Blessed is the One Who Believes

Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church.

Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern Minnesota.

We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

And now here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg.

The Holy Gospel according to St. Luke chapter 1 verses 39 through 56.

At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea where she entered

Zechariah's home and greeted Elizabeth.

When Elizabeth heard Mary's greeting the baby leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.

In a loud voice she exclaimed blessed are you among women and blessed is the child you will bear.

But why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me?

And as soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears the baby in my womb leaped for joy.

Blessed is she who has believed what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished.

And Mary said my soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

For he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant and 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 innermost 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 his servant Israel remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever

even as he has said to our fathers.

And then Mary stayed with Elizabeth for about three months and then returned home.

In the name of Jesus Amen.

It's almost here.

More than a baby bump.

Right?

We've got full blown Braxton Hicks contractions.

The baggage, the luggage is packed.

They're ready to roll.

We're getting close here.

The baby's about to be here.

Good stuff.

So let's take a look at our gospel text and we'll work our way through it.

I'll be preaching from my translation.

Here's what it says.

Having arisen during those days Mary proceeded to the hill country with haste to a city of Judah.

Now we don't know if the reason why she went off to go visit cousin Elizabeth is due to the fact

that Elizabeth needed help.

I mean this is a woman who is old enough to be some of y 'all's grandma and she's

pregnant.

It doesn't say why.

Or it may be that the reason why she was heading off to the hill country of Judea is well, because

if you remember back in the day when girls would get pregnant they would go visit their cousins in Iowa.

They'd be gone for a long extended period and then come back as if nothing had happened.

We don't know what the reason is.

It doesn't say.

It just says she headed out with haste.

And this is after it's been announced to her that she is going to be the one who is going to carry the Messiah.

So here's what it says.

And so Mary entered into the house of Zechariah greeted Elizabeth and it

came about that when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary the baby leaped in her

womb.

This is not a normal thing for babies to do.

Not a normal thing at all.

Now let me remind you of what the angel Gabriel said to Zechariah.

Let's get a little bit of context.

We're going to pick up two pieces of context in our sermon today from the earlier part of Luke chapter 1.

This context begins at Luke chapter 1 verse 8 and I'll go to verse 17 and listen

to how it was announced that Zechariah's wife Elizabeth was going to be giving birth.

Once when Zechariah's division was on duty he was serving as priest before God he was chosen by lot according to

the custom of the priesthood to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense.

You think the lot fell on him by accident?

God messed with those dice that day, right?

Chosen by lot according to the custom of the priesthood to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense and when the time for the burning of the incense came

all the assembled worshippers were praying outside and we think of that passage in the psalm that says let

your priors rise before you as incense.

The raising of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

So this is what's happening.

So then an angel of the Lord appeared to him standing at the right side of the altar of incense and when Zechariah saw him

he was startled and was gripped with fear.

You can almost see him grabbing his heart going, ah, my ticker!

So the angel says to him, kind of standard greeting for angels do

not be afraid.

Which kind of begs the question of those people out there claiming to have had angelic encounters as if somehow it's like meeting a friend at

Starbucks if they actually really truly had an angelic encounter.

Do not be afraid.

Zechariah, your prayer has been heard.

Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son and you are to give him the name John.

Side note here, how many years do you think it's been?

Maybe decades since Zechariah has prayed that his wife would have a child.

They're well advanced in years here.

That's long ago.

Yet God hears prayers even if that prayer was prayed 30, 40 years ago.

So your prayer has been heard.

Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son.

You are to give him the name John.

He will be a joy and a delight to you and many will rejoice because of his birth for he will be great in the sight of the

Lord.

He's never to take wine or other fermented drink.

That means he's going to be a Nazirite from birth.

And he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother's

womb.

Filled with the Holy Spirit.

Now one thing that many theologians all agree upon is this.

Is that well in order to be filled with the Holy Spirit you must first be a

believer.

You must first be regenerate.

So what does this tell us about John?

In his mother's womb filled with the Holy Spirit?

Well the implications are pretty profound indeed.

Let's kind of get the obvious one out on the table.

Let's get away from this idea that you're not fully human until you're born.

