Making it better

Jude 1:24-25

Making it better

²⁴ Now to Him who is able to keep ^[m]you from stumbling,
And to present you faultless
Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
²⁵ To ^[n]God our Savior,
^[o]Who alone is wise,
Be glory and majesty,
Dominion and ^[p]power,
Both now and forever.
Amen.

We finally reach the end of Jude! 

We started in talking about who Jude said that he was. He did not say he was the half brother of Christ like he could have. Instead, he viewed himself as a bond servant of Jesus Christ. Someone whose focus is only on pleasing their master to the detriment of everything else. Next Jude encourages us with a simple message, to not be afraid. God is for us who can be against us? For as long as there are people willing to proclaim the gospel there will be people who are opposed to the gospel. Last time we looked at the various sin categories false doctrine tends to fall into “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life.”

Last time we looked at practical ways to build our faith. Prayer, specifically prayer seeking the will of God, guided by His word and His spirit. Fellowshipping with other believers on a consistent basis. Showing mercy as any time you have two sinners under one roof you will have problems. Holding one another accountable not out of a sense of judgment and pride but compassion and Holy fear. Quite frankly beloved, all of this is a daunting task! It all can easily become quite overwhelming. Jude now gives us hope. Hope not in ourselves, but in our Lord. 


To Him who is able to keep you from stumbling. 


The vast majority of us would say there is nothing we can do to earn our salvation. Yet, we so quickly transition from grace back to the law once we are saved. We read books like Jude and we want to be on the lookout for false prophets and false doctrine. We also want to avoid the sin in our lives and know we should live differently. Yet, the struggle is real.


This year the news media has had a field day with so many high profile Christians falling from grace. I’m not going to repeat the names here as I feel it serves no purpose. Yet, a famed author whose books I had read declared himself an Atheist. A famous singer whose song you have heard on K-Love in the past also walked away from his faith. A pastor whom I had been a big fan of and recommended in the past was declared “Biblically unfit to lead” by his own elders. After he fell to the traps of money and power. Most recently, an entertainer was outed as having used his wealth and influence to take advantage of women repeatedly over the year. The struggle is real and sin crouches at the door waiting to trip us up.



Paul would say in Romans 7 “Why do I do the things I don't want to (Romans 7: 15) who will save me from this death (Romans 7: 24) thanks be to God
it's Jesus (Romans 7: 25)”


Jesus is how we are saved! Jesus is how we remain saved! Jesus is how we walk with the Lord. A more outdoorsy pastor than me put it like this “In mountain climbing, the beginning hiker attaches himself to the expert so that if he loses his footing he won’t stumble and fall to his death. In the same manner, if we keep connected with God, we cannot fall. He keeps us safe.” It is when we walk with Jesus we are kept from stumbling because His love and grace pulls us through and keeps us upright. 


We will not just be there alive, survivors. We will not just be free from guilt and sin, we will be holy. We will be blameless. We will be faultless. We will not only not violate God’s law, we will keep every bit of it all the time forever. It is not just that we will be there in the absence of sin, but we will be there in the presence of holiness. We will not only not be capable of doing evil, we will be only capable of doing right. We will have every power and every passion emancipated from evil and devoted only to holiness.


And we’ll be there with our heads lifted up, blameless before God. And instead of fear and trauma and panic and fainting, we’ll be overwhelmed with joy - joy forever. Joy forever.

Joy defines heaven. Zephaniah 3, verse 17, tells us another aspect of heavenly joy. “The Lord your God will rejoice over you with joy. He will joy over you with singing.” Isn’t that great? Not only are we going to sing praise to God, He’s going to sing praise concerning us. And Jesus went to the cross for the joy that was set before Him. And what’s that joy going to be? Fellowship with us. He’s going to rejoice over us. God’s going to rejoice over us and we’re going to rejoice over the Lord and over the Father.


Who alone is wise, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever: This all reminds us of God’s wisdom, glory, and power. Jude isn’t trying to say that we can or should give these things to God. When we acknowledge and declare the truth about God, it glorifies Him. We aren’t giving God more majesty or power than He had before; we are just recognizing and declaring it.


There is serious deception in the world and often among those called Christians. There are enemies of the gospel who have infiltrated the church. Yet despite the greatness of the threat, God is greater still. He wins, and if we will only stay with Him, we are guaranteed victory also.


Jude is a book full of warning, but it closes with supreme confidence in God. Dangerous times should make us trust in a mighty God.


This year has been a challenging year for my family. The year started off with a vacation to Florida and taking the kids to Universal. We left a little early to try and beat out an ice storm that fizzled. Yet, it was good to be home. I went to see mom that next day and she was doing as well and she was during that time. It was the last time I would visit her at Commonwealth. She would then progressively get worse until she passed in early March. David offered me a break then and I stubbornly refused it. Since Easter I’ve had 1-2 extra kids with my nephews living with us as my sister in law has been in and out of the hospital. 

During this whole summer & fall I continued to stubbornly refuse to take a break.

God made it very clear to me recently that it’s time for a break. So this is my last wed night sermon for the year. Don’t worry I’ll still be here. I’m not going anywhere. If you want to hear me teach you can pop in on my Sunday school class. Don’t fret, there is a wide variety of talented speakers and fun Christmas related activities to fill out the year. I’ll be back in January when we start our next book. I love and appreciate all of you.