From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Jude is going to be calling out these false teachers and the false teaching. We have so much that we're going to be learning from him. He's calling us to be humble. He's calling us to be mindful. He's calling us to be vigilant and faithful. So here's the question: Are you ready to stand up, stand firm, and fight for the truth?

Guest (Male): As followers of Christ, we are called, loved, and kept by God. But we must also be alert and ready to defend the truth. Countless surveys indicate that people overwhelmingly don't trust social media, the news media, or the government. They're looking and seeking truth but not finding it.

We also live in a world filled with spiritual deception and compromise. So we must take our calling seriously and live boldly for Jesus. This is From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve. Today, he'll continue his message he started last time called "Attention, Saints."

It's from the new eight-message series, Faith Under Fire: A Study of the Book of Jude. These resources from this series are our gift of thanks to you for your support this month of any amount to From His Heart. Just call 866-40-BIBLE or go to fromhisheart.org to find out how to get this series. But first, open your Bible to the book of Jude, just before Revelation, for part two of "Attention, Saints."

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Now, some of you may remember going shopping at Kmart. But if you remember shopping at Kmart, they would have "Attention, Kmart shoppers! There's a blue light special on aisle five. Nose trimmers are half off," whatever it was that they had. Well, this is not "Attention, Kmart shoppers." This is Jude getting our attention right off the bat: "Attention, saints."

Jude gives us three directives to get our attention, to get us centered, to get us going in the right direction. Directive number one: He's calling us to be humble. If you want to be a Christian who makes a difference, you have to be humble. Jude is calling us right off the bat to be humble, to live a life of humility.

"Jude," he says, "a bondservant, a doulos, a slave of Jesus Christ, and brother of James." Both James and Jude are the half-brothers of Jesus. Here's the thing that's so wonderful about Jude right off the bat as he starts his letter: He doesn't say anything about being related to Jesus. Why? Because he didn't care what he was in the physical. He cared what he was in the spiritual. What he was in the spiritual was the bond slave, the doulos, of Jesus Christ. He had been bought with a price.

What is Jude calling to our attention? Number one: He's calling us to be humble. Number two: He's calling us to be mindful. Be mindful of some things that we tend to blow past. Now, some things that we need to be mindful of as we live in this day and age of false teachers and false teaching, as we desire to be discerning and to know where the sharks are in the water.

Number one: Every true Christian is called by the Holy Spirit. "To those who are the called." Unless the Holy Spirit speaks to your heart, I can preach till I'm blue in the face and you're going to be like, "I don't see my need," because I can't make you see your need. Only the Holy Spirit can open your blind eyes to that.

To those who are the called, he's also writing to those who are beloved in God the Father. Every Christian is loved by God the Father. I think that is the key truth for Christians to have down in their heart, because we're loved by God.

Then thirdly, every Christian is kept for Jesus Christ. That's what he says: "To those who are the called, beloved in God the Father, and kept (guarded) for Jesus Christ." Now, some versions say we're kept by Jesus Christ. New American Standard says we're kept for Jesus Christ. Both of those are true. He guards us.

In John 10, if you remember, Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me; and I give eternal life to them, and they shall never perish; and no one is able to snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who is greater than all, has given them to me; and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one." We are secure and kept by Him. Peter puts it this way in 1 Peter 1:5. He says we are "kept (guarded) by the power of God."

He's never going to let go of you. Jesus said in John 6, "All that the Father has given me... it is God's will that I lose none of them, but raise them up on the last day." He is not going to lose you. You can't lose your salvation because you are kept for Jesus and by Jesus by the power of God.

So keep in mind: I'm called. The Lord says, "Come out from among them and be separate." I'm bought with a price. I'm not part of this world anymore. I'm part of this other world. My citizenship is in heaven. So I keep that in mind. The Holy Spirit has done a work in my heart. I am the called. I am beloved by God the Father, and I am kept for Jesus Christ. He's never going to let me go.

