Close Menu X
Navigate

State of the Church Address 2022

January 9, 2022 Speaker: Brian Wilbur Series: State of the Church

Topic: Church Health

STATE OF THE CHURCH ADDRESS

By Pastor Brian Wilbur

Date: January 9, 2022

Series: State of the Church

Note: Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard   Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

 

INTRODUCTION

As I mentioned in an email last week, today’s sermon is the State of the Church Address – and it differs from the norm. So if there is anyone out there who hasn’t heard me preach before, you should realize that this is not a typical sermon. Usually I read a specific portion of Scripture – perhaps 5 or 10 or 20 verses – and then I devote the sermon to unpacking, explaining, and applying that passage. I do this by conviction, as I believe that carefully preaching one passage at a time is the best way for God’s people to hear and rightly understand God’s Word. And this is why we are here – to learn what God has said in order to let His words govern and shape our lives. This is what South Paris Baptist Church is all about: being God’s holy people who are governed and shaped by God’s authoritative and transformative words, which have been uniquely inscripturated in the book we call the Bible.

That said, I think it is appropriate for a pastor, from time to time, to speak pastorally and reflectively to the church family, in order to take stock of where we are and to give specific encouragement for the new season that is opening before us. In fact, some of the New Testament letters follow this pattern, in which a writer like the Apostle Paul was responding to very specific circumstances. Of course, when Paul did this, what came forth from the Lord through him was inspired Scripture. As for me, I adamantly claim that what comes forth through me this morning – although it might be helpful and wise – is most certainly not inspired Scripture. But be assured that I will refer to the inspired Scriptures many times!

I have organized my thoughts around three categories: 1) celebrating God’s grace in our midst; 2) encouraging us to grow in particular areas; and 3) reminding us to keep first things first.

ON A PERSONAL NOTE

For starters, I would like to say how blessed I am to serve as the pastor here. Charlotta and I felt the tug to partner with you back in August 2017, and one month later you invited us to come, and two months after that we moved here with your help, and my official start date was December 1, 2017. Since then, 49 months have passed. And 49 months in, we are glad to be here! Charlotta is not fond of the New England cold, that much is true, but what is clear is that you are not cold. While all of us experience all kinds of ups and downs, nevertheless it is apparent that you have warm hearts toward us and toward one another.

Warmhearted love is a hallmark of true Christianity, and you demonstrate such love in many ways. Love that is distinctly Christian is, in fact, the fruit of Christian faith. For it is the nature of faith in Jesus to express itself in the form of love for your fellow Christians. When God births you into His redeemed family, what flows out of that is an instinctive and special love for the other members of His redeemed family: “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of him.” (1 John 5:1) This is where it is at: believing in Jesus, loving the Father, and loving all of the Father’s kids! The only thing of great consequence, Paul assures us, is “faith working through love” (Galatians 5:6).

CELEBRATING GOD’S GRACE IN OUR MIDST

As I celebrate God’s grace in our midst, let me do so my calling attention to a four areas. The first two I’ve already mentioned but will expand upon them: they are ‘faith’ and ‘love’. When Paul wrote his second letter to the believers in Thessalonica, he said: “We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.” (2 Thessalonians 1:3) Faith growing, and love increasing. That’s the ticket!

Faith

Regarding faith, one of the primary ways that our faith in Jesus is nurtured and strengthened is through active engagement with God’s Word. Followers of Jesus are known by their regular practice of gathering together around God’s Word, like those early Christians in Acts 2 who “devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching” (Acts 2:42). That is what we do, if we are Christians. So it is encouraging to see interest and attentiveness and appreciation for hearing God’s Word proclaimed during our worship service. It is encouraging to see small groups of people gathering together at different times to interact over God’s Word: Sunday School and the Monday morning counterpart, the Monday evening Ladies Study, the Wednesday morning Ladies Study, the Wednesday afternoon Bible Study that meets about six months out of the year, and the Youth Group.

Of course, it is not enough to hear and understand God’s Word – we must also be diligent to put it into practice, as Pete reminded us last week. Jesus taught us that the truly blessed ones “are those who hear the word of God and keep it!” (Luke 11:28) Even so, hearing and understanding the Scriptures, digging into and discussing God’s Word, talking about and treasuring the instruction of the Lord, is a necessary and wonderful part of our fellowship with the Lord and with one another. And it nourishes faith so that faith grows abundantly and produces good fruit. Continue in the Scriptures!

