Skip to content How to stand firm in a world gone mad Sep 3 · 57 min ...more
How to stand firm in a world gone mad
September 3, 2023 · 57 min
If you feel like the world is getting darker, you're not alone. Join us as we finish off the book of Jude with a bang and learn how we can “keep from stumbling” in a deconstructing world.
----------
To get more unfiltered and unapologetic Bible teaching from Pastor Mark, visit www.RealFaith.com or text “RealFaith” to 99383.
Follow on social media:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyzD6QsOut9S3e854Ffj41g?sub_confirmation=1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pastormark
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pastormarkdriscoll
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markdriscoll/
Twitter / X: https://twitter.com/pastormark
To donate and help get Bible-teaching out to a lost and broken world, visit: https://raisedonors.com/markdriscoll/podcast-general-donate
Click here for more resources: https://linktr.ee/markdriscoll
Series Mark Driscoll Audio September 3, 2023 · 57 min · Mark Driscoll Audio
If you feel like the world is getting darker, you're not alone. Join us as we finish off the book of Jude with a bang and learn how we can “keep from stumbling” in a deconstructing world. ---------- To get more unfiltered and unapologetic Bible teaching from Pastor Mark, visit www.RealFaith.com or text “RealFaith” to 99383. Follow on social media: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyzD6QsOut9S3e854Ffj41g?sub_confirmation=1 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pastormark TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pastormarkdriscoll Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markdriscoll/ Twitter / X: https://twitter.com/pastormark To donate and help get Bible-teaching out to a lost and broken world, visit: https://raisedonors.com/markdriscoll/podcast-general-donate Click here for more resources: https://linktr.ee/markdriscoll ...more Show the full description Show less If you feel like the world is getting darker, you're not alone. Join us as we finish off the book of Jude with a bang and learn how we can “keep from stumbling” in a deconstructing world.
----------
To get more unfiltered and unapologetic Bible teaching from Pastor Mark, visit www.RealFaith.com or text “RealFaith” to 99383.
Follow on social media:
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyzD6QsOut9S3e854Ffj41g?sub_confirmation=1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pastormark
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pastormarkdriscoll
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/markdriscoll/
Twitter / X: https://twitter.com/pastormark
To donate and help get Bible-teaching out to a lost and broken world, visit: https://raisedonors.com/markdriscoll/podcast-general-donate
Click here for more resources: https://linktr.ee/markdriscoll
Series Mark Driscoll Audio
384K followers
With Pastor Mark, it’s all about Jesus! He is a spiritual leader, prolific author, and compelling speaker, but at his core, he is a family man. Mark and his
384K followers
0:01 Well, hey, podcast pals. It's, pastor Mark Driscoll here saying thank you for tuning in. I've had the honor of teaching the bible for around 30 years. Happy to report I got my cancel card about a decade ago.0:12 Nice to get that out of the way. And now I'm back in zombie mode, man. You can't kill me. And if you would do me a solid, I could really use your help. Number 1, rate this podcast.0:24 Everybody gives me 1 in 5 star reviews. I need you to give me a 5 star. In addition, review the podcast. Tell them it's good. It's helpful. It's fun. It's authentic. It's genuine. It's down the0:36 fairway. It's all about Jesus. And, share it. Let your friends know. Let your family know. And if you wanna trigger your enemies, let them know too. I've been triggering woke joke folks since the mid0:48 nineties and glad to keep up the fight. Alright. We saved the best for last. Welcome to the end of the Jude sermon series. If you've got a bible, find the book of Jude in the New Testament, and we're gonna go out1:00 with a bang. This one's gonna be fun. How many of you are new to Arizona? You've moved here recently? Let me let you in on a little pro tip. There's no cold water. No cold water at all. It's if if it's1:12 hot, you're like, I'm gonna go jump in the pool. That is not a cold pool. That is a lukewarm pool, and it's not refreshing. It it it feels like a bath, and it feels like a bath outside. So it feels1:24 awkward. And then so then you think, I'm gonna go in the house. That's okay. I'll take a cold shower. There is no such thing as a cold shower in the state of Arizona. Can I get an amen? Amen? There's no that's war it's1:36 just warm. It's the same temperature as an old man's breath. That's the water temperature. That's all we've got. Okay? How many of you about this time of year, you're really kinda sick of lukewarm water. Amen?