Then every Christian has access to the blessings of God. Verse 2: "May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you." Do you need mercy? That's God's compassion for you. Do you need that? It's there. It's there for every believer. We have a storehouse of inexhaustible resources in the storehouse of mercy and grace and peace and love. It's available 24/7 to you and me and all those who call upon the name of the Lord, all those who belong to Him, all those who are part of the called.

Now, that doesn't mean we always access the mercy and peace and love. But that's on us; that's not on God. It's available; it's there. You've heard before the story of the guy that goes on a cruise ship. He just has enough money, barely enough money, to buy a ticket on a cruise ship. He packs all these peanut butter crackers and nuts and whatever he can pack into his suitcase because he says it's a week-long trip and I've got to eat something.

He sees all these people going to the dining room and enjoying all the stuff that you have on a cruise, all the wonderful food—steaks and chicken and lobster and all the stuff. He's like, "Man, I wish I had extra money to get that, but I don't have that." He's just eating his crackers and his tuna fish and whatever he can scrounge up.

He gets off the ship as he's leaving. Somebody says to him, "Well, I never saw you in the dining hall." He said, "Well, yeah, I couldn't afford it." The person said, "Couldn't afford it? It's included in the price of the ticket! Didn't you know that?" "No, I didn't know that. Nobody told me that." "Yeah, don't you know how to read? It's written on your ticket!"

The Lord's given us a ticket that accesses the storehouses of God for mercy and grace and love and peace. If you don't have it, it's not because God is holding out on you. It's because you're not going to the dining hall, so to speak. You're not accessing those things. We have the blessings of God.

Listen, God doesn't dole out His blessings with an eyedropper. "May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you." It says in Ephesians 1 that we are "lavished" in God's grace, the unmerited, undeserved favor of God. That's available to all of us. We need to take advantage of that. Be mindful of what is yours in Jesus Christ.

I had a friend of mine some years ago, and I would ask him how he was doing. He always responded the same way. He was a Jewish believer. I said, "How are you doing, Marty?" He said, "Blessed and highly favored." When he first said that, I was like, "That seems a little odd. Who are you?" It's like saying, "I'm Jude, the Lord's half-brother, don't you know who I am?" He didn't do it like that, but anyway, "Blessed and highly favored."

Then I started thinking about it. I thought, "Why does he answer that question, 'How you doing?' like that?" I thought maybe he's read Jude 1:2. We're blessed with these gifts from God. "May mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you." We're "blessed with every spiritual blessing" (Ephesians 1:3) "in the heavenly places in Christ." If you know Jesus, you are blessed and highly favored as a son of the King, as a daughter of the King. We have something to shout about and to rejoice about.

He's calling to our attention. He says, number one, directive number one: Be humble. Directive number two: Be mindful of what you have in the Lord. Directive number three: He's calling us to be vigilant and faithful. Vigilant and faithful. Verse 3: He gets into the crux of what he's wanting to talk about. He says this: "Beloved, while I was making every effort to write you about our common salvation..."

He just wanted to write to them and rejoice with them and celebrate with them what we have in Jesus and what we have as our common salvation. But he says he couldn't. "I felt the necessity (I was constrained) to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints." Contend earnestly. It's only used one time in the New Testament: epagonizomai, if you're taking notes in Greek.

Epagonizomai is the word used. It's an intensive. Paul used it when he was talking to Timothy: "Fight the good fight of faith." But now Jude uses it and he adds the epi in front of it, which means it's more intense. It means to agonize, to contend earnestly, as it's said here in the New American Standard. Be striving for this as an athlete would strive for the prize. That's what he wants us to do.

He says you need to do this: agonize and strive and contend and fight for what? The faith. Not your individual faith—the faith. The faith that was once for all handed down to the saints, delivered to the saints, the body of truth that was given from the Lord to His saints, to the church.

Guest (Male): Pastor Jeff Schreve returns on From His Heart in just a moment with part two of "Attention, Saints," from the new six-lesson series, Faith Under Fire: A Study of the Book of Jude. Every day, and I mean every day, people are searching for answers, for stability, and for hope and truth.

That's why From His Heart exists: to share real truth, real love, and real hope from the heart of God. We're only able to do that because of the faithful support of those who listen to this program, allowing us to broadcast on this and hundreds of stations around this nation and the world.

