See if you can recognize these mottos. Google them if you really want to know: “Quality is job one”. “Think”. “Impossible is nothing”. “Think Different”. “Whatever it takes”. “The only easy day was yesterday”. “Semper Fidalis” or “Always Faithful”. “This We’ll Defend”. “Semper Fortis” or “Always powerful”. “Aim High… Fly-Fight-Win”.
I love mottos. They have a way of unifying. They have a way infusing purpose, focus, and an agenda into the hearts and minds of those who belong. If you belonged to any branch of the Armed Forces you know exactly what I’m talking about. Your branch, maybe even your unit, had a motto, a slogan that you had on your lips and maybe even tattooed on your body somewhere. It was that important to you. And whenever you run into someone else who shares your colors, you almost immediately become the best of the friends because you shared a purpose, a focus, an agenda. And the motto is the thing that ties all of you together around a common purpose and mission. That motto declared to the world who you were and what you were going to be like. That motto spoke to your heart and told you who you were and what you were going to be like. I love mottos. They have a short, punchy, and powerful way of getting people all on the same page. In fact, I’d be willing to guess that we all live by mottos that to one or extent or another get us moving and motivate us, mottos like: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” One of my personal mottos is: “Whatever it takes.” In other words, as much as it depends on me, I will do whatever it takes to try to save people. They also have a way of keeping us motivated and focused as we fight for the faith.
Our Mottos:
As we wrap up the book of Jude, we can glean some mottos from these words of Jude. And these mottos can easily turn into mottos for us as a church, and really for all of God’s church on earth. These mottos speak a word of warning to us. These mottos speak a word of encouragement to us. These mottos can even give us hope as we fight for the faith. Here’s the first one:
1) The lone sheep gets picked off.
We live in a deeply individualistic society. You can see it if you walk down to the Apple store. Almost everything in their store is called an “i" something. iPhone. iPad. iMac. iTunes. Beyond music and technology, we also have very personal preferences about just everything else too. We have our own personal styles, our own personal likes and dislikes. And we even like to do things all by ourselves. We talk about “me” time. We talk about the need to take care of ourselves. And none of this is all evil or bad in and of itself, but what I’ve noticed more and more is that we as Christians tend to isolate ourselves from each other, especially when we’re going through something really hard. We tend to isolate ourselves when we’re struggling with a sin because we don’t want anyone to know about our struggle. We tend to isolate ourselves when we’re really discouraged or depressed because we’re going to deal with this ourselves. We even tend to isolate ourselves when it comes to our thinking about Bible things and doing Bible thing. We tend to think of confession of sins in this way. We tend to think of prayer in this way. It’s something that happens only between us and God. And that’s true.
But check this out. Check out the wisdom of Solomon: “Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment.” Proverbs 18:1. It’s just plain foolish to isolate yourself, especially when it comes to your spiritual life. When you do that, you’re breaking out against all sound judgment. I mean, this is the way it works in the animal kingdom. If a lion is creeping up on a herd of antelope or zebras, which one is he looking for? He’s looking for the one that is all alone and isolated from the rest of the heard. He’s looking for the one that is all by himself.
And that’s the way that old lion, the devil, works too. He waits for us to isolate ourselves, to do faith all by ourselves. If the devil can get us all by ourselves, he can get us to think all kinds of things that aren’t true. If the devil can get us all by ourselves, he can get us to fall into all kinds of sins because he knows there is no one to stop us or warn us. If the devil can get us all by ourselves in our struggle with sin, he can get us to despair because there is no one to remind us that we’re forgiven. If the devil can get us all by ourselves, he can get us to fall for just about anything because there is no one there to warn us, to comfort us, to guide us and direct us.
And it’s not just the devil who gets you to walk down dark paths. It’s not just the devil who leads you astray. Who in your life talks to you the most? Who in your life talks to you the most? It’s you. No one in your life talks to you more than you do. I would dare to guess that you are almost constantly talk to yourselves. Maybe even now, you’re talking to yourselves and mulling over this stuff that we’re talking about. Or maybe you’re thinking about something else altogether. But see, what happens when your thoughts go against Scripture and you keep thinking those thoughts? Who is going to stop you if you’re all alone? And what’s going to happen when your thoughts and your own preaching lead you into sin? Who is going to warn you when you start to give in to sin if you’re all by yourself? And when you start thinking things that aren’t true, when you start believing things that God never said, who is going to correct you if you are all by yourself? The answer is simple. If I’m all by myself I can believe what I want, do what I want, because there is no one there to stop me.
