Jude – A Call to Contend (3/3)

Jude’s Imperative

Every preacher I know would happily preach only the Gospel every time he steps into the pulpit. Indeed, the more mature the preacher the more quickly he will go to the Cross, regardless of the text with which he begins.

However, as preachers of the whole counsel of God, we must needs deal with every word and every verse in every chapter of every book of the Bible. Jude began his letter with the intent of writing of the common salvation, but he felt it imperative to call his readers to contend for the faith.

Something to Contend For (Jude 1:3-4)

Whether it be human nature or something to do with certain elements of Christianity, it is often easier to focus on what we are against rather than what we are for. We need to be both, but in balance, we ought to focus on what we are for. In many great battles throughout history, the army that had something to fight for was victorious regardless of the odds.

Jude calls us to earnestly contend for the faith. In Greek, this phrase is a single word. The root of this word give us a familiar word in English, agonize. Originally, this did not have the focus on pain as it does now, but rather on the struggle, or a contest (cf. Philippians 1:27).

As we contend for the faith we must strive to do so in a way that is not contentious or unnecessarily offensive. The content of our message may offend, but the delivery of our message should not.

Our confidence in our message must be unshakeable, but it does not have to devolve into arrogance.

We can, as Paul exhorts in Ephesians 4:15, speak the truth in love.

For what do we contend? The faith that was once delivered to the saints. We know that books of the New Testament were still being written, so Jude is not referring to a completed canon of Scripture. Rather, he was claiming that the doctrinal limits of orthodoxy had been set. Nothing that contradicted previous revelations would be truly from God. Jesus had fulfilled the law, but He never canceled or contradicted it. Jude is admonishing his readers to contend for that which had already been revealed (cf. Acts 6:7).

Something to Contend Against (Jude 1:4)

When David went to take provisions to his brothers in 1 Samuel 17, he was shocked and appalled that no one would answer the challenge of Goliath. When his older brothers rebuked him, he answered, “What have I now done? Is there not a cause?”

Like Goliath, the enemy swarms toward us like a flood, and we have a cause to fight.

The apostate’s character is revealed. They are devious men. Creeping in, unawares, has the idea of smuggling (cf. 2 Peter 2:1; Ephesians 4:14; Acts 20:29). They are enemies of the cross who are already considered condemned (cf. verses 14-15). This verse does not teach that they were ordained to be ungodly, but rather that judgment of the ungodly was foreordained.

It is a sad reality that ungodly people exist. Many want to pretend that everything is unicorns and rainbows, but there are ungodly people out there. And I am not thinking of Antifa in masks, but apparently nice people who will deceive. We must be on our guard.

The apostates sin is that they turn the grace of God into lasciviousness. God’s grace is a truth full of beauty and wonder. We ought to meditate on His grace and praise Him for it often.

Sadly, there are those who would turn that grace into a license to sin. They reason that we cannot please God so why try? They conclude that seeing as only Jesus can please God then it doesn’t matter how I live, God is pleased with me because of Christ and consequently my actions do not matter. Many may not articulate it in such a way, but this is the end result.

Examples abound of those who have rejected the standards of their parents, calling them legalists and Pharisees. They live every nearer to the edge of sin, and in exploring what they can get away with, they fall headlong over the precipice. Instead of exploring how close to holiness they can live, and enjoying how different from the world they can be, they flip things around. They explore how close to the world they can get and seem to enjoy how unholy they can appear.

Grace is not a license to sin or liberty to do as we please. Grace gives us the liberty to refuse temptation and live obediently and righteously.

These apostates ultimately deny God and the only means of salvation, Jesus Christ.

There is without a doubt something worth contending against.

Conclusion

As an athlete competing or a soldier fighting, we must diligently contend for the truth God has entrusted to us, and against the error that swarms around us.

Martin Wickens