©2002 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

8/25/02

The Truth We Need

Jude 1:24-25

8/25/02 The Truth We Need For The Life We Lead

This is not an easy world to live in.

We have so much here in the U.S.,

and yet we understand so little

about the way life really works.

Though all of us here this morning

would probably deny it,

we are among the wealthiest people who have ever lived,

surrounded by greater luxury

and affluence than most who have set foot on this earth have ever known.

And yet, for many,

perhaps for most of us

just the act of living requires a tremendous amount of mental and emotional energy.

We have so much,

and yet our lives seem to work so poorly.

We struggle with intense loneliness,

and emptiness,

and emotional pain at times,

and often don’t even know why.

For the past couple of months

we have been studying a passage in Paul’s letter to the Romans

in which he offers us several principles

that are given to help us understand

how we “act as free men”,

how we can truly experience and enjoy the freedom given to us by our Lord

without that freedom damaging our relationships with one another.

And yet, this past week it occurred to me

that, for some of you,

much of the value of this study has been lost

because, the truth is,

you feel anything but free in your own life.

You may feel frightened,

or confused,

or trapped,

or overwhelmed,

or isolated,

or defeated.

But you definitely don’t feel free.

We are going to pull out of our study of Romans for this week

to spend a few minutes with a New Testament writer

that I think perhaps most of you

know very little about.

He wrote only one book in the Bible,

and then one of the shortest books there,

a book containing only one chapter.

We know him by the name of Jude,

though his real name was Judas.

For obvious reasons,

following Judas Iscariot’s betrayal of Jesus,

the name “Judas” became very unpopular,

and, even though the author of this short letter identifies himself as “Judas, a bond-servant of Jesus Christ” in the Greek text,

those who translated the letter into English chose to identify him as “Jude”,

apparently both to avoid the stigma attached to the name “Judas”

and to avoid any possible confusion.

And we know one other fascinating fact about the author of this letter as well.

We know he was a younger brother of Jesus,

one of the children of Joseph and Mary.

He did not accept the true identity of Jesus

until after the resurrection of Christ,

but then grew into one of the leaders of the young church.

And, I would also guess that,

because of some of the striking similarities between their two letters,

he was also a close friend

and, very likely at times a traveling companion of the Apostle Peter.

Most of his letter is dedicated to providing his readers with a sharp warning

about the deceivers who have crept into the family of God.

He says,

JUD 1:4 For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.

He tells his fellow Christians how to recognize them,

and warns both the people of God about them,

and also warns them about the consequences of their actions.

But then he ends this powerful little letter

with some of the warmest words of encouragement found anywhere in the New Testament.

We are going to spend most of our time this morning

with the final two verses of the letter,

but before we get there

I want to just read for us

the 4 verses immediately preceding those final two verses.

After offering some strong

warnings to those who are attacking the Body of Christ,

he then turns his attention to the people of God with the words, “But you, beloved...”

But you who are loved,

loved by me,

and, even more important,

loved by God.

He makes it clear he is no longer talking to or about those outside the faith.

He wants to end his letter

with some words of truth and encouragement

written directly to the people of God.

And he begins this encouragement with this:

JUD 1:20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith; praying in the Holy Spirit;

JUD 1:21 keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.

JUD 1:22 And have mercy on some, who are doubting;

JUD 1:23 save others, snatching them out of the fire; and on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.

He encourages us to keep growing,

to keep learning,

to keep praying.

And then he tells us to “keep yourselves in the love of God”.

And in those words

he is reminding us

that it is so easy for us to forget the basics of our life with God through Christ.

Even with all the evidence to the contrary,

our greatest point of vulnerability

will always be to once again doubt His love for us,

to doubt His intentions toward us,

to doubt the reality of His compassion,

and His kindness,

and His endless grace.

And when he calls us to keep ourselves in the love of God,

he is telling us

that he wants us to, each day,

begin that day by once again immersing our minds in this one truth -

that our God loves us with an everlasting love,

and the interaction we have with Him grows out of that reality.

