Yesterday

I've called the summit home for 20 years. Today's passage is from Jude 1, 5 through 19. Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe, and the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he is kept in eternal chains, under gloomy darkness, until the judgment of the great day, just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued a natural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. Yet, in like manner, these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, The Lord rebuke you. But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain, and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain, to Balaam's error, and perished in Korah's rebellion. It was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousand of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness, that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against them. This is the word of God for the people of God. You may be seated. Well, good morning, Summit family. If you have not made your way over to the book of Jude, go ahead and do so. It's at the end of your Bibles. Let me just try to help you feel a little bit better in case you went a little cross-eyed after the reading of those passages that I'm about to preach on.

Let me remind you of an actual quote from our fearless leader last week. Take a look at this. He said, I've never preached on Jude. I'll be walking through the opening and conclusion of this letter, and I'm going to leave the really difficult middle part for our teaching team next weekend. Quote Pastor J.D. Greer, coward, okay? That's how I feel about this. You know, when I read these verses and opened up a blank page to start writing a sermon, my original title was literally, What is Happening? And so hopefully that makes you feel a little bit better. But in all sincerity, Pastor J.D.'s message on the first four verses was awesome last weekend. And so here we are picking up in verse five, where Jude, it feels like, begins to go down a little bit of a rabbit trail. And so Pastor J.D. titled his sermon after a Beatles song, Right, Hey Jude? And since in our verses, Jude spends so much time looking backward, I figured I would just stick with that theme and the title of mine will be Yesterday, okay? So let's get to work. By show of hands, real fast, how many of you enjoy going on cruises? Raise your hand. Enjoy going on a cruise. Y'all are insane, all right? I've seen one too many documentaries. Your boy ain't getting on a boat, all right? But for kicks and giggles, imagine this scenario. Imagine you are heading off on a cruise, you board the ship, you get to your room, unload your baggage. And then before you take off from the dock, the captain says, hey, I need everybody up on deck. So everybody comes up on deck.

Captain is standing there. Captain proceeds to unroll this giant chart. And then he proceeds to show you, he says, hey, scattered all over this chart are warnings along our destination. He says there's some shallow water here and there's an iceberg here. There's some hidden reefs here. And then most importantly, there's these giant red Xs. And he says, these red Xs represent the remains of shipwrecks that have gone before us on this route. Now imagine at that moment, the captain takes that chart and just says, you know what though? I'm a progressive thinking captain. Those wrecks happened a long time ago. This map is outdated. I don't want to live in the past. Do you? No. As we go on this journey, let's just follow our instincts. Then at that moment, the captain crumbles up the map, tosses it in the ocean and says, let's get going. That's about when you get off board. Amen. See, those marks on that chart were not irrelevant pieces of ancient history. They were there because somebody sailed into those waters before you, they didn't make it home. And the wreckage of the past. should actually serve as warnings for the future. That's essentially what Jude does in here in verses five through 19. What he's doing in these seemingly confusing verses is he's unfolding the chart of biblical history

and he's gonna point out some wreckage. He's gonna talk about things like Israel wandering and grumbling in the wilderness and rebellious angels and Sodom and Gomorrah and Cain and Korah and all these other things. And in doing so, y'all, he's not just giving us random pieces of Bible trivia. What he's doing is he's marking the dangerous reefs for us. Each story is a warning of, hey, people have sailed in these directions before. They've rejected God's word, they've resisted God's authority, they've redesigned God's design, and every single person that sailed in those directions ended up shipwrecked every single time. See, God points us to the wrecks of the past so that we don't repeat them in the present. So remembering where others drifted and understanding where that drift led should give us clarity for how we live today. He might've written this 2000 years ago, but his warning remains urgent for us, that we should be careful calling something progress if all we are doing is sailing toward an old disaster in a newer boat. That's what we're gonna venture into. Now, since this is just week two, let me remind you of some context of the book of Jude by way of reminder, this short little letter was written by a guy named Jude.

