Where does your Security Come From?
Notes
Transcript
RECAP OF JUDE
To those who are called, beloved and kept for Jesus Christ.
He was going to write about their common Salvation but found it of greater importance to talk to them about contending for the faith.
There are those who were designated long ago for condemnation that have crept into the church unnoticed who are ungodly, who pervert the grace of God with sensuality, and deny Jesus Christ as Lord of their lives.
Jude gives them a history lesson of remembering God’s judgement on the ungodly people.
Jude points to shepherds who are wolves in sheep’s clothing lying in wait to feed themselves on the flock.
We are to remember that scoffers will come in the last days following their own ungodly passions and desires.
Now we read about the Hope that awaits the children of God.
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.
The doctrine of the security of the believer is one of the most comforting and precious of all doctrines for the believer in Christ.
Charles H. Spurgeon Said this:
Exalting Jesus in 2 Peter, Jude (The Doxology of God and the Security of the Believer (Jude 24–25))
“If there is one doctrine I have preached more than another, it is the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints even to the end”
Scripture makes it abundantly clear:
“Those whom God has accepted into His family, and sanctified with His Spirit, will never totally or finally fall away from the state of Grace, but we will certainly persevere to the end; and though they fall, through neglect and temptations, into sin, and at times grieving the Holy Spirit, therefore, impairing the graces and comforts that God has given us.
Bringing shame on the church and temporary judgement on ourselves, yet we will be renewed again to repentance, and be kept in the power of God through fain unto Salvation.”
“I firmly believe without a right understanding of the doctrine of eternal security it would be difficult to have a right understanding of the Gospel and the truth of the Bible’s message of eternal and everlasting life.”
Scripture repeatedly addresses the issue of the security of the believer, however, none is greater than Jesus words in John 10:27-30
27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”
Paul continually affirms the security of the believer however, none is greater than his writing to the church at Rome in Romans 8:38-39
38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And John put’s a big fat bow on any likely debate as to the security of the believer in 1 John 5:13
13 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.
Now Jude puts a bow on the end of his letter with a glorious doxology of worship, praise, and adoration, that our God “is able to protect us from stumbling,” and that our God will “make us stand in the presence of his glory, without blemish and with great joy.”
Therefore, the praise of God and the perseverance of the believer are joined in a tightly woven piece of spiritual cloth never to be torn or separate.
Turning to Panic Rooms for Security
In the movie Panic Room Jodie Foster plays a woman who is frightened by burglars who have broken into her New York City condo. She retreats with her daughter to a high-tech "panic room" that is actually a part of her residence.
According to ABC news, panic rooms are not just in the movies. Security companies regularly install what they refer to as "safe rooms." Most requests come from wealthy families or celebrities who fear being targets of kidnapping, stalking, or home invasion. It is estimated there are thousands of such rooms in Bel Air and Holby Hills in Southern California.
"Safe rooms" can be as simple as oversized closets with reinforced doors, a phone, and a fridge. They can also be extravagant secret rooms with video banks, computers, and air systems that protect against biological warfare.
According to Bill Ridgon, an executive with Building Consensus (a Los Angeles company that specializes in safe-room construction), the requests for elaborate security systems have increased since the terrorist attacks of September 11th.
Where do you turn for Security?
Jude gives us at least four Biblical principles for us to believe in the eternal security of the believer.
1. Believers Are Secure in the Power of God
1. Believers Are Secure in the Power of God
We read in the first statement in Jude 24 that He (God) has the power and is able to keep us from stumbling. (stumbling out of favor with God)
Why do people lack the assurance, doubting their eternal security as a believer?
Here are some possibilities?
faulty understanding that it is God who does the saving.
faulty methods of assuring our salvation at the time of salvation. (works, tongues, etc.)
We doubt God’s faithfulness to his word.
Lack of proper teaching on the Christian life.
Continued presence of sin in our lives.
Is Christianity the only faith that offers certainty of Heaven for the believer?
There is a parable that has been told many times. The parable is of a blind man and an elephant. It has been passed down in various forms from Eastern Religion. The basic story is that a number of blind men approach an elephant from different sides. One grasps the trunk and says it’s a snake. One feels the legs and describes the elephant as a great big tree. Another feels its side and concludes that it is a wall. Though each has a different description, they are all describing the same elephant.
