What’s Worth Fighting For?

Fake news.

There is nothing new in the world. Even the early church struggled to know what to believe and what was true. Jude, the brother of Jesus, had a dramatic transformation from unbelief to becoming a pillar of the early church. Jude’s short letter calls Christians to pay attention, but not just to what is being said. We also need discernment for those who try to tell us the news.

What are you willing to fight for? Jesus’ brother, Jude, has some advice for us.

Join us as we work on our discernment.

Transcript

Well, good morning, everyone. A little slow on the uptake there. My name is Sandi and I am one of the pastors here. I’m so glad I’m not on. Test, test. I am on. Excellent. I’m so glad you’re here this morning.

I don’t know if you heard, but Julie Andrews had her 91st birthday this week. Julie Andrews, Mary Poppins, depending on what era you are, or The Princess Diaries. I saw her tell a story about the iconic scene in The Sound of Music where she’s in the open field and she’s singing “The Hills Are Alive.” No matter what age you are, you tracking with me on this scene? It’s a postcard image. She’s in her lovely smock. The Alps are in the background. It’s sunny.

Well, the real story is it was raining basically the whole time they filmed that, and they had a 20-minute window of sunshine. She was lip-syncing with speakers hidden in trees, and they had brought in some of the trees, the birch trees. They had made a stream with plastic. The helicopter was how they got the scene, and a cameraman was strapped to where the door was as it passed Julie Andrews singing. Can you imagine a helicopter passing as she’s singing “The Hills Are Alive”? It took nine takes, and every time the helicopter passed, it would have to come back, right? For some reason, the helicopter didn’t take wide circles. It took very narrow circles, so close to Julie Andrews that it pummeled her to the ground every time, and she got covered in dirt and grass. And by the way, the scene was not even taken in Austria. It was in Germany, which, if you know the story, is sort of ironic.

What we see is not always the truth, is it? Or at least it’s not the whole story. Do you feel like that lately? I see pictures of my friends on social and I’m like, “Is that actually what you look like right now, or is that AI?” These super cute pictures, videos of babies, and I’m like, “That can’t be real. It’s too good to be true.” Well, that’s because it is. It’s hard to know then who to trust and what to trust these days, especially when it comes to really important things like faith or church or even just relationships.

Friends, this is nothing new. As you’ll hear in the next video, “fake news” is something we think we’ve coined as a term. No, even the early church struggled to know what was real and who to trust. I find these days it helps me to find someone who was in the experience, someone who’s on the inside, someone I trust to tell me what actually happened. Someone to trust, like Julie Andrews. Just kidding. But she does seem pretty great, right?

Well, in this series, this whole month, we are going to hear from someone who is on the inside when it comes to faith, when it comes to Jesus. So much on the inside that he was a brother of Jesus. His name is Jude. He had a dramatic transformation. We’re going to study in the New Testament some of the stories where we hear about Jesus’s family, and then read from the letter that Jude wrote.

First, what was Jesus’s family like? We’re going to go to Mark 3:21. It says Jesus entered a house and again a crowd gathered. It was so packed in this home that he and his disciples didn’t have room, or their arms didn’t work or something. They could not even eat. It says, “When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.'”

Do you know how sometimes athletes or successful people will be doing their speech and they’ll say, “My parents, my family, they’ve always supported me in this”? Yet Jesus couldn’t say that. They did not have his back when he was first starting out. In fact, they thought he was unstable.

In Mark 6, starting in verse 1, it says Jesus left there and went to his hometown, probably where his family was, accompanied by his disciples. When the Sabbath came, he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were amazed. “Where did this man get these things?” they asked. “What’s this wisdom that’s been given him? What are these remarkable miracles that he is performing? Isn’t this the carpenter? Isn’t this Mary’s son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon? Aren’t his sisters here with us?” You know, the kid down the street.

James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon are the four brothers of Jesus. Judas can also be known as Jude or Judah. It just depends on the translation we’re working with. It is very clear that Jesus’s family were not on board at this point in Jesus’s ministry. They thought he was out of his mind. And although it doesn’t say specifically that the brothers took offense, it says the crowd took offense, and I’m kind of assuming that his family was part of the crowd. They took offense at him.

This word, being offended, is where we get the word scandal. They were scandalized by Jesus. They were shocked. They were embarrassed. I think they hoped that he was out of his mind, frankly, because the alternative was that he was doing things so far out of what should happen that it was causing a scandal. Jesus was a Netflix documentary. He could have gotten on TMZ.

But then something happened. In 1 Corinthians 15:7, it says that Jesus, post-resurrection, appeared to his brother James. Later in 1 Corinthians, Paul is using one of Jesus’s brothers as an example of someone who could be married and committed to the ministry. For us, that might not feel like a big deal, right? But back then, people really thought similarly to the Catholic church, that in order to really serve the Lord you had to stay single. Paul is using a relative of Jesus as an example of someone who is fully committed to Jesus and, by the way, married. Something had happened to this family. Not only were they part of the early church, but two of the books of our Bible, the New Testament, are likely written by brothers of Jesus.

