It's good to see you guys this morning.
It's good to be here. I agree with Alan.
You guys sound great singing. I know we've got a lot of people
out this morning. I think we've officially entered
into to cold season here right before Christmas.
So we've got some some folks that are sick and out.
But man, I'm glad to see everybody here today.
It's good to be here. It's good to worship together.
It's good to sing together, to study God's word together.
I'm very grateful for the opportunity to be able to do
this each week if you are visiting and you are new here.
My name is Jasper, I'm the associate pastor here and it's a
great honor to be able to preach today.
And so we are going to be continuing our Advent series.
And so we started this a couple of weeks ago and we have been
just approaching Christmas through the Advent season with
several different sermons that follow the Advent theme.
And so a couple of weeks ago, Kyle kicked us off with the
Light of Hope where he walked us through first Peter, 1 verses 3
through 9. Last week, Dustin walked us
through the light of peace in Colossians 115 through 23.
And today we are going to be looking at the light of joy and
we will be in the book of Jude. So if you have your bibles, go
ahead and turn to the book of Jude.
It is right before the Book of Revelation.
So it's all the way there at the back.
Pretty easy to find, but it's a short little book.
Now when I found out that that me and and Dustin would be
preaching part of the Advent series, Kyle had already kind of
mapped out. The series already had in mind
what we wanted to preach on certain days and even the texts.
And so we started talking through this and figuring out
who was going to preach what. And I found out Dustin got
Colossians one and had nine verses to preach.
And in those nine verses were some of the most misinterpreted
passages in all of Scripture. And he talked about that there
are a lot of heresies that have been born from a
misinterpretation of his text. So I saw that's what he got.
And I saw that I got 2 little verses at the end of a doxology
in the book of Jude. And I thought to myself, I
thought, well, self, you got the better end of that deal.
But to steal a line from Dustin, he's not here, I can do this.
What's the problem with that? The Bible Boy did I have another
thing coming. I started studying these two
verses this week, actually two weeks ago, and realized that
even though this is 2 verses tacked on to the end of a short
little book, it's just a small little doxology.
It is absolutely packed with theology, with doctrine.
It is just overflowing full to the brim with all sorts of
spiritual, just foundational stuff for us as Christians.
And the more I studied this and the more I started to try to
unpack it, I realized there's so much in these verses, so much.
And so I did the thing that the preachers sometimes do.
And I started to feel like, well, I have to cover all of
that. I have to unpack all of that.
If I don't mention this or this or this, and they're going to
think I didn't know what I was doing and I didn't study it.
And I started to get really overwhelmed.
But I'm going to tell you that today we are going to look at
this text. We're going to talk about a lot
of those things. But there's really one aspect of
these two verses that I want us to really, really dial in on
today. And it's one little word, 3
letters, and it's Joy. Joy.
We're going to talk about Joy today.
So again, we're in Jude. We're going to be looking at
verses 24 and 25 at the very end there of the Book of Jude.
So as I've mentioned, there's a lot here.
You could literally preach 5 or 6 sermons from just this text.
You could preach a whole series, if you wanted, on the
Perseverance of the Saints, which we will talk about in this
text today. You could preach a four part
series on God's glory, majesty, dominion and authority.
You could preach a three-part series on God's glory, past,
present and future. I mean, there's so many
different directions you could go with this, but we're not
going to do all of that. We're going to focus on what
joy. We're going to talk about joy
today. So before we jump in and read
the two verses, I want to give you a little bit of context,
right? Because context matters when
you're reading, especially 2 verses isolated from the rest of
the book. Ideally we would read the whole
book, we would study the background of it and all that.
But we don't have time for that this morning.
So let me give you some context. The book of Jude was written by,
guess who Jude. That's right.
Jude was the brother of James and the half brother of Jesus.
Now we don't know which church or group of Christians he wrote
this to. A lot of times a letter in the
New Testament would be written to a specific church, the
Corinthians or the Romans. This one we're not sure, but we
know that the audience was a mixture of Jews and Gentiles
that would have known Jewish customs and traditions and
teachings. In verse 17, Jude tells them to
to follow and remember the predictions of the apostles.
So they would have been familiar with the apostles teaching of
the New Testament. They would have been familiar
with all the Old Testament laws and all of that.
The main point of the letter is this.
He wrote it to warn these people, his his listeners, about
false teachers that had crept into the church unnoticed and
perverted the grace of God. Those are his words.