Love

And when faith is growing, love will be increasing. The heart that is expanding in its fellowship with God, will be enlarging in its capacity to extend grace and kindness to others. If one isn’t happening, the other isn’t happening.

True biblical love is a desire for someone else’s well-being that expresses itself in practical action. Biblical love is not robotic action void of feeling, but genuine care that cares enough to do something helpful, to say something helpful, to give something helpful. Love desires to build up and bless others. Paul wrote, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” (Philippians 2:3-4)

Now when love is present within a church family, you will see it, because love is visible. But you will only see a slice of it. Why just a slice? Because if people are loving each other in practical ways throughout the week, if people are calling each other and messaging each other and encouraging each other and running errands for each other and serving each other and making meals for each other and sending cards to each other and inviting people over for dinner and blessing each other with thoughtful gifts – if this is happening, how much of it are you going to see? Only a little bit, right? But do you see that little bit which is visible to you? Do you see specific instances of people loving each other?

I have both seen and heard about demonstrations of love taking place among us, and therefore I assume that it is happening on a wider scale. Therefore I say: press on! Keep folding people into your lives, until their concerns become your concerns. Keep lingering after the worship service in order to connect with people. Keep offering yourself, your time, and your resources for the benefit of others. Keep opening up your heart and life and home to others, until they feel like family.

Service

Where there is faith, there is also love. And where there is love, people will step up to serve. This is the third area: service.

One very particular expression of love is the willingness to serve alongside others in church-based ministry. I want to be careful to say that I’m not trying to suggest that the formally recognized or publicly visible ministries of the church are better or more important than the various kinds of informal and less visible ministries that people do, which are also important expressions of love. Both kinds of ministry are important, and I’m not engaging in a comparison game. But the point I’m attempting to make is that the formal and visible ministries of the church are important – and it is not good when the bulk of those ministries rest on the shoulders of just the pastor or just the elders. Yes, we do want the pastor and elders to gladly assume responsibility for the teaching, shepherding, and directing of the congregation as a whole, but we transparently do not want the pastor and elders to be doing everything. And in this regard, I believe that South Paris Baptist Church is wonderfully blessed.

As far as I can tell, you don’t want me to do everything – and I’m very glad about this, because pastors aren’t called to do everything, I don’t want to do everything, and Charlotta doesn’t want me to do everything! The church family as a whole is called and equipped to do many things, but pastors are called to do only a few things well, and you seem content for me to set my mind on those few things. You may not realize how important this shared outlook is! It goes a long way in preventing pastoral burnout and in growing a church-wide ministry that will be fruitful over the long haul.   

One of the important factors that inclined my heart toward South Paris Baptist Church is the fact that this church is led by a team of elders. And after I met them and asked them about a dozen questions on July 5, 2017, I had the sense that these were men I could work with. The subsequent four-plus years have confirmed this initial sense. These elders are actively involved in shouldering the responsibility of pastoral leadership, which is a huge blessing for you all and for me.

Beyond the elders, many of you have various kinds of leadership gifts, and you use those gifts to serve our church family. And many of you have various kinds of helping gifts, and you use those gifts to assist those with leadership gifts. And when you get a good mix of leaders and helpers blended together, you get ministry teams where team members labor side by side in order to serve the church family. And that’s what we have here: the Youth Group Leadership Team, the Praise Team, the Musicians, the Nursery Team, the Communion Set-Up Teams, the Supper Team, the Finance Team, the Trustees, the Outreach Team, the VBS Team, the Media Team, the Garments of Praise Team. While we would certainly welcome additional help in a few areas, the overall picture is that our church family is full of leaders and helpers working together as good stewards within God’s household. Our church family is also full of teachers, as both elders and non-elders are actively involved in teaching God’s Word to children, youth, and adults.

The Lord’s Compassion

So God’s grace is evident in our devotion to His Word, in our demonstrations of love to each other, and in our willingness to serve alongside others in order to carry out the practical ministries of the church. But even more fundamental than these evidences of grace is an even deeper grace that preserved us through a rough patch and then blessed us with a season of growth. Let’s call this fourth area ‘the Lord’s compassion’.

