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Well, Pastor McNerney was kind
enough, I asked if we could sing to God be the glory, because
our passage this morning is in the book of Jude, in Jude 24
and 25, and he obliged. What I didn't know is he was
also going to include one of my favorite hymns, and it's a
fitting month to have that hymn, and when Martin Luther wrote
A Mighty Fortress is Our God, he did write it after Psalm 46
verses 1 through 3 and he wrote in there just in that incredible
word that one little word will fell seat and That little word
is liar and an incredible credible reminder that our God tells the
truth. He is a God of truth and And we do not have to be concerned.
We do not have to fear. Him who has been a liar, is a
liar, is the accuser of the brethren, but rather we can have great
confidence in our God. And then to saying, he will hold
me fast. Covering the gamut of God's great
hold of the people that he has brought to himself. The people
that he has saved through the shedding of the blood of Christ.
Those who have put their faith and trust in him. Jude speaks
clearly of the coming day when we will be before him, before
his glory with great joy. And he even tells us how that's
going to come about. He tells us what God is able
to do. And so as we read already in
the scripture reading 17 through 25, if you have turned to Jude,
we'll be in Jude 24 and 25. the doxology, the closing ascribing
of glory to our great God. And before we go there, let us
pray. Father, we are grateful for the
time when we get to come, we get to look at your word. And
Lord, I ask that you would use this in our hearts and lives,
that if there are any in this room who have not put their faith
and trust in you, that Lord, you would save them this morning.
That Father, for those who are believers, that they would find
great hope and confidence through your word, and that we would
remember that we have nothing to fear, but we have all reason
to trust in you. Lord, encourage us. Do be with
those who are not able to gather, but are elsewhere. Encourage
their hearts as well, Lord. Let us not only pray for them,
but share with them your great word. We pray these things in
Jesus' name, amen. I am Justin Gorton. I recognize
it's a helpful, beneficial thing to know a little bit about who's
standing before you. I am the newest permanent associate
pastor at Church of the Open Door. We currently have six pastors
on staff, and that sounds just incredibly overwhelming to me,
and I imagine to you as well, but not all six of us are gonna
stay. I will stay, Pastor Huber will stay, and Pastor Efta will
stay. We're gonna quickly, as quick as we can, send the other
pastors away. Two of them will be church planners,
one internationally, one in an hour or so, within an hour of
Church of the Open Door in Leavenworth. And then one of them is a pastoral
intern, a missionary intern from Hungary. And so I share the office
with one of those guys, and it's been nice to have somebody in
the office and bring camaraderie, shoot rubber bands at each other,
but also to remind each other of the great glories of God.
to sharpen one another and how can we build one another up to
pastor a church, to care for people, to answer questions.
It's been a real blessing. The book of Jude, if you're not
familiar with it, was written according to verse one by Jude,
a servant of Jesus Christ. He is the brother of James. If
you know who James is, James and Jude are half brothers of
Jesus, the children of Mary. But he says he is a servant of
Jesus, and he highlights his brother James. He's not looking
for his own glory. He's not looking for his own
esteem. But as we see in Jude 24 and 25, he gives all glory
to God. This morning, as we look at Jude
20, 24, and 25, the title of my message is, To God Be the
Glory. And the point of my message,
if you want to follow along that way, is first of all, to whom
are we to ascribe glory? And we'll be looking at, who
are we to give glory to? Secondly, we'll be looking at,
what are we to ascribe to our triune God? Looking at the specifics
of what does that mean? What is the application of that?
What does Jude say? And then the third point is when
should he receive this ascription? Another way we could ask that
is when should we, but we recognize even as Jude will state, we have
not been able to do this as long as our God will receive all of
the glory, majesty, dominion, and authority that belong to
him. So first of all, as we come into the single chapter book,
Oh, it might be a little strange to you that we're beginning at
the very end. I haven't had the privilege here
of preaching through the book of Jude. But these verses, the
close of Jude, encourage us in how we are to live our lives
from here until all of eternity. And Jude writes in Jude chapter
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. First of all, to God be the glory. To whom are we to ascribe glory? We are to ascribe glory, we are
to give glory, to write, say, speak and live glory to our God
who is able to keep us from stumbling. As we see in Jude chapter 24,
to him who is able to keep you from stumbling. Notice that it
is not that he is able to refrain from stumbling, because He is
the Holy God from all eternity past who has never failed. He
is God who has taken on flesh, who has given His life for us,
and He was tested in all ways that we were, Jesus was, and
He did not sin. He is God the Holy Spirit who
is able to indwell sinful man and not be tainted by sin. The God who deserves glory does
not struggle. He is not tempted by in the sense
that we are where we are tempted and we fail. He does not fail. He remains pure, holy and perfect. We are encouraged this morning.
