Now To Him

We are in the book of Jude. If you have your Bible, and I hope you do, join us in Jude. It's the
second to last book in the Bible. You can go to Revelation and go back one, and you're in the
little book of Jude, 25 verses long, and we have been in this book for a season now.
We started this study back in September, and today we have come to the final two verses.
They are well-known verses. In fact, these two verses are probably the best-known verses in Jude.
If you ask somebody, do you know anything about the book of Jude, many people know the Jude
doxology. That's what these verses are known as. Doxology is from two Greek words,
doxa, which means glory. praise, logia, which means sayings or speaking,
so a doxology is to speak or to say words of praise, and that's what's happening here at the end of
this Jude doxology, a saying of glory on the part of Jude.
We often sing the doxology. which starts, praise God from whom all blessings flow,
praise him all creatures here below, praise him above, he heavenly host, praise Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost. Those are words of praise, words of glory given to God. And the doxology,
the doxology here, this is the capstone of this letter. It's just two verses long,
and I know some of you are thinking, well, that means we'll cover that this morning, but no, it's
gonna take us two weeks, I think. All right, to get through this.
And in case you think that's excessive, I'll just tell you Alistair Begg said when he started this
that he saw at least 15 messages in these two verses. He wound up preaching three.
John MacArthur only did one. I'm aiming for two. We'll see how we do here, all right? And just by
the way, we are planning. when we're done with Jude here that we'll spend some time with some
Christmas messages and some New Year's messages and then in January we're gonna start a study
through the book of Revelation. We will not be going slowly through the book of Revelation because
that would go beyond my lifetime to do that. So it'll be more of a 30,000 foot view of Revelation.
We're not gonna just fly over it but We're not gonna hike through it, okay? But that'll start in
January. Back to Jude. As we've seen in this series, looking at this letter,
Jude begins the letter saying, I planned to write to you, my fellow Christians. I wanted to write
to you and talk about our common salvation. I wanted to think together with you about the gospel.
I wanted to explore and expound on the glory of the gospel. That was what was on his heart.
But the spirit... led him instead to write a letter of warning about an urgent issue that he saw
happening in the first century church. In churches all throughout Asia Minor and Greek and the
Roman Empire, they were seeing false teachers who were creeping in unaware, who were undermining
the apostles' teaching and were leading people away from the faith once for all delivered.
to the saints. So Jude says, I need to write you a word of warning about these false teachers. And
he spends most of the letter describing them so they will be obvious. He explains that they are on
a path taking them to destruction. If you follow them, that's where you'll wind up as well. Their
destruction is certain, he says. And then after describing the false teachers,
he turns in verse 17 and he says, but you, here's what you need to do and what you need to be
thinking. You need to approach this differently. Remember, all of this was foretold. You need to
keep yourself in the love of God, build yourself up in your holy faith. You need to be praying at
all times in the Holy Spirit. You need to be waiting expectantly for the mercy of God to be
revealed at the second coming. And at the same time, he tells his readers, and you need to be
missionally engaged as well. These false teachers are leading people astray. For those who are
doubting, have mercy on them. For those who have stepped even further,
snatch them from the fire. And for still others, you need to have mercy with fear,
he says. Be engaged missionally. Don't just huddle up with the believers, but for those who are
being led astray, bring them back. Bring the gospel to them with mercy. And he anticipates,
Jude does, a question that might be on the heart of his readers after he's explained all of this.
And the question is, is it possible that I could get led off in the wrong direction?
If there are false teachers and if I'm not alert, is it possible I could be seduced without knowing
it? Is it possible I could fall away from the faith, that I could be facing judgment and
destruction myself? That's what Jude addresses. in these last two verses,
this doxology. He turns here and he says, I wanted to talk about the gospel in the beginning, God's
glory and greatness revealed in the gospel. He answers the question, could I fall away by pointing
back to Jesus and the gospel? He has come full circle. He started with Jesus. He's coming back to
Jesus. And there are two parts in this doxology. Verse 24 says, this is what God has promised to do
for you. And verse 25, here is what we ascribe to him as a result. So that's the outline of these
two verses. And as I said, we'll look at some of the first part this week and we'll see how far we
get with the second part next week. Let's read these verses together, verses 24 and 25.
