He is Able to Make You Stand

to respect their elders and obey them and look up to them. We pray that you would make the elders and deacons and pastors of this church honorable men who are worthy to be looked up to. You would help keep them faithful. Help them to be tender with the flock. Help them to be bold in their proclamation of your truth. Help them to be patient as they instruct those here. I pray for this church. We thank you for the many blessings you have given to this body that you've provided this building, that you have provided people to love one another and encourage one another. I pray that you would add to the number of this body that you would grow. Those who are committed to building your kingdom here in Indianapolis, we pray that your kingdom would be built here in this city.

through this church and through other churches who are faithful in this community. We pray that churches and those who speak against your truth, who claim your name but who teach lies and seek their own gain, we pray that you would bring an end to those churches and those synagogues of Satan in this community. Would you cause... your people to be faithful in this place in this city on the west side but everywhere as well and we pray that we would see and be encouraged by the growth of your people in Indianapolis and in Indiana father we pray that some of the fruit of that work would be that you would raise up godly leaders of our cities and our districts and of our schools and of our state. We pray that you would put men in power who hate injustice and wickedness, who hate the shedding of innocent blood, and who love the vindication of the poor and the oppressed. We pray that you would raise up those who love the oppressed in our society, whether it's widows or orphans or the unborn or the elderly. We pray that

You would put men in power who love your laws and have hearts of compassion as you have hearts of compassion for those who are weak and who are pushed aside. We pray for the work of this church as it goes into Easter time. We pray for the lunch today and for the Easter egg hunt and for the efforts to reach this neighborhood and this community that you would bless them. I pray that the efforts of... these endeavors would not be in vain, but that you would bless them with your spirit, that you would encourage all of us with finding lost sheep in the neighborhoods and streets and areas surrounding this place.

And would you please cause your truth to go forth into this community through Easter and Good Friday and the times when even those who don't come to church consider coming to church. I pray that you would bring them to hear your truth and that you would affect their hearts through the proclamation of that truth. As we come to your word now, Lord, we pray that you would open our hearts, that you would humble us and encourage us. I pray that you would give us the grace to humble ourselves, that we might wait for your hand to exalt us and lift us up in Christ, not in ourselves, not in our own righteousness, but in the righteousness of your true Son. Would you instruct us as a father right now and cause the spirit of adoption to cry out in our sons, Abba, Father, as we hear your word. Would you let us hear it as...

the instruction of a father to us right now. Would you please use my words to speak your truth to this people? We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, good morning. It's a great joy to get to see you. I think I've met all of you. I ran into Andy Halsey back there. Many of you maybe haven't met Andy Halsey, but he is down in Bloomington. He and his family right now. And he ran into me in the lobby and said, oh, you're preaching today. It was unexpected for him, for Dave to be out of town. This happened when Jody Killingsworth and his family came the last time I preached.

They were sitting down there, oh, Alex is preaching. So I apologize to those of you who were not expecting me to be preaching. But it is a joy to get to be here. This church is very dear to us. We're from Indianapolis originally, up on the northeast side of Indianapolis. And this church has been very kind over the years, both as a church and those from your number, supporting our work down in Bloomington. We minister to students at IU. And we're very grateful for the love that you, as a body, have shown to us. And it's my joy to get to share with you God's Word this morning and preach it to you. We're going to be in the book of Jude today.

We're specifically looking at the last few verses of Jude, but because Jude is a short book, it's one chapter, I'm going to go ahead and read the whole book because it gives us context for what Jude says at the end of the letter. This is a book written by a man named Jude who was most likely, most people think, was actually the half-brother of Jesus, so one of Mary's other children who grew up in that household. And so knew the Lord intimately and knew his apostles. And this is a letter that Jude wrote to the people of God generally, which probably would have gone to multiple churches. And so clearly had application to many churches at that time. And it has application to us. So as I read Jude, please listen if you have it in your Bible. When we get to verse 17, they'll pop it up on the screen. This is...

the epistle of Jude. Jude, a bondservant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to those who are the called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ, may mercy and peace and love be multiplied to you. Awesome. Got it. Beloved, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith. which was once for all handed down to the saints. For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ. Now I desire to remind you, though you know all things once for all, that the Lord, after saving a people out of the land of Egypt, subsequently destroyed those who did not believe.

