Echoes of Christmas

If you have your Bible with you, and I hope you do, turn for the last time to the book of Jude. Not
that it's the last time you'll ever turn there, but for those of you who are visiting, we have been
going through the book of Jude. And by the way, again, welcome to our visitors.
Nice to have you with us this morning. If you're here to celebrate Christmas with family, glad to
have you along. If you're familiar with the Bible at all, you may... it odd to be spending
Christmas Eve looking at a text from the book of Jude.
You would think probably that we would be looking in Matthew or in Luke or maybe in John in the
early chapters where the story of Jesus' birth is told, or you might think,
well, we'd go to the Old Testament, some of the prophecies about the birth of Jesus, but Jude?
At Christmas, this is a book about how false teachers are finding their way into local churches and
disrupting the churches, how you can spot them, identify them, not be deceived by them. So what do
we get about Christmas from the book of Jude? And I'm guessing you would be hard-pressed to find
many churches in America today where the pastors had turned to the book of Jude here on Christmas
Eve. So just bear with us here. There are two reasons why we're going to Jude. First,
this is the last Sunday we'll be in Jude. We started back in September. We have been going slowly
through this book, looking at it very carefully, trying to understand what it says. And the reason
for that is because the culture around us When it comes to spiritual matters, the culture is
changing. This is a different cultural environment when it comes to spiritual truth than it was
when I was growing up. It's a new day. In fact, let me show you this chart right now.
This shows religious interests among different age groups. So over on the far side,
they're the young people, 18 to 29, then 30 to 49, and then 50 to 64,
and then 65 plus. And the purple is those who are religiously unaffiliated. So you can see that
among the 18 to 29, almost one in four would say they are religiously unaffiliated.
They have no religious... interest or roots. They are unplugged from God or religion altogether.
And then for the 30 to 49-year-olds, the number is one in three. And this is a huge cultural
shift that's going on in our day. And we've got people in local churches who are trying to figure
out how do we respond to this in an age when spiritual issues are...
In the background, how do we invite people to come back to church, invite them to study their
Bibles and know more about God? Do we need to lighten up? Do we need to get with the times? That's
what people are asking. And there's nothing wrong with trying to figure out how you can be more
engaging to people in your culture and bring the Bible and the truth about Jesus to them because
there are... There are questions that every human being is asking. People grapple with spiritual
reality throughout their lives. People are asking, where did I come from? Why am I here? What's the
purpose of my life? What really matters in life? What happens to me when I die? And the Bible
speaks to all of those questions. And it's the questions people are asking deep down,
so we need to figure out how we connect the dots between what the Bible says and the questions
people are asking. But what's happening in a lot of churches these days is an attempt to adjust the
message of the Bible to try to make it more palatable for younger people who are religiously
disinterested, try to get them interested in Jesus again. And the problem with that approach or
that attitude is it's a seedbed where false teaching can be planted and can grow up.
You have to be really careful there. We've seen this in our study of Jude as we've been going
through it. This is a book that helps us understand this is an age-old issue. It's been going on
throughout the history of the church. It's nothing new. We should expect and not be surprised that
false teachers emerge within the church, and we should be on guard against trying to adjust the
scriptures to fit the culture. Jude says, here's how you recognize them.
Here's their message. Here's their methodology. And so we've spent a lot of weeks looking at how
this is happening in our day, and we're wrapping it all up this morning. The other reason we're
looking at the book of Jude this morning on the day before Christmas is because, as I think we'll
see in this last verse in the book of Jude, there are echoes of Christmas that you will hear in
this last verse. We're going to examine those echoes of Christmas this morning.
Tonight when we gather for our candlelight and carols service at 5 o'clock, we're going to do a
lot of singing. We'll think for a short period of time about the tidings of comfort and joy that
are ours at Christmas. But this morning we're going to see how Jude's description of God in the
last verse in Jude, Jude 25, how it connects... with Jesus and the way he was described at his
birth. So let's look at this passage, Jude verses 24 and 25.
