SPEAKER_00: For this morning is found in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 1, going back to the Song of Mary, uh in Luke chapter 1, beginning in verse 46, and I do want to encourage you to turn there.
SPEAKER_00: We will spend our our moments this morning studying this passage, considering uh the implications of it.
SPEAKER_00: And you can uh find it if you don't have a Bible with you.
SPEAKER_00: There should be a pew Bible located right there in that shelf in front of you and find it on page 856.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're here and you don't have ready access to a Bible of your own, you don't have one back in your home or apartment that you can read, I'd encourage you to take that Bible home, make it your own, read it and study it, and uh we would love for you to have it as our gift.
SPEAKER_00: So look on as I read in Luke's gospel, Luke chapter one, beginning in verse 46.
SPEAKER_00: It says, 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.
SPEAKER_00: For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed.
SPEAKER_00: For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name, and his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
SPEAKER_00: He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts, he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate.
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: And Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home.
SPEAKER_00: This morning we recognize Mother's Day, an opportunity to remember our moms and those women in our life who uh took the place or took the role of mothers and cared for us.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Wo Woodrow Wilson, a hundred years ago, by an act of Congress, uh, proclaimed the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.
SPEAKER_00: He established the day as a time for public expression of our love and reverence for the mothers of our country.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you've heard this before, but I came across this a while back.
SPEAKER_00: It's it says, What my mother taught me, and uh thinking of some of the lessons that we've learned from our mothers over the years, um, and it says this my mother taught me religion.
SPEAKER_00: When I spilled grape juice on the carpet, she instructed, you better pray the stain will come out.
SPEAKER_00: My mother taught me logic from her decisive words.
SPEAKER_00: Because I said so, that's why.
SPEAKER_00: My mother taught me foresight.
SPEAKER_00: Make sure you wear clean underwear in case you're in an accident.
SPEAKER_00: My mother taught me irony.
SPEAKER_00: Keep laughing, and I'll give you something to cry about.
SPEAKER_00: My mother taught me about stamina.
SPEAKER_00: You sit there until all your spinach is finished.
SPEAKER_00: My mother taught me about weather.
SPEAKER_00: It looks as if a tornado has gone through your room.
SPEAKER_00: My mother taught me about the circle of life.
SPEAKER_00: I brought you into this world and I can take you out.
SPEAKER_00: My mother taught me about behavior modification.
SPEAKER_00: Stop acting like your father.
SPEAKER_00: My mother taught me about envy.
SPEAKER_00: There are millions of less fortunate children in the world who don't have a wonderful mom like you.
SPEAKER_00: Mother's Day is a great time of rejoicing, but for some, uh we recognize that uh for some it's not a time of rejoicing.
SPEAKER_00: Perhaps uh you have recently lost your mother, or the day uh brings back fond memories.
SPEAKER_00: For some, you may be estranged from your mother or your children, and this time brings back painful experiences.
SPEAKER_00: Uh perhaps you were orphaned and grew up in foster homes.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't know what it was like to have a loving mother.
SPEAKER_00: Some are reminded of the pain of wanting children and not being able to have children of your own.
SPEAKER_00: God does offer comfort and healing in these situations.
SPEAKER_00: And yet it's uh good to take time to honor those women in our lives that God has placed that have given us nurture and care.
SPEAKER_00: And so uh this morning we set aside to uh to honor our mothers, and it's good to remember.
SPEAKER_00: Uh the Bible tells us to honor our father and mother, and one of the ways we do that is by thanking God and remembering uh the good gifts that God has given.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, beyond that, it's a time to honor the surrogate mothers in our lives: uh grandmothers and aunts and sisters and Sunday school teachers and nursery workers and children's church leaders, awana leaders, school teachers.
SPEAKER_00: God has placed in our lives many times those women who have filled the role of a mother to us.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, as I was thinking about it, my mind went back to a lady in my first church that I was a pastor at for a couple years.
SPEAKER_00: And when I first got there, fresh out of college, I hadn't gone to seminary yet, uh, knew nothing about pastoral ministry, and there was an elderly retired couple, George and Helen Constance.
SPEAKER_00: And Helen Constance was uh uh they were they were retired missionaries from South America.
SPEAKER_00: And and Helen was uh about 4'10, 4'11.
SPEAKER_00: Uh George, her husband, was 6'4.
SPEAKER_00: And and when I walked in there, insecure about ministry, insecure about about life, uh, Helen came up and just loved on me.
