Mary's Song

The Joy of Knowing God and Singing His Praise

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day sermon. We pray that as we declare the Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who Christ is.

May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you, right? We ended our time last week with the following points of application. We said that knowing God produces love for God.

Love for God wells up inside of us and it produces singing and songs for God and when we sing to God Produces joy inside of our hearts and that really is the heart of Christ. The Christmas is that knowledge Leads to love that love leads to song and singing the songs of God fills us with unspeakable joy.

We see that in the book of Psalms. We see that in the men and women who encounter Christ in his incarnation. We see that all over the pages of Luke 1 Matthew 1 Luke chapter 2 that the knowledge of God Leads to song and the songs lead to joy unspeakable today.

We're gonna be looking at Mary the mother of Christ. We're gonna be looking at how all of the promises of old are gonna be fulfilled in the coming of Jesus and how that's gonna fill her heart with love and That's going to fill her lips with joyful songs.

And I pray that it would do the same for us today. So let that let us turn to our passage. Let us read. Let us pray and let us begin. We're gonna be in Luke chapter 1 and Mary said My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

For he has been mindful of the humble estate of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed for the mighty one has done great things for me. Holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him from generation to generation.

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm. He has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones. But has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things, but has sent the rich away empty.

He has helped the servant Israel remembering to be merciful to Abraham and to his descendants forever. Just as he promised our ancestors. Let's pray Lord. We thank you for our sister Mary and The testimony that she has of your faithfulness.

How out of all the people that you could have picked or do you pick this poor? Galilean Nazareth girl you pick her to bear our Savior Lord we pray that we would see the joy that this lady has. I Pray that we wouldn't let that joy enter into our hearts this morning and like her Lord.

I pray that we would sing. It's in Christ's name. We pray. Amen. Now to get started I want to give a little bit of a background on who Mary is. Not an exhaustive one, but I do want to give a little bit of a background.

She is a woman who was born in Roman occupation. That's the first thing she didn't live in a country that had sovereignty like you and I it would be like us growing up in a country that had an overlord.

Like Russia or China or someone else who's ruling over us so that you couldn't go to the market without seeing their their soldiers. You couldn't go to your friend's house without someone giving you a stare like what are you doing?

It was an occupied region that she grew up in and she would have been Always looking over her shoulder to make sure that she was safe. The second thing that we need to realize about Mary is that she's living in a region.

That's not her own. She's living in Galilee. She's living in Nazareth, but yet she is from the tribe of Judah and at that time That would have been a very very strange thing. That would have been like a southerner living in New England.

Now the reason that this is the case is a couple of reasons for instance number one the northern tribes who should have lived in the north had been destroyed in 786 BC the Assyrians came in and decimated the northern ten tribes of Israel.

They deported them out of their land and they moved them all over the Assyrian Empire and forced them to intermarry with other people. So that they ethnically suicided them. There is no northern ten tribes by the time that we get to the New Testament.

There is Judah Benjamin and Levi and that is it. So that's the first reason is there were lands available. Judah was growing they were becoming fruitful at that time and they needed more space because Judah and Judea and Jerusalem were filled to the brim.

Samaritans and Gentiles also moved in at this time. Now it is important to understand that a Reputable Judean would not have lived in Galilee. They would have lived in the land of Judah because that's their ancestral lands if you look back in the in the book of Deuteronomy where it where it Divvies out all of the different lands.

Judah was supposed to live in Judea not in the lands of Galilee. So the question that we need to ask ourself is why? Other than just the land was open. Why did they end up there? Why were Mary and Joseph not living in Judah, especially considering?

That Mary and Joseph were descended from the line of David the king. Why weren't they in the king's city? Why weren't they living in Bethlehem when they were called? Why does Jesus? Get raised in Nazareth in Galilee.

There are two reasons I think for this. The number one is poverty. They were poor Mary and Joseph were. Which is surprising because they come from the line of the Kings. It's what Harry's gonna look like in 15 years after he's been cut off from the royal purse and Netflix no longer gives him any more deals.

Maybe maybe he can eke it out. I don't know. But it's like today if you want to live somewhere expensive you live in downtown, Boston Beacon Hill the seaport some of those areas, South Boston. If you want to shave off a little bit of that you maybe move to Cambridge or Lexington still very expensive.