We’re going to be in the book of Jude. Jude doesn’t have any chapters, so it’s a little funny if you’re Googling “Jude chapter 2.” There is no chapter 2. There’s just Jude 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Jude verse 1. Jude says, “Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James.” Why does he say a servant of Jesus and a brother of James? Why doesn’t he just tell us that he’s a brother of Jesus? It would make it so much easier. You can read commentators who say, “Well, this is clearly not Jude, because he doesn’t say, ‘I’m the brother of Jesus.'” But what if the guy actually had some humility and was afraid of manipulating people and name-dropping, and instead said, “By the way, I’m a brother of James”?

Jude writes to those who have been called, who are loved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ. “Mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance.” Freebie for you today, Bible geeks: drop it in your mind and use it for trivia one day. The Bible loves triads. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is maybe the best one, but there are always these lists of three things. I don’t know. Four seems like too many. Two is not enough. Three is the perfect number. Jude says you are called, you are loved, and you are kept. Also, mercy, peace, and love be to you in abundance.

First, this word “called” in the Greek literally means called as if invited to a banquet. Those of you who were part of one of our kickoff meetings this fall, we studied how a parable can teach us what it’s like to be laborers with Jesus. It’s as if a master has a great feast and has invited people, and people have RSVP’d, “Yes, I’m going to be there.” And the master says, “Go out and tell everybody everything’s ready.” It’s not like today, where we have the microwave and the warmer and the Crock-Pot. So the servants go out and try to get everybody to come, and people are like, “Actually, I’m too busy. Actually, I have something else going on.” And so the master of the banquet says, “Go out and get more. Invite them.” That is what we are called to as laborers of Jesus. We are those who are out there waiting to be invited to the banquet, and you are the inviters, as people who come alongside Jesus. That is what the word means. We’ve been called. We’ve been invited to the banquet.

Secondly, he says you are loved by God. I don’t know how else to say this to you: you are loved by God. Just simple, true, always true. No matter what, you are called. You are loved by God.

And then lastly, what I think is really interesting, and I think I could have had a whole sermon just on this idea, is that we are kept by Jesus. We are guarded. We are protected. We are rescued by Jesus. Saying yes to Jesus, following Jesus, means that we can claim these promises every day, all the time, no matter what. We’ve received what Jesus has done for us. Therefore, we are called, loved, and kept.

In another section, it says Jesus’s mother and brothers arrived and were standing outside where Jesus was. They sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and the group told Jesus, “Your mother, your brothers, and your sisters are outside looking for you.” And Jesus said, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” Then he looked at those sitting in the circle and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” So we can feel pretty cool, like, wow, we’re studying Jude, he was a brother of Jesus. Y’all, if you are in Christ, you are a sister of Jesus. That is also part of our calling. We’re on the inside. We get to be part of this family of God. Yeah, we didn’t grow up with Jesus. We don’t know what he was like. If he had a snotty nose when he was little, did he trip a lot, did he snore? I don’t know. But I know that I am invited and called to be part of the family. Whoever does God’s will is my mother and my brother and my sister.

Jude goes on in verse 3 to say, “Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.” Spoiler alert: nobody’s surprised.

Jude had another plan. Maybe he’d even started to write a different letter, and then he got wind of what was happening. There’s a point in The Music Man where they say, “There’s trouble right here, trouble, my friend, right here in River City.” That’s what I imagine is happening. Jude’s like, “Oh my gosh, there is trouble. I need to write to them. They are slippery people. They have crept in. They have wormed their way in. They are ungodly.”

I hate to say it, but the word “pervert” hits the nail on the head the longer I’ve studied this section. Not only are they perverts, they’re perverting God’s grace. Super double triple gross. The Greek speaks like this: not only are they sort of abusing it, it’s like they’re exchanging it. I’m taking the forgiveness and the grace of God and I’m doing whatever I want. Unbridled lust, licentiousness, indulgence. I’m trading in God’s grace and forgiveness, and that’s what I’m taking out. Does it just make you feel gross? Because I actually feel gross even saying it out loud.

Jude is compelled to tell people that there is trouble among them: people who follow Jesus. We’ll find out later that Jude’s not just talking about Christians, although I think we need to listen as well. He’s also talking about the leaders of the church. They should be living holy lives, not Netflix documentaries. This happens today, unfortunately, and it drives us to ask, who then can we trust? This happens so often. Scroll, find it. It happens so often. How then can we proceed? What can we do?

Well, Jude has an answer for us. Jude says, “Contend for the faith.” Again, in the Greek, and I love looking at the Greek, you guys, the word is where we get the word “agony.” Agonize for the faith. And not just agonize: the Greek puts two words together, so it’s like double agony. Really agonize. Really contend for this. It is a focused, all-out state competition, bottom of the ninth inning, tie ball game, everything is on the line here. Contend for the faith. It is serious.

