Every year, we experience a progression of changes. We call them seasons. We have spring, summer, fall, and winter. Each season has its purpose and sets the conditions for the next. There is a predictable order to the seasons.
Similarly, the Church of Jesus Christ is subject to forces that set in motion predictable, progressive changes. These forces have existed since the Church's earliest days and have grown stronger and more malignant over time, taking full advantage of technological advances. How might we view those progressive steps as they affect the Church? Today, we will call those progressive changes: receiving, rejecting, ridiculing, and replacing.
The first force present with the message of the Church is to receive the good news of Jesus Christ. This is a good thing, and it was the work begun by the first apostles, starting in Jerusalem and then spreading from there across the known world. Some people received the good news, accepted it, and were saved. Churches, typically operating out of homes, were established in most major cities and began to expand from there. Some people, though, received the good news, the first step, and then progressed to the second step, and outright rejected the message of salvation through Christ. They preferred instead to continue to worship their own gods and emperors, usually with a mixture of incense and animal sacrifice. That was the expected pattern. Either you received the good news and were saved, or you received it and rejected it.
But not long after the early church began, a second pattern developed among those who had received and accepted the good news. It is a pattern within the church itself that has continued since the days of the apostles. What was the pattern within the church? The pattern was that some people who received and accepted good news later rejected it. But they did not leave the church. They stayed. Over time, the pattern progressed from ridiculing the church from within to finally seeking to replace it. The four forces, the four seasons, if you will, within the church are receiving, rejecting, ridiculing, and replacing. Today, there are entire denominations that are unrecognizable compared to their past. They have progressed from receiving the good news to rejecting it, ridiculing it, and are now actively seeking to replace the Church. They call themselves Progressive Christians, and yet, they are neither. They are in their final season of life, seeking to replace Christianity itself. Many other churches put on shows every Sunday that rival those on Broadway, while other churches throw everything they have into a message of ultra-conservative politics. They call themselves Evangelical Christians, and yet, they are neither. They, too, are in the final season of their life, seeking to replace Christianity itself.
The desire to replace what has been received is not new. Our reading today from the letter of Jude addressed earnest Christians in the early church, warning them of these dangers from within. The letter began this way, “1 Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ: 2 May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. 3 Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. 4 For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” (Jude 1-4). Before we consider what Jude said, let’s consider who Jude is.
Jude said he was a “servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James” (Jude 1a). James here is taken to mean James, the leader of the Christian church in Jerusalem and Jesus’ brother. Jude, once called Judas, was a brother of James and a brother of Jesus, but preferred to think of himself as a servant of Jesus, even calling Jesus his Master. Jesus had four brothers: “James and Joseph and Simon and Judas” (Matthew 13:55). James was the oldest of the brothers, and Jude the youngest.
This Jude, Jesus’ youngest brother, half-brother to be most correct, says to his readers that they are beloved by God the Father and they are kept for Jesus Christ. Jude, like all the apostles, began by drawing his readers' attention upward toward God. Jude said, “You are beloved in God and kept for Jesus.” Jude was saying your existence is known to God, and He loves you. The idea of being beloved by God was important to Jude, as he emphasized this point in verses 1, 2, 3, 17, and 20. Jude said God loves you and sent His Son, Jesus, to earth to do the work necessary for your salvation, and that same Jesus now works on your behalf in heaven to keep your salvation for you. Jude said God the Father and God the Son have given you mercy, peace, and love, and that Jude hoped those blessings would be multiplied. This is the starting point of Jude’s letter. In contemporary language, the opening would sound like, “Dear Readers, before you read what I have to offer, take a moment, remind yourself that God loves you, Jesus died for you, and continues to protect you. From God, you have received the gifts of mercy, peace, and love. This is who you are in God.” Powerful words. Beloved. God the Father. Jesus Christ. Mercy. Peace. Love. These are words with which we would do well to start each day.
In a posture of focus on God, Jude said he wanted to write a letter about salvation, but urgent circumstances required him to address a different topic. What was urgent? Jude said certain people have crept into the church unnoticed. They seek to pervert the grace of God for sensual pleasures. Not only that, but from within the church, they deny Jesus as Lord over their life. Jude outlined four things here.
First, some people came into the church, by all appearances, as true believers and accepted Jesus as their Savior. But it has now become clear that they crept into the church like thieves, intent on stealing from the church. They do not seek to steal earthly wealth. They seek to steal God’s blessings from his people. Jude’s words remind me of Jesus’ words from the Gospel of John describing the behavior of a thief seeking entry to the sheep’s pen. Jesus said, “9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy” (John 10:9-10a). Jude was saying that thieves had come into the sheep’s pen, the church, to destroy it.
Second, they begin destroying the church by rejecting its central doctrine. They claimed salvation through Jesus but now deny Jesus as Lord. In the original Greek text, Jude points out that the true believer willingly sees God the Father and Jesus, the Christ, as the master, whereas those who crept in deny this. Placing the denial at the end of that thought was done to emphasize how destructive their thinking had become.
Third, those who crept into the church make a mockery of it; they ridicule God’s grace and the freedom to worship God in purity. The rituals and sacrifices of the past had been done away with when they came into the church. There was now freedom to worship God in the spirit because of Christ's work. But these people wanted to use this freedom to bring immoral behavior into the life of the church. What those behaviors were, we are not told. But they must have been a very pronounced part of the beliefs of these people because Jude alluded to immoral living that they were promoting in verses 4, 7, 8, 9, 13, 16, 18, 19, and 23. These certain people were ridiculing God by claiming the freedom they had in Christ now meant they did not need to restrain themselves from anything God had previously prohibited. They were operating on the concept that if it feels good, it is good.