1:48 You sick of it? I'm sick of it too. So to to use that analogy, Jesus talks about certain people being, quote unquote, lukewarm. And he speaks to a church in a city called Laodicea in
2:00 Revelation chapter 3. And it was a lot like our town. It was a desert environment, and they lived high up on a hill. I've been there. It's in modern day Turkey. And they would have to, bring their water up to the top of
2:12 the hill. Well, it was always warm. So 1 of the things that people are always complaining about, as we do who live in the desert, we're just kind of sick of lukewarm. And Jesus says, I'm sick of lukewarm too. And he
2:23 tells this church, he says, I like hot. I like cold. Lukewarm, I spit out of my mouth. Lukewarm is Jesus' language for woke Christians, weak Christians,
2:35 counterfeit Christians, progressive Christians, apostate Christians, and I use Christians, of course, in air quotes. And what he's talking about is that he is not a fan of what I will
2:47 call cultural Christianity. Cultural Christianity is what is dominated in the United States of America. For a few hundred years, the majority of people said that they were Christians, but they didn't live
2:59 like Christians. And it was sort of fashionable to go to some sort of church or pretend to have some sort of faith. Some of you grew up in homes like this. Your parents had you baptized when you were a baby,
3:11 and they never brought you back to church. And they didn't read the bible, and they didn't pray in the house. They were just hoping that getting you wet would fix you. Some of you as well, you didn't go to church. You
3:22 didn't worship God, but you're you're to make your grandma happy, you had your wedding in the church. Now you had no intention of coming back, and it was just a 1 time event for the photos to sort of pretend that you and
3:33 god were good. This cultural Christianity has dominated our nation. And here's what we're seeing right now. We're seeing Jesus spit out of his mouth cultural Christianity. We're seeing him spit
3:45 out churchgoers and churches that are lukewarm. Those of you who love Jesus will call you the ones who are hot or fired up for God. Those of you who could care less,
3:57 you're ice cold, you could care less about God. The lukewarm are the ones that are the most confusing because they say they love God, and they don't live for God. And this is actually what's happening right
4:09 now in the Western church. I'll show this to you. Here's a survey. It's the general social survey from the University of Chicago. This is the right, the latest data. And here's what we've seen in the past few years.
4:21 We have seen Jesus spitting people and churches out of his mouth. Less than 50 percent of Americans now have no doubt that God exists. Less than 50 percent. We're not
4:32 even talking about Jesus, just some vague notion of God. In addition, 34 percent never go to church. In addition, 15 percent of children have no religious upbringing of
4:44 any kind. What that means is nobody's ever prayed for them. Never. Nobody's ever prayed with them. No 1 has read them a bible verse. No 1 has ever brought them to a church.
4:57 0 0 0 church experience. Not even Easter and Christmas will give our obligatory 2 time a year of visit to God's house. Nothing. And then
5:08 lastly, what we're seeing as well, mainline Protestantism, which is where for a few hundred years, the lukewarm have gathered on Sundays. That is now down from 33 percent of the population in the
5:20 19 seventies to 10 percent. These are the churches that are in decline. They are weak because they are woke. And what they're wondering is, how come people aren't going to our church? Here's why. Because God isn't.
5:33 Why would I go to a place that God wouldn't visit? And what we're seeing is Jesus literally spitting entire churches and denominations out of his mouth saying, if you're going to be
5:45 lukewarm rather than hot, eventually, I will tire of you. And what happens now, we're seeing church attendance is down, giving is down, online viewership is down, and a lot of people are bothered
5:57 by it. I'm actually really grateful for it. Because now what we get to do, we get to have hot or cold, and we are no longer confused by lukewarm. Now in what we're seeing at
6:09 our church, this place is hot. I mean, not just physically, but also spiritually. And we're seeing online thing it's it's it's hot. It's
6:21 hot. I mean, despite the algorithms, you know, million people a year a week are turning in for the sermon. What we're seeing is God's people, their hearts are getting hotter, and their lives are burning brighter as the
6:32 world is getting darker. And what God is doing, he's clarifying who's on team g's and who's not. And the Bible tells us that this is what will happen as we enter into the last times or the
6:44 end times or the last days. As we get closer to Jesus' second coming and the end of human history, there will be separation and division. The lukewarm will be spit out, the cold will
6:56 be indifferent, and the hot will grow brighter. And when we hear of these words in the Bible, it reminds us that our hope is in Jesus Christ, and his second coming is the
7:08 only hope for planet Earth. The reason I introduced this theme is he's now going to tell us in Jude about the last days or the end times. K? And the bible uses different language.