Some have used this story to engage people with the idea that the world’s religions are describing the same God in different ways. Each describes the same thing from its own limited perspective. The story claims to show that each religion is “right” in its own way.
Therefore, no one can claim to have the objective truth about God.
There are many world religions and various teachings within those religions. What sets Christianity apart from every other world religion is that every other world religion is work righteous. This means that they teach that people need to do right and moral things to become right with God and earn his blessings in this life or the next.
Native American and African religions seek to appease the spirits of deceased relatives through ritual sacrifices. Some Eastern religions seek to achieve moksha (i.e. a release from the cycle of reincarnation) and nirvana through reincarnation, and meditation. Muslims seek the mercy of Allah by practicing the Five Pillars.
Yet even Christians are susceptible to thinking that we must contribute in some way to our salvation. By nature, we think according to the law (opinio legis) that we can and must do something to be right with God. The Bible, however, clearly warns how dangerous this thinking is: “You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace” (Galatians 5:4).
Note: The whole reformation was built on the quest for certainty in salvation which led Martin Luther to fast, confess, and even beat his body trying to be right with God. Instead, he found peace with God when he read in the gospel that “the righteous will live by faith alone.” (Romans 1:17)
In the end, even the best crafted argument cannot accomplish faith. Only God can do that through his powerful gospel message: “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16).
*God will Preserve us.
*God will Preserve us.
God’s preservation of you and me is something that is inside of each and everyone of us when we submit our life to Christ alone for our Salvation
20 Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us,
“He is able to do far more than we could every think or even imagine by His power working inside of each and every one of us because of the Holy Spirit.”
Notice the language that Jude uses here in this text.
“He is able to keep you from stumbling.”
“Present You blameless before God.”
The beginning of Jude’s letter he speaks of those who are called and kept.
Here Jude uses a different word for ‘keep’. There tēreō is used; it means ‘watch’. Here phylassō is used; it means ‘guard’. There is a difference.
We must watch that we stay close to the Lord, but only he can guard us so that we do not stumble.
How do we know if we are saved?
Do you believe the gospel and trust Christ. (Romans 10:9).
Do you experience remorse over sin and have a desire to please God? (2 Corinthians 7:10)
Do you see any evidence of fruit in your life? (John 15:5; Matt. 7:17-20).
Does your holy Spirit witness with your spirit that that you are a child of God? (Romans 8:17).
When you sin, do you experience the discipline of God? (Hebrews 12:6).
*God will Protect us.
*God will Protect us.
He will keep you from stumbling. The promise is personal and individual, corporate and all encompassing for every child of God.
The one who preserves us is God. Notice that the one who protects us from stumbling is our Father. We are now related to him who has the sovereign power to keep us. We are under His fatherly care, which protects us from falling away.
Look at what the writer of Hebrews has to say about the Father Son relationship.
5 And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons?
“My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord,
nor be weary when reproved by him.
6 For the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
and chastises every son whom he receives.”
7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. 9 Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? 10 For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. 11 For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
12 Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, 13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.
The writer of Hebrews shows that even God’s discipline shows His vested interest in preserving those He loves. Discipline is a sign of our security.
Optimistic Adults Have a Better Shot at Healthy Aging
“Don’t worry, be happy,” is more than just a song lyric. A growing body of evidence supports an association between optimism and healthy aging. A new study has found that being more optimistic appears to promote emotional well-being.
Studies have increasingly supported the idea of optimism as a resource that may promote good health and longevity. An 11-year study measured the optimism and pessimism of 2,267 men and women over 52 as they aged and found that those who died from coronary heart disease were more pessimistic than average. A Harvard study looking at nearly 7,000 older adults counted the most optimistic people as having a 73% reduced risk of heart failure over the follow-up period.
One researcher said, “Stress is known to have a negative impact on our health. So, by looking at whether optimistic people handle day-to-day stressors differently, our findings add to how optimism may promote good health.”
Possible Preaching Angle:
God tells us that we will have negative, sometimes devastating, experiences in life (John 16:33). However, Scripture also promises that nothing can separate us from the love of God (Rom. 8:38), that trouble is not random but refines us spiritually (2 Cor. 7:10; 1 Pet. 1:7), and that the peace of God can guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Phil. 4:4).