We sang this morning and now we see this morning that believers,
we are to give glory to the one who is able to keep us from stumbling. You come here this morning, you
gather together with the people of God, those who hopefully are
helping you to do this, for fathers to be great fathers in light
of the word of God, for mothers to be great mothers in light
of the word of God. Not perfect, we have already
sinned, and that's why we needed a savior. We have already thought,
said, and done things that dishonor God, and that's why we must believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ in order to be saved. But for those who
have placed their faith and trust in Christ, they don't have to
live in sin. I don't have to give in to my
sinful desires, but I don't do that perfectly, and I suspect
you don't either. I don't have to walk in unrighteousness. I am able to trust in the one
who is able to uphold even my toes from hitting the proverbial
nightstand of sin." In fact, we read about this, and you can
make a note to look up 1 Corinthians 10, verse 13 at another time. I had a professor in college
who called that the escape hatch verse. Out of a submarine, there's
one way in and out, and it's the way to get in and out is
through a hole. For us who are believers in Christ,
our escape hatch is Jesus Christ. He makes us an escape from sin. He is able to get us out of sin
and not allow us to stumble. I don't know how you're doing
with that today, this past week, this past month and this past
year, but you might've noticed we're already in October of 2023.
It's going very fast. The mercies of God are new tomorrow
morning. If 2023 has been a year of struggle
for you, of giving in to the dangers, lures, and enticements
of sin, God is able to keep your toes from stubbling, even today
and tomorrow and the rest of 2023. How does He do this? He does this through the gathering
together of His people, the local church. He does this through
the reading and understanding of His word. This morning, we
looked at Sunday school, as Jesse taught, that we are to abhor
what is evil out of the book of Romans. We are not to repay
evil with evil out of the book of First Peter. We are to be
those people who walk in the goodness and truth of God. Hold
one another up to do that. And this point that Jude is making
in this phrase, is this is our God. He is able to help you to
do that. And my encouragement is you will
be able to see how strong our God truly is. I don't have to
get angry. I don't have to be foolish. I
don't have to say things that are going to tear down and destroy.
And much of the New Testament is written to the contrary of
that. What can I do? I can speak words that are useful
for building up, that help others to go towards love and good deeds. I can be a father who looks to
be a peacemaker and see the blessing that comes from making peace.
Even as Jesse told us in Sunday school, that does not mean putting
up with sin and failing to call out sin. But even my calling
out of sin, I can do so in a righteous and godly way in light of the
word of God. I can be one who looks at my
God and sees what He longs for me, and I walk in the path that
His Word provides, so that my feet might not hit those proverbial
stones, that I might not trip on the proverbial way, and that
I might not be tainted with sin in my Christian life. But we
know Not only is it that we are to ascribe glory to the one who
is able to keep us from stumbling, we come here having already stumbled. Some of us have been wallowing
in the pig pit of sin. We are tainted and we are completely
covered. and something that gives cause
for blame. But notice in verse 24, not only
to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, but continuing
in 24, and that coordinating conjunction, both this and the
other, to present you blameless before the presence of His glory
with great joy. Our God is able to keep us from
getting into the mire of life. But when we are found there,
when we have gone there, when we have chosen to think and say
and do those things that dishonor God, He is able to clean us up
like no one else can. My God is able to look at me
and all of my sin and because of the blood of Christ, to save
me perfectly. There is no sin that was not
paid for on the cross. And as a result, Justin Gort
will stand in the presence of the glory of God, and he will
have great joy. But not because I've done well,
but because my God has saved me. If you are a believer in
the Lord Jesus Christ, if you have gathered here this morning
licking the wounds of a guilty soul, recall what we sang about. We sang about the passages of
scripture that tell us of God's great forgiveness. Great things
He has done. So loved He the world that He
gave us His Son. And purer and higher and greater
will be our wonder, our victory." I love the fact that the hymnal
you have changed that word from transport to victory. It's a
better and clearer reading of what Fanny Crosby wrote. what
great victory we will have in the presence of Christ. Again,
not because of our work, but because of a God who has, through
his grace, given us a wonderful word and truth that missionaries
or pastors or loving parents, in my case, or maybe just a neighbor
who knew Christ as their Savior, came to you, proclaimed the gospel,
and you believed in this one who gave his life If that's true
of you, you are going to be in the presence of Christ with great
joy. And the word Jude uses is blameless. You will be without sin, untarnished,
having no defilement in the glory of his presence. I don't know
about you, but sometimes I wonder about heaven and what it will
be like. And I know that first John tells us it hasn't appeared
what we're going to be, but when we see him, we'll be like him.
