Staying on Track

SERMON: 2017-01-01--jd0117--staying-on-track SOURCE DURATION: 00:55:34.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 2 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: The recording begins its main exposition on the book of Jude in segment [4]. The material continues through theological application and concludes with a comprehensive prayer/benediction in segment [445], which is integral to the sermon structure. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: none ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: no ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: none Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:00:00.000; remove through 00:00:28.240] [CUT] Every January 1st, the Lord gives me what I believe is a prophetic message for the life of this community. This year, as somebody mentioned to me, it's kind of bittersweet because this will be, word willing, the last official January 1 message that I [CUT] bring to you as a congregation. [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:00:28.240; resume after this marked segment] And I want to share with you some thoughts from the book of Jude. It's the second-last book in the Bible. Jude, like James, was a half-brother of Jesus. He writes to a church that is facing challenging times because of false teachers. We'll talk about that a little bit more later on. It's a book that I've never preached from, to the best of my knowledge, for one reason or another, though parts of its single chapter I memorized a long time ago. So let me read with you the verses 17 to the end of the chapter, and then in a little bit we'll talk about it. It's a call to persevere. So this is from Jude to the church, doesn't say which church or which people. He says, "Dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you in the last times, 'There will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desire. These are men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. Be merciful to those who doubt, snatch others from the fire and save them. To others show mercy mixed with fear, hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh." And then these closing words, "To him who was able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy, to the only God, our Savior, be glory, majesty, power and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord before all ages, now and forevermore, Amen." As I'm sure you would well know, we live in times that are not particularly friendly to either the Christian faith or to Christian values. I don't know if there has ever been a society that has so readily surrendered its cultural values in exchange for the values of other cultures as has the Western world. When somebody with the likes of Russian President Vladimir Putin has chosen to take the Western world to task for abandoning its Christian roots, abandoning its family structure and allowing the degeneration of society to take place at an unprecedented rate, then it's probably time to sit up and take note. Things are not going in the right direction. Last Monday, Pope Paul spoke at what is known as the Feast of St. Stephen in the Vatican. St. Stephen, of course, the first martyr of the Christian Church. The Pope made the observation that more Christians are being martyred today than in the heyday of Roman persecution. And that too is a very telling comment about where things are at. And while it's surely true that here in the Western world we don't experience that kind of immediate danger to our limb and lives, you know as well as I do that the forces of the antichrist pushing values from down below are relentless in seeking to impact your life and my life. And it is with increasing intensity that the very atmosphere around us is filled with values that are antithetical, they are opposed to anything that you and I might have ever been brought up with and anything that is even remotely reflective of biblical truth. And the question then for you and me and for God's people in the Western world and all around the world is how do we remain faithful to the Lord Jesus when everything is geared towards dragging us away from biblical values and it's easy to say well you know we live in our own little Christian bubble and I can stand strong, I know what it is that I believe, the problem with the values of the world it's like carbon monoxide poisoning, by the time you wake up you're dead. It penetrates into your very being almost in a subconscious way and the Christian Church is being dragged along to a very large degree by whatever influences in value systems that are dominant in the world, quick example, survey just very recently these results came out about a week ago, 38 percent of evangelical Christians now agree with a statement that physician assisted suicide is a legitimate and a good thing. 38 percent, not just to the general population that percentage is much higher, but evangelical Bible believing Christians who have historically embraced a value system that says life from beginning to end is sacred and it's in the hands of God. And it happens almost without thinking I remember a good many years ago a young woman raised in a very traditional Christian family going to a public school system came home one day and said to her mother well what's really wrong with abortion anyway and it reflects how insidiously worldly values become part of our thinking, how do we remain faithful to Jesus in a culture that is increasingly hostile to the Christian faith and that is increasingly demanding loyalties from us that are in conflict with the loyalty that we owe to Jesus. Well that is the topic that Jude the half brother of Jesus addresses in this particular chapter Jude is writing to a people who are being influenced by false teachers who are trying to wean them away from faith in Jesus notice how he introduces his letter in the verses three and four and it's verses three and four because Jude only has one chapter and if you only have one chapter then you don't have chapter one right. Dear friends I just thought I'd explain that to you lest you thought we were going to read 25 chapters of the book of Jude this morning. Dear friends I felt I had to write and urge you to contend there you have it fight for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints an older translation says once and for all delivered to the saints entrusted we have to hold on to it for certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you they are godless men who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only sovereign and Lord now notice carefully how he describes these men they're godless that is to say they don't really have God in their lives but they are still proclaiming a gospel of grace but they change the grace of God into a license for immorality these are people who preach what we would call cheap grace I suspect they were Gnostics the Gnostics thought the body was evil didn't matter what you do with it and so they preach the gospel that says live and let live and they condoned sexual immorality they condoned sexual perversion they condoned violence and they condoned a whole series of they condoned rebellion against authority and all of that kind of thing but they were very sneaky about it and they snuck into the church and in the process of doing so they denied Jesus Christ as the only savior in Lord and so Jude is writing to these Christians to alert them to the presence of these people into their message and to help them to remain faithful when the atmosphere around them was being poisoned by a gospel that was more attractive in some ways to the flesh than the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and so he wants people to stay on track and he does that by encouraging them to keep themselves in the love of God notice how he puts it but you dear friends build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life that is the second coming of Christ and therefore keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you into eternal life and you'll notice the emphasis here in each verb is that it's in the imperative that is to say it is a command that you and I can and we must do build yourselves up he says pray in the Holy Spirit keep yourselves in God's love one of the paradoxes of the Christian faith is that while salvation on the one hand is by grace and there is nothing that we can contribute to our salvation on the other saying we're told to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling Paul talks about that in Philippians therefore my dear friends continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his purpose so on the one hand it is all God and on the other hand you and I have a responsibility to do everything that we can to keep ourselves in the love of God and the balance of course is the realization that while we ourselves cannot do what God is inviting or calling us to do when we come to Christ and he comes to live within our hearts he by the power of his Holy Spirit changes us and he changes our wills first so that we begin to want what God wants instead of hating it and then he gives us the ability to carry it out and so we have an obligation to do everything that we can to keep ourselves in a place and in a situation where we remain strong in the Lord we have to build ourselves up in the faith we have to pray in the spirit and we have to keep ourselves in the love of God nobody else is going to do it for me I've got to do it myself and so on the time that remains I want to try to give you from scripture four things that you and I can and must do if we want our lives to stay on track regardless of what comes at us through deceitful men and women and clever philosophies that sound so appealing to the flesh but that will ultimately lead us away from a true and loving relationship with a loving and a Holy God so number one and this may sound elementary make sure you abide in Christ by faith John fifteen verse four Jesus speaking he says abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine neither can you unless you abide in me the image here is very simple and well known a branch a vine bears fruit only when it's attached to the vine or to the branch that gives it life and the message of scripture is that Jesus is the true vine the planting of the Lord it's a notion that goes back to the Old Testament we don't have time to talk about it but of all the people that ever lived and you know this but it bears repeating of all the people that ever lived only Jesus was not influenced by the devil was not under the domination of the flesh and wasn't under the domination of the world the reason we talked about this Christmas Eve and Christmas Day is because he was not born of Adams offspring he was conceived by the Holy Spirit born of the Virgin Mary he represented heaven's values in a human package we read about it earlier he was in all things like you and me sin accepted Jesus was faithful that's why he could die for our sins that's why he could be raised from the dead that's why he could pour out his Holy Spirit and you and I can only remain faithful in the face of a very clever enemy who will do everything that he can to destroy us and to bring us down by remaining closely in contact with the Lord Jesus I love the way Paul puts it in Colossians chapter two nine and ten he says concerning Jesus in him the whole fullness of deity that is the very fullness of God dwells bodily and you have come to fullness of life in him if we want to remain faithful not bowled over by all the stuff that comes at us that sounds so wise and practical and logical and the starting place is always let's make sure that we are in Christ not only but let's make sure that we abide in him in him the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily that's the first thing that we can and must do if we want to keep ourselves on track and if we want to keep ourselves in the love of God closely tied into that is we need to be sure to walk after the spirit Paul Galatians five sixteen and seventeen so I say live by this spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature for the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the spirit the spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature they are in conflict with each other so that you do not do what you want doesn't take very long after becoming a Christian before we discover there are two powers that are at work in our lives one is the power of our own sinful human nature we don't love God above all we don't love our neighbor above all we love ourselves more than we love anything and anybody but after having come to Christ and being filled with the Holy Spirit there is an other force at work within us that works against that that force makes us feel guilty when we fail that force helps us to