He says this in verse 4. He is urging believers to
contend for the faith, to stay in the faith.
He even says keep yourselves in the love of God in verse 21.
So this is an exhortation to these people to not fall for the
false teaching of the day and to keep themselves rooted and
grounded in the gospel of Christ.
And then he ends this letter with one of the most beautiful
little doxologies, probably in the whole Bible.
One commentary even said that these two verses are the heart
and soul of the Christian life. And it is essentially a call to
praise God for what he has done, is doing, and will do in the
life of a believer. It's a call to glorify him and
give him all the glory and all things.
And so here's my big idea for you today.
This is what the point I'm trying to make what I want you
to take away from this and. And it's this.
And I stole some of these words from Dustin.
We talked through this and I'm. I'm stealing his words again.
Christians can joyfully persevere because God joyfully
preserves us. OK.
Christians can joyfully persevere because God joyfully
preserves us. So let's go ahead and and read
Jude 24 and 25. If you can please stand to your
feet. We will read these verses and
then when I finish, I will say this is the word of the Lord.
You guys know room to respond with thanks be to God.
So let's read you 24 and 25. 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, to the only God our Savior,
through Jesus Christ our Lord, the glory, majesty, dominion and
authority, before all time and now and forever.
Amen. Lord, we thank you for your word
and we pray God that you speak to us now, that you open our
hearts and minds, that you are glorified through this today,
that you were magnified. I pray that you speak through
me, That you just moved me out of the way.
That you would have us hear your words and not mine and God.
We do it all for your glory and honor.
We praise you and we thank you in Jesus name.
Amen. This is the word of the Lord.
Almost forgot it. You guys can have a seat.
All right. So let's jump into this.
I'm going to do some basic just interpretation.
We're going to kind of breakdown the sentence structure in a
couple of spots before we really start getting into what it means
in the application. So June 24 and 25, again, packed
to the brim. It seems like 2 simple little
verses, but we are going to see that it is not.
So we start out with to him. So who are we talking about?
We have to ask that question. Who is?
Who is him? And says to him, who is able.
And then it gets into what he's able to do.
Later in verse 25, Jude comes back around and says to the only
God our Savior. And so he literally is saying
that to him who is able to blah blah blah blah blah, to the only
God our Savior, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So he, he comes back around and says who he's talking about.
It's God. We're talking about God, our
Savior. That's who this is about.
That's who we're discussing here.
Now, what does he say about God? He says to him who is able, and
we're going to talk about what he's able to do in just a
second. But let's talk about that.
Let's not skip over that when it says he is able.
Jude did not have in mind that God might do this or that he is
able to do this, but he might or might not.
When he says that he is able to do this, he is saying that he
will do this. He is qualified to do this, and
he is very capable of doing what we're about to talk about.
OK. So it's not just that he might
do it. No, he's the man for the job.
He can do it. No one else can.
But he can. So that's important to remember.
He does, and he will do things we're about to discuss.
So to him, who is able and what is he able to do to keep you
from stumbling? Let's just pause there and talk
about that. In other translations, it might
say, keep you from falling. But the idea here is not
sinlessness. Jude is not saying that God will
prevent you from sinning. We know that's not true.
We know that the Bible teaches in other places that even though
we are redeemed people, we still struggle with our flesh, that we
still struggle with sin, right? The idea here is that he will
keep you from falling from the faith altogether.
He will keep you from falling from the faith.
Remember, false teaching was floating all around, and these
false teachers were leading people astray through their
false teaching, and so many had fallen from the faith, or so it
it seemed. That was the appearance.
You have people who claim to be believers falling away from
Christianity altogether. There's a word for this, and
it's called apostasy. So you had these people that
were apostatizing and it was really striking fear into the
hearts of Christians. Now The thing is, is we're going
to look at here in a minute. Well, I don't want to get ahead
of myself. We'll get into that here in a
minute. But that's what was going on.
And that's why Jude is saying he is able to keep you from
stumbling. He is saying that for true
Christians, for those who are truly gods, those who are truly
in the faith, not just someone who says they're a Christian,
but there's no evidence to back that up.
People who are truly in the faith, God will keep you from
stumbling. You will not fall.
We're going to talk about this. So this is a big doctrine.
OK. There there's a name for this
doctrine, and it is called Perseverance of the Saints.
All right, One way you might have heard it said in the
culture that we live in is once saved, always saved.
