back to indexJude Wednesday Bible Study v. 17-23
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OK, for those of you guys who are by the cafe, 00:07:31.980 |
It's now 7 o'clock, and we should get started. 00:07:36.480 |
There's a lot of people here who came early and got situated 00:07:43.480 |
So thank you for doing your best to be on time. 00:07:49.480 |
All right, I hope you guys-- just as a quick test, 00:08:04.980 |
to get together to sing our hearts to the Lord, 00:08:09.480 |
to give our hearts to the Lord by way of hearing His word 00:08:18.480 |
we're essentially doing the building up of one another's 00:08:29.480 |
Heavenly Father, we thank you for your grace and mercies. 00:08:33.480 |
God, we do recognize that in many different contexts 00:08:42.480 |
God, we live in a fallen world that is depraved. 00:08:49.480 |
God, although we are desiring to live faithfully to you, 00:08:53.480 |
we have to fight our flesh daily and put it to death. 00:08:59.480 |
And God, also the voice of the world that keeps trying 00:09:05.480 |
And so God, help us to remain strong and to fight. 00:09:09.480 |
And so to that end, we thank you for this opportunity 00:09:15.480 |
God, we pray that as we sing the songs we've prepared for you, 00:09:20.480 |
I pray, Father God, that our faith would be united 00:09:25.480 |
In our hearts' desire to lift you up and to glorify you, 00:09:29.480 |
we pray, God, that truly our intent and the desire 00:09:34.480 |
of our hearts would come together to worshiping you. 00:09:37.480 |
And Father, when we do that, I pray that all of it 00:10:23.480 |
Your spirit is within me because you died and rose again. 00:10:51.480 |
Your spirit is within me because you died and rose again. 00:11:06.480 |
How can it be that you, my King, would die for me? 00:11:56.480 |
Your spirit is within me because you died and rose again. 00:12:10.480 |
How can it be that you, my King, would die for me? 00:13:17.480 |
How can it be that you, my King, would die for me? 00:14:22.480 |
Worthy of all the praise we could ever bring. 00:14:29.480 |
Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe. 00:14:57.480 |
Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe. 00:15:19.480 |
Open up my eyes in wonder and show me who you are. 00:15:27.480 |
And fill me with your heart and lead me in your love 00:16:00.480 |
Worthy of all the praise we could ever bring. 00:16:07.480 |
Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe. 00:16:34.480 |
Worthy of every breath we could ever breathe. 00:16:56.480 |
Open up my eyes in wonder and show me who you are. 00:17:04.480 |
And fill me with your heart and lead me in your love 00:18:34.480 |
Open up my eyes in wonder and show me who you are. 00:18:42.480 |
And fill me with your heart and lead me in your love 00:20:00.480 |
I want to cover just a few announcements for the things 00:20:12.480 |
Just as a note to those of you guys who are members and would 00:20:15.480 |
like to offer up a service auction, the service auction 00:20:19.480 |
submission window is now and it ends February 25th. 00:20:24.480 |
So as a reminder, there can be things like baked goods, 00:20:29.480 |
providing dinner, et cetera, photography sessions, and more. 00:20:33.480 |
So you can think of some creative ideas and do the 00:20:36.480 |
submission, and then the auction will officially take place 00:20:41.480 |
So make sure you go online and sign up for that. 00:20:44.480 |
Additionally, for those of you guys who are newlyweds or anyone 00:20:49.480 |
married since January of 2020, they have the FAM 245 workshop 00:20:54.480 |
taking place Saturday, February 25th from 1030 a.m., okay? 00:21:00.480 |
So please make sure to sign up for that as a workshop that you 00:21:03.480 |
can participate in for encouragement and learning. 00:21:07.480 |
And then just as a--one more thing is that this Saturday is 00:21:11.480 |
going to be our men's seminar here in the cafe, and we're 00:21:18.480 |
The last thing is for those of you guys who are in the band 00:21:20.480 |
ministry, you know, sometimes we are just looking for easy ways 00:21:24.480 |
to serve, and one of those things was we sent out a message 00:21:27.480 |
and email saying we actually--since we use a lot of the 00:21:30.480 |