That’s why Jude speaks to us as a group. See if you can catch it. 20 But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life – Jude 20-21. Did you catch it? Jude speaks to us as a community, as a group. He says, “By building yourselves up…” and “keep yourselves…” Jude speaks us as a group, as a community, as one body. The way that animals naturally operate tells us this. You don’t have a single lion here or a single lion there. You have a pride, a group or family of lions. You have a gaggle of geese flying south for the winter. You have a flock of birds here or there. You have schools of fish. You have flocks of sheep. You have a pack of wolves. The animal kingdom tells us that together we’re better and together we’re stronger. You notice the same thing when it comes to military wisdom and practice. We put our troops into different sized groups, brigades, regiments, battalions, etc. We don’t typically send one guy off on his own to do a job. We send a battalion. We know and understand intuitively that it’s foolish to go it alone because the lone sheep usually gets picked off. The same is even more true in the Christian church and within a Christian congregation. It’s a bad idea to go it alone. So, here’s a better motto.
2) In it together.
We need people around. We need to walk through this life with people. We need to walk in faith us. Not only is it lonely to walk by yourself, but it’s dangerous. But look what happens when we do life and faith together. 20 But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life – Jude 20-21. Jude’s one command in this section is “keep yourselves in God’s love.” Do this together. But he also answers the question: How. How do we keep ourselves in God’s love?
How? By building yourselves up in your most holy faith. Remember what Paul tells us about faith coming? He says that faith comes by hearing the message and the message comes by preaching about Christ. So, if we’re going to be built up in the faith, we need someone to preach to us. If we’re going to grow in our faith we need someone to tell us. We need preaching and teaching. And we need it even more when we’re preaching a sermon to ourselves that isn’t true or good. We need it even more when when we’re struggling with sin or temptation. We need it even more when we’re discouraged or depressed. We need it even more when the sermon that we’re preaching to ourselves isn’t true or good. We need someone else to tell us. And that’s we need pastors. We need pastors who can devote themselves to preaching and teaching to help us understand the Scriptures better. We need friends who know us intimately and deeply who can understand what’s going on with us and give us truth from God’s Word. We need spouses who will be concerned about our faith and will work to build us up in our faith. We need parents who will teach us about Jesus. We need our church family to speak God’s Word to us, the Word that we need when we need it. And that’s why this motto is so powerful and important: In it together! Because we need people in our lives to give us God’s Word.
And there’s also the privilege of praying together. Do you see what other strategy Jude offers as we “keep ourselves in God’s love?” By praying in the Holy Spirit. Prayer is such an awesome thing. We get to come into God’s presence and talk to him about anything at anytime. And when Jude says, “Pray in the Holy Spirit.” He isn’t talking about some special kind of praying or a certain mode of praying. He simply talking about who the Holy Spirit is for us when we pray. He’s the One who takes our sighs and groans and takes them up as prayers before God’s mighty throne. He’s the One who intercedes for us according to God’s will (Look up Romans 8:26- 27). Each one of us has this tremendous privilege of praying to God in any circumstance about anything. But now, think of the joy and the privilege we have of doing it together. Husbands – think of the privilege you have of grabbing your wife’s hand and praying with her and for her. Wives – think of the privilege you have of grabbing your husbands hand and praying with him and for him. There is nothing more intimate in marriage than that. I don’t know why Ruth and I don’t do it more. We think that the marriage bed is the most intimate part of marriage. I don’t think it is. There is nothing more unifying and powerful than grabbing your spouses hand to pray about anything. And the same applies beyond the husband and wife relationship. As we fight for the faith, as we seek to keep ourselves in God’s love, this is one awesome privilege that we have to join our hearts and minds together in prayer. Praying together. Praying for each other. Praying about each other. This is part of the way that we keep ourselves in God’s love because we are in it together.
And there’s one more part of Jude’s strategy to keeping ourselves in God’s love. It’s this: Waiting with joy together. How many of you watched and/or followed the World Series? There were people all over Texas who were waiting, just waiting for the Nationals to finally win a World Series . Or if you were a Cubs fan a few years back (NOT THAT ANYONE HERE IS!), just imagine the joy that you had to see the Cubs finally win a World Series after 108 years. Now, imagine the same thing all by yourself. Imagine watching the Nationals win the series all by yourself. Imagine cheering for the Cubs all by your lonesome. Who do you celebrate with? Who do you chest bump with? It’s so much better when you’re together with fans of the same team! You can celebrate the win together. And if you thought all that was great, watching and waiting together for your team to finally win, imagine the joy that we’ll have when Jesus finally comes in mercy to save us from this world. Imagine how much more fun it is to wait for this together with fellow believers. You’ve got people around you who will always keep reminding you about what Jesus has. You have people around you who will constantly keep reminding that he’s going to come. And when you’re tempted to give up on Jesus, when you’re tempted to give up on his rule, you’ve got people around you tell you not to give up because Jesus will come back to save us and bring us into heaven. And when he comes, it’s going to be so great. It’s so much better to wait for his coming with Jesus. We’re in this together.
