Kept for Jesus: Day 1
“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: May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.” - Jude 1:1-2
Over the next 7 days, we are going to dive into Jude’s epistle. This short letter is packed full of gospel truth, stern warnings, a call to action, and a benediction blessing. Though this one-chapter letter is not very long, it has a lot of things to unpack; so let’s begin.
As with most of the pastoral epistles in the New Testament, Jude opens his letter by identifying himself, identifying his audience, and speaking a blessing. This was the standard format of writing in those days. What might the significance be in just a simple greeting? For one, he establishes a major gospel truth; the sovereign nature of God in salvation. Gospel assurance. Yet, who was Jude, and what gives him the credibility to write to these believers in the faith? Interestingly enough, Jude was one of the half-brothers of Jesus. As we see in the list of Jesus’ siblings in Matthew 13:55. His name, Judah, was a common name among the Jews at the time. Judah, in Greek, was translated to Judas, and in English, it is translated to Jude. A little rabbit trail lesson. We see that Jude’s credibility for this letter comes from him being the half-brother of Jesus, who after Christ’s resurrection, came to faith in Jesus and became an important figure for the early church.
Gospel assurance. Jude, in his greeting, confirms the hope of gospel assurance through God’s sovereignty in salvation in just one simple sentence. “To those called, beloved, in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ.” This simple statement has much deeper roots in not just the other epistles, but in Jesus’ teaching himself. Those Called - John 15:16. Beloved - John 15:13-14 Kept for Jesus Christ - John 17:12. As was covered in the 1st John devotional series, we love because he first loved us. It is not that we have have come to earn God’s favor or through our merit we are granted salvation, rather it is the leading of the Holy Spirit that awakens our hearts to hear the call of God upon our lives for salvation. It is God who takes the action, and we who respond to his gracious invitation. Because of this, we do not decide on salvation. We didn’t decide what prayer counted and what profession was legitimate. God works sovereignly in and through us to draw our hearts to respond to his grace. This does not mean that we are robots forced to a decision against our will, rather with a newly opened heart we can see the goodness of God in its reality.
Because salvation is a work of God and not a reward we earn, salvation is not something dependent on us. Thus, we can be confident that He who started a good work in our lives will see it to the day of completion. We are being kept for Christ’s eventual return, whether in our lifetime or our descendants’ lifetime. Either way, we can have full assurance that God will not abandon us, nor is salvation a slippery thing that comes and goes in the life of a believer. It is in this simple greeting of Jude, that we find hope and confidence in the work of the gospel in our lives. With all that is to come in this letter, starting with this understanding is crucial to what is to come next.
Takeaway: It is in God’s sovereign hand that we are kept for the day of Christ’s return, whether in this life, or the life to come. We are held not by our merit, but by the grace of God.