facilities here on the cafe building on Wednesday night, 00:21:33.480 |
it'd be good to have some people tidy up, straighten out tables, 00:21:38.480 |
So please be sure to look out for that on the Facebook and 00:21:41.480 |
your email so that you can sign up for that, okay? 00:21:44.480 |
All right, you're dismissed, too, so you guys have a discussion, 01:07:13.480 |
so please go ahead and gather your attention up front. 01:07:17.480 |
Those of you guys who are in the rooms, I'm going to give you a minute just to come out 01:07:20.480 |
and get yourself situated for the teaching section. 01:09:15.480 |
and then jump into the text and study. Let's pray. 01:09:18.480 |
Father, each time we are staring at your word, 01:09:23.480 |
we request, God, that your spirit would bring to us insight, 01:09:28.480 |
help us, Father God, to have conviction, and in some ways, 01:09:32.480 |
strength and courage so that some of the things that we read, 01:09:37.480 |
God, we understand on text, and yet actually, Lord, in life, it's disturbing. 01:09:42.480 |
I pray, Father, you'd grant to us true courage in the spirit 01:09:47.480 |
to live by the things that we observe in your word. 01:09:58.480 |
today we're looking at the exhortation to the beloved, verse 17 through 23. 01:10:08.480 |
Verse 4 through 16, as you recall, was actually, 01:10:12.480 |
here's a rationale as to why I'm writing with such urgency, 01:10:19.480 |
And I'm not going to read through all of this, 01:10:22.480 |
but we should have felt the overwhelming weight 01:10:37.480 |
And so, when you think about this long list, I mean, 01:10:41.480 |
in so many different ways, it is very disturbing. 01:10:45.480 |
If you kind of think about the variety of the schemes of the devil, 01:10:53.480 |
If you think about the different ways, you know, 01:10:56.480 |
God has warned us from the Old Testament and New Testament, 01:11:00.480 |
He has talked about so many different ways that false teachers 01:11:03.480 |
and adversaries of the community of God would try to thwart God's plan. 01:11:08.480 |
Okay? So, I put this up there to say, like, man, 01:11:12.480 |
just, if we were doing the study, I'm sure all of us felt this heavy weight of, 01:11:16.480 |
like, oh my gosh, there's so many different things to look out for, 01:11:21.480 |
and there are so many evil and wicked ways and patterns 01:11:27.480 |
So, then we take a look at our passage today, 01:11:32.480 |
"But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand 01:11:38.480 |
that they were saying to you in the last time, 01:11:40.480 |
'There will be mockers following after their own ungodly lusts. 01:11:50.480 |
But you, beloved, building yourself up on your most holy faith, 01:11:53.480 |
praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, 01:11:56.480 |
waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. 01:12:09.480 |
hating even the garment polluted by the flesh." 01:12:13.480 |
And typically I try to show you that because of these orange, 01:12:23.480 |
The idea is there should be a thinking of contrast, 01:12:28.480 |
high contrast between the ungodly and a high contrast 01:12:34.480 |
And what we see are that there's clear commands given to us, 01:12:39.480 |
and so an easy way to separate and outline this segment 01:12:44.480 |
So what I did was on the left I said, "Command one, 01:12:47.480 |
we are challenged to remember and keep in mind." 01:12:51.480 |
And then "challenge two, we are called to keep yourself in the love of God." 01:12:56.480 |
If you noticed, one of the things I gave as a tip was 01:12:59.480 |
there is a difference between a participle and a main verb. 01:13:03.480 |
And all I'm trying to say is there are things like building, 01:13:21.480 |
If I said to you, "Building up your holy faith," 01:13:25.480 |
that's not a complete sentence, whereas "keep yourselves in the love of God" is, 01:13:29.480 |
and that's the main idea, that the building and the praying and the waiting 01:13:33.480 |
is pushing you to keep yourself in the love of God. 01:13:37.480 |
And then in verse 22 there are these various commands, 01:13:40.480 |
"Have mercy, save others, have mercy with fear," 01:13:44.480 |
highlighting this idea that we are also engaged in the contending 01:13:48.480 |
