if you take your Bibles and turn them to the book of Jude. Jude is the second to last book of the Bible, all the way to the very, very back. And there's no chapters in Jude, it's just a single letter. And we're going to start in verse 17 after just a few minutes of introduction. Now, today we are celebrating the graduation of our three seniors from high school. Those are Brendan O'Donnell, Caleb Davis, and Maria Senter. And after this service, we have what is annually the senior roast, where the Doans, who demonstrate their love to the teens, by buying them gag gifts, do that. So it's a wonderful time, and it's a great thing, a good way to celebrate them. This morning I thought I would bring a message entitled Winning at Life, and certainly the theme and the wisdom that is found in the book of Jude is applicable to the seniors. It's also very applicable to many of us. At this time for our seniors, you turn 18, it does sort of feel very idealistic. You know, everything is kind of fresh, you're maybe excited about getting out on your own, your whole life and career sits before you. You know, when you talk to a senior or when you talk to someone who's a graduate, it's always about, so what do you want to do or where are you going to go, right? It's always future tense. As you get older and older, people stop talking to you about future tense and start talking to you about present tense and past tense, right? Like when a bunch of guys get together, older guys, they stand around and they say, hey, so what do you do, right? No one's asking, what do you want to do, or where are you going, right? It's like, well, it's already been settled, so what do you do? But for seniors, for 18-year-olds, their life lies ahead of them, and it's an exciting, idealistic time. So this morning, what I'd like to do is give some guidance, I think, from the word of God that is certainly applicable to them, but I think as we go through this, Even if you're at the latter stages of your life, you'll also find some great encouragement and wisdom. Maybe you're at the middle part of your life. I think that you will find some good wisdom to challenge you and to encourage you in your walk. Let's read Jude 17 to 25. He says, Remember the words which were spoken before the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. I'm sorry, junior church can be dismissed. I was like, where is everyone going? It's over, I lost it. See you later. Sorry about that. All right, verse 19. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit. Verse 20, But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And of some, have compassion, making a difference. And others, save with fear, pulling them out of the fire, having even the garment spotted by the flesh. Verse 24, Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling. and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. To the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and dominion power, both now and forever. Amen. Beautiful, beautiful words by Jude, the half-brother of Jesus, brother of James, as he identifies himself in the first verse. In this letter, Jude says, sorry, I wanted to write to you, I wanted to write this letter with the intent of celebrating our great salvation. He says, I wanted to write to you and just take a few verses or a few moments to just talk about the glories of salvation. But he says in verse 3 that I couldn't do that. That was my intent to write to you, but instead I have to write to you to warn you. to warn you about all of the false teachers who have started to infiltrate the church. Now remember, this letter, Jude, was probably written within 20 years of Christ's death. And already, after just 20 years, there were so many false teachers and false prophets and false doctrines that Jude felt that he had to now start writing to warn these young Christians about these men. And the next several verses, He describes false prophets in language not found anywhere else in the Bible. He goes through great detail and really just excoriates these men, these false teachers. But when you reach verse 17, he turns his attention back to the reader and he says, but beloved, And then again in verse 20, he says, but ye beloved. And it's like a father, if you will, giving a warning about those that are out there and how wicked they are and all of the trouble that they cause, right? And after he sort of gets done that, that warning, he turns back to his child and with love and tenderness, he says, but beloved. And this morning, those beloved are us. Those beloved are those who have accepted Jesus Christ as Savior. Those who have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ. Christians, we are the beloved that Jude is speaking to. And so what is the encouragement that he gives to them? He gives us really four steps to what I call winning at life. I figure, you know, the graduates are looking forward at life, and I want to give them some encouragement. Four ways to win at life. And the first one starts by looking back Looking in, looking around, and looking up. Let's first look at looking back. In verse 17, he says, But beloved, remember. He starts by saying, look back. Look back. Remember. And what is it that Jude encourages us to remember? He says, remember the words which were spoken before the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse 18 and 19 is simply just describing what those words were. And what he's