Covid-19, in conjunction with the response of governmental and health authorities to it, and the accompanying political and cultural divide portrayed in the news and played out on destabilizing social media platforms, has put enormous pressure on individuals, relationships, and institutions, including churches. I am happy to say that I have no intent of analyzing this pressure in today’s message; I am simply calling attention to the fact of it. If your eyes are open, you know what I’m talking about.

In any case, not gathering together for the ten consecutive Sundays from March 22 to May 24, 2020, really did throw us for a loop. And when we started to gather again on May 31, 2020, we were out of sorts. We were disconnected as a result of not gathering at all for ten weeks. We were also disconnected because once we gathered again, we did so with some constraints on our gathering, we were meeting in two worship services instead of one, and there were other limitations on congregational life that endured for some time. It was a painful time. We were caught off guard. Speaking for myself, I felt ill-equipped, foggy-headed, and weak-spirited during some of that time. In the moment it didn’t feel good at all. And congregationally we were not in sync with one another.

How does the Lord view His people when they are stumbling down a thorny trail? How does the Lord regard His people when they are disoriented and don’t know how to fix it? How does the Lord look upon us when we take some faulty steps in difficult times? Here is my answer:

“The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments. The LORD has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.” (Psalm 103:8-19)

Why have we experienced such blessing from the Lord in the past 17 months, when you consider that 18-20 months ago we were in such a weakened state? Why the undeserved blessing? The answer is right there in Psalm 103: because of the Lord’s mercy, grace, compassion, and steadfast love.

As I think back on those days, from my vantage point if just a few things had happened differently, our congregation might have gone into survival mode. But God did not abandon us to our weaknesses. Instead, He held onto us and renewed our vitality. There is no doubt that the Lord was doing many things to bring about our renewal in June of 2020. But here’s a tidbit from my own experience. I was preparing a sermon for June 21, 2020, and as of that Thursday afternoon June 18 I had a manuscript of about 8 ½ pages. But either that evening or the next evening, I was having a conversation with Charlotta in which she had shared about a recent message that Pastor Tony Evans had preached, and in that conversation I realized that I had to shift gears and preach an entirely different sermon in just a couple of days. And that is an important part of the backstory to the “Wake Up!” sermon of June 21, 2020 – which is one example of something that the Lord brought about for the renewal of our church family. In fact, the Lord was awakening me and strengthening me in those days, and Lord-willing I will never forget the formative lessons that He impressed upon me during that time.

As for our congregation as a whole, there was a great release and refreshment that began to take place in late June of 2020. We had important Family Meetings on June 28 and July 12, 2020. We also had a special evening of worship on Wednesday July 8, 2020 – do you remember that? The Praise Team led us in singing close around 19 songs. We were apparently making up for lost time! On July 19, 2020 we returned to having just one worship service, and that first one was a special service of repentance. Shortly thereafter we turned the overflow room into the ‘Health Conscious Room’, and that served a gracious and unifying purpose for many months. Also, our worship service increased in length, with more singing and more sharing within the service. Through these and other things, the Lord renewed our spirits, re-energized our fellowship, and set the stage for receiving new people into our church family.

Speaking of which, hasn’t it been wonderful to see so many new faces over the past year-and-a-half? Hasn’t it been wonderful to see many of these new faces on a regular basis as these guests have become a regular part of our church family? Around 40 new people, representing about a dozen families, now regularly join us to worship the Lord. They have been quite a group of reinforcements for a relatively small congregation like ours, and we are super blessed to have them here.

So be encouraged that the Lord saw fit – not because we deserve it but because of His own unfailing love and because of His faithfulness to preserve His people – be encouraged that the Lord saw fit to revitalize us and bring us into a new season of fellowship, worship, and ministry.

Growing in faith, increasing in love, and laboring side by side in ministry will always be the fruit of the Lord’s gracious presence with us.