And angels who did not keep their own domain but abandoned their proper abode, he has kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities around them, since they, in the same way as these indulged in gross immorality and went after strange flesh, are exhibited as an example in undergoing the punishment of eternal fire. Yet in the same way, these men also by dreaming defile the flesh and reject authority and revile angelic majesties. But Michael the archangel, when he disputed with the devil and argued about the body of Moses, did not dare pronounce against him a railing judgment, but said, the Lord rebuke you. But these men revile the things which they do not understand and the things which they know by instinct, like unreasoning animals, by these things they are destroyed.

Woe to them, for they have gone the way of Cain, and for pay they have rushed headlong into the error of Balaam and perished in the rebellion of Korah. These are the men who are hidden reefs in your love feasts when they feast with you without fear, caring for themselves. clouds without water carried along by winds, autumn trees without fruit, doubly dead, uprooted, wild waves of the sea casting up their own shame like foam, wandering stars for whom the black darkness has been reserved forever. It was also about these men that Enoch and the seventh generation from Adam prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord came with many thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment upon all and to convict all the ungodly of all their ungodly deeds which they have done in an ungodly way and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are grumblers finding fault, following after their own lusts. They speak arrogantly, flattering people for the sake of gaining an advantage.

But you, beloved, ought to remember the words that were spoken beforehand by the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, that they were saying to you, in the last time there will be mockers following after their own ungodly lusts. These are the ones who cause divisions, worldly-minded, devoid of the Spirit. But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. And have mercy on some who are doubting. Save others, snatching them out of the fire. And on some, have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh.

Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and 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 a little bit of context, first of all. It's about who Jude is writing to. As I said, what we see, as in many of the letters of the New Testament, We're actually given the reason that this letter was written and who it was written to. So Jude says that he is writing to the called in verse 1. In some ways, this letter is different from a lot of the Apostle Paul's letters, which were written to particular churches or specific individuals or pastors within the church. Jude's letter is clearly very general.

He doesn't say this is to the church in such and such a place or to this church or to this person, but it's to the called. And in some ways, I think this makes it easier for us to come to this letter with it speaking to our hearts. You are the called in Christ Jesus. You have heard the call of the gospel and this letter is written to you. Why was Jude writing? Well, as with most of the New Testament letters, the author Jude doesn't keep it a secret why he's writing. And this is helpful and even instructive for us in our day. You noticed as I read, I hope that this letter is pretty intense. That Jude is speaking very intensely about judgment with much warning and instruction and commandment to these people. And to stand in fear of judgment. And Jude does that in a direct and upfront way. He's not passive aggressive in the way that he writes to these brothers and sisters. It's not...

hey guys, you know, I just wanted to encourage you guys and maybe see how I could pray for you, you know, because I care about you and stuff like that. Well, in the back of his mind, he's thinking, gee, these Christians are really struggling and they need to be admonished. No, they're really struggling and they need to be admonished. So he admonishes them. And it's intense and direct, but full of love and tenderness. And those two things go together. Jude says that he felt the necessity to write to these believers appealing that they contend earnestly for the faith, which was once for all handed down to the saints. Contend earnestly. First of all, do you think of the Christian faith as something that needs to be contended earnestly for?

It would be nice if the book of Jude were unique in exhorting Christians to contend earnestly. It would be nice if we could look at Jude and say, man, that was tough for those Christians back then who had to fight for their faith. I'm glad everything's easier now. But Jude is not unique in the New Testament. The entire New Testament speaks of fighting, contending, and striving for our faith. It speaks of being at enmity with our sinful flesh, with the world, and with the devil himself. This is part of the normal work of a Christian, is contending earnestly for the faith. And looking at why the New Testament Christians had to contend earnestly will help us understand why we might have to contend earnestly as well in our own day, in our own community. Why did these Christians, whom Jude was writing to, need to contend earnestly? Well, again, We're told in this letter, he says, certain persons have crept in unnoticed, is what it says in verse 4. Who are these people who have crept in unnoticed? We're told it's those who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. Two things about this. Notice that ungodly men and women creep in amongst the people of God.

