8 Things Mary DID Know

ReCAST Church of Mattawan

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December 11, 2022

Don Filcek; Luke 1:46-55 8 Things Mary DID Know

Luke 1:39-45 Baby's First Prophecy

00:17: You're listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack preaches from his series,
00:24: Christmas Praise, poems of worship from the Gospel of Luke. Let's listen in. Well, good morning and welcome to Recast Church.
00:33: I'm Don Filsack. I'm the lead pastor here, and I'm really glad to be gathered together here at Recast Church. I always look forward to Sunday mornings with anticipation, what
00:43: God's going to do, who he's going to bring together, because God brings us together to grow in his spirit and to grow in truth, to know him better, to worship him together.
00:53: I speak for myself and probably for many of us. I think most of you can relate to this. I acknowledge that I am not self -sufficient.
01:00: I don't possess within myself everything that I need in any given week. God has saved me into community.
01:09: I need you. I need your encouragement. I need your correction. I need fellowship.
01:15: I need a pathway to use the gifts that God has given to me, and I think I speak for most of us on that, that all of us acknowledge that we need those various things in community because that's the way that God has put us together.
01:29: He has been gracious to draw us together, Recast, as a people who are growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service, and that's what we're all about here in this gathering.
01:39: A very big part of that is taking in his word together. We've been doing that, and we do that consistently for the past 13 years.
01:46: When I get up here, we talk about God's word. We read it together. We take it in. Last week, we saw through the prophecy of Zechariah in the first chapter of Luke that we have so many reasons to praise
01:58: God for the sending forth of his son for his advent. He has arrived in order to redeem us.
02:05: That is the reason that that baby was born 2 ,000 years ago. Now, this morning, we're gonna turn our attention to the song of Mary, also found in Luke 1.
02:14: We're covering those songs of praise surrounding the life of Jesus, the birth of Jesus, rather, to help ignite and launch us out over this month into heartfelt praise for the things that God has done for us in the sending forth of his son.
02:29: My goal is to center all of these messages on praise for this month of December. We're using four pieces of poetry.
02:37: Some of them are prophetic. Some of them would have been, at that time, set to song, but they're all centered on the birth of Jesus Christ.
02:45: This message is gonna be similar to last week in that it has the same goal. I'm not ashamed to give you the same goal two weeks in a row.
02:54: The goal of this passage is that we would be moved to be drawn along with Mary, the mother of Jesus, to worship and praise
03:02: God for the epic, cosmic, glorious, jaw -dropping things that God has done for us in the sending forth of his son,
03:11: Jesus Christ. Let's open our Bibles or your devices or your apps to Luke chapter one, the gospel of Luke chapter one, verses 46 through 55.
03:21: That opening chapter is one of the longest chapters in all of the gospels. I'll give you a second to get there.
03:27: Luke chapter one, verses 46 through 55. We're gonna read this section of scripture in its entirety.
03:35: This is a song called Mary's Song of Praise. It is
03:40: God's holy and precious word for us this morning, recast Luke chapter one, starting in verse 46.
03:46: Mary said, my soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my
03:54: Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed.
04:03: For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
04:10: And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm, and he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
04:20: 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 empty.
04:30: He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his offspring forever.
04:39: Let's pray. Father, I thank you for your word that speaks into the cadence and the routines of our lives.
04:50: We come to this holiday season, and for some of us, this is not our first time around this first trip around the sun.
05:01: This is not the first time that we've celebrated Christmas, and there's not much novelty to the message.
05:09: But Father, I pray that we would not lose the jaw -dropping wonder and awe of what it means that the incarnation, that you would come and live among us here in this place, sharing in what it means to be human, what it means to be tempted, what it means to suffer, and yes, even what it means to die.
05:35: I pray that you would press on us the purposes for that, that Mary understood. The things that we're going to look at here, two things that Mary did because of eight things that Mary knew, and what she knew are things that are revealed to us in Scripture that we ought to also know, that ought to inform the way that we live and the things that we do to glorify you, to rejoice in you, to magnify you, not just for the fleeting month of December, but that that would be a reality with all of our lives.
