Hello, hello. Hello, everybody. Let's take our seats. Let's get situated. And in 30 seconds, we will pray to begin our last segment in the Book of Jude. So let's go ahead and settle in. OK, please join with me in a word of prayer. Our God, we want to give you thanks tonight.

We want to continue to lift up to you grateful hearts for the life you give to us and the everyday blessings you grant to us in the name of your Son. We do pray for a truly edifying time of having fellowship over your word, looking intently at your scripture truth with insight, with illumination.

But I pray also that in all things, by us delighting in what you've given to us, by us having such receptive hearts and attitudes, it would be honoring and glorifying in your sight that ultimately be pleasing, Lord, in your eyes, where God, your children are eagerly looking for your wisdom, your authority, your guidance over us, knowing, God, that your will truly is to our best.

So God, also as we join our hearts and words and songs to praise you and lift you up, we pray, God, that in all these things you would be honored. We thank you in Christ's name. Amen. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty. Early in the morning a song shall rise to thee.

Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty. God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Holy, holy, holy, all the saints adore thee. Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea. Cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee. Fuller and tolerant evermore shall be. Holy, holy, holy, though the darkness hide thee. Though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see.

Only thou art holy. There is none beside thee. Perfect in power, love, and purity. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God almighty. All thy works shall praise thy name in earth. Then sky and sea. Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty. God in three persons, blessed Trinity. God in three persons, blessed Trinity.

God in three persons, blessed Trinity. Should nothing of our efforts stand, no legacy survive. Unless the Lord does raise a house in vain, its builder strive. To you who boasts tomorrow's gain, tell me what is your life. A mist that vanishes at dawn, all glory be to Christ. All glory be to Christ our King.

All glory be to Christ. His rule and reign will ever sing. All glory be to Christ. His will be done, His kingdom come on earth as is above. Who is himself our daily bread, praise Him, the Lord of love. Let living water satisfy the thirsty without price. Without price will take a cup of kindness, yet all glory be to Christ.

All glory be to Christ our King. All glory be to Christ. His rule and reign will ever sing. All glory be to Christ. When on the day the great I am, the faithful and the true, the Lamb who was for sinners saint is making all things new. Behold, our God shall live with us and be a steadfast light.

And we shall, their His people be. All glory be to Christ. All glory be to Christ our King. All glory be to Christ. His rule and reign will ever sing. All glory be to Christ. All glory be to Christ our King. All glory be to Christ. His rule and reign will ever sing.

All glory be to Christ. Amen. Just want to highlight a few announcements for us. Just some important dates you want to note down is that Saturday, March 4th, we're having our All Church Cleaning and Maintenance Day. So mark that on your calendar and sign up. Additionally, for our Bible study purposes, Friday 3/10 is going to be our praise and prayer, the first break we'll have in our Bible study schedule.

So that Wednesday we won't be meeting, okay? So next week will be the start of 2/3 John, followed by Pastor Peter. And then the week following is going to be the praise and prayer Friday. So make sure you just note that on your calendar, okay? And then an important announcement for those of you guys in our singles, BAM Ministries, who signed up for the retreat and were so excited to go see snow, there is too much snow.

We were waiting until the last minute because we were trying, we knew it was going to snow and then, we were trying to wait for the forecast to turn in our favor. We were hearing that there was only three inches of snow the first day of the storm, something like that with the plows and going the more easy route we can get there.

But the forecast now says on Friday it will snow up to a foot and a half to two feet of snow. So that's not going to do and it's going to be 20 degrees. And so trying to leave on Friday is going to be impossible. So that being the case, please know that we're not going to go up to the campsite.

You guys are going to get messages for Audible. We're going to have the retreat nevertheless because we still have our speaker. He's going to be great and we're going to have it here at church. We're going to worship. We're going to learn. It's going to be a great time of fellowship.

So look out for notices. Look out for announcements to come and just know that's going on for this weekend, okay? Alright. The rest of the announcements and such, you guys can take a look on your apps. You can go into your guys' discussion and we'll come back at 8.

