reading this morning is from 1st Peter chapter 1 beginning in verse 3. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ according to his great mercy he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours, searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves, but you in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look." The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. And our Gospel reading and our sermon text this morning is from the Gospel of Luke 1 beginning in verse 6. Give attention to the inerrant Word of God. And Mary said, my soul magnifies the Lord. And my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. For He has looked on the humblest state of His servant. For behold, from now on, 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 for those who fear Him from generation to generation. 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. 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 offspring forever. The gospel of our Lord. Praise be to you, Lord Christ. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you for the prophets and the writings that you've passed down to us that were written for us, that were written directly to us, so that we can know you and know the salvation that you've offered to us through the Lord Jesus. Father, I pray that as we attend now to the words of Mary so long ago, that we would see in her praise and in her song the words that belong in our own lips. that we might magnify You. May we rejoice in the things that You've done. Help us, Father, we pray. In the name of Jesus, Amen. Well, good morning. It's good to be with you all today worshiping our God. If you're just joining us or have recently started attending, we've been in the middle of a series going through the Gospel of Luke and soon to be the Acts of the Apostles. We took a little bit of a break over Christmas to cover some Christmas themes as we celebrate Advent and the birth of our Lord. And as we get back into Luke, we're doing so a little obliquely. We're not jumping right back to where we were, which is almost at the tail end of the Gospel. Instead, for the next few weeks, what we're going to be doing is looking at some of these first songs that Luke gives us, along with a few other passages, to reorient our minds over what Luke is doing, covering some of the major themes that Luke has. Now, Luke is a really excellent author. He's an excellent storyteller. And one thing that authors love to use, especially ancient authors, is what's called foreshadowing. And so, all the things that Luke is going to be dealing with, all the basic themes, the entire thrust of his gospel, he tells us at the beginning. One of the main ways that he does that is through these songs that we see in the first two chapters of Luke. When God's salvation is promised and announced, we see people respond with singing. And it's in those songs that Luke particularly is setting up what his gospel is about. He's setting up what it is he's trying to tell us about God's activity in the Lord Jesus. And there's something that I want us to see as we look at the Magnificat. We sing it in church. Most of us will know this text very well. As we attend to this text this morning, I want us to see really one thing. One thing. And that's this, that the gospel, the first announcement of the gospel that we really get in Luke's gospel, the first announcement of God's salvation is entirely about what God has done. It is a statement about what God has done, and therefore it's a statement on the kind of God that He is. Because that's really at the essence of it. That's the gospel. It tells us the kind of God that we serve. It tells us what He has done to save us. And Luke is bringing that right into full focus at the very beginning. When we think about the gospel, when we think about this, our minds need to go to what has God done? What has God done and what kind of God is He? So I want us to really focus on that. I'm gonna be jumping around the song to bring out particular themes that Mary speaks. I'm not gonna follow it sequentially. Instead, I'm going to try and break it apart according to the various things that she says about what God has done. And I want you to be listening to this because even though we stand about 2000 years removed from Mary's song, we get to enjoy the same salvation that she enjoyed. The things that she sang about, the things that were brought to her mind, this is the same reality that we have. It's the same reality we get to enjoy. And Mary really serves as a model for us. A model of how we ought to view our lives. Because what she's doing is she's revealing, in her song, the basic reality of our lives. What God has done. What God has done, what God continues to do, and the kind of God that He is. Now, before we jump in, I want you to think about something. As you go through your life, as you wake up and do whatever it is, you go to work and spend time with your family as you just pass through time, how is it that you think about God's activity in your life? Are you aware of His providential mercy Are you aware of his activity? Are you aware of what he's doing in your life? Or do you just kind of pass by your day, thinking of it every now and then, thinking only maybe perhaps in passing as you're reading your Bible or if a prayer request comes to mind or something like that. There was a really famous book that came out about 20 years ago now called Soul Searching by a guy named Christian Smith and Melinda Denton. And you've probably heard this phrase before, but they were looking at the ways that Young people particularly in the early 2000s, the way that they thought about their faith, the way that they thought about God's activity in their lives, and they coined this phrase, and again, I'm sure you've heard it, this appears all over, moralistic therapeutic deism. moralistic, therapeutic