We're gonna move into our time in the scripture.
If you have a Bible, go ahead and open it
to the book of Jude.
I don't have a page number today.
Jude is the book right before the last book, Revelation.
So you go all the way to the end of the Bible.
And if it says Revelation, you go one book before that.
It's a really small book though,
because you might flip right through it.
So head on over to Jude.
We have made it to the end.
Page 1055 in the book, the Bible's in the back of the pew.
Page 1055.
Go ahead and turn over there to Jude.
It's chapter one, there's only one chapter,
but we're gonna be reading verses 24 and 25.
And if you can't make your hand flip over there,
or you don't have a Bible, you don't wanna do it,
it will be on the screen here for you to read along.
Here we go.
Now to him who is able to protect you from stumbling,
and to make you stand in the presence of his glory
without blemish and with great joy.
To the only God, our savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord,
be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time,
now and forevermore, amen.
This is God's word.
I don't know how many of you ever played
the schoolyard game Red Rover.
Anyone play Red Rover?
Now I've heard that that's gone through
a few rule changes over the years,
but the way that I remember it is you divide into two teams,
and you and your team interlock their arms together,
and you face off against another team.
Now I read the rules before I got up here,
and it said that apparently you're supposed
to be called North and South.
So I wonder if this is like an old Civil War thing,
or something like that.
But you interlock arms with your teammate,
and you make a line, and the other team interlocks
their arms, and they make a line.
And then one team says, Red Rover, Red Rover,
send Jerry on over.
And then Jerry has to come from the other team,
and he has to run, I mean I remember in youth group, man,
people getting hurt in this game.
Eventually it had to get banned,
but Jerry comes running as hard as he can,
because his goal, his aim, his purpose,
is to break through one of those locks between two people.
And if he can break through, he gets to choose
one of the two people to bring over to his team,
and his team grows, and the point is to get all the people
that you can.
If he can't break through, if the line holds,
Jerry's gotta join our team.
That was Red Rover, and I was thinking about that
in regard to our theme, hold the line.
Hold the line, the whole point of the game is
to hold the line, the whole point of the game was
to hold the line, to defeat the enemy by standing.
That was really it, I mean, you stand, you gird yourself,
I mean, I remember, you slowly slipped one foot
in front of the other, right, and you get ready,
because you're about to get hit,
and the whole point was to hold the line as the enemy came.
Now in the book of Jude, it began by talking about
who we are, we're called in Christ,
we're loved in God, we're kept for Christ,
and that's how he began addressing the listeners
of his letter, which for him at that time was an audience,
most likely of Jewish converts who believed in Christ.
For us today, we are the listeners of the letter
that Jude wrote.
And he told them that they're called,
and that they're loved, and they're kept in Christ,
but then he said, but there are some people among you,
there are some people who have wormed their way
or slithered their way in among you,
I'll just read a few of those passages
as we kind of peruse Jude heading to the end.
Verse four, for some people who were designated
for this judgment long ago have come in by stealth,
they are ungodly, turning the grace of our God
into sensuality and denying Jesus Christ,
our only master and Lord, they're among us.
He went on to say in verse eight,
in the same way these people, relying on their dreams,
defile their flesh, reject authority
and slander glorious ones.
Down in verse 10, he picks it up again and says,
but these people blaspheme anything they do not understand
and what they do understand by instinct,
like irrational animals, by these things,
they are destroyed.
Woe to them, for they have gone the way of Cain.
Have plunged into Balaam's error for profit
and have perished in Korah's rebellion.
These people are dangerous reefs at your love feasts
as they eat with you without reverence.
They are shepherds who only look after themselves.
They are waterless clouds carried along by winds,
trees in late autumn, fruitless, twice dead and uprooted.
They are wild waves of the sea,
foaming up their shameful deeds,
like wandering stars for whom the blackness of darkness
is reserved forever.
These people are discontented grumblers,
living according to their desires,
their mouths utter arrogant words,
flattering people for their own advantage.
And then finally he says,
these people create divisions in our worldly,
not having the spirit.
So who are you?
You're called, you're loved, you're kept in Christ.
Who are they?
They're among you,
but they're among you for a different purpose.
They don't have the Spirit of Christ resident in them.
They're not living out the Spirit life among you.
They're there to cause divisions
and to fulfill their flesh and to defile you.
They're among you.
And so last week in the New Testament,
we looked at these people and then last week,
I guess it is, we jumped into what do we do
in light of that?
