The God of our Faith

INTRODUCTION

-{Jude}

-Several years ago, on an island nation in the Pacific, there was a large earthquake, and the inhabitants of one particular small village were greatly alarmed. The people had reason to be afraid, for the disaster had destroyed many homes and taken several lives in their village and all across the island. There was one older lady in the village that the whole village knew, and during this crisis she was surprisingly calm and joyous. Finally, one of them said to her, “Mother, how can you be so calm? Are you not afraid?” “No,” she said, “I rejoice to know that I have a God who can shake the world.”

-What an amazing, and wise, perspective that woman had. You see, this woman not only made a profession of faith, and not only did she get baptized, and not only did she know right doctrine and did and said all the right Christiany things—this woman knew God closely and intimately, and walked with Him all her days.

-Let’s face it, there is a difference in the life of someone who says that they know God in comparison to the life of someone who KNOWS God—that is, their knowing God makes a huge difference in the way they live and speak and react to circumstances.

-We’ve spent a few weeks in Jude, and we have seen that Jude calls us to contend for the faith (that is, the beliefs and doctrines that were handed down to us by the apostles and prophets).

~This is needed because there are apostates who have secretly slipped into the churches who deny the lordship of Christ and turn the grace of God into immorality.

~And not only do these apostates NOT know God, they are going out of their way to make sure that nobody else knows God in truth.

-These apostates will serve up a God that they have fashioned out of their own mind, and then try to pass it off as the real thing. But Jude says to contend for the faith, contend for the Word, contend for our doctrine, contend for the one and only true God.

~But I guess the question is, how are you going to contend for the faith if you don’t know the God of the faith? You need to know God in order to know faith in order to know truth.

~You say you are of the Christian faith, but do you know the Christian God?

-As we look in our text, Jude closes his letter with a benediction=a prayer of praise toward God==a fitting end to his call for us to contend earnestly for the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Jude paints a picture for us of the God whose faith we are contending for. May we all leave here not just knowing about the Bible or just knowing about God—let’s leave here KNOWING God and defending His honor by defending His faith.

READ Jude 24-25

Jude 24–25 ESV

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.

What does Jude let us know about this great God of ours:

1) Our God is able

-Isn’t it good to know that our God is not weak—our God is not like the pathetic idols of all other religions who are limited in scope and power—because for our God all things are possible if it is in accordance with His nature, His character, His will, and His purpose

-If our God deems something to be so in the world and in our lives, He is more than capable to bring it to pass—Jude says Now to Him Who is able—He is able to do all things

-Jude mentions several things that God is able to do:

A) God is able to keep us from stumbling

-that’s what 1st part of v. 24 says----now, as fallible human beings, there are many ways that we can stumble in the faith

-We can stumble into sin—I guess if we are more truthful with ourselves, it’s more like we dive head first into sin----but when we rely on the Holy Spirit within us, He can keep us from stumbling or diving into sin, and keep us in righteousness

-but I believe the context of Jude goes a little deeper, in that Jude is reminding us that God not only keeps us from stumbling into sin, but He also keeps us from stumbling into apostasy such that we stumble away from the true faith

-He told us a great promise way back in v. 1—we are kept / preserved in Jesus Christ—we are protected, guarded—if we are truly converted regenerated believers in Christ, we are in the hands of the Father through Christ, and He will not let us get away from Him

-and yet, there is a cooperation between man and God in this protection from stumbling--Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. (2 Peter 1:10 ESV)

-God is there for us and is able to keep us, but we have to be willing to hold out our hand to the one who can grab us before we fall

-Quite a while back, I was walking down the stairs of our house, and being the klutz that I am, my big feet got tangled up together, and being that I was still a good ways up, I started the tumble forward toward falling down the stairs. But by reflex both my hands grabbed the handrail that was there, and it was able to keep me from falling and probably ending up in the hospital.—the handrail was there the whole time to keep me from falling, but it was when I grabbed it that it kept me from stumbling

-God is there for us and has the power and ability to keep us from stumbling away from Him if we would but reach out to Him who is able

B) God is able to present us blameless

-it says it right there in the middle of v. 24 that He is able to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy

-It is speaking of the ultimate end of redemption—to be in the presence of God for eternity—but in order to be in the presence of God you need to be holy, without spot, and without blemish in your spirits—you need to be sin-free and perfect and spiritually clean

-Is there anyone here who is sin-free and perfect? No there isn’t—but through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ we are placed in Christ, and His perfection becomes our perfection; His holiness becomes our holiness; His sinlessness becomes our sinlessness==it was an act of God through Christ that allowed God to present us faultless before Himself—through Jesus Christ we are clean enough to come into His presence

-It made me think of our annual trip to Texas we would take on Memorial Day weekend to see some of Trish’s family. I remember when our kids were smaller there would come a good afternoon Texas rain they would then go out and play in the mud. They were filthy. But when it got closer to bedtime, they would need to come into the cabin and get their baths. The problem was they were so dirty we didn’t even want them coming into the cabin. So, we would hose them down to make them clean enough to even enter into the cabin to go get their baths.

