But you, beloved,
building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy
Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the
love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to
eternal life.
THE STUDY:
Jude commands
his readers: build yourselves up in your
most holy faith. The image of building the Christian community is a widely
used metaphor in the NT (1 Cor 3:9; 1 Pet 2:5). The reflexive pronoun yourselves (heautous: each other)
indicates that Jude does not mean that each believer should build himself up …
but that all should contribute to the spiritual growth of the whole community.
While false teachers “divide” the church (v 19), true believers unite and
strengthen the church as they build
each other up.
The phrase your most holy faith might indicate how believers should build up
each other—build yourselves up by means
of your most holy faith. But it probably identifies the foundation upon
which believers should build.
As in v 3, faith refers to what Christians believe—the orthodox body of truth
and practice from the apostles. Jude’s appeal is twofold: his readers are to
seek an ever deepening grasp of what God in Christ has done for them as handed
down by the apostles (v. 3). The lawless teaching of the false teachers leads
to godless and immoral behavior. And so, by contrast, true believers build each
other up on the solid foundation of the moral instruction of the faith. The
Christian faith is most holy because
it is not derived from human reasoning, but from the holy God who has revealed
himself to believers through the holy one, Jesus Christ.[1]
WHAT WE CAN WALK AWAY
WITH ….
- We walk away this morning with understanding that as believers we are to build each other up by our faith. This brings about unity and strength.
CONCLUSION:
I was sitting on the top level of the
bleachers at my youngest sons little league baseball game. You get to know many
of the families during the season and they get to know you as well. I was
talking with one of the grandfathers of the players and he found out I was a
minister. He ask me a question with all serious in mind, “What is going on with
our world? I feel like the whole world is going nuts!”
What we are
seeing in our society today is a culture that is not being built up in the
faith. As a result, we see division! Division within the heart, within
families, within churches, and the list goes on.
I looked at
this grandfather, whose question may have been because of his concern for his
family, and said, “The world is walking away from its faith. We see the heart
of man separating from God, separating families and dividing churches. Today,
let us remember, if we are struggling in our faith separation and division is
just around the corner. Build up your faith so that separation and division doesn’t
come visiting.
Blessings my friends
Pastor Rod
[1]
Powers, D. G. (2010). 1 & 2
Peter/Jude: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition. New Beacon Bible
Commentary (292–293). Kansas City, MO: Beacon Hill Press.
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