In light of the reality that in our midst,
some have wormed their way in
and teachings wormed their way in.
And we talked over the weeks,
if you wanna go back online, sacvillage.org,
you can listen to all of the messages before.
But we talked about some of the ways
that this is very relatable today.
Little teachings that sounds almost true
can worm their way in among the people of God
and people can buy into it.
They can believe it and they can begin to live out
and it caused division.
Those who are holding to the truth,
those who have strayed from the truth.
But then last week, we spent time looking at
the first set of imperatives that Jude had for us,
for you that are in the midst of this.
The imperatives that Jude had for us, for you and I.
He said that we are to build ourselves up
in the most holy faith.
That we're to pray in the Holy Spirit.
That we're to keep ourselves in the love of God
while we wait expectantly for the mercy
of our Lord Jesus Christ for eternal life.
How do you stand, like in the game of Red Rover,
stand firm, prepared?
You build yourself up in the most holy faith.
You grow in your knowledge of Jesus Christ.
You spend time in his word and you cultivate
a love for his word so that when you read Psalm 19
or Psalm 1 or Psalm 119, those words are your words.
Your delight is in the law of God.
Your delight is in the word of God.
This is how you stand.
This is how you lock arms.
This is a corporate element to it as well.
We didn't get a chance to dive into that on Sunday.
But all of the yous and yourselves are all plural.
We build ourselves up.
We keep ourselves in the love of God.
There's a part we play in one another's lives
in that building up and that ability to stand
against the enemy.
But Jude said some will waver.
Some will waver.
And some, they're doubting drifters.
And to the doubting drifter, we show mercy.
We show mercy.
We talked about, we go to them and we remind them,
remember the showers of grace.
We help them to see the timeline of their life
and all the moments and points when God interceded,
when God was present, when God healed,
when God restored, when God was there and spoke.
We try to light or fan that flame again
so that their passion rises and the doubting drifter
again finds his feet firm.
But then there's an obstinate drifter.
Someone who has set their face toward doing what is wrong.
They once were in Christ, they once were among us,
they once said hallelujah and sang all the songs with us,
but they've now set their face toward doing what is wrong.
Obstinate, rebellious against God.
And to those, we come and we shake.
Those we say stop it.
Those we remind of the fire that's at the end of the road
that they're heading down.
Those we wake up.
You sleeper, wake up.
I remember when I was a kid, we lived in San Jose.
One of the features of San Jose was earthquakes.
It's California, but San Jose, I feel like when I was a kid,
I got a lot of them and I remember one time being asleep,
bunk beds, me and my brother and my dad,
we were sound asleep and all I remember is waking up
to the sound of my dad yelling.
My dad, if you met my dad, he's a quiet,
like, you know, introverted kind of guy.
Very, very quiet.
He was yelling, running down the halls,
pounding on the walls as he was running.
And when we finally woke up, you know,
came out of our stupor, there was an earthquake
and he grabbed us in both his arms and ran down the hall
and we ran out the front door.
Obstinate drifters need that kind of intervention.
Wake up, you're about, the fire's right there,
you're about to get singed, but he says,
when you go and save them, be careful
because the fire is right there.
You know, don't go hang out with them and go,
you know what, to be relevant,
I'm gonna set my passion aside.
To be relevant, I'm gonna go hang out
and do the things they love to do.
You very well could find yourself on the same path as them.
You go to them, but you go to them with a level of reverence.
You're careful not to get burned
by sinful drifting in the process.
And after all of that, Jude lays out, he ends,
with something that's amazing.
Verse 24 and 25, it's what's called a doxology.
A doxology, comes from two Greek words,
doxa and logia or logia,
and it's like a glory saying, a glory saying
or you might say words of glory,
words of praise or song.
Song we sang earlier that comes from this text
that we're studying today, said there is a song of joy
for all who are weak or all who are weary
or all who are suffering.
And Jude says, after I've told you who they are
and I've told you how you stand against them,
you're gonna need a song.
How are you going to get through to the end?
How are you going to look around
and see all the suffering and pain?
How are you going to get through as a church,
watching people that you loved and you walked alongside of,
walk out the door and reject Christ?
How are you going to get there?
You need a song.
You need a song to remember.
A song that points you to the main thing,
the thing that matters.
Now to him who is able to protect you from stumbling.
If you're taking notes, I've got two points for us today.
The first one is this, he protects us.
