I just find it really odd that Jude and the other apostles
don't start with a doxology like they end with one. I'm thinking
if you were going to strategically write Scripture and get it out
there, you'd start with some good doctrinal worship. But they didn't know they were
writing Scripture. They were just writing letters. And when
they got through, they were so overwhelmed and moved by the
majesty and the authority and the dominion of God, they couldn't
help but do anything but. Because as we've gone through
these last 12 weeks in Jude, we've seen a lot of warnings,
a lot of cautionary things to consider. We've come to a place
of even testing our own faith. being challenged in such a way
when we hear the command to keep ourselves in the love of God,
praying, building ourselves up in our most holy faith, waiting
on the mercy of Jesus Christ, having patience and mercy on
others who doubt, those who are divisive, those who are wicked,
those who are wrong. And we say, oh wow, where does
it all rest? And we've touched on these things,
but in all honesty, in verse 1 of this text of Jude, we should
jump all the way to verse 24. And then preach that and then
come back to it. It's really there. It's just not explained. And all of us in this room today,
all of us under the sound of my voice, all of us who will
watch this or listen to it years to come, nothing changes. Nothing changes in regards to
our needs, to our hope, to our desires, to our pain, to our
brokenness. Nothing changes in that we are
going to have those things. We're going to have these things
in life. And sadly, in our humanity, I don't know if it's sadly or
thankfully, but in our humanity, what happens when the pressure
of life comes, whether it be something as simple as a tire
flap or death, our faith wanes. It ebbs and
flows, if that's even the proper use of that. It goes with the
seasons sometimes and we think to ourselves and oftentimes we're
taught this way through improper expression of Scripture. Well,
you better get your act together. You don't want to stand before
God doubting. But what we've learned in the
Word of God and the Gospel is that when we stand before God
dead, He brings us to life. So if He can overcome death,
can He not overcome doubting? And sometimes people, well, what
about deliberate sin? Well, I think it's important
for us to look at it. And we've been looking at that. We've seen
that there are deliberate sins that these people in the day
of Jude have been committing. Doctrinal sins, deliberate sins,
actions that are contrary to the grace of God. And yet, even
then, Jude says, have mercy. Pray that God may snatch them
out. Pray that God may save them.
Because only God, now to Him who is able, So God can save us from death
and He can surely save us from deliberate sin. And as we'll see today, God can
save us from falling away from our faith. This is a difficult text to preach
because as many have done, and I even heard, as a matter of
fact, Luke and I heard Dr. Piper preach this text the year before
he was to resign his church. at a conference. In the first
30 minutes, he shared his personal story about how he was amazed
that for 62 years that God had kept him as a believer. I think there's something to
learn from that, that we should make that application in our
own way, that we should be amazed But most of us are not at that
day. Some of us may be, but some of us are at the day of, I don't
worry about 62 years, I'm worried about 62 minutes. Is God going
to be able to sustain me for the next hour? And is tomorrow
going to be a day where I stand in my faith or am I going to
fall away? What's going to happen to me? I'm tired of this game.
I'm tired of this race. I'm tired of trying my best and
not accomplishing that which God is wanting me to accomplish.
Where is my hope? It's in God. alone. The whole infrastructure of the
gospel, the whole application of the gospel is that it is good
news in spite of us. It is good news above us. It
is good news beyond us. It is good news that we cannot
keep our own faith, but that God in His perfectness, God in
His holiness, God in His power can keep our faith. And there's a lot here. Like
I said, we could do 20 weeks in these two verses and just
do the same thing over and over again. And I say that in a somewhat
joking way, but it's overwhelming to me to approach this text. It's overwhelming. I'd rather
just play a video of someone else preaching. So where do we go from here? Well, we've sung some very fitting
songs. Do we glory in our Redeemer? Let's ask some questions based
on that which we just sang. Is it really well in our soul? Is Christ alone our ultimate
joy? Is our hope found in Him? Are we truly standing in the
power of the cross? Well, let's see. Jude has shown
us the way of the wicked. He's shown us the comparison
between those who are in God, in Christ, and those who are
in the world and of the God of this world. He says there's no
third party, there's no third location, there's no third place,
there's no neutral zone, there's no different battlegrounds. We
are either standing in righteousness through Jesus Christ and in Jesus
Christ, or we're standing in wickedness in the God of this
world with Him, Satan. We are either those who are being
kept by the power of God for righteousness and glory and resurrection
and hope and life, or we are those who are being kept by the
power of God for destruction. They're kept in utter darkness.