Let me pray before we do that. Father, again, we need you to be our teacher.
Speak through your word to us. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.
Jude, verse 24, 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, be glory, majesty, dominion.
and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen.
There is a ton in those two verses. May God bless this reading of his word.
The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of God will last forever. Back when we began
this study in September, I pointed out in Jude 1 that Jude addresses his readers right off the bat
by reminding them of three things that are true about them. Look at verse one. He says, you are the
called, beloved in God, the Father,
and kept for Jesus Christ. Called, beloved, and kept are the three words he uses to describe them.
God has called you to himself. You are beloved in him. He is keeping you. You are kept in him.
And now, after defining the issues that he's been writing about, describing the false teachers so
you'll recognize them, detailing how we're to respond, now in verse 24, he points them back to
where he began, back to Jesus. And what I want us to do with verse 24 is just meditate our way
through it this morning. Let me explain what I mean by that. Meditating. which,
by the way, there's a biblical term. The Bible calls us to meditate on the truth of God's word.
When you meditate, you just slow down and you simmer. You know,
the reason that... some food sits on the stove for hours and simmers is so that the flavors will
permeate all of the food. You let it go slow at a low heat and it just all soaks up together.
When we meditate on God's word, we go slow and on low heat and we just let it all richly fill in.
You can read through these two verses quickly and go, that's powerful. But as you slow down,
It permeates in a different way. I heard somebody describe meditating the way cows chew their cud.
I've shared this before. I'm not a biologist, an animal. I just read this.
Cows apparently have four stomachs, and when they're chewing grass, they chew for a while,
and then they swallow, and it goes into their first stomach, and it works, and then it comes back
up, and they chew on it some more. I know that sounds gross, but that's the way it works for cows.
They like it, it's good. So they come back up, they chew on it some more, they swallow it, it goes
into their second stomach. Goes there for a little, comes back up. Chew on it some more, swallow
again. So it just goes, it just works all the way through. They want to get everything they can out
of that cud before it goes into the fourth stomach and is processed all the way through.
Well, that's what we're going to do with this verse this morning. We're going to meditate on it
together. We're just going to chew on what's here. Jude starts this doxology by saying now to him.
After considering the false teachers and what they're saying,
now we're going to turn back to him.
Now we're going to refocus not on what's false, but on what's true. Evie Hill was a pastor in
Southern California at the Mount Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles for many years. And
he told the story of a woman, an elderly woman who was in his congregation. She had,
nobody knew her, I don't know if nobody knew her name, but they called her 1800 because nobody knew
how old she was. I think they thought she was from the 1800s. So they called her 1800. She would
sit right up front and it was apparently her custom every Sunday. when Evie or whoever was
preaching would get up into the pulpit, this woman would shout out, get him up.
And you'd start preaching, and she might shout it out again. So this, Chuck Swindoll went to preach
at Evie Hill's church one Sunday, and nobody warned him about 1800.
So he goes on a Sunday morning, and he is starting his message with his introduction.
And when he walks up, 1800 shouts out, get him up. He smiles, no idea what that means.
He starts preaching for a few minutes, and she just again goes, get him up. And he's not sure what
to do with that, so he just kind of smiles again and keeps on going, not understanding what's going
on at all. And finally, at one point in his sermon, he says, and then Jesus,
and she goes, there he is.
So at that point, it dawned on him. He knew exactly what was going on.
the point Jude is making. We've been talking about the false teachers. It's time to get him up.
It's time to get him back up. And it's time to refocus on him. We started by talking about him.
Jude said, Jude, a bondservant of Jesus and the brother of James,
that's how he identifies himself. Now he's getting him back up. Now to him.
