Transcript & Slides: Keep Being Kept (Jude)

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Keep Being Kept (Jude)
By David Feddes

This is the third and last message on the book of Jude. It’s a book that can fit on one page in a Bible—at least if there’s fairly small print—and yet it’s packed with wonderful truth from God for times such as the ones we live in. When we look at the book of Jude, we find that it is a call to contend for the faith. Jude writes, “Contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are godless men who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord” (Jude 3-4).

That’s the statement of why Jude writes the letter. He says, I wanted to write to you about happy things and about the salvation we share, but I had to write to you to contend for the faith—to fight for the faith. Throughout the letter he gives a profile of wicked, immoral, misguided teachers who have sneaked into the church and are leading people astray. We need to recognize that such people do exist, that they can mislead God’s people, and that we must contend against that and instead hold on to the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints—the faith, the content of the teaching, and the truth of the gospel that God has given.

We also saw throughout Jude the need to fear God’s judgment and the warnings of God’s judgment. Jude gives many examples from Old Testament history of people who were false teachers or bad leaders and of how God’s judgment fell in various situations, whether it was on Sodom, on the angels who rebelled against him, or on someone wicked like Korah or Balaam. These examples of judgment are given to us, and then Jude says that Sodom and Gomorrah suffer as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire (Jude 7). It is simply a fact that wherever you have people within God’s people—the church—who are trying to lead others into error and especially into immorality and wickedness, another trait they have is that they will soft-pedal God’s judgment. “Peace, peace,” when there is no peace. Everything is okay, nothing bad will happen, even if you go directly contrary to biblical doctrine or to godly morality. Jude says, not so. Fear eternal fire. You need to realize that there are false teachers, and if you follow them, you will be following them into the flames.

But Jude doesn’t stop there. He also speaks of how we can remain in a healthy situation. Jude says at the very beginning, in his greeting, “To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ: Mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance” (Jude 1-2). Then he talks about the bad teachers and about all of those judgments, and then he says, “But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh. To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—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 20-25).

So Jude doesn’t just have something to say about fighting and the need to contend, or about the eternal fire that awaits the wicked, but also he speaks of being built up in the holy faith and the mercy and love of God. Maybe I shouldn’t ask this, but how many of you would like a constant steady diet of the kind of sermons that you had the last couple of weeks—“Fight for the Faith” and “Fear Eternal Fire”? Those messages need to be preached and need to be heard, but if you had a steady diet of that all the time, you would shrivel up and die. In fact, you might even have something a little wrong with you—maybe a screw loose—if all you wanted every week was, “What’s the latest fight we need to have?” and “What is the terrible punishment that God has declared upon error and wickedness?” Such things need to be preached, but God’s people need more steadily to be built up, to be nourished, to be strong in the Lord, to have God keeping them—and they also, by God’s guidance, keeping themselves.

That’s why I titled today’s message “Keep Being Kept,” because that’s the gist of what Jude is saying. So we’re going to look at a few different dimensions of that. As he opens the letter, he talks about being called by God, loved by God, kept by God. Then he gives some commands: build yourselves up, pray in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love. Then he says, here’s what you need to do in relation to those who are in danger of being misled or are already on the wrong track—rescue as many as you can, show mercy. And then he closes by saying, just remember, while I’ve been talking about all this bad stuff going on and I’ve been urging you to keep yourselves in God’s love and to build yourselves up, just remember that all through that, God is able to keep you from falling and to present you without fault and with great joy. God is keeping you.

Let’s look at each of those in a little more detail. Jude opens by saying who he is, and then he says, “To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ: Mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance” (Jude 1-2). Before he gets into the details of his message about the need to fight for the faith and about the need to fear eternal fire, he just wants them to know that it all begins with God. You don’t take the first step to make God call you. You are called.

If you were to flash over to Romans 8, for instance, it says, “In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified” (Romans 8:28-30). This great call of God is part of the eternal plan and purpose of God. His purpose is to take people whom he chose from all eternity, and he’s already decided what he’s going to make them into—they’re going to be like his Son, Jesus Christ. So you’re among those who have been called. You’re among those who have been loved by God the Father.