They're kept. They're kept. So where are we? Where are we in this regard? Well, Jude has expressed it. Then he's shown who we are. And
he's called us to hold fast, to defend and contend for the
faith that was once for all given to the saints. And he does so
in such a way where he begins to show the beautiful picture
of the outcome of the Gospel in the church. And then he just
starts to go now! Verse 24, now! We've said all
this, now! Jude is no longer writing to
us. He's no longer writing to his
audience. He's not writing. He's writing to God. Now, to
Him. He's overwhelmed. It's like the
parenthetical in Ephesians 2, verses 8, 9, and 10. For by grace
you have been saved. And up before that, just a few
verses. When Paul just throws in, by
grace you've been saved! He can't contain himself. See,
oftentimes the writing of the application of Scripture has
become so mundane. It's become so normalized. It's
become so normative that it's like instructions on microwave
macaroni. One, shake. Two, add water. Oh, too much. Pour it out. Three,
put in pot. Put in microwave. Four, press
start. Five, stir. Six, mix. Seven, eight. We look at our
faith that way. We look at the Bible that way.
One, two, three, yahee. That's not the point. It's not the point of the gospel.
It's not the point of how we should look at Scripture. We
look at Scripture and we see it. Commentaries and sermons
throughout history, especially in our culture today, are so
pragmatic that they lose their sublime essence. They lose the
face of Jesus. They lose the divine. And if
the reason the church exists in this world is to display the
manifold wisdom of God, Ephesians 3.10, So that we live as a people
by His grace for His glory. Does that sound familiar? unto the praise of His glorious
grace, then what we need to recognize is that when we're mulling through
our Christian life, studying the Bible, doing Christian things,
reading our daily bread, going through Oswald Chambers and Spurgeon's
dailies, and we're just sitting there ho-hum, and we can just
do that as well as do a crossword puzzle, something's missing in
our application of Scripture. It's not what it's about. And
it's not about a feeling, although faith is an experienced faith.
It's not about a presence, though it is a faith that builds a presence,
a unity, an intimacy with the holy God of the universe. But there's something that happens
in the heart of those whom God has saved through Jesus. who
have the Spirit of God within them, when they hear words like
this, now to Him. It's actually just preach on
that. It takes us out of the I say
this and I'm not meaning this in a negative way, it's what
we do sometimes. It takes us out of the trenches
of trying to climb out of those hills and valleys, over those
peaks and out of those valleys of dealing with the Word of God
in our own lives and it gives us peace. Wow, it's not about
us. And in the darkest, one of the
darkest places in my mind and in my life, it was a self-contained,
self-pity, wicked, self-centered, selfish, idolatrous, adulterous
place in my life, wrapped up in the inside of my own mind.
And all I thought about was me. And I dared God to do anything
about it. And He did. I'm not saying we
should do that, but that's what I did. In Hebrews 1, it's what
opened my heart to see it wasn't me that I should be looking at.
Many times and in many ways, God has spoken to us through
the prophets, through the Scriptures, but in
these days, He speaks to us through His Son, who He has exalted and set at
His right hand, who after propitiating for sins sat down. To whom, though for a little while
He was made lower than the angels, He is exalted above all. The invisible God is seen in
Jesus Christ. Now Jude is talking to that Jesus.
Now to Him. I taught psalmology. Praise God from whom all blessings
flow. Y'all know that. As a youngster,
if we didn't sing that to open every service, it was like something didn't
happen. And then as I got a little older
and even got in ministry, What do we do? We sing more of a fellowship
type song. I'm saying there's nothing wrong
with fellowship songs, but something's changed in our culture. We're
more focused on each other and how we enjoy life than we are
the life giver. It's like just before service
and the little one was, daddy, daddy, daddy, and Robin said,
well, let's go see daddy before things start so that she'll get
her daddy fix. Well, she didn't want daddy,
she wanted this in front of daddy. She wasn't concerned about me,
she wanted what I had. A lot of times I think that's
where the church is in our culture. We want what God has for us,
not Him. We want the prizes on the peripheral. Pick up everything that none
is wasted, Jesus said to the disciples in John 6. None should be wasted. And they focused more on those
baskets of food than they did the one who gave it to And so
did the thousands, the tens of thousands that followed Him to
Capernaum. And He says, don't labor for
the bread that perishes, but labor for the bread that endures
you eternal life. I am that bread. Now to Him. You see the point
I'm trying to make? We lose our hope when we put
our eyes on us. We lose our focus when we go
to God's Word and we seek the face of Jesus for the sake of
us. We lose our focus when we try to find in Scripture how
we're supposed to handle us. When we should come to the end
of our letter and just say, to heck with it, throw it all on
the floor and go, now to you. That's the point. Now to Him. What about you? What about Him?
What about the God of heaven? What is it that Jude is about
to expressly reveal to us? He's already talked about how
so many who are in the body have fallen away and gone apostate. and have lived and turned from
truth, and turned from truth in their living, and turned from
truth in their doctrine, and their learning, and therefore
their joy is now found in the world, and they have no hope
for eternity, they have no peace, but they are wicked and they
are set for destruction. But you, beloved, Jude says,
don't forget that the apostles said that these people were going
to be here. But you aren't like them. You aren't the way they
are. You are separate from them though they are among you. Though
they sit at your love feast without fear. Shepherds who feed themselves. Showing favoritism. But you're
not like that. So hold on, church, Jude says.