saying is, I have spoken and the apostles have spoken and Christ has spoken true words to you. The truth. And he's saying, don't be caught up in all of the false deceit and all the hustle and bustle and all the allure and all the new things that are going on. Rather, look back at the faithful words which were spoken to you. 2 Thessalonians 2.15 says, Therefore, brethren, stand fast, hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word or by our epistle. Now, as a graduate, as someone who's 18, starting to move into their adult years, one of the great allures, one of the great, you know, I think, hopes that you have is to do it maybe a little different or better than your parents did. You know, you think you're going to be different. And then when you're 40, you realize you are your dad. Have you seen those progressive commercials where they're looking at them and they become their parents as they go through their ages? It's pretty funny. But it's true, isn't it? We all realize, wow, we take on tendencies. Even if we tried not to, it's what happens. But I think there's a great temptation as a young person to think, I'm going to be different. I'm going to find a new way. I'm going to do it in my own way. And I just want to encourage you. to remember faithful words. You've been a part of our church for a long time, for a number of years. You've been a part of a family that loves you. And there's been a lot of wisdom bestilled upon you. There's been a lot of God's word that has been taught to you. Remember faithful words, young person. I wonder, perhaps you're here and you're a little older. Maybe you're nearing the latter stages of your life. I wonder, are you remembering faithful words? When you look back, when you think back, what are you remembering? Are you remembering the faithful words? Are you allowing those to guide you? Proverbs 6, And verse 20 says, my son, keep my father's commandment. Forsake not the law of thy mother. Listen to this. Bind them continually upon thy heart. Tie them about thy neck. When thou goest, it shall lead thee. When thou sleepest, it shall keep thee. And when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee. For the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light, and reproofs of instruction are the way of life." You know, there is no psychology book, there's no self-improvement book, there's no speaker, there's no professor, there's no preacher who could give you better wisdom than these three verses found in Proverbs chapter six. Imagine a speaker, a motivational speaker standing up and saying, the way of life is through reproof. Doesn't sound too good, does it? Probably won't be selling many books, will he? But those of you who are older here today, you know that that's true, don't you? Your life is made up of a series of decisions, wrong or right. And many of those decisions come after making wrong decisions and bearing the reproof of those wrong decisions. That's just the reality of it. Here, the wisdom from Solomon is encouraging us in that. And I would say to you, young person, do not reject reproof. Embrace it. Be thankful for it. Be grateful that though you have made a mistake, God reproves you, and that's not fun, but what valuable wisdom you have gained through that experience. Be grateful for it. Do you ever thank God for the reproof He's given to you in your life? Have you ever stopped to think about that? Thanking Him for the number of things that have gone wrong in your life? I think maybe you reach ages and stages where you're a little more introspective. I just had my 40th birthday. And not that it has made me super introspective in any way, but I just think there are times in your life where there are milestones where you stop and you consider. And when you consider, you probably mostly are thinking about the highlights or the good things. I wonder if you've ever stopped to consider the great value the heartaches in your life have brought to you. Solomon, the wisest man, says, through reproof is the way of life. Secondly, you've got to, when you look back, you've got to remember faithful works. In your life, there have been an endless number of God's blessings that have been poured out upon you. You were born to a loving family in a free country. in a country that is abounding in comforts and goodness. Just to name a few, you've been introduced to the God of the Bible, to his son, Jesus Christ. You've been circled with a loving church, a church that loves you and cares about you. You have people in your youth group who have spent time praying for you and caring for you and loving you. You know, many kids don't have a foundation. They don't have really anything to look back on. They're from this place to that place, from this house to that house, from here to there, between parents, and this and that, and divorced, and this and that, and they look back on their life and they go, my childhood, nothing really stands out to me. Sad, isn't it? The three seniors we have graduating have solid families. They can look back on their life and look at the families that have surrounded them and the church family that has surrounded them. That is a tremendous blessing. That is a gift that only could come from God. Remember faithful works. Kenny read Deuteronomy chapter eight, and in verse two it said, and now shall remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee. Do you ever stop and consider the way