for our faith communally, and therefore we're engaged in the ministry 01:13:53.480 |
of also trying to keep others in the love of God. 01:14:06.480 |
Let's take a look at that first section then, the command. 01:14:09.480 |
The first command we see, "To remember," okay? 01:14:14.480 |
So he calls us to beloved and says, "You ought to remember the words that were 01:14:18.480 |
spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ." 01:14:22.480 |
And so just by kind of sitting and meditating on this command, 01:14:31.480 |
I'm going to ask you guys to discuss later on, 01:14:34.480 |
well, there have been actually so many different times when we've been 01:14:37.480 |
asked to remember something, and it begs the question, like, why? 01:14:42.480 |
Why would the author be so insistent and repetitive on challenging us 01:14:48.480 |
And the obvious is, yeah, we're just so forgetful. 01:14:50.480 |
Like we learn one lesson on Sunday, we go home on Monday, and we forget. 01:14:56.480 |
But what other circumstances, what other situations, 01:14:58.480 |
and what other reasons do we experience where it is constantly trying to 01:15:03.480 |
throw us off guard, not be sober, that we have to be remembering these things? 01:15:09.480 |
And what's more, when the Scripture challenges us to remember, 01:15:14.480 |
then we should be thinking, okay, this is a good time to do cross-references. 01:15:20.480 |
I hope some of you guys just decided, like, you know what? 01:15:22.480 |
If he's talking about words that were spoken beforehand, 01:15:28.480 |
Let me look up some New Testament passages that really describe to us 01:15:35.480 |
And it's very, very clear to us that the content of that message, 01:15:39.480 |
the words spoken to us, came with another rendition, or I guess, 01:15:44.480 |
explanation of the kind of mockers and enemies of the Gospel that would come to us. 01:15:51.480 |
They're following their own lusts, and they cause division, 01:15:55.480 |
are worldly-minded, and devoid of the Spirit. 01:15:59.480 |
So I was kind of saying, man, we just ended, like, a long section on false prophets 01:16:05.480 |
and apostates, just like we had before, and then now what we have is this. 01:16:12.480 |
They're mockers, and they're divisive, and they're devoid of the Spirit. 01:16:17.480 |
It's a fluffy sheep, and there's a wolf inside. 01:16:28.480 |
Now, I want us to take a moment to think about that because to some degree, 01:16:37.480 |
I do think that, like, there are lots of different scenarios for us 01:16:46.480 |
We would presume that the false teachers then actually are quite, quite readily-- 01:16:50.480 |
like, for us, I think we do presume that false teachers are readily, readily visible. 01:16:57.480 |
One of the interesting things, like, just as one example of a scenario is that 01:17:01.480 |
notice how they've already infiltrated the church. 01:17:05.480 |
Sometimes for false teachers, it takes a while for their divisiveness to come out, 01:17:13.480 |
In Christendom even today, is it possible that somebody who is a leader can lead really, 01:17:17.480 |
really well, hold meetings, prayer meetings, Bible studies for 10 years, 01:17:21.480 |
and then eventually show themselves as a wolf in sheep's clothing? 01:17:27.480 |
Because many of the times the people who are false teachers are deluded and deceive themselves. 01:17:35.480 |
So then what's really interesting is we do have many different, I guess, passages that describe them. 01:17:43.480 |
We recall that the most familiar one, because it's so similar, is 2 Peter 3, 3-4. 01:17:48.480 |
It says that, "Know this first of all, that in the last days many mockers"--sorry-- 01:17:52.480 |
"In the last days, mockers will come with their mocking, following their own lusts." 01:17:58.480 |
You know, what's really interesting and descriptive about the spirit of these mockers 01:18:02.480 |
is that they're so bent on getting it their way, like having what they want. 01:18:08.480 |
And in my mind, I started thinking, "Okay, some of these terms, or I guess passages, are pretty intense. 01:18:15.480 |
And I don't know if we're ever going to experience somebody just mocking you at church, 01:18:22.480 |