Keep yourself in the love of God. And that's a tall order. And it frustrates us as human
beings because we are bound to that idea that we are the ones
who affect our soul's salvation. We are bound to that expression.
Okay, it's all about God, but now it's up to me to continue
in it. Well, yes and no. We are to continue in it and
we are commanded to do so, but God affects that perfectly in
our lives as we'll see today. And so we get to the place where
we're going, oh, I can't take anymore. I can't even have mercy
on these people. I can't even have mercy on my
own soul. Ever been like that? How am I going to deal with false
teachers when I'm doubting myself? How am I worried about someone
else's salvation when I sit up two nights a week considering
my own? What am I to do? Change your focus. Now to Him. And in doxology, what happens
in doxology, if you look at all throughout the New Testament
and you see, I can't say this is true in the Old Testament
because I haven't compared it, but if you look all through the New
Testament and you see that there's doxology, Like in Ephesians chapter
3, it says, For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from
whom every family in heaven and earth is named, that according
to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened.
And he goes down to verse 20 and he says, Now to Him, He prays that everyone would
be filled with all the fullness of God and that they may know
the love of Christ that surpasses all knowledge. Now to Him who
is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask for or think
of. according to the power at work
within us. To Him be glory in the church
and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever.
Amen. So what Paul is saying to the
Ephesians is that God is able to do more than we can even ask
Him for. He's able because of the power
at work within us because He has glory. And so in this doxology
here in Jude, what we see is we see something that God does
or something that God is effectually working toward, and then we see
the reason that He's able to do it. That's what a doxology
does. That's the prescription of a
doxology. It's a praise to God for who
He is and what He's done and what He's doing. and then how
He's done it. By what attributes does He affect
such things? So let's look at this text. Now
to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present
you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy. So we stop there for a minute.
Now what is it that Jude is saying that God is doing and can do
and will do? Judas saying, God is able to
keep you. He's able to keep you. From what? Stumbling. He's able to keep
you from stumbling. When we think about doubt, when
we think about sin, when we think about dealing with our Christian
life, when we think about hoping in our own hope or holding faith
in our own faith, we find ourselves in a place where we're really
uncertain, unsure, being tossed around like, what, leaves or
waves. But now Judah's saying, quit
worrying about that. Because God is able to keep you
from stumbling. The writer of Hebrews comes to
mind when we think about those who have gone before us, those
who are walking and in that hall of fame in chapter 11, by faith,
by faith, by faith, by faith. If it wasn't last Sunday, it
was Tuesday when we looked briefly at Abraham. By faith. He obeyed God. It wasn't his
obedience that saved him, it was his faith that was given
him. He never knew God, never heard
of Him, had no opportunity to contemplate. He was worshiping
the moon. And God came to him and said,
I am the God that you so desperately are thinking you worship, and
I am not a moon. Now get up from this that you
think is all about worship and go someplace else. See, we often
don't think of the implications of faith in Abraham's day. Not
just leave where you're comfortable. Stop worshiping that God and
move away from it and follow me. And he did. Why? Because God allowed him to believe. And so Abraham followed. God
is able to keep you from stumbling. God is able to keep you in keeping
yourselves. God is able to keep us in building
ourselves up. God is able to keep us from stumbling
in our faith. God is able to hold us. Nothing
can separate us from the love of God. Nothing can snatch us
out of the hand of Jesus. Nothing. Are we in it? Are we in the love of God? Are
we beloved for those who are called, those who are loved,
those who are kept for Jesus Christ? You see that chapter
verse 1? Those who are called, comma,
those who are beloved, loved by God, comma, those who are
kept for Jesus Christ. These are the people to whom
Jude is writing. Now he says, now to Him, now
to You, God, who is able to keep me from stumbling and to present
me blameless. Think about that for a second.
How deep does this keeping from stumbling go? How rich is it? What is the whole purpose? I
keep going back to Ephesians because it's just fresh in my
heart today. But Paul says in Ephesians that we were once dead
in our trespasses and sins, like the rest of humanity. Children
of wrath. Following the pattern of this
world. Following the way of our own minds. Doing that which is
wicked. Same thing Jude's saying here.
Those who are devoid of the Spirit, following their own ungodly passions.
Peter, same stuff. 2 Peter. So when God says, when
Jude says God is able to keep us, he means that God has got
us. Does God have you in His hand?
Do you know that you belong to Him? As Pastor Luke had said
earlier, are you certain you've been adopted by Christ? You've been adopted
in. Christ. God is able to keep you
because He has taken you. He has snatched us. He has brought
us out of destruction. He has brought us out of darkness.