Oh, I wish you could see all that God is doing through your generosity as we search for new outlets each month to join us to reach more people. With your gift this month, we'd like to say thank you by sending you Pastor Jeff's new six-lesson series, Faith Under Fire: A Study of the Book of Jude. You can get it in the format of your choice for your gift today.

To join this effort with your gift of any amount, we'll send you the series. So call 866-40-BIBLE (866-402-4253) or go to fromhisheart.org. Thank you for praying about joining this effort to touch the world, starting in your hometown and around the world. Now, let's get back to conclude the lesson "Attention, Saints."

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Remember this: The faith that was delivered to us is a priceless treasure. We are to fight for it. It is a priceless treasure. Paul told Timothy, "O Timothy, guard what has been entrusted to you." Timothy was the pastor of the church in Ephesus. Timothy, as the pastor, you have to guard what is entrusted to you.

Make sure, because the enemy, what does he want to do? As Jesus told that parable about the man that sowed wheat in his field, and the enemy came in and what did he do? He sowed tares among the wheat. A tare is a weed that looks just like the wheat, but it doesn't have any fruit. They ask the Lord in the parable, "Master, did you not sow good seed in your field?" He said, "Yes, good seed." They said, "Well, but there are tares that are sowed with the wheat." He said, "An enemy has done this."

The devil is the enemy of our souls. He prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour, and he sows tares among the wheat. He puts the false teachers and the false teaching in there, and it happens very quickly. It was interesting. You read in Revelation. Jude is right before Revelation. What is Revelation? Revelation is the revealing of Jesus as He comes in His glory. It talks about the Antichrist and the reign of evil until the Lord comes and destroys him in Revelation chapter 19.

So right before the return of the Lord (Revelation 20), we have the little book of Jude: 25 verses, 458 words, and it tells us about false teachers and false teaching. They're going to abound, and they are abounding in the day and age in which we live. So we have to fight for the faith. We have to hold on to the treasure and guard what has been entrusted to us.

Most of the churches in Revelation chapters 2 and 3, the seven letters to the seven churches of Asia Minor, they were related to Paul—Paul's missionary journeys. Those churches were planted in the 50s, most of them. Here it is, Revelation was written in 95 AD, 45 years later. What is the issue? Of the seven churches, only two of them are solid. The others are dealing with false teachers and false teaching and the church going astray.

You get to the church of Laodicea, and the Lord is knocking at the door of that church. They have so bypassed the gospel and the truth that the Lord isn't even there. We have a lot of churches like that today where, if the Rapture were to hit, you wouldn't know it at that place. They'd just keep on business as usual because there are not very many Christians there, although they go under the banner of "Christian." If the Lord is knocking at the door of your church, your church is in serious trouble because He's not even allowed to come in.

The faith that was once for all delivered to us is a priceless treasure that we need to guard, and it's under attack—under attack from the enemy. Now, there are those who think they're doing God a favor by modernizing the gospel. "We have to bring the truths of Scripture... we've got to bring them up into the 21st century because they're just kind of archaic. Some of the commands from the Old Testament and things... those don't really apply today."

You need to remember: In the Old Testament, you have ceremonial laws. They don't apply today. You have national laws. They don't apply today. But the moral law still applies today. That hasn't changed. God's moral law is true from Genesis to Revelation. And we have people that want to change it. And they say, "Well, we're trying to reach more people, and to reach more people, we're just going to water down the gospel. We'll water it down to where it's more palatable for people."

Some of you may remember, I watched a lot of sports when I was younger. I loved basketball. I still love basketball, but pro basketball doesn't seem like basketball to me. It's just traveling and palming the ball. I'd like them to get referees from the 70s; they wouldn't score at all. They'd be like, "Traveling, traveling, traveling, traveling." But anyway, I would watch basketball or football or whatever, and Lite beer from Miller always had commercials on during the sporting events.