But not quite as expensive as Beacon Hill. If you want to get a little bit outside of that into Stoneham or Burlington still pretty expensive. But you're moving away from the city if you want to live in a really cheap place and Be considered entirely irrelevant move down the street for me and lull.

The further outside of Boston that you get The more irrelevant you become to the city, but also the cheaper it is for you to live. The same was true in Jerusalem the further outside of Jerusalem that you got into the hills the foothills of Judea or even end up into Galilee the more Inexpensive it became but the more irrelevant you became to the movers and shakers as well.

That's the first way we know that they were poor is that they were living in Galilee. The second reason we know that they're poor is because there was nowhere for them to stay when they went to Bethlehem now.

We know that the end was overcrowded, but if you had money at that time money opens up doors and opportunities. That the innkeeper couldn't have stopped they didn't have the resources To open up any doors.

The only door that they opened was the door to Bethlehem stall Where Jesus was born amidst the animals so they didn't have the resources to be able to provide any other accommodations. The other reason we know that they were poor is because of their offering eight days after Jesus is born.

They circumcised him in the temple and according to the Old Testament law when you circumcise Someone you also would present an offering and normally it would be a lamb or a goat. But if you were poor the law actually tells us if you're poor, then you could sacrifice two pigeons.

That's what Mary and Joseph sacrificed because they didn't have the means to sacrifice anything else. They were poor people. Long removed from the legacy of King David living in the halls of palaces. They were eking out their existence day to day paycheck to paycheck in Joseph's carpentry shop.

They were poor. But I think there's a better reason for why they ended up in Nazareth. Because poverty is true, but I also think the second reason is because of God's providence. It was poverty and providence that they were in Nazareth.

And the reason it was providential that they would be in Nazareth in the land of Zebulun is Because the prophecies that already been given in the book of Isaiah. Look at what Isaiah says in chapter 9 verses 1 2.

This is why Mary and Joseph ultimately were in Zebulun there will be no more gloom for her who was in anguish in Earlier times he God treated the land of Zebulun in the land of Naphtali with contempt.

But later on he shall make it glorious by the way of the sea. And on the other side of the Jordan Galilee of the Gentiles the people who walk in darkness Will see a great light and those who live in a dark land the light will shine on them that light is Christ.

The city of Nazareth is in Zebulun's territory. God is so sovereign and providential That every facet of Mary and Joseph's life was orchestrated so that they would be from Nazareth. Their parents their grandparents all of it leading up to the culmination of God's promises they could have lived in any town in Dan and Issachar and Reuben and Ephraim in Judah and Benjamin, but God had them living in Nazareth to To fulfill his promises of old.

So that's why I say that it's both proven Poverty and providence that they were from This land of Nazareth. This is why Jesus in fact grows up in Nazareth begins his ministry in Nazareth because the people who walked in darkness Have now seen a great light in Christ.

So for Just a summary really quickly. Mary's a young woman who grew up in Roman occupation. Looking over her shoulder. She was a woman who grew up outside of her tribal lands living in the projects of Nazareth.

She was out of place financially not connected to her lineage and in the line of Kings. She was a nobody from nowhere who expected when she was born and when she died that she would live in the same town and that she would be forgotten by history.

You and I in This room can identify with that while our life is important to us and important to the people around us. We will be forgotten a Hundred years from now. No one will know our names. If you Think that that's a strange thing to say try to remember the most important people who've ever lived in history.

There's only a handful of them that we remember their names. Unless you're you know history scholar. But even then that's a really small list the average person is forgotten not by God. Which is why Mary has a name that will never be forgotten.

She thought she she grew up thinking I will be forgotten by history. I'll never travel more than a hundred miles outside of my hometown. I'll never accomplish the things that other people will accomplish but yet God in his in his incredible grace Gives Mary a name that will never be forgotten.

Isn't it interesting that a poor Galilean from the tribe of Judah young woman is remembered now. More than even the Caesar that was on the throne when she lived. If you ask most people do they know who Mary the Virgin is?

They will say yes. If you ask them if they know who was on the throne when Mary the Virgin gave birth to Christ. You will get puzzled looks. By the way, it was Caesar Augustus, but more people today know of Mary than of Caesar himself.

