This Sunday we will continue our look at the three-fold word of assurance found in Jude 1:1. You will remember that before Jude sends his readers into the world to “contend” for the faith of the Gospel, he provides them with the encouragement every Christian soldier needs. Having reminded us of our call to salvation, Jude will add to this the assurance of our Father’s love for us, as well as the promise that we are always being guarded and kept safe for our Savior. Our focus for this message will be upon the fact that we are “beloved in God the Father,” and are “kept for Jesus Christ.”

You can see that this is one of the wonderful places in the New Testament that provides for us the guarantee of the security, or the preservation, of our salvation in Christ. We also find addition help with this in our confessional standards. The Westminster Shorter Catechism explains our theology of the effectual calling to salvation, the love of God for us, as well as our Father’s preservation of our salvation:

Q67: What is effectual calling?

A67: Effectual calling is the work of God’s almighty power and grace, whereby (out of his free and special love to his elect, and from nothing in them moving him thereunto) he doth, in his accepted time, invite and draw them to Jesus Christ, by his word and Spirit; savingly enlightening their minds, renewing and powerfully determining their wills, so as they (although in themselves dead in sin) are hereby made willing and able freely to answer his call, and to accept and embrace the grace offered and conveyed therein.

Q79: May not true believers, by reason of their imperfections, and the many temptations and sins they are overtaken with, fall away from the state of grace?

A79: True believers, by reason of the unchangeable love of God, and his decree and covenant to give them perseverance, their inseparable union with Christ, his continual intercession for them, and the Spirit and seed of God abiding in them, can neither totally nor finally fall away from the state of grace, but are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

I believe that the Lord has a wonderful word of comfort and assurance for us this Lord’s Day, and I can’t wait to discover it with you!