This weekend, Pastor Wil will preach through the book of Jude. While he’ll unpack it fully, here is some food for thought to whet our appetite and prepare our hearts for the gospel feast this weekend.
The gospel is both our courage and our comfort. Jude issues exhorts the saints: contend for the faith! (3). It becomes clear later in his letter how the saints should do this: keep yourselves in the love of God (21). Together, these make up a high call for the saint. And it is a call that requires courage. Why? Because ungodly people will creep in to pervert the grace of God (4). They are scoffers and incite divisions (18). And we never get more timid than when it comes to standing up to our fellow man at the risk of being scoffed at or ostracized. We tend to be partial to keeping the status quo. To not rock the boat. Chaos makes us uncomfortable.
Jude knows this. So Jude exhorts us to contend for the faith. To stand up in the face of scoffing. To call out gospel perversion that would lead to schism. And to hold fast to Jesus amidst the chaos that is sure to come prior to and because of our contending for the faith and our gospel fidelity. He exhorts us to keep ourselves in the faith.
But Jude doesn’t just issue a “pull yourselves up by your bootstraps” type of call. Jude infuses his call to contend with gospel encouragement and gospel comfort so that we have real courage to contend and real comfort in the midst of chaos.
The courage to contend for the faith by keeping ourselves in the love of God springs from the gospel itself. We see the gospel encouragement at the beginning and end of Jude’s letter. Surrounding the call to contend and keep yourself is this great gospel promise in Jude 1: “To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ” and this great gospel promise in Jude 24: “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.”
The promise of the gospel is that God has kept us and will keep us. This promise ignites our hearts with courage to contend for the faith. We have been kept, are being kept, and will be kept by God through Jesus; therefore, what can man do to us? Find courage in the faith that promises God keeps you. This promise flows over us like cool springs of living water to comfort us in chaos. of life. When the chaos of life, sin, and/or persecution for contending for the faith comes, don’t despair and don’t lose heart. Find comfort in the faith that promises God keeps you.
The gospel is both our courage and our comfort. In the gospel we find courage to contend for the faith and comfort in chaos, because the gospel promises that God has kept us, is keeping us, and will keep us. Find both courage to contend and comfort in the midst of chaos in the faith won by Jesus our king.
