Jude, a Letter to the Church, Page 4

While Jesus told his followers that they would be known by their fruit, Jude calls these troublemakers “fruitless.”   He says they are useless, even a burden on the church.  In the face of destructive false teaching, Jude warns the church to build their faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.  We looked at that briefly last week, but I want to reiterate it because there was so much in last week’s message that this part might have slipped by you.  Building yourself up in your most holy faith is extremely important.  Don’t just accept someone else’s faith – not my faith, not your parents’ faith, but build up your own faith.  Did any of you share your faith stories this past week?  How did it go?  Did any of you listen to anyone else’s story? If you were here for the Baccalaureate service, you got to hear some powerful stories of faith from our grads.

Faith is rarely built when it isn’t tested.  One of my friends recently complained that his running times aren’t dropping.  He wants to be able to run a certain pace, but he’s not able to.  I responded to him that he’s going to have to run faster if he wants his times to drop.  Kind of obvious, isn’t it?  But it’s not always that easy.  In fact, to drop time, he’s going to have to run faster, but shorter.  We call that “interval” running.  That will train his body to run faster.  Likewise we have to do intervals for our faith.

How does that work?  Stepping out in faith isn’t easy anytime, but when you’ve become accustomed to doing so, it becomes easier, less foreign.  When I was a kid, I thought the only way to step out in faith was to volunteer to become a missionary to Africa.  Funny, I never even thought of becoming a pastor; that never even crossed my mind.  But it’s a huge step to go from just sitting in the pews to the African mission field.  So instead of getting frustrated that you “can’t” make a huge step, take a small step!  I wouldn’t counsel any of you who have never run a step to sign up for a marathon; I would tell you to start small; maybe with walking.  Likewise with stepping out in faith.  Your first step can be to tell your faith story to someone “safe.”

Before you start building up your faith, it’s good to remember the big picture, however, and Jude’s benediction might help you with this.  It’s a rather complex sentence: did any of you learn diagramming when you were in English class?  I tried to diagram this sentence, and it’s pretty much impossible.  But the main emphasis is clear: it points to God. 

God is first described as able to keep you from falling.  Did you notice that it doesn’t say he will keep you from falling?  Just that he is able.  We have free will, and we can turn our backs on him whenever we want.  Like the Israelites whom God delivered from Egypt, who later rebelled against God.  They never entered the Promised Land.  Not even Moses. 

But if you let him, God will keep you from falling and will present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy.  To rightly understand this, we need to understand God’s glorious presence.  When Moses asked to see God’s glory, God responded: you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live. (Exodus 33:20). When Isaiah saw the Lord, he cried out “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty” (Isaiah 6:5). When Ezekiel saw the likeness of the glory of the Lord, he fell facedown.

I grew up with a respect and love for God and Jesus, but sometimes we forget how mighty and fearsome God’s presence is.  He’s not just our “buddy” who hangs out with us. He will not tolerate sin in his presence whatsoever.  This means if we have sin in our lives we cannot come into God’s presence.  This is why James tells us to confess our sins to each other and pray for each other that you may be healed.  The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. (James 5:16). It’s not the confession itself that frees us from our sins; it’s the state of our heart that admits we’ve done wrong and allows the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made on the cross to be effective against our sin.  Then and only then does the Holy Spirit usher us into God’s glorious presence, without fault.  Jesus atoned for our fault, and now when we enter into God’s presence, we are faultless! And great joy comes with it, because this is the relationship we were meant for.  This was how God meant things to be when he created Adam and Eve, when he spoke face-to-face with them and walked together in the Garden of Eden in the cool of the day.

Jude wants to be sure that God gets the proper credit, that all glory goes to God.  This was one of Paul’s areas of focus in his letter to Rome.  In fact, he opens with a stinging rebuke: people who knew God neither glorified him as God or gave thanks to him.  Because of this, he gave them over to their sinful desires.  Romans 1:18-32 can be summarized as God basically saying, “If you want to be like this, then be like this. I won’t force you to worship me, to acknowledge me.  But if you choose your own way, know that you are apart from me, and you’ll have to deal with your own sins.”

There are some really tragic moments in the Old Testament.  When God comes walking through the Garden of Eden to enjoy time with Adam and Eve and they are hiding from him because of their sin – that’s a tragic time.  When God’s people decide they need a king because all of the nations around them have one, when they all “do as they see fit”, that’s tragic.  But terribly tragic moment you might not have ever focused on comes in Ezekiel 10:18, when the glory of God departed from over the threshold of the temple. 

God won’t put up with sin!  This week I heard it said this way: God’s not playing.  When Jude says “to God be glory” – the big question is who will give God glory?  When Jesus was coming into Jerusalem some of the Pharisees told Jesus to quiet his followers down.  Jesus responded, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”  (Luke 19:40).  In other words, if God’s people don’t give Him glory, the earth itself will.  Will you give God glory, church?  Will you do everything you can to make sure that when people look at us, they see God, and when they see God, they love who they see?

Jude also commands us to give to God majesty, power, and authority.  These go together, comprising God’s role as King.  Would you ever think of just sauntering into a King’s presence, doing whatever you want, whenever you want?  There are all sorts of customs that go into how one acts in the presence of a King.  Like, if you were eating with a King, you wouldn’t start eating before the King eats (and wouldn’t ask for something else other than what the King’s servants put on your plate).  Coming into God’s presence with the proper respect is more than just being quiet and reflective.  It’s more than just dressing up nicely.  It’s more about the posture of our hearts than what we look like on the outside.

Honestly I think we sometimes forget who’s got the power.  We treat God like a genie in a bottle; whenever we want something, we rub the bottle and demand the genie come out and satisfy our every wish.  How ridiculous is that?  Who do we think we are to shake our fists at God and demand our way?  God is the one with the power and authority.  This is why Jesus instructs us to pray “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  Even Jesus Himself prayed that way: “Not my will, but yours be done.”

And when we realize who is who –that God is God and we are not, the things that God will do are awesome.  It’s kind of like what Robert Yates said: “It is amazing what can be accomplished when nobody cares about who gets the credit.”  But better said: it’s amazing what God will accomplish when He gets the glory.

And God proves that He deserves the glory through Jesus Christ our Lord, through his teaching, his perfect life, his death, and his resurrection.  And our command is to listen to him and obey his words.