Jude was one of Jesus's four half brothers, none of whom believed that he was the Messiah until after the resurrection, which if you have siblings makes total sense, right? As confusing as these 15 verses seem at first, thankfully, Pastor J.D. reminded us last week, Jude writes like every good Baptist should, and he tends to write in sets of three. And so understanding that kind of trifecta that he writes in helps us simplify things that can seem really confusing. We'll see when Jude set off to write this letter, what he wanted to write was this kind of like beautiful, encouraging letter about the salvation that we share in Jesus Christ. The kind of letter filled with verses that one day would be hung in your home and put on coffee mugs. Like essentially he wanted to write the book of Philippians but instead verse four tells us that Jude realizes that ungodly false teachers have crept into the church unnoticed that are seeking to pervert the very grace of God. And so instead of Philippians, he ends up having to write like first condemnations is kind of what he ends up having to write. And see Jude sounds the alarm, not because he wants to be harsh, but because he loves the church and the people within it too much to remain quiet.

Jude knows that doctrinal and moral corruption always go hand in hand. That bad doctrine, bad teaching, bad understanding always provides a framework for sinful living. And then let me give you just one big caveat before we embark on this, okay? You gotta know that Jude moves fast. Like he's punchy, he's to the point, he doesn't pull punches. This whole book is 25 short verses. And as he's writing, Jude is assuming that you and I possess a ton of background knowledge. I mean, he basically references the entire Torah, the first five books of the Bible, alongside he references some extra biblical Jewish literature, which his audience would have been completely familiar with. And so when those verses were read, if you got done listening and you're like, bro, I have no idea what he's talking about. Don't feel bad, okay? You're gonna have plenty of questions. I'm gonna do my best to answer as many questions in our time together as we can, but there's also gonna be a million rabbit trails that I cannot chase. And so if you have those questions, just consider that the prompting of the Holy Spirit for you to go study some of this yourself, all right?

All right, with that caveat, notice how Jude begins. Look at verse five. He says, now, I wanna remind you, although you once fully knew it, Jude is gonna open the chart of biblical history and point to the first of three shipwrecks that he assumes we're familiar with. One is a shipwreck in the wilderness where Israel refuses to believe God's word. Another is one in the heavenly realm where angels refuse to remain under God's authority. And then the last one is one in the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah where people refuse to live within God's relational design. And so let's take those one at a time. First, look at the back half of verse five. He says, Jesus, who saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. See, first, Israel shows us the danger of unbelief. In the story of Israel wandering in the wilderness, God rescues the Israelites from 400 plus years of slavery in Egypt. Man, these Israelites, they witnessed the plagues. God takes them through the Red Sea. He feeds them. With manna from heaven, they experienced God's great provision in the wilderness. Yet when they get to the edge of Canaan

and God tells them to enter into the promised land, they refused to trust him because they were terrified of the land's inhabitants. Even though they had seen over and over and over again what God could do, they get to the point where they refuse to trust what God has said. You can read about this in Numbers chapter 14. Numbers 14 tells us that everyone over the age of 20, except for Caleb and Joshua, would die in the wilderness specifically because of their unbelief. See, you gotta understand, unbelief is not merely a lack of information. They had plenty of information. No, unbelief is the refusal to trust God at his word. It's the conviction that my assessment of the situation is more reliable than God in his word and what he says about the situation. And then don't miss this detail. Because of their unbelief, notice the two actions that are attributed to the same Jesus in verse five. It says that Jesus saved and Jesus destroyed. The savior is also the judge. The entire nation of Israel experiences deliverance from Egypt, but that outward privilege did not guarantee the salvation of every individual in Israel. Jesus delivered Israel, but then he destroyed those who did not believe.