Alright, for those of you guys in the room, this would be a good time to make your way out to the main area to go over the study. Okay, so apologies for my voice. I'm thankfully just recovering. I got over a weird cold. I'm all better now. Thankfully no snot and sinus, and so now everything I say sounds profound.

Alright, so I'm not sure if I see some of the groups out from the back rooms. If you can signal them if you're back there. Let's take a moment to pray as we jump in. Lord, God, it is our prayer that we not fall into the typical temptation, I guess you could say pattern, where your word becomes somehow insignificant, somehow overplayed, and God, dismissible in our eyes.

Lord, I pray that we would never come to a place of complaining that we do this week in and week out, but rather help us to be those who cling to every single word you say. I pray, Father God, that our hearts would learn to love and cherish your instruction as a loving Father gives to us, but also because Jude is trying to teach us, help us to be wise in such a way that our eyes are actually open and we see the dangerous world that we live in.

Also, the dangers of the flesh in which we live and we see, Father God, that we desperately need your protection, your Spirit's power, and more. And the hope that you give according to your truth. So, Father, we thank you so much for your word tonight. It's in Christ's name.

Amen. So, as we take a look at our overview of the letter that we have been studying, we saw Jude's purpose for us. He said, "I wanted to write you so much about the common faith we have, but I felt the necessity to warn you because there are people who have crept in." And he wanted to tell us, "You have to contend for this faith." And then, the bulk, just the sheer bulk of 12 plus verses, 12 and more, of the description of the warning given to us that there are such ungodly people who have come into the midst of the congregation.

They operate in the same pattern as did many sinful people of the past, yet their destruction is certain. And we can be rest assured that God knows how to spare, and God knows how to judge. Verse 17 through 23, he gave us exhortation to keep building up this faith.

He gave us exhortation to keep ourselves in the love of God, and to also keep others. And then we end today with this doxology. Verse 24 and 25, which says, "Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and able to make you stand in the presence of his glory, blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time and now and forever.

Amen." So as we take a look at this, we could summarize it, if we were to summarize into one singular phrase, it would simply be, "To God who is able be all glory." Okay? To God who is able be all glory. So when we take a look at this last segment, verse 24 to 25, it probably is so familiar to you guys, because both Pastor Peter and I, we love reading this at the very end of the sermon.

It's an amazing summary of how powerful God is, how deserving he is, right? And so that's why we call it a doxology. What is a doxology? You guys probably heard that term here and there. You know, you see it at the top of the heading of your Bibles. Doxology simply just actually means a word of glory.

Dox is the Greek word for glory, andology is just the word, right? So there are many other passages in Scripture that speak in kind of magnificent terms, elaborative terms of the greatness of our God. And it typically, not always, but typically comes at the end of a section where the author has been expounding and explaining and going through details of, "Do you see how good God is?

Do you see his gospel?" And then he breaks into a word of praise, basically. One such example is Romans 16. It says, "Now to him who is able to establish you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which has been kept secret for long ages past, but now is manifest, and by the Scriptures of the prophets according to the commandment of the eternal God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith, to the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, be the glory forever.

Amen." Here's another one, because it's so good. Hebrews 13, it says, "Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever.

Amen." Okay? And so in this way, we have many pastoral scriptures that essentially say, "To God be the glory forever and ever." And it reminds me of when I got saved as a young senior in high school, they had at the church, a Korean church, at the end of the service, that like singing of the, you know, "Praise God from whom all blessings flow." Okay?

I can't sing right now. What am I doing? But then it kind of crescendos into, right, that all glory, all power, to God forever and ever. Amen. And then it's so powerful. You know? And for us, we take a moment to just think about at the end of a letter like this, it is interesting to be like, "Woe to you guys, because there is creepers who have come in, dangerous men, apostate men, and they follow their lust, they're arrogant, they're deceivers." And this goes on.

And at the end of that, just a breakout in praise. Okay? So I want you guys to kind of think about, what does it mean to really give God glory then? We've heard the idea, the book of Ephesians tells you, "Bless the Lord." Right? So what does that mean?

