Jude 1:2

The book of Jude, I’ll be reading the first two verses. Our focus will be on verse two tonight. Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father, and preserved in Jesus Christ and called. Mercy unto you, and peace and love be multiplied. And God bless to us, sacred and holy word. word this evening. William James, who was a famous professor of philosophy and psychology at Harvard University, once said that a man doesn’t change after he reaches the age of 30, but he was wrong. John D. Rockefeller once was the world’s only billionaire. But he was a miserable man who couldn’t sleep. who was unloved and needed bodyguards. Then at the age of 53 was stricken with a very rare disease, the doctor gave him a year or so to live. He lost all of his hair, his body became shrunken. He started thinking about his life and the way he had conducted himself. And suddenly, he began to change. He gave away his money to help churches and the poor. He established the Rockefeller Foundation, which has underwritten many critical health research interests. And amazingly, his health improved, and he lived to be 98 years old. Now, Rockefeller underwent a physical and emotional change simply because of an illness. Health problems actually led to a profound change in him. If this is true, from a natural perspective, can there be any doubt that God, by his grace, and by his power, can transform a person spiritually? Rockefeller does not appear to be a believer. External pressures caused him to change some things in his life. How much greater the change must be when God works within you, by His Holy Spirit and the graces of mercy and peace and love transform you. Salvation leads to more than just a reformation of habits. Leads to a change of character. That’s what we see tonight here as we look at Christian graces from this text of scripture. Now let me begin by saying you need the grace of mercy. And you are granted the mercy of God. You know, one of the aims of the Word of God is to declare to you who God is. And one of the things that is spoken to us and told us about God is that He’s merciful. Exodus 34, 5, and 6, the Lord, the Lord merciful and merciful and gracious, long-suffering. and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving, iniquity, transgression, and sin. Micah 718 says, mercy pleaseth him. Psalm 130, verse 4, there is mercy with him. 2 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 3, he is called the Father of mercies and the God of all consolations. Now, why do you need mercy? Well, you need mercy because of your miserable, sinful condition. This is a point which perhaps many people don’t fully comprehend. You may not even realize, in an unsafe state, the significance of the effects that sin has upon you. You recall how Joseph was cast into a deep pit by his brothers, and all his crying and his tears, and he couldn’t get out and they didn’t show him any mercy. They didn’t have any compassion on him whatsoever. Eventually sold him away as a sleigh. If you have an inadequate concept of sin, you’ll also have an inadequate concept of mercy. If you don’t see the pit that you’re in, then you won’t appreciate the mercy of God who pulls you out of the pit. as the psalmist tells us about. Mercy means that in spite of your attitude toward God, as we find, we find it all actually of the unbelievers have this hatred toward God. They have sinful ways. They mistreat others. In spite of all that, God reaches out to you and saves your soul. He pulls you out of the pit. mercy means that in spite of your hatred of God and this hostility, despite your wretched state that you’re in, God intervenes, and he grants you undeserved kindness and help and saves your soul. I want you to look with me at 1 Timothy chapter 1, if you would. Look at the case of Paul for a moment. is he explains it to us in 1 Timothy chapter 1 verses 12 to 16. 1. Timothy chapter 1 versus 12 to 16. He says here, and I thank Christ Jesus our Lord who hath enabled me for that he counted me faithful putting me into the ministry. Who was before a blasphemer and a persecutor and injurious? But I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly. unbelief and the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief. Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might show forth all long suffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting. Now Paul indicates to us here that his salvation is a pattern. In other words, what happened to him is common to all the believers, that God shows mercy to them. Before salvation, Paul was a very self-righteous, proud Pharisee. he blasphemed the name of Jesus Christ. He hated the church of Christ. He persecuted any of the followers of Christ. He compelled them to denounce Christ. He had them thrown into prison. Some even had put to death. He was injurious, as he tells us here, to the kingdom of God. He said, I did those all in ignorance, because there is a sense in which he didn’t realize the truth of the truth of the