Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

Jude 1:3

Who should ‘contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints?’  The answer to that is, ‘the saints.’  If we were breakers of the Law of God, by nature and by choice; if we were dead in trespasses and sins; if the Holy Spirit has regenerated us from spiritual death to spiritual life; if He has given us faith to believe, to embrace Christ as the Gospel freely offers Him; if He has called us saints, then we are those who should contend earnestly for the faith.  We are the beneficiaries of the largesse of the God, Who had redeemed us by the sacrifice of His Only Begotten Son.  Who are more appropriate witnesses of the grace of God than we who have benefitted the most thoroughly from it?  This is why we exist.  It is our chief end to glorify God;  therefore, Christ is our message.  Day after day, believers all over the world in generation after generation have ‘ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.’  We have the glorious privilege to contend earnestly for the faith by repeating the message of the prophets, the apostles, and all the saints, before us.  ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved.’ 

Our Great and Gracious God,
we rejoice that we have the privilege to preach Christ.
We praise You that the preaching of Christ is Your method
of drawing souls unto Him.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.  For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jude 1:3-4

What happens if we do not ‘contend earnestly for the faith which was one for all delivered to the saints?’  Jude speaks of ‘certain men’ who have an agenda to do three things.  These are: to turn the grace of God into lewdness; to deny the only Lord God and; to deny our Lord Jesus Christ.  If we refuse or fail to ‘contend earnestly for the faith,’ then this agenda proceeds without opposition.  What is the end-result of that agenda?  It is the perversion of free grace into self-gratification.  It is the repudiation of God and His Authority.  It is the denial of the Person and work of Christ.  None of this leads to a good end.  By contrast, what happens if we do earnestly contend for the faith?  What happens is, there will be many who will experience the grace of God and the personal effects of it.  They will embrace the Lord God by embracing Christ as Savior and Lord.  They will enter into the company of ‘the saints’ to whom ‘the faith was delivered.’  The results of contending earnestly for the faith is good both generally and specifically.  It is that contending earnestly in generation after generation which has transformed lives and deterred evil.  Therefore, we have every reason to ‘contend earnestly for the faith.’

Our Great and Faithful God,
we rejoice that You given us the faith,
and enabled us thus far to contend for it.
We pray that You will continue to make us faithful,
and to proclaim the Person and work of Christ.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

Jude 1:3

Who are ‘the saints’ who have become the recipients of ‘the faith?’  Are they the super-spiritual, well-above-average individuals who stand head-and-shoulders above others because of their remarkable character and near miraculous deeds?  The Scripture reflects saints as being something quite different from this characterization.  Rather, the Scripture indicates that saints are those who, having no righteousness of their own, God has redeemed by free and Sovereign grace through the work of Christ.  Paul describes the foundational group from whom God has made saints.   He says, ‘For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh not many mighty, not many noble, are called.  But, God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence.’ God has reached down to the lowest depths to make saints.  To those people, who are eternally grateful, He has delivered ‘the faith.’  Their proclamation of it has spread over the whole earth, in every generation.  They have preached it, lived it, and often died for it.  We are the spiritual inheritors of all who have gone before us in ‘the faith.’  We have the privilege to proclaim Christ, and the opportunity to serve our generation.  What God delivered to them He has delivered to us.  Therefore, we preached Christ, and Him crucified, the Gospel of ‘the faith.’

Our Good and Wise God,
we rejoice that You have made saints out of the lowest of the low.
We praise You that You have elevated your people
to sit with Christ in heavenly places.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning

Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

Jude 1:3

How is it that ‘the faith’ of which Jude speaks has been, ‘once for all delivered to the saints?’ The word ‘delivered’ carries with it the idea of ‘entrusted.’  At what point did God begin to entrust the faith into the hands of the saints?  We find the first presentation of the Gospel is in Genesis 3:15.  There, the pre-incarnate Christ speaks regarding ‘the seed of the woman,’ the Messiah, Who would crush the head of ‘the serpent,’ Satan.  Subsequent to that declaration of the Gospel, throughout the rest of the Old and New Testaments, the essentials of ‘the faith’ have emerged in various declarations from the ‘holy men of God who spoke as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.’  The Apostles of the New Testament took up the message of Christ and preached it over the whole of the ancient world.  Even their enemies declared that the result of their preaching was to, ‘turn the world upside down,’ that is, it overturned all the prevailing mythologies and supplanted them.  In every age, God has raised up those who would faithfully preach Christ, as the ‘one Mediator between God and man.’  Because this message is the message of ‘the faith,’ the people whom God raises up shall continue to proclaim it. 

Our Good and Wise God,
we rejoice that You have delivered this faith unto us.
We praise You that it has been declared,
is being declared, and shall be declared unto the end of the age.

Tomm Tice
Where the Bush is Burning