that the Lord has led you? Now remember, he's talking to the children of Israel and he's led them out of Egypt. And was their way free of trial? Was their way totally comfort? Gold path paved all the way? Was it? No, it wasn't. It was very difficult, wasn't it? They first encountered the Red Sea. and wondered, what are we going to do? They encountered hunger, they encountered thirst. They were a people that were just nomads, wandering, no place to call their own. That was difficult, wasn't it? And yet, God says, remember the way that I have led you. Why? Because God provided every step of the way. He led them. It was God that was leading them. Was there a better path for the children of Israel to take? There wasn't. Is that the path that Moses, Aaron, the wise men of Israel would have drawn up? No. When you sit down and you consider your life, you think, is this the way that I would have drawn up my life? And I think every adult in the room would say, nope. Or, when I was 18 and graduating, is this the way that I pictured my life would go? I guarantee you, you'd say, nope. But, here we are. And who's led us? It's been God. It's been God. And it's been difficult, and it's been trying, but he does this for a purpose, doesn't he? Deuteronomy 8 is a wonderful chapter, and I know that as we read it in the morning, a lot of it just sort of flows by you, but I would really encourage you to look at Deuteronomy 8. God speaking to His beloved children of Israel, trying to encourage them. trying to wrap his arms around them. Ecclesiastes 12.1 says, remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them. Listen, graduate. The world, your friends, and your flesh, wants you to spend the next 10 to 15 years exploring and wondering what's out there. It's what they want you to do. It's what you want to do. You want to see the world. You want to travel. You want to experience new things. You want to go out there. And that's perfectly normal, I think, for a young person. But remember what this verse says, and I would just plead with you to please, please, please, don't waste your life. Don't waste your life. It's not worth it. I know me saying that doesn't convince you, but everyone in here would agree with that. It's not worth it. What happens is you think, I'm just gonna, I just wanna just experience a little bit. I just wanna understand and just see what's going on. And you blink, and you turn around, and you're 35. Right? And you go, what did I just do with my 20s? When do doctors become doctors? In their 20s. When do engineers become engineers? in their 20s. When in our lives do we really start to dig into our career and form a path and become who we are going to be? It's going to be in your 20s. And they're staring you in the face. And the world wants you to move to a city, find some roommates, drink every night, have fun, and party, and play. And when you're 30, you can get serious about life. And I'm telling you, that is an absolute devastating lie of the devil. And please, please, we have poured our life into you. Don't waste your life. Don't waste 10 years. Because all you will do is look back with regret and wonder, what could have I become in my 20s? We plead with you to become strong, stable, mature, growing Christians. That's what we want you to do. That's what the Lord wants you to do. Sure, become a doctor. Sure, become an engineer. Sure, become anything you want to be. That's between you and the Lord. But we plead with you to be strong, growing, mature Christians. You can do that in your 20s. You don't have to wait until your 30s or 40s or 50s. You can do it now. Remember your faithful works. Remember also your faithful warnings. Proverbs 4.23 says, keep your heart with all vigilance, for out of it flow the warnings of life. Boy, there's a lot of warnings in our childhood, isn't there? Every time you turn around, mom and dad's warning you about something. Don't play in the road. Don't go over here. Don't go over here. You gotta get to bed. You gotta do this. You gotta wear this. You gotta go here. But suddenly all those things start to fade away and now you get to start to make your own decisions. And I just want to encourage you, don't forget faithful warnings. They were given to you for a reason. The Bible says to keep your heart with all vigilance. Young person, don't give your heart away. Keep it. Keep your heart for Christ. Sometimes, as we get older, we realize that our heart isn't where it's supposed to be, that we haven't kept our heart. And isn't it much, much, much more difficult to try and clean your heart than it is to just keep it pure from the beginning? Aren't there things in your life that you wish had never entered into your heart, that you now maybe daily, regularly think about, contemplate, come across your mind and you go, oh, I wish that wasn't true. Right? So don't do it. Keep your heart with all diligence. The Bible is full of warnings, the selection of a spouse, the choosing of a career, how to manage money, how to choose friends. In fact, every single area of your life, the Bible has warnings and wisdom for you. And they are always right. They are always right. As you look back, I encourage you to remember the faithful words, the faithful works, and the faithful warnings. But then Jude continues in verse 20. He says, But ye, beloved, building up yourselves. And now Jude decides to look in here. Look in. Now, to win at life, we're not only going to remember these things or look back, but we also need to look in. And specifically, Jude gives us four actions that we need to be consistently, actively doing over and over. Look at verse number 20. He says immediately, but ye beloved, Building is a present active, and in the Greek it means to be consistently or constantly in the process. In other places in the Bible, Paul specifically uses this word for walking. It's the repetitive process of your life. You are building. You're constantly building. And he's encouraging us, Jude is now encouraging us here. And how do we build up our life? Turn with me to 1 Peter. 