gospel. There’s a sense in which he thought he was doing God’s service by punishing and harming the people of God. When he came to understand, however, that he was actually the chief of sinners, that he had done great evil and was condemned by the law of God, then, of course, he was granted mercy. Without that mercy, he would have ended up an eternal punishment. without that mercy, he would have perished in his sins. But on the Damascus road, he was confronted by the Lord Jesus Christ, and that was the turning point in the man’s life. He received mercy. He received mercy, as he tells us here in this text of Scripture. God didn’t have to reach out to Paul. God was under no obligation to show mercy to Paul. He could have struck him down. he could have struck him with a disease like he did Herod and had him, you know, his intestines eaten up by worms. He could have had him fall to his own death, you know. He could have had him robbed and put, you know, maybe murdered by those who had robbed him. All these, he could have done any of these things. That’s not what he did. He obtained mercy, he says. And when he talks about obtaining it, he says, He doesn’t say I earned it or I deserved it. I obtained it. God showed him favor and saved his soul. As we saw this morning, it’s the same situation. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, God says. It doesn’t owe anybody any mercy. So there is mercy that’s given to the unbeliever. I’m reminded of the publican at the temple. And he prays God, be mercy. to me a sinner and he goes down to his house justified. He received mercy from God. Not that he deserved it. He knew he was a sinner, but he obtained it. Now, in scripture, there seems to be various kinds of mercy that are granted. Some before salvation and some after salvation. You enjoy the electing mercy of God. Look at Romans chapter 9 with me, verses 22 to 24, if you would. It says here, what if God willing to show his wrath and to make his power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction, and that he might make known the riches of the glory of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared on the glory. Even us. whom he have called of the Jews only but also of the Gentiles. Now here, God is spoken of as the sovereign potter, who makes various vessels for different purposes. You can imagine a potter making some vessels to hold ashes maybe, and some vessels to hold flowers. Some are very ornate, some are very plain. He makes them. as he sees fit or whatever purpose he sees fit. Now I’m inclined to believe that election is specifically an act of love on God’s part and not mercy per se. God chose Israel because he loved the people of Israel. Deuteronomy 7, 7 and 8. His elect are first beloved and then chosen in 2. In 2, Thessalonians 2. 13. Still, since God in electing out of love decreed to show mercy as the means by which those chosen ones would obtain salvation in Jesus Christ, there is some mercy associated with this. That’s thus we read about vessels of mercy. For the fall of man was included in the decree of God. And so with reference to the decree of the means, by which a person obtained salvation, mercy was involved. This supposes it at some point that the elect in the decrees of God were viewed in a fallen state so that they needed this mercy from God. Therefore, in the decree of election, we can distinguish between what we might call the decree of the end and then the decree by which which that end is accomplished, the decree of the means. With respect to the end, the glory of God, that Christ would have a people, man is considered in an unfallen state, a pure mass. With respect to the means, how salvation takes place, by redemption in Christ, by faith in Him, by sanctification of the Spirit, men were considered as fallen. With respect to the means, We find that it’s one of those situations where man is viewed as fallen. This is why sometimes the Bible will portray election here and speak of those who are vessels of mercy which God had for prepared under glory. Now when we think about vessels of water, it’s for holding water. Vessels for ashes is for holding ashes. Vessel is for oil is for holding oil. So a vessel for mercy is for someone who’s going to receive mercy. A vessel for wrath is for someone who’s going to receive wrath. So in the election part, and specifically when God chooses that he does so out of a pure mass, he has a fore prepared you for an end. And that end is here either you’re going to receive wrath or mercy. And the means by which he brings about salvation will be that you are shown mercy or in some cases if you are rejected, you will be given wrath. So we have this aspect of the mercy of God. There is a sense of an electing mercy if we look at it from being a vessel of mercy, one that’s afore-prepared, to receive mercy. There is also the forgiving mercy of God. Forgiveness of sins is another means in which God God shows mercy to you. We read in our previous passage of scripture that I spoke of