See, being among God's people is not the same thing as personally trusting in God's son. And we gotta hold on to that tension because Jude is gonna come back to it later, all right? Israel thought they knew better than God and their unbelief leads to destruction. That's the first thing. Second, look at verse six. Jude says, and the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, God has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day. See, if Israel shows us the danger of unbelief, the fallen angels show us the danger of rebellion, of rebellion. God had given these angels a place beneath his authority, but they refused to remain there. You know this, if you go read the Old Testament, Satan entices some of these angels to follow him in rebellion and they abandoned the order that God had established and they crossed the boundaries that God had created. They come to earth and honestly, they go on to do some crazy stuff. You can read all about it in Genesis chapter six. It sounds like something out of Jerry Springer or Real Housewives. It's absolutely wild. But the point is not specifically what they did

when they came to earth. The point is that they rebelled against God. And because of their rebellion, God, it says, has kept them in gloomy darkness awaiting the judgment of the great day. See, unbelief says, I don't trust what God has said. Rebellion goes a step farther and says, I refuse to live under God's rule. Those are our first two, then look at the third, verse seven. He says, just as Sodom and Gomorrah in the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. Y'all, Jude uses the story of Sodom and Gomorrah to illustrate how sexual immorality rejects God's original design. Sodom and Gomorrah, of course, were known for giving themselves over to unnatural and lustful desires. Again, you can go read all about it in Genesis chapter 19. But see, their rebellion didn't just remain this abstract idea. Their rebellion took control of their desires and it expressed itself through their bodies. Specifically, by rejecting God's design for sex, they were attempting to redefine good and evil according to their own fleshly desires, which y'all, is always what happens

when desire becomes Lord in our life. Instead of bringing our desires beneath God's authority, we make our desires the ultimate authority and then we expect God to approve of them. And so what Jude does is he gives us an incredibly sobering warning. And while this warning is for everybody, let me say this specifically to men, because this is the sin that has an absolute chokehold on the men in our society. Jude's warning is that just as physical fire fell on Sodom and Gomorrah, what awaits those who refuse to repent and willfully persist in rejecting God's authority by redefining his design for sex is punishment of eternal fire. And that's not because sexual sin is outside of the reach of God's grace. Hear me, nothing. But persisting in and celebrating and defending what is outside of God's design is the very evidence that the Holy Spirit is not in your life. Do not think you can live like hell here and still inherit heaven there. Three different settings, three different stories, three different expressions of sin. Unbelief, which rejects God's word. Rebellion, which rejects God's rule. And immorality, which rejects God's design. But underneath all three is the same act of defiance. It's the creature shouting to the Creator saying, I know better than you. And all three end with the same destination, which

is destruction. And if that's not clear enough, Jude doesn't let up and he makes the connection explicit in verse 8. He says, yet in like manner, just like Israel and the angels and Sodom and Gomorrah did, these people also, these false teachers who have crept into the church, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. See, specifically what he calls out is that these false teachers were relying on their dreams, which they claimed gave them permission to ignore clear biblical teaching in favor of their spiritual experiences and divine revelation that belong to them alone. I mean, who needs thus saith the Lord when we can just follow our heart, right? Sound familiar? Again, we don't know the exact nature of their dreams. But the point is that these are people who are allowing their subjective experience to overrule biblical objective truth. And listen, as followers of Jesus Christ, God calls us to worship him in spirit and truth. But these are folks who, when truth told them no, would claim that the spirit told them yes. The problem is that the same spirit that inspired this word will never contradict the very word that he inspired. Listen, if the spirit leading you claims that this book is outdated or claims that believing in the resurrection is optional for your salvation or that Jesus was just a really good moral teacher or that God's design for sex and gender are negotiable. It is not the Holy Spirit that is leading you. It is the demonic spirit of this age.