06:09: And Father, as we center this season on praise by the text that you are selecting for us,
06:15: I pray that you would allow even now for us to raise our voices in praise and gladness before you.
06:21: I recognize that not everybody feels like praising this morning. Not everybody has come into this place.
06:27: Some of us are foggy in our minds, maybe we need an extra cup of coffee. Some of us have just had down weeks.
06:33: Some of us have some scary diagnoses. Some of us have just broken family relationships. Some of us, the season is just down.
06:42: But Father, I pray that you would meet us all in this place with so much cause for rejoicing that we would bubble over in fervency in our praise this morning in this gathering.
06:52: We ask this in Jesus' name, amen. Make yourself comfortable, like I say every Sunday. Please keep your
06:58: Bibles open to the text that I read earlier, your Bible or your device. Keep it open to Luke chapter 1, verses 46 through 55.
07:06: That wasn't just a Scripture reading, that's a passage we're going to walk through kind of verse by verse and look at. And if at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee or juice or donut holes, take advantage of that.
07:16: You're not going to distract me if you need to get up and stretch out or whatever during the remainder of our time.
07:23: I've always joked that the song, Mary, Did You Know, is a song that asks a question that is answered directly in the pages of Scripture.
07:32: It's in there. Mary, did you know that your baby boy would be savior of the world? Thanks for asking,
07:38: Christian musician artist. Yes, she did know. The Gospel of Luke makes that much clear.
07:47: And so I skip or change the station often as I chuckle with a snarky
07:52: Dwight Schrute kind of grin. Fact, Mary did know. Not to criticize that song.
08:02: Maybe some of you, this is your favorite Christmas song and I don't mean to rain on your parade, but the entire message is kind of going to rain on that parade.
08:09: Sorry, but not sorry. What happens in the life of Mary in the first chapter of the
08:15: Gospel of Luke is radical. It is earth shattering. It is crazy, shocking to her, but it is not confusing to her.
08:28: Do you hear the difference? It's not confusing. She doesn't walk away from the interaction with the angel going, I don't know what's going to happen next.
08:35: She walks away with clarity what's going to happen next and recognizing how in the world is this happening to me?
08:43: She may have been completely shocked by being chosen, but she knew what she was being chosen for.
08:49: The angel was super specific. She was not confused at all.
08:55: There was no equivocation in the angel's instructions to her and directions to her and discussion with her about who this child that she was bearing was going to be born to be.
09:08: His identity was not in question. That's why we find her praising God in our first two verses.
09:14: In our first two verses, she goes straight to praise, straight to worship. The structure of our text this morning is two things that Mary does because of eight things that Mary knows.
09:27: Two things that she does because of eight things that she knows. We must not merely be satisfied with Mary magnifying and Mary rejoicing, but we are to be brought in by the pages of scripture into what led her to praise through her words of poetry that we're going to be discussing this morning.
09:49: The context of this praise is the meeting of two pregnant cousins. They haven't seen each other in a while. Both are aware that supernatural things are afoot and that they are smack dab in the middle of God's planning.
10:00: God has sent angels to both of them to communicate well to Elizabeth's husband and to Mary herself.
10:07: In the midst of this meeting and celebrating and in awe of what God is doing in them and through them, this eruption of joy filled praise that we see in our text is a model of faith in God who is dependable.
10:24: He's not just merely dependable though, he is at work completing what he said and promised in the
10:29: Old Testament that he would accomplish. You see, without faith, this text is not possible.
10:34: Without faith on Mary's part, without her trusting that what God has revealed is true, it's not possible for her to worship.
10:43: And I would suggest to you that in an equal axiom, without faith, any form of genuine worship is not possible.
10:52: It is impossible for us to worship God without faith, without trust that he is and the belief that he is good and is acting out his plan to rescue and to save.
11:04: So our praise flows from what we believe, that's what I'm getting at here. So starting in verses 46 and 47, we see two parallel things that Mary does.
