There are things in life that are not all that important, and then there are those things that are worth fighting for. Our health is one of those things, it is worth the fight. But many Americans are losing the battle. Not only do we overeat, but we eat a lot of bad food. A recent article I read reported that 1 out of every 3 Americans eat fast food on any given day. To put that into perspective, close to 85 million people eat fast food every single day. What makes that so bad for our health is that:

“Fast foods tend to be high in calories, fat, salt and sugar, which — when consumed in excess — can be associated with obesity, high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes and heart disease, among other health risks.” [1]

But if we are going to fight for our health, and I think most of us would agree that our health is worth fighting for, we have to cut back on how much we eat and what we eat. For some of you, that might be a new revelation. But most of you that we shouldn’t eat as much as we do and we shouldn’t be eating the food we eat, at least not on a regular basis.

It is easy for us to grow apathetic and allow foods to creep into our diet that isn’t healthy for us. That is especially true when we get busy with the daily grind of life. The last thing we are thinking about when we are trying to get to a meeting, accomplish a deadline, or get our kids to their third practice that week is how healthy the food is we are eating. But we can’t let our guard down if we are going to contend for our health.

That is not only true of our physical health but of our own spiritual health as well. If we are going to keep ourselves spiritually healthy, then we have to constantly be on guard, we have to constantly fight for our spiritual health just like we have to constantly fight for our physical health. One way we keep ourselves spiritually healthy is by contending for the faith. This is what Jude tells the church in verse 3,

“Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” (Jud 3)

Jude is concerned for this church. He wants them to contend for the faith. His letter is not accidental. It’s not like Jude picked up his iPhone to respond to an email, and the next thing he knew he was carefully crafting his next Facebook story or Instagram message that he was going to tag this church in. We often get distracted by our phone. But that is not the case for Jude. He didn’t get distracted. He had a real concern that drove him to write an urgent letter to the church telling them to contend for the faith.

Why is that? Why the urgency? Why the change of plans? Why are they to contend for the faith? Why should we contend for the faith?

In order to answer that question, we first need to know what it means to contend.

What does it mean to contend?

A couple of months ago Laura Mazur and Jessica Robertson — two women who had never met before — reached the 14-mile marker of the Dick’s Sporting Good’s marathon in Pittsburg at the same time. While there were plenty of people who reached that mark in tandem with others, this pair was unique because they were in dead last. Laura was a seasoned marathoner, but Jessica wasn’t. This was actually her first marathon. She was in last place and exhausted. Knowing that she still had 12 miles to go, she felt completely defeated.

The two began chatting. Once Laura found out how Jessica felt, she told her, “If you stay with me, I’ll stay with you and we will finish this race together.” That is exactly what they did. A while later they crossed the finish line together, holding hands. As they struggled to the end, hands clutched, a spectator took a picture of them, posted it on social media, and it has since gone viral.

The struggle they felt and the energy they expended to finish that marathon is the idea that Jude is communicating through this word “contend”. Contending for the faith, then, is not an easy thing. It is not something you do casually or occasionally. It is not a sprint. Or a jog we take a few times a week. It is a marathon. It’s a daily fight. A daily struggle. It involves us daily putting forth effort and energy as we engage in a conflict for the faith.

Hearing that, you might be thinking, “All this contending is going to require a lot of effort on my part. So why do it? Why put forth the effort?” Why do I need to contend for the faith?