Kept from Falling

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Me

SHOW ZAKK NAME GRAPHIC HERE. WAIT TO USE MAIN SERIES GRAPHIC WHEN REQUESTED BELOW.

So — those of you who know me well know two things about me: I love being dramatic — and I love telling ridiculous stories about my wife. Today — you get both.

Years ago — we got invited to a nice dinner. Not a nice dinner like “somebody made a casserole”. A nice dinner. Formal. Catered. The kind where there’s a string quartet somewhere and you’re not sure if it’s real or a recording.

Let me set the scene. We were young. And we were broke. And I mean broke broke. We didn’t have enough money to pay attention.

And Blaire — she was about a month away from having our second daughter. Nine months pregnant — but at this point she felt about 74 months pregnant. She’s also a stay-at-home mom for our two-year-old — and feels like she hasn’t had an adult conversation since the Clinton administration.

And somebody gifts us two tickets to a black-tie charity gala with an all-you-can-eat buffet from some of the nicest restaurants in town.

For a broke — starving — third-trimester woman — that’s not a date night. That’s like the rapture.

So she puts on this dress — sparkles — sequins — the whole thing. And when I say sparkles were everywhere — I mean everywhere. I was finding sequins in the floor mats of my car two years later. I’d vacuum — and find another one. She felt like a million bucks.

We walk in — and there’s the buffet — laid out like manna from heaven — except manna didn’t come with a shrimp station.

We load up plates full of food we couldn’t have afforded with actual money — and we sit down at a table with some co-workers of mine. But these weren’t people I knew well. Like “nod in the hallway well” — not “watch me almost die” well.

And that’s when it happened.

I take a bite of shrimp. And somewhere between my plate and my throat — my body decides — for the first time in my entire life — that I am now allergic to shellfish. Retroactively. In real time. At a formal dinner. In front of strangers.

My mouth starts tingling. And my throat starts tightening. And I’m thinking two things at once:

First, “I might actually be dying.”

And second, “I cannot make this weird for the people I say ‘hi’ to in the hallway.”

So — very calmly — very casually — I lean over to Blaire and whisper, “I think I’m having an allergic reaction to this food.”

And Blaire — nine months pregnant — sparkling like a disco ball — finally out of the house — calmly puts her fork down — slowly turns — looks me dead in the eye and whispers back, “If you ruin this night for me, I’ll kill you.”

And then goes back to eating like nothing happened.

So now I’ve got even more things to worry about:

My throat closing.

And my wife’s threat.

And only one of them has a Benadryl solution.

So I excuse myself — power-walk to the bathroom — drink approximately a gallon of tap water out of my cupped hands like a raccoon — and try not to ruin this woman’s night by dying at her table.

By the grace of God — I hadn’t actually swallowed much of it — so the reaction never got worse than an itchy throat and a wounded ego. I survive. I come back to the table. Blaire looks up — and pauses just long enough to ask if I’m okay.

I tell her I think so.

And then she says — and I want you to hear this because it lands exactly where we’re going with this sermon — “Good. Keep yourself together, and let me enjoy my night.”

We

I have laughed about that interaction for years — “Keep yourself together” — for years. Then I sat down to write this message — and it stopped being funny and started being convicting — because that’s basically what I’ve been telling you for three weeks.

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This morning we’re finishing out our series in Jude called “Kept”.

Week 1 — was Fight for the Faith.

Week 2 — Keep Your Place.

Week 3 — Keep yourself — by giving yourself away.

Every week — more verbs. And every week — more on you.

And if you’re anything like me — some of that language has started to feel less like an invitation and more like Blaire’s whisper at the table — “Keep it together. Don’t make this weird. Don’t let anybody see you slipping.” So we smile — we nod — we go back to eating — and underneath it — we’re doing the equivalent of power-walking to the bathroom — gulping water — trying to hold ourselves together long enough to get through the night without anybody noticing we’re falling apart.

Some of you here this morning are white-knuckling through your marriage. Your sobriety. Your faith. Your parenting. Nobody at the table knows it — but you are working so hard to stay upright.

Here’s the question this letter has been asking the whole time — and we finally get to answer it today:

“WHAT IF KEEPING” GRAPHIC

What if “keeping it together” was never actually your job to begin with?

Jude’s been building to this — and in the last two verses of this tiny letter — he’s about to tell us who was really doing the holding.

God

This morning we’re in Jude — Verses 24 and 25. The very last two verses of this book. So far — we’ve had 23 verses of warnings and commands. Jude said “Keep yourselves.” But today — to end this letter — Jude is doing something that’s almost jarring. He stops talking to us — and starts talking to God.

Look with me at those two verses.

