Jude 1:18-25

Well, good morning, Saylorville Church! My name is Andrew Bush. I’m the High School Director here. It’s a joy to be bringing the word of God to you on this Palm Sunday morning. I love Palm Sunday! It’s actually the day that my first born, Alice, was supposed to be born. It was her due date, and so when Jeanie was pregnant we had baby showers. People had decorations like palm branches and stuff. She didn’t come until Easter. That dirty dog took forever to get here! But a couple of years ago, we were teaching Alice about Palm Sunday, and we were telling her how people would lay palm branches down as Jesus entered in Jerusalem saying, “Hosanna! Save us, please!” That’s what Hosanna means, “Save us, please.” And they thought he was going to save them from the Romans, but he had a much bigger salvation in mind than just that. Well, clearly we didn’t do too great of a job, because it was just a little while after that, Alice, with full confidence was waving these throughout our house saying, “Samantha!”

(audience laughing) It’s funny when kids are wrong. It’s kinda cute when kids get the Bible wrong.

It’s a little less cute when adults get the Bible wrong. And it actually gets a little scary when adults start spreading false ideas within the church which is actually what the book of Jude is all about in your Bible.

Jude, the half-brother of Jesus, is writing to people telling them to fight for the faith, contend for the faith! Why? — because there are false teachers who have snuck into the church, as it were, without making a ripple. It’s like a Trojan horse that the church needs to be fearing more than the battering rams and siege engines of the world opposed to the Gospel. It’s the sneaky people that slide in with false doctrine and wrong ideas. And lest we think that this is just speaking about churches “out there” that have compromised in some way, or false teachers and all those people that are obviously wrong, Jude, he seems to indicate that these aren’t people making a big splash. It’s less likely that this is somebody saying, ‘Jesus isn’t the Son of God,’ or ‘there’s more than one way to get to heaven.’ They’re a little more subtle. He describes these false teachers and he says they are grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires, loud mouthed boasters, showing favoritism to gain an advantage. That maybe seems like not the big crazy things we would expect. In verse 18 of this short little letter, he describes them as “scoffers, followers of ungodly passions, divisive, worldly people who don’t have the spirit.“

So let me ask you, does our church have gossips? Does our church have divisive people in it? Does our church have people that are more wrapped up in earthly pleasure than on God’s glory? You bet we do! Right? And all of that’s a reminder to us that the book of Jude is for you and it’s for me, because this isn’t just talking about people “out there” preaching wrong ideas. This is people right here in the rows next to you that have believed something false from God’s word, people that are discontent, divisive, grumblers, complainers. It’s this type of stuff that he’s really concerned about that he says, “We need to contend for the faith.” This is for us!

The question is, what do we do about it? — Because there’s people here in this church, you may even identify with some of those things I said. How do we respond if this threat is in our midst? How do I survive as a Christian in a world where even the church is full of people that are diametrically opposed to the Gospel in sneaky ways? Well, he makes sort of a pivot in verse 20, Jude does, when he says, “But you, beloved…” He’s transitioning from the big idea that these false teachers are out there and this is what they’re like to now a little more practical. So what? How am I supposed to respond? And he goes on to tell us how we respond to the threat of false teachers in the church. I’ll just say, how do you survive as a Christian?

And so that’s where we’re going today. He gives us actually three things, three ways that we survive, three responses that we have as we deal with this threat. And the first one may surprise some of you. He says to keep yourself in the love of God. Let’s look at verses 20 and 21. I’m going to read from the NIV. This is what it says.

Jude (NIV)

20 “But you dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit,

21 keep yourselves in God’s love, as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life.”

It’s a very interesting statement. If you’ve been around our church for a while, it may actually surprise you to hear Jude saying, to “keep yourself in the love of God.” There may be some theological alarm bells going off in your mind. And if not, that’s okay, but if there are, I would urge you just to focus on what he’s saying here in this verse, and we’ll come full circle before we get to the end. “Keep yourself in the love of God.” It’s an active verb. You should be doing the keeping. You’re the one doing it, and there’s three participles that are sort of defining how it is we do this. And I think they’re pretty clear right in those two verses. He says, “keep yourself in the love of God.” How? — “by building yourself up in your most holy faith, by praying in the Spirit and by waiting for the mercy of God.”

