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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
The text for this morning, the last Sunday of the church year, comes from the Gospel reading, as well as the Epistle of St. Jude. The text that we’ve been listening to the last three Sundays, and the hymns of which we’ve been singing, paint a very sobering and somber picture of the end of the world, Judgment Day. Christ’s return to judge the living and the dead. Last Sunday’s scripture reading, the gospel reading, ended with this great statement of our Lord: the one who endures to the end will be saved.
Now we know in this morning’s gospel reading, it refers to all of the tribulation prior to the scene that’s being painted this morning. Right? The scene that’s being painted this morning is a very cataclysmic scene. It is a complete reversal of the fourth day of creation. On the fourth day of creation, as you remember from Genesis, God placed in the heavens all the stars at their appointed places, placed the moon outside of the orbit of the earth, and placed the sun as the center of our solar system here. All of those were placed in God’s will in the fourth day of creation. In this morning’s gospel reading, all of them go to black darkness. No more, but not for the elect.
The elect, as is said very clearly in the text, are gathered by the angels from the four corners of the world, and they will never have to see such darkness again. Never have to experience such a cataclysmic end. They will appear before their judge, as the text says. Therefore, the one who endures to the end will be saved.
Now, the end described in this text is the very end. You and I may not be present when Christ returns with glory to judge the living and the dead. God may call us home to paradise before that day. But whether God calls us home before that day or on that day, either way, we will have an end to this earthly life. We will have an end to the sorrow and sadness that has accompanied us in this earthly life. We will have an end to everything that we have experienced, seen, and know in this world and in this life. Whether we wait and are around when Jesus returns, or whether we are taken home before then. Hence, that great statement of last Sunday’s Gospel reading: the one who endures to the end will be saved.
Therefore, we do not fear. The rest of the world looks at Judgment Day and either places it at the very back of their mind as if it’s an unreal and a fairy tale to be left dangling in some other place and not in front of their face. Yes. We do not look at that day in such a negative manner. At least your Creator and Redeemer and Sanctifier does not wish you to look at that day with such disdain, sorrow, and sadness. It is your day of victory. It is your release from everything that has plagued you in this life. It is your final freedom from all the things within your mind and in your heart, outside of you and inside of you, that has constantly harassed you, constantly plagued you, constantly gnawed at you and picked at you. Free from it.
Because Jesus says very clearly in this morning’s text, the heavens and the earth will pass away, but my word, My word, my word will never pass away. That’s his promise. That’s why you and I see this differently than the rest of the world does. In spite of Satan’s harassment and our own sin, we can be sure, we can be confident. Therefore, he who endures to the end will be saved.
Now, because of all these great and glorious promises which our Lord gives us, in the midst of, we will not know that day nor that hour, because of this hope and great grace that he gives us in these texts, in these great promises, we are to be on our guard and stay awake. Be on our guard and stay awake. What does that look like? How does that play out in our life? Being on our guard and staying awake. And that’s where St. Jude gives us such a great insight into being on our guard and staying awake and what it looks like.
This morning’s text said, building yourself up in your most holy faith. It does not talk about being static, but kinetic. Kinetic. Always building up. Always growing. Never arriving. Never thinking that simply 50 years later, because we’ve been confirmed, we have no need for the catechism or the eternal truths of God’s Word. Simply because we have completed all the requirements to sup and eat with Christ does not mean that we stop. That’s not being on our guard. That’s not staying awake.
So then, what does it look like? First and foremost, it is building yourself up in your most holy faith. And what that looks like is, first and foremost, to repent. We have not loved others as we’ve ought. We’ve thought too much of our own selves, our own wounds, our own scars, more than of the scars and wounds of our Lord. We have withheld forgiveness when we ought to have applied it liberally. We have been choosy with who gets our affection and kindness rather than all.
First and foremost, to be built up in our most holy faith is to repent and to keep hearing this word and receiving his mercy, love, and forgiveness. Y’all can’t love much if you don’t first be loved by him. And y’all can’t forgive unless you first and foremost are forgiven. What did Jesus say to the woman who washed his feet with the tears of her eyes? She loves much because she has been forgiven much. If you struggle with forgiving someone, you struggle with your own forgiveness. If you struggle with loving someone, you struggle with God’s love for you in spite of you. If you struggle giving mercy to someone, you struggle with your mercy received from Christ, whether you deserve it or not.
Hence, to be built up in your most holy faith, to be on your guard, to stay alert, is to keep hearing and receiving that which God brings you here in this place. Because we desperately need it. Desperately need it. The other thing that Jude says to be built up in our most holy faith, to be on our guard, is to pray. I don’t doubt that you and I pray. But in the midst of our prayers, we typically have a very narrow band of prayer things.
So God gives us words to speak that are broader, the Lord’s Prayer. And then there are those times, and you know those times, when you are so overwhelmed with sorrow or sadness, guilt or anguish, incidents that have happened to you or to your loved ones, so overwhelmed are you that you can’t pray. You have no words to speak, and the Spirit intercedes for you. That’s God praying in you and through you by His Holy Spirit.
Finally, Jude says, remain in the love of God. That’s not your love for God. That’s God’s love for you. Remain in God’s love for you. Revel in His forgiveness. Savor His mercy. That is what keeps you standing, not falling. That is what picks you up from your mistakes and face plants. That is your hope and joy in the midst of so many things that have disappointed you in this life and in this world.
So what does it look like to stay awake and be on your guard? To be built up in your most holy faith? First and foremost, your faith to be built up. That starts there. Well then, is that good enough? Is that all we need? Why does God give you forgiveness except for you to give it away? Why does God give you mercy except for you to give it to someone else who is in need of it? Just as it was first and foremost given to you.