7:20 Last time, last days, or end times. And just to set it up, this is the time between Jesus first and second coming. That's the last days, the last time, or the end times. He came
7:31 the first time to die. He comes the second time to judge. He came the first time to forgive. He comes the last time to condemn or to bless depending upon whether you're for or against
7:43 him. And so here's what Jude says, and this is Jude speaking of his brother. Again, for those of you who are new, Jude was Jesus' little brother. He worships his brother as
7:55 God. He sees that the church has become lukewarm. He is very frustrated by it, and he's fired up about it. So he writes a book. And here's what he says, but you must
8:07 remember, beloved, Jude 17 through 19, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, they said to you, in the last time or the last days or the end times, there will be 5 things, scoffers following their own
8:19 sinful passions. They will cause divisions, worldly people devoid of the spirit. Here's what he says. God knows the end of human history. This should give you such comfort as a believer. Like,
8:31 where is everything going? To Jesus. Amen? It's all going to Jesus. And the good news is he loves me. And so if he's gonna deal with everything and everyone, then I know that the future is in
8:43 good hands. They're in God's hands. And what he says is that in these, last times, some things will be happening. He says, remember the predictions of the apostles. And the
8:55 predictions of the apostles were those chosen by Jesus to carry on his ministry and legacy after he died, rose, and returned to heaven. And just as a little spoiler alert, some of what he's referring to is
9:06 particularly found in 2 New Testament books, first and second Thessalonians. We start them next week. Those books are about the last days and the end times and what happens before the return
9:18 of Jesus. We'll get into that next week. But what he's talking about as well is the predictions. This is prophecy. For those of you who are perhaps new to church, welcome. Thank you for letting me
9:30 yell at you for an hour. I do love you, and I'm just excited. So I'll tell you a little bit about the bible. This is the word of God. It's the only perfect thing on the earth. It is the book that God wrote. So the holy
9:42 spirit worked through human beings to write a perfect book. This book is unlike any other religious text because it has prophecy. Prophecy is God anticipating,
9:53 foreshadowing, predicting, revealing the future. Here's why. God knows the future, and God controls the future. Over everything that we're dealing with is a God who knows exactly what he's doing.
10:05 Now about 2500 prophecies are in the Bible. About 2000 of them have been fulfilled. Roughly 500 of them remain to be fulfilled.
10:17 Most of the first prophecies were about the first coming of Jesus, that he'd be born of a virgin in the town of Bethlehem, that he would live without sin, that he would die on a cross, that he would be buried in
10:29 a rich man's tomb, that he would rise from the dead, that he would perform miracles, that he would ascend into heaven, and that he would be the savior of the world. The Bible told us all of that hundreds, thousands of
10:39 years in advance. The rest of the prophecies are about Jesus' second coming. What will the world be like before Jesus returns to judge? And we're awaiting
10:51 the fulfillment of those remaining roughly 500 prophecies. But here's what he says are 5 signs of the last days. Tell me if this doesn't sound familiar. Number 1, scoffers. You
11:03 need to know this if you really are a Christian. Your faith will be mocked. You will be opposed. The media will never be for you. The platforms will always be against you, and the algorithms will never
11:15 favor you. This world will mock you, scoff at you, lie about you, and oppose you. I tell that not to discourage you, but for you to be prepared
11:27 to deal with reality. K. If you wake up and you go into this world or you are on social media or you're enjoying entertainment and you expect this world to love you, you need to
11:38 know this. Jesus told us that the world hated him, and if we love him, it's gonna hate us. You just need to accept that. Number 2, ungodly passions. And what this means is as we get toward the
11:50 last days, not only will scoffing of Christ and Christians increase, but so will temptation to sin. And what he's saying is as we get closer to the second coming of Jesus, it'll be a lot easier to
12:02 do the wrong thing than the right thing. You won't have to put in any effort to sin. But holiness, you're gonna have a fight on your hands. That everything in the culture in the world is going to make sin more
12:14 readily available. And let me just say, technology has absolutely helped fulfill this prophecy. If you wanna lie right now, you can do it bigger and quicker than ever. If you wanna slander, if you wanna
12:26 gossip, if you wanna steal, if you wanna lust, if you wanna attack, if you wanna do evil, you can now do it globally, instantly, permanently. And how many of you right
12:38 now, you've been walking with the Lord for maybe 20, 30, 40, 50 years, and the condition of the world in which we live is deteriorating so quickly that it's rather shocking to you.
