Father, as we have had this opportunity to express this
morning, we give you all the praise and the glory because You
are the one that is worthy of it all.
You're the one that has redeemed our lives from the pit and as we
come this morning and we make our small sacrifices back to you
that sometimes feel heavy for us.
And yet, Lords, it's all yours in the 1st place.
You are the one that has blessed us and entrusted us with our
finances. You've entrusted us with our
skills and abilities, and Lord God, we just want to offer that
back to you this morning. Would your name be glorified
through the small sacrifices that we get to make?
Lord? Would those sacrifices that we
make it to be a joy for each of us that although it does at
times feel like a sacrifice, that it wouldn't remain that,
but would joyfully hand back to you all that you've entrusted to
us and that your name would be glorified because of it?
Father God, we pray this morning for our children.
We thank you for the blessing that they are.
We thank you for their open hearts and their willingness to
to look at you with all simplicity and the amount that
they can actually understand and absorb.
And so we pray for our Sunday School teachers this morning
that you give them wisdom, discernment as they share truth
from your word to our young kids.
And Father God, this morning we pray for Billy.
We commit him into your hands as he comes and opens your word.
Would you speak powerfully through him?
Would you use him for your honour and glory?
This morning we pray in Jesus name, Amen.
Good to see you this morning. Would you open with me to the
Book of Luke Chapter 1 this morning?
We are gonna be looking at versus 39 through 56 Mary Song
of Praise, and we're just gonna read that together.
So I'll read that for us before we jump into it this morning.
Let's read the word of the Lord starting in verse 39.
In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the Hill
Country to a town in Judah, and she entered the House of
Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the
greeting of Miri, the baby leaped in her womb, and
Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed
with a loud cry. 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, the baby in my womb leaped for
joy and bliss. It is she who believed that
there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from the
Lord. And Murray said, My soul
magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my
Saviour. For he has looked on the humble
estate of his servant. For behold, from now on, all
generations will call me blessed.
For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and wholly
is His name, and His mercy is for those who fear Him.
From generation to generation He has shown strength.
With His arm He scattered the proud and 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 is sent away empty. He has helped His servant Israel
in remembrance of His mercy as He spoke to our fathers, to
Abraham, and to His offspring forever.
And Mary remained with her about 3 months and returned to her
home. I mean, well, we're continuing
in our series through the book of Luke, so we're still in
chapter 1. You'll remember Luke is the
longest gospel that has written to a man named Theophilus,
likely a Roman governor. And and it's written to give him
certainty about the things he'd been taught about Christ.
And all throughout Luke is trying to show him who Christ is
and how Theophilus, this Roman governor, this outsider to the
Christian faith can have certainty about who Christ is
and have certainty about the Christian faith, certainty about
the gospel. And so chapters one through 3
really is showing the birth stories, the birth narratives of
two people of John the Baptist and of Jesus Christ.
And, and you'll see and you, you will have been seeing already as
we go through these narratives are kind of shown side by side.
So, so that the camera flips from John to Jesus.
Jeff preached a few weeks ago of the four telling to Zechariah of
the birth of John the Baptist. And then last week, Sam showed
us the foretelling to Miri of the birth of Jesus Christ.
And that theme is going to continue over the next few
chapters where we see their births shown in parallel as
well. And all of that is really trying
to show us their different roles.
John the Baptist came to be a forerunner to pave the way for
Jesus, and Jesus himself is the fulfilment.
He is the one that Israel and the world has been waiting for.
So we have the the stories of the 4 runner and the fulfilment.
And when we come to this morning in these verses, for a moment,
these two stories intertwine the two different storylines we've
had come into one, and we're merely comes to see Elizabeth.
We see that in verse 39 Mary comes to see Elizabeth because
what was said in verse 36, we Mary's told as a part of this
promise from the Angel. Your relative Elizabeth in her
old age has also conceived a son, and this is the six month
which with her, who was called Baron for nothing will be
impossible with God. And so Miri was told by this
Angel as a part of this promise that she is pregnant, although
she is a virgin with the Messiah.
Part of the basis of that promise is your relative
Elizabeth, although she's old and although she's barren, she
is pregnant as well. Nothing is impossible with God.
And so Merry comes now and verse 39 to see Elizabeth, She's
coming to see God's promise with her own eyes.
And this is part of the promise that Mary has been told.
And immediately she gets this confirmation.
She gets it in a few ways. Firstly, verse 41, it says in
Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary the baby John, John the
Baptist leaped in her womb already.