Okay? The immediate word association to praise God or glorify God would automatically translate to just sing and sing and sing. Does singing glorify God? And the answer is yes. Okay? But beyond that, in terms of your state of mind, in terms of the content and the sanctuary of your head, what is contained in the content of your thoughts, in the way you express your views, the words that you use, and in the actions that you decide on doing, what does it mean to glorify God?

Right? And I want to just share one of the interesting things, as I remember early on when I was a Christian, there was this overly dramatic gentleman who was my teacher. And what was so funny is that every time he would get the youth group to go to a school, he would be very critical.

And he knew some of us were essentially lying or we weren't telling the full truth. He would always look at us and say, "Tell the truth. Shame the devil." Right? Not in that voice, but something similar. Right? He'd say, "You tell the truth. Shame the devil." But also he would say, "You tell the truth.

Glory to God." Right? And was he just being a charismatic? Was he just being a charismatic? No, he was making perfect sense. You either make Satan nice and proud because you're hiding yourself, you're not telling the full truth, you're not being forthright. Right? Or the flip. Because it only makes sense to be broken, truthful, and honest because you trust God, you glorify Him.

And it was kind of really interesting that he made a connection and drew a line every time he challenged us to do something because this is the will of God. Right? But I want you to think. We're ending with a passage that tells like, "Glory to God." And if we just end with, "Yeah, next time I sing, I'm just going to sing a little louder." I'm not sure if we're going to be able to apply this passage in its full extent.

Right? So meditate on that. But if we take a look at the full of the text, in thinking about all that's contained, what we can tell just from my color coding, I hope it helps you guys when I do this, is that, yes, we're supposed to give glory to God, but in relationship to some of the other ones that I showed you, the book of Romans, clearly, he centered the book of Romans doxology on the glory of God because of the revelation of the gospel.

And the book of Romans happens to be such an emphatic book on the explanation of the gospel truth. The book of Hebrews, if you want to talk about a book that connects the dots for you on the covenant of God, that's the book you go to. Well, guess what?

He ends the book with that connection. Here, what's really interesting is, amidst all the troubles, he focuses our attention on the one who is able. Right? As we think about giving glory to God, there is this question of, do you trust truly in your heart and have faith that yes, with man, all things impossible, but with God, there is nothing impossible.

He is fully able to keep us amidst all of this. And so, let's move to the very first section. If I were to break it up, I would say verse 24 has to him who is able as the centerpiece. And so we think about this idea that he is clearly able to keep.

And yes, it's the same word that he uses when he challenges you to keep yourself. And I mentioned it is a very descriptive word because he is watching and guarding, securing and preserving. But it is often used at the top of the dictionary entry, it was most often used as to guard something, even as a guard guards a prisoner.

Yes? And he guards you from stumbling. And he's also able to make you stand. First, I want to ask an interesting question just for your guys' thought is, so clearly here, oops, sorry, the pen's there, okay. There's this idea of to keep you. And then there is this thought of stumbling, and we should ask, like, I know if we were to do a track record, meaning you just start tallying how many times you sin in the month, like, some of us would be like, well, I'm not exactly sure how he's keeping me from sinning, meaning daily mistakes, errors and sins.

But is that what he's talking about when he says stumbling? Right? Daily mishaps and sins. Or is he talking about an ultimate kind of falling away? Something to think about. But nevertheless, I want us to just keep in, like, mind the context. Lately, what's been interesting is that there's been a lot of people feeling this eerie sense of, oh, my goodness, the end is near.

Right? Because everything that we've been seeing around us in context of just, like, how the scriptures describe the end times, it talks about everybody's going to be really angry. Everyone's going to be very greedy. Children will be haters of parents. People will be lovers of self, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

And then what's more, scripture has told us as the end gets closer and closer and closer, the church itself, it's going to look like the seven churches in the book of Revelations. Whether it's all compromised, form without spirit and power. And so there is this bleak outlook. But even in the midst of all of these threats, attacks of apostates, false teachers, even though that laundry list of character traits that we saw was, truthfully speaking, was so overwhelming we couldn't keep track of all of them, God says, "Do you understand?