12:50 The things that a few people would do in the dark seem to be the things that everyone is now doing in the light. The shame is gone, and the sin has come. Number 3, divisions. There will be hot and cold.
13:02 There will be those who are for Christ and those who are antichrist. And division literally means 2 visions. And so what this means is the Christian and the non Christian, we don't see some things
13:14 differently. We see everything differently. The Christian and the non Christian agree on very little. We come from God, not evolution. We're under God's authority.
13:26 We're not independent of authority. We're sinners. We're not good people. We can't fix our problem because we are the problem versus I am the hope of the world, and I'm a snowflake and 1 of a kind, and the world is
13:38 blessed to have me. Right? We disagree on gender. We disagree on which bathrooms and pronouns to use. There's just quote unquote division. So the point is this, pick your
13:49 team. And the point is this, you're going to get in trouble. So just make the decision who or what you will get in trouble for. If there is a conflict, a division between God
14:01 and the world, if you side with the world, you will have conflict with God. If you side with God, you'll have conflict with the world. The question is not, are you going to get in trouble? The question is, are you gonna
14:12 get in the right good kind of trouble? Yeah. In addition, he talks about worldly people. These are people who love the world. There was recently a poll out. I found it
14:23 was amazing. The majority of I won't say the political party, but there was a certain political party that was polled, and they determined by majority that they felt that America was a moral country today.
14:36 See, you chuckled. You'd be the other political party. So anyways and so but some people look at the world, they're like, this is going great. Like, we this is man, this is really going the direction I was
14:48 hoping. Those are worldly people. If you look at the world and don't throw up in your mouth, you're worldly. Okay? That's how you know who the that's how you know who the nonworldly people are. Okay?
14:59 And and what this is, this means you are now an outlier. You're an outcast. You're a minority. You're a weirdo. You're an oddball. Just embrace it. The majority of the world,
15:11 1 person's excited, the rest are praying about it. Hey. Humble beginnings. Don't overlook humble beginnings. And so within this, though, the world, it's just filled with worldly people. They're like, I like it here.
15:23 This feels like home. The way we think, and the way we act, and the way we educate our children, and the way we conduct our sexuality, and the way we do our politics, and our economics, and our spirituality. This really
15:34 fits. This feels like home to me, which means it's not home to you. It's not home to you. And the closer we get to the end, the more you long for home and the
15:46 less this feels like home. And the number 5, he says that these people are quote, devoid of the spirit. That's a massive statement. There are those that have the holy spirit, they're
15:58 called Christians, and there are those who do not, they are called the non Christians. And if you don't live by the power of the holy spirit, you only have 2 options. You live by the power of sinful flesh or the demonic.
16:09 That's what the Bible teaches. If you live by the power of the Holy Spirit, you manifest the character of Jesus Christ. Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, self control, Galatians
16:20 says. If you don't live by the power of the holy spirit, if you don't have the holy spirit and let me just say this as well. This is why non Christians don't understand us at all.
16:33 Once you receive the holy spirit, you love Jesus. Once you receive the holy spirit, you wanna learn the bible. When you receive when you have the holy spirit, you're like, I wanna sing and raise my hands.
