Sermon Tone Analysis

The Doxology of the Christian Life

Ron Dunn

Jude 24-25

 

        As Jude contemplates the encroaching work of the enemy, he ends up on this tremendous doxology.

It is really more than a doxology...it is really a confession of faith.

The Bible has a number of doxologies and doxologies are not prayers, but they are confessions of faith.

And against the black background of all that has been said concerning the last days in which we now find ourselves, he comes out with this tremendous doxology, the confession of his faith.

The first word of verse 24 in the English Bible is "now", but it really ought to be "but", because Jude is beginning a stark contrast to what he has already.

Verse 24-25...

        "But to 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

        through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory and majesty,

        dominion and power both now and forever.

Amen."

Several years ago, I was suffering from some form of insomnia.

I went for weeks and weeks without being able to sleep at night.

Finally, I went to my doctor and told him I needed to have something because it was just dragging on for weeks and even into months without being able to sleep.

And this particular doctor was not one who liked to prescribe sleeping pills and so he said that he wanted to teach me self-hypnosis so you'll be able just to put yourself to sleep every night.

He said he would teach me absolutely to relax and put myself to sleep.

So, I said, "Alright."

And I went several times while he taught me self-hypnosis.

Simply a method by which you concentrate and you talk yourself into going to sleep.

Some of you don't need to be talked into going to sleep, it's just natural, but I needed to be talked into going to sleep.

The main thrust of his particular method, and there are many methods, but his was that I would go and sit in his office, and he would say, "Now, I want you to pick out an object on the wall...a picture, a dark smudge, a nail...anything...just pick out an object on the wall, and I want you to look at that and concentrate on it."

And, so, I would.

Then, after a moment or two after concentrating on one object, he would say, "Now, I want you to close your eyes, but when you close your eyes you will still be able to see that object that you last looked at."

And so, as I closed my eyes the image of that object was still there and he said, "Now, with your eyes closed you can continue concentrate on that object..." and of course, the process was that you would fall asleep.

Of course, if I picked today's headlines to concentrate on I would never be able to go to sleep, and I would never be able to rest.

The point that I'm bringing out in this is that you and I see a great many things but it's those things that we see or feel...those things that remain in our vision even after we no longer see them...those are the things that dominate us.

It is the last look that can either bring you rest or restlessness.

It is the last look, the image of which remains in you conscious or your subconscious long after the object is passed away...and whatever that image is that you have concentrated and has imbedded itself...that will either give you rest and assurance or will give you restlessness.

Now, there are many things that you and I can look at today that are going to cause us to be restless, discouraged, and depressed.

As a matter of fact, I'm thinking seriously of giving up reading newspapers...reading headlines...I haven't read an encouraging headline in I don't know how long.

And if it's going to get worse, I'd rather just not read about it...I'll find out about it soon enough.

If a person walks through this world looking only outward, seeing all the problems, seeing all the dishonesty, seeing all the disruption of the established institutions, he's not going to be able to have any of the assurance or rest and I think one of the greatest missing commodities in present America is assurance and rest and confidence.

I've been reading in magazines lately of polls that have taken on college campuses and in suburbs...door to door... "Do you have any confidence in our president?

Do you have any confidence in our legislative leaders?

Do you have any confidence in our school teachers?"

And you know, it's discouraging to see that the majority of the American public have lost nearly all their confidence in any kind of leader...any kind of leader!

They have been duped so often and disappointed so many times, that as they look upon the scene on the outside...everywhere they look...there is nothing to inspire them to any confidence.

You can look inward and only increase the despair because as you look inward you see your responsibility coupled with your weakness...and that makes a great team...responsibility coupled with weakness.

That can cause you to live without any kind of assurance or confidence.

Now, sometimes Christians are accused of being unreal...of living in an ivory tower.

We're accused of not facing reality, but that's not the truth.

The truth of the matter is that that man who knows how to walk with God does face reality.

He does look at the world around him.

He does see the starving multitudes.

He does see all the dishonesty and degradation.

He does see all that.

But, that's not his last look.

That's not the image that imbeds itself on his subconscious after that's passed...that's never his last look and the problem with most people is that what they see on the outside and what they see on the inside is their last look.

No wonder they're discouraged.

No wonder there's an absence of assurance.