This is a common state of affairs in the church. We should not be surprised when this is the case. It's helpful for us to be reminded of this for at least two reasons. One is so that we are always examining ourselves. 2 Corinthians 13 5 says, test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves. We should never become presumptuous. And we should always be examining ourselves that we are really, among God's number. And we shouldn't just be examining ourselves, but we should also be examining one another. Hebrews 3 verse 12 says, Take care, brethren, that there not be in any one of you an evil, unbelieving heart that falls away from the living God. Being the people of God requires us tending to each other's souls and keeping each other in the faith.

And it is always the state of the church, as long as we're living between the fall and when Christ returns, it will be the case of the church that there is a mixture of the faithful and the unfaithful. Of those who are truly devoted to the Lord and of those who have crept in unnoticed. And when I read this passage, I wonder, how is it possible? How do people who deny our only Master and Lord Jesus Christ creep in unnoticed? Right? Don't those two things seem to be in opposition to each other? How could someone deny the Lord and yet be among our number and be unnoticed by us? Doesn't that seem a little strange? Don't we all love the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, these people's denial was not open. These are people who turn the grace of God into licentiousness. In other words, they lay claim to the grace of God, but they twist its purpose.

They proudly say that they are recipients of God's grace in Jesus Christ, and they pay lip service to the Lord, but they fail to unite that grace with true faith in their hearts. In his letter to the Philippians, the Apostle Paul says it's even possible to proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives. It's directly from Philippians chapter 1. It's even possible to proclaim Christ. It's possible to stand in a pulpit. up here and preach God's word and preach the true gospel, but for selfish ambition rather than from pure motives. It is possible to even preach true doctrine from impure motives, which means we cannot simply judge the preachers we listen to on the basis of the purity of their doctrine. Jesus teaches us that we shall know them by their fruits. And somewhat as an aside, this is one reason it's important that we submit ourselves to men in our midst, like pastors who know us and we know them. It's tempting to look at famous and glorious pastors who have videos on YouTube and sermons that we listen to on the internet, which can be helpful and useful, but you don't know those men's fruit. And we, over and over again, history, even recent history, is big famous men who suddenly we find out their fruit and it's awful.

You want to love and submit to the men in your midst who you know, and they know you, so that we can examine one another's fruit. And let this be a warning to you as well, that you not be content with simply holding to the purity of biblical reformed doctrine, but that you unite that truth of God's word with faith in your heart and service to the Lord Jesus. Also notice exactly who it is that these people are denying. What does it say? Who does Jude say that they're denying? The Lord, our only master and Lord, Jesus Christ. What's wrapped up in those terms, master and Lord? It's the authority and the power of Jesus Christ. The essence of these imposters' denial is that they refuse to submit to the authority and the dominion of Jesus Christ.

What do slaves do with their masters? They obey. What do servants do for their Lord? They obey and do his will. There are many who claim the grace of Jesus Christ, but in their hearts refuse to submit their life to Christ as a servant submitting to his master. We want the benefits of the blessings of Christ, but we don't want to submit ourselves. We don't want to walk in his ways. We want to maintain our own will and what we want to do. We have a problem with authority. We don't want to submit to the officers of Christ's church. We don't want to submit to our husbands. We don't want to submit to the government. We don't want to submit to all of the authorities that God has put in place over us. And this shows that really we're denying our master and our Lord Jesus Christ.

If we've received the grace of God, but we refuse to submit, we are denying the Lord, though we may pay lip service to him. But this is the normal state of affairs in the church, is that there's a mixture within every body of believers. There is no church that is free from this mixture. Not ours, not any other church. And if we know ourselves and look into our own hearts, we know that we're not free from a mixture and a war going on with us between our rebellion against the Lord and our desire to submit to him, right? And so one question we might ask ourselves as we think about, you know, even I think it's tempting to look back to the churches of the New Testament and want to go back to a pristine, pure time when it was right after the Lord was resurrected. But if we look at the testimony of the New Testament, it's a big mess of what the church is. There are many things happening in the church. There's always a mixture of those who are falling away and leading others astray. And so a question we might ask is, why does God allow this mixture?

Why does he let things be so unclear? Why does he let us suffer the unpleasantness and the affliction of not knowing, of there being people in our midst who have crept in unnoticed? Why does God allow those who deny him to be in and amongst the people of God? There are two reasons, at least, I think, that God allows this mixture amongst the people of God to happen. One is for your protection. That sounds weird, and I'll explain what that means. But that's the first reason, for your protection. And the other is for your growth in holiness. This is why God allows this mixture. So first, let's talk about for your protection. Many in the church, many of God's chosen ones, of his elect, of the called, as Jude calls them, are tottering on the edge of doubt and of destruction.

