Living On Mission with Jude and the Holy Spirit

Living On Mission with Jude and the Holy Spirit

¹⁷ “But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. ¹⁸ They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” ¹⁹ These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

²⁰ But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, ²¹ keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.

²² Be merciful to those who doubt; ²³ save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.” (Jude 17-23)

There’s a lot going on in this portion of Jude! The Holy Spirit is a common theme that really stands out as we look for ways to live out this passage.

Verses 17-19 warn us about the dangers of living without the Spirit. I think we have all experienced the tension between living out our own “instinctive” desires and living according to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Our own desires are ungodly and cause division because they are directly opposed to the desires of God.  Here’s an example: We want our own way. All the time. God says, “My ways are higher than your ways.” We selfishly seek to obtain more – of everything.  The Kingdom way is, “If you have two shirts, give one to the poor.”  (Luke 3:11)

 

Verses 20-21 teach us to persevere by building ourselves up and praying so that we can keep going until our final redemption. We are strengthened and transformed when we really know and experience the love of God. We have to connect with Him every day. We have to learn to live in His presence. This is where our power comes from.  This is where our life is.

 

Verses 22-23 show us the posture we are to take toward others. Only when we are fully immersed and aware of the love of God can we truly love others.  Only when we are full of the Spirit are we able to exhibit His characteristics toward others.  We can be merciful – if we are empowered by the Holy Spirit. We will passionately seek salvation of others – when we are full of the Holy Spirit. This is how we trade our own natural, ungodly desires for the desires of God.  

 

Let’s practice living on mission!

 

Pastor Angela

FAMILY IT! — Wednesday Family Devotional — “Mixtures and Solutions”

Supplies: Bible; cooking oil; 2 different drinks; 2 glasses

SHARE 

When I was growing up, one of my favorite TV shows was “Laverne & Shirley.”  One of the main character’s favorite drinks was milk and Pepsi.  (Gross, I know.)  Make your own “TV Show” drink by combining two different beverages in your house.  My guess is you could come up with some tasty ones.  Iced tea and lemonade, maybe.  Or perhaps Diet Cran-Cola?  If nothing else, whip up a quick glass of milk water.  Not as yummy, but it’ll make my point, because all of these are “solutions.”  Anybody taking chemistry in school this year will learn that.  You’ve combined these two things and now they make something new, something that can’t be separated again.  It’s a solution.

Try the same thing using one of your beverage choices and a little bit of cooking oil.  Stir it up really well.  Now wait a minute.  Almost immediately you’ll start to see the oil separate from the other liquid.  No matter how hard your mix it up, it will eventually split into its two parts.  That means it’s a mixture.

READ

Read Jude 17-25 together.  Paraphrase for younger children. 

THINK AGAIN

In the first half of his letter, this brother of Jesus shared about how dark the world is.  He didn’t mince words: there’s a lot of sin and it is EVERYWHERE.  It’s in our schools, our workplaces, our neighborhoods, even our homes.  Some people just seem to make it their life’s goal to try and mix up your relationships.  It’s like they enjoy dividing people and causing friction.  Bad attitudes and ungodly behaviors show up in our teammates, our coworkers, even our friends and family sometimes.  It can be hard to avoid!  

Beginning with verse 17, Jude encourages believers to persevere through it all.  He tells us to “keep [ourselves] in God’s love.”  The solution, ironically, is to be a solution, to allow our lives to blend with the Holy Spirit so completely that we become someone totally different—completely inseparable.  Too often we let Jesus in, but we keep the oily coating of doubt or past sin habits.  We get bumped our shaken in our faith, and pretty soon we’re separating out again, pulling away from our Savior.  Not good!  We don’t want to just mix it up with God—we want to be new creations, right?

APPLY

How’s your solution?  Think for a few minutes about what you can do to make your relationship with God more complete.  Share some of your ideas with each other.  Now have each person in your family choose one as a goal for the week (i.e. “I’m going to spend ____ minutes in prayer every morning before I leave my room.”).  Set a date a week from now to check and see how everyone is doing.