And let me just say, by the way, this is always the place for you to turn.
Whatever the issue, the dialogue, the challenge, the trial, whatever you're going through,
wherever the conversation has gone, the key place to turn every time is now to him.
Go back to him. When you're having issues in your marriage, you can talk about those issues and try
to work them out. Finances and parenting and communication, all of that. You can work on those
issues. But if you don't come to the end and say now to him. If you don't reposition,
this is not just about us, now to him. This is not just about how we're getting along,
now to him. This is about him. You've stopped short of solving whatever the issue is.
Because whatever the issue is, the right focus is to him. Jude started by saying,
I want to write to you about our common salvation. I wanted to write to you about what my half
-brother Jesus accomplished for us, all that's involved in his death and resurrection. I wanted to
write about mercy and grace and righteousness and forgiveness and new life in Christ,
having a new heart being reconciled to God. But there's this issue I had to write to you about,
false teachers. Now that we've addressed that, let's come back to him. Let's come back to what's
center. Now to him, he says. And now to him who is able.
Jude is going to point to a specific ability that Jesus has,
the ability to keep you from stumbling or falling. But we ought to meditate for just a minute on
the fact that he is able to do more than that. Him who is able.
When we talk about Jesus being the one who is able, we're talking about the fact that there is
nothing that he cannot do. Well, hang on, let me take that back. There are some things God can't
do. Before you jump on me as heretical, just hear me out on this. The Bible says God cannot lie.
It's one thing God can't do.
He can't break a promise.
It would go against his nature. He can't deny his nature.
He can't not be who he is. Breaking a promise would do that. He cannot deny himself.
God cannot change. Thou changest not.
Thy compassions, they fail not. God cannot learn something that he didn't already know.
Ever thought about that? God never said, huh. I didn't know that. God has also never said,
whoops, right? He's never made a mistake. He can't make a mistake.
God cannot tempt you to evil. He himself is not tempted by evil and he will not tempt you to evil.
You probably heard the question, is it possible for God to make a rock so big that he can't move
it? Pitting somehow his His omnipotence against one another.
Well, here's the answer to that. First of all, could God make a two-sided triangle?
Could God make a square circle? Can God make a married bachelor? Not at the same time.
I mean, you can be a bachelor and be married, but you can't be a married bachelor because there's a
category error in all of those. A triangle, by definition, is three-sided. A circle.
by definition, has rounded corners. A bachelor, by definition, is unmarried.
Those are contradictions. God can't make those things. Those would be lies if he did that.
Back to the rock. The reason God can't make a rock bigger than him that he could lift. bigger than
himself is because his power is infinite. So for a rock to be bigger than his power,
the rock would have to be more infinite than God is. And that's a contradiction as well.
You can't be infinite plus infinite. We used to do that when we were kids, right? I do this
infinity. Well, I do it infinity times infinity, right? We understand infinity means there's
nothing bigger. God is infinite. He can't make something bigger than himself because there's
nothing bigger. It's a category error. So the point is when we say there's nothing God cannot do,
we mean that his power is infinite. He is infinitely able. It's part of his divine nature.
He has infinite ability. And there is comfort in knowing that the God we serve is infinitely able
to accomplish his purposes.
But that comfort is only if we see his purposes as good and if we know that he loves us and his
purposes are good and he does love us. When you put all of that together, that he loves you,
that his purposes are good, then the fact that he is infinitely able to accomplish those purposes
gives you great comfort. God is able. That's why Jude at the end of this letter draws our attention
to the fact that he is able. are false teachers who are disrupting the church and leading people
astray. Will they bring the church down? No, because he has promised that the gates of hell will
not prevail. Can they overpower or overrule God's protection for his beloved children?
No, he is infinitely able to accomplish his purposes.
If you know and love Christ, Jude is telling us that you are secure. In him,
he is able, and he goes on, he is able to keep you.
Back in the 80s,
some of you who are old enough, we started singing a chorus in the church about God being able.
