The Savior is Praised

One more day and music across the land will go back to normal. It really is interesting to think about what you can tell about a culture and a people by their music. And the fact that our entire nation, for five, six weeks, changes the songs on the radio. Our most sacred spaces, the mall, pumps in different music for these five or six weeks leading up to Christmas. And of course, we as a church, we've changed our song selection. We have special carols and songs that meditate specifically on the birth of Christ during these five or six weeks. And I've really grown to love and prepare my heart better for worship and Christmas with songs like Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Joy to the World, Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, What Child is This? So I plan most of the music and I've got to be honest, about July I'm thinking, can I squeeze in a Joy to the World here? Would that be weird? These songs are rich with a theology we oftentimes do not get in other songs. As we think about our culture and the way music demonstrates something unique happening during this time of year, we think about the church, we can actually reflect and just say Christmas really has a unique song. Music plays a unique role in Christmas. And at some level, that's inspired by God. If you look at Luke, Heather just read the first song recorded in Luke. But around the Christmas narrative, which goes all the way through much of chapter two, Luke actually has four different songs, all focused on and preparing us to worship the one who will come to save us from sin. You can look at Zachariah's song, which you looked at a few weeks ago. That's 68 to 79 of chapter one. And then Luke 2, verse 14, that short but yet very clear song of the angels that we'll think about tonight, glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased. And then the song of Simeon, which Sam will be looking at next week in chapter two, verses 29 through 32. But this morning, we're actually gonna be looking at the most popular and most well-known of these songs, Mary's song or as it's oftentimes called the Magnificat. That's the Latin name, the Latin first word in the translation, translating magnifies. It's the most popular and it's a very powerful proclamation of praise and hope. There's a certain praise of God and a very powerful hope being presented to all the world. If you look at our text, we'll be looking at two different parts. First, the blessing, that's verses 39 through 45. We'll be looking specifically about the blessing that Elizabeth declares on Mary, and then we're looking at praise. Mary's response to the blessing declared upon her is her song of praise. So if you're taking notes, blessing and praise are our two Sections. We'll be spending most of our time in the Song of Praise. Let's look at this blessing that that leads up to Mary's Song of Praise. You see here that Mary, she arose, she went to go visit her cousin, we believe, Elizabeth. Elizabeth has been pregnant for some time. She has John the Baptist in her womb, if you weren't with us. God had been promising for years that a prophet would come who would prepare the way for the Lord. That it was very clear that one last prophet would get to say, this is the Lord. Preparing the way means he's gonna remove all obstacles. He's gonna make it very clear. There's gonna be a proclamation, repent so that you can recognize the Lord. Zechariah and Elizabeth, they were old. She was barren. They could not have children. So Gabriel appears to Zechariah. You're gonna have a child. He doesn't believe him. So Zechariah's put on silent treatment for nine months. Elizabeth rejoices. The Lord even now in my old age has removed my reproach. God promises there will be rejoicing. So Mary then, she receives a word from the same angel, Gabriel. You're going to have a child, and Mary's a teenage girl. She's engaged, but she's not known a man, and the angel tells her even something more miraculous than to the barren Elizabeth. You're going to conceive, because the Holy Spirit of God is going to come upon you. It's going to overshadow your womb, and it's going to take your flesh and add to your flesh to the Son of God. So that in your very womb, God will dwell. You will give birth to God. Mary goes, visits Elizabeth. And notice here verse 41, and when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby in her womb, John the Baptist, he leaps. and Elizabeth being filled with the Holy Spirit. So the same Holy Spirit that came upon Mary to bring about the conception of the baby Jesus. That the same Holy Spirit that was prophesied and declared will fill her womb by John the Baptist from the very beginning, fills her now, which means overpowers, empowers. Elizabeth gives this empowered declaration by the Holy Spirit. And she exclaims with a loud cry. Hear the word bless, how it begins and ends this declaration. Mary, blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, that baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. Again, the key word here is blessed. You see it there twice in verse 42. Blessed are you among women. Blessed is the fruit of your womb. There's a powerful parallelism here that shows these two things are very similar. You're blessed among women because of the blessing that's