Let me pray for us as we look at God's word. Father, thank you for your word, for the gift it is to
us. It's a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. It's living, it's active,
it's sharper than any two-edged sword. It is trustworthy, it's authoritative,
and Lord, we... to your word with joy and with great expectation, asking that your spirit would be
our teacher this morning, that you would plant your word deep in us and form and fashion us into
your likeness. Help us to not just be hearers of your word today, but doers as well. We pray these
things in Jesus' name. Amen.
I'm gonna read to you Jude verses 24 and 25. This is known as the Jude doxology,
a statement of praise to God here at the end of Jude. Verse 24 starts,
now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before the presence of his
glory with great joy 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. May God bless this reading of his word. The grass withers and the flower fades,
but the word of God stands forever. We're going to look this morning at the last verse in this
passage, and I'm going to divide it up into three sections. I think there are three sections in
this last verse. We're going to look at who is being addressed. That's the first thing.
Then we're going to look at what is being ascribed to him. And then finally, what's the expiration
date for all of this? So who is it? What is it we ascribe to him?
And when does that expire? Look back with me first at who is being addressed. Verse 25 starts,
to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord. And of course,
the context for Jude... saying this is a spiritually diverse and a spiritually pluralistic culture.
Jude is writing to people who, much like in our culture today, live in a time of spiritual
diversity. The Greeks and the Romans had their pantheon of gods and goddesses.
They worshiped different gods and different goddesses, ascribing to them different character
qualities. They were really more like superheroes than they were like gods. They were exalted men
and women who had sinful tendencies along with their superpowers.
That's how the Greeks and Romans viewed their gods. And, of course, we've also noted that Jude's
readers knew well the culture of ancient. Israel. They knew their Old Testaments.
They had learned the stories of the Old Testament. And if you had grown up in Israel in ancient
times, all of the nations around you had their own gods as well. So again,
it was spiritually pluralistic. One of the problems that the Jews had in ancient Israel is that the
Jewish people would, from time to time, go out and worship the pagan gods. So you've heard of Baal
or you've heard of Molech or Asherah. or maybe Dagon, the fish god.
These were gods from the pagan nations around Israel, and God had to keep calling them back to the
worship of the one true God rather than worshiping the neighboring gods.
So in the midst of this pluralism, both Greeks and Romans and then the nations around Israel,
Jude, talking about false teachers promoting their gods, Jude ends this letter by saying,
we're talking about the only. God, the God who saves, the God who is the Lord.
It's the monotheos, the Greek word, mono, one, theos, God,
the monotheos, the one God, the one God who has revealed himself to us in the person of the Lord
Jesus. In fact, we need to note here that when Jude begins this verse,
he's not separating God the Father from Jesus. In fact, I think the translators of the Bible have
done us a disservice here. Who am I to say? Translation committees know what they're doing,
and they're much more scholarly than me. But I think there's a misplaced comma here. Let me show
you what I mean. The way it's written, it sounds almost like there are two different entities.
We read it this way, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ,
our Lord. And you read that, and it sounds like, The only God our Savior, Jesus Christ our Lord,
we're talking about two different entities. I think it should be read this way,
to the only God, our Savior through Jesus Christ the Lord. Because I think what Jude is trying to
tell us, in fact, I think it helps to read it in reverse. It is through Jesus Christ the Lord that
the only God is saving us. It's a joint activity of the one God,
the only God, who exists in three persons. We sang about that this morning. God the Father,
God the Son, God the Spirit. God the Father is the one who saves us by calling us.
electing us, foreknowing us, predestining us. God the Son is the one who saves us by offering
himself up as the propitiation. We used that word this morning, the atoning sacrifice for our sin.
He accomplishes what is necessary for us to be saved. And the Holy Spirit is the one who draws and
convicts and applies the work of God to an individual's life, helping him to see his sin and his
need for salvation. So God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, all present here. And I think
in Jude 25, Jude is pointing us to two of the three persons of the Trinity, but he's pointing us to
the essential oneness. The only God is God the Father,
God the Son, God the Spirit come together as three persons. So he is the God who saves us through
the work of the Son, the Lord Jesus. God is the only God, he's the saving God,
and he is the Lord God. Now, let me show you a couple of places in the Christmas story where we
read about the only God who saves us through Jesus. The first place I'll take you is Matthew
chapter 1. You don't have to turn there, but it's in Matthew chapter 1 where the angel Gabriel
comes to Joseph and says, here's what you're to name your son. He says, Mary will bear a son.