Now there's a big difference really between those two.
And I want to define what we mean and what Jude's talking
about here. OK, We're going to talk about
what it isn't, and then we'll talk about what it is.
So a lot of times when we hear people talk about once saved,
always saved, it's in a negative way.
A lot of people don't like that and it for good reason.
There are many who maybe claim to be Christians think that they
are Christians or they're going to heaven.
They've got their ticket punched because they just walked an
aisle one time when they were a kid and said a repeat after me
prayer. One time they did that one
thing, that one time that they were told to do ticket punched,
I'm good. And then they don't think about
it ever again, right? That is a lot of times what
people think when they think of once saved, always saved.
And it gets a very bad rap. Now that is not really it, that
that term can be used in a good way.
But perseverance of the Saints is a better way to put this.
And what this means, what what it truly means is it has in mind
those who are truly redeemed by Christ, not just someone who
says, well, I'm a Christian because I walked an aisle one
time. Not that you can't become a
Christian by going down an aisle and confessing your sins and
doing all those things. I'm not saying if you walked an
aisle, you're not a Christian. But when someone, when you have
to consider why you're a Christian, it shouldn't be based
on anything you did. It should be based on what
Christ did. And your faith is in him alone
and what he did for you on that cross.
You're not a Christian because you said a prayer or walked an
aisle, right? OK, So in Perseverance of the
Saints, we have in mind true Christians, people who are
actively trying to follow Christ, who are repentant, who
confess their sins, who love the Lord and are actively seeking
him and trying to grow in their faith.
People who have been bought and paid for with the blood of
Christ. Those who are truly in the
faith, those will not fall. These aren't what's called the
Bride of Christ in Ephesians 5. These are the people that he
gave his life for. These are the people that he
went to the cross for. He's paid for their sins.
They are his and he will not lose them.
So how can we know the difference?
How can you know the difference between someone who's claiming
to be something and someone who is?
Well, how can you tell the difference between an apple tree
and an orange tree? The fruit, right.
You can look at it and tell. It's not that hard.
They're two very different things.
The fruit, the evidence. There should be evidence there.
There's a a really goofy video on YouTube.
Anybody that knows me knows I love YouTube videos.
I love clips. I like to laugh.
I like to joke too much sometimes.
There's a goofy YouTube video that came out a long time ago.
The quality on it's really bad, but it's this guy that wears
like khaki shorts and a vest and a funny little hat like
sunscreen. He looks like a tourist and he's
out in the woods and he does all the stuff that's really neat and
it's called natures, like adventures that are neat.
And there's one part that's so great.
He walks up to this Aspen tree and he says this is an Aspen.
You can tell that because of the way that it is.
And it's true. Like all you got to do is look
at it and you know, it's not a pine tree, It's an Aspen tree.
Because the leaves and the bark and all things you can tell
that's a Christian because of the way that it is, because it
acts like a Christian. It acts like Christ and it loves
Christ. There's fruit.
There's fruit of repentance. There's fruit of faith there.
It's it's evident to the people around them you can't claim to
be something and not be that thing.
You're you're going to look different.
And so with Christians, it's E it should be pretty easy to
tell, or at least within a conversation.
But we're talking about those who are truly in the faith for
those people. Now that we've established that
for those people, Christ will never fail you.
He will not let you fall. You will not stumble, You will
not fall. You cannot lose your salvation.
OK, now again, this is a big doctrine.
A lot of, a lot of people would argue this.
We're not going to chase this rabbit all day because there's a
lot more in these two verses to unpack.
But we are told through multiple verses in Scripture that Christ
will not fail us. OK, Romans 838 through 39.
For I am sure that neither death nor life, angels or rulers,
things present or things to come, powers nor height, nor
depth, nor anything in all creation, will be able to
separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Nothing. Nothing on this earth, nothing
in heaven or hell, nothing to come, nothing that's already
happened. Nothing can separate you from
the love of Christ. If He bought you and paid for
you on that cross, you are bought and nothing's going to
undo that, OK? We need to understand that deep
in our hearts, when I put my faith in Christ and I'm trusting
him to be my Savior, that is a trust that I don't have to worry
about. I don't have to worry about
whether that's going to go away. I can trust Christ every day
that he's got me, that I am secure in his arms.
John 1712 says while I was with this is Jesus talking to God the
Father about his disciples while I was with them, I kept them in
your name which you have given me.
