Today is the day that the Lord has made. So let us rejoice and be glad in it. And everyone said, amen. So I'm at the point in my life, I'm old enough, I should say, to where all of my grandparents are gone. Thankfully, praise be to God, all of my grandparents called upon the name of the Lord as their

savior. And so I know I'll see them all again one day and I was blessed to have three sets of grandparents when I was growing up And every single one of my grandparents told me something taught me something Beautiful about love and life and what it means to be a great grandparent And I was also at the bedside for a few of them as they left this world for the next world. If you've ever been in that situation, you know those are very powerful moments.

And I remember when my grandfather was nearing the end of his time. He only had a few days left, and I was sitting there with him and my mom, and my grandfather just kind of stared off into the distance for a moment.

And my mom said to him,

dad, what are you thinking about?

And he said this,

and this was both haunting and sobering to me. This is like a tattoo on my soul. I'll never forget, not just those words, but how he said those words in that moment. My mom said, what are you thinking about dad? And my grandfather said,

it all went so fast.

The Bible is really clear on how short

the human lifespan actually is. Psalm 39 says, show me the measure of my days, Lord, show me how fleeting my life is. James chapter 4 says that your life is a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.

I love how Psalm 103 says it. Psalm 103 says, men are like grass. We flourish like a flower and then the wind passes over us and we're gone.

The Bible's really clear.

Our life is very short. And for the watching world, for those who are just listening to this, that may sound really sad. That probably doesn't sound like good news. But if you are a Christian, if you know your destiny, if you know what Jesus has done for you, and you've called that upon your own life and faith, then you know

eternity is not the black nothingness that we will eventually vanish into. Eternity is full of hope and glory. Eternity is heaven and heaven awaits us. That's what it means to be a Christian. That we don't fear the night, we long for the dawn. But I'm here to tell you, when that day comes,

when you sit and you say, it all went so fast, I wonder what are you doing from now until then? Are you doing things that show that you approach that day with great anxiety, or are you living a life that shows that you're approaching that day with great anticipation?

What are you doing from now until the day where you say, it all went so fast because I'm here to tell you that day is coming so much sooner than you could possibly imagine. You will blink and that day will be here. So what are you doing now so that on that day,

you don't look back and wish you had done something else? Are you living in the ways that God has called us to live? Do you approach that day with anxiety or anticipation? Because I'm telling you, there's only one way you can approach that day with great anticipation, and that is through the Savior, Jesus Christ.

It is through him and his gospel promises that we can long for eternity, that we don't have to fear it. And so I'm here today to tell you about him, and his name is Jesus Christ. So would you please, in your Bibles, open to the book of Jude. It's the second to the last book of the Bible, quick reference there. This is our final message in our four-part series

on this letter. And if you've been joining us for the last number of weeks, you know that we are arriving to the last verses of Jude. Jude, we call it a book, but it really was a letter. It was a letter that a brother of Jesus wrote to Christians. And it's a short letter.

It's so short, there's no chapters. There's only verses. And we're going to look at verses 24 to 25 here today. And we're going to look at this one beautiful, profound idea. And it's this, that glory is eternal. See, when you read Jude, you find out

that he has kind of one main idea he's trying to get across to Christians, and that's that we need to contend for the faith. That on this side of eternity, there's gonna be a struggle. There's gonna be opposition. And so we are to stand strong.

We are to contend for the faith. And as we get to these final verses, Jude does something amazing. He shares a doxology with us, and we'll get to what that is in just a moment. But right now, let's just read the last two verses of Jude as we close up this series. And so I would ask, if you are able, would you please stand for the reading of God's word?

the letter of Jude verses 24 and verses 25 Not 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 and majesty Dominion and authority before all time and now and forever Amen now and forever.

Amen. Before you have a seat, let's take a moment, let's just pray together. Father of glory, would you be with us here and now through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit that we would know your truth more deeply today,

that we might live more fully for the name of Jesus, our Lord, God, and Savior. And Lord God, we do say these things and we pray these things with those throughout the ages who have said to yours be the glory and the power and the majesty forever, forever and ever.

