Contend for the Faith

CONTEND FOR THE FAITH
DR. JIM DIXON
JUDE 1:1
JUNE 13, 1993

Jude was the youngest son of Joseph and Mary. He was the half-brother of our Lord Jesus Christ. He was the full brother of James, who became the great head of the Jerusalem church. Jude became a disciple of Christ after the resurrection. He went on to become a missionary and ultimately a martyr. He wrote this one book in the New Testament, this little letter, this one-chapter letter. From this letter, we have two messages this morning. The first message is this: contend for the faith. Contend for the faith which was once and for all delivered to the saints.

Now, 150 million years ago, according to paleontologists, there was a great battle, an epic struggle, right here in the state of Colorado 25 miles south of what today is called La Junta. It was a battle between giants. It was a battle between dinosaurs. On one side there were the largest of the carnivores, the largest of the flesh-eating dinosaurs. They were called Allosaurs and they were the predecessors of the Tyrannosaurus Rex. They used their clawed feet and their giant jaws and teeth to shred the flesh of their enemies.

Now on the other side, there were the largest of the herbivores, the largest of the plant-eaters. They were called Apatosaurus, sometimes mistakenly called Brontosaurs. They were formidable fighters as well. They used their long tails like whips. They would sometimes stand on their hind legs and use their stubby forelegs to kick box. They would sometimes stand on their forelegs, on their front legs, and use their hind legs, those massive hind legs, to slam dunk their opponent.

Now paleontologists, based on the footprints left in hardened clay, have tried to piece together what happened in this epic battle that happened so long ago. They are not able to determine the results. They do not know who won that battle, but this much is clear. It is clear that, in a sense, the battle continues. Not between dinosaurs, not between Allosaurs and Apatosaurus, but between carnivores and herbivores. The battle continues between flesh eaters and plant eaters. Even today in the animal kingdom you have animals killing and being killed.

As human beings, we should not look at this with any smugness because human history is filled with wars and with rumors of wars. And so it is today. Human beings are adept at killing. Some battles that humans participate in are fought over virtually nothing, no justifiable cause. Other battles that we as humans participate in have some nobility of purpose. The Bible tells us there is one battle more important than any other battle. one battle that we, as humans, can enter into and this battle is of supreme importance. This battle is not really in the physical realm so much as the spiritual realm. This battle is between light and darkness. This battle is between Christ and Antichrist. This battle, Jude tells us, is the battle for the faith. It is the battle for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints. The souls of men and women are at stake. If you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you have been called, commanded, to enter into this engagement, to enter into this conflict, to enter into this battle. Contend for the faith.

Now if you’re a Christian, truly, then there is a sense in which theologically you must be a conservative. You might be liberal in other areas of your life, but theologically you must be a conservative because the Bible says, “This is the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints.” This faith does not change. This faith transcends time and culture. The message, the gospel that we present to this world, is the same for every generation. It changeth not. It is the same today and forever. This is the faith we contend for, the Christian faith.

Just yesterday, Barb and Heather decided they wanted to go to the Cherry Creek Mall. They wanted to do some shopping there. I decided to come along, but when we got to the Cherry Creek Mall, and I saw where they wanted to shop, I really was not interested. I asked Barb and Heather if I could just wander around and I would just meet them an hour later. We decided where we would meet, and I took off. I went to this bookstore in the Cherry Creek Mall. I went in and just browsed. I went to the religion section of the bookstore. I was stunned to see, really surprised, to see that, first of all, the New Age Section was larger than the Christian book section and the section on eastern religions was far larger than the section that dealt with Christian books. As I browsed through the section that dealt with Christian books, I found that many of those books were actually attacking the Christian faith and the reliability of the Bible.

There was one book there that I spent about a half hour just browsing through. It was a book by Steve Allen, the composer, the writer, the author who is known for his wit and perhaps his intelligence. Many of you, I am sure, are fond of Steve Allen, but the book that he wrote was simply an attack on the Bible and an attack on the Christian faith. I was just stunned as I turned the pages and I saw how he attacked the reliability and credibility of the Bible. He said it was filled with contradictions and inconsistencies. He attacked the credibility of the Christian faith. The tragedy of it, as you went through, he was pulling Bible verses out of context time and again. He was misunderstanding the meaning of Greek and Hebrew words. The real tragedy is that uninformed people who perhaps, like Steve Allen, would go in there and read that book. They would read that book and perhaps they would begin to doubt their Christian faith or perhaps begin to doubt the credibility and the authenticity of holy scripture. It is a tragedy.