2. Believers are Secure in the Promise of God
2. Believers are Secure in the Promise of God
Note: The most amazing part of this text is that God does even more than keep us. He will set us up, or make us to stand before his glorious presence in heaven. Before, no one could even look upon God and live, and now we will see Him face to face in all of his glory, mercy and grace.
The Christian is in Christ
My Eternal Security is grounded in Gods power, not my own. My security is also grounded in God’s promise, not my own.
*We Will See His Glory
*We Will See His Glory
To be in Christ means that we stand faultless or ‘without blame’; he is incorporated into the blameless one.
He uses the word here Amomos. This is a Sacrificial word; only the spotless was fit for God.
19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot.
Here is what Paul says in
4 even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love
What an amazing picture of heaven! What an amazing thing that in Christ we can stand amomoi before the presence of God, utterly acceptable offering to the Lord. God is the only one capable of making us stand, though in ourselves we should shrink from His presence.
We will stand faultless before the presence of the glory of God. Because of his promise to bring to completion the work that He has begun inside of us. (Philippians 1:6)
We will see his glory.
We will know his glory.
we will enjoy his glory.
*We will Share His joy
*We will Share His joy
Have you heard about the party that will take place in Heaven with rejoicing and exultation?
1 After this I heard what seemed to be the loud voice of a great multitude in heaven, crying out,
“Hallelujah!
Salvation and glory and power belong to our God,
We now catch a glimpse of the joy in the marriage supper of the Lamb. Four times in Revelation 19 there is the shout, “Hallelujah,” and verse 7 tells us why. “Let us be glad, rejoice, and give him glory, because the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his bride has prepared herself.”
3. Believers Are Secure in the Praise of God
3. Believers Are Secure in the Praise of God
“To The Only God”
Jude is bring it all back to the only God whom we submit and serve.
Glory - is Doxa in the Greek
*We Praise Him for His Glory
*We Praise Him for His Glory
Glory is an attribute intrinsic to God alone. Glory is essential to God as light is to the sun, as blue is to the sky, God would cease to be God without glory. You do not make the sun light, it is light by the very nature of what it is, therefore, God is glorious, you do not give God glory; you acknowledge that He is glorious, meaning the glory that He already possesses.
Glory is the outward manifestation of the inner essence of the very character of our God. It is what he is, and we will spend an eternity praising Him for his glorious goodness to us as His creation.
The Glory of God is the Biblical narrative that is woven throughout all of scripture. You and I were created to display the glory of God. God communicates His glory through His creation, image-bearers, providence, and redemptive acts.
God’s people respond by glorifying him. God receives glory, and through uniting people with Christ shares that glory with them. The psalmist reminds us that all of creation testifies to His glory. Psalm 19:1-2
1 The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
2 Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
Defining the Impossible
John Piper
Defining the glory of God is near impossible, because it is more like the word beauty than the word basketball. If somebody says that they have never heard of a basketball - they do not know what a basketball is - and so they say, “define basketball,” then that would not be hard for you to do. You would use your hands, and you would say.
“Well, it is like a round thing made out of leather or rubber and about ten inches in diameter, and you blow it up. You inflate it, so it is full of air. Then you can bounce it like this, and you can throw it to people, and you can run while you are bouncing it. Then there is this hoop at the end (but it used to be a basket), and you try to throw the ball through the hoop. Thais is why it is called basketball.”
“They would have a pretty good idea of what it is. They would be able to spot one and to tell it from a soccer ball or a football.”
“You cannot do that with a word like beauty. There are some words in our vocabulary that we cannot communicate with not because we can say them, but because we see them. We can point. and if we can point at enough things and see enough things together and say, “That’s it! That’s it. That’s it,” we might be able to have a commons sense of beauty. But when you try to put the word beauty into words, is very difficult.”
God is in a class all by Himself, He has infinite worth, infinite perfections, and infinite greatness.....
“What is the difference between the Holiness of God and the Glory of God?”
*We Praise Him for His Majesty.
*We Praise Him for His Majesty.
Majesty: the quality of a person or thing which inspires awe or reverence in the beholder; can be related to size, strength, power, or authority.
This is the Godness of God.
We are speaking of the most perfect Being, God. There is a sense in which He has revealed Himself and we know who He is. We know who He is in the full complexity of His attributes, in His works, in His decrees, but there is still as sense in which God is a mystery to us. Majesty is one of the ways we express the Godness of who God is.