There must always be not only the outward look and not only the inward look, but there must always be as the last look...the upward look.

This is what Jude is doing in this little epistle.

If you've never read it in several different translations because there is so much in there that is not easy to understand.

But in this little epistle, the first twenty verses or so gives a depressing picture.

I'll be honest with you, if you closed it off a few verses earlier, I wouldn't want to read it, because all it is is denunciation...the dangers that are threatening us and threatening our Christian life, that are threatening the fellowship of the church...that are threatening society.

But, Jude is a realist and he does paint a real picture of the evils and the wastefulness and the sinfulness that is around about us.

He doesn't hide his head in the clouds and say they don't exist.

He sees all of that...he looks inward to see the innate wickedness and weakness that is in every man, but he doesn't stop there.

As he closes this letter, he brings us in to the place where there can always be absolute assurance and he ends it on a note of victory and he ends it with a doxology.

Now, I want to tell you something.

Only a man who really has placed his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ can walk through this world with all its problems, with all its hypocrisy, with all its dangers and still end up in a doxology, instead of a groan.

And I'll just be honest with you this morning, if you are a professing Christian, and you cannot walk through this world, regardless how godless this world may be, you cannot walk through it in doxology, there's something wrong.

And so as Jude ends this letter, he gives us the upward look, and he says, "All of these things are true...things are bad...and they're just going to get worse.

Evil men are going to wax worse and worse."

I tell you this morning, the pornography situation is going to get worse not better.

The wickedness in our government is going to get worse not better.

Jesus predicted it and all the way through, the Bible simply states that evil men shall wax worse and worse and the love of many shall grow cold and the longer this world exists the colder it's going to be and the more indifferent and the more wicked, but Jude doesn't stop there.

He closes out this tremendous little letter, by saying, "BUT...don't let that be your last look...But unto Him who is able to keep you from falling...."

 

        Every Christian's life ought to be a doxology.

And regardless of the situation in which you find yourself, regardless of the temptation that confronts you today, I want to tell you something...you ought to be able to meet it all with a doxology, and with this confession of faith.

Now, if as I said a moment ago, you cannot live this life and walk through this world with that doxology on your lips and in you heart, it's simply because you have an inadequate and inferior conception of God.

And Jude, in order to inspire assurance and confidence and rejoicing in the hearts of these people who are living in much worse times than you and I can ever imagine...he points them to God...he gives them a vision of God and he says, "Let this be your last look...concentrate on this and as you walk through this world with this vision imbedded in your minds and hearts, you'll be able to rejoice!"

 

        So, Jude simply directed his readers to a vision of God and I don't think there is anything I can do better this morning than to try to direct those of you who listen to see God, to see that God who is able regardless of the circumstances in which you find yourself.

Let's look at these two verses and let's take a look, a  concentrated at the God who is the Source of all assurance...and

He is.

The only place you're going to find any confidence and assurance in this world today is as your heart is anchored to the living God.

This is why in Ephesians 2, describing those who are lost, Paul says, "They have no hope and are without God in this world."

Those two things are synonymous.

If you're without God, then you have no hope and the only place you'll ever find hope and confidence is in the living God.

So...the first look I want us to take with us is to see God as a sovereign God.

This is most essential.

It is indispensably essential that you and I, if we are to live in confidence and calm and poise and peace...we must see our God as a God of sovereignty.

Now that word, sovereignty, is a theological word that a lot of these young boys and girls sitting on the front row may not understand.

Sovereignty simply means "the ability to do anything you want to do and to do it right".

That's what sovereignty is.

The power and the ability to do anything you want to do and to do it right.

And the first and foremost thing that Jude reveals to us about our God in this doxology is that He is a sovereign God...a God of absolute sovereignty.

There are two things that point out this sovereignty and I want you to notice these.

Look at verse 25...He says, "To the only wise God."

Now underline that word, "only."

His sovereignty is seen in His aloneness.

He is the only God.

You say, "Now, Pastor...we already know that.

Why are you laboring this point about God being the only God?  We all know that!"

Well, some of you don't live as though you know it.

As a matter of fact, a great many Christians that I know live as though there were two Gods, or three Gods, or four Gods, and they are in mortal combat and there is some doubt as to who will come victorious.