Keep in God’s Love - Jude

                     

The world has changed a lot in the past 30 years. It used to be when we talked about a virus, it was about our physical health, now when we talk about a virus, it’s because our computers, phones, cars, or anything electronic has become infected with a virus that can shut things down and make our devices useless. In a similar way, false teaching can infect our spiritual lives, leading us into unhealthy ways of living, of relating with each other, and with God. Jude’s warning the people that false teachers have crept into the church and are giving the people wrong and unhealthy ways of understanding who God is and what Jesus has done for us. It’s not just Jude who writes the churches about this, Peter warns against false teachers in his second letter, and Paul warns about the same thing in a number of his letters. Jesus also warned about false teachers and shepherds showing up for their own benefit.

Jude calls us to fight for what we believe, for what we’ve been taught in Scripture and Jesus; listening to God’s voice over the clamour of voices in our world trying to lead our hearts away from God. He knows that when we contend for the faith, it becomes more real to us. Jude warns them, “They are ungodly people who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.” God’s grace is seen as permission to do whatever they want, depending on God’s grace to forgive them. The word Jude uses, “pervert,” means “to change or transfer.” In Jude’s situation, the immorality he’s warning against is sexual immorality and perversion. These false teachers are changing what God’s grace and Jesus’ sacrifice are really about. They’re teaching that you can embrace the sexual morals and practices of the people around you and God’s grace will give forgiveness and there’ll be no judgment for their sin.

Paul gets angry in Romans 6 over the same attitude, verses1–2, “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?” Paul, and Jude, are countering the false teaching that God owes us forgiveness and that obedience to God’s laws and Jesus’ teachings and way are not important. False teachers ignore that God is a just God and punishes deliberate disobedience. They fail to acknowledge that deliberate disobedience means that you’ve failed to truly accept Jesus as your Lord, that you still see yourself as your lord rather than confessing that you belong, body and soul, in life and in death to Jesus and follow his ways out of gratitude and thankfulness for all he’s done for your salvation.

Jude uses the Greek word “ekporneuw” for sexual immorality, where our word pornography comes from. Pornography is rooted in lust and self-centered desire. It’s often about exerting power over others, treating them as objects to be controlled or manipulated sexually, believing that you’re in control when actually, your desires are what’s in control. In the 60s, the idea that free love would bring joy and freedom hasn’t worked out that way. Instead, it’s brought more brokenness, more shallowness, more regrets and hurt, than joy or freedom into relationships. Today, young adults and teens are looking for a stronger deeper foundation to relationships than the free love mantra of the boomer generation because they’ve seen the brokenness in their grandparents’ and parents’ relationships because of the lack of relational commitment, leading to the increase in pornography and casual sex. The thing with immorality is that it begins small, like looking at images, which makes it easier for Satan to take you deeper into sin.

Immorality and sexual sin have many roots: many think that lust is the root cause of immorality, but often lust is rooted in anger; anger at others for perceived or actual actions, or self-anger from a lack of self-respect and self-condemnation for not being enough, for not measuring up to your own or other’s expectations, or from rejection. The hook-up culture and affairs are often rooted in the belief that sex will build connections and relationships which will provide fulfillment in who you are, it’s often rooted in wanting to be accepted or to belong. The reality is that these relationships create emptiness instead of fulfillment, broken relationships rather than stronger relationships, regret instead of joy, and rejection instead of acceptance.

Paul warns us in 1 Corinthians 6:18–20, “Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually, sins against their own body. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” We are the body of Christ in the world and sexual immortality impacts others, not just yourself. It impacts the person you sin with because if you’re honest with yourself, you’re focused on your own pleasure over the other person’s. It creates brokenness within the church body as we’re the body together and unfaithfulness hurts us all. It hurts God and creates brokenness with God because it’s about you rather than about God, creating spiritual sickness. God is pure, so as his children, as the body of Christ, we’re called to imitate Jesus and seek purity.

Our culture confuses lust and sex with love. Love is rooted in how we treat each other, showing respect for the other person, putting their needs above your own, about patience, protecting, trusting, about depth, kindness, truth, perseverance, and hope. Marriage and commitment look different in our culture, marriage has many different forms in our culture, often shaped more as a contract rather than a permanent covenant filled with deep commitment. If it takes too much work, leave and pay the penalty, and then make a new contract with someone else who will fill your empty spot, who will make you whole. The problem is we place so much responsibility on someone else to make us whole, something that only God can do. John Calvin talks about a God-sized hole in each of us, but false teachers tell us that the right person can fill this hole instead of God.

What’s the cure to this spiritual virus? We acknowledge that marriage is a gift from God, and mirrors God’s relationship within himself where the Father pours into the Son and Spirit, the Son pours into the Father and Spirit, and the Spirit pours into the Father and Son; that sexual purity reflects our relationship with God. Jude shows us the cure in the beginning and end of his letter, “To those who have been called, who are loved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ,”  ending with “To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore.” Being kept for Jesus, the one who’s able to protect us from virus thinking, who’s able to keep us safe because we’re in him, kept safe by the love of God through faith in Jesus.

Old Testament laws around sex focused on purity, on being an example to the nations around Israel of what healthy relationships look like and that our relationships with each other are a reflection of our relationship with Jesus. Lev 18:1-5 is a chapter that lays out unhealthy ways of relating to each other sexually. These laws are given to build healthy relationships that are healthy and help each other grow more into the image of God. Purity shows health, brings health into our relationships.

God pours his love and gifts into us; marriage imitates God by pouring into the other, building the other up, helping the other to grow into the person God’s created them to be. Marriage and sex are about giving to the other rather than taking for yourself. In Genesis 2:23-25, God creates Adam and Eve and Adam marvels at Eve, “The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh. Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.” Sex is a beautiful gift, it joins us together in marriage, becoming one flesh; a life-long relationship that is other-focused, building each other up to become who God has called them to be. It’s intimate, God-given, and exclusive. Paul uses marriage as an example of Jesus’ relationship with us, a life-long commitment to build each other up to be who God’s created us to be. Sex and sexuality are a gift of beauty and wonder, given to create intimate safe relationships; it’s about purity and holiness reflecting God to the world.

We’re created by God for intimate relationships within committed marriage relationships; sex is a gift to help us grow in intimacy. He gives us marriage as a life-long commitment between a man and a woman; our very bodies are designed for this intimacy. Jesus’ teaching always points us to trust in God’s ways. It takes trust and faith that God knows what’s best for us. We may not always understand the why of God’s ways and rules, yet we walk in faith, trusting that his way shapes us more into the image of Jesus, keeping in his love virus-free.