And y'all, this is not a new thing. Go all the way back to the original sin, Genesis chapter 3. It's the ancient lie of the enemy from Genesis chapter 3 verse 5 all over again. Well, what was Satan's original temptation? Hey, just come do this and you will be like God. You can go on to define good and evil for yourself. You can determine what's truth for yourself. You can become your own highest authority. But when we trade God's authority for our appetites, the desires we trust to free us will become the very desires that will end up destroying us. You could say it like this. When feelings become our highest authority, desire becomes our direction and destruction becomes our destination. When we usurp God's authority, when feelings become our highest authority, desire becomes our direction, destruction becomes our destination. See, once self takes God's place, personal desire becomes the only law by which you abide, right? Which is why Jude says that these people defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. In other words, they speak arrogantly about spiritual things that they don't understand because God's word was no longer above them. Instead, their feelings, their instincts, their desires, their emotions, and their experiences had taken its place. And then to show us how absolutely reckless that posture is, Jude gives us what's kind of a surprising contrast. He says these false teachers speak arrogantly about spiritual

realities they don't understand, claiming spiritual authority that they do not possess. However, and here's the contrast, verse 9. He says when the Archangel Michael, if you're not familiar with him, Michael is the archangel who literally cast Satan out of heaven. This is the dude that leads God's armies. This is the guy who actually possesses an extraordinary amount of spiritual authority. Yet, verse 9, when the Archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, Michael did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment against Satan, but instead just said to Satan, the Lord rebuke you. Now again, this is one of those stories that... It's found in an extra biblical thing called the Assumption of Moses that Jude's original readers would have been familiar with. And so if you're like, where is this story found? It's not found in the scriptures. But basically what happened is as it's told that the Archangel Michael is the person that buried Moses's body, and now Satan is coming trying to steal his body. And see, if anybody could have thrown around their spiritual weight, it would have been Michael, right? At this point, he could have cast Satan out again, he could have done this, but instead, unlike the other angels who rebelled, Michael maintains his place of submission, defers to God, and just leaves judgment to him.

He just stays put and lets God handle Satan and says, the Lord will rebuke you. And so here's our application, okay? I know you dookies aren't gonna like this. Be like Mike, all right? That's your application. Y'all be like Mike, but please don't talk to Satan. Please don't argue with Satan. Please don't try to call him out. Don't even try to rebuke him. Just say the Lord rebuke you. Because you need to know this, y'all, like Satan, he ain't scared of you, okay? You who could not find your car keys this morning. You who, if you drink the wrong kind of milk, your tummy gets upset. Like Satan is not scared of you, all right? So don't be mocking him and be like, come at me, bro. I rebuke you. Like Satan's not roaming around like a roaring lion and gets to your driveway and sees your not today, Satan sticker, and he's like, dang it, gotta go to the next drive. Like that's not happening. Y'all, please let God handle Satan. You just talk to God. Resist the devil, pray to God. Do not talk to the snake. Talk to the Lord about the snake. Rebuke him that way.

The whole point is that Michael submitted what he knew to God's authority while these false teachers submitted everything to their own instincts. And Jude summarizes all of it in verse 10. This is kind of his final diagnosis. He says, but these people blaspheme all that they don't understand. Because of that, they're destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, they become like animals who just live by instinct. Animals that understand instinctively. When we reject God's word, feelings become our highest authority. Desire becomes our only direction and destruction becomes our destination. Now, verse 11 goes on to give us three more case studies of men who show us what this self-rule looks like when the self-rule puts on religious clothing. See these first three, unbelief and rebellion and immorality. It's easy to like sit in the church pews, right? And kind of point that those are sins happening out there. The next three though, almost always begin in the church. And so here's the first of them. Verse 11. Jude says, woe to them. For in case you think you're exempt, for they walked in the way of Cain. Now Cain, we know from Genesis chapter four, attempted to worship God at the altar,

but he did so by approaching God on his own terms. And that's the way of Cain. The way of Cain is God on my own terms. It is a form of religious activity that is completely devoid of saving faith. It's wanting God to accept whatever I bring to him while refusing to receive whatever he says. Y'all, it is just playing church. It's claiming Jesus as your savior without submitting any part of your life to him as Lord. Because that's what the way of Cain does. It reshapes Jesus around our own personal preferences. The way of Cain sounds like, well, God should still accept me because I'm just really sincere in my faith. Or no, no, no, no, my Jesus would never require that of me. Or okay, I know that's what the Bible says, but surely that's not what it means. The way of Cain is when we obey only what affirms our feelings, when we ignore whatever confronts us, and we become really angry when God refuses to approve whatever lifestyle we bring him. But see, Christianity begins when we stop relying on what we bring to God and start relying on only what Christ has done for us. It's continually relying on your savior, not on yourself. You know this, we do not earn our salvation by our works and what we bring to God.