I’ve got…

Build yourself up,

Praying in the Spirit,

Wait on God.

That’s how you keep yourself in the love of God. So let’s talk about these things briefly here.

Build yourself up. That could be anything that you do that helps you build up, mature, grow in your walk with Jesus. It’s becoming more like Jesus. How does that happen? There’s a million things we could point to, but I think at its root, that’s why I’ve got “the word” in parentheses, it needs to be rooted in God’s word, the scripture. It reminds me of 2 Timothy 3:16-17 that says,

2 Timothy 3:16-17

16 “All scriptures breathed out by God and it’s useful,( right?) It’s profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and training in righteousness…” (To what end?)

17 “that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.“

You don’t become complete. You don’t become mature. You don’t build yourself up in your faith apart from the word of God that is essential for all of that. And remember, we’re talking about false teachers within the church, so we’re trying to identify truth from error.

It’s kind of like how a police officer or a bank teller might determine a true bill from a counterfeit bill. So if you were forging a bill, you’d probably use a $20 or $100. I’m the High School Director here. I have a $5. But it’ll work fine. The illustration will still work just fine. So if I’m trying to identify if this is real or a forgery, then I’m not so much emphasizing thinking through all of the different ways that a bill might be forged by somebody, but rather, I’m just thinking about what I know to be true of a genuine $5 bill. Does it have the right watermarks in the right spots? —Does it have the wording correct on all the different areas? Does it have the right face on the front? —and the words, and everything lines up with what I know to be true of a regular $5 bill? And so it’s by knowing the truth that I’m more able to spot the frauds. The question is, do you know the truth well enough to be able to spot a fraud if you saw it? Do you know the word of God so that you could identify a forgery if he was in the seat next to you? Do you hate false doctrine? We need to be building ourselves up in our most holy faith via the word of God.

Secondly, Jude talks about praying in Holy Spirit. We kind of have an idea of what prayer is, but what does he mean by praying in the Holy Spirit? What does that mean? I think it’s similar to the idea of praying in Jesus’ name. Now sometimes we just sort of tag that on to the end of our prayers. We say, ‘in Jesus’ name, amen.’ But praying in Jesus’ name or praying in the Spirit is less about a sign off to your prayers and more a posture that we take. Maybe a good way to think of this is what prayer in the Spirit is not. I think James, in James chapter four, gives us an example of someone who’s not praying in the Spirit. When he says,

James 4:3 ‘You ask and you don’t receive,” (why?) “because you ask wrongly to spend it on your passions.”

It’s this selfishly motivated prayer that views God as nothing more than a great genie in the sky that exists to meet my wishes, that views God as Santa Claus saying, ‘Hey, will you come through on my wish list? I’ve been so good this year.’ — And so we pray with these selfish motives so that we can spend it on our pleasures. ‘God, would you just get me out of the trial as quickly as possible?’ ‘Would you please bless me and my family? Would you rain it down?’ Why? — ‘Because I just want my life easier and I’m kind of selfish most of the time.’ That’s not praying in the Spirit. Praying in the Spirit would be with the Holy Spirit being sort of the mover, the motivator, the initiator within my prayers, and that helps me, because the Bible says that the Holy Spirit is one who assures us that our prayers are heard and loved by God, because it’s through the Spirit, Romans 8 says, that we cry out, “Abba, Father.” So even when I feel like I can’t pray, the Spirit assures me that I’m a part of the family of God and my prayers are heard.

[Romans 8:15-16 (ESV)

15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.“]

And also in Romans 8…

[Romans 8:26-27

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”]

… the Spirit is said to be someone who helps us when we’re feeling lost or confused and I don’t know what to pray for, and I don’t know what I should ask for. But Paul says in Romans 8 that the Spirit helps us in our weakness and fixes our prayers on the way up as it were so that when we’re lost or confused I can still pray and make my request to God and He hears me. I’m praying in the Spirit with a dependence on God, a motivation coming from the things that I know God loves like when I’m praying the Lord’s prayer [Matthew 6:9-13] … and I’m asking that His name would be regarded as holy throughout the earth, that His kingdom would come, that His will would be done, that I’d be kept from sin. These are big kingdom-type prayers that God wants me to pray far beyond just my selfish wish list. So build yourself up in the word, pray in the Spirit dependent on God.