in Exodus 34, the Lord is merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin. So that the mercy there is connected with forgiveness of our sins. Hebrews says, I will be merciful to their unrighteousness. In Hebrews 8, 12. God has set forth Jesus Christ in his purposes to be a propitiation for the sins of his people to turn away God’s wrath so that he might, sinner might find forgiveness. And so we see this taking place. It is the mercy of God which encourages us when we see our sin to go to God and trust that he will show us mercy. We plead with him, be like the publican, God be merciful to be a sinner. And we can have forgiveness. Even after salvation, the believer is encouraged to go to the throne of grace. Why? To obtain mercy and help in the time of need. We’re always going to be in need of mercy and forgiveness. You enjoy the provisional mercy of God. All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth. When we think about how God provides for us in this life. The scripture says in Psalm 23, we shall not want. The scripture indicates to us that he has given us all things that pertain in the life and godliness in 2 Peter chapter 1. That’s provisional. Not only with regard to the material things of this life that he provides for us, but all spiritual benefits and blessings are given to us. And that’s mercy that he does this. Of course, you have this sustaining mercy of God that God preserves and uphold you in all your trials and distresses. The psalmist in Psalm 9418 says, When I said, my foot slippeth, thy mercy, O Lord, held me up. I once belonged. to a reform group in Pittsburgh when a lot of reform pastors went there. And Dr. Gershner, the late Dr. John Gershner, also went there. And he was in his 80s at the time. And we had both presented papers. I had presented a paper on the superlapsarianism. He had presented a paper on infarapsarianism. We sort of had a debate, and everybody was chipping in. and afterwards I was talking with him. Well, while we were there, we sort of rained and then froze on the parking lot. And so we were the last two that were going to leave. And he asked me, would you walk me out to my car so that don’t slip and fall? So there we are going across that slick parking lot, and I have them by the arm and hoping I don’t fall myself and getting him to his car safely. Well, God does that spiritually. When it feels like, you know, when it looks like our foot is going to slip, God holds us up and protects us and watches over us. And then you enjoy the crowning mercy of God. God brings you to heaven. Frees you from every taint of sin that there is, perfects you, and so forth. Remember, oh, Nessophorus, Paul says, God grant him mercy on that day. The final day, on the day of judgment or on the day when Christ comes back again, that he would receive the mercy of the Lord. So let this mercy of God encourage you to bring your soul into the presence of the Lord because he is a merciful God to us. And so we read about mercy. We all have obtained it as believers in Christ. So you need the grace of mercy. You need the grace of peace. Now, how would you define peace here? Well, a lot of people would define peace as a ceasing of warfare. But that’s not the biblical terminology when it comes to peace. A lack of fighting, a ceasing of war fighting is not the biblical idea. Peace certainly involves the ceasing. of discord and fighting. But it goes beyond that. The concept of this peace in scripture is union. Union after reconciliation. In other words, we have the idea of bringing together a reconciliation after a quarrel of some sort. A person sometimes presents a peace offering as a gift to someone in order to try to reconcile with it. Now, suppose you had a husband and wife, and they have a terrible fight. And there is all kinds of screaming and yelling and name-calling, and a few objects get thrown like a lamp in some dishes and maybe a rolling pin or two. And the police come to the house and give them a warning about disturbing to peace, and they can’t have this anymore. Eventually, after a few hours of talking with the police, things calm down. There’s a ceasefire in their verbal back. battle. No more objects are being thrown. Are they at peace? No. The husband sleeps on the couch, the wife in the master bedroom. Anger sees within them toward one another. Neither one of them gets any sleep, and a divorce is planned, and the union is about to be broken. So a ceasefire did not solve, it didn’t give them peace. Biblical peace is not merely a ceasefire. but reconciliation. If they had gotten together, if they had found forgiveness with one another, if they had reconciled completely so that they were back to where they were before, then you’d have peace. This is the peace we’re talking about in scripture. Now, why do you need peace? Well, if you read the scriptures, you know that you are born a hater of God. As a result of the fall, everyone from birth is hostile toward God. The carnal mind is at enmity, at hostility, with