And so I kind of wondered, "Will I ever be able to apply some of these passages?" 01:18:27.480 |
But the pattern of them, the way of their deception, it's there. 01:18:34.480 |
Like how many times have we insisted on our own way, on our own terms, on our own time? 01:18:40.480 |
The "What do we want? When do we want it?" kind of revolting chant. 01:18:44.480 |
What's more, 2 Timothy described that, "Realize this, in the last days difficult times will come. 01:18:50.480 |
For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy." 01:19:01.480 |
2 Timothy 4 says, "For time will come they will not endure sound doctrine, 01:19:06.480 |
but wanting to have their own ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires." 01:19:13.480 |
And then look at this, "I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. 01:19:20.480 |
And from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them." 01:19:28.480 |
Here is just this like very basic question by way of challenging our thought. 01:19:35.480 |
In our minds when we think about Christianity, I feel like if I look at general Christendom, 01:19:41.480 |
everybody is like, "You know what? We're going to do leadership training, we're going to do discipleship, 01:19:46.480 |
and everyone's going to grow, and the program's going to go out, and we're going to have a movement, 01:19:52.480 |
and we're going to change the world, we're going to have a brighter future, 01:19:55.480 |
and we're going to change both the world and culture, and the church will." 01:19:59.480 |
And they have all these grand visions for the church. 01:20:03.480 |
Now in my mind, that's okay, but the scripture has already told us, right? 01:20:10.480 |
That in the latter days, actually there's going to be mass deception, 01:20:15.480 |
that many people are going to fall away, people's love will become cold, 01:20:19.480 |
and even within the church there's going to be apostasy. 01:20:24.480 |
There's going to be division, people are going to run to false hopes. 01:20:30.480 |
I want to ask you a really interesting question. 01:20:32.480 |
So far the passage in Jude has been challenging us. 01:20:35.480 |
Can you tell the difference between something that's kind of good but false, 01:20:42.480 |
What if I came to you and said, "You know what, Bereans? 01:20:45.480 |
We're going to convert two billion people for the Lord, for the glory of God, amen?" 01:20:51.480 |
And then I try to get you guys all riled up, and then I try to get you guys to say, "Amen." 01:20:57.480 |
And we're going to do prayer nights, we're going to do marches around the city blocks, 01:21:01.480 |
and we're going to convert two billion people. 01:21:13.480 |
And I think a lot of people would be like, "I guess." 01:21:19.480 |
You just sound like a guy who's really eager. 01:21:21.480 |
But the reason why that's absolutely false, and I would tell that person, 01:21:24.480 |
"Dude, you need to be corrected," is because that's not what God told us. 01:21:30.480 |
God told us already the state of affairs in the plan, 01:21:34.480 |
and the state of affairs is that the gate to heaven is going to be narrow, 01:21:38.480 |
and masses of people are going to walk towards the easy route 01:21:41.480 |
because that was immediately pleasing to them. 01:21:45.480 |
You can't sit there and say, "I've got a better plan than God." 01:21:51.480 |
It's not arrogance just because you're loud, like, bolsterous and bombastic. 01:21:56.480 |
You're arrogant because you think you have a better plan than God. 01:22:00.480 |
And if that also means that you think you have a better love than God, 01:22:09.480 |
Thank you for that raise of hands, for the audience participation. 01:22:13.480 |
I watched the Super Bowl, and then this commercial came out called "He Gets Us." 01:22:20.480 |
And I just wanted to use this as an example because it just happened, right? 01:22:25.480 |
When I first saw it, I went, "Oh, yes, Jesus," right? 01:22:32.480 |
So I went to the website, and I started reading, 01:22:34.480 |
and then I stopped paying attention to the Super Bowl, and I just kept reading. 01:22:38.480 |
And I thought, "Yes," it says, "we want to rediscover the biblical Jesus." 01:22:42.480 |
And they said, "We believe Jesus is the Son of God. 01:22:49.480 |
