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Jude "Fighting Cancer"
This last week I was appalled to learn that a eleven year old boy in
our church in Machida has been hospitalized with cancer. His name is
Yuhei, I saw Yuhei at the Family Camp in August and we could tell nothing
wrong with him. But the cancer attacked his lymphatic system and has
spread thoughout his body. He was in a coma, but has come out of that
now, but we need to take the time to pray for him.
"Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ, and brother of James,
To those who are called, sanctified by God the Father, and preserved
in Jesus Christ; Mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you."
"Dear friends, I've dropped everything to write you about this
life of salvation that we have in common. I have to write insisting--
begging!-- that you fight with everthing you have in you for this faith
entrusted to us as a gift to guard and cherish. What has happened is
that some people have infiltrated our ranks (Our Scriptures warned us
this would happen), who beneath their pious skin are shameless scoundrels.
Their design is to replace the sheer grace of our God with sheer license--which
means doing away with Jesus Christ, our one and only Master." (The
Message)
Jude was writing the church because just like the cancer that silently
attacked Yuhei's body, another cancer was at work in the church, the
body of Christ. The lymphatic system in the human body is what protects
the body against disease. It is what regulates and controls the white
blood cells that search out and destroy the viruses and toxins in our
body. But with Yuhei, the part of his body that should keep him from
getting sick, has become cancerous. In the same way, there were people
in the church that although they looked like Christians, were actually
doing damage to the body.
When attacking a cancer, the doctors must first make an exploratory
surgery. They open up one of the lymph nodes and test the tissue to
find out what kind of cancer it has. Let us do the same thing with this
cancer in the church and find out what these Christians were doing that
was so destructive.
Jude is like the doctor, and when he exposes these cancerous Christians
he finds out that the root cause of their error is that they are trying
to replace the sheer grace of God with sheer license.
Do you all remember what grace is? Grace is when we get what we do not
deserve. It is when we receive forgiveness when we should have been
punished. It is when we get blessings when there should have been curses.
I love the hymn "Amazing Grace" because that is exactly what
grace is; AMAZING. Grace will always take you by surprise, because you
will be expecting the exact opposite. The man who wrote the hymn was
most assuredly expecting the opposite. You see the author of "Amazing
Grace", John Newton, was the captain of a slave ship. He bought
Africans, packed them with incredible cruelty into the hold of his ship
and then transported them to the New World to be sold. As he captained
the ship he would surely hear the groans of his prisoners, both male
and female, and yet he turned a deaf ear to their cries for mercy. But
on one trip the ship was torn apart by a ferocious storm and John Newton
found himself on a piece of wood, drifting aimlessly in the ocean. As
his strength slipped away, he considered how he deserved what God had
given to him. How God was repaying him for what he had done to others.
And yet, even the cruel slaver captain, begged God for mercy, fully
expecting to be rejected just as he had rejected others. But God did
not reject John Newton's prayer. John Newton was rescued. He lived to
pen the famous words, "Amazing grace how sweet the sound, that
saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found. Was blind
but now I see." This is the grace of God. His blessing on us even
though we have gone against Him.
Grace is fundamental to our Christian life, "by grace we have been
saved!" We need it just like the white blood cells in our body.
Because it is the active grace of God in our lives that protects us
from our own failures and sin. But where we need to be careful is that
we do not take advantage of grace. Paul wrote in Romans 6, "What
shall we say then, shall we continue to sin that grace may abound? By
no means!" The members of the church were relying on the grace
of God to forgive them whatever they did. They were thinking, "So
what if I tell a lie, I will just ask God's forgiveness." "So
what if I cheat a little, God will forgive me."
In Tokyo Horizon Chapel we love to fellowship. We especially like to
get together and eat. I used to joke around and tell people to eat as
much as they like. Don't worry about getting fat, because we pray the
calories out. We just lay hands on the food and God casts out those
calories. But I can testify to you that it doesn't work that way. Because
even though I prayed out the calories my waistline still increased!
