Keep Growing!

“With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers, as an act of intelligent worship, to give Him your bodies as a living sacrifice, consecrated to Him and acceptable by Him.

Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mold, but let God re-mold your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity.” Rom. 12:1,2

The New Testament in Modern Englishby J.B. Phillips

Pluralism is the world’s mold! It is a viewpoint that affirms the independent validity of every systemof belief.

“Pluralism does not just affirm the obvious fact that there is a plurality of cultures and ideologies and religions in the world. It goes beyond that. Itsays that all these claims should berespected equally,

and we must therefore affirm the independent validity of every religion and every ideology. We must therefore give up the naïveand arrogant notion that we should try to convert anybody, let alone try to convert everybody!

To those who have embraced pluralism nothing is more obnoxious than the Christian claim to uniqueness and the concept of world mission and world evangelization.”

“Three Challenges to theContemporary Church”

by John Stott

3Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for thefaith that was once for all delivered tothe saints.

4For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

Jude 3 & 4

“the faith” is a body of truth that very early in the church’s history took on a definite form.

5Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. 6And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the

judgment of the great day— 7just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. Jude 5-7

1. Unbelieving Israel – destroyed! (v.5)

2. Disobedient angels – reserved inchains (v.6)

3. Immoral Sodom and Gomorrah –“punishment of eternal fire” (v.7)

8Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. 9But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.”

10But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. 11Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion.

12These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves; waterless clouds, swept along by winds; fruitless trees in late autumn, twice dead, uprooted;

13wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars, for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever.

Jude 8 - 13.

* Degraded in immorality and selfishness(Like Cain)

* Defiant towards authorities(Contrast Michael and Korah.)

* Devoted to passion and material gain(Like Balaam)

* Empty of all spiritual worth (vss. 12, 13)

1. Remember the apostles’ warnings17But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. 18They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” 19It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.

Jude 17-19

1. Remember the apostles’ warnings

29I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock;

Acts 20:29

1. Remember the apostles’ warnings

1Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons,

I Timothy 4:1

1. Remember the apostles’ warnings

3For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions,

2 Timothy 4:3

2. Reinforce yourselves in God’s love

20But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, 21keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.

Jude 20-21

2. Reinforce yourselves in God’s love* By constantly building in faith.

15Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15

2. Reinforce yourselves in God’s love* By constantly building in faith.

1“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. John 15:1

2. Reinforce yourselves in God’s love* By constantly building in faith.

4Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. John 15:4

2. Reinforce yourselves in God’s love* By constantly building in faith.

10If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. John 15:10

2. Reinforce yourselves in God’s love* By prayer in the Spirit’s power.

18praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,

Ephesians 6:18

2. Reinforce yourselves in God’s love* By prayer in the Spirit’s power.

26Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Romans 8:26, 27

2. Reinforce yourselves in God’s love

* By recalling God’s abundant mercy

3. Reach out to the lost in mercy.22And have mercy on those who doubt; 23save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.

Jude 22-23

3. Reach out to the lost in mercy.

* Save the doubters with gentleness.

* Snatch the deluded with strongwarnings.

* Seek all with pity for them and fear oftheir sin.

4. Recognize the great keeping powerof God!

24Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. Jude 24, 25

11 And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son.12 Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

1 John 5:11-13