Why else would God give you forgiveness except that you may give it to someone else? You see, God has placed people in your lives. Just as God has placed children in our school and parents that are influenced by you teachers. Just like God has brought people with you into this church, God has placed people in your lives. And you think, I have no influence over them. That’s Satan’s tripe. That is not God’s declare. God has placed these people in your lives for that very reason: that you may bestow that forgiveness that you’ve been given and of which you even struggled with.
God has placed those people in your life to give mercy of which you sometimes question your own mercy given to you. God has placed them in your life to love, not like the world loves—who loves those who love them back—but loves in spite of them and their own problems, just like you cherish the people who love you that way, and you cherish the one first and foremost who loves you that way.
Jude says very clearly, these people whom God has placed in our lives, we are to show mercy to them. But two specific kinds of people are we to show mercy unto. Jude says, one, those who doubt. Nobody here has not doubted. Pinch yourself. If you feel that pinch, you are alive and you have sin in your bosom and you doubt just like I do. Having doubted, to show mercy is not to say, well, you just need to trust Jesus more, don’t you? That’s not mercy. That’s pride and vanity.
To show mercy to those who doubt says, I doubt too. I don’t know why, but I’ll walk with you together to the one who does know all the answers and who brings us solace and balm. That’s showing mercy to those who doubt. That’s what it means to be built up in your most holy faith. That’s what it means to be on your guard, to stay alert. God brings these people into your life for you, specifically you, in spite of you, because you are the one through whom he wishes to show such mercy.
The second kind of person that Jude speaks of showing mercy are those entangled in false teaching and sin. False teaching, right? Who wants you to struggle with your forgiveness? Satan. What does Satan use to get you to struggle with forgiveness? False teaching about Christ’s forgiveness. False teaching isn’t a matter of who’s right or who’s wrong. False teaching is a matter of who has God’s forgiveness and why. And Satan points all fingers away from that truth. That’s why those who are caught in sin need truth. Not psychology babble, but truth about God’s dealing with sin in Christ, truth about comfort and solace found in forgiveness in Christ, truth that says, in spite of what I see when I look inside of myself— which is not a very pretty sight for any of us—truth is, in spite of what I see inside of myself, he’s a loving God because Christ bore it for me. That’s the kind of person who needs to know God’s mercy too.
Jude is very specific about that, and as we live in these last days, false teaching is rampant. Rampant in this country of ours. And we are the ones who bear the light. We show mercy to those who struggle in their sin. As even he says, Jude, despising the garment stained by the flesh, yanking them out of the fire. As we were yanked out of the fire, and I think if you think about your own life, you have to think in terms of you didn’t just get yanked out of the fire once, did you? You and I have continually been yanked out of the fire by loving brothers and sisters. We may not always have liked what they have said, but we are glad that they said what they said, turning us back to Christ: truth, where comfort and joy is found and not uncertainty.
You know, we spoke about praying the Lord’s Prayer. And when we pray the Lord’s Prayer, part of showing mercy is getting us to grasp what we’re praying about in our own lives. And isn’t it interesting, in the Lord’s Prayer, we don’t pray, “lead me not into temptation, deliver me from evil,” as if everything’s about me. In the Lord’s Prayer, God has given us that First person plural pronoun. Lead us not into temptation. We are praying not only for ourselves, but for one another, and we are being prayed for by the Christians around the world whom you and I cannot even see. And we are praying for those whom we do not even know. The same prayer. Lead us as the church not into temptation. Deliver us as the church from evil.
And if you remember from Confirmation that catechism memory work, part of delivering us from temptation is misbelief, despair, and other great shame and vice. Well, the shame and vice are pretty obvious. The misbelief and despair is tied to false teaching and not truth about Christ’s complete and total and free forgiveness. And when we pray, “deliver us from evil,” such a pointed answer is, “Though we be assailed by them,” Luther is acknowledging, as the scriptures acknowledge, we are and have been and will continue to be assailed by the evil in this world until our judgment day comes. But though we be assailed by them, that we may finally overcome them and obtain the victory, the one who endures to the end will be saved.
The great text in Jude is this, the very end. He is able to keep you from stumbling. Sometimes when you and I look at Judgment Day and look at our lives, we think, how can I maintain it? How can I keep going? Why will I not grow weary and faint and give up? Because He says He won’t. He won’t let your feet stumble. And if you think that’s only the pie-in-the-sky stuff from Jude, hear the apostles.
John speaks about this lack of stumbling: whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling. And the apostle Peter: therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure. For if you practice these qualities, you will never fail, fall, ever.
Finally, Jude says, He is able to present you blameless before his presence. Amen. The world looks at Judgment Day as a blame game. Satan reminds us that Judgment Day is a blame game. Our head does enough of that on its own. Judgment Day is not about blame. Judgment Day for you is about blamelessness. And it says very clearly, he is able to present you blameless before his presence: the judge’s presence. The only holy and righteous one. The one at whose name we shall bend our knee.
And if you think Jude is the only one who speaks about our being presented blameless before the throne as his children, think again. From the Apostle Paul: now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely. And may your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it.
And again, Paul says, God has now reconciled you in His body, His body of flesh, by His death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him. If indeed you continue in the faith, stable, steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard.
You’ve just heard it from the apostle, from Jude, from our Lord’s lips: the one who endures to the end will be saved because he will keep your feet from stumbling and will present you blameless before his presence with, the text says, joy. In the name of the one who does these things for us, Jesus himself, amen.
