SPEAKER_00: As Brandy said, my name is Michael Graham, and I'm just really excited to be here with you all today.
SPEAKER_00: And I've known Pastor Justin Ramos for a while and some other of you as well.
SPEAKER_00: I I've known Justin before he got here and before you guys have grown as you have, and so it's been kind of cool to be from the outside looking in and see that.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I I gave Justin COVID two years ago, and so uh right here we were doing a kind of a whiteboard session upstairs, and so that's um that's that's why I'm here.
SPEAKER_00: So uh my wife, her name is Kim, and and we have two kids, they're 13 and 14, and by the time we read a pregnancy test that finally told us that we were going to be parents for the first time, we had all sorts of emotions.
SPEAKER_00: We were we were relieved and we were elated and we were skeptical and we were nervous and we were thankful and we were just pumped, and and I just remember kind of all of the flood of emotions.
SPEAKER_00: We had been married for five years at that time.
SPEAKER_00: We'd been together for 11 years at that time, and and we'd been dreaming of being parents together since we were barely teenagers.
SPEAKER_00: So there's just a lot of stuff in all of that.
SPEAKER_00: Our second child came with quite different emotions.
SPEAKER_00: Uh emotions were were high, but but mainly the emotion that we felt was surprise because our first baby was only three months old.
SPEAKER_00: And that was one of the first huge things in our life that that happened outside of our desired kind of plan forward, right?
SPEAKER_00: And um, and so we had lots of emotions around that.
SPEAKER_00: We were we were surprised, but but the emotions swept and we were confused and and nervous and and uneasy and thankful and welmed and and shocked.
SPEAKER_00: From the moment a baby is conceived, emotions are high.
SPEAKER_00: And and even talking about this type of thing brings about emotions in us, and and some really difficult, and some low, and some really uh uh exciting.
SPEAKER_00: And so even from the moment a baby is conceived, there is excitement and there's anticipation that kind of fills the room, and there are ideals and there are hopes and there are questions.
SPEAKER_00: What will he be like, and and what will she do, or what will he look like, or what will she laugh like, and and how will he change things?
SPEAKER_00: And how will our family change when she comes into the picture?
SPEAKER_00: And what what imprint will he make on this world and what what hurt and what pain lies ahead, and what joy and what promise is yet unknown?
SPEAKER_00: There are hard swings of emotion, low to high, joy to sorrow.
SPEAKER_00: And here today we read and we celebrate and we learn from Mary, the mother of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So she is in this context, we're jumping into Luke, and she's eager to marry her fiancé Joseph, but she's probably not felt well for some weeks, and she's been thinking that it could be, uh, but but she was she was visited by an angel some time before this, and that angel Gabriel said some things, and and it felt real, but how would she know that what he said that the promises were going to be true?
SPEAKER_00: What he said, the promise was was this Mary, don't fear.
SPEAKER_00: You found favor with God, and you will have a child, and you'll name him Jesus, and he will be great.
SPEAKER_00: He will be called the Son of the Most High.
SPEAKER_00: God will give him a throne of his father David, and he'll reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.
SPEAKER_00: So Mary hears that, and she sees what's going on inside of her, and she sets those promises, and she knows that that the promises point back to previous prophecies made about God's work to save his people through a coming king.
SPEAKER_00: But but there were lots of uh unknowns about what that would show up like.
SPEAKER_00: The pregnancy for Mary is quite a surprise.
SPEAKER_00: And she even asks, but but how is that going to happen?
SPEAKER_00: Because like I've not done the thing that I need to do to have a baby inside of me.
SPEAKER_00: And and and the angel says, The Spirit will conceive in you, and you will give birth to the holy son of God.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine?
SPEAKER_00: Also, by the way, your elderly cousin Elizabeth, she's pregnant.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing is impossible.
SPEAKER_00: And and Mary responds, and she essentially just says, I am your servant.
SPEAKER_00: God let it be.
SPEAKER_00: Who would believe her story?
SPEAKER_00: She's a young woman in a culture where women are dismissed and devalued and worse.
SPEAKER_00: But if it is true, then this 15-ish year old young girl is pregnant with the long-awaited savior of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine her emotion?
SPEAKER_00: Anxious, nervous, probably just sheer unbelief.
SPEAKER_00: She's excited, but questions spin and promises soar, and what we see here is hope sings and her soul rejoices.
SPEAKER_00: And what we get to see today, and what we get to kind of observe and bring out of this, is the big idea in the womb of promise, the song of a great savior is born.
SPEAKER_00: So as we look at the essence of Mary's song, it's it's a prayer, but it seems like it's it's a prayer to melody, which is super cool.