The proper way to respond to the Lord’s blessing is not to take His grace for granted and shift into autopilot. Doing that would make us woefully unprepared for the next big trial on the horizon, whatever that might be. Instead, the goodness of the Lord in our midst ought to make us more earnest in our pursuit of the Lord, and make us more eager to guard and expand what He has graciously given. If the Lord gives us fifty talents to manage, then we want to be the sort of enterprising servants who leverage the fifty talents to get fifty more, and thus be able to present the Lord with a full hundred when He comes (see Matthew 25:14-30). And when the Lord pours grace after grace into our lap, these graces don’t weigh us down. Instead they stir us up! “What shall I render to the LORD for all his benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD, I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people.” (Psalm 116:12-14)

ENCOURAGING US TO GROW IN PARTICULAR AREAS

Next, I want to encourage us to grow in particular areas. The particular areas that I am choosing to highlight aren’t necessarily the most important areas, but they are important and they happen to be on my mind.

Trellis Work

The first general area where I would like to see growth is in what we might call the nuts and bolts. Or the trellis. A number of years ago, two chaps wrote a book entitled The Trellis and the Vine. It has been a long time since I read it, but the basic idea is clear and helpful. The vine refers to the primary work of the church, which is to proclaim the Word, make disciples, and instruct and encourage people to faithfully follow Jesus. All of us, to one degree or another, are called to be involved in vine work. The trellis, though less important than the vine, is critical to the success of the vine. The trellis plays an essential support role in holding up the vine. However, sometimes churches forget their primary calling to vine work and become preoccupied with trellis work – with organizational management, with building maintenance, with leadership flow charts and endless committees and financial statistics. And what you get is an impressive trellis for its own sake, but a very weak vine. What we want is an adequate trellis that is able to support the growth and development of the vine, but with the emphasis falling on the fruitfulness of the vine. Does this make sense? Jesus didn’t tell us to go into all the world and make great organizational systems; He told us to go into all the world and make disciples. Therefore, we must see organizational nuts and bolts, which are necessary, as support mechanisms which help the vine of disciple-making to grow and thrive.

So with that in mind, we would do well to strengthen or tighten up the trellis in a few areas, and here I mention them briefly. First, we would do well to bring some of the newer people into formal church membership – doing so is not absolutely necessary, but it will help us function cohesively as one body. Second, the Elders would be very happy to bring one or two additional men onto our Elder Team, and we are actively pursuing this. Third, a few of our ministry teams – Finance, Media, Outreach, Trustees – would each benefit from having additional participants. We don’t want to pressure people into such roles, but perhaps the Lord would give you a freeing disposition to serve your church family in one of these areas. Fourth, the Elders are also agreed to be more deliberate about developing Home Groups in the year ahead. We started Home Groups with an informal and grassroots approach about 15 months ago – with varied experiences for different groups. Home Groups, if functioning well, are actually more vine than trellis, but taking time to coach, equip, and support others in the development of their groups – or in the development of new groups – is important nuts and bolts to the long-term success of Home Groups. Since I have been actively and regularly involved in a Home Group that has been bonding relationally over the past year, I am in a better position to give encouragement to other people in their efforts to develop a group.

Vine Work

Trellis work is important, but the point of trellis work is to support vine work. The other area and more important area where I want to encourage us to grow is directly related to the work of the vine. As a congregation, we must be resolved to face outward in order to proclaim the gospel and make new disciples among the people who are currently outside the church. When the church gathers together for worship, our focus is rightly on the Lord and His Word, and on edifying and strengthening the saints. And when we gather together as God’s people on the Lord’s Day as well as in our small groups and ministry teams, our focus is rightly on fellowship and collaboration. Love for the Lord and love for each other within the church family are essential. But the worship, the fellowship, and the mutual love must overflow, as it were, into the wider community.

Consider this smattering of biblical instructions: “You are the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13). “You are the light of the world.” (Matthew 5:14) “Go therefore and make disciples” (Matthew 28:19). “See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone.” (1 Thessalonians 5:15) “[Show] perfect courtesy toward all people” (Titus 3:2). “[In] your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect” (1 Peter 3:15). “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.” (Luke 6:27-28) “But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.” (Luke 6:35-36)

I would say that over the past two years the Lord has stabilized and strengthened our fellowship. Now is a good time to remember that one of the purposes that the Lord has for a stabilized and strengthened body of believers is for us to “shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15). “Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person.” (Colossians 4:5-6)

Of course, there is no substitute for each of us to faithfully represent Jesus within our sphere of relationships – in our neighborhood, in our workplace, in our connections within the community. It is also important that we as a church family be hospitable to outsiders. The recent Christmas Eve Social and Christmas Eve Service is an example of opening up our space and making room for neighbors and friends.