I have guarded them and not one of them has been lost except the
Son of destruction that the scriptures might be fulfilled.
Jesus says I will not lose those that are mine.
You've given them to me. They are mine.
I will not lose them. This doesn't mean that true
Christians don't sin. It doesn't mean that we won't
stumble at times in sin, not stumble away from the faith.
Now it's the Christians can become hard hearted, we can
backslide, we can go through seasons of life where our hearts
have been hardened. But God will always bring us
around to repentance. He will always call us back to
himself. Luke 15 says he will leave the
99 to go after the one, and it says in that same passage that
there is more joy in heaven over 1 Sinner who repents first.
John 19 says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to
forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So of course there will be times in our lives where we don't feel
like we're at the peak of our Christian performance here.
But that's what repentance is for.
We can come to the foot of the cross always knowing that he's
there to welcome us and we can repent and we can continue to
grow. We don't fall from the faith,
OK? And what's beautiful is that
none of this depends on us and on our strength to muster up
enough Christianity to do all of these things.
It's all by God's grace. The way that the Saints
persevere, the way that we, the Church, persevere in the faith
in a wicked world is through God's grace.
The only chance we have at running a good race, as Paul
talks about, is through God's grace.
If it depends on our performance, we are going to
fail. But thank God we are not
responsible to keep ourselves saved because we didn't save
ourselves, right? He did that and he's the one
that keeps us that way. It is his work and the life of a
believer. His strength, our salvation, was
secured by him and our sanctification is guaranteed by
him. This doesn't mean that we just
get to sit back and enjoy the ride, right?
We are not, was known as Antinomians.
We don't say, well, I got my ticket punched.
I can go live like a child of hell now, Paul says.
Should we keep on sinning that grace may abound?
By no means no, not at all. Like true Christians love the
Lord and don't want to do that anymore.
Our hearts have been changed by Christ.
We want to pursue what is what brings him joy and pleasure.
We want to be more like Christ. So yes, we work toward
sanctification, but we know that it's God's grace that gives the
increase always. None of it is on in our own
strength and based on us. He has promised that He will not
leave us or forsake us. Hebrews 13, Five.
He has promised that He will be with us always, even until the
end of age. Matthew 2820 So over and over we
see throughout Scripture that God is with His people.
He will not abandon them, He will not lose them.
They are His bought and paid for.
Amen. So we've covered that.
I've spent too much time on it. Let's let's keep going through
our text even in by the way, even in verse one.
The second part of verse one, Jude says to those who were
called beloved in God the Father and kept for Christ.
We are kept, we're kept for Christ, kept by Christ.
OK at His. Work.
His work of keeping us does not end right.
We've talked about this. This is for all eternity.
It's to the end of the age, all the way to heaven.
Look again at verse 24 to him who who is able to keep you from
stumbling and present you blameless before the presence of
his glory. With great joy the NASB says he
is able to make you stand in the presence of his glory,
blameless. With great joy the NIV says he
is able to present you before his glorious presence, without
fault and with great joy. To that I say Amen and
Hallelujah. Amen and Hallelujah.
He will keep us until the very end, and on that day present us
faultless, spotless and blameless before the throne of
God. That is reason to celebrate as
Christians, as we live in a sinful world and we struggle
with sin every day, knowing because of what he's done.
He will present US one day and we won't have to be.
We won't have to deal with all that sin and all that shame.
We will be presented spotless as Christ is spotless, Colossians
121 through 23 says you who were once alienated and hostile in
mind, doing evil deeds. He has now reconciled in his
body of flesh by his death in order to and just pause.
Don't miss this. We're talking about the
Crucifixion and it says in order to This is why he did it, in
order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach
before him. If indeed you continue in the
faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the
gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation
under heaven and of which I, Paul, became a minister.
If you continue in the faith, it's going to happen.
We know that because he's going to be the one to keep us.
But he did it so that we can be presented spotless, sinless,
without sin. It's done.
It's been paid for. It is finished.
I don't have to deal with that anymore.
We will be presented spotless, done with the sins of this
world. Now, I had to kind of really
rewire my thinking on this a little bit because I remember
being taught as a kid that one day when you get to heaven, even
if you're a Christian, that you're going to stand there
before God and all your sins are going to be broadcast before
everyone to see. You're going to have to answer
for all of that, But then, but then you just won't be guilty.
You won't have to, like, deal with the punishment.