And I started reading all the way through, and my heart sank, and I said, "No." 01:22:57.480 |
It says, "He gets us as a diverse group of Jesus followers with a wide variety of faith journeys." 01:23:08.480 |
One of the telltale signs of a false teacher, or falsehood in general, 01:23:16.480 |
And for you and I as a Christian, we hear that baptism, you know, 01:23:21.480 |
whenever we have baptism service and we hear the testimony, 01:23:24.480 |
that's our exact same story for every single Christian. 01:23:28.480 |
We get slammed by the conviction that I'm a sinner. 01:23:33.480 |
And then we receive the forgiveness of God and the kindness of the Lord. 01:23:40.480 |
Where now we are gifted both the death and blood of Christ and the resurrected life of Christ. 01:23:45.480 |
You and I experience the exact same faith journey. 01:23:56.480 |
What's more, our work represents the input of Christians who believe Jesus is the Son of God, 01:24:02.480 |
as well as many others, though not Christian, share a deep admiration for the man Jesus. 01:24:11.480 |
If you admire Jesus, but you will not surrender to his lordship, 01:24:22.480 |
People who really see Jesus will fall to the floor. 01:24:28.480 |
People who really see Jesus will experience the exact same kind of reaction 01:24:34.480 |
because Jesus is the holy one who gives us mercy. 01:24:38.480 |
And then it says, and we were deeply inspired and curious to explore his story. 01:24:43.480 |
We look at the biography of Jesus through a modern lens to find new relevance. 01:24:48.480 |
If anybody is looking at Jesus through the modern, historical, or whatever lens outside of the scripture, 01:25:00.480 |
And if anybody tells me they're trying to find relevance out of Jesus, 01:25:04.480 |
then again, this is not even close to the gospel. 01:25:08.480 |
It is often overlooked moments and themes from his life. 01:25:15.480 |
Below you'll find several resources to explore the story of Jesus for himself. 01:25:19.480 |
And so when I read the rest of the websites, I ended up going through every single page. 01:25:24.480 |
And what I found was this ideology that says we can love just like Jesus did without having him as lord. 01:25:37.480 |
You are not capable of love when you have not surrendered your life to Christ. 01:25:42.480 |
And therefore, even though it sounded great, I would have preferred they never did it. 01:25:48.480 |
Why? Because the focus should never be on us. 01:26:03.480 |
Okay, going to the next portion of the scripture. 01:26:06.480 |
But you, beloved, building yourself up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, 01:26:13.480 |
keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. 01:26:20.480 |
The command there right in the middle is very clear. 01:26:26.480 |
And what I highlighted for you was that there were these participles where it told you to build. 01:26:39.480 |
So whereas earlier, because he said, remember, remember the words, you should be doing cross references. 01:26:45.480 |
Here you see terms that you're already familiar with building, praying and waiting. 01:26:50.480 |
You're also like familiar with the idea of keep. 01:26:54.480 |
But these are the times when you want to do some Bible dictionary times. 01:26:58.480 |
Then do the research into what does that mean? 01:27:02.480 |
Because it will help you give a more fuller and at least more specific details of what you're supposed to do. 01:27:10.480 |
Just one example, because for the sake of time that I want to highlight to you is this building one. 01:27:18.480 |
The idea of building should have this idea of building over and over, layer upon layer. 01:27:26.480 |
The biblical term for building literally means to put layer upon layer as if there was a foundation and you already built on something that was built. 01:27:37.480 |
So sometimes, you know, how with even our English words, we have preface six that says rebuild or something like that. 01:27:44.480 |
In the Greek, it has a lengthening of that word that gives us this idea that we should be regularly, ongoingly layer upon layer building. 01:27:58.480 |
That means have no sense of like, you know, I kind of already know. 01:28:06.480 |
Because there's no such thing as a healthy Christian who is plateauing. 01:28:15.480 |