SPEAKER_00: She would, every time she saw me, I saw this beam on her face, this glow, and she would just smile and walk up to me and say, I'm praying for you.
SPEAKER_00: I am praying for you.
SPEAKER_00: I believe in you.
SPEAKER_00: God is going to do things in your life.
SPEAKER_00: She would come up and give me a hug.
SPEAKER_00: She was my she was my my little four foot ten cheerleader in ministry.
SPEAKER_00: And and even to this day, 22 years later, I remember this woman who just loved me and cared for me when I was away from family and friends in a completely different environment.
SPEAKER_00: I I knew no one, and yet I knew when I walked through those doors that there was going to be Helen Constance there, smiling, welcoming, greeting me, caring for me, loving me.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the role that uh that you can have in other people's lives, and and as a surrogate mother for those who are away, or maybe uh never had a good relationship with their own mothers, or uh maybe have lost their mother, or or you can have an opportunity to pour in to uh to a young young pastor who uh is just learning the ropes and is completely insecure about everything in life.
SPEAKER_00: And so this morning I want us to consider uh the the uh the gift of mothers and look at the characteristics of of uh mothers and look at one of uh the greatest women, the greatest, one of the greatest women in history.
SPEAKER_00: One of the finest examples of God's grace uh recorded in Holy Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And uh I'm thinking of Mary, uh the mother of our Lord Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We have many examples of of godly men or men that God has used in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: We look at their examples, we see uh that uh that that they are fallen, flawed creatures, we see the good and the bad, we see though uh the hand of God's grace using them uh to move redemption history forward, using them uh to uh to impact the world.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we think of Abraham, the father of faith.
SPEAKER_00: He believed God, it says, and it was counted to him as righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Uh he's an example of God's grace and and his response in faith.
SPEAKER_00: And uh we we see him as the as the uh the father of many nations, the one through whom Jesus came.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we think of Moses, whom the Bible tells us was the most humble man that ever lived.
SPEAKER_00: By God's grace, uh he delivered the people out of Egypt and preserved them through discouragement and rebellion.
SPEAKER_00: That Moses was a man who was the deliverer, and that a greater Moses would come in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We think of King David, the great king, who was called a man after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_00: Um we look at the life of King David, and we know that even though he was this man that uh that he sinned uh and yet God worked in his life, he turned back to God and God used him in the establishment of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: We think of Solomon, who was the wisest man in the Old Testament, who in his young life chose wisdom over riches and fame, and God blessed him, and for many years uh God was with him.
SPEAKER_00: We think of people like Isaiah and Elijah and Jeremiah, the prophets, that uh that God used to communicate his truth.
SPEAKER_00: They took their stand with God against evil and compromise and sin.
SPEAKER_00: We consider Daniel, who continued to pray even though he knew it might mean death.
SPEAKER_00: He bravely entrusted himself to God when thrown into the den of lions.
SPEAKER_00: In the New Testament, we look at the apostles and we see their example.
SPEAKER_00: We see God's grace in their lives.
SPEAKER_00: We think of the Apostle Paul, for instance, who preached the gospel in the midst of persecution and expanded uh the gospel to new areas.
SPEAKER_00: We think of uh John the apostle and others.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible doesn't give us the full story of their lives.
SPEAKER_00: If tradition holds true, uh most of the apostles suffered a martyr's death.
SPEAKER_00: We have all these testimonies of faith.
SPEAKER_00: They're testimonies really of God's faithfulness, of God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: We don't look at them to honor them, we look at them as a recognition of what God can do through fallen people by his grace.
SPEAKER_00: And I've mentioned this before, but it's worth repeating.
SPEAKER_00: I have to admit that for a number of years uh I would have struggled to put Mary on this list.
SPEAKER_00: I had some biases that I had to overcome.
SPEAKER_00: And let me just share them with you.
SPEAKER_00: I grew up Roman Catholic, where the person of Mary was over-emphasized.
SPEAKER_00: I was taught that Mary was born without original sin.
SPEAKER_00: I was taught that she was perpetually a virgin, that she died and that she bodily arose and ascended into heaven.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I was taught when I was a child.
SPEAKER_00: I was encouraged to offer prayers to Mary.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, uh they called her another mediator, a mediatrix, uh being a mediator like Mary, or like being a mediator uh like Jesus, that she could intercede to Jesus and the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Now, technically, I the Catholic Church doesn't teach the worship of Mary, uh, but they do teach to venerate Mary, to lift her up in such a way that in practical terms it seemed like worship.