You don’t cause God to love you. The Bible says that God loves from before the foundation of the world, and it’s a wonderful thing to know that you didn’t choose God first—he chose you. You didn’t love him first or cause him to love you; he loved you before you even knew anything of him. It’s also wonderful to know that you’re kept, guarded, and secured by Jesus Christ, and that everything comes from him: mercy, peace, love—overflowing and abounding—all from him.

We’re going to say quite a bit in this message about the need to do certain things, but Jude starts and ends with what God does. Everything we do is a response to, or flows from, what God does. When he says “keep yourselves,” never forget that you’re not keeping yourselves by your own energy. You keep on being kept. God is keeping you, and therefore be keeping yourselves.

“You, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. 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).

Look at the end of that statement first. What brings you to eternal life—your efforts, your sweat, your hard work? No, it is the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that brings you to eternal life. But in the meantime, while you’re awaiting that wonderful mercy of Jesus to bring you all the way to glory, you have some things to do: build yourselves up, pray in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love.

Build yourselves up. Elsewhere the Bible says in many places (I won’t repeat them all), “Encourage one another and build each other up.” As an individual, you’re building yourself up in the faith, but also together we build each other up as believers in the faith. And here again, let me remind you that it’s important that we not live on a diet of polemics. Polemics is fighting, and you need to be willing to fight. The only thing worse than a church that fights over everything is a church that would never fight over anything or never fight for anything. But somewhere in between fighting over everything and not standing up or fighting for anything is this willingness to recognize that there is a battle on our hands—but also the need to keep strengthening our position, to keep strengthening one another.

A good example of that comes from the physical rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem after the time of exile, led by the governor Nehemiah. At one point, while they were building the walls, they faced some pretty intense danger, opposition, and threats of attack. So what did they do? Did they say, “Oh no, there are enemies out there. Put the whole building project on hold, get all our weapons together, be alert, and repel their attacks”? Or did they say, “No problem. They’re a bunch of wimps—nothing to worry about. Let’s just keep building”?

Actually, they did neither of the above—or maybe you could say they did both. Nehemiah said, “Okay, we’ve got to be ready for attack at any time, but we are not going to stop building. In fact, the more we build and the more solid the walls are, the safer we’re going to be. If the walls are there, we’ll be safer than if we’re just hiding behind rubble. So let’s keep building, but attack could come at any time, so be ready.”

And so Nehemiah says those who carried the building materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other, and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked (Nehemiah 4:17-18). If you want to know the biblical balance, there it is. Have something to build within one hand, have a weapon in the other. As you go through life and as you build, you’re going to be a lot safer than if all you did was go around looking for the next attack and worrying about the next enemy. The stronger you are—built up in your most holy faith—and the healthier a church is, built up in the truth of the gospel, the harder it is for the enemy to destroy.

In fact, this is part of contending for the faith. Contending for the faith is not just recognizing the badness of false teaching or the wickedness of immorality, and it’s not just recognizing the danger of eternal fire. Part of contending is building—getting stronger, making your position easier to defend and harder to attack. So build yourself up in your most holy faith.

How do you do that? The faith once for all entrusted to the saints is given to us, or as the Bible elsewhere says, “Guard the deposit that’s been given to you.” What’s the deposit? The deposit is the gospel, and the gospel is testified to in the Holy Scriptures. So if you want to build yourselves up in your most holy faith, be a person of the Bible—a person of the Scriptures. Read the Bible, read it often and regularly. Listen to the preaching of the Word. Meditate on the Scriptures. Memorize the Scriptures.

Let me just be blunt here: did you memorize the verses from Jude 2 this past month? Can you say, “Contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints. Build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life”? Do you know those verses? If not, why not? They’ve been sitting right in front of your nose for a month. Three sentences—pretty tough?

When we think about the attacks on the faith, we need to realize what we’re dealing with. It’s not some irritating pastor who wants to browbeat you into learning a couple more sentences than you knew a month ago. Are you ready for the kind of onslaughts we face in the culture we’re in? Do you have the truth of the Bible not just vaguely—“The Bible’s a good book, yeah, nice”—but do you know what’s in it? And because you know what’s in it, can you recognize what doesn’t come from it? If you want to know the counterfeits, you’d better first know the real deal.