That's kind of like saying, you know, I'm a runner, but I'm doing good standing still. 01:28:22.480 |
Like we're in a race and I'm doing real good, but I haven't moved. 01:28:31.480 |
And if you're a fighter, you're like, you know, I've got zero offense, but my defense, real good. 01:28:40.480 |
You're going to have an onslaught of barrages, punches thrown at you. 01:28:44.480 |
And you're not going to just simply be running around the corners the whole time. 01:28:48.480 |
So in the same way, this idea of the building has an ongoing no complacency kind of challenge and push for you. 01:28:56.480 |
What's more, the idea of keep here, that word for keep is really interesting because it is to guard. 01:29:03.480 |
And the funny thing is, in some literary genres, it's used as a warden who is keeping guard over his prisoners. 01:29:12.480 |
You think about the way that we're supposed to be keeping what? 01:29:20.480 |
To such a degree that my relationship with my Lord Jesus, my relationship, my Heavenly Father, I'm keeping watch over like I'm guarding a prisoner. 01:29:36.480 |
Is that the way that we're making sure we're guarding our relationship with God? 01:29:40.480 |
So those are some of the things that we want to highlight. 01:29:43.480 |
And I want to say to you that the exhortation here really is to stay healthy. 01:29:47.480 |
Now, one of the things I want to challenge us on is, yes, we can do all the word studies here. 01:29:52.480 |
But one of the convictions I came to was this. 01:29:56.480 |
We are going to be so regularly attacked and sometimes so intensely. 01:30:02.480 |
There is clearly an expectation that you have to constantly be building and gearing up and ready for the fight. 01:30:10.480 |
It is not something by which you can just flip on a switch when it happens. 01:30:18.480 |
It is literally like telling an individual who has been just stagnant, who has been just working at the office, exercising his fingers, but nothing else, and saying, "Dude, there's someone coming after us. Let's run." 01:30:33.480 |
And so clearly there is this idea of building, praying, keeping, and waiting to such a degree where we're constantly ready for what's to come. 01:30:43.480 |
So one of the things I wanted to highlight was, just real fast, there is clearly a contrast between the ungodly and the beloved. 01:30:54.480 |
And what's more, clearly we see things like the Holy Spirit, God, Jesus Christ, that all that we're doing is fully within the Lord. 01:31:04.480 |
And I just wanted to highlight to you that observation that what is interesting is the ungodly, they cause division, but we're building. 01:31:11.480 |
The ungodly are worldly-minded, but we're heavenly-minded. 01:31:14.480 |
The ungodly are devoid of the Spirit, but we're praying in the Spirit. 01:31:17.480 |
And there was this contrast that Jude was using to highlight how different we ought to be. 01:31:23.480 |
Okay, so the next one is verse 22 to 23, the command to keep others in the love of God. 01:31:32.480 |
The command to do ministry as a means to contend for the faith. 01:31:36.480 |
That the way that we're contending is strengthening one another and making sure that those who are wavering, 01:31:42.480 |
that we're the one actually trying to chase them, minister to them, do intervention, whatever it may be. 01:31:49.480 |
The highlight here clearly is it describes, like, based on what's happening, you have to be wise and discretionary. 01:31:59.480 |
So that you're having mercy on those who are wavering or doubting. 01:32:04.480 |
You're trying to save others who basically are so close to the fire, like we need to snatch them out. 01:32:10.480 |
This is urgent. This is like high alert stuff, right? 01:32:13.480 |
But also we need to have some, on some we need to have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. 01:32:21.480 |
Okay, so one of the clear things that we would have to ask is we have to exercise the wisdom to look appropriately at who needs what. 01:32:32.480 |
Yes, and we have to ask the question, what kind of mercy is this? 01:32:37.480 |
We dare not try to exercise the mercy of the world where the world thinks mercy equates to, well, you're okay. 01:32:48.480 |
