One of the most precious and beautiful moments in life is a wedding. Specifically the moment a bride comes into view and makes her way down the aisle to her husband to be. It doesn’t matter whether it was done on a budget or no expense was spared, the moment is precious and nothing less than beautiful. And then you think of all the thought, all the preparation, all the planning. Aside from the location and the arrangement of the environment, think of all her personal preparation: her hair, her nails, her makeup, her dress. Here’s the thing: all that preparation she did is for the moment of her presentation. That day is a day where she is PRESENTED. She is presented to the man she is going to marry. How much preparation has gone into getting ready for that presentation?
The idea of being presented is a powerful theme throughout the the whole Bible. In the OT we read of worshippers presenting their offerings to God at the tabernacle or temple. God regulated what and how something was to be presented to Him. Other times God commands that the people purify themselves because they must present themselves to Him on an upcoming day. Moving into the NT the most prominent “presentation” is the appearing of Jesus Christ in the flesh, and the beginning of His ministry in Israel. Yet, while He was presented to Israel, He was also presented, in the flesh, to God. Hebrews 10:7 has Jesus speaking to His Father, “Here I am – I have come to do your will, My God. A body you prepared for me.” We go on to read things like the Apostle Paul and how he expected to present the churches to Chris (2 Cor 11). It is a heavy thought to think, as a pastor, of the idea that I may present you to Christ. But further on, we even read how Christ will present us to Himself (Eph. 5:26-27; Jude 24).
This is the theme of Jude’s letter: presentation. This is the title not only of our sermon, but also of our whole series through Jude: presented. The reason is because of this verse, verse 24, which gives us the ultimate reason for Jude writing this letter, [READ]. Jude didn’t write ultimately so that Christians would “contend for the faith,” as that famous line in verse 3 says. Contending for the faith serves the higher purpose of verse 24, that of the purity of Christians when they stand before Jesus. False teachers are like those vile protesters who have been vandalizing famous paintings. These false teachers vandalize our faith, and ruin our future “presentation” to Christ. Each of our minds should be focused on that day we stand before Jesus, which is Jude’s purpose, and we all should be living each day with the goal of that coming day being a glorious and joyful day for ourselves.
SUMMARY
Jude finishes his letter with a marvelous doxology, which we enter into now. A doxology simply means “a glorious word” or “a word about God’s glory.” Jude is among the best of the NT doxologies in the NT. Which is saying something. Some of the best include Romans 11:33-36, and 16:25-27….and also Ephesians 3:20-21…and Hebrews 13:20-21. There are others for sure and what makes them so edifying is they lift our thoughts up to glorious thoughts about God, but they also make us affirm those glorious thoughts and say “Amen!”
So Jude points the attention of his readers – us included – up to God, and to see God in His glory, and to give Him glory. The format of the doxology is actually similar to other doxologies. It has two parts: one that explicitly glorifies God as glorious, and the other part is a statement crediting God with our sanctification. So notice verse 24 (God sanctifying us) and then verse 25 (God glorified).
I want to focus on 4 points, but today we are only getting through two: 1) The fact of our presentation to Christ, 2) Our sanctification determines our presentation. Then next week we will finish the last two points: 3) Our presentation is doxological, 4) Our presentation depends on God
OUR PRESENTATION TO CHRIST
Let us first notice what may be considered the most obvious point, and that is that we will stand before God. “To Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before His glorious presence…”
Whose presence? God, or Jesus? Or both? If we’re reading ALL the NT then the answer is both.
- For instance, we see 2 Corinthians 4:14 tell us that it is God who will present us to Himself, “because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you to himself.”
- But then in the very next chapter we are told that we will stand before Jesus. Second Corinthians 5:10 says, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.”
- We also see it in the great marriage passage of Ephesians 5, where we often overlook the theology of that passage and focus on the marital instructions. But follow along there with me, starting in verse 25 and pay close attention to verse 27… Notice how it says that Christ will present His Bride, *us* the Church, to Himself. This is intimated in the first verse of Jude, “…kept for Jesus Christ.”
