Right Cross
If we don’t learn to fight right, we will always fight the wrong fight. How do we fight right? The cross is right.
OPENING LINE: Did you know that First Baptist Church Orange Park was the site of a local “fight club?”
INTRODUCTION: Long before the 1999 film starring Brad Pitt was produced, our back lot was the site of many fist fights…
TRANSITION: Why do I open today with a story about boys bloodying and hurting each other? Because I wasn’t taught how to fight right. And I wasn’t taught what is the right fight.
MY MAIN POINT: If we don’t learn to fight right, we will always fight the wrong fight.
WHY IT MATTERS: Because many of us in this room today are fighting the wrong fight and fighting the wrong way, and it is exhausting. You are either on the ropes just covering up and taking blows or like Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 9:26 you are boxing “as one beating the air”—throwing wild punches just hoping one hits its target.
POWER IN THE TEXT:
Anchor verse 3: “Beloved, 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 the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.”
Jude 17-21: 17 But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. 18 They said to you, "In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions." 19 It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit. 20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.
THE APPLICATION: So how then are we to contend? If we don’t learn to fight right, we will always fight the wrong fight. How do we fight right? The cross is right. But we have been conditioned to fight wrong just as I was so many years ago:
We contend for comfort
We contend for contention
We contend for causes
But Jude doesn’t say contend for these things. He says contend for the faith. Keep yourselves in the love of God. Paul says not to “box the air” or “run aimlessly.”
The cross is right. Contend for the cross. Contend for the faith. Keep yourselves in the love of God—imperative.
We contend by keeping. That’s it. We contend by keeping.
Jesus tells us exactly how to contend for the faith. Jude alludes to it in verse 1 when he writes:
Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ:
So what does Jesus say about keeping ourselves in the love of God? In John 14 He says:
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments…Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me…If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words.”
We contend for the faith by keeping Jesus’ commandments. All of them. Not just the ones that are comfortable.
We contend by knowing and living by The Word
We contend by submitting our lives to Him in every aspect
THE TO-DO: So what does this look like practically. What’s the takeaway? Let me paint a picture first.
George Whitfield story
Grandparents/Parents Spiritual Conversations
Generous/Cheerful Giver
Confession/Victory over Sin
The Sin of Omission—Get in the Fight
THE WHY: Because God said you matter. The people you love matter. All people matter. He did not die for nothing. He died for His “beloved.”
THE CLOSING:
Prayer
Congregational reading of God’s Word (Jude 3)
Footnotes
1 The Holy Bible: English Standard Version. (2016). (Jud 5–16). Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.