1 Peter, just back a couple of pages. 1 Peter, chapter two and verse number one, how do we build up or how do we grow? He says, wherefore laying aside all malice and all guile, hypocrisies and envies and all evil speakings. Verse two, as newborn babes. Desire the sincere milk of the word that you may grow thereby. How do Christians grow? How do Christians grow? They grow by taking in the word of God. They grow by taking in the word of God. There isn't any other way to grow. You don't grow by reading Charles Spurgeon's devotionals. You don't grow by reading self-help books. You don't grow by attending church once a week and hoping you glean some morsel from the table. You grow by consistently reading, meditating on, and thinking about the Word of God. That's how you grow. And Paul says that this should be, or Jude says that this should be a pattern of our life. It should be something that is consistently done over and over and over. Turn now to 2 Peter, just a couple of pages over 2 Peter, and he talks about what does building up look like? Verse 5 of 2 Peter 1 and verse 5, he says, And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, and to virtue Knowledge, I lost my spot there, where is it? Knowledge, and a knowledge, temperance, and a temperance, patience, patience, godliness, and a godliness, brotherly kindness, brotherly kindness, charity, for if these things be in you and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Growing, growing, adding to your faith, knowledge, virtue, temperance, godliness, brotherly kindness. This is a pattern of your life. I wonder, Christian, if you're here today and you're listening and you're thinking, yes, that's right, graduate, you should definitely be doing that. I wonder if you're growing. I wonder if you're actively building up your faith. Are you really growing or have you grown to a point where you're just putting in the motions? You know, there's a difference between building and cleaning, right? Many of us spend our Christian life, we start out fast and we build something. And slowly we get discouraged, or maybe there's a hard time, or a heartache, or hardship, or something comes along and starts to distract us. Maybe it's just the cares and concerns of this world, right? They start to distract us and lead us away, and we're just busy doing life. And we lose track of this command to build. And suddenly our spiritual home starts to grow cobwebs. And we go to church on Sunday, and we tidy up the spiritual house. We go around with the vacuum cleaner and make sure everything's in place. Then we go home, and there it sits all week long, gathering dust, until we come back next Sunday, and we clean it up again, and we vacuum, and we knock out the cobwebs. Doesn't it look better now? Always stagnant, right? Cleaning isn't growing, is it? Cleaning's maintaining. Your spiritual life is like riding a bicycle uphill. Think about that for a second. Riding a bicycle uphill. If you stop pedaling, what happens? You go backwards. You fall down, right? You have to keep pedaling. Jude's saying, you have to keep building. It doesn't matter your age. It doesn't matter your stage of life. It doesn't matter if you're a hopeful, idealistic young graduate. Or if you're in your 80s and you're looking at the sunset of your life, the command is the same, be building. Stop maintaining. Stop cleaning. Start building. That's the command that God has given to us through Jude. We do this through his word. All scripture is given by inspiration. We know that, believe that, but what is the next phrase? And is what? Profitable. That means that every time you open the Word of God, every time you're willing to look into it and to consider it, God is speaking to you through it and it is profitable for you. It's good for you. It's going to help you. There's never a time where you will open the Word of God and it will hurt you or hinder you. Never. It won't. It will only ever help you. Please, please stay in the Word of God. And then he says, the next command in Jude there, verse number 20, is to pray. He says, first, build up yourselves. Let me just add one more note on this faith. Build up yourselves. And what does he say on your faith? Most holy faith. Let me just add one note on this. Your most holy faith. Graduate, you're about to leave home, and you're gonna be an adult soon, and you're gonna be on your own. What Jude is saying here is that this faith has to be your faith. It can't be mom and dad's faith. It can't be the pastor's faith. It can't be the church's faith. It has to be your faith. Otherwise, it doesn't stand up. It doesn't stand up. If you've been in church for any amount of time, you've seen people come to church, get saved, stay in church for a little while and then leave. Or you've seen kids grow up in church, they