Absolutely not.

Here we have John the Baptist already beginning his work of being the forerunner of

Christ and he's filled with the Holy Spirit in utero.

You think God was basically saying yeah I know that you're already doing your prophetic duty.

I know you're already regenerate and saved and I filled you with the Holy Spirit but you're not quite human yet.

No.

That's not what's going on.

John is leaping for joy at the sound of the voice of his savior the mother of his Lord.

Don't be sucked into the rhetoric of today by those who would deny full humanity to the unborn.

We're not dealing with a guy who's basically just a blob of cells.

He is a human being.

And also next implication.

Let's be done finally with this false idea that small infants don't

have a relationship with God.

It's not true.

This is absolutely false.

In utero John the Baptist is filled with the Holy Spirit and begins his prophetic work

of being the forerunner of Christ.

Another good passage on this is Psalm 22 verses 9 -10 which reads.

Yet you are he who took me from the womb.

You Lord made me trust that my mother's breasts and on you I was cast from birth and from

my mother's womb you have been my God.

It is an absolute travesty that there are so many Christians today who basically think that God doesn't have anything

to do with infants.

This is nonsense.

God loves them.

Christ has bled and died for them.

And they are capable of being given the gift of faith because faith is something that is a gift that's given by God.

It is not our own doing in the first place.

It is God's doing.

So here we have a clear example of scripture where not only an infant, smaller

than an infant, a preemie, in utero, a fetus filled with the Holy Spirit fully

human, fully saved, already doing prophetic work.

Augustine writes about this passage.

He says we see instances of leaping not only in children but even in animals.

Although certainly not for any faith or religion or rational recognition of someone coming.

But this case stands out as utterly uncommon and totally new because it took place in a womb

at the coming of her who was to bring forth the Savior of humankind.

Therefore this leaping, this greeting so to speak, offered to the mother of the Lord is miraculous

and it should be reckoned among the great signs.

It was not affected by human means, by the infant, by divine means in the infant as

miracles are usually wrought.

Church Father Maximus of Turin, preaching on this text, said this Not yet born, already

John prophesies and while still in the enclosure of his mother's womb confessing the coming

of Christ with movements of joy since he could not do so with his voice.

Fascinating, right?

As Elizabeth says to the Holy Mary, as soon as you greeted me the child in my womb exalted for joy.

So John exalts then before he is born and before his eyes can see what the world looks like

he can recognize the Lord of the world with his spirit.

Truly profound.

Truly profound indeed.

So then the text continues.

And Elizabeth she herself, filled with the Holy Spirit, now she begins to prophetically utter,

not just any old words, these are words from God.

And she exclaimed with a loud shout and said you are blessed among women.

Note, this is what the spirit is saying you are blessed among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb

and why has this happened to me that the mother of my Lord should

come to me.

For behold when the sound of your greeting came to be in my ears the baby leaped with gladness in my womb.

Now we're going to have to do something a little bit thorny something dicey.

This could be controversial.

We have to deal properly with what scripture teaches us about Mary.

So Elizabeth, speaking by the Holy Spirit, says of Mary that Mary is the mother

of my Lord Mary is the mother of your Lord.

And Lord is a theologically loaded term.

Because in the time of Mary and Elizabeth, the Jews of that day would not

say the name of God.

The Pharisees came up with this fantastic idea.

Alright, so the commandment says thou shalt not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

Well we've got an easy way to keep that one.

We'll just never say his name.

Yeah, talk about missing the forest because of a tree.

Anyway, so what they would do when you would go to the synagogue and you were handed a scroll and the guy would read from the

text, any time the name of God appeared, Yahweh, you know

it was changed.

They would just say Adonai which means Lord.

Very simple.

Can't blaspheme God's name if you never mention it.

So every time you say the word Lord, what you really mean is God, at least in that context.

So here we have this passage.

The Holy Spirit says Mary is the mother of my Lord, which means,

you can interpret this literally, Mary is the mother of our God.

And you sit there and go, that sounds Roman Catholic.

Yeah, I know.

It does.

So here's the issue.

Some things that Rome teaches about Mary are just flat out wrong.