Jude says, “Contend for the faith.” God wants you to know this. If you do not enter into this battle, people on the other side, our enemies, are going to enter in. They’re not going to hold back. There are plenty of people out there attacking Christianity. There are plenty of people out there attacking the credibility of the Bible. God calls each and every one of us as believers in Christ to enter into this battle and to contend for the faith.

The Greek word that is used for “contend” is the word “agonia,” and it is the word from which we get the word “agony.” There is a certain agony to live in this world, to enter into this fight, this conflict. I am sure many of you as you read the newspapers, as you see what is going on in our culture, in society, with the erosion of Judeo-Christian values, surely agonize. But this is an active word. We are called to engage in this battle. I would like to suggest this morning three ways that you could fight for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints.

First of all, God wants us to contend with our minds. God has given all of us brains and He expects us to use them. I know that all of you have heard of apologetics. Apologetics in the Christian context is the effort to rationally defend the Christian faith. It comes from the Greek word “apologia.” This word was used by the Apostle Peter, “Always be ready to give a defense, an apologia, to anyone who calls you to account for the faith that is in you.” Now this word apologia literally means “from logic.” It literally means “from reason.” You see, God wants you as a Christian to be able to logically, rationally, present what you believe and defend it. He wants you to be able to defend the doctrines you believe in, the truths you believe in, the ethics and morals you espouse. He wants you to be able to defend them logically and rationally. There are those in our culture and society who are attacking the Christian faith, and they seek to do it logically and rationally. God wants us to defend the Christian faith and He wants us to use logic and reason.

I think we should understand that the enemy in our culture and time is not so much atheism as pantheism. There were times long ago when Christian apologetics focused primarily on atheism in an effort to rationally defend the reality of God and His existence. That is no longer the great need of Christian apologetics today. Most people in our culture here in the United States of America believe in the existence of God. Most surveys show that 94% of the people, the men and women in the United States of America, believe in God. The other 6% who do not believe in God are mostly agnostic rather than atheistic. We are a very, very religious nation. We are one of the most religious peoples in the world. We confront, as we bring forth the message of Christ, a nation, a world very much like the world that the Apostle Paul and all the apostles of Christ faced in the first century.

When Paul went to Athens… you recall how he went up on the Acropolis and he saw the Parthenon. He saw all the Greek deities and all the idols to all the Greek gods. Paul then walked down from the Acropolis and he went up on the Areopagus and there in front of the Greek multitudes Paul said, “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious, for as I walked along observing the objects of your worship, I saw one altar with this inscription, ‘To an unknown God.’ What, therefore, you worship as unknown, this I declare to you.” He went on to present rationally the gospel of Jesus Christ and to defend the Lordship of Christ and the offer of Christ to save people from their sins.

This is the situation we confront as Christians living in this culture—a similar situation where people believe in God. Indeed, most people are kind of pantheistic or religiously synergistic. They try to combine components of all the religions of the world. People have kind of a hodge-podge view of God in our culture. People are not really sure who God is. Into this confused culture, we’ve been called to take the message of Jesus Christ, that God is revealed solely and uniquely through Him, that He offers to be the Savior of the world if we would take Him as Lord. We need to offer rationally the tenants of the Christian faith and rationally from logic we need to defend the morals and ethics that we espouse.

But there is a second weapon that we have as we contend for the faith, and I think it’s more powerful. The second weapon that we have as we contend for the faith is not so much our minds as it is our experience. We bring our testimonies to this battle. As Christian men and women, we have been called to go into this world and share our experience with God, to share our experience with Christ, to share our testimony. I mean if you’re a Christian there was some point where you embraced Jesus Christ as your Savior and as your Lord and you have experienced, for some period of time, what it means to walk with Him. God wants you to share that testimony, that experience with other people in this world. That testimony, that experience, is powerful, more powerful even than the arguments you can give with your mind.

