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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.
Be merciful to those who doubt; save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.
Jude 1:20-23
This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
As Jude, the half brother of Jesus, gets set to close out his letter to fellow Christian believers, we find him offering seven exhortations that reveal to us the power of spiritual encouragement. In yesterday’s message, we looked at the first three of these urgings and today we will conclude this short series by examining the last four found in verses 22 and 23.
1. Be merciful to those who doubt.
Life is hard, sometimes very hard. We can find ourselves in circumstances where our foundation of faith can be rocked and we can end up in a Job-like environment, caught up in the midst of our hardship and wondering where God is and how He is working within it.
So yes, Christian believers, both weak and strong in faith, can be taken to a place where doubt might happen. When it does, those who are near them, those they may feel comfortable enough to share their feelings with, aren’t to judge or condemn them for their uncertainties within their faith. Rather, as we see in this exhortation, we are to show mercy “to those who doubt”, listening and allowing them to express their feelings and process what they are going through. For it’s there, where we create an environment of safe and open dialogue, that the power of spiritual encouragement can begin. It allows us to validate the other person’s feelings and allow the Holy Spirit to guide to lead us in the best way to provide caring and love for our brother or sister believer.
2. Seek to save others.
As we used to say in the military when I served, this is a “daily one”, simply meaning that it’s to be on our daily Christian to-do list. This is because Jesus, the One whom which we are saved through belief, tasked us as His disciples to do this:
“...go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Matthew 28:19-20
Note two things about this.
First, it’s not optional. Jesus didn’t say, “I think you should go and make disciples”; rather, He said to “go and make”, and that’s just what we should be doing.
Secondly, this isn’t something that is to be treated as if we should do it when convenient. We are told to “go and make disciples” and this applies to every single thing we do in the course of any one day.
At work, we should openly talk about our faith and the hope we have in Jesus with others. If we’re truly walking with Him and the Holy Spirit, we will stand out, set apart by the holiness we gain through our faith, and trust me when I say that people take notice and want to hear more about what makes you do different from the world and its ways.
You can do this at work. You can do it with conversations with your family and friends. And you can do it in chance encounters like when you are shopping in a store, especially when waiting in line to check out.
The point is that the Lord presents us with ample opportunities every day to seek to save others by pointing them to Jesus. We just need to take advantage of every one of them to His glory and the salvation of the lost.
3. Show mercy in general.
This is something I think a lot of people struggle with and it easily happens, even to the strongest believers. I say this because there are so many people in the world who seem to make it a mission to do wrong to others. Giving into sin and therefore directed by Satan, anyone can become a victim and no one likes that experience, at least no one I have ever met.
Given this and how we will almost certainly be mistreated and victimized by others through the course of life, usually many times over, the surface challenge becomes dealing with the way we have been abused but it has an underlying spiritual test attached to it and that is the matter as to how we should respond to being done wrong by someone else.
This is why this guidance mentioned in Jude as well as many other places in the scriptures is so valuable. For if we’re not careful, the same Satan that led someone to do bad to you will in turn come into your heart and lead you to do likewise, and we can’t afford to let that happen.
Jesus sure didn’t.
For when we look to the cross and see the very sinless, innocent Son of the God Most High, crucified and suffering as He bears the sins of all mankind on the way to death while being mocked and ridiculed by those on the ground who didn’t know Him, we don’t find Him beckoning legions of angels from the heavens to destroy those who were heaping derision and disrespect on Him. Rather, He makes the following merciful request to His Father:
“...forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Luke 23:34
I have always referred to this as the measuring stick for forgiveness in the scriptures for if Jesus could do it while being murdered on the cross, asking for pardon for those who either put Him there or endorsed it, then my brothers and sisters, we can forgive and show mercy to anyone ourselves.
4. Have a sense of fear over sin and its effect on people.
Every day, the news lets us know that sin and its associated evils are alive and well. We’re bombarded with story after story of atrocious acts carried out on others, often blatantly inhumane in nature. In fact, this happens so much that I am afraid that most people, including those who are faithful Christian believers, become numb to all the atrocities they hear about.
As we see in this final exhortation and spiritual encouragement, this indifference to the wickedness of the world runs counter to the way that Jesus disciples are supposed to respond. For as we read here in Jude, Christians are to feel fear, a healthy fear grounded in respect over what sin can do to anyone. This fearful consideration for sin is intended to lead a person to despise every transgression, “hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh”, corrupted flesh that gives into ways that dishonor the God who made them, the God who reigns over them and punishes those who give into the desires of the enemy.
We’ve read about this sure judgment that can be imposed on anyone who adopts ungodly behavior throughout this letter of Jude. The question is, “How will we respond?” Will we become so desensitized to sin that we treat it as just something that happens and isn’t preventable or will we as Christian believers take a daily stand to speak out against the evil behavior we see in our world, loathing it at the same level as God Himself?
I think the answer is obvious. There’s no other option than to ensure that we are a constant adversary, partnering with our Lord against the works of the devil. For if Christians don’t do it, who will?
In today’s message, we add four more specific exhortations to the three we covered yesterday. Taken as a sum, they show Christian believers the power found in spiritual encouragement and my prayer for us all, is that we make a renewed effort to exercise all that we’re being called to do here. For when we do, we can’t help but make our homes, our communities, our workplaces, our churches, and our world overall a better place, doing so through following the lead of Christ, the Father God who sent Him to save us, and the Holy Spirit who provides us daily guidance and direction as we live this thing called life.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.
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