Good morning. Welcome. We're excited to be here as always. Is the microphone working? Can you hear me? Just to get that out of the way. Everybody good? Okay. And hopefully those who are listening online, we're trying to remedy the audio issue that has been ongoing. So we're trusting that we're getting closer to a solution to that. Anyway, good to be here today. If you would, open your copy of the scriptures to Luke's Gospel, Chapter 1, and if you would follow as I read, verses 46 through 56, and this is what we often refer to as Mary's magnificat, her prayer of praise, a beautiful prayer, and we'll be looking at these scriptures today. So starting in Luke chapter one, verse 46, following as I read, and Mary said, my soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior. For he has regarded the lowly state of his maidservant. For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed. For he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever. this is the word of the Lord let's pray together what a blessing it is to be here to be a part of your people to sing praises to your holy name to rejoice in this season we pray father that today we would see how that in the process of you extending your grace to Mary you exalted her but of course you exalted and magnified your own name, the name of Jesus. We pray, Father, that we would see the lowliness and the brokenness and the contrite heart that comes in process with a true heart full of faith and repentance. We give you praise this day as we look at your holy word in the name of Jesus, amen. This little passage is quite powerful. It's poetic, it's deep, It defines the praise of a lowly and humble heart to God. A praise of a dear saint, Mary, the mother of Jesus. And it's showered in the same way that Mary found favor with God. We ourselves will find that in the saving grace that God gives to us, we have the same blessedness. the same grace of God bestowed upon us. Sometimes we hear that word and we think very little of it. Grace, grace, grace, it's repeated a lot. But what is grace? What is grace? Grace is defined as God's goodness toward those who deserve only punishment. That's rudum. Charles Spurgeon said this, grace is the free favor of God, the undeserved bounty of the ever gracious creator, the generous part and the infinite spontaneous loving kindness of a God who is love. And R.C. Sproul wrote, grace is not something God owes us. It's something freely given to those who are undeserving. God's grace is a gift. It exudes from his goodness. If you have become a believer in Christ, you have had God's grace poured out upon you. It wasn't grace that came up from you. It wasn't within you. It's God's grace to you. And he gives that grace. and to us he gives it in such abundance without measure. Now there is such a thing as common grace. This may be unfamiliar to some of you, but common grace is a grace that God gives in kindness to all people. We do see it exhibited in life if we look about us in the physical realm. We see that God's grace ensures that the earth produces substance, I know my niece is here today, and they have goats. Even an unbeliever, every year those goats have little goats, and it keeps on going, right? And that's a part of God's common grace. The farmers in the field, the crops that come up. In the intellectual realm, common grace is seen. God allows humans, including unbelievers, to understand truth and to develop knowledge. Technology, some of us are very thankful for that, because our jobs depend on it. And we see scientific discoveries. In the moral realm, God keeps sinfulness at bay. This is a part of his common grace. Part of the Imago Dei. The image of God built into man involves this conscience that's there. It's broken. It's not redeemed, but within all moral creatures, there is some aspect that restrains sinfulness from being as bad as it could be. The world's not as bad as it could be. By the way, common grace is also something where God doesn't immediately bring his wrath and judgment upon all people. They're stayed, his hand is stayed as he does his work of rejection. So in creation we see it, in the societal realm we see it, in beauty and art and music. We see God's common grace. But there's something more that the believer has. The believer in Christ has a special grace. It doesn't mean God has two different aspects of grace within himself. What it means is that God's grace manifests itself in the world in two different ways. There's grace goodness that goes upon all people, but there is a special saving grace that is linked specifically to the atoning work of Christ. It's grace that is salvific, It's grace that's given to, not to unbelievers, but just believers. Its source directly flows from his atoning work. Christ's death earned that measure of grace. This is what it is when a true person, a true believer comes to Christ. Remember that's that work that God does, right? When you become a believer in Christ, It's not you saying, I did this, I believe, therefore I am saved. It's, I am saved because God changed me. He created in me a new heart. So when you stand before the throne of grace someday, the answer that you give, perhaps, if the Lord was to say, why should I allow you into my kingdom? It's not because of what you have done, it's got to be all of Him, all of grace, all of God, all of His work. This is special, it's saving grace. Now I want to take a little bit of time today as we work on the context of Mary's prayer, and we'll spend a little bit of time kind of unraveling it in three parts. We'll see Mary's personal prayer, things that were very personal to her, the first part of her prayer. And we'll see these general directives that she makes about everybody. And then we'll see how she has a part of her prayer that's big picture, it's covenantal, it's testamental. Beautiful little excerpt. But let's build the context. So turn with me, if you will, to the beginning of Luke. It's