Jude 20+21, But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith; praying in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. 
	I hope that you will bear with me this morning and for as long as it may take to deal with the matter that has come before us in our consideration of this Book of Jude. It may require that we read and re-read it as a fellowship for several weeks. I really had every intention of pushing through into the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, but I have been impressed to look at our diligence unto God in greater depth and detail. There is a particular aspect of this attentiveness and thoroughness unto God in our fellowship that has been the focal point of much prayer. It is the matter of worship. What is involved in our diligent service of worship unto God? 
	Last week, we looked at the Apostle Peter’s admonition to the church with regard to our salvation as granted by God’s grace. There is a responsibility that we have to the Lord in the manner in which we are to regard His grace in our lives. We should be caused, by His so great love, to desire to more and more perfectly please Him in every aspect of our lives, especially in terms of our bringing to Him our offerings of honor and adoration. 2 Peter 1:10-12, Therefore, brethren, be all the more diligent to make certain about His calling and choosing you; for as long as you practice these things, you will never stumble; for in this way the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ will be abundantly supplied to you. Therefore, I shall always be ready to remind you of these things, even though you already know them, and have been established in the truth which is present with you. As a minister of Christ, an overseer of this portion of His flock, it is incumbent upon me to follow through with this admonition of the Apostle Peter. There is much of which we need to be reminded and encouraged.
In general, this is a mature flock of His pasture, and it is of necessity that we kindle afresh the gift that He has given us in Jesus Christ. As well, we must not forget the very words of Our Lord when He was dealing with the parable of the faithless slaves who were awaiting the return of their master. We could very much fall under the category as described in Luke 12:47, "And that slave who knew his master's will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, shall receive many lashes… We have been taught faithfully of the manner in which we are to worship, and yet many of us may find ourselves to be very much lacking in an honoring service of devotion and reverence in our worship unto God. This is the appointed time to examine ourselves in all meticulousness under the Hand of God’s direction. We do not want to be found as a faithless servant who knows the Master’s will, but is not ready to serve Him.
We have hopefully seen that our walk in Christ is one that is active. It is not a passive lifestyle of sitting and waiting for God to bless us. It requires our very vigorous and energetic participation. This is not a running here and there in wild abandonment. Rather it is a precise and measured giving of ourselves in fullness and completeness to all that God brings before us. We walk in the faith and assurance of absolute obedience to His Word and His Holy Spirit. It is a vital and fluid life with constant need to hear and to follow His guidance. Many times it is a matter of quiet contemplation in order to hear and to respond to His course for our lives. Other times, it is an extended marathon of earnestness in following the defined and specific course that He has laid before us. 
It is always a focused life set in Him and His glory. The reason that we seemingly often find ourselves lost, as we walk on this earth, is that we tend to set our attention on us. We replace our focus of Jesus with the focal point of our interests and our concerns. We look for what we want to receive from God. We center our complete concentration on how we are affected by His plan and purpose. Rather, the core of our consideration needs to be what God is receiving by virtue of the life that we are living. There needs to be a complete recognition that the life that we live is for His purpose not our own. As Timothy was so encouraged by the Apostle Paul in 2 Tim 2:21-23, Therefore, if a man cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master, prepared for every good work. Now flee from youthful lusts, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. But refuse foolish and ignorant speculations, knowing that they produce quarrels. 
This is the manifest heart of the worship that God deserves from us, from His church. It is the conscious setting aside of what we want and the total and intense yearning to please Him in every aspect of our time together. We must not come together for what we can get out of our time of worship. Many Christians, well-meaning and beloved brothers and sisters in Christ do not yet realize this. Rather we can gather together for our perceived time of Christian social behavior. Or, there is a sense of doing what is necessary because we must go to church. There may be a guilt factor that drives us to be gathered together. Sometimes we come to church because we are in desperate need of some touch from God in our lives. Depending on the level of our spiritual maturity, these may be valid measures and reasons for church attendance. 
However, the writer to the Hebrews gives us the sad commentary on this course of belief and gathering together. Heb 5:12-14, For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. 
The ones who can only handle the milk are the ones whose focal point is set in me and my needs. These are the ones who come to worship looking for what they can get out of it. These are the ones who look to be entertained and they critique every aspect of the service with an eye to what they are or are not receiving. Often, these are the Christians who tend to church hop. They are not able to be established and choose to leave whenever the show no longer entertains them. They refuse to ask the Lord to cause them to grow because that means that roots have to be set deep down. They cannot handle, at this time, the pruning work required to become the planted trees of His righteousness. There is no ability to please God because they have not yet given themselves over to His complete work of the establishment unto spiritual maturity. 
While drinking of the milk of the Word is a natural beginning point, there should be a normal, spiritual development that takes place in us. We should want to grow in the grace and the mercy of God to such a measure that we no longer need to spotlight the elementary things of the Lord over and over and over again. There should come a point at which we are enabled and desire to sink our teeth into the meat of the matter of what is at the heart of God’s desire for us. We need to grow up. We are encouraged to become the meat eaters of the Word, those who are able to partake of and digest the solid food of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 
Please note that to eat of that solid, spiritual food requires practice and training and preparation. This is not something that we can just do with idleness and good intentions. We must undergo the severe and seemingly endless pruning sessions of the Holy Spirit’s perfect work. We must apply ourselves in submission to this cutting away of all that is dead. We must exercise our heart and mind on a daily basis for all that lies ahead of us in our walk of faith. It takes a life of prayerful dedication. It requires the continual nourishing of the Word of God. It means that we no longer place ourselves at the core of our unique universe. Rather, it means that we pay more and more diligent attention to the glory of God. He becomes the single goal and complete focus of our walk on this earth. 