I still wonder what will that day be like? And I think of Ephesians
where it says that we are even now seated with Christ in heavenly
places, but the day is coming when that reality will be for
a whole person to be seated in the presence of Christ if we
believe in Jesus. And at that time and at that
moment, we will not be outsiders gazing in, looking like we are
children at a zoo, seeing animals in their recreated environment
and wondering what it's like to be in the cage. We are going
to be God's people in his presence, not gazing in, but experiencing,
seeing and knowing fully what it is to be his children redeemed. and sat in His presence. In that
moment, the positional reality that we have been called to live
wholeheartedly and without sin will be realized. Though now
we struggle, we stumble, we fail, and we fall, a day is coming
when we will not have that struggle. The book of Revelation tells
of a day when every tear will be wiped away. It tells of a
day when there will be no more death, according to the book
of first Corinthians. It tells of the reality in the
Bible that we will be truly blameless in his sight. I'm positionally
that way today because of God's great grace. I hope that I'm
walking that way as I drove up with my children and wife from
Leavenworth this morning. And I think we did pretty well
getting to church. We didn't have that big church fight that
sometimes families experience. If you did, if you couldn't find
the hairbrush, or you couldn't find the iron, or all of your
clothes were dirty, this morning, I encourage you to rejoice that
God's great grace makes you blameless in his sight. And the day is
coming when he's gonna present you Don't miss that phrase at
the end of verse 24, with great joy. Who would have joy in heaven? Who would have no fear of reprimand? Who would have all of their sins
washed away? The child who God brings to his
own presence. Can you imagine how incredible
your life will be in eternity. No more sin, sickness, sorrow,
or death. As we prayed for the family of
those who lost faith, as we think of their hardships and the hurting
that they're experiencing today, the day of the reality of joy
without the taint of sorrow is coming. When David had the privilege
of bringing the Ark of the Covenant back into the city of Jerusalem,
and with joy he celebrated. And then his wife asked him why
he made himself a fool in front of the nation of Israel. His
joy was tainted. There was hardship and sorrow
in the marital relationship that he had. The day is coming when that won't
even be a possibility. The days coming when we think
of Abigail and the fact that she had a foolish husband who
David was ready to kill and put to death and her concern was
real because she knew her own life was in danger. The reality
is the days coming when there's no fear. There's only great joy. as we long for that day. We remember
it's to Him who is able to keep us from stumbling. It's Him who
is able to present us in His own glory, blameless. And then
look at verse 25. Jude continues with a third ephexagetical
phrase. He gives us another description
of our God. To the only God, our Savior through
Jesus Christ, our Lord. And then we'll go on and we'll
see the glory, majesty, dominion, and authority momentarily. To
the only God, perhaps this morning you've been singing along, and
you've been reading along, and you've been hearing the things
of God that we've been discussing, and you might be thinking to
yourself, there's the Father, there's the Son, and the Holy
Spirit. Why do we not to say to the only God? And if you're
familiar with our understanding of scripture and you remember
the passages that that I'll tell you about, but for the sake of
time, we won't track down all of them. But Deuteronomy chapter
six, verses four through six here, O Israel, the Lord, your
God, the Lord, he is one. And then you think of John chapter
10, verse 30. When Jesus says to the Jews,
I and the Father are one. And Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter
40, speaks of the fact that there is only one God. How do we reconcile that? How
do we understand all of scripture? Jude's description to hear in
2 Peter chapter 3, verse 18. And when it says Jesus is the
only Savior, how do we handle all of this? Well, we are reminded
of a number of things. First of all, we do have only
one God. We do not have three. Our God
is one being, eternally expressed in three persons, the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit. One way to describe that would
be the Father is God, but He is not the Son. The Son is God,
but He is not the Father. The Holy Spirit is God, but He
is neither the Father nor the Son. Perhaps you've seen that
Trinitarian symbol relating to who our God is, trying to give
visual representation to how we describe the unity of our
God. The reality is we do only have
one God. And our God, our God is described
in scripture. The Trinitarian concept is difficult
for many to wrap their minds around. But rather than trying
to think deep thoughts, my encouragement to you this morning is try to
rest deeply in our God. Verse 25 says, to the only God,
our Savior, through Jesus Christ. My God has done such great work. And to Him belongs this glory,
majesty, dominion, and authority. To Him, through Jesus, there's
only one way to be saved. There are not many paths to Christ. There are not many paths to the
Father. There are not many paths to the Holy Spirit, for we have
one God. We have one Savior. We have one
Lord, even as we saw in Ephesians chapter four in Sunday school.
