Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20080406.htm

THRU THE BIBLE EXPOSITION
Jude: God's Call To Contend Earnestly For The Christian Faith
Part I: Resting In God's Positional Truths To Contend Confidently For The Faith
(Jude 1-2; John 7:1-10)
  1. Introduction
    1. The current departure from God's truth that 2 Thessalonians 2:3 predicted would come involves extensive deception where people go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived, 2 Timothy 3:13.
    2. On the other hand, Jude 3 urges that believers "earnestly contend for the faith", meaning they can be confident of knowing the truth so as to contend earnestly for it, an idea that is being denied by some evangelicals today! (John H. Armstrong, gen. ed., The Coming Evangelical Crisis, 1996, p. 36-39.
    3. Nevertheless, the opening verses of Jude reveals how the believer can be confident he knows the truth:
  2. Resting In God's Positional Truths To Contend Confidently For The Faith, Jude 1-2; John 7:1-10.
    1. Remarkably, the author of the Epistle of Jude who wrote to admonish believers to "contend earnestly for the faith" in view of growing apostasy (Jude 3-4), was himself once very blind to God's truths in Christ:
      1. The author of the epistle identified himself as "Jude . . . and brother of James," Jude 1a.
      2. As Jude's authority for this epistle was tied to his union with James, and James was likely the leader of the Church in Jerusalem (Acts 15:13-21), and as two of Jesus' half brothers (due to Jesus' virgin birth) were James and Jude (Matthew 13:55 and Mark 6:3), scholars hold this Jude and James were Jesus' half brothers, Zond. Pict. Ency. of the Bible, v. Three, p. 733; Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, 1978, p. 1782.
      3. Now, according to John 7:1-10, these half brothers of Jesus did not believe in Him when Jesus ministered in His earthly ministry as follows:
        1. The events of John 7:1-10 came after Jesus had lost many followers because of His hard saying that many who were following Him were not true believers in Him or in the Father, cf. John 6:64-66.
        2. To win more followers, Jesus' earthly half brothers urged Him to make a public display of His miraculous powers in Jerusalem so the officials there would follow Him as Messiah, John 7:1-4.
        3. However, their very suggestion revealed Jesus' half brothers were unbelievers, for they did not think He was God, and that He needed their help to get a following (John 7:5); they also held to the errant viewpoint that Messiah was to become king apart from going to the cross!
        4. Jesus corrected His half brothers, explaining His time to be crucified had not yet come, let alone His time to rule, all in contrast to His half brothers' outlook that was of the world system, John 7:6-7.
        5. So, Jesus did the opposite of His half brothers' suggestion: He delayed going to the feast until He could suddenly go public where the leaders would be kept from arresting and killing Him apart from God's time and way, the way of the cross (versus stoning, cf. John 8:59; 10:31), John 7:8-10.
    2. Nevertheless, after Christ's resurrection, James and Judas became believers in Christ as their God and Savior, and joined with their mother, Mary, in the upper room for the Day of Pentecost, Acts 1:12-14; 2:1.
    3. After thus becoming indwelt by the Holy Spirit, Jude at Jude 1-2 wrote of the confidence the believer in Christ can have due to positional truth that he can know the truth unlike his pre-salvation days:
      1. Jude 1 notes believers are called by God, sanctified by the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ, Jude 1.
      2. The word "preserved" (KJV) or "kept" (NIV, ESV) is in the perfect passive tense, indicating believers are permanently being preserved in their salvation status by the Lord Jesus, U. B. S. Greek N. T. , 1963 ed., p. 832; Zondervan's The Analytical Greek Lexicon, 1970, p. 402.
      3. Since they were thus brought into salvation and are since then being eternally kept saved by God, and 2 Timothy 1:14 reveals they can hold to true doctrine by depending on the indwelling Holy Spirit, all believers can rely on the Holy Spirit and so be confident at that time that they know God's truth!
Lesson: Though we might have been badly deceived in our past, once we believe in Christ, we are so fully saved and forever kept saved and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, we can always rely on Him to keep our BELIEFS correct, so we CAN be CONFIDENT we CAN RIGHTLY CONTEND for the faith!

Application: May we REST in our POSITION in Christ as the foundation for trusting God's Spirit to KEEP us ALIGNED with the TRUTH, making us ABLE to CONTEND EFFECTIVELY for the faith!