deism. What does that mean? It means this, that when people thought about God, it was primarily about what they did, whether they were moral, whether they did right or whether they did wrong, and God's favor towards them was totally dependent on whether they were a good person or a bad person. It was therapeutic, meaning it was really about their comfort. God was there to get them what they wanted, and so their prayers were often prayers simply of, Lord, give me this job, or Lord, help me be successful. And finally, it's deistic, okay? Deistic, meaning that God really isn't involved in the day-to-day. He's just sort of up there. It's called the watchmaker analogy, that God sort of just created a watch and then let it go, never really interfering, never really involving himself. Now we hear that, and as reformed Christians especially, we understand the problems with each of those things, moralistic, therapeutic, deism. And yet, I would argue that this is actually kind of the basic way that we live our lives. Whether we know it or not, I would argue, at least the deist part, where we just live our lives, we're not aware of what God is doing, we're not cognizant of the God who is actively intending every moment of our lives, actively invading every aspect of our existence, as we just shuttle from one thing to another. And I think this song, what it does is it tries to correct that for us. It tries to help us actually see what's really going on. What the most fundamental important thing of our lives is, is that we serve a God who we get to call our Savior. The most important thing about our lives is we have a God who saves us. A God who is faithful to His promises. A God who is actively engaged in all of the world's affairs, whether we see it or whether we don't, and yet that's the thing that determines for us the basic function, the basic course, the basic substance of our lives. As we move through this song, I want us to see really four things about this God, what he's done, who he is, He wants us to see four things. The first thing he wants us to see is that this God, our God, does great things. Our God does great things. Look there in verse 49. Mary begins her song. She magnifies the Lord. She rejoices in God, her Savior. It says, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. From behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed, for he who is mighty has done great things for me. He who is mighty has done great things for me. This is really the first thing that she talks about, what God has done. He's done great things. Everything else flows out from that. He's done great things, not just in general, Not just in history, but specifically for her. He has done great things for her. Now it's important to understand what this phrase, great things, is, how it's used in the Bible, because it's not just talking about God doing really cool stuff. It's not just talking about God being a God who does awesome things, it's referring to something very specific. And when you look through the Old Testament, this phrase, great things, is most often used in reference to the Exodus account. When God brought his people out of Egypt, when God rescued them from their slavery, the way that many of the prophets, many of the Psalms describe it is he has done great things. He has done great things. So when Mary looks at the promise of this new child, when she hears the announcement of the birth of her Lord, She says that that same redemption, that same magnanimous, magnificent display of God's saving power, she then incorporates to herself. He has done great things for me. Not just Israel in general, but he has done great things for me. She's applying that to her own life in the pronouncement of this child, the pronouncement of God's saving promises Now, the interesting thing is Christ has not even been born. The saving work that God has promised has not actually yet happened, and yet the only thing that Mary needs is the certainty of God's word. All she needs to be confident that God has ushered in this redeeming work, this great thing into her life, is simply his promise. She's not even become pregnant yet. And yet for her, the certainty of this relies completely on the kind of God who does great things for his people. That's all she needs to know. She knows the kind of God that He is. He has done great things in the past, and He will do great things for me. So much so that she can say, not only He will do great things for me, He has done great things for me, even though everything stands in the future. Now, I'm gonna end the sermon with more expansive application, but one of the things I want us to think about here is the pronoun that she uses. He has done great things, again, not just in general, not just in the past. He has done great things for me. When you look at your life, when you consider where you've come from, what has happened to you, where you are now, can you say that? God has done great things for me. Regardless of your circumstances, regardless of what you've achieved, regardless of what you have, regardless of the problems that you face, if you call upon the name of the Lord, you serve a God who does great things for you. The very question is, do you know that? Do you know that as you look at your life, that you have a God who's doing those great things? Because he's a God who loves to save. He's a God who loves to redeem. He's a God who loves to deliver his people. So all throughout your life, you have a God working, doing great things for you. That's what Luther said in one of his works. He said this, read with great emphasis these words, me, for me, and accustom yourself to accept and apply to yourself this me with certain faith. J.C. Ryle said that the gospel is a question of possessive pronouns. Is he your God? Is he your savior? Has he done great things for you? Because if you're a member