probably right in the same area that you were at, Luke chapter one, let's just, first of all, who is this guy Luke? Who's Luke and what's he doing? Well, we were able to see this in some of our studies in the recent weeks where we've noticed how Peter had a team that worked with him and Paul had a team and it just so happened Luke was a part of Paul's team. And in many ways, he was one who, though he was not a Jewish person. His name is Greek, or he was culturally part of the Roman Empire, not a Gentile, we'll say. He was one of Paul's traveling companions, and I just love the way he says this, so I wanted to read these words. Look at verse one through four. It says, here's Luke's own words. Inasmuch as many have taken in hand to set in order a narrative of those things which have been fulfilled among us, Just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having had perfect understanding of all things, from the very first to write to you an orderly account, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed." So here's Luke, and he's giving another iteration of the gospel. We had the synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, that cover basically the same thing, maybe to a different crowd. We think Mark was directed more towards the Romans. Remember, Mark worked with Peter quite a bit, probably wrote the gospel of Mark, having talked to Peter. Luke did his research as a physician, and he goes through and he writes a gospel, probably geared more to the Greek mind. Matthew probably geared more to the Hebrew mind, by the way. John is a little different creature. John happens a little later, he's more theological, and he's battling against ideas that were infiltrating the church, heresies. So he's theological, he establishes, in the beginning was a word, and that, so on. So here's Luke, he's giving this account. And this is a beautiful narrative. He calls it that. So you hear me use that word narrative sometimes? All the narratives of the scripture. I love the narratives. All those are stories. Aren't you glad the Bible tells stories? You know, we learn from stories. And in our Christian education, children learn from stories, and stories have theological implications. I'm so glad for the many stories of the Scripture. How often is it that when you're listening to a preacher and you're zoning him out, that the moment they tell a story, boom, oh, I'm back. Do you think the Lord knew that too? Absolutely, so much of his ministry was he told parables, he told little proverbs and beautiful little things. But this narrative is a beautiful narrative. Now Luke's gospel as it proceeds, we're gonna jump a few verses, I'll summarize. We first see the Lord coming and establishing the story with Elizabeth and Zacharias and John the Baptist. but I'd like to jump in at verse 26 and capture the background of Mary. Now we can't do this often enough, I don't think, read through these. I know we limit our Christmas messages to Christmastime. That's probably hardly appropriate, but we'll get what we can in these short excerpts. Starting at verse 26 and following as I read, we're again looking at Mary and her encounter with Gabriel. Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth. To a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David, the virgin's name, was Mary. Okay, here's Mary, a young virgin, a unwed daughter of someone in Nazareth. We don't know the exact details of Mary's upbringing, but we know that she was way up in the north country. Nazareth was the area of Galilee, the outcast, you know, the country area, okay? We know that Mary was probably, was of the house of David, not probably. so she had a lineage that was of David. David was of the tribe of what? What was the tribe of David? Judah, okay. Now, the angel came and said to her, this is verse 28, and I'll read it from two translations here. He says, rejoice, highly favored one. The Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women. The old King James says this, and the angel came unto her and said, Hail, thou that art highly favored. The Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women. Very similar, but you get a little bit of that language that went into what ultimately became a perversion of Mary, and the idea that became the Hail Mary, if you will, a mantra that's stated in order to get some sort of an intercessory forgiveness from Mary herself. And we'll dig into that a little later, but in that verse 28, it says, rejoice, highly favored one. That is the word for basically saying rejoice You who have been given grace, okay? It's the word for grace found within it. You have had grace bestowed upon you. Again, Mary didn't have grace coming out from her, from within herself. God bestows his grace upon her. Verse 29, when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying and considered what manner of greeting this was. And the angel said to her, don't be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. Again, for emphasis sake, you have found, God has given you, it's kind of a passive component. It's like she's being acted upon. God has put his grace upon you. So God favors her, shows grace, in verse 31 it says, and behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the son of the highest. And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David. and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever over his kingdom, there will be no end. This comes into play, by the way, a little bit later, but notice what Gabriel says to her about Christ. He doesn't hold back, he gives the full picture. This is Jesus, he's the son of the highest, the Lord God will give him the throne of David and give him an everlasting kingdom that he'll rule forever. Right, so there's very deep, it's theological, it's profound. Then Mary said, how can this be, since I don't know a man? She was, again, betrothed. In the betrothal process, she wasn't living with Joseph. She