It is not God's desire that any of these precious lambs would perish. In order for these doubting and endangered ones to be saved, it's important that some unfaithful be tolerated in our midst for a time. In the parable of the wheat and the tares, Jesus compares the kingdom of heaven to a man who planted good seed in a field, good wheat seed. But an enemy comes and sows tares. in that field, or false wheat is another name for tares. I actually looked this up. Tares, because, you know, I don't know what tares mean. I kind of pictured thistles in amongst the wheat is usually what comes into my mind when I picture the wheat and the tares. But it was probably actually Jesus was talking about these tares. Another name is darnel, darnel, which is actually this weed that looks.

exactly like wheat until it sprouts its seeds and it buds. Then you can tell the difference. But as it's growing just leaves and it's grass, it looks like wheat. And this is why in the parable you've got the servants out in the field who suddenly realize, oh no, the field is full of these tares. And they ask their master, the slaves of the landowner ask if they should go and do some weeding and tear out all of the tares, right? And the landowner says not to, lest the good wheat should be torn out along with the false wheat. And Jesus says that this pertains to judgment. God is willing to tolerate false sons as long as the work of saving his true sons is still going on. In 2 Peter, the apostle Peter is writing to Christians to encourage them as they wait for God to bring about judgment. They've been suffering persecution. They're suffering and they think God is taking too long.

It's the struggle of 2 Peter that he's writing them to encourage them to be patient. And he writes to them, It's for your good and for the good of God's lost sheep that he allows this mixture of his people to continue. But there's more to suffering this state of affairs than just that God is making sure that all of the elect get saved. God also grants you this affliction of this trouble of having a mixture in the unfaithful for your own growth in holiness. Your suffering is not for nothing. God accomplishes work through your suffering. Even the suffering of the pain of the loss of those within the church, the pain of those falling away, the pain of fighting your own doubts and fears and temptations. God works through all of these things to grow you in holiness. What does it mean to be holy? Well, it means to be conformed or molded into the image of Jesus Christ. God's desire is to make you like his son. And the process of becoming like Jesus necessarily involves suffering like Jesus.

There is no being like Christ without suffering with him. Romans 8 teaches us this. It says, And if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, and then there's a condition to it, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. Philippians 1 teaches us the same thing. It says, It has been granted to you, given to you by the grace of God as a gift for you to suffer for his sake. We're all okay with being granted the inheritance of Christ and being granted his standing as children of God. and being granted the many blessings that come from knowing Jesus Christ. But it's easy to forget that Scripture speaks of the suffering of a Christian as a gift from God. And it's a gift for one big reason. God grants us suffering that we ourselves might actually become united, become one with Jesus Christ. To be united with Christ is to be...

It's to be united with him, not just in the pleasant things, but in his suffering as well. It's God's desire to conform you, to mold you into the image of his true son. And part of that is being conformed to his affliction and his suffering. And this applies to the affliction that we've been talking about that relates to the book of Jude. With those creeping in among the faithful and seeking after their own ungodly lusts and even leading people astray. Jesus knows intimately the betrayal. of one of his closest disciples. And he understands, actually better than we ever will, what it means to have friends or families be ashamed of you. He knows that. After all, he was a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. He knew grief intimately. As you undergo suffering in the name of Christ, as you bear reproach and shame for his name's sake, there's work being done in you by God.

both in you as individuals and in you as a church. He is molding you into the image of Christ, and for a very good reason, which we see at the end of Jude, which is so that you might stand in his presence, in the presence of his glory, blameless with great joy. That's the end that we're looking towards, which we'll look at in just a second. But so what are we to do now, here and now, in light of these things? Jude tells us, several things or several exhortations given to us. One is keep yourselves in the love of God. I'm not going to spend a long time of this, but you must actively apply yourself to staying in the love of God. You must work to grow in your love for God and your love for other people.

It's something that God calls you to keep yourself in his love, in pursuing fellowship with the people of God, in pursuing him in prayer, in pursuing him in worshiping him. Keep yourselves in the love of God. Right after that, Jude says, well, he says, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. You are to wait anxiously for the Lord, or for the mercy of our Lord. And a question might pop into our minds, haven't we already received God's mercy? Isn't that the point of being a Christian, that we have already received the mercy of God? What does it mean to wait for the Lord's mercy, to wait anxiously for his mercy? Well, the Christian life is marked by waiting, by looking ahead to something with expectation and hope.