of God's people, then He has. The question is, do you see that? Do you know that? Have you ascertained that by faith? Regardless, again, whether or not you think they've been fulfilled, can you say with confidence, He has done great things for me? Because again, He's a God who does that, who has proven Himself again and again and again throughout history. She doesn't stop there. She then says this. It's God who does great things. He's also a God who exalts the humble. Exalts the humble. And this is one of, if not maybe the most significant themes in all of Luke. It's called the great reversal. People who are down go up. And people who are up go down. We see it best summarized in chapter 14 of Luke's Gospel when Jesus, talking about the parable of the wedding feast, says this, everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted. Of course, this isn't unique to Luke, but Luke places a special emphasis on this. God exalts the humble and he abases the proud. He exalts the humble and he abases the proud. And Mary calls to mind of that in three different places. First there in verse 48, he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. And certainly, she was of a humble estate. She's from Israel. She's a Jew. She's a backwoods, forgotten portion of the Roman Empire. Probably from Nazareth, which even more so was denigrated and hated, so that even Nathanael can say, does anything good come out of Nazareth? She wasn't just barren. She was a virgin. She was a nobody. Yet the Lord looked upon her with favor. And again, in verse 52, Mary says this, He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate. And then in verse 53, He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty. This right here is setting the stage for the rest of the gospel. We already saw a little bit of that in Luke 14. But the rest of the gospel is this conflict, this clash between the rich and the poor. between the Pharisees and the scribes and the lawyers and the uneducated fishermen and those who follow Christ. The conflict between those who have and those who have not. You see this running throughout the gospel and the answer always comes again and again to this, that those who are humble, God exalts. Those who humble themselves, those who know themselves to be of low estate, God rescues, God saves, God exalts, God lifts up. Now this isn't an absolute distinction, right? We know that wealth by itself does not make one evil, that all rich people are proud and all poor people are humble. It's not what Luke is saying. But the reason why it's so zeroed in on specifically the poor is because the poor generally, not everyone, certainly there are very proud poor people, they know that everything they have comes from God. They know that nothing they have can be claimed because of their work. And that's whom God, those are the kind of people that God wants to save. Those are the kind of people that our God loves to rescue and to bring are those people who know that they owe everything to Him. The people who know that everything they have is a gift. That's who our God is. So the question for us as we go through our lives is, do we want to be those kind of people? Do we want to be the meek person, the person who recognizes their lowest state? Because that's the kind of people God saves. It's the kind of people that God wants to bring up. It's a God who does great things. It's a God who exalts the humble. And then the inverse, our God, this God, the God that Mary's singing, He abases the proud. He tears down the mighty. We saw that a little bit. He has scattered the proud and the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones. The rich He has sent away empty. If you recall, in our sermon series on Luke, when we got to Luke 14, there's that long section about the Messianic banquet. People are coming from all over for a feast. Who is it who actually gets a seat at the table? It's the nobodies. It's the outcasts. It's the people that they had to go to the highways and the byways and they had to compel to come in. The people who were invited, the people of means, the people who had other things to attend to, they were the ones who were cast out. They were the ones who were ultimately rejected and brought low to the place where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth. So throughout the gospel, this basic principle continues too, that God, he doesn't just exalt the humble, he abases the proud. He brings low those people who think and rely on their own achievements, on their own works, on their own ambitions, on their own education, on their own intellect, on their own charm, on their own savvy, whatever it is, Those are the people that God brings down. So again, the question is, do we know that? As we live our lives, as we go through day to day, are we the kind of people who are going to humble ourselves before the living God? Are we the kind of people who are just going to do our own thing, rely on ourselves, trust ourselves, Because ultimately, God will abase you. He will bring you down. To be aware that this is the kind of God that we serve ought to change everything about how we approach our lives and think about what it is that we're doing. And it's difficult to overstate how different this is from the surrounding culture that Luke would have been writing. He's writing to Gentiles, probably. It is hard to overstate how different this message is from the message that they would have received all of their lives. with their superhuman gods and their heroes who are constantly after glory and honor, with emperors who built large statues and memorials, slaves who were treated like garbage. And yet the message that they're receiving is this, that all those things that you thought have been taught are good and right, are actually the very thing that are going to topple. the very thing that's going to be overturned. So if