in your womb. She's blessed not because of her own merit, but because God said, I'm going to show you favor, I'm going to give grace, and I'm going to give you the one unique opportunity, the one unique blessing that the Son of God is going to come into your womb. She's blessed because of what God has done for her. The next expression here is, a potentially pact full of theology. Verse 43, Elizabeth here is speaking to her much younger cousin. It is granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me. In a rhetorical way of saying, how blessed I am. What an amazing way for God to bless me that not only has my friend, my cousin, my loved one Mary come, but know that the mother of my Lord, it appears she's recognizing and acknowledging God Himself is residing in Mary's womb. Being filled with the Spirit, she's able to see, or she could be saying something beyond her own full comprehension. Because who of us can even comprehend what's actually going on here? But by faith we can receive. God has done something amazing in Mary. She has not yet known a man, but yet she is with child. Not just any child. She's going to have a child who is fully God and fully man. She continues to declare something unique about the child in Mary's womb by talking about her own experience here. Verse 44. For behold, as soon as your greeting hit my ears, as soon as I heard your voice, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. If you go back to chapter one, verse 14, the angel promised Zechariah, you will rejoice. believe here is a partial fulfillment of that promise. There's a joy residing in the womb of Elizabeth where she, because of the baby in her womb, is rejoicing that the Lord has come. John the Baptist is already preparing the way in the womb with this action of doing somersaults in the womb of Elizabeth. And then verse 45, the inclusio, the conclusion. And blessed is she who believe that there will be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. Now what God is doing here I believe is just really remarkable. This is a very unique event. Old Testament, New Testament crashing together here. The last Old Testament prophet as a baby is leaping in preparation for the Savior of the world who's been long anticipated in the womb of a young girl. And what's really remarkable is that there's two pregnant women who are rejoicing in a way that no one else in the world will ever get to rejoice. It's really remarkable if we think about the culture at this time, a woman could not give testimony in courts. They were not considered a reasonable or a valid testimony to give a declaration in court, but yet here, God has chosen these two women to experience and witness and bear witness to the world the great salvation that he's been promising and now has come. That's just like God, as we'll see in a little while. He doesn't value what we as a culture and as a world always values. He sees these two women, he sees their faith and how they've received what he's promised. And this is a unique praising, an opportunity that we have a glimpse into it. If we look at this last verse, we can really see a challenge for us. A few challenges. Because a number of Luke's themes actually come out here in verse 45. Blessed is she who believed that there will be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord. There's two main blessings. What you have done, what God has done for you, verse 42, and then your faith. And these two things come together. One of the things Luke constantly does in his gospel is he's presenting models of what it means to believe. He wants to command that we would believe in Jesus Christ, and so here, I believe he's setting up Mary as a model of how to respond to good news. She's blessed because of her faith. She's blessed, first of all, because of what God has done for her, and then she's blessed because she actually responds with faith. Now, think about what she was told. You're going to have a baby. She knows that seems to be physically impossible, but because God has said it, she believes, and therefore, she's blessed. As we look back to the Old Testament, there's a common misconception that the Old Testament saints, they were blessed because they had the law and they obeyed it. That's false. Everyone who's ever been declared righteous, everyone who's ever been declared blessed by God to be saved was blessed only because they believed that word which God said to them. Abraham was told you're gonna have a son when it seemed like it was impossible for him to have a son. He believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Moses was told, go in and tell my people they're going to have a great escape from Egypt. We can see he didn't actually believe all that boldly, but he believed in God, counted it in his righteousness. If you're a believer, if you're wondering what does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to share the benefits and really rejoice in what's happening at a church at Christmas time? It's simply this. Believe. Understand that whatever God has said, it must be true because in all the world of lies, I need a clear, secure foundation. And there's no stronger, better, clearer foundation than what God has said. You can go back thousands of years and see how God has been promising this child to be born. Now we