more clearly understand what the right thing is versus the wrong thing and leaving the Christian life and walking by the spirit is learning to say no to our human passions or human desires and our human longings when they are at odds with the purposes of God and learning to say yes to the things of God and the Bible says if we sow to the flesh from the flesh we will reap corruption if we sow to the spirit from the spirit we reap life and so one of the keys to remaining faithful is to not make provisions for the flesh it's to say no it's to repent quickly when we fail as often we will it's learning to cultivate obedience to the Holy Spirit in stepping out in his will and the challenge that so many of us face and this is true whether you're young or whether you're old is as Christians we tend to want to have the best of both worlds we want enough of God so that we don't have to live life too guiltily and hope that someday we can go to heaven after we die because even though nobody is in a hurry to get to heaven everybody wants to get there eventually at least they don't want to go to the other place and at the same time we want to have enough fun as the world would describes fun so that we want to be able to you know cater to our appetites or cater to our desires or hold on to our grudges or do whatever it is that we naturally and inherently do and so we sit on a fence with one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom you can live that way for a long time I know a lot of Christians that live that way and I know how easy it is in my own life to try to live that way but remember what you sow you reap and if you sow to the flesh eventually it will overtake you if you sow to the spirit it prepares you for life it is to come I've told you this story before number of years ago had a storm come through and one of the trees in our backyard came down called our son Michael in to cut it up and as we cut it up and looked at it we discovered the reason that tree broke off in the wind was because of something that had happened to it 25 or 30 years earlier number of the kids that preceded us in that location had built a tree house and in building the tree house they had driven some huge spikes into that tree to hold the whole thing up and those spikes became the source of infection for that tree and 20 or 25 or 30 years later that infection had so weakened the tree that along came the wind and down it came and I've often said it's never the blowing wind that destroys our lives what destroys our lives is the breakdown internally that makes us compromise so that when the storm comes we cannot remain standing all the more reason to walk by the spirit and to crucify the flesh for scripture says that is in Christ what we have already committed ourselves to Romans 13 14 clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ do not think about how to gratify the desires of the sinful nature and Galatians 5 24 and 25 those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires since we live by this spirit let us keep in step with the spirit so we need to be sure that we abide in Christ abiding in Christ means that we need to be sure to walk by this spirit not after the flesh doesn't mean we're not going to make mistakes doesn't mean we're not going to mess up but it means we take ownership we keep short shrift with God about our sins and our failures and when the Holy Spirit points things out to us in our lives that aren't right we don't put up our walls of defense that we don't justify we don't make excuses and we say Lord give me a clean heart help me to love you the way I am intended to love you with all of my heart and mind it's compromise that is making the Western Church pray for the philosophies of our age that will surely destroy our culture if God does not step in either with revival or with judgment because we're heading the wrong way and that is a prophetic word that comes I believe straight from the heart of God number three practice the spiritual disciplines diligently spiritual disciplines are things you and I can do to keep ourselves on track and in the love of God they do not save us they do not make us grow spiritually because spiritual growth comes out of union with Christ but they help us cultivate an atmosphere that helps us stay in union with Christ so that his life flowing through us can help us bear the fruit of the spirit now spiritual disciplines they're about 12 in number let me take just a moment and talk about three that I think are particularly pertinent in the context of this passage and in the context of this community none of these will be unique or strange or unknown to you but sometimes it's what we know the best that we need to practice the most and the first of course is the discipline of prayer not only does Jude say here pray in the spirit but we have Jesus in the servant of the mount Matthew six six when you pray go into your room close the door and pray to your father who is unseen the context there is don't be like the Pharisees who pray in public because they want to be recognized for their brilliant prayers no go into your closet and pray and it's legitimate to say that private individual prayers not the only kind of prayer that we do but it's the mainstay of our walk with God and when I first got to know the Lord in a real way through some students at college and they were trying to disciple me which proved to be a bit of a challenge for them one of the first things they encouraged me to do was to have my own personal quiet time a time when I sought the Lord and I would speak to him and hopefully he would speak to me and I have found over the years that that is so much a part of my life that when I don't do that I get discombobulated disoriented really fast because it's the Lord who helps me be centered and who then gives me insights and inspiration and encouragement to know how to spend my time and how to make my life matter and I'm sure the same is true for many if not all of us doesn't mean prayer is always easy I've quoted Larry Lee to you before he says prayer is like working for the power company sometimes you dig holes sometimes you plant poles sometimes you string wires but every so often the juice gets turned on and when it does everything changes one moment in the presence of God you got to remember eternity is geared to placing us in the presence of God and prayer helps facilitate that relationship