He has brought us into the marvelous light of His Son. Because darkness
is death. Darkness is wickedness. Darkness
is sin. And God's holiness demands justice
against darkness. Jesus Christ has paid for the
sins of the church. So that all who believe, all
whom Christ has purchased, all whom are given to the Son are
indeed kept by the Father. People don't like this. People
don't like this in our city. Church members and pastors in
our community do not like the words that just came from my
mouth because they do not like God to be the author of their
lives. They want themselves as their
own God. But is that good news? Would it be better if, Judith
says, now to Him who has given you the opportunity to keep from
stumbling? Opportunities can be missed,
beloved. Option to keep you from stumbling. Options can be mistaken. You
ever put on a pair of socks and then about midday, cross your
legs and go, whoa, I didn't even see that. The color is wrong.
You ever worn a green sock with a black suit? I do it all the
time. Well, I used to, and I don't
have any green socks. They're all black. Or you ever had a navy sock on
with a black sock on? You know, I was certain that
that was a matching pair. But it took sunlight to see the
difference. Or worse, a burgundy sock and a green sock. Nailed it like a clown. Well,
what has that got to do with what you're talking about? Because
how certain are we on the simplest things? And if we can't get socks
right, you think we can get our stumbling before God right? All the philosophers and the
debaters of all the ages, oh, that's the weakest argument ever.
It doesn't matter. My arguments are moot. Jude's arguments are
perfect. Now to Him who is able to keep
us from stumbling. And the stumbling means we do
not fall. We do not fail, even though we
may sin. We don't let go of Christ. Because
God has purposed before the world began to choose a people for
Himself by the power of His grace to elect them. The word election
scares people to death. I don't know why. Because as
Baptist, I have become a guru. And I say guru in a light way.
In learning historical Baptist doctrine. Because my entire life
as a Baptist, I just thought it meant we believe the Bible.
Well, what about the Bible do we believe? And why is it that
in our own faith and message, in our own historical documents,
that it says, since the 17th century to date, it says that
election is God's purpose in salvation. Why do we hate the Word? Because
the enemy hates it. The enemy of God, the devil,
the adversary, Satan, wants to make people keenly aware that
if God is going to save them, they better get to the place
where God can save them. How silly does that sound when
we say it that way? For God has predestined us to be transformed
into the image of His Son. And that which God has foreknown
are those who He predestined. Romans 8. Those whom He foreknew,
He called. All that He called, He justified. All that He justified, He sanctified. All that He sanctified, He glorified. And we can parse that text any
way we want, but if we do it right, if we do it in context,
we see that God alone is the author of salvation. And we either
have faith in Him or we have faith in us. How do we receive
such a wonderful truth? We believe it and it's credited
to us as righteousness. Do you see that? It's credited
to us as righteousness. So God is able to keep us. God is able to keep us from stumbling
in order that and also and to present us blameless before the
presence of His glory. Now, see what I mean? There's too
many sermons in this text, but I'm going to try to make this
work. Here we see that God's overarching and single, not overarching,
His single purpose in saving a people is to what? Purify them
and make them holy. Why? Because it's of the same
essence of His nature. Jesus Christ, the Holy, Anointed
One of God, became man so that there would be a man who was
perfectly holy, with the same nature as the Father, that he
might suffer under the judgment of God to satisfy the judgment
of God for those who would put their trust in Him. And not just
would, but will. Not would as a possibility, but
those certain. And that's what we mean when
we talk about an atonement that's applied. How is the atonement
applied? It's accomplished. The atonement
is accomplished. But atonement means at-one-ment.
The atonement means that someone has been separated from God and
has been made right with God. Has been set with God. So is
the world atoned? No. Will everyone become a believer? No. Is everyone in this world
who claims the name of Christ certain of their salvation? No.
For many will say to me, Lord, Lord. But Jesus says, I will
say to them, depart from me, you workers of iniquity. Inclusive
of the fact that they profess Him as Lord is a work of iniquity. Because God, through His Son,
has made a certain people for His glory to stand before Him
blameless. Blameless. And it says before the presence
of His glory, and I want to talk about that for a minute, and
then I've got to get on to the point. We often think that when we see
God in the way we see each other. Don't we? We look at ourselves. Of course, God is immeasurably
greater, immeasurably holy, immeasurably awesome. But we would think that
Jesus, as we see Jesus face to face, because we can't see God
the Father except through Jesus. There will be no three persons
sitting up in heaven. We only have one God. You won't see the Father over
here as a misty cloud with just sort of big feet sitting on a
throne and Jesus hanging out with us and the Spirit flying
around like a butterfly. That's not the way it works.