SPEAKER_00: We first get to consider the song of our own heart.
SPEAKER_00: And so, by way of reflection, I just want to ask us a few questions like what makes your heart sing?
SPEAKER_00: They say you can't be in a bad mood and sing.
SPEAKER_00: I think there are some songs that you probably could sing and be in a bad mood, but like you're not going to sing like joy to the world, like with a pouty face.
SPEAKER_00: That's just really tough.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but but think about your life.
SPEAKER_00: What makes your heart sing?
SPEAKER_00: What gift or what promise shines through the darkness, and it's a it's a blinding light that lets your heart sing?
SPEAKER_00: What leads your heart to leap in prayers of thanks to the Lord, like we see Mary?
SPEAKER_00: Like, like if your life or your heart or your attitude or just kind of the day-to-day reflection, posture of your heart, the expression that you give off to your family, your spouse, your neighbors, your co-workers, fellow students, or whatever.
SPEAKER_00: Like, like what if all of that were a song, what would be the chorus?
SPEAKER_00: Like, what is the song of your heart?
SPEAKER_00: Mary's song is a simple prayer that anchors all of those things and everything else to the promise fulfilled here in the room that she's in and to a promise yet to come as sure as the sun will rise.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what we're gonna do over the next few minutes is we're gonna say, just like, what's the big deal with this great Savior that she's singing about and that she's thanking God for, and she's she's praying about what is the big deal?
SPEAKER_00: And the first thing that we get to see is this He has done great things.
SPEAKER_00: Just write in the text.
SPEAKER_00: It's just so simple.
SPEAKER_00: What is the big deal with this great Savior?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he has done great things.
SPEAKER_00: God has done great things.
SPEAKER_00: Read with me.
SPEAKER_00: I want to start, I'm gonna jump in in verse 45.
SPEAKER_00: Mary and Elizabeth, who's also pregnant, uh, they're they're having some interaction, and Elizabeth's talking to her, and their babies kind of share a moment, and kind of some some cool stuff goes on.
SPEAKER_00: But here we see uh Elizabeth says, and and blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And then Mary responds.
SPEAKER_00: She says, My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.
SPEAKER_00: For he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
SPEAKER_00: For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed, for he who is mighty has done great things for them, uh, has done great things for me, and holy is his name.
SPEAKER_00: So for those outside of the Catholic faith, which I think is us, uh Protestants as it were, we have this habit of downplaying Mary, which is fair.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's fair because she isn't magnificent in her own right.
SPEAKER_00: And we get to learn from her and her response to like humbly submit to the Lord and trust him to do things that seem like wild and crazy.
SPEAKER_00: So we get to look at that, but but in her own right, there's nothing magnificent about Mary, and that's actually the point of this passage.
SPEAKER_00: The point is that he's coming to someone who's not magnificent in any way.
SPEAKER_00: And so here, young Mary seems to be mindful of the impact that this baby is going to have on her position, on her uh her future, on her lot in life.
SPEAKER_00: Like we know this experientially, that babies change things no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: But what we see uh in this baby is this baby will change everything for everyone forever.
SPEAKER_00: And she's telling us, and she's she's praying and praising to the Lord, He has done great things.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what are those things she she tells us in the text?
SPEAKER_00: She says, He has looked upon my humble estate.
SPEAKER_00: Like, what does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: It means that God has seen Mary.
SPEAKER_00: She's mindful that the creator of the universe has acknowledged her.
SPEAKER_00: He knows her name.
SPEAKER_00: That alone is enough to cause any mere human to buckle.
SPEAKER_00: Like, imagine your favorite famous person, author, athlete, singer, Taylor Swift, whatever, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um anybody get tickets?
SPEAKER_00: I'm just I'm just whatever.
SPEAKER_00: So, so imagine that person like like visiting you or showing up and knocking at your door and you look through the and it's like, what?
SPEAKER_00: Like you would want to clean up, and you'd be like, oh, just a second.
SPEAKER_00: You'd be throwing dishes outside and just trying to like, and and you wouldn't want them to see the the you know the junk drawers of your life or or like that one closet that like you like I hope they don't open that up.
SPEAKER_00: You just wouldn't want them to see you.
SPEAKER_00: And yet we're not talking about a celebrity, we're we're talking about the Lord Himself.
SPEAKER_00: And so we would certainly stumble or or whatever and or or hide, but God has seen Mary for who she is, and he's seen each of us for who we are.
SPEAKER_00: Like that is our reality.
SPEAKER_00: God is not looking through a peephole, waiting for us to organize our life, to get our junk together.
SPEAKER_00: He's not doing that.