you want to seek your own glory, if you want to go after your things because they're your ambitions, because you think that you deserve it, you will be overturned. And your life will be rubble. Now God does that in two ways. He either overturns the proud so that they'll become humble. And you probably have experienced this in your life. When you harden yourself to sin, when you harden yourself against God's word, there are times as you continue to harden, as you continue to puff yourself up, as you continue to turn away from what God has told you to do, all God does is he comes in with a little hammer and he just gives you a little clink. And everything comes crashing down. Everything you thought about yourself, every preconceived notion that you had, every ambition, every false illusion about your ability or your calling or your worth, everything just sort of crumbles around you. And then you get to become the kind of person that God loves to save. But if he doesn't do that to you, there's another way he humbles proud people. And that's at the very end. when there will be no other chance to be saved. So if you are in that point of hardening your heart to sin, of puffing yourself up with pride, because that's what it is to harden against sin, is to be puffed up with pride, to think you're better than that, to think that you can do better, to think that you can escape this on your own, humble yourself. before God humbles you finally and fully and there is no chance of repentance. Finally this, I want us to see where Mary ends on the kind of God active in the gospel, the kind of God at work in our lives. It's a God, and this is really the most important one I would say, it's a God who remembers his promises. It's a God who remembers his promises. Look there at how she ends. After describing these great things that God has done, both in her life and in the life of Israel, she then says this. He has helped his servant Israel in remembrance of his mercy as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever. Have you ever heard of end stress? Where that end point is the thing that's being emphasized. This is exactly what Mary is doing as she sings. The important point she's trying to give to the people, the readers, is this. God has remained faithful. What's funny is she mentions a promise that was made 1,500 years ago. That promise particularly, going all the way back to Genesis 12, that's the promise that God has been faithful to. He's proven himself to be the God who is faithful in keeping covenant. The covenant he made a very, very, very long time ago. And I don't know if you, I was thinking about this as I was preparing this sermon. Maybe you've thought about this, but it hit me. What would it have been like to have, obviously Mary is steeped in the scripture. She is steeped in the promises of God. She has a very potent awareness of what God has promised in the past. And she's told, that the fulfillment that all of Israel has been yearning for, the very sign that their God is who He says He is, He's going to keep covenant, He's going to keep His promises, is a little baby. The weakest, the most useless thing. You know, we have horses in the back of our, where we live, and it's amazing, a baby horse will be born, and in just a few hours, will be walking and running with their mother. My son was born three months ago, and he still can't control his hands. The weakness The uncertainty, at least existentially, of what God is saying. Yeah, this is my fulfillment to my promise. A weak baby who cannot survive on his own. Women, what would it be like for you if God was like, I am the King of kings and the Lord of lords. I'm going to rescue my people. I'm going to give you a baby. There's that Jim Gaffigan joke, you know? What's it like having a baby after you have four kids? Imagine you're drowning and then someone hands you a baby. You're sort of like, oh, well, thanks for the baby. What good does this do? And it's because of God's word, his promise, that it's through that weak, insignificant child that God is going to overturn the proud, that God is going to exalt the humble, that God is going to prove Himself to be the God that He said He was all those years ago. What I want us to think about that is, if that's how God works at the climax of history, I want you to think about your own life. I want you to think about the way God has acted in your life as preserving you, protecting you, and what God has given you as an answer, as a fulfillment of His promises. Is it the thing you expected? Probably not. And yet it's the sign and certainty of God's faithfulness to you. And the things that we think are weak, and the things that we think are insignificant, and the things that we think are just of no value, perhaps, God is fulfilling his promises. In your life, because remember, he doesn't just do great things for his people, he does great things for you. I want us to now conclude just thinking about a few things as we come to the end of Mary's song. I asked this at the beginning, but I want to ask it again. Who is the Lord to you? Not just intellectually, not just knowing the catechism, the answer that God is infinite, eternal, unchangeable, and is being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth. That means very little if it's all it is up here. As you go through your lives, as you attend to your callings, as you interact with your children, as you interact with your wife, as you encounter fears and pains and sorrows and griefs and miseries and disappointments and failures, who is the Lord to you? Do you know that He is the kind of God who loves to save people who are low? I was thinking about many of you as I was preparing this sermon, So many are low financially, low relationally, not nearly where you wanted to be. Some of you are low in sin. Regardless of where it is, our God is the kind of God who