He protects us.
What does he mean by protect you from stumbling?
I'll say three things on that point.
He can protect you, he can protect you from stumbling.
I'll say three things on that point, he can protect you
from moral failure.
He can protect you from moral failure.
I don't have the scriptures up there,
but listen what 1 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 13 says.
No temptation has come upon you,
except that is common to humanity.
But God is faithful, he will not allow you to be tempted
beyond what you are able, but with the temptation,
he will also provide the way out
so that you may be able to bear it.
He is able to provide us the way out of temptation
so that we don't fall into moral failure.
He is able.
He is also able to protect you from doubt.
Protect you from doubt, in fact in Philippians chapter four
verse six and seven he says, not to worry about anything,
and worry is just another form of doubt.
It's when we doubt the goodness of God,
we doubt the provision of God,
we doubt that God is who he says he is
and he's gonna follow through on his promises.
We get anxious.
And to worry he says, don't be worried about anything,
but in everything here's your way out.
Pray through prayer, with petition and thanksgiving.
Present your request to God and the peace of God
which surpasses all understanding will guard,
will protect your hearts and minds from drifting away.
He protects us from moral failure,
he protects us from doubts
and he can protect you from the enemy.
The enemy prowls around like a roaring lion
looking to devour you.
But second Thessalonians chapter three,
verse three says, the Lord is faithful
and he will strengthen you
and guard you from the evil one.
He protects us.
He protects us, but the primary way that we see God
at work in our lives is against our enemy's sin
and sin producing death and that brings me to
these three things, the tenses of salvation.
Some of you may have heard of this before,
but the tenses of salvation is that we were saved,
if you are in Christ you were saved from the penalty of sin,
if you're in Christ you are saved from the power of sin
and if you are in Christ you will be saved
from the presence of sin.
You were saved from the penalty of sin,
you are saved from the power of sin
and you will be saved from the presence of sin.
from the presence of sin.
And what that means is we're currently in that middle point.
The penalty of sin paid for in Christ.
We are free from the penalty
and the power of sin to rule our lives.
The Romans talks about how sin was like a master
and we were its slave and we had to obey it.
It lived within our body
and it was like a master telling us what to do
and we obeyed it.
And we didn't just obey it begrudgingly.
We obeyed it at the level of our will.
We even began, not began, we even,
we embraced sin as if we liked it.
We did sinful things.
We acted in rebellion against God.
But Jesus broke the power of sin in our life
and said, you don't have to live under that master anymore.
In fact, forsake that master.
Forsake him, leave him behind
and instead live under a new master who is good
and calls you to good things.
But that doesn't mean we don't live with the presence
of sin still around us.
The very purpose of the letter Jude is writing
says that there's sin, it's even among us.
And some are led astray and some will be led astray.
And so we look with hope to the day when our salvation,
the tenses of salvation is complete
and we are freed from the penalty, the power,
and finally the presence of sin into God's glorious presence.
We must watch that we stay close to the Lord.
We must watch that we stay close.
He earlier said, keep yourself in the love of God.
Why? Because he will guard us
so that we do not stumble.
He will guard us so that it's something we can't do.
All we can do is stay close to the Lord.
I got to thinking about some of my interests
in the military and military history
and watching history videos on the military
and I remembered a certain unit in the army or the Marines
or whatever it is that their job is to go out
in front of the troops into heavily fortified areas,
especially after the enemy has been pushed back.
Something the enemy often would do
before they would retreat or even before
is they would lay minefields.
And these minefields were just hundreds upon hundreds,
thousands of mines buried in the dirt
intended to be hidden or invisible nearly
with a purpose that when the army
that was fighting against them came through that area,
it would inflict all kinds of carnage and damage on them
or maybe they could block up the roads
or the pathways of travel
to keep them from advancing further.
And so you had guys in the military
whose whole job was to go ahead of the rest of the troops
and to clear minefields.
And they always began by determining the need,
how much of this minefield do we need cleared
to get things through.
And then they began to work their way
through that minefield on that pathway
with the intention that armored vehicles
and troop transports and folks would march
behind them through there.
Well, it's very much so like that
when it comes to Christ and his protection in us.
You might say true freedom,
true freedom would be to go wherever I want
and do whatever I want, right?
Allow me to walk over here or over there
and that might seem true, but it isn't.
If you think about it,
in the case of the minesweeper, true freedom
is staying behind the minesweeper.