Amen. And amen. Go ahead and have a seat. Church, I will say it plainly today. I hope that you are impacted by the notion that we're not just talking about eternal things. As we close up this letter from Jude, and I pray it's been a blessing, an enriching

and challenging blessing for you as we've walked through this letter together. But for those who weren't here, let me just kind of recap real quick. We're on week four, the final week, but here's what we looked at for the last few weeks. Week one, we looked at this notion that the fight is now, that we are to contend for the faith right here, right now. Not tomorrow, not later, not after you graduate,

not after you have kids, not after the kids leave the house. The fight is now. We are to contend right now. Then at week two, we looked at how the judgment is real. And that may sound scary,

but what that actually tells us is that our life has meaning, our life has purpose, our actions really do matter. They matter so much that our actions will be held to account at the end of all things. You are not just an amoeba that found its way to existence in this universe.

You are a person made in the image of God and that matters and that means something and your actions mean something. And so week two we had a very sober reminder that the judgment is real. But last week we looked at how we are to contend for the faith because the purpose is personal. That God doesn't just call a nation or a church,

he calls individuals. And so we are to have a personal faith because we have a personal God and a personal Savior. The creator of the universe has revealed himself not just as Lord, God, and master, but as our Father. He calls us into a personal relationship

and so we are to contend for the faith because the purpose is personal. And today, let it be known, as we wrap up this series, that we are to contend for the faith because the glory is forever. Hopefully you were reading along with me as we read this passage together. And if you did, you'd notice this is one sentence in two verses. Let's just go ahead and make it three points today, shall we?

So let's look at this first one. The glory is forever, so contend, because God is your strength. So after Jude's epic call to contend for the faith, he begins to close this letter with what's known as a doxology. Maybe some of your Bibles have that as a heading right here. Doxology is a combination of two Greek words, the word for glory and the word for, well, words.

A doxology is words of glory. So a doxology is a praise giving God the glory and Jude starts the end of his letter with a doxology which starts like this. The first part of verse 24. Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling.

Let's just stop right there for a moment. The him, make no mistake, is God. And what is stumbling? Well, in short, it's sin. Through the salvation we have in Jesus Christ and through the power and presence

of the Holy Spirit within us, God is able to keep you from stumbling, to keep you from tripping and falling into sin. Through the salvation we have with Jesus, this is possible and attainable and given to us. But here's the reality,

too many Christians do not know this because we rely on our own strength. This is one of the saddest things I see about Christians is we try to live this life based on our own strength and this is why we continue to fall into sin, this is why we continue to stumble. If you're trying to live life on your own strength let me just ask you how is that going? Probably not very well and I'll tell you this, the older I get,

the more I realize one of the great faults of men is our inability or our unwillingness to ask for help. I would, for some reason, rather spend three hours in the garage trying to fix my truck myself when I could just call my dad or my father-in-law or my friend to come help me, who could turn what I would take into three hours, they could make it one hour.

But no, I'm going to do it myself because apparently I like to waste my life in the garage. What is with us that we just won't ask for help? Men, you need to understand, pride truly does come before the fall. Let me just get very real for a moment. Too many men are trapped in the addiction of pornography when help is so abundantly available but

we just can't bring ourselves to ask for that help. Whether shame, fear, or pride, Christian you need to understand the church is here to help you. We are called to carry each other's burdens. If you are a slave to pornography, call out to a brother in Christ. I guarantee if that brother loves the Lord, he will say, I will fight this battle with you,

I will carry this burden with you. We have a whole group at church here willing to help men do that so they can find victory in the name of Jesus over this demonic thing called pornography that's a blight on our society.

We are meant to carry each other's burdens. We're meant to be in fellowship. You are meant to be connected. The Christian who says they don't need the church is, well, I'll just tell you, I feel very sad that a person comes to that point.

When we are meant to be together, God is our help and he uses his church so that Christians can have that help. But Christians don't rely on God for help. And we don't ask God for help. And I'm gonna say something right now

that's gonna sting a little bit. So I'm gonna give you a moment. Breathe, prepare your heart for this. The reality is, many of us do not ask for help because we don't want help because you love your sin. You love your sin and you love the brokenness

and you're too fearful to part with it because the truth is, is you love the sin more. If that's you, my friend, then you hear me. You're not contending for the faith. You've surrendered to sin. And Christian, Christian men, is this really what you want?