I am going to preserve and keep you." So yes, in the midst of all that and also in the end of all that. And what's pretty amazing is 1 Peter describes it very similarly, where he talks about for us, we're going to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, will not fade, reserved in heaven for you, you who are protected by the power of God through faith for our salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.

Right? So that's 1 Peter 1, 3 to 5. And so in thinking about all that, I think this is something we should just put a stake down and say, "Man, do I ever struggle with this weary thought, like, 'Oh my gosh, where is the world headed?' And do you also have any sentiment where you have this heart in you that is already defeated?

'Ah, I'm going to struggle, always struggle, and then I'm just going to squeeze by.'" You know? This is it. The challenge to you is hear God's word that He is actually going to, here, go to the next one, also make you stand. He's going to make you stand where?

In the presence, and I believe this idea of also with great joy is supporting this idea of how He's going to, okay, make you stand. And we think about this as a means to appreciate what He's saying. I want you to do the whole, like, envision together, right? Envision together me asking you, "Hey, I wanted to use as an example for my sermon and illustration somebody who's just a great, great church man and church woman, an example and model of faith.

Can I ask you to come stand with me on the pulpit?" Okay? Just picture with me, okay? How many of you would be like, "Yeah, let me be the sermon illustration for you, Pastor Mark." Right? I'm guessing nobody. You would automatically be like, "No, no, no, no. I have a fear of public speaking.

No, no, no, no. You could use somebody else." And for sure, I'm not like the prime example. There's other people, da, da, da, da, da, and you'll name off others. Right? We don't even like being stood in front of our friends, okay? That's what I'm talking about. God Himself is the greatest quality control.

He's the greatest judge. He has the most piercing eyes, and He sees through all. Right? And so for Him to say, "I am going to make you stand before the glory of God with not incredible fear and dread that you're just going to be spotted for all that you are, but that you're going to be presented before God with joy," that's crazy.

Right? That's so amazing. And so I wanted to encourage our hearts that this has been the heart of God, where He has said that He has His ambition. In Ephesians 5, the description of the role of the husband was to nourish, cherish, wash, and present, holy, blameless, in all her splendor, the church.

And that has been Christ's agenda. And then Christ said, "I will accomplish it without losing a single one." Amen? Next, we take a look at the middle section, and we see that there is kind of like just a reiteration. Right? It says, "To Him," and then it goes on to say, "To the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord." Now, within this text, there's nothing new.

And so it's kind of like, "Hmm, I don't know how to pull observations from verse 25a." So I'm just going to say, "To God be the glory," and I was about to pass, honestly. But then I started saying, "No, I'm going to try to think about each word." And then you start realizing, well, clearly there is this idea of the only God, and in our day, to say He is the only way, there is only one God, that's like fighting terms.

Right? If you say we have the only truth, the only revelation that will ever save you, you are an exclusive arrogant man. And what's more, if you talk about nowadays our Savior, I saw a hilarious thing. About nowadays our Savior, I saw a hilarious thing. His name was Benjamin Watson.

He's a pro football player. And it was already old. It's like five years old. But he was talking about how, hey, there's not necessarily like a social problem there's a sin problem. The reason why we're so angry at each other is because there's sin in our hearts. And then he started to say, "But I believe that our only solution is not just simply government and policies, I believe it's Jesus Christ." And the screen went green.

It was like static. And the announcer was like, "Oh, just like that, we lost him." He got cut off. And I thought that was hilarious. That the pushing of Jesus as a solution to our societal woes is silenced in our day. This is fighting terms to say, "No, no, no, no.

You need a Savior like I need a Savior." It has to be through Jesus Christ. There is no only way. And guess what? He is Lord. A primary description of God. Right? He is, and then we're going to study later, He is the creator. He owns everything. Guess what?

He is the control. He is sovereign. He is Lord. Unfortunately, we live in a generation where Jesus, He is depicted as the one who is our friend, the one who is our comforter, which is true. But the primary anticipation in our hearts when we think about Jesus coming back is Jesus is coming back with splendor, majesty, power, reign.

Jesus is coming back as king over your life. Yes? And so what I did was I said, "You know, every single one of these words, it describes a way by which we can actually fight every falsehood that faces us today." Every single word, it was pretty amazing that he wanted to talk about the gospel and the common faith that we have, and then he did it in two phrases.