And if we’re in it together, we’re going to notice if the devil or a false teacher is leading someone astray. If we’re watching and waiting for Jesus together, we’re going to notice if someone starts to wander off or lose hope. We’re going to notice if someone isn’t in church. We’re going to notice if someone is wandering away. That’s why motto #3:
3) No one gets left alone or left behind.
I think this is one area where we can work a lot harder. This is one area where we can pay a lot greater attention to the people around us. When we come together on a Sunday morning we can work a lot harder to make sure that no one is sitting alone, to make sure that no one is standing along, to make sure that no one is isolated. We tend to drift to the people that we know best and the people that we know well. Make sure that no one is left alone.
And do it by showing mercy. Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh – Jude 22-23. You’ve probably caught on this by now, but Jude is dealing with some tough stuff and he isn’t mincing words. He doesn’t have nice things to say about false teachers who are leading people into sin. He doesn’t have nice things to say about false teachers who are leading people to believe false things. He speaks a loud and clear warning against falling into the traps that these teachers set.
But notice how Jude would have us think about them. Jude wants us to have mercy on those who doubt. Jude wants us to look at those who doubt with the same mercy and pity with which we look at beaten and abused animals or people.
So, you watch a Christians wandering away from the faith, you see them doubting the teachings of Jesus and the teachings of God’s Word, they don’t need judgment, they need mercy. They need us to come gently, patiently, and with love and understanding into our lives. How would you win over a dog who needs mercy? You wouldn’t come at him with a stick. You’d come at him with a treat, with gentleness and mercy. Now, I’m not trying to say that people are like dogs. But I am trying to say we can learn something about showing mercy here. Listen, people who doubt are walking a tightrope of faith. They’re hearing different voices leading them this way and that. They need you to come into their life with gentleness and patience. Jude wants us to think the same way about people whose feet are already being singed by the fires of hell. These are people who have been tricked by the devil, who have been mislead by false teachers, who are sick. They deserve our mercy and our pity.
And Jude is telling us that as much as it depends on us – go save them! Like a lifeguard who sees a person drowning we are to chase after them, careful that we don’t get caught up in the lie. We’re to show mercy to them, doing whatever we can show them the truth, to call them back to the truth, to reclaim them for God. We’re to do anything and everything within our power to win them back. We don’t want our fellow believers to get picked off by the devil and so we’re going to do anything and everything within our power to get them back and to snatch them from his grasp.
And we’re to do all of this… staying together with our fellow believers, chasing after those who are doubting or who have even fallen with a simple confidence:
4) God loses none.
Just remember who you are. That’s where Jude began as he wrote to us in verse 1. He’s writing to us: To those who have been called, who are loved in God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ - Jude 1b. You are people who have been called by God to believe in his Son. You are people who have been called by the Holy Spirit to faith, to belong to the family of God, to be his forever. And you are loved by him. Your Father in heaven loves you so dearly and so much that he gave up his most precious Treasure for you so that you could be his, forever. God didn’t just do that so that you could slip through his fingers. God didn’t just love you then and not now. You are loved by him. And you are kept by Jesus. Remember what Jesus himself, the Good Shepherd said? I don’t lose any sheep. I know them all by name. I will keep them, protect them and never love them.
That’s the way Jude started this short little letter. He wanted us to know who we are before he launched into an attack against false teachers and those who follow him. He wanted to know the love of God and his powerful keeping before he even started. And he wants us to know it again as he closes this letter. You’d think that after a letter of warning and attack that Jude would end with an exhortation to “get to war! Fight!” But instead, instead of telling us to get to fighting he closes with a song of praise and says this: To him who is able to keep you from stumbling 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.
We are in this together, but it’s not just us! It’s God too! If it was just us – all of us together, yes – but if it was just us, we’d be in a hopeless mess. But what do we have here? We have the God who is able to keep us from stumbling. He is able to guard us, to keep us, to watch over us, to protect us from the false teachers and the false teachings. He is able to raise up faithful pastors and teachers to teach the truth to keep on on the narrow middle road. And more than that, he is able to present us before God’s presence pure and blameless, clean, pure, holy in every way. That’s what gives Jesus great joy. It gives Jesus great joy to put you on his arm, to put us on his arm, and to present us to his Father and say, “Look Father, my bride. Isn’t she beautiful!?!” I know, I know. Right now the church on earth is a bit of a mess. It’s full of false teachers. It’s full of false teachings. It isn’t all that beautiful at all. But Jesus is able to keep us from falling and he will present us before God as a beautiful bride, pure and holy in every way. Let’s wait for that day together with great hope and great joy because God won’t let you go. God won’t let us go.