Is this really the type of man that you wanna be, that you'll just roll over and let sin have its way with you? We are called to contend, men and women, we're called to contend for the faith with the power of the Holy Spirit within us through the gospel of Jesus.

We are meant to fight. My friends, we need to remember that we contend for the faith because the glory is forever. We're in the business of eternity.

So let me level with you for a moment.

We're talking about eternity here, and I fully recognize that some of us right now, you can't think about eternity because you just want to get through this next season. You can't think about eternity because you just want to get through this next week. Maybe some of you, you just want to get through the day. If that's you, call upon the Lord. But remember, we must always keep the long view before us. Christians are the ones who recognize that we are part

of eternity. I think most of us realize, unfortunately, either first hand or second hand, most of us realize that a momentary sin can lead to a lifetime of hurts

I'm sorry to tell you this

But I'm here to tell you it's even worse than that It's not just a lifetime of hurt, but a momentary sin is a an eternal offense against the Holy God I'm sorry your actions really do matter. And when we sin, we can, yes, we run the risk of ruining things for a lifetime, but we also have to understand that when we sin, that's an offense against an eternally holy God. We're dealing with eternity here.

We're dealing with an eternal glory that God is calling us to, but many of us are forsaking it for this momentary pleasure we call life. This is why God has said that he knows he's the one that needs to step in, that we have the strength to do this on our own. We cannot save ourselves, that's why God sent his son to die on the cross in our place for our sin, to pay the penalty for our sin, and on the third day rise again so that we could have eternal life, and in that eternal life God is still our help. He's still our strength. He still steps in. Because God knows what we're dealing with.

We're dealing with a forever glory. We are to contend for the faith because God is our strength. And this leads to the second thing, that the glory is forever. So contend because the joy is your hope. So let's go back to verse 24 and let's complete the thought here. I started off by saying, not to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, but let's focus on this next part. And to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy. I want to share a few things that hopefully forever change how much you love that phrase.

So I understand that not any one person can understand all things, but I want all of us here to understand this one thing. My friends, the presence of God is the most terrifying place in all existence of any reality. Only that which is blameless, sinless, faultless, and holy can be in the presence of God. And even the thought of entering the presence of God with even an ounce of sin should fill you with terror.

Now imagine entering the presence of God with a life of sin. You cannot do it, you will be destroyed. This is why the prophet Isaiah, when he was given just a vision of God's throne room, his only response was, woe is me, I am undone. My friends, but we know the good news. That through Jesus Christ, the presence of God is not to be feared, it's to be longed for. Why? Because through Christ we are brought

blameless into God's presence. So instead of terrifying fear, we long for the presence of God with overwhelming joy. And this is not because of anything we've done, but because of what Jesus Christ has done for us through his life, death, and resurrection. Church, Why do we contend for the face? Because we know the outcome. The war has been won.

And yes, there's a little battle between now until eternity and until glory, but we know our destiny. It's one of joy. It's one of hope, not hope as in wishful thinking, but hope as an eager anticipation for our future is filled with joy. But you have to understand what Judah's saying here.

And so let's read it again. To present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy.

You have to permit me to geek out

for just a second here, okay? This is not just any old standard issue joy. Okay, in the New Testament, the common word for joy is kara. We find it about 60 times in the New Testament. It's a beautiful word. We love kara, joy. We want this joy.

You learn it in Greek 101. But this word, this word that Jude uses here is a different word. It's a far more rare word. In fact, it's one word, it's one word in Greek, but it takes two English words to understand what is being said here. And this word, we only find a total of five times in the New Testament. Again, the common word for joy we find nearly six times.

This word for joy we only see it five times in the entire New Testament. And it means exaltation, wild joy, ecstatic delight, here's my favorite definition, exhilaration. Do you remember that scene when Mary is pregnant with Jesus, and she goes to visit Elizabeth,

and Elizabeth is also pregnant. Who's Elizabeth pregnant with, anybody remember? Elizabeth is pregnant with John the Baptist. So you got pregnant Mary with Jesus, comes to visit Elizabeth, who's pregnant with John the Baptist.