God. In Romans 8.7. As an unbeliever, you are a bitter enemy of God. You fight against God. Your mind is alienated from God. You wish there were no God. You don’t like even the law of God telling you thou shalt not. So there is a problem here. Your conscience. also condemns you. Ever seen those secret fences as those invisible fences for dogs? You know, people have dogs on their property and they’re not chained or collared in any way. And they stay on the property because they have this some type of electronic fence up, a secret type of fence where if they get close to it, they get a shrill noise in their ear. so they know that they can only go so far. then that’s as far as they can go without that noise bothering them. Within the center, we find that there is at times a conflict. Something within them tells them that what they’re doing is wrong. We call it a conscience. It troubles them. It’s an alarm. This is evil. This is wrong. And you feel bad if you do it afterwards because you’re guilt. eats away at you. Consequently, your disturbed conscience won’t allow you to have peace. It bothers you. It troubles your mind. You’re also in a state of conflict with others. If everybody is doing what is right in their own eyes, then you’re going to have conflict with people around you. You’re not at peace with them. Because of sin, you become self-centered and and you become very much domineering. And this leads to discord and unhappiness between you and others, and you don’t get along with your neighbor and so forth. You’re not a peace. And you are deserving of punishment, and you’re deserving of damnation. Down deep inside, you know sin deserves punishment. You know you are guilty of many things and that God is going to hold you accountable. And how can you hope to have peace after death if your whole lifetime is spending conflict with God, with yourself, and with your neighbor? You think anything is going to get better after you die? Know that you’re going to have to give an account to God. It robs you of any peace because you know you’re going to be condemned. There is no peace, say, my God, to the wicked. None. You’re like the troubled sea. It’s constantly in unrest. So you need peace, and this is why you need it. Now, how do you obtain peace? Well, we know that God doesn’t merely forgive people. He doesn’t just say, well, okay, I’m going to forgive. He has to make peace between himself and the sinner. He has to deal with your sin. What caused a division between you and God has to be addressed. Reconciliation. requires the person and work of Jesus Christ. Here’s what Colossians 120 says, having made peace through the blood of his cross. How do you have peace? It’s through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. The blood of Christ, Jesus, the God man, is what reconciles you as a repentant sinner to God. He is your peace offering. His sin or his sacrifice appeases, the wrath of God against you. And his salvation changes you inwardly. Your whole attitude toward God is now different than it was before. You now love God. You desire to serve him, to obey him, and so forth. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, scripture says, in Romans 8.1. And, not only we have peace with God, but the Bible indicates to us this also, that there is an inward change that makes you a peacemaker, as Matthew tells us in Matthew 5. In the Sermon of the Mount, Jesus spoke about that. You desire as much as is possible to live at peace with all men. You love your neighbor as yourself. You work at cultivating good relationship with those around you. And God is able to grant you a peace that passes all understanding. regardless of the trial problem that confront you in this life. Therefore, if you’re a stranger that Jesus Christ, you can never have true peace. Impossible. Happiness is found in the good ways of God, not in the offerings of this world. And so, you need the grace of peace. The third thing, he says, is you need the grace of love. You may be the most simple and common person that ever lived. And yet, if the love of God is shed abroad in your heart, if God reaches out and saves you out of love, you’re special and you’re unique. The Bible declares that it’s God’s great love which moved God to reach out to his people and save them. to set us apart as unto the Lord. The love of the Father is seen in his electing love, giving his only begotten son to die on behalf of those he has chosen. The love of the Son of God is seen in his embracing you as one of God’s elect, one of the sheep of which now he is the shepherd, and in his willingness to be a son. substitute for you and to die in your place as a believer. The love of the Holy Spirit is seen in him coming into your heart, convincing you of your sin, drawing you to Christ, the Savior, working in you all manner of graces. Certainly faith is one of the graces you need and believing so that you believe, so that you believe, assisting you in every way. every duty. Think about the properties of the love