We're living in a tense time between the accomplishing of our salvation by Jesus Christ and the fulfillment of that salvation on Judgment Day. And the Christian is someone who looks forward to Judgment Day. The coming judgment is one of the main themes of Jude, which I hope you saw as we read it. And the fact that a Christian is supposed to look forward to Judgment Day is one of the central themes of the entire New Testament that I don't think we talk about very often. We often talk about what Christ has done for us. We talk much about how our faith is in the finished work of Jesus Christ. We talk about living a cross-centered life and about how we need to preach the gospel to ourselves, by which we mean reminding ourselves of how Christ has saved us. And all of these things are very important to do.

But being a Christian is about more than just looking backward. Being a Christian is also about looking forward with hope and expectation to what God is going to do in the future. And what is it exactly that we're looking forward to? What is it that we're hoping for? It's Judgment Day. The true Christian is someone who looks forward to Judgment Day. Why would we look forward to Judgment Day? How would we look forward to it? Well, one of the reasons that we do as Christians pertains to our topic today. And that's that on Judgment Day, Jesus teaches us in Matthew 13, what happens on Judgment Day is that the angels will come forth and take out the wicked from among the righteous. That's the point of the parable of the wheat and the tares. The landowner says, wait, hold off.

But there is a day coming when the angels will come and separate the wicked from the righteous perfectly without accidentally tearing out any of the righteous along with the wicked. And this is a constant encouragement held us to us by Jesus and by his apostles in the Bible. That on judgment day, all things will be made crystal clear. And the whole world will see perfectly. We'll all get to see with 20-20 vision, these are the ones who truly belong to Christ. These will be spared in the day of judgment. These will be judged. And who are those who will be judged? Well, according to Jude, he describes them. He says it's those who are grumblers, finding fault, following after their own lusts.

This passage isn't primarily even talking about those in the world who do such things, but about those within the number of the church who grumble, who find fault, who follow after their own lusts. And this is not unusual. As I said before, there is no perfect church that is free from those who follow after their own lusts. No church is free from grumblers. or fault finders or flatterers. If you find this in your church, don't be surprised. The apostles spoke of this. But that doesn't mean that this mixture and this trouble is something that's easy to bear. It's something that causes us to wait anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ, which will appear on judgment day. We have received mercy in the salvation we have in Christ Jesus, but there's an accomplishment of that mercy and a fulfillment of that mercy that we're waiting for on judgment day when the mercy has come and is complete. And it's this mixture amongst the people of God that leads to Jude's other exhortations.

which relate to us helping one another to stand firm. There are three things that Jude says. This is in verse 22. He says, Have mercy on some who are doubting. It's a real temptation when you suffer the loss of brothers and sisters who fall away from the household of faith to become as elders or as a congregation hardened and unmerciful towards those who doubt. You may be tempted to be like the slaves who say to their master, look, there are tares in the field and we want to go tear them up and throw them away. And the landowner responds, wait, be careful. Have mercy on some who are doubting. Far be it from me to sweep away any of the righteous along with the wicked. It is not God's desire that any should perish. Resist the temptation to become callous, jaded, and unmerciful towards those who are weak in faith.

And when you see weakness of faith in yourself, resist the temptation of trying to overcome your own weakness of faith by being aggressive towards others and their doubts. Sometimes when we see our own sin and weakness, we lash out against the people around us because we see our own weakness in them, so we attack it in them. Resist that temptation. There are some doubting in your midst. Have mercy. Be tender. The second thing that Jude says is save others, snatching them out of the fire. What I just said about having mercy on the doubting is not a call to be complacent towards each other's sin. If one temptation is to treat the doubting harshly and unmercifully, another temptation is to check out and remain complacent about the state of our brothers' and sisters' souls. You may be tempted to use so-called mercy as an excuse for not snatching your stumbling brother out of the flames.