16:45 I wanna talk to God. I wanna learn how to pray. I wanna meet some other Christians. Those people used to annoy me, and now I'm 1 of them. You know? And what happens when you have the holy spirit let me just let me just
16:57 go down a rabbit trail. You get a new mind. You start to think different. You get a new heart. You start to feel different. You get a new identity. You see yourself different. You have new desires, and this is the secret
17:08 of the Christian life. I I just feel like saying this. I say it a lot, but I just feel like saying it. I've read the bible every day since God saved me at the age of 19. And people are like, how do you do
17:20 that? I don't know. I just like it. I like reading the I I don't I don't read the bible so I could preach. I preach because I like reading the bible. Right? For
17:31 me, I like Jesus. I like prayer. I like singing. I like the bible. I I like to live in God's will. I like to talk to people about Jesus. And
17:43 it's not because God put a gun at my head, it's because he put the spirit in my soul. K? And I I like the Christian life. I tried the non Christian life. It's not better. It's not
17:55 better. And if you've if you've if you've not tried it, just take my word. It sucks. Just us. It's not better. So he talks about people devoid of the spirit. You're like, they don't wanna learn the bible. They don't
18:07 wanna pray. They don't wanna know God. They don't wanna repent of their Yeah. They don't have the holy spirit. Once you receive the holy spirit, you live differently because God makes you different. Now, if you don't
18:17 live by the power of the Holy Spirit, again, your only 2 options are the flesh or the demonic. And the flesh is your sinful, foolish, shortsighted, addicted to the dopamine hit, very stupid series of
18:29 decision making probabilities. That's what it is. And if you live according to the flesh, you're you're gonna you're just gonna make a lot of bad decisions that cause a lot of pain in your life. And you're gonna you're
18:40 like, I don't know what happened. You're like, well, you spent all your money. You know, you drink too much. You're you're on social media yelling at people. You're filled with bitterness. You know, you you think you're
18:52 a victim. Like, your whole world is just self destruction. And what happens is that if you live in the flesh, it's like gravity. Eventually, if you just keep living in the flesh, then what comes is the
19:04 demonic. Now, the worst version of you shows up. Now, you become a dangerous person. You're not just self destructing, but you're dangerous toward others. And this is where some
19:16 people never intended to cause the kind of damage that they do, and it was just living in the flesh over a long period of time. And then eventually, they sunk all the way into the demonic.
19:28 And what he's saying is as the last times, as the last days or the end times approach, this is what's going to happen. Things are gonna get darker. People are going to self destruct. The mockery
19:40 of Christ will be much louder than the worship of Christ. So things will get worse around you. Here's the good news. Things will get better in you. See, because
19:51 you're in the world, but the spirit is in you. If the spirit is in you, things can get better in you even as things get worse around you. Here's what he says. But you, beloved, building
20:03 yourselves up in your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keeping yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. So here's what he says. It's getting
20:14 worse around you, but it can get better in you. And it starts with identity. This is why we're having such a massive cultural head on collision over identity. Who you are determines what you do.
20:27 That's why Satan wants to set identity in any regard other than your relationship with God. Your your your primary identity is not your sexuality.
20:39 It's your spirituality. It's not your body. It's your soul. And what he says is your identity is he has a great word. What is it? Beloved. That's that's
20:51 your identity. You work from it, not for it. It's grace based, not performance based. It's at the starting line, not the finish line. God loves you. I told
21:03 you this a few weeks ago, but this word just kept ringing in my ears when I first held, and now every time I hold, my grandson. Beloved is the combination of 2 words, be loved.