We receive salvation as a gift because of Jesus's work and what he has brought to God. That's the first thing, way of Cain. Second, he says, they abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error. Now we read Balaam's story back in Numbers chapter 22 through 25. Balaam was a prophet for profit who was willing to use his spiritual influence for money and power and personal advantage. In other words, Balaam used spiritual things to serve selfish ambitions. And see, Balaam's error appears any time we are using God's gifts for my personal gain. And y'all do not think that that temptation is simply limited to pastors. Any Christian can use spiritual knowledge or generosity or service, or even a compelling testimony to gain attention and approval and access and influence. and control. What might begin by serving Jesus because we love him, we end up using in order to build our own platform. However, let me just pause here for a moment. And I do wanna say something directly to those of you who have been legitimately hurt by somebody in leadership. When it comes to Balaam's error, you need to know that when someone uses ministry or influence or authority to build their own personal platform or to enlarge their own personal bank account

or to exploit the very people that they were called to serve, they are committing Balaam's error and they will be judged by God. This is why we at The Summit Church seek to do absolutely everything we can to remain above reproach. I mean, when it comes to our church finances, we are accredited by a third party outside accountability organization. Now, last week, Pastor JD told you that his salary is set by a team of directional elders, half of which are not even on our staff. Every single one of us who stand up here and preach the word to you week after week, you need to know that dozens of sets of eyeballs have been on what we're gonna say to you to ensure that there's biblical fidelity behind it. I mean, just for me personally, I have multiple people who know all the financial details of my life. My wife who's sitting right over here and my assistant have to sign off on any extra speaking engagements that I have to ensure that I'm prioritizing the kingdom and not my own personal preferences. Multiple people have my logins to all sorts of stuff. I have like 10 dudes that have me on Find My Friends. And so we do that because we believe that faithful ministry welcomes accountability

because God's gifts are to be used for God's people and God's glory, not our personal gain. Falling into Balaam's error turns God's gifts into a means for my gain. So those are the first two. And then finally look at the end of verse 11. It says, these people perished in Korah's rebellion. See Korah takes self-rule one step further by grasping for God's authority to serve his very own glory. In Numbers chapter 16, this dude named Korah rebels against the divine authority that had been given to Moses and Aaron. And he tries to assume power for himself by grasping for a position that God had not given him. Korah is usurping God's authority for my glory. And see this one's sneaky because Korah's rebellion honestly rarely looks like this all out coup in your life. Instead, let's kind of put it down, make it real practical. Instead, Korah's rebellion often looks like grumbling whenever a parent or a boss or a pastor or a leader tells us no without us then seeking to understand why and then we just go complain about it. Korah's rebellion often looks like refusing correction simply because we don't like getting feedback or we don't like feeling criticized. It looks like assuming the worst about somebody else's motives and then recruiting people over to our side instead of addressing a concern one-on-one directly.

The heart level question of whether we're participating in Korah's rebellion is am I actually seeking truth and clarity and unity or am I just seeking control and vindication and affirmation for what I already think and believe? Cain wanted God on his own terms. Balaam wanted God's gifts for his gain. Korah wanted God's authority for his glory. And by the way, did you notice the downward progression in all of these? These folks begin to walk in the way of Cain, then they abandon themselves to Balaam's error and they ultimately perish in Korah's rebellion. Y'all, that is always the downward spiral of sin. It begins as just this little path that we begin to walk in, doesn't seem like a big deal and all of a sudden it becomes a power to which we abandon ourselves and that power ultimately ends in destruction in our lives. My terms, my gain, my glory, different stories, same center, putting self on the throne that only God should be on. And see what you gotta realize is this self-rule never simply destroys the person practicing it. With this kind of teaching and living enters into our lives, everybody around us is placed in danger. That's the whole point of verses 12 and 13, look at them. He gives us these six images. He says, these people are hidden reefs at your love feasts.