Following our Savior’s instructions, let’s set our mind – as individuals, as households, and as a church family – let’s set our mind to do what Jesus told us to do: to demonstrate love to and do good to and speak graciously to people who are lost, even if they are actively opposed to us.

In fact, our love for one another as fellow Christians is actually supposed to be a testimony to unbelievers – a testimony that displays the reality of Christ (see John 17:20-21) and that also shows us to be His true followers (see John 13:34-35). This doesn’t mean that we should carefully stage acts of Christian love to each other in order to get the attention of the lost guy across the street, but it does mean that we should realize that our love for one another is a big part of our light shining forth into the world.

Ultimately, however, we as Christians can never be content with showing them the light. Some of us, when we were kids growing up at school, may have had class times called ‘show and tell’. Showing the reality of Christ to the world through our practical actions is part of the equation, but it is inadequate by itself. We must tell; we must speak forth the gospel; we must declare God’s Word. “[Faith] comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17)

South Paris Baptist Church, there is a lot of discouragement out there in the world, a lot of heartache, a lot of division, a lot of frustration, a lot of distraction, a lot of relational fracturing, a lot of idols, a lot of mental and emotional instability, and a lot of poverty – both economic and spiritual. Government and Big Tech feed a lot of interest and excitement into people’s lives, but they do not carry truth to the hearts of men. Our job is to be heralds of good news, so that thirsty souls can discover the satisfaction that is found in Christ alone. “Like cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country.” (Proverbs 25:25)

I wonder how many people out there are like the man who messaged us through Facebook in late November and early December. He initially messaged, “Hi, I am looking for baptism for my family and I.” In his second message he wrote, “We’ve been searching high and low for a church. Especially now, I feel it’s important for not just us but our children. Thank you for getting back to me, I’m very busy but not too busy to meet to talk. Let me know how we can make that happen.” Later he replied to specific suggestions about when to meet: “I’m sorry I’m just so busy all day everyday with my kiddos and work at home. Let me think about it and I’ll get back to you, thank you so much”. I wonder how many people are in the same boat as this man: thirsty, but so busy; interested, but still disconnected. Might the Lord grant us the grace to make disciples of such people and fold them into our church family? How might the Father want to display the glory of His Son through us – through our words and deeds – in the year 2022? Let’s find out!

REMINDING US TO KEEP FIRST THINGS FIRST   
Finally, I want to remind us to keep first things first. Politically and culturally, our country is very divided. Much of what goes on, in fact, is way off the rails of sanity and wisdom. In such a context, it is tempting to turn to a steady stream of cultural commentary, or to sound off our own opinions, or to put our hope in political solutions. After all, we’ve got the good ole mid-terms coming up in November! But remember this: there are no good political solutions for the idolatry, insanity, immorality, and bitter division that characterize our nation.

We are like foolish children who continually miss the point. The prophet Hosea delivered the truth, saying:

“Hear the word of the LORD, O children of Israel, for the LORD has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the land; there is swearing, lying, murder, stealing, and committing adultery; they break all bounds, and bloodshed follows bloodshed. Therefore the land mourns, and all who dwell in it languish, and also the beasts of the field and the birds of the heavens, and even the fish of the sea are taken away.” (Hosea 4:1-3)

When a nation turns away from the knowledge of God, it will suffer. But the suffering nation will give the appearance of wisdom by proposing economic, environmental, and social solutions to all of the problems. But the problems aren’t going away. If we really cared about the preservation of our environment, then we would be earnest about repenting for all the bloodshed, immorality, and materialism of which we are guilty, and we would seek to learn what it means to walk with God in steadfast love and faithfulness. But instead, we throw band-aids at climate change while, at the very same time, we ignore the underlying patterns of sin that are the actual source of our troubles.

Brothers and sisters, don’t be fooled. Don’t let the world set your agenda. Assume that the world’s talking points should not be your talking points. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2). Don’t let your own habit for busyness keep you from what is most important. And what is most important? For the answer, turn to The Letter of Jude.

A Brief Exposition of Jude 20-21

Jude wrote,

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

If you read through the entire Letter of Jude, you will notice that he warns about false teachers and destructive influencers within the church. Sinister people creep in unawares and they distort the message of God’s grace and endanger the church.