You will see God in the face of Jesus Christ, period. Jesus
is the God of heaven, but He's not the Father. And I don't think we'll ever
get that. Many have tried and wasted a
lot of their lives. The point is that we see God
in the face of Christ. So when it says that God is able
to keep us from stumbling, keep us from falling away, keep us
from wasting our faith, from wasting our life, and to present
us blameless before the presence of His glory, do you recognize
what that means? What does Paul say to the Roman
church? For all have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God. All have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God. All have sinned and fall short
of the pureness of God, of the greatness of God, of the holiness
of God. All have sinned. And it's not
just that we don't measure up. It's that we've completely missed
the mark. It's that we have rebelled. It's that we have taken our own
way. It's that we have become our own gods. That's what sin
is. That we saw, Adam and Eve saw
the face of God face to face. They walked with Jesus in the
garden. They knew the fullness of the
glory of God. And they thought some fruit would
be a good trade. and not just fruit, but power.
I see God, and you're saying I can be like Him? Give it to
me. We're not like Him. Even though
the devils half lie, half truth, they knew evil because they became
evil. And we're not going to stand
before this guy who has a record of our sins that says cancel.
We're going to be standing before the fullness of the glory of
God as He is. We're not just an acquitted criminal. We are transformed to be as Christ
is. Not God, but holy. Friends, I
can't do anything with that. I could, but you just got to let that
sit there. You got to let that sit there and stop up your brain
cells. You ever get that way? You ever
try to just sort of piece something together and it just won't come?
That's what this is all about. You just, it's like an arc or
something. We're not supposed to go, oh,
well, by golly, I'll file that away. I got that. Put it up on
the shelf for later years. No, we wad the paper up and we
end up chewing on the end of the notebook thinking, what are
we going to do with this? How do we handle this, that I'm
going to be made like Christ? I'm going to be holy, blameless,
pure, standing before the very glory that stepped out of heaven
to satisfy the wrath of that glory against me. I will be like
Him. God is able to do that in me.
We know ourselves, don't we? We know the very infantile, infinitesimal
tick that ticks within our heart, that little tiny... You ever
hear something, sometimes you go, that's my watch. You ever
hear your watch just out of the blue? And you can't hear your
watch now, but all of us, you know, in the quiet moments and
you're sitting there going, somebody's got a clock in here. And it's
just, it happens to be that the frequencies just hit your ears
and you can hear it. Well, sometimes we hear that
little click. We hear that little ticking.
We know who we are. Even though sometimes we forget
about it. We just, we don't hear it all the time. But every now
and then we hear the ticking of the heart. And we know, we
know just how much of a sinner we are. And we go, there's no way, God,
that I am yours. There is no way, God, that you're
working with me. And we expect in this life, we
look and we do it this way, and that's okay. But we say, oh God,
if I could just kneel at the crumbs at your feet, if I could
just work in the slums and the sewers of your glory, if I could
just grovel. Scripture says we stand. and that we sit with Christ next
to the Father. Do you get the image there? God isn't cleaning us up. He's recreating us. That's the
gospel. That's the good news. There's
no good news in working, and working, and working, and working,
and hoping, and hoping, and hoping, and saying, and doing, and living.
There's no good news in the labor of faith if it doesn't produce
the work of God fully and completely in His hand. There's no good
news. There's no gospel that's ever
been preached and called it gospel. If it doesn't come down to the
end of the day, you sinner are going to be made right by the
sacrifice, by the propitiation, by the death of the Lamb of God
and His name is Jesus. And He died and God rose Him
from the dead. His name is Jesus. Believe on
Christ alone or perish in your sins. That's not offensive except
to the man who hates Him. And there's nothing more evil
than to hold that truth in our own lives to ourselves when there
are many who are perishing and need the grace of God. And because
God is the author of salvation completely and the agent of salvation
perfectly, God sends His people whom He has perfectly saved to
preach a gospel to a dying world. before the presence of His glory
and look at the outcome with great joy. God is able to keep us from stumbling. God is able to present us as
He is, holy. And God is able to give us the
fullness of joy that never stumbles, as He is full of joy. This is
what Jude is praising God for. These are the things that Jude
promises that God is doing and has done in the salvation of
His people. Well, what about our joy? So what? Good. I've had happy
times. Really? Happy times and joy are
incomparable. They're just not the same. Because I believe that happiness,
if we define it as these fleeting moments, it fades. I mean, even
a new car, the smell goes away. We stop washing, we start a new
pair of shoes. Well, these things wear out.
Is our joy in the Lord like that? It is in this earth, isn't it?
We could be so full of just awesomeness and celebration and peace and
comfort and we could sing a song, it is well with my soul and tears
could run down our eyes and we could just, oh my gosh, we hug
and sing kumbaya and light candles and leave out of here and then
some moron jumps out in front of us and we crash and... We hit a pole in the parking
lot and our joy just goes... It's gone. And that's simple
little things. That's a tiny little thing. We
see we got a green sock on. We go, wow, I look like an idiot.