Fourth, the ultimate objective of these thieves was to replace the good news of Jesus Christ. They were building a new theology of their own, taking parts of Jesus’ teaching, and perverting or just outright denying the balance. This was an attempt to replace Christianity.
Jude saw this progression unfolding within the church and sought this occasion to alert the faithful to the dangers these people posed and to their eventual destiny. Let’s consider the dangers these people present.
Jude said people who claim salvation through Christ but then deny Jesus’ Lordship over them, meaning they will not genuinely follow Jesus, are compared to things of nature. Jude said such people are hidden reefs (v. 12), a navigation hazard. They are waterless clouds (v. 12), offering nothing to those who are thirsty for righteousness. They are fruitless trees (v. 12), having nothing for the spiritually hungry. They are wild waves (v. 12), just casting up foam and nothing else. And finally, they are wandering stars (v. 12) from whom there will only be bitter darkness. Properly understood, people who claim the salvation of Christ, thus declaring themselves Christians, and who refuse to submit themselves to Jesus, to His authority over them, offer nothing useful to the church or its members. Such people offer chaos, decay, thirst, and hunger for the soul. Jude said these people rely on their dreams (v. 8) and, all day long, blaspheme the very things of God they do not understand (v. 8, 10). They destroy like unthinking animals (v. 10).
People within the church who claim Christ, but who do not conform to Christ, represent a significant danger to the faithful, to the very fabric of the church. The faithful, Jude said, must “contend for the faith” (v. 3). The Greek word for contend is epagōnizomai, from which we get the English word “agonize.” The sense here is that Jude said the faithful must fight and struggle, literally agonize, with an intense effort to remain faithful and not allow the seductive voices of these certain people to draw them into their dangerous web of lies.
What makes the lies of these people so dangerous? That is the second point Jude wanted to make. It dealt with the destiny of these certain people. Jude said, “5 Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 5-7). The destiny, Jude said, of these people who crept into the church to reject it, ridicule it, and replace it is destruction and hell. As much as the faithful’s destiny is assured and kept safe by Jesus, the destiny of these thieves is assured. They are going to hell because they have grieved the Holy Spirit by being blasphemers. This is the danger these people pose to the faithful. These people want the faithful to follow them. Jude said the way of these people is Cain’s way, it is Balaam’s error, and Korah’s rebellion (v. 11). Cain was a murderer and was exiled from God. Balaam’s error was trying to lead the Israelites away from God, resulting in eternal judgment upon Balaam. Korah’s rebellion was the rejection of the authority of Moses and Aaron, leading to his destruction, that of his household, and the destruction of his followers. Jude said, “Woe to them!” (v. 10). The judgment for these certain people was fixed. It was destruction. The faithful did not need to rebuke or punish these people. God would see to that.
What did Jude want Christians to do then and now? I think there are two important things.
First, we must lift our eyes upward and fully embrace that God loves us and that our salvation is not only given to us by Jesus but also kept secure for the faithful. We are the recipients of mercy, peace, and love. This was the starting point of Jude’s letter, and that was not accidental. This uplifting perspective of being loved, having received mercy, and given peace by God, and that our salvation is being kept for us, should be the starting point for our day. Focusing our minds on the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit reminds us that God was, is, and will be forever faithful and unchanged. Anchoring our freedom in God's unchanging nature helps ensure that we are not mistakenly looking for a progressive God, one who is evolving and changing His ways. God is the same from Genesis 1:1 through Revelation 22:21.
Christian theologian Augustine thought a lot about the unchanging nature of God and the assurance and comfort that brought him. Augustine wrote, “What, then, are You, O my God — what, I ask, but the Lord God? For who is Lord but the Lord? Or who is God save our God? Most high, most excellent, most potent, most omnipotent; most piteous and most just; most hidden and most near; most beauteous and most strong, stable, yet contained of none; unchangeable, yet changing all things; never new, never old; making all things new, yet bringing old age upon the proud and they know it not; always working, yet ever at rest; gathering, yet needing nothing; sustaining, pervading, and protecting; creating, nourishing, and developing; seeking, and yet possessing all things. You love, and burn not; You are jealous, yet free from care; You repent, and have no sorrow; You are angry, yet serene; You change Your ways, leaving unchanged Your plans; You recover what You find, having yet never lost; You are never in want, while You rejoice in gain; You pay debts while owing nothing; and when You forgive debts, lose nothing.” God is not moved to change, and we should not be looking for progressive theologies. God will not be found there.
Secondly, we must, as Jude said, “contend for the faith.” We must be willing to stand for the faith in its simplest terms. We must be able to make clear to others that we believe Jesus is our Savior and our Lord. We must be able to state positively that we have received divine blessings of mercy, peace, and love, and that we know our destiny is kept for us in Christ. We must be joyful in worship, participation in the Lord’s Supper, in baptism, and in seeking to further understand our faith. We should never shrink from our faith but strive to live it as simply as the way Jesus called us to do when he said, “Follow me.” Christianity is not an evolving belief system. It is the receipt of the good news of salvation from God the Father, through His Son Jesus, who are the same before, now, and forever. Amen and Amen.