To God Be The Glory

• 💭 Consider this: If someone looked at your life, what would show them that it belongs to God? What would change if bringing glory to God became the measure of your choices?

TRANSCRIPT

Well, warm greetings in the blessed name of our Lord and our Saviour Jesus Christ. Well, the theme for our evening meditation is taken from Jude 24 and 25; To God be the glory. To God be the glory.

You know how we have sinned against God, the Bible tells us. "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:23) So, we have received salvation through our Lord and our Saviour Jesus Christ. Now, "for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23) So, because of sin, we do not know how to glorify God. We don't even know who is God. How can we glorify Him?

But, thanks be to God for His grace and mercy that we are now saved. And so, we can glorify God now. And so, as we end with the words of Jude with the benediction. Now, this benediction is one of the most used, well-known benedictions before the congregation is dismissed in the worship service. Benediction is a prayer that seeks divine blessing. It's only uttered by the minister of the gospel. It cannot also be replaced by having the congregation to cite the words. It must be by the minister in person. Because it is an important blessing one must never miss.

But, you will see today that there are those who are so quick to leave the sanctuary. Or, even as quick as after the message ended with our closing prayer or immediately they just leave without the benediction. Without receiving the divine blessing from God. And of course, for those who have duty to do, it's important for those who have responsibilities [to leave early]. But if possible, if possible, stay, stay until the benediction. Because it is a important blessing that God has planned, devised.

Now, the benediction as we see in verses 24 and 25 is one theme, to God be the glory. And so he says here, "Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen." (Jude 24–25)

The benediction begins with now. What is now? Now is now. Now is present.

We are fighting the spiritual warfare right now. We are resisting the enemy right now. We are building up our most holy faith right now. So before the Lord calls us home, now, now we are still living. And God knows how we go through each day. And God want us to look at Him. Because He want to help us. He want to go through all our troubles, our problems together with us. He want to protect us. He want to bless us. And we do not wait for tomorrow. Now. It is now.

“Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling”. Well, unto Him is unto God. Unto God who is able, He has all the power. All the ability to keep us from falling. He's the all powerful one. To protect us so that we may not fall. When we talk about falling, it is falling from a high place to the lower ground. Well, of course it is a metaphor. But it's a very powerful metaphor. Just as when someone is walking or running, or if he's not careful, he can trip and fall. And when one falls, it can be painful. He can break a leg. No, it's not something that is good, isn't it? To fall. And that's why God want to keep us from falling.

So that we may not fall into temptation, so that we may not fall into deception, so that we may not be deceived by the evil one. And so we've got power, we can be kept from falling. But having said that, it doesn't mean that we don't have to do anything. Just let God's power run automatically, then we will never fall. Doesn't mean that, it doesn't. So it has to do a lot on our part as well. God has given us all His promises, His word, that we might not fall. And when we obey Him, when we follow His instruction, we will not fall. But only when we obey. If we fail to obey, if we disobey, we will fall. We will still fall.

Well, my uncle was a ex-drug addict, but he became a Christian while he was serving his time in prison. So thank God that he found Christ in prison. But life is not easy for him because he had a background of all this drug abuse because of his friends. So after his release, he tried to join a church. He tried to live a life that is clean, right before God.

But lo and behold, because the there are not many opportunities for him to get to know many people in church because they knew about his background, so so they kept a distance. So by and by he also dropped out of about of church. And because he drop out of church and then when he met his friend again, well, that's where he returned to drug abuse. So so he went into prison again, then he came out again in and out multiple times.

Well, he's not able to keep him from falling. Why did he fall? Why did he not kept not from falling back into into drugs? And live a clean life. What does that mean God failed? No.

Well, he himself must overcome. He himself must be able to persevere. Well, persevering is so important. And so that is a good reason why the benediction is given. It is after the word of God is expounded. It is preached and taught. And we all heard it. Well, whether in person or online, we heard the word of God preached to us. Spoken to our heart.

Well, so what to do now after hearing the word? Are we supposed to still be the same? Are we not supposed to be doers of his word? Are we not supposed to obey what we have learned, what we have been taught in God's word? Well, if we do not take heed, if we do not obey what we have learned from God's word, well, the path is before us. It means that we have decided to walk in the path going the direction against the law. And that path is leading to destruction.

Well, that's why we fall. We keep on falling. But God has never failed us because we know how the Lord has provided opportunities again and again. So, for my uncle, opportunities have been given to him again and again. Well, the last he entered into prison was just before COVID. But since then, until today, well, thank God for preserving him. But he still must press on, press on.