SPEAKER_00: He he has seen you for who you are, and and that can terrify, and that can humiliate, and that can cause us to do what our our oldest ancestors did, hide behind fig leaves and and shrubs and blame others for what we've done or for who we are or for where we fail.
SPEAKER_00: Or we can come clean, we can stand exposed, we can be completely incomplete, trusting him to be ours, trusting us to be his for who we really are.
SPEAKER_00: There are two types of way uh ways to think about that, and I'll give you two examples of some social media apps that might help, right?
SPEAKER_00: Like Instagram or whatever you want to put in that category is you take a photo and it's the perfect photo, and you might have a hundred photos, but you're really just shooting for one, and it has to have the right like soft focus, and you filter and you filter the filters, and then you overfilter the filters.
SPEAKER_00: But when you don't, you say no filter, but that's because you spent an hour trying to get the right shot, right?
SPEAKER_00: I understand on that.
SPEAKER_00: The other side of that, there's there's an app that my kids are on, and and lots of their friends and lots of my friends.
SPEAKER_00: It's called Be Real.
SPEAKER_00: Are you familiar with this?
SPEAKER_00: If it if it goes off right now, it's fine if you take the photo.
SPEAKER_00: It's totally fine.
SPEAKER_00: I'll do the same thing from up here.
SPEAKER_00: So if if you don't know what be real is, it's it's not like that overfiltered, polished version of your life.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's you're on there and some point throughout the day, every human on the planet at the same time, it will be like uh, hey, it's time to take your photo.
SPEAKER_00: And you have two minutes to take the photo.
SPEAKER_00: So if you're like not doing something cool, which is the majority of your life, like you're just that's just tough because what you do is you you hold your phone up and it takes a photo.
SPEAKER_00: If it went off right now, I would take a photo and it would show you, and it would also take a selfie at the same time and it would show a picture of me.
SPEAKER_00: And like the reality is that you just get to see people doing the really boring stuff, like waiting for trains or like in the line at the grocery, and uh and just everybody just watching Netflix.
SPEAKER_00: You you realize, like, oh, everyone else's life really looks like my.
SPEAKER_00: I thought they were at the beach every single day of every moment, but they're not.
SPEAKER_00: They live the life just like I did.
SPEAKER_00: And so you can see how those two things.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, here's the thing.
SPEAKER_00: One more thing you must know before you get on.
SPEAKER_00: Like, you can post late because sometimes you just can't take a photo in that two minute.
SPEAKER_00: You can post later if you're gonna do something really cool, you're gonna go to a tree lighting or something like that.
SPEAKER_00: Like, ah, I'll just wait and I'll post.
SPEAKER_00: But when it posts, all of your friends can see this that you posted late.
SPEAKER_00: And what that means is you're a fraud, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's all that means.
SPEAKER_00: It's fine.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody knows it, it's fine, but but you see the idea is is we think that we live our life as if it's this overfiltered, polished version, and like the Lord, he he pierces all of that, and he sees us for who we are in the moments that we get to live.
SPEAKER_00: And and we uh we get to see that that God is not like us.
SPEAKER_00: He is otherly and he is majestic and he's perfect and he's righteous, and he's he is the definition of good, he is the definition of justice, and and we are none of those things, and yet it is by the life earned through that, the life of that little baby that's growing inside of Mary's womb, yet to be born, kicking in in young Mary's belly, it's by his life that we can sing the psalm of David without fear, but as beloved sons and daughters of the king, and in the psalm of David in Psalm 139, he says, Search me, O God, know my heart, and see if there's any wicked way in me.
SPEAKER_00: And and and see if there's any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's what we get to do for those who are in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Not to pretend.
SPEAKER_00: You can't pretend, and you can try, and you can be moral and do good things and hope that that uh the the appeal that you have in the community will cover up the dark parts of you.
SPEAKER_00: But before the Lord, none of that stands.
SPEAKER_00: He just looks right through it.
SPEAKER_00: And so we get to come to him by the work of Jesus, and we get to say, God, know me, and would you show me where I'm broken?
SPEAKER_00: And would you lead me into the way everlasting?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the way everlasting, and he has looked upon us in our humble estate, and yet she shows us the second thing that he does that that demonstrates the great things that he's done.
SPEAKER_00: She says, Now all generations will call me blessed.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord has looked upon her and he has seen her, and yet her name is blessed for generations.
SPEAKER_00: And you say, Well, how is that so?
SPEAKER_00: And I would say, because we're talking about her today.
SPEAKER_00: Literally, her name is blessed.
SPEAKER_00: She was right.