I mean we just mentioned before we're told John the Baptist has
this role of going before Jesus Christ paving the way, showing
people that that someone greater is coming here.
We already have John the Baptist fulfilling his role even in the
womb, attesting to the fact that Jesus is there.
And that's really interesting. Even when we look back at Luke
chapter one, verse 15, when Zechariah is as being foretold
about the birth of John the Baptist, he's told that John the
Baptist would be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his
mother's womb. And so here we have John the
Baptist, or really already fulfilling his role, that that's
already one element of confirmation for Mary.
But then what we see happen is Elizabeth was filled with the
Holy Spirit and begins to speak. Saying that she's filled with
the Holy Spirit is telling us that what she's about to say is
important and what she's about to say is true.
And we see what she says to her. She says, Blessed are you among
women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.
Why is it 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, the baby and my womb leaped for
joy. And blessed as she who believed
that there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her from
the Lord. These words from Elizabeth are
really gonna act as an introduction to the setting.
And also Miri song of praise. That's incredible.
Here Elizabeth seemed to divinely understand what had
happened to Mary. There's no record of a
conversation where Mary said what happened.
Elizabeth understands and knows what has happened to Miri.
And then she declares twice that Miri is blissed.
So you see in verse 42, blessed are U.
And then verse 45, blessed as she.
Those are two different Greek words there.
For blessed. The first one, verse 42, is
saying that you have been shown favour.
Blessed are you. You have been shown favour.
You've been shown a gift from God and in verse 45, blessed as
more connotation, a happy and joyful are you?
And so it's clear that Elizabeth understands what we're gonna
come back to these verses a little bit more throughout.
But Elizabeth understands from the forefront here that what has
happened to Miri as firstly, it's a gift from God.
This is an act of of favour and grace from God.
And secondly, this is something that would be making marriage so
joyful. So we have this joyful
exclamation from Elizabeth, and then as we just read Mary, she
jumps and she leaps into this song of praise.
And that's really the tone of this passage.
I just want to put this for a minute in context of Mary's
situation, especially her social situation.
Sam spoke last week about Miri's social status.
She had no real notoriety. She was a young woman, maybe 13
or 14 from what we can understand.
No notoriety, no status. She was a female in a small town
and Nazareth not a well known town.
Whatever her social status was already very lowly, it just took
a big hit amongst the Jewish culture.
She was pregnant before marriage and I'm sure she had a tough
time explaining to her family that she is both a virgin and
pregnant. Her social status would have
just taken a big hit. Ostracised from her family, from
her community. We know from Matthew, before
Joseph himself was visited by an Angel, he had resolved to
quietly divorce Mary because he assumed that there was some sort
of adultery going on. Mary's life on the surface, it
just got significantly harder. She is young, she is pregnant,
she is ostracised from her community.
And yet we have here in this passage Elizabeth calling her
Blist, joyful, blissed from God. And then Miri is going to cry
out in this song of praise. And the question I want to ask
this morning as we come and unpack the song from Miri.
Why did Miri praise God? Why did she praise God?
And that question is going to be answered as we go through and
unpack this song. Because let me tell you, on the
surface it seems a confusing thing that Mary is singing out
in this joyful phrase. I think there's a lot for us to
learn and I wanna highlight three things as we go through.
And I understand and ask the question, why was Miri praising
God here? Firstly, Miri praises God
because He has blessed her despite her low status.
We'll start with verse 46 and 47 as they really set the theme,
set the tone. Mary says My soul magnifies the
Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour us since the the
tone. This is a song of praise.
These are notice these are parallel sentences.
Here my soul magnifies my spirit, rejoices her soul and
her spirit. This is really Speaking of every
element of her, of her inner being, and she is magnifying and
rejoicing. To magnify this song would often
be called the Magnificat. That's the Latin word for
magnify. To magnify is to make great as
to glorify the name of God and to rejoice.
We know what that means. It's to delight in God.
And we just saw that with what Elizabeth was saying, Mary's
confirming it straight away. This is a posture of joyful,
delighted praise. Miri is delighted to be praising
God. This isn't begrudging.
This isn't confused, I mean we've seen some psalms even when
those are in suffering they're calling out.
Where are you? Ohh, God or you'd say in and
Job, Job, he's still praising God that you can tell and the
way he's he's crying out, he's hurting and his situation.
We don't get that tone from Miri in this.
Miri is seeing a situation and she's saying this is joyful.
That says blessed. I am praising God here.
She's genuinely joyful and her praise why think first?
48 summarises it. 4 Because he has looked upon the humble
estate of his servant. That is why.