11:13: Her soul, it says in the text, magnifies the Lord and her spirit, second, rejoices in God her savior.
11:19: She magnifies and rejoices from the core of her being, from spirit and soul internally with all that she is, she is praising
11:27: God. And the first thing that we see that I want to kind of pick apart for just a minute is that she magnifies. Mary magnifies.
11:33: That's the first thing that she does in the text. Now magnification, of course, you just kind of look at that word and you have some knowledge or some understanding of what it means to magnify something.
11:44: It makes large and obvious what seems to be small or hidden. And in this we find a good definition for our praise as well, to make known what seems to be small or what seems to be hidden.
11:57: You see, here's what I want to get at and what I hope that God presses on your heart. Every one of us walked in here today with a hiddenness regarding the work of God in our lives.
12:08: It's not written on any of your foreheads. The blessings of God are not written on your foreheads. You didn't come in with a placard or a sandwich board listing out the blessings that God has given to you this past week.
12:19: You get what I'm saying? So it's not obvious. It's not apparent.
12:25: It's hidden. The work of God in your lives and in your hearts and in your life in general is not made known clearly.
12:32: Just it's not obvious. And I need to clarify something that the Bible is not saying here. It is not saying that God is small as if he needs magnification, as if he can't be seen.
12:44: God is expansive, infinite, omnipresent. He's everywhere at the same time. And yet he has seen fit to work.
12:51: This is something that we can learn about God from the word magnify. He has seen fit to work in subtlety.
12:59: How many of you would raise your hand and testify that God has worked in my life in subtle ways? Not always in obvious, not always in the big picture, but often in subtle ways
13:08: God moves. His most directly working a miracle in this context, in the wombs of two women, two cousins who are meeting.
13:17: They're meeting in a backwater town in this context, in a small, small, dusty, dirty town, a place that's kind of off the beaten path.
13:27: And they're meeting there and God is doing something amazing, cosmic. Something that we're sitting here 2 ,000 years later talking about.
13:38: This poetry is declared by Mary at the meeting with her cousin Elizabeth, the mother of John the
13:43: Baptist. And Mary in this song is drawing attention to the big things that God is doing in a subtle way.
13:51: So that all of history will benefit from the knowledge of the great things God did through her. She makes much of this.
13:58: She makes so much of this that we're reading it nearly 2 ,000 years later. She succeeded in her attempt to magnify the quiet works of God.
14:08: We are beneficiaries of her magnifying God. By declaring, speaking what
14:15: God has done. God does amazing things in local quiet towns and quiet hearts and quiet places.
14:23: And then he gives us the privilege of being his heralds who go forth and tell others with our mouths what he has done.
14:30: And in this sense, we ought to consider this a call on our lives to magnify the works of God to the world around us.
14:39: Evangelism might sound like a scary word, especially if you kicked it around the church since you were a kid, it sounds like a really scary word, right?
14:45: But telling others what God has done sounds a little more attainable, does it not? That's the calling here, to magnify, to make known the things so that when you walk in here and we all know that God has blessed you, we just don't know how, what's your next move?
15:01: To tell each other. My goodness, our community groups ought to be full of praise. They ought to be full.
15:07: And often, often we do a good job right on the taking prayer requests. My aunt is having hip replacement and so and so was just diagnosed with cancer and this and this and this and we can take prayer requests.
15:16: But my goodness, church, should we not be a people of praise? Should we not be a people who are coming forward with the blessings of God on our lives to encourage one another?
15:28: I suggest to you that we need that significantly in this era. I'm going to have you heard some bad news this week, just generally. Did you read the news?
15:35: Did you listen to the news? Then you heard bad news this week, right? Like it's just everywhere. This church, we ought to be a people in a place where there's encouragement being offered.
15:46: Where it's obvious, because out in the world, you don't see headlines like God provided once again for Joe in Hastings, Michigan.
15:57: Like how many of you just know you don't see those headlines, right? But what, but where could you hear that?
16:04: Where could you find that? I hope it's in the church. I hope it's here among us in our place.