SPEAKER_00: Blessed for generations.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not because Mary is great, but it's because her God, her son, her savior is magnificent, and this changes everything for Mary, and this changes everything for me, and this changes everything for you.
SPEAKER_00: It means that in every circumstance, in every situation of life, in the high, in the low, in the rich in the poor, in the good, in the bad, when you're winning, when you're losing.
SPEAKER_00: Every circumstance of life it means this: that we are blessed through generations because Jesus is near.
SPEAKER_00: That's what helps us overcome all of the difficulties of life.
SPEAKER_00: It is that Jesus is near.
SPEAKER_00: This is the essence of the promise that God does great things.
SPEAKER_00: And as one pastor said, God is at work doing a million things in, through, and around you right now.
SPEAKER_00: And you might be aware of three of them.
SPEAKER_00: And what that lets me do is like sigh deeply.
SPEAKER_00: Say, My goodness, God is doing great things.
SPEAKER_00: One example of that, uh, in in his book, Lead, Paul Tripp, he tells the story of uh he's a pastor and writer and other stuff, but he started a school and he said, Man, I did everything.
SPEAKER_00: I I hired the staff and I wrote the bylaws, and like we we did, I was I was a part of every aspect of the school, and we got to a place where it was thriving and things were going well.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, I knew that I wouldn't be there forever, I wouldn't be leading it forever, but but that person to lead after me wasn't there yet.
SPEAKER_00: We were a few years out, and he said, I went to this board meeting and and I got voted out completely out.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I got voted out of the picture.
SPEAKER_00: I was suddenly in a moment, I had nothing to do with the school that I had sunk my life into.
SPEAKER_00: And and this is super encouraging for me.
SPEAKER_00: He he writes in there, and certainly this wasn't his emotions when he left that day.
SPEAKER_00: But as he processed, this is what he says.
SPEAKER_00: He says, All that the school was was a result of God's presence.
SPEAKER_00: There was a central leader, present and active at every point, who had led the school to this point, and that leader was not me.
SPEAKER_00: And for me, man, I anchor all of the stuff that we're talking about in that reality, that it is God's presence, that he is doing great things.
SPEAKER_00: And man, he invites us into those.
SPEAKER_00: And and and maybe he might not invite you into whatever it is that your neighbor is being involved in, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is surely at work, and we get to delight in that.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing we see is he has shown generations of mercy.
SPEAKER_00: In verse 50, it's real simple.
SPEAKER_00: She sings this prayer.
SPEAKER_00: She says, And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
SPEAKER_00: See, Mary knows that when the angel came to her and made these promises, she knows that she's standing on the hope and the promise of lots of voices, lots of prophecies, lots of Old Testament stuff that she's established that any Jew would have established their life.
SPEAKER_00: And she knows that.
SPEAKER_00: She's mindful of that.
SPEAKER_00: That what he's saying is the one who's coming is what Isaiah talked about 700 plus years prior, and he said, For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulders.
SPEAKER_00: And his name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, and of this increase of his government and of his peace, there will be no end on the throne of David and over his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And so she knows that there is so much hope riding on the government will be upon his shoulders, not the other way around.
SPEAKER_00: Could you imagine her beginning to think, like, what does that even mean?
SPEAKER_00: What does this mean for me?
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean for my precious baby?
SPEAKER_00: So much hope, so much pressure.
SPEAKER_00: He he has to be a mighty king to walk in these footsteps.
SPEAKER_00: Not one to take the throne only to be replaced or overtaken by military or by deceit or by a rebellious son who's on the line of the throne.
SPEAKER_00: He must be mighty, and if that's the case, he must be really, really tough.
SPEAKER_00: Because only the toughest of kings maintain rule for a year, for a decade, for a lifetime, let alone for generations or for all time.
SPEAKER_00: And yet the description of this mighty king, this mighty ruler who will last for forever, this description doesn't tell of a ruler who reigns without compassion, or of a ruler who reigns without heart, or without caring, or without consideration of his people and their needs.
SPEAKER_00: He is strong, he's the strongest.
SPEAKER_00: He is mighty, he's the mightiest, but he's full of mercy from generation to generation.
SPEAKER_00: And what Mary sees and what we get to see today is that in Mary's womb is the convergence of all history past and all history future.
SPEAKER_00: It's all the brokenness of earth colliding with all the beauty of heaven from the first day until now, and what we see is his mercy runs over.
SPEAKER_00: In the womb of promise, the song of a great savior is born.
SPEAKER_00: But you wouldn't know it in that moment.
SPEAKER_00: Not in that scene.
SPEAKER_00: There's a scene from a movie, it's called A Knight's Tale.
