Friday, December 4, 2015

“The Blessed Hope”--Jude 20-25--Series B Nov. ‘12





1.       Please pray with me.  May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.  This is the Last Sunday of the Church Year---the Sunday of the Fulfillment. Today, the Word of God focuses our attention on the end of days, when the Lord Jesus will come again "in clouds with great power and glory" (Mark 13:26). Waiting for God's mercy on that blessed day we as Christians keep the faith and remain in the love of God patiently showing mercy to all who struggle with doubt and sin (cf. Jude 20-25).  The message is taken from Jude 20-25 and is entitled, “The Blessed Hope,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.       In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, psychiatrist Victor Frankl observed that “the loss of hope and courage can have a deadly effect on man.” As a result of his own experiences in a Nazi concentration camp, Frankl contended that when a person no longer possesses a reason for living … no future to look forward to, he shrivels up and dies. “Any attempt to restore a man’s inner strength in camp,” he wrote, “had first to succeed in showing him some future goal.” (“Man’s Search for Meaning” by Victor Frankl, quoted in Illustrations for Biblical Preaching, ed. Michael Green, [Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1989], p. 194.)  So it is with life. Life is a concentration camp, in the sense that none of us gets out alive. But, we can have something to look forward to. We don’t have to shrivel up and die.  After warning his readers about the dangers of false teachers and the need to resist them, Jude concludes his epistle by presenting a doxology of hope. “God is able to keep you from stumbling now,” he declared, “and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy!” What a hope. What a day to look forward to. What a reason to keep going. Scripture calls it the “blessed hope” (Titus 2:13), and so it is.
3.       Our Lord Jesus Christ has given us this blessed hope of glory in heaven through His death and resurrection and yet sometimes we do feel a sense of despair and hopelessness in this fallen world of sin we live in.  Maybe you are severely depressed right now, especially since the holiday season is here and you’re still thinking about your loved one who has passed away.  There’s conflict in your family right now and you don’t see a way out of it anytime soon.  Perhaps you just lost your job and you’re not sure what you and your family are going to do now.  Maybe you’re dealing with your own difficult illness or the illness of a friend or family member and the doctor’s diagnosis isn’t good.  Or, you are really struggling with your faith in Jesus right now and you are looking for help.  All of these events in our lives can leave us with a feeling of hopelessness and despair.  So where do we turn when we are in the valleys of this life?  Well, Jude has an answer for us in today’s epistle lesson.
4.       Jude 20-21 says, “20But you, beloved, build yourselves up in your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; 21keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.”   In order for us to keep our eyes fixed on the blessed hope that Jesus has won for us through His perfect life, death, and resurrection from the dead, Jude says that we as Christians should keep ourselves in God’s love.  Jude illustrates an important truth of our Christian lives: our own spiritual willpower that was once dead in sin at birth, has been reborn. We now once again possess the image of God through faith in Christ. We can now say, “I love to do your will, O Lord.” And since God has chosen to communicate with us through Word and Sacrament, and since God gives spiritual strength to us for spiritual warfare through Word and Sacrament, we can choose to let God strengthen and protect us through His Word and Sacrament.
5.       In verses 20 and 21, Jude mentions three aspects of how Christians stay in God’s love looking to the blessed hope of glory that is in our Savior Jesus.  First, we as Christians can build ourselves up in the faith. False teachers can’t harm you if you are armed, shielded and protected. The battles of Christianity are fought not on military battlefields but in your heart and mind. Build yourself up! How? Read the Word. Hear the Word. Sing the Word. Share the Word. Remember the Word. Eat and drink the body and blood of the Lord. Satan’s lies and bribes will shrivel up under the bright light of the Bible’s truth. Despair and fear fade away when you and your Savior are united through the blood of the covenant.
6.       Second pray in the Holy Spirit. After God has spoken to you in his Word, you speak to God with your words. Communicating with God strengthens your relationship with him. Pray with confidence, knowing that the Spirit has given you faith in Jesus, which makes you God’s child. Pray with confidence, knowing that the Spirit intercedes for saints who don’t quite know what or how to pray. Pray with confidence, knowing that the Lord hears every request, has no limits to His power, loves to hear from you, and delights in meeting the needs of His children. He makes things happen for you to bless you.
7.       Third, we can wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. As Christians we know that in spite of all our labors, we’ll never be able to purify this planet. It’s sinful & corrupt. God’s plan is to come soon, melt it down, and make a new heaven and earth. Our ultimate goal then as Christians is to experience the saving mercy of Christ when He returns, and that blessed hope keeps us moving forward.
8.       Jude also tells us in Jude 22-23, 22And have mercy on those who doubt; 23save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.”  Jude wants people who have experienced the mercy of Christ to show mercy to other people: to show mercy to those who doubt, not despising them, but patiently encouraging, rebuking, leading, and loving.   We’re to show mercy to those whose feet are already getting hot from hell’s fires by trying to prevent their spiritual suicide, caring enough to speak God’s law against their sin and God’s promise of Gospel to those who repent of their sin. As a Christian you are to show mercy to those who are spiritually rotten, but with fear—that is, taking care that their corruption doesn’t infect you. If it helps, visualize their inner spiritual disease as if it were oozing infectious slime right onto their clothes.  Remember, Jesus never held back His love from tax collectors and prostitutes, but neither did He condone their sinful lifestyles.
9.       In all of these things as we’re awaiting the blessed hope that awaits us in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ we hear St. Jude tell us in verses 24-25, 24Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy, 25to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”  Even though we as Christians can do a lot of things to protect ourselves from the devil, the world and our sinful nature, Jude’s doxology gives comfort to those whose faith is under assault by assuring them of God’s promises to keep His children from falling. For even our own efforts at worship, Bible study, and prayer often fall short. What a relief to put our lives into the hands of Jesus who is committed to getting us home to heaven!
10.   When we’re exhausted by the struggle against sin and Satan, we can lift up our eyes to our great, changeless, majestic God.  His power and authority are unlimited. Jesus’ victory over sin and Satan is a fact!  As Christians we can realize that all our troubles are only for a little while.  Let us give Jesus all the honor and glory that we can for the blessed hope of eternal life He has given to us.  As the hymn writer Philipp Nicolai reminds us, “Oh, joy to know that you, my Friend, Are Lord, beginning without end, The first and last, eternal! And you at length—O glorious grace—Will take me to that holy place, The home of joys supernal. Amen, Amen! Come and meet me, quickly greet me! With deep yearning, Lord, I look for your returning.”  Amen.



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