O, Magnify The Lord (part 2) - [Luke 1:46-56]

The Gospel of Luke and the Certainty of the Christian Faith

What am I? I'm the longest book in the New Testament. I contain 50 of material that's not found anywhere else in the Bible. I have at least 15 unique parables in me. I start off with the beginning of Jesus with the baptism, and end with the Emmaus road and ascension.

I'm derived from eyewitness accounts of the Lord Jesus. And of course, you know the answer to the question. And who am I? The Gospel of Jesus according to Luke. Please turn your Bibles to chapter 1 as we're marching through the Gospel of Luke.

Gospel means good news. And I have good news for you this morning that Jesus has been raised from the dead and that He has had His minister, Luke, by the power of the Spirit of God, give us an account of His life before He was born and after He was raised from the dead.

And this is one of those books that's one of the most exciting books in all the Bible. We learn about the boyhood of Jesus, His baptism, His ministry in Galilee when He calls the 12 disciples to Himself.

He casts out demons. He heals women. He sends out the 12. He feeds the multitude. He goes to Jerusalem and preaches along the way with all kinds of parables. Of course, Judas turns against the Lord Jesus.

And there's the Lord's Supper and Passover and garden, Gethsemane, agony. Jesus is arrested. He's tried. He's killed. And He's raised from the dead. He has a conversation on the Amais Road and then He is ascended into heaven.

And what we do at this church, if you're new to the church, we're just preaching through the Bible verse by verse in a Christ-centered way, which is very easy when you're in the Gospel of Luke because everything drives to chapter 1, verse 4.

Remember chapter 1, verse 4, that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught. Luke wants to make sure you, dear Christian, and even if you're not a Christian, that you know these are the facts of the case.

I believe it was Luther who said something like, Jesus died. That's history. Jesus died for sins. That's theology. And Jesus died for sinners like me. That's wonderful. And so everything revolves around this.

Sometimes in our lives, we say to ourselves, it's so difficult to live with the trials that I have that are the truths of Scripture that are really true. Is Jesus alive? Am I wasting my whole life for something that's not true?

Look at all the other people. They seem to be having a nice life and they don't believe in Jesus. And so this is a really good book for Christians to say, yes, in fact, these things are true. There's an orderly account written by Luke inspired by the Spirit of God.

And you just see from the beginning to the end, here is the Lord Jesus in all His glory. And you say, that's right. There's no one like Jesus. No one preached like He did. No one acted like He did. Nobody could forgive sins like He did.

And it's true. I believe everything in this Gospel and I believe that it helps my assurance and my certainty even in difficult times. Now we're up to chapter 1, verses 46 through 56, where Mary sings a song.

As you know, there's the foretelling of the birth of John the Baptist and we all knew what was gonna happen right after that. When John the Baptist comes on the scene, something else is going to happen.

And when the forerunner comes, prophesied in Malachi 400 years earlier, that when Elijah, someone in the spirit of Elijah comes, a forerunner before the king, then the king's certainly going to come. And so we see John the Baptist and his birth foretold.

And then we see in verses 26 and following, Jesus's birth foretold. And while Zechariah, the priest, didn't believe Gabriel, who was talking the words of God, sent by God, Mary, in fact, did. And she visits Elizabeth and we know what happened there.

And then Mary begins to sing a song of praise. If you'd like to know what I'm after today when I'm preaching, I think preachers should have a goal or a purpose. Here's my purpose, that you sing this song with Mary regularly, that you sing this song with Mary.

And you can even see by the way it's indented with some margin that's larger, verses 46 through 55, it's really a hymn, it's a psalm. And I would say this to you, when you read the Psalms, the book of Psalms, what do you say?

Oh, Psalm 51, that's for David. He sinned against Uriah. He sinned against Bathsheba. He sinned against Israel. That's a nice confession and penitent psalm for David. Is that what you say? I hope you say that, but I hope you say much more.

Don't you with David cry out and say against you and you only God have I sinned and done what was evil in your sight. Oh God, create in me a clean heart. Using the language of making things out of nothing in Genesis 1 about God created the heavens and the earth.

God in me, I need a new heart. Don't you read the Psalms? Not just analytically, but you sing along with them. When you say Psalm 23, the Lord is my shepherd, you don't just say, yeah, the shepherd is David's shepherd.

