Snatch them out of the fire
Jude 20-25 But you, dear friends, continue to build yourselves up in your most holy faith as you keep praying in the Holy Spirit. 21Keep yourselves in God's love as you continue to wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, which results in eternal life. 22Show mercy to those who are wavering. 23Save others by snatching them out of the fire. Show mercy to still others with fear, hating even the clothing that is stained by the flesh. 24Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless in the presence of his glory with great joy, 25to the only God, our Savior, be glory, majesty, power, and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all time, now, and to all eternity. Amen.
Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you faultless in the presence of his glory with great joy. Amen. (Jude 24)
Everyone was tired from the hunting trip. Paul was sleeping in the back seat. For some reason, he woke up at just that moment. He looked out the window and said, “Guys, that house back there is on fire.” They blew him off. “You were just sleeping. How could you see anything back there?”
“No, really!” Paul said. “That house is on fire. Turn around and check it out. If I’m wrong, I’ll buy each of you a beer at the bar.” They kept driving. Paul countered, “OK. If I’m wrong, I’ll buy all the beer for next year’s hunting trip.”
Suddenly, the car was doing a U-turn.
When they drove to the trailer home, it was on fire. The four guys got out of the car as they saw a man walk out of the house carrying two pots of water and dumping them on the flames. Paul asked the man, “Is there anyone else in the house?” The man just looked at them. They followed him into the home when he went back to fill up his pots. The guys saw three people sitting in the living room. The guys asked if there was anybody else in the home. The people didn’t reply. They just stared at each other.
Eventually, the four guys were able to get the four people out of the trailer home before it burned down. The four people were in shock. They didn’t know what to do. They didn’t know how to react. They didn’t even know how to save themselves.
By the way, this is a true story from one of our members. By the grace of God, these four guys were in the right place at the right time. They were able to snatch others out of the fire.
There is a reason why we do fire drills in our schools and workplaces. Some people may be in shock and not know how to react during a fire. We want to be well-trained and well-prepared to snatch others out of the fire. Perhaps out of the fire of a burning house to save their lives. But certainly, to snatch them out of the fires of hell to save their souls.
St. Jude is writing to followers of Jesus living in the Roman Empire. Like us who are Jesus’ followers today, these early Christians were living in a culture that was out of step with the holy life of Jesus. Some of those out-of-step behaviors Jude mentions earlier in his letter are things like rejecting authority, extreme sexual immorality, behaving like animals without reasoning, living according to the lusts of the flesh, grumbling, and speaking harsh words. First century Rome was very much like twenty-first century America.
If people continue to live according to their flesh and live without faith in Christ in their spirit, they will end up in the fires of hell. Jesus is calling us to be firefighters. St. Jude writes, “Save others by snatching them out of the fire” (Jude 23). Jude encourages us to snatch from the fire and save those who will spend eternity in hellish flames. We are to call others to repentance and
faith in Jesus. Jesus doesn’t want anyone to perish but all to come to faith in him as their Rescuer and Redeemer.
A firefighter trains and gets stronger. I don’t know any lazy, weak, overweight, or complacent firefighters. If Jesus wants us to be spiritual firefighters, we need to train and be spiritually fit. Jude writes, “But you, dear friends, continue to build yourselves up in your most holy faith as you keep praying in the Holy Spirit” (Jude 20).
In my pastor visits with the teens and parents, I ask everyone about what they do for daily Bible reading and devotions. They were honest and the majority said they don’t do much. I told them that Pastor Klusmeyer and I will create a Bible reading challenge for the new year. We know that our sanctified spirit should want to read God’s Word often. But we also know that our sinful nature will find any excuse to not read God’s Word at all. Personally, I need a challenge, something to encourage my sanctified spirit, and something to keep my sinful nature in check. Maybe you’re the same way.
It is also part of our rugged American individualism to think we can be Christians on our own. But remaining apart from the body of Christ is a recipe for failure. Christianity is about community. It is Christ being wherever two or more are gathered in his name. It is growing stronger together, encouraging one another, and challenging each other.