For instance, we don't believe that Mary is the Queen of Heaven.

So we can say, nope.

We don't believe that she's the co -redemptrix, that somehow our salvation was earned by Christ's

suffering on the cross and Mary's suffering while she's watching Jesus suffer.

Yep, nope, we don't believe that.

We don't pray to her to seek intercessions in the hour of our death.

And we definitely don't believe that she was sinless or immaculate at the time she conceived Christ.

In fact, this text argues against that.

So let's put all of that aside and say, all of that other stuff, it ain't biblical, it ain't the truth.

But it is true to absolutely say that she is the mother of our Lord.

Now you have to understand this.

In one real sense, God doesn't have a mom.

There's a reason for this.

God has always been.

Beings that have always been, well, they don't have a beginning.

Everybody who has a mom has a beginning.

But something happened in human history, and that is called the incarnation.

God becomes man.

Second person of the Trinity, the son, has a mom.

And so we can say, and I know this sounds just theologically weird, Mary is the mother

of God.

The mother of our Lord.

This is what this text teaches.

And you sit there and go, but work with me for a second.

And there's some reasons why this is really important.

To deny that, well, that God in the incarnation has a

mother is to deny that God has a body.

And that he has given once for all into death.

And that the body and blood that he gives us in the Lord's Supper is there for us for the forgiveness of our sins.

And to deny that he has a mom is to deny that he has a body that can be offered up for the life of the

world.

So when we deny the right things about what is taught about Mary or diminish her,

we end up denying and diminishing Christ's humanity.

Which is a very dangerous thing to consider doing.

And keep this in mind.

I know this is a little bit abstract, but work with me here for a second.

Scripture clearly teaches that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.

And when it's talking about shedding of blood, it's not talking about sticking an IV in somebody and letting some blood drip out.

That's not what's being talked about here.

The shedding of blood literally is referring to death.

And so, since God has always been, he will always be, God cannot die.

So because God cannot die, that means God in his

nature is incapable I know this seems weird, of actually

addressing our sin problem.

So the solution for that is simple.

God becomes one of us.

So Christ is both God and man.

God has taken into his nature a human body.

And this is good news for us because Christ now, God in human

flesh can die.

It's what our epistle text says.

Listen again to our epistle text from Hebrews.

It says this Speaking of Jesus, behold I have come to do your will and he

does away with the first in order to establish the second.

That's the first covenant, the Mosaic covenant, in order to establish the new covenant.

And by that will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the

body of Jesus Christ once for all.

So in the incarnation, there is a mystery.

There's, when you look at those nativity scenes, there in the manger is a boy,

an infant boy son of man.

At the same time there is also the eternal God.

One package.

And it's all for us because he's heading to the cross to die for our sins.

So we do not shy away from saying that Mary is the mother

of our Lord because in confessing that we are confessing that God has taken on a body, a human body.

Truly a descendant of Adam, come to fulfill the law and bleed and die for our sins.

It's all part of the mystery of the incarnation.

But we don't pray to Mary.

We don't consider her co -redemptrix.

We do not say she was immaculate.

None of that other stuff.

But truly she was blessed because the honor of carrying God and human flesh in your womb,

that is an amazing honor.

Not given to men, but given to a woman.

Keep this in mind.

That goes all the way back to the prophecy given in Genesis chapter 3.

That the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent.

You see, paradise was lost initially by the sin of a woman.

And now salvation is being given to us initially through a woman.

God is honoring women in this way.

This is good news.

So now we come to this great text, verse 45, back in the Gospel of Luke chapter 1.

And blessed is she having believed that there would be a fulfillment of the things having

been spoken to her from God.

It's quite a mouthful.

But it kind of goes this way.

Remember when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and said that you were going to give birth?

And she said, how is this going to be?

I'm a virgin.

She's kind of worried about the mechanics of this whole thing going on.

Now you could say of Mary that unlike any other woman who's ever become pregnant,

she became pregnant through her ears.

Through the word of the Lord.

Right?

And what was her response?

Be it to me as you have said.

Be it to me as you have said.