Because God can take even the lowest. And the most broken of us and he can do great things. Even more than that. You and I who are here today will have a name that will never be forgotten not in the halls of history on this earth but when we stand before King Jesus and He opens up his books and our name which can never be blotted out with ink Is in the Lamb's Book of Life for all of eternity and he says enter into my rest.

You will have a name that is more powerful than any president any potentate any ruler or any king. Because God can take humble and lowly people like you and I and give us a great name like Mary. Another fascinating thing that happens in the life of Mary.

She grew up in a time period where God was no longer speaking. We take this for granted unless you're charismatic. Just kidding. We take this for granted because we have the word. If you want to know if God is speaking to us today, then open the word as Justin Peters has famously said and I love it.

If you want to hear God speak read the Bible. If you want to hear God speak audibly read it out loud. God is speaking to us daily if we're in our word. We take it for granted that there's 400 years of silence from God.

400 years. How old is America. Not even 300 yet 400 years God was silent. Mary grew up in a time period where no one expected to hear anything from God. No one expected a new prophet a new book nothing.

For the moment. She was born to the moment. She died. She would have assumed that she was still living in the silence of God. Now this is a very interesting feature the silence of God because what you'll notice in the Bible is When God turns the chapter to a new chapter.

Whenever that happens old themes begin repeating themselves over and over and over again. So for instance 400 years of silence has already happened before in the Exodus the people were in Egypt 400 years of silence God speaking and Going silent has already happened before and it shows a particular purpose that God has for instance if you think about God speaking when do you begin speaking to begin speaking in the garden and He began speaking to the after the fall.

He was speaking to Cain and to Abel. He was speaking to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and Moses all the way until the Exodus. He was speaking to his people and then all of a sudden he stops. Why.

Because God was preparing his people for deliverance. You see God can accomplish more in silence. Then you and I can accomplish with all the words under heaven with all the noises with all the panoply of tones and tunes.

Or panoply, however, you pronounce that word. God can accomplish more in silence. And then all of a sudden after that he starts speaking again. He speaks to Moses. He speaks to the people of Israel. He speaks through the judges and through the prophets and we get to Samuel who's the last judge first prophet.

Transitional man. He's got one foot in the prophetic era. He's got one foot in the king or in the judges era. He's the last judge the first prophet and you get this period of time Where God is going to be speaking uniquely to his prophets which started about 1000 BC with the first prophet Samuel and it continues on until the book of Malachi the final prophet.

Which was around 400 BC. Which means that there were 600 years of God speaking to God's people and then silence. Now we have to remember That God has done this before because with God's done something before then there's precedence, right?

God got the people to Egypt and then he went silent for 400 years. He's preparing them. Deliverance. What do you think? God is preparing the people of God for in the New Testament 400 years of silence.

He's preparing them to be delivered. But not from a pagan King, although the Israelites wanted that they wanted to be free from Rome. He's delivering them from an even greater tyrant from one who afflicted them worse than the Pharaoh from the one that beat them and Chained and chained them and enslaved them far worse than Egypt had ever done.

That 400 years of silence was to prepare the people of God for Christ the true and better Moses the one who would deliver us from Satan sin and death. That 400 years of silence Was intentional now another theme that repeats itself.

When the chapter turns is Mary sings. God breaks his silence by announcing to the last prophet John the Baptist that that are Zechariah that that John the Baptist is going to be born and then God speaks to Mary and Mary sings.

Isn't it interesting that the last prophet Samuel when his birth was announced his mother sang. And Now when Jesus is born The true and greater Samuel his mother sings as well. You see when new chapters turn in the Bible old themes repeat themselves over and over.

What I want you to hear in this section is that God can do more in the quiet Than you can do in your striving. You may feel like that. God is distant from you. You may feel like you're all alone at times where darkness is covering the voice of God.

You can't hear. You can't see. You can't move you can't think. Don't lie. You've been there. So have I. God can accomplish more in those seasons than anything that you can accomplish on your own. Lean in to God.

Maybe he's preparing you for something. Maybe he's preparing you to set you free from a sin. You've been struggling with. Maybe he's preparing you to raise you up to do something that you never thought that you were gonna do.