And here's what the lyrics to that said. He is able, more than able,
to accomplish what concerns me today. He is able more than able to handle anything that comes my
way He is able more than able to do much more than I could ever dream He is able more than able to
make me what he wants me to be
Here's what we need to remember in face of whatever adversity or challenges you've got when you're
confused or anxious. Step one, refocus on him. Now to him.
Step two, remember his attributes. He is able. He is good. He is for you.
He is wise. He is loving. He is powerful. He is able,
more than able. Now to him who is able to keep you.
And that's the next thing Jude wants us to see. Back in verse one, Jude says,
we are called into God, into his family, beloved and kept by God. He keeps those who are his own.
This is sometimes referred to, you may have heard this, as the doctrine of eternal security.
Some people will say once saved, always saved. I think it's more helpful to talk about this as the
doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. So all three of those are getting at the same big idea,
which is that believers in Christ are kept for the day of salvation.
But here's why I like perseverance of the saints better than eternal security or once saved,
always saved. Because when you use those phrases, it's easy to think that what you're saying is
that someone who has professed faith can take their profession of faith to the bank and know that
they are secure in Christ. That if you've prayed a prayer, you've walked forward in a church
service, you've raised your hand, if you've been baptized, that you can say, I know that I'm secure
in Christ because of those things. The problem is we can't see in one another what's really going
on in somebody's heart. Now listen, I believe that the Holy Spirit will give you assurance in your
own heart about the reality of your salvation. But I will never know the reality of your salvation
and what's really in your heart. Only God can see that. So when we talk about eternal security or
once saved, always saved, the problem is that some folks will hear that and think, well, I know
he's going to heaven even though he's living like hell today. Because when he was seven,
here's what he did. And that's not the Bible's view of salvation,
eternal security. The Bible's view is... perseverance of the saints, which is that those who are
truly God's children will persevere to the end.
In fact, the Bible says this pretty clearly. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount says, many will come
to me on that day and they will say, Lord, Lord, and they will say, I did this, I did this,
I did this. And I will say to them, depart from me. I never knew you.
That's a scary, sobering warning, but it speaks to the reality. of the fact that there are those
who have made a false profession of faith. There are those who would loosely consider themselves
Christians who aren't.
So with terms like eternal security or once saved, always saved, the problem is somebody may think
they're a Christian and may think they are eternally secure when they're not. But when you talk
about perseverance of the saints, you're saying that those who are true children of God will
demonstrate the reality of the saving work of God in their life by remaining faithful. Now that
doesn't mean they won't have any lapses or take any detours. They may have a season where they are
prodigals, but they will over time persevere. They will show the reality of what God has done in
their life by continuing to follow him.
And those who are truly children of God, the Bible says, when there are lapses and detours,
the good shepherd will go out and find the lost ones and bring them back.
The perseverance of the saints doesn't mean perfect perseverance. It means a pattern of
perseverance over time. And that's important to know.
So when somebody is in a lapse season, because I don't know their heart,
I know one of two things is true. That's either a child of God who God will bring back, or that's a
person who made a false profession. I don't know which it is, but I know they need to hear the
gospel. I know they need to be reminded of the gospel. I know they need to believe the gospel
again. Here in verse 24, Jude is saying, God is the one who is able to keep you.
Perseverance does not mean that you have to persevere. It means that God will keep you as you
continue to walk faithfully with him. Look back at verse 21 in Jude.
What did we say was the central? Part there, keep yourself in the love of God.
Well now who's doing the keeping? Are you keeping yourself in the love of God or is God keeping
you? The answer to that is yes.
God is keeping you. and you are keeping yourself in his love. Watch this.
Let me show you how God has promised to keep you. John chapter 10, verses 28 and 29.
Jesus says, I give them eternal life, and they will never perish,
and no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father who has given them to me is greater than all,
and no one is able to snatch them out of my hand. That sounds pretty.