Jude reminds those Christians who were taking advantage of God,
"But I want to remind you , though you once knew this, that
the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward
destroyed those who did not believe. And the angels who did not keep
their proper domain, but left their own abode, He has reserved in everlasting
chains under darkness for the judgment of the great day; as Sodom and
Gomorrah, and the cities around them in a similar manner to these, having
given themselves over to sexual immorality and gone after strange flesh,
are set forth as an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire."
You see, God sees straight through to the heart. He will not be fooled.
It is easy to fool the pastor. It is easy to fool your fellow Christians.
But God knows exactly what you are thinking and everything that you
do.
Let me give you a little principle about grace that will keep you from
the error of license. Grace is always surprising. Let me repeat it to
you. Grace is always surprising.
Two boys went to the school principals office. They were both in bad
trouble. They went into the office one by one. After a long time the
first boy came out. As he came out of the office, he gave a big sigh
of relief and wiped the sweat off his forehead. "I thought I was
expelled for sure", and then gave his friend a big smile as he
headed back to class. The second boy also came out of the principal's
office with a smile a few minutes later. Both boys received forgiveness.
But only the first one experienced grace. The second boy knew before
he walked in that the punishment would be light. His attitude was, "This
principal is a push-over. I will be able to do anything I want."
Don't hold an attitude like this towards God. Because even though God
is faithful to forgive, He will not be mocked. If you do not breath
a sigh of relief, you have not experienced grace. If you calmly go before
God and demand forgiveness for your sins, there is something wrong with
your attitude. Let us continue to be surprised by the amazing grace
of God.
"Likewise also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject authority,
and speak evil of dignitaries. Yet Michael the archangel, in contending
with the devil, when he disputed about the body of Moses, dared not
bring against him a reviling accusation, but said, "The Lord rebuke
you!" But these speak evil of whatever they do not know; and whatever
they know naturally, like brute beasts, in these things they corrupt
themselves. Woe to them! For they have gone in the way of Cain, have
run greedily in the error of Balaam for profit, and perished in the
rebellion of Korah.
These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without
fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried
about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled
up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame;
wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever."
One of the problems that we are facing with Yuhei is that although the
cancer was at work in his body for a long time, the outward signs have
only just become noticable. The root of the cancer that Jude was fighting
was the misuse of grace. The symptoms appeared later and were three.
The defilement of the flesh, rejection of authority, and then speaking
evil of dignitaries.
Let me show you how this progression works. It starts with the lusts
of the flesh. These are the sins that are the most difficult to control,
so those who take grace for granted, justify continuing in this kind
of sin because God will forgive it. They think to themselves that God
doesn't care about the outside, He cares about the heart, so it doesn't
matter what I do to my body. This kind of sin might be something as
bad as sexual immorality, or as seemingly harmless as smoking. It could
be something as damaging as drug or alcohol abuse or just an inability
to get control over our apettites. We think it is just a little thing,
God will forgive me. But as it happens over and over again, we care
less and less what God thinks and listen only to our bodies.
Oftentimes these symptoms are hidden. The pastor doesn't know, the church
doesn't know. But when this kind of sin is uncovered, or the pastor
goes and talks about it with the person, then that person becomes very
defensive. And they use the grace of God as a false shield to hide behind,
to protect their sin. They reject the spiritual authority of the pastor
to correct them. "They say, Pastor is out to get me, but I know
that God loves me."
Finally it escalates into the person going farther and farther to protect
themselves by attacking the authority of the church. They will start
to complain about the pastor, then about the church, then about the
Bible. Soon they have reshaped Christianity into a "God loves everybody
so you can do whatever you want" religion.
So what do we do with this kind Christian? Let me read to you from verse
22 in "The Message" Bible.
"Go easy on those who hesitate in the faith. Go after those
who take the wrong way. Be tender with sinners, but not soft on sin.
The sin itself stinks to high heaven."
The same as with the cancer in Yuhei's body. We cannot just ignore it
and hope that it will go away. We must go after it. But we have to go
easy on Yuhei. We must be as tender as possible with him, and yet kill
the cancer that is destroying his body.
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