My point is God can accomplish more in the silence and in the distance Than you could ever imagine. Lean in to that. When things look ordinary in your life God is still working. God actually works in the ordinary in the plain and the mundane and the ebb and flow of everyday monotony.

This is why I take such issue with Let's call it the charismatic or charismania Pentecostal churches because they're looking for God and all of the spectacular the firework shows. They're looking for God in all of the miracles when God actually is working and moving and doing his greatest work in your life in the mundane day to day work.

That's what's crafting you. That's what's shaping you is when God is working in the ordinary after 400 years of silence God speaks. God breaks the silence heralding and announcing the coming of his new Moses the deliverer of God's people, but he also breaks the silence announcing the coming of the final Elijah.

Now it's very interesting in fact. The last prophet in the book in the Old Testament is Malachi. Malachi tells us some fascinating things that are going to happen when Jesus comes. I Love the book of Malachi.

It is a fascinating story about Israel spiritual apathy and what God is going to do. To save them. Anyway Look at what it says in Malachi chapter 4 verse 6. This is what's gonna happen before Jesus comes.

Behold I'm going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will pay attention this part. We're store the hearts of the fathers to their children and The hearts of the children to their father so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.

When God speaks in the New Testament He takes this passage from Malachi 400 years before and he pulls this in and says now. This is happening. Look at what it says in Luke 1 in the days of Herod King of Judea there was a priest named Zacharias and for the division of Abijah.

And he had a wife from the daughters of Aaron and her name was Elizabeth. They were both righteous in the sight of God walking blamelessly in all the commandments and requirements of the Lord, but they had no child.

Themes repeating itself again the old barren couple like Sarah and Abram. Because Elizabeth was barren and they were both advanced in their years. Now it happened that while he was performing his priestly service before God in the appointed order of his division.

According to the custom of the priestly office. He was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and to burn incense and The whole multitude of people were in prayer outside at the hour of the incense offering.

Now, let's just stop right there for a second for 400 years the people the priest would gather outside of the temple and one of them would be chosen to go in and none of them expected to have a dramatic encounter with God and You know, I love the fact that they're all outside praying.

Maybe they're praying because he was old. Maybe they're like, you know, we don't want him to wander in there and get lost. Zechariah had been wanting this opportunity for years and years and years and now finally came in his old age.

That's not coincidental it says. The whole multitude of the people were in prayer outside at the hour of the incense offering. Now he wouldn't have been going into the holiest of holy places. But into the holy place he would go and an angel the Lord appeared to him standing at the right hand of the altar of incense.

Zechariah's was troubled. When he saw the angel and fear gripped him. Only 400 years has passed since anything like this had happened. Of course, he was troubled. Do not be afraid Zechariah's. For your petition has been heard and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son and you will give him the name John and you will have joy and Gladness and many will rejoice at his birth for he will be great in the sight of the Lord and he will drink no wine Or liquor and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother's womb and he will turn Away, or he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God.

You remember that from Malachi? Direct quote. It is he who will go as a forerunner before him in the spirit and the power of Elijah. To turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children and the disobedient.

To their attitude of the righteous so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord. You see the connection from Malachi 400 years before John the Baptist was going to be born. The prophecy was given that when Christ comes he will be preceded by the Elijah and God burst into the temple.

Announcing the time had come. Here you have people who have not been used to hearing the voice of God startled. By this reality when John or when Zechariah's comes out of the temple, he's mute. He can't even speak.

You can imagine what the people were saying. Surely nothing like this has happened in hundreds of years. Now what I find most fascinating is how Luke compares Zechariah to Mary because Mary now is the next person that God reveals Himself to in the text and there's this comparison that Luke is doing.

Because if you think about it Zechariah is old. Mary is young. There's a contrast. She's Overlooked by most people in that society. He's respected and noticed. He's a member of the priestly class. She was an outcast.

He's married. She's single. He's a man. She's a woman. He was serving in Judah in the temple of all places. She's tucked away in secrecy in Galilee. He was doing the Lord's work publicly. Hers was private.

He was in God's house. She was in her house. All of these comparisons between Zechariah and Mary all of these contrasts. What are the contrasts pointing to? That only one of them is the one who had true belief and it's ironic who it is.

Because you would expect the old man. The one who's read the Bible more than Mary the one who served in the temple the one who's done all of these great things. You would expect the priest would have been the one that had true belief and yet it wasn't.

