SPEAKER_00: Welcome to DeSoto Hills Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our Sunday morning services are weekly at 9 and 10 30 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: You're listening to an audio recast of this past week's service.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you enjoy.
SPEAKER_00: God bless.
SPEAKER_01: Um we continue our series today, our Christmas series on Oh Come, let us adore him.
SPEAKER_01: It's going to carry us into Luke chapter 1 today.
SPEAKER_01: It's where we're going to be, and we're going to look at a pretty famous passage called the Magnificat.
SPEAKER_01: That is, it's Latin.
SPEAKER_01: Magnificat is Latin for magnifies, and it comes from the first the first sentence in the passage that we're looking at today where Mary proclaims, My soul magnifies the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: My soul magnifies the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: This is also called known as Mary's Hymn.
SPEAKER_01: Let's try to put it in context a little bit of what's happening around here.
SPEAKER_01: And earlier in chapter 1, the angel Gabriel visits Mary and tells her that she is going to give birth to the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: Now, we don't know exactly how old Mary is at this point.
SPEAKER_01: Scripture doesn't tell us.
SPEAKER_01: Many believe that she was young, by our standards, incredibly young.
SPEAKER_01: John MacArthur will even go so far to say maybe around the age of 13.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine?
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine at the age of 13?
SPEAKER_01: And I know times were different then and all of these things, but can you imagine?
SPEAKER_01: Look, I have a 13-year-old.
SPEAKER_01: As a dad, I don't want to imagine that.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine what's going on in Mary's life at this point?
SPEAKER_01: Even if she's not giving birth to Jesus, an angel comes and visits.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they haven't heard from God for over 400 years.
SPEAKER_01: God has just been silent, and all of a sudden, God breaks through to this young girl and tells her she's going to give birth to the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: She, after she hears this news, what we learned in Luke is she goes and visits her cousin Elizabeth, who is also with child.
SPEAKER_01: Elizabeth is going to give birth to John the Baptist.
SPEAKER_01: And I love what Scripture says in verse 41 of chapter 1.
SPEAKER_01: It says, Luke writes, and when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leapt in her womb.
SPEAKER_01: And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's no other word.
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
SPEAKER_01: The baby leapt within her womb, and Elizabeth greets Mary, and then that's where we come to our passage today because of even in light of her overwhelmed state, Mary praised God.
SPEAKER_01: She praised God for what he was doing in her and through her life, but she also praised God for what he is doing and was going to do for all those who feared him.
SPEAKER_01: Now, for us in our current context, we have to look at and understand that God has done great things for us as well.
SPEAKER_01: Namely, He sent Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: God has done great things for us.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, come and let us adore Him.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, come, let us adore Him.
SPEAKER_01: So our question that we want to answer today is how did Mary praise?
SPEAKER_01: So if you are able this morning, I invite you to stand as we give honor to the reading of God's Word.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to be in Luke chapter 1.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to start reading in verse 46 and read down through verse 55.
SPEAKER_01: And Mary said, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant, and for behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed.
SPEAKER_01: For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
SPEAKER_01: His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
SPEAKER_01: He has shown strength with his arm.
SPEAKER_01: He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
SPEAKER_01: He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exhausted and exalted those of humble estate.
SPEAKER_01: He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.
SPEAKER_01: He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his offspring forever.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: My God, my Savior, may be honored in this place today.
SPEAKER_01: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: So again, the question that we are seeking to answer then is how did Mary praise the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: Understanding that this is not easy.
SPEAKER_01: What's going on in her life?
SPEAKER_01: How did she praise the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: Well, well, I think there's three ways that we see her praising the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: First is she praised God by focusing on God.
SPEAKER_01: By focusing on Him, not on herself, not on her situation, not on what was going on, not on how God had not appeared to anybody in 400 years, not how God seemed to be silent at the time, not about the chaos that has been brought upon her life.
SPEAKER_01: She focuses on God.
SPEAKER_01: She does this in three ways.
SPEAKER_01: First, she does this soundly.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I mean by that.
SPEAKER_01: All throughout this hymn, all throughout Mary's hymn, all throughout this poem or song or whatever you want to call it, all throughout this time, she makes allusions and references to the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: If you go back and read in 1 Samuel chapter 2, we read about this lady named Hannah who is without child, who prays to God to give her a child, and God does Samuel the prophet.
SPEAKER_01: If you go back and read in 1 Samuel chapter 2, we're not going to do it for sake of time this morning, but I challenge you to go home and do it.
SPEAKER_01: Hannah's prayer in 1 Samuel chapter 2 sounds very much like Mary's prayer in Luke chapter 1.