It's not straying to the left or the right
to go out into the field that hasn't been cleared.
True freedom to live and to continue to live
is to stay behind the minesweeper.
He will do his job, he will sweep from mines
and disarm them and they would disarm them,
sometimes pull them out of the ground
or oftentimes they just blow them up
so that they were no longer useful.
He will do his job and as long as I stay behind him,
I'm okay.
But the moment I think, no, I want freedom.
I wanna be able to go over here when I wanna go over here
and I wanna go over there when I wanna go over there,
we enter the minefield again.
It's not clear, we're not protected.
What seemed like true freedom,
the ability to walk and do whatever I want,
actually is not freedom at all.
It's a death warrant and what seems constraining,
what seems restrictive or like restrictive control
to stay behind the minesweeper,
to follow the narrow path that the minesweeper
is making in front of you,
might seem like agonizing constraint,
but don't you see that it's life and it's freedom?
He will protect us, we must watch and stay close.
Hebrews chapter 10, verse 10,
verse 26 through 31 says,
for if we deliberately go on sinning,
not staying close, not watching,
if we deliberately go on sinning
after receiving the knowledge of truth,
there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins,
but a terrifying expectation of judgment
and the fury of a fire about to consume the adversaries.
Anyone who disregarded the law of Moses died without mercy
based on the testimony of two or three witnesses.
How much worse punishment do you think one will deserve
who has trampled on the son of God,
who has regarded as profane the blood of the covenant
by which he was sanctified
and who has insulted the spirit of grace.
For we know the one who has said,
vengeance belongs to me, I will repay,
and again, the Lord will judge his people,
it is a terrifying thing to fall into the hands
of the living God.
Contrast that with John chapter 10 where Jesus says,
my sheep hear my voice,
they stay close enough to hear my voice,
they watch and are careful and I know them
and they follow me, I give them eternal life
and they will never perish,
no one will snatch them out of my hand,
my father who has given them to me is greater than all,
no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hands
and I and the father are one.
He is able to protect and preserve you, remain in him.
He is able and willing to protect and preserve you,
remain in him.
A.W. Tozer, one of my favorite authors,
says, the man who has God for his treasure
has all things in one.
Many ordinary treasures may be denied him
or if he is allowed to have them,
the enjoyment of them will be so tempered
that they will never be necessary to his happiness
or if he must see them go one after one,
he will scarcely feel a sense of loss
for having the source of all things,
he has in one all satisfaction,
all pleasure, all delight.
All pleasure, all delight.
Remain in him and he is able to lead us.
Find your pleasure, your delight, your hope in him alone
and then the things of this world,
the tragedies, the difficulties,
even those who have apostatized or left the faith
or the difficulties in church,
none of that will pale in comparison
to the glory of the one in whom all things are satisfied.
Number two, he protects us.
Number two, he presents us.
Now to him who is able to protect you from stumbling
and to make you stand in the presence of his glory
without blemish and with great joy.
Why do we need him to stand in the presence of his glory?
Why do we need him to make us stand?
Author of Psalm 130 said it this way,
Lord, if you kept an account of iniquities,
who could stand?
But with you there is forgiveness
so that you may be revered.
You may be revered.
Romans says that there is none righteous, no not one.
But in 2 Corinthians chapter five,
we hear that God made him who had no sin to be sin for us
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
You might have caught the word blemish there.
It's not something that we use,
at least we men use often.
You women might use the word blemish more often
but we don't use it too often.
The word blemish is actually a word that's associated more
with the sacrificial system of the Old Testament.
It was required that any offering that was being brought
to God be a blemish-free animal.
That it needed to be the best.
It needed to be the most acceptable animal,
not the least acceptable.
Only the spotless blemish-free one was fit for God.
And to be without blemish means that we are acceptable.
To be without blemish means that no fault is found in us.
We can be seen as pure because we are hidden in Christ,
the pure one.
We can be seen or received as blameless before God
because he was the perfect son, Jesus.
And because we hide in the cleft
of the blameless one, Christ.
We can be received as sons because the perfect son
honored and obeyed Christ.
And if we are in him, then we are received as him.
He can deliver us and present us
in the presence of the glory of God
and we can stand and not melt away.
Lots of folks encountered God throughout the Old Testament.
And in their sinful states, what did they do?
Fell down, they cried out, woe is me.
They turned their face away.
Jude says there's a way in Christ
that we can stand before God, face toward him,
and not melt away, not be pushed away, not be rejected.