Just think fellowship dinner and potluck, okay? They're hidden reefs as they feast with you without fear. These folks are shepherds who feed themselves. They're waterless clouds, they don't give you any rain, nothing good, they're just swept along by winds. They're fruitless trees in late autumn, they're twice dead, uprooted, you get nothing from them. These people are wild waves of the sea that just cast up the phone of their own shame. They're wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever. Taken together, these six images show us how dangerous and empty and disappointing and destructive following false teachers will always leave us. And see Jude's final image is especially important. He calls these people wandering stars. He's kind of referencing a shooting star, something you see in a moment and then it's gone. These wandering stars for whom the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved forever. Now you know this, but back in the day, travelers had depend upon a fixed star for direction. That was kind of their version of Google Maps, kind of like the magi that, you know, the star that led them to baby Jesus. And so a wandering star, shooting star, couldn't guide anybody safely home. And what he's saying is that, hey, false teaching is the same thing. False teaching offers you the spiritual direction,

but because it's abandoned God's truth, it can only lead you deeper into darkness and confusion. Again, this is another reason we're so passionate about preaching truth from the Bible here at this church, because we know that false self-appointed spiritual guides and gurus cannot bring you safely home for eternity. And yet after all this doom and gloom, the good news is that Jude does not leave us without a guide. After all this wreckage and all this heaviness and all this feeling of almost condemnation, Jude turns our eyes toward the one fixed point that will remain for all eternity, toward the Lord who is coming through the darkness to defeat the darkness. And so look at verse 14. He says, it was also about these that Enoch, so dude, you can read about in Genesis, the seventh from Adam prophesied. Now, side note, Enoch's prophecy is not found in Genesis. It's found in another extra biblical source that he's quoting called 1 Enoch. His prophecy says, behold, the Lord comes with 10,000s of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way. And of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him. And then he describes them.

He says, these folks are grumblers and malcontents. They follow their own sinful desires. They're loud mouth boasters. They're arrogant. They show favoritism just to gain advantage. And then verse 17, but you, you must remember beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you in the last time, there will be scoffers who follow their own ungodly passions. It's these who cause divisions, worldly people who are devoid of the spirit. Jude says, hey, in midst of all this insanity, don't be surprised. Don't be seduced by these false teachers. The apostles warned that they would come. But then he also says, don't forget where all of history is headed. The one who gets the final word is not the false teachers. The one who gets the final word is Jesus, our savior. And he's showing us that the wreckage of the past marks the spiritual reefs that we should be aware of. The warnings of the apostles should anchor us in the present that, yeah, it looks like the world has lost its mind, but there's still a point to all this. And then he makes us look to the future, showing us that the return of Jesus

is what sets the course for our future. And see, this means, this return means three things. The first thing it means is just that. It's the fact that Jesus is coming back. Verse 14, Jude says, behold, the Lord comes with 10,000 of his holy ones. And y'all, this isn't just some new idea that Jude's been all doom and gloom, and it's at the end of the scriptures. And he's like, you know what? Let's just give some people some hope. No, Jude is drawing upon a promise that runs through the entire Bible. From the opening pages of scripture, God has promised that evil will not get the final word. You go open this thing up. What you're gonna see is that the offspring of the woman, Jesus Christ, will crush the serpent's head, and the rightful king is gonna come to reclaim his creation. The prophets pick up on that promise into what they call the day of the Lord, the day when God will appear as divine warrior, when he judges evil, rescues his people, and establishes righteousness on earth. The prophet Daniel picks up on this, and Daniel sees the son of man, Jesus, coming in the clouds to receive an everlasting kingdom. Likewise, Zechariah picks on this and sees the Lord coming with all his holy ones to eradicate evil.