What we have is we have a God who graciously and kindly looked
upon the wickedness of man, saw that there was only one way for
mankind to be saved, and that's by His own gracious work to redeem
Adam's fallen children from sin. And He did that work. He sent
His Son, Jesus Christ, who is not a son like my son Jude is
my son, is not an offspring like the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, commonly called the Mormons teach, a literal
offspring of God the Father, He is instead co-equal with the
Father and the Spirit, eternally existing, never without a time
in existence. And it is through Jesus who took
on flesh, who died on the cross and was buried, that salvation
is made possible. Not possible that He works part
of, He gives you part of the way and you must work to make
up the rest. but possible because though people hear of the grace
of the Lord Jesus Christ, not all believe. Many reject salvation
through Christ, thinking they can get to heaven on their own
merit, on their own desirable qualities of pureness of heart,
on their own attempt. But Jude makes very clear that
God is our savior because it is through Jesus that he has
provided life. This is interesting to me that
Jude closes this way. Because if you're familiar with
Jude, if you turn back to Jude chapter 1, there's only one chapter
of Jude, to verse 3, he starts off, In Jude 1 verse 3, I did
it again. Beloved, although I was eager
to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary,
appealing to you to contend for the faith which was once delivered
to all the saints. That verse could have all of
our attention for many hours. There is so much packed in that
verse. Jude wanted to write about our
common salvation. He wanted to write the believers
of this cyclical letter, a letter that was not to one specific
person, but was intended to be passed from congregation to congregation
of local churches. That believers would be encouraged
to contend for the faith that was once delivered to all the
saints. But he couldn't write. about
the salvation that he longed to write about. Because in his
own life, the inspiration of the Holy Spirit upon Jude led
him to write something specifically for us. And in his conclusion
in verse 25, he reminds us of our salvation through Jesus Christ. but he never got to write what
he longed to write in an inspired way. And we are grateful to the
inspiration of the Holy Spirit to give us the book of Jude. It is an incredible reminder
that our God has saved a people for his own possession. As the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, our God worked perfectly
to bring that about. And then we come to something
that is a little odd. Two things to note about verse
25. You may have, if you have a King
James or a New King James, a textual variation that includes the word
wise, and relates all of this to Jesus, rather than what seems
to be in the ESV, the New American Standard, and then I'd be in
a number of other versions, a relation to the Father and the Son. And the reason for that, we believe,
comes out of the connection of the book of Jude to what we see
in 2 Peter. And if you're not familiar with
this, Jude and 2 Peter are very, very similar. They're not identical,
but there's a lot of overlap in what they say. And in this
passage, in Jude chapter 25, I mentioned there's two things,
and that's the first, why we see that textual variation. The
second is there's no verb. in this verse. You and I probably
all have be, but there's actually no verb in the Greek. Perhaps that's italicized in
your Bible. And the reason for that is Jude's
doxology, it might be a set-aside, and it might be in italics, and
it might look like a song, like it's a poem. And the reason for
that is because it is. It is a reminder to us that we
are giving to God, we are actively saying to God, to the one who
is able to keep us from stumbling, to the one who is able to keep
us blameless, to our only God, glory, majesty, dominion, and
authority before all time, now and forever. Amen. Our triune
God, the only God, the one who is able to keep us from stumbling
and present us blameless, He is given, will be given, and
has always been given these four things. And that makes us ask,
what are we to ascribe to our triune God? Well, we'll go through
these fairly quickly. but I hope you will dwell on
them in your own heart and mind. What are you to give to God? I'm not talking about money and
time, but the things Jude lists here. First of all, glory. Glory pertains to the worship
or honor of God. He deserves all praise and he
will receive all praise. Hopefully, in your mind, you
think right away of Isaiah chapter 6. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
God Almighty. Revelation chapters 4, 5, and
I believe 17, where God is ascribed glory in the heavenly scenes.
I hope that you will realize that this morning here in Morrow,
all the way to California and around the world, believers are
gathering together to corporately and individually ascribe glory
to God. We sang about this. Will you
do this on Tuesday? When 315 comes, will you be worshiping
your God? Not just on Sunday, but throughout
this week. I hope you will. I trust many of you already are.