And when Mary enters the room, you remember what John the Baptist does? He leaps for joy. This is one of those other times that we see this very rare word for joy. Exhilaration, thrill.

What Jude is reminding us is that friends, we can anticipate heaven not just with hope as if that wasn't enough, but with thrill, with exhilaration. This is what the gospel does for us. When we should be utterly horrified

at the notion of coming into the pure presence of God, yet through the cleansing blood of Jesus, we don't have to fear that moment, but it says that we are presented blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy. I understand not wanting to die, but we do not fear what's on the other side. Rather, we enter into eternity and the presence of God blameless, faultless. Think about

all the wretched things you've done and thought in your life. You carry none of that into the presence of God because of Jesus Christ. Listen, I've never been to the spiritual realm. I don't know what it's like, but we get glimpses of it from the Bible. Let me just share a few things because it's beautiful, unlike anything we could experience here. We're told that God's throne, if you read the Bible, the God's throne is composed of rainbow. How beautiful is that? And you know that we talk, we often talk about

the pearly gates of heaven. Do you know that that's actually biblical? The gates of heaven actually are made of pearl, not composite pearl, not a bunch of little pearls put together, but the gates of heaven are made out of one giant pearl. Imagine how beautiful that is. And it says that heaven is filled with the glory of God. As if English words could ever explain this. What is the glory of God? It is the radiating holiness and goodness of God. Heaven is to be longed for. And the Bible tells us that through Jesus,

this is what we can anticipate. Who here knows who the duck commander is? Duck commander has a very famous quote. I love this. And I'm sure you probably heard this at some point. He says, I keep life simple. I spend as much time in the woods as I can. And we love God and we love our neighbor. And for the life of me, I cannot figure out why more people don't get on board with this.

I'll tell you what,

that's how I feel about what we are talking about today. I just don't understand how more people don't wanna get on board with this. Like literally, what in the world, what in this world do you think is better than what we are talking about

that you would wanna give yourself to the things of the world rather than what the Bible is describing here. What in the world do you think is better than this? Like literally, what in the world do you think is better than what we're talking about here?

For the life of me, I cannot understand why more people do not get on board with this. The only thing I can understand is that you just love the brokenness and you love the sin of the world this much. And that is just painfully sad. For the life of me, I cannot understand why more people don't get on

board with this. The future of heaven is waiting for us after this fleeting life, which is our last point. The glory is forever, so contend because heaven is your future. My friends, in the grand scheme of things, you must understand understand that heaven is just around the corner. I want to stop for a moment. I want to pull you back in because too many of us are just listening to a preacher preach right now. You're not listening to what I'm saying. And I am

desperate for you not just to be listening to a preacher preach. I want you to hear what I'm saying. In the grand scheme of things, you are going to blink and you yourself are going to say, it all went so fast. So what are you doing right now that you'll be thankful for in that moment? Because that day is coming, it is coming so fast. And you must remember that if you are in Christ, then heaven is your future. And the last verse of Jude says this, verse 25, says,

to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, be glory and majesty and dominion and authority before all time and now and forever. Amen. And so, Jude, what he does here, Jude ends his letter with modeling something that's so important for us. And it's that God gets the glory.

That all of this is about bringing God glory. Church, put God's glory into your vocabulary. Those two words, God's glory, talk about God's glory. Speak that to your family, speak that to your children and grandchildren, use, bring God's glory, those words into your vocabulary.

Let's practice right now. Let's say God's glory together. Ready, one, two, three.

God's glory.

See, you didn't need me to say it, you got it. Bring it into your vocabulary. Bring it into the language of your family that our lives are meant to be lived unto God's glory because God's glory is the highest good. So when we live unto God's glory,

we're living our lives unto the highest possible good. Why would you give your lives to anything less than that? And look at the word choice that Jude uses here. Glory, majesty, dominion, authority. Let's talk about those real quick. Glory. We already said this. It's God's powerful control over creation. And authority, meaning God's sovereign right to have control over creation. So what does dominion and authority mean? It means God has the power and the rights to be over all.