And then get to the New Testament. Jesus arrives on the scene. He identifies himself as that coming king. Jesus says, even though now that I'm ascending, I will come back again. I'm gonna return visibly in power and glory, accompanied by my angels, alongside the archangel Michael, to gather his people and judge the entire world. The New Testament writers pick up on that same promise, and they say that the same Jesus who ascended again will return, the dead will be raised, evil will be defeated, all creation will be renewed, and Christ will reign forever with his people. Y'all, Jesus's second coming is not just some doctrine. for prophecy charts and end time enthusiasts. Jesus's second coming is the very fixed star by which you and I navigate our everyday ordinary Christian life. The second coming is not an escape from our ordinary life. The second coming is what gives ordinary faithfulness in everyday life, eternal significance. For instance, when you wake up and you go to work tomorrow, when you refuse to compromise your integrity at work because you are a faithful follower of Jesus and you refuse to compromise in order to get ahead, Jesus's return says that that faithfulness is not wasted. When the stay at home mom wonders if anybody sees the billions upon billions of small acts of love throughout her day, Jesus's return says that that hidden obedience

will not be forgotten. You students who came back just hyped up for Jesus from camp. Man, later on in this semester when you feel ostracized and alone for believing what the scripture says and trying to follow Jesus faithfully, man, Jesus's return says that the opinion of your friends, the opinion of the crowd will not be the final verdict over your life. When the cancer patient gets another difficult report, yes, that diagnosis is real, but Jesus's return says that that diagnosis does not get to write the final chapter in your life. His second coming means pain and grief and death will not have the last word that when our world feels like it has lost its ever-loving mind, that when those who do evil still seem to prosper more than we do or when your obedience and faithful to Jesus feels costly in the public square, we are to remember that history is not just wandering aimlessly, that our God is sovereign and that Jesus is coming back. And when he comes, be assured that there'll be no more tears and no more crying and no more pain and no more injustice and no more betrayals and no more exploitation and no more abuse

and no more sin and no more death because the King who is coming for the world is also coming for you. So you can keep trusting and keep obeying and keep following his truth, holding it above our feelings. Y'all, the return of Jesus is good news because he's coming back to make everything right. However, you gotta realize that in order to put everything right, Jesus also has to confront everything that's wrong. And so yeah, Jesus comes, but when he comes first, Jesus will judge. See, a love that never confronts evil is not truly loving, is it? And a justice that never judges evil is also not truly just. And so Jude says that Jesus is coming, look at verse 15, to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him. Just notice that repetition in verse 15. Four times he says all, four times he refers to the ungodly. What he's doing is he's emphasizing that when the judge comes, nobody's gonna be hidden from him

and nothing is gonna be overlooked. Every single one of us will stand before Jesus one day where he is gonna judge every deed and every word and every motive and every thought and every secret act of rebellion will be brought into the light and there will be zero exceptions. And when he comes to judge all, he's not gonna come and grate on a curve. He's not gonna judge according to opinion polls or cultural trends or standards that change from one generation to another. He's not gonna compare you to your friend that you think you're just spiritually more mature than. No, he will only judge according to his own perfect, holy, moral character. That's the standard. And whatever verdict you are given, no amount of money at that time is gonna be able to purchase you a different verdict. No amount of influence will help you control the narrative. No amount of religious language will disguise an unrepentant heart and no amount of religious proximity or church attendance will save you. You remember verse five? The entire nation experienced deliverance from Egypt, but the unbelieving individuals within that nation were destroyed in the wilderness. Being among the people of God