Thirdly and finally, wait on God. And I’m not going to spend long here, because just last week Mark Vroegop was here and he gave a whole message on waiting on God, and so if you’ve got more questions about this I’d encourage you to revisit last week. But the big idea here is just the simple idea that we’re praying with a… or sorry… the ideas that our thoughts, our hearts, our lives they’re spent with an eager anticipation for Jesus. But even in the midst of discomfort in my life or uncertainty in my life, I’m waiting patiently on my God with confidence that He’s going to come through in His perfect timing… waiting on God. So, we’ve got to build ourself up in the faith via the Word of God. We’ve got to pray in the Spirit and we have to wait on God.

There’s a human responsibility element here that allows us to keep ourself in the love of God. That’s what you’re commanded to do so that you can survive as a Christian.

But beyond a personal emphasis, there’s also a corporate element where we don’t just keep ourselves, we keep others as well. And you see it really clearly in verses 22 and 23. This is what it says.

Jude 1:22-23 (NIV)

22 “Be merciful to those who doubt,

23 save others by snatching them out of the fire, to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh.”

I think there’s three levels that you can see pretty clearly in those verses. Level one, have mercy on those who doubt. This is the doubter who’s maybe encountering false teaching or wrong ideas for the first time or in a fresh way. I think of maybe the freshman who goes off to college for the first semester and comes back Christmas break and there’s thinking, ‘Man, I heard some things. I met people that had different ideas, and I wasn’t quite sure how to deal with that. I didn’t know exactly how to respond, and it seemed like it was right, but it doesn’t sit with exactly what I’ve been taught,’ and there’s doubt there. We’re called to have mercy on those people, because we’re the family of God, and family doesn’t let people just drift away without going after them. We have a responsibility to one another, to pursue people even when they’re doubting.

And then there’s kind of a second level. You see it there, save others by snatching them out of the fire. This is sort of a deeper problem where they’re not just doubting their faith, but they’ve maybe actually bought into the lie entirely and they’re on the brink of being burned in the fire as it were. And there’s an urgency here. Save others! Snatch them out of the fire! Go after these people! We don’t leave a man behind. We don’t ignore and say, ‘Well, they fell off the wagon. Too bad for them.’ We pursue people. We go after people even when they’ve bought into a lie. And we pursue them with all we have, taking risk even to go into the fire, snatch them out for the sake of the unity of the body of Christ for the glory of God and for the help of our brothers and sisters that need us.

There’s sort of a third level to others show mercy mixed with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. And this is maybe level three. I think it may even refer to the false teachers themselves. It’s interesting that we have an enemy. His name is Satan. But the false teachers that infiltrate the church are not actually your enemy. Your friend that you pursue even when they’re wrong and even when they’re working in opposition to the purposes of the kingdom of God, you go after them. The church on a human level, spiritually we have enemies, but on a human level we don’t have enemies. We have other people that we’re pursuing even when they’re acting opposed to us. We have mercy on them.

But there’s sort of this element of caution, hating even the garment stained by the flesh. It’s mercy mixed with fear. What’s this, what’s it talking about? Well, the word for “garment” there, hating the garment stained by the flesh is actually a word that refers to someone’s undergarments. And as the High School Director here, I find it fascinating that they would have me come and teach on the passage that includes a poop joke. You know, hating even the undergarments that have been stained. This is something I do have a lot of experience in, friends. I’m a father of three. I know what I’m talking about when it comes to number two, okay? You, when there’s clothing that’s stained by corrupted flesh, you don’t leave that to sit for a long time. You attack the problem! You don’t leave that to fester. You’re going after it and you’re dealing with it! There’s an urgency there. But then on the other hand, there’s this mixture of fear saying, ‘I don’t want that on myself!’ I am… gloves… trash picker-uppers… into the trash… double bag it… out to the curb as quickly as possible! Right? — Because I don’t want anything to do with the false teaching that could get on me in any type of way. It’s what I think of when I remember Galatians 6 verse 1 where Paul says,