You’ve got to know the Scriptures, or you’re just so easy to fool. I see so many arguments that people fall for, and I think if they had even a decent acquaintance with the Bible, they’d know that that is nonsense. It would be so easy to recognize. But it’s a fact that we live in a time of biblical illiteracy. It may seem normal, but it’s not healthy. So let me urge you again: build yourselves up in your most holy faith. Learn the Scriptures. Memorize key portions of the Scriptures. Meditate on God’s Word. This is the way to grow in your knowledge of the faith, in your certainty of the faith, and in your ability to defend the faith. Be building, and then you’ll also be equipped to resist the attacks of the evil one. Build yourselves up in your most holy faith.

“Pray in the Holy Spirit.” “Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests,” it says in Ephesians 6:18, in a similar context. What’s Ephesians 6, the latter part of the chapter, about? “Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God so that when the day of evil comes”—and we live in a day of evil—“you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then…” (Ephesians 6:10-14). And then, in that context, Paul says, “Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests” (Ephesians 6:18).

You see, it’s a context very similar to that of Jude—contending for the faith and fighting against the dark powers. You cannot simply say, “Okay, I heard what the pastor said. It’s very important to study the Bible.” It surely is. But it’s not simply storing in your mind a bunch of great truths—it’s being a person empowered by the very Holy Spirit who inspired the Bible. If you have the Holy Spirit living in you, and if you have personal communion with God through prayer, then you have the living power of God and the life of God to help you resist the attacks of the evil one and to resist the errors, temptations, and immoralities that are out there.

We need the Holy Spirit—dare I say it, we need the Holy Spirit, not just the Holy Scriptures. The Bible is sufficient and complete in terms of the truth it reveals, but we were never meant to rely only on our knowledge of the Bible. We were meant to rely on the God that the Bible testifies to—to rely on Jesus Christ, to rely on the life and power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gave us the Scriptures, but he also gives us himself. And so, praying and communing with God daily—asking for his help, asking for his wisdom, asking for his life and power, and simply fellowshipping with God—that’s key to being able to stand up and contend for the faith.

Once again, it’s very important to recognize the faith, the fight, and the dangers of judgment. But all of that will not suffice if all you have are warnings and facts stated in the Bible. You will not be able to stand against real powers out there unless you have the real power of God and of the Holy Spirit to make you strong. And to receive that power, you pray—you pray in the Holy Spirit.

What is praying in the Holy Spirit? Basically, it’s praying as guided and led by the Holy Spirit and in dependence on the Holy Spirit to guide your prayers, even when you don’t know what you’re doing or how to pray. The Bible says, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express… And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will” (Romans 8:26-27).

This is a great mystery, but a wonderful one—that even when you’re fumbling along in prayer, not quite sure what words to use, and sometimes even when you’re dealing with a particular teaching that’s made you shaky and you’re not sure what to make of it, then praying with the Holy Spirit’s help—depending on the Holy Spirit to guide your prayer and to fix it up a bit as it rises to the throne of God so that it is perfectly in line with what God the Father wants—and then having that prayer answered by more ministry of the Holy Spirit in your life—that’s what it means to pray in the Spirit.

I’ll add as a footnote here that I don’t think “pray in the Holy Spirit” means praying in tongues. I’m not speaking against praying in tongues; I’m just saying that’s not what Jude or the apostle Paul are talking about when they say to pray in the Holy Spirit. They’re saying, pray—be in fellowship with God, commune with God—and the Holy Spirit is the one directing those prayers. It’s the life of the Holy Spirit living in you that makes it possible for you to be a person of prayer and communion with God.

So, build yourselves up in your most holy faith—especially in the content of the Scriptures revealed—and pray in the Holy Spirit. Have a content to your faith, knowledge of the faith, but also a living communion with the one you put your faith in. Pray in the Holy Spirit.

“Keep yourselves in God’s love.” What does that mean? I said previously that we’re loved by God before we even know him or love him. How do you keep yourself in God’s love? We get some guidance from Jesus’ own words on this. He said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire, and burned” (John 15:5-6).

So a branch that’s not connected to the vine is just dead wood for the fire. Then Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love” (John 15:9-10).