get out on their own and they leave. It's not their faith. They haven't taken hold of the faith themselves. This is vitally important for you to understand. Jude gives us a great warning. It says, on your most holy faith, it has to be your faith. And then he says, praying in the Holy Ghost. Learn to pray. Learn to pray. Praying is one of those areas where no matter how old you are, no matter how long you've been saved, you always are gonna say, oh, this is a weak area of my life. I know I can do better in praying. I just can't seem to get through it, right? It's okay to shake your head and agree. Everybody else is agreeing with you. It's true, isn't it? We would all love to pray more, wouldn't we? We know, we believe that God answers prayer, yet we just can't get ourselves around to doing it, to really struggling and winning in prayer. If you want to win at life, you've got to win in prayer. I wonder how many of the challenges in our life have been because of our lack of prayer. I wonder how many missteps could have been avoided because of a lack of prayer. I'm sure we could tell stories about that, but certainly it's true. Luke 18.1 says, and he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray. Let me just say this to you, graduates, maybe not Maria, but specifically graduates, real men, Real men pray. Real, heroic, godly, successful men pray. Do you know what real men don't do? Real men don't run around a football field and beat their chest and talk about how good they are. Those aren't real men. Real men don't drive Mercedes, work in high tower offices, corner office. That's not what makes a real man. A real man gets on his knees and on his face before the Lord on a consistent basis. That is what a real man is. That is what it takes to win at life. Paul or Jude says to us, I keep calling him Paul. If I do this from now on, I'm just gonna keep going with it. You know what I'm talking about. Jude encourages us to pray. He says in the Holy Spirit. And of course, this leads us to Romans chapter eight, where Paul explains to us how the Holy Spirit helps us pray. And I just wanna call your attention to one thing that I think is most helpful in prayer. It's in this idea of submission, of submitting to God's will. We have a great, great example of this in Jesus Christ, praying in the garden. He said three times, not my will, but thine be done. He had a desire, he had a request, request that ultimately wasn't answered, but he always couched it in the phrase, not my will, but thine be done. As you step out in your life, as you progress through your life, there are going to be numerous times of requests, of need, of things that you are wanting. And I would just encourage you to always pray, not my will, but thine be done. It works like this, you say, Lord, I really, I want to get into this program, or I want to move forward in this thing, or I really like this girl. Lord, I just think that this makes so much sense for me, and I've talked to my mom and dad, and they think it makes sense for me, and I've talked to this guy and that guy, and everybody says it makes sense. So Lord, you just got to make it happen, right? Lord, this makes sense. My family needs a home, and here's a beautiful home, and everything seems to line up. Please, Lord, just make this happen. Don't pray like that. Right? Don't pray like that. Not my will, but thine be done. You could say, Lord, these things seem to be lining up, but I wanna do what you want me to do. Yes, my heart wants this thing, but I want more than that. I want what you want for me and I'll wait. I will sit here and I will wait until you show me what it is. I want to do your will. I don't want to do it my way. Believe me. Believe me when I tell you. Believe the word of God that our way never, ever, ever works out the way you think it's going to. It doesn't work out. It doesn't, right? It doesn't. Not my will, but thine be done. That's how we pray. He then goes on here. And he says in verse 21, keep yourselves in the love. Keep yourselves in the love. And here I just want to say, learn to stay. Learn to stay. Keep yourselves in the love of God. How do you keep yourself in the love of God? Isn't that an interesting command? The only place this is, written like this in the whole Bible. Keep yourselves in the love of God. Isn't it normally, don't you sort of feel like God would keep us in his love? Romans 8, this is sort of explained. Nothing could separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus. And yet here Jude's saying to us, keep yourselves in the love of God. What could that mean? And really it just simply means to keep yourself in the place of God's promise, keep yourself in the place of God's provision, keep yourself in the place of God's protection. God's promise is found in Matthew 16, 24 to 27. If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross and follow me. In verse 27, what does it say? and I shall reward him before my Father, which is in heaven. You want reward for your life? You want your life to count, right? You've got to deny yourself. You've got to lose your life. Follow Christ at all costs to win, to earn the reward, to earn the praise. You've got to give up your hopes, your dreams, your desires for your life. Boy, that's different, isn't it? That's radical. I didn't hear any professors, any doctors, any politicians speaking that at commencement, did you? No, you've got to lose yourself, young