Galatians 6:1, “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently, but watch yourself or you too might be tempted.“

So there’s an element of caution, but still the same urgency of saying we go after people… which is a reminder of why it’s so important for you to be involved within a biblical, Christ-centered community. We’re the body of Christ, and there’s no such thing as a Christian who’s gone solo, Lone Ranger, off by yourself in the woods, thriving in your relationship with Jesus with no one else to keep you accountable. That doesn’t happen! Those people fall into false teaching, because there’s no one to snatch them out of the fire or show mercy on them when they have doubts. They fall into making shipwreck of their faith most of the time because they’re trying to do it alone. It’s a reminder also for those of us… many of you are involved in community groups and various ways where we get around the Bible and study it together. When somebody says something that’s just blatantly opposed to the word of God, big or small, from grumbling and complaining to, you know, ‘I’m not so sure Jesus really is the Son of God,’ — all the way in that spectrum. When we hear somebody say something wrong, we don’t ignore that. And we certainly don’t say, ‘Hey, that’s a great thing for you to believe. I actually believe something different, but, you know, if it’s good for you, that’s fine. We’ll just agree to disagree.’ No! We go after one another and we lovingly confront and say, ‘Hey, I think God’s word says something better here.’ So there’s a personal responsibility. Keep yourself in the love of God. There’s a corporate responsibility, keep others in the love of God.

But if I’m honest, if we ended the message here, it would be a difficult place to end. Why do I say that? — Because we’re talking about fairly simple things; reading your Bible, praying in the Spirit, waiting on God. It sounds very basic. But if that’s what it means to keep myself in the love of God, if I’m honestly evaluating myself, I might have to say I’m not actually sure I’m that great at those things. I mean, I’m a father of three. I have to get up early in the morning to be able to spend any sort of time with God, and half the time I’m half asleep. And sometimes I open up my Bible and I try to read it and I say, ‘I’ve got no clue what I’m supposed to get out of this today. Like what in the world was that all about?’ And I close my Bible and I’m wondering if I’ve just been wasting my time. And that’s just reading it —I mean, understanding it? I’m heavily reliant on other teachers, and preachers, and study Bibles and commentaries to help me understand what are… How do I know I’m not being led astray in all of that? And what about prayer in the Spirit? Guys, if you’re anything like me, your default position is sort of just to pray your wishlist to God. And it’s the exception, not the rule, that your praying in the Spirit is really fueled by and motivated by the Spirit of God. And you’re wondering like, ‘I’m really not that great at praying most of the time.’ And waiting on God?

Just the other day, I was at a gas station filling up my car, and the latch thingy was broken. I had to sit and hold that thing down for two and a half minutes like a peasant just to fill my car up with gas! ‘Lord, please let this cup pass from me!’ It was excruciating! Okay? And that’s a silly example, but I’m guessing that you’ve got real examples in your life where you thought, ‘Man, it’s difficult to wait on God!’

My wife and I we’re kind of in the middle of a season of waiting, and we’re hopeful that we’re close to the end here, but many of you guys know that we just had a newborn… Boaz was born this past December, and when he was born we found out he had Hemolytic Disease of the Newborn which just means that there’s this antibody in his blood that’s attacking his red blood cells, and we have to constantly keep an eye on him to make sure that his hemoglobin levels don’t drop too low. And it’s not a huge deal. If you kind of know what’s going on, then you can stay on top of it. And the doctors have said, “8 to 12 weeks, it’ll kind of clear itself up all on its own. You don’t have to worry about a thing.” But they said 8 to 12 weeks. We’re on week 16 now. We’ve had to do four blood transfusions. We’ve had to take him to get blood drawn many, many times which, if you’ve ever had to do that with an infant, that’s hard to watch them poke your little baby all the time. And part of me says, ‘Well, it’s really not that big of a deal. He’ll be fine in the end. We’re almost out of it, surely’. But another part of me says, ‘God, this really is hard to wait through this season. Why would you do this? Why do you have to make it so that it’s more difficult? Why can’t we just have a normal newborn?’