16:10: Every time I say among us, I think that's sus, right? Like some of you know what I'm talking about and others don't.
16:16: But I keep saying that because it's Christmas and he did come to live among us. So it's a video game thing.
16:23: For those of you that that's that one over your head, it's the youth, them youths got it. So the rest of you maybe didn't.
16:30: So, Mary magnified the Lord in this first point.
16:37: Magnified the Lord and his works and really the application is so should we. So should we.
16:42: We should make known what he has done in secret. What he has done in the quiet places of our hearts. What he's done in the day in and day out of our week.
16:50: We should magnify those things. Talk him up, make much of our Lord. Further, we see that Mary rejoices.
16:57: That's the second thing. She rejoices. His Hebrew poetry and song often uses parallelism to make a point.
17:03: And so we like rhyming, they like redundancy and repetition. And so to rejoice is made parallel with magnifying the
17:10: Lord. Showing that her expressions of joy rejoice to show joy is the method of magnification.
17:16: When we're excited and glad for what God is doing and when we demonstrate that we are communicating to the world around us that God is good and that he does good things.
17:28: Just like when you eat at a really good restaurant. You want to tell everyone about it because it made you joyful.
17:35: It filled your stomach with goodness and it tasted good. We share that which we're excited about, right?
17:41: How many of you can be like a, you can be an evangelist for your sports team. You can be an evangelist for a good restaurant or a nice place you just found a shop or whatever it might be.
17:51: It's about the joy and the rejoicing and the gladness that bubbles up out of us. In this sense, our joy is one of the most powerful draws to those who do not yet know the great things that God has done for them.
18:04: But let me clarify that Mary is not here. She's not a poster child for manufacturing joy.
18:12: God has produced joy in her through his revelation and calling in her life.
18:18: I say this, lest anyone leave here thinking that the goal of this message is just pull yourself up by the bootstraps and be more joyful.
18:27: Just be more glad. Pretend and put on a smiley face this week. No, no, no. No, the goal is like the message last week, to draw near to God.
18:37: He has revealed himself and the way that he's revealed himself, draw near to him in knowing him, in what he does and what he has done in your life.
18:46: Rehearse the great things that he has done for you so that rejoicing and magnifying is a holy byproduct of a reflection on the blessings that he has given to you.
18:56: Do you know what I'm talking about? It's different than saying, go be joyful or go get to know what
19:02: God has done. Go reflect, go make a list for the ways that he's blessed you and I believe in that we find joy.
19:09: Joy begins to bubble up within us when we consider how we no longer have to fear death. We no longer have a fear of our sin hanging over us and judgment is done because Christ paid the price for us.
19:22: That to me, that's enough right there, let alone the littler things and the smaller things that he has done in my week.
19:30: And in verse 47, Mary already slips in a hint that she's not thankful because of Christmas lights, family parties, presents, or jolly old
19:37: Saint Nick. But even in saying what she has moved to do, she slips in a side comment about why she is rejoicing.
19:45: Look at the end of verse 47, go ahead and glance at it for a second. Her spirit rejoices in God, her
19:51: Savior. God her Savior, she titles him Rescuer, Savior.
19:57: Why is she rejoicing? Because God has shown himself to be the deliverer of his people generally, but her
20:03: Rescuer specifically. She has a testimony of what God has done. And so here are eight things that Mary knew that led her to magnify
20:12: God and led her to rejoice. And he does not merely do these things for her, but in these things, we can see who
20:19: God is and how he rolls, and these things he also often does frequently in our own lives.
20:26: It should not take us a whole lot of work to connect the dots between the things that Mary is thankful for, the things that drew her into rejoicing, the things that drew her into magnifying the
20:35: Lord, and the way that we also should rejoice with her. So here's the first thing that Mary did know.
20:41: Mary knows that God sees the humble, verse 48. This testimony begins very personal for Mary, and it will broaden out to more specific and general thanks later.
20:51: But Mary is specifically magnifying God and rejoicing because he looked on her in her humble position as a young lady in an obscure town and chose her for the awesome and glorious task of being mother to the
21:03: Messiah, the very Son of God. He took this woman in a small town and has elevated her to historical status, and she knows this.