person. You've got to give up those dreams that you have, those hopes that you have. You have to. Otherwise, you can't win. Jesus says specifically, deny yourself. How many times in your life has there come an opportunity and you've just said to yourself, I don't really want to do that. But I don't, I just don't want to. I don't really want to go over there and talk to that person. I don't really want to hand out a track. I don't really want to go to church today. I don't want to do these things. And so we don't do them. And yet Christ teaches to deny yourself. When you find yourself saying, I don't want to, that is the absolute time when you need to. You need to. You need to start doing it. Deny yourself. Stay in the place of God's promise. Stay in the place of God's provision. He says in Matthew 6.33, seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you. Right? Men, you're here, maybe you're in your middle ages or older ages. I wonder how many sleepless nights combined All of us would say we spent worrying about money, clothes, houses, mortgages, jobs. I wonder how many nights total is here. I would gather it's probably years. If we combined all the time that we've all spent, right? And here's a young person, he's 18, he's fresh. Well, he hasn't lost a night's sleep his whole life, right? And you're like, I cannot wait for you to get worried about something. Your positive idealistic outlook is annoying to me, right? Like how could they be so naive, these kids? And yet Christ says, don't worry. Don't you wish you had those nights back? Don't you wish you could say to yourself, God will take care of it? I'm gonna put him first, I'm gonna seek him first, I'm gonna follow him, and everything will be added, everything will be taken care of. Who seeks after those things? The Gentiles seek after those things, what we shall wear, and what we shall eat, and what we shall put on, right? That's what Gentiles seek after. He says, you don't have to do that. Stay in the place of God's provision, and you will not have to worry. And that, I'm telling you, young person, is an incredible blessing. Also, he says, stay in the place of God's protection. 1 Timothy 3.15 calls the church the pillar and ground of the truth. Let me just explain to you what that means. In this age, in the time in which we live, the place where truth is contained and stewarded is the local church. This is why when someone tells you, I'm going to do church at home, I'm going to do church in the woods, I'm going to church by myself, you can do church, but it's not true church. The truth doesn't exist there. It doesn't. It might feel good, and it might be entertaining, but the truth doesn't exist there. The local church is where you go to find, learn, and apply truth to your life. You're going to be convinced that in a college classroom, a professor is speaking to you truth. It's going to happen, even at good colleges. There are going to be professors that you're going to admire or respect, who are going to win your heart, and you're going to be totally convinced that they are true. If it ever in any way goes against the word of God, young person, it's not true. No matter how much you like them or respect them or care for them, it's just not true. You're gonna have friends who are gonna tell you things and they're just not true. They're gonna be convincing and they're gonna have stories to back it up, but it's not true. How do you keep track of that? How do you stay in the truth? You go to church. That's what Hebrews 10 tells us, right? Hebrews 10, 21 to 25 tells us, you hold fast, you stay close. And then he concludes in verse 25, how do you do that? By not forsaking the assembling of yourselves together. It's this gathering on a weekly basis that draws you back, that clears your thinking, that allows you to hear and understand and apply truth to your life. Please stay in God's promises. Stay in God's provision. Stay in God's protection. And then the last thing he teaches us here in verse 21 is he says, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And here is what I would consider to you the greatest life-changing skill to learn. This is the greatest life-changing skill that you could learn. Are you ready? You didn't gather that just from reading that phrase, huh? This is the most impactful single thing that I believe you could do, is to see everything through the lens of eternity. Can you see things through the lens of eternity? The trial that I'm facing, can you see that trial through the lens of eternity? Or are you stuck in the pain of the present? If you could just change your perspective, start your life with a fresh perspective of eternity, that will change everything. Eternity's values in view, the spiritual over the physical. God looks on the heart. Holiness over happiness. If you could pursue holiness, be willing to surrender your happiness, that is seeing life through the lens of eternity. Losing your life over living your life. Just live it, right? No. Just lose it. Giving over greed. love over fear, the cross over your comfort, God's will over your dreams. If you can see your present life through the lens of eternity, you are on the path to winning. Maybe you're here today and you're staring down trials, or you're staring down challenges, or you're just sort of stuck in the mediocrity of your life. I wonder if you've considered your life through the lens of eternity. What is God