You say, the Lord is what? My shepherd. So it's the exact same thing here. This is not a song to be analyzed and looked at and say, isn't Mary wonderful? Although she was blessed among women. But it's a song for you to look at and for me to look at and say, that's the kind of song I'd like to sing.

That's the kind of song that I should be singing knowing who God is in spite of my circumstances. So my goal today is super simple. We're gonna walk through this part two of Mary's song of praise and I want you to be able to sing with her.

By the way, if you're a Christian, you'll be able to sing this song by the power of the Holy Spirit. Remember last week, by the way, I said our worship service is set up with kind of a flow. There's Revelation read, Old Testament, and then we respond with what?

Singing, because when you see God's hand in something, in nature or in scripture, then you sing. And then we have the New Testament reading and then we have singing. And it goes back and forth like that.

Well, guess what? Mary was told she was going to birth the Messiah. She's a virgin and the Spirit of God hovers over her and makes sure that baby Jesus inside of her is going to be perfectly holy so he can die for the sins of others.

If he was sinful, he'd have to die for his own sins. And what does Mary do? When there's revelation to Mary, she responds with what? She sits on her hands and she zips her lip. No, you see it even here, this revelation response.

There's revelation, there's response. You see a baby being born, natural revelation, and you say what? Think I told you when Maddie and Gracie were born here in Worcester? Of course, there's always a fight between our children.

Not a big fight, small F fight, because two children were born in California and two were born in St. Vincent's. Worcester, Mass. Who's better? Who's on first? And so, actually, Maddie was born at the old St. Vincent's.

Gracie was born at the new St. Vincent's. And when both of those children were born, they came and you know, just that moment where you're thinking, there's a baby. And I said, because revelation demands response, I said, ain't evolution grand?

The nurses gave me a sedative. And so, you just notice that in Scripture. By the way, when something really good happens to you, if anyone is cheerful, James 5 says, let them what? Sing, and we're singing people.

And we don't have the notes, but we have this great song that we're supposed to sing along with. It's called the Magnificat, why? Because remember in verse 46, Mary said, my soul magnifies the Lord. That word magnifies is the first word in the original, putting emphasis.

And Latin, magnificat means to magnify. It means to enlarge. It means to have a good view of God. This week, I did my own homework that I asked you to do as well or suggested. And I found my old magnifying glass for my grandmother, and I set it out on my counter to remember that I'm either going to magnify my problems, my health problems, my personal problems, other kinds of things, or the magnifying glass needs to be on who God is.

And of course, when I magnify God, when Mary magnifies God, when you magnify God, you're not making Him bigger. You're not giving Him something that He's lacking because God is God. And if I take my magnifying glass and I look at my watch, I'm not doing anything to the watch, but my perception of the watch is more detailed.

And I can see, oh, those features are enlarged. And I can see that tiny little number that tells me that it's May 21st, et cetera. So when Mary is magnifying God, she's trying to get a good vision of who He is and reflect upon that.

And so she, with her soul, with her spirit, begins to sing like David, O magnify the Lord with me. We have troubles, we have trials. I believe last week I said, let's have a template for an outline how we can sing like Mary in spite of our problems and our trials.

How can you sing for joy, even though there's difficulties? We saw last week, remember, number one, how do you sing for joy? One, remember your lost condition. It's good for Christians not to have their nose rubbed in their sinful condition, but to remember.

And so do you see even Mary doing that in verse 17? She's singing, God, my Savior. Mary knew that she was a sinner. She needed a Savior. And she is reminded of that. And when you realize you're sinful and God has saved you anyway, when you realize what you deserve and what you get, then you have great praise.

I've often said and tried to preach this to my own heart, that if you buy the world's selling point that says you deserve it all, the world never delivers. And the difference is grief, anxiety, bad moods.

But if you realize what you deserve, what I deserve because of sin, sin against a holy God that is eternal hell, and then what we get, the Spirit of God today, forgiveness, reconciliation, we're right with God and future in heaven with God Himself worshiping the Lamb on the throne, the difference there is what?

Praise. And so when you remember your lost condition, just remember, you say to yourself, what if I would have died in my sins? Where would I have gone? It was good for Mary. She called Jesus Savior. And it's good for us to remember.

I mean, remember before you were saved, if you were like me? I didn't know how bad I was before I got saved. Did you? Did you really realize how bad your fallen condition was? I mean, I thought I was living it up.