wouldn't, therefore, expect, in any normal biological sense, to be or to have a child. The angel said, in verse 35, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the highest will overshadow you. Therefore also, that holy one is to be born, will be called the Son of God. Now indeed, Elizabeth, your relative, is also conceived a son in her old age, and this is now the sixth month for her, who was called barren, for with God, nothing is impossible. Then Mary says an amazing statement. She says, behold, the maid servant of the Lord. That's the female word for slave, okay? Dule, not Dulos. It's like, I'm your servant, Lord. I'm your servant. Let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her. Now Mary arose in those days and went to the hill country, this is verse 39, with haste to the city of Judah and entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. And it happened when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary that the babe leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, blessed are you among women, blessed is the fruit of your womb. But why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For indeed, as soon as the voice of your greeting sounded in my ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy. Blessed is she, speaking of Mary, who believed. For there will be a fulfillment of those things which were told from the Lord. So we've set up this context. And you can see how beautiful, Luke is, again, all of New Testament writers had their own strengths and weaknesses, and he's just building up this narrative in such a powerful way. It is on that context that the expression of her praise comes forth. And this praise is coming because why? because God, in a special, saving, salvific way, bestowed His grace upon her. This is not common grace, is it? It's linked with the very Redeemer. The grace of God is given to her. Now, we believe, of course, Mary was a believer, right? We know that. She was a woman who had trusted in the Lord. The righteousness of faith was a part of her life, her upbringing. You might say, well, wait a minute. This is before Jesus. Yes, people in the Old Testament still had faith and still had righteousness. How did it work? Just like it did with Abraham, remember, in Romans 4? Abraham believed God, and what? It was credited to him for righteousness. Righteousness has always been given by faith. There was never a time where somebody could earn righteousness. It couldn't be done. Never. Sometimes we get confused and we think, well, in the Old Testament maybe it worked that way, but it didn't. God's righteousness has always been given by faith. Faith, I remember when I was a child, we used to sing a song in Sunday school. It was pretty profound. Faith is just believing what God says he will do, right? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him for righteousness. We believe what the Lord has said concerning his son, Jesus Christ. He is the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father but by Him. His righteousness, how is it given to us? It's the righteousness of faith. Now, I love this prayer, and we'll spend most of our time on the first part of her praise, and then we'll talk a little bit about the last two points. The praise of this lowly, humble heart has been showered with God's saving grace. Shown in personal praise to God's special grace, Mary makes several. phrases. The first part is very personal, the second part is declarative, and the third part is big picture. So let's talk about Mary's personal praise, how God's saving and special grace impacted her personally. And by the way, her praise is no different than the praise that you and I have for our God and our Redeemer. If you are a child of the King, God has bestowed his grace upon you. He's favored you. He's been merciful to you. Your heart should cry out like Mary's heart cries out. Notice Mary in verse 46. And Mary says, my soul magnifies the Lord. My soul magnifies the Lord. It's a very interesting word. It kind of sounds like it looks. Megaluno, it means to make great, increase, enlarge. She cries out, this is, by the way, why this prayer is called her magnificat. She's making large, God, she's saying, Lord, my soul, the innermost part of my being rejoices in what you have done for me. We magnify the Lord, don't we? when we have been cognizant and aware of the great gulf that we've overcome to reach the righteousness of Christ. Doesn't that just cause you to cry out like Mary? My Lord, my God, you've magnified in my soul. And notice, and my spirit has rejoiced in God. What does it say? God, my Savior. Wait a minute. Mary had need of a Savior, too. She rejoices in the child and in God as her Redeemer. She was in need of deliverance. We rejoice in Him as Savior in the light of His saving grace. Just like Mary did, so We rejoice in his deliverance for us. What was Mary saved from? What was she delivered from? It's her sin. In Matthew's account, it's amazing. When the angel talks to Joseph, the words that he uses to Joseph are this. He says, and she will bring forth a son. You will call his name Jesus. and He will save His people from their sins. Mary certainly had a tremendous blessing. She would be the mother of the Lord God, the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. But in that process, she was in need of a Redeemer. She rejoices in it. God is her redeemer. Notice, she uses the language of scripture, if you read through verses 46 to 56, in her praise, it's not like, you know, when we start out and we're younger as a Christian, and we just pray, and we pray in the most innocent way, that is precious, it's beautiful, there's nothing wrong with that. And as we grow, right, we're in the word more, Like, even today, Psalm 51 that we read, create in me a clean heart, oh God. Don't you find yourself praying the words of God, right? Those words that we read in the scripture, they become meditations of our heart. Her