You'll still get to go to heaven, but it's all going to be
there. Everybody's going to know what
you did, so you better be good. Is that what this says?
Does it say One day when you get to heaven, he's going to present
you with a lot of shame and guilt over all the things you
did when you lived on earth. And you're going to have to
answer for all that. But he won't punish you for it.
He'll still let you in. But you're going to have to tell
him why you did what you did. No.
He's going to present you faultless with great joy, joy.
You're going to be joy, joyous to be there.
It is going to be the greatest day ever.
You're not going to have to deal with that sin and that shame and
that guilt that has been paid for.
It's as far as the East is from the West.
He bought it and paid for it. It's his to deal with, not ours
anymore. And that's why it's so important
that as Christians we persevere in the faith and we continue to
grow in our sanctification, not hanging on to that sin.
That's not your sin anymore. He bought that.
He died for that. Let it go.
You don't have to keep dealing with that.
Praise God, so, so, that idea, let's just get that out of our
minds. If you grew up thinking that
too, when you stand before the throne one day, if you were
truly in Christ, you will be filled with nothing but joy to
be there. So not only does does He present
us, I've already kind of started to get into it.
Not only does He present us blameless and faultless, but
joyful. And this is really what I love
about this passage. And what I wanted to focus on
the most is the fact that we will be presented joyful with
great joy. Not just joy, but with great
joy. There is no greater joy for a
believer than the joy that we get to look forward to on that
day. The joy of standing before God,
the Creator being found sinless, having put all of this world,
all the sin behind us, and just standing in His glorious
presence. As the old hymn says, what a day
of rejoicing that will be. Amen.
You do not have to wait until after you've answered for your
sins. If you were in Christ, it's been
paid for. It's done.
You will be there with great joy.
And that joy, knowing that that is coming, that is our
motivation, day in and day out now, to live with joy.
That's what gets us through each day.
Now that's what is my joy today, right?
Like we don't. We don't set our minds on this
world, but on things above. When we say that, when we say
that, don't, don't, don't dwell on earthly things, think about
heavenly things, That's what I'm thinking about.
And that brings me joy even now to know what's coming ahead.
And we know, as Second Corinthians 417 tells us, that
our present suffering is only light momentary affliction.
And then, as Romans 818 tells us, it is not even worth
comparing to the glory that awaits us.
You guys, I am not doing this justice.
That day is going to be so glorious, so joyful, to finally
be able to stand before our creator in great joy and not
feel shame or guilt or any of that, but just overwhelming awe
and his presence and joy. I I You can't put it in words.
You can't put it in words. It's going to be a day of
rejoicing, for sure. But that joy then can lead us to
joy now. And we can do as first Peter 413
says. We can rejoice in so far as we
share in Christ's sufferings, so that we can also rejoice and be
glad when his glory is revealed. And so if we rejoice now in
these present sufferings and and that is what gets us through the
present sufferings, when life throws you lemons, you can still
be joyful because we know what awaits US1 day.
And if we do that, if we persevere in the faith in one
day, we get that joy in heaven. So a really cool thing about
this when I was reading this, I'm I'm studying different
commentaries trying to figure it out and I'm like wait a minute,
the way it's worded it's a little tricky.
Does that mean that he's going to present us with great joy?
Does that mean our joy? Or does that mean his joy like
he's going to present us like joyful we will be joyful to be
presented? Or does it mean he will be
joyful to be presenting? I I started to really get
confused in my mind on this, and the answer is both.
It's going to be our great joy and it's going to be his great
joy to present us blameless before the throne, right?
Hebrews 12/2 says, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter
of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured
the cross. I have read that verse.
I don't know how many times. I never thought about that for
the joy set before him, he endured the the cross.
Was the cross a joyful thing? Was that a fun event for him?
Not at all. What was joyful about that?
It wasn't the crucifixion that Jesus was thinking about, It was
what He was accomplishing through the crucifixion.
He was securing the salvation of His bride, and that is what
brought him great joy in that moment and what made him do it.
That's what that was the motivation for going to the
cross in the 1st place I'm redeeming my bride and I'm glad
to do it. It will be to His great joy and
his great glory that He presents his bride perfect before the
throne of God, the bride that he gave his life for, so that we
might be found faultless, and so that he might receive glory.
So just imagine this with me for just a moment.
We think that that when we get to heaven one day and we stand
there before the throne guiltless, that we will have
great joy. But Can you imagine the joy that
Christ will have on that day? Just think about that for a
minute. He finally is able to receive
and present His bride before the throne spotless without blemish.