That could be misunderstood to mean, as long as you’re doing what you’re supposed to do, then God loves you; if you quit doing what you’re supposed to do, he doesn’t. But what’s really being said is that when you’re living in the way of the Lord and in the way of love—when you’re trusting his love and pouring out that love—then you remain in his love. In the same context Jesus says, “This is my command: love each other as I have loved you” (John 15:12).

You’re living in God’s love when you’re loving—when you’re obeying his commands on how to love—and you’re keeping yourself in God’s love when you’re walking in the way of love. In fact, it’s impossible to be outside of Jesus and outside of his love and still be experiencing his salvation. It’s an oxymoron—to be alive and dead, to have eternal life and not have it, to be in God’s love and be full of hate, to be in God’s love and constantly disobeying God without ever repenting of it. You’re simply existing outside the scope and the path of God’s love that he set out for you.

So keep being kept. You’re kept by God, but you also keep yourselves in God’s love as you’re waiting for the mercy of Jesus to bring you to eternal life. In other words, God appoints the way of salvation as well as the end result.

The glory and eternal life that comes with salvation—eternal life is in Christ. If you’re in Christ, you have eternal life; if you’re outside of Christ, you don’t. To talk as if you can be saved while falling away from him misunderstands the teaching, because falling away from him is being outside salvation. There is no such thing as life outside of Christ. We need to understand that God’s promise to preserve us does not remove our need to persevere; it empowers our ability to persevere, to keep on going.

Take an example from the last part of the book of Acts. You read about that terrible storm where the ship was driven before a typhoon for days and days. Finally, when everybody was desperate and had given up hope, Paul said an angel of God spoke to him and told him that everyone on the ship would be saved. Later, some of the best sailors on the vessel wanted to sneak away in a lifeboat—if the ship was going down, at least they figured they might make it. Paul said, “Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved” (Acts 27:31).

Now, a clever theologian might say, “But Paul, didn’t you say none would be lost? God promised that, so it doesn’t matter what we do.” But God appoints the way as well as the end. The way of salvation in that situation was to stay with the ship until it ran aground so that everyone could reach shore. If you want to be saved, take the way of salvation God has given. If you do something different, in a sense all bets are off, because God didn’t promise salvation apart from his appointed way.

So again, keep being kept. God has made great promises of salvation, and he says that the path to that salvation is the path he gives you. He gives warnings not because he expects you to fall away but to prevent you from falling away. To fall away in this context is not merely to make a mistake or commit one sin; it is apostasy—to reject the faith, to turn away from Christ, and to go your own way.

So keep being kept. You’re called, you’re loved, you’re kept, but you are also called to build yourself up in your most holy faith, to pray in the Holy Spirit, and to keep yourself in God’s love—to live according to the commands of love that our Lord Jesus Christ has given. When you fail, repent and remain in that sphere of God’s love and power.

Then Jude goes on to say, “Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh” (Jude 22-23).

After that terrible denunciation of false teachers—those wicked rascals, those men without the Spirit, those clouds without rain, those wandering stars—at that point you might say, “Now I know what to do in response to bad teaching. Those people are disgusting. I’m going to avoid them like the plague. Anybody who goes an inch in their direction I’m going to blast and avoid like the plague. Anybody who even has a hint of asking questions about it—I’ll tell them off and avoid them too.” But that’s not what Jude says.

After blasting the false teachers, he says you’re going to have some people who are shaken by all this. They’re going to have questions; they’re going to doubt. What should you do? Be merciful. Be kind. Listen to their questions. Pay attention to their doubts. Deal with them gently and tenderly. You’re going to have people who are drawn or at least temporarily tempted by false teaching or by the version of wickedness that’s being promoted. Spend some time with them. Be gentle, kind, and merciful toward them, and help steer them through their doubts and back into the way of confidence in the Lord and in his truth.

That’s one of the ways you contend for the faith—not by whipping out your club and saying, “Whack, now I’m out of here,” but by showing kindness and mercy to the doubter.

Then there are those who have gone further. They’re not just doubting or questioning. Those who doubt and question need to hear the message, “You’re not rejected here. If you have questions, you can voice them, and I’m not going to reject you. Tell me what your questions are. Tell me what your doubts are.” But others have gone farther—they’re playing with fire. They’re not even just doubting anymore. They think the other way, the way that goes away from the faith once for all entrusted to the saints, might be the right way. They’ve taken several steps down that road.

