You Can't Do This

Introduction

Our passage this morning is Jude 24-25

Jude 24–25 ESV

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, 25 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.

Let’s pray.

Father, thank you for this wonderful institution. I am grateful to serve here and grateful for all of my relationships here. As I consider this room, hundreds of friends and students who have meant so much to me. I am simply grateful for the opportunity to stand before them and preach your word for a few moments this morning. Help me to be clear, to be steady, and to be truthful. Now, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. Amen.

Many of you know me as the Intramural Director. You’ve seen me shoot a basketball—maybe even that half-court shot I took at halftime earlier this season. (Thanks for the setup, Laquietta.) I airballed it. Let’s just say I’m not winning any MVP awards. In high school, I was better in the student section than on the court. My favorite chant? ‘You can’t do that!’ We’d yell it at the other team whenever they messed up—over and over again. It was loud, it was fun, and it got under their skin. But here’s the thing: nobody likes being told they can’t do something, right? We’d rather hear we’re unstoppable, that we can conquer anything if we just believe in ourselves

Our passage today comes from Jude, a tiny book—just 25 verses. It’s a letter from Jude to the early church, who were facing intense struggles: persecution, false teaching, you name it. Jude writes to urge them to persevere through these trials by the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, look around this room. We’re a diverse bunch—different majors, backgrounds, stories. But one thing unites us: we all face hard things. Raise your hand if you’ve had a tough year. A tough month? Week? Today? See? Struggles don’t discriminate. Whether it’s grades, relationships, finances, or family drama, we all need to persevere.

So here’s my message today: You can’t do that. You can’t persevere through life’s trials on your own. You can’t overcome sin or fix your failures. I know—ouch, right? Some of you are thinking, ‘Mike, that’s harsh. I’ve overcome plenty!’ Or maybe, ‘I came to chapel for encouragement, not a pep talk on failure!’ Fair enough. But stick with me.

Here’s the freedom in this truth: You can’t—but Christ can. My main point is this: We cannot persevere through trials on our own strength, but through Christ, we will. Not ‘we might.’ We will. True perseverance—over struggle, sin, even death—comes only through faith in Christ. Not a casual nod to Jesus, not a trendy Bible verse in your bio, not even a Christian t-shirt, but real, life-changing trust in Him. When you surrender everything to Him, He keeps you from stumbling, presents you blameless before God, and does it all for His glory.

So Yes. You can’t. And some of you are currently deceived into thinking that you can. Today, I want to introduce you to the freedom that is found in saying, “I can’t do that.” And that freedom is only found in Christ. This is freedom that is found in completely and totally surrendering everything you have to Christ and his kingdom. So my main point today is this: We cannot persevere through trials on our strength, but through Christ we will! Not ‘we might’; we will! We cannot persevere through the struggles of life on our own, but through Christ, we will. You want to overcome struggle? You want to persevere? Only through Christ and by following him in faith. And I am not talking about simply lip-service to Christ or putting a Bible verse in your Instagram bio or wearing a Christian t-shirt. Those things won’t help you persevere through life. I am talking about actual life-changing faith in Christ. And when you have that life-saving faith in Christ, you will experience him keeping you from stumbling, presenting you before the Father without blemish, and doing this all for his glory.

Christ Keeps

First, let’s look at the first part of verse 24: “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling.” Stumbling would mean that you are walking somewhere. If you’re stumbling, you’re walking forward. This implies that we are all walking somewhere. Call it your journey of life. And this journey is bumpy. That’s what I was talking about earlier with all of us struggling. The path of life is full of speed bumps and potholes and fender benders and lane closures. Each of those are struggles. Each of those are things we must persevere through. Now, the pronouns in this passage are extremely important: “Now to ‘him’ who is able to keep ‘you.’ We like to read this as “Now to us who are able to keep ourselves.”

Often, as we go throughout life, we think that if we try harder, get more degrees, make more money, put in more hours, do this, do that, that will somehow enable us to be stronger. And maybe temporarily, it will. In this life. But the Christian life is not primarily concerned with the temporary. We are concerned with eternity. Yes, in this life you might experience some success. Yes, you might work really hard and persevere through college and get a good job and have a nice house and a family and live a relatively struggle-free life. But you will stumble. Our primary struggle isn’t against flesh and blood (against things seen and natural), but according to Paul in Ephesians 6, our we wrestle “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” We tend to think of our suffering in terms of the physical. But we are often unaware that there are real forces working against us and against good. We need to think of stumbling in terms of our spiritual life: things like temptation to sin. Pride. Lust. So you can have a successful life, but still stumble. You can have all the money in the world and still stumble into an eternity away from Christ Jesus. We will have stumbles in life. But the ultimate stumbling is not trusting in Christ as Savior. Without Christ, you will stumble in an eternity in hell.

