Doxology

Matthew LaMaster

Jude • Sermon • Submitted 5 years ago

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Transcript

Big Idea

Tension: What is the end of contending for the faith?

Resolution: By telling his audience who to worship, why to worship, and how to worship.

Exegetical Idea: Jude ends his book by telling his audience who to worship, why to worship, and how to worship.

Theological Idea: True worship gives God through Christ every glory because of what he has done.

Homiletical Idea: We worship God through Christ.

Resolution: God’s glory through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Exegetical Idea: All the glory from contending for the faith goes to God through Jesus Christ.

Theological Idea: All the glory from the Christian’s perseverance goes to God through Jesus Christ.

Homiletical Idea: When God in Christ gets all the glory for all my life, I get maximum joy.

Introduction

Have you ever wondered why Christians gather together to sing? I mean, really, we are the only kind of people who do that. If you go to a rock concert, the goal is not really for you to sing along, but for you to take in a performance. But when you come to church, you and I are the performers. Yes, we have a team up here leading us, but we’re really not here to see them so much as to join them. We are all together worshipping God. Have you ever wondered about how weird that is? Why is such a foundational part of Christian living singing? Why do Christians sing? Why is it that we publicly, with our mouths, sing praises to God?

St. Augustine was a writer in North Africa in the early midieval ages. And my philosophy professor in college, who, I don’t htink was a Christian, said that Augustine was perhaps the smartest man who has ever lived. And Augustine opened up his best known book, The Confessions, by saying this:

“Thou awakest us to delight in Thy praise; for Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart is restless, until it repose in Thee.”

Did you catch that, Augustine said that God awakens us from the slumber of our sin to delight in his praise, to take great joy in worshipping him. That God made us to worship him, and our hearts will always be restless until it rests in him. And that is very much the point of this passage that we’ve read together: When God gets all the glory for all my life, I get all the joy. When I give God all the glory in everything that I do and with every breath that I take and in every relationship that I posses, then I get more joy there than I could possibly get from any other one thing. When God gets all the glory for all my life, I get all the joy. Now, before, I show you that is in the passage, I think I need to answer an objection first.

But...

Isn’t God arrogant for requiring us to worship him? And that objection goes something like this, isn’t it arrogant for God to save us and create us to give him the glory? I mean, isn’t that a little like setting a notification on your computer or your phone for it to tell you how awesome you are? Isn’t it arrogant for him to do that?

Retracing the argument: Well, to really show you why it is not megalomaniacal for God to create us to give Him maximal glory, let’s work our way back through the argument of the book. This doxology, which we have said is that when God gets all the glory for all my life I get all the joy, is the result of what we talked about last week. And last week, we talked about three practices that Christians do to contend for the faith. They are to remember God’s word, remain in God’s love, and reach out with God’s mercy. And when we do those things, then God gets all the glory for those things. Now, those things are how Jude wants us to contend for the faith. Now, we contend for teh faith, because it protects us from faithlessness. And we talked a few weeks ago about how faithlessness leads to destruction. To protect us from that kind of faithlessness, Jude tells us to contend for the faith. Now, Jude knows that if we contend for the faith, we will be protected from faithlessness and thus escape from destruction. But that’s not all, because contending for the faith produces something. And we see that in vs. 2, where Jude says, “May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.” The reason that Jude wants his audience to contend for the faith, protecting themselves from faithlessness, by remembering God’s word, remaining in God’s love, and reaching out with God’s mercy that will ultimately lead to God getting all the glory for all my life is so that we have a deeper, more profound experience of God’s mercy, God’s peace, and God’s love.

May Mercy, Peace, and Love be multiplied to you

Can any of these be separated from joy? Now, here is the key question. Can mercy, peace, or love be separated from the emotion of joy? Can you have a deep, profound life-altering experience of God’s mercy: his help in your distress, his forgiveness for your sins, his taking you into himself without experiencing joy? Can you feel peace with God and one another, can you be at peace, which means you have no more hostilities, no more enmity, no more hatred and antagonism, can you really have that kind of peace without also having a deep, profound love. Can you have a deep experience of God’s love without joy? The same love that God has had as Father, SOn, and Holy spirit from eternity past, the same love that God has given you long before you loved him, the same love that compelled God to send his Son to die on teh cross to take your sins on the cross and raise him from teh dead, teh same love that God has poured into your heart by the holy Spirit according to Roman’s 5, can you hav e a deep, profound, life0-altering, expereince of any of these things wihtout an equally deep, abiding, profoundly resonant sense of joy? Of course not. Which means this, that Jude wrote to his audience to contend for the faith so that on the one hand they would be protected from faithlessness and on the other that they would have a deep profound experience of God’s mercy, peace, and love which are all ultimately experienced in joy, and they contend for the faith by remembering God’s word, remaining in God’s love, and reaching out with God’s mercy, that will ultimately end up giving God all the glory for all my life, so that I would have joy. Do you see, God’s glory is not opposed to my joy, indeed, it is the only way I can actually have joy.