I love the hymn prayer is the soul sincere desire unuttered or expressed the motion of a hidden fire that trembles in the breast prayer is the Christians vital breath the Christians native air is watch word at the gates of death he enters heaven with prayer ask yourself how much praying do you do and what does that prayer look like it's a spiritual discipline that we neglect at the risk of our spiritual well-being a second spiritual discipline and you know that is the discipline of Bible reading and Bible study Psalm 101 19 verse 105 your word is a lamb to my feet and a light to my path scripture is God's self-revelation it tells us who he is what his character is what he wants what he doesn't want it tells us who we are what it is that he wants from us how he wants us to live what he wants us to avoid and the only way I believe the only way that we can stand against the wisdom of the world that comes at us so powerfully is to know the scriptures through and through when the world comes at us with its values and its clever argumentation perhaps we'll have opportunity to talk about that later when we look more at the full armor of God in Ephesians chapter 6 but what did Jesus do when the devil came at him and said make bread out of stones or jump off the temple or bow down before me and and I will give you the glories of the kingdoms of the world each instance what did he do he quoted scripture because scripture is given to help us know how to live you know these verses from 2nd Timothy 3 16 and 17 all scripture is God breathe or inspired useful for teaching rebuking correcting and training and righteousness so that the man or the woman of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work why are Christians today such push overs because they don't know the Bible and you're not going to know the Bible unless you take regular time to read it not just the pieces that you like to read because we all have our favorite passages also the passages that you don't like to read because God might just be telling you something that you don't want to hear it's the revelation of God and of course we've talked about this before traditionally in our families we used to read the Bible at meal time so that our kids grew up with it permeating their whole system even when they weren't listening they couldn't avoid getting it into their system to a large degree that is lost today and that is a tragedy because if we don't know the Bible the next generation knows it even less and that makes them easy picking because the world knows how to bowl us over I don't know if you've ever thought about how culture changes but here's how culture changes I was going to talk about this a number of weeks ago and I didn't have a chance culture changes it always starts at the fringes of society people who just live without law and who pride themselves in their freedom and then it gets modified and becomes acceptable in a broader segment of society and then you get the really smart people often at a university or higher education level beginning to develop philosophies to justify that kind of behavior permeates the media gets spread all over the country then you'll find a bunch of really sad stories of people who model this and who weren't accepted in society because of it and then pretty soon it becomes mainstream good example is tattoos no offense to those of you that have tattoos but there was a day when who had the tattoos the sailors and the hippies and that fringe of society well who's got the tattoos today just about everybody does a very high percentage of university students have either body piercings or tattoos they could be big or they can be little or whatever else but it shows you how culture changes because what was once not acceptable now becomes acceptable in the broader society and then it becomes okay because everybody thinks it's okay so how do you protect yourself you got to know what God says and he has his opinion on just about every subject under the sun so keep that in mind and then the third one of course third spiritual discipline is to the discipline of corporate worship you know Hebrews 1025 let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing but let us encourage one another and all the more as you see the day approaching and it's always ironic to talk about this to you who are here when we should be talking to the people who are not here hopefully half of them are watching us online and those of you that are watching us online I want you to know there are legitimate reasons for not being here but don't use it as an excuse to stay in bed or not be part of community it's a resource that we provide for people who have to stay home or who cannot be here physically but the scriptural emphasis on God's people is to gather collectively and I've often said the less you want to be here on a given day the more you need to be here because there's something contagious about being in the presence of God and God's people and when we worship the Lord together when we share scripture together it creates the opportunity for the Holy Spirit not the Holy Spirit can speak to you anywhere but he's more likely to speak to you in the context of worship than when you're just doing whatever it is that you want to do and so I want to underscore that one of the first signs that people's faith is failing is they become very irregular in attendance I shared a figure with you I think it was at the congregational meeting comes from the kids up ministry Sarah shared this with us out of four Sundays in the month the average attendance of children in this church is 1.66 that means less than half the time those children are not here now there are some kids that are here all the time are almost all the time and we thank God for that and yes there are legitimate reasons why sometimes a family has to be away kids are sick they have to go visit relatives and whatever else but you and I both know that we live in a world where everything else takes value ahead of the kingdom of God is that not true well that's bad enough for the adults but you can imagine what's going to happen to those children when they grow up being present in corporate worship is not going to be very high value and they will find other places to find their life and their vitality so take seriously scripture when it says don't neglect the gathering of the Saints and even if it isn't about you what you bring