the book of Jude and we're continuing our study in the book of Jude and today we're talking about keep by contending. We've talked about earnestly contending for the faith and we've talked about the importance of it, but today we're going to see keep by contending. So this week I listened to a podcast, it's titled On Preaching by H.B. Charles, Jr. And he made a quote on that podcast, which I think is important. It is important when considering our faith and contending for the faith, but I also think it's important for life in general. The quote is this, when we lose our why, we lose our way. When we lose our why, In other words, when we forget why we are doing something, we may take shortcuts or we may lose focus and we may find ourselves lacking the energy to perform the task because we forget why we're doing something. And why would we do that? We would lose our energy to perform the task because we forgot the why. I thought about an example of that. How might we forget our why and how might that impact our lives? Think about your work that you do every day. You know, work that you do every day might become a drudgery to you. You might like, it's Monday again already. But why are you working? Well, God gave you the talents that you have. He's gifted you. so that you can use the talents he's gifted you with for his glory. You are showing the blessings of God when you go to work. But also, you're working to provide for your family. This world is expensive. God has given you the ability to go and work and you go to work so that you can provide good things for your family. So if you understand I'm going to work tomorrow because I get to utilize the gifts that God has given me and I get the opportunity to provide for my family. All of a sudden there's a why for me to go to work and it's no longer a drudgery. Now it's I got new energy to go to work because I understand more fully my why. So the why in life is important. And Jude points out to his readers the need to keep themselves in the love of God. That's going to be found in verse 21. So one of the whys for why you would earnestly contend for the faith is to keep yourself in the love of God. Jude again is building this case. He continues to build the case. He's building now the why for contending. He will encourage his readers to persevere, contending for the faith once delivered to the saints. And today we're going to find out why, Jude 17. But beloved, remember you the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lust. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit. But ye beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And if some have compassion making a difference, and others saved with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. Heavenly Father, we pray that you will bless the reading of your word and the preaching of your word today. And I pray that you will encourage your people to understand the why. They are contending for the faith today. We thank you for Jesus. In his name we pray, amen. So we can keep ourselves by keeping our why to persevere, building ourselves up in the faith. And we will be more able to earnestly contend for the faith if we actually know the faith. But the first thing I want to talk about here is first of all, he says in verse 17, but beloved, remember you the words which were spoken before of the apostles. So first, build your up, build yourself up, knowing your why because you understand the words that you're contending for are the words of the apostles. And the apostles shared the words of Jesus Christ. We're not following the philosophies of men. Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit of God. It's the apostles' doctrine. It's the words that were passed to the apostles by Jesus. So when you're contending for the faith, understand you're wise because you're contending for Jesus. You are contending for Jesus. You are preserving His truth. And we don't want to get away from that. That all that we're doing here today, contending for the faith, it's not about us. It's about Jesus. As it says there, our Lord Jesus Christ, He is our Lord. He is the master of our lives. He became our Savior. He gave Himself for our sins. He laid down His life so that we might live. We can't forget the why. It's because we have a Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord. He saved His people from their sins. Today, if you're one of His, understand He saved you from your sins. And you contend for the faith because He saved you. You know, sometimes I think we might take this lightly. Sometimes we forget our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. We go through life and the busyness of life and there's so much that we're involved with that sometimes we forget that we've been redeemed by Jesus. But we remember Acts 4.12 says, Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. And so we might forget the Lord Jesus Christ. It's only by Him that we are saved. So the why is because we have a Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Don't take it lightly because remember the words Jesus said, I tell you, nay, but except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. And that word perish means to be cast into the lake of fire for eternity. So He's the Lord Jesus Christ, and He has rescued you from hell. He's rescued you from suffering for eternity in the torments of fire and flame and darkness. He has redeemed you. The Lord Jesus Christ. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. So don't forget the why. You've been redeemed. And I know that may seem elementary to some of you, but that is the why of why we contend. But also, not only because we have been redeemed, but there's many that's going to perish. If you don't contend for the faith once delivered to the saints, people are not going to hear the gospel. How shall they believe in whom they have not heard? If you don't contend for the faith, future generations will not hear. You contend so that others might not perish. Oh, that's a great why. Or it should be a great why. See, he is the Christ because he is the anointed one from God. He is the seed of woman. He is the son of David. He is the one who will redeem Israel. And when you think about this, there was a time when Peter said these words, where there shall we go? Thou hast the words of life. We contend Because Jesus has the words of life. Now, Jude goes on and he encourages them to remember. In this short book, in this short book, it's only 25 verses long, but this is the second time that Jude has encouraged them to remember. So why would Jude encourage them to remember? Well, if you've been around, well, today I was pulling out of the driveway. And Kimberly's like, did you remember? See, she reminded me because she knows I'm prone to forget, right? So we have to be reminded, we need to remember because we're prone to forget. And so Jude is encouraging the recipients of this letter to remember because there's some things that he doesn't want them to forget. And the author of Hebrews had this to say, therefore, we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we might let them slip. So Jude is reminding them to remember, because there is the danger of us letting them slip. So if we're not contending, for the faith wants to deliver to the saints, we might let them slip. What do we forget most often? Things that are inconsequential. Things that, well, really don't matter, so we don't really think about it. But the things that are important to us, we will not forget. And so Jude is trying to help them understand that the things he's sharing with them are so important for them to remember. And remember, this is the apostles' doctrine, he says there in verse 17. The words the apostles taught. And you know, the words the apostles taught are so important. When you think about it, we have these 66 books. What was one of the criteria for being included in the Bible. Not every writing that was written is included. Take Paul, for example. Do you know that Paul wrote four letters to the church at Corinth? Four. How many are included in the scripture? Two. There's lots of reasons why something was included in the canon of scripture. One of them was the first criteria was, was it written by an apostle or someone close to them? So when we think about the Apostles' Doctrine, we understand there's value to what the Apostles had to say. So let's just think about that for a minute. If Jude is trying to get them to understand the importance of remembering the teachings of the Apostles, how well do you know the Apostles' Doctrine? Could you decipher if a teaching should be accepted because it passes the apostle's doctrine as a test? Would you know? You know, that's one of the reasons why the teachings of the Latter-day Saints should not be followed, because it came into existence too late. The Book of Mormon was written in 1830. There was no apostle in 1830. And think about this. Think about the Latter-day Saints, how zealous they are. And they're zealous for a lie. Think about Islam. It was written by Muhammad. Think how zealous the Muslims are. And they are zealous for a lie. If they are zealous for lies, how much more zealous should we be for the truth? But would you say that our zeal is as great as the Latter-day Saints and the Muslims? In many cases, our zeal is not as great. So Jude is trying to get them to remember the importance of the Apostle's Doctrine and to be zealous for it and to contend for it. And the same is true for us today. We need to understand the importance of the teachings of the Word of God, the Apostle's Doctrine, and we need to be just as zealous for the Apostle's Doctrine as others are for their lies. Why should we be zealous? Second Thessalonians says this, and for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Satan, the great deceiver, convinces people to believe lies. That's why we should be zealous for the truth. Because Satan deals in lies. And if we're not zealous for the truth, then the lie is going to gain a foothold. And so we need to be zealous for the truth so that we can put down the error. So be zealous for the apostles doctrine. And this Apostle's Doctrine, again, Jude's trying to get them to remember that this is the Apostle's Doctrine, and included in the Apostle's Doctrine, you find in verse number 18, are warnings. He told them in verse 18 how that they told you, the Apostles told you, that there should be mockers in the last time. Mockers there are false teachers. So the Apostles told you