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“Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy.” (Jude 1:24)
Jude, a half-brother of Jesus, wrote this book beginning with the intention of giving a salvation message to his friends, fellow believers in the apostolic Church of Jesus. But early in his letter, Jude stated then he was led to address the agonistic teaching that had cropped up within the Church.
The Gnostics were teaching a false doctrine that believers could sin freely because of the overwhelming grace of Jesus. They have twisted the truth of the sound doctrine that the Apostle Paul had been writing of. “The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.” (Romans 5:20) Their teaching that man could freely sin goes against the teaching of Jesus as He told His disciples in the Gospel of Matthew, “Therefore you are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48) Perfection is an unreachable goal for man to achieve, but praise the Lord that He will fulfill the measure of righteousness for us if we strive to keep His commandments. We know that we are imperfect and broken people, but our walk with Jesus is a daily walk, and He is faithful and true to forgive us when we stumble. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1 John 1:9) Knowing this true promise of our Lord does not give us a license to freely sin and depend on the grace of God to overlook our sin. God’s grace is the power to overcome our sinful desires in those weak times of temptation. “No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)
Despite their false teaching, the sins committed would not be held against them because God’s grace was also a grave error. For all will come to judgment for the deeds done in the flesh at the proper time. “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” (2 Corinthians 5:10) I do not think the Judgment Seat of Christ is a forum that deals with sin for the follower of Jesus as much as it is a forum to judge the work done for the Kingdom of God in the power of the Holy Spirit. Still, evil intentions and a lack of motivation to do the Kingdom’s good work will most certainly come into play, for these are the faults that we have as humans that lead us into sinful ways. The point is that blatant sin could not be expected on our part to be received by God as anything but disobedience. That’s the problem, isn’t it, sinful behavior.
I was recently dealing with the family of one who committed suicide. This person had been a devout member of the Church, and the family could not understand how they could have committed such a horrible act to take their own life. I do not know if I gave them good counsel or not, as all could think is that suicide is not a greater sin than that little white lie we so often tell.
It is men who measure sin, not God. Sin is disobedience to God’s Word, and for that, the penalty is death. One can die just as dead for a white lie as they can for committing suicide. Suicide always leaves the family and loved ones filled with unanswered questions. They cannot be answered; they can only be analyzed, which can be nothing more than a good guess. The loved ones needlessly carry so much guilt. The question of what did I do wrong, what more could I have done, and if I could only talk to them now falls short. The questions go unanswered, and grief lasts all that much longer, and talking it out still leaves an empty space. But the question was this that person was a born-again believer. The knee-jerk response is where they? But that person was a born-again Christian, and I know that. She was a friend of mine, she was in my Sunday school class, and I had heard her testify to the glory of God in her life several times. I believe that she was chosen, and I believe that she was glory bound.
Jesus came into the world as the Lamb of God and sacrificed Himself for the sins of the world. Not just your sin but my sin. Not only the sins of the righteous but for the sins of the unrighteous. If we were righteous, then we would not need Jesus. For all of us, He died for us while we were yet sinners. “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) No one ends up in the Lake of Fire because God sent them there. They chose to go there because they rejected Christ as their personal Savior. By our repentance and confession of sin, Jesus forgave our sins. It is not just the sin we have committed, the sin we still commit, but also the sin we are going to commit. He died for the sins of the world. Now I am not going to spend the next one thousand pages listing the sins that I have committed or will commit, but they are paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ. For me, and all of us, repentance and confession is a daily happening, an everyday miracle in our lives. It is a journey of sanctification in the power of the Holy Spirit.
We are growing from little babes in Christ to spiritual warriors for the day of His return. All the while, our Lord and Savior is faithful and true and will be with us always. It is not that He forsakes us but that we step off the narrow path of His will and forsake Him. Jesus warned the disciples, and He warns us His present disciples, “Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” (Matthew 26:41) Someday we will be shed of this weak flesh and find ourselves in the complete presence of our Lord. I don’t know if we will be standing, kneeling, or prostrate, but I do know we will be as He is. As we continue our repentance and confession journey, He will be faithful and grant us pardon for the sins we have committed. “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” (1 John 3:2)
The heretics that Jude was writing to warn the Church of cannot be true followers of Jesus because they are using His grace to live as they were, people of the worldly way. Those who have accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior in their life, have repented and confessed their sin, and follow Him in trust and obedience to His Word I see as sinless because they do not practice sin. Do they stumble, do they still have sin in their life, and are they imperfect? No. but they are forgiven because they have placed their trust in the atoning blood of Jesus their Christ. Are they born of the flesh? No, they are saddled with the flesh. They are born of the Spirit and are growing more each day into the image of their Lord Jesus. In the end, well, there is no end because they are born of God, and He will dwell with them forever. “No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” (1 John 3:9)
Thomas N Kirkpatrick
First Baptist Church of Durant, March 13, 2018
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