21:15 You know why he's here? To be loved. That's why he's here. I mean, last night, I I had a supernatural, incredible, wonderful moment. My,
21:27 my son got married. I got to officiate the wedding to a wonderful gal he met serving Jesus here at church. And, we were outside, and we were celebrating at the reception. And,
21:39 and I got to hold my I'm walking around holding my grandson at my son's wedding reception. I mean, it was 1 of the best moments of my whole life. Like, if Jesus came back, I'd like, can I get 5 minutes? I
21:51 was really enjoying, you know, like, I'm I'm really this is a great moment. And do you know what I felt in that moment holding my grandson and seeing my son
22:03 dance with his new bride? Love. Just love. I just felt so much pure love from God through me for
22:14 them. I told my grand you know what my grandson has done? Nothing. He he he I he doesn't have a report card. He hasn't had a performance
22:26 review. He's not generated income. And he doesn't have to because I just love him. And it it doesn't matter what he does
22:38 or doesn't do. My love for him is without condition. K? Now God's a perfect father, and his love for you is even purer and sweeter and deeper than the
22:49 purest love you've ever known. He just loves you. And and this this this is quite frankly now for some of you, you're like, well, of course he does. But you're the I mean, some of you
23:01 are like, awfully, I'm I'm lovable. No, you're not. For for those of us who are clear in our thinking, this is kind of shocking. Right? Because here's I'll be honest with you. Like,
23:13 I couldn't be married to me. 1 of us would have to kill the other 1. It would just be too much. Right? I am sometimes hard to love, and other times,
23:25 I'm asleep. Okay? And and so so to think that God just loves you, even on your worst days, your darkest moments, the the foulest version of you, God's
23:37 still smiling and blessing because his heart doesn't change. That's what's so beautiful about you being God's beloved. Though you may have a bad day, he's still having a good day. Even though
23:49 you're not very lovable, he's still gonna love you. You start with that. Everybody needs some good news. Our world is filled with nothing but bad news. The good news is the Bible
24:01 tells us not just what happened, but what always happens. And we don't just need to look at the Bible. We can look through it and make perfect and total sense of this weird, woke world in which we
24:12 live. I've been preaching God's word for about 30 years, and I wanna let you know that Real Faith is independent, free, and a voice that is prophetic in a world that is pathetic. And I wanna
24:24 thank you for your partnership. We are 100 percent supported by ministry partners like you. You can't cancel us. We don't have advertisers. We don't have publishers. You can go pound
24:36 sand because people like you pay the bills. Go to real faith dot com donate, give your best gift, and help me keep up the good fight. There were 4 words in the ancient Greek
24:48 world describing love, and and love in our day is really a word that is abused. Eros was sensual love, passionate love, romantic love.
25:01 Storge was familial love. You love your grandma. You love your aunts, your uncles, your cousins, your nieces, your nephews. Phileia was friendship like Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. And then they're
25:13 killing each other there. But anyways, it's Philadelphia now. And so but it's it's it's loving your friends. But you know what happens is all of those kinds of love are
25:25 not entirely dependable for the totality of your life. You can be romantically connected to someone, but then that relationship can end. You can have family members that love
25:37 you, but all of a sudden, they turn on you. You can have friends that you trust in, and then they are no longer caring for you. We've all had relationships where the love
25:49 flowed, and then it stopped flowing. The fourth word is eros. Excuse me. The fourth word is, it's not eros. It is agape. Thank you. I I should have studied this.
26:04 I meant to. It's a good thing we put this 1 on the Internet. So, agape is God's
26:16 love. It's a 1 way affection. And what it means is you didn't earn it, so you can't lose it. And that when God commits it, he never changes it. You're
26:27 beloved. Now when you know who you are, your beloved, then you know what to do. And he gives us a few things. Number 1, build yourself up. And what he's talking about is as the end times
26:39 come and we're preparing for the second coming of Jesus, and I don't know when he's coming back. I know some of you are like, I do. You scare us. Okay? You scare us. You do. You do. You scare us. K. Now I don't know when
26:51 he's coming back, but I know that every day, we're closer than we were yesterday. And to be honest with you, it could be any minute. And what he says is, as long as you're in the world, use the
27:03 resistance to build up your faith. The key to physical training is resistance. You need to push against gravity and weight to amass strength.
27:15 And now as the world gets darker and things get heavier, the Christian has to push back against those forces of evil in the world. And as you do, what you'll find is you're building yourself up.