I know many of you have heard of the Flat Earth Society. It is a very small group. The Flat Earth Society are men and women who believe this earth is flat and they regard as bogus the scientific claim that the world is global or spherical. They regard as bogus the lunar landings of the United States and the Soviet Union, or what at one time was called the Soviet Union. They believe those lunar landings were mockups in studios designed to perpetrate a hoax upon the people of the world. The Flat Earth Society. It is not difficult to join. All you need is a flat EEG.

Of course, the view that the earth is flat is not a very popular view today. You won’t find many people who think that, but you can go back a few centuries in millennia and you will find that most people thought the world was flat. Now the view that this earth is global or spherical is ancient. Aristotle sought to prove logically, scientifically, mathematically that the world was round. Even Pythagoras before Aristotle sought to prove the same.

The view that this world is global or spherical is an ancient view, but the common person didn’t believe it. Despite the arguments from logic, they didn’t believe it. The common everyday person thought that if you took off in a ship and you went out over the ocean, you would come to the point where you would just drop off the edge because the world was flat. But in the 16th century, Magellan, Fernando Magellan, circumnavigated the globe. He circumnavigated the world. When the people in Magellan’s party came back and shared their testimonies that they had gone all the way around the world, that they had taken off in one direction and come back to the same point, that was testimony of personal experience, and it was powerful, more powerful than the prior arguments that had simply been based on logic. This was a testimony. This was an argument based on experience and it transformed the attitude of many people in this world.

God has called you as you contend for the faith, to go forth with your personal testimony of your personal experience of Jesus Christ and what He has done for you. God wants you to know that by His Holy Spirit, He will empower you as you share that testimony. Before Jesus Christ left this world and ascended to the Father, one of His final statements to His disciples was this: “When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you shall be My witnesses.” As you go forth into this world and you contend for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints, you go forth in the power of the Holy Spirit. As you share your testimony, your experience, God wants you to know the Holy Spirit attends that testimony and that experience and it is powerful.

I think God wants us to know also that there is a third weapon, tool, that we use in this great struggle as we contend for the faith. This third tool that we use as we contend for the faith is our actions. We contend with our minds. We contend with our testimony, but we also contend with our actions, the way we live.

Jesus Christ said, “By this all men will know you are My disciples if you love.” You see, your testimony will not have much power if you’re not a person who loves. Your arguments from logic and reason will not have much power if you are not a person who loves. As we contend for the faith, we go forth into the world as people who love.

I thank God for this church. I thank God for the compassionate ministries of this church. I look at Manna Ministries. Literally thousands of people who have been helped through Manna Ministries at this church, who have received food and clothing, prayer and medical assistance—all of this an expression of the love of Jesus Christ. I thank God for that.

I thank God for the fact that we seek to love people with the love of Jesus Christ. There is no hope in this battle for the faith unless we become a people who love. I thank God for our ministry in the inner cities. I thank God for Ed and Carol Bullis, not only for their ministry in Juarez, but for their ministry in the inner city here in Denver. I thank God for the five inner city churches that we have joined hands with. I thank God for all of you who have gone into the inner city willing to love people for Jesus Christ. Right now we have 400 people in this church who are going into the inner city every week, loving kids for Christ, working as tutors with inner city children and sharing your faith in Christ.

I thank God for our support groups here at the church who seek to help people who are hurting in so many different ways. I would like to see us become a church that is even more compassionate, more loving for Christ’s sake. I’d like to see us reach out to AIDS victims, street people. There should be no limit to our love because there’s no limit to God’s love. If we would have powerful testimony in this world, we must be people of love. This is not only true of the church collectively, but each and every one of us individually. If we would really “fight the good fight,” if we would really “contend for the faith,” we need to not only use our minds and our testimonies, but our actions need to demonstrate the love of Jesus Christ. We do all this so at the end of our lives we might be able to say with the Apostle Paul, “I have fought the good fight. I have kept the faith. I’ve finished the race.” Contend for the faith that was once and for all delivered to the saints.