APPLICATION: Live your life like you are going to have to present it to Christ someday. Because you will.
OUR SANCTIFICATION DETERMINES OUR PRESENTATION
The second point to notice is that our sanctification determines our presentation. That’s just a fancy way of saying how well we live for Christ determines how well that day will go for us when we stand before Him. Now there are two things from this verse we learn that each one of us should really want for ourselves on that day. One is that we are faultless, and the other is that we have great joy. Every one of us should be aiming our lives towards those two things: faultless and great joy.
First is faultless. Notice two thoughts in verse 24 related to this: “Keep you from stumbling” and “without fault.” God keeps us from stumbling, and God will present us without fault. Those two ideas go together: stumbling leads to being faulty, and not stumbling leads to being faultless. There may even be a connection here with the greeting way back at the very beginning of Jude’s letter, where in verse 2 he says, we are called, loved in God the Father, and KEPT for Jesus Christ.” It’s all getting at the same point: that we don’t show up before Jesus with faults against us. Now this leads to some practical questions and applications we should explore.
First, “What if I sin?” In other words, no Christian lives their lives without ever sinning. So we all do have “faults.” At times it is greater than at others, but we all end up with fault – and if we’re honest much more often than we’d like to think. So if we sin, and that’s a certainty, what do we do about it and how could we possibly end up “faultless” before the throne? The answer is that we confess. We’ve spent whole sermons on this. The Christian life is one that regularly involves confession. Confession to God, and at other appropriate times, confession to each other. First John 1:9 is the answer.
The second question is this: “If God makes this happen then what role do I have? In other words, if God works to keep me from stumbling, as Jude says, then do I even have anything to do about it? Absolutely. The Christian life is synergistic,, meaning God is at work, and so am I. The NT teaches us both sides: that in my sanctification God has a role to play, and so do I.
God is at work as Jude points this out here. We see God’s role again in Philippians 1:6 where it says, “God who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ.” God’s role is stated in 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24. Turn there with me – you have to read this. You see again how God is credited with sanctifying us, keeping us blameless – just like Jude is pointing out.
Then there is our role: to cooperate, to respond in obedience, to submit, to be willing towards righteousness, to be stubbornly against evil and sin, to be dedicated to God’s purposes. Philippians 2:12-13 teaches this very point. Turn there with me. We are told “Work out your salvation” meaning we’ve been given salvation, now we are to work out all the blessings and all the life of one who is saved. How is a saved person supposed to live? That’s how we’re supposed to live. But then it says, “For it is God who works in and through you to will and to work according to His purposes.” God is at work inside of us to compel us, to push us, to draw us, to motivate us. But we must choose to submit, to obey, to live according to those good impulses He creates in us.
A good example might be found in kids learning to ride a bike. When I’m teaching the kids to ride a two wheel bike I am at work and so are they. They sit on the bike and pedal. I’m not doing that. But I run alongside the bike, holding the bike steady, so they don’t fall over, and allowing them to pedal and experience riding the two wheeler. Soon enough it clicks and I can let go. But there is a synergistic effort happening: meaning they are doing something that I am not doing, and I am doing something they are not doing. But in order for the activity of riding a two-wheeler to happen it requires both of us doing our part, because without both of us doing our part, there would be no riding a two-wheeler.
It’s the same thing in our Christian life. God and us, working synergistically together for our own sanctification. Listen to how 2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 puts it, “May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.” See both God and us? See the synergy? We are told God is at work in us to will and to act according to His purposes. But we are not puppets. We are to respond to those inner promptings from the Holy Spirit, or to our knowledge of what is right from the teachings of Scripture, or from our Bible-shaped conscience. We are to turn down temptation, and we are to say “Yes” to the right action, attitude or words.