27:27 Like taking your body to the gym, you're taking your soul into the world, and that resistance is going to strengthen you. That's why sometimes it is the hardest circumstances that produce the strongest
27:39 believers. Number 2, he says pray in the Holy Spirit. Praying in the Holy Spirit means that the spirit of God who is in you then teaches you to pray. And as Christians, we pray by
27:51 the spirit through the son to the father. So we pray our father, and we pray in Jesus' name. And here's the good news. As the world gets darker, you have direct
28:02 access to Jesus Christ, the king of kings and lord of lords who's coming again. You can talk to him, and he'll listen to you. You can give him your burdens, and he'll carry them for you. You can ask him for wisdom, and
28:14 he will lead and guide you. It is wonderful to know that as the world gets darker and Jesus is returning, he's listening to us, and he's responding to us, and he's leading us, and guiding
28:26 us, and helping us. And so he says, pray in the spirit. And let me say this, part of praying in the spirit includes singing. So when you pray, that's you individually. When we sing, that's us
28:38 corporately. And as we sing together, that's our way of praying as a church family. 1 of my favorite things to do is to hold Grace's hand while we sing together. That's
28:49 1 of my favorite things in the world. Because it is us agreeing this is who our God is, and this is what we live for is his glory. So when we get to the point of
29:01 singing, some of you will say, well, I don't have a good voice. Me neither. But that's why we have a loud band. And and, see, God has auto tune. So by the time you get to him, it's it's
29:13 it's angelic. But you need to know this as well, that when we pray and when we sing, those are supernatural spiritual activities that go into the presence of Jesus Christ. That
29:25 right now, the bible talks about in Revelation that prayers are like incense that ascend into his presence. When you pray, that goes to Jesus. When we sing, that goes to
29:37 Jesus. And right now, surrounding Jesus in the unseen realm are divine beings and departed saints, and they are singing and praying and interceding. And when we sing and pray, we join
29:49 them. It's like this thin place between heaven and earth when we pray and sing in the spirit. And then he says, number 3, abide in the love of God. He says, you are beloved. Don't forget that.
30:02 And don't walk away from that, and don't doubt that, and don't deny that. But abide in or remain in the love of God. He's quoting his big brother Jesus here, John 15 9. As the father has loved me, so I
30:14 have loved you. Abide in my love. Abide in my love. This is the kind of thing that an or any healthy relationship requires. You love
30:26 each other, but you need to stay in that place of loving 1 another and abiding in that love. And I know some of you, you wonder, man, does God love me? Yes, he does. And
30:37 sometimes those who will doubt the love of God, it's because of the pain of life. So let me just speak to that. If God loved me, why did this happen? Let me give you 2 things not to
30:49 overlook. Satan and demons and our evil fallen world. That ultimately, there are things that are happening that are against
31:00 God. Call that sin and rebellion. Not everything that happens, God was the 1 who caused that to happen. Now he's good enough that he can use it for good,
31:14 but God is in heaven saying, I'm gonna abuse them, and I'm gonna traumatize them, and I'm going to destroy them. I'm gonna give them cancer, and I'm gonna give them misery. We live in a cursed fallen world. Things are
31:26 just broken, and Satan and demons are very real. And sometimes what a a Christian can do in a painful moment is they're struggling. They're like, god, what are you doing? And they they sort of lose their peripheral
31:37 vision that this is a fallen cursed world with enemies. And what I would encourage you is this, to abide in the love of God, there are things that you're gonna need to just say, I don't understand.
31:48 I don't know. I I called this the mystery box. You just need a box, just write mystery on it. Certain things are like, I don't I don't understand this. Now maybe later
32:00 in life, as I read the bible more and I grow in my faith, maybe then I'll understand. Or maybe until I see Jesus, I don't know what happened. I don't know why it happened. The bible says that we
32:12 know in part, we see in part when Jesus returns, we will see him face to face, and we will know as we are fully known. Here's the promise of the bible. When I see Jesus, everything's gonna make
32:24 sense. Until then, there's gonna be some questions. And it's okay to have those because doubts are different than unbelief, and questions are not the same as not trusting the
32:36 Lord. Just saying, I don't understand. But he says abide in the love of God. I want you to know that God wants to get some time with you. Anyone that you love, you want
32:48 time with them. This is reading your bible, praying, singing, being in God's presence, abiding in the love of God. He then has this other great
32:59 promise. He says to wait for God's mercy. And and the the problem is this, in life, something happens and there is a gap between the need and the provision.
33:11 And the waiting is the act of faith. Let me give you this. Faith plus patience equals maturity.