can see not only was he born, but he was born God. He was born a man yet without sin, and he lived a perfectly righteous life, and yet he then still died as if a wicked sinner. He was not a sinner like you and I, but he died as if one. He died so that by His death, God's wrath will be satisfied. He died so that when we believe in Him and look to Him, we recognize our own sin and see that He suffered in our place so that we can be forgiven. So that we no longer have to fear death, but we know we can live forever. We no longer have to live under guilt, but we can be forgiven for the lies, the lust, the greed. We're not a Christian. You don't have to clean yourself up to come to God. You actually can't, and that's such good news. But what you have to do to come to God is simply say, I need to be cleaned up. I believe in Jesus that his blood alone can wash me of my sin. This morning, believe that Christ died for you, a sinner, and rose again to give you new life. The other thing we see here in this passage that Luke brings throughout his gospel, not only is this important that we believe what has been said, but that God has always fulfilled what he has said. Christian, I wanna talk to you now. You've said you believe, but do we believe that God is really gonna fulfill everything he said? Do we really grasp on to this powerful declaration that should fill our hearts with trust, with confidence? Here we see He has fulfilled amazing things, He said, and yet He still says more, and yet we doubt Him. God speaks to give us that firm foundation we need to trust Him and obey Him. That's our first half of the passage. I want to now look at The song and and and that this is the the praise of Mary And as we look more in depth at this song, I want us to see there's three parts to this praise There's three parts So if you're you're you're you write in your Bible You can just put a line or each one of these parts and you can see how it breaks down pretty simply verses 46 to 49 That's Mary's personal praise for what God has done to her It is simply Mary personally praising God for what he has done to her. There's lots of I's, me, and my in that passage. But then verse 50 to 53, she broadens it out. She declares what God is doing generation to generation. How he shows mercy to those who fear him, but yet opposes the proud. And then verses 54 to 55, We go back to this promise keeper, God. The fulfilling of what he has said, God. He's remembered the words he has spoken and has brought help. Let's look at that personal praise of Mary. Mary said, listen to the first persons here. My soul magnifies the Lord. And my spirit Rejoices in God my Savior She then gives two reasons verse 48 For he has looked on the humble estate of his servant for behold from now on all generations will call me blessed 49 that the second for the second reason for he who is mighty has done great things for me and holy is his name that this section shows a very personal praise that is fairly unique for this one person. Mary is praising God because of her blessed position in history as the only woman who will ever have a virgin birth and the only woman who will ever give birth to God. But we can come and we can rejoice with her because of the benefits that we receive because of this blessed state. There is a very powerful parallelism here. I believe verse 46 and 47, she's repeating herself in a way that's bringing an emphasis. My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. I'm not sure the soul and the spirit are two different things here. She's simply saying my innermost being, in my innermost being I make great the Lord. I want to see his greatness. I rejoice in the Lord who is also God my Savior. It's important for us to see here, that which we think about much is what we really rejoice in. This is an interesting way to think about who we are and how God designed us. Whatever we think about the most, that's what we're choosing to try to rejoice in. If we think about God, who is the greatest being, who is the most great, holy, then we will have great rejoicing. Think about what you do magnify with your thoughts. Think about what consumes you. And I realize this time of year, with all the busyness, that might be unhelpful. Or maybe it's really helpful. How busy are you? And how overcome with you with a to-do list that you can't pause and just think, how great is the Lord that he visited us? How great is the Lord that He came down to become like us to die for us. What is your source of joy? Are we able to rejoice because we're magnifying the Lord, or are we constantly burdened with anxiety because we're trying to rejoice in everything else? The two reasons for the praise. She's looked upon her in her humblest state, and He's done great things. Now again, this is very unique and personal for Mary, for he has looked on the humblest state of his servant, for behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed. I never really considered that passage until this week, and it's actually pretty amazing. Mary has to be the most liked human being in the history of the world. She's definitely the most liked woman ever. Like, there's no anti-Mary group out there. She is esteemed and highly, highly valued, blessed among all women at all times because of what God did to her. Verse 49. For he who is