of God. It’s a discriminating love. God doesn’t love everyone. Jacob ever loved Esauv, I hate him, but he loved you if you’re a believer. He reached out and loved you, and that’s why you came to know him. There’s nothing in you that attracted the love of God. It was out of his own good pleasure that he reached out to you. We loved God because he first loved us. That’s the simple argument. It’s an eternal love. Before the foundation of the world, God loved you. Think about that. He would never have never entered into a covenant redemption whereby Jesus Christ would be established as your mediator and your savior if he didn’t love you. It’s an immutable love. You know, we have people in the world that have a fickle love. I don’t love you anymore. You never hear you. hear God saying, I don’t love you anymore. He doesn’t change his mind about his love. You know, sometimes someone will say, I love you just as much as when I married you 50 years ago, after the 50th anniversary. It’s an immutable love. God’s love is immutable, but it never changes. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. If God loved you before your conversion, he loves you just as much after your conversion. God’s love to you isn’t diminished because you sin or it isn’t made greater because you’re faithful. It’s a constant love that he has towards you. Sometimes we don’t always appreciate the love of God as we should. It’s an everlasting love. Yea, I love thee with everlasting love. Therefore, with loving kindness, have I drawn thee, Jeremiah 31.3. The bond and union between God and Christ and the elect can never be dissolved. Never. You may lose your health. You may lose your wealth. You may lose your friends. But you never lose the love of God. You can be sure of that. So you need the grace of love. Let me mention a couple considerations now as we close tonight. And the first is this. Spiritual blessings are the best blessings you can from the Lord. Not only Jude, but when you read about from the Apostle Paul or you read any of the epistles and their salutation that they mentioned, they’re always talking about graces granted to the people of God. They wish after their greeting that, not that some temporal blessing would be given to them, but a spiritual blessing of graces. It’s better to have mercy and peace and love than any human gift. The things of this life are temporal things. Yes, we often pray, give us our daily bread to the Lord, but the first request we ought to have should be spiritual for graces. And then those other things can be added to you. I’m reminded of Saul. Solomon, what did he seek? Give me wisdom. God gave him riches and he gave him honor in addition. They were secondary. So the first thing it’s important that he sought for wisdom from the Lord. What could be better than a greater understanding of God’s love to you? A greater than greater than to be granted much mercy? Greater than than to have peace of mind about your relationship to the Lord. People often say, you know, they don’t want to die. They’re not at peace about dying. Well, you can’t live this life unless you have peace with God, because you have to be prepared to die at any moment. So here’s the important thing. Spiritual blessings. That’s why they’re foremost in the minds of the apostles in all these epistles. The second thing is, Your spiritual blessings can be increased and multiplied. He knows he said, he mentions these three graces and then he says be multiplied. Where there’s life that can be growth. We’re to grow in grace as well as in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. If you possess real grace, things can be increased. If we’re not growing, we are sliding backward. If you’re in a robot, boat and you’re going against the tide. If you stop rowing, you just start drifting backwards again. And that’s the way it is in the Christian life. While God’s love may be constant, your appreciation of that love may ebb and flow. The scripture indicates to us where to seek to go on under perfection. That’s why we should be careful to increase grace. Get grace upon grace. Do we need mercy? Yes, but we always need more mercy. Do we need peace? Yeah, but we can always use more peace. Do we need love? Of course. But we always could have a greater appreciation for the love of Christ toward us. For who can really understand the length and the breadth and the depth of the love of Christ? It passes understanding. But we could pursue that and appreciate that greater. So we must give diligence. that an abundant entrance may be ministered unto us into the everlasting kingdom of our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. The 2.1, 2.11, indicates to us. What does that mean? Well, that these braces would be multiplied. That we wouldn’t forget, as Peter talks about what the Lord has done for us. We might much be short-sighted, but we would add to our faith these various graces and progress as we go through the Christian life. Well, let us close with a word of prayer tonight.