33:23 Faith, I trust you, Lord. Patience. I know you're gonna show up. You're gonna deliver the mercy. You're gonna help me out, but I don't know when. That's maturity. And what
33:35 he's saying is wait for God's mercy. God does have mercy for you. Some of you had shown up recently. You're like, thank you, Lord, for the prime
33:46 delivery. That was fast. Alright? For others of you, you're like, I'm still waiting for the the the delivery of mercy into my life. This thing I'm dealing with, it's it's not worked itself out yet. And he
33:58 talks about the waiting, and that's what faith is. See, it's easy to live by sight, and and faith is I'm going to trust until I see. That's what it is. And then he closes with this. He says, live an
34:10 eternal life. Live an eternal life. He he says it this way, Jesus Christ, he's the 1 who leads to eternal life. And living an eternal life is this, and this is 1 of the great
34:22 myths of the Christian faith. The great myth of the Christian faith. 1 of them is that eternal life begins the day you die. It's not. It's not true. Eternal life begins the day that you meet Jesus.
34:33 My eternal life started when I was a 19 year old kid in college, and Jesus Christ took me from life to death, and he gave me the spirit, and he took me from 1 who was devoid of the spirit and worldly
34:45 to 1 who was filled with the spirit and beloved. Ever since that moment, I have been living my eternal life. K? And so for me, it's not like
34:57 I just waste my life. I wanna worship through my life until I get to the end. And then what I do, I go into the presence of Jesus or Jesus returns for me. You just need to know if you are beloved,
35:09 those are the 2 options for your future. Either you go to Jesus or Jesus returns and Jesus comes for you. The good news either way, you and Jesus are together in the end. That's the good news.
35:21 But we're not home yet, and he's not here yet. And so we we continue to walk into that
35:33 future until we see it. Now let me just summarize the heart of this. Jude writes this letter because
35:44 he's fighting for the purity of the church. He's like, those outside are cold. God's people are hot. It's the lukewarm that gotta decide. Are they hot or
35:56 cold? And some of you, that's you. And Jude, as we've established, it's 1 of the most negative, and it's 1 of the most forceful, and it's 1 of the most combative books of the whole
36:08 bible by percentage. And the theme is actually military. It says early in Jude to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered under the saints. That's a battle term for conflict. The
36:20 question is, well, why is Jude so intense? Because he loves the church. And and let me just explain this to you. I was thinking about it today as I was praying for you.
36:33 He's talking about the world, and he's talking about the church. And God's people need the church. I was thinking about it. It
36:45 there there was he's talking here about the second coming of Jesus and judgment. There was another time of judgment, very legendary in history. It was in the days of Noah. God decided things are getting
36:56 worse. If you read Genesis 6, comes to mind. It says that God was grieved in his heart because everyone was just plotting evil all
37:08 the time. It was just getting worse. And so what did God do? God said, I'm gonna flood the world. I'm gonna bring judgment. Gonna bring
37:20 judgment. And he told the family, build a build an ark. The ark is a type for the church.
37:33 As darkness and judgment and death and destruction come to the world, God's people need a proverbial arc. They need a place where they can be safe. They need a place
37:45 where they can be with their family. That's called the church. That's why Jude is so intense. He's like, if the floodwaters of judgment are coming, if we don't
37:57 preserve the church, there's nothing and nowhere for God's people and their beloved. And what what you need to know about the difference between
38:09 the church and the world is this, that out there, you're not home. When you come to church and you're with God's people and you're in God's presence and
38:21 we're singing God's praises, it should feel like home. And if you have the Holy Spirit, it should feel like a family reunion. What happens then, the lukewarm people walk in, they're like,
38:32 we don't feel very comfortable here. That's because you're worldly. We don't feel comfortable anywhere. Like anywhere.
38:45 So then they'll come in, they'll be like, well, hey, could you make some changes to belief and behavior so that we feel more comfortable? Because some of our friends out there, they don't feel they don't feel they don't
38:55 feel like it's home for them. You know, so hey, you've got you've take you've got it. You took Disneyland. You took Target. You took the month of
39:07 June. Stay in your lane. This is this is this is our family. Right? You you took the freaking
39:19 rainbow. You you you you took government schools. You you took my tax money to pay for it. Just, you know, pound Sam. IShow more
Comments No comments yet. Start the conversation.
Mark Driscoll
Comments
Keep it kind. Comments are public.