And so now Elizabeth speaking by the Holy Spirit says, blessed is she having believed that there would be a fulfillment of the

things having been spoken to her from the Lord.

Now, so much of preaching nowadays, it's all about the application.

So how are we supposed to apply this to ourselves today?

What should you go out and do?

Well, some preachers have come up with these clever ideas.

Well, what is the thing that the Lord has told you to do?

What has he revealed in your heart?

What are you pregnant with inside of you?

Are you pregnant with potential?

Are you pregnant with a destiny?

Are you pregnant?

It's just nonsense.

Right?

Well, let me kind of tweak that a little bit because so many guys miss the obvious.

Oftentimes the application is to just like a little child

believe the story that you're being told.

Right?

Let me give you kind of a bad example of that.

When I was a young lad, my father played a joke on me.

It was a terrible joke.

But it shows kind of the trust that I had in my father.

My father came to me and he had his fist like this.

He says, Chris, I want to show you something.

What do you want to show me, dad?

I have a bee in my hand.

A bee?

All right.

Do you want to see it?

No.

Bees sting.

They're terrible.

They're awful.

No, come here, son.

Oh, dad, you have a bee in your hand?

All right.

So he takes his hand and he opens it up and he had written the letter B on the palm of his hand.

Right?

Silly.

Silly example.

But here's the idea.

I believed what my dad told me.

And my dad, well, he didn't lie.

He truly had a bee in his hand.

Okay.

Oftentimes the solution to how do we apply a text, it's staring us in the face.

It's as obvious as can be.

And yet we can't quite seem to wrap our head around it.

Because here's the idea.

Let me back up again.

I told you we're going to look at two things from the earlier part of Luke to get our context.

So here's our context.

My question for you is this.

Why did Luke write his gospel?

Why did he write this?

Why is this even written in the first place?

Why are we reading this story this morning?

Let me read from Luke chapter 1 starting at verse 1.

Luke writes, inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things

that have been accomplished among us, just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the

word have delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some

times past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent

Theophilus, that you may have certainty concerning the things that you have been taught.

You see, the reason why Luke wrote what he wrote is so that you can have certainty.

And by the way, the word Theophilus, fascinating word.

I love it because it's just filled with double entendre.

Now there probably was a real historical person, probably wealthy too, and his name was Theophilus.

Theo means God.

Philophilus, by itself.

Now you've heard of the word Philadelphia, right?

City of brotherly what?

Love, right.

So Theophilus is a lover of God.

That's his name.

His name is one who loves God.

And so this comes to you, Theophilus, because are you not one who is baptized

into Christ?

Do you not come to the altar here and receive the body and blood of Christ for the forgiveness of your

sins?

Were you not absolved of your sins and heard once again that Christ has bled and died for you and that you are forgiven?

Well then you are in Christ.

And God has given you faith and regenerated you and filled you with the Holy Spirit.

You truly are a Theophilus.

You are a lover of God.

And so this is written to you too, right?

Which is why you're reading it today.

And this was written so that you can have certainty concerning the things that have been taught by the

eyewitnesses, by the ministers of the Word, Luke says.

So that you can have certainty.

Or the way John puts it in his gospel, in John chapter 20, verses 30 through 31.

Here's what it says.

Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not written in this book,

but these things are written so that you may believe that Jesus

is the Christ, the Son of God.

And that by believing, you might have life in his name.

I read one theologian once who said that this sentence should be the whole thesis

statement for the entire Bible.

These things are written.

You could take this, put it at the beginning.

Say introduction.

Genesis 1 verse 0.

Right?

Kind of stick it in there, right?

These things are written so that you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Son of God.

And that by believing you might have life in his name.

And so now coming back then to this statement of the Holy Spirit through

the woman, Elizabeth.

The one who is miraculously pregnant.

The one who is miraculously now speaking words from God through the Holy Spirit after her

son, who is the forerunner of Christ, has leapt for joy at the sound of the mother of his Lord.

Blessed is she having believed that there would be a fulfillment of the things having been spoken to her

from the Lord.

So here's the application.

These things are written so that you can have confidence and certainty that you are in Christ, that you are forgiven, that you

have a right standing before God because these words from God through

Luke to you this morning are.