doing here? What is He trying to work in me? What is happening around me in the spiritual realm? It changes your perspective, doesn't it? It gives you hope and an outlook. It should lift your heart, lift your spirit. Verse 22 and 23, we see the idea of looking around. You've looked back and you've looked in and now you need to start looking around. Here's a sad truth. Most Christians never progress in their Christian life beyond the looking in stage. Most Christians never progress in their spiritual life beyond the looking in stage. And you know what? Your flesh, the devil, the world, they're totally fine with that. Keep looking in at yourself. Keep explaining to yourself why you're not good enough to help someone, or you're not good enough to say something, or you're not smart enough to participate, or you don't have enough money to do this, or you can't do these things, you can't do those things. So just sit in the pew and just maintain your Christian life. Just keep working on yourself, and maybe someday you'll be able to get there. That's what the flesh wants you to do. The devil's lost you to the Lord, But boy, He wants you just to sit. He wants you to soak. He doesn't ever want you to stop and to consider and to look around you. Lift up your eyes. What did Jesus do constantly? He saw the multitude. You know, when we have trials, we are consumed by those things. Our perspective is totally lost. All we can think about and focus on is the trial in front of us, but how many of us through a trial have had that moment where you go and visit someone? You have a conversation or you reach out to somebody and, boy, that lifts your spirits, doesn't it? I wonder if you would take time to look around. Jude says, and some have compassion making a difference. And really this verse speaks to those who are confused or discouraged by the false teachers. He's saying have compassion on them. In our church this morning, there are those who need compassion. I wonder if you can see them or can you only see yourself? Can you only see just barely beyond your own nose how you feel, how you're doing, what you need to do today, how you're going to get it done, what's on your list? Look around. Look around. Not only does looking around and having compassion make an impact on your spiritual life, but those students on campus who look around and see others are always the best students. They're always the one that are proclaimed. They're always the ones that are lifted up. The ones who can get beyond themselves and can look around. I wonder if you're at a point in your life where you feel like, I'm useless. I'm too old. I'm too old to help. Young people don't listen to me. I'm too old to say something. I'm too weak to say something. I can't go to all the events that everyone goes to. I can't do it. I want to encourage you to look around. Continue to invest your life in those around you. God will use you. If you're here today and you're alive, and if you're not alive, would you raise your hand so we know? If you're here today and you're alive, it's because God wants to use you. It's because God wants to use you. Not for yourself, for others. So keep going, keep going. Young person, take a minute in your life and look around at others. If you do this, then you'll come to verse 24. And it says, now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, that of course is our Lord Jesus Christ, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy. So just take a minute, just take a minute and imagine Jesus Christ standing with you, preparing to present you to God himself with great joy. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine? I don't know. So in 2016, I don't know why I'm gonna tell you this story, but 2016 I was, helping with the Trump campaign, and at the events, I would speak, in New Hampshire, I would speak before Trump came on the stage. And so, at every event, President Trump and I would stand in the back waiting for the, you know, the emcee to say, and now here it comes, and then I would give a couple minute speech, and we would talk. It's kind of like that, right? It's like the pronouncement, it's like coming out. Imagine Jesus Christ standing before you saying, and now my father, I present to you Andrew Hemingway, Chris Rooks, Ryan Mitchell. And now I present to you Russ Ellis. Can you imagine? What a moment that will be. Let me just tell you, in that moment, You are going to want every second of your life to have counted for Jesus. Every second of your life you are going to want to count to be profitable. You're going to look back and say, why did I do those stupid things? Why did I waste my time? Right? Make every second of your life count for Christ. All of us. Because at some point, Jesus Christ is going to present us. And yes, we'll be washed in the blood, amen? And we'll be righteous. And with exceeding joy, He will be able to present us. Reward us. And then verse 25. To the only wise God, our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and forever. I hope that at the end of your life, this will be your reputation. It will not be about me, it will not be about my name or my accomplishments, but rather my whole life was to the only wise God, our Savior. To Him I tried to bring glory and majesty, dominion and power. both now and forever. I hope that's your prayer and I hope that's the story of your life. It can be if you follow these simple steps. Let's pray.