SPEAKER_00: And after I accepted Christ, I became acquainted with the New Testament and learned that these ideas aren't found in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Uh in fact, uh in 1 Timothy 2.5, it says, For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, that there is uh there is one mediator, and that mediator is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so I had a reaction in my young Christian life away from even looking at or considering uh God's grace in Mary's life and what we could learn from her.
SPEAKER_00: I was very uh quick to look at Abraham or Moses or David, but very slow to consider uh Mary as an example of God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: But Mary had a special role in redemption history, being chosen to be the human mother of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It was by God's grace that she was chosen.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't because of inherent virtue in her, but God's grace was at work powerfully in her and had prepared her to be the person that would bring Jesus into this world.
SPEAKER_00: She was a godly woman of faith.
SPEAKER_00: And even as we look at this uh song that she sang, keep in mind that this young woman of perhaps 15 or 16 years old when she gave birth to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And we find these words in uh Luke's gospel, this this song of praise.
SPEAKER_00: And this morning, as we look at at faith and we look at the faith of a godly woman, as we look at this example that we find here, uh there are lessons that we can learn for our own lives.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want us to walk through this passage again of Mary's song, The Magnificat, and uh to see what we can learn from her, from what God did in her life, and from her testimony of God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to look at uh three examples in Mary that we find here in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is found in verses 46 through 48, and that is Mary in Mary we see an example of humble gratitude.
SPEAKER_00: Look again at verses 46 through 48, and let me read them.
SPEAKER_00: Refresh our memories.
SPEAKER_00: It says, 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, for behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed.
SPEAKER_00: Mary was humble in worship, humble in adoration.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what uh she says here.
SPEAKER_00: She says that it is her heart's desire.
SPEAKER_00: It says, My soul magnifies the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what does it mean to magnify or glorify God?
SPEAKER_00: How do we glorify God?
SPEAKER_00: Uh Mary knew that God is great.
SPEAKER_00: Mary knew that he is beautiful beyond description, that his glory fills the heavens and the earth.
SPEAKER_00: There is nothing that we can do to increase the glory that God already possesses.
SPEAKER_00: God already possesses all glory.
SPEAKER_00: He is inherently glorious.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing that we can do adds to the glory he possesses.
SPEAKER_00: We don't increase the amount of glory that he has.
SPEAKER_00: Um, if we could, that would mean that in some way his glory was deficient until we added to it.
SPEAKER_00: And so we don't add to uh the glory that God possesses when we magnify him, when we glorify him.
SPEAKER_00: So, what does it mean to glorify or magnify God?
SPEAKER_00: When we glorify God, we don't increase the amount of glory that he has.
SPEAKER_00: To glorify God is to make his glory known.
SPEAKER_00: His glory does not increase as we glorify him, the knowledge of his glory increases.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we live lives pleasing to God, when we honor God with our words, with our lives, with our uh with our relationships, when we testify of God's goodness, uh, what we do is make his glory known.
SPEAKER_00: We enable people to see more clearly and fully who this God is that we worship.
SPEAKER_00: The knowledge of his glory increases, and by the things we express in our lives and our words, we make God's glory known.
SPEAKER_00: We draw attention to what is already in existence by how we live our lives and the worship we offer.
SPEAKER_00: Our lives become a prism through which God's glory is seen in all of its manifold splendor.
SPEAKER_00: In a sense, we put a magnifying glass on God so that people can focus on him and see him more clearly.
SPEAKER_00: We show the expanse of God's glory by testifying of him.
SPEAKER_00: And so to glorify God, when we glorify him, what we are doing is we are making God more clearly seen for who he is.
SPEAKER_00: So often in our own lives and the lives of others, the glory of God and his goodness and his mercy and his holiness and his grace is obscured by sin, by sin in our own hearts, in our own minds, in our understanding, by false ideas of who God is and distorted pictures.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we testify of God, when we when we magnify the Lord, as it says here, we make his glory known.
SPEAKER_00: And so we see here in the beginning words of this song of Mary's heart that her desire is to glorify God, is to magnify him, to make him known.
SPEAKER_00: And we see here that first of all, Mary is humbled by grace.
SPEAKER_00: One author says, God owes her nothing, she owes God everything.
SPEAKER_00: All good things that uh that come from his hand are acts of grace.
SPEAKER_00: Notice what she says in verse 47 My soul rejoices in God, my Savior.
SPEAKER_00: Mary is humbled by grace.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that Mary says here is she recognizes God as her savior.
SPEAKER_00: Why does she do that?