Snatch them from the fire. Do whatever you can to show them how urgent their predicament is and whatever you can do to pull them back from that. They’re in a worse position than someone who’s just questioning or doubting, but even if their situation is more serious and severe, look at them the way the angels looked at Lot and his family in Sodom. They hesitated; they didn’t want to leave, and finally the angels grabbed them by the hand and started tugging, because the Bible says the Lord had mercy on them (Genesis 19:16).

There are people like that. Maybe you really do have to be urgent. You can’t physically pull people back to Jesus Christ, but to whatever degree you can communicate with urgency and snatch them and save them, do it.

There are others who’ve gone even further, and you’ve got to deal with them fearfully—fear for them, of course, and their destiny, but also fear for yourself. Sometimes you’re dealing with one of those teachers or promoters who aren’t just asking questions or doubting anymore. They’re not just playing with fire or taking a few steps down the wrong road. They’re the ones causing the trouble, already firmly committed to going in a different direction and taking as many people as they can with them.

What do you do with them? For one thing, be scared when you’re dealing with that kind of person. They’re not easily swayed, and some of them are clever enough and persuasive enough that they might sway you. When you’re in that kind of situation, be very cautious and fearful as you go into it. “Hate even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh” (Jude 23). The sin they’re promoting—you’ve got to hate that. You’re not ready to get into a discussion with one of those people unless you’ve already made up your mind that what they’re promoting is wrong. Hate it.

If you have an open mind on the subject, get your mind closed on something good before you go into it. You need a sense of godly fear and a hatred for sin before you discuss the wrongness of that sin with a promoter of it. Before you get into a discussion of heresy with a promoter of heresy, you need an appropriate fear of the danger involved. But having said that, Jude doesn’t say to avoid them like the plague. He doesn’t say to compromise with them or find middle ground either, when it’s a matter of great seriousness. What he does say is, try to rescue. Rescue the questioners and the doubters. Snatch the ones who’ve been playing with fire and save them if you can. Show mercy even to the really bad ones, but be very cautious, fearful, and even hateful of sin as you go into that.

Maybe some of you have been—or are—on the other end of that. You’re one of those that somebody is trying to snatch from the fire. God has snatched people from the fire before, as he did Lot and his family. Later he spoke to the people of Israel: “I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. You were like a burning stick snatched from the fire, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the Lord. “Therefore, prepare to meet your God” (Amos 4:11-12).

When God gives you extra time, when he snatches you from the fire or sends somebody into your life to snatch you from the fire, and you say, “Why should I take them seriously? I’m okay,” God says, “If you’re one of those who didn’t get my judgment right away, and it didn’t fall on you and destroy you and wipe you out, just remember—if even then you haven’t returned to me—what a terrible situation you’re in. Prepare to meet your God.”

There are some who resist every effort to be snatched from the fire, and for them the only message left is, “Get ready to meet the awful majesty and judgment of God.” But there are others whom God has snatched from the fire and been merciful to, who still say, “I’m not sure the fire’s out. I’m not sure God will forgive me. I’m such a mess—what hope is there for me?”

Then we need to hear a different story from the Old Testament—a vision of Joshua the high priest. He’s dressed in filthy clothes, and before him stands Satan accusing him. “The Lord said to Satan, ‘The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord, who has chosen Jerusalem, rebuke you! Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?’” (Zechariah 3:2).

If you’ve been snatched from the fire and God has forgiven you, but Satan is still trying to drag you down and tell you how awful you are and how you cannot be spared or receive mercy, then you’ve got to hear God’s Word: “The Lord rebuke you, Satan! The Lord rebuke you! This man has been snatched from the fire.” Then the angel says, “Take off his filthy clothes.” And he says to Joshua the high priest, “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you” (Zechariah 3:4).

Now let’s consider Jude again. Jude speaks of people who “change the grace of our God into a license for immorality” (Jude 4). To put it another way, they say to Joshua the high priest, “I snatched you from the fire—now enjoy your filthy clothes. They stink, they’re rotten, they’re horrible, and I hope you like them.” That’s what it’s like to say, “God saved you, but he’s not interested in cleaning up your life or transforming you.”