I thought I had Jesus as a little health insurance, a little life insurance, a little hell insurance. And of course, I believed in Jesus. I wouldn't believe in any other kind of God, but it was a fake knowledge.

It was a false knowledge. And my mind was set on the flesh. And the Bible says then we're hostile to God. And so Mary says, you know what? I need a Savior. She goes on to say in verse 48, I have a humble estate.

I'm a servant. And she just begins to realize her condition between a holy God and herself is a big gap and she can't do anything about it. And so we looked at number one, remember your lost condition.

Number two, we talked about rehearsing the truths about who God is. Rehearsing the truths about who God is. So you'd like to praise God even though, even though the trials. Remember your lost condition and then remember who God is.

Specifically, look at some of the titles for God, the names of God in verses 46 through 55. Verse 46, the Lord. He's the Sovereign King. As we just mentioned a moment ago. In verse 47, God, the Creator, my Savior.

Verse 49, literally the Mighty One. Holy is His name. What we do when we're in a big trial and we say, you know what? I'm focused on myself. The magnifying glass is on myself. The magnifying glass is on my own problems.

They keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger and they're multiplying. I need to have my direction someplace else. For Mary, she could have said, what am I gonna do? I'm gonna look pregnant. I'm a virgin.

This is not gonna go well. I'm gonna have to tell people I never slept with Joseph. They're gonna all think I did and I'm lying. She could have got going over and over and over and over but she lifts her eyes upwardly and she remembers who God is.

I have lots of problems in my life. Here's one of my problems if I'm not very diligent and that is I somehow disassociate Jesus from His benefits. I know about reconciliation. I know about redemption.

I know about propitiation, assuaging God's wrath. I know about forgiveness. I know about justification. I know about active obedience of Christ. I know about double imputation. Are those things good to know about?

I hope so. They're in the Bible. But who's the one who gave me all those? And for Mary, while she's going to talk about the deeds of God, she's not going to forget the one who gave them those blessings to her.

Sinclair Ferguson said, while we can distinguish Christ's person and His work in analytical theological categories, they are inseparable from each other since there's no work of Christ that takes place abstracted from and in that sense outside of His person.

The blessings of Christ's work cannot be appropriated apart from receiving Christ Himself with all His benefits. That's the total price. When you get Jesus, you get the benefits. And for Mary, Sovereign, God, Lord, Savior, Mighty One.

Holy is His name. And now we move to number three. How to sing for joy in spite of your circumstances. Remember your lost condition. Rehearse the truths about who Jesus is. Number three, reflect on what Jesus did and will do.

So it's pretty simple when you think about praising God. Who is He? What He's done. If I were to say to you, how would I praise God? Well, think about who He is and what He's done. I mean, we just started off with a little something different, oh yes, let's remember our condition because then the rescue is going to seem that much better.

Reflect on what Jesus did and will do. If you take a look at this song, it reads almost in one way like a resume. I now notice that younger people have figured out with resumes, you put a lot of action verbs.

Collated, called, designed, implemented, overseen, what now, oversaw. That's exactly what happens here. There's all these things what God has done. All these action verbs, rules, saves, regards, does, pities, humbles, exalts, fills, helps, speaks.

And so when Mary praises God, she says, I'm gonna praise Him for who He is, titles, attributes, and I'm gonna praise Him for what He's done and will do. That's what we should do. That's what we're called to do as well.

She first off starts in a very personal way, verse 48. She'll move to general, but she starts off with personal. Verse 49, excuse me. For He who is mighty has done great things, here's the personal part, for me.

He who is mighty has done great things for me. What in the world do you think she's talking about there? What act? What event? The virgin conception. The virgin conception. God the mighty one has done something for me and she praises Him for that.

Reminds me of Psalm 71. Who has done great things? Oh God, who is like you? I mean, even if you've got the worst news in the world for some kind of problem, can't you say, dear Christian, should you not say, the Lord has done great things for me?

Can't you say that? Of course you can. Tear in the eye, though He slay me, yet I'll trust in Him. You can say with me, He's done great things for me. The God of the universe has done great things for me.

And you'll notice as we go through the book of Luke, Luke focuses a lot on a personal way that God deals with people. Some people think God's abstract, He's different, He's aloof, He's stoic, He's this God who rules and reigns, but He's not, He doesn't know the people.

He doesn't understand the people. We even have insight into Mary where it said, she treasured these things in her heart because we have this very personal look at people and God personally taking care of Mary.

