Jude 24-25 – Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
When Jesus said, “I will build my church”, Satan thought, “I will break that church.” That is precisely what Jude is all about.
The reason we have not been taken home to Heaven, or seen Jesus’ return, is because we have a mission to accomplish. Our mission, Jude says, is three-fold.
One, for those Christians who are struggling with doubt, we need to put a lot of mercy on them and patiently and lovingly walk with them. Sometimes, these people have been through so much pain and hurt in their life that they are limping to Heaven slowly. Other times, these people have addictions that are deeply rooted, years of bad habits to overcome, trauma to heal from, or a long list of complicated questions about God they wrestle to answer.
Two, we are to act like firefighters and, by God’s grace through God’s Spirit by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, “save others by snatching them out of the fire”. Sometimes, you need to buy your friend a Bible, tell them to start reading it, and check in that they are.
Sometimes, you need to keep inviting that coworker to church and praying for their salvation.
Sometimes, you need to research the questions and objections to Christianity that a family member has so that you can give them a thorough and detailed set of reasons for why you believe what you believe.
Sometimes, you just need to lay hands over a hard-hearted person and ask the Holy Spirit to do what only He can do and change their heart. God saves people, and He sends us to be on this rescue mission with Him. God does not need us, but He invites us so that we can share in the joy of seeing Jesus save people and snatch them from the fire. There is nothing better than seeing people meet Jesus!
Three, we are instructed to keep “hating even the garment stained by the flesh”. In Zechariah 3, there is a picture of Jesus trading clothes with us. He wears our dirty, filthy, rotten garments of sin on the cross, and we wear his spotless robes of righteousness through faith in Him. In the New Testament, we are repeatedly told to put off our old dirty way of life and put on our new clean way of life in the same way that we change our clothes (Romans 13:12; 1 Corinthians 15:53-54; Galatians 3:27; Ephesians 4:24; Colossians 3:9-10).
What Jude is saying is that if we love Jesus, we must hate the sin that killed our Savior. Once He has taken off our unrighteousness and worn it along with the wrath of God on the cross, we should seek to live in holiness, wearing His righteousness and not putting on the filthy and dirty sinful ways we wore before we met Jude’s brother as our Savior.
Getting above the darkness of the world, Jude closes by pointing to the glory of God. This is one of the most awe-inspiring, heart-healing, mind-melting, and prayer-motivating declarations in the entire Bible. It is Jude’s intention to get us to not just look out to our dark world but look up to our God who is the light of the world, hope of the world, Lord over the world, Savior in the world, and one day returning to judge the world. As you read it above, notice the promise of “great joy”.
The emerging field of brain science tells us that throughout life, we are driven by either fear bonds or joy bonds. When we look out to the world, there is fear. When we look up to the lord in faith, there is joy. The key to overcoming fear bonds is to focus on the Lord, sing to the Lord, pray to the Lord, trust in the Lord, witness for the Lord, and build joy bonds in the Spirit so that we get above the clouds over us to the Lord over them.
What has been the biggest takeaway for you personally in studying Jude?
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