When Joshua is saved, he’s not only snatched from the fire, but the filthy clothes are taken off. You can think of that in two ways. One is to be robed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ and justified, declared right with God through faith. But there’s another aspect to it. The book of Revelation says that “the fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear,” and that “fine linen stands for the righteous acts of the saints” (Revelation 19:8).

So to be clothed by God in righteousness and righteous acts is a vital part of what God does when he saves us. He snatches us from the flames, but he also cleans us up and gives us new royal robes—clean robes. The Bible speaks of this many times. James says, “If one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring him back, remember this: whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save him from death and cover over a multitude of sins” (James 5:19-20).

It’s a wonderful thing when someone headed down the wrong path is brought back and rescued. The apostle Paul, in his letters, wrote about a man who committed terrible sins—awful sexual sins. Paul said, “Hand this man over to Satan, so that the sinful nature may be destroyed and his spirit saved on the day of the Lord” (1 Corinthians 5:5). And they did. Later Paul wrote again and said, “Now forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow” (2 Corinthians 2:7).

When he wrote to the Galatians, he said, “If someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted” (Galatians 6:1). It’s almost as if Paul and Jude were comparing notes—saying the same thing in different words. Don’t let the clothing stained by corrupted flesh corrupt you. Hate the corruption. Watch yourself, or you may be tempted. But at the same time, keep showing mercy and keep rescuing.

You’re called, you’re loved, and you’re kept by God. Those are the bookends—you’re called and loved and kept. Then the last thing we’re going to look at is that God keeps you. In between, Jude says: build yourselves up, pray in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love, and then be rescuing and showing mercy—to the questioners, to those who have been playing with fire, even to those who have caused the problems in the first place.

Then he says, “To him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—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).

Some of the most beautiful words in the Bible—“God is able.” Elsewhere it says, “God is able to do immeasurably more than all you ask or imagine” (Ephesians 3:20). Things you don’t even dare to ask for—God can do more than that. He can do all you ask, he can do more than you ask, and he can do things you didn’t even think of. God is able. And the Bible says, “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6). He’s able to complete it. He’s able to keep you from falling away. He’s able to guard you from apostasy.

When the end comes—when that terrible judgment comes—it will not be a terrible judgment for you, because you will be in the presence of his glory without fault and with great joy. We’ve seen the need to fear eternal fire when we’re talking about matters of sin and false teaching, but the judgment is a time of great joy for those who are in Christ Jesus. You’re presented without fault because you’re credited with all of Jesus’ goodness. His Holy Spirit has been working in your life, and God is able to keep you in that condition.

So all the while we’ve been talking about what you need to keep doing, just remember that all the time that means you keep being kept. He’s keeping you, and he’s the one who is God our Savior. A number of things are said about God, but just about the last is this—our Savior. There’s a lot about the judge in this book, but God is above all Savior.

As I said, Jude is a little book—it will fit on one page—but what a page! When it comes to knowing God, Jude is supposed to be writing to us about judgment and about false teachers, and he does. But if you read Jude, you’ll also find out that he tells you who Jesus is. Jesus is the Christ—the Messiah, the Promised One of Israel. Jesus Christ is sovereign; he has authority over everything. Jesus is Lord—he’s God.

There are a couple of books you could write right there. Then you find out that the Trinity is real. You have the love of God the Father. You have the mercy of Jesus bringing you to eternal life. You’re praying in the Holy Spirit. In other words, you’re the opposite of those other people Jude writes about—those who “change the grace of our God into a license for immorality” and “deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord” (Jude 4). They do not have the Holy Spirit. That, in a nutshell, is what Jude says. They don’t have the Holy Spirit; they don’t know God; they don’t know Jesus. But you—you’re being kept by Jesus, you’re being loved by God the Father, you’re praying in the Holy Spirit.

There’s another large volume that could be written about the doctrine of the Trinity. Jude simply has it embedded in what he says.