I love what God said to Israel, you shall fear the Lord your God, Deuteronomy 10, you shall serve Him and hold fast to Him. He is your praise. He is your God who has done for you these great and terrifying things that your eyes have seen.

Moses said the same thing. Who is God and what He's done? That's how we praise Him. She expands her praise though, not just to what God has done for her. And this is good for all of us because we can praise God for what He does for other people.

Do you notice in verse 50, and His mercy is not just for me, Mary. It's good to praise God for what He's done for you. Absolutely. But it expands and I think this is something we rarely talk about, but it's important.

Praising God for what He's done in the lives of other people. And His mercy is for those who fear Him, verse 50, from generation to generation. Do you notice we move from first person, singular, to third person, plural?

And I know that warms your heart. It's one of those moments of just praise. I know you want to raise your hand for that. But what's happening here with grammar, she praises God for who He is because He's done something for her personally.

And now she expands it. First person singular, third person plural. From the individual to the general. Essentially, she quotes Psalm 103, verse 17. But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him.

His mercy, verse 50. When you think of mercy, I want you to think about many things including this. Mary was a Jew. She steeped in Old Testament writings. She knows Hannah's song. And when you hear mercy in the Old Testament, you should be thinking about steadfast love.

Loyal love. Covenant love. That's what she's talking about here. So this whole song is about that God's faithful and you can trust in God. Hebert even further defines mercy as, the self-moved, spontaneous, loving kindness of God, which causes Him to deal in compassion and tender affection with the miserable and the distressed.

And she starts singing about that God. And whose mercy is it? It's the Lord's. And who gets the mercy? What's the text say? Verse 50. For those who fear Him. Do you fear God? Did you know the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord?

How should you fear God? How do you fear God? Well, if you're an unbeliever, here's how you fear God. If you're here today and you're not a believer, one day you'll die and have to stand before God and you'll have to pay for your sins.

And it's a fearful thing to fall in the hands of living God, right? It's appointed for man once to die and then judgment. That be frightening? This God that you've sinned against? Yes. It's not too late, by the way, to trust in the Lord Jesus even today.

But if you're a Christian, you don't have to fear condemnation, right? There's no condemnation in Christ Jesus. Then how do you fear? Well, it depends on your relationship with God. If your relationship to God is you're an unbeliever and He's a king, which He is, and He's a sovereign and He's a creator and He's a judge, well, then you better fear.

But what if this God, this great God, this transcendent God, this holy God, is your father and you're his son or daughter based on the Lord Jesus' work? Then do you fear? Do you cringe? You know, the proverbial dog you walk past and it's been kicked so many times, it just moves to the side because it's just gonna get kicked again?

Of course, we understand there's a difference between servile fear for the unbeliever, duck, and there's a kind of fear that says for a son or a daughter, my dad's great. My father on earth protects me.

He provides for me. He's always been there. When I'm in trouble, I call my father. And I wanna honor him. I wanna honor him even in my life. Fearing God in Philippians chapter two means that I wanna live a life to honor such a great God.

And so for us as Christians, we don't have to fear God. Not one of your sins will come up on judgment day. Did you know that? Not one. I already know the verdict for you on judgment day. No condemnation.

So in light of such a great God who would do that at the expense of his son, his holy blameless son, we say we want to fear God, not cringing, slavish, ducking fear, but a reverential fear. A fear that says I have the greatest father ever and I want to honor him and I want to fear him rightly.

It says in first Peter one, and even if you call on him as father who judges impartially, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile. Friends, it can't be the fear of saying I don't even know if I'm a Christian or not.

Let's just think about it in human terms. What good father would go around and say, do you know what, son or daughter? I know you're 13 and you wanna know if actually you're part of my family or not and if you have my last name or not.

If you keep on obeying enough, I think I'll give you my last name. Matter of fact, that'd be a good way to manipulate people. I'm sorry, Grace, I didn't do that to you. You would have been maybe... It's great to have Gracie in the congregation, but now I owe her $2, I think.

No, you're my son, you're my daughter till the very end. No matter what, there's nothing you can do to separate you from me and my love. And if that's my love, sinful, not perfect. What about the heavenly father's love?

True or false? Perfect love casts out fear. How can that be? You're supposed to fear God. I can give you psalm after psalm, you better fear God, you better fear God, you better fear God. How can perfect love cast out fear?