Are you feeling mixed up?  Are there some things right now that are more challenging for you to get past?  Maybe there’s that one person who really knows how to rattle your faith cage.  Or maybe it’s a recent event that’s causing you to pull away from the Father a little.  Share that with at least one person in your family, and ask them to pray for you to increase your faith and belief in Jesus.

PRAY

Dear Jesus, You are my solution.  You’re the answer to everything I need, to every want I could ever have.  Jesus, I also want my life to be a solution, a perfect combination of You in me.   Draw me close to You, Lord, so that I might never be separated.  As the world around me gets crazier and my faith gets rocked, keep me always in Your love.  In Your Name we pray, Amen.

REPLY

Did you and your family enjoy this devotional blog?  We'd love to know about it!  Our hope is to continue providing this weekly opportunity for families to do a devotion together.  If your family did this devotion, please shoot us an email, text or just post a comment to this blog.

FAMILY IT! — Wednesday Family Devotional — “Fight for Your Faith”

Supplies: Bible; paper and pen

SHARE 

Have you ever worked really hard to do something that you really wanted to preserve, to keep just the way you did it?  I knew this family when I was a kid, and the mom was a neat freak.  She didn’t just tidy—she did spring cleaning almost daily.  While the kids were at school, she dusted every room, scrubbed the bathroom and kitchen, and vacuumed the whole house.  Every. Day.  And because a clean house was so important to her, when the kids got home from school, they weren’t allowed to go to their rooms.  They could play downstairs or do homework in the kitchen, but that was it until bedtime.  She didn’t want them to mess up the clean.  It was so important, she was willing to fight for those dust-free dressers and clutter-free floors.  Woe to any person who put a footprint on those fresh vacuum tracks!

Take turns sharing something your worked hard for that you wanted to keep.  Maybe you built a really cool tower with blocks or Legos and didn’t want to tear it down.  Maybe you drew an amazing picture on a chalkboard and didn’t want anyone to erase it.  Maybe you spent all day cleaning your room until it was spotless and didn’t want it to get messed up again.  Ok, maybe not that last one, but something, right? What made it so important to you?  What did you do or what were you willing to do to preserve it?

READ

Read Jude 1-16 together.  Paraphrase for younger children. 

THINK AGAIN

Jude wrote this great letter to all believers.  It’s not just to the church-goers of his time—it’s to anyone who has started a relationship with Jesus.  Jude warns us about a pitfall that many followers of Jesus stumble into.  He knows how great it is to start a saving relationship with Jesus, to have our sins wiped clean and be given a new heart.  We feel incredible, full of the power of the Holy Spirit.  Often we don’t recognize the darkness that other people are bringing back into our world.  Our friends begin to tease us because of our new faith.  The notice we’re acting differently—being nicer, not gossiping, helping people—and they tell us to lighten up and chillax.  Or worse, they start calling us names.  You turn to a friend who goes to a different church, and they tell you that it doesn’t matter what you do as long as you believe in God.  They twist the Word around and suddenly you’re not sure what’s right and what’s not.

When that starts to happen, Jude says we need to FIGHT FOR OUR FAITH.  We have to be willing to take a stand and defend what we believe, what we know to be true.  Just like the examples you shared earlier, we have to value the purity of our faith, of our relationship with Jesus so much that we’re willing to rock some boats to keep it strong.  

APPLY

What are ways your can fight for your faith?  What are some things you can do to keep your relationship with God strong when other people are trying to mess it up or tear it down?  Share some ideas with each other.  Write them down.  Put them some place where you can all read them again.  This is one of those things that comes up again and again, and it’s good to have a game plan.  

My guess is some of you have already had your boats rocked a little.  Someone has walked on your clean carpets a little and you’re maybe wondering what’s what.  That’s ok.  Doubt and questions are normal at times.  If you have some questions about God or about faith, take some time to talk about them now.  What confuses you?  Is there anything about Jesus that just doesn’t make sense? Whatever’s on your mind!  Mom and Dad, if you’re not sure about some of these answers, you can always contact our Children’s Pastor Karin Orwig or our Youth Pastor Scott Perschall (or even Pastor Todd).  In fact, any of our pastoral team would be delighted to answer any questions you may have.  If that’s what it takes, do it!  Fight for your faith and for the faith of your kids!