Well, even as we pray, you know, unto him that is able to keep us from falling. We thank God that the Lord has provided all the means that we will not fall. But we must take the step of faith and, and obey and persevere on. Well, if not, we will fall again and again. And what happened when we fall? It means we have failed.

Well, it means that we have sinned against God. It means that we have not trusted in God enough. Well, let us not fall. And this falling doesn't mean that, we have failed in our exam in school or we have failed in our project at work. Of course, if you have not been doing your part and you fail, then well, you have to bear the blame.

But what if you have done your best honestly, rightly in the sight of God, even though you may have failed, in the Lord's eyes you have been kept from falling. So, that's not the definition by the world. The world will measure success or even failures by the result. But when God looked at how you have persevered and in the end you may fail, you may fail in terms of your exam, you, you may fail in terms of not being able to submit the project according to the, the vision, the desire of the company.

And then you may even get terminated because of that. But you have done your best. And you're done it lawfully. You did not cut corners. You did not go through some dishonest methods. You, you are faithful. So, in the eyes of God, you have not fallen. You have been kept from falling. And so, there can be many, many challenges where we stand our ground because we are born again. You know, we are believers and we do not want to fail our God.

Will we keep our job but lie? Will we tell our, tell the truth but of course the price to pay is maybe more than a pay cut. Maybe we lose our job. So which one is considered falling? Well, we know the answer, isn't it? God want to keep us from falling. And all because He want to present us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy. (Jude 24)

Now that we have come to the saving knowledge of our Lord and our Saviour Jesus Christ. The wonderful thing is we can, not sin now. In the past, when we still have the sinful nature, you know, whatever we do is sin. You know, we can never please God. But the moment we are born again, we are brought into salvation. We can not sin. We can don't sin against God. Of course with God's help.

Of course it doesn't mean sinless perfection. We can obey God now. We can please God now. And so over here faultless, we sin less and less. Well, it is fault-less. Well, are we sinning less and less? It must be. It must be in our sanctification. We know in this flesh, that we have is always prone to sin and the fall. But we must sin less and less. That is our sanctification.

And we have no lack of God's word in our time, not just in church, but plenty of opportunities. When we go online, looking at other like-minded churches for other spiritual activities, for other messages, we can benefit from all this spiritual enjoyment and feeding. The God's word will help us obey Him. That's why we must turn to Him.

It does not take just another sermon or a message to give up all the knowledge that we need in the Bible. God wants to present us faultless. No more of committing sin, it must be less and less. Even a bad thought in our mind, the, the unclean words found in our mouth, whatever attitude and behaviour that is bad, that is sinful, it must be less and less.

Well, I’m always encouraged by the choir, some of you may be in the choir going to practise for the 40th anniversary of Bethel Bible Church. So, how many times will you have to gather together to practise? So, each time the presentation of the choir, when we look at how they sing, behind them are all the numerous practices. Surely when they go through the practices, there will be mistakes. There will be some who are not of the right tune. All these will be adjusted and they have to go through many practices. Many.

So that on the actual presentation, what we are going to see will be a faultless presentation. And that must be the ministry of the choir. Can you imagine if there's mistake, what that mistake will distract the the congregation from the ministry of encouragement. People will be focused on the mistake. And that will not be good. But if it's beautiful, faultless, well, the the congregation will be ministered by the choir.

So, this is actually what God is doing to us. He want us to be faultless. So, He gave us all these commandments so that we may be presented before Him faultless. Not for fun. The Bible is so thick. It's not for fun. From cover to cover, from Genesis to Revelation, it's not to look nice. It's not to for us to hold as a book, ‘you know, we have the Bible with us’. It's so that we may be presented faultless.

Well, we thank God for such a desire that the Lord has in order to present us faultless. You know, in a wedding, usually we focus on the bride. You know, as the the father lead the bride walk up to the aisle. The bridegroom will be in front. But when we look at the bride, I'm sure all of us will stand. And as they walk up to the aisle, we will all be looking at the bride. You know, how will the bride be like? You know, is it hair messy, makeup all messed up, and then dress torn here and there? Is it in this way? No. It will be perfect, isn't it? Most beautiful.

And the father will be walking the daughter up to the aisle to present her to the bridegroom. Of course, he has to give her hand to to the bridegroom. Now, that's also the picture of us. You know, when we are presented by God the Father, and Christ is our bridegroom, and we are the bride. And God the Father wanted to present the church as the most beautiful bride. Not that there is a second bride or or other brides. No, there's only one and it must be the most beautiful.