SPEAKER_00: And in that scene, anybody seen that?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: You should watch it.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I think.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I re I redact that.
SPEAKER_00: In in one of the most emotional scenes in cinematic history, you have this.
SPEAKER_00: This guy, his name is William, and he's like a squire.
SPEAKER_00: Like he and a couple other guys are helping serve a noble guy, uh, a guy who's who's royal, and and they're jousting.
SPEAKER_00: So the whole movie's about jousting, which doesn't seem very exciting, but uh from the very beginning, what we see is is William.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, you know, get up, get up, like the guy's injured, his his guy's injured between the joust, and what we see is the guy dies.
SPEAKER_00: And so William's like, I'm just gonna put on his armor and I'm gonna finish the tournament, and maybe, you know, the three of us we can make a little money and it'll be just fine.
SPEAKER_00: And he does that, and it turns out that William's actually like really good at jousting, uh, at you know, hitting people with the stick uh when he's riding on the horse, right?
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, what is jousting?
SPEAKER_00: So that's what's happening.
SPEAKER_00: Horses are involved, right?
SPEAKER_00: And there's the love story, and there's lots of other things, and this guy looks just like Heath Ledger because he is.
SPEAKER_00: And and and what we see is this guy, they begin to then like to they're like, what if we enter other tournaments?
SPEAKER_00: And like, you know, and so they had to like fake their patents of nobility, which is all a great storyline in and of itself.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, you you get there, and it's not William anymore who's riding on the horse, it's Sir Alrich von Liechtenstein, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so he's defeating people, but there's a love interest, and there's another love interest, and there's a villain, and all this to say.
SPEAKER_00: He interacts with with a royal at some point, Prince Edward, who is like like the real deal, and and no one else, whenever they find out that Prince Edward is lining up against him, they just bow out.
SPEAKER_00: And so Prince Edward, he's showing up to these competitions, but he never gets to joust because everybody finds out that it's him, and they're just like, no, we concede.
SPEAKER_00: But he's there because he wants to do battle, and so William knows that, and he's like, Let's go! Like, let's go, Prince Edward.
SPEAKER_00: We got this, and so Prince Edward's like, Man, thank you so much for for your kindness to me.
SPEAKER_00: So we fast forward to the end, and they tell on him and all kinds of other stuff.
SPEAKER_00: He finds himself in the the sh the stocks, hands bound, he's gonna lose his head.
SPEAKER_00: Because he was a fraud.
SPEAKER_00: He was an imposter, right?
SPEAKER_00: As far as they knew.
SPEAKER_00: And then suddenly from the crowd, there's somebody who had a hood on.
SPEAKER_00: He takes his hood off, and it's lo and behold, it's Prince Edward.
SPEAKER_00: And Prince Edward stands up and he's talking about, man, you you once did a kind service to me, and today, you know, he says, release him.
SPEAKER_00: And everybody's looking around like, what are we, what's going to happen?
SPEAKER_00: And he says, William, take a knee.
SPEAKER_00: And he takes a knee, and then this is what Prince Edward says, which I hope connects in some way to what I've been talking about for 20 minutes, right?
SPEAKER_00: He says, He may appear to be of humble origins.
SPEAKER_00: You see the connection there?
SPEAKER_00: But my personal historians have discovered that he is descendant from an ancient royal line.
SPEAKER_00: This is my word, and as such is beyond contestation.
SPEAKER_00: And he knights him, Sir William.
SPEAKER_00: And it is like and it is an emotional scene because you're like this this guy, and there's lots of other stuff, and you're vested by this point.
SPEAKER_00: But what we see is this baby that that is inside of Mary, he may not seem it.
SPEAKER_00: He may seem like he is of humble origins, but but he's the son of the most high.
SPEAKER_00: Humble origins by choice, royal identity, uh by the nature in which he comes.
SPEAKER_00: And and so he is descended from an ancient royal line.
SPEAKER_00: And for us, we're no royal line in the flesh at all.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know all of you, but I assume that none of you are kings or queens.
SPEAKER_00: I should have asked.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody?
SPEAKER_00: That's fine.
SPEAKER_00: So so for us, no royal line at all in the flesh, and we deserve nothing.
SPEAKER_00: We we don't deserve any of the things that that would befall a royal lineage, but but our God is filled with, and he is fueled by great mercy, and he showers all who fear him.
SPEAKER_00: It is the royal line of mercy which which leaps in Mary's womb, which causes her to sing, and by faith it is his blood which fills our veins, inviting us into the kingdom of mercy.