It is not wrong for God to desire all the glory if we get all the joy. When God gets the glory, I get a more profound joy than I could have anywhere else in teh world. Philosophically, Christians are all hedonists. We are all here to get the maximum amount of joy that we can possibly get. If there is anthing else in this world that can give us more joy than giving God all the glory for all our lives, we are wasitng our time, amen?

Quotes

Blaise Pascal, who helped discover modern mathematics and without whose works in mathematics you would not be here this morning, said this, "The God of the Christians is a God who makes the soul feel that He is her only good, that her only rest is in Him, that her only delight is in Him..." - Pascal

"The God of the Christians is a God who makes the soul feel that He is her only good, that her only rest is in Him, that her only delight is in Him..." - Pascal

C.S. Lewis, the author of the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and a whole slew of other works and frankly, a literary genius, said this, “But what, in conclusion, of Joy?… It was valuable only as a pointer to something other and outer. While that other was in doubt, the pointer naturally loomed larger in my thoughts. When we are lost in the woods, the sight of a signpost is a great matter. He who first sees it cries, “Look!” the whole party gathers round and stares. But when we have found the road and are passing signposts every few miles, we shall not sop and stare. They will encourage us and we shall be grateful to the authority that set them up. But we shall not stop and stare, or not much; not on this road, though their pillars are of silver and their lettering of gold. “We would be at Jerusalem.”

Now, I have not shown you that my point is here in the text. All I have done is show you how my point is logical, and rational, and beautiful. The question that you should be asking now is this, that’s good, but is it in the Bible? Is it true? Do I really get all the joy when God gets all the glory for all my life? Well’ let’s look at this last portion here. So in order to do that, I want to look at this passage and ask, “Who, Why, and How” Who is this God who gets all the glory, and why do I get all the joy, and how do I give him all the glory?

Who

The only God: Well, look right there in vs. 25. It says, “to the only God.” This is the same God who first told the Israelites, “You shall have no other gods before me.” There is no other God than this God. There is nobody else like him, shame on all those who worship false gods. There is no god like him. Now, I think we too easily gloss over that. But you have realize just how radical this was. For the Old Testament Israelites and the New Testament Christians, they were surrounded by pagan nations who worshipped a different god for everything, a different god for war, and work, and love and sex and relationships and farming and kings. There was a god of this corner and that corner. There is probably nobody else in the entire Bible that ever met anyone else who believed in only one God. Now, realize just how radical this is. Because teh God of the Bible says, no, there is only one God. This God alone is God. That was a radical statement.

Our Savior: He is “our savior.” This is the God who is our “Savior.” He saves us from every disaster, he keeps us from every trouble, he sends out hsi hand to lift us out of the muck and the mire. This is the only one who is able to save you, the only one who is able and willing to do everythign that it takes to save you. God is the only one who can move heaven and earth to save you.

Through Jesus Christ, Our Lord: How does he do this? He does this through the person and the work of JEsus Christ.

How does our worship come through Jesus Christ, Our Lord?

Person: Notice how Jesus’ person is highlighted here. He is called, “Jesus Christ our Lord.” Now, notice this. Because Jesus Christ is the man, born of David, born of a virgin, who lived a human life. Everything that it means to be human is wrapped up in who he is. There is nothing that is true about humans that is not also true about Jersus. BUt, at the same time, he is also called “our Lord.” Now, for the Jews, to call anyone “Lord” who was not God woul dhave been blasphemous. ANd to call jesus Christ “Lord” would have been blasphemous if it were not also true. You see, Christians believe that not only is Jesus Christ truly and wholly man, but that he is also, simultaneously, at the same time, “Lord.” THere is nothign about mankind that is not true about Jesus. But there is also nothing about God that is not also true about humans. Everything that i means to describe God is also true about Jesus Christ.