If you don't know how to do that, you have great people in this
church who can help you. Reflecting on scripture, praying
and giving thanks, singing songs of praise. That can be corporate
and should be corporate and is corporate on Sunday. It can be
individual as well, and I encourage you to make time for that. That
second word, majesty, to ascribe and recognize the greatness of
God. Similar, but not a synonym of
giving him glory. Ascribing him majesty, it takes
in the breadth and goodness of God. And we can see this in Psalm
103, 104, 105, and 106. When the history from creation
through the nation of Israel is ascribed to God in Psalm. Psalm 136 begins, Why are you
downcast, O my soul? And then it goes on to recount
all of the ways that we are to remember the loving kindness,
the mercy of God. Psalm 150 tells us in very clear
language that from the lowest of creatures to the highest of
creatures, they are to praise God for His greatness. My encouragement
to you, contemplate God's greatness. Think about the immensity of
a God who has existed for all of eternity, creating a people
for his own possession, putting you not just on this earth, but
he put you on this earth in Eastern Kansas in 2023. He's intentional about that.
That wasn't an accident. You're not a mistake. You are
here because God wants you here. And I hope you're here at church
this morning because you recognize God wants you here. And think
about all of the aspects of life that caused you to have enough
fuel in your vehicle to get to this church and to know what
time it was starting and you arrived to be here on time. That's
incredible planning by God. And what a great provision. Think
about not only that, but ascribe to him glory, majesty. The third
one is dominion. Not a word we often use in our
daily language. In fact, I don't think I use
this word outside of sermon prep this week. So what do we mean
when we say dominion? God is worthy of worship, he
is exceedingly great, and he has unparalleled power and might. Though, through his perfect wisdom
and purpose, he allows Satan, for a time, to roam around and
to accuse the brethren, he is not thwarted nor discouraged
by Satan's attack. If you ever feel like, man, this
world is spiraling out of control, I don't know what can help it.
God can help. God will help, and God is accomplishing
His great purposes, even now. Horrific attacks in Israel, we
hear about all of the hardships that are going on. God is in
control. We might wonder why God would
allow such things, why the hardships would be taking place. But we
cannot get far from the fact that it is for His glory and
for His majesty, for now, forevermore, and from eternity past, that
He deserves that praise ascribed to Him. Satan is a created being
who torments believers, he afflicts them, and he afflicts the world
with unrighteousness. But God is omnipotent. That's
the big theological word we use to say he possesses all power. Believer, today if you feel weak,
worn out, or powerless, look to the strength of our great
God and be strengthened in his glorious might. And that's what
Paul wrote to the church of Ephesus. Be strong in the Lord. Not be strong in yourself, Be
strong in the Lord and the power of his might. And that fourth
word, we have seen glory, majesty, dominion. And again, similar
to how glory and majesty are similar, but not synonyms. We
have this word authority, similar to dominion, but not the same. God's jurisdiction and rule is
clearly stated. No one else has rule over him. No one else has rule outside
of his allowance. Jesus, our great God, holds the
world together by the word of his power, according to the book
of Hebrews. So when should these descriptions be given? And the
final point we see before all time, now and forevermore. God before there was ever an
earth created, when there were no angels, and it was only our
great God, the Father, the Son, and Holy Spirit, in eternity
past, received all glory, majesty, power, dominion, and authority. Now, we have the opportunity
to give that to Him. Here in Kansas, or wherever the
Lord takes you, you can give this to God. He longs for and
desires for you to do that. And for all of eternity, if you
are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, you will do this forever. I can't fathom how long forever
is. I can't imagine how long eternity
will go on. But as a believer in the Lord
Jesus Christ, without any taint of sin, perfectly blameless,
And for all of eternity, I will give to God glory, majesty, dominion,
and authority. If that's not true of you, if
you are not saved through faith in Jesus Christ, you are living
for your own glory, your own majesty, you are attempting dominion
and authority in a world that will thwart you. Because God
will not be mocked and he will not give his authority to another
for eternity. He is giving you ample opportunity
to hear the words of God this morning, to sing of the praises
of God, to see how fantastic He truly is. My encouragement
is to turn to Him and give your life to Him, to believe in the
Lord Jesus Christ, and as Paul said, and be saved. If you have
done that, let these words saturate your mind and guide your heart
this week. that you would be one who wakes
up tomorrow morning and sees, how can I live in a way where
I don't stumble? How can I live in a way where
I trust my God and Savior to lead me, to give him glory, to
give him majesty, to allow his dominion and his authority to
rule over your hearts? A friend of mine in Utah, where
we served for 16 years as missionary, said, I don't hold to lordship
salvation. I hold to lordship sanctification,
that a believer recognizes that Jesus is Lord, just as Jude calls
him in verse 25. The best way for you to ascribe
glory, majesty, dominion, and authority to God is to ask what
would he have you to do in any situation you find yourself and
to live in light of the word of God.
To God Be the Glory (Jude 24-25)
| Sermon ID | 1028232225122892 |
| Duration | 38:52 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Jude 24-25 |
| Language | English |
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