SPEAKER_00: It is unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00: It is a great paradox.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's a it's a huge flip and it and it doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_00: Rebecca McLaughlin, she helps us in her book Jesus Through the Eyes of Women, she says this about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: She says, from the moment of Jesus' conception, Mary's life was paradoxical.
SPEAKER_00: She had become the mother of the one through whom all things were made.
SPEAKER_00: And if we put our trust in Jesus now, our lives become a paradox as well.
SPEAKER_00: We are the body here on earth of him who made our bodies and our earth.
SPEAKER_00: We are his hands and his feet and his arms and his mouth.
SPEAKER_00: So what we see in that is this is the upside-down kingdom paradox, a mighty king full of mercy.
SPEAKER_00: A mighty king from humble origins.
SPEAKER_00: What we see is because he has shown generations of mercy, and we are those who have received this mercy, we get to show mercy through our minutes and through our moments and through our days and through our weeks and our months and our years and our decades and our lifetime as long as it is, and through our lineage and throughout the generations, so much as depends on the work of our hands and Christ's work in us.
SPEAKER_00: So we get to ask some questions about mercy.
SPEAKER_00: If we receive this great mercy, we get to live a life that reflects that great mercy.
SPEAKER_00: So we get to ask questions.
SPEAKER_00: Where is mercy far from your lips?
SPEAKER_00: Think about today, this morning, this week.
SPEAKER_00: Man, where have the words of your mouth or the meditations of your heart not lived in light of the deep mercy that has already been bestowed on you in Christ?
SPEAKER_00: Who in your heart doesn't deserve that mercy?
SPEAKER_00: Like, is there a person that comes to your mind?
SPEAKER_00: What person, what people are too far out of reach from the generations of mercy that our God has put on display?
SPEAKER_00: And we can sift through those things and be honest about those things.
SPEAKER_00: And we can ask that that by the Spirit, as He reminds us of those things, that He would conform our minds and our hearts to the image of Jesus, who bestows mercy upon mercy upon mercy.
SPEAKER_00: The last thing we see from Mary is is uh in what makes him great, he he has flipped justice.
SPEAKER_00: Any soccer fans in here?
SPEAKER_00: Uh football?
SPEAKER_00: I mean you can be, it's honest, you can raise your hand, it's fine.
SPEAKER_00: None.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_00: I see.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's great.
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's a big uh big tournament going on right now.
SPEAKER_00: And countries involved and you know, lots of things.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Netflix documentaries and stuff, and like all kinds of stuff, right?
SPEAKER_00: Um a few weeks ago when this thing kicked off, uh, there was a team Saudi Saudi Arabia, and they were like the bottom of the barrel, ranked like 51st in the world, not expected to do anything.
SPEAKER_00: And then you have Argentina, Argentina's top three of anyone's pick to win it.
SPEAKER_00: Lionel Messi, anybody heard of him?
SPEAKER_00: Little guy left-footed, really good soccer player, like one of the best that's ever played the game.
SPEAKER_00: And so they're playing each other, and so you just think like it's uh rap, and you know, Saudi Arabia, you know, God bless them, but they they tried, but like whatever.
SPEAKER_00: But what happened was they played.
SPEAKER_00: And 10 minutes in, Messi he gets a penalty kick and he takes it and he scores.
SPEAKER_00: So Argentina, the favored, they're up one.
SPEAKER_00: And I know that you don't like soccer because it's zero to zero for indefinite periods of time.
SPEAKER_00: And what that means is when Messi scored, then like the game was like the game was over, right?
SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't over because later on, Saudi Arabia scored a goal and they tied it up, and you're thinking, wow, like good for them.
SPEAKER_00: Like they gave it a good shot or whatever, but you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Then they scored again.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what happened?
SPEAKER_00: They they beat Argentina.
SPEAKER_00: Now they didn't advance, and Argentina did, and there's some other stuff in there.
SPEAKER_00: But in that moment, like, who doesn't love an underdog?
SPEAKER_00: Man, for you World Cup fanatics out there, Morocco beat Belgium, number two in the world, beat Spain, and yesterday beat Portugal, and so Morocco is in the top four, and no, no one placed that bet.
SPEAKER_00: Like what that does is it just shows us, like, man, you you're rooting for the underdog.
SPEAKER_00: It's why people love the movie, like the this the cinematic trope, like Rocky.
SPEAKER_00: Rocky didn't deserve to win anything, and he and he took a beating, and yeah, and yeah, it's why it's why we're all Bengals fans around here.
SPEAKER_00: And in last year, when they went to the Super Bowl, everyone was just like, I love this because this is just not the way that it is.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's a turnaround if only for a moment.
SPEAKER_00: It's a flipping of status in sports or whatever, but but this is true in life.