There's gonna be false teachers. There's gonna be those who mock your faith. Mockers will be those who mock the fact that you believe at all. They're gonna be prevalent, right? Mockers will be those who challenge the strictness with which you follow the scriptures. That Bible, that's old-fashioned. You know, one of the things that says in that article that I've told you all to read is that one of the things that Gen Zers are looking for, they're looking for something different. They've had what the world offers, and the world offers them nothing. So when they come to church, what they're looking for is truth. What they're looking for is something that can change their life. They're looking for otherness. If you can get them in the door, The thing they're looking for is something different. They don't want what they can get in the world. And that's why we The truth of the Word of God is what changes our lives and as we live our lives according to the Word of God. That's why we have hope and so many in the world don't have hope because we built ourselves up in the most holy faith. And so we have hope in Christ. We have hope in the future. We have hope in this world. It's because we believe the Word of God. And there are going to be those who challenge the exclusivity of your beliefs but stand true to the word of God. Stand against those who might mock. There's gonna be mockers who make light of the gospel. Some new media that's out there today, it's hard to believe the things that are being said. Here's a lyric to a song. I just learned these people try and save you cause they hate you. Now, what's that lyric saying? Those Christians, they tell you you need to be saved, but the reason they're doing that is because they hate you. Very popular song, probably been clicked who knows how many times just in the last couple of weeks. Here's another lyric. What if I roll the stone away? They're gonna crucify me anyway. What if the way you hold me is actually what's holy? So what's that lyric say? I want to do what I want to do because what is really holy is my relationship that I'm having with you outside the bonds of marriage. That's what's holy. What's the lyric? The smallest man who ever lived. I would have died for your sins. So they're making fun of Christ being the one who dies for sins. Those are mockers. They're making light of the gospel of Jesus Christ. They're out there. And we need to understand that. And we ought to protect ourselves from the words of mockers. But so many people are allowing those to come through their headphones and across their media, and they're gobbling it up by the millions of clicks. And those lies are being promoted in our culture today. Young people, old people, running to it. They're mockers. Listen, it's not okay for everyone to believe what they want to believe. There's only one Lord, one faith, one baptism. We must contend for the faith. And the apostles gave us the characteristics of how to identify the mockers, it says in verse 18, who should walk after their own ungodly lust. So the way to identify the mockers is first of all to understand they walk after their own ungodly lust. Gil says this, such as would make a mock at sin. make light of it, plead for it, openly commit it, and glory in it. So those are the ones. They make light of sin. And the thing about it is, in a lot of cases today, people don't even know what sin is. They don't even know what identifies sin or why something is a sin. Those who are mockers, they're going to lay aside the teaching of Scripture. having their own reasoning as the basis for their beliefs. That might challenge all of us to think about what's my worldview? How do I look at the world? How do I think about what's going on in the world? Do I have the Bible as my guide? Do I know what the scripture teaches? Or is it my own thoughts? Or what I've heard someone else say? Or do I know this is what the scripture says? You see, those who are walking after their own ungodly lust are those who lay aside the scriptures. They maybe incorporate their own fleshly desires into their worship of God. There are those today that are doing that, right? You know, I saw something just this past week in a community close to here that was going to have a pride day at their church. folks that ought not to be. You cannot have Pride Day. You can't be homosexual and worship God through Jesus Christ because that's a sin. Homosexuality is sin. There'll be those who try to redefine holiness. Again, their own fleshly desires will be acceptable. their own fleshly desires will be their standard. And you know what will be unacceptable? What will be unacceptable to them who are walking after their own godly lust is this. You use the Bible as your standard, that's unacceptable. They were decried as being old-fashioned and intolerant. That's what you are today, by the way. If you follow the scripture, you are intolerant. Those are the ones that the apostles are warning about, those who are walking after their own ungodly lust. Isaiah warned of these days in Isaiah 520 when he said, but woe unto them that call evil good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. So mockers are going to be those who walk after their own ungodly lusts. And we must guard against