Jude writes, “Keep yourselves in God's love as you continue to wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, which results in eternal life. Show mercy to those who are wavering” (Jude 21-22). The way we build ourselves in the most holy faith and keep ourselves in God’s love as we wait for God’s mercy is reading God’s Word, praying about what we’ve read, remembering our Baptism daily, and receiving the Lord’s Supper often.
Jesus is building us up so we are prepared to snatch others out of the fire. But realize that there are temptations as we do this work of spiritual firefighters. We know our children have not baptized our grandchildren. We see our sister living with her boyfriend, our cousin living in a homosexual lifestyle, or our niece imagining she’s our nephew. We see our neighbor dislikes anyone who disagrees with her politics and our coworker who calls all Christians hypocrites. What do we do?
On one hand, we can become complacent in our calling, stay silent, and assume someone else will do the job.
On the other hand, we can become rude in how we interact with others without faith.
On another hand, we can soften God’s stance on sin so we have become accepting of our culture’s sins.
On still another hand, we can become arrogant because we’ve never been drawn to those temptations.
That’s a lot of hands! … But that’s a lot of sin inside of us.
Jude says that as we snatch them out of the fire, we also are to “show mercy to still others with fear, hating even the clothing that is stained by the flesh” (Jude 23). We hate their filthy spiritual clothing that’s stained by contact with their sinful flesh. We want to help them exchange their filthy, stained clothing for the saintly white robe of Christ’s righteousness.
We want to speak the truth in love. We want to hate their sin but have compassion on them as sinners. We want to speak up but speak gently and with mercy. These family members, friends, co-workers and others are trapped by the lusts of their sinful flesh. They believe the delusions of
the devil. They are in shock because their way of living is so out of step with Christ’s way to live. They are in denial of the reality of the hellish flames that are in their future.
These are people who are living without Christ. That means they don’t know how to speak with compassion to you. They don’t know how to show mercy to others. They don’t know how to express love to those around them. They are only doing what comes naturally.
Can you imagine their lives? Without Christ, they only know how to be aggressive, harsh, and bitter. Christ is calling you to do something unnatural – something spiritual. Christ is calling on you to forgive their aggressive behavior, their harsh words, and bitter feelings. He’s calling you to demonstrate love, mercy, and compassion to them.
Why? Because Christ has shown love, mercy, and compassion to you.
God saw how we were consumed by our shock, confusion, despair, and lusts. He knew we were destined for the eternal fires of hell. In mercy, God sent his Son from his heavenly throne to come to earth to be born and laid in a feeding trough. Christ showed his compassion without contaminating himself with our sin. He was never complacent about calling sinners to repentance. He was able to speak truthfully without being harsh or rude. He was never arrogant about his holiness.
Jesus went to the wooden cross and laid in the dark tomb. He died to pay for our complacency, rudeness, arrogance, and apprehension. He rose from the dead so we would not spend an eternity apart from him.
In his mercy, Jesus sent someone to tell you the true story about himself and the rescue he won for you. Now he is inviting you to do the same for others.
A beautiful example of this happened last Sunday here in church. Our WLS students came to the front to sing. One of the girls was crying really hard. Her classmate, not knowing what was wrong, just put her arm around her friend. That’s compassion.
Everyone learned later in the Prayer of the Church that the student had a very good reason to cry. We prayed for her family because she had family members who had died recently in a house fire. Her friend didn’t know that. She just knew that her classmate was hurting and needed love.
That’s a great example for us, isn’t it? There are a lot of people in our world, in our workplace, in family, who just need love. Give them a hug. Give them compassion. Give them the mercy that Jesus has given to you.
Imagine that my neighbor’s house is on fire. Because I’m old and don’t sleep, I notice it and go outside immediately. My other neighbors run into the cul de sac and looking at the burning house, they ask me, “Hey, did you wake up the neighbors?!” I reply, “No. I didn’t want to be rude.”
That’s silly! But how often aren’t we called rude and uncaring and unloving because we want to wake people up from their spiritual slumber, so they don’t burn in hell? Ignore those people who call you rude. Listen to St. Jude. Show mercy. Demonstrate compassion. This is a true story. By the grace of God, you are in the right place at the right time. Save others by snatching them out of the fire. Amen.
Now to the only God, our Savior, be glory, majesty, power, and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all time, now, and to all eternity. Amen. (Jude 25)