And you’ve got examples of that too, don’t you? — ways that it’s been difficult to wait in various seasons. And the whole point of what I’m trying to say is that, if I’m supposed to keep myself in the love of God by being in His Word, by praying in the Spirit, by waiting patiently for Him, how can I be sure that I’m not going to fall out of it? How can I be certain that I’m going to make it to the end? — because frankly, even in these basic, seemingly elementary things, I struggle! I don’t read the Bible like I should. I’m not praying in the Spirit every single day. It’s hard to wait on God. And… am I doing enough? — Am I going to fall out of the love of God because I’m not that great at keeping myself in His love? Have you ever felt like that?

Jude concludes this short letter with a doxology and it’s really, really special. It’s a beautiful doxology. That word… It just means “a word of praise.” And he’s very intentional with what he praises God for in this. And so I want to read it. And as we read this word of praise that wraps up the book of Jude, I just want you to take note of what he praises God for. This is what he says. But you…

Jude 1:24-25

24 “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy,

25 to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.”

It’s a beautiful ending to this book that talks about fighting for the faith, contending for your faith, keeping yourself in God’s love, and here Jude praises God for His ability to keep us from stumbling, for God’s power to present us blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy. ‘God will keep you to the end,’ he says. He’s gonna keep you from making shipwreck of your faith. He’s gonna keep you in His love. He’s gonna keep you all the way until He’s able to present you before the presence of His glory. Praise God! Right? He will keep you from stumbling. All of that means that our response to how we survive as a Christian in the midst of this, tumultuous environment, it’s keeping ourselves, keeping others, but also resting as we’re kept by God… passive verb… kept by God. God does the work. I rest in it.

Now, how do those two things, one and three go together? Do I keep myself or do I rest that God’s keeping me? Am I doing the work or is God doing the work? How do these two things work together? It seems like a contradiction to us, but let me just share how I think this happens. Every single week in this church, maybe even right now.

Let’s suppose that you are in a difficult season in your walk with Jesus. You’re struggling in your faith, and you woke up this morning and something told you, you just, ‘I’ve got to make it to church today! I need to be there, because I’m hurting, and I’m struggling, and I feel distant from God, and how am I going to make it?’ And so you show up to church. Maybe it’s a miracle that you’re even here. You had to get the kids together, and it was a difficult drive, and you’re fighting the traffic, and you finally make your way here… And then you’re walking through the Coffee Cove and somebody stops you in the back. They say, ‘Hey, I haven’t seen you in a while. How are you doing?’ And maybe you even lie and say, ‘I’m doing just fine. Thanks for asking.’ — And you kind of sneak into the back here. But it’s a reminder that there’s somebody out there that cares about you, that loves you. And maybe you’re sitting here in the service, and at first it feels like, ‘Man, what am I even doing here? I mean, I don’t know the songs, I feel disconnect, I feel like I don’t belong.’ But at some point in the service, it feels like God takes something… maybe it’s the words on the screen during our time of singing together… maybe it’s something that I have said or words from your Bible as you’ve opened it up and read it, where God takes something from the screen and plants it in your heart instead. And in that moment, you realize that the Bible, it’s illuminated to you! You feel like, ‘Man, this is exactly what I needed! I feel like I can go another day!’ And as you leave this place, perhaps you’ll leave thinking, ‘I’m so glad that I came and praised God! I just feel like I can keep going even when I’m struggling.’

Now in that scenario, who’s doing the work? Are you keeping yourself in the love of God? You bet you are! It’s difficult to be here sometimes. It’s challenging! There’s real effort that’s required on your part. You need to wake up. You need to get here. You need to get your kids here. You need to focus when somebody’s talking. You need to engage within the worship service. You need to interact with people, and for some of us, that’s really challenging! And even outside of church, you know, reading your Bible. Does that happen automatically? — Of course not! You’ve got to set your alarm. You’ve got to wake up early enough. You’ve got to put in the work. You’ve got to pray even when you don’t feel like it. You’ve got to wait patiently even when it’s difficult. And it’s hard! There’s blood, sweat, and tears and grit and difficulty, most of the time. But… is it all you and your effort and that’s it?