You shall call his name Jesus for he will save his people from their sins.
That's what the name Jesus means. It means savior or deliverer. That's why the angel said this
needs to be his name. This is who he is. He is the savior. Jesus is Yeshua or Joshua.
Did you know that? That Joshua. in the Old Testament, is the namesake for Jesus.
It's really the same name, Joshua and Jesus. And Joshua was a deliverer.
Moses was the one who delivered the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt and brought them out
of the land of Egypt. But it was Joshua who completed the journey and brought them into the
promised land. Moses brought them out of their sin. their slavery.
In a metaphorical sense, what Moses was doing in bringing the Israelites out of Egypt was he was
picturing for us God bringing us out of sin, but it was Joshua who took the nation into the
promised land and delivered them, which is what Jesus does. He takes us into the fullness of
salvation. It's one thing to be delivered from sin, but we have to be delivered to something.
And that's what the Savior, the Deliverer, does. The mission of Jesus was made clear to humankind
by the name that the angel said we should give him. His name is Deliverer. It's what Jesus means.
And the Gospels make it clear that when Jesus came to deliver his people,
it was not first and foremost to deliver them from human oppression or from...
despotic leaders or from economic hardship or from social injustice or physical infirmity because
those continue. He came to deliver us from sin and self and death and hell because that's our
biggest problem. It is unpleasant to live when there is social injustice or when there is There's
economic oppression. Those are not good conditions, but that's not your greatest need to be
delivered from that. There are people all around the world living in much worse conditions than we
are. There is suffering in our world, and suffering continues in this world because we live under a
curse. But in the midst of suffering, our greatest need is to be delivered from our addiction to
sin and self. And that's what Jesus came to deliver us from, to give us new life in the midst of
the hardship that we face. Galatians 5 says it was for freedom that Christ set us free.
He brought us freedom from the penalty and power of sin. Let me just explain.
You and I were born enslaved to sin. What that means is that we were addicted to our desires,
our appetites, our passions. That's what has always led our choices.
You have always, when you were facing a choice, asked yourself first and foremost, what matters
most to me here? What do I want? What will make me happy? You are led by your belly,
your loins, your own wisdom, your desires. with no thought of how does this affect God.
That's our human condition. And Jesus comes and says, you're enslaved to your passions,
your appetites, and your desires. I've come to set you free from that. I've come to give you power
and victory so that those no longer enslave you. You can now rule over them. In doing so,
he brings us The deepest joy and the greatest life we could see in turning us away from self and
turning us to God and his glory as the ultimate animating purpose for our life,
that's ultimate self-fulfillment. If you're looking for what's going to satisfy the longing of
your soul, it's not going to be to follow your passions, your desires. The person who says,
look deep inside and you'll find what you're looking for is lying to you. You have to look.
for something outside of you that is bigger than you, and that will bring you the ultimate self
-fulfillment. The reason is because that's what you were created for. God created you for that, and
when you're living that, that's where you're gonna find meaning and purpose. Let me show you the
second place in the New Testament where I think Jude 25 and the Christmas story connect.
It's in what the angel said to the shepherds in Luke chapter two.
The angel said to them, Luke 2.10, Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that
will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is
Christ the Lord. Very familiar verses. You hear them at Christmas. You can watch a Charlie Brown
Christmas special and you will hear those verses. Those three words in this verse,
a Savior who is Christ the Lord, Luke chapter 2.
These three words are describing the one true God, Savior, Christ, Lord.
Savior, deliverer, we've already seen that. Christ, that's a word that means the anointed one,
the one whom God has put his anointing on to accomplish our salvation. And Lord,
the one who rules over us, who is our master. Jesus, who is coming, is our deliverer, who has the
anointing of God on him, and who will lead and guide and rule over you.