If you remember Lite beer from Miller—not that you drank it, but just that you watched the commercials—"Tastes great, less filling." And they would have this argument. And one of the guys in my school was Charlie Johnson, who played quarterback for Denver. It was his son, and we were all excited as kids when Charlie Johnson got to be in that commercial. "Tastes great, less filling." And Craig, his son, was like, "Craig, man, your dad's a movie star!" He was in a commercial. That's kind of how we thought about things back then. It was a big deal to be on a national commercial.

"Tastes great, less filling." That's what we have today with the gospel for so many. They've watered it down. And because we haven't guarded what has been entrusted and churches in general—so many of them haven't guarded what has been entrusted to make sure that nobody tries to pollute it. They say, "Well, we have this new and improved Christianity Lite. Tastes great, less filling."

Big problem with it: It doesn't save. It's not the gospel, the truth that was handed down and delivered once for all to the saints. You start messing with the truth of God and saying, "Well, we're going to massage it here and take off some of the sharp edges there and we're going to present this kinder, gentler gospel." It's not the gospel. It's not the truth of the gospel, and it doesn't save.

If you believe that kind of hogwash, you're going to die and go to hell forever because you did not put your faith and trust in the Jesus of the Bible. You put your faith and trust in "Lite Jesus" from Miller. He doesn't save because He doesn't exist. There's only one God and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins. Hey, listen, we have to contend earnestly for the faith. We have to stand up for the truth.

And I don't care if people get mad if you do it. Your job is to be a witness to the King and for the King, and we are to be faithful. The church in Smyrna: "Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life." Be faithful to the Lord and take a stand for righteousness.

Now, you've no doubt heard about Chip and Joanna Gaines, and they have a program out called Back to the Frontier. And they featured a gay couple in their program, two men who are raising up two boys, and they're going to be part of this program. Well, what did the true Christian community do? They said, "That is wrong. That's not marriage. This is perversion."

And Chip and Joanna Gaines were like, "Hey, back off. You guys are judging us, and you shouldn't do that." One pastor was very on top of the whole thing, and he said, "Listen, Chip and Joanna, you have made your name and your fame by telling people you are Christians who love the Lord and follow the teachings of Scripture. And now you've deviated from that, and the Christian community is calling you out on that. You're not more loving than God. You are polluting the truth of Scripture, and you're damning those people to hell with your lies that say it's okay to be like that."

It's not okay to be like that. It's not okay to live in sin. That's true for you, that's true for me, that's true for anybody. And so we have to in love speak the truth. Why? Because we love people. It's not because we're trying to be mean. We love people and we say, "Hey, if you keep going in this direction, that's going to lead off a cliff." And we love you too much to do that.

Jude is going to be calling out these false teachers and the false teaching. We have so much that we're going to be learning from him. He's calling us to be humble. He's calling us to be mindful. He's calling us to be vigilant and faithful. So here's the question: Are you ready to stand up, stand firm, and fight for the truth?

Guest (Male): Well, we hope and pray that that is the case. We hope these have been emboldening insights for you. Today's message, "Attention, Saints," from Pastor Jeff Schreve and his series, Faith Under Fire, are our thanks to you for your support of any amount today. To make your gift to From His Heart, call 866-40-BIBLE or go to fromhisheart.org.

Before we go, we want to ask you a favor. Would you go to our website and click the prayer link to pray for people who have posted their heartfelt prayer concerns so that others around the world could join them in prayer? And when you do, you can click a link that will allow them to get a response that says you have been joined in prayer, and that'll mean so much to them. You can also leave your own prayer request, too. That's the prayer link at fromhisheart.org.

Thank you for being with us today. I'm Larry Nobles, and we trust that you'll be right back here tomorrow for the start of the second message in the series, Faith Under Fire: A Study of the Book of Jude. Here's just a little piece of the truth we'll hear.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: The devil has two means that he uses to attack the faith and to attack Christianity. The first one is persecution. And persecution is an attack from the outside. But infiltration? That's an attack from the inside. You know, with persecution, the devil tries to root out the church. But with infiltration, he tries to rot out the church, putting termites into the structure to eat it up from the inside. Join us to learn from the sobering lesson, Christianity Under Siege. That's Thursday here on From His Heart.