You know, I wouldn't want to hurt my brother. Snatching sounds a little violent, so I'll just watch as he careens towards destruction and kind of hope and maybe pray that he doesn't get burned. That's not how we should approach each other in our caring about each other's souls. You are your brother's keeper. True care and true mercy for our brother will mean snatching some out of the flames as we see them heading for their sin. Proverbs 24 says, We have a responsibility to see and judge one another and help. one another, and keep each other back from the precipice of judgment and destruction. Thirdly, Jude says, on some have mercy with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. It sounds kind of like a repetition of the first thing he said, have mercy on some who are doubting. And it is, but the focus is shifted away from those who are being helped and onto those who are doing the helping.

As you help your brother caught in sin, you must diligently seek to maintain your own hatred of his sin. It is easy when loving your brother who is caught in some sin to fall in love with his sin yourself. It's hard to help your brother with lust without being tempted yourself. When calling your own sister out of bitterness, it is enticing to be infected with that same bitterness and to allow it to grow in your own heart. The apostle Paul warns us of this reality in Galatians 6.1. It says, brethren, if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, each one looking to yourself so that you too will not be tempted. It is dangerous work calling others out of sin because of the temptation to follow into that same sin. And so keep watch over yourselves when seeking to save and to restore.

Have mercy on some with fear, hating even the garment polluted by the flesh. Don't even entertain the idea in your mind of following after that sin. Do not take one step close to that sin. Love your brother and hate this sin. Have nothing to do with the sin that has entangled your brother, lest you too be entangled. Finally, some encouragement for this work. This is weighty. But the final verses of Jude are full of strength for the work that God is calling us to do. Knowing for certain that judgment is coming, but knowing that we have to wait for it. Having just exhorted the people of God to remain faithful, Jude reminds them what the source of their strength is. He says this in verse 24.

To the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority before all time, now and forever. This work that we're called to here is dependent on God. And what we're told here is that he is able. He is the one who is able to make you stand. If you're honest with yourself, you know that you are not able to stand by your strength. It feels like all you can do is stumble. That's putting the best possible spin on it, is stumbling maybe in the right direction. But take comfort that God knows this too. He actually knows it better than you do, that you can't stand and that you stumble. He knows that you don't have it within yourself to remain faithful, which is why he reminds us that he is able. He's able to do two things here. One, to keep you from stumbling in the midst of the trials that you have here and now. So the things that you are suffering now, God is able to strengthen you, to keep you from stumbling in the midst of these things. But two, God's end goal is that you would be able to stand in the presence of his glory with great joy. So we have a present reality of not stumbling, but we also have this future reality, again, of looking ahead to judgment day.

God is getting you ready to stand in his presence. The trials of today are not in vain. God isn't in the business of just making you miserable. There's an end to what you are suffering. And it's that you might be like his son. And why is it important to be like Jesus? Because Jesus is the only one who can stand in the presence of God. Jesus is the only man who has clean hands and a pure heart. He is the only one who can ascend the hill of the Lord to the presence of God. He has been seated at the right hand of God because of his righteousness and his power and his glory. And God sent his righteous son into the world to cleanse your hands that your heart might be purified so that you too might ascend into heaven and stand on judgment day in the presence of his glory, not cowering away in fear, but with great joy. Yeah. This is the end of God's work of what's happening right now. The work that God will bring to completion, what we're promised. I think it's in Philippians. He's begun a good work in you. And the completion is that we would stand in God's presence. Oftentimes, I haven't used the word sanctification yet in this sermon, but when you think about the work of sanctification, it's pretty popular among Christians to like,

kind of facetiously grumble, oh, sanctification, you know, got to go through that again. This was hard, but you know, I got to be sanctified by God. And I think we often see that work of growing in holiness as this thing that we kind of have to endure as we're going along until we die or until judgment day. But God is doing a real work through your sanctification. Another word for sanctification is being made more holy, being purified, being tested. And what God is doing is preparing you for heaven. You're not ready to stand in God's presence yet. But God is intent on making you ready. And his painful work feels like getting burned up in the fire sometimes, getting refined like gold. But that is the end. This is the end. What we're told here is that we would stand in God's presence with joy. And how could you possibly stand in God's presence with joy unless he's doing work on you now, getting you ready for that?

And so look at this in light of the weight of the judgment that is preached to us here. Look at this and have faith and strength for the work of persevering through affliction, through suffering, whatever it is. Knowing that the end is that God is getting you ready and his desire is for you to stand pure, blameless, holy, right along with Jesus in his presence. Let's pray together.