mighty, the Lord, the God, my Savior, he who is mighty has done great things. Remember last week as Gabriel concludes his declaration that the Holy Spirit's going to come upon you and you're going to bear a child and it's the Son of the Most High. The angel ends. Nothing is impossible with God. Here she's reflected upon that and I believe declaring it in her own words. He who is able. He Who is mighty. He with whom there is nothing impossible. He has done a great thing. Then verse 49 ends in a bit of a strange way. Holy is His name. We usually see holiness as declaring that God is separate. He's other. He's great and mighty. He's the Creator, not part of the creation. He's holy, other, but here it's connected to the fact that He's done great things for me. Here I believe Mary is saying, holy is His name because He actually got His hands dirty in her humble life. His holiness is the fact that he can do whatever he wants to do and he chose to come down and reside in this woman's womb to take upon our human nature so that he can save us from our sin. He's holy because of how he gets his hands dirty by becoming like us in every way to die for our sin. Now this is a great song of praise. My soul magnifies our Lord. My spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, because He looked at my humble estate, because He's done mighty things for me. All right, so none of us can sing this exactly the same way and for the same reasons Mary did. But we can follow her lead. We can say that God has done great things for us because He died for us. He rose again for us. The Lord is mighty and he's redeemed us and so we can sing and seek to have our souls magnify the Lord and have our spirits rejoice in God my Savior. If that isn't where we're at and you're a believer, there's two things you need to do. Reflect and probably repent. If we're not rejoicing in Jesus Christ, it probably means we're rejoicing in something not God. And the way to prepare our hearts for rejoicing is the same way John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus. Repent. Ask God to show you what kinds of things are filling my heart to make it cold and dark towards you. Shine your light to help me see the ways I can repent so that I can rejoice greater, more faithfully in Christ. The next section, Mary, goes beyond herself and speaks of others. You can see this in the declaration from generation to generation. Verse 50, and his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud of the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away. As I wrestle with this passage, I first wanted to call it, God brings justice. But I really believe here, it's not just justice. It doesn't capture everything going on. I believe what we see here is God's just declaring He values something that we as a world, we don't value. God sees the humble and those who fear Him, And those are the ones that God cares for. The world looks at those with power, and that's who we esteem. God isn't coming to appease the powerful. No, God's coming to bring justice. But more than anything, he's going to come and care for those who have trusted him. Mercy is a key word here. Again, we've seen it throughout Luke's narrative of the gospel, of the nativity. He has mercy. This is His faithful favor. It is God showing kindness. It is God directing Himself towards someone else. His mercy abounds, and who does it abound to? Those who fear Him. We usually think of fear like a scary movie. Right, you're on the edge of your seat, you're terrified, you have nightmares. That's not exactly the kind of fear we're talking about here. The fear spoken of here is a reverence. It's a reverence of recognizing the worthiness and the greatness of God. Fear is a necessary aspect of faith. Because when we believe God, we revere Him. We recognize that whatever He has said, He is great and able to keep it and to do it. Fear puts us in a proper place and a proper posture of recognizing He is worthy. And again here, it's from generation to generation, but Mary sees that this is how God has always acted and will continue to act. He shows mercy to those who have faith, to those who revere Him, to those who have fear, recognizing who God is. In His mercy, He exalts the humble, those who fear Him, and He brings low the proud. That there's two basic kinds of people, I believe, we're talking about. There's a lot of different categories. There's mercy for those who fear him. And then look at verse 51. And he has shown strength with his arm and scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. There's those who fear God and there's the proud. There's those who have a humility and a reverence for God and there's those who have the pride. This is a theme throughout scripture that Mary's picking up on. Let me just read some of the passages that speak to this very same truth. Jesus himself says in Matthew 23, verse 12, whoever exalts himself will be humbled. Whoever humbles himself will be exalted. 1 Peter 5, 6, humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him. because he cares for you. Psalm 138, six. For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar. Proverbs 3, 34. Toward the scorners he is scornful, but to the humble he gives favor. James 4, six. But he gives a greater grace, therefore it says, God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Matthew 5, 7. Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the kingdom of God. As we consider how high and how great God is, and how he esteems the lowly, how he draws near to the humble, but yet they resist the proud. I wanna draw your attention, Christian. The two main events that really define who we are destroys pride. We're thinking about Christmas this morning, but let's go ahead and fast forward. The cross. There's no way a Christian can actually look at the cross and yet hold on to pride. We were so sinful that God himself lowered himself. To die, to die even on the cross. There's no room for pride as we think about what God had to do to save us from our pride. It demands humility. We can see how actually the gospel of Christmas and the cross, they come together. Meditate on Philippians 2. He came down and humbled himself, dying even on a cross. But here it's It's Christmas. Almighty God, the Creator, lowered Himself, taking on a form lower. He added to Himself the creation. He who is in heaven, being adored and worshiped and glorified as He deserved by all the angels, set aside His glory and came and took upon the servant posture. Not just a humanity, but a servant posture. He came to serve, not to be served. That kind of lowering himself challenges us in our pride. Humility for us is the soil from which every other Christian virtue grows. There's no room for pride in the Christian life. Augustine says that if you want to grow as a Christian, if you want to be growing as a Christian, the first thing you need is humility. The second thing you need is humility. And guess what? The third thing you need is humility. The guess what? That was me adding to his quote. As we reflect upon what Mary's saying here, there's a transvaluation. It's not looking to the powerful, the persuasive, the great, and looking and thinking how great they are. No, it's seeing God doesn't look at him that way. He doesn't value the power and the persuasiveness. He values the fear of him. He values a creature, a human being, who actually acknowledges who he is. And he scatters and crushes the proud. Look at verse 52 and 53, there's some beautiful parallelism here again. He brings down the mighty, he brings down those who are exalted in their homes, in their thrones, and then he exalts the humble estate. He fills the hungry and the rich. They go away empty. Now we could go into and look at this and say there must be something wrong with wealth, there must be something wrong with power. No, God gives Christians wealth and power. to be good stewards of it. Wealth and power are not the actual problem, it's the pride in the thoughts of their hearts in verse 51. What I believe we see here in Mary's second section is a great declaration of victory for those who fear God. Because if you're oppressed, you're going to hear here, God is going to bring about a final victory. The longing you're looking for for justice? The longing you're looking for to have your most basic needs met? The longing you're looking for to be loved, cared for, comforted? God is going to do it as sure as Mary is carrying God in her womb. God is going to have victory. This is a grand declaration to give us hope. God is going to have the final victory. The way this world is with those who abuse power has been prayed in the pastoral prayer this year. It's the year of declaring those who have used power for their own sexual perversity. But here we see God is not like that. He's going to crush and leave those who've been trying to fill themselves in perversity They're going to feel the full weight of their emptiness. God will bring about a victory for those who fear him. The final thing we see here in this song. Verse 54, there's a warning for those who are living in the pride. There's a hope set forth by those who are called to wait for his hope to come. And then we have this final declaration. He has helped his servant Israel in his remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever. Again, we come back to this theme of fulfillment. What He has said, He has done. And that main word there, help. Same word we have for salvation. God has looked upon us. He's seen our hopelessness. He's seen our problem. He's seen our rebellion. He's seen how hungry we are. He's seen how long we long for comfort and justice. And the great word is, as He's always promised, He's helped. Jesus has come. Peace on earth, peace in our hearts, peace among us who believe. It's here. We must believe and seek to fear him with humility and put aside our pride. Here we can see that great declaration. He's promised mercy, he remembers his mercy, and he helps us. This is why we rejoice. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you have said so much. And while there's so many things to say about your word, your commitment, your character, and what you've called us to, Lord, we... Help us, Lord, to fight the sin in our hearts, the confusion in our minds, the distractions of this world and the things that we think we need to do. Lord, help us to rejoice. Help us to reflect in a way that allows us to declare we magnify you in our hearts, in our spirits. We exalt you and we rejoice in you because of the great things you've done for us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.