Then if you zoom in on the verses immediately preceding and following verses 20-21, a clear picture emerges. In verse 18, Jude refers to “scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” Then he says, “It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit.” These are troublemakers within God’s household, although the same sort of people are also operating outside in the world at large. Then in verses 22-23 Jude refers to weak and doubting and misguided and endangered people within the Christian community. In between the ravenous wolves of verse 18 and the straying sheep of verses 22-23, Jude calls upon ordinary believers to hit the sweet spot and remain there: “keep yourselves in the love of God” (v. 21). That is the primary command of verses 20-21, and the other three activities that Jude mentions tell us how to keep ourselves in the love of God.

Take special note that Jude doesn’t tell us to figure out how to get into the sphere of God’s love. For true believers, getting into the sphere of God’s love has already happened as a result of God’s grace. God has done it! According to Jude 1, we “are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ.” The Father dearly loves the children that He has redeemed. And our loving Father multiplies His mercy, peace, and love to us (Jude 2). Furthermore, God is the One who keeps us, as both Jude 1 and Jude 24 show us. So our God and Father has initiated, brought about, and is actively sustaining our fellowship with Him. We can rest in His steadfast love and His keeping power. When you rightly understand these things, they don’t turn you into a couch potato. If you can understand that a husband’s faithful and resolute love for his wife might awaken in his wife a desire to be similarly devoted and unwavering in her affection for her husband, then you can understand the logic of Jude.

So, knowing that God will be gracious to us until the very end makes us want to proactively remain within the sphere of His grace: “keep yourselves in the love of God”. Keep your hearts sensible of His love, His faithfulness, His blood-bought covenant, His utterly reliable promises. Keep your hearts warm and tender and obedient to the Lord your God. How so? Jude highlights three activities that will help us to “keep [ourselves] in the love of God”.

The first activity: “building yourselves up in your most holy faith” (v. 20). Feast on the faithful words of God. Get anchored – and stay anchored – in sound doctrine. Be firmly established in the truth of the gospel. Keep the glory of the cross always before you.

The second activity: “praying in the Holy Spirit”. God doesn’t need our prayers. But God wants our hearts, our trust, our longings, our burdens, our partnership, and our worship. God wants our fellowship with Him to be – not a calculated theological affirmation, but – a living reality. He communicates to us in His Word: “building yourselves up in your most holy faith” means building yourselves up in His Scriptural communication to you. But then He also calls us to communicate back to Him in the form of prayer: “praying in the Holy Spirit”. Not prayer formalities. Not prayer techniques. Not cool prayer apps. Not vain repetitions. Not heartless multiplication of words and lists. But prayer that is the expression of spiritual vitality, indeed prayer that is enlivened and empowered by the Holy Spirit. We must pray as beloved children speaking transparently and eagerly to our Father who loves us deeply.

The first activity involves fellowship in the Word. The second activity involves fellowship in prayer. The third activity involves fellowship in hope: “waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.” This is our confident expectation, namely, that Jesus is coming back and, when He does, He is going to pour out a superabundance of life-giving mercy to everyone who has been patiently and eagerly waiting for Him. What are we waiting for? We may desire any number of modest improvements to this broken world of ours, but deep down that is not what we are waiting for. We are waiting for Him. It is His grace, His mercy, His life shared freely with us, that will bring everything to its appointed and glorious consummation on the last day.

Brothers and sisters, in these ways “keep yourselves in the love of God”. The instruction is not to believers as isolated individuals but to believers-in-fellowship with one another. Building ourselves up together and studying together, praying together and seeking God’s face together, waiting together and reminding each other of the blessed hope we have in Jesus – as we do these things together, together we “keep [ourselves] in the love of God”. And we do this knowing that we are securely “loved in God the Father” and safely kept in the arms of Jesus.

South Paris Baptist Church, the lost and weary sinners in the Oxford Hills don’t need a church that has creative marketing strategies and that mimics the wisdom of the world. The world’s wisdom is a dead end. What those in darkness need is the light of Jesus Christ that shines through faithful believers who are striving to obey Jude’s no-nonsense instruction. After all, God delights to display the glory of His Son through ordinary believers who take Him at His Word – through ordinary jars of clay who carry the treasure of the gospel to a perishing world. Is that what we will be about in 2022?

More in State of the Church

January 8, 2023

State of the Church Address 2023