21:12: Do you believe that God looks upon the lowly? What do you know about God? How does he roll?
21:18: He looks upon the lowly. Does he see, does he see even you? Mary knows that he does.
21:26: The very work God started in Mary is a model for his saving work. Works that are gonna be repeated time and time again when
21:34: God reaches down into lowly lives like ours, calling us and saving us while we were yet sinners in obscurity and no one.
21:45: And all generations since have fulfilled this prophecy. By the way, at the end of verse 48, you can see it there.
21:51: All Christians have blessed Mary as the faithful one who trusted her God in this crazy news that she would bear a son without any natural conception.
22:01: If anything, down through the generations, maybe we've erred on the wrong side, right? Like we've, the church in general, and especially the
22:07: Roman Catholic Church has been quick to elevate her too much, but it's not been a problem in Christendom to not elevate her.
22:16: This has been fulfilled down through the centuries. Mary knew that God works in the hearts of the lowliest, most overlooked people.
22:25: Second, Mary knows that the mighty and holy acts, the mighty and holy God acts on behalf of his people.
22:32: Verse 49, he is active. Mary calls him mighty and holy, emphasizing his power and his peerlessness.
22:39: There's no one next to him. There's no one beside him. There's nobody like the mighty God, and yet he is the one who has done great things for her.
22:47: He is the one who is acting. He's the one who is undertaking to save and to rescue.
22:54: Notice that she expects to be remembered for what God has done for her rather than for the great things she has done.
23:02: She is thankful for grace. As generic as this statement might be that God acts on behalf of his people, it's a good place to pause and consider.
23:11: The almighty God is active on behalf of people. The idea of deism is put down in Mary's praise, deism being the idea that God has kind of wound up the clock, wound up the world, and now it just runs.
23:23: It's running, and he's disconnected from us. There are some people who formally hold this as a worldview, and then there are many,
23:32: I think, who would call themselves Christians that informally hold this view. Informally just kind of think, well,
23:38: God's not active. God's not really doing much. But this text, what
23:45: Mary knew was that God is active. God is not distant. God is not removed.
23:51: He is not disinterested in the things that are going on in your life. He does great things, and Mary serves as an example of praising him and magnifying him when he does great things in her life, and again, we ought to emulate her.
24:06: And where verses 48 and 49 shows more personal things. He looked on her lowly position.
24:13: He did great things for her, by example. But verse 50 on is where Mary begins to open up talking about a more generalized praise for the way that he works in general.
24:24: Some things that she knew just because she was in relationship with God that she was able to say and able to communicate with us.
24:30: So the third thing is that Mary knew that God extends mercy to those who revere him, and he does so down through the generations.
24:37: This is epic in its scope and reach, what she's saying here in verse 50. In sending forth his son,
24:44: God is demonstrating his mercy to those who fear him. And this needs a little explanation.
24:49: Those who fear him are those who recognize their brokenness and run to him for mercy.
24:56: They revere him in a holy fear, and therefore, they receive his mercy. In other words, in order to have a holy fear, you have to be worried about what
25:04: God thinks. You have to be concerned for what God thinks. How many of you know somebody in your life who could care less what
25:10: God thinks? I think a lot of us do. That's not a holy fear. A holy fear begins with the
25:16: God who is, has the right to judge us, and is going to judge us in the end.
25:22: But those who sin without a concern for what God thinks, they are those who are under God's divine wrath.
25:28: And so to be clear, all have a knowledge of right or wrong written on their hearts. All have enough of a
25:34: God -given guide within them for their own hearts to condemn them. And this mercy, this mercy,
25:43: Mary says, that is offered by God for those who fear him, it's a standard for generations.
25:50: The fear of the Lord leading to his mercy has been a steadfast, faithful plan of God from even before the birth of Jesus.
25:58: And that's seen in Mary's praise here. The phrase from generation to generation is written there specifically for our benefit, church, the place where we live.