SPEAKER_00: That feeling that's inside of us, it paints a picture of these inner longings, and and I'm being serious, of deep longings within us.
SPEAKER_00: That says, like, man, I I want the prideful humbled, and I want the lowly exalted.
SPEAKER_00: And what we see in the kingdom of God, certainly through the life of Jesus, is he does just that.
SPEAKER_00: And he does it time and time.
SPEAKER_00: Again, he flips the status and the absolute beauty in Mary's song and in her in her confession of God's work is that it that it sets up this idea of flipping the status.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read together in uh in Luke 1, I want to start in 51.
SPEAKER_00: He has shown strength with his arm, and he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.
SPEAKER_00: He has brought down the mighty from their thrones, and he exalted those of humble estate.
SPEAKER_00: He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.
SPEAKER_00: 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_00: It sets up the nature of the kingdom, it sets up the ministry of Jesus, and Jesus ends up doing this, doing just this, flipping status.
SPEAKER_00: He does it on every level of social dynamic.
SPEAKER_00: He levels uh dignity across the board, which is our only hope in the gospel, that none of us by our own right get to stand before the Lord at all.
SPEAKER_00: But it's only by his mercy that he gives us.
SPEAKER_00: And so he levels us and he cuts anything that we might try to climb up on morality or or pedigree or good works or any of those things.
SPEAKER_00: He just levels our dignity and he esteems the marginalized.
SPEAKER_00: He validates women and he shares meals with the poor and he breaks down walls of hostility between the religious and the irreligious and he elevates the powerless.
SPEAKER_00: In Luke's gospel alone, it magnifies the upside-down aspect of his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And in the scope of Jesus' life on earth, he flipped justice in a way that no one else ever could, not you, not me, no one.
SPEAKER_00: He took justice into his own hands by taking the sin of the world and receiving its due reward and offering in exchange life, the fullness of life and righteousness to be a part of the family of God today and forever.
SPEAKER_00: And that changes everything.
SPEAKER_00: And if he has flipped justice, if he has leveled the proud and also lifted up the lowly, then we learn a couple things.
SPEAKER_00: One, we learn that in the kingdom of God there's no place for pride in our own works, in our own mercy, in our own justice.
SPEAKER_00: And what we see, we see it true when we look at uh in in business dealings and we see things that shady, and man, I can't believe that that person continues to get to to thrive or succeed or whatever, and and maybe that person's you.
SPEAKER_00: And what I what I want us to know is whether it's your neighbor, whether it's the person that you look at when you look in the mirror, pride will be leveled.
SPEAKER_00: The pride will be toppled over.
SPEAKER_00: And it might show up in a podcast, it might show up in a news story, or it might not happen until the end of your days on this earth.
SPEAKER_00: But it will happen if you build your life around your greatness, that pride will cut you down, and the Lord will stand against you.
SPEAKER_00: But on the flip of that, in the kingdom, we also see that that there's none outside the reach of God's great reversal.
SPEAKER_00: And that means all the stuff that you hear around here, and all the stuff that we sing about, and all of the hope that we're invited into, and all of the share the good news of the gospel to to your coworkers and your neighbors and and and wherever you live and you work and you play and be mindful of this.
SPEAKER_00: What it means is that there's no one outside, there's not a type of person, not a type of human like ah, not them, because they're like a little rough around the edges, but this person, they seem to have it all together.
SPEAKER_00: That must be the one that I want to share the gospel with.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you know that it's actually just the opposite.
SPEAKER_00: That person that that feels like their life is all together is is the one that's least likely to be drawn to believe this hope.
SPEAKER_00: Because they can't get themselves to see that that they don't have it all together, that they might be able to fool everyone in their community, but they cannot fool the Lord Himself.
SPEAKER_00: So in the kingdom, and there's no place for pride, and in the same kingdom, there's none that are outside the reach of his great reversal.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing about prayers like Mary's and music and song.
SPEAKER_00: Uh I would have loved to have heard the melody that's flowing out of Mary's voice here.
SPEAKER_00: But but the thing about prayers and music and song like Mary's is that both must keep a beat.
SPEAKER_00: Like the beauty of a one-hit wonder is is that it's a hit.
SPEAKER_00: But but the downside, like they're awesome, but the downside of it is that they're awesome for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: And then they just uh become annoying and they don't do much for people throughout all time, right?
SPEAKER_00: It isn't a matter of one big prayer for you or for for one moment of awakening, but it's a lifetime of his greatness, of his mercy, of his justice expressed back to God in prayer and in song and the song of our life, and the beat goes on.
SPEAKER_00: In contrast to that, the the beauty of music that's timeless.