With Christ, however, you experience his ability, his power, to keep you from stumbling. Not keep you from struggling. Not keep you from having suffering. But to keep you from stumbling. Eternally and in this life. You can’t do this on your own. Earlier I described this as freedom. Here’s what I mean: Life without Christ is exhausting. It’s too heavy a burden for anyone to bear. In Christ, you can finally give up on trying so hard. You can release yourself from the burden of working to earn your favor with him. You can give up on the grind for his grace. In Christ, you can start to breathe again and rest in his work for you. “Now to him who is able to keep you.”

If you are a Christian, he keeps you from stumbling! But that’s not all he does for those who he does for those who are in him.

Christ Presents

He is able to keep us from stumbling, and he is also able to present us blameless for the presence of his glory with great joy. What does this mean? If he is able to keep us from stumbling (eternally, remember; not temporarily), then he is also able to present us. This is pointing to the point of time in which your life will end. Remember, we are all on a journey. And there will be a point in your journey when you stand before a holy God. And all that you’ve ever done will be opened and fully known by a holy God. And he will sit as judge over you. Now, the other thing that we all have in common in this room is that we are all sinful. We have all fallen short. Even if you think you are a good person, you have sinned. And that disqualifies you from being in the presence of God’s holiness. He is so holy, so morally perfect, that he cannot be in the presence of our sinfulness. At that point, it won’t matter what you’ve accomplished. It won’t matter how much money you made. It won’t matter how many followers you have. The only thing that will matter is if you are presented blameless before God. You can’t present yourself. You’d fall short. As sinners, we need someone to present us, and that someone must be perfect. That someone must have never stumbled. And that can only be found in Christ. Do you want to be presented blameless before God? Then trust in Christ today. He will present you. He will take your blame. In fact, he has already done that on the cross. He died for you that you would live for him. And the benefit of his dying for you is that he will bring you into his presence forever.

But the verse doesn’t end there: “with great joy.” Not only does submitting to Christ in faith help us to not stumble, but it will help us enter his presence. And in Psalm 16, we are promised that his presence is fulness of joy. God helps us endure suffering in this life, and keeps us from stumbling, all while helping us endure to the end, where he will bring us into his presence forever. And that is where we are headed. Toward a great joy. Toward a great future. Toward a great purpose. You can’t do that. You cannot keep yourself from stumbling. You cannot present yourself in front of a holy God. And you cannot experience great joy. Without Christ. He is the only one able to keep you from stumbling and the only one who can bring you before God and present you blameless. He is the only one who can do this. Trust in him today. Then you’ll experience true freedom.

For Christ’s Glory

This passage is called a doxology. A doxology is a short series of verses that are in a book whose main purpose is to ascribe glory to God. Doxa means glory, logos means words. These are glory-words. Words of worship. Words of praise. Words of amazement that he is able to this.

When we take a look at ourselves and see ourselves as sinful — and I am talking about being really honest with ourselves — we are amazed that there is anyone who can keep us and present us. Look, I know the depths of my sin and it’s not pretty. I know the struggles I’ve had and the foolish things I’ve done. It is utterly amazing that there is anyone or anything out there that could keep me and preset me blameless. I can’t do it! But God can. Why? Because he is all-glorious, majestic, powerful, and authoritative. He is completely and totally deserving all praise in this universe. He has all power to act as he sees fit in the universe. And he is able to do whatever he pleases. And in that power, that glory, that divine ability, he has chosen to keep and preserve and love sinners like you and me. He has seen us in all of our inability to keep ourselves from stumbling, and he has saved us. He is worthy of all of our worship. Every ounce. Every worshipful word that comes from us should be directed at him for what he has done for us.

Christ’s work in us to keep us, guard us, guide us, present us, save us, should produce in us a life that continually gives glory and honor to him. So I ask you this morning: Who is your life praising? Are you living to glorify yourself? That is exhausting. Turn to Christ and glorify him with your life. He already has all glory, majesty, dominion, and authority in the world. One day your knee will bow to him and praise him as such, as every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord. So you might as well get started during this life.

Conclusion

Life is hard. That’s the point of the book of Jude. In fact, that’s the point of most of Scripture. Life is hard. It’s a struggle. And we hear over and over today that we have the power within ourselves to overcome if we’ll just follow our heart or be true to ourselves. And I want to stand in front of you and just clarify: “You can’t do that.” But friends, hear me today: I am not trying to discourage or demoralize you. I am not trying to make you feel hopeless. But take this as a warning: If you are trying to make it through life with all of its struggles without Christ, you will be discouraged, demoralized, and hopeless on the last day.

You cannot persevere, because you aren’t strong enough and you are too sinful and you cannot stand before a holy God. But Christ is good enough and is strong enough and will stand before God on behalf of everyone who has trusted in him. And those who trust him, he will keep his promises. You can’t do this. But Christ in you can. For his glory.

“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.”