Our worship is possible through Christ

Work: And it is through the person of Jesus Christ that God is the savior. Because it is in his work that God has provided salvation for all of us. It is through Jesus Christ that God hsa come and dwelt among us. It is through Jesus Christ that God has provided an atonement for our sins. it is through jesus Christ that God has paid our debts. It is through Jesus Christ that God adopted us into his family. it is through Jesus Christ that God has given us new life. It is through Jesus Christ that God has gone into the far country to bring us home. It is through Jesus Christ that God has provided atonement and salvation. Listen, if God has not come to us through Jesus christ, if thorugh his Son he has not washed us clean, if it is not through his Son that he has not provided us the SPirit of adoption, then when you and I lifted up our voices to worship him we would be eternally flattened for our disrespect. But through Jesus Christ, God has saved us from oursleves and through himself. Truly, God is our savior through jesus Christ our Lord.

Our worship is acceptable through CHrist

Now, why should we give him the glory? There are many reasons, but Jude gives us this reasoning.

Our worship is guided by Christ

Why

He is able: The first thing that is important to know about God is that he is able. Now, this does not mean that he could do it if he wanted to. No what this means is that he is pwoerful and mighty and strong. It is not that he wants to do this and that he is unable, it is that he wants to do this because he can. He is powerful and mighty and strong.

to keep us from stumbling: What is he powerful and mighty and strong to do? He is powerful and mighty and strong to keep us from stumbling. Now, we talked about this last week, that we are “kept” by Jesus Christ, but we are also told to “keep ourselves in teh love of God.” You see, when we are keeping ourselves in god’s love, that is God keeping us in his love. When I was a child, my aunt used to take me out for swimming lessons. And she would tell me paddle, kick, paddle. BUt the only reason that I didn’t sink straight to hte bottom of the pool was because she had set me across her arms. In the same way, God tells us, “Keep yourselve sin teh love that is from God” but the only reason we do not sink into the mire of our own sinfulness, the only reason we don’t stumble into our own depravity, is because he is keeping us.

to present us blameless before the presence of his glory: BUt, not only does he keep us now, he keeps us forever. in fact, he will present us blameless before hte presence of his glory. That he is continunally purifying us, and shaping us, and molding us, and rebuilding us, and renovating us so that we look more like Jesus tomorrow than we did today. And one day, when we stand in the presence of his glory, we will be blameless. A few years ago, my brother Philip who lives in Phoenix got married. Now the problem was that he got married in Phoenix, in August. If you are ever thinking about that as a destination wedding… just don’t. And we got to the wedding, and it was raining. But the pavement in PHoenix weas so hot that hte water would evaporate before it hit the ground. Now, if God did not present us before his presence blameless, then we would evaporate like rain in Phoenix in August before we ever got there. This is why God will not let Moses see his face in the book of Exodus. tells us that there is a holiness without which nobody will see the Lord. There is a holiness without which you and I will not see God. But we don’t have the holiness in ourselves. Which is why this verse is important. Because it says that God is the one who makes us holy enough to see his face.

before the presence of his glory with great joy

with great joy: But do not skip over hte last part of this sentence. He is able to present us blameless before the presence of his glory with great… what’s that last word? It’s joy! You see, God does not want us to be holy and blameless, God does not want us to be perfect, just to take awa all our fun. No, God wants us to experience joy. Dear friend, to the extent that you look like Jesus, is the extent that you will feel joy in him. The only way to cultivate our joy in Christ is to cultivate our CHristlikeness. Now, here is the good news. THat in that day, we will be like him. Our journey will be over. And our joy will be unlimited! When God gets all teh glory for all my life I get all the joy.

We give God the glory now because of what he is doing now in keeping us from stumbling and what he will do that day in presenting us blameless. We worship and praise and glory in God because of who he is and because of what he has done for us both now, and in eternity.