Have we lost the Awe of the Majesty of God?
Consider, the most majestic thing that you have every seen or experienced. We sing in “America the Beautiful” about the purple mountains majesty. Mountains might be the quintessential natural majestic feature.
However, we also read about the majestic work of human hands, when on a grand scale, might have us reaching for the majestic ourselves. We read in Lamentations 1:6 Israel mourning over the loss of such majesty after the destruction of Jerusalem by Babylon, and not long after, Nebuchadnezzar, Babylon’s king, professes to have built his city “by [his] mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of [his] majesty” (Daniel 4:30) - this just before his great humbling experience.
How then does such a common use of the word majesty for mountains and mansions, god and cities, relate to the attribute given to God?
God also possesses not only the mighty to rule, but the right to rule and reign over His creation. Majesty, often denotes some greatness in size or space. We remember what happened to the greatness of the Egyptians that were once powerful but now completely humbled.
We also, must not forget God’s prerogative to rule and reign as He pleases. David proclaims in 1 Chronicles 29:11 that “yours, O Lord is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours.”
*We Praise Him for His Power (dominion)
*We Praise Him for His Power (dominion)
Power or dominion is kratos in Greek. It speaks of His absolute control over all of creation. Our God is omnipotent, and capable of doing anything consistent with his character and attributes.
He is not limited by time and space, the past is his, the future is his, and the present is his.
The power of God is His ability to accomplish His will in every situation, both real and potential, through any means He chooses in order to glorify Himself.
Paul calls and describes the power of God as:
“his incomparable great power for us who believe.” (Ephesians 1:19-21).
The same power that God exerted when He rose Jesus from the dead and seated him in the heavenly places at the right hand of God is the same power that is available to you and me today.
The problem most believers have today is too small a view of the power of God, mainly God’s ability to exert His power in our life, and our situation.
God spoke the universe into existence, raised Jesus from the dead, and “placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church.” (Ephesians 1:22).
Trusting God is an essential element of true saving faith that looks to God and fins peace, strength, contentment, and much more in him, and all that he has done, is doing, and will do, both now and forever in his Son Jesus Christ. Proverbs 3:5-6, Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding.
*We Praise Him for His Authority
*We Praise Him for His Authority
God’s Authority: is His intrinsic right to rule all things.
Why is God, the Ultimate Authority?
Our Culture today has an Issue with Authority
New Religion Based on No Authority
A new religion invented by a Massachusetts psychologist has been gaining popularity over recent years. Called "Yoism," this system of beliefs is based on the "open source" principle—where the general public becomes a combined, creative authority and source of truth. One example of the "open source" phenomenon is the successful online encyclopedia known as Wikipedia.
Yoism operates and evolves over the Internet, and has numerous contributors. It shuns traditional religious authorities and eschews divine inspiration in favor of the wisdom of man. Bob Dylan, Albert Einstein, and Sigmund Freud are among its most revered saints.
Dan Kriegman, who founded Yoism in 1994, did so because he wanted to make religion open to change and responsive to the wisdom of people everywhere. "I don't think anyone has ever complained about something that didn't lead to some revision or clarification in the Book of Yo," said Kriegman. He added: "Every aware, conscious, sentient spirit is divine and has direct access to truth…. Open source embodies that. There is no authority."
Editor’s Note: According to Google’s Bard “There are currently an estimated 10,000 Youists worldwide, with the majority of them living in the United States.” (Accessed 8/2023)
CONCLUSION
Our Secure Anchor
We must admit that we need Christ in every way at all times. He is our sure anchor in life’s stormy world. If we hold firm to him, he will carry us through.
NT Wright explains, “We are attached to him as though by a great metal cable. He is there, in the very presence of God, like an anchor. As long as we don’t let go of the cable, we are anchored to the presence of God; all the winds, tides and storms that may come can’t shift us. There is enormous comfort to be had, precisely at such times, in the knowledge that the anchor is ‘secure and solid’ (verse 19).
As I say these words I am very painfully aware of friends in my life who have suffered great loss. Many have experienced numerous unexplained deaths; sometimes the storms are overwhelming.
We are not promised that there won’t be any storms; indeed, the provision of a secure anchor implies that there will be. What we are promised is that we will be kept by God in the middle of the storms till the end.
Where are you looking for your security today?