loves to save those kind of people. And if you can see your life in that light, see your life in the God who does great things, who exalts the humble, who abases the proud, who is faithful to his promises, then you'll be able to say with Mary, my soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God my Savior. It starts by knowing the kind of God that you serve. Knowing what He's like, knowing what He's done, knowing what He promises to do. And by knowing your station, because regardless of where you are, regardless of how successful you are, regardless of how much you've earned, regardless of how much you've attained academically, intellectually, professionally, vocationally, there is nothing you have that has not been given to you. Absolutely nothing. And to recognize that is to find yourself before a God who loves those kind of people. But to think that those are yours, that you earned it or that you deserve it, to allow bitterness and envy and spite and jealousy and bitter striving to take root in your heart, you will find yourself before a God who abases and hates and opposes those kind of people. What Mary teaches us, and to learn with her this song, is to be able to say at any time of our lives, at any position that we're in, any portion that we have, God is my Savior, and I will rejoice in Him, and I will magnify Him, because He has done great things for me, and holy is His name. Let's pray. Father, you have done great things for your people. You've done great things for us. Holy is your name. Lord, you exalt the humble and you abase the proud. Lord, you're faithful to your promises. And I pray, Lord, that as we think of our lives, as we go about our business day to day that you give us, that we would be constantly aware of the kind of God it is that we serve. What he's done for us, what he's done for our ancestors, what he will do. Help us to be a people who love to be low so that we can be brought up by the King of the universe. Lord, and help us in our misery, help us in our disappointments, help us in our griefs, in our successes, to magnify you and to rejoice in the God who offers us salvation, the Lord Jesus. And it's in the name of Jesus that we pray, amen. Union homily text this morning is from Prophet Habakkuk chapter 3. Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no food. The flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the deer's. He makes me tread on my high places. The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. One of the main things about this table that we do every week is give thanks. From the very beginning, that's been absolutely essential to this table. As we read every week what Jesus did, remember he took bread, he broke it and he gave thanks. As you're reading the Gospel story, you know what comes right after He gives thanks. He's going to experience an anguish of the soul that we cannot imagine. He's going to face death. He's going to be crucified. He's going to be buried. And He knows that's coming. And what does He do? He gives thanks. And He does that because He knows the one to whom He's entrusted His soul. He knows the One who has actually brought those circumstances on Him. He gives thanks because He knows who His God is. This is the very same reason, I would argue, that Paul, in his letter to the Thessalonians, commands them, and doesn't just command them, but commands all Christians in all times, in all places, to give thanks in all circumstances. It's not because the circumstances are pleasant. It's not because they're particularly pleasurable. But it's because of the one who gives you those circumstances. It's because you know who He is. You know He's faithful. You know He does great things. You know He's your Savior. And the only way to do that The way to get there, it's like I said in the sermon, is to recognize everything you have is a gift from Him. To be thankful for everything and to give thanks in all circumstances is to recognize that every circumstance, everything is a gift from your Father to you. He owes you nothing. In fact, He could take it all and you would not have a claim. And should the God who is goodness himself, should the God who is love himself, give you whatever it is that he gives you out of his will and out of his good purpose, you can be confident, regardless of what the gift is, that because goodness himself gave it to you, that because love himself gave it to you, that it's a good and loving gift. And you can give thanks because you know the one whom gave it to you. And when you come to this table, and you get just a little piece of bread, and you get just a little cup of wine, it's not much. Well, what it does is it reminds you again and again, week after week, that you have everything you need. You have every single thing you need. And not because the fig tree is in blossom. Not because all is well. In fact, it may just be the opposite. But you serve the God who rose Jesus from the dead. And he promises to be your God and your savior and your father. And in this table. He promises to be faithful and you can give thanks for that. Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us keep the feast. For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which he was betrayed, took bread. Let us give thanks for the bread. We do not presume to come to your table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your many and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under your table, but you are the same Lord whose character is to have mercy. Thank you, gracious Lord, that our sinful bodies are made clean by his body and our souls washed through his most precious blood so that we may evermore dwell in him and he in us. Amen. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, take, eat, this is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. These are the gifts of God for the people of God.