SPEAKER_01: Very much.
SPEAKER_01: And she's going to make allusions to all kinds of all manner of Old Testament passages.
SPEAKER_01: John MacArthur, he even says this about Mary's hymn here.
SPEAKER_01: He says Mary's hymn is filled with allusions to Scripture, revealing that her heart and mind were saturated with the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: It echoes Hannah's prayer and prayers in the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the writings of the prophets.
SPEAKER_01: Mary's life was saturated, was saturated with Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, if we are going to genuinely praise, if we are going to genuinely praise the true God, we need to know who He is.
SPEAKER_01: Now I understand that Jesus was the manifestation of God upon earth.
SPEAKER_01: But when Mary is saying this, she had not seen Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And if we look at our context, we have not either.
SPEAKER_01: There are no pictures of him.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know what he physically looks like, but that doesn't even matter.
SPEAKER_01: We need to, if we are going to know who God is and worship the true God, we have to see him, how he has revealed himself to us.
SPEAKER_01: And there is only one way that he has revealed himself to us, and that is through his word.
SPEAKER_01: We must be people of the book.
SPEAKER_01: That's why this past year I've challenged us as a congregation to read through the Bible together.
SPEAKER_01: We use the Daily Walk Bible to go through that.
SPEAKER_01: I hope you've done that.
SPEAKER_01: You're almost there.
SPEAKER_01: You've almost made it through.
SPEAKER_01: But just because we did it last year doesn't mean we can't do it this year.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to challenge us to read through Scripture again this year.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm going to challenge you to do it a little bit different.
SPEAKER_01: You can do it the same way if you want.
SPEAKER_01: You have the Daily Walk Bible, but I'm going to challenge us to do something a little bit differently using the Bible recap as a tool.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I wrote about that a couple of weeks ago in Ministry Moment.
SPEAKER_01: I've written about it today in the Ministry Moment that's on the inside page of your worship guide.
SPEAKER_01: You can see that.
SPEAKER_01: If you have questions about that or getting resources or anything, I encourage you to visit the Welcome Center today after the service.
SPEAKER_01: You can come talk to me.
SPEAKER_01: I'd love to help you get that.
SPEAKER_01: So this year, together, we can saturate our lives with who God is so we can praise him and worship him by focusing on him and do it soundly, worshiping the true God, not the God that we have made up or the world has told us we need.
SPEAKER_01: Worship Him as He has revealed Himself to us.
SPEAKER_01: Mary worshiped Him soundly, but she also worshiped Him presently.
SPEAKER_01: Understand what's going on in her life.
SPEAKER_01: We've talked about it.
SPEAKER_01: 13.
SPEAKER_01: She is engaged to be married, but an angel comes and all of a sudden, hey, you're gonna have a baby.
SPEAKER_01: I can't even begin to fathom the chaos and the upheaval in her life.
SPEAKER_01: What is going on around her?
SPEAKER_01: Yet she comes and says, My soul magnifies the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't say, My soul will magnify the Lord when I figure out what's going on.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't say my soul magnified the Lord before I found out all this and he threw my life in upheaval.
SPEAKER_01: It's not what it says.
SPEAKER_01: My soul presently, right here in this moment, in times that I don't understand, in times that I don't know what's going on, praises the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Just this week I heard a story about Corey Tin Boom and her sister Betsy.
SPEAKER_01: Many of you may know who Corey Tin Boom was.
SPEAKER_01: Corey Tin Boom was a Jew who in Germany who who shielded, protected Jews who were being captured by the Nazis and taken to concentration camps, but she was caught and taken to a concentration camp herself.
SPEAKER_01: She and her sister Betsy, and they were moved from camp to camp.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the camps that she went to, the the cell that they held her in was infested with fleas.
SPEAKER_01: Everything had fleas in that cell.
SPEAKER_01: Sore has it that she went to her sister Betsy and said, Look, I'm done.
SPEAKER_01: I can't do it anymore.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we have taken so much, but fleas, uh uh, I'm done.
SPEAKER_01: And Betsy said, No, Corey, God's word tells us that we should be thankful in every situation.
SPEAKER_01: So we should be thankful for everything, even the fleas.
SPEAKER_01: She just can't do it.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we've got to.
SPEAKER_01: So she and her sister Betsy began to thank God even for the fleas.
SPEAKER_01: And while they were there, they began a Bible study in their cell.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, in a Nazi concentration camp, they began a Bible study.
SPEAKER_01: Soldiers never one time entered the cell.
SPEAKER_01: Not one single time did they go to try to stop them or put a stop to it or do anything.