The second message, briefer message, from Jude this morning is a statement that Jude makes—I think a very difficult statement. Jude says in verse 23, “Hate even the garment stained or spotted by the flesh.” “Hate even the garment stained by the flesh.” In Leviticus, chapters 13 and 14, we see the Levitical law regarding leprosy. We’re told that those who were afflicted with leprosy and could not be made clean, that they were to be banished from the community. They were to be sent to a place apart. That’s why so many lepers dwelled in dens and caves of the earth. We are told that lepers were to tear their garments. They were to tear their clothing so that their clothes became like rags, and they were to leave their hair disheveled, to leave their hair messed up, so that they could be easily recognized even from a distance. Of course, if a leper came within 100 feet of a normal human being, the leper was to shout, “Unclean! Unclean!”

We’re also told in Leviticus 13 that the garments of lepers, even the garments, were to be burned, consumed by fire. Now, Jude is not talking about leprosy. He does not say, “Hate even the garments stained by leprosy.” He says, “Hate even the garment stained by the flesh.” The word “flesh” in the Greek is the word “sarx” and in the New Testament it refers to the sin nature. “Hate even the garment stained by the sin nature.” Jude wants us to understand, God wants us to understand, that sin is like leprosy. It is like a disease. It kills. It brings death. Ultimately it brings hell. Sin is a horrible disease. What Jude is saying here is hate even the garment stained by sin. Hate sin. Hate even the stain of sin.

Of course, I think the problem for most of us is that we do not really hate sin. I mean, do you really hate sin? Perhaps we hate the sin of others, but do we hate our own sin? I think one reason people don’t hate sin is because of the pleasure of sin. There is a certain pleasure to sin. Even gossip provides a certain amount of pleasure. Gluttony provides a certain amount of pleasure. Sexual sins provide a certain amount of pleasure. The Bible speaks of the “fleeting pleasures of sin.” Some people, for the sake of those fleeting pleasures, really love sin. If you’re a Christian and you believe in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, you’re called to hate sin, even the stain of sin.

Many of you are married. You have a husband or a wife. Have you ever felt an attraction to a person who is not your husband or wife? Have you ever been with a person who is not your husband or your wife and felt a kind of sexual chemistry there? I think if you’re honest, most of you would say yes. How should you respond to that when you find yourself in such a situation as that? How should you respond? You should respond like Joseph did in the presence of Potiphar’s wife. You should flee, if you hate even the garment stained by sin.

I think some people do not hate sin because of the profit of sin. Sometimes sin is profitable. If you cheat on your income taxes, that can be profitable. It is sin. Even slander can provide both pleasure and profit. Jesus Christ said, “What does it profit a person if they gain the whole world and forfeit their soul?” “Hate even the garment stained by sin.”

I think some people do not hate sin because they’re not sure what sin is. It is the kind of culture we live in. Moral and ethical confusion. We have begun to call good, evil, and evil, good. People are not sure anymore what is good, what is sin. Of course, that’s why we as Christians need a prophetic voice in this culture and time. We need to boldly teach what God has said in His word because Judeo-Christian values are eroding in our midst. Also, we as Christians need to study the scriptures and make sure we know what pleases God and what doesn’t and that our lives are in conformity to God’s will, that we literally hate what doesn’t please God.

You know, it is true that as Christians we’re called to love all people. Jesus said, “You’ve heard it said of old, love your neighbor. Hate your enemy. I say to you, love your enemy.” In Christ, the New Testament message is this: We are to love everybody. Everybody. But if you really love people, you are going to hate sin. If you really love people, you’re going to hate sin because sin destroys people. It just destroys people.

Of course, we live in a culture where tolerance is perhaps the highest virtue. By tolerance, many educators mean acceptance. Jude says, “Hate even the garment stained by the flesh.” Love people. Hate sin. Love sinners because we are all sinners. Love sinners but hate sin. I think that is a difficult call. I think it’s difficult to translate that into lifestyle and action. The call of Christ is not always easy.

Our time draws to a close. There are many things I wanted to say… and I think the message of God to us today, and that Jude by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, shared so long ago, is this: contend for the faith. We’re engaged in a great battle for the souls of men and women. Contend for the faith that is once and for all delivered to the saints. Contend with your minds, with your testimonies, and with your love. Hate sin. Hate even the stain of sin. Sin kills people. Let us close with a word of prayer.