Jude Chapter 1 Verse 3

 “Beloved,” is the word “agapetos” in the Greek. One that is

unconditionally loved! Another word for unconditional is unqualified.

You may not be able to receive it when you hear of the love that God

has for you… Let me put it this way. Agape love, unconditional,

unqualified, unrestricted, unrestrained love, the love that God’s love

you, it’s His decision, not yours. You and I are agapetos. And that’s

that.

 Jude wanted and had intended to write his letter concerning, (as he

says here), our common salvation. But something redirected him.

Common salvation doesn’t mean that it is routine in the sense of it

being trivial. It means that salvation by grace through faith is the

single pathway. It is the common way as in the single way.

 Common is the same idea and root of the word communion or

community. So those that are in Christ, immediately are in a single

community. Therefore, salvation is the same for the Baptist, Catholic,

Lutheran, Coptic, whatever your flavor.

 No matter what title we give to whatever, faith alone in God alone,

the Person and price paid by Jesus Christ on the cross, that is the

common salvation of THE church. Anything more, less or other than

that, not in the community of the family of God. BUT, anything that IS

that, drop the preferences of toppings and allow for community.

 This is the faith that Jude seeks to exhort them to uphold. The faith

that was, check this out, once and for all, delivered to the saints.

Delivered by whom? Jesus Christ Himself. Shouldn’t we add this or

that because hey, time has gone on and we know way more. Or culture

has moved on and now things are way different…

 THE faith was once and for all delivered by Jesus. Change it and

you’re challenging God Himself. Not a good move! We received the

Gospel in its entirety and fullness from the Lord Himself. The word

Jude uses for the phrase, “once for all,” is “hapax” in the Greek as in

it has happened. It’s settled. In the past, happened. Those that say

it needs to re-happen or happen more fully, Jude says time to contend.

 Contend earnestly he says, which is a crazy cool word,

“epagonizomai.” Sounds to me like epic agonizing. HA! Here’s what

I know. I don’t agonize epically when I beat someone down with

words, volume, aggression or resentment. It’s not so hard to defeat

someone by my absence! HA! I agonize epically when I have to be

patient, long suffering, graceful, soft and loving, loving someone

when they’re wrong.

 Jude isn’t telling us to go to war. That only takes biceps and bullets.

Jude is telling us to show someone the strength of the truth of being

beloved. That will sway someone to listen… It’s the goodness of God,

Romans 2:4, “The goodness of God leads folks, me, you to

repentance.” Loving you, me, them unconditionally and fully, HIS

decision!

Jude Chapter 1 Verse 4

 An unnoticed threat is a special kind of danger. And the idea he’s

putting in front of us is that of creeping, so it’s slow to be

recognizable. We don’t have bars like cell phone signal bars on our

foreheads so that we can see just how mature in the faith each one of

us are. Or if there’s no signal at all! Wouldn’t that make it so much

easier?

 The idea put forward here is that they are cloaked. There is stealth. It

appears one way but it turns out to be something else. The word also

means to steal into… Come in and start to take. Take our affection,

emotion, connection and ultimately trust, but then totally mindful and

subtly focused on spending spend it for their own satisfaction.

 Most likely Jude is battling false doctrine as he says here that the

issue he’s writing about includes denial of Jesus Christ being the only

Lord God. Denying the deity of Jesus or denying that He is the Only,

in other words, is simply to transmit that He in and of Himself is not

sufficient.

 And that happens, a lot… But in our more modern system of churches

on every corner, more often than blatant erroneous doctrine or

soteriology is someone who comes in, forms real bonds and then

seeks to satisfy some sort of lust. I don’t know of a better way to say

it… And that denies the only Lord God!

 Not talking about sex, could be, but that’s not what I’m meaning

alone by lust. They’re not including me. I’m not on the group chat.

She and I don’t see eye to eye. I like her but can’t stand her husband.

Why am I not asked to lead a ministry. How come the pastor never

says hi to me… On and on and on…

 This is the sad state of contemporary Christian community. Listen,

I’m not coming down on you, I’m saying that we ought not to turn the

grace of our God into lewdness. What we can get and what we are

entitled to get for ourselves.