And as Jude says, this is before all time, now, and forever. The past, the present, and the future. And our future is heaven with God. And I can't help but read this verse and not think about experiencing this day, the day that will come oh so quickly.

I'll tell you one thing that I think men in particular, I'll tell you one thing that I think men gotta do more of these days. And that's sit on the tailgate of an old truck and talk about God's goodness with one another. A couple years ago I was doing just that with a friend of mine who was struggling with his faith and here's what he said to me. He said, you know, when it comes to the gospel, the thing I can't get around is how boring heaven sounds.

I said, boring?

What are you talking about boring?

He said, I get that we can't be good enough to enter into heaven, that Jesus needs to die for our sins. He said, I fully understand that, but I cannot get excited about heaven. I said, why man, it's paradise. It's paradise.

And this is what he said. He said, I'm sorry, I'm just not looking forward to sitting there, worshiping God forever and ever and ever and ever. He said to me, dude, I get bored after three worship songs at church.

I said, brother, you are looking at this from such the wrong angle. You are missing the boat big time here. I said, first of all, if heaven is not a 24-7 worship service like what you think it is. Heaven is a place. Heaven is a city. And in this place we will have responsibility. Or to put it another way, we'll have a job to do. And if you think

that that sounds like not a good thing, let me just tell you, no, no, no. This is the job that fills our hearts. This is the job that we're meant to do. This is the job that fills our heart with joy. And in heaven, our fellowship and friendship with other people will be perfect. There's no gossip and there's no backstabbing. There's no criticism. It is joy. It is how things are meant to be. And so let me tell you what this means because it'll blow your mind. When we say God is eternal, what this means is it does not

matter how long you are in heaven, there will always be more to learn about him. That is the mind-boggling reality of the infinite. See, you have to understand who we're talking about when we're talking about God. Boring in His presence?

Please.

However long we travel down the road of heaven, the path ahead of us is always longer than the path behind. And that's a beautiful, powerful thing. And definitely it should humble us, but one thing it should not do is make us think this is boring. I said, you're thinking about heaven as a person still stained by sin, but in heaven, your heart is free to do that which it was

meant to do, to worship God in the presence of God, where our hearts were never so full as they will be in that moment. My friends, if you're struggling with this, let me just posit this right clearly before

you.

You've got two options. Option A, things are just the way that they are. Neither good nor bad, and you can debate all the live long day with people on the other side of the aisle about how things should be,

but either way, things just are the way they are. That's one option. Or the other option is that things are not how they're meant to be. That there truly is an objective standard from which creation has fallen.

And I'm here to tell you, I think if you're honest with your own heart, you realize things are not the way they are meant to be. That there is something better, truly something better. There's a standard for which all the creation should be at, but we've fallen from that.

You have two options before you, so I ask you to think carefully about which reality you wanna live in. Because I think in your heart, you know this to be true, there is a way things are meant to be and this is not it. But I'm telling you, in heaven it is. And the awesome thing about heaven is that at the end of all things, God will make heaven

and earth one. Did you know that? God will recreate all things so that heaven and earth are one. And did you know in the new heavens and the new earth, that there will be no sun? Because we won't need a sun because God will be our light. This is the beauty of what we get to look forward to.

Or if you think things are just the way they are, then you get to live in a universe that will eventually experience heat, death, and slowly expand forever into the infinite void. And if you think that's what your life is, if you think that's the end of your life,

I'm here to tell you there is a better story being told and being written, and God is the author. Because the glory is forever. In heaven we realize what we know in our hearts to be true, that there is a way that things are meant to be, and we get to experience it for all time.

I said to my friend, board, please. And then I quoted this line from Amazing Grace. When the song Amazing Grace says this, it says, when we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we first begun. Boring?

In some beautiful way, it only ever gets better. Listen to me, my friends. We get to live right now, your life, in light of eternity, the eternity that God is calling us into. And so contend for the faith because the glory is forever. Amen. Amen.

Can we stand and let's prepare our hearts to worship.