The book of Jude, as it nears its conclusion, includes a pair of apparently paradoxical statements. First, Jude encourages the Christians to whom he writes, “Keep yourselves in the love of God” (v. 21), exhorting them to do the practical work that it takes to remain faithful to the Lord Jesus. On the other hand, in his great doxological conclusion, Jude praises God as the one “who is able to keep you from stumbling” (v. 24). We keep ourselves, and God also keeps us.
As in Philippians 2:12–13, Jude shows us that we work, and God works. God’s grace has started us off, and God’s grace will carry us to completion—and in the shadow of God’s wing we labor to do what He says, clinging to Him as our hope.
If, however, in God’s grace we are to keep ourselves, a question arises: How? The Puritan pastor William Jenkyn, in 1652, published a commentary on Jude in which he offers practical counsel on how we can go about keeping ourselves. Three steps in particular are worth our consideration.
We Keep Ourselves by Hating Sin
Jenkyn says we may keep ourselves in God’s love, first,
by keeping ourselves in a constant hatred of all sin. As love to sin grows, love to God will decay. These are as two buckets; as the one comes up, the other goes down.1
We cannot keep ourselves in the love of God if we are playing fast and loose with willful sin, allowing ourselves luxuries and privileges that God does not. “Whoever wishes to be a friend of the world,” James reminds us, “makes himself an enemy of God” (4:4).
You may remember, when you were young, looking forward to your favorite meal. You couldn’t wait. Nevertheless, as you waited, perhaps you got yourself a candy bar and a large soft drink at the corner store. And since you were there, you threw in a bag of chips as well. By the time you got to the dinner table, your mother, or grandmother, or whoever cooked for you, would have said, “Why aren’t you eating? I thought you loved this.”
“I do love it,” you replied.
“Then what’s going on?”
“I guess I filled myself up with things that I shouldn’t have.”
We do the same thing with willful sin. As we fill our souls up with what God has forbidden us, we drive a wedge between ourselves and our heavenly Father. We find that when we come to the Scriptures and come to prayer, we might nibble at the edges, but, already filled up with sinful pleasures, we don’t have much desire to fill ourselves with the Bread of Life nor much joy in what we do eat.
Sin and godliness cannot live together. We need to actively choose to avoid the junk and fill ourselves up with the bread of life.
We Keep Ourselves by Choosing Good Friends
Second, we may keep ourselves in God’s love
by keeping ourselves in the delight of God’s friends and favourers, who will ever be speaking well of him, and by taking heed of those misrepresentations that sinners make of him and his ways.2
We understand, of course, that we are not to so isolate ourselves from the world as to cast away every opportunity to show the love of Christ to unbelievers. Yet we can live in the world so as not to love it, and we can prepare our hearts and minds for the slander that the world levels against God so that we might not be tempted to believe it.
Meanwhile, recognizing the influence our friends have over us, for good or for ill, we want to foster our richest relationships with those who share our love for the Lord. Relationships are a limited resources; most people can only maintain a few intimate friendships at any given time. We want to make friends of the friends of God, who can help us love Him all the more.
Robert Murray M’Cheyne is alleged to have said that a congregation’s greatest need is not a gifted pastor but a godly one. Whether or not M’Cheyne actually said it, the point stands as a strong one—and the same can be said of our friendships. Many traits may be desirable in a friend; none will serve us more than his or her godliness, which will encourage our own.
We Keep Ourselves by Delighting in the Sacraments
Finally, we may keep ourselves in God’s love
by keeping ourselves in delight of the ordinances, wherein his glory and beauty are displayed, and communion with himself is enjoyed, and our love is increased by these in exercising it.3
In other words, we ought to enjoy and rejoice in the Lord’s Supper and baptism. These are Christ’s gifts to the church, to represent Himself to us through outward signs.
The sad reality is that many people today just toy with the ordinances. It hardly matters to them whether they are baptized or not. To miss Communion week after week is not of much consequence. But we can’t keep ourselves in the love of God while avoiding the means of grace, for the means of grace are given to enable us to keep ourselves in the love of God.
Stay Where It’s Hot
An old coal fire helps to illustrate our point. A lump of coal in the fire amongst all the other lumps ignites and burns with the help of all the energy around it. A coal taken from the blaze and set to one side of the hearth soon dwindles cold and dim. It has become isolated from the context that allows it to grow and glow bright.
So it is with us. If we are to heed the command to “keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord” (Rom. 12:11 NIV), then we ought to take make every effort. We can do this by avoiding sin, clinging to God’s people, and taking advantage of the God-given means of grace. With God’s help, we will burn bright, and brighter still day by day.
This article was adapted from the sermons “‘Now to Him…’” and “Remembering and Keeping” by Alistair Begg.
William Jenkyn, An Exposition of the Epistle of Jude (1652; repr., London: Samuel Holdsworth, 1839), 345. ↩︎
Jenkyn, 345. ↩︎
Jenkyn, 345. ↩︎
Truth For Life Blog