If any thought,

or doubt,

or fear enters your mind

that causes you to question your God’s endless personal love for you,

it is a lie.

And then, just so that we cannot escape the truth of what he is saying,

Jude goes on to say that we are to be “waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.”

For the MERCY...

What is coming your way from your God?

What can you expect from Him in the future?

What waits for you from your Creator in those days,

and weeks,

and months,

and years ahead?

The mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ,

that mercy growing out of His love,

made possible by His death for your sins,

bringing to you eternal life with Him.

Eternal life...

No fear,

and none needed.

All the issues that need to be resolved

can be resolved on this side of the grave,

and have been already when we enter into Christ.

And then he goes on

to encourage us to relate to one another

in the same way our God relates to us -

with our attitudes toward one another bathed in mercy.

But those words are really just Jude’s warm-up

for what I believe he wanted to tell us most of all

from the very beginning of His letter.

Because there are some things that happen

in the final two verses of this letter

that provide the perfect foundation

for our entire walk with God.

I discovered these two verses many years ago,

and have treasured them ever since,

and I couldn’t quite believe

I had never given them to you.

In fact, I did three separate searches

of everything I’ve taught

back through 1991

convinced there must have been a time when I shared these with you.

But if I did, I couldn’t find it.

Apparently we were saving them

for just such a time as this.

You see, I know that some of you are fighting very hard for survival right now.

In a group this size

it could not be any other way.

I began our time together this morning

by pointing out the obvious -

that our society gives us a great wealth of things,

and almost no tools whatsoever

that equip us to know how to live -

truly live,

with dignity,

and emotional security,

and healthy relationships with ourselves,

with others,

and with our God.

All of that has to come through slow,

sometimes frightening,

often painful growth,

one step at a time

as our Lord leads us from confusion into truth.

And these final two verses of Jude

are carefully designed to provide us

with the knowledge we need

for that daily journey.

They begin with words we have seen just recently

in a different context.

Do you remember a couple of weeks ago

we took the morning to look at those words from the first chapter of Revelation

where John begins, “To Him...”?

Well, Jude does the same thing for us

in these final two verses of his letter.

He begins,

JUD 1:24 Now to Him...

And with those words

he does exactly the same thing

as did John -

he reveals to us

something we owe to God,

something we are called upon to deliver to Him.

And that is not where the similarity

between Jude and John stops.

For, just as John broke his statement

following the words “to Him”

in order to offer us a description

of who this “Him” is,

so Jude does the same thing.

And it is that description

that offers us our first huge foundation block.

Listen to what he says:

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy,...

Now, even before we get to the last verse,

I need to tell you

that the “Him” Jude is talking about

is God the Father.

It is the God to whom Jesus Himself prayed when He was here on this earth.

It is the God who is,

the God who is the source of all things,

the God who is supreme above all things.

And, when Jude describes this God,

our God to us,

he does so by telling us that He is the One who is able to keep you from stumbling...

And there are some of you here this morning

who need that knowledge about your God

more than any other knowledge.

You need to know that your God

really is the One who is able to keep you from stumbling.

Right now the path you’re walking

is one that scares you to death.

It is one that seems to be taking you nowhere you want to go,

and, even worse,

one that seems to be almost impossible for you to walk.

I would like to offer that opening phrase to you

as the title with which you can address your God.

When you talk with Him

I want you to say those words,

I want you to call Him “The One who is able to keep me from stumbling...”

You see,

you need that knowledge of Him

if you are going to find your way through.

You need to know, first of all,

that He is with you at that level.

Have you ever walked next to a child

down a set of stairs,

or over a rough path,

some place where those little legs

simply are not strong enough,

or skilled enough

to handle what’s ahead?

What do you do?

How do you go about making sure

that the little one next to you

will not stumble,

and fall?

You take their hand,

and when their little feet stumble,

you hold them up.