A humble estate. That word is literally Speaking
of her social status of of her standing before others in her
community, her standing socially, and the pecking order.
God has looked upon her humble estate and at the core of Mary's
praise as this Although the world views me as lowly, as
insignificant, although those in my community view me as an
outcast, God has looked upon me with favour.
God has looked upon me with love.
Miri praises God because God does not view her through the
world's categories. And that's going to be at the
heart of this song. She continues on second-half of
this. 48 Full behold, From now on all generations will call me
blessed, for He who is mighty has done great things for me and
wholly is His name. Mary sees that God has done
great things despite her her low social status.
God has let her beer the the Messiah.
Mary praises God because she plays a role in what God is
doing in the world. God is using her as a vessel to
bring about great things and she views that as a gift.
Notice in these verses, God is the one who's acting here.
Everything here is God at work. He has looked, He has done great
things. Holy is his name.
And you notice that same tone even in what Elizabeth says in
the earlier verses. Elizabeth is always praising God
for what he has done through Mary because she says when she
says blessed are you among woman, she sees blessed is the
fruit of your womb as she's honoured that Mary comes, but
not because of Mary but because of the fruit of her womb,
because the mother of my Lord should come to me.
In fact, the only thing that Miri did, according to Elizabeth
verse 45, is believe she believed she was willing, and
Sam closed with that last week. Mary's response to this Behold,
I am the servant of the Lord, let it be to me.
According to your word, Miri is praising God because He has
flipped the social status. She understands where she stood,
but she sees now through the eyes of God how He is treating
her. I'm the youngest of six kids.
Any other youngest here? Yeah, we're going to stick
together. I mean, growing up and my
siblings would probably say I was spoiled, but that was
probably when they all left home.
I got spoiled. But growing up, when you got six
kids in the home and you're the youngest, you're at the bottom
of the pecking order. Never sit in the front seat.
You know you're last in line to get any of the the leftovers at
the dinner table. You don't get the TV remote.
All of these things, you kind of knew where you stood.
But when it was your birthday, all the things got flipped.
Dad makes you poached eggs on toast.
You get to pick what's on TV. You get to sit in front of the
car. You kind of realise that the
social status for one day has been flipped.
But it was sweeter because I knew I recognised I was at the
the bottom of the pecking order. But on one day a year that would
be flipped. And then it got flipped when
they all moved out and it was just me and mum and dad.
A mirror here. She knows where she stands in
the eyes of the world and she sees this favour from God and it
is sweet and the eyes of God. God doesn't view me like the
world views me. Let's keep reading.
We're gonna read verse 50 to 53. And as we read, I just want you
to notice how the language changes from being individual,
from being personal to being a corporate.
There's 50 And His mercy is for those who fear Him.
From generation to generation He has shown strength.
With His arm He scattered the proud and the thoughts of their
hearts. He has brought down the mighty
from their Thrones and exalted those of humble estate.
He's filled the hungry with good things and the rich.
He is sent away empty. I just want to note here.
Secondly, Miri praises God because His blessing is not
exclusive to her. Meri praises God because His
blessing is not exclusive to her.
Miri Here she turns from declaring what God has done to
her and highlights how this is not only for her.
Rather, what is going on here is a reflection of God's character,
a reflection of how God works here.
He says. Here I am but one example of a
lowly servant who has been blessed by God.
And as I highlighted before, we see the language here has
changed from personal from her talking about herself to more
corporate general language. Here she's talking about this is
what God does. And God's economy, the the
social status is flipped. The way the world views us is
not the way God views us. Miri is an example of that, but
she's not the only one. This is what this is saying.
And this is going to be a key theme in Luke as we continue to
go through. We're going to see this theme ou
because you'll remember, and I mentioned at the start,
Theophilus who who this book was written to, written for what was
a Roman, likely an outsider and a largely Jewish faith.
And it could be easy for him to wonder, do I fit in?
I'm an outcast here. Well, Luke highlights the
outcast. It highlights many social
outcasts, especially in this time we see the prominent role
that women play. Outsiders are welcomed, the way
tax collectors, social outcasts are spoken of in the book of
Luke. We're going to notice that as we
go through. And so how does God view things?
We see that the proud are scattered, the mighty are
brought down, and the rich are sent away empty.
Yet those who fear God are shown mercy.
The humble are exalted, and the hungry are filled.
And, and just take a moment to consider how countercultural
this is. We live in a culture, whether
it's overt or whether it's under the surface.