Certain, doesn't it? If you're in the Father's hand, no one can snatch you out. The false teachers
can't snatch you out. I had somebody say to me once, well, you can jump. And I said, wait, you
think you're greater than the grip of God? You think you can pry his fingers off of you and just
say, God, you must let go and he has to obey? No one can snatch you out of his hand if you're a
child of God. John 6, 37, all that the Father gives me,
will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.
John 5, 24. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me has
eternal life. He does not come into judgment. He has passed from death to life.
These are passages that teach the keeping, securing power of God.
He is the one who is able to keep you. who causes you to persevere,
your salvation is secure because he has secured it.
So do you have to do anything to remain in his love? Yes. By his power and by his grace,
you have to remain faithful. Look back at John 6, 37. All that the Father gives me will come to me.
You have to come.
Whoever comes to me, I'll never cast out. But the coming's on you. You say, but wait,
isn't it God who, yes, God draws you. Yes, you have to come. You say, well, how does all that work?
I don't know.
Look at John 5, 24 again. Truly I say to you, whoever hears my words and believes him who sent me
has eternal life. You have to hear his words. You have to believe them.
That's your part in being kept by God. You have to hear, believe. You have to keep on hearing,
keep on believing. Don't stop. No, I won't do that.
That's another journey for another day, all right? I know.
God is able to keep you. He has promised to keep you.
But I'll just show you two passages that show we have a responsibility in being kept.
Colossians chapter one. And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind,
doing evil deeds, as he's talking about you, He has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his
death in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him. Look at what he's
done for you. If indeed you continue in the faith,
stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard.
Wait, there's part I have to, yes, you have to stay faithful. That's what perseverance is.
God gives you the grace to do it. But it's not just I can do whatever I want and God will make me
faithful. No, you have to stay faithful. There are many other passages we could look at that talk
about this. Oh, I skipped over one. I skipped over 1 Corinthians 15. Let me just read this to you.
Now, I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received,
in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word that I preached
to you. unless you believed in vain. It's possible to believe in vain.
You have to hold fast to these words. Again, a lot else we could look at, but you see the point.
God is the one who has promised to keep you secure. You have to stay faithful.
You have to keep walking with him.
If there are some who profess faith in Christ who are not truly saved, who will hear Jesus say,
depart from me, how can you know? that you're not one of them?
How can you know if your faith is genuine? Here's the answer. Do you keep coming back to Jesus?
Do you keep holding fast to his word? Do you continue in the faith? In other words,
when we talk about believing in Jesus, trusting in Jesus for salvation, coming to Jesus, these are
not past tense words. These are present tense words. It's not something you do once and then you
don't ever do it again. You keep coming, you keep trusting, you keep believing. And that's how you
know you are persevering and that God is keeping you.
And your coming and believing and trusting are not securing your salvation.
God has secured your salvation. Your coming and trusting and believing are just the evidence that
you're a child of God.
John Piper asks an important question here. He says, should we entertain the possibility that we
might be those who fall away? Is that something we should stop and think about?
His answer is yes, if we are persisting in attitudes, actions that spring from unbelief.
If you don't keep coming back to Jesus,
then you need to... Sit up and take notice. If you're persisting in sinful patterns and practices
in your life with no concern, no regard for whether your actions or attitudes are pleasing to the
Lord, you ought to sit up and take notice. You should be concerned about whether the profession of
faith you have made is true. If I said to you, I love my wife dearly, but then I don't act like it,
you would have the right to say, wait. Is that really true that you love your wife if you're not
acting like you love your wife? If you say, I love Jesus, and you're not acting like it,
maybe you need to sit up and take notice. If you sin with no regard to how this is offending God,
are there, here's what you need to be asking, are there sinful patterns or practices in my life
that I've become comfortable with?
I'm okay with those.
Are there areas in your life that you know are not pleasing to the Lord, but you really don't care
that much?
Do you excuse your sin and figure, well, I'm not as bad as other people and besides God forgives
anyway? That attitude is not the attitude of the one who's being kept.