SPEAKER_01: Not one time did they go and do that.
SPEAKER_01: Years later, people asked about one of the soldiers guarding the cell said, Why did you not put a stop to it?
SPEAKER_01: They said, the fleas.
SPEAKER_01: We wouldn't go into a cell because of the fleas.
SPEAKER_01: The thing that seemed the worst thing she could imagine was the thing, the very thing that God used to reach lives with the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: In the midst of hard times, presently we need to praise God.
SPEAKER_01: Not only did she do that presently, but she focused on God hopefully.
SPEAKER_01: Hear what she says there in verse 47.
SPEAKER_01: And my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.
SPEAKER_01: Look, Gabriel, notice the message that Gabriel gave her.
SPEAKER_01: If you go back to verse 31, it Gabriel says, And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.
SPEAKER_01: And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what Gabriel's telling her.
SPEAKER_01: She is giving birth to the Messiah, the one that God has been promising since creation, since the fall of Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_01: God has been promising a Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: This is him.
SPEAKER_01: She is giving birth to the Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: She hasn't done it yet.
SPEAKER_01: It hasn't happened.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what she calls God, not my soon-to-be Savior.
SPEAKER_01: She speaks as if it's already happened.
SPEAKER_01: My God, my Savior.
SPEAKER_01: She is her hope, her hope in Jesus is a hope that acts as if it has already happened.
SPEAKER_01: How is she able to do that?
SPEAKER_01: Socuses on God and who he is.
SPEAKER_01: She praises focusing on God.
SPEAKER_01: Second, she praises thanking God.
SPEAKER_01: Thanking him for who he is.
SPEAKER_01: It goes on and says in verse 48, for he has looked on my humble estate, on the humble estate of his servant.
SPEAKER_01: Hear what he says?
SPEAKER_01: He has looked on me.
SPEAKER_01: God, the God of the universe, the God who spoke and created the world, the God who said, Let there be, and there was, the God who led Israel out of Egypt and conquered the Egyptians, the God who led Egypt through the wilderness, the God who brought them there, the God who sent them into exile and then brought them back.
SPEAKER_01: That God, God Almighty, is words that she will use to describe him.
SPEAKER_01: God Almighty looked at her.
SPEAKER_01: Not because of anything that she had done, but because of his mercy and his grace.
SPEAKER_01: He looked upon her.
SPEAKER_01: And she is thanking God that he did that.
SPEAKER_01: John, in 1 John chapter 3, verse 1, he writes something very similar for us as believers today.
SPEAKER_01: He says, This, see what kind of love the Father has given us that we should be called children of God.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, God has given us more love than we can imagine.
SPEAKER_01: Some translations will say, look how much, look at look at the love the Father has given us, demonstrated to us that we might, just that we might be called children of God.
SPEAKER_01: Just that the thought would cross God's mind that he would look at me and say, you know what, Grant, I might call you a child of mine.
SPEAKER_01: Just the thought that he might do that is more love than we could ever imagine, but he didn't stop there.
SPEAKER_01: Just that I should or I might call you a child of God, and then so we are.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, if God did nothing else for us except send Jesus, it's enough that we should praise him.
SPEAKER_01: We should praise him, focusing on God.
SPEAKER_01: We should praise him, thanking God because he looked upon us and thanking him because he brings justice.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to what he says, what she says he will do in verses 51 through 53.
SPEAKER_01: For he has shown strength with his arm.
SPEAKER_01: He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
SPEAKER_01: He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.
SPEAKER_01: He has filled the hungry with good things, good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what she's claiming.
SPEAKER_01: God is going to do.
SPEAKER_01: The writer of Ecclesiastes, the preacher, has been looking for life and the point of life and the reason for life all throughout this book, this 12 chapters, all throughout it.
SPEAKER_01: He's looked for the meaning of life and hasn't found it.
SPEAKER_01: Has led him to the point to start the whole book saying, meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless, it's pointless, it's worthless.
SPEAKER_01: Why are we even here?
SPEAKER_01: But he ends the book on a different note.
SPEAKER_01: In chapter 12, verses 13 and 14, he says, This, the end of the matter.
SPEAKER_01: All has been heard.
SPEAKER_01: Fear God, keep his commandments.
SPEAKER_01: For this is the whole duty of man, for God will bring every deed into judgment with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
SPEAKER_01: God is just.
SPEAKER_01: He is going to bring justice.
SPEAKER_01: And he brings justice to those who fear him and keep the commandments.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is not a this is not a scared type of fear.
SPEAKER_01: This is an awe and reverence type of fear.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the fear of God.