to the table can bless other people I always say a crowd draws a crowd and when you're in a full room or when you're surrounded by people who share your values the Lord uses that to stir the fire in your own soul and it makes you stronger so that when your friends come at you on Monday or on Tuesday or on Wednesday and I want to drag you into stuff that you shouldn't be going or doing you'll have the fortitude in the inside to stand up and say no I'm going to be God's me and God's woman God's boy God's girl spiritual disciplines nobody's going to do it for you you've got to decide that it's a value that matters all right we need to abide in Christ we need to walk after the spirit we need to practice spiritual disciplines faithfully if we want to try to stay alive in Christ and then number four we need to engage in ministry I've told you this before out of the Middle East there are two bodies of water there's the Sea of Galilee and there is the Jordan River they're both fed or there's a there's a Sea of Galilee and there's the Dead Sea and they're both fed in part by the Jordan River the Sea of Galilee is full of life it's been a place for fishermen for thousands of years the Dead Sea is so dead that practically nothing lives in it and it's so salty that you can float in it what's the difference the Sea of Galilee has an inlet and it has an outlet the water stays fresh the Dead Sea is on the lowest geographical place on the earth it has an inlet but the only outlet is evaporation and it is so salty that when you stick your fingers in it it feels like oil and it stinks like sulfur just for the record because I swam in it and I can I can tell you that if it keeps me floating it'll keep anybody floor the same thing is true in terms of growing in the Christian life if all you ever do is take Ian if all you ever do is eat the way that you've eaten over Christmas what do you think happens to you get fat and pudgy and out of shape and you need to make New Year's resolutions that say I got them in my ways the same thing is true spiritually if all you ever do is take it Ian it just makes you fat and pudgy and lazy God feeds us so that his grace in us can flow through us to bless other people and the most alive Christians that I know and the Christians who have the most reason for growing passionately in the Lord Jesus are those who not only take Ian but who also give out and so it's very interesting to see how James ends this particular paragraph he ends it with these words he says be merciful to those who doubt snatch others from the fire and save them to others show mercy mixed with fear hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh two things in those two verses that I want us to note the first is we need to understand how serious it is to wander away from God he says be merciful to those who doubt snatch others from the fire and save them and he says hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh it's a reference a reference actually to the book of Zechariah we won't go into that but picture a burning house and what a burning house would do to those who remain inside sadly in the news just the other day a family of four two parents and two kids up Peterborough way their cottage caught fire they're gone terrible tragedies terrible tragedies and if you've ever been in that kind of situation you would do everything that you can as do the first responders to try to save a life and it's a picture that Jude uses here of the seriousness of wandering away from God and I wonder sometimes if as Christians we have read the Bible enough to know the heart of God towards sin earlier on in the book and you can read it for yourself when he is warning the seriousness of these false preachers who who are twisting the message of grace into a message of cheap grace saying well God loves you and he forgives you and it doesn't matter how you how you live he uses three Old Testament examples to show this seriousness of sin the first example is Israel had so many of them died in the wilderness even though they had come out of Egypt the second example is the angels of heaven who refused to submit to the place where God had put them they could cast out of heaven and many of them are held in chains in the nether darkness the Bible says until the coming of the day of judgment and then of course he uses the story of Sodom and Gomorrah where God poured out his judgment on their sexual immorality and their sexual perversion and the Bible has always used that as an example of the wrath of God on sinners who do not repent now you know I preach the love of God and you know that I preach the passion in the heart of God to heal and to save and to restore remember though the biblical balance that while God is incredibly patient incredibly loving incredibly kind there comes a point where his patience runs out if I can use human language where God says enough is enough this tree is never going to bear fruit and judgment comes and what that means is not only for you and me where we fool around with sin we're going to be held accountable but it means those loved ones that we have in our lives that we are hoping against hope will somehow or another come to faith if they don't come to faith if they do not repent if they do not get their life in line with the gospel there comes a moment when God says enough is enough do we understand it and hell is a hell of a place and it's the reverse side of God's love but if God loves his creation if God loves his creation then he cannot tolerate those who just defiantly refuse to bend the knee and who continue to mock the God of heaven and if that makes you depressed welcome to the world of the kingdom of God because that's why judgment has not yet come because God doesn't wish that any should perish but that all should reach repentance so closely tied into that then is the realization that not only do you and I have an obligation to those who are not walking in the way of faith but we have to understand that different people require different strategies be merciful to those who doubt snatch others from the fire and save them to others show mercy mixed with fear hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh why do people walk away from God why do people not respond to his offer of salvation why do people persist in their sin well there's as many reasons as there are people some people want nothing to do with God because