Do you wonder where your God is right now,

that God who is able to keep you from stumbling?

He is not sitting in heaven,

looking down at you from some great cosmic distance,

seeing how you’re doing with your struggles.

He is right next to you,

with His hand in yours,

walking each step beside you.

And when you trip,

when you can’t figure out which way to go,

or how to make it through,

He holds you up

and shows you the way one careful step at a time.

Interesting, isn’t it,

what happens to children as they grow older.

They no longer want to hold daddy’s hand.

Sandee and I were coming up that steep metal stairway

that leads down to the river at Soldotna Park this past week,

and on the way up we passed a father coming down,

and then, about ten steps behind him,

his daughter who looked like she was about 4 years old.

The steps she was going down

had to be at least half the height of her little legs,

but she was determined do it all by herself.

I don’t know why the two of them were so far apart.

It’s possible, of course, that the father was one of those small-minded men

who are far more concerned about hooking one more fish

than they are about the little feet following behind them.

But I also think it’s possible

that she was on her own

because she had said to her daddy,

“NO! I can do this by myself, Daddy. You go away!”

We do that same thing in our walk with our Father God, don’t we?

“That’s OK, Lord! I’ve got this covered now.

I can handle this without you.

I’ll let you know if I need any help.”

But I’ll tell you honestly,

the only way He can keep us from stumbling,

no matter what our age,

no matter how long we’ve walked with Him,

is if we keep our hand in His.

Oh, if we yank our hand away,

and try it on our own,

and fall on our face in the process,

we will discover that He is still right there beside us,

and He will kneel down beside us,

and pick us up,

and clean us up,

and love us up again.

But the only safe approach,

the only one that keeps us from stumbling

is the one in which we keep our hand firmly in His.

But Jude doesn’t stop there.

Listen to what he says next.

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy...

You don’t see where you’re going right now, do you?

In fact, you may be wondering

whether this path you’re on goes anywhere at all.

You may be looking back,

thinking maybe when you hit that fork in the road

you may have gone the wrong way.

I mean really!

How could this be right?

How could this be what He has for you?

Well, let me tell where He’s taking you.

Let me share with you

where you will end up.

You will end up standing in the presence of His glory, blameless and with great joy.

Not cowering in fear,

not covered with shame.

But standing,

clothed in the dignity that He alone can give you,

the dignity that belongs to a child of the King.

And you will stand blameless.

Now, why can Jude say that?

He can say that

because he knows the truth.

He can say it

because he knows that all those things

that could have brought blame upon you

have been removed forever from your account

and placed onto the account of Christ.

And is it any wonder that Jude tells us

we will stand there

in the presence of our God

filled with great joy?

And, of course, it will be a joy rooted

not in anything that we have done or not done,

but rather a joy that explodes out of our final, full awareness

of everything our God has done for us

because of His great love for us.

And then, in the final verse,

after giving us his description of who our God is,

the One who is able to keep us from stumbling, and to make us stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy,

on the basis of that truth

Jude concludes with these words:

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.

And we could spend another half hour on that,

but I want to point out one phrase in there

that I want to be sure we don’t miss.

It’s the first - to the only God our Savior.

There is a weird thing that sometimes happens in people’s minds,

a separation in their thinking

between God the Father

and Jesus Christ.

It we are not careful

we can even begin seeing Jesus

as the “Nice” one in the bunch,

the one who loved us enough

to give His life for us,

while God the Father

is the wrathful One,

the God who must be appeased with the blood of Christ.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

When Jesus told His disciples that,

JOH 10:30 "I and the Father are one."

and that, JOH 14:9 ... He who has seen Me has seen the Father...,

He was telling us that,

from the very beginning of all that is,

there has always, only been a heart of love for us within the Father.

He is our great God,

and He is our Savior,

the One who loves enough to want to save us

at any cost to Himself.

So, there it is - the truth we need

for the life we lead with our King:

JUD 1:24 ¶ Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy,

JUD 1:25 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.