that. We must guard against, well, I think or I feel We must, thus saith the Lord. This is what the Bible says, and that's my standard. Again, we're gonna contend for the faith. We need to know what the scripture says and believe it. And the reason why is because those that are gonna follow after their own ungodly lust, what's gonna end up happening to them? They're going to perish. Remember, in the last day, there's going to be those that say, but Lord, Lord, didn't we do many mighty wonderful works in your name? That means there's going to be church members, church members, who hear the words, depart from me, you worker of iniquity. I never knew you. So there's going to be people who have their name on church rolls that are going to perish. Why do we want to earnestly contend for the faith? Because there's some that are going to believe a lie and they're going to perish because they have believed a lie. They're following after ungodly lusts. They separate themselves. Does this mean they separate themselves from the assembly? It can mean. You know, someone who refuses to assemble together with believers is in the words of my dad, treading on thin ice. Now when dad told me I was treading on thin ice, I knew what that meant, right? I knew that I was just about to get myself in trouble. So someone who refuses to assemble, they're putting themselves in a dangerous position. The desire to refrain from assembling might be an indicator of what is in their heart. So we want to understand they separate themselves. It says they are sensual, verse 19. They are those that are driven by feeling. Listen, it's not about how we feel. Contending for the faith is not about making us feel good. It's about contending for the faith once delivered to the saints. And sometimes when you're contending for the faith, it's going to require you to crucify the flesh. I've never been crucified, but I would say that being crucified doesn't make you feel good. So crucifying the flesh does not feel good. Mortify therefore the deeds of the body. Mortify means put to death. And contending for the faith is going to require us to mortify or put to death the deeds of the body. As Paul said, I beat my body and bring it into subjection. That's not feeling good. That hurts sometimes. When we have to put down our own desires and to put Christ first, sometimes that's not pleasurable. But if we're contending for the faith, that's what it's gonna require. And remember, what's the why? Why would you mortify the deeds of the body? Why would you crucify your flesh? Why would you, as Paul, beat your body and bring it into subjection? First of all, to glorify and honor Christ, you know that the works of the flesh do not please God. You know by the works of the flesh you cannot enter the presence of God because no sin enters the presence of God. And so I want to mortify the deeds of the body because the deeds of the body, the flesh, do not please God. But secondly, I want to live holy as He is holy because There's those out there who are perishing. If I don't contend for the faith by living holy, if I let it slip, then people aren't going to hear the truth. They're going to perish. They have not the Spirit of God. They claim to have this extra blessing of the Spirit, but they don't have the Holy Spirit of God. And listen, since they don't have the Holy Spirit of God, they do not have life. So you notice Jude warns them using the apostles doctrine to say there's going to be mockers out there and we need to know and learn how to identify mockers. We need to know they're going to be present. But now he's going to say, he's going to go on and tell them, but ye, beloved. I love that. When I was reading that this week to study for this passage, Jude comes to, but you, beloved. He's separating between the mockers and them. He's saying, that's what the mockers are. But you, beloved. He calls them beloved. You're something different than the mockers. There's a difference between those who are walking in the world and you. There's difference between those who are sensual and those like you who are earnestly contending for the faith. That was such an encouragement to me. But you, you're different. You're a saint of God. You're a follower of Jesus. You guys do this. And if you're a follower of Jesus, today, this is speaking to you. But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith. See, that faith that was once delivered to the saints, that faith that we're contending for? Build yourself up in that. Why? Well, building yourself up is the first step in strengthening your position. Build yourself up in the most holy faith. If you're going to contend for the faith, you have to know the faith. And building up is a contrast to letting them slip. The author of Hebrews warned against letting them slip, so if I don't want to let something slip, I need to build myself up in it, and here it is, the most holy faith. And it is a holy faith. It is a faith that displays holiness. Holy. Sacred. Morally pure. Blameless. Build yourself up in that faith. You see, following Jesus leads to righteousness. Doing right. Treating others right. It leads to honor. It leads to building up. So build yourself up. And I know we just mentioned words about tearing down like crucifying