Wanting to be god
This week's verses are on Jude 1:8-11:
These verses are in Jude's letter to the churches, at the end of a section where he's going off on selfish ungodly people. Like has always happened, the church was filling up with selfish, immoral people who were causing problems and leading others astray. Here he's talking about their arrogance.
These people took the grace of God and turned it into a license to sin. "There's no condemnation in Christ, so we can pretty much do whatever we want. No judging!" Like Balaam, they enticed other people into sinning, causing them to stop short of the promises God has for them. They took our closeness with God, being adopted sons of the almighty, and turned it into an excuse to ignore and condemn the rest of God's creation. (Does that sound a bit like Satan, perhaps?) They reject authority and entice others to do so, like Korah.
Jude describes them polluting their own bodies. Earlier he talks about sexual immorality and later on he talks about gluttony. To us, those things probably seem foreign and outrageous, but to someone who is arrogant and rates themselves on an equal level with God, they are rights. "I want to do it and I'm free, so which of you lesser beings can tell me to stop?" "I want three plates of food, and it is my right to have them because I earned them. I don't care how hungry you are." "I declare my behavior to be moral and my choices to be wise. I don't need any of you to badmouth me." While we may not have done the specific things Jude describes, I think we have all been in a similar place of wrong attitude before. It's not a lack of self-control, but an attitude of defiance. "I choose right and wrong for me, not you, not some dusty law book, and not some imaginary sky-daddy. Me."
Jude describes them as rejecting authority. Authority is an interesting thing. Look at a man's attitude towards authority and, more often than not, you'll see where his heart is with God. Does he scoff at authority? Does he avoid situations where he isn't in control or in charge? Does he slander or condemn figures in authority over him? Maybe it's a refusal to pay taxes, or a callous disregard for laws. Maybe it's splitting off from an established denomination and starting a new one to avoid having to answer to anyone else. Are these responses and attitudes going to change just because God's authority is celestial? Can a man have two hearts? One for God and one for his fellow man?
The arrogant man wants the high ground. He wants control. He doesn't want to be told what to do. He wants to make the rules. He wants to hand out the punishments. Authority is a challenge to that, so it must be condemned, mocked, abandoned, delegitimized, and slandered. The heart of this arrogance is a desire to be like God, not in character, but in power. It is Satan's mistake.
But don't we all do that at some point? Does anyone enjoy paying taxes? Does anybody like being told what to do when they want to do something else? Even the best and sweetest of authorities can chafe at times. The response, then, depends on our attitude towards authority. Do we say "They have no right to collect taxes from me, so I will lie so that I won't have to pay them," or do we say "I will pay what I am asked. God will provide." It all depends on where you place yourself in the universe. Are you on top? Or somewhere in the middle?
Every one of us, as humans, has a bit of sin in us, a bit of the original rebellion of Adam and Eve in the garden, a taste of something from Satan's menu. In a (hopefully small) sense, we are the people Jude warns us about. But what do we do about it? Listen to AM talk radio and feel justified in our condemnation of our fellow man? Stay home from church and follow your own spiritual path? No! How about loving our fellow men, even those in enviable positions of power, people who steal from us, oppress us, lie to us, foul our environment, and speak condescendingly to us? Are we trying to establish our own kingdom, or further God's kingdom? We can't do both. Let God be God, and let's focus on being his kind of people.
In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings. But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not himself dare to condemn him for slander but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” Yet these people slander whatever they do not understand, and the very things they do understand by instinct—as irrational animals do—will destroy them.
Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion.
These verses are in Jude's letter to the churches, at the end of a section where he's going off on selfish ungodly people. Like has always happened, the church was filling up with selfish, immoral people who were causing problems and leading others astray. Here he's talking about their arrogance.
These people took the grace of God and turned it into a license to sin. "There's no condemnation in Christ, so we can pretty much do whatever we want. No judging!" Like Balaam, they enticed other people into sinning, causing them to stop short of the promises God has for them. They took our closeness with God, being adopted sons of the almighty, and turned it into an excuse to ignore and condemn the rest of God's creation. (Does that sound a bit like Satan, perhaps?) They reject authority and entice others to do so, like Korah.
Jude describes them polluting their own bodies. Earlier he talks about sexual immorality and later on he talks about gluttony. To us, those things probably seem foreign and outrageous, but to someone who is arrogant and rates themselves on an equal level with God, they are rights. "I want to do it and I'm free, so which of you lesser beings can tell me to stop?" "I want three plates of food, and it is my right to have them because I earned them. I don't care how hungry you are." "I declare my behavior to be moral and my choices to be wise. I don't need any of you to badmouth me." While we may not have done the specific things Jude describes, I think we have all been in a similar place of wrong attitude before. It's not a lack of self-control, but an attitude of defiance. "I choose right and wrong for me, not you, not some dusty law book, and not some imaginary sky-daddy. Me."
Jude describes them as rejecting authority. Authority is an interesting thing. Look at a man's attitude towards authority and, more often than not, you'll see where his heart is with God. Does he scoff at authority? Does he avoid situations where he isn't in control or in charge? Does he slander or condemn figures in authority over him? Maybe it's a refusal to pay taxes, or a callous disregard for laws. Maybe it's splitting off from an established denomination and starting a new one to avoid having to answer to anyone else. Are these responses and attitudes going to change just because God's authority is celestial? Can a man have two hearts? One for God and one for his fellow man?
The arrogant man wants the high ground. He wants control. He doesn't want to be told what to do. He wants to make the rules. He wants to hand out the punishments. Authority is a challenge to that, so it must be condemned, mocked, abandoned, delegitimized, and slandered. The heart of this arrogance is a desire to be like God, not in character, but in power. It is Satan's mistake.
But don't we all do that at some point? Does anyone enjoy paying taxes? Does anybody like being told what to do when they want to do something else? Even the best and sweetest of authorities can chafe at times. The response, then, depends on our attitude towards authority. Do we say "They have no right to collect taxes from me, so I will lie so that I won't have to pay them," or do we say "I will pay what I am asked. God will provide." It all depends on where you place yourself in the universe. Are you on top? Or somewhere in the middle?
Every one of us, as humans, has a bit of sin in us, a bit of the original rebellion of Adam and Eve in the garden, a taste of something from Satan's menu. In a (hopefully small) sense, we are the people Jude warns us about. But what do we do about it? Listen to AM talk radio and feel justified in our condemnation of our fellow man? Stay home from church and follow your own spiritual path? No! How about loving our fellow men, even those in enviable positions of power, people who steal from us, oppress us, lie to us, foul our environment, and speak condescendingly to us? Are we trying to establish our own kingdom, or further God's kingdom? We can't do both. Let God be God, and let's focus on being his kind of people.
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