26:06: Mary knew that God has mercy available to those who respect him and are concerned for what he thinks.
26:14: The fourth thing that Mary knew is found in verse 51. Mary knew that God judges the proud.
26:21: God shows his strength. God is flexing in the mirror of human history. And God is more than just a little swole.
26:28: Okay? When he flexes, Dave knows, was that Dave? Dave, did you?
26:34: Yeah, so Dave knows, because he used to be a personal trainer. He knows swole. So, and God, you would testify that God is more than swole?
26:42: Take his word, expert, expert right there. So, love that. Mary is impressed with God's strength to deal with his proud and arrogant enemies.
26:54: Now, you don't think about that at Christmas very often, right? God has judged, oh, wait, let's keep him small and in the manger, right?
27:03: Who he scatters in his power, according to this text, is important. He doesn't scatter the poor in spirit.
27:11: He doesn't scatter the ones who fear him and are concerned for what he thinks, the ones who know they are broken and are desperate for healing and wholeness.
27:20: He doesn't scatter and smash in judgment the drunks who want sobriety. He shatters and scatters those who are proud and would taunt
27:28: God to come a little closer so they could take a swipe, see if they could land a right hook. The proud and arrogant want
27:36: God out so they can legislate their own utopian dreams. They want
27:41: God out of the way so they can practice sin without guilt, sin without judgment, sin without his prying eyes.
27:50: In a word, the ones who will be judged want this one word, autonomy.
27:58: Autonomy from the creator and judge of all. Why are they called proud in the thoughts of their heart?
28:04: Why is that who Mary knows God's gonna scatter? Because they make themselves out to be a better judge than God himself.
28:10: They think they could run it better. They think they know better. Mary doesn't just take comfort in the mercy of God, but she also takes comfort in the justice of God as well.
28:21: Mary knew that God judges the proud. And as far as Christmas feelings, this movement towards judgment might not rank up in our top 10 thoughts about the arrival of Christ, but never allow your thoughts about the advent, the arrival of Jesus, to wander far away.
28:37: Don't let it go very far from his purposes to judge. He who came to bear sins the first time will indeed return the second time to judge those who hate him enough to make a mockery even of his sacrifice.
28:51: The fifth thing that Mary knew is that Mary knew that God humbles the proud and exalts the humble.
28:57: The very nature of the way that God works is being magnified here. She is putting a spotlight on the way that God rolls.
29:04: God works through the humble, obscure, and not through the proud, mighty. In the parallelism of this text, it's important to delineate that being poor is not an automatic qualification for blessing, nor is being wealthier in high position.
29:18: Think like King David, right? We've talked about a man who was blessed by God. Was he not in high position? How many of you think that a king would be in fairly high position?
29:25: Like, he lived in a palace. Like, he had servants. He had all kinds of people who would wait on him and try to protect him and sacrifice their own lives for him.
29:34: He was a man in high position. And that doesn't make him automatically qualified for being torn down just because he's in a good spot, just because he was wealthy and in high position.
29:44: Rather, Mary has already highlighted in verses 50 through 51 what we need to set in this context, that his mercy is for those who fear, who revere
29:53: God. And that is, it's the proud in heart who will be scattered in the end.
30:01: So what Mary is saying here, what is she getting at, rather, that has caused her to worship?
30:07: It can be a little confusing here. Our God is not a God of the famous. Our God is not a
30:13: God of the wealthy. He's not a God of the polished. He's not a God of the ones that are put together.
30:19: He is not the God of the ones who are powerful. He is the God who will respond to any and all who will humble themselves and admit their sin and run to him in repentance and ask for forgiveness and mercy.
30:34: Even a king who will truly humble himself before Jesus will receive mercy. But on this note about God bringing low the proud, mighty,
30:43: I would like to call out a thread that's being woven into many evangelical churches. And I only call this out here in this point because it struck me as I was reading the text and it is something that I think could be insidiously woven into the very fabric of our church.
30:56: And I wanna make sure when I get an opportunity to speak on it, that it's clear. It's a thread that could be woven into our fellowship of might, of popularity, of fame as the definition of success.