Now, remember this is Jude writing, Jude, who somehow knew Jesus from a long time ago and thought that he was out of his mind. Honestly, he was probably contending against Jesus and who Jesus was. And now Jude is saying, “Hold up. I know what’s really going on. I’ve been on the inside. You can trust me, and there are people out there you should not trust. Fight for the faith. Punch and kick and scream and hang on until you win.” That is what Jude is calling us to. There’s evidence that Jude had grandchildren who were part of the early church. Their entire family was transformed because of Jesus. Some of them even gave their lives for it.

So again, there’s nothing new under the sun. We live with this today. You can find plenty of people who say “Jesus this” and “Jesus that,” and then their life is a train wreck. There are plenty of Christians who say, “Oh man, I love Jesus,” and then they go do whatever they want. What Jude is saying is that when we do that, we pervert God’s grace and we deny that Jesus is Lord and Savior. It shouldn’t just be leaders that I get angry about. It should be everybody. But I do get madder when it’s a pastor, because frankly it makes my job harder. My job is already a little tricky. All of us who are Christians inviting people, it’s hard. We’re fighting all of these things out there, like, help me Lord: The Death of a Pastor’s Wife on Netflix. You guys know about this? Anybody? Well, just be ready to get your socks blown off.

There’s this sick story that you kind of wish were made up, but it’s really true. There’s this guy who knows a teenager in his church, mentors her, eventually performs her first wedding. Oh, great. Could happen here, right? Until they both end up getting divorced from their spouses to get together. Eventually, he is so in love with her that he tattoos his signature on the side of her. Eventually, she starts to speak out about the abuse that she’s experiencing, and it leads to her death. If you really want to get into it, you can watch Netflix, Crime Junkies, you can cover it. This guy’s a real sleazeball. You can watch his sermons online. He leads musical worship. He’s singing to Jesus. Incidentally, now that the second wife has died, he’s married a third, and he could only get married to her after her husband mysteriously drowned. It’s like a Netflix documentary, making lots of money. Wacko. And you can see his sermons preaching to Jesus. He is a modern example of exactly what John Paul, I’m sorry, what Jude was warning us about. John Paul’s the name of the pastor, the sleazeball.

I wish it was only one example, though. Teachers slip in, people listen to them. They watch them on TikTok. They’re reading their books. They go to their conferences. And then it comes out. Not only is it frustrating, because it’s my job to try to help people come to know Jesus, Jude says that essentially we are denying the lordship of Jesus when we live that way. Jesus, who was single his whole life, who was born of a virgin, who called out sexual immorality, who told us to pluck out our eye if it causes us to lust. That’s who Jesus is. Jesus will always love us. I believe Jesus loves John Paul and every sleazeball on the planet. But Jesus also wants us to keep our pants on, maybe particularly if we have a pulpit.

There are so many barriers for people coming to Jesus, coming to church. There are so many people out there who are destroying the trust that we can have with people. People are tired of hypocrites. I’m tired of hypocrites. Tired of them, but also tired of what they claim to be true with their words, but also their lifestyles.

So, Jude has a message for us, someone who is on the inside, someone you can trust, who tells you that Jesus loves you, who tells you that you have been called, tells you that you have been kept. So, number one today: do you trust Jesus? There are a lot of floozies out there. But let’s just cut that away for a second. Jesus is trustworthy.

Secondly, we have been invited and called to do the will of the Lord. We’ve been called to be part of the family, part of those on the inside, part of who sees what really happens in the family of God, just like Jude did, just like James did, just like Jesus did. And if we have witnessed what the true faith should look like, and I’m going to use the word “should,” even though I don’t really love that word, we can then fight, defend, and contend for the faith. I think by how we live our own lives, and also what we point to and who we point to.

Brian and I are your pastors. There are many leaders here, small group leaders. I think one of the benefits of having a small church, y’all, is that if, Lord help me, I lived a life like that, I hope you would call me on it way farther before my third marriage. We want to be a community where we know what’s happening, and maybe we can help you avoid it before it gets to a Netflix documentary. One of my friends told me she was watching this documentary with her kid, and I said, “Would you please tell the kid that you know two pastors who are married to each other who are not like this?”

Who are you listening to? Friends, who’s influencing you? Do their lives measure up to being like Jesus? If not, do not listen. Do not buy their books. Feel free to point out to your friends that that is not the way Jesus has called us to live. And secondly, would we be willing to live in community so that none of us end up on TMZ? Amen. Whether you are a pastor, a leader, or just somebody trying to follow Jesus.

I’m going to invite the worship team up. We’re going to be in the book of Jude this whole month. There’s a lot in Jude that connects to the Old Testament, so we’re going to have some Old Testament fun with it. I’d invite you to read it. I’d invite you to read some of the references in it that bring us to the Old Testament, that bring us to the stories about Jesus and his family life. There are people we can trust, Jesus being the chief of them. Amen.