SPEAKER_00: She does that because she recognizes that she's a sinner in need of saving.
SPEAKER_00: She recognizes her own sinfulness, her own fallenness, her own inherent separateness from God because of who she is, because of the fact that she is a daughter of Adam.
SPEAKER_00: And so she realizes that she needs someone to rescue her.
SPEAKER_00: She's humbled by God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: She recognizes that she is where she is because of the grace of God, that he is her savior.
SPEAKER_00: That everything in her life was a demonstration of God's grace, and that's a good place for us to be.
SPEAKER_00: We should be in awe every morning when we wake up that we have a relationship with the living God, that the God of this universe would deign to enter into humanity in the person.
SPEAKER_00: Of Christ to save you and me, to pay the penalty for our sins.
SPEAKER_00: It should make us stand in awe and wonder that we have a relationship with God, that He is our Savior.
SPEAKER_00: And we do that by both seeing the goodness and the holiness of God, but also seeing the reality of our sinfulness and how we deserve nothing.
SPEAKER_00: And God gave us his son, and with his son gives us all things, so that we might glorify him.
SPEAKER_00: Our lives are lived by God's grace.
SPEAKER_00: And we see this in Mary's word.
SPEAKER_00: She was humbled by grace.
SPEAKER_00: She said, God, my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.
SPEAKER_00: Everything in her life flowed from the reality that God had rescued her.
SPEAKER_00: There's a second example that we see in the next verses, in verses 49 and 50.
SPEAKER_00: That we see, secondly, in Mary, we see an example of joyful adoration.
SPEAKER_00: And really, in some ways, this is an expansion of what we've already talked about, but let's look at some of the things that she adored God for.
SPEAKER_00: It says in verses 49 and 50, for he who is mighty has done great things for me.
SPEAKER_00: And holy is his name, and his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
SPEAKER_00: Mary's worship, her adoration in this song focused on the greatness of God.
SPEAKER_00: While she was carrying Jesus in her womb, she had many hours to contemplate who God is.
SPEAKER_00: She praises God for who he is.
SPEAKER_00: She calls God, she says, God who is mighty, that God is the mighty one.
SPEAKER_00: Here is Mary, this young girl, this virgin woman, who is found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: This incredible miracle that defies our ability to fully comprehend.
SPEAKER_00: She knew that God was the mighty one who could do all things.
SPEAKER_00: That all things were possible with God.
SPEAKER_00: And within her womb was the living reality of the power of God to accomplish what is, from our perspective, impossible.
SPEAKER_00: That God is the mighty one.
SPEAKER_00: And it is good for us to remember who God is.
SPEAKER_00: We live oftentimes in fear.
SPEAKER_00: Fear of the future, fear of the present, fear of circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: We live in uncertainty.
SPEAKER_00: And it's good for us to remember that God is the mighty one, that he has done great things, he is doing great things, and we have every confidence that he will continue because of who he is, that his hand is not shortened, that he cannot work.
SPEAKER_00: And so Mary praises God, the mighty one.
SPEAKER_00: She says, holy is his name.
SPEAKER_00: That he is holy.
SPEAKER_00: Mary recognizes God's holiness, that God is high and lifted up, that he is absolutely righteous and pure, that he is a cut above, that he is separated from us.
SPEAKER_00: There's a beauty and a reverence to Mary's song.
SPEAKER_00: She's careful to give God the worship due to his name and adore God and the beauty of his holiness.
SPEAKER_00: And again, as we look at this song, as we think of the words, as Mary breaks into song, breaks into adoration and praise here, that she recognizes the holiness of God, the beauty of his holiness.
SPEAKER_00: And it's important for us to hold that reality close to our hearts as well.
SPEAKER_00: That the God of this universe is pure and righteous and set apart.
SPEAKER_00: We come to God knowing that we can come with confidence through Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We know that because we have been forgiven of our sins, we've been clothed with the righteousness of Christ, we can come boldly and confidently before the throne of grace.
SPEAKER_00: We know that we dwell in God's presence continuously.
SPEAKER_00: We have a relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: And yet we recognize that God is close, but we have to be careful that we're never cavalier with God.
SPEAKER_00: God is the holy one.
SPEAKER_00: He is high and lifted up.
SPEAKER_00: He is holy, his name is holy.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in his holiness, it is brought to the superlative in Isaiah chapter 6, when the angels cry out, holy, holy, holy, that he is merciful, she says next.
SPEAKER_00: That he is uh that he has shown mercy.
SPEAKER_00: His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.