31:13: This definition of success has practically taken over the evangelical world. Pastors seek a broader audience.
31:20: If I can just get my, if I can get these messages out to more people, if we can stream it and if we can podcast it, if we can get a really huge following and I can get a lot of followers on Facebook and we could just go global with this thing, right?
31:34: And recast Europe and recast Africa and recast everywhere, right? How many of you know what
31:41: I'm talking about? Success is measured in a movement towards a mega church. Mega churches platform their pastors.
31:48: Pastors seek a broader audience and success is measured in social capital. How many likes can
31:53: I get? And the scope of the reach of authority and power of the church is kind of the way that people look.
31:58: What's a successful church? A big one. Is that really it? No, of course not.
32:06: So read verse 52 again. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.
32:21: Has God been faithful to bring down the mighty from their thrones? Yikes. Maybe judgment really does begin with the household of God and we have seen it in the last five to 10 years as evangelical leaders fall left and right.
32:39: Since I believe that verse 52 is true, I have to season what I'm searching for and I'm talking personally here, what
32:45: I'm searching for in ministry, but I think all of us do. I would rather serve in humble circumstances rather than shoot for a mighty throne from which to be toppled.
32:53: I think a lot of it has to do with heart, a lot of it has to do with spirit. It doesn't mean the church doesn't continue to grow and we don't have to build or change or do things different, but it just means what's the target?
33:04: What are we shooting for? What's our measure of success? Is it faithfulness to the truth of God's word?
33:10: Is that what we're shooting for? Or is it a name for ourselves and growth and all of those things?
33:20: Mary knew that God exalts the poor because to be quite honest, they often get fear of the
33:27: Lord and humility. They don't have to be taught it, they already have it. The sixth thing that Mary knew is that Mary knew that God is a
33:37: God of provision, verse 53. Again, in context, I have no problem giving this verse a contextual caveat.
33:44: To have an empty stomach is not more spiritual than having a full stomach. And further, Mary was not ignorant of the fact that the rich can buy their own food, thank you very much.
33:54: I believe that verse 53 is meant to be a metaphor for dependence. This isn't about buying power, but more about where we turn our trust to.
34:04: Jesus said it is a miraculous act of God when a wealthy person enters the kingdom of God and is saved.
34:10: Why does he say that? Because the wealthy have other trusts. They have other places they can put their trust.
34:18: Not so the poor. Mary can relate to the literal poor, and so this illustration was personal for her.
34:25: She who was raised in obscurity among an oppressed people was well aware of the power dynamics of her culture.
34:31: And she sees God as the great equalizer of people. Mary knew that God doesn't check titles, bank accounts, or social status before he extends blessings.
34:42: She knew this because God had blessed small, young, poor, insignificant her. The seventh thing that Mary knew is that Mary knew that God is making his move to rescue, verse 54.
34:54: In verse 54, we see that Mary knew more than the author. Mary, did you know? At least more than he's giving her credit for.
35:02: Her mention of God helping his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy shown, in remembrance of his mercy, it really demonstrates that she sees this as more than mere personal blessings.
35:15: Mary knew that God was awakening his merciful promise to save his people and rescue them from their sins.
35:21: His awakening to his ancient promises. And God never sleeps. So what does it mean to awaken?
35:28: God never forgets. What does it mean when he remembers? Language like awakening and remembering is a way of saying in the text, finally acting on what he promised to do for his people.
35:40: Fulfilling the promises that he made. Mary knew that God was on the move to complete the help that had been promised to his people for centuries.
35:49: She did not doubt what God was doing in her and that it was a huge movement to rescue his people.
35:56: And that comes into even more focus in our last verse, verse 55. Mary knew that God was completing the bedrock covenant that he made to Abraham through her.
36:10: She knew that what was happening to her was tied in with this ancient promise to a dude named
36:16: Abraham long, long ago. He spoke that promise, God spoke that promise of mercy to the fathers of Israel, to Abraham, and to his offspring forever.
