound doctrine]” (Titus 1:9).
Contending for the faith and protecting it from false teachers is a daily task of pastors. Why? Because Satan has many ambassadors he sends to the Church in an effort to degrade it. “Many false christs have gone out” John warned, “Many false christs will come” Jesus warned.
The energy Satan puts into deceiving the Church is incalculable.
APPLICATION: Be compelled to protect yourselves and the church from false teaching. Be driven by the desire for godliness.
THE FAITH
Second, notice “The Faith. Jude says to contend for THE FAITH. What does that mean? Well it means all the teachings that have come to us from Jesus and the Apostles. It is the complete body of teachings given to us found in the NT.
“The faith” is what Acts 20 says is, “the whole counsel of God’s will,” or 1 Timothy 1:11 which says “the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God,” or Matthew 28:20, “make disciples and teach them to obey all my commands,” it includes both the “milk” and the “meat” of Christian teaching(1 Cor. 3:1-3; Heb 5:11-13) and 2 Timothy 1, “What you have heard from me keep as the pattern of sound teaching” (v13).
“The faith” includes the Gospel of Jesus Christ crucified, buried and raised again and that is what you must believe to be saved. But “the faith” includes all the extended teachings of truth and righteousness related to the Gospel. As Paul said, “the sound doctrine that conforms to the gospel concerning the glory of the blessed God.” “The Faith” is an all-encompassing term meaning the whole body of ALL the teachings in the Bible that 1) lead to salvation and 2) lead to spiritual maturity – righteous living, spiritually mature thinking, and wise-god-pleasing conduct.
This comes home to you even more when you read the next verse and see how “the faith” was being threatened. In verse 4 there were false teachers who had slipped into the ranks of the church. What were they doing? They were “perverting the grace of our God into a license for immorality and denying Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.” See they were teaching that immoral behavior was permissible in God’s eyes because God was a God of grace and grace means permission to live a hedonistic life.
We’ll get there next week but see right now that these wolves were like “Jezebel” in Revelation 2:20-23. Turn there with me.
The thing to notice is that much of the positive teaching of our faith in the NT is written in the context of responding to the false teachings they were facing in their day. The legalists in Galatians helped ground us in grace and faith; the gnostics in 1 John helped root our understanding of Jesus as a real, physical man in his birth and resurrection; the mystics and ascetics of Colossians helped us be humble and know true spirituality; the charlatans in 2 Pet 2 helps us demand leaders are genuine , and here we see Jude points out and exposes those fake teachers in the church who say God’s grace means permission to live in sexual immorality and sin.
ENTRUSTED
Thirdly, ENTRUSTED. Look again at verse 3, “….”
The word for entrust is a word that means to give over into the custody of another, or to hand over something to someone so that they are trusted with taking care of it. It has a wide range of uses from delivering people over into the custody of authorities, to putting the collected offerings into the hands of a group of men who are charged with delivering it.
But it also refers to giving people the commands of God. For instance, turn to 1 cor 11:2 with me….Luke 1:2 says, “just as they were handed down to us by those who were from the first eyewitnesses and servants of the word.” and 2 Pet 2:21 says, “they turned their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.” When we read for communion we always read 1 Cor 11:23 where Paul says, “For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you”…1 Cor 15:3
Here we have the idea of stewardship. We are stewards of revealed divine truth. It has been “handed down” to us – ENTRUSTED to us. This knowledge has come to us. We did not create it, invent it, discover it. ILLUSTRATION OF A FIDUCIARY RESPONSIBILITY. It has come to us and we are to protect it and pass it on as we received it. There is a powerful sense of responsibility for the knowledge we’ve been given. And part of being a good steward of divine truth is promoting it and protecting it; teaching it and guarding it.
APPLICATION: Entrust means Responsibility, and Accountability. We are accountable to obey what we’ve been given. We see this idea throughout the NT especially: the Galatians departing from the Gospel they were given;; or the Corinthians not living up to what they were entrusted with; or the Hebrews readers were slow and lazy with their trust. Then the seven churches were given messages in Revelation…what would they do with what Jesus said to them?
Let me give 4 ways we are responsible for this knowledge:
FIRST: obey, luke 12:46-48; Hold on to teachings, John 15; Letting go of teachings 1 Tim 4:1-2
SECOND: Teach. 1 Tim 4:13; 2 Tim 2:15; 4:1-2; This is why teaching Gods word is so serious. james 3:1 people should not rush to become teachers of God’s word. Rebukes and judgments will happen (Job’s friends rebuked by God for saying wrong things about Him and he required Job to make sacrifices for their sinful statements, “Lord Lord didn’t we…?” Blackest darkness awaits them..). Corporately we must all together be faithful stewards of God’s word by demanding it is responsibly handled in our church and that competent men teach it competently.
THIRD: Hear. Demand God’s Word. Demand it’s milk and meat. Demand it is correctly handled. Demand it is revered. Demand it is explained and its meaning made clear. There is the onus on teachers to correctly teach and there is the onus on all of you to not sit under false teachings. If your family denomination is apostate get out. If your church has abandoned sound doctrine get out. A good youth group or community outreach or great music program is no reason to sit under wrong teaching or diluted teaching.
FOURTH: defend it. Set up the seawalls and other revetment structures against the waves of false teachings. If we are negligent to defend it against false teachings we are culpable. We build believers with truth and we cut down false teachers with the sword of God’s word. Like Nehemiah’s day when they built the wall with tools in one hand and a sword in the other. As they built the walls they had an eye towards the horizon for oncoming attacks, ready to meet any foe who came to tear down what they built.
DEFEND THE FAITH!
APPLICATION: How this trust is handled will determine what it will be like on the day we are presented to Christ. What did we do with the knowledge we’ve been given? For those who are overrun with Bibles, books on the Bible, podcasts, thousands of sermons at the click of a button what will be the outcome when they stand before Christ to give an account for all the knowledge that was given to them? People often ask, “What about people who never hear of Jesus?” I’m more afraid for all those who have heard about him and laugh at him, turn away from him, reject him, and scorn the light that shone on them. It will be worse for those who know but reject than it will be for those who never knew.
Let each of us be stewards of the faith so that we may be presented to our glorious Savior on that day, without fault and with great joy.
CONCLUSION: Silent Reflection
COMMUNION