Like, that's kind of like the mercy of the world. Like, you're not that bad, right? 01:32:55.480 |
And I think that's the kind of tone and the sentiment of some of the stuff that's coming out now. 01:33:01.480 |
It's like, mercy sounds like don't feel too bad about your situation. 01:33:07.480 |
Is that the kind of mercy God desires us to exercise? 01:33:12.480 |
A lot of times actually, great, great mercy is actually a willingness on our part to take all burden, risk, and cost 01:33:21.480 |
to sometimes go and literally grab the hand of the people we love and say, I'm calling, I'm pleading, I'm encouraging, I will coach you. 01:33:30.480 |
I will help you, right? I'll remind you, I'll speak to you, I'll even sing to you hymns and songs 01:33:39.480 |
so that you would flee from the sins that you're struggling with, right? 01:33:45.480 |
The kind of mercy that scripture talks about entails a lot of risk and cost to us. 01:33:51.480 |
Here, I want to use a passage from 1 Thessalonians that describes the wisdom and discretion we need 01:34:00.480 |
so that we are not just simply over-principle-izing on everybody one single thing. 01:34:07.480 |
We urge you, brethren, admonish the unruly, encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, be patient with everyone. 01:34:14.480 |
Notice what it says. There are those who are unruly and we have to be strong. 01:34:20.480 |
You have to be different to them and say, no, no, no, listen, I don't want you to talk anymore. 01:34:25.480 |
You need to stop all those excuses and you need to listen. That's admonishment, right? 01:34:30.480 |
Encourage the faint-hearted, help the weak, and be patient with all, right? 01:34:34.480 |
One of the examples I want to give is there are people who are studying biblical counseling and it's great, 01:34:40.480 |
but unfortunately, sometimes they over-principle-ize. Example, is anxiety a sin? 01:34:46.480 |
So someone will come in, I need biblical counseling. Why? I'm so worried about da, da, da, da, da. 01:34:51.480 |
I'm so worried about my kids. It's like, you know, your failure to trust Jesus is a sin. 01:34:57.480 |
Let's repent. And then you just go down to repent. Quick question, is worrying about your kids sin? 01:35:05.480 |
No. That's probably a parent who's at a loss. Like, I'm worried because he won't listen to me and he's so stubborn 01:35:12.480 |
and he's so strong-willed and I've tried everything and what do I do, right? 01:35:16.480 |
Actually, that worry is the burden of love that every parent just has to carry. 01:35:21.480 |
And so what they need is encouragement to carry it even better, right? 01:35:26.480 |
They need strength to carry that anxiety of like, what's going to happen to my kid because he's going to destroy himself? 01:35:32.480 |
Is it a biblical thing? Does Apostle Paul say he looks at every church and he says, you know, I have no worries. 01:35:38.480 |
No, he says the burden and concern over the church is more than my whipping. 01:35:44.480 |
The burden of love for the well-being of the church is a crazy weight on his shoulders that he just carries. 01:35:50.480 |
Why? Because he loves the church and he loves his spiritual children. 01:35:56.480 |
So you have to exercise a lot of wisdom. Okay, is this person anxious because they're one of those perfectionist control freaks 01:36:04.480 |
who just really needs to repent over their agenda? 01:36:08.480 |
Or is this somebody who is carrying a righteous burden and I need to come along and say, I carry that with you in prayer. 01:36:15.480 |
You're going to pray every day and you're going to just keep praying until that child, right, is submitted to the will of God. 01:36:22.480 |
In that same way, we have to really understand what does it mean to have mercy on some, right? 01:36:30.480 |
And minister to them appropriately. I do want to make mention of that last idea of hating the garment polluted by their flesh. 01:36:38.480 |
It's already been 30 minutes now, so I'm going to not take too long on it, but just this idea of, 01:36:44.480 |
I think a lot of people have heard that term and idiom, hate the sin, but don't hate the sinner. Okay? 01:36:52.480 |
That, obviously, that phrasing of itself is not in the scriptures like as a standalone, right? 01:36:59.480 |