That the consideration of, like, if there is somebody who wants to teach you something, if there happens to be an event, you have to ask, "Does this give attention to God or to us?" If there is an event or a movement, you have to ask, "Is it exclusive to the one true God or are we catering to everybody?" You know, everybody of all faith, we are equally welcome.

Does it involve your personal conversion where it has to be my savior? Does it actually adjust the fact as a necessity for exaltation because our greatest problem in this life is not societal woes, our greatest problem is that my sin deserves God's wrath. And then you can just go down the list.

Every single one of these, our generation will see as contentious words, and therefore, every single one of these words presents to us a way by which we can truly contend for the faith. Next. In the last segment, that to him must be all glory, describes that he is deserving, or I guess to him be, and there's a question for you there.

We don't talk like that, okay, normally, right? Even if we're talking about, I guess, human characters, lately, because LeBron became the highest-scoring player in the NBA ever, everyone started to say, "Man, this guy truly is the GOAT," and there has been debates. "No, no, no, you fool, Michael Jordan's the GOAT." It's like, "No, no, no, LeBron's the GOAT," you know?

But you would never say, "To LeBron be the glory," you know? You would never say, like, "To LeBron be the recognition." Like, who talks like that? So we have to ask, in what way to be God are all of these descriptions, or I guess possessions, or I guess, and it kind of makes you think, right?

To have glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, and it would be good for you to, I hope you guys at least took one of these words and did the whole definition thing, or where else are they used? And then you realize, "Oh my gosh, it's like everywhere," you know? Obviously, it's in Revelation multiple times, the angels are singing.

For example, let's see here. The angels are singing in Revelation 5, right? The elders are singing, the creatures are singing. Just as an example from Revelation 5, 11, he says, "I looked, I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, living creatures, elders, the number of myriads, myriads, thousands, thousands, saying with a loud voice, 'Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, riches, wisdom, might, honor, glory, and blessing, in every created thing which is in heaven and on earth, under the earth and the sea, all things in them, I heard them saying, 'To him who sits on the throne, be blessing, honor, glory, dominion forever and ever, amen.'" That was like an incredible, incredible vision.

And so I thought about that for a moment, this idea of like, huh, that's pretty cool that through reading these other passages, you get a vision, you get a picture, right? And so it kind of begs the question, like, number one, I do think there is a potential pitfall where these terms are too big and lofty for us to connect with.

It's just like, okay, majesty, dominion, and authority. I know God's powerful, right? But there is this other question of like, do you have a kingdom vision, a vision like that, so glorious, where everything is perfectly right? Let me say that again, it's like, some of us, we want to fix various problems in the universe, and we want to fix a lot of the problems in our lives, but there is a high and lofty vision where everything is in its perfect place, and that vision is what I just read to you from Romans 5.

Where every single creature is honoring the only individual who's truly worthy. And we're saying exactly correct things, which is, look at how deserving this Lord is. Look how beautiful he is. And so we're saying the truest, the most appropriate stuff, and we're not arguing about trivial things like, nah, you fool, Jordan's better, right?

It's so trivial, so vain, and so menial. But it's kind of funny because, again, this is a knock on a lot of guys who are debating and stuff like that. Some of us are kind of offended. Are you stupid? Did you not see how good Jordan was? Did you not see how many opponents he took down?

Did you not see his ambition, his prowess, his skill in every single, like, whatever, they can go on and off and off. But there's that question, like, do you have a vision of God that's so great that you'd be willing to say to other people, like, dude, you reject God right now, you're the fool.

Do you have any idea how perfect this maker is? Do you have any idea how perfect his patience is every season? Do you have any idea how glorious this God is? You know? So as I was reading that, I was like, man, like, if I had that vision, the implications that come from it, if I had that vision where I said my greatest ambition and goal is to see God glorified in my life and yours, and truthfully speaking, in every form of discipleship, whether it's the preaching from the pulpit, whether it's leadership training or biblical counseling, any form of discipleship, one of the number one goals is, dude, if you and I are not united on this one vision to first and foremost be about the high priority of glorifying God, then we're on two different, entirely separate paths.