If you want to know the attributes of God—the qualities, the characteristics, what he’s like—this little book that fits on one page has it all: the mercy, the peace, the love, the grace of God, his kindness, all of those traits by which he brings his peace and his love to us. And it also shows his majesty, his glory, his power, and his authority. He is God “before all ages, now and forevermore.” There’s his aseity—the self-existence, the eternal reality of God.

There are several more volumes that could be written on the attributes of God as you read this. You find out his roles: Jude is his servant, which means God is the master. He’s the one who keeps. He’s the one who judges. He’s the one who saves. And just for good measure, there are references to the godly men of old—like Enoch, who walked with God; to Satan and what he does; to angels and what they do; to figures from throughout the Old Testament.

Everything of the faith is distilled onto one little page. But you do need to read the rest of the book—the Bible—to catch everything that’s hinted at in Jude’s short letter. What a book it is! And really, at the end of the day, whatever the context—whether it’s fighting for the faith, as this book emphasizes, or anything else—the main thing that happens when you read the Bible is that you get to know God better. You get to know who he is, what he’s like, what he does, and how he relates to us. You grow in your relationship with him.

So again, Jude is jam-packed. Three sermons barely scratch the surface. But if you have to remember nine or ten words: “Fight for the faith. Fear eternal fire. Keep being kept.”

Prayer

We do thank you, Lord, for the faith once for all entrusted to the saints. We thank you that you are God before all ages, now and forever. We thank you for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that brings us to eternal life. We thank you for the Spirit and for your help in prayer. And we pray, Lord, that in such times we may not be intimidated or scared away by the power of the evil one or by the infiltration of his agents into the church, but that instead we will take courage again that you are able to keep us from falling and to present us before your glorious presence without fault and with great joy.

Give us, Lord, that confidence and encouragement, and then send us out with a weapon in one hand and something to build with in the other—to build more and more of your kingdom and at the same time resist the forces of evil with the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Keep Being Kept (Jude)
By David Feddes
Slide Contents

Jude

• Fight for the Faith
• Fear Eternal Fire
• Keep Being Kept

Keep being kept

• Called, loved, kept
• Build, pray, keep
• Rescue, show mercy
• God keeps you

Called, loved, kept

¹ Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James,
To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ:
² Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance.

Build, pray, keep

²⁰ But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray 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.

Build yourselves up

Encourage one another and build each other up. (1 Thessalonians 5:11)

Those who carried materials did their work with one hand and held a weapon in the other, and each of the builders wore his sword at his side as he worked. (Nehemiah 4:17-18)

Pray in the Holy Spirit

Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. (Ephesians 6:18)

We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express… the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. (Romans 8:26-27)

Keep yourselves in God’s love

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. (John 15:9-10)

Kept, keep yourselves

God appoints the way as well as the end result. Eternal life is in Christ.

• God told Paul that all in the ship would survive. (Acts 27:24)
• Later Paul said, “Unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved.” (Acts 27:31)

Keep being kept

• Called, loved, kept
• Build, pray, keep
• Rescue, show mercy
• God keeps you

Show mercy, rescue

²² Be merciful to those who doubt; ²³ snatch others from the fire and save them; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.

Snatched from fire?

“I overthrew some of you as I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. You were like a burning stick snatched from the fire, yet you have not returned to me,” declares the LORD. Therefore… prepare to meet your God. (Amos 4:11-12)

Snatched from fire

The LORD said to Satan, “The LORD rebuke you, Satan! … Is not this man a burning stick snatched from the fire?” … The angel said…, “Take off his filthy clothes.” Then he said to Joshua, “See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you.” (Zech 3:2-4)

Show mercy, rescue

You ought to forgive and comfort him, so that he will not be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow. (2 Cor 2:7)

Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently. But watch yourself, or you also may be tempted. (Galatians 6:1)

Keep being kept

• Called, loved, kept
• Build, pray, keep
• Rescue, show mercy
• God keeps you

God keeps you

²⁴ To him who is able to keep you from falling 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.

Knowing God

• Jesus: Christ, Sovereign, Lord
• Trinity: Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit
• Qualities: mercy, peace, love, grace, glory, majesty, power, authority, eternal (before ages, now, forever)
• Roles: Master, Keeper, Judge, Savior

Jude

• Fight for the Faith
• Fear Eternal Fire
• Keep Being Kept