PRAY

Jesus, You did an amazing thing.  You died on the cross so I could have a relationship with God the Father, so that I could know forgiveness and be saved.  That is so important, Jesus, and I’m willing to fight for that truth in my life.  Give me the courage I will need to hold on to my faith in the middle of darkness and difficulties.  In Your Name we pray, Amen.

REPLY

Did you and your family enjoy this devotional blog?  We'd love to know about it!  Our hope is to continue providing this weekly opportunity for families to do a devotion together.  If your family did this devotion, please shoot us an email, text or just post a comment to this blog.

PREPARE FOR IT! - Saturday Reading - Book of Jude

Tomorrow's sermon will include the following scripture.  

Let's read it together today to prepare our hearts.

Greetings from Jude

1 This letter is from Jude, a slave of Jesus Christ and a brother of James.

I am writing to all who have been called by God the Father, who loves you and keeps you safe in the care of Jesus Christ.

2 May God give you more and more mercy, peace, and love.

The Danger of False Teachers

3 Dear friends, I had been eagerly planning to write to you about the salvation we all share. But now I find that I must write about something else, urging you to defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to his holy people. 4 I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches, saying that God’s marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. The condemnation of such people was recorded long ago, for they have denied our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

5 So I want to remind you, though you already know these things, that Jesus first rescued the nation of Israel from Egypt, but later he destroyed those who did not remain faithful. 6 And I remind you of the angels who did not stay within the limits of authority God gave them but left the place where they belonged. God has kept them securely chained in prisons of darkness, waiting for the great day of judgment. 7 And don’t forget Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighboring towns, which were filled with immorality and every kind of sexual perversion. Those cities were destroyed by fire and serve as a warning of the eternal fire of God’s judgment.

8 In the same way, these people—who claim authority from their dreams—live immoral lives, defy authority, and scoff at supernatural beings. 9 But even Michael, one of the mightiest of the angels, did not dare accuse the devil of blasphemy, but simply said, “The Lord rebuke you!” (This took place when Michael was arguing with the devil about Moses’ body.) 10 But these people scoff at things they do not understand. Like unthinking animals, they do whatever their instincts tell them, and so they bring about their own destruction. 11 What sorrow awaits them! For they follow in the footsteps of Cain, who killed his brother. Like Balaam, they deceive people for money. And like Korah, they perish in their rebellion.

12 When these people eat with you in your fellowship meals commemorating the Lord’s love, they are like dangerous reefs that can shipwreck you. They are like shameless shepherds who care only for themselves. They are like clouds blowing over the land without giving any rain. They are like trees in autumn that are doubly dead, for they bear no fruit and have been pulled up by the roots. 13 They are like wild waves of the sea, churning up the foam of their shameful deeds. They are like wandering stars, doomed forever to blackest darkness.

14 Enoch, who lived in the seventh generation after Adam, prophesied about these people. He said, “Listen! The Lord is coming with countless thousands of his holy ones 15 to execute judgment on the people of the world. He will convict every person of all the ungodly things they have done and for all the insults that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.”

16 These people are grumblers and complainers, living only to satisfy their desires. They brag loudly about themselves, and they flatter others to get what they want.

A Call to Remain Faithful

17 But you, my dear friends, must remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ said. 18 They told you that in the last times there would be scoffers whose purpose in life is to satisfy their ungodly desires. 19 These people are the ones who are creating divisions among you. They follow their natural instincts because they do not have God’s Spirit in them.

20 But you, dear friends, must build each other up in your most holy faith, pray in the power of the Holy Spirit, 21 and await the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will bring you eternal life. In this way, you will keep yourselves safe in God’s love.

22 And you must show mercy to those whose faith is wavering. 23 Rescue others by snatching them from the flames of judgment. Show mercy to still others, but do so with great caution, hating the sins that contaminate their lives.

A Prayer of Praise

24 Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from falling away and will bring you with great joy into his glorious presence without a single fault. 25 All glory to him who alone is God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord. All glory, majesty, power, and authority are his before all time, and in the present, and beyond all time! Amen.