The writer of the Proverbs encapsulates this preparation and training unto spiritual growth in Prov. 22:17-21. Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise, And apply your mind to my knowledge; For it will be pleasant if you keep them within you, That they may be ready on your lips. So that your trust may be in the Lord, I have taught you today, even you. Have I not written to you excellent things Of counsels and knowledge, To make you know the certainty of the words of truth That you may correctly answer to him who sent you? As is evident, there is a requirement for us to know the Word of God, even to the point of its memorization in our hearts and minds as God proves Himself in His daily working in our lives. There are many people in these days who distain the memorization of scripture. They see it as a regulated manner of forcing scripture down the throats of children, who are not currently aware of what it means.
The fact of the matter is that we must know the Word of God exactly for the purpose as stated in the previously read passage. … To make you know the certainty of the words of truth That you may correctly answer to him who sent you… Notice we are to apply our mind to knowledge. We are to keep them within us that they may be ready on our lips. So that our trust may be in the Lord. How can we know the paths and the ways and the heart of God if we do not read and study and learn His Word? There is a readiness that is necessary for us to undergo by devoted study and examination and yes, even memorization of scripture. We need to have a complete trust in the Lord worked into our lives and that takes place as the words that we read and memorize become the very life that we live on this earth. That is what builds up our trust in the Lord in the proving of what He tells us in His scripture.
As well, it is as we are going through the difficult times, or encouraging others in their time of need, that scripture takes an even deeper meaning in our lives. We find comfort and security in His Word. We find encouragement and teaching and instruction in the manner in which we should live and respond in any given situation. We are blessed with the truth of His faithful dealings and His righteousness. 
We also find in His Word, the means whereby we can worship and praise Him. Often times we do not know the best means of giving expression to our heart of love unto God. It is in His Word that we find those passages and those prayers and those psalms stating exactly the same heart that we want to articulate unto Him. It is a joy to be refreshed and to honor Him with the very Words that He has written to refresh and to encourage us. We can’t do this if we don’t know those passages and those books of the Bible that contain the exact reaction and instruction that is needed in our lives and in the lives of others. It takes preparation and a readiness of heart and earnest prayer after the Holy Spirit to open His Word of life in every instance. 
This does not mean that we have to know the Bible cover to cover. It does not mean that the Holy Spirit cannot lead us to the appropriate scripture at exactly the right time. No, He is very, very good at bringing us to the right place in His book of Life as we wait before Him and seek after Him to guide us into all truth. But we must do our part in the earnest and sustained study of His Word so that as He directs we know where to go. There needs to be a heart in place within us that wants to be lead by Him into all the truth of His Word. We need to be on our knees in the sustained prayer that we will be open to His guidance and desire His understanding to be put into place into our hearts and minds. That is all vital to our inclining our ears unto Him and preparing our hearts to learn from Him.
    We return to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, as He was telling the parable of the waiting slaves in Luke 12:35-40. "Be dressed in readiness, and keep your lamps alight. "And be like men who are waiting for their master when he returns from the wedding feast, so that they may immediately open the door to him when he comes and knocks. "Blessed are those slaves whom the master shall find on the alert when he comes; truly I say to you, that he will gird himself to serve, and have them recline at the table, and will come up and wait on them. "Whether he comes in the second watch, or even in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those slaves. "And be sure of this, that if the head of the house had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have allowed his house to be broken into. "You too, be ready; for the Son of Man is coming at an hour that you do not expect." 
	We must be ready for all that He chooses to bring into our lives. First of all, we must be ready to receive Him at His return. No one knows the hour or the time of His second coming. We must never allow ourselves to become complacent and dull in our expectation of His imminent arrival. Our lives are to be marked with an instant readiness to do His will at the direct moment of His bidding. We must be on the alert at all times. 
That alertness is characterized especially in our time of worship. That is the weekly period that should give precise indication as to how ready we are for Him to come again. There should be an excitement in gathering together in His name and a yearning from within us, His Bride, for our Bridegroom to return. 
	Please consider those who have waited for the long return of a loved one from an extended trip. In all likelihood, there is much preparation that takes place. Everything is put into the best order possible. There is an excitement in the imminent return. There is a desire that everything will be perfect upon the entrance of that longed for beloved one. And, when the anticipated time for the arrival approaches, there is an earnest longing that builds as each moment passes. 
	How glorious would it be unto God for His church to share together in this type of earnest expectation and appreciation? What joy He would find as we are gathered together in His name, as we come together in preparation to receive our bridegroom? It is not just a time that we meet on Sunday because we have some sense of obligation, or that we think that something bad will happen to us if we miss church. These are the most cheerless and distressing reason to come together each week. 
No, our gathering should be characterized by the excitement and the anticipation of being reunited in the full love of our Beloved. Col 3:16+17, Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.
We should be preparing for each worship session throughout the week with intense diligence of heart and spirit, praying that our lives would be honoring to him. We should be singing songs of praise and worship as the groundwork and training for our united chorus of love. There should be the reading and studying of His Word as our means of bringing before Him true and honest and perfect sacrifices of our love. 
	Lord willing, we will continue with this heart after true worship and a perfect desire to please God. We must want to be fully honoring to God as we gather together. Let that be our prayer for today and every time that we come together to bless our God. So be it!
But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith; praying in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. Amen. 

This morning’s benediction is 1 Thess 5:23. Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.