Exalts the mighty, Exalts the rich, exalts the proud.
We live in a culture that loves to exalt the the American Dream
or success stories of those who started from nothing and became
billionaires. Whether it's overt, as I said,
or whether it's subtle, at the core of this and in our culture
and, and, and in so many of our hearts is a desire to be
elevated in the view of others, a desire to be approved by men.
Many of us remember our days in high school where the social
pecking order was very large. That's what drove a lot of
things in high school. But it happens whether we're in
the corporate world and we're consumed with the next promotion
or status or raise, or whether we're a parent and we find
ourselves looking to other parents and evaluating are we
better parents than them? This is something that philtres
into every relationship, constantly wanting the approval
of others, our boss, our spouse, our friends and his incredible
book When People are big and God are Small.
Edward Welch, He defines this as the fear of man.
He says this The fear of man can be summarised in this way.
We replace God with people. Instead of a biblically guided
fear of the Lord, we fear others.
Whether we realise it or or not, many of us desire to be mighty.
We desire to be rich. We desire to be great in the
eyes of the world. And when we're desiring that, it
blinds us to our need to be humble before God.
It blinds us of our need for God.
John Piper puts it this way. God is not partial to the rich,
the powerful, or the proud. How could God be partial to the
things which in our world are more often than not substitutes
for God rather than pointers to God?
Mary is saying here we we must be captured by a fear of God,
not by a fear of others, because God does not care about wealth.
God does not care about status. He will scatter the proud.
He will bring down the mighty. He will send away the rich and
this is a theme that we see all through Scripture and I don't
have time to go everywhere, but even just highlighting a few
verses David says and Sam 1827 for you save a humble people,
but the haughty eyes you bring down Jesus himself.
Later in Luke and Luke chapter 18 is going to tell this parable
about a Pharisee and a tax collector who both go into the
temple to pray. You have a Pharisee who who's a
religious elite and you have a tax collector who is a social
outcast. And the Pharisee comes in any
any praise before God and he says thank you, God, thank you
that I'm not like this tax collector.
I come, I pray three times a day, I tithe a 10th of
everything I get. And the tax collector comes and
he kneels down on his knees, beats his chest and cries out to
God. God be merciful to me, a Sinner.
And Jesus says only one of those men left that temple justified.
And he sees this in Luke 1814. For everyone who exalts himself
will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.
And that's not saying that every humble person will be saved, and
every rich person or every powerful person will not be
saved. That's not what this is saying,
but this is saying to be saved we need to humble ourselves
before God. And often the biggest barrier to
that is that we don't see the need for that because we are so
consumed by status or riches in the eyes of the world, we must
humble ourselves before God. God does not value money or
power or status, but rather the one who will humbly fear God in
belief. Thirdly, Miri praises God
because He has brought the Messiah, viz 4445.
He has helped His servant Israel in remembrance of His mercy as
He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to His offspring
forever. Those can be some confusing
verses, but what Miri is doing here is she's putting the
situation that she has found herself in, pregnant with this
man named Jesus Christ. And she's putting it on in the
context of the whole Bible. She's putting it in the context
of the whole story of the Old Testament, as she's referring to
Abraham, referring to God's promises to Israel.
Throughout the Old Testament, God made promises to his people,
Israel, that one day one would come.
One would come who would be their Messiah, their Saviour.
One would come to provide salvation.
And Daniel showed us earlier how the Old Testament continues to
point forward to that. That One will come as a perfect
sacrifice to take away sin, to pay the price for some.
And so Muri actually understands here that what God is doing is a
fulfilment of what He has promised Israel.
Many of us are familiar with that song.
Mary, Did You Know? I think we can say yes.
Murray knew she's she's recognising here that God is
doing something great through this baby in her womb.
And I want you to see the progression throughout the song
of Mary. She's saying God, you're doing
something great for me. You have blessed me, you've
shown me favour and this is how you work.
And then she she brings it full picture here and she's going and
you were bringing this about through this baby that is in my
womb that the promised Messiah of Israel, the Saviour of the
world because really that that baby and and Mary's womb Jesus,
he he is ultimately the reason why God can accept the lowly,
the outcast. Many of us are familiar with
Paul's words and Philippians chapter 2 where he talks about
Jesus Christ. Although he was in the form of
God, he did not count equality with God a thing to be, to be
grasped, to be held onto. But he emptied himself, taking
the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men.
Christ himself. Although he he was God, he
became lowly. He was born and and lowly means,
as we'll see in a couple of weeks.