And the question for each of us this morning and at Christmas and every day is,
have you acknowledged that what the angel says about Jesus is true about Jesus and that it's true
for you as well? Do you affirm that Jesus is the deliverer,
the promised Messiah, God himself, the one on whom the anointing was given?
Have you experienced? His saving work in your life. Have you experienced the power of sin and
addiction to self being broken in your life? Not completely, because the battle goes on for each of
us every day, right? I'm still fighting it every day. But I have a power to deal with that
addiction to sin and self that I didn't have before I knew Jesus.
Have you experienced that power of new life in your life? Have you found that your enslavement to
Your own appetites, passions, and desires has been broken because of Jesus.
And have you experienced the deep joy that comes from no longer living a life that's focused on
self-fulfillment, self-satisfaction, self-actualization, seeking to glorify yourself and instead
looking at a life saying, I want my life to be about pointing people to God, not pointing people to
me.
This is why Jesus came. He came so that we can be set free,
we can be rescued, we can be delivered from sin and self and death and hell.
If that has not happened in your life, it can happen here right now,
today, this morning.
It can be a spiritual turning point in your life. The point where you begin to experience...
life is all about and what you were created for in the first place. It begins when you affirm what
Jude is saying in Jude 25 as being true. God is the only God.
There is one God, the one true God. He is the Savior and we need saving.
And it is through Jesus Christ who is our Lord that salvation comes. That's the essence of the
gospel message. It's the essence of the Christmas message. It is believing not just that Jesus is
the Savior, but recognizing you need to be rescued and delivered and that he is the Lord who
governs and rules your life. You're turning to him to save you. You're trusting in the work Jesus
did as Messiah, sent from God as the means by which you are rescued and saved.
And the fact not just that he is the Lord, but that he is your Lord.
It's one thing to say Jesus is the Lord. It's another thing to say Jesus is my Lord. That's where
salvation comes. There's a big difference between celebrating Christmas with good food and
traditions and football games, family and friends, and having some warm,
sentimental thoughts about how nice it was for God to send Jesus. There's a big difference between
that and... And having Jesus at the very center of your Christmas celebration,
reaffirming that unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, that this is God's gift to us to
meet our deepest need and that he is the center of our Christmas celebration. And that because of
Christmas, everything in your life is gonna be different from now on. That's what Jesus came for.
Not to be a sentimental centerpiece for your holiday, but to be the revolution.
in your life, a total makeover.
That's the ultimate meaning of Christmas. Is that what Christmas means to you?
Jude in Jude 25 points out that the one true God, our Savior through Jesus Christ our Lord,
he points us to him at the end of this letter. Again, this has been a letter about warnings about
false teachers. but it is at its core really about Jesus and his glory,
his majesty, his dominion, and his authority. Jude said at the very beginning, I wanted to write to
you about our common salvation. You can see that back in verse three. I had been hoping to write to
you about how glorious Jesus is, our deliverer, but I have to address this critical issue of false
teachers. Then he goes into that, then he turns back at the end and says, now, let's refocus on
what is really important. The one God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord,
to whom belong glory, majesty, dominion, and authority. In fact, I want to look at those four terms
that Jude uses in the middle as we turn from talking about who is being addressed to what should be
ascribed to him. Four things that belong to God or that are due him.
Glory, majesty, dominion or power, and authority. Those are the four things.
And all four of these attributes or qualities are things that are the rightful possession of God.
These things belong to him. Glory belongs to him. Authority, dominion,
majesty all belong to him. Not exclusively, but ultimately. Jude is saying here that ultimate
glory, ultimate majesty, ultimate dominion, ultimate authority belong to God.
We have sub-authority. So a policeman has authority. A school teacher has authority.
Parents have authority over their kids. There are other places we look and we see things that are
glorious or majestic, but they are all lesser glories, lesser majesties.
