Dear Church Family,
The Book of Jude, another of the ‘small packages’ in the New Testament, contains 25 verses of pure gold. Just the first two verses pack words that we need to savor. Most scholars believe the author was the brother of Jesus Christ. Imagine the stories he could have told about growing up with our Savior! He calls himself “a servant of Jesus Christ.”
Jude writes to fellow believers. His salutation has a rich list of blessings they enjoy and good for us to chew over. He writes “to those who have been called.” We can easily glide by those six words, yet without them not one person would ever be redeemed by the blood of Jesus on the cross. Since we are spiritually dead in sin, no one will ever come to Jesus unless a supernatural acts to change that spiritual state. That action start before God created the world when He called some (the elect) to be His chosen people. Paul lays this out in great detail in Ephesians 1, as well as throughout Romans. We do not deserve the many blessings that God showers on us. This remains a great reason to give Him praise.
Jude goes on to remind his readers they “are loved by God the Father.” This coming Lord’s Day I have the joy of digging into the “True Love” of God shown in Romans 5:6-8. Please listen carefully with your sermon outline and understand more deeply how much God loves His people. Please do not gloss over the fact that God is your Heavenly Father. Your identity must be found in being as child of the Creator God. God alone acted to accomplish your salvation by choosing you, calling you, justifying you by faith alone in Christ alone and adopted you as His beloved child. Jesus then preserves God’s people as He states in John 10:28 that He has given His sheep “eternal life; and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of My hand.”
In the second verse Jude uses a common Jewish saying that greeted people with “mercy and peace” – two wonderful benefits of God’s people. Instead of wrath, those justified by Christ have received mercy and are at peace with God as Romans 5:1 reminds us. Jude enriches the greeting by adding “love” to it. Jude further adds that we do not have just a sprinkling of those three blessing. God’s people enjoy them in abundance.
Chew over these two verses and praise our Heavenly Father for His many blessings!
With great hope in His grace,
Pastor Gillikin