So, to God be the glory. How can we not obey Him? How can we not do what He says? So, are we going to be different after we heard God's word? We must. We must be transformed in our lives. The old us will not bring glory to God. Let the new man, let the new man be hearers and doers of God's word. Not just hearers only. But also be doers as well.

Verse 25, "To the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen." (Jude 25) Well, the one who is able to keep us from falling is the only wise God. So, He's the source of wisdom. Many do not look to God for wisdom because they rely on their own wisdom. Because they say, ‘I can think. I can analyse. I can discern. You know, I can make good decision on my own without God. I know what to say. I know what I'm thinking. I know how to live my life my way. Just the way I like it.’ Now, if this is us, then we have not learned. If this is us, then we have not looked to the Lord and trusted in Him to keep us from falling.

It's only a matter of time, isn't it? Before we really fall. Before we sin, and sin against God. Our life is no more ours. It belong to God. And because it belong to God, God will decide for us how we are to live. And so we follow His instruction wherever we may be. Wherever role that we assume in life, you know, whether in school or at work or in church. So that we may bring glory to God.

Now, the word glory is glorious in itself. It is the magnificent honour and beauty that shines. That is glory. The brightest of light. Good and perfect. There's no way sinner can glorify God.

Only you and I, believers, born again, children of the most high God. Well, I believe that's why Jude purposely chose to address God as the only wise God, our Saviour. Well, if not, how can we glorify Him? God must be our Saviour. We are saved for this purpose. So that we may glorify Him and enjoy Him forever.

So, what a glorious end that God has given to us. A lot of majesty is described, His kingship. How sovereign the Lord is in all His majesty. Well, if earthly kings can enjoy all the, no, the honour, how people address them, "Your Majesty." What's more for God? He is the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords. He is the majesty, the highest and the greatest of all.

So, God is above all. His dominion is over all. He controls. He decides. He overrules. To absolute control, absolute power. He has the power to build. He also has the power to destroy. Simply by the word of His mouth. Well, we know how the creation comes about. Simply by the word of His mouth. That power.

In fact, by the words, well, it is to tell us how God is doing it. God doesn't even need to say, "Oh, it shall be done." But the moment He think of it, it is done. It's to help us. Know that when God speaks, there is power.

If you ever come face to face to God's glory, to God's majesty, to His dominion and power, I don't think we can sit where we are, stand where we are. I think we'll be prostrating down. We'll be falling down on, on the ground. They don't even look up.

So, that's why it is so dangerous now for people to say, to say that, ‘Oh, last night the Lord appeared to me by the bedside. He put His arm around me.’ Hardly can believe in the name. If God really appeared to us, what should be our response? I think we'll be trembling. Trembling.

Yes, no doubt Jesus is our friend. No other friend is like Him. He's our perfect friend. Because He described the intimacy and closeness that He is to us as a friend. But He is God. Must not forget that. He is God doesn't mean that we can be friend with Him, you know, as if He is our buddy-buddy. We all better know where we stand. What is our position? Let God be God and we are His subjects. Do not show any disrespect to Him. He is the almighty God, our all-powerful God.

And so be glory, majesty, dominion, and power both now and be found in our lives now and forevermore. When a benediction is pronounced, it is in effect now and will be in effect for eternity. So, that's why we must not treat the, the benediction lightly. Nothing for all other benediction in other forms according to scripture. So, when it is pronounced, it is serious. Let it be done as God wills. According to His good pleasure, all glory be unto Him.

May God help us. Let us pray.

Our Father in heaven, we thank Thee for Thy word that reminds us once again how we have not glorified Thee as we ought. How many a time we have taken Thee for granted and how we have not honoured and glorified Thee as Thy children. For Thy great work which Thou has done in our lives.

Oh Lord, we thank Thee for Thy mercy and grace and Thy everlasting love that we are not consumed because of our sin. And may Thy Holy Spirit help us remember Thy word and help us to keep Thy word in our heart that we might not sin against Thee.

Then in this life which Thou has redeemed for this very purpose that we may glorify Thee and to enjoy Thee forever. Help us, oh God, and we commit all these with thanksgiving all to the glory of Thy holy name. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

THE BOOK OF JUDE

To God Be The Glory

To God Be The Glory

Jude 1:24-25

Message 1 – What is Faith?

Message 1 – What is Faith?

Hebrews 11:1, Jude 3