They're sub-authorities and sub-dominions because God alone is the ultimate expression of all of
these things. Our job is to ascribe those things to him,
not to give the greatest glory to other places. or other people, not to give ultimate allegiance to
the authority of others, but to ascribe to him what is due him, what belongs to him,
glory, majesty, dominion, and authority. Let's talk about what glory is for a minute.
Glory, the dictionary definition of glory, high renown or honor won by notable achievements,
magnificence or great beauty. That which has glory is that which has high renown or honor won by
notable achievements. We ascribe glory to people all the time. In the entertainment industry,
they give awards. So in the movies, they give the Oscars. The TV people give the Emmys.
The Broadway people give the Tonys. The recording people give their Grammys. Athletes get MVP
awards. These are all designations of glory given to these people. Forbes puts out its list of the
wealthiest or most powerful people in business. Schools recognize those who are on the honor roll,
who graduate cum laude or magna or summa cum laude.
The valedictorians and the salutatorians, these are all, we're ascribing glory to these people for
their achievements. And all of these awards declare someone is outstanding,
they're the best, they deserve honor and recognition. If I had to ask you right now, who is the
person in America who is the most, who is getting the most glory?
in our world, the most admired, the most honored, the most esteemed person. Do you have somebody in
mind? I'm guessing if we did a poll that you would all come up with,
you wouldn't all come up with the same person, but I'm guessing that enough of you would come up
with the same person that Time Magazine named as their person of the year as the person due the
most glory. Who is that? That's Taylor, right? The person who gets the most glory in our culture
today. Look at these statistics. from Taylor's concert tour. She did 146 concerts,
$13 million in ticket sales each night. Each night, 13 million in ticket sales.
Not merch, just ticket sales. 72,000 people average at each concert.
A total of $2.2 billion in revenue for a concert tour.
And you can add on another quarter of a billion dollars from the movie revenue when the Ares Tour
movie came out. And guess what? People who go to these concerts or who see the movie,
the true fans, some of you may be true fans. I'm not meaning to step on anybody's toes here this
morning. You may be a Swifty. If you're a Swifty, that's okay. But for some of these people,
they're reporting that seeing Taylor in concert has been a spiritual experience for them.
In fact, here's what one blogger, a middle-aged mom from Iowa, here's what she wrote about taking
her daughters to see Taylor. On Saturday, for the first time in several years, I had a full-on
religious experience. There was no church, no Bible, but hands were raised in praise and
jubilation, and there was music, the music of Taylor Swift. Praise be to Taylor,
right? Now, it's fine to ascribe value and honor and...
worth to an athlete or an artist who is doing wonderful things in their area of expertise.
But what can happen with any of us, whether it's a Swifty or any other kind of super fan,
you can start to locate ultimate value, worth, and glory in a person.
That's called idolatry. That's giving glory that belongs to God to another human being.
And here's what's happening. You're starting to build your sense of your own self around your
attachment to that person. It becomes an identity issue for you. That's why people call themselves
Swifties because they're not Christians, they're Swifties. Taylor is their leader.
They're making a connection with somebody that they idolize who gives their life meaning and
purpose. This person gets me. They understand me. They see their idol as somebody who they can look
to for wisdom and inspiration. This is what it looks like to glorify a human being,
to declare that that person is worthy of your devotion, your money, your time, your focus,
your attention, to go to the concert, have a religious experience.
person who deserves the greatest glory, and that's the one true God,
the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. God, or glory belongs to God.
He alone is worthy of glory. I think we have to ask ourselves, is there anyone that we're ascribing
undue glory to? You can watch an athlete and go, look at that catch.
Wow, that was amazing. How does he do that? You can watch a performer and go,
that's We watch old Christmas movies at Christmastime. And when Danny Kaye and Vera Ellen dance in
The Best Things Happen While You're Dancing in White Christmas, I mean, you just watch it and go,
how do they do that? How do they glide across the floor? Okay, but that's one thing to admire.
That's another thing to ascribe glory to that that goes beyond. We ascribe glory to God,
the glory due His name, when we acknowledge that He is the one who created us. He defines us.
He makes us who we are. He gives our lives meaning and purpose. He gets us.