It was Mary. The one who had true belief in Christ. The irony of it is Mary meek mild tender maiden is the one who believed and who sang and who rejoiced and it was Zechariah who went away mute the point Cannot be overlooked.

That you and I are the ones that measure ourselves up against other people and say surely they get it and Yet look at what God does he takes the most unlikely person that he could have ever chosen. He uses her he fills her with love for God and her song comes bursting out of her lips.

There is no one if he can use Mary. If he can use the Apostle Paul the murderer. If he can use David the drama queen King. If he can use Jeremiah the one who's habitually depressed. If he can use the men and women that we find in Scripture.

He can use anyone in This room. He can put his song in any heart. There's no one too far gone for Christ. Luke is calling you and I to be like Mary and then from that we will transition to her song. That's a little bit of the background.

She's poor. She's broken. She's out of place. She's out of time. She's in Roman occupation and Yet God chooses her to be the one to sing this beautiful song and I just want to say Her song was not The sort of overly emotional lyrics that we hear in a lot of churches today that Jesus is my boyfriend ballad.

It is not the 7-eleven hymn where it's seven words spoken eleven times over and over and over and some sort of mantric Hip swaying motions. When the women in the Bible sing you'll notice this. I'm going to quote every song a Verse from every song that a woman sings in the Bible when women sing it's songs of victory.

It's songs of trusting God and his warlike vengeance against their enemies. For instance Miriam the sister of Moses. This is her song. She says sing to the Lord for he is highly exalted. The horse and the rider.

He hurled into the sea. When Deborah sings Deborah the judge of all Israel she says thus let all your enemies perish Oh Lord. But let those who love him be like the rising of the Sun and its might judges.

531 Hannah. Her song those who contend with the Lord will be shattered. I Love the songs of these women. Against them he will Thunder in the heavens the Lord will judge the ends of the earth and he will give strength to his king and will exalt the Horn of his anointed.

And then Mary's song. He has scattered those who were proud in their thoughts of heart. He has brought down the rulers from their thrones and exalted those who are humble. What we have when women sing in the Bible is some of the deepest and robust Theology given to song that's ever been written.

This is not superficial Taylor Swift lyrics of the ancient variety. This is serious biblical theology sung to the glory of God celebrating the victory of God, this is how Mary's song begins. My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

Do you see the theme at work again. The knowledge that God has given her of his promises are now bursting forth out of her chest. When it uses the word glorifies here. That's an English translation of the word that actually means multiplied.

Magnified praise is what she's saying. The word means that she is piling up and heaping up praises upon praises upon praises. This is the word you would use when you're raking leaves and you're piling them up and piling them up until there's so many.

That you don't know what to do with. You don't have enough yard bags to contain them all. This is the word that is being used here the piling up and the overflowing of praise. It's like when you pour a glass of wine.

One drop hits the glass at first. But then it continues flowing and flowing and flowing to it overflows and spills out all over the place you think about a teapot. When it's when it's starting to boil and the pressure is building then eventually it's screaming.

This is what is happening to Mary. The pressure and intensity of God's goodness and his beauty and his love is magnifying inside of her heart to the point to where she's now. Shouting to the glory of God because of what she has seen in the knowledge and the beauty of God.

I call this combustible praise. Because it doesn't take a lot. But when your heart sees what God has done for you in Christ. It's like an atom being split in half through nuclear fission. Your heart explodes.

You ever had those moments where your heart just explodes and you like Mary magnify the praises of God. That's what I'm praying for for me. For my family, that's what I'm praying for for us. It is so easy for us who've tasted.

What God has done? To get bored complacent to become sort of like I know that I know the story when actually I Believe that as we taste and see that the Lord is good. It should get better. We should see it even more fully like Paul when he says at the end of his life I'm the chief of sinners, but there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

Paul has evidence of the fact that he's softening over time. He's growing more in love with Christ over time. That's what I want for me. And that's what I want for you. Not that we would come but complacent.

But that the volume of our praise the passion in our praise would grow. More and more and more over time the more we know Christ. The more love we have for Christ the more joy we have in singing to Christ.