I'm not asking, do you sin? Of course you do. That's why we confess our sins each week.
That's why we should confess our sins regularly. I'm asking, do you care that you sin?
Do you care that your actions and words are displeasing to the Lord, that they're not honoring to
him? Here's the bottom line. The bottom line is, do you love Jesus? Remember back in John 21 when
Peter had denied Christ three times and now he's face to face with Jesus and Jesus doesn't come to
him and say, are you sorry for your sins? Are you sorry that you denied me? Jesus comes and says,
Peter, do you love me?
That's the heart of the question. Do you love Jesus?
You've met somebody who's freshly fallen in love,
right? And that person has kind of this stupid smile on their face all the time and they're just,
you can just tell they're in love. They just look like, they act like it.
You've met those people, right?
We know what it looks like when somebody is in love and it's not just the initial attraction.
I remember hearing the story. Back in 2003, it was 20 years ago this summer that Dr.
Bill Bright died. He was the founder and president of Campus Crusade for Christ. And those of us
who were on staff with crew at the time, we were all out in Fort Collins, Colorado, for our staff
conference when we got the news that Dr. Bright had passed away. And the next couple of days were
filled with tributes to Dr. Bright. We reflected on his life. We just spent a long time just
thanking God for who he was. And I don't remember who it was, but somebody told the story. about
Dr. Bright. He lived in a townhome in Orlando, and they said when he would come home after having
been at work during the day, when he would open the door, he would call out and he would say, where
is my beloved?
Where are you, beloved? And he would go and look for her. They'd been married, they were married 54
years before he died, but still late in life. He delighted to be with his beloved.
I've never forgotten that. And don't get me wrong, they had normal marriage stuff.
I've heard them tell stories about Bill and Vonette, talk about the arguments, the disagreements,
the time she got in the car and she was backing out ready to leave. He had to stand behind the car
to get her to stop or run him over. She said she was tempted.
But the point is, they kept coming back to one another. They kept delighting in one another.
They loved one another. Do you love? the Lord. God has promised to keep you.
Do you love him? Are you loved by him? Or do you love him? Do you demonstrate?
What does your love for Jesus look like? Would other people see you and go, oh, look at him.
He's in love with Jesus. You can tell.
We know what it looks like in marriage. What about in your relationship? with Jesus.
Those who know him long to be with him. They're devoted to him. Are you devoted to Jesus?
Do you long to be with him? Is it clear to others? He keeps those who are his own and we know that
we are his own because we love him and we come back to him. Both of those are true.
And Jude is making it clear in this context in verse 24, to him who is able to keep you from
stumbling. It's the stumbling that we're talking about. This is a picture of somebody who is on a
rough path and there are obstacles and pitfalls and boulders and they have to be careful and God is
able to keep you from falling off the cliff, falling down the side of the mountain.
At Thanksgiving, we had one of our sons and daughter-in-law and two of our grandkids in town and
you may remember that the Saturday right after Thanksgiving was a beautiful, sunny, warm,
fall day and so we said let's go to pinnacle and then we said let's climb or some people said let's
climb pinnacle some people said that and so four of us did mary ann and i and our son james and our
granddaughter ivy went up pinnacle and came back down pinnacle it's been a while since i have hit
pinnacle in fact i read something Did you tell me about that? There's a guy here in town who has
climbed Pinnacle 3,200 plus times since 2006. He's 66 years old,
and five times a week he goes out and goes up Pinnacle and down. At 66.
I am not that guy, okay? That afternoon when we climbed Pinnacle, Mary Ann and me are...
James and our granddaughter Ivy, I noticed that our son and our granddaughter were a little more
sure-footed on the trail than I was.
Jude here is comparing false teachers to those who have made their way into the church.
They are boulders and obstacles that you will encounter on your spiritual journey through life.
He's saying God is the one who is able to keep you from falling off the side of the cliff because
you ran into that obstacle. He will keep you from stumbling. He will keep you sure-footed.