I wear my pants like the rest of
the young guys around here. Let my underwear stick out so
they can't see my socks. And our joy is gone. Our happiness
is gone. Our comfort is gone. Our peace
is gone. No, that's how it works, isn't it? And what do we have
to do? How do we maintain our joy in
Christ? We keep ourselves in the love of God. We wait patiently. We wait patiently for the mercy
of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. We pray
in the Holy Spirit. We build ourselves up in this
most holy faith. We hold fast to our fellowship
around the Word of God and in the Word of God and with each
other as we labor in prayer by the power of the Spirit, we hold
fast because God, because God is keeping us from stumbling.
So when we come to the end of the day and we say we are just
done and we reject the Gospel, it's because God never had us
in the first place. We've come too far gone in Christendom
today to say, well, that brother has just backslidden. We need to get him back. When John says, I don't pray
for the sin that leads to death, what does that mean? But pray
for the sins that do not lead to death. But I'm not saying
pray for the sin that leads to death in 1 John 5. What's he saying
there? He's saying that let's quit asking
God to mature in holiness an unbeliever. But ask God to save you. And that when someone is being
kept by God, we can pray that God would mature him, would help
him in that sin that he is still trying to see. Not necessarily,
I don't like the word overcome, but you know what I mean. Put to death, that's the better,
in his life. With great joy. Our joy is fleeting in this world.
Even in our walk with the Lord, our joy is complete in Him, but
it flees. It flees. When we get bad reports,
when we get bad letters in the mail, when we get bad relationships,
when we get bad finances, when we get bad health, when we get
bad things, we see bad news, we see things. Our joy just flushes
like a toilet. And then we build it back up.
But God builds it through His Holy Spirit. He purposes us to
pray. We get in the Word. We get fellowship with the saints.
And we're built back up. God is able to keep us in the
presence of His glory blameless with great joy. The joy that
never fails. The joy that never ceases. The
joy that never succumbs to bad news. The joy that never cringes. So this is what God is doing. And in verse 25, this is how
God does it. To God, to the only God. See the doctrine
there? And I say doctrine, the teaching
of the things about God, which is theology. So the doctrine,
theology, the only God. There's no room for pluralism,
but the point is, to the only God, I have no other gods before
me, to the only God, the God of heaven, the creator, the only
one, our Savior. God saves, He's the only one
who saves through Jesus Christ our Lord. We don't have to revisit
all of that, but you understand it. We went there in verse 1
and 2. We went there in verses 3 of
this text. We see that Jesus Christ alone
is the one true God who is the Savior. That through Christ alone,
we have salvation. That through Christ alone, God
keeps us. That through Christ alone, God
makes us blameless. That through Christ alone, God
gives us hope. That through Christ alone, God
gives us great joy. So that's the first thing. How
does God do it? Through Christ. Through Christ. See, that's a series of sermons,
isn't it? Where could we go? We could go through all, I mean,
just the Pauline epistles and the Johannine epistles, John
and Paul's writing. We could just go through there
and just spend the next millennia just eating and soaking and living
Christ alone, as we sing today. But look what he praises Him. be glory and majesty and dominion
and authority. How does God save a dead man
who cannot even hear the voice of God? Because God, Jesus Christ our
Lord, our Savior, has all glory has all majesty, has all dominion,
and has all authority. Where does that leave everything
else? Someplace else. Well, that's profound. I'm going
to write that on a t-shirt. If it all is in God, where's
everything else? Someplace else. What? Everything else. Everything
else in our hope as the church is someplace else. If our hope is not in God, in
Christ alone, we have no hope. If our resting, if our fighting,
if our urging, if our striving, if our praying, if our study,
if our fellowship, if our ministry is not in the hands of the supreme,
sublime, divine power of God, we have nothing. It is garbage. It is worthless. It is empty. It is wasted. And sad to say that most every
one of us waste many and most of the moments of our entire
lives. We waste them. Because we do put Christ not
off the shelf, but on the shelf. We hold Him up, we hold Him high,
but... I mean, how do we cut grass for
the glory of God? How do we paint? How do we suck
sewage up for the glory of God when the toilets overflow? How
do we clean people who are in need of care for the glory of
God? How do we deal with the fact
that we were in an accident and we're paralyzed for the glory
of God? We often just sort of thump it
away, don't we? It's like, okay, I know you're there, but look
at me. Now to Him. Do all things. I mean, Paul even
says it's about what we eat and drink, that when we're drinking
or eating meat, we do it for the glory of Christ. The question is, is there enough
of the gospel continually poured into our lives that there's enough
gospel left at the end of the day for us to pour out of our
lives? Or pour into the boring, mundane,
worthless, vain necessities? I'm not talking about frivolous
love. I'm not talking about the prodigal
son. I'm talking about the pragmatic
son. Gotta wash the car, gotta wash
the dog, gotta wash the kids. Had to clean up all that. Where's
our mind in it all? Where's our heart in it all?