Has God been good to you? Yeah. This is promise is still true. Is he faithful to you even when you're faithless. Is he faithful to you? Does the love of God been poured out upon you? Has God shown a long-suffering commitment to you.

Will God safely deliver you to heaven. Where you will stand before the face of Christ and he will look at you and say well done my good and faithful servant. Is that happening for you? But then if so.

You have every reason to praise. You have every reason to sing out to the glory of Christ like Mary. Incombustible affection ignited heart kind of praise. That's the first thing We see in mary's song is that she is bursting forth with the knowledge of God in joyful song.

The second thing we see. Is she does what's so hard for you and I to do. She praises God even in her humiliation. There's not an area of mary's life where the praise of God doesn't touch. It touches in the curse.

It touches in humiliation. It touches in the brokenness. How often we. We're fair weather christians at times, right? We praise God when the good things come. We praise God when the thing we asked for comes.

But when but when the trial comes. The pain comes. How often we are still left singing. I love that mary is. Singing in her humiliation she says for he has been mindful of the humble estate Of his servant.

She knows who she is. None of us have to tell her who she is. She's the poor girl on the wrong side of town who has a failing legacy from king david who no one cared about at that point. No one would have picked her.

No one would have chosen her. She would have been last to get picked for the dodgeball team. Whatever you want to whatever metaphor you want to give her she knew who she was but she also knew that God chose her anyway.

Which made it all the more meaningful to her as she compared those two thoughts together. Have you ever went outside during the The the brightness of the noon day and stared up at the sky and tried to find the north star or try to find any star.

For that matter you can't see them. Because the light is way too bright of the sun. You can't see the stars even though they're there. We don't believe That the stars are only on one half of of the sky.

It's against the darkness. That the light of the stars shine so brightly. It's against your weakness. It's against your failure. It's against your brokenness. It's against your Downtroddenness. It's against your pain that the light of christ shines most brightly.

Don't Avoid to praise God in your pain. Because it's in the pain that you see most clearly the beautiful brilliant lustering love of christ. We have to know ourselves rightly. One of the things that I think is unfortunate today in the church is that There's so much talk of love of God, which is true.

We love the love of God. But there's so much talk of his love. And there's so little talk of sin. That we actually robbed ourself of seeing how beautiful he is. There's too much light. Like when you walk outside and you can't see the stars.

If you don't and if you're not being reminded of your sin. You miss being able to see how beautiful christ is. It's against the backdrop of your ugliness that he looks most precious. Our task today Is not the same as mary's but our task is similar.

And that we recognize who we are in all of our brokenness so that we can see the light and the beauty of christ. None of us will be called to carry jesus in the womb like mary, but let us remember our our task Is even greater than hers.

There's far too many people who worship mary today. There's far too many people who who venerate mary as if she had some special privilege. You and I Carry the spirit of christ our entire lives. Mary got to carry christ for nine months.

And when she saw her savior. The one that she gave birth to rise from the dead. And she believed on the one that she birthed. The greater privilege was given to her that the holy spirit came into her heart.

Let us not venerate mary. Mary's mary's wonderful. It's just that she was blessed. But let us look at the privilege that she had as a type. For the greater privilege that you and I have to bear the spirit of god in our soul.

We carry christ with us every day do we not. Even in our humiliation our task is even better. How much more? For ardent praise. You and I are the orphan who've now become a child of the king. You and I are the peasant who've now been chosen to be married to the prince.

You and I are a real life story of cinderella. Spiritual rags to riches all because of christ. The joy of jesus doesn't come from trying to boost your own ego. Like the world will tell you just believe in yourself.

What a hopeless and miserable occupation that would be. You do you Is the way that you will trip and stumble right into the gates of hell. We must come to see our wretchedness like mary. So that we can come to see his loveliness like mary.

The third thing that we see in this passage. Is that she's praising him because of her blessings. From now on all generations will call me blessed. She says in verse 48 for the mighty one. Has done great things for me.

Holy is his name. Her praise is a multi-faceted diamond. If you hold a diamond up to the light. And you look at it. It refracts off of different angles so that when you spin it and when you turn it it intersects with the diamond in various different ways.

She's praising god for who he is. She's praising god for how limited she is in her humiliation. Now she's praising god for the blessings that he has given her. Do you see that her praise has now permeated every facet of her being.