It is going to be the culmination of all of it, right?
What started in the Garden and then led to the Incarnation,
which is what we're celebrating right now, but then led to the
Crucifixion and then the Ascension, and will finally end
with our glorification in heaven, with the joy of Christ
and His people standing together in God's presence.
All of it will culminate in Him presenting His bride spotless
before the throne. Mission accomplished.
I cannot waste His joy, and our joy are going to be beyond
measure on that day. This is what we look forward to.
This is why we persevere. This is our great assurance that
we hold on to when doubt starts to creep in.
He went to great lengths to secure a salvation for us.
And that salvation doesn't just end when you put your faith in
Him. That goes all the way to the
throne of Christ. Your salvation has been secured
all the way. It's not just partially done.
You are saved. Period.
If you are in Christ, let's continue on.
I'm sorry. I'm getting.
I'm getting sidetracked. Jude chapter, verse 25.
Let's look at verse 25. To the only God our Savior.
So again we're we're coming back around.
We know who we're talking about here.
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion and
authority before all time and now and forever.
Amen. So he he restates who he's
talking about and then he says through Jesus be glory, majesty,
dominion and authority 'cause there some translations put the
through Jesus part after all those things.
So some of them say to the only God our Savior, be glory,
majesty, dominion, authority through Jesus.
And so these these qualities here could be summed up as the
praiseworthiness of God, right? His glory, His Majesty, his
dominion, his authority, and all of that is going to come about
through Jesus. That's how God gets all the
glory, all the majesty, all the dominion, all the authority is
through Christ. Think about this glory all
right. How does how does God get all
the glory through Christ? One of the commentaries I read
said glory is the sum total of all God is and does.
Everything about him is glorious.
But what's more glorious than Christ than his Son, right?
Second Corinthians 4/6 For God, who said, let light shine out of
darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ is the glory of God Incarnate.
Another commentator that I read said that the purpose of the
cross and salvation was not simply to rescue sinners from
hell. As wonderful as that is, the
grand purpose is that God may be glorified for all eternity.
That's the purpose of the cross, to secure a bride for himself,
to present a spotless and blameless.
But why? Why even that?
Because God gets the glory. His glory is the ultimate point
of it all, and he does that through Jesus Christ majesty.
Let's talk about that for a minute.
Majesty just means magnificence or his greatness, which how is
that manifested? How is God's magnificence
manifested through Jesus Christ dominion?
Let's talk about that for a minute.
This is God's sovereign rule over all creation.
We know that one day at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow
and every tongue will confess under earth and on earth and
above earth that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the
Father. So dominion one day will be
through Christ and is happening through Christ and then
authority again through Christ. That authority is the power or
the right to rule. We know that he will be our
ruler. He every everything will happen
under his authority, He says in Matthew 2818.
All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
So all of it happens through Christ.
God deserves all the glory, but it gets even better.
Remember the the joy we were talking about?
Right where we were focusing on joy?
This is what's so crazy. And it's amazing because it's
part of God's design when he gets the glory and when we give
him glory, when we seek to glorify him through our lives,
guess what else happens? We get joy.
As Christians, God's glory is our greatest joy.
As we seek to glorify God, we get joy in the process.
It's a natural byproduct. They are they are tied together.
That is why if you look back through the Christian faith that
all of the old documents, all the old confessions, catechisms,
the the Greater Catechism, the Shorter Catechism, all of them
at the Baptist Catechism, Keach's catechism, question and
answer #1 or #2, usually in every one of them at the very
beginning is what is the chief end of man.
Does anybody know? I know some of y'all know.
It's to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
That's why we are created. That is the purpose of mankind
is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.
And the more we do, the one, the more we get the other.
It's the way God designed it. It's it's beautiful.
So God's glory is our joy. It's our greatest joy.
So to God we ascribe glory, majesty, dominion and authority
through Christ when the text tells us before all time and now
and forever. All right, so this isn't just
right now, in 2023, in your life.
This has been forever and will be forever.
It is happening now. God doesn't need us to give him
the glory to get it. He already has it.
It's already his to have. He is glorious.
It is who He is. When we give God glory, we are
simply acknowledging what we have discovered to be true.
That God deserves the glory. And He is glorious before all
time in our lives now and forevermore.