36:28: This mention of Abraham and his offspring shows such a radical understanding of what was happening that the song should be titled,
36:35: Mary, You Did Know. Mary, you did know. It's so clear what she would have understood this to mean, what she's showing that she understands by singing these lyrics, by writing this in her heart.
36:50: It's a demonstration that she understood that what was happening to her was the fulfillment of the promises to Abraham.
36:57: By evoking Abraham here, Mary demonstrates the faith and gumption to literally tie what is happening in her life to the fulfillment of centuries -old prophecy.
37:08: A prophecy that stated that one offspring would be born from Abraham's descendants who would be a unique blessing to all the nations and that he would be the forever king over his people.
37:20: Mary knew that God was sending the Messiah, the king who would sit on the throne of David, through her.
37:29: How would she know all this? She only had to believe what she was told by the angel who visited her.
37:37: Little Mary, in a small corner of the world, is confident that God is fulfilling his covenant promise through her based on the promise of the angel.
37:48: You can glance over there in Luke 1, verses 32 through 33. It might be on the same page.
37:53: You might have to just scroll just a little bit or turn a page back, but Luke 1, 32 through 33. This is the angel speaking to Mary, speaking of her offspring.
38:04: He will be great and will be called the son of the Most High and the Lord will give to him the throne of his father,
38:12: David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom, there will be no end.
38:24: She knew this was the promised one. The Old Testament was all about the child she was going to deliver into the world.
38:32: Mary magnified and rejoiced in God because of what
38:37: Mary did know. So what about us, recast?
38:43: Will we magnify the Lord and rejoice in him this Christmas because of what we know? We're responsible for what we know.
38:51: Even in this message, we're hearing all of these amazing things that God has done for us. Last week, 12 things that should impel us toward joy and rejoicing and gladness.
39:08: This is the pathway to a life of faith, not merely this Christmas season, but through our every day and every week.
39:17: Reflect on what we know and let that inform our hearts, our faces, the way we talk to others.
39:26: And we take communion every Sunday as a reminder of what God has done for us. So rehearse this morning what you know about God and what he has done for you before you come to the tables this morning.
39:39: If you know that he died for your sins and you've asked him to rescue you, then I encourage you to come to one of the tables during this next song and come to remember his body broken in our place and come to remember his blood shed for us.
39:55: And let me encourage you to leave this place magnifying and rejoicing the mighty acts of God. He has flexed his strength, he has flexed his mercy, he has flexed his love and his grace and his faithfulness in saving lowly sinners like us.
40:11: So let's magnify him and rejoice in his works for us this week. Let's pray.
40:22: Father, I do pray that you would allow the things that we know to be true of you to inform the way that we respond to the world around us and even reflecting back praise to you.
40:35: There's so many things that we could give thanks for, so many things that we should even now just begin to rehearse in our minds the many blessings that you've given to us.
40:46: We thank you for the routine and regular cadence of life week after week coming together to remind ourselves of the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf.
40:57: He came to live here in this place, to be one of us, to live a sinless life.
41:06: That's just mind boggling to me to begin with, to live in this place without sin, fulfilling all of your law on our behalf and then becoming the sacrifice for us, giving his life willingly, laying it down in our place.
41:25: So Father, as we take this cracker to remember his body broken for us,
41:31: I pray that you would press on us with brand new gladness, wash over us with joy and allow rejoicing and magnifying you to be the result.
41:42: I pray the same over the cup as we take this juice that reminds us of his blood shed in our place.
41:49: I pray, Father, that you would do business with each heart here. And Father, if there's anybody here who does not know you and is gonna skip this communion but is gonna be able to reflect and think and sit there and take this next song in,
42:02: I pray that you would be working in hearts and minds and lives to reflect on the great sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
42:12: The hearts might be changed, that you might draw people into the knowledge of what
42:17: Jesus has done in salvation and the forgiveness of sins. I thank you for this
42:22: Christmas season. This seems to come up so fast every year, but I pray that we would be mindful and thoughtful and glad and magnifying and rejoicing.