But there is this kind of interesting nuanced way of thinking about that. 01:37:04.480 |
Scripture is very clear, both in all of the Old Testament and even the New Testament, that God's wrath rests upon sinners. 01:37:14.480 |
Condemnation is on the sinner for his sin. It's both, right? 01:37:20.480 |
But nevertheless, we recognize that when we're talking about the garment polluted by the flesh, 01:37:26.480 |
when we are talking about the natural, the fleshly, the earthly, are all so hostile, 01:37:32.480 |
we believers, we need to have that kind of dichotomy where because we love the Lord so much, 01:37:40.480 |
we also have an equally emotive and strong conviction to hate the things that are against God. Yes? 01:37:51.480 |
To that degree, are we just like in any kind of relationship, if you love somebody so much, 01:37:58.480 |
you will literally hate the stuff that is against the object of your love. 01:38:02.480 |
Anything that would even threaten, right? Attack or risk your children, your spouse, whatever it may be. 01:38:10.480 |
The challenge there is, do we have that kind of internal conviction against the flesh, the earthly, and the natural 01:38:22.480 |
Okay, so as a quick, quick summary, there were like four main points that we saw. 01:38:29.480 |
17, 19, remember and know that the apostasy was foretold. Don't be surprised. Okay? 01:38:35.480 |
Build, pray in the spirit, keep and look, right? Keep yourself in the love of God. 01:38:40.480 |
Show compassion to those doors who are wavering and seek urgently to rescue. 01:38:46.480 |
But you making sure that you're cautious, that you have a healthy fear. 01:38:51.480 |
Like just like Galatians says, those who are spiritual, you need to restore the one who is struggling, 01:38:56.480 |
but watching out for yourselves, that you yourself are not tempted. 01:39:00.480 |
Let's take a moment to pray and wrap up that segment. 01:39:09.480 |
God, actually we recognize that sometimes heavy warning to us is your grace. 01:39:15.480 |
God, we have seen in past history examples where individuals who had their heart set on following their sin, 01:39:23.480 |
your judgment was to stay silent and leave them alone. 01:39:27.480 |
Thank you God that as our Father, you warn us, you prepare us for the things to come. 01:39:31.480 |
You're trying to challenge us so that we're ready. 01:39:35.480 |
And we pray that as your children, desiring to be faithful servants, help us Father to take heed. 01:39:45.480 |
So for next week, we have the last little portion of the book of Jude. 01:39:52.480 |
And all the terminology in there is like that lofty, you know, all power and glory and authority, like that kind of stuff. 01:39:59.480 |
So focus on what God is able to do, is doing and going to do. 01:40:03.480 |
What's more, focus on who God is and his power and glory. 01:40:10.480 |
And then so for discussion time now, as you enter in. 01:40:17.480 |
You know, why would you tell us to remember what situations in your lives can you think of that where we need to remember the truths and warnings? 01:40:26.480 |
And do you honestly feel like, man, we hit all of these descriptions of the, you know, apostates and the false teachers and it just seems so extreme. 01:40:34.480 |
When and where I would ever apply, you know, these verses. 01:40:38.480 |
Number two, please share personally if you have been growing recently in these last weeks or if you've been stagnant. 01:40:45.480 |
In what other layer of Christian growth can you commit to? 01:40:50.480 |
Three, keep yourselves in the love of God is very broad, right? 01:40:56.480 |
So what personal applications can you make to better guard and watch over your love relationship with God? 01:41:04.480 |
Lastly, what are some extremes on both sides of failing to appropriately minister to different types of people? 01:41:13.480 |
So one side is like, oh my gosh, like you have to have nuance in everything and then you kind of lose your principles. 01:41:18.480 |
On this side, it's like, no, it doesn't matter. 01:41:23.480 |
So what's some examples you have seen and what are some extremes that you can think of? 01:41:28.480 |
And what is the best way to balance calling the week away from their sin while being merciful to them in practice?