SPEAKER_00: And and great bands who release record after record of hits.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's that they don't they don't just show up once or in an old dusty record or a mixtape from 1988 or a streaming playlist, but they change the soundtrack of life.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Mary is showing us.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the Lord is showing us through Mary.
SPEAKER_00: The hook of this passage is that it it sets the beat for the song of life.
SPEAKER_00: It sets the beat for Mary's life, all of life backwards prior to this, and all of life forward, all of Jesus' life from womb to tomb, and all before and all after, from the life that he lived to the new life that he displayed, busting out of the tomb, and from the child reign of the long line of kings to the current and forever reign of Jesus as the Lord of all creation, right now, in this moment, at the right hand of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Man, we see another song in the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: The prophet Zephaniah in chapter three, and again, this is hundreds of years prior to this moment that we're interacting with with Mary.
SPEAKER_00: We see Zephaniah tell us something about the Lord, and this is what we learn.
SPEAKER_00: He says, The Lord your God is in your midst.
SPEAKER_00: He is a mighty one who will save.
SPEAKER_00: And then I want you to listen to what he does over those whom he loves.
SPEAKER_00: He will rejoice over you with gladness.
SPEAKER_00: Look, I don't know what your life brings, but sometimes just that reality alone is tough to behold.
SPEAKER_00: That the Lord Himself will rejoice over me with gladness, not with a scowl.
SPEAKER_00: He will quiet you by his wrath and judgment judgment.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, he will quiet you by his love.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Zephaniah tells us.
SPEAKER_00: And then he goes on, he says, He will exalt over you with loud singing.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord Himself sings over his own.
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine?
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine Mary singing to the Lord here in this passage that we read?
SPEAKER_00: For the great Savior inside of her?
SPEAKER_00: Imagine her singing lullabies to baby Jesus a few months later as she settles into the first Advent, setting up our Advent to come, Savior of the world, swaddled in the quiet of the night.
SPEAKER_00: And can you imagine God Himself holding you present, rejoicing with gladness, quieting you with his love, delighting over you with his song?
SPEAKER_00: What a gift.
SPEAKER_00: And so, uh, what do we do with all that?
SPEAKER_00: Some of you might be saying, that's all well and good, but what do I do?
SPEAKER_00: And so I just want to hit just a couple real quick things that we can do.
SPEAKER_00: How can we live to sing the song of promise?
SPEAKER_00: One, we get to humbly point to God's great name.
SPEAKER_00: Everything that you do is an opportunity for this.
SPEAKER_00: To humbly point to God's great name.
SPEAKER_00: When you win and when you lose, when you rise and when you fall, you have the opportunity to point to his great name.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, we get to live patient, compassionate, merciful lives.
SPEAKER_00: We get to invite the outside in, just as he has done.
SPEAKER_00: We get to invite uh the downcast up, just as he has done, the undeserving near, and we get to do that intentionally, as we steward all that God has given us, and we get to do that in the unexpected, which is a whole lot more difficult sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: And we get to be a voice, we get to be a song of truth and justice to the voiceless, to the weak, to the vulnerable.
SPEAKER_00: See, we have no better teacher, no better example, no better redeemer, no better restorer.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the reality: we look at those things and we say, but isn't that the problem?
SPEAKER_00: I can't do those things.
SPEAKER_00: How do I live out those things?
SPEAKER_00: And so what we get to do is we get to just turn our eyes upon Jesus, adjust our gaze upon him.
SPEAKER_00: We know that we aren't people who do any of those things naturally.
SPEAKER_00: We, in contrast, we rob God of His greatness.
SPEAKER_00: We demand mercy for self and judgment for others when we're at our worst.
SPEAKER_00: Our life songs are dismissive of those who don't advance our own causes.
SPEAKER_00: But not this Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is just the opposite, and here's the beauty.
SPEAKER_00: And by faith, through grace, his life and his way gets to become our life and our way over the course of all the life that we've been given.
SPEAKER_00: So I close all this out with uh a word from Cindy Lou Who, and she says this.
SPEAKER_00: She says, we get together and sing.
SPEAKER_00: It's so beautiful that all of your troubles just go away.
SPEAKER_00: And we know that Cindy Lou Who had some troubles.
SPEAKER_00: Whoville had some troubles, but her emphasis on man, what we get to do as the church, both gathered and scattered, as we get to put our song on display.
SPEAKER_00: We get together and sing, and it's so beautiful that all your troubles just go away.
SPEAKER_00: So so let us sing with all we have, and as we do that, may our lives together make the chorus of his great name.
SPEAKER_00: In the womb of promise, the song of a great savior is born.