How

So, how do we give him the glory that is his due? How do we praise him for who he is and what he has done? Well, Scripture gives us four words, that really are in two groups.

glory and majesty: The first one is God’s glory and majesty. So when the BBible uses the word “Glory” in its background is the Hebrew word, “kabod.” And the root meaning of kabod is kind of weightiness. And so for something to be glorious is for it to be weighty, it is its muchness. Think about God’s glory as the spiritual gravity that holds all things together. Gods’ glory is how he holds all things in tow. Like the Sun contains the whole solar system by its gravity and mass, so God’s person contains so much glory that he holds all things in his tow. Now, God’s majesty is essentially his “preeminence.” In other words, that in everything and in every way, he is more preeminent. So when we say give God the glory and majesty, we are saying recognize tha this glory is preeminent in everything. When we worship here, more important than the kidns of songs that we sing, the way we sing them, the songs we like, more important than anything else is that the preminence, the highness, teh greatness of God’s glory is shown. God’s glory, his spiritual gravity ought to be recognized in everything that we do. That means that in your marriage, you give God the glory bby recognizing that he should be preeminent in everything about your marriage; your relationship, your communication, your sexual lives, everything about your marriage ought to display the preeminence of God’s glory. In your workplace, God ought to be preeminent in everything. You do not, ultimately, work for your emploeyr, you do not work for a paycheck, you do not, uyltimately, work to provide. The ultimate purpose behind your work is that you might display teh preeminence of God’s glory. When we praise God, we are saying that we will seek out and display the manifold ways that God’s glory is preeminent in everything.

dominion and authority: but we also recognize that God has “dominion and authority.” Now, this word for dominion is basically the word for “strength” and it means that God succeeds in all he dos. That whatever God sets his mind to he succeeds. You and I cannot do anythign without a little bit of failure, but God can do nothing without succeeding in his plans and purposes. Further, he has “authority”. He has the rule and the reign over all things. That God has authority over the stars in the heavens to set them in their cours.e But he also has authority over your ife, to command you what to do. God has absolute authority, that there is nothing that tells God what to do. You and I are always looking for a reason to justify what we want to do, bbut God doesn’t. God always has authority over all things. WHen you and I praise him, we are recognizing that he is king and we are not. We try to glorify him by following his ways and living as he tells us to do. When we worship, we are trying to bring God’s rule and reign deeper into our lives and into our church. This praises God.

before all time, now, and forever: And Jude ends by this little epithet. He says before al time, and now, and forever. And I think what this means for us is that as Christians, we are to see all the ways that God gets the glory bbefore creation. That we ought to seek out everything that we can for the purpose of giving him teh glory. And we ought to look at our lvies now, and we ought to see all the ways in our lives where we can give him teh glory. And we ought to peer into the future, and behold all the things tha the has done, and say, “God, to you is all the glory for what is coming.” That there is nothing in our lives or outside of our lives wehre God does not deserve the glory. When Christ gets all the glory for all my life I get all teh joy.

Amen

Conclusion

Now, I opened up this sermon by asking, have you ever wondered why Christians sing so much. Why is it that we explicitly take part in praising God? We started off that question. But, I ahve, knowingly, and intentionally spent much of this sermon moving back and forth between Sunday morning worship and the rest of the week as the context for the ways that we give God the glory. So do we give God the glory her eon Sunay monrings, or do we do it the rest of the week? Well, let me put it this way. When I was in high school on various sports teams, I would go to practice and train myself to go out and wrestle or play football. And then I would come bback to practice the next week all brused and banged up, and I would try to correct my mistakes and learn from what I did wrong so that I could play better the next match or the game. Well, so it is with our psiritual lives, we gather to glory here, so that we might glory better there. Only, here is the difference between sports and spirituality. There, we practiced all week so that we might play better on Friday. Well, that is only one way. But for God, we gather to glory here, so that we might glory better all week. But then we glory better all week so that we might worship betteer on Sundays. In other words, our worship here helps us worship all week. And our worship all week helps us worship better on Sunday. Dear friend, if you come here, and you don’t sing any of the songs, and you just kind of groan and mumble, or you if you decide to skip church, then what do you think the chances are that you will worship better during the week when you are driving to and fro and trying to get all your to-do list done?

But if you spend your whole week watching tv, and not reading your Bible, ignoring Jesus Christ, what do you think the chances are that you will come on Sunday morning and have a worshipful experience? That’s not the way it works. We worship well here so that we might worship better throughout the week. And we worship throughout the week, so that we might worship better together on Sunday mornings. And week in and week out, we seek to give God all teh glory in all our lives this way. And as we do that, Christ is lifted up. And when Jesus gets all the glory for all my life, I get all the joy. So, I thought, a good way to end our worship service today, and a good way to end our sermon on worship, and a good way to end this short, but powerful book of the Bible, by an extended time of worship. So let’s all stand as we praise teh Lord together!

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