The Book of Jude for Lenten Repentance The Second Midweek Service in Lent
You Once Fully Knew It Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! In tonight’s reading, Jude calls upon all Christians, including you and me, “to contend for the faith that was once delivered for all to the saints.” Jude show us HOW to contend for the faith by pointing us to God’s Word—to our Sunday School lessons, in particular—reminding us of things we once fully knew. First Jude says, “I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it.” Then Jude summarizes those lessons he thinks we should have learned in Sunday School: the Exodus from Egypt, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and so on. Dear Christian friends, You might have heard in the news how the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America—the ELCA—now welcomes openly homosexual pastors. What you might not have heard is the beginning of the story. How it might be possible for a Christian church body to get to such a point? Here is the beginning of the story: The ELCA took its first steps toward homosexual ordinations when it stopped believing its Sunday School lessons. The rejection of God’s Bible begins in what seems like an innocent manner: · Begin by throwing out the history of creation, Genesis 1-2. Because evolution supposedly represents true science (a devilish lie), then Genesis therefore cannot possibly be history. Creation must be thought of as a myth. Genesis is really just a human book—and a somewhat obsolete one at that. · After you have torn creation away from God’s Scriptures, kill the Book of Jonah. No one can survive three days in a fish, where it is impossible to eat, drink, or breathe. Plus, think of the digestive juices! Jonah must be the result of someone’s colorful imagination, not the writing and handiwork of God. Once you throw away one or two of God’s Bible stories, nothing will prevent you from eventually rejecting—in the name of Christianity—everything else in God’s book! God does not forbid the ordination of women—Paul was just a culture-bound chauvinist. Sodom and Gomorrah was not a condemnation of homosexuality—Sodom and Gomorrah burned because the people lacked generosity and hospitality. God’s Bible might even be totally irrelevant to church life today. Throw away God’s Bible stories and you can shape your Christianity into anything you personally want it to be. Throw away God’s Bible stories, and certain people will not fail to creep in unnoticed. They will finish the job that you began. They will “pervert the grace of God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ” and you will end up allowing them to do so. After a while, not even the resurrection of the dead will matter! To be fair, Jude has not written his letter to those who have thrown away God’s Scriptures. Jude has written his letter to those who must yet contend for the faith against those who have thrown away God’s Scriptures in their own circles. Jude has written his letter to us. · We should not think of the ELCA and shake our heads in shock or dismay. We should take a lesson from the ELCA and think of our own Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. We should think of our own congregation and the dangers to which we expose ourselves and our families, the moment we turn our attention away from God’s Scriptures. Then we should bow our heads in sorrow and in repentant prayer. “I want to remind you,” says Jude, “although you once fully knew it.” · We should not turn up our nose toward those who have rejected God’s Scriptures. We should stick our own noses ever deeper into God’s Book! In addition to our faithful reading—as individuals and as a congregation—we should continually beg with King David, “Open my eyes, O Lord, that I may behold wondrous things out of Your Word [Torah]” (Psalm 119:18). · Look at the ELCA and see there a picture and portrait of your Missouri Synod’s own future. If you think such things cannot happen to us, then go talk to those who regularly send resolutions to our conventions, calling upon us to discuss to the possibility of women’s ordination. Talk also to the convention committees who ever allow such resolutions to see the light of day. · Look at the ELCA and see there a portrait of your own congregation’s future, if we do not remain ever vigilant in the living and power Scriptures of God! As Paul declared, “Let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed, lest he fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12)—that includes the good men and women of Grace Lutheran Church and their swaggering pastor! Jude wants us to know that God’s Scriptures are our one and only defense—even when we look around and do not see any danger present (as if that were possible).Jude wants us to know that God’s Scriptures are our once and only defense against those who sneak about and “pervert the grace of God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.” Jude wants us to know that God’s Scriptures are our sole power and strength as we “contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” Jude also wants you and me both to repent. In particular, Jude wants us to repent of not taking God’s Scriptures seriously enough—God’s Sunday School stories in particular. Jude thinks we might have once known them better than we do now—and he wants us to go back to that rich and fertile knowledge! First Jude says, “Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it.” Then Jude launches into a quick review of everything we should have already learned—or should have learned—in Sunday School: that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day—just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. The more distance you allow between yourself and God’s Scriptures, the more dangerous your life becomes. Tragically, the more distance you allow between yourself and God’s Scriptures, the more blinded you become to your danger! “Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it.” Jude needs remind us because Jude knows how quickly we forget. Jude would have us act out our Lenten repentance by reading the Scriptures anew—reading them as if we have never read them before. Jude would have us act out our repentance by sticking ever closer to God’s Word—closer than your or I might think we need to be! Nothing happens anywhere in the Church today that has not already happened before. By knowing how God HAS acted, we can know and we trust how God WILL act. Jude earnestly and lovingly reminds us of what we once know—Jude calls upon us to know it anew—so that God may continue to act in grace and mercy toward us, rather than in judgment. Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