 The best Christian experience you could ever have is not predicated

on being the most popular person in the church. Getting alone with

everyone all the time. It’s to become the servant of all. Someone

doesn’t like you, get over yourself! Serve them by giving them

distance and oh by the way, try being pleasant with the!. What a novel

idea! And if it doesn’t work, clean up after them and God will

minister to you!

 We get so wrapped up in what someone else is doing or not doing that

makes us feel a type of way. That is lewdness. Lasciviousness is the

definition of the Greek word but that’s a big hard word. It means

insolent wantonness. I want something, and because I’m not getting

it, I’m taking my ball and going home. Jude says this is what we need

to watch for because this can very well mean…, and I’m sorry for

going this hard, NO SIGNAL.

 One of the hardest parts of this is, and I’ve seen this personally,

sometimes it takes ten years for this to be able to be recognized…

Contend earnestly. Love them anyway, the whole time….

 One more thing. What is ungodly? Like what is it in its simplest

form? We may think ungodly is murder or sinning or whatever and all

those things are correct but more simply put, anything that is “mee-

edly,” about me and not God, is ungodly. Make sense? Makes it

easier to spot these busters…

Jude Chapter 1 Verse 5

 This is one of three examples that Jude is going to give of the certainty

of God to deal with these types of people. Out of the between 2 and 3

million people that came out of Egypt, only 2 of them (2 individuals)

were permitted to enter the promised land! That’s worse numbers than

the Oregon Trail! HA! Why!?

 Well, a lot happened but it all began with trusting in self over trusting

in the Lord. Being “meedly.” When they originally got to the borders

of the land God had promised to them, they received a report from

their spies of the strength of their opposition that would confront them

if they went in. They overvalued the strength of their opposition

and undervalued the strength of the promise of God. This was the

PROMISED land. And in fear, they turned back.

 Their fatal flaw was that they turned the grace of God into self-focus

rather than God focus, and denied Him. So, we read in Psalm 95:10-

11, “For forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said, ‘It is

a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know My

ways.’ So I swore in My wrath, they shall not enter My rest.”

 So, God literally destroyed every one of them except for the two,

Joshua and Caleb, who actually were trying to turn the people back to

God all the way back at that original moment, saying let’s go in, let’s

do this, God will show Himself faithful. I know what you saw, I know

what happened, I know how you feel, trust the Lord anyway!

 Ok, so what is Jude saying. Live meedly instead of Godly and it may

take a full forty years but things won’t work out. And all the while,

rest and land flowing with the good stuff, you won’t have. And, if

there are some in the mix of the community of God, whether you

make traction or not, the issue is the Lord’s!

Jude Chapter 1 Verses 6 – 7

 Welp, here we go. Here we have some remarks from Jude that are

quite clear that we have in hint in other places of the Bible but not as

clearly as Jude sets forth for us. Peter talked about this too but didn’t

make a connection that Jude makes. Peter said in 2 Peter 2:4, “God

did not spare the angels who sinned, but them down to hell and

delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment.”

 What Peter says does help though, not just in corroboration of Jude but

in explanation of what happened. First, “the angels who sinned.”

Interesting and word for sin in the Greek…, it means to transgress a

boundary of God. I know technically all sin is that but this gives it a

different tone. That these angels did something especially grievous.

 Also, the Greek doesn’t have the word hell. I’m not sure why the

translators translated the Greek in this manner because the phrase used

in the Greek doesn’t mention hades, the Greek word for hell, it is

“tartaroo.” Tartaroo is a phrase meaning to thrust down to Tartarus

and to be held captive there… Where or what is Tartarus?

 To the ancient Greeks, the Greek culture, Tartarus is the deepest,

gloomiest abyss beneath the earth! Situated even lower than hell and

reserved only for the most wicked of souls and for defeated gods!

 Ok so check this out. Do you recall when Jesus cast the demons out of

the man in Luke 8? The demons begged Jesus, in Luke 8:31, “That He

would not command them to go out into the abyss.” Ok, so what does

all this mean. Jude, Peter, Luke in collaboration, there are a group of

angels, that crossed a line beyond even the realm of sin and

transgression towards God, that changed them from their original

domain, place, form, whatever, (Jude says abode), and as a result, they

are chained in the abyss until the final judgment.

 AND, Jude connects verses 6 and 7, tying what happened with these

angels to what happened in Sodom and Gomorrah which was going

after strange flesh, or different flesh.

 Alright, on down the rabbit hole we go…, next week!