praise here, by the way, is loaded with allusions to scripture. I won't even go through them all. I don't think we have time. Her prayer mimics Hannah's prayer in the Old Testament. Hannah would say, my heart exalts in the Lord. My horn is exalted in the Lord. Mary, my soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit has rejoiced in God, my Savior. In the Psalms, we read, my soul makes its boast in the Lord. Let the humble hear and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me. Mary says almost the same in verses 46 and 47. One of the Psalms says, the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him. In verse 50, Mary says, and his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. We don't need to go through all of these. I have a whole page. Mary was a woman. For whatever age she was, we don't know, by the way. I've listened to quite a few sermons on this, and as I'm going through the week and I'm driving, I like to pull up a sermon or read through various commentaries. A lot of people conjecture, oh, Mary was such and such an age. We don't really know what age she was. She was of a marriageable age. That's what we know. A lot of times we speculate, you'll hear that in the narratives, right? People conjecture into certain things and we don't know, but she was marriageable age. We know she was, just from how her heart exudes this, she was a woman who was in the word, all right? She was in the word of God. We need to be men and women who are in the word. We do. Now, does that merit God's grace? Does he give us grace because of what we do? It's an action that comes out of genuine repentance. It's the fruit of faith. When a person truly believes the fruit of righteousness is exhibited in their life, there's a desire to be in the word. Now notice in verse 48, she says, he has regarded the lowly state of his maidservant That's that word she used before when she said to Gabriel, let it be so unto your maidservant. The grace of the Lord is manifest in Mary in her lowly estate. She considers herself lowly. Remember that was kind of the theme of some of these sermons we started into last week. She considered herself of a low estate, a slave, a handmaiden, We enter into God's saving grace bringing nothing to the table. Did you know that? You bring nothing to the table. We bring to him poverty and spirit, and he brings life everlasting. He brings the joy and rejoicing. If we think for one moment that we have some merit in our salvation, some doing in it that we have done, that we deserve, We fail to see it. Mary saw her lowliness. We enter into God's saving grace, bringing nothing but poverty, a spirit, and brokenness of heart. Mary recognizes her blessedness. Look at verse 48. As we continue, he says, for he has regarded the lowly state of his maidservant. Behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed. Now some of you have a background probably that comes out of Roman Catholicism, and there were probably some good things if you went to grammar school, and you learned how to read and to write, and you probably learned some basic doctrines of the Trinity, but probably the doctrine, not probably, but the doctrine that is most corrupt. often has to do with idolatry of Mary, all right? And it doesn't impact us unless we've come out of that background. Some of you, it's a bigger trigger, right? For me, it's like, I don't fully understand the impact. I was not brought up in that, where Mary was seen as a co-redemptrix of Christ. Mary became a co-intercessor with Christ. Now we've been through the book of Colossians. We know that there's only one God, one mediator. It's our Lord Jesus Christ. He has preeminence. There's nothing that can be substituted for his work, his atoning work. And it's important though to see something with Mary. She is blessed. but yet she is still just a normal, sinful human being. She's definitely, the church has been gracious to her. Early on, this is before a certain time in church history, there wasn't this worship of Mary, it wasn't as profoundly expressed at all. In fact, early on, she was seen as certainly being, having a tremendous blessing from God. By the way, you remember when the Lord was confronted in the gospel and somebody said, blessed is the mother that nursed you? Do you remember that? And what did he say? said, blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and do it. That's what Jesus said about his mother, even though she was certainly, we honor her for her obedience, just like we look at the great saints of old who obeyed the Lord and served him faithfully, Paul and Peter and Timothy, and so many, Luke. It wasn't until later, in the fourth century, that some of the idea began, part of it was the translation from the Latin Vulgate. It was translated, that is, the Greek New Testament was translated by Jerome in the fourth century, and this is where we really get the idea that Mary was full of grace. You kind of hear that in the prayer that's given to Mary. Hail Mary, full of grace. So the idea sort of became prevalent that Mary within herself had an intrinsic measure of grace, which no person does. So the role of veneration evolved slowly, and three different doctrines emerged. One, the Immaculate Conception. Remember we talked about that a while back? That's not about Jesus. Who's that about? It's Mary. Whenever you hear that mentioned, it's the belief that Mary was born without original sin. There's another doctrine, her perpetual virginity. But from Matthew's gospel, we see a recording that says, don't we know him, Jesus, and his brothers, and his sisters, all right? So, the scripture does not teach her perpetual virginity. The other one is called her annunciation. How many of you have heard of that? What is that? Well, it's that she was resurrected, or ascended, like Christ did, body and spirit together. So, these doctrines became prevalent through the age And really what happened is she became