In that hypothetical situation, who’s keeping you? Are you keeping you or is God keeping you? Yes! You both are, because it was God who said you’ve got to get to church today. It was God who brought you in through the doors. It was God that took the words from the screen and put them on your heart. It’s God who gave us this word that when we open it and we read it and it’s illuminated to us we say, ‘Of course, that’s what I needed!’ It’s God who does the holding through all of it! He’s keeping you from stumbling while you are dependently obeying him, taking a new step every day. Do you keep yourself? Yes! Does God keep you? Yes! These are not two opposing realities where we have to pick between divine sovereignty and human responsibility. These are both truths from Scripture that are taught at the same time in your Bible, sometimes it’s in the same verse! There’s many examples we could use. We just have time for one. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 15 verse 10, where Paul, he says,

“On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them.” Work — human responsibility… it almost sounds like a works-based salvation. ‘I worked the hardest!) but though it wasn’t I, but the grace of God that was in me.”

[1 Corinthians 15:10b, “On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.”]

I’m working, God’s working, it’s happening together, and together I’m kept safe to the end. We try to divorce these two truths, but friends, the Christian life, it’s not like a plane ride, where you get saved, scan your boarding pass, sit back and wait to arrive at the Pearly Gates with no effort whatsoever. The Christian life is a race and races have to be run, and you have to put one foot in front of the other and you have to do the work, the grit, the tears, the struggle, all the while it’s God who’s providing the strength to go every single step. You won’t make it without Him. It’s not based solely on your efforts. It’s the grace of God in your life. It’s this beautiful mystery. There’s an urgency in what Jude tells us to do. You must read the Bible. You must pray in the Spirit. You must wait on God. If you don’t do these things, you’ll die!

But… there’s an equally true sense in which the definitive decisive worker in all of this is God who in His sovereignty keeps us from stumbling and holds on to you until the final day when He presents you before God with great joy! Jude communicates to us that there is absolute certainty in being called by God and being kept by God. And it’s also not without human effort.

Friends, the Christian life is far from easy, but it is a guarantee. If you place your faith in Jesus Christ today, He will keep you all the way until He presents you before God with great joy.

Do you have a relationship with Jesus? Do you know Him? What I mean by that is, have you admitted that you’re a sinner, repented of your sin, and turned away from it and toward God, clung to the cross of Jesus Christ saying, ‘It’s only in Jesus that I can have salvation’? Have you believed that when Jesus died, he was paying for your sins and that when He rose again, it was God saying there’s no more payment necessary? It was finished on the cross! When you put your faith in Jesus, you enter into the family of God. You’re called by God, you’re loved by God and you’re kept safe by God all the way to the end. You make the choice, real human effort, the choice to follow Jesus… say, ‘I’m going to do that!’ — All the while knowing that when I choose Jesus, it’s owing to the fact that God Himself is saying, ‘Come here. I want you!’ That’s amazing! It’s a mystery in some ways, but it’s the truth of God’s Word. You can believe that today and enter into the family of God. And those God calls, He loves, and He decisively keeps safe forever as they dependently keep themselves in His love. So… what all of this means for you… you keep holding on! Keep taking another step. Keep doing what you know you need to do to keep yourself in the love of God. Keep holding on to Jesus… but know this. He’s never letting go!

Would you pray with me?

God, there’s mystery here. There’s wonder here. The Christian life is not something that’s finished without effort on our parts, and yet there’s a rest that we can have in knowing I’m kept safe by God. ‘He’ll keep me from stumbling. He’s going to get me to the end.’ Help us to rest in that, God. Help us to believe that down deep in our bones that whatever we might be struggling with today, we can walk out of here with a great joy and confidence knowing for certain Christ will keep me. He’ll keep me to the end. Even in the midst of my failings, my shortcomings, He’s going to get me there, God.

Help the person in this room who doesn’t know if they can keep going. Give them strength. Help them to take another step today. Keep us safe in your love as you promised You would. We love You, Lord. We worship You now, in Jesus’ name. Amen. [Music]