And that is the way that Jesus was born.
And that in our ability to stand in his presence
and his glory, that great joy
is the appropriate word for that.
Great joy is what is produced in us
as we stand in his presence.
Except that we know that if the Lord
did keep an account of iniquities, we could not stand.
If he had a list up there, and only if the list was empty
would he allow us to stand,
then we cannot stand on our own merits.
But we know that Christ has made the way
and through his forgiveness, we can now stand
because we are in him, hidden in Christ.
And great joy is that word.
One commentator said, great joy though
that he's talking about here
is a word that belongs to heaven alone.
It's not the kind of joy that you and I
have yet experienced.
It's a joy that we can only hope to experience
in his presence at the fullness where we stand
face to face, unashamed and not rejected
face to face with God himself.
Then we'll experience joy.
Great joy.
The preacher Martin Lloyd Jones said,
the ultimate test of our spirituality
is a measure of our amazement at the grace of God.
The ultimate test of our spirituality
is a measure of our amazement at the grace of God.
When you hear what Christ has done,
when you read the scriptures that we've read,
is your heart cold?
Is your heart cold or is it strangely warmed toward Christ?
Do you get a little excited?
Like if I could run where he's talking about,
to that place that he's talking about a great joy,
I would run there right now, but I know I can't,
so I gotta sit where I'm at and wait for him to finish.
Do you get a little bit of excitement?
Joy.
Unfulfilled, but there.
Longing, reaching out.
This is a test.
Are you amazed at the grace of God?
And here's what's in the test.
And here's what's interesting about this kind of great joy
we're talking about.
The kind of great joy that we'll experience
in his presence on that day.
This level of joy is used particularly
of the wedding feast of the Lamb.
It's this beautiful, stunning metaphor
of the union of Christ and his people
in absolute joy and bliss with all of heaven singing
at the end of time.
I'll read a little bit of Revelation chapter 19.
Then I heard something, like the voice of a vast multitude,
like the sound of cascading waters,
and like the rumbling of loud thunder saying,
hallelujah, because our Lord God, the Almighty reigns.
The vast multitude, the sound of cascading waters,
the rumbling loud, those are people.
Those are the hosts of heaven proclaiming, declaring.
Those are God's creation, returning to him
the praise that he is due.
Hallelujah, because our Lord God, the Almighty reigns.
Let us be glad, rejoice, great joy,
and give him glory because the marriage of the Lamb,
the union of Christ and his people,
the consummation of all things has come
and his bride has prepared herself.
She was given fine linen to wear, bright and pure,
for the fine linen represents the light of the day.
Bright and pure for the fine linen represents
the righteous acts of the saints.
Then he said to me, right, blessed are those
invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb.
And he also said to me, these words of God are true.
The great joy when we are presented
in the presence of Christ, the presence of God Almighty,
blameless, and with great joy, is that we will finally,
as Christ's body, be united to Christ
in this marriage feast of the Lamb, and we will rejoice.
You guys remember in the Count and Luke of the Last Supper.
Luke chapter 22 said, when the hour came for the Last Supper,
he reclined at the table, Jesus, and the apostles with him,
and then he said to them, I have fervently desired
to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.
For I tell you, I will not eat it again
until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.
Jesus is waiting to eat that feast again.
When we, all things are wrapped up,
and we are presented before him as blameless,
his bride, his people, and then we will be able
to eat it again, and then we will sit down
for the feast again that Christ had with his disciples.
He will get to eat it again, but with us,
and with great joy and rejoicing.
That is what communion is every week.
That is why we do it every week.
We're rehearsing.
We're getting ready when we will be presented
blameless, not in ourselves.
Not in ourselves, but proclaimed righteous,
acceptable, and received for the wedding feast of the Lamb.
This is no small task, no mundane thing we do.
This is us, all those who have faith in Christ,
receiving elements and taking them together
in hopeful anticipation of the day when we will sit
at the table with our Lord and Savior,
our husband as the church,
and we will enjoy and feast for all eternity,
the presence of sin eradicated, wiped away,
a distant, if even a memory,
as we glory in the face of Christ.
We're going to receive our elements this morning
as a way to kind of close up our sermon.
Communion of foretaste, a pre-enactment of this union.
If you are in Christ,
if you are in Christ, then those words from Revelation,
that John was told, write this down.
Write this down.
Blessed are those invited to the marriage feast of the Lamb.