Answer, because it casts out the fear that says, ah. Right, we all said in the Abedroth family growing up, my sister and my brother, I've said it many times before, I call the seat behind dad when we're gonna drive.

I call that, remember? I called it. You're in the house two hours before the trip, I call that. And I was the oldest kid, so I usually got it. I got that seat, and I got my dad's wrath too, because he, duck.

You are in Christ, dear Christian. He couldn't love you anymore. He doesn't even love you less when you sin, because his love is unchanging. He started loving you in eternity past, and he won't stop. He loves you so much when you sin, you'll be disciplined.

That's true. Chastened, that's true. But that is even a loving act from the Father. You can't out-sin the Savior. And that should not make you want to go wild and licentious and lawless and antinomian.

It should make you with fear saying, the right kind of fear, I want to live my life in such a way that my Father is honored by my conduct. He would be proud of me, like that's my son. And so when we go back to this passage in verse 50, and his mercy, his steadfast love, is for those who fear him from generation to generation.

It's talking about that kind of son and daughter fear that cast out the wrong kind of fear. Now if you look at verses 51 through 55, I'd like you to notice verbs as I read them. I'd also like you to know verb tenses.

In these last days, Luther said, God has revealed himself in Greek and Hebrew letters. We have to know about grammar because it's important. Every word is important. So I want you to notice verbs and tenses, please.

Verse 51 through 55. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in 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 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.

Now, what'd you see? A lot of verbs? Yes, you did. Shown, scattered, brought, exalted, et cetera. What tenses were those verbs? Those verbs were what? Past tense. So what do we do? By the way, big picture, can you praise God in light of our former condition for who God is and what He's done in the past?

Would that be fine? Can you praise God for how faithful He's been in your past? Absolutely. That's one option. Another option is this, that Mary is praising God for what the Son will do and she uses past tense because it's as good as done.

It's a prophetic way of using the past tense saying this is going to be an accomplished fact. It's going to happen. And you say, I don't know, that kind of maybe seems a stretch. Let me read to you Romans 8, verse 30.

And those whom He predestined, He also called. Those whom He called, He also justified. And those whom He justified, He also glorified. Are you glorified? Have you been called, predestined, justified?

Are you glorified? Is your body glorified? I sure hope not. If this is a glorified body, I mean, not only is my son growing taller than I am, I'm shrinking, so it gets worse. It's magnified. Like my back glorified, mind, motions, will.

What Paul is saying in Romans chapter eight is the work of God is so completely done. When He starts a work, it's as good as finished. I'll give you a past tense verb to confirm that. Glorified. We're not glorified, but it's as good as done.

God regularly uses past tense verbs to say, I will keep my word to the extent I'll use past tense. Make sense? That's exactly what He's doing here. Of course, or she's doing here. She realizes what God has done.

Exodus, God has taken Israel out of Egypt. God has slain Goliath the Philistine. God has humbled Belshazzar and He's humbled Nebuchadnezzar. And you just go right on down the list of great things God has done.

He has gotten water out of a rock. He has given manna from the sky. He's given quail from the sky. He has sustained two million people and now wilderness wanderings. You could just go through the list of what God has done.

He creates out of nothing, Genesis chapter one. He keeps His people in Exodus and the list goes. And of course, if you want to praise God for the past things, that's perfect. But here, and this is the most amazing thing to me about this little song of hers.

She's praising God for what Jesus is going to do even though Jesus is in the womb. Do you have thoughts and hopes? If you're a young parent, maybe a pregnant mom and you think, you know what? I wonder what this little one will grow up to be.

I wonder what he or she will accomplish. We kind of have dreams for our children, not financial dreams, but we want them to do well spiritually and marry a godly spouse. And I have those hopes and dreams for my children.

You ever think that way? For Mary, she knows via the Spirit of God, this is what my son is going to do. He's still in the womb and she's using past tense verbs to say, this child that I'm going to bear is going to do these things.

So in light of that, let's see what some of these things are that Jesus is going to do. That Jesus is the one Mary is talking about while he's still growing inside her body. She knows that this is going to happen, she's convinced of it and she uses past tense verbs.

Singing with joy the deeds of God, past, present, and future. Now before we look at these, this is the last time you praise God for what he's going to do in the future. We don't really do that. But shouldn't we do that?