And He will certainly, certainly get all the glory through
eternity. Future on that day when we are
presented and all of it is is kind of finally happening.
God will get the glory. We will not stand there
faultless one day and think we did that.
He gets the glory ultimately. One more quote for you here said
that this is exactly what Jude was trying to do by writing
this. Doxology is to help his readers
understand the greatness and the glory of God.
If he would. If they would just do that, if
they could grasp God's goodness and his greatness and his glory,
then they would never again follow false teachers and fall
for false teaching if they could truly grasp the goodness of God.
If we can do this, if we can give God the glory and
understand his glory and seek it and all that we do which brings
about our joy, then there is no room for anything else.
There is no room for false teaching, right?
We are just saturated with the goodness of God.
Now, I pray, as we've looked at this text and we've talked about
this today, that everybody in this room knows the kind of joy
that we've talked about. I pray that you know that
assurance of your faith that you're not living every day
wondering if you're saved or not wondering if I'm going to do
something today that's going to take all that away.
Like I know that joy of salvation.
I pray that you know that assurance of salvation.
I pray that what we've studied today has helped you understand
that. But no matter.
I pray that you have the kind of joy and the kind of assurance
that no matter what the world throws at us and no matter what
kind of false teachings start to swirl around in the world around
us, no matter what false teachers might rise up that are
so popular and so, you know, prominent in our culture.
I pray that you know the kind of assurance and the kind of joy
that you will not stumble, that you can rest assured knowing
that God will preserve you and because he does so with joy, you
can joyfully persevere. He will hold you fast, as the
song says. But this only happens through
Christ, as we've talked about today.
Without Christ, you cannot have that assurance.
So if you're in this place today and you've never put your faith
in Christ, never tried to seek to follow him with your life,
never repented of your sins, cast them at the foot of the
cross, you've never committed to to follow him and make him the
Lord of your life. You cannot have this assurance.
There is something that is sure, but it is not eternal joy as you
stand blameless before the throne.
And so if that is you in here today, for anyone in here that
maybe is an unbeliever, that's never truly put their faith in
Christ, I want to invite you to do that today.
Truly repent of your sins, truly follow Christ.
Seek to love the Lord in such a way that you abandoned
everything for him, that you want to grow in your
sanctification and bear that fruit that we talked about
earlier. You do not have to go through
life wondering whether you're saved.
You don't have to go through life wondering if you're going
to lose your salvation. You can have that assurance
knowing God will keep you from stumbling, that he will hold you
fast and present you joyful one day.
But that only comes through submitting your life to Jesus
Christ. So I I implore you today, if you
have never done that, to do that, we're going to have a
moment here in just a little bit of response.
And in that time, that'll be a great time to pray and confess.
If you need to talk, have questions, I'd love to talk to
you, seek to glorify God in all that you do.
But if you're in this place today and you know, you know
beyond a shadow of a doubt that I belong to the Lord, I've given
my life to Christ. I believe I've repented of my
sins and I'm seeking to follow the Lord, if that is you today.
Then you get to know the joy of your salvation.
This is such a good reminder for us that our salvation should
bring such a joy to our hearts and in our lives.
We can have joy on this earth as we seek to glorify God and all
that we do, if we will remember that salvation.
This is what the psalmist was talking about in Psalm 51.
This is what he says. It created me a clean heart, O
God, and renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your presence.
Take not your Holy Spirit. Restore to me the joy of your
salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Remember your salvation. Remember why you gave your life
to Christ. Remember that moment.
Remember that you have been redeemed and that one day Christ
will present you blameless before the front of God to your
great joy and his great glory. Amen.
Christians, we can joyfully persevere because God joyfully
preserves us. Let's pray.
Lord, we thank you for your word.
And God, we thank you for this truth.
There's a lot of big theology in this text.
And God, I just pray that you've helped us to understand it.
I pray God that everyone that leaves this place today leaves
knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that their salvation is
secure through Jesus Christ. I pray that they leave joyful,
knowing your joy that only you can give, and that we look
forward to that day when we were presented faultless before the
throne to our joy to your glory. God, we do.
We give you all the glory, all the majesty, all the dominion
and authority in this place. Today we humbly submit to you as
Lord of our lives. We thank you for what you've
done in and through us. We pray God you continue to
receive glory in this church and through each one of us.
I pray God again for anyone in this place that has never put
their faith in Christ, that they would do that today, and we pray
it to your glory. Amen.