and mortifying and all of that, but sometimes in order to build up, you have to tear down. If you're going to build a house, you're going to tear down the ground by smoothing out the ground and preparing the foundation, right? So if you're going to build up, you've got to tear down first. Well, what are we tearing down? We're tearing down self-righteousness. If we're going to build up the most holy faith, we have to tear down our own self-righteousness. And then once we tear down our own self-righteousness, then we can build up the faith, which is going to lead to truth and honesty. So how are you going to build up? What's he say? Build yourself up on your most holy faith. Build up by prayer. So you want to build yourself up. You want to strengthen your position. You want to know the most holy faith. And how are you going to do that? By praying in the Holy Ghost. Praying in the Holy Ghost is not that you get in some special condition where you can pray in a supernatural way. That's not what that means. Praying in the Holy Ghost is the only way you can pray. You see, it's through the Holy Ghost that you go to God in prayer. You pray, the Holy Ghost takes your prayer to the throne room of heaven where you have an intercessor, Jesus Christ, and then Jesus Christ opens up the access to God the Father. The only way that you can have access to the Father is when you pray in the Spirit, and the Spirit takes it to the Son, and then the Son takes it to the Father. It's the only way you can have access to God is when you're praying because you have the Holy Spirit. You cannot pray if you don't have the Holy Spirit. It's only by the Holy Spirit that you can breach that great gulf that separates between you and God. So remember, you don't have access to God without an intercessor. You see, lost people can't pray. I mean, they can bow their head and say their words, But how are they getting to the throne room of heaven? They don't have access to heaven. You pray because you have the Holy Spirit living within you. You pray through the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit goes to Jesus Christ, your intercessor, and then the intercessor goes to God. That's the only way you can pray. You can't approach God if you're unholy, if you are sinful. We who are saved by the grace of God can come boldly to the throne of grace and find mercy and grace to help us in a time of need only because we have the Holy Spirit. So the point is that we're going to be built up by prayer because we can't be built up apart from prayer. Think about it. You guys remember comic books. You remember the old advertisement that used to be in the back? The guy sitting on the beach, you know, and the guy comes by and kicks sand in his face. You know, he's a little scrawny guy, and the guy comes by and kicks sand in his face. I'm going to get you, and I'm going to be a bodybuilder one day. And so you take this magic pill, and you become a bodybuilder, right? No. If any of you have ever tried to build your body up, what does it take if you try to get stronger? Can you get stronger? Laying in the bed, sitting on the couch with a big ol' Pepsi and a bag of tater chips. It just don't work that way, right? If you're gonna get stronger, it takes hard work. You look at those bodybuilders take, we all know Arnold Schwarzenegger, right? Look at him, how does he get strong like that? Yeah, I know there's some people that take some injections to enhance their ability to get strong, but they still, they gotta get in there and what do they do? They move those weights. They have to build up their muscles. They build up their muscles by lifting heavy weights. So how are you as a Christian going to be built up? By prayer. It begins with prayer. You cannot build yourself up apart from prayer. So Jude is highlighting those places where we might begin to let things slip. And one of the first things we might let slip is prayer. Verse 21, build yourself up, but keep yourselves in the love of God. There is an aspect of our Christian walk where we must keep ourselves. It's keeping ourselves in a place of God's blessing. It's not living in sin and expecting God to bless us. It's understanding that the command of God is to be holy as I am holy. So we know the commandment, then we've got to put it into practice. There is the place where we keep in practice what God has told us. That means that I'm not going to be involved in my life in doing things that would remove me from the place of God's blessing. Gil described it as this, to set it always before them, to keep it constantly in view, to exercise faith on it, firmly believing their interest in it, to meditate on it, give themselves up wholly to the contemplation of it, and employ their thoughts constantly about it. And how would I keep myself in the love of God? It would come first of all by remembering this. Why do you love Him? We love Him because He first loved us. So keeping myself in the love of God is going to be first remembering the love that God has for me. Preserve yourselves by the love of God against Satan's temptations, the snares of the world, and the lust of the flesh. When Satan solicits you to sin, remember the love that God has for you. Boy, I've just thought about many things that