SPEAKER_01: The fear of God means that we believe that God is exactly who he says he is.
SPEAKER_01: And will do exactly what he says he will do.
SPEAKER_01: Understand that.
SPEAKER_01: Life is pointless.
SPEAKER_01: I'm in trouble, so are you.
SPEAKER_01: But God loved us.
SPEAKER_01: And the story of Christmas is that he sent Jesus to live a perfect life, obeying all the commandments perfectly, dying on the cross to take my place and to take your place.
SPEAKER_01: And then being buried and arising from the grave.
SPEAKER_01: And through his death and resurrection, now he can place on all those who believe in him his righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: So justice now looks different.
SPEAKER_01: Justice now looks different because God is going to look on me and he sees the righteousness of Christ because I have believed in him.
SPEAKER_01: Those who fear him.
SPEAKER_01: And she goes, Mary goes on and talks a lot about being humble and not proud.
SPEAKER_01: And here's why.
SPEAKER_01: Proud people can never, a proud person can never, can never exalt God for who he is because the proud thinks we're good enough.
SPEAKER_01: The proud thinks, you know what, I'm better than so and so.
SPEAKER_01: They go to church all the time.
SPEAKER_01: I'm a better person than them.
SPEAKER_01: Surely I'm going to get into heaven.
SPEAKER_01: A proud person says, hey, you know what?
SPEAKER_01: You know what?
SPEAKER_01: My good far outweighs my bad.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to be in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: I'm on the list for sure.
SPEAKER_01: A proud person will even say, I deserve to get to commit this sin.
SPEAKER_01: I've had a hard life.
SPEAKER_01: I deserve this.
SPEAKER_01: A proud person never comes before God in the way that he calls us to.
SPEAKER_01: Only the humble.
SPEAKER_01: Who recognize that we are sinners who need of a savior?
SPEAKER_01: Who cry out to him.
SPEAKER_01: We can't exalt ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: We must exalt him.
SPEAKER_01: And while Mary spends most of her time talking about those who fear him, she turns back in verses 54 and 55 and speaks of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what she says: she exalts God for remembering Israel.
SPEAKER_01: She exalts God for remembering the promise that she made with Abraham all those years ago that through a descendant of his the world would be blessed.
SPEAKER_01: And now that is happening with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And she's saying this, God, we can believe you.
SPEAKER_01: We can trust you.
SPEAKER_01: God, she's saying, God, I can trust you.
SPEAKER_01: And this promise that you're making, that this child that I'm carrying is the Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: God, I can trust you that he is the Messiah because you have kept all the promises that you've made with Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And here for us today, listen, we can trust him because he has kept all of the promises.
SPEAKER_01: And here's the promise that he tells us he is coming back again.
SPEAKER_01: And we can believe it, we can write it down, we can exalt him, we can praise him, hopefully, like it's already done, because we know he has kept all of his promises in the past.
SPEAKER_01: Even sending Jesus the first time, even Jesus dying on the cross and arising, he kept those promises, and we can be assured that he is coming again.
SPEAKER_01: So we must, we have to exalt him.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, come, let us adore him.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know where you are this morning.
SPEAKER_01: But maybe this morning you have never believed in Jesus, you have never trusted him as your Savior.
SPEAKER_01: We're about to enter into a time of invitation where we are inviting you to come.
SPEAKER_01: We're inviting you to come and believe in him.
SPEAKER_01: We invite you to come forward.
SPEAKER_01: We'll pray with you.
SPEAKER_01: There will be counselors who will take you out and share with you how you can trust God.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe this morning you have trusted in Christ, but you are not, through your life, you are not adoring Him.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe this morning you need to come and kneel at this altar and repent.
SPEAKER_01: Turn your focus upon Him.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe this morning you're looking for a church home.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe this morning God is calling you to something different and big.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to pray for us and we're going to stand and sing.
SPEAKER_01: And as we stand and sing, we invite you to come.
SPEAKER_01: If you have a decision to make, we would love to pray with you and counsel with you as you trust in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: God, we thank you for today.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you for how you love us and all you've done for us.
SPEAKER_01: You are good to us.
SPEAKER_01: You have blessed us beyond measure because you sent your son to die and arise and give us life.
SPEAKER_01: God, I pray for all those here this morning who do not know life that they will come and adore you.
SPEAKER_01: God, I pray for all those who need to just stop and adore you.
SPEAKER_01: God, however you're working, give us the faith this morning to come and adore you.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, it's in your name that we pray.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening to this week's sermon.
SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions for our pastor, feel free to reach out at DeSotoHills.com.