SPEAKER_00: Mary reflects on the mercy of God.
SPEAKER_00: Mercy is uh, we often say, and I think it's more than this, we we often say grace is God giving us what we don't deserve, and mercy is God not giving us what we do deserve.
SPEAKER_00: And there that is an element of mercy, but mercy is more than that.
SPEAKER_00: Mercy is having pity on the poor and powerless and showing compassion.
SPEAKER_00: And God has compassion on the poor and the powerless, the needy, which is all of us.
SPEAKER_00: We deserve justice, we deserve to answer for our sins, but but Jesus paid the penalty, and instead of justice, God gave us mercy.
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's one final example, and I want to close with this, uh, that we see in Mary, and that is a confident hope.
SPEAKER_00: A confident hope.
SPEAKER_00: In verses 41 through or 51 through 56, uh, Mary says these statements about God.
SPEAKER_00: And if you would look at the passage, notice that everything she says is in the past tense.
SPEAKER_00: He has shown strength, he has scattered, he has brought down, he has filled the hungry, he has helped his servant, he spoke to our fathers.
SPEAKER_00: But what's amazing about what Mary says here is these things she says are things that haven't happened yet in their fullness.
SPEAKER_00: They're things that are still going to happen, they are future events, and yet Mary speaks of them in the past tense.
SPEAKER_00: How can she do that?
SPEAKER_00: How can she speak of something that hasn't happened yet and yet talk about it as if it has already happened?
SPEAKER_00: She can because as she looks at what God says he's going to do, she is so certain of the reality of what God is going to do that she can treat it as if it is a completed fact.
SPEAKER_00: She is so confident in God and what he said that she can consider these things as already have happened.
SPEAKER_00: We see here in the example of Mary an example of confident hope.
SPEAKER_00: She trusted in God's sovereign power to fulfill his word and do what he has promised.
SPEAKER_00: She didn't understand all that God was doing in her life.
SPEAKER_00: She didn't understand everything that was going to take place.
SPEAKER_00: She didn't understand all that God would accomplish through the child that she was carrying, but she knew that God was faithful and that he would do what he had said.
SPEAKER_00: Mary was just a young girl who was faithful to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: She didn't have all the answers, but she had faith that is an encouragement to us.
SPEAKER_00: In our from our perspective, that so often seems uh out of control.
SPEAKER_00: That we need to remember that God will do what he has said.
SPEAKER_00: Hope is future faith, as one author said.
SPEAKER_00: Hope is a confident assurance of a future reality.
SPEAKER_00: A confident assurance of a future reality.
SPEAKER_00: We have faith in the present, we have hope in the future, hope is future faith.
SPEAKER_00: And future faith is believing and trusting that God will do what he has said he's going to do.
SPEAKER_00: And so for us, as we live this life, we are remember, we are reminded of the promises of God.
SPEAKER_00: And we have hope, we have faith, we have confidence.
SPEAKER_00: And we see that reflected in the life of God's servant here.
SPEAKER_00: There's a story about four preachers discussing their favorite translations of the Bible, and the first one said, I like the King James Version because of its beautiful, eloquent English.
SPEAKER_00: Another said, I like the New American Standard Version because it's closer to the original Greek and Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: A third one replied, I like the Good News Version because it's so easy to read.
SPEAKER_00: The fourth minister was silent for a moment, then said, I like my mother's translation best.
SPEAKER_00: And the other three were surprised.
SPEAKER_00: They said, I didn't know your mother made a translation of the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, he replied, she translated it into everyday life.
SPEAKER_00: And it was the most beautiful and con and convincing translation I ever saw.
SPEAKER_00: If a child lives with criticism, he'll learn to condemn.
SPEAKER_00: If a child lives with hostility, he will learn to fight.
SPEAKER_00: If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy.
SPEAKER_00: If a child lives with shame, he learns to feel guilty.
SPEAKER_00: If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient.
SPEAKER_00: If a child lives with encouragement, he learns confidence.
SPEAKER_00: If a child lives with praise, he learns to appreciate.
SPEAKER_00: One author wrote.
SPEAKER_00: You've been a great blessing and demonstration of God's grace to us, and may we all be a living epistle, a demonstration of God's grace to those around us.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Father God, we thank you for the godly examples that you have put in our life of role models, of grace and of mercy.
SPEAKER_00: And we thank you for your goodness for those people.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, may we too be a living epistle, an example of your grace and your goodness to those around us.
SPEAKER_00: We pray in Christ's name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: For the beauty of the earth, let's stand and sing.