One of the greatest tests of that in my life is commuting
in the East Bay. Nine miles. Ninety minutes. First few weeks, you know, you
start thinking you're getting arthritis because you're gripping
the steering wheel so hard and you think your molars are about
to rot out because you've got And after a while, people are
honking. You just go off into this daydream of what the Lord's
putting in your heart through the Word. There's about six car
lengths ahead of you. Oh, excuse me, there's 70 feet.
I'll go up. We can meditate on the Word of
God. We can be focused. We can whisper prayers in our
conscience as we do the most ridiculous things. We can praise
God for the opportunity. We can be joyful. And that sounds
so easy, but it's not, is it? What happens when we just can't
do those things and we just sit there and we wonder what in the
world? Well, God, Jesus Christ, be all glory. That means everything, Let me help you define that.
The full essence of the total value of all worth that could
be ascribed to everything that ever was and more, it belongs
to Him. So that everything else but God
is worthless. Not worth less than He, but worthless. It's nothing. So that when we look at the night
sky and we see this vastness and we go, what in the world
is this incredibly rich, deep, infinite awesomeness? And it's
like a bird dropping on a windshield, being smeared
with a wiper in a slight mist. Because it's worthless. Because
it points to the worth of God. If we don't see it as it pointing
to the glory of God, to the majesty of God, to the dominion and the
authority of God, we miss it. It's worthless. God is able to keep us because
He's infinitely worth, infinitely glorious, infinitely majestic. When you think of majesty, what
do you see? What do you see? Well, that's
just majestic. Mostly for me, when I think of
majestic, I think of what I hear. I like to think of things that
are majestic as certain chordal harmonies and certain aspects
of compositions of antiquity as I hear them from a symphony. Not necessarily so much from
a radio, but from a symphony. and you feel that which you hear
in my mind's eye, put something there that just seems to be overwhelming. You got something like that in
your life? It's nothing. It's nothing compared to the majesty of God. What about dominion? When you
think of the vastness of kingdoms and kings, you look at history
and you see the Roman Empire and the Mongols and others who
ruled nearly the world at different times and let them fail. When you see the archaeology
of Egypt and you wonder, how was it that these historic people,
these ancient people, were able to know the things that they
knew? It's no wonder that so many people theorized that there
were aliens during those days that taught them great mysteries about biology and chemistry and
physics. When we're baffled about them
now and we have the technology and the understanding to see
it, not just know that it's there, but see it. And it's all for
nothing. For these kingdoms fall, this
dominion and authority, this dominion of this world, they
cease because God has established them. Jesus Christ has created
all that ever was created. He created it. Through Him it
was created. And for Him it was created. That
it may point back to the authority that He has to bring the greatest
things that we could imagine to and not. And as Jesus says in the authoritative
way in Matthew 28, for all authority in heaven and
in earth has been given unto me. Therefore, what's it therefore? Because all authority has been
given unto Jesus. Go make disciples. We see what is disciple making,
what is evangelism, teaching people to obey the Word of God
that without rebirth they cannot do. And it's not the simple obedience.
It's not the wash your hands and turn out the light and be
conservative with your resources and be a good steward with what
you've been given. It's love your enemies. Lay your
life down for those who persecute you. Husbands, love your wife as Christ
loved the church and gave Himself up for her that He may present
her blameless and spotless before Him in splendor. We can't do that without Christ. No matter how kind we may be,
we can't lay our life down for those who hate us. No matter how sweet we may be,
there will come a time when our spouse, when our wives may not
deserve that kind of laying down. But we do it because Christ in
us allows it. and this authority, and this
dominion, this majesty and glory, it had no beginning and it will
have no end as Jude closes. He says, before all time, and
now, and forevermore. So you might say, when is it
that God is going to establish this keeping me from stumbling? He began before you began. And
He's holding you and keeping you now, beloved, and He will
continue to keep you until forever. But the question on all of our
hearts is this. How does this happen? We want the practical. We want to see it. How does it
happen? What are we supposed to do? Keep
ourselves in the love of God. That's how we build ourselves
up in our most holy faith. We pray. We keep ourselves in
the love of God. We hold fast. We wait for the
mercy of Jesus. So where does it stand? Where
does it stand? Even on our part, what do we
do? We rest that God loves us. We pray by God's Spirit. And
we wait for God's grace. What are we doing? We're believing
God. We're believing the Gospel. That's
it. It's really that simple. So that's
what we do, is we believe that which God has said He'll do.