I could say right there, but for time's sake, I'll not go. But remember. You're going to build yourself up and keep yourself in the love of God. Remember the love that God has for you. Next, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. So build yourself up by looking. Looking for the mercy of Jesus Christ, which is eternal life. It's only by mercy that we receive eternal life. What else does the scripture say about looking? Titus says, looking for that blessed hope. 2 Peter says, looking for and hasting unto the coming day of the God. So we're looking for that day that is to come. So you keep yourselves by looking for God's mercy and looking for that day to come. And you remember that you have received God's mercy and remember there's a day coming. That's the day we long for. And lastly, he says, build yourself up by keeping perspective. Notice verse 22. And if some have compassion making a difference, and others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh, we're going to bump into those who believe error. We're going to bump into those that are mockers, and how should we respond to those? The first thing he says, some of them, they're deceived, they're unknowingly believing a lie and how should we respond to them? Have compassion on them. Make a difference in them. Understand that they are but flesh and understand that they're deceived and if they are teachable, if their conscience is wounded because of their sin, have compassion for them. Teach them, show them mercy. Show them, seek restoration for them. That's the way we should always respond to someone that does not believe the truth. We should always respond to them with compassion when they are looking to learn from us. but others, save with fear of pulling them out of a fire. We're going to come in contact with those who knowingly are believing a lie. They think their heresy is truth. How should we respond to them? First of all, Remember, they're living in a garment spotted by the flesh, he tells us there in verse 23. They are man, they have a flesh, they're deceived, their flesh is deceived, and so we just need to be understanding of their position and the reason they're, really, think about it. If someone really believed that the next moment they were gonna drop off into a Christless eternity where there were eternal flames and darkness, Would they turn from that if they knew in the next moment they were going to die and spend eternity in hell? Of course, any logical person would run from that, right? But they don't. Why? Because they're deceived. They don't get it. They don't understand what awaits them. So they're believing a lie with everything they have because they don't really believe the end result of their lie. So we need to understand that. Second of all, rescue them. Notice he says, pulling them out of the fire. If you're going to rescue someone, it may cause a certain level of fear. You may put yourself in a dangerous position. Think about a fireman, right? He's dedicated his life to rescuing people. And there's a burning house. And in the second window, he sees a child. And he sees the smoke. What's he going to do? He's going in the burning house. He's going to climb the ladder. He's going to put his own life at risk because there's a child in danger. And he's going to rescue them from the fire if he can, right? So when it comes for earnestly contending for the faith, we're running into the fire. We're rescuing people who don't want to be rescued maybe. And we might have to snatch them out of the fire. But it may require us to put ourselves in a dangerous position. So understand that. but understand what's at risk, their life. We need to understand that the one who needs rescued is worth the risk. Going to someone who doesn't want to hear the gospel is worth the risk. Putting yourself in an uncomfortable position so that you might minister to someone who is lost is worth the risk. Understand that. contending for the faith so that others might not perish is worth the risk. Because there are souls perishing every day because they do not believe the truth. And here you are with the truth. And it's worth it for you to take them the truth so that they might be rescued. So Jude is trying to encourage them to understand the why. The why is because there's mockers. The why is because of the mercy of Jesus. The why is because there are those that are perishing. We could go on and on and talk about all of the whys. In John chapter number six, it tells us that many of the disciples turn from following Jesus. Jesus turned to the 12 and asked him, will you also go away? Peter looks at Jesus and says, to whom shall we turn? Thou hast the words of life. The reason we must earnestly contend for the faith is because the faith contains the words of eternal life. If we let go of the faith that wants to deliver the saints, we let go of the words that bring eternal life. Your why is so that those around you might hear the words of eternal life. We must contend for the faith so that others might have life. Heavenly Father, we just thank you for this day. We thank you for our why. And I pray that our hearts will be more determined than ever to contend so that others don't perish. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.