Jude 24–25 CSB

24 Now to him who is able to protect you from stumbling and to make you stand in the presence of his glory, without blemish and with great joy, 25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time, now and forever. Amen.

Here’s the whole sermon in one sentence — so don’t miss it:

“YOU DON’T KEEP YOURSELF” GRAPHIC

You don’t keep yourself. He has kept you the whole time.

Exposition

So let’s walk through this passage together slowly — because this is more than a prayer at the end of this letter. Jude is doing some real work in these last couple verses.

v. 24

Take a look at the beginning of Verse 24 again with me:

Jude 24 CSB

24 Now to him who is able…

After 23 verses of you:

You fight

You contend

You remember

You build

You keep

But now — Jude doesn’t end on a verb. He ends on a name. Him. He doesn’t say, “Now to you, who are finally capable.” He says, “To Him who is able.”

That’s the whole argument of what Jude has been building to in this letter. He’s spent most of his time telling us about people who weren’t able to hold on — the wilderness generation — the rebellious angels. A whole catalog of people who let go — or got let go of. And now — in the very next breath — he says you aren’t able — but God is able.

Think about that shrimp. I knew something was wrong the second I bit into it. I could feel it happening in real time — and there was not one thing I could do to stop my throat from closing. I could gulp water — and pray — and power-walk to the bathroom like my dignity depended on it. But I couldn’t make myself not be allergic to it. And I couldn’t make Blaire care about it either! All of that was completely out of my hands.

That’s most of us with our faith — if we’re honest. We’re gulping water. We’re managing the symptoms. We’re working so hard to keep it together — and Jude’s entire letter has been building to this: It was never your grip strength holding you here. It was God’s.

Then Jude says:

Jude 24 CSB

24 …to protect you from stumbling…

That word — protect — it’s actually the same word in Greek that Jude has used over and over again in this letter. The the word in this verse is actually “keep” in a lot of translations.

“TEREO” GRAPHIC

In Greek — it’s the word “tereo” (TAY-reh-oh). The angels in Verse 6 that we talked about a couple weeks ago — they didn’t keep their position. So now they’re being kept in chains. And then last week — we learned that we’re called to keep ourselves in God’s love.

And this isn’t new. The Psalmist said it a thousand years earlier in Psalm 121:3

Psalm 121:3 CSB

3 He will not allow your foot to slip; your Protector will not slumber.

God’s not up there hoping you make it. He’s not tired. He’s not distracted. He’s kept His people this way the whole time.

And here in Verse 24 of our passage — He is the one doing the keeping — keeping us from stumbling — permanently.

And here’s what I think is so amazing about this phrase — it’s not “keep (or protect) you after you stumble”… Jude says God keeps us from stumbling in the first place.

That dinner I had — I did what I could. The bathroom — the water — the drinking-out-of-my-hands routine. But if we’re being real — none of that is actually what determined how that night ended. I didn’t out-maneuver an allergic reaction with hydration.

The reason I’m telling you a funny story about it instead of Blaire telling you a very different story at my funeral — is that whatever was in that shrimp didn’t hit me as hard as it could have.

That part was never in my hands. I was already being kept before I ever stood up from that table.

That’s the difference between being rescued and being kept. A rescue happens after you’ve already gone under — somebody pulls you out — patches you up — and you’ve got a great story about resilience. But “kept from stumbling” means the fall gets prevented before it ever happens — by somebody else’s ability — not your own quick thinking.

That’s not a lesser grace than pulling yourself back from the edge. It’s the greater one — because it means the whole time you thought you were managing the crisis — you were actually just being carried through it.

Look at the next part of Verse 24:

Jude 24 CSB

24 …to make you stand in the presence of his glory…

Standing in presence is legal language. In the original Greek — it meant the language of somebody bringing you forward — vouching for you — standing you in front of a judge and saying, “This one’s mine. This one’s clean.” This is what Jesus did for us through the Cross. We don’t present ourselves. We get presented.

It’s like… and I say this with all the love in the world — like a woman who is nine-months-pregnant and being handed a plate of food she didn’t cook — and a dinner she didn’t pay for — by people who set the whole thing up for her benefit.

Blaire didn’t work that buffet line into existence. She just showed up in her sparkly dress and received it. That’s what “making you stand in the presence of His glory” means. You show up — but He did the work.

Then the next part of the verse says:

Jude 24 CSB

24 …with great joy,

Not relief. Not, “oh thank goodness we made it,” but joy. This is the difference between finishing a marathon on fumes and being carried across the finish line by somebody who was never going to let you fall short — and then throwing a party about it. God isn’t grudgingly keeping us — He’s joyful about it.

v. 25

And then Verse 25. Jude doesn’t end with an application point. He ends with a doxology. A moment of praise and worship. Take a look:

Jude 25 CSB

25 to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time, now and forever. Amen.