He understands us. He's the one we look to for wisdom. He's worthy of our devotion, our time,
our money, our focus, our attention. Instead of giving it to lesser things,
we give it to him.
Let me connect this to Christmas, glory and Christmas, to the birth of Jesus. When the multitude of
the angels... appeared in the heavenlies with the shepherds, what did they declare first thing to
God? And the angels said, glory to God in the highest. The birth of Jesus,
God come to dwell with us. The angels look at this and says, this is a manifestation of the glory
of God. God sending Jesus to earth is a display of his worth and his glory.
If God had a highlight reel, of all that he's done, the sending of Jesus to earth would be on his
highlight reel as a manifestation of one of his glorious acts, one of his achievements.
The angels look at God sending his son to deliver people, and they marvel at that.
They marvel at who God is, that he would do that for human beings. And they say,
he is worthy of our glory.
So Jude says, To the only God, give glory. And let me just say,
when we say things like give glory, it sounds like we have it and we give it.
So what we're doing is ascribing glory. To the only God, we ascribe the glory due his name.
It's not like you're giving him something he didn't have. God needs my glory. Here it is. No.
You're ascribing the glory that belongs to him. So that's glory. The next word in the list is
majesty.
This is the Greek word megalosune. Mega or megalo, what's that mean?
Big. Something's mega. It's big. It's grand. It's huge. There's greatness involved.
So this word, megalosume, signifies prominence or importance. or preeminence,
stateliness, dignity, impressive greatness, the kind of thing a king would possess.
Majesty, one writer says, is the incomparable, ineffable, regal presence of God as the ruler of the
universe. The writer of Hebrews, interestingly, uses the word majesty as a name for God twice.
He is called the majesty on high or the majesty in the heavens.
So that's a name or a title for God to call him majesty. Chuck Swindoll,
who's the former president of Dallas Theological Seminary and a pastor, says majesty,
megalosune, is a superlative meaning mightier than everything else. It means God has no rival.
He is subject to no other power. He reigns supreme. We call kings,
if you were to go to meet the king, you would be instructed ahead of time that you're to refer to
him as your majesty. That's the appropriate. You're saying in your realm,
in your domain, you are the highest authority. We call him not just your majesty, your highness.
You are the one who is higher than the others.
When you hear the word majesty ascribed to God, do you hear an echo of Christmas there from the
birth of Jesus? Let me show you this. When the angel Gabriel came to Mary and told her she was
going to bear a son whom she would name Jesus, this is in Luke 1, look at what he told her next.
This is Luke 1, 32. He, Jesus, will be great, will be called the Son of the Most High.
The Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of
Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. What the angel is saying is Jesus has
ultimate majesty. He is the most high God,
a declaration of his right to rule. He has glory,
the angel said. He has given majesty, the angel says. And then there's a third word.
This is connected to his majesty, his dominion. The Greek word is kratos.
And the ESV and the NSV translate it as dominion. The NIV calls it power.
The word really is sometimes referred to as the right arm of power of God. Dominion and power go
together. In fact, in the ancient world, dominion and power were connected.
The one who had the power was the one who got the dominion. The one who would go out and conquer,
the stronger would conquer the weaker tribes and then would have dominion over them by virtue of
the power that had been exercised. So dominion and power are linked up in the ancient world.
But I want you to see something here.
God's dominion over his children, his conquering of his children is different than the way the
Romans conquered their enemies. And part of this is because We may be enemies of God to begin with,
but God conquers us and makes us his friends. He overpowers us,
not with force, but with love.
Let me show you this. Rome had dominion over Israel. The Jews hated them and longed to be free.
God's dominion over us. He conquers us with his love. There's a verse. This is...
This is one of those little obscure verses. You learned this maybe when you were a kid. This is in
Song of Solomon chapter two, where the Shulamite woman, who is the bride,
is talking about Solomon, her bridegroom, and she's talking about how he conquered her and won her
to be his bride. And the verse says, he brought me to his banqueting house.
He invited me in to the place of protection and provision. He invited me to come and sit at the
table with him. And then it says, and his banner over me.