what we call the co-redemptrix. And this is a term that's not, I didn't make this up. This is a term that's used. She became, in the mind of many, a intercessor like Christ. And by the way, they did this with other saints as well. Okay, this isn't just Mary. Now Mary would not have wanted this at all. This isn't something that she would want nor desire. But she, in her process of this, of praising God, she praises him because of the grace given to her, not the grace coming out of her. Mary lived a life like any believer in Christ. She had to trust in the Lord and the righteousness of faith, And ultimately, she died. And someday, just like every believer who has that righteousness of Christ, there will be a resurrection of the body. We'll be a part of that. There's a time coming where we're going to be translated, right? Or, if we're already past, gonna be quite an anomaly that occurs. The resurrection of the body. I bring this up just because I know that some have a background that's a little bit different. And when that background, those things get into our mind, it's really hard to reframe the way we think. So I wanna go on, and we'll wrap things up pretty quickly here, but the second part of her praise, these are declarative praise, how God's saving grace is given to all his people. So she starts out, and all of her statements are about herself, what God has done to her, and now she gives praise that's a continued blessing on all of his people. So verses 50 to 53, I'll read them and then just say a few thoughts. We read in verse 50, and his mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation. 51, he has shown strength with his arm. He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. 52, he has put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the lowly. And 53, he has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty. Four thoughts. The fear of the Lord, humility, lowliness, and hunger. These are not things that we put on artificially from the outside. There's an idea that is entered in that if we walk in penance, if we deny ourselves, we can earn God's favor by being a certain way. Does that make sense? That's very common in the world. Rather, this is the fruit of righteousness, the broken and contrite heart. Did you know that a prideful spirit has no praise for God? If you're coming to Him and you're full of pride, there's no reason to even write praise to God. It comes from our brokenness, our contrition, our lowliness, our hunger and thirst for righteousness. God's grace does not come out of the prideful. He gives grace, it says, to the humble. He resists the proud, James says, but gives grace to the humble. So we see her prayer that is more declarative for all believers. And then finally, notice in verse 54 and 55, we see she has this big picture praise going on. He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy. As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed, forever. So she kind of goes from praying and praising God specifically for what He's done, then she praises Him for what He's doing for all those upon whom His grace has been given, and then she's got this big picture. She's looking at generations. She's looking at God's promises all the way back. all the way back to covenantal Israel, right? When he promised certain promises. And he brought out a people. And that people became the house and lineage of Christ. And someday, of course, we know that all things will be brought to fruition. All things will be brought together. All the world will be redeemed and brought together under our Lord. She has this praise. She was a theological woman, right? By the way, when you look at the Bible, you know the Bible is not just a random assortment of do this, do that, right? It's a story, and it tells this story where God has provided a way of redemption, and he does it all the way from the beginning, all the way to the fullness of time when Christ comes. Eve and Adam, they sit in the garden, and immediately he gives a promise of a Redeemer. And Mary's aware that God is working a plan. And she's praising God, and she's praying about that plan. Do you know that's a great source of rejoicing? We are a part of God's plan. This big picture. He has a glorious plan for all things. He will be great. He'll be called the Son of the Highest. and the Lord will give him the throne of his father David. That's what Gabriel said to Mary. This is back in verse 32 and 33. And Jesus, he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end. I don't know about you, but I often find myself praising God for being a part of his kingdom, right? Being a part of his plan. We're just a small, minutia thing, but in his, In his work, he didn't call you blessed in the same way Mary is, but do you know what he calls you? He calls you his beloved. Do you know what else he says? You're my chosen people. You're my chosen people. Peter says you're a chosen generation, a royal priesthood. a holy nation, his own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light. Don't you find rejoicing in God's big picture redemptive plan? I do. We're part of that if we trusted in him. We trust the Lord, we'll work in his word today. Let's pray together. There's so much here to unravel in such goodness, Lord. I just pray that these words would not just be self-resonating, but that as we walk about our day, whatever our hand finds to do, that we would have praise for you, that we would see your goodness and your grace, and not just your common grace, but your saving grace in our lives, that we would live daily in light of having been redeemed. knowing how much you've done for us. We just trust you, Lord, as we begin to contemplate your table this morning. We go from the manger to the cross, and that was the plan. We thank you, Lord, that you came as a baby to die on the cross, to atone for our sins. We rejoice and take joy in that. giving you the praise in the name of Jesus. Amen.