Jesus, you're going to come one day and it's Revelation chapter 19 and a white horse, sword coming out of the mouth language in this great Revelation language. Jesus is going to come back and he's not coming back next time on a donkey.

He's not coming back to save sinners. He's coming back for judgment. God, I praise you one day you're going to make every wrong right. I'm looking forward to the day when Jesus comes back. Wouldn't that be a good way to praise God?

And so we think, yes, that's exactly true. She knows, of course I'm praising God for what he did in the past. She understands Egypt, Exodus. She's praising God for present things. I now have a baby inside of me and I've never been with a man.

And now this baby is going to rule the world. Verse 51, he's shown strength of his arm, he's scattered the proud and the thoughts of their hearts. Did that happen in the Old Testament? Absolutely. Will that happen with the Lord Jesus?

To show strength with his arm? Now, of course, in the Old Testament when you see that language, God doesn't have an arm, He doesn't have an eye, He doesn't have anything like that. It's anthropomorphic language.

It's language that we use for accommodation to say God's strong. He's got strength and he's scattered the proud and the thoughts of their hearts. Did in fact Jesus do that to proud people even on earth with the Pharisees and the scribes and the hypocrites and the lawyers?

Yes. Will He not do it in the future for all those that are so proud they won't bow the knee to the Lord Jesus and confess that He's God? Of course. I am the Alpha and the Omega, Revelation 1 .8 says the Lord God, who is and who was and is to come, the Almighty.

Same root word, they're showing strength in verse 51. Will Jesus take care of all the proud who are self-sufficient in the future? Yes. Verse 4, I mean, the verse goes on to say in verse 51, He scattered the proud and the thoughts of their hearts.

Side note, the thoughts of their hearts? I thought my heart emoted. I thought my heart felt. I thought my heart didn't talk. Well, for us, it's a lot of we have head knowledge and we don't really have heart knowledge.

And instead of going from my head to my heart before it goes out of my mouth, it goes from my head now my mouth, right? That's how we talk. Okay, I understand what you're saying. I don't correct people on the spot here very often, unless you're in my discipleship lab and you say lucky.

I was watching something online and the person said, you know, we've got some people at our church that are so like myopic and aggro and self-righteous that I can't even say good luck around them without getting corrected.

Thoughts of the heart? Well, the heart for the Jew and the heart for the Gentile, the heart was mission control center. The heart was thinking. The heart was who you are. And so when we say thoughts of the heart, it's very simple.

It's not just, well, my heart somehow feels and my mind thinks. No. She is praising God for what the Son's going to do. Scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. Verse 52, He's brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.

He's done that in the past. And guess what? He's going to do it in the future. Not necessarily at the first coming, but there's two comings of Christ and He's come the first time. The second time He's going to come.

And this is exactly what He's going to do. And she praises God. Jesus said in Luke 14, everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted. The King of kings, the Lord of lords, will bring down every mighty one from their thrones.

And you think, okay, it doesn't take long before you think Assyria, Babylon, Rome, China, Russia, United States. He brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate. Doesn't that sound like Jesus?

Those that are proud and mighty, He humbles and those that are humble, He comes alongside and lifts up. You can probably experience that in your own life. Probably have. Mary, anticipating what Jesus will do in the future and she praises God for that.

Two men went up into the temple to pray. One a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus, God, I thank You. I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get. But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift his eyes to heaven, but beat his breath saying, God, be merciful to me, the sinner. Jesus said, I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted. Verse 53, more action words, more verbs that are past tense, knowing that this is going to happen in the future.

Has it happened in the past? Will it happen right then? Yes. Will it happen in the immediate future? Yes. Ultimate future? Yes. What do I mean by that? Verse 53, He's filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He sent away empty.

Even Jesus on earth feeding the 4 ,000 men, feeding the 5 ,000 men, feeding them His own body, as it were, figuratively speaking. He's the manna from heaven. And then the ultimate, feeding the hungry when He returns.

I mean, this is just the way Jesus does it. It's the great reversal. Proud, humble. He makes the proud humble. He takes the humble and exalts them. One of the Pharisees asked to eat with Him, and He went into the Pharisee's house and reclined at table, Jesus did.

And behold, the woman of the city, who was a sinner, when she learned that He was reclining at table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment. Standing behind Jesus at His feet, weeping, she began to wet His feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head and kissed His feet and anointed them with the ointment.