Now, think about this. When a nation conquers another nation, what's the first thing they do?
They raise a new flag over that nation to say, this is now our dominion. Fort McHenry,
the Battle of Baltimore, 1814. Francis Scott Key was looking through the fog to see the next
morning if the flag was still there. And the fact that it was meant that the British had not
conquered and we still had dominion. He has brought me back to Song of Solomon. He's brought me
into his home, invited me in to sit at his banqueting table to take care of me, to provide for me.
And he's put his banner over me. He's conquered me. His banner over me is love. That's how God
conquers us.
That's how he conquers our hearts. He leads us to surrender to him and to repent and to turn to him
by his love, by his kindness. It's his kindness that leads us to repentance.
Dominion belongs to God ultimately because we belong to us. He created us.
What you create, you have authority over. In fact, that's the next word we're going to look at.
We're going to look at the word of authority. But before I jump there,
I should take you to Isaiah. And Isaiah's prophecy, because this, again, connects it to Jesus.
Dominion, the prophecy of Jesus, that his name would be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And then it says, for of the increase of his government,
his dominion, and peace, there will be no end. On the throne of David and over his kingdom,
To establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and
forevermore, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. That phrase, the increase of his
government, means his dominion. Of his reign and his dominion and of his peace,
there will be no end. When Jesus captures your heart in love, he takes dominion over you,
he brings peace, and there's no end to that.
So the last word, we've got glory, majesty, dominion, the last word. is authority,
exousia, the legal right to rule over somebody or do something.
Authority and author, as I said, are connected. The author has authority. When you create
something, you own it. There was a great example of this that happened maybe a decade ago.
The mainline Presbyterian church, the PCUSA, was putting together a new hymnal for their churches,
and they wanted to include in their new hymnal the modern hymn, In Christ Alone,
that we sing here. And that hymn includes a lyric that says,
but on the cross, as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied. And the people in the Presbyterian
church did not like that sentiment. They wanted to change the lyric. They wanted their churches to
sing, but on the cross as Jesus died, the love of God was magnified. Now,
that may be true, but they could not print that that way in their hymnal without going to the
people who wrote it. So they went to Keith Getty and Stuart Townend, the guys who wrote the hymn.
And they said to them, we'd like to put your hymn in our book and pay you to do it.
We just need to change this one line. And because Keith and Stuart have authority over what they
created, they said, no, no, no, no. We want that hymn to declare.
that on the cross as Jesus died, God's wrath was propitiated, was turned away.
That's good news. Because they're the authors, they had the authority to say no when somebody
wanted to modify that. Jude says that we are to ascribe to God ultimate authority over all things.
Anything he created, which is everything, he has authority over, which is everything.
He has the legal right to govern because he is the creator.
Now, is the idea of God having authority from birth, do you find this in the Christmas story?
I think you do. I think in Matthew's gospel, when kings come from other lands and offer their gifts
to Jesus, you have other kings giving him the right to rule.
They are surrendering. That's what would happen when a king would come to another king and offer
gifts. They are saying, we don't want to be at war with you. We want to be at peace with you.
Here are gifts, and we're acknowledging your right to rule over us. We're acknowledging your
authority. The three wise men, the three magi who come and offer gifts, and the first gift they
offer is the gift of gold, which is one king giving wealth to another. They're saying,
We see you, baby Jesus, as the one who has the right to rule and reign over us.
You have the authority.
So here Jude says these four things belong to God. Glory, majesty,
dominion, and authority. They belong to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
And the Christmas story confirms that all of that's true.
Glory, majesty, dominion, authority were all ascribed to Jesus before and at his birth.
The one whose birth we celebrate tomorrow is no ordinary child. He was born possessing glory,
born possessing majesty, dominion, and authority. And Jude wraps it all up by saying,
he has possessed these things always. and he will possess them always,
before all time, now, and forever.
Eternality. That's the last point here. I'll keep this short. Glory, majesty, dominion, and
authority have belonged to Jesus forever. He is the one true God. He existed before there was time.