We hold to that. And then simply, how does God
do it? We see how it's affected. We know He's mighty. We know
He's all-glorious. We know He's all-majestic. We
know He has all authority over all dominion forever, all eternity
past, present and future. How does He do it? Look at verse
1 again, and then we're done. Because... We are called. God keeps us. Because we are
loved. That's what beloved means. We
are loved. Because we're kept. We are called
by God, we are loved by God, and we are kept by God. This
is the point. God, in His mercy, because of
the great love with which He loved us, has caused us to be
born again in Christ. God keeps us from stumbling to
present us blameless with great joy before His glory because
He because He called us as His own. And He called us because
He loved us before the world began. And He loves us and He
calls us, therefore He keeps us in Jesus Christ. It's really
that easy. But we need to be reminded of
such things. We need to be remindful and remembering
the Gospel of God. through Jesus Christ. Friends,
I don't know the doubt, the fear, the frustration, the pain, the
penalties, or whatever else that may come. I don't know what's
going on in all of our hearts. But I do know what is going on
in heaven. And that is that our Father is
keeping us for glory. And the only hope we have is
Him. Now friends, I will turn this
key just a little bit further and grind the starter for just
a second. You might say to yourself, I
believe that and I know that. But my faith is waning worse
now than it ever has. And my question to you is, maybe
not to you, but to those who we see not here, how do we expect
to get all that... I better be careful. How do we
expect to continue in the faith that we do not through discipline
practice? And if we do not have the discipline
to practice, how do we have peace to know that God is working it
in us? We don't. So in a very careful parting shot, I would
say to you, do not forsake the gathering together of believers
as some are in our custom of doing. I don't care if you read
the Bible 16 hours a day. If you are not among the saints,
that Bible reading is in vain. Because you are saying, I do
that which I do, And I don't have to obey God. Be careful. And those who would punt me over
the goal posts and say I'm done with that, have mercy on those
who doubt. You cannot disobey God in this
hand while saying you honor him in this one. Jesus says it very
clearly. You honor me with your lips,
but your hearts are far from me. Friends, you want to see
the grace of God active in your life. You have to be amongst
the people who know you and care for you and are concerned with
you as you grow in the word. Do you understand that? If I put on Facebook or Twitter
or whatever and three or four people share it, a half a million
people can be praying for you today. They don't know you. And at the end of the day, their
prayers will affect us. When someone in Kabul prays for
you, God will affect the man or woman sitting next to you
to be the hand of ministry to you. That's how God works. And when we don't come to celebrate
life together, we should go get them. Because sometimes we are
too down, too dirty, too broken or too depressed to think about
it. But God purposes in our heart we pray for one another and we
need not let people just go We need to hold them and minister
to them until the day when God restores their joy that they
may be a minister to someone else. And I would encourage you to
pray for the next few weeks as we look at God's Word. And I am praying about preaching
through Philippians next. And then after that, I'm considering
what God would have me preach, but Philippians will take us
a while. But be in prayer, be in preparation for that by reading
it. We've wanted to try to read it
every day this past week at our house, and we got it once, so
that's better than none. Read it. It takes you just a
minute. Read it and prepare. God will show you that which
He's preparing you to see when we're preparing to see it. And
I would just encourage you to continue to pray. And as we close
our service today, specifically pray for those in your life who
are lost, who need to hear the truth of the Gospel. And specifically
pray for each other. Just look around this room, and
I know situations that all of us are connected to or dealing
with that we desperately need prayer. And so when people say,
how are you? And it's not good, say it's not
good. Not, great, you'll walk outside and cry. Be honest. Tell us how we can pray for you.
And when people say, is there something I can do? And there
is something that you need, tell them what it is. Because we miss
out on serving and receiving service from one another when
we just don't feel like we want to burden each other. Do you
know it's a command of the Gospel, of the Scriptures, that we bear
each other's burdens? And so if God purposes for me
to bear your burden and you say you don't have one, you're a
liar, and you're robbing me of my obedience, there's a guilt
trip for you. But it's not supposed to be a
guilt trip. You're supposed to have the freedom to live life
as a church, as the body of Christ. Let's pray. Father, we love You
in a very weak way. We love You in a supernatural way because
you've loved us first. Rest all of the truth that we've
so quickly crammed over the last hour into our hearts. Rest it
in our souls that we might hide it in our hearts, that we would
see you blossom it and grow it. that we may find opportunity
to serve and to pray and to just, if nothing else, weep with someone
who's weeping. We don't always have to have
the answers, God. But we do have the answer in knowing that when
it seems hopeless, You have our heart in Your hand. You have
our soul. You have our bodies. You have
our future. You have our present. To You, Lord, belongs all glory
and honor and wealth and majesty and dominion and authority. And
so to Your name we praise You for You. We praise You for Your
glorious grace that has been given to us that we might see
You in this way. And it's only in Christ Jesus
that we even stand before You now. And it's only in Christ
Jesus that we will stand bold before You, pure and perfect
in the day of Your coming. In Jesus' name, amen.