is not the same as personally belonging to Jesus by faith. Yes, God will deliver his capital C church, but individuals who have not personally placed their trust in Jesus will be destroyed. of church attendance, no amount of growing up in a Christian home, no amount of verses you have memorized, or maybe you got baptized at a kid, like the fact that you can present grandmama's Bible that was given to you, like those are awesome privileges, but none of those things will save you. You must personally bow your knee to Jesus and take refuge in him. Y'all, when he comes, when he judges, there's only two options. You can either bow or you can bow. You can bow to him as judge or you can bow to him as savior. And that day's coming. Hebrews 9, verse 27 says that it is appointed that every single one of us will die and then comes judgment. And on that coming day, on that judgment day, if you are found trying to excuse your persistent sin and living in an ungodly way, what I wanna tell you right now is please do not confuse God's patience with you right now for God's approval of how you're living. The wreckage of the past shows us

that his judgment is not an empty threat. The decision to submit to the lordship of Jesus in this life is the only thing that can save you from eternal damnation in the next. And so I say this with everything in me on the authority of the scriptures, would you please repent? Would you repent and turn from self-rule? Would you submit yourself to Jesus? And the promise, the good news of the gospel is that when you do, when you cry out to him, he will hear your cry for salvation because here's the most important news of all. Yes, he's coming. Yes, he will judge. But the most important news is that Jesus came to save. Don't ever get over that word. Jesus saves. He came to save you. I can't say it any better than the great Martin Lloyd Jones said it. He wrote this over 75 years ago. It feels like it was written for today. Look at it. He said, the modern world is desperately ill. People are now perhaps more unhappy than they have ever been. Sound like today? There's only one cure for the world's sickness. Only one thing that can give to a man or woman rest and peace, that is to know that Jesus of Nazareth,

the son of God has forgiven me. Not just merely that forgiveness is possible or available, but know that Jesus has forgiven me, that he died for me, that he wraps me in his clothing of righteousness. And maybe you ask, well, even if he did die for me, if Jesus is all holy judge, how can this holy judge look at guilty rebels like us and declare us forgiven without ignoring our sin or without compromising his justice? Well, friend, that's the question that takes us to the very heart of the gospel itself. The fact that the only one with the authority to condemn us is the same one who came to bear that very condemnation for us. Our refuge is the judge himself. At his first coming, Jesus stepped into the place of rebels like us. On the cross, he carried our guilt. He received our judgment. He endured the condemnation that our sin deserved. But then when he rose from the dead after three days, he was demonstrating that our sin debt had been paid, that death had been defeated and the sacrifice had been accepted. God did not ignore our sin in order to save us. He judged our sin in Jesus on the cross. Christ received the condemnation we deserved so that we could receive the righteousness that he earned. Again, salvation is not something we earn

or achieve or deserve. It is just all a gift we receive. And so y'all, if you have never personally received the gift of salvation purchased for you by Jesus Christ on the cross, you should hear Jude's warnings, not as condemnation of your life, but as an invitation to the open door of grace right now. That today you can walk through that door by bowing to Jesus, placing your faith in him and be saved. And so right now, can we bow our heads at all of our locations? And y'all, I am not gonna draw this out at all. If you felt the promptings of the Holy Spirit, if the hounds of heaven have been on your heels, if you need to be saved, then you can simply pray a prayer that sounds like this. Just in the quietness of your heart, you can repeat these words. You can just say, God, I'm sorry. My sin has broken the relationship with you. My sin has broken so many things in this life. And God, I'm asking you to save me. Today, I want to confess Jesus as my savior, not because of anything I've done, but because I'm relying on what he has done. And I also want to submit to him as Lord of my life. God, would you come into my heart? Would you fill me with the spirit?

And would you save me? By the blood and by in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Hey, look up here, if you just prayed that prayer and you sincerely meant it, that is the most important decision you will ever make in your entire life. And so before you walk out of these doors today, wherever you are, man, I just want you to tell somebody. Tell the person you came with, or at the end of service, our pastors and prayer teams will be down front. Come tell them. Because the last thing we want is for you to make a decision that big and then feel like you have to figure everything out on your own. You've got a church family that wants to come alongside you, a church family that's going to celebrate with you. And so can we do that right now, church family? Can we stand at all of our locations? Can we put our hands together for those who have made decisions for the saving, coming savior, Jesus Christ. Thank you.