I have great news.

God has become a man born of the Virgin Mary and he came to suffer

for your sins under Pontius Pilate and he truly was crucified for you and

for the forgiveness of your sins.

But he also rose again on the third day.

These things are written so that you would believe.

And so you can have the same blessing, if you would, that Mary has.

Because Mary was blessed because she believed the words of the Lord spoke to her that they would be

fulfilled.

Do you believe that Christ was born in Bethlehem, born to be your

Savior, born to bleed and die for your sins?

Well, blessed is the one who believes the words of the Lord will be fulfilled for them.

This is the message that comes to you today.

Good news of great joy, great joy.

You who sat in darkness, born enslaved to sin, death and the devil,

incapable of saving yourself, wracked with sin, walking in ways

that are unholy, knowing that you have earned the wrath of God for all of that, light has now come into the

darkness and that light has come to set you free.

Do you believe?

Christmas is all about believing, is it not?

So we return to our text and we end with the Magnificat.

And that's what this section of Scripture is called.

Mary's response is called the Magnificat.

There's a liturgy that actually sings it.

It's one of my favorite liturgical tunes.

My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.

And his mercy is to generations and generations is on the ones who are fearing him.

He did a mighty deed with his arm.

He scatters ones proud in the thoughts of their heart and he brought down rulers from their thrones and

lifted up the lowly ones.

Let me return to verse 46 and point this out.

Actually 47.

Here's what it says.

Mary said my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices greatly over God my Savior.

There's the words.

Mary said that God is her what? Savior.

Only ones who are sinners need a Savior.

And by confessing that her soul magnifies the Lord and God her Savior.

She's confessing she is also a sinner in need of a Savior.

And there goes the Immaculate Conception.

Poof.

All gone with one statement.

Confession from Mary herself.

And you you little lambs of Kongsvinger you too

can magnify the Lord and rejoice in God your Savior.

For his mercy is to generations and generations on all the ones fearing him.

And that is you.

And God has done a mighty deed with his arm.

He has scattered the ones proud in the thoughts of their hearts.

And who are the ones proud here?

Who are the proud ones?

Well everyone who basically exalts himself and exalts his self -righteousness.

It's akin to what you see with the Pharisees doing.

Ah we don't need to be baptized by John the Baptist.

That's a baptism for sinners for the forgiveness of sins.

We don't need none of that.

That's proud.

That's pride.

The highest degree.

You think of the story that Jesus tells of the Pharisee and the tax collector.

The Pharisee in the temple at the time of the evening sacrifice at three in the afternoon when the lamb is

slaughtered is praying not Lord have mercy on me.

He's praying I thank you God that I am not like other people.

That I am so holy that I tithe even the herbs in my garden.

Right?

And yet Mary says that the Lord scatters the proud ones in the thoughts of their hearts.

And he's brought down rulers from their thrones but he's lifted up the lowly ones.

He filled the ones who are hungry with good things.

Who are the hungry and the lowly?

Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness sake.

The lowly who understand that they have nothing to offer God and they dare not offer

their good works to God in exchange for salvation because they cannot save.

Nope.

Instead the lowly ones are the ones who say that Lord we are destitute.

Hungry.

Bankrupt.

Spiritually poor.

Poverty stricken.

We have nothing.

Have mercy on us.

It is wrong that we have come to be in this state and it's our fault that we are such.

These are the ones that the Lord exalts.

The one who exalts himself will be humbled.

The one who humbles himself will be exalted.

He helped Israel his servant so that he might remember mercy just as he spoke to our fathers

to Abraham and to his seed forever.

And then Mary stayed with her about three months and then returned to her home.

So God's mercy is from generation to generations of those who fear him and blessed is she

who having believed that there will be a fulfillment of the things having been spoken to her from the Lord.

And today you have heard a word from the Lord and the word is this.

Christ is born.

God in human flesh come to bleed and die for your sins.

The one in the manger will take the rough wood of the manger and will be exchanged for the rough wood of

the cross.

This baby will grow to a man and then bleed and die for your sins.

Do you believe this word of the Lord for you?

Believe and be blessed.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

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