He was born to a lonely woman from a lonely town and his
ministry he associated with and he loved the lowly, the the
social outcast. He showed them love, he showed
them grace. And ultimately he humbled
himself to the most lowly, humiliating form of execution on
a Roman cross where he hung, He suffered, He bled, He died naked
in front of all as a perceived criminal.
And he hung there and he blared and he suffered so that all who
are lowly, all who are humble, all who are outcast can kneel
before him, believing in him for the forgiveness of sins.
That's the gospel. That's the Christian message.
Pull says this and 2nd Corinthians 8 verse 9.
For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though
he was rich, yet for your sake became poor, so that you by his
poverty might become rich. God can flip social status
because it was flipped on His own Son in the most incredible
way. God can look to this lowly
outcast named Mary and shower grace on her because the very
baby in her womb. Although he was God, he was
treated as a criminal. His coming as a a fulfilment for
Israel is coming as as hope for us.
So as we close, come to the end of this song from Mary, I just
want to close with a warning and a comfort.
A warning and a comfort warning. The approval of man is
dangerous. The approval of man is
dangerous. As we talk about what it means
to find favour with God, we need to consider the danger of
seeking favour, seeking approval from men.
And this is a warning fee. Every single one of us.
I think for many of us, in some way we are either rich, wealthy,
in a position of power, or we wish we were in some way.
And and at the core, as I see it, these are not bad things,
but they must come with a warning.
Whose approval do we pursue? Whose approval do we desire?
Do we long for, and are we willing to lay aside the
approval of man to humble ourselves before God?
We have to believe this would have been a temptation for
Theophilus. A Roman governor certainly had
access to wealth, power, status. It's the temptation for us, but
I think we also need to recognise that that we often
look at this and we say yes, that that's the world's culture,
that's how the world views it. It's inevitable that culture of
the world seeps into the church and and, and and the culture of
the church. Success may not be money or a
job or a status. Success might be people we
disciple, the sermons we preach, the Bible knowledge we have.
And although those are are good things, we we can often want to
exalt ourselves before others, even in the church.
And that's when I'm speaking to myself right now.
This is a it's a dangerous. It's a warning for all of us.
Do we desire to be approved by each other, or do we desire to
be found humble before God? The approval of men is
dangerous. God desires a humble heart.
God desires people who will recognise their need for Him.
And so my homework from this point, I will give homework this
week. My challenge to you everyone is
at some point this week, meditate and sit with Psalm 73.
Psalm 73 This is where the psalmist at the first half of
the Psalm looks at the world. He looks at the wealthy, looks
at the powerful, looks at the rich, and laments that the rich
seem to be thriving and prosperous and it's so easy for
them. And then there's a hinge in in
the middle of the Sam when the psalmist comes into the
sanctuary of the Lord and discerns therein.
We're given 2 perspectives there.
Blessing of man, blessing of the world is not all that it seems.
And so this week spent some time considering Psalm 73.
It's our warning, and we're finished with the comfort.
Our comfort is that God's blessing is open to the humble,
and this is a comfort for all who like Merry, feel outcast,
feel lonely, feel insignificant, feel and acceptable.
God's blessing is open through the humble in the comfort is
that the world standards are not God's standards.
Blessing in the world does not equal blessing with God.
In God's Kingdom, the low are brought high, the downtrodden
are lifting up, the hungrier feared, the outcast are
welcomed. For me, this has been my biggest
comfort in the past six months. It's a comfort because we find
ourselves looking to other people to give us approval, to
give us this desire of what we need.
This is telling us it's a comfort.
It's saying stop. Stop looking to the world for
affirmation. Stop looking to the world for
approval. Look to God.
Humble yourself, wrist and His grace.
Because of what His Son has done, we can be found acceptable
in the eyes of God. That is a a comfort so we can
find comfort that through this lowly and significant woman in
the eyes of the world, God brought about His Son season
verse 52. He has brought down the mighty
from their Thrones and exalted those of humble estate.
Let's pray, shall we? Lord God, we just want to come
to you now and thank you for your goodness.
I thank you for your Son. Because of what Christ did,
because of how He humbled himself.
Lord, we can be found or righteous before you.
Thank you that you do not view success and the way the world
views success. And so my prayer for all of us
this morning is that we may just be able to reflect and consider
how you use this woman, Mary, and how that shows, Lord, the
way that you work for each person here, whether they need
the warning or they need their comfort.
Lord, I pray that you would just lay that on their heart to
understand the way that you work and just be amazed by your
grace. Lord, we thank you for these
things in Jesus name, Amen.