Notice — after an entire letter about our responsibility to contend… to keep — to build — to fight — the very last word isn’t about us at all. It’s glory. It’s Him. And it’s through Jesus Christ. Not through your effort. Not through your track record. Through Jesus — His life — His death — His resurrection — that’s the “how” behind being able. God isn’t able to keep us despite the mess of our life. He’s able to keep us because Jesus already dealt with the mess.

That’s the whole letter of Jude in reverse. Fight for the faith — because we are kept. Watch the warnings — because apart from Him — we drift. Keep yourself in His love — by standing close to the One who’s already holding us. And in the end — you don’t keep yourself. He has kept you the whole time.

You

So what do we do with this in the upcoming week?

It’s not about “believing more” or “trying harder to feel kept”. But it’s really pretty simple.

First — name where you’re cupping water. Somewhere in your life right now — I’d venture to guess you’re doing the spiritual equivalent of power-walking to a bathroom — drinking out of your cupped hands. Maybe you’re trying to manage a crisis — alone — because you don’t want to make it weird for people around the table.

Maybe it’s the marriage you’re patching up on your own timeline. It’s the drive home down 41 after work where you rehearse the fight you’re about to have instead of praying through it.

Or a habit you’ve been white-knuckling instead of confessing.

Maybe a grief you’ve never actually let anybody carry with you.

So friend — name it. Specifically — not generically. Not just “my spiritual life needs to be better,” but more like, “I haven’t been honest with my spouse about the stress I’ve been feeling lately.”

And then — say it out loud to God. Not to fix it — but to hand it over. The prayer isn’t, “God — help me keep it together.” But try, “God — I can’t keep this together — and I’m done pretending I can.”

And finally — before this week is up — tell one person about it. Your spouse — or somebody in your small group. A friend who you trust. Not because confession earns you anything with God — He already kept you before you said a word. But because staying kept was never meant to happen alone in a bathroom with a cup of water. It’s done in community, together. That is discipleship.

And here’s why you can actually do all three of these — name it — pray it — and tell it — without it wrecking you. Because you’re not letting go of your grip on thin air. The Cross already held what you’ve been trying to carry. Every failure you’re naming — every version of yourself you’ve been managing so nobody at the table would notice — Jesus carried the full weight of that to the Cross and back. You’re not risking anything by opening your hand. He already dealt with what falls out of it.

Church — that isn’t weakness — that’s this passage becoming personal instead of just theological.

The great pastor Charles Spurgeon — I quoted him last week. He was somebody who struggled with depression for a large part of his life. And he knew exactly what it felt like to run out of grip strength. He wrote about the moment this stopped being a doctrine and became his own relief. He said he knew he couldn’t keep himself, but:

SPURGEON QUOTE

“If Christ promised to keep me, then I should be safe forever.”

- Charles Spurgeon

Notice what he said there — not, “I’d feel safer.” Not “I’d probably be fine.” But safe forever — because the safety was never located in his own grip to begin with.

That is the trade on the table this week. Not “try harder to hold on.” But to let go of the pretending — and rest in the fact that you were never the one holding on to begin with.

And if you’re in this room and you’ve never actually done that — never told God you’re done trying to earn your own keeping — never trusted what Jesus did on the Cross to be enough — that invitation is for you too — right where you’re sitting. You don’t have to walk down front — or raise your hand where everybody can see… but it’s just you and God — honestly — right now, saying, “Lord — I can’t keep myself. But I trust that You can keep me.” That’s the whole prayer. And it’s enough.

We

The truth about each of us is that none of us know everything the next chapter of our life holds. I don’t know what He’s got for my life — or my family. I don’t know every fall I’ll face. Or even every table I’ll sit at not knowing what’s in the food.

None of us do.

But here’s what I do know: I am not the one keeping myself upright through any of it. I never was. Not that night at the dinner — and not on the nights since.

If you’ve ever wondered what your pastor actually banks his whole life on — it’s not my grip. It’s not my track record. It’s not how well I keep it together at a dinner where I feel like I’m dying. It’s this: He is able. He’s been keeping me this whole time. And he’s not done yet.

And for what it’s worth — Blaire and I still laugh about that dinner. She still hasn’t apologized for the death threat by the way. But every time that story comes up — I think about how much of my life has gone exactly like that night: me — falling apart — positive I had to hold it together myself so I didn’t ruin anything — when the whole time — I was already being kept. I just didn’t know it yet.

But the truth about life — simply — is this:

You don’t keep yourself. Because He has kept you the whole time.

Prayer

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