they're offended by him life has dealt them a hard deal and they blame God for all their trouble some because they've seen Christians who have lived hypocritically and they've said I don't ever want to be like that and they use it to excuse their own sin some people turn away from God because they're willfully stubborn rebellious and difficult and others because they just don't have what it takes to humble themselves and to bend the knee someday Lord willing I want to preach on the miracles of Jesus in the Gospels but what fascinates me about Jesus in the Gospels is that he never heals anybody the same way have you ever noticed that every story is different you know why because one kind does not fear at all from heaven's perspective every individual is separate and different they have a different history they have a different makeup God knows their hearts and the beauty of Jesus in the Gospels is he knows how to find where they do their living and he heals them accordingly and you and I if we're filled with the Spirit of Jesus will grow in learning how to do that and there are some people we just have to walk it out with them be patient love them encourage them pray for them hope that one day God will break down their resistance and he will reveal himself to them others who rebelliously and stubbornly have chosen the way of sin we might have to sit down look them square in the eye and say listen I don't want to be responsible for your eternity but here's what the Bible says about you and it's your choice to make some of us are tempted to always be heavy-handed some of us are tempted always to be oh it's all okay and God loves you and somehow or another it'll all work out no both extremes are wrong we need the heart of Jesus to be able to lead people into the reality of his kingdom because history is going to come to an end and when it comes to an end the kingdom of God comes and outside of that kingdom is all kinds of sin that doesn't get Ian the only people that get in who through faith in Jesus are sanctified in holy so what happens when we practice these spiritual disciplines in the year that comes well I love the way the book of Jude ends and these verses I memorized a long long time ago because I knew that I needed all the help that God could give me verse 24 and 25 if we can put those up to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and great joy can you picture this able to keep you from falling I remember as a kid lying on my bed saying Lord have I ever grow up don't ever let me fall away from you because I've always known my own propensity to walk away from God to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy to the only God our Savior be glory majesty power and authority through Jesus Christ our Lord before before all ages now and forevermore it is not God's intention for you or for me to be a casualty on the way to the kingdom because the devil has overtaken us God's aim is to present us to himself without wrinkle or blemish or spot neither you or I you know what the year is going to bring for some of us it may bring unexpected blessings and great joy for some of us may be sickness may be death may be tragedy may be heartache we'll be troubled perhaps by what happens in the world and by the decline of biblical values and for some of us that'll be an excuse to say the road is just too hard can't do it throw in the towel doesn't matter and we move off from the beaten path and what the Lord says to you and to me is I've made provision in Christ so that you can not only stand but you can rise above this and you can be used of God to usher in his kingdom even when all hell breaks loose around you you can stand because God has equipped you to stand but for him to do that we have to do our part and our parts not that complicated in the context of what we're talking about this morning we need to abide in Christ because in him all the treasures of wisdom are hidden we need to walk by the spirit day by day making little choices repenting believing obeying we need to practice spiritual disciplines carve out 10 20 15 minutes a day and say Lord here I am what do you want to tell me and then invest yourself in somebody else's life and be used of God to speak truth into that person's life and then God says I'm gonna hold on to you you will be strong you'll be strengthened and when the storm comes at you is sometimes it does and sometimes it will you will not be like that house that is built on sand and the foundation flushed out and the whole house came down with a bang you'll be like that house that is built on the rock and the rains came down you know the song the floods came up and the waves beat against that house and what did the house do it stood firm and when you and I stand before the judgment seat of Christ I want to be able to say as your pastor I want to be able to say as the Apostle Paul did that you are my glory in the Lord because you have been faithful to the very end because that's all that matters come eternity that's all that matters amen stand with me as we pray Oh Lord God help us not to live in the delusion of cheap grace but somehow or another we can walk after the flesh and still be strong in receiving your grace help us to know the resources that we have in Christ help us to appropriate those resources help us Lord to do the little things that we need to feed our own souls to be in prayer and hear from you and to know your word and to be part of Christian community so that we can speak truth into each other's lives and help us blaze with passion for you and for your kingdom purposes and then Lord empower us to be about the business of your kingdom because when all has been said and done 100 years from now won't matter whether people are rich or poor healthy or sick happy or unhappy there's only one thing that matters are they in your kingdom and are they the recipients forever of the inheritance that you have prepared for them in Christ Jesus our Lord so Lord my prayer for this year for each of us is that you would open our hearts and our eyes afresh to see the glorious riches of God in Christ Jesus help us to embrace it and to live out of it and to declare it to the nations for the glory of God we pray [PROPOSED CUT 2 START at 00:55:29.400; remove through 00:55:34.000] it in Jesus name amen. [CUT] [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 2 END at 00:55:34.000; resume after this marked segment]