-Our sin makes us filthy dirty before God—because of our faults we cannot even come anywhere near His presence—but through Jesus Christ He is able to clean us up and present us faultless so we can come into the presence of His glory—and on the day we do enter the presence of His glory, there will be exceeding joy—but it won’t be just our own joy; the angels will have joy; our fellow believers will have joy; Jesus will have joy; and God the Father will have joy

C) God is able to save us

-At the beginning of v. 25 He is described as God our Savior

-When the time was right from God’s perspective, He sent Jesus, God the Son, to take on human flesh, to live the perfect life under the law, and die the perfect sacrifice for sins, so that all who believe would be redeemed from sin and guilt, and given the righteousness of God

-God delivered us from the just consequences of being sinners, including our deliverance from the kingdom of darkness to be placed in the kingdom of light of His Son=He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:13–14 ESV)

-There is no other salvation, there is no other hope other than that which God has given to us through His Son Jesus Christ, received by us through faith

-All other religions teach that you must do something in order to get to an afterlife of Paradise—but that just doesn’t line up with the reality we see around us—there isn’t enough good to do to make up for the sin

-But God became our Savior and He did all that needed to be done for us to be delivered--and He is offering that to you today if you would but repent and believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ

-That’s our God----this is the God of our faith= He is a God Who is able—not only is He able:

2) Our God is praiseworthy

-In v. 25, Jude gives several characteristics and attributes of God for which He is worthy of praise

A) He is a God of glory

-God’s glory refers to His honor, dignity, resplendence, and beauty. When the Bible speaks of people seeing the glory of God, they speak of seeing an outward manifestation of His radiance and moral splendor

-While on this earth, we Christians are a reflection of that glory—when people look at our lives, they see the honor and splendor that belongs to God

-When we are taken from this earth, and brought into the eternal state, we will fully share in His glory forever and ever

B) He is a God of majesty

-Majesty speaks of His exalted position as the eternal Sovereign over the universe—it is the awe-inspiring transcendence of God above everything else—there is none above Him, like Him or near Him

-If I use my hand to show God way up here, my other hand cannot get low enough to show how far below everything else is in comparison to Him=that’s His majesty

-That is why God in the commandments told people not to make a graven image to be a likeness of Him, because God is so exalted over any creature, for Him to be compared to the likeness of anything He created would be a great insult to His existence

-God is high and lifted up, and exalted above all of creation, over which He rules and reigns with wisdom and might

C) He is a God of dominion

-God is King over all of the universe—in the book of Revelation Jesus is described as the King Who is over all the other Kings—for Him to have dominion means that He has the might and strength to be able to rule over everything

-Earthly kings only have enough strength to rule their territories up until they die or else they are displaced by someone stronger—you see that even in Biblical history=the Babylonians gave way to the Medes/Persians; the Medes/Persians gave way to the Greeks; the Greeks gave way to the Romans; eventually even the Roman Empire fell—no earthly king lasts forever

-But no one will ever be able to topple our God or His Messiah off of the throne—theirs is an eternal rule, for they have the eternal dominion over everything that exists

D) He is a God of authority

-some translations of the Bible translate that word as power—it speaks of the fact that God has the authority and jurisdiction to rule as He sees fit

-No one can look to God and question Him about what He is doing—He has the power to do whatever He wants to do in accordance to His nature and character—and according to Matt. 28:18, all that authority has been given to Jesus Christ, who is God the Son

-We have a God who has glory, majesty, dominion and authority—the angels revere and serve Him, the demons cower before Him, unbelievers will be judged by Him, believers will be brought in love to Him----that is our God, a praiseworthy God

~this is the God of our faith. This is the God that we defend against the apostates. This is the God that preach and teach, and upon whose Word we live, and move, and have our being.

CONCLUSION

-I’ll conclude with this thought:

~Way back in 2005 a Danish newspaper printed 12 editorial cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Muslim groups violently protested and rioted over what they considered a blasphemy of their religion. Think about this, all around the world Muslims stood up to fight for their faith, and their faith is a false faith. heir prophet is a false prophet. Their god is a false God.

-Here they are defending a god that doesn’t exist and a faith that is false. We have the true God who has given us the true faith. Now, I’m obviously not saying let’s go riot or anything like that. But I am saying that when Jude tells us to contend for the faith passed down to us from the God to the prophets and apostles, and then down to us, we need to take heed. There are people calling themselves Christians misrepresenting God and the faith.

~We know the truth and we belong to the One true God. Let’s get the truth out there and honor our God with our lives and words and contend for the faith.

-Christians to come to the altar and pray for boldness to stand up for our God and the faith He has given us. He gave His all for us in sacrificing His Son…

-I invite any, though, who have never experienced salvation in Jesus Christ. Outside of a born-again experience with Jesus Christ through faith in His sacrifice and repentance of sin to come forward and be saved and secure your eternal life in heaven