There's no discipleship here. Every form, like in counseling, if I have somebody who's like, oh my gosh, like, you know, something tragic happened, and da da da da da, it's like, yes, you have my compassion, you have my, you know, all my empathy and sympathy that I can possibly muster, and you have the compassions of Christ.

But even in your crisis, if you and I are not set on the priority of the glory of God, we have no solution to this situation. Right? Why? Because if you have as your priority, as a number one goal, to remove all the pain from your heart and nothing else, then you'll never ever get there.

Right? You're gonna miss the entire thing, which is Christ. When he is glorified, when he is honored, when he has authority, when he has dominion, and he has all glory, all of your pains also diminish underneath that great, great glory of God. And so I wanted to say that in so many ways, actually, this potentially, potentially, kind of lofty, hard to conceptualize, big old terminology words, has a huge ton of application in everyday scenario, because it becomes the greatest driving force of the things that we decide.

Right? And between those decisions that we make in our lives, whether it's your dating, financial, right, whatever it is, practical, you will have to cross that question of, does this bring more glory to God? You have to. And based upon those answers, you end up applying some of the greatest wisdom for every scenario in life.

And so, by a wrap up and review, we had before as a big, big chunk, you don't have to take notes on this, I sent you the PowerPoint, and it's just like, right? All the way starting from verse four, down to verse 16 and 17 and more, there were descriptions of the ungodly men.

Ungodliness is around you. Okay? That was a warning. And then the scripture in Jude told you, "Contend." And it told you to contend by remembering and knowing all that's going to happen. It commanded you to contend by building up your faith, praying in the Spirit, keeping yourselves in the love of God, and keep looking.

Show compassion towards the wavering. Seek urgently to rescue some, and use yourself, stay pure. And in these last portions, it tells you, it told you, contend by trusting God's ability. Contend by seeking His glory. Amen? Let's take a moment to pray. Heavenly Father, we pray, God, that you would help us to see and recognize, Lord, that your calling for us was to glorify you whether I eat my dinner or not.

Your desire for us was to glorify you. Even in my drinking. Even in taking a sip of whatever it was, attending this or that, the daily menial decisions that I think have no bearing, I was supposed to think about your glory. And so I pray that you would help us to be so intentional and genuinely so considerate about you.

Father God, we live in a generation where so many pastors and teachers are so considerate of men that they are more than willing to simply hide you in the backseat. I pray, Father God, that we would say no to this generation, and we would place you as truly the first place, the head of the church, that God, you would have first and primacy place in everything.

I also pray, God, that you would guard us, truly guard us from the temptations of our enemy, the devil, that is content to have us nod our heads in agreement to facts. But I pray that your spirit will move us so that personally, God, we would surrender and be broken to all of your leading instruction for us.

We thank you, God, that's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. Okay, so it's now 8.30, and as a highlight for you guys of just preparation for next week, we have second and third John, and again, I try to email you guys, and we'll post as a reminder as well.

Just do your broad reading so that you can highlight the themes and central exhortations. Please make, compare and contrast, you know, I guess, of the similarities and differences with first John as well. And then always be in the practice of summarizing, okay? So that you can boil down teachings into a driving point.

Summarize second and third John, and then do your inductive process for verses one through three, okay? Second John one through three. And then, as a discussion questions for the rest of the night, please again think about what does it mean to give glory to God? How can that express itself in your thoughts, words, and actions?

Number two, for you personally, do you struggle with balancing your responsibility with God's power? And you know what that means, it's like, you had the exhortation, you keep yourself in the love of God. And then the scripture says, God will keep you, okay? So does that mean that if you try your hardest, and you toil, and you cry over, you know, trying to keep yourself in the love of God, does that mean you don't trust?

Like, what is the balance there, and how do I make sure I keep both in my understanding? And then number three, what are the implications? If we had God's glory and honor as the top priority in my life, what other implications, impacts would it have on the way I think and what I do?

Yes? So please take some time to discuss that, and then that'll wrap up our study in June. All right, thanks everyone. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14