It belongs to him now. It will belong to him eternally. This is the point that the apostle John
makes when he tells the Christmas story. Matthew and Luke are the ones who tell us the story part
about the shepherds and the wise men and the manger and Bethlehem. They give us that. Mark skips
over the whole thing. John says, I'm going to tell you about the coming of Jesus to earth,
not from a detail. perspective, but I'm going to tell you what was going on behind the scenes.
I'm going to pull back the curtain and let you see what God was doing when this happened. So when
you start John 1, you see in the beginning, before anything else was,
the beginning means back before anything else,
eternity passed. In the beginning was the word. Now you should know the word there.
Greek readers would have understood it. They talked about the word as being the purpose of life.
They were always looking for what's the meaning of life? What's life really all about? And they
came up with that. What they're looking for was we're looking for the word. What's the word?
What's the meaning of all of this? Why are we here? What's it all about? In the beginning,
John says, the word existed from the beginning. The word was with God,
and the word was God. So the purpose and meaning of everything was with God back at the beginning.
In fact, it was God. God is the purpose and meaning of everything. And then John says,
and that purpose has a name. He was, he's a person. He was in the beginning with God.
Not only was he God, but he was with God. This is showing,
again, the Trinitarian nature. He was with God. All things were made through him.
Without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of
men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. And then we skip ahead
to verse 14, and the word, the person who is the reason for everything and the meaning of life, the
word became flesh and dwelt among us. That's the Christmas story.
The meaning and purpose of everything became a person and dwelt among us. And Jude ends his letter
by saying to his readers, there is one true God. He's our Savior. His name is Jesus.
He's the Messiah. He's our Lord and Master. To him belong glory and majesty and dominion and
authority. It's always belonged to him. It belongs to him today. It will belong to him forever.
Amen.
This was all true about Jesus before he was conceived in Mary's womb. Even when he was a helpless
baby, dependent, laying in a manger in Bethlehem, he possessed in that moment all the glory,
dominion, majesty, authority that he had always possessed. C.S.
Lewis in his book, The Reflection on the Psalms, makes the observation that as human beings, We are
people who spontaneously praise things that we think have value. So when you are watching a
football game and you see somebody make an impressive catch, you spontaneously praise.
And not only do you spontaneously praise, but you call others to join you in that praise.
You do that. You go watch a game with other people. Somebody makes that catch. You say, did you see
that? Wasn't that amazing? How did he do that? You're asking people to join with you in praising
the athletic achievement you just saw. That's what Jude is doing at the end of this letter.
He is erupting in spontaneous praise and he's saying to everybody in his audience, join me in this.
To the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory and majesty and dominion and
authority before all time, now and forever.
Ascribe him the glory he's due, the majesty he's due, the dominion,
the authority. And don't just ascribe with your lips. This is important.
Ascribe with your life. Don't just say you think these things are true.
Live like you think these things are true. Live in such a way that people see in you that you
believe in the glory, majesty. dominion and authority of the one true God who is your Savior and
your Lord. Pray with me. Father, we thank you for this eruption of praise here at the end of Jude's
letter and how it points us back to your Son, our Lord,
the Savior.
We thank you that glory, majesty, dominion, and authority belong to you.
We ascribe that. We declare that to be true. We want our lives to declare that that's true as well.
And Lord, we pray that we would be men and women, not just at the time of Christmas,
but in every day of our lives, whose hearts and lives are centered on you.
are declaring your majesty and your glory, your dominion, your power,
your authority. Lord, I want to pray here this morning for any who are with us who don't know you,
those who know about you but don't know you, those who have heard of you but who don't walk with
you, those who I think this is interesting, but those who have not yet surrendered to who you are,
Lord, I pray that you would begin a work in them today, do a work in them today. Draw them to
yourself. Help them to see the reality of your glory, your majesty, your dominion,
your authority.
Help them to see the reality of their own sinfulness. It's true for each of us.
Help them to see their need and to turn to you and to make this A different Christmas than any
Christmas they've ever celebrated. We ask it in your name. Amen.