He will keep you in his path in the midst of the trials you're facing.
We read about this several places in the book of Psalms where it says he will not let your foot
slip. You've seen that, right? In fact, I have to think Jude, as he was writing about God being
able to keep you from stumbling, I have to think that he may have had Psalm 73. in mind.
Turn in your Bible to Psalm 73. And I'm not going to put the verses up on the screen,
so you're going to have to be in the Bible for this part. Psalm 73.
This is a Psalm of Asaph. And Asaph begins the Psalm, verse 1,
by saying, truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me,
my feet had almost stumbled. My steps had nearly slipped.
Why? Because I was envious of the arrogant and I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
So just stop right there. Here's Asaph saying, when I saw that wicked people prosper and the
arrogant, I became envious of the arrogant and it almost caused me to slip,
to go off the path and say, I'm not going to believe in God. I can't trust God. He doesn't love me.
But what turns things around, you look down at verse 18. He says, truly, you set them.
He's talking about the false teacher. They're the ones who have been set in the slippery places,
the arrogant, the proud. You make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment,
swept away utterly by terrors. When my soul was embittered, verse 21,
when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant. I was like a beast toward you.
Nevertheless, look at here. I am continually with you. You hold my right hand.
You guide me with your counsel. Afterward, you will receive me to glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you? There's nothing on earth that I desire beside you. My flesh and my
heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
That's being kept. I was tempted to stumble. I almost stumbled.
My foot almost slipped because I envied the arrogant. But they will slip.
You will cause them to slip. You will hold on to my hand. You will keep me. I am continually with
you. God, Jude is saying, will keep you in the family.
You are secure in him. He will keep you from stumbling day in and day out as you stay close to him,
as you draw near to him. He will hold you with his right hand. He will guide you. He will receive
you into glory.
In fact, that's where Jude goes next. He says, 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.
God is able not only to keep you from stumbling but to present you one day blameless in the
presence of his glory with great joy. There is enough in there in those verses that we're just not
gonna tackle it this week. We're gonna save that to next week and I'll see if I can get through
that and all the way through the end next week. If not,
well, okay, if not, you know where we go. As we prepare for communion this morning, let me say
again, now to him, he's the reason we're here this morning. He's the reason we have new life that
we can celebrate. He's the reason there is peace in your heart today. He's the reason for peace
among men. He's the source of that. We talked about that when we lit the candle of peace this
morning. Now to him who is able. He's able to meet your deepest need.
He's able to heal your greatest hurt. He's able to forgive your most wicked sin.
He's able to restore broken relationships. Now to him who is able to keep you.
When you wander, he'll come after you. When you stumble,
he'll lift you back up.
When you're weary, he will carry you.
When you are hopeless, he will restore your hope. Now to him who is able to keep you from
stumbling. Do you know him? Do you love him?
Do you trust him?
Do you obey him?
Are you serving him?
Pray with me. Father,
what a joy in our heart to know that we are kept in you.
that we are the called, the beloved, and the kept, and that you are able to keep us from stumbling.
Lord, we confess again the reality of our stumbling.
We confess to you that our foot slips. Thank you for lifting us up,
coming after us, carrying us, keeping us.
Lord, I pray for any here this morning who, in hearing your word today,
have found themselves wondering,
do I really love Jesus?
Is it evident in my life?
Lord, if there are some here this morning who are truly your children,
wondering if that's real for them, I pray that you would comfort them, bring them back.
Lord, if there are some here this morning who are not your children, who have maybe professed faith
in the past, raised their hand, whatever they've done, but they realize this morning, that there is
no love for you, that there is a thin love for you, that they don't depend on you,
rely on you. I pray that you would wake them up from their slumber, bring them from death to life,
cause new life to be born in them, that they would realize their need for you.
They would cry out and that they would turn, repent, walk faithfully,
follow you.
We pray these things in Jesus' name.